Assignment 57 full log

Build Scaffold for Assignment 57

assignment 57 has no c++ directory

Build Answer for Assignment 57

Compiling c++_answer/ for assignment in ../assignmentdb/57-BookAnalysis/c++_answer
rm book_analysis.o
rm book_analysis
rm: cannot remove 'book_analysis': No such file or directory
make: [Makefile:32: clean] Error 1 (ignored)
g++ -g  -std=c++14 -I /home/bridges-testing/bridges-cxx-install/include/ -c book_analysis.cpp -o book_analysis.o
g++ -o book_analysis book_analysis.o -g -L /home/bridges-testing/bridges-cxx-install/lib/ -pthread -lcurl -l bridges

Run Answer for Assignment 57

Guessing ./book_analysis is the right binary file where main is

Querying Mark Twain
http://bridges-data-server-gutenberg-t.bridgesuncc.org//search?search=Mark%20Twain&type=author
Querying Shakespeare, William
http://bridges-data-server-gutenberg-t.bridgesuncc.org//search?search=Shakespeare%2C%20William&type=author
Querying Dickens, Charles
http://bridges-data-server-gutenberg-t.bridgesuncc.org//search?search=Dickens%2C%20Charles&type=author
Querying Homer
http://bridges-data-server-gutenberg-t.bridgesuncc.org//search?search=Homer&type=author
Retrieved books:
	The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson
	Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven
	A Horse's Tale
	Plus fort que Sherlock Holmès
	A Tramp Abroad
	The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
	The $30,000 Bequest, and Other Stories
	Mark Twain: Tri Noveloj
	The Prince and the Pauper
	De Lotgevallen van Tom Sawyer
	Extracts from Adam's Diary, translated from the original ms.
	Editorial Wild Oats
	Chapters from My Autobiography
	Mark Twain: Tri Ceteraj Noveloj
	Is Shakespeare Dead?
From My Autobiography
	Life on the Mississippi
	On the Decay of the Art of Lying
	Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 1
	Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 2
	The Works of Mark Twain: An Index of all Project Gutenberg Editions
	The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
	Shakespeare's Sonnets
	Venus and Adonis
	The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623
	The First Part of Henry the Sixth
	The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth
	The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth
	King Richard III
	The Comedy of Errors
	The Sonnets
	The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus
	The Taming of the Shrew
	The Two Gentlemen of Verona
	Love's Labour's Lost
	King John
	King Richard the Second
	The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
	A Midsummer Night's Dream
	The Merchant of Venice
	The First Part of King Henry the Fourth
	Bleak House
	Three Ghost Stories
	Aventures de Monsieur Pickwick, Vol. I
	The Seven Poor Travellers
	The Holly-Tree
	Great Expectations
	The Perils of Certain English Prisoners
	A Message from the Sea
	Tom Tiddler's Ground
	Somebody's Luggage
	Doctor Marigold
	Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings
	Mugby Junction
	Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy
	Going into Society
	No Thoroughfare
	Miscellaneous Papers
	The Wreck of the Golden Mary
	Some Christmas Stories
	Aventures de Monsieur Pickwick, Vol. II
	Burnham Breaker
	A Collection of College Words and Customs
	Stories from the Odyssey
	A Book of Exposition
	L'Iliade
	L'Odyssée
	The Iliad of Homer
Translated into English Blank Verse by William Cowper
	The Story of Troy
	The Odyssey
Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original
	The Odyssey of Homer
	Army Boys on the Firing Line; or, Holding Back the German Drive
	The Iliad
	The Iliad of Homer (1873)
	The Odyssey of Homer
	Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons
A Personal Experience, 1864-5
	Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca
Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece
	The Flag
	The Bridge of the Gods
A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition.
	The Iliad
	Ομήρου Οδύσσεια Τόμος Α
Checking the cache: Hash url: gutenberg102
Hitting data URL: http://bridges-data-server-gutenberg-t.bridgesuncc.org//book?id=102
{"102":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF PUDD'NHEAD WILSON\n\nby Mark Twain\n\n\n\n\nA WHISPER TO THE READER\n\n     _There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can\n     be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless.\n     Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about\n     perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler\n     animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead\n     of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are\n     left in doubt._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\nA person who is ignorant of legal matters is always liable to make\nmistakes when he tries to photograph a court scene with his pen; and so I\nwas not willing to let the law chapters in this book go to press without\nfirst subjecting them to rigid and exhausting revision and correction by\na trained barrister--if that is what they are called. These chapters are\nright, now, in every detail, for they were rewritten under the immediate\neye of William Hicks, who studied law part of a while in southwest\nMissouri thirty-five years ago and then came over here to Florence for\nhis health and is still helping for exercise and board in Macaroni\nVermicelli's horse-feed shed, which is up the back alley as you turn\naround the corner out of the Piazza del Duomo just beyond the house where\nthat stone that Dante used to sit on six hundred years ago is let into\nthe wall when he let on to be watching them build Giotto's campanile and\nyet always got tired looking as Beatrice passed along on her way to get a\nchunk of chestnut cake to defend herself with in case of a Ghibelline\noutbreak before she got to school, at the same old stand where they sell\nthe same old cake to this day and it is just as light and good as it was\nthen, too, and this is not flattery, far from it. He was a little rusty\non his law, but he rubbed up for this book, and those two or three legal\nchapters are right and straight, now. He told me so himself.\n\nGiven under my hand this second day of January, 1893, at the Villa\nViviani, village of Settignano, three miles back of Florence, on the\nhills--the same certainly affording the most charming view to be found\non this planet, and with it the most dreamlike and enchanting sunsets to\nbe found in any planet or even in any solar system--and given, too, in\nthe swell room of the house, with the busts of Cerretani senators and\nother grandees of this line looking approvingly down upon me, as they\nused to look down upon Dante, and mutely asking me to adopt them into my\nfamily, which I do with pleasure, for my remotest ancestors are but\nspring chickens compared with these robed and stately antiques, and it\nwill be a great and satisfying lift for me, that six hundred years will.\n\nMark Twain.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 1 -- Pudd'nhead Wins His Name\n\n     _Tell the truth or trump--but get the trick._ --Pudd'nhead\n     Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nThe scene of this chronicle is the town of Dawson's Landing, on the\nMissouri side of the Mississippi, half a day's journey, per steamboat,\nbelow St. Louis.\n\nIn 1830 it was a snug collection of modest one- and two-story frame\ndwellings, whose whitewashed exteriors were almost concealed from sight\nby climbing tangles of rose vines, honeysuckles, and morning glories.\nEach of these pretty homes had a garden in front fenced with white\npalings and opulently stocked with hollyhocks, marigolds, touch-me-nots,\nprince's-feathers, and other old-fashioned flowers; while on the\nwindowsills of the houses stood wooden boxes containing moss rose plants\nand terra-cotta pots in which grew a breed of geranium whose spread of\nintensely red blossoms accented the prevailing pink tint of the rose-clad\nhouse-front like an explosion of flame. When there was room on the ledge\noutside of the pots and boxes for a cat, the cat was there--in sunny\nweather--stretched at full length, asleep and blissful, with her furry\nbelly to the sun and a paw curved over her nose. Then that house was\ncomplete, and its contentment and peace were made manifest to the world\nby this symbol, whose testimony is infallible. A home without a cat--and\na well-fed, well-petted, and properly revered cat--may be a perfect\nhome, perhaps, but how can it prove title?\n\nAll along the streets, on both sides, at the outer edge of the brick\nsidewalks, stood locust trees with trunks protected by wooden boxing, and\nthese furnished shade for summer and a sweet fragrancer in spring, when\nthe clusters of buds came forth. The main street, one block back from\nthe river, and running parallel with it, was the sole business street.\nIt was six blocks long, and in each block two or three brick stores,\nthree stories high, towered above interjected bunches of little frame\nshops. Swinging signs creaked in the wind the street's whole length.\nThe candy-striped pole, which indicates nobility proud and ancient along\nthe palace-bordered canals of Venice, indicated merely the humble\nbarbershop along the main street of Dawson's Landing. On a chief corner\nstood a lofty unpainted pole wreathed from top to bottom with tin pots\nand pans and cups, the chief tinmonger's noisy notice to the world (when\nthe wind blew) that his shop was on hand for business at that corner.\n\nThe hamlet's front was washed by the clear waters of the great river; its\nbody stretched itself rearward up a gentle incline; its most rearward\nborder fringed itself out and scattered its houses about its base line of\nthe hills; the hills rose high, enclosing the town in a half-moon curve,\nclothed with forests from foot to summit.\n\nSteamboats passed up and down every hour or so. Those belonging to the\nlittle Cairo line and the little Memphis line always stopped; the big\nOrleans liners stopped for hails only, or to land passengers or freight;\nand this was the case also with the great flotilla of \"transients.\"\nThese latter came out of a dozen rivers--the Illinois, the Missouri, the\nUpper Mississippi, the Ohio, the Monongahela, the Tennessee, the Red\nRiver, the White River, and so on--and were bound every whither and\nstocked with every imaginable comfort or necessity, which the\nMississippi's communities could want, from the frosty Falls of St.\nAnthony down through nine climates to torrid New Orleans.\n\nDawson's Landing was a slaveholding town, with a rich, slave-worked grain\nand pork country back of it. The town was sleepy and comfortable and\ncontented. It was fifty years old, and was growing slowly--very slowly,\nin fact, but still it was growing.\n\nThe chief citizen was York Leicester Driscoll, about forty years old,\njudge of the county court. He was very proud of his old Virginian\nancestry, and in his hospitalities and his rather formal and stately\nmanners, he kept up its traditions. He was fine and just and generous.\nTo be a gentleman--a gentleman without stain or blemish--was his only\nreligion, and to it he was always faithful. He was respected, esteemed,\nand beloved by all of the community. He was well off, and was gradually\nadding to his store. He and his wife were very nearly happy, but not\nquite, for they had no children. The longing for the treasure of a child\nhad grown stronger and stronger as the years slipped away, but the\nblessing never came--and was never to come.\n\nWith this pair lived the judge's widowed sister, Mrs. Rachel Pratt, and\nshe also was childless--childless, and sorrowful for that reason, and not\nto be comforted. The women were good and commonplace people, and did\ntheir duty, and had their reward in clear consciences and the community's\napprobation. They were Presbyterians, the judge was a freethinker.\n\nPembroke Howard, lawyer and bachelor, aged almost forty, was another old\nVirginian grandee with proved descent from the First Families. He was a\nfine, majestic creature, a gentleman according to the nicest requirements\nof the Virginia rule, a devoted Presbyterian, an authority on the \"code\",\nand a man always courteously ready to stand up before you in the field if\nany act or word of his had seemed doubtful or suspicious to you, and\nexplain it with any weapon you might prefer from bradawls to artillery.\nHe was very popular with the people, and was the judge's dearest friend.\n\nThen there was Colonel Cecil Burleigh Essex, another F.F.V. of formidable\ncaliber--however, with him we have no concern.\n\nPercy Northumberland Driscoll, brother to the judge, and younger than he\nby five years, was a married man, and had had children around his\nhearthstone; but they were attacked in detail by measles, croup, and\nscarlet fever, and this had given the doctor a chance with his effective\nantediluvian methods; so the cradles were empty. He was a prosperous\nman, with a good head for speculations, and his fortune was growing. On\nthe first of February, 1830, two boy babes were born in his house; one to\nhim, one to one of his slave girls, Roxana by name. Roxana was twenty\nyears old. She was up and around the same day, with her hands full, for\nshe was tending both babes.\n\nMrs. Percy Driscoll died within the week. Roxy remained in charge of the\nchildren. She had her own way, for Mr. Driscoll soon absorbed himself in\nhis speculations and left her to her own devices.\n\nIn that same month of February, Dawson's Landing gained a new citizen.\nThis was Mr. David Wilson, a young fellow of Scotch parentage. He had\nwandered to this remote region from his birthplace in the interior of the\nState of New York, to seek his fortune. He was twenty-five years old,\ncollege bred, and had finished a post-college course in an Eastern law\nschool a couple of years before.\n\nHe was a homely, freckled, sandy-haired young fellow, with an intelligent\nblue eye that had frankness and comradeship in it and a covert twinkle of\na pleasant sort. But for an unfortunate remark of his, he would no doubt\nhave entered at once upon a successful career at Dawson's Landing. But he\nmade his fatal remark the first day he spent in the village, and it\n\"gaged\" him. He had just made the acquaintance of a group of citizens\nwhen an invisible dog began to yelp and snarl and howl and make himself\nvery comprehensively disagreeable, whereupon young Wilson said, much as\none who is thinking aloud:\n\n\"I wish I owned half of that dog.\"\n\n\"Why?\" somebody asked.\n\n\"Because I would kill my half.\"\n\nThe group searched his face with curiosity, with anxiety even, but found\nno light there, no expression that they could read. They fell away from\nhim as from something uncanny, and went into privacy to discuss him. One\nsaid:\n\n\"'Pears to be a fool.\"\n\n\"'Pears?\" said another. \"_Is,_ I reckon you better say.\"\n\n\"Said he wished he owned _half_ of the dog, the idiot,\" said a third.\n\"What did he reckon would become of the other half if he killed his half?\nDo you reckon he thought it would live?\"\n\n\"Why, he must have thought it, unless he IS the downrightest fool in the\nworld; because if he hadn't thought it, he would have wanted to own the\nwhole dog, knowing that if he killed his half and the other half died, he\nwould be responsible for that half just the same as if he had killed that\nhalf instead of his own. Don't it look that way to you, gents?\"\n\n\"Yes, it does. If he owned one half of the general dog, it would be so;\nif he owned one end of the dog and another person owned the other end, it\nwould be so, just the same; particularly in the first case, because if\nyou kill one half of a general dog, there ain't any man that can tell\nwhose half it was; but if he owned one end of the dog, maybe he could\nkill his end of it and--\"\n\n\"No, he couldn't either; he couldn't and not be responsible if the other\nend died, which it would. In my opinion that man ain't in his right\nmind.\"\n\n\"In my opinion he hain't _got_ any mind.\"\n\nNo. 3 said: \"Well, he's a lummox, anyway.\"\n\n\"That's what he is;\" said No. 4. \"He's a labrick--just a Simon-pure\nlabrick, if there was one.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, he's a dam fool. That's the way I put him up,\" said No. 5.\n\"Anybody can think different that wants to, but those are my sentiments.\"\n\n\"I'm with you, gentlemen,\" said No. 6. \"Perfect jackass--yes, and it\nain't going too far to say he is a pudd'nhead. If he ain't a pudd'nhead,\nI ain't no judge, that's all.\"\n\nMr. Wilson stood elected. The incident was told all over the town, and\ngravely discussed by everybody. Within a week he had lost his first\nname; Pudd'nhead took its place. In time he came to be liked, and well\nliked too; but by that time the nickname had got well stuck on, and it\nstayed. That first day's verdict made him a fool, and he was not able to\nget it set aside, or even modified. The nickname soon ceased to carry\nany harsh or unfriendly feeling with it, but it held its place, and was\nto continue to hold its place for twenty long years.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 2 -- Driscoll Spares His Slaves\n\n     _Adam was but human--this explains it all. He did not want\n     the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it\n     was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the\n     serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent._ --Pudd'nhead\n     Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nPudd'nhead Wilson had a trifle of money when he arrived, and he bought a\nsmall house on the extreme western verge of the town. Between it and\nJudge Driscoll's house there was only a grassy yard, with a paling fence\ndividing the properties in the middle. He hired a small office down in\nthe town and hung out a tin sign with these words on it:\n\nD A V I D W I L S O N\n\nATTORNEY AND COUNSELOR-AT-LAW\n\nSURVEYING, CONVEYANCING, ETC.\n\nBut his deadly remark had ruined his chance--at least in the law. No\nclients came. He took down his sign, after a while, and put it up on his\nown house with the law features knocked out of it. It offered his\nservices now in the humble capacities of land surveyor and expert\naccountant. Now and then he got a job of surveying to do, and now and\nthen a merchant got him to straighten out his books. With Scotch patience\nand pluck he resolved to live down his reputation and work his way into\nthe legal field yet. Poor fellow, he could foresee that it was going to\ntake him such a weary long time to do it.\n\nHe had a rich abundance of idle time, but it never hung heavy on his\nhands, for he interested himself in every new thing that was born into\nthe universe of ideas, and studied it, and experimented upon it at his\nhouse. One of his pet fads was palmistry. To another one he gave no\nname, neither would he explain to anybody what its purpose was, but\nmerely said it was an amusement. In fact, he had found that his fads\nadded to his reputation as a pudd'nhead; there, he was growing chary of\nbeing too communicative about them. The fad without a name was one which\ndealt with people's finger marks. He carried in his coat pocket a\nshallow box with grooves in it, and in the grooves strips of glass five\ninches long and three inches wide. Along the lower edge of each strip\nwas pasted a slip of white paper. He asked people to pass their hands\nthrough their hair (thus collecting upon them a thin coating of the\nnatural oil) and then making a thumb-mark on a glass strip, following it\nwith the mark of the ball of each finger in succession. Under this row\nof faint grease prints he would write a record on the strip of white\npaper--thus:\n\nJOHN SMITH, right hand--\n\nand add the day of the month and the year, then take Smith's left hand on\nanother glass strip, and add name and date and the words \"left hand.\" The\nstrips were now returned to the grooved box, and took their place among\nwhat Wilson called his \"records.\"\n\nHe often studied his records, examining and poring over them with\nabsorbing interest until far into the night; but what he found there--if\nhe found anything--he revealed to no one. Sometimes he copied on paper\nthe involved and delicate pattern left by the ball of the finger, and\nthen vastly enlarged it with a pantograph so that he could examine its\nweb of curving lines with ease and convenience.\n\nOne sweltering afternoon--it was the first day of July, 1830--he was at\nwork over a set of tangled account books in his workroom, which looked\nwestward over a stretch of vacant lots, when a conversation outside\ndisturbed him. It was carried on in yells, which showed that the people\nengaged in it were not close together.\n\n\"Say, Roxy, how does yo' baby come on?\" This from the distant voice.\n\n\"Fust-rate. How does _you_ come on, Jasper?\" This yell was from close\nby.\n\n\"Oh, I's middlin'; hain't got noth'n' to complain of, I's gwine to come\na-court'n you bimeby, Roxy.\"\n\n\"_You_ is, you black mud cat! Yah--yah--yah! I got somep'n' better to\ndo den 'sociat'n' wid niggers as black as you is. Is ole Miss Cooper's\nNancy done give you de mitten?\" Roxy followed this sally with another\ndischarge of carefree laughter.\n\n\"You's jealous, Roxy, dat's what's de matter wid you, you\nhussy--yah--yah--yah! Dat's de time I got you!\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, _you_ got me, hain't you. 'Clah to goodness if dat conceit o'\nyo'n strikes in, Jasper, it gwine to kill you sho'. If you b'longed to\nme, I'd sell you down de river 'fo' you git too fur gone. Fust time I\nruns acrost yo' marster, I's gwine to tell him so.\"\n\nThis idle and aimless jabber went on and on, both parties enjoying the\nfriendly duel and each well satisfied with his own share of the wit\nexchanged--for wit they considered it.\n\nWilson stepped to the window to observe the combatants; he could not work\nwhile their chatter continued. Over in the vacant lots was Jasper,\nyoung, coal black, and of magnificent build, sitting on a wheelbarrow in\nthe pelting sun--at work, supposably, whereas he was in fact only\npreparing for it by taking an hour's rest before beginning. In front of\nWilson's porch stood Roxy, with a local handmade baby wagon, in which sat\nher two charges--one at each end and facing each other. From Roxy's\nmanner of speech, a stranger would have expected her to be black, but she\nwas not. Only one sixteenth of her was black, and that sixteenth did not\nshow. She was of majestic form and stature, her attitudes were imposing\nand statuesque, and her gestures and movements distinguished by a noble\nand stately grace. Her complexion was very fair, with the rosy glow of\nvigorous health in her cheeks, her face was full of character and\nexpression, her eyes were brown and liquid, and she had a heavy suit of\nfine soft hair which was also brown, but the fact was not apparent\nbecause her head was bound about with a checkered handkerchief and the\nhair was concealed under it. Her face was shapely, intelligent, and\ncomely--even beautiful. She had an easy, independent carriage--when she\nwas among her own caste--and a high and \"sassy\" way, withal; but of\ncourse she was meek and humble enough where white people were.\n\nTo all intents and purposes Roxy was as white as anybody, but the one\nsixteenth of her which was black outvoted the other fifteen parts and\nmade her a Negro. She was a slave, and salable as such. Her child was\nthirty-one parts white, and he, too, was a slave, and by a fiction of law\nand custom a Negro. He had blue eyes and flaxen curls like his white\ncomrade, but even the father of the white child was able to tell the\nchildren apart--little as he had commerce with them--by their clothes;\nfor the white babe wore ruffled soft muslin and a coral necklace, while\nthe other wore merely a coarse tow-linen shirt which barely reached to\nits knees, and no jewelry.\n\nThe white child's name was Thomas a Becket Driscoll, the other's name was\nValet de Chambre: no surname--slaves hadn't the privilege. Roxana had\nheard that phrase somewhere, the fine sound of it had pleased her ear,\nand as she had supposed it was a name, she loaded it on to her darling.\nIt soon got shorted to \"Chambers,\" of course.\n\nWilson knew Roxy by sight, and when the duel of wits begun to play out,\nhe stepped outside to gather in a record or two. Jasper went to work\nenergetically, at once, perceiving that his leisure was observed. Wilson\ninspected the children and asked:\n\n\"How old are they, Roxy?\"\n\n\"Bofe de same age, sir--five months. Bawn de fust o' Feb'uary.\"\n\n\"They're handsome little chaps. One's just as handsome as the other,\ntoo.\"\n\nA delighted smile exposed the girl's white teeth, and she said:\n\n\"Bless yo' soul, Misto Wilson, it's pow'ful nice o' you to say dat,\n'ca'se one of 'em ain't on'y a nigger. Mighty prime little nigger, _I_\nal'ays says, but dat's 'ca'se it's mine, o' course.\"\n\n\"How do you tell them apart, Roxy, when they haven't any clothes on?\"\n\nRoxy laughed a laugh proportioned to her size, and said:\n\n\"Oh, _I_ kin tell 'em 'part, Misto Wilson, but I bet Marse Percy\ncouldn't, not to save his life.\"\n\nWilson chatted along for awhile, and presently got Roxy's fingerprints\nfor his collection--right hand and left--on a couple of his glass strips;\nthen labeled and dated them, and took the \"records\" of both children, and\nlabeled and dated them also.\n\nTwo months later, on the third of September, he took this trio of finger\nmarks again. He liked to have a \"series,\" two or three \"takings\" at\nintervals during the period of childhood, these to be followed at\nintervals of several years.\n\nThe next day--that is to say, on the fourth of September--something\noccurred which profoundly impressed Roxana. Mr. Driscoll missed another\nsmall sum of money--which is a way of saying that this was not a new\nthing, but had happened before. In truth, it had happened three times\nbefore. Driscoll's patience was exhausted. He was a fairly humane man\ntoward slaves and other animals; he was an exceedingly humane man toward\nthe erring of his own race. Theft he could not abide, and plainly there\nwas a thief in his house. Necessarily the thief must be one of his\nNegros. Sharp measures must be taken. He called his servants before him.\nThere were three of these, besides Roxy: a man, a woman, and a boy\ntwelve years old. They were not related. Mr. Driscoll said:\n\n\"You have all been warned before. It has done no good. This time I will\nteach you a lesson. I will sell the thief. Which of you is the guilty\none?\"\n\nThey all shuddered at the threat, for here they had a good home, and a\nnew one was likely to be a change for the worse. The denial was general.\nNone had stolen anything--not money, anyway--a little sugar, or cake, or\nhoney, or something like that, that \"Marse Percy wouldn't mind or miss\"\nbut not money--never a cent of money. They were eloquent in their\nprotestations, but Mr. Driscoll was not moved by them. He answered each\nin turn with a stern \"Name the thief!\"\n\nThe truth was, all were guilty but Roxana; she suspected that the others\nwere guilty, but she did not know them to be so. She was horrified to\nthink how near she had come to being guilty herself; she had been saved\nin the nick of time by a revival in the colored Methodist Church, a\nfortnight before, at which time and place she \"got religion.\" The very\nnext day after that gracious experience, while her change of style was\nfresh upon her and she was vain of her purified condition, her master\nleft a couple dollars unprotected on his desk, and she happened upon that\ntemptation when she was polishing around with a dustrag. She looked at\nthe money awhile with a steady rising resentment, then she burst out\nwith:\n\n\"Dad blame dat revival, I wisht it had 'a' be'n put off till tomorrow!\"\n\nThen she covered the tempter with a book, and another member of the\nkitchen cabinet got it. She made this sacrifice as a matter of religious\netiquette; as a thing necessary just now, but by no means to be wrested\ninto a precedent; no, a week or two would limber up her piety, then she\nwould be rational again, and the next two dollars that got left out in\nthe cold would find a comforter--and she could name the comforter.\n\nWas she bad? Was she worse than the general run of her race? No. They\nhad an unfair show in the battle of life, and they held it no sin to take\nmilitary advantage of the enemy--in a small way; in a small way, but not\nin a large one. They would smouch provisions from the pantry whenever\nthey got a chance; or a brass thimble, or a cake of wax, or an emery bag,\nor a paper of needles, or a silver spoon, or a dollar bill, or small\narticles of clothing, or any other property of light value; and so far\nwere they from considering such reprisals sinful, that they would go to\nchurch and shout and pray the loudest and sincerest with their plunder in\ntheir pockets. A farm smokehouse had to be kept heavily padlocked, or\neven the colored deacon himself could not resist a ham when Providence\nshowed him in a dream, or otherwise, where such a thing hung lonesome,\nand longed for someone to love. But with a hundred hanging before him,\nthe deacon would not take two--that is, on the same night. On frosty\nnights the humane Negro prowler would warm the end of the plank and put\nit up under the cold claws of chickens roosting in a tree; a drowsy hen\nwould step on to the comfortable board, softly clucking her gratitude,\nand the prowler would dump her into his bag, and later into his stomach,\nperfectly sure that in taking this trifle from the man who daily robbed\nhim of an inestimable treasure--his liberty--he was not committing any\nsin that God would remember against him in the Last Great Day.\n\n\"Name the thief!\"\n\nFor the fourth time Mr. Driscoll had said it, and always in the same hard\ntone. And now he added these words of awful import:\n\n\"I give you one minute.\" He took out his watch. \"If at the end of that\ntime, you have not confessed, I will not only sell all four of you,\nBUT--I will sell you DOWN THE RIVER!\"\n\nIt was equivalent to condemning them to hell! No Missouri Negro doubted\nthis. Roxy reeled in her tracks, and the color vanished out of her face;\nthe others dropped to their knees as if they had been shot; tears gushed\nfrom their eyes, their supplicating hands went up, and three answers came\nin the one instant.\n\n\"I done it!\"\n\n\"I done it!\"\n\n\"I done it!--have mercy, marster--Lord have mercy on us po' niggers!\"\n\n\"Very good,\" said the master, putting up his watch, \"I will sell you\n_here_ though you don't deserve it. You ought to be sold down the\nriver.\"\n\nThe culprits flung themselves prone, in an ecstasy of gratitude, and\nkissed his feet, declaring that they would never forget his goodness and\nnever cease to pray for him as long as they lived. They were sincere, for\nlike a god he had stretched forth his mighty hand and closed the gates of\nhell against them. He knew, himself, that he had done a noble and\ngracious thing, and was privately well pleased with his magnanimity; and\nthat night he set the incident down in his diary, so that his son might\nread it in after years, and be thereby moved to deeds of gentleness and\nhumanity himself.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 3 -- Roxy Plays a Shrewd Trick\n\n     _Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is,\n     knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first\n     great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the\n     world._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nPercy Driscoll slept well the night he saved his house minions from\ngoing down the river, but no wink of sleep visited Roxy's eyes. A\nprofound terror had taken possession of her. Her child could grow up and\nbe sold down the river! The thought crazed her with horror. If she dozed\nand lost herself for a moment, the next moment she was on her feet flying\nto her child's cradle to see if it was still there. Then she would gather\nit to her heart and pour out her love upon it in a frenzy of kisses,\nmoaning, crying, and saying, \"Dey sha'n't, oh, dey _sha'nt'!'_--yo' po'\nmammy will kill you fust!\"\n\nOnce, when she was tucking him back in its cradle again, the other child\nnestled in its sleep and attracted her attention. She went and stood\nover it a long time communing with herself.\n\n\"What has my po' baby done, dat he couldn't have yo' luck? He hain't done\nnuth'n. God was good to you; why warn't he good to him? Dey can't sell\n_you_ down de river. I hates yo' pappy; he hain't got no heart--for\nniggers, he hain't, anyways. I hates him, en I could kill him!\" She\npaused awhile, thinking; then she burst into wild sobbings again, and\nturned away, saying, \"Oh, I got to kill my chile, dey ain't no yuther\nway--killin' _him_ wouldn't save de chile fum goin' down de river. Oh, I\ngot to do it, yo' po' mammy's got to kill you to save you, honey.\" She\ngathered her baby to her bosom now, and began to smother it with\ncaresses. \"Mammy's got to kill you--how _kin_ I do it! But yo' mammy\nain't gwine to desert you--no, no, _dah_, don't cry--she gwine _wid_\nyou, she gwine to kill herself too. Come along, honey, come along wid\nmammy; we gwine to jump in de river, den troubles o' dis worl' is all\nover--dey don't sell po' niggers down the river over _yonder_.\"\n\nShe stared toward the door, crooning to the child and hushing it; midway\nshe stopped, suddenly. She had caught sight of her new Sunday gown--a\ncheap curtain-calico thing, a conflagration of gaudy colors and fantastic\nfigures. She surveyed it wistfully, longingly.\n\n\"Hain't ever wore it yet,\" she said, \"en it's just lovely.\" Then she\nnodded her head in response to a pleasant idea, and added, \"No, I ain't\ngwine to be fished out, wid everybody lookin' at me, in dis mis'able ole\nlinsey-woolsey.\"\n\nShe put down the child and made the change. She looked in the glass and\nwas astonished at her beauty. She resolved to make her death toilet\nperfect. She took off her handkerchief turban and dressed her glossy\nwealth of hair \"like white folks\"; she added some odds and ends of rather\nlurid ribbon and a spray of atrocious artificial flowers; finally she\nthrew over her shoulders a fluffy thing called a \"cloud\" in that day,\nwhich was of a blazing red complexion. Then she was ready for the tomb.\n\nShe gathered up her baby once more; but when her eye fell upon its\nmiserably short little gray tow-linen shirt and noted the contrast\nbetween its pauper shabbiness and her own volcanic eruption of infernal\nsplendors, her mother-heart was touched, and she was ashamed.\n\n\"No, dolling mammy ain't gwine to treat you so. De angels is gwine to\n'mire you jist as much as dey does yo' mammy. Ain't gwine to have 'em\nputt'n dey han's up 'fo' dey eyes en sayin' to David and Goliah en dem\nyuther prophets, 'Dat chile is dress' to indelicate fo' dis place.'\"\n\nBy this time she had stripped off the shirt. Now she clothed the naked\nlittle creature in one of Thomas `a Becket's snowy, long baby gowns, with\nits bright blue bows and dainty flummery of ruffles.\n\n\"Dah--now you's fixed.\" She propped the child in a chair and stood off\nto inspect it. Straightway her eyes begun to widen with astonishment and\nadmiration, and she clapped her hands and cried out, \"Why, it do beat\nall! I _never_ knowed you was so lovely. Marse Tommy ain't a bit\nputtier--not a single bit.\"\n\nShe stepped over and glanced at the other infant; she flung a glance\nback at her own; then one more at the heir of the house. Now a strange\nlight dawned in her eyes, and in a moment she was lost in thought. She\nseemed in a trance; when she came out of it, she muttered, \"When I 'uz\na-washin' 'em in de tub, yistiddy, he own pappy asked me which of 'em was\nhis'n.\"\n\nShe began to move around like one in a dream. She undressed Thomas `a\nBecket, stripping him of everything, and put the tow-linen shirt on him.\nShe put his coral necklace on her own child's neck. Then she placed the\nchildren side by side, and after earnest inspection she muttered:\n\n\"Now who would b'lieve clo'es could do de like o' dat? Dog my cats if it\nain't all _I_ kin do to tell t' other fum which, let alone his pappy.\"\n\nShe put her cub in Tommy's elegant cradle and said:\n\n\"You's young Marse _Tom_ fum dis out, en I got to practice and git used\nto 'memberin' to call you dat, honey, or I's gwine to make a mistake\nsometime en git us bofe into trouble. Dah--now you lay still en don't\nfret no mo', Marse Tom. Oh, thank de lord in heaven, you's saved, you's\nsaved! Dey ain't no man kin ever sell mammy's po' little honey down de\nriver now!\"\n\nShe put the heir of the house in her own child's unpainted pine cradle,\nand said, contemplating its slumbering form uneasily:\n\n\"I's sorry for you, honey; I's sorry, God knows I is--but what _kin_ I\ndo, what _could_ I do? Yo' pappy would sell him to somebody, sometime,\nen den he'd go down de river, sho', en I couldn't, couldn't, _couldn't_\nstan' it.\"\n\nShe flung herself on her bed and began to think and toss, toss and think.\nBy and by she sat suddenly upright, for a comforting thought had flown\nthrough her worried mind--\n\n\"'T ain't no sin--_white_ folks has done it! It ain't no sin, glory to\ngoodness it ain't no sin! _Dey's_ done it--yes, en dey was de biggest\nquality in de whole bilin', too--_kings!\"_\n\nShe began to muse; she was trying to gather out of her memory the dim\nparticulars of some tale she had heard some time or other. At last she\nsaid--\n\n\"Now I's got it; now I 'member. It was dat ole nigger preacher dat tole\nit, de time he come over here fum Illinois en preached in de nigger\nchurch. He said dey ain't nobody kin save his own self--can't do it by\nfaith, can't do it by works, can't do it no way at all. Free grace is de\n_on'y_ way, en dat don't come fum nobody but jis' de Lord; en _he_ kin\ngive it to anybody He please, saint or sinner--_he_ don't kyer. He do\njis' as He's a mineter. He s'lect out anybody dat suit Him, en put\nanother one in his place, and make de fust one happy forever en leave t'\nother one to burn wid Satan. De preacher said it was jist like dey done\nin Englan' one time, long time ago. De queen she lef' her baby layin'\naroun' one day, en went out callin'; an one 'o de niggers roun'bout de\nplace dat was 'mos' white, she come in en see de chile layin' aroun', en\ntuck en put her own chile's clo's on de queen's chile, en put de queen's\nchile's clo'es on her own chile, en den lef' her own chile layin' aroun',\nen tuck en toted de queen's chile home to de nigger quarter, en nobody\never foun' it out, en her chile was de king bimeby, en sole de queen's\nchile down de river one time when dey had to settle up de estate. Dah,\nnow--de preacher said it his own self, en it ain't no sin, 'ca'se white\nfolks done it. DEY done it--yes, DEY done it; en not on'y jis' common\nwhite folks nuther, but de biggest quality dey is in de whole bilin'.\n_Oh_, I's _so_ glad I 'member 'bout dat!\"\n\nShe got lighthearted and happy, and went to the cradles, and spent what\nwas left of the night \"practicing.\" She would give her own child a light\npat and say humbly, \"Lay still, Marse Tom,\" then give the real Tom a pat\nand say with severity, \"Lay _still_, Chambers! Does you want me to take\nsomep'n _to_ you?\"\n\nAs she progressed with her practice, she was surprised to see how\nsteadily and surely the awe which had kept her tongue reverent and her\nmanner humble toward her young master was transferring itself to her\nspeech and manner toward the usurper, and how similarly handy she was\nbecoming in transferring her motherly curtness of speech and\nperemptoriness of manner to the unlucky heir of the ancient house of\nDriscoll.\n\nShe took occasional rests from practicing, and absorbed herself in\ncalculating her chances.\n\n\"Dey'll sell dese niggers today fo' stealin' de money, den dey'll buy\nsome mo' dat don't now de chillen--so _dat's_ all right. When I takes de\nchillen out to git de air, de minute I's roun' de corner I's gwine to\ngaum dey mouths all roun' wid jam, den dey can't _nobody_ notice dey's\nchanged. Yes, I gwine ter do dat till I's safe, if it's a year.\n\n\"Dey ain't but one man dat I's afeard of, en dat's dat Pudd'nhead Wilson.\nDey calls him a pudd'nhead, en says he's a fool. My lan, dat man ain't\nno mo' fool den I is! He's de smartes' man in dis town, lessn' it's\nJedge Driscoll or maybe Pem Howard. Blame dat man, he worries me wid dem\nornery glasses o' his'n; _I_ b'lieve he's a witch. But nemmine, I's gwine\nto happen aroun' dah one o' dese days en let on dat I reckon he wants to\nprint a chillen's fingers ag'in; en if HE don't notice dey's changed, I\nbound dey ain't nobody gwine to notice it, en den I's safe, sho'. But I\nreckon I'll tote along a hoss-shoe to keep off de witch work.\"\n\nThe new Negros gave Roxy no trouble, of course. The master gave her\nnone, for one of his speculations was in jeopardy, and his mind was so\noccupied that he hardly saw the children when he looked at them, and all\nRoxy had to do was to get them both into a gale of laughter when he came\nabout; then their faces were mainly cavities exposing gums, and he was\ngone again before the spasm passed and the little creatures resumed a\nhuman aspect.\n\nWithin a few days the fate of the speculation became so dubious that Mr.\nPercy went away with his brother, the judge, to see what could be done\nwith it. It was a land speculation as usual, and it had gotten\ncomplicated with a lawsuit. The men were gone seven weeks. Before they\ngot back, Roxy had paid her visit to Wilson, and was satisfied. Wilson\ntook the fingerprints, labeled them with the names and with the date\n--October the first--put them carefully away, and continued his chat with\nRoxy, who seemed very anxious that he should admire the great advance in\nflesh and beauty which the babes had made since he took their\nfingerprints a month before. He complimented their improvement to her\ncontentment; and as they were without any disguise of jam or other stain,\nshe trembled all the while and was miserably frightened lest at any\nmoment he--\n\nBut he didn't. He discovered nothing; and she went home jubilant, and\ndropped all concern about the matter permanently out of her mind.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 4 -- The Ways of the Changelings\n\n     _Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one\n     was, that they escaped teething._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's\n     Calendar\n\n     _There is this trouble about special providences--namely,\n     there is so often a doubt as to which party was intended to\n     be the beneficiary. In the case of the children, the bears,\n     and the prophet, the bears got more real satisfaction out of\n     the episode than the prophet did, because they got the\n     children._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nThis history must henceforth accommodate itself to the change which\nRoxana has consummated, and call the real heir \"Chambers\" and the\nusurping little slave, \"Thomas `a Becket\"--shortening this latter name to\n\"Tom,\" for daily use, as the people about him did.\n\n\"Tom\" was a bad baby, from the very beginning of his usurpation. He would\ncry for nothing; he would burst into storms of devilish temper without\nnotice, and let go scream after scream and squall after squall, then\nclimax the thing with \"holding his breath\"--that frightful specialty of\nthe teething nursling, in the throes of which the creature exhausts its\nlungs, then is convulsed with noiseless squirmings and twistings and\nkickings in the effort to get its breath, while the lips turn blue and\nthe mouth stands wide and rigid, offering for inspection one wee tooth\nset in the lower rim of a hoop of red gums; and when the appalling\nstillness has endured until one is sure the lost breath will never\nreturn, a nurse comes flying, and dashes water in the child's face,\nand--presto! the lungs fill, and instantly discharge a shriek, or a yell,\nor a howl which bursts the listening ear and surprises the owner of it\ninto saying words which would not go well with a halo if he had one. The\nbaby Tom would claw anybody who came within reach of his nails, and pound\nanybody he could reach with his rattle. He would scream for water until\nhe got it, and then throw cup and all on the floor and scream for more.\nHe was indulged in all his caprices, howsoever troublesome and\nexasperating they might be; he was allowed to eat anything he wanted,\nparticularly things that would give him the stomach-ache.\n\nWhen he got to be old enough to begin to toddle about and say broken\nwords and get an idea of what his hands were for, he was a more\nconsummate pest than ever. Roxy got no rest while he was awake. He would\ncall for anything and everything he saw, simply saying, \"Awnt it!\" (want\nit), which was a command. When it was brought, he said in a frenzy, and\nmotioning it away with his hands, \"Don't awnt it! don't awnt it!\" and the\nmoment it was gone he set up frantic yells of \"Awnt it! awnt it!\" and\nRoxy had to give wings to her heels to get that thing back to him again\nbefore he could get time to carry out his intention of going into\nconvulsions about it.\n\nWhat he preferred above all other things was the tongs. This was because\nhis \"father\" had forbidden him to have them lest he break windows and\nfurniture with them. The moment Roxy's back was turned he would toddle\nto the presence of the tongs and say, \"Like it!\" and cock his eye to one\nside or see if Roxy was observed; then, \"Awnt it!\" and cock his eye\nagain; then, \"Hab it!\" with another furtive glance; and finally, \"Take\nit!\"--and the prize was his. The next moment the heavy implement was\nraised aloft; the next, there was a crash and a squall, and the cat was\noff on three legs to meet an engagement; Roxy would arrive just as the\nlamp or a window went to irremediable smash.\n\nTom got all the petting, Chambers got none. Tom got all the delicacies,\nChambers got mush and milk, and clabber without sugar. In consequence\nTom was a sickly child and Chambers wasn't. Tom was \"fractious,\" as Roxy\ncalled it, and overbearing; Chambers was meek and docile.\n\nWith all her splendid common sense and practical everyday ability, Roxy\nwas a doting fool of a mother. She was this toward her child--and she\nwas also more than this: by the fiction created by herself, he was\nbecome her master; the necessity of recognizing this relation outwardly\nand of perfecting herself in the forms required to express the\nrecognition, had moved her to such diligence and faithfulness in\npracticing these forms that this exercise soon concreted itself into\nhabit; it became automatic and unconscious; then a natural result\nfollowed: deceptions intended solely for others gradually grew\npractically into self-deceptions as well; the mock reverence became real\nreverence, the mock homage real homage; the little counterfeit rift of\nseparation between imitation-slave and imitation-master widened and\nwidened, and became an abyss, and a very real one--and on one side of it\nstood Roxy, the dupe of her own deceptions, and on the other stood her\nchild, no longer a usurper to her, but her accepted and recognized\nmaster. He was her darling, her master, and her deity all in one, and in\nher worship of him she forgot who she was and what he had been.\n\nIn babyhood Tom cuffed and banged and scratched Chambers unrebuked, and\nChambers early learned that between meekly bearing it and resenting it,\nthe advantage all lay with the former policy. The few times that his\npersecutions had moved him beyond control and made him fight back had\ncost him very dear at headquarters; not at the hands of Roxy, for if she\never went beyond scolding him sharply for \"forgett'n' who his young\nmarster was,\" she at least never extended her punishment beyond a box on\nthe ear. No, Percy Driscoll was the person. He told Chambers that under\nno provocation whatever was he privileged to lift his hand against his\nlittle master. Chambers overstepped the line three times, and got three\nsuch convincing canings from the man who was his father and didn't know\nit, that he took Tom's cruelties in all humility after that, and made no\nmore experiments.\n\nOutside the house the two boys were together all through their boyhood.\nChambers was strong beyond his years, and a good fighter; strong because\nhe was coarsely fed and hard worked about the house, and a good fighter\nbecause Tom furnished him plenty of practice--on white boys whom he\nhated and was afraid of. Chambers was his constant bodyguard, to and\nfrom school; he was present on the playground at recess to protect his\ncharge. He fought himself into such a formidable reputation, by and by,\nthat Tom could have changed clothes with him, and \"ridden in peace,\" like\nSir Kay in Launcelot's armor.\n\nHe was good at games of skill, too. Tom staked him with marbles to play\n\"keeps\" with, and then took all the winnings away from him. In the winter\nseason Chambers was on hand, in Tom's worn-out clothes, with \"holy\" red\nmittens, and \"holy\" shoes, and pants \"holy\" at the knees and seat, to\ndrag a sled up the hill for Tom, warmly clad, to ride down on; but he\nnever got a ride himself. He built snowmen and snow fortifications under\nTom's directions. He was Tom's patient target when Tom wanted to do some\nsnowballing, but the target couldn't fire back. Chambers carried Tom's\nskates to the river and strapped them on him, then trotted around after\nhim on the ice, so as to be on hand when he wanted; but he wasn't ever\nasked to try the skates himself.\n\nIn summer the pet pastime of the boys of Dawson's Landing was to steal\napples, peaches, and melons from the farmer's fruit wagons--mainly on\naccount of the risk they ran of getting their heads laid open with the\nbutt of the farmer's whip. Tom was a distinguished adept at these\nthefts--by proxy. Chambers did his stealing, and got the peach stones,\napple cores, and melon rinds for his share.\n\nTom always made Chambers go in swimming with him, and stay by him as a\nprotection. When Tom had had enough, he would slip out and tie knots in\nChamber's shirt, dip the knots in the water and make them hard to undo,\nthen dress himself and sit by and laugh while the naked shiverer tugged\nat the stubborn knots with his teeth.\n\nTom did his humble comrade these various ill turns partly out of native\nviciousness, and partly because he hated him for his superiorities of\nphysique and pluck, and for his manifold cleverness. Tom couldn't dive,\nfor it gave him splitting headaches. Chambers could dive without\ninconvenience, and was fond of doing it. He excited so much admiration,\none day, among a crowd of white boys, by throwing back somersaults from\nthe stern of a canoe, that it wearied Tom's spirit, and at last he shoved\nthe canoe underneath Chambers while he was in the air--so he came down on\nhis head in the canoe bottom; and while he lay unconscious, several of\nTom's ancient adversaries saw that their long-desired opportunity was\ncome, and they gave the false heir such a drubbing that with Chamber's\nbest help he was hardly able to drag himself home afterward.\n\nWhen the boys was fifteen and upward, Tom was \"showing off\" in the river\none day, when he was taken with a cramp, and shouted for help. It was a\ncommon trick with the boys--particularly if a stranger was present--to\npretend a cramp and howl for help; then when the stranger came tearing\nhand over hand to the rescue, the howler would go on struggling and\nhowling till he was close at hand, then replace the howl with a sarcastic\nsmile and swim blandly away, while the town boys assailed the dupe with a\nvolley of jeers and laughter. Tom had never tried this joke as yet, but\nwas supposed to be trying it now, so the boys held warily back; but\nChambers believed his master was in earnest; therefore, he swam out, and\narrived in time, unfortunately, and saved his life.\n\nThis was the last feather. Tom had managed to endure everything else,\nbut to have to remain publicly and permanently under such an obligation\nas this to a nigger, and to this nigger of all niggers--this was too\nmuch. He heaped insults upon Chambers for \"pretending\" to think he was in\nearnest in calling for help, and said that anybody but a blockheaded\nnigger would have known he was funning and left him alone.\n\nTom's enemies were in strong force here, so they came out with their\nopinions quite freely. They laughed at him, and called him coward, liar,\nsneak, and other sorts of pet names, and told him they meant to call\nChambers by a new name after this, and make it common in the town--\"Tom\nDriscoll's nigger pappy,\"--to signify that he had had a second birth into\nthis life, and that Chambers was the author of his new being. Tom grew\nfrantic under these taunts, and shouted:\n\n\"Knock their heads off, Chambers! Knock their heads off! What do you\nstand there with your hands in your pockets for?\"\n\nChambers expostulated, and said, \"But, Marse Tom, dey's too many of\n'em--dey's--\"\n\n\"Do you hear me?\"\n\n\"Please, Marse Tom, don't make me! Dey's so many of 'em dat--\"\n\nTom sprang at him and drove his pocketknife into him two or three times\nbefore the boys could snatch him away and give the wounded lad a chance\nto escape. He was considerably hurt, but not seriously. If the blade had\nbeen a little longer, his career would have ended there.\n\nTom had long ago taught Roxy \"her place.\" It had been many a day now\nsince she had ventured a caress or a fondling epithet in his quarter.\nSuch things, from a \"nigger,\" were repulsive to him, and she had been\nwarned to keep her distance and remember who she was. She saw her\ndarling gradually cease from being her son, she saw THAT detail perish\nutterly; all that was left was master--master, pure and simple, and it\nwas not a gentle mastership, either. She saw herself sink from the\nsublime height of motherhood to the somber depths of unmodified slavery,\nthe abyss of separation between her and her boy was complete. She was\nmerely his chattel now, his convenience, his dog, his cringing and\nhelpless slave, the humble and unresisting victim of his capricious\ntemper and vicious nature.\n\nSometimes she could not go to sleep, even when worn out with fatigue,\nbecause her rage boiled so high over the day's experiences with her boy.\nShe would mumble and mutter to herself:\n\n\"He struck me en I warn't no way to blame--struck me in de face, right\nbefore folks. En he's al'ays callin' me nigger wench, en hussy, en all\ndem mean names, when I's doin' de very bes' I kin. Oh, Lord, I done so\nmuch for him--I lif' him away up to what he is--en dis is what I git for\nit.\"\n\nSometimes when some outrage of peculiar offensiveness stung her to the\nheart, she would plan schemes of vengeance and revel in the fancied\nspectacle of his exposure to the world as an imposter and a slave; but in\nthe midst of these joys fear would strike her; she had made him too\nstrong; she could prove nothing, and--heavens, she might get sold down\nthe river for her pains! So her schemes always went for nothing, and she\nlaid them aside in impotent rage against the fates, and against herself\nfor playing the fool on that fatal September day in not providing herself\nwith a witness for use in the day when such a thing might be needed for\nthe appeasing of her vengeance-hungry heart.\n\nAnd yet the moment Tom happened to be good to her, and kind--and this\noccurred every now and then--all her sore places were healed, and she was\nhappy; happy and proud, for this was her son, her nigger son, lording it\namong the whites and securely avenging their crimes against her race.\n\nThere were two grand funerals in Dawson's Landing that fall--the fall of\n1845. One was that of Colonel Cecil Burleigh Essex, the other that of\nPercy Driscoll.\n\nOn his deathbed Driscoll set Roxy free and delivered his idolized\nostensible son solemnly into the keeping of his brother, the judge, and\nhis wife. Those childless people were glad to get him. Childless people\nare not difficult to please.\n\nJudge Driscoll had gone privately to his brother, a month before, and\nbought Chambers. He had heard that Tom had been trying to get his father\nto sell the boy down the river, and he wanted to prevent the scandal--for\npublic sentiment did not approve of that way of treating family servants\nfor light cause or for no cause.\n\nPercy Driscoll had worn himself out in trying to save his great\nspeculative landed estate, and had died without succeeding. He was hardly\nin his grave before the boom collapsed and left his envied young devil of\nan heir a pauper. But that was nothing; his uncle told him he should be\nhis heir and have all his fortune when he died; so Tom was comforted.\n\nRoxy had no home now; so she resolved to go around and say good-by to her\nfriends and then clear out and see the world--that is to say, she would\ngo chambermaiding on a steamboat, the darling ambition of her race and\nsex.\n\nHer last call was on the black giant, Jasper. She found him chopping\nPudd'nhead Wilson's winter provision of wood.\n\nWilson was chatting with him when Roxy arrived. He asked her how she\ncould bear to go off chambermaiding and leave her boys; and chaffingly\noffered to copy off a series of their fingerprints, reaching up to their\ntwelfth year, for her to remember them by; but she sobered in a moment,\nwondering if he suspected anything; then she said she believed she didn't\nwant them. Wilson said to himself, \"The drop of black blood in her is\nsuperstitious; she thinks there's some devilry, some witch business about\nmy glass mystery somewhere; she used to come here with an old horseshoe\nin her hand; it could have been an accident, but I doubt it.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 5 -- The Twins Thrill Dawson's Landing\n\n     _Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond;\n     cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college\n     education._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _Remark of Dr. Baldwin's, concerning upstarts: We don't care\n     to eat toadstools that think they are truffles._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nMrs. York Driscoll enjoyed two years of bliss with that prize,\nTom--bliss that was troubled a little at times, it is true, but bliss\nnevertheless; then she died, and her husband and his childless sister,\nMrs. Pratt, continued this bliss-business at the old stand. Tom was\npetted and indulged and spoiled to his entire content--or nearly that.\nThis went on till he was nineteen, then he was sent to Yale. He went\nhandsomely equipped with \"conditions,\" but otherwise he was not an object\nof distinction there. He remained at Yale two years, and then threw up\nthe struggle. He came home with his manners a good deal improved; he had\nlost his surliness and brusqueness, and was rather pleasantly soft and\nsmooth, now; he was furtively, and sometimes openly, ironical of speech,\nand given to gently touching people on the raw, but he did it with a\ngood-natured semiconscious air that carried it off safely, and kept him\nfrom getting into trouble. He was as indolent as ever and showed no very\nstrenuous desire to hunt up an occupation. People argued from this that\nhe preferred to be supported by his uncle until his uncle's shoes should\nbecome vacant. He brought back one or two new habits with him, one of\nwhich he rather openly practiced--tippling--but concealed another, which\nwas gambling. It would not do to gamble where his uncle could hear of\nit; he knew that quite well.\n\nTom's Eastern polish was not popular among the young people. They could\nhave endured it, perhaps, if Tom had stopped there; but he wore gloves,\nand that they couldn't stand, and wouldn't; so he was mainly without\nsociety. He brought home with him a suit of clothes of such exquisite\nstyle and cut in fashion--Eastern fashion, city fashion--that it filled\neverybody with anguish and was regarded as a peculiarly wanton affront.\nHe enjoyed the feeling which he was exciting, and paraded the town serene\nand happy all day; but the young fellows set a tailor to work that night,\nand when Tom started out on his parade next morning, he found the old\ndeformed Negro bell ringer straddling along in his wake tricked out in a\nflamboyant curtain-calico exaggeration of his finery, and imitating his\nfancy Eastern graces as well as he could.\n\nTom surrendered, and after that clothed himself in the local fashion. But\nthe dull country town was tiresome to him, since his acquaintanceship\nwith livelier regions, and it grew daily more and more so. He began to\nmake little trips to St. Louis for refreshment. There he found\ncompanionship to suit him, and pleasures to his taste, along with more\nfreedom, in some particulars, than he could have at home. So, during the\nnext two years, his visits to the city grew in frequency and his\ntarryings there grew steadily longer in duration.\n\nHe was getting into deep waters. He was taking chances, privately, which\nmight get him into trouble some day--in fact, _did_.\n\nJudge Driscoll had retired from the bench and from all business\nactivities in 1850, and had now been comfortably idle three years. He was\npresident of the Freethinkers' Society, and Pudd'nhead Wilson was the\nother member. The society's weekly discussions were now the old lawyer's\nmain interest in life. Pudd'nhead was still toiling in obscurity at the\nbottom of the ladder, under the blight of that unlucky remark which he\nhad let fall twenty-three years before about the dog.\n\nJudge Driscoll was his friend, and claimed that he had a mind above the\naverage, but that was regarded as one of the judge's whims, and it failed\nto modify the public opinion. Or rather, that was one of the reasons why\nit failed, but there was another and better one. If the judge had stopped\nwith bare assertion, it would have had a good deal of effect; but he made\nthe mistake of trying to prove his position. For some years Wilson had\nbeen privately at work on a whimsical almanac, for his amusement--a\ncalendar, with a little dab of ostensible philosophy, usually in ironical\nform, appended to each date; and the judge thought that these quips and\nfancies of Wilson's were neatly turned and cute; so he carried a handful\nof them around one day, and read them to some of the chief citizens. But\nirony was not for those people; their mental vision was not focused for\nit. They read those playful trifles in the solidest terms, and decided\nwithout hesitancy that if there had ever been any doubt that Dave Wilson\nwas a pudd'nhead--which there hadn't--this revelation removed that doubt\nfor good and all. That is just the way in this world; an enemy can partly\nruin a man, but it takes a good-natured injudicious friend to complete\nthe thing and make it perfect. After this the judge felt tenderer than\never toward Wilson, and surer than ever that his calendar had merit.\n\nJudge Driscoll could be a freethinker and still hold his place in society\nbecause he was the person of most consequence to the community, and\ntherefore could venture to go his own way and follow out his own notions.\nThe other member of his pet organization was allowed the like liberty\nbecause he was a cipher in the estimation of the public, and nobody\nattached any importance to what he thought or did. He was liked, he was\nwelcome enough all around, but he simply didn't count for anything.\n\nThe Widow Cooper--affectionately called \"Aunt Patsy\" by everybody--lived\nin a snug and comely cottage with her daughter Rowena, who was nineteen,\nromantic, amiable, and very pretty, but otherwise of no consequence.\nRowena had a couple of young brothers--also of no consequence.\n\nThe widow had a large spare room, which she let to a lodger, with board,\nwhen she could find one, but this room had been empty for a year now, to\nher sorrow. Her income was only sufficient for the family support, and\nshe needed the lodging money for trifling luxuries. But now, at last, on\na flaming June day, she found herself happy; her tedious wait was ended;\nher year-worn advertisement had been answered; and not by a village\napplicant, no, no!--this letter was from away off yonder in the dim great\nworld to the North; it was from St. Louis. She sat on her porch gazing\nout with unseeing eyes upon the shining reaches of the mighty\nMississippi, her thoughts steeped in her good fortune. Indeed it was\nspecially good fortune, for she was to have two lodgers instead of one.\n\nShe had read the letter to the family, and Rowena had danced away to see\nto the cleaning and airing of the room by the slave woman, Nancy, and the\nboys had rushed abroad in the town to spread the great news, for it was a\nmatter of public interest, and the public would wonder and not be pleased\nif not informed. Presently Rowena returned, all ablush with joyous\nexcitement, and begged for a rereading of the letter. It was framed thus:\n\nHONORED MADAM: My brother and I have seen your advertisement, by chance,\nand beg leave to take the room you offer. We are twenty-four years of\nage and twins. We are Italians by birth, but have lived long in the\nvarious countries of Europe, and several years in the United States. Our\nnames are Luigi and Angelo Capello. You desire but one guest; but, dear\nmadam, if you will allow us to pay for two, we will not incommode you.\nWe shall be down Thursday.\n\n\"Italians! How romantic! Just think, Ma--there's never been one in this\ntown, and everybody will be dying to see them, and they're all OURS!\nThink of that!\"\n\n\"Yes, I reckon they'll make a grand stir.\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed they will. The whole town will be on its head!\nThink--they've been in Europe and everywhere! There's never been a\ntraveler in this town before, Ma, I shouldn't wonder if they've seen\nkings!\"\n\n\"Well, a body can't tell, but they'll make stir enough, without that.\"\n\n\"Yes, that's of course. Luigi--Angelo. They're lovely names; and so\ngrand and foreign--not like Jones and Robinson and such. Thursday they\nare coming, and this is only Tuesday; it's a cruel long time to wait.\nHere comes Judge Driscoll in at the gate. He's heard about it. I'll go\nand open the door.\"\n\nThe judge was full of congratulations and curiosity. The letter was read\nand discussed. Soon Justice Robinson arrived with more congratulations,\nand there was a new reading and a new discussion. This was the beginning.\nNeighbor after neighbor, of both sexes, followed, and the procession\ndrifted in and out all day and evening and all Wednesday and Thursday.\nThe letter was read and reread until it was nearly worn out; everybody\nadmired its courtly and gracious tone, and smooth and practiced style,\neverybody was sympathetic and excited, and the Coopers were steeped in\nhappiness all the while.\n\nThe boats were very uncertain in low water in these primitive times. This\ntime the Thursday boat had not arrived at ten at night--so the people\nhad waited at the landing all day for nothing; they were driven to their\nhomes by a heavy storm without having had a view of the illustrious\nforeigners.\n\nEleven o'clock came; and the Cooper house was the only one in the town\nthat still had lights burning. The rain and thunder were booming yet,\nand the anxious family were still waiting, still hoping. At last there\nwas a knock at the door, and the family jumped to open it. Two Negro men\nentered, each carrying a trunk, and proceeded upstairs toward the guest\nroom. Then entered the twins--the handsomest, the best dressed, the most\ndistinguished-looking pair of young fellows the West had ever seen. One\nwas a little fairer than the other, but otherwise they were exact\nduplicates.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 6 -- Swimming in Glory\n\n     _Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even\n     the undertaker will be sorry._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's\n     Calendar\n\n     _Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by\n     any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nAt breakfast in the morning, the twins' charm of manner and easy and\npolished bearing made speedy conquest of the family's good graces. All\nconstraint and formality quickly disappeared, and the friendliest feeling\nsucceeded. Aunt Patsy called them by their Christian names almost from\nthe beginning. She was full of the keenest curiosity about them, and\nshowed it; they responded by talking about themselves, which pleased her\ngreatly. It presently appeared that in their early youth they had known\npoverty and hardship. As the talk wandered along, the old lady watched\nfor the right place to drop in a question or two concerning that matter,\nand when she found it, she said to the blond twin, who was now doing the\nbiographies in his turn while the brunette one rested:\n\n\"If it ain't asking what I ought not to ask, Mr. Angelo, how did you come\nto be so friendless and in such trouble when you were little? Do you mind\ntelling? But don't, if you do.\"\n\n\"Oh, we don't mind it at all, madam; in our case it was merely\nmisfortune, and nobody's fault. Our parents were well to do, there in\nItaly, and we were their only child. We were of the old Florentine\nnobility\"--Rowena's heart gave a great bound, her nostrils expanded, and\na fine light played in her eyes--\"and when the war broke out, my father\nwas on the losing side and had to fly for his life. His estates were\nconfiscated, his personal property seized, and there we were, in Germany,\nstrangers, friendless, and in fact paupers. My brother and I were ten\nyears old, and well educated for that age, very studious, very fond of\nour books, and well grounded in the German, French, Spanish, and English\nlanguages. Also, we were marvelous musical prodigies--if you will allow\nme to say it, it being only the truth.\n\n\"Our father survived his misfortunes only a month, our mother soon\nfollowed him, and we were alone in the world. Our parents could have\nmade themselves comfortable by exhibiting us as a show, and they had many\nand large offers; but the thought revolted their pride, and they said\nthey would starve and die first. But what they wouldn't consent to do,\nwe had to do without the formality of consent. We were seized for the\ndebts occasioned by their illness and their funerals, and placed among\nthe attractions of a cheap museum in Berlin to earn the liquidation\nmoney. It took us two years to get out of that slavery. We traveled all\nabout Germany, receiving no wages, and not even our keep. We had to be\nexhibited for nothing, and beg our bread.\n\n\"Well, madam, the rest is not of much consequence. When we escaped from\nthat slavery at twelve years of age, we were in some respects men.\nExperience had taught us some valuable things; among others, how to take\ncare of ourselves, how to avoid and defeat sharks and sharpers, and how\nto conduct our own business for our own profit and without other people's\nhelp. We traveled everywhere--years and years--picking up smatterings\nof strange tongues, familiarizing ourselves with strange sights and\nstrange customs, accumulating an education of a wide and varied and\ncurious sort. It was a pleasant life. We went to Venice--to London,\nParis, Russia, India, China, Japan--\"\n\nAt this point Nancy, the slave woman, thrust her head in at the door and\nexclaimed:\n\n\"Ole Missus, de house is plum' jam full o' people, en dey's jes\na-spi'lin' to see de gen'lemen!\" She indicated the twins with a nod of\nher head, and tucked it back out of sight again.\n\nIt was a proud occasion for the widow, and she promised herself high\nsatisfaction in showing off her fine foreign birds before her neighbors\nand friends--simple folk who had hardly ever seen a foreigner of any\nkind, and never one of any distinction or style. Yet her feeling was\nmoderate indeed when contrasted with Rowena's. Rowena was in the clouds,\nshe walked on air; this was to be the greatest day, the most romantic\nepisode in the colorless history of that dull country town. She was to\nbe familiarly near the source of its glory and feel the full flood of it\npour over her and about her; the other girls could only gaze and envy,\nnot partake.\n\nThe widow was ready, Rowena was ready, so also were the foreigners.\n\nThe party moved along the hall, the twins in advance, and entered the\nopen parlor door, whence issued a low hum of conversation. The twins took\na position near the door, the widow stood at Luigi's side, Rowena stood\nbeside Angelo, and the march-past and the introductions began. The widow\nwas all smiles and contentment. She received the procession and passed\nit on to Rowena.\n\n\"Good mornin', Sister Cooper\"--handshake.\n\n\"Good morning, Brother Higgins--Count Luigi Capello, Mr. Higgins\"\n--handshake, followed by a devouring stare and \"I'm glad to see ye,\"\non the part of Higgins, and a courteous inclination of the head and a\npleasant \"Most happy!\" on the part of Count Luigi.\n\n\"Good mornin', Roweny\"--handshake.\n\n\"Good morning, Mr. Higgins--present you to Count Angelo Capello.\"\nHandshake, admiring stare, \"Glad to see ye\"--courteous nod, smily \"Most\nhappy!\" and Higgins passes on.\n\nNone of these visitors was at ease, but, being honest people, they didn't\npretend to be. None of them had ever seen a person bearing a title of\nnobility before, and none had been expecting to see one now, consequently\nthe title came upon them as a kind of pile-driving surprise and caught\nthem unprepared. A few tried to rise to the emergency, and got out an\nawkward \"My lord,\" or \"Your lordship,\" or something of that sort, but the\ngreat majority were overwhelmed by the unaccustomed word and its dim and\nawful associations with gilded courts and stately ceremony and anointed\nkingship, so they only fumbled through the handshake and passed on,\nspeechless. Now and then, as happens at all receptions everywhere, a\nmore than ordinary friendly soul blocked the procession and kept it\nwaiting while he inquired how the brothers liked the village, and how\nlong they were going to stay, and if their family was well, and dragged\nin the weather, and hoped it would get cooler soon, and all that sort of\nthing, so as to be able to say, when he got home, \"I had quite a long\ntalk with them\"; but nobody did or said anything of a regrettable kind,\nand so the great affair went through to the end in a creditable and\nsatisfactory fashion.\n\nGeneral conversation followed, and the twins drifted about from group to\ngroup, talking easily and fluently and winning approval, compelling\nadmiration and achieving favor from all. The widow followed their\nconquering march with a proud eye, and every now and then Rowena said to\nherself with deep satisfaction, \"And to think they are ours--all ours!\"\n\nThere were no idle moments for mother or daughter. Eager inquiries\nconcerning the twins were pouring into their enchanted ears all the time;\neach was the constant center of a group of breathless listeners; each\nrecognized that she knew now for the first time the real meaning of that\ngreat word Glory, and perceived the stupendous value of it, and\nunderstood why men in all ages had been willing to throw away meaner\nhappiness, treasure, life itself, to get a taste of its sublime and\nsupreme joy. Napoleon and all his kind stood accounted for--and\njustified.\n\nWhen Rowena had at last done all her duty by the people in the parlor,\nshe went upstairs to satisfy the longings of an overflow meeting there,\nfor the parlor was not big enough to hold all the comers. Again she was\nbesieged by eager questioners, and again she swam in sunset seas of\nglory. When the forenoon was nearly gone, she recognized with a pang\nthat this most splendid episode of her life was almost over, that nothing\ncould prolong it, that nothing quite its equal could ever fall to her\nfortune again. But never mind, it was sufficient unto itself, the grand\noccasion had moved on an ascending scale from the start, and was a noble\nand memorable success. If the twins could but do some crowning act now\nto climax it, something usual, something startling, something to\nconcentrate upon themselves the company's loftiest admiration, something\nin the nature of an electric surprise--\n\nHere a prodigious slam-banging broke out below, and everybody rushed down\nto see. It was the twins, knocking out a classic four-handed piece on\nthe piano in great style. Rowena was satisfied--satisfied down to the\nbottom of her heart.\n\nThe young strangers were kept long at the piano. The villagers were\nastonished and enchanted with the magnificence of their performance, and\ncould not bear to have them stop. All the music that they had ever heard\nbefore seemed spiritless prentice-work and barren of grace and charm when\ncompared with these intoxicating floods of melodious sound. They realized\nthat for once in their lives they were hearing masters.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 7 -- The Unknown Nymph\n\n     _One of the most striking differences between a cat and a\n     lie is that a cat has only nine lives._ --Pudd'nhead\n     Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nThe company broke up reluctantly, and drifted toward their several\nhomes, chatting with vivacity and all agreeing that it would be many a\nlong day before Dawson's Landing would see the equal of this one again.\nThe twins had accepted several invitations while the reception was in\nprogress, and had also volunteered to play some duets at an amateur\nentertainment for the benefit of a local charity. Society was eager to\nreceive them to its bosom. Judge Driscoll had the good fortune to secure\nthem for an immediate drive, and to be the first to display them in\npublic. They entered his buggy with him and were paraded down the main\nstreet, everybody flocking to the windows and sidewalks to see.\n\nThe judge showed the strangers the new graveyard, and the jail, and where\nthe richest man lived, and the Freemasons' hall, and the Methodist\nchurch, and the Presbyterian church, and where the Baptist church was\ngoing to be when they got some money to build it with, and showed them\nthe town hall and the slaughterhouse, and got out the independent fire\ncompany in uniform and had them put out an imaginary fire; then he let\nthem inspect the muskets of the militia company, and poured out an\nexhaustless stream of enthusiasm over all these splendors, and seemed\nvery well satisfied with the responses he got, for the twins admired his\nadmiration, and paid him back the best they could, though they could have\ndone better if some fifteen or sixteen hundred thousand previous\nexperiences of this sort in various countries had not already rubbed off\na considerable part of the novelty in it.\n\nThe judge laid himself out hospitality to make them have a good time, and\nif there was a defect anywhere, it was not his fault. He told them a good\nmany humorous anecdotes, and always forgot the nub, but they were always\nable to furnish it, for these yarns were of a pretty early vintage, and\nthey had had many a rejuvenating pull at them before. And he told them\nall about his several dignities, and how he had held this and that and\nthe other place of honor or profit, and had once been to the legislature,\nand was now president of the Society of Freethinkers. He said the\nsociety had been in existence four years, and already had two members,\nand was firmly established. He would call for the brothers in the\nevening, if they would like to attend a meeting of it.\n\nAccordingly he called for them, and on the way he told them all about\nPudd'nhead Wilson, in order that they might get a favorable impression of\nhim in advance and be prepared to like him. This scheme succeeded--the\nfavorable impression was achieved. Later it was confirmed and solidified\nwhen Wilson proposed that out of courtesy to the strangers the usual\ntopics be put aside and the hour be devoted to conversation upon ordinary\nsubjects and the cultivation of friendly relations and good-fellowship--a\nproposition which was put to vote and carried.\n\nThe hour passed quickly away in lively talk, and when it was ended, the\nlonesome and neglected Wilson was richer by two friends than he had been\nwhen it began. He invited the twins to look in at his lodgings\npresently, after disposing of an intervening engagement, and they\naccepted with pleasure.\n\nToward the middle of the evening, they found themselves on the road to\nhis house. Pudd'nhead was at home waiting for them and putting in his\ntime puzzling over a thing which had come under his notice that morning.\nThe matter was this: He happened to be up very early--at dawn, in fact;\nand he crossed the hall, which divided his cottage through the center,\nand entered a room to get something there. The window of the room had no\ncurtains, for that side of the house had long been unoccupied, and\nthrough this window he caught sight of something which surprised and\ninterested him. It was a young woman--a young woman where properly no\nyoung woman belonged; for she was in Judge Driscoll's house, and in the\nbedroom over the judge's private study or sitting room. This was young\nTom Driscoll's bedroom. He and the judge, the judge's widowed sister Mrs.\nPratt, and three Negro servants were the only people who belonged in the\nhouse. Who, then, might this young lady be? The two houses were\nseparated by an ordinary yard, with a low fence running back through its\nmiddle from the street in front to the lane in the rear. The distance\nwas not great, and Wilson was able to see the girl very well, the window\nshades of the room she was in being up, and the window also. The girl had\non a neat and trim summer dress, patterned in broad stripes of pink and\nwhite, and her bonnet was equipped with a pink veil. She was practicing\nsteps, gaits and attitudes, apparently; she was doing the thing\ngracefully, and was very much absorbed in her work. Who could she be, and\nhow came she to be in young Tom Driscoll's room?\n\nWilson had quickly chosen a position from which he could watch the girl\nwithout running much risk of being seen by her, and he remained there\nhoping she would raise her veil and betray her face. But she\ndisappointed him. After a matter of twenty minutes she disappeared and\nalthough he stayed at his post half an hour longer, she came no more.\n\nToward noon he dropped in at the judge's and talked with Mrs. Pratt about\nthe great event of the day, the levee of the distinguished foreigners at\nAunt Patsy Cooper's. He asked after her nephew Tom, and she said he was\non his way home and that she was expecting him to arrive a little before\nnight, and added that she and the judge were gratified to gather from his\nletters that he was conducting himself very nicely and creditably--at\nwhich Wilson winked to himself privately. Wilson did not ask if there was\na newcomer in the house, but he asked questions that would have brought\nlight-throwing answers as to that matter if Mrs. Pratt had had any light\nto throw; so he went away satisfied that he knew of things that were\ngoing on in her house of which she herself was not aware.\n\nHe was now awaiting for the twins, and still puzzling over the problem of\nwho that girl might be, and how she happened to be in that young fellow's\nroom at daybreak in the morning.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 8 -- Marse Tom Tramples His Chance\n\n     _The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady\n     and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a\n     whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money._ --Pudd'nhead\n     Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _Consider well the proportions of things. It is better to be\n     a young June bug than an old bird of paradise._ --Pudd'nhead\n     Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nIt is necessary now to hunt up Roxy.\n\nAt the time she was set free and went away chambermaiding, she was\nthirty-five. She got a berth as second chambermaid on a Cincinnati boat\nin the New Orleans trade, the _Grand Mogul_. A couple of trips made her\nwonted and easygoing at the work, and infatuated her with the stir and\nadventure and independence of steamboat life. Then she was promoted and\nbecome head chambermaid. She was a favorite with the officers, and\nexceedingly proud of their joking and friendly way with her.\n\nDuring eight years she served three parts of the year on that boat, and\nthe winters on a Vicksburg packet. But now for two months, she had had\nrheumatism in her arms, and was obliged to let the washtub alone. So she\nresigned. But she was well fixed--rich, as she would have described it;\nfor she had lived a steady life, and had banked four dollars every month\nin New Orleans as a provision for her old age. She said in the start\nthat she had \"put shoes on one bar'footed nigger to tromple on her with,\"\nand that one mistake like that was enough; she would be independent of\nthe human race thenceforth forevermore if hard work and economy could\naccomplish it. When the boat touched the levee at New Orleans she bade\ngood-by to her comrades on the _Grand Mogul_ and moved her kit ashore.\n\nBut she was back in a hour. The bank had gone to smash and carried her\nfour hundred dollars with it. She was a pauper and homeless. Also\ndisabled bodily, at least for the present. The officers were full of\nsympathy for her in her trouble, and made up a little purse for her. She\nresolved to go to her birthplace; she had friends there among the Negros,\nand the unfortunate always help the unfortunate, she was well aware of\nthat; those lowly comrades of her youth would not let her starve.\n\nShe took the little local packet at Cairo, and now she was on the\nhomestretch. Time had worn away her bitterness against her son, and she\nwas able to think of him with serenity. She put the vile side of him out\nof her mind, and dwelt only on recollections of his occasional acts of\nkindness to her. She gilded and otherwise decorated these, and made them\nvery pleasant to contemplate. She began to long to see him. She would go\nand fawn upon him slavelike--for this would have to be her attitude, of\ncourse--and maybe she would find that time had modified him, and that he\nwould be glad to see his long-forgotten old nurse and treat her gently.\nThat would be lovely; that would make her forget her woes and her\npoverty.\n\nHer poverty! That thought inspired her to add another castle to her\ndream: maybe he would give her a trifle now and then--maybe a dollar,\nonce a month, say; any little thing like that would help, oh, ever so\nmuch.\n\nBy the time she reached Dawson's Landing, she was her old self again; her\nblues were gone, she was in high feather. She would get along, surely;\nthere were many kitchens where the servants would share their meals with\nher, and also steal sugar and apples and other dainties for her to carry\nhome--or give her a chance to pilfer them herself, which would answer\njust as well. And there was the church. She was a more rabid and devoted\nMethodist than ever, and her piety was no sham, but was strong and\nsincere. Yes, with plenty of creature comforts and her old place in the\namen corner in her possession again, she would be perfectly happy and at\npeace thenceforward to the end.\n\nShe went to Judge Driscoll's kitchen first of all. She was received\nthere in great form and with vast enthusiasm. Her wonderful travels, and\nthe strange countries she had seen, and the adventures she had had, made\nher a marvel and a heroine of romance. The Negros hung enchanted upon a\ngreat story of her experiences, interrupting her all along with eager\nquestions, with laughter, exclamations of delight, and expressions of\napplause; and she was obliged to confess to herself that if there was\nanything better in this world than steamboating, it was the glory to be\ngot by telling about it. The audience loaded her stomach with their\ndinners, and then stole the pantry bare to load up her basket.\n\nTom was in St. Louis. The servants said he had spent the best part of\nhis time there during the previous two years. Roxy came every day, and\nhad many talks about the family and its affairs. Once she asked why Tom\nwas away so much. The ostensible \"Chambers\" said:\n\n\"De fac' is, ole marster kin git along better when young marster's away\nden he kin when he's in de town; yes, en he love him better, too; so he\ngives him fifty dollahs a month--\"\n\n\"No, is dat so? Chambers, you's a-jokin', ain't you?\"\n\n\"'Clah to goodness I ain't, Mammy; Marse Tom tole me so his own self. But\nnemmine, 'tain't enough.\"\n\n\"My lan', what de reason 'tain't enough?\"\n\n\"Well, I's gwine to tell you, if you gimme a chanst, Mammy. De reason it\nain't enough is 'ca'se Marse Tom gambles.\"\n\nRoxy threw up her hands in astonishment, and Chambers went on:\n\n\"Ole marster found it out, 'ca'se he had to pay two hundred dollahs for\nMarse Tom's gamblin' debts, en dat's true, Mammy, jes as dead certain as\nyou's bawn.\"\n\n\"Two--hund'd dollahs! Why, what is you talkin' 'bout?\nTwo--hund'd--dollahs. Sakes alive, it's 'mos' enough to buy a tol'able\ngood secondhand nigger wid. En you ain't lyin', honey? You wouldn't lie\nto you' old Mammy?\"\n\n\"It's God's own truth, jes as I tell you--two hund'd dollahs--I wisht I\nmay never stir outen my tracks if it ain't so. En, oh, my lan', ole Marse\nwas jes a-hoppin'! He was b'ilin' mad, I tell you! He tuck 'n'\ndissenhurrit him.\"\n\n\"Disen_whiched_ him?\"\n\n\"Dissenhurrit him.\"\n\n\"What's dat? What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Means he bu'sted de will.\"\n\n\"Bu's--ted de will! He wouldn't _ever_ treat him so! Take it back, you\nmis'able imitation nigger dat I bore in sorrow en tribbilation.\"\n\nRoxy's pet castle--an occasional dollar from Tom's pocket--was tumbling\nto ruin before her eyes. She could not abide such a disaster as that;\nshe couldn't endure the thought of it. Her remark amused Chambers.\n\n\"Yah-yah-yah! Jes listen to dat! If I's imitation, what is you? Bofe of\nus is imitation _white_--dat's what we is--en pow'ful good imitation,\ntoo. Yah-yah-yah! We don't 'mount to noth'n as imitation _niggers_; en\nas for--\"\n\n\"Shet up yo' foolin', 'fo' I knock you side de head, en tell me 'bout de\nwill. Tell me 'tain't bu'sted--do, honey, en I'll never forgit you.\"\n\n\"Well, _'tain't_--'ca'se dey's a new one made, en Marse Tom's all right\nag'in. But what is you in sich a sweat 'bout it for, Mammy? 'Tain't\nnone o' your business I don't reckon.\"\n\n\"'Tain't none o' my business? Whose business is it den, I'd like to\nknow? Wuz I his mother tell he was fifteen years old, or wusn't I?--you\nanswer me dat. En you speck I could see him turned out po' and ornery on\nde worl' en never care noth'n' 'bout it? I reckon if you'd ever be'n a\nmother yo'self, Valet de Chambers, you wouldn't talk sich foolishness as\ndat.\"\n\n\"Well, den, ole Marse forgive him en fixed up de will ag'in--do dat\nsatisfy you?\"\n\nYes, she was satisfied now, and quite happy and sentimental over it. She\nkept coming daily, and at last she was told that Tom had come home. She\nbegan to tremble with emotion, and straightway sent to beg him to let his\n\"po' ole nigger Mammy have jes one sight of him en die for joy.\"\n\nTom was stretched at his lazy ease on a sofa when Chambers brought the\npetition. Time had not modified his ancient detestation of the humble\ndrudge and protector of his boyhood; it was still bitter and\nuncompromising. He sat up and bent a severe gaze upon the face of the\nyoung fellow whose name he was unconsciously using and whose family\nrights he was enjoying. He maintained the gaze until the victim of it\nhad become satisfactorily pallid with terror, then he said:\n\n\"What does the old rip want with me?\"\n\nThe petition was meekly repeated.\n\n\"Who gave you permission to come and disturb me with the social\nattentions of niggers?\"\n\nTom had risen. The other young man was trembling now, visibly. He saw\nwhat was coming, and bent his head sideways, and put up his left arm to\nshield it. Tom rained cuffs upon the head and its shield, saying no\nword: the victim received each blow with a beseeching, \"Please, Marse\nTom!--oh, please, Marse Tom!\" Seven blows--then Tom said, \"Face the\ndoor--march!\" He followed behind with one, two, three solid kicks. The\nlast one helped the pure-white slave over the door-sill, and he limped\naway mopping his eyes with his old, ragged sleeve. Tom shouted after\nhim, \"Send her in!\"\n\nThen he flung himself panting on the sofa again, and rasped out the\nremark, \"He arrived just at the right moment; I was full to the brim with\nbitter thinkings, and nobody to take it out of. How refreshing it was!\nI feel better.\"\n\nTom's mother entered now, closing the door behind her, and approached her\nson with all the wheedling and supplication servilities that fear and\ninterest can impart to the words and attitudes of the born slave. She\nstopped a yard from her boy and made two or three admiring exclamations\nover his manly stature and general handsomeness, and Tom put an arm under\nhis head and hoisted a leg over the sofa back in order to look properly\nindifferent.\n\n\"My lan', how you is growed, honey! 'Clah to goodness, I wouldn't\na-knowed you, Marse Tom! 'Deed I wouldn't! Look at me good; does you\n'member old Roxy? Does you know yo' old nigger mammy, honey? Well now, I\nkin lay down en die in peace, 'ca'se I'se seed--\"\n\n\"Cut it short, Goddamn it, cut it short! What is it you want?\"\n\n\"You heah dat? Jes the same old Marse Tom, al'ays so gay and funnin' wid\nde ole mammy. I'uz jes as shore--\"\n\n\"Cut it short, I tell you, and get along! What do you want?\"\n\nThis was a bitter disappointment. Roxy had for so many days nourished\nand fondled and petted her notion that Tom would be glad to see his old\nnurse, and would make her proud and happy to the marrow with a cordial\nword or two, that it took two rebuffs to convince her that he was not\nfunning, and that her beautiful dream was a fond and foolish variety, a\nshabby and pitiful mistake. She was hurt to the heart, and so ashamed\nthat for a moment she did not quite know what to do or how to act. Then\nher breast began to heave, the tears came, and in her forlornness she was\nmoved to try that other dream of hers--an appeal to her boy's charity;\nand so, upon the impulse, and without reflection, she offered her\nsupplication:\n\n\"Oh, Marse Tom, de po' ole mammy is in sich hard luck dese days; en she's\nkinder crippled in de arms and can't work, en if you could gimme a\ndollah--on'y jes one little dol--\"\n\nTom was on his feet so suddenly that the supplicant was startled into a\njump herself.\n\n\"A dollar!--give you a dollar! I've a notion to strangle you! Is _that_\nyour errand here? Clear out! And be quick about it!\"\n\nRoxy backed slowly toward the door. When she was halfway she stopped,\nand said mournfully:\n\n\"Marse Tom, I nussed you when you was a little baby, en I raised you all\nby myself tell you was 'most a young man; en now you is young en rich, en\nI is po' en gitt'n ole, en I come heah b'leavin' dat you would he'p de\nole mammy 'long down de little road dat's lef' 'twix' her en de grave,\nen--\"\n\nTom relished this tune less than any that he had preceded it, for it\nbegan to wake up a sort of echo in his conscience; so he interrupted and\nsaid with decision, though without asperity, that he was not in a\nsituation to help her, and wasn't going to do it.\n\n\"Ain't you ever gwine to he'p me, Marse Tom?\"\n\n\"No! Now go away and don't bother me any more.\"\n\nRoxy's head was down, in an attitude of humility. But now the fires of\nher old wrongs flamed up in her breast and began to burn fiercely. She\nraised her head slowly, till it was well up, and at the same time her\ngreat frame unconsciously assumed an erect and masterful attitude, with\nall the majesty and grace of her vanished youth in it. She raised her\nfinger and punctuated with it.\n\n\"You has said de word. You has had yo' chance, en you has trompled it\nunder yo' foot. When you git another one, you'll git down on yo' knees\nen _beg_ for it!\"\n\nA cold chill went to Tom's heart, he didn't know why; for he did not\nreflect that such words, from such an incongruous source, and so solemnly\ndelivered, could not easily fail of that effect. However, he did the\nnatural thing: he replied with bluster and mockery.\n\n\"_You'll_ give me a chance--_you_! Perhaps I'd better get down on my\nknees now! But in case I don't--just for argument's sake--what's going\nto happen, pray?\"\n\n\"Dis is what is gwine to happen, I's gwine as straight to yo' uncle as I\nkin walk, en tell him every las' thing I knows 'bout you.\"\n\nTom's cheek blenched, and she saw it. Disturbing thoughts began to chase\neach other through his head. \"How can she know? And yet she must have\nfound out--she looks it. I've had the will back only three months, and\nam already deep in debt again, and moving heaven and earth to save myself\nfrom exposure and destruction, with a reasonably fair show of getting the\nthing covered up if I'm let alone, and now this fiend has gone and found\nme out somehow or other. I wonder how much she knows? Oh, oh, oh, it's\nenough to break a body's heart! But I've got to humor her--there's no\nother way.\"\n\nThen he worked up a rather sickly sample of a gay laugh and a hollow\nchipperness of manner, and said:\n\n\"Well, well, Roxy dear, old friends like you and me mustn't quarrel.\nHere's your dollar--now tell me what you know.\"\n\nHe held out the wildcat bill; she stood as she was, and made no movement.\nIt was her turn to scorn persuasive foolery now, and she did not waste\nit. She said, with a grim implacability in voice and manner which made\nTom almost realize that even a former slave can remember for ten minutes\ninsults and injuries returned for compliments and flatteries received,\nand can also enjoy taking revenge for them when the opportunity offers:\n\n\"What does I know? I'll tell you what I knows, I knows enough to bu'st\ndat will to flinders--en more, mind you, _more!_\"\n\nTom was aghast.\n\n\"More?\" he said, \"What do you call more? Where's there any room for\nmore?\"\n\nRoxy laughed a mocking laugh, and said scoffingly, with a toss of her\nhead, and her hands on her hips:\n\n\"Yes!--oh, I reckon! _co'se_ you'd like to know--wid yo' po' little ole\nrag dollah. What you reckon I's gwine to tell _you_ for?--you ain't got\nno money. I's gwine to tell yo' uncle--en I'll do it dis minute,\ntoo--he'll gimme FIVE dollahs for de news, en mighty glad, too.\"\n\nShe swung herself around disdainfully, and started away. Tom was in a\npanic. He seized her skirts, and implored her to wait. She turned and\nsaid, loftily:\n\n\"Look-a-heah, what 'uz it I tole you?\"\n\n\"You--you--I don't remember anything. What was it you told me?\"\n\n\"I tole you dat de next time I give you a chance you'd git down on yo'\nknees en beg for it.\"\n\nTom was stupefied for a moment. He was panting with excitement. Then he\nsaid:\n\n\"Oh, Roxy, you wouldn't require your young master to do such a horrible\nthing. You can't mean it.\"\n\n\"I'll let you know mighty quick whether I means it or not! You call me\nnames, en as good as spit on me when I comes here, po' en ornery en\n'umble, to praise you for bein' growed up so fine and handsome, en tell\nyou how I used to nuss you en tend you en watch you when you 'uz sick en\nhadn't no mother but me in de whole worl', en beg you to give de po' ole\nnigger a dollah for to get her som'n' to eat, en you call me\nnames--_names_, dad blame you! Yassir, I gives you jes one chance mo',\nand dat's _now_, en it las' on'y half a second--you hear?\"\n\nTom slumped to his knees and began to beg, saying:\n\n\"You see I'm begging, and it's honest begging, too! Now tell me, Roxy,\ntell me.\"\n\nThe heir of two centuries of unatoned insult and outrage looked down on\nhim and seemed to drink in deep draughts of satisfaction. Then she said:\n\n\"Fine nice young white gen'l'man kneelin' down to a nigger wench! I's\nwanted to see dat jes once befo' I's called. Now, Gabr'el, blow de hawn,\nI's ready . . . Git up!\"\n\nTom did it. He said, humbly:\n\n\"Now, Roxy, don't punish me any more. I deserved what I've got, but be\ngood and let me off with that. Don't go to uncle. Tell me--I'll give\nyou the five dollars.\"\n\n\"Yes, I bet you will; en you won't stop dah, nuther. But I ain't gwine\nto tell you heah--\"\n\n\"Good gracious, no!\"\n\n\"Is you 'feared o' de ha'nted house?\"\n\n\"N-no.\"\n\n\"Well, den, you come to de ha'nted house 'bout ten or 'leven tonight, en\nclimb up de ladder, 'ca'se de sta'rsteps is broke down, en you'll find\nme. I's a-roostin' in de ha'nted house 'ca'se I can't 'ford to roos'\nnowher's else.\" She started toward the door, but stopped and said,\n\"Gimme de dollah bill!\" He gave it to her. She examined it and said,\n\"H'm--like enough de bank's bu'sted.\" She started again, but halted\nagain. \"Has you got any whisky?\"\n\n\"Yes, a little.\"\n\n\"Fetch it!\"\n\nHe ran to his room overhead and brought down a bottle which was\ntwo-thirds full. She tilted it up and took a drink. Her eyes sparkled\nwith satisfaction, and she tucked the bottle under her shawl, saying,\n\"It's prime. I'll take it along.\"\n\nTom humbly held the door for her, and she marched out as grim and erect\nas a grenadier.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 9 -- Tom Practices Sycophancy\n\n     _Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a\n     funeral? It is because we are not the person involved._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition.\n     There was once a man who, not being able to find any other\n     fault with his coal, complained that there were too many\n     prehistoric toads in it._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nTom flung himself on the sofa, and put his throbbing head in his hands,\nand rested his elbows on his knees. He rocked himself back and forth and\nmoaned.\n\n\"I've knelt to a nigger wench!\" he muttered. \"I thought I had struck the\ndeepest depths of degradation before, but oh, dear, it was nothing to\nthis. . . . Well, there is one consolation, such as it is--I've struck\nbottom this time; there's nothing lower.\"\n\nBut that was a hasty conclusion.\n\nAt ten that night he climbed the ladder in the haunted house, pale, weak,\nand wretched. Roxy was standing in the door of one of the rooms,\nwaiting, for she had heard him.\n\nThis was a two-story log house which had acquired the reputation a few\nyears ago of being haunted, and that was the end of its usefulness.\nNobody would live in it afterward, or go near it by night, and most\npeople even gave it a wide berth in the daytime. As it had no\ncompetition, it was called _the_ haunted house. It was getting crazy and\nruinous now, from long neglect. It stood three hundred yards beyond\nPudd'nhead Wilson's house, with nothing between but vacancy. It was the\nlast house in the town at that end.\n\nTom followed Roxy into the room. She had a pile of clean straw in the\ncorner for a bed, some cheap but well-kept clothing was hanging on the\nwall, there was a tin lantern freckling the floor with little spots of\nlight, and there were various soap and candle boxes scattered about,\nwhich served for chairs. The two sat down. Roxy said:\n\n\"Now den, I'll tell you straight off, en I'll begin to k'leck de money\nlater on; I ain't in no hurry. What does you reckon I's gwine to tell\nyou?\"\n\n\"Well, you--you--oh, Roxy, don't make it too hard for me! Come right out\nand tell me you've found out somehow what a shape I'm in on account of\ndissipation and foolishness.\"\n\n\"Disposition en foolishness! NO sir, dat ain't it. Dat jist ain't\nnothin' at all, 'longside o' what _I_ knows.\"\n\nTom stared at her, and said:\n\n\"Why, Roxy, what do you mean?\"\n\nShe rose, and gloomed above him like a Fate.\n\n\"I means dis--en it's de Lord's truth. You ain't no more kin to ole\nMarse Driscoll den I is! _dat's_ what I means!\" and her eyes flamed\nwith triumph.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Yassir, en _dat_ ain't all! You's a _nigger!_--_bawn_ a nigger and a\n_slave!_--en you's a nigger en a slave dis minute; en if I opens my mouf\nole Marse Driscoll'll sell you down de river befo' you is two days older\nden what you is now!\"\n\n\"It's a thundering lie, you miserable old blatherskite!\"\n\n\"It ain't no lie, nuther. It's just de truth, en nothin' _but_ de truth,\nso he'p me. Yassir--you's my _son_--\"\n\n\"You devil!\"\n\n\"En dat po' boy dat you's be'n a-kickin' en a-cuffin' today is Percy\nDriscoll's son en yo' _marster_--\"\n\n\"You beast!\"\n\n\"En _his_ name is Tom Driscoll, en _yo's_ name's Valet de Chambers, en\nyou ain't GOT no fambly name, beca'se niggers don't _have_ em!\"\n\nTom sprang up and seized a billet of wood and raised it, but his mother\nonly laughed at him, and said:\n\n\"Set down, you pup! Does you think you kin skyer me? It ain't in you,\nnor de likes of you. I reckon you'd shoot me in de back, maybe, if you\ngot a chance, for dat's jist yo' style--_I_ knows you, throo en\nthroo--but I don't mind gitt'n killed, beca'se all dis is down in writin'\nand it's in safe hands, too, en de man dat's got it knows whah to look\nfor de right man when I gits killed. Oh, bless yo' soul, if you puts yo'\nmother up for as big a fool as _you_ is, you's pow'ful mistaken, I kin\ntell you! Now den, you set still en behave yo'self; en don't you git up\nag'in till I tell you!\"\n\nTom fretted and chafed awhile in a whirlwind of disorganizing sensations\nand emotions, and finally said, with something like settled conviction:\n\n\"The whole thing is moonshine; now then, go ahead and do your worst; I'm\ndone with you.\"\n\nRoxy made no answer. She took the lantern and started for the door. Tom\nwas in a cold panic in a moment.\n\n\"Come back, come back!\" he wailed. \"I didn't mean it, Roxy; I take it\nall back, and I'll never say it again! Please come back, Roxy!\"\n\nThe woman stood a moment, then she said gravely:\n\n\"Dat's one thing you's got to stop, Valet de Chambers. You can't call me\n_Roxy_, same as if you was my equal. Chillen don't speak to dey mammies\nlike dat. You'll call me ma or mammy, dat's what you'll call\nme--leastways when de ain't nobody aroun'. _Say_ it!\"\n\nIt cost Tom a struggle, but he got it out.\n\n\"Dat's all right, don't you ever forgit it ag'in, if you knows what's\ngood for you. Now den, you had said you wouldn't ever call it lies en\nmoonshine ag'in. I'll tell you dis, for a warnin': if you ever does say\nit ag'in, it's de LAS' time you'll ever say it to me; I'll tramp as\nstraight to de judge as I kin walk, en tell him who you is, en _prove_\nit. Does you b'lieve me when I says dat?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" groaned Tom, \"I more than believe it; I _know_ it.\"\n\nRoxy knew her conquest was complete. She could have proved nothing to\nanybody, and her threat of writings was a lie; but she knew the person\nshe was dealing with, and had made both statements without any doubt as\nto the effect they would produce.\n\nShe went and sat down on her candle box, and the pride and pomp of her\nvictorious attitude made it a throne. She said:\n\n\"Now den, Chambers, we's gwine to talk business, en dey ain't gwine to be\nno mo' foolishness. In de fust place, you gits fifty dollahs a month;\nyou's gwine to han' over half of it to yo' ma. Plank it out!\"\n\nBut Tom had only six dollars in the world. He gave her that, and\npromised to start fair on next month's pension.\n\n\"Chambers, how much is you in debt?\"\n\nTom shuddered, and said:\n\n\"Nearly three hundred dollars.\"\n\n\"How is you gwine to pay it?\"\n\nTom groaned out: \"Oh, I don't know; don't ask me such awful questions.\"\n\nBut she stuck to her point until she wearied a confession out of him: he\nhad been prowling about in disguise, stealing small valuables from\nprivate houses; in fact, he made a good deal of a raid on his fellow\nvillagers a fortnight before, when he was supposed to be in St. Louis;\nbut he doubted if he had sent away enough stuff to realize the required\namount, and was afraid to make a further venture in the present excited\nstate of the town. His mother approved of his conduct, and offered to\nhelp, but this frightened him. He tremblingly ventured to say that if\nshe would retire from the town he should feel better and safer, and could\nhold his head higher--and was going on to make an argument, but she\ninterrupted and surprised him pleasantly by saying she was ready; it\ndidn't make any difference to her where she stayed, so that she got her\nshare of the pension regularly. She said she would not go far, and would\ncall at the haunted house once a month for her money. Then she said:\n\n\"I don't hate you so much now, but I've hated you a many a year--and\nanybody would. Didn't I change you off, en give you a good fambly en a\ngood name, en made you a white gen'l'man en rich, wid store clothes\non--en what did I git for it? You despised me all de time, en was al'ays\nsayin' mean hard things to me befo' folks, en wouldn't ever let me forgit\nI's a nigger--en--en--\"\n\nShe fell to sobbing, and broke down. Tom said: \"But you know I didn't\nknow you were my mother; and besides--\"\n\n\"Well, nemmine 'bout dat, now; let it go. I's gwine to fo'git it.\" Then\nshe added fiercely, \"En don't ever make me remember it ag'in, or you'll\nbe sorry, _I_ tell you.\"\n\nWhen they were parting, Tom said, in the most persuasive way he could\ncommand:\n\n\"Ma, would you mind telling me who was my father?\"\n\nHe had supposed he was asking an embarrassing question. He was mistaken.\nRoxy drew herself up with a proud toss of her head, and said:\n\n\"Does I mine tellin' you? No, dat I don't! You ain't got no 'casion to\nbe shame' o' yo' father, _I_ kin tell you. He wuz de highest quality in\ndis whole town--ole Virginny stock. Fust famblies, he wuz. Jes as good\nstock as de Driscolls en de Howards, de bes' day dey ever seed.\" She put\non a little prouder air, if possible, and added impressively: \"Does you\n'member Cunnel Cecil Burleigh Essex, dat died de same year yo' young\nMarse Tom Driscoll's pappy died, en all de Masons en Odd Fellers en\nChurches turned out en give him de bigges' funeral dis town ever seed?\nDat's de man.\"\n\nUnder the inspiration of her soaring complacency the departed graces of\nher earlier days returned to her, and her bearing took to itself a\ndignity and state that might have passed for queenly if her surroundings\nhad been a little more in keeping with it.\n\n\"Dey ain't another nigger in dis town dat's as highbawn as you is. Now\nden, go 'long! En jes you hold yo' head up as high as you want to--you\nhas de right, en dat I kin swah.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 10 -- The Nymph Revealed\n\n     _All say, \"How hard it is that we have to die\"--a strange\n     complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to\n     live._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _When angry, count four; when very angry, swear._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nEvery now and then, after Tom went to bed, he had sudden wakings out of\nhis sleep, and his first thought was, \"Oh, joy, it was all a dream!\"\nThen he laid himself heavily down again, with a groan and the muttered\nwords, \"A nigger! I am a nigger! Oh, I wish I was dead!\"\n\nHe woke at dawn with one more repetition of this horror, and then he\nresolved to meddle no more with that treacherous sleep. He began to\nthink. Sufficiently bitter thinkings they were. They wandered along\nsomething after this fashion:\n\n\"Why were niggers _and_ whites made? What crime did the uncreated first\nnigger commit that the curse of birth was decreed for him? And why is\nthis awful difference made between white and black? . . . How hard the\nnigger's fate seems, this morning!--yet until last night such a thought\nnever entered my head.\"\n\nHe sighed and groaned an hour or more away. Then \"Chambers\" came humbly\nin to say that breakfast was nearly ready. \"Tom\" blushed scarlet to see\nthis aristocratic white youth cringe to him, a nigger, and call him\n\"Young Marster.\" He said roughly:\n\n\"Get out of my sight!\" and when the youth was gone, he muttered, \"He has\ndone me no harm, poor wretch, but he is an eyesore to me now, for he is\nDriscoll, the young gentleman, and I am a--oh, I wish I was dead!\"\n\nA gigantic eruption, like that of Krakatoa a few years ago, with the\naccompanying earthquakes, tidal waves, and clouds of volcanic dust,\nchanges the face of the surrounding landscape beyond recognition,\nbringing down the high lands, elevating the low, making fair lakes where\ndeserts had been, and deserts where green prairies had smiled before.\nThe tremendous catastrophe which had befallen Tom had changed his moral\nlandscape in much the same way. Some of his low places he found lifted to\nideals, some of his ideas had sunk to the valleys, and lay there with the\nsackcloth and ashes of pumice stone and sulphur on their ruined heads.\n\nFor days he wandered in lonely places, thinking, thinking, thinking\n--trying to get his bearings. It was new work. If he met a friend, he\nfound that the habit of a lifetime had in some mysterious way vanished\n--his arm hung limp, instead of involuntarily extending the hand for a\nshake. It was the \"nigger\" in him asserting its humility, and he blushed\nand was abashed. And the \"nigger\" in him was surprised when the white\nfriend put out his hand for a shake with him. He found the \"nigger\" in\nhim involuntarily giving the road, on the sidewalk, to a white rowdy and\nloafer. When Rowena, the dearest thing his heart knew, the idol of his\nsecret worship, invited him in, the \"nigger\" in him made an embarrassed\nexcuse and was afraid to enter and sit with the dread white folks on\nequal terms. The \"nigger\" in him went shrinking and skulking here and\nthere and yonder, and fancying it saw suspicion and maybe detection in\nall faces, tones, and gestures. So strange and uncharacteristic was\nTom's conduct that people noticed it, and turned to look after him when\nhe passed on; and when he glanced back--as he could not help doing, in\nspite of his best resistance--and caught that puzzled expression in a\nperson's face, it gave him a sick feeling, and he took himself out of\nview as quickly as he could. He presently came to have a hunted sense\nand a hunted look, and then he fled away to the hilltops and the\nsolitudes. He said to himself that the curse of Ham was upon him.\n\nHe dreaded his meals; the \"nigger\" in him was ashamed to sit at the white\nfolk's table, and feared discovery all the time; and once when Judge\nDriscoll said, \"What's the matter with you? You look as meek as a\nnigger,\" he felt as secret murderers are said to feel when the accuser\nsays, \"Thou art the man!\" Tom said he was not well, and left the table.\n\nHis ostensible \"aunt's\" solicitudes and endearments were become a terror\nto him, and he avoided them.\n\nAnd all the time, hatred of his ostensible \"uncle\" was steadily growing\nin his heart; for he said to himself, \"He is white; and I am his chattel,\nhis property, his goods, and he can sell me, just as he could his dog.\"\n\nFor as much as a week after this, Tom imagined that his character had\nundergone a pretty radical change. But that was because he did not know\nhimself.\n\nIn several ways his opinions were totally changed, and would never go\nback to what they were before, but the main structure of his character\nwas not changed, and could not be changed. One or two very important\nfeatures of it were altered, and in time effects would result from this,\nif opportunity offered--effects of a quite serious nature, too. Under the\ninfluence of a great mental and moral upheaval, his character and his\nhabits had taken on the appearance of complete change, but after a while\nwith the subsidence of the storm, both began to settle toward their\nformer places. He dropped gradually back into his old frivolous and\neasygoing ways and conditions of feeling and manner of speech, and no\nfamiliar of his could have detected anything in him that differentiated\nhim from the weak and careless Tom of other days.\n\nThe theft raid which he had made upon the village turned out better than\nhe had ventured to hope. It produced the sum necessary to pay his gaming\ndebts, and saved him from exposure to his uncle and another smashing of\nthe will. He and his mother learned to like each other fairly well. She\ncouldn't love him, as yet, because there \"warn't nothing _to_ him,\" as\nshe expressed it, but her nature needed something or somebody to rule\nover, and he was better than nothing. Her strong character and\naggressive and commanding ways compelled Tom's admiration in spite of the\nfact that he got more illustrations of them than he needed for his\ncomfort. However, as a rule her conversation was made up of racy tales\nabout the privacies of the chief families of the town (for she went\nharvesting among their kitchens every time she came to the village), and\nTom enjoyed this. It was just in his line. She always collected her\nhalf of his pension punctually, and he was always at the haunted house to\nhave a chat with her on these occasions. Every now and then, she paid\nhim a visit there on between-days also.\n\nOccasions he would run up to St. Louis for a few weeks, and at last\ntemptation caught him again. He won a lot of money, but lost it, and\nwith it a deal more besides, which he promised to raise as soon as\npossible.\n\nFor this purpose he projected a new raid on his town. He never meddled\nwith any other town, for he was afraid to venture into houses whose ins\nand outs he did not know and the habits of whose households he was not\nacquainted with. He arrived at the haunted house in disguise on the\nWednesday before the advent of the twins--after writing his Aunt Pratt\nthat he would not arrive until two days after--and laying in hiding there\nwith his mother until toward daylight Friday morning, when he went to his\nuncle's house and entered by the back way with his own key, and slipped\nup to his room where he could have the use of the mirror and toilet\narticles. He had a suit of girl's clothes with him in a bundle as a\ndisguise for his raid, and was wearing a suit of his mother's clothing,\nwith black gloves and veil. By dawn he was tricked out for his raid, but\nhe caught a glimpse of Pudd'nhead Wilson through the window over the way,\nand knew that Pudd'nhead had caught a glimpse of him. So he entertained\nWilson with some airs and graces and attitudes for a while, then stepped\nout of sight and resumed the other disguise, and by and by went down and\nout the back way and started downtown to reconnoiter the scene of his\nintended labors.\n\nBut he was ill at ease. He had changed back to Roxy's dress, with the\nstoop of age added to the disguise, so that Wilson would not bother\nhimself about a humble old women leaving a neighbor's house by the back\nway in the early morning, in case he was still spying. But supposing\nWilson had seen him leave, and had thought it suspicious, and had also\nfollowed him? The thought made Tom cold. He gave up the raid for the\nday, and hurried back to the haunted house by the obscurest route he\nknew. His mother was gone; but she came back, by and by, with the news of\nthe grand reception at Patsy Cooper's, and soon persuaded him that the\nopportunity was like a special Providence, it was so inviting and\nperfect. So he went raiding, after all, and made a nice success of it\nwhile everybody was gone to Patsy Cooper's. Success gave him nerve and\neven actual intrepidity; insomuch, indeed, that after he had conveyed his\nharvest to his mother in a back alley, he went to the reception himself,\nand added several of the valuables of that house to his takings.\n\nAfter this long digression we have now arrived once more at the point\nwhere Pudd'nhead Wilson, while waiting for the arrival of the twins on\nthat same Friday evening, sat puzzling over the strange apparition of\nthat morning--a girl in young Tom Driscoll's bedroom; fretting, and\nguessing, and puzzling over it, and wondering who the shameless creature\nmight be.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 11 -- Pudd'nhead's Thrilling Discovery\n\n     _There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author, and\n     the three form a rising scale of compliment: 1--to tell him\n     you have read one of his books; 2--to tell him you have read\n     all of his books; 3--to ask him to let you read the\n     manuscript of his forthcoming book. No. 1 admits you to his\n     respect; No. 2 admits you to his admiration; No. 3 carries\n     you clear into his heart._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nThe twins arrived presently, and talk began. It flowed along chattily\nand sociably, and under its influence the new friendship gathered ease\nand strength. Wilson got out his Calendar, by request, and read a\npassage or two from it, which the twins praised quite cordially. This\npleased the author so much that he complied gladly when they asked him to\nlend them a batch of the work to read at home. In the course of their\nwide travels, they had found out that there are three sure ways of\npleasing an author; they were now working the best of the three.\n\nThere was an interruption now. Young Driscoll appeared, and joined the\nparty. He pretended to be seeing the distinguished strangers for the\nfirst time when they rose to shake hands; but this was only a blind, as\nhe had already had a glimpse of them, at the reception, while robbing the\nhouse. The twins made mental note that he was smooth-faced and rather\nhandsome, and smooth and undulatory in his movements--graceful, in fact.\nAngelo thought he had a good eye; Luigi thought there was something\nveiled and sly about it. Angelo thought he had a pleasant free-and-easy\nway of talking; Luigi thought it was more so than was agreeable. Angelo\nthought he was a sufficiently nice young man; Luigi reserved his\ndecision. Tom's first contribution to the conversation was a question\nwhich he had put to Wilson a hundred times before. It was always cheerily\nand good-natured put, and always inflicted a little pang, for it touched\na secret sore; but this time the pang was sharp, since strangers were\npresent.\n\n\"Well, how does the law come on? Had a case yet?\"\n\nWilson bit his lip, but answered, \"No--not yet,\" with as much\nindifference as he could assume. Judge Driscoll had generously left the\nlaw feature out of Wilson's biography which he had furnished to the\ntwins. Young Tom laughed pleasantly, and said:\n\n\"Wilson's a lawyer, gentlemen, but he doesn't practice now.\"\n\nThe sarcasm bit, but Wilson kept himself under control, and said without\npassion:\n\n\"I don't practice, it is true. It is true that I have never had a case,\nand have had to earn a poor living for twenty years as an expert\naccountant in a town where I can't get a hold of a set of books to\nuntangle as often as I should like. But it is also true that I did\nmyself well for the practice of the law. By the time I was your age,\nTom, I had chosen a profession, and was soon competent to enter upon it.\"\nTom winced. \"I never got a chance to try my hand at it, and I may never\nget a chance; and yet if I ever do get it, I shall be found ready, for I\nhave kept up my law studies all these years.\"\n\n\"That's it; that's good grit! I like to see it. I've a notion to throw\nall my business your way. My business and your law practice ought to\nmake a pretty gay team, Dave,\" and the young fellow laughed again.\n\n\"If you will throw--\" Wilson had thought of the girl in Tom's bedroom,\nand was going to say, \"If you will throw the surreptitious and\ndisreputable part of your business my way, it may amount to something,\"\nbut thought better of it and said,\n\n\"However, this matter doesn't fit well in a general conversation.\"\n\n\"All right, we'll change the subject; I guess you were about to give me\nanother dig, anyway, so I'm willing to change. How's the Awful Mystery\nflourishing these days? Wilson's got a scheme for driving plain window\nglass panes out of the market by decorating it with greasy finger marks,\nand getting rich by selling it at famine prices to the crowned heads over\nin Europe to outfit their palaces with. Fetch it out, Dave.\"\n\nWilson brought three of his glass strips, and said:\n\n\"I get the subject to pass the fingers of his right hand through his hair,\nso as to get a little coating of the natural oil on them, and then press\nthe balls of them on the glass. A fine and delicate print of the lines\nin the skin results, and is permanent, if it doesn't come in contact with\nsomething able to rub it off. You begin, Tom.\"\n\n\"Why, I think you took my finger marks once or twice before.\"\n\n\"Yes, but you were a little boy the last time, only about twelve years\nold.\"\n\n\"That's so. Of course, I've changed entirely since then, and variety is\nwhat the crowned heads want, I guess.\"\n\nHe passed his fingers through his crop of short hair, and pressed them\none at a time on the glass. Angelo made a print of his fingers on\nanother glass, and Luigi followed with a third. Wilson marked the\nglasses with names and dates, and put them away. Tom gave one of his\nlittle laughs, and said:\n\n\"I thought I wouldn't say anything, but if variety is what you are after,\nyou have wasted a piece of glass. The hand print of one twin is the same\nas the hand print of the fellow twin.\"\n\n\"Well, it's done now, and I like to have them both, anyway,\" said Wilson,\nreturned to his place.\n\n\"But look here, Dave,\" said Tom, \"you used to tell people's fortunes, too,\nwhen you took their finger marks. Dave's just an all-round genius--a\ngenius of the first water, gentlemen; a great scientist running to seed\nhere in this village, a prophet with the kind of honor that prophets\ngenerally get at home--for here they don't give shucks for his\nscientifics, and they call his skull a notion factory--hey, Dave, ain't\nit so? But never mind, he'll make his mark someday--finger mark, you\nknow, he-he! But really, you want to let him take a shy at your palms\nonce; it's worth twice the price of admission or your money's returned at\nthe door. Why, he'll read your wrinkles as easy as a book, and not only\ntell you fifty or sixty things that's going to happen to you, but fifty\nor sixty thousand that ain't. Come, Dave, show the gentlemen what an\ninspired jack-at-all-science we've got in this town, and don't know it.\"\n\nWilson winced under this nagging and not very courteous chaff, and the\ntwins suffered with him and for him. They rightly judged, now, that the\nbest way to relieve him would be to take the thing in earnest and\ntreat it with respect, ignoring Tom's rather overdone raillery; so Luigi\nsaid:\n\n\"We have seen something of palmistry in our wanderings, and know very\nwell what astonishing things it can do. If it isn't a science, and one\nof the greatest of them too, I don't know what its other name ought to\nbe. In the Orient--\"\n\nTom looked surprised and incredulous. He said:\n\n\"That juggling a science? But really, you ain't serious, are you?\"\n\n\"Yes, entirely so. Four years ago we had our hands read out to us as if\nour plans had been covered with print.\"\n\n\"Well, do you mean to say there was actually anything in it?\" asked Tom,\nhis incredulity beginning to weaken a little.\n\n\"There was this much in it,\" said Angelo: \"what was told us of our\ncharacters was minutely exact--we could have not have bettered it\nourselves. Next, two or three memorable things that have happened to us\nwere laid bare--things which no one present but ourselves could have\nknown about.\"\n\n\"Why, it's rank sorcery!\" exclaimed Tom, who was now becoming very much\ninterested. \"And how did they make out with what was going to happen to\nyou in the future?\"\n\n\"On the whole, quite fairly,\" said Luigi. \"Two or three of the most\nstriking things foretold have happened since; much the most striking one\nof all happened within that same year. Some of the minor prophesies have\ncome true; some of the minor and some of the major ones have not been\nfulfilled yet, and of course may never be: still, I should be more\nsurprised if they failed to arrive than if they didn't.\"\n\nTom was entirely sobered, and profoundly impressed. He said,\napologetically:\n\n\"Dave, I wasn't meaning to belittle that science; I was only chaffing\n--chattering, I reckon I'd better say. I wish you would look at their\npalms. Come, won't you?\"\n\n\"Why certainly, if you want me to; but you know I've had no chance to\nbecome an expert, and don't claim to be one. When a past event is\nsomewhat prominently recorded in the palm, I can generally detect that,\nbut minor ones often escape me--not always, of course, but often--but I\nhaven't much confidence in myself when it comes to reading the future. I\nam talking as if palmistry was a daily study with me, but that is not so.\nI haven't examined half a dozen hands in the last half dozen years; you\nsee, the people got to joking about it, and I stopped to let the talk die\ndown. I'll tell you what we'll do, Count Luigi: I'll make a try at your\npast, and if I have any success there--no, on the whole, I'll let the\nfuture alone; that's really the affair of an expert.\"\n\nHe took Luigi's hand. Tom said:\n\n\"Wait--don't look yet, Dave! Count Luigi, here's paper and pencil. Set\ndown that thing that you said was the most striking one that was foretold\nto you, and happened less than a year afterward, and give it to me so I\ncan see if Dave finds it in your hand.\"\n\nLuigi wrote a line privately, and folded up the piece of paper, and\nhanded it to Tom, saying:\n\n\"I'll tell you when to look at it, if he finds it.\"\n\nWilson began to study Luigi's palm, tracing life lines, heart lines, head\nlines, and so on, and noting carefully their relations with the cobweb of\nfiner and more delicate marks and lines that enmeshed them on all sides;\nhe felt of the fleshy cushion at the base of the thumb and noted its\nshape; he felt of the fleshy side of the hand between the wrist and the\nbase of the little finger and noted its shape also; he painstakingly\nexamined the fingers, observing their form, proportions, and natural\nmanner of disposing themselves when in repose. All this process was\nwatched by the three spectators with absorbing interest, their heads bent\ntogether over Luigi's palm, and nobody disturbing the stillness with a\nword. Wilson now entered upon a close survey of the palm again, and his\nrevelations began.\n\nHe mapped out Luigi's character and disposition, his tastes, aversions,\nproclivities, ambitions, and eccentricities in a way which sometimes made\nLuigi wince and the others laugh, but both twins declared that the chart\nwas artistically drawn and was correct.\n\nNext, Wilson took up Luigi's history. He proceeded cautiously and with\nhesitation now, moving his finger slowly along the great lines of the\npalm, and now and then halting it at a \"star\" or some such landmark, and\nexamining that neighborhood minutely. He proclaimed one or two past\nevents, Luigi confirmed his correctness, and the search went on.\nPresently Wilson glanced up suddenly with a surprised expression.\n\n\"Here is a record of an incident which you would perhaps not wish me\nto--\"\n\n\"Bring it out,\" said Luigi, good-naturedly. \"I promise you sha'n't\nembarrass me.\"\n\nBut Wilson still hesitated, and did not seem quite to know what to do.\nThen he said:\n\n\"I think it is too delicate a matter to--to--I believe I would rather\nwrite it or whisper it to you, and let you decide for yourself whether\nyou want it talked out or not.\"\n\n\"That will answer,\" said Luigi. \"Write it.\"\n\nWilson wrote something on a slip of paper and handed it to Luigi, who\nread it to himself and said to Tom:\n\n\"Unfold your slip and read it, Mr. Driscoll.\"\n\nTom said:\n\n\"'IT WAS PROPHESIED THAT I WOULD KILL A MAN. IT CAME TRUE BEFORE THE\nYEAR WAS OUT.'\"\n\nTom added, \"Great Scott!\"\n\nLuigi handed Wilson's paper to Tom, and said:\n\n\"Now read this one.\"\n\nTom read:\n\n\"'YOU HAVE KILLED SOMEONE, BUT WHETHER MAN, WOMAN, OR CHILD, I DO NOT\nMAKE OUT.'\"\n\n\"Caesar's ghost!\" commented Tom, with astonishment. \"It beats anything\nthat was ever heard of! Why, a man's own hand is his deadliest enemy!\nJust think of that--a man's own hand keeps a record of the deepest and\nfatalest secrets of his life, and is treacherously ready to expose\nhimself to any black-magic stranger that comes along. But what do you\nlet a person look at your hand for, with that awful thing printed on it?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Luigi, reposefully, \"I don't mind it. I killed the man for\ngood reasons, and I don't regret it.\"\n\n\"What were the reasons?\"\n\n\"Well, he needed killing.\"\n\n\"I'll tell you why he did it, since he won't say himself,\" said Angelo,\nwarmly. \"He did it to save my life, that's what he did it for. So it was\na noble act, and not a thing to be hid in the dark.\"\n\n\"So it was, so it was,\" said Wilson. \"To do such a thing to save a\nbrother's life is a great and fine action.\"\n\n\"Now come,\" said Luigi, \"it is very pleasant to hear you say these\nthings, but for unselfishness, or heroism, or magnanimity, the\ncircumstances won't stand scrutiny. You overlook one detail; suppose I\nhadn't saved Angelo's life, what would have become of mine? If I had let\nthe man kill him, wouldn't he have killed me, too? I saved my own life,\nyou see.\"\n\n\"Yes, that is your way of talking,\" said Angelo, \"but I know you--I\ndon't believe you thought of yourself at all. I keep that weapon yet\nthat Luigi killed the man with, and I'll show it to you sometime. That\nincident makes it interesting, and it had a history before it came into\nLuigi's hands which adds to its interest. It was given to Luigi by a\ngreat Indian prince, the Gaikowar of Baroda, and it had been in his\nfamily two or three centuries. It killed a good many disagreeable people\nwho troubled the hearthstone at one time or another. It isn't much too\nlook at, except it isn't shaped like other knives, or dirks, or whatever\nit may be called--here, I'll draw it for you.\" He took a sheet of paper\nand made a rapid sketch. \"There it is--a broad and murderous blade, with\nedges like a razor for sharpness. The devices engraved on it are the\nciphers or names of its long line of possessors--I had Luigi's name added\nin Roman letters myself with our coat of arms, as you see. You notice\nwhat a curious handle the thing has. It is solid ivory, polished like a\nmirror, and is four or five inches long--round, and as thick as a large\nman's wrist, with the end squared off flat, for your thumb to rest on;\nfor you grasp it, with your thumb resting on the blunt end--so--and lift\nit along and strike downward. The Gaikowar showed us how the thing was\ndone when he gave it to Luigi, and before that night was ended, Luigi had\nused the knife, and the Gaikowar was a man short by reason of it. The\nsheath is magnificently ornamented with gems of great value. You will\nfind a sheath more worth looking at than the knife itself, of course.\"\n\nTom said to himself:\n\n\"It's lucky I came here. I would have sold that knife for a song; I\nsupposed the jewels were glass.\"\n\n\"But go on; don't stop,\" said Wilson. \"Our curiosity is up now, to hear\nabout the homicide. Tell us about that.\"\n\n\"Well, briefly, the knife was to blame for that, all around. A native\nservant slipped into our room in the palace in the night, to kill us and\nsteal the knife on account of the fortune encrusted on its sheath,\nwithout a doubt. Luigi had it under his pillow; we were in bed together.\nThere was a dim night-light burning. I was asleep, but Luigi was awake,\nand he thought he detected a vague form nearing the bed. He slipped the\nknife out of the sheath and was ready and unembarrassed by hampering\nbedclothes, for the weather was hot and we hadn't any. Suddenly that\nnative rose at the bedside, and bent over me with his right hand lifted\nand a dirk in it aimed at my throat; but Luigi grabbed his wrist, pulled\nhim downward, and drove his own knife into the man's neck. That is the\nwhole story.\"\n\nWilson and Tom drew deep breaths, and after some general chat about the\ntragedy, Pudd'nhead said, taking Tom's hand:\n\n\"Now, Tom, I've never had a look at your palms, as it happens; perhaps\nyou've got some little questionable privacies that need--hel-lo!\"\n\nTom had snatched away his hand, and was looking a good deal confused.\n\n\"Why, he's blushing!\" said Luigi.\n\nTom darted an ugly look at him, and said sharply:\n\n\"Well, if I am, it ain't because I'm a murderer!\" Luigi's dark face\nflushed, but before he could speak or move, Tom added with anxious haste:\n\"Oh, I beg a thousand pardons. I didn't mean that; it was out before I\nthought, and I'm very, very sorry--you must forgive me!\"\n\nWilson came to the rescue, and smoothed things down as well as he could;\nand in fact was entirely successful as far as the twins were concerned,\nfor they felt sorrier for the affront put upon him by his guest's\noutburst of ill manners than for the insult offered to Luigi. But the\nsuccess was not so pronounced with the offender. Tom tried to seem at\nhis ease, and he went through the motions fairly well, but at bottom he\nfelt resentful toward all the three witnesses of his exhibition; in fact,\nhe felt so annoyed at them for having witnessed it and noticed it that he\nalmost forgot to feel annoyed at himself for placing it before them.\nHowever, something presently happened which made him almost comfortable,\nand brought him nearly back to a state of charity and friendliness. This\nwas a little spat between the twins; not much of a spat, but still a\nspat; and before they got far with it, they were in a decided condition\nof irritation while pretending to be actuated by more respectable\nmotives. By his help the fire got warmed up to the blazing point, and he\nmight have had the happiness of seeing the flames show up in another\nmoment, but for the interruption of a knock on the door--an interruption\nwhich fretted him as much as it gratified Wilson. Wilson opened the\ndoor.\n\nThe visitor was a good-natured, ignorant, energetic middle-aged Irishman\nnamed John Buckstone, who was a great politician in a small way, and\nalways took a large share in public matters of every sort. One of the\ntown's chief excitements, just now, was over the matter of rum. There\nwas a strong rum party and a strong anti-rum party. Buckstone was\ntraining with the rum party, and he had been sent to hunt up the twins\nand invite them to attend a mass meeting of that faction. He delivered\nhis errand, and said the clans were already gathering in the big hall\nover the market house. Luigi accepted the invitation cordially. Angelo\nless cordially, since he disliked crowds, and did not drink the powerful\nintoxicants of America. In fact, he was even a teetotaler sometimes\n--when it was judicious to be one.\n\nThe twins left with Buckstone, and Tom Driscoll joined the company with\nthem uninvited.\n\nIn the distance, one could see a long wavering line of torches drifting\ndown the main street, and could hear the throbbing of the bass drum, the\nclash of cymbals, the squeaking of a fife or two, and the faint roar of\nremote hurrahs. The tail end of this procession was climbing the market\nhouse stairs when the twins arrived in its neighborhood; when they\nreached the hall, it was full of people, torches, smoke, noise, and\nenthusiasm. They were conducted to the platform by Buckstone--Tom\nDriscoll still following--and were delivered to the chairman in the midst\nof a prodigious explosion of welcome. When the noise had moderated a\nlittle, the chair proposed that \"our illustrious guests be at once\nelected, by complimentary acclamation, to membership in our ever-glorious\norganization, the paradise of the free and the perdition of the slave.\"\n\nThis eloquent discharge opened the floodgates of enthusiasm again, and\nthe election was carried with thundering unanimity. Then arose a storm\nof cries:\n\n\"Wet them down! Wet them down! Give them a drink!\"\n\nGlasses of whisky were handed to the twins. Luigi waves his aloft, then\nbrought it to his lips; but Angelo set his down. There was another storm\nof cries.\n\n\"What's the matter with the other one?\" \"What is the blond one going\nback on us for?\" \"Explain! Explain!\"\n\nThe chairman inquired, and then reported:\n\n\"We have made an unfortunate mistake, gentlemen. I find that the Count\nAngelo Capello is opposed to our creed--is a teetotaler, in fact, and was\nnot intending to apply for membership with us. He desires that we\nreconsider the vote by which he was elected. What is the pleasure of the\nhouse?\"\n\nThere was a general burst of laughter, plentifully accented with\nwhistlings and catcalls, but the energetic use of the gavel presently\nrestored something like order. Then a man spoke from the crowd, and said\nthat while he was very sorry that the mistake had been made, it would not\nbe possible to rectify it at the present meeting. According to the\nbylaws, it must go over to the next regular meeting for action. He would\nnot offer a motion, as none was required. He desired to apologize to the\ngentlemen in the name of the house, and begged to assure him that as far\nas it might lie in the power of the Sons of Liberty, his temporary\nmembership in the order would be made pleasant to him.\n\nThis speech was received with great applause, mixed with cries of:\n\n\"That's the talk!\" \"He's a good fellow, anyway, if he _is_ a teetotaler!\"\n\"Drink his health!\" \"Give him a rouser, and no heeltaps!\"\n\nGlasses were handed around, and everybody on the platform drank Angelo's\nhealth, while the house bellowed forth in song:\n\n\n      For he's a jolly good fel-low,\n      For he's a jolly good fel-low,\n      For he's a jolly good fe-el-low,\n      Which nobody can deny.\n\nTom Driscoll drank. It was his second glass, for he had drunk Angelo's\nthe moment that Angelo had set it down. The two drinks made him very\nmerry--almost idiotically so, and he began to take a most lively and\nprominent part in the proceedings, particularly in the music and catcalls\nand side remarks.\n\nThe chairman was still standing at the front, the twins at his side. The\nextraordinarily close resemblance of the brothers to each other suggested\na witticism to Tom Driscoll, and just as the chairman began a speech he\nskipped forward and said, with an air of tipsy confidence, to the\naudience:\n\n\"Boys, I move that he keeps still and lets this human philopena snip you\nout a speech.\"\n\nThe descriptive aptness of the phrase caught the house, and a mighty\nburst of laughter followed.\n\nLuigi's southern blood leaped to the boiling point in a moment under the\nsharp humiliation of this insult delivered in the presence of four\nhundred strangers. It was not in the young man's nature to let the\nmatter pass, or to delay the squaring of the account. He took a couple of\nstrides and halted behind the unsuspecting joker. Then he drew back and\ndelivered a kick of such titanic vigor that it lifted Tom clear over the\nfootlights and landed him on the heads of the front row of the Sons of\nLiberty.\n\nEven a sober person does not like to have a human being emptied on him\nwhen he is not doing any harm; a person who is not sober cannot endure\nsuch an attention at all. The nest of Sons of Liberty that Driscoll\nlanded in had not a sober bird in it; in fact there was probably not an\nentirely sober one in the auditorium. Driscoll was promptly and\nindignantly flung on the heads of Sons in the next row, and these Sons\npassed him on toward the rear, and then immediately began to pummel the\nfront row Sons who had passed him to them. This course was strictly\nfollowed by bench after bench as Driscoll traveled in his tumultuous and\nairy flight toward the door; so he left behind him an ever-lengthening\nwake of raging and plunging and fighting and swearing humanity. Down went\ngroup after group of torches, and presently above the deafening clatter\nof the gavel, roar of angry voices, and crash of succumbing benches, rose\nthe paralyzing cry of \"_fire!_\"\n\nThe fighting ceased instantly; the cursing ceased; for one distinctly\ndefined moment, there was a dead hush, a motionless calm, where the\ntempest had been; then with one impulse the multitude awoke to life and\nenergy again, and went surging and struggling and swaying, this way and\nthat, its outer edges melting away through windows and doors and\ngradually lessening the pressure and relieving the mass.\n\nThe fireboys were never on hand so suddenly before; for there was no\ndistance to go this time, their quarters being in the rear end of the\nmarket house, There was an engine company and a hook-and-ladder company.\nHalf of each was composed of rummies and the other half of anti-rummies,\nafter the moral and political share-and-share-alike fashion of the\nfrontier town of the period. Enough anti-rummies were loafing in quarters\nto man the engine and the ladders. In two minutes they had their red\nshirts and helmets on--they never stirred officially in unofficial\ncostume--and as the mass meeting overhead smashed through the long row of\nwindows and poured out upon the roof of the arcade, the deliverers were\nready for them with a powerful stream of water, which washed some of them\noff the roof and nearly drowned the rest. But water was preferable to\nfire, and still the stampede from the windows continued, and still the\npitiless drenching assailed it until the building was empty; then the\nfireboys mounted to the hall and flooded it with water enough to\nannihilate forty times as much fire as there was there; for a village\nfire company does not often get a chance to show off, and so when it does\nget a chance, it makes the most of it. Such citizens of that village as\nwere of a thoughtful and judicious temperament did not insure against\nfire; they insured against the fire company.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 12 -- The Shame of Judge Driscoll\n\n     _Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence\n     of fear. Except a creature be part coward, it is not a\n     compliment to say it is brave; it is merely a loose\n     misapplication of the word. Consider the flea!--incomparably\n     the bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of\n     fear were courage. Whether you are asleep or awake he will\n     attack you, caring nothing for the fact that in bulk and\n     strength you are to him as are the massed armies of the\n     earth to a sucking child; he lives both day and night and\n     all days and nights in the very lap of peril and the\n     immediate presence of death, and yet is no more afraid than\n     is the man who walks the streets of a city that was\n     threatened by an earthquake ten centuries before. When we\n     speak of Clive, Nelson, and Putnam as men who \"didn't know\n     what fear was,\" we ought always to add the flea--and put him\n     at the head of the procession._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's\n     Calendar\n\n\nJudge Driscoll was in bed and asleep by ten o'clock on Friday night, and\nhe was up and gone a-fishing before daylight in the morning with his\nfriend Pembroke Howard. These two had been boys together in Virginia\nwhen that state still ranked as the chief and most imposing member of the\nUnion, and they still coupled the proud and affectionate adjective \"old\"\nwith her name when they spoke of her. In Missouri a recognized\nsuperiority attached to any person who hailed from Old Virginia; and this\nsuperiority was exalted to supremacy when a person of such nativity could\nalso prove descent from the First Families of that great commonwealth.\nThe Howards and Driscolls were of this aristocracy. In their eyes, it\nwas a nobility. It had its unwritten laws, and they were as clearly\ndefined and as strict as any that could be found among the printed\nstatutes of the land. The F.F.V. was born a gentleman; his highest duty in\nlife was to watch over that great inheritance and keep it unsmirched. He\nmust keep his honor spotless. Those laws were his chart; his course was\nmarked out on it; if he swerved from it by so much as half a point of the\ncompass, it meant shipwreck to his honor; that is to say, degradation\nfrom his rank as a gentleman. These laws required certain things of him\nwhich his religion might forbid: then his religion must yield--the laws\ncould not be relaxed to accommodate religions or anything else. Honor\nstood first; and the laws defined what it was and wherein it differed in\ncertain details from honor as defined by church creeds and by the social\nlaws and customs of some of the minor divisions of the globe that had got\ncrowded out when the sacred boundaries of Virginia were staked out.\n\nIf Judge Driscoll was the recognized first citizen of Dawson's Landing,\nPembroke Howard was easily its recognized second citizen. He was called\n\"the great lawyer\"--an earned title. He and Driscoll were of the same\nage--a year or two past sixty.\n\nAlthough Driscoll was a freethinker and Howard a strong and determined\nPresbyterian, their warm intimacy suffered no impairment in consequence.\nThey were men whose opinions were their own property and not subject to\nrevision and amendment, suggestion or criticism, by anybody, even their\nfriends.\n\nThe day's fishing finished, they came floating downstream in their skiff,\ntalking national politics and other high matters, and presently met a\nskiff coming up from town, with a man in it who said:\n\n\"I reckon you know one of the new twins gave your nephew a kicking last\nnight, Judge?\"\n\n\"Did WHAT?\"\n\n\"Gave him a kicking.\"\n\nThe old judge's lips paled, and his eyes began to flame. He choked with\nanger for a moment, then he got out what he was trying to say:\n\n\"Well--well--go on! Give me the details!\"\n\nThe man did it. At the finish the judge was silent a minute, turning\nover in his mind the shameful picture of Tom's flight over the\nfootlights; then he said, as if musing aloud,\n\n\"H'm--I don't understand it. I was asleep at home. He didn't wake me.\nThought he was competent to manage his affair without my help, I reckon.\"\nHis face lit up with pride and pleasure at that thought, and he said with\na cheery complacency, \"I like that--it's the true old blood--hey,\nPembroke?\"\n\nHoward smiled an iron smile, and nodded his head approvingly. Then the\nnews-bringer spoke again.\n\n\"But Tom beat the twin on the trial.\"\n\nThe judge looked at the man wonderingly, and said:\n\n\"The trial? What trial?\"\n\n\"Why, Tom had him up before Judge Robinson for assault and battery.\"\n\nThe old man shrank suddenly together like one who has received a death\nstroke. Howard sprang for him as he sank forward in a swoon, and took\nhim in his arms, and bedded him on his back in the boat. He sprinkled\nwater in his face, and said to the startled visitor:\n\n\"Go, now--don't let him come to and find you here. You see what an\neffect your heedless speech has had; you ought to have been more\nconsiderate than to blurt out such a cruel piece of slander as that.\"\n\n\"I'm right down sorry I did it now, Mr. Howard, and I wouldn't have done\nit if I had thought; but it ain't slander; it's perfectly true, just as I\ntold him.\"\n\nHe rowed away. Presently the old judge came out of his faint and looked\nup piteously into the sympathetic face that was bent over him.\n\n\"Say it ain't true, Pembroke; tell me it ain't true!\" he said in a weak\nvoice.\n\nThere was nothing weak in the deep organ tones that responded:\n\n\"You know it's a lie as well as I do, old friend. He is of the best\nblood of the Old Dominion.\"\n\n\"God bless you for saying it!\" said the old gentleman, fervently. \"Ah,\nPembroke, it was such a blow!\"\n\nHoward stayed by his friend, and saw him home, and entered the house with\nhim. It was dark, and past supper-time, but the judge was not thinking\nof supper; he was eager to hear the slander refuted from headquarters,\nand as eager to have Howard hear it, too. Tom was sent for, and he came\nimmediately. He was bruised and lame, and was not a happy-looking\nobject. His uncle made him sit down, and said:\n\n\"We have been hearing about your adventure, Tom, with a handsome lie\nadded for embellishment. Now pulverize that lie to dust! What measures\nhave you taken? How does the thing stand?\"\n\nTom answered guilelessly: \"It don't stand at all; it's all over. I had\nhim up in court and beat him. Pudd'nhead Wilson defended him--first\ncase he ever had, and lost it. The judge fined the miserable hound five\ndollars for the assault.\"\n\nHoward and the judge sprang to their feet with the opening sentence\n--why, neither knew; then they stood gazing vacantly at each other.\nHoward stood a moment, then sat mournfully down without saying anything.\nThe judge's wrath began to kindle, and he burst out:\n\n\"You cur! You scum! You vermin! Do you mean to tell me that blood of\nmy race has suffered a blow and crawled to a court of law about it?\nAnswer me!\"\n\nTom's head drooped, and he answered with an eloquent silence. His uncle\nstared at him with a mixed expression of amazement and shame and\nincredulity that was sorrowful to see. At last he said:\n\n\"Which of the twins was it?\"\n\n\"Count Luigi.\"\n\n\"You have challenged him?\"\n\n\"N--no,\" hesitated Tom, turning pale.\n\n\"You will challenge him tonight. Howard will carry it.\"\n\nTom began to turn sick, and to show it. He turned his hat round and\nround in his hand, his uncle glowering blacker and blacker upon him as\nthe heavy seconds drifted by; then at last he began to stammer, and said\npiteously:\n\n\"Oh, please, don't ask me to do it, uncle! He is a murderous devil--I\nnever could--I--I'm afraid of him!\"\n\nOld Driscoll's mouth opened and closed three times before he could get it\nto perform its office; then he stormed out:\n\n\"A coward in my family! A Driscoll a coward! Oh, what have I done to\ndeserve this infamy!\" He tottered to his secretary in the corner,\nrepeated that lament again and again in heartbreaking tones, and got out\nof a drawer a paper, which he slowly tore to bits, scattering the bits\nabsently in his track as he walked up and down the room, still grieving\nand lamenting. At last he said:\n\n\"There it is, shreds and fragments once more--my will. Once more you\nhave forced me to disinherit you, you base son of a most noble father!\nLeave my sight! Go--before I spit on you!\"\n\nThe young man did not tarry. Then the judge turned to Howard:\n\n\"You will be my second, old friend?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"There is pen and paper. Draft the cartel, and lose no time.\"\n\n\"The Count shall have it in his hands in fifteen minutes,\" said Howard.\n\nTom was very heavyhearted. His appetite was gone with his property and\nhis self-respect. He went out the back way and wandered down the obscure\nlane grieving, and wondering if any course of future conduct, however\ndiscreet and carefully perfected and watched over, could win back his\nuncle's favor and persuade him to reconstruct once more that generous\nwill which had just gone to ruin before his eyes. He finally concluded\nthat it could. He said to himself that he had accomplished this sort of\ntriumph once already, and that what had been done once could be done\nagain. He would set about it. He would bend every energy to the task,\nand he would score that triumph once more, cost what it might to his\nconvenience, limit as it might his frivolous and liberty-loving life.\n\n\"To begin,\" he says to himself, \"I'll square up with the proceeds of my\nraid, and then gambling has got to be stopped--and stopped short off.\nIt's the worst vice I've got--from my standpoint, anyway, because it's\nthe one he can most easily find out, through the impatience of my\ncreditors. He thought it expensive to have to pay two hundred dollars to\nthem for me once. Expensive--_that!_ Why, it cost me the whole of his\nfortune--but, of course, he never thought of that; some people can't\nthink of any but their own side of a case. If he had known how deep I am\nin now, the will would have gone to pot without waiting for a duel to\nhelp. Three hundred dollars! It's a pile! But he'll never hear of it,\nI'm thankful to say. The minute I've cleared it off, I'm safe; and I'll\nnever touch a card again. Anyway, I won't while he lives, I make oath to\nthat. I'm entering on my last reform--I know it--yes, and I'll win; but\nafter that, if I ever slip again I'm gone.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 13 -- Tom Stares at Ruin\n\n     _When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I\n     know have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a\n     different life._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to\n     speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January,\n     September, April, November, May, March, June, December,\n     August, and February._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nThus mournfully communing with himself, Tom moped along the lane past\nPudd'nhead Wilson's house, and still on and on between fences enclosing\nvacant country on each hand till he neared the haunted house, then he\ncame moping back again, with many sighs and heavy with trouble. He sorely\nwanted cheerful company. Rowena! His heart gave a bound at the thought,\nbut the next thought quieted it--the detested twins would be there.\n\nHe was on the inhabited side of Wilson's house, and now as he approached\nit, he noticed that the sitting room was lighted. This would do; others\nmade him feel unwelcome sometimes, but Wilson never failed in courtesy\ntoward him, and a kindly courtesy does at least save one's feelings, even\nif it is not professing to stand for a welcome. Wilson heard footsteps at\nhis threshold, then the clearing of a throat.\n\n\"It's that fickle-tempered, dissipated young goose--poor devil, he find\nfriends pretty scarce today, likely, after the disgrace of carrying a\npersonal assault case into a law-court.\"\n\nA dejected knock. \"Come in!\"\n\nTom entered, and dropped into a chair, without saying anything. Wilson\nsaid kindly:\n\n\"Why, my boy, you look desolate. Don't take it so hard. Try and forget\nyou have been kicked.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear,\" said Tom, wretchedly, \"it's not that, Pudd'nhead--it's not\nthat. It's a thousand times worse than that--oh, yes, a million times\nworse.\"\n\n\"Why, Tom, what do you mean? Has Rowena--\"\n\n\"Flung me? _No_, but the old man has.\"\n\nWilson said to himself, \"Aha!\" and thought of the mysterious girl in the\nbedroom. \"The Driscolls have been making discoveries!\" Then he said\naloud, gravely:\n\n\"Tom, there are some kinds of dissipation which--\"\n\n\"Oh, shucks, this hasn't got anything to do with dissipation. He wanted\nme to challenge that derned Italian savage, and I wouldn't do it.\"\n\n\"Yes, of course he would do that,\" said Wilson in a meditative\nmatter-of-course way, \"but the thing that puzzled me was, why he didn't\nlook to that last night, for one thing, and why he let you carry such a\nmatter into a court of law at all, either before the duel or after it.\nIt's no place for it. It was not like him. I couldn't understand it.\nHow did it happen?\"\n\n\"It happened because he didn't know anything about it. He was asleep\nwhen I got home last night.\"\n\n\"And you didn't wake him? Tom, is that possible?\"\n\nTom was not getting much comfort here. He fidgeted a moment, then said:\n\n\"I didn't choose to tell him--that's all. He was going a-fishing before\ndawn, with Pembroke Howard, and if I got the twins into the common\ncalaboose--and I thought sure I could--I never dreamed of their slipping\nout on a paltry fine for such an outrageous offense--well, once in the\ncalaboose they would be disgraced, and uncle wouldn't want any duels with\nthat sort of characters, and wouldn't allow any.\n\n\"Tom, I am ashamed of you! I don't see how you could treat your good old\nuncle so. I am a better friend of his than you are; for if I had known\nthe circumstances I would have kept that case out of court until I got\nword to him and let him have the gentleman's chance.\"\n\n\"You would?\" exclaimed Tom, with lively surprise. \"And it your first\ncase! And you know perfectly well there never would have _been_ any case\nif he had got that chance, don't you? And you'd have finished your days\na pauper nobody, instead of being an actually launched and recognized\nlawyer today. And you would really have done that, would you?\"\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\nTom looked at him a moment or two, then shook his head sorrowfully and\nsaid:\n\n\"I believe you--upon my word I do. I don't know why I do, but I do.\nPudd'nhead Wilson, I think you're the biggest fool I ever saw.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\"\n\n\"Don't mention it.\"\n\n\"Well, he has been requiring you to fight the Italian, and you have\nrefused. You degenerate remnant of an honorable line! I'm thoroughly\nashamed of you, Tom!\"\n\n\"Oh, that's nothing! I don't care for anything, now that the will's torn\nup again.\"\n\n\"Tom, tell me squarely--didn't he find any fault with you for anything\nbut those two things--carrying the case into court and refusing to\nfight?\"\n\nHe watched the young fellow's face narrowly, but it was entirely\nreposeful, and so also was the voice that answered:\n\n\"No, he didn't find any other fault with me. If he had had any to find,\nhe would have begun yesterday, for he was just in the humor for it. He\ndrove that jack-pair around town and showed them the sights, and when he\ncame home he couldn't find his father's old silver watch that don't keep\ntime and he thinks so much of, and couldn't remember what he did with it\nthree or four days ago when he saw it last, and when I suggested that it\nprobably wasn't lost but stolen, it put him in a regular passion, and he\nsaid I was a fool--which convinced me, without any trouble, that that\nwas just what he was afraid _had_ happened, himself, but did not want to\nbelieve it, because lost things stand a better chance of being found\nagain than stolen ones.\"\n\n\"Whe-ew!\" whistled Wilson. \"Score another one the list.\"\n\n\"Another what?\"\n\n\"Another theft!\"\n\n\"Theft?\"\n\n\"Yes, theft. That watch isn't lost, it's stolen. There's been another\nraid on the town--and just the same old mysterious sort of thing that has\nhappened once before, as you remember.\"\n\n\"You don't mean it!\"\n\n\"It's as sure as you are born! Have you missed anything yourself?\"\n\n\"No. That is, I did miss a silver pencil case that Aunt Mary Pratt gave\nme last birthday--\"\n\n\"You'll find it stolen--that's what you'll find.\"\n\n\"No, I sha'n't; for when I suggested theft about the watch and got such a\nrap, I went and examined my room, and the pencil case was missing, but it\nwas only mislaid, and I found it again.\"\n\n\"You are sure you missed nothing else?\"\n\n\"Well, nothing of consequence. I missed a small plain gold ring worth\ntwo or three dollars, but that will turn up. I'll look again.\"\n\n\"In my opinion you'll not find it. There's been a raid, I tell you. Come\n_in!_\"\n\nMr. Justice Robinson entered, followed by Buckstone and the town\nconstable, Jim Blake. They sat down, and after some wandering and\naimless weather-conversation Wilson said:\n\n\"By the way, We've just added another to the list of thefts, maybe two.\nJudge Driscoll's old silver watch is gone, and Tom here has missed a gold\nring.\"\n\n\"Well, it is a bad business,\" said the justice, \"and gets worse the\nfurther it goes. The Hankses, the Dobsons, the Pilligrews, the Ortons,\nthe Grangers, the Hales, the Fullers, the Holcombs, in fact everybody\nthat lives around about Patsy Cooper's had been robbed of little things\nlike trinkets and teaspoons and suchlike small valuables that are easily\ncarried off. It's perfectly plain that the thief took advantage of the\nreception at Patsy Cooper's when all the neighbors were in her house and\nall their niggers hanging around her fence for a look at the show, to\nraid the vacant houses undisturbed. Patsy is miserable about it;\nmiserable on account of the neighbors, and particularly miserable on\naccount of her foreigners, of course; so miserable on their account that\nshe hasn't any room to worry about her own little losses.\"\n\n\"It's the same old raider,\" said Wilson. \"I suppose there isn't any\ndoubt about that.\"\n\n\"Constable Blake doesn't think so.\"\n\n\"No, you're wrong there,\" said Blake. \"The other times it was a man;\nthere was plenty of signs of that, as we know, in the profession, though\nwe never got hands on him; but this time it's a woman.\"\n\nWilson thought of the mysterious girl straight off. She was always in\nhis mind now. But she failed him again. Blake continued:\n\n\"She's a stoop-shouldered old woman with a covered basket on her arm, in\na black veil, dressed in mourning. I saw her going aboard the ferryboat\nyesterday. Lives in Illinois, I reckon; but I don't care where she\nlives, I'm going to get her--she can make herself sure of that.\"\n\n\"What makes you think she's the thief?\"\n\n\"Well, there ain't any other, for one thing; and for another, some nigger\ndraymen that happened to be driving along saw her coming out of or going\ninto houses, and told me so--and it just happens that they was _robbed_,\nevery time.\"\n\nIt was granted that this was plenty good enough circumstantial evidence.\nA pensive silence followed, which lasted some moments, then Wilson said:\n\n\"There's one good thing, anyway. She can't either pawn or sell Count\nLuigi's costly Indian dagger.\"\n\n\"My!\" said Tom. \"Is _that_ gone?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well, that was a haul! But why can't she pawn it or sell it?\"\n\n\"Because when the twins went home from the Sons of Liberty meeting last\nnight, news of the raid was sifting in from everywhere, and Aunt Patsy\nwas in distress to know if they had lost anything. They found that the\ndagger was gone, and they notified the police and pawnbrokers everywhere.\nIt was a great haul, yes, but the old woman won't get anything out of it,\nbecause she'll get caught.\"\n\n\"Did they offer a reward?\" asked Buckstone.\n\n\"Yes, five hundred dollars for the knife, and five hundred more for the\nthief.\"\n\n\"What a leather-headed idea!\" exclaimed the constable. \"The thief das'n't\ngo near them, nor send anybody. Whoever goes is going to get himself\nnabbed, for their ain't any pawnbroker that's going to lose the chance\nto--\"\n\nIf anybody had noticed Tom's face at that time, the gray-green color of\nit might have provoked curiosity; but nobody did. He said to himself:\n\"I'm gone! I never can square up; the rest of the plunder won't pawn or\nsell for half of the bill. Oh, I know it--I'm gone, I'm gone--and this\ntime it's for good. Oh, this is awful--I don't know what to do, nor\nwhich way to turn!\"\n\n\"Softly, softly,\" said Wilson to Blake. \"I planned their scheme for them\nat midnight last night, and it was all finished up shipshape by two this\nmorning. They'll get their dagger back, and then I'll explain to you how\nthe thing was done.\"\n\nThere were strong signs of a general curiosity, and Buckstone said:\n\n\"Well, you have whetted us up pretty sharp, Wilson, and I'm free to say\nthat if you don't mind telling us in confidence--\"\n\n\"Oh, I'd as soon tell as not, Buckstone, but as long as the twins and I\nagreed to say nothing about it, we must let it stand so. But you can take\nmy word for it, you won't be kept waiting three days. Somebody will apply\nfor that reward pretty promptly, and I'll show you the thief and the\ndagger both very soon afterward.\"\n\nThe constable was disappointed, and also perplexed. He said:\n\n\"It may all be--yes, and I hope it will, but I'm blamed if I can see my\nway through it. It's too many for yours truly.\"\n\nThe subject seemed about talked out. Nobody seemed to have anything\nfurther to offer. After a silence the justice of the peace informed\nWilson that he and Buckstone and the constable had come as a committee,\non the part of the Democratic party, to ask him to run for mayor--for the\nlittle town was about to become a city and the first charter election was\napproaching. It was the first attention which Wilson had ever received\nat the hands of any party; it was a sufficiently humble one, but it was a\nrecognition of his debut into the town's life and activities at last; it\nwas a step upward, and he was deeply gratified. He accepted, and the\ncommittee departed, followed by young Tom.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 14 -- Roxana Insists Upon Reform\n\n     _The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be\n     mentioned with commoner things. It is chief of this world's\n     luxuries, king by the grace of God over all the fruits of\n     the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels\n     eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took: we know\n     it because she repented._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nAbout the time that Wilson was bowing the committee out, Pembroke Howard\nwas entering the next house to report. He found the old judge sitting\ngrim and straight in his chair, waiting.\n\n\"Well, Howard--the news?\"\n\n\"The best in the world.\"\n\n\"Accepts, does he?\" and the light of battle gleamed joyously in the\nJudge's eye.\n\n\"Accepts? Why he jumped at it.\"\n\n\"Did, did he? Now that's fine--that's very fine. I like that. When is\nit to be?\"\n\n\"Now! Straight off! Tonight! An admirable fellow--admirable!\"\n\n\"Admirable? He's a darling! Why, it's an honor as well as a pleasure to\nstand up before such a man. Come--off with you! Go and arrange\neverything--and give him my heartiest compliments. A rare fellow, indeed;\nan admirable fellow, as you have said!\"\n\n\"I'll have him in the vacant stretch between Wilson's and the haunted\nhouse within the hour, and I'll bring my own pistols.\"\n\nJudge Driscoll began to walk the floor in a state of pleased excitement;\nbut presently he stopped, and began to think--began to think of Tom.\nTwice he moved toward the secretary, and twice he turned away again; but\nfinally he said:\n\n\"This may be my last night in the world--I must not take the chance. He\nis worthless and unworthy, but it is largely my fault. He was entrusted\nto me by my brother on his dying bed, and I have indulged him to his\nhurt, instead of training him up severely, and making a man of him, I\nhave violated my trust, and I must not add the sin of desertion to that.\nI have forgiven him once already, and would subject him to a long and\nhard trial before forgiving him again, if I could live; but I must not\nrun that risk. No, I must restore the will. But if I survive the duel, I\nwill hide it away, and he will not know, and I will not tell him until he\nreforms, and I see that his reformation is going to be permanent.\"\n\nHe redrew the will, and his ostensible nephew was heir to a fortune\nagain. As he was finishing his task, Tom, wearied with another brooding\ntramp, entered the house and went tiptoeing past the sitting room door.\nHe glanced in, and hurried on, for the sight of his uncle was nothing but\nterrors for him tonight. But his uncle was writing! That was unusual at\nthis late hour. What could he be writing? A chill of anxiety settled\ndown upon Tom's heart. Did that writing concern him? He was afraid so.\nHe reflected that when ill luck begins, it does not come in sprinkles,\nbut in showers. He said he would get a glimpse of that document or know\nthe reason why. He heard someone coming, and stepped out of sight and\nhearing. It was Pembroke Howard. What could be hatching?\n\nHoward said, with great satisfaction:\n\n\"Everything's right and ready. He's gone to the battleground with his\nsecond and the surgeon--also with his brother. I've arranged it all with\nWilson--Wilson's his second. We are to have three shots apiece.\"\n\n\"Good! How is the moon?\"\n\n\"Bright as day, nearly. Perfect, for the distance--fifteen yards. No\nwind--not a breath; hot and still.\"\n\n\"All good; all first-rate. Here, Pembroke, read this, and witness it.\"\n\nPembroke read and witnessed the will, then gave the old man's hand a\nhearty shake and said:\n\n\"Now that's right, York--but I knew you would do it. You couldn't leave\nthat poor chap to fight along without means or profession, with certain\ndefeat before him, and I knew you wouldn't, for his father's sake if not\nfor his own.\"\n\n\"For his dead father's sake, I couldn't, I know; for poor Percy--but you\nknow what Percy was to me. But mind--Tom is not to know of this unless I\nfall tonight.\"\n\n\"I understand. I'll keep the secret.\"\n\nThe judge put the will away, and the two started for the battleground. In\nanother minute the will was in Tom's hands. His misery vanished, his\nfeelings underwent a tremendous revulsion. He put the will carefully back\nin its place, and spread his mouth and swung his hat once, twice, three\ntimes around his head, in imitation of three rousing huzzahs, no sound\nissuing from his lips. He fell to communing with himself excitedly and\njoyously, but every now and then he let off another volley of dumb\nhurrahs.\n\nHe said to himself: \"I've got the fortune again, but I'll not let on\nthat I know about it. And this time I'm going to hang on to it. I take no\nmore risks. I'll gamble no more, I'll drink no more, because--well,\nbecause I'll not go where there is any of that sort of thing going on,\nagain. It's the sure way, and the only sure way; I might have thought of\nthat sooner--well, yes, if I had wanted to. But now--dear me, I've had a\nscare this time, and I'll take no more chances. Not a single chance\nmore. Land! I persuaded myself this evening that I could fetch him\naround without any great amount of effort, but I've been getting more and\nmore heavyhearted and doubtful straight along, ever since. If he tells\nme about this thing, all right; but if he doesn't, I sha'n't let on.\nI--well, I'd like to tell Pudd'nhead Wilson, but--no, I'll think about\nthat; perhaps I won't.\" He whirled off another dead huzzah, and said,\n\"I'm reformed, and this time I'll stay so, sure!\"\n\nHe was about to close with a final grand silent demonstration, when he\nsuddenly recollected that Wilson had put it out of his power to pawn or\nsell the Indian knife, and that he was once more in awful peril of\nexposure by his creditors for that reason. His joy collapsed utterly, and\nhe turned away and moped toward the door moaning and lamenting over the\nbitterness of his luck. He dragged himself upstairs, and brooded in his\nroom a long time, disconsolate and forlorn, with Luigi's Indian knife for\na text. At last he sighed and said:\n\n\"When I supposed these stones were glass and this ivory bone, the thing\nhadn't any interest for me because it hadn't any value, and couldn't help\nme out of my trouble. But now--why, now it is full of interest; yes, and\nof a sort to break a body's heart. It's a bag of gold that has turned to\ndirt and ashes in my hands. It could save me, and save me so easily, and\nyet I've got to go to ruin. It's like drowning with a life preserver in\nmy reach. All the hard luck comes to me, and all the good luck goes to\nother people--Pudd'nhead Wilson, for instance; even his career has got a\nsort of a little start at last, and what has he done to deserve it, I\nshould like to know? Yes, he has opened his own road, but he isn't\ncontent with that, but must block mine. It's a sordid, selfish world, and\nI wish I was out of it.\" He allowed the light of the candle to play upon\nthe jewels of the sheath, but the flashings and sparklings had no charm\nfor his eye; they were only just so many pangs to his heart. \"I must not\nsay anything to Roxy about this thing,\" he said. \"She is too daring. She\nwould be for digging these stones out and selling them, and then--why,\nshe would be arrested and the stones traced, and then--\" The thought made\nhim quake, and he hid the knife away, trembling all over and glancing\nfurtively about, like a criminal who fancies that the accuser is already\nat hand.\n\nShould he try to sleep? Oh, no, sleep was not for him; his trouble was\ntoo haunting, too afflicting for that. He must have somebody to mourn\nwith. He would carry his despair to Roxy.\n\nHe had heard several distant gunshots, but that sort of thing was not\nuncommon, and they had made no impression upon him. He went out at the\nback door, and turned westward. He passed Wilson's house and proceeded\nalong the lane, and presently saw several figures approaching Wilson's\nplace through the vacant lots. These were the duelists returning from the\nfight; he thought he recognized them, but as he had no desire for white\npeople's company, he stooped down behind the fence until they were out of\nhis way.\n\nRoxy was feeling fine. She said:\n\n\"Whah was you, child? Warn't you in it?\"\n\n\"In what?\"\n\n\"In de duel.\"\n\n\"Duel? Has there been a duel?\"\n\n\"Co'se dey has. De ole Jedge has be'n havin' a duel wid one o' dem\ntwins.\"\n\n\"Great Scott!\" Then he added to himself: \"That's what made him remake\nthe will; he thought he might get killed, and it softened him toward me.\nAnd that's what he and Howard were so busy about. . . . Oh dear, if the\ntwin had only killed him, I should be out of my--\"\n\n\"What is you mumblin' 'bout, Chambers? Whah was you? Didn't you know dey\nwas gwine to be a duel?\"\n\n\"No, I didn't. The old man tried to get me to fight one with Count\nLuigi, but he didn't succeed, so I reckon he concluded to patch up the\nfamily honor himself.\"\n\nHe laughed at the idea, and went rambling on with a detailed account of\nhis talk with the judge, and how shocked and ashamed the judge was to\nfind that he had a coward in his family. He glanced up at last, and got\na shock himself. Roxana's bosom was heaving with suppressed passion, and\nshe was glowering down upon him with measureless contempt written in her\nface.\n\n\"En you refuse' to fight a man dat kicked you, 'stid o' jumpin' at de\nchance! En you ain't got no mo' feelin' den to come en tell me, dat\nfetched sich a po' lowdown ornery rabbit into de worl'! Pah! it make me\nsick! It's de nigger in you, dat's what it is. Thirty-one parts o' you\nis white, en on'y one part nigger, en dat po' little one part is yo'\n_soul_. 'Tain't wuth savin'; 'tain't wuth totin' out on a shovel en\nthrowin' en de gutter. You has disgraced yo' birth. What would yo' pa\nthink o' you? It's enough to make him turn in his grave.\"\n\nThe last three sentences stung Tom into a fury, and he said to himself\nthat if his father were only alive and in reach of assassination his\nmother would soon find that he had a very clear notion of the size of his\nindebtedness to that man, and was willing to pay it up in full, and would\ndo it too, even at risk of his life; but he kept this thought to himself;\nthat was safest in his mother's present state.\n\n\"Whatever has come o' yo' Essex blood? Dat's what I can't understan'.\nEn it ain't on'y jist Essex blood dat's in you, not by a long\nsight--'deed it ain't! My great-great-great-gran'father en yo'\ngreat-great-great-great-gran'father was Ole Cap'n John Smith, de highest\nblood dat Ole Virginny ever turned out, en _his_ great-great-gran'mother,\nor somers along back dah, was Pocahontas de Injun queen, en her husbun'\nwas a nigger king outen Africa--en yit here you is, a slinkin' outen a\nduel en disgracin' our whole line like a ornery lowdown hound! Yes, it's\nde nigger in you!\"\n\nShe sat down on her candle box and fell into a reverie. Tom did not\ndisturb her; he sometimes lacked prudence, but it was not in\ncircumstances of this kind, Roxana's storm went gradually down, but it\ndied hard, and even when it seemed to be quite gone, it would now and\nthen break out in a distant rumble, so to speak, in the form of muttered\nejaculations. One of these was, \"Ain't nigger enough in him to show in\nhis fingernails, en dat takes mighty little--yit dey's enough to pain\nhis soul.\"\n\nPresently she muttered. \"Yassir, enough to paint a whole thimbleful of\n'em.\" At last her ramblings ceased altogether, and her countenance began\nto clear--a welcome sight to Tom, who had learned her moods, and knew she\nwas on the threshold of good humor now. He noticed that from time to time\nshe unconsciously carried her finger to the end of her nose. He looked\ncloser and said:\n\n\"Why, Mammy, the end of your nose is skinned. How did that come?\"\n\nShe sent out the sort of wholehearted peal of laughter which God had\nvouchsafed in its perfection to none but the happy angels in heaven and\nthe bruised and broken black slave on the earth, and said:\n\n\"Dad fetch dat duel, I be'n in it myself.\"\n\n\"Gracious! did a bullet do that?\"\n\n\"Yassir, you bet it did!\"\n\n\"Well, I declare! Why, how did that happen?\"\n\n\"Happened dis-away. I 'uz a-sett'n' here kinder dozin' in de dark, en\n_che-bang!_ goes a gun, right out dah. I skips along out towards t'other\nend o' de house to see what's gwine on, en stops by de ole winder on de\nside towards Pudd'nhead Wilson's house dat ain't got no sash in it--but\ndey ain't none of 'em got any sashes, for as dat's concerned--en I stood\ndah in de dark en look out, en dar in the moonlight, right down under me\n'uz one o' de twins a-cussin'--not much, but jist a-cussin' soft--it 'uz\nde brown one dat 'uz cussin,' 'ca'se he 'uz hit in de shoulder. En\nDoctor Claypool he 'uz a-workin' at him, en Pudd'nhead Wilson he 'uz\na-he'pin', en ole Jedge Driscoll en Pem Howard 'uz a-standin' out yonder\na little piece waitin' for 'em to get ready agin. En treckly dey squared\noff en give de word, en _bang-bang_ went de pistols, en de twin he say,\n'Ouch!'--hit him on de han' dis time--en I hear dat same bullet go\n_spat!_ ag'in de logs under de winder; en de nex' time dey shoot, de twin\nsay, 'Ouch!' ag'in, en I done it too, 'ca'se de bullet glance' on his\ncheekbone en skip up here en glance' on de side o' de winder en whiz\nright acrost my face en tuck de hide off'n my nose--why, if I'd 'a'\nbe'n jist a inch or a inch en a half furder 't would 'a' tuck de whole\nnose en disfiggered me. Here's de bullet; I hunted her up.\"\n\n\"Did you stand there all the time?\"\n\n\"Dat's a question to ask, ain't it! What else would I do? Does I git a\nchance to see a duel every day?\"\n\n\"Why, you were right in range! Weren't you afraid?\"\n\nThe woman gave a sniff of scorn.\n\n\"'Fraid! De Smith-Pocahontases ain't 'fraid o' nothin', let alone\nbullets.\"\n\n\"They've got pluck enough, I suppose; what they lack is judgment. _I_\nwouldn't have stood there.\"\n\n\"Nobody's accusin' you!\"\n\n\"Did anybody else get hurt?\"\n\n\"Yes, we all got hit 'cep' de blon' twin en de doctor en de seconds. De\nJedge didn't git hurt, but I hear Pudd'nhead say de bullet snip some o'\nhis ha'r off.\"\n\n\"'George!\" said Tom to himself, \"to come so near being out of my trouble,\nand miss it by an inch. Oh dear, dear, he will live to find me out and\nsell me to some nigger trader yet--yes, and he would do it in a minute.\"\nThen he said aloud, in a grave tone:\n\n\"Mother, we are in an awful fix.\"\n\nRoxana caught her breath with a spasm, and said:\n\n\"Chile! What you hit a body so sudden for, like dat? What's be'n en gone\nen happen'?\"\n\n\"Well, there's one thing I didn't tell you. When I wouldn't fight, he\ntore up the will again, and--\"\n\nRoxana's face turned a dead white, and she said:\n\n\"Now you's _done!_--done forever! Dat's de end. Bofe un us is gwine to\nstarve to--\"\n\n\"Wait and hear me through, can't you! I reckon that when he resolved to\nfight, himself, he thought he might get killed and not have a chance to\nforgive me any more in this life, so he made the will again, and I've\nseen it, and it's all right. But--\"\n\n\"Oh, thank goodness, den we's safe ag'in!--safe! en so what did you want\nto come here en talk sich dreadful--\"\n\n\"Hold ON, I tell you, and let me finish. The swag I gathered won't half\nsquare me up, and the first thing we know, my creditors--well, you know\nwhat'll happen.\"\n\nRoxana dropped her chin, and told her son to leave her alone--she must\nthink this matter out. Presently she said impressively:\n\n\"You got to go mighty keerful now, I tell you! En here's what you got to\ndo. He didn't git killed, en if you gives him de least reason, he'll\nbust de will ag'in, en dat's de _las'_ time, now you hear me! So--you's\ngot to show him what you kin do in de nex' few days. You got to be pison\ngood, en let him see it; you got to do everything dat'll make him b'lieve\nin you, en you got to sweeten aroun' ole Aunt Pratt, too--she's pow'ful\nstrong with de Jedge, en de bes' frien' you got. Nex', you'll go 'long\naway to Sent Louis, en dat'll _keep_ him in yo' favor. Den you go en make\na bargain wid dem people. You tell 'em he ain't gwine to live long--en\ndat's de fac', too--en tell 'em you'll pay 'em intrust, en big intrust,\ntoo--ten per--what you call it?\"\n\n\"Ten percent a month?\"\n\n\"Dat's it. Den you take and sell yo' truck aroun', a little at a time,\nen pay de intrust. How long will it las'?\"\n\n\"I think there's enough to pay the interest five or six months.\" \"Den\nyou's all right. If he don't die in six months, dat don't make no\ndiff'rence--Providence'll provide. You's gwine to be safe--if you\nbehaves.\" She bent an austere eye on him and added, \"En you IS gwine to\nbehave--does you know dat?\"\n\nHe laughed and said he was going to try, anyway. She did not unbend. She\nsaid gravely:\n\n\"Tryin' ain't de thing. You's gwine to _do_ it. You ain't gwine to\nsteal a pin--'ca'se it ain't safe no mo'; en you ain't gwine into no bad\ncomp'ny--not even once, you understand; en you ain't gwine to drink a\ndrop--nary a single drop; en you ain't gwine to gamble one single\ngamble--not one! Dis ain't what you's gwine to try to do, it's what\nyou's gwine to DO. En I'll tell you how I knows it. Dis is how. I's\ngwine to foller along to Sent Louis my own self; en you's gwine to come\nto me every day o' your life, en I'll look you over; en if you fails in\none single one o' dem things--jist _one_--I take my oath I'll come\nstraight down to dis town en tell de Jedge you's a nigger en a slave--en\n_prove_ it!\" She paused to let her words sink home. Then she added,\n\"Chambers, does you b'lieve me when I says dat?\"\n\nTom was sober enough now. There was no levity in his voice when he\nanswered:\n\n\"Yes, Mother, I know, now, that I am reformed--and permanently.\nPermanently--and beyond the reach of any human temptation.\"\n\n\"Den g'long home en begin!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 15 -- The Robber Robbed\n\n     _Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _Behold, the fool saith, \"Put not all thine eggs in the one\n     basket\"--which is but a manner of saying, \"Scatter your\n     money and your attention\"; but the wise man saith, \"Put all\n     your eggs in the one basket and--WATCH THAT BASKET!\"_\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nWhat a time of it Dawson's Landing was having! All its life it had been\nasleep, but now it hardly got a chance for a nod, so swiftly did big\nevents and crashing surprises come along in one another's wake: Friday\nmorning, first glimpse of Real Nobility, also grand reception at Aunt\nPatsy Cooper's, also great robber raid; Friday evening, dramatic kicking\nof the heir of the chief citizen in presence of four hundred people;\nSaturday morning, emergence as practicing lawyer of the long-submerged\nPudd'nhead Wilson; Saturday night, duel between chief citizen and titled\nstranger.\n\nThe people took more pride in the duel than in all the other events put\ntogether, perhaps. It was a glory to their town to have such a thing\nhappen there. In their eyes the principals had reached the summit of\nhuman honor. Everybody paid homage to their names; their praises were in\nall mouths. Even the duelists' subordinates came in for a handsome share\nof the public approbation: wherefore Pudd'nhead Wilson was suddenly\nbecome a man of consequence. When asked to run for the mayoralty Saturday\nnight, he was risking defeat, but Sunday morning found him a made man and\nhis success assured.\n\nThe twins were prodigiously great now; the town took them to its bosom\nwith enthusiasm. Day after day, and night after night, they went dining\nand visiting from house to house, making friends, enlarging and\nsolidifying their popularity, and charming and surprising all with their\nmusical prodigies, and now and then heightening the effects with samples\nof what they could do in other directions, out of their stock of rare and\ncurious accomplishments. They were so pleased that they gave the\nregulation thirty days' notice, the required preparation for citizenship,\nand resolved to finish their days in this pleasant place. That was the\nclimax. The delighted community rose as one man and applauded; and when\nthe twins were asked to stand for seats in the forthcoming aldermanic\nboard, and consented, the public contentment was rounded and complete.\n\nTom Driscoll was not happy over these things; they sunk deep, and hurt\nall the way down. He hated the one twin for kicking him, and the other\none for being the kicker's brother.\n\nNow and then the people wondered why nothing was heard of the raider, or\nof the stolen knife or the other plunder, but nobody was able to throw\nany light on that matter. Nearly a week had drifted by, and still the\nthing remained a vexed mystery.\n\nOn Sunday Constable Blake and Pudd'nhead Wilson met on the street, and\nTom Driscoll joined them in time to open their conversation for them. He\nsaid to Blake: \"You are not looking well, Blake; you seem to be annoyed\nabout something. Has anything gone wrong in the detective business? I\nbelieve you fairly and justifiably claim to have a pretty good reputation\nin that line, isn't it so?\"--which made Blake feel good, and look it;\nbut Tom added, \"for a country detective\"--which made Blake feel the other\nway, and not only look it, but betray it in his voice.\n\n\"Yes, sir, I _have_ got a reputation; and it's as good as anybody's in\nthe profession, too, country or no country.\"\n\n\"Oh, I beg pardon; I didn't mean any offense. What I started out to ask\nwas only about the old woman that raided the town--the stoop-shouldered\nold woman, you know, that you said you were going to catch; and I knew\nyou would, too, because you have the reputation of never boasting,\nand--well, you--you've caught the old woman?\"\n\n\"Damn the old woman!\"\n\n\"Why, sho! you don't mean to say you haven't caught her?\"\n\n\"No, I haven't caught her. If anybody could have caught her, I could;\nbut nobody couldn't, I don't care who he is.\"\n\n\"I am sorry, real sorry--for your sake; because, when it gets around that\na detective has expressed himself confidently, and then--\"\n\n\"Don't you worry, that's all--don't you worry; and as for the town, the\ntown needn't worry either. She's my meat--make yourself easy about that.\nI'm on her track; I've got clues that--\"\n\n\"That's good! Now if you could get an old veteran detective down from\nSt. Louis to help you find out what the clues mean, and where they lead\nto, and then--\"\n\n\"I'm plenty veteran enough myself, and I don't need anybody's help. I'll\nhave her inside of a we--inside of a month. That I'll swear to!\"\n\nTom said carelessly:\n\n\"I suppose that will answer--yes, that will answer. But I reckon she is\npretty old, and old people don't often outlive the cautious pace of the\nprofessional detective when he has got his clues together and is out on\nhis still-hunt.\"\n\nBlake's dull face flushed under this gibe, but before he could set his\nretort in order Tom had turned to Wilson, and was saying, with placid\nindifference of manner and voice:\n\n\"Who got the reward, Pudd'nhead?\"\n\nWilson winced slightly, and saw that his own turn was come.\n\n\"What reward?\"\n\n\"Why, the reward for the thief, and the other one for the knife.\"\n\nWilson answered--and rather uncomfortably, to judge by his hesitating\nfashion of delivering himself:\n\n\"Well, the--well, in face, nobody has claimed it yet.\"\n\nTom seemed surprised.\n\n\"Why, is that so?\"\n\nWilson showed a trifle of irritation when he replied:\n\n\"Yes, it's so. And what of it?\"\n\n\"Oh, nothing. Only I thought you had struck out a new idea, and invented\na scheme that was going to revolutionize the timeworn and ineffectual\nmethods of the--\" He stopped, and turned to Blake, who was happy now\nthat another had taken his place on the gridiron. \"Blake, didn't you\nunderstand him to intimate that it wouldn't be necessary for you to hunt\nthe old woman down?\"\n\n\"'B'George, he said he'd have thief and swag both inside of three days\n--he did, by hokey! and that's just about a week ago. Why, I said at the\ntime that no thief and no thief's pal was going to try to pawn or sell a\nthing where he knowed the pawnbroker could get both rewards by taking HIM\ninto camp _with_ the swag. It was the blessedest idea that ever I\nstruck!\"\n\n\"You'd change your mind,\" said Wilson, with irritated bluntness, \"if you\nknew the entire scheme instead of only part of it.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the constable, pensively, \"I had the idea that it wouldn't\nwork, and up to now I'm right anyway.\"\n\n\"Very well, then, let it stand at that, and give it a further show. It\nhas worked at least as well as your own methods, you perceive.\"\n\nThe constable hadn't anything handy to hit back with, so he discharged a\ndiscontented sniff, and said nothing.\n\nAfter the night that Wilson had partly revealed his scheme at his house,\nTom had tried for several days to guess out the secret of the rest of it,\nbut had failed. Then it occurred to him to give Roxana's smarter head a\nchance at it. He made up a supposititious case, and laid it before\nher. She thought it over, and delivered her verdict upon it. Tom said\nto himself, \"She's hit it, sure!\" He thought he would test that verdict\nnow, and watch Wilson's face; so he said reflectively:\n\n\"Wilson, you're not a fool--a fact of recent discovery. Whatever your\nscheme was, it had sense in it, Blake's opinion to the contrary\nnotwithstanding. I don't ask you to reveal it, but I will suppose a\ncase--a case which you will answer as a starting point for the real thing\nI am going to come at, and that's all I want. You offered five hundred\ndollars for the knife, and five hundred for the thief. We will suppose,\nfor argument's sake, that the first reward is _advertised_ and the second\noffered by _private letter_ to pawnbrokers and--\"\n\nBlake slapped his thigh, and cried out:\n\n\"By Jackson, he's got you, Pudd'nhead! Now why couldn't I or _any_ fool\nhave thought of that?\"\n\nWilson said to himself, \"Anybody with a reasonably good head would have\nthought of it. I am not surprised that Blake didn't detect it; I am only\nsurprised that Tom did. There is more to him than I supposed.\" He said\nnothing aloud, and Tom went on:\n\n\"Very well. The thief would not suspect that there was a trap, and he\nwould bring or send the knife, and say he bought it for a song, or found\nit in the road, or something like that, and try to collect the reward,\nand be arrested--wouldn't he?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Wilson.\n\n\"I think so,\" said Tom. \"There can't be any doubt of it. Have you ever\nseen that knife?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Has any friend of yours?\"\n\n\"Not that I know of.\"\n\n\"Well, I begin to think I understand why your scheme failed.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, Tom? What are you driving at?\" asked Wilson, with a\ndawning sense of discomfort.\n\n\"Why, that there _isn't_ any such knife.\"\n\n\"Look here, Wilson,\" said Blake, \"Tom Driscoll's right, for a thousand\ndollars--if I had it.\"\n\nWilson's blood warmed a little, and he wondered if he had been played\nupon by those strangers; it certainly had something of that look. But\nwhat could they gain by it? He threw out that suggestion. Tom replied:\n\n\"Gain? Oh, nothing that you would value, maybe. But they are strangers\nmaking their way in a new community. Is it nothing to them to appear as\npets of an Oriental prince--at no expense? Is it nothing to them to be\nable to dazzle this poor town with thousand-dollar rewards--at no\nexpense? Wilson, there isn't any such knife, or your scheme would have\nfetched it to light. Or if there is any such knife, they've got it yet.\nI believe, myself, that they've seen such a knife, for Angelo pictured it\nout with his pencil too swiftly and handily for him to have been\ninventing it, and of course I can't swear that they've never had it; but\nthis I'll go bail for--if they had it when they came to this town,\nthey've got it yet.\"\n\nBlake said:\n\n\"It looks mighty reasonable, the way Tom puts it; it most certainly\ndoes.\"\n\nTom responded, turning to leave:\n\n\"You find the old woman, Blake, and if she can't furnish the knife, go\nand search the twins!\"\n\nTom sauntered away. Wilson felt a good deal depressed. He hardly knew\nwhat to think. He was loath to withdraw his faith from the twins, and\nwas resolved not to do it on the present indecisive evidence; but--well,\nhe would think, and then decide how to act.\n\n\"Blake, what do you think of this matter?\"\n\n\"Well, Pudd'nhead, I'm bound to say I put it up the way Tom does. They\nhadn't the knife; or if they had it, they've got it yet.\"\n\nThe men parted. Wilson said to himself:\n\n\"I believe they had it; if it had been stolen, the scheme would have\nrestored it, that is certain. And so I believe they've got it.\"\n\nTom had no purpose in his mind when he encountered those two men. When he\nbegan his talk he hoped to be able to gall them a little and get a trifle\nof malicious entertainment out of it. But when he left, he left in great\nspirits, for he perceived that just by pure luck and no troublesome labor\nhe had accomplished several delightful things: he had touched both men\non a raw spot and seen them squirm; he had modified Wilson's sweetness\nfor the twins with one small bitter taste that he wouldn't be able to get\nout of his mouth right away; and, best of all, he had taken the hated\ntwins down a peg with the community; for Blake would gossip around\nfreely, after the manner of detectives, and within a week the town would\nbe laughing at them in its sleeve for offering a gaudy reward for a\nbauble which they either never possessed or hadn't lost. Tom was very\nwell satisfied with himself.\n\nTom's behavior at home had been perfect during the entire week. His uncle\nand aunt had seen nothing like it before. They could find no fault with\nhim anywhere.\n\nSaturday evening he said to the Judge:\n\n\"I've had something preying on my mind, uncle, and as I am going away,\nand might never see you again, I can't bear it any longer. I made you\nbelieve I was afraid to fight that Italian adventurer. I had to get out\nof it on some pretext or other, and maybe I chose badly, being taken\nunawares, but no honorable person could consent to meet him in the field,\nknowing what I knew about him.\"\n\n\"Indeed? What was that?\"\n\n\"Count Luigi is a confessed assassin.\"\n\n\"Incredible.\"\n\n\"It's perfectly true. Wilson detected it in his hand, by palmistry, and\ncharged him with it, and cornered him up so close that he had to confess;\nbut both twins begged us on their knees to keep the secret, and swore\nthey would lead straight lives here; and it was all so pitiful that we\ngave our word of honor never to expose them while they kept the promise.\nYou would have done it yourself, uncle.\"\n\n\"You are right, my boy; I would. A man's secret is still his own\nproperty, and sacred, when it has been surprised out of him like that.\nYou did well, and I am proud of you.\" Then he added mournfully, \"But I\nwish I could have been saved the shame of meeting an assassin on the\nfield of honor.\"\n\n\"It couldn't be helped, uncle. If I had known you were going to\nchallenge him, I should have felt obliged to sacrifice my pledged word in\norder to stop it, but Wilson couldn't be expected to do otherwise than\nkeep silent.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, Wilson did right, and is in no way to blame. Tom, Tom, you have\nlifted a heavy load from my heart; I was stung to the very soul when I\nseemed to have discovered that I had a coward in my family.\"\n\n\"You may imagine what it cost ME to assume such a part, uncle.\"\n\n\"Oh, I know it, poor boy, I know it. And I can understand how much it\nhas cost you to remain under that unjust stigma to this time. But it is\nall right now, and no harm is done. You have restored my comfort of\nmind, and with it your own; and both of us had suffered enough.\"\n\nThe old man sat awhile plunged in thought; then he looked up with a\nsatisfied light in his eye, and said: \"That this assassin should have\nput the affront upon me of letting me meet him on the field of honor as\nif he were a gentleman is a matter which I will presently settle--but not\nnow. I will not shoot him until after election. I see a way to ruin them\nboth before; I will attend to that first. Neither of them shall be\nelected, that I promise. You are sure that the fact that he is an\nassassin has not got abroad?\"\n\n\"Perfectly certain of it, sir.\"\n\n\"It will be a good card. I will fling a hint at it from the stump on the\npolling day. It will sweep the ground from under both of them.\"\n\n\"There's not a doubt of it. It will finish them.\"\n\n\"That and outside work among the voters will, to a certainty. I want you\nto come down here by and by and work privately among the rag-tag and\nbobtail. You shall spend money among them; I will furnish it.\"\n\nAnother point scored against the detested twins! Really it was a great\nday for Tom. He was encouraged to chance a parting shot, now, at the\nsame target, and did it.\n\n\"You know that wonderful Indian knife that the twins have been making\nsuch a to-do about? Well, there's no track or trace of it yet; so the\ntown is beginning to sneer and gossip and laugh. Half the people believe\nthey never had any such knife, the other half believe they had it and\nhave got it still. I've heard twenty people talking like that today.\"\n\nYes, Tom's blemishless week had restored him to the favor of his aunt and\nuncle.\n\nHis mother was satisfied with him, too. Privately, she believed she was\ncoming to love him, but she did not say so. She told him to go along to\nSt. Louis now, and she would get ready and follow. Then she smashed her\nwhisky bottle and said:\n\n\"Dah now! I's a-gwine to make you walk as straight as a string,\nChambers, en so I's bown, you ain't gwine to git no bad example out o'\nyo' mammy. I tole you you couldn't go into no bad comp'ny. Well, you's\ngwine into my comp'ny, en I's gwine to fill de bill. Now, den, trot\nalong, trot along!\"\n\nTom went aboard one of the big transient boats that night with his heavy\nsatchel of miscellaneous plunder, and slept the sleep of the unjust,\nwhich is serener and sounder than the other kind, as we know by the\nhanging-eve history of a million rascals. But when he got up in the\nmorning, luck was against him again: a brother thief had robbed him while\nhe slept, and gone ashore at some intermediate landing.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 16 -- Sold Down the River\n\n     _If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he\n     will not bite you. This is the principal difference between\n     a dog and a man._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _We all know about the habits of the ant, we know all about\n     the habits of the bee, but we know nothing at all about the\n     habits of the oyster. It seems almost certain that we have\n     been choosing the wrong time for studying the oyster._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nWhen Roxana arrived, she found her son in such despair and misery that\nher heart was touched and her motherhood rose up strong in her. He was\nruined past hope now; his destruction would be immediate and sure, and he\nwould be an outcast and friendless. That was reason enough for a mother\nto love a child; so she loved him, and told him so. It made him wince,\nsecretly--for she was a \"nigger.\" That he was one himself was far from\nreconciling him to that despised race.\n\nRoxana poured out endearments upon him, to which he responded\nuncomfortably, but as well as he could. And she tried to comfort him, but\nthat was not possible. These intimacies quickly became horrible to him,\nand within the hour he began to try to get up courage enough to tell her\nso, and require that they be discontinued or very considerably modified.\nBut he was afraid of her; and besides, there came a lull now, for she had\nbegun to think. She was trying to invent a saving plan. Finally she\nstarted up, and said she had found a way out. Tom was almost suffocated\nby the joy of this sudden good news. Roxana said:\n\n\"Here is de plan, en she'll win, sure. I's a nigger, en nobody ain't\ngwine to doubt it dat hears me talk. I's wuth six hund'd dollahs. Take\nen sell me, en pay off dese gamblers.\"\n\nTom was dazed. He was not sure he had heard aright. He was dumb for a\nmoment; then he said:\n\n\"Do you mean that you would be sold into slavery to save me?\"\n\n\"Ain't you my chile? En does you know anything dat a mother won't do for\nher chile? Day ain't nothin' a white mother won't do for her chile. Who\nmade 'em so? De Lord done it. En who made de niggers? De Lord made 'em.\nIn de inside, mothers is all de same. De good lord he made 'em so. I's\ngwine to be sole into slavery, en in a year you's gwine to buy yo' ole\nmammy free ag'in. I'll show you how. Dat's de plan.\"\n\nTom's hopes began to rise, and his spirits along with them. He said:\n\n\"It's lovely of you, Mammy--it's just--\"\n\n\"Say it ag'in! En keep on sayin' it! It's all de pay a body kin want in\ndis worl', en it's mo' den enough. Laws bless you, honey, when I's slav'\naroun', en dey 'buses me, if I knows you's a-sayin' dat, 'way off yonder\nsomers, it'll heal up all de sore places, en I kin stan' 'em.\"\n\n\"I DO say it again, Mammy, and I'll keep on saying it, too. But how am I\ngoing to sell you? You're free, you know.\"\n\n\"Much diff'rence dat make! White folks ain't partic'lar. De law kin sell\nme now if dey tell me to leave de state in six months en I don't go. You\ndraw up a paper--bill o' sale--en put it 'way off yonder, down in de\nmiddle o' Kaintuck somers, en sign some names to it, en say you'll sell\nme cheap 'ca'se you's hard up; you'll find you ain't gwine to have no\ntrouble. You take me up de country a piece, en sell me on a farm; dem\npeople ain't gwine to ask no questions if I's a bargain.\"\n\nTom forged a bill of sale and sold his mother to an Arkansas cotton\nplanter for a trifle over six hundred dollars. He did not want to commit\nthis treachery, but luck threw the man in his way, and this saved him the\nnecessity of going up-country to hunt up a purchaser, with the added risk\nof having to answer a lot of questions, whereas this planter was so\npleased with Roxy that he asked next to none at all. Besides, the\nplanter insisted that Roxy wouldn't know where she was, at first, and\nthat by the time she found out she would already have been contented.\n\nSo Tom argued with himself that it was an immense advantaged for Roxy to\nhave a master who was pleased with her, as this planter manifestly was.\nIn almost no time his flowing reasonings carried him to the point of even\nhalf believing he was doing Roxy a splendid surreptitious service in\nselling her \"down the river.\" And then he kept diligently saying to\nhimself all the time: \"It's for only a year. In a year I buy her free\nagain; she'll keep that in mind, and it'll reconcile her.\" Yes; the\nlittle deception could do no harm, and everything would come out right\nand pleasant in the end, anyway. By agreement, the conversation in\nRoxy's presence was all about the man's \"up-country\" farm, and how\npleasant a place it was, and how happy the slaves were there; so poor\nRoxy was entirely deceived; and easily, for she was not dreaming that her\nown son could be guilty of treason to a mother who, in voluntarily going\ninto slavery--slavery of any kind, mild or severe, or of any duration,\nbrief or long--was making a sacrifice for him compared with which death\nwould have been a poor and commonplace one. She lavished tears and\nloving caresses upon him privately, and then went away with her owner\n--went away brokenhearted, and yet proud to do it.\n\nTom scored his accounts, and resolved to keep to the very letter of his\nreform, and never to put that will in jeopardy again. He had three\nhundred dollars left. According to his mother's plan, he was to put that\nsafely away, and add her half of his pension to it monthly. In one year\nthis fund would buy her free again.\n\nFor a whole week he was not able to sleep well, so much the villainy\nwhich he had played upon his trusting mother preyed upon his rag of\nconscience; but after that he began to get comfortable again, and was\npresently able to sleep like any other miscreant.\n\nThe boat bore Roxy away from St. Louis at four in the afternoon, and she\nstood on the lower guard abaft the paddle box and watched Tom through a\nblur of tears until he melted into the throng of people and disappeared;\nthen she looked no more, but sat there on a coil of cable crying till far\ninto the night. When she went to her foul steerage bunk at last, between\nthe clashing engines, it was not to sleep, but only to wait for the\nmorning, and, waiting, grieve.\n\nIt had been imagined that she \"would not know,\" and would think she was\ntraveling upstream. She! Why, she had been steamboating for years. At\ndawn she got up and went listlessly and sat down on the cable coil again.\nShe passed many a snag whose \"break\" could have told her a thing to break\nher heart, for it showed a current moving in the same direction that the\nboat was going; but her thoughts were elsewhere, and she did not notice.\nBut at last the roar of a bigger and nearer break than usual brought her\nout of her torpor, and she looked up, and her practiced eye fell upon\nthat telltale rush of water. For one moment her petrified gaze fixed\nitself there. Then her head dropped upon her breast, and she said:\n\n\"Oh, de good Lord God have mercy on po' sinful me--I'S SOLE DOWN DE\nRIVER!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 17 -- The Judge Utters Dire Prophesy\n\n     _Even popularity can be overdone. In Rome, along at first,\n     you are full of regrets that Michelangelo died; but by and\n     by, you only regret that you didn't see him do it._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _JULY 4. Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day\n     than in all the other days of the year put together. This\n     proves, by the number left in stock, that one Fourth of July\n     per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nThe summer weeks dragged by, and then the political campaign opened\n--opened in pretty warm fashion, and waxed hotter and hotter daily. The\ntwins threw themselves into it with their whole heart, for their\nself-love was engaged. Their popularity, so general at first, had\nsuffered afterward; mainly because they had been TOO popular, and so a\nnatural reaction had followed. Besides, it had been diligently whispered\naround that it was curious--indeed, VERY curious--that that wonderful\nknife of theirs did not turn up--IF it was so valuable, or IF it had ever\nexisted. And with the whisperings went chucklings and nudgings and winks,\nand such things have an effect. The twins considered that success in the\nelection would reinstate them, and that defeat would work them\nirreparable damage. Therefore they worked hard, but not harder than\nJudge Driscoll and Tom worked against them in the closing days of the\ncanvass. Tom's conduct had remained so letter-perfect during two whole\nmonths now, that his uncle not only trusted him with money with which to\npersuade voters, but trusted him to go and get it himself out of the safe\nin the private sitting room.\n\nThe closing speech of the campaign was made by Judge Driscoll, and he\nmade it against both of the foreigners. It was disastrously effective.\nHe poured out rivers of ridicule upon them, and forced the big mass\nmeeting to laugh and applaud. He scoffed at them as adventurers,\nmountebanks, sideshow riffraff, dime museum freaks; he assailed their\nshowy titles with measureless derision; he said they were back-alley\nbarbers disguised as nobilities, peanut peddlers masquerading as\ngentlemen, organ-grinders bereft of their brother monkey. At last he\nstopped and stood still. He waited until the place had become absolutely\nsilent and expectant, then he delivered his deadliest shot; delivered it\nwith ice-cold seriousness and deliberation, with a significant emphasis\nupon the closing words: he said he believed that the reward offered for\nthe lost knife was humbug and bunkum, and that its owner would know where\nto find it whenever he should have occasion TO ASSASSINATE SOMEBODY.\n\nThen he stepped from the stand, leaving a startled and impressive hush\nbehind him instead of the customary explosion of cheers and party cries.\n\nThe strange remark flew far and wide over the town and made an\nextraordinary sensation. Everybody was asking, \"What could he mean by\nthat?\" And everybody went on asking that question, but in vain; for the\njudge only said he knew what he was talking about, and stopped there; Tom\nsaid he hadn't any idea what his uncle meant, and Wilson, whenever he was\nasked what he thought it meant, parried the question by asking the\nquestioner what HE thought it meant.\n\nWilson was elected, the twins were defeated--crushed, in fact, and left\nforlorn and substantially friendless. Tom went back to St. Louis happy.\n\nDawson's Landing had a week of repose now, and it needed it. But it was\nin an expectant state, for the air was full of rumors of a new duel.\nJudge Driscoll's election labors had prostrated him, but it was said that\nas soon as he was well enough to entertain a challenge he would get one\nfrom Count Luigi.\n\nThe brothers withdrew entirely from society, and nursed their humiliation\nin privacy. They avoided the people, and went out for exercise only late\nat night, when the streets were deserted.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 18 -- Roxana Commands\n\n     _Gratitude and treachery are merely the two extremities of\n     the same procession. You have seen all of it that is worth\n     staying for when the band and the gaudy officials have gone\n     by._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _THANKSGIVING DAY. Let us all give humble, hearty, and\n     sincere thanks now, but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji\n     they do not use turkeys; they use plumbers. It does not\n     become you and me to sneer at Fiji._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's\n     Calendar\n\n\nThe Friday after the election was a rainy one in St. Louis. It rained\nall day long, and rained hard, apparently trying its best to wash that\nsoot-blackened town white, but of course not succeeding. Toward midnight\nTom Driscoll arrived at his lodgings from the theater in the heavy\ndownpour, and closed his umbrella and let himself in; but when he would\nhave shut the door, he found that there was another person\nentering--doubtless another lodger; this person closed the door and\ntramped upstairs behind Tom. Tom found his door in the dark, and entered\nit, and turned up the gas. When he faced about, lightly whistling, he\nsaw the back of a man. The man was closing and locking his door from\nhim. His whistle faded out and he felt uneasy. The man turned around, a\nwreck of shabby old clothes, sodden with rain and all a-drip, and showed\na black face under an old slouch hat. Tom was frightened. He tried to\norder the man out, but the words refused to come, and the other man got\nthe start. He said, in a low voice:\n\n\"Keep still--I's yo' mother!\"\n\nTom sunk in a heap on a chair, and gasped out:\n\n\"It was mean of me, and base--I know it; but I meant it for the best, I\ndid indeed--I can swear it.\"\n\nRoxana stood awhile looking mutely down on him while he writhed in shame\nand went on incoherently babbling self-accusations mixed with pitiful\nattempts at explanation and palliation of his crime; then she seated\nherself and took off her hat, and her unkept masses of long brown hair\ntumbled down about her shoulders.\n\n\"It warn't no fault o' yo'n dat dat ain't gray,\" she said sadly, noticing\nthe hair.\n\n\"I know it, I know it! I'm a scoundrel. But I swear I meant it for the\nbest. It was a mistake, of course, but I thought it was for the best, I\ntruly did.\"\n\nRoxana began to cry softly, and presently words began to find their way\nout between her sobs. They were uttered lamentingly, rather than\nangrily.\n\n\"Sell a pusson down de river--DOWN DE RIVER!--for de bes'! I wouldn't\ntreat a dog so! I is all broke down en wore out now, en so I reckon\nit ain't in me to storm aroun' no mo', like I used to when I 'uz trompled\non en 'bused. I don't know--but maybe it's so. Leastways, I's suffered\nso much dat mournin' seem to come mo' handy to me now den stormin'.\"\n\nThese words should have touched Tom Driscoll, but if they did, that\neffect was obliterated by a stronger one--one which removed the heavy\nweight of fear which lay upon him, and gave his crushed spirit a most\ngrateful rebound, and filled all his small soul with a deep sense of\nrelief. But he kept prudently still, and ventured no comment. There was\na voiceless interval of some duration now, in which no sounds were heard\nbut the beating of the rain upon the panes, the sighing and complaining\nof the winds, and now and then a muffled sob from Roxana. The sobs became\nmore and more infrequent, and at last ceased. Then the refugee began to\ntalk again.\n\n\"Shet down dat light a little. More. More yit. A pusson dat is hunted\ndon't like de light. Dah--dat'll do. I kin see whah you is, en dat's\nenough. I's gwine to tell you de tale, en cut it jes as short as I kin,\nen den I'll tell you what you's got to do. Dat man dat bought me ain't a\nbad man; he's good enough, as planters goes; en if he could 'a' had his\nway I'd 'a' be'n a house servant in his fambly en be'n comfortable: but\nhis wife she was a Yank, en not right down good lookin', en she riz up\nagin me straight off; so den dey sent me out to de quarter 'mongst de\ncommon fiel' han's. Dat woman warn't satisfied even wid dat, but she\nworked up de overseer ag'in' me, she 'uz dat jealous en hateful; so de\noverseer he had me out befo' day in de mawnin's en worked me de whole\nlong day as long as dey'uz any light to see by; en many's de lashin's I\ngot 'ca'se I couldn't come up to de work o' de stronges'. Dat overseer\nwuz a Yank too, outen New Englan', en anybody down South kin tell you\nwhat dat mean. DEY knows how to work a nigger to death, en dey knows how\nto whale 'em too--whale 'em till dey backs is welted like a washboard.\n'Long at fust my marster say de good word for me to de overseer, but dat\n'uz bad for me; for de mistis she fine it out, en arter dat I jist\nketched it at every turn--dey warn't no mercy for me no mo'.\"\n\nTom's heart was fired--with fury against the planter's wife; and he said\nto himself, \"But for that meddlesome fool, everything would have gone all\nright.\" He added a deep and bitter curse against her.\n\nThe expression of this sentiment was fiercely written in his face, and\nstood thus revealed to Roxana by a white glare of lightning which turned\nthe somber dusk of the room into dazzling day at that moment. She was\npleased--pleased and grateful; for did not that expression show that her\nchild was capable of grieving for his mother's wrongs and of feeling\nresentment toward her persecutors?--a thing which she had been doubting.\nBut her flash of happiness was only a flash, and went out again and left\nher spirit dark; for she said to herself, \"He sole me down de river--he\ncan't feel for a body long; dis'll pass en go.\" Then she took up her tale\nagain.\n\n\"'Bout ten days ago I 'uz sayin' to myself dat I couldn't las' many mo'\nweeks I 'uz so wore out wid de awful work en de lashin's, en so\ndownhearted en misable. En I didn't care no mo', nuther--life warn't\nwuth noth'n' to me, if I got to go on like dat. Well, when a body is in\na frame o' mine like dat, what do a body care what a body do? Dey was a\nlittle sickly nigger wench 'bout ten year ole dat 'uz good to me, en\nhadn't no mammy, po' thing, en I loved her en she loved me; en she come\nout whah I 'uz workin' en she had a roasted tater, en tried to slip it to\nme--robbin' herself, you see, 'ca'se she knowed de overseer didn't give\nme enough to eat--en he ketched her at it, en giver her a lick acrost de\nback wid his stick, which 'uz as thick as a broom handle, en she drop'\nscreamin' on de groun', en squirmin' en wallerin' aroun' in de dust like\na spider dat's got crippled. I couldn't stan' it. All de hellfire dat\n'uz ever in my heart flame' up, en I snatch de stick outen his han' en\nlaid him flat. He laid dah moanin' en cussin', en all out of his head,\nyou know, en de niggers 'uz plumb sk'yred to death. Dey gathered roun'\nhim to he'p him, en I jumped on his hoss en took out for de river as\ntight as I could go. I knowed what dey would do wid me. Soon as he got\nwell he would start in en work me to death if marster let him; en if dey\ndidn't do dat, they'd sell me furder down de river, en dat's de same\nthing, so I 'lowed to drown myself en git out o' my troubles. It 'uz\ngitt'n' towards dark. I 'uz at de river in two minutes. Den I see a\ncanoe, en I says dey ain't no use to drown myself tell I got to; so I\nties de hoss in de edge o' de timber en shove out down de river, keepin'\nin under de shelter o' de bluff bank en prayin' for de dark to shet down\nquick. I had a pow'ful good start, 'ca'se de big house 'uz three mile\nback f'om de river en on'y de work mules to ride dah on, en on'y niggers\nride 'em, en DEY warn't gwine to hurry--dey'd gimme all de chance dey\ncould. Befo' a body could go to de house en back it would be long pas'\ndark, en dey couldn't track de hoss en fine out which way I went tell\nmawnin', en de niggers would tell 'em all de lies dey could 'bout it.\n\n\"Well, de dark come, en I went on a-spinnin' down de river. I paddled\nmo'n two hours, den I warn't worried no mo', so I quit paddlin' en\nfloated down de current, considerin' what I 'uz gwine to do if I didn't\nhave to drown myself. I made up some plans, en floated along, turnin'\n'em over in my mine. Well, when it 'uz a little pas' midnight, as I\nreckoned, en I had come fifteen or twenty mile, I see de lights o' a\nsteamboat layin' at de bank, whah dey warn't no town en no woodyard, en\nputty soon I ketched de shape o' de chimbly tops ag'in' de stars, en den\ngood gracious me, I 'most jumped out o' my skin for joy! It 'uz de GRAN'\nMOGUL--I 'uz chambermaid on her for eight seasons in de Cincinnati en\nOrleans trade. I slid 'long pas'--don't see nobody stirrin' nowhah--hear\n'em a-hammerin' away in de engine room, den I knowed what de matter\nwas--some o' de machinery's broke. I got asho' below de boat and turn'\nde canoe loose, den I goes 'long up, en dey 'uz jes one plank out, en I\nstep' 'board de boat. It 'uz pow'ful hot, deckhan's en roustabouts 'uz\nsprawled aroun' asleep on de fo'cas'l', de second mate, Jim Bangs, he sot\ndah on de bitts wid his head down, asleep--'ca'se dat's de way de second\nmate stan' de cap'n's watch!--en de ole watchman, Billy Hatch, he 'uz\na-noddin' on de companionway;--en I knowed 'em all; en, lan', but dey did\nlook good! I says to myself, I wished old marster'd come along NOW en\ntry to take me--bless yo' heart, I's 'mong frien's, I is. So I tromped\nright along 'mongst 'em, en went up on de b'iler deck en 'way back aft to\nde ladies' cabin guard, en sot down dah in de same cheer dat I'd sot in\n'mos' a hund'd million times, I reckon; en it 'uz jist home ag'in, I tell\nyou!\n\n\"In 'bout an hour I heard de ready bell jingle, en den de racket begin.\nPutty soon I hear de gong strike. 'Set her back on de outside,' I says\nto myself. 'I reckon I knows dat music!' I hear de gong ag'in. 'Come\nahead on de inside,' I says. Gong ag'in. 'Stop de outside.' gong ag'in.\n'Come ahead on de outside--now we's pinted for Sent Louis, en I's outer\nde woods en ain't got to drown myself at all.' I knowed de MOGUL 'uz in\nde Sent Louis trade now, you see. It 'uz jes fair daylight when we\npassed our plantation, en I seed a gang o' niggers en white folks huntin'\nup en down de sho', en troublin' deyselves a good deal 'bout me; but I\nwarn't troublin' myself none 'bout dem.\n\n\"'Bout dat time Sally Jackson, dat used to be my second chambermaid en\n'uz head chambermaid now, she come out on de guard, en 'uz pow'ful glad\nto see me, en so 'uz all de officers; en I tole 'em I'd got kidnapped en\nsole down de river, en dey made me up twenty dollahs en give it to me, en\nSally she rigged me out wid good clo'es, en when I got here I went\nstraight to whah you used to wuz, en den I come to dis house, en dey say\nyou's away but 'spected back every day; so I didn't dast to go down de\nriver to Dawson's, 'ca'se I might miss you.\n\n\"Well, las' Monday I 'uz pass'n by one o' dem places in fourth street\nwhah deh sticks up runaway nigger bills, en he'ps to ketch 'em, en I seed\nmy marster! I 'mos' flopped down on de groun', I felt so gone. He had\nhis back to me, en 'uz talkin' to de man en givin' him some bills--nigger\nbills, I reckon, en I's de nigger. He's offerin' a reward--dat's it.\nAin't I right, don't you reckon?\"\n\nTom had been gradually sinking into a state of ghastly terror, and he\nsaid to himself, now: \"I'm lost, no matter what turn things take! This\nman has said to me that he thinks there was something suspicious about\nthat sale; he said he had a letter from a passenger on the GRAND MOGUL\nsaying that Roxy came here on that boat and that everybody on board knew\nall about the case; so he says that her coming here instead of flying to\na free state looks bad for me, and that if I don't find her for him, and\nthat pretty soon, he will make trouble for me. I never believed that\nstory; I couldn't believe she would be so dead to all motherly instincts\nas to come here, knowing the risk she would run of getting me into\nirremediable trouble. And after all, here she is! And I stupidly swore\nI would help find her, thinking it was a perfectly safe thing to promise.\nIf I venture to deliver her up, she--she--but how can I help myself?\nI've got to do that or pay the money, and where's the money to come from?\nI--I--well, I should think that if he would swear to treat her kindly\nhereafter--and she says, herself, that he is a good man--and if he would\nswear to never allow her to be overworked, or ill fed, or--\"\n\nA flash of lightning exposed Tom's pallid face, drawn and rigid with\nthese worrying thoughts. Roxana spoke up sharply now, and there was\napprehension in her voice.\n\n\"Turn up dat light! I want to see yo' face better. Dah now--lemme look\nat you. Chambers, you's as white as yo' shirt! Has you see dat man? Has\nhe be'n to see you?\"\n\n\"Ye-s.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\n\"Monday noon.\"\n\n\"Monday noon! Was he on my track?\"\n\n\"He--well, he thought he was. That is, he hoped he was. This is the bill\nyou saw.\" He took it out of his pocket.\n\n\"Read it to me!\"\n\nShe was panting with excitement, and there was a dusky glow in her eyes\nthat Tom could not translate with certainty, but there seemed to be\nsomething threatening about it. The handbill had the usual rude woodcut\nof a turbaned Negro woman running, with the customary bundle on a stick\nover her shoulder, and the heading in bold type, \"$100 REWARD.\" Tom read\nthe bill aloud--at least the part that described Roxana and named the\nmaster and his St. Louis address and the address of the Fourth street\nagency; but he left out the item that applicants for the reward might\nalso apply to Mr. Thomas Driscoll.\n\n\"Gimme de bill!\"\n\nTom had folded it and was putting it in his pocket. He felt a chilly\nstreak creeping down his back, but said as carelessly as he could:\n\n\"The bill? Why, it isn't any use to you, you can't read it. What do you\nwant with it?\"\n\n\"Gimme de bill!\" Tom gave it to her, but with a reluctance which he\ncould not entirely disguise. \"Did you read it ALL to me?\"\n\n\"Certainly I did.\"\n\n\"Hole up yo' han' en swah to it.\"\n\nTom did it. Roxana put the bill carefully away in her pocket, with her\neyes fixed upon Tom's face all the while; then she said:\n\n\"Yo's lyin'!\"\n\n\"What would I want to lie about it for?\"\n\n\"I don't know--but you is. Dat's my opinion, anyways. But nemmine 'bout\ndat. When I seed dat man I 'uz dat sk'yerd dat I could sca'cely wobble\nhome. Den I give a nigger man a dollar for dese clo'es, en I ain't be'in\nin a house sence, night ner day, till now. I blacked my face en laid hid\nin de cellar of a ole house dat's burnt down, daytimes, en robbed de\nsugar hogsheads en grain sacks on de wharf, nights, to git somethin' to\neat, en never dast to try to buy noth'n', en I's 'mos' starved. En I\nnever dast to come near dis place till dis rainy night, when dey ain't no\npeople roun' sca'cely. But tonight I be'n a-stanin' in de dark alley\never sence night come, waitin' for you to go by. En here I is.\"\n\nShe fell to thinking. Presently she said:\n\n\"You seed dat man at noon, las' Monday?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I seed him de middle o' dat arternoon. He hunted you up, didn't he?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Did he give you de bill dat time?\"\n\n\"No, he hadn't got it printed yet.\"\n\nRoxana darted a suspicious glance at him.\n\n\"Did you he'p him fix up de bill?\"\n\nTom cursed himself for making that stupid blunder, and tried to rectify\nit by saying he remembered now that it WAS at noon Monday that the man\ngave him the bill. Roxana said:\n\n\"You's lyin' ag'in, sho.\" Then she straightened up and raised her\nfinger:\n\n\"Now den! I's gwine to ask you a question, en I wants to know how you's\ngwine to git aroun' it. You knowed he 'uz arter me; en if you run off,\n'stid o' stayin' here to he'p him, he'd know dey 'uz somethin' wrong\n'bout dis business, en den he would inquire 'bout you, en dat would take\nhim to yo' uncle, en yo' uncle would read de bill en see dat you be'n\nsellin' a free nigger down de river, en you know HIM, I reckon! He'd\nt'ar up de will en kick you outen de house. Now, den, you answer me dis\nquestion: hain't you tole dat man dat I would be sho' to come here, en\nden you would fix it so he could set a trap en ketch me?\"\n\nTom recognized that neither lies nor arguments could help him any\nlonger--he was in a vise, with the screw turned on, and out of it there\nwas no budging. His face began to take on an ugly look, and presently he\nsaid, with a snarl:\n\n\"Well, what could I do? You see, yourself, that I was in his grip and\ncouldn't get out.\"\n\nRoxy scorched him with a scornful gaze awhile, then she said:\n\n\"What could you do? You could be Judas to yo' own mother to save yo'\nwuthless hide! Would anybody b'lieve it? No--a dog couldn't! You is de\nlowdownest orneriest hound dat was ever pup'd into dis worl'--en I's\n'sponsible for it!\"--and she spat on him.\n\nHe made no effort to resent this. Roxy reflected a moment, then she\nsaid:\n\n\"Now I'll tell you what you's gwine to do. You's gwine to give dat man\nde money dat you's got laid up, en make him wait till you kin go to de\njudge en git de res' en buy me free agin.\"\n\n\"Thunder! What are you thinking of? Go and ask him for three hundred\ndollars and odd? What would I tell him I want it for, pray?\"\n\nRoxy's answer was delivered in a serene and level voice.\n\n\"You'll tell him you's sole me to pay yo' gamblin' debts en dat you lied\nto me en was a villain, en dat I 'quires you to git dat money en buy me\nback ag'in.\"\n\n\"Why, you've gone stark mad! He would tear the will to shreds in a\nminute--don't you know that?\"\n\n\"Yes, I does.\"\n\n\"Then you don't believe I'm idiot enough to go to him, do you?\"\n\n\"I don't b'lieve nothin' 'bout it--I KNOWS you's a-goin'. I knows it\n'ca'se you knows dat if you don't raise dat money I'll go to him myself,\nen den he'll sell YOU down de river, en you kin see how you like it!\"\n\nTom rose, trembling and excited, and there was an evil light in his eye.\nHe strode to the door and said he must get out of this suffocating place\nfor a moment and clear his brain in the fresh air so that he could\ndetermine what to do. The door wouldn't open. Roxy smiled grimly, and\nsaid:\n\n\"I's got the key, honey--set down. You needn't cle'r up yo' brain none\nto fine out what you gwine to do--_I_ knows what you's gwine to do.\" Tom\nsat down and began to pass his hands through his hair with a helpless and\ndesperate air. Roxy said, \"Is dat man in dis house?\"\n\nTom glanced up with a surprised expression, and asked:\n\n\"What gave you such an idea?\"\n\n\"You done it. Gwine out to cle'r yo' brain! In de fust place you ain't\ngot none to cle'r, en in de second place yo' ornery eye tole on you.\nYou's de lowdownest hound dat ever--but I done told you dat befo'. Now\nden, dis is Friday. You kin fix it up wid dat man, en tell him you's\ngwine away to git de res' o' de money, en dat you'll be back wid it nex'\nTuesday, or maybe Wednesday. You understan'?\"\n\nTom answered sullenly: \"Yes.\"\n\n\"En when you gits de new bill o' sale dat sells me to my own self, take\nen send it in de mail to Mr. Pudd'nhead Wilson, en write on de back dat\nhe's to keep it tell I come. You understan'?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Dat's all den. Take yo' umbreller, en put on yo' hat.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Beca'se you's gwine to see me home to de wharf. You see dis knife? I's\ntoted it aroun' sence de day I seed dat man en bought dese clo'es en it.\nIf he ketch me, I's gwine to kill myself wid it. Now start along, en go\nsof', en lead de way; en if you gives a sign in dis house, or if anybody\ncomes up to you in de street, I's gwine to jam it right into you.\nChambers, does you b'lieve me when I says dat?\"\n\n\"It's no use to bother me with that question. I know your word's good.\"\n\n\"Yes, it's diff'rent from yo'n! Shet de light out en move along--here's\nde key.\"\n\nThey were not followed. Tom trembled every time a late straggler brushed\nby them on the street, and half expected to feel the cold steel in his\nback. Roxy was right at his heels and always in reach. After tramping a\nmile they reached a wide vacancy on the deserted wharves, and in this\ndark and rainy desert they parted.\n\nAs Tom trudged home his mind was full of dreary thoughts and wild plans;\nbut at last he said to himself, wearily:\n\n\"There is but the one way out. I must follow her plan. But with a\nvariation--I will not ask for the money and ruin myself; I will ROB the\nold skinflint.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 19 -- The Prophesy Realized\n\n     _Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of\n     a good example._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _It were not best that we should all think alike; it is\n     difference of opinion that makes horse races._ --Pudd'nhead\n     Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nDawson's Landing was comfortably finishing its season of dull repose and\nwaiting patiently for the duel. Count Luigi was waiting, too; but not\npatiently, rumor said. Sunday came, and Luigi insisted on having his\nchallenge conveyed. Wilson carried it. Judge Driscoll declined to fight\nwith an assassin--\"that is,\" he added significantly, \"in the field of\nhonor.\"\n\nElsewhere, of course, he would be ready. Wilson tried to convince him\nthat if he had been present himself when Angelo told him about the\nhomicide committed by Luigi, he would not have considered the act\ndiscreditable to Luigi; but the obstinate old man was not to be moved.\n\nWilson went back to his principal and reported the failure of his\nmission. Luigi was incensed, and asked how it could be that the old\ngentleman, who was by no means dull-witted, held his trifling nephew's\nevidence in inferences to be of more value than Wilson's. But Wilson\nlaughed, and said:\n\n\"That is quite simple; that is easily explicable. I am not his doll--his\nbaby--his infatuation: his nature is. The judge and his late wife never\nhad any children. The judge and his wife were past middle age when this\ntreasure fell into their lap. One must make allowances for a parental\ninstinct that has been starving for twenty-five or thirty years. It is\nfamished, it is crazed with hunger by that time, and will be entirely\nsatisfied with anything that comes handy; its taste is atrophied, it\ncan't tell mud cat from shad. A devil born to a young couple is\nmeasurably recognizable by them as a devil before long, but a devil\nadopted by an old couple is an angel to them, and remains so, through\nthick and thin. Tom is this old man's angel; he is infatuated with him.\nTom can persuade him into things which other people can't--not all\nthings; I don't mean that, but a good many--particularly one class of\nthings: the things that create or abolish personal partialities or\nprejudices in the old man's mind. The old man liked both of you. Tom\nconceived a hatred for you. That was enough; it turned the old man\naround at once. The oldest and strongest friendship must go to the ground\nwhen one of these late-adopted darlings throws a brick at it.\"\n\n\"It's a curious philosophy,\" said Luigi.\n\n\"It ain't philosophy at all--it's a fact. And there is something\npathetic and beautiful about it, too. I think there is nothing more\npathetic than to see one of these poor old childless couples taking a\nmenagerie of yelping little worthless dogs to their hearts; and then\nadding some cursing and squawking parrots and a jackass-voiced macaw; and\nnext a couple of hundred screeching songbirds, and presently some fetid\nguinea pigs and rabbits, and a howling colony of cats. It is all a\ngroping and ignorant effort to construct out of base metal and brass\nfilings, so to speak, something to take the place of that golden treasure\ndenied them by Nature, a child. But this is a digression. The unwritten\nlaw of this region requires you to kill Judge Driscoll on sight, and he\nand the community will expect that attention at your hands--though of\ncourse your own death by his bullet will answer every purpose. Look out\nfor him! Are you healed--that is, fixed?\"\n\n\"Yes, he shall have his opportunity. If he attacks me, I will respond.\"\n\nAs Wilson was leaving, he said:\n\n\"The judge is still a little used up by his campaign work, and will not\nget out for a day or so; but when he does get out, you want to be on the\nalert.\"\n\nAbout eleven at night the twins went out for exercise, and started on a\nlong stroll in the veiled moonlight.\n\nTom Driscoll had landed at Hackett's Store, two miles below Dawson's,\njust about half an hour earlier, the only passenger for that lonely spot,\nand had walked up the shore road and entered Judge Driscoll's house\nwithout having encountered anyone either on the road or under the roof.\n\nHe pulled down his window blinds and lighted his candle. He laid off his\ncoat and hat and began his preparations. He unlocked his trunk and got\nhis suit of girl's clothes out from under the male attire in it, and laid\nit by. Then he blacked his face with burnt cork and put the cork in his\npocket. His plan was to slip down to his uncle's private sitting room\nbelow, pass into the bedroom, steal the safe key from the old gentleman's\nclothes, and then go back and rob the safe. He took up his candle to\nstart. His courage and confidence were high, up to this point, but both\nbegan to waver a little now. Suppose he should make a noise, by some\naccident, and get caught--say, in the act of opening the safe? Perhaps\nit would be well to go armed. He took the Indian knife from its hiding\nplace, and felt a pleasant return of his wandering courage. He slipped\nstealthily down the narrow stair, his hair rising and his pulses halting\nat the slightest creak. When he was halfway down, he was disturbed to\nperceive that the landing below was touched by a faint glow of light.\nWhat could that mean? Was his uncle still up? No, that was not likely;\nhe must have left his night taper there when he went to bed. Tom crept\non down, pausing at every step to listen. He found the door standing\nopen, and glanced in. What he saw pleased him beyond measure. His uncle\nwas asleep on the sofa; on a small table at the head of the sofa a lamp\nwas burning low, and by it stood the old man's small cashbox, closed.\nNear the box was a pile of bank notes and a piece of paper covered with\nfigures in pencil. The safe door was not open. Evidently the sleeper had\nwearied himself with work upon his finances, and was taking a rest.\n\nTom set his candle on the stairs, and began to make his way toward the\npile of notes, stooping low as he went. When he was passing his uncle,\nthe old man stirred in his sleep, and Tom stopped instantly--stopped, and\nsoftly drew the knife from its sheath, with his heart thumping, and his\neyes fastened upon his benefactor's face. After a moment or two he\nventured forward again--one step--reached for his prize and seized it,\ndropping the knife sheath. Then he felt the old man's strong grip upon\nhim, and a wild cry of \"Help! help!\" rang in his ear. Without hesitation\nhe drove the knife home--and was free. Some of the notes escaped from his\nleft hand and fell in the blood on the floor. He dropped the knife and\nsnatched them up and started to fly; transferred them to his left hand,\nand seized the knife again, in his fright and confusion, but remembered\nhimself and flung it from him, as being a dangerous witness to carry away\nwith him.\n\nHe jumped for the stair-foot, and closed the door behind him; and as he\nsnatched his candle and fled upward, the stillness of the night was\nbroken by the sound of urgent footsteps approaching the house. In another\nmoment he was in his room, and the twins were standing aghast over the\nbody of the murdered man!\n\nTom put on his coat, buttoned his hat under it, threw on his suit of\ngirl's clothes, dropped the veil, blew out his light, locked the room\ndoor by which he had just entered, taking the key, passed through his\nother door into the black hall, locked that door and kept the key, then\nworked his way along in the dark and descended the black stairs. He was\nnot expecting to meet anybody, for all interest was centered in the other\npart of the house now; his calculation proved correct. By the time he\nwas passing through the backyard, Mrs. Pratt, her servants, and a dozen\nhalf-dressed neighbors had joined the twins and the dead, and accessions\nwere still arriving at the front door.\n\nAs Tom, quaking as with a palsy, passed out at the gate, three women came\nflying from the house on the opposite side of the lane. They rushed by\nhim and in at the gate, asking him what the trouble was there, but not\nwaiting for an answer. Tom said to himself, \"Those old maids waited to\ndress--they did the same thing the night Stevens's house burned down next\ndoor.\" In a few minutes he was in the haunted house. He lighted a candle\nand took off his girl-clothes. There was blood on him all down his left\nside, and his right hand was red with the stains of the blood-soaked\nnotes which he has crushed in it; but otherwise he was free from this\nsort of evidence. He cleansed his hand on the straw, and cleaned most of\nthe smut from his face. Then he burned the male and female attire to\nashes, scattered the ashes, and put on a disguise proper for a tramp. He\nblew out his light, went below, and was soon loafing down the river road\nwith the intent to borrow and use one of Roxy's devices. He found a\ncanoe and paddled down downstream, setting the canoe adrift as dawn\napproached, and making his way by land to the next village, where he kept\nout of sight till a transient steamer came along, and then took deck\npassage for St. Louis. He was ill at ease until Dawson's Landing was behind\nhim; then he said to himself, \"All the detectives on earth couldn't trace\nme now; there's not a vestige of a clue left in the world; that homicide\nwill take its place with the permanent mysteries, and people won't get\ndone trying to guess out the secret of it for fifty years.\"\n\nIn St. Louis, next morning, he read this brief telegram in the\npapers--dated at Dawson's Landing:\n\n      Judge Driscoll, an old and respected citizen, was assassinated\n      here about midnight by a profligate Italian nobleman or a\n      barber on account of a quarrel growing out of the recent\n      election. The assassin will probably be lynched.\n\n\"One of the twins!\" soliloquized Tom. \"How lucky! It is the knife that\nhas done him this grace. We never know when fortune is trying to favor\nus. I actually cursed Pudd'nhead Wilson in my heart for putting it out\nof my power to sell that knife. I take it back now.\"\n\nTom was now rich and independent. He arranged with the planter, and\nmailed to Wilson the new bill of sale which sold Roxana to herself; then\nhe telegraphed his Aunt Pratt:\n\n      Have seen the awful news in the papers and am almost\n      prostrated with grief. Shall start by packet today. Try to\n      bear up till I come.\n\nWhen Wilson reached the house of mourning and had gathered such details\nas Mrs. Pratt and the rest of the crowd could tell him, he took command\nas mayor, and gave orders that nothing should be touched, but everything\nleft as it was until Justice Robinson should arrive and take the proper\nmeasures as coroner. He cleared everybody out of the room but the twins\nand himself. The sheriff soon arrived and took the twins away to jail.\nWilson told them to keep heart, and promised to do his best in their\ndefense when the case should come to trial. Justice Robinson came\npresently, and with him Constable Blake. They examined the room\nthoroughly. They found the knife and the sheath. Wilson noticed that\nthere were fingerprints on the knife's handle. That pleased him, for the\ntwins had required the earliest comers to make a scrutiny of their hands\nand clothes, and neither these people nor Wilson himself had found any\nbloodstains upon them. Could there be a possibility that the twins had\nspoken the truth when they had said they found the man dead when they ran\ninto the house in answer to the cry for help? He thought of that\nmysterious girl at once. But this was not the sort of work for a girl to\nbe engaged in. No matter; Tom Driscoll's room must be examined.\n\nAfter the coroner's jury had viewed the body and its surroundings, Wilson\nsuggested a search upstairs, and he went along. The jury forced an\nentrance to Tom's room, but found nothing, of course.\n\nThe coroner's jury found that the homicide was committed by Luigi, and\nthat Angelo was accessory to it.\n\nThe town was bitter against the misfortunates, and for the first few days\nafter the murder they were in constant danger of being lynched. The\ngrand jury presently indicted Luigi for murder in the first degree, and\nAngelo as accessory before the fact. The twins were transferred from the\ncity jail to the county prison to await trial.\n\nWilson examined the finger marks on the knife handle and said to himself,\n\"Neither of the twins made those marks. Then manifestly there was\nanother person concerned, either in his own interest or as hired\nassassin.\"\n\nBut who could it be? That, he must try to find out. The safe was not\nopened, the cashbox was closed, and had three thousand dollars in it.\nThen robbery was not the motive, and revenge was. Where had the murdered\nman an enemy except Luigi? There was but that one person in the world\nwith a deep grudge against him.\n\nThe mysterious girl! The girl was a great trial to Wilson. If the motive\nhad been robbery, the girl might answer; but there wasn't any girl that\nwould want to take this old man's life for revenge. He had no quarrels\nwith girls; he was a gentleman.\n\nWilson had perfect tracings of the finger marks of the knife handle; and\namong his glass records he had a great array of fingerprints of women and\ngirls, collected during the last fifteen or eighteen years, but he\nscanned them in vain, they successfully withstood every test; among them\nwere no duplicates of the prints on the knife.\n\nThe presence of the knife on the stage of the murder was a worrying\ncircumstance for Wilson. A week previously he had as good as admitted to\nhimself that he believed Luigi had possessed such a knife, and that he\nstill possessed it notwithstanding his pretense that it had been stolen.\nAnd now here was the knife, and with it the twins. Half the town had\nsaid the twins were humbugging when they claimed they had lost their\nknife, and now these people were joyful, and said, \"I told you so!\"\n\nIf their fingerprints had been on the handle--but useless to bother any\nfurther about that; the fingerprints on the handle were NOT theirs--that\nhe knew perfectly.\n\nWilson refused to suspect Tom; for first, Tom couldn't murder anybody--he\nhadn't character enough; secondly, if he could murder a person he\nwouldn't select his doting benefactor and nearest relative; thirdly,\nself-interest was in the way; for while the uncle lived, Tom was sure of\na free support and a chance to get the destroyed will revived again, but\nwith the uncle gone, that chance was gone too. It was true the will had\nreally been revived, as was now discovered, but Tom could not have been\naware of it, or he would have spoken of it, in his native talky,\nunsecretive way. Finally, Tom was in St. Louis when the murder was done,\nand got the news out of the morning journals, as was shown by his\ntelegram to his aunt. These speculations were unemphasized sensations\nrather than articulated thoughts, for Wilson would have laughed at the\nidea of seriously connecting Tom with the murder.\n\nWilson regarded the case of the twins as desperate--in fact, about\nhopeless. For he argued that if a confederate was not found, an\nenlightened Missouri jury would hang them; sure; if a confederate was\nfound, that would not improve the matter, but simply furnish one more\nperson for the sheriff to hang. Nothing could save the twins but the\ndiscovery of a person who did the murder on his sole personal account--an\nundertaking which had all the aspect of the impossible. Still, the\nperson who made the fingerprints must be sought. The twins might have no\ncase WITH them, but they certainly would have none without him.\n\nSo Wilson mooned around, thinking, thinking, guessing, guessing, day and\nnight, and arriving nowhere. Whenever he ran across a girl or a woman he\nwas not acquainted with, he got her fingerprints, on one pretext or\nanother; and they always cost him a sigh when he got home, for they never\ntallied with the finger marks on the knife handle.\n\nAs to the mysterious girl, Tom swore he knew no such girl, and did not\nremember ever seeing a girl wearing a dress like the one described by\nWilson. He admitted that he did not always lock his room, and that\nsometimes the servants forgot to lock the house doors; still, in his\nopinion the girl must have made but few visits or she would have been\ndiscovered. When Wilson tried to connect her with the stealing raid, and\nthought she might have been the old woman's confederate, if not the very\nthief disguised as an old woman, Tom seemed stuck, and also much\ninterested, and said he would keep a sharp eye out for this person or\npersons, although he was afraid that she or they would be too smart to\nventure again into a town where everybody would now be on the watch for a\ngood while to come.\n\nEverybody was pitying Tom, he looked so quiet and sorrowful, and seemed\nto feel his great loss so deeply. He was playing a part, but it was not\nall a part. The picture of his alleged uncle, as he had last seen him,\nwas before him in the dark pretty frequently, when he was away, and\ncalled again in his dreams, when he was asleep. He wouldn't go into the\nroom where the tragedy had happened. This charmed the doting Mrs. Pratt,\nwho realized now, \"as she had never done before,\" she said, what a\nsensitive and delicate nature her darling had, and how he adored his poor\nuncle.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 20 -- The Murderer Chuckles\n\n     _Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence\n     is likely to be at fault, after all, and therefore ought to\n     be received with great caution. Take the case of any pencil,\n     sharpened by any woman; if you have witnesses, you will find\n     she did it with a knife; but if you take simply the aspect\n     of the pencil, you will say she did it with her teeth._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nThe weeks dragged along, no friend visiting the jailed twins but their\ncounsel and Aunt Patsy Cooper, and the day of trial came at last--the\nheaviest day in Wilson's life; for with all his tireless diligence he had\ndiscovered no sign or trace of the missing confederate. \"Confederate\"\nwas the term he had long ago privately accepted for that person--not as\nbeing unquestionably the right term, but as being the least possibly the\nright one, though he was never able to understand why the twins did not\nvanish and escape, as the confederate had done, instead of remaining by\nthe murdered man and getting caught there.\n\nThe courthouse was crowded, of course, and would remain so to the finish,\nfor not only in the town itself, but in the country for miles around, the\ntrial was the one topic of conversation among the people. Mrs. Pratt, in\ndeep mourning, and Tom with a weed on his hat, had seats near Pembroke\nHoward, the public prosecutor, and back of them sat a great array of\nfriends of the family. The twins had but one friend present to keep\ntheir counsel in countenance, their poor old sorrowing landlady. She sat\nnear Wilson, and looked her friendliest. In the \"nigger corner\" sat\nChambers; also Roxy, with good clothes on, and her bill of sale in her\npocket. It was her most precious possession, and she never parted with\nit, day or night. Tom had allowed her thirty-five dollars a month ever\nsince he came into his property, and had said that he and she ought to be\ngrateful to the twins for making them rich; but had roused such a temper\nin her by this speech that he did not repeat the argument afterward. She\nsaid the old judge had treated her child a thousand times better than he\ndeserved, and had never done her an unkindness in his life; so she hated\nthese outlandish devils for killing him, and shouldn't ever sleep\nsatisfied till she saw them hanged for it. She was here to watch the\ntrial now, and was going to lift up just one \"hooraw\" over it if the\ncounty judge put her in jail a year for it. She gave her turbaned head a\ntoss and said, \"When dat verdic' comes, I's gwine to lif' dat ROOF, now,\nI TELL you.\"\n\nPembroke Howard briefly sketched the state's case. He said he would show\nby a chain of circumstantial evidence without break or fault in it\nanywhere, that the principal prisoner at the bar committed the murder;\nthat the motive was partly revenge, and partly a desire to take his own\nlife out of jeopardy, and that his brother, by his presence, was a\nconsenting accessory to the crime; a crime which was the basest known to\nthe calendar of human misdeeds--assassination; that it was conceived by\nthe blackest of hearts and consummated by the cowardliest of hands; a\ncrime which had broken a loving sister's heart, blighted the happiness of\na young nephew who was as dear as a son, brought inconsolable grief to\nmany friends, and sorrow and loss to the whole community. The utmost\npenalty of the outraged law would be exacted, and upon the accused, now\npresent at the bar, that penalty would unquestionably be executed. He\nwould reserve further remark until his closing speech.\n\nHe was strongly moved, and so also was the whole house; Mrs. Pratt and\nseveral other women were weeping when he sat down, and many an eye that\nwas full of hate was riveted upon the unhappy prisoners.\n\nWitness after witness was called by the state, and questioned at length;\nbut the cross questioning was brief. Wilson knew they could furnish\nnothing valuable for his side. People were sorry for Pudd'nhead Wilson;\nhis budding career would get hurt by this trial.\n\nSeveral witnesses swore they heard Judge Driscoll say in his public\nspeech that the twins would be able to find their lost knife again when\nthey needed it to assassinate somebody with. This was not news, but now\nit was seen to have been sorrowfully prophetic, and a profound sensation\nquivered through the hushed courtroom when those dismal words were\nrepeated.\n\nThe public prosecutor rose and said that it was within his knowledge,\nthrough a conversation held with Judge Driscoll on the last day of his\nlife, that counsel for the defense had brought him a challenge from the\nperson charged at the bar with murder; that he had refused to fight with\na confessed assassin--\"that is, on the field of honor,\" but had added\nsignificantly, that he would be ready for him elsewhere. Presumably\nthe person here charged with murder was warned that he must kill or be\nkilled the first time he should meet Judge Driscoll. If counsel for the\ndefense chose to let the statement stand so, he would not call him to the\nwitness stand. Mr. Wilson said he would offer no denial. [Murmurs in the\nhouse: \"It is getting worse and worse for Wilson's case.\"]\n\nMrs. Pratt testified that she heard no outcry, and did not know what woke\nher up, unless it was the sound of rapid footsteps approaching the front\ndoor. She jumped up and ran out in the hall just as she was, and heard\nthe footsteps flying up the front steps and then following behind her as\nshe ran to the sitting room. There she found the accused standing over\nher murdered brother. [Here she broke down and sobbed. Sensation in the\ncourt.] Resuming, she said the persons entered behind her were Mr. Rogers\nand Mr. Buckstone.\n\nCross-examined by Wilson, she said the twins proclaimed their innocence;\ndeclared that they had been taking a walk, and had hurried to the house\nin response to a cry for help which was so loud and strong that they had\nheard it at a considerable distance; that they begged her and the\ngentlemen just mentioned to examine their hands and clothes--which was\ndone, and no blood stains found.\n\nConfirmatory evidence followed from Rogers and Buckstone.\n\nThe finding of the knife was verified, the advertisement minutely\ndescribing it and offering a reward for it was put in evidence, and its\nexact correspondence with that description proved. Then followed a few\nminor details, and the case for the state was closed.\n\nWilson said that he had three witnesses, the Misses Clarkson, who would\ntestify that they met a veiled young woman leaving Judge Driscoll's\npremises by the back gate a few minutes after the cries for help were\nheard, and that their evidence, taken with certain circumstantial\nevidence which he would call the court's attention to, would in his\nopinion convince the court that there was still one person concerned in\nthis crime who had not yet been found, and also that a stay of\nproceedings ought to be granted, in justice to his clients, until that\nperson should be discovered. As it was late, he would ask leave to defer\nthe examination of his three witnesses until the next morning.\n\nThe crowd poured out of the place and went flocking away in excited\ngroups and couples, taking the events of the session over with vivacity\nand consuming interest, and everybody seemed to have had a satisfactory\nand enjoyable day except the accused, their counsel, and their old lady\nfriend. There was no cheer among these, and no substantial hope.\n\nIn parting with the twins Aunt Patsy did attempt a good-night with a gay\npretense of hope and cheer in it, but broke down without finishing.\n\nAbsolutely secure as Tom considered himself to be, the opening\nsolemnities of the trial had nevertheless oppressed him with a vague\nuneasiness, his being a nature sensitive to even the smallest alarms; but\nfrom the moment that the poverty and weakness of Wilson's case lay\nexposed to the court, he was comfortable once more, even jubilant. He\nleft the courtroom sarcastically sorry for Wilson. \"The Clarksons met an\nunknown woman in the back lane,\" he said to himself, \"THAT is his case!\nI'll give him a century to find her in--a couple of them if he likes. A\nwoman who doesn't exist any longer, and the clothes that gave her her sex\nburnt up and the ashes thrown away--oh, certainly, he'll find HER easy\nenough!\" This reflection set him to admiring, for the hundredth time,\nthe shrewd ingenuities by which he had insured himself against\ndetection--more, against even suspicion.\n\n\"Nearly always in cases like this there is some little detail or other\noverlooked, some wee little track or trace left behind, and detection\nfollows; but here there's not even the faintest suggestion of a trace\nleft. No more than a bird leaves when it flies through the air--yes,\nthrough the night, you may say. The man that can track a bird through the\nair in the dark and find that bird is the man to track me out and find\nthe judge's assassin--no other need apply. And that is the job that has\nbeen laid out for poor Pudd'nhead Wilson, of all people in the world!\nLord, it will be pathetically funny to see him grubbing and groping after\nthat woman that don't exist, and the right person sitting under his very\nnose all the time!\" The more he thought the situation over, the more the\nhumor of it struck him. Finally he said, \"I'll never let him hear the\nlast of that woman. Every time I catch him in company, to his dying day,\nI'll ask him in the guileless affectionate way that used to gravel him so\nwhen I inquired how his unborn law business was coming along, 'Got on her\ntrack yet--hey, Pudd'nhead?'\" He wanted to laugh, but that would not\nhave answered; there were people about, and he was mourning for his\nuncle. He made up his mind that it would be good entertainment to look\nin on Wilson that night and watch him worry over his barren law case and\ngoad him with an exasperating word or two of sympathy and commiseration\nnow and then.\n\nWilson wanted no supper, he had no appetite. He got out all the\nfingerprints of girls and women in his collection of records and pored\ngloomily over them an hour or more, trying to convince himself that that\ntroublesome girl's marks were there somewhere and had been overlooked.\nBut it was not so. He drew back his chair, clasped his hands over his\nhead, and gave himself up to dull and arid musings.\n\nTom Driscoll dropped in, an hour after dark, and said with a pleasant\nlaugh as he took a seat:\n\n\"Hello, we've gone back to the amusements of our days of neglect and\nobscurity for consolation, have we?\" and he took up one of the glass\nstrips and held it against the light to inspect it. \"Come, cheer up, old\nman; there's no use in losing your grip and going back to this child's\nplay merely because this big sunspot is drifting across your shiny new\ndisk. It'll pass, and you'll be all right again\"--and he laid the glass\ndown. \"Did you think you could win always?\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" said Wilson, with a sigh, \"I didn't expect that, but I can't\nbelieve Luigi killed your uncle, and I feel very sorry for him. It makes\nme blue. And you would feel as I do, Tom, if you were not prejudiced\nagainst those young fellows.\"\n\n\"I don't know about that,\" and Tom's countenance darkened, for his memory\nreverted to his kicking. \"I owe them no good will, considering the\nbrunet one's treatment of me that night. Prejudice or no prejudice,\nPudd'nhead, I don't like them, and when they get their deserts you're not\ngoing to find me sitting on the mourner's bench.\"\n\nHe took up another strip of glass, and exclaimed:\n\n\"Why, here's old Roxy's label! Are you going to ornament the royal\npalaces with nigger paw marks, too? By the date here, I was seven months\nold when this was done, and she was nursing me and her little nigger cub.\nThere's a line straight across her thumbprint. How comes that?\" and Tom\nheld out the piece of glass to Wilson.\n\n\"That is common,\" said the bored man, wearily. \"Scar of a cut or a\nscratch, usually\"--and he took the strip of glass indifferently, and\nraised it toward the lamp.\n\nAll the blood sank suddenly out of his face; his hand quaked, and he\ngazed at the polished surface before him with the glassy stare of a\ncorpse.\n\n\"Great heavens, what's the matter with you, Wilson? Are you going to\nfaint?\"\n\nTom sprang for a glass of water and offered it, but Wilson shrank\nshuddering from him and said:\n\n\"No, no!--take it away!\" His breast was rising and falling, and he moved\nhis head about in a dull and wandering way, like a person who had been\nstunned. Presently he said, \"I shall feel better when I get to bed; I\nhave been overwrought today; yes, and overworked for many days.\"\n\n\"Then I'll leave you and let you get to your rest. Good night, old man.\"\nBut as Tom went out he couldn't deny himself a small parting gibe:\n\"Don't take it so hard; a body can't win every time; you'll hang somebody\nyet.\"\n\nWilson muttered to himself, \"It is no lie to say I am sorry I have to\nbegin with you, miserable dog though you are!\"\n\nHe braced himself up with a glass of cold whisky, and went to work again.\nHe did not compare the new finger marks unintentionally left by Tom a few\nminutes before on Roxy's glass with the tracings of the marks left on the\nknife handle, there being no need for that (for his trained eye), but\nbusied himself with another matter, muttering from time to time, \"Idiot\nthat I was!--Nothing but a GIRL would do me--a man in girl's clothes\nnever occurred to me.\" First, he hunted out the plate containing the\nfingerprints made by Tom when he was twelve years old, and laid it by\nitself; then he brought forth the marks made by Tom's baby fingers when\nhe was a suckling of seven months, and placed these two plates with the\none containing this subject's newly (and unconsciously) made record.\n\n\"Now the series is complete,\" he said with satisfaction, and sat down to\ninspect these things and enjoy them.\n\nBut his enjoyment was brief. He stared a considerable time at the three\nstrips, and seemed stupefied with astonishment. At last he put them down\nand said, \"I can't make it out at all--hang it, the baby's don't tally\nwith the others!\"\n\nHe walked the floor for half an hour puzzling over his enigma, then he\nhunted out the other glass plates.\n\nHe sat down and puzzled over these things a good while, but kept\nmuttering, \"It's no use; I can't understand it. They don't tally right,\nand yet I'll swear the names and dates are right, and so of course they\nOUGHT to tally. I never labeled one of these thing carelessly in my\nlife. There is a most extraordinary mystery here.\"\n\nHe was tired out now, and his brains were beginning to clog. He said he\nwould sleep himself fresh, and then see what he could do with this\nriddle. He slept through a troubled and unrestful hour, then\nunconsciousness began to shred away, and presently he rose drowsily to a\nsitting posture. \"Now what was that dream?\" he said, trying to recall\nit. \"What was that dream? It seemed to unravel that puz--\"\n\nHe landed in the middle of the floor at a bound, without finishing the\nsentence, and ran and turned up his light and seized his \"records.\" He\ntook a single swift glance at them and cried out:\n\n\"It's so! Heavens, what a revelation! And for twenty-three years no man\nhas ever suspected it!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 21 -- Doom\n\n     _He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under\n     it, inspiring the cabbages._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n     _APRIL 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what\n     we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nWilson put on enough clothes for business purposes and went to work\nunder a high pressure of steam. He was awake all over. All sense of\nweariness had been swept away by the invigorating refreshment of the\ngreat and hopeful discovery which he had made. He made fine and accurate\nreproductions of a number of his \"records,\" and then enlarged them on a\nscale of ten to one with his pantograph. He did these pantograph\nenlargements on sheets of white cardboard, and made each individual line\nof the bewildering maze of whorls or curves or loops which consisted of\nthe \"pattern\" of a \"record\" stand out bold and black by reinforcing it\nwith ink. To the untrained eye the collection of delicate originals made\nby the human finger on the glass plates looked about alike; but when\nenlarged ten times they resembled the markings of a block of wood that\nhas been sawed across the grain, and the dullest eye could detect at a\nglance, and at a distance of many feet, that no two of the patterns were\nalike. When Wilson had at last finished his tedious and difficult work,\nhe arranged his results according to a plan in which a progressive order\nand sequence was a principal feature; then he added to the batch several\npantograph enlargements which he had made from time to time in bygone\nyears.\n\nThe night was spent and the day well advanced now. By the time he had\nsnatched a trifle of breakfast, it was nine o'clock, and the court was\nready to begin its sitting. He was in his place twelve minutes later\nwith his \"records.\"\n\nTom Driscoll caught a slight glimpse of the records, and nudged his\nnearest friend and said, with a wink, \"Pudd'nhead's got a rare eye to\nbusiness--thinks that as long as he can't win his case it's at least a\nnoble good chance to advertise his window palace decorations without any\nexpense.\" Wilson was informed that his witnesses had been delayed, but\nwould arrive presently; but he rose and said he should probably not have\noccasion to make use of their testimony. [An amused murmur ran through\nthe room: \"It's a clean backdown! he gives up without hitting a lick!\"]\nWilson continued: \"I have other testimony--and better. [This compelled\ninterest, and evoked murmurs of surprise that had a detectable ingredient\nof disappointment in them.] If I seem to be springing this evidence upon\nthe court, I offer as my justification for this, that I did not discover\nits existence until late last night, and have been engaged in examining\nand classifying it ever since, until half an hour ago. I shall offer it\npresently; but first I wish to say a few preliminary words.\n\n\"May it please the court, the claim given the front place, the claim most\npersistently urged, the claim most strenuously and I may even say\naggressively and defiantly insisted upon by the prosecution is this--that\nthe person whose hand left the bloodstained fingerprints upon the handle\nof the Indian knife is the person who committed the murder.\" Wilson\npaused, during several moments, to give impressiveness to what he was\nabout to say, and then added tranquilly, \"WE GRANT THAT CLAIM.\"\n\nIt was an electrical surprise. No one was prepared for such an\nadmission. A buzz of astonishment rose on all sides, and people were\nheard to intimate that the overworked lawyer had lost his mind. Even the\nveteran judge, accustomed as he was to legal ambushes and masked\nbatteries in criminal procedure, was not sure that his ears were not\ndeceiving him, and asked counsel what it was he had said. Howard's\nimpassive face betrayed no sign, but his attitude and bearing lost\nsomething of their careless confidence for a moment. Wilson resumed:\n\n\"We not only grant that claim, but we welcome it and strongly endorse it.\nLeaving that matter for the present, we will now proceed to consider\nother points in the case which we propose to establish by evidence, and\nshall include that one in the chain in its proper place.\"\n\nHe had made up his mind to try a few hardy guesses, in mapping out his\ntheory of the origin and motive of the murder--guesses designed to fill\nup gaps in it--guesses which could help if they hit, and would probably\ndo no harm if they didn't.\n\n\"To my mind, certain circumstances of the case before the court seem to\nsuggest a motive for the homicide quite different from the one insisted\non by the state. It is my conviction that the motive was not revenge,\nbut robbery. It has been urged that the presence of the accused brothers\nin that fatal room, just after notification that one of them must take\nthe life of Judge Driscoll or lose his own the moment the parties should\nmeet, clearly signifies that the natural instinct of self-preservation\nmoved my clients to go there secretly and save Count Luigi by destroying\nhis adversary.\n\n\"Then why did they stay there, after the deed was done? Mrs. Pratt had\ntime, although she did not hear the cry for help, but woke up some\nmoments later, to run to that room--and there she found these men\nstanding and making no effort to escape. If they were guilty, they ought\nto have been running out of the house at the same time that she was\nrunning to that room. If they had had such a strong instinct toward\nself-preservation as to move them to kill that unarmed man, what had\nbecome of it now, when it should have been more alert than ever. Would\nany of us have remained there? Let us not slander our intelligence to\nthat degree.\n\n\"Much stress has been laid upon the fact that the accused offered a very\nlarge reward for the knife with which this murder was done; that no thief\ncame forward to claim that extraordinary reward; that the latter fact was\ngood circumstantial evidence that the claim that the knife had been\nstolen was a vanity and a fraud; that these details taken in connection\nwith the memorable and apparently prophetic speech of the deceased\nconcerning that knife, and the final discovery of that very knife in\nthe fatal room where no living person was found present with the\nslaughtered man but the owner of the knife and his brother, form an\nindestructible chain of evidence which fixed the crime upon those\nunfortunate strangers.\n\n\"But I shall presently ask to be sworn, and shall testify that there was\na large reward offered for the THIEF, also; and it was offered secretly\nand not advertised; that this fact was indiscreetly mentioned--or at\nleast tacitly admitted--in what was supposed to be safe circumstances,\nbut may NOT have been. The thief may have been present himself. [Tom\nDriscoll had been looking at the speaker, but dropped his eyes at this\npoint.] In that case he would retain the knife in his possession, not\ndaring to offer it for sale, or for pledge in a pawnshop. [There was a\nnodding of heads among the audience by way of admission that this was not\na bad stroke.] I shall prove to the satisfaction of the jury that there\nWAS a person in Judge Driscoll's room several minutes before the accused\nentered it. [This produced a strong sensation; the last drowsy head in\nthe courtroom roused up now, and made preparation to listen.] If it\nshall seem necessary, I will prove by the Misses Clarkson that they met a\nveiled person--ostensibly a woman--coming out of the back gate a few\nminutes after the cry for help was heard. This person was not a woman,\nbut a man dressed in woman's clothes.\" Another sensation. Wilson had his\neye on Tom when he hazarded this guess, to see what effect it would\nproduce. He was satisfied with the result, and said to himself, \"It was\na success--he's hit!\"\n\n\"The object of that person in that house was robbery, not murder. It is\ntrue that the safe was not open, but there was an ordinary cashbox on the\ntable, with three thousand dollars in it. It is easily supposable that\nthe thief was concealed in the house; that he knew of this box, and of\nits owner's habit of counting its contents and arranging his accounts at\nnight--if he had that habit, which I do not assert, of course--that he\ntried to take the box while its owner slept, but made a noise and was\nseized, and had to use the knife to save himself from capture; and that\nhe fled without his booty because he heard help coming.\n\n\"I have now done with my theory, and will proceed to the evidences by\nwhich I propose to try to prove its soundness.\" Wilson took up several of\nhis strips of glass. When the audience recognized these familiar\nmementos of Pudd'nhead's old time childish \"puttering\" and folly, the\ntense and funereal interest vanished out of their faces, and the house\nburst into volleys of relieving and refreshing laughter, and Tom chirked\nup and joined in the fun himself; but Wilson was apparently not\ndisturbed. He arranged his records on the table before him, and said:\n\n\"I beg the indulgence of the court while I make a few remarks in\nexplanation of some evidence which I am about to introduce, and which I\nshall presently ask to be allowed to verify under oath on the witness\nstand. Every human being carries with him from his cradle to his grave\ncertain physical marks which do not change their character, and by which\nhe can always be identified--and that without shade of doubt or question.\nThese marks are his signature, his physiological autograph, so to speak,\nand this autograph can not be counterfeited, nor can he disguise it or\nhide it away, nor can it become illegible by the wear and mutations of\ntime. This signature is not his face--age can change that beyond\nrecognition; it is not his hair, for that can fall out; it is not his\nheight, for duplicates of that exist; it is not his form, for duplicates\nof that exist also, whereas this signature is each man's very own--there\nis no duplicate of it among the swarming populations of the globe! [The\naudience were interested once more.]\n\n\"This autograph consists of the delicate lines or corrugations with which\nNature marks the insides of the hands and the soles of the feet. If you\nwill look at the balls of your fingers--you that have very sharp\neyesight--you will observe that these dainty curving lines lie close\ntogether, like those that indicate the borders of oceans in maps, and\nthat they form various clearly defined patterns, such as arches, circles,\nlong curves, whorls, etc., and that these patterns differ on the different\nfingers. [Every man in the room had his hand up to the light now, and\nhis head canted to one side, and was minutely scrutinizing the balls of\nhis fingers; there were whispered ejaculations of 'Why, it's so--I never\nnoticed that before!'] The patterns on the right hand are not the same as\nthose on the left. [Ejaculations of 'Why, that's so, too!'] Taken finger\nfor finger, your patterns differ from your neighbor's. [Comparisons were\nmade all over the house--even the judge and jury were absorbed in this\ncurious work.] The patterns of a twin's right hand are not the same as\nthose on his left. One twin's patterns are never the same as his fellow\ntwin's patterns--the jury will find that the patterns upon the finger\nballs of the twins' hands follow this rule. [An examination of the\ntwins' hands was begun at once.] You have often heard of twins who were\nso exactly alike that when dressed alike their own parents could not tell\nthem apart. Yet there was never a twin born in to this world that did not\ncarry from birth to death a sure identifier in this mysterious and\nmarvelous natal autograph. That once known to you, his fellow twin could\nnever personate him and deceive you.\"\n\nWilson stopped and stood silent. Inattention dies a quick and sure death\nwhen a speaker does that. The stillness gives warning that something is\ncoming. All palms and finger balls went down now, all slouching forms\nstraightened, all heads came up, all eyes were fastened upon Wilson's\nface. He waited yet one, two, three moments, to let his pause complete\nand perfect its spell upon the house; then, when through the profound\nhush he could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall, he put out his\nhand and took the Indian knife by the blade and held it aloft where all\ncould see the sinister spots upon its ivory handle; then he said, in a\nlevel and passionless voice:\n\n\"Upon this haft stands the assassin's natal autograph, written in the\nblood of that helpless and unoffending old man who loved you and whom you\nall loved. There is but one man in the whole earth whose hand can\nduplicate that crimson sign\"--he paused and raised his eyes to the\npendulum swinging back and forth--\"and please God we will produce that\nman in this room before the clock strikes noon!\"\n\nStunned, distraught, unconscious of its own movement, the house half\nrose, as if expecting to see the murderer appear at the door, and a\nbreeze of muttered ejaculations swept the place. \"Order in the\ncourt!--sit down!\" This from the sheriff. He was obeyed, and quiet\nreigned again. Wilson stole a glance at Tom, and said to himself, \"He is\nflying signals of distress now; even people who despise him are pitying\nhim; they think this is a hard ordeal for a young fellow who has lost his\nbenefactor by so cruel a stroke--and they are right.\" He resumed his\nspeech:\n\n\"For more than twenty years I have amused my compulsory leisure with\ncollecting these curious physical signatures in this town. At my house I\nhave hundreds upon hundreds of them. Each and every one is labeled with\nname and date; not labeled the next day or even the next hour, but in the\nvery minute that the impression was taken. When I go upon the witness\nstand I will repeat under oath the things which I am now saying. I have\nthe fingerprints of the court, the sheriff, and every member of the jury.\nThere is hardly a person in this room, white or black, whose natal\nsignature I cannot produce, and not one of them can so disguise himself\nthat I cannot pick him out from a multitude of his fellow creatures and\nunerringly identify him by his hands. And if he and I should live to be a\nhundred I could still do it. [The interest of the audience was steadily\ndeepening now.]\n\n\"I have studied some of these signatures so much that I know them as well\nas the bank cashier knows the autograph of his oldest customer. While I\nturn my back now, I beg that several persons will be so good as to pass\ntheir fingers through their hair, and then press them upon one of the\npanes of the window near the jury, and that among them the accused may\nset THEIR finger marks. Also, I beg that these experimenters, or others,\nwill set their fingers upon another pane, and add again the marks of the\naccused, but not placing them in the same order or relation to the other\nsignatures as before--for, by one chance in a million, a person might\nhappen upon the right marks by pure guesswork, ONCE, therefore I wish to\nbe tested twice.\"\n\nHe turned his back, and the two panes were quickly covered with\ndelicately lined oval spots, but visible only to such persons as could\nget a dark background for them--the foliage of a tree, outside, for\ninstance. Then upon call, Wilson went to the window, made his\nexamination, and said:\n\n\"This is Count Luigi's right hand; this one, three signatures below, is\nhis left. Here is Count Angelo's right; down here is his left. Now for\nthe other pane: here and here are Count Luigi's, here and here are his\nbrother's.\" He faced about. \"Am I right?\"\n\nA deafening explosion of applause was the answer. The bench said:\n\n\"This certainly approaches the miraculous!\"\n\nWilson turned to the window again and remarked, pointing with his finger:\n\n\"This is the signature of Mr. Justice Robinson. [Applause.] This, of\nConstable Blake. [Applause.] This of John Mason, juryman. [Applause.]\nThis, of the sheriff. [Applause.] I cannot name the others, but I have\nthem all at home, named and dated, and could identify them all by my\nfingerprint records.\"\n\nHe moved to his place through a storm of applause--which the sheriff\nstopped, and also made the people sit down, for they were all standing\nand struggling to see, of course. Court, jury, sheriff, and everybody\nhad been too absorbed in observing Wilson's performance to attend to the\naudience earlier.\n\n\"Now then,\" said Wilson, \"I have here the natal autographs of the two\nchildren--thrown up to ten times the natural size by the pantograph, so\nthat anyone who can see at all can tell the markings apart at a glance.\nWe will call the children A and B. Here are A's finger marks, taken at\nthe age of five months. Here they are again taken at seven months. [Tom\nstarted.] They are alike, you see. Here are B's at five months, and also\nat seven months. They, too, exactly copy each other, but the patterns\nare quite different from A's, you observe. I shall refer to these again\npresently, but we will turn them face down now.\n\n\"Here, thrown up ten sizes, are the natal autographs of the two persons\nwho are here before you accused of murdering Judge Driscoll. I made these\npantograph copies last night, and will so swear when I go upon the\nwitness stand. I ask the jury to compare them with the finger marks of\nthe accused upon the windowpanes, and tell the court if they are the\nsame.\"\n\nHe passed a powerful magnifying glass to the foreman.\n\nOne juryman after another took the cardboard and the glass and made the\ncomparison. Then the foreman said to the judge:\n\n\"Your honor, we are all agreed that they are identical.\"\n\nWilson said to the foreman:\n\n\"Please turn that cardboard face down, and take this one, and compare it\nsearchingly, by the magnifier, with the fatal signature upon the knife\nhandle, and report your finding to the court.\"\n\nAgain the jury made minute examinations, and again reported:\n\n\"We find them to be exactly identical, your honor.\"\n\nWilson turned toward the counsel for the prosecution, and there was a\nclearly recognizable note of warning in his voice when he said:\n\n\"May it please the court, the state has claimed, strenuously and\npersistently, that the bloodstained fingerprints upon that knife handle\nwere left there by the assassin of Judge Driscoll. You have heard us\ngrant that claim, and welcome it.\" He turned to the jury: \"Compare the\nfingerprints of the accused with the fingerprints left by the\nassassin--and report.\"\n\nThe comparison began. As it proceeded, all movement and all sound\nceased, and the deep silence of an absorbed and waiting suspense settled\nupon the house; and when at last the words came, \"THEY DO NOT EVEN\nRESEMBLE,\" a thundercrash of applause followed and the house sprang to\nits feet, but was quickly repressed by official force and brought to\norder again. Tom was altering his position every few minutes now, but\nnone of his changes brought repose nor any small trifle of comfort. When\nthe house's attention was become fixed once more, Wilson said gravely,\nindicating the twins with a gesture:\n\n\"These men are innocent--I have no further concern with them. [Another\noutbreak of applause began, but was promptly checked.] We will now\nproceed to find the guilty. [Tom's eyes were starting from their\nsockets--yes, it was a cruel day for the bereaved youth, everybody\nthought.] We will return to the infant autographs of A and B. I will\nask the jury to take these large pantograph facsimilies of A's marked\nfive months and seven months. Do they tally?\"\n\nThe foreman responded: \"Perfectly.\"\n\n\"Now examine this pantograph, taken at eight months, and also marked A.\nDoes it tally with the other two?\"\n\nThe surprised response was:\n\n\"NO--THEY DIFFER WIDELY!\"\n\n\"You are quite right. Now take these two pantographs of B's autograph,\nmarked five months and seven months. Do they tally with each other?\"\n\n\"Yes--perfectly.\"\n\n\"Take this third pantograph marked B, eight months. Does it tally with\nB's other two?\"\n\n\"BY NO MEANS!\"\n\n\"Do you know how to account for those strange discrepancies? I will tell\nyou. For a purpose unknown to us, but probably a selfish one, somebody\nchanged those children in the cradle.\"\n\nThis produced a vast sensation, naturally; Roxana was astonished at this\nadmirable guess, but not disturbed by it. To guess the exchange was one\nthing, to guess who did it quite another. Pudd'nhead Wilson could do\nwonderful things, no doubt, but he couldn't do impossible ones. Safe?\nShe was perfectly safe. She smiled privately.\n\n\"Between the ages of seven months and eight months those children were\nchanged in the cradle\"--he made one of this effect--collecting pauses,\nand added--\"and the person who did it is in this house!\"\n\nRoxy's pulses stood still! The house was thrilled as with an electric\nshock, and the people half rose as if to seek a glimpse of the person who\nhad made that exchange. Tom was growing limp; the life seemed oozing out\nof him. Wilson resumed:\n\n\"A was put into B's cradle in the nursery; B was transferred to the\nkitchen and became a Negro and a slave [Sensation--confusion of angry\nejaculations]--but within a quarter of an hour he will stand before you\nwhite and free! [Burst of applause, checked by the officers.] From\nseven months onward until now, A has still been a usurper, and in my\nfinger record he bears B's name. Here is his pantograph at the age of\ntwelve. Compare it with the assassin's signature upon the knife handle.\nDo they tally?\"\n\nThe foreman answered:\n\n\"TO THE MINUTEST DETAIL!\"\n\nWilson said, solemnly:\n\n\"The murderer of your friend and mine--York Driscoll of the generous hand\nand the kindly spirit--sits in among you. Valet de Chambre, Negro and\nslave--falsely called Thomas a Becket Driscoll--make upon the window the\nfingerprints that will hang you!\"\n\nTom turned his ashen face imploring toward the speaker, made some\nimpotent movements with his white lips, then slid limp and lifeless to\nthe floor.\n\nWilson broke the awed silence with the words:\n\n\"There is no need. He has confessed.\"\n\nRoxy flung herself upon her knees, covered her face with her hands, and\nout through her sobs the words struggled:\n\n\"De Lord have mercy on me, po' misasble sinner dat I is!\"\n\nThe clock struck twelve.\n\nThe court rose; the new prisoner, handcuffed, was removed.\n\n\n\nCONCLUSION\n\n     _It is often the case that the man who can't tell a lie\n     thinks he is the best judge of one._ --Pudd'nhead Wilson's\n     Calendar\n\n     _OCTOBER 12, THE DISCOVERY. It was wonderful to find\n     America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it._\n     --Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar\n\n\nThe town sat up all night to discuss the amazing events of the day and\nswap guesses as to when Tom's trial would begin. Troop after troop of\ncitizens came to serenade Wilson, and require a speech, and shout\nthemselves hoarse over every sentence that fell from his lips--for all\nhis sentences were golden, now, all were marvelous. His long fight\nagainst hard luck and prejudice was ended; he was a made man for good.\nAnd as each of these roaring gangs of enthusiasts marched away, some\nremorseful member of it was quite sure to raise his voice and say:\n\n\"And this is the man the likes of us have called a pudd'nhead for more\nthan twenty years. He has resigned from that position, friends.\"\n\n\"Yes, but it isn't vacant--we're elected.\"\n\nThe twins were heroes of romance, now, and with rehabilitated\nreputations. But they were weary of Western adventure, and straightway\nretired to Europe.\n\nRoxy's heart was broken. The young fellow upon whom she had inflicted\ntwenty-three years of slavery continued the false heir's pension of\nthirty-five dollars a month to her, but her hurts were too deep for money\nto heal; the spirit in her eye was quenched, her martial bearing departed\nwith it, and the voice of her laughter ceased in the land. In her church\nand its affairs she found her only solace.\n\nThe real heir suddenly found himself rich and free, but in a most\nembarrassing situation. He could neither read nor write, and his speech\nwas the basest dialect of the Negro quarter. His gait, his attitudes, his\ngestures, his bearing, his laugh--all were vulgar and uncouth; his\nmanners were the manners of a slave. Money and fine clothes could not\nmend these defects or cover them up; they only made them more glaring and\nthe more pathetic. The poor fellow could not endure the terrors of the\nwhite man's parlor, and felt at home and at peace nowhere but in the\nkitchen. The family pew was a misery to him, yet he could nevermore enter\ninto the solacing refuge of the \"nigger gallery\"--that was closed to him\nfor good and all. But we cannot follow his curious fate further--that\nwould be a long story.\n\nThe false heir made a full confession and was sentenced to imprisonment\nfor life. But now a complication came up. The Percy Driscoll estate was\nin such a crippled shape when its owner died that it could pay only sixty\npercent of its great indebtedness, and was settled at that rate. But the\ncreditors came forward now, and complained that inasmuch as through an\nerror for which THEY were in no way to blame the false heir was not\ninventoried at the time with the rest of the property, great wrong and\nloss had thereby been inflicted upon them. They rightly claimed that\n\"Tom\" was lawfully their property and had been so for eight years; that\nthey had already lost sufficiently in being deprived of his services\nduring that long period, and ought not to be required to add anything to\nthat loss; that if he had been delivered up to them in the first place,\nthey would have sold him and he could not have murdered Judge Driscoll;\ntherefore it was not that he had really committed the murder, the guilt\nlay with the erroneous inventory. Everybody saw that there was reason in\nthis. Everybody granted that if \"Tom\" were white and free it would be\nunquestionably right to punish him--it would be no loss to anybody; but\nto shut up a valuable slave for life--that was quite another matter.\n\nAs soon as the Governor understood the case, he pardoned Tom at once, and\nthe creditors sold him down the river.\n\n\n\n\n\nAUTHOR'S NOTE TO \"THOSE EXTRAORDINARY TWINS\"\n\nA man who is not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time\nof it when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He\nhas no clear idea of his story; in fact he has no story. He merely has\nsome people in his mind, and an incident or two, also a locality, and he\ntrusts he can plunge those people into those incidents with interesting\nresults. So he goes to work. To write a novel? No--that is a thought\nwhich comes later; in the beginning he is only proposing to tell a little\ntale, a very little tale, a six-page tale. But as it is a tale which he\nis not acquainted with, and can only find out what it is by listening as\nit goes along telling itself, it is more than apt to go on and on and on\ntill it spreads itself into a book. I know about this, because it has\nhappened to me so many times.\n\nAnd I have noticed another thing: that as the short tale grows into the\nlong tale, the original intention (or motif) is apt to get abolished and\nfind itself superseded by a quite different one. It was so in the case\nof a magazine sketch which I once started to write--a funny and fantastic\nsketch about a prince and a pauper; it presently assumed a grave cast of\nits own accord, and in that new shape spread itself out into a book. Much\nthe same thing happened with PUDD'NHEAD WILSON. I had a sufficiently\nhard time with that tale, because it changed itself from a farce to a\ntragedy while I was going along with it--a most embarrassing\ncircumstance. But what was a great deal worse was, that it was not one\nstory, but two stories tangled together; and they obstructed and\ninterrupted each other at every turn and created no end of confusion and\nannoyance. I could not offer the book for publication, for I was afraid\nit would unseat the reader's reason, I did not know what was the matter\nwith it, for I had not noticed, as yet, that it was two stories in one.\nIt took me months to make that discovery. I carried the manuscript back\nand forth across the Atlantic two or three times, and read it and studied\nover it on shipboard; and at last I saw where the difficulty lay. I had\nno further trouble. I pulled one of the stories out by the roots, and\nleft the other--a kind of literary Caesarean operation.\n\nWould the reader care to know something about the story which I pulled\nout? He has been told many a time how the born-and-trained novelist\nworks; won't he let me round and complete his knowledge by telling him\nhow the jackleg does it?\n\nOriginally the story was called THOSE EXTRAORDINARY TWINS. I meant to\nmake it very short. I had seen a picture of a youthful Italian\n\"freak\"--or \"freaks\"--which was--or which were--on exhibition in our\ncities--a combination consisting of two heads and four arms joined to a\nsingle body and a single pair of legs--and I thought I would write an\nextravagantly fantastic little story with this freak of nature for\nhero--or heroes--a silly young miss for heroine, and two old ladies and\ntwo boys for the minor parts. I lavishly elaborated these people and\ntheir doings, of course. But the tale kept spreading along and spreading\nalong, and other people got to intruding themselves and taking up more\nand more room with their talk and their affairs. Among them came a\nstranger named Pudd'nhead Wilson, and a woman named Roxana; and presently\nthe doings of these two pushed up into prominence a young fellow named\nTom Driscoll, whose proper place was away in the obscure background.\nBefore the book was half finished those three were taking things almost\nentirely into their own hands and working the whole tale as a private\nventure of their own--a tale which they had nothing at all to do with, by\nrights.\n\nWhen the book was finished and I came to look around to see what had\nbecome of the team I had originally started out with--Aunt Patsy Cooper,\nAunt Betsy Hale, and two boys, and Rowena the lightweight heroine--they\nwere nowhere to be seen; they had disappeared from the story some time or\nother. I hunted about and found them--found them stranded, idle,\nforgotten, and permanently useless. It was very awkward. It was awkward\nall around, but more particularly in the case of Rowena, because there\nwas a love match on, between her and one of the twins that constituted\nthe freak, and I had worked it up to a blistering heat and thrown in a\nquite dramatic love quarrel, wherein Rowena scathingly denounced her\nbetrothed for getting drunk, and scoffed at his explanation of how it had\nhappened, and wouldn't listen to it, and had driven him from her in the\nusual \"forever\" way; and now here she sat crying and brokenhearted; for\nshe had found that he had spoken only the truth; that it was not he, but\nthe other of the freak that had drunk the liquor that made him drunk;\nthat her half was a prohibitionist and had never drunk a drop in his\nlife, and altogether tight as a brick three days in the week, was wholly\ninnocent of blame; and indeed, when sober, was constantly doing all he\ncould to reform his brother, the other half, who never got any\nsatisfaction out of drinking, anyway, because liquor never affected him.\nYes, here she was, stranded with that deep injustice of hers torturing\nher poor torn heart.\n\nI didn't know what to do with her. I was as sorry for her as anybody\ncould be, but the campaign was over, the book was finished, she was\nsidetracked, and there was no possible way of crowding her in, anywhere.\nI could not leave her there, of course; it would not do. After spreading\nher out so, and making such a to-do over her affairs, it would be\nabsolutely necessary to account to the reader for her. I thought and\nthought and studied and studied; but I arrived at nothing. I finally saw\nplainly that there was really no way but one--I must simply give her the\ngrand bounce. It grieved me to do it, for after associating with her so\nmuch I had come to kind of like her after a fashion, notwithstanding she\nwas such an ass and said such stupid, irritating things and was so\nnauseatingly sentimental. Still it had to be done. So at the top of\nChapter XVII I put a \"Calendar\" remark concerning July the Fourth, and\nbegan the chapter with this statistic:\n\n\"Rowena went out in the backyard after supper to see the fireworks and\nfell down the well and got drowned.\"\n\nIt seemed abrupt, but I thought maybe the reader wouldn't notice it,\nbecause I changed the subject right away to something else. Anyway it\nloosened up Rowena from where she was stuck and got her out of the way,\nand that was the main thing. It seemed a prompt good way of weeding out\npeople that had got stalled, and a plenty good enough way for those\nothers; so I hunted up the two boys and said, \"They went out back one\nnight to stone the cat and fell down the well and got drowned.\" Next I\nsearched around and found old Aunt Patsy and Aunt Betsy Hale where they\nwere around, and said, \"They went out back one night to visit the sick\nand fell down the well and got drowned.\" I was going to drown some\nothers, but I gave up the idea, partly because I believed that if I kept\nthat up it would arouse attention, and perhaps sympathy with those people,\nand partly because it was not a large well and would not hold any more\nanyway.\n\nStill the story was unsatisfactory. Here was a set of new characters who\nwere become inordinately prominent and who persisted in remaining so to\nthe end; and back yonder was an older set who made a large noise and a\ngreat to-do for a little while and then suddenly played out utterly and\nfell down the well. There was a radical defect somewhere, and I must\nsearch it out and cure it.\n\nThe defect turned out to be the one already spoken of--two stories in\none, a farce and a tragedy. So I pulled out the farce and left the\ntragedy. This left the original team in, but only as mere names, not as\ncharacters. Their prominence was wholly gone; they were not even worth\ndrowning; so I removed that detail. Also I took the twins apart and made\ntwo separate men of them. They had no occasion to have foreign names now,\nbut it was too much trouble to remove them all through, so I left them\nchristened as they were and made no explanation.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1044":"\n\n\n\nTranscribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\nExtract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\n\nWell, when I had been dead about thirty years I begun to get a\nlittle anxious.  Mind you, had been whizzing through space all that\ntime, like a comet.  LIKE a comet!  Why, Peters, I laid over the\nlot of them!  Of course there warn't any of them going my way, as a\nsteady thing, you know, because they travel in a long circle like\nthe loop of a lasso, whereas I was pointed as straight as a dart\nfor the Hereafter; but I happened on one every now and then that\nwas going my way for an hour or so, and then we had a bit of a\nbrush together.  But it was generally pretty one-sided, because I\nsailed by them the same as if they were standing still.  An\nordinary comet don't make more than about 200,000 miles a minute.\nOf course when I came across one of that sort--like Encke's and\nHalley's comets, for instance--it warn't anything but just a flash\nand a vanish, you see.  You couldn't rightly call it a race.  It\nwas as if the comet was a gravel-train and I was a telegraph\ndespatch.  But after I got outside of our astronomical system, I\nused to flush a comet occasionally that was something LIKE.  WE\nhaven't got any such comets--ours don't begin.  One night I was\nswinging along at a good round gait, everything taut and trim, and\nthe wind in my favor--I judged I was going about a million miles a\nminute--it might have been more, it couldn't have been less--when I\nflushed a most uncommonly big one about three points off my\nstarboard bow.  By his stern lights I judged he was bearing about\nnortheast-and-by-north-half-east.  Well, it was so near my course\nthat I wouldn't throw away the chance; so I fell off a point,\nsteadied my helm, and went for him.  You should have heard me whiz,\nand seen the electric fur fly!  In about a minute and a half I was\nfringed out with an electrical nimbus that flamed around for miles\nand miles and lit up all space like broad day.  The comet was\nburning blue in the distance, like a sickly torch, when I first\nsighted him, but he begun to grow bigger and bigger as I crept up\non him.  I slipped up on him so fast that when I had gone about\n150,000,000 miles I was close enough to be swallowed up in the\nphosphorescent glory of his wake, and I couldn't see anything for\nthe glare.  Thinks I, it won't do to run into him, so I shunted to\none side and tore along.  By and by I closed up abreast of his\ntail.  Do you know what it was like?  It was like a gnat closing up\non the continent of America.  I forged along.  By and by I had\nsailed along his coast for a little upwards of a hundred and fifty\nmillion miles, and then I could see by the shape of him that I\nhadn't even got up to his waistband yet.  Why, Peters, WE don't\nknow anything about comets, down here.  If you want to see comets\nthat ARE comets, you've got to go outside of our solar system--\nwhere there's room for them, you understand.  My friend, I've seen\ncomets out there that couldn't even lay down inside the ORBITS of\nour noblest comets without their tails hanging over.\n\nWell, I boomed along another hundred and fifty million miles, and\ngot up abreast his shoulder, as you may say.  I was feeling pretty\nfine, I tell you; but just then I noticed the officer of the deck\ncome to the side and hoist his glass in my direction.  Straight off\nI heard him sing out--\"Below there, ahoy!  Shake her up, shake her\nup!  Heave on a hundred million billion tons of brimstone!\"\n\n\"Ay-ay, sir!\"\n\n\"Pipe the stabboard watch!  All hands on deck!\"\n\n\"Ay-ay, sir!\"\n\n\"Send two hundred thousand million men aloft to shake out royals\nand sky-scrapers!\"\n\n\"Ay-ay, sir!\"\n\n\"Hand the stuns'ls!  Hang out every rag you've got!  Clothe her\nfrom stem to rudder-post!\"\n\n\"Ay-ay, sir!\"\n\nIn about a second I begun to see I'd woke up a pretty ugly\ncustomer, Peters.  In less than ten seconds that comet was just a\nblazing cloud of red-hot canvas.  It was piled up into the heavens\nclean out of sight--the old thing seemed to swell out and occupy\nall space; the sulphur smoke from the furnaces--oh, well, nobody\ncan describe the way it rolled and tumbled up into the skies, and\nnobody can half describe the way it smelt.  Neither can anybody\nbegin to describe the way that monstrous craft begun to crash\nalong.  And such another powwow--thousands of bo's'n's whistles\nscreaming at once, and a crew like the populations of a hundred\nthousand worlds like ours all swearing at once.  Well, I never\nheard the like of it before.\n\nWe roared and thundered along side by side, both doing our level\nbest, because I'd never struck a comet before that could lay over\nme, and so I was bound to beat this one or break something.  I\njudged I had some reputation in space, and I calculated to keep it.\nI noticed I wasn't gaining as fast, now, as I was before, but still\nI was gaining.  There was a power of excitement on board the comet.\nUpwards of a hundred billion passengers swarmed up from below and\nrushed to the side and begun to bet on the race.  Of course this\ncareened her and damaged her speed.  My, but wasn't the mate mad!\nHe jumped at that crowd, with his trumpet in his hand, and sung\nout--\n\n\"Amidships! amidships, you! {1} or I'll brain the last idiot of\nyou!\"\n\nWell, sir, I gained and gained, little by little, till at last I\nwent skimming sweetly by the magnificent old conflagration's nose.\nBy this time the captain of the comet had been rousted out, and he\nstood there in the red glare for'ard, by the mate, in his shirt-\nsleeves and slippers, his hair all rats' nests and one suspender\nhanging, and how sick those two men did look!  I just simply\ncouldn't help putting my thumb to my nose as I glided away and\nsinging out:\n\n\"Ta-ta! ta-ta!  Any word to send to your family?\"\n\nPeters, it was a mistake.  Yes, sir, I've often regretted that--it\nwas a mistake.  You see, the captain had given up the race, but\nthat remark was too tedious for him--he couldn't stand it.  He\nturned to the mate, and says he--\n\n\"Have we got brimstone enough of our own to make the trip?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Sure?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir--more than enough.\"\n\n\"How much have we got in cargo for Satan?\"\n\n\"Eighteen hundred thousand billion quintillions of kazarks.\"\n\n\"Very well, then, let his boarders freeze till the next comet\ncomes.  Lighten ship!  Lively, now, lively, men!  Heave the whole\ncargo overboard!\"\n\nPeters, look me in the eye, and be calm.  I found out, over there,\nthat a kazark is exactly the bulk of a HUNDRED AND SIXTY-NINE\nWORLDS LIKE OURS!  They hove all that load overboard.  When it fell\nit wiped out a considerable raft of stars just as clean as if\nthey'd been candles and somebody blowed them out.  As for the race,\nthat was at an end.  The minute she was lightened the comet swung\nalong by me the same as if I was anchored.  The captain stood on\nthe stern, by the after-davits, and put his thumb to his nose and\nsung out--\n\n\"Ta-ta! ta-ta!  Maybe YOU'VE got some message to send your friends\nin the Everlasting Tropics!\"\n\nThen he hove up his other suspender and started for'ard, and inside\nof three-quarters of an hour his craft was only a pale torch again\nin the distance.  Yes, it was a mistake, Peters--that remark of\nmine.  I don't reckon I'll ever get over being sorry about it.  I'd\n'a' beat the bully of the firmament if I'd kept my mouth shut.\n\n\nBut I've wandered a little off the track of my tale; I'll get back\non my course again.  Now you see what kind of speed I was making.\nSo, as I said, when I had been tearing along this way about thirty\nyears I begun to get uneasy.  Oh, it was pleasant enough, with a\ngood deal to find out, but then it was kind of lonesome, you know.\nBesides, I wanted to get somewhere.  I hadn't shipped with the idea\nof cruising forever.  First off, I liked the delay, because I\njudged I was going to fetch up in pretty warm quarters when I got\nthrough; but towards the last I begun to feel that I'd rather go\nto--well, most any place, so as to finish up the uncertainty.\n\nWell, one night--it was always night, except when I was rushing by\nsome star that was occupying the whole universe with its fire and\nits glare--light enough then, of course, but I necessarily left it\nbehind in a minute or two and plunged into a solid week of darkness\nagain.  The stars ain't so close together as they look to be.\nWhere was I?  Oh yes; one night I was sailing along, when I\ndiscovered a tremendous long row of blinking lights away on the\nhorizon ahead.  As I approached, they begun to tower and swell and\nlook like mighty furnaces.  Says I to myself--\n\n\"By George, I've arrived at last--and at the wrong place, just as I\nexpected!\"\n\nThen I fainted.  I don't know how long I was insensible, but it\nmust have been a good while, for, when I came to, the darkness was\nall gone and there was the loveliest sunshine and the balmiest,\nfragrantest air in its place.  And there was such a marvellous\nworld spread out before me--such a glowing, beautiful, bewitching\ncountry.  The things I took for furnaces were gates, miles high,\nmade all of flashing jewels, and they pierced a wall of solid gold\nthat you couldn't see the top of, nor yet the end of, in either\ndirection.  I was pointed straight for one of these gates, and a-\ncoming like a house afire.  Now I noticed that the skies were black\nwith millions of people, pointed for those gates.  What a roar they\nmade, rushing through the air!  The ground was as thick as ants\nwith people, too--billions of them, I judge.\n\nI lit.  I drifted up to a gate with a swarm of people, and when it\nwas my turn the head clerk says, in a business-like way--\n\n\"Well, quick!  Where are you from?\"\n\n\"San Francisco,\" says I.\n\n\"San Fran--WHAT?\" says he.\n\n\"San Francisco.\"\n\nHe scratched his head and looked puzzled, then he says--\n\n\"Is it a planet?\"\n\nBy George, Peters, think of it!  \"PLANET?\" says I; \"it's a city.\nAnd moreover, it's one of the biggest and finest and--\"\n\n\"There, there!\" says he, \"no time here for conversation.  We don't\ndeal in cities here.  Where are you from in a GENERAL way?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I says, \"I beg your pardon.  Put me down for California.\"\n\nI had him AGAIN, Peters!  He puzzled a second, then he says, sharp\nand irritable--\n\n\"I don't know any such planet--is it a constellation?\"\n\n\"Oh, my goodness!\" says I.  \"Constellation, says you?  No--it's a\nState.\"\n\n\"Man, we don't deal in States here.  WILL you tell me where you are\nfrom IN GENERAL--AT LARGE, don't you understand?\"\n\n\"Oh, now I get your idea,\" I says.  \"I'm from America,--the United\nStates of America.\"\n\nPeters, do you know I had him AGAIN?  If I hadn't I'm a clam!  His\nface was as blank as a target after a militia shooting-match.  He\nturned to an under clerk and says--\n\n\"Where is America?  WHAT is America?\"\n\nThe under clerk answered up prompt and says--\n\n\"There ain't any such orb.\"\n\n\"ORB?\" says I.  \"Why, what are you talking about, young man?  It\nain't an orb; it's a country; it's a continent.  Columbus\ndiscovered it; I reckon likely you've heard of HIM, anyway.\nAmerica--why, sir, America--\"\n\n\"Silence!\" says the head clerk.  \"Once for all, where--are--you--\nFROM?\"\n\n\"Well,\" says I, \"I don't know anything more to say--unless I lump\nthings, and just say I'm from the world.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" says he, brightening up, \"now that's something like!  WHAT\nworld?\"\n\nPeters, he had ME, that time.  I looked at him, puzzled, he looked\nat me, worried.  Then he burst out--\n\n\"Come, come, what world?\"\n\nSays I, \"Why, THE world, of course.\"\n\n\"THE world!\" he says.  \"H'm! there's billions of them! . . . Next!\"\n\nThat meant for me to stand aside.  I done so, and a sky-blue man\nwith seven heads and only one leg hopped into my place.  I took a\nwalk.  It just occurred to me, then, that all the myriads I had\nseen swarming to that gate, up to this time, were just like that\ncreature.  I tried to run across somebody I was acquainted with,\nbut they were out of acquaintances of mine just then.  So I thought\nthe thing all over and finally sidled back there pretty meek and\nfeeling rather stumped, as you may say.\n\n\"Well?\" said the head clerk.\n\n\"Well, sir,\" I says, pretty humble, \"I don't seem to make out which\nworld it is I'm from.  But you may know it from this--it's the one\nthe Saviour saved.\"\n\nHe bent his head at the Name.  Then he says, gently--\n\n\"The worlds He has saved are like to the gates of heaven in number-\n-none can count them.  What astronomical system is your world in?--\nperhaps that may assist.\"\n\n\"It's the one that has the sun in it--and the moon--and Mars\"--he\nshook his head at each name--hadn't ever heard of them, you see--\n\"and Neptune--and Uranus--and Jupiter--\"\n\n\"Hold on!\" says he--\"hold on a minute!  Jupiter . . . Jupiter . . .\nSeems to me we had a man from there eight or nine hundred years\nago--but people from that system very seldom enter by this gate.\"\nAll of a sudden he begun to look me so straight in the eye that I\nthought he was going to bore through me.  Then he says, very\ndeliberate, \"Did you come STRAIGHT HERE from your system?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" I says--but I blushed the least little bit in the world\nwhen I said it.\n\nHe looked at me very stern, and says--\n\n\"That is not true; and this is not the place for prevarication.\nYou wandered from your course.  How did that happen?\"\n\nSays I, blushing again--\n\n\"I'm sorry, and I take back what I said, and confess.  I raced a\nlittle with a comet one day--only just the least little bit--only\nthe tiniest lit--\"\n\n\"So--so,\" says he--and without any sugar in his voice to speak of.\n\nI went on, and says--\n\n\"But I only fell off just a bare point, and I went right back on my\ncourse again the minute the race was over.\"\n\n\"No matter--that divergence has made all this trouble.  It has\nbrought you to a gate that is billions of leagues from the right\none.  If you had gone to your own gate they would have known all\nabout your world at once and there would have been no delay.  But\nwe will try to accommodate you.\"  He turned to an under clerk and\nsays--\n\n\"What system is Jupiter in?\"\n\n\"I don't remember, sir, but I think there is such a planet in one\nof the little new systems away out in one of the thinly worlded\ncorners of the universe.  I will see.\"\n\nHe got a balloon and sailed up and up and up, in front of a map\nthat was as big as Rhode Island.  He went on up till he was out of\nsight, and by and by he came down and got something to eat and went\nup again.  To cut a long story short, he kept on doing this for a\nday or two, and finally he came down and said he thought he had\nfound that solar system, but it might be fly-specks.  So he got a\nmicroscope and went back.  It turned out better than he feared.  He\nhad rousted out our system, sure enough.  He got me to describe our\nplanet and its distance from the sun, and then he says to his\nchief--\n\n\"Oh, I know the one he means, now, sir.  It is on the map.  It is\ncalled the Wart.\"\n\nSays I to myself, \"Young man, it wouldn't be wholesome for you to\ngo down THERE and call it the Wart.\"\n\nWell, they let me in, then, and told me I was safe forever and\nwouldn't have any more trouble.\n\nThen they turned from me and went on with their work, the same as\nif they considered my case all complete and shipshape.  I was a\ngood deal surprised at this, but I was diffident about speaking up\nand reminding them.  I did so hate to do it, you know; it seemed a\npity to bother them, they had so much on their hands.  Twice I\nthought I would give up and let the thing go; so twice I started to\nleave, but immediately I thought what a figure I should cut\nstepping out amongst the redeemed in such a rig, and that made me\nhang back and come to anchor again.  People got to eying me--\nclerks, you know--wondering why I didn't get under way.  I couldn't\nstand this long--it was too uncomfortable.  So at last I plucked up\ncourage and tipped the head clerk a signal.  He says--\n\n\"What! you here yet?  What's wanting?\"\n\nSays I, in a low voice and very confidential, making a trumpet with\nmy hands at his ear--\n\n\"I beg pardon, and you mustn't mind my reminding you, and seeming\nto meddle, but hain't you forgot something?\"\n\nHe studied a second, and says--\n\n\"Forgot something? . . . No, not that I know of.\"\n\n\"Think,\" says I.\n\nHe thought.  Then he says--\n\n\"No, I can't seem to have forgot anything.  What is it?\"\n\n\"Look at me,\" says I, \"look me all over.\"\n\nHe done it.\n\n\"Well?\" says he.\n\n\"Well,\" says I, \"you don't notice anything?  If I branched out\namongst the elect looking like this, wouldn't I attract\nconsiderable attention?--wouldn't I be a little conspicuous?\"\n\n\"Well,\" he says, \"I don't see anything the matter.  What do you\nlack?\"\n\n\"Lack!  Why, I lack my harp, and my wreath, and my halo, and my\nhymn-book, and my palm branch--I lack everything that a body\nnaturally requires up here, my friend.\"\n\nPuzzled?  Peters, he was the worst puzzled man you ever saw.\nFinally he says--\n\n\"Well, you seem to be a curiosity every way a body takes you.  I\nnever heard of these things before.\"\n\nI looked at the man awhile in solid astonishment; then I says--\n\n\"Now, I hope you don't take it as an offence, for I don't mean any,\nbut really, for a man that has been in the Kingdom as long as I\nreckon you have, you do seem to know powerful little about its\ncustoms.\"\n\n\"Its customs!\" says he.  \"Heaven is a large place, good friend.\nLarge empires have many and diverse customs.  Even small dominions\nhave, as you doubtless know by what you have seen of the matter on\na small scale in the Wart.  How can you imagine I could ever learn\nthe varied customs of the countless kingdoms of heaven?  It makes\nmy head ache to think of it.  I know the customs that prevail in\nthose portions inhabited by peoples that are appointed to enter by\nmy own gate--and hark ye, that is quite enough knowledge for one\nindividual to try to pack into his head in the thirty-seven\nmillions of years I have devoted night and day to that study.  But\nthe idea of learning the customs of the whole appalling expanse of\nheaven--O man, how insanely you talk!  Now I don't doubt that this\nodd costume you talk about is the fashion in that district of\nheaven you belong to, but you won't be conspicuous in this section\nwithout it.\"\n\nI felt all right, if that was the case, so I bade him good-day and\nleft.  All day I walked towards the far end of a prodigious hall of\nthe office, hoping to come out into heaven any moment, but it was a\nmistake.  That hall was built on the general heavenly plan--it\nnaturally couldn't be small.  At last I got so tired I couldn't go\nany farther; so I sat down to rest, and begun to tackle the\nqueerest sort of strangers and ask for information, but I didn't\nget any; they couldn't understand my language, and I could not\nunderstand theirs.  I got dreadfully lonesome.  I was so down-\nhearted and homesick I wished a hundred times I never had died.  I\nturned back, of course.  About noon next day, I got back at last\nand was on hand at the booking-office once more.  Says I to the\nhead clerk--\n\n\"I begin to see that a man's got to be in his own Heaven to be\nhappy.\"\n\n\"Perfectly correct,\" says he.  \"Did you imagine the same heaven\nwould suit all sorts of men?\"\n\n\"Well, I had that idea--but I see the foolishness of it.  Which way\nam I to go to get to my district?\"\n\nHe called the under clerk that had examined the map, and he gave me\ngeneral directions.  I thanked him and started; but he says--\n\n\"Wait a minute; it is millions of leagues from here.  Go outside\nand stand on that red wishing-carpet; shut your eyes, hold your\nbreath, and wish yourself there.\"\n\n\"I'm much obliged,\" says I; \"why didn't you dart me through when I\nfirst arrived?\"\n\n\"We have a good deal to think of here; it was your place to think\nof it and ask for it.  Good-by; we probably sha'n't see you in this\nregion for a thousand centuries or so.\"\n\n\"In that case, o revoor,\" says I.\n\nI hopped onto the carpet and held my breath and shut my eyes and\nwished I was in the booking-office of my own section.  The very\nnext instant a voice I knew sung out in a business kind of a way--\n\n\"A harp and a hymn-book, pair of wings and a halo, size 13, for\nCap'n Eli Stormfield, of San Francisco!--make him out a clean bill\nof health, and let him in.\"\n\nI opened my eyes.  Sure enough, it was a Pi Ute Injun I used to\nknow in Tulare County; mighty good fellow--I remembered being at\nhis funeral, which consisted of him being burnt and the other\nInjuns gauming their faces with his ashes and howling like\nwildcats.  He was powerful glad to see me, and you may make up your\nmind I was just as glad to see him, and feel that I was in the\nright kind of a heaven at last.\n\nJust as far as your eye could reach, there was swarms of clerks,\nrunning and bustling around, tricking out thousands of Yanks and\nMexicans and English and Arabs, and all sorts of people in their\nnew outfits; and when they gave me my kit and I put on my halo and\ntook a look in the glass, I could have jumped over a house for joy,\nI was so happy.  \"Now THIS is something like!\" says I.  \"Now,\" says\nI, \"I'm all right--show me a cloud.\"\n\nInside of fifteen minutes I was a mile on my way towards the cloud-\nbanks and about a million people along with me.  Most of us tried\nto fly, but some got crippled and nobody made a success of it.  So\nwe concluded to walk, for the present, till we had had some wing\npractice.\n\nWe begun to meet swarms of folks who were coming back.  Some had\nharps and nothing else; some had hymn-books and nothing else; some\nhad nothing at all; all of them looked meek and uncomfortable; one\nyoung fellow hadn't anything left but his halo, and he was carrying\nthat in his hand; all of a sudden he offered it to me and says--\n\n\"Will you hold it for me a minute?\"\n\nThen he disappeared in the crowd.  I went on.  A woman asked me to\nhold her palm branch, and then SHE disappeared.  A girl got me to\nhold her harp for her, and by George, SHE disappeared; and so on\nand so on, till I was about loaded down to the guards.  Then comes\na smiling old gentleman and asked me to hold HIS things.  I swabbed\noff the perspiration and says, pretty tart--\n\n\"I'll have to get you to excuse me, my friend,--_I_ ain't no hat-\nrack.\"\n\nAbout this time I begun to run across piles of those traps, lying\nin the road.  I just quietly dumped my extra cargo along with them.\nI looked around, and, Peters, that whole nation that was following\nme were loaded down the same as I'd been.  The return crowd had got\nthem to hold their things a minute, you see.  They all dumped their\nloads, too, and we went on.\n\nWhen I found myself perched on a cloud, with a million other\npeople, I never felt so good in my life.  Says I, \"Now this is\naccording to the promises; I've been having my doubts, but now I am\nin heaven, sure enough.\"  I gave my palm branch a wave or two, for\nluck, and then I tautened up my harp-strings and struck in.  Well,\nPeters, you can't imagine anything like the row we made.  It was\ngrand to listen to, and made a body thrill all over, but there was\nconsiderable many tunes going on at once, and that was a drawback\nto the harmony, you understand; and then there was a lot of Injun\ntribes, and they kept up such another war-whooping that they kind\nof took the tuck out of the music.  By and by I quit performing,\nand judged I'd take a rest.  There was quite a nice mild old\ngentleman sitting next me, and I noticed he didn't take a hand; I\nencouraged him, but he said he was naturally bashful, and was\nafraid to try before so many people.  By and by the old gentleman\nsaid he never could seem to enjoy music somehow.  The fact was, I\nwas beginning to feel the same way; but I didn't say anything.  Him\nand I had a considerable long silence, then, but of course it\nwarn't noticeable in that place.  After about sixteen or seventeen\nhours, during which I played and sung a little, now and then--\nalways the same tune, because I didn't know any other--I laid down\nmy harp and begun to fan myself with my palm branch.  Then we both\ngot to sighing pretty regular.  Finally, says he--\n\n\"Don't you know any tune but the one you've been pegging at all\nday?\"\n\n\"Not another blessed one,\" says I.\n\n\"Don't you reckon you could learn another one?\" says he.\n\n\"Never,\" says I; \"I've tried to, but I couldn't manage it.\"\n\n\"It's a long time to hang to the one--eternity, you know.\"\n\n\"Don't break my heart,\" says I; \"I'm getting low-spirited enough\nalready.\"\n\nAfter another long silence, says he--\n\n\"Are you glad to be here?\"\n\nSays I, \"Old man, I'll be frank with you.  This AIN'T just as near\nmy idea of bliss as I thought it was going to be, when I used to go\nto church.\"\n\nSays he, \"What do you say to knocking off and calling it half a\nday?\"\n\n\"That's me,\" says I.  \"I never wanted to get off watch so bad in my\nlife.\"\n\nSo we started.  Millions were coming to the cloud-bank all the\ntime, happy and hosannahing; millions were leaving it all the time,\nlooking mighty quiet, I tell you.  We laid for the new-comers, and\npretty soon I'd got them to hold all my things a minute, and then I\nwas a free man again and most outrageously happy.  Just then I ran\nacross old Sam Bartlett, who had been dead a long time, and stopped\nto have a talk with him.  Says I--\n\n\"Now tell me--is this to go on forever?  Ain't there anything else\nfor a change?\"\n\nSays he--\n\n\"I'll set you right on that point very quick.  People take the\nfigurative language of the Bible and the allegories for literal,\nand the first thing they ask for when they get here is a halo and a\nharp, and so on.  Nothing that's harmless and reasonable is refused\na body here, if he asks it in the right spirit.  So they are\noutfitted with these things without a word.  They go and sing and\nplay just about one day, and that's the last you'll ever see them\nin the choir.  They don't need anybody to tell them that that sort\nof thing wouldn't make a heaven--at least not a heaven that a sane\nman could stand a week and remain sane.  That cloud-bank is placed\nwhere the noise can't disturb the old inhabitants, and so there\nain't any harm in letting everybody get up there and cure himself\nas soon as he comes.\n\n\"Now you just remember this--heaven is as blissful and lovely as it\ncan be; but it's just the busiest place you ever heard of.  There\nain't any idle people here after the first day.  Singing hymns and\nwaving palm branches through all eternity is pretty when you hear\nabout it in the pulpit, but it's as poor a way to put in valuable\ntime as a body could contrive.  It would just make a heaven of\nwarbling ignoramuses, don't you see?  Eternal Rest sounds\ncomforting in the pulpit, too.  Well, you try it once, and see how\nheavy time will hang on your hands.  Why, Stormfield, a man like\nyou, that had been active and stirring all his life, would go mad\nin six months in a heaven where he hadn't anything to do.  Heaven\nis the very last place to come to REST in,--and don't you be afraid\nto bet on that!\"\n\nSays I--\n\n\"Sam, I'm as glad to hear it as I thought I'd be sorry.  I'm glad I\ncome, now.\"\n\nSays he--\n\n\"Cap'n, ain't you pretty physically tired?\"\n\nSays I--\n\n\"Sam, it ain't any name for it!  I'm dog-tired.\"\n\n\"Just so--just so.  You've earned a good sleep, and you'll get it.\nYou've earned a good appetite, and you'll enjoy your dinner.  It's\nthe same here as it is on earth--you've got to earn a thing, square\nand honest, before you enjoy it.  You can't enjoy first and earn\nafterwards.  But there's this difference, here:  you can choose\nyour own occupation, and all the powers of heaven will be put forth\nto help you make a success of it, if you do your level best.  The\nshoe-maker on earth that had the soul of a poet in him won't have\nto make shoes here.\"\n\n\"Now that's all reasonable and right,\" says I.  \"Plenty of work,\nand the kind you hanker after; no more pain, no more suffering--\"\n\n\"Oh, hold on; there's plenty of pain here--but it don't kill.\nThere's plenty of suffering here, but it don't last.  You see,\nhappiness ain't a THING IN ITSELF--it's only a CONTRAST with\nsomething that ain't pleasant.  That's all it is.  There ain't a\nthing you can mention that is happiness in its own self--it's only\nso by contrast with the other thing.  And so, as soon as the\nnovelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled, it ain't\nhappiness any longer, and you have to get something fresh.  Well,\nthere's plenty of pain and suffering in heaven--consequently\nthere's plenty of contrasts, and just no end of happiness.\"\n\nSays I, \"It's the sensiblest heaven I've heard of yet, Sam, though\nit's about as different from the one I was brought up on as a live\nprincess is different from her own wax figger.\"\n\n\nAlong in the first months I knocked around about the Kingdom,\nmaking friends and looking at the country, and finally settled down\nin a pretty likely region, to have a rest before taking another\nstart.  I went on making acquaintances and gathering up\ninformation.  I had a good deal of talk with an old bald-headed\nangel by the name of Sandy McWilliams.  He was from somewhere in\nNew Jersey.  I went about with him, considerable.  We used to lay\naround, warm afternoons, in the shade of a rock, on some meadow-\nground that was pretty high and out of the marshy slush of his\ncranberry-farm, and there we used to talk about all kinds of\nthings, and smoke pipes.  One day, says I--\n\n\"About how old might you be, Sandy?\"\n\n\"Seventy-two.\"\n\n\"I judged so.  How long you been in heaven?\"\n\n\"Twenty-seven years, come Christmas.\"\n\n\"How old was you when you come up?\"\n\n\"Why, seventy-two, of course.\"\n\n\"You can't mean it!\"\n\n\"Why can't I mean it?\"\n\n\"Because, if you was seventy-two then, you are naturally ninety-\nnine now.\"\n\n\"No, but I ain't.  I stay the same age I was when I come.\"\n\n\"Well,\" says I, \"come to think, there's something just here that I\nwant to ask about.  Down below, I always had an idea that in heaven\nwe would all be young, and bright, and spry.\"\n\n\"Well, you can be young if you want to.  You've only got to wish.\"\n\n\"Well, then, why didn't you wish?\"\n\n\"I did.  They all do.  You'll try it, some day, like enough; but\nyou'll get tired of the change pretty soon.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Well, I'll tell you.  Now you've always been a sailor; did you\never try some other business?\"\n\n\"Yes, I tried keeping grocery, once, up in the mines; but I\ncouldn't stand it; it was too dull--no stir, no storm, no life\nabout it; it was like being part dead and part alive, both at the\nsame time.  I wanted to be one thing or t'other.  I shut up shop\npretty quick and went to sea.\"\n\n\"That's it.  Grocery people like it, but you couldn't.  You see you\nwasn't used to it.  Well, I wasn't used to being young, and I\ncouldn't seem to take any interest in it.  I was strong, and\nhandsome, and had curly hair,--yes, and wings, too!--gay wings like\na butterfly.  I went to picnics and dances and parties with the\nfellows, and tried to carry on and talk nonsense with the girls,\nbut it wasn't any use; I couldn't take to it--fact is, it was an\nawful bore.  What I wanted was early to bed and early to rise, and\nsomething to DO; and when my work was done, I wanted to sit quiet,\nand smoke and think--not tear around with a parcel of giddy young\nkids.  You can't think what I suffered whilst I was young.\"\n\n\"How long was you young?\"\n\n\"Only two weeks.  That was plenty for me.  Laws, I was so lonesome!\nYou see, I was full of the knowledge and experience of seventy-two\nyears; the deepest subject those young folks could strike was only\na-b-c to me.  And to hear them argue--oh, my! it would have been\nfunny, if it hadn't been so pitiful.  Well, I was so hungry for the\nways and the sober talk I was used to, that I tried to ring in with\nthe old people, but they wouldn't have it.  They considered me a\nconceited young upstart, and gave me the cold shoulder.  Two weeks\nwas a-plenty for me.  I was glad to get back my bald head again,\nand my pipe, and my old drowsy reflections in the shade of a rock\nor a tree.\"\n\n\"Well,\" says I, \"do you mean to say you're going to stand still at\nseventy-two, forever?\"\n\n\"I don't know, and I ain't particular.  But I ain't going to drop\nback to twenty-five any more--I know that, mighty well.  I know a\nsight more than I did twenty-seven years ago, and I enjoy learning,\nall the time, but I don't seem to get any older.  That is, bodily--\nmy mind gets older, and stronger, and better seasoned, and more\nsatisfactory.\"\n\nSays I, \"If a man comes here at ninety, don't he ever set himself\nback?\"\n\n\"Of course he does.  He sets himself back to fourteen; tries it a\ncouple of hours, and feels like a fool; sets himself forward to\ntwenty; it ain't much improvement; tries thirty, fifty, eighty, and\nfinally ninety--finds he is more at home and comfortable at the\nsame old figure he is used to than any other way.  Or, if his mind\nbegun to fail him on earth at eighty, that's where he finally\nsticks up here.  He sticks at the place where his mind was last at\nits best, for there's where his enjoyment is best, and his ways\nmost set and established.\"\n\n\"Does a chap of twenty-five stay always twenty-five, and look it?\"\n\n\"If he is a fool, yes.  But if he is bright, and ambitious and\nindustrious, the knowledge he gains and the experiences he has,\nchange his ways and thoughts and likings, and make him find his\nbest pleasure in the company of people above that age; so he allows\nhis body to take on that look of as many added years as he needs to\nmake him comfortable and proper in that sort of society; he lets\nhis body go on taking the look of age, according as he progresses,\nand by and by he will be bald and wrinkled outside, and wise and\ndeep within.\"\n\n\"Babies the same?\"\n\n\"Babies the same.  Laws, what asses we used to be, on earth, about\nthese things!  We said we'd be always young in heaven.  We didn't\nsay HOW young--we didn't think of that, perhaps--that is, we didn't\nall think alike, anyway.  When I was a boy of seven, I suppose I\nthought we'd all be twelve, in heaven; when I was twelve, I suppose\nI thought we'd all be eighteen or twenty in heaven; when I was\nforty, I begun to go back; I remember I hoped we'd all be about\nTHIRTY years old in heaven.  Neither a man nor a boy ever thinks\nthe age he HAS is exactly the best one--he puts the right age a few\nyears older or a few years younger than he is.  Then he makes that\nideal age the general age of the heavenly people.  And he expects\neverybody TO STICK at that age--stand stock-still--and expects them\nto enjoy it!--Now just think of the idea of standing still in\nheaven!  Think of a heaven made up entirely of hoop-rolling,\nmarble-playing cubs of seven years!--or of awkward, diffident,\nsentimental immaturities of nineteen!--or of vigorous people of\nthirty, healthy-minded, brimming with ambition, but chained hand\nand foot to that one age and its limitations like so many helpless\ngalley-slaves!  Think of the dull sameness of a society made up of\npeople all of one age and one set of looks, habits, tastes and\nfeelings.  Think how superior to it earth would be, with its\nvariety of types and faces and ages, and the enlivening attrition\nof the myriad interests that come into pleasant collision in such a\nvariegated society.\"\n\n\"Look here,\" says I, \"do you know what you're doing?\"\n\n\"Well, what am I doing?\"\n\n\"You are making heaven pretty comfortable in one way, but you are\nplaying the mischief with it in another.\"\n\n\"How d'you mean?\"\n\n\"Well,\" I says, \"take a young mother that's lost her child, and--\"\n\n\"Sh!\" he says.  \"Look!\"\n\nIt was a woman.  Middle-aged, and had grizzled hair.  She was\nwalking slow, and her head was bent down, and her wings hanging\nlimp and droopy; and she looked ever so tired, and was crying, poor\nthing!  She passed along by, with her head down, that way, and the\ntears running down her face, and didn't see us.  Then Sandy said,\nlow and gentle, and full of pity:\n\n\"SHE'S hunting for her child!  No, FOUND it, I reckon.  Lord, how\nshe's changed!  But I recognized her in a minute, though it's\ntwenty-seven years since I saw her.  A young mother she was, about\ntwenty two or four, or along there; and blooming and lovely and\nsweet? oh, just a flower!  And all her heart and all her soul was\nwrapped up in her child, her little girl, two years old.  And it\ndied, and she went wild with grief, just wild!  Well, the only\ncomfort she had was that she'd see her child again, in heaven--\n'never more to part,' she said, and kept on saying it over and\nover, 'never more to part.'  And the words made her happy; yes,\nthey did; they made her joyful, and when I was dying, twenty-seven\nyears ago, she told me to find her child the first thing, and say\nshe was coming--'soon, soon, VERY soon, she hoped and believed!'\"\n\n\"Why, it's pitiful, Sandy.\"\n\nHe didn't say anything for a while, but sat looking at the ground,\nthinking.  Then he says, kind of mournful:\n\n\"And now she's come!\"\n\n\"Well?  Go on.\"\n\n\"Stormfield, maybe she hasn't found the child, but _I_ think she\nhas.  Looks so to me.  I've seen cases before.  You see, she's kept\nthat child in her head just the same as it was when she jounced it\nin her arms a little chubby thing.  But here it didn't elect to\nSTAY a child.  No, it elected to grow up, which it did.  And in\nthese twenty-seven years it has learned all the deep scientific\nlearning there is to learn, and is studying and studying and\nlearning and learning more and more, all the time, and don't give a\ndamn for anything BUT learning; just learning, and discussing\ngigantic problems with people like herself.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Stormfield, don't you see?  Her mother knows CRANBERRIES, and how\nto tend them, and pick them, and put them up, and market them; and\nnot another blamed thing!  Her and her daughter can't be any more\ncompany for each other NOW than mud turtle and bird o' paradise.\nPoor thing, she was looking for a baby to jounce; _I_ think she's\nstruck a disapp'intment.\"\n\n\"Sandy, what will they do--stay unhappy forever in heaven?\"\n\n\"No, they'll come together and get adjusted by and by.  But not\nthis year, and not next.  By and by.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\n\nI had been having considerable trouble with my wings.  The day\nafter I helped the choir I made a dash or two with them, but was\nnot lucky.  First off, I flew thirty yards, and then fouled an\nIrishman and brought him down--brought us both down, in fact.\nNext, I had a collision with a Bishop--and bowled him down, of\ncourse.  We had some sharp words, and I felt pretty cheap, to come\nbanging into a grave old person like that, with a million strangers\nlooking on and smiling to themselves.\n\nI saw I hadn't got the hang of the steering, and so couldn't\nrightly tell where I was going to bring up when I started.  I went\nafoot the rest of the day, and let my wings hang.  Early next\nmorning I went to a private place to have some practice.  I got up\non a pretty high rock, and got a good start, and went swooping\ndown, aiming for a bush a little over three hundred yards off; but\nI couldn't seem to calculate for the wind, which was about two\npoints abaft my beam.  I could see I was going considerable to\nlooard of the bush, so I worked my starboard wing slow and went\nahead strong on the port one, but it wouldn't answer; I could see I\nwas going to broach to, so I slowed down on both, and lit.  I went\nback to the rock and took another chance at it.  I aimed two or\nthree points to starboard of the bush--yes, more than that--enough\nso as to make it nearly a head-wind.  I done well enough, but made\npretty poor time.  I could see, plain enough, that on a head-wind,\nwings was a mistake.  I could see that a body could sail pretty\nclose to the wind, but he couldn't go in the wind's eye.  I could\nsee that if I wanted to go a-visiting any distance from home, and\nthe wind was ahead, I might have to wait days, maybe, for a change;\nand I could see, too, that these things could not be any use at all\nin a gale; if you tried to run before the wind, you would make a\nmess of it, for there isn't anyway to shorten sail--like reefing,\nyou know--you have to take it ALL in--shut your feathers down flat\nto your sides.  That would LAND you, of course.  You could lay to,\nwith your head to the wind--that is the best you could do, and\nright hard work you'd find it, too.  If you tried any other game,\nyou would founder, sure.\n\nI judge it was about a couple of weeks or so after this that I\ndropped old Sandy McWilliams a note one day--it was a Tuesday--and\nasked him to come over and take his manna and quails with me next\nday; and the first thing he did when he stepped in was to twinkle\nhis eye in a sly way, and say,--\n\n\"Well, Cap, what you done with your wings?\"\n\nI saw in a minute that there was some sarcasm done up in that rag\nsomewheres, but I never let on.  I only says,--\n\n\"Gone to the wash.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he says, in a dry sort of way, \"they mostly go to the wash--\nabout this time--I've often noticed it.  Fresh angels are powerful\nneat.  When do you look for 'em back?\"\n\n\"Day after to-morrow,\" says I.\n\nHe winked at me, and smiled.\n\nSays I,--\n\n\"Sandy, out with it.  Come--no secrets among friends.  I notice you\ndon't ever wear wings--and plenty others don't.  I've been making\nan ass of myself--is that it?\"\n\n\"That is about the size of it.  But it is no harm.  We all do it at\nfirst.  It's perfectly natural.  You see, on earth we jump to such\nfoolish conclusions as to things up here.  In the pictures we\nalways saw the angels with wings on--and that was all right; but we\njumped to the conclusion that that was their way of getting around-\n-and that was all wrong.  The wings ain't anything but a uniform,\nthat's all.  When they are in the field--so to speak,--they always\nwear them; you never see an angel going with a message anywhere\nwithout his wings, any more than you would see a military officer\npresiding at a court-martial without his uniform, or a postman\ndelivering letters, or a policeman walking his beat, in plain\nclothes.  But they ain't to FLY with!  The wings are for show, not\nfor use.  Old experienced angels are like officers of the regular\narmy--they dress plain, when they are off duty.  New angels are\nlike the militia--never shed the uniform--always fluttering and\nfloundering around in their wings, butting people down, flapping\nhere, and there, and everywhere, always imagining they are\nattracting the admiring eye--well, they just think they are the\nvery most important people in heaven.  And when you see one of them\ncome sailing around with one wing tipped up and t'other down, you\nmake up your mind he is saying to himself:  'I wish Mary Ann in\nArkansaw could see me now.  I reckon she'd wish she hadn't shook\nme.'  No, they're just for show, that's all--only just for show.\"\n\n\"I judge you've got it about right, Sandy,\" says I.\n\n\"Why, look at it yourself,\" says he.  \"YOU ain't built for wings--\nno man is.  You know what a grist of years it took you to come here\nfrom the earth--and yet you were booming along faster than any\ncannon-ball could go.  Suppose you had to fly that distance with\nyour wings--wouldn't eternity have been over before you got here?\nCertainly.  Well, angels have to go to the earth every day--\nmillions of them--to appear in visions to dying children and good\npeople, you know--it's the heft of their business.  They appear\nwith their wings, of course, because they are on official service,\nand because the dying persons wouldn't know they were angels if\nthey hadn't wings--but do you reckon they fly with them?  It stands\nto reason they don't.  The wings would wear out before they got\nhalf-way; even the pin-feathers would be gone; the wing frames\nwould be as bare as kite sticks before the paper is pasted on.  The\ndistances in heaven are billions of times greater; angels have to\ngo all over heaven every day; could they do it with their wings\nalone?  No, indeed; they wear the wings for style, but they travel\nany distance in an instant by WISHING.  The wishing-carpet of the\nArabian Nights was a sensible idea--but our earthly idea of angels\nflying these awful distances with their clumsy wings was foolish.\n\n\"Our young saints, of both sexes, wear wings all the time--blazing\nred ones, and blue and green, and gold, and variegated, and\nrainbowed, and ring-streaked-and-striped ones--and nobody finds\nfault.  It is suitable to their time of life.  The things are\nbeautiful, and they set the young people off.  They are the most\nstriking and lovely part of their outfit--a halo don't BEGIN.\"\n\n\"Well,\" says I, \"I've tucked mine away in the cupboard, and I allow\nto let them lay there till there's mud.\"\n\n\"Yes--or a reception.\"\n\n\"What's that?\"\n\n\"Well, you can see one to-night if you want to.  There's a\nbarkeeper from Jersey City going to be received.\"\n\n\"Go on--tell me about it.\"\n\n\"This barkeeper got converted at a Moody and Sankey meeting, in New\nYork, and started home on the ferry-boat, and there was a collision\nand he got drowned.  He is of a class that think all heaven goes\nwild with joy when a particularly hard lot like him is saved; they\nthink all heaven turns out hosannahing to welcome them; they think\nthere isn't anything talked about in the realms of the blest but\ntheir case, for that day.  This barkeeper thinks there hasn't been\nsuch another stir here in years, as his coming is going to raise.--\nAnd I've always noticed this peculiarity about a dead barkeeper--he\nnot only expects all hands to turn out when he arrives, but he\nexpects to be received with a torchlight procession.\"\n\n\"I reckon he is disappointed, then.\"\n\n\"No, he isn't.  No man is allowed to be disappointed here.\nWhatever he wants, when he comes--that is, any reasonable and\nunsacrilegious thing--he can have.  There's always a few millions\nor billions of young folks around who don't want any better\nentertainment than to fill up their lungs and swarm out with their\ntorches and have a high time over a barkeeper.  It tickles the\nbarkeeper till he can't rest, it makes a charming lark for the\nyoung folks, it don't do anybody any harm, it don't cost a rap, and\nit keeps up the place's reputation for making all comers happy and\ncontent.\"\n\n\"Very good.  I'll be on hand and see them land the barkeeper.\"\n\n\"It is manners to go in full dress.  You want to wear your wings,\nyou know, and your other things.\"\n\n\"Which ones?\"\n\n\"Halo, and harp, and palm branch, and all that.\"\n\n\"Well,\" says I, \"I reckon I ought to be ashamed of myself, but the\nfact is I left them laying around that day I resigned from the\nchoir.  I haven't got a rag to wear but this robe and the wings.\"\n\n\"That's all right.  You'll find they've been raked up and saved for\nyou.  Send for them.\"\n\n\"I'll do it, Sandy.  But what was it you was saying about\nunsacrilegious things, which people expect to get, and will be\ndisappointed about?\"\n\n\"Oh, there are a lot of such things that people expect and don't\nget.  For instance, there's a Brooklyn preacher by the name of\nTalmage, who is laying up a considerable disappointment for\nhimself.  He says, every now and then in his sermons, that the\nfirst thing he does when he gets to heaven, will be to fling his\narms around Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and kiss them and weep on\nthem.  There's millions of people down there on earth that are\npromising themselves the same thing.  As many as sixty thousand\npeople arrive here every single day, that want to run straight to\nAbraham, Isaac and Jacob, and hug them and weep on them.  Now mind\nyou, sixty thousand a day is a pretty heavy contract for those old\npeople.  If they were a mind to allow it, they wouldn't ever have\nanything to do, year in and year out, but stand up and be hugged\nand wept on thirty-two hours in the twenty-four.  They would be\ntired out and as wet as muskrats all the time.  What would heaven\nbe, to THEM?  It would be a mighty good place to get out of--you\nknow that, yourself.  Those are kind and gentle old Jews, but they\nain't any fonder of kissing the emotional highlights of Brooklyn\nthan you be.  You mark my words, Mr. T.'s endearments are going to\nbe declined, with thanks.  There are limits to the privileges of\nthe elect, even in heaven.  Why, if Adam was to show himself to\nevery new comer that wants to call and gaze at him and strike him\nfor his autograph, he would never have time to do anything else but\njust that.  Talmage has said he is going to give Adam some of his\nattentions, as well as A., I. and J.  But he will have to change\nhis mind about that.\"\n\n\"Do you think Talmage will really come here?\"\n\n\"Why, certainly, he will; but don't you be alarmed; he will run\nwith his own kind, and there's plenty of them.  That is the main\ncharm of heaven--there's all kinds here--which wouldn't be the case\nif you let the preachers tell it.  Anybody can find the sort he\nprefers, here, and he just lets the others alone, and they let him\nalone.  When the Deity builds a heaven, it is built right, and on a\nliberal plan.\"\n\nSandy sent home for his things, and I sent for mine, and about nine\nin the evening we begun to dress.  Sandy says,--\n\n\"This is going to be a grand time for you, Stormy.  Like as not\nsome of the patriarchs will turn out.\"\n\n\"No, but will they?\"\n\n\"Like as not.  Of course they are pretty exclusive.  They hardly\never show themselves to the common public.  I believe they never\nturn out except for an eleventh-hour convert.  They wouldn't do it\nthen, only earthly tradition makes a grand show pretty necessary on\nthat kind of an occasion.\"\n\n\"Do they an turn out, Sandy?\"\n\n\"Who?--all the patriarchs?  Oh, no--hardly ever more than a couple.\nYou will be here fifty thousand years--maybe more--before you get a\nglimpse of all the patriarchs and prophets.  Since I have been\nhere, Job has been to the front once, and once Ham and Jeremiah\nboth at the same time.  But the finest thing that has happened in\nmy day was a year or so ago; that was Charles Peace's reception--\nhim they called 'the Bannercross Murderer'--an Englishman.  There\nwere four patriarchs and two prophets on the Grand Stand that time-\n-there hasn't been anything like it since Captain Kidd came; Abel\nwas there--the first time in twelve hundred years.  A report got\naround that Adam was coming; well, of course, Abel was enough to\nbring a crowd, all by himself, but there is nobody that can draw\nlike Adam.  It was a false report, but it got around, anyway, as I\nsay, and it will be a long day before I see the like of it again.\nThe reception was in the English department, of course, which is\neight hundred and eleven million miles from the New Jersey line.  I\nwent, along with a good many of my neighbors, and it was a sight to\nsee, I can tell you.  Flocks came from all the departments.  I saw\nEsquimaux there, and Tartars, Negroes, Chinamen--people from\neverywhere.  You see a mixture like that in the Grand Choir, the\nfirst day you land here, but you hardly ever see it again.  There\nwere billions of people; when they were singing or hosannahing, the\nnoise was wonderful; and even when their tongues were still the\ndrumming of the wings was nearly enough to burst your head, for all\nthe sky was as thick as if it was snowing angels.  Although Adam\nwas not there, it was a great time anyway, because we had three\narchangels on the Grand Stand--it is a seldom thing that even one\ncomes out.\"\n\n\"What did they look like, Sandy?\"\n\n\"Well, they had shining faces, and shining robes, and wonderful\nrainbow wings, and they stood eighteen feet high, and wore swords,\nand held their heads up in a noble way, and looked like soldiers.\"\n\n\"Did they have halos?\"\n\n\"No--anyway, not the hoop kind.  The archangels and the upper-class\npatriarchs wear a finer thing than that.  It is a round, solid,\nsplendid glory of gold, that is blinding to look at.  You have\noften seen a patriarch in a picture, on earth, with that thing on--\nyou remember it?--he looks as if he had his head in a brass\nplatter.  That don't give you the right idea of it at all--it is\nmuch more shining and beautiful.\"\n\n\"Did you talk with those archangels and patriarchs, Sandy?\"\n\n\"Who--_I_?  Why, what can you be thinking about, Stormy?  I ain't\nworthy to speak to such as they.\"\n\n\"Is Talmage?\"\n\n\"Of course not.  You have got the same mixed-up idea about these\nthings that everybody has down there.  I had it once, but I got\nover it.  Down there they talk of the heavenly King--and that is\nright--but then they go right on speaking as if this was a republic\nand everybody was on a dead level with everybody else, and\nprivileged to fling his arms around anybody he comes across, and be\nhail-fellow-well-met with all the elect, from the highest down.\nHow tangled up and absurd that is!  How are you going to have a\nrepublic under a king?  How are you going to have a republic at\nall, where the head of the government is absolute, holds his place\nforever, and has no parliament, no council to meddle or make in his\naffairs, nobody voted for, nobody elected, nobody in the whole\nuniverse with a voice in the government, nobody asked to take a\nhand in its matters, and nobody ALLOWED to do it?  Fine republic,\nain't it?\"\n\n\"Well, yes--it IS a little different from the idea I had--but I\nthought I might go around and get acquainted with the grandees,\nanyway--not exactly splice the main-brace with them, you know, but\nshake hands and pass the time of day.\"\n\n\"Could Tom, Dick and Harry call on the Cabinet of Russia and do\nthat?--on Prince Gortschakoff, for instance?\"\n\n\"I reckon not, Sandy.\"\n\n\"Well, this is Russia--only more so.  There's not the shadow of a\nrepublic about it anywhere.  There are ranks, here.  There are\nviceroys, princes, governors, sub-governors, sub-sub-governors, and\na hundred orders of nobility, grading along down from grand-ducal\narchangels, stage by stage, till the general level is struck, where\nthere ain't any titles.  Do you know what a prince of the blood is,\non earth?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Well, a prince of the blood don't belong to the royal family\nexactly, and he don't belong to the mere nobility of the kingdom;\nhe is lower than the one, and higher than t'other.  That's about\nthe position of the patriarchs and prophets here.  There's some\nmighty high nobility here--people that you and I ain't worthy to\npolish sandals for--and THEY ain't worthy to polish sandals for the\npatriarchs and prophets.  That gives you a kind of an idea of their\nrank, don't it?  You begin to see how high up they are, don't you?\njust to get a two-minute glimpse of one of them is a thing for a\nbody to remember and tell about for a thousand years.  Why,\nCaptain, just think of this:  if Abraham was to set his foot down\nhere by this door, there would be a railing set up around that\nfoot-track right away, and a shelter put over it, and people would\nflock here from all over heaven, for hundreds and hundreds of\nyears, to look at it.  Abraham is one of the parties that Mr.\nTalmage, of Brooklyn, is going to embrace, and kiss, and weep on,\nwhen he comes.  He wants to lay in a good stock of tears, you know,\nor five to one he will go dry before he gets a chance to do it.\"\n\n\"Sandy,\" says I, \"I had an idea that _I_ was going to be equals\nwith everybody here, too, but I will let that drop.  It don't\nmatter, and I am plenty happy enough anyway.\"\n\n\"Captain, you are happier than you would be, the other way.  These\nold patriarchs and prophets have got ages the start of you; they\nknow more in two minutes than you know in a year.  Did you ever try\nto have a sociable improving-time discussing winds, and currents\nand variations of compass with an undertaker?\"\n\n\"I get your idea, Sandy.  He couldn't interest me.  He would be an\nignoramus in such things--he would bore me, and I would bore him.\"\n\n\"You have got it.  You would bore the patriarchs when you talked,\nand when they talked they would shoot over your head.  By and by\nyou would say, 'Good morning, your Eminence, I will call again'--\nbut you wouldn't.  Did you ever ask the slush-boy to come up in the\ncabin and take dinner with you?\"\n\n\"I get your drift again, Sandy.  I wouldn't be used to such grand\npeople as the patriarchs and prophets, and I would be sheepish and\ntongue-tied in their company, and mighty glad to get out of it.\nSandy, which is the highest rank, patriarch or prophet?\"\n\n\"Oh, the prophets hold over the patriarchs.  The newest prophet,\neven, is of a sight more consequence than the oldest patriarch.\nYes, sir, Adam himself has to walk behind Shakespeare.\"\n\n\"Was Shakespeare a prophet?\"\n\n\"Of course he was; and so was Homer, and heaps more.  But\nShakespeare and the rest have to walk behind a common tailor from\nTennessee, by the name of Billings; and behind a horse-doctor named\nSakka, from Afghanistan.  Jeremiah, and Billings and Buddha walk\ntogether, side by side, right behind a crowd from planets not in\nour astronomy; next come a dozen or two from Jupiter and other\nworlds; next come Daniel, and Sakka and Confucius; next a lot from\nsystems outside of ours; next come Ezekiel, and Mahomet, Zoroaster,\nand a knife-grinder from ancient Egypt; then there is a long\nstring, and after them, away down toward the bottom, come\nShakespeare and Homer, and a shoemaker named Marais, from the back\nsettlements of France.\"\n\n\"Have they really rung in Mahomet and all those other heathens?\"\n\n\"Yes--they all had their message, and they all get their reward.\nThe man who don't get his reward on earth, needn't bother--he will\nget it here, sure.\"\n\n\"But why did they throw off on Shakespeare, that way, and put him\naway down there below those shoe-makers and horse-doctors and\nknife-grinders--a lot of people nobody ever heard of?\"\n\n\"That is the heavenly justice of it--they warn't rewarded according\nto their deserts, on earth, but here they get their rightful rank.\nThat tailor Billings, from Tennessee, wrote poetry that Homer and\nShakespeare couldn't begin to come up to; but nobody would print\nit, nobody read it but his neighbors, an ignorant lot, and they\nlaughed at it.  Whenever the village had a drunken frolic and a\ndance, they would drag him in and crown him with cabbage leaves,\nand pretend to bow down to him; and one night when he was sick and\nnearly starved to death, they had him out and crowned him, and then\nthey rode him on a rail about the village, and everybody followed\nalong, beating tin pans and yelling.  Well, he died before morning.\nHe wasn't ever expecting to go to heaven, much less that there was\ngoing to be any fuss made over him, so I reckon he was a good deal\nsurprised when the reception broke on him.\"\n\n\"Was you there, Sandy?\"\n\n\"Bless you, no!\"\n\n\"Why?  Didn't you know it was going to come off?\"\n\n\"Well, I judge I did.  It was the talk of these realms--not for a\nday, like this barkeeper business, but for twenty years before the\nman died.\"\n\n\"Why the mischief didn't you go, then?\"\n\n\"Now how you talk!  The like of me go meddling around at the\nreception of a prophet?  A mudsill like me trying to push in and\nhelp receive an awful grandee like Edward J. Billings?  Why, I\nshould have been laughed at for a billion miles around.  I\nshouldn't ever heard the last of it.\"\n\n\"Well, who did go, then?\"\n\n\"Mighty few people that you and I will ever get a chance to see,\nCaptain.  Not a solitary commoner ever has the luck to see a\nreception of a prophet, I can tell you.  All the nobility, and all\nthe patriarchs and prophets--every last one of them--and all the\narchangels, and all the princes and governors and viceroys, were\nthere,--and NO small fry--not a single one.  And mind you, I'm not\ntalking about only the grandees from OUR world, but the princes and\npatriarchs and so on from ALL the worlds that shine in our sky, and\nfrom billions more that belong in systems upon systems away outside\nof the one our sun is in.  There were some prophets and patriarchs\nthere that ours ain't a circumstance to, for rank and\nillustriousness and all that.  Some were from Jupiter and other\nworlds in our own system, but the most celebrated were three poets,\nSaa, Bo and Soof, from great planets in three different and very\nremote systems.  These three names are common and familiar in every\nnook and corner of heaven, clear from one end of it to the other--\nfully as well known as the eighty Supreme Archangels, in fact--\nwhere as our Moses, and Adam, and the rest, have not been heard of\noutside of our world's little corner of heaven, except by a few\nvery learned men scattered here and there--and they always spell\ntheir names wrong, and get the performances of one mixed up with\nthe doings of another, and they almost always locate them simply IN\nOUR SOLAR SYSTEM, and think that is enough without going into\nlittle details such as naming the particular world they are from.\nIt is like a learned Hindoo showing off how much he knows by saying\nLongfellow lives in the United States--as if he lived all over the\nUnited States, and as if the country was so small you couldn't\nthrow a brick there without hitting him.  Between you and me, it\ndoes gravel me, the cool way people from those monster worlds\noutside our system snub our little world, and even our system.  Of\ncourse we think a good deal of Jupiter, because our world is only a\npotato to it, for size; but then there are worlds in other systems\nthat Jupiter isn't even a mustard-seed to--like the planet Goobra,\nfor instance, which you couldn't squeeze inside the orbit of\nHalley's comet without straining the rivets.  Tourists from Goobra\n(I mean parties that lived and died there--natives) come here, now\nand then, and inquire about our world, and when they find out it is\nso little that a streak of lightning can flash clear around it in\nthe eighth of a second, they have to lean up against something to\nlaugh.  Then they screw a glass into their eye and go to examining\nus, as if we were a curious kind of foreign bug, or something of\nthat sort.  One of them asked me how long our day was; and when I\ntold him it was twelve hours long, as a general thing, he asked me\nif people where I was from considered it worth while to get up and\nwash for such a day as that.  That is the way with those Goobra\npeople--they can't seem to let a chance go by to throw it in your\nface that their day is three hundred and twenty-two of our years\nlong.  This young snob was just of age--he was six or seven\nthousand of his days old--say two million of our years--and he had\nall the puppy airs that belong to that time of life--that turning-\npoint when a person has got over being a boy and yet ain't quite a\nman exactly.  If it had been anywhere else but in heaven, I would\nhave given him a piece of my mind.  Well, anyway, Billings had the\ngrandest reception that has been seen in thousands of centuries,\nand I think it will have a good effect.  His name will be carried\npretty far, and it will make our system talked about, and maybe our\nworld, too, and raise us in the respect of the general public of\nheaven.  Why, look here--Shakespeare walked backwards before that\ntailor from Tennessee, and scattered flowers for him to walk on,\nand Homer stood behind his chair and waited on him at the banquet.\nOf course that didn't go for much THERE, amongst all those big\nforeigners from other systems, as they hadn't heard of Shakespeare\nor Homer either, but it would amount to considerable down there on\nour little earth if they could know about it.  I wish there was\nsomething in that miserable spiritualism, so we could send them\nword.  That Tennessee village would set up a monument to Billings,\nthen, and his autograph would outsell Satan's.  Well, they had\ngrand times at that reception--a small-fry noble from Hoboken told\nme all about it--Sir Richard Duffer, Baronet.\"\n\n\"What, Sandy, a nobleman from Hoboken?  How is that?\"\n\n\"Easy enough.  Duffer kept a sausage-shop and never saved a cent in\nhis life because he used to give all his spare meat to the poor, in\na quiet way.  Not tramps,--no, the other sort--the sort that will\nstarve before they will beg--honest square people out of work.\nDick used to watch hungry-looking men and women and children, and\ntrack them home, and find out all about them from the neighbors,\nand then feed them and find them work.  As nobody ever saw him give\nanything to anybody, he had the reputation of being mean; he died\nwith it, too, and everybody said it was a good riddance; but the\nminute he landed here, they made him a baronet, and the very first\nwords Dick the sausage-maker of Hoboken heard when he stepped upon\nthe heavenly shore were, 'Welcome, Sir Richard Duffer!'  It\nsurprised him some, because he thought he had reasons to believe he\nwas pointed for a warmer climate than this one.\"\n\n\nAll of a sudden the whole region fairly rocked under the crash of\neleven hundred and one thunder blasts, all let off at once, and\nSandy says,--\n\n\"There, that's for the barkeep.\"\n\nI jumped up and says,--\n\n\"Then let's be moving along, Sandy; we don't want to miss any of\nthis thing, you know.\"\n\n\"Keep your seat,\" he says; \"he is only just telegraphed, that is\nall.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"That blast only means that he has been sighted from the signal-\nstation.  He is off Sandy Hook.  The committees will go down to\nmeet him, now, and escort him in.  There will be ceremonies and\ndelays; they won't he coming up the Bay for a considerable time,\nyet.  It is several billion miles away, anyway.\"\n\n\"_I_ could have been a barkeeper and a hard lot just as well as\nnot,\" says I, remembering the lonesome way I arrived, and how there\nwasn't any committee nor anything.\n\n\"I notice some regret in your voice,\" says Sandy, \"and it is\nnatural enough; but let bygones be bygones; you went according to\nyour lights, and it is too late now to mend the thing.\"\n\n\"No, let it slide, Sandy, I don't mind.  But you've got a Sandy\nHook HERE, too, have you?\"\n\n\"We've got everything here, just as it is below.  All the States\nand Territories of the Union, and all the kingdoms of the earth and\nthe islands of the sea are laid out here just as they are on the\nglobe--all the same shape they are down there, and all graded to\nthe relative size, only each State and realm and island is a good\nmany billion times bigger here than it is below.  There goes\nanother blast.\"\n\n\"What is that one for?\"\n\n\"That is only another fort answering the first one.  They each fire\neleven hundred and one thunder blasts at a single dash--it is the\nusual salute for an eleventh-hour guest; a hundred for each hour\nand an extra one for the guest's sex; if it was a woman we would\nknow it by their leaving off the extra gun.\"\n\n\"How do we know there's eleven hundred and one, Sandy, when they\nall go off at once?--and yet we certainly do know.\"\n\n\"Our intellects are a good deal sharpened up, here, in some ways,\nand that is one of them.  Numbers and sizes and distances are so\ngreat, here, that we have to be made so we can FEEL them--our old\nways of counting and measuring and ciphering wouldn't ever give us\nan idea of them, but would only confuse us and oppress us and make\nour heads ache.\"\n\nAfter some more talk about this, I says:  \"Sandy, I notice that I\nhardly ever see a white angel; where I run across one white angel,\nI strike as many as a hundred million copper-colored ones--people\nthat can't speak English.  How is that?\"\n\n\"Well, you will find it the same in any State or Territory of the\nAmerican corner of heaven you choose to go to.  I have shot along,\na whole week on a stretch, and gone millions and millions of miles,\nthrough perfect swarms of angels, without ever seeing a single\nwhite one, or hearing a word I could understand.  You see, America\nwas occupied a billion years and more, by Injuns and Aztecs, and\nthat sort of folks, before a white man ever set his foot in it.\nDuring the first three hundred years after Columbus's discovery,\nthere wasn't ever more than one good lecture audience of white\npeople, all put together, in America--I mean the whole thing,\nBritish Possessions and all; in the beginning of our century there\nwere only 6,000,000 or 7,000,000--say seven; 12,000,000 or\n14,000,000 in 1825; say 23,000,000 in 1850; 40,000,000 in 1875.\nOur death-rate has always been 20 in 1000 per annum.  Well, 140,000\ndied the first year of the century; 280,000 the twenty-fifth year;\n500,000 the fiftieth year; about a million the seventy-fifth year.\nNow I am going to be liberal about this thing, and consider that\nfifty million whites have died in America from the beginning up to\nto-day--make it sixty, if you want to; make it a hundred million--\nit's no difference about a few millions one way or t'other.  Well,\nnow, you can see, yourself, that when you come to spread a little\ndab of people like that over these hundreds of billions of miles of\nAmerican territory here in heaven, it is like scattering a ten-cent\nbox of homoeopathic pills over the Great Sahara and expecting to\nfind them again.  You can't expect us to amount to anything in\nheaven, and we DON'T--now that is the simple fact, and we have got\nto do the best we can with it.  The learned men from other planets\nand other systems come here and hang around a while, when they are\ntouring around the Kingdom, and then go back to their own section\nof heaven and write a book of travels, and they give America about\nfive lines in it.  And what do they say about us?  They say this\nwilderness is populated with a scattering few hundred thousand\nbillions of red angels, with now and then a curiously complected\nDISEASED one.  You see, they think we whites and the occasional\nnigger are Injuns that have been bleached out or blackened by some\nleprous disease or other--for some peculiarly rascally SIN, mind\nyou.  It is a mighty sour pill for us all, my friend--even the\nmodestest of us, let alone the other kind, that think they are\ngoing to be received like a long-lost government bond, and hug\nAbraham into the bargain.  I haven't asked you any of the\nparticulars, Captain, but I judge it goes without saying--if my\nexperience is worth anything--that there wasn't much of a hooraw\nmade over you when you arrived--now was there?\"\n\n\"Don't mention it, Sandy,\" says I, coloring up a little; \"I\nwouldn't have had the family see it for any amount you are a mind\nto name.  Change the subject, Sandy, change the subject.\"\n\n\"Well, do you think of settling in the California department of\nbliss?\"\n\n\"I don't know.  I wasn't calculating on doing anything really\ndefinite in that direction till the family come.  I thought I would\njust look around, meantime, in a quiet way, and make up my mind.\nBesides, I know a good many dead people, and I was calculating to\nhunt them up and swap a little gossip with them about friends, and\nold times, and one thing or another, and ask them how they like it\nhere, as far as they have got.  I reckon my wife will want to camp\nin the California range, though, because most all her departed will\nbe there, and she likes to be with folks she knows.\"\n\n\"Don't you let her.  You see what the Jersey district of heaven is,\nfor whites; well, the Californian district is a thousand times\nworse.  It swarms with a mean kind of leather-headed mud-colored\nangels--and your nearest white neighbor is likely to be a million\nmiles away.  WHAT A MAN MOSTLY MISSES, IN HEAVEN, IS COMPANY--\ncompany of his own sort and color and language.  I have come near\nsettling in the European part of heaven once or twice on that\naccount.\"\n\n\"Well, why didn't you, Sandy?\"\n\n\"Oh, various reasons.  For one thing, although you SEE plenty of\nwhites there, you can't understand any of them, hardly, and so you\ngo about as hungry for talk as you do here.  I like to look at a\nRussian or a German or an Italian--I even like to look at a\nFrenchman if I ever have the luck to catch him engaged in anything\nthat ain't indelicate--but LOOKING don't cure the hunger--what you\nwant is talk.\"\n\n\"Well, there's England, Sandy--the English district of heaven.\"\n\n\"Yes, but it is not so very much better than this end of the\nheavenly domain.  As long as you run across Englishmen born this\nside of three hundred years ago, you are all right; but the minute\nyou get back of Elizabeth's time the language begins to fog up, and\nthe further back you go the foggier it gets.  I had some talk with\none Langland and a man by the name of Chaucer--old-time poets--but\nit was no use, I couldn't quite understand them, and they couldn't\nquite understand me.  I have had letters from them since, but it is\nsuch broken English I can't make it out.  Back of those men's time\nthe English are just simply foreigners, nothing more, nothing less;\nthey talk Danish, German, Norman French, and sometimes a mixture of\nall three; back of THEM, they talk Latin, and ancient British,\nIrish, and Gaelic; and then back of these come billions and\nbillions of pure savages that talk a gibberish that Satan himself\ncouldn't understand.  The fact is, where you strike one man in the\nEnglish settlements that you can understand, you wade through awful\nswarms that talk something you can't make head nor tail of.  You\nsee, every country on earth has been overlaid so often, in the\ncourse of a billion years, with different kinds of people and\ndifferent sorts of languages, that this sort of mongrel business\nwas bound to be the result in heaven.\"\n\n\"Sandy,\" says I, \"did you see a good many of the great people\nhistory tells about?\"\n\n\"Yes--plenty.  I saw kings and all sorts of distinguished people.\"\n\n\"Do the kings rank just as they did below?\"\n\n\"No; a body can't bring his rank up here with him.  Divine right is\na good-enough earthly romance, but it don't go, here.  Kings drop\ndown to the general level as soon as they reach the realms of\ngrace.  I knew Charles the Second very well--one of the most\npopular comedians in the English section--draws first rate.  There\nare better, of course--people that were never heard of on earth--\nbut Charles is making a very good reputation indeed, and is\nconsidered a rising man.  Richard the Lion-hearted is in the prize-\nring, and coming into considerable favor.  Henry the Eighth is a\ntragedian, and the scenes where he kills people are done to the\nvery life.  Henry the Sixth keeps a religious-book stand.\"\n\n\"Did you ever see Napoleon, Sandy?\"\n\n\"Often--sometimes in the Corsican range, sometimes in the French.\nHe always hunts up a conspicuous place, and goes frowning around\nwith his arms folded and his field-glass under his arm, looking as\ngrand, gloomy and peculiar as his reputation calls for, and very\nmuch bothered because he don't stand as high, here, for a soldier,\nas he expected to.\"\n\n\"Why, who stands higher?\"\n\n\"Oh, a LOT of people WE never heard of before--the shoemaker and\nhorse-doctor and knife-grinder kind, you know--clodhoppers from\ngoodness knows where that never handled a sword or fired a shot in\ntheir lives--but the soldiership was in them, though they never had\na chance to show it.  But here they take their right place, and\nCaesar and Napoleon and Alexander have to take a back seat.  The\ngreatest military genius our world ever produced was a brick-layer\nfrom somewhere back of Boston--died during the Revolution--by the\nname of Absalom Jones.  Wherever he goes, crowds flock to see him.\nYou see, everybody knows that if he had had a chance he would have\nshown the world some generalship that would have made all\ngeneralship before look like child's play and 'prentice work.  But\nhe never got a chance; he tried heaps of times to enlist as a\nprivate, but he had lost both thumbs and a couple of front teeth,\nand the recruiting sergeant wouldn't pass him.  However, as I say,\neverybody knows, now, what he WOULD have been,--and so they flock\nby the million to get a glimpse of him whenever they hear he is\ngoing to be anywhere.  Caesar, and Hannibal, and Alexander, and\nNapoleon are all on his staff, and ever so many more great\ngenerals; but the public hardly care to look at THEM when HE is\naround.  Boom!  There goes another salute.  The barkeeper's off\nquarantine now.\"\n\n\nSandy and I put on our things.  Then we made a wish, and in a\nsecond we were at the reception-place.  We stood on the edge of the\nocean of space, and looked out over the dimness, but couldn't make\nout anything.  Close by us was the Grand Stand--tier on tier of dim\nthrones rising up toward the zenith.  From each side of it spread\naway the tiers of seats for the general public.  They spread away\nfor leagues and leagues--you couldn't see the ends.  They were\nempty and still, and hadn't a cheerful look, but looked dreary,\nlike a theatre before anybody comes--gas turned down.  Sandy says,-\n-\n\n\"We'll sit down here and wait.  We'll see the head of the\nprocession come in sight away off yonder pretty soon, now.\"\n\nSays I,--\n\n\"It's pretty lonesome, Sandy; I reckon there's a hitch somewheres.\nNobody but just you and me--it ain't much of a display for the\nbarkeeper.\"\n\n\"Don't you fret, it's all right.  There'll be one more gun-fire--\nthen you'll see.\n\nIn a little while we noticed a sort of a lightish flush, away off\non the horizon.\n\n\"Head of the torchlight procession,\" says Sandy.\n\nIt spread, and got lighter and brighter:  soon it had a strong\nglare like a locomotive headlight; it kept on getting brighter and\nbrighter till it was like the sun peeping above the horizon-line at\nsea--the big red rays shot high up into the sky.\n\n\"Keep your eyes on the Grand Stand and the miles of seats--sharp!\"\nsays Sandy, \"and listen for the gun-fire.\"\n\nJust then it burst out, \"Boom-boom-boom!\" like a million\nthunderstorms in one, and made the whole heavens rock.  Then there\nwas a sudden and awful glare of light all about us, and in that\nvery instant every one of the millions of seats was occupied, and\nas far as you could see, in both directions, was just a solid pack\nof people, and the place was all splendidly lit up!  It was enough\nto take a body's breath away.  Sandy says,--\n\n\"That is the way we do it here.  No time fooled away; nobody\nstraggling in after the curtain's up.  Wishing is quicker work than\ntravelling.  A quarter of a second ago these folks were millions of\nmiles from here.  When they heard the last signal, all they had to\ndo was to wish, and here they are.\"\n\nThe prodigious choir struck up,--\n\n\nWe long to hear thy voice,\nTo see thee face to face.\n\n\nIt was noble music, but the uneducated chipped in and spoilt it,\njust as the congregations used to do on earth.\n\nThe head of the procession began to pass, now, and it was a\nwonderful sight.  It swept along, thick and solid, five hundred\nthousand angels abreast, and every angel carrying a torch and\nsinging--the whirring thunder of the wings made a body's head ache.\nYou could follow the line of the procession back, and slanting\nupward into the sky, far away in a glittering snaky rope, till it\nwas only a faint streak in the distance.  The rush went on and on,\nfor a long time, and at last, sure enough, along comes the\nbarkeeper, and then everybody rose, and a cheer went up that made\nthe heavens shake, I tell you!  He was all smiles, and had his halo\ntilted over one ear in a cocky way, and was the most satisfied-\nlooking saint I ever saw.  While he marched up the steps of the\nGrand Stand, the choir struck up,--\n\n\nThe whole wide heaven groans,\nAnd waits to hear that voice.\"\n\n\nThere were four gorgeous tents standing side by side in the place\nof honor, on a broad railed platform in the centre of the Grand\nStand, with a shining guard of honor round about them.  The tents\nhad been shut up all this time.  As the barkeeper climbed along up,\nbowing and smiling to everybody, and at last got to the platform,\nthese tents were jerked up aloft all of a sudden, and we saw four\nnoble thrones of gold, all caked with jewels, and in the two middle\nones sat old white-whiskered men, and in the two others a couple of\nthe most glorious and gaudy giants, with platter halos and\nbeautiful armor.  All the millions went down on their knees, and\nstared, and looked glad, and burst out into a joyful kind of\nmurmurs.  They said,--\n\n\"Two archangels!--that is splendid.  Who can the others be?\"\n\nThe archangels gave the barkeeper a stiff little military bow; the\ntwo old men rose; one of them said, \"Moses and Esau welcome thee!\"\nand then all the four vanished, and the thrones were empty.\n\nThe barkeeper looked a little disappointed, for he was calculating\nto hug those old people, I judge; but it was the gladdest and\nproudest multitude you ever saw--because they had seen Moses and\nEsau.  Everybody was saying, \"Did you see them?--I did--Esau's side\nface was to me, but I saw Moses full in the face, just as plain as\nI see you this minute!\"\n\nThe procession took up the barkeeper and moved on with him again,\nand the crowd broke up and scattered.  As we went along home, Sandy\nsaid it was a great success, and the barkeeper would have a right\nto be proud of it forever.  And he said we were in luck, too; said\nwe might attend receptions for forty thousand years to come, and\nnot have a chance to see a brace of such grand moguls as Moses and\nEsau.  We found afterwards that we had come near seeing another\npatriarch, and likewise a genuine prophet besides, but at the last\nmoment they sent regrets.  Sandy said there would be a monument put\nup there, where Moses and Esau had stood, with the date and\ncircumstances, and all about the whole business, and travellers\nwould come for thousands of years and gawk at it, and climb over\nit, and scribble their names on it.\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n{1}  The captain could not remember what this word was.  He said it\nwas in a foreign tongue.\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1086":"\n\n\n\n                          [Picture: Book cover]\n\n [Picture: \u201cBuffalo Bill took me on Soldier Boy to Thunder-Bird\u2019s Camp\u201d]\n\n\n\n\n\n                              A Horse\u2019s Tale\n\n\n                                    BY\n                                Mark Twain\n\n                              ILLUSTRATED BY\n                             LUCIUS HITCHCOCK\n\n                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]\n\n                           LONDON AND NEW YORK\n                            HARPER & BROTHERS\n                           PUBLISHERS .. MCMVII\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n                Copyright, 1906, by Harper & Brothers.\n\n                               * * * * *\n\n                         _All rights reserved_\n\n                       Published October, 1907.\n\n                  _Printed in United States of America_.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\nCHAP.                                                             PAGE\n       I.  SOLDIER BOY\u2014PRIVATELY TO HIMSELF                          1\n      II.  LETTER FROM ROUEN\u2014TO GENERAL ALISON                      12\n     III.  GENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER                             19\n      IV.  CATHY TO HER AUNT MERCEDES                               25\n       V.  GENERAL ALISON TO MERCEDES                               33\n      VI.  SOLDIER BOY AND THE MEXICAN PLUG                         56\n     VII.  SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS                                  82\n    VIII.  THE SCOUT-START.  BB AND LIEUTENANT-GENERAL              88\n           ALISON\n      IX.  SOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS AGAIN                            90\n       X.  GENERAL ALISON AND DORCAS                               100\n      XI.  SEVERAL MONTHS LATER.  ANTONIO AND THORNDIKE            116\n     XII.  MONGREL AND THE OTHER HORSE                             129\n    XIII.  GENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER                            133\n     XIV.  SOLDIER BOY\u2014TO HIMSELF                                  145\n      XV.  GENERAL ALISON TO MRS. DRAKE, THE COLONEL\u2019S WIFE        149\n\n\n\n\nIllustrations\n\n\u201cBuffalo Bill took me on Soldier Boy to                 _Frontispiece_\nThunder-Bird\u2019s Camp\u201d\n\u201cLook at that file of cats in your chair\u201d                        p. 48\n\u201cEvery morning they go clattering down into the                     66\nplain\u201d\n\u201cThere was nothing to do but stand by\u201d                              92\n\u201cHis strength failed and he fell at her feet\u201d                      150\n\n\n\n\nAcknowledgements\n\n\nAlthough I have had several opportunities to see a bull-fight, I have\nnever seen one; but I needed a bull-fight in this book, and a trustworthy\none will be found in it.  I got it out of John Hay\u2019s _Castilian Days_,\nreducing and condensing it to fit the requirements of this small story.\nMr. Hay and I were friends from early times, and if he were still with us\nhe would not rebuke me for the liberty I have taken.\n\nThe knowledge of military minuti\u00e6 exhibited in this book will be found to\nbe correct, but it is not mine; I took it from _Army Regulations_, ed.\n1904; _Hardy\u2019s Tactics_\u2014_Cavalry_, revised ed., 1861; and _Jomini\u2019s\nHandbook of Military Etiquette_, West Point ed., 1905.\n\nIt would not be honest in me to encourage by silence the inference that I\ncomposed the Horse\u2019s private bugle-call, for I did not.  I lifted it, as\nAristotle says.  It is the opening strain in _The Pizzicato_ in _Sylvia_,\nby Delibes.  When that master was composing it he did not know it was a\nbugle-call, it was I that found it out.\n\nAlong through the book I have distributed a few anachronisms and unborn\nhistorical incidents and such things, so as to help the tale over the\ndifficult places.  This idea is not original with me; I got it out of\nHerodotus.  Herodotus says, \u201cVery few things happen at the right time,\nand the rest do not happen at all: the conscientious historian will\ncorrect these defects.\u201d\n\nThe cats in the chair do not belong to me, but to another.\n\nThese are all the exceptions.  What is left of the book is mine.\n\n                                                               MARK TWAIN.\n\nLONE TREE HILL, DUBLIN,\nNEW HAMPSHIRE, _October_, 1905.\n\n\n\n\nPart I\n\n\nI\nSOLDIER BOY\u2014PRIVATELY TO HIMSELF\n\n\nI AM Buffalo Bill\u2019s horse.  I have spent my life under his saddle\u2014with\nhim in it, too, and he is good for two hundred pounds, without his\nclothes; and there is no telling how much he does weigh when he is out on\nthe war-path and has his batteries belted on.  He is over six feet, is\nyoung, hasn\u2019t an ounce of waste flesh, is straight, graceful, springy in\nhis motions, quick as a cat, and has a handsome face, and black hair\ndangling down on his shoulders, and is beautiful to look at; and nobody\nis braver than he is, and nobody is stronger, except myself.  Yes, a\nperson that doubts that he is fine to see should see him in his beaded\nbuck-skins, on my back and his rifle peeping above his shoulder, chasing\na hostile trail, with me going like the wind and his hair streaming out\nbehind from the shelter of his broad slouch.  Yes, he is a sight to look\nat then\u2014and I\u2019m part of it myself.\n\nI am his favorite horse, out of dozens.  Big as he is, I have carried him\neighty-one miles between nightfall and sunrise on the scout; and I am\ngood for fifty, day in and day out, and all the time.  I am not large,\nbut I am built on a business basis.  I have carried him thousands and\nthousands of miles on scout duty for the army, and there\u2019s not a gorge,\nnor a pass, nor a valley, nor a fort, nor a trading post, nor a\nbuffalo-range in the whole sweep of the Rocky Mountains and the Great\nPlains that we don\u2019t know as well as we know the bugle-calls.  He is\nChief of Scouts to the Army of the Frontier, and it makes us very\nimportant.  In such a position as I hold in the military service one\nneeds to be of good family and possess an education much above the common\nto be worthy of the place.  I am the best-educated horse outside of the\nhippodrome, everybody says, and the best-mannered.  It may be so, it is\nnot for me to say; modesty is the best policy, I think.  Buffalo Bill\ntaught me the most of what I know, my mother taught me much, and I taught\nmyself the rest.  Lay a row of moccasins before me\u2014Pawnee, Sioux,\nShoshone, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, and as many other tribes as you please\u2014and\nI can name the tribe every moccasin belongs to by the make of it.  Name\nit in horse-talk, and could do it in American if I had speech.\n\nI know some of the Indian signs\u2014the signs they make with their hands, and\nby signal-fires at night and columns of smoke by day.  Buffalo Bill\ntaught me how to drag wounded soldiers out of the line of fire with my\nteeth; and I\u2019ve done it, too; at least I\u2019ve dragged _him_ out of the\nbattle when he was wounded.  And not just once, but twice.  Yes, I know a\nlot of things.  I remember forms, and gaits, and faces; and you can\u2019t\ndisguise a person that\u2019s done me a kindness so that I won\u2019t know him\nthereafter wherever I find him.  I know the art of searching for a trail,\nand I know the stale track from the fresh.  I can keep a trail all by\nmyself, with Buffalo Bill asleep in the saddle; ask him\u2014he will tell you\nso.  Many a time, when he has ridden all night, he has said to me at\ndawn, \u201cTake the watch, Boy; if the trail freshens, call me.\u201d  Then he\ngoes to sleep.  He knows he can trust me, because I have a reputation.  A\nscout horse that has a reputation does not play with it.\n\nMy mother was all American\u2014no alkali-spider about _her_, I can tell you;\nshe was of the best blood of Kentucky, the bluest Blue-grass aristocracy,\nvery proud and acrimonious\u2014or maybe it is ceremonious.  I don\u2019t know\nwhich it is.  But it is no matter; size is the main thing about a word,\nand that one\u2019s up to standard.  She spent her military life as colonel of\nthe Tenth Dragoons, and saw a deal of rough service\u2014distinguished service\nit was, too.  I mean, she _carried_ the Colonel; but it\u2019s all the same.\nWhere would he be without his horse?  He wouldn\u2019t arrive.  It takes two\nto make a colonel of dragoons.  She was a fine dragoon horse, but never\ngot above that.  She was strong enough for the scout service, and had the\nendurance, too, but she couldn\u2019t quite come up to the speed required; a\nscout horse has to have steel in his muscle and lightning in his blood.\n\nMy father was a bronco.  Nothing as to lineage\u2014that is, nothing as to\nrecent lineage\u2014but plenty good enough when you go a good way back.  When\nProfessor Marsh was out here hunting bones for the chapel of Yale\nUniversity he found skeletons of horses no bigger than a fox, bedded in\nthe rocks, and he said they were ancestors of my father.  My mother heard\nhim say it; and he said those skeletons were two million years old, which\nastonished her and made her Kentucky pretensions look small and pretty\nantiphonal, not to say oblique.  Let me see. . . . I used to know the\nmeaning of those words, but . . . well, it was years ago, and \u2019tisn\u2019t as\nvivid now as it was when they were fresh.  That sort of words doesn\u2019t\nkeep, in the kind of climate we have out here.  Professor Marsh said\nthose skeletons were fossils.  So that makes me part blue grass and part\nfossil; if there is any older or better stock, you will have to look for\nit among the Four Hundred, I reckon.  I am satisfied with it.  And am a\nhappy horse, too, though born out of wedlock.\n\nAnd now we are back at Fort Paxton once more, after a forty-day scout,\naway up as far as the Big Horn.  Everything quiet.  Crows and Blackfeet\nsquabbling\u2014as usual\u2014but no outbreaks, and settlers feeling fairly easy.\n\nThe Seventh Cavalry still in garrison, here; also the Ninth Dragoons, two\nartillery companies, and some infantry.  All glad to see me, including\nGeneral Alison, commandant.  The officers\u2019 ladies and children well, and\ncalled upon me\u2014with sugar.  Colonel Drake, Seventh Cavalry, said some\npleasant things; Mrs. Drake was very complimentary; also Captain and Mrs.\nMarsh, Company B, Seventh Cavalry; also the Chaplain, who is always kind\nand pleasant to me, because I kicked the lungs out of a trader once.  It\nwas Tommy Drake and Fanny Marsh that furnished the sugar\u2014nice children,\nthe nicest at the post, I think.\n\nThat poor orphan child is on her way from France\u2014everybody is full of the\nsubject.  Her father was General Alison\u2019s brother; married a beautiful\nyoung Spanish lady ten years ago, and has never been in America since.\nThey lived in Spain a year or two, then went to France.  Both died some\nmonths ago.  This little girl that is coming is the only child.  General\nAlison is glad to have her.  He has never seen her.  He is a very nice\nold bachelor, but is an old bachelor just the same and isn\u2019t more than\nabout a year this side of retirement by age limit; and so what does he\nknow about taking care of a little maid nine years old?  If I could have\nher it would be another matter, for I know all about children, and they\nadore me.  Buffalo Bill will tell you so himself.\n\nI have some of this news from over-hearing the garrison-gossip, the rest\nof it I got from Potter, the General\u2019s dog.  Potter is the great Dane.\nHe is privileged, all over the post, like Shekels, the Seventh Cavalry\u2019s\ndog, and visits everybody\u2019s quarters and picks up everything that is\ngoing, in the way of news.  Potter has no imagination, and no great deal\nof culture, perhaps, but he has a historical mind and a good memory, and\nso he is the person I depend upon mainly to post me up when I get back\nfrom a scout.  That is, if Shekels is out on depredation and I can\u2019t get\nhold of him.\n\n\n\nII\nLETTER FROM ROUEN\u2014TO GENERAL ALISON\n\n\n_MY dear Brother-in-Law_,\u2014Please let me write again in Spanish, I cannot\ntrust my English, and I am aware, from what your brother used to say,\nthat army officers educated at the Military Academy of the United States\nare taught our tongue.  It is as I told you in my other letter: both my\npoor sister and her husband, when they found they could not recover,\nexpressed the wish that you should have their little Catherine\u2014as knowing\nthat you would presently be retired from the army\u2014rather than that she\nshould remain with me, who am broken in health, or go to your mother in\nCalifornia, whose health is also frail.\n\nYou do not know the child, therefore I must tell you something about her.\nYou will not be ashamed of her looks, for she is a copy in little of her\nbeautiful mother\u2014and it is that Andalusian beauty which is not\nsurpassable, even in your country.  She has her mother\u2019s charm and grace\nand good heart and sense of justice, and she has her father\u2019s vivacity\nand cheerfulness and pluck and spirit of enterprise, with the\naffectionate disposition and sincerity of both parents.\n\nMy sister pined for her Spanish home all these years of exile; she was\nalways talking of Spain to the child, and tending and nourishing the love\nof Spain in the little thing\u2019s heart as a precious flower; and she died\nhappy in the knowledge that the fruitage of her patriotic labors was as\nrich as even she could desire.\n\nCathy is a sufficiently good little scholar, for her nine years; her\nmother taught her Spanish herself, and kept it always fresh upon her ear\nand her tongue by hardly ever speaking with her in any other tongue; her\nfather was her English teacher, and talked with her in that language\nalmost exclusively; French has been her everyday speech for more than\nseven years among her playmates here; she has a good working use of\ngoverness\u2014German and Italian.  It is true that there is always a faint\nforeign fragrance about her speech, no matter what language she is\ntalking, but it is only just noticeable, nothing more, and is rather a\ncharm than a mar, I think.  In the ordinary child-studies Cathy is\nneither before nor behind the average child of nine, I should say.  But I\ncan say this for her: in love for her friends and in high-mindedness and\ngood-heartedness she has not many equals, and in my opinion no superiors.\nAnd I beg of you, let her have her way with the dumb animals\u2014they are her\nworship.  It is an inheritance from her mother.  She knows but little of\ncruelties and oppressions\u2014keep them from her sight if you can.  She would\nflare up at them and make trouble, in her small but quite decided and\nresolute way; for she has a character of her own, and lacks neither\npromptness nor initiative.  Sometimes her judgment is at fault, but I\nthink her intentions are always right.  Once when she was a little\ncreature of three or four years she suddenly brought her tiny foot down\nupon the floor in an apparent outbreak of indignation, then fetched it a\nbackward wipe, and stooped down to examine the result.  Her mother said:\n\n\u201cWhy, what is it, child?  What has stirred you so?\u201d\n\n\u201cMamma, the big ant was trying to kill the little one.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd so you protected the little one.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, mamma, because he had no friend, and I wouldn\u2019t let the big one\nkill him.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you have killed them both.\u201d\n\nCathy was distressed, and her lip trembled.  She picked up the remains\nand laid them upon her palm, and said:\n\n\u201cPoor little anty, I\u2019m so sorry; and I didn\u2019t mean to kill you, but there\nwasn\u2019t any other way to save you, it was such a hurry.\u201d\n\nShe is a dear and sweet little lady, and when she goes it will give me a\nsore heart.  But she will be happy with you, and if your heart is old and\ntired, give it into her keeping; she will make it young again, she will\nrefresh it, she will make it sing.  Be good to her, for all our sakes!\n\nMy exile will soon be over now.  As soon as I am a little stronger I\nshall see my Spain again; and that will make me young again!\n\n                                                                 MERCEDES.\n\n\n\nIII\nGENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER\n\n\nI AM glad to know that you are all well, in San Bernardino.\n\n. . . That grandchild of yours has been here\u2014well, I do not quite know\nhow many days it is; nobody can keep account of days or anything else\nwhere she is!  Mother, she did what the Indians were never able to do.\nShe took the Fort\u2014took it the first day!  Took me, too; took the\ncolonels, the captains, the women, the children, and the dumb brutes;\ntook Buffalo Bill, and all his scouts; took the garrison\u2014to the last man;\nand in forty-eight hours the Indian encampment was hers, illustrious old\nThunder-Bird and all.  Do I seem to have lost my solemnity, my gravity,\nmy poise, my dignity?  You would lose your own, in my circumstances.\nMother, you never saw such a winning little devil.  She is all energy,\nand spirit, and sunshine, and interest in everybody and everything, and\npours out her prodigal love upon every creature that will take it, high\nor low, Christian or pagan, feathered or furred; and none has declined it\nto date, and none ever will, I think.  But she has a temper, and\nsometimes it catches fire and flames up, and is likely to burn whatever\nis near it; but it is soon over, the passion goes as quickly as it comes.\nOf course she has an Indian name already; Indians always rechristen a\nstranger early.  Thunder-Bird attended to her case.  He gave her the\nIndian equivalent for firebug, or fire-fly.  He said:\n\n\u201c\u2019Times, ver\u2019 quiet, ver\u2019 soft, like summer night, but when she mad she\nblaze.\u201d\n\nIsn\u2019t it good?  Can\u2019t you see the flare?  She\u2019s beautiful, mother,\nbeautiful as a picture; and there is a touch of you in her face, and of\nher father\u2014poor George! and in her unresting activities, and her fearless\nways, and her sunbursts and cloudbursts, she is always bringing George\nback to me.  These impulsive natures are dramatic.  George was dramatic,\nso is this Lightning-Bug, so is Buffalo Bill.  When Cathy first\narrived\u2014it was in the forenoon\u2014Buffalo Bill was away, carrying orders to\nMajor Fuller, at Five Forks, up in the Clayton Hills.  At mid-afternoon I\nwas at my desk, trying to work, and this sprite had been making it\nimpossible for half an hour.  At last I said:\n\n\u201cOh, you bewitching little scamp, _can\u2019t_ you be quiet just a minute or\ntwo, and let your poor old uncle attend to a part of his duties?\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll try, uncle; I will, indeed,\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cWell, then, that\u2019s a good child\u2014kiss me.  Now, then, sit up in that\nchair, and set your eye on that clock.  There\u2014that\u2019s right.  If you\nstir\u2014if you so much as wink\u2014for four whole minutes, I\u2019ll bite you!\u201d\n\nIt was very sweet and humble and obedient she looked, sitting there,\nstill as a mouse; I could hardly keep from setting her free and telling\nher to make as much racket as she wanted to.  During as much as two\nminutes there was a most unnatural and heavenly quiet and repose, then\nBuffalo Bill came thundering up to the door in all his scout finery,\nflung himself out of the saddle, said to his horse, \u201cWait for me, Boy,\u201d\nand stepped in, and stopped dead in his tracks\u2014gazing at the child.  She\nforgot orders, and was on the floor in a moment, saying:\n\n\u201cOh, you are so beautiful!  Do you like me?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I don\u2019t, I love you!\u201d and he gathered her up with a hug, and then\nset her on his shoulder\u2014apparently nine feet from the floor.\n\nShe was at home.  She played with his long hair, and admired his big\nhands and his clothes and his carbine, and asked question after question,\nas fast as he could answer, until I excused them both for half an hour,\nin order to have a chance to finish my work.  Then I heard Cathy\nexclaiming over Soldier Boy; and he was worthy of her raptures, for he is\na wonder of a horse, and has a reputation which is as shining as his own\nsilken hide.\n\n\n\nIV\nCATHY TO HER AUNT MERCEDES\n\n\nOH, it is wonderful here, aunty dear, just paradise!  Oh, if you could\nonly see it! everything so wild and lovely; such grand plains, stretching\nsuch miles and miles and miles, all the most delicious velvety sand and\nsage-brush, and rabbits as big as a dog, and such tall and noble\njackassful ears that that is what they name them by; and such vast\nmountains, and so rugged and craggy and lofty, with cloud-shawls wrapped\naround their shoulders, and looking so solemn and awful and satisfied;\nand the charming Indians, oh, how you would dote on them, aunty dear, and\nthey would on you, too, and they would let you hold their babies, the way\nthey do me, and they _are_ the fattest, and brownest, and sweetest little\nthings, and never cry, and wouldn\u2019t if they had pins sticking in them,\nwhich they haven\u2019t, because they are poor and can\u2019t afford it; and the\nhorses and mules and cattle and dogs\u2014hundreds and hundreds and hundreds,\nand not an animal that you can\u2019t do what you please with, except uncle\nThomas, but _I_ don\u2019t mind him, he\u2019s lovely; and oh, if you could hear\nthe bugles: _too\u2014too\u2014too-too\u2014too\u2014too_, and so on\u2014perfectly beautiful!  Do\nyou recognize that one?  It\u2019s the first toots of the _reveille_; it goes,\ndear me, _so_ early in the morning!\u2014then I and every other soldier on the\nwhole place are up and out in a minute, except uncle Thomas, who is most\nunaccountably lazy, I don\u2019t know why, but I have talked to him about it,\nand I reckon it will be better, now.  He hasn\u2019t any faults much, and is\ncharming and sweet, like Buffalo Bill, and Thunder-Bird, and Mammy\nDorcas, and Soldier Boy, and Shekels, and Potter, and Sour-Mash,\nand\u2014well, they\u2019re _all_ that, just angels, as you may say.\n\nThe very first day I came, I don\u2019t know how long ago it was, Buffalo Bill\ntook me on Soldier Boy to Thunder-Bird\u2019s camp, not the big one which is\nout on the plain, which is White Cloud\u2019s, he took me to _that_ one next\nday, but this one is four or five miles up in the hills and crags, where\nthere is a great shut-in meadow, full of Indian lodges and dogs and\nsquaws and everything that is interesting, and a brook of the clearest\nwater running through it, with white pebbles on the bottom and trees all\nalong the banks cool and shady and good to wade in, and as the sun goes\ndown it is dimmish in there, but away up against the sky you see the big\npeaks towering up and shining bright and vivid in the sun, and sometimes\nan eagle sailing by them, not flapping a wing, the same as if he was\nasleep; and young Indians and girls romping and laughing and carrying on,\naround the spring and the pool, and not much clothes on except the girls,\nand dogs fighting, and the squaws busy at work, and the bucks busy\nresting, and the old men sitting in a bunch smoking, and passing the pipe\nnot to the left but to the right, which means there\u2019s been a row in the\ncamp and they are settling it if they can, and children playing _just_\nthe same as any other children, and little boys shooting at a mark with\nbows, and I cuffed one of them because he hit a dog with a club that\nwasn\u2019t doing anything, and he resented it but before long he wished he\nhadn\u2019t: but this sentence is getting too long and I will start another.\nThunder-Bird put on his Sunday-best war outfit to let me see him, and he\nwas splendid to look at, with his face painted red and bright and intense\nlike a fire-coal and a valance of eagle feathers from the top of his head\nall down his back, and he had his tomahawk, too, and his pipe, which has\na stem which is longer than my arm, and I never had such a good time in\nan Indian camp in my life, and I learned a lot of words of the language,\nand next day BB took me to the camp out on the Plains, four miles, and I\nhad another good time and got acquainted with some more Indians and dogs;\nand the big chief, by the name of White Cloud, gave me a pretty little\nbow and arrows and I gave him my red sash-ribbon, and in four days I\ncould shoot very well with it and beat any white boy of my size at the\npost; and I have been to those camps plenty of times since; and I have\nlearned to ride, too, BB taught me, and every day he practises me and\npraises me, and every time I do better than ever he lets me have a\nscamper on Soldier Boy, and _that\u2019s_ the last agony of pleasure! for he\nis the charmingest horse, and so beautiful and shiny and black, and\nhasn\u2019t another color on him anywhere, except a white star in his\nforehead, not just an imitation star, but a real one, with four points,\nshaped exactly like a star that\u2019s hand-made, and if you should cover him\nall up but his star you would know him anywhere, even in Jerusalem or\nAustralia, by that.  And I got acquainted with a good many of the Seventh\nCavalry, and the dragoons, and officers, and families, and horses, in the\nfirst few days, and some more in the next few and the next few and the\nnext few, and now I know more soldiers and horses than you can think, no\nmatter how hard you try.  I am keeping up my studies every now and then,\nbut there isn\u2019t much time for it.  I love you so! and I send you a hug\nand a kiss.\n\n                                                                    CATHY.\n\nP.S.\u2014I belong to the Seventh Cavalry and Ninth Dragoons, I am an officer,\ntoo, and do not have to work on account of not getting any wages.\n\n\n\nV\nGENERAL ALISON TO MERCEDES\n\n\nSHE has been with us a good nice long time, now.  You are troubled about\nyour sprite because this is such a wild frontier, hundreds of miles from\ncivilization, and peopled only by wandering tribes of savages?  You fear\nfor her safety?  Give yourself no uneasiness about her.  Dear me, she\u2019s\nin a nursery! and she\u2019s got more than eighteen hundred nurses.  It would\ndistress the garrison to suspect that you think they can\u2019t take care of\nher.  They think they can.  They would tell you so themselves.  You see,\nthe Seventh Cavalry has never had a child of its very own before, and\nneither has the Ninth Dragoons; and so they are like all new mothers,\nthey think there is no other child like theirs, no other child so\nwonderful, none that is so worthy to be faithfully and tenderly looked\nafter and protected.  These bronzed veterans of mine are very good\nmothers, I think, and wiser than some other mothers; for they let her\ntake lots of risks, and it is a good education for her; and the more\nrisks she takes and comes successfully out of, the prouder they are of\nher.  They adopted her, with grave and formal military ceremonies of\ntheir own invention\u2014solemnities is the truer word; solemnities that were\nso profoundly solemn and earnest, that the spectacle would have been\ncomical if it hadn\u2019t been so touching.  It was a good show, and as\nstately and complex as guard-mount and the trooping of the colors; and it\nhad its own special music, composed for the occasion by the bandmaster of\nthe Seventh; and the child was as serious as the most serious war-worn\nsoldier of them all; and finally when they throned her upon the shoulder\nof the oldest veteran, and pronounced her \u201cwell and truly adopted,\u201d and\nthe bands struck up and all saluted and she saluted in return, it was\nbetter and more moving than any kindred thing I have seen on the stage,\nbecause stage things are make-believe, but this was real and the players\u2019\nhearts were in it.\n\nIt happened several weeks ago, and was followed by some additional\nsolemnities.  The men created a couple of new ranks, thitherto unknown to\nthe army regulations, and conferred them upon Cathy, with ceremonies\nsuitable to a duke.  So now she is Corporal-General of the Seventh\nCavalry, and Flag-Lieutenant of the Ninth Dragoons, with the privilege\n(decreed by the men) of writing U.S.A. after her name!  Also, they\npresented her a pair of shoulder-straps\u2014both dark blue, the one with F.\nL. on it, the other with C. G.  Also, a sword.  She wears them.  Finally,\nthey granted her the _salute_.  I am witness that that ceremony is\nfaithfully observed by both parties\u2014and most gravely and decorously, too.\nI have never seen a soldier smile yet, while delivering it, nor Cathy in\nreturning it.\n\nOstensibly I was not present at these proceedings, and am ignorant of\nthem; but I was where I could see.  I was afraid of one thing\u2014the\njealousy of the other children of the post; but there is nothing of that,\nI am glad to say.  On the contrary, they are proud of their comrade and\nher honors.  It is a surprising thing, but it is true.  The children are\ndevoted to Cathy, for she has turned their dull frontier life into a sort\nof continuous festival; also they know her for a stanch and steady\nfriend, a friend who can always be depended upon, and does not change\nwith the weather.\n\nShe has become a rather extraordinary rider, under the tutorship of a\nmore than extraordinary teacher\u2014BB, which is her pet name for Buffalo\nBill.  She pronounces it _beeby_.  He has not only taught her seventeen\nways of breaking her neck, but twenty-two ways of avoiding it.  He has\ninfused into her the best and surest protection of a\nhorseman\u2014_confidence_.  He did it gradually, systematically, little by\nlittle, a step at a time, and each step made sure before the next was\nessayed.  And so he inched her along up through terrors that had been\ndiscounted by training before she reached them, and therefore were not\nrecognizable as terrors when she got to them.  Well, she is a daring\nlittle rider, now, and is perfect in what she knows of horsemanship.\nBy-and-by she will know the art like a West Point cadet, and will\nexercise it as fearlessly.  She doesn\u2019t know anything about side-saddles.\nDoes that distress you?  And she is a fine performer, without any saddle\nat all.  Does that discomfort you?  Do not let it; she is not in any\ndanger, I give you my word.\n\nYou said that if my heart was old and tired she would refresh it, and you\nsaid truly.  I do not know how I got along without her, before.  I was a\nforlorn old tree, but now that this blossoming vine has wound itself\nabout me and become the life of my life, it is very different.  As a\nfurnisher of business for me and for Mammy Dorcas she is exhaustlessly\ncompetent, but I like my share of it and of course Dorcas likes hers, for\nDorcas \u201craised\u201d George, and Cathy is George over again in so many ways\nthat she brings back Dorcas\u2019s youth and the joys of that long-vanished\ntime.  My father tried to set Dorcas free twenty years ago, when we still\nlived in Virginia, but without success; she considered herself a member\nof the family, and wouldn\u2019t go.  And so, a member of the family she\nremained, and has held that position unchallenged ever since, and holds\nit now; for when my mother sent her here from San Bernardino when we\nlearned that Cathy was coming, she only changed from one division of the\nfamily to the other.  She has the warm heart of her race, and its lavish\naffections, and when Cathy arrived the pair were mother and child in five\nminutes, and that is what they are to date and will continue.  Dorcas\nreally thinks she raised George, and that is one of her prides, but\nperhaps it was a mutual raising, for their ages were the same\u2014thirteen\nyears short of mine.  But they were playmates, at any rate; as regards\nthat, there is no room for dispute.\n\nCathy thinks Dorcas is the best Catholic in America except herself.  She\ncould not pay any one a higher compliment than that, and Dorcas could not\nreceive one that would please her better.  Dorcas is satisfied that there\nhas never been a more wonderful child than Cathy.  She has conceived the\ncurious idea that Cathy is _twins_, and that one of them is a boy-twin\nand failed to get segregated\u2014got submerged, is the idea.  To argue with\nher that this is nonsense is a waste of breath\u2014her mind is made up, and\narguments do not affect it.  She says:\n\n\u201cLook at her; she loves dolls, and girl-plays, and everything a girl\nloves, and she\u2019s gentle and sweet, and ain\u2019t cruel to dumb brutes\u2014now\nthat\u2019s the girl-twin, but she loves boy-plays, and drums and fifes and\nsoldiering, and rough-riding, and ain\u2019t afraid of anybody or anything\u2014and\nthat\u2019s the boy-twin; \u2019deed you needn\u2019t tell _me_ she\u2019s only _one_ child;\nno, sir, she\u2019s twins, and one of them got shet up out of sight.  Out of\nsight, but that don\u2019t make any difference, that boy is in there, and you\ncan see him look out of her eyes when her temper is up.\u201d\n\nThen Dorcas went on, in her simple and earnest way, to furnish\nillustrations.\n\n\u201cLook at that raven, Marse Tom.  Would anybody befriend a raven but that\nchild?  Of course they wouldn\u2019t; it ain\u2019t natural.  Well, the Injun boy\nhad the raven tied up, and was all the time plaguing it and starving it,\nand she pitied the po\u2019 thing, and tried to buy it from the boy, and the\ntears was in her eyes.  That was the girl-twin, you see.  She offered him\nher thimble, and he flung it down; she offered him all the doughnuts she\nhad, which was two, and he flung them down; she offered him half a paper\nof pins, worth forty ravens, and he made a mouth at her and jabbed one of\nthem in the raven\u2019s back.  That was the limit, you know.  It called for\nthe other twin.  Her eyes blazed up, and she jumped for him like a\nwild-cat, and when she was done with him she was rags and he wasn\u2019t\nanything but an allegory.  That was most undoubtedly the other twin, you\nsee, coming to the front.  No, sir; don\u2019t tell _me_ he ain\u2019t in there.\nI\u2019ve seen him with my own eyes\u2014and plenty of times, at that.\u201d\n\n\u201cAllegory?  What is an allegory?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know, Marse Tom, it\u2019s one of her words; she loves the big ones,\nyou know, and I pick them up from her; they sound good and I can\u2019t help\nit.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat happened after she had converted the boy into an allegory?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, she untied the raven and confiscated him by force and fetched him\nhome, and left the doughnuts and things on the ground.  Petted him, of\ncourse, like she does with every creature.  In two days she had him so\nstuck after her that she\u2014well, _you_ know how he follows her everywhere,\nand sets on her shoulder often when she rides her breakneck rampages\u2014all\nof which is the girl-twin to the front, you see\u2014and he does what he\npleases, and is up to all kinds of devilment, and is a perfect nuisance\nin the kitchen.  Well, they all stand it, but they wouldn\u2019t if it was\nanother person\u2019s bird.\u201d\n\nHere she began to chuckle comfortably, and presently she said:\n\n\u201cWell, you know, she\u2019s a nuisance herself, Miss Cathy is, she _is_ so\nbusy, and into everything, like that bird.  It\u2019s all just as innocent,\nyou know, and she don\u2019t mean any harm, and is so good and dear; and it\nain\u2019t her fault, it\u2019s her nature; her interest is always a-working and\nalways red-hot, and she can\u2019t keep quiet.  Well, yesterday it was\n\u2018Please, Miss Cathy, don\u2019t do that\u2019; and, \u2018Please, Miss Cathy, let that\nalone\u2019; and, \u2018Please, Miss Cathy, don\u2019t make so much noise\u2019; and so on\nand so on, till I reckon I had found fault fourteen times in fifteen\nminutes; then she looked up at me with her big brown eyes that can plead\nso, and said in that odd little foreign way that goes to your heart,\n\n\u201c\u2019Please, mammy, make me a compliment.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd of course you did it, you old fool?\u201d\n\n\u201cMarse Tom, I just grabbed her up to my breast and says, \u2018Oh, you po\u2019\ndear little motherless thing, you ain\u2019t got a fault in the world, and you\ncan do anything you want to, and tear the house down, and yo\u2019 old black\nmammy won\u2019t say a word!\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, of course, of course\u2014_I_ knew you\u2019d spoil the child.\u201d\n\nShe brushed away her tears, and said with dignity:\n\n\u201cSpoil the child? spoil _that_ child, Marse Tom?  There can\u2019t _anybody_\nspoil her.  She\u2019s the king bee of this post, and everybody pets her and\nis her slave, and yet, as you know, your own self, she ain\u2019t the least\nlittle bit spoiled.\u201d  Then she eased her mind with this retort: \u201cMarse\nTom, she makes you do anything she wants to, and you can\u2019t deny it; so if\nshe could be spoilt, she\u2019d been spoilt long ago, because you are the very\n_worst_!  Look at that pile of cats in your chair, and you sitting on a\ncandle-box, just as patient; it\u2019s because they\u2019re her cats.\u201d\n\n          [Picture: \u201c\u2018Look at that pile of cats in your chair\u2019\u201d]\n\nIf Dorcas were a soldier, I could punish her for such large frankness as\nthat.  I changed the subject, and made her resume her illustrations.  She\nhad scored against me fairly, and I wasn\u2019t going to cheapen her victory\nby disputing it.  She proceeded to offer this incident in evidence on her\ntwin theory:\n\n\u201cTwo weeks ago when she got her finger mashed open, she turned pretty\npale with the pain, but she never said a word.  I took her in my lap, and\nthe surgeon sponged off the blood and took a needle and thread and began\nto sew it up; it had to have a lot of stitches, and each one made her\nscrunch a little, but she never let go a sound.  At last the surgeon was\nso full of admiration that he said, \u2018Well, you _are_ a brave little\nthing!\u2019 and she said, just as ca\u2019m and simple as if she was talking about\nthe weather, \u2018There isn\u2019t anybody braver but the Cid!\u2019  You see? it was\nthe boy-twin that the surgeon was a-dealing with.\n\n\u201cWho is the Cid?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know, sir\u2014at least only what she says.  She\u2019s always talking\nabout him, and says he was the bravest hero Spain ever had, or any other\ncountry.  They have it up and down, the children do, she standing up for\nthe Cid, and they working George Washington for all he is worth.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo they quarrel?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo; it\u2019s only disputing, and bragging, the way children do.  They want\nher to be an American, but she can\u2019t be anything but a Spaniard, she\nsays.  You see, her mother was always longing for home, po\u2019 thing! and\nthinking about it, and so the child is just as much a Spaniard as if\nshe\u2019d always lived there.  She thinks she remembers how Spain looked, but\nI reckon she don\u2019t, because she was only a baby when they moved to\nFrance.  She is very proud to be a Spaniard.\u201d\n\nDoes that please you, Mercedes?  Very well, be content; your niece is\nloyal to her allegiance: her mother laid deep the foundations of her love\nfor Spain, and she will go back to you as good a Spaniard as you are\nyourself.  She has made me promise to take her to you for a long visit\nwhen the War Office retires me.\n\nI attend to her studies myself; has she told you that?  Yes, I am her\nschool-master, and she makes pretty good progress, I think, everything\nconsidered.  Everything considered\u2014being translated\u2014means holidays.  But\nthe fact is, she was not born for study, and it comes hard.  Hard for me,\ntoo; it hurts me like a physical pain to see that free spirit of the air\nand the sunshine laboring and grieving over a book; and sometimes when I\nfind her gazing far away towards the plain and the blue mountains with\nthe longing in her eyes, I have to throw open the prison doors; I can\u2019t\nhelp it.  A quaint little scholar she is, and makes plenty of blunders.\nOnce I put the question:\n\n\u201cWhat does the Czar govern?\u201d\n\nShe rested her elbow on her knee and her chin on her hand and took that\nproblem under deep consideration.  Presently she looked up and answered,\nwith a rising inflection implying a shade of uncertainty,\n\n\u201cThe dative case?\u201d\n\nHere are a couple of her expositions which were delivered with tranquil\nconfidence:\n\n\u201c_Chaplain_, diminutive of chap.  _Lass_ is masculine, _lassie_ is\nfeminine.\u201d\n\nShe is not a genius, you see, but just a normal child; they all make\nmistakes of that sort.  There is a glad light in her eye which is pretty\nto see when she finds herself able to answer a question promptly and\naccurately, without any hesitation; as, for instance, this morning:\n\n\u201cCathy dear, what is a cube?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, a native of Cuba.\u201d\n\nShe still drops a foreign word into her talk now and then, and there is\nstill a subtle foreign flavor or fragrance about even her exactest\nEnglish\u2014and long may this abide! for it has for me a charm that is very\npleasant.  Sometimes her English is daintily prim and bookish and\ncaptivating.  She has a child\u2019s sweet tooth, but for her health\u2019s sake I\ntry to keep its inspirations under check.  She is obedient\u2014as is proper\nfor a titled and recognized military personage, which she is\u2014but the\nchain presses sometimes.  For instance, we were out for a walk, and\npassed by some bushes that were freighted with wild goose-berries.  Her\nface brightened and she put her hands together and delivered herself of\nthis speech, most feelingly:\n\n\u201cOh, if I was permitted a vice it would be the _gourmandise_!\u201d\n\nCould I resist that?  No.  I gave her a gooseberry.\n\nYou ask about her languages.  They take care of themselves; they will not\nget rusty here; our regiments are not made up of natives alone\u2014far from\nit.  And she is picking up Indian tongues diligently.\n\n\n\nVI\nSOLDIER BOY AND THE MEXICAN PLUG\n\n\n\u201cWHEN did you come?\u201d\n\n\u201cArrived at sundown.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere from?\u201d\n\n\u201cSalt Lake.\u201d\n\n\u201cAre you in the service?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.  Trade.\u201d\n\n\u201cPirate trade, I reckon.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you know about it?\u201d\n\n\u201cI saw you when you came.  I recognized your master.  He is a bad sort.\nTrap-robber, horse-thief, squaw-man, renegado\u2014Hank Butters\u2014I know him\nvery well.  Stole you, didn\u2019t he?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, it amounted to that.\u201d\n\n\u201cI thought so.  Where is his pard?\u201d\n\n\u201cHe stopped at White Cloud\u2019s camp.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe is another of the same stripe, is Blake Haskins.\u201d  (_Aside_.)  They\nare laying for Buffalo Bill again, I guess.  (_Aloud_.)  \u201cWhat is your\nname?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhich one?\u201d\n\n\u201cHave you got more than one?\u201d\n\n\u201cI get a new one every time I\u2019m stolen.  I used to have an honest name,\nbut that was early; I\u2019ve forgotten it.  Since then I\u2019ve had thirteen\n_aliases_.\u201d\n\n\u201cAliases?  What is alias?\u201d\n\n\u201cA false name.\u201d\n\n\u201cAlias.  It\u2019s a fine large word, and is in my line; it has quite a\nlearned and cerebrospinal incandescent sound.  Are you educated?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, no, I can\u2019t claim it.  I can take down bars, I can distinguish\noats from shoe-pegs, I can blaspheme a saddle-boil with the college-bred,\nand I know a few other things\u2014not many; I have had no chance, I have\nalways had to work; besides, I am of low birth and no family.  You speak\nmy dialect like a native, but you are not a Mexican Plug, you are a\ngentleman, I can see that; and educated, of course.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I am of old family, and not illiterate.  I am a fossil.\u201d\n\n\u201cA which?\u201d\n\n\u201cFossil.  The first horses were fossils.  They date back two million\nyears.\u201d\n\n\u201cGr-eat sand and sage-brush! do you mean it?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, it is true.  The bones of my ancestors are held in reverence and\nworship, even by men.  They do not leave them exposed to the weather when\nthey find them, but carry them three thousand miles and enshrine them in\ntheir temples of learning, and worship them.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is wonderful!  I knew you must be a person of distinction, by your\nfine presence and courtly address, and by the fact that you are not\nsubjected to the indignity of hobbles, like myself and the rest.  Would\nyou tell me your name?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou have probably heard of it\u2014Soldier Boy.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat!\u2014the renowned, the illustrious?\u201d\n\n\u201cEven so.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt takes my breath!  Little did I dream that ever I should stand face to\nface with the possessor of that great name.  Buffalo Bill\u2019s horse!  Known\nfrom the Canadian border to the deserts of Arizona, and from the eastern\nmarches of the Great Plains to the foot-hills of the Sierra!  Truly this\nis a memorable day.  You still serve the celebrated Chief of Scouts?\u201d\n\n\u201cI am still his property, but he has lent me, for a time, to the most\nnoble, the most gracious, the most excellent, her Excellency Catherine,\nCorporal-General Seventh Cavalry and Flag-Lieutenant Ninth Dragoons,\nU.S.A.,\u2014on whom be peace!\u201d\n\n\u201cAmen.  Did you say _her_ Excellency?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe same.  A Spanish lady, sweet blossom of a ducal house.  And truly a\nwonder; knowing everything, capable of everything; speaking all the\nlanguages, master of all sciences, a mind without horizons, a heart of\ngold, the glory of her race!  On whom be peace!\u201d\n\n\u201cAmen.  It is marvellous!\u201d\n\n\u201cVerily.  I knew many things, she has taught me others.  I am educated.\nI will tell you about her.\u201d\n\n\u201cI listen\u2014I am enchanted.\u201d\n\n\u201cI will tell a plain tale, calmly, without excitement, without eloquence.\nWhen she had been here four or five weeks she was already erudite in\nmilitary things, and they made her an officer\u2014a double officer.  She rode\nthe drill every day, like any soldier; and she could take the bugle and\ndirect the evolutions herself.  Then, on a day, there was a grand race,\nfor prizes\u2014none to enter but the children.  Seventeen children entered,\nand she was the youngest.  Three girls, fourteen boys\u2014good riders all.\nIt was a steeplechase, with four hurdles, all pretty high.  The first\nprize was a most cunning half-grown silver bugle, and mighty pretty, with\nred silk cord and tassels.  Buffalo Bill was very anxious; for he had\ntaught her to ride, and he did most dearly want her to win that race, for\nthe glory of it.  So he wanted her to ride me, but she wouldn\u2019t; and she\nreproached him, and said it was unfair and unright, and taking advantage;\nfor what horse in this post or any other could stand a chance against me?\nand she was very severe with him, and said, \u2018You ought to be ashamed\u2014you\nare proposing to me conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.\u2019  So\nhe just tossed her up in the air about thirty feet and caught her as she\ncame down, and said he was ashamed; and put up his handkerchief and\npretended to cry, which nearly broke her heart, and she petted him, and\nbegged him to forgive her, and said she would do anything in the world he\ncould ask but that; but he said he ought to go hang himself, and he\n_must_, if he could get a rope; it was nothing but right he should, for\nhe never, never could forgive himself; and then _she_ began to cry, and\nthey both sobbed, the way you could hear him a mile, and she clinging\naround his neck and pleading, till at last he was comforted a little, and\ngave his solemn promise he wouldn\u2019t hang himself till after the race; and\nwouldn\u2019t do it at all if she won it, which made her happy, and she said\nshe would win it or die in the saddle; so then everything was pleasant\nagain and both of them content.  He can\u2019t help playing jokes on her, he\nis so fond of her and she is so innocent and unsuspecting; and when she\nfinds it out she cuffs him and is in a fury, but presently forgives him\nbecause it\u2019s him; and maybe the very next day she\u2019s caught with another\njoke; you see she can\u2019t learn any better, because she hasn\u2019t any deceit\nin her, and that kind aren\u2019t ever expecting it in another person.\n\n\u201cIt was a grand race.  The whole post was there, and there was such\nanother whooping and shouting when the seventeen kids came flying down\nthe turf and sailing over the hurdles\u2014oh, beautiful to see!  Half-way\ndown, it was kind of neck and neck, and anybody\u2019s race and nobody\u2019s.\nThen, what should happen but a cow steps out and puts her head down to\nmunch grass, with her broadside to the battalion, and they a-coming like\nthe wind; they split apart to flank her, but _she_?\u2014why, she drove the\nspurs home and soared over that cow like a bird! and on she went, and\ncleared the last hurdle solitary and alone, the army letting loose the\ngrand yell, and she skipped from the horse the same as if he had been\nstanding still, and made her bow, and everybody crowded around to\ncongratulate, and they gave her the bugle, and she put it to her lips and\nblew \u2018boots and saddles\u2019 to see how it would go, and BB was as proud as\nyou can\u2019t think!  And he said, \u2018Take Soldier Boy, and don\u2019t pass him back\ntill I ask for him!\u2019 and I can tell you he wouldn\u2019t have said that to any\nother person on this planet.  That was two months and more ago, and\nnobody has been on my back since but the Corporal-General Seventh Cavalry\nand Flag-Lieutenant of the Ninth Dragoons, U.S.A.,\u2014on whom be peace!\u201d\n\n     [Picture: Every morning they go clattering down into the plain]\n\n\u201cAmen.  I listen\u2014tell me more.\u201d\n\n\u201cShe set to work and organized the Sixteen, and called it the First\nBattalion Rocky Mountain Rangers, U.S.A., and she wanted to be bugler,\nbut they elected her Lieutenant-General and Bugler.  So she ranks her\nuncle the commandant, who is only a Brigadier.  And doesn\u2019t she train\nthose little people!  Ask the Indians, ask the traders, ask the soldiers;\nthey\u2019ll tell you.  She has been at it from the first day.  Every morning\nthey go clattering down into the plain, and there she sits on my back\nwith her bugle at her mouth and sounds the orders and puts them through\nthe evolutions for an hour or more; and it is too beautiful for anything\nto see those ponies dissolve from one formation into another, and waltz\nabout, and break, and scatter, and form again, always moving, always\ngraceful, now trotting, now galloping, and so on, sometimes near by,\nsometimes in the distance, all just like a state ball, you know, and\nsometimes she can\u2019t hold herself any longer, but sounds the \u2018charge,\u2019 and\nturns me loose! and you can take my word for it, if the battalion hasn\u2019t\ntoo much of a start we catch up and go over the breastworks with the\nfront line.\n\n\u201cYes, they are soldiers, those little people; and healthy, too, not\nailing any more, the way they used to be sometimes.  It\u2019s because of her\ndrill.  She\u2019s got a fort, now\u2014Fort Fanny Marsh.  Major-General Tommy\nDrake planned it out, and the Seventh and Dragoons built it.  Tommy is\nthe Colonel\u2019s son, and is fifteen and the oldest in the Battalion; Fanny\nMarsh is Brigadier-General, and is next oldest\u2014over thirteen.  She is\ndaughter of Captain Marsh, Company B, Seventh Cavalry.\nLieutenant-General Alison is the youngest by considerable; I think she is\nabout nine and a half or three-quarters.  Her military rig, as\nLieutenant-General, isn\u2019t for business, it\u2019s for dress parade, because\nthe ladies made it.  They say they got it out of the Middle Ages\u2014out of a\nbook\u2014and it is all red and blue and white silks and satins and velvets;\ntights, trunks, sword, doublet with slashed sleeves, short cape, cap with\njust one feather in it; I\u2019ve heard them name these things; they got them\nout of the book; she\u2019s dressed like a page, of old times, they say.  It\u2019s\nthe daintiest outfit that ever was\u2014you will say so, when you see it.\nShe\u2019s lovely in it\u2014oh, just a dream!  In some ways she is just her age,\nbut in others she\u2019s as old as her uncle, I think.  She is very learned.\nShe teaches her uncle his book.  I have seen her sitting by with the book\nand reciting to him what is in it, so that he can learn to do it himself.\n\n\u201cEvery Saturday she hires little Injuns to garrison her fort; then she\nlays siege to it, and makes military approaches by make-believe trenches\nin make-believe night, and finally at make-believe dawn she draws her\nsword and sounds the assault and takes it by storm.  It is for practice.\nAnd she has invented a bugle-call all by herself, out of her own head,\nand it\u2019s a stirring one, and the prettiest in the service.  It\u2019s to call\n_me_\u2014it\u2019s never used for anything else.  She taught it to me, and told me\nwhat it says: \u2018_It is I_, _Soldier\u2014come_!\u2019 and when those thrilling notes\ncome floating down the distance I hear them without fail, even if I am\ntwo miles away; and then\u2014oh, then you should see my heels get down to\nbusiness!\n\n\u201cAnd she has taught me how to say good-morning and good-night to her,\nwhich is by lifting my right hoof for her to shake; and also how to say\ngood-bye; I do that with my left foot\u2014but only for practice, because\nthere hasn\u2019t been any but make-believe good-byeing yet, and I hope there\nwon\u2019t ever be.  It would make me cry if I ever had to put up my left foot\nin earnest.  She has taught me how to salute, and I can do it as well as\na soldier.  I bow my head low, and lay my right hoof against my cheek.\nShe taught me that because I got into disgrace once, through ignorance.\nI am privileged, because I am known to be honorable and trustworthy, and\nbecause I have a distinguished record in the service; so they don\u2019t\nhobble me nor tie me to stakes or shut me tight in stables, but let me\nwander around to suit myself.  Well, trooping the colors is a very solemn\nceremony, and everybody must stand uncovered when the flag goes by, the\ncommandant and all; and once I was there, and ignorantly walked across\nright in front of the band, which was an awful disgrace: Ah, the\nLieutenant-General was so ashamed, and so distressed that I should have\ndone such a thing before all the world, that she couldn\u2019t keep the tears\nback; and then she taught me the salute, so that if I ever did any other\nunmilitary act through ignorance I could do my salute and she believed\neverybody would think it was apology enough and would not press the\nmatter.  It is very nice and distinguished; no other horse can do it;\noften the men salute me, and I return it.  I am privileged to be present\nwhen the Rocky Mountain Rangers troop the colors and I stand solemn, like\nthe children, and I salute when the flag goes by.  Of course when she\ngoes to her fort her sentries sing out \u2018Turn out the guard!\u2019 and then . . .\ndo you catch that refreshing early-morning whiff from the\nmountain-pines and the wild flowers?  The night is far spent; we\u2019ll hear\nthe bugles before long.  Dorcas, the black woman, is very good and nice;\nshe takes care of the Lieutenant-General, and is Brigadier-General\nAlison\u2019s mother, which makes her mother-in-law to the Lieutenant-General.\nThat is what Shekels says.  At least it is what I think he says, though I\nnever can understand him quite clearly. He\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cWho is Shekels?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Seventh Cavalry dog.  I mean, if he _is_ a dog.  His father was a\ncoyote and his mother was a wild-cat.  It doesn\u2019t really make a dog out\nof him, does it?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot a real dog, I should think.  Only a kind of a general dog, at most,\nI reckon.  Though this is a matter of ichthyology, I suppose; and if it\nis, it is out of my depth, and so my opinion is not valuable, and I don\u2019t\nclaim much consideration for it.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt isn\u2019t ichthyology; it is dogmatics, which is still more difficult and\ntangled up.  Dogmatics always are.\u201d\n\n\u201cDogmatics is quite beyond me, quite; so I am not competing.  But on\ngeneral principles it is my opinion that a colt out of a coyote and a\nwild-cat is no square dog, but doubtful.  That is my hand, and I stand\npat.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, it is as far as I can go myself, and be fair and conscientious.  I\nhave always regarded him as a doubtful dog, and so has Potter.  Potter is\nthe great Dane.  Potter says he is no dog, and not even poultry\u2014though I\ndo not go quite so far as that.\n\n\u201cAnd I wouldn\u2019t, myself.  Poultry is one of those things which no person\ncan get to the bottom of, there is so much of it and such variety.  It is\njust wings, and wings, and wings, till you are weary: turkeys, and geese,\nand bats, and butterflies, and angels, and grasshoppers, and flying-fish,\nand\u2014well, there is really no end to the tribe; it gives me the heaves\njust to think of it.  But this one hasn\u2019t any wings, has he?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, then, in my belief he is more likely to be dog than poultry.  I\nhave not heard of poultry that hadn\u2019t wings.  Wings is the _sign_ of\npoultry; it is what you tell poultry by.  Look at the mosquito.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you reckon he is, then?  He must be something.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, he could be a reptile; anything that hasn\u2019t wings is a reptile.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho told you that?\u201d\n\n\u201cNobody told me, but I overheard it.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere did you overhear it?\u201d\n\n\u201cYears ago.  I was with the Philadelphia Institute expedition in the Bad\nLands under Professor Cope, hunting mastodon bones, and I overheard him\nsay, his own self, that any plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium\nthat hadn\u2019t wings and was uncertain was a reptile.  Well, then, has this\ndog any wings?  No.  Is he a plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium?\nMaybe so, maybe not; but without ever having seen him, and judging only\nby his illegal and spectacular parentage, I will bet the odds of a bale\nof hay to a bran mash that he looks it.  Finally, is he uncertain?  That\nis the point\u2014is he uncertain?  I will leave it to you if you have ever\nheard of a more uncertainer dog than what this one is?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, I never have.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, then, he\u2019s a reptile.  That\u2019s settled.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, look here, whatsyourname\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cLast alias, Mongrel.\u201d\n\n\u201cA good one, too.  I was going to say, you are better educated than you\nhave been pretending to be.  I like cultured society, and I shall\ncultivate your acquaintance.  Now as to Shekels, whenever you want to\nknow about any private thing that is going on at this post or in White\nCloud\u2019s camp or Thunder-Bird\u2019s, he can tell you; and if you make friends\nwith him he\u2019ll be glad to, for he is a born gossip, and picks up all the\ntittle-tattle.  Being the whole Seventh Cavalry\u2019s reptile, he doesn\u2019t\nbelong to anybody in particular, and hasn\u2019t any military duties; so he\ncomes and goes as he pleases, and is popular with all the house cats and\nother authentic sources of private information.  He understands all the\nlanguages, and talks them all, too.  With an accent like gritting your\nteeth, it is true, and with a grammar that is no improvement on\nblasphemy\u2014still, with practice you get at the meat of what he says, and\nit serves. . . Hark!  That\u2019s the reveille. . . .\n\n               [Picture: Music score for The Reveille] {80}\n\n\u201cFaint and far, but isn\u2019t it clear, isn\u2019t it sweet?  There\u2019s no music\nlike the bugle to stir the blood, in the still solemnity of the morning\ntwilight, with the dim plain stretching away to nothing and the spectral\nmountains slumbering against the sky.  You\u2019ll hear another note in a\nminute\u2014faint and far and clear, like the other one, and sweeter still,\nyou\u2019ll notice.  Wait . . . listen.  There it goes!  It says, \u2018_It is I_,\n_Soldier\u2014come_!\u2019 . . .\n\n            [Picture: Soldier Boy\u2019s Bugle Call [music score]]\n\n. . . Now then, watch me leave a blue streak behind!\u201d\n\n\n\nVII\nSOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS\n\n\n\u201cDID you do as I told you?  Did you look up the Mexican Plug?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I made his acquaintance before night and got his friendship.\u201d\n\n\u201cI liked him.  Did you?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot at first.  He took me for a reptile, and it troubled me, because I\ndidn\u2019t know whether it was a compliment or not.  I couldn\u2019t ask him,\nbecause it would look ignorant.  So I didn\u2019t say anything, and soon liked\nhim very well indeed.  Was it a compliment, do you think?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, that is what it was.  They are very rare, the reptiles; very few\nleft, now-a-days.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs that so?  What is a reptile?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is a plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium that hasn\u2019t any\nwings and is uncertain.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, it\u2014it sounds fine, it surely does.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd it _is_ fine.  You may be thankful you are one.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am.  It seems wonderfully grand and elegant for a person that is so\nhumble as I am; but I am thankful, I am indeed, and will try to live up\nto it.  It is hard to remember.  Will you say it again, please, and say\nit slow?\u201d\n\n\u201cPlantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium that hasn\u2019t any wings and is\nuncertain.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is beautiful, anybody must grant it; beautiful, and of a noble sound.\nI hope it will not make me proud and stuck-up\u2014I should not like to be\nthat.  It is much more distinguished and honorable to be a reptile than a\ndog, don\u2019t you think, Soldier?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, there\u2019s no comparison.  It is awfully aristocratic.  Often a duke\nis called a reptile; it is set down so, in history.\u201d\n\n\u201cIsn\u2019t that grand!  Potter wouldn\u2019t ever associate with me, but I reckon\nhe\u2019ll be glad to when he finds out what I am.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou can depend upon it.\u201d\n\n\u201cI will thank Mongrel for this. He is a very good sort, for a Mexican\nPlug.  Don\u2019t you think he is?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is my opinion of him; and as for his birth, he cannot help that.  We\ncannot all be reptiles, we cannot all be fossils; we have to take what\ncomes and be thankful it is no worse.  It is the true philosophy.\u201d\n\n\u201cFor those others?\u201d\n\n\u201cStick to the subject, please.  Did it turn out that my suspicions were\nright?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, perfectly right.  Mongrel has heard them planning.  They are after\nBB\u2019s life, for running them out of Medicine Bow and taking their stolen\nhorses away from them.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, they\u2019ll get him yet, for sure.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot if he keeps a sharp look-out.\u201d\n\n\u201c_He_ keep a sharp lookout!  He never does; he despises them, and all\ntheir kind.  His life is always being threatened, and so it has come to\nbe monotonous.\u201d\n\n\u201cDoes he know they are here?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh yes, he knows it.  He is always the earliest to know who comes and\nwho goes.  But he cares nothing for them and their threats; he only\nlaughs when people warn him.  They\u2019ll shoot him from behind a tree the\nfirst he knows.  Did Mongrel tell you their plans?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.  They have found out that he starts for Fort Clayton day after\nto-morrow, with one of his scouts; so they will leave to-morrow, letting\non to go south, but they will fetch around north all in good time.\u201d\n\n\u201cShekels, I don\u2019t like the look of it.\u201d\n\n\n\nVIII\nTHE SCOUT-START.  BB AND LIEUTENANT-GENERAL ALISON\n\n\nBB (_saluting_).  \u201cGood! handsomely done!  The Seventh couldn\u2019t beat it!\nYou do certainly handle your Rangers like an expert, General.  And where\nare you bound?\u201d\n\n\u201cFour miles on the trail to Fort Clayton.\u201d\n\n\u201cGlad am I, dear!  What\u2019s the idea of it?\u201d\n\n\u201cGuard of honor for you and Thorndike.\u201d\n\n\u201cBless\u2014your\u2014_heart_!  I\u2019d rather have it from you than from the\nCommander-in-Chief of the armies of the United States, you incomparable\nlittle soldier!\u2014and I don\u2019t need to take any oath to that, for you to\nbelieve it.\u201d\n\n\u201cI _thought_ you\u2019d like it, BB.\u201d\n\n\u201c_Like_ it?  Well, I should say so!  Now then\u2014all ready\u2014sound the\nadvance, and away we go!\u201d\n\n\n\nIX\nSOLDIER BOY AND SHEKELS AGAIN\n\n\n\u201cWELL, this is the way it happened.  We did the escort duty; then we came\nback and struck for the plain and put the Rangers through a rousing\ndrill\u2014oh, for hours!  Then we sent them home under Brigadier-General\nFanny Marsh; then the Lieutenant-General and I went off on a gallop over\nthe plains for about three hours, and were lazying along home in the\nmiddle of the afternoon, when we met Jimmy Slade, the drummer-boy, and he\nsaluted and asked the Lieutenant-General if she had heard the news, and\nshe said no, and he said:\n\n\u201c\u2018Buffalo Bill has been ambushed and badly shot this side of Clayton, and\nThorndike the scout, too; Bill couldn\u2019t travel, but Thorndike could, and\nhe brought the news, and Sergeant Wilkes and six men of Company B are\ngone, two hours ago, hotfoot, to get Bill.  And they say\u2014\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018_Go_!\u2019 she shouts to me\u2014and I went.\u201d\n\n\u201cFast?\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t ask foolish questions.  It was an awful pace.  For four hours\nnothing happened, and not a word said, except that now and then she said,\n\u2018Keep it up, Boy, keep it up, sweetheart; we\u2019ll save him!\u2019  I kept it up.\nWell, when the dark shut down, in the rugged hills, that poor little chap\nhad been tearing around in the saddle all day, and I noticed by the slack\nknee-pressure that she was tired and tottery, and I got dreadfully\nafraid; but every time I tried to slow down and let her go to sleep, so I\ncould stop, she hurried me up again; and so, sure enough, at last over\nshe went!\n\n            [Picture: \u201cThere was nothing to do but stand by\u201d]\n\n\u201cAh, that was a fix to be in I for she lay there and didn\u2019t stir, and\nwhat was I to do?  I couldn\u2019t leave her to fetch help, on account of the\nwolves.  There was nothing to do but stand by.  It was dreadful.  I was\nafraid she was killed, poor little thing!  But she wasn\u2019t.  She came to,\nby-and-by, and said, \u2018Kiss me, Soldier,\u2019 and those were blessed words.  I\nkissed her\u2014often; I am used to that, and we like it.  But she didn\u2019t get\nup, and I was worried.  She fondled my nose with her hand, and talked to\nme, and called me endearing names\u2014which is her way\u2014but she caressed with\nthe same hand all the time.  The other arm was broken, you see, but I\ndidn\u2019t know it, and she didn\u2019t mention it.  She didn\u2019t want to distress\nme, you know.\n\n\u201cSoon the big gray wolves came, and hung around, and you could hear them\nsnarl, and snap at each other, but you couldn\u2019t see anything of them\nexcept their eyes, which shone in the dark like sparks and stars.  The\nLieutenant-General said, \u2018If I had the Rocky Mountain Rangers here, we\nwould make those creatures climb a tree.\u2019  Then she made believe that the\nRangers were in hearing, and put up her bugle and blew the \u2018assembly\u2019;\nand then, \u2018boots and saddles\u2019; then the \u2018trot\u2019; \u2018gallop\u2019; \u2018charge!\u2019  Then\nshe blew the \u2018retreat,\u2019 and said, \u2018That\u2019s for you, you rebels; the\nRangers don\u2019t ever retreat!\u2019\n\n\u201cThe music frightened them away, but they were hungry, and kept coming\nback.  And of course they got bolder and bolder, which is their way.  It\nwent on for an hour, then the tired child went to sleep, and it was\npitiful to hear her moan and nestle, and I couldn\u2019t do anything for her.\nAll the time I was laying for the wolves.  They are in my line; I have\nhad experience.  At last the boldest one ventured within my lines, and I\nlanded him among his friends with some of his skull still on him, and\nthey did the rest.  In the next hour I got a couple more, and they went\nthe way of the first one, down the throats of the detachment.  That\nsatisfied the survivors, and they went away and left us in peace.\n\n\u201cWe hadn\u2019t any more adventures, though I kept awake all night and was\nready.  From midnight on the child got very restless, and out of her\nhead, and moaned, and said, \u2018Water, water\u2014thirsty\u2019; and now and then,\n\u2018Kiss me, Soldier\u2019; and sometimes she was in her fort and giving orders\nto her garrison; and once she was in Spain, and thought her mother was\nwith her.  People say a horse can\u2019t cry; but they don\u2019t know, because we\ncry inside.\n\n\u201cIt was an hour after sunup that I heard the boys coming, and recognized\nthe hoof-beats of Pomp and C\u00e6sar and Jerry, old mates of mine; and a\nwelcomer sound there couldn\u2019t ever be.\n\nBuffalo Bill was in a horse-litter, with his leg broken by a bullet, and\nMongrel and Blake Haskins\u2019s horse were doing the work.  Buffalo Bill and\nThorndike had lolled both of those toughs.\n\n\u201cWhen they got to us, and Buffalo Bill saw the child lying there so\nwhite, he said, \u2018My God!\u2019 and the sound of his voice brought her to\nherself, and she gave a little cry of pleasure and struggled to get up,\nbut couldn\u2019t, and the soldiers gathered her up like the tenderest women,\nand their eyes were wet and they were not ashamed, when they saw her arm\ndangling; and so were Buffalo Bill\u2019s, and when they laid her in his arms\nhe said, \u2018My darling, how does this come?\u2019 and she said, \u2018We came to save\nyou, but I was tired, and couldn\u2019t keep awake, and fell off and hurt\nmyself, and couldn\u2019t get on again.\u2019  \u2018You came to save me, you dear\nlittle rat?  It was too lovely of you!\u2019  \u2018Yes, and Soldier stood by me,\nwhich you know he would, and protected me from the wolves; and if he got\na chance he kicked the life out of some of them\u2014for you know he would,\nBB.\u2019  The sergeant said, \u2018He laid out three of them, sir, and here\u2019s the\nbones to show for it.\u2019  \u2018He\u2019s a grand horse,\u2019 said BB; \u2018he\u2019s the grandest\nhorse that ever was! and has saved your life, Lieutenant-General Alison,\nand shall protect it the rest of his life\u2014he\u2019s yours for a kiss!\u2019  He got\nit, along with a passion of delight, and he said, \u2018You are feeling better\nnow, little Spaniard\u2014do you think you could blow the advance?\u2019  She put\nup the bugle to do it, but he said wait a minute first.  Then he and the\nsergeant set her arm and put it in splints, she wincing but not\nwhimpering; then we took up the march for home, and that\u2019s the end of the\ntale; and I\u2019m her horse.  Isn\u2019t she a brick, Shekels?\n\n\u201cBrick?  She\u2019s more than a brick, more than a thousand bricks\u2014she\u2019s a\nreptile!\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a compliment out of your heart, Shekels.  God bless you for it!\u201d\n\n\n\nX\nGENERAL ALISON AND DORCAS\n\n\n\u201cTOO much company for her, Marse Tom.  Betwixt you, and Shekels, the\nColonel\u2019s wife, and the Cid\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Cid?  Oh, I remember\u2014the raven.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2014and Mrs. Captain Marsh and Famine and Pestilence the baby _coyotes_,\nand Sour-Mash and her pups, and Sardanapalus and her kittens\u2014hang these\nnames she gives the creatures, they warp my jaw\u2014and Potter: you\u2014all\nsitting around in the house, and Soldier Boy at the window the entire\ntime, it\u2019s a wonder to me she comes along as well as she does.  She\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cYou want her all to yourself, you stingy old thing!\u201d\n\n\u201cMarse Tom, you know better.  It\u2019s too much company.  And then the idea\nof her receiving reports all the time from her officers, and acting upon\nthem, and giving orders, the same as if she was well!  It ain\u2019t good for\nher, and the surgeon don\u2019t like it, and tried to persuade her not to and\ncouldn\u2019t; and when he _ordered_ her, she was that outraged and indignant,\nand was very severe on him, and accused him of insubordination, and said\nit didn\u2019t become him to give orders to an officer of her rank.  Well, he\nsaw he had excited her more and done more harm than all the rest put\ntogether, so he was vexed at himself and wished he had kept still.\nDoctors _don\u2019t_ know much, and that\u2019s a fact.  She\u2019s too much interested\nin things\u2014she ought to rest more.  She\u2019s all the time sending messages to\nBB, and to soldiers and Injuns and whatnot, and to the animals.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo the animals?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, sir.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho carries them?\u201d\n\n\u201cSometimes Potter, but mostly it\u2019s Shekels.\u201d\n\n\u201cNow come! who can find fault with such pretty make-believe as that?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut it ain\u2019t make-believe, Marse Tom.  She does send them.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I don\u2019t doubt that part of it.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you doubt they get them, sir?\u201d\n\n\u201cCertainly.  Don\u2019t you?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, sir.  Animals talk to one another.  I know it perfectly well, Marse\nTom, and I ain\u2019t saying it by guess.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat a curious superstition!\u201d\n\n\u201cIt ain\u2019t a superstition, Marse Tom.  Look at that Shekels\u2014look at him,\n_now_.  Is he listening, or ain\u2019t he?  _Now_ you see! he\u2019s turned his\nhead away.  It\u2019s because he was caught\u2014caught in the act.  I\u2019ll ask\nyou\u2014could a Christian look any more ashamed than what he looks now?\u2014_lay\ndown_!  You see? he was going to sneak out.  Don\u2019t tell _me_, Marse Tom!\nIf animals don\u2019t talk, I miss _my_ guess.  And Shekels is the worst.  He\ngoes and tells the animals everything that happens in the officers\u2019\nquarters; and if he\u2019s short of facts, he invents them.  He hasn\u2019t any\nmore principle than a blue jay; and as for morals, he\u2019s empty.  Look at\nhim now; look at him grovel.  He knows what I am saying, and he knows\nit\u2019s the truth.  You see, yourself, that he can feel shame; it\u2019s the only\nvirtue he\u2019s got.  It\u2019s wonderful how they find out everything that\u2019s\ngoing on\u2014the animals.  They\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you really believe they do, Dorcas?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t only just believe it, Marse Tom, I know it.  Day before\nyesterday they knew something was going to happen.  They were that\nexcited, and whispering around together; why, anybody could see that\nthey\u2014 But my! I must get back to her, and I haven\u2019t got to my errand\nyet.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is it, Dorcas?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, it\u2019s two or three things.  One is, the doctor don\u2019t salute when he\ncomes . . . Now, Marse Tom, it ain\u2019t anything to laugh at, and so\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, then, forgive me; I didn\u2019t mean to laugh\u2014I got caught unprepared.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou see, she don\u2019t want to hurt the doctor\u2019s feelings, so she don\u2019t say\nanything to him about it; but she is always polite, herself, and it hurts\nthat kind for people to be rude to them.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll have that doctor hanged.\u201d\n\n\u201cMarse Tom, she don\u2019t _want_ him hanged.  She\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, then, I\u2019ll have him boiled in oil.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut she don\u2019t _want_ him boiled.  I\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, very well, very well, I only want to please her; I\u2019ll have him\nskinned.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, _she_ don\u2019t want him skinned; it would break her heart.  Now\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cWoman, this is perfectly unreasonable.  What in the nation _does_ she\nwant?\u201d\n\n\u201cMarse Tom, if you would only be a little patient, and not fly off the\nhandle at the least little thing.  Why, she only wants you to speak to\nhim.\u201d\n\n\u201cSpeak to him!  Well, upon my word!  All this unseemly rage and row about\nsuch a\u2014a\u2014 Dorcas, I never saw you carry on like this before.  You have\nalarmed the sentry; he thinks I am being assassinated; he thinks there\u2019s\na mutiny, a revolt, an insurrection; he\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cMarse Tom, you are just putting on; you know it perfectly well; I don\u2019t\nknow what makes you act like that\u2014but you always did, even when you was\nlittle, and you can\u2019t get over it, I reckon.  Are you over it now, Marse\nTom?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, well, yes; but it would try anybody to be doing the best he could,\noffering every kindness he could think of, only to have it rejected with\ncontumely and . . . Oh, well, let it go; it\u2019s no matter\u2014I\u2019ll talk to the\ndoctor.  Is that satisfactory, or are you going to break out again?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, sir, it is; and it\u2019s only right to talk to him, too, because it\u2019s\njust as she says; she\u2019s trying to keep up discipline in the Rangers, and\nthis insubordination of his is a bad example for them\u2014now ain\u2019t it so,\nMarse Tom?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, there _is_ reason in it, I can\u2019t deny it; so I will speak to him,\nthough at bottom I think hanging would be more lasting.  What is the rest\nof your errand, Dorcas?\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course her room is Ranger headquarters now, Marse Tom, while she\u2019s\nsick.  Well, soldiers of the cavalry and the dragoons that are off duty\ncome and get her sentries to let them relieve them and serve in their\nplace.  It\u2019s only out of affection, sir, and because they know military\nhonors please her, and please the children too, for her sake; and they\ndon\u2019t bring their muskets; and so\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve noticed them there, but didn\u2019t twig the idea.  They are standing\nguard, are they?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, sir, and she is afraid you will reprove them and hurt their\nfeelings, if you see them there; so she begs, if\u2014if you don\u2019t mind coming\nin the back way\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cBear me up, Dorcas; don\u2019t let me faint.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere\u2014sit up and behave, Marse Tom.  You are not going to faint; you are\nonly pretending\u2014you used to act just so when you was little; it does seem\na long time for you to get grown up.\u201d\n\n\u201cDorcas, the way the child is progressing, I shall be out of my job\nbefore long\u2014she\u2019ll have the whole post in her hands.  I must make a\nstand, I must not go down without a struggle.  These encroachments. . . .\nDorcas, what do you think she will think of next?\u201d\n\n\u201cMarse Tom, she don\u2019t mean any harm.\u201d\n\n\u201cAre you sure of it?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, Marse Tom.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou feel sure she has no ulterior designs?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know what that is, Marse Tom, but I know she hasn\u2019t.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery well, then, for the present I am satisfied.  What else have you\ncome about?\u201d\n\n\u201cI reckon I better tell you the whole thing first, Marse Tom, then tell\nyou what she wants.  There\u2019s been an emeute, as she calls it.  It was\nbefore she got back with BB.  The officer of the day reported it to her\nthis morning.  It happened at her fort.  There was a fuss betwixt\nMajor-General Tommy Drake and Lieutenant-Colonel Agnes Frisbie, and he\nsnatched her doll away, which is made of white kid stuffed with sawdust,\nand tore every rag of its clothes off, right before them all, and is\nunder arrest, and the charge is conduct un\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I know\u2014conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman\u2014a plain case,\ntoo, it seems to me.  This is a serious matter.  Well, what is her\npleasure?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, Marse Tom, she has summoned a court-martial, but the doctor don\u2019t\nthink she is well enough to preside over it, and she says there ain\u2019t\nanybody competent but her, because there\u2019s a major-general concerned; and\nso she\u2014she\u2014well, she says, would you preside over it for her? . . . Marse\nTom, _sit_ up!  You ain\u2019t any more going to faint than Shekels is.\u201d\n\n\u201cLook here, Dorcas, go along back, and be tactful.  Be persuasive; don\u2019t\nfret her; tell her it\u2019s all right, the matter is in my hands, but it\nisn\u2019t good form to hurry so grave a matter as this.  Explain to her that\nwe have to go by precedents, and that I believe this one to be new.  In\nfact, you can say I know that nothing just like it has happened in our\narmy, therefore I must be guided by European precedents, and must go\ncautiously and examine them carefully.  Tell her not to be impatient, it\nwill take me several days, but it will all come out right, and I will\ncome over and report progress as I go along.  Do you get the idea,\nDorcas?\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know as I do, sir.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, it\u2019s this.  You see, it won\u2019t ever do for me, a brigadier in the\nregular army, to preside over that infant court-martial\u2014there isn\u2019t any\nprecedent for it, don\u2019t you see.  Very well.  I will go on examining\nauthorities and reporting progress until she is well enough to get me out\nof this scrape by presiding herself.  Do you get it now?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, yes, sir, I get it, and it\u2019s good, I\u2019ll go and fix it with her.\n_Lay down_! and stay where you are.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, what harm is he doing?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, it ain\u2019t any harm, but it just vexes me to see him act so.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat was he doing?\u201d\n\n\u201cCan\u2019t you see, and him in such a sweat?  He was starting out to spread\nit all over the post.  _Now_ I reckon you won\u2019t deny, any more, that they\ngo and tell everything they hear, now that you\u2019ve seen it with yo\u2019 own\neyes.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, I don\u2019t like to acknowledge it, Dorcas, but I don\u2019t see how I can\nconsistently stick to my doubts in the face of such overwhelming proof as\nthis dog is furnishing.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere, now, you\u2019ve got in yo\u2019 right mind at last!  I wonder you can be\nso stubborn, Marse Tom.  But you always was, even when you was little.\nI\u2019m going now.\u201d\n\n\u201cLook here; tell her that in view of the delay, it is my judgment that\nshe ought to enlarge the accused on his parole.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, sir, I\u2019ll tell her.  Marse Tom?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell?\u201d\n\n\u201cShe can\u2019t get to Soldier Boy, and he stands there all the time, down in\nthe mouth and lonesome; and she says will you shake hands with him and\ncomfort him?  Everybody does.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a curious kind of lonesomeness; but, all right, I will.\u201d\n\n\n\nXI\nSEVERAL MONTHS LATER.  ANTONIO AND THORNDIKE\n\n\n\u201cTHORNDIKE, isn\u2019t that Plug you\u2019re riding an asset of the scrap you and\nBuffalo Bill had with the late Blake Haskins and his pal a few months\nback?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, this is Mongrel\u2014and not a half-bad horse, either.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve noticed he keeps up his lick first-rate.  Say\u2014isn\u2019t it a gaudy\nmorning?\u201d\n\n\u201cRight you are!\u201d\n\n\u201cThorndike, it\u2019s Andalusian! and when that\u2019s said, all\u2019s said.\u201d\n\n\u201cAndalusian _and_ Oregonian, Antonio!  Put it that way, and you have my\nvote.  Being a native up there, I know.  You being Andalusian-born\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cCan speak with authority for that patch of paradise?  Well, I can.  Like\nthe Don! like Sancho!  This is the correct Andalusian dawn now\u2014crisp,\nfresh, dewy, fragrant, pungent\u2014\u201d\n\n    \u201c\u2018What though the spicy breezes\n    Blow soft o\u2019er Ceylon\u2019s isle\u2014\u2019\n\n\u2014_git_ up, you old cow! stumbling like that when we\u2019ve just been praising\nyou! out on a scout and can\u2019t live up to the honor any better than that?\nAntonio, how long have you been out here in the Plains and the Rockies?\u201d\n\n\u201cMore than thirteen years.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a long time.  Don\u2019t you ever get homesick?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot till now.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy _now_?\u2014after such a long cure.\u201d\n\n\u201cThese preparations of the retiring commandant\u2019s have started it up.\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course.  It\u2019s natural.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt keeps me thinking about Spain.  I know the region where the Seventh\u2019s\nchild\u2019s aunt lives; I know all the lovely country for miles around; I\u2019ll\nbet I\u2019ve seen her aunt\u2019s villa many a time; I\u2019ll bet I\u2019ve been in it in\nthose pleasant old times when I was a Spanish gentleman.\u201d\n\n\u201cThey say the child is wild to see Spain.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s so; I know it from what I hear.\u201d\n\n\u201cHaven\u2019t you talked with her about it?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo.  I\u2019ve avoided it.  I should soon be as wild as she is.  That would\nnot be comfortable.\u201d\n\n\u201cI wish I was going, Antonio.  There\u2019s two things I\u2019d give a lot to see.\nOne\u2019s a railroad.\u201d\n\n\u201cShe\u2019ll see one when she strikes Missouri.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe other\u2019s a bull-fight.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve seen lots of them; I wish I could see another.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know anything about it, except in a mixed-up, foggy way,\nAntonio, but I know enough to know it\u2019s grand sport.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe grandest in the world!  There\u2019s no other sport that begins with it.\nI\u2019ll tell you what I\u2019ve seen, then you can judge.  It was my first, and\nit\u2019s as vivid to me now as it was when I saw it.  It was a Sunday\nafternoon, and beautiful weather, and my uncle, the priest, took me as a\nreward for being a good boy and because of my own accord and without\nanybody asking me I had bankrupted my savings-box and given the money to\na mission that was civilizing the Chinese and sweetening their lives and\nsoftening their hearts with the gentle teachings of our religion, and I\nwish you could have seen what we saw that day, Thorndike.\n\n\u201cThe amphitheatre was packed, from the bull-ring to the highest\nrow\u2014twelve thousand people in one circling mass, one slanting, solid\nmass\u2014royalties, nobles, clergy, ladies, gentlemen, state officials,\ngenerals, admirals, soldiers, sailors, lawyers, thieves, merchants,\nbrokers, cooks, housemaids, scullery-maids, doubtful women, dudes,\ngamblers, beggars, loafers, tramps, American ladies, gentlemen,\npreachers, English ladies, gentlemen, preachers, German ditto, French\nditto, and so on and so on, all the world represented: Spaniards to\nadmire and praise, foreigners to enjoy and go home and find fault\u2014there\nthey were, one solid, sloping, circling sweep of rippling and flashing\ncolor under the downpour of the summer sun\u2014just a garden, a gaudy,\ngorgeous flower-garden!  Children munching oranges, six thousand fans\nfluttering and glimmering, everybody happy, everybody chatting gayly with\ntheir intimates, lovely girl-faces smiling recognition and salutation to\nother lovely girl-faces, gray old ladies and gentlemen dealing in the\nlike exchanges with each other\u2014ah, such a picture of cheery contentment\nand glad anticipation! not a mean spirit, nor a sordid soul, nor a sad\nheart there\u2014ah, Thorndike, I wish I could see it again.\n\n\u201cSuddenly, the martial note of a bugle cleaves the hum and murmur\u2014clear\nthe ring!\n\n\u201cThey clear it.  The great gate is flung open, and the procession marches\nin, splendidly costumed and glittering: the marshals of the day, then the\npicadores on horseback, then the matadores on foot, each surrounded by\nhis quadrille of _chulos_.  They march to the box of the city fathers,\nand formally salute.  The key is thrown, the bull-gate is unlocked.\nAnother bugle blast\u2014the gate flies open, the bull plunges in, furious,\ntrembling, blinking in the blinding light, and stands there, a\nmagnificent creature, centre of those multitudinous and admiring eyes,\nbrave, ready for battle, his attitude a challenge.  He sees his enemy:\nhorsemen sitting motionless, with long spears in rest, upon blindfolded\nbroken-down nags, lean and starved, fit only for sport and sacrifice,\nthen the carrion-heap.\n\n\u201cThe bull makes a rush, with murder in his eye, but a picador meets him\nwith a spear-thrust in the shoulder.  He flinches with the pain, and the\npicador skips out of danger.  A burst of applause for the picador, hisses\nfor the bull.  Some shout \u2018Cow!\u2019 at the bull, and call him offensive\nnames.  But he is not listening to them, he is there for business; he is\nnot minding the cloak-bearers that come fluttering around to confuse him;\nhe chases this way, he chases that way, and hither and yon, scattering\nthe nimble banderillos in every direction like a spray, and receiving\ntheir maddening darts in his neck as they dodge and fly\u2014oh, but it\u2019s a\nlively spectacle, and brings down the house!  Ah, you should hear the\nthundering roar that goes up when the game is at its wildest and\nbrilliant things are done!\n\n\u201cOh, that first bull, that day, was great!  From the moment the spirit of\nwar rose to flood-tide in him and he got down to his work, he began to do\nwonders.  He tore his way through his persecutors, flinging one of them\nclear over the parapet; he bowled a horse and his rider down, and plunged\nstraight for the next, got home with his horns, wounding both horse and\nman; on again, here and there and this way and that; and one after\nanother he tore the bowels out of two horses so that they gushed to the\nground, and ripped a third one so badly that although they rushed him to\ncover and shoved his bowels back and stuffed the rents with tow and rode\nhim against the bull again, he couldn\u2019t make the trip; he tried to\ngallop, under the spur, but soon reeled and tottered and fell, all in a\nheap.  For a while, that bull-ring was the most thrilling and glorious\nand inspiring sight that ever was seen.  The bull absolutely cleared it,\nand stood there alone! monarch of the place.  The people went mad for\npride in him, and joy and delight, and you couldn\u2019t hear yourself think,\nfor the roar and boom and crash of applause.\u201d\n\n\u201cAntonio, it carries me clear out of myself just to hear you tell it; it\nmust have been perfectly splendid.  If I live, I\u2019ll see a bull-fight yet\nbefore I die.  Did they kill him?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh yes; that is what the bull is for.  They tired him out, and got him\nat last.  He kept rushing the matador, who always slipped smartly and\ngracefully aside in time, waiting for a sure chance; and at last it came;\nthe bull made a deadly plunge for him\u2014was avoided neatly, and as he sped\nby, the long sword glided silently into him, between left shoulder and\nspine\u2014in and in, to the hilt.  He crumpled down, dying.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, Antonio, it _is_ the noblest sport that ever was.  I would give a\nyear of my life to see it.  Is the bull always killed?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.  Sometimes a bull is timid, finding himself in so strange a place,\nand he stands trembling, or tries to retreat.  Then everybody despises\nhim for his cowardice and wants him punished and made ridiculous; so they\nhough him from behind, and it is the funniest thing in the world to see\nhim hobbling around on his severed legs; the whole vast house goes into\nhurricanes of laughter over it; I have laughed till the tears ran down my\ncheeks to see it.  When he has furnished all the sport he can, he is not\nany longer useful, and is killed.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, it is perfectly grand, Antonio, perfectly beautiful.  Burning a\nnigger don\u2019t begin.\u201d\n\n\n\nXII\nMONGREL AND THE OTHER HORSE\n\n\n\u201cSAGE-BRUSH, you have been listening?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes.\u201d\n\n\u201cIsn\u2019t it strange?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, no, Mongrel, I don\u2019t know that it is.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t you?\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve seen a good many human beings in my time.  They are created as they\nare; they cannot help it.  They are only brutal because that is their\nmake; brutes would be brutal if it was _their_ make.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo me, Sage-Brush, man is most strange and unaccountable.  Why should he\ntreat dumb animals that way when they are not doing any harm?\u201d\n\n\u201cMan is not always like that, Mongrel; he is kind enough when he is not\nexcited by religion.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs the bull-fight a religious service?\u201d\n\n\u201cI think so.  I have heard so.  It is held on Sunday.\u201d\n\n(_A reflective pause_, _lasting some moments_.)  Then:\n\n\u201cWhen we die, Sage-Brush, do we go to heaven and dwell with man?\u201d\n\n\u201cMy father thought not.  He believed we do not have to go there unless we\ndeserve it.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nPart II\nIN SPAIN\n\n\nXIII\nGENERAL ALISON TO HIS MOTHER\n\n\nIT was a prodigious trip, but delightful, of course, through the Rockies\nand the Black Hills and the mighty sweep of the Great Plains to\ncivilization and the Missouri border\u2014where the railroading began and the\ndelightfulness ended.  But no one is the worse for the journey; certainly\nnot Cathy, nor Dorcas, nor Soldier Boy; and as for me, I am not\ncomplaining.\n\nSpain is all that Cathy had pictured it\u2014and more, she says.  She is in a\nfury of delight, the maddest little animal that ever was, and all for\njoy.  She thinks she remembers Spain, but that is not very likely, I\nsuppose.  The two\u2014Mercedes and Cathy\u2014devour each other.  It is a rapture\nof love, and beautiful to see.  It is Spanish; that describes it.  Will\nthis be a short visit?\n\nNo.  It will be permanent.  Cathy has elected to abide with Spain and her\naunt.  Dorcas says she (Dorcas) foresaw that this would happen; and also\nsays that she wanted it to happen, and says the child\u2019s own country is\nthe right place for her, and that she ought not to have been sent to me,\nI ought to have gone to her.  I thought it insane to take Soldier Boy to\nSpain, but it was well that I yielded to Cathy\u2019s pleadings; if he had\nbeen left behind, half of her heart would have remained with him, and she\nwould not have been contented.  As it is, everything has fallen out for\nthe best, and we are all satisfied and comfortable.  It may be that\nDorcas and I will see America again some day; but also it is a case of\nmaybe not.\n\nWe left the post in the early morning.  It was an affecting time.  The\nwomen cried over Cathy, so did even those stern warriors, the Rocky\nMountain Rangers; Shekels was there, and the Cid, and Sardanapalus, and\nPotter, and Mongrel, and Sour-Mash, Famine, and Pestilence, and Cathy\nkissed them all and wept; details of the several arms of the garrison\nwere present to represent the rest, and say good-bye and God bless you\nfor all the soldiery; and there was a special squad from the Seventh,\nwith the oldest veteran at its head, to speed the Seventh\u2019s Child with\ngrand honors and impressive ceremonies; and the veteran had a touching\nspeech by heart, and put up his hand in salute and tried to say it, but\nhis lips trembled and his voice broke, but Cathy bent down from the\nsaddle and kissed him on the mouth and turned his defeat to victory, and\na cheer went up.\n\nThe next act closed the ceremonies, and was a moving surprise.  It may be\nthat you have discovered, before this, that the rigors of military law\nand custom melt insensibly away and disappear when a soldier or a\nregiment or the garrison wants to do something that will please Cathy.\nThe bands conceived the idea of stirring her soldierly heart with a\nfarewell which would remain in her memory always, beautiful and unfading,\nand bring back the past and its love for her whenever she should think of\nit; so they got their project placed before General Burnaby, my\nsuccessor, who is Cathy\u2019s newest slave, and in spite of poverty of\nprecedents they got his permission.  The bands knew the child\u2019s favorite\nmilitary airs.  By this hint you know what is coming, but Cathy didn\u2019t.\nShe was asked to sound the \u201creveille,\u201d which she did.\n\n                    [Picture: Reveille [music score]]\n\nWith the last note the bands burst out with a crash: and woke the\nmountains with the \u201cStar-Spangled Banner\u201d in a way to make a body\u2019s heart\nswell and thump and his hair rise!  It was enough to break a person all\nup, to see Cathy\u2019s radiant face shining out through her gladness and\ntears.  By request she blew the \u201cassembly,\u201d now. . . .\n\n                  [Picture: The Assembly [music score]]\n\n. . . Then the bands thundered in, with \u201cRally round the flag, boys,\nrally once again!\u201d  Next, she blew another call (\u201cto the Standard\u201d) . . .\n\n                 [Picture: To the Standard [music score]]\n\n. . . and the bands responded with \u201cWhen we were marching through\nGeorgia.\u201d  Straightway she sounded \u201cboots and saddles,\u201d that thrilling\nand most expediting call. . . .\n\n                [Picture: Boots and Saddles [music score]]\n\nand the bands could hardly hold in for the final note; then they turned\ntheir whole strength loose on \u201cTramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are\nmarching,\u201d and everybody\u2019s excitement rose to blood-heat.\n\nNow an impressive pause\u2014then the bugle sang \u201cTAPS\u201d\u2014translatable, this\ntime, into \u201cGood-bye, and God keep us all!\u201d for taps is the soldier\u2019s\nnightly release from duty, and farewell: plaintive, sweet, pathetic, for\nthe morning is never sure, for him; always it is possible that he is\nhearing it for the last time. . . .\n\n                      [Picture: Taps [music score]]\n\n. . . Then the bands turned their instruments towards Cathy and burst in\nwith that rollicking frenzy of a tune, \u201cOh, we\u2019ll all get blind drunk\nwhen Johnny comes marching home\u2014yes, we\u2019ll all get blind drunk when\nJohnny comes marching home!\u201d and followed it instantly with \u201cDixie,\u201d that\nantidote for melancholy, merriest and gladdest of all military music on\nany side of the ocean\u2014and that was the end.  And so\u2014farewell!\n\nI wish you could have been there to see it all, hear it all, and feel it:\nand get yourself blown away with the hurricane huzza that swept the place\nas a finish.\n\nWhen we rode away, our main body had already been on the road an hour or\ntwo\u2014I speak of our camp equipage; but we didn\u2019t move off alone: when\nCathy blew the \u201cadvance\u201d the Rangers cantered out in column of fours, and\ngave us escort, and were joined by White Cloud and Thunder-Bird in all\ntheir gaudy bravery, and by Buffalo Bill and four subordinate scouts.\nThree miles away, in the Plains, the Lieutenant-General halted, sat her\nhorse like a military statue, the bugle at her lips, and put the Rangers\nthrough the evolutions for half an hour; and finally, when she blew the\n\u201ccharge,\u201d she led it herself.  \u201cNot for the last time,\u201d she said, and got\na cheer, and we said good-bye all around, and faced eastward and rode\naway.\n\n_Postscript_.  _A Day Later_.  Soldier Boy was stolen last night.  Cathy\nis almost beside herself, and we cannot comfort her.  Mercedes and I are\nnot much alarmed about the horse, although this part of Spain is in\nsomething of a turmoil, politically, at present, and there is a good deal\nof lawlessness.  In ordinary times the thief and the horse would soon be\ncaptured.  We shall have them before long, I think.\n\n\n\nXIV\nSOLDIER BOY\u2014TO HIMSELF\n\n\nIT is five months.  Or is it six?  My troubles have clouded my memory.  I\nhave been all over this land, from end to end, and now I am back again\nsince day before yesterday, to that city which we passed through, that\nlast day of our long journey, and which is near her country home.  I am a\ntottering ruin and my eyes are dim, but I recognized it.  If she could\nsee me she would know me and sound my call.  I wish I could hear it once\nmore; it would revive me, it would bring back her face and the mountains\nand the free life, and I would come\u2014if I were dying I would come!  She\nwould not know _me_, looking as I do, but she would know me by my star.\nBut she will never see me, for they do not let me out of this shabby\nstable\u2014a foul and miserable place, with most two wrecks like myself for\ncompany.\n\nHow many times have I changed hands?  I think it is twelve times\u2014I cannot\nremember; and each time it was down a step lower, and each time I got a\nharder master.  They have been cruel, every one; they have worked me\nnight and day in degraded employments, and beaten me; they have fed me\nill, and some days not at all.  And so I am but bones, now, with a rough\nand frowsy skin humped and cornered upon my shrunken body\u2014that skin which\nwas once so glossy, that skin which she loved to stroke with her hand.  I\nwas the pride of the mountains and the Great Plains; now I am a scarecrow\nand despised.  These piteous wrecks that are my comrades here say we have\nreached the bottom of the scale, the final humiliation; they say that\nwhen a horse is no longer worth the weeds and discarded rubbish they feed\nto him, they sell him to the bull-ring for a glass of brandy, to make\nsport for the people and perish for their pleasure.\n\nTo die\u2014that does not disturb me; we of the service never care for death.\nBut if I could see her once more! if I could hear her bugle sing again\nand say, \u201cIt is I, Soldier\u2014come!\u201d\n\n\n\nXV\nGENERAL ALISON TO MRS. DRAKE, THE COLONEL\u2019S WIFE\n\n\nTO return, now, to where I was, and tell you the rest.  We shall never\nknow how she came to be there; there is no way to account for it.  She\nwas always watching for black and shiny and spirited horses\u2014watching,\nhoping, despairing, hoping again; always giving chase and sounding her\ncall, upon the meagrest chance of a response, and breaking her heart over\nthe disappointment; always inquiring, always interested in sales-stables\nand horse accumulations in general.  How she got there must remain a\nmystery.\n\nAt the point which I had reached in a preceding paragraph of this\naccount, the situation was as follows: two horses lay dying; the bull had\nscattered his persecutors for the moment, and stood raging, panting,\npawing the dust in clouds over his back, when the man that had been\nwounded returned to the ring on a remount, a poor blindfolded wreck that\nyet had something ironically military about his bearing\u2014and the next\nmoment the bull had ripped him open and his bowls were dragging upon the\nground: and the bull was charging his swarm of pests again.  Then came\npealing through the air a bugle-call that froze my blood\u2014\u201c_It is I_,\n_Soldier\u2014come_!\u201d  I turned; Cathy was flying down through the massed\npeople; she cleared the parapet at a bound, and sped towards that\nriderless horse, who staggered forward towards the remembered sound; but\nhis strength failed, and he fell at her feet, she lavishing kisses upon\nhim and sobbing, the house rising with one impulse, and white with\nhorror!  Before help could reach her the bull was back again\u2014\n\n         [Picture: His strength failed, and he fell at her feet]\n\nShe was never conscious again in life.  We bore her home, all mangled and\ndrenched in blood, and knelt by her and listened to her broken and\nwandering words, and prayed for her passing spirit, and there was no\ncomfort\u2014nor ever will be, I think.  But she was happy, for she was far\naway under another sky, and comrading again with her Rangers, and her\nanimal friends, and the soldiers.  Their names fell softly and\ncaressingly from her lips, one by one, with pauses between.  She was not\nin pain, but lay with closed eyes, vacantly murmuring, as one who dreams.\nSometimes she smiled, saying nothing; sometimes she smiled when she\nuttered a name\u2014such as Shekels, or BB, or Potter.  Sometimes she was at\nher fort, issuing commands; sometimes she was careering over the plain at\nthe head of her men; sometimes she was training her horse; once she said,\nreprovingly, \u201cYou are giving me the wrong foot; give me the left\u2014don\u2019t\nyou know it is good-bye?\u201d\n\nAfter this, she lay silent some time; the end was near.  By-and-by she\nmurmured, \u201cTired . . . sleepy . . . take Cathy, mamma.\u201d  Then, \u201cKiss me,\nSoldier.\u201d  For a little time, she lay so still that we were doubtful if\nshe breathed.  Then she put out her hand and began to feel gropingly\nabout; then said, \u201cI cannot find it; blow \u2018taps.\u2019\u201d  It was the end.\n\n                      [Picture: Taps [music score]]\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n{80}  At West Point the bugle is supposed to be saying:\n\n    \u201cI can\u2019t get \u2019em up,\n    I can\u2019t get \u2019em up,\n    I can\u2019t get \u2019em up in the morning!\u201d\n\n\n\n"}
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{"11622":"Proofreaders. This file was produced from images generously made\navailable by the Biblioth\u00e8que nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at\nhttp://gallica.bnf.fr.\n\n\n\n\n\nMARK TWAIN\n\nPlus fort que Sherlock Holm\u00e8s\n\n\nTRADUIT PAR FRAN\u00c7OIS DE GAIL\n\nDEUXI\u00c8ME \u00c9DITION\n\n\nMCMVII\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPREMI\u00c8RE PARTIE\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nLa premi\u00e8re sc\u00e8ne se passe \u00e0 la campagne dans la province de Virginie,\nen l'ann\u00e9e 1880.\n\nUn \u00e9l\u00e9gant jeune homme de vingt-six ans, de fortune m\u00e9diocre, vient\nd'\u00e9pouser une jeune fille tr\u00e8s riche. Mariage d'amour \u00e0 premi\u00e8re vue,\npr\u00e9cipitamment conclu, mais auquel le p\u00e8re de la jeune personne, un\nveuf, s'est oppos\u00e9 de toutes ses forces.\n\nLe mari\u00e9 appartient \u00e0 une famille ancienne mais peu estim\u00e9e, qui avait\n\u00e9t\u00e9 contrainte \u00e0 \u00e9migrer de Sedgemoor, pour le plus grand bien du roi\nJacques. C'\u00e9tait, du moins, l'opinion g\u00e9n\u00e9rale; les uns le disaient avec\nune pointe de malice, les autres en \u00e9taient intimement persuad\u00e9s.\n\nLa jeune femme a dix-neuf ans et est remarquablement belle. Grande,\nbien tourn\u00e9e, sentimentale, extr\u00eamement fi\u00e8re de son origine et tr\u00e8s\n\u00e9prise de son jeune mari, elle a brav\u00e9 pour l'\u00e9pouser la col\u00e8re de son\np\u00e8re, support\u00e9 de durs reproches, repouss\u00e9 avec une in\u00e9branlable fermet\u00e9\nses avertissements et ses pr\u00e9dictions; elle a m\u00eame quitt\u00e9 la maison\npaternelle sans sa b\u00e9n\u00e9diction, pour mieux affirmer aux yeux du monde la\nsinc\u00e9rit\u00e9 de ses sentiments pour ce jeune homme.\n\nUne cruelle d\u00e9ception l'attendait le lendemain de son mariage. Son mari,\npeu sensible aux caresses que lui prodiguait sa jeune \u00e9pouse, lui tint\nce langage \u00e9trange:\n\n\u00abAsseyez-vous, j'ai \u00e0 vous parler. Je vous aimais avant de demander\nvotre main \u00e0 votre p\u00e8re, son refus ne m'a nullement bless\u00e9; j'en ai\nfait, d'ailleurs, peu de cas. Mais il n'en est pas de m\u00eame de ce qu'il\nvous a dit sur mon compte. Ne cherchez pas \u00e0 me cacher ses propos \u00e0 mon\n\u00e9gard; je les connais par le menu, et les tiens de source authentique.\n\n\u00abIl vous a dit, entre autres choses aimables, que mon caract\u00e8re est\npeint sur mon visage; que j'\u00e9tais un individu faux, dissimul\u00e9, fourbe,\nl\u00e2che, en un mot une parfaite brute sans le moindre coeur, un vrai \u00abtype\nde Sedgemoor\u00bb, a-t-il m\u00eame ajout\u00e9.\n\n\u00abTout autre que moi aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 le trouver et l'aurait tu\u00e9 chez lui comme\nun chien. Je voulais le faire, j'en avais bien envie, mais il m'est venu\nune id\u00e9e que j'estime meilleure. Je veux l'humilier, le couvrir de\nhonte, le tuer \u00e0 petites doses: c'est l\u00e0 mon plan. Pour le r\u00e9aliser, je\nvous martyriserai, vous, son idole! C'est pour cela que je vous ai\n\u00e9pous\u00e9e, et puis... Patience! vous verrez bient\u00f4t si je m'y entends.\u00bb\n\nPendant trois mois \u00e0 partir de ce jour, la jeune femme subit toutes les\nhumiliations, les vilenies, les affronts que l'esprit diabolique de son\nmari put imaginer; il ne la maltraitait pas physiquement; au milieu de\ncette \u00e9preuve, sa grande fiert\u00e9 lui vint en aide et l'emp\u00eacha de trahir\nle secret de son chagrin. De temps \u00e0 autre son mari lui demandait: \u00abMais\npourquoi donc n'allez-vous pas trouver votre p\u00e8re et lui raconter ce que\nvous endurez?...\u00bb\n\nPuis il inventait de nouvelles m\u00e9chancet\u00e9s, plus cruelles que les\npr\u00e9c\u00e9dentes et renouvelait sa m\u00eame question. Elle r\u00e9pondait\ninvariablement: \u00abJamais mon p\u00e8re n'apprendra rien de ma bouche.\u00bb Elle en\nprofitait pour le railler sur son origine, et lui rappeler qu'elle\n\u00e9tait, de par la loi, l'esclave d'un fils d'esclaves, qu'elle ob\u00e9irait,\nmais qu'il n'obtiendrait d'elle rien de plus. Il pouvait la tuer s'il\nvoulait, mais non la dompter; son sang et l'\u00e9ducation qui avait form\u00e9\nson caract\u00e8re l'emp\u00eacheraient de faiblir.\n\nAu bout de trois mois, il lui dit d'un air courrouc\u00e9 et sombre: \u00abJ'ai\nessay\u00e9 de tout, sauf d'un moyen pour vous dompter\u00bb; puis il attendit la\nr\u00e9ponse.\n\n--Essayez de ce dernier, r\u00e9pliqua-t-elle en le toisant d'un regard plein\nde d\u00e9dain.\n\nCette nuit-l\u00e0, il se leva vers minuit, s'habilla, et lui commanda:\n\n\u00abLevez-vous et appr\u00eatez-vous \u00e0 sortir.\u00bb\n\nComme toujours, elle ob\u00e9it sans un mot.\n\nIl la conduisit \u00e0 un mille environ de la maison, et se mit \u00e0 la battre\nnon loin de la grande route. Cette fois elle cria et chercha \u00e0 se\nd\u00e9fendre. Il la b\u00e2illonna, lui cravacha la figure, et excita contre\nelle ses chiens, qui lui d\u00e9chir\u00e8rent ses v\u00eatements; elle se trouva nue.\nIl rappela ses chiens et lui dit:\n\n\u00abLes gens qui passeront dans trois ou quatre heures vous trouveront dans\ncet \u00e9tat et r\u00e9pandront la nouvelle de votre aventure. M'entendez-vous?\nAdieu. Vous ne me reverrez plus.\u00bb Il partit.\n\nPleurant sous le poids de sa honte, elle pensa en elle-m\u00eame:\n\n\u00abJ'aurai bient\u00f4t un enfant de mon mis\u00e9rable mari, Dieu veuille que ce\nsoit un fils.\u00bb\n\nLes fermiers, t\u00e9moins de son horrible situation, lui port\u00e8rent secours,\net s'empress\u00e8rent naturellement de r\u00e9pandre la nouvelle. Indign\u00e9s d'une\ntelle sauvagerie, ils soulev\u00e8rent le pays et jur\u00e8rent de venger la\npauvre jeune femme; mais le coupable \u00e9tait envol\u00e9. La jeune femme se\nr\u00e9fugia chez son p\u00e8re; celui-ci, an\u00e9anti par son chagrin, ne voulut plus\nvoir \u00e2me qui vive; frapp\u00e9 dans sa plus vive affection, le coeur bris\u00e9,\nil d\u00e9clina de jour en jour, et sa fille elle-m\u00eame accueillit comme une\nd\u00e9livrance la mort qui vint mettre fin \u00e0 sa douleur.\n\nElle vendit alors le domaine et quitta le pays.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nEn 1886, une jeune femme vivait retir\u00e9e et seule dans une petite maison\nd'un village de New England: sa seule compagnie \u00e9tait un enfant\nd'environ cinq ans. Elle n'avait pas de domestiques, fuyait les\nrelations et semblait sans amis. Le boucher, le boulanger et les autres\nfournisseurs disaient avec raison aux villageois qu'ils ne savaient rien\nd'elle; on ne connaissait, en effet, que son nom \u00abStillmann\u00bb et celui de\nson fils qu'elle appelait Archy. Chacun ignorait d'o\u00f9 elle venait, mais\n\u00e0 son arriv\u00e9e on avait d\u00e9clar\u00e9 que son accent \u00e9tait celui d'une Sudiste.\nL'enfant n'avait ni compagnons d'\u00e9tudes ni camarades de jeux; sa m\u00e8re\n\u00e9tait son seul professeur. Ses le\u00e7ons \u00e9taient claires, bien comprises:\nce r\u00e9sultat la satisfaisait pleinement; elle en \u00e9tait m\u00eame tr\u00e8s fi\u00e8re.\nUn jour, Archy lui demanda:\n\n--Maman, suis-je diff\u00e9rent des autres enfants?\n\n--Mais non, mon petit, pourquoi?\n\n--Une petite fille qui passait par ici m'a demand\u00e9 si le facteur \u00e9tait\nvenu, et je lui ai r\u00e9pondu que oui; elle m'a demand\u00e9 alors depuis\ncombien de temps je l'avais vu passer; je lui ai dit que je ne l'avais\npas vu du tout. Elle en a \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9tonn\u00e9e, et m'a demand\u00e9 comment je pouvais\nle savoir puisque je n'avais pas vu le facteur; je lui ai r\u00e9pondu que\nj'avais flair\u00e9 ses pas sur la route. Elle m'a trait\u00e9 de fou et s'est\nmoqu\u00e9e de moi. Pourquoi donc?\n\nLa jeune femme p\u00e2lit et pensa: \u00abVoil\u00e0 bien la preuve certaine de ce que\nje supposais: mon fils a la puissance olfactive d'un limier.\u00bb\n\nElle saisit brusquement l'enfant et le serra passionn\u00e9ment dans ses\nbras, disant \u00e0 haute voix: \u00abDieu me montre le chemin.\u00bb Ses yeux\nbrillaient d'un \u00e9clat extraordinaire, sa poitrine \u00e9tait haletante, sa\nrespiration entrecoup\u00e9e. \u00abLe myst\u00e8re est \u00e9clairci maintenant,\npensa-t-elle; combien de fois me suis-je demand\u00e9 avec stup\u00e9faction\ncomment mon fils pouvait faire des choses impossibles dans l'obscurit\u00e9.\nJe comprends tout maintenant.\u00bb\n\nElle l'installa dans sa petite chaise et lui dit:\n\n--Attends-moi un instant, mon ch\u00e9ri, et nous causerons ensemble.\n\nElle monta dans sa chambre et prit sur sa table de toilette diff\u00e9rents\nobjets qu'elle cacha; elle mit une lime \u00e0 ongles par terre sous son lit,\ndes ciseaux sous son bureau, un petit coupe-papier d'ivoire sous son\narmoire \u00e0 glace. Puis elle retourna vers l'enfant et lui dit:\n\n--Tiens! j'ai laiss\u00e9 en haut diff\u00e9rents objets que j'aurais d\u00fb\ndescendre; monte donc les chercher et tu me les apporteras,\najouta-t-elle, apr\u00e8s les lui avoir \u00e9num\u00e9r\u00e9s.\n\nArchy se h\u00e2ta et revint quelques instants apr\u00e8s portant les objets\ndemand\u00e9s.\n\n--As-tu \u00e9prouv\u00e9 une difficult\u00e9 quelconque, mon enfant, \u00e0 trouver ces\nobjets?\n\n--Aucune, maman, je me suis simplement dirig\u00e9 dans la chambre en suivant\nvotre trace.\n\nPendant son absence, elle avait pris sur une \u00e9tag\u00e8re plusieurs livres\nqu'elle avait ouverts; puis elle effleura de la main plusieurs pages\ndont elle se rappela les num\u00e9ros, les referma et les remit en place.\n\n--Je viens de faire une chose en ton absence, Archy, lui dit-elle.\nCrois-tu que tu pourrais la deviner?\n\nL'enfant alla droit \u00e0 l'\u00e9tag\u00e8re, prit les livres, et les ouvrit aux\npages touch\u00e9es par sa m\u00e8re.\n\nLa jeune femme assit son fils sur ses genoux et lui dit:\n\n--Maintenant, je puis r\u00e9pondre \u00e0 ta question de tout \u00e0 l'heure, mon\nch\u00e9ri; je viens de d\u00e9couvrir en effet que sous certains rapports tu n'es\npas comme tout le monde. Tu peux voir dans l'obscurit\u00e9, flairer ce que\nd'autres ne sentent pas; tu as toutes les qualit\u00e9s d'un limier. C'est un\ndon pr\u00e9cieux, inestimable que tu poss\u00e8des, mais gardes-en le secret,\nsois muet comme une tombe \u00e0 ce sujet. S'il \u00e9tait d\u00e9couvert, on te\nsignalerait comme un enfant bizarre, un petit ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne, et les autres\nse moqueraient de toi ou te donneraient des sobriquets.\n\nDans ce monde, vois-tu, il faut \u00eatre comme le commun des mortels, si\nl'on ne veut provoquer ni moqueries, ni envie, ni jalousie. La\nparticularit\u00e9 que tu as re\u00e7ue en partage est rare et enviable, j'en\nsuis heureuse et fi\u00e8re, mais pour l'amour de ta m\u00e8re, tu ne d\u00e9voileras\njamais ce secret \u00e0 personne, n'est-ce pas?\n\nL'enfant promit, mais sans comprendre. Pendant tout le cours de la\njourn\u00e9e, le cerveau de la jeune femme fut en \u00e9bullition; elle formait\nles projets les plus fantastiques, forgeait des plans, des intrigues,\ntous plus dangereux les uns que les autres et tr\u00e8s effrayants par leurs\ncons\u00e9quences. Cette perspective de vengeance donnait \u00e0 son visage une\nexpression de joie f\u00e9roce et de je ne sais quoi de diabolique. La fi\u00e8vre\nde l'inqui\u00e9tude la gagnait, elle ne pouvait ni rester en place, ni lire,\nni travailler. Le mouvement seul, \u00e9tait un d\u00e9rivatif pour elle. Elle\nfondait sur le don particulier de son fils les plus vives esp\u00e9rances et\nse r\u00e9p\u00e9tait sans cesse en faisant allusion au pass\u00e9:\n\n--Mon mari a fait mourir mon p\u00e8re de chagrin, et voil\u00e0 des ann\u00e9es que,\nnuit et jour, je cherche en vain le moyen de me venger, de le faire\nsouffrir \u00e0 son tour. Je l'ai trouv\u00e9 maintenant. Je l'ai trouv\u00e9, ce\nmoyen.\n\nLorsque vint la nuit, son agitation ne fit que cro\u00eetre. Elle continua\nses exp\u00e9riences; une bougie \u00e0 la main elle se mit \u00e0 parcourir sa maison\nde la cave au grenier, cachant des aiguilles, des \u00e9pingles, des bobines\nde fil, des ciseaux sous les oreillers, sous les tapis, dans les fentes\ndes murs, dans le coffre \u00e0 charbon, puis elle envoya le petit Archy les\nchercher dans l'obscurit\u00e9; il trouva tout, et semblait ravi des\nencouragements que lui prodiguait sa m\u00e8re en le couvrant de caresses.\n\nA partir de ce moment, la vie lui apparut sous un angle nouveau;\nl'avenir lui semblait assur\u00e9; elle n'avait plus qu'\u00e0 attendre le jour de\nla vengeance et jouir de cette perspective. Tout ce qui avait perdu de\nl'int\u00e9r\u00eat \u00e0 ses yeux se prit \u00e0 rena\u00eetre. Elle s'adonna de nouveau \u00e0 la\nmusique, aux langues, au dessin, \u00e0 la peinture, et aux plaisirs de sa\njeunesse si longtemps d\u00e9laiss\u00e9s. De nouveau elle se sentait heureuse, et\nretrouvait un semblant de charme \u00e0 l'existence. A mesure que son fils\ngrandissait, elle surveillait ses progr\u00e8s avec une joie indescriptible\net un bonheur parfait.\n\nLe coeur de cet enfant \u00e9tait plus ouvert \u00e0 la douceur qu'\u00e0 la duret\u00e9.\nC'\u00e9tait m\u00eame \u00e0 ses yeux son seul d\u00e9faut. Mais elle sentait bien que son\namour et son adoration pour elle auraient raison de cette\npr\u00e9disposition.\n\nPourvu qu'il sache ha\u00efr! C'\u00e9tait le principal; restait \u00e0 savoir s'il\nserait aussi tenace et aussi ancr\u00e9 dans son ressentiment que dans son\naffection. Ceci \u00e9tait moins s\u00fbr.\n\nLes ann\u00e9es passaient. Archy \u00e9tait devenu un jeune homme \u00e9l\u00e9gant, bien\ncamp\u00e9, tr\u00e8s fort \u00e0 tous les exercices du corps; poli, bien \u00e9lev\u00e9, de\nmani\u00e8res agr\u00e9ables il portait un peu plus de seize ans. Un soir, sa m\u00e8re\nlui d\u00e9clara qu'elle voulait aborder avec lui un sujet important,\najoutant qu'il \u00e9tait assez grand et raisonnable pour mener \u00e0 bien un\nprojet difficile qu'elle avait con\u00e7u et m\u00fbri pendant de longues ann\u00e9es.\nPuis elle lui raconta sa lamentable histoire dans tous ses d\u00e9tails. Le\njeune homme semblait terroris\u00e9; mais, au bout d'un moment, il dit \u00e0 sa\nm\u00e8re:\n\n--Je comprends maintenant; nous sommes des Sudistes; le caract\u00e8re de son\nodieux crime ne comporte qu'une seule expiation possible. Je le\nchercherai, je le tuerai.\n\n--Le tuer? Non. La mort est un repos, une d\u00e9livrance; c'est un bienfait\ndu ciel! il ne le m\u00e9rite pas. Il ne faut pas toucher \u00e0 un cheveu de sa\nt\u00eate!\n\nLe jeune homme r\u00e9fl\u00e9chit un instant, puis reprit:\n\n--Vous \u00eates tout pour moi, m\u00e8re; votre volont\u00e9 doit \u00eatre la mienne; vos\nd\u00e9sirs sont imp\u00e9ratifs pour moi. Dites-moi ce que je dois faire, je le\nferai.\n\nLes yeux de Mme Stillmann \u00e9tincelaient de joie.\n\n--Tu partiras \u00e0 sa recherche, dit-elle. Depuis onze ans je connais le\nlieu de sa retraite; il m'a fallu cinq ans et plus pour le d\u00e9couvrir,\nsans compter l'argent que j'ai d\u00fb d\u00e9penser. Il est dans une situation\nais\u00e9e et exploite une mine au Colorado. Il habite Denver et s'appelle\nJacob Fuller. Voil\u00e0. C'est la premi\u00e8re fois que j'en parle depuis cette\nnuit inoubliable. Songe donc! ce nom aurait pu \u00eatre le tien, si je ne\nt'avais \u00e9pargn\u00e9 cette honte en t'en donnant un plus respectable. Tu\nl'arracheras \u00e0 sa retraite, tu le traqueras, tu le poursuivras, et cela\ntoujours sans rel\u00e2che, ni tr\u00eave; tu empoisonneras son existence en lui\ncausant des terreurs folles, des cauchemars angoissants, si bien qu'il\npr\u00e9f\u00e9rera la mort et aura le courage de se suicider. Tu feras de lui un\nnouveau Juif errant; il faut qu'il ne connaisse plus un instant de repos\net que, m\u00eame en songe, son esprit soit pers\u00e9cut\u00e9 par le remords. Sois\ndonc son ombre, suis-le pas \u00e0 pas, martyrise-le en te souvenant qu'il a\n\u00e9t\u00e9 le bourreau de ta m\u00e8re et de mon p\u00e8re.\n\n--M\u00e8re, j'ob\u00e9irai.\n\n--J'ai confiance, mon fils. Tout est pr\u00eat, j'ai tout pr\u00e9vu pour ta\nmission. Voici une lettre de cr\u00e9dit, d\u00e9pense largement; l'argent ne doit\npas \u00eatre compt\u00e9. Tu auras besoin de d\u00e9guisements sans doute et de\nbeaucoup d'autres choses auxquelles j'ai pens\u00e9.\n\nElle tira du tiroir de sa table plusieurs carr\u00e9s de papier portant les\nmots suivants \u00e9crits \u00e0 la machine:\n\n10.000 DOLLARS DE PRIME\n\n\u00abOn croit qu'un certain individu qui s\u00e9journe ici est vivement recherch\u00e9\ndans un \u00c9tat de l'Est.\n\n\u00abEn 1880, pendant une nuit, il aurait attach\u00e9 sa jeune femme \u00e0 un arbre,\npr\u00e8s de la grand'route, et l'aurait cravach\u00e9e avec une lani\u00e8re de cuir;\non assure qu'il a fait d\u00e9chirer ses v\u00eatements par ses chiens et l'a\nlaiss\u00e9e toute nue au bord de la route. Il s'est ensuite enfui du pays.\nUn cousin de la malheureuse jeune femme a recherch\u00e9 le criminel pendant\ndix-sept ans (adresse... Poste restante). La prime de dix mille dollars\nsera pay\u00e9e comptant \u00e0 la personne qui, dans un entretien particulier,\nindiquera au cousin de la victime la retraite du coupable.\u00bb\n\n--Quand tu l'auras d\u00e9couvert et que tu seras s\u00fbr de bien tenir sa piste,\ntu iras au milieu de la nuit placarder une de ces affiches sur le\nb\u00e2timent qu'il occupe; tu en poseras une autre sur un \u00e9tablissement\nimportant de la localit\u00e9. Cette histoire deviendra la fable du pays.\nTout d'abord, il faudra par un moyen quelconque, que tu le forces \u00e0\nvendre une partie de ce qui lui appartient: nous y arriverons peu \u00e0 peu,\nnous l'appauvrirons graduellement, car si nous le ruinions d'un seul\ncoup, il pourrait, dans un acc\u00e8s de d\u00e9sespoir chercher \u00e0 se tuer.\n\nElle prit dans le tiroir quelques sp\u00e9cimens d'affiches diff\u00e9rentes,\ntoutes \u00e9crites \u00e0 la machine, et en lut une:\n\n\u00abA Jacob Fuller... Vous avez... jours pour r\u00e9gler vos affaires. Vous ne\nserez ni tourment\u00e9 ni d\u00e9rang\u00e9 pendant ce temps qui expirera \u00e0... heures\ndu matin le... 18... A ce moment pr\u00e9cis il vous faudra d\u00e9m\u00e9nager. Si\nvous \u00eates encore ici \u00e0 l'heure que je vous fixe comme derni\u00e8re limite,\nj'afficherai votre histoire sur tous les murs de cette localit\u00e9, je\nferai conna\u00eetre votre crime dans tous ses d\u00e9tails, en pr\u00e9cisant les\ndates et tous les noms, \u00e0 commencer par le v\u00f4tre. Ne craignez plus\naucune vengeance physique; dans aucun cas, vous n'aurez \u00e0 redouter une\nagression. Vous avez \u00e9t\u00e9 inf\u00e2me pour un vieillard, vous lui avez tortur\u00e9\nle coeur. Ce qu'il a souffert, vous le souffrirez \u00e0 votre tour.\u00bb\n\n--Tu n'ajouteras aucune signature. Il faut qu'il re\u00e7oive ce message \u00e0\nson r\u00e9veil, de bonne heure, avant qu'il connaisse la prime promise, sans\ncela, il pourrait perdre la t\u00eate et fuir sans emporter un sou.\n\n--Je n'oublierai rien.\n\n--Tu n'auras sans doute besoin d'employer ces affiches qu'au d\u00e9but;\npeut-\u00eatre m\u00eame une seule suffira. Ensuite, lorsqu'il sera sur le point\nde quitter un endroit, arrange-toi pour qu'il re\u00e7oive un extrait du\nmessage commen\u00e7ant par ces mots: \u00abIl faut d\u00e9m\u00e9nager, vous avez...\njours.\u00bb Il ob\u00e9ira, c'est certain.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nEXTRAITS DE LETTRES A SA M\u00c8RE\n\n\nDenver, 3 avril 1897.\n\nJe viens d'habiter le m\u00eame local que Jacob Fuller pendant plusieurs\njours. Je tiens sa trace maintenant; je pourrais le d\u00e9pister et le\nsuivre \u00e0 travers dix divisions d'infanterie. Je l'ai souvent approch\u00e9 et\nl'ai entendu parler. Il poss\u00e8de un bon terrain et tire un parti\navantageux de sa mine; mais, malgr\u00e9 cela, il n'est pas tr\u00e8s riche. Il a\nappris le travail de mineur en suivant la meilleure des m\u00e9thodes, celle\nqui consiste \u00e0 travailler comme un ouvrier \u00e0 gages. Il para\u00eet assez gai\nde caract\u00e8re, porte gaillardement ses quarante-quatre ans; il semble\nplus jeune qu'il n'est, et on lui donnerait \u00e0 peine trente-six ou\ntrente-sept ans. Il ne s'est jamais remari\u00e9 et passe ici pour veuf. Il\nest bien pos\u00e9, consid\u00e9r\u00e9, s'est rendu populaire et a beaucoup d'amis.\nMoi-m\u00eame j'\u00e9prouve une certaine sympathie pour lui; c'est \u00e9videmment la\nvoix du sang qui crie en moi!\n\nCombien aveugles, insens\u00e9es et arbitraires sont certaines lois de la\nnature, la plupart d'entre elles au fond! Ma t\u00e2che est devenue bien\np\u00e9nible maintenant. Vous le saisissez, n'est-ce pas? et vous me\npardonnerez ce sentiment? Ma soif de vengeance du d\u00e9but s'est un peu\napais\u00e9e, plus m\u00eame que je n'ose en convenir devant vous; mais je vous\npromets de mener \u00e0 bien la mission que vous m'avez confi\u00e9e. J'\u00e9prouverai\npeut-\u00eatre moins de satisfaction, mais mon devoir reste imp\u00e9rieux: je\nl'accomplirai jusqu'au bout, soyez-en s\u00fbre. Je ressens pourtant un\nprofond sentiment d'indignation lorsque je constate que l'auteur de ce\ncrime odieux est le seul qui n'en ait pas souffert. Son action inf\u00e2me a\ntourn\u00e9 enti\u00e8rement \u00e0 son avantage, et au bout du compte il est heureux.\nLui, criminel, s'est vu \u00e9pargner toutes les souffrances; vous,\nl'innocente victime, vous les supportez avec une r\u00e9signation admirable.\nMais rassurez-vous, il r\u00e9coltera sa part d'amertumes, je m'en charge.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSilver Gulch, 19 mai...\n\nJ'ai placard\u00e9 l'affiche n\u00b0 1 le 3 avril \u00e0 minuit; une heure plus tard,\nj'ai gliss\u00e9 sous la porte de sa chambre l'affiche n\u00b0 2, lui signifiant\nde quitter Denver la nuit du 14 avant 11 h. 50.\n\nQuelque vieux roublard de reporter m'a vol\u00e9 une affiche; en furetant\ndans toute la ville, il a d\u00e9couvert ma seconde qu'il a \u00e9galement\nsubtilis\u00e9e. Ainsi, il a fait ce qu'on appelle en terme professionnel \u00abun\nbon scoop\u00bb, c'est-\u00e0-dire qu'il a su se procurer un document pr\u00e9cieux, en\ns'arrangeant pour qu'aucun autre journal que le sien n'ait le m\u00eame\n\u00abtuyau\u00bb. Ce scoop a permis \u00e0 son journal, le principal de l'endroit,\nd'imprimer la nouvelle en gros caract\u00e8res en t\u00eate de son article de fond\ndu lendemain matin; venait ensuite un long dithyrambe sur notre malheur\naccompagn\u00e9 de violents commentaires sur le coupable; en m\u00eame temps, le\njournal ouvrait une souscription de 1.000 dollars pour renforcer la\nprime d\u00e9j\u00e0 promise. Les feuilles publiques de ce pays s'entendent\nmerveilleusement \u00e0 soutenir une noble cause... surtout lorsqu'elles\nentrevoient une bonne affaire.\n\nJ'\u00e9tais assis \u00e0 table comme de coutume, \u00e0 une place choisie pour me\npermettre d'observer et de d\u00e9visager Jacob Fuller; je pouvais en m\u00eame\ntemps \u00e9couter ce qui se disait \u00e0 sa table. Les quatre-vingts ou cent\npersonnes de la salle commentaient l'article du journal en souhaitant la\nd\u00e9couverte de cette canaille qui infectait la ville de sa pr\u00e9sence. Pour\ns'en d\u00e9barrasser, tous les moyens \u00e9taient bons; on avait le choix du\nproc\u00e9d\u00e9: une balle, une canne plomb\u00e9e, etc.\n\nLorsque Fuller entra, il avait dans une main l'affiche (pli\u00e9e), dans\nl'autre le journal. Cette vue me stup\u00e9fia et me donna des battements de\ncoeur. Il avait l'air sombre et semblait plus vieux de dix ans, en m\u00eame\ntemps que tr\u00e8s pr\u00e9occup\u00e9; son teint \u00e9tait devenu terreux. Et songez un\npeu, ma ch\u00e8re maman, \u00e0 tous les propos qu'il dut entendre! Ses propres\namis, qui ne le soup\u00e7onnaient pas, lui appliquaient les \u00e9pith\u00e8tes et les\nqualificatifs les plus inf\u00e2mes, en se servant du vocabulaire tr\u00e8s\nrisqu\u00e9 des dictionnaires dont la vente est permise ici. Et, qui plus\nest, il dut prendre part \u00e0 la discussion et partager les appr\u00e9ciations\nv\u00e9h\u00e9mentes de ses amis. Cette circonstance le mettait mal \u00e0 l'aise, et\nil ne parvint pas \u00e0 me le dissimuler; je remarquai facilement qu'il\navait perdu l'app\u00e9tit et qu'il grignotait pour se donner contenance. A\nla fin, un des convives d\u00e9clara:\n\n--Il est probable que le vengeur de ce forfait est parmi nous dans cette\nsalle et qu'il partage notre indignation g\u00e9n\u00e9rale contre cet\ninqualifiable sc\u00e9l\u00e9rat. Je l'esp\u00e8re, du moins.\n\nAh! ma m\u00e8re! Si vous aviez vu la mani\u00e8re dont Fuller grima\u00e7ait et\nregardait effar\u00e9 autour de lui. C'\u00e9tait vraiment pitoyable! N'y pouvant\nplus tenir, il se leva et sortit.\n\nPendant quelques jours, il donna \u00e0 entendre qu'il avait achet\u00e9 une mine\n\u00e0 Mexico et voulait liquider sa situation \u00e0 Denver pour aller au plus\nt\u00f4t s'occuper de sa nouvelle propri\u00e9t\u00e9 et la g\u00e9rer lui-m\u00eame.\n\nIl joua bien son r\u00f4le, annon\u00e7a qu'il emporterait avec lui quarante mille\ndollars, un quart en argent, le reste en billets; mais comme il avait\ngrandement besoin d'argent pour r\u00e9gler sa r\u00e9cente acquisition, il \u00e9tait\nd\u00e9cid\u00e9 \u00e0 vendre \u00e0 bas prix pour r\u00e9aliser en esp\u00e8ces. Il vendit donc son\nbien pour trente mille dollars. Puis, devinez ce qu'il fit.\n\nIl exigea le paiement en monnaie d'argent, pr\u00e9textant que l'homme avec\nlequel il venait de faire affaire \u00e0 Mexico \u00e9tait un natif de\nNew-England, un maniaque plein de lubies qui pr\u00e9f\u00e9rait l'argent \u00e0 l'or\nou aux traites. Le motif parut \u00e9trange, \u00e9tant donn\u00e9 qu'une traite sur\nNew-York pouvait se payer en argent sans la moindre difficult\u00e9. On jasa\nde cette originalit\u00e9 pendant un jour ou deux, puis ce fut tout, les\nsujets de discussion ne durent d'ailleurs jamais plus longtemps dans ce\nbeau pays de Denver.\n\nJe surveillais mon homme sans interruption; d\u00e8s que le march\u00e9 fut conclu\net qu'il eut l'argent en poche, ce qui arriva le 11, je m'attachai \u00e0 ses\npas, sans perdre de vue le moindre de ses mouvements. Cette nuit-l\u00e0, ou\nplut\u00f4t le 12 (car il \u00e9tait un peu plus de minuit), je le filai jusqu'\u00e0\nsa chambre qui donnait sur le m\u00eame corridor que la mienne, puis, je\nrentrai chez moi; j'endossai mon d\u00e9guisement sordide de laboureur, me\nmaquillai la figure en cons\u00e9quence, et m'assis dans ma chambre obscure,\ngardant \u00e0 port\u00e9e de ma main un sac plein de v\u00eatements de rechange. Je\nlaissai ma porte entreb\u00e2ill\u00e9e, me doutant bien que l'oiseau ne tarderait\npas \u00e0 s'envoler. Au bout d'une demi-heure, une vieille femme passa; elle\nportait un sac. Un coup d'oeil rapide me suffit pour reconna\u00eetre Fuller\nsous ce d\u00e9guisement; je pris mon baluchon et le suivis.\n\nIl quitta l'h\u00f4tel par une porte de c\u00f4t\u00e9; et, tournant au coin de\nl'\u00e9tablissement, il prit une rue d\u00e9serte qu'il remonta pendant quelques\ninstants, sans se pr\u00e9occuper de l'obscurit\u00e9 et de la pluie. Il entra\ndans une cour et monta dans une voiture \u00e0 deux chevaux qu'il avait\ncommand\u00e9e \u00e0 l'avance; sans permission, je grimpe derri\u00e8re, sur le coffre\n\u00e0 bagages, et nous part\u00eemes \u00e0 grande allure. Apr\u00e8s avoir parcouru une\ndizaine de milles, la voiture s'arr\u00eata \u00e0 une petite gare. Fuller en\ndescendit et s'assit sur un chariot remis\u00e9 sous la v\u00e9randa, \u00e0 une\ndistance calcul\u00e9e de la lumi\u00e8re; j'entrai pour surveiller le guichet des\nbillets. Fuller n'en prenant pas, je l'imitai. Le train arriva: Fuller\nse fit ouvrir un compartiment; je montai dans le m\u00eame wagon \u00e0 l'autre\nextr\u00e9mit\u00e9, et suivant tranquillement le couloir, je m'installai derri\u00e8re\nlui. Lorsqu'il paya sa place au conducteur, il fallut bien indiquer sa\ngare de destination; je me glissai alors un peu plus pr\u00e8s de lui pendant\nque l'employ\u00e9 lui rendait sa monnaie.\n\nQuand vint mon tour de payer, je pris un billet pour la m\u00eame station que\nFuller, situ\u00e9e \u00e0 environ cent milles vers l'Ouest. A partir de ce\nmoment-l\u00e0, et pendant une semaine, j'ai d\u00fb mener une existence\nimpossible. Il poussait toujours plus loin dans la r\u00e9gion Ouest. Mais,\nau bout de vingt-quatre heures, il avait cess\u00e9 d'\u00eatre une femme. Devenu\nun bon laboureur comme moi, il portait de grands favoris roux. Son\n\u00e9quipement \u00e9tait parfait, et il pouvait jouer son personnage mieux que\ntout autre, puisqu'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9ellement un ouvrier \u00e0 gages. Son\nmeilleur ami ne l'aurait pas reconnu. A la fin, il s'\u00e9tablit ici, dans\nun camp perdu sur une petite montagne de Montana; il habite une maison\nprimitive et va prospecter tous les jours; du matin au soir, il \u00e9vite\ntoute relation avec ses semblables.\n\nJ'ai pris pension \u00e0 une guinguette de mineurs. Vous ne pouvez vous\nfigurer le peu de confortable que j'y trouve. Rien n'y manque: les\npunaises, la salet\u00e9, la nourriture infecte.\n\nVoil\u00e0 quatre semaines que nous sommes ici, et pendant tout ce temps, je\nne l'ai aper\u00e7u qu'une fois; mais, chaque nuit, je suis \u00e0 la trace ses\nall\u00e9es et venues de la journ\u00e9e et me mets en embuscade pour l'observer.\nD\u00e8s qu'il a eu lou\u00e9 une hutte ici, je me suis rendu \u00e0 cinquante mille\nd'ici pour t\u00e9l\u00e9graphier \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel de Denver de garder mes bagages\njusqu'\u00e0 nouvel ordre. Ici je n'ai besoin que de quelques chemises de\nrechange que j'ai eu soin d'apporter avec moi.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSilver Gulch, 12 juin.\n\nJe crois que l'\u00e9pisode de Denver n'a pas eu son \u00e9cho jusqu'ici. Je\nconnais presque tous les habitants du Camp et ils n'y ont pas encore\nfait la moindre allusion, du moins, devant moi. Sans aucun doute, Fuller\nse trouve tr\u00e8s heureux; il a lou\u00e9 \u00e0 deux milles d'ici, dans un coin\nretir\u00e9 de la montagne, une concession qui promet un bon rendement et\ndont il s'occupe tr\u00e8s s\u00e9rieusement. Mais, malgr\u00e9 cela, il est\nm\u00e9tamorphos\u00e9 d'aspect! Jamais plus il ne sourit, il se concentre en\nlui-m\u00eame et vit comme un ours, lui qui \u00e9tait si sociable et si gai, il y\na \u00e0 peine deux mois! Je l'ai vu passer plusieurs fois ces derniers\njours, abattu, triste, et l'air d\u00e9prim\u00e9. Il fait peine \u00e0 voir. Il\ns'appelle maintenant David Wilson.\n\nJe m'imagine qu'il restera ici, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que nous le d\u00e9logions de\nnouveau. Puisque vous le voulez, je continuerai \u00e0 le pers\u00e9cuter, mais je\nne vois pas en quoi il peut \u00eatre plus malheureux qu'\u00e0 pr\u00e9sent. Je\nretournerai \u00e0 Denver, m'accorder une saison de repos et d'agr\u00e9ment; je\nm'offrirai une nourriture meilleure, un lit plus confortable et des\nv\u00eatements plus propres; puis je prendrai mes bagages et ferai d\u00e9m\u00e9nager\nle malheureux Wilson.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDenver, 19 juin.\n\nTout le monde le regrette ici. On esp\u00e8re qu'il fait fortune \u00e0 Mexico;\nles voeux qu'on forme pour lui sont tr\u00e8s sinc\u00e8res, et viennent du coeur.\nJe m'en rends parfaitement compte: je m'attarde \u00e0 plaisir ici, je\nl'avoue; mais si vous \u00e9tiez \u00e0 ma place vous auriez piti\u00e9 de moi. Je sens\nbien ce que vous allez penser de moi; vous avez cent fois raison au\nfond. Si j'\u00e9tais \u00e0 votre place, et si je portais dans mon coeur une\ncicatrice aussi profonde!!!... C'est d\u00e9cid\u00e9. Je prendrai demain le train\nde nuit.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDenver 20 juin.\n\nDieu me pardonne, m\u00e8re! nous sommes sur une fausse piste; nous\npourchassons un innocent! Je n'en ai pas dormi de la nuit; le jour\ncommence \u00e0 poindre et j'attends impatiemment le train du matin!... Mais\nque les minutes me semblent longues, longues...\n\nCe Jacob Fuller est un cousin du coupable! Comment n'avons-nous pas\nsuppos\u00e9 plus t\u00f4t que le criminel ne porterait plus jamais son vrai nom\napr\u00e8s son m\u00e9fait? Le Fuller de Denver a quatre ans de moins que l'autre;\nil est venu ici \u00e0 vingt et un ans, en 1879, et \u00e9tait veuf un an avant\nvotre mariage; les preuves \u00e0 l'appui de ce que j'avance sont\ninnombrables. Hier soir, j'ai longuement parl\u00e9 de lui \u00e0 des amis qui le\nconnaissaient depuis le jour de son arriv\u00e9e. Je n'ai pas bronch\u00e9, mais\nmon opinion est bien arr\u00eat\u00e9e: dans quelques jours, je le rapatrierai en\nayant soin de l'indemniser de la perte qu'il a subie en vendant sa mine;\nen son honneur je donnerai un banquet, une retraite aux flambeaux et une\nillumination dont les frais retomberont sur moi seul; on me traitera\npeut-\u00eatre \u00abd'esbrouffeur\u00bb, mais cela m'est \u00e9gal. Je suis tr\u00e8s jeune,\nvous le savez bien, et c'est l\u00e0 mon excuse. Dans quelque temps on ne\npourra plus me traiter en enfant.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSilver Gulch, 2 juillet.\n\nM\u00e8re! Il est parti! Parti sans laisser aucun indice. Sa trace \u00e9tait\nrefroidie \u00e0 mon arriv\u00e9e; je n'ai pu la retrouver. Je me l\u00e8ve aujourd'hui\npour la premi\u00e8re fois depuis cet \u00e9v\u00e9nement. Mon Dieu! comme je voudrais\navoir quelques ann\u00e9es de plus pour mieux supporter les \u00e9motions. Tout le\nmonde croit qu'il est parti pour l'Ouest; aussi vais-je me mettre en\nroute ce soir; je gagnerai en voiture la gare la plus voisine \u00e0 deux ou\ntrois heures d'ici; je ne sais pas bien o\u00f9 je vais, mais je ne puis\nplus tenir en place; l'inaction en ce moment me met \u00e0 la torture.\n\nBien entendu, il se cache sous un faux nom et un nouveau d\u00e9guisement.\nCeci me fait supposer que j'aurai peut-\u00eatre \u00e0 parcourir le monde entier\npour le trouver! C'est du moins ce que je crois. Voyez-vous, m\u00e8re! le\nJuif errant, en ce moment: c'est moi. Quelle ironie! Et dire que nous\navions r\u00e9serv\u00e9 \u00abce r\u00f4le \u00e0 un autre\u00bb!\n\nToutes ces difficult\u00e9s seraient aplanies si je pouvais placarder une\nnouvelle affiche. Mais je me sens incapable de trouver dans mon cerveau\nun proc\u00e9d\u00e9 qui n'effraye pas le pauvre fugitif. Ma t\u00eate est pr\u00eate \u00e0\n\u00e9clater. J'avais song\u00e9 \u00e0 cette affiche:\n\n\u00abSi le Monsieur qui a derni\u00e8rement achet\u00e9 une mine \u00e0 Mexico et en a\nvendu une \u00e0 Denver veut bien donner son adresse\u00bb (mais \u00e0 qui la donner?)\n\u00abil lui sera expliqu\u00e9 comment il y a eu m\u00e9prise \u00e0 son sujet; on lui fera\ndes excuses et on r\u00e9parera le tort qui lui a \u00e9t\u00e9 caus\u00e9 en l'indemnisant\naussi largement que possible.\u00bb\n\nMais comprenez-vous la difficult\u00e9? Il croira \u00e0 un pi\u00e8ge; c'est tout\nnaturel, d'ailleurs! Je pourrais encore \u00e9crire: \u00abIl est maintenant\nav\u00e9r\u00e9 que la personne recherch\u00e9e n'est pas celle qu'on a trouv\u00e9e; il\nexistait une similitude de nom; mais il y a eu \u00e9change pour des raisons\nsp\u00e9ciales.\u00bb Cela pourrait-il aller? Je crains que les soup\u00e7ons des gens\nde Denver ne soient \u00e9veill\u00e9s. Ils ne manqueront pas de dire en se\nrappelant les particularit\u00e9s de son d\u00e9part: Pourquoi s'est-il enfui s'il\nn'\u00e9tait pas coupable? Si je ne r\u00e9ussis pas \u00e0 le trouver, il sera perdu\ndans l'estime des gens de Denver qui le portent tr\u00e8s haut. Vous qui avez\nplus d'exp\u00e9rience et d'imagination que moi, venez \u00e0 mon aide, ma ch\u00e8re\nm\u00e8re!\n\nJe n'ai qu'une clef, une clef unique, je connais son \u00e9criture; s'il\ninscrit son nouveau nom sur un registre d'h\u00f4tel sans prendre le soin de\nla contrefaire tr\u00e8s bien, je pourrai la reconna\u00eetre, mais il faut pour\ncela que le hasard me fasse rencontrer le fugitif.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSan-Francisco, 28 juin 1898.\n\nVous savez avec quel soin j'ai fouill\u00e9 tous les \u00c9tats du Colorado au\nPacifique, et comment j'ai failli toucher au but. Eh bien! je viens\nencore d'\u00e9prouver un nouvel \u00e9chec et cela pas plus tard qu'hier. J'avais\nretrouv\u00e9 dans la rue sa trace encore chaude qui me conduisit vers un\nh\u00f4tel de second ordre. Je me suis tromp\u00e9; j'ai d\u00fb suivre le contre-pied;\nles chiens le font bien! Mais je ne poss\u00e8de malheureusement qu'une\npartie des instincts du chien, et souvent je me laisse induire en erreur\npar mes facult\u00e9s d'homme. Il a quitt\u00e9 cet h\u00f4tel depuis dix jours,\nm'a-t-on dit. Je sais maintenant qu'il ne s\u00e9journe plus nulle part\ndepuis les six ou huit derniers mois, qu'il est pris d'un grand besoin\nde mouvement et ne peut plus rester tranquille. Je partage ce sentiment\net sais combien il est p\u00e9nible! Il continue \u00e0 porter le nom qu'il avait\ninscrit au moment o\u00f9 j'\u00e9tais si pr\u00e8s de le pincer, il y a neuf mois:\n\u00abJames Walker\u00bb; c'est aussi celui qu'il avait adopt\u00e9 en fuyant Silver\nGulch. Il ne fait pas d'effort d'imagination et a d\u00e9cid\u00e9ment peu de go\u00fbt\npour les noms de fantaisie. Il m'a \u00e9t\u00e9 facile de reconna\u00eetre son\n\u00e9criture tr\u00e8s l\u00e9g\u00e8rement d\u00e9guis\u00e9e.\n\nOn m'assure qu'il vient de partir en voyage sans laisser d'adresse et\nsans dire o\u00f9 il allait; qu'il a pris un air effar\u00e9 lorsqu'on le\nquestionnait sur ses projets; il n'avait, para\u00eet-il, qu'une valise\nordinaire pour tout bagage et il l'a emport\u00e9e \u00e0 la main. \u00abC'est un\npauvre petit vieux, a-t-on ajout\u00e9, dont le d\u00e9part ne fera pas grand tort\n\u00e0 la maison.\u00bb\n\nVieux! Je suppose qu'il l'est devenu maintenant, mais n'en sais pas plus\nlong, car je ne suis pas rest\u00e9 assez longtemps. Je me suis pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9 sur\nsa trace; elle m'a conduit \u00e0 un quai. M\u00e8re! La fum\u00e9e du vapeur qui\nl'emportait se perdait \u00e0 l'horizon! J'aurais pu gagner une demi-heure en\nprenant d\u00e8s le d\u00e9but la bonne direction; mais il \u00e9tait m\u00eame trop tard\npour fr\u00e9ter un remorqueur et courir la chance de rattraper son bateau!\nIl est maintenant en route pour Melbourne!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHope Canyon, Californie.\n\n3 octobre 1900.\n\nVous \u00eates en droit de vous plaindre. Une lettre en un an: c'est trop\npeu, j'en conviens; mais comment peut-on \u00e9crire lorsqu'on n'a \u00e0\nenregistrer que des insucc\u00e8s? Tout le monde se laisserait d\u00e9monter;\npour ma part, je n'ai plus de coeur \u00e0 rien.\n\nJe vous ai racont\u00e9, il y a longtemps, comment je l'avais manqu\u00e9, \u00e0\nMelbourne, puis comment je l'avais pourchass\u00e9 pendant des mois en\nAustralie. Apr\u00e8s cela, je l'ai suivi aux Indes, je crois m\u00eame l'avoir\naper\u00e7u \u00e0 Bombay; j'ai refait derri\u00e8re lui tout son voyage, \u00e0 Baroda,\nRawal, Pindi, Lucknow, Lahore, Cawnpore, Allahabad, Calcutta, Madras,\nsemaine par semaine, mois par mois, sous une chaleur torride et dans une\npoussi\u00e8re! Je le traquais de pr\u00e8s, et croyais le tenir; mais il s'est\ntoujours \u00e9chapp\u00e9. Puis, \u00e0 Ceylan, puis \u00e0...\n\nMais je vous raconterai tout cela en d\u00e9tail. Il m'a ramen\u00e9 en\nCalifornie, puis \u00e0 Mexico, et de l\u00e0 il retourna en Californie. Depuis ce\nmoment-l\u00e0, je l'ai pourchass\u00e9 dans tous les pays, depuis le 1er janvier\njusqu'au mois dernier. Je suis presque certain qu'il se tient pr\u00e8s de\nHope Canyon. J'ai suivi sa trace jusqu'\u00e0 trente milles d'ici, mais je\nl'ai perdue; pour moi, quelqu'un a d\u00fb l'enlever en voiture.\n\nMaintenant je me repose de mes recherches infructueuses. Je suis\n\u00e9reint\u00e9, m\u00e8re! d\u00e9courag\u00e9 et bien souvent pr\u00e8s de perdre mon dernier\nespoir. Pourtant, les mineurs de ce pays sont de braves gens; leurs\nmani\u00e8res affables que je connais de longue date et leur franchise\nd'allures sont bien faites pour me remonter le moral et me faire oublier\nmes ennuis. Voil\u00e0 plus d'un mois que je suis ici. Je partage la cabane\nd'un jeune homme d'environ vingt-cinq ans, \u00abSammy Hillyer\u00bb, comme moi\nfils unique d'une m\u00e8re qu'il idol\u00e2tre et \u00e0 qui il \u00e9crit r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement\nchaque semaine (ce dernier trait me ressemble moins). Il est timide, et\nsous le rapport de l'intelligence... certes... il ne faudrait pas lui\ndemander de mettre le feu \u00e0 une rivi\u00e8re; \u00e0 part cela, je l'aime\nbeaucoup; il est bon camarade, assez distingu\u00e9, et je b\u00e9nis le ciel de\nme l'avoir donn\u00e9 pour ami; je peux au moins \u00e9changer avec lui mes\nimpressions; c'est une grande satisfaction, je vous assure. Si seulement\n\u00abJames Walker\u00bb avait cette compensation, lui qui aime la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 et la\nbonne camaraderie. Cette comparaison me fait penser \u00e0 lui, \u00e0 la derni\u00e8re\nentrevue que nous avons eue. Quel chaos que tout cela, lorsque j'y\nsonge!\n\nA cette \u00e9poque, je luttais contre ma conscience pour m'attacher \u00e0 sa\npoursuite! Le coeur de Sammy Hillyer est meilleur que le mien, meilleur\nque tous ceux de cette petite r\u00e9publique, j'imagine; car il se d\u00e9clare\nle seul ami de la brebis galeuse du camp, un nomm\u00e9 Flint Buckner. Ce\ndernier n'adresse la parole \u00e0 personne en dehors de Sammy Hillyer.\n\nSammy pr\u00e9tend qu'il conna\u00eet l'histoire de Flint, que c'est le chagrin\nseul qui l'a rendu aussi sombre et que pour ce motif on devrait \u00eatre\npour lui aussi charitable que possible. Un coeur d'or seul peut\ns'accommoder du caract\u00e8re de Flint Buckner, d'apr\u00e8s tout ce que\nj'entends dire de lui. Le d\u00e9tail suivant vous donnera d'ailleurs une\nid\u00e9e plus exacte du bon coeur de Sammy que tout ce que je pourrais vous\nraconter. Au cours d'une de nos causeries, il me dit \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s ceci:\n\n\u00abFlint est un de mes compatriotes et me confie tous ses chagrins; il\nd\u00e9verse dans mon coeur le trop plein de ses tristesses quand il sent que\nle sien est pr\u00e8s d'\u00e9clater. Il est impossible de rencontrer une homme\nplus malheureux, je t'assure, Archy Stillmann: sa vie n'est qu'un tissu\nde mis\u00e8res morales qui le font para\u00eetre beaucoup plus vieux que son\n\u00e2ge. Il a perdu depuis bien des ann\u00e9es d\u00e9j\u00e0 la notion du repos et du\ncalme. Il n'a jamais connu la chance; c'est un mythe pour lui et je lui\nai souvent entendu dire qu'il soupirait apr\u00e8s l'enfer de l'autre monde\npour faire diversion aux mis\u00e8res de cette vie.\u00bb\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nC'\u00e9tait par une matin\u00e9e claire et fra\u00eeche du commencement d'octobre. Les\nlilas et les cytises, illumin\u00e9s par un radieux soleil d'automne, avaient\ndes reflets particuliers et formaient une vo\u00fbte ininterrompue que la\nnature aimable mettait \u00e0 la disposition des \u00eatres qui habitent la r\u00e9gion\ndes hautes branches. Les m\u00e9l\u00e8zes et les grenadiers profilaient leurs\nformes rouges et jaunes et jetaient une teinte de gaiet\u00e9 sur cet oc\u00e9an\nde verdure; le parfum enivrant des fleurs \u00e9ph\u00e9m\u00e8res embaumait\nl'atmosph\u00e8re en d\u00e9lire; bien haut dans les airs un grand oiseau\nsolitaire planait, majestueux et presque immobile; partout r\u00e9gnaient le\ncalme, la s\u00e9r\u00e9nit\u00e9 et la paix des r\u00e9gions \u00e9th\u00e9r\u00e9es. Ceci se passe en\noctobre 1900, \u00e0 Hope-Canyon, et nous sommes sur un terrain de mines\nargentif\u00e8res dans la r\u00e9gion d'Esm\u00e9ralva. Solitaire et recul\u00e9, l'endroit\nest de d\u00e9couverte r\u00e9cente; les nouveaux arriv\u00e9s le croient riche en\nm\u00e9tal (il suffira de le prospecter pendant un an ou deux pour \u00eatre fix\u00e9\nsur sa valeur). Comme habitants, le camp se compose d'environ deux cents\nmineurs, d'une femme blanche avec son enfant, de quelques blanchisseurs\nchinois, d'une douzaine d'Indiens plus ou moins nomades, qui portent des\nv\u00eatements en peaux de lapin, des chapeaux de li\u00e8ge et des colliers de\nbimbeloterie. Il n'y a ici ni moulins, ni \u00e9glise, ni journaux. Le camp\nn'existe que depuis deux ans et la nouvelle de sa fondation n'a pas fait\nsensation; on ignore g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement son nom et son emplacement.\n\nDes deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s de Hope-Canyon, les montagnes se dressent \u00e0 pic, formant\nune muraille de trois mille pieds, et la longue file des huttes qui\ns'\u00e9chelonnent au fond de cet entonnoir ne re\u00e7oit gu\u00e8re qu'une fois par\njour, vers midi, la caresse passag\u00e8re du soleil. Le village s'\u00e9tend sur\nenviron deux milles en longueur et les cabanes sont assez espac\u00e9es l'une\nde l'autre. L'auberge est la seule maison vraiment organis\u00e9e; on peut\nm\u00eame dire qu'elle repr\u00e9sente la seule maison du camp. Elle occupe une\nposition centrale et devient, le soir, le rendez-vous de la population.\nOn y boit, on y joue aux cartes et aux dominos: il existe un billard\ndont le tapis coutur\u00e9 de d\u00e9chirures a \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9par\u00e9 avec du taffetas\nd'Angleterre. Il y a bien quelques queues, mais sans proc\u00e9d\u00e9s; quelques\nbilles fendues qui, en roulant, font un bruit de casserole f\u00eal\u00e9e et ne\ns'arr\u00eatent que par soubresauts, et m\u00eame un morceau de craie \u00e9br\u00e9ch\u00e9e; le\npremier qui arrive \u00e0 faire six carambolages de suite peut boire tant\nqu'il veut, aux frais du bar.\n\nLa case de Flint Buckner \u00e9tait au sud, la derni\u00e8re du village; sa\nconcession \u00e9tait \u00e0 l'autre extr\u00e9mit\u00e9, au nord, un peu au-del\u00e0 de la\nderni\u00e8re hutte dans cette direction. Il \u00e9tait d'un caract\u00e8re cassant,\npeu sociable, et n'avait pas d'amis. Ceux qui essayaient de frayer avec\nlui ne tardaient pas \u00e0 le regretter et lui faussaient compagnie au bout\nde peu de temps. On ne savait rien de son pass\u00e9. Les uns croyaient que\nSammy Hillyer savait quelque chose sur lui: d'autres affirmaient le\ncontraire. Si on le questionnait \u00e0 ce sujet, Sammy pr\u00e9tendait toujours\nignorer son pass\u00e9. Flint avait \u00e0 ses gages un jeune Anglais de seize\nans, tr\u00e8s timide et qu'il traitait durement, aussi bien en public que\ndans l'intimit\u00e9. Naturellement, on s'adressait \u00e0 ce jeune homme pour\navoir des renseignements sur son patron, mais toujours sans succ\u00e8s.\nFetlock Jones (c'est le nom du jeune Anglais) racontait que Flint\nl'avait recueilli en prospectant une autre mine, et comme lui-m\u00eame\nn'avait en Am\u00e9rique ni famille ni amis, il avait trouv\u00e9 sage d'accepter\nles propositions de Buckner; en retour du labeur p\u00e9nible qui lui \u00e9tait\nimpos\u00e9, Jones recevait pour tout salaire du lard et des haricots.\nC'\u00e9tait tout ce que ce jeune homme voulait raconter sur son ma\u00eetre.\n\nIl y avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 un mois que Fetlock \u00e9tait riv\u00e9 au service de Flint; son\napparence d\u00e9j\u00e0 ch\u00e9tive pouvait inspirer de jour en jour de s\u00e9rieuses\ninqui\u00e9tudes, car on le voyait d\u00e9p\u00e9rir sous l'influence des mauvais\ntraitements que lui faisait subir son ma\u00eetre. Il est reconnu, en effet,\nque les caract\u00e8res doux souffrent am\u00e8rement de la moindre brutalit\u00e9,\nplus am\u00e8rement peut-\u00eatre que les caract\u00e8res fortement tremp\u00e9s qui\ns'emportent en paroles et se laissent m\u00eame aller aux voies de fait\nquand leur patience est \u00e0 bout et que la coupe d\u00e9borde. Quelques\npersonnes compatissantes voulaient venir en aide au malheureux Fetlock\net l'engageaient \u00e0 quitter Buckner; mais le jeune homme accueillit cette\nid\u00e9e avec un effroi mal dissimul\u00e9 et r\u00e9pondit qu'il ne l'oserait jamais.\n\nPat Riley insistait en disant:\n\n--Quittez donc ce maudit harpagon et venez avec moi. N'ayez pas peur, je\nme charge de lui faire entendre raison, s'il proteste.\n\nFetlock le remercia les larmes aux yeux, mais se mit \u00e0 trembler de tous\nses membres en r\u00e9p\u00e9tant qu'il n'oserait pas, parce que Flint se\nvengerait s'il le retrouvait en t\u00eate \u00e0 t\u00eate au milieu de la nuit. \u00abEt\npuis, voyez-vous, s'\u00e9criait-il, la seule pens\u00e9e de ce qui m'arriverait\nme donne la chair de poule, M. Riley.\u00bb\n\nD'autres lui conseillaient: \u00abSauvez-vous, nous vous aiderons et vous\ngagnerez la c\u00f4te une belle nuit.\u00bb Mais toutes les suggestions ne\npouvaient le d\u00e9cider; Fetlock pr\u00e9tendait que Flint le poursuivrait et le\nram\u00e8nerait pour assouvir sa vengeance.\n\nCette id\u00e9e de vengeance, personne ne la comprenait. L'\u00e9tat mis\u00e9rable du\npauvre gar\u00e7on suivait son cours et les semaines passaient. Il est\nprobable que les amis de Fetlock se seraient rendu compte de la\nsituation, s'ils avaient connu l'emploi de ses moments perdus. Il\ncouchait dans une hutte voisine de celle de Flint et passait ses nuits \u00e0\nr\u00e9fl\u00e9chir et \u00e0 chercher un moyen infaillible de tuer Flint sans \u00eatre\nd\u00e9couvert. Il ne vivait plus que pour cela; les heures pendant\nlesquelles il machinait son complot \u00e9taient les seuls moments de la\njourn\u00e9e auxquels il aspirait avec ardeur et qui lui donnaient l'illusion\ndu bonheur.\n\nIl pensa au poison. Non, ce n'\u00e9tait pas possible; l'enqu\u00eate r\u00e9v\u00e9lerait\no\u00f9 il l'avait pris et qui le lui avait vendu. Il eut l'id\u00e9e de lui loger\nune balle dans le dos quand il le trouverait entre quatre yeux, un soir\no\u00f9 Flint rentrerait chez lui vers minuit, apr\u00e8s sa promenade accoutum\u00e9e.\n\nMais quelqu'un pourrait l'entendre et le surprendre. Il songea bien \u00e0 le\npoignarder pendant son sommeil. Mais sa main pourrait trembler, son coup\nne serait peut-\u00eatre pas assez s\u00fbr; Flint alors s'emparerait de lui. Il\nimagina des centaines de proc\u00e9d\u00e9s vari\u00e9s; aucun ne lui paraissait\ninfaillible; car les moyens les plus secrets pr\u00e9sentaient toujours un\ndanger, un risque, une possibilit\u00e9 pour lui d'\u00eatre trahi. Il ne s'arr\u00eata\ndonc \u00e0 aucun.\n\nMais il \u00e9tait d'une patience sans borne. Rien ne presse, se disait-il.\nIl se promettait de ne quitter Flint que lorsqu'il l'aurait r\u00e9duit \u00e0\nl'\u00e9tat de cadavre; mieux valait prendre son temps, il trouverait bien\nune occasion d'assouvir sa vengeance. Ce moyen existait et il le\nd\u00e9couvrirait, d\u00fbt-il pour cela subir toutes les hontes et toutes les\nmis\u00e8res.\n\nOui! il trouverait s\u00fbrement un proc\u00e9d\u00e9 qui ne laisserait aucune trace de\nson crime, pas le plus petit indice; rien ne pressait: mais quand il\nl'aurait trouv\u00e9, oh! alors, quelle joie de vivre pour lui!\n\nEn attendant, il \u00e9tait prudent de conserver religieusement intacte sa\nr\u00e9putation de douceur, et il s'effor\u00e7ait plus que jamais de ne pas\nlaisser entendre le moindre mot de son ressentiment ou de sa col\u00e8re\ncontre son oppresseur.\n\nDeux jours avant la matin\u00e9e d'octobre \u00e0 laquelle nous venons de faire\nallusion, Flint avait achet\u00e9 diff\u00e9rents objets qu'il rapportait \u00e0 sa\ncabane, aid\u00e9 par Fetlock: une caisse de bougies, qu'ils plac\u00e8rent dans\nun coin, une bo\u00eete de poudre explosible qu'ils log\u00e8rent au-dessus des\nbougies, un petit baril de poudre qu'ils d\u00e9pos\u00e8rent sous la couchette de\nFlint et un \u00e9norme chapelet de fus\u00e9es qu'ils accroch\u00e8rent \u00e0 un clou.\n\nFetlock en conclut que le travail du pic allait bient\u00f4t faire place \u00e0\ncelui de la poudre et que Flint voulait commencer \u00e0 faire sauter les\nblocs. Il avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 assist\u00e9 \u00e0 ce genre d'explosions, mais n'en\nconnaissait pas la pr\u00e9paration. Sa supposition \u00e9tait exacte; le temps de\nfaire sauter la mine \u00e9tait venu.\n\nLe lendemain matin, ils port\u00e8rent au puits les fus\u00e9es, les forets, et la\nbo\u00eete \u00e0 poudre. Le trou avait \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s huit pieds de profondeur, et\npour arriver au fond comme pour en sortir, il fallait se servir d'une\npetite \u00e9chelle. Ils descendirent donc; au commandement, Fetlock tint le\nforet (sans savoir comment s'en servir) et Flint se mit \u00e0 cogner. Au\npremier coup de marteau, le foret \u00e9chappa des mains de Fetlock et fut\nprojet\u00e9 de c\u00f4t\u00e9.\n\n--Maudit fils de n\u00e8gre, vocif\u00e9ra Flint, en voil\u00e0 une mani\u00e8re de tenir\nun foret! Ramasse-le et t\u00e2che de tenir ton outil! Je t'apprendrai ton\nm\u00e9tier, attends! Maintenant charge.\n\nLe jeune homme commen\u00e7a \u00e0 verser la poudre.\n\n--Idiot, grommela Flint, en lui appliquant sur la m\u00e2choire un grand coup\nde crosse, qui lui fit perdre l'\u00e9quilibre. L\u00e8ve-toi! Tu ne vas pas\nrester par terre, je pense. Allons, mets d'abord la m\u00e8che, maintenant la\npoudre; assez; assez! Veux-tu remplir tout le trou? Esp\u00e8ce de poule\nmouill\u00e9e! Mets de la terre, du gravier et tasse le tout. Tiens! grand\nimb\u00e9cile, sors de l\u00e0.\n\nIl lui arracha l'instrument et se mit \u00e0 damer la charge lui-m\u00eame en\njurant et blasph\u00e9mant comme un forcen\u00e9. Puis il alluma la m\u00e8che, sortit\ndu puits et courut \u00e0 cinquante m\u00e8tres de l\u00e0, suivi de Fetlock. Ils\nattendirent quelques instants: une \u00e9paisse fum\u00e9e se produisit et des\nquartiers de roche vol\u00e8rent en l'air avec un fracas d'explosion; une\npluie de pierres retomba et tout rentra dans le calme.\n\n--Quel malheur que tu ne te sois pas trouv\u00e9 l\u00e0-dedans, s'\u00e9cria le\npatron.\n\nIls redescendirent dans le puits, le nettoy\u00e8rent, pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent un\nnouveau trou et recommenc\u00e8rent la m\u00eame op\u00e9ration:\n\n--Regarde donc ce que tu fais au lieu de tout gaspiller: Tu ne sais donc\npas r\u00e9gler une charge?\n\n--Non, ma\u00eetre!\n\n--Tu ne sais pas? Ma foi! je n'ai jamais rien vu d'aussi b\u00eate que toi.\n\nIl sortit du puits et cria \u00e0 Fetlock qui restait en bas:\n\n--Eh bien! idiot! Vas-tu rester l\u00e0 toute la journ\u00e9e! Coupe la m\u00e8che et\nallume-la!\n\nLe pauvre gar\u00e7on r\u00e9pondit tout tremblant:\n\n--Ma\u00eetre, je ferai comme il vous plaira.\n\n--Comment? tu oses me r\u00e9pondre, \u00e0 moi? Coupe, allume, te dis-je!\n\nLe jeune gar\u00e7on fit ce qui lui \u00e9tait command\u00e9.\n\n--Sacrebleu, hurla Flint; tu coupes une m\u00e8che aussi courte... je\nvoudrais que tu sautes avec...\n\nDans sa col\u00e8re, il retira l'\u00e9chelle et s'enfuit.\n\nFetlock resta terroris\u00e9.\n\n--Oh! mon Dieu! mon Dieu! au secours! Je suis perdu, criait-il. Que\nfaire? que faire?\n\nIl s'adossa au mur et s'y cramponna comme il put: le p\u00e9tillement de la\npoudre qui s'allumait l'emp\u00eachait d'articuler un son; sa respiration\ns'arr\u00eata, il \u00e9tait l\u00e0 sans force et inerte; encore deux ou trois\nsecondes, et il volerait en l'air avec les blocs de pierre. Une\ninspiration subite lui vint. Il allongea le bras, saisit la m\u00e8che et\ncoupa l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 qui d\u00e9passait d'un pouce au-dessus du sol; il \u00e9tait\nsauv\u00e9! Il tomba \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 \u00e9vanoui et mort de peur, murmurant avec un\nsourire sur les l\u00e8vres:\n\n--Il m'a montr\u00e9! Je savais bien qu'avec de la patience, j'y arriverais!\n\nCinq minutes apr\u00e8s, Buckner se glissa furtivement au puits, l'air g\u00ean\u00e9\net inquiet, et en examina le fond. Il comprit la situation et vit ce qui\n\u00e9tait arriv\u00e9; il descendit l'\u00e9chelle. Fetlock put remonter malgr\u00e9 son\ngrand affaiblissement et son \u00e9motion. Il \u00e9tait livide; sa mine\neffrayante parut impressionner Buckner qui essaya de lui t\u00e9moigner un\nregret et un semblant de sympathie; mais ces deux sentiments lui \u00e9taient\ntrop inconnus pour qu'il s\u00fbt les exprimer.\n\n--C'est un accident, lui dit-il. N'en parle \u00e0 personne, n'est-ce pas?\nJ'\u00e9tais \u00e9nerv\u00e9 et ne savais plus tr\u00e8s bien ce que je faisais. Tu me\nparais fatigu\u00e9, tu as trop travaill\u00e9 aujourd'hui. Va \u00e0 ma cabane et\nmange tout ce que tu voudras; ensuite, repose-toi bien.\n\nN'oublie pas que cet accident est d\u00fb \u00e0 mon seul \u00e9nervement.\n\n--Vous m'avez bien effray\u00e9, lui dit Fetlock en s'en allant, mais j'ai au\nmoins appris quelque chose, je ne le regrette pas.\n\n--Pas difficile \u00e0 contenter, marmotta Buckner en l'observant du coin de\nl'oeil. Je me demande s'il en parlera; l'osera-t-il? Quelle guigne qu'il\nn'ait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 tu\u00e9!\n\nFetlock ne pensa pas \u00e0 se reposer pendant le cong\u00e9 qui lui avait \u00e9t\u00e9\naccord\u00e9; il l'employa \u00e0 travailler avec ardeur et \u00e0 pr\u00e9parer,\nfi\u00e9vreusement, son plan de vengeance. Des broussailles \u00e9paisses\ncouvraient la montagne du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la demeure de Flint. Fetlock s'y cacha\net adopta cette retraite pour machiner son complot. Ses derniers\npr\u00e9paratifs devaient se faire dans le bouge qui lui servait de hutte.\n\n--S'il a le moindre soup\u00e7on \u00e0 mon endroit, pensa-t-il, il a bien tort\nde croire que je raconterai ce qui s'est pass\u00e9; d'ailleurs, il ne le\ncroira pas longtemps; bient\u00f4t il sera fix\u00e9. Demain je ne me d\u00e9partirai\npas de ma douceur et de ma timidit\u00e9 habituelles qu'il croit\ninalt\u00e9rables. Mais apr\u00e8s-demain, au milieu de la nuit, sa derni\u00e8re heure\naura sonn\u00e9 sans que personne au monde puisse soup\u00e7onner l'auteur de sa\nmort et la mani\u00e8re dont elle sera survenue. Le piquant de la chose est\nque lui-m\u00eame m'en ait sugg\u00e9r\u00e9 l'id\u00e9e.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nLe jour suivant s'\u00e9coula sans aucun incident. Minuit va sonner et, dans\npeu d'instants, une nouvelle journ\u00e9e commencera. La sc\u00e8ne se passe au\nbar, dans la salle de billard. Des hommes d'aspect commun, aux v\u00eatements\ngrossiers, coiff\u00e9s de chapeaux \u00e0 larges bords, portent leurs pantalons\nserr\u00e9s dans de grosses bottes, ils sont tous en veston et se tiennent\ngroup\u00e9s autour d'un po\u00eale de fonte qui, bourr\u00e9 de charbon, leur\ndistribue une g\u00e9n\u00e9reuse chaleur; les billes de billard roulent avec un\nson f\u00eal\u00e9; \u00e0 l'int\u00e9rieur de la salle, on n'entend pas d'autre bruit;\nmais, au dehors, la temp\u00eate mugit. Tous paraissent ennuy\u00e9s et dans\nl'attente.\n\nUn mineur, aux \u00e9paules carr\u00e9es, entre deux \u00e2ges, avec des favoris\ngrisonnants, l'oeil dur et la physionomie maussade, se l\u00e8ve sans mot\ndire, il passe son bras dans un rouleau de m\u00e8che, ramasse quelques\nobjets lui appartenant et sort sans prendre cong\u00e9 de ses compagnons.\nC'est Flint Buckner. A peine la porte est-elle referm\u00e9e sur lui que la\nconversation, g\u00ean\u00e9e par sa pr\u00e9sence, reprend avec entrain.\n\n--Quel homme r\u00e9gl\u00e9! il vaut une pendule, dit Jack Parker, le forgeron,\nsans tirer sa montre; on sait qu'il est minuit quand il se l\u00e8ve pour\nsortir.\n\n--Sa r\u00e9gularit\u00e9 est bien la seule qualit\u00e9 qu'il poss\u00e8de, r\u00e9pliqua le\nmineur Peter Hawes, je ne lui en connais pas d'autre; vous non plus, que\nje sache?\n\n--Il fait tache parmi vous, dit Ferguson, l'associ\u00e9 de Well-Fargo. Si\nj'\u00e9tais propri\u00e9taire de cet \u00e9tablissement, je le forcerais bien \u00e0 se\nd\u00e9museler un jour ou l'autre, qu'il le veuille ou pas!\n\nEn m\u00eame temps il lan\u00e7a un regard significatif au patron du bar qui fit\nsemblant de ne pas comprendre, car l'homme en question \u00e9tait une bonne\npratique, et rentrait chaque soir chez lui apr\u00e8s avoir consomm\u00e9 un\nstock de boissons vari\u00e9es servies par le bar.\n\nDites donc, les amis, demanda le mineur Ham Sandwich, l'un de vous se\nsouvient-il que Buckner lui ait jamais offert un cocktail?\n\n--Qui? lui? Flint Buckner? Ah! non certes!\n\nCette r\u00e9ponse ironique sortit avec un ensemble parfait de la bouche de tous\nles assistants.\n\nApr\u00e8s un court silence, Pat Riley, le mineur, reprit:\n\n--Cet oiseau-l\u00e0 est un vrai ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne. Et son aide tout autant que lui.\nMoi, je ne les comprends ni l'un ni l'autre; je donne ma langue au chat!\n\n--Vous \u00eates pourtant un malin, r\u00e9pondit Ham Sandwich, mais, ma foi, les\n\u00e9nigmes que sont ces deux individus restent impossibles \u00e0 deviner. Le\nmyst\u00e8re qui entoure le patron enveloppe \u00e9galement son acolyte. C'est\nbien votre avis n'est-ce pas?\n\n--Pour s\u00fbr!\n\nChacun acquies\u00e7a. Un seul d'entre eux gardait le silence. C'\u00e9tait le\nnouvel arrivant, Peterson. Il commanda une tourn\u00e9e de rafra\u00eechissements\npour tous et demanda si, en dehors de ces deux types \u00e9tranges, il\nexistait au camp un troisi\u00e8me ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne.\n\n--Nous oublions Archy Stillmann, r\u00e9pondirent-ils tous.\n\nCelui-l\u00e0 aussi est donc un dr\u00f4le de pistolet? demanda Peterson.\n\n--On ne peut pas vraiment dire que cet Archy Stillmann soit un\nph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne, continua Ferguson, l'employ\u00e9 de Well-Fargo; il me fait plut\u00f4t\nl'effet d'un toqu\u00e9!\n\nFerguson avait l'air de savoir ce qu'il disait. Et comme Peterson\nd\u00e9sirait conna\u00eetre tout ce qui concernait Stillmann, chacun se d\u00e9clara\npr\u00eat \u00e0 lui raconter sa petite histoire. Ils commenc\u00e8rent tous \u00e0 la fois,\nmais Billy Stevens, le patron du bar, rappela tout le monde \u00e0 l'ordre,\nd\u00e9clarant qu'il valait mieux que chacun parl\u00e2t \u00e0 son tour.\n\nIl distribua les rafra\u00eechissements et donna la parole \u00e0 Ferguson.\n\nCelui-ci commen\u00e7a:\n\n--Il faut d'abord vous dire qu'Archy n'est qu'un enfant, c'est tout ce\nque nous savons de lui; on peut chercher \u00e0 le sonder, mais c'est peine\nperdue; on n'en peut rien tirer; il reste compl\u00e8tement muet sur ses\nintentions et ses affaires personnelles; il ne dit m\u00eame pas d'o\u00f9 il est\net d'o\u00f9 il vient. Quant \u00e0 deviner la nature du myst\u00e8re qu'il cache,\nc'est impossible, car il excelle \u00e0 d\u00e9tourner les conversations qui le\ng\u00eanent. On peut supposer tout ce que l'on veut; chacun est libre, mais \u00e0\nquoi cela m\u00e8ne-t-il? A rien, que je sache!\n\nQuel est, en fin de compte, son trait de caract\u00e8re distinctif?\nPoss\u00e8de-t-il une qualit\u00e9 sp\u00e9ciale? La vue peut-\u00eatre, l'ou\u00efe, ou\nl'instinct? La magie, qui sait? Choisissez, jeunes et vieux, femmes et\nenfants. Les paris sont ouverts. Eh bien, je vais vous \u00e9difier sur ses\naptitudes; vous pouvez venir ici, dispara\u00eetre, vous cacher, o\u00f9 vous\nvoudrez, n'importe o\u00f9; pr\u00e8s ou loin, il vous trouvera toujours et mettra\nla main sur vous.\n\n--Pas possible?\n\n--Comme j'ai l'honneur de vous le dire. Le temps ne compte pas pour lui,\nl'\u00e9tat des \u00e9l\u00e9ments le laisse bien indiff\u00e9rent, il n'y pr\u00eate aucune\nattention; rien ne le d\u00e9range!\n\n--Allons donc! et l'obscurit\u00e9? la pluie? la neige?\n\n--Hein?\n\n--Tout cela lui est bien \u00e9gal. Il s'en moque.\n\n--Et le brouillard?\n\n--Le brouillard! ses yeux le percent comme un boulet de canon! Tenez,\njeunes gens. Je vais vous raconter quelque chose de plus fort. Vous me\ntraiterez de blagueur!\n\n--Non, non, nous vous croyons, cri\u00e8rent-ils tous en choeur. Continuez,\nWell-Fargo.\n\n--Eh bien! messieurs, supposez que vous laissiez Stillmann ici en train\nde causer avec vos amis: sortez sans rien dire, dirigez-vous vers le\ncamp et entrez dans une cabane quelconque de votre choix; prenez-y un\nlivre, plusieurs si vous voulez, ouvrez-les aux pages qu'il vous plaira\nen vous rappelant leurs num\u00e9ros; il ira droit \u00e0 cette cabane et ouvrira\nle ou les livres aux pages touch\u00e9es par vous; il vous les d\u00e9signera\ntoutes sans se tromper.\n\n--Ce n'est pas un homme, c'est un d\u00e9mon.\n\n--Je suis de votre avis. Et maintenant, je vous raconterai un de ses\nexploits les plus merveilleux.\n\n--La nuit derni\u00e8re, il a...\n\nIl fut interrompu par une grande rumeur au dehors; la porte s'ouvrit\nbrusquement et une foule en \u00e9moi se pr\u00e9cipita dans le bar entourant la\nseule femme blanche du camp qui criait et pleurait:\n\n--Ma fille! ma fille! partie! perdue! Pour l'amour du ciel, dites-moi o\u00f9\nest Archy Stillmann, nous ne savons plus o\u00f9 chercher.\n\n--Asseyez-vous, Mrs Hogan, lui dit le patron du bar. Asseyez-vous et\ncalmez-vous, Stillmann est ici depuis trois heures; il a engag\u00e9 une\nchambre apr\u00e8s avoir r\u00f4d\u00e9 toute la journ\u00e9e \u00e0 la recherche d'une piste,\nsuivant sa bonne habitude. Il est ensuite mont\u00e9 se coucher. Ham\nSandwich, va donc le r\u00e9veiller et am\u00e8ne-le; il est au num\u00e9ro 14.\n\nArchy fut vite habill\u00e9 et en bas. Il demanda des d\u00e9tails \u00e0 Mrs Hogan.\n\n--H\u00e9las! mon ami, je n'en ai pas. Si j'en poss\u00e9dais seulement! Je\nl'avais couch\u00e9e \u00e0 sept heures et lorsque je suis rentr\u00e9e, il y a une\nheure, plus personne! Je me suis pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9e chez vous; vous n'y \u00e9tiez\npas; depuis, je vous cherche partout, frappant \u00e0 toutes les portes; je\nviens ici en d\u00e9sespoir de cause, folle, \u00e9pouvant\u00e9e, le coeur bris\u00e9.\nDieu merci, je vous ai trouv\u00e9 enfin! et vous me d\u00e9couvrirez mon enfant!\nVenez vite! vite!\n\n--Je suis pr\u00eat, Madame, je vous suis; mais regagnez d'abord votre\nlogement.\n\nTous les habitants du camp avaient envie de prendre part \u00e0 la chasse.\nCeux de la partie Sud du village \u00e9taient sur pied, et une centaine\nd'hommes vigoureux balan\u00e7aient dans l'obscurit\u00e9 les faibles lueurs de\nleurs lanternes vacillantes. Ils se form\u00e8rent en groupes de trois ou\nquatre, pour s'\u00e9chelonner plus facilement le long du chemin, et\nembo\u00eet\u00e8rent rapidement le pas des guides. Bient\u00f4t, ils arriv\u00e8rent \u00e0 la\nmaisonnette des Hogan.\n\n--Passez-moi une lanterne, dit Archy.\n\nIl la posa sur la terre durcie et s'agenouilla en ayant l'air d'examiner\nle sol attentivement.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 sa trace, dit-il en indiquant du doigt deux ou trois marques sur\nle sol. La voyez-vous?\n\nQuelques-uns d'entre les mineurs s'agenouill\u00e8rent et \u00e9carquill\u00e8rent\nleurs yeux pour mieux voir. Les uns s'imagin\u00e8rent apercevoir quelque\nchose, les autres durent avouer, en secouant la t\u00eate de d\u00e9pit, que la\nsurface tr\u00e8s unie ne portait aucune marque perceptible \u00e0 leurs yeux.\n\n--Il se peut, dit l'un, que le pied de l'enfant ait laiss\u00e9 son\nempreinte, mais je ne la vois pas.\n\nLe jeune Stillmann sortit, tenant toujours la lampe pr\u00e8s de la terre; il\ntourna \u00e0 gauche, et avan\u00e7a de quelques pas en examinant le sol\nsoigneusement.\n\n--Je tiens la trace, venez maintenant, et que quelqu'un prenne la\nlanterne.\n\nIl se mit en route, d'un pas all\u00e8gre, dans la direction du Sud, escort\u00e9\npar les curieux, et suivit, en d\u00e9crivant des courbes, toutes les\nsinuosit\u00e9s de la gorge pendant une lieue environ. Ils arriv\u00e8rent \u00e0 une\nplaine couverte de sauges, vaste et obscure. Stillmann commanda: Halte,\najoutant:\n\n--Il ne s'agit pas de partir sur une fausse piste, orientons-nous de\nnouveau dans la bonne direction.\n\nIl reprit la lanterne et examina la route sur une longueur de vingt\nm\u00e8tres environ.\n\n--Venez, dit-il, tout va bien.\n\nIl se remit en route, fouillant les buissons de sauge, pendant un quart\nde mille et obliquant toujours \u00e0 droite; puis il prit une autre\ndirection, fit un grand circuit, repartit droit devant lui et marcha\nr\u00e9solument vers l'ouest pendant un demi-mille. Il s'arr\u00eata, disant:\n\n--Elle s'est repos\u00e9e ici, la pauvre petite. Tenez la lanterne et\nregardez; c'est l\u00e0 qu'elle s'est assise.\n\nA cet endroit, le sol \u00e9tait net comme une plaque d'acier et il fallait\nune certaine audace pour pr\u00e9tendre reconna\u00eetre sur ce miroir uni la\nmoindre trace r\u00e9v\u00e9latrice. La malheureuse m\u00e8re, reprise de\nd\u00e9couragement, tomba \u00e0 genoux, baisant la terre et sanglotant.\n\n--Mais o\u00f9 est-elle alors? demanda quelqu'un. Elle n'est pourtant pas\nrest\u00e9e ici; nous la verrions, je pense.\n\nStillmann continua \u00e0 tourner en rond sur place, sa lanterne \u00e0 la main;\nil paraissait absorb\u00e9 dans ses recherches.\n\n--Eh bien! dit-il, sur un ton maussade. Je ne comprends plus.\n\nIl examina encore.\n\n--Il n'y a pas \u00e0 en douter, elle s'est arr\u00eat\u00e9e ici, mais elle n'en est\npas repartie. J'en r\u00e9ponds! Reste \u00e0 trouver l'\u00e9nigme.\n\nLa pauvre m\u00e8re se d\u00e9solait de plus en plus.\n\n--Oh! mon Dieu! et vous Vierge Marie! venez \u00e0 mon aide! Quelque animal\nl'a emport\u00e9e! C'est fini! je ne la reverrai jamais, jamais plus!\n\n--Ne perdez pas espoir, madame, lui dit Archy. Nous la retrouverons, ne\nvous d\u00e9couragez pas.\n\n--Dieu vous b\u00e9nisse pour ces bonnes paroles de consolation, monsieur\nArchy, et elle prit sa main quelle couvrit de baisers.\n\nPeterson, le dernier arriv\u00e9, chuchota avec ironie \u00e0 l'oreille de\nFerguson:\n\n--En voil\u00e0 une merveille d'avoir d\u00e9couvert cet endroit. Vraiment pas la\npeine de venir si loin, tout de m\u00eame; le premier coin venu nous en\naurait appris autant. Nous voil\u00e0 bien renseign\u00e9s, maintenant!\n\nL'insinuation n'\u00e9tait pas du go\u00fbt de Ferguson, qui r\u00e9pondit sur un ton\nemball\u00e9:\n\n--Vous allez peut-\u00eatre chercher \u00e0 nous faire croire que l'enfant n'est\npas venue ici? Je vous d\u00e9clare que cette petite a pass\u00e9 par ici; si vous\nvoulez vous attirer de s\u00e9rieux ennuis, vous n'avez qu'\u00e0...\n\n--Tout va bien! cria Stillmann. Venez tous ici et regardez bien. La\ntrace nous crevait les yeux et nous n'y avons rien vu les uns et les\nautres.\n\nTous s'accroupirent avec ensemble \u00e0 l'endroit suppos\u00e9 o\u00f9 l'enfant avait\nd\u00fb s'asseoir et se mirent \u00e0 \u00e9carquiller les yeux en fixant le point\nd\u00e9sign\u00e9 par le doigt d'Archy. Apr\u00e8s une pause suivie de profonds soupirs\nde d\u00e9couragement, Pat Riley et Ham Sandwich r\u00e9pondirent ensemble:\n\n--Eh bien, Archy? Nous n'avons rien vu!\n\n--Rien? vous appelez cela rien?\n\nEt avec son doigt il fit sur le sol un signe cabalistique.\n\n--L\u00e0, la reconnaissez-vous maintenant la trace d'Injin Billy? C'est lui\nqui a l'enfant.\n\n--Dieu soit lou\u00e9! s'\u00e9cria la m\u00e8re.\n\n--Reprenez la lanterne. Je tiens de nouveau la bonne direction.\nSuivez-moi.\n\nIl partit comme un trait, traversant rapidement les buissons de sauge,\npuis disparut derri\u00e8re un monticule de sable; les autres avaient peine \u00e0\nsuivre: ils le rejoignirent et le retrouv\u00e8rent assis tranquillement en\ntrain de les attendre. A dix pas plus loin on apercevait une hutte\nmis\u00e9rable, un pauvre abri informe, fait de vieux chiffons et de\ncouvertures de chevaux en loques qui laissaient filtrer une lumi\u00e8re \u00e0\npeine tamis\u00e9e.\n\n--Prenez le commandement, Mrs Hogan, dit le jeune homme. Vous avez le\ndroit d'entrer la premi\u00e8re.\n\nTous la suivirent et purent voir le spectacle qu'offrait l'int\u00e9rieur de\ncette hutte: Injin Billy \u00e9tait assis par terre, l'enfant dormait \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9\nde lui. Sa m\u00e8re la prit dans ses bras et l'\u00e9touffa de caresses; son\ncoeur d\u00e9bordait de reconnaissance pour Archy Stillmann; elle pleurait \u00e0\nchaudes larmes. D'une voix \u00e9trangl\u00e9e par l'\u00e9motion, elle laissa \u00e9chapper\nun flot de ces paroles attendries, de ces accents chauds et ardents que\nseul peut trouver un coeur irlandais.\n\n--Je l'ai trouv\u00e9e vers dix heures, expliqua Billy. Elle s'\u00e9tait\nendormie, tr\u00e8s fatigu\u00e9e, la figure humect\u00e9e de larmes, je suppose; je\nl'ai ramen\u00e9e ici, et l'ai nourrie, car elle mourait de faim; depuis ce\nmoment elle n'a cess\u00e9 de dormir.\n\nDans un \u00e9lan de reconnaissance sans bornes, l'heureuse femme l'embrassa\nlui aussi, l'appelant \u00able Messager du ciel\u00bb. En admettant qu'il soit un\nmessager du ciel, il \u00e9tait certainement un ange d\u00e9guis\u00e9 et grim\u00e9, car\nson accoutrement bizarre n'avait rien de s\u00e9raphique.\n\nA une heure et demie du matin, le cort\u00e8ge rentra au village en chantant\nun refrain triomphal et en brandissant des torches; c'\u00e9tait une vraie\nretraite aux flambeaux. Ils n'oubli\u00e8rent pas de boire tout le long de la\nroute et, pour tuer les derni\u00e8res heures de cette nuit mouvement\u00e9e, ils\ns'entass\u00e8rent au bar en attendant le jour.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDEUXI\u00c8ME PARTIE\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nSHERLOCK HOLM\u00c8S ENTRE EN SC\u00c8NE\n\n\nLe jour suivant, une rumeur sensationnelle circula au village. Un\n\u00e9tranger de haute marque, \u00e0 l'air grave et imposant, \u00e0 la tournure tr\u00e8s\ndistingu\u00e9e, venait d'arriver \u00e0 l'auberge. Il avait inscrit sur le\nregistre le nom magique de:\n\nSHERLOCK HOLM\u00c8S\n\nLa nouvelle se r\u00e9pandit de hutte en hutte, de bouche en bouche dans la\nmine; chacun planta l\u00e0 ses outils pour courir aux vrais renseignements.\nUn mineur qui passait par la partie Sud du village annon\u00e7a la nouvelle \u00e0\nPat Riley, dont la concession touchait \u00e0 celle de Flint Buckner.\nFetlock Jones parut tr\u00e8s affect\u00e9 de cet \u00e9v\u00e9nement et murmura m\u00eame:\n\n--L'oncle Sherlock! Quelle guigne!\n\nIl arrive juste au moment o\u00f9... Puis il se mit \u00e0 r\u00eavasser, se disant \u00e0\nlui-m\u00eame:\n\n--Apr\u00e8s tout, pourquoi avoir peur de lui? Tous ceux qui le connaissent\ncomme moi, savent bien qu'il n'est capable de d\u00e9couvrir un crime\nqu'autant qu'il a pu pr\u00e9parer son plan \u00e0 l'avance, classer ses arguments\net accumuler ses preuves.\n\nAu besoin il se procure (moyennant finances) un complice de bonne\nvolont\u00e9 qui ex\u00e9cute le crime point par point comme il l'a pr\u00e9vu!... Eh\nbien! cette fois Sherlock sera tr\u00e8s embarrass\u00e9; il manquera de preuve et\nn'aura rien pu pr\u00e9parer. Quant \u00e0 moi, tout est pr\u00eat. Je me garderai bien\nde diff\u00e9rer ma vengeance... non certainement pas! Flint Buckner quittera\nce bas monde cette nuit et pas plus tard, c'est d\u00e9cid\u00e9!\n\nPuis il r\u00e9fl\u00e9chit:\n\n--L'oncle Sherlock va vouloir, ce soir, causer avec moi de notre\nfamille; comment arriverai-je \u00e0 m'esquiver de lui? Il faut absolument\nque je sois dans ma cabine vers huit heures, au moins pour quelques\ninstants.\n\nCe point \u00e9tait embarrassant et le pr\u00e9occupait fort. Mais une minute de\nr\u00e9flexion lui donna le moyen de tourner la difficult\u00e9.\n\n--Nous irons nous promener ensemble et je le laisserai seul sur la route\nune seconde pendant laquelle il ne verra pas ce que je ferai: le\nmeilleur moyen d'\u00e9garer un policier est de le conserver aupr\u00e8s de soi\nquand on pr\u00e9pare un coup. Oui, c'est bien le plus s\u00fbr, je l'emm\u00e8nerai\navec moi.\n\nPendant ce temps, la route \u00e9tait encombr\u00e9e, aux abords de la taverne,\npar une foule de gens qui esp\u00e9raient apercevoir le grand homme. Mais\nHolm\u00e8s s'obstinait \u00e0 rester enferm\u00e9 dans sa chambre et ne paraissait pas\nau plus grand d\u00e9sappointement des curieux. Ferguson, Jake Parker le\nforgeron, et Ham Sandwich, seuls, eurent plus de chance. Ces fanatiques\nadmirateurs de l'habile policier lou\u00e8rent la pi\u00e8ce de l'auberge qui\nservait de d\u00e9barras pour les bagages et qui donnait au-dessus d'un\npassage \u00e9troit sur la chambre de Sherlock Holm\u00e8s; ils s'y embusqu\u00e8rent\net pratiqu\u00e8rent quelques judas dans les persiennes.\n\nLes volets de M. Holm\u00e8s \u00e9taient encore ferm\u00e9s, mais il les ouvrit\nbient\u00f4t. Ses espions tressaillirent de joie et d'\u00e9motion lorsqu'ils se\ntrouv\u00e8rent face \u00e0 face avec l'homme c\u00e9l\u00e8bre qui \u00e9tonnait le monde par\nson g\u00e9nie vraiment surnaturel. Il \u00e9tait assis l\u00e0 devant eux, en\npersonne, en chair et en os, bien vivant. Il n'\u00e9tait plus un mythe pour\neux et ils pouvaient presque le toucher en allongeant le bras.\n\n--Regarde-moi cette t\u00eate, dit Ferguson d'une voix tremblante d'\u00e9motion.\nGrand Dieu! Quelle physionomie!\n\n--Oh oui, r\u00e9pondit le forgeron d'un air convaincu, vois un peu ses yeux\net son nez! Quelle intelligente et \u00e9veill\u00e9e physionomie il a!\n\n--Et cette p\u00e2leur! reprit Ham Sandwich, qui est la caract\u00e9ristique de\nson puissant cerveau et l'image de sa nette pens\u00e9e.\n\n--C'est vrai: ce que nous prenons pour la pens\u00e9e n'est souvent qu'un\nd\u00e9dale d'id\u00e9es informes.\n\n--Tu as raison, Well-Fargo; regarde un peu ce pli accus\u00e9 au milieu de\nson front; c'est le sillon de la pens\u00e9e, il l'a creus\u00e9 \u00e0 force de\ndescendre au plus profond des choses. Tiens je parie qu'en ce moment il\nrumine quelque id\u00e9e dans son cerveau infatigable.\n\n--Ma foi oui, on le dirait; mais regarde donc cet air grave, cette\nsolennit\u00e9 impressionnante! On dirait que chez lui l'esprit absorbe le\ncorps! Tu ne te trompes pas tant, en lui pr\u00eatant les facult\u00e9s d'un pur\nesprit; car il est d\u00e9j\u00e0 mort quatre fois, c'est un fait av\u00e9r\u00e9: il est\nmort trois fois naturellement et une fois accidentellement. J'ai entendu\ndire qu'il exhale une odeur d'humidit\u00e9 glaciale et qu'il sent le\ntombeau; on dit m\u00eame que...\n\n--Chut, tais-toi et observe-le. Le voil\u00e0 qui encadre son front entre le\npouce et l'index, je parie qu'en ce moment il est en train de creuser\nune id\u00e9e.\n\n--C'est plus que probable. Et maintenant il l\u00e8ve les yeux au ciel en\ncaressant sa moustache distraitement. Le voil\u00e0 debout; il classe ses\narguments en les comptant sur les doigts de sa main gauche avec l'index\ndroit, vois-tu? Il touche d'abord l'index gauche, puis le m\u00e9dium,\nensuite l'annulaire.\n\n--Tais-toi!\n\n--Regarde son air courrouc\u00e9! Il ne trouve pas la clef de son dernier\nargument, alors il...\n\n--Vois-le sourire maintenant d'un rire f\u00e9lin; il compte rapidement sur\nses doigts sans la moindre nervosit\u00e9. Il est s\u00fbr de son affaire; il\ntient le bon bout. Cela en a tout l'air! J'aime autant ne pas \u00eatre celui\nqu'il cherche \u00e0 d\u00e9pister.\n\nM. Holm\u00e8s approcha sa table de la fen\u00eatre, s'assit en tournant le dos\naux deux observateurs et se mit \u00e0 \u00e9crire. Les jeunes gens quitt\u00e8rent\nleur cachette, allum\u00e8rent leurs pipes et s'install\u00e8rent confortablement\npour causer. Ferguson commen\u00e7a avec conviction:\n\n--Ce n'est pas la peine d'en parler. Cet homme est un prodige, tout en\nlui le trahit.\n\n--Tu n'as jamais mieux parl\u00e9, Well-Fargo, r\u00e9pliqua Parquer. Quel dommage\nqu'il n'ait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 ici hier soir au milieu de nous!\n\n--Mon Dieu oui, r\u00e9pliqua Ferguson. Du coup, nous aurions assist\u00e9 \u00e0 une\ns\u00e9ance scientifique, \u00e0 une exhibition d'\u00abintellectualit\u00e9 toute pure\u00bb, la\nplus \u00e9lev\u00e9e qu'on puisse r\u00eaver. Archy est d\u00e9j\u00e0 bien \u00e9tonnant et nous\naurions grand tort de chercher \u00e0 diminuer son talent, mais la facult\u00e9\nqu'il poss\u00e8de n'est qu'un don visuel: il a, me semble-t-il, l'acuit\u00e9 de\nregard de la chouette. C'est un don naturel, un instinct inn\u00e9, o\u00f9 la\nscience n'entre pas en jeu. Quant au caract\u00e8re surprenant du don\nd'Archy, il ne peut \u00eatre nullement compar\u00e9 au g\u00e9nie de Sherlock Holm\u00e8s,\npas plus que... Tiens, laisse-moi te dire ce qu'aurait fait Holm\u00e8s dans\ncette circonstance. Il se serait rendu tout bonnement chez les Hogan et\naurait simplement regard\u00e9 autour de lui dans la maison. Un seul coup\nd'oeil lui suffit pour tout voir jusqu'au moindre d\u00e9tail; en cinq\nminutes il en saurait plus long que les Hogan en sept ans. Apr\u00e8s sa\ncourte inspection, il se serait assis avec calme et aurait pos\u00e9 des\nquestions \u00e0 Mme Hogan... Dis donc, Ham, imagine-toi que tu es Mme Hogan;\nje t'interrogerai, et tu me r\u00e9pondras.\n\n--Entendu, commence.\n\n--Permettez, Madame, s'il vous pla\u00eet. Veuillez pr\u00eater une grande\nattention \u00e0 ce que je vais vous demander: Quel est le sexe de l'enfant?\n\n--Sexe f\u00e9minin, Votre Honneur.\n\n--Hum! f\u00e9minin, tr\u00e8s bien! tr\u00e8s bien! L'\u00e2ge?\n\n--Six ans pass\u00e9s.\n\n--Hum! jeune... faible... deux lieues. La fatigue a d\u00fb se faire sentir.\nElle se sera assise, puis endormie. Nous la trouverons au bout de deux\nlieues au plus. Combien de dents?\n\n--Cinq, Votre Honneur, et une sixi\u00e8me en train de pousser.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s bien, tr\u00e8s bien, parfait!--Vous voyez, jeunes gens, il ne laisse\npasser aucun d\u00e9tail et s'attache \u00e0 ceux qui paraissent les plus petites\nv\u00e9tilles.--Des bas, madame, et des souliers?\n\n--Oui, Votre Honneur, les deux.\n\n--En coton, peut-\u00eatre? en maroquin?\n\n--Coton, Votre Honneur, et cuir.\n\n--Hum! cuir? Ceci complique la question. Cependant, continuons; nous\nnous en tirerons. Quelle religion?\n\n--Catholique, Votre Honneur.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s bien, coupez-moi un morceau de la couverture de son lit, je vous\nprie. Merci!\n\nMoiti\u00e9 laine, et de fabrication \u00e9trang\u00e8re. Tr\u00e8s bien. Un morceau de\nv\u00eatement de l'enfant, s'il vous pla\u00eet? Merci, en coton et d\u00e9j\u00e0 pas mal\nusag\u00e9. Un excellent indice, celui-ci. Passez-moi, je vous prie, une\npellet\u00e9e de poussi\u00e8re ramass\u00e9e dans la chambre. Merci! oh! grand merci!\n\nAdmirable, admirable! Maintenant, nous tenons le bon bout, je crois.\nVous le voyez, jeunes gens, il a en main tous les fils et se d\u00e9clare\npleinement satisfait. Apr\u00e8s cela, que fera cet homme prodigieux? Il\n\u00e9talera les lambeaux d'\u00e9toffe et cette poussi\u00e8re sur la table, et il\nrapprochera ces objets disparates et les examinera en se parlant \u00e0 voix\nbasse et en les palpant d\u00e9licatement:\n\n\u00abF\u00e9minin, six ans, cinq dents, plus une sixi\u00e8me qui pousse; catholique.\nCoton, cuir! Que le diable emporte ce cuir!\u00bb Puis il range le tout, l\u00e8ve\nles yeux vers le ciel, passe la main dans ses cheveux, la repasse\nnerveusement en r\u00e9p\u00e9tant: \u00abAu diable, le cuir!\u00bb Il se l\u00e8ve alors, fronce\nle sourcil et r\u00e9capitule ses arguments en comptant sur ses doigts; il\ns'arr\u00eate \u00e0 l'annulaire, une minute seulement, puis sa physionomie\ns'illumine d'un sourire de satisfaction. Il se l\u00e8ve alors, r\u00e9solu et\nmajestueux, et dit \u00e0 la foule: \u00abQue deux d'entre vous prennent une\nlanterne et s'en aillent chez Injin Billy, pour y chercher l'enfant, les\nautres n'ont qu'\u00e0 rentrer se coucher. Bonne nuit, bonne nuit, jeunes\ngens!\u00bb Et ce disant, il aurait salu\u00e9 l'assistance d'un air solennel, et\nquitt\u00e9 l'auberge.\n\nVoil\u00e0 sa mani\u00e8re de proc\u00e9der. Elle est unique dans son genre,\nscientifique et intelligente; un quart d'heure lui suffit et il n'a pas\nbesoin de fouiller les buissons et les routes pendant des heures\nenti\u00e8res au milieu d'une population effar\u00e9e et tumultueuse.\n\nMessieurs, qu'en dites-vous? Avez-vous compris son proc\u00e9d\u00e9?\n\n--C'est prodigieux, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit Ham Sandwich. Well-Fargo, tu as\nmerveilleusement compris le caract\u00e8re de cet homme, ta description vaut\ncelle d'un livre, du livre le mieux fait du monde. Il me semble le voir\net l'entendre. N'est-ce pas votre avis, Messieurs?\n\n--C'est notre avis. Ce topo descriptif d'Holm\u00e8s vaut une photographie et\nune fameuse!\n\nFerguson \u00e9tait ravi de son succ\u00e8s; l'approbation g\u00e9n\u00e9rale de ses\ncamarades le rendait triomphant. Il restait assis tranquille et\nsilencieux pour savourer son bonheur.\n\nIl murmura pourtant, d'une voix inqui\u00e8te:\n\n--C'est \u00e0 se demander comment Dieu a pu cr\u00e9er un pareil ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne.\n\nAu bout d'un moment Ham Sandwich r\u00e9pondit:\n\n--S'il l'a cr\u00e9\u00e9, il a d\u00fb s'y prendre \u00e0 plusieurs fois, j'imagine!\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nVers huit heures du soir, \u00e0 la fin de ce m\u00eame jour, par une nuit\nbrumeuse, deux personnes marchaient \u00e0 t\u00e2tons du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la hutte de\nFlint Buckner. C'\u00e9tait Sherlock Holm\u00e8s et son neveu.\n\n--Attendez-moi un instant sur le chemin, mon oncle, je vous prie, dit\nFetlock; je cours \u00e0 ma hutte, j'en ai pour deux minutes \u00e0 peine.\n\nIl demanda quelque chose \u00e0 son oncle qui le lui donna et disparut dans\nl'obscurit\u00e9; mais il fut bient\u00f4t de retour, et leur causerie reprit son\ncours avec leur promenade. A neuf heures, leur marche errante les avait\nramen\u00e9s \u00e0 la taverne. Ils se fray\u00e8rent un chemin jusqu'\u00e0 la salle de\nbillard, o\u00f9 une foule compacte s'\u00e9tait group\u00e9e dans l'espoir\nd'apercevoir l'\u00abHomme Illustre\u00bb. Des vivats fr\u00e9n\u00e9tiques l'accueillirent;\nM. Holm\u00e8s remercia en saluant aimablement et au moment o\u00f9 il sortit,\nson neveu s'adressa \u00e0 l'assembl\u00e9e, disant:\n\n--Messieurs, mon oncle Sherlock a un travail pressant \u00e0 faire qui le\nretiendra jusqu'\u00e0 minuit ou une heure du matin, mais il reviendra d\u00e8s\nqu'il pourra, et esp\u00e8re bien que quelques-uns d'entre vous seront encore\nici pour trinquer avec lui.\n\n--Par saint Georges! Quel g\u00e9n\u00e9reux seigneur!\n\n--Mes amis! Trois vivats \u00e0 Sherlock Holm\u00e8s, le plus grand homme qui ait\njamais v\u00e9cu, cria Ferguson. \u00abHip, hip, hip!!!\u00bb \u00abHurrah! hurrah! hurrah!\u00bb\n\n--Ces clameurs tonitruantes secou\u00e8rent la maison, tant les jeunes gens\nmettaient de coeur \u00e0 leur r\u00e9ception. Arriv\u00e9 dans sa chambre, Sherlock\ndit \u00e0 son neveu, sans mauvaise humeur:\n\n--Que diable! Pourquoi m'avez-vous mis cette invitation sur les bras?\n\n--Je pense que vous ne voulez pas vous rendre impopulaire, mon oncle? Il\nserait f\u00e2cheux de ne pas vous attirer les bonnes gr\u00e2ces de tout ce camp\nde mineurs. Ces gars vous admirent; mais si vous partiez sans trinquer\navec eux, ils prendraient votre abstention pour du \u00absnobisme\u00bb. Et du\nreste, vous nous avez dit que vous aviez une foule de choses \u00e0 nous\nraconter, de quoi nous tenir \u00e9veill\u00e9s une partie de la nuit.\n\nLe jeune homme avait raison et faisait preuve de bon sens. Son oncle le\nreconnut. Il servait en m\u00eame temps ses propres int\u00e9r\u00eats et fit cette\nr\u00e9flexion pratique dans son for int\u00e9rieur:\n\n--Mon oncle et les mineurs vont \u00eatre fameusement commodes pour me cr\u00e9er\nun alibi qui ne pourra \u00eatre contest\u00e9.\n\nL'oncle et le neveu caus\u00e8rent dans leur chambre pendant trois heures.\nPuis, vers minuit, Fetlock descendit seul, se posta dans l'obscurit\u00e9 \u00e0\nune douzaine de pas de la taverne et attendit. Cinq minutes apr\u00e8s, Flint\nBuckner sortait en se dandinant de la salle de billard, il l'effleura\npresque de l'\u00e9paule en passant. \u00abJe le tiens\u00bb, pensa le jeune gar\u00e7on.\n\nEt il se dit \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame, en suivant des yeux l'ombre de la silhouette:\n\u00abAdieu, mon ami, adieu pour tout de bon, Flint Buckner! Tu as trait\u00e9 ma\nm\u00e8re de... c'est tr\u00e8s bien, mais rappelle-toi que tu fais aujourd'hui ta\nderni\u00e8re promenade!\u00bb\n\nIl rentra, sans se presser, \u00e0 la taverne, en se faisant cette\nr\u00e9flexion: \u00abIl est un peu plus de minuit, encore une heure \u00e0 attendre;\nnous la passerons avec les camarades... ce sera fameux pour l'alibi.\u00bb\n\nIl introduisit Sherlock Holm\u00e8s dans la salle de billard qui \u00e9tait comble\nde mineurs, tous impatients de le voir arriver. Sherlock commanda les\nboissons, et la f\u00eate commen\u00e7a. Tout le monde \u00e9tait content et de bonne\nhumeur; la glace fut bient\u00f4t rompue. Chansons, anecdotes, boissons se\nsucc\u00e9d\u00e8rent (les minutes elles aussi se passaient).\n\nA une heure moins six la gaiet\u00e9 \u00e9tait \u00e0 son comble:\n\nBoum! un bruit d'explosion suivi d'une commotion.\n\nTous se turent instantan\u00e9ment. Un roulement sourd arrivait en grondant\ndu c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la colline; l'\u00e9cho se r\u00e9percuta dans les sinuosit\u00e9s de la\ngorge et vint mourir pr\u00e8s de la taverne. Les hommes se pr\u00e9cipit\u00e8rent \u00e0\nla porte, disant:\n\n--Quelque chose vient de sauter.\n\nAu dehors une voix criait dans l'obscurit\u00e9:\n\n--C'est en bas dans la gorge, j'ai vu la flamme.\n\nLa foule se porta de ce c\u00f4t\u00e9: tous, y compris Holm\u00e8s, Fetlock, Archy\nStillmann. Ils firent leur mille en quelques minutes. A la lumi\u00e8re d'une\nlanterne, ils reconnurent l'emplacement en terre battue o\u00f9 s'\u00e9levait la\nhutte de Flint Buckner; de la cabine elle-m\u00eame, il ne restait pas un\nvestige, pas un chiffon, pas un \u00e9clat de bois. Pas trace non plus de\nFlint. On le chercha tout autour; tout \u00e0 coup quelqu'un cria:\n\n--Le voil\u00e0!\n\nC'\u00e9tait vrai. A cinquante m\u00e8tres plus bas, ils l'avaient trouv\u00e9 ou\nplut\u00f4t ils avaient d\u00e9couvert une masse informe et inerte qui devait le\nrepr\u00e9senter. Fetlock Jones accourut avec les autres et regarda.\n\nL'enqu\u00eate fut l'affaire d'un quart d'heure. Ham Sandwich, chef des\njur\u00e9s, rendit le verdict, sous une forme plut\u00f4t primitive qui ne\nmanquait pas d'une certaine gr\u00e2ce litt\u00e9raire, et sa conclusion \u00e9tablit\nque le d\u00e9funt s'\u00e9tait donn\u00e9 la mort ou bien qu'il fallait l'attribuer \u00e0\nune ou plusieurs personnes inconnues du jury; il ne laissait derri\u00e8re\nlui ni famille, ni h\u00e9ritage; pour tout inventaire une hutte qui avait\nsaut\u00e9 en l'air. Que Dieu ait piti\u00e9 de lui! C'\u00e9tait le voeu de tous.\n\nApr\u00e8s cette courte oraison fun\u00e8bre, le jury s'empressa de rejoindre le\ngros de la foule o\u00f9 se trouvait l'attraction g\u00e9n\u00e9rale personnifi\u00e9e dans\nSherlock Holm\u00e8s. Les mineurs se tenaient en demi-cercle en observant un\nsilence respectueux; au centre de ce demi-cercle, se trouvait\nl'emplacement de la hutte maintenant d\u00e9truite. Dans cet espace vide\ns'agitait Holm\u00e8s, l'homme prodigieux, assist\u00e9 de son neveu qui portait\nune lanterne. Il prit avec un ruban d'arpentage les mesures des\nfondations de la hutte, releva la distance des ajoncs \u00e0 la route, la\nhauteur des buissons d'ajoncs et prit encore d'autres mesures.\n\nIl ramassa un chiffon d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9, un \u00e9clat de bois d'un autre, une pinc\u00e9e\nde terre par ici, les consid\u00e9ra attentivement et les mit de c\u00f4t\u00e9 avec\nsoin. Il d\u00e9termina la longitude du lieu au moyen d'une boussole de poche\nen \u00e9valuant \u00e0 deux secondes les variations magn\u00e9tiques. Il prit l'heure\ndu Pacifique \u00e0 sa montre et lui fit subir la correction de l'heure\nlocale. Il mesura \u00e0 grands pas la distance de l'emplacement de la hutte\nau cadavre en tenant compte de la diff\u00e9rence de la mar\u00e9e. Il nota\nl'altitude, la temp\u00e9rature avec un an\u00e9ro\u00efde et un thermom\u00e8tre de poche.\nEnfin, il d\u00e9clara magistralement en saluant de la t\u00eate:\n\n--C'est fini, vous pouvez rentrer, messieurs!\n\nIl prit la t\u00eate de la colonne pour regagner la taverne, suivi de la\nfoule qui commentait cet \u00e9v\u00e9nement et vouait \u00e0 l'\u00abhomme prodigieux\u00bb un\nvrai culte d'admiration, tout en cherchant \u00e0 deviner l'origine et\nl'auteur de ce drame.\n\n--Savez-vous, camarades, que nous pouvons nous estimer heureux d'avoir\nSherlock au milieu de nous? dit Ferguson.\n\n--C'est vrai, voil\u00e0 peut-\u00eatre le plus grand \u00e9v\u00e9nement du si\u00e8cle! reprit\nHam Sandwich. Il fera le tour du monde, souvenez-vous de ce que je vous\ndis.\n\n--Parions! dit Jake Parker le Forgeron, qu'il va donner un grand renom\nau camp. N'est-ce pas votre avis, Well-Fargo?\n\n--Eh bien, puisque vous voulez mon opinion l\u00e0-dessus je puis vous dire\nceci:\n\nHier, j'aurais vendu ma concession sans h\u00e9siter \u00e0 deux dollars le pied\ncarr\u00e9; aujourd'hui, je vous r\u00e9ponds que pas un d'entre vous ne la\nvendrait \u00e0 seize dollars.\n\n--Vous avez raison, Well-Fargo! Nous ne pouvions pas r\u00eaver un plus grand\nbonheur pour le camp. Dites donc, l'avez-vous vu collectionner ces\nchiffons, cette terre, et le reste? Quel oeil il a! Il ne laisse\n\u00e9chapper aucun d\u00e9tail; il veut tout voir, c'est plus fort que lui.\n\n--C'est vrai! Et ces d\u00e9tails qui paraissent des niaiseries au commun des\nmortels, repr\u00e9sentent pour lui un livre grand ouvert imprim\u00e9 en gros\ncaract\u00e8res. Soyez bien persuad\u00e9s que ces petits riens rec\u00e8lent de\nmyst\u00e9rieux secrets; ils ont beau croire que personne ne pourra les leur\narracher; quand Sherlock y met la main, il faut qu'ils parlent, qu'ils\nrendent gorge.\n\n--Camarades, je ne regrette plus qu'il ait manqu\u00e9 la partie de chasse \u00e0\nl'enfant; ce qui vient de se passer ici est beaucoup plus int\u00e9ressant et\nplus complexe; Sherlock va pouvoir \u00e9taler devant nous son art et sa\nscience dans toute leur splendeur.\n\nInutile de dire que nous sommes tous contents de la fa\u00e7on dont l'enqu\u00eate\na tourn\u00e9.\n\n--Contents! Par saint Georges! ce n'est pas assez dire!\n\nArchy aurait mieux fait de rester avec nous et de s'instruire en\nregardant comment Sherlock proc\u00e8de. Mais non, au lieu de cela, il a\nperdu son temps \u00e0 fourrager dans les buissons et il n'a rien vu du tout.\n\n--Je suis bien de ton avis, mais que veux-tu; Archy est jeune. Il aura\nplus d'exp\u00e9rience un peu plus tard.\n\n--Dites donc, camarades, qui, d'apr\u00e8s vous, a fait le coup?\n\nLa question \u00e9tait embarrassante; elle provoqua une s\u00e9rie de suppositions\nplus ou moins plausibles. On d\u00e9signa plusieurs individus consid\u00e9r\u00e9s\ncomme capables de commettre cet acte, mais ils furent \u00e9limin\u00e9s un \u00e0 un.\nPersonne, except\u00e9 le jeune Hillyer, n'avait v\u00e9cu dans l'intimit\u00e9 de\nFlint Buckner; personne ne s'\u00e9tait r\u00e9ellement pris de querelle avec lui;\nil avait bien eu des diff\u00e9rends avec ceux qui essayaient d'assouplir son\ncaract\u00e8re, mais il n'en \u00e9tait jamais venu \u00e0 des disputes pouvant amener\nune effusion de sang. Un nom br\u00fblait toutes les langues depuis le d\u00e9but\nde la conversation, mais on ne le pronon\u00e7a qu'en dernier ressort:\nc'\u00e9tait celui de Fetlock Jones. Pat Riley le mit en avant.\n\n--Ah! oui, dirent les camarades. Bien entendu nous avons tous pens\u00e9 \u00e0\nlui, car il avait un million de raisons pour tuer Flint Buckner;\nj'ajoute m\u00eame que c'\u00e9tait un devoir pour lui, mais tout bien consid\u00e9r\u00e9,\ndeux choses nous surprennent: d'abord, il ne devait pas h\u00e9riter du\nterrain; ensuite, il \u00e9tait \u00e9loign\u00e9 de l'endroit o\u00f9 s'est produite\nl'explosion.\n\n--Parfaitement, dit Pat. Il \u00e9tait dans la salle de billard avec nous au\nmoment de l'explosion. Et il y \u00e9tait m\u00eame une heure avant.\n\n--C'est heureux pour lui; sans cela on l'aurait imm\u00e9diatement soup\u00e7onn\u00e9.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nLes meubles de la salle \u00e0 manger de la taverne avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 enlev\u00e9s, \u00e0\nl'exception d'une longue table de sapin et d'une chaise. On avait\nrepouss\u00e9 la table dans un coin et pos\u00e9 la chaise par-dessus.\n\nSherlock Holm\u00e8s \u00e9tait assis sur cette chaise, l'air grave, imposant et\npresque impressionnant. Le public se tenait debout et remplissait la\nsalle. La fum\u00e9e du tabac obscurcissait l'air et l'assistance observait\nun silence religieux.\n\nSherlock Holm\u00e8s leva la main pour concentrer sur lui l'attention du\npublic et il la garda en l'air un moment; puis, en termes brefs,\nsaccad\u00e9s, il posa une s\u00e9rie de questions, soulignant les r\u00e9ponses de\n\u00abHums\u00bb significatifs et de hochements de t\u00eate; son interrogatoire fut\ntr\u00e8s minutieux et porta sur tout ce qui concernait Flint Buckner: son\ncaract\u00e8re, sa conduite, ses habitudes et l'opinion que les gens avaient\nde lui. Il comprit bien vite que son propre neveu \u00e9tait le seul dans le\ncamp qui e\u00fbt pu vouer \u00e0 Flint Buckner une haine mortelle. M. Holm\u00e8s\naccueillit ces t\u00e9moignages avec un sourire de piti\u00e9 et demanda sur un\nton indiff\u00e9rent:\n\n--Y a-t-il quelqu'un parmi vous, messieurs, qui puisse dire o\u00f9 se\ntrouvait votre camarade Fetlock Jones au moment de l'explosion?\n\nTous r\u00e9pondirent en choeur: \u00abIci m\u00eame.\u00bb\n\n--Depuis combien de temps y \u00e9tait-il? demanda M. Holm\u00e8s.\n\n--Depuis une heure environ.\n\n--Bon! une heure \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s? Quelle distance s\u00e9pare cet endroit du\nth\u00e9\u00e2tre de l'explosion?\n\n--Une bonne lieue.\n\n--Ceci est un alibi, il est vrai, mais m\u00e9diocre.\n\nUn immense \u00e9clat de rire accueillit cette r\u00e9flexion. Tous se mirent \u00e0\ncrier: ma parole, voil\u00e0 qui est raide! vous devez regretter maintenant,\nSandy, ce que vous venez de dire?\n\nLe t\u00e9moin confus baissa la t\u00eate en rougissant et parut constern\u00e9 du\nr\u00e9sultat de sa d\u00e9position.\n\n--La connexion quelque peu douteuse entre le nomm\u00e9 Jones et cette\naffaire (rires) ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 examin\u00e9e, reprit Holm\u00e8s, appelons maintenant\nles t\u00e9moins oculaires de la trag\u00e9die et interrogeons-les.\n\nIl exhiba ses fragments r\u00e9v\u00e9lateurs et les rangea sur une feuille de\ncarton \u00e9tal\u00e9e sur ses genoux. Toute la salle retenait sa respiration et\n\u00e9coutait.\n\n--Nous poss\u00e9dons la longitude et la latitude avec la correction des\nvariations magn\u00e9tiques et nous connaissons ainsi le lieu exact du drame.\nNous avons l'altitude, la temp\u00e9rature et l'\u00e9tat hygrom\u00e9trique du lieu;\nces renseignements sont pour nous des plus pr\u00e9cieux, puisqu'ils nous\npermettent d'estimer avec pr\u00e9cision le degr\u00e9 de l'influence que ces\nconditions sp\u00e9ciales ont pu exercer sur l'humeur et la disposition\nd'esprit de l'assassin \u00e0 cette heure de la nuit. (Brouhaha d'admiration,\nr\u00e9flexions chuchot\u00e9es. Par saint Georges, quelle profondeur d'esprit!)\n\nHolm\u00e8s saisit entre ses doigts les pi\u00e8ces \u00e0 conviction.\n\n--Et maintenant, demandons \u00e0 ces t\u00e9moins muets de nous dire ce qu'ils\nsavent:\n\nVoici un sac de toile vide. Que nous r\u00e9v\u00e8le-t-il? Que le mobile du\ncrime a \u00e9t\u00e9 le vol et non la vengeance. Qu'indique-t-il encore? Que\nl'assassin \u00e9tait d'une intelligence m\u00e9diocre ou, si vous pr\u00e9f\u00e9rez, d'un\nesprit l\u00e9ger et peu r\u00e9fl\u00e9chi? Comment le savons-nous? Parce qu'une\npersonne vraiment intelligente ne se serait pas amus\u00e9e \u00e0 voler Buckner,\nun homme qui n'avait jamais beaucoup d'argent sur lui. Mais l'assassin\naurait pu \u00eatre un \u00e9tranger? Laissez encore parler le sac. J'en retire\ncet objet: c'est un morceau de quartz argentif\u00e8re. C'est singulier.\nExaminez-le, je vous prie, chacun \u00e0 tour de r\u00f4le.\n\nMaintenant rendez-le-moi, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\n\nIl n'existe dans ce district qu'un seul filon qui produise du quartz\nexactement de cette esp\u00e8ce et de cette couleur. Ce filon rayonne sur une\nlongueur d'environ deux milles et il est destin\u00e9, d'apr\u00e8s ma conviction,\n\u00e0 conf\u00e9rer \u00e0 cet endroit dans un temps tr\u00e8s rapproch\u00e9 une c\u00e9l\u00e9brit\u00e9 qui\nfera le tour du monde; les deux cents propri\u00e9taires qui se partagent son\nexploitation acquerront des richesses qui surpassent tous les r\u00eaves de\nl'avarice. D\u00e9signez-moi ce filon par son nom, je vous prie.\n\n\u00abLa Science chr\u00e9tienne consolid\u00e9e et Mary-Ann!\u00bb lui r\u00e9pondit-on sans\nh\u00e9siter.\n\nUne salve fr\u00e9n\u00e9tique de hurrahs retentit aussit\u00f4t, chaque homme prit le\nfragment des mains de son voisin et le serra avec des larmes\nd'attendrissement dans les yeux; Well-Fargo et Ferguson s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent:\n\n--Le \u00abFlush\u00bb est sur le filon et la cote monte \u00e0 cent cinquante dollars\nle pied. Vous m'entendez!\n\nLorsque le calme fut revenu, Holm\u00e8s reprit:\n\n--Nous constatons donc que trois faits sont nettement \u00e9tablis, savoir:\nque l'assassin \u00e9tait d'un esprit l\u00e9ger, qu'il n'\u00e9tait pas \u00e9tranger; que\nson mobile \u00e9tait le vol et non la vengeance. Continuons. Je tiens dans\nma main un petit fragment de m\u00e8che qui conserve encore l'odeur r\u00e9cente\ndu feu. Que prouve-t-il? Si je rapproche ce fragment de m\u00e8che de\nl'\u00e9vidence du quartz, j'en conclus que l'assassin est un mineur. Je dis\nplus, Messieurs, j'affirme que l'assassinat a \u00e9t\u00e9 commis en recourant \u00e0\nl'explosion. Je crois pouvoir avancer que l'engin explosif a \u00e9t\u00e9 pos\u00e9\nsur le c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la hutte qui borde la route \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s au milieu, car je\nl'ai trouv\u00e9 \u00e0 six pieds de ce point.\n\nJe tiens dans mes doigts une allumette su\u00e9doise, de l'esp\u00e8ce de celles\nqu'on frotte sur les bo\u00eetes de s\u00fbret\u00e9. Je l'ai trouv\u00e9e sur la route, \u00e0\nsix cent vingt-deux pieds de la case d\u00e9truite; que prouve-t-elle? Que la\nm\u00e8che a \u00e9t\u00e9 allum\u00e9e \u00e0 ce m\u00eame endroit. J'ajoute que l'assassin \u00e9tait\ngaucher. Vous allez me demander \u00e0 quel signe je le vois. Il me serait\nimpossible de vous l'expliquer, Messieurs, car ces indices sont si\nsubtils, que seules une longue exp\u00e9rience et une \u00e9tude approfondie\npeuvent rendre capable de les percevoir. Mais, les preuves restent l\u00e0;\nelles sont encore renforc\u00e9es par un fait que vous avez d\u00fb remarquer\nsouvent dans les grands r\u00e9cits policiers, c'est que tous les assassins\nsont gauchers.\n\n--Ma parole, c'est vrai, dit Ham Sandwich en se frappant bruyamment la\ncuisse de sa lourde main; du diable si j'y avais pens\u00e9 avant.\n\n--Ni moi non plus, cri\u00e8rent les autres; rien ne peut d\u00e9cid\u00e9ment \u00e9chapper\n\u00e0 cet oeil d'aigle.\n\n--Messieurs, malgr\u00e9 la distance qui s\u00e9parait l'assassin de sa victime,\nle premier n'est pas demeur\u00e9 enti\u00e8rement sain et sauf. Ce d\u00e9bris de bois\nque je vous pr\u00e9sente maintenant a atteint l'assassin en l'\u00e9gratignant\njusqu'au sang. Il porte certainement sur son corps la marque r\u00e9v\u00e9latrice\nde l'\u00e9clat qu'il a re\u00e7u. Je l'ai ramass\u00e9 \u00e0 l'endroit o\u00f9 il devait se\ntenir lorsqu'il alluma la m\u00e8che fatale.\n\nIl regarda l'auditoire du haut de son si\u00e8ge \u00e9lev\u00e9, et son attitude\ns'assombrit imm\u00e9diatement: levant lentement la main, il d\u00e9signa du doigt\nun assistant en disant:\n\n--Voici l'assassin!\n\nA cette r\u00e9v\u00e9lation, l'assistance fut frapp\u00e9e de stupeur puis vingt voix\ns'\u00e9lev\u00e8rent criant \u00e0 la fois:\n\n--Sammy Hillyer? Ah! diable, non! Lui? C'est de la pure folie!\n\n--Faites attention, Messieurs, ne vous emportez pas! regardez: il porte\nau front la marque du sang!\n\nHillyer devint bl\u00eame de peur. Pr\u00eat \u00e0 \u00e9clater en sanglots, il se tourna\nvers l'assistance en cherchant sur chaque visage de l'aide et de la\nsympathie; il tendit ses mains suppliantes vers Holm\u00e8s, et implora sa\npiti\u00e9 disant:\n\n--De gr\u00e2ce, non, de gr\u00e2ce! ce n'est pas moi, je vous en donne ma parole\nd'honneur. Cette blessure que j'ai au front vient de...\n\n--Arr\u00eatez-le, agent de police, cria Holm\u00e8s. Je vous en donne l'ordre\nformel.\n\nL'agent s'avan\u00e7a \u00e0 contre-coeur, h\u00e9sita, et s'arr\u00eata.\n\nHillyer jeta un nouvel appel.\n\n--Oh! Archy, ne les laissez pas faire; ma m\u00e8re en mourrait! Vous savez\nd'o\u00f9 vient cette blessure. Dites-le-leur et sauvez-moi. Archy,\nsauvez-moi!\n\nStillmann per\u00e7a la foule et dit:\n\n--Oui, je vous sauverai. N'ayez pas peur.\n\nPuis s'adressant \u00e0 l'assembl\u00e9e:\n\n--N'attachez aucune importance \u00e0 cette cicatrice, qui n'a rien \u00e0 voir\navec l'affaire qui nous occupe.\n\n--Dieu vous b\u00e9nisse, Archy, mon cher ami!\n\n--Hurrah pour Archy, camarades! cria l'assembl\u00e9e.\n\nTous mouraient d'envie de voir innocenter leur compatriote Sammy; ce\nloyal sentiment \u00e9tait d'ailleurs tr\u00e8s excusable dans leur coeur.\n\nLe jeune Stillmann attendit que le calme se f\u00fbt r\u00e9tabli, puis il reprit:\n\n--Je prierai Tom Jeffries de se tenir \u00e0 cette porte et l'agent Harris\nde rester \u00e0 l'autre en face, ils ne laisseront sortir personne.\n\nAussit\u00f4t dit, aussit\u00f4t fait.\n\n--Le criminel est parmi nous, j'en suis persuad\u00e9. Je vous le prouverai\navant longtemps, si, comme je le crois, mes conjectures sont exactes.\nMaintenant, laissez-moi vous retracer le drame du commencement jusqu'\u00e0\nla fin:\n\nLe mobile n'\u00e9tait pas le vol, mais la vengeance, le meurtrier n'\u00e9tait\npas un esprit l\u00e9ger. Il ne se tenait pas \u00e9loign\u00e9 de six cent vingt-deux\npieds. Il n'a pas \u00e9t\u00e9 atteint par un \u00e9clat de bois. Il n'a pas pos\u00e9\nl'explosif contre la case. Il n'a pas apport\u00e9 un sac avec lui. J'affirme\nm\u00eame qu'il n'est pas gaucher. A part cela, le rapport de notre h\u00f4te\ndistingu\u00e9 sur cette affaire est parfaitement exact.\n\nUn rire de satisfaction courut dans l'assembl\u00e9e; chacun se faisait signe\nde la t\u00eate et semblait dire \u00e0 son voisin: \u00abVoil\u00e0 le fin mot de\nl'histoire: Archy Stillmann est un brave gar\u00e7on, un bon camarade! Il n'a\npas baiss\u00e9 pavillon devant Sherlock Holm\u00e8s.\u00bb La s\u00e9r\u00e9nit\u00e9 de ce dernier\nne paraissait nullement troubl\u00e9e. Stillmann continua:\n\n--Moi aussi, j'ai des t\u00e9moins oculaires et je vous dirai tout \u00e0 l'heure\no\u00f9 vous pouvez en trouver d'autres.\n\nIl exhiba un morceau de gros fil de fer. La foule tendit le cou pour\nvoir.\n\n--Il est recouvert d'une couche de suif fondu. Et voici une bougie qui\nest br\u00fbl\u00e9e jusqu'\u00e0 moiti\u00e9. L'autre moiti\u00e9 porte des traces d'incision\nsur une longueur de trois centim\u00e8tres. Dans un instant, je vous dirai o\u00f9\nj'ai trouv\u00e9 ces objets. Pour le moment, je laisserai de c\u00f4t\u00e9 les\nraisonnements, les arguments, les conjectures plus ou moins\nenchev\u00eatr\u00e9es, en un mot toute la mise en sc\u00e8ne qui constitue le bagage\ndu \u00abd\u00e9tective\u00bb, et je vous dirai, dans des termes tr\u00e8s simples et sans\nd\u00e9tours, comment ce lamentable \u00e9v\u00e9nement est arriv\u00e9.\n\nIl s'arr\u00eata un moment pour juger de l'effet produit et pour permettre \u00e0\nl'assistance de concentrer sur lui toute son attention.\n\n--L'assassin, reprit-il, a eu beaucoup de peine \u00e0 arr\u00eater son plan, qui\n\u00e9tait d'ailleurs bien compris et tr\u00e8s ing\u00e9nieux; il d\u00e9note une\nintelligence v\u00e9ritable et pas du tout un esprit faible. C'est un plan\nparfaitement combin\u00e9 pour \u00e9carter tout soup\u00e7on de son auteur. Il a\ncommenc\u00e9 par marquer des points de rep\u00e8re sur une bougie de trois en\ntrois centim\u00e8tres, il l'a allum\u00e9e en notant le temps qu'elle mettait \u00e0\nbr\u00fbler. Il trouva ainsi qu'il fallait trois heures pour en br\u00fbler douze\ncentim\u00e8tres. Je l'ai moi-m\u00eame exp\u00e9riment\u00e9 l\u00e0-haut pendant une\ndemi-heure, il y a un moment de cela, pendant que M. Holm\u00e8s proc\u00e9dait \u00e0\nl'enqu\u00eate sur le caract\u00e8re et les habitudes de Flint Buckner. J'ai donc\npu relever le temps qu'il faut \u00e0 une bougie pour se consumer lorsqu'elle\nest prot\u00e9g\u00e9e du vent. Apr\u00e8s son exp\u00e9rience, l'assassin a \u00e9teint la\nbougie, je crois vous l'avoir d\u00e9j\u00e0 dit, et il en a pr\u00e9par\u00e9 une autre.\n\nIl fixa cette derni\u00e8re dans un bougeoir de fer-blanc. Puis, \u00e0 la\ndivision correspondante \u00e0 la cinqui\u00e8me heure, il per\u00e7a un trou avec un\nfil de fer rougi. Je vous ai d\u00e9j\u00e0 montr\u00e9 ce fil de fer recouvert d'une\nmince couche de suif; ce suif provient de la fusion de la bougie.\n\nAvec peine, grande peine m\u00eame, il grimpa \u00e0 travers les ajoncs qui\ncouvrent le talus escarp\u00e9 situ\u00e9 derri\u00e8re la maison de Flint Buckner; il\ntra\u00eenait derri\u00e8re lui un baril vide qui avait contenu de la farine. Il\nle cacha \u00e0 cet endroit parfaitement s\u00fbr et pla\u00e7a le bougeoir \u00e0\nl'int\u00e9rieur. Puis il mesura environ trente-cinq pieds de m\u00e8che,\nrepr\u00e9sentant la distance du baril \u00e0 la case. Il pratiqua un trou sur le\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 du baril, et voici m\u00eame la grosse vrille dont il s'est servi pour\ncela. Il termina sa pr\u00e9paration macabre, et quand tout fut achev\u00e9, un\nbout de la m\u00e8che aboutissait \u00e0 la case de Buckner, l'autre extr\u00e9mit\u00e9,\nqui portait une cavit\u00e9 destin\u00e9e \u00e0 recevoir de la poudre, \u00e9tait plac\u00e9e\ndans le trou de la bougie; la position de ce trou \u00e9tait calcul\u00e9e de\nmani\u00e8re \u00e0 faire sauter la hutte \u00e0 une heure du matin, en admettant que\ncette bougie ait \u00e9t\u00e9 allum\u00e9e vers huit heures hier soir et qu'un\nexplosif reli\u00e9 \u00e0 cette extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de la m\u00e8che ait \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9pos\u00e9 dans la\ncase. Bien que je ne puisse le prouver, je parie que ce dispositif a \u00e9t\u00e9\nadopt\u00e9 \u00e0 la lettre.\n\nCamarades, le baril est l\u00e0 dans les ajoncs, le reste de la bougie a \u00e9t\u00e9\nretrouv\u00e9 dans le bougeoir de fer-blanc; la m\u00e8che br\u00fbl\u00e9e, nous l'avons\nreconnue dans le trou perc\u00e9 \u00e0 la vrille; l'autre bout est \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9\nde la c\u00f4te, \u00e0 l'emplacement de la case d\u00e9truite. J'ai retrouv\u00e9 tous ces\nobjets, il y a une heure \u00e0 peine pendant que ma\u00eetre Sherlock Holm\u00e8s se\nlivrait \u00e0 des calculs plus ou moins fantaisistes et collectionnait des\nreliques qui n'avaient rien \u00e0 voir avec l'affaire.\n\nIl s'arr\u00eata. L'auditoire en profita pour reprendre haleine, et d\u00e9tendre\nses nerfs fatigu\u00e9s par une attention soutenue.\n\n--Du diable, dit Ham Sandwich, en \u00e9clatant de rire, voil\u00e0 pourquoi il\ns'est promen\u00e9 seul de son c\u00f4t\u00e9 dans les ajoncs, au lieu de relever des\npoints et des temp\u00e9ratures avec le professeur. Voyez-vous, camarades,\nArchy n'est pas un imb\u00e9cile.\n\n--Ah! non, certes...\n\nMais Stillmann continua:\n\n--Pendant que nous \u00e9tions l\u00e0-bas, il y a une heure ou deux, le\npropri\u00e9taire de la vrille et de la bougie d'essai les enleva de\nl'endroit o\u00f9 il les avait d'abord plac\u00e9es, la premi\u00e8re cachette n'\u00e9tant\npas bonne; il les d\u00e9posa \u00e0 un autre endroit qui lui paraissait meilleur,\n\u00e0 deux cents m\u00e8tres dans le bois de pins, et les cacha en les recouvrant\nd'aiguilles. C'est l\u00e0 que je les ai trouv\u00e9es. La vrille est juste de la\nmesure du trou du baril. Quant \u00e0 la...\n\nHolm\u00e8s l'interrompit, disant avec une certaine ironie:\n\n--Nous venons d'entendre un tr\u00e8s joli conte de f\u00e9es, messieurs, certes\ntr\u00e8s joli, seulement je voudrais poser une ou deux questions \u00e0 ce jeune\nhomme.\n\nL'assistance parut impressionn\u00e9e.\n\nFerguson marmotta:\n\n--J'ai peur qu'Archy ne trouve son ma\u00eetre cette fois.\n\nLes autres ne riaient plus, et paraissaient anxieux. Holm\u00e8s prit donc la\nparole \u00e0 son tour:\n\n--P\u00e9n\u00e9trons dans ce conte de f\u00e9es d'un pas s\u00fbr et m\u00e9thodique, par\nprogression g\u00e9om\u00e9trique, si je puis m'exprimer ainsi; encha\u00eenons les\nd\u00e9tails et montons \u00e0 l'assaut de cette citadelle d'erreur (pauvre joujou\nde clinquant) en soutenant une allure ferme, vive et r\u00e9solue. Nous ne\nrencontrons devant nous que l'\u00e9lucubration fantasque d'une imagination \u00e0\npeine \u00e9close. Pour commencer, jeune homme, je d\u00e9sire ne vous poser que\ntrois questions.\n\nSi j'ai bien compris, d'apr\u00e8s vous, cette bougie aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 allum\u00e9e hier\nsoir vers huit heures?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, vers huit heures!\n\n--Pouvez-vous dire huit heures pr\u00e9cises?\n\n--\u00c7a non! je ne saurais \u00eatre aussi affirmatif.\n\n--Hum! Donc, si une personne avait pass\u00e9 par l\u00e0 juste \u00e0 huit heures,\nelle aurait infailliblement rencontr\u00e9 l'assassin. C'est votre avis?\n\n--Oui, je le suppose.\n\n--Merci, c'est tout. Pour le moment cela me suffit; oui, c'est tout ce\nque je vous demande pour le quart d'heure.\n\n--Diantre! il tape ferme sur Archy, remarqua Ferguson.\n\n--C'est vrai, dit Ham Sandwich. Cette discussion ne me promet rien qui\nvaille.\n\nStillmann reprit, en regardant Holm\u00e8s:\n\n--J'\u00e9tais moi-m\u00eame par l\u00e0 \u00e0 huit heures et demie, ou plut\u00f4t vers neuf\nheures.\n\n--Vraiment? Ceci est int\u00e9ressant, tr\u00e8s int\u00e9ressant. Peut-\u00eatre avez-vous\nrencontr\u00e9 vous-m\u00eame l'assassin?\n\n--Non, je n'ai rencontr\u00e9 personne.\n\n--Ah! alors, pardonnez-moi cette remarque, je ne vois pas bien la valeur\nde votre renseignement.\n\n--Il n'en a aucune \u00e0 pr\u00e9sent. Je dis, notez-le bien, pour le moment.\n\nStillmann continua:\n\n--Je n'ai pas rencontr\u00e9 l'assassin, mais je suis sur ses traces, j'en\nr\u00e9ponds; je le crois m\u00eame dans cette pi\u00e8ce. Je vous prierai tous de\npasser individuellement devant moi, ici, \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re pour que je puisse\nvoir vos pieds.\n\nUn murmure d'agitation parcourut la salle et le d\u00e9fil\u00e9 commen\u00e7a.\n\nSherlock regardait avec la volont\u00e9 bien arr\u00eat\u00e9e de conserver son\ns\u00e9rieux. Stillmann se baissa, couvrit son front avec sa main et examina\nattentivement chaque paire de pieds qui passaient. Cinquante hommes\nd\u00e9fil\u00e8rent lentement sans r\u00e9sultat. Soixante, soixante-dix. La c\u00e9r\u00e9monie\ncommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 devenir ridicule et Holm\u00e8s remarqua avec une douce ironie:\n\n--Les assassins se font rares, ce soir.\n\nLa salle comprit le piquant et \u00e9clata d'un bon rire franc. Dix ou douze\nautres candidats pass\u00e8rent ou plut\u00f4t d\u00e9fil\u00e8rent en dansant des\nentrechats comiques qui excit\u00e8rent l'hilarit\u00e9 des spectateurs.\n\nSoudain, Stillmann allongea le bras et cria:\n\n--Voici l'assassin!\n\n--Fetlock Jones! par le grand Sanh\u00e9drin! hurla la foule en accompagnant\ncette explosion d'\u00e9tonnement de remarques et de cris confus qui\nd\u00e9notaient bien l'\u00e9tat d'\u00e2me de l'auditoire.\n\nAu plus fort du tumulte, Holm\u00e8s \u00e9tendit le bras pour imposer silence.\nL'autorit\u00e9 de son grand nom et le prestige de sa personnalit\u00e9\n\u00e9lectris\u00e8rent les assistants qui ob\u00e9irent imm\u00e9diatement. Et au milieu du\nsilence complet qui suivit, ma\u00eetre Sherlock prit la parole, disant avec\ncomponction:\n\n--Ceci est trop grave! Il y va de la vie d'un innocent, d'un homme dont\nla conduite d\u00e9fie tout soup\u00e7on. \u00c9coutez-moi, je vais vous en donner la\npreuve palpable et r\u00e9duire au silence cette accusation aussi mensong\u00e8re\nque coupable. Mes amis, ce gar\u00e7on ne m'a pas quitt\u00e9 d'une semelle\npendant toute la soir\u00e9e d'hier.\n\nCes paroles firent une profonde impression sur l'auditoire; tous\ntourn\u00e8rent les yeux vers Stillmann avec des regards inquisiteurs.\n\nLui, l'air rayonnant, se contenta de r\u00e9pondre:\n\n--Je savais bien qu'il y avait un autre assassin!!!\n\nEt ce disant, il s'approcha vivement de la table et examina les pieds\nd'Holm\u00e8s; puis, le regardant bien dans les yeux, il lui dit:\n\n--Vous \u00e9tiez avec lui! Vous vous teniez \u00e0 peine \u00e0 cinquante pas de lui\nlorsqu'il alluma la bougie qui mit le feu \u00e0 la m\u00e8che (sensation). Et,\nqui plus est, c'est vous-m\u00eame qui avez fourni les allumettes!\n\nCette r\u00e9v\u00e9lation stup\u00e9fia Holm\u00e8s; le public put s'en apercevoir, car\nlorsqu'il ouvrit la bouche pour parler, ces mots entrecoup\u00e9s purent \u00e0\npeine sortir:\n\n--Ceci... ha!... Mais c'est de la folie... C'est...\n\nStillmann sentit qu'il gagnait du terrain et prit confiance. Il montra\nune allumette carbonis\u00e9e.\n\n--En voici une, je l'ai trouv\u00e9e dans le baril, tenez, en voici une\nautre!\n\nHolm\u00e8s retrouva imm\u00e9diatement l'usage de la parole.\n\n--Oui! Vous les avez mises l\u00e0 vous-m\u00eame!\n\nLa riposte \u00e9tait bien trouv\u00e9e, chacun le reconnut, mais Stillmann\nreprit:\n\n--Ce sont des allumettes de cire, un article inconnu dans ce camp. Je\nsuis pr\u00eat \u00e0 me laisser fouiller pour qu'on cherche \u00e0 d\u00e9couvrir la bo\u00eete\nsur moi. \u00cates-vous pr\u00eat, vous aussi?\n\nL'h\u00f4te restait stup\u00e9fait. C'\u00e9tait visible aux yeux de tous. Il remua les\ndoigts; une ou deux fois, ses l\u00e8vres s'entr'ouvrirent, mais les paroles\nne venaient pas. L'assembl\u00e9e n'en pouvait plus et voulait \u00e0 tout prix\nvoir le d\u00e9nouement de cette situation. Stillmann demanda simplement:\n\n--Nous attendons votre d\u00e9cision, monsieur Holm\u00e8s.\n\nApr\u00e8s un silence de quelques instants, l'h\u00f4te r\u00e9pondit \u00e0 voix basse:\n\n--Je d\u00e9fends qu'on me fouille.\n\nIl n'y eut aucune d\u00e9monstration bruyante, mais dans la salle chacun dit\n\u00e0 son voisin:\n\n--Cette fois, la question est tranch\u00e9e! Holm\u00e8s n'en m\u00e8ne plus large\ndevant Archy.\n\nQue faire, maintenant? Personne ne semblait le savoir. La situation\ndevenait embarrassante, car les \u00e9v\u00e9nements avaient pris une tournure si\ninattendue et si subite que les esprits s'\u00e9taient laiss\u00e9 surprendre et\nbattaient la breloque comme une pendule qui a re\u00e7u un choc. Mais, peu \u00e0\npeu, le m\u00e9canisme se r\u00e9tablit et les conversations reprirent leurs\ncours; formant des groupes de deux \u00e0 trois, les hommes se r\u00e9unirent et\nessay\u00e8rent d'\u00e9mettre leur avis sous forme de propositions. La majorit\u00e9\n\u00e9tait d'avis d'adresser \u00e0 l'assassin un vote de remerciements pour avoir\nd\u00e9barrass\u00e9 la communaut\u00e9 de Flint Buckner: cette action m\u00e9ritait bien\nqu'on le laiss\u00e2t en libert\u00e9. Mais les gens plus r\u00e9fl\u00e9chis protest\u00e8rent,\nall\u00e9guant que les cervelles mal \u00e9quilibr\u00e9es des \u00c9tats de l'Est\ncrieraient au scandale et feraient un tapage \u00e9pouvantable si on\nacquittait l'assassin.\n\nCette derni\u00e8re consid\u00e9ration l'emporta donc et obtint l'approbation\ng\u00e9n\u00e9rale.\n\nIl fut d\u00e9cid\u00e9 que Fetlock Jones serait arr\u00eat\u00e9 et passerait en jugement.\n\nLa question semblait donc tranch\u00e9e et les discussions n'avaient plus\nleur raison d'\u00eatre maintenant. Au fond, les gens en \u00e9taient enchant\u00e9s,\ncar tous dans leur for int\u00e9rieur avaient envie de sortir et de se\ntransporter sur les lieux du drame pour voir si le baril et les autres\nobjets y \u00e9taient r\u00e9ellement. Mais un incident impr\u00e9vu prolongea la\ns\u00e9ance et amena de nouvelles surprises.\n\nFetlock Jones, qui avait pleur\u00e9 silencieusement, passant presque\ninaper\u00e7u au milieu de l'excitation g\u00e9n\u00e9rale et des sc\u00e8nes \u00e9mouvantes qui\nse succ\u00e9daient depuis un moment, sortit de sa torpeur lorsqu'il entendit\nparler de son arrestation et de sa mise en jugement; son d\u00e9sespoir\n\u00e9clata et il s'\u00e9cria:\n\n--Non! ce n'est pas la peine! Je n'ai pas besoin de prison ni de\njugement. Mon ch\u00e2timent est assez dur \u00e0 l'heure qu'il est; n'ajoutez\nrien \u00e0 mon malheur, \u00e0 mes souffrances. Pendez-moi et que ce soit fini!\nMon crime devait \u00eatre d\u00e9couvert, c'\u00e9tait fatal; rien ne peut me sauver\nmaintenant. Il vous a tout racont\u00e9, absolument comme s'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 avec\nmoi, et m'avait vu. Comment le sait-il? c'est pour moi un prodige, mais\nvous trouverez le baril et les autres objets. Le sort en est jet\u00e9: je\nn'ai plus une chance de salut! Je l'ai tu\u00e9; et vous en auriez fait\nautant \u00e0 ma place, si, comme moi, vous aviez \u00e9t\u00e9 trait\u00e9 comme un chien;\nn'oubliez pas que j'\u00e9tais un pauvre gar\u00e7on faible, sans d\u00e9fense, sans un\nami pour me secourir.\n\n--Et il l'a bigrement m\u00e9rit\u00e9, s'\u00e9cria Ham Sandwich.\n\n_Des voix_.--\u00c9coutez camarades!\n\n_L'agent de police_.--De l'ordre, de l'ordre, Messieurs.\n\n_Une voix_.--Votre oncle savait-il ce que vous faisiez?\n\n--Non, il n'en savait rien.\n\n--\u00cates-vous certain qu'il vous ait donn\u00e9 les allumettes?\n\n--Oui, mais il ne savait pas l'usage que j'en voulais faire.\n\n--Lorsque vous \u00e9tiez occup\u00e9 \u00e0 pr\u00e9parer votre coup, comment avez-vous pu\noser l'emmener avec vous, lui, un d\u00e9tective? C'est inexplicable!\n\nLe jeune homme h\u00e9sita, tripota les boutons de sa veste d'un air\nembarrass\u00e9 et r\u00e9pondit timidement:\n\n--Je connais les d\u00e9tectives, car j'en ai dans ma famille, et je sais que\nle moyen le plus s\u00fbr de leur cacher un mauvais coup, c'est de les avoir\navec soi au moment psychologique.\n\nL'explosion de rires qui accueillit ce na\u00eff aveu ne fit qu'augmenter\nl'embarras du pauvre petit accus\u00e9.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nFetlock Jones a \u00e9t\u00e9 mis sous les verrous dans une cabane inoccup\u00e9e pour\nattendre son jugement. L'agent Harris lui a donn\u00e9 sa ration pour deux\njours, en lui recommandant de ne pas faire fi de cette nourriture; il\nlui a promis de revenir bient\u00f4t pour renouveler ses provisions.\n\nLe lendemain matin, nous part\u00eemes quelques-uns avec notre ami Hillyer,\npour l'aider \u00e0 enterrer son parent d\u00e9funt et peu regrett\u00e9, Flint\nBuckner; je remplissais les fonctions de premier assistant et tenais les\ncordons du po\u00eale; Hillyer conduisait le cort\u00e8ge. Au moment o\u00f9 nous\nfinissions notre triste besogne, un \u00e9tranger loqueteux, \u00e0 l'air\nnonchalant, passa devant nous; il portait un vieux sac \u00e0 main, marchait\nla t\u00eate basse et boitait. Au m\u00eame instant, je sentis nettement l'odeur \u00e0\nla recherche de laquelle j'avais parcouru la moiti\u00e9 du globe. Pour mon\nespoir d\u00e9faillant, c'\u00e9tait un parfum paradisiaque.\n\nEn une seconde, je fus pr\u00e8s de lui, et posai ma main doucement sur son\n\u00e9paule. Il s'affala par terre comme si la foudre venait de le frapper\nsur son chemin. Quand mes compagnons arriv\u00e8rent en courant, il fit de\ngrands efforts pour se mettre \u00e0 genoux, leva vers moi ses mains\nsuppliantes, et de ses l\u00e8vres tremblotantes me demanda de ne plus le\npers\u00e9cuter.\n\n--Vous m'avez pourchass\u00e9 dans tout l'univers, Sherlock Holm\u00e8s, et\ncependant Dieu m'est t\u00e9moin que je n'ai jamais fait de mal \u00e0 personne!\n\nEn regardant ses yeux hagards, il \u00e9tait facile de voir qu'il \u00e9tait fou.\nVoil\u00e0 mon oeuvre, ma m\u00e8re! La nouvelle de votre mort pourra seule un\njour renouveler la tristesse que j'\u00e9prouvai \u00e0 ce moment; ce sera ma\nseconde \u00e9motion.\n\nLes jeunes gens relev\u00e8rent le vieillard, l'entour\u00e8rent de soins et\nfurent pleins de pr\u00e9venance pour lui; ils lui prodigu\u00e8rent les mots les\nplus touchants et cherch\u00e8rent \u00e0 le consoler en lui disant de ne plus\navoir peur, qu'il \u00e9tait maintenant au milieu d'amis, qu'ils le\nsoigneraient, le prot\u00e9geraient et pendraient le premier qui porterait\nla main sur lui. Ils sont comme les autres hommes, ces rudes mineurs,\nquand on ranime la chaleur de leur coeur; on pourrait les croire des\nenfants insouciants et irr\u00e9fl\u00e9chis jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 quelqu'un fait\nvibrer les fibres de leur coeur. Ils essay\u00e8rent de tous les moyens pour\nle r\u00e9conforter, mais tout \u00e9choua jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 l'habile strat\u00e9giste\nqu'est Well-Fargo prit la parole et dit:\n\n--Si c'est uniquement Sherlock Holm\u00e8s qui vous inqui\u00e8te, inutile de vous\nmettre martel en t\u00eate plus longtemps.\n\n--Pourquoi? demanda vivement le malheureux fou.\n\n--Parce qu'il est mort!\n\n--Mort! mort! Oh! ne plaisantez pas avec un pauvre naufrag\u00e9 comme moi!\nEst-il mort? Sur votre honneur, jeunes gens, me dit-il la v\u00e9rit\u00e9?\n\n--Aussi vrai que vous \u00eates l\u00e0! dit Ham Sandwich, et ils soutinrent\nl'affirmation de leur camarade, comme un seul homme.\n\n--Ils l'ont pendu \u00e0 San Bernardino la semaine derni\u00e8re, ajouta\nFerguson, tandis qu'il \u00e9tait \u00e0 votre recherche. Ils se sont tromp\u00e9s et\nl'ont pris pour un autre. Ils le regrettent, mais n'y peuvent plus rien.\n\n--Ils lui \u00e9l\u00e8vent un monument, continua Ham Sandwich de l'air de\nquelqu'un qui a vers\u00e9 sa cotisation et est bien renseign\u00e9.\n\nJames Walker poussa un grand soupir, \u00e9videmment un soupir de\nsoulagement; il ne dit rien, mais ses yeux perdirent leur expression\nd'effroi; son attitude sembla plus calme et ses traits se d\u00e9tendirent un\npeu. Nous regagn\u00e2mes tous nos cases et les jeunes gens lui pr\u00e9par\u00e8rent\nle meilleur repas que pouvaient fournir nos provisions; pendant qu'ils\ncuisinaient, nous l'habill\u00e2mes des pieds \u00e0 la t\u00eate, Hillyer et moi; nos\nv\u00eatements neufs lui donnaient un air de petit vieux bien tenu et\nrespectable. \u00abVieux\u00bb est bien le mot, car il le paraissait avec son\naffaissement, la blancheur de ses cheveux, et les ravages que les\nchagrins avaient faits sur son visage; et, pourtant, il \u00e9tait dans la\nforce de l'\u00e2ge. Pendant qu'il mangeait, nous fumions et causions;\nlorsqu'il eut fini, il retrouva enfin l'usage de la parole et, de son\nplein gr\u00e9, nous raconta son histoire. Je ne pr\u00e9tends pas reproduire ses\npropres termes, mais je m'en rapprocherai le plus possible dans mon\nr\u00e9cit:\n\nHISTOIRE D'UN INNOCENT\n\n\u00abVoici ce qui m'arriva:\n\n\u00abJ'\u00e9tais \u00e0 Denver, o\u00f9 je vivais depuis de longues ann\u00e9es: quelquefois,\nje retrouve le nombre de ces ann\u00e9es, d'autres fois, je l'oublie, mais\npeu m'importe. Seulement, on me signifia d'avoir \u00e0 partir, sous peine\nd'\u00eatre accus\u00e9 d'un horrible crime commis il y a bien longtemps, dans\nl'Est. Je connaissais ce crime, mais je ne l'avais pas commis; le\ncoupable \u00e9tait un de mes cousins, qui portait le m\u00eame nom que moi.\n\n\u00abQue faire? Je perdais la t\u00eate, ne savais plus que devenir. On ne me\ndonnait que tr\u00e8s peu de temps, vingt-quatre heures, je crois. J'\u00e9tais\nperdu si mon nom venait \u00e0 \u00eatre connu. La population m'aurait lynch\u00e9 sans\nadmettre d'explications. C'est toujours ce qui arrive avec les\nlynchages; lorsqu'on d\u00e9couvre qu'on s'est tromp\u00e9 on se d\u00e9sole, mais il\nest trop tard... (vous voyez que la m\u00eame chose est arriv\u00e9e pour M.\nHolm\u00e8s). Alors, je r\u00e9solus de tout vendre, de faire argent de tout, et\nde fuir jusqu'\u00e0 ce que l'orage f\u00fbt pass\u00e9; plus tard, je reviendrais avec\nla preuve de mon innocence. Je partis donc de nuit, et me sauvai bien\nloin, dans la montagne, o\u00f9 je v\u00e9cus, d\u00e9guis\u00e9 sous un faux nom.\n\n\u00abJe devins de plus en plus inquiet et anxieux; dans mon trouble je\nvoyais des esprits, j'entendais des voix et il me devenait impossible de\nraisonner sainement sur le moindre sujet; mes id\u00e9es s'obscurcirent\ntellement que je dus renoncer \u00e0 penser, tant je souffrais de la t\u00eate.\nCet \u00e9tat ne fit qu'empirer. Toujours des voix, toujours des esprits\nm'entouraient. Au d\u00e9but, ils ne me poursuivaient que la nuit, bient\u00f4t ce\nfut aussi le jour. Ils murmuraient \u00e0 mon oreille autour de mon lit et\ncomplotaient contre moi; je ne pouvais plus dormir et me sentais bris\u00e9\nde fatigue.\n\n\u00abUne nuit, les voix me dirent \u00e0 mon oreille: \u00abJamais nous n'arriverons \u00e0\nnotre but parce que nous ne pouvons ni l'apercevoir, ni par cons\u00e9quent\nle d\u00e9signer au public.\u00bb\n\n\u00abElles soupir\u00e8rent, puis l'une dit: \u00abIl faut que nous amenions Sherlock\nHolm\u00e8s; il peut \u00eatre ici dans douze jours.\u00bb Elles approuv\u00e8rent,\nchuchot\u00e8rent entre elles et gambad\u00e8rent de joie.\n\n\u00abMon coeur battait \u00e0 se rompre; car j'avais lu bien des r\u00e9cits sur\nHolm\u00e8s et je pressentais quelle chasse allait me donner cet homme avec\nsa t\u00e9nacit\u00e9 surhumaine et son activit\u00e9 infatigable.\n\n\u00abLes esprits partirent le chercher; je me levai au milieu de la nuit et\nm'enfuis, n'emportant que le sac \u00e0 main qui contenait mon argent: trente\nmille dollars. Les deux tiers sont encore dans ce sac. Il fallut\nquarante jours \u00e0 ce d\u00e9mon pour retrouver ma trace. Je lui \u00e9chappai. Par\nhabitude, il avait d'abord inscrit son vrai nom sur le registre de\nl'h\u00f4tel, puis il l'avait effac\u00e9 pour mettre \u00e0 la place celui de \u00abDagget\nBarclay\u00bb. Mais la peur vous rend perspicace. Ayant lu le vrai nom,\nmalgr\u00e9 les ratures, je filai comme un cerf.\n\n\u00abDepuis trois ans et demi, il me poursuit dans les \u00c9tats du Pacifique,\nen Australie et aux Indes, dans tous les pays imaginables, de Mexico \u00e0\nla Californie, me donnant \u00e0 peine le temps de me reposer; heureusement,\nle nom des registres m'a toujours guid\u00e9, et j'ai pu sauver ma pauvre\npersonne!\n\n\u00abJe suis mort de fatigue! Il m'a fait passer un temps bien cruel, et\npourtant, je vous le jure, je n'ai jamais fait de mal ni \u00e0 lui, ni \u00e0\naucun des siens.\u00bb\n\nAinsi se termina le r\u00e9cit de cette lamentable histoire qui bouleversa\ntous les jeunes gens; quant \u00e0 moi, chacune de ces paroles me br\u00fbla le\ncoeur comme un fer rouge. Nous d\u00e9cid\u00e2mes d'adopter le vieillard, qui\ndeviendrait mon h\u00f4te et celui d'Hyllyer. Ma r\u00e9solution est bien arr\u00eat\u00e9e\nmaintenant; je l'installerai \u00e0 Denver et le r\u00e9habiliterai.\n\nMes camarades lui donn\u00e8rent la vigoureuse poign\u00e9e de main de bienvenue\ndes mineurs et se dispers\u00e8rent pour r\u00e9pandre la nouvelle.\n\nA l'aube, le lendemain matin, Well-Fargo, Ferguson et Ham Sandwich nous\nappel\u00e8rent \u00e0 voix basse et nous dirent confidentiellement:\n\n--La nouvelle des mauvais traitements endur\u00e9s par cet \u00e9tranger s'est\nr\u00e9pandue aux alentours et tous les camps des mineurs se soul\u00e8vent. Ils\narrivent en masse de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, et vont lyncher le professeur. L'agent\nHarry a une frousse formidable et a t\u00e9l\u00e9phon\u00e9 au sh\u00e9riff.\n\n--Allons, venez!\n\nNous part\u00eemes en courant. Les autres avaient le droit d'interpr\u00e9ter\ncette aventure \u00e0 leur fa\u00e7on. Mais dans mon for int\u00e9rieur, je souhaitais\nvivement que le sh\u00e9riff p\u00fbt arriver \u00e0 temps, car je n'avais nulle envie\nd'assister de sang-froid \u00e0 la pendaison de Sherlock Holm\u00e8s. J'avais\nentendu beaucoup parler du sh\u00e9riff, mais j'\u00e9prouvai quand m\u00eame le besoin\nde demander: \u00abEst-il vraiment capable de contenir la foule?\u00bb\n\n--Contenir la foule! lui, Jack Fairfak, contenir la foule! Mais vous\nplaisantez! Vous oubliez que cet \u00e9nergum\u00e8ne a dix-neuf scalps \u00e0 son\nacquit, oui! dix-neuf scalps!\n\nEn approchant nous entend\u00eemes nettement des cris, des g\u00e9missements, des\nhurlements qui s'accentu\u00e8rent \u00e0 mesure que nous avancions; ces cris\ndevinrent de plus en plus forts, et lorsque nous atteign\u00eemes la foule\nmass\u00e9e sur la place devant la taverne, le bruit nous assourdit\ncompl\u00e8tement.\n\nPlusieurs gaillards de \u00abDalys Gorge\u00bb s'\u00e9taient brutalement saisis de\nHolm\u00e8s, qui pourtant affectait un calme imperturbable.\n\nUn sourire de m\u00e9pris se dessinait sur ses l\u00e8vres et, en admettant que\nson coeur de Breton ait pu un instant conna\u00eetre la peur de la mort, son\n\u00e9nergie de fer avait vite repris le dessus et ma\u00eetrisait tout autre\nsentiment.\n\n--Venez vite voter, vous autres! cria Shadbelly Higgins, un compagnon de\nla bande Daly: vous avez le choix entre pendu ou fusill\u00e9!\n\n--Ni l'un ni l'autre! hurla un de ses camarades. Il ressusciterait la\nsemaine prochaine! le br\u00fbler, voil\u00e0 le seul moyen de ne plus le voir\nrevenir.\n\nLes mineurs, dans tous les groupes, r\u00e9pondirent par un tonnerre\nd'applaudissements et se port\u00e8rent en masse vers le prisonnier; ils\nl'entour\u00e8rent en criant: \u00abAu b\u00fbcher! Au b\u00fbcher!\u00bb Puis ils le tra\u00een\u00e8rent\nau poteau, l'y adoss\u00e8rent en l'encha\u00eenant et l'entour\u00e8rent jusqu'\u00e0 la\nceinture de bois et de pommes de pin. Au milieu de ces pr\u00e9paratifs, sa\nfigure ferme ne bronchait pas et le m\u00eame sourire de d\u00e9dain restait\nesquiss\u00e9 sur ses l\u00e8vres fines.\n\n--Une allumette! Apportez une allumette!\n\nShadbelly la frotta, abrita la flamme de sa main, se baissa et alluma\nles pommes de pin. Un silence profond r\u00e9gnait sur la foule; le feu prit\net une petite flamme l\u00e9cha les pommes de pin. Il me sembla entendre un\nbruit lointain de pas de chevaux. Ce bruit se rapprocha et devint de\nplus en plus distinct, mais la foule absorb\u00e9e paraissait ne rien\nentendre.\n\nL'allumette s'\u00e9teignit. L'homme en frotta une autre, se baissa et de\nnouveau la flamme jaillit. Cette fois elle courut rapidement au travers\ndes brins de bois. Dans l'assistance, quelques hommes d\u00e9tourn\u00e8rent la\nt\u00eate. Le bourreau tenait \u00e0 la main son allumette carbonis\u00e9e et\nsurveillait la marche du feu. Au m\u00eame instant, un cheval d\u00e9boucha \u00e0\nplein galop du tournant des rochers, venant dans notre direction.\n\nUn cri retentit:\n\n--Le sh\u00e9riff!\n\nFendant la foule, le cavalier se fraya un passage jusqu'au b\u00fbcher;\narriv\u00e9 l\u00e0, il arr\u00eata son cheval sur les jarrets et s'\u00e9cria:\n\n--Arri\u00e8re, tas de vauriens!\n\nTous ob\u00e9irent \u00e0 l'exception du chef qui se campa r\u00e9solument et saisit\nson revolver. Le sh\u00e9riff fon\u00e7a sur lui, criant:\n\n--Vous m'entendez, esp\u00e8ce de forcen\u00e9. \u00c9teignez le feu, et enlevez au\nprisonnier ses cha\u00eenes.\n\nIl finit par ob\u00e9ir. Le sh\u00e9riff prit la parole, rassemblant son cheval\ndans une attitude martiale; il ne s'emporta pas et parla sans v\u00e9h\u00e9mence,\nsur un ton compass\u00e9 et pond\u00e9r\u00e9, bien fait pour ne leur inspirer aucune\ncrainte.\n\n--Vous faites du propre, vous autres! Vous \u00eates tout au plus dignes de\nmarcher de pair avec ce gredin de Shadbelly Higgins, cet inf\u00e2me...\nreptile qui attaque les gens par derri\u00e8re et se croit un h\u00e9ros.\n\nCe que je m\u00e9prise par-dessus tout, c'est une foule qui se livre au\nlynchage. Je n'y ai jamais rencontr\u00e9 un homme \u00e0 caract\u00e8re. Il faut en\n\u00e9liminer cent avant d'en trouver un qui ait assez de coeur au ventre\npour oser attaquer seul un homme m\u00eame infirme. La foule n'est qu'un\nramassis de poltrons et quatre-vingt-dix-neuf fois sur cent le sh\u00e9riff\nlui-m\u00eame est le roi des l\u00e2ches.\n\nIl s'arr\u00eata, \u00e9videmment pour savourer ces derni\u00e8res paroles et juger de\nl'effet produit, puis il reprit:\n\n--Le sh\u00e9riff qui abandonne un prisonnier \u00e0 la fureur aveugle de la foule\nest le dernier des l\u00e2ches. Les statistiques constatent qu'il y a eu cent\nquatre-vingt-deux sh\u00e9riffs, l'ann\u00e9e derni\u00e8re, qui ont touch\u00e9 des\nappointements injustement gagn\u00e9s. Au train o\u00f9 marchent les choses, on\nverra bient\u00f4t figurer une nouvelle maladie dans les livres de m\u00e9decine\nsous le nom de \u00abmal des sh\u00e9riffs\u00bb.\n\nLes gens demanderont: \u00abLe sh\u00e9riff est encore malade?\u00bb\n\nOui! il souffre toujours de la m\u00eame maladie incurable.\n\nOn ne dira plus: \u00abUn tel est all\u00e9 chercher le sh\u00e9riff du comit\u00e9 de\nRapalso!\u00bb mais: un tel est all\u00e9 chercher le \u00abfroussard\u00bb de Rapalso! Mon\nDieu! qu'il faut donc \u00eatre l\u00e2che pour avoir peur d'une foule en train de\nlyncher un homme!\n\nIl regarda le prisonnier du coin de l'oeil et lui demanda:\n\n--\u00c9tranger, qui \u00eates-vous et qu'avez-vous fait?\n\n--Je m'appelle Sherlock Holm\u00e8s; je n'ai rien \u00e0 me reprocher.\n\nCe nom produisit sur le sh\u00e9riff une impression prodigieuse. Il se remit\n\u00e0 haranguer la foule, disant que c'\u00e9tait une honte pour le pays\nd'infliger un outrage aussi ignominieux \u00e0 un homme dont les exploits\n\u00e9taient connus du monde entier pour leur caract\u00e8re merveilleux, et dont\nles aventures avaient conquis les bonnes gr\u00e2ces de tous les lecteurs par\nle charme et le piquant de leur exposition litt\u00e9raire. Il pr\u00e9senta \u00e0\nHolm\u00e8s les excuses de toute la nation, le salua tr\u00e8s courtoisement et\nordonna \u00e0 l'agent Harris de le ramener chez lui, lui signifiant qu'il le\nrendrait personnellement responsable si Holm\u00e8s \u00e9tait de nouveau\nmaltrait\u00e9. Se tournant ensuite vers la foule, il s'\u00e9cria:\n\n--Regagnez vos tanni\u00e8res, tas de racailles!\n\nIls ob\u00e9irent; puis s'adressant \u00e0 Shadbelly:\n\n--Vous, suivez-moi, je veux moi-m\u00eame r\u00e9gler votre compte. Non, gardez ce\njoujou qui vous sert d'arme; le jour o\u00f9 j'aurai peur de vous sentir\nderri\u00e8re moi avec votre revolver, il sera temps pour moi d'aller\nrejoindre les cent quatre-vingt-deux poltrons de l'ann\u00e9e derni\u00e8re.--Et,\nce disant, il partit au pas de sa monture suivi de Shadbelly.\n\nEn rentrant chez nous vers l'heure du d\u00e9jeuner, nous appr\u00eemes que\nFetlock Jones \u00e9tait en fuite; il s'\u00e9tait \u00e9vad\u00e9 de la prison et battait\nla campagne. Personne n'en fut f\u00e2ch\u00e9 au fond. Que son oncle le\npoursuive, s'il veut; c'est son affaire; le camp tout entier s'en lave\nles mains.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nLE JOURNAL REPREND\n\n\nDix jours plus tard.\n\n\u00abJames Walker\u00bb va bien physiquement, et son cerveau est en voie de\ngu\u00e9rison. Je pars avec lui pour Denver demain matin.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLa nuit suivante.\n\nQuelques mots envoy\u00e9s \u00e0 la h\u00e2te d'une petite gare. En me quittant, ce\nmatin, Hillyer m'a chuchot\u00e9 \u00e0 l'oreille:\n\n--Ne parlez de ceci \u00e0 Walker que quand vous serez bien certain de ne pas\nlui faire de mal en arr\u00eatant les progr\u00e8s de son r\u00e9tablissement. Le crime\nancien auquel il a fait allusion devant nous a bien \u00e9t\u00e9 commis, comme\nil le dit, par son cousin.\n\nNous avons enterr\u00e9 le vrai coupable l'autre soir, l'homme le plus\nmalheureux du si\u00e8cle, Flint Buckner. Son v\u00e9ritable nom \u00e9tait \u00abJacob\nFuller\u00bb.\n\nAinsi, ma ch\u00e8re m\u00e8re, ma mission est termin\u00e9e. Je viens d'accomplir mon\nmandat. Sans m'en douter, j'ai conduit \u00e0 sa derni\u00e8re demeure votre mari,\nmon p\u00e8re. Qu'il repose en paix!\n\n\nFIN\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCANNIBALISME EN VOYAGE\n\n\nJe revenais derni\u00e8rement de visiter Saint-Louis, lorsqu'\u00e0 la bifurcation\nde Terre-Haute (territoire d'Indiana), un homme de quarante \u00e0 cinquante\nans, \u00e0 la physionomie sympathique, aux mani\u00e8res affables, monta dans mon\ncompartiment et s'assit pr\u00e8s de moi; nous caus\u00e2mes assez longtemps pour\nme permettre d'appr\u00e9cier son intelligence et le charme de sa\nconversation. Lorsqu'au cours de notre entretien, il apprit que j'\u00e9tais\nde Washington, il se h\u00e2ta de me demander des \u00abtuyaux\u00bb sur les hommes\npolitiques, sur les affaires gouvernementales; je m'aper\u00e7us d'ailleurs\ntr\u00e8s vite qu'il \u00e9tait au courant de tous les d\u00e9tails, de tous les\ndessous politiques, et qu'il en savait tr\u00e8s long sur les faits et gestes\ndes s\u00e9nateurs et des repr\u00e9sentants des Chambres aux Assembl\u00e9es\nl\u00e9gislatives. A une des stations suivantes deux hommes s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent pr\u00e8s\nde nous et l'un d'eux dit \u00e0 l'autre:\n\n\u00abHarris, si vous faites cela pour moi, je ne l'oublierai de ma vie.\u00bb\n\nLes yeux de mon nouveau compagnon de voyage brill\u00e8rent d'un singulier\n\u00e9clat; \u00e0 n'en pas douter, ces simples mots venaient d'\u00e9voquer chez lui\nquelque vieux souvenir. Ensuite son visage redevint calme, presque\npensif. Il se tourna vers moi et me dit:\n\n--Laissez-moi vous conter une histoire, vous d\u00e9voiler un chapitre secret\nde ma vie, une page que j'avais enterr\u00e9e au fin fond de moi-m\u00eame.\n\u00c9coutez-moi patiemment, et ne m'interrompez pas.\n\nJe promis de l'\u00e9couter; il me raconta l'aventure suivante, avec des\nalternatives d'animation et de m\u00e9lancolie, mais toujours avec beaucoup\nde persuasion et un grand s\u00e9rieux.\n\nR\u00e9cit de cet \u00e9tranger:\n\n\u00abLe 19 d\u00e9cembre 1853, je quittai Saint-Louis par le train du soir qui va\n\u00e0 Chicago. Tous compris, nous n'\u00e9tions que vingt-quatre voyageurs\nhommes; ni femmes ni enfants; nous f\u00eemes vite connaissance et comme\nnous paraissions tous de bonne humeur, une certaine intimit\u00e9 ne tarda\npas \u00e0 s'\u00e9tablir entre nous.\n\n\u00abLe voyage s'annon\u00e7ait bien; et pas un d'entre nous ne pouvait\npressentir les horribles instants que nous devions bient\u00f4t traverser.\n\n\u00abA 11 heures, il neigeait ferme. Peu apr\u00e8s avoir quitt\u00e9 le village de\nWelden, nous entr\u00e2mes dans les interminables prairies d\u00e9sertes qui\ns'\u00e9tendent horriblement monotones pendant des lieues et des lieues; le\nvent soufflait avec violence, car il ne rencontrait aucun obstacle sur\nsa route, ni arbres, ni collines, ni m\u00eame un rocher isol\u00e9; il chassait\ndevant lui la neige qui tombait en rafales et formait sous nos yeux un\ntapis \u00e9pais. Elle tombait dru, cette neige, et le ralentissement du\ntrain nous indiquait assez que la locomotive avait peine \u00e0 lutter contre\nla r\u00e9sistance croissante des \u00e9l\u00e9ments. Le train stoppa plusieurs fois et\nnous v\u00eemes au-dessus de nos t\u00eates un double rempart de neige aveuglant\nde blancheur, triste comme un mur de prison.\n\n\u00abLes conversations cess\u00e8rent; la gaiet\u00e9 fit place \u00e0 l'angoisse; la\nperspective d'\u00eatre mur\u00e9s par la neige au milieu de la prairie d\u00e9serte,\n\u00e0 cinquante lieues de toute habitation, se dressait comme un spectre\ndevant chacun de nous et jetait une note de tristesse sur notre bande\ntout \u00e0 l'heure si joyeuse.\n\n\u00abA deux heures du matin, je fus tir\u00e9 de mon sommeil agit\u00e9 par un arr\u00eat\nbrusque. L'horrible v\u00e9rit\u00e9 m'apparut dans toute sa nudit\u00e9 hideuse: nous\n\u00e9tions bloqu\u00e9s par la neige. \u00abTous les bras \u00e0 la rescousse!\u00bb On se h\u00e2ta\nd'ob\u00e9ir. Chacun redoubla d'efforts sous la nuit noire et la tourmente de\nneige, parfaitement convaincu qu'une minute perdue pouvait causer notre\nmort \u00e0 tous. Pelles, planches, mains, tout ce qui pouvait d\u00e9placer la\nneige fut r\u00e9quisitionn\u00e9 en un instant.\n\n\u00abQuel \u00e9trange spectacle de voir ces hommes lutter contre les neiges\namoncel\u00e9es, et travailler d'arrache-pied, les uns plong\u00e9s dans une\nobscurit\u00e9 profonde, les autres \u00e9clair\u00e9s par la lueur rouge\u00e2tre du\nr\u00e9flecteur de la machine!\n\n\u00abAu bout d'une heure, nous \u00e9tions fix\u00e9s sur l'inutilit\u00e9 compl\u00e8te de nos\nefforts; car la temp\u00eate remplissait en rafales les tranch\u00e9es que nous\navions pratiqu\u00e9es. Pour comble de malheur, on d\u00e9couvrit que les bielles\nde la locomotive s'\u00e9taient bris\u00e9es sous la r\u00e9sistance du poids \u00e0\nd\u00e9placer. La route, e\u00fbt-elle \u00e9t\u00e9 libre, devenait impraticable pour\nnous!!\n\n\u00abNous remont\u00e2mes dans le train, fatigu\u00e9s, mornes et d\u00e9courag\u00e9s; nous\nnous r\u00e9un\u00eemes autour des po\u00eales pour examiner l'\u00e9tat de notre situation.\nNous n'avions pas de provisions de bouche; c'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 le plus clair de\nnotre d\u00e9sastre! Largement approvisionn\u00e9s de bois, nous ne risquions pas\nde mourir de froid. C'\u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 une consolation.\n\n\u00abApr\u00e8s une longue d\u00e9lib\u00e9ration, nous reconn\u00fbmes que le conducteur du\ntrain disait vrai: en effet quiconque se serait risqu\u00e9 \u00e0 parcourir \u00e0\npied les cinquante lieues qui nous s\u00e9paraient du village le plus\nrapproch\u00e9 aurait certainement trouv\u00e9 la mort. Impossible de demander du\nsecours, et l'eussions-nous demand\u00e9, personne ne serait venu \u00e0 nous. Il\nnous fallait donc nous r\u00e9signer et attendre patiemment du secours ou la\nmort par la faim; je puis certifier que cette triste perspective\nsuffisait \u00e0 \u00e9branler le coeur le plus sto\u00efque.\n\n\u00abNotre conversation, pourtant bruyante, produisait l'illusion d'un\nmurmure vague, qu'on distinguait \u00e0 peine au milieu des rafales de vent;\nla clart\u00e9 des lampes diminua peu \u00e0 peu, et la plus grande partie des\n\u00abnaufrag\u00e9s\u00bb se turent, les uns pour r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir, les autres pour chercher\ndans le sommeil l'oubli de leur situation tragique.\n\n\u00abCette nuit nous parut \u00e9ternelle; l'aurore glac\u00e9e et grise commen\u00e7a \u00e0\npoindre \u00e0 l'est; \u00e0 mesure que le jour grandissait, les voyageurs se\nr\u00e9veill\u00e8rent et se donn\u00e8rent du mouvement pour essayer de se r\u00e9chauffer;\nl'un apr\u00e8s l'autre, ils \u00e9tir\u00e8rent leurs membres raidis par le sommeil,\net regard\u00e8rent par les fen\u00eatres le spectacle horrible qui s'offrait \u00e0\nleurs yeux. Horrible! il l'\u00e9tait en effet, ce spectacle. Pas une\nhabitation! pas un atome vivant autour de nous! partout le d\u00e9sert, blanc\ncomme un linceul; la neige, fouett\u00e9e en tous sens par le vent,\ntourbillonnait en flocons dans l'espace.\n\n\u00abNous err\u00e2mes toute la journ\u00e9e dans les wagons, parlant peu, absorb\u00e9s\ndans nos pens\u00e9es; puis vint une seconde nuit, longue, monotone, pendant\nlaquelle la faim commen\u00e7a \u00e0 se faire sentir.\n\n\u00abLe jour reparut; silencieux et triste, nous faisions le guet,\nattendant un secours qui ne pouvait pas venir; une autre nuit lui\nsucc\u00e9da, agit\u00e9e de r\u00eaves fantastiques pendant lesquels des festins\nsomptueux et les f\u00eates bacchiques d\u00e9filaient sous nos yeux! Le r\u00e9veil\nn'en fut que plus p\u00e9nible! Le quatri\u00e8me et le cinqui\u00e8me jour parurent!\nCinq jours de v\u00e9ritable captivit\u00e9! La faim se lisait sur tous les\nvisages d\u00e9prim\u00e9s qui accusaient l'obsession d'une m\u00eame id\u00e9e fixe, d'une\npens\u00e9e \u00e0 laquelle nul n'osait ni ne voulait s'arr\u00eater. Le sixi\u00e8me jour\ns'\u00e9coula, et le septi\u00e8me se leva sur notre petite troupe haletante,\nterrifi\u00e9e \u00e0 l'id\u00e9e de la mort qui nous guettait. Il fallait pourtant en\nfinir et parler. Les l\u00e8vres de chacun \u00e9taient pr\u00eates \u00e0 s'entr'ouvrir\npour exprimer les sombres pens\u00e9es qui venaient de germer dans nos\ncerveaux. La nature, trop longtemps comprim\u00e9e, demandait sa revanche et\nfaisait entendre un appel imp\u00e9rieux!\n\n\u00abRichard H. Gaston, de Minnesota, grand, d'une p\u00e2leur de spectre, se\nleva. Nous savions ce qui allait sortir de sa bouche; un grand calme,\nune attention recueillie avaient remplac\u00e9 l'\u00e9motion, l'excitation\nfactice des jours pr\u00e9c\u00e9dents.\n\n\u00ab--Messieurs, il est impossible d'attendre davantage! L'heure a sonn\u00e9.\nIl nous faut d\u00e9cider lequel d'entre nous mourra pour servir de\nnourriture aux autres.\n\n\u00abM. John J. Villiams, de l'Illinois, se leva \u00e0 son tour:--Messieurs,\ndit-il, je propose pour le sacrifice le R\u00e9v\u00e9rend James Sawyer de\nTennessee.\n\n\u00ab--Je propose M. Daniel Hote de New-York, r\u00e9pondit M. W. R. Adams,\nd'Indiana.\n\n\u00abM. Charles Langdon:--Que diriez-vous de M. Samuel Bowen de\nSaint-Louis?\n\n\u00ab--Messieurs, interrompit M. Hote, j'opine plut\u00f4t en faveur du jeune\nJohn A. Van Nostrand, de New-Jersey.\n\n\u00abH. Gaston:--S'il n'y a pas d'objection, on acc\u00e9dera au d\u00e9sir de M.\nHote.\n\n\u00abM. Van Nostrand ayant protest\u00e9, la proposition de M. Hote fut\nrepouss\u00e9e, celles de MM. Sawyer et Bowen ne furent pas accept\u00e9es\ndavantage.\n\n\u00abM. A.-L. Bascom, de l'Ohio, se leva:--Je suis d'avis de clore la liste\ndes candidatures et de laisser l'Assembl\u00e9e proc\u00e9der aux \u00e9lections par\nvote.\n\n\u00abM. Sawyer:--Messieurs, je proteste \u00e9nergiquement contre ces proc\u00e9d\u00e9s\nirr\u00e9guliers et inacceptables. Je propose d'y renoncer imm\u00e9diatement, et\nde choisir un pr\u00e9sident \u00e0 l'Assembl\u00e9e; nous pourrons ensuite poursuivre\nnotre oeuvre sans violer les principes immuables de l'\u00e9quit\u00e9.\n\n\u00abM. Bell, de Iowa:--Messieurs, je proteste. Ce n'est pas le moment de\ns'arr\u00eater \u00e0 des formalit\u00e9s absurdes. Voil\u00e0 huit jours que nous ne\nmangeons pas; et chaque minute perdue en discussions vaines rend notre\nsituation plus critique. Les propositions pr\u00e9c\u00e9dentes me satisfont\nenti\u00e8rement (ces messieurs en pensent autant, je crois); pour ma part,\nje ne vois donc pas pourquoi nous ne nous arr\u00eaterions pas \u00e0 l'une\nd'elles, il faut en finir au plus vite.\n\n\u00abM. Gaston:--De toutes fa\u00e7ons, l'\u00e9lection nous demanderait au moins\nvingt-quatre heures, et c'est justement ce retard que nous voulons\n\u00e9viter. Le citoyen de New-Jersey...\n\n\u00abM. Van Nostrand:--Messieurs, je suis un \u00e9tranger parmi vous; je n'ai\ndonc aucun droit \u00e0 l'honneur que vous me faites, et j'\u00e9prouve une\ncertaine g\u00eane \u00e0...\n\n\u00abM. Morgan d'Alabama, l'interrompant:--Je demande que la question soit\nsoumise au vote g\u00e9n\u00e9ral. Ainsi fut fait, et le d\u00e9bat prit fin, bien\nentendu. Un conseil fut constitu\u00e9, M. Gaston nomm\u00e9 pr\u00e9sident, M. Blake\nsecr\u00e9taire, MM. Holcomb, Baldwin et Dyer firent partie de \u00abla Commission\ndes candidatures\u00bb; M. R.-M. Howland, en sa qualit\u00e9 de pourvoyeur, aida\nla Commission \u00e0 faire son choix.\n\n\u00abLa Commission s'accorda un repos d'une demi-heure avant de proc\u00e9der \u00e0\nses grands travaux. L'Assembl\u00e9e se r\u00e9unit, et le comit\u00e9 porta son choix\nsur quelques candidats: MM. George Ferguson, de Kentucky, Lucien\nHerrman, de la Louisiane, et W. Messick, du Colorado. Ce choix fut\nratifi\u00e9.\n\n\u00abM. Rogers, de Missouri, se leva:--Monsieur le Pr\u00e9sident, les d\u00e9cisions\nayant \u00e9t\u00e9 prises maintenant selon les r\u00e8gles, je propose l'amendement\nsuivant, en vue de substituer au nom de M. Herrman celui de M. Lucius\nHarris, de Saint-Louis, qui est honorablement connu de tous ici. Je ne\nvoudrais en quoi que ce soit amoindrir les grandes qualit\u00e9s de ce\ncitoyen de la Louisiane, loin de l\u00e0. J'ai pour lui toute l'estime et la\nconsid\u00e9ration que m\u00e9ritent ses vertus. Mais il ne peut \u00e9chapper \u00e0\npersonne d'entre nous que ce candidat a maigri \u00e9tonnamment depuis le\nd\u00e9but de notre s\u00e9jour ici. Cette consid\u00e9ration me porte \u00e0 affirmer que\nle comit\u00e9 s'est fourvoy\u00e9 en proposant \u00e0 nos suffrages un candidat dont\nla valeur morale est incontestable, mais dont les qualit\u00e9s nutritives\nsont...\n\n\u00abLe Pr\u00e9sident:--Le citoyen du Missouri est pri\u00e9 de s'asseoir; le\nPr\u00e9sident ne peut admettre que les d\u00e9cisions du comit\u00e9 soient critiqu\u00e9es\nsans suivre la voie r\u00e9guli\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abQuel accueil fera l'Assembl\u00e9e \u00e0 la proposition de ce citoyen?\n\n\u00abM. Halliday, de Virginie:--Je propose un second amendement visant la\nsubstitution de M. Harvey Davis, de l'Or\u00e9gon, \u00e0 M. Messick. Vous\nestimerez sans doute avec moi que les labeurs et les privations de la\nvie de fronti\u00e8re ont d\u00fb rendre M. Davis quelque peu coriace; mais,\nMessieurs, pouvons-nous, \u00e0 un moment aussi tragique, ergoter sur la\nqualit\u00e9 de la chair humaine? Pouvons-nous discuter sur des pointes\nd'aiguilles? Avons-nous le droit de nous arr\u00eater \u00e0 des consid\u00e9rations\nsans importance? Non, Messieurs; la corpulence, voil\u00e0 tout ce que nous\ndemandons; l'embonpoint, le poids sont \u00e0 nos yeux les principales\nqualit\u00e9s requises: le talent, le g\u00e9nie, la bonne \u00e9ducation, tout cela\nnous est indiff\u00e9rent. J'attire votre attention sur le sens de mon\namendement.\n\n\u00abM. Morgan (_tr\u00e8s agit\u00e9_):--Monsieur le Pr\u00e9sident, en principe, je suis\npour ma part absolument oppos\u00e9 \u00e0 cet amendement. Le citoyen de l'Or\u00e9gon\nest vieux; de plus, il est fortement charpent\u00e9, et tr\u00e8s peu dodu. Que\nces Messieurs me disent s'ils pr\u00e9f\u00e8rent le pot-au-feu \u00e0 une alimentation\nsubstantielle? et s'ils se contenteraient de \u00abce spectre de l'Or\u00e9gon\u00bb\npour assouvir leur faim? Je demande \u00e0 M. Halliday, de Virginie, si la\nvue de nos visages d\u00e9cav\u00e9s, de nos yeux hagards ne lui fait pas horreur;\ns'il aura le courage d'assister plus longtemps \u00e0 notre supplice en\nprolongeant la famine qui d\u00e9chire nos entrailles et en nous offrant le\npaquet d'os que repr\u00e9sente le citoyen en question? Je lui demande s'il\nr\u00e9fl\u00e9chit \u00e0 notre triste situation, \u00e0 nos angoisses pass\u00e9es, \u00e0 notre avenir\neffroyable; va-t-il persister \u00e0 nous jeter en p\u00e2ture cette ruine, cette\n\u00e9pave, ce vagabond mis\u00e9rable et dess\u00e9ch\u00e9, des rives inhospitali\u00e8res de\nl'Or\u00e9gon? Non! il ne l'osera pas! (_Applaudissements._)\n\n\u00abLa proposition fut mise aux voix et repouss\u00e9e apr\u00e8s une discussion\nviolente. M. Harris restait d\u00e9sign\u00e9, en conformit\u00e9 du premier\namendement. Le scrutin fut ouvert. Il y eut cinq tours sans r\u00e9sultat. Au\nsixi\u00e8me, M. Harris fut \u00e9lu, tous les votes, sauf le sien, s'\u00e9tant port\u00e9s\nsur son nom. Il fut alors propos\u00e9 que ce scrutin serait ratifi\u00e9 par un\nvote unanime \u00e0 mains lev\u00e9es; mais l'unanimit\u00e9 ne put \u00eatre obtenue, M.\nHarris votant encore contre lui-m\u00eame.\n\n\u00abM. Radiway proposa alors que l'assembl\u00e9e f\u00eet son choix parmi les\nderniers candidats, et que l'\u00e9lection e\u00fbt lieu sans faute pour le\nd\u00e9jeuner. Cette proposition fut accept\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abAu premier tour, il y eut scission: les uns penchaient en faveur d'un\ncandidat r\u00e9put\u00e9 tr\u00e8s jeune; les autres lui pr\u00e9f\u00e9raient un autre homme de\nbelle stature. Le vote du pr\u00e9sident fit incliner la balance du c\u00f4t\u00e9 du\ndernier, M. Messick; mais cette solution d\u00e9plut fortement aux partisans\nde M. Ferguson, le candidat battu; on songea m\u00eame un instant \u00e0 demander\nun nouveau tour de scrutin; bref, tous d\u00e9cid\u00e8rent d'ajourner la\nsolution, et la s\u00e9ance fut lev\u00e9e de suite.\n\n\u00abLes pr\u00e9paratifs du repas d\u00e9tourn\u00e8rent l'attention du parti Ferguson et\nau moment o\u00f9 le fil de la discussion allait reprendre, on annon\u00e7a en\ngrande pompe _que M. Harris \u00e9tait servi_. Cette nouvelle produisit un\nsoulagement g\u00e9n\u00e9ral.\n\n\u00abLes tables furent improvis\u00e9es avec les dossiers de fauteuils des\ncompartiments, et nous nous ass\u00eemes, la joie au coeur, en pensant \u00e0 ce\nr\u00e9gal apr\u00e8s lequel nous soupirions depuis une grande semaine. En\nquelques instants, nous avions pris une tout autre physionomie. Tout \u00e0\nl'heure le d\u00e9sespoir, la mis\u00e8re, la faim, l'angoisse fi\u00e9vreuse, \u00e9taient\npeints sur nos visages; maintenant une s\u00e9r\u00e9nit\u00e9, une joie indescriptible\nr\u00e9gnaient parmi nous; nous d\u00e9bordions de bonheur. J'avoue m\u00eame sans\nfausse honte que cette heure de soulagement a \u00e9t\u00e9 le plus beau moment de\nma vie d'aventures.\n\n\u00abLe vent hurlait au dehors et fouettait la neige autour de notre prison,\nmais nous n'en avions plus peur maintenant.\n\n\u00abJ'ai assez aim\u00e9 Harris. Il aurait pu \u00eatre mieux cuit, sans doute, mais\nen toute justice, je dois reconna\u00eetre qu'aucun homme ne m'agr\u00e9a jamais\nautant que Harris et ne me procura autant de satisfaction. Messick ne\nfut pas pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment mauvais, bien qu'un peu trop haut en go\u00fbt; mais pour\nla saveur et la d\u00e9licatesse de la chair, parlez-moi de Harris.\n\n\u00abMessick avait certainement des qualit\u00e9s que je ne lui contesterai pas,\nmais il ne convenait pas plus pour un petit d\u00e9jeuner qu'une momie (ceci\nsoit dit sans vouloir l'offenser). Quelle maigreur!! mon Dieu! et dur!!\nAh! vous ne vous imaginerez jamais \u00e0 quel point il \u00e9tait coriace! Non\njamais, jamais!\n\n--Me donnez-vous \u00e0 entendre que r\u00e9ellement vous...?\n\n--Ne m'interrompez pas, je vous en prie.\n\n\u00abApr\u00e8s ce frugal d\u00e9jeuner, il fallait songer au d\u00eener; nous port\u00e2mes\nnotre choix sur un nomm\u00e9 Walker, originaire de D\u00e9troit. Il \u00e9tait\nexcellent; je l'ai d'ailleurs \u00e9crit \u00e0 sa femme un peu plus tard. Ce\nWalker! je ne l'oublierai de ma vie! Quel d\u00e9licieux morceau! Un peu\nmaigre, mais succulent malgr\u00e9 cela. Le lendemain, nous nous offr\u00eemes\nMorgan de l'Alabama pour d\u00e9jeuner. C'\u00e9tait un des plus beaux hommes que\nj'aie jamais vus, bien tourn\u00e9, \u00e9l\u00e9gant, distingu\u00e9 de mani\u00e8res; il\nparlait couramment plusieurs langues; bref un gar\u00e7on accompli, qui nous\na fourni un jus plein de saveur. Pour le d\u00eener, on nous pr\u00e9para ce vieux\npatriarche de l'Or\u00e9gon. L\u00e0, nous re\u00e7\u00fbmes un superbe \u00abcoup de\nfusil\u00bb;--vieux, dess\u00e9ch\u00e9, coriace, il fut impossible \u00e0 manger. Quelle\nnavrante surprise pour tous! A tel point que je finis par d\u00e9clarer \u00e0 mes\ncompagnons:--Messieurs, faites ce que bon vous semble; moi, je pr\u00e9f\u00e8re\nje\u00fbner en attendant meilleure ch\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abGrimes, de l'Illinois, ajouta:--Messieurs, j'attends, moi aussi.\nLorsque vous aurez choisi un candidat qui soit \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s \u00abd\u00e9gustable\u00bb,\nje serai enchant\u00e9 de m'asseoir \u00e0 votre table.\n\n\u00abIl devint \u00e9vident que le choix de l'homme de l'Or\u00e9gon avait provoqu\u00e9 le\nm\u00e9contentement g\u00e9n\u00e9ral. Il fallait \u00e0 tout prix ne pas rester sur cette\nmauvaise impression, surtout apr\u00e8s le bon souvenir que nous avait laiss\u00e9\nHarris. Le choix se porta donc sur Baker, de G\u00e9orgie.\n\n\u00abUn fameux morceau celui-l\u00e0! Ensuite, nous nous offr\u00eemes Doolittle,\nHawkins, Mac Elroy,--ce dernier, trop petit et maigre, nous valut\nquelques protestations. Apr\u00e8s, d\u00e9fil\u00e8rent Penrol, les deux Smiths et\nBailey; ce dernier avec sa jambe de bois nous donna du d\u00e9chet, mais la\nqualit\u00e9 \u00e9tait irr\u00e9prochable; ensuite un jeune Indien, un joueur d'orgue\nde Barbarie, un nomm\u00e9 Bukminster,--pauvre diable de vagabond, d\u00e9charn\u00e9;\nil \u00e9tait vraiment indigne de figurer \u00e0 notre table.\n\n\u00abComme consolation d'une si maigre pitance, nous pouvons nous dire que\nce mauvais d\u00e9jeuner a pr\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9 de peu notre d\u00e9livrance.\n\n--L'heure de la d\u00e9livrance sonna donc enfin pour vous?\n\n--Oui, un beau matin, par un beau soleil, au moment o\u00f9 nous venions\nd'inscrire John Murphy sur notre menu. Je vous assure que ce John Murphy\ndevait \u00eatre un \u00abmorceau de roi\u00bb; j'en mettrais ma main au feu. Le destin\nvoulut que John Murphy s'en retourn\u00e2t avec nous dans le train qui vint \u00e0\nnotre secours. Quelque temps apr\u00e8s il \u00e9pousa la veuve de Harris!!...\n\n--La victime de...?\n\n--La victime de notre premi\u00e8re \u00e9lection. Il l'a \u00e9pous\u00e9e, et maintenant\nil est tr\u00e8s heureux, tr\u00e8s consid\u00e9r\u00e9 et a une excellente situation. Ah!\ncette histoire est un vrai roman, je vous assure! Mais me voici arriv\u00e9,\nmonsieur, il faut que je vous quitte. N'oubliez pas, lorsque vous aurez\nquelques instants \u00e0 perdre, qu'une visite de vous me fera toujours le\nplus grand plaisir. J'\u00e9prouve pour vous une r\u00e9elle sympathie, je dirai\nm\u00eame plus, une sinc\u00e8re affection. Il me semble que je finirais par vous\naimer autant que Harris. Adieu monsieur, et bon voyage.\u00bb\n\nIl descendit; je restai l\u00e0, m\u00e9dus\u00e9, abasourdi, presque soulag\u00e9 de son\nd\u00e9part. Malgr\u00e9 son affabilit\u00e9, j'\u00e9prouvais un certain frisson en sentant\nse poser sur moi son regard affam\u00e9. Aussi, lorsque j'appris qu'il\nm'avait vou\u00e9 une affection sinc\u00e8re, et qu'il me mettait dans son estime\nsur le m\u00eame pied que feu Harris, mon sang se gla\u00e7a dans mes veines!\n\nJ'\u00e9tais litt\u00e9ralement transi de peur. Je ne pouvais douter de sa\nv\u00e9racit\u00e9; d'autre part il e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 parfaitement d\u00e9plac\u00e9 d'interrompre par\nune question inopportune un r\u00e9cit aussi dramatique, pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 sous les\nauspices de la plus grande sinc\u00e9rit\u00e9. Malgr\u00e9 moi, ces horribles d\u00e9tails\nme poursuivaient et hantaient mon esprit de mille id\u00e9es confuses. Je vis\nque le conducteur m'observait; je lui demandai: Qui est cet homme?\n\nJ'appris qu'il faisait autrefois partie du Congr\u00e8s et qu'il \u00e9tait un\ntr\u00e8s brave homme. Un beau jour, pris dans une tourmente de neige et \u00e0\ndeux doigts de mourir de faim, il a \u00e9t\u00e9 tellement \u00e9branl\u00e9 par le froid\net r\u00e9volutionn\u00e9, que deux ou trois mois apr\u00e8s cet incident, il devenait\ncompl\u00e8tement fou. Il va bien maintenant, para\u00eet-il, mais la monomanie le\ntient et lorsqu'il enfourche son vieux \u00abdada\u00bb, il ne s'arr\u00eate qu'apr\u00e8s\navoir d\u00e9vor\u00e9 en pens\u00e9e tous ses camarades de voyage. Tous y auraient\ncertainement pass\u00e9, s'il n'avait d\u00fb descendre \u00e0 cette station; il sait\nleurs noms sur le bout de ses doigts. Quand il a fini de les manger\ntous, il ne manque pas d'ajouter: \u00abL'heure du d\u00e9jeuner \u00e9tant arriv\u00e9e,\ncomme il n'y avait plus d'autres candidats, on me choisit. \u00c9lu \u00e0\nl'unanimit\u00e9 pour le d\u00e9jeuner, je me r\u00e9signai. Et me voil\u00e0.\u00bb\n\nC'est \u00e9gal! j'\u00e9prouvai un fameux soulagement en apprenant que je venais\nd'entendre les \u00e9lucubrations folles d'un malheureux d\u00e9s\u00e9quilibr\u00e9 et non\nle r\u00e9cit des prouesses d'un cannibale avide de sang.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nL'HOMME AU MESSAGE POUR LE DIRECTEUR G\u00c9N\u00c9RAL\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nIl y a quelques jours, au commencement de f\u00e9vrier 1900, je re\u00e7us la\nvisite d'un de mes amis qui vint me trouver \u00e0 Londres o\u00f9 je r\u00e9side en ce\nmoment. Nous avons tous deux atteint l'\u00e2ge o\u00f9, en fumant une pipe pour\ntuer le temps, on parle beaucoup moins volontiers du charme de la vie\nque de ses propres ennuis. De fil en aiguille, mon ami se mit \u00e0\ninvectiver le D\u00e9partement de la Guerre. Il para\u00eet qu'un de ses amis\nvient d'inventer une chaussure qui pourrait \u00eatre tr\u00e8s utile aux soldats\ndans le Sud Africain.\n\nC'est un soulier l\u00e9ger, solide et bon march\u00e9, imperm\u00e9able \u00e0 l'eau et qui\nconserve merveilleusement sa forme et sa rigidit\u00e9. L'inventeur voudrait\nattirer sur sa d\u00e9couverte l'attention du Gouvernement, mais il n'a pas\nd'accointances et sait d'avance que les grands fonctionnaires ne\nferaient aucun cas d'une demande qu'il leur adresserait.\n\n--Ceci montre qu'il n'a \u00e9t\u00e9 qu'un maladroit, comme nous tous d'ailleurs,\ndis-je en l'interrompant. Continuez.\n\n--Mais pourquoi dites-vous cela? Cet homme a parfaitement raison.\n\n--Ce qu'il avance est faux, vous dis-je. Continuez.\n\n--Je vous prouverai qu'il...\n\n--Vous ne pourrez rien prouver du tout. Je suis un vieux bonhomme de\ngrande exp\u00e9rience. Ne discutez pas avec moi. Ce serait tr\u00e8s d\u00e9plac\u00e9 et\nd\u00e9sobligeant. Continuez.\n\n--Je veux bien, mais vous serez convaincu avant longtemps. Je ne suis\npas un inconnu, et pourtant il m'a \u00e9t\u00e9 aussi impossible qu'\u00e0 mon ami, de\nfaire parvenir cette communication au Directeur G\u00e9n\u00e9ral du D\u00e9partement\ndes Cuirs et chaussures.\n\n--Ce deuxi\u00e8me point est aussi faux que le premier. Continuez!\n\n--Mais, sur mon honneur, je vous assure que j'ai \u00e9chou\u00e9.\n\n--Oh! certainement, je le savais, vous n'aviez pas besoin de me le dire.\n\n--Alors? o\u00f9 voyez-vous un mensonge?\n\n--C'est dans l'affirmation que vous venez de me donner de\nl'impossibilit\u00e9 o\u00f9 vous croyez \u00eatre d'attirer l'attention du Directeur\nG\u00e9n\u00e9ral sur le rapport de votre ami. Cette affirmation constitue un\nmensonge; car moi je pr\u00e9tends que vous auriez pu faire agr\u00e9er votre\ndemande.\n\n--Je vous dis que je n'ai pas pu. Apr\u00e8s trois mois d'efforts; je n'y\nsuis pas arriv\u00e9.\n\n--Naturellement. Je le savais sans que vous preniez la peine de me le\ndire. Vous auriez pu attirer son attention imm\u00e9diatement si vous aviez\nemploy\u00e9 le bon moyen, j'en dis autant pour votre ami.\n\n--Je vous affirme que j'ai pris le bon moyen.\n\n--Je vous dis que non.\n\n--Comment le savez-vous? Vous ignorez mes d\u00e9marches.\n\n--C'est possible, mais je maintiens que vous n'avez pas pris le bon\nmoyen, et en cela je suis certain de ce que j'avance.\n\n--Comment pouvez-vous en \u00eatre s\u00fbr, quand vous ne savez pas ce que j'ai\nfait?\n\n--Votre insucc\u00e8s est la preuve certaine de ce que j'avance. Vous avez\npris, je le r\u00e9p\u00e8te, une fausse direction. Je suis un homme de grande\nexp\u00e9rience, et...\n\n--C'est entendu, mais vous me permettrez de vous expliquer comment j'ai\nagi pour mettre fin \u00e0 cette discussion entre nous.\n\n--Oh, je ne m'y oppose pas; continuez donc, puisque vous \u00e9prouvez le\nbesoin, de me raconter votre histoire. N'oubliez pas que je suis un\nvieux bonhomme...\n\n--Voici: J'ai donc \u00e9crit au Directeur G\u00e9n\u00e9ral du D\u00e9partement des Cuirs\net chaussures une lettre des plus courtoises, en lui expliquant...\n\n--Le connaissez-vous personnellement?\n\n--Non.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 d\u00e9j\u00e0 un point bien clair. Vous avez d\u00e9but\u00e9 par une maladresse.\nContinuez...\n\n--Dans ma lettre, j'insistais sur l'avenir assur\u00e9 que promettait\nl'invention, vu le bon march\u00e9 de ces chaussures, et j'offrais...\n\n--D'aller le voir. Bien entendu, c'est ce que vous avez fait. Et de\ndeux!\n\n--Il ne m'a r\u00e9pondu que trois jours apr\u00e8s.\n\n--Naturellement! Continuez.\n\n--Il m'a envoy\u00e9 trois lignes tout juste polies, en me remerciant de la\npeine que j'avais prise, et en me proposant...\n\n--Rien du tout.\n\n--C'est cela m\u00eame. Alors je lui \u00e9crivis plus de d\u00e9tails sur mon\ninvention...\n\n--Et de trois!\n\n--Cette fois je... n'obtins m\u00eame pas de r\u00e9ponse. A la fin de la semaine,\nje revins \u00e0 la charge et demandai une r\u00e9ponse avec une l\u00e9g\u00e8re pointe\nd'aigreur.\n\n--Et de quatre! et puis apr\u00e8s?\n\n--Je re\u00e7us une r\u00e9ponse me disant que ma lettre n'\u00e9tait pas arriv\u00e9e; on\nm'en demandait un double. Je recherchai la voie qu'avait suivie ma\nlettre et j'acquis la certitude qu'elle \u00e9tait bien arriv\u00e9e; j'en envoyai\nquand m\u00eame une copie sans rien dire. Quinze jours se pass\u00e8rent sans\nqu'on accord\u00e2t la moindre attention \u00e0 ma demande; pendant ce temps, ma\npatience avait singuli\u00e8rement diminu\u00e9 et j'\u00e9crivis une lettre tr\u00e8s\nraide. Je proposais un rendez-vous pour le lendemain et j'ajoutai que si\nje n'avais pas de r\u00e9ponse, je consid\u00e9rerais ce silence du Directeur\ncomme un acquiescement \u00e0 ma demande.\n\n--Et de cinq!\n\n--J'arrivai \u00e0 midi sonnant; on m'indiqua une chaise dans l'antichambre\nen me priant d'attendre. J'attendis jusqu'\u00e0 une heure et demie, puis je\npartis, humili\u00e9 et furieux. Je laissai passer une semaine pour me\ncalmer. J'\u00e9crivis ensuite et donnai un nouveau rendez-vous pour\nl'apr\u00e8s-midi du lendemain.\n\n--Et de six!\n\n--Le Directeur m'\u00e9crivit qu'il acceptait. J'arrivai ponctuellement et\nrestai assis sur ma chaise jusqu'\u00e0 deux heures et demie. \u00c9coeur\u00e9 et\nfurieux, je sortis de cette antichambre maudite, jurant qu'on ne m'y\nreverrait jamais plus. Quant \u00e0 l'incurie, l'incapacit\u00e9 et l'indiff\u00e9rence\npour les int\u00e9r\u00eats de l'arm\u00e9e que venait de t\u00e9moigner le Directeur\nG\u00e9n\u00e9ral du D\u00e9partement des Cuirs et chaussures, elles \u00e9taient\nd\u00e9cid\u00e9ment au-dessus de tout.\n\n--Permettez! Je suis un vieil homme de grande exp\u00e9rience et j'ai vu bien\ndes gens passant pour intelligents qui n'avaient pas assez de bon sens\npour mener \u00e0 bonne fin une affaire aussi simple que celle dont vous\nm'entretenez. Vous n'\u00eates pas pour moi le premier \u00e9chantillon de ce\ntype, car j'en ai connu personnellement des millions et des milliards\nqui vous ressemblaient. Vous avez perdu trois mois bien inutilement;\nl'inventeur les a perdus aussi, et les soldats n'en sont pas plus\navanc\u00e9s; total: neuf mois. Eh bien, maintenant je vais vous lire une\nanecdote que j'ai \u00e9crite hier soir, et demain dans la journ\u00e9e vous irez\nenlever votre affaire chez le Directeur G\u00e9n\u00e9ral.\n\n--Je veux bien, mais le connaissez-vous?\n\n--Du tout, \u00e9coutez seulement mon histoire.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nCOMMENT LE RAMONEUR GAGNA L'OREILLE DE L'EMPEREUR\n\n\n\nI\n\nL'\u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9tait venu; les plus robustes \u00e9taient harass\u00e9s par la chaleur\ntorride; les plus faibles, \u00e0 bout de souffle, mouraient comme des\nmouches. Depuis des semaines, l'arm\u00e9e \u00e9tait d\u00e9cim\u00e9e par la dysenterie,\ncette plaie du soldat; et personne n'y trouvait un rem\u00e8de. Les m\u00e9decins\nne savaient plus o\u00f9 donner de la t\u00eate; le succ\u00e8s de leur science et de\nleurs m\u00e9dicaments (d'une efficacit\u00e9 douteuse, entre nous), \u00e9tait dans le\ndomaine du pass\u00e9, et risquait fort d'y rester enfoui \u00e0 tout jamais.\n\nL'empereur appela en consultation les sommit\u00e9s m\u00e9dicales les plus en\nrenom, car il \u00e9tait profond\u00e9ment affect\u00e9 de cette situation. Il les\ntraita fort s\u00e9v\u00e8rement, et leur demanda compte de la mort de ses\nhommes; connaissaient-ils leur m\u00e9tier, oui ou non? \u00e9taient-ils des\nm\u00e9decins ou simplement de vulgaires assassins? Le plus haut en grade de\nces assassins, qui \u00e9tait en m\u00eame temps le doyen des m\u00e9decins du pays et\nle plus consid\u00e9r\u00e9 aux environs, lui r\u00e9pondit ceci:\n\n\u00abMajest\u00e9, nous avons fait tout notre possible, et nos efforts sont\nrest\u00e9s infructueux. Ni un m\u00e9dicament, ni un m\u00e9decin ne peut gu\u00e9rir cette\nmaladie; la nature et une forte constitution seules peuvent triompher de\nce mal maudit. Je suis vieux, j'ai de l'exp\u00e9rience. Ni m\u00e9decine, ni\nm\u00e9dicaments ne peuvent en venir \u00e0 bout, je le dis et je le r\u00e9p\u00e8te.\nQuelquefois ils semblent aider la nature, mais en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral ils ne font\nqu'aggraver la maladie.\u00bb\n\nL'empereur, qui \u00e9tait un homme incr\u00e9dule, emport\u00e9, invectiva les\ndocteurs des \u00e9pith\u00e8tes les plus malsonnantes et les renvoya brutalement.\nVingt-quatre heures apr\u00e8s, il \u00e9tait pris, lui aussi, de ce mal cruel. La\nnouvelle vola de bouche en bouche, et remplit le pays de consternation.\nOn ne parlait plus que de cette catastrophe et le d\u00e9couragement \u00e9tait\ng\u00e9n\u00e9ral; on commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 perdre tout espoir. L'empereur lui-m\u00eame \u00e9tait\ntr\u00e8s abattu et soupirait en disant:\n\n\u00abQue la volont\u00e9 de Dieu soit faite. Qu'on aille me chercher ces\nassassins, et que nous en finissions au plus vite.\u00bb\n\nIls accoururent, lui t\u00e2t\u00e8rent le pouls, examin\u00e8rent sa langue, et lui\nfirent avaler un jeu complet de drogues, puis ils s'assirent patiemment\n\u00e0 son chevet, et attendirent.\n\n(Ils \u00e9taient pay\u00e9s \u00e0 l'ann\u00e9e et non \u00e0 la t\u00e2che, ne l'oublions pas!)\n\n\n\nII\n\nTommy avait seize ans; c'\u00e9tait un gar\u00e7on d'esprit, mais il manquait de\nrelations; sa position \u00e9tait trop humble pour cela et son emploi trop\nmodeste. De fait, son m\u00e9tier ne pouvait pas le mettre en \u00e9vidence; car\nil travaillait sous les ordres de son p\u00e8re et vidait les puisards avec\nlui; la nuit, il l'aidait \u00e0 conduire sa voiture. L'ami intime de Tommy\n\u00e9tait Jimmy, le ramoneur; un gar\u00e7on de quatorze ans, d'apparence gr\u00eale;\nhonn\u00eate et travailleur, il avait un coeur d'or et faisait vivre sa m\u00e8re\ninfirme, de son travail dangereux et p\u00e9nible.\n\nL'empereur \u00e9tait malade depuis d\u00e9j\u00e0 un mois, lorsque ces deux jeunes\ngens se rencontr\u00e8rent un soir vers neuf heures. Tommy \u00e9tait en route\npour sa besogne nocturne; il n'avait naturellement pas endoss\u00e9 ses\nhabits des jours de f\u00eate, et ses sordides v\u00eatements de travail \u00e9taient\nloin de sentir bon! Jimmy rentrait d'une journ\u00e9e ardue; il \u00e9tait d'une\nnoirceur inimaginable; il portait ses balais sur son \u00e9paule, son sac \u00e0\nsuie \u00e0 la ceinture; pas un trait de sa figure n'\u00e9tait d'ailleurs\nreconnaissable; on n'apercevait au milieu de cette noirceur que ses yeux\n\u00e9veill\u00e9s et brillants.\n\nIls s'assirent sur la margelle pour causer; bien entendu ils abord\u00e8rent\nl'unique sujet de conversation: le malheur de la nation, la maladie de\nl'empereur. Jimmy avait con\u00e7u un projet et il br\u00fblait du d\u00e9sir de\nl'exposer.\n\nIl confia donc son secret \u00e0 son ami:\n\n--Tommy, dit-il, je puis gu\u00e9rir Sa Majest\u00e9; je connais le moyen.\n\nTommy demanda stup\u00e9fait:\n\n--Comment, toi?\n\n--Oui, moi.\n\n--Mais, petit serin, les meilleurs m\u00e9decins n'y arrivent pas.\n\n--Cela m'est \u00e9gal, moi j'y arriverai. Je puis le gu\u00e9rir en un quart\nd'heure.\n\n--Allons, tais-toi. Tu dis des b\u00eatises.\n\n--La v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Rien que la v\u00e9rit\u00e9!\n\nJimmy avait un air si convaincu que Tommy se ravisa et lui demanda:\n\n--Tu m'as pourtant l'air s\u00fbr de ton affaire, Jimmy. L'es-tu vraiment?\n\n--Parole d'honneur.\n\n--Indique-moi ton proc\u00e9d\u00e9. Comment pr\u00e9tends-tu gu\u00e9rir l'empereur?\n\n--En lui faisant manger une tranche de melon d'eau.\n\nTommy, \u00e9bahi, se mit \u00e0 rire \u00e0 gorge d\u00e9ploy\u00e9e d'une id\u00e9e aussi absurde.\nIl essaya pourtant de ma\u00eetriser son fou rire, lorsqu'il vit que Jimmy\nallait le prendre au tragique. Il lui tapa amicalement sur les genoux,\nsans se pr\u00e9occuper de la suie, et lui dit:\n\n--Ne t'offusque pas, mon cher, de mon hilarit\u00e9. Je n'avais aucune\nmauvaise intention, Jimmy, je te l'assure. Mais, vois-tu, elle semblait\nsi dr\u00f4le, ton id\u00e9e. Pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment dans ce camp o\u00f9 s\u00e9vit la dysenterie, les\nm\u00e9decins ont pos\u00e9 une affiche pour pr\u00e9venir que ceux qui y\nintroduiraient des melons d'eau seraient fouett\u00e9s jusqu'au sang.\n\n--Je le sais bien, les idiots! dit Jimmy, sur un ton d'indignation et de\ncol\u00e8re. Les melons d'eau abondent aux environs et pas un seul de ces\nsoldats n'aurait d\u00fb mourir.\n\n--Voyons, Jimmy, qui t'a fourr\u00e9 cette lubie en t\u00eate?\n\n--Ce n'est pas une lubie, c'est un fait reconnu. Connais-tu le vieux\nZulu aux cheveux gris? Eh bien, voil\u00e0 longtemps qu'il gu\u00e9rit une masse\nde nos amis; ma m\u00e8re l'a vu \u00e0 l'oeuvre et moi aussi. Il ne lui faut\nqu'une ou deux tranches de melon; il ne s'inqui\u00e8te pas si le mal est\nenracin\u00e9 ou r\u00e9cent; il le gu\u00e9rit s\u00fbrement.\n\n--C'est tr\u00e8s curieux. Mais si tu dis vrai, Jimmy, l'empereur devrait\nconna\u00eetre cette particularit\u00e9 sans retard.\n\n--Tu es enfin de mon avis? Ma m\u00e8re en a bien fait part \u00e0 plusieurs\npersonnes, esp\u00e9rant que cela lui serait r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9, mais tous ces gens-l\u00e0 ne\nsont que des travailleurs ignorants qui ne savent pas comment parvenir \u00e0\nl'empereur.\n\n--Bien entendu, ils ne savent pas se d\u00e9brouiller, ces empaill\u00e9s,\nr\u00e9pondit Tommy avec un certain m\u00e9pris. Moi j'y parviendrais.\n\n--Toi? Un conducteur de voitures nocturnes, qui empestes \u00e0 cent lieues \u00e0\nla ronde?\n\nEt \u00e0 son tour, Jimmy se tordait de rire; mais Tommy r\u00e9pliqua avec\nassurance:\n\n--Ris si tu veux, je te dis que j'y arriverai.\n\nIl paraissait si convaincu, que Jimmy en fut frapp\u00e9 et lui demanda avec\ngravit\u00e9.\n\n--Tu connais donc l'empereur?\n\n--Moi le conna\u00eetre, tu es fou? Bien s\u00fbr que non.\n\n--Alors comment t'en tireras-tu?\n\n--C'est tr\u00e8s simple. Devine. Comment proc\u00e9derais-tu, Jimmy?\n\n--Je lui \u00e9crirais. J'avoue que je n'y avais jamais pens\u00e9 auparavant;\nmais je parie bien que c'est ton syst\u00e8me?\n\n--Pour s\u00fbr que non. Et ta lettre, comment l'enverrais-tu?\n\n--Par le courrier, pardi!\n\nTommy haussa les \u00e9paules et lui dit:\n\n--Allons, tu ne te doutes donc pas que tous les gaillards de l'Empire en\nfont autant. Voyons! Tu ne me feras pas croire que tu n'y avais pas\nr\u00e9fl\u00e9chi.\n\n--Eh bien, non, r\u00e9pondit Jimmy \u00e9bahi.\n\n--C'est vrai, j'oublie, mon cher, que tu es tr\u00e8s jeune et par cons\u00e9quent\ninexp\u00e9riment\u00e9. Un exemple, Jimmy; quand un simple g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, un po\u00e8te, un\nacteur ou quelqu'un qui jouit d'une certaine notori\u00e9t\u00e9 tombe malade,\ntous les loustics du pays encombrent les journaux de rem\u00e8des\ninfaillibles, de recettes merveilleuses qui le doivent gu\u00e9rir. Que\npenses-tu qu'il arrive s'il s'agit d'un empereur?\n\n--Je suppose qu'il en re\u00e7oit encore plus, dit Jimmy tout penaud.\n\n--Ah! je te crois! \u00c9coute-moi, Jimmy; chaque nuit nous ramassons \u00e0 peu\npr\u00e8s la valeur de six fois la charge de nos voitures, de ces fameuses\nlettres, qu'on jette dans la cour de derri\u00e8re du Palais, environ\nquatre-vingt mille lettres par nuit. Crois-tu que quelqu'un s'amuse \u00e0\nles lire? Pouah! Pas une \u00e2me! C'est ce qui arriverait \u00e0 ta lettre si tu\nl'\u00e9crivais; tu ne le feras pas, je pense bien?\n\n--Non, soupira Jimmy, d\u00e9concert\u00e9.\n\n--\u00c7a va bien, Jimmy; ne t'inqui\u00e8te pas et pars de ce principe qu'il y a\nmille mani\u00e8res diff\u00e9rentes d'\u00e9corcher un chat. Je lui ferai savoir la\nchose, je t'en r\u00e9ponds.\n\n--Oh, si seulement, tu pouvais, Tommy! Je t'aimerais tant!\n\n--Je le ferai, je te le r\u00e9p\u00e8te. Ne te tourmente pas et compte sur moi.\n\n--Oh! oui. J'y compte Tommy, tu es si roublard et beaucoup plus malin\nque les autres. Mais comment feras-tu, dis-moi?\n\nTommy commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 se rengorger. Il s'installa confortablement pour\ncauser, et entreprit son histoire:\n\n--Connais-tu ce pauvre diable qui joue au boucher en se promenant avec\nun panier contenant du mou de veau et des foies avari\u00e9s? Eh bien, pour\ncommencer, je lui confierai mon secret.\n\nJimmy, de plus en plus m\u00e9dus\u00e9, lui r\u00e9pondit:\n\n--Voyons, Tommy, c'est m\u00e9chant de te moquer de moi. Tu sais combien j'y\nsuis sensible et tu es peu charitable de te payer ma t\u00eate comme tu le\nfais.\n\nTommy lui tapa amicalement sur l'\u00e9paule et lui dit:\n\n--Ne te tourmente donc pas, Jimmy, je sais ce que je dis, tu le verras\nbient\u00f4t. Cette esp\u00e8ce de boucher racontera mon histoire \u00e0 la marchande\nde marrons du coin; je le lui demanderai d'ailleurs, parce que c'est sa\nmeilleure amie. Celle-ci \u00e0 son tour en parlera \u00e0 sa tante, la riche\nfruiti\u00e8re du coin, celle qui demeure deux p\u00e2t\u00e9s de maisons plus haut; la\nfruiti\u00e8re le dira \u00e0 son meilleur ami, le marchand de gibier, qui le\nr\u00e9p\u00e9tera \u00e0 son parent, le sergent de ville. Celui-ci le dira \u00e0 son\ncapitaine, le capitaine au magistrat; le magistrat \u00e0 son beau-fr\u00e8re, le\njuge du comt\u00e9; le juge du comt\u00e9 en parlera au sh\u00e9rif, le sh\u00e9rif au\nlord-maire, le lord-maire au pr\u00e9sident du Conseil, et le pr\u00e9sident du\nConseil le dira \u00e0...\n\n--Par saint Georges! Tommy, c'est un plan merveilleux, comment as-tu\npu...\n\n--... Au contre-amiral qui le r\u00e9p\u00e9tera au vice-amiral; le vice-amiral le\ntransmettra \u00e0 l'amiral des Bleus, qui le fera passer \u00e0 l'amiral des\nRouges; celui-ci en parlera \u00e0 l'amiral des Blancs; ce dernier au premier\nlord de l'amiraut\u00e9, qui le dira au pr\u00e9sident de la Chambre. Le pr\u00e9sident\nde la Chambre le dira...\n\n--Continue, Tommy, tu y es presque.\n\n--... Au piqueur en chef; celui-ci le racontera au premier groom; le\npremier groom au grand \u00e9cuyer; le grand \u00e9cuyer au premier lord de\nservice; le premier lord de service au grand chambellan; le grand\nchambellan \u00e0 l'intendant du palais; l'intendant du palais le confiera au\npetit page favori qui \u00e9vente l'empereur; le page enfin se mettra \u00e0\ngenoux et chuchotera la chose \u00e0 l'oreille de Sa Majest\u00e9... et le tour\nsera jou\u00e9!!!\n\n--Il faut que je me l\u00e8ve pour t'applaudir deux fois, Tommy, voil\u00e0 bien\nla plus belle id\u00e9e qui ait jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 con\u00e7ue. Comment diable as-tu pu\nl'avoir?\n\n--Assieds-toi et \u00e9coute; je vais te donner de bons principes, tu ne les\noublieras pas tant que tu vivras. Eh! bien, qui est ton plus cher ami,\ncelui auquel tu ne pourrais, ni ne voudrais rien refuser?\n\n--Comment, Tommy? Mais c'est toi, tu le sais bien.\n\n--Suppose un instant que tu veuilles demander un assez grand service au\nmarchand de mou de veau. Comme tu ne le connais pas, il t'enverrait\npromener \u00e0 tous les diables, car il est de cette esp\u00e8ce de gens; mais il\nse trouve qu'apr\u00e8s toi, il est mon meilleur ami, et qu'il se ferait\nhacher en menus morceaux pour me rendre un service, n'importe lequel.\nApr\u00e8s cela, je te demande, quel est le moyen le plus s\u00fbr: d'aller le\ntrouver toi-m\u00eame et de le prier de parler \u00e0 la marchande de marrons de\nton rem\u00e8de de melon d'eau, ou bien de me demander de le faire pour toi?\n\n--Il vaudrait mieux t'en charger, bien s\u00fbr. Je n'y aurais jamais pens\u00e9,\nTommy, c'est une id\u00e9e magnifique.\n\n--C'est de la haute philosophie, tu vois; le mot est somptueux, mais\njuste. Je me base sur ce principe que: chacun en ce monde, petit ou\ngrand, a un ami particulier, un ami de coeur \u00e0 qui il est heureux de\nrendre service. (Je ne veux parler naturellement que de services rendus\navec bonne humeur et sans rechigner).\n\nAinsi peu m'importe ce que tu entreprends; tu peux toujours arriver \u00e0\nqui tu veux, m\u00eame si, personnage sans importance, tu t'adresses \u00e0\nquelqu'un de tr\u00e8s haut plac\u00e9. C'est bien simple; tu n'as qu'\u00e0 trouver un\npremier ami porte-parole; voil\u00e0 tout, ton r\u00f4le s'arr\u00eate l\u00e0. Cet ami en\ncherche un autre, qui \u00e0 son tour en trouve un troisi\u00e8me et ainsi de\nsuite, d'ami en ami, de maille en maille, on forme la cha\u00eene; libre \u00e0\ntoi d'en suivre les maillons en montant ou en descendant \u00e0 ton choix.\n\n--C'est tout simplement admirable, Tommy!\n\n--Mais aussi simple et facile que possible; c'est l'A B C; pourtant,\nas-tu jamais connu quelqu'un sachant employer ce moyen? Non, parce que\nle monde est inepte. On va sans introduction trouver un \u00e9tranger, ou\nbien on lui \u00e9crit; naturellement on re\u00e7oit une douche froide, et ma foi,\nc'est parfaitement bien fait. Eh! bien, l'empereur ne me conna\u00eet pas,\npeu importe; il mangera son melon d'eau demain. Tu verras, je te le\npromets. Voil\u00e0 le marchand de mou de veau. Adieu, Jimmy, je vais le\nsurprendre.\n\nIl le surprit en effet, et lui demanda:\n\n--Dites-moi, voulez-vous me rendre un service?\n\n--Si je veux? en voil\u00e0 une question! Je suis votre homme. Dites ce que\nvous voulez, et vous me verrez voler.\n\n--Allez dire \u00e0 la marchande de marrons de tout planter l\u00e0, et de vite\nporter ce message \u00e0 son meilleur ami; recommandez-lui de prier cet ami\nde faire la boule de neige.\u00bb\n\nIl exposa la nature du message, et le quitta en disant: \u00abMaintenant,\nd\u00e9p\u00eachez-vous.\u00bb\n\nUn instant apr\u00e8s, les paroles du ramoneur \u00e9taient en voie de parvenir \u00e0\nl'empereur.\n\n\n\nIII\n\nLe lendemain, vers minuit, les m\u00e9decins \u00e9taient assis dans la chambre\nimp\u00e9riale et chuchotaient entre eux, tr\u00e8s inquiets, car la maladie de\nl'empereur semblait grave. Ils ne pouvaient se dissimuler que chaque\nfois qu'ils lui administraient une nouvelle drogue, il s'en trouvait\nplus mal. Cette constatation les attristait, en leur enlevant tout\nespoir. Le pauvre empereur \u00e9maci\u00e9 somnolait, les yeux ferm\u00e9s. Son page\nfavori chassait les mouches autour de son chevet et pleurait doucement.\nTout \u00e0 coup le jeune homme entendit le l\u00e9ger froufrou d'une porti\u00e8re\nqu'on \u00e9carte; il se retourna et aper\u00e7ut le lord grand-ma\u00eetre du palais\nqui passait la t\u00eate par la porti\u00e8re entreb\u00e2ill\u00e9e et lui faisait signe de\nvenir \u00e0 lui. Vite le page accourut sur la pointe des pieds vers son cher\nami le grand-ma\u00eetre; ce dernier lui dit avec nervosit\u00e9:\n\n--Toi seul, mon enfant, peux le persuader. Oh! n'y manque pas. Prends\nceci, fais-le lui manger et il est sauv\u00e9.\n\n--Sur ma t\u00eate, je le jure il le mangera.\n\nC'\u00e9taient deux grosses tranches de melon d'eau, fra\u00eeches, succulentes\nd'aspect.\n\n\n\nIV\n\nLe lendemain matin, la nouvelle se r\u00e9pandit partout que l'empereur \u00e9tait\nhors d'affaire et compl\u00e8tement remis. En revanche, il avait fait pendre\nles m\u00e9decins. La joie \u00e9clata dans tout le pays, et on se pr\u00e9para \u00e0\nilluminer magnifiquement.\n\nApr\u00e8s le d\u00e9jeuner, Sa Majest\u00e9 m\u00e9ditait dans un bon fauteuil: l'empereur\nvoulait t\u00e9moigner sa reconnaissance infinie, et cherchait quelle\nr\u00e9compense il pourrait accorder pour exprimer sa gratitude \u00e0 son\nbienfaiteur.\n\nLorsque son plan fut bien arr\u00eat\u00e9, il appela son page et lui demanda s'il\navait invent\u00e9 ce rem\u00e8de. Le jeune homme dit que non, que le grand ma\u00eetre\ndu palais le lui avait indiqu\u00e9.\n\nL'empereur le cong\u00e9dia et se remit \u00e0 r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir:\n\nLe grand-ma\u00eetre avait le titre de comte: il allait le cr\u00e9er duc, et lui\ndonnerait de vastes propri\u00e9t\u00e9s qu'il confisquerait \u00e0 un membre de\nl'opposition. Il le fit donc appeler et lui demanda s'il \u00e9tait\nl'inventeur du rem\u00e8de. Mais le grand-ma\u00eetre, qui \u00e9tait un honn\u00eate homme,\nr\u00e9pondit qu'il le tenait du grand chambellan. L'empereur le renvoya et\nr\u00e9fl\u00e9chit de nouveau: le chambellan \u00e9tait vicomte; il le ferait comte,\net lui donnerait de gros revenus. Mais le chambellan r\u00e9pondit qu'il\ntenait le rem\u00e8de du premier lord de service.\n\nIl fallait encore r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir. Ceci indisposa un peu Sa Majest\u00e9 qui songea\n\u00e0 une r\u00e9compense moins magnanime. Mais le premier lord de service\ntenait le rem\u00e8de d'un autre gentilhomme! L'empereur s'assit de nouveau\net chercha dans sa t\u00eate une r\u00e9compense plus modeste et mieux\nproportionn\u00e9e \u00e0 la situation de l'inventeur du rem\u00e8de.\n\nEnfin de guerre lasse, pour rompre la monotonie de ce travail imaginatif\net h\u00e2ter la besogne, il fit venir le grand chef de la police, et lui\ndonna l'ordre d'instruire cette affaire et d'en remonter le fil, pour\nlui permettre de remercier dignement son bienfaiteur.\n\nDans la soir\u00e9e, \u00e0 neuf heures, le grand chef de la police apporta la\nclef de l'\u00e9nigme. Il avait suivi le fil de l'histoire, et s'\u00e9tait ainsi\narr\u00eat\u00e9 \u00e0 un jeune gars, du nom de Jimmy, ramoneur de profession.\nL'empereur s'\u00e9cria avec une profonde \u00e9motion.\n\n--C'est ce brave gar\u00e7on qui m'a sauv\u00e9 la vie! il ne le regrettera pas.\n\nEt... il lui envoya une de ses paires de bottes, celles qui lui\nservaient de bottes num\u00e9ro deux!\n\nElles \u00e9taient trop grandes pour Jimmy, mais chaussaient parfaitement le\nvieux Zulu. A part cela, tout \u00e9tait bien!!!\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nCONCLUSION DE L'HISTOIRE DE L'HOMME AU MESSAGE\n\n\n--Maintenant, saisissez-vous mon id\u00e9e?\n\n--Je suis oblig\u00e9 de reconna\u00eetre que vous \u00eates dans le vrai. Je suivrai\nvos conseils et j'ai bon espoir de conclure mon affaire demain. Je\nconnais intimement le meilleur ami du directeur g\u00e9n\u00e9ral. Il me donnera\nune lettre d'introduction avec un mot explicatif sur l'int\u00e9r\u00eat que peut\npr\u00e9senter mon affaire pour le gouvernement. Je le porterai moi-m\u00eame sans\navoir pris de rendez-vous pr\u00e9alable et le ferai remettre au directeur\navec ma carte. Je suis s\u00fbr que je n'aurai pas \u00e0 attendre une\ndemi-minute.\n\nTout se passa \u00e0 la lettre, comme il le pr\u00e9voyait, et le gouvernement\nadopta les chaussures.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLES GEAIS BLEUS\n\n\nLes animaux causent entre eux; personne n'en peut douter, mais je crois\nque peu de gens comprennent leur langage. Je n'ai jamais connu qu'un\nhomme poss\u00e9dant ce don particulier; mais je suis certain qu'il le\nposs\u00e8de, car il m'a fortement document\u00e9 sur la question.\n\nC'\u00e9tait un mineur d'\u00e2ge moyen, au coeur simple; il avait v\u00e9cu longtemps\ndans les for\u00eats et les montagnes solitaires de la Californie, \u00e9tudiant\nles moeurs de ses seuls voisins, les animaux et les oiseaux; il parvint\nainsi \u00e0 traduire fid\u00e8lement leurs gestes et leurs attitudes. Il\ns'appelait Jim Baker. Selon lui, quelques animaux ont une \u00e9ducation des\nplus sommaires et n'emploient que des mots tr\u00e8s simples, sans\ncomparaisons ni images fleuries; d'autres, au contraire, poss\u00e8dent un\nvocabulaire \u00e9tendu, un langage choisi, et jouissent d'une \u00e9nonciation\nfacile; ces derniers sont naturellement plus bavards, ils aiment\nentendre le son de leur voix et sont ravis de produire leur petit effet.\nApr\u00e8s une m\u00fbre observation, Baker conclut que les geais bleus sont les\nplus beaux parleurs de tous les oiseaux et animaux. Voici ce qu'il\nraconte:\n\n\u00abLe geai bleu est tr\u00e8s sup\u00e9rieur aux autres animaux; mieux dou\u00e9 qu'eux,\nil a des sentiments plus affin\u00e9s et plus \u00e9lev\u00e9s, et il sait les exprimer\ntous, dans un langage \u00e9l\u00e9gant, harmonieux et tr\u00e8s fleuri. Quant \u00e0 la\nfacilit\u00e9 d'\u00e9locution, vous ne voyez jamais un geai bleu rester \u00e0 court\nde mots. Ils lui viennent tout naturellement d'abord \u00e0 l'esprit, ensuite\nau bout de la langue. Autre d\u00e9tail: j'ai observ\u00e9 bien des animaux, mais\nje n'ai jamais vu un oiseau, une vache ou aucune autre b\u00eate parler une\nlangue plus irr\u00e9prochable que le geai bleu. Vous me direz que le chat\ns'exprime merveilleusement. J'en conviens, mais prenez-le au moment o\u00f9\nil entre en fureur, au moment o\u00f9 il se cr\u00eape le poil avec un autre chat,\nau milieu de la nuit; vous m'en direz des nouvelles, la grammaire qu'il\nemploie vous donnera le t\u00e9tanos!\n\n\u00abLes profanes s'imaginent que les chats nous agacent par le tapage\nqu'ils font en se battant; profonde erreur! en r\u00e9alit\u00e9, c'est leur\nd\u00e9plorable syntaxe qui nous exasp\u00e8re. En revanche, je n'ai jamais\nentendu un geai employer un mot d\u00e9plac\u00e9; le fait est des plus rares, et\nquand ils se rendent coupables d'un tel m\u00e9fait, ils sont aussi honteux\nque des \u00eatres humains; ils ferment le bec imm\u00e9diatement et s'\u00e9loignent\npour ne plus revenir.\n\n\u00abVous appelez un geai un oiseau: c'est juste, car il a des plumes et\nn'appartient au fond \u00e0 aucune paroisse; mais \u00e0 part cela, je le d\u00e9clare\nun \u00eatre aussi humain que vous et moi. Je vous en donnerai la raison: les\nfacult\u00e9s, les sentiments, les instincts, les int\u00e9r\u00eats des geais sont\nuniversels. Un geai n'a pas plus de principes qu'un d\u00e9put\u00e9 ou un\nministre: il ment, il vole, il trompe, et trahit avec la m\u00eame\nd\u00e9sinvolture, et quatre fois sur cinq il manquera \u00e0 ses engagements les\nplus solennels. Un geai n'admet jamais le caract\u00e8re sacr\u00e9 d'une parole\ndonn\u00e9e. Autre trait caract\u00e9ristique: le geai jure comme un mineur. Vous\ntrouvez d\u00e9j\u00e0 que les chats jurent comme des sapeurs; mais donnez \u00e0 un\ngeai l'occasion de sortir son vocabulaire au grand complet, vous m'en\ndirez des nouvelles: il battra le chat, haut la main, dans ce record\nsp\u00e9cial. Ne cherchez pas \u00e0 me contredire: je suis trop au courant de\nleurs moeurs. Autre particularit\u00e9: le geai bleu surpasse toute cr\u00e9ature\nhumaine ou divine dans l'art de gronder: il le fait simplement avec un\ncalme, une mesure, et une pond\u00e9ration parfaite. Oui, monsieur, un geai\nvaut un homme. Il pleure, il rit, et prend des airs contrits; je l'ai\nentendu raisonner, se disputer et discuter; il aime les histoires, les\npotins, les scandales; avec cela plein d'esprit, il sait reconna\u00eetre ses\ntorts aussi bien que vous et moi. Et maintenant je vais vous raconter\nune histoire de geais bleus, parfaitement authentique:\n\n\u00abLorsque je commen\u00e7ai \u00e0 comprendre leur langage, il survint ici un petit\nincident. Le dernier homme qui habitait la r\u00e9gion avec moi, il y a sept\nans, s'en alla. Vous voyez d'ailleurs sa maison. Elle est rest\u00e9e vide\ndepuis; elle se compose d'une hutte en planches, avec une grande pi\u00e8ce\net voil\u00e0 tout; un toit de chaume et pas de plafond. Un dimanche matin,\nj'\u00e9tais assis sur le seuil de ma hutte, et je prenais l'air avec mon\nchat; je regardais le ciel bleu, en \u00e9coutant le murmure solitaire des\nfeuilles, et en songeant, r\u00eaveur, \u00e0 mon pays natal dont j'\u00e9tais priv\u00e9 de\nnouvelles depuis treize ans; un geai bleu parut sur cette maison\nd\u00e9serte; il tenait un gland dans son bec, et se mit \u00e0 parler: \u00abTiens,\ndisait-il, je viens de me heurter \u00e0 quelque chose.\u00bb Le gland tomba de\nson bec, roula par terre; il n'en parut pas autrement contrari\u00e9 et resta\ntr\u00e8s absorb\u00e9 par son id\u00e9e. Il avait vu un trou dans le toit; il ferma un\noeil, tourna la t\u00eate successivement des deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s, et essaya de voir ce\nqu'il y avait au fond de ce trou; je le vis bient\u00f4t relever la t\u00eate, son\noeil brillait. Il se mit \u00e0 battre des ailes deux ou trois fois, ce qui\nest un indice de grande satisfaction, et s'\u00e9cria: \u00abC'est un trou ou je\nne m'y connais pas; c'est s\u00fbrement un trou.\u00bb\n\n\u00abIl regarda encore; son oeil s'illumina, puis, battant des ailes et de\nla queue, il s'\u00e9cria: \u00abJ'en ai, une veine! C'est un trou, et un trou des\nmieux conditionn\u00e9s.\u00bb D'un coup d'aile, il plongea, ramassa le gland et\nle jeta dans le trou; sa physionomie exprimait une joie indescriptible,\nlorsque soudain son sourire se figea sur son bec, et fit place \u00e0 une\nprofonde stupeur: \u00abComment se fait-il, dit-il, que je ne l'aie pas\nentendu tomber?\u00bb Il regarda de nouveau, et resta tr\u00e8s pensif; il fit le\ntour du trou en tous sens, bien d\u00e9cid\u00e9 \u00e0 percer ce myst\u00e8re; il ne trouva\nrien. Il s'installa alors sur le haut du toit, et se prit \u00e0 r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir en\nse grattant la t\u00eate avec sa patte. \u00abJe crois que j'entreprends l\u00e0 un\ntravail colossal; le trou doit \u00eatre immense, et je n'ai pas le temps de\nm'amuser.\u00bb\n\n\u00abIl s'en alla \u00e0 tire d'aile, ramassa un autre gland, le jeta dans le\ntrou et essaya de voir jusqu'o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait tomb\u00e9, mais en vain; alors il\npoussa un profond soupir. \u00abLe diable s'en m\u00eale, dit-il, je n'y comprends\nplus rien, mais je ne me laisserai pas d\u00e9courager pour si peu.\u00bb Il\nretourna chercher un gland et recommen\u00e7a son exp\u00e9rience, sans arriver \u00e0\nun r\u00e9sultat meilleur.\n\n\u00abC'est curieux, marmotta-t-il; je n'ai jamais vu un trou pareil; c'est\n\u00e9videmment un nouveau genre de trou.\u00bb Il commen\u00e7ait pourtant \u00e0\ns'\u00e9nerver. Persuad\u00e9 qu'il avait affaire \u00e0 un trou ensorcel\u00e9, il\nsecouait la t\u00eate en ronchonnant; il ne perdit pas cependant tout espoir\net ne se laissa pas aller au d\u00e9couragement. Il arpenta le toit de long\nen large, revint au trou et lui tint ce langage: \u00abVous \u00eates un trou\nextraordinaire, long, profond; un trou peu banal, mais j'ai d\u00e9cid\u00e9 de\nvous remplir; j'y arriverai co\u00fbte que co\u00fbte, duss\u00e9-je peiner des\nann\u00e9es.\u00bb\n\nIl se mit donc au travail; je vous garantis que vous n'avez jamais vu un\noiseau aussi actif sous la calotte des cieux. Pendant deux heures et\ndemie, il ramassa et jeta des glands avec une ardeur d\u00e9vorante, sans\nm\u00eame prendre le temps de regarder o\u00f9 en \u00e9tait son ouvrage. Mais la\nfatigue l'envahit et il lui sembla que ses ailes pesaient cent kilos\nchacune. Il jeta un dernier gland et soupira: \u00abCette fois je veux \u00eatre\npendu si je ne me rends pas ma\u00eetre de ce trou.\u00bb Il regarda de pr\u00e8s son\ntravail. Vous allez me traiter de blagueur, lorsque je vous dirai que je\nvis mon geai devenir p\u00e2le de col\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abComment, s'\u00e9cria-t-il, j'ai r\u00e9uni l\u00e0 assez de glands pour nourrir ma\nfamille pendant trente ans et je n'en vois pas la moindre trace. Il n'y\na pas \u00e0 en douter: si j'y comprends quelque chose, je veux que l'on\nm'empaille, qu'on me bourre le ventre de son et qu'on me loge au mus\u00e9e.\u00bb\nIl eut \u00e0 peine la force de se tra\u00eener vers la cr\u00eate du toit et de s'y\nposer, tant il \u00e9tait bris\u00e9 de fatigue et de d\u00e9couragement. Il se\nressaisit pourtant et rassembla ses esprits.\n\n\u00abUn autre geai passa; l'entendant invoquer le ciel, il s'enquit du\nmalheur qui lui arrivait. Notre ami lui donna tous les d\u00e9tails de son\naventure. \u00abVoici le trou, lui dit-il, et si vous ne me croyez pas,\ndescendez vous convaincre vous-m\u00eame.\u00bb Le camarade revint au bout d'un\ninstant: \u00abCombien avez-vous enfoui de glands l\u00e0-dedans?\u00bb\ndemanda-t-il.--\u00abPas moins de deux tonneaux.\u00bb\n\n\u00abLe nouveau venu retourna voir, mais, n'y comprenant rien, il poussa un\ncri d'appel qui attira trois autres geais. Tous, r\u00e9unis, proc\u00e9d\u00e8rent \u00e0\nl'examen du trou, et se firent raconter de nouveau les d\u00e9tails de\nl'histoire; apr\u00e8s une discussion g\u00e9n\u00e9rale leurs opinions furent aussi\ndivergentes que celles d'un comit\u00e9 de notables humains r\u00e9unis pour\ntrancher d'une question grave. Ils appel\u00e8rent d'autres geais; ces\nvolatiles accoururent en foule si compacte que leur nombre finit par\nobscurcir le ciel. Il y en avait bien cinq mille; jamais de votre vie\nvous n'avez entendu des cris, des querelles et un carnage semblables.\nChacun des geais alla regarder le trou; en revenant, il s'empressait\nd'\u00e9mettre un avis diff\u00e9rent de son pr\u00e9d\u00e9cesseur. C'\u00e9tait \u00e0 qui\nfournirait l'explication la plus abracadabrante. Ils examin\u00e8rent la\nmaison par tous les bouts. Et comme la porte \u00e9tait entr'ouverte, un geai\neut enfin l'id\u00e9e d'y p\u00e9n\u00e9trer. Le myst\u00e8re fut bien entendu \u00e9clairci en\nun instant: il trouva tous les glands par terre. Notre h\u00e9ros battit des\nailes et appela ses camarades: \u00abArrivez! arrivez! criait-il; ma parole!\ncet imb\u00e9cile n'a-t-il pas eu la pr\u00e9tention de remplir toute la maison\navec des glands?\u00bb Ils vinrent tous en masse, formant un nuage bleu; en\nd\u00e9couvrant la clef de l'\u00e9nigme ils s'esclaff\u00e8rent de la b\u00eatise de leur\ncamarade.\n\n\u00abEh bien! monsieur, apr\u00e8s cette aventure, tous les geais rest\u00e8rent l\u00e0\nune grande heure \u00e0 bavarder comme des \u00eatres humains. Ne me soutenez donc\nplus qu'un geai n'a pas l'esprit grivois; je sais trop le contraire. Et\nquelle m\u00e9moire aussi! Pendant trois ann\u00e9es cons\u00e9cutives, je vis\nrevenir, chaque \u00e9t\u00e9, une foule de geais des quatre coins des \u00c9tats-Unis:\ntous admir\u00e8rent le trou, d'autres oiseaux se joignirent \u00e0 ces p\u00e8lerins,\net tous se rendirent compte de la plaisanterie, \u00e0 l'exception d'une\nvieille chouette originaire de Nova-Scotia. Comme elle n'y voyait que du\nbleu, elle d\u00e9clara qu'elle ne trouvait rien de dr\u00f4le \u00e0 cette aventure;\nelle s'en retourna, et regagna son triste logis tr\u00e8s d\u00e9sappoint\u00e9e.\u00bb\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCOMMENT J'AI TU\u00c9 UN OURS\n\n\nOn a racont\u00e9 tant d'histoires invraisemblables sur ma chasse \u00e0 l'ours de\nl'\u00e9t\u00e9 dernier, \u00e0 Adirondack, qu'en bonne justice je dois au public, \u00e0\nmoi-m\u00eame et aussi \u00e0 l'ours, de relater les faits qui s'y rattachent avec\nla plus parfaite v\u00e9racit\u00e9. Et d'ailleurs il m'est arriv\u00e9 si rarement de\ntuer un ours, que le lecteur m'excusera de m'\u00e9tendre trop longuement\npeut-\u00eatre sur cet exploit.\n\nNotre rencontre fut inattendue de part et d'autre. Je ne chassais pas\nl'ours, et je n'ai aucune raison de supposer que l'ours me cherchait. La\nv\u00e9rit\u00e9 est que nous cueillions des m\u00fbres, chacun de notre c\u00f4t\u00e9, et que\nnous nous rencontr\u00e2mes par hasard, ce qui arrive souvent. Les voyageurs\nqui passent \u00e0 Adirondack ont souvent exprim\u00e9 le d\u00e9sir de rencontrer un\nours; c'est-\u00e0-dire que tous voudraient en apercevoir un, de loin, dans\nla for\u00eat; ils se demandent d'ailleurs ce qu'ils feraient en pr\u00e9sence\nd'un animal de cette esp\u00e8ce. Mais l'ours est rare et timide et ne se\nmontre pas souvent.\n\nC'\u00e9tait par une chaude apr\u00e8s-midi d'ao\u00fbt; rien ne faisait supposer qu'un\n\u00e9v\u00e9nement \u00e9trange arriverait ce jour-l\u00e0. Les propri\u00e9taires de notre\nchalet eurent l'id\u00e9e de m'envoyer dans la montagne, derri\u00e8re la maison,\npour cueillir des m\u00fbres. Pour arriver dans les bois, il fallait\ntraverser des prairies en pente, tout entrecoup\u00e9es de haies, vraiment\nfort pittoresques. Des vaches p\u00e2turaient paisibles, au milieu de ces\nhaies touffues dont elles broutaient le feuillage. On m'avait\naimablement muni d'un seau, et pri\u00e9 de ne pas m'absenter trop longtemps.\n\nPourquoi, ce jour-l\u00e0, avais je pris un fusil? Ce n'est certes pas par\nintuition, mais par pur amour-propre. Une arme, \u00e0 mon avis, devait me\ndonner une contenance masculine et contrebalancer l'effet d\u00e9plorable\nproduit par le seau que je portais; et puis, je pouvais toujours faire\nlever un perdreau (au fond j'aurais \u00e9t\u00e9 tr\u00e8s embarrass\u00e9 de le tirer au\nvol, et surtout de le tuer). Beaucoup de gens emploient des fusils pour\nchasser le perdreau; moi je pr\u00e9f\u00e8re la carabine qui mutile moins la\nvictime et ne la crible pas de plombs. Ma carabine \u00e9tait une \u00abSharps\u00bb,\nfaite pour tirer \u00e0 balle. C'\u00e9tait une arme excellente qui appartenait \u00e0\nun de mes amis; ce dernier r\u00eavait depuis des ann\u00e9es de s'en servir pour\ntuer un cerf. Elle portait si juste qu'il pouvait,--si le temps \u00e9tait\npropice et l'atmosph\u00e8re calme,--atteindre son but \u00e0 chaque coup. Il\nexcellait \u00e0 planter une balle dans un arbre \u00e0 condition toutefois que\nl'arbre ne f\u00fbt pas trop \u00e9loign\u00e9. Naturellement, l'arbre devait aussi\noffrir une certaine surface!\n\nInutile de dire que je n'\u00e9tais pas \u00e0 cette \u00e9poque un chasseur \u00e9m\u00e9rite.\nIl y a quelques ann\u00e9es, j'avais tu\u00e9 un rouge-gorge dans des\ncirconstances particuli\u00e8rement humiliantes. L'oiseau se tenait sur une\nbranche tr\u00e8s basse de cerisier. Je chargeai mon fusil, me glissai sous\nl'arbre, j'appuyai mon arme sur la haie, en pla\u00e7ant la bouche \u00e0 dix pas\nde l'oiseau, je fermai les yeux et tirai! Lorsque je me relevai pour\nvoir le r\u00e9sultat, le malheureux rouge-gorge \u00e9tait en miettes,\n\u00e9parpill\u00e9es de tous les c\u00f4t\u00e9s, et si imperceptibles que le meilleur\nnaturaliste n'aurait jamais pu d\u00e9terminer \u00e0 quelle famille appartenait\nl'oiseau.\n\nCet incident me d\u00e9go\u00fbta \u00e0 tout jamais de la chasse; si j'y fais allusion\naujourd'hui, c'est uniquement pour prouver au lecteur que malgr\u00e9 mon\narme je n'\u00e9tais pas un ennemi redoutable pour l'ours.\n\nOn avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu des ours dans ces parages, \u00e0 proximit\u00e9 des m\u00fbriers.\nL'\u00e9t\u00e9 pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent, notre cuisini\u00e8re n\u00e8gre, accompagn\u00e9e d'une enfant du\nvoisinage, y cueillait des m\u00fbres, lorsqu'un ours sortit de la for\u00eat, et\nvint au-devant d'elle. L'enfant prit ses jambes \u00e0 son cou et se sauva.\nLa brave Chlo\u00e9 fut paralys\u00e9e de terreur; au lieu de chercher \u00e0 courir,\nelle s'effondra sur place, et se mit \u00e0 pleurer et \u00e0 hurler au perdu.\nL'ours, terroris\u00e9 par ces simagr\u00e9es, s'approcha d'elle, la regarda, et\nfit le tour de la bonne femme en la surveillant du coin de l'oeil. Il\nn'avait probablement jamais vu une femme de couleur, et ne savait pas\nbien au fond si elle ferait son affaire; quoi qu'il en soit, apr\u00e8s\nr\u00e9flexion, il tourna les talons et regagna la for\u00eat. Voil\u00e0 un exemple\nauthentique de la d\u00e9licatesse d'un ours, beaucoup plus remarquable que\nla douceur du lion africain envers l'esclave auquel il tend la patte\npour se faire extirper une \u00e9pine. Notez bien que mon ours n'avait pas\nd'\u00e9pine dans le pied.\n\nLorsque j'arrivai au haut de la colline, je posai ma carabine contre un\narbre, et me mis en devoir de cueillir mes m\u00fbres, allant d'une haie \u00e0\nl'autre, et ne craignant pas ma peine pour remplir consciencieusement\nmon seau. De tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, j'entendais le tintement argentin des\nclochettes des vaches, le craquement des branches qu'elles cassaient en\nse r\u00e9fugiant sous les arbres pour se mettre \u00e0 l'abri des mouches et des\ntaons. De temps \u00e0 autre, je rencontrais une vache paisible qui me\nregardait avec ses grands yeux b\u00eates, et se cachait dans la haie. Je\nm'habituai tr\u00e8s vite \u00e0 cette soci\u00e9t\u00e9 muette, et continuai \u00e0 cueillir mes\nm\u00fbres au milieu de tous ces bruits de la campagne; j'\u00e9tais loin de\nm'attendre \u00e0 voir poindre un ours. Pourtant, tout en faisant ma\ncueillette, mon cerveau travaillait et, par une \u00e9trange co\u00efncidence, je\nforgeai dans ma t\u00eate le roman d'une ourse qui, ayant perdu son ourson,\naurait, pour le remplacer, pris dans la for\u00eat une toute petite fille,\net l'aurait emmen\u00e9e tendrement dans une grotte pour l'\u00e9lever au miel et\nau lait. En grandissant, l'enfant mue par l'instinct h\u00e9r\u00e9ditaire, se\nserait \u00e9chapp\u00e9e, et serait revenue un beau jour chez ses parents qu'elle\naurait guid\u00e9s jusqu'\u00e0 la demeure de l'ourse. (Cette partie de mon\nhistoire demandait \u00e0 \u00eatre approfondie, car je ne vois pas bien \u00e0 quoi\nl'enfant aurait pu reconna\u00eetre son p\u00e8re et dans quel langage elle se\nserait fait comprendre de lui.)\n\nQuoi qu'il en soit, le p\u00e8re avait pris son fusil, et, suivant l'enfant\ningrate, \u00e9tait entr\u00e9 dans la for\u00eat; il avait tu\u00e9 l'ourse qui ne se\nserait m\u00eame pas d\u00e9fendue; la pauvre b\u00eate en mourant avait adress\u00e9 un\nregard de reproche \u00e0 son meurtrier. La morale suivante s'imposait \u00e0 mon\nhistoire:\n\n\u00abSoyez bons envers les animaux.\u00bb\n\nJ'\u00e9tais plong\u00e9 dans ma r\u00eaverie, lorsque par hasard, je levai les yeux et\nvis devant moi \u00e0 quelques m\u00e8tres de la clairi\u00e8re... un ours! Debout sur\nses pattes de derri\u00e8re, il faisait comme moi, il cueillait des m\u00fbres:\nd'une patte il tirait \u00e0 lui les branches trop hautes, tandis que de\nl'autre il les portait \u00e0 sa bouche; m\u00fbres ou vertes, peu lui importait,\nil avalait tout sans distinction. Dire que je fus surpris, constituerait\nune expression bien plate. Je vous avoue en tout cas bien sinc\u00e8rement\nque l'envie de me trouver nez \u00e0 nez avec un ours me passa\ninstantan\u00e9ment. D\u00e8s que cet aimable gourmand s'aper\u00e7ut de ma pr\u00e9sence,\nil interrompit sa cueillette, et me consid\u00e9ra avec une satisfaction\napparente. C'est tr\u00e8s joli d'imaginer ce qu'on ferait en face de tel ou\ntel danger, mais en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, on agit tout diff\u00e9remment; c'est ce que je\nfis. L'ours retomba lourdement sur ses quatre pattes, et vint \u00e0 moi \u00e0\npas compt\u00e9s. Grimper \u00e0 un arbre ne m'e\u00fbt servi \u00e0 rien car l'ours \u00e9tait\ncertainement plus adroit que moi \u00e0 cet exercice. Me sauver? Il me\npoursuivrait, et bien qu'un ours coure plus vite \u00e0 la mont\u00e9e qu'\u00e0 la\ndescente, je pensai que dans les terres lourdes et embroussaill\u00e9es, il\nm'aurait bien vite rattrap\u00e9.\n\nIl se rapprochait de moi; je me demandais avec angoisse comment je\npourrais l'occuper jusqu'\u00e0 ce que j'aie rejoint mon fusil laiss\u00e9 au pied\nd'un arbre. Mon seau \u00e9tait presque plein de m\u00fbres excellentes, bien\nmeilleures que celles cueillies par mon adversaire. Je posai donc mon\nseau par terre, et reculai lentement en fixant mon ours des yeux \u00e0 la\nmani\u00e8re des dompteurs. Ma tactique r\u00e9ussit.\n\nL'ours se dirigea vers le seau et s'arr\u00eata. Fort peu habitu\u00e9 \u00e0 manger\ndans un ustensile de ce genre, il le renversa et fouilla avec son museau\ndans cet amas informe de m\u00fbres, de terre et de feuilles. Certes, il\nmangeait plus salement qu'un cochon. D'ailleurs lorsqu'un ours ravage\nune p\u00e9pini\u00e8re d'\u00e9rables \u00e0 sucre, au printemps, on est toujours s\u00fbr qu'il\nrenversera tous les godets \u00e0 sirops, et gaspillera plus qu'il ne mange.\nA ce point de vue, il ne faut pas demander \u00e0 un ours d'avoir des\nmani\u00e8res \u00e9l\u00e9gantes!\n\nD\u00e8s que mon adversaire eut baiss\u00e9 la t\u00eate, je me mis \u00e0 courir; tout\nessouffl\u00e9, tremblant d'\u00e9motion, j'arrivai \u00e0 ma carabine. Il n'\u00e9tait que\ntemps. J'entendais l'ours briser les branches qui le g\u00eanaient pour me\npoursuivre. Exasp\u00e9r\u00e9 par le stratag\u00e8me que j'avais employ\u00e9, il marchait\nsur moi avec des yeux furibonds.\n\nJe compris que l'un de nous deux allait passer un mauvais quart d'heure!\nLa lucidit\u00e9 et la pr\u00e9sence d'esprit dans les circonstances path\u00e9tiques\nde la vie sont faits assez connus pour que je les passe sous silence.\nToutes les id\u00e9es qui me travers\u00e8rent le cerveau pendant que l'ours\nd\u00e9valait sur moi auraient eu peine \u00e0 tenir dans un gros in-octavo. Tout\nen chargeant ma carabine, je passai rapidement en revue mon existence\nenti\u00e8re, et je remarquai avec terreur qu'en face de la mort on ne trouve\npas une seule bonne action \u00e0 son acquit, tandis que les mauvaises\naffluent d'une mani\u00e8re humiliante. Je me rappelai, entre autres fautes,\nun abonnement de journal que je n'avais pas pay\u00e9 pendant longtemps,\nremettant toujours ma dette d'une ann\u00e9e \u00e0 l'autre; il m'\u00e9tait h\u00e9las!\nimpossible de r\u00e9parer mon ind\u00e9licatesse car l'\u00e9diteur \u00e9tait d\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9 et le\njournal avait fait faillite.\n\nEt mon ours approchait toujours! Je cherchai \u00e0 me rem\u00e9morer toutes les\nlectures que j'avais faites sur des histoires d'ours et sur des\nrencontres de ce genre, mais je ne trouvai aucun exemple d'homme sauv\u00e9\npar la fuite. J'en conclus alors que le plus s\u00fbr moyen de tuer un ours\n\u00e9tait de le tirer \u00e0 balle, quand on ne peut pas l'assommer d'un coup de\nmassue. Je pensai d'abord \u00e0 le viser \u00e0 la t\u00eate, entre les deux yeux,\nmais ceci me parut dangereux. Un cerveau d'ours est tr\u00e8s \u00e9troit, et \u00e0\nmoins d'atteindre le point vital, l'animal se moque un peu d'avoir une\nballe de plus ou de moins dans la t\u00eate.\n\nApr\u00e8s mille r\u00e9flexions pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9es, je me d\u00e9cidai \u00e0 viser le corps de\nl'ours sans chercher un point sp\u00e9cial.\n\nJ'avais lu toutes les m\u00e9thodes de Creedmoore, mais il m'\u00e9tait difficile\nd'appliquer s\u00e9ance tenante le fruit de mes \u00e9tudes scientifiques. Je me\ndemandai si je devais tirer couch\u00e9, \u00e0 plat ventre, ou sur le dos, en\nappuyant ma carabine sur mes pieds. Seulement dans toutes ces positions,\nje ne pourrais voir mon adversaire que s'il se pr\u00e9sentait \u00e0 deux pas de\nmoi; cette perspective ne m'\u00e9tait pas particuli\u00e8rement agr\u00e9able. La\ndistance qui me s\u00e9parait de mon ennemi \u00e9tait trop courte, et l'ours ne\nme donnerait pas le temps d'examiner le thermom\u00e8tre ou la direction du\nvent. Il me fallait donc renoncer \u00e0 appliquer la m\u00e9thode Creedmoore, et\nje regrettai am\u00e8rement de n'avoir pas lu plus de trait\u00e9s de tir.\n\nL'ours approchait de plus en plus! A ce moment, je pensai, la mort dans\nl'\u00e2me, \u00e0 ma famille; comme elle se compose de peu de membres, cette\nrevue fut vite pass\u00e9e. La crainte de d\u00e9plaire \u00e0 ma femme ou de lui\ncauser du chagrin dominait tous mes sentiments. Quelle serait son\nangoisse en entendant sonner les heures et en ne me voyant pas revenir!\nEt que diraient les autres, en ne recevant pas leurs m\u00fbres \u00e0 la fin de\nla journ\u00e9e; Quelle douleur pour ma femme, lorsqu'elle apprendrait que\nj'avais \u00e9t\u00e9 mang\u00e9 par un ours! Cette seule pens\u00e9e m'humilia: \u00eatre la\nproie d'un ours! Mais une autre pr\u00e9occupation hantait mon esprit! On\nn'est pas ma\u00eetre de son cerveau \u00e0 ces moments-l\u00e0! Au milieu des dangers\nles plus graves, les id\u00e9es les plus saugrenues se pr\u00e9sentent \u00e0 vous.\nPressentant en moi-m\u00eame le chagrin de mes amis, je cherchai \u00e0 deviner\nl'\u00e9pitaphe qu'ils feraient graver sur ma tombe, et arr\u00eatai mon choix sur\ncette derni\u00e8re:\n\nCI-GIT UN TEL\n\nMANG\u00c9 PAR UN OURS\n\nLE 20 AOUT 1877.\n\nCette \u00e9pitaphe me parut triviale et malsonnante. Ce \u00abmang\u00e9 par un ours\u00bb\nm'\u00e9tait profond\u00e9ment d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able, et me ridiculisait. Je fus pris de\npiti\u00e9 pour notre pauvre langue; en effet ce mot \u00abmang\u00e9\u00bb demandait une\nexplication; signifiait-il que j'avais \u00e9t\u00e9 la proie d'un cannibale ou\nd'un animal? Cette m\u00e9prise ne saurait exister en allemand, o\u00f9 le mot\n\u00abessen\u00bb veut dire mang\u00e9 par un homme et \u00abfressen\u00bb par un animal. Comme\nla question se simplifierait en allemand!\n\nHIER LIEGT\n\nHOCHWOHLGEBOREN\n\nHERR X.\n\nGEFRESSEN\n\nAUGUST 20. 1877.\n\n\nCeci va de soi. Il saute aux yeux d'apr\u00e8s cette inscription que le Herr\nX... a \u00e9t\u00e9 la victime d'un ours, animal qui jouit d'une r\u00e9putation bien\n\u00e9tablie depuis le proph\u00e8te Elis\u00e9e.\n\nEt l'ours approchait toujours! ou plus exactement, il \u00e9tait \u00e0 deux pas\nde moi. Il pouvait me voir dans le blanc des yeux! Toutes mes\nr\u00e9flexions pr\u00e9c\u00e9dentes dansaient dans ma t\u00eate avec incoh\u00e9rence. Je\nsoulevai mon fusil, je mis en joue et je tirai.\n\nPuis, je me sauvai \u00e0 toutes jambes. N'entendant pas l'ours me\npoursuivre, je me retournai pour regarder en arri\u00e8re; l'ours \u00e9tait\ncouch\u00e9. Je me rappelai que la prudence recommande au chasseur de\nrecharger son fusil aussit\u00f4t qu'il a tir\u00e9. C'est ce que je fis sans\nperdre de vue mon ours. Il ne bougeait pas. Je m'approchai de lui avec\npr\u00e9caution, et constatai un tremblement dans ses pattes de derri\u00e8re; en\ndehors de cela, il n'esquissait pas le moindre mouvement. Qui sait s'il\nne jouait pas la com\u00e9die avec moi? Un ours est capable de tout! Pour\n\u00e9viter ce nouveau danger je lui tirai \u00e0 bout portant une balle dans la\nt\u00eate; cela me parut plus s\u00fbr. Je me trouvais donc d\u00e9barrass\u00e9 de mon\nredoutable adversaire. La mort avait \u00e9t\u00e9 rapide et sans douleur, et\ndevant le beau calme de mon ennemi, je me sentis impressionn\u00e9.\n\nJe rentrai chez moi, tr\u00e8s fier d'avoir tu\u00e9 un ours.\n\nMalgr\u00e9 ma surexcitation bien naturelle, j'essayai d'opposer une\nindiff\u00e9rence simul\u00e9e aux nombreuses questions qui m'assaillirent.\n\n--O\u00f9 sont les m\u00fbres?\n\n--Pourquoi avez-vous \u00e9t\u00e9 si longtemps dehors?\n\n--Qu'avez-vous fait du seau?\n\n--Je l'ai laiss\u00e9.\n\n--Laiss\u00e9? o\u00f9? pourquoi?\n\n--Un ours me l'a demand\u00e9.\n\n--Quelle stupidit\u00e9!\n\n--Mais non, je vous affirme que je l'ai offert \u00e0 un ours.\n\n--Allons donc! vous ne nous ferez pas croire que vous avez vu un ours?\n\n--Mais si, j'en ai vu un!\n\n--Courait-il?\n\n--Oui, il a couru apr\u00e8s moi!\n\n--Ce n'est pas vrai. Qu'avez-vous fait?\n\n--Oh! rien de particulier,--je l'ai tu\u00e9.\n\nCris surhumains: \u00abPas vrai!\u00bb--\u00abO\u00f9 est-il?\u00bb\n\n--Si vous voulez le voir, il faut que vous alliez dans la for\u00eat. Je ne\npouvais pas l'emporter tout seul.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir satisfait toutes les curiosit\u00e9s de la maisonn\u00e9e et calm\u00e9\nleurs craintes r\u00e9trospectives \u00e0 mon endroit, j'allai demander de l'aide\naux voisins. Le grand chasseur d'ours, qui tient un h\u00f4tel en \u00e9t\u00e9, \u00e9couta\nmon histoire avec un sourire sceptique; son incr\u00e9dulit\u00e9 gagna tous les\nhabitants de l'h\u00f4tel et de la localit\u00e9. Cependant comme j'insistais sans\nle faire \u00e0 la pose, et que je leur proposais de les conduire sur le\nth\u00e9\u00e2tre de mon exploit, une quarantaine de personnes accept\u00e8rent de me\nsuivre et de m'aider \u00e0 ramener l'ours. Personne ne croyait en trouver\nun; pourtant chacun s'arma dans la crainte d'une f\u00e2cheuse rencontre, qui\nd'un fusil, d'un pistolet, un autre d'une fourche, quelques-uns de\nmatraques et de b\u00e2tons; on ne saurait user de trop de pr\u00e9cautions.\n\nMais lorsque j'arrivai \u00e0 l'endroit psychologique et que je montrai mon\nours, une esp\u00e8ce de terreur s'empara de cette foule incr\u00e9dule. Par\nJupiter! c'\u00e9tait un ours v\u00e9ritable; quant aux ovations qui salu\u00e8rent le\nh\u00e9ros de l'aventure... ma foi, par modestie, je les passe sous silence.\nQuelle procession pour ramener l'ours! et quelle foule pour le\ncontempler lorsqu'il fut d\u00e9pos\u00e9 chez moi! Le meilleur pr\u00e9dicateur\nn'aurait pas r\u00e9uni autant de monde pour \u00e9couter un sermon, le dimanche.\n\nAu fond, je dois reconna\u00eetre que mes amis, tous sportsmen accomplis, se\nconduisirent tr\u00e8s correctement \u00e0 mon \u00e9gard. Ils ne contest\u00e8rent pas\nl'identit\u00e9 de l'ours, mais ils le trouv\u00e8rent tr\u00e8s petit. M. Deane, en sa\nqualit\u00e9 de tireur et de p\u00eacheur \u00e9m\u00e9rite, reconnut que j'avais fait l\u00e0 un\njoli coup de fusil; son opinion me flatta d'autant plus que personne n'a\njamais pris autant de saumons que lui aux \u00c9tats-Unis et qu'il passe pour\nun chasseur tr\u00e8s remarquable.\n\nPourtant il fit remarquer, sans succ\u00e8s d'ailleurs, apr\u00e8s examen de la\nblessure de l'ours, qu'il en avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu d'analogues caus\u00e9es par des\ncornes de vache!!\n\nA ces paroles m\u00e9prisantes, j'opposai le parapluie de mon indiff\u00e9rence.\nLorsque je me couchai ce soir-l\u00e0, ext\u00e9nu\u00e9 de fatigue, je m'endormis sur\ncette pens\u00e9e d\u00e9licieuse: \u00abAujourd'hui, j'ai tu\u00e9 un ours!\u00bb\n\n\n\n\n\n\nUN CHIEN A L'\u00c9GLISE\n\n\nApr\u00e8s le chant du cantique, le R\u00e9v\u00e9rend Sprague se retourna et lut une\nliste interminable \u00abd'annonces\u00bb, de r\u00e9unions, d'assembl\u00e9es, de\nconf\u00e9rences, selon le curieux usage qui se perp\u00e9tue en Am\u00e9rique, et qui\nsubsiste m\u00eame dans les grandes villes o\u00f9 les nouvelles sont donn\u00e9es dans\ntous les journaux.\n\nCela fait, le ministre du Seigneur se mit \u00e0 prier; il formula une\ninvocation longue et g\u00e9n\u00e9reuse qui embrassait l'Univers entier, appelant\nles b\u00e9n\u00e9dictions du ciel sur l'\u00c9glise, les petits enfants, les autres\n\u00e9glises de la localit\u00e9, le village, le comt\u00e9, l'\u00c9tat, les officiers\nminist\u00e9riels de l'\u00c9tat, les \u00c9tats-Unis, les \u00e9glises des \u00c9tats-Unis, le\ncongr\u00e8s, le pr\u00e9sident, les officiers du gouvernement, les pauvres marins\nballott\u00e9s par les flots, les millions d'opprim\u00e9s qui souffrent de la\ntyrannie des monarques europ\u00e9ens et du despotisme oriental; il pria pour\nceux qui re\u00e7oivent la Lumi\u00e8re et la Bonne Parole, mais qui n'ont ni yeux\nni oreilles pour voir et comprendre; pour les pauvres pa\u00efens des \u00eeles\nperdues de l'oc\u00e9an, et il termina en demandant que sa pr\u00e9dication porte\nses fruits et que ses paroles s\u00e8ment le bon grain dans un sol fertile\ncapable de donner une opulente moisson. Amen.\n\nIl y eut alors un froufrou de robes, et l'assembl\u00e9e, debout pour la\npri\u00e8re, s'assit. Le jeune homme \u00e0 qui nous devons ce r\u00e9cit ne\ns'associait nullement \u00e0 ces exercices de pi\u00e9t\u00e9; il se contentait de\nfaire acte de pr\u00e9sence... et pr\u00eatait une attention des plus m\u00e9diocres \u00e0\nl'office qui se d\u00e9roulait. Il \u00e9tait rebelle \u00e0 la d\u00e9votion, et comme il\nne suivait la pri\u00e8re que d'une oreille distraite, connaissant par le\nmenu le programme du pasteur, il \u00e9coutait de l'autre les bruits\n\u00e9trangers \u00e0 la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie. Au milieu de la pri\u00e8re une mouche s'\u00e9tait\npos\u00e9e sur le banc devant lui, il s'absorba dans la contemplation de ses\nmouvements; il la regarda se frotter les pattes de devant, se gratter\nla t\u00eate avec ces m\u00eames pattes, et la faire reluire comme un parquet\ncir\u00e9; elle se frottait ensuite les ailes et les astiquait comme si elles\neussent \u00e9t\u00e9 des pans d'habit; toute cette toilette se passait tr\u00e8s\nsimplement, et sans la moindre g\u00eane; la mouche \u00e9videmment se sentait en\nparfaite s\u00e9curit\u00e9. Et elle l'\u00e9tait en effet, car, bien que Tom mour\u00fbt\nd'envie de la saisir, il n'osa pas, convaincu qu'il perdrait\nirr\u00e9m\u00e9diablement son \u00e2me, s'il commettait une action pareille pendant la\npri\u00e8re. Mais \u00e0 peine l'\u00abAmen\u00bb fut-il prononc\u00e9, Tom avan\u00e7a sa main\nlentement et s'empara de la mouche.\n\nSa tante, qui vit le mouvement, lui fit l\u00e2cher prise.\n\nLe pasteur commen\u00e7a son pr\u00eache et s'\u00e9tendit si longuement sur son sujet\nque peu \u00e0 peu les t\u00eates tomb\u00e8rent; Dieu sait pourtant que la conf\u00e9rence\n\u00e9tait palpitante d'int\u00e9r\u00eat, car il promettait la r\u00e9compense finale \u00e0 un\nnombre d'\u00e9lus si restreint qu'il devenait presque inutile de chercher \u00e0\natteindre le but.\n\nTom compta les pages du sermon; en sortant de l'\u00e9glise il ne se doutait\nm\u00eame pas du sujet du pr\u00eache, mais il en connaissait minutieusement le\nnombre des feuillets. Cependant cette fois-ci il prit plus d'int\u00e9r\u00eat au\ndiscours. Le ministre esquissa un tableau assez path\u00e9tique de la fin du\nmonde, \u00e0 ce moment supr\u00eame o\u00f9 le lion et l'agneau couch\u00e9s c\u00f4te \u00e0 c\u00f4te se\nlaisseront guider par un enfant. Mais la le\u00e7on, la conclusion morale \u00e0\ntirer de cette description grandiose ne frapp\u00e8rent pas le jeune\nauditeur; il ne comprit pas le symbole de cette image, et se confina\ndans un r\u00e9alisme terre \u00e0 terre; sa physionomie s'illumina et il r\u00eava\nd'\u00eatre cet enfant, pour jouer avec ce lion apprivois\u00e9.\n\nMais lorsque les conclusions arides furent tir\u00e9es, son ennui reprit de\nplus belle. Tout d'un coup, une id\u00e9e lumineuse lui traversa l'esprit; il\nse rappela qu'il poss\u00e9dait dans sa poche une bo\u00eete qui renfermait un\ntr\u00e9sor: un \u00e9norme scarab\u00e9e noir \u00e0 la m\u00e2choire arm\u00e9e de pinces\npuissantes. D\u00e8s qu'il ouvrit la bo\u00eete, le scarab\u00e9e lui pin\u00e7a\nvigoureusement le doigt; l'enfant r\u00e9pondit par une chiquenaude\nvigoureuse; le scarab\u00e9e se sauva et tomba sur le dos, pendant que\nl'enfant su\u00e7ait son doigt. Le scarab\u00e9e restait l\u00e0, se d\u00e9battant sans\nsucc\u00e8s sur le dos. Tom le couvait des yeux, mais il \u00e9tait hors de son\natteinte. D'autres fid\u00e8les, peu absorb\u00e9s par le sermon, trouv\u00e8rent un\nd\u00e9rivatif dans ce l\u00e9ger incident et s'int\u00e9ress\u00e8rent au scarab\u00e9e. Sur ces\nentrefaites, un caniche entra lentement, l'air triste et fatigu\u00e9 de sa\nlongue r\u00e9clusion; il guettait une occasion de se distraire; elle se\npr\u00e9senta \u00e0 lui sous la forme du scarab\u00e9e; il le fixa du regard en\nremuant la queue. Il se rapprocha de lui en le couvant des yeux comme un\ntigre qui convoite sa proie, le flaira \u00e0 distance, se promena autour de\nlui, et s'enhardissant, il le flaira de plus pr\u00e8s; puis, relevant ses\nbabines \u00e9paisses, il fit un mouvement pour le happer, mais il le manqua.\nLe jeu lui plaisait \u00e9videmment, car il recommen\u00e7a plusieurs fois, plus\ndoucement; petit \u00e0 petit il approcha sa t\u00eate, et toucha l'ennemi avec\nson museau, mais le scarab\u00e9e le pin\u00e7a; un cri aigu de douleur retentit\ndans l'\u00e9glise pendant que le scarab\u00e9e allait s'abattre un peu plus loin,\ntoujours sur le dos, les pattes en l'air. Les fid\u00e8les qui observaient le\njeu du chien se mirent \u00e0 rire, en se cachant derri\u00e8re leurs \u00e9ventails ou\nleurs mouchoirs; Tom exultait de bonheur. Le caniche avait l'air b\u00eate\net devait se sentir idiot, mais il gardait surtout au coeur un sentiment\nde vengeance. Se rapprochant du scarab\u00e9e, il recommen\u00e7a la lutte,\ncabriolant de tous les c\u00f4t\u00e9s, le poursuivant, cherchant \u00e0 le prendre\navec ses pattes ou entre ses dents; mais ne parvenant pas \u00e0 son but, il\nse lassa, s'amusa un instant d'une mouche, d'une demoiselle, puis d'une\nfourmi, et abandonna la partie, d\u00e9courag\u00e9 de n'arriver \u00e0 rien. Enfin,\nd'humeur moins belliqueuse, il se coucha... sur le scarab\u00e9e. On entendit\nun cri per\u00e7ant, et on vit le caniche courir comme un fou dans toute\nl'\u00e9glise, de la porte \u00e0 l'autel, de l'autel vers les bas-c\u00f4t\u00e9s; plus il\ncourait, plus il hurlait. Enfin, fou de douleur il vint se r\u00e9fugier sur\nles genoux de son ma\u00eetre, qui l'expulsa honteusement par la porte; sa\nvoix se perdit bient\u00f4t dans le lointain.\n\nPendant ce temps, l'assistance \u00e9touffait ses rires et le pasteur\ns'interrompit au milieu de son discours. Il le reprit ensuite tant bien\nque mal en cherchant ses mots, mais dut renoncer \u00e0 produire le moindre\neffet sur l'auditoire; le recueillement des fid\u00e8les s'\u00e9tait \u00e9vanoui, les\nplus graves conseils du pasteur \u00e9taient re\u00e7us par eux avec une l\u00e9g\u00e8ret\u00e9\nmal dissimul\u00e9e et tr\u00e8s peu \u00e9difiante.\n\nLorsque la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie fut termin\u00e9e, et la b\u00e9n\u00e9diction donn\u00e9e, chacun se\nsentit heureux et soulag\u00e9.\n\nTom Sawyer rentra chez lui tr\u00e8s satisfait, pensant qu'apr\u00e8s tout le\nservice divin avait du bon, lorsque de l\u00e9g\u00e8res distractions venaient\nl'agr\u00e9menter. Une seule chose le contrariait: il admettait bien que le\nchien se f\u00fbt amus\u00e9 avec son scarab\u00e9e, mais il avait vraiment abus\u00e9 de la\npermission en le faisant s'envoler par la fen\u00eatre.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nUNE VICTIME DE L'HOSPITALIT\u00c9\n\n\n--Monsieur, dis-je, ne m'en voulez pas si je vous ai amen\u00e9 dans ma\nmaison aussi glaciale et aussi triste!\n\nIl faut vous dire tout d'abord que j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 assez fou pour amener chez\nmoi un ami, et qui plus est, un malade. Assis en chemin de fer en face\nde ce monsieur, j'eus l'id\u00e9e diaboliquement \u00e9go\u00efste de lui faire\npartager avec moi le froid de cette nuit brumeuse.\n\nJ'allai \u00e0 lui et lui tapai sur l'\u00e9paule: \u00abAh!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria-t-il \u00e9tonn\u00e9.\n\n--Venez, lui dis-je, sur un ton engageant et parfaitement hypocrite, et\nque ma maison soit la v\u00f4tre. Il n'y a personne en ce moment, nous y\npasserons d'agr\u00e9ables moments. Venez donc avec moi.\n\nAguich\u00e9 par mon amabilit\u00e9, cet homme accepta. Mais lorsque nous e\u00fbmes\ncaus\u00e9 quelques instants dans la biblioth\u00e8que, nous sent\u00eemes le froid.\n\n--Allons, dis-je, faisons un beau feu clair et prenons du th\u00e9 bien\nchaud; cela nous mettra de bonne humeur. Permettez-moi de vous laisser\nseul pour tout pr\u00e9parer, et distrayez-vous en mon absence. Il faut que\nj'aille jusque chez Palmer pour lui demander de m'aider. Tout ira tr\u00e8s\nbien.\n\n--Parfait, me r\u00e9pondit mon h\u00f4te.\n\nPalmer est mon bras droit. Il habite \u00e0 quelques centaines de m\u00e8tres de\nma maison, une vieille ferme qui servait de taverne pendant la\nR\u00e9volution. Cette ferme s'est beaucoup d\u00e9labr\u00e9e depuis un si\u00e8cle; les\nmurs, les planchers ont perdu la notion de la ligne droite et l'all\u00e9e\nqui m\u00e8ne \u00e0 la maison a presque compl\u00e8tement disparu; aussi le b\u00e2timent\npara\u00eet-il tout de travers; quant aux chemin\u00e9es, elles semblent fortement\nendommag\u00e9es par le vent et la pluie. Pourtant c'est une de ces vieilles\nmaisons d'apparence solide qui avec tant soit peu de r\u00e9parations\nbraveraient les intemp\u00e9ries pendant encore cent ans et m\u00eame plus. Devant\nla ferme s'\u00e9tend une grande pelouse, et on aper\u00e7oit dans la cour un\npuits ancien qui a d\u00e9salt\u00e9r\u00e9 des g\u00e9n\u00e9rations de gens et de b\u00eates. L'eau\nen est d\u00e9licieusement pure et limpide. Lorsque s\u00e9virent les chaleurs de\nl'\u00e9t\u00e9 dernier, j'y puisai bien souvent de l'eau, me rencontrant avec les\nmendiants qui venaient se d\u00e9salt\u00e9rer d'une gorg\u00e9e d'eau claire avant de\ncontinuer leur route. Certes, vos vins capiteux peuvent faire briller de\nconvoitise les yeux des convives qui se r\u00e9unissent autour de tables\nsomptueusement servies; il n'en reste pas moins vrai que l'eau pure et\ncristalline constitue une boisson exquise pour les pauvres d\u00e9sh\u00e9rit\u00e9s de\nl'existence.\n\nEn arrivant \u00e0 la ferme, je m'aper\u00e7us qu'il n'y avait pour tout \u00e9clairage\nqu'une triste bougie \u00e0 la porte, et je frappai discr\u00e8tement. On ouvrit\naussit\u00f4t.\n\n--Palmer est-il l\u00e0? demandai-je.\n\n--Non, John est absent; il ne reviendra qu'apr\u00e8s dimanche.\n\nH\u00e9las! h\u00e9las! il ne me restait qu'\u00e0 m'en retourner; reprenant \u00e0 t\u00e2tons\nla route que je distinguais \u00e0 peine dans le brouillard au milieu des\np\u00eachers, je rentrai dans ma lugubre maison.\n\nMon h\u00f4te malade paraissait tr\u00e8s affect\u00e9.\n\n--Allons! lui dis-je en lui tapant doucement sur l'\u00e9paule,--le secouer\nplus vigoureusement e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 tr\u00e8s d\u00e9plac\u00e9 dans le cas pr\u00e9sent,--il faut\nnous d\u00e9brouiller nous-m\u00eames; je n'ai trouv\u00e9 personne \u00e0 la ferme.\n\nAllons! reprenons courage et ayons un peu d'entrain. Remontons-nous le\nmoral, et allumons le feu; mon voisin est absent, mais nous saurons bien\nnous passer de lui.\n\nJ'allumai donc ma lampe astrale, ma lampe \u00e0 globe, veux-je dire, dont le\npi\u00e8tre fonctionnement est une honte pour l'inventeur. Il faut lever la\nm\u00e8che tr\u00e8s haut pour qu'elle donne un peu de lumi\u00e8re, et au bout d'un\nmoment elle fume si bien que la pi\u00e8ce est pleine d'une suie \u00e9paisse qui\nvous prend \u00e0 la gorge. Au diable cette vilaine invention! Comme\nj'aimerais l'envoyer au diable!\n\nJe me rappelai que je trouverais des fagots sous le hangar; j'en rapportai\ndonc et les mis dans le fourneau de la cuisine que j'allumai; ensuite je\npris la bouilloire, j'allai au puits la remplir, la mis sur le fourneau et\nj'attendis. Lorsque l'eau fut bien bouillante, je pris la bo\u00eete \u00e0 th\u00e9, et\ncoupai dans un gros pain carr\u00e9 des tranches que je fis griller. Au bout de\ntrois quarts d'heure qui me parurent un si\u00e8cle, je retournai vers mon ami.\n\u00abLe th\u00e9 est pr\u00eat\u00bb, lui dis-je. Nous nous transport\u00e2mes silencieusement \u00e0 la\ncuisine. Je r\u00e9citai le benedicite; la lampe fumait, le feu flambait\ndifficilement, le th\u00e9 \u00e9tait froid; mon ami tremblait de froid (on me\nraconta plus tard qu'il avait m\u00e9dit de mon hospitalit\u00e9. Ingrat\npersonnage!) Apr\u00e8s le th\u00e9, la principale chose \u00e0 faire \u00e9tait de nous\nr\u00e9chauffer pour ne pas nous laisser mourir. Au fond, mon ami se montra\nassez vaillant, et lorsqu'il s'agit de bourrer le po\u00eale plusieurs fois,\nil me proposa son aide. Il essayait de para\u00eetre gai, mais sa physionomie\nrestait triste. Pour ma part je riais int\u00e9rieurement comme un homme qui\nvient de faire une bonne affaire en achetant un cheval. Et dire que les\ngens viennent chez vous pour trouver de l'agr\u00e9ment! Lorsqu'ils sont sous\nvotre toit, vous leur devez le confort sous toutes ses formes. Ils\ns'attendent \u00e0 \u00eatre f\u00eat\u00e9s, soign\u00e9s, cajol\u00e9s et bord\u00e9s dans leur lit le\nsoir. Le temps qu'ils passent chez les autres repr\u00e9sente pour eux un\ndoux \u00abfarniente\u00bb. Avec quelle satisfaction ils s'effondrent dans un\nfauteuil, et regardent vos tableaux et vos albums. Comme ils aiment \u00e0 se\npromener en baguenaudant, humant avec d\u00e9lices la brise parfum\u00e9e! Que la\npeste les \u00e9touffe! Comme ils attendent le d\u00eener avec un app\u00e9tit aiguis\u00e9.\nLe d\u00eener! Quelquefois le menu en est bien difficile \u00e0 composer, et\npendant que les invit\u00e9s sont dans un \u00e9tat de b\u00e9atitude c\u00e9leste, le\nma\u00eetre de maison se creuse la t\u00eate dans une perplexit\u00e9 douloureuse! Oh!\nquelle d\u00e9licieuse vengeance lorsqu'on peut troubler un peu leur\nqui\u00e9tude, et qu'on les voit essayer de dissimuler leur m\u00e9contentement le\njour o\u00f9 l'hospitalit\u00e9 qu'ils re\u00e7oivent chez vous ne r\u00e9pond pas \u00e0 leur\nattente. \u00abMauvaise maison, pensent-ils; on ne me reprendra pas dans une\ngal\u00e8re pareille; j'irai ailleurs \u00e0 l'avenir, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 je serai mieux\ntrait\u00e9!\u00bb\n\nLorsque je vois cela, je me paye la t\u00eate de mes invit\u00e9s et m'amuse\nfollement de leur d\u00e9confiture. C'est tout naturel, et je trouve tr\u00e8s\nlogique qu'ils partagent mes ennuis de ma\u00eetre de maison. Avec notre\nnature il nous faut des signes visibles et ext\u00e9rieurs de bont\u00e9;\nl'accueil du coeur ne nous suffit pas. Si vous offrez \u00e0 un ami un bon\nd\u00eener ou un verre de vin, s'il a chaud et est bien \u00e9clair\u00e9 chez vous, il\nreviendra; sans cela vous ne le reverrez plus; la nature humaine est\nainsi faite; moi, du moins, je me juge ainsi. Mais ici j'\u00e9tablis une\ndistinction. Si votre ami fait des avantages mat\u00e9riels qu'il peut\ntrouver chez vous plus de cas que des charmes intellectuels, s'il\nd\u00e9daigne votre amiti\u00e9 parce qu'il ne trouve pas chez vous tout le luxe\net le confort qu'il aime, alors, ne l'honorez pas du nom d'\u00abAmi!\u00bb\n\n--Allons nous coucher, proposai-je.\n\n--Parfait, r\u00e9pondit mon invit\u00e9.\n\n--Pas si vite, mon cher, r\u00e9pliquai-je; les lits ne sont pas faits; il\nn'y a pas de femme de chambre dans la maison. Mais qu'est-ce que cela\nfait? Cela n'a aucune importance. Je vais m'absenter un instant pendant\nque vous entretiendrez le feu.\n\nJe monte dans la chambre d'ami; je n'y trouve rien. Au bout d'une\ndemi-heure, je d\u00e9couvre des oreillers, des draps et des couvertures. Je\nredescends et je tape joyeusement sur l'\u00e9paule de mon ami toujours\ntransi de froid, et je lui dis aimablement: \u00abVenez dans le nid qui vous\nattend. Vous y dormirez comme un bienheureux et demain vous vous\nsentirez mieux.\u00bb\n\nJe le d\u00e9shabille, le couche, et en le voyant la t\u00eate sur l'oreiller, je\nlui souhaite: \u00abBonsoir, bons r\u00eaves.\u00bb\n\n--Bonsoir, me r\u00e9pond-il avec un faible sourire.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir regard\u00e9 le temps par la fen\u00eatre, je gagnai mon lit, qui\n\u00e9tait fait \u00e0 la diable. Oh! l'horrible lune, froide et lugubre! Phoeb\u00e9,\nDiane ou Lune, je te supplie par le nom que tu voudras de ne pas\np\u00e9n\u00e9trer dans ma chambre et de ne pas inonder mes yeux de ton p\u00e2le\nsourire! Au diable ta figure blafarde qui trouble le sommeil et les doux\nr\u00eaves!\n\nLe lendemain matin, j'allai chez mon ami et le traitant comme un prince\nou un personnage de marque, je lui demandai avec force d\u00e9tails des\nnouvelles de sa nuit. Comme c'est un homme int\u00e8gre, incapable d'alt\u00e9rer\nla v\u00e9rit\u00e9, il m'avoua qu'il avait eu un peu froid. Insupportable\npersonnage! Je lui avais pourtant donn\u00e9 toutes les couvertures de la\nmaison!\n\nNous tombions juste sur un dimanche; or, mon ami qui est un fin rimeur\na beaucoup chant\u00e9 les charmes et la po\u00e9sie du dimanche \u00e0 la campagne;\ncomme le feu n'\u00e9tait pas encore allum\u00e9, je le pris par le bras, et lui\nproposai une promenade sur le gazon; mais le gazon \u00e9tait couvert de\nros\u00e9e, et il rentra transi pour se r\u00e9chauffer pr\u00e8s du po\u00eale \u00e9teint.\nL'heure du d\u00e9jeuner approchait, mais je n'avais pas encore solutionn\u00e9\ncette question embarrassante. Tout d'un coup, me frappant le front comme\nsi une \u00e9tincelle en e\u00fbt jailli, je me pr\u00e9cipitai hors de la cuisine, en\ntraversant le jardin au galop, et je frappai \u00e0 la porte de la ferme.\n\nL'excellente fermi\u00e8re \u00e9tait heureusement visible.\n\n--Madame, lui dis-je, je suis dans un grand embarras. J'ai un ami chez\nmoi, et ne dispose de personne pour nous faire la cuisine; je n'ai pas\nla moindre provision; pouvez-vous me rendre le service de nous pr\u00e9parer\nle d\u00e9jeuner, le d\u00eener et le th\u00e9 pour la journ\u00e9e?\n\nTr\u00e8s obligeamment elle y consentit, et au bout d'une demi-heure, je\nconduisis triomphalement mon po\u00e8te dans cette vieille maison; la nappe\nblanche \u00e9tait mise, une chaleur exquise r\u00e9gnait dans la pi\u00e8ce; du coup,\nmon ami retrouva toute sa gaiet\u00e9.\n\nNous all\u00e2mes \u00e0 l'\u00e9glise, et au retour, son sang, fouett\u00e9 par la marche,\nlui avait rendu sa bonne humeur; lorsqu'il s'assit dans le fauteuil \u00e0\nbascule pour attendre le poulet r\u00f4ti, il me donna l'illusion du\n\u00abBien-\u00eatre en personne\u00bb.\n\nJ'\u00e9tais presque furieux de lui avoir procur\u00e9 un tel confort!\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLES DROITS DE LA FEMME\n\nPAR\n\nARTHEMUS WARD\n\n\nL'ann\u00e9e derni\u00e8re, j'avais plant\u00e9 ma tente dans une petite ville\nd'Indiana. Je me tenais sur le seuil de la porte pour recevoir les\nvisiteurs, lorsque je vis arriver une d\u00e9putation de femmes; elles me\nd\u00e9clar\u00e8rent qu'elles faisaient partie de l'Association f\u00e9ministe et\nr\u00e9formiste des droits de la femme de Bunkumville, et me demand\u00e8rent\nl'autorisation d'entrer dans ma tente sans payer.\n\n--Je ne saurais vous accorder cette faveur, r\u00e9pondis-je; mais vous\npouvez payer sans entrer.\n\n--Savez-vous qui nous sommes? cria l'une de ces femmes, cr\u00e9ature\nimmense, \u00e0 l'air r\u00e9barbatif, qui portait une ombrelle de cotonnade\nbleue sous le bras; savez-vous bien qui nous sommes, monsieur?\n\n--Autant que j'en puis juger \u00e0 premi\u00e8re vue, r\u00e9pondis-je, il me semble\nque vous \u00eates des femmes.\n\n--Sans doute, monsieur, reprit la m\u00eame femme sur un ton non moins\nrev\u00eache; mais nous appartenons \u00e0 la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 protectrice des droits de la\nfemme; cette soci\u00e9t\u00e9 croit que la femme a des droits sacr\u00e9s, et qu'elle\ndoit chercher \u00e0 \u00e9lever sa condition.\n\n--Dou\u00e9e d'une intelligence \u00e9gale \u00e0 celle de l'homme, la femme vit\nperp\u00e9tuellement m\u00e9pris\u00e9e et humili\u00e9e; il faut rem\u00e9dier \u00e0 cette\nsituation, et notre soci\u00e9t\u00e9 a pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment pour but de lutter avec une\n\u00e9nergie constante contre les agissements des hommes orgueilleux et\nautoritaires.\n\nPendant qu'elle me tenait ce discours, cette cr\u00e9ature excentrique me\nsaisit par le col de mon pardessus et agita violemment son ombrelle\nau-dessus de ma t\u00eate.\n\n--Je suis loin de mettre en doute, madame, lui dis-je en me reculant,\nl'honorabilit\u00e9 de vos intentions; cependant je dois vous faire observer\nque je suis le seul homme ici, sur cette place publique; ma femme (car\nj'en ai une) est en ce moment chez elle, dans mon pays.\n\n--Oui, vocif\u00e9ra-t-elle, et votre femme est une esclave! Ne r\u00eave-t-elle\njamais de libert\u00e9? Ne pensera-t-elle donc jamais \u00e0 secouer le joug de la\ntyrannie? \u00e0 agir librement, \u00e0 voter...? Comment se fait-il que cette\nid\u00e9e ne lui vienne pas \u00e0 l'esprit?\n\n--C'est tout bonnement, r\u00e9pondis-je un peu agac\u00e9, parce que ma femme est\nune personne intelligente et pleine de bon sens.\n\n--Comment? comment? hurla mon interlocutrice, en brandissant toujours\nson ombrelle; \u00e0 quel prix, d'apr\u00e8s vous, une femme doit-elle acheter sa\nlibert\u00e9?\n\n--Je ne m'en doute pas, r\u00e9pondis-je; tout ce que je sais, c'est que pour\nentrer sous ma tente, il faut payer quinze cents par personne.\n\n--Mais les membres de notre association ne peuvent-ils pas entrer sans\npayer? demanda-t-elle.\n\n--Non, certes. Pas que je sache.\n\n--Brute, brute que vous \u00eates! hurla-t-elle en \u00e9clatant en sanglots.\n\n--Ne me laisserez-vous pas p\u00e9n\u00e9trer? demanda une autre de ces\nexcentriques en me prenant la main doucement et avec c\u00e2linerie: \u00abOh!\nlaissez-moi entrer! Mon amie, voyez-vous, n'est qu'une enfant terrible.\u00bb\n\n--Qu'elle soit ce qu'elle voudra, r\u00e9pondis-je, furieux de voir se\nprolonger cette fac\u00e9tie, je m'en fiche! L\u00e0-dessus elles recul\u00e8rent\ntoutes et me trait\u00e8rent d'\u00abanimal\u00bb toutes en choeur.\n\n--Mes amies, dis-je, avant votre d\u00e9part, je voudrais vous dire quelques\nmots bien sentis: \u00e9coutez-moi bien: La femme est une des plus belles\ninstitutions de ce bas monde; nous pouvons nous en glorifier. Nul ne\npeut se passer de la femme. S'il n'y avait pas de femmes sur terre, je\nne serais pas ici \u00e0 l'heure actuelle. La femme est pr\u00e9cieuse dans la\nmaladie; pr\u00e9cieuse dans l'adversit\u00e9 comme dans le bonheur! O femme!\nm'\u00e9criai-je sous l'effluve d'un souffle po\u00e9tique, tu es un ange quand tu\nne cherches pas \u00e0 sortir de tes attributions; mais quand tu pr\u00e9tends\nintervertir les r\u00f4les et porter la culotte (ceci soit dit au figur\u00e9);\nlorsque tu d\u00e9sertes le foyer conjugal et que, la t\u00eate farcie des\nth\u00e9ories f\u00e9ministes, tu t'\u00e9lances comme une lionne en courroux, en qu\u00eate\nd'une proie \u00e0 d\u00e9vorer; lorsque, dis-je, tu veux te substituer \u00e0 l'homme,\ntu deviens un \u00eatre infernal et n\u00e9faste!\n\n--Mes amies! continuai-je en les voyant partir indign\u00e9es, n'oubliez pas\nce que Arth\u00e9mus Ward vous dit!\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTABLE\n\n\n\n\nPLUS FORT QUE SHERLOCK HOLM\u00c8S\n\nCANNIBALISME EN VOYAGE\n\nL'HOMME AU MESSAGE POUR LE DIRECTEUR G\u00c9N\u00c9RAL\n\nLES GEAIS BLEUS\n\nCOMMENT J'AI TU\u00c9 UN OURS\n\nUN CHIEN A L'\u00c9GLISE\n\nUNE VICTIME DE L'HOSPITALIT\u00c9\n\nLES DROITS DE LA FEMME\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"119":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA TRAMP ABROAD, Part 1\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n(Samuel L. Clemens)\n\nFirst published in 1880\n\nIllustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition\n\n * * * * * *\n\nILLUSTRATIONS:\n\n\n     1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR\n     2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0TITIAN'S MOSES\n     3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES\n     4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THE BLACK KNIGHT\n     5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0OPENING HIS VIZIER\n     6.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THE ENRAGED EMPEROR\n     7.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THE PORTIER\n     8.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0ONE OF THOSE BOYS\n     9.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0SCHLOSS HOTEL\n     10.\u00a0\u00a0IN MY CAGE\n     11.\u00a0\u00a0HEIDELBERG CASTLE\n     12.\u00a0\u00a0HEIDELBERG CASTLE, RIVER FRONTAGE\n     13.\u00a0\u00a0THE RETREAT\n     14.\u00a0\u00a0JIM BAKER\n     15.\u00a0\u00a0\"A BLUE FLUSH ABOUT IT\"\n     16.\u00a0\u00a0COULD NOT SEE IT\n     17.\u00a0\u00a0THE BEER KING\n     18.\u00a0\u00a0THE LECTURER'S AUDIENCE\n     19.\u00a0\u00a0INDUSTRIOUS STUDENTS\n     20.\u00a0\u00a0IDLE STUDENT\n     21.\u00a0\u00a0COMPANIONABLE INTERCOURSE\n     22.\u00a0\u00a0AN IMPOSING SPECTACLE\n     23.\u00a0\u00a0AN ADVERTISEMENT\n     24.\u00a0\u00a0\"UNDERSTANDS HIS BUSINESS\"\n     25.\u00a0\u00a0THE OLD SURGEON\n     26.\u00a0\u00a0THE FIRST WOUND\n     27.\u00a0\u00a0THE CASTLE COURT\n     28.\u00a0\u00a0WOUNDED\n     29.\u00a0\u00a0FAVORITE STREET COSTUME\n     30.\u00a0\u00a0INEFFACEABLE SCARS\n     31.\u00a0\u00a0PIECE OF SWORD\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I A Tramp over Europe--On the\nHolsatia--Hamburg--Frankfort-on-the- Main--How it Won its Name--A Lesson\nin Political Economy--Neatness in Dress--Rhine Legends--\"The Knave\nof Bergen\" The Famous Ball--The Strange Knight--Dancing with the\nQueen--Removal of the Masks--The Disclosure--Wrath of the Emperor--The\nEnding\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II At Heidelberg--Great Stir at a Hotel--The Portier--Arrival\nof the Empress--The Schloss Hotel--Location of Heidelberg--The River\nNeckar--New Feature in a Hotel--Heidelberg Castle--View from the\nHotel--A Tramp in the Woods--Meeting a Raven--Can Ravens Talk?--Laughed\nat and Vanquished--Language of Animals--Jim Baker--Blue-Jays\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III Baker's Blue-Jay Yarn--Jay Language--The Cabin--\"Hello, I\nreckon I've struck something\"--A Knot Hole--Attempt to fill it--A Ton\nof Acorns--Friends Called In--A Great Mystery--More Jays called A Blue\nFlush--A Discovery--A Rich Joke--One that Couldn't See It\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV Student Life--The Five Corps--The Beet King--A Free\nLife--Attending Lectures--An Immense Audience--Industrious\nStudents--Politeness of the Students--Intercourse with the Professors\nScenes at the Castle Garden--Abundance of Dogs--Symbol of Blighted\nLove--How the Ladies Advertise\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V The Students' Dueling Ground--The Dueling Room--The Sword\nGrinder--Frequency of the Duels--The Duelists--Protection against\nInjury--The Surgeon--Arrangements for the Duels--The First\nDuel--The First Wound--A Drawn Battle--The Second Duel--Cutting and\nSlashing--Interference of the Surgeon\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI The Third Duel--A Sickening Spectacle--Dinner between\nFights--The Last Duel--Fighting in Earnest--Faces and Heads\nMutilated--Great Nerve of the Duelists--Fatal Results not\nInfrequent--The World's View of these Fights\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII Corps--laws and Usages--Volunteering to Fight--Coolness\nof the Wounded--Wounds Honorable--Newly bandaged Students around\nHeidelberg--Scarred Faces Abundant--A Badge of Honor--Prince Bismark\nas a Duelist--Statistics--Constant Sword Practice--Color of the\nCorps--Corps Etiquette\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n[The Knighted Knave of Bergen]\n\n\nOne day it occurred to me that it had been many years since the world\nhad been afforded the spectacle of a man adventurous enough to undertake\na journey through Europe on foot. After much thought, I decided that\nI was a person fitted to furnish to mankind this spectacle. So I\ndetermined to do it. This was in March, 1878.\n\nI looked about me for the right sort of person to accompany me in the\ncapacity of agent, and finally hired a Mr. Harris for this service.\n\nIt was also my purpose to study art while in Europe. Mr. Harris was in\nsympathy with me in this. He was as much of an enthusiast in art as\nI was, and not less anxious to learn to paint. I desired to learn the\nGerman language; so did Harris.\n\nToward the middle of April we sailed in the HOLSATIA, Captain Brandt,\nand had a very pleasant trip, indeed.\n\nAfter a brief rest at Hamburg, we made preparations for a long\npedestrian trip southward in the soft spring weather, but at the\nlast moment we changed the program, for private reasons, and took the\nexpress-train.\n\nWe made a short halt at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and found it an\ninteresting city. I would have liked to visit the birthplace of\nGutenburg, but it could not be done, as no memorandum of the site of the\nhouse has been kept. So we spent an hour in the Goethe mansion instead.\nThe city permits this house to belong to private parties, instead\nof gracing and dignifying herself with the honor of possessing and\nprotecting it.\n\nFrankfort is one of the sixteen cities which have the distinction of\nbeing the place where the following incident occurred. Charlemagne,\nwhile chasing the Saxons (as HE said), or being chased by them (as THEY\nsaid), arrived at the bank of the river at dawn, in a fog. The enemy\nwere either before him or behind him; but in any case he wanted to get\nacross, very badly. He would have given anything for a guide, but none\nwas to be had. Presently he saw a deer, followed by her young, approach\nthe water. He watched her, judging that she would seek a ford, and he\nwas right. She waded over, and the army followed. So a great Frankish\nvictory or defeat was gained or avoided; and in order to commemorate the\nepisode, Charlemagne commanded a city to be built there, which he named\nFrankfort--the ford of the Franks. None of the other cities where this\nevent happened were named for it. This is good evidence that Frankfort\nwas the first place it occurred at.\n\nFrankfort has another distinction--it is the birthplace of the German\nalphabet; or at least of the German word for alphabet --BUCHSTABEN.\nThey say that the first movable types were made on birch\nsticks--BUCHSTABE--hence the name.\n\nI was taught a lesson in political economy in Frankfort. I had brought\nfrom home a box containing a thousand very cheap cigars. By way of\nexperiment, I stepped into a little shop in a queer old back street,\ntook four gaily decorated boxes of wax matches and three cigars, and\nlaid down a silver piece worth 48 cents. The man gave me 43 cents\nchange.\n\nIn Frankfort everybody wears clean clothes, and I think we noticed that\nthis strange thing was the case in Hamburg, too, and in the villages\nalong the road. Even in the narrowest and poorest and most ancient\nquarters of Frankfort neat and clean clothes were the rule. The little\nchildren of both sexes were nearly always nice enough to take into a\nbody's lap. And as for the uniforms of the soldiers, they were newness\nand brightness carried to perfection. One could never detect a smirch\nor a grain of dust upon them. The street-car conductors and drivers wore\npretty uniforms which seemed to be just out of the bandbox, and their\nmanners were as fine as their clothes.\n\nIn one of the shops I had the luck to stumble upon a book which has\ncharmed me nearly to death. It is entitled THE LEGENDS OF THE RHINE FROM\nBASLE TO ROTTERDAM, by F. J. Kiefer; translated by L. W. Garnham, B.A.\n\nAll tourists MENTION the Rhine legends--in that sort of way which\nquietly pretends that the mentioner has been familiar with them all his\nlife, and that the reader cannot possibly be ignorant of them--but no\ntourist ever TELLS them. So this little book fed me in a very hungry\nplace; and I, in my turn, intend to feed my reader, with one or\ntwo little lunches from the same larder. I shall not mar Garnham's\ntranslation by meddling with its English; for the most toothsome thing\nabout it is its quaint fashion of building English sentences on the\nGerman plan--and punctuating them accordingly to no plan at all.\n\nIn the chapter devoted to \"Legends of Frankfort,\" I find the following:\n\n\"THE KNAVE OF BERGEN\" \"In Frankfort at the Romer was a great mask-ball,\nat the coronation festival, and in the illuminated saloon, the clanging\nmusic invited to dance, and splendidly appeared the rich toilets and\ncharms of the ladies, and the festively costumed Princes and Knights.\nAll seemed pleasure, joy, and roguish gaiety, only one of the numerous\nguests had a gloomy exterior; but exactly the black armor in which he\nwalked about excited general attention, and his tall figure, as well as\nthe noble propriety of his movements, attracted especially the regards\nof the ladies.\n\n\nWho the Knight was? Nobody could guess, for his Vizier was well closed,\nand nothing made him recognizable. Proud and yet modest he advanced to\nthe Empress; bowed on one knee before her seat, and begged for the favor\nof a waltz with the Queen of the festival. And she allowed his request.\nWith light and graceful steps he danced through the long saloon, with\nthe sovereign who thought never to have found a more dexterous and\nexcellent dancer. But also by the grace of his manner, and fine\nconversation he knew to win the Queen, and she graciously accorded him\na second dance for which he begged, a third, and a fourth, as well as\nothers were not refused him. How all regarded the happy dancer, how\nmany envied him the high favor; how increased curiosity, who the masked\nknight could be.\n\n\"Also the Emperor became more and more excited with curiosity, and with\ngreat suspense one awaited the hour, when according to mask-law, each\nmasked guest must make himself known. This moment came, but although all\nother unmasked; the secret knight still refused to allow his features\nto be seen, till at last the Queen driven by curiosity, and vexed at the\nobstinate refusal; commanded him to open his Vizier.\n\n\nHe opened it, and none of the high ladies and knights knew him. But from\nthe crowded spectators, 2 officials advanced, who recognized the black\ndancer, and horror and terror spread in the saloon, as they said who the\nsupposed knight was. It was the executioner of Bergen. But glowing with\nrage, the King commanded to seize the criminal and lead him to death,\nwho had ventured to dance, with the queen; so disgraced the Empress,\nand insulted the crown. The culpable threw himself at the Emperor, and\nsaid--\n\n\n\"'Indeed I have heavily sinned against all noble guests assembled here,\nbut most heavily against you my sovereign and my queen. The Queen is\ninsulted by my haughtiness equal to treason, but no punishment even\nblood, will not be able to wash out the disgrace, which you have\nsuffered by me. Therefore oh King! allow me to propose a remedy, to\nefface the shame, and to render it as if not done. Draw your sword and\nknight me, then I will throw down my gauntlet, to everyone who dares to\nspeak disrespectfully of my king.'\n\n\"The Emperor was surprised at this bold proposal, however it appeared\nthe wisest to him; 'You are a knave,' he replied after a moment's\nconsideration, 'however your advice is good, and displays prudence, as\nyour offense shows adventurous courage. Well then,' and gave him the\nknight-stroke 'so I raise you to nobility, who begged for grace for your\noffense now kneels before me, rise as knight; knavish you have acted,\nand Knave of Bergen shall you be called henceforth,' and gladly the\nBlack knight rose; three cheers were given in honor of the Emperor, and\nloud cries of joy testified the approbation with which the Queen danced\nstill once with the Knave of Bergen.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nHeidelberg\n\n[Landing a Monarch at Heidelberg]\n\n\nWe stopped at a hotel by the railway-station. Next morning, as we sat in\nmy room waiting for breakfast to come up, we got a good deal interested\nin something which was going on over the way, in front of another hotel.\nFirst, the personage who is called the PORTIER (who is not the PORTER,\nbut is a sort of first-mate of a hotel) [1. See Appendix A] appeared\nat the door in a spick-and-span new blue cloth uniform, decorated with\nshining brass buttons, and with bands of gold lace around his cap and\nwristbands; and he wore white gloves, too.\n\n\nHe shed an official glance upon the situation, and then began to give\norders. Two women-servants came out with pails and brooms and brushes,\nand gave the sidewalk a thorough scrubbing; meanwhile two others\nscrubbed the four marble steps which led up to the door; beyond these we\ncould see some men-servants taking up the carpet of the grand staircase.\nThis carpet was carried away and the last grain of dust beaten and\nbanged and swept out of it; then brought back and put down again. The\nbrass stair-rods received an exhaustive polishing and were returned to\ntheir places. Now a troop of servants brought pots and tubs of blooming\nplants and formed them into a beautiful jungle about the door and the\nbase of the staircase. Other servants adorned all the balconies of the\nvarious stories with flowers and banners; others ascended to the\nroof and hoisted a great flag on a staff there. Now came some more\nchamber-maids and retouched the sidewalk, and afterward wiped the marble\nsteps with damp cloths and finished by dusting them off with feather\nbrushes. Now a broad black carpet was brought out and laid down the\nmarble steps and out across the sidewalk to the curbstone. The PORTIER\ncast his eye along it, and found it was not absolutely straight; he\ncommanded it to be straightened; the servants made the effort--made\nseveral efforts, in fact--but the PORTIER was not satisfied. He finally\nhad it taken up, and then he put it down himself and got it right.\n\nAt this stage of the proceedings, a narrow bright red carpet was\nunrolled and stretched from the top of the marble steps to the\ncurbstone, along the center of the black carpet. This red path cost the\nPORTIER more trouble than even the black one had done. But he patiently\nfixed and refixed it until it was exactly right and lay precisely in the\nmiddle of the black carpet. In New York these performances would have\ngathered a mighty crowd of curious and intensely interested spectators;\nbut here it only captured an audience of half a dozen little boys who\nstood in a row across the pavement, some with their school-knapsacks on\ntheir backs and their hands in their pockets, others with arms full of\nbundles, and all absorbed in the show. Occasionally one of them skipped\nirreverently over the carpet and took up a position on the other side.\nThis always visibly annoyed the PORTIER.\n\n\nNow came a waiting interval. The landlord, in plain clothes, and\nbareheaded, placed himself on the bottom marble step, abreast the\nPORTIER, who stood on the other end of the same steps; six or eight\nwaiters, gloved, bareheaded, and wearing their whitest linen, their\nwhitest cravats, and their finest swallow-tails, grouped themselves\nabout these chiefs, but leaving the carpetway clear. Nobody moved or\nspoke any more but only waited.\n\nIn a short time the shrill piping of a coming train was heard, and\nimmediately groups of people began to gather in the street. Two or three\nopen carriages arrived, and deposited some maids of honor and some male\nofficials at the hotel. Presently another open carriage brought the\nGrand Duke of Baden, a stately man in uniform, who wore the handsome\nbrass-mounted, steel-spiked helmet of the army on his head. Last came\nthe Empress of Germany and the Grand Duchess of Baden in a closed\ncarriage; these passed through the low-bowing groups of servants and\ndisappeared in the hotel, exhibiting to us only the backs of their\nheads, and then the show was over.\n\nIt appears to be as difficult to land a monarch as it is to launch a\nship.\n\nBut as to Heidelberg. The weather was growing pretty warm,--very warm,\nin fact. So we left the valley and took quarters at the Schloss Hotel,\non the hill, above the Castle.\n\n\nHeidelberg lies at the mouth of a narrow gorge--a gorge the shape of\na shepherd's crook; if one looks up it he perceives that it is about\nstraight, for a mile and a half, then makes a sharp curve to the\nright and disappears. This gorge--along whose bottom pours the swift\nNeckar--is confined between (or cloven through) a couple of long, steep\nridges, a thousand feet high and densely wooded clear to their summits,\nwith the exception of one section which has been shaved and put under\ncultivation. These ridges are chopped off at the mouth of the gorge\nand form two bold and conspicuous headlands, with Heidelberg nestling\nbetween them; from their bases spreads away the vast dim expanse of the\nRhine valley, and into this expanse the Neckar goes wandering in shining\ncurves and is presently lost to view.\n\nNow if one turns and looks up the gorge once more, he will see the\nSchloss Hotel on the right perched on a precipice overlooking the\nNeckar--a precipice which is so sumptuously cushioned and draped with\nfoliage that no glimpse of the rock appears. The building seems very\nairily situated. It has the appearance of being on a shelf half-way\nup the wooded mountainside; and as it is remote and isolated, and very\nwhite, it makes a strong mark against the lofty leafy rampart at its\nback.\n\nThis hotel had a feature which was a decided novelty, and one which\nmight be adopted with advantage by any house which is perched in a\ncommanding situation. This feature may be described as a series of\nglass-enclosed parlors CLINGING TO THE OUTSIDE OF THE HOUSE, one against\neach and every bed-chamber and drawing-room. They are like long, narrow,\nhigh-ceiled bird-cages hung against the building. My room was a corner\nroom, and had two of these things, a north one and a west one.\n\n\nFrom the north cage one looks up the Neckar gorge; from the west one he\nlooks down it. This last affords the most extensive view, and it is one\nof the loveliest that can be imagined, too. Out of a billowy upheaval\nof vivid green foliage, a rifle-shot removed, rises the huge ruin\nof Heidelberg Castle, [2. See Appendix B] with empty window arches,\nivy-mailed battlements, moldering towers--the Lear of inanimate\nnature--deserted, discrowned, beaten by the storms, but royal still,\nand beautiful. It is a fine sight to see the evening sunlight suddenly\nstrike the leafy declivity at the Castle's base and dash up it and\ndrench it as with a luminous spray, while the adjacent groves are in\ndeep shadow.\n\n\nBehind the Castle swells a great dome-shaped hill, forest-clad, and\nbeyond that a nobler and loftier one. The Castle looks down upon the\ncompact brown-roofed town; and from the town two picturesque old bridges\nspan the river. Now the view broadens; through the gateway of the\nsentinel headlands you gaze out over the wide Rhine plain, which\nstretches away, softly and richly tinted, grows gradually and dreamily\nindistinct, and finally melts imperceptibly into the remote horizon.\n\nI have never enjoyed a view which had such a serene and satisfying charm\nabout it as this one gives.\n\nThe first night we were there, we went to bed and to sleep early; but\nI awoke at the end of two or three hours, and lay a comfortable while\nlistening to the soothing patter of the rain against the balcony\nwindows. I took it to be rain, but it turned out to be only the murmur\nof the restless Neckar, tumbling over her dikes and dams far below, in\nthe gorge. I got up and went into the west balcony and saw a wonderful\nsight. Away down on the level under the black mass of the Castle, the\ntown lay, stretched along the river, its intricate cobweb of streets\njeweled with twinkling lights; there were rows of lights on the bridges;\nthese flung lances of light upon the water, in the black shadows of the\narches; and away at the extremity of all this fairy spectacle blinked\nand glowed a massed multitude of gas-jets which seemed to cover acres of\nground; it was as if all the diamonds in the world had been spread\nout there. I did not know before, that a half-mile of sextuple\nrailway-tracks could be made such an adornment.\n\n\nOne thinks Heidelberg by day--with its surroundings--is the last\npossibility of the beautiful; but when he sees Heidelberg by night, a\nfallen Milky Way, with that glittering railway constellation pinned to\nthe border, he requires time to consider upon the verdict.\n\nOne never tires of poking about in the dense woods that clothe all\nthese lofty Neckar hills to their tops. The great deeps of a boundless\nforest have a beguiling and impressive charm in any country; but German\nlegends and fairy tales have given these an added charm. They have\npeopled all that region with gnomes, and dwarfs, and all sorts of\nmysterious and uncanny creatures. At the time I am writing of, I had\nbeen reading so much of this literature that sometimes I was not sure\nbut I was beginning to believe in the gnomes and fairies as realities.\n\nOne afternoon I got lost in the woods about a mile from the hotel, and\npresently fell into a train of dreamy thought about animals which talk,\nand kobolds, and enchanted folk, and the rest of the pleasant legendary\nstuff; and so, by stimulating my fancy, I finally got to imagining I\nglimpsed small flitting shapes here and there down the columned\naisles of the forest. It was a place which was peculiarly meet for the\noccasion. It was a pine wood, with so thick and soft a carpet of brown\nneedles that one's footfall made no more sound than if he were treading\non wool; the tree-trunks were as round and straight and smooth as\npillars, and stood close together; they were bare of branches to a point\nabout twenty-five feet above-ground, and from there upward so thick with\nboughs that not a ray of sunlight could pierce through. The world was\nbright with sunshine outside, but a deep and mellow twilight reigned in\nthere, and also a deep silence so profound that I seemed to hear my own\nbreathings.\n\nWhen I had stood ten minutes, thinking and imagining, and getting\nmy spirit in tune with the place, and in the right mood to enjoy the\nsupernatural, a raven suddenly uttered a horse croak over my head. It\nmade me start; and then I was angry because I started. I looked up, and\nthe creature was sitting on a limb right over me, looking down at me.\nI felt something of the same sense of humiliation and injury which\none feels when he finds that a human stranger has been clandestinely\ninspecting him in his privacy and mentally commenting upon him. I eyed\nthe raven, and the raven eyed me. Nothing was said during some seconds.\nThen the bird stepped a little way along his limb to get a better point\nof observation, lifted his wings, stuck his head far down below his\nshoulders toward me and croaked again--a croak with a distinctly\ninsulting expression about it. If he had spoken in English he could not\nhave said any more plainly than he did say in raven, \"Well, what do YOU\nwant here?\" I felt as foolish as if I had been caught in some mean act\nby a responsible being, and reproved for it. However, I made no reply;\nI would not bandy words with a raven. The adversary waited a while, with\nhis shoulders still lifted, his head thrust down between them, and\nhis keen bright eye fixed on me; then he threw out two or three more\ninsults, which I could not understand, further than that I knew a\nportion of them consisted of language not used in church.\n\n\nI still made no reply. Now the adversary raised his head and\ncalled. There was an answering croak from a little distance in the\nwood--evidently a croak of inquiry. The adversary explained with\nenthusiasm, and the other raven dropped everything and came. The two sat\nside by side on the limb and discussed me as freely and offensively as\ntwo great naturalists might discuss a new kind of bug. The thing became\nmore and more embarrassing. They called in another friend. This was too\nmuch. I saw that they had the advantage of me, and so I concluded to get\nout of the scrape by walking out of it. They enjoyed my defeat as much\nas any low white people could have done. They craned their necks and\nlaughed at me (for a raven CAN laugh, just like a man), they squalled\ninsulting remarks after me as long as they could see me. They were\nnothing but ravens--I knew that--what they thought of me could be a\nmatter of no consequence--and yet when even a raven shouts after you,\n\"What a hat!\" \"Oh, pull down your vest!\" and that sort of thing, it\nhurts you and humiliates you, and there is no getting around it with\nfine reasoning and pretty arguments.\n\nAnimals talk to each other, of course. There can be no question about\nthat; but I suppose there are very few people who can understand them.\nI never knew but one man who could. I knew he could, however, because he\ntold me so himself. He was a middle-aged, simple-hearted miner who had\nlived in a lonely corner of California, among the woods and mountains,\na good many years, and had studied the ways of his only neighbors, the\nbeasts and the birds, until he believed he could accurately translate\nany remark which they made. This was Jim Baker. According to Jim Baker,\nsome animals have only a limited education, and some use only simple\nwords, and scarcely ever a comparison or a flowery figure; whereas,\ncertain other animals have a large vocabulary, a fine command of\nlanguage and a ready and fluent delivery; consequently these latter talk\na great deal; they like it; they are so conscious of their talent,\nand they enjoy \"showing off.\" Baker said, that after long and careful\nobservation, he had come to the conclusion that the bluejays were the\nbest talkers he had found among birds and beasts. Said he:\n\n\"There's more TO a bluejay than any other creature. He has got more\nmoods, and more different kinds of feelings than other creatures; and,\nmind you, whatever a bluejay feels, he can put into language. And\nno mere commonplace language, either, but rattling, out-and-out\nbook-talk--and bristling with metaphor, too--just bristling! And as for\ncommand of language--why YOU never see a bluejay get stuck for a word.\nNo man ever did. They just boil out of him! And another thing: I've\nnoticed a good deal, and there's no bird, or cow, or anything that uses\nas good grammar as a bluejay. You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well,\na cat does--but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to\npulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you'll hear grammar\nthat will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it's the NOISE\nwhich fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it's\nthe sickening grammar they use. Now I've never heard a jay use bad\ngrammar but very seldom; and when they do, they are as ashamed as a\nhuman; they shut right down and leave.\n\n\n\"You may call a jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure--but he's got\nfeathers on him, and don't belong to no church, perhaps; but otherwise\nhe is just as much human as you be. And I'll tell you for why. A jay's\ngifts, and instincts, and feelings, and interests, cover the whole\nground. A jay hasn't got any more principle than a Congressman. A jay\nwill lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive, a jay will betray; and\nfour times out of five, a jay will go back on his solemnest promise. The\nsacredness of an obligation is such a thing which you can't cram into\nno bluejay's head. Now, on top of all this, there's another thing; a\njay can out-swear any gentleman in the mines. You think a cat can swear.\nWell, a cat can; but you give a bluejay a subject that calls for his\nreserve-powers, and where is your cat? Don't talk to ME--I know too much\nabout this thing; in the one little particular of scolding--just good,\nclean, out-and-out scolding--a bluejay can lay over anything, human or\ndivine. Yes, sir, a jay is everything that a man is. A jay can cry,\na jay can laugh, a jay can feel shame, a jay can reason and plan and\ndiscuss, a jay likes gossip and scandal, a jay has got a sense of humor,\na jay knows when he is an ass just as well as you do--maybe better. If\na jay ain't human, he better take in his sign, that's all. Now I'm going\nto tell you a perfectly true fact about some bluejays.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nBaker's Bluejay Yarn\n\n[What Stumped the Blue Jays]\n\n\n\"When I first begun to understand jay language correctly, there was a\nlittle incident happened here. Seven years ago, the last man in this\nregion but me moved away. There stands his house--been empty ever since;\na log house, with a plank roof--just one big room, and no more; no\nceiling--nothing between the rafters and the floor. Well, one Sunday\nmorning I was sitting out here in front of my cabin, with my cat, taking\nthe sun, and looking at the blue hills, and listening to the leaves\nrustling so lonely in the trees, and thinking of the home away yonder in\nthe states, that I hadn't heard from in thirteen years, when a bluejay\nlit on that house, with an acorn in his mouth, and says, 'Hello, I\nreckon I've struck something.' When he spoke, the acorn dropped out of\nhis mouth and rolled down the roof, of course, but he didn't care; his\nmind was all on the thing he had struck. It was a knot-hole in the roof.\nHe cocked his head to one side, shut one eye and put the other one to\nthe hole, like a possum looking down a jug; then he glanced up with\nhis bright eyes, gave a wink or two with his wings--which signifies\ngratification, you understand--and says, 'It looks like a hole, it's\nlocated like a hole--blamed if I don't believe it IS a hole!'\n\n\"Then he cocked his head down and took another look; he glances up\nperfectly joyful, this time; winks his wings and his tail both, and\nsays, 'Oh, no, this ain't no fat thing, I reckon! If I ain't in luck!\n--Why it's a perfectly elegant hole!' So he flew down and got that\nacorn, and fetched it up and dropped it in, and was just tilting his\nhead back, with the heavenliest smile on his face, when all of a\nsudden he was paralyzed into a listening attitude and that smile faded\ngradually out of his countenance like breath off'n a razor, and the\nqueerest look of surprise took its place. Then he says, 'Why, I didn't\nhear it fall!' He cocked his eye at the hole again, and took a long\nlook; raised up and shook his head; stepped around to the other side of\nthe hole and took another look from that side; shook his head again. He\nstudied a while, then he just went into the Details--walked round and\nround the hole and spied into it from every point of the compass.\nNo use. Now he took a thinking attitude on the comb of the roof and\nscratched the back of his head with his right foot a minute, and finally\nsays, 'Well, it's too many for ME, that's certain; must be a mighty long\nhole; however, I ain't got no time to fool around here, I got to \"tend\nto business\"; I reckon it's all right--chance it, anyway.'\n\n\"So he flew off and fetched another acorn and dropped it in, and tried\nto flirt his eye to the hole quick enough to see what become of it,\nbut he was too late. He held his eye there as much as a minute; then he\nraised up and sighed, and says, 'Confound it, I don't seem to understand\nthis thing, no way; however, I'll tackle her again.' He fetched\nanother acorn, and done his level best to see what become of it, but he\ncouldn't. He says, 'Well, I never struck no such a hole as this before;\nI'm of the opinion it's a totally new kind of a hole.' Then he begun\nto get mad. He held in for a spell, walking up and down the comb of the\nroof and shaking his head and muttering to himself; but his feelings got\nthe upper hand of him, presently, and he broke loose and cussed himself\nblack in the face. I never see a bird take on so about a little thing.\nWhen he got through he walks to the hole and looks in again for half a\nminute; then he says, 'Well, you're a long hole, and a deep hole, and\na mighty singular hole altogether--but I've started in to fill you, and\nI'm damned if I DON'T fill you, if it takes a hundred years!'\n\n\n\"And with that, away he went. You never see a bird work so since you was\nborn. He laid into his work like a nigger, and the way he hove acorns\ninto that hole for about two hours and a half was one of the most\nexciting and astonishing spectacles I ever struck. He never stopped to\ntake a look anymore--he just hove 'em in and went for more. Well, at\nlast he could hardly flop his wings, he was so tuckered out. He comes\na-dropping down, once more, sweating like an ice-pitcher, dropped his\nacorn in and says, 'NOW I guess I've got the bulge on you by this time!'\nSo he bent down for a look. If you'll believe me, when his head come up\nagain he was just pale with rage. He says, 'I've shoveled acorns enough\nin there to keep the family thirty years, and if I can see a sign of one\nof 'em I wish I may land in a museum with a belly full of sawdust in two\nminutes!'\n\n\"He just had strength enough to crawl up on to the comb and lean his\nback agin the chimbly, and then he collected his impressions and\nbegun to free his mind. I see in a second that what I had mistook for\nprofanity in the mines was only just the rudiments, as you may say.\n\n\"Another jay was going by, and heard him doing his devotions, and stops\nto inquire what was up. The sufferer told him the whole circumstance,\nand says, 'Now yonder's the hole, and if you don't believe me, go and\nlook for yourself.' So this fellow went and looked, and comes back and\nsays, 'How many did you say you put in there?' 'Not any less than\ntwo tons,' says the sufferer. The other jay went and looked again. He\ncouldn't seem to make it out, so he raised a yell, and three more jays\ncome. They all examined the hole, they all made the sufferer tell\nit over again, then they all discussed it, and got off as many\nleather-headed opinions about it as an average crowd of humans could\nhave done.\n\n\"They called in more jays; then more and more, till pretty soon this\nwhole region 'peared to have a blue flush about it. There must have been\nfive thousand of them; and such another jawing and disputing and ripping\nand cussing, you never heard. Every jay in the whole lot put his eye to\nthe hole and delivered a more chuckle-headed opinion about the mystery\nthan the jay that went there before him. They examined the house all\nover, too. The door was standing half open, and at last one old jay\nhappened to go and light on it and look in. Of course, that knocked the\nmystery galley-west in a second. There lay the acorns, scattered all\nover the floor.. He flopped his wings and raised a whoop. 'Come here!'\nhe says, 'Come here, everybody; hang'd if this fool hasn't been trying\nto fill up a house with acorns!' They all came a-swooping down like a\nblue cloud, and as each fellow lit on the door and took a glance, the\nwhole absurdity of the contract that that first jay had tackled hit him\nhome and he fell over backward suffocating with laughter, and the next\njay took his place and done the same.\n\n\"Well, sir, they roosted around here on the housetop and the trees for\nan hour, and guffawed over that thing like human beings. It ain't any\nuse to tell me a bluejay hasn't got a sense of humor, because I know\nbetter. And memory, too. They brought jays here from all over the United\nStates to look down that hole, every summer for three years. Other\nbirds, too. And they could all see the point except an owl that come\nfrom Nova Scotia to visit the Yo Semite, and he took this thing in on\nhis way back. He said he couldn't see anything funny in it. But then he\nwas a good deal disappointed about Yo Semite, too.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nStudent Life\n\n[The Laborious Beer King]\n\n\nThe summer semester was in full tide; consequently the most frequent\nfigure in and about Heidelberg was the student. Most of the students\nwere Germans, of course, but the representatives of foreign lands\nwere very numerous. They hailed from every corner of the globe--for\ninstruction is cheap in Heidelberg, and so is living, too. The\nAnglo-American Club, composed of British and American students, had\ntwenty-five members, and there was still much material left to draw\nfrom.\n\nNine-tenths of the Heidelberg students wore no badge or uniform;\nthe other tenth wore caps of various colors, and belonged to social\norganizations called \"corps.\" There were five corps, each with a color\nof its own; there were white caps, blue caps, and red, yellow, and green\nones. The famous duel-fighting is confined to the \"corps\" boys. The\n\"KNEIP\" seems to be a specialty of theirs, too. Kneips are held, now and\nthen, to celebrate great occasions, like the election of a beer king,\nfor instance. The solemnity is simple; the five corps assemble at night,\nand at a signal they all fall loading themselves with beer, out\nof pint-mugs, as fast as possible, and each man keeps his own\ncount--usually by laying aside a lucifer match for each mug he empties.\n\n\nThe election is soon decided. When the candidates can hold no more, a\ncount is instituted and the one who has drank the greatest number of\npints is proclaimed king. I was told that the last beer king elected\nby the corps--or by his own capabilities--emptied his mug seventy-five\ntimes. No stomach could hold all that quantity at one time, of\ncourse--but there are ways of frequently creating a vacuum, which those\nwho have been much at sea will understand.\n\nOne sees so many students abroad at all hours, that he presently begins\nto wonder if they ever have any working-hours. Some of them have, some\nof them haven't. Each can choose for himself whether he will work or\nplay; for German university life is a very free life; it seems to have\nno restraints. The student does not live in the college buildings, but\nhires his own lodgings, in any locality he prefers, and he takes his\nmeals when and where he pleases. He goes to bed when it suits him, and\ndoes not get up at all unless he wants to. He is not entered at the\nuniversity for any particular length of time; so he is likely to change\nabout. He passes no examinations upon entering college. He merely pays\na trifling fee of five or ten dollars, receives a card entitling him to\nthe privileges of the university, and that is the end of it. He is now\nready for business--or play, as he shall prefer. If he elects to\nwork, he finds a large list of lectures to choose from. He selects the\nsubjects which he will study, and enters his name for these studies; but\nhe can skip attendance.\n\n\nThe result of this system is, that lecture-courses upon specialties\nof an unusual nature are often delivered to very slim audiences,\nwhile those upon more practical and every-day matters of education are\ndelivered to very large ones. I heard of one case where, day after day,\nthe lecturer's audience consisted of three students--and always the\nsame three. But one day two of them remained away. The lecturer began as\nusual--\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" --then, without a smile, he corrected himself, saying--\n\n\"Sir,\" --and went on with his discourse.\n\nIt is said that the vast majority of the Heidelberg students are hard\nworkers, and make the most of their opportunities; that they have\nno surplus means to spend in dissipation, and no time to spare for\nfrolicking. One lecture follows right on the heels of another, with very\nlittle time for the student to get out of one hall and into the next;\nbut the industrious ones manage it by going on a trot. The professors\nassist them in the saving of their time by being promptly in their\nlittle boxed-up pulpits when the hours strike, and as promptly out again\nwhen the hour finishes. I entered an empty lecture-room one day just\nbefore the clock struck. The place had simple, unpainted pine desks and\nbenches for about two hundred persons.\n\n\nAbout a minute before the clock struck, a hundred and fifty students\nswarmed in, rushed to their seats, immediately spread open their\nnotebooks and dipped their pens in ink. When the clock began to strike,\na burly professor entered, was received with a round of applause, moved\nswiftly down the center aisle, said \"Gentlemen,\" and began to talk as he\nclimbed his pulpit steps; and by the time he had arrived in his box and\nfaced his audience, his lecture was well under way and all the pens were\ngoing. He had no notes, he talked with prodigious rapidity and\nenergy for an hour--then the students began to remind him in certain\nwell-understood ways that his time was up; he seized his hat, still\ntalking, proceeded swiftly down his pulpit steps, got out the last word\nof his discourse as he struck the floor; everybody rose respectfully,\nand he swept rapidly down the aisle and disappeared. An instant rush for\nsome other lecture-room followed, and in a minute I was alone with the\nempty benches once more.\n\n\nYes, without doubt, idle students are not the rule. Out of eight hundred\nin the town, I knew the faces of only about fifty; but these I saw\neverywhere, and daily. They walked about the streets and the wooded\nhills, they drove in cabs, they boated on the river, they sipped beer\nand coffee, afternoons, in the Schloss gardens. A good many of them wore\ncolored caps of the corps. They were finely and fashionably dressed,\ntheir manners were quite superb, and they led an easy, careless,\ncomfortable life. If a dozen of them sat together and a lady or a\ngentleman passed whom one of them knew and saluted, they all rose\nto their feet and took off their caps. The members of a corps always\nreceived a fellow-member in this way, too; but they paid no attention\nto members of other corps; they did not seem to see them. This was not\na discourtesy; it was only a part of the elaborate and rigid corps\netiquette.\n\nThere seems to be no chilly distance existing between the German\nstudents and the professor; but, on the contrary, a companionable\nintercourse, the opposite of chilliness and reserve. When the professor\nenters a beer-hall in the evening where students are gathered together,\nthese rise up and take off their caps, and invite the old gentleman to\nsit with them and partake. He accepts, and the pleasant talk and the\nbeer flow for an hour or two, and by and by the professor, properly\ncharged and comfortable, gives a cordial good night, while the students\nstand bowing and uncovered; and then he moves on his happy way homeward\nwith all his vast cargo of learning afloat in his hold. Nobody finds\nfault or feels outraged; no harm has been done.\n\n\nIt seemed to be a part of corps etiquette to keep a dog or so, too.\nI mean a corps dog--the common property of the organization, like the\ncorps steward or head servant; then there are other dogs, owned by\nindividuals.\n\nOn a summer afternoon in the Castle gardens, I have seen six students\nmarch solemnly into the grounds, in single file, each carrying a bright\nChinese parasol and leading a prodigious dog by a string. It was a very\nimposing spectacle. Sometimes there would be as many dogs around the\npavilion as students; and of all breeds and of all degrees of beauty and\nugliness. These dogs had a rather dry time of it; for they were tied\nto the benches and had no amusement for an hour or two at a time except\nwhat they could get out of pawing at the gnats, or trying to sleep and\nnot succeeding. However, they got a lump of sugar occasionally--they\nwere fond of that.\n\n\nIt seemed right and proper that students should indulge in dogs; but\neverybody else had them, too--old men and young ones, old women and\nnice young ladies. If there is one spectacle that is unpleasanter than\nanother, it is that of an elegantly dressed young lady towing a dog by a\nstring. It is said to be the sign and symbol of blighted love. It seems\nto me that some other way of advertising it might be devised, which\nwould be just as conspicuous and yet not so trying to the proprieties.\n\n\nIt would be a mistake to suppose that the easy-going pleasure-seeking\nstudent carries an empty head. Just the contrary. He has spent nine\nyears in the gymnasium, under a system which allowed him no freedom, but\nvigorously compelled him to work like a slave. Consequently, he has left\nthe gymnasium with an education which is so extensive and complete, that\nthe most a university can do for it is to perfect some of its profounder\nspecialties. It is said that when a pupil leaves the gymnasium, he not\nonly has a comprehensive education, but he KNOWS what he knows--it is\nnot befogged with uncertainty, it is burnt into him so that it will\nstay. For instance, he does not merely read and write Greek, but speaks\nit; the same with the Latin. Foreign youth steer clear of the gymnasium;\nits rules are too severe. They go to the university to put a mansard\nroof on their whole general education; but the German student already\nhas his mansard roof, so he goes there to add a steeple in the nature of\nsome specialty, such as a particular branch of law, or diseases of the\neye, or special study of the ancient Gothic tongues. So this German\nattends only the lectures which belong to the chosen branch, and drinks\nhis beer and tows his dog around and has a general good time the rest of\nthe day. He has been in rigid bondage so long that the large liberty\nof the university life is just what he needs and likes and thoroughly\nappreciates; and as it cannot last forever, he makes the most of it\nwhile it does last, and so lays up a good rest against the day that must\nsee him put on the chains once more and enter the slavery of official or\nprofessional life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nAt the Students' Dueling-Ground\n\n[Dueling by Wholesale]\n\n\nOne day in the interest of science my agent obtained permission to bring\nme to the students' dueling-place. We crossed the river and drove up\nthe bank a few hundred yards, then turned to the left, entered a narrow\nalley, followed it a hundred yards and arrived at a two-story public\nhouse; we were acquainted with its outside aspect, for it was visible\nfrom the hotel. We went upstairs and passed into a large whitewashed\napartment which was perhaps fifty feet long by thirty feet wide and\ntwenty or twenty-five high. It was a well-lighted place. There was no\ncarpet. Across one end and down both sides of the room extended a row of\ntables, and at these tables some fifty or seventy-five students [1. See\nAppendix C] were sitting.\n\nSome of them were sipping wine, others were playing cards, others chess,\nother groups were chatting together, and many were smoking cigarettes\nwhile they waited for the coming duels. Nearly all of them wore colored\ncaps; there were white caps, green caps, blue caps, red caps, and\nbright-yellow ones; so, all the five corps were present in strong\nforce. In the windows at the vacant end of the room stood six or eight,\nnarrow-bladed swords with large protecting guards for the hand, and\noutside was a man at work sharpening others on a grindstone.\n\n\nHe understood his business; for when a sword left his hand one could\nshave himself with it.\n\nIt was observable that the young gentlemen neither bowed to nor spoke\nwith students whose caps differed in color from their own. This did not\nmean hostility, but only an armed neutrality. It was considered that\na person could strike harder in the duel, and with a more earnest\ninterest, if he had never been in a condition of comradeship with his\nantagonist; therefore, comradeship between the corps was not permitted.\nAt intervals the presidents of the five corps have a cold official\nintercourse with each other, but nothing further. For example, when the\nregular dueling-day of one of the corps approaches, its president calls\nfor volunteers from among the membership to offer battle; three or more\nrespond--but there must not be less than three; the president lays their\nnames before the other presidents, with the request that they furnish\nantagonists for these challengers from among their corps. This is\npromptly done. It chanced that the present occasion was the battle-day\nof the Red Cap Corps. They were the challengers, and certain caps of\nother colors had volunteered to meet them. The students fight duels in\nthe room which I have described, TWO DAYS IN EVERY WEEK DURING SEVEN\nAND A HALF OR EIGHT MONTHS IN EVERY YEAR. This custom had continued in\nGermany two hundred and fifty years.\n\nTo return to my narrative. A student in a white cap met us and\nintroduced us to six or eight friends of his who also wore white caps,\nand while we stood conversing, two strange-looking figures were led in\nfrom another room. They were students panoplied for the duel. They were\nbareheaded; their eyes were protected by iron goggles which projected an\ninch or more, the leather straps of which bound their ears flat against\ntheir heads were wound around and around with thick wrappings which\na sword could not cut through; from chin to ankle they were padded\nthoroughly against injury; their arms were bandaged and rebandaged,\nlayer upon layer, until they looked like solid black logs. These weird\napparitions had been handsome youths, clad in fashionable attire,\nfifteen minutes before, but now they did not resemble any beings one\never sees unless in nightmares. They strode along, with their arms\nprojecting straight out from their bodies; they did not hold them out\nthemselves, but fellow-students walked beside them and gave the needed\nsupport.\n\nThere was a rush for the vacant end of the room, now, and we followed\nand got good places. The combatants were placed face to face, each with\nseveral members of his own corps about him to assist; two seconds, well\npadded, and with swords in their hands, took their stations; a student\nbelonging to neither of the opposing corps placed himself in a good\nposition to umpire the combat; another student stood by with a watch and\na memorandum-book to keep record of the time and the number and nature\nof the wounds; a gray-haired surgeon was present with his lint, his\nbandages, and his instruments.\n\n\nAfter a moment's pause the duelists saluted the umpire respectfully,\nthen one after another the several officials stepped forward, gracefully\nremoved their caps and saluted him also, and returned to their places.\nEverything was ready now; students stood crowded together in the\nforeground, and others stood behind them on chairs and tables. Every\nface was turned toward the center of attraction.\n\nThe combatants were watching each other with alert eyes; a perfect\nstillness, a breathless interest reigned. I felt that I was going to\nsee some wary work. But not so. The instant the word was given, the two\napparitions sprang forward and began to rain blows down upon each other\nwith such lightning rapidity that I could not quite tell whether I saw\nthe swords or only flashes they made in the air; the rattling din of\nthese blows as they struck steel or paddings was something wonderfully\nstirring, and they were struck with such terrific force that I could not\nunderstand why the opposing sword was not beaten down under the assault.\nPresently, in the midst of the sword-flashes, I saw a handful of hair\nskip into the air as if it had lain loose on the victim's head and a\nbreath of wind had puffed it suddenly away.\n\nThe seconds cried \"Halt!\" and knocked up the combatants' swords with\ntheir own. The duelists sat down; a student official stepped forward,\nexamined the wounded head and touched the place with a sponge once or\ntwice; the surgeon came and turned back the hair from the wound--and\nrevealed a crimson gash two or three inches long, and proceeded to bind\nan oval piece of leather and a bunch of lint over it; the tally-keeper\nstepped up and tallied one for the opposition in his book.\n\n\nThen the duelists took position again; a small stream of blood was\nflowing down the side of the injured man's head, and over his shoulder\nand down his body to the floor, but he did not seem to mind this. The\nword was given, and they plunged at each other as fiercely as before;\nonce more the blows rained and rattled and flashed; every few moments\nthe quick-eyed seconds would notice that a sword was bent--then they\ncalled \"Halt!\" struck up the contending weapons, and an assisting\nstudent straightened the bent one.\n\nThe wonderful turmoil went on--presently a bright spark sprung from\na blade, and that blade broken in several pieces, sent one of its\nfragments flying to the ceiling. A new sword was provided and the fight\nproceeded. The exercise was tremendous, of course, and in time the\nfighters began to show great fatigue. They were allowed to rest a\nmoment, every little while; they got other rests by wounding each other,\nfor then they could sit down while the doctor applied the lint and\nbandages. The law is that the battle must continue fifteen minutes if\nthe men can hold out; and as the pauses do not count, this duel was\nprotracted to twenty or thirty minutes, I judged. At last it was decided\nthat the men were too much wearied to do battle longer. They were led\naway drenched with crimson from head to foot. That was a good fight, but\nit could not count, partly because it did not last the lawful fifteen\nminutes (of actual fighting), and partly because neither man was\ndisabled by his wound. It was a drawn battle, and corps law requires\nthat drawn battles shall be refought as soon as the adversaries are well\nof their hurts.\n\nDuring the conflict, I had talked a little, now and then, with a young\ngentleman of the White Cap Corps, and he had mentioned that he was to\nfight next--and had also pointed out his challenger, a young gentleman\nwho was leaning against the opposite wall smoking a cigarette and\nrestfully observing the duel then in progress.\n\nMy acquaintanceship with a party to the coming contest had the effect of\ngiving me a kind of personal interest in it; I naturally wished he might\nwin, and it was the reverse of pleasant to learn that he probably would\nnot, because, although he was a notable swordsman, the challenger was\nheld to be his superior.\n\nThe duel presently began and in the same furious way which had marked\nthe previous one. I stood close by, but could not tell which blows told\nand which did not, they fell and vanished so like flashes of light. They\nall seemed to tell; the swords always bent over the opponents' heads,\nfrom the forehead back over the crown, and seemed to touch, all the\nway; but it was not so--a protecting blade, invisible to me, was always\ninterposed between. At the end of ten seconds each man had struck twelve\nor fifteen blows, and warded off twelve or fifteen, and no harm done;\nthen a sword became disabled, and a short rest followed whilst a new one\nwas brought. Early in the next round the White Corps student got an ugly\nwound on the side of his head and gave his opponent one like it. In the\nthird round the latter received another bad wound in the head, and the\nformer had his under-lip divided. After that, the White Corps student\ngave many severe wounds, but got none of the consequence in return.\nAt the end of five minutes from the beginning of the duel the surgeon\nstopped it; the challenging party had suffered such injuries that any\naddition to them might be dangerous. These injuries were a fearful\nspectacle, but are better left undescribed. So, against expectation, my\nacquaintance was the victor.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n[A Sport that Sometimes Kills]\n\n\nThe third duel was brief and bloody. The surgeon stopped it when he saw\nthat one of the men had received such bad wounds that he could not fight\nlonger without endangering his life.\n\nThe fourth duel was a tremendous encounter; but at the end of five or\nsix minutes the surgeon interfered once more: another man so severely\nhurt as to render it unsafe to add to his harms. I watched this\nengagement as I watched the others--with rapt interest and strong\nexcitement, and with a shrink and a shudder for every blow that laid\nopen a cheek or a forehead; and a conscious paling of my face when I\noccasionally saw a wound of a yet more shocking nature inflicted.\nMy eyes were upon the loser of this duel when he got his last and\nvanquishing wound--it was in his face and it carried away his--but no\nmatter, I must not enter into details. I had but a glance, and then\nturned quickly, but I would not have been looking at all if I had known\nwhat was coming. No, that is probably not true; one thinks he would not\nlook if he knew what was coming, but the interest and the excitement are\nso powerful that they would doubtless conquer all other feelings; and\nso, under the fierce exhilaration of the clashing steel, he would yield\nand look after all. Sometimes spectators of these duels faint--and it\ndoes seem a very reasonable thing to do, too.\n\nBoth parties to this fourth duel were badly hurt so much that the\nsurgeon was at work upon them nearly or quite an hour--a fact which is\nsuggestive. But this waiting interval was not wasted in idleness by\nthe assembled students. It was past noon, therefore they ordered their\nlandlord, downstairs, to send up hot beefsteaks, chickens, and such\nthings, and these they ate, sitting comfortable at the several tables,\nwhilst they chatted, disputed and laughed. The door to the surgeon's\nroom stood open, meantime, but the cutting, sewing, splicing, and\nbandaging going on in there in plain view did not seem to disturb\nanyone's appetite. I went in and saw the surgeon labor awhile, but could\nnot enjoy; it was much less trying to see the wounds given and received\nthan to see them mended; the stir and turmoil, and the music of the\nsteel, were wanting here--one's nerves were wrung by this grisly\nspectacle, whilst the duel's compensating pleasurable thrill was\nlacking.\n\nFinally the doctor finished, and the men who were to fight the closing\nbattle of the day came forth. A good many dinners were not completed,\nyet, but no matter, they could be eaten cold, after the battle;\ntherefore everybody crowded forth to see. This was not a love duel, but\na \"satisfaction\" affair. These two students had quarreled, and were here\nto settle it. They did not belong to any of the corps, but they were\nfurnished with weapons and armor, and permitted to fight here by the\nfive corps as a courtesy. Evidently these two young men were unfamiliar\nwith the dueling ceremonies, though they were not unfamiliar with the\nsword. When they were placed in position they thought it was time\nto begin--and then did begin, too, and with a most impetuous energy,\nwithout waiting for anybody to give the word. This vastly amused the\nspectators, and even broke down their studied and courtly gravity and\nsurprised them into laughter. Of course the seconds struck up the swords\nand started the duel over again. At the word, the deluge of blows began,\nbut before long the surgeon once more interfered--for the only reason\nwhich ever permits him to interfere--and the day's war was over. It was\nnow two in the afternoon, and I had been present since half past nine in\nthe morning. The field of battle was indeed a red one by this time;\nbut some sawdust soon righted that. There had been one duel before I\narrived. In it one of the men received many injuries, while the other\none escaped without a scratch.\n\nI had seen the heads and faces of ten youths gashed in every direction\nby the keen two-edged blades, and yet had not seen a victim wince, nor\nheard a moan, or detected any fleeting expression which confessed the\nsharp pain the hurts were inflicting. This was good fortitude, indeed.\nSuch endurance is to be expected in savages and prize-fighters, for they\nare born and educated to it; but to find it in such perfection in these\ngently bred and kindly natured young fellows is matter for surprise.\nIt was not merely under the excitement of the sword-play that this\nfortitude was shown; it was shown in the surgeon's room where an\nuninspiring quiet reigned, and where there was no audience. The doctor's\nmanipulations brought out neither grimaces nor moans. And in the fights\nit was observable that these lads hacked and slashed with the same\ntremendous spirit, after they were covered with streaming wounds, which\nthey had shown in the beginning.\n\nThe world in general looks upon the college duels as very farcical\naffairs: true, but considering that the college duel is fought by boys;\nthat the swords are real swords; and that the head and face are exposed,\nit seems to me that it is a farce which had quite a grave side to it.\nPeople laugh at it mainly because they think the student is so covered\nup with armor that he cannot be hurt. But it is not so; his eyes and\nears are protected, but the rest of his face and head are bare. He\ncan not only be badly wounded, but his life is in danger; and he would\nsometimes lose it but for the interference of the surgeon. It is\nnot intended that his life shall be endangered. Fatal accidents are\npossible, however. For instance, the student's sword may break, and the\nend of it fly up behind his antagonist's ear and cut an artery which\ncould not be reached if the sword remained whole. This has happened,\nsometimes, and death has resulted on the spot. Formerly the student's\narmpits were not protected--and at that time the swords were pointed,\nwhereas they are blunt, now; so an artery in the armpit was sometimes\ncut, and death followed. Then in the days of sharp-pointed swords, a\nspectator was an occasional victim--the end of a broken sword flew five\nor ten feet and buried itself in his neck or his heart, and death ensued\ninstantly. The student duels in Germany occasion two or three deaths\nevery year, now, but this arises only from the carelessness of the\nwounded men; they eat or drink imprudently, or commit excesses in the\nway of overexertion; inflammation sets in and gets such a headway that\nit cannot be arrested. Indeed, there is blood and pain and danger\nenough about the college duel to entitle it to a considerable degree of\nrespect.\n\nAll the customs, all the laws, all the details, pertaining to the\nstudent duel are quaint and naive. The grave, precise, and courtly\nceremony with which the thing is conducted, invests it with a sort of\nantique charm.\n\nThis dignity and these knightly graces suggest the tournament, not the\nprize-fight. The laws are as curious as they are strict. For instance,\nthe duelist may step forward from the line he is placed upon, if he\nchooses, but never back of it. If he steps back of it, or even leans\nback, it is considered that he did it to avoid a blow or contrive an\nadvantage; so he is dismissed from his corps in disgrace. It would seem\nnatural to step from under a descending sword unconsciously, and against\none's will and intent--yet this unconsciousness is not allowed. Again:\nif under the sudden anguish of a wound the receiver of it makes a\ngrimace, he falls some degrees in the estimation of his fellows; his\ncorps are ashamed of him: they call him \"hare foot,\" which is the German\nequivalent for chicken-hearted.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n[How Bismark Fought]\n\n\nIn addition to the corps laws, there are some corps usages which have\nthe force of laws.\n\nPerhaps the president of a corps notices that one of the membership who\nis no longer an exempt--that is a freshman--has remained a sophomore\nsome little time without volunteering to fight; some day, the president,\ninstead of calling for volunteers, will APPOINT this sophomore\nto measure swords with a student of another corps; he is free to\ndecline--everybody says so--there is no compulsion. This is all\ntrue--but I have not heard of any student who DID decline; to decline\nand still remain in the corps would make him unpleasantly conspicuous,\nand properly so, since he knew, when he joined, that his main\nbusiness, as a member, would be to fight. No, there is no law against\ndeclining--except the law of custom, which is confessedly stronger than\nwritten law, everywhere.\n\n\nThe ten men whose duels I had witnessed did not go away when their hurts\nwere dressed, as I had supposed they would, but came back, one after\nanother, as soon as they were free of the surgeon, and mingled with the\nassemblage in the dueling-room. The white-cap student who won the second\nfight witnessed the remaining three, and talked with us during the\nintermissions. He could not talk very well, because his opponent's sword\nhad cut his under-lip in two, and then the surgeon had sewed it together\nand overlaid it with a profusion of white plaster patches; neither could\nhe eat easily, still he contrived to accomplish a slow and troublesome\nluncheon while the last duel was preparing. The man who was the worst\nhurt of all played chess while waiting to see this engagement. A good\npart of his face was covered with patches and bandages, and all the rest\nof his head was covered and concealed by them.\n\n\nIt is said that the student likes to appear on the street and in other\npublic places in this kind of array, and that this predilection often\nkeeps him out when exposure to rain or sun is a positive danger for\nhim. Newly bandaged students are a very common spectacle in the public\ngardens of Heidelberg. It is also said that the student is glad to\nget wounds in the face, because the scars they leave will show so well\nthere; and it is also said that these face wounds are so prized that\nyouths have even been known to pull them apart from time to time and\nput red wine in them to make them heal badly and leave as ugly a scar\nas possible. It does not look reasonable, but it is roundly asserted\nand maintained, nevertheless; I am sure of one thing--scars are plenty\nenough in Germany, among the young men; and very grim ones they are,\ntoo. They crisscross the face in angry red welts, and are permanent and\nineffaceable.\n\n\nSome of these scars are of a very strange and dreadful aspect; and the\neffect is striking when several such accent the milder ones, which form\na city map on a man's face; they suggest the \"burned district\" then. We\nhad often noticed that many of the students wore a colored silk band\nor ribbon diagonally across their breasts. It transpired that this\nsignifies that the wearer has fought three duels in which a decision\nwas reached--duels in which he either whipped or was whipped--for drawn\nbattles do not count. [1] After a student has received his ribbon, he\nis \"free\"; he can cease from fighting, without reproach--except some one\ninsult him; his president cannot appoint him to fight; he can volunteer\nif he wants to, or remain quiescent if he prefers to do so. Statistics\nshow that he does NOT prefer to remain quiescent. They show that the\nduel has a singular fascination about it somewhere, for these free\nmen, so far from resting upon the privilege of the badge, are always\nvolunteering. A corps student told me it was of record that Prince\nBismarck fought thirty-two of these duels in a single summer term when\nhe was in college. So he fought twenty-nine after his badge had given\nhim the right to retire from the field.\n\n1. FROM MY DIARY.--Dined in a hotel a few miles up the Neckar, in a room\nwhose walls were hung all over with framed portrait-groups of the Five\nCorps; some were recent, but many antedated photography, and were\npictured in lithography--the dates ranged back to forty or fifty years\nago. Nearly every individual wore the ribbon across his breast. In one\nportrait-group representing (as each of these pictures did) an entire\nCorps, I took pains to count the ribbons: there were twenty-seven\nmembers, and twenty-one of them wore that significant badge.\n\nThe statistics may be found to possess interest in several particulars.\nTwo days in every week are devoted to dueling. The rule is rigid that\nthere must be three duels on each of these days; there are generally\nmore, but there cannot be fewer. There were six the day I was present;\nsometimes there are seven or eight. It is insisted that eight duels a\nweek--four for each of the two days--is too low an average to draw\na calculation from, but I will reckon from that basis, preferring an\nunderstatement to an overstatement of the case. This requires about four\nhundred and eighty or five hundred duelists a year--for in summer the\ncollege term is about three and a half months, and in winter it is four\nmonths and sometimes longer. Of the seven hundred and fifty students in\nthe university at the time I am writing of, only eighty belonged to the\nfive corps, and it is only these corps that do the dueling; occasionally\nother students borrow the arms and battleground of the five corps in\norder to settle a quarrel, but this does not happen every dueling-day.\n[2] Consequently eighty youths furnish the material for some two hundred\nand fifty duels a year. This average gives six fights a year to each\nof the eighty. This large work could not be accomplished if the\nbadge-holders stood upon their privilege and ceased to volunteer.\n\n2. They have to borrow the arms because they could not get them\nelsewhere or otherwise. As I understand it, the public authorities, all\nover Germany, allow the five Corps to keep swords, but DO NOT ALLOW THEM\nTO USE THEM. This is law is rigid; it is only the execution of it that\nis lax.\n\nOf course, where there is so much fighting, the students make it a point\nto keep themselves in constant practice with the foil. One often sees\nthem, at the tables in the Castle grounds, using their whips or canes to\nillustrate some new sword trick which they have heard about; and between\nthe duels, on the day whose history I have been writing, the swords were\nnot always idle; every now and then we heard a succession of the keen\nhissing sounds which the sword makes when it is being put through its\npaces in the air, and this informed us that a student was practicing.\nNecessarily, this unceasing attention to the art develops an expert\noccasionally. He becomes famous in his own university, his renown\nspreads to other universities. He is invited to Goettingen, to fight\nwith a Goettingen expert; if he is victorious, he will be invited\nto other colleges, or those colleges will send their experts to him.\nAmericans and Englishmen often join one or another of the five corps. A\nyear or two ago, the principal Heidelberg expert was a big Kentuckian;\nhe was invited to the various universities and left a wake of victory\nbehind him all about Germany; but at last a little student in Strasburg\ndefeated him. There was formerly a student in Heidelberg who had picked\nup somewhere and mastered a peculiar trick of cutting up under instead\nof cleaving down from above. While the trick lasted he won in sixteen\nsuccessive duels in his university; but by that time observers had\ndiscovered what his charm was, and how to break it, therefore his\nchampionship ceased.\n\nA rule which forbids social intercourse between members of different\ncorps is strict. In the dueling-house, in the parks, on the street,\nand anywhere and everywhere that the students go, caps of a color group\nthemselves together. If all the tables in a public garden were crowded\nbut one, and that one had two red-cap students at it and ten vacant\nplaces, the yellow-caps, the blue-caps, the white caps, and the green\ncaps, seeking seats, would go by that table and not seem to see it, nor\nseem to be aware that there was such a table in the grounds. The student\nby whose courtesy we had been enabled to visit the dueling-place, wore\nthe white cap--Prussian Corps. He introduced us to many white caps, but\nto none of another color. The corps etiquette extended even to us, who\nwere strangers, and required us to group with the white corps only, and\nspeak only with the white corps, while we were their guests, and keep\naloof from the caps of the other colors. Once I wished to examine some\nof the swords, but an American student said, \"It would not be quite\npolite; these now in the windows all have red hilts or blue; they will\nbring in some with white hilts presently, and those you can handle\nfreely.\" When a sword was broken in the first duel, I wanted a piece\nof it; but its hilt was the wrong color, so it was considered best and\npolitest to await a properer season.\n\n\nIt was brought to me after the room was cleared, and I will now make\na \"life-size\" sketch of it by tracing a line around it with my pen, to\nshow the width of the weapon. [Figure 1] The length of these swords is\nabout three feet, and they are quite heavy. One's disposition to cheer,\nduring the course of the duels or at their close, was naturally strong,\nbut corps etiquette forbade any demonstrations of this sort. However\nbrilliant a contest or a victory might be, no sign or sound betrayed\nthat any one was moved. A dignified gravity and repression were\nmaintained at all times.\n\nWhen the dueling was finished and we were ready to go, the gentlemen of\nthe Prussian Corps to whom we had been introduced took off their caps\nin the courteous German way, and also shook hands; their brethren of the\nsame order took off their caps and bowed, but without shaking hands; the\ngentlemen of the other corps treated us just as they would have treated\nwhite caps--they fell apart, apparently unconsciously, and left us an\nunobstructed pathway, but did not seem to see us or know we were there.\nIf we had gone thither the following week as guests of another corps,\nthe white caps, without meaning any offense, would have observed the\netiquette of their order and ignored our presence.\n\n[How strangely are comedy and tragedy blended in this life! I had not\nbeen home a full half-hour, after witnessing those playful sham-duels,\nwhen circumstances made it necessary for me to get ready immediately to\nassist personally at a real one--a duel with no effeminate limitation in\nthe matter of results, but a battle to the death. An account of it, in\nthe next chapter, will show the reader that duels between boys, for fun,\nand duels between men in earnest, are very different affairs.]\n\n\n\n\n\nA TRAMP ABROAD, Part 2\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n(Samuel L. Clemens)\n\nFirst published in 1880\n\nIllustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition\n\n * * * * * *\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS:\n\n\n     1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR\n     2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0TITIAN'S MOSES\n     3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES\n     32.\u00a0\u00a0FRENCH CALM\n     33.\u00a0\u00a0THE CHALLENGE ACCEPTED\n     34.\u00a0\u00a0A SEARCH\n     35.\u00a0\u00a0HE SWOONED PONDEROUSLY\n     36.\u00a0\u00a0I ROLLED HIM OVER\n     37.\u00a0\u00a0THE ONE I HIRED\n     36.\u00a0\u00a0THE MARCH TO THE FIELD\n     39.\u00a0\u00a0THE POST OF DANGER\n     40.\u00a0\u00a0THE RECONCILIATION\n     41.\u00a0\u00a0AN OBJECT OF ADMIRATION\n     42.\u00a0\u00a0WAGNER\n     43.\u00a0\u00a0RAGING\n     44.\u00a0\u00a0ROARING\n     45.\u00a0\u00a0SHRIEKING\n     46.\u00a0\u00a0A CUSTOMARY THING\n     47.\u00a0\u00a0ONE OF THE \"REST\"\n     48.\u00a0\u00a0A CONTRIBUTION BOX\n     49.\u00a0\u00a0CONSPICUOUS\n     50.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     51.\u00a0\u00a0ONLY A SHRIEK\n     52.\u00a0\u00a0\"HE ONLY CRY\"\n     53.\u00a0\u00a0LATE COMERS CARED FOR\n     54.\u00a0\u00a0EVIDENTLY DREAMING\n     55.\u00a0\u00a0\"TURN ON MORE RAIN\"\n     56.\u00a0\u00a0HARRIS ATTENDING THE OPERA\n     57.\u00a0\u00a0PAINTING MY GREAT PICTURE\n     58.\u00a0\u00a0OUR START\n     59.\u00a0\u00a0AN UNKNOWN COSTUME\n     60.\u00a0\u00a0THE TOWER\n     61.\u00a0\u00a0SLOW BUT SURE\n     62.\u00a0\u00a0THE ROBBER CHIEF\n     63.\u00a0\u00a0AN HONEST MAN\n     64.\u00a0\u00a0THE TOWN BY NIGHT\n     65.\u00a0\u00a0GENERATIONS OF BAREFEET\n     66.\u00a0\u00a0OUR BEDROOM\n     67.\u00a0\u00a0PRACTICING\n     68.\u00a0\u00a0PAWING AROUND\n     69.\u00a0\u00a0A NIGHT'S WORK\n     70.\u00a0\u00a0LEAVING HEILBRONN\n     71.\u00a0\u00a0THE CAPTAIN\n     72.\u00a0\u00a0WAITING FOR THE TRAIN\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII The Great French Duel--Mistaken Notions--Outbreak in the\nFrench Assembly--Calmness of M Gambetta--I Volunteer as Second--Drawing\nup a Will--The Challenge and its Acceptance--Difficulty in Selection\nof Weapons--Deciding on Distance--M. Gambetta's Firmness--Arranging\nDetails--Hiring Hearses--How it was Kept from the Press--March to the\nField--The Post of Danger--The Duel--The Result--General Rejoicings--The\nonly One Hurt--A Firm Resolution\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX At the Theatre--German Ideal--At the Opera--The\nOrchestra--Howlings and Wailings--A Curious Play--One Season of\nRest--The Wedding Chorus--Germans fond of the Opera--Funerals Needed\n--A Private Party--What I Overheard--A Gentle Girl--A\nContribution--box--Unpleasantly Conspicuous\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X Four Hours with Wagner--A Wonderful Singer, Once--\" Only a\nShriek\"--An Ancient Vocalist--\"He Only Cry\"--Emotional Germans--A\nWise Custom--Late Comers Rebuked--Heard to the Last--No Interruptions\nAllowed--A Royal Audience--An Eccentric King--Real Rain and More of\nIt--Immense Success--\"Encore! Encore!\"--Magnanimity of the King\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI Lessons in Art--My Great Picture of Heidelberg Castle--Its\nEffect in the Exhibition--Mistaken for a Turner--A Studio--Waiting\nfor Orders--A Tramp Decided On--The Start for Heilbronn--Our Walking\nDress--\"Pleasant march to you\"--We Take the Rail--German People on\nBoard--Not Understood--Speak only German and English--Wimpfen--A Funny\nTower--Dinner in the Garden--Vigorous Tramping--Ride in a Peasant's\nCart--A Famous Room\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII The Rathhaus--An Old Robber Knight, Gotz Von\nBerlichingen--His Famous Deeds--The Square Tower--A Curious old\nChurch--A Gay Turn--out--A Legend--The Wives' Treasures--A Model\nWaiter--A Miracle Performed--An Old Town--The Worn Stones\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII Early to Bed--Lonesome--Nervous Excitement--The Room We\nOccupied--Disturbed by a Mouse--Grow Desperate--The Old Remedy--A Shoe\nThrown--Result--Hopelessly Awake--An Attempt to Dress--A Cruise in the\nDark--Crawling on the Floor--A General Smash-up--Forty-seven Miles'\nTravel\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV A Famous Turn--out--Raftsmen on the Neckar--The Log\nRafts--The Neckar--A Sudden Idea--To Heidelberg on a Raft--Chartering\na Raft--Gloomy Feelings and Conversation--Delicious Journeying--View of\nthe Banks--Compared with Railroading\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nThe Great French Duel\n\n[I Second Gambetta in a Terrific Duel]\n\n\nMuch as the modern French duel is ridiculed by certain smart people, it\nis in reality one of the most dangerous institutions of our day. Since\nit is always fought in the open air, the combatants are nearly sure\nto catch cold. M. Paul de Cassagnac, the most inveterate of the French\nduelists, had suffered so often in this way that he is at last a\nconfirmed invalid; and the best physician in Paris has expressed\nthe opinion that if he goes on dueling for fifteen or twenty years\nmore--unless he forms the habit of fighting in a comfortable room where\ndamps and draughts cannot intrude--he will eventually endanger his life.\nThis ought to moderate the talk of those people who are so stubborn\nin maintaining that the French duel is the most health-giving of\nrecreations because of the open-air exercise it affords. And it\nought also to moderate that foolish talk about French duelists and\nsocialist-hated monarchs being the only people who are immortal.\n\nBut it is time to get at my subject. As soon as I heard of the late\nfiery outbreak between M. Gambetta and M. Fourtou in the French\nAssembly, I knew that trouble must follow. I knew it because a long\npersonal friendship with M. Gambetta revealed to me the desperate and\nimplacable nature of the man. Vast as are his physical proportions,\nI knew that the thirst for revenge would penetrate to the remotest\nfrontiers of his person.\n\nI did not wait for him to call on me, but went at once to him. As I had\nexpected, I found the brave fellow steeped in a profound French calm.\nI say French calm, because French calmness and English calmness have\npoints of difference.\n\n\nHe was moving swiftly back and forth among the debris of his furniture,\nnow and then staving chance fragments of it across the room with his\nfoot; grinding a constant grist of curses through his set teeth; and\nhalting every little while to deposit another handful of his hair on the\npile which he had been building of it on the table.\n\nHe threw his arms around my neck, bent me over his stomach to his\nbreast, kissed me on both cheeks, hugged me four or five times, and\nthen placed me in his own arm-chair. As soon as I had got well again, we\nbegan business at once.\n\nI said I supposed he would wish me to act as his second, and he said,\n\"Of course.\" I said I must be allowed to act under a French name, so\nthat I might be shielded from obloquy in my country, in case of fatal\nresults. He winced here, probably at the suggestion that dueling was not\nregarded with respect in America. However, he agreed to my requirement.\nThis accounts for the fact that in all the newspaper reports M.\nGambetta's second was apparently a Frenchman.\n\n\nFirst, we drew up my principal's will. I insisted upon this, and stuck\nto my point. I said I had never heard of a man in his right mind going\nout to fight a duel without first making his will. He said he had never\nheard of a man in his right mind doing anything of the kind. When he had\nfinished the will, he wished to proceed to a choice of his \"last words.\"\nHe wanted to know how the following words, as a dying exclamation,\nstruck me:\n\n\"I die for my God, for my country, for freedom of speech, for progress,\nand the universal brotherhood of man!\"\n\nI objected that this would require too lingering a death; it was a good\nspeech for a consumptive, but not suited to the exigencies of the field\nof honor. We wrangled over a good many ante-mortem outbursts, but I\nfinally got him to cut his obituary down to this, which he copied into\nhis memorandum-book, purposing to get it by heart:\n\n\"I DIE THAT FRANCE MIGHT LIVE.\"\n\nI said that this remark seemed to lack relevancy; but he said relevancy\nwas a matter of no consequence in last words, what you wanted was\nthrill.\n\nThe next thing in order was the choice of weapons. My principal said he\nwas not feeling well, and would leave that and the other details of the\nproposed meeting to me. Therefore I wrote the following note and carried\nit to M. Fourtou's friend:\n\nSir: M. Gambetta accepts M. Fourtou's challenge, and authorizes me to\npropose Plessis-Piquet as the place of meeting; tomorrow morning at\ndaybreak as the time; and axes as the weapons.\n\nI am, sir, with great respect,\n\nMark Twain.\n\nM. Fourtou's friend read this note, and shuddered. Then he turned to me,\nand said, with a suggestion of severity in his tone:\n\n\"Have you considered, sir, what would be the inevitable result of such a\nmeeting as this?\"\n\n\"Well, for instance, what WOULD it be?\"\n\n\"Bloodshed!\"\n\n\"That's about the size of it,\" I said. \"Now, if it is a fair question,\nwhat was your side proposing to shed?\"\n\nI had him there. He saw he had made a blunder, so he hastened to explain\nit away. He said he had spoken jestingly. Then he added that he and his\nprincipal would enjoy axes, and indeed prefer them, but such weapons\nwere barred by the French code, and so I must change my proposal.\n\nI walked the floor, turning the thing over in my mind, and finally it\noccurred to me that Gatling-guns at fifteen paces would be a likely way\nto get a verdict on the field of honor. So I framed this idea into a\nproposition.\n\nBut it was not accepted. The code was in the way again. I proposed\nrifles; then double-barreled shotguns; then Colt's navy revolvers. These\nbeing all rejected, I reflected awhile, and sarcastically suggested\nbrickbats at three-quarters of a mile. I always hate to fool away a\nhumorous thing on a person who has no perception of humor; and it filled\nme with bitterness when this man went soberly away to submit the last\nproposition to his principal.\n\nHe came back presently and said his principal was charmed with the idea\nof brickbats at three-quarters of a mile, but must decline on account of\nthe danger to disinterested parties passing between them. Then I said:\n\n\"Well, I am at the end of my string, now. Perhaps YOU would be good\nenough to suggest a weapon? Perhaps you have even had one in your mind\nall the time?\"\n\nHis countenance brightened, and he said with alacrity:\n\n\"Oh, without doubt, monsieur!\"\n\n\nSo he fell to hunting in his pockets--pocket after pocket, and he had\nplenty of them--muttering all the while, \"Now, what could I have done\nwith them?\"\n\nAt last he was successful. He fished out of his vest pocket a couple\nof little things which I carried to the light and ascertained to be\npistols. They were single-barreled and silver-mounted, and very dainty\nand pretty. I was not able to speak for emotion. I silently hung one of\nthem on my watch-chain, and returned the other. My companion in crime\nnow unrolled a postage-stamp containing several cartridges, and gave me\none of them. I asked if he meant to signify by this that our men were\nto be allowed but one shot apiece. He replied that the French code\npermitted no more. I then begged him to go and suggest a distance, for\nmy mind was growing weak and confused under the strain which had been\nput upon it. He named sixty-five yards. I nearly lost my patience. I\nsaid:\n\n\"Sixty-five yards, with these instruments? Squirt-guns would be deadlier\nat fifty. Consider, my friend, you and I are banded together to destroy\nlife, not make it eternal.\"\n\nBut with all my persuasions, all my arguments, I was only able to\nget him to reduce the distance to thirty-five yards; and even this\nconcession he made with reluctance, and said with a sigh, \"I wash my\nhands of this slaughter; on your head be it.\"\n\nThere was nothing for me but to go home to my old lion-heart and tell my\nhumiliating story. When I entered, M. Gambetta was laying his last lock\nof hair upon the altar. He sprang toward me, exclaiming:\n\n\"You have made the fatal arrangements--I see it in your eye!\"\n\n\"I have.\"\n\nHis face paled a trifle, and he leaned upon the table for support. He\nbreathed thick and heavily for a moment or two, so tumultuous were his\nfeelings; then he hoarsely whispered:\n\n\"The weapon, the weapon! Quick! what is the weapon?\"\n\n\"This!\" and I displayed that silver-mounted thing. He cast but one\nglance at it, then swooned ponderously to the floor.\n\n\nWhen he came to, he said mournfully:\n\n\"The unnatural calm to which I have subjected myself has told upon my\nnerves. But away with weakness! I will confront my fate like a man and a\nFrenchman.\"\n\nHe rose to his feet, and assumed an attitude which for sublimity has\nnever been approached by man, and has seldom been surpassed by statues.\nThen he said, in his deep bass tones:\n\n\"Behold, I am calm, I am ready; reveal to me the distance.\"\n\n\"Thirty-five yards.\" ...\n\n\nI could not lift him up, of course; but I rolled him over, and poured\nwater down his back. He presently came to, and said:\n\n\"Thirty-five yards--without a rest? But why ask? Since murder was that\nman's intention, why should he palter with small details? But mark you\none thing: in my fall the world shall see how the chivalry of France\nmeets death.\"\n\nAfter a long silence he asked:\n\n\"Was nothing said about that man's family standing up with him, as\nan offset to my bulk? But no matter; I would not stoop to make such\na suggestion; if he is not noble enough to suggest it himself, he is\nwelcome to this advantage, which no honorable man would take.\"\n\nHe now sank into a sort of stupor of reflection, which lasted some\nminutes; after which he broke silence with:\n\n\"The hour--what is the hour fixed for the collision?\"\n\n\"Dawn, tomorrow.\"\n\nHe seemed greatly surprised, and immediately said:\n\n\"Insanity! I never heard of such a thing. Nobody is abroad at such an\nhour.\"\n\n\"That is the reason I named it. Do you mean to say you want an\naudience?\"\n\n\"It is no time to bandy words. I am astonished that M. Fourtou should\never have agreed to so strange an innovation. Go at once and require a\nlater hour.\"\n\nI ran downstairs, threw open the front door, and almost plunged into the\narms of M. Fourtou's second. He said:\n\n\"I have the honor to say that my principal strenuously objects to the\nhour chosen, and begs you will consent to change it to half past nine.\"\n\n\"Any courtesy, sir, which it is in our power to extend is at the service\nof your excellent principal. We agree to the proposed change of time.\"\n\n\"I beg you to accept the thanks of my client.\" Then he turned to a\nperson behind him, and said, \"You hear, M. Noir, the hour is altered to\nhalf past nine.\" Whereupon M. Noir bowed, expressed his thanks, and went\naway. My accomplice continued:\n\n\"If agreeable to you, your chief surgeons and ours shall proceed to the\nfield in the same carriage as is customary.\"\n\n\"It is entirely agreeable to me, and I am obliged to you for mentioning\nthe surgeons, for I am afraid I should not have thought of them. How\nmany shall I want? I supposed two or three will be enough?\"\n\n\"Two is the customary number for each party. I refer to 'chief'\nsurgeons; but considering the exalted positions occupied by our clients,\nit will be well and decorous that each of us appoint several consulting\nsurgeons, from among the highest in the profession. These will come in\ntheir own private carriages. Have you engaged a hearse?\"\n\n\n\"Bless my stupidity, I never thought of it! I will attend to it right\naway. I must seem very ignorant to you; but you must try to overlook\nthat, because I have never had any experience of such a swell duel as\nthis before. I have had a good deal to do with duels on the Pacific\ncoast, but I see now that they were crude affairs. A hearse--sho! we\nused to leave the elected lying around loose, and let anybody cord\nthem up and cart them off that wanted to. Have you anything further to\nsuggest?\"\n\n\"Nothing, except that the head undertakers shall ride together, as is\nusual. The subordinates and mutes will go on foot, as is also usual. I\nwill see you at eight o'clock in the morning, and we will then arrange\nthe order of the procession. I have the honor to bid you a good day.\"\n\nI returned to my client, who said, \"Very well; at what hour is the\nengagement to begin?\"\n\n\"Half past nine.\"\n\n\"Very good indeed. Have you sent the fact to the newspapers?\"\n\n\"SIR! If after our long and intimate friendship you can for a moment\ndeem me capable of so base a treachery--\"\n\n\"Tut, tut! What words are these, my dear friend? Have I wounded you? Ah,\nforgive me; I am overloading you with labor. Therefore go on with the\nother details, and drop this one from your list. The bloody-minded\nFourtou will be sure to attend to it. Or I myself--yes, to make certain,\nI will drop a note to my journalistic friend, M. Noir--\"\n\n\"Oh, come to think of it, you may save yourself the trouble; that other\nsecond has informed M. Noir.\"\n\n\"H'm! I might have known it. It is just like that Fourtou, who always\nwants to make a display.\"\n\n\nAt half past nine in the morning the procession approached the field of\nPlessis-Piquet in the following order: first came our carriage--nobody\nin it but M. Gambetta and myself; then a carriage containing M. Fourtou\nand his second; then a carriage containing two poet-orators who did not\nbelieve in God, and these had MS. funeral orations projecting from their\nbreast pockets; then a carriage containing the head surgeons and their\ncases of instruments; then eight private carriages containing consulting\nsurgeons; then a hack containing a coroner; then the two hearses; then a\ncarriage containing the head undertakers; then a train of assistants\nand mutes on foot; and after these came plodding through the fog a long\nprocession of camp followers, police, and citizens generally. It was a\nnoble turnout, and would have made a fine display if we had had thinner\nweather.\n\nThere was no conversation. I spoke several times to my principal, but\nI judge he was not aware of it, for he always referred to his note-book\nand muttered absently, \"I die that France might live.\"\n\nArrived on the field, my fellow-second and I paced off the thirty-five\nyards, and then drew lots for choice of position. This latter was but\nan ornamental ceremony, for all the choices were alike in such weather.\nThese preliminaries being ended, I went to my principal and asked him\nif he was ready. He spread himself out to his full width, and said in a\nstern voice, \"Ready! Let the batteries be charged.\"\n\nThe loading process was done in the presence of duly constituted\nwitnesses. We considered it best to perform this delicate service with\nthe assistance of a lantern, on account of the state of the weather. We\nnow placed our men.\n\nAt this point the police noticed that the public had massed themselves\ntogether on the right and left of the field; they therefore begged a\ndelay, while they should put these poor people in a place of safety.\n\nThe request was granted.\n\nThe police having ordered the two multitudes to take positions behind\nthe duelists, we were once more ready. The weather growing still more\nopaque, it was agreed between myself and the other second that before\ngiving the fatal signal we should each deliver a loud whoop to enable\nthe combatants to ascertain each other's whereabouts.\n\nI now returned to my principal, and was distressed to observe that he\nhad lost a good deal of his spirit. I tried my best to hearten him. I\nsaid, \"Indeed, sir, things are not as bad as they seem. Considering\nthe character of the weapons, the limited number of shots allowed, the\ngenerous distance, the impenetrable solidity of the fog, and the added\nfact that one of the combatants is one-eyed and the other cross-eyed and\nnear-sighted, it seems to me that this conflict need not necessarily be\nfatal. There are chances that both of you may survive. Therefore, cheer\nup; do not be downhearted.\"\n\nThis speech had so good an effect that my principal immediately\nstretched forth his hand and said, \"I am myself again; give me the\nweapon.\"\n\nI laid it, all lonely and forlorn, in the center of the vast solitude\nof his palm. He gazed at it and shuddered. And still mournfully\ncontemplating it, he murmured in a broken voice:\n\n\"Alas, it is not death I dread, but mutilation.\"\n\nI heartened him once more, and with such success that he presently\nsaid, \"Let the tragedy begin. Stand at my back; do not desert me in this\nsolemn hour, my friend.\"\n\nI gave him my promise. I now assisted him to point his pistol toward the\nspot where I judged his adversary to be standing, and cautioned him to\nlisten well and further guide himself by my fellow-second's whoop.\nThen I propped myself against M. Gambetta's back, and raised a rousing\n\"Whoop-ee!\" This was answered from out the far distances of the fog, and\nI immediately shouted:\n\n\"One--two--three--FIRE!\"\n\nTwo little sounds like SPIT! SPIT! broke upon my ear, and in the same\ninstant I was crushed to the earth under a mountain of flesh. Bruised\nas I was, I was still able to catch a faint accent from above, to this\neffect:\n\n\n\"I die for... for ... perdition take it, what IS it I die for? ... oh,\nyes--FRANCE! I die that France may live!\"\n\nThe surgeons swarmed around with their probes in their hands, and\napplied their microscopes to the whole area of M. Gambetta's person,\nwith the happy result of finding nothing in the nature of a wound. Then\na scene ensued which was in every way gratifying and inspiriting.\n\nThe two gladiators fell upon each other's neck, with floods of proud and\nhappy tears; that other second embraced me; the surgeons, the\norators, the undertakers, the police, everybody embraced, everybody\ncongratulated, everybody cried, and the whole atmosphere was filled with\npraise and with joy unspeakable.\n\nIt seems to me then that I would rather be a hero of a French duel than\na crowned and sceptered monarch.\n\n\nWhen the commotion had somewhat subsided, the body of surgeons held a\nconsultation, and after a good deal of debate decided that with proper\ncare and nursing there was reason to believe that I would survive my\ninjuries. My internal hurts were deemed the most serious, since it was\napparent that a broken rib had penetrated my left lung, and that many of\nmy organs had been pressed out so far to one side or the other of where\nthey belonged, that it was doubtful if they would ever learn to perform\ntheir functions in such remote and unaccustomed localities. They then\nset my left arm in two places, pulled my right hip into its socket\nagain, and re-elevated my nose. I was an object of great interest,\nand even admiration; and many sincere and warm-hearted persons had\nthemselves introduced to me, and said they were proud to know the only\nman who had been hurt in a French duel in forty years.\n\nI was placed in an ambulance at the very head of the procession;\nand thus with gratifying 'ECLAT I was marched into Paris, the most\nconspicuous figure in that great spectacle, and deposited at the\nhospital.\n\n\nThe cross of the Legion of Honor has been conferred upon me. However,\nfew escape that distinction.\n\nSuch is the true version of the most memorable private conflict of the\nage.\n\nI have no complaints to make against any one. I acted for myself, and I\ncan stand the consequences.\n\nWithout boasting, I think I may say I am not afraid to stand before a\nmodern French duelist, but as long as I keep in my right mind I will\nnever consent to stand behind one again.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\n[What the Beautiful Maiden Said]\n\n\nOne day we took the train and went down to Mannheim to see \"King Lear\"\nplayed in German. It was a mistake. We sat in our seats three whole\nhours and never understood anything but the thunder and lightning; and\neven that was reversed to suit German ideas, for the thunder came first\nand the lightning followed after.\n\nThe behavior of the audience was perfect. There were no rustlings, or\nwhisperings, or other little disturbances; each act was listened to in\nsilence, and the applauding was done after the curtain was down. The\ndoors opened at half past four, the play began promptly at half past\nfive, and within two minutes afterward all who were coming were in their\nseats, and quiet reigned. A German gentleman in the train had said that\na Shakespearian play was an appreciated treat in Germany and that\nwe should find the house filled. It was true; all the six tiers were\nfilled, and remained so to the end--which suggested that it is not only\nbalcony people who like Shakespeare in Germany, but those of the pit and\ngallery, too.\n\nAnother time, we went to Mannheim and attended a shivaree--otherwise an\nopera--the one called \"Lohengrin.\" The banging and slamming and booming\nand crashing were something beyond belief. The racking and pitiless pain\nof it remains stored up in my memory alongside the memory of the time\nthat I had my teeth fixed.\n\n\nThere were circumstances which made it necessary for me to stay through\nthe four hours to the end, and I stayed; but the recollection of that\nlong, dragging, relentless season of suffering is indestructible. To\nhave to endure it in silence, and sitting still, made it all the harder.\nI was in a railed compartment with eight or ten strangers, of the two\nsexes, and this compelled repression; yet at times the pain was so\nexquisite that I could hardly keep the tears back.\n\n\nAt those times, as the howlings and wailings and shrieking of the\nsingers, and the ragings and roarings and explosions of the vast\norchestra rose higher and higher, and wilder and wilder, and fiercer and\nfiercer, I could have cried if I had been alone. Those strangers would\nnot have been surprised to see a man do such a thing who was being\ngradually skinned, but they would have marveled at it here, and made\nremarks about it no doubt, whereas there was nothing in the present case\nwhich was an advantage over being skinned.\n\n\nThere was a wait of half an hour at the end of the first act, and I\ncould have gone out and rested during that time, but I could not trust\nmyself to do it, for I felt that I should desert to stay out. There was\nanother wait of half an hour toward nine o'clock, but I had gone through\nso much by that time that I had no spirit left, and so had no desire but\nto be let alone.\n\n\nI do not wish to suggest that the rest of the people there were like\nme, for, indeed, they were not. Whether it was that they naturally\nliked that noise, or whether it was that they had learned to like it\nby getting used to it, I did not at the time know; but they did like\nit--this was plain enough. While it was going on they sat and looked as\nrapt and grateful as cats do when one strokes their backs; and whenever\nthe curtain fell they rose to their feet, in one solid mighty multitude,\nand the air was snowed thick with waving handkerchiefs, and hurricanes\nof applause swept the place. This was not comprehensible to me. Of\ncourse, there were many people there who were not under compulsion to\nstay; yet the tiers were as full at the close as they had been at the\nbeginning. This showed that the people liked it.\n\nIt was a curious sort of a play. In the manner of costumes and scenery\nit was fine and showy enough; but there was not much action. That is\nto say, there was not much really done, it was only talked about; and\nalways violently. It was what one might call a narrative play. Everybody\nhad a narrative and a grievance, and none were reasonable about it, but\nall in an offensive and ungovernable state. There was little of that\nsort of customary thing where the tenor and the soprano stand down by\nthe footlights, warbling, with blended voices, and keep holding out\ntheir arms toward each other and drawing them back and spreading both\nhands over first one breast and then the other with a shake and a\npressure--no, it was every rioter for himself and no blending. Each sang\nhis indictive narrative in turn, accompanied by the whole orchestra of\nsixty instruments, and when this had continued for some time, and one\nwas hoping they might come to an understanding and modify the noise, a\ngreat chorus composed entirely of maniacs would suddenly break forth,\nand then during two minutes, and sometimes three, I lived over again all\nthat I suffered the time the orphan asylum burned down.\n\n\nWe only had one brief little season of heaven and heaven's sweet ecstasy\nand peace during all this long and diligent and acrimonious reproduction\nof the other place. This was while a gorgeous procession of people\nmarched around and around, in the third act, and sang the Wedding\nChorus. To my untutored ear that was music--almost divine music. While\nmy seared soul was steeped in the healing balm of those gracious sounds,\nit seemed to me that I could almost resuffer the torments which had\ngone before, in order to be so healed again. There is where the deep\ningenuity of the operatic idea is betrayed. It deals so largely in pain\nthat its scattered delights are prodigiously augmented by the contrasts.\nA pretty air in an opera is prettier there than it could be anywhere\nelse, I suppose, just as an honest man in politics shines more than he\nwould elsewhere.\n\nI have since found out that there is nothing the Germans like so much as\nan opera. They like it, not in a mild and moderate way, but with their\nwhole hearts. This is a legitimate result of habit and education. Our\nnation will like the opera, too, by and by, no doubt. One in fifty of\nthose who attend our operas likes it already, perhaps, but I think a\ngood many of the other forty-nine go in order to learn to like it, and\nthe rest in order to be able to talk knowingly about it. The latter\nusually hum the airs while they are being sung, so that their neighbors\nmay perceive that they have been to operas before. The funerals of these\ndo not occur often enough.\n\n\nA gentle, old-maidish person and a sweet young girl of seventeen sat\nright in front of us that night at the Mannheim opera. These people\ntalked, between the acts, and I understood them, though I understood\nnothing that was uttered on the distant stage. At first they were\nguarded in their talk, but after they had heard my agent and me\nconversing in English they dropped their reserve and I picked up many\nof their little confidences; no, I mean many of HER little\nconfidences--meaning the elder party--for the young girl only listened,\nand gave assenting nods, but never said a word. How pretty she was,\nand how sweet she was! I wished she would speak. But evidently she was\nabsorbed in her own thoughts, her own young-girl dreams, and found a\ndearer pleasure in silence. But she was not dreaming sleepy dreams--no,\nshe was awake, alive, alert, she could not sit still a moment. She was\nan enchanting study. Her gown was of a soft white silky stuff that clung\nto her round young figure like a fish's skin, and it was rippled over\nwith the gracefulest little fringy films of lace; she had deep, tender\neyes, with long, curved lashes; and she had peachy cheeks, and a\ndimpled chin, and such a dear little rosebud of a mouth; and she was so\ndovelike, so pure, and so gracious, so sweet and so bewitching. For long\nhours I did mightily wish she would speak. And at last she did; the red\nlips parted, and out leaps her thought--and with such a guileless and\npretty enthusiasm, too: \"Auntie, I just KNOW I've got five hundred fleas\non me!\"\n\nThat was probably over the average. Yes, it must have been very much\nover the average. The average at that time in the Grand Duchy of Baden\nwas forty-five to a young person (when alone), according to the official\nestimate of the home secretary for that year; the average for older\npeople was shifty and indeterminable, for whenever a wholesome young\ngirl came into the presence of her elders she immediately lowered their\naverage and raised her own. She became a sort of contribution-box.\n\n\nThis dear young thing in the theater had been sitting there\nunconsciously taking up a collection. Many a skinny old being in our\nneighborhood was the happier and the restfuler for her coming.\n\nIn that large audience, that night, there were eight very conspicuous\npeople. These were ladies who had their hats or bonnets on. What a\nblessed thing it would be if a lady could make herself conspicuous in\nour theaters by wearing her hat.\n\n\nIt is not usual in Europe to allow ladies and gentlemen to take bonnets,\nhats, overcoats, canes, or umbrellas into the auditorium, but in\nMannheim this rule was not enforced because the audiences were largely\nmade up of people from a distance, and among these were always a few\ntimid ladies who were afraid that if they had to go into an anteroom to\nget their things when the play was over, they would miss their train.\nBut the great mass of those who came from a distance always ran the risk\nand took the chances, preferring the loss of a train to a breach of good\nmanners and the discomfort of being unpleasantly conspicuous during a\nstretch of three or four hours.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\n[How Wagner Operas Bang Along]\n\n\nThree or four hours. That is a long time to sit in one place, whether\none be conspicuous or not, yet some of Wagner's operas bang along for\nsix whole hours on a stretch! But the people sit there and enjoy it all,\nand wish it would last longer. A German lady in Munich told me that a\nperson could not like Wagner's music at first, but must go through the\ndeliberate process of learning to like it--then he would have his sure\nreward; for when he had learned to like it he would hunger for it and\nnever be able to get enough of it. She said that six hours of Wagner was\nby no means too much. She said that this composer had made a complete\nrevolution in music and was burying the old masters one by one. And\nshe said that Wagner's operas differed from all others in one notable\nrespect, and that was that they were not merely spotted with music here\nand there, but were ALL music, from the first strain to the last. This\nsurprised me. I said I had attended one of his insurrections, and found\nhardly ANY music in it except the Wedding Chorus. She said \"Lohengrin\"\nwas noisier than Wagner's other operas, but that if I would keep on\ngoing to see it I would find by and by that it was all music, and\ntherefore would then enjoy it. I COULD have said, \"But would you advise\na person to deliberately practice having a toothache in the pit of his\nstomach for a couple of years in order that he might then come to enjoy\nit?\" But I reserved that remark.\n\nThis lady was full of the praises of the head-tenor who had performed in\na Wagner opera the night before, and went on to enlarge upon his old and\nprodigious fame, and how many honors had been lavished upon him by the\nprincely houses of Germany. Here was another surprise. I had attended\nthat very opera, in the person of my agent, and had made close and\naccurate observations. So I said:\n\n\"Why, madam, MY experience warrants me in stating that that tenor's\nvoice is not a voice at all, but only a shriek--the shriek of a hyena.\"\n\n\n\"That is very true,\" she said; \"he cannot sing now; it is already many\nyears that he has lost his voice, but in other times he sang, yes,\ndivinely! So whenever he comes now, you shall see, yes, that the theater\nwill not hold the people. JAWOHL BEI GOTT! his voice is WUNDERSCHOEN in\nthat past time.\"\n\nI said she was discovering to me a kindly trait in the Germans which\nwas worth emulating. I said that over the water we were not quite so\ngenerous; that with us, when a singer had lost his voice and a jumper\nhad lost his legs, these parties ceased to draw. I said I had been to\nthe opera in Hanover, once, and in Mannheim once, and in Munich\n(through my authorized agent) once, and this large experience had nearly\npersuaded me that the Germans PREFERRED singers who couldn't sing. This\nwas not such a very extravagant speech, either, for that burly Mannheim\ntenor's praises had been the talk of all Heidelberg for a week before\nhis performance took place--yet his voice was like the distressing noise\nwhich a nail makes when you screech it across a window-pane. I said so\nto Heidelberg friends the next day, and they said, in the calmest and\nsimplest way, that that was very true, but that in earlier times his\nvoice HAD been wonderfully fine. And the tenor in Hanover was just\nanother example of this sort. The English-speaking German gentleman who\nwent with me to the opera there was brimming with enthusiasm over that\ntenor. He said:\n\n\"ACH GOTT! a great man! You shall see him. He is so celebrate in all\nGermany--and he has a pension, yes, from the government. He not obliged\nto sing now, only twice every year; but if he not sing twice each year\nthey take him his pension away.\"\n\nVery well, we went. When the renowned old tenor appeared, I got a nudge\nand an excited whisper:\n\n\"Now you see him!\"\n\nBut the \"celebrate\" was an astonishing disappointment to me. If he\nhad been behind a screen I should have supposed they were performing a\nsurgical operation on him. I looked at my friend--to my great surprise\nhe seemed intoxicated with pleasure, his eyes were dancing with eager\ndelight. When the curtain at last fell, he burst into the stormiest\napplause, and kept it up--as did the whole house--until the afflictive\ntenor had come three times before the curtain to make his bow. While the\nglowing enthusiast was swabbing the perspiration from his face, I said:\n\n\"I don't mean the least harm, but really, now, do you think he can\nsing?\"\n\n\"Him? NO! GOTT IM HIMMEL, ABER, how he has been able to sing twenty-five\nyears ago?\" [Then pensively.] \"ACH, no, NOW he not sing any more, he\nonly cry. When he think he sing, now, he not sing at all, no, he only\nmake like a cat which is unwell.\"\n\n\nWhere and how did we get the idea that the Germans are a stolid,\nphlegmatic race? In truth, they are widely removed from that. They are\nwarm-hearted, emotional, impulsive, enthusiastic, their tears come at\nthe mildest touch, and it is not hard to move them to laughter. They are\nthe very children of impulse. We are cold and self-contained, compared\nto the Germans. They hug and kiss and cry and shout and dance and sing;\nand where we use one loving, petting expression, they pour out a score.\nTheir language is full of endearing diminutives; nothing that they love\nescapes the application of a petting diminutive--neither the house, nor\nthe dog, nor the horse, nor the grandmother, nor any other creature,\nanimate or inanimate.\n\nIn the theaters at Hanover, Hamburg, and Mannheim, they had a wise\ncustom. The moment the curtain went up, the light in the body of the\nhouse went down. The audience sat in the cool gloom of a deep twilight,\nwhich greatly enhanced the glowing splendors of the stage. It saved gas,\ntoo, and people were not sweated to death.\n\nWhen I saw \"King Lear\" played, nobody was allowed to see a scene\nshifted; if there was nothing to be done but slide a forest out of the\nway and expose a temple beyond, one did not see that forest split itself\nin the middle and go shrieking away, with the accompanying disenchanting\nspectacle of the hands and heels of the impelling impulse--no, the\ncurtain was always dropped for an instant--one heard not the least\nmovement behind it--but when it went up, the next instant, the forest\nwas gone. Even when the stage was being entirely reset, one heard no\nnoise. During the whole time that \"King Lear\" was playing the curtain\nwas never down two minutes at any one time. The orchestra played until\nthe curtain was ready to go up for the first time, then they departed\nfor the evening. Where the stage waits never reach two minutes there is\nno occasion for music. I had never seen this two-minute business between\nacts but once before, and that was when the \"Shaughraun\" was played at\nWallack's.\n\nI was at a concert in Munich one night, the people were streaming in,\nthe clock-hand pointed to seven, the music struck up, and instantly\nall movement in the body of the house ceased--nobody was standing, or\nwalking up the aisles, or fumbling with a seat, the stream of incomers\nhad suddenly dried up at its source. I listened undisturbed to a piece\nof music that was fifteen minutes long--always expecting some tardy\nticket-holders to come crowding past my knees, and being continuously\nand pleasantly disappointed--but when the last note was struck, here\ncame the stream again. You see, they had made those late comers wait in\nthe comfortable waiting-parlor from the time the music had begun until\nit was ended.\n\n\nIt was the first time I had ever seen this sort of criminals denied the\nprivilege of destroying the comfort of a house full of their betters.\nSome of these were pretty fine birds, but no matter, they had to tarry\noutside in the long parlor under the inspection of a double rank of\nliveried footmen and waiting-maids who supported the two walls with\ntheir backs and held the wraps and traps of their masters and mistresses\non their arms.\n\nWe had no footmen to hold our things, and it was not permissible to take\nthem into the concert-room; but there were some men and women to take\ncharge of them for us. They gave us checks for them and charged a fixed\nprice, payable in advance--five cents.\n\nIn Germany they always hear one thing at an opera which has never yet\nbeen heard in America, perhaps--I mean the closing strain of a fine solo\nor duet. We always smash into it with an earthquake of applause. The\nresult is that we rob ourselves of the sweetest part of the treat; we\nget the whiskey, but we don't get the sugar in the bottom of the glass.\n\nOur way of scattering applause along through an act seems to me to be\nbetter than the Mannheim way of saving it all up till the act is ended.\nI do not see how an actor can forget himself and portray hot passion\nbefore a cold still audience. I should think he would feel foolish. It\nis a pain to me to this day, to remember how that old German Lear raged\nand wept and howled around the stage, with never a response from that\nhushed house, never a single outburst till the act was ended. To\nme there was something unspeakably uncomfortable in the solemn dead\nsilences that always followed this old person's tremendous outpourings\nof his feelings. I could not help putting myself in his place--I thought\nI knew how sick and flat he felt during those silences, because I\nremembered a case which came under my observation once, and which--but I\nwill tell the incident:\n\nOne evening on board a Mississippi steamboat, a boy of ten years lay\nasleep in a berth--a long, slim-legged boy, he was, encased in quite\na short shirt; it was the first time he had ever made a trip on a\nsteamboat, and so he was troubled, and scared, and had gone to bed\nwith his head filled with impending snaggings, and explosions, and\nconflagrations, and sudden death. About ten o'clock some twenty ladies\nwere sitting around about the ladies' saloon, quietly reading, sewing,\nembroidering, and so on, and among them sat a sweet, benignant old dame\nwith round spectacles on her nose and her busy knitting-needles in her\nhands. Now all of a sudden, into the midst of this peaceful scene burst\nthat slim-shanked boy in the brief shirt, wild-eyed, erect-haired, and\nshouting, \"Fire, fire! JUMP AND RUN, THE BOAT'S AFIRE AND THERE AIN'T A\nMINUTE TO LOSE!\" All those ladies looked sweetly up and smiled, nobody\nstirred, the old lady pulled her spectacles down, looked over them, and\nsaid, gently:\n\n\"But you mustn't catch cold, child. Run and put on your breastpin, and\nthen come and tell us all about it.\"\n\nIt was a cruel chill to give to a poor little devil's gushing vehemence.\nHe was expecting to be a sort of hero--the creator of a wild panic--and\nhere everybody sat and smiled a mocking smile, and an old woman made fun\nof his bugbear. I turned and crept away--for I was that boy--and never\neven cared to discover whether I had dreamed the fire or actually seen\nit.\n\n\nI am told that in a German concert or opera, they hardly ever encore\na song; that though they may be dying to hear it again, their good\nbreeding usually preserves them against requiring the repetition.\n\nKings may encore; that is quite another matter; it delights everybody to\nsee that the King is pleased; and as to the actor encored, his pride and\ngratification are simply boundless. Still, there are circumstances in\nwhich even a royal encore--\n\nBut it is better to illustrate. The King of Bavaria is a poet, and has a\npoet's eccentricities--with the advantage over all other poets of being\nable to gratify them, no matter what form they may take. He is fond\nof opera, but not fond of sitting in the presence of an audience;\ntherefore, it has sometimes occurred, in Munich, that when an opera has\nbeen concluded and the players were getting off their paint and finery,\na command has come to them to get their paint and finery on again.\nPresently the King would arrive, solitary and alone, and the players\nwould begin at the beginning and do the entire opera over again with\nonly that one individual in the vast solemn theater for audience. Once\nhe took an odd freak into his head. High up and out of sight, over\nthe prodigious stage of the court theater is a maze of interlacing\nwater-pipes, so pierced that in case of fire, innumerable little\nthread-like streams of water can be caused to descend; and in case\nof need, this discharge can be augmented to a pouring flood. American\nmanagers might want to make a note of that. The King was sole audience.\nThe opera proceeded, it was a piece with a storm in it; the mimic\nthunder began to mutter, the mimic wind began to wail and sough, and\nthe mimic rain to patter. The King's interest rose higher and higher; it\ndeveloped into enthusiasm. He cried out:\n\n\"It is very, very good, indeed! But I will have real rain! Turn on the\nwater!\"\n\nThe manager pleaded for a reversal of the command; said it would ruin\nthe costly scenery and the splendid costumes, but the King cried:\n\n\"No matter, no matter, I will have real rain! Turn on the water!\"\n\nSo the real rain was turned on and began to descend in gossamer lances\nto the mimic flower-beds and gravel walks of the stage. The richly\ndressed actresses and actors tripped about singing bravely and\npretending not to mind it. The King was delighted--his enthusiasm grew\nhigher. He cried out:\n\n\"Bravo, bravo! More thunder! more lightning! turn on more rain!\"\n\n\nThe thunder boomed, the lightning glared, the storm-winds raged, the\ndeluge poured down. The mimic royalty on the stage, with their soaked\nsatins clinging to their bodies, slopped about ankle-deep in water,\nwarbling their sweetest and best, the fiddlers under the eaves of the\nstage sawed away for dear life, with the cold overflow spouting down the\nbacks of their necks, and the dry and happy King sat in his lofty box\nand wore his gloves to ribbons applauding.\n\n\"More yet!\" cried the King; \"more yet--let loose all the thunder, turn\non all the water! I will hang the man that raises an umbrella!\"\n\nWhen this most tremendous and effective storm that had ever been\nproduced in any theater was at last over, the King's approbation was\nmeasureless. He cried:\n\n\"Magnificent, magnificent! ENCORE! Do it again!\"\n\nBut the manager succeeded in persuading him to recall the encore, and\nsaid the company would feel sufficiently rewarded and complimented\nin the mere fact that the encore was desired by his Majesty, without\nfatiguing him with a repetition to gratify their own vanity.\n\nDuring the remainder of the act the lucky performers were those whose\nparts required changes of dress; the others were a soaked, bedraggled,\nand uncomfortable lot, but in the last degree picturesque. The stage\nscenery was ruined, trap-doors were so swollen that they wouldn't work\nfor a week afterward, the fine costumes were spoiled, and no end of\nminor damages were done by that remarkable storm.\n\nIt was a royal idea--that storm--and royally carried out. But observe\nthe moderation of the King; he did not insist upon his encore. If he had\nbeen a gladsome, unreflecting American opera-audience, he probably would\nhave had his storm repeated and repeated until he drowned all those\npeople.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\n[I Paint a \"Turner\"]\n\n\nThe summer days passed pleasantly in Heidelberg. We had a skilled\ntrainer, and under his instructions we were getting our legs in the\nright condition for the contemplated pedestrian tours; we were well\nsatisfied with the progress which we had made in the German language,\n[1. See Appendix D for information concerning this fearful tongue.] and\nmore than satisfied with what we had accomplished in art. We had had the\nbest instructors in drawing and painting in Germany--Haemmerling, Vogel,\nMueller, Dietz, and Schumann. Haemmerling taught us landscape-painting.\nVogel taught us figure-drawing, Mueller taught us to do still-life,\nand Dietz and Schumann gave us a finishing course in two\nspecialties--battle-pieces and shipwrecks. Whatever I am in Art I owe to\nthese men. I have something of the manner of each and all of them;\nbut they all said that I had also a manner of my own, and that it\nwas conspicuous. They said there was a marked individuality about my\nstyle--insomuch that if I ever painted the commonest type of a dog, I\nshould be sure to throw a something into the aspect of that dog which\nwould keep him from being mistaken for the creation of any other artist.\nSecretly I wanted to believe all these kind sayings, but I could not; I\nwas afraid that my masters' partiality for me, and pride in me, biased\ntheir judgment. So I resolved to make a test. Privately, and unknown to\nany one, I painted my great picture, \"Heidelberg Castle Illuminated\"--my\nfirst really important work in oils--and had it hung up in the midst\nof a wilderness of oil-pictures in the Art Exhibition, with no name\nattached to it. To my great gratification it was instantly recognized\nas mine. All the town flocked to see it, and people even came from\nneighboring localities to visit it. It made more stir than any other\nwork in the Exhibition. But the most gratifying thing of all was, that\nchance strangers, passing through, who had not heard of my picture, were\nnot only drawn to it, as by a lodestone, the moment they entered the\ngallery, but always took it for a \"Turner.\"\n\n\nApparently nobody had ever done that. There were ruined castles on the\noverhanging cliffs and crags all the way; these were said to have their\nlegends, like those on the Rhine, and what was better still, they had\nnever been in print. There was nothing in the books about that lovely\nregion; it had been neglected by the tourist, it was virgin soil for the\nliterary pioneer.\n\nMeantime the knapsacks, the rough walking-suits and the stout\nwalking-shoes which we had ordered, were finished and brought to us.\nA Mr. X and a young Mr. Z had agreed to go with us. We went around one\nevening and bade good-by to our friends, and afterward had a little\nfarewell banquet at the hotel. We got to bed early, for we wanted to\nmake an early start, so as to take advantage of the cool of the morning.\n\nWe were out of bed at break of day, feeling fresh and vigorous, and took\na hearty breakfast, then plunged down through the leafy arcades of the\nCastle grounds, toward the town. What a glorious summer morning it was,\nand how the flowers did pour out their fragrance, and how the birds did\nsing! It was just the time for a tramp through the woods and mountains.\n\n\nWe were all dressed alike: broad slouch hats, to keep the sun off; gray\nknapsacks; blue army shirts; blue overalls; leathern gaiters buttoned\ntight from knee down to ankle; high-quarter coarse shoes snugly laced.\nEach man had an opera-glass, a canteen, and a guide-book case slung over\nhis shoulder, and carried an alpenstock in one hand and a sun-umbrella\nin the other. Around our hats were wound many folds of soft white\nmuslin, with the ends hanging and flapping down our backs--an idea\nbrought from the Orient and used by tourists all over Europe. Harris\ncarried the little watch-like machine called a \"pedometer,\" whose\noffice is to keep count of a man's steps and tell how far he has walked.\nEverybody stopped to admire our costumes and give us a hearty \"Pleasant\nmarch to you!\"\n\n\nWhen we got downtown I found that we could go by rail to within five\nmiles of Heilbronn. The train was just starting, so we jumped aboard and\nwent tearing away in splendid spirits. It was agreed all around that we\nhad done wisely, because it would be just as enjoyable to walk DOWN the\nNeckar as up it, and it could not be needful to walk both ways. There\nwere some nice German people in our compartment. I got to talking some\npretty private matters presently, and Harris became nervous; so he\nnudged me and said:\n\n\"Speak in German--these Germans may understand English.\"\n\nI did so, it was well I did; for it turned out that there was not a\nGerman in that party who did not understand English perfectly. It is\ncurious how widespread our language is in Germany. After a while some of\nthose folks got out and a German gentleman and his two young daughters\ngot in. I spoke in German of one of the latter several times, but\nwithout result. Finally she said:\n\n\"ICH VERSTEHE NUR DEUTCH UND ENGLISHE,\"--or words to that effect. That\nis, \"I don't understand any language but German and English.\"\n\nAnd sure enough, not only she but her father and sister spoke English.\nSo after that we had all the talk we wanted; and we wanted a good deal,\nfor they were agreeable people. They were greatly interested in our\ncustoms; especially the alpenstocks, for they had not seen any before.\nThey said that the Neckar road was perfectly level, so we must be going\nto Switzerland or some other rugged country; and asked us if we did not\nfind the walking pretty fatiguing in such warm weather. But we said no.\n\nWe reached Wimpfen--I think it was Wimpfen--in about three hours, and\ngot out, not the least tired; found a good hotel and ordered beer and\ndinner--then took a stroll through the venerable old village. It was\nvery picturesque and tumble-down, and dirty and interesting. It had\nqueer houses five hundred years old in it, and a military tower 115 feet\nhigh, which had stood there more than ten centuries. I made a little\nsketch of it. I kept a copy, but gave the original to the Burgomaster.\n\n\nI think the original was better than the copy, because it had more\nwindows in it and the grass stood up better and had a brisker look.\nThere was none around the tower, though; I composed the grass myself,\nfrom studies I made in a field by Heidelberg in Haemmerling's time. The\nman on top, looking at the view, is apparently too large, but I found\nhe could not be made smaller, conveniently. I wanted him there, and I\nwanted him visible, so I thought out a way to manage it; I composed the\npicture from two points of view; the spectator is to observe the man\nfrom bout where that flag is, and he must observe the tower itself from\nthe ground. This harmonizes the seeming discrepancy. [Figure 2]\n\nNear an old cathedral, under a shed, were three crosses of stone--moldy\nand damaged things, bearing life-size stone figures. The two thieves\nwere dressed in the fanciful court costumes of the middle of the\nsixteenth century, while the Saviour was nude, with the exception of a\ncloth around the loins.\n\nWe had dinner under the green trees in a garden belonging to the hotel\nand overlooking the Neckar; then, after a smoke, we went to bed. We had\na refreshing nap, then got up about three in the afternoon and put\non our panoply. As we tramped gaily out at the gate of the town, we\novertook a peasant's cart, partly laden with odds and ends of cabbages\nand similar vegetable rubbish, and drawn by a small cow and a smaller\ndonkey yoked together. It was a pretty slow concern, but it got us into\nHeilbronn before dark--five miles, or possibly it was seven.\n\n\nWe stopped at the very same inn which the famous old robber-knight\nand rough fighter Goetz von Berlichingen, abode in after he got out of\ncaptivity in the Square Tower of Heilbronn between three hundred and\nfifty and four hundred years ago. Harris and I occupied the same room\nwhich he had occupied and the same paper had not quite peeled off the\nwalls yet. The furniture was quaint old carved stuff, full four hundred\nyears old, and some of the smells were over a thousand. There was a hook\nin the wall, which the landlord said the terrific old Goetz used to hang\nhis iron hand on when he took it off to go to bed. This room was very\nlarge--it might be called immense--and it was on the first floor; which\nmeans it was in the second story, for in Europe the houses are so\nhigh that they do not count the first story, else they would get tired\nclimbing before they got to the top. The wallpaper was a fiery red, with\nhuge gold figures in it, well smirched by time, and it covered all the\ndoors. These doors fitted so snugly and continued the figures of the\npaper so unbrokenly, that when they were closed one had to go feeling\nand searching along the wall to find them. There was a stove in the\ncorner--one of those tall, square, stately white porcelain things that\nlooks like a monument and keeps you thinking of death when you ought to\nbe enjoying your travels. The windows looked out on a little alley, and\nover that into a stable and some poultry and pig yards in the rear of\nsome tenement-houses. There were the customary two beds in the room,\none in one end, the other in the other, about an old-fashioned\nbrass-mounted, single-barreled pistol-shot apart. They were fully\nas narrow as the usual German bed, too, and had the German bed's\nineradicable habit of spilling the blankets on the floor every time you\nforgot yourself and went to sleep.\n\nA round table as large as King Arthur's stood in the center of the room;\nwhile the waiters were getting ready to serve our dinner on it we\nall went out to see the renowned clock on the front of the municipal\nbuildings.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\n[What the Wives Saved]\n\n\nThe RATHHAUS, or municipal building, is of the quaintest and most\npicturesque Middle-Age architecture. It has a massive portico and steps,\nbefore it, heavily balustraded, and adorned with life-sized rusty iron\nknights in complete armor. The clock-face on the front of the building\nis very large and of curious pattern. Ordinarily, a gilded angel\nstrikes the hour on a big bell with a hammer; as the striking ceases, a\nlife-sized figure of Time raises its hour-glass and turns it; two golden\nrams advance and butt each other; a gilded cock lifts its wings; but the\nmain features are two great angels, who stand on each side of the dial\nwith long horns at their lips; it was said that they blew melodious\nblasts on these horns every hour--but they did not do it for us. We were\ntold, later, that they blew only at night, when the town was still.\n\nWithin the RATHHAUS were a number of huge wild boars' heads, preserved,\nand mounted on brackets along the wall; they bore inscriptions telling\nwho killed them and how many hundred years ago it was done. One room in\nthe building was devoted to the preservation of ancient archives. There\nthey showed us no end of aged documents; some were signed by Popes,\nsome by Tilly and other great generals, and one was a letter written and\nsubscribed by Goetz von Berlichingen in Heilbronn in 1519 just after his\nrelease from the Square Tower.\n\n\nThis fine old robber-knight was a devoutly and sincerely religious\nman, hospitable, charitable to the poor, fearless in fight, active,\nenterprising, and possessed of a large and generous nature. He had in\nhim a quality of being able to overlook moderate injuries, and being\nable to forgive and forget mortal ones as soon as he had soundly\ntrounced the authors of them. He was prompt to take up any poor devil's\nquarrel and risk his neck to right him. The common folk held him dear,\nand his memory is still green in ballad and tradition. He used to go on\nthe highway and rob rich wayfarers; and other times he would swoop down\nfrom his high castle on the hills of the Neckar and capture passing\ncargoes of merchandise. In his memoirs he piously thanks the Giver of\nall Good for remembering him in his needs and delivering sundry such\ncargoes into his hands at times when only special providences could have\nrelieved him. He was a doughty warrior and found a deep joy in battle.\nIn an assault upon a stronghold in Bavaria when he was only twenty-three\nyears old, his right hand was shot away, but he was so interested in the\nfight that he did not observe it for a while. He said that the iron hand\nwhich was made for him afterward, and which he wore for more than half a\ncentury, was nearly as clever a member as the fleshy one had been. I was\nglad to get a facsimile of the letter written by this fine old German\nRobin Hood, though I was not able to read it. He was a better artist\nwith his sword than with his pen.\n\nWe went down by the river and saw the Square Tower. It was a very\nvenerable structure, very strong, and very ornamental. There was no\nopening near the ground. They had to use a ladder to get into it, no\ndoubt.\n\nWe visited the principal church, also--a curious old structure, with a\ntowerlike spire adorned with all sorts of grotesque images. The inner\nwalls of the church were placarded with large mural tablets of copper,\nbearing engraved inscriptions celebrating the merits of old Heilbronn\nworthies of two or three centuries ago, and also bearing rudely painted\neffigies of themselves and their families tricked out in the queer\ncostumes of those days. The head of the family sat in the foreground,\nand beyond him extended a sharply receding and diminishing row of\nsons; facing him sat his wife, and beyond her extended a low row of\ndiminishing daughters. The family was usually large, but the perspective\nbad.\n\nThen we hired the hack and the horse which Goetz von Berlichingen used\nto use, and drove several miles into the country to visit the place\ncalled WEIBERTREU--Wife's Fidelity I suppose it means. It was a feudal\ncastle of the Middle Ages. When we reached its neighborhood we found\nit was beautifully situated, but on top of a mound, or hill, round and\ntolerably steep, and about two hundred feet high. Therefore, as the sun\nwas blazing hot, we did not climb up there, but took the place on trust,\nand observed it from a distance while the horse leaned up against a\nfence and rested. The place has no interest except that which is lent it\nby its legend, which is a very pretty one--to this effect:\n\nTHE LEGEND\n\nIn the Middle Ages, a couple of young dukes, brothers, took opposite\nsides in one of the wars, the one fighting for the Emperor, the other\nagainst him. One of them owned the castle and village on top of the\nmound which I have been speaking of, and in his absence his brother\ncame with his knights and soldiers and began a siege. It was a long and\ntedious business, for the people made a stubborn and faithful defense.\nBut at last their supplies ran out and starvation began its work;\nmore fell by hunger than by the missiles of the enemy. They by and\nby surrendered, and begged for charitable terms. But the beleaguering\nprince was so incensed against them for their long resistance that he\nsaid he would spare none but the women and children--all men should be\nput to the sword without exception, and all their goods destroyed. Then\nthe women came and fell on their knees and begged for the lives of their\nhusbands.\n\n\"No,\" said the prince, \"not a man of them shall escape alive; you\nyourselves shall go with your children into houseless and friendless\nbanishment; but that you may not starve I grant you this one grace,\nthat each woman may bear with her from this place as much of her most\nvaluable property as she is able to carry.\"\n\nVery well, presently the gates swung open and out filed those women\ncarrying their HUSBANDS on their shoulders. The besiegers, furious at\nthe trick, rushed forward to slaughter the men, but the Duke stepped\nbetween and said:\n\n\"No, put up your swords--a prince's word is inviolable.\"\n\nWhen we got back to the hotel, King Arthur's Round Table was ready for\nus in its white drapery, and the head waiter and his first assistant, in\nswallow-tails and white cravats, brought in the soup and the hot plates\nat once.\n\nMr. X had ordered the dinner, and when the wine came on, he picked up\na bottle, glanced at the label, and then turned to the grave, the\nmelancholy, the sepulchral head waiter and said it was not the sort of\nwine he had asked for. The head waiter picked up the bottle, cast his\nundertaker-eye on it and said:\n\n\"It is true; I beg pardon.\" Then he turned on his subordinate and calmly\nsaid, \"Bring another label.\"\n\n\nAt the same time he slid the present label off with his hand and laid it\naside; it had been newly put on, its paste was still wet. When the new\nlabel came, he put it on; our French wine being now turned into German\nwine, according to desire, the head waiter went blandly about his other\nduties, as if the working of this sort of miracle was a common and easy\nthing to him.\n\nMr. X said he had not known, before, that there were people honest\nenough to do this miracle in public, but he was aware that thousands\nupon thousands of labels were imported into America from Europe every\nyear, to enable dealers to furnish to their customers in a quiet and\ninexpensive way all the different kinds of foreign wines they might\nrequire.\n\nWe took a turn around the town, after dinner, and found it fully as\ninteresting in the moonlight as it had been in the daytime. The streets\nwere narrow and roughly paved, and there was not a sidewalk or a\nstreet-lamp anywhere. The dwellings were centuries old, and vast enough\nfor hotels. They widened all the way up; the stories projected further\nand further forward and aside as they ascended, and the long rows\nof lighted windows, filled with little bits of panes, curtained with\nfigured white muslin and adorned outside with boxes of flowers, made a\npretty effect.\n\n\nThe moon was bright, and the light and shadow very strong; and nothing\ncould be more picturesque than those curving streets, with their rows\nof huge high gables leaning far over toward each other in a friendly\ngossiping way, and the crowds below drifting through the alternating\nblots of gloom and mellow bars of moonlight. Nearly everybody was\nabroad, chatting, singing, romping, or massed in lazy comfortable\nattitudes in the doorways.\n\nIn one place there was a public building which was fenced about with a\nthick, rusty chain, which sagged from post to post in a succession of\nlow swings. The pavement, here, was made of heavy blocks of stone. In\nthe glare of the moon a party of barefooted children were swinging on\nthose chains and having a noisy good time. They were not the first ones\nwho have done that; even their great-great-grandfathers had not been the\nfirst to do it when they were children. The strokes of the bare feet\nhad worn grooves inches deep in the stone flags; it had taken many\ngenerations of swinging children to accomplish that.\n\n\nEverywhere in the town were the mold and decay that go with antiquity,\nand evidence of it; but I do not know that anything else gave us so\nvivid a sense of the old age of Heilbronn as those footworn grooves in\nthe paving-stones.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\n[My Long Crawl in the Dark]\n\n\nWhen we got back to the hotel I wound and set the pedometer and put\nit in my pocket, for I was to carry it next day and keep record of the\nmiles we made. The work which we had given the instrument to do during\nthe day which had just closed had not fatigued it perceptibly.\n\nWe were in bed by ten, for we wanted to be up and away on our tramp\nhomeward with the dawn. I hung fire, but Harris went to sleep at once.\nI hate a man who goes to sleep at once; there is a sort of indefinable\nsomething about it which is not exactly an insult, and yet is an\ninsolence; and one which is hard to bear, too. I lay there fretting\nover this injury, and trying to go to sleep; but the harder I tried, the\nwider awake I grew. I got to feeling very lonely in the dark, with no\ncompany but an undigested dinner. My mind got a start by and by, and\nbegan to consider the beginning of every subject which has ever been\nthought of; but it never went further than the beginning; it was touch\nand go; it fled from topic to topic with a frantic speed. At the end of\nan hour my head was in a perfect whirl and I was dead tired, fagged out.\n\nThe fatigue was so great that it presently began to make some head\nagainst the nervous excitement; while imagining myself wide awake, I\nwould really doze into momentary unconsciousness, and come suddenly out\nof it with a physical jerk which nearly wrenched my joints apart--the\ndelusion of the instant being that I was tumbling backward over a\nprecipice. After I had fallen over eight or nine precipices and thus\nfound out that one half of my brain had been asleep eight or nine times\nwithout the wide-awake, hard-working other half suspecting it, the\nperiodical unconsciousnesses began to extend their spell gradually over\nmore of my brain-territory, and at last I sank into a drowse which grew\ndeeper and deeper and was doubtless just on the very point of being a\nsolid, blessed dreamless stupor, when--what was that?\n\nMy dulled faculties dragged themselves partly back to life and took a\nreceptive attitude. Now out of an immense, a limitless distance, came\na something which grew and grew, and approached, and presently was\nrecognizable as a sound--it had rather seemed to be a feeling, before.\nThis sound was a mile away, now--perhaps it was the murmur of a storm;\nand now it was nearer--not a quarter of a mile away; was it the muffled\nrasping and grinding of distant machinery? No, it came still nearer; was\nit the measured tramp of a marching troop? But it came nearer still,\nand still nearer--and at last it was right in the room: it was merely\na mouse gnawing the woodwork. So I had held my breath all that time for\nsuch a trifle.\n\n\nWell, what was done could not be helped; I would go to sleep at once and\nmake up the lost time. That was a thoughtless thought. Without intending\nit--hardly knowing it--I fell to listening intently to that sound, and\neven unconsciously counting the strokes of the mouse's nutmeg-grater.\nPresently I was deriving exquisite suffering from this employment, yet\nmaybe I could have endured it if the mouse had attended steadily to\nhis work; but he did not do that; he stopped every now and then, and I\nsuffered more while waiting and listening for him to begin again than\nI did while he was gnawing. Along at first I was mentally offering a\nreward of five--six--seven--ten--dollars for that mouse; but toward\nthe last I was offering rewards which were entirely beyond my means. I\nclose-reefed my ears--that is to say, I bent the flaps of them down\nand furled them into five or six folds, and pressed them against the\nhearing-orifice--but it did no good: the faculty was so sharpened\nby nervous excitement that it was become a microphone and could hear\nthrough the overlays without trouble.\n\nMy anger grew to a frenzy. I finally did what all persons before me have\ndone, clear back to Adam,--resolved to throw something. I reached down\nand got my walking-shoes, then sat up in bed and listened, in order to\nexactly locate the noise. But I couldn't do it; it was as unlocatable as\na cricket's noise; and where one thinks that that is, is always the very\nplace where it isn't. So I presently hurled a shoe at random, and with\na vicious vigor. It struck the wall over Harris's head and fell down on\nhim; I had not imagined I could throw so far. It woke Harris, and I was\nglad of it until I found he was not angry; then I was sorry. He soon\nwent to sleep again, which pleased me; but straightway the mouse began\nagain, which roused my temper once more. I did not want to wake Harris\na second time, but the gnawing continued until I was compelled to throw\nthe other shoe.\n\n\nThis time I broke a mirror--there were two in the room--I got the\nlargest one, of course. Harris woke again, but did not complain, and\nI was sorrier than ever. I resolved that I would suffer all possible\ntorture before I would disturb him a third time.\n\nThe mouse eventually retired, and by and by I was sinking to sleep, when\na clock began to strike; I counted till it was done, and was about to\ndrowse again when another clock began; I counted; then the two great\nRATHHAUS clock angels began to send forth soft, rich, melodious blasts\nfrom their long trumpets. I had never heard anything that was so lovely,\nor weird, or mysterious--but when they got to blowing the quarter-hours,\nthey seemed to me to be overdoing the thing. Every time I dropped\noff for the moment, a new noise woke me. Each time I woke I missed my\ncoverlet, and had to reach down to the floor and get it again.\n\nAt last all sleepiness forsook me. I recognized the fact that I was\nhopelessly and permanently wide awake. Wide awake, and feverish and\nthirsty. When I had lain tossing there as long as I could endure it, it\noccurred to me that it would be a good idea to dress and go out in the\ngreat square and take a refreshing wash in the fountain, and smoke and\nreflect there until the remnant of the night was gone.\n\nI believed I could dress in the dark without waking Harris. I had\nbanished my shoes after the mouse, but my slippers would do for a summer\nnight. So I rose softly, and gradually got on everything--down to one\nsock. I couldn't seem to get on the track of that sock, any way I could\nfix it. But I had to have it; so I went down on my hands and knees, with\none slipper on and the other in my hand, and began to paw gently around\nand rake the floor, but with no success. I enlarged my circle, and went\non pawing and raking. With every pressure of my knee, how the floor\ncreaked! and every time I chanced to rake against any article, it seemed\nto give out thirty-five or thirty-six times more noise than it would\nhave done in the daytime. In those cases I always stopped and held\nmy breath till I was sure Harris had not awakened--then I crept along\nagain. I moved on and on, but I could not find the sock; I could not\nseem to find anything but furniture. I could not remember that there was\nmuch furniture in the room when I went to bed, but the place was alive\nwith it now --especially chairs--chairs everywhere--had a couple of\nfamilies moved in, in the mean time? And I never could seem to GLANCE on\none of those chairs, but always struck it full and square with my head.\nMy temper rose, by steady and sure degrees, and as I pawed on and on, I\nfell to making vicious comments under my breath.\n\n\nFinally, with a venomous access of irritation, I said I would leave\nwithout the sock; so I rose up and made straight for the door--as I\nsupposed--and suddenly confronted my dim spectral image in the unbroken\nmirror. It startled the breath out of me, for an instant; it also showed\nme that I was lost, and had no sort of idea where I was. When I realized\nthis, I was so angry that I had to sit down on the floor and take hold\nof something to keep from lifting the roof off with an explosion of\nopinion. If there had been only one mirror, it might possibly have\nhelped to locate me; but there were two, and two were as bad as a\nthousand; besides, these were on opposite sides of the room. I could see\nthe dim blur of the windows, but in my turned-around condition they were\nexactly where they ought not to be, and so they only confused me instead\nof helping me.\n\nI started to get up, and knocked down an umbrella; it made a noise\nlike a pistol-shot when it struck that hard, slick, carpetless floor;\nI grated my teeth and held my breath--Harris did not stir. I set the\numbrella slowly and carefully on end against the wall, but as soon as\nI took my hand away, its heel slipped from under it, and down it came\nagain with another bang. I shrunk together and listened a moment in\nsilent fury--no harm done, everything quiet. With the most painstaking\ncare and nicety, I stood the umbrella up once more, took my hand away,\nand down it came again.\n\nI have been strictly reared, but if it had not been so dark and solemn\nand awful there in that lonely, vast room, I do believe I should have\nsaid something then which could not be put into a Sunday-school book\nwithout injuring the sale of it. If my reasoning powers had not been\nalready sapped dry by my harassments, I would have known better than to\ntry to set an umbrella on end on one of those glassy German floors in\nthe dark; it can't be done in the daytime without four failures to one\nsuccess. I had one comfort, though--Harris was yet still and silent--he\nhad not stirred.\n\nThe umbrella could not locate me--there were four standing around the\nroom, and all alike. I thought I would feel along the wall and find the\ndoor in that way. I rose up and began this operation, but raked down\na picture. It was not a large one, but it made noise enough for a\npanorama. Harris gave out no sound, but I felt that if I experimented\nany further with the pictures I should be sure to wake him. Better give\nup trying to get out. Yes, I would find King Arthur's Round Table once\nmore--I had already found it several times--and use it for a base of\ndeparture on an exploring tour for my bed; if I could find my bed I\ncould then find my water pitcher; I would quench my raging thirst and\nturn in. So I started on my hands and knees, because I could go faster\nthat way, and with more confidence, too, and not knock down things. By\nand by I found the table--with my head--rubbed the bruise a little, then\nrose up and started, with hands abroad and fingers spread, to balance\nmyself. I found a chair; then a wall; then another chair; then a sofa;\nthen an alpenstock, then another sofa; this confounded me, for I had\nthought there was only one sofa. I hunted up the table again and took a\nfresh start; found some more chairs.\n\nIt occurred to me, now, as it ought to have done before, that as the\ntable was round, it was therefore of no value as a base to aim from; so\nI moved off once more, and at random among the wilderness of chairs and\nsofas--wandering off into unfamiliar regions, and presently knocked a\ncandlestick and knocked off a lamp, grabbed at the lamp and knocked\noff a water pitcher with a rattling crash, and thought to myself,\n\"I've found you at last--I judged I was close upon you.\" Harris shouted\n\"murder,\" and \"thieves,\" and finished with \"I'm absolutely drowned.\"\n\nThe crash had roused the house. Mr. X pranced in, in his long\nnight-garment, with a candle, young Z after him with another candle; a\nprocession swept in at another door, with candles and lanterns--landlord\nand two German guests in their nightgowns and a chambermaid in hers.\n\nI looked around; I was at Harris's bed, a Sabbath-day's journey from my\nown. There was only one sofa; it was against the wall; there was only\none chair where a body could get at it--I had been revolving around it\nlike a planet, and colliding with it like a comet half the night.\n\n\nI explained how I had been employing myself, and why. Then the\nlandlord's party left, and the rest of us set about our preparations for\nbreakfast, for the dawn was ready to break. I glanced furtively at my\npedometer, and found I had made 47 miles. But I did not care, for I had\ncome out for a pedestrian tour anyway.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\n[Rafting Down the Neckar]\n\n\nWhen the landlord learned that I and my agents were artists, our party\nrose perceptibly in his esteem; we rose still higher when he learned\nthat we were making a pedestrian tour of Europe.\n\nHe told us all about the Heidelberg road, and which were the best places\nto avoid and which the best ones to tarry at; he charged me less than\ncost for the things I broke in the night; he put up a fine luncheon\nfor us and added to it a quantity of great light-green plums, the\npleasantest fruit in Germany; he was so anxious to do us honor that he\nwould not allow us to walk out of Heilbronn, but called up Goetz von\nBerlichingen's horse and cab and made us ride.\n\nI made a sketch of the turnout. It is not a Work, it is only what\nartists call a \"study\"--a thing to make a finished picture from. This\nsketch has several blemishes in it; for instance, the wagon is not\ntraveling as fast as the horse is. This is wrong. Again, the person\ntrying to get out of the way is too small; he is out of perspective,\nas we say. The two upper lines are not the horse's back, they are the\nreigns; there seems to be a wheel missing--this would be corrected in a\nfinished Work, of course. This thing flying out behind is not a flag,\nit is a curtain. That other thing up there is the sun, but I didn't get\nenough distance on it. I do not remember, now, what that thing is that\nis in front of the man who is running, but I think it is a haystack or a\nwoman. This study was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1879, but did not\ntake any medal; they do not give medals for studies.\n\n\nWe discharged the carriage at the bridge. The river was full of\nlogs--long, slender, barkless pine logs--and we leaned on the rails\nof the bridge, and watched the men put them together into rafts. These\nrafts were of a shape and construction to suit the crookedness and\nextreme narrowness of the Neckar. They were from fifty to one hundred\nyards long, and they gradually tapered from a nine-log breadth at their\nsterns, to a three-log breadth at their bow-ends. The main part of the\nsteering is done at the bow, with a pole; the three-log breadth there\nfurnishes room for only the steersman, for these little logs are not\nlarger around than an average young lady's waist. The connections of the\nseveral sections of the raft are slack and pliant, so that the raft\nmay be readily bent into any sort of curve required by the shape of the\nriver.\n\nThe Neckar is in many places so narrow that a person can throw a dog\nacross it, if he has one; when it is also sharply curved in such places,\nthe raftsman has to do some pretty nice snug piloting to make the turns.\nThe river is not always allowed to spread over its whole bed--which is\nas much as thirty, and sometimes forty yards wide--but is split into\nthree equal bodies of water, by stone dikes which throw the main\nvolume, depth, and current into the central one. In low water these neat\nnarrow-edged dikes project four or five inches above the surface, like\nthe comb of a submerged roof, but in high water they are overflowed. A\nhatful of rain makes high water in the Neckar, and a basketful produces\nan overflow.\n\nThere are dikes abreast the Schloss Hotel, and the current is violently\nswift at that point. I used to sit for hours in my glass cage, watching\nthe long, narrow rafts slip along through the central channel, grazing\nthe right-bank dike and aiming carefully for the middle arch of the\nstone bridge below; I watched them in this way, and lost all this time\nhoping to see one of them hit the bridge-pier and wreck itself sometime\nor other, but was always disappointed. One was smashed there one\nmorning, but I had just stepped into my room a moment to light a pipe,\nso I lost it.\n\nWhile I was looking down upon the rafts that morning in Heilbronn, the\ndaredevil spirit of adventure came suddenly upon me, and I said to my\ncomrades:\n\n\"I am going to Heidelberg on a raft. Will you venture with me?\"\n\nTheir faces paled a little, but they assented with as good a grace as\nthey could. Harris wanted to cable his mother--thought it his duty to\ndo that, as he was all she had in this world--so, while he attended to\nthis, I went down to the longest and finest raft and hailed the captain\nwith a hearty \"Ahoy, shipmate!\" which put us upon pleasant terms at\nonce, and we entered upon business. I said we were on a pedestrian tour\nto Heidelberg, and would like to take passage with him. I said this\npartly through young Z, who spoke German very well, and partly through\nMr. X, who spoke it peculiarly. I can UNDERSTAND German as well as the\nmaniac that invented it, but I TALK it best through an interpreter.\n\nThe captain hitched up his trousers, then shifted his quid thoughtfully.\nPresently he said just what I was expecting he would say--that he had no\nlicense to carry passengers, and therefore was afraid the law would be\nafter him in case the matter got noised about or any accident happened.\nSo I CHARTERED the raft and the crew and took all the responsibilities\non myself.\n\n\nWith a rattling song the starboard watch bent to their work and hove\nthe cable short, then got the anchor home, and our bark moved off with a\nstately stride, and soon was bowling along at about two knots an hour.\n\nOur party were grouped amidships. At first the talk was a little gloomy,\nand ran mainly upon the shortness of life, the uncertainty of it, the\nperils which beset it, and the need and wisdom of being always prepared\nfor the worst; this shaded off into low-voiced references to the dangers\nof the deep, and kindred matters; but as the gray east began to redden\nand the mysterious solemnity and silence of the dawn to give place\nto the joy-songs of the birds, the talk took a cheerier tone, and our\nspirits began to rise steadily.\n\nGermany, in the summer, is the perfection of the beautiful, but nobody\nhas understood, and realized, and enjoyed the utmost possibilities of\nthis soft and peaceful beauty unless he has voyaged down the Neckar on\na raft. The motion of a raft is the needful motion; it is gentle,\nand gliding, and smooth, and noiseless; it calms down all feverish\nactivities, it soothes to sleep all nervous hurry and impatience; under\nits restful influence all the troubles and vexations and sorrows that\nharass the mind vanish away, and existence becomes a dream, a charm,\na deep and tranquil ecstasy. How it contrasts with hot and perspiring\npedestrianism, and dusty and deafening railroad rush, and tedious\njolting behind tired horses over blinding white roads!\n\nWe went slipping silently along, between the green and fragrant banks,\nwith a sense of pleasure and contentment that grew, and grew, all the\ntime. Sometimes the banks were overhung with thick masses of willows\nthat wholly hid the ground behind; sometimes we had noble hills on one\nhand, clothed densely with foliage to their tops, and on the other hand\nopen levels blazing with poppies, or clothed in the rich blue of\nthe corn-flower; sometimes we drifted in the shadow of forests, and\nsometimes along the margin of long stretches of velvety grass, fresh and\ngreen and bright, a tireless charm to the eye. And the birds!--they were\neverywhere; they swept back and forth across the river constantly, and\ntheir jubilant music was never stilled.\n\nIt was a deep and satisfying pleasure to see the sun create the new\nmorning, and gradually, patiently, lovingly, clothe it on with splendor\nafter splendor, and glory after glory, till the miracle was complete.\nHow different is this marvel observed from a raft, from what it is when\none observes it through the dingy windows of a railway-station in some\nwretched village while he munches a petrified sandwich and waits for the\ntrain.\n\n\n\n\n\nA TRAMP ABROAD, Part 3.\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n(Samuel L. Clemens)\n\nFirst published in 1880\n\nIllustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition\n\n * * * * * *\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS:\n\n     1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR\n     2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0TITIAN'S MOSES\n     3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES\n     73.\u00a0\u00a0A DEEP AND TRANQUIL ECSTACY\n     74.\u00a0\u00a0\"WHICH ANSWERED JUST AS WELL\"\n     75.\u00a0\u00a0LIFE ON A RAFT\n     76.\u00a0\u00a0LADY GERTRUDE\n     77.\u00a0\u00a0MOUTH OF THE CAVERN\n     78.\u00a0\u00a0A FATAL MISTAKE\n     79.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     80.\u00a0\u00a0RAFTING ON THE NECKAR\n     81.\u00a0\u00a0THE LORELEI\n     82.\u00a0\u00a0THE LOVER's FATE\n     84.\u00a0\u00a0THE UNKNOWN KNIGHT\n     85.\u00a0\u00a0THE EMBRACE\n     86.\u00a0\u00a0PERILOUS POSTTION\n     87.\u00a0\u00a0THE RAFT IN A STORM\n     88.\u00a0\u00a0ALL SAFE ON SHORE\n     89.\u00a0\u00a0\"IT WAS THE CAT\"\n     90.\u00a0\u00a0TAILPIECE\n     91.\u00a0\u00a0BREAKFAST IN THE GARDEN 162\n     92.\u00a0\u00a0EASILY UNDERSTOOD\n     93.\u00a0\u00a0EXPERIMENTING THROUGH HARRIS\n     94.\u00a0\u00a0AT THE BALL ROOM DOOR\n     95.\u00a0\u00a0THE TOWN OF DILSBERG\n     96.\u00a0\u00a0OUR ADVANCE ON DILSBERG\n     97.\u00a0\u00a0INSIDE THE TOWN\n     95.\u00a0\u00a0THE OLD WELL\n     99.\u00a0\u00a0SEND HITHER THE LORD ULRICH\n     100.\u00a0\u00a0LEAD ME TO HER GRAVE\n     102.\u00a0\u00a0AN EXCELLENT PILOT, ONCE\n     103.\u00a0\u00a0SCATTERATION\n     104.\u00a0\u00a0THE RIVER BATH\n     101.\u00a0\u00a0ETRUSCAN TEAR JUG\n     106.\u00a0\u00a0HENRI II. PLATE\n     l07.\u00a0\u00a0OLD BLUE CHINA\n     108.\u00a0\u00a0A REAL ANTIQUE\n     109.\u00a0\u00a0BRIC-A-BRAC SHOP\n     110.\u00a0\u00a0\"PUT IT THERE\"\n     111.\u00a0\u00a0THE PARSON CAPTURED\n     112.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     113.\u00a0\u00a0A COMPREHENSIVE YAWN\n     114.\u00a0\u00a0TESTING THE COIN\n     115.\u00a0\u00a0BEAUTY AT THE BATH\n     116.\u00a0\u00a0IN THE BATH\n     117.\u00a0\u00a0JERSEY INDIANS\n     118.\u00a0\u00a0NOT PARTICULARLY SOCIABLE\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV Down the River--German Women's Duties--Bathing as We Went--A\nHandsome Picture: Girls in the Willows--We Sight a Tug--Steamers on the\nNeckar--Dinner on Board--Legend \"Cave of the Spectre \"--Lady Gertrude\nthe Heiress--The Crusader--The Lady in the Cave--A Tragedy\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI An Ancient Legend of the Rhine--\"The Lorelei\"--Count\nHermann--Falling in Love--A Sight of the Enchantress--Sad Effect\non Count Hermann--An Evening visit--A Sad Mistake--Count Hermann\nDrowned--The Song and Music--Different Trans lations--Curiosities in\nTitles\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII Another Legend--The Unconquered Monster--The Unknown Knight\n--His Queer Shaped Knapsack--The Knight Pitied and Advised--He Attacks\nthe Monster--Victory for the Fire Extinguisher--The Knight rewarded--His\nStrange Request----Spectacles Made Popular--Danger to the Raft--Blasting\nRocks--An Inglorious Death in View--Escaped--A Storm Overtakes\nus--GreatDanger--Man Overboard--Breakers Ahead--Springing a Leak--Ashore\nSafe--A General Embracing--A Tramp in the Dark--The Naturalist Tavern--A\nNight's Troubles--\"It is the Cat\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII Breakfast in a Garden--The Old Raven--Castle of\nHirschhorn--Attempt to Hire a Boat--High Dutch--What You Can Find out\nby Enquiring--What I Found out about the Students--A good German\nCustom--Harris Practices It--AnEmbarrassing Position--A Nice Party--At a\nBall--Stopped at the Door--Assistance at Hand and Rendered--Worthy to be\nan Empress\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX Arrive at Neckarsteinach--Castle of Dilsberg--A Walled\nTown--On a Hill--Exclusiveness of the People--A Queer Old Place--An\nAncient Well--An Outlet Proved--Legend of Dilsberg Castle--The\nHaunted Chamber--The Betrothed's request--The Knight's Slumbers\nand Awakening--Horror of the Lover--The Wicked Jest--The Lover a\nManiac--Under the Linden--Turning Pilot--Accident to the Raft--Fearful\nDisaster\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX Good News--\"Slow Freight\"--Keramics--My Collection of Bric-a-\nbrac--My Tear Jug--Henri II. Plate--Specimen of Blue China--Indifference\nto the Laugh of the World--I Discover an Antique En-route to\nBaden--Baden--Meeting an Old Acquaintance--A young American--Embryo\nHorse Doctor--An American, Sure--A Minister Captured\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI Baden--Baden--Energetic Girls--A Comprehensive Yawn--A\nBeggar's Trick--Cool Impudence--The Bath Woman--Insolence of Shop\nKeepers--Taking a Bath--Early and Late Hours--Popular Belief Regarding\nIndians--An Old Cemetery--A Pious Hag--Curious Table Companions\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\n[Charming Waterside Pictures]\n\n\nMen and women and cattle were at work in the dewy fields by this time.\nThe people often stepped aboard the raft, as we glided along the grassy\nshores, and gossiped with us and with the crew for a hundred yards or\nso, then stepped ashore again, refreshed by the ride.\n\nOnly the men did this; the women were too busy. The women do all kinds\nof work on the continent. They dig, they hoe, they reap, they sow, they\nbear monstrous burdens on their backs, they shove similar ones long\ndistances on wheelbarrows, they drag the cart when there is no dog or\nlean cow to drag it--and when there is, they assist the dog or cow. Age\nis no matter--the older the woman the stronger she is, apparently.\nOn the farm a woman's duties are not defined--she does a little of\neverything; but in the towns it is different, there she only does\ncertain things, the men do the rest. For instance, a hotel chambermaid\nhas nothing to do but make beds and fires in fifty or sixty rooms, bring\ntowels and candles, and fetch several tons of water up several flights\nof stairs, a hundred pounds at a time, in prodigious metal pitchers. She\ndoes not have to work more than eighteen or twenty hours a day, and\nshe can always get down on her knees and scrub the floors of halls and\nclosets when she is tired and needs a rest.\n\nAs the morning advanced and the weather grew hot, we took off our\noutside clothing and sat in a row along the edge of the raft and enjoyed\nthe scenery, with our sun-umbrellas over our heads and our legs dangling\nin the water.\n\n\nEvery now and then we plunged in and had a swim. Every projecting grassy\ncape had its joyous group of naked children, the boys to themselves and\nthe girls to themselves, the latter usually in care of some motherly\ndame who sat in the shade of a tree with her knitting. The little boys\nswam out to us, sometimes, but the little maids stood knee-deep in the\nwater and stopped their splashing and frolicking to inspect the raft\nwith their innocent eyes as it drifted by. Once we turned a corner\nsuddenly and surprised a slender girl of twelve years or upward, just\nstepping into the water. She had not time to run, but she did what\nanswered just as well; she promptly drew a lithe young willow bough\nathwart her white body with one hand, and then contemplated us with a\nsimple and untroubled interest. Thus she stood while we glided by. She\nwas a pretty creature, and she and her willow bough made a very\npretty picture, and one which could not offend the modesty of the most\nfastidious spectator. Her white skin had a low bank of fresh green\nwillows for background and effective contrast--for she stood against\nthem--and above and out of them projected the eager faces and white\nshoulders of two smaller girls.\n\n\nToward noon we heard the inspiriting cry,--\n\n\"Sail ho!\"\n\n\"Where away?\" shouted the captain.\n\n\"Three points off the weather bow!\"\n\nWe ran forward to see the vessel. It proved to be a steamboat--for they\nhad begun to run a steamer up the Neckar, for the first time in May.\nShe was a tug, and one of a very peculiar build and aspect. I had often\nwatched her from the hotel, and wondered how she propelled herself, for\napparently she had no propeller or paddles. She came churning along,\nnow, making a deal of noise of one kind or another, and aggravating it\nevery now and then by blowing a hoarse whistle. She had nine keel-boats\nhitched on behind and following after her in a long, slender rank. We\nmet her in a narrow place, between dikes, and there was hardly room for\nus both in the cramped passage. As she went grinding and groaning by, we\nperceived the secret of her moving impulse. She did not drive herself up\nthe river with paddles or propeller, she pulled herself by hauling on\na great chain. This chain is laid in the bed of the river and is only\nfastened at the two ends. It is seventy miles long. It comes in over the\nboat's bow, passes around a drum, and is payed out astern. She pulls\non that chain, and so drags herself up the river or down it. She has\nneither bow or stern, strictly speaking, for she has a long-bladed\nrudder on each end and she never turns around. She uses both rudders\nall the time, and they are powerful enough to enable her to turn to\nthe right or the left and steer around curves, in spite of the strong\nresistance of the chain. I would not have believed that that impossible\nthing could be done; but I saw it done, and therefore I know that there\nis one impossible thing which CAN be done. What miracle will man attempt\nnext?\n\nWe met many big keel-boats on their way up, using sails, mule power, and\nprofanity--a tedious and laborious business. A wire rope led from the\nforetopmast to the file of mules on the tow-path a hundred yards ahead,\nand by dint of much banging and swearing and urging, the detachment of\ndrivers managed to get a speed of two or three miles an hour out of the\nmules against the stiff current. The Neckar has always been used as a\ncanal, and thus has given employment to a great many men and animals;\nbut now that this steamboat is able, with a small crew and a bushel or\nso of coal, to take nine keel-boats farther up the river in one hour\nthan thirty men and thirty mules can do it in two, it is believed\nthat the old-fashioned towing industry is on its death-bed. A second\nsteamboat began work in the Neckar three months after the first one was\nput in service. [Figure 4]\n\nAt noon we stepped ashore and bought some bottled beer and got some\nchickens cooked, while the raft waited; then we immediately put to sea\nagain, and had our dinner while the beer was cold and the chickens hot.\nThere is no pleasanter place for such a meal than a raft that is\ngliding down the winding Neckar past green meadows and wooded hills, and\nslumbering villages, and craggy heights graced with crumbling towers and\nbattlements.\n\n\nIn one place we saw a nicely dressed German gentleman without any\nspectacles. Before I could come to anchor he had got underway. It was a\ngreat pity. I so wanted to make a sketch of him. The captain comforted\nme for my loss, however, by saying that the man was without any doubt a\nfraud who had spectacles, but kept them in his pocket in order to make\nhimself conspicuous.\n\nBelow Hassmersheim we passed Hornberg, Goetz von Berlichingen's old\ncastle. It stands on a bold elevation two hundred feet above the surface\nof the river; it has high vine-clad walls enclosing trees, and a peaked\ntower about seventy-five feet high. The steep hillside, from the castle\nclear down to the water's edge, is terraced, and clothed thick with\ngrape vines. This is like farming a mansard roof. All the steeps along\nthat part of the river which furnish the proper exposure, are given\nup to the grape. That region is a great producer of Rhine wines. The\nGermans are exceedingly fond of Rhine wines; they are put up in tall,\nslender bottles, and are considered a pleasant beverage. One tells them\nfrom vinegar by the label.\n\nThe Hornberg hill is to be tunneled, and the new railway will pass under\nthe castle. THE CAVE OF THE SPECTER Two miles below Hornberg castle is\na cave in a low cliff, which the captain of the raft said had once been\noccupied by a beautiful heiress of Hornberg--the Lady Gertrude--in the\nold times. It was seven hundred years ago. She had a number of rich and\nnoble lovers and one poor and obscure one, Sir Wendel Lobenfeld. With\nthe native chuckleheadedness of the heroine of romance, she preferred\nthe poor and obscure lover.\n\n\nWith the native sound judgment of the father of a heroine of romance,\nthe von Berlichingen of that day shut his daughter up in his donjon\nkeep, or his oubliette, or his culverin, or some such place, and\nresolved that she should stay there until she selected a husband from\namong her rich and noble lovers. The latter visited her and persecuted\nher with their supplications, but without effect, for her heart was\ntrue to her poor despised Crusader, who was fighting in the Holy Land.\nFinally, she resolved that she would endure the attentions of the rich\nlovers no longer; so one stormy night she escaped and went down\nthe river and hid herself in the cave on the other side. Her father\nransacked the country for her, but found not a trace of her. As the\ndays went by, and still no tidings of her came, his conscience began to\ntorture him, and he caused proclamation to be made that if she were yet\nliving and would return, he would oppose her no longer, she might marry\nwhom she would. The months dragged on, all hope forsook the old man, he\nceased from his customary pursuits and pleasures, he devoted himself to\npious works, and longed for the deliverance of death.\n\nNow just at midnight, every night, the lost heiress stood in the mouth\nof her cave, arrayed in white robes, and sang a little love ballad which\nher Crusader had made for her. She judged that if he came home alive the\nsuperstitious peasants would tell him about the ghost that sang in the\ncave, and that as soon as they described the ballad he would know that\nnone but he and she knew that song, therefore he would suspect that she\nwas alive, and would come and find her. As time went on, the people of\nthe region became sorely distressed about the Specter of the Haunted\nCave. It was said that ill luck of one kind or another always overtook\nany one who had the misfortune to hear that song. Eventually, every\ncalamity that happened thereabouts was laid at the door of that music.\nConsequently, no boatmen would consent to pass the cave at night; the\npeasants shunned the place, even in the daytime.\n\n\nBut the faithful girl sang on, night after night, month after month, and\npatiently waited; her reward must come at last. Five years dragged by,\nand still, every night at midnight, the plaintive tones floated out over\nthe silent land, while the distant boatmen and peasants thrust their\nfingers into their ears and shuddered out a prayer.\n\nAnd now came the Crusader home, bronzed and battle-scarred, but bringing\na great and splendid fame to lay at the feet of his bride. The old lord\nof Hornberg received him as his son, and wanted him to stay by him\nand be the comfort and blessing of his age; but the tale of that young\ngirl's devotion to him and its pathetic consequences made a changed\nman of the knight. He could not enjoy his well-earned rest. He said his\nheart was broken, he would give the remnant of his life to high deeds in\nthe cause of humanity, and so find a worthy death and a blessed reunion\nwith the brave true heart whose love had more honored him than all his\nvictories in war.\n\nWhen the people heard this resolve of his, they came and told him there\nwas a pitiless dragon in human disguise in the Haunted Cave, a dread\ncreature which no knight had yet been bold enough to face, and begged\nhim to rid the land of its desolating presence. He said he would do it.\nThey told him about the song, and when he asked what song it was, they\nsaid the memory of it was gone, for nobody had been hardy enough to\nlisten to it for the past four years and more.\n\nToward midnight the Crusader came floating down the river in a boat,\nwith his trusty cross-bow in his hands. He drifted silently through the\ndim reflections of the crags and trees, with his intent eyes fixed upon\nthe low cliff which he was approaching. As he drew nearer, he discerned\nthe black mouth of the cave. Now--is that a white figure? Yes. The\nplaintive song begins to well forth and float away over meadow and\nriver--the cross-bow is slowly raised to position, a steady aim is\ntaken, the bolt flies straight to the mark--the figure sinks down, still\nsinging, the knight takes the wool out of his ears, and recognizes the\nold ballad--too late! Ah, if he had only not put the wool in his ears!\n\n\nThe Crusader went away to the wars again, and presently fell in battle,\nfighting for the Cross. Tradition says that during several centuries the\nspirit of the unfortunate girl sang nightly from the cave at midnight,\nbut the music carried no curse with it; and although many listened for\nthe mysterious sounds, few were favored, since only those could hear\nthem who had never failed in a trust. It is believed that the singing\nstill continues, but it is known that nobody has heard it during the\npresent century.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nAn Ancient Legend of the Rhine [The Lorelei]\n\n\nThe last legend reminds one of the \"Lorelei\"--a legend of the Rhine.\nThere is a song called \"The Lorelei.\"\n\nGermany is rich in folk-songs, and the words and airs of several of them\nare peculiarly beautiful--but \"The Lorelei\" is the people's favorite. I\ncould not endure it at first, but by and by it began to take hold of me,\nand now there is no tune which I like so well.\n\nIt is not possible that it is much known in America, else I should have\nheard it there. The fact that I never heard it there, is evidence that\nthere are others in my country who have fared likewise; therefore, for\nthe sake of these, I mean to print the words and music in this chapter.\nAnd I will refresh the reader's memory by printing the legend of the\nLorelei, too. I have it by me in the LEGENDS OF THE RHINE, done into\nEnglish by the wildly gifted Garnham, Bachelor of Arts. I print the\nlegend partly to refresh my own memory, too, for I have never read it\nbefore. THE LEGEND Lore (two syllables) was a water nymph who used to\nsit on a high rock called the Ley or Lei (pronounced like our word LIE)\nin the Rhine, and lure boatmen to destruction in a furious rapid\nwhich marred the channel at that spot. She so bewitched them with her\nplaintive songs and her wonderful beauty that they forgot everything\nelse to gaze up at her, and so they presently drifted among the broken\nreefs and were lost.\n\nIn those old, old times, the Count Bruno lived in a great castle near\nthere with his son, the Count Hermann, a youth of twenty. Hermann had\nheard a great deal about the beautiful Lore, and had finally fallen very\ndeeply in love with her without having seen her. So he used to wander to\nthe neighborhood of the Lei, evenings, with his Zither and \"Express his\nLonging in low Singing,\" as Garnham says. On one of these occasions,\n\"suddenly there hovered around the top of the rock a brightness of\nunequaled clearness and color, which, in increasingly smaller circles\nthickened, was the enchanting figure of the beautiful Lore.\n\n\n\"An unintentional cry of Joy escaped the Youth, he let his Zither fall,\nand with extended arms he called out the name of the enigmatical Being,\nwho seemed to stoop lovingly to him and beckon to him in a friendly\nmanner; indeed, if his ear did not deceive him, she called his name with\nunutterable sweet Whispers, proper to love. Beside himself with delight\nthe youth lost his Senses and sank senseless to the earth.\"\n\nAfter that he was a changed person. He went dreaming about, thinking\nonly of his fairy and caring for naught else in the world. \"The old\ncount saw with affliction this changement in his son,\" whose cause he\ncould not divine, and tried to divert his mind into cheerful channels,\nbut to no purpose. Then the old count used authority. He commanded the\nyouth to betake himself to the camp. Obedience was promised. Garnham\nsays:\n\n\"It was on the evening before his departure, as he wished still once to\nvisit the Lei and offer to the Nymph of the Rhine his Sighs, the\ntones of his Zither, and his Songs. He went, in his boat, this time\naccompanied by a faithful squire, down the stream. The moon shed her\nsilvery light over the whole country; the steep bank mountains appeared\nin the most fantastical shapes, and the high oaks on either side bowed\ntheir Branches on Hermann's passing. As soon as he approached the\nLei, and was aware of the surf-waves, his attendant was seized with an\ninexpressible Anxiety and he begged permission to land; but the Knight\nswept the strings of his Guitar and sang:\n\n     \"Once I saw thee in dark night,\n     In supernatural Beauty bright;\n     Of Light-rays, was the Figure wove,\n     To share its light, locked-hair strove.\n\n\n     \"Thy Garment color wave-dove\n     By thy hand the sign of love,\n     Thy eyes sweet enchantment,\n     Raying to me, oh! enchantment.\n\n\n     \"O, wert thou but my sweetheart,\n     How willingly thy love to part!\n     With delight I should be bound\n     To thy rocky house in deep ground.\"\n\nThat Hermann should have gone to that place at all, was not wise; that\nhe should have gone with such a song as that in his mouth was a most\nserious mistake. The Lorelei did not \"call his name in unutterable\nsweet Whispers\" this time. No, that song naturally worked an instant\nand thorough \"changement\" in her; and not only that, but it stirred the\nbowels of the whole afflicted region around about there--for--\n\n\"Scarcely had these tones sounded, everywhere there began tumult and\nsound, as if voices above and below the water. On the Lei rose flames,\nthe Fairy stood above, at that time, and beckoned with her right hand\nclearly and urgently to the infatuated Knight, while with a staff in\nher left hand she called the waves to her service. They began to mount\nheavenward; the boat was upset, mocking every exertion; the waves rose\nto the gunwale, and splitting on the hard stones, the Boat broke into\nPieces. The youth sank into the depths, but the squire was thrown on\nshore by a powerful wave.\"\n\n\nThe bitterest things have been said about the Lorelei during many\ncenturies, but surely her conduct upon this occasion entitles her to our\nrespect. One feels drawn tenderly toward her and is moved to forget her\nmany crimes and remember only the good deed that crowned and closed her\ncareer.\n\n\"The Fairy was never more seen; but her enchanting tones have often been\nheard. In the beautiful, refreshing, still nights of spring, when the\nmoon pours her silver light over the Country, the listening shipper\nhears from the rushing of the waves, the echoing Clang of a wonderfully\ncharming voice, which sings a song from the crystal castle, and with\nsorrow and fear he thinks on the young Count Hermann, seduced by the\nNymph.\"\n\nHere is the music, and the German words by Heinrich Heine. This song has\nbeen a favorite in Germany for forty years, and will remain a favorite\nalways, maybe. [Figure 5]\n\nI have a prejudice against people who print things in a foreign language\nand add no translation. When I am the reader, and the author considers\nme able to do the translating myself, he pays me quite a nice\ncompliment--but if he would do the translating for me I would try to get\nalong without the compliment.\n\nIf I were at home, no doubt I could get a translation of this poem, but\nI am abroad and can't; therefore I will make a translation myself. It\nmay not be a good one, for poetry is out of my line, but it will serve\nmy purpose--which is, to give the unGerman young girl a jingle of words\nto hang the tune on until she can get hold of a good version, made by\nsome one who is a poet and knows how to convey a poetical thought from\none language to another.\n\n     THE LORELEI\n\n\n     I cannot divine what it meaneth,\n     This haunting nameless pain:\n     A tale of the bygone ages\n     Keeps brooding through my brain:\n\n\n     The faint air cools in the glooming,\n     And peaceful flows the Rhine,\n     The thirsty summits are drinking\n     The sunset's flooding wine;\n\n\n     The loveliest maiden is sitting\n     High-throned in yon blue air,\n     Her golden jewels are shining,\n     She combs her golden hair;\n\n\n     She combs with a comb that is golden,\n     And sings a weird refrain\n     That steeps in a deadly enchantment\n     The list'ner's ravished brain:\n\n\n     The doomed in his drifting shallop,\n     Is tranced with the sad sweet tone,\n     He sees not the yawning breakers,\n     He sees but the maid alone:\n\n\n     The pitiless billows engulf him!--\n     So perish sailor and bark;\n     And this, with her baleful singing,\n     Is the Lorelei's gruesome work.\n\nI have a translation by Garnham, Bachelor of Arts, in the LEGENDS OF THE\nRHINE, but it would not answer the purpose I mentioned above, because\nthe measure is too nobly irregular; it don't fit the tune snugly enough;\nin places it hangs over at the ends too far, and in other places one\nruns out of words before he gets to the end of a bar. Still, Garnham's\ntranslation has high merits, and I am not dreaming of leaving it out of\nmy book. I believe this poet is wholly unknown in America and England; I\ntake peculiar pleasure in bringing him forward because I consider that I\ndiscovered him:\n\n     THE LORELEI\n\n     Translated by L. W. Garnham, B.A.\n\n     I do not know what it signifies.\n     That I am so sorrowful?\n     A fable of old Times so terrifies,\n     Leaves my heart so thoughtful.\n\n\n     The air is cool and it darkens,\n     And calmly flows the Rhine;\n     The summit of the mountain hearkens\n     In evening sunshine line.\n\n\n     The most beautiful Maiden entrances\n     Above wonderfully there,\n     Her beautiful golden attire glances,\n     She combs her golden hair.\n\n\n     With golden comb so lustrous,\n     And thereby a song sings,\n     It has a tone so wondrous,\n     That powerful melody rings.\n\n\n     The shipper in the little ship\n     It effects with woe sad might;\n     He does not see the rocky slip,\n     He only regards dreaded height.\n\n\n     I believe the turbulent waves\n     Swallow the last shipper and boat;\n     She with her singing craves\n     All to visit hermagic moat.\n\nNo translation could be closer. He has got in all the facts; and in\ntheir regular order, too. There is not a statistic wanting. It is as\nsuccinct as an invoice. That is what a translation ought to be; it\nshould exactly reflect the thought of the original. You can't SING\n\"Above wonderfully there,\" because it simply won't go to the tune,\nwithout damaging the singer; but it is a most clingingly exact\ntranslation of DORT OBEN WUNDERBAR--fits it like a blister. Mr.\nGarnham's reproduction has other merits--a hundred of them--but it is\nnot necessary to point them out. They will be detected.\n\nNo one with a specialty can hope to have a monopoly of it. Even Garnham\nhas a rival. Mr. X had a small pamphlet with him which he had bought\nwhile on a visit to Munich. It was entitled A CATALOGUE OF PICTURES IN\nTHE OLD PINACOTEK, and was written in a peculiar kind of English. Here\nare a few extracts:\n\n\"It is not permitted to make use of the work in question to a\npublication of the same contents as well as to the pirated edition of\nit.\"\n\n\"An evening landscape. In the foreground near a pond and a group of\nwhite beeches is leading a footpath animated by travelers.\"\n\n\"A learned man in a cynical and torn dress holding an open book in his\nhand.\"\n\n\"St. Bartholomew and the Executioner with the knife to fulfil the\nmartyr.\"\n\n\"Portrait of a young man. A long while this picture was thought to be\nBindi Altoviti's portrait; now somebody will again have it to be the\nself-portrait of Raphael.\"\n\n\"Susan bathing, surprised by the two old man. In the background the\nlapidation of the condemned.\"\n\n(\"Lapidation\" is good; it is much more elegant than \"stoning.\")\n\n\"St. Rochus sitting in a landscape with an angel who looks at his\nplague-sore, whilst the dog the bread in his mouth attents him.\"\n\n\"Spring. The Goddess Flora, sitting. Behind her a fertile valley\nperfused by a river.\"\n\n\"A beautiful bouquet animated by May-bugs, etc.\"\n\n\"A warrior in armor with a gypseous pipe in his hand leans against a\ntable and blows the smoke far away of himself.\"\n\n\"A Dutch landscape along a navigable river which perfuses it till to the\nbackground.\"\n\n\"Some peasants singing in a cottage. A woman lets drink a child out of a\ncup.\"\n\n\"St. John's head as a boy--painted in fresco on a brick.\" (Meaning a\ntile.)\n\n\"A young man of the Riccio family, his hair cut off right at the end,\ndressed in black with the same cap. Attributed to Raphael, but the\nsignation is false.\"\n\n\"The Virgin holding the Infant. It is very painted in the manner of\nSassoferrato.\"\n\n\"A Larder with greens and dead game animated by a cook-maid and two\nkitchen-boys.\"\n\nHowever, the English of this catalogue is at least as happy as that\nwhich distinguishes an inscription upon a certain picture in Rome--to\nwit:\n\n\"Revelations-View. St. John in Patterson's Island.\"\n\nBut meanwhile the raft is moving on.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\n[Why Germans Wear Spectacles]\n\n\nA mile or two above Eberbach we saw a peculiar ruin projecting above the\nfoliage which clothed the peak of a high and very steep hill. This ruin\nconsisted of merely a couple of crumbling masses of masonry which bore\na rude resemblance to human faces; they leaned forward and touched\nforeheads, and had the look of being absorbed in conversation. This\nruin had nothing very imposing or picturesque about it, and there was no\ngreat deal of it, yet it was called the \"Spectacular Ruin.\"\n\nLEGEND OF THE \"SPECTACULAR RUIN\" The captain of the raft, who was as\nfull of history as he could stick, said that in the Middle Ages a most\nprodigious fire-breathing dragon used to live in that region, and made\nmore trouble than a tax-collector. He was as long as a railway-train,\nand had the customary impenetrable green scales all over him. His breath\nbred pestilence and conflagration, and his appetite bred famine. He ate\nmen and cattle impartially, and was exceedingly unpopular. The German\nemperor of that day made the usual offer: he would grant to the\ndestroyer of the dragon, any one solitary thing he might ask for; for he\nhad a surplusage of daughters, and it was customary for dragon-killers\nto take a daughter for pay.\n\nSo the most renowned knights came from the four corners of the earth and\nretired down the dragon's throat one after the other. A panic arose and\nspread. Heroes grew cautious. The procession ceased. The dragon became\nmore destructive than ever. The people lost all hope of succor, and fled\nto the mountains for refuge.\n\nAt last Sir Wissenschaft, a poor and obscure knight, out of a far\ncountry, arrived to do battle with the monster. A pitiable object he\nwas, with his armor hanging in rags about him, and his strange-shaped\nknapsack strapped upon his back. Everybody turned up their noses at him,\nand some openly jeered him. But he was calm. He simply inquired if\nthe emperor's offer was still in force. The emperor said it was--but\ncharitably advised him to go and hunt hares and not endanger so precious\na life as his in an attempt which had brought death to so many of the\nworld's most illustrious heroes.\n\n\nBut this tramp only asked--\"Were any of these heroes men of science?\"\nThis raised a laugh, of course, for science was despised in those days.\nBut the tramp was not in the least ruffled. He said he might be a little\nin advance of his age, but no matter--science would come to be honored,\nsome time or other. He said he would march against the dragon in the\nmorning. Out of compassion, then, a decent spear was offered him, but\nhe declined, and said, \"spears were useless to men of science.\" They\nallowed him to sup in the servants' hall, and gave him a bed in the\nstables.\n\nWhen he started forth in the morning, thousands were gathered to see.\nThe emperor said:\n\n\"Do not be rash, take a spear, and leave off your knapsack.\"\n\nBut the tramp said:\n\n\"It is not a knapsack,\" and moved straight on.\n\nThe dragon was waiting and ready. He was breathing forth vast volumes\nof sulphurous smoke and lurid blasts of flame. The ragged knight\nstole warily to a good position, then he unslung his cylindrical\nknapsack--which was simply the common fire-extinguisher known to modern\ntimes--and the first chance he got he turned on his hose and shot the\ndragon square in the center of his cavernous mouth. Out went the fires\nin an instant, and the dragon curled up and died.\n\n\nThis man had brought brains to his aid. He had reared dragons from the\negg, in his laboratory, he had watched over them like a mother, and\npatiently studied them and experimented upon them while they grew. Thus\nhe had found out that fire was the life principle of a dragon; put out\nthe dragon's fires and it could make steam no longer, and must die.\nHe could not put out a fire with a spear, therefore he invented the\nextinguisher. The dragon being dead, the emperor fell on the hero's neck\nand said:\n\n\"Deliverer, name your request,\" at the same time beckoning out behind\nwith his heel for a detachment of his daughters to form and advance. But\nthe tramp gave them no observance. He simply said:\n\n\"My request is, that upon me be conferred the monopoly of the\nmanufacture and sale of spectacles in Germany.\"\n\nThe emperor sprang aside and exclaimed:\n\n\"This transcends all the impudence I ever heard! A modest demand, by my\nhalidome! Why didn't you ask for the imperial revenues at once, and be\ndone with it?\"\n\nBut the monarch had given his word, and he kept it. To everybody's\nsurprise, the unselfish monopolist immediately reduced the price of\nspectacles to such a degree that a great and crushing burden was removed\nfrom the nation. The emperor, to commemorate this generous act, and to\ntestify his appreciation of it, issued a decree commanding everybody to\nbuy this benefactor's spectacles and wear them, whether they needed them\nor not.\n\nSo originated the wide-spread custom of wearing spectacles in Germany;\nand as a custom once established in these old lands is imperishable,\nthis one remains universal in the empire to this day. Such is the legend\nof the monopolist's once stately and sumptuous castle, now called the\n\"Spectacular Ruin.\"\n\nOn the right bank, two or three miles below the Spectacular Ruin, we\npassed by a noble pile of castellated buildings overlooking the water\nfrom the crest of a lofty elevation. A stretch of two hundred yards of\nthe high front wall was heavily draped with ivy, and out of the mass\nof buildings within rose three picturesque old towers. The place was in\nfine order, and was inhabited by a family of princely rank. This castle\nhad its legend, too, but I should not feel justified in repeating it\nbecause I doubted the truth of some of its minor details.\n\nAlong in this region a multitude of Italian laborers were blasting away\nthe frontage of the hills to make room for the new railway. They were\nfifty or a hundred feet above the river. As we turned a sharp corner\nthey began to wave signals and shout warnings to us to look out for the\nexplosions. It was all very well to warn us, but what could WE do? You\ncan't back a raft upstream, you can't hurry it downstream, you can't\nscatter out to one side when you haven't any room to speak of, you won't\ntake to the perpendicular cliffs on the other shore when they appear to\nbe blasting there, too. Your resources are limited, you see. There is\nsimply nothing for it but to watch and pray.\n\nFor some hours we had been making three and a half or four miles an hour\nand we were still making that. We had been dancing right along until\nthose men began to shout; then for the next ten minutes it seemed to me\nthat I had never seen a raft go so slowly. When the first blast went\noff we raised our sun-umbrellas and waited for the result. No harm\ndone; none of the stones fell in the water. Another blast followed, and\nanother and another. Some of the rubbish fell in the water just astern\nof us.\n\n\nWe ran that whole battery of nine blasts in a row, and it was certainly\none of the most exciting and uncomfortable weeks I ever spent, either\naship or ashore. Of course we frequently manned the poles and shoved\nearnestly for a second or so, but every time one of those spurts of dust\nand debris shot aloft every man dropped his pole and looked up to get\nthe bearings of his share of it. It was very busy times along there for\na while. It appeared certain that we must perish, but even that was\nnot the bitterest thought; no, the abjectly unheroic nature of the\ndeath--that was the sting--that and the bizarre wording of the resulting\nobituary: \"SHOT WITH A ROCK, ON A RAFT.\" There would be no poetry\nwritten about it. None COULD be written about it. Example:\n\nNOT by war's shock, or war's shaft,--SHOT, with a rock, on a raft.\n\nNo poet who valued his reputation would touch such a theme as that. I\nshould be distinguished as the only \"distinguished dead\" who went down\nto the grave unsonneted, in 1878.\n\nBut we escaped, and I have never regretted it. The last blast was a\npeculiarly strong one, and after the small rubbish was done raining\naround us and we were just going to shake hands over our deliverance, a\nlater and larger stone came down amongst our little group of pedestrians\nand wrecked an umbrella. It did no other harm, but we took to the water\njust the same.\n\nIt seems that the heavy work in the quarries and the new railway\ngradings is done mainly by Italians. That was a revelation. We have\nthe notion in our country that Italians never do heavy work at all, but\nconfine themselves to the lighter arts, like organ-grinding, operatic\nsinging, and assassination. We have blundered, that is plain.\n\nAll along the river, near every village, we saw little station-houses\nfor the future railway. They were finished and waiting for the rails and\nbusiness. They were as trim and snug and pretty as they could be. They\nwere always of brick or stone; they were of graceful shape, they had\nvines and flowers about them already, and around them the grass was\nbright and green, and showed that it was carefully looked after. They\nwere a decoration to the beautiful landscape, not an offense. Wherever\none saw a pile of gravel or a pile of broken stone, it was always heaped\nas trimly and exactly as a new grave or a stack of cannon-balls; nothing\nabout those stations or along the railroad or the wagon-road was\nallowed to look shabby or be unornamental. The keeping a country in such\nbeautiful order as Germany exhibits, has a wise practical side to\nit, too, for it keeps thousands of people in work and bread who would\notherwise be idle and mischievous.\n\nAs the night shut down, the captain wanted to tie up, but I thought\nmaybe we might make Hirschhorn, so we went on. Presently the sky became\novercast, and the captain came aft looking uneasy. He cast his eye\naloft, then shook his head, and said it was coming on to blow. My party\nwanted to land at once--therefore I wanted to go on. The captain said we\nought to shorten sail anyway, out of common prudence. Consequently, the\nlarboard watch was ordered to lay in his pole. It grew quite dark, now,\nand the wind began to rise. It wailed through the swaying branches of\nthe trees, and swept our decks in fitful gusts. Things were taking on an\nugly look. The captain shouted to the steersman on the forward log:\n\n\"How's she landing?\"\n\nThe answer came faint and hoarse from far forward:\n\n\"Nor'-east-and-by-nor'--east-by-east, half-east, sir.\"\n\n\"Let her go off a point!\"\n\n\"Aye-aye, sir!\"\n\n\"What water have you got?\"\n\n\"Shoal, sir. Two foot large, on the stabboard, two and a half scant on\nthe labboard!\"\n\n\"Let her go off another point!\"\n\n\"Aye-aye, sir!\"\n\n\"Forward, men, all of you! Lively, now! Stand by to crowd her round the\nweather corner!\"\n\n\"Aye-aye, sir!\"\n\n\nThen followed a wild running and trampling and hoarse shouting, but the\nforms of the men were lost in the darkness and the sounds were distorted\nand confused by the roaring of the wind through the shingle-bundles. By\nthis time the sea was running inches high, and threatening every moment\nto engulf the frail bark. Now came the mate, hurrying aft, and said,\nclose to the captain's ear, in a low, agitated voice:\n\n\"Prepare for the worst, sir--we have sprung a leak!\"\n\n\"Heavens! where?\"\n\n\"Right aft the second row of logs.\"\n\n\"Nothing but a miracle can save us! Don't let the men know, or there\nwill be a panic and mutiny! Lay her in shore and stand by to jump with\nthe stern-line the moment she touches. Gentlemen, I must look to you to\nsecond my endeavors in this hour of peril. You have hats--go forward and\nbail for your lives!\"\n\nDown swept another mighty blast of wind, clothed in spray and thick\ndarkness. At such a moment as this, came from away forward that most\nappalling of all cries that are ever heard at sea:\n\n\"MAN OVERBOARD!\"\n\nThe captain shouted:\n\n\"Hard a-port! Never mind the man! Let him climb aboard or wade ashore!\"\n\nAnother cry came down the wind:\n\n\"Breakers ahead!\"\n\n\"Where away?\"\n\n\"Not a log's length off her port fore-foot!\"\n\nWe had groped our slippery way forward, and were now bailing with the\nfrenzy of despair, when we heard the mate's terrified cry, from far aft:\n\n\"Stop that dashed bailing, or we shall be aground!\"\n\nBut this was immediately followed by the glad shout:\n\n\"Land aboard the starboard transom!\"\n\n\"Saved!\" cried the captain. \"Jump ashore and take a turn around a tree\nand pass the bight aboard!\"\n\nThe next moment we were all on shore weeping and embracing for joy,\nwhile the rain poured down in torrents. The captain said he had been a\nmariner for forty years on the Neckar, and in that time had seen storms\nto make a man's cheek blanch and his pulses stop, but he had never,\nnever seen a storm that even approached this one. How familiar that\nsounded! For I have been at sea a good deal and have heard that remark\nfrom captains with a frequency accordingly.\n\n\nWe framed in our minds the usual resolution of thanks and admiration\nand gratitude, and took the first opportunity to vote it, and put it\nin writing and present it to the captain, with the customary speech. We\ntramped through the darkness and the drenching summer rain full three\nmiles, and reached \"The Naturalist Tavern\" in the village of Hirschhorn\njust an hour before midnight, almost exhausted from hardship, fatigue,\nand terror. I can never forget that night.\n\nThe landlord was rich, and therefore could afford to be crusty and\ndisobliging; he did not at all like being turned out of his warm bed to\nopen his house for us. But no matter, his household got up and cooked\na quick supper for us, and we brewed a hot punch for ourselves, to keep\noff consumption. After supper and punch we had an hour's soothing smoke\nwhile we fought the naval battle over again and voted the resolutions;\nthen we retired to exceedingly neat and pretty chambers upstairs that\nhad clean, comfortable beds in them with heirloom pillowcases most\nelaborately and tastefully embroidered by hand.\n\nSuch rooms and beds and embroidered linen are as frequent in German\nvillage inns as they are rare in ours. Our villages are superior\nto German villages in more merits, excellences, conveniences, and\nprivileges than I can enumerate, but the hotels do not belong in the\nlist.\n\n\"The Naturalist Tavern\" was not a meaningless name; for all the halls\nand all the rooms were lined with large glass cases which were filled\nwith all sorts of birds and animals, glass-eyed, ably stuffed, and set\nup in the most natural eloquent and dramatic attitudes. The moment we\nwere abed, the rain cleared away and the moon came out. I dozed off to\nsleep while contemplating a great white stuffed owl which was looking\nintently down on me from a high perch with the air of a person who\nthought he had met me before, but could not make out for certain.\n\n\nBut young Z did not get off so easily. He said that as he was sinking\ndeliciously to sleep, the moon lifted away the shadows and developed\na huge cat, on a bracket, dead and stuffed, but crouching, with every\nmuscle tense, for a spring, and with its glittering glass eyes aimed\nstraight at him. It made Z uncomfortable. He tried closing his own eyes,\nbut that did not answer, for a natural instinct kept making him open\nthem again to see if the cat was still getting ready to launch at\nhim--which she always was. He tried turning his back, but that was a\nfailure; he knew the sinister eyes were on him still. So at last he had\nto get up, after an hour or two of worry and experiment, and set the cat\nout in the hall. So he won, that time.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\n[The Kindly Courtesy of Germans]\n\n\nIn the morning we took breakfast in the garden, under the trees, in the\ndelightful German summer fashion. The air was filled with the fragrance\nof flowers and wild animals; the living portion of the menagerie of the\n\"Naturalist Tavern\" was all about us. There were great cages populous\nwith fluttering and chattering foreign birds, and other great cages and\ngreater wire pens, populous with quadrupeds, both native and foreign.\nThere were some free creatures, too, and quite sociable ones they were.\nWhite rabbits went loping about the place, and occasionally came and\nsniffed at our shoes and shins; a fawn, with a red ribbon on its neck,\nwalked up and examined us fearlessly; rare breeds of chickens and doves\nbegged for crumbs, and a poor old tailless raven hopped about with\na humble, shamefaced mein which said, \"Please do not notice my\nexposure--think how you would feel in my circumstances, and be\ncharitable.\" If he was observed too much, he would retire behind\nsomething and stay there until he judged the party's interest had found\nanother object. I never have seen another dumb creature that was\nso morbidly sensitive. Bayard Taylor, who could interpret the dim\nreasonings of animals, and understood their moral natures better than\nmost men, would have found some way to make this poor old chap forget\nhis troubles for a while, but we have not his kindly art, and so had to\nleave the raven to his griefs.\n\n\nAfter breakfast we climbed the hill and visited the ancient castle of\nHirschhorn, and the ruined church near it. There were some curious old\nbas-reliefs leaning against the inner walls of the church--sculptured\nlords of Hirschhorn in complete armor, and ladies of Hirschhorn in\nthe picturesque court costumes of the Middle Ages. These things are\nsuffering damage and passing to decay, for the last Hirschhorn has been\ndead two hundred years, and there is nobody now who cares to preserve\nthe family relics. In the chancel was a twisted stone column, and the\ncaptain told us a legend about it, of course, for in the matter of\nlegends he could not seem to restrain himself; but I do not repeat his\ntale because there was nothing plausible about it except that the Hero\nwrenched this column into its present screw-shape with his hands --just\none single wrench. All the rest of the legend was doubtful.\n\nBut Hirschhorn is best seen from a distance, down the river. Then\nthe clustered brown towers perched on the green hilltop, and the old\nbattlemented stone wall, stretching up and over the grassy ridge and\ndisappearing in the leafy sea beyond, make a picture whose grace and\nbeauty entirely satisfy the eye.\n\nWe descended from the church by steep stone stairways which curved this\nway and that down narrow alleys between the packed and dirty tenements\nof the village. It was a quarter well stocked with deformed, leering,\nunkempt and uncombed idiots, who held out hands or caps and begged\npiteously. The people of the quarter were not all idiots, of course, but\nall that begged seemed to be, and were said to be.\n\nI was thinking of going by skiff to the next town, Necharsteinach; so I\nran to the riverside in advance of the party and asked a man there if\nhe had a boat to hire. I suppose I must have spoken High German--Court\nGerman--I intended it for that, anyway--so he did not understand me. I\nturned and twisted my question around and about, trying to strike that\nman's average, but failed. He could not make out what I wanted. Now Mr.\nX arrived, faced this same man, looked him in the eye, and emptied this\nsentence on him, in the most glib and confident way: \"Can man boat get\nhere?\"\n\nThe mariner promptly understood and promptly answered. I can comprehend\nwhy he was able to understand that particular sentence, because by mere\naccident all the words in it except \"get\" have the same sound and the\nsame meaning in German that they have in English; but how he managed to\nunderstand Mr. X's next remark puzzled me. I will insert it, presently.\nX turned away a moment, and I asked the mariner if he could not find\na board, and so construct an additional seat. I spoke in the purest\nGerman, but I might as well have spoken in the purest Choctaw for all\nthe good it did. The man tried his best to understand me; he tried, and\nkept on trying, harder and harder, until I saw it was really of no use,\nand said:\n\n\"There, don't strain yourself--it is of no consequence.\"\n\nThen X turned to him and crisply said:\n\n\"MACHEN SIE a flat board.\"\n\nI wish my epitaph may tell the truth about me if the man did not answer\nup at once, and say he would go and borrow a board as soon as he had lit\nthe pipe which he was filling.\n\n\nWe changed our mind about taking a boat, so we did not have to go. I\nhave given Mr. X's two remarks just as he made them. Four of the five\nwords in the first one were English, and that they were also German was\nonly accidental, not intentional; three out of the five words in the\nsecond remark were English, and English only, and the two German ones\ndid not mean anything in particular, in such a connection.\n\nX always spoke English to Germans, but his plan was to turn the sentence\nwrong end first and upside down, according to German construction, and\nsprinkle in a German word without any essential meaning to it, here and\nthere, by way of flavor. Yet he always made himself understood. He could\nmake those dialect-speaking raftsmen understand him, sometimes, when\neven young Z had failed with them; and young Z was a pretty good German\nscholar. For one thing, X always spoke with such confidence--perhaps\nthat helped. And possibly the raftsmen's dialect was what is called\nPLATT-DEUTSCH, and so they found his English more familiar to their ears\nthan another man's German. Quite indifferent students of German can read\nFritz Reuter's charming platt-Deutch tales with some little facility\nbecause many of the words are English. I suppose this is the tongue\nwhich our Saxon ancestors carried to England with them. By and by I will\ninquire of some other philologist.\n\nHowever, in the mean time it had transpired that the men employed to\ncalk the raft had found that the leak was not a leak at all, but only\na crack between the logs--a crack that belonged there, and was not\ndangerous, but had been magnified into a leak by the disordered\nimagination of the mate. Therefore we went aboard again with a good\ndegree of confidence, and presently got to sea without accident. As we\nswam smoothly along between the enchanting shores, we fell to swapping\nnotes about manners and customs in Germany and elsewhere.\n\nAs I write, now, many months later, I perceive that each of us, by\nobserving and noting and inquiring, diligently and day by day, had\nmanaged to lay in a most varied and opulent stock of misinformation. But\nthis is not surprising; it is very difficult to get accurate details in\nany country. For example, I had the idea once, in Heidelberg, to find\nout all about those five student-corps. I started with the White Cap\ncorps. I began to inquire of this and that and the other citizen, and\nhere is what I found out:\n\n1. It is called the Prussian Corps, because none but Prussians are\nadmitted to it.\n\n2. It is called the Prussian Corps for no particular reason. It has\nsimply pleased each corps to name itself after some German state.\n\n3. It is not named the Prussian Corps at all, but only the White Cap\nCorps.\n\n4. Any student can belong to it who is a German by birth.\n\n5. Any student can belong to it who is European by birth.\n\n6. Any European-born student can belong to it, except he be a Frenchman.\n\n7. Any student can belong to it, no matter where he was born.\n\n8. No student can belong to it who is not of noble blood.\n\n9. No student can belong to it who cannot show three full generations of\nnoble descent.\n\n10. Nobility is not a necessary qualification.\n\n11. No moneyless student can belong to it.\n\n12. Money qualification is nonsense--such a thing has never been thought\nof.\n\nI got some of this information from students themselves--students who\ndid not belong to the corps.\n\nI finally went to headquarters--to the White Caps--where I would\nhave gone in the first place if I had been acquainted. But even at\nheadquarters I found difficulties; I perceived that there were things\nabout the White Cap Corps which one member knew and another one didn't.\nIt was natural; for very few members of any organization know ALL that\ncan be known about it. I doubt there is a man or a woman in Heidelberg\nwho would not answer promptly and confidently three out of every five\nquestions about the White Cap Corps which a stranger might ask; yet\nit is a very safe bet that two of the three answers would be incorrect\nevery time.\n\nThere is one German custom which is universal--the bowing courteously\nto strangers when sitting down at table or rising up from it. This\nbow startles a stranger out of his self-possession, the first time\nit occurs, and he is likely to fall over a chair or something, in his\nembarrassment, but it pleases him, nevertheless. One soon learns to\nexpect this bow and be on the lookout and ready to return it; but to\nlearn to lead off and make the initial bow one's self is a difficult\nmatter for a diffident man. One thinks, \"If I rise to go, and tender my\nbow, and these ladies and gentlemen take it into their heads to ignore\nthe custom of their nation, and not return it, how shall I feel, in case\nI survive to feel anything.\" Therefore he is afraid to venture. He sits\nout the dinner, and makes the strangers rise first and originate the\nbowing. A table d'h\u00f4te dinner is a tedious affair for a man who seldom\ntouches anything after the three first courses; therefore I used to do\nsome pretty dreary waiting because of my fears. It took me months to\nassure myself that those fears were groundless, but I did assure myself\nat last by experimenting diligently through my agent. I made Harris get\nup and bow and leave; invariably his bow was returned, then I got up and\nbowed myself and retired.\n\n\nThus my education proceeded easily and comfortably for me, but not for\nHarris. Three courses of a table d'h\u00f4te dinner were enough for me, but\nHarris preferred thirteen.\n\nEven after I had acquired full confidence, and no longer needed the\nagent's help, I sometimes encountered difficulties. Once at Baden-Baden\nI nearly lost a train because I could not be sure that three young\nladies opposite me at table were Germans, since I had not heard them\nspeak; they might be American, they might be English, it was not safe\nto venture a bow; but just as I had got that far with my thought, one of\nthem began a German remark, to my great relief and gratitude; and before\nshe got out her third word, our bows had been delivered and graciously\nreturned, and we were off.\n\nThere is a friendly something about the German character which is very\nwinning. When Harris and I were making a pedestrian tour through the\nBlack Forest, we stopped at a little country inn for dinner one day;\ntwo young ladies and a young gentleman entered and sat down opposite us.\nThey were pedestrians, too. Our knapsacks were strapped upon our backs,\nbut they had a sturdy youth along to carry theirs for them. All parties\nwere hungry, so there was no talking. By and by the usual bows were\nexchanged, and we separated.\n\nAs we sat at a late breakfast in the hotel at Allerheiligen, next\nmorning, these young people entered and took places near us without\nobserving us; but presently they saw us and at once bowed and smiled;\nnot ceremoniously, but with the gratified look of people who have found\nacquaintances where they were expecting strangers. Then they spoke of\nthe weather and the roads. We also spoke of the weather and the roads.\nNext, they said they had had an enjoyable walk, notwithstanding the\nweather. We said that that had been our case, too. Then they said they\nhad walked thirty English miles the day before, and asked how many we\nhad walked. I could not lie, so I told Harris to do it. Harris told\nthem we had made thirty English miles, too. That was true; we had \"made\"\nthem, though we had had a little assistance here and there.\n\nAfter breakfast they found us trying to blast some information out\nof the dumb hotel clerk about routes, and observing that we were not\nsucceeding pretty well, they went and got their maps and things, and\npointed out and explained our course so clearly that even a New York\ndetective could have followed it. And when we started they spoke out a\nhearty good-by and wished us a pleasant journey. Perhaps they were more\ngenerous with us than they might have been with native wayfarers because\nwe were a forlorn lot and in a strange land; I don't know; I only know\nit was lovely to be treated so.\n\nVery well, I took an American young lady to one of the fine balls in\nBaden-Baden, one night, and at the entrance-door upstairs we were halted\nby an official--something about Miss Jones's dress was not according to\nrule; I don't remember what it was, now; something was wanting--her back\nhair, or a shawl, or a fan, or a shovel, or something. The official was\never so polite, and ever so sorry, but the rule was strict, and he could\nnot let us in. It was very embarrassing, for many eyes were on us. But\nnow a richly dressed girl stepped out of the ballroom, inquired into the\ntrouble, and said she could fix it in a moment. She took Miss Jones to\nthe robing-room, and soon brought her back in regulation trim, and then\nwe entered the ballroom with this benefactress unchallenged.\n\n\nBeing safe, now, I began to puzzle through my sincere but ungrammatical\nthanks, when there was a sudden mutual recognition --the benefactress\nand I had met at Allerheiligen. Two weeks had not altered her good face,\nand plainly her heart was in the right place yet, but there was such\na difference between these clothes and the clothes I had seen her in\nbefore, when she was walking thirty miles a day in the Black Forest,\nthat it was quite natural that I had failed to recognize her sooner. I\nhad on MY other suit, too, but my German would betray me to a person who\nhad heard it once, anyway. She brought her brother and sister, and they\nmade our way smooth for that evening.\n\nWell--months afterward, I was driving through the streets of Munich in a\ncab with a German lady, one day, when she said:\n\n\"There, that is Prince Ludwig and his wife, walking along there.\"\n\nEverybody was bowing to them--cabmen, little children, and everybody\nelse--and they were returning all the bows and overlooking nobody, when\na young lady met them and made a deep courtesy.\n\n\"That is probably one of the ladies of the court,\" said my German\nfriend.\n\nI said:\n\n\"She is an honor to it, then. I know her. I don't know her name, but I\nknow HER. I have known her at Allerheiligen and Baden-Baden. She ought\nto be an Empress, but she may be only a Duchess; it is the way things go\nin this way.\"\n\nIf one asks a German a civil question, he will be quite sure to get a\ncivil answer. If you stop a German in the street and ask him to direct\nyou to a certain place, he shows no sign of feeling offended. If the\nplace be difficult to find, ten to one the man will drop his own matters\nand go with you and show you.\n\nIn London, too, many a time, strangers have walked several blocks with\nme to show me my way.\n\nThere is something very real about this sort of politeness. Quite often,\nin Germany, shopkeepers who could not furnish me the article I wanted\nhave sent one of their employees with me to show me a place where it\ncould be had.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\n[The Deadly Jest of Dilsberg]\n\n\nHowever, I wander from the raft. We made the port of Necharsteinach in\ngood season, and went to the hotel and ordered a trout dinner, the same\nto be ready against our return from a two-hour pedestrian excursion to\nthe village and castle of Dilsberg, a mile distant, on the other side\nof the river. I do not mean that we proposed to be two hours making two\nmiles--no, we meant to employ most of the time in inspecting Dilsberg.\n\nFor Dilsberg is a quaint place. It is most quaintly and picturesquely\nsituated, too. Imagine the beautiful river before you; then a few rods\nof brilliant green sward on its opposite shore; then a sudden hill--no\npreparatory gently rising slopes, but a sort of instantaneous hill--a\nhill two hundred and fifty or three hundred feet high, as round as a\nbowl, with the same taper upward that an inverted bowl has, and with\nabout the same relation of height to diameter that distinguishes a\nbowl of good honest depth--a hill which is thickly clothed with green\nbushes--a comely, shapely hill, rising abruptly out of the dead level\nof the surrounding green plains, visible from a great distance down the\nbends of the river, and with just exactly room on the top of its head\nfor its steepled and turreted and roof-clustered cap of architecture,\nwhich same is tightly jammed and compacted within the perfectly round\nhoop of the ancient village wall.\n\nThere is no house outside the wall on the whole hill, or any vestige of\na former house; all the houses are inside the wall, but there isn't room\nfor another one. It is really a finished town, and has been finished a\nvery long time. There is no space between the wall and the first circle\nof buildings; no, the village wall is itself the rear wall of the first\ncircle of buildings, and the roofs jut a little over the wall and\nthus furnish it with eaves. The general level of the massed roofs is\ngracefully broken and relieved by the dominating towers of the ruined\ncastle and the tall spires of a couple of churches; so, from a distance\nDilsberg has rather more the look of a king's crown than a cap. That\nlofty green eminence and its quaint coronet form quite a striking\npicture, you may be sure, in the flush of the evening sun.\n\n\nWe crossed over in a boat and began the ascent by a narrow, steep path\nwhich plunged us at once into the leafy deeps of the bushes. But they\nwere not cool deeps by any means, for the sun's rays were weltering hot\nand there was little or no breeze to temper them. As we panted up the\nsharp ascent, we met brown, bareheaded and barefooted boys and girls,\noccasionally, and sometimes men; they came upon us without warning, they\ngave us good day, flashed out of sight in the bushes, and were gone\nas suddenly and mysteriously as they had come. They were bound for the\nother side of the river to work. This path had been traveled by many\ngenerations of these people. They have always gone down to the valley to\nearn their bread, but they have always climbed their hill again to eat\nit, and to sleep in their snug town.\n\n\nIt is said that the Dilsbergers do not emigrate much; they find that\nliving up there above the world, in their peaceful nest, is pleasanter\nthan living down in the troublous world. The seven hundred inhabitants\nare all blood-kin to each other, too; they have always been blood-kin to\neach other for fifteen hundred years; they are simply one large family,\nand they like the home folks better than they like strangers, hence they\npersistently stay at home. It has been said that for ages Dilsberg\nhas been merely a thriving and diligent idiot-factory. I saw no idiots\nthere, but the captain said, \"Because of late years the government has\ntaken to lugging them off to asylums and otherwheres; and government\nwants to cripple the factory, too, and is trying to get these\nDilsbergers to marry out of the family, but they don't like to.\"\n\nThe captain probably imagined all this, as modern science denies that\nthe intermarrying of relatives deteriorates the stock.\n\nArrived within the wall, we found the usual village sights and life. We\nmoved along a narrow, crooked lane which had been paved in the Middle\nAges. A strapping, ruddy girl was beating flax or some such stuff in\na little bit of a good-box of a barn, and she swung her flail with a\nwill--if it was a flail; I was not farmer enough to know what she was\nat; a frowsy, barelegged girl was herding half a dozen geese with\na stick--driving them along the lane and keeping them out of the\ndwellings; a cooper was at work in a shop which I know he did not make\nso large a thing as a hogshead in, for there was not room. In the front\nrooms of dwellings girls and women were cooking or spinning, and ducks\nand chickens were waddling in and out, over the threshold, picking up\nchance crumbs and holding pleasant converse; a very old and wrinkled\nman sat asleep before his door, with his chin upon his breast and his\nextinguished pipe in his lap; soiled children were playing in the dirt\neverywhere along the lane, unmindful of the sun.\n\n\nExcept the sleeping old man, everybody was at work, but the place was\nvery still and peaceful, nevertheless; so still that the distant\ncackle of the successful hen smote upon the ear but little dulled\nby intervening sounds. That commonest of village sights was lacking\nhere--the public pump, with its great stone tank or trough of limpid\nwater, and its group of gossiping pitcher-bearers; for there is no well\nor fountain or spring on this tall hill; cisterns of rain-water are\nused.\n\nOur alpenstocks and muslin tails compelled attention, and as we moved\nthrough the village we gathered a considerable procession of little boys\nand girls, and so went in some state to the castle. It proved to be an\nextensive pile of crumbling walls, arches, and towers, massive, properly\ngrouped for picturesque effect, weedy, grass-grown, and satisfactory.\nThe children acted as guides; they walked us along the top of the\nhighest walls, then took us up into a high tower and showed us a wide\nand beautiful landscape, made up of wavy distances of woody hills, and\na nearer prospect of undulating expanses of green lowlands, on the one\nhand, and castle-graced crags and ridges on the other, with the shining\ncurves of the Neckar flowing between. But the principal show, the chief\npride of the children, was the ancient and empty well in the grass-grown\ncourt of the castle. Its massive stone curb stands up three or four feet\nabove-ground, and is whole and uninjured. The children said that in the\nMiddle Ages this well was four hundred feet deep, and furnished all the\nvillage with an abundant supply of water, in war and peace. They said\nthat in the old day its bottom was below the level of the Neckar, hence\nthe water-supply was inexhaustible.\n\nBut there were some who believed it had never been a well at all, and\nwas never deeper than it is now--eighty feet; that at that depth a\nsubterranean passage branched from it and descended gradually to a\nremote place in the valley, where it opened into somebody's cellar or\nother hidden recess, and that the secret of this locality is now lost.\nThose who hold this belief say that herein lies the explanation that\nDilsberg, besieged by Tilly and many a soldier before him, was\nnever taken: after the longest and closest sieges the besiegers were\nastonished to perceive that the besieged were as fat and hearty as ever,\nand were well furnished with munitions of war--therefore it must be\nthat the Dilsbergers had been bringing these things in through the\nsubterranean passage all the time.\n\nThe children said that there was in truth a subterranean outlet down\nthere, and they would prove it. So they set a great truss of straw on\nfire and threw it down the well, while we leaned on the curb and watched\nthe glowing mass descend. It struck bottom and gradually burned out. No\nsmoke came up. The children clapped their hands and said:\n\n\"You see! Nothing makes so much smoke as burning straw--now where did\nthe smoke go to, if there is no subterranean outlet?\"\n\n\nSo it seemed quite evident that the subterranean outlet indeed existed.\nBut the finest thing within the ruin's limits was a noble linden, which\nthe children said was four hundred years old, and no doubt it was. It\nhad a mighty trunk and a mighty spread of limb and foliage. The limbs\nnear the ground were nearly the thickness of a barrel.\n\nThat tree had witnessed the assaults of men in mail--how remote such a\ntime seems, and how ungraspable is the fact that real men ever did fight\nin real armor!--and it had seen the time when these broken arches and\ncrumbling battlements were a trim and strong and stately fortress,\nfluttering its gay banners in the sun, and peopled with vigorous\nhumanity--how impossibly long ago that seems!--and here it stands yet,\nand possibly may still be standing here, sunning itself and dreaming its\nhistorical dreams, when today shall have been joined to the days called\n\"ancient.\"\n\nWell, we sat down under the tree to smoke, and the captain delivered\nhimself of his legend: THE LEGEND OF DILSBERG CASTLE It was to this\neffect. In the old times there was once a great company assembled at the\ncastle, and festivity ran high. Of course there was a haunted chamber\nin the castle, and one day the talk fell upon that. It was said that\nwhoever slept in it would not wake again for fifty years. Now when a\nyoung knight named Conrad von Geisberg heard this, he said that if the\ncastle were his he would destroy that chamber, so that no foolish person\nmight have the chance to bring so dreadful a misfortune upon himself\nand afflict such as loved him with the memory of it. Straightway, the\ncompany privately laid their heads together to contrive some way to get\nthis superstitious young man to sleep in that chamber.\n\nAnd they succeeded--in this way. They persuaded his betrothed, a lovely\nmischievous young creature, niece of the lord of the castle, to help\nthem in their plot. She presently took him aside and had speech with\nhim. She used all her persuasions, but could not shake him; he said his\nbelief was firm, that if he should sleep there he would wake no more for\nfifty years, and it made him shudder to think of it. Catharina began to\nweep. This was a better argument; Conrad could not hold out against it.\nHe yielded and said she should have her wish if she would only smile and\nbe happy again. She flung her arms about his neck, and the kisses she\ngave him showed that her thankfulness and her pleasure were very real.\nThen she flew to tell the company her success, and the applause she\nreceived made her glad and proud she had undertaken her mission, since\nall alone she had accomplished what the multitude had failed in.\n\nAt midnight, that night, after the usual feasting, Conrad was taken to\nthe haunted chamber and left there. He fell asleep, by and by.\n\nWhen he awoke again and looked about him, his heart stood still with\nhorror! The whole aspect of the chamber was changed. The walls were\nmoldy and hung with ancient cobwebs; the curtains and beddings were\nrotten; the furniture was rickety and ready to fall to pieces. He sprang\nout of bed, but his quaking knees sunk under him and he fell to the\nfloor.\n\n\"This is the weakness of age,\" he said.\n\nHe rose and sought his clothing. It was clothing no longer. The colors\nwere gone, the garments gave way in many places while he was putting\nthem on. He fled, shuddering, into the corridor, and along it to\nthe great hall. Here he was met by a middle-aged stranger of a kind\ncountenance, who stopped and gazed at him with surprise. Conrad said:\n\n\"Good sir, will you send hither the lord Ulrich?\"\n\nThe stranger looked puzzled a moment, then said:\n\n\"The lord Ulrich?\"\n\n\"Yes--if you will be so good.\"\n\n\nThe stranger called--\"Wilhelm!\" A young serving-man came, and the\nstranger said to him:\n\n\"Is there a lord Ulrich among the guests?\"\n\n\"I know none of the name, so please your honor.\"\n\nConrad said, hesitatingly:\n\n\"I did not mean a guest, but the lord of the castle, sir.\"\n\nThe stranger and the servant exchanged wondering glances. Then the\nformer said:\n\n\"I am the lord of the castle.\"\n\n\"Since when, sir?\"\n\n\"Since the death of my father, the good lord Ulrich more than forty\nyears ago.\"\n\nConrad sank upon a bench and covered his face with his hands while he\nrocked his body to and fro and moaned. The stranger said in a low voice\nto the servant:\n\n\"I fear me this poor old creature is mad. Call some one.\"\n\nIn a moment several people came, and grouped themselves about, talking\nin whispers. Conrad looked up and scanned the faces about him wistfully.\n\nThen he shook his head and said, in a grieved voice:\n\n\"No, there is none among ye that I know. I am old and alone in the\nworld. They are dead and gone these many years that cared for me. But\nsure, some of these aged ones I see about me can tell me some little\nword or two concerning them.\"\n\nSeveral bent and tottering men and women came nearer and answered his\nquestions about each former friend as he mentioned the names. This one\nthey said had been dead ten years, that one twenty, another thirty. Each\nsucceeding blow struck heavier and heavier. At last the sufferer said:\n\n\"There is one more, but I have not the courage to--O my lost Catharina!\"\n\nOne of the old dames said:\n\n\"Ah, I knew her well, poor soul. A misfortune overtook her lover, and\nshe died of sorrow nearly fifty years ago. She lieth under the linden\ntree without the court.\"\n\nConrad bowed his head and said:\n\n\"Ah, why did I ever wake! And so she died of grief for me, poor child.\nSo young, so sweet, so good! She never wittingly did a hurtful thing in\nall the little summer of her life. Her loving debt shall be repaid--for\nI will die of grief for her.\"\n\nHis head drooped upon his breast. In the moment there was a wild burst\nof joyous laughter, a pair of round young arms were flung about Conrad's\nneck and a sweet voice cried:\n\n\"There, Conrad mine, thy kind words kill me--the farce shall go no\nfurther! Look up, and laugh with us--'twas all a jest!\"\n\nAnd he did look up, and gazed, in a dazed wonderment--for the disguises\nwere stripped away, and the aged men and women were bright and young and\ngay again. Catharina's happy tongue ran on:\n\n\"'Twas a marvelous jest, and bravely carried out. They gave you a heavy\nsleeping-draught before you went to bed, and in the night they bore you\nto a ruined chamber where all had fallen to decay, and placed these rags\nof clothing by you. And when your sleep was spent and you came forth,\ntwo strangers, well instructed in their parts, were here to meet you;\nand all we, your friends, in our disguises, were close at hand, to see\nand hear, you may be sure. Ah, 'twas a gallant jest! Come, now, and make\nthee ready for the pleasures of the day. How real was thy misery for the\nmoment, thou poor lad! Look up and have thy laugh, now!\"\n\nHe looked up, searched the merry faces about him in a dreamy way, then\nsighed and said:\n\n\n\"I am aweary, good strangers, I pray you lead me to her grave.\"\n\nAll the smile vanished away, every cheek blanched, Catharina sunk to the\nground in a swoon.\n\nAll day the people went about the castle with troubled faces, and\ncommuned together in undertones. A painful hush pervaded the place which\nhad lately been so full of cheery life. Each in his turn tried to arouse\nConrad out of his hallucination and bring him to himself; but all the\nanswer any got was a meek, bewildered stare, and then the words:\n\n\"Good stranger, I have no friends, all are at rest these many years;\nye speak me fair, ye mean me well, but I know ye not; I am alone and\nforlorn in the world--prithee lead me to her grave.\"\n\nDuring two years Conrad spent his days, from the early morning till the\nnight, under the linden tree, mourning over the imaginary grave of his\nCatharina. Catharina was the only company of the harmless madman. He was\nvery friendly toward her because, as he said, in some ways she reminded\nhim of his Catharina whom he had lost \"fifty years ago.\" He often said:\n\n\"She was so gay, so happy-hearted--but you never smile; and always when\nyou think I am not looking, you cry.\"\n\nWhen Conrad died, they buried him under the linden, according to his\ndirections, so that he might rest \"near his poor Catharina.\" Then\nCatharina sat under the linden alone, every day and all day long, a\ngreat many years, speaking to no one, and never smiling; and at last her\nlong repentance was rewarded with death, and she was buried by Conrad's\nside.\n\nHarris pleased the captain by saying it was good legend; and pleased him\nfurther by adding:\n\n\"Now that I have seen this mighty tree, vigorous with its four hundred\nyears, I feel a desire to believe the legend for ITS sake; so I will\nhumor the desire, and consider that the tree really watches over those\npoor hearts and feels a sort of human tenderness for them.\"\n\nWe returned to Necharsteinach, plunged our hot heads into the trough at\nthe town pump, and then went to the hotel and ate our trout dinner in\nleisurely comfort, in the garden, with the beautiful Neckar flowing at\nour feet, the quaint Dilsberg looming beyond, and the graceful towers\nand battlements of a couple of medieval castles (called the \"Swallow's\nNest\" [1] and \"The Brothers.\") assisting the rugged scenery of a bend\nof the river down to our right. We got to sea in season to make the\neight-mile run to Heidelberg before the night shut down. We sailed by\nthe hotel in the mellow glow of sunset, and came slashing down with\nthe mad current into the narrow passage between the dikes. I believed I\ncould shoot the bridge myself, and I went to the forward triplet of logs\nand relieved the pilot of his pole and his responsibility.\n\n   1. The seeker after information is referred to Appendix E\n  for our captain's legend of the \"Swallow's Nest\" and\n  \"The Brothers.\"\n\n\nWe went tearing along in a most exhilarating way, and I performed the\ndelicate duties of my office very well indeed for a first attempt;\nbut perceiving, presently, that I really was going to shoot the bridge\nitself instead of the archway under it, I judiciously stepped ashore.\nThe next moment I had my long-coveted desire: I saw a raft wrecked. It\nhit the pier in the center and went all to smash and scatteration like a\nbox of matches struck by lightning.\n\n\nI was the only one of our party who saw this grand sight; the others\nwere attitudinizing, for the benefit of the long rank of young ladies\nwho were promenading on the bank, and so they lost it. But I helped to\nfish them out of the river, down below the bridge, and then described it\nto them as well as I could.\n\nThey were not interested, though. They said they were wet and felt\nridiculous and did not care anything for descriptions of scenery. The\nyoung ladies, and other people, crowded around and showed a great deal\nof sympathy, but that did not help matters; for my friends said they did\nnot want sympathy, they wanted a back alley and solitude.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\n[My Precious, Priceless Tear-Jug]\n\n\nNext morning brought good news--our trunks had arrived from Hamburg\nat last. Let this be a warning to the reader. The Germans are very\nconscientious, and this trait makes them very particular. Therefore if\nyou tell a German you want a thing done immediately, he takes you\nat your word; he thinks you mean what you say; so he does that thing\nimmediately--according to his idea of immediately--which is about a\nweek; that is, it is a week if it refers to the building of a garment,\nor it is an hour and a half if it refers to the cooking of a trout. Very\nwell; if you tell a German to send your trunk to you by \"slow freight,\"\nhe takes you at your word; he sends it by \"slow freight,\" and you\ncannot imagine how long you will go on enlarging your admiration of the\nexpressiveness of that phrase in the German tongue, before you get that\ntrunk. The hair on my trunk was soft and thick and youthful, when I\ngot it ready for shipment in Hamburg; it was baldheaded when it reached\nHeidelberg. However, it was still sound, that was a comfort, it was\nnot battered in the least; the baggagemen seemed to be conscientiously\ncareful, in Germany, of the baggage entrusted to their hands. There\nwas nothing now in the way of our departure, therefore we set about our\npreparations.\n\nNaturally my chief solicitude was about my collection of Ceramics. Of\ncourse I could not take it with me, that would be inconvenient, and\ndangerous besides. I took advice, but the best brick-a-brackers were\ndivided as to the wisest course to pursue; some said pack the collection\nand warehouse it; others said try to get it into the Grand Ducal Museum\nat Mannheim for safe keeping. So I divided the collection, and followed\nthe advice of both parties. I set aside, for the Museum, those articles\nwhich were the most frail and precious.\n\nAmong these was my Etruscan tear-jug. I have made a little sketch of\nit here; that thing creeping up the side is not a bug, it is a hole.\nI bought this tear-jug of a dealer in antiquities for four hundred and\nfifty dollars. It is very rare. The man said the Etruscans used to keep\ntears or something in these things, and that it was very hard to get\nhold of a broken one, now.\n\n\nI also set aside my Henri II. plate. See sketch from my pencil; it is\nin the main correct, though I think I have foreshortened one end of it\na little too much, perhaps. This is very fine and rare; the shape is\nexceedingly beautiful and unusual. It has wonderful decorations on it,\nbut I am not able to reproduce them. It cost more than the tear-jug, as\nthe dealer said there was not another plate just like it in the\nworld. He said there was much false Henri II ware around, but that the\ngenuineness of this piece was unquestionable.\n\n\nHe showed me its pedigree, or its history, if you please; it was a\ndocument which traced this plate's movements all the way down from its\nbirth--showed who bought it, from whom, and what he paid for it--from\nthe first buyer down to me, whereby I saw that it had gone steadily up\nfrom thirty-five cents to seven hundred dollars. He said that the whole\nCeramic world would be informed that it was now in my possession and\nwould make a note of it, with the price paid. [Figure 8]\n\nThere were Masters in those days, but, alas--it is not so now. Of course\nthe main preciousness of this piece lies in its color; it is that old\nsensuous, pervading, ramifying, interpolating, transboreal blue which is\nthe despair of modern art. The little sketch which I have made of this\ngem cannot and does not do it justice, since I have been obliged to\nleave out the color. But I've got the expression, though.\n\n\nHowever, I must not be frittering away the reader's time with these\ndetails. I did not intend to go into any detail at all, at first, but\nit is the failing of the true ceramiker, or the true devotee in any\ndepartment of brick-a-brackery, that once he gets his tongue or his pen\nstarted on his darling theme, he cannot well stop until he drops from\nexhaustion. He has no more sense of the flight of time than has any\nother lover when talking of his sweetheart. The very \"marks\" on the\nbottom of a piece of rare crockery are able to throw me into a gibbering\necstasy; and I could forsake a drowning relative to help dispute about\nwhether the stopple of a departed Buon Retiro scent-bottle was genuine\nor spurious.\n\n\nMany people say that for a male person, bric-a-brac hunting is about as\nrobust a business as making doll-clothes, or decorating Japanese pots\nwith decalcomania butterflies would be, and these people fling mud at\nthe elegant Englishman, Byng, who wrote a book called THE BRIC-A-BRAC\nHUNTER, and make fun of him for chasing around after what they choose to\ncall \"his despicable trifles\"; and for \"gushing\" over these trifles;\nand for exhibiting his \"deep infantile delight\" in what they call his\n\"tuppenny collection of beggarly trivialities\"; and for beginning his\nbook with a picture of himself seated, in a \"sappy, self-complacent\nattitude, in the midst of his poor little ridiculous bric-a-brac junk\nshop.\"\n\nIt is easy to say these things; it is easy to revile us, easy to despise\nus; therefore, let these people rail on; they cannot feel as Byng and\nI feel--it is their loss, not ours. For my part I am content to be a\nbrick-a-bracker and a ceramiker--more, I am proud to be so named. I am\nproud to know that I lose my reason as immediately in the presence of a\nrare jug with an illustrious mark on the bottom of it, as if I had\njust emptied that jug. Very well; I packed and stored a part of my\ncollection, and the rest of it I placed in the care of the Grand Ducal\nMuseum in Mannheim, by permission. My Old Blue China Cat remains there\nyet. I presented it to that excellent institution.\n\n\nI had but one misfortune with my things. An egg which I had kept back\nfrom breakfast that morning, was broken in packing. It was a great pity.\nI had shown it to the best connoisseurs in Heidelberg, and they all said\nit was an antique. We spent a day or two in farewell visits, and then\nleft for Baden-Baden. We had a pleasant trip to it, for the Rhine valley\nis always lovely. The only trouble was that the trip was too short. If\nI remember rightly it only occupied a couple of hours, therefore I judge\nthat the distance was very little, if any, over fifty miles. We\nquitted the train at Oos, and walked the entire remaining distance to\nBaden-Baden, with the exception of a lift of less than an hour which\nwe got on a passing wagon, the weather being exhaustingly warm. We came\ninto town on foot.\n\nOne of the first persons we encountered, as we walked up the street,\nwas the Rev. Mr. ------, an old friend from America--a lucky encounter,\nindeed, for his is a most gentle, refined, and sensitive nature, and his\ncompany and companionship are a genuine refreshment. We knew he had been\nin Europe some time, but were not at all expecting to run across him.\nBoth parties burst forth into loving enthusiasms, and Rev. Mr. ------\nsaid:\n\n\"I have got a brimful reservoir of talk to pour out on you, and an empty\none ready and thirsting to receive what you have got; we will sit up\ntill midnight and have a good satisfying interchange, for I leave here\nearly in the morning.\" We agreed to that, of course.\n\nI had been vaguely conscious, for a while, of a person who was walking\nin the street abreast of us; I had glanced furtively at him once or\ntwice, and noticed that he was a fine, large, vigorous young fellow,\nwith an open, independent countenance, faintly shaded with a pale and\neven almost imperceptible crop of early down, and that he was clothed\nfrom head to heel in cool and enviable snow-white linen. I thought I had\nalso noticed that his head had a sort of listening tilt to it. Now about\nthis time the Rev. Mr. ------ said:\n\n\"The sidewalk is hardly wide enough for three, so I will walk behind;\nbut keep the talk going, keep the talk going, there's no time to lose,\nand you may be sure I will do my share.\" He ranged himself behind us,\nand straightway that stately snow-white young fellow closed up to the\nsidewalk alongside him, fetched him a cordial slap on the shoulder with\nhis broad palm, and sung out with a hearty cheeriness:\n\n\"AMERICANS for two-and-a-half and the money up! HEY?\"\n\nThe Reverend winced, but said mildly:\n\n\"Yes--we are Americans.\"\n\n\"Lord love you, you can just bet that's what _I_ am, every time! Put it\nthere!\"\n\n\nHe held out his Sahara of his palm, and the Reverend laid his diminutive\nhand in it, and got so cordial a shake that we heard his glove burst\nunder it.\n\n\"Say, didn't I put you up right?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes.\"\n\n\"Sho! I spotted you for MY kind the minute I heard your clack. You been\nover here long?\"\n\n\"About four months. Have you been over long?\"\n\n\"LONG? Well, I should say so! Going on two YEARS, by geeminy! Say, are\nyou homesick?\"\n\n\"No, I can't say that I am. Are you?\"\n\n\"Oh, HELL, yes!\" This with immense enthusiasm.\n\nThe Reverend shrunk a little, in his clothes, and we were aware, rather\nby instinct than otherwise, that he was throwing out signals of distress\nto us; but we did not interfere or try to succor him, for we were quite\nhappy.\n\nThe young fellow hooked his arm into the Reverend's, now, with the\nconfiding and grateful air of a waif who has been longing for a friend,\nand a sympathetic ear, and a chance to lisp once more the sweet accents\nof the mother-tongue--and then he limbered up the muscles of his mouth\nand turned himself loose--and with such a relish! Some of his words were\nnot Sunday-school words, so I am obliged to put blanks where they occur.\n\n\"Yes indeedy! If _I_ ain't an American there AIN'T any Americans, that's\nall. And when I heard you fellows gassing away in the good old American\nlanguage, I'm ------ if it wasn't all I could do to keep from hugging\nyou! My tongue's all warped with trying to curl it around these ------\nforsaken wind-galled nine-jointed German words here; now I TELL you it's\nawful good to lay it over a Christian word once more and kind of let the\nold taste soak it. I'm from western New York. My name is Cholley Adams.\nI'm a student, you know. Been here going on two years. I'm learning to\nbe a horse-doctor! I LIKE that part of it, you know, but ------these\npeople, they won't learn a fellow in his own language, they make him\nlearn in German; so before I could tackle the horse-doctoring I had to\ntackle this miserable language.\n\n\"First off, I thought it would certainly give me the botts, but I don't\nmind now. I've got it where the hair's short, I think; and dontchuknow,\nthey made me learn Latin, too. Now between you and me, I wouldn't give a\n------for all the Latin that was ever jabbered; and the first thing _I_\ncalculate to do when I get through, is to just sit down and forget it.\n'Twon't take me long, and I don't mind the time, anyway. And I tell\nyou what! the difference between school-teaching over yonder and\nschool-teaching over here--sho! WE don't know anything about it! Here\nyou've got to peg and peg and peg and there just ain't any let-up--and\nwhat you learn here, you've got to KNOW, dontchuknow --or else you'll\nhave one of these ------ spavined, spectacles, ring-boned, knock-kneed\nold professors in your hair. I've been here long ENOUGH, and I'm getting\nblessed tired of it, mind I TELL you. The old man wrote me that he was\ncoming over in June, and said he'd take me home in August, whether I was\ndone with my education or not, but durn him, he didn't come; never said\nwhy; just sent me a hamper of Sunday-school books, and told me to\nbe good, and hold on a while. I don't take to Sunday-school books,\ndontchuknow--I don't hanker after them when I can get pie--but I READ\nthem, anyway, because whatever the old man tells me to do, that's the\nthing that I'm a-going to DO, or tear something, you know. I buckled\nin and read all those books, because he wanted me to; but that kind of\nthing don't excite ME, I like something HEARTY. But I'm awful homesick.\nI'm homesick from ear-socket to crupper, and from crupper to hock-joint;\nbut it ain't any use, I've got to stay here, till the old man drops the\nrag and give the word--yes, SIR, right here in this ------ country\nI've got to linger till the old man says COME!--and you bet your bottom\ndollar, Johnny, it AIN'T just as easy as it is for a cat to have twins!\"\n\nAt the end of this profane and cordial explosion he fetched a prodigious\n\"WHOOSH!\" to relieve his lungs and make recognition of the heat, and\nthen he straightway dived into his narrative again for \"Johnny's\"\nbenefit, beginning, \"Well, ------it ain't any use talking, some of those\nold American words DO have a kind of a bully swing to them; a man\ncan EXPRESS himself with 'em--a man can get at what he wants to SAY,\ndontchuknow.\"\n\n\nWhen we reached our hotel and it seemed that he was about to lose the\nReverend, he showed so much sorrow, and begged so hard and so earnestly\nthat the Reverend's heart was not hard enough to hold out against the\npleadings--so he went away with the parent-honoring student, like a\nright Christian, and took supper with him in his lodgings, and sat in\nthe surf-beat of his slang and profanity till near midnight, and then\nleft him--left him pretty well talked out, but grateful \"clear down\nto his frogs,\" as he expressed it. The Reverend said it had transpired\nduring the interview that \"Cholley\" Adams's father was an extensive\ndealer in horses in western New York; this accounted for Cholley's\nchoice of a profession. The Reverend brought away a pretty high opinion\nof Cholley as a manly young fellow, with stuff in him for a useful\ncitizen; he considered him rather a rough gem, but a gem, nevertheless.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\n[Insolent Shopkeepers and Gabbling Americans]\n\n\nBaden-Baden sits in the lap of the hills, and the natural and artificial\nbeauties of the surroundings are combined effectively and charmingly.\nThe level strip of ground which stretches through and beyond the town is\nlaid out in handsome pleasure grounds, shaded by noble trees and adorned\nat intervals with lofty and sparkling fountain-jets. Thrice a day a fine\nband makes music in the public promenade before the Conversation\nHouse, and in the afternoon and evening that locality is populous with\nfashionably dressed people of both sexes, who march back and forth past\nthe great music-stand and look very much bored, though they make a\nshow of feeling otherwise. It seems like a rather aimless and stupid\nexistence. A good many of these people are there for a real purpose,\nhowever; they are racked with rheumatism, and they are there to stew it\nout in the hot baths. These invalids looked melancholy enough, limping\nabout on their canes and crutches, and apparently brooding over all\nsorts of cheerless things. People say that Germany, with her damp stone\nhouses, is the home of rheumatism. If that is so, Providence must have\nforeseen that it would be so, and therefore filled the land with the\nhealing baths. Perhaps no other country is so generously supplied with\nmedicinal springs as Germany. Some of these baths are good for one\nailment, some for another; and again, peculiar ailments are conquered\nby combining the individual virtues of several different baths. For\ninstance, for some forms of disease, the patient drinks the native hot\nwater of Baden-Baden, with a spoonful of salt from the Carlsbad springs\ndissolved in it. That is not a dose to be forgotten right away.\n\nThey don't SELL this hot water; no, you go into the great Trinkhalle,\nand stand around, first on one foot and then on the other, while two or\nthree young girls sit pottering at some sort of ladylike sewing-work\nin your neighborhood and can't seem to see you --polite as three-dollar\nclerks in government offices.\n\n\nBy and by one of these rises painfully, and \"stretches\"--stretches fists\nand body heavenward till she raises her heels from the floor, at the\nsame time refreshing herself with a yawn of such comprehensiveness that\nthe bulk of her face disappears behind her upper lip and one is able to\nsee how she is constructed inside--then she slowly closes her\ncavern, brings down her fists and her heels, comes languidly forward,\ncontemplates you contemptuously, draws you a glass of hot water and sets\nit down where you can get it by reaching for it. You take it and say:\n\n\"How much?\"--and she returns you, with elaborate indifference, a\nbeggar's answer:\n\n\"NACH BELIEBE\" (what you please.)\n\nThis thing of using the common beggar's trick and the common beggar's\nshibboleth to put you on your liberality when you were expecting a\nsimple straightforward commercial transaction, adds a little to your\nprospering sense of irritation. You ignore her reply, and ask again:\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n--and she calmly, indifferently, repeats:\n\n\"NACH BELIEBE.\"\n\nYou are getting angry, but you are trying not to show it; you resolve\nto keep on asking your question till she changes her answer, or at least\nher annoyingly indifferent manner. Therefore, if your case be like mine,\nyou two fools stand there, and without perceptible emotion of any kind,\nor any emphasis on any syllable, you look blandly into each other's\neyes, and hold the following idiotic conversation:\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"NACH BELIEBE.\"\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"NACH BELIEBE.\"\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"NACH BELIEBE.\"\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"NACH BELIEBE.\"\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"NACH BELIEBE.\"\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"NACH BELIEBE.\"\n\nI do not know what another person would have done, but at this point I\ngave up; that cast-iron indifference, that tranquil contemptuousness,\nconquered me, and I struck my colors. Now I knew she was used to\nreceiving about a penny from manly people who care nothing about the\nopinions of scullery-maids, and about tuppence from moral cowards; but\nI laid a silver twenty-five cent piece within her reach and tried to\nshrivel her up with this sarcastic speech:\n\n\"If it isn't enough, will you stoop sufficiently from your official\ndignity to say so?\"\n\nShe did not shrivel. Without deigning to look at me at all, she\nlanguidly lifted the coin and bit it!--to see if it was good. Then she\nturned her back and placidly waddled to her former roost again, tossing\nthe money into an open till as she went along. She was victor to the\nlast, you see.\n\n\nI have enlarged upon the ways of this girl because they are typical;\nher manners are the manners of a goodly number of the Baden-Baden\nshopkeepers. The shopkeeper there swindles you if he can, and insults\nyou whether he succeeds in swindling you or not. The keepers of baths\nalso take great and patient pains to insult you. The frowsy woman who\nsat at the desk in the lobby of the great Friederichsbad and sold bath\ntickets, not only insulted me twice every day, with rigid fidelity\nto her great trust, but she took trouble enough to cheat me out of a\nshilling, one day, to have fairly entitled her to ten. Baden-Baden's\nsplendid gamblers are gone, only her microscopic knaves remain.\n\n\nAn English gentleman who had been living there several years, said:\n\n\"If you could disguise your nationality, you would not find any\ninsolence here. These shopkeepers detest the English and despise the\nAmericans; they are rude to both, more especially to ladies of your\nnationality and mine. If these go shopping without a gentleman or\na man-servant, they are tolerably sure to be subjected to petty\ninsolences--insolences of manner and tone, rather than word, though\nwords that are hard to bear are not always wanting. I know of an\ninstance where a shopkeeper tossed a coin back to an American lady with\nthe remark, snappishly uttered, 'We don't take French money here.' And\nI know of a case where an English lady said to one of these shopkeepers,\n'Don't you think you ask too much for this article?' and he replied with\nthe question, 'Do you think you are obliged to buy it?' However, these\npeople are not impolite to Russians or Germans. And as to rank, they\nworship that, for they have long been used to generals and nobles. If\nyou wish to see what abysses servility can descend, present yourself\nbefore a Baden-Baden shopkeeper in the character of a Russian prince.\"\n\nIt is an inane town, filled with sham, and petty fraud, and snobbery,\nbut the baths are good. I spoke with many people, and they were all\nagreed in that. I had the twinges of rheumatism unceasingly during three\nyears, but the last one departed after a fortnight's bathing there,\nand I have never had one since. I fully believe I left my rheumatism in\nBaden-Baden. Baden-Baden is welcome to it. It was little, but it was\nall I had to give. I would have preferred to leave something that was\ncatching, but it was not in my power.\n\nThere are several hot springs there, and during two thousand years they\nhave poured forth a never-diminishing abundance of the healing water.\nThis water is conducted in pipe to the numerous bath-houses, and is\nreduced to an endurable temperature by the addition of cold water. The\nnew Friederichsbad is a very large and beautiful building, and in it one\nmay have any sort of bath that has ever been invented, and with all\nthe additions of herbs and drugs that his ailment may need or that the\nphysician of the establishment may consider a useful thing to put into\nthe water. You go there, enter the great door, get a bow graduated to\nyour style and clothes from the gorgeous portier, and a bath ticket and\nan insult from the frowsy woman for a quarter; she strikes a bell and\na serving-man conducts you down a long hall and shuts you into a\ncommodious room which has a washstand, a mirror, a bootjack, and a sofa\nin it, and there you undress at your leisure.\n\n\nThe room is divided by a great curtain; you draw this curtain aside, and\nfind a large white marble bathtub, with its rim sunk to the level of the\nfloor, and with three white marble steps leading down to it. This tub\nis full of water which is as clear as crystal, and is tempered to 28\ndegrees Re'aumur (about 95 degrees Fahrenheit). Sunk into the floor, by\nthe tub, is a covered copper box which contains some warm towels and a\nsheet. You look fully as white as an angel when you are stretched out\nin that limpid bath. You remain in it ten minutes, the first time,\nand afterward increase the duration from day to day, till you reach\ntwenty-five or thirty minutes. There you stop. The appointments of the\nplace are so luxurious, the benefit so marked, the price so moderate,\nand the insults so sure, that you very soon find yourself adoring the\nFriederichsbad and infesting it.\n\nWe had a plain, simple, unpretending, good hotel, in Baden-Baden--the\nH\u00f4tel de France--and alongside my room I had a giggling, cackling,\nchattering family who always went to bed just two hours after me and\nalways got up two hours ahead of me. But this is common in German\nhotels; the people generally go to bed long after eleven and get up\nlong before eight. The partitions convey sound like a drum-head, and\neverybody knows it; but no matter, a German family who are all kindness\nand consideration in the daytime make apparently no effort to moderate\ntheir noises for your benefit at night. They will sing, laugh, and talk\nloudly, and bang furniture around in a most pitiless way. If you knock\non your wall appealingly, they will quiet down and discuss the matter\nsoftly among themselves for a moment--then, like the mice, they fall to\npersecuting you again, and as vigorously as before. They keep cruelly\nlate and early hours, for such noisy folk.\n\nOf course, when one begins to find fault with foreign people's ways, he\nis very likely to get a reminder to look nearer home, before he gets far\nwith it. I open my note-book to see if I can find some more information\nof a valuable nature about Baden-Baden, and the first thing I fall upon\nis this:\n\n\"BADEN-BADEN (no date). Lot of vociferous Americans at breakfast\nthis morning. Talking AT everybody, while pretending to talk among\nthemselves. On their first travels, manifestly. Showing off. The usual\nsigns--airy, easy-going references to grand distances and foreign\nplaces. 'Well GOOD-by, old fellow--if I don't run across you in Italy,\nyou hunt me up in London before you sail.'\"\n\nThe next item which I find in my note-book is this one:\n\n\"The fact that a band of 6,000 Indians are now murdering our\nfrontiersmen at their impudent leisure, and that we are only able\nto send 1,200 soldiers against them, is utilized here to discourage\nemigration to America. The common people think the Indians are in New\nJersey.\"\n\n\nThis is a new and peculiar argument against keeping our army down to a\nridiculous figure in the matter of numbers. It is rather a striking\none, too. I have not distorted the truth in saying that the facts in\nthe above item, about the army and the Indians, are made use of to\ndiscourage emigration to America. That the common people should be\nrather foggy in their geography, and foggy as to the location of the\nIndians, is a matter for amusement, maybe, but not of surprise.\n\nThere is an interesting old cemetery in Baden-Baden, and we spent\nseveral pleasant hours in wandering through it and spelling out the\ninscriptions on the aged tombstones. Apparently after a man has laid\nthere a century or two, and has had a good many people buried on top\nof him, it is considered that his tombstone is not needed by him any\nlonger. I judge so from the fact that hundreds of old gravestones have\nbeen removed from the graves and placed against the inner walls of the\ncemetery. What artists they had in the old times! They chiseled angels\nand cherubs and devils and skeletons on the tombstones in the most\nlavish and generous way--as to supply--but curiously grotesque and\noutlandish as to form. It is not always easy to tell which of the\nfigures belong among the blest and which of them among the opposite\nparty. But there was an inscription, in French, on one of those old\nstones, which was quaint and pretty, and was plainly not the work of any\nother than a poet. It was to this effect:\n\nHere Reposes in God, Caroline de Clery, a Religieuse of St. Denis aged\n83 years--and blind. The light was restored to her in Baden the 5th of\nJanuary, 1839\n\nWe made several excursions on foot to the neighboring villages, over\nwinding and beautiful roads and through enchanting woodland scenery.\nThe woods and roads were similar to those at Heidelberg, but not\nso bewitching. I suppose that roads and woods which are up to the\nHeidelberg mark are rare in the world.\n\nOnce we wandered clear away to La Favorita Palace, which is several\nmiles from Baden-Baden. The grounds about the palace were fine; the\npalace was a curiosity. It was built by a Margravine in 1725, and\nremains as she left it at her death. We wandered through a great many\nof its rooms, and they all had striking peculiarities of decoration.\nFor instance, the walls of one room were pretty completely covered\nwith small pictures of the Margravine in all conceivable varieties of\nfanciful costumes, some of them male.\n\nThe walls of another room were covered with grotesquely and elaborately\nfigured hand-wrought tapestry. The musty ancient beds remained in the\nchambers, and their quilts and curtains and canopies were decorated with\ncurious handwork, and the walls and ceilings frescoed with historical\nand mythological scenes in glaring colors. There was enough crazy and\nrotten rubbish in the building to make a true brick-a-bracker green with\nenvy. A painting in the dining-hall verged upon the indelicate--but then\nthe Margravine was herself a trifle indelicate.\n\nIt is in every way a wildly and picturesquely decorated house, and\nbrimful of interest as a reflection of the character and tastes of that\nrude bygone time.\n\nIn the grounds, a few rods from the palace, stands the Margravine's\nchapel, just as she left it--a coarse wooden structure, wholly barren\nof ornament. It is said that the Margravine would give herself up to\ndebauchery and exceedingly fast living for several months at a time,\nand then retire to this miserable wooden den and spend a few months in\nrepenting and getting ready for another good time. She was a devoted\nCatholic, and was perhaps quite a model sort of a Christian as\nChristians went then, in high life.\n\nTradition says she spent the last two years of her life in the strange\nden I have been speaking of, after having indulged herself in one final,\ntriumphant, and satisfying spree. She shut herself up there, without\ncompany, and without even a servant, and so abjured and forsook the\nworld. In her little bit of a kitchen she did her own cooking; she wore\na hair shirt next the skin, and castigated herself with whips--these\naids to grace are exhibited there yet. She prayed and told her beads,\nin another little room, before a waxen Virgin niched in a little box\nagainst the wall; she bedded herself like a slave.\n\nIn another small room is an unpainted wooden table, and behind it sit\nhalf-life-size waxen figures of the Holy Family, made by the very worst\nartist that ever lived, perhaps, and clothed in gaudy, flimsy drapery.\n[1] The margravine used to bring her meals to this table and DINE WITH\nTHE HOLY FAMILY. What an idea that was! What a grisly spectacle it must\nhave been! Imagine it: Those rigid, shock-headed figures, with corpsy\ncomplexions and fish glass eyes, occupying one side of the table in the\nconstrained attitudes and dead fixedness that distinguish all men that\nare born of wax, and this wrinkled, smoldering old fire-eater occupying\nthe other side, mumbling her prayers and munching her sausages in the\nghostly stillness and shadowy indistinctness of a winter twilight. It\nmakes one feel crawly even to think of it.\n\n  [1] The Savior was represented as a lad of about fifteen\n  years of age. This figure had lost one eye.\n\n\nIn this sordid place, and clothed, bedded, and fed like a pauper, this\nstrange princess lived and worshiped during two years, and in it she\ndied. Two or three hundred years ago, this would have made the poor den\nholy ground; and the church would have set up a miracle-factory there\nand made plenty of money out of it. The den could be moved into some\nportions of France and made a good property even now.\n\n\n\n\n\nA TRAMP ABROAD, Part 4.\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n(Samuel L. Clemens)\n\nFirst published in 1880\n\nIllustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition\n\n * * * * * *\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS:\n\n\n     1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR\n     2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0TITIAN'S MOSES\n     3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES\n     119.\u00a0\u00a0BLACK FOREST GRANDEE\n     120.\u00a0\u00a0THE GRANDEE'S DAUGHTER\n     121.\u00a0\u00a0RICH OLD HUSS\n     122.\u00a0\u00a0GRETCHEN\n     123.\u00a0\u00a0PAUL HOCH\n     124.\u00a0\u00a0HANS SCHMIDT\n     125.\u00a0\u00a0ELECTING A NEW MEMBER\n     126.\u00a0\u00a0OVERCOMING OBSTACLES\n     127.\u00a0\u00a0FRIENDS\n     128.\u00a0\u00a0PROSPECTING\n     129.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     130.\u00a0\u00a0A GENERAL HOWL\n     131.\u00a0\u00a0SEEKING A SITUATION\n     132.\u00a0\u00a0STANDING GUARD\n     133.\u00a0\u00a0RESULT OF A JOKE\n     134.\u00a0\u00a0DESCENDING A FARM\n     155.\u00a0\u00a0A GERMAN SABBATH\n     136.\u00a0\u00a0AN OBJECT OF SYMPATHY\n     137.\u00a0\u00a0A NON-CLASSICAL STYLE\n     138.\u00a0\u00a0THE TRADITIONAL CHAMOIS\n     139.\u00a0\u00a0HUNTING CHAMOIS THE TRUE WAY\n     140.\u00a0\u00a0CHAMOIS HUNTER AS REPORTED\n     141.\u00a0\u00a0MARKING ALPENSTOCKS\n     142.\u00a0\u00a0IS SHE EIGHTEEN OR TWENTY\n     143.\u00a0\u00a0I KNEW I WASN'T MISTAKEN\n     144.\u00a0\u00a0HARRIS ASTONISHED\n     145.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     146.\u00a0\u00a0THE LION OF LUCERNE\n     147.\u00a0\u00a0HE LIKED CLOCKS\n     148.\u00a0\u00a0\"I WILL TELL YOU\"\n     149.\u00a0\u00a0COULDN'T WAIT\n     150.\u00a0\u00a0DIDN'T CARE FOR STYLE\n     151.\u00a0\u00a0A PAIR BETTER THAN FOUR\n     152.\u00a0\u00a0TWO WASN'T NECESSARY\n     153.\u00a0\u00a0JUST THE TRICK\n     154.\u00a0\u00a0GOING TO MAKE THEM STARE\n     155.\u00a0\u00a0NOT THROWN AWAY\n     156.\u00a0\u00a0WHAT THE DOCTOR RECOMMENDED\n     157.\u00a0\u00a0WANTED TO FEEL SAFE\n     158.\u00a0\u00a0PREFERRED TO TRAMP ON FOOT\n     159.\u00a0\u00a0DERN A DOG, ANYWAY\n     160.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     161.\u00a0\u00a0THE GLACIER GARDEN\n     162.\u00a0\u00a0LAKE AND MOUNTAINS (MONT PILATUS)\n     163.\u00a0\u00a0MOUNTAIN PATHS\n     164.\u00a0\u00a0\"YOU'RE AN AMERICAN--SO AM I\"\n     165.\u00a0\u00a0ENTERPRISE\n     166.\u00a0\u00a0THE CONSTANT SEARCHER\n     167.\u00a0\u00a0THE MOUNTAIN BOY\n     168.\u00a0\u00a0THE ENGLISHMAN\n     169.\u00a0\u00a0THE JODLER\n     170.\u00a0\u00a0ANOTHER VOCALIST\n     171.\u00a0\u00a0THE FELSENTHOR\n     172.\u00a0\u00a0A VIEW FROM THE STATION\n     173.\u00a0\u00a0LOST IN THE MIST\n     174.\u00a0\u00a0THE RIGI-KULM HOTEL\n     175.\u00a0\u00a0WHAT AWAKENED US\n     176.\u00a0\u00a0A SUMMIT SUNRISE\n     177.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII The Black Forest--A Grandee and his Family--The Wealthy\nNabob--A New Standard of Wealth--Skeleton for a New Novel--Trying\nSituation--The Common Council--Choosing a New Member Studying Natural\nHistory--The Ant a Fraud--Eccentricities of the Ant--His Deceit and\nIgnorance--A German Dish--Boiled Oranges\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII Off for a Day's Tramp--Tramping and Talking--Story\nTelling--Dentistry in Camp--Nicodemus Dodge--Seeking a Situation--A\nButt for Jokes--Jimmy Finn's Skeleton--Descending a Farm--Unexpected\nNotoriety\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV Sunday on the Continent--A Day of Rest--An Incident\nat Church--An Object of Sympathy--Royalty at Church--Public Grounds\nConcert--Power and Grades of Music--Hiring a Courier\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV Lucerne--Beauty of its Lake--The Wild Chamois--A Great\nError Exposed--Methods of Hunting the Chamois--Beauties of Lucerne--The\nAlpenstock--Marking Alpenstocks--Guessing at Nationalities--An American\nParty--An Unexpected Acquaintance--Getting Mixed Up--Following Blind\nTrails--A Happy Half--hour--Defeat and Revenge\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI Commerce of Lucerne--Benefits of Martyrdom--A Bit of\nHistory--The Home of Cuckoo Clocks--A Satisfactory Revenge--The Alan\nWho Put Up at Gadsby's--A Forgotten Story--Wanted to be Postmaster--A\nTennessean at Washington--He Concluded to Stay A While--Application of\nthe Story\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII The Glacier Garden--Excursion on the Lake--Life on the\nMountains--A Specimen Tourist--\"Where're you From?\"--An Advertising\nDodge--A Righteous Verdict--The Guide-book Student--I Believe that's All\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII The Rigi-Kulm--Its Ascent--Stripping for Business--A\nMountain Lad--An English Tourist--Railroad up the Mountain--Villages and\nMountain--The Jodlers--About Ice Water--The Felsenthor--Too Late--Lost\nin the Fog--The Rigi-Kulm Hotel--The Alpine Horn--Sunrise at Night\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\n[The Black Forest and Its Treasures]\n\n\nFrom Baden-Baden we made the customary trip into the Black Forest. We\nwere on foot most of the time. One cannot describe those noble woods,\nnor the feeling with which they inspire him. A feature of the feeling,\nhowever, is a deep sense of contentment; another feature of it is a\nbuoyant, boyish gladness; and a third and very conspicuous feature of\nit is one's sense of the remoteness of the work-day world and his entire\nemancipation from it and its affairs.\n\nThose woods stretch unbroken over a vast region; and everywhere they are\nsuch dense woods, and so still, and so piney and fragrant. The stems of\nthe trees are trim and straight, and in many places all the ground is\nhidden for miles under a thick cushion of moss of a vivid green color,\nwith not a decayed or ragged spot in its surface, and not a fallen leaf\nor twig to mar its immaculate tidiness. A rich cathedral gloom pervades\nthe pillared aisles; so the stray flecks of sunlight that strike a trunk\nhere and a bough yonder are strongly accented, and when they strike the\nmoss they fairly seem to burn. But the weirdest effect, and the most\nenchanting is that produced by the diffused light of the low afternoon\nsun; no single ray is able to pierce its way in, then, but the diffused\nlight takes color from moss and foliage, and pervades the place like\na faint, green-tinted mist, the theatrical fire of fairyland. The\nsuggestion of mystery and the supernatural which haunts the forest at\nall times is intensified by this unearthly glow.\n\nWe found the Black Forest farmhouses and villages all that the Black\nForest stories have pictured them. The first genuine specimen which\nwe came upon was the mansion of a rich farmer and member of the Common\nCouncil of the parish or district. He was an important personage in the\nland and so was his wife also, of course.\n\n\nHis daughter was the \"catch\" of the region, and she may be already\nentering into immortality as the heroine of one of Auerbach's novels,\nfor all I know. We shall see, for if he puts her in I shall recognize\nher by her Black Forest clothes, and her burned complexion, her plump\nfigure, her fat hands, her dull expression, her gentle spirit,\nher generous feet, her bonnetless head, and the plaited tails of\nhemp-colored hair hanging down her back.\n\n\nThe house was big enough for a hotel; it was a hundred feet long and\nfifty wide, and ten feet high, from ground to eaves; but from the eaves\nto the comb of the mighty roof was as much as forty feet, or maybe even\nmore. This roof was of ancient mud-colored straw thatch a foot thick,\nand was covered all over, except in a few trifling spots, with a\nthriving and luxurious growth of green vegetation, mainly moss. The\nmossless spots were places where repairs had been made by the insertion\nof bright new masses of yellow straw. The eaves projected far down, like\nsheltering, hospitable wings. Across the gable that fronted the road,\nand about ten feet above the ground, ran a narrow porch, with a wooden\nrailing; a row of small windows filled with very small panes looked upon\nthe porch. Above were two or three other little windows, one clear up\nunder the sharp apex of the roof. Before the ground-floor door was a\nhuge pile of manure. The door of the second-story room on the side of\nthe house was open, and occupied by the rear elevation of a cow. Was\nthis probably the drawing-room? All of the front half of the house from\nthe ground up seemed to be occupied by the people, the cows, and the\nchickens, and all the rear half by draught-animals and hay. But the\nchief feature, all around this house, was the big heaps of manure.\n\nWe became very familiar with the fertilizer in the Forest. We fell\nunconsciously into the habit of judging of a man's station in life\nby this outward and eloquent sign. Sometimes we said, \"Here is a poor\ndevil, this is manifest.\" When we saw a stately accumulation, we said,\n\"Here is a banker.\" When we encountered a country-seat surrounded by an\nAlpine pomp of manure, we said, \"Doubtless a duke lives here.\"\n\nThe importance of this feature has not been properly magnified in the\nBlack Forest stories. Manure is evidently the Black-Forester's main\ntreasure--his coin, his jewel, his pride, his Old Master, his ceramics,\nhis bric-a-brac, his darling, his title to public consideration, envy,\nveneration, and his first solicitude when he gets ready to make his\nwill. The true Black Forest novel, if it is ever written, will be\nskeletoned somewhat in this way:\n\nSKELETON FOR A BLACK FOREST NOVEL\n\nRich old farmer, named Huss.\n\n\nHas inherited great wealth of manure, and by diligence has added to it.\nIt is double-starred in Baedeker. [1] The Black forest artist paints\nit--his masterpiece. The king comes to see it. Gretchen Huss,\ndaughter and heiress. Paul Hoch, young neighbor, suitor for Gretchen's\nhand--ostensibly; he really wants the manure.\n\n\nHoch has a good many cart-loads of the Black Forest currency himself,\nand therefore is a good catch; but he is sordid, mean, and without\nsentiment, whereas Gretchen is all sentiment and poetry. Hans Schmidt,\nyoung neighbor, full of sentiment, full of poetry, loves Gretchen,\nGretchen loves him. But he has no manure. Old Huss forbids him in the\nhouse. His heart breaks, he goes away to die in the woods, far from the\ncruel world--for he says, bitterly, \"What is man, without manure?\"\n\n1. When Baedeker's guide-books mention a thing and put two stars (**)\nafter it, it means well worth visiting. M.T.\n\n[Interval of six months.]\n\n\nPaul Hoch comes to old Huss and says, \"I am at last as rich as you\nrequired--come and view the pile.\" Old Huss views it and says, \"It is\nsufficient--take her and be happy,\"--meaning Gretchen.\n\n[Interval of two weeks.]\n\nWedding party assembled in old Huss's drawing-room. Hoch placid and\ncontent, Gretchen weeping over her hard fate. Enter old Huss's head\nbookkeeper. Huss says fiercely, \"I gave you three weeks to find out why\nyour books don't balance, and to prove that you are not a defaulter;\nthe time is up--find me the missing property or you go to prison as\na thief.\" Bookkeeper: \"I have found it.\" \"Where?\" Bookkeeper\n(sternly--tragically): \"In the bridegroom's pile!--behold the thief--see\nhim blench and tremble!\" [Sensation.] Paul Hoch: \"Lost, lost!\"--falls\nover the cow in a swoon and is handcuffed. Gretchen: \"Saved!\" Falls over\nthe calf in a swoon of joy, but is caught in the arms of Hans Schmidt,\nwho springs in at that moment. Old Huss: \"What, you here, varlet? Unhand\nthe maid and quit the place.\" Hans (still supporting the insensible\ngirl): \"Never! Cruel old man, know that I come with claims which even\nyou cannot despise.\"\n\n\nHuss: \"What, YOU? name them.\"\n\nHans: \"Listen then. The world has forsaken me, I forsook the world, I\nwandered in the solitude of the forest, longing for death but finding\nnone. I fed upon roots, and in my bitterness I dug for the bitterest,\nloathing the sweeter kind. Digging, three days agone, I struck a manure\nmine!--a Golconda, a limitless Bonanza, of solid manure! I can buy you\nALL, and have mountain ranges of manure left! Ha-ha, NOW thou smilest a\nsmile!\" [Immense sensation.] Exhibition of specimens from the mine. Old\nHuss (enthusiastically): \"Wake her up, shake her up, noble young man,\nshe is yours!\" Wedding takes place on the spot; bookkeeper restored to\nhis office and emoluments; Paul Hoch led off to jail. The Bonanza king\nof the Black Forest lives to a good old age, blessed with the love of\nhis wife and of his twenty-seven children, and the still sweeter envy of\neverybody around.\n\nWe took our noon meal of fried trout one day at the Plow Inn, in a very\npretty village (Ottenhoefen), and then went into the public room to rest\nand smoke. There we found nine or ten Black Forest grandees assembled\naround a table. They were the Common Council of the parish. They had\ngathered there at eight o'clock that morning to elect a new member, and\nthey had now been drinking beer four hours at the new member's expense.\n\n\nThey were men of fifty or sixty years of age, with grave good-natured\nfaces, and were all dressed in the costume made familiar to us by the\nBlack Forest stories; broad, round-topped black felt hats with the brims\ncurled up all round; long red waistcoats with large metal buttons, black\nalpaca coats with the waists up between the shoulders. There were no\nspeeches, there was but little talk, there were no frivolities; the\nCouncil filled themselves gradually, steadily, but surely, with beer,\nand conducted themselves with sedate decorum, as became men of position,\nmen of influence, men of manure.\n\nWe had a hot afternoon tramp up the valley, along the grassy bank of a\nrushing stream of clear water, past farmhouses, water-mills, and no end\nof wayside crucifixes and saints and Virgins. These crucifixes, etc.,\nare set up in memory of departed friends, by survivors, and are almost\nas frequent as telegraph-poles are in other lands.\n\nWe followed the carriage-road, and had our usual luck; we traveled under\na beating sun, and always saw the shade leave the shady places before we\ncould get to them. In all our wanderings we seldom managed to strike\na piece of road at its time for being shady. We had a particularly hot\ntime of it on that particular afternoon, and with no comfort but what we\ncould get out of the fact that the peasants at work away up on the steep\nmountainsides above our heads were even worse off than we were. By and\nby it became impossible to endure the intolerable glare and heat\nany longer; so we struck across the ravine and entered the deep cool\ntwilight of the forest, to hunt for what the guide-book called the \"old\nroad.\"\n\nWe found an old road, and it proved eventually to be the right one,\nthough we followed it at the time with the conviction that it was the\nwrong one. If it was the wrong one there could be no use in hurrying;\ntherefore we did not hurry, but sat down frequently on the soft moss and\nenjoyed the restful quiet and shade of the forest solitudes. There\nhad been distractions in the carriage-road--school-children, peasants,\nwagons, troops of pedestrianizing students from all over Germany--but we\nhad the old road to ourselves.\n\nNow and then, while we rested, we watched the laborious ant at his work.\nI found nothing new in him--certainly nothing to change my opinion of\nhim. It seems to me that in the matter of intellect the ant must be a\nstrangely overrated bird. During many summers, now, I have watched him,\nwhen I ought to have been in better business, and I have not yet come\nacross a living ant that seemed to have any more sense than a dead one.\nI refer to the ordinary ant, of course; I have had no experience of\nthose wonderful Swiss and African ones which vote, keep drilled armies,\nhold slaves, and dispute about religion. Those particular ants may be\nall that the naturalist paints them, but I am persuaded that the\naverage ant is a sham. I admit his industry, of course; he is the\nhardest-working creature in the world--when anybody is looking--but\nhis leather-headedness is the point I make against him. He goes out\nforaging, he makes a capture, and then what does he do? Go home? No--he\ngoes anywhere but home. He doesn't know where home is. His home may be\nonly three feet away--no matter, he can't find it. He makes his capture,\nas I have said; it is generally something which can be of no sort of\nuse to himself or anybody else; it is usually seven times bigger than\nit ought to be; he hunts out the awkwardest place to take hold of it;\nhe lifts it bodily up in the air by main force, and starts; not toward\nhome, but in the opposite direction; not calmly and wisely, but with a\nfrantic haste which is wasteful of his strength; he fetches up against\na pebble, and instead of going around it, he climbs over it backward\ndragging his booty after him, tumbles down on the other side, jumps up\nin a passion, kicks the dust off his clothes, moistens his hands, grabs\nhis property viciously, yanks it this way, then that, shoves it ahead\nof him a moment, turns tail and lugs it after him another moment,\ngets madder and madder, then presently hoists it into the air and goes\ntearing away in an entirely new direction; comes to a weed; it never\noccurs to him to go around it; no, he must climb it; and he does climb\nit, dragging his worthless property to the top--which is as bright\na thing to do as it would be for me to carry a sack of flour from\nHeidelberg to Paris by way of Strasburg steeple; when he gets up there\nhe finds that that is not the place; takes a cursory glance at the\nscenery and either climbs down again or tumbles down, and starts off\nonce more--as usual, in a new direction. At the end of half an hour, he\nfetches up within six inches of the place he started from and lays his\nburden down; meantime he has been over all the ground for two yards\naround, and climbed all the weeds and pebbles he came across. Now he\nwipes the sweat from his brow, strokes his limbs, and then marches\naimlessly off, in as violently a hurry as ever. He does not remember to\nhave ever seen it before; he looks around to see which is not the way\nhome, grabs his bundle and starts; he goes through the same adventures\nhe had before; finally stops to rest, and a friend comes along.\nEvidently the friend remarks that a last year's grasshopper leg is a\nvery noble acquisition, and inquires where he got it.\n\n\nEvidently the proprietor does not remember exactly where he did get\nit, but thinks he got it \"around here somewhere.\" Evidently the friend\ncontracts to help him freight it home. Then, with a judgment peculiarly\nantic (pun not intended), they take hold of opposite ends of that\ngrasshopper leg and begin to tug with all their might in opposite\ndirections. Presently they take a rest and confer together. They decide\nthat something is wrong, they can't make out what. Then they go at\nit again, just as before. Same result. Mutual recriminations follow.\nEvidently each accuses the other of being an obstructionist. They lock\nthemselves together and chew each other's jaws for a while; then they\nroll and tumble on the ground till one loses a horn or a leg and has to\nhaul off for repairs. They make up and go to work again in the same old\ninsane way, but the crippled ant is at a disadvantage; tug as he may,\nthe other one drags off the booty and him at the end of it. Instead\nof giving up, he hangs on, and gets his shins bruised against every\nobstruction that comes in the way. By and by, when that grasshopper leg\nhas been dragged all over the same old ground once more, it is finally\ndumped at about the spot where it originally lay, the two perspiring\nants inspect it thoughtfully and decide that dried grasshopper legs\nare a poor sort of property after all, and then each starts off in a\ndifferent direction to see if he can't find an old nail or something\nelse that is heavy enough to afford entertainment and at the same time\nvalueless enough to make an ant want to own it.\n\nThere in the Black Forest, on the mountainside, I saw an ant go through\nwith such a performance as this with a dead spider of fully ten times\nhis own weight. The spider was not quite dead, but too far gone to\nresist. He had a round body the size of a pea. The little ant--observing\nthat I was noticing--turned him on his back, sunk his fangs into his\nthroat, lifted him into the air and started vigorously off with him,\nstumbling over little pebbles, stepping on the spider's legs and\ntripping himself up, dragging him backward, shoving him bodily ahead,\ndragging him up stones six inches high instead of going around them,\nclimbing weeds twenty times his own height and jumping from their\nsummits--and finally leaving him in the middle of the road to be\nconfiscated by any other fool of an ant that wanted him. I measured the\nground which this ass traversed, and arrived at the conclusion that what\nhe had accomplished inside of twenty minutes would constitute some\nsuch job as this--relatively speaking--for a man; to wit: to strap two\neight-hundred-pound horses together, carry them eighteen hundred feet,\nmainly over (not around) boulders averaging six feet high, and in the\ncourse of the journey climb up and jump from the top of one precipice\nlike Niagara, and three steeples, each a hundred and twenty feet high;\nand then put the horses down, in an exposed place, without anybody to\nwatch them, and go off to indulge in some other idiotic miracle for\nvanity's sake.\n\n\nScience has recently discovered that the ant does not lay up anything\nfor winter use. This will knock him out of literature, to some extent.\nHe does not work, except when people are looking, and only then when the\nobserver has a green, naturalistic look, and seems to be taking notes.\nThis amounts to deception, and will injure him for the Sunday-schools.\nHe has not judgment enough to know what is good to eat from what isn't.\nThis amounts to ignorance, and will impair the world's respect for\nhim. He cannot stroll around a stump and find his way home again. This\namounts to idiocy, and once the damaging fact is established, thoughtful\npeople will cease to look up to him, the sentimental will cease to\nfondle him. His vaunted industry is but a vanity and of no effect, since\nhe never gets home with anything he starts with. This disposes of the\nlast remnant of his reputation and wholly destroys his main usefulness\nas a moral agent, since it will make the sluggard hesitate to go to him\nany more. It is strange, beyond comprehension, that so manifest a humbug\nas the ant has been able to fool so many nations and keep it up so many\nages without being found out.\n\nThe ant is strong, but we saw another strong thing, where we had not\nsuspected the presence of much muscular power before. A toadstool--that\nvegetable which springs to full growth in a single night--had torn loose\nand lifted a matted mass of pine needles and dirt of twice its own bulk\ninto the air, and supported it there, like a column supporting a shed.\nTen thousand toadstools, with the right purchase, could lift a man, I\nsuppose. But what good would it do?\n\nAll our afternoon's progress had been uphill. About five or half past we\nreached the summit, and all of a sudden the dense curtain of the forest\nparted and we looked down into a deep and beautiful gorge and out over a\nwide panorama of wooded mountains with their summits shining in the sun\nand their glade-furrowed sides dimmed with purple shade. The gorge under\nour feet--called Allerheiligen--afforded room in the grassy level at its\nhead for a cozy and delightful human nest, shut away from the world and\nits botherations, and consequently the monks of the old times had not\nfailed to spy it out; and here were the brown and comely ruins of their\nchurch and convent to prove that priests had as fine an instinct seven\nhundred years ago in ferreting out the choicest nooks and corners in a\nland as priests have today.\n\nA big hotel crowds the ruins a little, now, and drives a brisk trade\nwith summer tourists. We descended into the gorge and had a supper which\nwould have been very satisfactory if the trout had not been boiled.\nThe Germans are pretty sure to boil a trout or anything else if left to\ntheir own devices. This is an argument of some value in support of the\ntheory that they were the original colonists of the wild islands of the\ncoast of Scotland. A schooner laden with oranges was wrecked upon one\nof those islands a few years ago, and the gentle savages rendered the\ncaptain such willing assistance that he gave them as many oranges as\nthey wanted. Next day he asked them how they liked them. They shook\ntheir heads and said:\n\n\"Baked, they were tough; and even boiled, they warn't things for a\nhungry man to hanker after.\"\n\nWe went down the glen after supper. It is beautiful--a mixture of sylvan\nloveliness and craggy wildness. A limpid torrent goes whistling down\nthe glen, and toward the foot of it winds through a narrow cleft between\nlofty precipices and hurls itself over a succession of falls. After one\npasses the last of these he has a backward glimpse at the falls which\nis very pleasing--they rise in a seven-stepped stairway of foamy and\nglittering cascades, and make a picture which is as charming as it is\nunusual.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\n\n[Nicodemus Dodge and the Skeleton]\n\n\nWe were satisfied that we could walk to Oppenau in one day, now that\nwe were in practice; so we set out the next morning after breakfast\ndetermined to do it. It was all the way downhill, and we had the\nloveliest summer weather for it. So we set the pedometer and then\nstretched away on an easy, regular stride, down through the cloven\nforest, drawing in the fragrant breath of the morning in deep refreshing\ndraughts, and wishing we might never have anything to do forever but\nwalk to Oppenau and keep on doing it and then doing it over again.\n\nNow, the true charm of pedestrianism does not lie in the walking, or\nin the scenery, but in the talking. The walking is good to time the\nmovement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the brain stirred\nup and active; the scenery and the woodsy smells are good to bear in\nupon a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm and solace to eye and\nsoul and sense; but the supreme pleasure comes from the talk. It is no\nmatter whether one talks wisdom or nonsense, the case is the same, the\nbulk of the enjoyment lies in the wagging of the gladsome jaw and the\nflapping of the sympathetic ear.\n\nAnd what motley variety of subjects a couple of people will casually\nrake over in the course of a day's tramp! There being no constraint,\na change of subject is always in order, and so a body is not likely to\nkeep pegging at a single topic until it grows tiresome. We discussed\neverything we knew, during the first fifteen or twenty minutes, that\nmorning, and then branched out into the glad, free, boundless realm of\nthe things we were not certain about.\n\nHarris said that if the best writer in the world once got the slovenly\nhabit of doubling up his \"haves\" he could never get rid of it while he\nlived. That is to say, if a man gets the habit of saying \"I should\nhave liked to have known more about it\" instead of saying simply and\nsensibly, \"I should have liked to know more about it,\" that man's\ndisease is incurable. Harris said that his sort of lapse is to be found\nin every copy of every newspaper that has ever been printed in English,\nand in almost all of our books. He said he had observed it in Kirkham's\ngrammar and in Macaulay. Harris believed that milk-teeth are commoner in\nmen's mouths than those \"doubled-up haves.\"\n\nI do not know that there have not been moments in the course of the\npresent session when I should have been very glad to have accepted the\nproposal of my noble friend, and to have exchanged parts in some of our\nevenings of work.--[From a Speech of the English Chancellor of the\nExchequer, August, 1879.]\n\nThat changed the subject to dentistry. I said I believed the average\nman dreaded tooth-pulling more than amputation, and that he would yell\nquicker under the former operation than he would under the latter. The\nphilosopher Harris said that the average man would not yell in either\ncase if he had an audience. Then he continued:\n\n\"When our brigade first went into camp on the Potomac, we used to be\nbrought up standing, occasionally, by an ear-splitting howl of anguish.\nThat meant that a soldier was getting a tooth pulled in a tent. But the\nsurgeons soon changed that; they instituted open-air dentistry. There\nnever was a howl afterward--that is, from the man who was having the\ntooth pulled. At the daily dental hour there would always be about five\nhundred soldiers gathered together in the neighborhood of that dental\nchair waiting to see the performance--and help; and the moment the\nsurgeon took a grip on the candidate's tooth and began to lift, every\none of those five hundred rascals would clap his hand to his jaw and\nbegin to hop around on one leg and howl with all the lungs he had!\nIt was enough to raise your hair to hear that variegated and enormous\nunanimous caterwaul burst out!\n\n\nWith so big and so derisive an audience as that, a sufferer wouldn't\nemit a sound though you pulled his head off. The surgeons said that\npretty often a patient was compelled to laugh, in the midst of his\npangs, but that they had never caught one crying out, after the open-air\nexhibition was instituted.\"\n\nDental surgeons suggested doctors, doctors suggested death, death\nsuggested skeletons--and so, by a logical process the conversation\nmelted out of one of these subjects and into the next, until the topic\nof skeletons raised up Nicodemus Dodge out of the deep grave in my\nmemory where he had lain buried and forgotten for twenty-five years.\nWhen I was a boy in a printing-office in Missouri, a loose-jointed,\nlong-legged, tow-headed, jeans-clad countrified cub of about sixteen\nlounged in one day, and without removing his hands from the depths of\nhis trousers pockets or taking off his faded ruin of a slouch hat, whose\nbroken rim hung limp and ragged about his eyes and ears like a bug-eaten\ncabbage leaf, stared indifferently around, then leaned his hip against\nthe editor's table, crossed his mighty brogans, aimed at a distant\nfly from a crevice in his upper teeth, laid him low, and said with\ncomposure:\n\n\"Whar's the boss?\"\n\n\"I am the boss,\" said the editor, following this curious bit of\narchitecture wonderingly along up to its clock-face with his eye.\n\n\"Don't want anybody fur to learn the business, 'tain't likely?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know. Would you like to learn it?\"\n\n\n\"Pap's so po' he cain't run me no mo', so I want to git a show somers if\nI kin, 'taint no diffunce what--I'm strong and hearty, and I don't turn\nmy back on no kind of work, hard nur soft.\"\n\n\"Do you think you would like to learn the printing business?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't re'ly k'yer a durn what I DO learn, so's I git a chance\nfur to make my way. I'd jist as soon learn print'n's anything.\"\n\n\"Can you read?\"\n\n\"Yes--middlin'.\"\n\n\"Write?\"\n\n\"Well, I've seed people could lay over me thar.\"\n\n\"Cipher?\"\n\n\"Not good enough to keep store, I don't reckon, but up as fur as\ntwelve-times-twelve I ain't no slouch. 'Tother side of that is what gits\nme.\"\n\n\"Where is your home?\"\n\n\"I'm f'm old Shelby.\"\n\n\"What's your father's religious denomination?\"\n\n\"Him? Oh, he's a blacksmith.\"\n\n\"No, no--I don't mean his trade. What's his RELIGIOUS DENOMINATION?\"\n\n\"OH--I didn't understand you befo'. He's a Freemason.\"\n\n\"No, no, you don't get my meaning yet. What I mean is, does he belong to\nany CHURCH?\"\n\n\"NOW you're talkin'! Couldn't make out what you was a-tryin' to git\nthrough yo' head no way. B'long to a CHURCH! Why, boss, he's ben the\npizenest kind of Free-will Babtis' for forty year. They ain't no pizener\nones 'n what HE is. Mighty good man, pap is. Everybody says that. If\nthey said any diffrunt they wouldn't say it whar I wuz--not MUCH they\nwouldn't.\"\n\n\"What is your own religion?\"\n\n\"Well, boss, you've kind o' got me, there--and yit you hain't got me so\nmighty much, nuther. I think 't if a feller he'ps another feller when\nhe's in trouble, and don't cuss, and don't do no mean things, nur\nnoth'n' he ain' no business to do, and don't spell the Saviour's name\nwith a little g, he ain't runnin' no resks--he's about as saift as he\nb'longed to a church.\"\n\n\"But suppose he did spell it with a little g--what then?\"\n\n\"Well, if he done it a-purpose, I reckon he wouldn't stand no chance--he\nOUGHTN'T to have no chance, anyway, I'm most rotten certain 'bout that.\"\n\n\"What is your name?\"\n\n\"Nicodemus Dodge.\"\n\n\"I think maybe you'll do, Nicodemus. We'll give you a trial, anyway.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\n\"When would you like to begin?\"\n\n\"Now.\"\n\nSo, within ten minutes after we had first glimpsed this nondescript he\nwas one of us, and with his coat off and hard at it.\n\nBeyond that end of our establishment which was furthest from the street,\nwas a deserted garden, pathless, and thickly grown with the bloomy and\nvillainous \"jimpson\" weed and its common friend the stately sunflower.\nIn the midst of this mournful spot was a decayed and aged little \"frame\"\nhouse with but one room, one window, and no ceiling--it had been a\nsmoke-house a generation before. Nicodemus was given this lonely and\nghostly den as a bedchamber.\n\nThe village smarties recognized a treasure in Nicodemus, right away--a\nbutt to play jokes on. It was easy to see that he was inconceivably\ngreen and confiding. George Jones had the glory of perpetrating the\nfirst joke on him; he gave him a cigar with a firecracker in it and\nwinked to the crowd to come; the thing exploded presently and swept away\nthe bulk of Nicodemus's eyebrows and eyelashes. He simply said:\n\n\"I consider them kind of seeg'yars dangersome,\"--and seemed to suspect\nnothing. The next evening Nicodemus waylaid George and poured a bucket\nof ice-water over him.\n\nOne day, while Nicodemus was in swimming, Tom McElroy \"tied\" his\nclothes. Nicodemus made a bonfire of Tom's by way of retaliation.\n\nA third joke was played upon Nicodemus a day or two later--he walked\nup the middle aisle of the village church, Sunday night, with a staring\nhandbill pinned between his shoulders. The joker spent the remainder\nof the night, after church, in the cellar of a deserted house, and\nNicodemus sat on the cellar door till toward breakfast-time to make\nsure that the prisoner remembered that if any noise was made, some rough\ntreatment would be the consequence. The cellar had two feet of stagnant\nwater in it, and was bottomed with six inches of soft mud.\n\n\nBut I wander from the point. It was the subject of skeletons that\nbrought this boy back to my recollection. Before a very long time\nhad elapsed, the village smarties began to feel an uncomfortable\nconsciousness of not having made a very shining success out of their\nattempts on the simpleton from \"old Shelby.\" Experimenters grew scarce\nand chary. Now the young doctor came to the rescue. There was delight\nand applause when he proposed to scare Nicodemus to death, and explained\nhow he was going to do it. He had a noble new skeleton--the skeleton of\nthe late and only local celebrity, Jimmy Finn, the village drunkard--a\ngrisly piece of property which he had bought of Jimmy Finn himself, at\nauction, for fifty dollars, under great competition, when Jimmy lay very\nsick in the tan-yard a fortnight before his death. The fifty dollars had\ngone promptly for whiskey and had considerably hurried up the change of\nownership in the skeleton. The doctor would put Jimmy Finn's skeleton in\nNicodemus's bed!\n\nThis was done--about half past ten in the evening. About Nicodemus's\nusual bedtime--midnight--the village jokers came creeping stealthily\nthrough the jimpson weeds and sunflowers toward the lonely frame den.\nThey reached the window and peeped in. There sat the long-legged pauper,\non his bed, in a very short shirt, and nothing more; he was dangling\nhis legs contentedly back and forth, and wheezing the music of \"Camptown\nRaces\" out of a paper-overlaid comb which he was pressing against his\nmouth; by him lay a new jewsharp, a new top, and solid india-rubber\nball, a handful of painted marbles, five pounds of \"store\" candy, and\na well-gnawed slab of gingerbread as big and as thick as a volume of\nsheet-music. He had sold the skeleton to a traveling quack for three\ndollars and was enjoying the result!\n\n\nJust as we had finished talking about skeletons and were drifting into\nthe subject of fossils, Harris and I heard a shout, and glanced up the\nsteep hillside. We saw men and women standing away up there looking\nfrightened, and there was a bulky object tumbling and floundering down\nthe steep slope toward us. We got out of the way, and when the object\nlanded in the road it proved to be a boy. He had tripped and fallen, and\nthere was nothing for him to do but trust to luck and take what might\ncome.\n\nWhen one starts to roll down a place like that, there is no stopping\ntill the bottom is reached. Think of people FARMING on a slant which is\nso steep that the best you can say of it--if you want to be fastidiously\naccurate--is, that it is a little steeper than a ladder and not quite\nso steep as a mansard roof. But that is what they do. Some of the little\nfarms on the hillside opposite Heidelberg were stood up \"edgeways.\"\nThe boy was wonderfully jolted up, and his head was bleeding, from cuts\nwhich it had got from small stones on the way.\n\n\nHarris and I gathered him up and set him on a stone, and by that time\nthe men and women had scampered down and brought his cap.\n\nMen, women, and children flocked out from neighboring cottages\nand joined the crowd; the pale boy was petted, and stared at, and\ncommiserated, and water was brought for him to drink and bathe his\nbruises in. And such another clatter of tongues! All who had seen the\ncatastrophe were describing it at once, and each trying to talk louder\nthan his neighbor; and one youth of a superior genius ran a little way\nup the hill, called attention, tripped, fell, rolled down among us, and\nthus triumphantly showed exactly how the thing had been done.\n\nHarris and I were included in all the descriptions; how we were coming\nalong; how Hans Gross shouted; how we looked up startled; how we saw\nPeter coming like a cannon-shot; how judiciously we got out of the way,\nand let him come; and with what presence of mind we picked him up and\nbrushed him off and set him on a rock when the performance was over.\nWe were as much heroes as anybody else, except Peter, and were so\nrecognized; we were taken with Peter and the populace to Peter's\nmother's cottage, and there we ate bread and cheese, and drank milk and\nbeer with everybody, and had a most sociable good time; and when we left\nwe had a handshake all around, and were receiving and shouting back LEB'\nWOHL's until a turn in the road separated us from our cordial and kindly\nnew friends forever.\n\nWe accomplished our undertaking. At half past eight in the evening\nwe stepped into Oppenau, just eleven hours and a half out of\nAllerheiligen--one hundred and forty-six miles. This is the distance by\npedometer; the guide-book and the Imperial Ordinance maps make it only\nten and a quarter--a surprising blunder, for these two authorities are\nusually singularly accurate in the matter of distances.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV\n\n[I Protect the Empress of Germany]\n\n\nThat was a thoroughly satisfactory walk--and the only one we were ever\nto have which was all the way downhill. We took the train next morning\nand returned to Baden-Baden through fearful fogs of dust. Every seat was\ncrowded, too; for it was Sunday, and consequently everybody was taking\na \"pleasure\" excursion. Hot! the sky was an oven--and a sound one,\ntoo, with no cracks in it to let in any air. An odd time for a pleasure\nexcursion, certainly!\n\nSunday is the great day on the continent--the free day, the happy day.\nOne can break the Sabbath in a hundred ways without committing any sin.\n\nWe do not work on Sunday, because the commandment forbids it; the\nGermans do not work on Sunday, because the commandment forbids it. We\nrest on Sunday, because the commandment requires it; the Germans rest on\nSunday because the commandment requires it. But in the definition of\nthe word \"rest\" lies all the difference. With us, its Sunday meaning\nis, stay in the house and keep still; with the Germans its Sunday and\nweek-day meanings seem to be the same--rest the TIRED PART, and never\nmind the other parts of the frame; rest the tired part, and use the\nmeans best calculated to rest that particular part. Thus: If one's\nduties have kept him in the house all the week, it will rest him to\nbe out on Sunday; if his duties have required him to read weighty and\nserious matter all the week, it will rest him to read light matter on\nSunday; if his occupation has busied him with death and funerals all the\nweek, it will rest him to go to the theater Sunday night and put in two\nor three hours laughing at a comedy; if he is tired with digging ditches\nor felling trees all the week, it will rest him to lie quiet in the\nhouse on Sunday; if the hand, the arm, the brain, the tongue, or any\nother member, is fatigued with inanition, it is not to be rested by\naddeding a day's inanition; but if a member is fatigued with exertion,\ninanition is the right rest for it. Such is the way in which the Germans\nseem to define the word \"rest\"; that is to say, they rest a member by\nrecreating, recuperating, restoring its forces. But our definition is\nless broad. We all rest alike on Sunday--by secluding ourselves and\nkeeping still, whether that is the surest way to rest the most of us or\nnot. The Germans make the actors, the preachers, etc., work on Sunday.\nWe encourage the preachers, the editors, the printers, etc., to work on\nSunday, and imagine that none of the sin of it falls upon us; but I do\nnot know how we are going to get around the fact that if it is wrong for\nthe printer to work at his trade on Sunday it must be equally wrong for\nthe preacher to work at his, since the commandment has made no exception\nin his favor. We buy Monday morning's paper and read it, and thus\nencourage Sunday printing. But I shall never do it again.\n\n\nThe Germans remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy, by abstaining\nfrom work, as commanded; we keep it holy by abstaining from work, as\ncommanded, and by also abstaining from play, which is not commanded.\nPerhaps we constructively BREAK the command to rest, because the resting\nwe do is in most cases only a name, and not a fact.\n\nThese reasonings have sufficed, in a measure, to mend the rent in my\nconscience which I made by traveling to Baden-Baden that Sunday. We\narrived in time to furbish up and get to the English church before\nservices began. We arrived in considerable style, too, for the landlord\nhad ordered the first carriage that could be found, since there was no\ntime to lose, and our coachman was so splendidly liveried that we were\nprobably mistaken for a brace of stray dukes; why else were we honored\nwith a pew all to ourselves, away up among the very elect at the left of\nthe chancel? That was my first thought. In the pew directly in front of\nus sat an elderly lady, plainly and cheaply dressed; at her side sat\na young lady with a very sweet face, and she also was quite simply\ndressed; but around us and about us were clothes and jewels which it\nwould do anybody's heart good to worship in.\n\nI thought it was pretty manifest that the elderly lady was embarrassed\nat finding herself in such a conspicuous place arrayed in such cheap\napparel; I began to feel sorry for her and troubled about her. She\ntried to seem very busy with her prayer-book and her responses, and\nunconscious that she was out of place, but I said to myself, \"She is\nnot succeeding--there is a distressed tremulousness in her voice which\nbetrays increasing embarrassment.\" Presently the Savior's name was\nmentioned, and in her flurry she lost her head completely, and rose and\ncourtesied, instead of making a slight nod as everybody else did. The\nsympathetic blood surged to my temples and I turned and gave those fine\nbirds what I intended to be a beseeching look, but my feelings got the\nbetter of me and changed it into a look which said, \"If any of you pets\nof fortune laugh at this poor soul, you will deserve to be flayed for\nit.\" Things went from bad to worse, and I shortly found myself mentally\ntaking the unfriended lady under my protection. My mind was wholly upon\nher. I forgot all about the sermon. Her embarrassment took stronger\nand stronger hold upon her; she got to snapping the lid of her\nsmelling-bottle--it made a loud, sharp sound, but in her trouble she\nsnapped and snapped away, unconscious of what she was doing. The last\nextremity was reached when the collection-plate began its rounds; the\nmoderate people threw in pennies, the nobles and the rich contributed\nsilver, but she laid a twenty-mark gold piece upon the book-rest before\nher with a sounding slap! I said to myself, \"She has parted with all her\nlittle hoard to buy the consideration of these unpitying people--it is a\nsorrowful spectacle.\" I did not venture to look around this time; but\nas the service closed, I said to myself, \"Let them laugh, it is their\nopportunity; but at the door of this church they shall see her step into\nour fine carriage with us, and our gaudy coachman shall drive her home.\"\n\n\nThen she rose--and all the congregation stood while she walked down the\naisle. She was the Empress of Germany!\n\nNo--she had not been so much embarrassed as I had supposed. My\nimagination had got started on the wrong scent, and that is always\nhopeless; one is sure, then, to go straight on misinterpreting\neverything, clear through to the end. The young lady with her imperial\nMajesty was a maid of honor--and I had been taking her for one of her\nboarders, all the time.\n\nThis is the only time I have ever had an Empress under my personal\nprotection; and considering my inexperience, I wonder I got through\nwith it so well. I should have been a little embarrassed myself if I had\nknown earlier what sort of a contract I had on my hands.\n\nWe found that the Empress had been in Baden-Baden several days. It is\nsaid that she never attends any but the English form of church service.\n\nI lay abed and read and rested from my journey's fatigues the remainder\nof that Sunday, but I sent my agent to represent me at the afternoon\nservice, for I never allow anything to interfere with my habit of\nattending church twice every Sunday.\n\nThere was a vast crowd in the public grounds that night to hear the band\nplay the \"Fremersberg.\" This piece tells one of the old legends of the\nregion; how a great noble of the Middle Ages got lost in the mountains,\nand wandered about with his dogs in a violent storm, until at last\nthe faint tones of a monastery bell, calling the monks to a midnight\nservice, caught his ear, and he followed the direction the sounds came\nfrom and was saved. A beautiful air ran through the music, without\nceasing, sometimes loud and strong, sometimes so soft that it could\nhardly be distinguished--but it was always there; it swung grandly along\nthrough the shrill whistling of the storm-wind, the rattling patter of\nthe rain, and the boom and crash of the thunder; it wound soft and low\nthrough the lesser sounds, the distant ones, such as the throbbing\nof the convent bell, the melodious winding of the hunter's horn, the\ndistressed bayings of his dogs, and the solemn chanting of the monks;\nit rose again, with a jubilant ring, and mingled itself with the country\nsongs and dances of the peasants assembled in the convent hall to\ncheer up the rescued huntsman while he ate his supper. The instruments\nimitated all these sounds with a marvelous exactness. More than one man\nstarted to raise his umbrella when the storm burst forth and the sheets\nof mimic rain came driving by; it was hardly possible to keep from\nputting your hand to your hat when the fierce wind began to rage and\nshriek; and it was NOT possible to refrain from starting when those\nsudden and charmingly real thunder-crashes were let loose.\n\n\nI suppose the \"Fremersberg\" is a very low-grade music; I know, indeed,\nthat it MUST be low-grade music, because it delighted me, warmed me,\nmoved me, stirred me, uplifted me, enraptured me, that I was full of\ncry all the time, and mad with enthusiasm. My soul had never had such a\nscouring out since I was born. The solemn and majestic chanting of the\nmonks was not done by instruments, but by men's voices; and it rose\nand fell, and rose again in that rich confusion of warring sounds, and\npulsing bells, and the stately swing of that ever-present enchanting\nair, and it seemed to me that nothing but the very lowest of low-grade\nmusic COULD be so divinely beautiful. The great crowd which the\n\"Fremersberg\" had called out was another evidence that it was low-grade\nmusic; for only the few are educated up to a point where high-grade\nmusic gives pleasure. I have never heard enough classic music to be able\nto enjoy it. I dislike the opera because I want to love it and can't.\n\nI suppose there are two kinds of music--one kind which one feels, just\nas an oyster might, and another sort which requires a higher faculty,\na faculty which must be assisted and developed by teaching. Yet if base\nmusic gives certain of us wings, why should we want any other? But we\ndo. We want it because the higher and better like it. We want it without\ngiving it the necessary time and trouble; so we climb into that upper\ntier, that dress-circle, by a lie; we PRETEND we like it. I know several\nof that sort of people--and I propose to be one of them myself when I\nget home with my fine European education.\n\nAnd then there is painting. What a red rag is to a bull, Turner's \"Slave\nShip\" was to me, before I studied art. Mr. Ruskin is educated in art\nup to a point where that picture throws him into as mad an ecstasy of\npleasure as it used to throw me into one of rage, last year, when I was\nignorant. His cultivation enables him--and me, now--to see water in that\nglaring yellow mud, and natural effects in those lurid explosions\nof mixed smoke and flame, and crimson sunset glories; it reconciles\nhim--and me, now--to the floating of iron cable-chains and other\nunfloatable things; it reconciles us to fishes swimming around on top\nof the mud--I mean the water. The most of the picture is a manifest\nimpossibility--that is to say, a lie; and only rigid cultivation can\nenable a man to find truth in a lie. But it enabled Mr. Ruskin to do\nit, and it has enabled me to do it, and I am thankful for it. A Boston\nnewspaper reporter went and took a look at the Slave Ship floundering\nabout in that fierce conflagration of reds and yellows, and said it\nreminded him of a tortoise-shell cat having a fit in a platter\nof tomatoes. In my then uneducated state, that went home to my\nnon-cultivation, and I thought here is a man with an unobstructed eye.\nMr. Ruskin would have said: This person is an ass. That is what I would\nsay, now.\n\nMonths after this was written, I happened into the National Gallery in\nLondon, and soon became so fascinated with the Turner pictures that I\ncould hardly get away from the place. I went there often, afterward,\nmeaning to see the rest of the gallery, but the Turner spell was too\nstrong; it could not be shaken off. However, the Turners which attracted\nme most did not remind me of the Slave Ship.\n\nHowever, our business in Baden-Baden this time, was to join our courier.\nI had thought it best to hire one, as we should be in Italy, by and by,\nand we did not know the language. Neither did he. We found him at the\nhotel, ready to take charge of us. I asked him if he was \"all fixed.\" He\nsaid he was. That was very true. He had a trunk, two small satchels,\nand an umbrella. I was to pay him fifty-five dollars a month and railway\nfares. On the continent the railway fare on a trunk is about the same\nit is on a man. Couriers do not have to pay any board and lodging. This\nseems a great saving to the tourist--at first. It does not occur to the\ntourist that SOMEBODY pays that man's board and lodging. It occurs to\nhim by and by, however, in one of his lucid moments.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\n\n[Hunted by the Little Chamois]\n\n\nNext morning we left in the train for Switzerland, and reached Lucerne\nabout ten o'clock at night. The first discovery I made was that the\nbeauty of the lake had not been exaggerated. Within a day or two I made\nanother discovery. This was, that the lauded chamois is not a wild goat;\nthat it is not a horned animal; that it is not shy; that it does not\navoid human society; and that there is no peril in hunting it.\n\n\nThe chamois is a black or brown creature no bigger than a mustard seed;\nyou do not have to go after it, it comes after you; it arrives in vast\nherds and skips and scampers all over your body, inside your clothes;\nthus it is not shy, but extremely sociable; it is not afraid of man, on\nthe contrary, it will attack him; its bite is not dangerous, but neither\nis it pleasant; its activity has not been overstated --if you try to put\nyour finger on it, it will skip a thousand times its own length at one\njump, and no eye is sharp enough to see where it lights. A great deal\nof romantic nonsense has been written about the Swiss chamois and the\nperils of hunting it, whereas the truth is that even women and children\nhunt it, and fearlessly; indeed, everybody hunts it; the hunting is\ngoing on all the time, day and night, in bed and out of it. It is poetic\nfoolishness to hunt it with a gun; very few people do that; there is\nnot one man in a million who can hit it with a gun. It is much easier to\ncatch it than it is to shoot it, and only the experienced chamois-hunter\ncan do either. Another common piece of exaggeration is that about the\n\"scarcity\" of the chamois. It is the reverse of scarce. Droves of one\nhundred million chamois are not unusual in the Swiss hotels. Indeed,\nthey are so numerous as to be a great pest. The romancers always dress\nup the chamois-hunter in a fanciful and picturesque costume, whereas the\nbest way to hunt this game is to do it without any costume at all.\n\n\nThe article of commerce called chamois-skin is another fraud; nobody\ncould skin a chamois, it is too small. The creature is a humbug in\nevery way, and everything which has been written about it is sentimental\nexaggeration. It was no pleasure to me to find the chamois out, for he\nhad been one of my pet illusions; all my life it had been my dream to\nsee him in his native wilds some day, and engage in the adventurous\nsport of chasing him from cliff to cliff. It is no pleasure to me to\nexpose him, now, and destroy the reader's delight in him and respect for\nhim, but still it must be done, for when an honest writer discovers an\nimposition it is his simple duty to strip it bare and hurl it down from\nits place of honor, no matter who suffers by it; any other course would\nrender him unworthy of the public confidence.\n\nLucerne is a charming place. It begins at the water's edge, with a\nfringe of hotels, and scrambles up and spreads itself over two or three\nsharp hills in a crowded, disorderly, but picturesque way, offering\nto the eye a heaped-up confusion of red roofs, quaint gables, dormer\nwindows, toothpick steeples, with here and there a bit of ancient\nembattled wall bending itself over the ridges, worm-fashion, and here\nand there an old square tower of heavy masonry. And also here and there\na town clock with only one hand--a hand which stretches across the dial\nand has no joint in it; such a clock helps out the picture, but you\ncannot tell the time of day by it. Between the curving line of hotels\nand the lake is a broad avenue with lamps and a double rank of low shade\ntrees. The lake-front is walled with masonry like a pier, and has\na railing, to keep people from walking overboard. All day long the\nvehicles dash along the avenue, and nurses, children, and tourists sit\nin the shade of the trees, or lean on the railing and watch the schools\nof fishes darting about in the clear water, or gaze out over the lake\nat the stately border of snow-hooded mountain peaks. Little pleasure\nsteamers, black with people, are coming and going all the time; and\neverywhere one sees young girls and young men paddling about in fanciful\nrowboats, or skimming along by the help of sails when there is any wind.\nThe front rooms of the hotels have little railed balconies, where one\nmay take his private luncheon in calm, cool comfort and look down upon\nthis busy and pretty scene and enjoy it without having to do any of the\nwork connected with it.\n\nMost of the people, both male and female, are in walking costume, and\ncarry alpenstocks. Evidently, it is not considered safe to go about in\nSwitzerland, even in town, without an alpenstock. If the tourist forgets\nand comes down to breakfast without his alpenstock he goes back and gets\nit, and stands it up in the corner. When his touring in Switzerland is\nfinished, he does not throw that broomstick away, but lugs it home\nwith him, to the far corners of the earth, although this costs him\nmore trouble and bother than a baby or a courier could. You see, the\nalpenstock is his trophy; his name is burned upon it; and if he has\nclimbed a hill, or jumped a brook, or traversed a brickyard with it, he\nhas the names of those places burned upon it, too.\n\n\nThus it is his regimental flag, so to speak, and bears the record of his\nachievements. It is worth three francs when he buys it, but a bonanza\ncould not purchase it after his great deeds have been inscribed upon it.\nThere are artisans all about Switzerland whose trade it is to burn\nthese things upon the alpenstock of the tourist. And observe, a man is\nrespected in Switzerland according to his alpenstock. I found I could\nget no attention there, while I carried an unbranded one. However,\nbranding is not expected, so I soon remedied that. The effect upon\nthe next detachment of tourists was very marked. I felt repaid for my\ntrouble.\n\nHalf of the summer horde in Switzerland is made up of English people;\nthe other half is made up of many nationalities, the Germans leading and\nthe Americans coming next. The Americans were not as numerous as I had\nexpected they would be.\n\nThe seven-thirty table d'h\u00f4te at the great Schweitzerhof furnished\na mighty array and variety of nationalities, but it offered a better\nopportunity to observe costumes than people, for the multitude sat\nat immensely long tables, and therefore the faces were mainly seen in\nperspective; but the breakfasts were served at small round tables,\nand then if one had the fortune to get a table in the midst of the\nassemblage he could have as many faces to study as he could desire.\nWe used to try to guess out the nationalities, and generally succeeded\ntolerably well. Sometimes we tried to guess people's names; but that\nwas a failure; that is a thing which probably requires a good deal of\npractice. We presently dropped it and gave our efforts to less difficult\nparticulars. One morning I said:\n\n\"There is an American party.\"\n\nHarris said:\n\n\"Yes--but name the state.\"\n\nI named one state, Harris named another. We agreed upon one thing,\nhowever--that the young girl with the party was very beautiful, and\nvery tastefully dressed. But we disagreed as to her age. I said she was\neighteen, Harris said she was twenty. The dispute between us waxed warm,\nand I finally said, with a pretense of being in earnest:\n\n\"Well, there is one way to settle the matter--I will go and ask her.\"\n\n\nHarris said, sarcastically, \"Certainly, that is the thing to do. All you\nneed to do is to use the common formula over here: go and say, 'I'm an\nAmerican!' Of course she will be glad to see you.\"\n\nThen he hinted that perhaps there was no great danger of my venturing to\nspeak to her.\n\nI said, \"I was only talking--I didn't intend to approach her, but I see\nthat you do not know what an intrepid person I am. I am not afraid of\nany woman that walks. I will go and speak to this young girl.\"\n\nThe thing I had in my mind was not difficult. I meant to address her\nin the most respectful way and ask her to pardon me if her strong\nresemblance to a former acquaintance of mine was deceiving me; and when\nshe should reply that the name I mentioned was not the name she bore, I\nmeant to beg pardon again, most respectfully, and retire. There would be\nno harm done. I walked to her table, bowed to the gentleman, then turned\nto her and was about to begin my little speech when she exclaimed:\n\n\"I KNEW I wasn't mistaken--I told John it was you! John said it probably\nwasn't, but I knew I was right. I said you would recognize me presently\nand come over; and I'm glad you did, for I shouldn't have felt much\nflattered if you had gone out of this room without recognizing me.\nSit down, sit down--how odd it is--you are the last person I was ever\nexpecting to see again.\"\n\n\nThis was a stupefying surprise. It took my wits clear away, for an\ninstant. However, we shook hands cordially all around, and I sat down.\nBut truly this was the tightest place I ever was in. I seemed to vaguely\nremember the girl's face, now, but I had no idea where I had seen it\nbefore, or what name belonged with it. I immediately tried to get up a\ndiversion about Swiss scenery, to keep her from launching into topics\nthat might betray that I did not know her, but it was of no use, she\nwent right along upon matters which interested her more:\n\n\"Oh dear, what a night that was, when the sea washed the forward boats\naway--do you remember it?\"\n\n\"Oh, DON'T I!\" said I--but I didn't. I wished the sea had washed the\nrudder and the smoke-stack and the captain away--then I could have\nlocated this questioner.\n\n\"And don't you remember how frightened poor Mary was, and how she\ncried?\"\n\n\"Indeed I do!\" said I. \"Dear me, how it all comes back!\"\n\nI fervently wished it WOULD come back--but my memory was a blank. The\nwise way would have been to frankly own up; but I could not bring myself\nto do that, after the young girl had praised me so for recognizing her;\nso I went on, deeper and deeper into the mire, hoping for a chance clue\nbut never getting one. The Unrecognizable continued, with vivacity:\n\n\"Do you know, George married Mary, after all?\"\n\n\"Why, no! Did he?\"\n\n\"Indeed he did. He said he did not believe she was half as much to blame\nas her father was, and I thought he was right. Didn't you?\"\n\n\"Of course he was. It was a perfectly plain case. I always said so.\"\n\n\"Why, no you didn't!--at least that summer.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, not that summer. No, you are perfectly right about that. It was\nthe following winter that I said it.\"\n\n\"Well, as it turned out, Mary was not in the least to blame --it was all\nher father's fault--at least his and old Darley's.\"\n\nIt was necessary to say something--so I said:\n\n\"I always regarded Darley as a troublesome old thing.\"\n\n\"So he was, but then they always had a great affection for him, although\nhe had so many eccentricities. You remember that when the weather was\nthe least cold, he would try to come into the house.\"\n\nI was rather afraid to proceed. Evidently Darley was not a man--he\nmust be some other kind of animal--possibly a dog, maybe an elephant.\nHowever, tails are common to all animals, so I ventured to say:\n\n\"And what a tail he had!\"\n\n\"ONE! He had a thousand!\"\n\nThis was bewildering. I did not quite know what to say, so I only said:\n\n\"Yes, he WAS rather well fixed in the matter of tails.\"\n\n\"For a negro, and a crazy one at that, I should say he was,\" said she.\n\nIt was getting pretty sultry for me. I said to myself, \"Is it possible\nshe is going to stop there, and wait for me to speak? If she does, the\nconversation is blocked. A negro with a thousand tails is a topic which\na person cannot talk upon fluently and instructively without more or\nless preparation. As to diving rashly into such a vast subject--\"\n\nBut here, to my gratitude, she interrupted my thoughts by saying:\n\n\"Yes, when it came to tales of his crazy woes, there was simply no\nend to them if anybody would listen. His own quarters were comfortable\nenough, but when the weather was cold, the family were sure to have his\ncompany--nothing could keep him out of the house. But they always bore\nit kindly because he had saved Tom's life, years before. You remember\nTom?\n\n\"Oh, perfectly. Fine fellow he was, too.\"\n\n\"Yes he was. And what a pretty little thing his child was!\"\n\n\"You may well say that. I never saw a prettier child.\"\n\n\"I used to delight to pet it and dandle it and play with it.\"\n\n\"So did I.\"\n\n\"You named it. What WAS that name? I can't call it to mind.\"\n\nIt appeared to me that the ice was getting pretty thin, here. I would\nhave given something to know what the child's was. However, I had the\ngood luck to think of a name that would fit either sex--so I brought it\nout:\n\n\"I named it Frances.\"\n\n\"From a relative, I suppose? But you named the one that died, too--one\nthat I never saw. What did you call that one?\"\n\nI was out of neutral names, but as the child was dead and she had\nnever seen it, I thought I might risk a name for it and trust to luck.\nTherefore I said:\n\n\"I called that one Thomas Henry.\"\n\nShe said, musingly:\n\n\"That is very singular ... very singular.\"\n\nI sat still and let the cold sweat run down. I was in a good deal of\ntrouble, but I believed I could worry through if she wouldn't ask me\nto name any more children. I wondered where the lightning was going to\nstrike next. She was still ruminating over that last child's title, but\npresently she said:\n\n\"I have always been sorry you were away at the time--I would have had\nyou name my child.\"\n\n\"YOUR child! Are you married?\"\n\n\"I have been married thirteen years.\"\n\n\"Christened, you mean.\"\n\n`\"No, married. The youth by your side is my son.\"\n\n\"It seems incredible--even impossible. I do not mean any harm by it, but\nwould you mind telling me if you are any over eighteen?--that is to say,\nwill you tell me how old you are?\"\n\n\"I was just nineteen the day of the storm we were talking about. That\nwas my birthday.\"\n\nThat did not help matters, much, as I did not know the date of the\nstorm. I tried to think of some non-committal thing to say, to keep up\nmy end of the talk, and render my poverty in the matter of reminiscences\nas little noticeable as possible, but I seemed to be about out of\nnon-committal things. I was about to say, \"You haven't changed a bit\nsince then\"--but that was risky. I thought of saying, \"You have improved\never so much since then\"--but that wouldn't answer, of course. I was\nabout to try a shy at the weather, for a saving change, when the girl\nslipped in ahead of me and said:\n\n\"How I have enjoyed this talk over those happy old times--haven't you?\"\n\n\"I never have spent such a half-hour in all my life before!\" said I,\nwith emotion; and I could have added, with a near approach to truth,\n\"and I would rather be scalped than spend another one like it.\" I was\nholily grateful to be through with the ordeal, and was about to make my\ngood-bys and get out, when the girl said:\n\n\"But there is one thing that is ever so puzzling to me.\"\n\n\"Why, what is that?\"\n\n\"That dead child's name. What did you say it was?\"\n\nHere was another balmy place to be in: I had forgotten the child's name;\nI hadn't imagined it would be needed again. However, I had to pretend to\nknow, anyway, so I said:\n\n\"Joseph William.\"\n\nThe youth at my side corrected me, and said:\n\n\"No, Thomas Henry.\"\n\nI thanked him--in words--and said, with trepidation:\n\n\"O yes--I was thinking of another child that I named--I have named\na great many, and I get them confused--this one was named Henry\nThompson--\"\n\n\"Thomas Henry,\" calmly interposed the boy.\n\nI thanked him again--strictly in words--and stammered out:\n\n\"Thomas Henry--yes, Thomas Henry was the poor child's name. I named\nhim for Thomas--er--Thomas Carlyle, the great author, you know--and\nHenry--er--er--Henry the Eighth. The parents were very grateful to have\na child named Thomas Henry.\"\n\n\"That makes it more singular than ever,\" murmured my beautiful friend.\n\n\"Does it? Why?\"\n\n\"Because when the parents speak of that child now, they always call it\nSusan Amelia.\"\n\nThat spiked my gun. I could not say anything. I was entirely out of\nverbal obliquities; to go further would be to lie, and that I would not\ndo; so I simply sat still and suffered--sat mutely and resignedly there,\nand sizzled--for I was being slowly fried to death in my own blushes.\nPresently the enemy laughed a happy laugh and said:\n\n\"I HAVE enjoyed this talk over old times, but you have not. I saw very\nsoon that you were only pretending to know me, and so as I had wasted a\ncompliment on you in the beginning, I made up my mind to punish you. And\nI have succeeded pretty well. I was glad to see that you knew George and\nTom and Darley, for I had never heard of them before and therefore could\nnot be sure that you had; and I was glad to learn the names of those\nimaginary children, too. One can get quite a fund of information out\nof you if one goes at it cleverly. Mary and the storm, and the sweeping\naway of the forward boats, were facts--all the rest was fiction. Mary\nwas my sister; her full name was Mary ------. NOW do you remember me?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"I do remember you now; and you are as hard-headed as you\nwere thirteen years ago in that ship, else you wouldn't have punished me\nso. You haven't changed your nature nor your person, in any way at all;\nyou look as young as you did then, you are just as beautiful as you were\nthen, and you have transmitted a deal of your comeliness to this fine\nboy. There--if that speech moves you any, let's fly the flag of truce,\nwith the understanding that I am conquered and confess it.\"\n\nAll of which was agreed to and accomplished, on the spot. When I went\nback to Harris, I said:\n\n\"Now you see what a person with talent and address can do.\"\n\n\"Excuse me, I see what a person of colossal ignorance and simplicity can\ndo. The idea of your going and intruding on a party of strangers, that\nway, and talking for half an hour; why I never heard of a man in his\nright mind doing such a thing before. What did you say to them?\"\n\n\n\"I never said any harm. I merely asked the girl what her name was.\"\n\n\"I don't doubt it. Upon my word I don't. I think you were capable of it.\nIt was stupid in me to let you go over there and make such an exhibition\nof yourself. But you know I couldn't really believe you would do such an\ninexcusable thing. What will those people think of us? But how did you\nsay it?--I mean the manner of it. I hope you were not abrupt.\"\n\n\"No, I was careful about that. I said, 'My friend and I would like to\nknow what your name is, if you don't mind.'\"\n\n\"No, that was not abrupt. There is a polish about it that does you\ninfinite credit. And I am glad you put me in; that was a delicate\nattention which I appreciate at its full value. What did she do?\"\n\n\"She didn't do anything in particular. She told me her name.\"\n\n\"Simply told you her name. Do you mean to say she did not show any\nsurprise?\"\n\n\"Well, now I come to think, she did show something; maybe it was\nsurprise; I hadn't thought of that--I took it for gratification.\"\n\n\"Oh, undoubtedly you were right; it must have been gratification; it\ncould not be otherwise than gratifying to be assaulted by a stranger\nwith such a question as that. Then what did you do?\"\n\n\"I offered my hand and the party gave me a shake.\"\n\n\"I saw it! I did not believe my own eyes, at the time. Did the gentleman\nsay anything about cutting your throat?\"\n\n\"No, they all seemed glad to see me, as far as I could judge.\"\n\n\"And do you know, I believe they were. I think they said to themselves,\n'Doubtless this curiosity has got away from his keeper--let us amuse\nourselves with him.' There is no other way of accounting for their\nfacile docility. You sat down. Did they ASK you to sit down?\"\n\n\"No, they did not ask me, but I suppose they did not think of it.\"\n\n\"You have an unerring instinct. What else did you do? What did you talk\nabout?\"\n\n\"Well, I asked the girl how old she was.\"\n\n\"UNdoubtedly. Your delicacy is beyond praise. Go on, go on--don't mind\nmy apparent misery--I always look so when I am steeped in a profound and\nreverent joy. Go on--she told you her age?\"\n\n\"Yes, she told me her age, and all about her mother, and her\ngrandmother, and her other relations, and all about herself.\"\n\n\"Did she volunteer these statistics?\"\n\n\"No, not exactly that. I asked the questions and she answered them.\"\n\n\"This is divine. Go on--it is not possible that you forgot to inquire\ninto her politics?\"\n\n\"No, I thought of that. She is a democrat, her husband is a republican,\nand both of them are Baptists.\"\n\n\"Her husband? Is that child married?\"\n\n\"She is not a child. She is married, and that is her husband who is\nthere with her.\"\n\n\"Has she any children.\"\n\n\"Yes--seven and a half.\"\n\n\"That is impossible.\"\n\n\"No, she has them. She told me herself.\"\n\n\"Well, but seven and a HALF? How do you make out the half? Where does\nthe half come in?\"\n\n\"There is a child which she had by another husband--not this one\nbut another one--so it is a stepchild, and they do not count in full\nmeasure.\"\n\n\"Another husband? Has she another husband?\"\n\n\"Yes, four. This one is number four.\"\n\n\"I don't believe a word of it. It is impossible, upon its face. Is that\nboy there her brother?\"\n\n\"No, that is her son. He is her youngest. He is not as old as he looked;\nhe is only eleven and a half.\"\n\n\"These things are all manifestly impossible. This is a wretched\nbusiness. It is a plain case: they simply took your measure, and\nconcluded to fill you up. They seem to have succeeded. I am glad I am\nnot in the mess; they may at least be charitable enough to think there\nain't a pair of us. Are they going to stay here long?\"\n\n\"No, they leave before noon.\"\n\n\"There is one man who is deeply grateful for that. How did you find out?\nYou asked, I suppose?\"\n\n\"No, along at first I inquired into their plans, in a general way, and\nthey said they were going to be here a week, and make trips round about;\nbut toward the end of the interview, when I said you and I would tour\naround with them with pleasure, and offered to bring you over and\nintroduce you, they hesitated a little, and asked if you were from the\nsame establishment that I was. I said you were, and then they said they\nhad changed their mind and considered it necessary to start at once and\nvisit a sick relative in Siberia.\"\n\n\"Ah, me, you struck the summit! You struck the loftiest altitude of\nstupidity that human effort has ever reached. You shall have a monument\nof jackasses' skulls as high as the Strasburg spire if you die before\nI do. They wanted to know I was from the same 'establishment' that you\nhailed from, did they? What did they mean by 'establishment'?\"\n\n\"I don't know; it never occurred to me to ask.\"\n\n\"Well I know. They meant an asylum--an IDIOT asylum, do you understand?\nSo they DO think there's a pair of us, after all. Now what do you think\nof yourself?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know. I didn't know I was doing any harm; I didn't MEAN\nto do any harm. They were very nice people, and they seemed to like me.\"\n\nHarris made some rude remarks and left for his bedroom--to break some\nfurniture, he said. He was a singularly irascible man; any little thing\nwould disturb his temper.\n\nI had been well scorched by the young woman, but no matter, I took it\nout on Harris. One should always \"get even\" in some way, else the sore\nplace will go on hurting.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI\n\n[The Nest of the Cuckoo-clock]\n\n\nThe Hofkirche is celebrated for its organ concerts. All summer long the\ntourists flock to that church about six o'clock in the evening, and pay\ntheir franc, and listen to the noise. They don't stay to hear all of\nit, but get up and tramp out over the sounding stone floor, meeting late\ncomers who tramp in in a sounding and vigorous way. This tramping\nback and forth is kept up nearly all the time, and is accented by\nthe continuous slamming of the door, and the coughing and barking and\nsneezing of the crowd. Meantime, the big organ is booming and crashing\nand thundering away, doing its best to prove that it is the biggest and\nbest organ in Europe, and that a tight little box of a church is the\nmost favorable place to average and appreciate its powers in. It is\ntrue, there were some soft and merciful passages occasionally, but the\ntramp-tramp of the tourists only allowed one to get fitful glimpses of\nthem, so to speak. Then right away the organist would let go another\navalanche.\n\nThe commerce of Lucerne consists mainly in gimcrackery of the souvenir\nsort; the shops are packed with Alpine crystals, photographs of\nscenery, and wooden and ivory carvings. I will not conceal the fact that\nminiature figures of the Lion of Lucerne are to be had in them. Millions\nof them. But they are libels upon him, every one of them. There is a\nsubtle something about the majestic pathos of the original which the\ncopyist cannot get. Even the sun fails to get it; both the photographer\nand the carver give you a dying lion, and that is all. The shape is\nright, the attitude is right, the proportions are right, but that\nindescribable something which makes the Lion of Lucerne the most\nmournful and moving piece of stone in the world, is wanting.\n\nThe Lion lies in his lair in the perpendicular face of a low cliff--for\nhe is carved from the living rock of the cliff. His size is colossal,\nhis attitude is noble. His head is bowed, the broken spear is sticking\nin his shoulder, his protecting paw rests upon the lilies of France.\nVines hang down the cliff and wave in the wind, and a clear stream\ntrickles from above and empties into a pond at the base, and in the\nsmooth surface of the pond the lion is mirrored, among the water-lilies.\n\n\nAround about are green trees and grass. The place is a sheltered,\nreposeful woodland nook, remote from noise and stir and confusion--and\nall this is fitting, for lions do die in such places, and not on granite\npedestals in public squares fenced with fancy iron railings. The Lion of\nLucerne would be impressive anywhere, but nowhere so impressive as where\nhe is.\n\nMartyrdom is the luckiest fate that can befall some people. Louis XVI\ndid not die in his bed, consequently history is very gentle with him;\nshe is charitable toward his failings, and she finds in him high virtues\nwhich are not usually considered to be virtues when they are lodged in\nkings. She makes him out to be a person with a meek and modest spirit,\nthe heart of a female saint, and a wrong head. None of these qualities\nare kingly but the last. Taken together they make a character which\nwould have fared harshly at the hands of history if its owner had had\nthe ill luck to miss martyrdom. With the best intentions to do the right\nthing, he always managed to do the wrong one. Moreover, nothing could\nget the female saint out of him. He knew, well enough, that in national\nemergencies he must not consider how he ought to act, as a man, but how\nhe ought to act as a king; so he honestly tried to sink the man and be\nthe king--but it was a failure, he only succeeded in being the female\nsaint. He was not instant in season, but out of season. He could not be\npersuaded to do a thing while it could do any good--he was iron, he was\nadamant in his stubbornness then--but as soon as the thing had reached a\npoint where it would be positively harmful to do it, do it he would, and\nnothing could stop him. He did not do it because it would be harmful,\nbut because he hoped it was not yet too late to achieve by it the good\nwhich it would have done if applied earlier. His comprehension was\nalways a train or two behindhand. If a national toe required amputating,\nhe could not see that it needed anything more than poulticing; when\nothers saw that the mortification had reached the knee, he first\nperceived that the toe needed cutting off--so he cut it off; and he\nsevered the leg at the knee when others saw that the disease had reached\nthe thigh. He was good, and honest, and well meaning, in the matter of\nchasing national diseases, but he never could overtake one. As a private\nman, he would have been lovable; but viewed as a king, he was strictly\ncontemptible.\n\nHis was a most unroyal career, but the most pitiable spectacle in it was\nhis sentimental treachery to his Swiss guard on that memorable 10th of\nAugust, when he allowed those heroes to be massacred in his cause, and\nforbade them to shed the \"sacred French blood\" purporting to be flowing\nin the veins of the red-capped mob of miscreants that was raging around\nthe palace. He meant to be kingly, but he was only the female saint once\nmore. Some of his biographers think that upon this occasion the spirit\nof Saint Louis had descended upon him. It must have found pretty cramped\nquarters. If Napoleon the First had stood in the shoes of Louis XVI that\nday, instead of being merely a casual and unknown looker-on, there would\nbe no Lion of Lucerne, now, but there would be a well-stocked Communist\ngraveyard in Paris which would answer just as well to remember the 10th\nof August by.\n\nMartyrdom made a saint of Mary Queen of Scots three hundred years ago,\nand she has hardly lost all of her saintship yet. Martyrdom made a saint\nof the trivial and foolish Marie Antoinette, and her biographers\nstill keep her fragrant with the odor of sanctity to this day, while\nunconsciously proving upon almost every page they write that the only\ncalamitous instinct which her husband lacked, she supplied--the instinct\nto root out and get rid of an honest, able, and loyal official, wherever\nshe found him. The hideous but beneficent French Revolution would have\nbeen deferred, or would have fallen short of completeness, or even\nmight not have happened at all, if Marie Antoinette had made the unwise\nmistake of not being born. The world owes a great deal to the French\nRevolution, and consequently to its two chief promoters, Louis the Poor\nin Spirit and his queen.\n\nWe did not buy any wooden images of the Lion, nor any ivory or ebony\nor marble or chalk or sugar or chocolate ones, or even any photographic\nslanders of him. The truth is, these copies were so common, so\nuniversal, in the shops and everywhere, that they presently became as\nintolerable to the wearied eye as the latest popular melody usually\nbecomes to the harassed ear. In Lucerne, too, the wood carvings of\nother sorts, which had been so pleasant to look upon when one saw them\noccasionally at home, soon began to fatigue us. We grew very tired\nof seeing wooden quails and chickens picking and strutting around\nclock-faces, and still more tired of seeing wooden images of the alleged\nchamois skipping about wooden rocks, or lying upon them in family\ngroups, or peering alertly up from behind them. The first day, I would\nhave bought a hundred and fifty of these clocks if I had the money--and\nI did buy three--but on the third day the disease had run its course,\nI had convalesced, and was in the market once more--trying to sell.\nHowever, I had no luck; which was just as well, for the things will be\npretty enough, no doubt, when I get them home.\n\nFor years my pet aversion had been the cuckoo clock; now here I was, at\nlast, right in the creature's home; so wherever I went that distressing\n\"HOO'hoo! HOO'hoo! HOO'hoo!\" was always in my ears. For a nervous man,\nthis was a fine state of things. Some sounds are hatefuler than others,\nbut no sound is quite so inane, and silly, and aggravating as the\n\"HOO'hoo\" of a cuckoo clock, I think. I bought one, and am carrying it\nhome to a certain person; for I have always said that if the opportunity\never happened, I would do that man an ill turn.\n\n\nWhat I meant, was, that I would break one of his legs, or something of\nthat sort; but in Lucerne I instantly saw that I could impair his mind.\nThat would be more lasting, and more satisfactory every way. So I bought\nthe cuckoo clock; and if I ever get home with it, he is \"my meat,\" as\nthey say in the mines. I thought of another candidate--a book-reviewer\nwhom I could name if I wanted to--but after thinking it over, I didn't\nbuy him a clock. I couldn't injure his mind.\n\nWe visited the two long, covered wooden bridges which span the green and\nbrilliant Reuss just below where it goes plunging and hurrahing out\nof the lake. These rambling, sway-backed tunnels are very attractive\nthings, with their alcoved outlooks upon the lovely and inspiriting\nwater. They contain two or three hundred queer old pictures, by old\nSwiss masters--old boss sign-painters, who flourished before the\ndecadence of art.\n\nThe lake is alive with fishes, plainly visible to the eye, for the water\nis very clear. The parapets in front of the hotels were usually fringed\nwith fishers of all ages. One day I thought I would stop and see a\nfish caught. The result brought back to my mind, very forcibly, a\ncircumstance which I had not thought of before for twelve years. This\none:\n\nTHE MAN WHO PUT UP AT GADSBY'S\n\nWhen my odd friend Riley and I were newspaper correspondents in\nWashington, in the winter of '67, we were coming down Pennsylvania\nAvenue one night, near midnight, in a driving storm of snow, when the\nflash of a street-lamp fell upon a man who was eagerly tearing along in\nthe opposite direction. \"This is lucky! You are Mr. Riley, ain't you?\"\n\nRiley was the most self-possessed and solemnly deliberate person in the\nrepublic. He stopped, looked his man over from head to foot, and finally\nsaid:\n\n\"I am Mr. Riley. Did you happen to be looking for me?\"\n\n\"That's just what I was doing,\" said the man, joyously, \"and it's the\nbiggest luck in the world that I've found you. My name is Lykins. I'm\none of the teachers of the high school--San Francisco. As soon as I\nheard the San Francisco postmastership was vacant, I made up my mind to\nget it--and here I am.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Riley, slowly, \"as you have remarked ... Mr. Lykins ... here\nyou are. And have you got it?\"\n\n\"Well, not exactly GOT it, but the next thing to it. I've brought a\npetition, signed by the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and all\nthe teachers, and by more than two hundred other people. Now I want you,\nif you'll be so good, to go around with me to the Pacific delegation,\nfor I want to rush this thing through and get along home.\"\n\n\"If the matter is so pressing, you will prefer that we visit the\ndelegation tonight,\" said Riley, in a voice which had nothing mocking in\nit--to an unaccustomed ear.\n\n\"Oh, tonight, by all means! I haven't got any time to fool around. I\nwant their promise before I go to bed--I ain't the talking kind, I'm the\nDOING kind!\"\n\n\"Yes ... you've come to the right place for that. When did you arrive?\"\n\n\"Just an hour ago.\"\n\n\"When are you intending to leave?\"\n\n\"For New York tomorrow evening--for San Francisco next morning.\"\n\n\"Just so.... What are you going to do tomorrow?\"\n\n\"DO! Why, I've got to go to the President with the petition and the\ndelegation, and get the appointment, haven't I?\"\n\n\"Yes ... very true ... that is correct. And then what?\"\n\n\"Executive session of the Senate at 2 P.M.--got to get the appointment\nconfirmed--I reckon you'll grant that?\"\n\n\"Yes ... yes,\" said Riley, meditatively, \"you are right again. Then\nyou take the train for New York in the evening, and the steamer for San\nFrancisco next morning?\"\n\n\"That's it--that's the way I map it out!\"\n\nRiley considered a while, and then said:\n\n\"You couldn't stay ... a day ... well, say two days longer?\"\n\n\"Bless your soul, no! It's not my style. I ain't a man to go fooling\naround--I'm a man that DOES things, I tell you.\"\n\nThe storm was raging, the thick snow blowing in gusts. Riley stood\nsilent, apparently deep in a reverie, during a minute or more, then he\nlooked up and said:\n\n\"Have you ever heard about that man who put up at Gadsby's, once? ...\nBut I see you haven't.\"\n\nHe backed Mr. Lykins against an iron fence, buttonholed him, fastened\nhim with his eye, like the Ancient Mariner, and proceeded to unfold\nhis narrative as placidly and peacefully as if we were all stretched\ncomfortably in a blossomy summer meadow instead of being persecuted by a\nwintry midnight tempest:\n\n\n\"I will tell you about that man. It was in Jackson's time. Gadsby's was\nthe principal hotel, then. Well, this man arrived from Tennessee\nabout nine o'clock, one morning, with a black coachman and a splendid\nfour-horse carriage and an elegant dog, which he was evidently fond\nof and proud of; he drove up before Gadsby's, and the clerk and the\nlandlord and everybody rushed out to take charge of him, but he said,\n'Never mind,' and jumped out and told the coachman to wait--\n\n\nsaid he hadn't time to take anything to eat, he only had a little claim\nagainst the government to collect, would run across the way, to\nthe Treasury, and fetch the money, and then get right along back to\nTennessee, for he was in considerable of a hurry.\n\n\"Well, about eleven o'clock that night he came back and ordered a bed\nand told them to put the horses up--said he would collect the claim in\nthe morning. This was in January, you understand--January, 1834--the 3d\nof January--Wednesday.\n\n\n\"Well, on the 5th of February, he sold the fine carriage, and bought\na cheap second-hand one--said it would answer just as well to take the\nmoney home in, and he didn't care for style.\n\n\"On the 11th of August he sold a pair of the fine horses--said he'd\noften thought a pair was better than four, to go over the rough mountain\nroads with where a body had to be careful about his driving--and there\nwasn't so much of his claim but he could lug the money home with a pair\neasy enough.\n\n\n\"On the 13th of December he sold another horse--said two warn't\nnecessary to drag that old light vehicle with--in fact, one could snatch\nit along faster than was absolutely necessary, now that it was good\nsolid winter weather and the roads in splendid condition.\n\n\n\"On the 17th of February, 1835, he sold the old carriage and bought a\ncheap second-hand buggy--said a buggy was just the trick to skim along\nmushy, slushy early spring roads with, and he had always wanted to try a\nbuggy on those mountain roads, anyway.\n\n\n\"On the 1st August he sold the buggy and bought the remains of an old\nsulky--said he just wanted to see those green Tennesseans stare and gawk\nwhen they saw him come a-ripping along in a sulky--didn't believe they'd\never heard of a sulky in their lives.\n\n\n\"Well, on the 29th of August he sold his colored coachman--said he\ndidn't need a coachman for a sulky--wouldn't be room enough for two in\nit anyway--and, besides, it wasn't every day that Providence sent a man\na fool who was willing to pay nine hundred dollars for such a third-rate\nnegro as that--been wanting to get rid of the creature for years, but\ndidn't like to THROW him away.\n\n\n\"Eighteen months later--that is to say, on the 15th of February,\n1837--he sold the sulky and bought a saddle--said horseback-riding was\nwhat the doctor had always recommended HIM to take, and dog'd if he\nwanted to risk HIS neck going over those mountain roads on wheels in the\ndead of winter, not if he knew himself.\n\n\n\"On the 9th of April he sold the saddle--said he wasn't going to risk\nHIS life with any perishable saddle-girth that ever was made, over a\nrainy, miry April road, while he could ride bareback and know and feel\nhe was safe--always HAD despised to ride on a saddle, anyway.\n\n\n\"On the 24th of April he sold his horse--said 'I'm just fifty-seven\ntoday, hale and hearty--it would be a PRETTY howdy-do for me to be\nwasting such a trip as that and such weather as this, on a horse, when\nthere ain't anything in the world so splendid as a tramp on foot through\nthe fresh spring woods and over the cheery mountains, to a man that IS\na man--and I can make my dog carry my claim in a little bundle, anyway,\nwhen it's collected. So tomorrow I'll be up bright and early, make my\nlittle old collection, and mosey off to Tennessee, on my own hind legs,\nwith a rousing good-by to Gadsby's.'\n\n\n\"On the 22d of June he sold his dog--said 'Dern a dog, anyway, where\nyou're just starting off on a rattling bully pleasure tramp through the\nsummer woods and hills--perfect nuisance--chases the squirrels, barks\nat everything, goes a-capering and splattering around in the fords--man\ncan't get any chance to reflect and enjoy nature--and I'd a blamed sight\nruther carry the claim myself, it's a mighty sight safer; a dog's\nmighty uncertain in a financial way--always noticed it--well, GOOD-by,\nboys--last call--I'm off for Tennessee with a good leg and a gay heart,\nearly in the morning.'\"\n\n\nThere was a pause and a silence--except the noise of the wind and the\npelting snow. Mr. Lykins said, impatiently:\n\n\"Well?\"\n\nRiley said:\n\n\"Well,--that was thirty years ago.\"\n\n\"Very well, very well--what of it?\"\n\n\"I'm great friends with that old patriarch. He comes every evening to\ntell me good-by. I saw him an hour ago--he's off for Tennessee early\ntomorrow morning--as usual; said he calculated to get his claim through\nand be off before night-owls like me have turned out of bed. The tears\nwere in his eyes, he was so glad he was going to see his old Tennessee\nand his friends once more.\"\n\nAnother silent pause. The stranger broke it:\n\n\"Is that all?\"\n\n\"That is all.\"\n\n\"Well, for the TIME of night, and the KIND of night, it seems to me the\nstory was full long enough. But what's it all FOR?\"\n\n\"Oh, nothing in particular.\"\n\n\"Well, where's the point of it?\"\n\n\"Oh, there isn't any particular point to it. Only, if you are not in\nTOO much of a hurry to rush off to San Francisco with that post-office\nappointment, Mr. Lykins, I'd advise you to 'PUT UP AT GADSBY'S' for a\nspell, and take it easy. Good-by. GOD bless you!\"\n\nSo saying, Riley blandly turned on his heel and left the astonished\nschool-teacher standing there, a musing and motionless snow image\nshining in the broad glow of the street-lamp.\n\nHe never got that post-office.\n\nTo go back to Lucerne and its fishers, I concluded, after about\nnine hours' waiting, that the man who proposes to tarry till he sees\nsomething hook one of those well-fed and experienced fishes will find\nit wisdom to \"put up at Gadsby's\" and take it easy. It is likely that\na fish has not been caught on that lake pier for forty years; but no\nmatter, the patient fisher watches his cork there all the day long, just\nthe same, and seems to enjoy it. One may see the fisher-loafers just as\nthick and contented and happy and patient all along the Seine at Paris,\nbut tradition says that the only thing ever caught there in modern times\nis a thing they don't fish for at all--the recent dog and the translated\ncat.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII\n\n[I Spare an Awful Bore]\n\n\nClose by the Lion of Lucerne is what they call the \"Glacier Garden\"--and\nit is the only one in the world. It is on high ground. Four or five\nyears ago, some workmen who were digging foundations for a house came\nupon this interesting relic of a long-departed age. Scientific men\nperceived in it a confirmation of their theories concerning the glacial\nperiod; so through their persuasions the little tract of ground was\nbought and permanently protected against being built upon. The soil was\nremoved, and there lay the rasped and guttered track which the ancient\nglacier had made as it moved along upon its slow and tedious journey.\nThis track was perforated by huge pot-shaped holes in the bed-rock,\nformed by the furious washing-around in them of boulders by the\nturbulent torrent which flows beneath all glaciers. These huge round\nboulders still remain in the holes; they and the walls of the holes are\nworn smooth by the long-continued chafing which they gave each other in\nthose old days.\n\n\nIt took a mighty force to churn these big lumps of stone around in that\nvigorous way. The neighboring country had a very different shape, at\nthat time--the valleys have risen up and become hills, since, and the\nhills have become valleys. The boulders discovered in the pots had\ntraveled a great distance, for there is no rock like them nearer than\nthe distant Rhone Glacier.\n\nFor some days we were content to enjoy looking at the blue lake\nLucerne and at the piled-up masses of snow-mountains that border it all\naround--an enticing spectacle, this last, for there is a strange and\nfascinating beauty and charm about a majestic snow-peak with the sun\nblazing upon it or the moonlight softly enriching it--but finally we\nconcluded to try a bit of excursioning around on a steamboat, and a dash\non foot at the Rigi. Very well, we had a delightful trip to Fluelen, on\na breezy, sunny day. Everybody sat on the upper deck, on benches, under\nan awning; everybody talked, laughed, and exclaimed at the wonderful\nscenery; in truth, a trip on that lake is almost the perfection of\npleasuring.\n\n\nThe mountains were a never-ceasing marvel. Sometimes they rose straight\nup out of the lake, and towered aloft and overshadowed our pygmy steamer\nwith their prodigious bulk in the most impressive way. Not snow-clad\nmountains, these, yet they climbed high enough toward the sky to meet\nthe clouds and veil their foreheads in them. They were not barren and\nrepulsive, but clothed in green, and restful and pleasant to the eye.\nAnd they were so almost straight-up-and-down, sometimes, that one could\nnot imagine a man being able to keep his footing upon such a surface,\nyet there are paths, and the Swiss people go up and down them every day.\n\n\nSometimes one of these monster precipices had the slight inclination of\nthe huge ship-houses in dockyards--then high aloft, toward the sky, it\ntook a little stronger inclination, like that of a mansard roof--and\nperched on this dizzy mansard one's eye detected little things like\nmartin boxes, and presently perceived that these were the dwellings of\npeasants--an airy place for a home, truly. And suppose a peasant should\nwalk in his sleep, or his child should fall out of the front\nyard?--the friends would have a tedious long journey down out of those\ncloud-heights before they found the remains. And yet those far-away\nhomes looked ever so seductive, they were so remote from the troubled\nworld, they dozed in such an atmosphere of peace and dreams--surely no\none who has learned to live up there would ever want to live on a meaner\nlevel.\n\nWe swept through the prettiest little curving arms of the lake, among\nthese colossal green walls, enjoying new delights, always, as the\nstately panorama unfolded itself before us and rerolled and hid itself\nbehind us; and now and then we had the thrilling surprise of bursting\nsuddenly upon a tremendous white mass like the distant and dominating\nJungfrau, or some kindred giant, looming head and shoulders above a\ntumbled waste of lesser Alps.\n\nOnce, while I was hungrily taking in one of these surprises, and doing\nmy best to get all I possibly could of it while it should last, I was\ninterrupted by a young and care-free voice:\n\n\"You're an American, I think--so'm I.\"\n\nHe was about eighteen, or possibly nineteen; slender and of medium\nheight; open, frank, happy face; a restless but independent eye; a snub\nnose, which had the air of drawing back with a decent reserve from\nthe silky new-born mustache below it until it should be introduced; a\nloosely hung jaw, calculated to work easily in the sockets. He wore a\nlow-crowned, narrow-brimmed straw hat, with a broad blue ribbon\naround it which had a white anchor embroidered on it in front; nobby\nshort-tailed coat, pantaloons, vest, all trim and neat and up with the\nfashion; red-striped stockings, very low-quarter patent-leather shoes,\ntied with black ribbon; blue ribbon around his neck, wide-open collar;\ntiny diamond studs; wrinkleless kids; projecting cuffs, fastened with\nlarge oxidized silver sleeve-buttons, bearing the device of a dog's\nface--English pug. He carried a slim cane, surmounted with an English\npug's head with red glass eyes. Under his arm he carried a German\ngrammar--Otto's. His hair was short, straight, and smooth, and presently\nwhen he turned his head a moment, I saw that it was nicely parted\nbehind. He took a cigarette out of a dainty box, stuck it into a\nmeerschaum holder which he carried in a morocco case, and reached for my\ncigar. While he was lighting, I said:\n\n\"Yes--I am an American.\"\n\n\n\"I knew it--I can always tell them. What ship did you come over in?\"\n\n\"HOLSATIA.\"\n\n\"We came in the BATAVIA--Cunard, you know. What kind of passage did you\nhave?\"\n\n\"Tolerably rough.\"\n\n\"So did we. Captain said he'd hardly ever seen it rougher. Where are you\nfrom?\"\n\n\"New England.\"\n\n\"So'm I. I'm from New Bloomfield. Anybody with you?\"\n\n\"Yes--a friend.\"\n\n\"Our whole family's along. It's awful slow, going around alone--don't\nyou think so?\"\n\n\"Rather slow.\"\n\n\"Ever been over here before?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I haven't. My first trip. But we've been all around--Paris and\neverywhere. I'm to enter Harvard next year. Studying German all the\ntime, now. Can't enter till I know German. I know considerable French--I\nget along pretty well in Paris, or anywhere where they speak French.\nWhat hotel are you stopping at?\"\n\n\"Schweitzerhof.\"\n\n\"No! is that so? I never see you in the reception-room. I go to\nthe reception-room a good deal of the time, because there's so many\nAmericans there. I make lots of acquaintances. I know an American as\nsoon as I see him--and so I speak to him and make his acquaintance. I\nlike to be always making acquaintances--don't you?\"\n\n\"Lord, yes!\"\n\n\"You see it breaks up a trip like this, first rate. I never got bored on\na trip like this, if I can make acquaintances and have somebody to\ntalk to. But I think a trip like this would be an awful bore, if a body\ncouldn't find anybody to get acquainted with and talk to on a trip like\nthis. I'm fond of talking, ain't you?\n\n\"Passionately.\"\n\n\"Have you felt bored, on this trip?\"\n\n\"Not all the time, part of it.\"\n\n\"That's it!--you see you ought to go around and get acquainted, and\ntalk. That's my way. That's the way I always do--I just go 'round,\n'round, 'round and talk, talk, talk--I never get bored. You been up the\nRigi yet?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Going?\"\n\n\"I think so.\"\n\n\"What hotel you going to stop at?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Is there more than one?\"\n\n\"Three. You stop at the Schreiber--you'll find it full of Americans.\nWhat ship did you say you came over in?\"\n\n\"CITY OF ANTWERP.\"\n\n\"German, I guess. You going to Geneva?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What hotel you going to stop at?\"\n\n\"H\u00f4tel de l'\u00c9cu de G\u00e9n\u00e8ve.\"\n\n\"Don't you do it! No Americans there! You stop at one of those big\nhotels over the bridge--they're packed full of Americans.\"\n\n\"But I want to practice my Arabic.\"\n\n\"Good gracious, do you speak Arabic?\"\n\n\"Yes--well enough to get along.\"\n\n\"Why, hang it, you won't get along in Geneva--THEY don't speak Arabic,\nthey speak French. What hotel are you stopping at here?\"\n\n\"Hotel Pension-Beaurivage.\"\n\n\"Sho, you ought to stop at the Schweitzerhof. Didn't you know the\nSchweitzerhof was the best hotel in Switzerland?-- look at your\nBaedeker.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know--but I had an idea there warn't any Americans there.\"\n\n\"No Americans! Why, bless your soul, it's just alive with them! I'm in\nthe great reception-room most all the time. I make lots of acquaintances\nthere. Not as many as I did at first, because now only the new ones stop\nin there--the others go right along through. Where are you from?\"\n\n\"Arkansaw.\"\n\n\"Is that so? I'm from New England--New Bloomfield's my town when I'm at\nhome. I'm having a mighty good time today, ain't you?\"\n\n\"Divine.\"\n\n\"That's what I call it. I like this knocking around, loose and easy, and\nmaking acquaintances and talking. I know an American, soon as I see him;\nso I go and speak to him and make his acquaintance. I ain't ever bored,\non a trip like this, if I can make new acquaintances and talk. I'm awful\nfond of talking when I can get hold of the right kind of a person, ain't\nyou?\"\n\n\"I prefer it to any other dissipation.\"\n\n\"That's my notion, too. Now some people like to take a book and sit\ndown and read, and read, and read, or moon around yawping at the lake or\nthese mountains and things, but that ain't my way; no, sir, if they like\nit, let 'em do it, I don't object; but as for me, talking's what I like.\nYou been up the Rigi?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What hotel did you stop at?\"\n\n\"Schreiber.\"\n\n\"That's the place!--I stopped there too. FULL of Americans, WASN'T it?\nIt always is--always is. That's what they say. Everybody says that. What\nship did you come over in?\"\n\n\"VILLE DE PARIS.\"\n\n\"French, I reckon. What kind of a passage did ... excuse me a minute,\nthere's some Americans I haven't seen before.\"\n\nAnd away he went. He went uninjured, too--I had the murderous impulse to\nharpoon him in the back with my alpenstock, but as I raised the weapon\nthe disposition left me; I found I hadn't the heart to kill him, he was\nsuch a joyous, innocent, good-natured numbskull.\n\nHalf an hour later I was sitting on a bench inspecting, with strong\ninterest, a noble monolith which we were skimming by--a monolith not\nshaped by man, but by Nature's free great hand--a massy pyramidal rock\neighty feet high, devised by Nature ten million years ago against the\nday when a man worthy of it should need it for his monument. The time\ncame at last, and now this grand remembrancer bears Schiller's name in\nhuge letters upon its face. Curiously enough, this rock was not degraded\nor defiled in any way. It is said that two years ago a stranger let\nhimself down from the top of it with ropes and pulleys, and painted all\nover it, in blue letters bigger than those in Schiller's name, these\nwords: \"Try Sozodont;\" \"Buy Sun Stove Polish;\" \"Helmbold's Buchu;\" \"Try\nBenzaline for the Blood.\" He was captured and it turned out that he was\nan American. Upon his trial the judge said to him:\n\n\"You are from a land where any insolent that wants to is privileged\nto profane and insult Nature, and, through her, Nature's God, if by\nso doing he can put a sordid penny in his pocket. But here the case is\ndifferent. Because you are a foreigner and ignorant, I will make your\nsentence light; if you were a native I would deal strenuously with\nyou. Hear and obey: --You will immediately remove every trace of\nyour offensive work from the Schiller monument; you pay a fine of ten\nthousand francs; you will suffer two years' imprisonment at hard labor;\nyou will then be horsewhipped, tarred and feathered, deprived of your\nears, ridden on a rail to the confines of the canton, and banished\nforever. The severest penalties are omitted in your case--not as a grace\nto you, but to that great republic which had the misfortune to give you\nbirth.\"\n\n\nThe steamer's benches were ranged back to back across the deck. My back\nhair was mingling innocently with the back hair of a couple of\nladies. Presently they were addressed by some one and I overheard this\nconversation:\n\n\"You are Americans, I think? So'm I.\"\n\n\"Yes--we are Americans.\"\n\n\"I knew it--I can always tell them. What ship did you come over in?\"\n\n\"CITY OF CHESTER.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes--Inman line. We came in the BATAVIA--Cunard you know. What kind\nof a passage did you have?\"\n\n\"Pretty fair.\"\n\n\"That was luck. We had it awful rough. Captain said he'd hardly seen it\nrougher. Where are you from?\"\n\n\"New Jersey.\"\n\n\"So'm I. No--I didn't mean that; I'm from New England. New Bloomfield's\nmy place. These your children?--belong to both of you?\"\n\n\"Only to one of us; they are mine; my friend is not married.\"\n\n\"Single, I reckon? So'm I. Are you two ladies traveling alone?\"\n\n\"No--my husband is with us.\"\n\n\"Our whole family's along. It's awful slow, going around alone--don't\nyou think so?\"\n\n\"I suppose it must be.\"\n\n\n\"Hi, there's Mount Pilatus coming in sight again. Named after Pontius\nPilate, you know, that shot the apple off of William Tell's head.\nGuide-book tells all about it, they say. I didn't read it--an American\ntold me. I don't read when I'm knocking around like this, having a good\ntime. Did you ever see the chapel where William Tell used to preach?\"\n\n\"I did not know he ever preached there.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, he did. That American told me so. He don't ever shut up\nhis guide-book. He knows more about this lake than the fishes in it.\nBesides, they CALL it 'Tell's Chapel'--you know that yourself. You ever\nbeen over here before?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I haven't. It's my first trip. But we've been all around--Paris and\neverywhere. I'm to enter Harvard next year. Studying German all the time\nnow. Can't enter till I know German. This book's Otto's grammar. It's a\nmighty good book to get the ICH HABE GEHABT HABEN's out of. But I don't\nreally study when I'm knocking around this way. If the notion takes me,\nI just run over my little old ICH HABE GEHABT, DU HAST GEHABT, ER HAT\nGEHABT, WIR HABEN GEHABT, IHR HABEN GEHABT, SIE HABEN GEHABT--kind of\n'Now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep' fashion, you know, and after that, maybe\nI don't buckle to it for three days. It's awful undermining to the\nintellect, German is; you want to take it in small doses, or first you\nknow your brains all run together, and you feel them sloshing around in\nyour head same as so much drawn butter. But French is different; FRENCH\nain't anything. I ain't any more afraid of French than a tramp's afraid\nof pie; I can rattle off my little J'AI, TU AS, IL A, and the rest of\nit, just as easy as a-b-c. I get along pretty well in Paris, or anywhere\nwhere they speak French. What hotel are you stopping at?\"\n\n\"The Schweitzerhof.\"\n\n\"No! is that so? I never see you in the big reception-room. I go in\nthere a good deal of the time, because there's so many Americans there.\nI make lots of acquaintances. You been up the Rigi yet?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Going?\"\n\n\"We think of it.\"\n\n\"What hotel you going to stop at?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Well, then you stop at the Schreiber--it's full of Americans. What ship\ndid you come over in?\"\n\n\"CITY OF CHESTER.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I remember I asked you that before. But I always ask everybody\nwhat ship they came over in, and so sometimes I forget and ask again.\nYou going to Geneva?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"What hotel you going to stop at?\"\n\n\"We expect to stop in a pension.\"\n\n\"I don't hardly believe you'll like that; there's very few Americans in\nthe pensions. What hotel are you stopping at here?\"\n\n\"The Schweitzerhof.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. I asked you that before, too. But I always ask everybody what\nhotel they're stopping at, and so I've got my head all mixed up with\nhotels. But it makes talk, and I love to talk. It refreshes me up\nso--don't it you--on a trip like this?\"\n\n\"Yes--sometimes.\"\n\n\"Well, it does me, too. As long as I'm talking I never feel bored--ain't\nthat the way with you?\"\n\n\"Yes--generally. But there are exception to the rule.\"\n\n\"Oh, of course. I don't care to talk to everybody, MYSELF. If a person\nstarts in to jabber-jabber-jabber about scenery, and history, and\npictures, and all sorts of tiresome things, I get the fan-tods mighty\nsoon. I say 'Well, I must be going now--hope I'll see you again'--and\nthen I take a walk. Where you from?\"\n\n\"New Jersey.\"\n\n\"Why, bother it all, I asked you THAT before, too. Have you seen the\nLion of Lucerne?\"\n\n\"Not yet.\"\n\n\"Nor I, either. But the man who told me about Mount Pilatus says it's\none of the things to see. It's twenty-eight feet long. It don't seem\nreasonable, but he said so, anyway. He saw it yesterday; said it was\ndying, then, so I reckon it's dead by this time. But that ain't any\nmatter, of course they'll stuff it. Did you say the children are\nyours--or HERS?\"\n\n\"Mine.\"\n\n\"Oh, so you did. Are you going up the ... no, I asked you that. What\nship ... no, I asked you that, too. What hotel are you ... no, you told\nme that. Let me see ... um .... Oh, what kind of voy ... no, we've\nbeen over that ground, too. Um ... um ... well, I believe that is all.\nBONJOUR--I am very glad to have made your acquaintance, ladies. GUTEN\nTAG.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII\n\n[The Jodel and Its Native Wilds]\n\n\nThe Rigi-Kulm is an imposing Alpine mass, six thousand feet high, which\nstands by itself, and commands a mighty prospect of blue lakes, green\nvalleys, and snowy mountains--a compact and magnificent picture\nthree hundred miles in circumference. The ascent is made by rail, or\nhorseback, or on foot, as one may prefer. I and my agent panoplied\nourselves in walking-costume, one bright morning, and started down\nthe lake on the steamboat; we got ashore at the village of Waeggis;\nthree-quarters of an hour distant from Lucerne. This village is at the\nfoot of the mountain.\n\nWe were soon tramping leisurely up the leafy mule-path, and then the\ntalk began to flow, as usual. It was twelve o'clock noon, and a breezy,\ncloudless day; the ascent was gradual, and the glimpses, from under\nthe curtaining boughs, of blue water, and tiny sailboats, and beetling\ncliffs, were as charming as glimpses of dreamland. All the circumstances\nwere perfect--and the anticipations, too, for we should soon be\nenjoying, for the first time, that wonderful spectacle, an Alpine\nsunrise--the object of our journey. There was (apparently) no real need\nfor hurry, for the guide-book made the walking-distance from Waeggis to\nthe summit only three hours and a quarter. I say \"apparently,\" because\nthe guide-book had already fooled us once--about the distance from\nAllerheiligen to Oppenau--and for aught I knew it might be getting\nready to fool us again. We were only certain as to the altitudes--we\ncalculated to find out for ourselves how many hours it is from the\nbottom to the top. The summit is six thousand feet above the sea, but\nonly forty-five hundred feet above the lake. When we had walked half an\nhour, we were fairly into the swing and humor of the undertaking, so we\ncleared for action; that is to say, we got a boy whom we met to carry\nour alpenstocks and satchels and overcoats and things for us; that left\nus free for business. I suppose we must have stopped oftener to stretch\nout on the grass in the shade and take a bit of a smoke than this boy\nwas used to, for presently he asked if it had been our idea to hire him\nby the job, or by the year? We told him he could move along if he was\nin a hurry. He said he wasn't in such a very particular hurry, but he\nwanted to get to the top while he was young.\n\n\nWe told him to clear out, then, and leave the things at the uppermost\nhotel and say we should be along presently. He said he would secure us a\nhotel if he could, but if they were all full he would ask them to build\nanother one and hurry up and get the paint and plaster dry against we\narrived. Still gently chaffing us, he pushed ahead, up the trail, and\nsoon disappeared. By six o'clock we were pretty high up in the air,\nand the view of lake and mountains had greatly grown in breadth and\ninterest. We halted awhile at a little public house, where we had bread\nand cheese and a quart or two of fresh milk, out on the porch, with the\nbig panorama all before us--and then moved on again.\n\n\nTen minutes afterward we met a hot, red-faced man plunging down the\nmountain, making mighty strides, swinging his alpenstock ahead of him,\nand taking a grip on the ground with its iron point to support these\nbig strides. He stopped, fanned himself with his hat, swabbed the\nperspiration from his face and neck with a red handkerchief, panted\na moment or two, and asked how far to Waeggis. I said three hours. He\nlooked surprised, and said:\n\n\"Why, it seems as if I could toss a biscuit into the lake from here,\nit's so close by. Is that an inn, there?\"\n\nI said it was.\n\n\"Well,\" said he, \"I can't stand another three hours, I've had enough\ntoday; I'll take a bed there.\"\n\nI asked:\n\n\"Are we nearly to the top?\"\n\n\"Nearly to the TOP? Why, bless your soul, you haven't really started,\nyet.\"\n\nI said we would put up at the inn, too. So we turned back and ordered a\nhot supper, and had quite a jolly evening of it with this Englishman.\n\nThe German landlady gave us neat rooms and nice beds, and when I and my\nagent turned in, it was with the resolution to be up early and make the\nutmost of our first Alpine sunrise. But of course we were dead tired,\nand slept like policemen; so when we awoke in the morning and ran to the\nwindow it was already too late, because it was half past eleven. It\nwas a sharp disappointment. However, we ordered breakfast and told the\nlandlady to call the Englishman, but she said he was already up and off\nat daybreak--and swearing like mad about something or other. We could\nnot find out what the matter was. He had asked the landlady the altitude\nof her place above the level of the lake, and she told him fourteen\nhundred and ninety-five feet. That was all that was said; then he lost\nhis temper. He said that between ------fools and guide-books, a man\ncould acquire ignorance enough in twenty-four hours in a country like\nthis to last him a year. Harris believed our boy had been loading him\nup with misinformation; and this was probably the case, for his epithet\ndescribed that boy to a dot.\n\nWe got under way about the turn of noon, and pulled out for the summit\nagain, with a fresh and vigorous step. When we had gone about two\nhundred yards, and stopped to rest, I glanced to the left while I was\nlighting my pipe, and in the distance detected a long worm of black\nsmoke crawling lazily up the steep mountain. Of course that was the\nlocomotive. We propped ourselves on our elbows at once, to gaze, for we\nhad never seen a mountain railway yet. Presently we could make out the\ntrain. It seemed incredible that that thing should creep straight up a\nsharp slant like the roof of a house--but there it was, and it was doing\nthat very miracle.\n\nIn the course of a couple hours we reached a fine breezy altitude where\nthe little shepherd huts had big stones all over their roofs to hold\nthem down to the earth when the great storms rage. The country was wild\nand rocky about here, but there were plenty of trees, plenty of moss,\nand grass.\n\nAway off on the opposite shore of the lake we could see some villages,\nand now for the first time we could observe the real difference between\ntheir proportions and those of the giant mountains at whose feet they\nslept. When one is in one of those villages it seems spacious, and\nits houses seem high and not out of proportion to the mountain that\noverhangs them--but from our altitude, what a change! The mountains were\nbigger and grander than ever, as they stood there thinking their solemn\nthoughts with their heads in the drifting clouds, but the villages\nat their feet--when the painstaking eye could trace them up and find\nthem--were so reduced, almost invisible, and lay so flat against the\nground, that the exactest simile I can devise is to compare them to\nant-deposits of granulated dirt overshadowed by the huge bulk of a\ncathedral. The steamboats skimming along under the stupendous precipices\nwere diminished by distance to the daintiest little toys, the sailboats\nand rowboats to shallops proper for fairies that keep house in the cups\nof lilies and ride to court on the backs of bumblebees.\n\n\nPresently we came upon half a dozen sheep nibbling grass in the spray\nof a stream of clear water that sprang from a rock wall a hundred feet\nhigh, and all at once our ears were startled with a melodious \"Lul ...\nl ... l l l llul-lul-LAhee-o-o-o!\" pealing joyously from a near but\ninvisible source, and recognized that we were hearing for the first\ntime the famous Alpine JODEL in its own native wilds. And we recognized,\nalso, that it was that sort of quaint commingling of baritone and\nfalsetto which at home we call \"Tyrolese warbling.\"\n\n\nThe jodeling (pronounced yOdling--emphasis on the O) continued, and\nwas very pleasant and inspiriting to hear. Now the jodeler appeared--a\nshepherd boy of sixteen--and in our gladness and gratitude we gave him\na franc to jodel some more. So he jodeled and we listened. We moved\non, presently, and he generously jodeled us out of sight. After about\nfifteen minutes we came across another shepherd boy who was jodeling,\nand gave him half a franc to keep it up. He also jodeled us out of\nsight. After that, we found a jodeler every ten minutes; we gave the\nfirst one eight cents, the second one six cents, the third one four, the\nfourth one a penny, contributed nothing to Nos. 5, 6, and 7, and during\nthe remainder of the day hired the rest of the jodelers, at a franc\napiece, not to jodel any more. There is somewhat too much of the\njodeling in the Alps.\n\nAbout the middle of the afternoon we passed through a prodigious natural\ngateway called the Felsenthor, formed by two enormous upright rocks,\nwith a third lying across the top. There was a very attractive little\nhotel close by, but our energies were not conquered yet, so we went on.\n\n\nThree hours afterward we came to the railway-track. It was planted\nstraight up the mountain with the slant of a ladder that leans against a\nhouse, and it seemed to us that man would need good nerves who proposed\nto travel up it or down it either.\n\nDuring the latter part of the afternoon we cooled our roasting interiors\nwith ice-cold water from clear streams, the only really satisfying water\nwe had tasted since we left home, for at the hotels on the continent\nthey merely give you a tumbler of ice to soak your water in, and that\nonly modifies its hotness, doesn't make it cold. Water can only be made\ncold enough for summer comfort by being prepared in a refrigerator or\na closed ice-pitcher. Europeans say ice-water impairs digestion. How do\nthey know?--they never drink any.\n\nAt ten minutes past six we reached the Kaltbad station, where there is\na spacious hotel with great verandas which command a majestic expanse of\nlake and mountain scenery. We were pretty well fagged out, now, but as\nwe did not wish to miss the Alpine sunrise, we got through our dinner\nas quickly as possible and hurried off to bed. It was unspeakably\ncomfortable to stretch our weary limbs between the cool, damp sheets.\nAnd how we did sleep!--for there is no opiate like Alpine pedestrianism.\n\n\nIn the morning we both awoke and leaped out of bed at the same instant\nand ran and stripped aside the window-curtains; but we suffered a bitter\ndisappointment again: it was already half past three in the afternoon.\n\nWe dressed sullenly and in ill spirits, each accusing the other of\noversleeping. Harris said if we had brought the courier along, as we\nought to have done, we should not have missed these sunrises. I said he\nknew very well that one of us would have to sit up and wake the\ncourier; and I added that we were having trouble enough to take care\nof ourselves, on this climb, without having to take care of a courier\nbesides.\n\nDuring breakfast our spirits came up a little, since we found by this\nguide-book that in the hotels on the summit the tourist is not left to\ntrust to luck for his sunrise, but is roused betimes by a man who goes\nthrough the halls with a great Alpine horn, blowing blasts that would\nraise the dead. And there was another consoling thing: the guide-book\nsaid that up there on the summit the guests did not wait to dress much,\nbut seized a red bed blanket and sailed out arrayed like an Indian. This\nwas good; this would be romantic; two hundred and fifty people grouped\non the windy summit, with their hair flying and their red blankets\nflapping, in the solemn presence of the coming sun, would be a striking\nand memorable spectacle. So it was good luck, not ill luck, that we had\nmissed those other sunrises.\n\nWe were informed by the guide-book that we were now 3,228 feet above\nthe level of the lake--therefore full two-thirds of our journey had been\naccomplished. We got away at a quarter past four P.M.; a hundred yards\nabove the hotel the railway divided; one track went straight up the\nsteep hill, the other one turned square off to the right, with a very\nslight grade. We took the latter, and followed it more than a mile,\nturned a rocky corner, and came in sight of a handsome new hotel. If we\nhad gone on, we should have arrived at the summit, but Harris\npreferred to ask a lot of questions--as usual, of a man who didn't know\nanything--and he told us to go back and follow the other route. We did\nso. We could ill afford this loss of time.\n\nWe climbed and climbed; and we kept on climbing; we reached about forty\nsummits, but there was always another one just ahead. It came on to\nrain, and it rained in dead earnest. We were soaked through and it\nwas bitter cold. Next a smoky fog of clouds covered the whole region\ndensely, and we took to the railway-ties to keep from getting lost.\nSometimes we slopped along in a narrow path on the left-hand side of the\ntrack, but by and by when the fog blew aside a little and we saw that we\nwere treading the rampart of a precipice and that our left elbows were\nprojecting over a perfectly boundless and bottomless vacancy, we gasped,\nand jumped for the ties again.\n\n\nThe night shut down, dark and drizzly and cold. About eight in the\nevening the fog lifted and showed us a well-worn path which led up a\nvery steep rise to the left. We took it, and as soon as we had got far\nenough from the railway to render the finding it again an impossibility,\nthe fog shut down on us once more.\n\nWe were in a bleak, unsheltered place, now, and had to trudge right\nalong, in order to keep warm, though we rather expected to go over a\nprecipice, sooner or later. About nine o'clock we made an important\ndiscovery--that we were not in any path. We groped around a while on our\nhands and knees, but we could not find it; so we sat down in the mud and\nthe wet scant grass to wait.\n\nWe were terrified into this by being suddenly confronted with a vast\nbody which showed itself vaguely for an instant and in the next instant\nwas smothered in the fog again. It was really the hotel we were after,\nmonstrously magnified by the fog, but we took it for the face of a\nprecipice, and decided not to try to claw up it.\n\nWe sat there an hour, with chattering teeth and quivering bodies, and\nquarreled over all sorts of trifles, but gave most of our attention to\nabusing each other for the stupidity of deserting the railway-track. We\nsat with our backs to the precipice, because what little wind there was\ncame from that quarter. At some time or other the fog thinned a little;\nwe did not know when, for we were facing the empty universe and the\nthinness could not show; but at last Harris happened to look around, and\nthere stood a huge, dim, spectral hotel where the precipice had been.\nOne could faintly discern the windows and chimneys, and a dull blur of\nlights. Our first emotion was deep, unutterable gratitude, our next was\na foolish rage, born of the suspicion that possibly the hotel had been\nvisible three-quarters of an hour while we sat there in those cold\npuddles quarreling.\n\n\nYes, it was the Rigi-Kulm hotel--the one that occupies the extreme\nsummit, and whose remote little sparkle of lights we had often seen\nglinting high aloft among the stars from our balcony away down yonder\nin Lucerne. The crusty portier and the crusty clerks gave us the\nsurly reception which their kind deal out in prosperous times, but by\nmollifying them with an extra display of obsequiousness and servility\nwe finally got them to show us to the room which our boy had engaged for\nus.\n\nWe got into some dry clothing, and while our supper was preparing we\nloafed forsakenly through a couple of vast cavernous drawing-rooms,\none of which had a stove in it. This stove was in a corner, and densely\nwalled around with people. We could not get near the fire, so we moved\nat large in the artic spaces, among a multitude of people who sat\nsilent, smileless, forlorn, and shivering--thinking what fools they were\nto come, perhaps. There were some Americans and some Germans, but one\ncould see that the great majority were English.\n\nWe lounged into an apartment where there was a great crowd, to see\nwhat was going on. It was a memento-magazine. The tourists were eagerly\nbuying all sorts and styles of paper-cutters, marked \"Souvenir of the\nRigi,\" with handles made of the little curved horn of the ostensible\nchamois; there were all manner of wooden goblets and such things,\nsimilarly marked. I was going to buy a paper-cutter, but I believed\nI could remember the cold comfort of the Rigi-Kulm without it, so I\nsmothered the impulse.\n\nSupper warmed us, and we went immediately to bed--but first, as Mr.\nBaedeker requests all tourists to call his attention to any errors which\nthey may find in his guide-books, I dropped him a line to inform him he\nmissed it by just about three days. I had previously informed him of his\nmistake about the distance from Allerheiligen to Oppenau, and had also\ninformed the Ordnance Depart of the German government of the same error\nin the imperial maps. I will add, here, that I never got any answer to\nthose letters, or any thanks from either of those sources; and, what is\nstill more discourteous, these corrections have not been made, either in\nthe maps or the guide-books. But I will write again when I get time, for\nmy letters may have miscarried.\n\nWe curled up in the clammy beds, and went to sleep without rocking. We\nwere so sodden with fatigue that we never stirred nor turned over till\nthe blooming blasts of the Alpine horn aroused us.\n\n\nIt may well be imagined that we did not lose any time. We snatched on\na few odds and ends of clothing, cocooned ourselves in the proper red\nblankets, and plunged along the halls and out into the whistling wind\nbareheaded. We saw a tall wooden scaffolding on the very peak of the\nsummit, a hundred yards away, and made for it. We rushed up the stairs\nto the top of this scaffolding, and stood there, above the vast outlying\nworld, with hair flying and ruddy blankets waving and cracking in the\nfierce breeze.\n\n\n\"Fifteen minutes too late, at last!\" said Harris, in a vexed voice. \"The\nsun is clear above the horizon.\"\n\n\"No matter,\" I said, \"it is a most magnificent spectacle, and we will\nsee it do the rest of its rising anyway.\"\n\nIn a moment we were deeply absorbed in the marvel before us, and dead to\neverything else. The great cloud-barred disk of the sun stood just above\na limitless expanse of tossing white-caps--so to speak--a billowy chaos\nof massy mountain domes and peaks draped in imperishable snow, and\nflooded with an opaline glory of changing and dissolving splendors,\nwhile through rifts in a black cloud-bank above the sun, radiating\nlances of diamond dust shot to the zenith. The cloven valleys of the\nlower world swam in a tinted mist which veiled the ruggedness of their\ncrags and ribs and ragged forests, and turned all the forbidding region\ninto a soft and rich and sensuous paradise.\n\nWe could not speak. We could hardly breathe. We could only gaze in\ndrunken ecstasy and drink in it. Presently Harris exclaimed:\n\n\"Why--nation, it's going DOWN!\"\n\nPerfectly true. We had missed the MORNING hornblow, and slept all day.\nThis was stupefying.\n\nHarris said:\n\n\"Look here, the sun isn't the spectacle--it's US--stacked up here on top\nof this gallows, in these idiotic blankets, and two hundred and fifty\nwell-dressed men and women down here gawking up at us and not caring\na straw whether the sun rises or sets, as long as they've got such a\nridiculous spectacle as this to set down in their memorandum-books. They\nseem to be laughing their ribs loose, and there's one girl there that\nappears to be going all to pieces. I never saw such a man as you before.\nI think you are the very last possibility in the way of an ass.\"\n\n\"What have I done?\" I answered, with heat.\n\n\"What have you done? You've got up at half past seven o'clock in the\nevening to see the sun rise, that's what you've done.\"\n\n\"And have you done any better, I'd like to know? I've always used to\nget up with the lark, till I came under the petrifying influence of your\nturgid intellect.\"\n\n\"YOU used to get up with the lark--Oh, no doubt--you'll get up with the\nhangman one of these days. But you ought to be ashamed to be jawing\nhere like this, in a red blanket, on a forty-foot scaffold on top of the\nAlps. And no end of people down here to boot; this isn't any place for\nan exhibition of temper.\"\n\nAnd so the customary quarrel went on. When the sun was fairly down, we\nslipped back to the hotel in the charitable gloaming, and went to bed\nagain. We had encountered the horn-blower on the way, and he had tried\nto collect compensation, not only for announcing the sunset, which we\ndid see, but for the sunrise, which we had totally missed; but we said\nno, we only took our solar rations on the \"European plan\"--pay for what\nyou get. He promised to make us hear his horn in the morning, if we were\nalive.\n\n\n\n\n\nA TRAMP ABROAD, Part 5.\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n(Samuel L. Clemens)\n\nFirst published in 1880\n\nIllustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition\n\n * * * * * *\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS:\n\n\n     1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR\n     2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0TITIAN'S MOSES\n     3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES\n     178.\u00a0\u00a0EXCEEDINGLY COMFORTABLE\n     179.\u00a0\u00a0THE SUNRISE\n     180.\u00a0\u00a0THE RIGI-KULM\n     181.\u00a0\u00a0AN OPTICAL ILLUSION\n     182.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     183.\u00a0\u00a0RAILWAY DOWN THE MOUNTAIN\n     184.\u00a0\u00a0SOURCE OF THE RHONE\n     185.\u00a0\u00a0A GLACIER TABLE\n     186.\u00a0\u00a0GLACIER OF GRINDELWALD\n     187.\u00a0\u00a0DAWN ON THE MOUNTAINS\n     188.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     189.\u00a0\u00a0NEW AND OLD STYLE\n     190.\u00a0\u00a0ST NICHOLAS, AS A HERMIT\n     191.\u00a0\u00a0A LANDSLIDE\n     192.\u00a0\u00a0GOLDAU VALLEY BEFORE AND AFTER THE LANDSLIDE\n     193.\u00a0\u00a0THE WAY THEY DO IT\n     194.\u00a0\u00a0OUR GALLANT DRIVER\n     195.\u00a0\u00a0A MOUNTAIN PASS\n     196.\u00a0\u00a0\"I'M OFUL DRY\"\n     197.\u00a0\u00a0IT'S THE FASHION\n     198.\u00a0\u00a0WHAT WE EXPECTED\n     199.\u00a0\u00a0WE MISSED THE SCENERY\n     200.\u00a0\u00a0THE TOURISTS\n     201.\u00a0\u00a0THE YOUNG BRIDE\n     202.\u00a0\u00a0\"IT WAS A FAMOUS VICTORY\n     203.\u00a0\u00a0PROMENADE IN INTERLAKEN\n     204.\u00a0\u00a0THE JUNGFRAU BY M.T.\n     205.\u00a0\u00a0STREET IN INTERLAKEN\n     206.\u00a0\u00a0WITHOUT A COURIER\n     207.\u00a0\u00a0TRAVELING WITH A COURIER\n     208.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     209.\u00a0\u00a0GRAPE AND WHEY PATIENTS\n     210.\u00a0\u00a0SOCIABLE DRIVERS\n     211.\u00a0\u00a0A MOUNTAIN CASCADE\n     212.\u00a0\u00a0THE GASTERNTHAL\n     213.\u00a0\u00a0EXHILARATING SPORT\n     214.\u00a0\u00a0FALLS\n     215.\u00a0\u00a0WHAT MIGHT BE\n     216.\u00a0\u00a0AN ALPINE BOUQUET\n     217.\u00a0\u00a0THE END OF THE WORLD\n     218.\u00a0\u00a0THE FORGET-ME-NOT\n     219.\u00a0\u00a0A NEEDLE OF ICE\n     220.\u00a0\u00a0CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN\n     221.\u00a0\u00a0SNOW CREVASSES\n     222.\u00a0\u00a0CUTTING STEPS\n     223.\u00a0\u00a0THE GUIDE\n     224.\u00a0\u00a0VIEW FROM THE CLIFF\n     225.\u00a0\u00a0GEMMI PASS AND LAKE DAUBENSEE\n     226.\u00a0\u00a0ALMOST A TRAGEDY\n     227.\u00a0\u00a0THE ALPINE LITTER\n     228.\u00a0\u00a0SOCIAL BATHERS\n     229.\u00a0\u00a0DEATH OF COUNTESS HERLINCOURT\n     230.\u00a0\u00a0THEY'VE GOT IT ALL\n     231.\u00a0\u00a0MODEL FOR AN EMPRESS\n     232.\u00a0\u00a0BATH HOUSES AT LEUKE\n     233.\u00a0\u00a0THE BATHERS AT LEUKE\n     234.\u00a0\u00a0RATTIER MIXED UP\n     235.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX Everything Convenient--Looking for a Western\nSunrise--Mutual Recrimination--View from the Summit--Down the\nMountain--Railroading--Confidence Wanted and Acquired\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX A Trip by Proxy--A Visit to the Furka Regions--Deadman's\nLake--Source of the Rhone--Glacier Tables--Storm in the Mountains--At\nGrindelwald--Dawn on the Mountains--An Explanation Required--Dead\nLanguage--Criticism of Harris's Report\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI Preparations for a Tramp--From Lucerne to Interlaken--The\nBrunig Pass--Modern and Ancient Chalets--Death of Pontius Pilate--Hermit\nHome of St Nicholas--Landslides--Children Selling Refreshments--How they\nHarness a Horse--A Great Man--Honors to a Hero--A Thirsty Bride--For\nBetter or Worse--German Fashions--Anticipations--Solid Comfort--An\nUnsatisfactory Awakening--What we had Lost--Our Surroundings\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII The Jungfrau Hotel--A Whiskered Waitress--An Arkansas\nBride--Perfection in Discord--A Famous Victory--A Look from a\nWindow--About the Jungfrau\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII The Giesbach Falls--The Spirit of the Alps--Why People\nVisit Them--Whey and Grapes as Medicines--The Kursaal--A Formidable\nUndertaking--From Interlaken to Zermatt on Foot--We Concluded to take\na Buggy--A Pair of Jolly Drivers--We meet with Companions--A Cheerful\nRide--Kandersteg Valley--An Alpine Parlor--Exercise and Amusement--A\nRace with a Log\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV An Old Guide--Possible Accidents--Dangerous\nHabitation--Mountain Flowers--Embryo Lions--Mountain Pigs--The End\nof The World--Ghastly Desolation--Proposed Adventure--Reading-up\nAdventures--Ascent of Monte Rosa--Precipices and Crevasses--Among\nthe Snows--Exciting Experiences--lee Ridges--The Summit--Adventures\nPostponed\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXV A New Interest--Magnificent Views--A Mule's\nPrefereoces--Turning Mountain Corners--Terror of a Horse--Lady\nTourists--Death of a young Countess--A Search for a Hat--What We Did\nFind--Harris's Opinion of Chamois--A Disappointed Man--A Giantess--Model\nfor an Empress--Baths at Leuk--Sport in the Water--The Gemmi\nPrecipices--A Palace for an Emperor--The Famous Ladders--Considerably\nMixed Up--Sad Plight of a Minister\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX\n\n[Looking West for Sunrise]\n\n\nHe kept his word. We heard his horn and instantly got up. It was dark\nand cold and wretched. As I fumbled around for the matches, knocking\nthings down with my quaking hands, I wished the sun would rise in the\nmiddle of the day, when it was warm and bright and cheerful, and one\nwasn't sleepy. We proceeded to dress by the gloom of a couple sickly\ncandles, but we could hardly button anything, our hands shook so.\nI thought of how many happy people there were in Europe, Asia, and\nAmerica, and everywhere, who were sleeping peacefully in their beds,\nand did not have to get up and see the Rigi sunrise--people who did\nnot appreciate their advantage, as like as not, but would get up in the\nmorning wanting more boons of Providence. While thinking these thoughts\nI yawned, in a rather ample way, and my upper teeth got hitched on a\nnail over the door, and while I was mounting a chair to free myself,\nHarris drew the window-curtain, and said:\n\n\"Oh, this is luck! We shan't have to go out at all--yonder are the\nmountains, in full view.\"\n\n\nThat was glad news, indeed. It made us cheerful right away. One could\nsee the grand Alpine masses dimly outlined against the black firmament,\nand one or two faint stars blinking through rifts in the night. Fully\nclothed, and wrapped in blankets, and huddled ourselves up, by the\nwindow, with lighted pipes, and fell into chat, while we waited in\nexceeding comfort to see how an Alpine sunrise was going to look by\ncandlelight. By and by a delicate, spiritual sort of effulgence spread\nitself by imperceptible degrees over the loftiest altitudes of the snowy\nwastes--but there the effort seemed to stop. I said, presently:\n\n\"There is a hitch about this sunrise somewhere. It doesn't seem to go.\nWhat do you reckon is the matter with it?\"\n\n\"I don't know. It appears to hang fire somewhere. I never saw a sunrise\nact like that before. Can it be that the hotel is playing anything on\nus?\"\n\n\"Of course not. The hotel merely has a property interest in the sun, it\nhas nothing to do with the management of it. It is a precarious kind of\nproperty, too; a succession of total eclipses would probably ruin this\ntavern. Now what can be the matter with this sunrise?\"\n\nHarris jumped up and said:\n\n\"I've got it! I know what's the matter with it! We've been looking at\nthe place where the sun SET last night!\"\n\n\"It is perfectly true! Why couldn't you have thought of that sooner? Now\nwe've lost another one! And all through your blundering. It was exactly\nlike you to light a pipe and sit down to wait for the sun to rise in the\nwest.\"\n\n\"It was exactly like me to find out the mistake, too. You never would\nhave found it out. I find out all the mistakes.\"\n\n\"You make them all, too, else your most valuable faculty would be wasted\non you. But don't stop to quarrel, now--maybe we are not too late yet.\"\n\nBut we were. The sun was well up when we got to the exhibition-ground.\n\n\nOn our way up we met the crowd returning--men and women dressed in\nall sorts of queer costumes, and exhibiting all degrees of cold and\nwretchedness in their gaits and countenances. A dozen still remained on\nthe ground when we reached there, huddled together about the scaffold\nwith their backs to the bitter wind. They had their red guide-books open\nat the diagram of the view, and were painfully picking out the several\nmountains and trying to impress their names and positions on their\nmemories. It was one of the saddest sights I ever saw.\n\nTwo sides of this place were guarded by railings, to keep people from\nbeing blown over the precipices. The view, looking sheer down into\nthe broad valley, eastward, from this great elevation--almost a\nperpendicular mile--was very quaint and curious. Counties, towns, hilly\nribs and ridges, wide stretches of green meadow, great forest tracts,\nwinding streams, a dozen blue lakes, a block of busy steamboats--we saw\nall this little world in unique circumstantiality of detail--saw it just\nas the birds see it--and all reduced to the smallest of scales and as\nsharply worked out and finished as a steel engraving. The numerous toy\nvillages, with tiny spires projecting out of them, were just as the\nchildren might have left them when done with play the day before; the\nforest tracts were diminished to cushions of moss; one or two big lakes\nwere dwarfed to ponds, the smaller ones to puddles--though they did not\nlook like puddles, but like blue teardrops which had fallen and lodged\nin slight depressions, conformable to their shapes, among the moss-beds\nand the smooth levels of dainty green farm-land; the microscopic\nsteamboats glided along, as in a city reservoir, taking a mighty time to\ncover the distance between ports which seemed only a yard apart; and the\nisthmus which separated two lakes looked as if one might stretch out on\nit and lie with both elbows in the water, yet we knew invisible wagons\nwere toiling across it and finding the distance a tedious one. This\nbeautiful miniature world had exactly the appearance of those \"relief\nmaps\" which reproduce nature precisely, with the heights and depressions\nand other details graduated to a reduced scale, and with the rocks,\ntrees, lakes, etc., colored after nature.\n\n\nI believed we could walk down to Waeggis or Vitznau in a day, but I knew\nwe could go down by rail in about an hour, so I chose the latter method.\nI wanted to see what it was like, anyway. The train came along about the\nmiddle of the afternoon, and an odd thing it was. The locomotive-boiler\nstood on end, and it and the whole locomotive were tilted sharply\nbackward. There were two passenger-cars, roofed, but wide open all\naround. These cars were not tilted back, but the seats were; this\nenables the passenger to sit level while going down a steep incline.\n\nThere are three railway-tracks; the central one is cogged; the \"lantern\nwheel\" of the engine grips its way along these cogs, and pulls the\ntrain up the hill or retards its motion on the down trip. About the same\nspeed--three miles an hour--is maintained both ways. Whether going up or\ndown, the locomotive is always at the lower end of the train. It pushes\nin the one case, braces back in the other. The passenger rides backward\ngoing up, and faces forward going down.\n\nWe got front seats, and while the train moved along about fifty yards\non level ground, I was not the least frightened; but now it started\nabruptly downstairs, and I caught my breath. And I, like my neighbors,\nunconsciously held back all I could, and threw my weight to the rear,\nbut, of course, that did no particular good. I had slidden down the\nbalusters when I was a boy, and thought nothing of it, but to slide down\nthe balusters in a railway-train is a thing to make one's flesh creep.\nSometimes we had as much as ten yards of almost level ground, and this\ngave us a few full breaths in comfort; but straightway we would turn a\ncorner and see a long steep line of rails stretching down below us, and\nthe comfort was at an end. One expected to see the locomotive pause,\nor slack up a little, and approach this plunge cautiously, but it\ndid nothing of the kind; it went calmly on, and went it reached the\njumping-off place it made a sudden bow, and went gliding smoothly\ndownstairs, untroubled by the circumstances.\n\nIt was wildly exhilarating to slide along the edge of the precipices,\nafter this grisly fashion, and look straight down upon that far-off\nvalley which I was describing a while ago.\n\nThere was no level ground at the Kaltbad station; the railbed was as\nsteep as a roof; I was curious to see how the stop was going to be\nmanaged. But it was very simple; the train came sliding down, and when\nit reached the right spot it just stopped--that was all there was \"to\nit\"--stopped on the steep incline, and when the exchange of passengers\nand baggage had been made, it moved off and went sliding down again. The\ntrain can be stopped anywhere, at a moment's notice.\n\nThere was one curious effect, which I need not take the trouble to\ndescribe--because I can scissor a description of it out of the railway\ncompany's advertising pamphlet, and save my ink:\n\n\n\"On the whole tour, particularly at the Descent, we undergo an optical\nillusion which often seems to be incredible. All the shrubs, fir trees,\nstables, houses, etc., seem to be bent in a slanting direction, as by an\nimmense pressure of air. They are all standing awry, so much awry that\nthe chalets and cottages of the peasants seem to be tumbling down. It\nis the consequence of the steep inclination of the line. Those who\nare seated in the carriage do not observe that they are going down a\ndeclivity of twenty to twenty-five degrees (their seats being adapted\nto this course of proceeding and being bent down at their backs). They\nmistake their carriage and its horizontal lines for a proper measure of\nthe normal plain, and therefore all the objects outside which really\nare in a horizontal position must show a disproportion of twenty to\ntwenty-five degrees declivity, in regard to the mountain.\"\n\nBy the time one reaches Kaltbad, he has acquired confidence in the\nrailway, and he now ceases to try to ease the locomotive by holding\nback. Thenceforth he smokes his pipe in serenity, and gazes out upon the\nmagnificent picture below and about him with unfettered enjoyment. There\nis nothing to interrupt the view or the breeze; it is like inspecting\nthe world on the wing. However--to be exact--there is one place where\nthe serenity lapses for a while; this is while one is crossing the\nSchnurrtobel Bridge, a frail structure which swings its gossamer frame\ndown through the dizzy air, over a gorge, like a vagrant spider-strand.\n\nOne has no difficulty in remembering his sins while the train is\ncreeping down this bridge; and he repents of them, too; though he sees,\nwhen he gets to Vitznau, that he need not have done it, the bridge was\nperfectly safe.\n\nSo ends the eventual trip which we made to the Rigi-Kulm to see an\nAlpine sunrise.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX\n\n[Harris Climbs Mountains for Me]\n\n\nAn hour's sail brought us to Lucerne again. I judged it best to go to\nbed and rest several days, for I knew that the man who undertakes to\nmake the tour of Europe on foot must take care of himself.\n\nThinking over my plans, as mapped out, I perceived that they did not\ntake in the Furka Pass, the Rhone Glacier, the Finsteraarhorn, the\nWetterhorn, etc. I immediately examined the guide-book to see if these\nwere important, and found they were; in fact, a pedestrian tour of\nEurope could not be complete without them. Of course that decided me at\nonce to see them, for I never allow myself to do things by halves, or in\na slurring, slipshod way.\n\nI called in my agent and instructed him to go without delay and make a\ncareful examination of these noted places, on foot, and bring me back a\nwritten report of the result, for insertion in my book. I instructed\nhim to go to Hospenthal as quickly as possible, and make his grand start\nfrom there; to extend his foot expedition as far as the Giesbach fall,\nand return to me from thence by diligence or mule. I told him to take\nthe courier with him.\n\nHe objected to the courier, and with some show of reason, since he was\nabout to venture upon new and untried ground; but I thought he might\nas well learn how to take care of the courier now as later, therefore I\nenforced my point. I said that the trouble, delay, and inconvenience\nof traveling with a courier were balanced by the deep respect which a\ncourier's presence commands, and I must insist that as much style be\nthrown into my journeys as possible.\n\nSo the two assumed complete mountaineering costumes and departed. A week\nlater they returned, pretty well used up, and my agent handed me the\nfollowing: Official Report\n\nOF A VISIT TO THE FURKA REGION.\n\nBY H. HARRIS, AGENT About seven o'clock in the morning, with perfectly\nfine weather, we started from Hospenthal, and arrived at the MAISON on\nthe Furka in a little under QUATRE hours. The want of variety in the\nscenery from Hospenthal made the KAHKAHPONEEKA wearisome; but let none\nbe discouraged; no one can fail to be completely R'ECOMPENS'EE for his\nfatigue, when he sees, for the first time, the monarch of the Oberland,\nthe tremendous Finsteraarhorn. A moment before all was dullness, but\na PAS further has placed us on the summit of the Furka; and exactly in\nfront of us, at a HOPOW of only fifteen miles, this magnificent mountain\nlifts its snow-wreathed precipices into the deep blue sky. The inferior\nmountains on each side of the pass form a sort of frame for the picture\nof their dread lord, and close in the view so completely that no other\nprominent feature in the Oberland is visible from this BONG-A-BONG;\nnothing withdraws the attention from the solitary grandeur of the\nFinsteraarhorn and the dependent spurs which form the abutments of the\ncentral peak.\n\n\nWith the addition of some others, who were also bound for the Grimsel,\nwe formed a large XHVLOJ as we descended the STEG which winds round the\nshoulder of a mountain toward the Rhone Glacier. We soon left the path\nand took to the ice; and after wandering amongst the crevices UN PEU, to\nadmire the wonders of these deep blue caverns, and hear the rushing of\nwaters through their subglacial channels, we struck out a course toward\nL'AUTRE C\u00d4TE and crossed the glacier successfully, a little above the\ncave from which the infant Rhone takes its first bound from under the\ngrand precipice of ice. Half a mile below this we began to climb the\nflowery side of the Meienwand. One of our party started before the rest,\nbut the HITZE was so great, that we found IHM quite exhausted, and lying\nat full length in the shade of a large GESTEIN. We sat down with him\nfor a time, for all felt the heat exceedingly in the climb up this very\nsteep BOLWOGGOLY, and then we set out again together, and arrived at\nlast near the Dead Man's Lake, at the foot of the Sidelhorn. This lonely\nspot, once used for an extempore burying-place, after a sanguinary\nBATTUE between the French and Austrians, is the perfection of\ndesolation; there is nothing in sight to mark the hand of man, except\nthe line of weather-beaten whitened posts, set up to indicate the\ndirection of the pass in the OWDAWAKK of winter. Near this point the\nfootpath joins the wider track, which connects the Grimsel with the head\nof the Rhone SCHNAWP; this has been carefully constructed, and leads\nwith a tortuous course among and over LES PIERRES, down to the bank of\nthe gloomy little SWOSH-SWOSH, which almost washes against the walls of\nthe Grimsel Hospice. We arrived a little before four o'clock at the end\nof our day's journey, hot enough to justify the step, taking by most of\nthe PARTIE, of plunging into the crystal water of the snow-fed lake.\n\n\nThe next afternoon we started for a walk up the Unteraar glacier, with\nthe intention of, at all events, getting as far as the H\u00fctte which is\nused as a sleeping-place by most of those who cross the Strahleck Pass\nto Grindelwald. We got over the tedious collection of stones and D\u00c9BRIS\nwhich covers the PIED of the GLETCHER, and had walked nearly three hours\nfrom the Grimsel, when, just as we were thinking of crossing over to the\nright, to climb the cliffs at the foot of the hut, the clouds, which had\nfor some time assumed a threatening appearance, suddenly dropped, and\na huge mass of them, driving toward us from the Finsteraarhorn, poured\ndown a deluge of HABOOLONG and hail. Fortunately, we were not far from\na very large glacier-table; it was a huge rock balanced on a pedestal\nof ice high enough to admit of our all creeping under it for GOWKARAK.\nA stream of PUCKITTYPUKK had furrowed a course for itself in the ice\nat its base, and we were obliged to stand with one FUSS on each side of\nthis, and endeavor to keep ourselves CHAUD by cutting steps in the steep\nbank of the pedestal, so as to get a higher place for standing on,\nas the WASSER rose rapidly in its trench. A very cold BZZZZZZZZEEE\naccompanied the storm, and made our position far from pleasant; and\npresently came a flash of BLITZEN, apparently in the middle of our\nlittle party, with an instantaneous clap of YOKKY, sounding like a large\ngun fired close to our ears; the effect was startling; but in a few\nseconds our attention was fixed by the roaring echoes of the thunder\nagainst the tremendous mountains which completely surrounded us. This\nwas followed by many more bursts, none of WELCHE, however, was so\ndangerously near; and after waiting a long DEMI-hour in our icy prison,\nwe sallied out to talk through a HABOOLONG which, though not so heavy\nas before, was quite enough to give us a thorough soaking before our\narrival at the Hospice.\n\nThe Grimsel is CERTAINEMENT a wonderful place; situated at the bottom\nof a sort of huge crater, the sides of which are utterly savage GEBIRGE,\ncomposed of barren rocks which cannot even support a single pine ARBRE,\nand afford only scanty food for a herd of GMWKWLLOLP, it looks as if\nit must be completely BEGRABEN in the winter snows. Enormous avalanches\nfall against it every spring, sometimes covering everything to the depth\nof thirty or forty feet; and, in spite of walls four feet thick, and\nfurnished with outside shutters, the two men who stay here when the\nVOYAGEURS are snugly quartered in their distant homes can tell you that\nthe snow sometimes shakes the house to its foundations.\n\nNext morning the HOGGLEBUMGULLUP still continued bad, but we made up our\nminds to go on, and make the best of it. Half an hour after we started,\nthe REGEN thickened unpleasantly, and we attempted to get shelter under\na projecting rock, but being far to NASS already to make standing at\nall AGR\u00c9ABLE, we pushed on for the Handeck, consoling ourselves with the\nreflection that from the furious rushing of the river Aar at our\nside, we should at all events see the celebrated WASSERFALL in GRANDE\nPERFECTION. Nor were we NAPPERSOCKET in our expectation; the water\nwas roaring down its leap of two hundred and fifty feet in a most\nmagnificent frenzy, while the trees which cling to its rocky sides\nswayed to and fro in the violence of the hurricane which it brought down\nwith it; even the stream, which falls into the main cascade at right\nangles, and TOUTEFOIS forms a beautiful feature in the scene, was now\nswollen into a raging torrent; and the violence of this \"meeting of the\nwaters,\" about fifty feet below the frail bridge where we stood, was\nfearfully grand. While we were looking at it, GL\u00dcECKLICHEWEISE a gleam\nof sunshine came out, and instantly a beautiful rainbow was formed by\nthe spray, and hung in mid-air suspended over the awful gorge.\n\nOn going into the CHALET above the fall, we were informed that a BRUECKE\nhad broken down near Guttanen, and that it would be impossible to\nproceed for some time; accordingly we were kept in our drenched\ncondition for EIN STUNDE, when some VOYAGEURS arrived from Meiringen,\nand told us that there had been a trifling accident, ABER that we could\nnow cross. On arriving at the spot, I was much inclined to suspect that\nthe whole story was a ruse to make us SLOWWK and drink the more at the\nHandeck Inn, for only a few planks had been carried away, and though\nthere might perhaps have been some difficulty with mules, the gap was\ncertainly not larger than a MMBGLX might cross with a very slight leap.\nNear Guttanen the HABOOLONG happily ceased, and we had time to walk\nourselves tolerably dry before arriving at Reichenback, WO we enjoyed a\ngood DIN\u00c9 at the Hotel des Alps.\n\n\nNext morning we walked to Rosenlaui, the BEAU ID\u00c9AL of Swiss scenery,\nwhere we spent the middle of the day in an excursion to the glacier.\nThis was more beautiful than words can describe, for in the constant\nprogress of the ice it has changed the form of its extremity and formed\na vast cavern, as blue as the sky above, and rippled like a frozen\nocean. A few steps cut in the WHOOPJAMBOREEHOO enabled us to walk\ncompletely under this, and feast our eyes upon one of the loveliest\nobjects in creation. The glacier was all around divided by numberless\nfissures of the same exquisite color, and the finest wood-ERDBEEREN were\ngrowing in abundance but a few yards from the ice. The inn stands in a\nCHARMANT spot close to the C\u00d4T\u00c9 DE LA RIVI\u00c8RE, which, lower down, forms\nthe Reichenbach fall, and embosomed in the richest of pine woods,\nwhile the fine form of the Wellhorn looking down upon it completes the\nenchanting BOPPLE. In the afternoon we walked over the Great Scheideck\nto Grindelwald, stopping to pay a visit to the Upper glacier by the way;\nbut we were again overtaken by bad HOGGLEBUMGULLUP and arrived at the\nhotel in a SOLCHE a state that the landlord's wardrobe was in great\nrequest.\n\nThe clouds by this time seemed to have done their worst, for a lovely\nday succeeded, which we determined to devote to an ascent of the\nFaulhorn. We left Grindelwald just as a thunder-storm was dying away,\nand we hoped to find GUTEN WETTER up above; but the rain, which had\nnearly ceased, began again, and we were struck by the rapidly increasing\nFROID as we ascended. Two-thirds of the way up were completed when\nthe rain was exchanged for GNILLIC, with which the BODEN was thickly\ncovered, and before we arrived at the top the GNILLIC and mist became\nso thick that we could not see one another at more than twenty POOPOO\ndistance, and it became difficult to pick our way over the rough and\nthickly covered ground. Shivering with cold, we turned into bed with a\ndouble allowance of clothes, and slept comfortably while the wind\nhowled AUTOUR DE LA MAISON; when I awoke, the wall and the window looked\nequally dark, but in another hour I found I could just see the form\nof the latter; so I jumped out of bed, and forced it open, though with\ngreat difficulty from the frost and the quantities of GNILLIC heaped up\nagainst it.\n\nA row of huge icicles hung down from the edge of the roof, and anything\nmore wintry than the whole ANBLICK could not well be imagined; but the\nsudden appearance of the great mountains in front was so startling\nthat I felt no inclination to move toward bed again. The snow which\nhad collected upon LA F\u00caNTRE had increased the FINSTERNISS ODER DER\nDUNKELHEIT, so that when I looked out I was surprised to find that the\ndaylight was considerable, and that the BALRAGOOMAH would evidently rise\nbefore long. Only the brightest of LES E'TOILES were still shining; the\nsky was cloudless overhead, though small curling mists lay thousands of\nfeet below us in the valleys, wreathed around the feet of the mountains,\nand adding to the splendor of their lofty summits. We were soon dressed\nand out of the house, watching the gradual approach of dawn, thoroughly\nabsorbed in the first near view of the Oberland giants, which broke\nupon us unexpectedly after the intense obscurity of the evening before.\n\"KABAUGWAKKO SONGWASHEE KUM WETTERHORN SNAWPO!\" cried some one, as that\ngrand summit gleamed with the first rose of dawn; and in a few moments\nthe double crest of the Schreckhorn followed its example; peak after\npeak seemed warmed with life, the Jungfrau blushed even more beautifully\nthan her neighbors, and soon, from the Wetterhorn in the east to the\nWildstrubel in the west, a long row of fires glowed upon mighty altars,\ntruly worthy of the gods.\n\n\nThe WLGW was very severe; our sleeping-place could hardly be DISTINGUE\u00c9\nfrom the snow around it, which had fallen to a depth of a FLIRK during\nthe past evening, and we heartily enjoyed a rough scramble EN BAS to\nthe Giesbach falls, where we soon found a warm climate. At noon the day\nbefore Grindelwald the thermometer could not have stood at less than 100\ndegrees Fahr. in the sun; and in the evening, judging from the icicles\nformed, and the state of the windows, there must have been at least\ntwelve DINGBLATTER of frost, thus giving a change of 80 degrees during a\nfew hours.\n\nI said:\n\n\"You have done well, Harris; this report is concise, compact, well\nexpressed; the language is crisp, the descriptions are vivid and not\nneedlessly elaborated; your report goes straight to the point, attends\nstrictly to business, and doesn't fool around. It is in many ways an\nexcellent document. But it has a fault--it is too learned, it is much\ntoo learned. What is 'DINGBLATTER'?\n\n\"'DINGBLATTER' is a Fiji word meaning 'degrees.'\"\n\n\"You knew the English of it, then?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes.\"\n\n\"What is 'GNILLIC'?\n\n\"That is the Eskimo term for 'snow.'\"\n\n\"So you knew the English for that, too?\"\n\n\"Why, certainly.\"\n\n\"What does 'MMBGLX' stand for?\"\n\n\"That is Zulu for 'pedestrian.'\"\n\n\"'While the form of the Wellhorn looking down upon it completes the\nenchanting BOPPLE.' What is 'BOPPLE'?\"\n\n\"'Picture.' It's Choctaw.\"\n\n\"What is 'SCHNAWP'?\"\n\n\"'Valley.' That is Choctaw, also.\"\n\n\"What is 'BOLWOGGOLY'?\"\n\n\"That is Chinese for 'hill.'\"\n\n\"'KAHKAHPONEEKA'?\"\n\n\"'Ascent.' Choctaw.\"\n\n\"'But we were again overtaken by bad HOGGLEBUMGULLUP.' What does\n'HOGGLEBUMGULLUP' mean?\"\n\n\"That is Chinese for 'weather.'\"\n\n\"Is 'HOGGLEBUMGULLUP' better than the English word? Is it any more\ndescriptive?\"\n\n\"No, it means just the same.\"\n\n\"And 'DINGBLATTER' and 'GNILLIC,' and 'BOPPLE,' and 'SCHNAWP'--are they\nbetter than the English words?\"\n\n\"No, they mean just what the English ones do.\"\n\n\"Then why do you use them? Why have you used all this Chinese and\nChoctaw and Zulu rubbish?\"\n\n\"Because I didn't know any French but two or three words, and I didn't\nknow any Latin or Greek at all.\"\n\n\"That is nothing. Why should you want to use foreign words, anyhow?\"\n\n\"They adorn my page. They all do it.\"\n\n\"Who is 'all'?\"\n\n\"Everybody. Everybody that writes elegantly. Anybody has a right to that\nwants to.\"\n\n\"I think you are mistaken.\" I then proceeded in the following scathing\nmanner. \"When really learned men write books for other learned men\nto read, they are justified in using as many learned words as they\nplease--their audience will understand them; but a man who writes a book\nfor the general public to read is not justified in disfiguring his pages\nwith untranslated foreign expressions. It is an insolence toward the\nmajority of the purchasers, for it is a very frank and impudent way of\nsaying, 'Get the translations made yourself if you want them, this\nbook is not written for the ignorant classes.' There are men who know\na foreign language so well and have used it so long in their daily\nlife that they seem to discharge whole volleys of it into their English\nwritings unconsciously, and so they omit to translate, as much as\nhalf the time. That is a great cruelty to nine out of ten of the man's\nreaders. What is the excuse for this? The writer would say he only uses\nthe foreign language where the delicacy of his point cannot be conveyed\nin English. Very well, then he writes his best things for the tenth man,\nand he ought to warn the nine other not to buy his book. However, the\nexcuse he offers is at least an excuse; but there is another set of\nmen who are like YOU; they know a WORD here and there, of a foreign\nlanguage, or a few beggarly little three-word phrases, filched from the\nback of the Dictionary, and these are continually peppering into their\nliterature, with a pretense of knowing that language--what excuse can\nthey offer? The foreign words and phrases which they use have their\nexact equivalents in a nobler language--English; yet they think they\n'adorn their page' when they say STRASSE for street, and BAHNHOF for\nrailway-station, and so on--flaunting these fluttering rags of poverty\nin the reader's face and imagining he will be ass enough to take\nthem for the sign of untold riches held in reserve. I will let your\n'learning' remain in your report; you have as much right, I suppose, to\n'adorn your page' with Zulu and Chinese and Choctaw rubbish as others of\nyour sort have to adorn theirs with insolent odds and ends smouched from\nhalf a dozen learned tongues whose A-B ABS they don't even know.\"\n\nWhen the musing spider steps upon the red-hot shovel, he first exhibits\na wild surprise, then he shrivels up. Similar was the effect of these\nblistering words upon the tranquil and unsuspecting Agent. I can be\ndreadfully rough on a person when the mood takes me.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI\n\n[Alp-scaling by Carriage]\n\n\nWe now prepared for a considerable walk--from Lucerne to Interlaken,\nover the Bruenig Pass. But at the last moment the weather was so good\nthat I changed my mind and hired a four-horse carriage. It was a huge\nvehicle, roomy, as easy in its motion as a palanquin, and exceedingly\ncomfortable.\n\nWe got away pretty early in the morning, after a hot breakfast, and\nwent bowling over a hard, smooth road, through the summer loveliness of\nSwitzerland, with near and distant lakes and mountains before and about\nus for the entertainment of the eye, and the music of multitudinous\nbirds to charm the ear. Sometimes there was only the width of the road\nbetween the imposing precipices on the right and the clear cool water on\nthe left with its shoals of uncatchable fish skimming about through the\nbars of sun and shadow; and sometimes, in place of the precipices, the\ngrassy land stretched away, in an apparently endless upward slant,\nand was dotted everywhere with snug little chalets, the peculiarly\ncaptivating cottage of Switzerland.\n\nThe ordinary chalet turns a broad, honest gable end to the road, and\nits ample roof hovers over the home in a protecting, caressing way,\nprojecting its sheltering eaves far outward. The quaint windows are\nfilled with little panes, and garnished with white muslin curtains,\nand brightened with boxes of blooming flowers. Across the front of the\nhouse, and up the spreading eaves and along the fanciful railings of\nthe shallow porch, are elaborate carvings--wreaths, fruits, arabesques,\nverses from Scripture, names, dates, etc. The building is wholly of\nwood, reddish brown in tint, a very pleasing color. It generally has\nvines climbing over it. Set such a house against the fresh green of the\nhillside, and it looks ever so cozy and inviting and picturesque, and is\na decidedly graceful addition to the landscape.\n\nOne does not find out what a hold the chalet has taken upon him, until\nhe presently comes upon a new house--a house which is aping the town\nfashions of Germany and France, a prim, hideous, straight-up-and-down\nthing, plastered all over on the outside to look like stone, and\naltogether so stiff, and formal, and ugly, and forbidding, and so out of\ntune with the gracious landscape, and so deaf and dumb and dead to the\npoetry of its surroundings, that it suggests an undertaker at a picnic,\na corpse at a wedding, a puritan in Paradise.\n\n\nIn the course of the morning we passed the spot where Pontius Pilate is\nsaid to have thrown himself into the lake. The legend goes that after\nthe Crucifixion his conscience troubled him, and he fled from Jerusalem\nand wandered about the earth, weary of life and a prey to tortures\nof the mind. Eventually, he hid himself away, on the heights of Mount\nPilatus, and dwelt alone among the clouds and crags for years; but rest\nand peace were still denied him, so he finally put an end to his misery\nby drowning himself.\n\nPresently we passed the place where a man of better odor was born. This\nwas the children's friend, Santa Claus, or St. Nicholas. There are some\nunaccountable reputations in the world. This saint's is an instance. He\nhas ranked for ages as the peculiar friend of children, yet it appears\nhe was not much of a friend to his own. He had ten of them, and when\nfifty years old he left them, and sought out as dismal a refuge from the\nworld as possible, and became a hermit in order that he might reflect\nupon pious themes without being disturbed by the joyous and other noises\nfrom the nursery, doubtless.\n\n\nJudging by Pilate and St. Nicholas, there exists no rule for the\nconstruction of hermits; they seem made out of all kinds of material.\nBut Pilate attended to the matter of expiating his sin while he was\nalive, whereas St. Nicholas will probably have to go on climbing down\nsooty chimneys, Christmas eve, forever, and conferring kindness on other\npeople's children, to make up for deserting his own. His bones are kept\nin a church in a village (Sachseln) which we visited, and are naturally\nheld in great reverence. His portrait is common in the farmhouses of\nthe region, but is believed by many to be but an indifferent likeness.\nDuring his hermit life, according to legend, he partook of the bread\nand wine of the communion once a month, but all the rest of the month he\nfasted.\n\n\nA constant marvel with us, as we sped along the bases of the steep\nmountains on this journey, was, not that avalanches occur, but that they\nare not occurring all the time. One does not understand why rocks\nand landslides do not plunge down these declivities daily. A landslip\noccurred three quarters of a century ago, on the route from Arth to\nBrunnen, which was a formidable thing. A mass of conglomerate two miles\nlong, a thousand feet broad, and a hundred feet thick, broke away from a\ncliff three thousand feet high and hurled itself into the valley below,\nburying four villages and five hundred people, as in a grave.\n\n\nWe had such a beautiful day, and such endless pictures of limpid lakes,\nand green hills and valleys, and majestic mountains, and milky cataracts\ndancing down the steeps and gleaming in the sun, that we could not help\nfeeling sweet toward all the world; so we tried to drink all the\nmilk, and eat all the grapes and apricots and berries, and buy all the\nbouquets of wild flowers which the little peasant boys and girls offered\nfor sale; but we had to retire from this contract, for it was too heavy.\n\nAt short distances--and they were entirely too short--all along the\nroad, were groups of neat and comely children, with their wares nicely\nand temptingly set forth in the grass under the shade trees, and as soon\nas we approached they swarmed into the road, holding out their baskets\nand milk bottles, and ran beside the carriage, barefoot and bareheaded,\nand importuned us to buy. They seldom desisted early, but continued to\nrun and insist--beside the wagon while they could, and behind it until\nthey lost breath. Then they turned and chased a returning carriage back\nto their trading-post again. After several hours of this, without any\nintermission, it becomes almost annoying. I do not know what we should\nhave done without the returning carriages to draw off the pursuit.\nHowever, there were plenty of these, loaded with dusty tourists and\npiled high with luggage. Indeed, from Lucerne to Interlaken we had\nthe spectacle, among other scenery, of an unbroken procession of\nfruit-peddlers and tourists carriages.\n\nOur talk was mostly anticipatory of what we should see on the down-grade\nof the Bruenig, by and by, after we should pass the summit. All our\nfriends in Lucerne had said that to look down upon Meiringen, and the\nrushing blue-gray river Aar, and the broad level green valley; and\nacross at the mighty Alpine precipices that rise straight up to the\nclouds out of that valley; and up at the microscopic chalets perched\nupon the dizzy eaves of those precipices and winking dimly and fitfully\nthrough the drifting veil of vapor; and still up and up, at the superb\nOltschiback and the other beautiful cascades that leap from those rugged\nheights, robed in powdery spray, ruffled with foam, and girdled with\nrainbows--to look upon these things, they say, was to look upon the last\npossibility of the sublime and the enchanting. Therefore, as I say,\nwe talked mainly of these coming wonders; if we were conscious of any\nimpatience, it was to get there in favorable season; if we felt any\nanxiety, it was that the day might remain perfect, and enable us to see\nthose marvels at their best.\n\nAs we approached the Kaiserstuhl, a part of the harness gave way.\n\nWe were in distress for a moment, but only a moment. It was the\nfore-and-aft gear that was broken--the thing that leads aft from the\nforward part of the horse and is made fast to the thing that pulls the\nwagon. In America this would have been a heavy leathern strap; but, all\nover the continent it is nothing but a piece of rope the size of\nyour little finger--clothes-line is what it is. Cabs use it, private\ncarriages, freight-carts and wagons, all sorts of vehicles have it. In\nMunich I afterward saw it used on a long wagon laden with fifty-four\nhalf-barrels of beer; I had before noticed that the cabs in Heidelberg\nused it--not new rope, but rope that had been in use since Abraham's\ntime --and I had felt nervous, sometimes, behind it when the cab was\ntearing down a hill. But I had long been accustomed to it now, and had\neven become afraid of the leather strap which belonged in its place. Our\ndriver got a fresh piece of clothes-line out of his locker and repaired\nthe break in two minutes.\n\nSo much for one European fashion. Every country has its own ways. It may\ninterest the reader to know how they \"put horses to\" on the continent.\nThe man stands up the horses on each side of the thing that projects\nfrom the front end of the wagon, and then throws the tangled mess of\ngear forward through a ring, and hauls it aft, and passes the other\nthing through the other ring and hauls it aft on the other side of the\nother horse, opposite to the first one, after crossing them and bringing\nthe loose end back, and then buckles the other thing underneath the\nhorse, and takes another thing and wraps it around the thing I spoke\nof before, and puts another thing over each horse's head, with broad\nflappers to it to keep the dust out of his eyes, and puts the iron thing\nin his mouth for him to grit his teeth on, uphill, and brings the ends\nof these things aft over his back, after buckling another one around\nunder his neck to hold his head up, and hitching another thing on\na thing that goes over his shoulders to keep his head up when he is\nclimbing a hill, and then takes the slack of the thing which I mentioned\na while ago, and fetches it aft and makes it fast to the thing that\npulls the wagon, and hands the other things up to the driver to steer\nwith. I never have buckled up a horse myself, but I do not think we do\nit that way.\n\n\nWe had four very handsome horses, and the driver was very proud of his\nturnout. He would bowl along on a reasonable trot, on the highway, but\nwhen he entered a village he did it on a furious run, and accompanied it\nwith a frenzy of ceaseless whip-crackings that sounded like volleys of\nmusketry. He tore through the narrow streets and around the sharp curves\nlike a moving earthquake, showering his volleys as he went, and before\nhim swept a continuous tidal wave of scampering children, ducks, cats,\nand mothers clasping babies which they had snatched out of the way of\nthe coming destruction; and as this living wave washed aside, along the\nwalls, its elements, being safe, forgot their fears and turned their\nadmiring gaze upon that gallant driver till he thundered around the next\ncurve and was lost to sight.\n\nHe was a great man to those villagers, with his gaudy clothes and his\nterrific ways. Whenever he stopped to have his cattle watered and fed\nwith loaves of bread, the villagers stood around admiring him while\nhe swaggered about, the little boys gazed up at his face with humble\nhomage, and the landlord brought out foaming mugs of beer and conversed\nproudly with him while he drank. Then he mounted his lofty box, swung\nhis explosive whip, and away he went again, like a storm. I had not\nseen anything like this before since I was a boy, and the stage used to\nflourish the village with the dust flying and the horn tooting.\n\n\nWhen we reached the base of the Kaiserstuhl, we took two more horses; we\nhad to toil along with difficulty for an hour and a half or two hours,\nfor the ascent was not very gradual, but when we passed the backbone and\napproached the station, the driver surpassed all his previous efforts in\nthe way of rush and clatter. He could not have six horses all the time,\nso he made the most of his chance while he had it.\n\nUp to this point we had been in the heart of the William Tell region.\nThe hero is not forgotten, by any means, or held in doubtful veneration.\nHis wooden image, with his bow drawn, above the doors of taverns, was a\nfrequent feature of the scenery.\n\nAbout noon we arrived at the foot of the Bruenig Pass, and made a\ntwo-hour stop at the village hotel, another of those clean, pretty, and\nthoroughly well-kept inns which are such an astonishment to people\nwho are accustomed to hotels of a dismally different pattern in remote\ncountry-towns. There was a lake here, in the lap of the great mountains,\nthe green slopes that rose toward the lower crags were graced with\nscattered Swiss cottages nestling among miniature farms and gardens,\nand from out a leafy ambuscade in the upper heights tumbled a brawling\ncataract.\n\n\nCarriage after carriage, laden with tourists and trunks, arrived, and\nthe quiet hotel was soon populous. We were early at the table d'h\u00f4te and\nsaw the people all come in. There were twenty-five, perhaps. They were\nof various nationalities, but we were the only Americans. Next to me sat\nan English bride, and next to her sat her new husband, whom she called\n\"Neddy,\" though he was big enough and stalwart enough to be entitled to\nhis full name. They had a pretty little lovers' quarrel over what wine\nthey should have. Neddy was for obeying the guide-book and taking the\nwine of the country; but the bride said:\n\n\"What, that nahsty stuff!\"\n\n\"It isn't nahsty, pet, it's quite good.\"\n\n\"It IS nahsty.\"\n\n\"No, it ISN'T nahsty.\"\n\n\"It's Oful nahsty, Neddy, and I shahn't drink it.\"\n\nThen the question was, what she must have. She said he knew very well\nthat she never drank anything but champagne.\n\nShe added:\n\n\"You know very well papa always has champagne on his table, and I've\nalways been used to it.\"\n\nNeddy made a playful pretense of being distressed about the expense,\nand this amused her so much that she nearly exhausted herself with\nlaughter--and this pleased HIM so much that he repeated his jest a\ncouple of times, and added new and killing varieties to it. When the\nbride finally recovered, she gave Neddy a love-box on the arm with her\nfan, and said with arch severity:\n\n\"Well, you would HAVE me--nothing else would do--so you'll have to make\nthe best of a bad bargain. DO order the champagne, I'm Oful dry.\"\n\n\nSo with a mock groan which made her laugh again, Neddy ordered the\nchampagne.\n\nThe fact that this young woman had never moistened the selvedge edge of\nher soul with a less plebeian tipple than champagne, had a marked and\nsubduing effect on Harris. He believed she belonged to the royal family.\nBut I had my doubts.\n\nWe heard two or three different languages spoken by people at the\ntable and guessed out the nationalities of most of the guests to our\nsatisfaction, but we failed with an elderly gentleman and his wife and\na young girl who sat opposite us, and with a gentleman of about\nthirty-five who sat three seats beyond Harris. We did not hear any of\nthese speak. But finally the last-named gentleman left while we were not\nnoticing, but we looked up as he reached the far end of the table. He\nstopped there a moment, and made his toilet with a pocket comb. So he\nwas a German; or else he had lived in German hotels long enough to catch\nthe fashion. When the elderly couple and the young girl rose to leave,\nthey bowed respectfully to us. So they were Germans, too. This national\ncustom is worth six of the other one, for export.\n\n\nAfter dinner we talked with several Englishmen, and they inflamed our\ndesire to a hotter degree than ever, to see the sights of Meiringen from\nthe heights of the Bruenig Pass. They said the view was marvelous, and\nthat one who had seen it once could never forget it. They also spoke of\nthe romantic nature of the road over the pass, and how in one place it\nhad been cut through a flank of the solid rock, in such a way that the\nmountain overhung the tourist as he passed by; and they furthermore said\nthat the sharp turns in the road and the abruptness of the descent would\nafford us a thrilling experience, for we should go down in a flying\ngallop and seem to be spinning around the rings of a whirlwind, like a\ndrop of whiskey descending the spirals of a corkscrew.\n\n\nI got all the information out of these gentlemen that we could need; and\nthen, to make everything complete, I asked them if a body could get hold\nof a little fruit and milk here and there, in case of necessity. They\nthrew up their hands in speechless intimation that the road was simply\npaved with refreshment-peddlers. We were impatient to get away, now, and\nthe rest of our two-hour stop rather dragged. But finally the set time\narrived and we began the ascent. Indeed it was a wonderful road. It was\nsmooth, and compact, and clean, and the side next the precipices was\nguarded all along by dressed stone posts about three feet high, placed\nat short distances apart. The road could not have been better built if\nNapoleon the First had built it. He seems to have been the introducer of\nthe sort of roads which Europe now uses. All literature which describes\nlife as it existed in England, France, and Germany up to the close\nof the last century, is filled with pictures of coaches and carriages\nwallowing through these three countries in mud and slush half-wheel\ndeep; but after Napoleon had floundered through a conquered kingdom he\ngenerally arranged things so that the rest of the world could follow\ndry-shod.\n\nWe went on climbing, higher and higher, and curving hither and thither,\nin the shade of noble woods, and with a rich variety and profusion of\nwild flowers all about us; and glimpses of rounded grassy backbones\nbelow us occupied by trim chalets and nibbling sheep, and other glimpses\nof far lower altitudes, where distance diminished the chalets to toys\nand obliterated the sheep altogether; and every now and then some\nermined monarch of the Alps swung magnificently into view for a moment,\nthen drifted past an intervening spur and disappeared again.\n\nIt was an intoxicating trip altogether; the exceeding sense of\nsatisfaction that follows a good dinner added largely to the enjoyment;\nthe having something especial to look forward to and muse about, like\nthe approaching grandeurs of Meiringen, sharpened the zest. Smoking\nwas never so good before, solid comfort was never solider; we lay back\nagainst the thick cushions silent, meditative, steeped in felicity. *\n* * * * * * * I rubbed my eyes, opened them, and started. I had been\ndreaming I was at sea, and it was a thrilling surprise to wake up and\nfind land all around me. It took me a couple seconds to \"come to,\" as\nyou may say; then I took in the situation. The horses were drinking at\na trough in the edge of a town, the driver was taking beer, Harris was\nsnoring at my side, the courier, with folded arms and bowed head, was\nsleeping on the box, two dozen barefooted and bareheaded children were\ngathered about the carriage, with their hands crossed behind, gazing up\nwith serious and innocent admiration at the dozing tourists baking there\nin the sun. Several small girls held night-capped babies nearly as big\nas themselves in their arms, and even these fat babies seemed to take a\nsort of sluggish interest in us.\n\n\nWe had slept an hour and a half and missed all the scenery! I did not\nneed anybody to tell me that. If I had been a girl, I could have cursed\nfor vexation. As it was, I woke up the agent and gave him a piece of\nmy mind. Instead of being humiliated, he only upbraided me for being\nso wanting in vigilance. He said he had expected to improve his mind by\ncoming to Europe, but a man might travel to the ends of the earth with\nme and never see anything, for I was manifestly endowed with the very\ngenius of ill luck. He even tried to get up some emotion about that\npoor courier, who never got a chance to see anything, on account of my\nheedlessness. But when I thought I had borne about enough of this kind\nof talk, I threatened to make Harris tramp back to the summit and make a\nreport on that scenery, and this suggestion spiked his battery.\n\nWe drove sullenly through Brienz, dead to the seductions of its\nbewildering array of Swiss carvings and the clamorous HOO-hooing of\nits cuckoo clocks, and had not entirely recovered our spirits when we\nrattled across a bridge over the rushing blue river and entered the\npretty town of Interlaken. It was just about sunset, and we had made the\ntrip from Lucerne in ten hours.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII\n\n[The Jungfrau, the Bride, and the Piano]\n\n\nWe located ourselves at the Jungfrau Hotel, one of those huge\nestablishments which the needs of modern travel have created in every\nattractive spot on the continent. There was a great gathering at dinner,\nand, as usual, one heard all sorts of languages.\n\nThe table d'h\u00f4te was served by waitresses dressed in the quaint and\ncomely costume of the Swiss peasants. This consists of a simple gros de\nlaine, trimmed with ashes of roses, with overskirt of scare bleu ventre\nsaint gris, cut bias on the off-side, with facings of petit polonaise\nand narrow insertions of p\u00e2te de foie gras backstitched to the mise\nen sce`ne in the form of a jeu d'esprit. It gives to the wearer a\nsingularly piquant and alluring aspect.\n\nOne of these waitresses, a woman of forty, had side-whiskers reaching\nhalf-way down her jaws. They were two fingers broad, dark in color,\npretty thick, and the hairs were an inch long. One sees many women on\nthe continent with quite conspicuous mustaches, but this was the only\nwoman I saw who had reached the dignity of whiskers.\n\nAfter dinner the guests of both sexes distributed themselves about the\nfront porches and the ornamental grounds belonging to the hotel, to\nenjoy the cool air; but, as the twilight deepened toward darkness, they\ngathered themselves together in that saddest and solemnest and most\nconstrained of all places, the great blank drawing-room which is the\nchief feature of all continental summer hotels. There they grouped\nthemselves about, in couples and threes, and mumbled in bated voices,\nand looked timid and homeless and forlorn.\n\nThere was a small piano in this room, a clattery, wheezy, asthmatic\nthing, certainly the very worst miscarriage in the way of a piano that\nthe world has seen. In turn, five or six dejected and homesick ladies\napproached it doubtingly, gave it a single inquiring thump, and\nretired with the lockjaw. But the boss of that instrument was to come,\nnevertheless; and from my own country--from Arkansaw.\n\nShe was a brand-new bride, innocent, girlish, happy in herself and her\ngrave and worshiping stripling of a husband; she was about eighteen,\njust out of school, free from affectations, unconscious of that\npassionless multitude around her; and the very first time she smote\nthat old wreck one recognized that it had met its destiny. Her stripling\nbrought an armful of aged sheet-music from their room--for this bride\nwent \"heeled,\" as you might say--and bent himself lovingly over and got\nready to turn the pages.\n\n\nThe bride fetched a swoop with her fingers from one end of the keyboard\nto the other, just to get her bearings, as it were, and you could see\nthe congregation set their teeth with the agony of it. Then, without\nany more preliminaries, she turned on all the horrors of the \"Battle of\nPrague,\" that venerable shivaree, and waded chin-deep in the blood of\nthe slain. She made a fair and honorable average of two false notes in\nevery five, but her soul was in arms and she never stopped to correct.\nThe audience stood it with pretty fair grit for a while, but when the\ncannonade waxed hotter and fiercer, and the discord average rose to\nfour in five, the procession began to move. A few stragglers held their\nground ten minutes longer, but when the girl began to wring the true\ninwardness out of the \"cries of the wounded,\" they struck their colors\nand retired in a kind of panic.\n\n\nThere never was a completer victory; I was the only non-combatant left\non the field. I would not have deserted my countrywoman anyhow, but\nindeed I had no desires in that direction. None of us like mediocrity,\nbut we all reverence perfection. This girl's music was perfection in its\nway; it was the worst music that had ever been achieved on our planet by\na mere human being.\n\nI moved up close, and never lost a strain. When she got through, I\nasked her to play it again. She did it with a pleased alacrity and a\nheightened enthusiasm. She made it ALL discords, this time. She got an\namount of anguish into the cries of the wounded that shed a new light on\nhuman suffering. She was on the war-path all the evening. All the time,\ncrowds of people gathered on the porches and pressed their noses against\nthe windows to look and marvel, but the bravest never ventured in.\nThe bride went off satisfied and happy with her young fellow, when her\nappetite was finally gorged, and the tourists swarmed in again.\n\n\nWhat a change has come over Switzerland, and in fact all Europe, during\nthis century! Seventy or eighty years ago Napoleon was the only man in\nEurope who could really be called a traveler; he was the only man who\nhad devoted his attention to it and taken a powerful interest in it; he\nwas the only man who had traveled extensively; but now everybody goes\neverywhere; and Switzerland, and many other regions which were unvisited\nand unknown remotenesses a hundred years ago, are in our days a buzzing\nhive of restless strangers every summer. But I digress.\n\nIn the morning, when we looked out of our windows, we saw a wonderful\nsight. Across the valley, and apparently quite neighborly and close at\nhand, the giant form of the Jungfrau rose cold and white into the clear\nsky, beyond a gateway in the nearer highlands. It reminded me, somehow,\nof one of those colossal billows which swells suddenly up beside one's\nship, at sea, sometimes, with its crest and shoulders snowy white, and\nthe rest of its noble proportions streaked downward with creamy foam.\n\nI took out my sketch-book and made a little picture of the Jungfrau,\nmerely to get the shape.\n\nI do not regard this as one of my finished works, in fact I do not rank\nit among my Works at all; it is only a study; it is hardly more than\nwhat one might call a sketch. Other artists have done me the grace to\nadmire it; but I am severe in my judgments of my own pictures, and this\none does not move me.\n\n\nIt was hard to believe that that lofty wooded rampart on the left which\nso overtops the Jungfrau was not actually the higher of the two, but it\nwas not, of course. It is only two or three thousand feet high, and of\ncourse has no snow upon it in summer, whereas the Jungfrau is not much\nshorter of fourteen thousand feet high and therefore that lowest verge\nof snow on her side, which seems nearly down to the valley level, is\nreally about seven thousand feet higher up in the air than the summit\nof that wooded rampart. It is the distance that makes the deception.\nThe wooded height is but four or five miles removed from us, but the\nJungfrau is four or five times that distance away.\n\n\nWalking down the street of shops, in the fore-noon, I was attracted by\na large picture, carved, frame and all, from a single block of\nchocolate-colored wood. There are people who know everything. Some of\nthese had told us that continental shopkeepers always raise their prices\non English and Americans. Many people had told us it was expensive to\nbuy things through a courier, whereas I had supposed it was just the\nreverse. When I saw this picture, I conjectured that it was worth more\nthan the friend I proposed to buy it for would like to pay, but still it\nwas worth while to inquire; so I told the courier to step in and ask\nthe price, as if he wanted it for himself; I told him not to speak in\nEnglish, and above all not to reveal the fact that he was a courier.\nThen I moved on a few yards, and waited.\n\nThe courier came presently and reported the price. I said to myself, \"It\nis a hundred francs too much,\" and so dismissed the matter from my\nmind. But in the afternoon I was passing that place with Harris, and the\npicture attracted me again. We stepped in, to see how much higher\nbroken German would raise the price. The shopwoman named a figure just\na hundred francs lower than the courier had named. This was a pleasant\nsurprise. I said I would take it. After I had given directions as to\nwhere it was to be shipped, the shopwoman said, appealingly:\n\n\"If you please, do not let your courier know you bought it.\"\n\nThis was an unexpected remark. I said:\n\n\"What makes you think I have a courier?\"\n\n\"Ah, that is very simple; he told me himself.\"\n\n\"He was very thoughtful. But tell me--why did you charge him more than\nyou are charging me?\"\n\n\"That is very simple, also: I do not have to pay you a percentage.\"\n\n\"Oh, I begin to see. You would have had to pay the courier a\npercentage.\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly. The courier always has his percentage. In this case it\nwould have been a hundred francs.\"\n\n\"Then the tradesman does not pay a part of it--the purchaser pays all of\nit?\"\n\n\"There are occasions when the tradesman and the courier agree upon a\nprice which is twice or thrice the value of the article, then the two\ndivide, and both get a percentage.\"\n\n\"I see. But it seems to me that the purchaser does all the paying, even\nthen.\"\n\n\"Oh, to be sure! It goes without saying.\"\n\n\"But I have bought this picture myself; therefore why shouldn't the\ncourier know it?\"\n\nThe woman exclaimed, in distress:\n\n\"Ah, indeed it would take all my little profit! He would come and demand\nhis hundred francs, and I should have to pay.\"\n\n\"He has not done the buying. You could refuse.\"\n\n\"I could not dare to refuse. He would never bring travelers here again.\nMore than that, he would denounce me to the other couriers, they would\ndivert custom from me, and my business would be injured.\"\n\nI went away in a thoughtful frame of mind. I began to see why a courier\ncould afford to work for fifty-five dollars a month and his fares. A\nmonth or two later I was able to understand why a courier did not have\nto pay any board and lodging, and why my hotel bills were always larger\nwhen I had him with me than when I left him behind, somewhere, for a few\ndays.\n\nAnother thing was also explained, now, apparently. In one town I had\ntaken the courier to the bank to do the translating when I drew some\nmoney. I had sat in the reading-room till the transaction was finished.\nThen a clerk had brought the money to me in person, and had been\nexceedingly polite, even going so far as to precede me to the door and\nholding it open for me and bow me out as if I had been a distinguished\npersonage. It was a new experience. Exchange had been in my favor ever\nsince I had been in Europe, but just that one time. I got simply the\nface of my draft, and no extra francs, whereas I had expected to get\nquite a number of them. This was the first time I had ever used the\ncourier at the bank. I had suspected something then, and as long as he\nremained with me afterward I managed bank matters by myself.\n\nStill, if I felt that I could afford the tax, I would never travel\nwithout a courier, for a good courier is a convenience whose value\ncannot be estimated in dollars and cents. Without him, travel is a\nbitter harassment, a purgatory of little exasperating annoyances, a\nceaseless and pitiless punishment--I mean to an irascible man who has no\nbusiness capacity and is confused by details.\n\n\nWithout a courier, travel hasn't a ray of pleasure in it, anywhere; but\nwith him it is a continuous and unruffled delight. He is always at hand,\nnever has to be sent for; if your bell is not answered promptly--and it\nseldom is--you have only to open the door and speak, the courier will\nhear, and he will have the order attended to or raise an insurrection.\nYou tell him what day you will start, and whither you are going--leave\nall the rest to him. You need not inquire about trains, or fares, or car\nchanges, or hotels, or anything else. At the proper time he will put you\nin a cab or an omnibus, and drive you to the train or the boat; he has\npacked your luggage and transferred it, he has paid all the bills. Other\npeople have preceded you half an hour to scramble for impossible places\nand lose their tempers, but you can take your time; the courier has\nsecured your seats for you, and you can occupy them at your leisure.\n\nAt the station, the crowd mash one another to pulp in the effort to get\nthe weigher's attention to their trunks; they dispute hotly with these\ntyrants, who are cool and indifferent; they get their baggage billets,\nat last, and then have another squeeze and another rage over the\ndisheartening business of trying to get them recorded and paid for, and\nstill another over the equally disheartening business of trying to get\nnear enough to the ticket office to buy a ticket; and now, with their\ntempers gone to the dogs, they must stand penned up and packed together,\nladen with wraps and satchels and shawl-straps, with the weary wife and\nbabies, in the waiting-room, till the doors are thrown open--and then\nall hands make a grand final rush to the train, find it full, and have\nto stand on the platform and fret until some more cars are put on. They\nare in a condition to kill somebody by this time. Meantime, you have\nbeen sitting in your car, smoking, and observing all this misery in the\nextremest comfort.\n\n\nOn the journey the guard is polite and watchful--won't allow anybody to\nget into your compartment--tells them you are just recovering from the\nsmall-pox and do not like to be disturbed. For the courier has made\neverything right with the guard. At way-stations the courier comes to\nyour compartment to see if you want a glass of water, or a newspaper,\nor anything; at eating-stations he sends luncheon out to you, while the\nother people scramble and worry in the dining-rooms. If anything breaks\nabout the car you are in, and a station-master proposes to pack you and\nyour agent into a compartment with strangers, the courier reveals to him\nconfidentially that you are a French duke born deaf and dumb, and the\nofficial comes and makes affable signs that he has ordered a choice car\nto be added to the train for you.\n\nAt custom-houses the multitude file tediously through, hot and\nirritated, and look on while the officers burrow into the trunks and\nmake a mess of everything; but you hand your keys to the courier and sit\nstill. Perhaps you arrive at your destination in a rain-storm at ten\nat night--you generally do. The multitude spend half an hour verifying\ntheir baggage and getting it transferred to the omnibuses; but the\ncourier puts you into a vehicle without a moment's loss of time, and\nwhen you reach your hotel you find your rooms have been secured two or\nthree days in advance, everything is ready, you can go at once to bed.\nSome of those other people will have to drift around to two or three\nhotels, in the rain, before they find accommodations.\n\nI have not set down half of the virtues that are vested in a good\ncourier, but I think I have set down a sufficiency of them to show that\nan irritable man who can afford one and does not employ him is not a\nwise economist. My courier was the worst one in Europe, yet he was a\ngood deal better than none at all. It could not pay him to be a better\none than he was, because I could not afford to buy things through him.\nHe was a good enough courier for the small amount he got out of his\nservice. Yes, to travel with a courier is bliss, to travel without one\nis the reverse.\n\nI have had dealings with some very bad couriers; but I have also had\ndealings with one who might fairly be called perfection. He was a young\nPolander, named Joseph N. Verey. He spoke eight languages, and seemed\nto be equally at home in all of them; he was shrewd, prompt, posted,\nand punctual; he was fertile in resources, and singularly gifted in the\nmatter of overcoming difficulties; he not only knew how to do everything\nin his line, but he knew the best ways and the quickest; he was handy\nwith children and invalids; all his employer needed to do was to take\nlife easy and leave everything to the courier. His address is, care of\nMessrs. Gay & Son, Strand, London; he was formerly a conductor of Gay's\ntourist parties. Excellent couriers are somewhat rare; if the reader is\nabout to travel, he will find it to his advantage to make a note of this\none.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII\n\n[We Climb Far--by Buggy]\n\n\nThe beautiful Giesbach Fall is near Interlaken, on the other side of\nthe lake of Brienz, and is illuminated every night with those gorgeous\ntheatrical fires whose name I cannot call just at this moment. This was\nsaid to be a spectacle which the tourist ought by no means to miss. I\nwas strongly tempted, but I could not go there with propriety, because\none goes in a boat. The task which I had set myself was to walk over\nEurope on foot, not skim over it in a boat. I had made a tacit contract\nwith myself; it was my duty to abide by it. I was willing to make boat\ntrips for pleasure, but I could not conscientiously make them in the way\nof business.\n\nIt cost me something of a pang to lose that fine sight, but I lived down\nthe desire, and gained in my self-respect through the triumph. I had\na finer and a grander sight, however, where I was. This was the mighty\ndome of the Jungfrau softly outlined against the sky and faintly\nsilvered by the starlight. There was something subduing in the influence\nof that silent and solemn and awful presence; one seemed to meet the\nimmutable, the indestructible, the eternal, face to face, and to feel\nthe trivial and fleeting nature of his own existence the more sharply\nby the contrast. One had the sense of being under the brooding\ncontemplation of a spirit, not an inert mass of rocks and ice--a spirit\nwhich had looked down, through the slow drift of the ages, upon a\nmillion vanished races of men, and judged them; and would judge a\nmillion more--and still be there, watching, unchanged and unchangeable,\nafter all life should be gone and the earth have become a vacant\ndesolation.\n\nWhile I was feeling these things, I was groping, without knowing it,\ntoward an understanding of what the spell is which people find in the\nAlps, and in no other mountains--that strange, deep, nameless influence,\nwhich, once felt, cannot be forgotten--once felt, leaves always\nbehind it a restless longing to feel it again--a longing which is like\nhomesickness; a grieving, haunting yearning which will plead, implore,\nand persecute till it has its will. I met dozens of people, imaginative\nand unimaginative, cultivated and uncultivated, who had come from far\ncountries and roamed through the Swiss Alps year after year--they could\nnot explain why. They had come first, they said, out of idle curiosity,\nbecause everybody talked about it; they had come since because they\ncould not help it, and they should keep on coming, while they lived, for\nthe same reason; they had tried to break their chains and stay away, but\nit was futile; now, they had no desire to break them. Others came nearer\nformulating what they felt; they said they could find perfect rest and\npeace nowhere else when they were troubled: all frets and worries and\nchafings sank to sleep in the presence of the benignant serenity of the\nAlps; the Great Spirit of the Mountain breathed his own peace upon their\nhurt minds and sore hearts, and healed them; they could not think base\nthoughts or do mean and sordid things here, before the visible throne of\nGod.\n\nDown the road a piece was a Kursaal--whatever that may be--and we joined\nthe human tide to see what sort of enjoyment it might afford. It was the\nusual open-air concert, in an ornamental garden, with wines, beer, milk,\nwhey, grapes, etc.--the whey and the grapes being necessaries of life to\ncertain invalids whom physicians cannot repair, and who only continue to\nexist by the grace of whey or grapes. One of these departed spirits told\nme, in a sad and lifeless way, that there is no way for him to live but\nby whey, and dearly, dearly loved whey, he didn't know whey he did, but\nhe did. After making this pun he died--that is the whey it served him.\n\n\nSome other remains, preserved from decomposition by the grape system,\ntold me that the grapes were of a peculiar breed, highly medicinal in\ntheir nature, and that they were counted out and administered by the\ngrape-doctors as methodically as if they were pills. The new patient,\nif very feeble, began with one grape before breakfast, took three\nduring breakfast, a couple between meals, five at luncheon, three in the\nafternoon, seven at dinner, four for supper, and part of a grape just\nbefore going to bed, by way of a general regulator. The quantity was\ngradually and regularly increased, according to the needs and capacities\nof the patient, until by and by you would find him disposing of his one\ngrape per second all the day long, and his regular barrel per day.\n\nHe said that men cured in this way, and enabled to discard the grape\nsystem, never afterward got over the habit of talking as if they were\ndictating to a slow amanuensis, because they always made a pause between\neach two words while they sucked the substance out of an imaginary\ngrape. He said these were tedious people to talk with. He said that men\nwho had been cured by the other process were easily distinguished from\nthe rest of mankind because they always tilted their heads back, between\nevery two words, and swallowed a swig of imaginary whey. He said it was\nan impressive thing to observe two men, who had been cured by the two\nprocesses, engaged in conversation--said their pauses and accompanying\nmovements were so continuous and regular that a stranger would think\nhimself in the presence of a couple of automatic machines. One finds\nout a great many wonderful things, by traveling, if he stumbles upon the\nright person.\n\nI did not remain long at the Kursaal; the music was good enough, but it\nseemed rather tame after the cyclone of that Arkansaw expert. Besides,\nmy adventurous spirit had conceived a formidable enterprise--nothing\nless than a trip from Interlaken, by the Gemmi and Visp, clear to\nZermatt, on foot! So it was necessary to plan the details, and get ready\nfor an early start. The courier (this was not the one I have just been\nspeaking of) thought that the portier of the hotel would be able to tell\nus how to find our way. And so it turned out. He showed us the whole\nthing, on a relief-map, and we could see our route, with all its\nelevations and depressions, its villages and its rivers, as clearly as\nif we were sailing over it in a balloon. A relief-map is a great thing.\nThe portier also wrote down each day's journey and the nightly hotel on\na piece of paper, and made our course so plain that we should never be\nable to get lost without high-priced outside help.\n\nI put the courier in the care of a gentleman who was going to Lausanne,\nand then we went to bed, after laying out the walking-costumes and\nputting them into condition for instant occupation in the morning.\n\nHowever, when we came down to breakfast at 8 A.M., it looked so much\nlike rain that I hired a two-horse top-buggy for the first third of the\njourney. For two or three hours we jogged along the level road which\nskirts the beautiful lake of Thun, with a dim and dreamlike picture of\nwatery expanses and spectral Alpine forms always before us, veiled in\na mellowing mist. Then a steady downpour set in, and hid everything but\nthe nearest objects. We kept the rain out of our faces with umbrellas,\nand away from our bodies with the leather apron of the buggy; but the\ndriver sat unsheltered and placidly soaked the weather in and seemed\nto like it. We had the road to ourselves, and I never had a pleasanter\nexcursion.\n\nThe weather began to clear while we were driving up a valley called the\nKienthal, and presently a vast black cloud-bank in front of us dissolved\naway and uncurtained the grand proportions and the soaring loftiness of\nthe Blumis Alp. It was a sort of breath-taking surprise; for we had not\nsupposed there was anything behind that low-hung blanket of sable cloud\nbut level valley. What we had been mistaking for fleeting glimpses of\nsky away aloft there, were really patches of the Blumis's snowy crest\ncaught through shredded rents in the drifting pall of vapor.\n\nWe dined in the inn at Frutigen, and our driver ought to have dined\nthere, too, but he would not have had time to dine and get drunk\nboth, so he gave his mind to making a masterpiece of the latter, and\nsucceeded. A German gentleman and his two young-lady daughters had been\ntaking their nooning at the inn, and when they left, just ahead of us,\nit was plain that their driver was as drunk as ours, and as happy\nand good-natured, too, which was saying a good deal. These rascals\noverflowed with attentions and information for their guests, and with\nbrotherly love for each other. They tied their reins, and took off\ntheir coats and hats, so that they might be able to give unencumbered\nattention to conversation and to the gestures necessary for its\nillustration.\n\n\nThe road was smooth; it led up and over and down a continual succession\nof hills; but it was narrow, the horses were used to it, and could\nnot well get out of it anyhow; so why shouldn't the drivers entertain\nthemselves and us? The noses of our horses projected sociably into the\nrear of the forward carriage, and as we toiled up the long hills our\ndriver stood up and talked to his friend, and his friend stood up and\ntalked back to him, with his rear to the scenery. When the top was\nreached and we went flying down the other side, there was no change\nin the program. I carry in my memory yet the picture of that forward\ndriver, on his knees on his high seat, resting his elbows on its back,\nand beaming down on his passengers, with happy eye, and flying hair, and\njolly red face, and offering his card to the old German gentleman while\nhe praised his hack and horses, and both teams were whizzing down a\nlong hill with nobody in a position to tell whether we were bound to\ndestruction or an undeserved safety.\n\nToward sunset we entered a beautiful green valley dotted with chalets, a\ncozy little domain hidden away from the busy world in a cloistered nook\namong giant precipices topped with snowy peaks that seemed to float like\nislands above the curling surf of the sea of vapor that severed them\nfrom the lower world. Down from vague and vaporous heights, little\nruffled zigzag milky currents came crawling, and found their way to the\nverge of one of those tremendous overhanging walls, whence they plunged,\na shaft of silver, shivered to atoms in mid-descent and turned to an air\npuff of luminous dust. Here and there, in grooved depressions among the\nsnowy desolations of the upper altitudes, one glimpsed the extremity of\na glacier, with its sea-green and honeycombed battlements of ice.\n\n\nUp the valley, under a dizzy precipice, nestled the village of\nKandersteg, our halting-place for the night. We were soon there, and\nhoused in the hotel. But the waning day had such an inviting influence\nthat we did not remain housed many moments, but struck out and followed\na roaring torrent of ice-water up to its far source in a sort of little\ngrass-carpeted parlor, walled in all around by vast precipices and\noverlooked by clustering summits of ice. This was the snuggest little\ncroquet-ground imaginable; it was perfectly level, and not more than a\nmile long by half a mile wide. The walls around it were so gigantic, and\neverything about it was on so mighty a scale that it was belittled, by\ncontrast, to what I have likened it to--a cozy and carpeted parlor. It\nwas so high above the Kandersteg valley that there was nothing between\nit and the snowy-peaks. I had never been in such intimate relations with\nthe high altitudes before; the snow-peaks had always been remote and\nunapproachable grandeurs, hitherto, but now we were hob-a-nob--if one\nmay use such a seemingly irreverent expression about creations so august\nas these.\n\nWe could see the streams which fed the torrent we had followed issuing\nfrom under the greenish ramparts of glaciers; but two or three of these,\ninstead of flowing over the precipices, sank down into the rock and\nsprang in big jets out of holes in the mid-face of the walls.\n\n\nThe green nook which I have been describing is called the Gasternthal.\nThe glacier streams gather and flow through it in a broad and rushing\nbrook to a narrow cleft between lofty precipices; here the rushing\nbrook becomes a mad torrent and goes booming and thundering down\ntoward Kandersteg, lashing and thrashing its way over and among monster\nboulders, and hurling chance roots and logs about like straws. There\nwas no lack of cascades along this route. The path by the side of\nthe torrent was so narrow that one had to look sharp, when he heard a\ncow-bell, and hunt for a place that was wide enough to accommodate a cow\nand a Christian side by side, and such places were not always to be had\nat an instant's notice. The cows wear church-bells, and that is a\ngood idea in the cows, for where that torrent is, you couldn't hear\nan ordinary cow-bell any further than you could hear the ticking of a\nwatch.\n\nI needed exercise, so I employed my agent in setting stranded logs and\ndead trees adrift, and I sat on a boulder and watched them go whirling\nand leaping head over heels down the boiling torrent. It was a\nwonderfully exhilarating spectacle. When I had had enough exercise, I\nmade the agent take some, by running a race with one of those logs. I\nmade a trifle by betting on the log.\n\n\nAfter dinner we had a walk up and down the Kandersteg valley, in the\nsoft gloaming, with the spectacle of the dying lights of day playing\nabout the crests and pinnacles of the still and solemn upper realm\nfor contrast, and text for talk. There were no sounds but the dulled\ncomplaining of the torrent and the occasional tinkling of a distant\nbell. The spirit of the place was a sense of deep, pervading peace; one\nmight dream his life tranquilly away there, and not miss it or mind it\nwhen it was gone.\n\nThe summer departed with the sun, and winter came with the stars. It\ngrew to be a bitter night in that little hotel, backed up against a\nprecipice that had no visible top to it, but we kept warm, and woke in\ntime in the morning to find that everybody else had left for Gemmi\nthree hours before--so our little plan of helping that German family\n(principally the old man) over the pass, was a blocked generosity.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV\n\n[The World's Highest Pig Farm]\n\n\nWe hired the only guide left, to lead us on our way. He was over\nseventy, but he could have given me nine-tenths of his strength and\nstill had all his age entitled him to. He shouldered our satchels,\novercoats, and alpenstocks, and we set out up the steep path. It was hot\nwork. The old man soon begged us to hand over our coats and waistcoats\nto him to carry, too, and we did it; one could not refuse so little a\nthing to a poor old man like that; he should have had them if he had\nbeen a hundred and fifty.\n\nWhen we began that ascent, we could see a microscopic chalet perched\naway up against heaven on what seemed to be the highest mountain near\nus. It was on our right, across the narrow head of the valley. But when\nwe got up abreast it on its own level, mountains were towering high\nabove on every hand, and we saw that its altitude was just about that of\nthe little Gasternthal which we had visited the evening before. Still it\nseemed a long way up in the air, in that waste and lonely wilderness of\nrocks. It had an unfenced grass-plot in front of it which seemed about\nas big as a billiard-table, and this grass-plot slanted so sharply\ndownward, and was so brief, and ended so exceedingly soon at the verge\nof the absolute precipice, that it was a shuddery thing to think of a\nperson's venturing to trust his foot on an incline so situated at all.\nSuppose a man stepped on an orange peel in that yard; there would be\nnothing for him to seize; nothing could keep him from rolling; five\nrevolutions would bring him to the edge, and over he would go.\n\n\nWhat a frightful distance he would fall!--for there are very few birds\nthat fly as high as his starting-point. He would strike and bounce, two\nor three times, on his way down, but this would be no advantage to him.\nI would as soon take an airing on the slant of a rainbow as in such\na front yard. I would rather, in fact, for the distance down would be\nabout the same, and it is pleasanter to slide than to bounce. I could\nnot see how the peasants got up to that chalet--the region seemed too\nsteep for anything but a balloon.\n\nAs we strolled on, climbing up higher and higher, we were continually\nbringing neighboring peaks into view and lofty prominence which had been\nhidden behind lower peaks before; so by and by, while standing before a\ngroup of these giants, we looked around for the chalet again; there it\nwas, away down below us, apparently on an inconspicuous ridge in the\nvalley! It was as far below us, now, as it had been above us when we\nwere beginning the ascent.\n\nAfter a while the path led us along a railed precipice, and we looked\nover--far beneath us was the snug parlor again, the little Gasternthal,\nwith its water jets spouting from the face of its rock walls. We could\nhave dropped a stone into it. We had been finding the top of the world\nall along--and always finding a still higher top stealing into view in\na disappointing way just ahead; when we looked down into the Gasternthal\nwe felt pretty sure that we had reached the genuine top at last, but it\nwas not so; there were much higher altitudes to be scaled yet. We were\nstill in the pleasant shade of forest trees, we were still in a region\nwhich was cushioned with beautiful mosses and aglow with the many-tinted\nluster of innumerable wild flowers.\n\nWe found, indeed, more interest in the wild flowers than in anything\nelse. We gathered a specimen or two of every kind which we were\nunacquainted with; so we had sumptuous bouquets. But one of the chief\ninterests lay in chasing the seasons of the year up the mountain, and\ndetermining them by the presence of flowers and berries which we were\nacquainted with. For instance, it was the end of August at the level\nof the sea; in the Kandersteg valley at the base of the pass, we found\nflowers which would not be due at the sea-level for two or three weeks;\nhigher up, we entered October, and gathered fringed gentians. I made\nno notes, and have forgotten the details, but the construction of the\nfloral calendar was very entertaining while it lasted.\n\n\nIn the high regions we found rich store of the splendid red flower\ncalled the Alpine rose, but we did not find any examples of the ugly\nSwiss favorite called Edelweiss. Its name seems to indicate that it is a\nnoble flower and that it is white. It may be noble enough, but it is not\nattractive, and it is not white. The fuzzy blossom is the color of bad\ncigar ashes, and appears to be made of a cheap quality of gray plush. It\nhas a noble and distant way of confining itself to the high altitudes,\nbut that is probably on account of its looks; it apparently has no\nmonopoly of those upper altitudes, however, for they are sometimes\nintruded upon by some of the loveliest of the valley families of wild\nflowers. Everybody in the Alps wears a sprig of Edelweiss in his hat. It\nis the native's pet, and also the tourist's.\n\nAll the morning, as we loafed along, having a good time, other\npedestrians went staving by us with vigorous strides, and with the\nintent and determined look of men who were walking for a wager. These\nwore loose knee-breeches, long yarn stockings, and hobnailed high-laced\nwalking-shoes. They were gentlemen who would go home to England or\nGermany and tell how many miles they had beaten the guide-book every\nday. But I doubted if they ever had much real fun, outside of the mere\nmagnificent exhilaration of the tramp through the green valleys and the\nbreezy heights; for they were almost always alone, and even the finest\nscenery loses incalculably when there is no one to enjoy it with.\n\nAll the morning an endless double procession of mule-mounted tourists\nfiled past us along the narrow path--the one procession going, the\nother coming. We had taken a good deal of trouble to teach ourselves the\nkindly German custom of saluting all strangers with doffed hat, and we\nresolutely clung to it, that morning, although it kept us bareheaded\nmost of the time and was not always responded to. Still we found an\ninterest in the thing, because we naturally liked to know who were\nEnglish and Americans among the passers-by. All continental natives\nresponded of course; so did some of the English and Americans, but, as\na general thing, these two races gave no sign. Whenever a man or a woman\nshowed us cold neglect, we spoke up confidently in our own tongue and\nasked for such information as we happened to need, and we always got a\nreply in the same language. The English and American folk are not less\nkindly than other races, they are only more reserved, and that comes of\nhabit and education. In one dreary, rocky waste, away above the line of\nvegetation, we met a procession of twenty-five mounted young men, all\nfrom America. We got answering bows enough from these, of course, for\nthey were of an age to learn to do in Rome as Rome does, without much\neffort.\n\nAt one extremity of this patch of desolation, overhung by bare and\nforbidding crags which husbanded drifts of everlasting snow in their\nshaded cavities, was a small stretch of thin and discouraged grass, and\na man and a family of pigs were actually living here in some shanties.\nConsequently this place could be really reckoned as \"property\"; it had\na money value, and was doubtless taxed. I think it must have marked\nthe limit of real estate in this world. It would be hard to set a money\nvalue upon any piece of earth that lies between that spot and the empty\nrealm of space. That man may claim the distinction of owning the end\nof the world, for if there is any definite end to the world he has\ncertainly found it.\n\n\nFrom here forward we moved through a storm-swept and smileless\ndesolation. All about us rose gigantic masses, crags, and ramparts of\nbare and dreary rock, with not a vestige or semblance of plant or tree\nor flower anywhere, or glimpse of any creature that had life. The frost\nand the tempests of unnumbered ages had battered and hacked at these\ncliffs, with a deathless energy, destroying them piecemeal; so all the\nregion about their bases was a tumbled chaos of great fragments which\nhad been split off and hurled to the ground. Soiled and aged banks of\nsnow lay close about our path. The ghastly desolation of the place was\nas tremendously complete as if Dor\u00e9 had furnished the working-plans\nfor it. But every now and then, through the stern gateways around us\nwe caught a view of some neighboring majestic dome, sheathed with\nglittering ice, and displaying its white purity at an elevation compared\nto which ours was groveling and plebeian, and this spectacle always\nchained one's interest and admiration at once, and made him forget there\nwas anything ugly in the world.\n\nI have just said that there was nothing but death and desolation in\nthese hideous places, but I forgot. In the most forlorn and arid and\ndismal one of all, where the racked and splintered debris was thickest,\nwhere the ancient patches of snow lay against the very path, where\nthe winds blew bitterest and the general aspect was mournfulest and\ndreariest, and furthest from any suggestion of cheer or hope, I found\na solitary wee forget-me-not flourishing away, not a droop about it\nanywhere, but holding its bright blue star up with the prettiest and\ngallantest air in the world, the only happy spirit, the only smiling\nthing, in all that grisly desert. She seemed to say, \"Cheer up!--as long\nas we are here, let us make the best of it.\" I judged she had earned a\nright to a more hospitable place; so I plucked her up and sent her to\nAmerica to a friend who would respect her for the fight she had made,\nall by her small self, to make a whole vast despondent Alpine desolation\nstop breaking its heart over the unalterable, and hold up its head and\nlook at the bright side of things for once.\n\n\nWe stopped for a nooning at a strongly built little inn called the\nSchwarenbach. It sits in a lonely spot among the peaks, where it is\nswept by the trailing fringes of the cloud-rack, and is rained on, and\nsnowed on, and pelted and persecuted by the storms, nearly every day of\nits life. It was the only habitation in the whole Gemmi Pass.\n\nClose at hand, now, was a chance for a blood-curdling Alpine adventure.\nClose at hand was the snowy mass of the Great Altels cooling its topknot\nin the sky and daring us to an ascent. I was fired with the idea, and\nimmediately made up my mind to procure the necessary guides, ropes,\netc., and undertake it. I instructed Harris to go to the landlord of the\ninn and set him about our preparations. Meantime, I went diligently to\nwork to read up and find out what this much-talked-of mountain-climbing\nwas like, and how one should go about it--for in these matters I\nwas ignorant. I opened Mr. Hinchliff's SUMMER MONTHS AMONG THE ALPS\n(published 1857), and selected his account of his ascent of Monte Rosa.\n\nIt began:\n\n\"It is very difficult to free the mind from excitement on the evening\nbefore a grand expedition--\"\n\nI saw that I was too calm; so I walked the room a while and worked\nmyself into a high excitement; but the book's next remark --that the\nadventurer must get up at two in the morning--came as near as anything\nto flatting it all out again. However, I reinforced it, and read on,\nabout how Mr. Hinchliff dressed by candle-light and was \"soon down among\nthe guides, who were bustling about in the passage, packing provisions,\nand making every preparation for the start\"; and how he glanced out into\nthe cold clear night and saw that--\n\n\n\"The whole sky was blazing with stars, larger and brighter than they\nappear through the dense atmosphere breathed by inhabitants of the lower\nparts of the earth. They seemed actually suspended from the dark vault\nof heaven, and their gentle light shed a fairylike gleam over the\nsnow-fields around the foot of the Matterhorn, which raised its\nstupendous pinnacle on high, penetrating to the heart of the Great Bear,\nand crowning itself with a diadem of his magnificent stars. Not a sound\ndisturbed the deep tranquillity of the night, except the distant roar\nof streams which rush from the high plateau of the St. Theodule glacier,\nand fall headlong over precipitous rocks till they lose themselves in\nthe mazes of the Gorner glacier.\"\n\nHe took his hot toast and coffee, and then about half past three his\ncaravan of ten men filed away from the Riffel Hotel, and began the steep\nclimb. At half past five he happened to turn around, and \"beheld the\nglorious spectacle of the Matterhorn, just touched by the rosy-fingered\nmorning, and looking like a huge pyramid of fire rising out of the\nbarren ocean of ice and rock around it.\" Then the Breithorn and the Dent\nBlanche caught the radiant glow; but \"the intervening mass of Monte Rosa\nmade it necessary for us to climb many long hours before we could hope\nto see the sun himself, yet the whole air soon grew warmer after the\nsplendid birth of the day.\"\n\nHe gazed at the lofty crown of Monte Rosa and the wastes of snow that\nguarded its steep approaches, and the chief guide delivered the opinion\nthat no man could conquer their awful heights and put his foot upon that\nsummit. But the adventurers moved steadily on, nevertheless.\n\nThey toiled up, and up, and still up; they passed the Grand Plateau;\nthen toiled up a steep shoulder of the mountain, clinging like flies to\nits rugged face; and now they were confronted by a tremendous wall\nfrom which great blocks of ice and snow were evidently in the habit of\nfalling. They turned aside to skirt this wall, and gradually ascended\nuntil their way was barred by a \"maze of gigantic snow crevices,\"--so\nthey turned aside again, and \"began a long climb of sufficient steepness\nto make a zigzag course necessary.\"\n\n\nFatigue compelled them to halt frequently, for a moment or two. At one\nof these halts somebody called out, \"Look at Mont Blanc!\" and \"we were\nat once made aware of the very great height we had attained by actually\nseeing the monarch of the Alps and his attendant satellites right over\nthe top of the Breithorn, itself at least 14,000 feet high!\"\n\nThese people moved in single file, and were all tied to a strong rope,\nat regular distances apart, so that if one of them slipped on those\ngiddy heights, the others could brace themselves on their alpenstocks\nand save him from darting into the valley, thousands of feet below. By\nand by they came to an ice-coated ridge which was tilted up at a sharp\nangle, and had a precipice on one side of it. They had to climb this, so\nthe guide in the lead cut steps in the ice with his hatchet, and as fast\nas he took his toes out of one of these slight holes, the toes of the\nman behind him occupied it.\n\n\n\"Slowly and steadily we kept on our way over this dangerous part of the\nascent, and I dare say it was fortunate for some of us that attention\nwas distracted from the head by the paramount necessity of looking after\nthe feet; FOR, WHILE ON THE LEFT THE INCLINE OF ICE WAS SO STEEP THAT\nIT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR ANY MAN TO SAVE HIMSELF IN CASE OF A SLIP,\nUNLESS THE OTHERS COULD HOLD HIM UP, ON THE RIGHT WE MIGHT DROP A PEBBLE\nFROM THE HAND OVER PRECIPICES OF UNKNOWN EXTENT DOWN UPON THE TREMENDOUS\nGLACIER BELOW.\n\n\"Great caution, therefore, was absolutely necessary, and in this exposed\nsituation we were attacked by all the fury of that grand enemy of\naspirants to Monte Rosa--a severe and bitterly cold wind from the north.\nThe fine powdery snow was driven past us in the clouds, penetrating the\ninterstices of our clothes, and the pieces of ice which flew from the\nblows of Peter's ax were whisked into the air, and then dashed over the\nprecipice. We had quite enough to do to prevent ourselves from being\nserved in the same ruthless fashion, and now and then, in the more\nviolent gusts of wind, were glad to stick our alpenstocks into the ice\nand hold on hard.\"\n\nHaving surmounted this perilous steep, they sat down and took a brief\nrest with their backs against a sheltering rock and their heels dangling\nover a bottomless abyss; then they climbed to the base of another\nridge--a more difficult and dangerous one still:\n\n\"The whole of the ridge was exceedingly narrow, and the fall on each\nside desperately steep, but the ice in some of these intervals between\nthe masses of rock assumed the form of a mere sharp edge, almost like a\nknife; these places, though not more than three or four short paces\nin length, looked uncommonly awkward; but, like the sword leading true\nbelievers to the gates of Paradise, they must needs be passed before\nwe could attain to the summit of our ambition. These were in one or two\nplaces so narrow, that in stepping over them with toes well turned\nout for greater security, ONE END OF THE FOOT PROJECTED OVER THE AWFUL\nPRECIPICE ON THE RIGHT, WHILE THE OTHER WAS ON THE BEGINNING OF THE\nICE SLOPE ON THE LEFT, WHICH WAS SCARCELY LESS STEEP THAN THE ROCKS. On\nthese occasions Peter would take my hand, and each of us stretching as\nfar as we could, he was thus enabled to get a firm footing two paces\nor rather more from me, whence a spring would probably bring him to the\nrock on the other side; then, turning around, he called to me to come,\nand, taking a couple of steps carefully, I was met at the third by his\noutstretched hand ready to clasp mine, and in a moment stood by his\nside. The others followed in much the same fashion. Once my right foot\nslipped on the side toward the precipice, but I threw out my left arm in\na moment so that it caught the icy edge under my armpit as I fell, and\nsupported me considerably; at the same instant I cast my eyes down the\nside on which I had slipped, and contrived to plant my right foot on\na piece of rock as large as a cricket-ball, which chanced to protrude\nthrough the ice, on the very edge of the precipice. Being thus anchored\nfore and aft, as it were, I believe I could easily have recovered\nmyself, even if I had been alone, though it must be confessed the\nsituation would have been an awful one; as it was, however, a jerk from\nPeter settled the matter very soon, and I was on my legs all right in an\ninstant. The rope is an immense help in places of this kind.\"\n\n\nNow they arrived at the base of a great knob or dome veneered with ice\nand powdered with snow--the utmost, summit, the last bit of solidity\nbetween them and the hollow vault of heaven. They set to work with their\nhatchets, and were soon creeping, insectlike, up its surface, with their\nheels projecting over the thinnest kind of nothingness, thickened up a\nlittle with a few wandering shreds and films of cloud moving in a lazy\nprocession far below. Presently, one man's toe-hold broke and he fell!\nThere he dangled in mid-air at the end of the rope, like a spider, till\nhis friends above hauled him into place again.\n\nA little bit later, the party stood upon the wee pedestal of the very\nsummit, in a driving wind, and looked out upon the vast green expanses\nof Italy and a shoreless ocean of billowy Alps.\n\nWhen I had read thus far, Harris broke into the room in a noble\nexcitement and said the ropes and the guides were secured, and asked if\nI was ready. I said I believed I wouldn't ascend the Altels this time. I\nsaid Alp-climbing was a different thing from what I had supposed it was,\nand so I judged we had better study its points a little more before we\nwent definitely into it. But I told him to retain the guides and order\nthem to follow us to Zermatt, because I meant to use them there. I said\nI could feel the spirit of adventure beginning to stir in me, and was\nsure that the fell fascination of Alp-climbing would soon be upon me. I\nsaid he could make up his mind to it that we would do a deed before\nwe were a week older which would make the hair of the timid curl with\nfright.\n\nThis made Harris happy, and filled him with ambitious anticipations. He\nwent at once to tell the guides to follow us to Zermatt and bring all\ntheir paraphernalia with them.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXV\n\n[Swindling the Coroner]\n\n\nA great and priceless thing is a new interest! How it takes possession\nof a man! how it clings to him, how it rides him! I strode onward from\nthe Schwarenbach hostelry a changed man, a reorganized personality. I\nwalked into a new world, I saw with new eyes. I had been looking\naloft at the giant show-peaks only as things to be worshiped for their\ngrandeur and magnitude, and their unspeakable grace of form; I looked\nup at them now, as also things to be conquered and climbed. My sense of\ntheir grandeur and their noble beauty was neither lost nor impaired; I\nhad gained a new interest in the mountains without losing the old ones.\nI followed the steep lines up, inch by inch, with my eye, and noted the\npossibility or impossibility of following them with my feet. When I saw\na shining helmet of ice projecting above the clouds, I tried to imagine\nI saw files of black specks toiling up it roped together with a gossamer\nthread.\n\nWe skirted the lonely little lake called the Daubensee, and presently\npassed close by a glacier on the right--a thing like a great river\nfrozen solid in its flow and broken square off like a wall at its mouth.\nI had never been so near a glacier before.\n\nHere we came upon a new board shanty, and found some men engaged in\nbuilding a stone house; so the Schwarenbach was soon to have a rival. We\nbought a bottle or so of beer here; at any rate they called it beer, but\nI knew by the price that it was dissolved jewelry, and I perceived by\nthe taste that dissolved jewelry is not good stuff to drink.\n\n\nWe were surrounded by a hideous desolation. We stepped forward to a sort\nof jumping-off place, and were confronted by a startling contrast: we\nseemed to look down into fairyland. Two or three thousand feet below us\nwas a bright green level, with a pretty town in its midst, and a silvery\nstream winding among the meadows; the charming spot was walled in on all\nsides by gigantic precipices clothed with pines; and over the pines, out\nof the softened distances, rose the snowy domes and peaks of the Monte\nRosa region. How exquisitely green and beautiful that little valley down\nthere was! The distance was not great enough to obliterate details, it\nonly made them little, and mellow, and dainty, like landscapes and towns\nseen through the wrong end of a spy-glass.\n\nRight under us a narrow ledge rose up out of the valley, with a green,\nslanting, bench-shaped top, and grouped about upon this green-baize\nbench were a lot of black and white sheep which looked merely like\noversized worms. The bench seemed lifted well up into our neighborhood,\nbut that was a deception--it was a long way down to it.\n\n\nWe began our descent, now, by the most remarkable road I have ever seen.\nIt wound its corkscrew curves down the face of the colossal precipice--a\nnarrow way, with always the solid rock wall at one elbow, and\nperpendicular nothingness at the other. We met an everlasting procession\nof guides, porters, mules, litters, and tourists climbing up this steep\nand muddy path, and there was no room to spare when you had to pass a\ntolerably fat mule. I always took the inside, when I heard or saw the\nmule coming, and flattened myself against the wall. I preferred the\ninside, of course, but I should have had to take it anyhow, because\nthe mule prefers the outside. A mule's preference--on a precipice--is a\nthing to be respected. Well, his choice is always the outside. His life\nis mostly devoted to carrying bulky panniers and packages which rest\nagainst his body--therefore he is habituated to taking the outside edge\nof mountain paths, to keep his bundles from rubbing against rocks or\nbanks on the other. When he goes into the passenger business he absurdly\nclings to his old habit, and keeps one leg of his passenger always\ndangling over the great deeps of the lower world while that passenger's\nheart is in the highlands, so to speak. More than once I saw a mule's\nhind foot cave over the outer edge and send earth and rubbish into the\nbottom abyss; and I noticed that upon these occasions the rider, whether\nmale or female, looked tolerably unwell.\n\nThere was one place where an eighteen-inch breadth of light masonry had\nbeen added to the verge of the path, and as there was a very sharp\nturn here, a panel of fencing had been set up there at some time, as\na protection. This panel was old and gray and feeble, and the light\nmasonry had been loosened by recent rains. A young American girl came\nalong on a mule, and in making the turn the mule's hind foot caved all\nthe loose masonry and one of the fence-posts overboard; the mule gave a\nviolent lurch inboard to save himself, and succeeded in the effort, but\nthat girl turned as white as the snows of Mont Blanc for a moment.\n\n\nThe path was simply a groove cut into the face of the precipice; there\nwas a four-foot breadth of solid rock under the traveler, and four-foot\nbreadth of solid rock just above his head, like the roof of a narrow\nporch; he could look out from this gallery and see a sheer summitless\nand bottomless wall of rock before him, across a gorge or crack a\nbiscuit's toss in width--but he could not see the bottom of his own\nprecipice unless he lay down and projected his nose over the edge. I did\nnot do this, because I did not wish to soil my clothes.\n\nEvery few hundred yards, at particularly bad places, one came across\na panel or so of plank fencing; but they were always old and weak,\nand they generally leaned out over the chasm and did not make any rash\npromises to hold up people who might need support. There was one of\nthese panels which had only its upper board left; a pedestrianizing\nEnglish youth came tearing down the path, was seized with an impulse to\nlook over the precipice, and without an instant's thought he threw his\nweight upon that crazy board. It bent outward a foot! I never made a\ngasp before that came so near suffocating me. The English youth's face\nsimply showed a lively surprise, but nothing more. He went swinging\nalong valleyward again, as if he did not know he had just swindled a\ncoroner by the closest kind of a shave.\n\nThe Alpine litter is sometimes like a cushioned box made fast between\nthe middles of two long poles, and sometimes it is a chair with a back\nto it and a support for the feet. It is carried by relays of strong\nporters. The motion is easier than that of any other conveyance. We met\na few men and a great many ladies in litters; it seemed to me that most\nof the ladies looked pale and nauseated; their general aspect gave me\nthe idea that they were patiently enduring a horrible suffering. As a\nrule, they looked at their laps, and left the scenery to take care of\nitself.\n\n\nBut the most frightened creature I saw, was a led horse that overtook\nus. Poor fellow, he had been born and reared in the grassy levels of the\nKandersteg valley and had never seen anything like this hideous place\nbefore. Every few steps he would stop short, glance wildly out from\nthe dizzy height, and then spread his red nostrils wide and pant as\nviolently as if he had been running a race; and all the while he quaked\nfrom head to heel as with a palsy. He was a handsome fellow, and he\nmade a fine statuesque picture of terror, but it was pitiful to see him\nsuffer so.\n\n\nThis dreadful path has had its tragedy. Baedeker, with his customary\nover terseness, begins and ends the tale thus:\n\n\"The descent on horseback should be avoided. In 1861 a Comtesse\nd'Herlincourt fell from her saddle over the precipice and was killed on\nthe spot.\"\n\nWe looked over the precipice there, and saw the monument which\ncommemorates the event. It stands in the bottom of the gorge, in a place\nwhich has been hollowed out of the rock to protect it from the torrent\nand the storms. Our old guide never spoke but when spoken to, and then\nlimited himself to a syllable or two, but when we asked him about this\ntragedy he showed a strong interest in the matter. He said the Countess\nwas very pretty, and very young--hardly out of her girlhood, in fact.\nShe was newly married, and was on her bridal tour. The young husband was\nriding a little in advance; one guide was leading the husband's horse,\nanother was leading the bride's.\n\nThe old man continued:\n\n\"The guide that was leading the husband's horse happened to glance back,\nand there was that poor young thing sitting up staring out over the\nprecipice; and her face began to bend downward a little, and she put\nup her two hands slowly and met it--so,--and put them flat against her\neyes--so--and then she sank out of the saddle, with a sharp shriek, and\none caught only the flash of a dress, and it was all over.\"\n\n\nThen after a pause:\n\n\"Ah, yes, that guide saw these things--yes, he saw them all. He saw them\nall, just as I have told you.\"\n\nAfter another pause:\n\n\"Ah, yes, he saw them all. My God, that was ME. I was that guide!\"\n\nThis had been the one event of the old man's life; so one may be sure he\nhad forgotten no detail connected with it. We listened to all he had to\nsay about what was done and what happened and what was said after the\nsorrowful occurrence, and a painful story it was.\n\nWhen we had wound down toward the valley until we were about on the last\nspiral of the corkscrew, Harris's hat blew over the last remaining\nbit of precipice--a small cliff a hundred or hundred and fifty feet\nhigh--and sailed down toward a steep slant composed of rough chips and\nfragments which the weather had flaked away from the precipices. We went\nleisurely down there, expecting to find it without any trouble, but we\nhad made a mistake, as to that. We hunted during a couple of hours--not\nbecause the old straw hat was valuable, but out of curiosity to find\nout how such a thing could manage to conceal itself in open ground where\nthere was nothing left for it to hide behind. When one is reading in\nbed, and lays his paper-knife down, he cannot find it again if it is\nsmaller than a saber; that hat was as stubborn as any paper-knife could\nhave been, and we finally had to give it up; but we found a fragment\nthat had once belonged to an opera-glass, and by digging around and\nturning over the rocks we gradually collected all the lenses and the\ncylinders and the various odds and ends that go to making up a complete\nopera-glass. We afterward had the thing reconstructed, and the owner can\nhave his adventurous lost-property by submitting proofs and paying costs\nof rehabilitation. We had hopes of finding the owner there, distributed\naround amongst the rocks, for it would have made an elegant paragraph;\nbut we were disappointed. Still, we were far from being disheartened,\nfor there was a considerable area which we had not thoroughly searched;\nwe were satisfied he was there, somewhere, so we resolved to wait over a\nday at Leuk and come back and get him.\n\nThen we sat down to polish off the perspiration and arrange about what\nwe would do with him when we got him. Harris was for contributing him to\nthe British Museum; but I was for mailing him to his widow. That is the\ndifference between Harris and me: Harris is all for display, I am all\nfor the simple right, even though I lose money by it. Harris argued in\nfavor of his proposition against mine, I argued in favor of mine and\nagainst his. The discussion warmed into a dispute; the dispute warmed\ninto a quarrel. I finally said, very decidedly:\n\n\"My mind is made up. He goes to the widow.\"\n\nHarris answered sharply:\n\n\"And MY mind is made up. He goes to the Museum.\"\n\nI said, calmly:\n\n\"The museum may whistle when it gets him.\"\n\nHarris retorted:\n\n\"The widow may save herself the trouble of whistling, for I will see\nthat she never gets him.\"\n\nAfter some angry bandying of epithets, I said:\n\n\"It seems to me that you are taking on a good many airs about these\nremains. I don't quite see what YOU'VE got to say about them?\"\n\n\"I? I've got ALL to say about them. They'd never have been thought of if\nI hadn't found their opera-glass. The corpse belongs to me, and I'll do\nas I please with him.\"\n\nI was leader of the Expedition, and all discoveries achieved by it\nnaturally belonged to me. I was entitled to these remains, and could\nhave enforced my right; but rather than have bad blood about the matter,\nI said we would toss up for them. I threw heads and won, but it was a\nbarren victory, for although we spent all the next day searching, we\nnever found a bone. I cannot imagine what could ever have become of that\nfellow.\n\nThe town in the valley is called Leuk or Leukerbad. We pointed our\ncourse toward it, down a verdant slope which was adorned with fringed\ngentians and other flowers, and presently entered the narrow alleys of\nthe outskirts and waded toward the middle of the town through liquid\n\"fertilizer.\" They ought to either pave that village or organize a\nferry.\n\nHarris's body was simply a chamois-pasture; his person was populous with\nthe little hungry pests; his skin, when he stripped, was splotched like\na scarlet-fever patient's; so, when we were about to enter one of the\nLeukerbad inns, and he noticed its sign, \"Chamois Hotel,\" he refused to\nstop there. He said the chamois was plentiful enough, without hunting\nup hotels where they made a specialty of it. I was indifferent, for the\nchamois is a creature that will neither bite me nor abide with me; but\nto calm Harris, we went to the H\u00f4tel des Alpes.\n\nAt the table d'h\u00f4te, we had this, for an incident. A very grave man--in\nfact his gravity amounted to solemnity, and almost to austerity--sat\nopposite us and he was \"tight,\" but doing his best to appear sober. He\ntook up a CORKED bottle of wine, tilted it over his glass awhile, then\nset it out of the way, with a contented look, and went on with his\ndinner.\n\nPresently he put his glass to his mouth, and of course found it empty.\nHe looked puzzled, and glanced furtively and suspiciously out of the\ncorner of his eye at a benignant and unconscious old lady who sat at his\nright. Shook his head, as much as to say, \"No, she couldn't have\ndone it.\" He tilted the corked bottle over his glass again, meantime\nsearching around with his watery eye to see if anybody was watching him.\nHe ate a few mouthfuls, raised his glass to his lips, and of course it\nwas still empty. He bent an injured and accusing side-glance upon that\nunconscious old lady, which was a study to see. She went on eating and\ngave no sign. He took up his glass and his bottle, with a wise private\nnod of his head, and set them gravely on the left-hand side of his\nplate--poured himself another imaginary drink--went to work with\nhis knife and fork once more--presently lifted his glass with good\nconfidence, and found it empty, as usual.\n\nThis was almost a petrifying surprise. He straightened himself up in his\nchair and deliberately and sorrowfully inspected the busy old ladies at\nhis elbows, first one and then the other. At last he softly pushed his\nplate away, set his glass directly in front of him, held on to it\nwith his left hand, and proceeded to pour with his right. This time\nhe observed that nothing came. He turned the bottle clear upside down;\nstill nothing issued from it; a plaintive look came into his face, and\nhe said, as if to himself,\n\n\"'IC! THEY'VE GOT IT ALL!\" Then he set the bottle down, resignedly, and\ntook the rest of his dinner dry.\n\n\nIt was at that table d'h\u00f4te, too, that I had under inspection the\nlargest lady I have ever seen in private life. She was over seven feet\nhigh, and magnificently proportioned. What had first called my attention\nto her, was my stepping on an outlying flange of her foot, and hearing,\nfrom up toward the ceiling, a deep \"Pardon, m'sieu, but you encroach!\"\n\nThat was when we were coming through the hall, and the place was dim,\nand I could see her only vaguely. The thing which called my attention\nto her the second time was, that at a table beyond ours were two very\npretty girls, and this great lady came in and sat down between them and\nme and blotted out my view. She had a handsome face, and she was very\nfinely formed--perfectly formed, I should say. But she made everybody\naround her look trivial and commonplace. Ladies near her looked like\nchildren, and the men about her looked mean. They looked like failures;\nand they looked as if they felt so, too. She sat with her back to us. I\nnever saw such a back in my life. I would have so liked to see the\nmoon rise over it. The whole congregation waited, under one pretext or\nanother, till she finished her dinner and went out; they wanted to see\nher at full altitude, and they found it worth tarrying for. She filled\none's idea of what an empress ought to be, when she rose up in her\nunapproachable grandeur and moved superbly out of that place.\n\n\nWe were not at Leuk in time to see her at her heaviest weight. She had\nsuffered from corpulence and had come there to get rid of her extra\nflesh in the baths. Five weeks of soaking--five uninterrupted hours of\nit every day--had accomplished her purpose and reduced her to the right\nproportions.\n\n\nThose baths remove fat, and also skin-diseases. The patients remain in\nthe great tanks for hours at a time. A dozen gentlemen and ladies occupy\na tank together, and amuse themselves with rompings and various games.\nThey have floating desks and tables, and they read or lunch or play\nchess in water that is breast-deep. The tourist can step in and view\nthis novel spectacle if he chooses. There's a poor-box, and he will have\nto contribute. There are several of these big bathing-houses, and you\ncan always tell when you are near one of them by the romping noises and\nshouts of laughter that proceed from it. The water is running water, and\nchanges all the time, else a patient with a ringworm might take the bath\nwith only a partial success, since, while he was ridding himself of the\nringworm, he might catch the itch.\n\n\nThe next morning we wandered back up the green valley, leisurely, with\nthe curving walls of those bare and stupendous precipices rising\ninto the clouds before us. I had never seen a clean, bare precipice\nstretching up five thousand feet above me before, and I never shall\nexpect to see another one. They exist, perhaps, but not in places where\none can easily get close to them. This pile of stone is peculiar. From\nits base to the soaring tops of its mighty towers, all its lines and all\nits details vaguely suggest human architecture. There are rudimentary\nbow-windows, cornices, chimneys, demarcations of stories, etc. One could\nsit and stare up there and study the features and exquisite graces of\nthis grand structure, bit by bit, and day after day, and never weary his\ninterest. The termination, toward the town, observed in profile, is the\nperfection of shape. It comes down out of the clouds in a succession of\nrounded, colossal, terracelike projections--a stairway for the gods; at\nits head spring several lofty storm-scarred towers, one after another,\nwith faint films of vapor curling always about them like spectral\nbanners. If there were a king whose realms included the whole world,\nhere would be the place meet and proper for such a monarch. He would\nonly need to hollow it out and put in the electric light. He could give\naudience to a nation at a time under its roof.\n\nOur search for those remains having failed, we inspected with a glass\nthe dim and distant track of an old-time avalanche that once swept down\nfrom some pine-grown summits behind the town and swept away the houses\nand buried the people; then we struck down the road that leads toward\nthe Rhone, to see the famous Ladders. These perilous things are built\nagainst the perpendicular face of a cliff two or three hundred feet\nhigh. The peasants, of both sexes, were climbing up and down them, with\nheavy loads on their backs. I ordered Harris to make the ascent, so I\ncould put the thrill and horror of it in my book, and he accomplished\nthe feat successfully, through a subagent, for three francs, which I\npaid. It makes me shudder yet when I think of what I felt when I was\nclinging there between heaven and earth in the person of that proxy. At\ntimes the world swam around me, and I could hardly keep from letting go,\nso dizzying was the appalling danger. Many a person would have given up\nand descended, but I stuck to my task, and would not yield until I had\naccomplished it. I felt a just pride in my exploit, but I would not have\nrepeated it for the wealth of the world. I shall break my neck yet with\nsome such foolhardy performance, for warnings never seem to have any\nlasting effect on me. When the people of the hotel found that I had\nbeen climbing those crazy Ladders, it made me an object of considerable\nattention.\n\nNext morning, early, we drove to the Rhone valley and took the train for\nVisp. There we shouldered our knapsacks and things, and set out on foot,\nin a tremendous rain, up the winding gorge, toward Zermatt. Hour after\nhour we slopped along, by the roaring torrent, and under noble Lesser\nAlps which were clothed in rich velvety green all the way up and\nhad little atomy Swiss homes perched upon grassy benches along their\nmist-dimmed heights.\n\nThe rain continued to pour and the torrent to boom, and we continued\nto enjoy both. At the one spot where this torrent tossed its white mane\nhighest, and thundered loudest, and lashed the big boulders fiercest,\nthe canton had done itself the honor to build the flimsiest wooden\nbridge that exists in the world. While we were walking over it, along\nwith a party of horsemen, I noticed that even the larger raindrops made\nit shake. I called Harris's attention to it, and he noticed it, too.\nIt seemed to me that if I owned an elephant that was a keepsake, and I\nthought a good deal of him, I would think twice before I would ride him\nover that bridge.\n\nWe climbed up to the village of St. Nicholas, about half past four\nin the afternoon, waded ankle-deep through the fertilizer-juice, and\nstopped at a new and nice hotel close by the little church. We stripped\nand went to bed, and sent our clothes down to be baked. And the horde\nof soaked tourists did the same. That chaos of clothing got mixed in the\nkitchen, and there were consequences.\n\n\nI did not get back the same drawers I sent down, when our things came up\nat six-fifteen; I got a pair on a new plan. They were merely a pair\nof white ruffle-cuffed absurdities, hitched together at the top with\na narrow band, and they did not come quite down to my knees. They were\npretty enough, but they made me feel like two people, and disconnected\nat that. The man must have been an idiot that got himself up like\nthat, to rough it in the Swiss mountains. The shirt they brought me\nwas shorter than the drawers, and hadn't any sleeves to it--at least\nit hadn't anything more than what Mr. Darwin would call \"rudimentary\"\nsleeves; these had \"edging\" around them, but the bosom was ridiculously\nplain. The knit silk undershirt they brought me was on a new plan, and\nwas really a sensible thing; it opened behind, and had pockets in it to\nput your shoulder-blades in; but they did not seem to fit mine, and so\nI found it a sort of uncomfortable garment. They gave my bobtail coat\nto somebody else, and sent me an ulster suitable for a giraffe. I had\nto tie my collar on, because there was no button behind on that foolish\nlittle shirt which I described a while ago.\n\nWhen I was dressed for dinner at six-thirty, I was too loose in some\nplaces and too tight in others, and altogether I felt slovenly and\nill-conditioned. However, the people at the table d'h\u00f4te were no better\noff than I was; they had everybody's clothes but their own on. A\nlong stranger recognized his ulster as soon as he saw the tail of it\nfollowing me in, but nobody claimed my shirt or my drawers, though I\ndescribed them as well as I was able. I gave them to the chambermaid\nthat night when I went to bed, and she probably found the owner, for my\nown things were on a chair outside my door in the morning.\n\nThere was a lovable English clergyman who did not get to the table\nd'h\u00f4te at all. His breeches had turned up missing, and without any\nequivalent. He said he was not more particular than other people, but he\nhad noticed that a clergyman at dinner without any breeches was almost\nsure to excite remark.\n\n\n\n\n\nA TRAMP ABROAD, Part 6.\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n(Samuel L. Clemens)\n\nFirst published in 1880\n\nIllustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition\n\n * * * * * *\n\nILLUSTRATIONS:\n\n     1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR\n     2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0TITIAN'S MOSES\n     3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES\n     236.\u00a0\u00a0A SUNDAY MORNING'S DEMON\n     237.\u00a0\u00a0JUST SAVED\n     238.\u00a0\u00a0SCENE IN VALLEY OF ZERMATT\n     239.\u00a0\u00a0ARRIVAL AT ZERMATT\n     240.\u00a0\u00a0FITTED OUT\n     241.\u00a0\u00a0A FEARFUL FALL\n     242.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     243.\u00a0\u00a0ALL READY\n     244.\u00a0\u00a0THE MARCH\n     245.\u00a0\u00a0THE CARAVAN\n     246.\u00a0\u00a0THE HOOK\n     247.\u00a0\u00a0THE DISABLED CHAPLAIN\n     248.\u00a0\u00a0TRYING EXPERIMENTS\n     249.\u00a0\u00a0SAVED! SAVED!\n     250.\u00a0\u00a0TWENTY MINUTES WORK\n     251.\u00a0\u00a0THE BLACK RAM\n     252.\u00a0\u00a0THE MIRACLE\n     253.\u00a0\u00a0THE NEW GUIDE\n     251.\u00a0\u00a0SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHES\n     255.\u00a0\u00a0MOUNTAIN CHALET\n     256.\u00a0\u00a0THE GRANDSON\n     257.\u00a0\u00a0OCCASIONLY MET WITH\n     258.\u00a0\u00a0SUMMIT OF THE GORNER GRAT\n     259.\u00a0\u00a0CHIEFS OF THE ADVANCE GUARD\n     260.\u00a0\u00a0MY PICTURE OF THE MATTERHORN\n     261.\u00a0\u00a0EVERYBODY HAD AN EXCUSE\n     262.\u00a0\u00a0SPRUNG A LEAK\n     263.\u00a0\u00a0A SCIENTIFIC QUESTION\n     264.\u00a0\u00a0A TERMINAL MORAINE\n     265.\u00a0\u00a0FRONT OF GLACIER\n     266.\u00a0\u00a0AN OLD MORAINE\n     267.\u00a0\u00a0GLACIER OF ZERMATT WITH LATERAL MORAINE\n     269.\u00a0\u00a0UNEXPECTED MEETING OF FRIENDS\n     269.\u00a0\u00a0VILLAGE OF CHAMONIX\n     270.\u00a0\u00a0THE MATTERHORN\n     271.\u00a0\u00a0ON THE SUMMIT\n     272.\u00a0\u00a0ACCIDENT ON THE MATTERHORN (1865)\n     273.\u00a0\u00a0ROPED TOGETHER\n     274.\u00a0\u00a0STORAGE OF ANCESTORS\n     275.\u00a0\u00a0FALLING OUT OF HIS FARM\n     276.\u00a0\u00a0CHILD LIFE IN SWITZERLAND\n     277.\u00a0\u00a0A SUNDAY PLAY\n     278.\u00a0\u00a0THE COMBINATION\n     279.\u00a0\u00a0CHILLON\n     280.\u00a0\u00a0THE TETE NOIR\n     281.\u00a0\u00a0MONT BLANC'S NEIGHBORS\n     282.\u00a0\u00a0AN EXQUISITE THING\n     283.\u00a0\u00a0A WILD RIDE\n     284.\u00a0\u00a0SWISS PEASANT GIRL\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\nCHAPTER XXXVI Sunday Church Bells--A Cause of\nProfanity--A Magnificent Glacier--Fault Finding by Harris--Almost\nan Accident--Selfishness of Harris--Approaching Zermatt--The\nMatterhorn--Zermatt--Home of Mountain Climbers--Fitted out for\nClimbing--A Fearful Adventure --Never Satisfied\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVII A Calm Decision--\"I Will Ascend the\nRiffelberg\"--Preparations for the Trip--All Zermatt on the\nAlert--Schedule of Persons and Things--An Unprecedented Display--A\nGeneral Turn--out--Ready for a Start--The Post of Danger--The Advance\nDirected--Grand Display of Umbrellas--The First Camp--Almost a\nPanic--Supposed to be Lost--The First Accident--A Chaplain Disabled--An\nExperimenting Mule--Good Effects of a Blunder--Badly Lost--A\nReconnoiter--Mystery and Doubt--Stern Measures Taken--A Black Ram--Saved\nby a Miracle--The Guide's Guide\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVIII Our Expedition Continued--Experiments with the\nBarometer--Boiling Thermometer--Barometer Soup--An Interesting\nScientific Discovery--Crippling a Latinist--A Chaplain Injured--Short\nof Barkeepers--Digging a Mountain Cellar--A Young American\nSpecimen--Somebody's Grandson--Arrival at Riffelberg Botel--Ascent of\nGorner Grat--Faith in Thermometers--The Matterhorn\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIX Guide Books--Plans for the Return of the Expedition--A\nGlacier Train--Parachute Descent from Gorner Grat--Proposed Honors\nto Harris Declined--All had an Excuse--A Magnificent Idea\nAbandoned--Descent to the Glacier--A Supposed Leak--A Slow Train--The\nGlacier Abandoned--Journey to Zermatt--A Scientific Question\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XL Glaciers--Glacier Perils--Moraines--Terminal\nMoraines--Lateral Moraines--Immense Size of Glacier--Traveling\nGlacier----General Movements of Glaciers--Ascent of Mont Blacc--Loss\nof Guides--Finding of Remains--Meeting of Old Friends--The Dead and\nLiving--Proposed Museum--The Relics at Chamonix\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLI The Matterhorn Catastrophe of 1563--Mr Whymper's\nNarrative--Ascent of the Matterhorn--The Summit--The Matterhorn\nConquered--The Descent Commenced--A Fearful Disaster--Death of Lord\nDouglas and Two Others--The Graves of the Two\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLII Switzerland--Graveyard at Zermatt--Balloting for\nMarriage--Farmers as Heroes--Falling off a Farm--From St Nicholas to\nVisp--Dangerous Traveling--Children's Play--The Parson's Children--A\nLandlord's Daughter--A Rare Combination--Ch iIIon--Lost Sympathy--Mont\nBlanc and its Neighbors--Beauty of Soap Bubbles--A Wild Drive--The King\nof Drivers--Benefit of getting Drunk\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVI\n\n[The Fiendish Fun of Alp-climbing]\n\n\nWe did not oversleep at St. Nicholas. The church-bell began to ring at\nfour-thirty in the morning, and from the length of time it continued\nto ring I judged that it takes the Swiss sinner a good while to get the\ninvitation through his head. Most church-bells in the world are of poor\nquality, and have a harsh and rasping sound which upsets the temper and\nproduces much sin, but the St. Nicholas bell is a good deal the worst\none that has been contrived yet, and is peculiarly maddening in its\noperation. Still, it may have its right and its excuse to exist, for the\ncommunity is poor and not every citizen can afford a clock, perhaps; but\nthere cannot be any excuse for our church-bells at home, for there is\nno family in America without a clock, and consequently there is no fair\npretext for the usual Sunday medley of dreadful sounds that issues from\nour steeples. There is much more profanity in America on Sunday than in\nall in the other six days of the week put together, and it is of a more\nbitter and malignant character than the week-day profanity, too. It is\nproduced by the cracked-pot clangor of the cheap church-bells.\n\n\nWe build our churches almost without regard to cost; we rear an edifice\nwhich is an adornment to the town, and we gild it, and fresco it, and\nmortgage it, and do everything we can think of to perfect it, and then\nspoil it all by putting a bell on it which afflicts everybody who hears\nit, giving some the headache, others St. Vitus's dance, and the rest the\nblind staggers.\n\nAn American village at ten o'clock on a summer Sunday is the quietest\nand peacefulest and holiest thing in nature; but it is a pretty\ndifferent thing half an hour later. Mr. Poe's poem of the \"Bells\" stands\nincomplete to this day; but it is well enough that it is so, for the\npublic reciter or \"reader\" who goes around trying to imitate the sounds\nof the various sorts of bells with his voice would find himself \"up a\nstump\" when he got to the church-bell--as Joseph Addison would say. The\nchurch is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not be\na bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example. It is still\nclinging to one or two things which were useful once, but which are\nnot useful now, neither are they ornamental. One is the bell-ringing\nto remind a clock-caked town that it is church-time, and another is the\nreading from the pulpit of a tedious list of \"notices\" which everybody\nwho is interested has already read in the newspaper. The clergyman even\nreads the hymn through--a relic of an ancient time when hymn-books are\nscarce and costly; but everybody has a hymn-book, now, and so the public\nreading is no longer necessary. It is not merely unnecessary, it is\ngenerally painful; for the average clergyman could not fire into his\ncongregation with a shotgun and hit a worse reader than himself, unless\nthe weapon scattered shamefully. I am not meaning to be flippant and\nirreverent, I am only meaning to be truthful. The average clergyman, in\nall countries and of all denominations, is a very bad reader. One would\nthink he would at least learn how to read the Lord's Prayer, by and by,\nbut it is not so. He races through it as if he thought the quicker\nhe got it in, the sooner it would be answered. A person who does not\nappreciate the exceeding value of pauses, and does not know how to\nmeasure their duration judiciously, cannot render the grand simplicity\nand dignity of a composition like that effectively.\n\nWe took a tolerably early breakfast, and tramped off toward Zermatt\nthrough the reeking lanes of the village, glad to get away from that\nbell. By and by we had a fine spectacle on our right. It was the\nwall-like butt end of a huge glacier, which looked down on us from an\nAlpine height which was well up in the blue sky. It was an astonishing\namount of ice to be compacted together in one mass. We ciphered upon it\nand decided that it was not less than several hundred feet from the base\nof the wall of solid ice to the top of it--Harris believed it was\nreally twice that. We judged that if St. Paul's, St. Peter's, the Great\nPyramid, the Strasburg Cathedral and the Capitol in Washington were\nclustered against that wall, a man sitting on its upper edge could not\nhang his hat on the top of any one of them without reaching down three\nor four hundred feet--a thing which, of course, no man could do.\n\nTo me, that mighty glacier was very beautiful. I did not imagine that\nanybody could find fault with it; but I was mistaken. Harris had been\nsnarling for several days. He was a rabid Protestant, and he was always\nsaying:\n\n\"In the Protestant cantons you never see such poverty and dirt and\nsqualor as you do in this Catholic one; you never see the lanes and\nalleys flowing with foulness; you never see such wretched little sties\nof houses; you never see an inverted tin turnip on top of a church for\na dome; and as for a church-bell, why, you never hear a church-bell at\nall.\"\n\nAll this morning he had been finding fault, straight along. First it was\nwith the mud. He said, \"It ain't muddy in a Protestant canton when it\nrains.\" Then it was with the dogs: \"They don't have those lop-eared dogs\nin a Protestant canton.\" Then it was with the roads: \"They don't leave\nthe roads to make themselves in a Protestant canton, the people make\nthem--and they make a road that IS a road, too.\" Next it was the goats:\n\"You never see a goat shedding tears in a Protestant canton--a goat,\nthere, is one of the cheerfulest objects in nature.\" Next it was the\nchamois: \"You never see a Protestant chamois act like one of these--they\ntake a bite or two and go; but these fellows camp with you and stay.\"\nThen it was the guide-boards: \"In a Protestant canton you couldn't get\nlost if you wanted to, but you never see a guide-board in a Catholic\ncanton.\" Next, \"You never see any flower-boxes in the windows,\nhere--never anything but now and then a cat--a torpid one; but you take\na Protestant canton: windows perfectly lovely with flowers--and as for\ncats, there's just acres of them. These folks in this canton leave a\nroad to make itself, and then fine you three francs if you 'trot' over\nit--as if a horse could trot over such a sarcasm of a road.\" Next about\nthe goiter: \"THEY talk about goiter!--I haven't seen a goiter in this\nwhole canton that I couldn't put in a hat.\"\n\nHe had growled at everything, but I judged it would puzzle him to find\nanything the matter with this majestic glacier. I intimated as much; but\nhe was ready, and said with surly discontent: \"You ought to see them in\nthe Protestant cantons.\"\n\nThis irritated me. But I concealed the feeling, and asked:\n\n\"What is the matter with this one?\"\n\n\"Matter? Why, it ain't in any kind of condition. They never take any\ncare of a glacier here. The moraine has been spilling gravel around it,\nand got it all dirty.\"\n\n\"Why, man, THEY can't help that.\"\n\n\"THEY? You're right. That is, they WON'T. They could if they wanted to.\nYou never see a speck of dirt on a Protestant glacier. Look at the Rhone\nglacier. It is fifteen miles long, and seven hundred feet thick. If this\nwas a Protestant glacier you wouldn't see it looking like this, I can\ntell you.\"\n\n\"That is nonsense. What would they do with it?\"\n\n\"They would whitewash it. They always do.\"\n\nI did not believe a word of this, but rather than have trouble I let it\ngo; for it is a waste of breath to argue with a bigot. I even doubted if\nthe Rhone glacier WAS in a Protestant canton; but I did not know, so I\ncould not make anything by contradicting a man who would probably put me\ndown at once with manufactured evidence.\n\nAbout nine miles from St. Nicholas we crossed a bridge over the raging\ntorrent of the Visp, and came to a log strip of flimsy fencing which\nwas pretending to secure people from tumbling over a perpendicular wall\nforty feet high and into the river. Three children were approaching; one\nof them, a little girl, about eight years old, was running; when pretty\nclose to us she stumbled and fell, and her feet shot under the rail of\nthe fence and for a moment projected over the stream. It gave us a\nsharp shock, for we thought she was gone, sure, for the ground slanted\nsteeply, and to save herself seemed a sheer impossibility; but she\nmanaged to scramble up, and ran by us laughing.\n\nWe went forward and examined the place and saw the long tracks which her\nfeet had made in the dirt when they darted over the verge. If she had\nfinished her trip she would have struck some big rocks in the edge of\nthe water, and then the torrent would have snatched her downstream among\nthe half-covered boulders and she would have been pounded to pulp in two\nminutes. We had come exceedingly near witnessing her death.\n\n\nAnd now Harris's contrary nature and inborn selfishness were strikingly\nmanifested. He has no spirit of self-denial. He began straight off, and\ncontinued for an hour, to express his gratitude that the child was not\ndestroyed. I never saw such a man. That was the kind of person he was;\njust so HE was gratified, he never cared anything about anybody else. I\nhad noticed that trait in him, over and over again. Often, of course, it\nwas mere heedlessness, mere want of reflection. Doubtless this may have\nbeen the case in most instances, but it was not the less hard to bar\non that account--and after all, its bottom, its groundwork, was\nselfishness. There is no avoiding that conclusion. In the instance under\nconsideration, I did think the indecency of running on in that way might\noccur to him; but no, the child was saved and he was glad, that was\nsufficient--he cared not a straw for MY feelings, or my loss of such a\nliterary plum, snatched from my very mouth at the instant it was\nready to drop into it. His selfishness was sufficient to place his own\ngratification in being spared suffering clear before all concern for\nme, his friend. Apparently, he did not once reflect upon the valuable\ndetails which would have fallen like a windfall to me: fishing the child\nout--witnessing the surprise of the family and the stir the thing would\nhave made among the peasants--then a Swiss funeral--then the roadside\nmonument, to be paid for by us and have our names mentioned in it. And\nwe should have gone into Baedeker and been immortal. I was silent. I was\ntoo much hurt to complain. If he could act so, and be so heedless and so\nfrivolous at such a time, and actually seem to glory in it, after all\nI had done for him, I would have cut my hand off before I would let him\nsee that I was wounded.\n\n\nWe were approaching Zermatt; consequently, we were approaching the\nrenowned Matterhorn. A month before, this mountain had been only a name\nto us, but latterly we had been moving through a steadily thickening\ndouble row of pictures of it, done in oil, water, chromo, wood, steel,\ncopper, crayon, and photography, and so it had at length become a shape\nto us--and a very distinct, decided, and familiar one, too. We were\nexpecting to recognize that mountain whenever or wherever we should run\nacross it. We were not deceived. The monarch was far away when we first\nsaw him, but there was no such thing as mistaking him. He has the rare\npeculiarity of standing by himself; he is peculiarly steep, too, and is\nalso most oddly shaped. He towers into the sky like a colossal wedge,\nwith the upper third of its blade bent a little to the left. The broad\nbase of this monster wedge is planted upon a grand glacier-paved Alpine\nplatform whose elevation is ten thousand feet above sea-level; as the\nwedge itself is some five thousand feet high, it follows that its apex\nis about fifteen thousand feet above sea-level. So the whole bulk of\nthis stately piece of rock, this sky-cleaving monolith, is above the\nline of eternal snow. Yet while all its giant neighbors have the look of\nbeing built of solid snow, from their waists up, the Matterhorn stands\nblack and naked and forbidding, the year round, or merely powdered or\nstreaked with white in places, for its sides are so steep that the\nsnow cannot stay there. Its strange form, its august isolation, and its\nmajestic unkinship with its own kind, make it--so to speak--the Napoleon\nof the mountain world. \"Grand, gloomy, and peculiar,\" is a phrase which\nfits it as aptly as it fitted the great captain.\n\nThink of a monument a mile high, standing on a pedestal two miles high!\nThis is what the Matterhorn is--a monument. Its office, henceforth, for\nall time, will be to keep watch and ward over the secret resting-place\nof the young Lord Douglas, who, in 1865, was precipitated from the\nsummit over a precipice four thousand feet high, and never seen again.\nNo man ever had such a monument as this before; the most imposing of\nthe world's other monuments are but atoms compared to it; and they will\nperish, and their places will pass from memory, but this will remain.\n\n[The accident which cost Lord Douglas his life (see Chapter xii) also\ncost the lives of three other men. These three fell four-fifths of a\nmile, and their bodies were afterward found, lying side by side, upon a\nglacier, whence they were borne to Zermatt and buried in the churchyard.\n\nThe remains of Lord Douglas have never been found. The secret of his\nsepulture, like that of Moses, must remain a mystery always.]\n\nA walk from St. Nicholas to Zermatt is a wonderful experience. Nature\nis built on a stupendous plan in that region. One marches continually\nbetween walls that are piled into the skies, with their upper heights\nbroken into a confusion of sublime shapes that gleam white and cold\nagainst the background of blue; and here and there one sees a big\nglacier displaying its grandeurs on the top of a precipice, or a\ngraceful cascade leaping and flashing down the green declivities. There\nis nothing tame, or cheap, or trivial--it is all magnificent. That\nshort valley is a picture-gallery of a notable kind, for it contains\nno mediocrities; from end to end the Creator has hung it with His\nmasterpieces.\n\n\nWe made Zermatt at three in the afternoon, nine hours out from\nSt. Nicholas. Distance, by guide-book, twelve miles; by pedometer\nseventy-two. We were in the heart and home of the mountain-climbers,\nnow, as all visible things testified. The snow-peaks did not hold\nthemselves aloof, in aristocratic reserve; they nestled close around,\nin a friendly, sociable way; guides, with the ropes and axes and other\nimplements of their fearful calling slung about their persons, roosted\nin a long line upon a stone wall in front of the hotel, and waited for\ncustomers; sun-burnt climbers, in mountaineering costume, and followed\nby their guides and porters, arrived from time to time, from breakneck\nexpeditions among the peaks and glaciers of the High Alps; male and\nfemale tourists, on mules, filed by, in a continuous procession,\nhotelward-bound from wild adventures which would grow in grandeur every\ntime they were described at the English or American fireside, and at\nlast outgrow the possible itself.\n\nWe were not dreaming; this was not a make-believe home of the\nAlp-climber, created by our heated imaginations; no, for here was Mr.\nGirdlestone himself, the famous Englishman who hunts his way to the most\nformidable Alpine summits without a guide. I was not equal to imagining\na Girdlestone; it was all I could do to even realize him, while looking\nstraight at him at short range. I would rather face whole Hyde Parks of\nartillery than the ghastly forms of death which he has faced among the\npeaks and precipices of the mountains. There is probably no pleasure\nequal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasure\nwhich is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it. I have\nnot jumped to this conclusion; I have traveled to it per gravel-train,\nso to speak. I have thought the thing all out, and am quite sure I am\nright. A born climber's appetite for climbing is hard to satisfy; when\nit comes upon him he is like a starving man with a feast before him; he\nmay have other business on hand, but it must wait. Mr. Girdlestone had\nhad his usual summer holiday in the Alps, and had spent it in his usual\nway, hunting for unique chances to break his neck; his vacation was\nover, and his luggage packed for England, but all of a sudden a hunger\nhad come upon him to climb the tremendous Weisshorn once more, for he\nhad heard of a new and utterly impossible route up it. His baggage\nwas unpacked at once, and now he and a friend, laden with knapsacks,\nice-axes, coils of rope, and canteens of milk, were just setting out.\nThey would spend the night high up among the snows, somewhere, and\nget up at two in the morning and finish the enterprise. I had a\nstrong desire to go with them, but forced it down--a feat which Mr.\nGirdlestone, with all his fortitude, could not do.\n\nEven ladies catch the climbing mania, and are unable to throw it off.\nA famous climber, of that sex, had attempted the Weisshorn a few days\nbefore our arrival, and she and her guides had lost their way in a\nsnow-storm high up among the peaks and glaciers and been forced to\nwander around a good while before they could find a way down. When this\nlady reached the bottom, she had been on her feet twenty-three hours!\n\nOur guides, hired on the Gemmi, were already at Zermatt when we\nreached there. So there was nothing to interfere with our getting up an\nadventure whenever we should choose the time and the object. I resolved\nto devote my first evening in Zermatt to studying up the subject of\nAlpine climbing, by way of preparation.\n\nI read several books, and here are some of the things I found out. One's\nshoes must be strong and heavy, and have pointed hobnails in them. The\nalpenstock must be of the best wood, for if it should break, loss of\nlife might be the result. One should carry an ax, to cut steps in the\nice with, on the great heights. There must be a ladder, for there are\nsteep bits of rock which can be surmounted with this instrument--or this\nutensil--but could not be surmounted without it; such an obstruction\nhas compelled the tourist to waste hours hunting another route, when a\nladder would have saved him all trouble. One must have from one hundred\nand fifty to five hundred feet of strong rope, to be used in lowering\nthe party down steep declivities which are too steep and smooth to\nbe traversed in any other way. One must have a steel hook, on another\nrope--a very useful thing; for when one is ascending and comes to a low\nbluff which is yet too high for the ladder, he swings this rope aloft\nlike a lasso, the hook catches at the top of the bluff, and then the\ntourist climbs the rope, hand over hand--being always particular to try\nand forget that if the hook gives way he will never stop falling till\nhe arrives in some part of Switzerland where they are not expecting him.\nAnother important thing--there must be a rope to tie the whole party\ntogether with, so that if one falls from a mountain or down a bottomless\nchasm in a glacier, the others may brace back on the rope and save him.\nOne must have a silk veil, to protect his face from snow, sleet, hail\nand gale, and colored goggles to protect his eyes from that dangerous\nenemy, snow-blindness. Finally, there must be some porters, to carry\nprovisions, wine and scientific instruments, and also blanket bags for\nthe party to sleep in.\n\n\nI closed my readings with a fearful adventure which Mr. Whymper once had\non the Matterhorn when he was prowling around alone, five thousand\nfeet above the town of Breil. He was edging his way gingerly around\nthe corner of a precipice where the upper edge of a sharp declivity of\nice-glazed snow joined it. This declivity swept down a couple of hundred\nfeet, into a gully which curved around and ended at a precipice eight\nhundred feet high, overlooking a glacier. His foot slipped, and he fell.\n\nHe says:\n\n\"My knapsack brought my head down first, and I pitched into some rocks\nabout a dozen feet below; they caught something, and tumbled me off\nthe edge, head over heels, into the gully; the baton was dashed from my\nhands, and I whirled downward in a series of bounds, each longer than\nthe last; now over ice, now into rocks, striking my head four or five\ntimes, each time with increased force. The last bound sent me spinning\nthrough the air in a leap of fifty or sixty feet, from one side of the\ngully to the other, and I struck the rocks, luckily, with the whole of\nmy left side. They caught my clothes for a moment, and I fell back on to\nthe snow with motion arrested. My head fortunately came the right side\nup, and a few frantic catches brought me to a halt, in the neck of the\ngully and on the verge of the precipice. Baton, hat, and veil skimmed\nby and disappeared, and the crash of the rocks--which I had started--as\nthey fell on to the glacier, told how narrow had been the escape from\nutter destruction. As it was, I fell nearly two hundred feet in seven or\neight bounds. Ten feet more would have taken me in one gigantic leap of\neight hundred feet on to the glacier below.\n\n\n\"The situation was sufficiently serious. The rocks could not be let go\nfor a moment, and the blood was spurting out of more than twenty cuts.\nThe most serious ones were in the head, and I vainly tried to close\nthem with one hand, while holding on with the other. It was useless;\nthe blood gushed out in blinding jets at each pulsation. At last, in a\nmoment of inspiration, I kicked out a big lump of snow and struck it\nas plaster on my head. The idea was a happy one, and the flow of blood\ndiminished. Then, scrambling up, I got, not a moment too soon, to\na place of safety, and fainted away. The sun was setting when\nconsciousness returned, and it was pitch-dark before the Great Staircase\nwas descended; but by a combination of luck and care, the whole four\nthousand seven hundred feet of descent to Breil was accomplished without\na slip, or once missing the way.\"\n\nHis wounds kept him abed some days. Then he got up and climbed that\nmountain again. That is the way with a true Alp-climber; the more fun he\nhas, the more he wants.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVII\n\n[Our Imposing Column Starts Upward]\n\n\nAfter I had finished my readings, I was no longer myself; I was tranced,\nuplifted, intoxicated, by the almost incredible perils and adventures\nI had been following my authors through, and the triumphs I had been\nsharing with them. I sat silent some time, then turned to Harris and\nsaid:\n\n\"My mind is made up.\"\n\nSomething in my tone struck him: and when he glanced at my eye and\nread what was written there, his face paled perceptibly. He hesitated a\nmoment, then said:\n\n\"Speak.\"\n\nI answered, with perfect calmness:\n\n\"I will ascend the Riffelberg.\"\n\nIf I had shot my poor friend he could not have fallen from his chair\nmore suddenly. If I had been his father he could not have pleaded harder\nto get me to give up my purpose. But I turned a deaf ear to all he said.\nWhen he perceived at last that nothing could alter my determination, he\nceased to urge, and for a while the deep silence was broken only by his\nsobs. I sat in marble resolution, with my eyes fixed upon vacancy, for\nin spirit I was already wrestling with the perils of the mountains, and\nmy friend sat gazing at me in adoring admiration through his tears.\nAt last he threw himself upon me in a loving embrace and exclaimed in\nbroken tones:\n\n\"Your Harris will never desert you. We will die together.\"\n\nI cheered the noble fellow with praises, and soon his fears were\nforgotten and he was eager for the adventure. He wanted to summon the\nguides at once and leave at two in the morning, as he supposed the\ncustom was; but I explained that nobody was looking at that hour; and\nthat the start in the dark was not usually made from the village but\nfrom the first night's resting-place on the mountain side. I said we\nwould leave the village at 3 or 4 P.M. on the morrow; meantime he could\nnotify the guides, and also let the public know of the attempt which we\nproposed to make.\n\nI went to bed, but not to sleep. No man can sleep when he is about to\nundertake one of these Alpine exploits. I tossed feverishly all night\nlong, and was glad enough when I heard the clock strike half past eleven\nand knew it was time to get up for dinner. I rose, jaded and rusty, and\nwent to the noon meal, where I found myself the center of interest and\ncuriosity; for the news was already abroad. It is not easy to eat calmly\nwhen you are a lion; but it is very pleasant, nevertheless.\n\nAs usual, at Zermatt, when a great ascent is about to be undertaken,\neverybody, native and foreign, laid aside his own projects and took up\na good position to observe the start. The expedition consisted of 198\npersons, including the mules; or 205, including the cows. As follows:\n\n \u00a0  CHIEFS OF SERVICE  \u00a0  SUBORDINATES\n\n \u00a0   Myself      1  Veterinary Surgeon\n \u00a0   Mr. Harris  1  Butler\n 17  Guides     12  Waiters\n 4  Surgeons     1  Footman\n 1  Geologist\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a01  Barber\n 1  Botanist     1  Head Cook\n 3  Chaplains    9  Assistants\n 2  Draftsman    4  Pastry Cooks\n 15  Barkeepers  1  Confectionery Artist\n 1  Latinist\n\n  \u00a0  TRANSPORTATION, ETC.\n\n 27  Porters     3  Coarse Washers and Ironers\n 44  Mules       1  Fine ditto\n 44  Muleteers   7  Cows\n \u00a0  \u00a0            2  Milkers\n\nTotal, 154 men, 51 animals. Grand Total, 205.\n\n\n \u00a0  \u00a0\u00a0RATIONS, ETC.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0  \u00a0   APPARATUS\n\n 16  Cases Hams      25  Spring Mattresses\n 2  Barrels Flour     2  Hair ditto\n 22  Barrels Whiskey     Bedding for same\n 1  Barrel Sugar      2  Mosquito-nets\n 1  Keg Lemons       29  Tents\n 2,000\u00a0Cigars  \u00a0         Scientific Instruments\n 1  Barrel Pies      97  Ice-axes\n 1  Ton of Pemmican   5  Cases Dynamite\n 143  Pair Crutches   7  Cans Nitroglycerin\n 2  Barrels Arnica   22  40-foot Ladders\n 1  Bale of Lint      2  Miles of Rope\n 27  Kegs Paregoric 154  Umbrellas\n\nIt was full four o'clock in the afternoon before my cavalcade was\nentirely ready. At that hour it began to move. In point of numbers and\nspectacular effect, it was the most imposing expedition that had ever\nmarched from Zermatt.\n\n\nI commanded the chief guide to arrange the men and animals in single\nfile, twelve feet apart, and lash them all together on a strong rope. He\nobjected that the first two miles was a dead level, with plenty of room,\nand that the rope was never used except in very dangerous places. But\nI would not listen to that. My reading had taught me that many serious\naccidents had happened in the Alps simply from not having the people\ntied up soon enough; I was not going to add one to the list. The guide\nthen obeyed my order.\n\nWhen the procession stood at ease, roped together, and ready to move, I\nnever saw a finer sight. It was 3,122 feet long--over half a mile; every\nman and me was on foot, and had on his green veil and his blue goggles,\nand his white rag around his hat, and his coil of rope over one shoulder\nand under the other, and his ice-ax in his belt, and carried his\nalpenstock in his left hand, his umbrella (closed) in his right, and his\ncrutches slung at his back. The burdens of the pack-mules and the horns\nof the cows were decked with the Edelweiss and the Alpine rose.\n\nI and my agent were the only persons mounted. We were in the post of\ndanger in the extreme rear, and tied securely to five guides apiece. Our\narmor-bearers carried our ice-axes, alpenstocks, and other implements\nfor us. We were mounted upon very small donkeys, as a measure of safety;\nin time of peril we could straighten our legs and stand up, and let\nthe donkey walk from under. Still, I cannot recommend this sort of\nanimal--at least for excursions of mere pleasure--because his\nears interrupt the view. I and my agent possessed the regulation\nmountaineering costumes, but concluded to leave them behind. Out of\nrespect for the great numbers of tourists of both sexes who would be\nassembled in front of the hotels to see us pass, and also out of respect\nfor the many tourists whom we expected to encounter on our expedition,\nwe decided to make the ascent in evening dress.\n\n\nWe watered the caravan at the cold stream which rushes down a trough\nnear the end of the village, and soon afterward left the haunts of\ncivilization behind us. About half past five o'clock we arrived at a\nbridge which spans the Visp, and after throwing over a detachment to see\nif it was safe, the caravan crossed without accident. The way now led,\nby a gentle ascent, carpeted with fresh green grass, to the church at\nWinkelmatten. Without stopping to examine this edifice, I executed\na flank movement to the right and crossed the bridge over the\nFindelenbach, after first testing its strength. Here I deployed to the\nright again, and presently entered an inviting stretch of meadowland\nwhich was unoccupied save by a couple of deserted huts toward the\nfurthest extremity. These meadows offered an excellent camping-place.\nWe pitched our tents, supped, established a proper grade, recorded the\nevents of the day, and then went to bed.\n\nWe rose at two in the morning and dressed by candle-light. It was a\ndismal and chilly business. A few stars were shining, but the general\nheavens were overcast, and the great shaft of the Matterhorn was draped\nin a cable pall of clouds. The chief guide advised a delay; he said he\nfeared it was going to rain. We waited until nine o'clock, and then got\naway in tolerably clear weather.\n\n\nOur course led up some terrific steeps, densely wooded with larches and\ncedars, and traversed by paths which the rains had guttered and which\nwere obstructed by loose stones. To add to the danger and inconvenience,\nwe were constantly meeting returning tourists on foot and horseback, and\nas constantly being crowded and battered by ascending tourists who were\nin a hurry and wanted to get by.\n\nOur troubles thickened. About the middle of the afternoon the seventeen\nguides called a halt and held a consultation. After consulting an hour\nthey said their first suspicion remained intact--that is to say, they\nbelieved they were lost. I asked if they did not KNOW it? No, they said,\nthey COULDN'T absolutely know whether they were lost or not, because\nnone of them had ever been in that part of the country before. They had\na strong instinct that they were lost, but they had no proofs--except\nthat they did not know where they were. They had met no tourists for\nsome time, and they considered that a suspicious sign.\n\nPlainly we were in an ugly fix. The guides were naturally unwilling to\ngo alone and seek a way out of the difficulty; so we all went together.\nFor better security we moved slow and cautiously, for the forest was\nvery dense. We did not move up the mountain, but around it, hoping to\nstrike across the old trail. Toward nightfall, when we were about tired\nout, we came up against a rock as big as a cottage. This barrier took\nall the remaining spirit out of the men, and a panic of fear and despair\nensued. They moaned and wept, and said they should never see their homes\nand their dear ones again. Then they began to upbraid me for bringing\nthem upon this fatal expedition. Some even muttered threats against me.\n\nClearly it was no time to show weakness. So I made a speech in which I\nsaid that other Alp-climbers had been in as perilous a position as this,\nand yet by courage and perseverance had escaped. I promised to stand\nby them, I promised to rescue them. I closed by saying we had plenty\nof provisions to maintain us for quite a siege--and did they suppose\nZermatt would allow half a mile of men and mules to mysteriously\ndisappear during any considerable time, right above their noses, and\nmake no inquiries? No, Zermatt would send out searching-expeditions and\nwe should be saved.\n\nThis speech had a great effect. The men pitched the tents with some\nlittle show of cheerfulness, and we were snugly under cover when the\nnight shut down. I now reaped the reward of my wisdom in providing one\narticle which is not mentioned in any book of Alpine adventure but this.\nI refer to the paregoric. But for that beneficent drug, would have not\none of those men slept a moment during that fearful night. But for that\ngentle persuader they must have tossed, unsoothed, the night through;\nfor the whiskey was for me. Yes, they would have risen in the morning\nunfitted for their heavy task. As it was, everybody slept but my agent\nand me--only we and the barkeepers. I would not permit myself to sleep\nat such a time. I considered myself responsible for all those lives. I\nmeant to be on hand and ready, in case of avalanches up there, but I did\nnot know it then.\n\nWe watched the weather all through that awful night, and kept an eye on\nthe barometer, to be prepared for the least change. There was not the\nslightest change recorded by the instrument, during the whole time.\nWords cannot describe the comfort that that friendly, hopeful, steadfast\nthing was to me in that season of trouble. It was a defective barometer,\nand had no hand but the stationary brass pointer, but I did not know\nthat until afterward. If I should be in such a situation again, I should\nnot wish for any barometer but that one.\n\n\nAll hands rose at two in the morning and took breakfast, and as soon as\nit was light we roped ourselves together and went at that rock. For some\ntime we tried the hook-rope and other means of scaling it, but without\nsuccess--that is, without perfect success. The hook caught once, and\nHarris started up it hand over hand, but the hold broke and if there\nhad not happened to be a chaplain sitting underneath at the time, Harris\nwould certainly have been crippled. As it was, it was the chaplain. He\ntook to his crutches, and I ordered the hook-rope to be laid aside. It\nwas too dangerous an implement where so many people are standing around.\n\n\nWe were puzzled for a while; then somebody thought of the ladders.\nOne of these was leaned against the rock, and the men went up it tied\ntogether in couples. Another ladder was sent up for use in descending.\nAt the end of half an hour everybody was over, and that rock was\nconquered. We gave our first grand shout of triumph. But the joy was\nshort-lived, for somebody asked how we were going to get the animals\nover.\n\nThis was a serious difficulty; in fact, it was an impossibility.\nThe courage of the men began to waver immediately; once more we were\nthreatened with a panic. But when the danger was most imminent, we were\nsaved in a mysterious way. A mule which had attracted attention from the\nbeginning by its disposition to experiment, tried to eat a five-pound\ncan of nitroglycerin. This happened right alongside the rock. The\nexplosion threw us all to the ground, and covered us with dirt and\ndebris; it frightened us extremely, too, for the crash it made was\ndeafening, and the violence of the shock made the ground tremble.\nHowever, we were grateful, for the rock was gone. Its place was occupied\nby a new cellar, about thirty feet across, by fifteen feet deep. The\nexplosion was heard as far as Zermatt; and an hour and a half afterward,\nmany citizens of that town were knocked down and quite seriously injured\nby descending portions of mule meat, frozen solid. This shows, better\nthan any estimate in figures, how high the experimenter went.\n\n\nWe had nothing to do, now, but bridge the cellar and proceed on our way.\nWith a cheer the men went at their work. I attended to the engineering,\nmyself. I appointed a strong detail to cut down trees with ice-axes and\ntrim them for piers to support the bridge. This was a slow business, for\nice-axes are not good to cut wood with. I caused my piers to be firmly\nset up in ranks in the cellar, and upon them I laid six of my forty-foot\nladders, side by side, and laid six more on top of them. Upon this\nbridge I caused a bed of boughs to be spread, and on top of the boughs\na bed of earth six inches deep. I stretched ropes upon either side to\nserve as railings, and then my bridge was complete. A train of elephants\ncould have crossed it in safety and comfort. By nightfall the caravan\nwas on the other side and the ladders were taken up.\n\nNext morning we went on in good spirits for a while, though our way\nwas slow and difficult, by reason of the steep and rocky nature of the\nground and the thickness of the forest; but at last a dull despondency\ncrept into the men's faces and it was apparent that not only they, but\neven the guides, were now convinced that we were lost. The fact that we\nstill met no tourists was a circumstance that was but too significant.\nAnother thing seemed to suggest that we were not only lost, but very\nbadly lost; for there must surely be searching-parties on the road\nbefore this time, yet we had seen no sign of them.\n\nDemoralization was spreading; something must be done, and done quickly,\ntoo. Fortunately, I am not unfertile in expedients. I contrived one\nnow which commended itself to all, for it promised well. I took\nthree-quarters of a mile of rope and fastened one end of it around the\nwaist of a guide, and told him to go find the road, while the caravan\nwaited. I instructed him to guide himself back by the rope, in case of\nfailure; in case of success, he was to give the rope a series of violent\njerks, whereupon the Expedition would go to him at once. He departed,\nand in two minutes had disappeared among the trees. I payed out the rope\nmyself, while everybody watched the crawling thing with eager eyes.\nThe rope crept away quite slowly, at times, at other times with some\nbriskness. Twice or thrice we seemed to get the signal, and a shout was\njust ready to break from the men's lips when they perceived it was a\nfalse alarm. But at last, when over half a mile of rope had slidden\naway, it stopped gliding and stood absolutely still--one minute--two\nminutes--three--while we held our breath and watched.\n\nWas the guide resting? Was he scanning the country from some high point?\nWas he inquiring of a chance mountaineer? Stop,--had he fainted from\nexcess of fatigue and anxiety?\n\nThis thought gave us a shock. I was in the very first act of detailing\nan Expedition to succor him, when the cord was assailed with a series of\nsuch frantic jerks that I could hardly keep hold of it. The huzza that\nwent up, then, was good to hear. \"Saved! saved!\" was the word that rang\nout, all down the long rank of the caravan.\n\n\nWe rose up and started at once. We found the route to be good enough\nfor a while, but it began to grow difficult, by and by, and this feature\nsteadily increased. When we judged we had gone half a mile, we momently\nexpected to see the guide; but no, he was not visible anywhere; neither\nwas he waiting, for the rope was still moving, consequently he was\ndoing the same. This argued that he had not found the road, yet, but\nwas marching to it with some peasant. There was nothing for us to do\nbut plod along--and this we did. At the end of three hours we were\nstill plodding. This was not only mysterious, but exasperating. And very\nfatiguing, too; for we had tried hard, along at first, to catch up with\nthe guide, but had only fagged ourselves, in vain; for although he was\ntraveling slowly he was yet able to go faster than the hampered caravan\nover such ground.\n\nAt three in the afternoon we were nearly dead with exhaustion--and still\nthe rope was slowly gliding out. The murmurs against the guide had been\ngrowing steadily, and at last they were become loud and savage. A mutiny\nensued. The men refused to proceed. They declared that we had been\ntraveling over and over the same ground all day, in a kind of circle.\nThey demanded that our end of the rope be made fast to a tree, so as to\nhalt the guide until we could overtake him and kill him. This was not an\nunreasonable requirement, so I gave the order.\n\nAs soon as the rope was tied, the Expedition moved forward with that\nalacrity which the thirst for vengeance usually inspires. But after a\ntiresome march of almost half a mile, we came to a hill covered thick\nwith a crumbly rubbish of stones, and so steep that no man of us all\nwas now in a condition to climb it. Every attempt failed, and ended in\ncrippling somebody. Within twenty minutes I had five men on crutches.\n\n\nWhenever a climber tried to assist himself by the rope, it yielded and\nlet him tumble backward. The frequency of this result suggested an idea\nto me. I ordered the caravan to 'bout face and form in marching order; I\nthen made the tow-rope fast to the rear mule, and gave the command:\n\n\"Mark time--by the right flank--forward--march!\"\n\n\nThe procession began to move, to the impressive strains of a\nbattle-chant, and I said to myself, \"Now, if the rope don't break I\njudge THIS will fetch that guide into the camp.\" I watched the rope\ngliding down the hill, and presently when I was all fixed for triumph\nI was confronted by a bitter disappointment; there was no guide tied to\nthe rope, it was only a very indignant old black ram. The fury of the\nbaffled Expedition exceeded all bounds. They even wanted to wreak their\nunreasoning vengeance on this innocent dumb brute. But I stood between\nthem and their prey, menaced by a bristling wall of ice-axes and\nalpenstocks, and proclaimed that there was but one road to this murder,\nand it was directly over my corpse. Even as I spoke I saw that my doom\nwas sealed, except a miracle supervened to divert these madmen from\ntheir fell purpose. I see the sickening wall of weapons now; I see that\nadvancing host as I saw it then, I see the hate in those cruel eyes; I\nremember how I drooped my head upon my breast, I feel again the\nsudden earthquake shock in my rear, administered by the very ram I was\nsacrificing myself to save; I hear once more the typhoon of laughter\nthat burst from the assaulting column as I clove it from van to rear\nlike a Sepoy shot from a Rodman gun.\n\n\nI was saved. Yes, I was saved, and by the merciful instinct of\ningratitude which nature had planted in the breast of that treacherous\nbeast. The grace which eloquence had failed to work in those men's\nhearts, had been wrought by a laugh. The ram was set free and my life\nwas spared.\n\nWe lived to find out that that guide had deserted us as soon as he had\nplaced a half-mile between himself and us. To avert suspicion, he had\njudged it best that the line should continue to move; so he caught that\nram, and at the time that he was sitting on it making the rope fast to\nit, we were imagining that he was lying in a swoon, overcome by fatigue\nand distress. When he allowed the ram to get up it fell to plunging\naround, trying to rid itself of the rope, and this was the signal which\nwe had risen up with glad shouts to obey. We had followed this ram round\nand round in a circle all day--a thing which was proven by the discovery\nthat we had watered the Expedition seven times at one and same spring in\nseven hours. As expert a woodman as I am, I had somehow failed to notice\nthis until my attention was called to it by a hog. This hog was always\nwallowing there, and as he was the only hog we saw, his frequent\nrepetition, together with his unvarying similarity to himself, finally\ncaused me to reflect that he must be the same hog, and this led me to\nthe deduction that this must be the same spring, also--which indeed it\nwas.\n\nI made a note of this curious thing, as showing in a striking manner the\nrelative difference between glacial action and the action of the hog.\nIt is now a well-established fact that glaciers move; I consider that\nmy observations go to show, with equal conclusiveness, that a hog in a\nspring does not move. I shall be glad to receive the opinions of other\nobservers upon this point.\n\nTo return, for an explanatory moment, to that guide, and then I shall be\ndone with him. After leaving the ram tied to the rope, he had wandered\nat large a while, and then happened to run across a cow. Judging that a\ncow would naturally know more than a guide, he took her by the tail,\nand the result justified his judgment. She nibbled her leisurely way\ndownhill till it was near milking-time, then she struck for home and\ntowed him into Zermatt.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVIII\n\n[I Conquer the Gorner Grat]\n\n\nWe went into camp on that wild spot to which that ram had brought us.\nThe men were greatly fatigued. Their conviction that we were lost was\nforgotten in the cheer of a good supper, and before the reaction had a\nchance to set in, I loaded them up with paregoric and put them to bed.\n\nNext morning I was considering in my mind our desperate situation and\ntrying to think of a remedy, when Harris came to me with a Baedeker\nmap which showed conclusively that the mountain we were on was still in\nSwitzerland--yes, every part of it was in Switzerland. So we were not\nlost, after all. This was an immense relief; it lifted the weight of two\nsuch mountains from my breast. I immediately had the news disseminated\nand the map was exhibited. The effect was wonderful. As soon as the men\nsaw with their own eyes that they knew where they were, and that it\nwas only the summit that was lost and not themselves, they cheered up\ninstantly and said with one accord, let the summit take care of itself.\n\nOur distresses being at an end, I now determined to rest the men in camp\nand give the scientific department of the Expedition a chance. First,\nI made a barometric observation, to get our altitude, but I could not\nperceive that there was any result. I knew, by my scientific reading,\nthat either thermometers or barometers ought to be boiled, to make them\naccurate; I did not know which it was, so I boiled them both. There was\nstill no result; so I examined these instruments and discovered that\nthey possessed radical blemishes: the barometer had no hand but the\nbrass pointer and the ball of the thermometer was stuffed with tin-foil.\nI might have boiled those things to rags, and never found out anything.\n\nI hunted up another barometer; it was new and perfect. I boiled it half\nan hour in a pot of bean soup which the cooks were making. The result\nwas unexpected: the instrument was not affecting at all, but there was\nsuch a strong barometer taste to the soup that the head cook, who was\na most conscientious person, changed its name in the bill of fare.\nThe dish was so greatly liked by all, that I ordered the cook to have\nbarometer soup every day.\n\n\nIt was believed that the barometer might eventually be injured, but I\ndid not care for that. I had demonstrated to my satisfaction that it\ncould not tell how high a mountain was, therefore I had no real use for\nit. Changes in the weather I could take care of without it; I did not\nwish to know when the weather was going to be good, what I wanted to\nknow was when it was going to be bad, and this I could find out from\nHarris's corns. Harris had had his corns tested and regulated at the\ngovernment observatory in Heidelberg, and one could depend upon them\nwith confidence. So I transferred the new barometer to the cooking\ndepartment, to be used for the official mess. It was found that even a\npretty fair article of soup could be made from the defective barometer;\nso I allowed that one to be transferred to the subordinate mess.\n\nI next boiled the thermometer, and got a most excellent result; the\nmercury went up to about 200 degrees Fahrenheit. In the opinion of the\nother scientists of the Expedition, this seemed to indicate that we had\nattained the extraordinary altitude of two hundred thousand feet above\nsea-level. Science places the line of eternal snow at about ten thousand\nfeet above sea-level. There was no snow where we were, consequently\nit was proven that the eternal snow-line ceases somewhere above the\nten-thousand-foot level and does not begin any more. This was an\ninteresting fact, and one which had not been observed by any observer\nbefore. It was as valuable as interesting, too, since it would open up\nthe deserted summits of the highest Alps to population and agriculture.\nIt was a proud thing to be where we were, yet it caused us a pang\nto reflect that but for that ram we might just as well have been two\nhundred thousand feet higher.\n\nThe success of my last experiment induced me to try an experiment with\nmy photographic apparatus. I got it out, and boiled one of my cameras,\nbut the thing was a failure; it made the wood swell up and burst, and I\ncould not see that the lenses were any better than they were before.\n\nI now concluded to boil a guide. It might improve him, it could not\nimpair his usefulness. But I was not allowed to proceed. Guides have\nno feeling for science, and this one would not consent to be made\nuncomfortable in its interest.\n\nIn the midst of my scientific work, one of those needless accidents\nhappened which are always occurring among the ignorant and thoughtless.\nA porter shot at a chamois and missed it and crippled the Latinist.\nThis was not a serious matter to me, for a Latinist's duties are as well\nperformed on crutches as otherwise--but the fact remained that if the\nLatinist had not happened to be in the way a mule would have got that\nload. That would have been quite another matter, for when it comes down\nto a question of value there is a palpable difference between a Latinist\nand a mule. I could not depend on having a Latinist in the right place\nevery time; so, to make things safe, I ordered that in the future the\nchamois must not be hunted within limits of the camp with any other\nweapon than the forefinger.\n\nMy nerves had hardly grown quiet after this affair when they got another\nshake-up--one which utterly unmanned me for a moment: a rumor swept\nsuddenly through the camp that one of the barkeepers had fallen over a\nprecipice!\n\nHowever, it turned out that it was only a chaplain. I had laid in an\nextra force of chaplains, purposely to be prepared for emergencies\nlike this, but by some unaccountable oversight had come away rather\nshort-handed in the matter of barkeepers.\n\nOn the following morning we moved on, well refreshed and in good\nspirits. I remember this day with peculiar pleasure, because it saw\nour road restored to us. Yes, we found our road again, and in quite an\nextraordinary way. We had plodded along some two hours and a half, when\nwe came up against a solid mass of rock about twenty feet high. I did\nnot need to be instructed by a mule this time. I was already beginning\nto know more than any mule in the Expedition. I at once put in a blast\nof dynamite, and lifted that rock out of the way. But to my surprise and\nmortification, I found that there had been a chalet on top of it.\n\nI picked up such members of the family as fell in my vicinity, and\nsubordinates of my corps collected the rest. None of these poor people\nwere injured, happily, but they were much annoyed. I explained to\nthe head chaleteer just how the thing happened, and that I was only\nsearching for the road, and would certainly have given him timely notice\nif I had known he was up there. I said I had meant no harm, and hoped\nI had not lowered myself in his estimation by raising him a few rods in\nthe air. I said many other judicious things, and finally when I offered\nto rebuild his chalet, and pay for the breakages, and throw in the\ncellar, he was mollified and satisfied. He hadn't any cellar at all,\nbefore; he would not have as good a view, now, as formerly, but what he\nhad lost in view he had gained in cellar, by exact measurement. He said\nthere wasn't another hole like that in the mountains--and he would have\nbeen right if the late mule had not tried to eat up the nitroglycerin.\n\nI put a hundred and sixteen men at work, and they rebuilt the chalet\nfrom its own debris in fifteen minutes. It was a good deal more\npicturesque than it was before, too. The man said we were now on the\nFeil-Stutz, above the Schwegmatt--information which I was glad to get,\nsince it gave us our position to a degree of particularity which we had\nnot been accustomed to for a day or so. We also learned that we were\nstanding at the foot of the Riffelberg proper, and that the initial\nchapter of our work was completed.\n\n\nWe had a fine view, from here, of the energetic Visp, as it makes its\nfirst plunge into the world from under a huge arch of solid ice, worn\nthrough the foot-wall of the great Gorner Glacier; and we could also see\nthe Furggenbach, which is the outlet of the Furggen Glacier.\n\nThe mule-road to the summit of the Riffelberg passed right in front of\nthe chalet, a circumstance which we almost immediately noticed, because\na procession of tourists was filing along it pretty much all the time.\n\n\"Pretty much\" may not be elegant English, but it is high time it was.\nThere is no elegant word or phrase which means just what it means.--M.T.\n\nThe chaleteer's business consisted in furnishing refreshments to\ntourists. My blast had interrupted this trade for a few minutes, by\nbreaking all the bottles on the place; but I gave the man a lot of\nwhiskey to sell for Alpine champagne, and a lot of vinegar which would\nanswer for Rhine wine, consequently trade was soon as brisk as ever.\n\nLeaving the Expedition outside to rest, I quartered myself in the\nchalet, with Harris, proposing to correct my journals and scientific\nobservations before continuing the ascent. I had hardly begun my work\nwhen a tall, slender, vigorous American youth of about twenty-three, who\nwas on his way down the mountain, entered and came toward me with that\nbreezy self-complacency which is the adolescent's idea of the well-bred\nease of the man of the world. His hair was short and parted accurately\nin the middle, and he had all the look of an American person who would\nbe likely to begin his signature with an initial, and spell his middle\nname out. He introduced himself, smiling a smirky smile borrowed from\nthe courtiers of the stage, extended a fair-skinned talon, and while he\ngripped my hand in it he bent his body forward three times at the\nhips, as the stage courtier does, and said in the airiest and most\ncondescending and patronizing way--I quite remember his exact language:\n\n\"Very glad to make your acquaintance, 'm sure; very glad indeed, assure\nyou. I've read all your little efforts and greatly admired them, and\nwhen I heard you were here, I ...\"\n\nI indicated a chair, and he sat down. This grandee was the grandson of\nan American of considerable note in his day, and not wholly forgotten\nyet--a man who came so near being a great man that he was quite\ngenerally accounted one while he lived.\n\n\nI slowly paced the floor, pondering scientific problems, and heard this\nconversation:\n\nGRANDSON. First visit to Europe?\n\nHARRIS. Mine? Yes.\n\nG.S. (With a soft reminiscent sigh suggestive of bygone joys that may\nbe tasted in their freshness but once.) Ah, I know what it is to you. A\nfirst visit!--ah, the romance of it! I wish I could feel it again.\n\nH. Yes, I find it exceeds all my dreams. It is enchantment. I go...\n\nG.S. (With a dainty gesture of the hand signifying \"Spare me your callow\nenthusiasms, good friend.\") Yes, _I_ know, I know; you go to cathedrals,\nand exclaim; and you drag through league-long picture-galleries and\nexclaim; and you stand here, and there, and yonder, upon historic\nground, and continue to exclaim; and you are permeated with your first\ncrude conceptions of Art, and are proud and happy. Ah, yes, proud and\nhappy--that expresses it. Yes-yes, enjoy it--it is right--it is an\ninnocent revel.\n\nH. And you? Don't you do these things now?\n\nG.S. I! Oh, that is VERY good! My dear sir, when you are as old a\ntraveler as I am, you will not ask such a question as that. _I_ visit\nthe regulation gallery, moon around the regulation cathedral, do the\nworn round of the regulation sights, YET?--Excuse me!\n\nH. Well, what DO you do, then?\n\nG.S. Do? I flit--and flit--for I am ever on the wing--but I avoid the\nherd. Today I am in Paris, tomorrow in Berlin, anon in Rome; but you\nwould look for me in vain in the galleries of the Louvre or the common\nresorts of the gazers in those other capitals. If you would find me, you\nmust look in the unvisited nooks and corners where others never think\nof going. One day you will find me making myself at home in some obscure\npeasant's cabin, another day you will find me in some forgotten castle\nworshiping some little gem or art which the careless eye has overlooked\nand which the unexperienced would despise; again you will find me as\nguest in the inner sanctuaries of palaces while the herd is content to\nget a hurried glimpse of the unused chambers by feeing a servant.\n\nH. You are a GUEST in such places?\n\nG.S. And a welcoming one.\n\nH. It is surprising. How does it come?\n\nG.S. My grandfather's name is a passport to all the courts in Europe. I\nhave only to utter that name and every door is open to me. I flit from\ncourt to court at my own free will and pleasure, and am always welcome.\nI am as much at home in the palaces of Europe as you are among your\nrelatives. I know every titled person in Europe, I think. I have my\npockets full of invitations all the time. I am under promise to go to\nItaly, where I am to be the guest of a succession of the noblest houses\nin the land. In Berlin my life is a continued round of gaiety in the\nimperial palace. It is the same, wherever I go.\n\nH. It must be very pleasant. But it must make Boston seem a little slow\nwhen you are at home.\n\nG.S. Yes, of course it does. But I don't go home much. There's no life\nthere--little to feed a man's higher nature. Boston's very narrow, you\nknow. She doesn't know it, and you couldn't convince her of it--so I say\nnothing when I'm there: where's the use? Yes, Boston is very narrow, but\nshe has such a good opinion of herself that she can't see it. A man who\nhas traveled as much as I have, and seen as much of the world, sees it\nplain enough, but he can't cure it, you know, so the best is to leave it\nand seek a sphere which is more in harmony with his tastes and culture.\nI run across there, once a year, perhaps, when I have nothing important\non hand, but I'm very soon back again. I spend my time in Europe.\n\nH. I see. You map out your plans and ...\n\nG.S. No, excuse me. I don't map out any plans. I simply follow the\ninclination of the day. I am limited by no ties, no requirements, I\nam not bound in any way. I am too old a traveler to hamper myself with\ndeliberate purposes. I am simply a traveler--an inveterate traveler--a\nman of the world, in a word--I can call myself by no other name. I do\nnot say, \"I am going here, or I am going there\"--I say nothing at all, I\nonly act. For instance, next week you may find me the guest of a grandee\nof Spain, or you may find me off for Venice, or flitting toward Dresden.\nI shall probably go to Egypt presently; friends will say to friends,\n\"He is at the Nile cataracts\"--and at that very moment they will be\nsurprised to learn that I'm away off yonder in India somewhere. I am\na constant surprise to people. They are always saying, \"Yes, he was\nin Jerusalem when we heard of him last, but goodness knows where he is\nnow.\"\n\nPresently the Grandson rose to leave--discovered he had an appointment\nwith some Emperor, perhaps. He did his graces over again: gripped me\nwith one talon, at arm's-length, pressed his hat against his stomach\nwith the other, bent his body in the middle three times, murmuring:\n\n\"Pleasure, 'm sure; great pleasure, 'm sure. Wish you much success.\"\n\nThen he removed his gracious presence. It is a great and solemn thing to\nhave a grandfather.\n\nI have not purposed to misrepresent this boy in any way, for what little\nindignation he excited in me soon passed and left nothing behind it but\ncompassion. One cannot keep up a grudge against a vacuum. I have tried\nto repeat this lad's very words; if I have failed anywhere I have at\nleast not failed to reproduce the marrow and meaning of what he said.\nHe and the innocent chatterbox whom I met on the Swiss lake are the most\nunique and interesting specimens of Young America I came across\nduring my foreign tramping. I have made honest portraits of them, not\ncaricatures.\n\n\nThe Grandson of twenty-three referred to himself five or six times as\nan \"old traveler,\" and as many as three times (with a serene complacency\nwhich was maddening) as a \"man of the world.\" There was something very\ndelicious about his leaving Boston to her \"narrowness,\" unreproved and\nuninstructed.\n\nI formed the caravan in marching order, presently, and after riding down\nthe line to see that it was properly roped together, gave the command to\nproceed. In a little while the road carried us to open, grassy land. We\nwere above the troublesome forest, now, and had an uninterrupted view,\nstraight before us, of our summit--the summit of the Riffelberg.\n\nWe followed the mule-road, a zigzag course, now to the right, now to\nthe left, but always up, and always crowded and incommoded by going and\ncoming files of reckless tourists who were never, in a single instance,\ntied together. I was obliged to exert the utmost care and caution, for\nin many places the road was not two yards wide, and often the lower side\nof it sloped away in slanting precipices eight and even nine feet deep.\nI had to encourage the men constantly, to keep them from giving way to\ntheir unmanly fears.\n\nWe might have made the summit before night, but for a delay caused by\nthe loss of an umbrella. I was allowing the umbrella to remain lost, but\nthe men murmured, and with reason, for in this exposed region we stood\nin peculiar need of protection against avalanches; so I went into camp\nand detached a strong party to go after the missing article.\n\nThe difficulties of the next morning were severe, but our courage\nwas high, for our goal was near. At noon we conquered the last\nimpediment--we stood at last upon the summit, and without the loss of a\nsingle man except the mule that ate the glycerin. Our great achievement\nwas achieved--the possibility of the impossible was demonstrated, and\nHarris and I walked proudly into the great dining-room of the Riffelberg\nHotel and stood our alpenstocks up in the corner.\n\nYes, I had made the grand ascent; but it was a mistake to do it in\nevening dress. The plug hats were battered, the swallow-tails were\nfluttering rags, mud added no grace, the general effect was unpleasant\nand even disreputable.\n\n\nThere were about seventy-five tourists at the hotel--mainly ladies and\nlittle children--and they gave us an admiring welcome which paid us for\nall our privations and sufferings. The ascent had been made, and the\nnames and dates now stand recorded on a stone monument there to prove it\nto all future tourists.\n\nI boiled a thermometer and took an altitude, with a most curious result:\nTHE SUMMIT WAS NOT AS HIGH AS THE POINT ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE WHERE I\nHAD TAKEN THE FIRST ALTITUDE. Suspecting that I had made an important\ndiscovery, I prepared to verify it. There happened to be a still higher\nsummit (called the Gorner Grat), above the hotel, and notwithstanding\nthe fact that it overlooks a glacier from a dizzy height, and that the\nascent is difficult and dangerous, I resolved to venture up there and\nboil a thermometer. So I sent a strong party, with some borrowed hoes,\nin charge of two chiefs of service, to dig a stairway in the soil all\nthe way up, and this I ascended, roped to the guides. This breezy height\nwas the summit proper--so I accomplished even more than I had originally\npurposed to do. This foolhardy exploit is recorded on another stone\nmonument.\n\n\nI boiled my thermometer, and sure enough, this spot, which purported to\nbe two thousand feet higher than the locality of the hotel, turned out\nto be nine thousand feet LOWER. Thus the fact was clearly demonstrated\nthat, ABOVE A CERTAIN POINT, THE HIGHER A POINT SEEMS TO BE, THE LOWER\nIT ACTUALLY IS. Our ascent itself was a great achievement, but this\ncontribution to science was an inconceivably greater matter.\n\nCavilers object that water boils at a lower and lower temperature the\nhigher and higher you go, and hence the apparent anomaly. I answer that\nI do not base my theory upon what the boiling water does, but upon what\na boiled thermometer says. You can't go behind the thermometer.\n\nI had a magnificent view of Monte Rosa, and apparently all the rest of\nthe Alpine world, from that high place. All the circling horizon was\npiled high with a mighty tumult of snowy crests. One might have\nimagined he saw before him the tented camps of a beleaguering host of\nBrobdingnagians.\n\n\nNOTE.--I had the very unusual luck to catch one little momentary glimpse\nof the Matterhorn wholly unencumbered by clouds. I leveled my\nphotographic apparatus at it without the loss of an instant, and should\nhave got an elegant picture if my donkey had not interfered. It was my\npurpose to draw this photograph all by myself for my book, but was\nobliged to put the mountain part of it into the hands of the\nprofessional artist because I found I could not do landscape well.\n\nBut lonely, conspicuous, and superb, rose that wonderful upright wedge,\nthe Matterhorn. Its precipitous sides were powdered over with snow, and\nthe upper half hidden in thick clouds which now and then dissolved to\ncobweb films and gave brief glimpses of the imposing tower as through a\nveil. A little later the Matterhorn took to himself the semblance of\na volcano; he was stripped naked to his apex--around this circled\nvast wreaths of white cloud which strung slowly out and streamed away\nslantwise toward the sun, a twenty-mile stretch of rolling and tumbling\nvapor, and looking just as if it were pouring out of a crater. Later\nagain, one of the mountain's sides was clean and clear, and another\nside densely clothed from base to summit in thick smokelike cloud which\nfeathered off and flew around the shaft's sharp edge like the smoke\naround the corners of a burning building. The Matterhorn is always\nexperimenting, and always gets up fine effects, too. In the sunset, when\nall the lower world is palled in gloom, it points toward heaven out of\nthe pervading blackness like a finger of fire. In the sunrise--well,\nthey say it is very fine in the sunrise.\n\nAuthorities agree that there is no such tremendous \"layout\" of snowy\nAlpine magnitude, grandeur, and sublimity to be seen from any other\naccessible point as the tourist may see from the summit of the\nRiffelberg. Therefore, let the tourist rope himself up and go there; for\nI have shown that with nerve, caution, and judgment, the thing can be\ndone.\n\nI wish to add one remark, here--in parentheses, so to speak--suggested\nby the word \"snowy,\" which I have just used. We have all seen hills and\nmountains and levels with snow on them, and so we think we know all the\naspects and effects produced by snow. But indeed we do not until we have\nseen the Alps. Possibly mass and distance add something--at any rate,\nsomething IS added. Among other noticeable things, there is a dazzling,\nintense whiteness about the distant Alpine snow, when the sun is on it,\nwhich one recognizes as peculiar, and not familiar to the eye. The snow\nwhich one is accustomed to has a tint to it--painters usually give it a\nbluish cast--but there is no perceptible tint to the distant Alpine snow\nwhen it is trying to look its whitest. As to the unimaginable\nsplendor of it when the sun is blazing down on it--well, it simply IS\nunimaginable.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIX\n\n[We Travel by Glacier]\n\n\nA guide-book is a queer thing. The reader has just seen what a man who\nundertakes the great ascent from Zermatt to the Riffelberg Hotel must\nexperience. Yet Baedeker makes these strange statements concerning this\nmatter:\n\n   1. Distance--3 hours.\n   2. The road cannot be mistaken.\n   3. Guide unnecessary.\n   4. Distance from Riffelberg Hotel to the Gorner Grat, one hour and a half.\n   5. Ascent simple and easy. Guide unnecessary.\n   6. Elevation of Zermatt above sea-level, 5,315 feet.\n   7. Elevation of Riffelberg Hotel above sea-level, 8,429 feet.\n   8. Elevation of the Gorner Grat above sea-level, 10,289 feet.\n\nI have pretty effectually throttled these errors by sending him the\nfollowing demonstrated facts:\n\n   1. Distance from Zermatt to Riffelberg Hotel, 7 days.\n   2. The road CAN be mistaken. If I am the first that did it, I want the credit\n      of it, too.\n   3. Guides ARE necessary, for none but a native can read those finger-boards.\n   4. The estimate of the elevation of the several localities above sea-level\n      is pretty correct--for Baedeker. He only misses it about a hundred and\n      eighty or ninety thousand feet.\n\nI found my arnica invaluable. My men were suffering excruciatingly, from\nthe friction of sitting down so much. During two or three days, not\none of them was able to do more than lie down or walk about; yet so\neffective was the arnica, that on the fourth all were able to sit up.\nI consider that, more than to anything else, I owe the success of our\ngreat undertaking to arnica and paregoric.\n\nMy men are being restored to health and strength, my main perplexity,\nnow, was how to get them down the mountain again. I was not willing to\nexpose the brave fellows to the perils, fatigues, and hardships of that\nfearful route again if it could be helped. First I thought of balloons;\nbut, of course, I had to give that idea up, for balloons were\nnot procurable. I thought of several other expedients, but upon\nconsideration discarded them, for cause. But at last I hit it. I was\naware that the movement of glaciers is an established fact, for I had\nread it in Baedeker; so I resolved to take passage for Zermatt on the\ngreat Gorner Glacier.\n\nVery good. The next thing was, how to get down the glacier\ncomfortably--for the mule-road to it was long, and winding, and\nwearisome. I set my mind at work, and soon thought out a plan. One looks\nstraight down upon the vast frozen river called the Gorner Glacier, from\nthe Gorner Grat, a sheer precipice twelve hundred feet high. We had\none hundred and fifty-four umbrellas--and what is an umbrella but a\nparachute?\n\nI mentioned this noble idea to Harris, with enthusiasm, and was about to\norder the Expedition to form on the Gorner Grat, with their umbrellas,\nand prepare for flight by platoons, each platoon in command of a guide,\nwhen Harris stopped me and urged me not to be too hasty. He asked me if\nthis method of descending the Alps had ever been tried before. I said\nno, I had not heard of an instance. Then, in his opinion, it was a\nmatter of considerable gravity; in his opinion it would not be well to\nsend the whole command over the cliff at once; a better way would be to\nsend down a single individual, first, and see how he fared.\n\nI saw the wisdom in this idea instantly. I said as much, and thanked\nmy agent cordially, and told him to take his umbrella and try the thing\nright away, and wave his hat when he got down, if he struck in a soft\nplace, and then I would ship the rest right along.\n\nHarris was greatly touched with this mark of confidence, and said so,\nin a voice that had a perceptible tremble in it; but at the same time he\nsaid he did not feel himself worthy of so conspicuous a favor; that it\nmight cause jealousy in the command, for there were plenty who would not\nhesitate to say he had used underhanded means to get the appointment,\nwhereas his conscience would bear him witness that he had not sought it\nat all, nor even, in his secret heart, desired it.\n\nI said these words did him extreme credit, but that he must not throw\naway the imperishable distinction of being the first man to descend\nan Alp per parachute, simply to save the feelings of some envious\nunderlings. No, I said, he MUST accept the appointment--it was no longer\nan invitation, it was a command.\n\nHe thanked me with effusion, and said that putting the thing in this\nform removed every objection. He retired, and soon returned with his\numbrella, his eye flaming with gratitude and his cheeks pallid with joy.\nJust then the head guide passed along. Harris's expression changed to\none of infinite tenderness, and he said:\n\n\"That man did me a cruel injury four days ago, and I said in my heart\nhe should live to perceive and confess that the only noble revenge a\nman can take upon his enemy is to return good for evil. I resign in his\nfavor. Appoint him.\"\n\nI threw my arms around the generous fellow and said:\n\n\"Harris, you are the noblest soul that lives. You shall not regret this\nsublime act, neither shall the world fail to know of it. You shall have\nopportunity far transcending this one, too, if I live--remember that.\"\n\nI called the head guide to me and appointed him on the spot. But the\nthing aroused no enthusiasm in him. He did not take to the idea at all.\n\nHe said:\n\n\"Tie myself to an umbrella and jump over the Gorner Grat! Excuse me,\nthere are a great many pleasanter roads to the devil than that.\"\n\n\nUpon a discussion of the subject with him, it appeared that he\nconsidered the project distinctly and decidedly dangerous. I was not\nconvinced, yet I was not willing to try the experiment in any risky\nway--that is, in a way that might cripple the strength and efficiency\nof the Expedition. I was about at my wits' end when it occurred to me to\ntry it on the Latinist.\n\nHe was called in. But he declined, on the plea of inexperience,\ndiffidence in public, lack of curiosity, and I didn't know what all.\nAnother man declined on account of a cold in the head; thought he\nought to avoid exposure. Another could not jump well--never COULD jump\nwell--did not believe he could jump so far without long and patient\npractice. Another was afraid it was going to rain, and his umbrella had\na hole in it. Everybody had an excuse. The result was what the reader\nhas by this time guessed: the most magnificent idea that was ever\nconceived had to be abandoned, from sheer lack of a person with\nenterprise enough to carry it out. Yes, I actually had to give that\nthing up--while doubtless I should live to see somebody use it and take\nall the credit from me.\n\nWell, I had to go overland--there was no other way. I marched the\nExpedition down the steep and tedious mule-path and took up as good a\nposition as I could upon the middle of the glacier--because Baedeker\nsaid the middle part travels the fastest. As a measure of economy,\nhowever, I put some of the heavier baggage on the shoreward parts, to go\nas slow freight.\n\nI waited and waited, but the glacier did not move. Night was coming on,\nthe darkness began to gather--still we did not budge. It occurred to me\nthen, that there might be a time-table in Baedeker; it would be well to\nfind out the hours of starting. I called for the book--it could not be\nfound. Bradshaw would certainly contain a time-table; but no Bradshaw\ncould be found.\n\nVery well, I must make the best of the situation. So I pitched the\ntents, picketed the animals, milked the cows, had supper, paregoricked\nthe men, established the watch, and went to bed--with orders to call me\nas soon as we came in sight of Zermatt.\n\nI awoke about half past ten next morning, and looked around. We hadn't\nbudged a peg! At first I could not understand it; then it occurred to me\nthat the old thing must be aground. So I cut down some trees and rigged\na spar on the starboard and another on the port side, and fooled away\nupward of three hours trying to spar her off. But it was no use. She\nwas half a mile wide and fifteen or twenty miles long, and there was\nno telling just whereabouts she WAS aground. The men began to show\nuneasiness, too, and presently they came flying to me with ashy faces,\nsaying she had sprung a leak.\n\n\nNothing but my cool behavior at this critical time saved us from another\npanic. I ordered them to show me the place. They led me to a spot where\na huge boulder lay in a deep pool of clear and brilliant water. It did\nlook like a pretty bad leak, but I kept that to myself. I made a pump\nand set the men to work to pump out the glacier. We made a success of\nit. I perceived, then, that it was not a leak at all. This boulder had\ndescended from a precipice and stopped on the ice in the middle of the\nglacier, and the sun had warmed it up, every day, and consequently it\nhad melted its way deeper and deeper into the ice, until at last it\nreposed, as we had found it, in a deep pool of the clearest and coldest\nwater.\n\nPresently Baedeker was found again, and I hunted eagerly for the\ntime-table. There was none. The book simply said the glacier was moving\nall the time. This was satisfactory, so I shut up the book and chose a\ngood position to view the scenery as we passed along. I stood there some\ntime enjoying the trip, but at last it occurred to me that we did\nnot seem to be gaining any on the scenery. I said to myself, \"This\nconfounded old thing's aground again, sure,\"--and opened Baedeker to\nsee if I could run across any remedy for these annoying interruptions.\nI soon found a sentence which threw a dazzling light upon the matter.\nIt said, \"The Gorner Glacier travels at an average rate of a little less\nthan an inch a day.\" I have seldom felt so outraged. I have seldom had\nmy confidence so wantonly betrayed. I made a small calculation: One inch\na day, say thirty feet a year; estimated distance to Zermatt, three and\none-eighteenth miles. Time required to go by glacier, A LITTLE OVER FIVE\nHUNDRED YEARS! I said to myself, \"I can WALK it quicker--and before I\nwill patronize such a fraud as this, I will do it.\"\n\nWhen I revealed to Harris the fact that the passenger part of this\nglacier--the central part--the lightning-express part, so to speak--was\nnot due in Zermatt till the summer of 2378, and that the baggage, coming\nalong the slow edge, would not arrive until some generations later, he\nburst out with:\n\n\"That is European management, all over! An inch a day--think of that!\nFive hundred years to go a trifle over three miles! But I am not a bit\nsurprised. It's a Catholic glacier. You can tell by the look of it. And\nthe management.\"\n\nI said, no, I believed nothing but the extreme end of it was in a\nCatholic canton.\n\n\"Well, then, it's a government glacier,\" said Harris. \"It's all the\nsame. Over here the government runs everything--so everything's slow;\nslow, and ill-managed. But with us, everything's done by private\nenterprise--and then there ain't much lolling around, you can depend\non it. I wish Tom Scott could get his hands on this torpid old slab\nonce--you'd see it take a different gait from this.\"\n\nI said I was sure he would increase the speed, if there was trade enough\nto justify it.\n\n\"He'd MAKE trade,\" said Harris. \"That's the difference between\ngovernments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do. Tom\nScott would take all the trade; in two years Gorner stock would go to\ntwo hundred, and inside of two more you would see all the other glaciers\nunder the hammer for taxes.\" After a reflective pause, Harris added, \"A\nlittle less than an inch a day; a little less than an INCH, mind you.\nWell, I'm losing my reverence for glaciers.\"\n\nI was feeling much the same way myself. I have traveled by canal-boat,\nox-wagon, raft, and by the Ephesus and Smyrna railway; but when it comes\ndown to good solid honest slow motion, I bet my money on the glacier. As\na means of passenger transportation, I consider the glacier a failure;\nbut as a vehicle of slow freight, I think she fills the bill. In the\nmatter of putting the fine shades on that line of business, I judge she\ncould teach the Germans something.\n\nI ordered the men to break camp and prepare for the land journey to\nZermatt. At this moment a most interesting find was made; a dark object,\nbedded in the glacial ice, was cut out with the ice-axes, and it proved\nto be a piece of the undressed skin of some animal--a hair trunk,\nperhaps; but a close inspection disabled the hair-trunk theory, and\nfurther discussion and examination exploded it entirely--that is, in the\nopinion of all the scientists except the one who had advanced it. This\none clung to his theory with affectionate fidelity characteristic of\noriginators of scientific theories, and afterward won many of the first\nscientists of the age to his view, by a very able pamphlet which he\nwrote, entitled, \"Evidences going to show that the hair trunk, in a wild\nstate, belonged to the early glacial period, and roamed the wastes of\nchaos in the company with the cave-bear, primeval man, and the other\nOoelitics of the Old Silurian family.\"\n\n\nEach of our scientists had a theory of his own, and put forward\nan animal of his own as a candidate for the skin. I sided with the\ngeologist of the Expedition in the belief that this patch of skin had\nonce helped to cover a Siberian elephant, in some old forgotten age--but\nwe divided there, the geologist believing that this discovery proved\nthat Siberia had formerly been located where Switzerland is now, whereas\nI held the opinion that it merely proved that the primeval Swiss was not\nthe dull savage he is represented to have been, but was a being of high\nintellectual development, who liked to go to the menagerie.\n\nWe arrived that evening, after many hardships and adventures, in some\nfields close to the great ice-arch where the mad Visp boils and surges\nout from under the foot of the great Gorner Glacier, and here we camped,\nour perils over and our magnificent undertaking successfully completed.\nWe marched into Zermatt the next day, and were received with the\nmost lavish honors and applause. A document, signed and sealed by the\nauthorities, was given to me which established and endorsed the fact\nthat I had made the ascent of the Riffelberg. This I wear around my\nneck, and it will be buried with me when I am no more.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XL\n\n[Piteous Relics at Chamonix]\n\n\nI am not so ignorant about glacial movement, now, as I was when I took\npassage on the Gorner Glacier. I have \"read up\" since. I am aware that\nthese vast bodies of ice do not travel at the same rate of speed; while\nthe Gorner Glacier makes less than an inch a day, the Unter-Aar Glacier\nmakes as much as eight; and still other glaciers are said to go twelve,\nsixteen, and even twenty inches a day. One writer says that the slowest\nglacier travels twenty-five feet a year, and the fastest four hundred.\n\nWhat is a glacier? It is easy to say it looks like a frozen river which\noccupies the bed of a winding gorge or gully between mountains. But that\ngives no notion of its vastness. For it is sometimes six hundred feet\nthick, and we are not accustomed to rivers six hundred feet deep; no,\nour rivers are six feet, twenty feet, and sometimes fifty feet deep; we\nare not quite able to grasp so large a fact as an ice-river six hundred\nfeet deep.\n\nThe glacier's surface is not smooth and level, but has deep swales and\nswelling elevations, and sometimes has the look of a tossing sea whose\nturbulent billows were frozen hard in the instant of their most violent\nmotion; the glacier's surface is not a flawless mass, but is a river\nwith cracks or crevices, some narrow, some gaping wide. Many a man, the\nvictim of a slip or a misstep, has plunged down one of these and met his\ndeath. Men have been fished out of them alive; but it was when they\ndid not go to a great depth; the cold of the great depths would quickly\nstupefy a man, whether he was hurt or unhurt. These cracks do not go\nstraight down; one can seldom see more than twenty to forty feet down\nthem; consequently men who have disappeared in them have been sought\nfor, in the hope that they had stopped within helping distance, whereas\ntheir case, in most instances, had really been hopeless from the\nbeginning.\n\nIn 1864 a party of tourists was descending Mont Blanc, and while picking\ntheir way over one of the mighty glaciers of that lofty region, roped\ntogether, as was proper, a young porter disengaged himself from the line\nand started across an ice-bridge which spanned a crevice. It broke under\nhim with a crash, and he disappeared. The others could not see how deep\nhe had gone, so it might be worthwhile to try and rescue him. A brave\nyoung guide named Michel Payot volunteered.\n\nTwo ropes were made fast to his leather belt and he bore the end of a\nthird one in his hand to tie to the victim in case he found him. He was\nlowered into the crevice, he descended deeper and deeper between the\nclear blue walls of solid ice, he approached a bend in the crack and\ndisappeared under it. Down, and still down, he went, into this profound\ngrave; when he had reached a depth of eighty feet he passed under\nanother bend in the crack, and thence descended eighty feet lower, as\nbetween perpendicular precipices. Arrived at this stage of one hundred\nand sixty feet below the surface of the glacier, he peered through the\ntwilight dimness and perceived that the chasm took another turn and\nstretched away at a steep slant to unknown deeps, for its course was\nlost in darkness. What a place that was to be in--especially if that\nleather belt should break! The compression of the belt threatened to\nsuffocate the intrepid fellow; he called to his friends to draw him up,\nbut could not make them hear. They still lowered him, deeper and deeper.\nThen he jerked his third cord as vigorously as he could; his friends\nunderstood, and dragged him out of those icy jaws of death.\n\nThen they attached a bottle to a cord and sent it down two hundred feet,\nbut it found no bottom. It came up covered with congelations--evidence\nenough that even if the poor porter reached the bottom with unbroken\nbones, a swift death from cold was sure, anyway.\n\nA glacier is a stupendous, ever-progressing, resistless plow. It pushes\nahead of it masses of boulders which are packed together, and they\nstretch across the gorge, right in front of it, like a long grave or a\nlong, sharp roof. This is called a moraine. It also shoves out a moraine\nalong each side of its course.\n\n\nImposing as the modern glaciers are, they are not so huge as were some\nthat once existed. For instance, Mr. Whymper says:\n\n\"At some very remote period the Valley of Aosta was occupied by a vast\nglacier, which flowed down its entire length from Mont Blanc to the\nplain of Piedmont, remained stationary, or nearly so, at its mouth\nfor many centuries, and deposited there enormous masses of debris. The\nlength of this glacier exceeded EIGHTY MILES, and it drained a basin\ntwenty-five to thirty-five miles across, bounded by the highest\nmountains in the Alps.\n\n\n\"The great peaks rose several thousand feet above the glaciers, and\nthen, as now, shattered by sun and frost, poured down their showers of\nrocks and stones, in witness of which there are the immense piles of\nangular fragments that constitute the moraines of Ivrea.\n\n\"The moraines around Ivrea are of extraordinary dimensions. That which\nwas on the left bank of the glacier is about THIRTEEN MILES long, and\nin some places rises to a height of TWO THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY\nFEET above the floor of the valley! The terminal moraines (those which\nare pushed in front of the glaciers) cover something like twenty square\nmiles of country. At the mouth of the Valley of Aosta, the thickness of\nthe glacier must have been at least TWO THOUSAND feet, and its width, at\nthat part, FIVE MILES AND A QUARTER.\"\n\n\nIt is not easy to get at a comprehension of a mass of ice like that. If\none could cleave off the butt end of such a glacier--an oblong block\ntwo or three miles wide by five and a quarter long and two thousand\nfeet thick--he could completely hide the city of New York under it,\nand Trinity steeple would only stick up into it relatively as far as a\nshingle-nail would stick up into the bottom of a Saratoga trunk.\n\n\"The boulders from Mont Blanc, upon the plain below Ivrea, assure us\nthat the glacier which transported them existed for a prodigious length\nof time. Their present distance from the cliffs from which they were\nderived is about 420,000 feet, and if we assume that they traveled at\nthe rate of 400 feet per annum, their journey must have occupied them no\nless than 1,055 years! In all probability they did not travel so fast.\"\n\n\nGlaciers are sometimes hurried out of their characteristic snail-pace.\nA marvelous spectacle is presented then. Mr. Whymper refers to a case\nwhich occurred in Iceland in 1721:\n\n\"It seems that in the neighborhood of the mountain Kotlugja, large\nbodies of water formed underneath, or within the glaciers (either on\naccount of the interior heat of the earth, or from other causes), and at\nlength acquired irresistible power, tore the glaciers from their mooring\non the land, and swept them over every obstacle into the sea. Prodigious\nmasses of ice were thus borne for a distance of about ten miles over\nland in the space of a few hours; and their bulk was so enormous that\nthey covered the sea for seven miles from the shore, and remained\naground in six hundred feet of water! The denudation of the land was\nupon a grand scale. All superficial accumulations were swept away, and\nthe bedrock was exposed. It was described, in graphic language, how all\nirregularities and depressions were obliterated, and a smooth surface of\nseveral miles' area laid bare, and that this area had the appearance of\nhaving been PLANED BY A PLANE.\"\n\nThe account translated from the Icelandic says that the mountainlike\nruins of this majestic glacier so covered the sea that as far as the eye\ncould reach no open water was discoverable, even from the highest peaks.\nA monster wall or barrier of ice was built across a considerable stretch\nof land, too, by this strange irruption:\n\n\"One can form some idea of the altitude of this barrier of ice when it\nis mentioned that from Hofdabrekka farm, which lies high up on a fjeld,\none could not see Hjorleifshofdi opposite, which is a fell six hundred\nand forty feet in height; but in order to do so had to clamber up a\nmountain slope east of Hofdabrekka twelve hundred feet high.\"\n\nThese things will help the reader to understand why it is that a man who\nkeeps company with glaciers comes to feel tolerably insignificant by\nand by. The Alps and the glaciers together are able to take every bit of\nconceit out of a man and reduce his self-importance to zero if he will\nonly remain within the influence of their sublime presence long enough\nto give it a fair and reasonable chance to do its work.\n\nThe Alpine glaciers move--that is granted, now, by everybody. But there\nwas a time when people scoffed at the idea; they said you might as well\nexpect leagues of solid rock to crawl along the ground as expect leagues\nof ice to do it. But proof after proof was furnished, and the finally\nthe world had to believe.\n\nThe wise men not only said the glacier moved, but they timed its\nmovement. They ciphered out a glacier's gait, and then said confidently\nthat it would travel just so far in so many years. There is record of\na striking and curious example of the accuracy which may be attained in\nthese reckonings.\n\nIn 1820 the ascent of Mont Blanc was attempted by a Russian and two\nEnglishmen, with seven guides. They had reached a prodigious altitude,\nand were approaching the summit, when an avalanche swept several of the\nparty down a sharp slope of two hundred feet and hurled five of them\n(all guides) into one of the crevices of a glacier. The life of one\nof the five was saved by a long barometer which was strapped to his\nback--it bridged the crevice and suspended him until help came. The\nalpenstock or baton of another saved its owner in a similar way. Three\nmen were lost--Pierre Balmat, Pierre Carrier, and Auguste Tairraz. They\nhad been hurled down into the fathomless great deeps of the crevice.\n\nDr. Forbes, the English geologist, had made frequent visits to the Mont\nBlanc region, and had given much attention to the disputed question of\nthe movement of glaciers. During one of these visits he completed his\nestimates of the rate of movement of the glacier which had swallowed\nup the three guides, and uttered the prediction that the glacier would\ndeliver up its dead at the foot of the mountain thirty-five years from\nthe time of the accident, or possibly forty.\n\nA dull, slow journey--a movement imperceptible to any eye--but it was\nproceeding, nevertheless, and without cessation. It was a journey\nwhich a rolling stone would make in a few seconds--the lofty point of\ndeparture was visible from the village below in the valley.\n\nThe prediction cut curiously close to the truth; forty-one years after\nthe catastrophe, the remains were cast forth at the foot of the glacier.\n\nI find an interesting account of the matter in the HISTOIRE DU MONT\nBLANC, by Stephen d'Arve. I will condense this account, as follows:\n\nOn the 12th of August, 1861, at the hour of the close of mass, a guide\narrived out of breath at the mairie of Chamonix, and bearing on his\nshoulders a very lugubrious burden. It was a sack filled with human\nremains which he had gathered from the orifice of a crevice in the\nGlacier des Bossons. He conjectured that these were remains of the\nvictims of the catastrophe of 1820, and a minute inquest, immediately\ninstituted by the local authorities, soon demonstrated the correctness\nof his supposition. The contents of the sack were spread upon a long\ntable, and officially inventoried, as follows:\n\nPortions of three human skulls. Several tufts of black and blonde hair.\nA human jaw, furnished with fine white teeth. A forearm and hand, all\nthe fingers of the latter intact. The flesh was white and fresh,\nand both the arm and hand preserved a degree of flexibility in the\narticulations.\n\nThe ring-finger had suffered a slight abrasion, and the stain of the\nblood was still visible and unchanged after forty-one years. A left\nfoot, the flesh white and fresh.\n\nAlong with these fragments were portions of waistcoats, hats, hobnailed\nshoes, and other clothing; a wing of a pigeon, with black feathers; a\nfragment of an alpenstock; a tin lantern; and lastly, a boiled leg of\nmutton, the only flesh among all the remains that exhaled an unpleasant\nodor. The guide said that the mutton had no odor when he took it from\nthe glacier; an hour's exposure to the sun had already begun the work of\ndecomposition upon it.\n\nPersons were called for, to identify these poor pathetic relics, and a\ntouching scene ensued. Two men were still living who had witnessed the\ngrim catastrophe of nearly half a century before--Marie Couttet (saved\nby his baton) and Julien Davouassoux (saved by the barometer). These\naged men entered and approached the table. Davouassoux, more than eighty\nyears old, contemplated the mournful remains mutely and with a vacant\neye, for his intelligence and his memory were torpid with age; but\nCouttet's faculties were still perfect at seventy-two, and he exhibited\nstrong emotion. He said:\n\n\"Pierre Balmat was fair; he wore a straw hat. This bit of skull, with\nthe tuft of blond hair, was his; this is his hat. Pierre Carrier was\nvery dark; this skull was his, and this felt hat. This is Balmat's\nhand, I remember it so well!\" and the old man bent down and kissed it\nreverently, then closed his fingers upon it in an affectionate grasp,\ncrying out, \"I could never have dared to believe that before quitting\nthis world it would be granted me to press once more the hand of one of\nthose brave comrades, the hand of my good friend Balmat.\"\n\n\nThere is something weirdly pathetic about the picture of that\nwhite-haired veteran greeting with his loving handshake this friend\nwho had been dead forty years. When these hands had met last, they were\nalike in the softness and freshness of youth; now, one was brown and\nwrinkled and horny with age, while the other was still as young and fair\nand blemishless as if those forty years had come and gone in a single\nmoment, leaving no mark of their passage. Time had gone on, in the one\ncase; it had stood still in the other. A man who has not seen a friend\nfor a generation, keeps him in mind always as he saw him last, and is\nsomehow surprised, and is also shocked, to see the aging change the\nyears have wrought when he sees him again. Marie Couttet's experience,\nin finding his friend's hand unaltered from the image of it which he\nhad carried in his memory for forty years, is an experience which stands\nalone in the history of man, perhaps.\n\nCouttet identified other relics:\n\n\"This hat belonged to Auguste Tairraz. He carried the cage of pigeons\nwhich we proposed to set free upon the summit. Here is the wing of one\nof those pigeons. And here is the fragment of my broken baton; it was by\ngrace of that baton that my life was saved. Who could have told me that\nI should one day have the satisfaction to look again upon this bit of\nwood that supported me above the grave that swallowed up my unfortunate\ncompanions!\"\n\nNo portions of the body of Tairraz, other than a piece of the skull,\nhad been found. A diligent search was made, but without result. However,\nanother search was instituted a year later, and this had better success.\nMany fragments of clothing which had belonged to the lost guides were\ndiscovered; also, part of a lantern, and a green veil with blood-stains\non it. But the interesting feature was this:\n\nOne of the searchers came suddenly upon a sleeved arm projecting from\na crevice in the ice-wall, with the hand outstretched as if offering\ngreeting! \"The nails of this white hand were still rosy, and the pose\nof the extended fingers seemed to express an eloquent welcome to the\nlong-lost light of day.\"\n\nThe hand and arm were alone; there was no trunk. After being removed\nfrom the ice the flesh-tints quickly faded out and the rosy nails took\non the alabaster hue of death. This was the third RIGHT hand found;\ntherefore, all three of the lost men were accounted for, beyond cavil or\nquestion.\n\nDr. Hamel was the Russian gentleman of the party which made the ascent\nat the time of the famous disaster. He left Chamonix as soon as he\nconveniently could after the descent; and as he had shown a chilly\nindifference about the calamity, and offered neither sympathy nor\nassistance to the widows and orphans, he carried with him the cordial\nexecrations of the whole community. Four months before the first remains\nwere found, a Chamonix guide named Balmat--a relative of one of the lost\nmen--was in London, and one day encountered a hale old gentleman in the\nBritish Museum, who said:\n\n\"I overheard your name. Are you from Chamonix, Monsieur Balmat?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Haven't they found the bodies of my three guides, yet? I am Dr. Hamel.\"\n\n\"Alas, no, monsieur.\"\n\n\"Well, you'll find them, sooner or later.\"\n\n\"Yes, it is the opinion of Dr. Forbes and Mr. Tyndall, that the glacier\nwill sooner or later restore to us the remains of the unfortunate\nvictims.\"\n\n\"Without a doubt, without a doubt. And it will be a great thing for\nChamonix, in the matter of attracting tourists. You can get up a museum\nwith those remains that will draw!\"\n\nThis savage idea has not improved the odor of Dr. Hamel's name in\nChamonix by any means. But after all, the man was sound on human nature.\nHis idea was conveyed to the public officials of Chamonix, and they\ngravely discussed it around the official council-table. They were only\nprevented from carrying it into execution by the determined opposition\nof the friends and descendants of the lost guides, who insisted on\ngiving the remains Christian burial, and succeeded in their purpose.\n\nA close watch had to be kept upon all the poor remnants and fragments,\nto prevent embezzlement. A few accessory odds and ends were sold. Rags\nand scraps of the coarse clothing were parted with at the rate equal to\nabout twenty dollars a yard; a piece of a lantern and one or two other\ntrifles brought nearly their weight in gold; and an Englishman offered a\npound sterling for a single breeches-button.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLI\n\n[The Fearful Disaster of 1865]\n\n\nOne of the most memorable of all the Alpine catastrophes was that of\nJuly, 1865, on the Matterhorn--already slightly referred to, a few\npages back. The details of it are scarcely known in America. To the vast\nmajority of readers they are not known at all. Mr. Whymper's account is\nthe only authentic one. I will import the chief portion of it into this\nbook, partly because of its intrinsic interest, and partly because it\ngives such a vivid idea of what the perilous pastime of Alp-climbing\nis. This was Mr. Whymper's NINTH attempt during a series of years, to\nvanquish that steep and stubborn pillar or rock; it succeeded, the other\neight were failures. No man had ever accomplished the ascent before,\nthough the attempts had been numerous.\n\nMR. WHYMPER'S NARRATIVE We started from Zermatt on the 13th of July, at\nhalf past five, on a brilliant and perfectly cloudless morning. We were\neight in number--Croz (guide), old Peter Taugwalder (guide) and his\ntwo sons; Lord F. Douglas, Mr. Hadow, Rev. Mr. Hudson, and I. To insure\nsteady motion, one tourist and one native walked together. The youngest\nTaugwalder fell to my share. The wine-bags also fell to my lot to carry,\nand throughout the day, after each drink, I replenished them secretly\nwith water, so that at the next halt they were found fuller than before!\nThis was considered a good omen, and little short of miraculous.\n\nOn the first day we did not intend to ascend to any great height, and we\nmounted, accordingly, very leisurely. Before twelve o'clock we had found\na good position for the tent, at a height of eleven thousand feet. We\npassed the remaining hours of daylight--some basking in the sunshine,\nsome sketching, some collecting; Hudson made tea, I coffee, and at\nlength we retired, each one to his blanket bag.\n\nWe assembled together before dawn on the 14th and started directly\nit was light enough to move. One of the young Taugwalders returned to\nZermatt. In a few minutes we turned the rib which had intercepted the\nview of the eastern face from our tent platform. The whole of this\ngreat slope was now revealed, rising for three thousand feet like a huge\nnatural staircase. Some parts were more, and others were less easy, but\nwe were not once brought to a halt by any serious impediment, for when\nan obstruction was met in front it could always be turned to the right\nor to the left. For the greater part of the way there was no occasion,\nindeed, for the rope, and sometimes Hudson led, sometimes myself. At\nsix-twenty we had attained a height of twelve thousand eight hundred\nfeet, and halted for half an hour; we then continued the ascent without\na break until nine-fifty-five, when we stopped for fifty minutes, at a\nheight of fourteen thousand feet.\n\n\nWe had now arrived at the foot of that part which, seen from the\nRiffelberg, seems perpendicular or overhanging. We could no longer\ncontinue on the eastern side. For a little distance we ascended by snow\nupon the AR\u00caTE--that is, the ridge--then turned over to the right, or\nnorthern side. The work became difficult, and required caution. In some\nplaces there was little to hold; the general slope of the mountain was\nLESS than forty degrees, and snow had accumulated in, and had filled\nup, the interstices of the rock-face, leaving only occasional fragments\nprojecting here and there. These were at times covered with a thin film\nof ice. It was a place which any fair mountaineer might pass in safety.\nWe bore away nearly horizontally for about four hundred feet, then\nascended directly toward the summit for about sixty feet, then doubled\nback to the ridge which descends toward Zermatt. A long stride round\na rather awkward corner brought us to snow once more. That last doubt\nvanished! The Matterhorn was ours! Nothing but two hundred feet of easy\nsnow remained to be surmounted.\n\nThe higher we rose, the more intense became the excitement. The slope\neased off, at length we could be detached, and Croz and I, dashed away,\nran a neck-and-neck race, which ended in a dead heat. At 1:40 P.M., the\nworld was at our feet, and the Matterhorn was conquered!\n\n\nThe others arrived. Croz now took the tent-pole, and planted it in the\nhighest snow. \"Yes,\" we said, \"there is the flag-staff, but where is the\nflag?\" \"Here it is,\" he answered, pulling off his blouse and fixing it\nto the stick. It made a poor flag, and there was no wind to float\nit out, yet it was seen all around. They saw it at Zermatt--at the\nRiffel--in the Val Tournanche... .\n\nWe remained on the summit for one hour--\n\nOne crowded hour of glorious life.\n\nIt passed away too quickly, and we began to prepare for the descent.\n\nHudson and I consulted as to the best and safest arrangement of the\nparty. We agreed that it was best for Croz to go first, and Hadow\nsecond; Hudson, who was almost equal to a guide in sureness of foot,\nwished to be third; Lord Douglas was placed next, and old Peter, the\nstrongest of the remainder, after him. I suggested to Hudson that we\nshould attach a rope to the rocks on our arrival at the difficult bit,\nand hold it as we descended, as an additional protection. He approved\nthe idea, but it was not definitely decided that it should be done. The\nparty was being arranged in the above order while I was sketching the\nsummit, and they had finished, and were waiting for me to be tied in\nline, when some one remembered that our names had not been left in a\nbottle. They requested me to write them down, and moved off while it was\nbeing done.\n\nA few minutes afterward I tied myself to young Peter, ran down after the\nothers, and caught them just as they were commencing the descent of the\ndifficult part. Great care was being taken. Only one man was moving at a\ntime; when he was firmly planted the next advanced, and so on. They had\nnot, however, attached the additional rope to rocks, and nothing was\nsaid about it. The suggestion was not made for my own sake, and I am not\nsure that it ever occurred to me again. For some little distance we two\nfollowed the others, detached from them, and should have continued so\nhad not Lord Douglas asked me, about 3 P.M., to tie on to old Peter, as\nhe feared, he said, that Taugwalder would not be able to hold his ground\nif a slip occurred.\n\nA few minutes later, a sharp-eyed lad ran into the Monte Rosa Hotel, at\nZermatt, saying that he had seen an avalanche fall from the summit of\nthe Matterhorn onto the Matterhorn glacier. The boy was reproved for\ntelling idle stories; he was right, nevertheless, and this was what he\nsaw.\n\nMichel Croz had laid aside his ax, and in order to give Mr. Hadow\ngreater security, was absolutely taking hold of his legs, and putting\nhis feet, one by one, into their proper positions. As far as I know, no\none was actually descending. I cannot speak with certainty, because the\ntwo leading men were partially hidden from my sight by an intervening\nmass of rock, but it is my belief, from the movements of their\nshoulders, that Croz, having done as I said, was in the act of turning\nround to go down a step or two himself; at this moment Mr. Hadow\nslipped, fell against him, and knocked him over. I heard one startled\nexclamation from Croz, then saw him and Mr. Hadow flying downward;\nin another moment Hudson was dragged from his steps, and Lord Douglas\nimmediately after him. All this was the work of a moment. Immediately we\nheard Croz's exclamation, old Peter and I planted ourselves as firmly as\nthe rocks would permit; the rope was taut between us, and the jerk came\non us both as on one man. We held; but the rope broke midway between\nTaugwalder and Lord Francis Douglas. For a few seconds we saw our\nunfortunate companions sliding downward on their backs, and spreading\nout their hands, endeavoring to save themselves. They passed from our\nsight uninjured, disappeared one by one, and fell from the precipice to\nprecipice onto the Matterhorn glacier below, a distance of nearly\nfour thousand feet in height. From the moment the rope broke it was\nimpossible to help them. So perished our comrades!\n\n\nFor more than two hours afterward I thought almost every moment that the\nnext would be my last; for the Taugwalders, utterly unnerved, were not\nonly incapable of giving assistance, but were in such a state that a\nslip might have been expected from them at any moment. After a time we\nwere able to do that which should have been done at first, and fixed\nrope to firm rocks, in addition to being tied together. These ropes were\ncut from time to time, and were left behind. Even with their assurance\nthe men were afraid to proceed, and several times old Peter turned,\nwith ashy face and faltering limbs, and said, with terrible emphasis, \"I\nCANNOT!\"\n\nAbout 6 P.M., we arrived at the snow upon the ridge descending toward\nZermatt, and all peril was over. We frequently looked, but in vain, for\ntraces of our unfortunate companions; we bent over the ridge and cried\nto them, but no sound returned. Convinced at last that they were neither\nwithin sight nor hearing, we ceased from our useless efforts; and, too\ncast down for speech, silently gathered up our things, and the little\neffects of those who were lost, and then completed the descent. Such\nis Mr. Whymper's graphic and thrilling narrative. Zermatt gossip\ndarkly hints that the elder Taugwalder cut the rope, when the accident\noccurred, in order to preserve himself from being dragged into the\nabyss; but Mr. Whymper says that the ends of the rope showed no evidence\nof cutting, but only of breaking. He adds that if Taugwalder had had the\ndisposition to cut the rope, he would not have had time to do it, the\naccident was so sudden and unexpected.\n\nLord Douglas' body has never been found. It probably lodged upon some\ninaccessible shelf in the face of the mighty precipice. Lord Douglas was\na youth of nineteen. The three other victims fell nearly four thousand\nfeet, and their bodies lay together upon the glacier when found by\nMr. Whymper and the other searchers the next morning. Their graves are\nbeside the little church in Zermatt.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLII\n\n[Chillon has a Nice, Roomy Dungeon]\n\n\nSwitzerland is simply a large, humpy, solid rock, with a thin skin of\ngrass stretched over it. Consequently, they do not dig graves, they\nblast them out with powder and fuse. They cannot afford to have large\ngraveyards, the grass skin is too circumscribed and too valuable. It is\nall required for the support of the living.\n\nThe graveyard in Zermatt occupies only about one-eighth of an acre.\nThe graves are sunk in the living rock, and are very permanent; but\noccupation of them is only temporary; the occupant can only stay till\nhis grave is needed by a later subject, he is removed, then, for they do\nnot bury one body on top of another. As I understand it, a family owns\na grave, just as it owns a house. A man dies and leaves his house to his\nson--and at the same time, this dead father succeeds to his own father's\ngrave. He moves out of the house and into the grave, and his predecessor\nmoves out of the grave and into the cellar of the chapel. I saw a black\nbox lying in the churchyard, with skull and cross-bones painted on it,\nand was told that this was used in transferring remains to the cellar.\n\nIn that cellar the bones and skulls of several hundred of former\ncitizens were compactly corded up. They made a pile eighteen feet long,\nseven feet high, and eight feet wide. I was told that in some of the\nreceptacles of this kind in the Swiss villages, the skulls were all\nmarked, and if a man wished to find the skulls of his ancestors for\nseveral generations back, he could do it by these marks, preserved in\nthe family records.\n\n\nAn English gentleman who had lived some years in this region, said it\nwas the cradle of compulsory education. But he said that the English\nidea that compulsory education would reduce bastardy and intemperance\nwas an error--it has not that effect. He said there was more seduction\nin the Protestant than in the Catholic cantons, because the confessional\nprotected the girls. I wonder why it doesn't protect married women in\nFrance and Spain?\n\nThis gentleman said that among the poorer peasants in the Valais, it was\ncommon for the brothers in a family to cast lots to determine which\nof them should have the coveted privilege of marrying, and his\nbrethren--doomed bachelors--heroically banded themselves together to\nhelp support the new family.\n\nWe left Zermatt in a wagon--and in a rain-storm, too--for St. Nicholas\nabout ten o'clock one morning. Again we passed between those grass-clad\nprodigious cliffs, specked with wee dwellings peeping over at us from\nvelvety green walls ten and twelve hundred feet high. It did not seem\npossible that the imaginary chamois even could climb those precipices.\nLovers on opposite cliffs probably kiss through a spy-glass, and\ncorrespond with a rifle.\n\nIn Switzerland the farmer's plow is a wide shovel, which scrapes up and\nturns over the thin earthy skin of his native rock--and there the man of\nthe plow is a hero. Now here, by our St. Nicholas road, was a grave, and\nit had a tragic story. A plowman was skinning his farm one morning--not\nthe steepest part of it, but still a steep part--that is, he was not\nskinning the front of his farm, but the roof of it, near the eaves--when\nhe absent-mindedly let go of the plow-handles to moisten his hands, in\nthe usual way; he lost his balance and fell out of his farm backward;\npoor fellow, he never touched anything till he struck bottom, fifteen\nhundred feet below. [This was on a Sunday.--M.T.] We throw a halo of\nheroism around the life of the soldier and the sailor, because of the\ndeadly dangers they are facing all the time. But we are not used to\nlooking upon farming as a heroic occupation. This is because we have not\nlived in Switzerland.\n\n\nFrom St. Nicholas we struck out for Visp--or Vispach--on foot. The\nrain-storms had been at work during several days, and had done a deal of\ndamage in Switzerland and Savoy. We came to one place where a stream had\nchanged its course and plunged down a mountain in a new place, sweeping\neverything before it. Two poor but precious farms by the roadside were\nruined. One was washed clear away, and the bed-rock exposed; the other\nwas buried out of sight under a tumbled chaos of rocks, gravel, mud,\nand rubbish. The resistless might of water was well exemplified. Some\nsaplings which had stood in the way were bent to the ground, stripped\nclean of their bark, and buried under rocky debris. The road had been\nswept away, too.\n\nIn another place, where the road was high up on the mountain's face, and\nits outside edge protected by flimsy masonry, we frequently came across\nspots where this masonry had carved off and left dangerous gaps for\nmules to get over; and with still more frequency we found the masonry\nslightly crumbled, and marked by mule-hoofs, thus showing that there had\nbeen danger of an accident to somebody. When at last we came to a\nbadly ruptured bit of masonry, with hoof-prints evidencing a desperate\nstruggle to regain the lost foothold, I looked quite hopefully over the\ndizzy precipice. But there was nobody down there.\n\nThey take exceedingly good care of their rivers in Switzerland and other\nportions of Europe. They wall up both banks with slanting solid stone\nmasonry--so that from end to end of these rivers the banks look like the\nwharves at St. Louis and other towns on the Mississippi River.\n\nIt was during this walk from St. Nicholas, in the shadow of the majestic\nAlps, that we came across some little children amusing themselves in\nwhat seemed, at first, a most odd and original way--but it wasn't; it\nwas in simply a natural and characteristic way. They were roped together\nwith a string, they had mimic alpenstocks and ice-axes, and were\nclimbing a meek and lowly manure-pile with a most blood-curdling amount\nof care and caution. The \"guide\" at the head of the line cut imaginary\nsteps, in a laborious and painstaking way, and not a monkey budged till\nthe step above was vacated. If we had waited we should have witnessed an\nimaginary accident, no doubt; and we should have heard the intrepid band\nhurrah when they made the summit and looked around upon the \"magnificent\nview,\" and seen them throw themselves down in exhausted attitudes for a\nrest in that commanding situation.\n\n\nIn Nevada I used to see the children play at silver-mining. Of course,\nthe great thing was an accident in a mine, and there were two \"star\"\nparts; that of the man who fell down the mimic shaft, and that of the\ndaring hero who was lowered into the depths to bring him up. I knew one\nsmall chap who always insisted on playing BOTH of these parts--and he\ncarried his point. He would tumble into the shaft and die, and then come\nto the surface and go back after his own remains.\n\nIt is the smartest boy that gets the hero part everywhere; he is head\nguide in Switzerland, head miner in Nevada, head bull-fighter in Spain,\netc.; but I knew a preacher's son, seven years old, who once selected\na part for himself compared to which those just mentioned are tame\nand unimpressive. Jimmy's father stopped him from driving imaginary\nhorse-cars one Sunday--stopped him from playing captain of an imaginary\nsteamboat next Sunday--stopped him from leading an imaginary army to\nbattle the following Sunday--and so on. Finally the little fellow said:\n\n\"I've tried everything, and they won't any of them do. What CAN I play?\"\n\n\"I hardly know, Jimmy; but you MUST play only things that are suitable\nto the Sabbath-day.\"\n\nNext Sunday the preacher stepped softly to a back-room door to see if\nthe children were rightly employed. He peeped in. A chair occupied the\nmiddle of the room, and on the back of it hung Jimmy's cap; one of\nhis little sisters took the cap down, nibbled at it, then passed it to\nanother small sister and said, \"Eat of this fruit, for it is good.\" The\nReverend took in the situation--alas, they were playing the Expulsion\nfrom Eden! Yet he found one little crumb of comfort. He said to himself,\n\"For once Jimmy has yielded the chief role--I have been wronging him, I\ndid not believe there was so much modesty in him; I should have expected\nhim to be either Adam or Eve.\" This crumb of comfort lasted but a very\nlittle while; he glanced around and discovered Jimmy standing in an\nimposing attitude in a corner, with a dark and deadly frown on his face.\nWhat that meant was very plain--HE WAS IMPERSONATING THE DEITY! Think of\nthe guileless sublimity of that idea.\n\n\nWe reached Vispach at 8 P.M., only about seven hours out from St.\nNicholas. So we must have made fully a mile and a half an hour, and it\nwas all downhill, too, and very muddy at that. We stayed all night at\nthe Hotel de Soleil; I remember it because the landlady, the portier,\nthe waitress, and the chambermaid were not separate persons, but were\nall contained in one neat and chipper suit of spotless muslin, and she\nwas the prettiest young creature I saw in all that region. She was the\nlandlord's daughter. And I remember that the only native match to her\nI saw in all Europe was the young daughter of the landlord of a village\ninn in the Black Forest. Why don't more people in Europe marry and keep\nhotel?\n\n\nNext morning we left with a family of English friends and went by train\nto Brevet, and thence by boat across the lake to Ouchy (Lausanne).\n\nOuchy is memorable to me, not on account of its beautiful situation and\nlovely surroundings--although these would make it stick long in one's\nmemory--but as the place where _I_ caught the London TIMES dropping into\nhumor. It was NOT aware of it, though. It did not do it on purpose.\nAn English friend called my attention to this lapse, and cut out the\nreprehensible paragraph for me. Think of encountering a grin like this\non the face of that grim journal:\n\nERRATUM.--We are requested by Reuter's Telegram Company to correct an\nerroneous announcement made in their Brisbane telegram of the 2d inst.,\npublished in our impression of the 5th inst., stating that \"Lady Kennedy\nhad given birth to twins, the eldest being a son.\" The Company explain\nthat the message they received contained the words \"Governor of\nQueensland, TWINS FIRST SON.\" Being, however, subsequently informed that\nSir Arthur Kennedy was unmarried and that there must be some mistake, a\ntelegraphic repetition was at once demanded. It has been received today\n(11th inst.) and shows that the words really telegraphed by Reuter's\nagent were \"Governor Queensland TURNS FIRST SOD,\" alluding to the\nMaryborough-Gympic Railway in course of construction. The words in\nitalics were mutilated by the telegraph in transmission from Australia,\nand reaching the company in the form mentioned above gave rise to the\nmistake.\n\nI had always had a deep and reverent compassion for the sufferings of\nthe \"prisoner of Chillon,\" whose story Byron had told in such moving\nverse; so I took the steamer and made pilgrimage to the dungeons of the\nCastle of Chillon, to see the place where poor Bonnivard endured his\ndreary captivity three hundred years ago. I am glad I did that, for it\ntook away some of the pain I was feeling on the prisoner's account. His\ndungeon was a nice, cool, roomy place, and I cannot see why he should\nhave been dissatisfied with it. If he had been imprisoned in a St.\nNicholas private dwelling, where the fertilizer prevails, and the goat\nsleeps with the guest, and the chickens roost on him and the cow comes\nin and bothers him when he wants to muse, it would have been another\nmatter altogether; but he surely could not have had a very cheerless\ntime of it in that pretty dungeon. It has romantic window-slits that\nlet in generous bars of light, and it has tall, noble columns, carved\napparently from the living rock; and what is more, they are written\nall over with thousands of names; some of them--like Byron's and Victor\nHugo's--of the first celebrity. Why didn't he amuse himself reading\nthese names? Then there are the couriers and tourists--swarms of them\nevery day--what was to hinder him from having a good time with them? I\nthink Bonnivard's sufferings have been overrated.\n\n\nNext, we took the train and went to Martigny, on the way to Mont Blanc.\nNext morning we started, about eight o'clock, on foot. We had plenty of\ncompany, in the way of wagon-loads and mule-loads of tourists--and dust.\nThis scattering procession of travelers was perhaps a mile long. The\nroad was uphill--interminable uphill--and tolerably steep. The weather\nwas blisteringly hot, and the man or woman who had to sit on a creeping\nmule, or in a crawling wagon, and broil in the beating sun, was an\nobject to be pitied. We could dodge among the bushes, and have the\nrelief of shade, but those people could not. They paid for a conveyance,\nand to get their money's worth they rode.\n\nWe went by the way of the T\u00eate Noir, and after we reached high ground\nthere was no lack of fine scenery. In one place the road was tunneled\nthrough a shoulder of the mountain; from there one looked down into a\ngorge with a rushing torrent in it, and on every hand was a charming\nview of rocky buttresses and wooded heights. There was a liberal\nallowance of pretty waterfalls, too, on the T\u00eate Noir route.\n\n\nAbout half an hour before we reached the village of Argenti\u00e8re a vast\ndome of snow with the sun blazing on it drifted into view and framed\nitself in a strong V-shaped gateway of the mountains, and we recognized\nMont Blanc, the \"monarch of the Alps.\" With every step, after that,\nthis stately dome rose higher and higher into the blue sky, and at last\nseemed to occupy the zenith.\n\nSome of Mont Blanc's neighbors--bare, light-brown, steeplelike\nrocks--were very peculiarly shaped. Some were whittled to a sharp point,\nand slightly bent at the upper end, like a lady's finger; one monster\nsugar-loaf resembled a bishop's hat; it was too steep to hold snow on\nits sides, but had some in the division.\n\n\nWhile we were still on very high ground, and before the descent toward\nArgenti\u00e8re began, we looked up toward a neighboring mountain-top, and\nsaw exquisite prismatic colors playing about some white clouds which\nwere so delicate as to almost resemble gossamer webs. The faint pinks\nand greens were peculiarly beautiful; none of the colors were deep, they\nwere the lightest shades. They were bewitching commingled. We sat down\nto study and enjoy this singular spectacle. The tints remained during\nseveral minutes--flitting, changing, melting into each other; paling\nalmost away for a moment, then reflushing--a shifting, restless,\nunstable succession of soft opaline gleams, shimmering over that air\nfilm of white cloud, and turning it into a fabric dainty enough to\nclothe an angel with.\n\nBy and by we perceived what those super-delicate colors, and their\ncontinuous play and movement, reminded us of; it is what one sees in a\nsoap-bubble that is drifting along, catching changes of tint from the\nobjects it passes. A soap-bubble is the most beautiful thing, and the\nmost exquisite, in nature; that lovely phantom fabric in the sky was\nsuggestive of a soap-bubble split open, and spread out in the sun. I\nwonder how much it would take to buy a soap-bubble, if there was only\none in the world? One could buy a hatful of Koh-i-Noors with the same\nmoney, no doubt.\n\n\nWe made the tramp from Martigny to Argenti\u00e8re in eight hours. We beat\nall the mules and wagons; we didn't usually do that. We hired a sort of\nopen baggage-wagon for the trip down the valley to Chamonix, and then\ndevoted an hour to dining. This gave the driver time to get drunk. He\nhad a friend with him, and this friend also had had time to get drunk.\n\nWhen we drove off, the driver said all the tourists had arrived and\ngone by while we were at dinner; \"but,\" said he, impressively, \"be not\ndisturbed by that--remain tranquil--give yourselves no uneasiness--their\ndust rises far before us--rest you tranquil, leave all to me--I am the\nking of drivers. Behold!\"\n\nDown came his whip, and away we clattered. I never had such a shaking up\nin my life. The recent flooding rains had washed the road clear away in\nplaces, but we never stopped, we never slowed down for anything. We tore\nright along, over rocks, rubbish, gullies, open fields--sometimes with\none or two wheels on the ground, but generally with none. Every now and\nthen that calm, good-natured madman would bend a majestic look over his\nshoulder at us and say, \"Ah, you perceive? It is as I have said--I am\nthe king of drivers.\" Every time we just missed going to destruction,\nhe would say, with tranquil happiness, \"Enjoy it, gentlemen, it is very\nrare, it is very unusual--it is given to few to ride with the king of\ndrivers--and observe, it is as I have said, I am he.\"\n\n\nHe spoke in French, and punctuated with hiccoughs. His friend was\nFrench, too, but spoke in German--using the same system of punctuation,\nhowever. The friend called himself the \"Captain of Mont Blanc,\" and\nwanted us to make the ascent with him. He said he had made more ascents\nthan any other man--forty seven--and his brother had made thirty-seven.\nHis brother was the best guide in the world, except himself--but he,\nyes, observe him well--he was the \"Captain of Mont Blanc\"--that title\nbelonged to none other.\n\nThe \"king\" was as good as his word--he overtook that long procession\nof tourists and went by it like a hurricane. The result was that we got\nchoicer rooms at the hotel in Chamonix than we should have done if\nhis majesty had been a slower artist--or rather, if he hadn't most\nprovidentially got drunk before he left Argenti\u00e8re.\n\n\n\n\n\nA TRAMP ABROAD, Part 7.\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n(Samuel L. Clemens)\n\nFirst published in 1880\n\nIllustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition\n\n * * * * * *\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS:\n\n     1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR\n     2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0TITIAN'S MOSES\n     285.\u00a0\u00a0STREET IN CHAMONIX\n     286.\u00a0\u00a0THE PROUD GERMAN\n     287.\u00a0\u00a0THE INDIGNANT TOURIST\n     288.\u00a0\u00a0MUSIC OF SWITZERLAND\n     289.\u00a0\u00a0ONLY A MISTAKE\n     290.\u00a0\u00a0A BROAD VIEW\n     291.\u00a0\u00a0PREPARING TO START\n     292.\u00a0\u00a0ASCENT OF MONT BLANC\n     293.\u00a0\u00a0\"WE ALL RAISED A TREMENDOUS SHOUT\"\n     294.\u00a0\u00a0THE GRANDE MULETS\n     295.\u00a0\u00a0CABIN ON THE GRANDE MULETS\n     296.\u00a0\u00a0KEEPING WARM\n     297.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     298.\u00a0\u00a0TAKE IT EASY\n     299.\u00a0\u00a0THE MER DE GLACE (MONT BLANC)\n     300.\u00a0\u00a0TAKING TOLL\n     301.\u00a0\u00a0A DESCENDING TOURIST\n     302.\u00a0\u00a0LEAVING BY DILIGENCE\n     303.\u00a0\u00a0THE SATISFIED ENGLISHMAN\n     301.\u00a0\u00a0HIGH PRESSURE\n     305.\u00a0\u00a0NO APOLOGY\n     307.\u00a0\u00a0A LIVELY STREET\n     308.\u00a0\u00a0HAVING HER FULL RIGHTS\n     309.\u00a0\u00a0HOW SHE FOOLED US\n     310.\u00a0\u00a0\"YOU'LL TAKE THAT OR NONE\"\n     311.\u00a0\u00a0ROBBING A BEGGAR\n     312.\u00a0\u00a0DISHONEST ITALY\n     313.\u00a0\u00a0STOCK IN TRADE\n     314.\u00a0\u00a0STYLE\n     315.\u00a0\u00a0SPECIMENS FROM OLD MASTERS\n     316.\u00a0\u00a0AN OLD MASTER\n     317.\u00a0\u00a0THE LION OF ST MARK\n     318.\u00a0\u00a0OH TO BE AT RRST!\n     319.\u00a0\u00a0THE WORLD'S MASTERPIECE\n     320.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE\n     321.\u00a0\u00a0AESTHETIC TASTES\n     322.\u00a0\u00a0A PRIVATE FAMILY BREAKFAST\n     323.\u00a0\u00a0EUROPEAN CARVING\n     323.\u00a0\u00a0A TWENTY-FOUR HOUR FIGHT\n     325.\u00a0\u00a0GREAT HEIDELBERG TUN\n     326.\u00a0\u00a0BISMARCK IN PRISON\n     327.\u00a0\u00a0TAIL PIECE 600\n     328.\u00a0\u00a0A COMPLETE WORD\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIII Chamonix--Contrasts--Magnificent Spectacle--The Guild\nof Guides--The Guide--in--Chief--The Returned Tourist--Getting\nDiploma--Rigid Rules--Unsuccessful Efforts to Procure a Diploma--The\nRecord-Book--The Conqueror of Mont Blanc--Professional Jealousy\n--Triumph of Truth--Mountain Music--Its Effect--A Hunt for a Nuisance\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIV Looking at Mont Blanc--Telescopic Effect--A Proposed\nTrip--Determination and Courage--The Cost all counted----Ascent of\nMont Blanc by Telescope--Safe and Rapid Return--Diplomas Asked for and\nRefused--Disaster of 1866--The Brave Brothers--Wonderful Endurance and\nPluck--Love Making on Mont Blanc--First Ascent of a Woman--Sensible\nAttire\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLV A Catastrophe which Cost Eleven Lives--Accident of 1870--A\nParty of Eleven--A Fearful Storm--Note-books of the Victims--Within Five\nMinutes of Safety--Facing Death Resignedly\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVI The Hotel des Pyramids--The Glacier des Bossons--One of\nthe Shows--Premeditated Crime--Saved Again--Tourists Warned--Advice\nto Tourists--The Two Empresses--The Glacier Toll Collector--Pure\nIce Water--Death Rate of the World--Of Various Cities--A Pleasure\nExcursionist--A Diligence Ride--A Satisfied Englishman\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVII Geneva--Shops of Geneva--Elasticity of Prices--Persistency\nof Shop-Women--The High Pressure System--How a Dandy was brought to\nGrief--American Manners--Gallantry--Col Baker of London--Arkansaw\nJustice--Safety of Women in America--Town of Chambery--A Lively\nPlace--At Turin--A Railroad Companion--An Insulted Woman--City of\nTurin--Italian Honesty--A Small Mistake --Robbing a Beggar Woman\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVIII In Milan--The Arcade--Incidents we Met With--The\nPedlar--Children--The Honest Conductor--Heavy Stocks of Clothing--The\nQuarrelsome Italians--Great Smoke and Little Fire--The Cathedral--Style\nin Church--The Old Masters--Tintoretto's great Picture--Emotional\nTourists--Basson's Famed Picture--The Hair Trunk\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIX In Venice--St Mark's Cathedral--Discovery of an\nAntique--The Riches of St Mark's--A Church Robber--Trusting Secrets to a\nFriend --The Robber Hanged--A Private Dinner--European Food\n\n\n\nCHAPTER L Why Some things Are--Art in Rome and Florence--The Fig Leaf\nMania--Titian's Venus--Difference between Seeing and Describing A Real\nwork of Art--Titian's Moses--Home\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\n    A--The Portier analyzed\n    B--Hiedelberg Castle Described\n    C--The College Prison and Inmates\n    D--The Awful German Language\n    E--Legends of the Castle\n    F--The Journals of Germany\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIII\n\n[My Poor Sick Friend Disappointed]\n\n\nEverybody was out-of-doors; everybody was in the principal street of the\nvillage--not on the sidewalks, but all over the street; everybody was\nlounging, loafing, chatting, waiting, alert, expectant, interested--for\nit was train-time. That is to say, it was diligence-time--the half-dozen\nbig diligences would soon be arriving from Geneva, and the village was\ninterested, in many ways, in knowing how many people were coming and\nwhat sort of folk they might be. It was altogether the livest-looking\nstreet we had seen in any village on the continent.\n\nThe hotel was by the side of a booming torrent, whose music was loud\nand strong; we could not see this torrent, for it was dark, now, but\none could locate it without a light. There was a large enclosed yard in\nfront of the hotel, and this was filled with groups of villagers waiting\nto see the diligences arrive, or to hire themselves to excursionists for\nthe morrow. A telescope stood in the yard, with its huge barrel canted\nup toward the lustrous evening star. The long porch of the hotel was\npopulous with tourists, who sat in shawls and wraps under the vast\novershadowing bulk of Mont Blanc, and gossiped or meditated.\n\n\nNever did a mountain seem so close; its big sides seemed at one's very\nelbow, and its majestic dome, and the lofty cluster of slender minarets\nthat were its neighbors, seemed to be almost over one's head. It was\nnight in the streets, and the lamps were sparkling everywhere; the broad\nbases and shoulders of the mountains were in a deep gloom, but their\nsummits swam in a strange rich glow which was really daylight, and yet\nhad a mellow something about it which was very different from the hard\nwhite glare of the kind of daylight I was used to. Its radiance was\nstrong and clear, but at the same time it was singularly soft, and\nspiritual, and benignant. No, it was not our harsh, aggressive,\nrealistic daylight; it seemed properer to an enchanted land--or to\nheaven.\n\nI had seen moonlight and daylight together before, but I had not seen\ndaylight and black night elbow to elbow before. At least I had not seen\nthe daylight resting upon an object sufficiently close at hand, before,\nto make the contrast startling and at war with nature.\n\nThe daylight passed away. Presently the moon rose up behind some of\nthose sky-piercing fingers or pinnacles of bare rock of which I have\nspoken--they were a little to the left of the crest of Mont Blanc,\nand right over our heads--but she couldn't manage to climb high enough\ntoward heaven to get entirely above them. She would show the glittering\narch of her upper third, occasionally, and scrape it along behind the\ncomblike row; sometimes a pinnacle stood straight up, like a statuette\nof ebony, against that glittering white shield, then seemed to glide out\nof it by its own volition and power, and become a dim specter, while the\nnext pinnacle glided into its place and blotted the spotless disk with\nthe black exclamation-point of its presence. The top of one pinnacle\ntook the shapely, clean-cut form of a rabbit's head, in the inkiest\nsilhouette, while it rested against the moon. The unillumined peaks and\nminarets, hovering vague and phantom-like above us while the others\nwere painfully white and strong with snow and moonlight, made a peculiar\neffect.\n\nBut when the moon, having passed the line of pinnacles, was hidden\nbehind the stupendous white swell of Mont Blanc, the masterpiece of the\nevening was flung on the canvas. A rich greenish radiance sprang into\nthe sky from behind the mountain, and in this some airy shreds and\nribbons of vapor floated about, and being flushed with that strange\ntint, went waving to and fro like pale green flames. After a while,\nradiating bars--vast broadening fan-shaped shadows--grew up and\nstretched away to the zenith from behind the mountain. It was a\nspectacle to take one's breath, for the wonder of it, and the sublimity.\n\nIndeed, those mighty bars of alternate light and shadow streaming up\nfrom behind that dark and prodigious form and occupying the half of the\ndull and opaque heavens, was the most imposing and impressive marvel I\nhad ever looked upon. There is no simile for it, for nothing is like\nit. If a child had asked me what it was, I should have said, \"Humble\nyourself, in this presence, it is the glory flowing from the hidden head\nof the Creator.\" One falls shorter of the truth than that, sometimes, in\ntrying to explain mysteries to the little people. I could have found\nout the cause of this awe-compelling miracle by inquiring, for it is not\ninfrequent at Mont Blanc,--but I did not wish to know. We have not the\nreverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has, because we know how\nit is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into the matter.\n\nWe took a walk down street, a block or two, and a place where four\nstreets met and the principal shops were clustered, found the groups\nof men in the roadway thicker than ever--for this was the Exchange of\nChamonix. These men were in the costumes of guides and porters, and were\nthere to be hired.\n\nThe office of that great personage, the Guide-in-Chief of the Chamonix\nGuild of Guides, was near by. This guild is a close corporation, and is\ngoverned by strict laws. There are many excursion routes, some dangerous\nand some not, some that can be made safely without a guide, and some\nthat cannot. The bureau determines these things. Where it decides that a\nguide is necessary, you are forbidden to go without one. Neither are you\nallowed to be a victim of extortion: the law states what you are to pay.\nThe guides serve in rotation; you cannot select the man who is to take\nyour life into his hands, you must take the worst in the lot, if it is\nhis turn. A guide's fee ranges all the way up from a half-dollar (for\nsome trifling excursion of a few rods) to twenty dollars, according to\nthe distance traversed and the nature of the ground. A guide's fee\nfor taking a person to the summit of Mont Blanc and back, is twenty\ndollars--and he earns it. The time employed is usually three days, and\nthere is enough early rising in it to make a man far more \"healthy and\nwealthy and wise\" than any one man has any right to be. The porter's\nfee for the same trip is ten dollars. Several fools--no, I mean several\ntourists--usually go together, and divide up the expense, and thus make\nit light; for if only one f--tourist, I mean--went, he would have to\nhave several guides and porters, and that would make the matter costly.\n\nWe went into the Chief's office. There were maps of mountains on the\nwalls; also one or two lithographs of celebrated guides, and a portrait\nof the scientist De Saussure.\n\nIn glass cases were some labeled fragments of boots and batons, and\nother suggestive relics and remembrances of casualties on Mount Blanc.\nIn a book was a record of all the ascents which have ever been made,\nbeginning with Nos. 1 and 2--being those of Jacques Balmat and De\nSaussure, in 1787, and ending with No. 685, which wasn't cold yet. In\nfact No. 685 was standing by the official table waiting to receive the\nprecious official diploma which should prove to his German household and\nto his descendants that he had once been indiscreet enough to climb to\nthe top of Mont Blanc. He looked very happy when he got his document; in\nfact, he spoke up and said he WAS happy.\n\n\nI tried to buy a diploma for an invalid friend at home who had never\ntraveled, and whose desire all his life has been to ascend Mont Blanc,\nbut the Guide-in-Chief rather insolently refused to sell me one. I was\nvery much offended. I said I did not propose to be discriminated against\non the account of my nationality; that he had just sold a diploma to\nthis German gentleman, and my money was a good as his; I would see to\nit that he couldn't keep his shop for Germans and deny his produce to\nAmericans; I would have his license taken away from him at the dropping\nof a handkerchief; if France refused to break him, I would make an\ninternational matter of it and bring on a war; the soil should be\ndrenched with blood; and not only that, but I would set up an opposition\nshow and sell diplomas at half price.\n\n\nFor two cents I would have done these things, too; but nobody offered me\ntwo cents. I tried to move that German's feelings, but it could not be\ndone; he would not give me his diploma, neither would he sell it to me.\nI TOLD him my friend was sick and could not come himself, but he said\nhe did not care a VERDAMMTES PFENNIG, he wanted his diploma for\nhimself--did I suppose he was going to risk his neck for that thing and\nthen give it to a sick stranger? Indeed he wouldn't, so he wouldn't. I\nresolved, then, that I would do all I could to injure Mont Blanc.\n\nIn the record-book was a list of all the fatal accidents which happened\non the mountain. It began with the one in 1820 when the Russian Dr.\nHamel's three guides were lost in a crevice of the glacier, and it\nrecorded the delivery of the remains in the valley by the slow-moving\nglacier forty-one years later. The latest catastrophe bore the date\n1877.\n\nWe stepped out and roved about the village awhile. In front of the\nlittle church was a monument to the memory of the bold guide Jacques\nBalmat, the first man who ever stood upon the summit of Mont Blanc. He\nmade that wild trip solitary and alone. He accomplished the ascent\na number of times afterward. A stretch of nearly half a century lay\nbetween his first ascent and his last one. At the ripe old age of\nseventy-two he was climbing around a corner of a lofty precipice of the\nPic du Midi--nobody with him--when he slipped and fell. So he died in\nthe harness.\n\nHe had grown very avaricious in his old age, and used to go off\nstealthily to hunt for non-existent and impossible gold among those\nperilous peaks and precipices. He was on a quest of that kind when he\nlost his life. There was a statue to him, and another to De Saussure, in\nthe hall of our hotel, and a metal plate on the door of a room upstairs\nbore an inscription to the effect that that room had been occupied\nby Albert Smith. Balmat and De Saussure discovered Mont Blanc--so to\nspeak--but it was Smith who made it a paying property. His articles in\nBLACKWOOD and his lectures on Mont Blanc in London advertised it and\nmade people as anxious to see it as if it owed them money.\n\nAs we strolled along the road we looked up and saw a red signal-light\nglowing in the darkness of the mountainside. It seemed but a trifling\nway up--perhaps a hundred yards, a climb of ten minutes. It was a lucky\npiece of sagacity in us that we concluded to stop a man whom we met and\nget a light for our pipes from him instead of continuing the climb to\nthat lantern to get a light, as had been our purpose. The man said that\nthat lantern was on the Grands Mulets, some sixty-five hundred feet\nabove the valley! I know by our Riffelberg experience, that it would\nhave taken us a good part of a week to go up there. I would sooner not\nsmoke at all, than take all that trouble for a light.\n\nEven in the daytime the foreshadowing effect of this mountain's close\nproximity creates curious deceptions. For instance, one sees with the\nnaked eye a cabin up there beside the glacier, and a little above and\nbeyond he sees the spot where that red light was located; he thinks he\ncould throw a stone from the one place to the other. But he couldn't,\nfor the difference between the two altitudes is more than three thousand\nfeet. It looks impossible, from below, that this can be true, but it is\ntrue, nevertheless.\n\nWhile strolling around, we kept the run of the moon all the time, and we\nstill kept an eye on her after we got back to the hotel portico. I had\na theory that the gravitation of refraction, being subsidiary to\natmospheric compensation, the refrangibility of the earth's surface\nwould emphasize this effect in regions where great mountain ranges\noccur, and possibly so even-handed impact the odic and idyllic forces\ntogether, the one upon the other, as to prevent the moon from rising\nhigher than 12,200 feet above sea-level. This daring theory had been\nreceived with frantic scorn by some of my fellow-scientists, and with\nan eager silence by others. Among the former I may mention Prof. H----y;\nand among the latter Prof. T----l. Such is professional jealousy; a\nscientist will never show any kindness for a theory which he did not\nstart himself. There is no feeling of brotherhood among these people.\nIndeed, they always resent it when I call them brother. To show how far\ntheir ungenerosity can carry them, I will state that I offered to let\nProf. H----y publish my great theory as his own discovery; I even begged\nhim to do it; I even proposed to print it myself as his theory. Instead\nof thanking me, he said that if I tried to fasten that theory on him he\nwould sue me for slander. I was going to offer it to Mr. Darwin, whom\nI understood to be a man without prejudices, but it occurred to me\nthat perhaps he would not be interested in it since it did not concern\nheraldry.\n\nBut I am glad now, that I was forced to father my intrepid theory\nmyself, for, on the night of which I am writing, it was triumphantly\njustified and established. Mont Blanc is nearly sixteen thousand feet\nhigh; he hid the moon utterly; near him is a peak which is 12,216 feet\nhigh; the moon slid along behind the pinnacles, and when she approached\nthat one I watched her with intense interest, for my reputation as a\nscientist must stand or fall by its decision. I cannot describe the\nemotions which surged like tidal waves through my breast when I saw the\nmoon glide behind that lofty needle and pass it by without exposing more\nthan two feet four inches of her upper rim above it; I was secure, then.\nI knew she could rise no higher, and I was right. She sailed behind all\nthe peaks and never succeeded in hoisting her disk above a single one of\nthem.\n\nWhile the moon was behind one of those sharp fingers, its shadow was\nflung athwart the vacant heavens--a long, slanting, clean-cut, dark\nray--with a streaming and energetic suggestion of FORCE about it, such\nas the ascending jet of water from a powerful fire-engine affords. It\nwas curious to see a good strong shadow of an earthly object cast upon\nso intangible a field as the atmosphere.\n\nWe went to bed, at last, and went quickly to sleep, but I woke up,\nafter about three hours, with throbbing temples, and a head which was\nphysically sore, outside and in. I was dazed, dreamy, wretched, seedy,\nunrefreshed. I recognized the occasion of all this: it was that torrent.\nIn the mountain villages of Switzerland, and along the roads, one has\nalways the roar of the torrent in his ears. He imagines it is music, and\nhe thinks poetic things about it; he lies in his comfortable bed and is\nlulled to sleep by it. But by and by he begins to notice that his\nhead is very sore--he cannot account for it; in solitudes where the\nprofoundest silence reigns, he notices a sullen, distant, continuous\nroar in his ears, which is like what he would experience if he had\nsea-shells pressed against them--he cannot account for it; he is drowsy\nand absent-minded; there is no tenacity to his mind, he cannot keep hold\nof a thought and follow it out; if he sits down to write, his vocabulary\nis empty, no suitable words will come, he forgets what he started to do,\nand remains there, pen in hand, head tilted up, eyes closed, listening\npainfully to the muffled roar of a distant train in his ears; in his\nsoundest sleep the strain continues, he goes on listening, always\nlistening intently, anxiously, and wakes at last, harassed, irritable,\nunrefreshed. He cannot manage to account for these things.\n\n\nDay after day he feels as if he had spent his nights in a sleeping-car.\nIt actually takes him weeks to find out that it is those persecuting\ntorrents that have been making all the mischief. It is time for him\nto get out of Switzerland, then, for as soon as he has discovered the\ncause, the misery is magnified several fold. The roar of the torrent is\nmaddening, then, for his imagination is assisting; the physical pain\nit inflicts is exquisite. When he finds he is approaching one of those\nstreams, his dread is so lively that he is disposed to fly the track and\navoid the implacable foe.\n\n\nEight or nine months after the distress of the torrents had departed\nfrom me, the roar and thunder of the streets of Paris brought it all\nback again. I moved to the sixth story of the hotel to hunt for peace.\nAbout midnight the noises dulled away, and I was sinking to sleep,\nwhen I heard a new and curious sound; I listened: evidently some joyous\nlunatic was softly dancing a \"double shuffle\" in the room over my head.\nI had to wait for him to get through, of course. Five long, long minutes\nhe smoothly shuffled away--a pause followed, then something fell with\na thump on the floor. I said to myself \"There--he is pulling off his\nboots--thank heavens he is done.\" Another slight pause--he went to\nshuffling again! I said to myself, \"Is he trying to see what he can do\nwith only one boot on?\" Presently came another pause and another thump\non the floor. I said \"Good, he has pulled off his other boot--NOW he is\ndone.\" But he wasn't. The next moment he was shuffling again. I said,\n\"Confound him, he is at it in his slippers!\" After a little came that\nsame old pause, and right after it that thump on the floor once more. I\nsaid, \"Hang him, he had on TWO pair of boots!\" For an hour that magician\nwent on shuffling and pulling off boots till he had shed as many as\ntwenty-five pair, and I was hovering on the verge of lunacy. I got\nmy gun and stole up there. The fellow was in the midst of an acre of\nsprawling boots, and he had a boot in his hand, shuffling it--no, I mean\nPOLISHING it. The mystery was explained. He hadn't been dancing. He was\nthe \"Boots\" of the hotel, and was attending to business.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIX\n\n[I Scale Mont Blanc--by Telescope]\n\n\nAfter breakfast, that next morning in Chamonix, we went out in the yard\nand watched the gangs of excursioning tourists arriving and departing\nwith their mules and guides and porters; then we took a look through\nthe telescope at the snowy hump of Mont Blanc. It was brilliant with\nsunshine, and the vast smooth bulge seemed hardly five hundred yards\naway. With the naked eye we could dimly make out the house at the Pierre\nPointue, which is located by the side of the great glacier, and is more\nthan three thousand feet above the level of the valley; but with the\ntelescope we could see all its details. While I looked, a woman rode by\nthe house on a mule, and I saw her with sharp distinctness; I could have\ndescribed her dress. I saw her nod to the people of the house, and rein\nup her mule, and put her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. I was\nnot used to telescopes; in fact, I had never looked through a good one\nbefore; it seemed incredible to me that this woman could be so far away.\nI was satisfied that I could see all these details with my naked\neye; but when I tried it, that mule and those vivid people had wholly\nvanished, and the house itself was become small and vague. I tried\nthe telescope again, and again everything was vivid. The strong black\nshadows of the mule and the woman were flung against the side of the\nhouse, and I saw the mule's silhouette wave its ears.\n\nThe telescopulist--or the telescopulariat--I do not know which is\nright--said a party were making a grand ascent, and would come in sight\non the remote upper heights, presently; so we waited to observe this\nperformance. Presently I had a superb idea. I wanted to stand with a\nparty on the summit of Mont Blanc, merely to be able to say I had done\nit, and I believed the telescope could set me within seven feet of the\nuppermost man. The telescoper assured me that it could. I then asked him\nhow much I owed him for as far as I had got? He said, one franc. I asked\nhim how much it would cost to make the entire ascent? Three francs. I at\nonce determined to make the entire ascent. But first I inquired if there\nwas any danger? He said no--not by telescope; said he had taken a great\nmany parties to the summit, and never lost a man. I asked what he would\ncharge to let my agent go with me, together with such guides and porters\nas might be necessary. He said he would let Harris go for two francs;\nand that unless we were unusually timid, he should consider guides and\nporters unnecessary; it was not customary to take them, when going by\ntelescope, for they were rather an encumbrance than a help. He said that\nthe party now on the mountain were approaching the most difficult part,\nand if we hurried we should overtake them within ten minutes, and could\nthen join them and have the benefit of their guides and porters without\ntheir knowledge, and without expense to us.\n\n\nI then said we would start immediately. I believe I said it calmly,\nthough I was conscious of a shudder and of a paling cheek, in view of\nthe nature of the exploit I was so unreflectingly engaged in. But the\nold daredevil spirit was upon me, and I said that as I had committed\nmyself I would not back down; I would ascend Mont Blanc if it cost me\nmy life. I told the man to slant his machine in the proper direction and\nlet us be off.\n\nHarris was afraid and did not want to go, but I heartened him up and\nsaid I would hold his hand all the way; so he gave his consent, though\nhe trembled a little at first. I took a last pathetic look upon the\npleasant summer scene about me, then boldly put my eye to the glass and\nprepared to mount among the grim glaciers and the everlasting snows.\n\nWe took our way carefully and cautiously across the great Glacier des\nBossons, over yawning and terrific crevices and among imposing crags\nand buttresses of ice which were fringed with icicles of gigantic\nproportions. The desert of ice that stretched far and wide about us was\nwild and desolate beyond description, and the perils which beset us were\nso great that at times I was minded to turn back. But I pulled my pluck\ntogether and pushed on.\n\nWe passed the glacier safely and began to mount the steeps beyond, with\ngreat alacrity. When we were seven minutes out from the starting-point,\nwe reached an altitude where the scene took a new aspect; an apparently\nlimitless continent of gleaming snow was tilted heavenward before our\nfaces. As my eye followed that awful acclivity far away up into the\nremote skies, it seemed to me that all I had ever seen before of\nsublimity and magnitude was small and insignificant compared to this.\n\n\nWe rested a moment, and then began to mount with speed. Within three\nminutes we caught sight of the party ahead of us, and stopped to observe\nthem. They were toiling up a long, slanting ridge of snow--twelve\npersons, roped together some fifteen feet apart, marching in single\nfile, and strongly marked against the clear blue sky. One was a woman.\nWe could see them lift their feet and put them down; we saw them swing\ntheir alpenstocks forward in unison, like so many pendulums, and then\nbear their weight upon them; we saw the lady wave her handkerchief. They\ndragged themselves upward in a worn and weary way, for they had been\nclimbing steadily from the Grand Mulets, on the Glacier des Bossons,\nsince three in the morning, and it was eleven, now. We saw them sink\ndown in the snow and rest, and drink something from a bottle. After a\nwhile they moved on, and as they approached the final short dash of the\nhome-stretch we closed up on them and joined them.\n\nPresently we all stood together on the summit! What a view was spread\nout below! Away off under the northwestern horizon rolled the silent\nbillows of the Farnese Oberland, their snowy crests glinting softly in\nthe subdued lights of distance; in the north rose the giant form of the\nWobblehorn, draped from peak to shoulder in sable thunder-clouds; beyond\nhim, to the right, stretched the grand processional summits of the\nCisalpine Cordillera, drowned in a sensuous haze; to the east loomed the\ncolossal masses of the Yodelhorn, the Fuddelhorn, and the Dinnerhorn,\ntheir cloudless summits flashing white and cold in the sun; beyond\nthem shimmered the faint far line of the Ghauts of Jubbelpore and the\nAiguilles des Alleghenies; in the south towered the smoking peak\nof Popocatapetl and the unapproachable altitudes of the peerless\nScrabblehorn; in the west-south the stately range of the Himalayas lay\ndreaming in a purple gloom; and thence all around the curving horizon\nthe eye roved over a troubled sea of sun-kissed Alps, and noted,\nhere and there, the noble proportions and the soaring domes of the\nBottlehorn, and the Saddlehorn, and the Shovelhorn, and the Powderhorn,\nall bathed in the glory of noon and mottled with softly gliding blots,\nthe shadows flung from drifting clouds.\n\nOvercome by the scene, we all raised a triumphant, tremendous shout, in\nunison. A startled man at my elbow said:\n\n\"Confound you, what do you yell like that for, right here in the\nstreet?\"\n\n\nThat brought me down to Chamonix, like a flirt. I gave that man some\nspiritual advice and disposed of him, and then paid the telescope man\nhis full fee, and said that we were charmed with the trip and would\nremain down, and not reascend and require him to fetch us down by\ntelescope. This pleased him very much, for of course we could have\nstepped back to the summit and put him to the trouble of bringing us\nhome if we wanted to.\n\nI judged we could get diplomas, now, anyhow; so we went after them, but\nthe Chief Guide put us off, with one pretext or another, during all the\ntime we stayed in Chamonix, and we ended by never getting them at all.\nSo much for his prejudice against people's nationality. However, we\nworried him enough to make him remember us and our ascent for some\ntime. He even said, once, that he wished there was a lunatic asylum\nin Chamonix. This shows that he really had fears that we were going to\ndrive him mad. It was what we intended to do, but lack of time defeated\nit.\n\nI cannot venture to advise the reader one way or the other, as to\nascending Mont Blanc. I say only this: if he is at all timid, the\nenjoyments of the trip will hardly make up for the hardships and\nsufferings he will have to endure. But, if he has good nerve, youth,\nhealth, and a bold, firm will, and could leave his family comfortably\nprovided for in case the worst happened, he would find the ascent a\nwonderful experience, and the view from the top a vision to dream about,\nand tell about, and recall with exultation all the days of his life.\n\nWhile I do not advise such a person to attempt the ascent, I do not\nadvise him against it. But if he elects to attempt it, let him be warily\ncareful of two things: chose a calm, clear day; and do not pay the\ntelescope man in advance. There are dark stories of his getting advance\npayers on the summit and then leaving them there to rot.\n\nA frightful tragedy was once witnessed through the Chamonix telescopes.\nThink of questions and answers like these, on an inquest:\n\nCORONER. You saw deceased lose his life?\n\nWITNESS. I did.\n\nC. Where was he, at the time?\n\nW. Close to the summit of Mont Blanc.\n\nC. Where were you?\n\nW. In the main street of Chamonix.\n\nC. What was the distance between you?\n\nW. A LITTLE OVER FIVE MILES, as the bird flies.\n\nThis accident occurred in 1866, a year and a month after the disaster\non the Matterhorn. Three adventurous English gentlemen, [1] of great\nexperience in mountain-climbing, made up their minds to ascend Mont\nBlanc without guides or porters. All endeavors to dissuade them from\ntheir project failed. Powerful telescopes are numerous in Chamonix.\nThese huge brass tubes, mounted on their scaffoldings and pointed\nskyward from every choice vantage-ground, have the formidable look of\nartillery, and give the town the general aspect of getting ready\nto repel a charge of angels. The reader may easily believe that the\ntelescopes had plenty of custom on that August morning in 1866, for\neverybody knew of the dangerous undertaking which was on foot, and\nall had fears that misfortune would result. All the morning the tubes\nremained directed toward the mountain heights, each with its anxious\ngroup around it; but the white deserts were vacant.\n\n1. Sir George Young and his brothers James and Albert.\n\nAt last, toward eleven o'clock, the people who were looking through the\ntelescopes cried out \"There they are!\"--and sure enough, far up, on\nthe loftiest terraces of the Grand Plateau, the three pygmies appeared,\nclimbing with remarkable vigor and spirit. They disappeared in the\n\"Corridor,\" and were lost to sight during an hour. Then they reappeared,\nand were presently seen standing together upon the extreme summit\nof Mont Blanc. So, all was well. They remained a few minutes on that\nhighest point of land in Europe, a target for all the telescopes, and\nwere then seen to begin descent. Suddenly all three vanished. An instant\nafter, they appeared again, TWO THOUSAND FEET BELOW!\n\nEvidently, they had tripped and been shot down an almost perpendicular\nslope of ice to a point where it joined the border of the upper glacier.\nNaturally, the distant witness supposed they were now looking upon three\ncorpses; so they could hardly believe their eyes when they presently saw\ntwo of the men rise to their feet and bend over the third. During\ntwo hours and a half they watched the two busying themselves over the\nextended form of their brother, who seemed entirely inert. Chamonix's\naffairs stood still; everybody was in the street, all interest was\ncentered upon what was going on upon that lofty and isolated stage\nfive miles away. Finally the two--one of them walking with great\ndifficulty--were seen to begin descent, abandoning the third, who was no\ndoubt lifeless. Their movements were followed, step by step, until they\nreached the \"Corridor\" and disappeared behind its ridge. Before they had\nhad time to traverse the \"Corridor\" and reappear, twilight was come, and\nthe power of the telescope was at an end.\n\nThe survivors had a most perilous journey before them in the gathering\ndarkness, for they must get down to the Grands Mulets before they would\nfind a safe stopping-place--a long and tedious descent, and perilous\nenough even in good daylight. The oldest guides expressed the opinion\nthat they could not succeed; that all the chances were that they would\nlose their lives.\n\n\nYet those brave men did succeed. They reached the Grands Mulets in\nsafety. Even the fearful shock which their nerves had sustained was not\nsufficient to overcome their coolness and courage. It would appear from\nthe official account that they were threading their way down through\nthose dangers from the closing in of twilight until two o'clock in the\nmorning, or later, because the rescuing party from Chamonix reached\nthe Grand Mulets about three in the morning and moved thence toward the\nscene of the disaster under the leadership of Sir George Young, \"who had\nonly just arrived.\"\n\nAfter having been on his feet twenty-four hours, in the exhausting work\nof mountain-climbing, Sir George began the reascent at the head of the\nrelief party of six guides, to recover the corpse of his brother. This\nwas considered a new imprudence, as the number was too few for the\nservice required. Another relief party presently arrived at the cabin\non the Grands Mulets and quartered themselves there to await events. Ten\nhours after Sir George's departure toward the summit, this new relief\nwere still scanning the snowy altitudes above them from their own high\nperch among the ice deserts ten thousand feet above the level of the\nsea, but the whole forenoon had passed without a glimpse of any living\nthing appearing up there.\n\nThis was alarming. Half a dozen of their number set out, then early in\nthe afternoon, to seek and succor Sir George and his guides. The persons\nremaining at the cabin saw these disappear, and then ensued another\ndistressing wait. Four hours passed, without tidings. Then at five\no'clock another relief, consisting of three guides, set forward from\nthe cabin. They carried food and cordials for the refreshment of their\npredecessors; they took lanterns with them, too; night was coming on,\nand to make matters worse, a fine, cold rain had begun to fall.\n\nAt the same hour that these three began their dangerous ascent, the\nofficial Guide-in-Chief of the Mont Blanc region undertook the dangerous\ndescent to Chamonix, all alone, to get reinforcements. However, a couple\nof hours later, at 7 P.M., the anxious solicitude came to an end, and\nhappily. A bugle note was heard, and a cluster of black specks was\ndistinguishable against the snows of the upper heights. The watchers\ncounted these specks eagerly--fourteen--nobody was missing. An hour and\na half later they were all safe under the roof of the cabin. They had\nbrought the corpse with them. Sir George Young tarried there but a few\nminutes, and then began the long and troublesome descent from the cabin\nto Chamonix. He probably reached there about two or three o'clock in the\nmorning, after having been afoot among the rocks and glaciers during two\ndays and two nights. His endurance was equal to his daring.\n\n\nThe cause of the unaccountable delay of Sir George and the relief\nparties among the heights where the disaster had happened was a thick\nfog--or, partly that and partly the slow and difficult work of conveying\nthe dead body down the perilous steeps.\n\nThe corpse, upon being viewed at the inquest, showed no bruises, and it\nwas some time before the surgeons discovered that the neck was broken.\nOne of the surviving brothers had sustained some unimportant injuries,\nbut the other had suffered no hurt at all. How these men could fall two\nthousand feet, almost perpendicularly, and live afterward, is a most\nstrange and unaccountable thing.\n\nA great many women have made the ascent of Mont Blanc. An English girl,\nMiss Stratton, conceived the daring idea, two or three years ago, of\nattempting the ascent in the middle of winter. She tried it--and she\nsucceeded. Moreover, she froze two of her fingers on the way up, she\nfell in love with her guide on the summit, and she married him when she\ngot to the bottom again. There is nothing in romance, in the way of a\nstriking \"situation,\" which can beat this love scene in midheaven on\nan isolated ice-crest with the thermometer at zero and an Artic gale\nblowing.\n\n\nThe first woman who ascended Mont Blanc was a girl aged\ntwenty-two--Mlle. Maria Paradis--1809. Nobody was with her but her\nsweetheart, and he was not a guide. The sex then took a rest for about\nthirty years, when a Mlle. d'Angeville made the ascent --1838. In\nChamonix I picked up a rude old lithograph of that day which pictured\nher \"in the act.\"\n\nHowever, I value it less as a work of art than as a fashion-plate. Miss\nd'Angeville put on a pair of men's pantaloons to climb it, which was\nwise; but she cramped their utility by adding her petticoat, which was\nidiotic.\n\nOne of the mournfulest calamities which men's disposition to climb\ndangerous mountains has resulted in, happened on Mont Blanc in September\n1870. M. D'Arve tells the story briefly in his HISTOIRE DU MONT BLANC.\nIn the next chapter I will copy its chief features.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLV\n\nA Catastrophe Which Cost Eleven Lives\n\n\nOn the 5th of September, 1870, a caravan of eleven persons departed\nfrom Chamonix to make the ascent of Mont Blanc. Three of the party\nwere tourists; Messrs. Randall and Bean, Americans, and Mr. George\nCorkindale, a Scotch gentleman; there were three guides and five\nporters. The cabin on the Grands Mulets was reached that day; the ascent\nwas resumed early the next morning, September 6th. The day was fine\nand clear, and the movements of the party were observed through the\ntelescopes of Chamonix; at two o'clock in the afternoon they were seen\nto reach the summit. A few minutes later they were seen making the first\nsteps of the descent; then a cloud closed around them and hid them from\nview.\n\nEight hours passed, the cloud still remained, night came, no one had\nreturned to the Grands Mulets. Sylvain Couttet, keeper of the cabin\nthere, suspected a misfortune, and sent down to the valley for help. A\ndetachment of guides went up, but by the time they had made the tedious\ntrip and reached the cabin, a raging storm had set in. They had to wait;\nnothing could be attempted in such a tempest.\n\nThe wild storm lasted MORE THAN A WEEK, without ceasing; but on the\n17th, Couttet, with several guides, left the cabin and succeeded in\nmaking the ascent. In the snowy wastes near the summit they came upon\nfive bodies, lying upon their sides in a reposeful attitude which\nsuggested that possibly they had fallen asleep there, while exhausted\nwith fatigue and hunger and benumbed with cold, and never knew when\ndeath stole upon them. Couttet moved a few steps further and discovered\nfive more bodies. The eleventh corpse--that of a porter--was not found,\nalthough diligent search was made for it.\n\nIn the pocket of Mr. Bean, one of the Americans, was found a note-book\nin which had been penciled some sentences which admit us, in flesh and\nspirit, as it were, to the presence of these men during their last hours\nof life, and to the grisly horrors which their fading vision looked upon\nand their failing consciousness took cognizance of:\n TUESDAY, SEPT. 6. I have made the ascent of Mont Blanc, with ten\npersons--eight guides, and Mr. Corkindale and Mr. Randall. We reached\nthe summit at half past 2. Immediately after quitting it, we were\nenveloped in clouds of snow. We passed the night in a grotto hollowed in\nthe snow, which afforded us but poor shelter, and I was ill all night.\n\nSEPT. 7--MORNING. The cold is excessive. The snow falls heavily and\nwithout interruption. The guides take no rest.\n\nEVENING. My Dear Hessie, we have been two days on Mont Blanc, in the\nmidst of a terrible hurricane of snow, we have lost our way, and are\nin a hole scooped in the snow, at an altitude of 15,000 feet. I have no\nlonger any hope of descending.\n\nThey had wandered around, and around, in the blinding snow-storm,\nhopelessly lost, in a space only a hundred yards square; and when cold\nand fatigue vanquished them at last, they scooped their cave and lay\ndown there to die by inches, UNAWARE THAT FIVE STEPS MORE WOULD HAVE\nBROUGHT THEM INTO THE TRUTH PATH. They were so near to life and safety\nas that, and did not suspect it. The thought of this gives the sharpest\npang that the tragic story conveys.\n\nThe author of the HISTOIRE DU MONT BLANC introduced the closing\nsentences of Mr. Bean's pathetic record thus:\n\n\"Here the characters are large and unsteady; the hand which traces them\nis become chilled and torpid; but the spirit survives, and the faith and\nresignation of the dying man are expressed with a sublime simplicity.\"\n\nPerhaps this note-book will be found and sent to you. We have nothing to\neat, my feet are already frozen, and I am exhausted; I have strength to\nwrite only a few words more. I have left means for C's education; I know\nyou will employ them wisely. I die with faith in God, and with loving\nthoughts of you. Farewell to all. We shall meet again, in Heaven. ... I\nthink of you always.\n\nIt is the way of the Alps to deliver death to their victims with a\nmerciful swiftness, but here the rule failed. These men suffered\nthe bitterest death that has been recorded in the history of those\nmountains, freighted as that history is with grisly tragedies.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVI\n\n[Meeting a Hog on a Precipice]\n\n\nMr. Harris and I took some guides and porters and ascended to the Hotel\ndes Pyramides, which is perched on the high moraine which borders the\nGlacier des Bossons. The road led sharply uphill, all the way, through\ngrass and flowers and woods, and was a pleasant walk, barring the\nfatigue of the climb.\n\nFrom the hotel we could view the huge glacier at very close range. After\na rest we followed down a path which had been made in the steep inner\nfrontage of the moraine, and stepped upon the glacier itself. One of the\nshows of the place was a tunnel-like cavern, which had been hewn in the\nglacier. The proprietor of this tunnel took candles and conducted us\ninto it. It was three or four feet wide and about six feet high. Its\nwalls of pure and solid ice emitted a soft and rich blue light that\nproduced a lovely effect, and suggested enchanted caves, and that sort\nof thing. When we had proceeded some yards and were entering darkness,\nwe turned about and had a dainty sunlit picture of distant woods and\nheights framed in the strong arch of the tunnel and seen through the\ntender blue radiance of the tunnel's atmosphere.\n\nThe cavern was nearly a hundred yards long, and when we reached its\ninner limit the proprietor stepped into a branch tunnel with his candles\nand left us buried in the bowels of the glacier, and in pitch-darkness.\nWe judged his purpose was murder and robbery; so we got out our matches\nand prepared to sell our lives as dearly as possible by setting the\nglacier on fire if the worst came to the worst--but we soon perceived\nthat this man had changed his mind; he began to sing, in a deep,\nmelodious voice, and woke some curious and pleasing echoes. By and by he\ncame back and pretended that that was what he had gone behind there for.\nWe believed as much of that as we wanted to.\n\nThus our lives had been once more in imminent peril, but by the exercise\nof the swift sagacity and cool courage which had saved us so often, we\nhad added another escape to the long list. The tourist should visit that\nice-cavern, by all means, for it is well worth the trouble; but I would\nadvise him to go only with a strong and well-armed force. I do not\nconsider artillery necessary, yet it would not be unadvisable to take\nit along, if convenient. The journey, going and coming, is about three\nmiles and a half, three of which are on level ground. We made it in\nless than a day, but I would counsel the unpracticed--if not pressed\nfor time--to allow themselves two. Nothing is gained in the Alps by\nover-exertion; nothing is gained by crowding two days' work into one for\nthe poor sake of being able to boast of the exploit afterward. It will\nbe found much better, in the long run, to do the thing in two days, and\nthen subtract one of them from the narrative. This saves fatigue, and\ndoes not injure the narrative. All the more thoughtful among the Alpine\ntourists do this.\n\n\nWe now called upon the Guide-in-Chief, and asked for a squadron of\nguides and porters for the ascent of the Montanvert. This idiot glared\nat us, and said:\n\n\"You don't need guides and porters to go to the Montanvert.\"\n\n\"What do we need, then?\"\n\n\"Such as YOU?--an ambulance!\"\n\nI was so stung by this brutal remark that I took my custom elsewhere.\n\nBetimes, next morning, we had reached an altitude of five thousand feet\nabove the level of the sea. Here we camped and breakfasted. There was\na cabin there--the spot is called the Caillet--and a spring of ice-cold\nwater. On the door of the cabin was a sign, in French, to the effect\nthat \"One may here see a living chamois for fifty centimes.\" We did not\ninvest; what we wanted was to see a dead one.\n\nA little after noon we ended the ascent and arrived at the new hotel on\nthe Montanvert, and had a view of six miles, right up the great glacier,\nthe famous Mer de Glace. At this point it is like a sea whose deep\nswales and long, rolling swells have been caught in mid-movement and\nfrozen solid; but further up it is broken up into wildly tossing billows\nof ice.\n\n\nWe descended a ticklish path in the steep side of the moraine, and\ninvaded the glacier. There were tourists of both sexes scattered far and\nwide over it, everywhere, and it had the festive look of a skating-rink.\n\nThe Empress Josephine came this far, once. She ascended the Montanvert\nin 1810--but not alone; a small army of men preceded her to clear the\npath--and carpet it, perhaps--and she followed, under the protection of\nSIXTY-EIGHT guides.\n\nHer successor visited Chamonix later, but in far different style.\n\nIt was seven weeks after the first fall of the Empire, and poor Marie\nLouise, ex-Empress was a fugitive. She came at night, and in a storm,\nwith only two attendants, and stood before a peasant's hut, tired,\nbedraggled, soaked with rain, \"the red print of her lost crown still\ngirdling her brow,\" and implored admittance--and was refused! A few days\nbefore, the adulations and applauses of a nation were sounding in her\nears, and now she was come to this!\n\nWe crossed the Mer de Glace in safety, but we had misgivings. The\ncrevices in the ice yawned deep and blue and mysterious, and it made one\nnervous to traverse them. The huge round waves of ice were slippery and\ndifficult to climb, and the chances of tripping and sliding down them\nand darting into a crevice were too many to be comfortable.\n\nIn the bottom of a deep swale between two of the biggest of the\nice-waves, we found a fraud who pretended to be cutting steps to insure\nthe safety of tourists. He was \"soldiering\" when we came upon him, but\nhe hopped up and chipped out a couple of steps about big enough for a\ncat, and charged us a franc or two for it. Then he sat down again, to\ndoze till the next party should come along.\n\n\nHe had collected blackmail from two or three hundred people already,\nthat day, but had not chipped out ice enough to impair the glacier\nperceptibly. I have heard of a good many soft sinecures, but it seems\nto me that keeping toll-bridge on a glacier is the softest one I have\nencountered yet.\n\nThat was a blazing hot day, and it brought a persistent and persecuting\nthirst with it. What an unspeakable luxury it was to slake that thirst\nwith the pure and limpid ice-water of the glacier! Down the sides of\nevery great rib of pure ice poured limpid rills in gutters carved by\ntheir own attrition; better still, wherever a rock had lain, there was\nnow a bowl-shaped hole, with smooth white sides and bottom of ice, and\nthis bowl was brimming with water of such absolute clearness that the\ncareless observer would not see it at all, but would think the bowl was\nempty. These fountains had such an alluring look that I often stretched\nmyself out when I was not thirsty and dipped my face in and drank till\nmy teeth ached. Everywhere among the Swiss mountains we had at hand the\nblessing--not to be found in Europe EXCEPT in the mountains--of water\ncapable of quenching thirst. Everywhere in the Swiss highlands brilliant\nlittle rills of exquisitely cold water went dancing along by the\nroadsides, and my comrade and I were always drinking and always\ndelivering our deep gratitude.\n\nBut in Europe everywhere except in the mountains, the water is flat and\ninsipid beyond the power of words to describe. It is served lukewarm;\nbut no matter, ice could not help it; it is incurably flat, incurably\ninsipid. It is only good to wash with; I wonder it doesn't occur to\nthe average inhabitant to try it for that. In Europe the people say\ncontemptuously, \"Nobody drinks water here.\" Indeed, they have a sound\nand sufficient reason. In many places they even have what may be called\nprohibitory reasons. In Paris and Munich, for instance, they say, \"Don't\ndrink the water, it is simply poison.\"\n\nEither America is healthier than Europe, notwithstanding her \"deadly\"\nindulgence in ice-water, or she does not keep the run of her death-rate\nas sharply as Europe does. I think we do keep up the death statistics\naccurately; and if we do, our cities are healthier than the cities of\nEurope. Every month the German government tabulates the death-rate of\nthe world and publishes it. I scrap-booked these reports during several\nmonths, and it was curious to see how regular and persistently each city\nrepeated its same death-rate month after month. The tables might as well\nhave been stereotyped, they varied so little. These tables were\nbased upon weekly reports showing the average of deaths in each 1,000\npopulation for a year. Munich was always present with her 33 deaths in\neach 1,000 of her population (yearly average), Chicago was as constant\nwith her 15 or 17, Dublin with her 48--and so on.\n\nOnly a few American cities appear in these tables, but they are\nscattered so widely over the country that they furnish a good general\naverage of CITY health in the United States; and I think it will be\ngranted that our towns and villages are healthier than our cities.\n\nHere is the average of the only American cities reported in the German\ntables:\n\nChicago, deaths in 1,000 population annually, 16; Philadelphia, 18; St.\nLouis, 18; San Francisco, 19; New York (the Dublin of America), 23.\n\nSee how the figures jump up, as soon as one arrives at the transatlantic\nlist:\n\nParis, 27; Glasgow, 27; London, 28; Vienna, 28; Augsburg, 28;\nBraunschweig, 28; K\u00f6nigsberg, 29; Cologne, 29; Dresden, 29; Hamburg, 29;\nBerlin, 30; Bombay, 30; Warsaw, 31; Breslau, 31; Odessa, 32; Munich, 33;\nStrasburg, 33, Pesth, 35; Cassel, 35; Lisbon, 36; Liverpool, 36;\nPrague, 37; Madras, 37; Bucharest, 39; St. Petersburg, 40; Trieste, 40;\nAlexandria (Egypt), 43; Dublin, 48; Calcutta, 55.\n\nEdinburgh is as healthy as New York--23; but there is no CITY in the\nentire list which is healthier, except Frankfort-on-the-Main--20. But\nFrankfort is not as healthy as Chicago, San Francisco, St. Louis, or\nPhiladelphia.\n\nPerhaps a strict average of the world might develop the fact that where\none in 1,000 of America's population dies, two in 1,000 of the other\npopulations of the earth succumb.\n\nI do not like to make insinuations, but I do think the above statistics\ndarkly suggest that these people over here drink this detestable water\n\"on the sly.\"\n\nWe climbed the moraine on the opposite side of the glacier, and then\ncrept along its sharp ridge a hundred yards or so, in pretty constant\ndanger of a tumble to the glacier below. The fall would have been only\none hundred feet, but it would have closed me out as effectually as one\nthousand, therefore I respected the distance accordingly, and was\nglad when the trip was done. A moraine is an ugly thing to assault\nhead-first. At a distance it looks like an endless grave of fine sand,\naccurately shaped and nicely smoothed; but close by, it is found to be\nmade mainly of rough boulders of all sizes, from that of a man's head to\nthat of a cottage.\n\nBy and by we came to the Mauvais Pas, or the Villainous Road, to\ntranslate it feelingly. It was a breakneck path around the face of a\nprecipice forty or fifty feet high, and nothing to hang on to but some\niron railings. I got along, slowly, safely, and uncomfortably, and\nfinally reached the middle. My hopes began to rise a little, but they\nwere quickly blighted; for there I met a hog--a long-nosed, bristly\nfellow, that held up his snout and worked his nostrils at me\ninquiringly. A hog on a pleasure excursion in Switzerland--think of it!\nIt is striking and unusual; a body might write a poem about it. He\ncould not retreat, if he had been disposed to do it. It would have been\nfoolish to stand upon our dignity in a place where there was hardly room\nto stand upon our feet, so we did nothing of the sort. There were twenty\nor thirty ladies and gentlemen behind us; we all turned about and went\nback, and the hog followed behind. The creature did not seem set up by\nwhat he had done; he had probably done it before.\n\n\nWe reached the restaurant on the height called the Chapeau at four in\nthe afternoon. It was a memento-factory, and the stock was large, cheap,\nand varied. I bought the usual paper-cutter to remember the place by,\nand had Mont Blanc, the Mauvais Pas, and the rest of the region branded\non my alpenstock; then we descended to the valley and walked home\nwithout being tied together. This was not dangerous, for the valley was\nfive miles wide, and quite level.\n\nWe reached the hotel before nine o'clock. Next morning we left for\nGeneva on top of the diligence, under shelter of a gay awning. If I\nremember rightly, there were more than twenty people up there. It was\nso high that the ascent was made by ladder. The huge vehicle was full\neverywhere, inside and out. Five other diligences left at the same time,\nall full. We had engaged our seats two days beforehand, to make sure,\nand paid the regulation price, five dollars each; but the rest of the\ncompany were wiser; they had trusted Baedeker, and waited; consequently\nsome of them got their seats for one or two dollars. Baedeker knows\nall about hotels, railway and diligence companies, and speaks his mind\nfreely. He is a trustworthy friend of the traveler.\n\n\nWe never saw Mont Blanc at his best until we were many miles away; then\nhe lifted his majestic proportions high into the heavens, all white\nand cold and solemn, and made the rest of the world seem little and\nplebeian, and cheap and trivial.\n\nAs he passed out of sight at last, an old Englishman settled himself in\nhis seat and said:\n\n\"Well, I am satisfied, I have seen the principal features of Swiss\nscenery--Mont Blanc and the goiter--now for home!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVII\n\n[Queer European Manners]\n\n\nWe spent a few pleasant restful days at Geneva, that delightful city\nwhere accurate time-pieces are made for all the rest of the world, but\nwhose own clocks never give the correct time of day by any accident.\n\nGeneva is filled with pretty shops, and the shops are filled with the\nmost enticing gimcrackery, but if one enters one of these places he is\nat once pounced upon, and followed up, and so persecuted to buy this,\nthat, and the other thing, that he is very grateful to get out again,\nand is not at all apt to repeat his experiment. The shopkeepers of the\nsmaller sort, in Geneva, are as troublesome and persistent as are\nthe salesmen of that monster hive in Paris, the Grands Magasins du\nLouvre--an establishment where ill-mannered pestering, pursuing, and\ninsistence have been reduced to a science.\n\nIn Geneva, prices in the smaller shops are very elastic--that is another\nbad feature. I was looking in at a window at a very pretty string of\nbeads, suitable for a child. I was only admiring them; I had no use for\nthem; I hardly ever wear beads. The shopwoman came out and offered them\nto me for thirty-five francs. I said it was cheap, but I did not need\nthem.\n\n\"Ah, but monsieur, they are so beautiful!\"\n\nI confessed it, but said they were not suitable for one of my age and\nsimplicity of character. She darted in and brought them out and tried to\nforce them into my hands, saying:\n\n\"Ah, but only see how lovely they are! Surely monsieur will take them;\nmonsieur shall have them for thirty francs. There, I have said it--it is\na loss, but one must live.\"\n\nI dropped my hands, and tried to move her to respect my unprotected\nsituation. But no, she dangled the beads in the sun before my face,\nexclaiming, \"Ah, monsieur CANNOT resist them!\" She hung them on my coat\nbutton, folded her hand resignedly, and said: \"Gone,--and for thirty\nfrancs, the lovely things--it is incredible!--but the good God will\nsanctify the sacrifice to me.\"\n\nI removed them gently, returned them, and walked away, shaking my head\nand smiling a smile of silly embarrassment while the passers-by halted\nto observe. The woman leaned out of her door, shook the beads, and\nscreamed after me:\n\n\"Monsieur shall have them for twenty-eight!\"\n\nI shook my head.\n\n\"Twenty-seven! It is a cruel loss, it is ruin--but take them, only take\nthem.\"\n\nI still retreated, still wagging my head.\n\n\"MON DIEU, they shall even go for twenty-six! There, I have said it.\nCome!\"\n\nI wagged another negative. A nurse and a little English girl had been\nnear me, and were following me, now. The shopwoman ran to the nurse,\nthrust the beads into her hands, and said:\n\n\"Monsieur shall have them for twenty-five! Take them to the hotel--he\nshall send me the money tomorrow--next day--when he likes.\" Then to the\nchild: \"When thy father sends me the money, come thou also, my angel,\nand thou shall have something oh so pretty!\"\n\n\nI was thus providentially saved. The nurse refused the beads squarely\nand firmly, and that ended the matter.\n\nThe \"sights\" of Geneva are not numerous. I made one attempt to hunt up\nthe houses once inhabited by those two disagreeable people, Rousseau and\nCalvin, but I had no success. Then I concluded to go home. I found\nit was easier to propose to do that than to do it; for that town is a\nbewildering place. I got lost in a tangle of narrow and crooked streets,\nand stayed lost for an hour or two. Finally I found a street which\nlooked somewhat familiar, and said to myself, \"Now I am at home, I\njudge.\" But I was wrong; this was \"HELL street.\" Presently I found\nanother place which had a familiar look, and said to myself, \"Now I am\nat home, sure.\" It was another error. This was \"PURGATORY street.\" After\na little I said, \"NOW I've got the right place, anyway ... no, this is\n'PARADISE street'; I'm further from home than I was in the beginning.\"\nThose were queer names--Calvin was the author of them, likely.\n\"Hell\" and \"Purgatory\" fitted those two streets like a glove, but the\n\"Paradise\" appeared to be sarcastic.\n\nI came out on the lake-front, at last, and then I knew where I was.\nI was walking along before the glittering jewelry shops when I saw a\ncurious performance. A lady passed by, and a trim dandy lounged across\nthe walk in such an apparently carefully timed way as to bring himself\nexactly in front of her when she got to him; he made no offer to step\nout of the way; he did not apologize; he did not even notice her. She\nhad to stop still and let him lounge by. I wondered if he had done that\npiece of brutality purposely. He strolled to a chair and seated himself\nat a small table; two or three other males were sitting at similar\ntables sipping sweetened water. I waited; presently a youth came by, and\nthis fellow got up and served him the same trick. Still, it did not seem\npossible that any one could do such a thing deliberately. To satisfy my\ncuriosity I went around the block, and, sure enough, as I approached, at\na good round speed, he got up and lounged lazily across my path, fouling\nmy course exactly at the right moment to receive all my weight. This\nproved that his previous performances had not been accidental, but\nintentional.\n\n\nI saw that dandy's curious game played afterward, in Paris, but not\nfor amusement; not with a motive of any sort, indeed, but simply from a\nselfish indifference to other people's comfort and rights. One does not\nsee it as frequently in Paris as he might expect to, for there the law\nsays, in effect, \"It is the business of the weak to get out of the way\nof the strong.\" We fine a cabman if he runs over a citizen; Paris fines\nthe citizen for being run over. At least so everybody says--but I saw\nsomething which caused me to doubt; I saw a horseman run over an old\nwoman one day--the police arrested him and took him away. That looked as\nif they meant to punish him.\n\nIt will not do for me to find merit in American manners--for are they\nnot the standing butt for the jests of critical and polished Europe?\nStill, I must venture to claim one little matter of superiority in our\nmanners; a lady may traverse our streets all day, going and coming as\nshe chooses, and she will never be molested by any man; but if a lady,\nunattended, walks abroad in the streets of London, even at noonday, she\nwill be pretty likely to be accosted and insulted--and not by drunken\nsailors, but by men who carry the look and wear the dress of gentlemen.\nIt is maintained that these people are not gentlemen, but are a lower\nsort, disguised as gentlemen. The case of Colonel Valentine Baker\nobstructs that argument, for a man cannot become an officer in the\nBritish army except he hold the rank of gentleman. This person, finding\nhimself alone in a railway compartment with an unprotected girl--but\nit is an atrocious story, and doubtless the reader remembers it well\nenough. London must have been more or less accustomed to Bakers, and the\nways of Bakers, else London would have been offended and excited. Baker\nwas \"imprisoned\"--in a parlor; and he could not have been more visited,\nor more overwhelmed with attentions, if he had committed six murders and\nthen--while the gallows was preparing--\"got religion\"--after the manner\nof the holy Charles Peace, of saintly memory. Arkansaw--it seems a\nlittle indelicate to be trumpeting forth our own superiorities, and\ncomparisons are always odious, but still--Arkansaw would certainly have\nhanged Baker. I do not say she would have tried him first, but she would\nhave hanged him, anyway.\n\nEven the most degraded woman can walk our streets unmolested, her sex\nand her weakness being her sufficient protection. She will encounter\nless polish than she would in the old world, but she will run across\nenough humanity to make up for it.\n\nThe music of a donkey awoke us early in the morning, and we rose up and\nmade ready for a pretty formidable walk--to Italy; but the road was so\nlevel that we took the train.. We lost a good deal of time by this, but\nit was no matter, we were not in a hurry. We were four hours going to\nChamb`ery. The Swiss trains go upward of three miles an hour, in places,\nbut they are quite safe.\n\nThat aged French town of Chamb\u00e8ry was as quaint and crooked as\nHeilbronn. A drowsy reposeful quiet reigned in the back streets which\nmade strolling through them very pleasant, barring the almost unbearable\nheat of the sun. In one of these streets, which was eight feet wide,\ngracefully curved, and built up with small antiquated houses, I saw\nthree fat hogs lying asleep, and a boy (also asleep) taking care of\nthem.\n\n\nFrom queer old-fashioned windows along the curve projected boxes of\nbright flowers, and over the edge of one of these boxes hung the head\nand shoulders of a cat--asleep. The five sleeping creatures were the\nonly living things visible in that street. There was not a sound;\nabsolute stillness prevailed. It was Sunday; one is not used to\nsuch dreamy Sundays on the continent. In our part of the town it was\ndifferent that night. A regiment of brown and battered soldiers had\narrived home from Algiers, and I judged they got thirsty on the way.\nThey sang and drank till dawn, in the pleasant open air.\n\nWe left for Turin at ten the next morning by a railway which was\nprofusely decorated with tunnels. We forgot to take a lantern along,\nconsequently we missed all the scenery. Our compartment was full. A\nponderous tow-headed Swiss woman, who put on many fine-lady airs, but\nwas evidently more used to washing linen than wearing it, sat in a\ncorner seat and put her legs across into the opposite one, propping them\nintermediately with her up-ended valise. In the seat thus pirated, sat\ntwo Americans, greatly incommoded by that woman's majestic coffin-clad\nfeet. One of them begged, politely, to remove them. She opened her wide\neyes and gave him a stare, but answered nothing. By and by he proferred\nhis request again, with great respectfulness. She said, in good English,\nand in a deeply offended tone, that she had paid her passage and was not\ngoing to be bullied out of her \"rights\" by ill-bred foreigners, even if\nshe was alone and unprotected.\n\n\n\"But I have rights, also, madam. My ticket entitles me to a seat, but\nyou are occupying half of it.\"\n\n\"I will not talk with you, sir. What right have you to speak to me? I\ndo not know you. One would know you came from a land where there are no\ngentlemen. No GENTLEMAN would treat a lady as you have treated me.\"\n\n\"I come from a region where a lady would hardly give me the same\nprovocation.\"\n\n\"You have insulted me, sir! You have intimated that I am not a lady--and\nI hope I am NOT one, after the pattern of your country.\"\n\n\"I beg that you will give yourself no alarm on that head, madam; but at\nthe same time I must insist--always respectfully--that you let me have\nmy seat.\"\n\nHere the fragile laundress burst into tears and sobs.\n\n\"I never was so insulted before! Never, never! It is shameful, it is\nbrutal, it is base, to bully and abuse an unprotected lady who has\nlost the use of her limbs and cannot put her feet to the floor without\nagony!\"\n\n\"Good heavens, madam, why didn't you say that at first! I offer a\nthousand pardons. And I offer them most sincerely. I did not know--I\nCOULD not know--anything was the matter. You are most welcome to the\nseat, and would have been from the first if I had only known. I am truly\nsorry it all happened, I do assure you.\"\n\nBut he couldn't get a word of forgiveness out of her. She simply sobbed\nand sniffed in a subdued but wholly unappeasable way for two long hours,\nmeantime crowding the man more than ever with her undertaker-furniture\nand paying no sort of attention to his frequent and humble little\nefforts to do something for her comfort. Then the train halted at the\nItalian line and she hopped up and marched out of the car with as firm a\nleg as any washerwoman of all her tribe! And how sick I was, to see how\nshe had fooled me.\n\n\nTurin is a very fine city. In the matter of roominess it transcends\nanything that was ever dreamed of before, I fancy. It sits in the midst\nof a vast dead-level, and one is obliged to imagine that land may be\nhad for the asking, and no taxes to pay, so lavishly do they use it. The\nstreets are extravagantly wide, the paved squares are prodigious, the\nhouses are huge and handsome, and compacted into uniform blocks that\nstretch away as straight as an arrow, into the distance. The sidewalks\nare about as wide as ordinary European STREETS, and are covered over\nwith a double arcade supported on great stone piers or columns. One\nwalks from one end to the other of these spacious streets, under shelter\nall the time, and all his course is lined with the prettiest of shops\nand the most inviting dining-houses.\n\nThere is a wide and lengthy court, glittering with the most wickedly\nenticing shops, which is roofed with glass, high aloft overhead, and\npaved with soft-toned marbles laid in graceful figures; and at night\nwhen the place is brilliant with gas and populous with a sauntering and\nchatting and laughing multitude of pleasure-seekers, it is a spectacle\nworth seeing.\n\nEverything is on a large scale; the public buildings, for instance--and\nthey are architecturally imposing, too, as well as large. The big\nsquares have big bronze monuments in them. At the hotel they gave us\nrooms that were alarming, for size, and parlor to match. It was well the\nweather required no fire in the parlor, for I think one might as well\nhave tried to warm a park. The place would have a warm look, though, in\nany weather, for the window-curtains were of red silk damask, and the\nwalls were covered with the same fire-hued goods--so, also, were the\nfour sofas and the brigade of chairs. The furniture, the ornaments, the\nchandeliers, the carpets, were all new and bright and costly. We did not\nneed a parlor at all, but they said it belonged to the two bedrooms and\nwe might use it if we chose. Since it was to cost nothing, we were not\naverse to using it, of course.\n\nTurin must surely read a good deal, for it has more book-stores to the\nsquare rod than any other town I know of. And it has its own share of\nmilitary folk. The Italian officers' uniforms are very much the most\nbeautiful I have ever seen; and, as a general thing, the men in them\nwere as handsome as the clothes. They were not large men, but they had\nfine forms, fine features, rich olive complexions, and lustrous black\neyes.\n\nFor several weeks I had been culling all the information I could about\nItaly, from tourists. The tourists were all agreed upon one thing--one\nmust expect to be cheated at every turn by the Italians. I took an\nevening walk in Turin, and presently came across a little Punch and Judy\nshow in one of the great squares. Twelve or fifteen people constituted\nthe audience. This miniature theater was not much bigger than a man's\ncoffin stood on end; the upper part was open and displayed a\ntinseled parlor--a good-sized handkerchief would have answered for a\ndrop-curtain; the footlights consisted of a couple of candle-ends an\ninch long; various manikins the size of dolls appeared on the stage and\nmade long speeches at each other, gesticulating a good deal, and they\ngenerally had a fight before they got through. They were worked by\nstrings from above, and the illusion was not perfect, for one saw not\nonly the strings but the brawny hand that manipulated them--and the\nactors and actresses all talked in the same voice, too. The audience\nstood in front of the theater, and seemed to enjoy the performance\nheartily.\n\nWhen the play was done, a youth in his shirt-sleeves started around with\na small copper saucer to make a collection. I did not know how much to\nput in, but thought I would be guided by my predecessors. Unluckily, I\nonly had two of these, and they did not help me much because they did\nnot put in anything. I had no Italian money, so I put in a small Swiss\ncoin worth about ten cents. The youth finished his collection trip and\nemptied the result on the stage; he had some very animated talk with\nthe concealed manager, then he came working his way through the little\ncrowd--seeking me, I thought. I had a mind to slip away, but concluded\nI wouldn't; I would stand my ground, and confront the villainy, whatever\nit was. The youth stood before me and held up that Swiss coin, sure\nenough, and said something. I did not understand him, but I judged he\nwas requiring Italian money of me. The crowd gathered close, to listen.\nI was irritated, and said--in English, of course:\n\n\"I know it's Swiss, but you'll take that or none. I haven't any other.\"\n\n\nHe tried to put the coin in my hand, and spoke again. I drew my hand\naway, and said:\n\n\"NO, sir. I know all about you people. You can't play any of your\nfraudful tricks on me. If there is a discount on that coin, I am sorry,\nbut I am not going to make it good. I noticed that some of the audience\ndidn't pay you anything at all. You let them go, without a word, but you\ncome after me because you think I'm a stranger and will put up with\nan extortion rather than have a scene. But you are mistaken this\ntime--you'll take that Swiss money or none.\"\n\nThe youth stood there with the coin in his fingers, nonplused and\nbewildered; of course he had not understood a word. An English-speaking\nItalian spoke up, now, and said:\n\n\"You are misunderstanding the boy. He does not mean any harm. He did\nnot suppose you gave him so much money purposely, so he hurried back to\nreturn you the coin lest you might get away before you discovered your\nmistake. Take it, and give him a penny--that will make everything smooth\nagain.\"\n\nI probably blushed, then, for there was occasion. Through the\ninterpreter I begged the boy's pardon, but I nobly refused to take back\nthe ten cents. I said I was accustomed to squandering large sums in that\nway--it was the kind of person I was. Then I retired to make a note to\nthe effect that in Italy persons connected with the drama do not cheat.\n\nThe episode with the showman reminds me of a dark chapter in my history.\nI once robbed an aged and blind beggar-woman of four dollars--in a\nchurch. It happened this way. When I was out with the Innocents Abroad,\nthe ship stopped in the Russian port of Odessa and I went ashore, with\nothers, to view the town. I got separated from the rest, and wandered\nabout alone, until late in the afternoon, when I entered a Greek church\nto see what it was like. When I was ready to leave, I observed two\nwrinkled old women standing stiffly upright against the inner wall, near\nthe door, with their brown palms open to receive alms. I contributed to\nthe nearer one, and passed out. I had gone fifty yards, perhaps, when it\noccurred to me that I must remain ashore all night, as I had heard that\nthe ship's business would carry her away at four o'clock and keep her\naway until morning. It was a little after four now. I had come ashore\nwith only two pieces of money, both about the same size, but differing\nlargely in value--one was a French gold piece worth four dollars, the\nother a Turkish coin worth two cents and a half. With a sudden and\nhorrified misgiving, I put my hand in my pocket, now, and sure enough, I\nfetched out that Turkish penny!\n\nHere was a situation. A hotel would require pay in advance --I must walk\nthe street all night, and perhaps be arrested as a suspicious character.\nThere was but one way out of the difficulty--I flew back to the church,\nand softly entered. There stood the old woman yet, and in the palm of\nthe nearest one still lay my gold piece. I was grateful. I crept\nclose, feeling unspeakably mean; I got my Turkish penny ready, and was\nextending a trembling hand to make the nefarious exchange, when I heard\na cough behind me. I jumped back as if I had been accused, and stood\nquaking while a worshiper entered and passed up the aisle.\n\nI was there a year trying to steal that money; that is, it seemed a\nyear, though, of course, it must have been much less. The worshipers\nwent and came; there were hardly ever three in the church at once, but\nthere was always one or more. Every time I tried to commit my crime\nsomebody came in or somebody started out, and I was prevented; but at\nlast my opportunity came; for one moment there was nobody in the church\nbut the two beggar-women and me. I whipped the gold piece out of the\npoor old pauper's palm and dropped my Turkish penny in its place. Poor\nold thing, she murmured her thanks--they smote me to the heart. Then I\nsped away in a guilty hurry, and even when I was a mile from the church\nI was still glancing back, every moment, to see if I was being pursued.\n\nThat experience has been of priceless value and benefit to me; for I\nresolved then, that as long as I lived I would never again rob a blind\nbeggar-woman in a church; and I have always kept my word. The most\npermanent lessons in morals are those which come, not of booky teaching,\nbut of experience.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVIII\n\n[Beauty of Women--and of Old Masters]\n\n\nIn Milan we spent most of our time in the vast and beautiful Arcade or\nGallery, or whatever it is called. Blocks of tall new buildings of the\nmost sumptuous sort, rich with decoration and graced with statues, the\nstreets between these blocks roofed over with glass at a great height,\nthe pavements all of smooth and variegated marble, arranged in tasteful\npatterns--little tables all over these marble streets, people sitting\nat them, eating, drinking, or smoking--crowds of other people strolling\nby--such is the Arcade. I should like to live in it all the time. The\nwindows of the sumptuous restaurants stand open, and one breakfasts\nthere and enjoys the passing show.\n\nWe wandered all over the town, enjoying whatever was going on in the\nstreets. We took one omnibus ride, and as I did not speak Italian and\ncould not ask the price, I held out some copper coins to the conductor,\nand he took two. Then he went and got his tariff card and showed me\nthat he had taken only the right sum. So I made a note--Italian omnibus\nconductors do not cheat.\n\nNear the Cathedral I saw another instance of probity. An old man was\npeddling dolls and toy fans. Two small American children bought fans,\nand one gave the old man a franc and three copper coins, and both\nstarted away; but they were called back, and the franc and one of the\ncoppers were restored to them. Hence it is plain that in Italy, parties\nconnected with the drama and the omnibus and the toy interests do not\ncheat.\n\n\nThe stocks of goods in the shops were not extensive, generally. In the\nvestibule of what seemed to be a clothing store, we saw eight or ten\nwooden dummies grouped together, clothed in woolen business suits and\neach marked with its price. One suit was marked forty-five francs--nine\ndollars. Harris stepped in and said he wanted a suit like that. Nothing\neasier: the old merchant dragged in the dummy, brushed him off with a\nbroom, stripped him, and shipped the clothes to the hotel. He said he\ndid not keep two suits of the same kind in stock, but manufactured a\nsecond when it was needed to reclothe the dummy.\n\n\nIn another quarter we found six Italians engaged in a violent quarrel.\nThey danced fiercely about, gesticulating with their heads, their arms,\ntheir legs, their whole bodies; they would rush forward occasionally\nwith a sudden access of passion and shake their fists in each other's\nvery faces. We lost half an hour there, waiting to help cord up the\ndead, but they finally embraced each other affectionately, and the\ntrouble was over. The episode was interesting, but we could not have\nafforded all the time to it if we had known nothing was going to come of\nit but a reconciliation. Note made--in Italy, people who quarrel cheat\nthe spectator.\n\nWe had another disappointment afterward. We approached a deeply\ninterested crowd, and in the midst of it found a fellow wildly\nchattering and gesticulating over a box on the ground which was covered\nwith a piece of old blanket. Every little while he would bend down\nand take hold of the edge of the blanket with the extreme tips of his\nfingertips, as if to show there was no deception--chattering away all\nthe while--but always, just as I was expecting to see a wonder feat of\nlegerdemain, he would let go the blanket and rise to explain further.\nHowever, at last he uncovered the box and got out a spoon with a liquid\nin it, and held it fair and frankly around, for people to see that it\nwas all right and he was taking no advantage--his chatter became more\nexcited than ever. I supposed he was going to set fire to the liquid\nand swallow it, so I was greatly wrought up and interested. I got a cent\nready in one hand and a florin in the other, intending to give him the\nformer if he survived and the latter if he killed himself--for his loss\nwould be my gain in a literary way, and I was willing to pay a fair\nprice for the item --but this impostor ended his intensely moving\nperformance by simply adding some powder to the liquid and polishing\nthe spoon! Then he held it aloft, and he could not have shown a wilder\nexultation if he had achieved an immortal miracle. The crowd applauded\nin a gratified way, and it seemed to me that history speaks the truth\nwhen it says these children of the south are easily entertained.\n\nWe spent an impressive hour in the noble cathedral, where long shafts\nof tinted light were cleaving through the solemn dimness from the lofty\nwindows and falling on a pillar here, a picture there, and a kneeling\nworshiper yonder. The organ was muttering, censers were swinging,\ncandles were glinting on the distant altar and robed priests were filing\nsilently past them; the scene was one to sweep all frivolous thoughts\naway and steep the soul in a holy calm. A trim young American lady\npaused a yard or two from me, fixed her eyes on the mellow sparks\nflecking the far-off altar, bent her head reverently a moment, then\nstraightened up, kicked her train into the air with her heel, caught it\ndeftly in her hand, and marched briskly out.\n\n\nWe visited the picture-galleries and the other regulation \"sights\" of\nMilan--not because I wanted to write about them again, but to see if\nI had learned anything in twelve years. I afterward visited the great\ngalleries of Rome and Florence for the same purpose. I found I had\nlearned one thing. When I wrote about the Old Masters before, I said\nthe copies were better than the originals. That was a mistake of large\ndimensions. The Old Masters were still unpleasing to me, but they were\ntruly divine contrasted with the copies. The copy is to the original as\nthe pallid, smart, inane new wax-work group is to the vigorous, earnest,\ndignified group of living men and women whom it professes to duplicate.\nThere is a mellow richness, a subdued color, in the old pictures, which\nis to the eye what muffled and mellowed sound is to the ear. That is the\nmerit which is most loudly praised in the old picture, and is the one\nwhich the copy most conspicuously lacks, and which the copyist must not\nhope to compass. It was generally conceded by the artists with whom I\ntalked, that that subdued splendor, that mellow richness, is imparted\nto the picture by AGE. Then why should we worship the Old Master for it,\nwho didn't impart it, instead of worshiping Old Time, who did? Perhaps\nthe picture was a clanging bell, until Time muffled it and sweetened it.\n\n\nIn conversation with an artist in Venice, I asked: \"What is it that\npeople see in the Old Masters? I have been in the Doge's palace and I\nsaw several acres of very bad drawing, very bad perspective, and very\nincorrect proportions. Paul Veronese's dogs to not resemble dogs; all\nthe horses look like bladders on legs; one man had a RIGHT leg on\nthe left side of his body; in the large picture where the Emperor\n(Barbarossa?) is prostrate before the Pope, there are three men in the\nforeground who are over thirty feet high, if one may judge by the size\nof a kneeling little boy in the center of the foreground; and according\nto the same scale, the Pope is seven feet high and the Doge is a\nshriveled dwarf of four feet.\"\n\nThe artist said:\n\n\"Yes, the Old Masters often drew badly; they did not care much for truth\nand exactness in minor details; but after all, in spite of bad drawing,\nbad perspective, bad proportions, and a choice of subjects which no\nlonger appeal to people as strongly as they did three hundred years ago,\nthere is a SOMETHING about their pictures which is divine--a something\nwhich is above and beyond the art of any epoch since--a something which\nwould be the despair of artists but that they never hope or expect to\nattain it, and therefore do not worry about it.\"\n\nThat is what he said--and he said what he believed; and not only\nbelieved, but felt.\n\nReasoning--especially reasoning, without technical knowledge--must be\nput aside, in cases of this kind. It cannot assist the inquirer. It\nwill lead him, in the most logical progression, to what, in the eyes of\nartists, would be a most illogical conclusion. Thus: bad drawing, bad\nproportion, bad perspective, indifference to truthful detail, color\nwhich gets its merit from time, and not from the artist--these things\nconstitute the Old Master; conclusion, the Old Master was a bad painter,\nthe Old Master was not an Old Master at all, but an Old Apprentice. Your\nfriend the artist will grant your premises, but deny your conclusion;\nhe will maintain that notwithstanding this formidable list of confessed\ndefects, there is still a something that is divine and unapproachable\nabout the Old Master, and that there is no arguing the fact away by any\nsystem of reasoning whatsoever.\n\nI can believe that. There are women who have an indefinable charm in\ntheir faces which makes them beautiful to their intimates, but a cold\nstranger who tried to reason the matter out and find this beauty would\nfail. He would say of one of these women: This chin is too short, this\nnose is too long, this forehead is too high, this hair is too red, this\ncomplexion is too pallid, the perspective of the entire composition\nis incorrect; conclusion, the woman is not beautiful. But her nearest\nfriend might say, and say truly, \"Your premises are right, your logic\nis faultless, but your conclusion is wrong, nevertheless; she is an Old\nMaster--she is beautiful, but only to such as know her; it is a beauty\nwhich cannot be formulated, but it is there, just the same.\"\n\n\nI found more pleasure in contemplating the Old Masters this time than\nI did when I was in Europe in former years, but still it was a calm\npleasure; there was nothing overheated about it. When I was in Venice\nbefore, I think I found no picture which stirred me much, but this time\nthere were two which enticed me to the Doge's palace day after day, and\nkept me there hours at a time. One of these was Tintoretto's three-acre\npicture in the Great Council Chamber. When I saw it twelve years ago\nI was not strongly attracted to it--the guide told me it was an\ninsurrection in heaven--but this was an error.\n\nThe movement of this great work is very fine. There are ten thousand\nfigures, and they are all doing something. There is a wonderful \"go\"\nto the whole composition. Some of the figures are driving headlong\ndownward, with clasped hands, others are swimming through the\ncloud-shoals--some on their faces, some on their backs--great\nprocessions of bishops, martyrs, and angels are pouring swiftly\ncenterward from various outlying directions--everywhere is enthusiastic\njoy, there is rushing movement everywhere. There are fifteen or twenty\nfigures scattered here and there, with books, but they cannot keep their\nattention on their reading--they offer the books to others, but no one\nwishes to read, now. The Lion of St. Mark is there with his book; St.\nMark is there with his pen uplifted; he and the Lion are looking\neach other earnestly in the face, disputing about the way to spell a\nword--the Lion looks up in rapt admiration while St. Mark spells. This\nis wonderfully interpreted by the artist. It is the master-stroke of\nthis imcomparable painting.\n\n\nI visited the place daily, and never grew tired of looking at that\ngrand picture. As I have intimated, the movement is almost unimaginably\nvigorous; the figures are singing, hosannahing, and many are blowing\ntrumpets. So vividly is noise suggested, that spectators who become\nabsorbed in the picture almost always fall to shouting comments in each\nother's ears, making ear-trumpets of their curved hands, fearing they\nmay not otherwise be heard. One often sees a tourist, with the eloquent\ntears pouring down his cheeks, funnel his hands at his wife's ear, and\nhears him roar through them, \"OH, TO BE THERE AND AT REST!\"\n\n\nNone but the supremely great in art can produce effects like these with\nthe silent brush.\n\nTwelve years ago I could not have appreciated this picture. One year ago\nI could not have appreciated it. My study of Art in Heidelberg has been\na noble education to me. All that I am today in Art, I owe to that.\n\nThe other great work which fascinated me was Bassano's immortal Hair\nTrunk. This is in the Chamber of the Council of Ten. It is in one of\nthe three forty-foot pictures which decorate the walls of the room.\nThe composition of this picture is beyond praise. The Hair Trunk is not\nhurled at the stranger's head--so to speak--as the chief feature of an\nimmortal work so often is; no, it is carefully guarded from prominence,\nit is subordinated, it is restrained, it is most deftly and cleverly\nheld in reserve, it is most cautiously and ingeniously led up to, by the\nmaster, and consequently when the spectator reaches it at last, he\nis taken unawares, he is unprepared, and it bursts upon him with a\nstupefying surprise.\n\nOne is lost in wonder at all the thought and care which this elaborate\nplanning must have cost. A general glance at the picture could never\nsuggest that there was a hair trunk in it; the Hair Trunk is not\nmentioned in the title even--which is, \"Pope Alexander III. and the Doge\nZiani, the Conqueror of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa\"; you see,\nthe title is actually utilized to help divert attention from the Trunk;\nthus, as I say, nothing suggests the presence of the Trunk, by any hint,\nyet everything studiedly leads up to it, step by step. Let us examine\ninto this, and observe the exquisitely artful artlessness of the plan.\n\nAt the extreme left end of the picture are a couple of women, one of\nthem with a child looking over her shoulder at a wounded man sitting\nwith bandaged head on the ground. These people seem needless, but no,\nthey are there for a purpose; one cannot look at them without seeing\nthe gorgeous procession of grandees, bishops, halberdiers, and\nbanner-bearers which is passing along behind them; one cannot see the\nprocession without feeling the curiosity to follow it and learn whither\nit is going; it leads him to the Pope, in the center of the picture, who\nis talking with the bonnetless Doge--talking tranquilly, too, although\nwithin twelve feet of them a man is beating a drum, and not far from the\ndrummer two persons are blowing horns, and many horsemen are plunging\nand rioting about--indeed, twenty-two feet of this great work is all a\ndeep and happy holiday serenity and Sunday-school procession, and then\nwe come suddenly upon eleven and one-half feet of turmoil and racket and\ninsubordination. This latter state of things is not an accident, it has\nits purpose. But for it, one would linger upon the Pope and the Doge,\nthinking them to be the motive and supreme feature of the picture;\nwhereas one is drawn along, almost unconsciously, to see what the\ntrouble is about. Now at the very END of this riot, within four feet of\nthe end of the picture, and full thirty-six feet from the beginning\nof it, the Hair Trunk bursts with an electrifying suddenness upon the\nspectator, in all its matchless perfection, and the great master's\ntriumph is sweeping and complete. From that moment no other thing in\nthose forty feet of canvas has any charm; one sees the Hair Trunk, and\nthe Hair Trunk only--and to see it is to worship it. Bassano even placed\nobjects in the immediate vicinity of the Supreme Feature whose pretended\npurpose was to divert attention from it yet a little longer and thus\ndelay and augment the surprise; for instance, to the right of it he has\nplaced a stooping man with a cap so red that it is sure to hold the eye\nfor a moment--to the left of it, some six feet away, he has placed a\nred-coated man on an inflated horse, and that coat plucks your eye\nto that locality the next moment--then, between the Trunk and the red\nhorseman he has intruded a man, naked to his waist, who is carrying\na fancy flour-sack on the middle of his back instead of on his\nshoulder--this admirable feat interests you, of course--keeps you at\nbay a little longer, like a sock or a jacket thrown to the pursuing\nwolf--but at last, in spite of all distractions and detentions, the eye\nof even the most dull and heedless spectator is sure to fall upon the\nWorld's Masterpiece, and in that moment he totters to his chair or leans\nupon his guide for support.\n\n\nDescriptions of such a work as this must necessarily be imperfect, yet\nthey are of value. The top of the Trunk is arched; the arch is a perfect\nhalf-circle, in the Roman style of architecture, for in the then\nrapid decadence of Greek art, the rising influence of Rome was already\nbeginning to be felt in the art of the Republic. The Trunk is bound or\nbordered with leather all around where the lid joins the main body. Many\ncritics consider this leather too cold in tone; but I consider this its\nhighest merit, since it was evidently made so to emphasize by contrast\nthe impassioned fervor of the hasp. The highlights in this part of the\nwork are cleverly managed, the MOTIF is admirably subordinated to the\nground tints, and the technique is very fine. The brass nail-heads are\nin the purest style of the early Renaissance. The strokes, here, are\nvery firm and bold--every nail-head is a portrait. The handle on the\nend of the Trunk has evidently been retouched--I think, with a piece of\nchalk--but one can still see the inspiration of the Old Master in the\ntranquil, almost too tranquil, hang of it. The hair of this Trunk is\nREAL hair--so to speak--white in patches, brown in patches. The details\nare finely worked out; the repose proper to hair in a recumbent and\ninactive attitude is charmingly expressed. There is a feeling about this\npart of the work which lifts it to the highest altitudes of art; the\nsense of sordid realism vanishes away--one recognizes that there is SOUL\nhere.\n\nView this Trunk as you will, it is a gem, it is a marvel, it is a\nmiracle. Some of the effects are very daring, approaching even to\nthe boldest flights of the rococo, the sirocco, and the Byzantine\nschools--yet the master's hand never falters--it moves on, calm,\nmajestic, confident--and, with that art which conceals art, it finally\ncasts over the TOUT ENSEMBLE, by mysterious methods of its own, a subtle\nsomething which refines, subdues, etherealizes the arid components and\nendures them with the deep charm and gracious witchery of poesy.\n\nAmong the art-treasures of Europe there are pictures which approach the\nHair Trunk--there are two which may be said to equal it, possibly--but\nthere is none that surpasses it. So perfect is the Hair Trunk that it\nmoves even persons who ordinarily have no feeling for art. When an Erie\nbaggagemaster saw it two years ago, he could hardly keep from checking\nit; and once when a customs inspector was brought into its presence,\nhe gazed upon it in silent rapture for some moments, then slowly and\nunconsciously placed one hand behind him with the palm uppermost, and\ngot out his chalk with the other. These facts speak for themselves.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIX\n\n[Hanged with a Golden Rope]\n\n\nOne lingers about the Cathedral a good deal, in Venice. There is a\nstrong fascination about it--partly because it is so old, and partly\nbecause it is so ugly. Too many of the world's famous buildings fail of\none chief virtue--harmony; they are made up of a methodless mixture\nof the ugly and the beautiful; this is bad; it is confusing, it is\nunrestful. One has a sense of uneasiness, of distress, without knowing\nwhy. But one is calm before St. Mark's, one is calm within it, one\nwould be calm on top of it, calm in the cellar; for its details are\nmasterfully ugly, no misplaced and impertinent beauties are intruded\nanywhere; and the consequent result is a grand harmonious whole, of\nsoothing, entrancing, tranquilizing, soul-satisfying ugliness. One's\nadmiration of a perfect thing always grows, never declines; and this is\nthe surest evidence to him that it IS perfect. St. Mark's is perfect. To\nme it soon grew to be so nobly, so augustly ugly, that it was difficult\nto stay away from it, even for a little while. Every time its squat\ndomes disappeared from my view, I had a despondent feeling; whenever\nthey reappeared, I felt an honest rapture--I have not known any happier\nhours than those I daily spent in front of Florian's, looking across the\nGreat Square at it. Propped on its long row of low thick-legged columns,\nits back knobbed with domes, it seemed like a vast warty bug taking a\nmeditative walk.\n\nSt. Mark's is not the oldest building in the world, of course, but it\nseems the oldest, and looks the oldest--especially inside.\n\nWhen the ancient mosaics in its walls become damaged, they are repaired\nbut not altered; the grotesque old pattern is preserved. Antiquity has\na charm of its own, and to smarten it up would only damage it. One day\nI was sitting on a red marble bench in the vestibule looking up at an\nancient piece of apprentice-work, in mosaic, illustrative of the command\nto \"multiply and replenish the earth.\" The Cathedral itself had seemed\nvery old; but this picture was illustrating a period in history which\nmade the building seem young by comparison. But I presently found an\nantique which was older than either the battered Cathedral or the date\nassigned to the piece of history; it was a spiral-shaped fossil as large\nas the crown of a hat; it was embedded in the marble bench, and had\nbeen sat upon by tourists until it was worn smooth. Contrasted with the\ninconceivable antiquity of this modest fossil, those other things were\nflippantly modern--jejune--mere matters of day-before-yesterday. The\nsense of the oldness of the Cathedral vanished away under the influence\nof this truly venerable presence.\n\nSt. Mark's is monumental; it is an imperishable remembrancer of the\nprofound and simple piety of the Middle Ages. Whoever could ravish a\ncolumn from a pagan temple, did it and contributed his swag to this\nChristian one. So this fane is upheld by several hundred acquisitions\nprocured in that peculiar way. In our day it would be immoral to go on\nthe highway to get bricks for a church, but it was no sin in the old\ntimes. St. Mark's was itself the victim of a curious robbery once. The\nthing is set down in the history of Venice, but it might be smuggled\ninto the Arabian Nights and not seem out of place there:\n\nNearly four hundred and fifty years ago, a Candian named Stammato, in\nthe suite of a prince of the house of Este, was allowed to view the\nriches of St. Mark's. His sinful eye was dazzled and he hid himself\nbehind an altar, with an evil purpose in his heart, but a priest\ndiscovered him and turned him out. Afterward he got in again--by false\nkeys, this time. He went there, night after night, and worked hard and\npatiently, all alone, overcoming difficulty after difficulty with his\ntoil, and at last succeeded in removing a great brick of the marble\npaneling which walled the lower part of the treasury; this block he\nfixed so that he could take it out and put it in at will. After\nthat, for weeks, he spent all his midnights in his magnificent mine,\ninspecting it in security, gloating over its marvels at his leisure, and\nalways slipping back to his obscure lodgings before dawn, with a\nduke's ransom under his cloak. He did not need to grab, haphazard, and\nrun--there was no hurry. He could make deliberate and well-considered\nselections; he could consult his esthetic tastes. One comprehends how\nundisturbed he was, and how safe from any danger of interruption,\nwhen it is stated that he even carried off a unicorn's horn--a mere\ncuriosity--which would not pass through the egress entire, but had to\nbe sawn in two--a bit of work which cost him hours of tedious labor. He\ncontinued to store up his treasures at home until his occupation lost\nthe charm of novelty and became monotonous; then he ceased from it,\ncontented. Well he might be; for his collection, raised to modern\nvalues, represented nearly fifty million dollars!\n\n\nHe could have gone home much the richest citizen of his country, and\nit might have been years before the plunder was missed; but he was\nhuman--he could not enjoy his delight alone, he must have somebody to\ntalk about it with. So he exacted a solemn oath from a Candian noble\nnamed Crioni, then led him to his lodgings and nearly took his breath\naway with a sight of his glittering hoard. He detected a look in his\nfriend's face which excited his suspicion, and was about to slip a\nstiletto into him when Crioni saved himself by explaining that that look\nwas only an expression of supreme and happy astonishment. Stammato\nmade Crioni a present of one of the state's principal jewels--a huge\ncarbuncle, which afterward figured in the Ducal cap of state--and the\npair parted. Crioni went at once to the palace, denounced the criminal,\nand handed over the carbuncle as evidence. Stammato was arrested, tried,\nand condemned, with the old-time Venetian promptness. He was hanged\nbetween the two great columns in the Piazza--with a gilded rope, out of\ncompliment to his love of gold, perhaps. He got no good of his booty at\nall--it was ALL recovered.\n\nIn Venice we had a luxury which very seldom fell to our lot on the\ncontinent--a home dinner with a private family. If one could always stop\nwith private families, when traveling, Europe would have a charm which\nit now lacks. As it is, one must live in the hotels, of course, and that\nis a sorrowful business. A man accustomed to American food and American\ndomestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe; but I\nthink he would gradually waste away, and eventually die.\n\nHe would have to do without his accustomed morning meal. That is too\nformidable a change altogether; he would necessarily suffer from it. He\ncould get the shadow, the sham, the base counterfeit of that meal; but\nit would do him no good, and money could not buy the reality.\n\nTo particularize: the average American's simplest and commonest form of\nbreakfast consists of coffee and beefsteak; well, in Europe, coffee is\nan unknown beverage. You can get what the European hotel-keeper thinks\nis coffee, but it resembles the real thing as hypocrisy resembles\nholiness. It is a feeble, characterless, uninspiring sort of stuff, and\nalmost as undrinkable as if it had been made in an American hotel. The\nmilk used for it is what the French call \"Christian\" milk--milk which\nhas been baptized.\n\n\nAfter a few months' acquaintance with European \"coffee,\" one's mind\nweakens, and his faith with it, and he begins to wonder if the rich\nbeverage of home, with its clotted layer of yellow cream on top of it,\nis not a mere dream, after all, and a thing which never existed.\n\nNext comes the European bread--fair enough, good enough, after a\nfashion, but cold; cold and tough, and unsympathetic; and never any\nchange, never any variety--always the same tiresome thing.\n\nNext, the butter--the sham and tasteless butter; no salt in it, and made\nof goodness knows what.\n\nThen there is the beefsteak. They have it in Europe, but they don't know\nhow to cook it. Neither will they cut it right. It comes on the table in\na small, round pewter platter. It lies in the center of this platter,\nin a bordering bed of grease-soaked potatoes; it is the size, shape, and\nthickness of a man's hand with the thumb and fingers cut off. It is a\nlittle overdone, is rather dry, it tastes pretty insipidly, it rouses no\nenthusiasm.\n\nImagine a poor exile contemplating that inert thing; and imagine an\nangel suddenly sweeping down out of a better land and setting before him\na mighty porterhouse steak an inch and a half thick, hot and sputtering\nfrom the griddle; dusted with a fragrant pepper; enriched with\nlittle melting bits of butter of the most unimpeachable freshness and\ngenuineness; the precious juices of the meat trickling out and joining\nthe gravy, archipelagoed with mushrooms; a township or two of tender,\nyellowish fat gracing an outlying district of this ample county of\nbeefsteak; the long white bone which divides the sirloin from the\ntenderloin still in its place; and imagine that the angel also adds a\ngreat cup of American home-made coffee, with a cream a-froth on top,\nsome real butter, firm and yellow and fresh, some smoking hot-biscuits,\na plate of hot buckwheat cakes, with transparent syrup--could words\ndescribe the gratitude of this exile?\n\nThe European dinner is better than the European breakfast, but it has\nits faults and inferiorities; it does not satisfy. He comes to the table\neager and hungry; he swallows his soup--there is an undefinable\nlack about it somewhere; thinks the fish is going to be the thing he\nwants--eats it and isn't sure; thinks the next dish is perhaps the one\nthat will hit the hungry place--tries it, and is conscious that there\nwas a something wanting about it, also. And thus he goes on, from dish\nto dish, like a boy after a butterfly which just misses getting caught\nevery time it alights, but somehow doesn't get caught after all; and at\nthe end the exile and the boy have fared about alike; the one is full,\nbut grievously unsatisfied, the other has had plenty of exercise, plenty\nof interest, and a fine lot of hopes, but he hasn't got any butterfly.\nThere is here and there an American who will say he can remember rising\nfrom a European table d'h\u00f4te perfectly satisfied; but we must not\noverlook the fact that there is also here and there an American who will\nlie.\n\nThe number of dishes is sufficient; but then it is such a monotonous\nvariety of UNSTRIKING dishes. It is an inane dead-level of\n\"fair-to-middling.\" There is nothing to ACCENT it. Perhaps if the roast\nof mutton or of beef--a big, generous one--were brought on the table and\ncarved in full view of the client, that might give the right sense of\nearnestness and reality to the thing; but they don't do that, they pass\nthe sliced meat around on a dish, and so you are perfectly calm, it does\nnot stir you in the least. Now a vast roast turkey, stretched on the\nbroad of his back, with his heels in the air and the rich juices oozing\nfrom his fat sides ... but I may as well stop there, for they would not\nknow how to cook him. They can't even cook a chicken respectably; and as\nfor carving it, they do that with a hatchet.\n\n\nThis is about the customary table d'h\u00f4te bill in summer:\n\n  Soup (characterless).\n\n  Fish--sole, salmon, or whiting--usually tolerably good.\n\n  Roast--mutton or beef--tasteless--and some last year's potatoes.\n\n  A pate, or some other made dish--usually good--\"considering.\"\n\n  One vegetable--brought on in state, and all alone--usually insipid\n                      lentils, or string-beans, or indifferent asparagus.\n\n  Roast chicken, as tasteless as paper.\n\n  Lettuce-salad--tolerably good.\n\n  Decayed strawberries or cherries.\n\n  Sometimes the apricots and figs are fresh, but this is no advantage,\n                      as these fruits are of no account anyway.\n\n  The grapes are generally good, and sometimes there is a tolerably\n                      good peach, by mistake.\n\nThe variations of the above bill are trifling. After a fortnight one\ndiscovers that the variations are only apparent, not real; in the third\nweek you get what you had the first, and in the fourth the week you get\nwhat you had the second. Three or four months of this weary sameness\nwill kill the robustest appetite.\n\nIt has now been many months, at the present writing, since I have had\na nourishing meal, but I shall soon have one--a modest, private affair,\nall to myself. I have selected a few dishes, and made out a little bill\nof fare, which will go home in the steamer that precedes me, and be hot\nwhen I arrive--as follows:\n\n    Radishes. Baked apples, with cream\n    Fried oysters; stewed oysters. Frogs.\n    American coffee, with real cream.\n    American butter.\n    Fried chicken, Southern style.\n    Porter-house steak.\n    Saratoga potatoes.\n    Broiled chicken, American style.\n    Hot biscuits, Southern style.\n    Hot wheat-bread, Southern style.\n    Hot buckwheat cakes.\n    American toast. Clear maple syrup.\n    Virginia bacon, broiled.\n    Blue points, on the half shell.\n    Cherry-stone clams.\n    San Francisco mussels, steamed.\n    Oyster soup. Clam Soup.\n    Philadelphia Terapin soup.\n    Oysters roasted in shell-Northern style.\n    Soft-shell crabs. Connecticut shad.\n    Baltimore perch.\n    Brook trout, from Sierra Nevadas.\n    Lake trout, from Tahoe.\n    Sheep-head and croakers, from New Orleans.\n    Black bass from the Mississippi.\n    American roast beef.\n    Roast turkey, Thanksgiving style.\n    Cranberry sauce. Celery.\n    Roast wild turkey. Woodcock.\n    Canvas-back-duck, from Baltimore.\n    Prairie liens, from Illinois.\n    Missouri partridges, broiled.\n    'Possum. Coon.\n    Boston bacon and beans.\n    Bacon and greens, Southern style.\n    Hominy. Boiled onions. Turnips.\n    Pumpkin. Squash. Asparagus.\n    Butter beans. Sweet potatoes.\n    Lettuce. Succotash. String beans.\n    Mashed potatoes. Catsup.\n    Boiled potatoes, in their skins.\n    New potatoes, minus the skins.\n    Early rose potatoes, roasted in the ashes, Southern style, served hot.\n    Sliced tomatoes, with sugar or vinegar. Stewed tomatoes.\n    Green corn, cut from the ear and served with butter and pepper.\n    Green corn, on the ear.\n    Hot corn-pone, with chitlings, Southern style.\n    Hot hoe-cake, Southern style.\n    Hot egg-bread, Southern style.\n    Hot light-bread, Southern style.\n    Buttermilk. Iced sweet milk.\n    Apple dumplings, with real cream.\n    Apple pie. Apple fritters.\n    Apple puffs, Southern style.\n    Peach cobbler, Southern style\n    Peach pie. American mince pie.\n    Pumpkin pie. Squash pie.\n    All sorts of American pastry.\n\n\nFresh American fruits of all sorts, including strawberries which are\nnot to be doled out as if they were jewelry, but in a more liberal way.\nIce-water--not prepared in the ineffectual goblet, but in the sincere\nand capable refrigerator.\n\nAmericans intending to spend a year or so in European hotels will\ndo well to copy this bill and carry it along. They will find it an\nexcellent thing to get up an appetite with, in the dispiriting presence\nof the squalid table d'h\u00f4te.\n\nForeigners cannot enjoy our food, I suppose, any more than we can\nenjoy theirs. It is not strange; for tastes are made, not born. I might\nglorify my bill of fare until I was tired; but after all, the Scotchman\nwould shake his head and say, \"Where's your haggis?\" and the Fijian\nwould sigh and say, \"Where's your missionary?\"\n\nI have a neat talent in matters pertaining to nourishment. This has\nmet with professional recognition. I have often furnished recipes for\ncook-books. Here are some designs for pies and things, which I recently\nprepared for a friend's projected cook-book, but as I forgot to furnish\ndiagrams and perspectives, they had to be left out, of course.\n\nRECIPE FOR AN ASH-CAKE Take a lot of water and add to it a lot of coarse\nIndian-meal and about a quarter of a lot of salt. Mix well together,\nknead into the form of a \"pone,\" and let the pone stand awhile--not on\nits edge, but the other way. Rake away a place among the embers, lay it\nthere, and cover it an inch deep with hot ashes. When it is done, remove\nit; blow off all the ashes but one layer; butter that one and eat.\n\nN.B.--No household should ever be without this talisman. It has been\nnoticed that tramps never return for another ash-cake. ----------\n\nRECIPE FOR NEW ENGLISH PIE To make this excellent breakfast dish,\nproceed as follows: Take a sufficiency of water and a sufficiency of\nflour, and construct a bullet-proof dough. Work this into the form of\na disk, with the edges turned up some three-fourths of an inch. Toughen\nand kiln-dry in a couple days in a mild but unvarying temperature.\nConstruct a cover for this redoubt in the same way and of the same\nmaterial. Fill with stewed dried apples; aggravate with cloves,\nlemon-peel, and slabs of citron; add two portions of New Orleans sugars,\nthen solder on the lid and set in a safe place till it petrifies. Serve\ncold at breakfast and invite your enemy. ----------\n\nRECIPE FOR GERMAN COFFEE Take a barrel of water and bring it to a boil;\nrub a chicory berry against a coffee berry, then convey the former into\nthe water. Continue the boiling and evaporation until the intensity of\nthe flavor and aroma of the coffee and chicory has been diminished to\na proper degree; then set aside to cool. Now unharness the remains of a\nonce cow from the plow, insert them in a hydraulic press, and when you\nshall have acquired a teaspoon of that pale-blue juice which a German\nsuperstition regards as milk, modify the malignity of its strength in a\nbucket of tepid water and ring up the breakfast. Mix the beverage in a\ncold cup, partake with moderation, and keep a wet rag around your head\nto guard against over-excitement.\n\n\nTO CARVE FOWLS IN THE GERMAN FASHION Use a club, and avoid the joints.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER L\n\n[Titian Bad and Titian Good]\n\n\nI wonder why some things are? For instance, Art is allowed as much\nindecent license today as in earlier times--but the privileges of\nLiterature in this respect have been sharply curtailed within the\npast eighty or ninety years. Fielding and Smollett could portray the\nbeastliness of their day in the beastliest language; we have plenty\nof foul subjects to deal with in our day, but we are not allowed to\napproach them very near, even with nice and guarded forms of speech.\nBut not so with Art. The brush may still deal freely with any subject,\nhowever revolting or indelicate. It makes a body ooze sarcasm at every\npore, to go about Rome and Florence and see what this last generation\nhas been doing with the statues. These works, which had stood in\ninnocent nakedness for ages, are all fig-leaved now. Yes, every one of\nthem. Nobody noticed their nakedness before, perhaps; nobody can help\nnoticing it now, the fig-leaf makes it so conspicuous. But the comical\nthing about it all, is, that the fig-leaf is confined to cold and pallid\nmarble, which would be still cold and unsuggestive without this sham and\nostentatious symbol of modesty, whereas warm-blood paintings which do\nreally need it have in no case been furnished with it.\n\nAt the door of the Uffizzi, in Florence, one is confronted by statues\nof a man and a woman, noseless, battered, black with accumulated\ngrime--they hardly suggest human beings--yet these ridiculous creatures\nhave been thoughtfully and conscientiously fig-leaved by this fastidious\ngeneration. You enter, and proceed to that most-visited little gallery\nthat exists in the world--the Tribune--and there, against the wall,\nwithout obstructing rag or leaf, you may look your fill upon the\nfoulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses--Titian's\nVenus. It isn't that she is naked and stretched out on a bed--no, it is\nthe attitude of one of her arms and hand. If I ventured to describe\nthat attitude, there would be a fine howl--but there the Venus lies, for\nanybody to gloat over that wants to--and there she has a right to lie,\nfor she is a work of art, and Art has its privileges. I saw young\ngirls stealing furtive glances at her; I saw young men gaze long and\nabsorbedly at her; I saw aged, infirm men hang upon her charms with a\npathetic interest. How I should like to describe her--just to see what\na holy indignation I could stir up in the world--just to hear the\nunreflecting average man deliver himself about my grossness and\ncoarseness, and all that. The world says that no worded description of\na moving spectacle is a hundredth part as moving as the same spectacle\nseen with one's own eyes--yet the world is willing to let its son\nand its daughter and itself look at Titian's beast, but won't stand\na description of it in words. Which shows that the world is not as\nconsistent as it might be.\n\nThere are pictures of nude women which suggest no impure thought--I\nam well aware of that. I am not railing at such. What I am trying to\nemphasize is the fact that Titian's Venus is very far from being one of\nthat sort. Without any question it was painted for a bagnio and it was\nprobably refused because it was a trifle too strong. In truth, it is too\nstrong for any place but a public Art Gallery. Titian has two Venuses in\nthe Tribune; persons who have seen them will easily remember which one I\nam referring to.\n\nIn every gallery in Europe there are hideous pictures of blood,\ncarnage, oozing brains, putrefaction--pictures portraying intolerable\nsuffering--pictures alive with every conceivable horror, wrought out in\ndreadful detail--and similar pictures are being put on the canvas every\nday and publicly exhibited--without a growl from anybody--for they\nare innocent, they are inoffensive, being works of art. But suppose\na literary artist ventured to go into a painstaking and elaborate\ndescription of one of these grisly things--the critics would skin him\nalive. Well, let it go, it cannot be helped; Art retains her privileges,\nLiterature has lost hers. Somebody else may cipher out the whys and the\nwherefores and the consistencies of it--I haven't got time.\n\nTitian's Venus defiles and disgraces the Tribune, there is no softening\nthat fact, but his \"Moses\" glorifies it. The simple truthfulness of\nits noble work wins the heart and the applause of every visitor, be he\nlearned or ignorant. After wearying one's self with the acres of stuffy,\nsappy, expressionless babies that populate the canvases of the Old\nMasters of Italy, it is refreshing to stand before this peerless child\nand feel that thrill which tells you you are at last in the presence of\nthe real thing. This is a human child, this is genuine. You have seen\nhim a thousand times--you have seen him just as he is here--and you\nconfess, without reserve, that Titian WAS a Master. The doll-faces of\nother painted babes may mean one thing, they may mean another, but\nwith the \"Moses\" the case is different. The most famous of all the\nart-critics has said, \"There is no room for doubt, here--plainly this\nchild is in trouble.\"\n\nI consider that the \"Moses\" has no equal among the works of the Old\nMasters, except it be the divine Hair Trunk of Bassano. I feel sure that\nif all the other Old Masters were lost and only these two preserved, the\nworld would be the gainer by it.\n\n\nMy sole purpose in going to Florence was to see this immortal \"Moses,\"\nand by good fortune I was just in time, for they were already preparing\nto remove it to a more private and better-protected place because a\nfashion of robbing the great galleries was prevailing in Europe at the\ntime.\n\nI got a capable artist to copy the picture; Pannemaker, the engraver of\nDor\u00e9's books, engraved it for me, and I have the pleasure of laying it\nbefore the reader in this volume.\n\nWe took a turn to Rome and some other Italian cities--then to Munich,\nand thence to Paris--partly for exercise, but mainly because these\nthings were in our projected program, and it was only right that we\nshould be faithful to it.\n\nFrom Paris I branched out and walked through Holland and Belgium,\nprocuring an occasional lift by rail or canal when tired, and I had\na tolerably good time of it \"by and large.\" I worked Spain and other\nregions through agents to save time and shoe-leather.\n\nWe crossed to England, and then made the homeward passage in the\nCunarder GALLIA, a very fine ship. I was glad to get home--immeasurably\nglad; so glad, in fact, that it did not seem possible that anything\ncould ever get me out of the country again. I had not enjoyed a pleasure\nabroad which seemed to me to compare with the pleasure I felt in seeing\nNew York harbor again. Europe has many advantages which we have not, but\nthey do not compensate for a good many still more valuable ones which\nexist nowhere but in our own country. Then we are such a homeless lot\nwhen we are over there! So are Europeans themselves, for that matter.\nThey live in dark and chilly vast tombs--costly enough, maybe, but\nwithout conveniences. To be condemned to live as the average European\nfamily lives would make life a pretty heavy burden to the average\nAmerican family.\n\nOn the whole, I think that short visits to Europe are better for us than\nlong ones. The former preserve us from becoming Europeanized; they keep\nour pride of country intact, and at the same time they intensify our\naffection for our country and our people; whereas long visits have the\neffect of dulling those feelings--at least in the majority of cases. I\nthink that one who mixes much with Americans long resident abroad must\narrive at this conclusion.\n\n\nAPPENDIX   Nothing gives such weight and dignity to a book as an Appendix.\n                --HERODOTUS\n\n\nAPPENDIX A.\n\nThe Portier\n\nOmar Khay'am, the poet-prophet of Persia, writing more than eight\nhundred years ago, has said:\n\n\"In the four parts of the earth are many that are able to write learned\nbooks, many that are able to lead armies, and many also that are able to\ngovern kingdoms and empires; but few there be that can keep a hotel.\"\n\nA word about the European hotel PORTIER. He is a most admirable\ninvention, a most valuable convenience. He always wears a conspicuous\nuniform; he can always be found when he is wanted, for he sticks closely\nto his post at the front door; he is as polite as a duke; he speaks\nfrom four to ten languages; he is your surest help and refuge in time of\ntrouble or perplexity. He is not the clerk, he is not the landlord; he\nranks above the clerk, and represents the landlord, who is seldom seen.\nInstead of going to the clerk for information, as we do at home, you\ngo to the portier. It is the pride of our average hotel clerk to know\nnothing whatever; it is the pride of the portier to know everything. You\nask the portier at what hours the trains leave--he tells you instantly;\nor you ask him who is the best physician in town; or what is the hack\ntariff; or how many children the mayor has; or what days the galleries\nare open, and whether a permit is required, and where you are to get it,\nand what you must pay for it; or when the theaters open and close, what\nthe plays are to be, and the price of seats; or what is the newest thing\nin hats; or how the bills of mortality average; or \"who struck Billy\nPatterson.\" It does not matter what you ask him: in nine cases out of\nten he knows, and in the tenth case he will find out for you before you\ncan turn around three times. There is nothing he will not put his hand\nto. Suppose you tell him you wish to go from Hamburg to Peking by the\nway of Jericho, and are ignorant of routes and prices--the next morning\nhe will hand you a piece of paper with the whole thing worked out on it\nto the last detail. Before you have been long on European soil, you find\nyourself still SAYING you are relying on Providence, but when you come\nto look closer you will see that in reality you are relying on the\nportier. He discovers what is puzzling you, or what is troubling you,\nor what your need is, before you can get the half of it out, and he\npromptly says, \"Leave that to me.\" Consequently, you easily drift into\nthe habit of leaving everything to him. There is a certain embarrassment\nabout applying to the average American hotel clerk, a certain hesitancy,\na sense of insecurity against rebuff; but you feel no embarrassment in\nyour intercourse with the portier; he receives your propositions with an\nenthusiasm which cheers, and plunges into their accomplishment with an\nalacrity which almost inebriates. The more requirements you can pile\nupon him, the better he likes it. Of course the result is that you cease\nfrom doing anything for yourself. He calls a hack when you want one;\nputs you into it; tells the driver whither to take you; receives you\nlike a long-lost child when you return; sends you about your business,\ndoes all the quarreling with the hackman himself, and pays him his money\nout of his own pocket. He sends for your theater tickets, and pays for\nthem; he sends for any possible article you can require, be it a doctor,\nan elephant, or a postage stamp; and when you leave, at last, you will\nfind a subordinate seated with the cab-driver who will put you in your\nrailway compartment, buy your tickets, have your baggage weighed, bring\nyou the printed tags, and tell you everything is in your bill and paid\nfor. At home you get such elaborate, excellent, and willing service as\nthis only in the best hotels of our large cities; but in Europe you get\nit in the mere back country-towns just as well.\n\nWhat is the secret of the portier's devotion? It is very simple: he gets\nFEES, AND NO SALARY. His fee is pretty closely regulated, too. If you\nstay a week, you give him five marks--a dollar and a quarter, or about\neighteen cents a day. If you stay a month, you reduce this average\nsomewhat. If you stay two or three months or longer, you cut it down\nhalf, or even more than half. If you stay only one day, you give the\nportier a mark.\n\nThe head waiter's fee is a shade less than the portier's; the Boots, who\nnot only blacks your boots and brushes your clothes, but is usually the\nporter and handles your baggage, gets a somewhat smaller fee than the\nhead waiter; the chambermaid's fee ranks below that of the Boots. You\nfee only these four, and no one else. A German gentleman told me that\nwhen he remained a week in a hotel, he gave the portier five marks, the\nhead waiter four, the Boots three, and the chambermaid two; and if he\nstayed three months he divided ninety marks among them, in about the\nabove proportions. Ninety marks make $22.50.\n\nNone of these fees are ever paid until you leave the hotel, though it\nbe a year--except one of these four servants should go away in the mean\ntime; in that case he will be sure to come and bid you good-by and\ngive you the opportunity to pay him what is fairly coming to him. It\nis considered very bad policy to fee a servant while you are still to\nremain longer in the hotel, because if you gave him too little he might\nneglect you afterward, and if you gave him too much he might neglect\nsomebody else to attend to you. It is considered best to keep his\nexpectations \"on a string\" until your stay is concluded.\n\nI do not know whether hotel servants in New York get any wages or not,\nbut I do know that in some of the hotels there the feeing system in\nvogue is a heavy burden. The waiter expects a quarter at breakfast--and\ngets it. You have a different waiter at luncheon, and so he gets a\nquarter. Your waiter at dinner is another stranger--consequently he gets\na quarter. The boy who carries your satchel to your room and lights your\ngas fumbles around and hangs around significantly, and you fee him to\nget rid of him. Now you may ring for ice-water; and ten minutes later\nfor a lemonade; and ten minutes afterward, for a cigar; and by and by\nfor a newspaper--and what is the result? Why, a new boy has appeared\nevery time and fooled and fumbled around until you have paid him\nsomething. Suppose you boldly put your foot down, and say it is the\nhotel's business to pay its servants? You will have to ring your bell\nten or fifteen times before you get a servant there; and when he goes\noff to fill your order you will grow old and infirm before you see him\nagain. You may struggle nobly for twenty-four hours, maybe, if you are\nan adamantine sort of person, but in the mean time you will have been\nso wretchedly served, and so insolently, that you will haul down your\ncolors, and go to impoverishing yourself with fees.\n\n\nIt seems to me that it would be a happy idea to import the European\nfeeing system into America. I believe it would result in getting even\nthe bells of the Philadelphia hotels answered, and cheerful service\nrendered.\n\nThe greatest American hotels keep a number of clerks and a cashier, and\npay them salaries which mount up to a considerable total in the course\nof a year. The great continental hotels keep a cashier on a trifling\nsalary, and a portier WHO PAYS THE HOTEL A SALARY. By the latter system\nboth the hotel and the public save money and are better served than by\nour system. One of our consuls told me that a portier of a great Berlin\nhotel paid five thousand dollars a year for his position, and yet\ncleared six thousand dollars for himself. The position of portier in the\nchief hotels of Saratoga, Long Branch, New York, and similar centers of\nresort, would be one which the holder could afford to pay even more than\nfive thousand dollars for, perhaps.\n\nWhen we borrowed the feeing fashion from Europe a dozen years ago, the\nsalary system ought to have been discontinued, of course. We might make\nthis correction now, I should think. And we might add the portier, too.\nSince I first began to study the portier, I have had opportunities to\nobserve him in the chief cities of Germany, Switzerland, and Italy;\nand the more I have seen of him the more I have wished that he might be\nadopted in America, and become there, as he is in Europe, the stranger's\nguardian angel.\n\nYes, what was true eight hundred years ago, is just as true today: \"Few\nthere be that can keep a hotel.\" Perhaps it is because the landlords and\ntheir subordinates have in too many cases taken up their trade without\nfirst learning it. In Europe the trade of hotel-keeper is taught. The\napprentice begins at the bottom of the ladder and masters the several\ngrades one after the other. Just as in our country printing-offices the\napprentice first learns how to sweep out and bring water; then learns\nto \"roll\"; then to sort \"pi\"; then to set type; and finally rounds\nand completes his education with job-work and press-work; so the\nlandlord-apprentice serves as call-boy; then as under-waiter; then as\na parlor waiter; then as head waiter, in which position he often has to\nmake out all the bills; then as clerk or cashier; then as portier. His\ntrade is learned now, and by and by he will assume the style and dignity\nof landlord, and be found conducting a hotel of his own.\n\nNow in Europe, the same as in America, when a man has kept a hotel\nso thoroughly well during a number of years as to give it a great\nreputation, he has his reward. He can live prosperously on that\nreputation. He can let his hotel run down to the last degree of\nshabbiness and yet have it full of people all the time. For instance,\nthere is the Hotel de Ville, in Milan. It swarms with mice and fleas,\nand if the rest of the world were destroyed it could furnish dirt enough\nto start another one with. The food would create an insurrection in a\npoorhouse; and yet if you go outside to get your meals that hotel makes\nup its loss by overcharging you on all sorts of trifles--and without\nmaking any denials or excuses about it, either. But the Hotel de Ville's\nold excellent reputation still keeps its dreary rooms crowded with\ntravelers who would be elsewhere if they had only some wise friend to\nwarn them.\n\n\nAPPENDIX B.\n\nHeidelberg Castle Heidelberg Castle must have been very beautiful before\nthe French battered and bruised and scorched it two hundred years ago.\nThe stone is brown, with a pinkish tint, and does not seem to stain\neasily. The dainty and elaborate ornamentation upon its two chief fronts\nis as delicately carved as if it had been intended for the interior of\na drawing-room rather than for the outside of a house. Many fruit and\nflower clusters, human heads and grim projecting lions' heads are still\nas perfect in every detail as if they were new. But the statues which\nare ranked between the windows have suffered. These are life-size\nstatues of old-time emperors, electors, and similar grandees, clad in\nmail and bearing ponderous swords. Some have lost an arm, some a head,\nand one poor fellow is chopped off at the middle. There is a saying that\nif a stranger will pass over the drawbridge and walk across the court to\nthe castle front without saying anything, he can make a wish and it will\nbe fulfilled. But they say that the truth of this thing has never had\na chance to be proved, for the reason that before any stranger can walk\nfrom the drawbridge to the appointed place, the beauty of the palace\nfront will extort an exclamation of delight from him.\n\nA ruin must be rightly situated, to be effective. This one could not\nhave been better placed. It stands upon a commanding elevation, it is\nburied in green woods, there is no level ground about it, but, on the\ncontrary, there are wooded terraces upon terraces, and one looks down\nthrough shining leaves into profound chasms and abysses where twilight\nreigns and the sun cannot intrude. Nature knows how to garnish a ruin to\nget the best effect. One of these old towers is split down the middle,\nand one half has tumbled aside. It tumbled in such a way as to establish\nitself in a picturesque attitude. Then all it lacked was a fitting\ndrapery, and Nature has furnished that; she has robed the rugged mass in\nflowers and verdure, and made it a charm to the eye. The standing half\nexposes its arched and cavernous rooms to you, like open, toothless\nmouths; there, too, the vines and flowers have done their work of grace.\nThe rear portion of the tower has not been neglected, either, but is\nclothed with a clinging garment of polished ivy which hides the wounds\nand stains of time. Even the top is not left bare, but is crowned with a\nflourishing group of trees and shrubs. Misfortune has done for this old\ntower what it has done for the human character sometimes--improved it.\n\nA gentleman remarked, one day, that it might have been fine to live in\nthe castle in the day of its prime, but that we had one advantage which\nits vanished inhabitants lacked--the advantage of having a charming ruin\nto visit and muse over. But that was a hasty idea. Those people had the\nadvantage of US. They had the fine castle to live in, and they could\ncross the Rhine valley and muse over the stately ruin of Trifels\nbesides. The Trifels people, in their day, five hundred years ago, could\ngo and muse over majestic ruins that have vanished, now, to the last\nstone. There have always been ruins, no doubt; and there have always\nbeen pensive people to sigh over them, and asses to scratch upon them\ntheir names and the important date of their visit. Within a hundred\nyears after Adam left Eden, the guide probably gave the usual general\nflourish with his hand and said: \"Place where the animals were named,\nladies and gentlemen; place where the tree of the forbidden fruit stood;\nexact spot where Adam and Eve first met; and here, ladies and gentlemen,\nadorned and hallowed by the names and addresses of three generations of\ntourists, we have the crumbling remains of Cain's altar--fine old ruin!\"\nThen, no doubt, he taxed them a shekel apiece and let them go.\n\nAn illumination of Heidelberg Castle is one of the sights of Europe.\nThe Castle's picturesque shape; its commanding situation, midway up the\nsteep and wooded mountainside; its vast size--these features combine to\nmake an illumination a most effective spectacle. It is necessarily an\nexpensive show, and consequently rather infrequent. Therefore whenever\none of these exhibitions is to take place, the news goes about in the\npapers and Heidelberg is sure to be full of people on that night. I and\nmy agent had one of these opportunities, and improved it.\n\nAbout half past seven on the appointed evening we crossed the lower\nbridge, with some American students, in a pouring rain, and started up\nthe road which borders the Neunheim side of the river. This roadway was\ndensely packed with carriages and foot-passengers; the former of all\nages, and the latter of all ages and both sexes. This black and solid\nmass was struggling painfully onward, through the slop, the darkness,\nand the deluge. We waded along for three-quarters of a mile, and finally\ntook up a position in an unsheltered beer-garden directly opposite\nthe Castle. We could not SEE the Castle--or anything else, for that\nmatter--but we could dimly discern the outlines of the mountain over the\nway, through the pervading blackness, and knew whereabouts the Castle\nwas located. We stood on one of the hundred benches in the garden, under\nour umbrellas; the other ninety-nine were occupied by standing men and\nwomen, and they also had umbrellas. All the region round about, and up\nand down the river-road, was a dense wilderness of humanity hidden\nunder an unbroken pavement of carriage tops and umbrellas. Thus we stood\nduring two drenching hours. No rain fell on my head, but the converging\nwhalebone points of a dozen neighboring umbrellas poured little cooling\nsteams of water down my neck, and sometimes into my ears, and thus kept\nme from getting hot and impatient. I had the rheumatism, too, and\nhad heard that this was good for it. Afterward, however, I was led to\nbelieve that the water treatment is NOT good for rheumatism. There were\neven little girls in that dreadful place. A man held one in his arms,\njust in front of me, for as much as an hour, with umbrella-drippings\nsoaking into her clothing all the time.\n\nIn the circumstances, two hours was a good while for us to have to wait,\nbut when the illumination did at last come, we felt repaid. It came\nunexpectedly, of course--things always do, that have been long looked\nand longed for. With a perfectly breath-taking suddenness several mast\nsheaves of varicolored rockets were vomited skyward out of the black\nthroats of the Castle towers, accompanied by a thundering crash of\nsound, and instantly every detail of the prodigious ruin stood revealed\nagainst the mountainside and glowing with an almost intolerable splendor\nof fire and color. For some little time the whole building was a\nblinding crimson mass, the towers continued to spout thick columns of\nrockets aloft, and overhead the sky was radiant with arrowy bolts which\nclove their way to the zenith, paused, curved gracefully downward, then\nburst into brilliant fountain-sprays of richly colored sparks. The red\nfires died slowly down, within the Castle, and presently the shell grew\nnearly black outside; the angry glare that shone out through the broken\narches and innumerable sashless windows, now, reproduced the aspect\nwhich the Castle must have borne in the old time when the French\nspoilers saw the monster bonfire which they had made there fading and\nspoiling toward extinction.\n\nWhile we still gazed and enjoyed, the ruin was suddenly enveloped in\nrolling and rumbling volumes of vaporous green fire; then in dazzling\npurple ones; then a mixture of many colors followed, then drowned the\ngreat fabric in its blended splendors. Meantime the nearest bridge had\nbeen illuminated, and from several rafts anchored in the river, meteor\nshowers of rockets, Roman candles, bombs, serpents, and Catharine wheels\nwere being discharged in wasteful profusion into the sky--a marvelous\nsight indeed to a person as little used to such spectacles as I was. For\na while the whole region about us seemed as bright as day, and yet the\nrain was falling in torrents all the time. The evening's entertainment\npresently closed, and we joined the innumerable caravan of half-drowned\nstrangers, and waded home again.\n\nThe Castle grounds are very ample and very beautiful; and as they joined\nthe Hotel grounds, with no fences to climb, but only some nobly shaded\nstone stairways to descend, we spent a part of nearly every day in\nidling through their smooth walks and leafy groves. There was an\nattractive spot among the trees where were a great many wooden tables\nand benches; and there one could sit in the shade and pretend to sip at\nhis foamy beaker of beer while he inspected the crowd. I say pretend,\nbecause I only pretended to sip, without really sipping. That is the\npolite way; but when you are ready to go, you empty the beaker at a\ndraught. There was a brass band, and it furnished excellent music every\nafternoon. Sometimes so many people came that every seat was occupied,\nevery table filled. And never a rough in the assemblage--all nicely\ndressed fathers and mothers, young gentlemen and ladies and children;\nand plenty of university students and glittering officers; with here and\nthere a gray professor, or a peaceful old lady with her knitting; and\nalways a sprinkling of gawky foreigners. Everybody had his glass of\nbeer before him, or his cup of coffee, or his bottle of wine, or his\nhot cutlet and potatoes; young ladies chatted, or fanned themselves, or\nwrought at their crocheting or embroidering; the students fed sugar to\ntheir dogs, or discussed duels, or illustrated new fencing tricks\nwith their little canes; and everywhere was comfort and enjoyment, and\neverywhere peace and good-will to men. The trees were jubilant with\nbirds, and the paths with rollicking children. One could have a seat in\nthat place and plenty of music, any afternoon, for about eight cents, or\na family ticket for the season for two dollars.\n\nFor a change, when you wanted one, you could stroll to the Castle, and\nburrow among its dungeons, or climb about its ruined towers, or visit\nits interior shows--the great Heidelberg Tun, for instance. Everybody\nhas heard of the great Heidelberg Tun, and most people have seen it, no\ndoubt. It is a wine-cask as big as a cottage, and some traditions say\nit holds eighteen thousand bottles, and other traditions say it holds\neighteen hundred million barrels. I think it likely that one of these\nstatements is a mistake, and the other is a lie. However, the mere\nmatter of capacity is a thing of no sort of consequence, since the cask\nis empty, and indeed has always been empty, history says. An empty cask\nthe size of a cathedral could excite but little emotion in me.\n\n\nI do not see any wisdom in building a monster cask to hoard up emptiness\nin, when you can get a better quality, outside, any day, free of\nexpense. What could this cask have been built for? The more one studies\nover that, the more uncertain and unhappy he becomes. Some historians\nsay that thirty couples, some say thirty thousand couples, can dance on\nthe head of this cask at the same time. Even this does not seem to me\nto account for the building of it. It does not even throw light on it. A\nprofound and scholarly Englishman--a specialist--who had made the great\nHeidelberg Tun his sole study for fifteen years, told me he had at last\nsatisfied himself that the ancients built it to make German cream in.\nHe said that the average German cow yielded from one to two and half\nteaspoons of milk, when she was not worked in the plow or the hay-wagon\nmore than eighteen or nineteen hours a day. This milk was very sweet and\ngood, and a beautiful transparent bluish tint; but in order to get cream\nfrom it in the most economical way, a peculiar process was necessary.\nNow he believed that the habit of the ancients was to collect several\nmilkings in a teacup, pour it into the Great Tun, fill up with water,\nand then skim off the cream from time to time as the needs of the German\nEmpire demanded.\n\nThis began to look reasonable. It certainly began to account for the\nGerman cream which I had encountered and marveled over in so many hotels\nand restaurants. But a thought struck me--\n\n\"Why did not each ancient dairyman take his own teacup of milk and his\nown cask of water, and mix them, without making a government matter of\nit?'\n\n\"Where could he get a cask large enough to contain the right proportion\nof water?\"\n\nVery true. It was plain that the Englishman had studied the matter from\nall sides. Still I thought I might catch him on one point; so I asked\nhim why the modern empire did not make the nation's cream in the\nHeidelberg Tun, instead of leaving it to rot away unused. But he\nanswered as one prepared--\n\n\"A patient and diligent examination of the modern German cream had\nsatisfied me that they do not use the Great Tun now, because they have\ngot a BIGGER one hid away somewhere. Either that is the case or they\nempty the spring milkings into the mountain torrents and then skim the\nRhine all summer.\"\n\nThere is a museum of antiquities in the Castle, and among its most\ntreasured relics are ancient manuscripts connected with German history.\nThere are hundreds of these, and their dates stretch back through many\ncenturies. One of them is a decree signed and sealed by the hand of a\nsuccessor of Charlemagne, in the year 896. A signature made by a hand\nwhich vanished out of this life near a thousand years ago, is a more\nimpressive thing than even a ruined castle. Luther's wedding-ring was\nshown me; also a fork belonging to a time anterior to our era, and an\nearly bootjack. And there was a plaster cast of the head of a man who\nwas assassinated about sixty years ago. The stab-wounds in the face\nwere duplicated with unpleasant fidelity. One or two real hairs still\nremained sticking in the eyebrows of the cast. That trifle seemed to\nalmost change the counterfeit into a corpse.\n\nThere are many aged portraits--some valuable, some worthless; some of\ngreat interest, some of none at all. I bought a couple--one a gorgeous\nduke of the olden time, and the other a comely blue-eyed damsel,\na princess, maybe. I bought them to start a portrait-gallery of my\nancestors with. I paid a dollar and a half for the duke and a half for\nthe princess. One can lay in ancestors at even cheaper rates than these,\nin Europe, if he will mouse among old picture shops and look out for\nchances.\n\n\nAPPENDIX C.\n\nThe College Prison It seems that the student may break a good many of\nthe public laws without having to answer to the public authorities.\nHis case must come before the University for trial and punishment. If a\npoliceman catches him in an unlawful act and proceeds to arrest him,\nthe offender proclaims that he is a student, and perhaps shows his\nmatriculation card, whereupon the officer asks for his address, then\ngoes his way, and reports the matter at headquarters. If the offense is\none over which the city has no jurisdiction, the authorities report\nthe case officially to the University, and give themselves no further\nconcern about it. The University court send for the student, listen to\nthe evidence, and pronounce judgment. The punishment usually inflicted\nis imprisonment in the University prison. As I understand it, a\nstudent's case is often tried without his being present at all.\nThen something like this happens: A constable in the service of the\nUniversity visits the lodgings of the said student, knocks, is invited\nto come in, does so, and says politely--\n\n\"If you please, I am here to conduct you to prison.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" says the student, \"I was not expecting it. What have I been\ndoing?\"\n\n\"Two weeks ago the public peace had the honor to be disturbed by you.\"\n\n\"It is true; I had forgotten it. Very well: I have been complained of,\ntried, and found guilty--is that it?\"\n\n\"Exactly. You are sentenced to two days' solitary confinement in the\nCollege prison, and I am sent to fetch you.\"\n\nSTUDENT. \"O, I can't go today.\"\n\nOFFICER. \"If you please--why?\"\n\nSTUDENT. \"Because I've got an engagement.\"\n\nOFFICER. \"Tomorrow, then, perhaps?\"\n\nSTUDENT. \"No, I am going to the opera, tomorrow.\"\n\nOFFICER. \"Could you come Friday?\"\n\nSTUDENT. (Reflectively.) \"Let me see--Friday--Friday. I don't seem to\nhave anything on hand Friday.\"\n\nOFFICER. \"Then, if you please, I will expect you on Friday.\"\n\nSTUDENT. \"All right, I'll come around Friday.\"\n\nOFFICER. \"Thank you. Good day, sir.\"\n\nSTUDENT. \"Good day.\"\n\nSo on Friday the student goes to the prison of his own accord, and is\nadmitted.\n\nIt is questionable if the world's criminal history can show a custom\nmore odd than this. Nobody knows, now, how it originated. There have\nalways been many noblemen among the students, and it is presumed that\nall students are gentlemen; in the old times it was usual to mar the\nconvenience of such folk as little as possible; perhaps this indulgent\ncustom owes its origin to this.\n\nOne day I was listening to some conversation upon this subject when an\nAmerican student said that for some time he had been under sentence\nfor a slight breach of the peace and had promised the constable that he\nwould presently find an unoccupied day and betake himself to prison. I\nasked the young gentleman to do me the kindness to go to jail as soon\nas he conveniently could, so that I might try to get in there and visit\nhim, and see what college captivity was like. He said he would appoint\nthe very first day he could spare.\n\nHis confinement was to endure twenty-four hours. He shortly chose\nhis day, and sent me word. I started immediately. When I reached the\nUniversity Place, I saw two gentlemen talking together, and, as they\nhad portfolios under their arms, I judged they were tutors or elderly\nstudents; so I asked them in English to show me the college jail. I\nhad learned to take it for granted that anybody in Germany who knows\nanything, knows English, so I had stopped afflicting people with my\nGerman. These gentlemen seemed a trifle amused--and a trifle confused,\ntoo--but one of them said he would walk around the corner with me and\nshow me the place. He asked me why I wanted to get in there, and I said\nto see a friend--and for curiosity. He doubted if I would be admitted,\nbut volunteered to put in a word or two for me with the custodian.\n\nHe rang the bell, a door opened, and we stepped into a paved way and\nthen up into a small living-room, where we were received by a hearty\nand good-natured German woman of fifty. She threw up her hands with a\nsurprised \"ACH GOTT, HERR PROFESSOR!\" and exhibited a mighty deference\nfor my new acquaintance. By the sparkle in her eye I judged she was a\ngood deal amused, too. The \"Herr Professor\" talked to her in German, and\nI understood enough of it to know that he was bringing very plausible\nreasons to bear for admitting me. They were successful. So the Herr\nProfessor received my earnest thanks and departed. The old dame got her\nkeys, took me up two or three flights of stairs, unlocked a door, and\nwe stood in the presence of the criminal. Then she went into a jolly and\neager description of all that had occurred downstairs, and what the Herr\nProfessor had said, and so forth and so on. Plainly, she regarded it as\nquite a superior joke that I had waylaid a Professor and employed him\nin so odd a service. But I wouldn't have done it if I had known he was a\nProfessor; therefore my conscience was not disturbed.\n\nNow the dame left us to ourselves. The cell was not a roomy one; still\nit was a little larger than an ordinary prison cell. It had a window\nof good size, iron-grated; a small stove; two wooden chairs; two oaken\ntables, very old and most elaborately carved with names, mottoes, faces,\narmorial bearings, etc.--the work of several generations of imprisoned\nstudents; and a narrow wooden bedstead with a villainous straw mattress,\nbut no sheets, pillows, blankets, or coverlets--for these the student\nmust furnish at his own cost if he wants them. There was no carpet, of\ncourse.\n\nThe ceiling was completely covered with names, dates, and monograms,\ndone with candle-smoke. The walls were thickly covered with pictures and\nportraits (in profile), some done with ink, some with soot, some with a\npencil, and some with red, blue, and green chalks; and whenever an inch\nor two of space had remained between the pictures, the captives had\nwritten plaintive verses, or names and dates. I do not think I was ever\nin a more elaborately frescoed apartment.\n\nAgainst the wall hung a placard containing the prison laws. I made a\nnote of one or two of these. For instance: The prisoner must pay, for\nthe \"privilege\" of entering, a sum equivalent to 20 cents of our money;\nfor the privilege of leaving, when his term had expired, 20 cents; for\nevery day spent in the prison, 12 cents; for fire and light, 12 cents a\nday. The jailer furnishes coffee, mornings, for a small sum; dinners and\nsuppers may be ordered from outside if the prisoner chooses--and he is\nallowed to pay for them, too.\n\nHere and there, on the walls, appeared the names of American students,\nand in one place the American arms and motto were displayed in colored\nchalks.\n\nWith the help of my friend I translated many of the inscriptions.\n\nSome of them were cheerful, others the reverse. I will give the reader a\nfew specimens:\n\n\"In my tenth semester (my best one), I am cast here through the\ncomplaints of others. Let those who follow me take warning.\"\n\n\"III TAGE OHNE GRUND ANGEBLICH AUS NEUGIERDE.\" Which is to say, he had a\ncuriosity to know what prison life was like; so he made a breach in some\nlaw and got three days for it. It is more than likely that he never had\nthe same curiosity again.\n\n(TRANSLATION.) \"E. Glinicke, four days for being too eager a spectator\nof a row.\"\n\n\"F. Graf Bismarck--27-29, II, '74.\" Which means that Count Bismarck, son\nof the great statesman, was a prisoner two days in 1874.\n\n\n(TRANSLATION.) \"R. Diergandt--for Love--4 days.\" Many people in this\nworld have caught it heavier than for the same indiscretion.\n\nThis one is terse. I translate:\n\n\"Four weeks for MISINTERPRETED GALLANTRY.\" I wish the sufferer had\nexplained a little more fully. A four-week term is a rather serious\nmatter.\n\nThere were many uncomplimentary references, on the walls, to a certain\nunpopular dignitary. One sufferer had got three days for not saluting\nhim. Another had \"here two days slept and three nights lain awake,\"\non account of this same \"Dr. K.\" In one place was a picture of Dr. K.\nhanging on a gallows.\n\nHere and there, lonesome prisoners had eased the heavy time by altering\nthe records left by predecessors. Leaving the name standing, and the\ndate and length of the captivity, they had erased the description of the\nmisdemeanor, and written in its place, in staring capitals, \"FOR THEFT!\"\nor \"FOR MURDER!\" or some other gaudy crime. In one place, all by itself,\nstood this blood-curdling word:\n\n\"Rache!\" [1]\n\n1. \"Revenge!\"\n\nThere was no name signed, and no date. It was an inscription well\ncalculated to pique curiosity. One would greatly like to know the nature\nof the wrong that had been done, and what sort of vengeance was wanted,\nand whether the prisoner ever achieved it or not. But there was no way\nof finding out these things.\n\nOccasionally, a name was followed simply by the remark, \"II days, for\ndisturbing the peace,\" and without comment upon the justice or injustice\nof the sentence.\n\nIn one place was a hilarious picture of a student of the green cap\ncorps with a bottle of champagne in each hand; and below was the legend:\n\"These make an evil fate endurable.\"\n\nThere were two prison cells, and neither had space left on walls or\nceiling for another name or portrait or picture. The inside surfaces of\nthe two doors were completely covered with CARTES DE VISITE of former\nprisoners, ingeniously let into the wood and protected from dirt and\ninjury by glass.\n\nI very much wanted one of the sorry old tables which the prisoners had\nspent so many years in ornamenting with their pocket-knives, but red\ntape was in the way. The custodian could not sell one without an\norder from a superior; and that superior would have to get it from HIS\nsuperior; and this one would have to get it from a higher one--and so on\nup and up until the faculty should sit on the matter and deliver final\njudgment. The system was right, and nobody could find fault with it; but\nit did not seem justifiable to bother so many people, so I proceeded no\nfurther. It might have cost me more than I could afford, anyway; for\none of those prison tables, which was at the time in a private museum\nin Heidelberg, was afterward sold at auction for two hundred and fifty\ndollars. It was not worth more than a dollar, or possibly a dollar and\nhalf, before the captive students began their work on it. Persons who\nsaw it at the auction said it was so curiously and wonderfully carved\nthat it was worth the money that was paid for it.\n\nAmong them many who have tasted the college prison's dreary hospitality\nwas a lively young fellow from one of the Southern states of America,\nwhose first year's experience of German university life was rather\npeculiar. The day he arrived in Heidelberg he enrolled his name on the\ncollege books, and was so elated with the fact that his dearest hope\nhad found fruition and he was actually a student of the old and renowned\nuniversity, that he set to work that very night to celebrate the event\nby a grand lark in company with some other students. In the course of\nhis lark he managed to make a wide breach in one of the university's\nmost stringent laws. Sequel: before noon, next day, he was in the\ncollege prison--booked for three months. The twelve long weeks dragged\nslowly by, and the day of deliverance came at last. A great crowd of\nsympathizing fellow-students received him with a rousing demonstration\nas he came forth, and of course there was another grand lark--in the\ncourse of which he managed to make a wide breach of the CITY'S most\nstringent laws. Sequel: before noon, next day, he was safe in the city\nlockup--booked for three months. This second tedious captivity drew to\nan end in the course of time, and again a great crowd of sympathizing\nfellow students gave him a rousing reception as he came forth; but\nhis delight in his freedom was so boundless that he could not proceed\nsoberly and calmly, but must go hopping and skipping and jumping down\nthe sleety street from sheer excess of joy. Sequel: he slipped and broke\nhis leg, and actually lay in the hospital during the next three months!\n\nWhen he at last became a free man again, he said he believed he would\nhunt up a brisker seat of learning; the Heidelberg lectures might\nbe good, but the opportunities of attending them were too rare, the\neducational process too slow; he said he had come to Europe with the\nidea that the acquirement of an education was only a matter of time,\nbut if he had averaged the Heidelberg system correctly, it was rather a\nmatter of eternity.\n\n\nAPPENDIX D.\n\nThe Awful German Language\n\n   A little learning makes the whole world kin.\n                 --Proverbs xxxii, 7.\n\nI went often to look at the collection of curiosities in Heidelberg\nCastle, and one day I surprised the keeper of it with my German. I spoke\nentirely in that language. He was greatly interested; and after I had\ntalked a while he said my German was very rare, possibly a \"unique\"; and\nwanted to add it to his museum.\n\nIf he had known what it had cost me to acquire my art, he would also\nhave known that it would break any collector to buy it. Harris and I had\nbeen hard at work on our German during several weeks at that time, and\nalthough we had made good progress, it had been accomplished under great\ndifficulty and annoyance, for three of our teachers had died in the mean\ntime. A person who has not studied German can form no idea of what a\nperplexing language it is.\n\nSurely there is not another language that is so slipshod and systemless,\nand so slippery and elusive to the grasp. One is washed about in it,\nhither and thither, in the most helpless way; and when at last he thinks\nhe has captured a rule which offers firm ground to take a rest on amid\nthe general rage and turmoil of the ten parts of speech, he turns over\nthe page and reads, \"Let the pupil make careful note of the following\nEXCEPTIONS.\" He runs his eye down and finds that there are more\nexceptions to the rule than instances of it. So overboard he goes again,\nto hunt for another Ararat and find another quicksand. Such has been,\nand continues to be, my experience. Every time I think I have got one\nof these four confusing \"cases\" where I am master of it, a seemingly\ninsignificant preposition intrudes itself into my sentence, clothed with\nan awful and unsuspected power, and crumbles the ground from under\nme. For instance, my book inquires after a certain bird--(it is always\ninquiring after things which are of no sort of consequence to anybody):\n\"Where is the bird?\" Now the answer to this question--according to the\nbook--is that the bird is waiting in the blacksmith shop on account of\nthe rain. Of course no bird would do that, but then you must stick to\nthe book. Very well, I begin to cipher out the German for that answer. I\nbegin at the wrong end, necessarily, for that is the German idea. I\nsay to myself, \"REGEN (rain) is masculine--or maybe it is feminine--or\npossibly neuter--it is too much trouble to look now. Therefore, it\nis either DER (the) Regen, or DIE (the) Regen, or DAS (the) Regen,\naccording to which gender it may turn out to be when I look. In the\ninterest of science, I will cipher it out on the hypothesis that it is\nmasculine. Very well--then THE rain is DER Regen, if it is simply in\nthe quiescent state of being MENTIONED, without enlargement or\ndiscussion--Nominative case; but if this rain is lying around, in a kind\nof a general way on the ground, it is then definitely located, it is\nDOING SOMETHING--that is, RESTING (which is one of the German grammar's\nideas of doing something), and this throws the rain into the Dative\ncase, and makes it DEM Regen. However, this rain is not resting, but is\ndoing something ACTIVELY,--it is falling--to interfere with the bird,\nlikely--and this indicates MOVEMENT, which has the effect of sliding it\ninto the Accusative case and changing DEM Regen into DEN Regen.\"\nHaving completed the grammatical horoscope of this matter, I answer\nup confidently and state in German that the bird is staying in the\nblacksmith shop \"wegen (on account of) DEN Regen.\" Then the teacher lets\nme softly down with the remark that whenever the word \"wegen\" drops\ninto a sentence, it ALWAYS throws that subject into the GENITIVE case,\nregardless of consequences--and therefore this bird stayed in the\nblacksmith shop \"wegen DES Regens.\"\n\nN.B.--I was informed, later, by a higher authority, that there was\nan \"exception\" which permits one to say \"wegen DEN Regen\" in certain\npeculiar and complex circumstances, but that this exception is not\nextended to anything BUT rain.\n\nThere are ten parts of speech, and they are all troublesome. An average\nsentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity;\nit occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the ten parts of\nspeech--not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound\nwords constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in\nany dictionary--six or seven words compacted into one, without joint\nor seam--that is, without hyphens; it treats of fourteen or fifteen\ndifferent subjects, each enclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here\nand there extra parentheses, making pens within pens: finally, all the\nparentheses and reparentheses are massed together between a couple\nof king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first line of the\nmajestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line of\nit--AFTER WHICH COMES THE VERB, and you find out for the first time what\nthe man has been talking about; and after the verb--merely by way of\nornament, as far as I can make out--the writer shovels in \"HABEN SIND\nGEWESEN GEHABT HAVEN GEWORDEN SEIN,\" or words to that effect, and the\nmonument is finished. I suppose that this closing hurrah is in the\nnature of the flourish to a man's signature--not necessary, but pretty.\nGerman books are easy enough to read when you hold them before\nthe looking-glass or stand on your head--so as to reverse the\nconstruction--but I think that to learn to read and understand a German\nnewspaper is a thing which must always remain an impossibility to a\nforeigner.\n\nYet even the German books are not entirely free from attacks of the\nParenthesis distemper--though they are usually so mild as to cover only\na few lines, and therefore when you at last get down to the verb it\ncarries some meaning to your mind because you are able to remember a\ngood deal of what has gone before. Now here is a sentence from a popular\nand excellent German novel--with a slight parenthesis in it. I will make\na perfectly literal translation, and throw in the parenthesis-marks and\nsome hyphens for the assistance of the reader--though in the original\nthere are no parenthesis-marks or hyphens, and the reader is left to\nflounder through to the remote verb the best way he can:\n\n\"But when he, upon the street, the\n(in-satin-and-silk-covered-now-very-unconstrained-after-the-newest-fashioned-dressed)\ngovernment counselor's wife MET,\" etc., etc. [1]\n\n1. Wenn er aber auf der Strasse der in Sammt und Seide gehuellten\njetz sehr ungenirt nach der neusten mode gekleideten Regierungsrathin\nbegegnet.\n\nThat is from THE OLD MAMSELLE'S SECRET, by Mrs. Marlitt. And that\nsentence is constructed upon the most approved German model. You observe\nhow far that verb is from the reader's base of operations; well, in a\nGerman newspaper they put their verb away over on the next page; and\nI have heard that sometimes after stringing along the exciting\npreliminaries and parentheses for a column or two, they get in a hurry\nand have to go to press without getting to the verb at all. Of course,\nthen, the reader is left in a very exhausted and ignorant state.\n\nWe have the Parenthesis disease in our literature, too; and one may see\ncases of it every day in our books and newspapers: but with us it is the\nmark and sign of an unpracticed writer or a cloudy intellect, whereas\nwith the Germans it is doubtless the mark and sign of a practiced pen\nand of the presence of that sort of luminous intellectual fog\nwhich stands for clearness among these people. For surely it is NOT\nclearness--it necessarily can't be clearness. Even a jury would have\npenetration enough to discover that. A writer's ideas must be a good\ndeal confused, a good deal out of line and sequence, when he starts out\nto say that a man met a counselor's wife in the street, and then right\nin the midst of this so simple undertaking halts these approaching\npeople and makes them stand still until he jots down an inventory of the\nwoman's dress. That is manifestly absurd. It reminds a person of those\ndentists who secure your instant and breathless interest in a tooth by\ntaking a grip on it with the forceps, and then stand there and\ndrawl through a tedious anecdote before they give the dreaded jerk.\nParentheses in literature and dentistry are in bad taste.\n\nThe Germans have another kind of parenthesis, which they make by\nsplitting a verb in two and putting half of it at the beginning of\nan exciting chapter and the OTHER HALF at the end of it. Can any one\nconceive of anything more confusing than that? These things are called\n\"separable verbs.\" The German grammar is blistered all over with\nseparable verbs; and the wider the two portions of one of them are\nspread apart, the better the author of the crime is pleased with his\nperformance. A favorite one is REISTE AB--which means departed. Here is\nan example which I culled from a novel and reduced to English:\n\n\"The trunks being now ready, he DE- after kissing his mother and\nsisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who,\ndressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the ample\nfolds of her rich brown hair, had tottered feebly down the stairs, still\npale from the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing to\nlay her poor aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom she\nloved more dearly than life itself, PARTED.\"\n\nHowever, it is not well to dwell too much on the separable verbs. One is\nsure to lose his temper early; and if he sticks to the subject, and will\nnot be warned, it will at last either soften his brain or petrify\nit. Personal pronouns and adjectives are a fruitful nuisance in this\nlanguage, and should have been left out. For instance, the same sound,\nSIE, means YOU, and it means SHE, and it means HER, and it means IT,\nand it means THEY, and it means THEM. Think of the ragged poverty of\na language which has to make one word do the work of six--and a poor\nlittle weak thing of only three letters at that. But mainly, think of\nthe exasperation of never knowing which of these meanings the speaker is\ntrying to convey. This explains why, whenever a person says SIE to me, I\ngenerally try to kill him, if a stranger.\n\nNow observe the Adjective. Here was a case where simplicity would have\nbeen an advantage; therefore, for no other reason, the inventor of this\nlanguage complicated it all he could. When we wish to speak of our \"good\nfriend or friends,\" in our enlightened tongue, we stick to the one form\nand have no trouble or hard feeling about it; but with the German\ntongue it is different. When a German gets his hands on an adjective,\nhe declines it, and keeps on declining it until the common sense is all\ndeclined out of it. It is as bad as Latin. He says, for instance:\n\nSINGULAR\n\nNominative--Mein gutER Freund, my good friend. Genitives--MeinES GutEN\nFreundES, of my good friend. Dative--MeinEM gutEN Freund, to my good\nfriend. Accusative--MeinEN gutEN Freund, my good friend.\n\nPLURAL\n\nN.--MeinE gutEN FreundE, my good friends. G.--MeinER gutEN FreundE,\nof my good friends. D.--MeinEN gutEN FreundEN, to my good friends.\nA.--MeinE gutEN FreundE, my good friends.\n\nNow let the candidate for the asylum try to memorize those variations,\nand see how soon he will be elected. One might better go without friends\nin Germany than take all this trouble about them. I have shown what a\nbother it is to decline a good (male) friend; well this is only a third\nof the work, for there is a variety of new distortions of the adjective\nto be learned when the object is feminine, and still another when the\nobject is neuter. Now there are more adjectives in this language than\nthere are black cats in Switzerland, and they must all be as\nelaborately declined as the examples above suggested.\nDifficult?--troublesome?--these words cannot describe it. I heard a\nCalifornian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, that\nhe would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective.\n\nThe inventor of the language seems to have taken pleasure in\ncomplicating it in every way he could think of. For instance, if one is\ncasually referring to a house, HAUS, or a horse, PFERD, or a dog, HUND,\nhe spells these words as I have indicated; but if he is referring to\nthem in the Dative case, he sticks on a foolish and unnecessary E and\nspells them HAUSE, PFERDE, HUNDE. So, as an added E often signifies the\nplural, as the S does with us, the new student is likely to go on for a\nmonth making twins out of a Dative dog before he discovers his mistake;\nand on the other hand, many a new student who could ill afford loss,\nhas bought and paid for two dogs and only got one of them, because\nhe ignorantly bought that dog in the Dative singular when he really\nsupposed he was talking plural--which left the law on the seller's side,\nof course, by the strict rules of grammar, and therefore a suit for\nrecovery could not lie.\n\nIn German, all the Nouns begin with a capital letter. Now that is a good\nidea; and a good idea, in this language, is necessarily conspicuous from\nits lonesomeness. I consider this capitalizing of nouns a good idea,\nbecause by reason of it you are almost always able to tell a noun the\nminute you see it. You fall into error occasionally, because you mistake\nthe name of a person for the name of a thing, and waste a good deal of\ntime trying to dig a meaning out of it. German names almost always do\nmean something, and this helps to deceive the student. I translated a\npassage one day, which said that \"the infuriated tigress broke loose\nand utterly ate up the unfortunate fir forest\" (Tannenwald). When I was\ngirding up my loins to doubt this, I found out that Tannenwald in this\ninstance was a man's name.\n\nEvery noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the\ndistribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by\nheart. There is no other way. To do this one has to have a memory like a\nmemorandum-book. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has.\nThink what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what\ncallous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print--I translate\nthis from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school\nbooks:\n\n\"Gretchen. Wilhelm, where is the turnip?\n\n\"Wilhelm. She has gone to the kitchen.\n\n\"Gretchen. Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?\n\n\"Wilhelm. It has gone to the opera.\"\n\nTo continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds are\nfemale, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats\nare female--tomcats included, of course; a person's mouth, neck, bosom,\nelbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head\nis male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and NOT\naccording to the sex of the individual who wears it--for in Germany all\nthe women wear either male heads or sexless ones; a person's nose, lips,\nshoulders, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair,\nears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven't any sex\nat all. The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about a\nconscience from hearsay.\n\nNow, by the above dissection, the reader will see that in Germany a\nman may THINK he is a man, but when he comes to look into the matter\nclosely, he is bound to have his doubts; he finds that in sober truth\nhe is a most ridiculous mixture; and if he ends by trying to comfort\nhimself with the thought that he can at least depend on a third of this\nmess as being manly and masculine, the humiliating second thought will\nquickly remind him that in this respect he is no better off than any\nwoman or cow in the land.\n\nIn the German it is true that by some oversight of the inventor of\nthe language, a Woman is a female; but a Wife (Weib) is not--which is\nunfortunate. A Wife, here, has no sex; she is neuter; so, according\nto the grammar, a fish is HE, his scales are SHE, but a fishwife is\nneither. To describe a wife as sexless may be called under-description;\nthat is bad enough, but over-description is surely worse. A German\nspeaks of an Englishman as the ENGL\u00c4NNDER; to change the sex, he\nadds INN, and that stands for Englishwoman--ENGL\u00c4NDERINN. That seems\ndescriptive enough, but still it is not exact enough for a German; so he\nprecedes the word with that article which indicates that the creature to\nfollow is feminine, and writes it down thus: \"die Engl\u00e4nderinn,\"--which\nmeans \"the she-Englishwoman.\" I consider that that person is\nover-described.\n\nWell, after the student has learned the sex of a great number of nouns,\nhe is still in a difficulty, because he finds it impossible to persuade\nhis tongue to refer to things as \"he\" and \"she,\" and \"him\" and \"her,\"\nwhich it has been always accustomed to refer to as \"it.\" When he even\nframes a German sentence in his mind, with the hims and hers in the\nright places, and then works up his courage to the utterance-point, it\nis no use--the moment he begins to speak his tongue flies the track and\nall those labored males and females come out as \"its.\" And even when he\nis reading German to himself, he always calls those things \"it,\" whereas\nhe ought to read in this way:\n\nTALE OF THE FISHWIFE AND ITS SAD FATE [2]\n\n2. I capitalize the nouns, in the German (and ancient English) fashion.\n\nIt is a bleak Day. Hear the Rain, how he pours, and the Hail, how he\nrattles; and see the Snow, how he drifts along, and of the Mud, how\ndeep he is! Ah the poor Fishwife, it is stuck fast in the Mire; it has\ndropped its Basket of Fishes; and its Hands have been cut by the Scales\nas it seized some of the falling Creatures; and one Scale has even got\ninto its Eye, and it cannot get her out. It opens its Mouth to cry\nfor Help; but if any Sound comes out of him, alas he is drowned by the\nraging of the Storm. And now a Tomcat has got one of the Fishes and she\nwill surely escape with him. No, she bites off a Fin, she holds her in\nher Mouth--will she swallow her? No, the Fishwife's brave Mother-dog\ndeserts his Puppies and rescues the Fin--which he eats, himself, as his\nReward. O, horror, the Lightning has struck the Fish-basket; he sets him\non Fire; see the Flame, how she licks the doomed Utensil with her red\nand angry Tongue; now she attacks the helpless Fishwife's Foot--she\nburns him up, all but the big Toe, and even SHE is partly consumed; and\nstill she spreads, still she waves her fiery Tongues; she attacks the\nFishwife's Leg and destroys IT; she attacks its Hand and destroys HER\nalso; she attacks the Fishwife's Leg and destroys HER also; she attacks\nits Body and consumes HIM; she wreathes herself about its Heart and IT\nis consumed; next about its Breast, and in a Moment SHE is a Cinder; now\nshe reaches its Neck--He goes; now its Chin--IT goes; now its Nose--SHE\ngoes. In another Moment, except Help come, the Fishwife will be no more.\nTime presses--is there none to succor and save? Yes! Joy, joy,\nwith flying Feet the she-Englishwoman comes! But alas, the generous\nshe-Female is too late: where now is the fated Fishwife? It has ceased\nfrom its Sufferings, it has gone to a better Land; all that is left of\nit for its loved Ones to lament over, is this poor smoldering Ash-heap.\nAh, woeful, woeful Ash-heap! Let us take him up tenderly, reverently,\nupon the lowly Shovel, and bear him to his long Rest, with the Prayer\nthat when he rises again it will be a Realm where he will have one good\nsquare responsible Sex, and have it all to himself, instead of having a\nmangy lot of assorted Sexes scattered all over him in Spots.\n\nThere, now, the reader can see for himself that this pronoun business is\na very awkward thing for the unaccustomed tongue. I suppose that in all\nlanguages the similarities of look and sound between words which have\nno similarity in meaning are a fruitful source of perplexity to the\nforeigner. It is so in our tongue, and it is notably the case in the\nGerman. Now there is that troublesome word VERM\u00c4HLT: to me it has so\nclose a resemblance--either real or fancied--to three or four other\nwords, that I never know whether it means despised, painted, suspected,\nor married; until I look in the dictionary, and then I find it means the\nlatter. There are lots of such words and they are a great torment. To\nincrease the difficulty there are words which SEEM to resemble each\nother, and yet do not; but they make just as much trouble as if they\ndid. For instance, there is the word VERMIETHEN (to let, to lease, to\nhire); and the word VERHEIRATHEN (another way of saying to marry). I\nheard of an Englishman who knocked at a man's door in Heidelberg and\nproposed, in the best German he could command, to \"verheirathen\" that\nhouse. Then there are some words which mean one thing when you emphasize\nthe first syllable, but mean something very different if you throw the\nemphasis on the last syllable. For instance, there is a word which\nmeans a runaway, or the act of glancing through a book, according to the\nplacing of the emphasis; and another word which signifies to\nASSOCIATE with a man, or to AVOID him, according to where you put the\nemphasis--and you can generally depend on putting it in the wrong place\nand getting into trouble.\n\nThere are some exceedingly useful words in this language. SCHLAG, for\nexample; and ZUG. There are three-quarters of a column of SCHLAGS in the\ndictonary, and a column and a half of ZUGS. The word SCHLAG means Blow,\nStroke, Dash, Hit, Shock, Clap, Slap, Time, Bar, Coin, Stamp,\nKind, Sort, Manner, Way, Apoplexy, Wood-cutting, Enclosure, Field,\nForest-clearing. This is its simple and EXACT meaning--that is to say,\nits restricted, its fettered meaning; but there are ways by which\nyou can set it free, so that it can soar away, as on the wings of the\nmorning, and never be at rest. You can hang any word you please to\nits tail, and make it mean anything you want to. You can begin\nwith SCHLAG-ADER, which means artery, and you can hang on the whole\ndictionary, word by word, clear through the alphabet to SCHLAG-WASSER,\nwhich means bilge-water--and including SCHLAG-MUTTER, which means\nmother-in-law.\n\nJust the same with ZUG. Strictly speaking, ZUG means Pull, Tug, Draught,\nProcession, March, Progress, Flight, Direction, Expedition, Train,\nCaravan, Passage, Stroke, Touch, Line, Flourish, Trait of Character,\nFeature, Lineament, Chess-move, Organ-stop, Team, Whiff, Bias, Drawer,\nPropensity, Inhalation, Disposition: but that thing which it does NOT\nmean--when all its legitimate pennants have been hung on, has not been\ndiscovered yet.\n\nOne cannot overestimate the usefulness of SCHLAG and ZUG. Armed just\nwith these two, and the word ALSO, what cannot the foreigner on German\nsoil accomplish? The German word ALSO is the equivalent of the English\nphrase \"You know,\" and does not mean anything at all--in TALK, though\nit sometimes does in print. Every time a German opens his mouth an\nALSO falls out; and every time he shuts it he bites one in two that was\ntrying to GET out.\n\nNow, the foreigner, equipped with these three noble words, is master of\nthe situation. Let him talk right along, fearlessly; let him pour his\nindifferent German forth, and when he lacks for a word, let him heave a\nSCHLAG into the vacuum; all the chances are that it fits it like a\nplug, but if it doesn't let him promptly heave a ZUG after it; the two\ntogether can hardly fail to bung the hole; but if, by a miracle, they\nSHOULD fail, let him simply say ALSO! and this will give him a moment's\nchance to think of the needful word. In Germany, when you load your\nconversational gun it is always best to throw in a SCHLAG or two and a\nZUG or two, because it doesn't make any difference how much the rest of\nthe charge may scatter, you are bound to bag something with THEM. Then\nyou blandly say ALSO, and load up again. Nothing gives such an air\nof grace and elegance and unconstraint to a German or an English\nconversation as to scatter it full of \"Also's\" or \"You knows.\"\n\nIn my note-book I find this entry:\n\nJuly 1.--In the hospital yesterday, a word of thirteen syllables was\nsuccessfully removed from a patient--a North German from near Hamburg;\nbut as most unfortunately the surgeons had opened him in the wrong\nplace, under the impression that he contained a panorama, he died. The\nsad event has cast a gloom over the whole community.\n\nThat paragraph furnishes a text for a few remarks about one of the most\ncurious and notable features of my subject--the length of German words.\nSome German words are so long that they have a perspective. Observe\nthese examples:\n\nFreundschaftsbezeigungen.\n\nDilettantenaufdringlichkeiten.\n\nStadtverordnetenversammlungen.\n\nThese things are not words, they are alphabetical processions. And they\nare not rare; one can open a German newspaper at any time and see them\nmarching majestically across the page--and if he has any imagination\nhe can see the banners and hear the music, too. They impart a martial\nthrill to the meekest subject. I take a great interest in these\ncuriosities. Whenever I come across a good one, I stuff it and put it in\nmy museum. In this way I have made quite a valuable collection. When I\nget duplicates, I exchange with other collectors, and thus increase the\nvariety of my stock. Here are some specimens which I lately bought at an\nauction sale of the effects of a bankrupt bric-a-brac hunter:\n\nGeneralstaatsverordnetenversammlungen.\n\nAlterthumswissenschaften.\n\nKinderbewahrungsanstalten.\n\nUnabh\u00e4ngigkeitserkl\u00e4rungen.\n\nWiedererstellungbestrebungen.\n\nWaffenstillstandsunterhandlungen.\n\n\nOf course when one of these grand mountain ranges goes stretching across\nthe printed page, it adorns and ennobles that literary landscape--but at\nthe same time it is a great distress to the new student, for it blocks\nup his way; he cannot crawl under it, or climb over it, or tunnel\nthrough it. So he resorts to the dictionary for help, but there is no\nhelp there. The dictionary must draw the line somewhere--so it leaves\nthis sort of words out. And it is right, because these long things are\nhardly legitimate words, but are rather combinations of words, and the\ninventor of them ought to have been killed. They are compound words with\nthe hyphens left out. The various words used in building them are in\nthe dictionary, but in a very scattered condition; so you can hunt the\nmaterials out, one by one, and get at the meaning at last, but it is a\ntedious and harassing business. I have tried this process upon some of\nthe above examples. \"Freundshaftsbezeigungen\" seems to be \"Friendship\ndemonstrations,\" which is only a foolish and clumsy way of saying\n\"demonstrations of friendship.\" \"Unabh\u00e4ngigkeitserkl\u00e4rungen\" seems to be\n\"Independencedeclarations,\" which is no improvement upon\n\"Declarations of Independence,\" so far as I can see.\n\"Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen\" seems to be\n\"General-statesrepresentativesmeetings,\" as nearly as I can get at it--a\nmere rhythmical, gushy euphemism for \"meetings of the legislature,\"\nI judge. We used to have a good deal of this sort of crime in our\nliterature, but it has gone out now. We used to speak of a thing as a\n\"never-to-be-forgotten\" circumstance, instead of cramping it into the\nsimple and sufficient word \"memorable\" and then going calmly about our\nbusiness as if nothing had happened. In those days we were not content\nto embalm the thing and bury it decently, we wanted to build a monument\nover it.\n\nBut in our newspapers the compounding-disease lingers a little to the\npresent day, but with the hyphens left out, in the German fashion. This\nis the shape it takes: instead of saying \"Mr. Simmons, clerk of the\ncounty and district courts, was in town yesterday,\" the new form puts\nit thus: \"Clerk of the County and District Courts Simmons was in town\nyesterday.\" This saves neither time nor ink, and has an awkward\nsound besides. One often sees a remark like this in our papers: \"MRS.\nAssistant District Attorney Johnson returned to her city residence\nyesterday for the season.\" That is a case of really unjustifiable\ncompounding; because it not only saves no time or trouble, but confers\na title on Mrs. Johnson which she has no right to. But these little\ninstances are trifles indeed, contrasted with the ponderous and dismal\nGerman system of piling jumbled compounds together. I wish to submit the\nfollowing local item, from a Mannheim journal, by way of illustration:\n\n\"In the daybeforeyesterdayshortlyaftereleveno'clock Night, the\ninthistownstandingtavern called 'The Wagoner' was downburnt. When the\nfire to the onthedownburninghouseresting Stork's Nest reached, flew the\nparent Storks away. But when the bytheraging, firesurrounded Nest ITSELF\ncaught Fire, straightway plunged the quickreturning Mother-Stork into\nthe Flames and died, her Wings over her young ones outspread.\"\n\nEven the cumbersome German construction is not able to take the pathos\nout of that picture--indeed, it somehow seems to strengthen it. This\nitem is dated away back yonder months ago. I could have used it sooner,\nbut I was waiting to hear from the Father-stork. I am still waiting.\n\n\"ALSO!\" If I had not shown that the German is a difficult language, I\nhave at least intended to do so. I have heard of an American student\nwho was asked how he was getting along with his German, and who answered\npromptly: \"I am not getting along at all. I have worked at it hard for\nthree level months, and all I have got to show for it is one solitary\nGerman phrase--'ZWEI GLAS'\" (two glasses of beer). He paused for a\nmoment, reflectively; then added with feeling: \"But I've got that\nSOLID!\"\n\nAnd if I have not also shown that German is a harassing and infuriating\nstudy, my execution has been at fault, and not my intent. I heard lately\nof a worn and sorely tried American student who used to fly to a certain\nGerman word for relief when he could bear up under his aggravations no\nlonger--the only word whose sound was sweet and precious to his ear and\nhealing to his lacerated spirit. This was the word DAMIT. It was only\nthe SOUND that helped him, not the meaning; [3] and so, at last, when he\nlearned that the emphasis was not on the first syllable, his only stay\nand support was gone, and he faded away and died.\n\n3. It merely means, in its general sense, \"herewith.\"\n\nI think that a description of any loud, stirring, tumultuous episode\nmust be tamer in German than in English. Our descriptive words of this\ncharacter have such a deep, strong, resonant sound, while their German\nequivalents do seem so thin and mild and energyless. Boom, burst, crash,\nroar, storm, bellow, blow, thunder, explosion; howl, cry, shout, yell,\ngroan; battle, hell. These are magnificent words; the have a force and\nmagnitude of sound befitting the things which they describe. But their\nGerman equivalents would be ever so nice to sing the children to sleep\nwith, or else my awe-inspiring ears were made for display and not for\nsuperior usefulness in analyzing sounds. Would any man want to die in a\nbattle which was called by so tame a term as a SCHLACHT? Or would not\na comsumptive feel too much bundled up, who was about to go out, in\na shirt-collar and a seal-ring, into a storm which the bird-song word\nGEWITTER was employed to describe? And observe the strongest of the\nseveral German equivalents for explosion--AUSBRUCH. Our word Toothbrush\nis more powerful than that. It seems to me that the Germans could\ndo worse than import it into their language to describe particularly\ntremendous explosions with. The German word for hell--Hoelle--sounds\nmore like HELLY than anything else; therefore, how necessarily chipper,\nfrivolous, and unimpressive it is. If a man were told in German to go\nthere, could he really rise to thee dignity of feeling insulted?\n\nHaving pointed out, in detail, the several vices of this language, I\nnow come to the brief and pleasant task of pointing out its virtues. The\ncapitalizing of the nouns I have already mentioned. But far before this\nvirtue stands another--that of spelling a word according to the sound of\nit. After one short lesson in the alphabet, the student can tell how any\nGerman word is pronounced without having to ask; whereas in our language\nif a student should inquire of us, \"What does B, O, W, spell?\" we should\nbe obliged to reply, \"Nobody can tell what it spells when you set if off\nby itself; you can only tell by referring to the context and finding out\nwhat it signifies--whether it is a thing to shoot arrows with, or a nod\nof one's head, or the forward end of a boat.\"\n\nThere are some German words which are singularly and powerfully\neffective. For instance, those which describe lowly, peaceful, and\naffectionate home life; those which deal with love, in any and all\nforms, from mere kindly feeling and honest good will toward the passing\nstranger, clear up to courtship; those which deal with outdoor Nature,\nin its softest and loveliest aspects--with meadows and forests, and\nbirds and flowers, the fragrance and sunshine of summer, and the\nmoonlight of peaceful winter nights; in a word, those which deal with\nany and all forms of rest, repose, and peace; those also which deal with\nthe creatures and marvels of fairyland; and lastly and chiefly, in\nthose words which express pathos, is the language surpassingly rich\nand affective. There are German songs which can make a stranger to the\nlanguage cry. That shows that the SOUND of the words is correct--it\ninterprets the meanings with truth and with exactness; and so the ear is\ninformed, and through the ear, the heart.\n\nThe Germans do not seem to be afraid to repeat a word when it is the\nright one. They repeat it several times, if they choose. That is\nwise. But in English, when we have used a word a couple of times in a\nparagraph, we imagine we are growing tautological, and so we are weak\nenough to exchange it for some other word which only approximates\nexactness, to escape what we wrongly fancy is a greater blemish.\nRepetition may be bad, but surely inexactness is worse.\n\n\nThere are people in the world who will take a great deal of trouble to\npoint out the faults in a religion or a language, and then go blandly\nabout their business without suggesting any remedy. I am not that kind\nof person. I have shown that the German language needs reforming. Very\nwell, I am ready to reform it. At least I am ready to make the proper\nsuggestions. Such a course as this might be immodest in another; but I\nhave devoted upward of nine full weeks, first and last, to a careful and\ncritical study of this tongue, and thus have acquired a confidence in\nmy ability to reform it which no mere superficial culture could have\nconferred upon me.\n\nIn the first place, I would leave out the Dative case. It confuses the\nplurals; and, besides, nobody ever knows when he is in the Dative case,\nexcept he discover it by accident--and then he does not know when or\nwhere it was that he got into it, or how long he has been in it, or\nhow he is ever going to get out of it again. The Dative case is but an\nornamental folly--it is better to discard it.\n\nIn the next place, I would move the Verb further up to the front. You\nmay load up with ever so good a Verb, but I notice that you never really\nbring down a subject with it at the present German range--you only\ncripple it. So I insist that this important part of speech should be\nbrought forward to a position where it may be easily seen with the naked\neye.\n\nThirdly, I would import some strong words from the English tongue--to\nswear with, and also to use in describing all sorts of vigorous things\nin a vigorous way. [4]\n\n1. \"Verdammt,\" and its variations and enlargements, are words which\nhave plenty of meaning, but the SOUNDS are so mild and ineffectual that\nGerman ladies can use them without sin. German ladies who could not be\ninduced to commit a sin by any persuasion or compulsion, promptly rip\nout one of these harmless little words when they tear their dresses or\ndon't like the soup. It sounds about as wicked as our \"My gracious.\"\nGerman ladies are constantly saying, \"Ach! Gott!\" \"Mein Gott!\" \"Gott in\nHimmel!\" \"Herr Gott\" \"Der Herr Jesus!\" etc. They think our ladies have\nthe same custom, perhaps; for I once heard a gentle and lovely old\nGerman lady say to a sweet young American girl: \"The two languages are\nso alike--how pleasant that is; we say 'Ach! Gott!' you say 'Goddamn.'\"\n\nFourthly, I would reorganizes the sexes, and distribute them accordingly\nto the will of the creator. This as a tribute of respect, if nothing\nelse.\n\nFifthly, I would do away with those great long compounded words; or\nrequire the speaker to deliver them in sections, with intermissions for\nrefreshments. To wholly do away with them would be best, for ideas are\nmore easily received and digested when they come one at a time than when\nthey come in bulk. Intellectual food is like any other; it is pleasanter\nand more beneficial to take it with a spoon than with a shovel.\n\nSixthly, I would require a speaker to stop when he is done, and not\nhang a string of those useless \"haven sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden\nseins\" to the end of his oration. This sort of gewgaws undignify a\nspeech, instead of adding a grace. They are, therefore, an offense, and\nshould be discarded.\n\nSeventhly, I would discard the Parenthesis. Also the reparenthesis, the\nre-reparenthesis, and the re-re-re-re-re-reparentheses, and likewise\nthe final wide-reaching all-enclosing king-parenthesis. I would require\nevery individual, be he high or low, to unfold a plain straightforward\ntale, or else coil it and sit on it and hold his peace. Infractions of\nthis law should be punishable with death.\n\nAnd eighthly, and last, I would retain ZUG and SCHLAG, with their\npendants, and discard the rest of the vocabulary. This would simplify\nthe language.\n\nI have now named what I regard as the most necessary and important\nchanges. These are perhaps all I could be expected to name for nothing;\nbut there are other suggestions which I can and will make in case my\nproposed application shall result in my being formally employed by the\ngovernment in the work of reforming the language.\n\nMy philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to\nlearn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French\nin thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then,\nthat the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is\nto remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among\nthe dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.\n\nA FOURTH OF JULY ORATION IN THE GERMAN TONGUE, DELIVERED AT A BANQUET OF\nTHE ANGLO-AMERICAN CLUB OF STUDENTS BY THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK\n\nGentlemen: Since I arrived, a month ago, in this old wonderland, this\nvast garden of Germany, my English tongue has so often proved a useless\npiece of baggage to me, and so troublesome to carry around, in a country\nwhere they haven't the checking system for luggage, that I finally set\nto work, and learned the German language. Also! Es freut mich dass dies\nso ist, denn es muss, in ein haupts\u00e4chlich degree, h\u00f6flich sein, dass\nman auf ein occasion like this, sein Rede in die Sprache des Landes\nworin he boards, aussprechen soll. Dafuer habe ich, aus reinische\nVerlegenheit--no, Vergangenheit--no, I mean H\u00f6flichkeit--aus reinishe\nH\u00f6flichkeit habe ich resolved to tackle this business in the German\nlanguage, um Gottes willen! Also! Sie muessen so freundlich sein, und\nverzeih mich die interlarding von ein oder zwei Englischer Worte, hie\nund da, denn ich finde dass die deutsche is not a very copious language,\nand so when you've really got anything to say, you've got to draw on a\nlanguage that can stand the strain.\n\nWenn haber man kann nicht meinem Rede Verstehen, so werde ich ihm sp\u00e4ter\ndasselbe uebersetz, wenn er solche Dienst verlangen wollen haben werden\nsollen sein h\u00e4tte. (I don't know what wollen haben werden sollen sein\nh\u00e4tte means, but I notice they always put it at the end of a German\nsentence--merely for general literary gorgeousness, I suppose.)\n\nThis is a great and justly honored day--a day which is worthy of the\nveneration in which it is held by the true patriots of all climes and\nnationalities--a day which offers a fruitful theme for thought and\nspeech; und meinem Freunde--no, meinEN FreundEN--meinES FreundES--well,\ntake your choice, they're all the same price; I don't know which one is\nright--also! ich habe gehabt haben worden gewesen sein, as Goethe says\nin his Paradise Lost--ich--ich--that is to say--ich--but let us change\ncars.\n\nAlso! Die Anblich so viele Grossbrittanischer und Amerikanischer\nhier zusammengetroffen in Bruderliche concord, ist zwar a welcome and\ninspiriting spectacle. And what has moved you to it? Can the\nterse German tongue rise to the expression of this impulse? Is it\nFreundschaftsbezeigungenstadtverordnetenversammlungenfamilieneigenth\u00fcmlichkeiten?\nNein, O nein! This is a crisp and noble word, but it fails to pierce\nthe marrow of the impulse which has gathered this friendly meeting and\nproduced diese Anblick--eine Anblich welche ist gut zu sehen--gut fuer\ndie Augen in a foreign land and a far country--eine Anblick solche als\nin die gew\u00f6hnliche Heidelberger phrase nennt man ein \"sch\u00f6nes Aussicht!\"\nJa, freilich nat\u00fcrlich wahrscheinlich ebensowohl! Also! Die Aussicht auf\ndem Koenigsstuhl mehr gr\u00f6sser ist, aber geistlische sprechend nicht\nso sch\u00f6n, lob' Gott! Because sie sind hier zusammengetroffen, in\nBruderlichem concord, ein grossen Tag zu feirn, whose high benefits were\nnot for one land and one locality, but have conferred a measure of\ngood upon all lands that know liberty today, and love it. Hundert Jahre\nvorueber, waren die Engl\u00e4nder und die Amerikaner Feinde; aber heut sind\nsie herzlichen Freunde, Gott sei Dank! May this good-fellowship endure;\nmay these banners here blended in amity so remain; may they never\nany more wave over opposing hosts, or be stained with blood which was\nkindred, is kindred, and always will be kindred, until a line drawn upon\na map shall be able to say: \"THIS bars the ancestral blood from flowing\nin the veins of the descendant!\"\n\n\nAPPENDIX E.\n\nLegend of the Castles Called the \"Swallow's Nest\" and \"The Brothers,\" as\nCondensed from the Captain's Tale\n\nIn the neighborhood of three hundred years ago the Swallow's Nest and\nthe larger castle between it and Neckarsteinach were owned and occupied\nby two old knights who were twin brothers, and bachelors. They had no\nrelatives. They were very rich. They had fought through the wars and\nretired to private life--covered with honorable scars. They were honest,\nhonorable men in their dealings, but the people had given them a couple\nof nicknames which were very suggestive--Herr Givenaught and Herr\nHeartless. The old knights were so proud of these names that if a\nburgher called them by their right ones they would correct them.\n\nThe most renowned scholar in Europe, at the time, was the Herr Doctor\nFranz Reikmann, who lived in Heidelberg. All Germany was proud of the\nvenerable scholar, who lived in the simplest way, for great scholars are\nalways poor. He was poor, as to money, but very rich in his sweet young\ndaughter Hildegarde and his library. He had been all his life collecting\nhis library, book and book, and he lived it as a miser loves his hoarded\ngold. He said the two strings of his heart were rooted, the one in his\ndaughter, the other in his books; and that if either were severed he\nmust die. Now in an evil hour, hoping to win a marriage portion for his\nchild, this simple old man had intrusted his small savings to a sharper\nto be ventured in a glittering speculation. But that was not the worst\nof it: he signed a paper--without reading it. That is the way with poets\nand scholars; they always sign without reading. This cunning paper made\nhim responsible for heaps of things. The rest was that one night he\nfound himself in debt to the sharper eight thousand pieces of gold!--an\namount so prodigious that it simply stupefied him to think of it. It was\na night of woe in that house.\n\n\"I must part with my library--I have nothing else. So perishes one\nheartstring,\" said the old man.\n\n\"What will it bring, father?\" asked the girl.\n\n\"Nothing! It is worth seven hundred pieces of gold; but by auction it\nwill go for little or nothing.\"\n\n\"Then you will have parted with the half of your heart and the joy of\nyour life to no purpose, since so mighty a burden of debt will remain\nbehind.\"\n\n\"There is no help for it, my child. Our darlings must pass under the\nhammer. We must pay what we can.\"\n\n\"My father, I have a feeling that the dear Virgin will come to our help.\nLet us not lose heart.\"\n\n\"She cannot devise a miracle that will turn NOTHING into eight thousand\ngold pieces, and lesser help will bring us little peace.\"\n\n\"She can do even greater things, my father. She will save us, I know she\nwill.\"\n\nToward morning, while the old man sat exhausted and asleep in his chair\nwhere he had been sitting before his books as one who watches by his\nbeloved dead and prints the features on his memory for a solace in the\naftertime of empty desolation, his daughter sprang into the room and\ngently woke him, saying--\n\n\"My presentiment was true! She will save us. Three times has she\nappeared to me in my dreams, and said, 'Go to the Herr Givenaught, go to\nthe Herr Heartless, ask them to come and bid.' There, did I not tell you\nshe would save us, the thrice blessed Virgin!\"\n\nSad as the old man was, he was obliged to laugh.\n\n\"Thou mightest as well appeal to the rocks their castles stand upon as\nto the harder ones that lie in those men's breasts, my child. THEY bid\non books writ in the learned tongues!--they can scarce read their own.\"\n\nBut Hildegarde's faith was in no wise shaken. Bright and early she was\non her way up the Neckar road, as joyous as a bird.\n\nMeantime Herr Givenaught and Herr Heartless were having an early\nbreakfast in the former's castle--the Sparrow's Nest--and flavoring\nit with a quarrel; for although these twins bore a love for each other\nwhich almost amounted to worship, there was one subject upon which they\ncould not touch without calling each other hard names--and yet it was\nthe subject which they oftenest touched upon.\n\n\"I tell you,\" said Givenaught, \"you will beggar yourself yet with your\ninsane squanderings of money upon what you choose to consider poor and\nworthy objects. All these years I have implored you to stop this foolish\ncustom and husband your means, but all in vain. You are always lying\nto me about these secret benevolences, but you never have managed to\ndeceive me yet. Every time a poor devil has been set upon his feet I\nhave detected your hand in it--incorrigible ass!\"\n\n\"Every time you didn't set him on his feet yourself, you mean. Where I\ngive one unfortunate a little private lift, you do the same for a dozen.\nThe idea of YOUR swelling around the country and petting yourself with\nthe nickname of Givenaught--intolerable humbug! Before I would be such\na fraud as that, I would cut my right hand off. Your life is a continual\nlie. But go on, I have tried MY best to save you from beggaring yourself\nby your riotous charities--now for the thousandth time I wash my hands\nof the consequences. A maundering old fool! that's what you are.\"\n\n\"And you a blethering old idiot!\" roared Givenaught, springing up.\n\n\"I won't stay in the presence of a man who has no more delicacy than to\ncall me such names. Mannerless swine!\"\n\nSo saying, Herr Heartless sprang up in a passion. But some lucky\naccident intervened, as usual, to change the subject, and the daily\nquarrel ended in the customary daily living reconciliation. The\ngray-headed old eccentrics parted, and Herr Heartless walked off to his\nown castle.\n\nHalf an hour later, Hildegarde was standing in the presence of Herr\nGivenaught. He heard her story, and said--\n\n\"I am sorry for you, my child, but I am very poor, I care nothing for\nbookish rubbish, I shall not be there.\"\n\nHe said the hard words kindly, but they nearly broke poor Hildegarde's\nheart, nevertheless. When she was gone the old heartbreaker muttered,\nrubbing his hands--\n\n\"It was a good stroke. I have saved my brother's pocket this time,\nin spite of him. Nothing else would have prevented his rushing off to\nrescue the old scholar, the pride of Germany, from his trouble. The poor\nchild won't venture near HIM after the rebuff she has received from his\nbrother the Givenaught.\"\n\nBut he was mistaken. The Virgin had commanded, and Hildegarde would\nobey. She went to Herr Heartless and told her story. But he said\ncoldly--\n\n\"I am very poor, my child, and books are nothing to me. I wish you well,\nbut I shall not come.\"\n\nWhen Hildegarde was gone, he chuckled and said--\n\n\"How my fool of a soft-headed soft-hearted brother would rage if he knew\nhow cunningly I have saved his pocket. How he would have flown to the\nold man's rescue! But the girl won't venture near him now.\"\n\nWhen Hildegarde reached home, her father asked her how she had\nprospered. She said--\n\n\"The Virgin has promised, and she will keep her word; but not in the way\nI thought. She knows her own ways, and they are best.\"\n\nThe old man patted her on the head, and smiled a doubting smile, but he\nhonored her for her brave faith, nevertheless.\n\nII\n\nNext day the people assembled in the great hall of the Ritter tavern,\nto witness the auction--for the proprietor had said the treasure of\nGermany's most honored son should be bartered away in no meaner place.\nHildegarde and her father sat close to the books, silent and sorrowful,\nand holding each other's hands. There was a great crowd of people\npresent. The bidding began--\n\n\"How much for this precious library, just as it stands, all complete?\"\ncalled the auctioneer.\n\n\"Fifty pieces of gold!\"\n\n\"A hundred!\"\n\n\"Two hundred.\"\n\n\"Three!\"\n\n\"Four!\"\n\n\"Five hundred!\"\n\n\"Five twenty-five.\"\n\nA brief pause.\n\n\"Five forty!\"\n\nA longer pause, while the auctioneer redoubled his persuasions.\n\n\"Five-forty-five!\"\n\nA heavy drag--the auctioneer persuaded, pleaded, implored--it was\nuseless, everybody remained silent--\n\n\"Well, then--going, going--one--two--\"\n\n\"Five hundred and fifty!\"\n\nThis in a shrill voice, from a bent old man, all hung with rags, and\nwith a green patch over his left eye. Everybody in his vicinity\nturned and gazed at him. It was Givenaught in disguise. He was using a\ndisguised voice, too.\n\n\"Good!\" cried the auctioneer. \"Going, going--one--two--\"\n\n\"Five hundred and sixty!\"\n\nThis, in a deep, harsh voice, from the midst of the crowd at the other\nend of the room. The people near by turned, and saw an old man, in a\nstrange costume, supporting himself on crutches. He wore a long white\nbeard, and blue spectacles. It was Herr Heartless, in disguise, and\nusing a disguised voice.\n\n\"Good again! Going, going--one--\"\n\n\"Six hundred!\"\n\nSensation. The crowd raised a cheer, and some one cried out, \"Go it,\nGreen-patch!\" This tickled the audience and a score of voices shouted,\n\"Go it, Green-patch!\"\n\n\"Going--going--going--third and last call--one--two--\"\n\n\"Seven hundred!\"\n\n\"Huzzah!--well done, Crutches!\" cried a voice. The crowd took it up, and\nshouted altogether, \"Well done, Crutches!\"\n\n\"Splendid, gentlemen! you are doing magnificently. Going, going--\"\n\n\"A thousand!\"\n\n\"Three cheers for Green-patch! Up and at him, Crutches!\"\n\n\"Going--going--\"\n\n\"Two thousand!\"\n\nAnd while the people cheered and shouted, \"Crutches\" muttered, \"Who can\nthis devil be that is fighting so to get these useless books?--But no\nmatter, he sha'n't have them. The pride of Germany shall have his books\nif it beggars me to buy them for him.\"\n\n\"Going, going, going--\"\n\n\"Three thousand!\"\n\n\"Come, everybody--give a rouser for Green-patch!\"\n\nAnd while they did it, \"Green-patch\" muttered, \"This cripple is plainly\na lunatic; but the old scholar shall have his books, nevertheless,\nthough my pocket sweat for it.\"\n\n\"Going--going--\"\n\n\"Four thousand!\"\n\n\"Huzza!\"\n\n\"Five thousand!\"\n\n\"Huzza!\"\n\n\"Six thousand!\"\n\n\"Huzza!\"\n\n\"Seven thousand!\"\n\n\"Huzza!\"\n\n\"EIGHT thousand!\"\n\n\"We are saved, father! I told you the Holy Virgin would keep her word!\"\n\"Blessed be her sacred name!\" said the old scholar, with emotion. The\ncrowd roared, \"Huzza, huzza, huzza--at him again, Green-patch!\"\n\n\"Going--going--\"\n\n\"TEN thousand!\" As Givenaught shouted this, his excitement was so\ngreat that he forgot himself and used his natural voice. His brother\nrecognized it, and muttered, under cover of the storm of cheers--\n\n\"Aha, you are there, are you, besotted old fool? Take the books, I know\nwhat you'll do with them!\"\n\nSo saying, he slipped out of the place and the auction was at an end.\nGivenaught shouldered his way to Hildegarde, whispered a word in\nher ear, and then he also vanished. The old scholar and his daughter\nembraced, and the former said, \"Truly the Holy Mother has done more\nthan she promised, child, for she has given you a splendid marriage\nportion--think of it, two thousand pieces of gold!\"\n\n\"And more still,\" cried Hildegarde, \"for she has given you back your\nbooks; the stranger whispered me that he would none of them--'the\nhonored son of Germany must keep them,' so he said. I would I might have\nasked his name and kissed his hand and begged his blessing; but he was\nOur Lady's angel, and it is not meet that we of earth should venture\nspeech with them that dwell above.\"\n\n\nAPPENDIX F.\n\nGerman Journals The daily journals of Hamburg, Frankfort, Baden, Munich,\nand Augsburg are all constructed on the same general plan. I speak of\nthese because I am more familiar with them than with any other German\npapers. They contain no \"editorials\" whatever; no \"personals\"--and this\nis rather a merit than a demerit, perhaps; no funny-paragraph column;\nno police-court reports; no reports of proceedings of higher courts;\nno information about prize-fights or other dog-fights, horse-races,\nwalking-machines, yachting-contents, rifle-matches, or other sporting\nmatters of any sort; no reports of banquet speeches; no department of\ncurious odds and ends of floating fact and gossip; no \"rumors\" about\nanything or anybody; no prognostications or prophecies about anything or\nanybody; no lists of patents granted or sought, or any reference to\nsuch things; no abuse of public officials, big or little, or complaints\nagainst them, or praises of them; no religious columns Saturdays, no\nrehash of cold sermons Mondays; no \"weather indications\"; no \"local\nitem\" unveiling of what is happening in town--nothing of a local nature,\nindeed, is mentioned, beyond the movements of some prince, or the\nproposed meeting of some deliberative body.\n\nAfter so formidable a list of what one can't find in a German daily,\nthe question may well be asked, What CAN be found in it? It is easily\nanswered: A child's handful of telegrams, mainly about European national\nand international political movements; letter-correspondence about the\nsame things; market reports. There you have it. That is what a German\ndaily is made of. A German daily is the slowest and saddest and\ndreariest of the inventions of man. Our own dailies infuriate the\nreader, pretty often; the German daily only stupefies him. Once a\nweek the German daily of the highest class lightens up its heavy\ncolumns--that is, it thinks it lightens them up--with a profound, an\nabysmal, book criticism; a criticism which carries you down, down, down\ninto the scientific bowels of the subject--for the German critic is\nnothing if not scientific--and when you come up at last and scent the\nfresh air and see the bonny daylight once more, you resolve without a\ndissenting voice that a book criticism is a mistaken way to lighten up\na German daily. Sometimes, in place of the criticism, the first-class\ndaily gives you what it thinks is a gay and chipper essay--about ancient\nGrecian funeral customs, or the ancient Egyptian method of tarring a\nmummy, or the reasons for believing that some of the peoples who existed\nbefore the flood did not approve of cats. These are not unpleasant\nsubjects; they are not uninteresting subjects; they are even exciting\nsubjects--until one of these massive scientists gets hold of them. He\nsoon convinces you that even these matters can be handled in such a way\nas to make a person low-spirited.\n\nAs I have said, the average German daily is made up solely of\ncorrespondences--a trifle of it by telegraph, the rest of it by mail.\nEvery paragraph has the side-head, \"London,\" \"Vienna,\" or some other\ntown, and a date. And always, before the name of the town, is placed\na letter or a sign, to indicate who the correspondent is, so that the\nauthorities can find him when they want to hang him. Stars, crosses,\ntriangles, squares, half-moons, suns--such are some of the signs used by\ncorrespondents.\n\nSome of the dailies move too fast, others too slowly. For instance, my\nHeidelberg daily was always twenty-four hours old when it arrived at\nthe hotel; but one of my Munich evening papers used to come a full\ntwenty-four hours before it was due.\n\nSome of the less important dailies give one a tablespoonful of a\ncontinued story every day; it is strung across the bottom of the page,\nin the French fashion. By subscribing for the paper for five years I\njudge that a man might succeed in getting pretty much all of the story.\n\nIf you ask a citizen of Munich which is the best Munich daily journal,\nhe will always tell you that there is only one good Munich daily, and\nthat it is published in Augsburg, forty or fifty miles away. It is like\nsaying that the best daily paper in New York is published out in New\nJersey somewhere. Yes, the Augsburg ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG is \"the best\nMunich paper,\" and it is the one I had in my mind when I was describing\na \"first-class German daily\" above. The entire paper, opened out, is not\nquite as large as a single page of the New York HERALD. It is printed on\nboth sides, of course; but in such large type that its entire contents\ncould be put, in HERALD type, upon a single page of the HERALD--and\nthere would still be room enough on the page for the ZEITUNG's\n\"supplement\" and some portion of the ZEITUNG's next day's contents.\n\nSuch is the first-class daily. The dailies actually printed in Munich\nare all called second-class by the public. If you ask which is the best\nof these second-class papers they say there is no difference; one is as\ngood as another. I have preserved a copy of one of them; it is\ncalled the M\u00dcNCHENER TAGES-ANZEIGER, and bears date January 25, 1879.\nComparisons are odious, but they need not be malicious; and without any\nmalice I wish to compare this journal, published in a German city of\n170,000 inhabitants, with journals of other countries. I know of no\nother way to enable the reader to \"size\" the thing.\n\nA column of an average daily paper in America contains from 1,800 to\n2,500 words; the reading-matter in a single issue consists of from\n25,000 to 50,000 words. The reading-matter in my copy of the Munich\njournal consists of a total of 1,654 words --for I counted them. That\nwould be nearly a column of one of our dailies. A single issue of the\nbulkiest daily newspaper in the world--the London TIMES--often contains\n100,000 words of reading-matter. Considering that the DAILY ANZEIGER\nissues the usual twenty-six numbers per month, the reading matter in a\nsingle number of the London TIMES would keep it in \"copy\" two months and\na half.\n\nThe ANZEIGER is an eight-page paper; its page is one inch wider and one\ninch longer than a foolscap page; that is to say, the dimensions of its\npage are somewhere between those of a schoolboy's slate and a lady's\npocket handkerchief. One-fourth of the first page is taken up with the\nheading of the journal; this gives it a rather top-heavy appearance;\nthe rest of the first page is reading-matter; all of the second page is\nreading-matter; the other six pages are devoted to advertisements.\n\nThe reading-matter is compressed into two hundred and five small-pica\nlines, and is lighted up with eight pica headlines. The bill of fare\nis as follows: First, under a pica headline, to enforce attention and\nrespect, is a four-line sermon urging mankind to remember that, although\nthey are pilgrims here below, they are yet heirs of heaven; and that\n\"When they depart from earth they soar to heaven.\" Perhaps a four-line\nsermon in a Saturday paper is the sufficient German equivalent of the\neight or ten columns of sermons which the New-Yorkers get in their\nMonday morning papers. The latest news (two days old) follows the\nfour-line sermon, under the pica headline \"Telegrams\"--these are\n\"telegraphed\" with a pair of scissors out of the AUGSBURGER ZEITUNG of\nthe day before. These telegrams consist of fourteen and two-thirds lines\nfrom Berlin, fifteen lines from Vienna, and two and five-eights lines\nfrom Calcutta. Thirty-three small-pica lines of telegraphic news in a\ndaily journal in a King's Capital of one hundred and seventy thousand\ninhabitants is surely not an overdose. Next we have the pica heading,\n\"News of the Day,\" under which the following facts are set forth: Prince\nLeopold is going on a visit to Vienna, six lines; Prince Arnulph is\ncoming back from Russia, two lines; the Landtag will meet at ten o'clock\nin the morning and consider an election law, three lines and one word\nover; a city government item, five and one-half lines; prices of tickets\nto the proposed grand Charity Ball, twenty-three lines--for this one\nitem occupies almost one-fourth of the entire first page; there is to be\na wonderful Wagner concert in Frankfurt-on-the-Main, with an orchestra\nof one hundred and eight instruments, seven and one-half lines. That\nconcludes the first page. Eighty-five lines, altogether, on that page,\nincluding three headlines. About fifty of those lines, as one perceives,\ndeal with local matters; so the reporters are not overworked.\n\nExactly one-half of the second page is occupied with an opera criticism,\nfifty-three lines (three of them being headlines), and \"Death Notices,\"\nten lines.\n\nThe other half of the second page is made up of two paragraphs under\nthe head of \"Miscellaneous News.\" One of these paragraphs tells about a\nquarrel between the Czar of Russia and his eldest son, twenty-one and\na half lines; and the other tells about the atrocious destruction of a\npeasant child by its parents, forty lines, or one-fifth of the total of\nthe reading-matter contained in the paper.\n\nConsider what a fifth part of the reading-matter of an American daily\npaper issued in a city of one hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants\namounts to! Think what a mass it is. Would any one suppose I could so\nsnugly tuck away such a mass in a chapter of this book that it would be\ndifficult to find it again if the reader lost his place? Surely not.\nI will translate that child-murder word for word, to give the reader a\nrealizing sense of what a fifth part of the reading-matter of a Munich\ndaily actually is when it comes under measurement of the eye:\n\n\"From Oberkreuzberg, January 21st, the DONAU ZEITUNG receives a long\naccount of a crime, which we shortened as follows: In Rametuach,\na village near Eppenschlag, lived a young married couple with two\nchildren, one of which, a boy aged five, was born three years before the\nmarriage. For this reason, and also because a relative at Iggensbach had\nbequeathed M400 ($100) to the boy, the heartless father considered him\nin the way; so the unnatural parents determined to sacrifice him in the\ncruelest possible manner. They proceeded to starve him slowly to death,\nmeantime frightfully maltreating him--as the village people now make\nknown, when it is too late. The boy was shut in a hole, and when\npeople passed by he cried, and implored them to give him bread. His\nlong-continued tortures and deprivations destroyed him at last, on the\nthird of January. The sudden (sic) death of the child created suspicion,\nthe more so as the body was immediately clothed and laid upon the bier.\nTherefore the coroner gave notice, and an inquest was held on the 6th.\nWhat a pitiful spectacle was disclosed then! The body was a complete\nskeleton. The stomach and intestines were utterly empty; they contained\nnothing whatsoever. The flesh on the corpse was not as thick as the back\nof a knife, and incisions in it brought not one drop of blood. There\nwas not a piece of sound skin the size of a dollar on the whole body;\nwounds, scars, bruises, discolored extravasated blood, everywhere--even\non the soles of the feet there were wounds. The cruel parents asserted\nthat the boy had been so bad that they had been obliged to use severe\npunishments, and that he finally fell over a bench and broke his neck.\nHowever, they were arrested two weeks after the inquest and put in the\nprison at Deggendorf.\"\n\nYes, they were arrested \"two weeks after the inquest.\" What a home sound\nthat has. That kind of police briskness rather more reminds me of my\nnative land than German journalism does.\n\nI think a German daily journal doesn't do any good to speak of, but at\nthe same time it doesn't do any harm. That is a very large merit, and\nshould not be lightly weighted nor lightly thought of.\n\nThe German humorous papers are beautifully printed upon fine paper, and\nthe illustrations are finely drawn, finely engraved, and are not vapidly\nfunny, but deliciously so. So also, generally speaking, are the two or\nthree terse sentences which accompany the pictures. I remember one of\nthese pictures: A most dilapidated tramp is ruefully contemplating some\ncoins which lie in his open palm. He says: \"Well, begging is getting\nplayed out. Only about five marks ($1.25) for the whole day; many an\nofficial makes more!\" And I call to mind a picture of a commercial\ntraveler who is about to unroll his samples:\n\nMERCHANT (pettishly).--NO, don't. I don't want to buy anything!\n\nDRUMMER.--If you please, I was only going to show you--\n\nMERCHANT.--But I don't wish to see them!\n\nDRUMMER (after a pause, pleadingly).--But do you you mind letting ME\nlook at them! I haven't seen them for three weeks!\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1213":"\n\n\n\n\nTranscribed from the 1907 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email\nccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEYBURG\n\n\nI.\n\n\nIt was many years ago.  Hadleyburg was the most honest and upright town\nin all the region round about.  It had kept that reputation unsmirched\nduring three generations, and was prouder of it than of any other of its\npossessions.  It was so proud of it, and so anxious to insure its\nperpetuation, that it began to teach the principles of honest dealing to\nits babies in the cradle, and made the like teachings the staple of their\nculture thenceforward through all the years devoted to their education.\nAlso, throughout the formative years temptations were kept out of the way\nof the young people, so that their honesty could have every chance to\nharden and solidify, and become a part of their very bone.  The\nneighbouring towns were jealous of this honourable supremacy, and\naffected to sneer at Hadleyburg's pride in it and call it vanity; but all\nthe same they were obliged to acknowledge that Hadleyburg was in reality\nan incorruptible town; and if pressed they would also acknowledge that\nthe mere fact that a young man hailed from Hadleyburg was all the\nrecommendation he needed when he went forth from his natal town to seek\nfor responsible employment.\n\nBut at last, in the drift of time, Hadleyburg had the ill luck to offend\na passing stranger--possibly without knowing it, certainly without\ncaring, for Hadleyburg was sufficient unto itself, and cared not a rap\nfor strangers or their opinions.  Still, it would have been well to make\nan exception in this one's case, for he was a bitter man, and revengeful.\nAll through his wanderings during a whole year he kept his injury in\nmind, and gave all his leisure moments to trying to invent a compensating\nsatisfaction for it.  He contrived many plans, and all of them were good,\nbut none of them was quite sweeping enough: the poorest of them would\nhurt a great many individuals, but what he wanted was a plan which would\ncomprehend the entire town, and not let so much as one person escape\nunhurt.  At last he had a fortunate idea, and when it fell into his brain\nit lit up his whole head with an evil joy.  He began to form a plan at\nonce, saying to himself \"That is the thing to do--I will corrupt the\ntown.\"\n\nSix months later he went to Hadleyburg, and arrived in a buggy at the\nhouse of the old cashier of the bank about ten at night.  He got a sack\nout of the buggy, shouldered it, and staggered with it through the\ncottage yard, and knocked at the door.  A woman's voice said \"Come in,\"\nand he entered, and set his sack behind the stove in the parlour, saying\npolitely to the old lady who sat reading the \"Missionary Herald\" by the\nlamp:\n\n\"Pray keep your seat, madam, I will not disturb you.  There--now it is\npretty well concealed; one would hardly know it was there.  Can I see\nyour husband a moment, madam?\"\n\nNo, he was gone to Brixton, and might not return before morning.\n\n\"Very well, madam, it is no matter.  I merely wanted to leave that sack\nin his care, to be delivered to the rightful owner when he shall be\nfound.  I am a stranger; he does not know me; I am merely passing through\nthe town to-night to discharge a matter which has been long in my mind.\nMy errand is now completed, and I go pleased and a little proud, and you\nwill never see me again.  There is a paper attached to the sack which\nwill explain everything.  Good-night, madam.\"\n\nThe old lady was afraid of the mysterious big stranger, and was glad to\nsee him go.  But her curiosity was roused, and she went straight to the\nsack and brought away the paper.  It began as follows:\n\n   \"TO BE PUBLISHED, or, the right man sought out by private\n   inquiry--either will answer.  This sack contains gold coin weighing a\n   hundred and sixty pounds four ounces--\"\n\n\"Mercy on us, and the door not locked!\"\n\nMrs. Richards flew to it all in a tremble and locked it, then pulled down\nthe window-shades and stood frightened, worried, and wondering if there\nwas anything else she could do toward making herself and the money more\nsafe.  She listened awhile for burglars, then surrendered to curiosity,\nand went back to the lamp and finished reading the paper:\n\n   \"I am a foreigner, and am presently going back to my own country, to\n   remain there permanently.  I am grateful to America for what I have\n   received at her hands during my long stay under her flag; and to one\n   of her citizens--a citizen of Hadleyburg--I am especially grateful for\n   a great kindness done me a year or two ago.  Two great kindnesses in\n   fact.  I will explain.  I was a gambler.  I say I WAS.  I was a ruined\n   gambler.  I arrived in this village at night, hungry and without a\n   penny.  I asked for help--in the dark; I was ashamed to beg in the\n   light.  I begged of the right man.  He gave me twenty dollars--that is\n   to say, he gave me life, as I considered it.  He also gave me fortune;\n   for out of that money I have made myself rich at the gaming-table.  And\n   finally, a remark which he made to me has remained with me to this\n   day, and has at last conquered me; and in conquering has saved the\n   remnant of my morals: I shall gamble no more.  Now I have no idea who\n   that man was, but I want him found, and I want him to have this money,\n   to give away, throw away, or keep, as he pleases.  It is merely my way\n   of testifying my gratitude to him.  If I could stay, I would find him\n   myself; but no matter, he will be found.  This is an honest town, an\n   incorruptible town, and I know I can trust it without fear.  This man\n   can be identified by the remark which he made to me; I feel persuaded\n   that he will remember it.\n\n   \"And now my plan is this: If you prefer to conduct the inquiry\n   privately, do so.  Tell the contents of this present writing to any\n   one who is likely to be the right man.  If he shall answer, 'I am the\n   man; the remark I made was so-and-so,' apply the test--to wit: open\n   the sack, and in it you will find a sealed envelope containing that\n   remark.  If the remark mentioned by the candidate tallies with it,\n   give him the money, and ask no further questions, for he is certainly\n   the right man.\n\n   \"But if you shall prefer a public inquiry, then publish this present\n   writing in the local paper--with these instructions added, to wit:\n   Thirty days from now, let the candidate appear at the town-hall at\n   eight in the evening (Friday), and hand his remark, in a sealed\n   envelope, to the Rev. Mr. Burgess (if he will be kind enough to act);\n   and let Mr. Burgess there and then destroy the seals of the sack, open\n   it, and see if the remark is correct: if correct, let the money be\n   delivered, with my sincere gratitude, to my benefactor thus\n   identified.\"\n\nMrs. Richards sat down, gently quivering with excitement, and was soon\nlost in thinkings--after this pattern: \"What a strange thing it is! . . .\nAnd what a fortune for that kind man who set his bread afloat upon the\nwaters! . . . If it had only been my husband that did it!--for we are so\npoor, so old and poor! . . .\"  Then, with a sigh--\"But it was not my\nEdward; no, it was not he that gave a stranger twenty dollars.  It is a\npity too; I see it now. . . \"  Then, with a shudder--\"But it is\n_gamblers_' money! the wages of sin; we couldn't take it; we couldn't\ntouch it.  I don't like to be near it; it seems a defilement.\"  She moved\nto a farther chair. . . \"I wish Edward would come, and take it to the\nbank; a burglar might come at any moment; it is dreadful to be here all\nalone with it.\"\n\nAt eleven Mr. Richards arrived, and while his wife was saying \"I am _so_\nglad you've come!\" he was saying, \"I am so tired--tired clear out; it is\ndreadful to be poor, and have to make these dismal journeys at my time of\nlife.  Always at the grind, grind, grind, on a salary--another man's\nslave, and he sitting at home in his slippers, rich and comfortable.\"\n\n\"I am so sorry for you, Edward, you know that; but be comforted; we have\nour livelihood; we have our good name--\"\n\n\"Yes, Mary, and that is everything.  Don't mind my talk--it's just a\nmoment's irritation and doesn't mean anything.  Kiss me--there, it's all\ngone now, and I am not complaining any more.  What have you been getting?\nWhat's in the sack?\"\n\nThen his wife told him the great secret.  It dazed him for a moment; then\nhe said:\n\n\"It weighs a hundred and sixty pounds?  Why, Mary, it's for-ty thou-sand\ndollars--think of it--a whole fortune!  Not ten men in this village are\nworth that much.  Give me the paper.\"\n\nHe skimmed through it and said:\n\n\"Isn't it an adventure!  Why, it's a romance; it's like the impossible\nthings one reads about in books, and never sees in life.\"  He was well\nstirred up now; cheerful, even gleeful.  He tapped his old wife on the\ncheek, and said humorously, \"Why, we're rich, Mary, rich; all we've got\nto do is to bury the money and burn the papers.  If the gambler ever\ncomes to inquire, we'll merely look coldly upon him and say: 'What is\nthis nonsense you are talking?  We have never heard of you and your sack\nof gold before;' and then he would look foolish, and--\"\n\n\"And in the meantime, while you are running on with your jokes, the money\nis still here, and it is fast getting along toward burglar-time.\"\n\n\"True.  Very well, what shall we do--make the inquiry private?  No, not\nthat; it would spoil the romance.  The public method is better.  Think\nwhat a noise it will make!  And it will make all the other towns jealous;\nfor no stranger would trust such a thing to any town but Hadleyburg, and\nthey know it.  It's a great card for us.  I must get to the\nprinting-office now, or I shall be too late.\"\n\n\"But stop--stop--don't leave me here alone with it, Edward!\"\n\nBut he was gone.  For only a little while, however.  Not far from his own\nhouse he met the editor--proprietor of the paper, and gave him the\ndocument, and said \"Here is a good thing for you, Cox--put it in.\"\n\n\"It may be too late, Mr. Richards, but I'll see.\"\n\nAt home again, he and his wife sat down to talk the charming mystery\nover; they were in no condition for sleep.  The first question was, Who\ncould the citizen have been who gave the stranger the twenty dollars?  It\nseemed a simple one; both answered it in the same breath--\n\n\"Barclay Goodson.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Richards, \"he could have done it, and it would have been like\nhim, but there's not another in the town.\"\n\n\"Everybody will grant that, Edward--grant it privately, anyway.  For six\nmonths, now, the village has been its own proper self once more--honest,\nnarrow, self-righteous, and stingy.\"\n\n\"It is what he always called it, to the day of his death--said it right\nout publicly, too.\"\n\n\"Yes, and he was hated for it.\"\n\n\"Oh, of course; but he didn't care.  I reckon he was the best-hated man\namong us, except the Reverend Burgess.\"\n\n\"Well, Burgess deserves it--he will never get another congregation here.\nMean as the town is, it knows how to estimate _him_.  Edward, doesn't it\nseem odd that the stranger should appoint Burgess to deliver the money?\"\n\n\"Well, yes--it does.  That is--that is--\"\n\n\"Why so much that-_is_-ing?  Would _you_ select him?\"\n\n\"Mary, maybe the stranger knows him better than this village does.\"\n\n\"Much _that_ would help Burgess!\"\n\nThe husband seemed perplexed for an answer; the wife kept a steady eye\nupon him, and waited.  Finally Richards said, with the hesitancy of one\nwho is making a statement which is likely to encounter doubt,\n\n\"Mary, Burgess is not a bad man.\"\n\nHis wife was certainly surprised.\n\n\"Nonsense!\" she exclaimed.\n\n\"He is not a bad man.  I know.  The whole of his unpopularity had its\nfoundation in that one thing--the thing that made so much noise.\"\n\n\"That 'one thing,' indeed!  As if that 'one thing' wasn't enough, all by\nitself.\"\n\n\"Plenty.  Plenty.  Only he wasn't guilty of it.\"\n\n\"How you talk!  Not guilty of it!  Everybody knows he _was_ guilty.\"\n\n\"Mary, I give you my word--he was innocent.\"\n\n\"I can't believe it and I don't.  How do you know?\"\n\n\"It is a confession.  I am ashamed, but I will make it.  I was the only\nman who knew he was innocent.  I could have saved him, and--and--well,\nyou know how the town was wrought up--I hadn't the pluck to do it.  It\nwould have turned everybody against me.  I felt mean, ever so mean; ut I\ndidn't dare; I hadn't the manliness to face that.\"\n\nMary looked troubled, and for a while was silent.  Then she said\nstammeringly:\n\n\"I--I don't think it would have done for you to--to--One\nmustn't--er--public opinion--one has to be so careful--so--\"  It was a\ndifficult road, and she got mired; but after a little she got started\nagain.  \"It was a great pity, but--Why, we couldn't afford it, Edward--we\ncouldn't indeed.  Oh, I wouldn't have had you do it for anything!\"\n\n\"It would have lost us the good-will of so many people, Mary; and\nthen--and then--\"\n\n\"What troubles me now is, what _he_ thinks of us, Edward.\"\n\n\"He?  _He_ doesn't suspect that I could have saved him.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" exclaimed the wife, in a tone of relief, \"I am glad of that.  As\nlong as he doesn't know that you could have saved him, he--he--well that\nmakes it a great deal better.  Why, I might have known he didn't know,\nbecause he is always trying to be friendly with us, as little\nencouragement as we give him.  More than once people have twitted me with\nit.  There's the Wilsons, and the Wilcoxes, and the Harknesses, they take\na mean pleasure in saying '_Your friend_ Burgess,' because they know it\npesters me.  I wish he wouldn't persist in liking us so; I can't think\nwhy he keeps it up.\"\n\n\"I can explain it.  It's another confession.  When the thing was new and\nhot, and the town made a plan to ride him on a rail, my conscience hurt\nme so that I couldn't stand it, and I went privately and gave him notice,\nand he got out of the town and stayed out till it was safe to come back.\"\n\n\"Edward!  If the town had found it out--\"\n\n\"_Don't_!  It scares me yet, to think of it.  I repented of it the minute\nit was done; and I was even afraid to tell you lest your face might\nbetray it to somebody.  I didn't sleep any that night, for worrying.  But\nafter a few days I saw that no one was going to suspect me, and after\nthat I got to feeling glad I did it.  And I feel glad yet, Mary--glad\nthrough and through.\"\n\n\"So do I, now, for it would have been a dreadful way to treat him.  Yes,\nI'm glad; for really you did owe him that, you know.  But, Edward,\nsuppose it should come out yet, some day!\"\n\n\"It won't.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because everybody thinks it was Goodson.\"\n\n\"Of course they would!\"\n\n\"Certainly.  And of course _he_ didn't care.  They persuaded poor old\nSawlsberry to go and charge it on him, and he went blustering over there\nand did it.  Goodson looked him over, like as if he was hunting for a\nplace on him that he could despise the most; then he says, 'So you are\nthe Committee of Inquiry, are you?'  Sawlsberry said that was about what\nhe was.  'H'm.  Do they require particulars, or do you reckon a kind of a\n_general_ answer will do?'  'If they require particulars, I will come\nback, Mr. Goodson; I will take the general answer first.'  'Very well,\nthen, tell them to go to hell--I reckon that's general enough.  And I'll\ngive you some advice, Sawlsberry; when you come back for the particulars,\nfetch a basket to carry what is left of yourself home in.'\"\n\n\"Just like Goodson; it's got all the marks.  He had only one vanity; he\nthought he could give advice better than any other person.\"\n\n\"It settled the business, and saved us, Mary.  The subject was dropped.\"\n\n\"Bless you, I'm not doubting _that_.\"\n\nThen they took up the gold-sack mystery again, with strong interest.  Soon\nthe conversation began to suffer breaks--interruptions caused by absorbed\nthinkings.  The breaks grew more and more frequent.  At last Richards\nlost himself wholly in thought.  He sat long, gazing vacantly at the\nfloor, and by-and-by he began to punctuate his thoughts with little\nnervous movements of his hands that seemed to indicate vexation.  Meantime\nhis wife too had relapsed into a thoughtful silence, and her movements\nwere beginning to show a troubled discomfort.  Finally Richards got up\nand strode aimlessly about the room, ploughing his hands through his\nhair, much as a somnambulist might do who was having a bad dream.  Then\nhe seemed to arrive at a definite purpose; and without a word he put on\nhis hat and passed quickly out of the house.  His wife sat brooding, with\na drawn face, and did not seem to be aware that she was alone.  Now and\nthen she murmured, \"Lead us not into t . . . but--but--we are so poor, so\npoor! . . . Lead us not into . . . Ah, who would be hurt by it?--and no\none would ever know . . . Lead us . . . \"  The voice died out in\nmumblings.  After a little she glanced up and muttered in a\nhalf-frightened, half-glad way--\n\n\"He is gone!  But, oh dear, he may be too late--too late . . . Maybe\nnot--maybe there is still time.\"  She rose and stood thinking, nervously\nclasping and unclasping her hands.  A slight shudder shook her frame, and\nshe said, out of a dry throat, \"God forgive me--it's awful to think such\nthings--but . . . Lord, how we are made--how strangely we are made!\"\n\nShe turned the light low, and slipped stealthily over and knelt down by\nthe sack and felt of its ridgy sides with her hands, and fondled them\nlovingly; and there was a gloating light in her poor old eyes.  She fell\ninto fits of absence; and came half out of them at times to mutter \"If we\nhad only waited!--oh, if we had only waited a little, and not been in\nsuch a hurry!\"\n\nMeantime Cox had gone home from his office and told his wife all about\nthe strange thing that had happened, and they had talked it over eagerly,\nand guessed that the late Goodson was the only man in the town who could\nhave helped a suffering stranger with so noble a sum as twenty dollars.\nThen there was a pause, and the two became thoughtful and silent.  And by-\nand-by nervous and fidgety.  At last the wife said, as if to herself,\n\n\"Nobody knows this secret but the Richardses . . . and us . . . nobody.\"\n\nThe husband came out of his thinkings with a slight start, and gazed\nwistfully at his wife, whose face was become very pale; then he\nhesitatingly rose, and glanced furtively at his hat, then at his wife--a\nsort of mute inquiry.  Mrs. Cox swallowed once or twice, with her hand at\nher throat, then in place of speech she nodded her head.  In a moment she\nwas alone, and mumbling to herself.\n\nAnd now Richards and Cox were hurrying through the deserted streets, from\nopposite directions.  They met, panting, at the foot of the\nprinting-office stairs; by the night-light there they read each other's\nface.  Cox whispered:\n\n\"Nobody knows about this but us?\"\n\nThe whispered answer was:\n\n\"Not a soul--on honour, not a soul!\"\n\n\"If it isn't too late to--\"\n\nThe men were starting up-stairs; at this moment they were overtaken by a\nboy, and Cox asked,\n\n\"Is that you, Johnny?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"You needn't ship the early mail--nor _any_ mail; wait till I tell you.\"\n\n\"It's already gone, sir.\"\n\n\"_Gone_?\"  It had the sound of an unspeakable disappointment in it.\n\n\"Yes, sir.  Time-table for Brixton and all the towns beyond changed to-\nday, sir--had to get the papers in twenty minutes earlier than common.  I\nhad to rush; if I had been two minutes later--\"\n\nThe men turned and walked slowly away, not waiting to hear the rest.\nNeither of them spoke during ten minutes; then Cox said, in a vexed tone,\n\n\"What possessed you to be in such a hurry, _I_ can't make out.\"\n\nThe answer was humble enough:\n\n\"I see it now, but somehow I never thought, you know, until it was too\nlate.  But the next time--\"\n\n\"Next time be hanged!  It won't come in a thousand years.\"\n\nThen the friends separated without a good-night, and dragged themselves\nhome with the gait of mortally stricken men.  At their homes their wives\nsprang up with an eager \"Well?\"--then saw the answer with their eyes and\nsank down sorrowing, without waiting for it to come in words.  In both\nhouses a discussion followed of a heated sort--a new thing; there had\nbeen discussions before, but not heated ones, not ungentle ones.  The\ndiscussions to-night were a sort of seeming plagiarisms of each other.\nMrs. Richards said:\n\n\"If you had only waited, Edward--if you had only stopped to think; but\nno, you must run straight to the printing-office and spread it all over\nthe world.\"\n\n\"It _said_ publish it.\"\n\n\"That is nothing; it also said do it privately, if you liked.  There,\nnow--is that true, or not?\"\n\n\"Why, yes--yes, it is true; but when I thought what a stir it would make,\nand what a compliment it was to Hadleyburg that a stranger should trust\nit so--\"\n\n\"Oh, certainly, I know all that; but if you had only stopped to think,\nyou would have seen that you _couldn't_ find the right man, because he is\nin his grave, and hasn't left chick nor child nor relation behind him;\nand as long as the money went to somebody that awfully needed it, and\nnobody would be hurt by it, and--and--\"\n\nShe broke down, crying.  Her husband tried to think of some comforting\nthing to say, and presently came out with this:\n\n\"But after all, Mary, it must be for the best--it must be; we know that.\nAnd we must remember that it was so ordered--\"\n\n\"Ordered!  Oh, everything's _ordered_, when a person has to find some way\nout when he has been stupid. Just the same, it was _ordered_ that the\nmoney should come to us in this special way, and it was you that must\ntake it on yourself to go meddling with the designs of Providence--and\nwho gave you the right?  It was wicked, that is what it was--just\nblasphemous presumption, and no more becoming to a meek and humble\nprofessor of--\"\n\n\"But, Mary, you know how we have been trained all our lives long, like\nthe whole village, till it is absolutely second nature to us to stop not\na single moment to think when there's an honest thing to be done--\"\n\n\"Oh, I know it, I know it--it's been one everlasting training and\ntraining and training in honesty--honesty shielded, from the very cradle,\nagainst every possible temptation, and so it's _artificial_ honesty, and\nweak as water when temptation comes, as we have seen this night.  God\nknows I never had shade nor shadow of a doubt of my petrified and\nindestructible honesty until now--and now, under the very first big and\nreal temptation, I--Edward, it is my belief that this town's honesty is\nas rotten as mine is; as rotten as yours.  It is a mean town, a hard,\nstingy town, and hasn't a virtue in the world but this honesty it is so\ncelebrated for and so conceited about; and so help me, I do believe that\nif ever the day comes that its honesty falls under great temptation, its\ngrand reputation will go to ruin like a house of cards.  There, now, I've\nmade confession, and I feel better; I am a humbug, and I've been one all\nmy life, without knowing it.  Let no man call me honest again--I will not\nhave it.\"\n\n\"I--Well, Mary, I feel a good deal as you do: I certainly do.  It seems\nstrange, too, so strange.  I never could have believed it--never.\"\n\nA long silence followed; both were sunk in thought.  At last the wife\nlooked up and said:\n\n\"I know what you are thinking, Edward.\"\n\nRichards had the embarrassed look of a person who is caught.\n\n\"I am ashamed to confess it, Mary, but--\"\n\n\"It's no matter, Edward, I was thinking the same question myself.\"\n\n\"I hope so.  State it.\"\n\n\"You were thinking, if a body could only guess out _what the remark was_\nthat Goodson made to the stranger.\"\n\n\"It's perfectly true.  I feel guilty and ashamed.  And you?\"\n\n\"I'm past it.  Let us make a pallet here; we've got to stand watch till\nthe bank vault opens in the morning and admits the sack. . . Oh dear, oh\ndear--if we hadn't made the mistake!\"\n\nThe pallet was made, and Mary said:\n\n\"The open sesame--what could it have been?  I do wonder what that remark\ncould have been.  But come; we will get to bed now.\"\n\n\"And sleep?\"\n\n\"No; think.\"\n\n\"Yes; think.\"\n\nBy this time the Coxes too had completed their spat and their\nreconciliation, and were turning in--to think, to think, and toss, and\nfret, and worry over what the remark could possibly have been which\nGoodson made to the stranded derelict; that golden remark; that remark\nworth forty thousand dollars, cash.\n\nThe reason that the village telegraph-office was open later than usual\nthat night was this: The foreman of Cox's paper was the local\nrepresentative of the Associated Press.  One might say its honorary\nrepresentative, for it wasn't four times a year that he could furnish\nthirty words that would be accepted.  But this time it was different.  His\ndespatch stating what he had caught got an instant answer:\n\n   \"Send the whole thing--all the details--twelve hundred words.\"\n\nA colossal order!  The foreman filled the bill; and he was the proudest\nman in the State.  By breakfast-time the next morning the name of\nHadleyburg the Incorruptible was on every lip in America, from Montreal\nto the Gulf, from the glaciers of Alaska to the orange-groves of Florida;\nand millions and millions of people were discussing the stranger and his\nmoney-sack, and wondering if the right man would be found, and hoping\nsome more news about the matter would come soon--right away.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\nHadleyburg village woke up world-celebrated--astonished--happy--vain.\nVain beyond imagination.  Its nineteen principal citizens and their wives\nwent about shaking hands with each other, and beaming, and smiling, and\ncongratulating, and saying _this_ thing adds a new word to the\ndictionary--_Hadleyburg_, synonym for _incorruptible_--destined to live\nin dictionaries for ever!  And the minor and unimportant citizens and\ntheir wives went around acting in much the same way.  Everybody ran to\nthe bank to see the gold-sack; and before noon grieved and envious crowds\nbegan to flock in from Brixton and all neighbouring towns; and that\nafternoon and next day reporters began to arrive from everywhere to\nverify the sack and its history and write the whole thing up anew, and\nmake dashing free-hand pictures of the sack, and of Richards's house, and\nthe bank, and the Presbyterian church, and the Baptist church, and the\npublic square, and the town-hall where the test would be applied and the\nmoney delivered; and damnable portraits of the Richardses, and Pinkerton\nthe banker, and Cox, and the foreman, and Reverend Burgess, and the\npostmaster--and even of Jack Halliday, who was the loafing, good-natured,\nno-account, irreverent fisherman, hunter, boys' friend, stray-dogs'\nfriend, typical \"Sam Lawson\" of the town.  The little mean, smirking,\noily Pinkerton showed the sack to all comers, and rubbed his sleek palms\ntogether pleasantly, and enlarged upon the town's fine old reputation for\nhonesty and upon this wonderful endorsement of it, and hoped and believed\nthat the example would now spread far and wide over the American world,\nand be epoch-making in the matter of moral regeneration.  And so on, and\nso on.\n\nBy the end of a week things had quieted down again; the wild intoxication\nof pride and joy had sobered to a soft, sweet, silent delight--a sort of\ndeep, nameless, unutterable content.  All faces bore a look of peaceful,\nholy happiness.\n\nThen a change came.  It was a gradual change; so gradual that its\nbeginnings were hardly noticed; maybe were not noticed at all, except by\nJack Halliday, who always noticed everything; and always made fun of it,\ntoo, no matter what it was.  He began to throw out chaffing remarks about\npeople not looking quite so happy as they did a day or two ago; and next\nhe claimed that the new aspect was deepening to positive sadness; next,\nthat it was taking on a sick look; and finally he said that everybody was\nbecome so moody, thoughtful, and absent-minded that he could rob the\nmeanest man in town of a cent out of the bottom of his breeches pocket\nand not disturb his reverie.\n\nAt this stage--or at about this stage--a saying like this was dropped at\nbedtime--with a sigh, usually--by the head of each of the nineteen\nprincipal households:\n\n\"Ah, what _could_ have been the remark that Goodson made?\"\n\nAnd straightway--with a shudder--came this, from the man's wife:\n\n\"Oh, _don't_!  What horrible thing are you mulling in your mind?  Put it\naway from you, for God's sake!\"\n\nBut that question was wrung from those men again the next night--and got\nthe same retort.  But weaker.\n\nAnd the third night the men uttered the question yet again--with anguish,\nand absently.  This time--and the following night--the wives fidgeted\nfeebly, and tried to say something.  But didn't.\n\nAnd the night after that they found their tongues and\nresponded--longingly:\n\n\"Oh, if we _could_ only guess!\"\n\nHalliday's comments grew daily more and more sparklingly disagreeable and\ndisparaging.  He went diligently about, laughing at the town,\nindividually and in mass.  But his laugh was the only one left in the\nvillage: it fell upon a hollow and mournful vacancy and emptiness.  Not\neven a smile was findable anywhere.  Halliday carried a cigar-box around\non a tripod, playing that it was a camera, and halted all passers and\naimed the thing and said \"Ready!--now look pleasant, please,\" but not\neven this capital joke could surprise the dreary faces into any\nsoftening.\n\nSo three weeks passed--one week was left.  It was Saturday evening after\nsupper.  Instead of the aforetime Saturday-evening flutter and bustle and\nshopping and larking, the streets were empty and desolate.  Richards and\nhis old wife sat apart in their little parlour--miserable and thinking.\nThis was become their evening habit now: the life-long habit which had\npreceded it, of reading, knitting, and contented chat, or receiving or\npaying neighbourly calls, was dead and gone and forgotten, ages ago--two\nor three weeks ago; nobody talked now, nobody read, nobody visited--the\nwhole village sat at home, sighing, worrying, silent.  Trying to guess\nout that remark.\n\nThe postman left a letter.  Richards glanced listlessly at the\nsuperscription and the post-mark--unfamiliar, both--and tossed the letter\non the table and resumed his might-have-beens and his hopeless dull\nmiseries where he had left them off.  Two or three hours later his wife\ngot wearily up and was going away to bed without a good-night--custom\nnow--but she stopped near the letter and eyed it awhile with a dead\ninterest, then broke it open, and began to skim it over.  Richards,\nsitting there with his chair tilted back against the wall and his chin\nbetween his knees, heard something fall.  It was his wife.  He sprang to\nher side, but she cried out:\n\n\"Leave me alone, I am too happy.  Read the letter--read it!\"\n\nHe did.  He devoured it, his brain reeling.  The letter was from a\ndistant State, and it said:\n\n   \"I am a stranger to you, but no matter: I have something to tell.  I\n   have just arrived home from Mexico, and learned about that episode.  Of\n   course you do not know who made that remark, but I know, and I am the\n   only person living who does know.  It was GOODSON.  I knew him well,\n   many years ago.  I passed through your village that very night, and\n   was his guest till the midnight train came along.  I overheard him\n   make that remark to the stranger in the dark--it was in Hale Alley.  He\n   and I talked of it the rest of the way home, and while smoking in his\n   house.  He mentioned many of your villagers in the course of his\n   talk--most of them in a very uncomplimentary way, but two or three\n   favourably: among these latter yourself.  I say 'favourably'--nothing\n   stronger.  I remember his saying he did not actually LIKE any person\n   in the town--not one; but that you--I THINK he said you--am almost\n   sure--had done him a very great service once, possibly without knowing\n   the full value of it, and he wished he had a fortune, he would leave\n   it to you when he died, and a curse apiece for the rest of the\n   citizens.  Now, then, if it was you that did him that service, you are\n   his legitimate heir, and entitled to the sack of gold.  I know that I\n   can trust to your honour and honesty, for in a citizen of Hadleyburg\n   these virtues are an unfailing inheritance, and so I am going to\n   reveal to you the remark, well satisfied that if you are not the right\n   man you will seek and find the right one and see that poor Goodson's\n   debt of gratitude for the service referred to is paid.  This is the\n   remark 'YOU ARE FAR FROM BEING A BAD MAN: GO, AND REFORM.'\n\n   \"HOWARD L. STEPHENSON.\"\n\n\"Oh, Edward, the money is ours, and I am so grateful, _oh_, so\ngrateful,--kiss me, dear, it's for ever since we kissed--and we needed it\nso--the money--and now you are free of Pinkerton and his bank, and\nnobody's slave any more; it seems to me I could fly for joy.\"\n\nIt was a happy half-hour that the couple spent there on the settee\ncaressing each other; it was the old days come again--days that had begun\nwith their courtship and lasted without a break till the stranger brought\nthe deadly money.  By-and-by the wife said:\n\n\"Oh, Edward, how lucky it was you did him that grand service, poor\nGoodson!  I never liked him, but I love him now.  And it was fine and\nbeautiful of you never to mention it or brag about it.\"  Then, with a\ntouch of reproach, \"But you ought to have told _me_, Edward, you ought to\nhave told your wife, you know.\"\n\n\"Well, I--er--well, Mary, you see--\"\n\n\"Now stop hemming and hawing, and tell me about it, Edward.  I always\nloved you, and now I'm proud of you.  Everybody believes there was only\none good generous soul in this village, and now it turns out that\nyou--Edward, why don't you tell me?\"\n\n\"Well--er--er--Why, Mary, I can't!\"\n\n\"You _can't_?  _Why_ can't you?\"\n\n\"You see, he--well, he--he made me promise I wouldn't.\"\n\nThe wife looked him over, and said, very slowly:\n\n\"Made--you--promise?  Edward, what do you tell me that for?\"\n\n\"Mary, do you think I would lie?\"\n\nShe was troubled and silent for a moment, then she laid her hand within\nhis and said:\n\n\"No . . . no.  We have wandered far enough from our bearings--God spare\nus that!  In all your life you have never uttered a lie.  But now--now\nthat the foundations of things seem to be crumbling from under us,\nwe--we--\"  She lost her voice for a moment, then said, brokenly, \"Lead us\nnot into temptation. . . I think you made the promise, Edward.  Let it\nrest so.  Let us keep away from that ground.  Now--that is all gone by;\nlet us he happy again; it is no time for clouds.\"\n\nEdward found it something of an effort to comply, for his mind kept\nwandering--trying to remember what the service was that he had done\nGoodson.\n\nThe couple lay awake the most of the night, Mary happy and busy, Edward\nbusy, but not so happy.  Mary was planning what she would do with the\nmoney.  Edward was trying to recall that service.  At first his\nconscience was sore on account of the lie he had told Mary--if it was a\nlie.  After much reflection--suppose it _was_ a lie?  What then?  Was it\nsuch a great matter?  Aren't we always _acting_ lies?  Then why not tell\nthem?  Look at Mary--look what she had done.  While he was hurrying off\non his honest errand, what was she doing?  Lamenting because the papers\nhadn't been destroyed and the money kept.  Is theft better than lying?\n\n_That_ point lost its sting--the lie dropped into the background and left\ncomfort behind it.  The next point came to the front: _had_ he rendered\nthat service?  Well, here was Goodson's own evidence as reported in\nStephenson's letter; there could be no better evidence than that--it was\neven _proof_ that he had rendered it.  Of course.  So that point was\nsettled. . . No, not quite.  He recalled with a wince that this unknown\nMr. Stephenson was just a trifle unsure as to whether the performer of it\nwas Richards or some other--and, oh dear, he had put Richards on his\nhonour!  He must himself decide whither that money must go--and Mr.\nStephenson was not doubting that if he was the wrong man he would go\nhonourably and find the right one.  Oh, it was odious to put a man in\nsuch a situation--ah, why couldn't Stephenson have left out that doubt?\nWhat did he want to intrude that for?\n\nFurther reflection.  How did it happen that _Richards's_ name remained in\nStephenson's mind as indicating the right man, and not some other man's\nname?  That looked good.  Yes, that looked very good.  In fact it went on\nlooking better and better, straight along--until by-and-by it grew into\npositive _proof_.  And then Richards put the matter at once out of his\nmind, for he had a private instinct that a proof once established is\nbetter left so.\n\nHe was feeling reasonably comfortable now, but there was still one other\ndetail that kept pushing itself on his notice: of course he had done that\nservice--that was settled; but what _was_ that service?  He must recall\nit--he would not go to sleep till he had recalled it; it would make his\npeace of mind perfect.  And so he thought and thought.  He thought of a\ndozen things--possible services, even probable services--but none of them\nseemed adequate, none of them seemed large enough, none of them seemed\nworth the money--worth the fortune Goodson had wished he could leave in\nhis will.  And besides, he couldn't remember having done them, anyway.\nNow, then--now, then--what _kind_ of a service would it be that would\nmake a man so inordinately grateful?  Ah--the saving of his soul!  That\nmust be it.  Yes, he could remember, now, how he once set himself the\ntask of converting Goodson, and laboured at it as much as--he was going\nto say three months; but upon closer examination it shrunk to a month,\nthen to a week, then to a day, then to nothing.  Yes, he remembered now,\nand with unwelcome vividness, that Goodson had told him to go to thunder\nand mind his own business--_he_ wasn't hankering to follow Hadleyburg to\nheaven!\n\nSo that solution was a failure--he hadn't saved Goodson's soul.  Richards\nwas discouraged.  Then after a little came another idea: had he saved\nGoodson's property?  No, that wouldn't do--he hadn't any.  His life?  That\nis it!  Of course.  Why, he might have thought of it before.  This time\nhe was on the right track, sure.  His imagination-mill was hard at work\nin a minute, now.\n\nThereafter, during a stretch of two exhausting hours, he was busy saving\nGoodson's life.  He saved it in all kinds of difficult and perilous ways.\nIn every case he got it saved satisfactorily up to a certain point; then,\njust as he was beginning to get well persuaded that it had really\nhappened, a troublesome detail would turn up which made the whole thing\nimpossible.  As in the matter of drowning, for instance.  In that case he\nhad swum out and tugged Goodson ashore in an unconscious state with a\ngreat crowd looking on and applauding, but when he had got it all thought\nout and was just beginning to remember all about it, a whole swarm of\ndisqualifying details arrived on the ground: the town would have known of\nthe circumstance, Mary would have known of it, it would glare like a\nlimelight in his own memory instead of being an inconspicuous service\nwhich he had possibly rendered \"without knowing its full value.\"  And at\nthis point he remembered that he couldn't swim anyway.\n\nAh--_there_ was a point which he had been overlooking from the start: it\nhad to be a service which he had rendered \"possibly without knowing the\nfull value of it.\"  Why, really, that ought to be an easy hunt--much\neasier than those others.  And sure enough, by-and-by he found it.\nGoodson, years and years ago, came near marrying a very sweet and pretty\ngirl, named Nancy Hewitt, but in some way or other the match had been\nbroken off; the girl died, Goodson remained a bachelor, and by-and-by\nbecame a soured one and a frank despiser of the human species.  Soon\nafter the girl's death the village found out, or thought it had found\nout, that she carried a spoonful of negro blood in her veins.  Richards\nworked at these details a good while, and in the end he thought he\nremembered things concerning them which must have gotten mislaid in his\nmemory through long neglect.  He seemed to dimly remember that it was\n_he_ that found out about the negro blood; that it was he that told the\nvillage; that the village told Goodson where they got it; that he thus\nsaved Goodson from marrying the tainted girl; that he had done him this\ngreat service \"without knowing the full value of it,\" in fact without\nknowing that he _was_ doing it; but that Goodson knew the value of it,\nand what a narrow escape he had had, and so went to his grave grateful to\nhis benefactor and wishing he had a fortune to leave him.  It was all\nclear and simple, now, and the more he went over it the more luminous and\ncertain it grew; and at last, when he nestled to sleep, satisfied and\nhappy, he remembered the whole thing just as if it had been yesterday.  In\nfact, he dimly remembered Goodson's _telling_ him his gratitude once.\nMeantime Mary had spent six thousand dollars on a new house for herself\nand a pair of slippers for her pastor, and then had fallen peacefully to\nrest.\n\nThat same Saturday evening the postman had delivered a letter to each of\nthe other principal citizens--nineteen letters in all.  No two of the\nenvelopes were alike, and no two of the superscriptions were in the same\nhand, but the letters inside were just like each other in every detail\nbut one.  They were exact copies of the letter received by\nRichards--handwriting and all--and were all signed by Stephenson, but in\nplace of Richards's name each receiver's own name appeared.\n\nAll night long eighteen principal citizens did what their caste-brother\nRichards was doing at the same time--they put in their energies trying to\nremember what notable service it was that they had unconsciously done\nBarclay Goodson.  In no case was it a holiday job; still they succeeded.\n\nAnd while they were at this work, which was difficult, their wives put in\nthe night spending the money, which was easy.  During that one night the\nnineteen wives spent an average of seven thousand dollars each out of the\nforty thousand in the sack--a hundred and thirty-three thousand\naltogether.\n\nNext day there was a surprise for Jack Halliday.  He noticed that the\nfaces of the nineteen chief citizens and their wives bore that expression\nof peaceful and holy happiness again.  He could not understand it,\nneither was he able to invent any remarks about it that could damage it\nor disturb it.  And so it was his turn to be dissatisfied with life.  His\nprivate guesses at the reasons for the happiness failed in all instances,\nupon examination.  When he met Mrs. Wilcox and noticed the placid ecstasy\nin her face, he said to himself, \"Her cat has had kittens\"--and went and\nasked the cook; it was not so, the cook had detected the happiness, but\ndid not know the cause.  When Halliday found the duplicate ecstasy in the\nface of \"Shadbelly\" Billson (village nickname), he was sure some\nneighbour of Billson's had broken his leg, but inquiry showed that this\nhad not happened.  The subdued ecstasy in Gregory Yates's face could mean\nbut one thing--he was a mother-in-law short; it was another mistake.  \"And\nPinkerton--Pinkerton--he has collected ten cents that he thought he was\ngoing to lose.\"  And so on, and so on.  In some cases the guesses had to\nremain in doubt, in the others they proved distinct errors.  In the end\nHalliday said to himself, \"Anyway it roots up that there's nineteen\nHadleyburg families temporarily in heaven: I don't know how it happened;\nI only know Providence is off duty to-day.\"\n\nAn architect and builder from the next State had lately ventured to set\nup a small business in this unpromising village, and his sign had now\nbeen hanging out a week.  Not a customer yet; he was a discouraged man,\nand sorry he had come.  But his weather changed suddenly now.  First one\nand then another chief citizen's wife said to him privately:\n\n\"Come to my house Monday week--but say nothing about it for the present.\nWe think of building.\"\n\nHe got eleven invitations that day.  That night he wrote his daughter and\nbroke off her match with her student.  He said she could marry a mile\nhigher than that.\n\nPinkerton the banker and two or three other well-to-do men planned\ncountry-seats--but waited.  That kind don't count their chickens until\nthey are hatched.\n\nThe Wilsons devised a grand new thing--a fancy-dress ball.  They made no\nactual promises, but told all their acquaintanceship in confidence that\nthey were thinking the matter over and thought they should give it--\"and\nif we do, you will be invited, of course.\"  People were surprised, and\nsaid, one to another, \"Why, they are crazy, those poor Wilsons, they\ncan't afford it.\"  Several among the nineteen said privately to their\nhusbands, \"It is a good idea, we will keep still till their cheap thing\nis over, then _we_ will give one that will make it sick.\"\n\nThe days drifted along, and the bill of future squanderings rose higher\nand higher, wilder and wilder, more and more foolish and reckless.  It\nbegan to look as if every member of the nineteen would not only spend his\nwhole forty thousand dollars before receiving-day, but be actually in\ndebt by the time he got the money.  In some cases light-headed people did\nnot stop with planning to spend, they really spent--on credit.  They\nbought land, mortgages, farms, speculative stocks, fine clothes, horses,\nand various other things, paid down the bonus, and made themselves liable\nfor the rest--at ten days.  Presently the sober second thought came, and\nHalliday noticed that a ghastly anxiety was beginning to show up in a\ngood many faces.  Again he was puzzled, and didn't know what to make of\nit.  \"The Wilcox kittens aren't dead, for they weren't born; nobody's\nbroken a leg; there's no shrinkage in mother-in-laws; _nothing_ has\nhappened--it is an insolvable mystery.\"\n\nThere was another puzzled man, too--the Rev. Mr. Burgess.  For days,\nwherever he went, people seemed to follow him or to be watching out for\nhim; and if he ever found himself in a retired spot, a member of the\nnineteen would be sure to appear, thrust an envelope privately into his\nhand, whisper \"To be opened at the town-hall Friday evening,\" then vanish\naway like a guilty thing.  He was expecting that there might be one\nclaimant for the sack--doubtful, however, Goodson being dead--but it\nnever occurred to him that all this crowd might be claimants.  When the\ngreat Friday came at last, he found that he had nineteen envelopes.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\nThe town-hall had never looked finer.  The platform at the end of it was\nbacked by a showy draping of flags; at intervals along the walls were\nfestoons of flags; the gallery fronts were clothed in flags; the\nsupporting columns were swathed in flags; all this was to impress the\nstranger, for he would be there in considerable force, and in a large\ndegree he would be connected with the press.  The house was full.  The\n412 fixed seats were occupied; also the 68 extra chairs which had been\npacked into the aisles; the steps of the platform were occupied; some\ndistinguished strangers were given seats on the platform; at the\nhorseshoe of tables which fenced the front and sides of the platform sat\na strong force of special correspondents who had come from everywhere.  It\nwas the best-dressed house the town had ever produced.  There were some\ntolerably expensive toilets there, and in several cases the ladies who\nwore them had the look of being unfamiliar with that kind of clothes.  At\nleast the town thought they had that look, but the notion could have\narisen from the town's knowledge of the fact that these ladies had never\ninhabited such clothes before.\n\nThe gold-sack stood on a little table at the front of the platform where\nall the house could see it.  The bulk of the house gazed at it with a\nburning interest, a mouth-watering interest, a wistful and pathetic\ninterest; a minority of nineteen couples gazed at it tenderly, lovingly,\nproprietarily, and the male half of this minority kept saying over to\nthemselves the moving little impromptu speeches of thankfulness for the\naudience's applause and congratulations which they were presently going\nto get up and deliver.  Every now and then one of these got a piece of\npaper out of his vest pocket and privately glanced at it to refresh his\nmemory.\n\nOf course there was a buzz of conversation going on--there always is; but\nat last, when the Rev. Mr. Burgess rose and laid his hand on the sack, he\ncould hear his microbes gnaw, the place was so still.  He related the\ncurious history of the sack, then went on to speak in warm terms of\nHadleyburg's old and well-earned reputation for spotless honesty, and of\nthe town's just pride in this reputation.  He said that this reputation\nwas a treasure of priceless value; that under Providence its value had\nnow become inestimably enhanced, for the recent episode had spread this\nfame far and wide, and thus had focussed the eyes of the American world\nupon this village, and made its name for all time, as he hoped and\nbelieved, a synonym for commercial incorruptibility.  [Applause.]  \"And\nwho is to be the guardian of this noble fame--the community as a whole?\nNo!  The responsibility is individual, not communal.  From this day forth\neach and every one of you is in his own person its special guardian, and\nindividually responsible that no harm shall come to it.  Do you--does\neach of you--accept this great trust?  [Tumultuous assent.]  Then all is\nwell.  Transmit it to your children and to your children's children.  To-\nday your purity is beyond reproach--see to it that it shall remain so.  To-\nday there is not a person in your community who could be beguiled to\ntouch a penny not his own--see to it that you abide in this grace.  [\"We\nwill! we will!\"]  This is not the place to make comparisons between\nourselves and other communities--some of them ungracious towards us; they\nhave their ways, we have ours; let us be content.  [Applause.]  I am\ndone.  Under my hand, my friends, rests a stranger's eloquent recognition\nof what we are; through him the world will always henceforth know what we\nare.  We do not know who he is, but in your name I utter your gratitude,\nand ask you to raise your voices in indorsement.\"\n\nThe house rose in a body and made the walls quake with the thunders of\nits thankfulness for the space of a long minute.  Then it sat down, and\nMr. Burgess took an envelope out of his pocket.  The house held its\nbreath while he slit the envelope open and took from it a slip of paper.\nHe read its contents--slowly and impressively--the audience listening\nwith tranced attention to this magic document, each of whose words stood\nfor an ingot of gold:\n\n\"'The remark which I made to the distressed stranger was this: \"You are\nvery far from being a bad man; go, and reform.\"'\"  Then he continued:--\"We\nshall know in a moment now whether the remark here quoted corresponds\nwith the one concealed in the sack; and if that shall prove to be so--and\nit undoubtedly will--this sack of gold belongs to a fellow-citizen who\nwill henceforth stand before the nation as the symbol of the special\nvirtue which has made our town famous throughout the land--Mr. Billson!\"\n\nThe house had gotten itself all ready to burst into the proper tornado of\napplause; but instead of doing it, it seemed stricken with a paralysis;\nthere was a deep hush for a moment or two, then a wave of whispered\nmurmurs swept the place--of about this tenor: \"_Billson_! oh, come, this\nis _too_ thin!  Twenty dollars to a stranger--or _anybody_--_Billson_!\nTell it to the marines!\"  And now at this point the house caught its\nbreath all of a sudden in a new access of astonishment, for it discovered\nthat whereas in one part of the hall Deacon Billson was standing up with\nhis head weekly bowed, in another part of it Lawyer Wilson was doing the\nsame.  There was a wondering silence now for a while.  Everybody was\npuzzled, and nineteen couples were surprised and indignant.\n\nBillson and Wilson turned and stared at each other.  Billson asked,\nbitingly:\n\n\"Why do _you_ rise, Mr. Wilson?\"\n\n\"Because I have a right to.  Perhaps you will be good enough to explain\nto the house why _you_ rise.\"\n\n\"With great pleasure.  Because I wrote that paper.\"\n\n\"It is an impudent falsity!  I wrote it myself.\"\n\nIt was Burgess's turn to be paralysed.  He stood looking vacantly at\nfirst one of the men and then the other, and did not seem to know what to\ndo.  The house was stupefied.  Lawyer Wilson spoke up now, and said:\n\n\"I ask the Chair to read the name signed to that paper.\"\n\nThat brought the Chair to itself, and it read out the name:\n\n\"John Wharton _Billson_.\"\n\n\"There!\" shouted Billson, \"what have you got to say for yourself now?  And\nwhat kind of apology are you going to make to me and to this insulted\nhouse for the imposture which you have attempted to play here?\"\n\n\"No apologies are due, sir; and as for the rest of it, I publicly charge\nyou with pilfering my note from Mr. Burgess and substituting a copy of it\nsigned with your own name.  There is no other way by which you could have\ngotten hold of the test-remark; I alone, of living men, possessed the\nsecret of its wording.\"\n\nThere was likely to be a scandalous state of things if this went on;\neverybody noticed with distress that the shorthand scribes were\nscribbling like mad; many people were crying \"Chair, chair!  Order!\norder!\"  Burgess rapped with his gavel, and said:\n\n\"Let us not forget the proprieties due.  There has evidently been a\nmistake somewhere, but surely that is all.  If Mr. Wilson gave me an\nenvelope--and I remember now that he did--I still have it.\"\n\nHe took one out of his pocket, opened it, glanced at it, looked surprised\nand worried, and stood silent a few moments.  Then he waved his hand in a\nwandering and mechanical way, and made an effort or two to say something,\nthen gave it up, despondently.  Several voices cried out:\n\n\"Read it! read it!  What is it?\"\n\nSo he began, in a dazed and sleep-walker fashion:\n\n\"'The remark which I made to the unhappy stranger was this: \"You are far\nfrom being a bad man.  [The house gazed at him marvelling.]  Go, and\nreform.\"'  [Murmurs: \"Amazing! what can this mean?\"]  This one,\" said the\nChair, \"is signed Thurlow G. Wilson.\"\n\n\"There!\" cried Wilson, \"I reckon that settles it!  I knew perfectly well\nmy note was purloined.\"\n\n\"Purloined!\" retorted Billson.  \"I'll let you know that neither you nor\nany man of your kidney must venture to--\"\n\nThe Chair: \"Order, gentlemen, order!  Take your seats, both of you,\nplease.\"\n\nThey obeyed, shaking their heads and grumbling angrily.  The house was\nprofoundly puzzled; it did not know what to do with this curious\nemergency.  Presently Thompson got up.  Thompson was the hatter.  He\nwould have liked to be a Nineteener; but such was not for him; his stock\nof hats was not considerable enough for the position.  He said:\n\n\"Mr. Chairman, if I may be permitted to make a suggestion, can both of\nthese gentlemen be right?  I put it to you, sir, can both have happened\nto say the very same words to the stranger?  It seems to me--\"\n\nThe tanner got up and interrupted him.  The tanner was a disgruntled man;\nhe believed himself entitled to be a Nineteener, but he couldn't get\nrecognition.  It made him a little unpleasant in his ways and speech.\nSaid he:\n\n\"Sho, _that's_ not the point!  _That_ could happen--twice in a hundred\nyears--but not the other thing.  _Neither_ of them gave the twenty\ndollars!\"  [A ripple of applause.]\n\nBillson.  \"I did!\"\n\nWilson.  \"I did!\"\n\nThen each accused the other of pilfering.\n\nThe Chair.  \"Order!  Sit down, if you please--both of you.  Neither of\nthe notes has been out of my possession at any moment.\"\n\nA Voice.  \"Good--that settles _that_!\"\n\nThe Tanner.  \"Mr. Chairman, one thing is now plain: one of these men has\nbeen eavesdropping under the other one's bed, and filching family\nsecrets.  If it is not unparliamentary to suggest it, I will remark that\nboth are equal to it.  [The Chair.  \"Order! order!\"]  I withdraw the\nremark, sir, and will confine myself to suggesting that _if_ one of them\nhas overheard the other reveal the test-remark to his wife, we shall\ncatch him now.\"\n\nA Voice.  \"How?\"\n\nThe Tanner.  \"Easily.  The two have not quoted the remark in exactly the\nsame words.  You would have noticed that, if there hadn't been a\nconsiderable stretch of time and an exciting quarrel inserted between the\ntwo readings.\"\n\nA Voice.  \"Name the difference.\"\n\nThe Tanner.  \"The word _very_ is in Billson's note, and not in the\nother.\"\n\nMany Voices.  \"That's so--he's right!\"\n\nThe Tanner.  \"And so, if the Chair will examine the test-remark in the\nsack, we shall know which of these two frauds--[The Chair.\n\"Order!\"]--which of these two adventurers--[The Chair.  \"Order!\norder!\"]--which of these two gentlemen--[laughter and applause]--is\nentitled to wear the belt as being the first dishonest blatherskite ever\nbred in this town--which he has dishonoured, and which will be a sultry\nplace for him from now out!\"  [Vigorous applause.]\n\nMany Voices.  \"Open it!--open the sack!\"\n\nMr. Burgess made a slit in the sack, slid his hand in, and brought out an\nenvelope.  In it were a couple of folded notes.  He said:\n\n\"One of these is marked, 'Not to be examined until all written\ncommunications which have been addressed to the Chair--if any--shall have\nbeen read.'  The other is marked '_The Test_.'  Allow me.  It is\nworded--to wit:\n\n\"'I do not require that the first half of the remark which was made to me\nby my benefactor shall be quoted with exactness, for it was not striking,\nand could be forgotten; but its closing fifteen words are quite striking,\nand I think easily rememberable; unless _these_ shall be accurately\nreproduced, let the applicant be regarded as an impostor.  My benefactor\nbegan by saying he seldom gave advice to anyone, but that it always bore\nthe hall-mark of high value when he did give it.  Then he said this--and\nit has never faded from my memory: '_You are far from being a bad\nman_--''\"\n\nFifty Voices.  \"That settles it--the money's Wilson's!  Wilson!  Wilson!\nSpeech!  Speech!\"\n\nPeople jumped up and crowded around Wilson, wringing his hand and\ncongratulating fervently--meantime the Chair was hammering with the gavel\nand shouting:\n\n\"Order, gentlemen!  Order!  Order!  Let me finish reading, please.\"  When\nquiet was restored, the reading was resumed--as follows:\n\n\"'_Go, and reform--or, mark my words--some day, for your sins you will\ndie and go to hell or Hadleyburg_--TRY AND MAKE IT THE FORMER.'\"\n\nA ghastly silence followed.  First an angry cloud began to settle darkly\nupon the faces of the citizenship; after a pause the cloud began to rise,\nand a tickled expression tried to take its place; tried so hard that it\nwas only kept under with great and painful difficulty; the reporters, the\nBrixtonites, and other strangers bent their heads down and shielded their\nfaces with their hands, and managed to hold in by main strength and\nheroic courtesy.  At this most inopportune time burst upon the stillness\nthe roar of a solitary voice--Jack Halliday's:\n\n\"_That's_ got the hall-mark on it!\"\n\nThen the house let go, strangers and all.  Even Mr. Burgess's gravity\nbroke down presently, then the audience considered itself officially\nabsolved from all restraint, and it made the most of its privilege.  It\nwas a good long laugh, and a tempestuously wholehearted one, but it\nceased at last--long enough for Mr. Burgess to try to resume, and for the\npeople to get their eyes partially wiped; then it broke out again, and\nafterward yet again; then at last Burgess was able to get out these\nserious words:\n\n\"It is useless to try to disguise the fact--we find ourselves in the\npresence of a matter of grave import.  It involves the honour of your\ntown--it strikes at the town's good name.  The difference of a single\nword between the test-remarks offered by Mr. Wilson and Mr. Billson was\nitself a serious thing, since it indicated that one or the other of these\ngentlemen had committed a theft--\"\n\nThe two men were sitting limp, nerveless, crushed; but at these words\nboth were electrified into movement, and started to get up.\n\n\"Sit down!\" said the Chair, sharply, and they obeyed.  \"That, as I have\nsaid, was a serious thing.  And it was--but for only one of them.  But\nthe matter has become graver; for the honour of _both_ is now in\nformidable peril.  Shall I go even further, and say in inextricable\nperil?  _Both_ left out the crucial fifteen words.\"  He paused.  During\nseveral moments he allowed the pervading stillness to gather and deepen\nits impressive effects, then added: \"There would seem to be but one way\nwhereby this could happen.  I ask these gentlemen--Was there\n_collusion_?--_agreement_?\"\n\nA low murmur sifted through the house; its import was, \"He's got them\nboth.\"\n\nBillson was not used to emergencies; he sat in a helpless collapse.  But\nWilson was a lawyer.  He struggled to his feet, pale and worried, and\nsaid:\n\n\"I ask the indulgence of the house while I explain this most painful\nmatter.  I am sorry to say what I am about to say, since it must inflict\nirreparable injury upon Mr. Billson, whom I have always esteemed and\nrespected until now, and in whose invulnerability to temptation I\nentirely believed--as did you all.  But for the preservation of my own\nhonour I must speak--and with frankness.  I confess with shame--and I now\nbeseech your pardon for it--that I said to the ruined stranger all of the\nwords contained in the test-remark, including the disparaging fifteen.\n[Sensation.]  When the late publication was made I recalled them, and I\nresolved to claim the sack of coin, for by every right I was entitled to\nit.  Now I will ask you to consider this point, and weigh it well; that\nstranger's gratitude to me that night knew no bounds; he said himself\nthat he could find no words for it that were adequate, and that if he\nshould ever be able he would repay me a thousandfold.  Now, then, I ask\nyou this; could I expect--could I believe--could I even remotely\nimagine--that, feeling as he did, he would do so ungrateful a thing as to\nadd those quite unnecessary fifteen words to his test?--set a trap for\nme?--expose me as a slanderer of my own town before my own people\nassembled in a public hall?  It was preposterous; it was impossible.  His\ntest would contain only the kindly opening clause of my remark.  Of that\nI had no shadow of doubt.  You would have thought as I did.  You would\nnot have expected a base betrayal from one whom you had befriended and\nagainst whom you had committed no offence.  And so with perfect\nconfidence, perfect trust, I wrote on a piece of paper the opening\nwords--ending with \"Go, and reform,\"--and signed it.  When I was about to\nput it in an envelope I was called into my back office, and without\nthinking I left the paper lying open on my desk.\"  He stopped, turned his\nhead slowly toward Billson, waited a moment, then added: \"I ask you to\nnote this; when I returned, a little latter, Mr. Billson was retiring by\nmy street door.\"  [Sensation.]\n\nIn a moment Billson was on his feet and shouting:\n\n\"It's a lie!  It's an infamous lie!\"\n\nThe Chair.  \"Be seated, sir!  Mr. Wilson has the floor.\"\n\nBillson's friends pulled him into his seat and quieted him, and Wilson\nwent on:\n\n\"Those are the simple facts.  My note was now lying in a different place\non the table from where I had left it.  I noticed that, but attached no\nimportance to it, thinking a draught had blown it there.  That Mr.\nBillson would read a private paper was a thing which could not occur to\nme; he was an honourable man, and he would be above that.  If you will\nallow me to say it, I think his extra word '_very_' stands explained: it\nis attributable to a defect of memory.  I was the only man in the world\nwho could furnish here any detail of the test-mark--by _honourable_\nmeans.  I have finished.\"\n\nThere is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the\nmental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an\naudience not practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory.  Wilson\nsat down victorious.  The house submerged him in tides of approving\napplause; friends swarmed to him and shook him by the hand and\ncongratulated him, and Billson was shouted down and not allowed to say a\nword.  The Chair hammered and hammered with its gavel, and kept shouting:\n\n\"But let us proceed, gentlemen, let us proceed!\"\n\nAt last there was a measurable degree of quiet, and the hatter said:\n\n\"But what is there to proceed with, sir, but to deliver the money?\"\n\nVoices.  \"That's it!  That's it!  Come forward, Wilson!\"\n\nThe Hatter.  \"I move three cheers for Mr. Wilson, Symbol of the special\nvirtue which--\"\n\nThe cheers burst forth before he could finish; and in the midst of\nthem--and in the midst of the clamour of the gavel also--some enthusiasts\nmounted Wilson on a big friend's shoulder and were going to fetch him in\ntriumph to the platform.  The Chair's voice now rose above the noise:\n\n\"Order!  To your places!  You forget that there is still a document to be\nread.\"  When quiet had been restored he took up the document, and was\ngoing to read it, but laid it down again saying \"I forgot; this is not to\nbe read until all written communications received by me have first been\nread.\"  He took an envelope out of his pocket, removed its enclosure,\nglanced at it--seemed astonished--held it out and gazed at it--stared at\nit.\n\nTwenty or thirty voices cried out\n\n\"What is it?  Read it! read it!\"\n\nAnd he did--slowly, and wondering:\n\n\"'The remark which I made to the stranger--[Voices.  \"Hello! how's\nthis?\"]--was this: 'You are far from being a bad man.  [Voices.  \"Great\nScott!\"]  Go, and reform.'\"  [Voice.  \"Oh, saw my leg off!\"]  Signed by\nMr. Pinkerton the banker.\"\n\nThe pandemonium of delight which turned itself loose now was of a sort to\nmake the judicious weep.  Those whose withers were unwrung laughed till\nthe tears ran down; the reporters, in throes of laughter, set down\ndisordered pot-hooks which would never in the world be decipherable; and\na sleeping dog jumped up scared out of its wits, and barked itself crazy\nat the turmoil.  All manner of cries were scattered through the din:\n\"We're getting rich--_two_ Symbols of Incorruptibility!--without counting\nBillson!\"  \"_Three_!--count Shadbelly in--we can't have too many!\"  \"All\nright--Billson's elected!\"  \"Alas, poor Wilson! victim of _two_ thieves!\"\n\nA Powerful Voice.  \"Silence!  The Chair's fished up something more out of\nits pocket.\"\n\nVoices.  \"Hurrah!  Is it something fresh?  Read it! read! read!\"\n\nThe Chair [reading].  \"'The remark which I made,' etc.  'You are far from\nbeing a bad man.  Go,' etc.  Signed, 'Gregory Yates.'\"\n\nTornado of Voices.  \"Four Symbols!\"  \"'Rah for Yates!\"  \"Fish again!\"\n\nThe house was in a roaring humour now, and ready to get all the fun out\nof the occasion that might be in it.  Several Nineteeners, looking pale\nand distressed, got up and began to work their way towards the aisles,\nbut a score of shouts went up:\n\n\"The doors, the doors--close the doors; no Incorruptible shall leave this\nplace!  Sit down, everybody!\"  The mandate was obeyed.\n\n\"Fish again!  Read! read!\"\n\nThe Chair fished again, and once more the familiar words began to fall\nfrom its lips--\"'You are far from being a bad man--'\"\n\n\"Name! name!  What's his name?\"\n\n\"'L. Ingoldsby Sargent.'\"\n\n\"Five elected!  Pile up the Symbols!  Go on, go on!\"\n\n\"'You are far from being a bad--'\"\n\n\"Name! name!\"\n\n\"'Nicholas Whitworth.'\"\n\n\"Hooray! hooray! it's a symbolical day!\"\n\nSomebody wailed in, and began to sing this rhyme (leaving out \"it's\") to\nthe lovely \"Mikado\" tune of \"When a man's afraid of a beautiful maid;\"\nthe audience joined in, with joy; then, just in time, somebody\ncontributed another line--\n\n   \"And don't you this forget--\"\n\nThe house roared it out.  A third line was at once furnished--\n\n   \"Corruptibles far from Hadleyburg are--\"\n\nThe house roared that one too.  As the last note died, Jack Halliday's\nvoice rose high and clear, freighted with a final line--\n\n   \"But the Symbols are here, you bet!\"\n\nThat was sung, with booming enthusiasm.  Then the happy house started in\nat the beginning and sang the four lines through twice, with immense\nswing and dash, and finished up with a crashing three-times-three and a\ntiger for \"Hadleyburg the Incorruptible and all Symbols of it which we\nshall find worthy to receive the hall-mark to-night.\"\n\nThen the shoutings at the Chair began again, all over the place:\n\n\"Go on! go on!  Read! read some more!  Read all you've got!\"\n\n\"That's it--go on!  We are winning eternal celebrity!\"\n\nA dozen men got up now and began to protest.  They said that this farce\nwas the work of some abandoned joker, and was an insult to the whole\ncommunity.  Without a doubt these signatures were all forgeries--\n\n\"Sit down! sit down!  Shut up!  You are confessing.  We'll find your\nnames in the lot.\"\n\n\"Mr. Chairman, how many of those envelopes have you got?\"\n\nThe Chair counted.\n\n\"Together with those that have been already examined, there are\nnineteen.\"\n\nA storm of derisive applause broke out.\n\n\"Perhaps they all contain the secret.  I move that you open them all and\nread every signature that is attached to a note of that sort--and read\nalso the first eight words of the note.\"\n\n\"Second the motion!\"\n\nIt was put and carried--uproariously.  Then poor old Richards got up, and\nhis wife rose and stood at his side.  Her head was bent down, so that\nnone might see that she was crying.  Her husband gave her his arm, and so\nsupporting her, he began to speak in a quavering voice:\n\n\"My friends, you have known us two--Mary and me--all our lives, and I\nthink you have liked us and respected us--\"\n\nThe Chair interrupted him:\n\n\"Allow me.  It is quite true--that which you are saying, Mr. Richards;\nthis town _does_ know you two; it _does_ like you; it _does_ respect you;\nmore--it honours you and _loves_ you--\"\n\nHalliday's voice rang out:\n\n\"That's the hall-marked truth, too!  If the Chair is right, let the house\nspeak up and say it.  Rise!  Now, then--hip! hip! hip!--all together!\"\n\nThe house rose in mass, faced toward the old couple eagerly, filled the\nair with a snow-storm of waving handkerchiefs, and delivered the cheers\nwith all its affectionate heart.\n\nThe Chair then continued:\n\n\"What I was going to say is this: We know your good heart, Mr. Richards,\nbut this is not a time for the exercise of charity toward offenders.\n[Shouts of \"Right! right!\"]  I see your generous purpose in your face,\nbut I cannot allow you to plead for these men--\"\n\n\"But I was going to--\"\n\n\"Please take your seat, Mr. Richards.  We must examine the rest of these\nnotes--simple fairness to the men who have already been exposed requires\nthis.  As soon as that has been done--I give you my word for this--you\nshall he heard.\"\n\nMany voices.  \"Right!--the Chair is right--no interruption can be\npermitted at this stage!  Go on!--the names! the names!--according to the\nterms of the motion!\"\n\nThe old couple sat reluctantly down, and the husband whispered to the\nwife, \"It is pitifully hard to have to wait; the shame will be greater\nthan ever when they find we were only going to plead for _ourselves_.\"\n\nStraightway the jollity broke loose again with the reading of the names.\n\n\"'You are far from being a bad man--' Signature, 'Robert J. Titmarsh.'\"\n\n'\"You are far from being a bad man--' Signature, 'Eliphalet Weeks.'\"\n\n\"'You are far from being a bad man--' Signature, 'Oscar B. Wilder.'\"\n\nAt this point the house lit upon the idea of taking the eight words out\nof the Chairman's hands.  He was not unthankful for that.  Thenceforward\nhe held up each note in its turn and waited.  The house droned out the\neight words in a massed and measured and musical deep volume of sound\n(with a daringly close resemblance to a well-known church chant)--\"You\nare f-a-r from being a b-a-a-a-d man.\"  Then the Chair said, \"Signature,\n'Archibald Wilcox.'\"  And so on, and so on, name after name, and\neverybody had an increasingly and gloriously good time except the\nwretched Nineteen.  Now and then, when a particularly shining name was\ncalled, the house made the Chair wait while it chanted the whole of the\ntest-remark from the beginning to the closing words, \"And go to hell or\nHadleyburg--try and make it the for-or-m-e-r!\" and in these special cases\nthey added a grand and agonised and imposing \"A-a-a-a-_men_!\"\n\nThe list dwindled, dwindled, dwindled, poor old Richards keeping tally of\nthe count, wincing when a name resembling his own was pronounced, and\nwaiting in miserable suspense for the time to come when it would be his\nhumiliating privilege to rise with Mary and finish his plea, which he was\nintending to word thus: \". . . for until now we have never done any wrong\nthing, but have gone our humble way unreproached.  We are very poor, we\nare old, and, have no chick nor child to help us; we were sorely tempted,\nand we fell.  It was my purpose when I got up before to make confession\nand beg that my name might not be read out in this public place, for it\nseemed to us that we could not bear it; but I was prevented.  It was\njust; it was our place to suffer with the rest.  It has been hard for us.\nIt is the first time we have ever heard our name fall from any one's\nlips--sullied.  Be merciful--for the sake or the better days; make our\nshame as light to bear as in your charity you can.\"  At this point in his\nreverie Mary nudged him, perceiving that his mind was absent.  The house\nwas chanting, \"You are f-a-r,\" etc.\n\n\"Be ready,\" Mary whispered.  \"Your name comes now; he has read eighteen.\"\n\nThe chant ended.\n\n\"Next! next! next!\" came volleying from all over the house.\n\nBurgess put his hand into his pocket.  The old couple, trembling, began\nto rise.  Burgess fumbled a moment, then said:\n\n\"I find I have read them all.\"\n\nFaint with joy and surprise, the couple sank into their seats, and Mary\nwhispered:\n\n\"Oh, bless God, we are saved!--he has lost ours--I wouldn't give this for\na hundred of those sacks!\"\n\nThe house burst out with its \"Mikado\" travesty, and sang it three times\nwith ever-increasing enthusiasm, rising to its feet when it reached for\nthe third time the closing line--\n\n   \"But the Symbols are here, you bet!\"\n\nand finishing up with cheers and a tiger for \"Hadleyburg purity and our\neighteen immortal representatives of it.\"\n\nThen Wingate, the saddler, got up and proposed cheers \"for the cleanest\nman in town, the one solitary important citizen in it who didn't try to\nsteal that money--Edward Richards.\"\n\nThey were given with great and moving heartiness; then somebody proposed\nthat \"Richards be elected sole Guardian and Symbol of the now Sacred\nHadleyburg Tradition, with power and right to stand up and look the whole\nsarcastic world in the face.\"\n\nPassed, by acclamation; then they sang the \"Mikado\" again, and ended it\nwith--\n\n   \"And there's _one_ Symbol left, you bet!\"\n\nThere was a pause; then--\n\nA Voice.  \"Now, then, who's to get the sack?\"\n\nThe Tanner (with bitter sarcasm).  \"That's easy.  The money has to be\ndivided among the eighteen Incorruptibles.  They gave the suffering\nstranger twenty dollars apiece--and that remark--each in his turn--it\ntook twenty-two minutes for the procession to move past.  Staked the\nstranger--total contribution, $360.  All they want is just the loan\nback--and interest--forty thousand dollars altogether.\"\n\nMany Voices [derisively.]  \"That's it!  Divvy! divvy!  Be kind to the\npoor--don't keep them waiting!\"\n\nThe Chair.  \"Order!  I now offer the stranger's remaining document.  It\nsays: 'If no claimant shall appear [grand chorus of groans], I desire\nthat you open the sack and count out the money to the principal citizens\nof your town, they to take it in trust [Cries of \"Oh! Oh! Oh!\"], and use\nit in such ways as to them shall seem best for the propagation and\npreservation of your community's noble reputation for incorruptible\nhonesty [more cries]--a reputation to which their names and their efforts\nwill add a new and far-reaching lustre.\"  [Enthusiastic outburst of\nsarcastic applause.]  That seems to be all.  No--here is a postscript:\n\n\"'P.S.--CITIZENS OF HADLEYBURG: There _is_ no test-remark--nobody made\none.  [Great sensation.]  There wasn't any pauper stranger, nor any\ntwenty-dollar contribution, nor any accompanying benediction and\ncompliment--these are all inventions.  [General buzz and hum of\nastonishment and delight.]  Allow me to tell my story--it will take but a\nword or two.  I passed through your town at a certain time, and received\na deep offence which I had not earned.  Any other man would have been\ncontent to kill one or two of you and call it square, but to me that\nwould have been a trivial revenge, and inadequate; for the dead do not\n_suffer_. Besides I could not kill you all--and, anyway, made as I am,\neven that would not have satisfied me.  I wanted to damage every man in\nthe place, and every woman--and not in their bodies or in their estate,\nbut in their vanity--the place where feeble and foolish people are most\nvulnerable.  So I disguised myself and came back and studied you.  You\nwere easy game.  You had an old and lofty reputation for honesty, and\nnaturally you were proud of it--it was your treasure of treasures, the\nvery apple of your eye.  As soon as I found out that you carefully and\nvigilantly kept yourselves and your children _out of temptation_, I knew\nhow to proceed.  Why, you simple creatures, the weakest of all weak\nthings is a virtue which has not been tested in the fire.  I laid a plan,\nand gathered a list of names.  My project was to corrupt Hadleyburg the\nIncorruptible.  My idea was to make liars and thieves of nearly half a\nhundred smirchless men and women who had never in their lives uttered a\nlie or stolen a penny.  I was afraid of Goodson.  He was neither born nor\nreared in Hadleyburg.  I was afraid that if I started to operate my\nscheme by getting my letter laid before you, you would say to yourselves,\n'Goodson is the only man among us who would give away twenty dollars to a\npoor devil'--and then you might not bite at my bait.  But heaven took\nGoodson; then I knew I was safe, and I set my trap and baited it.  It may\nbe that I shall not catch all the men to whom I mailed the pretended test-\nsecret, but I shall catch the most of them, if I know Hadleyburg nature.\n[Voices.  \"Right--he got every last one of them.\"]  I believe they will\neven steal ostensible _gamble_-money, rather than miss, poor, tempted,\nand mistrained fellows.  I am hoping to eternally and everlastingly\nsquelch your vanity and give Hadleyburg a new renown--one that will\n_stick_--and spread far.  If I have succeeded, open the sack and summon\nthe Committee on Propagation and Preservation of the Hadleyburg\nReputation.'\"\n\nA Cyclone of Voices.  \"Open it!  Open it!  The Eighteen to the front!\nCommittee on Propagation of the Tradition!  Forward--the Incorruptibles!\"\n\nThe Chair ripped the sack wide, and gathered up a handful of bright,\nbroad, yellow coins, shook them together, then examined them.\n\n\"Friends, they are only gilded disks of lead!\"\n\nThere was a crashing outbreak of delight over this news, and when the\nnoise had subsided, the tanner called out:\n\n\"By right of apparent seniority in this business, Mr. Wilson is Chairman\nof the Committee on Propagation of the Tradition.  I suggest that he step\nforward on behalf of his pals, and receive in trust the money.\"\n\nA Hundred Voices.  \"Wilson!  Wilson!  Wilson!  Speech!  Speech!\"\n\nWilson [in a voice trembling with anger].  \"You will allow me to say, and\nwithout apologies for my language, _damn_ the money!\"\n\nA Voice.  \"Oh, and him a Baptist!\"\n\nA Voice.  \"Seventeen Symbols left!  Step up, gentlemen, and assume your\ntrust!\"\n\nThere was a pause--no response.\n\nThe Saddler.  \"Mr. Chairman, we've got _one_ clean man left, anyway, out\nof the late aristocracy; and he needs money, and deserves it.  I move\nthat you appoint Jack Halliday to get up there and auction off that sack\nof gilt twenty-dollar pieces, and give the result to the right man--the\nman whom Hadleyburg delights to honour--Edward Richards.\"\n\nThis was received with great enthusiasm, the dog taking a hand again; the\nsaddler started the bids at a dollar, the Brixton folk and Barnum's\nrepresentative fought hard for it, the people cheered every jump that the\nbids made, the excitement climbed moment by moment higher and higher, the\nbidders got on their mettle and grew steadily more and more daring, more\nand more determined, the jumps went from a dollar up to five, then to\nten, then to twenty, then fifty, then to a hundred, then--\n\nAt the beginning of the auction Richards whispered in distress to his\nwife: \"Oh, Mary, can we allow it?  It--it--you see, it is an\nhonour--reward, a testimonial to purity of character, and--and--can we\nallow it?  Hadn't I better get up and--Oh, Mary, what ought we to\ndo?--what do you think we--\" [Halliday's voice.  \"Fifteen I'm\nbid!--fifteen for the sack!--twenty!--ah, thanks!--thirty--thanks again!\nThirty, thirty, thirty!--do I hear forty?--forty it is!  Keep the ball\nrolling, gentlemen, keep it rolling!--fifty!--thanks, noble Roman!--going\nat fifty, fifty, fifty!--seventy!--ninety!--splendid!--a hundred!--pile\nit up, pile it up!--hundred and twenty--forty!--just in time!--hundred\nand fifty!--Two hundred!--superb!  Do I hear two h--thanks!--two hundred\nand fifty!--\"]\n\n\"It is another temptation, Edward--I'm all in a tremble--but, oh, we've\nescaped one temptation, and that ought to warn us, to--[\"Six did I\nhear?--thanks!--six fifty, six f--SEVEN hundred!\"]  And yet, Edward, when\nyou think--nobody susp--[\"Eight hundred dollars!--hurrah!--make it\nnine!--Mr. Parsons, did I hear you say--thanks!--nine!--this noble sack\nof virgin lead going at only nine hundred dollars, gilding and all--come!\ndo I hear--a thousand!--gratefully yours!--did some one say eleven?--a\nsack which is going to be the most celebrated in the whole Uni--\"]  \"Oh,\nEdward\" (beginning to sob), \"we are so poor!--but--but--do as you think\nbest--do as you think best.\"\n\nEdward fell--that is, he sat still; sat with a conscience which was not\nsatisfied, but which was overpowered by circumstances.\n\nMeantime a stranger, who looked like an amateur detective gotten up as an\nimpossible English earl, had been watching the evening's proceedings with\nmanifest interest, and with a contented expression in his face; and he\nhad been privately commenting to himself.  He was now soliloquising\nsomewhat like this: \"None of the Eighteen are bidding; that is not\nsatisfactory; I must change that--the dramatic unities require it; they\nmust buy the sack they tried to steal; they must pay a heavy price,\ntoo--some of them are rich.  And another thing, when I make a mistake in\nHadleyburg nature the man that puts that error upon me is entitled to a\nhigh honorarium, and some one must pay.  This poor old Richards has\nbrought my judgment to shame; he is an honest man:--I don't understand\nit, but I acknowledge it.  Yes, he saw my deuces--_and_ with a straight\nflush, and by rights the pot is his.  And it shall be a jack-pot, too, if\nI can manage it.  He disappointed me, but let that pass.\"\n\nHe was watching the bidding.  At a thousand, the market broke: the prices\ntumbled swiftly.  He waited--and still watched.  One competitor dropped\nout; then another, and another.  He put in a bid or two now.  When the\nbids had sunk to ten dollars, he added a five; some one raised him a\nthree; he waited a moment, then flung in a fifty-dollar jump, and the\nsack was his--at $1,282.  The house broke out in cheers--then stopped;\nfor he was on his feet, and had lifted his hand.  He began to speak.\n\n\"I desire to say a word, and ask a favour.  I am a speculator in\nrarities, and I have dealings with persons interested in numismatics all\nover the world.  I can make a profit on this purchase, just as it stands;\nbut there is a way, if I can get your approval, whereby I can make every\none of these leaden twenty-dollar pieces worth its face in gold, and\nperhaps more.  Grant me that approval, and I will give part of my gains\nto your Mr. Richards, whose invulnerable probity you have so justly and\nso cordially recognised to-night; his share shall be ten thousand\ndollars, and I will hand him the money to-morrow.  [Great applause from\nthe house.  But the \"invulnerable probity\" made the Richardses blush\nprettily; however, it went for modesty, and did no harm.]  If you will\npass my proposition by a good majority--I would like a two-thirds vote--I\nwill regard that as the town's consent, and that is all I ask.  Rarities\nare always helped by any device which will rouse curiosity and compel\nremark.  Now if I may have your permission to stamp upon the faces of\neach of these ostensible coins the names of the eighteen gentlemen who--\"\n\nNine-tenths of the audience were on their feet in a moment--dog and\nall--and the proposition was carried with a whirlwind of approving\napplause and laughter.\n\nThey sat down, and all the Symbols except \"Dr.\" Clay Harkness got up,\nviolently protesting against the proposed outrage, and threatening to--\n\n\"I beg you not to threaten me,\" said the stranger calmly.  \"I know my\nlegal rights, and am not accustomed to being frightened at bluster.\"\n[Applause.]  He sat down.  \"Dr.\" Harkness saw an opportunity here.  He\nwas one of the two very rich men of the place, and Pinkerton was the\nother.  Harkness was proprietor of a mint; that is to say, a popular\npatent medicine.  He was running for the Legislature on one ticket, and\nPinkerton on the other.  It was a close race and a hot one, and getting\nhotter every day.  Both had strong appetites for money; each had bought a\ngreat tract of land, with a purpose; there was going to be a new railway,\nand each wanted to be in the Legislature and help locate the route to his\nown advantage; a single vote might make the decision, and with it two or\nthree fortunes.  The stake was large, and Harkness was a daring\nspeculator.  He was sitting close to the stranger.  He leaned over while\none or another of the other Symbols was entertaining the house with\nprotests and appeals, and asked, in a whisper,\n\n\"What is your price for the sack?\"\n\n\"Forty thousand dollars.\"\n\n\"I'll give you twenty.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Twenty-five.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Say thirty.\"\n\n\"The price is forty thousand dollars; not a penny less.\"\n\n\"All right, I'll give it.  I will come to the hotel at ten in the\nmorning.  I don't want it known; will see you privately.\"\n\n\"Very good.\"  Then the stranger got up and said to the house:\n\n\"I find it late.  The speeches of these gentlemen are not without merit,\nnot without interest, not without grace; yet if I may he excused I will\ntake my leave.  I thank you for the great favour which you have shown me\nin granting my petition.  I ask the Chair to keep the sack for me until\nto-morrow, and to hand these three five-hundred-dollar notes to Mr.\nRichards.\"  They were passed up to the Chair.\n\n\"At nine I will call for the sack, and at eleven will deliver the rest of\nthe ten thousand to Mr. Richards in person at his home.  Good-night.\"\n\nThen he slipped out, and left the audience making a vast noise, which was\ncomposed of a mixture of cheers, the \"Mikado\" song, dog-disapproval, and\nthe chant, \"You are f-a-r from being a b-a-a-d man--a-a-a a-men!\"\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\n\nAt home the Richardses had to endure congratulations and compliments\nuntil midnight.  Then they were left to themselves.  They looked a little\nsad, and they sat silent and thinking.  Finally Mary sighed and said:\n\n\"Do you think we are to blame, Edward--_much_ to blame?\" and her eyes\nwandered to the accusing triplet of big bank-notes lying on the table,\nwhere the congratulators had been gloating over them and reverently\nfingering them.  Edward did not answer at once; then he brought out a\nsigh and said, hesitatingly:\n\n\"We--we couldn't help it, Mary.  It--well it was ordered.  _All_ things\nare.\"\n\nMary glanced up and looked at him steadily, but he didn't return the\nlook.  Presently she said:\n\n\"I thought congratulations and praises always tasted good.  But--it seems\nto me, now--Edward?\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Are you going to stay in the bank?\"\n\n\"N--no.\"\n\n\"Resign?\"\n\n\"In the morning--by note.\"\n\n\"It does seem best.\"\n\nRichards bowed his head in his hands and muttered:\n\n\"Before I was not afraid to let oceans of people's money pour through my\nhands, but--Mary, I am so tired, so tired--\"\n\n\"We will go to bed.\"\n\nAt nine in the morning the stranger called for the sack and took it to\nthe hotel in a cab.  At ten Harkness had a talk with him privately.  The\nstranger asked for and got five cheques on a metropolitan bank--drawn to\n\"Bearer,\"--four for $1,500 each, and one for $34,000.  He put one of the\nformer in his pocket-book, and the remainder, representing $38,500, he\nput in an envelope, and with these he added a note which he wrote after\nHarkness was gone.  At eleven he called at the Richards' house and\nknocked.  Mrs. Richards peeped through the shutters, then went and\nreceived the envelope, and the stranger disappeared without a word.  She\ncame back flushed and a little unsteady on her legs, and gasped out:\n\n\"I am sure I recognised him!  Last night it seemed to me that maybe I had\nseen him somewhere before.\"\n\n\"He is the man that brought the sack here?\"\n\n\"I am almost sure of it.\"\n\n\"Then he is the ostensible Stephenson too, and sold every important\ncitizen in this town with his bogus secret.  Now if he has sent cheques\ninstead of money, we are sold too, after we thought we had escaped.  I\nwas beginning to feel fairly comfortable once more, after my night's\nrest, but the look of that envelope makes me sick.  It isn't fat enough;\n$8,500 in even the largest bank-notes makes more bulk than that.\"\n\n\"Edward, why do you object to cheques?\"\n\n\"Cheques signed by Stephenson!  I am resigned to take the $8,500 if it\ncould come in bank-notes--for it does seem that it was so ordered,\nMary--but I have never had much courage, and I have not the pluck to try\nto market a cheque signed with that disastrous name.  It would be a trap.\nThat man tried to catch me; we escaped somehow or other; and now he is\ntrying a new way.  If it is cheques--\"\n\n\"Oh, Edward, it is _too_ bad!\"  And she held up the cheques and began to\ncry.\n\n\"Put them in the fire! quick! we mustn't be tempted.  It is a trick to\nmake the world laugh at _us_, along with the rest, and--Give them to\n_me_, since you can't do it!\"  He snatched them and tried to hold his\ngrip till he could get to the stove; but he was human, he was a cashier,\nand he stopped a moment to make sure of the signature.  Then he came near\nto fainting.\n\n\"Fan me, Mary, fan me!  They are the same as gold!\"\n\n\"Oh, how lovely, Edward!  Why?\"\n\n\"Signed by Harkness.  What can the mystery of that be, Mary?\"\n\n\"Edward, do you think--\"\n\n\"Look here--look at this!  Fifteen--fifteen--fifteen--thirty-four.  Thirty-\neight thousand five hundred!  Mary, the sack isn't worth twelve dollars,\nand Harkness--apparently--has paid about par for it.\"\n\n\"And does it all come to us, do you think--instead of the ten thousand?\"\n\n\"Why, it looks like it.  And the cheques are made to 'Bearer,' too.\"\n\n\"Is that good, Edward?  What is it for?\"\n\n\"A hint to collect them at some distant bank, I reckon.  Perhaps Harkness\ndoesn't want the matter known.  What is that--a note?\"\n\n\"Yes.  It was with the cheques.\"\n\nIt was in the \"Stephenson\" handwriting, but there was no signature.  It\nsaid:\n\n   \"I am a disappointed man.  Your honesty is beyond the reach of\n   temptation.  I had a different idea about it, but I wronged you in\n   that, and I beg pardon, and do it sincerely.  I honour you--and that\n   is sincere too.  This town is not worthy to kiss the hem of your\n   garment.  Dear sir, I made a square bet with myself that there were\n   nineteen debauchable men in your self-righteous community.  I have\n   lost.  Take the whole pot, you are entitled to it.\"\n\nRichards drew a deep sigh, and said:\n\n\"It seems written with fire--it burns so.  Mary--I am miserable again.\"\n\n\"I, too.  Ah, dear, I wish--\"\n\n\"To think, Mary--he _believes_ in me.\"\n\n\n\"Oh, don't, Edward--I can't bear it.\"\n\n\"If those beautiful words were deserved, Mary--and God knows I believed I\ndeserved them once--I think I could give the forty thousand dollars for\nthem.  And I would put that paper away, as representing more than gold\nand jewels, and keep it always.  But now--We could not live in the shadow\nof its accusing presence, Mary.\"\n\nHe put it in the fire.\n\nA messenger arrived and delivered an envelope.  Richards took from it a\nnote and read it; it was from Burgess:\n\n   \"You saved me, in a difficult time.  I saved you last night.  It was\n   at cost of a lie, but I made the sacrifice freely, and out of a\n   grateful heart.  None in this village knows so well as I know how\n   brave and good and noble you are.  At bottom you cannot respect me,\n   knowing as you do of that matter of which I am accused, and by the\n   general voice condemned; but I beg that you will at least believe that\n   I am a grateful man; it will help me to bear my burden.  [Signed]\n   'BURGESS.'\"\n\n\"Saved, once more.  And on such terms!\"  He put the note in the lire.\n\"I--I wish I were dead, Mary, I wish I were out of it all!\"\n\n\"Oh, these are bitter, bitter days, Edward.  The stabs, through their\nvery generosity, are so deep--and they come so fast!\"\n\nThree days before the election each of two thousand voters suddenly found\nhimself in possession of a prized memento--one of the renowned bogus\ndouble-eagles.  Around one of its faces was stamped these words: \"THE\nREMARK I MADE TO THE POOR STRANGER WAS--\"  Around the other face was\nstamped these: \"GO, AND REFORM.  [SIGNED] PINKERTON.\"  Thus the entire\nremaining refuse of the renowned joke was emptied upon a single head, and\nwith calamitous effect.  It revived the recent vast laugh and\nconcentrated it upon Pinkerton; and Harkness's election was a walk-over.\n\nWithin twenty-four hours after the Richardses had received their cheques\ntheir consciences were quieting down, discouraged; the old couple were\nlearning to reconcile themselves to the sin which they had committed.  But\nthey were to learn, now, that a sin takes on new and real terrors when\nthere seems a chance that it is going to be found out.  This gives it a\nfresh and most substantial and important aspect.  At church the morning\nsermon was of the usual pattern; it was the same old things said in the\nsame old way; they had heard them a thousand times and found them\ninnocuous, next to meaningless, and easy to sleep under; but now it was\ndifferent: the sermon seemed to bristle with accusations; it seemed aimed\nstraight and specially at people who were concealing deadly sins.  After\nchurch they got away from the mob of congratulators as soon as they\ncould, and hurried homeward, chilled to the bone at they did not know\nwhat--vague, shadowy, indefinite fears.  And by chance they caught a\nglimpse of Mr. Burgess as he turned a corner.  He paid no attention to\ntheir nod of recognition!  He hadn't seen it; but they did not know that.\nWhat could his conduct mean?  It might mean--it might--mean--oh, a dozen\ndreadful things.  Was it possible that he knew that Richards could have\ncleared him of guilt in that bygone time, and had been silently waiting\nfor a chance to even up accounts?  At home, in their distress they got to\nimagining that their servant might have been in the next room listening\nwhen Richards revealed the secret to his wife that he knew of Burgess's\ninnocence; next Richards began to imagine that he had heard the swish of\na gown in there at that time; next, he was sure he _had_ heard it.  They\nwould call Sarah in, on a pretext, and watch her face; if she had been\nbetraying them to Mr. Burgess, it would show in her manner.  They asked\nher some questions--questions which were so random and incoherent and\nseemingly purposeless that the girl felt sure that the old people's minds\nhad been affected by their sudden good fortune; the sharp and watchful\ngaze which they bent upon her frightened her, and that completed the\nbusiness.  She blushed, she became nervous and confused, and to the old\npeople these were plain signs of guilt--guilt of some fearful sort or\nother--without doubt she was a spy and a traitor.  When they were alone\nagain they began to piece many unrelated things together and get horrible\nresults out of the combination.  When things had got about to the worst\nRichards was delivered of a sudden gasp and his wife asked:\n\n\"Oh, what is it?--what is it?\"\n\n\"The note--Burgess's note!  Its language was sarcastic, I see it now.\"  He\nquoted: \"'At bottom you cannot respect me, _knowing_, as you do, of _that\nmatter of_ which I am accused'--oh, it is perfectly plain, now, God help\nme!  He knows that I know!  You see the ingenuity of the phrasing.  It\nwas a trap--and like a fool, I walked into it.  And Mary--!\"\n\n\"Oh, it is dreadful--I know what you are going to say--he didn't return\nyour transcript of the pretended test-remark.\"\n\n\"No--kept it to destroy us with.  Mary, he has exposed us to some\nalready.  I know it--I know it well.  I saw it in a dozen faces after\nchurch.  Ah, he wouldn't answer our nod of recognition--he knew what he\nhad been doing!\"\n\nIn the night the doctor was called.  The news went around in the morning\nthat the old couple were rather seriously ill--prostrated by the\nexhausting excitement growing out of their great windfall, the\ncongratulations, and the late hours, the doctor said.  The town was\nsincerely distressed; for these old people were about all it had left to\nbe proud of, now.\n\nTwo days later the news was worse.  The old couple were delirious, and\nwere doing strange things.  By witness of the nurses, Richards had\nexhibited cheques--for $8,500?  No--for an amazing sum--$38,500!  What\ncould be the explanation of this gigantic piece of luck?\n\nThe following day the nurses had more news--and wonderful.  They had\nconcluded to hide the cheques, lest harm come to them; but when they\nsearched they were gone from under the patient's pillow--vanished away.\nThe patient said:\n\n\"Let the pillow alone; what do you want?\"\n\n\"We thought it best that the cheques--\"\n\n\"You will never see them again--they are destroyed.  They came from\nSatan.  I saw the hell-brand on them, and I knew they were sent to betray\nme to sin.\"  Then he fell to gabbling strange and dreadful things which\nwere not clearly understandable, and which the doctor admonished them to\nkeep to themselves.\n\nRichards was right; the cheques were never seen again.\n\nA nurse must have talked in her sleep, for within two days the forbidden\ngabblings were the property of the town; and they were of a surprising\nsort.  They seemed to indicate that Richards had been a claimant for the\nsack himself, and that Burgess had concealed that fact and then\nmaliciously betrayed it.\n\nBurgess was taxed with this and stoutly denied it.  And he said it was\nnot fair to attach weight to the chatter of a sick old man who was out of\nhis mind.  Still, suspicion was in the air, and there was much talk.\n\nAfter a day or two it was reported that Mrs. Richards's delirious\ndeliveries were getting to be duplicates of her husband's.  Suspicion\nflamed up into conviction, now, and the town's pride in the purity of its\none undiscredited important citizen began to dim down and flicker toward\nextinction.\n\nSix days passed, then came more news.  The old couple were dying.\nRichards's mind cleared in his latest hour, and he sent for Burgess.\nBurgess said:\n\n\"Let the room be cleared.  I think he wishes to say something in\nprivacy.\"\n\n\"No!\" said Richards; \"I want witnesses.  I want you all to hear my\nconfession, so that I may die a man, and not a dog.  I was\nclean--artificially--like the rest; and like the rest I fell when\ntemptation came.  I signed a lie, and claimed the miserable sack.  Mr.\nBurgess remembered that I had done him a service, and in gratitude (and\nignorance) he suppressed my claim and saved me.  You know the thing that\nwas charged against Burgess years ago.  My testimony, and mine alone,\ncould have cleared him, and I was a coward and left him to suffer\ndisgrace--\"\n\n\"No--no--Mr. Richards, you--\"\n\n\"My servant betrayed my secret to him--\"\n\n\"No one has betrayed anything to me--\"\n\n--\"And then he did a natural and justifiable thing; he repented of the\nsaving kindness which he had done me, and he _exposed_ me--as I\ndeserved--\"\n\n\"Never!--I make oath--\"\n\n\"Out of my heart I forgive him.\"\n\nBurgess's impassioned protestations fell upon deaf ears; the dying man\npassed away without knowing that once more he had done poor Burgess a\nwrong.  The old wife died that night.\n\nThe last of the sacred Nineteen had fallen a prey to the fiendish sack;\nthe town was stripped of the last rag of its ancient glory.  Its mourning\nwas not showy, but it was deep.\n\nBy act of the Legislature--upon prayer and petition--Hadleyburg was\nallowed to change its name to (never mind what--I will not give it away),\nand leave one word out of the motto that for many generations had graced\nthe town's official seal.\n\nIt is an honest town once more, and the man will have to rise early that\ncatches it napping again.\n\n\n"}
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{"142":"\n\n\nTHE $30,000 BEQUEST\n\nand Other Stories\n\n\nby Mark Twain\n\n(Samuel L. Clemens)\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n\nTHE $30,000 BEQUEST\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\n\nA DOG'S TALE\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nWAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nCHAPTER X\n\n\nA CURE FOR THE BLUES\n\nTHE CURIOUS BOOK\n\nTHE CALIFORNIAN'S TALE\n\nA HELPLESS SITUATION\n\nA TELEPHONIC CONVERSATION\n\nEDWARD MILLS AND GEORGE BENTON: A TALE\n\nTHE FIVE BOONS OF LIFE\n\nChapter I\n\nChapter II\n\nChapter III\n\nChapter IV\n\nChapter V\n\n\nTHE FIRST WRITING-MACHINES\n\nITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER\n\nITALIAN WITH GRAMMAR\n\nA BURLESQUE BIOGRAPHY\n\nHOW TO TELL A STORY\n\nGENERAL WASHINGTON'S NEGRO BODY-SERVANT\n\nWIT INSPIRATIONS OF THE \"TWO-YEAR-OLDS\"\n\nAN ENTERTAINING ARTICLE\n\nA LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY\n\nAMENDED OBITUARIES\n\nA MONUMENT TO ADAM\n\nA HUMANE WORD FROM SATAN\n\nINTRODUCTION TO \"THE NEW GUIDE OF THE CONVERSATION IN PORTUGUESE AND\nENGLISH\"\n\nADVICE TO LITTLE GIRLS\n\nPOST-MORTEM POETRY (1)\n\nTHE DANGER OF LYING IN BED\n\nPORTRAIT OF KING WILLIAM III\n\nDOES THE RACE OF MAN LOVE A LORD?\n\nEXTRACTS FROM ADAM'S DIARY\n\nEVE'S DIARY\n\nEXTRACT FROM ADAM'S DIARY\n\n\n\nTHE $30,000 BEQUEST\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nLakeside was a pleasant little town of five or six thousand inhabitants,\nand a rather pretty one, too, as towns go in the Far West. It had church\naccommodations for thirty-five thousand, which is the way of the Far\nWest and the South, where everybody is religious, and where each of the\nProtestant sects is represented and has a plant of its own. Rank was\nunknown in Lakeside--unconfessed, anyway; everybody knew everybody and\nhis dog, and a sociable friendliness was the prevailing atmosphere.\n\nSaladin Foster was book-keeper in the principal store, and the only\nhigh-salaried man of his profession in Lakeside. He was thirty-five\nyears old, now; he had served that store for fourteen years; he had\nbegun in his marriage-week at four hundred dollars a year, and had\nclimbed steadily up, a hundred dollars a year, for four years; from\nthat time forth his wage had remained eight hundred--a handsome figure\nindeed, and everybody conceded that he was worth it.\n\nHis wife, Electra, was a capable helpmeet, although--like himself--a\ndreamer of dreams and a private dabbler in romance. The first thing she\ndid, after her marriage--child as she was, aged only nineteen--was to\nbuy an acre of ground on the edge of the town, and pay down the cash for\nit--twenty-five dollars, all her fortune. Saladin had less, by fifteen.\nShe instituted a vegetable garden there, got it farmed on shares by the\nnearest neighbor, and made it pay her a hundred per cent. a year. Out of\nSaladin's first year's wage she put thirty dollars in the savings-bank,\nsixty out of his second, a hundred out of his third, a hundred and fifty\nout of his fourth. His wage went to eight hundred a year, then, and\nmeantime two children had arrived and increased the expenses, but she\nbanked two hundred a year from the salary, nevertheless, thenceforth.\nWhen she had been married seven years she built and furnished a\npretty and comfortable two-thousand-dollar house in the midst of her\ngarden-acre, paid half of the money down and moved her family in. Seven\nyears later she was out of debt and had several hundred dollars out\nearning its living.\n\nEarning it by the rise in landed estate; for she had long ago bought\nanother acre or two and sold the most of it at a profit to pleasant\npeople who were willing to build, and would be good neighbors and\nfurnish a general comradeship for herself and her growing family. She\nhad an independent income from safe investments of about a hundred\ndollars a year; her children were growing in years and grace; and\nshe was a pleased and happy woman. Happy in her husband, happy in her\nchildren, and the husband and the children were happy in her. It is at\nthis point that this history begins.\n\nThe youngest girl, Clytemnestra--called Clytie for short--was eleven;\nher sister, Gwendolen--called Gwen for short--was thirteen; nice girls,\nand comely. The names betray the latent romance-tinge in the parental\nblood, the parents' names indicate that the tinge was an inheritance. It\nwas an affectionate family, hence all four of its members had pet\nnames, Saladin's was a curious and unsexing one--Sally; and so was\nElectra's--Aleck. All day long Sally was a good and diligent book-keeper\nand salesman; all day long Aleck was a good and faithful mother and\nhousewife, and thoughtful and calculating business woman; but in the\ncozy living-room at night they put the plodding world away, and lived in\nanother and a fairer, reading romances to each other, dreaming dreams,\ncomrading with kings and princes and stately lords and ladies in the\nflash and stir and splendor of noble palaces and grim and ancient\ncastles.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nNow came great news! Stunning news--joyous news, in fact. It came from a\nneighboring state, where the family's only surviving relative lived. It\nwas Sally's relative--a sort of vague and indefinite uncle or second\nor third cousin by the name of Tilbury Foster, seventy and a bachelor,\nreputed well off and corresponding sour and crusty. Sally had tried to\nmake up to him once, by letter, in a bygone time, and had not made that\nmistake again. Tilbury now wrote to Sally, saying he should shortly die,\nand should leave him thirty thousand dollars, cash; not for love, but\nbecause money had given him most of his troubles and exasperations, and\nhe wished to place it where there was good hope that it would continue\nits malignant work. The bequest would be found in his will, and would be\npaid over. PROVIDED, that Sally should be able to prove to the executors\nthat he had _Taken no notice of the gift by spoken word or by letter,\nhad made no inquiries concerning the moribund's progress toward the\neverlasting tropics, and had not attended the funeral._\n\nAs soon as Aleck had partially recovered from the tremendous emotions\ncreated by the letter, she sent to the relative's habitat and subscribed\nfor the local paper.\n\nMan and wife entered into a solemn compact, now, to never mention the\ngreat news to any one while the relative lived, lest some ignorant\nperson carry the fact to the death-bed and distort it and make it appear\nthat they were disobediently thankful for the bequest, and just the\nsame as confessing it and publishing it, right in the face of the\nprohibition.\n\nFor the rest of the day Sally made havoc and confusion with his books,\nand Aleck could not keep her mind on her affairs, not even take up a\nflower-pot or book or a stick of wood without forgetting what she had\nintended to do with it. For both were dreaming.\n\n\"Thir-ty thousand dollars!\"\n\nAll day long the music of those inspiring words sang through those\npeople's heads.\n\nFrom his marriage-day forth, Aleck's grip had been upon the purse, and\nSally had seldom known what it was to be privileged to squander a dime\non non-necessities.\n\n\"Thir-ty thousand dollars!\" the song went on and on. A vast sum, an\nunthinkable sum!\n\nAll day long Aleck was absorbed in planning how to invest it, Sally in\nplanning how to spend it.\n\nThere was no romance-reading that night. The children took themselves\naway early, for their parents were silent, distraught, and strangely\nunentertaining. The good-night kisses might as well have been impressed\nupon vacancy, for all the response they got; the parents were not aware\nof the kisses, and the children had been gone an hour before\ntheir absence was noticed. Two pencils had been busy during that\nhour--note-making; in the way of plans. It was Sally who broke the\nstillness at last. He said, with exultation:\n\n\"Ah, it'll be grand, Aleck! Out of the first thousand we'll have a horse\nand a buggy for summer, and a cutter and a skin lap-robe for winter.\"\n\nAleck responded with decision and composure--\n\n\"Out of the _capital_? Nothing of the kind. Not if it was a million!\"\n\nSally was deeply disappointed; the glow went out of his face.\n\n\"Oh, Aleck!\" he said, reproachfully. \"We've always worked so hard and\nbeen so scrimped: and now that we are rich, it does seem--\"\n\nHe did not finish, for he saw her eye soften; his supplication had\ntouched her. She said, with gentle persuasiveness:\n\n\"We must not spend the capital, dear, it would not be wise. Out of the\nincome from it--\"\n\n\"That will answer, that will answer, Aleck! How dear and good you are!\nThere will be a noble income and if we can spend that--\"\n\n\"Not _all _of it, dear, not all of it, but you can spend a part of it.\nThat is, a reasonable part. But the whole of the capital--every penny\nof it--must be put right to work, and kept at it. You see the\nreasonableness of that, don't you?\"\n\n\"Why, ye-s. Yes, of course. But we'll have to wait so long. Six months\nbefore the first interest falls due.\"\n\n\"Yes--maybe longer.\"\n\n\"Longer, Aleck? Why? Don't they pay half-yearly?\"\n\n\"_That _kind of an investment--yes; but I sha'n't invest in that way.\"\n\n\"What way, then?\"\n\n\"For big returns.\"\n\n\"Big. That's good. Go on, Aleck. What is it?\"\n\n\"Coal. The new mines. Cannel. I mean to put in ten thousand. Ground\nfloor. When we organize, we'll get three shares for one.\"\n\n\"By George, but it sounds good, Aleck! Then the shares will be\nworth--how much? And when?\"\n\n\"About a year. They'll pay ten per cent. half yearly, and be worth\nthirty thousand. I know all about it; the advertisement is in the\nCincinnati paper here.\"\n\n\"Land, thirty thousand for ten--in a year! Let's jam in the\nwhole capital and pull out ninety! I'll write and subscribe right\nnow--tomorrow it maybe too late.\"\n\nHe was flying to the writing-desk, but Aleck stopped him and put him\nback in his chair. She said:\n\n\"Don't lose your head so. _We_ mustn't subscribe till we've got the\nmoney; don't you know that?\"\n\nSally's excitement went down a degree or two, but he was not wholly\nappeased.\n\n\"Why, Aleck, we'll _have _it, you know--and so soon, too. He's probably\nout of his troubles before this; it's a hundred to nothing he's\nselecting his brimstone-shovel this very minute. Now, I think--\"\n\nAleck shuddered, and said:\n\n\"How _can _you, Sally! Don't talk in that way, it is perfectly\nscandalous.\"\n\n\"Oh, well, make it a halo, if you like, _I_ don't care for his outfit, I\nwas only just talking. Can't you let a person talk?\"\n\n\"But why should you _want _to talk in that dreadful way? How would you\nlike to have people talk so about _you_, and you not cold yet?\"\n\n\"Not likely to be, for _one _while, I reckon, if my last act was giving\naway money for the sake of doing somebody a harm with it. But never mind\nabout Tilbury, Aleck, let's talk about something worldly. It does seem\nto me that that mine is the place for the whole thirty. What's the\nobjection?\"\n\n\"All the eggs in one basket--that's the objection.\"\n\n\"All right, if you say so. What about the other twenty? What do you mean\nto do with that?\"\n\n\"There is no hurry; I am going to look around before I do anything with\nit.\"\n\n\"All right, if your mind's made up,\" sighed Sally. He was deep in\nthought awhile, then he said:\n\n\"There'll be twenty thousand profit coming from the ten a year from now.\nWe can spend that, can't we, Aleck?\"\n\nAleck shook her head.\n\n\"No, dear,\" she said, \"it won't sell high till we've had the first\nsemi-annual dividend. You can spend part of that.\"\n\n\"Shucks, only _that_--and a whole year to wait! Confound it, I--\"\n\n\"Oh, do be patient! It might even be declared in three months--it's\nquite within the possibilities.\"\n\n\"Oh, jolly! oh, thanks!\" and Sally jumped up and kissed his wife in\ngratitude. \"It'll be three thousand--three whole thousand! how much\nof it can we spend, Aleck? Make it liberal!--do, dear, that's a good\nfellow.\"\n\nAleck was pleased; so pleased that she yielded to the pressure and\nconceded a sum which her judgment told her was a foolish extravagance--a\nthousand dollars. Sally kissed her half a dozen times and even in that\nway could not express all his joy and thankfulness. This new access\nof gratitude and affection carried Aleck quite beyond the bounds of\nprudence, and before she could restrain herself she had made her darling\nanother grant--a couple of thousand out of the fifty or sixty which she\nmeant to clear within a year of the twenty which still remained of the\nbequest. The happy tears sprang to Sally's eyes, and he said:\n\n\"Oh, I want to hug you!\" And he did it. Then he got his notes and sat\ndown and began to check off, for first purchase, the luxuries which\nhe should earliest wish to secure.\n\"Horse--buggy--cutter--lap-robe--patent-leathers--dog--plug-hat--\nchurch-pew--stem-winder--new teeth--_say_, Aleck!\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Ciphering away, aren't you? That's right. Have you got the twenty\nthousand invested yet?\"\n\n\"No, there's no hurry about that; I must look around first, and think.\"\n\n\"But you are ciphering; what's it about?\"\n\n\"Why, I have to find work for the thirty thousand that comes out of the\ncoal, haven't I?\"\n\n\"Scott, what a head! I never thought of that. How are you getting along?\nWhere have you arrived?\"\n\n\"Not very far--two years or three. I've turned it over twice; once in\noil and once in wheat.\"\n\n\"Why, Aleck, it's splendid! How does it aggregate?\"\n\n\"I think--well, to be on the safe side, about a hundred and eighty\nthousand clear, though it will probably be more.\"\n\n\"My! isn't it wonderful? By gracious! luck has come our way at last,\nafter all the hard sledding. Aleck!\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"I'm going to cash in a whole three hundred on the missionaries--what\nreal right have we care for expenses!\"\n\n\"You couldn't do a nobler thing, dear; and it's just like your generous\nnature, you unselfish boy.\"\n\nThe praise made Sally poignantly happy, but he was fair and just enough\nto say it was rightfully due to Aleck rather than to himself, since but\nfor her he should never have had the money.\n\nThen they went up to bed, and in their delirium of bliss they forgot and\nleft the candle burning in the parlor. They did not remember until they\nwere undressed; then Sally was for letting it burn; he said they could\nafford it, if it was a thousand. But Aleck went down and put it out.\n\nA good job, too; for on her way back she hit on a scheme that would turn\nthe hundred and eighty thousand into half a million before it had had\ntime to get cold.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nThe little newspaper which Aleck had subscribed for was a Thursday\nsheet; it would make the trip of five hundred miles from Tilbury's\nvillage and arrive on Saturday. Tilbury's letter had started on Friday,\nmore than a day too late for the benefactor to die and get into that\nweek's issue, but in plenty of time to make connection for the next\noutput. Thus the Fosters had to wait almost a complete week to find out\nwhether anything of a satisfactory nature had happened to him or not.\nIt was a long, long week, and the strain was a heavy one. The pair could\nhardly have borne it if their minds had not had the relief of wholesome\ndiversion. We have seen that they had that. The woman was piling up\nfortunes right along, the man was spending them--spending all his wife\nwould give him a chance at, at any rate.\n\nAt last the Saturday came, and the _Weekly Sagamore_ arrived. Mrs.\nEversly Bennett was present. She was the Presbyterian parson's wife, and\nwas working the Fosters for a charity. Talk now died a sudden death--on\nthe Foster side. Mrs. Bennett presently discovered that her hosts\nwere not hearing a word she was saying; so she got up, wondering and\nindignant, and went away. The moment she was out of the house, Aleck\neagerly tore the wrapper from the paper, and her eyes and Sally's swept\nthe columns for the death-notices. Disappointment! Tilbury was not\nanywhere mentioned. Aleck was a Christian from the cradle, and duty and\nthe force of habit required her to go through the motions. She pulled\nherself together and said, with a pious two-per-cent. trade joyousness:\n\n\"Let us be humbly thankful that he has been spared; and--\"\n\n\"Damn his treacherous hide, I wish--\"\n\n\"Sally! For shame!\"\n\n\"I don't care!\" retorted the angry man. \"It's the way _you _feel, and if\nyou weren't so immorally pious you'd be honest and say so.\"\n\nAleck said, with wounded dignity:\n\n\"I do not see how you can say such unkind and unjust things. There is no\nsuch thing as immoral piety.\"\n\nSally felt a pang, but tried to conceal it under a shuffling attempt to\nsave his case by changing the form of it--as if changing the form while\nretaining the juice could deceive the expert he was trying to placate.\nHe said:\n\n\"I didn't mean so bad as that, Aleck; I didn't really mean immoral\npiety, I only meant--meant--well, conventional piety, you know; er--shop\npiety; the--the--why, _you _know what I mean. Aleck--the--well, where\nyou put up that plated article and play it for solid, you know, without\nintending anything improper, but just out of trade habit, ancient\npolicy, petrified custom, loyalty to--to--hang it, I can't find the\nright words, but _you _know what I mean, Aleck, and that there isn't any\nharm in it. I'll try again. You see, it's this way. If a person--\"\n\n\"You have said quite enough,\" said Aleck, coldly; \"let the subject be\ndropped.\"\n\n\"I'm willing,\" fervently responded Sally, wiping the sweat from his\nforehead and looking the thankfulness he had no words for. Then,\nmusingly, he apologized to himself. \"I certainly held threes--_I know_\nit--but I drew and didn't fill. That's where I'm so often weak in\nthe game. If I had stood pat--but I didn't. I never do. I don't know\nenough.\"\n\nConfessedly defeated, he was properly tame now and subdued. Aleck\nforgave him with her eyes.\n\nThe grand interest, the supreme interest, came instantly to the front\nagain; nothing could keep it in the background many minutes on a\nstretch. The couple took up the puzzle of the absence of Tilbury's\ndeath-notice. They discussed it every which way, more or less hopefully,\nbut they had to finish where they began, and concede that the only\nreally sane explanation of the absence of the notice must be--and\nwithout doubt was--that Tilbury was not dead. There was something sad\nabout it, something even a little unfair, maybe, but there it was, and\nhad to be put up with. They were agreed as to that. To Sally it seemed\na strangely inscrutable dispensation; more inscrutable than usual, he\nthought; one of the most unnecessary inscrutable he could call to mind,\nin fact--and said so, with some feeling; but if he was hoping to draw\nAleck he failed; she reserved her opinion, if she had one; she had not\nthe habit of taking injudicious risks in any market, worldly or other.\n\nThe pair must wait for next week's paper--Tilbury had evidently\npostponed. That was their thought and their decision. So they put the\nsubject away and went about their affairs again with as good heart as\nthey could.\n\nNow, if they had but known it, they had been wronging Tilbury all the\ntime. Tilbury had kept faith, kept it to the letter; he was dead, he had\ndied to schedule. He was dead more than four days now and used to it;\nentirely dead, perfectly dead, as dead as any other new person in the\ncemetery; dead in abundant time to get into that week's _Sagamore_, too,\nand only shut out by an accident; an accident which could not happen\nto a metropolitan journal, but which happens easily to a poor little\nvillage rag like the _Sagamore_. On this occasion, just as the editorial\npage was being locked up, a gratis quart of strawberry ice-water arrived\nfrom Hostetter's Ladies and Gents Ice-Cream Parlors, and the stickful of\nrather chilly regret over Tilbury's translation got crowded out to make\nroom for the editor's frantic gratitude.\n\nOn its way to the standing-galley Tilbury's notice got pied. Otherwise\nit would have gone into some future edition, for _weekly Sagamores_ do\nnot waste \"live\" matter, and in their galleys \"live\" matter is immortal,\nunless a pi accident intervenes. But a thing that gets pied is dead, and\nfor such there is no resurrection; its chance of seeing print is gone,\nforever and ever. And so, let Tilbury like it or not, let him rave in\nhis grave to his fill, no matter--no mention of his death would ever see\nthe light in the _Weekly Sagamore_.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nFive weeks drifted tediously along. The _Sagamore _arrived regularly\non the Saturdays, but never once contained a mention of Tilbury Foster.\nSally's patience broke down at this point, and he said, resentfully:\n\n\"Damn his livers, he's immortal!\"\n\nAleck give him a very severe rebuke, and added with icy solemnity:\n\n\"How would you feel if you were suddenly cut off just after such an\nawful remark had escaped out of you?\"\n\nWithout sufficient reflection Sally responded:\n\n\"I'd feel I was lucky I hadn't got caught with it _in_ me.\"\n\nPride had forced him to say something, and as he could not think of any\nrational thing to say he flung that out. Then he stole a base--as he\ncalled it--that is, slipped from the presence, to keep from being brayed\nin his wife's discussion-mortar.\n\nSix months came and went. The _Sagamore _was still silent about Tilbury.\nMeantime, Sally had several times thrown out a feeler--that is, a hint\nthat he would like to know. Aleck had ignored the hints. Sally now\nresolved to brace up and risk a frontal attack. So he squarely proposed\nto disguise himself and go to Tilbury's village and surreptitiously find\nout as to the prospects. Aleck put her foot on the dangerous project\nwith energy and decision. She said:\n\n\"What can you be thinking of? You do keep my hands full! You have to be\nwatched all the time, like a little child, to keep you from walking into\nthe fire. You'll stay right where you are!\"\n\n\"Why, Aleck, I could do it and not be found out--I'm certain of it.\"\n\n\"Sally Foster, don't you know you would have to inquire around?\"\n\n\"Of course, but what of it? Nobody would suspect who I was.\"\n\n\"Oh, listen to the man! Some day you've got to prove to the executors\nthat you never inquired. What then?\"\n\nHe had forgotten that detail. He didn't reply; there wasn't anything to\nsay. Aleck added:\n\n\"Now then, drop that notion out of your mind, and don't ever meddle with\nit again. Tilbury set that trap for you. Don't you know it's a trap? He\nis on the watch, and fully expecting you to blunder into it. Well, he is\ngoing to be disappointed--at least while I am on deck. Sally!\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"As long as you live, if it's a hundred years, don't you ever make an\ninquiry. Promise!\"\n\n\"All right,\" with a sigh and reluctantly.\n\nThen Aleck softened and said:\n\n\"Don't be impatient. We are prospering; we can wait; there is no hurry.\nOur small dead-certain income increases all the time; and as to futures,\nI have not made a mistake yet--they are piling up by the thousands and\ntens of thousands. There is not another family in the state with such\nprospects as ours. Already we are beginning to roll in eventual wealth.\nYou know that, don't you?\"\n\n\"Yes, Aleck, it's certainly so.\"\n\n\"Then be grateful for what God is doing for us and stop worrying. You do\nnot believe we could have achieved these prodigious results without His\nspecial help and guidance, do you?\"\n\nHesitatingly, \"N-no, I suppose not.\" Then, with feeling and admiration,\n\"And yet, when it comes to judiciousness in watering a stock or putting\nup a hand to skin Wall Street I don't give in that _you _need any\noutside amateur help, if I do wish I--\"\n\n\"Oh, _do_ shut up! I know you do not mean any harm or any irreverence,\npoor boy, but you can't seem to open your mouth without letting out\nthings to make a person shudder. You keep me in constant dread. For you\nand for all of us. Once I had no fear of the thunder, but now when I\nhear it I--\"\n\nHer voice broke, and she began to cry, and could not finish. The sight\nof this smote Sally to the heart and he took her in his arms and petted\nher and comforted her and promised better conduct, and upbraided himself\nand remorsefully pleaded for forgiveness. And he was in earnest, and\nsorry for what he had done and ready for any sacrifice that could make\nup for it.\n\nAnd so, in privacy, he thought long and deeply over the matter,\nresolving to do what should seem best. It was easy to _promise _reform;\nindeed he had already promised it. But would that do any real good, any\npermanent good? No, it would be but temporary--he knew his weakness,\nand confessed it to himself with sorrow--he could not keep the promise.\nSomething surer and better must be devised; and he devised it. At\ncost of precious money which he had long been saving up, shilling by\nshilling, he put a lightning-rod on the house.\n\nAt a subsequent time he relapsed.\n\nWhat miracles habit can do! and how quickly and how easily habits are\nacquired--both trifling habits and habits which profoundly change us.\nIf by accident we wake at two in the morning a couple of nights in\nsuccession, we have need to be uneasy, for another repetition can turn\nthe accident into a habit; and a month's dallying with whiskey--but we\nall know these commonplace facts.\n\nThe castle-building habit, the day-dreaming habit--how it grows! what a\nluxury it becomes; how we fly to its enchantments at every idle moment,\nhow we revel in them, steep our souls in them, intoxicate ourselves with\ntheir beguiling fantasies--oh yes, and how soon and how easily our dream\nlife and our material life become so intermingled and so fused together\nthat we can't quite tell which is which, any more.\n\nBy and by Aleck subscribed to a Chicago daily and for the _Wall Street\nPointer_. With an eye single to finance she studied these as diligently\nall the week as she studied her Bible Sundays. Sally was lost in\nadmiration, to note with what swift and sure strides her genius and\njudgment developed and expanded in the forecasting and handling of the\nsecurities of both the material and spiritual markets. He was proud of\nher nerve and daring in exploiting worldly stocks, and just as proud of\nher conservative caution in working her spiritual deals. He noted that\nshe never lost her head in either case; that with a splendid courage\nshe often went short on worldly futures, but heedfully drew the line\nthere--she was always long on the others. Her policy was quite sane and\nsimple, as she explained it to him: what she put into earthly futures\nwas for speculation, what she put into spiritual futures was for\ninvestment; she was willing to go into the one on a margin, and take\nchances, but in the case of the other, \"margin her no margins\"--she\nwanted to cash in a hundred cents per dollar's worth, and have the stock\ntransferred on the books.\n\nIt took but a very few months to educate Aleck's imagination and\nSally's. Each day's training added something to the spread and\neffectiveness of the two machines. As a consequence, Aleck made\nimaginary money much faster than at first she had dreamed of making it,\nand Sally's competency in spending the overflow of it kept pace with the\nstrain put upon it, right along. In the beginning, Aleck had given the\ncoal speculation a twelvemonth in which to materialize, and had been\nloath to grant that this term might possibly be shortened by nine\nmonths. But that was the feeble work, the nursery work, of a financial\nfancy that had had no teaching, no experience, no practice. These\naids soon came, then that nine months vanished, and the imaginary\nten-thousand-dollar investment came marching home with three hundred per\ncent. profit on its back!\n\nIt was a great day for the pair of Fosters. They were speechless for\njoy. Also speechless for another reason: after much watching of the\nmarket, Aleck had lately, with fear and trembling, made her first flyer\non a \"margin,\" using the remaining twenty thousand of the bequest\nin this risk. In her mind's eye she had seen it climb, point by\npoint--always with a chance that the market would break--until at last\nher anxieties were too great for further endurance--she being new to\nthe margin business and unhardened, as yet--and she gave her imaginary\nbroker an imaginary order by imaginary telegraph to sell. She said forty\nthousand dollars' profit was enough. The sale was made on the very day\nthat the coal venture had returned with its rich freight. As I have\nsaid, the couple were speechless, they sat dazed and blissful that\nnight, trying to realize that they were actually worth a hundred\nthousand dollars in clean, imaginary cash. Yet so it was.\n\nIt was the last time that ever Aleck was afraid of a margin; at least\nafraid enough to let it break her sleep and pale her cheek to the extent\nthat this first experience in that line had done.\n\nIndeed it was a memorable night. Gradually the realization that they\nwere rich sank securely home into the souls of the pair, then they began\nto place the money. If we could have looked out through the eyes of\nthese dreamers, we should have seen their tidy little wooden house\ndisappear, and two-story brick with a cast-iron fence in front of it\ntake its place; we should have seen a three-globed gas-chandelier grow\ndown from the parlor ceiling; we should have seen the homely rag carpet\nturn to noble Brussels, a dollar and a half a yard; we should have seen\nthe plebeian fireplace vanish away and a recherche, big base-burner with\nisinglass windows take position and spread awe around. And we should\nhave seen other things, too; among them the buggy, the lap-robe, the\nstove-pipe hat, and so on.\n\nFrom that time forth, although the daughters and the neighbors saw only\nthe same old wooden house there, it was a two-story brick to Aleck\nand Sally and not a night went by that Aleck did not worry about the\nimaginary gas-bills, and get for all comfort Sally's reckless retort:\n\"What of it? We can afford it.\"\n\nBefore the couple went to bed, that first night that they were rich,\nthey had decided that they must celebrate. They must give a party--that\nwas the idea. But how to explain it--to the daughters and the neighbors?\nThey could not expose the fact that they were rich. Sally was willing,\neven anxious, to do it; but Aleck kept her head and would not allow it.\nShe said that although the money was as good as in, it would be as well\nto wait until it was actually in. On that policy she took her stand, and\nwould not budge. The great secret must be kept, she said--kept from the\ndaughters and everybody else.\n\nThe pair were puzzled. They must celebrate, they were determined to\ncelebrate, but since the secret must be kept, what could they celebrate?\nNo birthdays were due for three months. Tilbury wasn't available,\nevidently he was going to live forever; what the nation _could _they\ncelebrate? That was Sally's way of putting it; and he was getting\nimpatient, too, and harassed. But at last he hit it--just by sheer\ninspiration, as it seemed to him--and all their troubles were gone in a\nmoment; they would celebrate the Discovery of America. A splendid idea!\n\nAleck was almost too proud of Sally for words--she said _she _never\nwould have thought of it. But Sally, although he was bursting with\ndelight in the compliment and with wonder at himself, tried not to let\non, and said it wasn't really anything, anybody could have done it.\nWhereat Aleck, with a prideful toss of her happy head, said:\n\n\"Oh, certainly! Anybody could--oh, anybody! Hosannah Dilkins, for\ninstance! Or maybe Adelbert Peanut--oh, _dear_--yes! Well, I'd like to\nsee them try it, that's all. Dear-me-suz, if they could think of the\ndiscovery of a forty-acre island it's more than _I_ believe they could;\nand as for the whole continent, why, Sally Foster, you know perfectly\nwell it would strain the livers and lights out of them and _then_ they\ncouldn't!\"\n\nThe dear woman, she knew he had talent; and if affection made her\nover-estimate the size of it a little, surely it was a sweet and gentle\ncrime, and forgivable for its source's sake.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nThe celebration went off well. The friends were all present, both the\nyoung and the old. Among the young were Flossie and Gracie Peanut and\ntheir brother Adelbert, who was a rising young journeyman tinner,\nalso Hosannah Dilkins, Jr., journeyman plasterer, just out of his\napprenticeship. For many months Adelbert and Hosannah had been showing\ninterest in Gwendolen and Clytemnestra Foster, and the parents of the\ngirls had noticed this with private satisfaction. But they suddenly\nrealized now that that feeling had passed. They recognized that the\nchanged financial conditions had raised up a social bar between\ntheir daughters and the young mechanics. The daughters could now look\nhigher--and must. Yes, must. They need marry nothing below the grade of\nlawyer or merchant; poppa and momma would take care of this; there must\nbe no mesalliances.\n\nHowever, these thinkings and projects of theirs were private, and\ndid not show on the surface, and therefore threw no shadow upon the\ncelebration. What showed upon the surface was a serene and lofty\ncontentment and a dignity of carriage and gravity of deportment which\ncompelled the admiration and likewise the wonder of the company. All\nnoticed it and all commented upon it, but none was able to divine the\nsecret of it. It was a marvel and a mystery. Three several persons\nremarked, without suspecting what clever shots they were making:\n\n\"It's as if they'd come into property.\"\n\nThat was just it, indeed.\n\nMost mothers would have taken hold of the matrimonial matter in the\nold regulation way; they would have given the girls a talking to, of\na solemn sort and untactful--a lecture calculated to defeat its own\npurpose, by producing tears and secret rebellion; and the said mothers\nwould have further damaged the business by requesting the young\nmechanics to discontinue their attentions. But this mother was\ndifferent. She was practical. She said nothing to any of the young\npeople concerned, nor to any one else except Sally. He listened to her\nand understood; understood and admired. He said:\n\n\"I get the idea. Instead of finding fault with the samples on view,\nthus hurting feelings and obstructing trade without occasion, you merely\noffer a higher class of goods for the money, and leave nature to take\nher course. It's wisdom, Aleck, solid wisdom, and sound as a nut. Who's\nyour fish? Have you nominated him yet?\"\n\nNo, she hadn't. They must look the market over--which they did. To start\nwith, they considered and discussed Brandish, rising young lawyer, and\nFulton, rising young dentist. Sally must invite them to dinner. But not\nright away; there was no hurry, Aleck said. Keep an eye on the pair, and\nwait; nothing would be lost by going slowly in so important a matter.\n\nIt turned out that this was wisdom, too; for inside of three weeks Aleck\nmade a wonderful strike which swelled her imaginary hundred thousand\nto four hundred thousand of the same quality. She and Sally were in the\nclouds that evening. For the first time they introduced champagne at\ndinner. Not real champagne, but plenty real enough for the amount of\nimagination expended on it. It was Sally that did it, and Aleck weakly\nsubmitted. At bottom both were troubled and ashamed, for he was a\nhigh-up Son of Temperance, and at funerals wore an apron which no dog\ncould look upon and retain his reason and his opinion; and she was a\nW. C. T. U., with all that that implies of boiler-iron virtue and\nunendurable holiness. But there it was; the pride of riches was\nbeginning its disintegrating work. They had lived to prove, once more,\na sad truth which had been proven many times before in the world: that\nwhereas principle is a great and noble protection against showy and\ndegrading vanities and vices, poverty is worth six of it. More than\nfour hundred thousand dollars to the good. They took up the matrimonial\nmatter again. Neither the dentist nor the lawyer was mentioned; there\nwas no occasion, they were out of the running. Disqualified. They\ndiscussed the son of the pork-packer and the son of the village banker.\nBut finally, as in the previous case, they concluded to wait and think,\nand go cautiously and sure.\n\nLuck came their way again. Aleck, ever watchful saw a great and risky\nchance, and took a daring flyer. A time of trembling, of doubt, of awful\nuneasiness followed, for non-success meant absolute ruin and nothing\nshort of it. Then came the result, and Aleck, faint with joy, could\nhardly control her voice when she said:\n\n\"The suspense is over, Sally--and we are worth a cold million!\"\n\nSally wept for gratitude, and said:\n\n\"Oh, Electra, jewel of women, darling of my heart, we are free at last,\nwe roll in wealth, we need never scrimp again. It's a case for Veuve\nCliquot!\" and he got out a pint of spruce-beer and made sacrifice, he\nsaying \"Damn the expense,\" and she rebuking him gently with reproachful\nbut humid and happy eyes.\n\nThey shelved the pork-packer's son and the banker's son, and sat down to\nconsider the Governor's son and the son of the Congressman.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nIt were a weariness to follow in detail the leaps and bounds the Foster\nfictitious finances took from this time forth. It was marvelous, it\nwas dizzying, it was dazzling. Everything Aleck touched turned to fairy\ngold, and heaped itself glittering toward the firmament. Millions upon\nmillions poured in, and still the mighty stream flowed thundering\nalong, still its vast volume increased. Five millions--ten\nmillions--twenty--thirty--was there never to be an end?\n\nTwo years swept by in a splendid delirium, the intoxicated Fosters\nscarcely noticing the flight of time. They were now worth three\nhundred million dollars; they were in every board of directors of every\nprodigious combine in the country; and still as time drifted along, the\nmillions went on piling up, five at a time, ten at a time, as fast as\nthey could tally them off, almost. The three hundred double itself--then\ndoubled again--and yet again--and yet once more.\n\nTwenty-four hundred millions!\n\nThe business was getting a little confused. It was necessary to take an\naccount of stock, and straighten it out. The Fosters knew it, they felt\nit, they realized that it was imperative; but they also knew that to do\nit properly and perfectly the task must be carried to a finish without\na break when once it was begun. A ten-hours' job; and where could _they\n_find ten leisure hours in a bunch? Sally was selling pins and sugar and\ncalico all day and every day; Aleck was cooking and washing dishes and\nsweeping and making beds all day and every day, with none to help, for\nthe daughters were being saved up for high society. The Fosters knew\nthere was one way to get the ten hours, and only one. Both were ashamed\nto name it; each waited for the other to do it. Finally Sally said:\n\n\"Somebody's got to give in. It's up to me. Consider that I've named\nit--never mind pronouncing it out aloud.\"\n\nAleck colored, but was grateful. Without further remark, they fell.\nFell, and--broke the Sabbath. For that was their only free ten-hour\nstretch. It was but another step in the downward path. Others would\nfollow. Vast wealth has temptations which fatally and surely undermine\nthe moral structure of persons not habituated to its possession.\n\nThey pulled down the shades and broke the Sabbath. With hard and patient\nlabor they overhauled their holdings and listed them. And a long-drawn\nprocession of formidable names it was! Starting with the Railway\nSystems, Steamer Lines, Standard Oil, Ocean Cables, Diluted Telegraph,\nand all the rest, and winding up with Klondike, De Beers, Tammany Graft,\nand Shady Privileges in the Post-office Department.\n\nTwenty-four hundred millions, and all safely planted in Good Things,\ngilt-edged and interest-bearing. Income, $120,000,000 a year. Aleck\nfetched a long purr of soft delight, and said:\n\n\"Is it enough?\"\n\n\"It is, Aleck.\"\n\n\"What shall we do?\"\n\n\"Stand pat.\"\n\n\"Retire from business?\"\n\n\"That's it.\"\n\n\"I am agreed. The good work is finished; we will take a long rest and\nenjoy the money.\"\n\n\"Good! Aleck!\"\n\n\"Yes, dear?\"\n\n\"How much of the income can we spend?\"\n\n\"The whole of it.\"\n\nIt seemed to her husband that a ton of chains fell from his limbs. He\ndid not say a word; he was happy beyond the power of speech.\n\nAfter that, they broke the Sabbaths right along as fast as they turned\nup. It is the first wrong step that counts. Every Sunday they put in the\nwhole day, after morning service, on inventions--inventions of ways to\nspend the money. They got to continuing this delicious dissipation until\npast midnight; and at every seance Aleck lavished millions upon great\ncharities and religious enterprises, and Sally lavished like sums upon\nmatters to which (at first) he gave definite names. Only at first. Later\nthe names gradually lost sharpness of outline, and eventually faded into\n\"sundries,\" thus becoming entirely--but safely--undescriptive. For Sally\nwas crumbling. The placing of these millions added seriously and most\nuncomfortably to the family expenses--in tallow candles. For a while\nAleck was worried. Then, after a little, she ceased to worry, for\nthe occasion of it was gone. She was pained, she was grieved, she was\nashamed; but she said nothing, and so became an accessory. Sally was\ntaking candles; he was robbing the store. It is ever thus. Vast wealth,\nto the person unaccustomed to it, is a bane; it eats into the flesh and\nbone of his morals. When the Fosters were poor, they could have been\ntrusted with untold candles. But now they--but let us not dwell upon it.\nFrom candles to apples is but a step: Sally got to taking apples; then\nsoap; then maple-sugar; then canned goods; then crockery. How easy it\nis to go from bad to worse, when once we have started upon a downward\ncourse!\n\nMeantime, other effects had been milestoning the course of the Fosters'\nsplendid financial march. The fictitious brick dwelling had given place\nto an imaginary granite one with a checker-board mansard roof; in time\nthis one disappeared and gave place to a still grander home--and so on\nand so on. Mansion after mansion, made of air, rose, higher, broader,\nfiner, and each in its turn vanished away; until now in these latter\ngreat days, our dreamers were in fancy housed, in a distant region, in a\nsumptuous vast palace which looked out from a leafy summit upon a\nnoble prospect of vale and river and receding hills steeped in tinted\nmists--and all private, all the property of the dreamers; a palace\nswarming with liveried servants, and populous with guests of fame and\npower, hailing from all the world's capitals, foreign and domestic.\n\nThis palace was far, far away toward the rising sun, immeasurably\nremote, astronomically remote, in Newport, Rhode Island, Holy Land of\nHigh Society, ineffable Domain of the American Aristocracy. As a rule\nthey spent a part of every Sabbath--after morning service--in this\nsumptuous home, the rest of it they spent in Europe, or in dawdling\naround in their private yacht. Six days of sordid and plodding fact life\nat home on the ragged edge of Lakeside and straitened means, the seventh\nin Fairyland--such had been their program and their habit.\n\nIn their sternly restricted fact life they remained as of old--plodding,\ndiligent, careful, practical, economical. They stuck loyally to the\nlittle Presbyterian Church, and labored faithfully in its interests\nand stood by its high and tough doctrines with all their mental and\nspiritual energies. But in their dream life they obeyed the invitations\nof their fancies, whatever they might be, and howsoever the fancies\nmight change. Aleck's fancies were not very capricious, and not\nfrequent, but Sally's scattered a good deal. Aleck, in her dream life,\nwent over to the Episcopal camp, on account of its large official\ntitles; next she became High-church on account of the candles and shows;\nand next she naturally changed to Rome, where there were cardinals and\nmore candles. But these excursions were a nothing to Sally's. His dream\nlife was a glowing and continuous and persistent excitement, and he kept\nevery part of it fresh and sparkling by frequent changes, the religious\npart along with the rest. He worked his religions hard, and changed them\nwith his shirt.\n\nThe liberal spendings of the Fosters upon their fancies began early\nin their prosperities, and grew in prodigality step by step with their\nadvancing fortunes. In time they became truly enormous. Aleck built\na university or two per Sunday; also a hospital or two; also a Rowton\nhotel or so; also a batch of churches; now and then a cathedral; and\nonce, with untimely and ill-chosen playfulness, Sally said, \"It was\na cold day when she didn't ship a cargo of missionaries to persuade\nunreflecting Chinamen to trade off twenty-four carat Confucianism for\ncounterfeit Christianity.\"\n\nThis rude and unfeeling language hurt Aleck to the heart, and she went\nfrom the presence crying. That spectacle went to his own heart, and in\nhis pain and shame he would have given worlds to have those unkind words\nback. She had uttered no syllable of reproach--and that cut him. Not one\nsuggestion that he look at his own record--and she could have made, oh,\nso many, and such blistering ones! Her generous silence brought a swift\nrevenge, for it turned his thoughts upon himself, it summoned before\nhim a spectral procession, a moving vision of his life as he had been\nleading it these past few years of limitless prosperity, and as he\nsat there reviewing it his cheeks burned and his soul was steeped in\nhumiliation. Look at her life--how fair it was, and tending ever upward;\nand look at his own--how frivolous, how charged with mean vanities,\nhow selfish, how empty, how ignoble! And its trend--never upward, but\ndownward, ever downward!\n\nHe instituted comparisons between her record and his own. He had found\nfault with her--so he mused--_he_! And what could he say for himself?\nWhen she built her first church what was he doing? Gathering other blase\nmultimillionaires into a Poker Club; defiling his own palace with it;\nlosing hundreds of thousands to it at every sitting, and sillily vain of\nthe admiring notoriety it made for him. When she was building her\nfirst university, what was he doing? Polluting himself with a gay\nand dissipated secret life in the company of other fast bloods,\nmultimillionaires in money and paupers in character. When she was\nbuilding her first foundling asylum, what was he doing? Alas! When she\nwas projecting her noble Society for the Purifying of the Sex, what was\nhe doing? Ah, what, indeed! When she and the W. C. T. U. and the Woman\nwith the Hatchet, moving with resistless march, were sweeping the fatal\nbottle from the land, what was he doing? Getting drunk three times a\nday. When she, builder of a hundred cathedrals, was being gratefully\nwelcomed and blest in papal Rome and decorated with the Golden Rose\nwhich she had so honorably earned, what was he doing? Breaking the bank\nat Monte Carlo.\n\nHe stopped. He could go no farther; he could not bear the rest. He rose\nup, with a great resolution upon his lips: this secret life should be\nrevealed, and confessed; no longer would he live it clandestinely, he\nwould go and tell her All.\n\nAnd that is what he did. He told her All; and wept upon her bosom; wept,\nand moaned, and begged for her forgiveness. It was a profound shock, and\nshe staggered under the blow, but he was her own, the core of her heart,\nthe blessing of her eyes, her all in all, she could deny him nothing,\nand she forgave him. She felt that he could never again be quite to her\nwhat he had been before; she knew that he could only repent, and not\nreform; yet all morally defaced and decayed as he was, was he not her\nown, her very own, the idol of her deathless worship? She said she was\nhis serf, his slave, and she opened her yearning heart and took him in.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nOne Sunday afternoon some time after this they were sailing the summer\nseas in their dream yacht, and reclining in lazy luxury under the awning\nof the after-deck. There was silence, for each was busy with his own\nthoughts. These seasons of silence had insensibly been growing more\nand more frequent of late; the old nearness and cordiality were waning.\nSally's terrible revelation had done its work; Aleck had tried hard to\ndrive the memory of it out of her mind, but it would not go, and the\nshame and bitterness of it were poisoning her gracious dream life. She\ncould see now (on Sundays) that her husband was becoming a bloated and\nrepulsive Thing. She could not close her eyes to this, and in these days\nshe no longer looked at him, Sundays, when she could help it.\n\nBut she--was she herself without blemish? Alas, she knew she was not.\nShe was keeping a secret from him, she was acting dishonorably toward\nhim, and many a pang it was costing her. _She was breaking the compact,\nand concealing it from him_. Under strong temptation she had gone into\nbusiness again; she had risked their whole fortune in a purchase of all\nthe railway systems and coal and steel companies in the country on a\nmargin, and she was now trembling, every Sabbath hour, lest through some\nchance word of hers he find it out. In her misery and remorse for this\ntreachery she could not keep her heart from going out to him in pity;\nshe was filled with compunctions to see him lying there, drunk and\ncontented, and never suspecting. Never suspecting--trusting her with\na perfect and pathetic trust, and she holding over him by a thread a\npossible calamity of so devastating a--\n\n\"_Say_--Aleck?\"\n\nThe interrupting words brought her suddenly to herself. She was grateful\nto have that persecuting subject from her thoughts, and she answered,\nwith much of the old-time tenderness in her tone:\n\n\"Yes, dear.\"\n\n\"Do you know, Aleck, I think we are making a mistake--that is, you\nare. I mean about the marriage business.\" He sat up, fat and froggy and\nbenevolent, like a bronze Buddha, and grew earnest. \"Consider--it's more\nthan five years. You've continued the same policy from the start: with\nevery rise, always holding on for five points higher. Always when I\nthink we are going to have some weddings, you see a bigger thing ahead,\nand I undergo another disappointment. _I_ think you are too hard to\nplease. Some day we'll get left. First, we turned down the dentist and\nthe lawyer. That was all right--it was sound. Next, we turned down the\nbanker's son and the pork-butcher's heir--right again, and sound. Next,\nwe turned down the Congressman's son and the Governor's--right as\na trivet, I confess it. Next the Senator's son and the son of the\nVice-President of the United States--perfectly right, there's no\npermanency about those little distinctions. Then you went for the\naristocracy; and I thought we had struck oil at last--yes. We would\nmake a plunge at the Four Hundred, and pull in some ancient lineage,\nvenerable, holy, ineffable, mellow with the antiquity of a hundred and\nfifty years, disinfected of the ancestral odors of salt-cod and pelts\nall of a century ago, and unsmirched by a day's work since, and then!\nwhy, then the marriages, of course. But no, along comes a pair of real\naristocrats from Europe, and straightway you throw over the half-breeds.\nIt was awfully discouraging, Aleck! Since then, what a procession!\nYou turned down the baronets for a pair of barons; you turned down the\nbarons for a pair of viscounts; the viscounts for a pair of earls;\nthe earls for a pair of marquises; the marquises for a brace of dukes.\n_Now_, Aleck, cash in!--you've played the limit. You've got a job lot\nof four dukes under the hammer; of four nationalities; all sound in the\nwind and limb and pedigree, all bankrupt and in debt up to the ears.\nThey come high, but we can afford it. Come, Aleck, don't delay any\nlonger, don't keep up the suspense: take the whole lay-out, and leave\nthe girls to choose!\"\n\nAleck had been smiling blandly and contentedly all through this\narraignment of her marriage policy, a pleasant light, as of triumph with\nperhaps a nice surprise peeping out through it, rose in her eyes, and\nshe said, as calmly as she could:\n\n\"Sally, what would you say to--_royalty_?\"\n\nProdigious! Poor man, it knocked him silly, and he fell over the\ngarboard-strake and barked his shin on the cat-heads. He was dizzy for a\nmoment, then he gathered himself up and limped over and sat down by\nhis wife and beamed his old-time admiration and affection upon her in\nfloods, out of his bleary eyes.\n\n\"By George!\" he said, fervently, \"Aleck, you _are _great--the greatest\nwoman in the whole earth! I can't ever learn the whole size of you.\nI can't ever learn the immeasurable deeps of you. Here I've been\nconsidering myself qualified to criticize your game. _I!_ Why, if I had\nstopped to think, I'd have known you had a lone hand up your sleeve.\nNow, dear heart, I'm all red-hot impatience--tell me about it!\"\n\nThe flattered and happy woman put her lips to his ear and whispered\na princely name. It made him catch his breath, it lit his face with\nexultation.\n\n\"Land!\" he said, \"it's a stunning catch! He's got a gambling-hall, and\na graveyard, and a bishop, and a cathedral--all his very own. And all\ngilt-edged five-hundred-per-cent. stock, every detail of it; the tidiest\nlittle property in Europe; and that graveyard--it's the selectest in\nthe world: none but suicides admitted; _yes_, sir, and the free-list\nsuspended, too, _all _the time. There isn't much land in the\nprincipality, but there's enough: eight hundred acres in the graveyard\nand forty-two outside. It's a _sovereignty_--that's the main thing;\n_land's_ nothing. There's plenty land, Sahara's drugged with it.\"\n\nAleck glowed; she was profoundly happy. She said:\n\n\"Think of it, Sally--it is a family that has never married outside the\nRoyal and Imperial Houses of Europe: our grandchildren will sit upon\nthrones!\"\n\n\"True as you live, Aleck--and bear scepters, too; and handle them as\nnaturally and nonchantly as I handle a yardstick. It's a grand catch,\nAleck. He's corralled, is he? Can't get away? You didn't take him on a\nmargin?\"\n\n\"No. Trust me for that. He's not a liability, he's an asset. So is the\nother one.\"\n\n\"Who is it, Aleck?\"\n\n\"His Royal Highness\nSigismund-Siegfried-Lauenfeld-Dinkelspiel-Schwartzenberg Blutwurst,\nHereditary Grand Duke of Katzenyammer.\"\n\n\"No! You can't mean it!\"\n\n\"It's as true as I'm sitting here, I give you my word,\" she answered.\n\nHis cup was full, and he hugged her to his heart with rapture, saying:\n\n\"How wonderful it all seems, and how beautiful! It's one of the\noldest and noblest of the three hundred and sixty-four ancient German\nprincipalities, and one of the few that was allowed to retain its royal\nestate when Bismarck got done trimming them. I know that farm, I've been\nthere. It's got a rope-walk and a candle-factory and an army. Standing\narmy. Infantry and cavalry. Three soldier and a horse. Aleck, it's been\na long wait, and full of heartbreak and hope deferred, but God knows I\nam happy now. Happy, and grateful to you, my own, who have done it all.\nWhen is it to be?\"\n\n\"Next Sunday.\"\n\n\"Good. And we'll want to do these weddings up in the very regalest style\nthat's going. It's properly due to the royal quality of the parties\nof the first part. Now as I understand it, there is only one kind of\nmarriage that is sacred to royalty, exclusive to royalty: it's the\nmorganatic.\"\n\n\"What do they call it that for, Sally?\"\n\n\"I don't know; but anyway it's royal, and royal only.\"\n\n\"Then we will insist upon it. More--I will compel it. It is morganatic\nmarriage or none.\"\n\n\"That settles it!\" said Sally, rubbing his hands with delight. \"And it\nwill be the very first in America. Aleck, it will make Newport sick.\"\n\nThen they fell silent, and drifted away upon their dream wings to the\nfar regions of the earth to invite all the crowned heads and their\nfamilies and provide gratis transportation to them.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nDuring three days the couple walked upon air, with their heads in the\nclouds. They were but vaguely conscious of their surroundings; they saw\nall things dimly, as through a veil; they were steeped in dreams,\noften they did not hear when they were spoken to; they often did not\nunderstand when they heard; they answered confusedly or at random; Sally\nsold molasses by weight, sugar by the yard, and furnished soap when\nasked for candles, and Aleck put the cat in the wash and fed milk to\nthe soiled linen. Everybody was stunned and amazed, and went about\nmuttering, \"What _can _be the matter with the Fosters?\"\n\nThree days. Then came events! Things had taken a happy turn, and\nfor forty-eight hours Aleck's imaginary corner had been booming. Up--up-\n-still up! Cost point was passed. Still up--and up--and up! Five points\nabove cost--then ten--fifteen--twenty! Twenty points cold profit on the\nvast venture, now, and Aleck's imaginary brokers were shouting\nfrantically by imaginary long-distance, \"Sell! sell! for Heaven's sake\n_sell_!\"\n\nShe broke the splendid news to Sally, and he, too, said, \"Sell!\nsell--oh, don't make a blunder, now, you own the earth!--sell, sell!\"\nBut she set her iron will and lashed it amidships, and said she would\nhold on for five points more if she died for it.\n\nIt was a fatal resolve. The very next day came the historic crash, the\nrecord crash, the devastating crash, when the bottom fell out of Wall\nStreet, and the whole body of gilt-edged stocks dropped ninety-five\npoints in five hours, and the multimillionaire was seen begging his\nbread in the Bowery. Aleck sternly held her grip and \"put up\" as long\nas she could, but at last there came a call which she was powerless to\nmeet, and her imaginary brokers sold her out. Then, and not till then,\nthe man in her was vanished, and the woman in her resumed sway. She put\nher arms about her husband's neck and wept, saying:\n\n\"I am to blame, do not forgive me, I cannot bear it. We are paupers!\nPaupers, and I am so miserable. The weddings will never come off; all\nthat is past; we could not even buy the dentist, now.\"\n\nA bitter reproach was on Sally's tongue: \"I _begged _you to sell, but\nyou--\" He did not say it; he had not the heart to add a hurt to that\nbroken and repentant spirit. A nobler thought came to him and he said:\n\n\"Bear up, my Aleck, all is not lost! You really never invested a penny\nof my uncle's bequest, but only its unmaterialized future; what we\nhave lost was only the incremented harvest from that future by your\nincomparable financial judgment and sagacity. Cheer up, banish these\ngriefs; we still have the thirty thousand untouched; and with the\nexperience which you have acquired, think what you will be able to do\nwith it in a couple years! The marriages are not off, they are only\npostponed.\"\n\nThese were blessed words. Aleck saw how true they were, and their\ninfluence was electric; her tears ceased to flow, and her great spirit\nrose to its full stature again. With flashing eye and grateful heart,\nand with hand uplifted in pledge and prophecy, she said:\n\n\"Now and here I proclaim--\"\n\nBut she was interrupted by a visitor. It was the editor and proprietor\nof the _Sagamore_. He had happened into Lakeside to pay a duty-call upon\nan obscure grandmother of his who was nearing the end of her pilgrimage,\nand with the idea of combining business with grief he had looked up\nthe Fosters, who had been so absorbed in other things for the past four\nyears that they neglected to pay up their subscription. Six dollars due.\nNo visitor could have been more welcome. He would know all about Uncle\nTilbury and what his chances might be getting to be, cemeterywards. They\ncould, of course, ask no questions, for that would squelch the bequest,\nbut they could nibble around on the edge of the subject and hope for\nresults. The scheme did not work. The obtuse editor did not know he was\nbeing nibbled at; but at last, chance accomplished what art had failed\nin. In illustration of something under discussion which required the\nhelp of metaphor, the editor said:\n\n\"Land, it's as tough as Tilbury Foster!--as _we_ say.\"\n\nIt was sudden, and it made the Fosters jump. The editor noticed, and\nsaid, apologetically:\n\n\"No harm intended, I assure you. It's just a saying; just a joke, you\nknow--nothing in it. Relation of yours?\"\n\nSally crowded his burning eagerness down, and answered with all the\nindifference he could assume:\n\n\"I--well, not that I know of, but we've heard of him.\" The editor was\nthankful, and resumed his composure. Sally added: \"Is he--is he--well?\"\n\n\"Is he _well_? Why, bless you he's in Sheol these five years!\"\n\nThe Fosters were trembling with grief, though it felt like joy. Sally\nsaid, non-committally--and tentatively:\n\n\"Ah, well, such is life, and none can escape--not even the rich are\nspared.\"\n\nThe editor laughed.\n\n\"If you are including Tilbury,\" said he, \"it don't apply. _He_ hadn't a\ncent; the town had to bury him.\"\n\nThe Fosters sat petrified for two minutes; petrified and cold. Then,\nwhite-faced and weak-voiced, Sally asked:\n\n\"Is it true? Do you _know _it to be true?\"\n\n\"Well, I should say! I was one of the executors. He hadn't anything to\nleave but a wheelbarrow, and he left that to me. It hadn't any wheel,\nand wasn't any good. Still, it was something, and so, to square up, I\nscribbled off a sort of a little obituarial send-off for him, but it got\ncrowded out.\"\n\nThe Fosters were not listening--their cup was full, it could contain\nno more. They sat with bowed heads, dead to all things but the ache at\ntheir hearts.\n\nAn hour later. Still they sat there, bowed, motionless, silent, the\nvisitor long ago gone, they unaware.\n\nThen they stirred, and lifted their heads wearily, and gazed at each\nother wistfully, dreamily, dazed; then presently began to twaddle to\neach other in a wandering and childish way. At intervals they lapsed\ninto silences, leaving a sentence unfinished, seemingly either unaware\nof it or losing their way. Sometimes, when they woke out of these\nsilences they had a dim and transient consciousness that something had\nhappened to their minds; then with a dumb and yearning solicitude they\nwould softly caress each other's hands in mutual compassion and support,\nas if they would say: \"I am near you, I will not forsake you, we\nwill bear it together; somewhere there is release and forgetfulness,\nsomewhere there is a grave and peace; be patient, it will not be long.\"\n\nThey lived yet two years, in mental night, always brooding, steeped in\nvague regrets and melancholy dreams, never speaking; then release came\nto both on the same day.\n\nToward the end the darkness lifted from Sally's ruined mind for a\nmoment, and he said:\n\n\"Vast wealth, acquired by sudden and unwholesome means, is a snare. It\ndid us no good, transient were its feverish pleasures; yet for its\nsake we threw away our sweet and simple and happy life--let others take\nwarning by us.\"\n\nHe lay silent awhile, with closed eyes; then as the chill of death crept\nupward toward his heart, and consciousness was fading from his brain, he\nmuttered:\n\n\"Money had brought him misery, and he took his revenge upon us, who had\ndone him no harm. He had his desire: with base and cunning calculation\nhe left us but thirty thousand, knowing we would try to increase it, and\nruin our life and break our hearts. Without added expense he could\nhave left us far above desire of increase, far above the temptation\nto speculate, and a kinder soul would have done it; but in him was no\ngenerous spirit, no pity, no--\"\n\n\n\nA DOG'S TALE\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nMy father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a\nPresbyterian. This is what my mother told me, I do not know these\nnice distinctions myself. To me they are only fine large words meaning\nnothing. My mother had a fondness for such; she liked to say them, and\nsee other dogs look surprised and envious, as wondering how she got\nso much education. But, indeed, it was not real education; it was only\nshow: she got the words by listening in the dining-room and drawing-room\nwhen there was company, and by going with the children to Sunday-school\nand listening there; and whenever she heard a large word she said it\nover to herself many times, and so was able to keep it until there was\na dogmatic gathering in the neighborhood, then she would get it off,\nand surprise and distress them all, from pocket-pup to mastiff, which\nrewarded her for all her trouble. If there was a stranger he was nearly\nsure to be suspicious, and when he got his breath again he would ask her\nwhat it meant. And she always told him. He was never expecting this but\nthought he would catch her; so when she told him, he was the one that\nlooked ashamed, whereas he had thought it was going to be she. The\nothers were always waiting for this, and glad of it and proud of her,\nfor they knew what was going to happen, because they had had experience.\nWhen she told the meaning of a big word they were all so taken up with\nadmiration that it never occurred to any dog to doubt if it was the\nright one; and that was natural, because, for one thing, she answered up\nso promptly that it seemed like a dictionary speaking, and for another\nthing, where could they find out whether it was right or not? for she\nwas the only cultivated dog there was. By and by, when I was older, she\nbrought home the word Unintellectual, one time, and worked it pretty\nhard all the week at different gatherings, making much unhappiness and\ndespondency; and it was at this time that I noticed that during that\nweek she was asked for the meaning at eight different assemblages, and\nflashed out a fresh definition every time, which showed me that she had\nmore presence of mind than culture, though I said nothing, of course.\nShe had one word which she always kept on hand, and ready, like a\nlife-preserver, a kind of emergency word to strap on when she was likely\nto get washed overboard in a sudden way--that was the word Synonymous.\nWhen she happened to fetch out a long word which had had its day weeks\nbefore and its prepared meanings gone to her dump-pile, if there was a\nstranger there of course it knocked him groggy for a couple of minutes,\nthen he would come to, and by that time she would be away down wind on\nanother tack, and not expecting anything; so when he'd hail and ask her\nto cash in, I (the only dog on the inside of her game) could see her\ncanvas flicker a moment--but only just a moment--then it would belly\nout taut and full, and she would say, as calm as a summer's day, \"It's\nsynonymous with supererogation,\" or some godless long reptile of a\nword like that, and go placidly about and skim away on the next tack,\nperfectly comfortable, you know, and leave that stranger looking profane\nand embarrassed, and the initiated slatting the floor with their tails\nin unison and their faces transfigured with a holy joy.\n\nAnd it was the same with phrases. She would drag home a whole phrase,\nif it had a grand sound, and play it six nights and two matinees, and\nexplain it a new way every time--which she had to, for all she cared for\nwas the phrase; she wasn't interested in what it meant, and knew those\ndogs hadn't wit enough to catch her, anyway. Yes, she was a daisy! She\ngot so she wasn't afraid of anything, she had such confidence in the\nignorance of those creatures. She even brought anecdotes that she had\nheard the family and the dinner-guests laugh and shout over; and as\na rule she got the nub of one chestnut hitched onto another chestnut,\nwhere, of course, it didn't fit and hadn't any point; and when she\ndelivered the nub she fell over and rolled on the floor and laughed and\nbarked in the most insane way, while I could see that she was wondering\nto herself why it didn't seem as funny as it did when she first heard\nit. But no harm was done; the others rolled and barked too, privately\nashamed of themselves for not seeing the point, and never suspecting\nthat the fault was not with them and there wasn't any to see.\n\nYou can see by these things that she was of a rather vain and frivolous\ncharacter; still, she had virtues, and enough to make up, I think. She\nhad a kind heart and gentle ways, and never harbored resentments for\ninjuries done her, but put them easily out of her mind and forgot them;\nand she taught her children her kindly way, and from her we learned also\nto be brave and prompt in time of danger, and not to run away, but face\nthe peril that threatened friend or stranger, and help him the best we\ncould without stopping to think what the cost might be to us. And she\ntaught us not by words only, but by example, and that is the best way\nand the surest and the most lasting. Why, the brave things she did, the\nsplendid things! she was just a soldier; and so modest about it--well,\nyou couldn't help admiring her, and you couldn't help imitating her;\nnot even a King Charles spaniel could remain entirely despicable in her\nsociety. So, as you see, there was more to her than her education.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nWhen I was well grown, at last, I was sold and taken away, and I never\nsaw her again. She was broken-hearted, and so was I, and we cried; but\nshe comforted me as well as she could, and said we were sent into\nthis world for a wise and good purpose, and must do our duties without\nrepining, take our life as we might find it, live it for the best good\nof others, and never mind about the results; they were not our affair.\nShe said men who did like this would have a noble and beautiful reward\nby and by in another world, and although we animals would not go there,\nto do well and right without reward would give to our brief lives\na worthiness and dignity which in itself would be a reward. She had\ngathered these things from time to time when she had gone to the\nSunday-school with the children, and had laid them up in her memory more\ncarefully than she had done with those other words and phrases; and she\nhad studied them deeply, for her good and ours. One may see by this that\nshe had a wise and thoughtful head, for all there was so much lightness\nand vanity in it.\n\nSo we said our farewells, and looked our last upon each other through\nour tears; and the last thing she said--keeping it for the last to make\nme remember it the better, I think--was, \"In memory of me, when there\nis a time of danger to another do not think of yourself, think of your\nmother, and do as she would do.\"\n\nDo you think I could forget that? No.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nIt was such a charming home!--my new one; a fine great house, with\npictures, and delicate decorations, and rich furniture, and no gloom\nanywhere, but all the wilderness of dainty colors lit up with flooding\nsunshine; and the spacious grounds around it, and the great garden--oh,\ngreensward, and noble trees, and flowers, no end! And I was the same as\na member of the family; and they loved me, and petted me, and did not\ngive me a new name, but called me by my old one that was dear to me\nbecause my mother had given it me--Aileen Mavoureen. She got it out of a\nsong; and the Grays knew that song, and said it was a beautiful name.\n\nMrs. Gray was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely, you cannot imagine\nit; and Sadie was ten, and just like her mother, just a darling slender\nlittle copy of her, with auburn tails down her back, and short frocks;\nand the baby was a year old, and plump and dimpled, and fond of me,\nand never could get enough of hauling on my tail, and hugging me, and\nlaughing out its innocent happiness; and Mr. Gray was thirty-eight, and\ntall and slender and handsome, a little bald in front, alert, quick in\nhis movements, business-like, prompt, decided, unsentimental, and with\nthat kind of trim-chiseled face that just seems to glint and sparkle\nwith frosty intellectuality! He was a renowned scientist. I do not know\nwhat the word means, but my mother would know how to use it and get\neffects. She would know how to depress a rat-terrier with it and make a\nlap-dog look sorry he came. But that is not the best one; the best one\nwas Laboratory. My mother could organize a Trust on that one that would\nskin the tax-collars off the whole herd. The laboratory was not a\nbook, or a picture, or a place to wash your hands in, as the college\npresident's dog said--no, that is the lavatory; the laboratory is quite\ndifferent, and is filled with jars, and bottles, and electrics, and\nwires, and strange machines; and every week other scientists came there\nand sat in the place, and used the machines, and discussed, and made\nwhat they called experiments and discoveries; and often I came, too,\nand stood around and listened, and tried to learn, for the sake of my\nmother, and in loving memory of her, although it was a pain to me, as\nrealizing what she was losing out of her life and I gaining nothing at\nall; for try as I might, I was never able to make anything out of it at\nall.\n\nOther times I lay on the floor in the mistress's work-room and slept,\nshe gently using me for a foot-stool, knowing it pleased me, for it\nwas a caress; other times I spent an hour in the nursery, and got well\ntousled and made happy; other times I watched by the crib there, when\nthe baby was asleep and the nurse out for a few minutes on the baby's\naffairs; other times I romped and raced through the grounds and the\ngarden with Sadie till we were tired out, then slumbered on the grass in\nthe shade of a tree while she read her book; other times I went visiting\namong the neighbor dogs--for there were some most pleasant ones not\nfar away, and one very handsome and courteous and graceful one,\na curly-haired Irish setter by the name of Robin Adair, who was a\nPresbyterian like me, and belonged to the Scotch minister.\n\nThe servants in our house were all kind to me and were fond of me, and\nso, as you see, mine was a pleasant life. There could not be a happier\ndog that I was, nor a gratefuler one. I will say this for myself, for it\nis only the truth: I tried in all ways to do well and right, and honor\nmy mother's memory and her teachings, and earn the happiness that had\ncome to me, as best I could.\n\nBy and by came my little puppy, and then my cup was full, my happiness\nwas perfect. It was the dearest little waddling thing, and so smooth\nand soft and velvety, and had such cunning little awkward paws, and such\naffectionate eyes, and such a sweet and innocent face; and it made me\nso proud to see how the children and their mother adored it, and fondled\nit, and exclaimed over every little wonderful thing it did. It did seem\nto me that life was just too lovely to--\n\nThen came the winter. One day I was standing a watch in the nursery.\nThat is to say, I was asleep on the bed. The baby was asleep in the\ncrib, which was alongside the bed, on the side next the fireplace. It\nwas the kind of crib that has a lofty tent over it made of gauzy stuff\nthat you can see through. The nurse was out, and we two sleepers were\nalone. A spark from the wood-fire was shot out, and it lit on the slope\nof the tent. I suppose a quiet interval followed, then a scream from the\nbaby awoke me, and there was that tent flaming up toward the ceiling!\nBefore I could think, I sprang to the floor in my fright, and in a\nsecond was half-way to the door; but in the next half-second my mother's\nfarewell was sounding in my ears, and I was back on the bed again.,\nI reached my head through the flames and dragged the baby out by the\nwaist-band, and tugged it along, and we fell to the floor together in a\ncloud of smoke; I snatched a new hold, and dragged the screaming little\ncreature along and out at the door and around the bend of the hall,\nand was still tugging away, all excited and happy and proud, when the\nmaster's voice shouted:\n\n\"Begone you cursed beast!\" and I jumped to save myself; but he was\nfuriously quick, and chased me up, striking furiously at me with his\ncane, I dodging this way and that, in terror, and at last a strong\nblow fell upon my left foreleg, which made me shriek and fall, for\nthe moment, helpless; the cane went up for another blow, but never\ndescended, for the nurse's voice rang wildly out, \"The nursery's on\nfire!\" and the master rushed away in that direction, and my other bones\nwere saved.\n\nThe pain was cruel, but, no matter, I must not lose any time; he might\ncome back at any moment; so I limped on three legs to the other end\nof the hall, where there was a dark little stairway leading up into a\ngarret where old boxes and such things were kept, as I had heard say,\nand where people seldom went. I managed to climb up there, then I\nsearched my way through the dark among the piles of things, and hid in\nthe secretest place I could find. It was foolish to be afraid there, yet\nstill I was; so afraid that I held in and hardly even whimpered, though\nit would have been such a comfort to whimper, because that eases the\npain, you know. But I could lick my leg, and that did some good.\n\nFor half an hour there was a commotion downstairs, and shoutings,\nand rushing footsteps, and then there was quiet again. Quiet for some\nminutes, and that was grateful to my spirit, for then my fears began\nto go down; and fears are worse than pains--oh, much worse. Then came a\nsound that froze me. They were calling me--calling me by name--hunting\nfor me!\n\nIt was muffled by distance, but that could not take the terror out of\nit, and it was the most dreadful sound to me that I had ever heard. It\nwent all about, everywhere, down there: along the halls, through all\nthe rooms, in both stories, and in the basement and the cellar; then\noutside, and farther and farther away--then back, and all about the\nhouse again, and I thought it would never, never stop. But at last it\ndid, hours and hours after the vague twilight of the garret had long ago\nbeen blotted out by black darkness.\n\nThen in that blessed stillness my terrors fell little by little away,\nand I was at peace and slept. It was a good rest I had, but I woke\nbefore the twilight had come again. I was feeling fairly comfortable,\nand I could think out a plan now. I made a very good one; which was, to\ncreep down, all the way down the back stairs, and hide behind the cellar\ndoor, and slip out and escape when the iceman came at dawn, while he was\ninside filling the refrigerator; then I would hide all day, and start\non my journey when night came; my journey to--well, anywhere where they\nwould not know me and betray me to the master. I was feeling almost\ncheerful now; then suddenly I thought: Why, what would life be without\nmy puppy!\n\nThat was despair. There was no plan for me; I saw that; I must say where\nI was; stay, and wait, and take what might come--it was not my affair;\nthat was what life is--my mother had said it. Then--well, then the\ncalling began again! All my sorrows came back. I said to myself, the\nmaster will never forgive. I did not know what I had done to make him so\nbitter and so unforgiving, yet I judged it was something a dog could not\nunderstand, but which was clear to a man and dreadful.\n\nThey called and called--days and nights, it seemed to me. So long that\nthe hunger and thirst near drove me mad, and I recognized that I was\ngetting very weak. When you are this way you sleep a great deal, and I\ndid. Once I woke in an awful fright--it seemed to me that the calling\nwas right there in the garret! And so it was: it was Sadie's voice,\nand she was crying; my name was falling from her lips all broken, poor\nthing, and I could not believe my ears for the joy of it when I heard\nher say:\n\n\"Come back to us--oh, come back to us, and forgive--it is all so sad\nwithout our--\"\n\nI broke in with _such _a grateful little yelp, and the next moment\nSadie was plunging and stumbling through the darkness and the lumber and\nshouting for the family to hear, \"She's found, she's found!\"\n\nThe days that followed--well, they were wonderful. The mother and Sadie\nand the servants--why, they just seemed to worship me. They couldn't\nseem to make me a bed that was fine enough; and as for food, they\ncouldn't be satisfied with anything but game and delicacies that were\nout of season; and every day the friends and neighbors flocked in to\nhear about my heroism--that was the name they called it by, and it\nmeans agriculture. I remember my mother pulling it on a kennel once, and\nexplaining it in that way, but didn't say what agriculture was, except\nthat it was synonymous with intramural incandescence; and a dozen times\na day Mrs. Gray and Sadie would tell the tale to new-comers, and say I\nrisked my life to save the baby's, and both of us had burns to prove it,\nand then the company would pass me around and pet me and exclaim about\nme, and you could see the pride in the eyes of Sadie and her mother; and\nwhen the people wanted to know what made me limp, they looked ashamed\nand changed the subject, and sometimes when people hunted them this way\nand that way with questions about it, it looked to me as if they were\ngoing to cry.\n\nAnd this was not all the glory; no, the master's friends came, a whole\ntwenty of the most distinguished people, and had me in the laboratory,\nand discussed me as if I was a kind of discovery; and some of them said\nit was wonderful in a dumb beast, the finest exhibition of instinct they\ncould call to mind; but the master said, with vehemence, \"It's far above\ninstinct; it's _reason_, and many a man, privileged to be saved and go\nwith you and me to a better world by right of its possession, has less\nof it that this poor silly quadruped that's foreordained to perish\"; and\nthen he laughed, and said: \"Why, look at me--I'm a sarcasm! bless you,\nwith all my grand intelligence, the only thing I inferred was that\nthe dog had gone mad and was destroying the child, whereas but for the\nbeast's intelligence--it's _reason_, I tell you!--the child would have\nperished!\"\n\nThey disputed and disputed, and _I_ was the very center of subject of it\nall, and I wished my mother could know that this grand honor had come to\nme; it would have made her proud.\n\nThen they discussed optics, as they called it, and whether a certain\ninjury to the brain would produce blindness or not, but they could not\nagree about it, and said they must test it by experiment by and by;\nand next they discussed plants, and that interested me, because in the\nsummer Sadie and I had planted seeds--I helped her dig the holes, you\nknow--and after days and days a little shrub or a flower came up there,\nand it was a wonder how that could happen; but it did, and I wished I\ncould talk--I would have told those people about it and shown then how\nmuch I knew, and been all alive with the subject; but I didn't care for\nthe optics; it was dull, and when they came back to it again it bored\nme, and I went to sleep.\n\nPretty soon it was spring, and sunny and pleasant and lovely, and the\nsweet mother and the children patted me and the puppy good-by, and went\naway on a journey and a visit to their kin, and the master wasn't any\ncompany for us, but we played together and had good times, and the\nservants were kind and friendly, so we got along quite happily and\ncounted the days and waited for the family.\n\nAnd one day those men came again, and said, now for the test, and they\ntook the puppy to the laboratory, and I limped three-leggedly along,\ntoo, feeling proud, for any attention shown to the puppy was a pleasure\nto me, of course. They discussed and experimented, and then suddenly the\npuppy shrieked, and they set him on the floor, and he went staggering\naround, with his head all bloody, and the master clapped his hands and\nshouted:\n\n\"There, I've won--confess it! He's a blind as a bat!\"\n\nAnd they all said:\n\n\"It's so--you've proved your theory, and suffering humanity owes you a\ngreat debt from henceforth,\" and they crowded around him, and wrung his\nhand cordially and thankfully, and praised him.\n\nBut I hardly saw or heard these things, for I ran at once to my little\ndarling, and snuggled close to it where it lay, and licked the blood,\nand it put its head against mine, whimpering softly, and I knew in\nmy heart it was a comfort to it in its pain and trouble to feel its\nmother's touch, though it could not see me. Then it dropped down,\npresently, and its little velvet nose rested upon the floor, and it was\nstill, and did not move any more.\n\nSoon the master stopped discussing a moment, and rang in the footman,\nand said, \"Bury it in the far corner of the garden,\" and then went on\nwith the discussion, and I trotted after the footman, very happy and\ngrateful, for I knew the puppy was out of its pain now, because it\nwas asleep. We went far down the garden to the farthest end, where the\nchildren and the nurse and the puppy and I used to play in the summer in\nthe shade of a great elm, and there the footman dug a hole, and I saw he\nwas going to plant the puppy, and I was glad, because it would grow\nand come up a fine handsome dog, like Robin Adair, and be a beautiful\nsurprise for the family when they came home; so I tried to help him dig,\nbut my lame leg was no good, being stiff, you know, and you have to have\ntwo, or it is no use. When the footman had finished and covered little\nRobin up, he patted my head, and there were tears in his eyes, and he\nsaid: \"Poor little doggie, you saved _his _child!\"\n\nI have watched two whole weeks, and he doesn't come up! This last week\na fright has been stealing upon me. I think there is something terrible\nabout this. I do not know what it is, but the fear makes me sick, and I\ncannot eat, though the servants bring me the best of food; and they pet\nme so, and even come in the night, and cry, and say, \"Poor doggie--do\ngive it up and come home; _don't_ break our hearts!\" and all this\nterrifies me the more, and makes me sure something has happened. And\nI am so weak; since yesterday I cannot stand on my feet anymore. And\nwithin this hour the servants, looking toward the sun where it was\nsinking out of sight and the night chill coming on, said things I could\nnot understand, but they carried something cold to my heart.\n\n\"Those poor creatures! They do not suspect. They will come home in the\nmorning, and eagerly ask for the little doggie that did the brave deed,\nand who of us will be strong enough to say the truth to them: 'The\nhumble little friend is gone where go the beasts that perish.'\"\n\n\n\nWAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\"You told a _lie_?\"\n\n\"You confess it--you actually confess it--you told a lie!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nThe family consisted of four persons: Margaret Lester, widow, aged\nthirty six; Helen Lester, her daughter, aged sixteen; Mrs. Lester's\nmaiden aunts, Hannah and Hester Gray, twins, aged sixty-seven. Waking\nand sleeping, the three women spent their days and nights in adoring the\nyoung girl; in watching the movements of her sweet spirit in the mirror\nof her face; in refreshing their souls with the vision of her bloom\nand beauty; in listening to the music of her voice; in gratefully\nrecognizing how rich and fair for them was the world with this presence\nin it; in shuddering to think how desolate it would be with this light\ngone out of it.\n\nBy nature--and inside--the aged aunts were utterly dear and lovable and\ngood, but in the matter of morals and conduct their training had been so\nuncompromisingly strict that it had made them exteriorly austere, not to\nsay stern. Their influence was effective in the house; so effective\nthat the mother and the daughter conformed to its moral and religious\nrequirements cheerfully, contentedly, happily, unquestionably. To do\nthis was become second nature to them. And so in this peaceful\nheaven there were no clashings, no irritations, no fault-finding, no\nheart-burnings.\n\nIn it a lie had no place. In it a lie was unthinkable. In it speech\nwas restricted to absolute truth, iron-bound truth, implacable and\nuncompromising truth, let the resulting consequences be what they might.\nAt last, one day, under stress of circumstances, the darling of the\nhouse sullied her lips with a lie--and confessed it, with tears\nand self-upbraidings. There are not any words that can paint the\nconsternation of the aunts. It was as if the sky had crumpled up and\ncollapsed and the earth had tumbled to ruin with a crash. They sat side\nby side, white and stern, gazing speechless upon the culprit, who was on\nher knees before them with her face buried first in one lap and then the\nother, moaning and sobbing, and appealing for sympathy and forgiveness\nand getting no response, humbly kissing the hand of the one, then of the\nother, only to see it withdrawn as suffering defilement by those soiled\nlips.\n\nTwice, at intervals, Aunt Hester said, in frozen amazement:\n\n\"You told a _lie_?\"\n\nTwice, at intervals, Aunt Hannah followed with the muttered and amazed\nejaculation:\n\n\"You confess it--you actually confess it--you told a lie!\"\n\nIt was all they could say. The situation was new, unheard of,\nincredible; they could not understand it, they did not know how to take\nhold of it, it approximately paralyzed speech.\n\nAt length it was decided that the erring child must be taken to her\nmother, who was ill, and who ought to know what had happened. Helen\nbegged, besought, implored that she might be spared this further\ndisgrace, and that her mother might be spared the grief and pain of\nit; but this could not be: duty required this sacrifice, duty takes\nprecedence of all things, nothing can absolve one from a duty, with a\nduty no compromise is possible.\n\nHelen still begged, and said the sin was her own, her mother had had no\nhand in it--why must she be made to suffer for it?\n\nBut the aunts were obdurate in their righteousness, and said the law\nthat visited the sins of the parent upon the child was by all right\nand reason reversible; and therefore it was but just that the innocent\nmother of a sinning child should suffer her rightful share of the grief\nand pain and shame which were the allotted wages of the sin.\n\nThe three moved toward the sick-room.\n\nAt this time the doctor was approaching the house. He was still a good\ndistance away, however. He was a good doctor and a good man, and he had\na good heart, but one had to know him a year to get over hating him, two\nyears to learn to endure him, three to learn to like him, and four and\nfive to learn to love him. It was a slow and trying education, but it\npaid. He was of great stature; he had a leonine head, a leonine face, a\nrough voice, and an eye which was sometimes a pirate's and sometimes\na woman's, according to the mood. He knew nothing about etiquette, and\ncared nothing about it; in speech, manner, carriage, and conduct he was\nthe reverse of conventional. He was frank, to the limit; he had opinions\non all subjects; they were always on tap and ready for delivery, and he\ncared not a farthing whether his listener liked them or didn't. Whom\nhe loved he loved, and manifested it; whom he didn't love he hated, and\npublished it from the housetops. In his young days he had been a sailor,\nand the salt-airs of all the seas blew from him yet. He was a sturdy and\nloyal Christian, and believed he was the best one in the land, and the\nonly one whose Christianity was perfectly sound, healthy, full-charged\nwith common sense, and had no decayed places in it. People who had an ax\nto grind, or people who for any reason wanted to get on the soft side\nof him, called him The Christian--a phrase whose delicate flattery was\nmusic to his ears, and whose capital T was such an enchanting and vivid\nobject to him that he could _see _it when it fell out of a person's\nmouth even in the dark. Many who were fond of him stood on their\nconsciences with both feet and brazenly called him by that large title\nhabitually, because it was a pleasure to them to do anything that\nwould please him; and with eager and cordial malice his extensive and\ndiligently cultivated crop of enemies gilded it, beflowered it, expanded\nit to \"The _only _Christian.\" Of these two titles, the latter had the\nwider currency; the enemy, being greatly in the majority, attended to\nthat. Whatever the doctor believed, he believed with all his heart,\nand would fight for it whenever he got the chance; and if the intervals\nbetween chances grew to be irksomely wide, he would invent ways of\nshortening them himself. He was severely conscientious, according to\nhis rather independent lights, and whatever he took to be a duty he\nperformed, no matter whether the judgment of the professional moralists\nagreed with his own or not. At sea, in his young days, he had used\nprofanity freely, but as soon as he was converted he made a rule, which\nhe rigidly stuck to ever afterward, never to use it except on the rarest\noccasions, and then only when duty commanded. He had been a hard\ndrinker at sea, but after his conversion he became a firm and outspoken\nteetotaler, in order to be an example to the young, and from that time\nforth he seldom drank; never, indeed, except when it seemed to him to be\na duty--a condition which sometimes occurred a couple of times a year,\nbut never as many as five times.\n\nNecessarily, such a man is impressionable, impulsive, emotional. This\none was, and had no gift at hiding his feelings; or if he had it he took\nno trouble to exercise it. He carried his soul's prevailing weather in\nhis face, and when he entered a room the parasols or the umbrellas went\nup--figuratively speaking--according to the indications. When the soft\nlight was in his eye it meant approval, and delivered a benediction;\nwhen he came with a frown he lowered the temperature ten degrees. He was\na well-beloved man in the house of his friends, but sometimes a dreaded\none.\n\nHe had a deep affection for the Lester household and its several members\nreturned this feeling with interest. They mourned over his kind of\nChristianity, and he frankly scoffed at theirs; but both parties went on\nloving each other just the same.\n\nHe was approaching the house--out of the distance; the aunts and the\nculprit were moving toward the sick-chamber.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nThe three last named stood by the bed; the aunts austere, the\ntransgressor softly sobbing. The mother turned her head on the pillow;\nher tired eyes flamed up instantly with sympathy and passionate\nmother-love when they fell upon her child, and she opened the refuge and\nshelter of her arms.\n\n\"Wait!\" said Aunt Hannah, and put out her hand and stayed the girl from\nleaping into them.\n\n\"Helen,\" said the other aunt, impressively, \"tell your mother all. Purge\nyour soul; leave nothing unconfessed.\"\n\nStanding stricken and forlorn before her judges, the young girl mourned\nher sorrowful tale through the end, then in a passion of appeal cried\nout:\n\n\"Oh, mother, can't you forgive me? won't you forgive me?--I am so\ndesolate!\"\n\n\"Forgive you, my darling? Oh, come to my arms!--there, lay your head\nupon my breast, and be at peace. If you had told a thousand lies--\"\n\nThere was a sound--a warning--the clearing of a throat. The aunts\nglanced up, and withered in their clothes--there stood the doctor, his\nface a thunder-cloud. Mother and child knew nothing of his presence;\nthey lay locked together, heart to heart, steeped in immeasurable\ncontent, dead to all things else. The physician stood many moments\nglaring and glooming upon the scene before him; studying it, analyzing\nit, searching out its genesis; then he put up his hand and beckoned to\nthe aunts. They came trembling to him, and stood humbly before him and\nwaited. He bent down and whispered:\n\n\"Didn't I tell you this patient must be protected from all excitement?\nWhat the hell have you been doing? Clear out of the place!\"\n\nThey obeyed. Half an hour later he appeared in the parlor, serene,\ncheery, clothed in sunshine, conducting Helen, with his arm about her\nwaist, petting her, and saying gentle and playful things to her; and she\nalso was her sunny and happy self again.\n\n\"Now, then;\" he said, \"good-by, dear. Go to your room, and keep away\nfrom your mother, and behave yourself. But wait--put out your tongue.\nThere, that will do--you're as sound as a nut!\" He patted her cheek and\nadded, \"Run along now; I want to talk to these aunts.\"\n\nShe went from the presence. His face clouded over again at once; and as\nhe sat down he said:\n\n\"You too have been doing a lot of damage--and maybe some good. Some\ngood, yes--such as it is. That woman's disease is typhoid! You've\nbrought it to a show-up, I think, with your insanities, and that's a\nservice--such as it is. I hadn't been able to determine what it was\nbefore.\"\n\nWith one impulse the old ladies sprang to their feet, quaking with\nterror.\n\n\"Sit down! What are you proposing to do?\"\n\n\"Do? We must fly to her. We--\"\n\n\"You'll do nothing of the kind; you've done enough harm for one day. Do\nyou want to squander all your capital of crimes and follies on a single\ndeal? Sit down, I tell you. I have arranged for her to sleep; she needs\nit; if you disturb her without my orders, I'll brain you--if you've got\nthe materials for it.\"\n\nThey sat down, distressed and indignant, but obedient, under compulsion.\nHe proceeded:\n\n\"Now, then, I want this case explained. _They _wanted to explain it to\nme--as if there hadn't been emotion or excitement enough already. You\nknew my orders; how did you dare to go in there and get up that riot?\"\n\nHester looked appealing at Hannah; Hannah returned a beseeching look\nat Hester--neither wanted to dance to this unsympathetic orchestra. The\ndoctor came to their help. He said:\n\n\"Begin, Hester.\"\n\nFingering at the fringes of her shawl, and with lowered eyes, Hester\nsaid, timidly:\n\n\"We should not have disobeyed for any ordinary cause, but this was\nvital. This was a duty. With a duty one has no choice; one must put all\nlighter considerations aside and perform it. We were obliged to arraign\nher before her mother. She had told a lie.\"\n\nThe doctor glowered upon the woman a moment, and seemed to be trying\nto work up in his mind an understanding of a wholly incomprehensible\nproposition; then he stormed out:\n\n\"She told a lie! _did _she? God bless my soul! I tell a million a day!\nAnd so does every doctor. And so does everybody--including you--for\nthat matter. And _that _was the important thing that authorized you to\nventure to disobey my orders and imperil that woman's life! Look here,\nHester Gray, this is pure lunacy; that girl _couldn't_ tell a lie that\nwas intended to injure a person. The thing is impossible--absolutely\nimpossible. You know it yourselves--both of you; you know it perfectly\nwell.\"\n\nHannah came to her sister's rescue:\n\n\"Hester didn't mean that it was that kind of a lie, and it wasn't. But\nit was a lie.\"\n\n\"Well, upon my word, I never heard such nonsense! Haven't you got sense\nenough to discriminate between lies! Don't you know the difference\nbetween a lie that helps and a lie that hurts?\"\n\n\"_All _lies are sinful,\" said Hannah, setting her lips together like a\nvise; \"all lies are forbidden.\"\n\nThe Only Christian fidgeted impatiently in his chair. He went to attack\nthis proposition, but he did not quite know how or where to begin.\nFinally he made a venture:\n\n\"Hester, wouldn't you tell a lie to shield a person from an undeserved\ninjury or shame?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Not even a friend?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Not even your dearest friend?\"\n\n\"No. I would not.\"\n\nThe doctor struggled in silence awhile with this situation; then he\nasked:\n\n\"Not even to save him from bitter pain and misery and grief?\"\n\n\"No. Not even to save his life.\"\n\nAnother pause. Then:\n\n\"Nor his soul?\"\n\nThere was a hush--a silence which endured a measurable interval--then\nHester answered, in a low voice, but with decision:\n\n\"Nor his soul?\"\n\nNo one spoke for a while; then the doctor said:\n\n\"Is it with you the same, Hannah?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered.\n\n\"I ask you both--why?\"\n\n\"Because to tell such a lie, or any lie, is a sin, and could cost us\nthe loss of our own souls--_would_, indeed, if we died without time to\nrepent.\"\n\n\"Strange... strange... it is past belief.\" Then he asked, roughly: \"Is\nsuch a soul as that _worth _saving?\" He rose up, mumbling and grumbling,\nand started for the door, stumping vigorously along. At the threshold he\nturned and rasped out an admonition: \"Reform! Drop this mean and sordid\nand selfish devotion to the saving of your shabby little souls, and hunt\nup something to do that's got some dignity to it! _Risk _your souls!\nrisk them in good causes; then if you lose them, why should you care?\nReform!\"\n\nThe good old gentlewomen sat paralyzed, pulverized, outraged, insulted,\nand brooded in bitterness and indignation over these blasphemies. They\nwere hurt to the heart, poor old ladies, and said they could never\nforgive these injuries.\n\n\"Reform!\"\n\nThey kept repeating that word resentfully. \"Reform--and learn to tell\nlies!\"\n\nTime slipped along, and in due course a change came over their spirits.\nThey had completed the human being's first duty--which is to think about\nhimself until he has exhausted the subject, then he is in a condition\nto take up minor interests and think of other people. This changes the\ncomplexion of his spirits--generally wholesomely. The minds of the two\nold ladies reverted to their beloved niece and the fearful disease which\nhad smitten her; instantly they forgot the hurts their self-love had\nreceived, and a passionate desire rose in their hearts to go to the help\nof the sufferer and comfort her with their love, and minister to\nher, and labor for her the best they could with their weak hands, and\njoyfully and affectionately wear out their poor old bodies in her dear\nservice if only they might have the privilege.\n\n\"And we shall have it!\" said Hester, with the tears running down her\nface. \"There are no nurses comparable to us, for there are no others\nthat will stand their watch by that bed till they drop and die, and God\nknows we would do that.\"\n\n\"Amen,\" said Hannah, smiling approval and endorsement through the mist\nof moisture that blurred her glasses. \"The doctor knows us, and knows we\nwill not disobey again; and he will call no others. He will not dare!\"\n\n\"Dare?\" said Hester, with temper, and dashing the water from her eyes;\n\"he will dare anything--that Christian devil! But it will do no good for\nhim to try it this time--but, laws! Hannah! after all's said and\ndone, he is gifted and wise and good, and he would not think of such a\nthing.... It is surely time for one of us to go to that room. What is\nkeeping him? Why doesn't he come and say so?\"\n\nThey caught the sound of his approaching step. He entered, sat down, and\nbegan to talk.\n\n\"Margaret is a sick woman,\" he said. \"She is still sleeping, but she\nwill wake presently; then one of you must go to her. She will be worse\nbefore she is better. Pretty soon a night-and-day watch must be set. How\nmuch of it can you two undertake?\"\n\n\"All of it!\" burst from both ladies at once.\n\nThe doctor's eyes flashed, and he said, with energy:\n\n\"You _do_ ring true, you brave old relics! And you _shall _do all of the\nnursing you can, for there's none to match you in that divine office in\nthis town; but you can't do all of it, and it would be a crime to let\nyou.\" It was grand praise, golden praise, coming from such a source, and\nit took nearly all the resentment out of the aged twin's hearts. \"Your\nTilly and my old Nancy shall do the rest--good nurses both, white souls\nwith black skins, watchful, loving, tender--just perfect nurses!--and\ncompetent liars from the cradle.... Look you! keep a little watch on\nHelen; she is sick, and is going to be sicker.\"\n\nThe ladies looked a little surprised, and not credulous; and Hester\nsaid:\n\n\"How is that? It isn't an hour since you said she was as sound as a\nnut.\"\n\nThe doctor answered, tranquilly:\n\n\"It was a lie.\"\n\nThe ladies turned upon him indignantly, and Hannah said:\n\n\"How can you make an odious confession like that, in so indifferent a\ntone, when you know how we feel about all forms of--\"\n\n\"Hush! You are as ignorant as cats, both of you, and you don't know what\nyou are talking about. You are like all the rest of the moral moles;\nyou lie from morning till night, but because you don't do it with your\nmouths, but only with your lying eyes, your lying inflections, your\ndeceptively misplaced emphasis, and your misleading gestures, you turn\nup your complacent noses and parade before God and the world as saintly\nand unsmirched Truth-Speakers, in whose cold-storage souls a lie would\nfreeze to death if it got there! Why will you humbug yourselves with\nthat foolish notion that no lie is a lie except a spoken one? What is\nthe difference between lying with your eyes and lying with your mouth?\nThere is none; and if you would reflect a moment you would see that it\nis so. There isn't a human being that doesn't tell a gross of lies every\nday of his life; and you--why, between you, you tell thirty thousand;\nyet you flare up here in a lurid hypocritical horror because I tell that\nchild a benevolent and sinless lie to protect her from her imagination,\nwhich would get to work and warm up her blood to a fever in an hour, if\nI were disloyal enough to my duty to let it. Which I should probably do\nif I were interested in saving my soul by such disreputable means.\n\n\"Come, let us reason together. Let us examine details. When you two were\nin the sick-room raising that riot, what would you have done if you had\nknown I was coming?\"\n\n\"Well, what?\"\n\n\"You would have slipped out and carried Helen with you--wouldn't you?\"\n\nThe ladies were silent.\n\n\"What would be your object and intention?\"\n\n\"Well, what?\"\n\n\"To keep me from finding out your guilt; to beguile me to infer that\nMargaret's excitement proceeded from some cause not known to you. In a\nword, to tell me a lie--a silent lie. Moreover, a possibly harmful one.\"\n\nThe twins colored, but did not speak.\n\n\"You not only tell myriads of silent lies, but you tell lies with your\nmouths--you two.\"\n\n\"_That _is not so!\"\n\n\"It is so. But only harmless ones. You never dream of uttering a harmful\none. Do you know that that is a concession--and a confession?\"\n\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\n\"It is an unconscious concession that harmless lies are not criminal;\nit is a confession that you constantly _make _that discrimination. For\ninstance, you declined old Mrs. Foster's invitation last week to meet\nthose odious Higbies at supper--in a polite note in which you expressed\nregret and said you were very sorry you could not go. It was a lie.\nIt was as unmitigated a lie as was ever uttered. Deny it, Hester--with\nanother lie.\"\n\nHester replied with a toss of her head.\n\n\"That will not do. Answer. Was it a lie, or wasn't it?\"\n\nThe color stole into the cheeks of both women, and with a struggle and\nan effort they got out their confession:\n\n\"It was a lie.\"\n\n\"Good--the reform is beginning; there is hope for you yet; you will not\ntell a lie to save your dearest friend's soul, but you will spew out\none without a scruple to save yourself the discomfort of telling an\nunpleasant truth.\"\n\nHe rose. Hester, speaking for both, said; coldly:\n\n\"We have lied; we perceive it; it will occur no more. To lie is a sin.\nWe shall never tell another one of any kind whatsoever, even lies of\ncourtesy or benevolence, to save any one a pang or a sorrow decreed for\nhim by God.\"\n\n\"Ah, how soon you will fall! In fact, you have fallen already; for what\nyou have just uttered is a lie. Good-by. Reform! One of you go to the\nsick-room now.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTwelve days later.\n\nMother and child were lingering in the grip of the hideous disease.\nOf hope for either there was little. The aged sisters looked white\nand worn, but they would not give up their posts. Their hearts\nwere breaking, poor old things, but their grit was steadfast and\nindestructible. All the twelve days the mother had pined for the child,\nand the child for the mother, but both knew that the prayer of these\nlongings could not be granted. When the mother was told--on the first\nday--that her disease was typhoid, she was frightened, and asked if\nthere was danger that Helen could have contracted it the day before,\nwhen she was in the sick-chamber on that confession visit. Hester told\nher the doctor had poo-pooed the idea. It troubled Hester to say it,\nalthough it was true, for she had not believed the doctor; but when\nshe saw the mother's joy in the news, the pain in her conscience\nlost something of its force--a result which made her ashamed of the\nconstructive deception which she had practiced, though not ashamed\nenough to make her distinctly and definitely wish she had refrained from\nit. From that moment the sick woman understood that her daughter must\nremain away, and she said she would reconcile herself to the separation\nthe best she could, for she would rather suffer death than have her\nchild's health imperiled. That afternoon Helen had to take to her bed,\nill. She grew worse during the night. In the morning her mother asked\nafter her:\n\n\"Is she well?\"\n\nHester turned cold; she opened her lips, but the words refused to come.\nThe mother lay languidly looking, musing, waiting; suddenly she turned\nwhite and gasped out:\n\n\"Oh, my God! what is it? is she sick?\"\n\nThen the poor aunt's tortured heart rose in rebellion, and words came:\n\n\"No--be comforted; she is well.\"\n\nThe sick woman put all her happy heart in her gratitude:\n\n\"Thank God for those dear words! Kiss me. How I worship you for saying\nthem!\"\n\nHester told this incident to Hannah, who received it with a rebuking\nlook, and said, coldly:\n\n\"Sister, it was a lie.\"\n\nHester's lips trembled piteously; she choked down a sob, and said:\n\n\"Oh, Hannah, it was a sin, but I could not help it. I could not endure\nthe fright and the misery that were in her face.\"\n\n\"No matter. It was a lie. God will hold you to account for it.\"\n\n\"Oh, I know it, I know it,\" cried Hester, wringing her hands, \"but even\nif it were now, I could not help it. I know I should do it again.\"\n\n\"Then take my place with Helen in the morning. I will make the report\nmyself.\"\n\nHester clung to her sister, begging and imploring.\n\n\"Don't, Hannah, oh, don't--you will kill her.\"\n\n\"I will at least speak the truth.\"\n\nIn the morning she had a cruel report to bear to the mother, and she\nbraced herself for the trial. When she returned from her mission, Hester\nwas waiting, pale and trembling, in the hall. She whispered:\n\n\"Oh, how did she take it--that poor, desolate mother?\"\n\nHannah's eyes were swimming in tears. She said:\n\n\"God forgive me, I told her the child was well!\"\n\nHester gathered her to her heart, with a grateful \"God bless you,\nHannah!\" and poured out her thankfulness in an inundation of worshiping\npraises.\n\nAfter that, the two knew the limit of their strength, and accepted their\nfate. They surrendered humbly, and abandoned themselves to the hard\nrequirements of the situation. Daily they told the morning lie, and\nconfessed their sin in prayer; not asking forgiveness, as not being\nworthy of it, but only wishing to make record that they realized their\nwickedness and were not desiring to hide it or excuse it.\n\nDaily, as the fair young idol of the house sank lower and lower, the\nsorrowful old aunts painted her glowing bloom and her fresh young beauty\nto the wan mother, and winced under the stabs her ecstasies of joy and\ngratitude gave them.\n\nIn the first days, while the child had strength to hold a pencil, she\nwrote fond little love-notes to her mother, in which she concealed her\nillness; and these the mother read and reread through happy eyes wet\nwith thankful tears, and kissed them over and over again, and treasured\nthem as precious things under her pillow.\n\nThen came a day when the strength was gone from the hand, and the mind\nwandered, and the tongue babbled pathetic incoherences. This was a sore\ndilemma for the poor aunts. There were no love-notes for the mother.\nThey did not know what to do. Hester began a carefully studied and\nplausible explanation, but lost the track of it and grew confused;\nsuspicion began to show in the mother's face, then alarm. Hester saw it,\nrecognized the imminence of the danger, and descended to the emergency,\npulling herself resolutely together and plucking victory from the open\njaws of defeat. In a placid and convincing voice she said:\n\n\"I thought it might distress you to know it, but Helen spent the night\nat the Sloanes'. There was a little party there, and, although she did\nnot want to go, and you so sick, we persuaded her, she being young\nand needing the innocent pastimes of youth, and we believing you would\napprove. Be sure she will write the moment she comes.\"\n\n\"How good you are, and how dear and thoughtful for us both! Approve?\nWhy, I thank you with all my heart. My poor little exile! Tell her I\nwant her to have every pleasure she can--I would not rob her of one.\nOnly let her keep her health, that is all I ask. Don't let that\nsuffer; I could not bear it. How thankful I am that she escaped this\ninfection--and what a narrow risk she ran, Aunt Hester! Think of that\nlovely face all dulled and burned with fever. I can't bear the thought\nof it. Keep her health. Keep her bloom! I can see her now, the dainty\ncreature--with the big, blue, earnest eyes; and sweet, oh, so sweet and\ngentle and winning! Is she as beautiful as ever, dear Aunt Hester?\"\n\n\"Oh, more beautiful and bright and charming than ever she was before,\nif such a thing can be\"--and Hester turned away and fumbled with the\nmedicine-bottles, to hide her shame and grief.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nAfter a little, both aunts were laboring upon a difficult and baffling\nwork in Helen's chamber. Patiently and earnestly, with their stiff old\nfingers, they were trying to forge the required note. They made failure\nafter failure, but they improved little by little all the time. The\npity of it all, the pathetic humor of it, there was none to see; they\nthemselves were unconscious of it. Often their tears fell upon the notes\nand spoiled them; sometimes a single misformed word made a note risky\nwhich could have been ventured but for that; but at last Hannah produced\none whose script was a good enough imitation of Helen's to pass any but\na suspicious eye, and bountifully enriched it with the petting phrases\nand loving nicknames that had been familiar on the child's lips from her\nnursery days. She carried it to the mother, who took it with avidity,\nand kissed it, and fondled it, reading its precious words over and over\nagain, and dwelling with deep contentment upon its closing paragraph:\n\n\"Mousie darling, if I could only see you, and kiss your eyes, and feel\nyour arms about me! I am so glad my practicing does not disturb you. Get\nwell soon. Everybody is good to me, but I am so lonesome without you,\ndear mamma.\"\n\n\"The poor child, I know just how she feels. She cannot be quite happy\nwithout me; and I--oh, I live in the light of her eyes! Tell her she\nmust practice all she pleases; and, Aunt Hannah--tell her I can't hear\nthe piano this far, nor her dear voice when she sings: God knows I wish\nI could. No one knows how sweet that voice is to me; and to think--some\nday it will be silent! What are you crying for?\"\n\n\"Only because--because--it was just a memory. When I came away she was\nsinging, 'Loch Lomond.' The pathos of it! It always moves me so when she\nsings that.\"\n\n\"And me, too. How heartbreakingly beautiful it is when some youthful\nsorrow is brooding in her breast and she sings it for the mystic healing\nit brings.... Aunt Hannah?\"\n\n\"Dear Margaret?\"\n\n\"I am very ill. Sometimes it comes over me that I shall never hear that\ndear voice again.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't--don't, Margaret! I can't bear it!\"\n\nMargaret was moved and distressed, and said, gently:\n\n\"There--there--let me put my arms around you. Don't cry. There--put your\ncheek to mine. Be comforted. I wish to live. I will live if I can. Ah,\nwhat could she do without me!... Does she often speak of me?--but I know\nshe does.\"\n\n\"Oh, all the time--all the time!\"\n\n\"My sweet child! She wrote the note the moment she came home?\"\n\n\"Yes--the first moment. She would not wait to take off her things.\"\n\n\"I knew it. It is her dear, impulsive, affectionate way. I knew it\nwithout asking, but I wanted to hear you say it. The petted wife knows\nshe is loved, but she makes her husband tell her so every day, just for\nthe joy of hearing it.... She used the pen this time. That is better;\nthe pencil-marks could rub out, and I should grieve for that. Did you\nsuggest that she use the pen?\"\n\n\"Y--no--she--it was her own idea.\"\n\nThe mother looked her pleasure, and said:\n\n\"I was hoping you would say that. There was never such a dear and\nthoughtful child!... Aunt Hannah?\"\n\n\"Dear Margaret?\"\n\n\"Go and tell her I think of her all the time, and worship her. Why--you\nare crying again. Don't be so worried about me, dear; I think there is\nnothing to fear, yet.\"\n\nThe grieving messenger carried her message, and piously delivered it\nto unheeding ears. The girl babbled on unaware; looking up at her with\nwondering and startled eyes flaming with fever, eyes in which was no\nlight of recognition:\n\n\"Are you--no, you are not my mother. I want her--oh, I want her! She was\nhere a minute ago--I did not see her go. Will she come? will she come\nquickly? will she come now?... There are so many houses ... and they\noppress me so... and everything whirls and turns and whirls... oh, my\nhead, my head!\"--and so she wandered on and on, in her pain, flitting\nfrom one torturing fancy to another, and tossing her arms about in a\nweary and ceaseless persecution of unrest.\n\nPoor old Hannah wetted the parched lips and softly stroked the hot brow,\nmurmuring endearing and pitying words, and thanking the Father of all\nthat the mother was happy and did not know.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nDaily the child sank lower and steadily lower towards the grave, and\ndaily the sorrowing old watchers carried gilded tidings of her radiant\nhealth and loveliness to the happy mother, whose pilgrimage was also now\nnearing its end. And daily they forged loving and cheery notes in the\nchild's hand, and stood by with remorseful consciences and bleeding\nhearts, and wept to see the grateful mother devour them and adore them\nand treasure them away as things beyond price, because of their sweet\nsource, and sacred because her child's hand had touched them.\n\nAt last came that kindly friend who brings healing and peace to all.\nThe lights were burning low. In the solemn hush which precedes the dawn\nvague figures flitted soundless along the dim hall and gathered silent\nand awed in Helen's chamber, and grouped themselves about her bed, for\na warning had gone forth, and they knew. The dying girl lay with closed\nlids, and unconscious, the drapery upon her breast faintly rising and\nfalling as her wasting life ebbed away. At intervals a sigh or a muffled\nsob broke upon the stillness. The same haunting thought was in all minds\nthere: the pity of this death, the going out into the great darkness,\nand the mother not here to help and hearten and bless.\n\nHelen stirred; her hands began to grope wistfully about as if they\nsought something--she had been blind some hours. The end was come; all\nknew it. With a great sob Hester gathered her to her breast, crying,\n\"Oh, my child, my darling!\" A rapturous light broke in the dying girl's\nface, for it was mercifully vouchsafed her to mistake those sheltering\narms for another's; and she went to her rest murmuring, \"Oh, mamma, I am\nso happy--I longed for you--now I can die.\"\n\nTwo hours later Hester made her report. The mother asked:\n\n\"How is it with the child?\"\n\n\"She is well.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nA sheaf of white crape and black was hung upon the door of the house,\nand there it swayed and rustled in the wind and whispered its tidings.\nAt noon the preparation of the dead was finished, and in the coffin lay\nthe fair young form, beautiful, and in the sweet face a great peace. Two\nmourners sat by it, grieving and worshipping--Hannah and the black woman\nTilly. Hester came, and she was trembling, for a great trouble was upon\nher spirit. She said:\n\n\"She asks for a note.\"\n\nHannah's face blanched. She had not thought of this; it had seemed that\nthat pathetic service was ended. But she realized now that that could\nnot be. For a little while the two women stood looking into each other's\nface, with vacant eyes; then Hannah said:\n\n\"There is no way out of it--she must have it; she will suspect, else.\"\n\n\"And she would find out.\"\n\n\"Yes. It would break her heart.\" She looked at the dead face, and her\neyes filled. \"I will write it,\" she said.\n\nHester carried it. The closing line said:\n\n\"Darling Mousie, dear sweet mother, we shall soon be together again. Is\nnot that good news? And it is true; they all say it is true.\"\n\nThe mother mourned, saying:\n\n\"Poor child, how will she bear it when she knows? I shall never see her\nagain in life. It is hard, so hard. She does not suspect? You guard her\nfrom that?\"\n\n\"She thinks you will soon be well.\"\n\n\"How good you are, and careful, dear Aunt Hester! None goes near her who\ncould carry the infection?\"\n\n\"It would be a crime.\"\n\n\"But you _see _her?\"\n\n\"With a distance between--yes.\"\n\n\"That is so good. Others one could not trust; but you two guardian\nangels--steel is not so true as you. Others would be unfaithful; and\nmany would deceive, and lie.\"\n\nHester's eyes fell, and her poor old lips trembled.\n\n\"Let me kiss you for her, Aunt Hester; and when I am gone, and the\ndanger is past, place the kiss upon her dear lips some day, and say her\nmother sent it, and all her mother's broken heart is in it.\"\n\nWithin the hour, Hester, raining tears upon the dead face, performed her\npathetic mission.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nAnother day dawned, and grew, and spread its sunshine in the earth. Aunt\nHannah brought comforting news to the failing mother, and a happy note,\nwhich said again, \"We have but a little time to wait, darling mother,\nthen we shall be together.\"\n\nThe deep note of a bell came moaning down the wind.\n\n\"Aunt Hannah, it is tolling. Some poor soul is at rest. As I shall be\nsoon. You will not let her forget me?\"\n\n\"Oh, God knows she never will!\"\n\n\"Do not you hear strange noises, Aunt Hannah? It sounds like the\nshuffling of many feet.\"\n\n\"We hoped you would not hear it, dear. It is a little company gathering,\nfor--for Helen's sake, poor little prisoner. There will be music--and\nshe loves it so. We thought you would not mind.\"\n\n\"Mind? Oh no, no--oh, give her everything her dear heart can desire. How\ngood you two are to her, and how good to me! God bless you both always!\"\n\nAfter a listening pause:\n\n\"How lovely! It is her organ. Is she playing it herself, do you think?\"\nFaint and rich and inspiring the chords floating to her ears on the\nstill air. \"Yes, it is her touch, dear heart, I recognize it. They are\nsinging. Why--it is a hymn! and the sacredest of all, the most touching,\nthe most consoling.... It seems to open the gates of paradise to me....\nIf I could die now....\"\n\nFaint and far the words rose out of the stillness:\n\n\nNearer, my God, to Thee,\n\nNearer to Thee,\n\nE'en though it be a cross\n\nThat raiseth me.\n\nWith the closing of the hymn another soul passed to its rest, and they\nthat had been one in life were not sundered in death. The sisters,\nmourning and rejoicing, said:\n\n\"How blessed it was that she never knew!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nAt midnight they sat together, grieving, and the angel of the Lord\nappeared in the midst transfigured with a radiance not of earth; and\nspeaking, said:\n\n\"For liars a place is appointed. There they burn in the fires of hell\nfrom everlasting unto everlasting. Repent!\"\n\nThe bereaved fell upon their knees before him and clasped their hands\nand bowed their gray heads, adoring. But their tongues clove to the roof\nof their mouths, and they were dumb.\n\n\"Speak! that I may bear the message to the chancery of heaven and bring\nagain the decree from which there is no appeal.\"\n\nThen they bowed their heads yet lower, and one said:\n\n\"Our sin is great, and we suffer shame; but only perfect and final\nrepentance can make us whole; and we are poor creatures who have learned\nour human weakness, and we know that if we were in those hard straits\nagain our hearts would fail again, and we should sin as before. The\nstrong could prevail, and so be saved, but we are lost.\"\n\nThey lifted their heads in supplication. The angel was gone. While\nthey marveled and wept he came again; and bending low, he whispered the\ndecree.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nWas it Heaven? Or Hell?\n\n\n\nA CURE FOR THE BLUES\n\nBy courtesy of Mr. Cable I came into possession of a singular book\neight or ten years ago. It is likely that mine is now the only copy in\nexistence. Its title-page, unabbreviated, reads as follows:\n\n\"The Enemy Conquered; or, Love Triumphant. By G. Ragsdale McClintock,\n(1) author of 'An Address,' etc., delivered at Sunflower Hill, South\nCarolina, and member of the Yale Law School. New Haven: published by T.\nH. Pease, 83 Chapel Street, 1845.\"\n\nNo one can take up this book and lay it down again unread. Whoever reads\none line of it is caught, is chained; he has become the contented slave\nof its fascinations; and he will read and read, devour and devour, and\nwill not let it go out of his hand till it is finished to the last line,\nthough the house be on fire over his head. And after a first reading he\nwill not throw it aside, but will keep it by him, with his Shakespeare\nand his Homer, and will take it up many and many a time, when the\nworld is dark and his spirits are low, and be straightway cheered and\nrefreshed. Yet this work has been allowed to lie wholly neglected,\nunmentioned, and apparently unregretted, for nearly half a century.\n\nThe reader must not imagine that he is to find in it wisdom, brilliancy,\nfertility of invention, ingenuity of construction, excellence of form,\npurity of style, perfection of imagery, truth to nature, clearness of\nstatement, humanly possible situations, humanly possible people, fluent\nnarrative, connected sequence of events--or philosophy, or logic, or\nsense. No; the rich, deep, beguiling charm of the book lies in the total\nand miraculous _absence _from it of all these qualities--a charm which\nis completed and perfected by the evident fact that the author, whose\nnaive innocence easily and surely wins our regard, and almost our\nworship, does not know that they are absent, does not even suspect\nthat they are absent. When read by the light of these helps to an\nunderstanding of the situation, the book is delicious--profoundly and\nsatisfyingly delicious.\n\nI call it a book because the author calls it a book, I call it a work\nbecause he calls it a work; but, in truth, it is merely a duodecimo\npamphlet of thirty-one pages. It was written for fame and money, as the\nauthor very frankly--yes, and very hopefully, too, poor fellow--says\nin his preface. The money never came--no penny of it ever came; and how\nlong, how pathetically long, the fame has been deferred--forty-seven\nyears! He was young then, it would have been so much to him then; but\nwill he care for it now?\n\nAs time is measured in America, McClintock's epoch is antiquity. In his\nlong-vanished day the Southern author had a passion for \"eloquence\";\nit was his pet, his darling. He would be eloquent, or perish. And he\nrecognized only one kind of eloquence--the lurid, the tempestuous, the\nvolcanic. He liked words--big words, fine words, grand words, rumbling,\nthundering, reverberating words; with sense attaching if it could be got\nin without marring the sound, but not otherwise. He loved to stand\nup before a dazed world, and pour forth flame and smoke and lava and\npumice-stone into the skies, and work his subterranean thunders, and\nshake himself with earthquakes, and stench himself with sulphur fumes.\nIf he consumed his own fields and vineyards, that was a pity, yes; but\nhe would have his eruption at any cost. Mr. McClintock's eloquence--and\nhe is always eloquent, his crater is always spouting--is of the pattern\ncommon to his day, but he departs from the custom of the time in one\nrespect: his brethren allowed sense to intrude when it did not mar the\nsound, but he does not allow it to intrude at all. For example, consider\nthis figure, which he used in the village \"Address\" referred to with\nsuch candid complacency in the title-page above quoted--\"like the\ntopmost topaz of an ancient tower.\" Please read it again; contemplate\nit; measure it; walk around it; climb up it; try to get at an\napproximate realization of the size of it. Is the fellow to that to be\nfound in literature, ancient or modern, foreign or domestic, living or\ndead, drunk or sober? One notices how fine and grand it sounds. We know\nthat if it was loftily uttered, it got a noble burst of applause from\nthe villagers; yet there isn't a ray of sense in it, or meaning to it.\n\nMcClintock finished his education at Yale in 1843, and came to Hartford\non a visit that same year. I have talked with men who at that time\ntalked with him, and felt of him, and knew he was real. One needs to\nremember that fact and to keep fast hold of it; it is the only way to\nkeep McClintock's book from undermining one's faith in McClintock's\nactuality.\n\nAs to the book. The first four pages are devoted to an inflamed\neulogy of Woman--simply Woman in general, or perhaps as an\nInstitution--wherein, among other compliments to her details, he pays a\nunique one to her voice. He says it \"fills the breast with fond alarms,\nechoed by every rill.\" It sounds well enough, but it is not true. After\nthe eulogy he takes up his real work and the novel begins. It begins in\nthe woods, near the village of Sunflower Hill.\n\nBrightening clouds seemed to rise from the mist of the fair\nChattahoochee, to spread their beauty over the thick forest, to guide\nthe hero whose bosom beats with aspirations to conquer the enemy that\nwould tarnish his name, and to win back the admiration of his long-tried\nfriend.\n\nIt seems a general remark, but it is not general; the hero mentioned is\nthe to-be hero of the book; and in this abrupt fashion, and without\nname or description, he is shoveled into the tale. \"With aspirations to\nconquer the enemy that would tarnish his name\" is merely a phrase flung\nin for the sake of the sound--let it not mislead the reader. No one is\ntrying to tarnish this person; no one has thought of it. The rest of the\nsentence is also merely a phrase; the man has no friend as yet, and\nof course has had no chance to try him, or win back his admiration, or\ndisturb him in any other way.\n\nThe hero climbs up over \"Sawney's Mountain,\" and down the other side,\nmaking for an old Indian \"castle\"--which becomes \"the red man's hut\"\nin the next sentence; and when he gets there at last, he \"surveys with\nwonder and astonishment\" the invisible structure, \"which time has buried\nin the dust, and thought to himself his happiness was not yet complete.\"\nOne doesn't know why it wasn't, nor how near it came to being complete,\nnor what was still wanting to round it up and make it so. Maybe it was\nthe Indian; but the book does not say. At this point we have an episode:\n\nBeside the shore of the brook sat a young man, about eighteen or twenty,\nwho seemed to be reading some favorite book, and who had a remarkably\nnoble countenance--eyes which betrayed more than a common mind. This\nof course made the youth a welcome guest, and gained him friends in\nwhatever condition of his life he might be placed. The traveler observed\nthat he was a well-built figure which showed strength and grace in every\nmovement. He accordingly addressed him in quite a gentlemanly manner,\nand inquired of him the way to the village. After he had received the\ndesired information, and was about taking his leave, the youth said,\n\"Are you not Major Elfonzo, the great musician (2)--the champion of a\nnoble cause--the modern Achilles, who gained so many victories in the\nFlorida War?\" \"I bear that name,\" said the Major, \"and those titles,\ntrusting at the same time that the ministers of grace will carry me\ntriumphantly through all my laudable undertakings, and if,\" continued\nthe Major, \"you, sir, are the patronizer of noble deeds, I should like\nto make you my confidant and learn your address.\" The youth looked\nsomewhat amazed, bowed low, mused for a moment, and began: \"My name is\nRoswell. I have been recently admitted to the bar, and can only give a\nfaint outline of my future success in that honorable profession; but I\ntrust, sir, like the Eagle, I shall look down from the lofty rocks upon\nthe dwellings of man, and shall ever be ready to give you any assistance\nin my official capacity, and whatever this muscular arm of mine can\ndo, whenever it shall be called from its buried _greatness_.\" The Major\ngrasped him by the hand, and exclaimed: \"O! thou exalted spirit of\ninspiration--thou flame of burning prosperity, may the Heaven-directed\nblaze be the glare of thy soul, and battle down every rampart that seems\nto impede your progress!\"\n\nThere is a strange sort of originality about McClintock; he imitates\nother people's styles, but nobody can imitate his, not even an idiot.\nOther people can be windy, but McClintock blows a gale; other people can\nblubber sentiment, but McClintock spews it; other people can mishandle\nmetaphors, but only McClintock knows how to make a business of it.\nMcClintock is always McClintock, he is always consistent, his style is\nalways his own style. He does not make the mistake of being relevant on\none page and irrelevant on another; he is irrelevant on all of them.\nHe does not make the mistake of being lucid in one place and obscure\nin another; he is obscure all the time. He does not make the mistake\nof slipping in a name here and there that is out of character with\nhis work; he always uses names that exactly and fantastically fit his\nlunatics. In the matter of undeviating consistency he stands alone in\nauthorship. It is this that makes his style unique, and entitles it to\na name of its own--McClintockian. It is this that protects it from being\nmistaken for anybody else's. Uncredited quotations from other writers\noften leave a reader in doubt as to their authorship, but McClintock is\nsafe from that accident; an uncredited quotation from him would always\nbe recognizable. When a boy nineteen years old, who had just been\nadmitted to the bar, says, \"I trust, sir, like the Eagle, I shall\nlook down from lofty rocks upon the dwellings of man,\" we know who is\nspeaking through that boy; we should recognize that note anywhere. There\nbe myriads of instruments in this world's literary orchestra, and a\nmultitudinous confusion of sounds that they make, wherein fiddles\nare drowned, and guitars smothered, and one sort of drum mistaken\nfor another sort; but whensoever the brazen note of the McClintockian\ntrombone breaks through that fog of music, that note is recognizable,\nand about it there can be no blur of doubt.\n\nThe novel now arrives at the point where the Major goes home to see his\nfather. When McClintock wrote this interview he probably believed it was\npathetic.\n\nThe road which led to the town presented many attractions Elfonzo had\nbid farewell to the youth of deep feeling, and was now wending his way\nto the dreaming spot of his fondness. The south winds whistled through\nthe woods, as the waters dashed against the banks, as rapid fire in the\npent furnace roars. This brought him to remember while alone, that he\nquietly left behind the hospitality of a father's house, and gladly\nentered the world, with higher hopes than are often realized. But as he\njourneyed onward, he was mindful of the advice of his father, who had\noften looked sadly on the ground, when tears of cruelly deceived hope\nmoistened his eyes. Elfonzo had been somewhat a dutiful son; yet fond\nof the amusements of life--had been in distant lands--had enjoyed the\npleasure of the world, and had frequently returned to the scenes of\nhis boyhood, almost destitute of many of the comforts of life. In this\ncondition, he would frequently say to his father, \"Have I offended you,\nthat you look upon me as a stranger, and frown upon me with stinging\nlooks? Will you not favor me with the sound of your voice? If I have\ntrampled upon your veneration, or have spread a humid veil of darkness\naround your expectations, send me back into the world, where no heart\nbeats for me--where the foot of man had never yet trod; but give me at\nleast one kind word--allow me to come into the presence sometimes of\nthy winter-worn locks.\" \"Forbid it, Heaven, that I should be angry with\nthee,\" answered the father, \"my son, and yet I send thee back to the\nchildren of the world--to the cold charity of the combat, and to a\nland of victory. I read another destiny in thy countenance--I learn\nthy inclinations from the flame that has already kindled in my soul a\nstrange sensation. It will seek thee, my dear _Elfonzo_, it will find\nthee--thou canst not escape that lighted torch, which shall blot out\nfrom the remembrance of men a long train of prophecies which they have\nforetold against thee. I once thought not so. Once, I was blind; but\nnow the path of life is plain before me, and my sight is clear; yet,\nElfonzo, return to thy worldly occupation--take again in thy hand that\nchord of sweet sounds--struggle with the civilized world and with your\nown heart; fly swiftly to the enchanted ground--let the night-_owl_ send\nforth its screams from the stubborn oak--let the sea sport upon the\nbeach, and the stars sing together; but learn of these, Elfonzo, thy\ndoom, and thy hiding-place. Our most innocent as well as our most lawful\n_desires_ must often be denied us, that we may learn to sacrifice them\nto a Higher will.\"\n\nRemembering such admonitions with gratitude, Elfonzo was immediately\nurged by the recollection of his father's family to keep moving.\n\nMcClintock has a fine gift in the matter of surprises; but as a rule\nthey are not pleasant ones, they jar upon the feelings. His closing\nsentence in the last quotation is of that sort. It brings one down out\nof the tinted clouds in too sudden and collapsed a fashion. It incenses\none against the author for a moment. It makes the reader want to take\nhim by his winter-worn locks, and trample on his veneration, and deliver\nhim over to the cold charity of combat, and blot him out with his own\nlighted torch. But the feeling does not last. The master takes again\nin his hand that concord of sweet sounds of his, and one is reconciled,\npacified.\n\nHis steps became quicker and quicker--he hastened through the _piny_\nwoods, dark as the forest was, and with joy he very soon reached the\nlittle village of repose, in whose bosom rested the boldest chivalry.\nHis close attention to every important object--his modest questions\nabout whatever was new to him--his reverence for wise old age, and his\nardent desire to learn many of the fine arts, soon brought him into\nrespectable notice.\n\nOne mild winter day, as he walked along the streets toward the Academy,\nwhich stood upon a small eminence, surrounded by native growth--some\nvenerable in its appearance, others young and prosperous--all seemed\ninviting, and seemed to be the very place for learning as well as for\ngenius to spend its research beneath its spreading shades. He entered\nits classic walls in the usual mode of southern manners.\n\nThe artfulness of this man! None knows so well as he how to pique the\ncuriosity of the reader--and how to disappoint it. He raises the hope,\nhere, that he is going to tell all about how one enters a classic wall\nin the usual mode of Southern manners; but does he? No; he smiles in his\nsleeve, and turns aside to other matters.\n\nThe principal of the Institution begged him to be seated and listen to\nthe recitations that were going on. He accordingly obeyed the request,\nand seemed to be much pleased. After the school was dismissed, and the\nyoung hearts regained their freedom, with the songs of the evening,\nlaughing at the anticipated pleasures of a happy home, while others\ntittered at the actions of the past day, he addressed the teacher in a\ntone that indicated a resolution--with an undaunted mind. He said he had\ndetermined to become a student, if he could meet with his approbation.\n\"Sir,\" said he, \"I have spent much time in the world. I have traveled\namong the uncivilized inhabitants of America. I have met with friends,\nand combated with foes; but none of these gratify my ambition, or decide\nwhat is to be my destiny. I see the learned world have an influence\nwith the voice of the people themselves. The despoilers of the remotest\nkingdoms of the earth refer their differences to this class of persons.\nThis the illiterate and inexperienced little dream of; and now if you\nwill receive me as I am, with these deficiencies--with all my misguided\nopinions, I will give you my honor, sir, that I will never disgrace the\nInstitution, or those who have placed you in this honorable station.\"\nThe instructor, who had met with many disappointments, knew how to\nfeel for a stranger who had been thus turned upon the charities of an\nunfeeling community. He looked at him earnestly, and said: \"Be of\ngood cheer--look forward, sir, to the high destination you may attain.\nRemember, the more elevated the mark at which you aim, the more sure,\nthe more glorious, the more magnificent the prize.\" From wonder to\nwonder, his encouragement led the impatient listener. A strange nature\nbloomed before him--giant streams promised him success--gardens of\nhidden treasures opened to his view. All this, so vividly described,\nseemed to gain a new witchery from his glowing fancy.\n\nIt seems to me that this situation is new in romance. I feel sure it has\nnot been attempted before. Military celebrities have been disguised and\nset at lowly occupations for dramatic effect, but I think McClintock is\nthe first to send one of them to school. Thus, in this book, you pass\nfrom wonder to wonder, through gardens of hidden treasure, where giant\nstreams bloom before you, and behind you, and all around, and you feel\nas happy, and groggy, and satisfied with your quart of mixed metaphor\naboard as you would if it had been mixed in a sample-room and delivered\nfrom a jug.\n\nNow we come upon some more McClintockian surprises--a sweetheart who is\nsprung upon us without any preparation, along with a name for her which\nis even a little more of a surprise than she herself is.\n\nIn 1842 he entered the class, and made rapid progress in the English\nand Latin departments. Indeed, he continued advancing with such rapidity\nthat he was like to become the first in his class, and made such\nunexpected progress, and was so studious, that he had almost forgotten\nthe pictured saint of his affections. The fresh wreaths of the pine and\ncypress had waited anxiously to drop once more the dews of Heaven upon\nthe heads of those who had so often poured forth the tender emotions of\ntheir souls under its boughs. He was aware of the pleasure that he had\nseen there. So one evening, as he was returning from his reading, he\nconcluded he would pay a visit to this enchanting spot. Little did he\nthink of witnessing a shadow of his former happiness, though no doubt\nhe wished it might be so. He continued sauntering by the roadside,\nmeditating on the past. The nearer he approached the spot, the more\nanxious he became. At that moment a tall female figure flitted across\nhis path, with a bunch of roses in her hand; her countenance showed\nuncommon vivacity, with a resolute spirit; her ivory teeth already\nappeared as she smiled beautifully, promenading--while her ringlets of\nhair dangled unconsciously around her snowy neck. Nothing was wanting\nto complete her beauty. The tinge of the rose was in full bloom upon\nher cheek; the charms of sensibility and tenderness were always her\nassociates. In Ambulinia's bosom dwelt a noble soul--one that never\nfaded--one that never was conquered.\n\nAmbulinia! It can hardly be matched in fiction. The full name is\nAmbulinia Valeer. Marriage will presently round it out and perfect it.\nThen it will be Mrs. Ambulinia Valeer Elfonzo. It takes the chromo.\n\nHer heart yielded to no feeling but the love of Elfonzo, on whom she\ngazed with intense delight, and to whom she felt herself more closely\nbound, because he sought the hand of no other. Elfonzo was roused\nfrom his apparent reverie. His books no longer were his inseparable\ncompanions--his thoughts arrayed themselves to encourage him to the\nfield of victory. He endeavored to speak to his supposed Ambulinia, but\nhis speech appeared not in words. No, his effort was a stream of fire,\nthat kindled his soul into a flame of admiration, and carried his senses\naway captive. Ambulinia had disappeared, to make him more mindful of\nhis duty. As she walked speedily away through the piny woods, she calmly\nechoed: \"O! Elfonzo, thou wilt now look from thy sunbeams. Thou shalt\nnow walk in a new path--perhaps thy way leads through darkness; but fear\nnot, the stars foretell happiness.\"\n\nTo McClintock that jingling jumble of fine words meant something, no\ndoubt, or seemed to mean something; but it is useless for us to try to\ndivine what it was. Ambulinia comes--we don't know whence nor why; she\nmysteriously intimates--we don't know what; and then she goes echoing\naway--we don't know whither; and down comes the curtain. McClintock's\nart is subtle; McClintock's art is deep.\n\nNot many days afterward, as surrounded by fragrant flowers she sat one\nevening at twilight, to enjoy the cool breeze that whispered notes of\nmelody along the distant groves, the little birds perched on every\nside, as if to watch the movements of their new visitor. The bells were\ntolling, when Elfonzo silently stole along by the wild wood flowers,\nholding in his hand his favorite instrument of music--his eye\ncontinually searching for Ambulinia, who hardly seemed to perceive him,\nas she played carelessly with the songsters that hopped from branch to\nbranch. Nothing could be more striking than the difference between the\ntwo. Nature seemed to have given the more tender soul to Elfonzo, and\nthe stronger and more courageous to Ambulinia. A deep feeling spoke from\nthe eyes of Elfonzo--such a feeling as can only be expressed by those\nwho are blessed as admirers, and by those who are able to return the\nsame with sincerity of heart. He was a few years older than Ambulinia:\nshe had turned a little into her seventeenth. He had almost grown up\nin the Cherokee country, with the same equal proportions as one of the\nnatives. But little intimacy had existed between them until the year\nforty-one--because the youth felt that the character of such a lovely\ngirl was too exalted to inspire any other feeling than that of quiet\nreverence. But as lovers will not always be insulted, at all times and\nunder all circumstances, by the frowns and cold looks of crabbed old\nage, which should continually reflect dignity upon those around, and\ntreat the unfortunate as well as the fortunate with a graceful mien, he\ncontinued to use diligence and perseverance. All this lighted a spark\nin his heart that changed his whole character, and like the unyielding\nDeity that follows the storm to check its rage in the forest, he\nresolves for the first time to shake off his embarrassment and return\nwhere he had before only worshiped.\n\nAt last we begin to get the Major's measure. We are able to put this\nand that casual fact together, and build the man up before our eyes,\nand look at him. And after we have got him built, we find him worth the\ntrouble. By the above comparison between his age and Ambulinia's, we\nguess the war-worn veteran to be twenty-two; and the other facts stand\nthus: he had grown up in the Cherokee country with the same equal\nproportions as one of the natives--how flowing and graceful the\nlanguage, and yet how tantalizing as to meaning!--he had been turned\nadrift by his father, to whom he had been \"somewhat of a dutiful son\";\nhe wandered in distant lands; came back frequently \"to the scenes of his\nboyhood, almost destitute of many of the comforts of life,\" in order to\nget into the presence of his father's winter-worn locks, and spread\na humid veil of darkness around his expectations; but he was always\npromptly sent back to the cold charity of the combat again; he learned\nto play the fiddle, and made a name for himself in that line; he had\ndwelt among the wild tribes; he had philosophized about the despoilers\nof the kingdoms of the earth, and found out--the cunning creature--that\nthey refer their differences to the learned for settlement; he had\nachieved a vast fame as a military chieftain, the Achilles of the\nFlorida campaigns, and then had got him a spelling-book and started\nto school; he had fallen in love with Ambulinia Valeer while she was\nteething, but had kept it to himself awhile, out of the reverential awe\nwhich he felt for the child; but now at last, like the unyielding Deity\nwho follows the storm to check its rage in the forest, he resolves to\nshake off his embarrassment, and to return where before he had only\nworshiped. The Major, indeed, has made up his mind to rise up and shake\nhis faculties together, and to see if_ he_ can't do that thing himself.\nThis is not clear. But no matter about that: there stands the hero,\ncompact and visible; and he is no mean structure, considering that his\ncreator had never created anything before, and hadn't anything but\nrags and wind to build with this time. It seems to me that no one can\ncontemplate this odd creature, this quaint and curious blatherskite,\nwithout admiring McClintock, or, at any rate, loving him and feeling\ngrateful to him; for McClintock made him, he gave him to us; without\nMcClintock we could not have had him, and would now be poor.\n\nBut we must come to the feast again. Here is a courtship scene, down\nthere in the romantic glades among the raccoons, alligators, and things,\nthat has merit, peculiar literary merit. See how Achilles woos.\nDwell upon the second sentence (particularly the close of it) and the\nbeginning of the third. Never mind the new personage, Leos, who is\nintruded upon us unheralded and unexplained. That is McClintock's way;\nit is his habit; it is a part of his genius; he cannot help it; he never\ninterrupts the rush of his narrative to make introductions.\n\nIt could not escape Ambulinia's penetrating eye that he sought an\ninterview with her, which she as anxiously avoided, and assumed a more\ndistant calmness than before, seemingly to destroy all hope. After many\nefforts and struggles with his own person, with timid steps the Major\napproached the damsel, with the same caution as he would have done in\na field of battle. \"Lady Ambulinia,\" said he, trembling, \"I have\nlong desired a moment like this. I dare not let it escape. I fear the\nconsequences; yet I hope your indulgence will at least hear my petition.\nCan you not anticipate what I would say, and what I am about to express?\nWill not you, like Minerva, who sprung from the brain of Jupiter,\nrelease me from thy winding chains or cure me--\" \"Say no more, Elfonzo,\"\nanswered Ambulinia, with a serious look, raising her hand as if she\nintended to swear eternal hatred against the whole world; \"another\nlady in my place would have perhaps answered your question in bitter\ncoldness. I know not the little arts of my sex. I care but little for\nthe vanity of those who would chide me, and am unwilling as well as\nashamed to be guilty of anything that would lead you to think 'all is\nnot gold that glitters'; so be not rash in your resolution. It is better\nto repent now, than to do it in a more solemn hour. Yes, I know what you\nwould say. I know you have a costly gift for me--the noblest that man\ncan make--_your heart!_ You should not offer it to one so unworthy.\nHeaven, you know, has allowed my father's house to be made a house of\nsolitude, a home of silent obedience, which my parents say is more to\nbe admired than big names and high-sounding titles. Notwithstanding all\nthis, let me speak the emotions of an honest heart--allow me to say in\nthe fullness of my hopes that I anticipate better days. The bird may\nstretch its wings toward the sun, which it can never reach; and flowers\nof the field appear to ascend in the same direction, because they cannot\ndo otherwise; but man confides his complaints to the saints in whom he\nbelieves; for in their abodes of light they know no more sorrow. From\nyour confession and indicative looks, I must be that person; if so\ndeceive not yourself.\"\n\nElfonzo replied, \"Pardon me, my dear madam, for my frankness. I have\nloved you from my earliest days--everything grand and beautiful hath\nborne the image of Ambulinia; while precipices on every hand surrounded\nme, your _guardian angel_ stood and beckoned me away from the deep\nabyss. In every trial, in every misfortune, I have met with your helping\nhand; yet I never dreamed or dared to cherish thy love, till a voice\nimpaired with age encouraged the cause, and declared they who acquired\nthy favor should win a victory. I saw how Leos worshiped thee. I felt my\nown unworthiness. I began to _know jealously_, a strong guest--indeed,\nin my bosom,--yet I could see if I gained your admiration Leos was to be\nmy rival. I was aware that he had the influence of your parents, and the\nwealth of a deceased relative, which is too often mistaken for permanent\nand regular tranquillity; yet I have determined by your permission\nto beg an interest in your prayers--to ask you to animate my drooping\nspirits by your smiles and your winning looks; for if you but speak I\nshall be conqueror, my enemies shall stagger like Olympus shakes. And\nthough earth and sea may tremble, and the charioteer of the sun may\nforget his dashing steed, yet I am assured that it is only to arm me\nwith divine weapons which will enable me to complete my long-tried\nintention.\"\n\n\"Return to yourself, Elfonzo,\" said Ambulinia, pleasantly: \"a dream\nof vision has disturbed your intellect; you are above the atmosphere,\ndwelling in the celestial regions; nothing is there that urges or\nhinders, nothing that brings discord into our present litigation. I\nentreat you to condescend a little, and be a man, and forget it all.\nWhen Homer describes the battle of the gods and noble men fighting with\ngiants and dragons, they represent under this image our struggles with\nthe delusions of our passions. You have exalted me, an unhappy girl, to\nthe skies; you have called me a saint, and portrayed in your imagination\nan angel in human form. Let her remain such to you, let her continue to\nbe as you have supposed, and be assured that she will consider a share\nin your esteem as her highest treasure. Think not that I would allure\nyou from the path in which your conscience leads you; for you know I\nrespect the conscience of others, as I would die for my own. Elfonzo, if\nI am worthy of thy love, let such conversation never again pass between\nus. Go, seek a nobler theme! we will seek it in the stream of time, as\nthe sun set in the Tigris.\" As she spake these words she grasped the\nhand of Elfonzo, saying at the same time--\"Peace and prosperity\nattend you, my hero; be up and doing!\" Closing her remarks with this\nexpression, she walked slowly away, leaving Elfonzo astonished and\namazed. He ventured not to follow or detain her. Here he stood alone,\ngazing at the stars; confounded as he was, here he stood.\n\nYes; there he stood. There seems to be no doubt about that. Nearly half\nof this delirious story has now been delivered to the reader. It seems a\npity to reduce the other half to a cold synopsis. Pity! it is more\nthan a pity, it is a crime; for to synopsize McClintock is to reduce\na sky-flushing conflagration to dull embers, it is to reduce barbaric\nsplendor to ragged poverty. McClintock never wrote a line that was not\nprecious; he never wrote one that could be spared; he never framed one\nfrom which a word could be removed without damage. Every sentence that\nthis master has produced may be likened to a perfect set of teeth,\nwhite, uniform, beautiful. If you pull one, the charm is gone.\n\nStill, it is now necessary to begin to pull, and to keep it up; for lack\nof space requires us to synopsize.\n\nWe left Elfonzo standing there amazed. At what, we do not know. Not at\nthe girl's speech. No; we ourselves should have been amazed at it,\nof course, for none of us has ever heard anything resembling it; but\nElfonzo was used to speeches made up of noise and vacancy, and could\nlisten to them with undaunted mind like the \"topmost topaz of an ancient\ntower\"; he was used to making them himself; he--but let it go, it cannot\nbe guessed out; we shall never know what it was that astonished him. He\nstood there awhile; then he said, \"Alas! am I now Grief's disappointed\nson at last?\" He did not stop to examine his mind, and to try to find\nout what he probably meant by that, because, for one reason, \"a mixture\nof ambition and greatness of soul moved upon his young heart,\" and\nstarted him for the village. He resumed his bench in school, \"and\nreasonably progressed in his education.\" His heart was heavy, but\nhe went into society, and sought surcease of sorrow in its light\ndistractions. He made himself popular with his violin, \"which seemed to\nhave a thousand chords--more symphonious than the Muses of Apollo, and\nmore enchanting than the ghost of the Hills.\" This is obscure, but let\nit go.\n\nDuring this interval Leos did some unencouraged courting, but at last,\n\"choked by his undertaking,\" he desisted.\n\nPresently \"Elfonzo again wends his way to the stately walls and\nnew-built village.\" He goes to the house of his beloved; she opens the\ndoor herself. To my surprise--for Ambulinia's heart had still seemed\nfree at the time of their last interview--love beamed from the girl's\neyes. One sees that Elfonzo was surprised, too; for when he caught that\nlight, \"a halloo of smothered shouts ran through every vein.\" A neat\nfigure--a very neat figure, indeed! Then he kissed her. \"The scene was\noverwhelming.\" They went into the parlor. The girl said it was safe,\nfor her parents were abed, and would never know. Then we have this\nfine picture--flung upon the canvas with hardly an effort, as you will\nnotice.\n\nAdvancing toward him, she gave a bright display of her rosy neck, and\nfrom her head the ambrosial locks breathed divine fragrance; her robe\nhung waving to his view, while she stood like a goddess confessed before\nhim.\n\nThere is nothing of interest in the couple's interview. Now at this\npoint the girl invites Elfonzo to a village show, where jealousy is the\nmotive of the play, for she wants to teach him a wholesome lesson, if he\nis a jealous person. But this is a sham, and pretty shallow. McClintock\nmerely wants a pretext to drag in a plagiarism of his upon a scene or\ntwo in \"Othello.\"\n\nThe lovers went to the play. Elfonzo was one of the fiddlers. He and\nAmbulinia must not be seen together, lest trouble follow with the girl's\nmalignant father; we are made to understand that clearly. So the two sit\ntogether in the orchestra, in the midst of the musicians. This does not\nseem to be good art. In the first place, the girl would be in the way,\nfor orchestras are always packed closely together, and there is no room\nto spare for people's girls; in the next place, one cannot conceal a\ngirl in an orchestra without everybody taking notice of it. There can be\nno doubt, it seems to me, that this is bad art.\n\nLeos is present. Of course, one of the first things that catches his eye\nis the maddening spectacle of Ambulinia \"leaning upon Elfonzo's chair.\"\nThis poor girl does not seem to understand even the rudiments of\nconcealment. But she is \"in her seventeenth,\" as the author phrases it,\nand that is her justification.\n\nLeos meditates, constructs a plan--with personal violence as a basis,\nof course. It was their way down there. It is a good plain plan, without\nany imagination in it. He will go out and stand at the front door, and\nwhen these two come out he will \"arrest Ambulinia from the hands of the\ninsolent Elfonzo,\" and thus make for himself a \"more prosperous field of\nimmortality than ever was decreed by Omnipotence, or ever pencil drew\nor artist imagined.\" But, dear me, while he is waiting there the couple\nclimb out at the back window and scurry home! This is romantic enough,\nbut there is a lack of dignity in the situation.\n\nAt this point McClintock puts in the whole of his curious play--which we\nskip.\n\nSome correspondence follows now. The bitter father and the distressed\nlovers write the letters. Elopements are attempted. They are idiotically\nplanned, and they fail. Then we have several pages of romantic powwow\nand confusion signifying nothing. Another elopement is planned; it is to\ntake place on Sunday, when everybody is at church. But the \"hero\" cannot\nkeep the secret; he tells everybody. Another author would have found\nanother instrument when he decided to defeat this elopement; but that is\nnot McClintock's way. He uses the person that is nearest at hand.\n\nThe evasion failed, of course. Ambulinia, in her flight, takes refuge\nin a neighbor's house. Her father drags her home. The villagers gather,\nattracted by the racket.\n\nElfonzo was moved at this sight. The people followed on to see what was\ngoing to become of Ambulinia, while he, with downcast looks, kept at\na distance, until he saw them enter the abode of the father, thrusting\nher, that was the sigh of his soul, out of his presence into a solitary\napartment, when she exclaimed, \"Elfonzo! Elfonzo! oh, Elfonzo! where\nart thou, with all thy heroes? haste, oh! haste, come thou to my relief.\nRide on the wings of the wind! Turn thy force loose like a tempest, and\nroll on thy army like a whirlwind, over this mountain of trouble and\nconfusion. Oh friends! if any pity me, let your last efforts throng upon\nthe green hills, and come to the relief of Ambulinia, who is guilty of\nnothing but innocent love.\" Elfonzo called out with a loud voice, \"My\nGod, can I stand this! arouse up, I beseech you, and put an end to this\ntyranny. Come, my brave boys,\" said he, \"are you ready to go forth to\nyour duty?\" They stood around him. \"Who,\" said he, \"will call us to\narms? Where are my thunderbolts of war? Speak ye, the first who will\nmeet the foe! Who will go forward with me in this ocean of grievous\ntemptation? If there is one who desires to go, let him come and shake\nhands upon the altar of devotion, and swear that he will be a hero; yes,\na Hector in a cause like this, which calls aloud for a speedy remedy.\"\n\"Mine be the deed,\" said a young lawyer, \"and mine alone; Venus alone\nshall quit her station before I will forsake one jot or tittle of my\npromise to you; what is death to me? what is all this warlike army,\nif it is not to win a victory? I love the sleep of the lover and the\nmighty; nor would I give it over till the blood of my enemies should\nwreak with that of my own. But God forbid that our fame should soar\non the blood of the slumberer.\" Mr. Valeer stands at his door with the\nfrown of a demon upon his brow, with his dangerous weapon (3) ready to\nstrike the first man who should enter his door. \"Who will arise and go\nforward through blood and carnage to the rescue of my Ambulinia?\" said\nElfonzo. \"All,\" exclaimed the multitude; and onward they went, with\ntheir implements of battle. Others, of a more timid nature, stood among\nthe distant hills to see the result of the contest.\n\nIt will hardly be believed that after all this thunder and lightning not\na drop of rain fell; but such is the fact. Elfonzo and his gang stood up\nand black-guarded Mr. Valeer with vigor all night, getting their outlay\nback with interest; then in the early morning the army and its general\nretired from the field, leaving the victory with their solitary\nadversary and his crowbar. This is the first time this has happened in\nromantic literature. The invention is original. Everything in this book\nis original; there is nothing hackneyed about it anywhere. Always, in\nother romances, when you find the author leading up to a climax, you\nknow what is going to happen. But in this book it is different; the\nthing which seems inevitable and unavoidable never happens; it is\ncircumvented by the art of the author every time.\n\nAnother elopement was attempted. It failed.\n\nWe have now arrived at the end. But it is not exciting. McClintock\nthinks it is; but it isn't. One day Elfonzo sent Ambulinia another\nnote--a note proposing elopement No. 16. This time the plan is\nadmirable; admirable, sagacious, ingenious, imaginative, deep--oh,\neverything, and perfectly easy. One wonders why it was never thought of\nbefore. This is the scheme. Ambulinia is to leave the breakfast-table,\nostensibly to \"attend to the placing of those flowers, which should have\nbeen done a week ago\"--artificial ones, of course; the others wouldn't\nkeep so long--and then, instead of fixing the flowers, she is to walk\nout to the grove, and go off with Elfonzo. The invention of this plan\noverstrained the author that is plain, for he straightway shows failing\npowers. The details of the plan are not many or elaborate. The author\nshall state them himself--this good soul, whose intentions are always\nbetter than his English:\n\n\"You walk carelessly toward the academy grove, where you will find me\nwith a lightning steed, elegantly equipped to bear you off where we\nshall be joined in wedlock with the first connubial rights.\"\n\nLast scene of all, which the author, now much enfeebled, tries to\nsmarten up and make acceptable to his spectacular heart by introducing\nsome new properties--silver bow, golden harp, olive branch--things that\ncan all come good in an elopement, no doubt, yet are not to be compared\nto an umbrella for real handiness and reliability in an excursion of\nthat kind.\n\nAnd away she ran to the sacred grove, surrounded with glittering pearls,\nthat indicated her coming. Elfonzo hails her with his silver bow and his\ngolden harp. They meet--Ambulinia's countenance brightens--Elfonzo leads\nup the winged steed. \"Mount,\" said he, \"ye true-hearted, ye fearless\nsoul--the day is ours.\" She sprang upon the back of the young\nthunderbolt, a brilliant star sparkles upon her head, with one hand she\ngrasps the reins, and with the other she holds an olive branch. \"Lend\nthy aid, ye strong winds,\" they exclaimed, \"ye moon, ye sun, and all ye\nfair host of heaven, witness the enemy conquered.\" \"Hold,\" said Elfonzo,\n\"thy dashing steed.\" \"Ride on,\" said Ambulinia, \"the voice of thunder is\nbehind us.\" And onward they went, with such rapidity that they very soon\narrived at Rural Retreat, where they dismounted, and were united with\nall the solemnities that usually attended such divine operations.\n\nThere is but one Homer, there is but one Shakespeare, there is but one\nMcClintock--and his immortal book is before you. Homer could not have\nwritten this book, Shakespeare could not have written it, I could not\nhave done it myself. There is nothing just like it in the literature of\nany country or of any epoch. It stands alone; it is monumental. It\nadds G. Ragsdale McClintock's to the sum of the republic's imperishable\nnames.\n\n1. The name here given is a substitute for the one actually attached to\nthe pamphlet.\n\n2. Further on it will be seen that he is a country expert on the fiddle,\nand has a three-township fame.\n\n3. It is a crowbar.\n\n\n\nTHE CURIOUS BOOK\n\nCOMPLETE\n\n(The foregoing review of the great work of G. Ragsdale McClintock is\nliberally illuminated with sample extracts, but these cannot appease the\nappetite. Only the complete book, unabridged, can do that. Therefore it\nis here printed.--M.T.)\n\nTHE ENEMY CONQUERED; OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT\n\n\nSweet girl, thy smiles are full of charms,\n\nThy voice is sweeter still,\n\nIt fills the breast with fond alarms,\n\nEchoed by every rill.\n\nI begin this little work with an eulogy upon woman, who has ever been\ndistinguished for her perseverance, her constancy, and her devoted\nattention to those upon whom she has been pleased to place her\n_affections_. Many have been the themes upon which writers and public\nspeakers have dwelt with intense and increasing interest. Among these\ndelightful themes stands that of woman, the balm to all our sighs and\ndisappointments, and the most pre-eminent of all other topics. Here the\npoet and orator have stood and gazed with wonder and with admiration;\nthey have dwelt upon her innocence, the ornament of all her virtues.\nFirst viewing her external charms, such as set forth in her form and\nbenevolent countenance, and then passing to the deep hidden springs of\nloveliness and disinterested devotion. In every clime, and in every age,\nshe has been the pride of her _nation_. Her watchfulness is untiring;\nshe who guarded the sepulcher was the first to approach it, and the last\nto depart from its awful yet sublime scene. Even here, in this highly\nfavored land, we look to her for the security of our institutions, and\nfor our future greatness as a nation. But, strange as it may appear,\nwoman's charms and virtues are but slightly appreciated by thousands.\nThose who should raise the standard of female worth, and paint her value\nwith her virtues, in living colors, upon the banners that are fanned by\nthe zephyrs of heaven, and hand them down to posterity as emblematical\nof a rich inheritance, do not properly estimate them.\n\nMan is not sensible, at all times, of the nature and the emotions which\nbear that name; he does not understand, he will not comprehend; his\nintelligence has not expanded to that degree of glory which drinks in\nthe vast revolution of humanity, its end, its mighty destination, and\nthe causes which operated, and are still operating, to produce a\nmore elevated station, and the objects which energize and enliven its\nconsummation. This he is a stranger to; he is not aware that woman is\nthe recipient of celestial love, and that man is dependent upon her\nto perfect his character; that without her, philosophically and truly\nspeaking, the brightest of his intelligence is but the coldness of a\nwinter moon, whose beams can produce no fruit, whose solar light is not\nits own, but borrowed from the great dispenser of effulgent beauty. We\nhave no disposition in the world to flatter the fair sex, we would raise\nthem above those dastardly principles which only exist in little souls,\ncontracted hearts, and a distracted brain. Often does she unfold herself\nin all her fascinating loveliness, presenting the most captivating\ncharms; yet we find man frequently treats such purity of purpose with\nindifference. Why does he do it? Why does he baffle that which is\ninevitably the source of his better days? Is he so much of a stranger\nto those excellent qualities as not to appreciate woman, as not to have\nrespect to her dignity? Since her art and beauty first captivated man,\nshe has been his delight and his comfort; she has shared alike in his\nmisfortunes and in his prosperity.\n\nWhenever the billows of adversity and the tumultuous waves of trouble\nbeat high, her smiles subdue their fury. Should the tear of sorrow and\nthe mournful sigh of grief interrupt the peace of his mind, her voice\nremoves them all, and she bends from her circle to encourage him onward.\nWhen darkness would obscure his mind, and a thick cloud of gloom would\nbewilder its operations, her intelligent eye darts a ray of streaming\nlight into his heart. Mighty and charming is that disinterested devotion\nwhich she is ever ready to exercise toward man, not waiting till\nthe last moment of his danger, but seeks to relieve him in his early\nafflictions. It gushes forth from the expansive fullness of a tender and\ndevoted heart, where the noblest, the purest, and the most elevated and\nrefined feelings are matured and developed in those many kind offices\nwhich invariably make her character.\n\nIn the room of sorrow and sickness, this unequaled characteristic\nmay always been seen, in the performance of the most charitable acts;\nnothing that she can do to promote the happiness of him who she claims\nto be her protector will be omitted; all is invigorated by the animating\nsunbeams which awaken the heart to songs of gaiety. Leaving this point,\nto notice another prominent consideration, which is generally one of\ngreat moment and of vital importance. Invariably she is firm and steady\nin all her pursuits and aims. There is required a combination of forces\nand extreme opposition to drive her from her position; she takes her\nstand, not to be moved by the sound of Apollo's lyre or the curved bow\nof pleasure.\n\nFirm and true to what she undertakes, and that which she requires by\nher own aggrandizement, and regards as being within the strict rules of\npropriety, she will remain stable and unflinching to the last. A more\ngenuine principle is not to be found in the most determined, resolute\nheart of man. For this she deserves to be held in the highest\ncommendation, for this she deserves the purest of all other blessings,\nand for this she deserves the most laudable reward of all others. It is\na noble characteristic and is worthy of imitation of any age. And when\nwe look at it in one particular aspect, it is still magnified, and grows\nbrighter and brighter the more we reflect upon its eternal duration.\nWhat will she not do, when her word as well as her affections and _love\n_are pledged to her lover? Everything that is dear to her on earth,\nall the hospitalities of kind and loving parents, all the sincerity and\nloveliness of sisters, and the benevolent devotion of brothers, who have\nsurrounded her with every comfort; she will forsake them all, quit the\nharmony and sweet sound of the lute and the harp, and throw herself upon\nthe affections of some devoted admirer, in whom she fondly hopes to\nfind more than she has left behind, which is not often realized by many.\nTruth and virtue all combined! How deserving our admiration and love! Ah\ncruel would it be in man, after she has thus manifested such an unshaken\nconfidence in him, and said by her determination to abandon all the\nendearments and blandishments of home, to act a villainous part, and\nprove a traitor in the revolution of his mission, and then turn Hector\nover the innocent victim whom he swore to protect, in the presence of\nHeaven, recorded by the pen of an angel.\n\nStriking as this trait may unfold itself in her character, and as\npre-eminent as it may stand among the fair display of her other\nqualities, yet there is another, which struggles into existence, and\nadds an additional luster to what she already possesses. I mean that\ndisposition in woman which enables her, in sorrow, in grief, and in\ndistress, to bear all with enduring patience. This she has done, and\ncan and will do, amid the din of war and clash of arms. Scenes and\noccurrences which, to every appearance, are calculated to rend the heart\nwith the profoundest emotions of trouble, do not fetter that exalted\nprinciple imbued in her very nature. It is true, her tender and feeling\nheart may often be moved (as she is thus constituted), but she is not\nconquered, she has not given up to the harlequin of disappointments, her\nenergies have not become clouded in the last movement of misfortune, but\nshe is continually invigorated by the archetype of her affections. She\nmay bury her face in her hands, and let the tear of anguish roll, she\nmay promenade the delightful walks of some garden, decorated with all\nthe flowers of nature, or she may steal out along some gently rippling\nstream, and there, as the silver waters uninterruptedly move forward,\nshed her silent tears; they mingle with the waves, and take a last\nfarewell of their agitated home, to seek a peaceful dwelling among\nthe rolling floods; yet there is a voice rushing from her breast,\nthat proclaims _victory _along the whole line and battlement of her\naffections. That voice is the voice of patience and resignation; that\nvoice is one that bears everything calmly and dispassionately, amid the\nmost distressing scenes; when the fates are arrayed against her peace,\nand apparently plotting for her destruction, still she is resigned.\n\nWoman's affections are deep, consequently her troubles may be made to\nsink deep. Although you may not be able to mark the traces of her grief\nand the furrowings of her anguish upon her winning countenance, yet be\nassured they are nevertheless preying upon her inward person, sapping\nthe very foundation of that heart which alone was made for the weal and\nnot the woe of man. The deep recesses of the soul are fields for their\noperation. But they are not destined simply to take the regions of\nthe heart for their dominion, they are not satisfied merely with\ninterrupting her better feelings; but after a while you may see the\nblooming cheek beginning to droop and fade, her intelligent eye no\nlonger sparkles with the starry light of heaven, her vibrating pulse\nlong since changed its regular motion, and her palpitating bosom beats\nonce more for the midday of her glory. Anxiety and care ultimately throw\nher into the arms of the haggard and grim monster death. But, oh, how\npatient, under every pining influence! Let us view the matter in bolder\ncolors; see her when the dearest object of her affections recklessly\nseeks every bacchanalian pleasure, contents himself with the last\nrubbish of creation. With what solicitude she awaits his return! Sleep\nfails to perform its office--she weeps while the nocturnal shades of the\nnight triumph in the stillness. Bending over some favorite book, whilst\nthe author throws before her mind the most beautiful imagery, she\nstartles at every sound. The midnight silence is broken by the solemn\nannouncement of the return of another morning. He is still absent; she\nlistens for that voice which has so often been greeted by the melodies\nof her own; but, alas! stern silence is all that she receives for her\nvigilance.\n\nMark her unwearied watchfulness, as the night passes away. At last,\nbrutalized by the accursed thing, he staggers along with rage, and,\nshivering with cold, he makes his appearance. Not a murmur is heard from\nher lips. On the contrary, she meets him with a smile--she caresses him\nwith tender arms, with all the gentleness and softness of her sex. Here,\nthen, is seen her disposition, beautifully arrayed. Woman, thou art more\nto be admired than the spicy gales of Arabia, and more sought for than\nthe gold of Golconda. We believe that Woman should associate freely with\nman, and we believe that it is for the preservation of her rights. She\nshould become acquainted with the metaphysical designs of those who\ncondescended to sing the siren song of flattery. This, we think, should\nbe according to the unwritten law of decorum, which is stamped upon\nevery innocent heart. The precepts of prudery are often steeped in the\nguilt of contamination, which blasts the expectations of better moments.\nTruth, and beautiful dreams--loveliness, and delicacy of character, with\ncherished affections of the ideal woman--gentle hopes and aspirations,\nare enough to uphold her in the storms of darkness, without the\ntransferred colorings of a stained sufferer. How often have we seen it\nin our public prints, that woman occupies a false station in the world!\nand some have gone so far as to say it was an unnatural one. So long has\nshe been regarded a weak creature, by the rabble and illiterate--they\nhave looked upon her as an insufficient actress on the great stage of\nhuman life--a mere puppet, to fill up the drama of human existence--a\nthoughtless, inactive being--that she has too often come to the same\nconclusion herself, and has sometimes forgotten her high destination, in\nthe meridian of her glory. We have but little sympathy or patience for\nthose who treat her as a mere Rosy Melindi--who are always fishing for\npretty complements--who are satisfied by the gossamer of Romance,\nand who can be allured by the verbosity of high-flown words, rich in\nlanguage, but poor and barren in sentiment. Beset, as she has been, by\nthe intellectual vulgar, the selfish, the designing, the cunning, the\nhidden, and the artful--no wonder she has sometimes folded her wings\nin despair, and forgotten her _heavenly _mission in the delirium of\nimagination; no wonder she searches out some wild desert, to find a\npeaceful home. But this cannot always continue. A new era is moving\ngently onward, old things are rapidly passing away; old superstitions,\nold prejudices, and old notions are now bidding farewell to their old\nassociates and companions, and giving way to one whose wings are plumed\nwith the light of heaven and tinged by the dews of the morning. There\nis a remnant of blessedness that clings to her in spite of all evil\ninfluence, there is enough of the Divine Master left to accomplish the\nnoblest work ever achieved under the canopy of the vaulted skies; and\nthat time is fast approaching, when the picture of the true woman will\nshine from its frame of glory, to captivate, to win back, to restore,\nand to call into being once more, _the object of her mission_.\n\n\nStar of the brave! thy glory shed, O'er all the earth, thy army led--\nBold meteor of immortal birth! Why come from Heaven to dwell on Earth?\n\nMighty and glorious are the days of youth; happy the moments of the\n_lover_, mingled with smiles and tears of his devoted, and long to be\nremembered are the achievements which he gains with a palpitating heart\nand a trembling hand. A bright and lovely dawn, the harbinger of a fair\nand prosperous day, had arisen over the beautiful little village\nof Cumming, which is surrounded by the most romantic scenery in the\nCherokee country. Brightening clouds seemed to rise from the mist of\nthe fair Chattahoochee, to spread their beauty over the thick forest, to\nguide the hero whose bosom beats with aspirations to conquer the enemy\nthat would tarnish his name, and to win back the admiration of his\nlong-tried friend. He endeavored to make his way through Sawney's\nMountain, where many meet to catch the gales that are continually\nblowing for the refreshment of the stranger and the traveler. Surrounded\nas he was by hills on every side, naked rocks dared the efforts of his\nenergies. Soon the sky became overcast, the sun buried itself in the\nclouds, and the fair day gave place to gloomy twilight, which lay\nheavily on the Indian Plains. He remembered an old Indian Castle, that\nonce stood at the foot of the mountain. He thought if he could make his\nway to this, he would rest contented for a short time. The mountain\nair breathed fragrance--a rosy tinge rested on the glassy waters that\nmurmured at its base. His resolution soon brought him to the remains of\nthe red man's hut: he surveyed with wonder and astonishment the decayed\nbuilding, which time had buried in the dust, and thought to himself,\nhis happiness was not yet complete. Beside the shore of the brook sat\na young man, about eighteen or twenty, who seemed to be reading some\nfavorite book, and who had a remarkably noble countenance--eyes which\nbetrayed more than a common mind. This of course made the youth a\nwelcome guest, and gained him friends in whatever condition of life he\nmight be placed. The traveler observed that he was a well-built figure,\nwhich showed strength and grace in every movement. He accordingly\naddressed him in quite a gentlemanly manner, and inquired of him the way\nto the village. After he had received the desired information, and was\nabout taking his leave, the youth said, \"Are you not Major Elfonzo, the\ngreat musician--the champion of a noble cause--the modern Achilles, who\ngained so many victories in the Florida War?\" \"I bear that name,\"\nsaid the Major, \"and those titles, trusting at the same time that the\nministers of grace will carry me triumphantly through all my laudable\nundertakings, and if,\" continued the Major, \"you, sir, are the\npatronizer of noble deeds, I should like to make you my confidant and\nlearn your address.\" The youth looked somewhat amazed, bowed low, mused\nfor a moment, and began: \"My name is Roswell. I have been recently\nadmitted to the bar, and can only give a faint outline of my future\nsuccess in that honorable profession; but I trust, sir, like the Eagle,\nI shall look down from lofty rocks upon the dwellings of man, and shall\never be ready to give you any assistance in my official capacity, and\nwhatever this muscular arm of mine can do, whenever it shall be called\nfrom its buried _greatness_.\" The Major grasped him by the hand, and\nexclaimed: \"O! thou exalted spirit of inspiration--thou flame of burning\nprosperity, may the Heaven-directed blaze be the glare of thy soul, and\nbattle down every rampart that seems to impede your progress!\"\n\nThe road which led to the town presented many attractions. Elfonzo had\nbid farewell to the youth of deep feeling, and was now wending his way\nto the dreaming spot of his fondness. The south winds whistled through\nthe woods, as the waters dashed against the banks, as rapid fire in the\npent furnace roars. This brought him to remember while alone, that he\nquietly left behind the hospitality of a father's house, and gladly\nentered the world, with higher hopes than are often realized. But as he\njourneyed onward, he was mindful of the advice of his father, who had\noften looked sadly on the ground when tears of cruelly deceived hope\nmoistened his eye. Elfonzo had been somewhat of a dutiful son; yet fond\nof the amusements of life--had been in distant lands--had enjoyed the\npleasure of the world and had frequently returned to the scenes of\nhis boyhood, almost destitute of many of the comforts of life. In this\ncondition, he would frequently say to his father, \"Have I offended you,\nthat you look upon me as a stranger, and frown upon me with stinging\nlooks? Will you not favor me with the sound of your voice? If I have\ntrampled upon your veneration, or have spread a humid veil of darkness\naround your expectations, send me back into the world where no heart\nbeats for me--where the foot of man has never yet trod; but give me at\nleast one kind word--allow me to come into the presence sometimes of\nthy winter-worn locks.\" \"Forbid it, Heaven, that I should be angry with\nthee,\" answered the father, \"my son, and yet I send thee back to the\nchildren of the world--to the cold charity of the combat, and to a\nland of victory. I read another destiny in thy countenance--I learn\nthy inclinations from the flame that has already kindled in my soul a\nstrange sensation. It will seek thee, my dear _Elfonzo_, it will find\nthee--thou canst not escape that lighted torch, which shall blot out\nfrom the remembrance of men a long train of prophecies which they have\nforetold against thee. I once thought not so. Once, I was blind; but now\nthe path of life is plain before me, and my sight is clear; yet Elfonzo,\nreturn to thy worldly occupation--take again in thy hand that chord\nof sweet sounds--struggle with the civilized world, and with your own\nheart; fly swiftly to the enchanted ground--let the night-_owl_ send forth\nits screams from the stubborn oak--let the sea sport upon the beach, and\nthe stars sing together; but learn of these, Elfonzo, thy doom, and\nthy hiding-place. Our most innocent as well as our most lawful _desires\n_must often be denied us, that we may learn to sacrifice them to a\nHigher will.\"\n\nRemembering such admonitions with gratitude, Elfonzo was immediately\nurged by the recollection of his father's family to keep moving. His\nsteps became quicker and quicker--he hastened through the _piny _woods,\ndark as the forest was, and with joy he very soon reached the little\nvillage of repose, in whose bosom rested the boldest chivalry. His close\nattention to every important object--his modest questions about whatever\nwas new to him--his reverence for wise old age, and his ardent desire to\nlearn many of the fine arts, soon brought him into respectable notice.\n\nOne mild winter day as he walked along the streets toward the Academy,\nwhich stood upon a small eminence, surrounded by native growth--some\nvenerable in its appearance, others young and prosperous--all seemed\ninviting, and seemed to be the very place for learning as well as for\ngenius to spend its research beneath its spreading shades. He entered\nits classic walls in the usual mode of southern manners. The principal\nof the Institution begged him to be seated and listen to the recitations\nthat were going on. He accordingly obeyed the request, and seemed to\nbe much pleased. After the school was dismissed, and the young hearts\nregained their freedom, with the songs of the evening, laughing at the\nanticipated pleasures of a happy home, while others tittered at the\nactions of the past day, he addressed the teacher in a tone that\nindicated a resolution--with an undaunted mind. He said he had\ndetermined to become a student, if he could meet with his approbation.\n\"Sir,\" said he, \"I have spent much time in the world. I have traveled\namong the uncivilized inhabitants of America. I have met with friends,\nand combated with foes; but none of these gratify my ambition, or decide\nwhat is to be my destiny. I see the learned would have an influence\nwith the voice of the people themselves. The despoilers of the remotest\nkingdoms of the earth refer their differences to this class of persons.\nThis the illiterate and inexperienced little dream of; and now if you\nwill receive me as I am, with these deficiencies--with all my misguided\nopinions, I will give you my honor, sir, that I will never disgrace the\nInstitution, or those who have placed you in this honorable station.\"\nThe instructor, who had met with many disappointments, knew how to\nfeel for a stranger who had been thus turned upon the charities of an\nunfeeling community. He looked at him earnestly, and said: \"Be of\ngood cheer--look forward, sir, to the high destination you may attain.\nRemember, the more elevated the mark at which you aim, the more sure,\nthe more glorious, the more magnificent the prize.\" From wonder to\nwonder, his encouragement led the impatient listener. A strange nature\nbloomed before him--giant streams promised him success--gardens of\nhidden treasures opened to his view. All this, so vividly described,\nseemed to gain a new witchery from his glowing fancy.\n\nIn 1842 he entered the class, and made rapid progress in the English\nand Latin departments. Indeed, he continued advancing with such rapidity\nthat he was like to become the first in his class, and made such\nunexpected progress, and was so studious, that he had almost forgotten\nthe pictured saint of his affections. The fresh wreaths of the pine and\ncypress had waited anxiously to drop once more the dews of Heavens upon\nthe heads of those who had so often poured forth the tender emotions of\ntheir souls under its boughs. He was aware of the pleasure that he had\nseen there. So one evening, as he was returning from his reading, he\nconcluded he would pay a visit to this enchanting spot. Little did he\nthink of witnessing a shadow of his former happiness, though no doubt\nhe wished it might be so. He continued sauntering by the roadside,\nmeditating on the past. The nearer he approached the spot, the more\nanxious he became. At the moment a tall female figure flitted across his\npath, with a bunch of roses in her hand; her countenance showed uncommon\nvivacity, with a resolute spirit; her ivory teeth already appeared as\nshe smiled beautifully, promenading--while her ringlets of hair dangled\nunconsciously around her snowy neck. Nothing was wanting to complete\nher beauty. The tinge of the rose was in full bloom upon her cheek; the\ncharms of sensibility and tenderness were always her associates.. In\nAmbulinia's bosom dwelt a noble soul--one that never faded--one that\nnever was conquered. Her heart yielded to no feeling but the love of\nElfonzo, on whom she gazed with intense delight, and to whom she felt\nherself more closely bound, because he sought the hand of no other.\nElfonzo was roused from his apparent reverie. His books no longer were\nhis inseparable companions--his thoughts arrayed themselves to encourage\nhim in the field of victory. He endeavored to speak to his supposed\nAmbulinia, but his speech appeared not in words. No, his effort was a\nstream of fire, that kindled his soul into a flame of admiration, and\ncarried his senses away captive. Ambulinia had disappeared, to make him\nmore mindful of his duty. As she walked speedily away through the\npiny woods she calmly echoed: \"O! Elfonzo, thou wilt now look from\nthy sunbeams. Thou shalt now walk in a new path--perhaps thy way leads\nthrough darkness; but fear not, the stars foretell happiness.\"\n\nNot many days afterward, as surrounded by fragrant flowers she sat one\nevening at twilight, to enjoy the cool breeze that whispered notes of\nmelody along the distant groves, the little birds perched on every\nside, as if to watch the movements of their new visitor. The bells were\ntolling when Elfonzo silently stole along by the wild wood flowers,\nholding in his hand his favorite instrument of music--his eye\ncontinually searching for Ambulinia, who hardly seemed to perceive him,\nas she played carelessly with the songsters that hopped from branch to\nbranch. Nothing could be more striking than the difference between the\ntwo. Nature seemed to have given the more tender soul to Elfonzo, and\nthe stronger and more courageous to Ambulinia. A deep feeling spoke from\nthe eyes of Elfonzo--such a feeling as can only be expressed by those\nwho are blessed as admirers, and by those who are able to return the\nsame with sincerity of heart. He was a few years older than Ambulinia:\nshe had turned a little into her seventeenth. He had almost grown up\nin the Cherokee country, with the same equal proportions as one of the\nnatives. But little intimacy had existed between them until the year\nforty-one--because the youth felt that the character of such a lovely\ngirl was too exalted to inspire any other feeling than that of quiet\nreverence. But as lovers will not always be insulted, at all times and\nunder all circumstances, by the frowns and cold looks of crabbed old\nage, which should continually reflect dignity upon those around, and\ntreat unfortunate as well as the fortunate with a graceful mien, he\ncontinued to use diligence and perseverance. All this lighted a spark\nin his heart that changed his whole character, and like the unyielding\nDeity that follows the storm to check its rage in the forest, he\nresolves for the first time to shake off his embarrassment and return\nwhere he had before only worshiped.\n\nIt could not escape Ambulinia's penetrating eye that he sought an\ninterview with her, which she as anxiously avoided, and assumed a more\ndistant calmness than before, seemingly to destroy all hope. After many\nefforts and struggles with his own person, with timid steps the Major\napproached the damsel, with the same caution as he would have done in\na field of battle. \"Lady Ambulinia,\" said he, trembling, \"I have\nlong desired a moment like this. I dare not let it escape. I fear the\nconsequences; yet I hope your indulgence will at least hear my petition.\nCan you not anticipate what I would say, and what I am about to express?\nWill not you, like Minerva, who sprung from the brain of Jupiter,\nrelease me from thy winding chains or cure me--\" \"Say no more, Elfonzo,\"\nanswered Ambulinia, with a serious look, raising her hand as if she\nintended to swear eternal hatred against the whole world; \"another\nlady in my place would have perhaps answered your question in bitter\ncoldness. I know not the little arts of my sex. I care but little for\nthe vanity of those who would chide me, and am unwilling as well as\nshamed to be guilty of anything that would lead you to think 'all is not\ngold that glitters'; so be not rash in your resolution. It is better\nto repent now than to do it in a more solemn hour. Yes, I know what you\nwould say. I know you have a costly gift for me--the noblest that man\ncan make--_your heart!_ you should not offer it to one so unworthy.\nHeaven, you know, has allowed my father's house to be made a house of\nsolitude, a home of silent obedience, which my parents say is more to\nbe admired than big names and high-sounding titles. Notwithstanding all\nthis, let me speak the emotions of an honest heart; allow me to say in\nthe fullness of my hopes that I anticipate better days. The bird may\nstretch its wings toward the sun, which it can never reach; and flowers\nof the field appear to ascend in the same direction, because they cannot\ndo otherwise; but man confides his complaints to the saints in whom he\nbelieves; for in their abodes of light they know no more sorrow. From\nyour confession and indicative looks, I must be that person; if so,\ndeceive not yourself.\"\n\nElfonzo replied, \"Pardon me, my dear madam, for my frankness. I have\nloved you from my earliest days; everything grand and beautiful hath\nborne the image of Ambulinia; while precipices on every hand surrounded\nme, your _guardian angel_ stood and beckoned me away from the deep\nabyss. In every trial, in every misfortune, I have met with your helping\nhand; yet I never dreamed or dared to cherish thy love till a voice\nimpaired with age encouraged the cause, and declared they who acquired\nthy favor should win a victory. I saw how Leos worshipped thee. I felt\nmy own unworthiness. I began to _know jealousy_--a strong guest, indeed,\nin my bosom--yet I could see if I gained your admiration Leos was to be\nmy rival. I was aware that he had the influence of your parents, and the\nwealth of a deceased relative, which is too often mistaken for permanent\nand regular tranquillity; yet I have determined by your permission\nto beg an interest in your prayers--to ask you to animate my drooping\nspirits by your smiles and your winning looks; for if you but speak I\nshall be conqueror, my enemies shall stagger like Olympus shakes. And\nthough earth and sea may tremble, and the charioteer of the sun may\nforget his dashing steed, yet I am assured that it is only to arm me\nwith divine weapons which will enable me to complete my long-tried\nintention.\"\n\n\"Return to your self, Elfonzo,\" said Ambulinia, pleasantly; \"a dream\nof vision has disturbed your intellect; you are above the atmosphere,\ndwelling in the celestial regions; nothing is there that urges or\nhinders, nothing that brings discord into our present litigation. I\nentreat you to condescend a little, and be a man, and forget it all.\nWhen Homer describes the battle of the gods and noble men fighting with\ngiants and dragons, they represent under this image our struggles with\nthe delusions of our passions. You have exalted me, an unhappy girl, to\nthe skies; you have called me a saint, and portrayed in your imagination\nan angel in human form. Let her remain such to you, let her continue to\nbe as you have supposed, and be assured that she will consider a share\nin your esteem as her highest treasure. Think not that I would allure\nyou from the path in which your conscience leads you; for you know I\nrespect the conscience of others, as I would die for my own. Elfonzo, if\nI am worthy of thy love, let such conversation never again pass between\nus. Go, seek a nobler theme! we will seek it in the stream of time as\nthe sun set in the Tigris.\" As she spake these words she grasped the\nhand of Elfonzo, saying at the same time, \"Peace and prosperity\nattend you, my hero: be up and doing!\" Closing her remarks with this\nexpression, she walked slowly away, leaving Elfonzo astonished and\namazed. He ventured not to follow or detain her. Here he stood alone,\ngazing at the stars; confounded as he was, here he stood. The rippling\nstream rolled on at his feet. Twilight had already begun to draw her\nsable mantle over the earth, and now and then the fiery smoke would\nascend from the little town which lay spread out before him. The\ncitizens seemed to be full of life and good-humor; but poor Elfonzo saw\nnot a brilliant scene. No; his future life stood before him, stripped of\nthe hopes that once adorned all his sanguine desires. \"Alas!\" said he,\n\"am I now Grief's disappointed son at last.\" Ambulinia's image rose\nbefore his fancy. A mixture of ambition and greatness of soul moved upon\nhis young heart, and encouraged him to bear all his crosses with the\npatience of a Job, notwithstanding he had to encounter with so many\nobstacles. He still endeavored to prosecute his studies, and reasonably\nprogressed in his education. Still, he was not content; there was\nsomething yet to be done before his happiness was complete. He would\nvisit his friends and acquaintances. They would invite him to social\nparties, insisting that he should partake of the amusements that were\ngoing on. This he enjoyed tolerably well. The ladies and gentlemen were\ngenerally well pleased with the Major; as he delighted all with his\nviolin, which seemed to have a thousand chords--more symphonious than\nthe Muses of Apollo and more enchanting than the ghost of the Hills.\nHe passed some days in the country. During that time Leos had made many\ncalls upon Ambulinia, who was generally received with a great deal of\ncourtesy by the family. They thought him to be a young man worthy of\nattention, though he had but little in his soul to attract the attention\nor even win the affections of her whose graceful manners had almost made\nhim a slave to every bewitching look that fell from her eyes. Leos made\nseveral attempts to tell her of his fair prospects--how much he loved\nher, and how much it would add to his bliss if he could but think she\nwould be willing to share these blessings with him; but, choked by his\nundertaking, he made himself more like an inactive drone than he did\nlike one who bowed at beauty's shrine.\n\nElfonzo again wends his way to the stately walls and new-built village.\nHe now determines to see the end of the prophesy which had been foretold\nto him. The clouds burst from his sight; he believes if he can but see\nhis Ambulinia, he can open to her view the bloody altars that have\nbeen misrepresented to stigmatize his name. He knows that her breast is\ntransfixed with the sword of reason, and ready at all times to detect\nthe hidden villainy of her enemies. He resolves to see her in her own\nhome, with the consoling theme: \"'I can but perish if I go.' Let\nthe consequences be what they may,\" said he, \"if I die, it shall be\ncontending and struggling for my own rights.\"\n\nNight had almost overtaken him when he arrived in town. Colonel Elder, a\nnoble-hearted, high-minded, and independent man, met him at his door as\nusual, and seized him by the hand. \"Well, Elfonzo,\" said the Colonel,\n\"how does the world use you in your efforts?\" \"I have no objection to\nthe world,\" said Elfonzo, \"but the people are rather singular in some of\ntheir opinions.\" \"Aye, well,\" said the Colonel, \"you must remember that\ncreation is made up of many mysteries; just take things by the right\nhandle; be always sure you know which is the smooth side before you\nattempt your polish; be reconciled to your fate, be it what it may;\nand never find fault with your condition, unless your complaining will\nbenefit it. Perseverance is a principle that should be commendable\nin those who have judgment to govern it. I should never have been so\nsuccessful in my hunting excursions had I waited till the deer, by some\nmagic dream, had been drawn to the muzzle of the gun before I made an\nattempt to fire at the game that dared my boldness in the wild forest.\nThe great mystery in hunting seems to be--a good marksman, a resolute\nmind, a fixed determination, and my word for it, you will never return\nhome without sounding your horn with the breath of a new victory. And\nso with every other undertaking. Be confident that your ammunition is of\nthe right kind--always pull your trigger with a steady hand, and so soon\nas you perceive a calm, touch her off, and the spoils are yours.\"\n\nThis filled him with redoubled vigor, and he set out with a stronger\nanxiety than ever to the home of Ambulinia. A few short steps soon\nbrought him to the door, half out of breath. He rapped gently.\nAmbulinia, who sat in the parlor alone, suspecting Elfonzo was near,\nventured to the door, opened it, and beheld the hero, who stood in an\nhumble attitude, bowed gracefully, and as they caught each other's looks\nthe light of peace beamed from the eyes of Ambulinia. Elfonzo caught the\nexpression; a halloo of smothered shouts ran through every vein, and for\nthe first time he dared to impress a kiss upon her cheek. The scene was\noverwhelming; had the temptation been less animating, he would not have\nventured to have acted so contrary to the desired wish of his Ambulinia;\nbut who could have withstood the irrestistable temptation! What society\ncondemns the practice but a cold, heartless, uncivilized people that\nknow nothing of the warm attachments of refined society? Here the dead\nwas raised to his long-cherished hopes, and the lost was found. Here\nall doubt and danger were buried in the vortex of oblivion; sectional\ndifferences no longer disunited their opinions; like the freed bird from\nthe cage, sportive claps its rustling wings, wheels about to heaven in a\njoyful strain, and raises its notes to the upper sky. Ambulinia insisted\nupon Elfonzo to be seated, and give her a history of his unnecessary\nabsence; assuring him the family had retired, consequently they would\never remain ignorant of his visit. Advancing toward him, she gave a\nbright display of her rosy neck, and from her head the ambrosial locks\nbreathed divine fragrance; her robe hung waving to his view, while she\nstood like a goddess confessed before him.\n\n\"It does seem to me, my dear sir,\" said Ambulinia, \"that you have been\ngone an age. Oh, the restless hours I have spent since I last saw you,\nin yon beautiful grove. There is where I trifled with your feelings for\nthe express purpose of trying your attachment for me. I now find you are\ndevoted; but ah! I trust you live not unguarded by the powers of Heaven.\nThough oft did I refuse to join my hand with thine, and as oft did\nI cruelly mock thy entreaties with borrowed shapes: yes, I feared to\nanswer thee by terms, in words sincere and undissembled. O! could I\npursue, and you have leisure to hear the annals of my woes, the evening\nstar would shut Heaven's gates upon the impending day before my\ntale would be finished, and this night would find me soliciting your\nforgiveness.\"\n\n\"Dismiss thy fears and thy doubts,\" replied Elfonzo.\n\n\"Look, O! look: that angelic look of thine--bathe not thy visage in\ntears; banish those floods that are gathering; let my confession and my\npresence bring thee some relief.\" \"Then, indeed, I will be cheerful,\"\nsaid Ambulinia, \"and I think if we will go to the exhibition this\nevening, we certainly will see something worthy of our attention. One\nof the most tragical scenes is to be acted that has ever been witnessed,\nand one that every jealous-hearted person should learn a lesson from. It\ncannot fail to have a good effect, as it will be performed by those who\nare young and vigorous, and learned as well as enticing. You are aware,\nMajor Elfonzo, who are to appear on the stage, and what the characters\nare to represent.\" \"I am acquainted with the circumstances,\" replied\nElfonzo, \"and as I am to be one of the musicians upon that interesting\noccasion, I should be much gratified if you would favor me with your\ncompany during the hours of the exercises.\"\n\n\"What strange notions are in your mind?\" inquired Ambulinia. \"Now I know\nyou have something in view, and I desire you to tell me why it is that\nyou are so anxious that I should continue with you while the exercises\nare going on; though if you think I can add to your happiness and\npredilections, I have no particular objection to acquiesce in your\nrequest. Oh, I think I foresee, now, what you anticipate.\" \"And will\nyou have the goodness to tell me what you think it will be?\" inquired\nElfonzo. \"By all means,\" answered Ambulinia; \"a rival, sir, you would\nfancy in your own mind; but let me say for you, fear not! fear not! I\nwill be one of the last persons to disgrace my sex by thus encouraging\nevery one who may feel disposed to visit me, who may honor me with their\ngraceful bows and their choicest compliments. It is true that young men\ntoo often mistake civil politeness for the finer emotions of the heart,\nwhich is tantamount to courtship; but, ah! how often are they deceived,\nwhen they come to test the weight of sunbeams with those on whose\nstrength hangs the future happiness of an untried life.\"\n\nThe people were now rushing to the Academy with impatient anxiety; the\nband of music was closely followed by the students; then the parents\nand guardians; nothing interrupted the glow of spirits which ran through\nevery bosom, tinged with the songs of a Virgil and the tide of a Homer.\nElfonzo and Ambulinia soon repaired to the scene, and fortunately for\nthem both the house was so crowded that they took their seats together\nin the music department, which was not in view of the auditory. This\nfortuitous circumstances added more the bliss of the Major than a\nthousand such exhibitions would have done. He forgot that he was man;\nmusic had lost its charms for him; whenever he attempted to carry his\npart, the string of the instrument would break, the bow became stubborn,\nand refused to obey the loud calls of the audience. Here, he said, was\nthe paradise of his home, the long-sought-for opportunity; he felt as\nthough he could send a million supplications to the throne of Heaven for\nsuch an exalted privilege. Poor Leos, who was somewhere in the crowd,\nlooking as attentively as if he was searching for a needle in a\nhaystack; here he stood, wondering to himself why Ambulinia was not\nthere. \"Where can she be? Oh! if she was only here, how I could relish\nthe scene! Elfonzo is certainly not in town; but what if he is? I have\ngot the wealth, if I have not the dignity, and I am sure that the squire\nand his lady have always been particular friends of mine, and I think\nwith this assurance I shall be able to get upon the blind side of the\nrest of the family and make the heaven-born Ambulinia the mistress of\nall I possess.\" Then, again, he would drop his head, as if attempting\nto solve the most difficult problem in Euclid. While he was thus\nconjecturing in his own mind, a very interesting part of the exhibition\nwas going on, which called the attention of all present. The curtains\nof the stage waved continually by the repelled forces that were given\nto them, which caused Leos to behold Ambulinia leaning upon the chair\nof Elfonzo. Her lofty beauty, seen by the glimmering of the chandelier,\nfilled his heart with rapture, he knew not how to contain himself; to go\nwhere they were would expose him to ridicule; to continue where he was,\nwith such an object before him, without being allowed an explanation in\nthat trying hour, would be to the great injury of his mental as well as\nof his physical powers; and, in the name of high heaven, what must he\ndo? Finally, he resolved to contain himself as well as he conveniently\ncould, until the scene was over, and then he would plant himself at the\ndoor, to arrest Ambulinia from the hands of the insolent Elfonzo, and\nthus make for himself a more prosperous field of immortality than ever\nwas decreed by Omnipotence, or ever pencil drew or artist imagined.\nAccordingly he made himself sentinel, immediately after the performance\nof the evening--retained his position apparently in defiance of all the\nworld; he waited, he gazed at every lady, his whole frame trembled; here\nhe stood, until everything like human shape had disappeared from the\ninstitution, and he had done nothing; he had failed to accomplish that\nwhich he so eagerly sought for. Poor, unfortunate creature! he had\nnot the eyes of an Argus, or he might have seen his Juno and Elfonzo,\nassisted by his friend Sigma, make their escape from the window, and,\nwith the rapidity of a race-horse, hurry through the blast of the storm\nto the residence of her father, without being recognized. He did not\ntarry long, but assured Ambulinia the endless chain of their existence\nwas more closely connected than ever, since he had seen the virtuous,\ninnocent, imploring, and the constant Amelia murdered by the\njealous-hearted Farcillo, the accursed of the land.\n\nThe following is the tragical scene, which is only introduced to show\nthe subject-matter that enabled Elfonzo to come to such a determinate\nresolution that nothing of the kind should ever dispossess him of his\ntrue character, should he be so fortunate as to succeed in his present\nundertaking.\n\nAmelia was the wife of Farcillo, and a virtuous woman; Gracia, a young\nlady, was her particular friend and confidant. Farcillo grew jealous\nof Amelia, murders her, finds out that he was deceived, _and stabs\nhimself_. Amelia appears alone, talking to herself.\n\nA. Hail, ye solitary ruins of antiquity, ye sacred tombs and silent\nwalks! it is your aid I invoke; it is to you, my soul, wrapt in deep\nmediation, pours forth its prayer. Here I wander upon the stage of\nmortality, since the world hath turned against me. Those whom I believed\nto be my friends, alas! are now my enemies, planting thorns in all my\npaths, poisoning all my pleasures, and turning the past to pain. What a\nlingering catalogue of sighs and tears lies just before me, crowding\nmy aching bosom with the fleeting dream of humanity, which must shortly\nterminate. And to what purpose will all this bustle of life, these\nagitations and emotions of the heart have conduced, if it leave behind\nit nothing of utility, if it leave no traces of improvement? Can it be\nthat I am deceived in my conclusions? No, I see that I have nothing to\nhope for, but everything to fear, which tends to drive me from the walks\nof time.\n\n\nOh! in this dead night, if loud winds arise,\n\nTo lash the surge and bluster in the skies,\n\nMay the west its furious rage display,\n\nToss me with storms in the watery way.\n\n(Enter Gracia.)\n\nG. Oh, Amelia, is it you, the object of grief, the daughter of opulence,\nof wisdom and philosophy, that thus complaineth? It cannot be you are\nthe child of misfortune, speaking of the monuments of former ages, which\nwere allotted not for the reflection of the distressed, but for the\nfearless and bold.\n\nA. Not the child of poverty, Gracia, or the heir of glory and peace, but\nof fate. Remember, I have wealth more than wit can number; I have had\npower more than kings could emcompass; yet the world seems a desert; all\nnature appears an afflictive spectacle of warring passions. This blind\nfatality, that capriciously sports with the rules and lives of mortals,\ntells me that the mountains will never again send forth the water of\ntheir springs to my thirst. Oh, that I might be freed and set at liberty\nfrom wretchedness! But I fear, I fear this will never be.\n\nG. Why, Amelia, this untimely grief? What has caused the sorrows that\nbespeak better and happier days, to those lavish out such heaps of\nmisery? You are aware that your instructive lessons embellish the mind\nwith holy truths, by wedding its attention to none but great and noble\naffections.\n\nA. This, of course, is some consolation. I will ever love my own species\nwith feelings of a fond recollection, and while I am studying to advance\nthe universal philanthropy, and the spotless name of my own sex, I will\ntry to build my own upon the pleasing belief that I have accelerated the\nadvancement of one who whispers of departed confidence.\n\n\nAnd I, like some poor peasant fated to reside\n\nRemote from friends, in a forest wide.\n\nOh, see what woman's woes and human wants require,\n\nSince that great day hath spread the seed of sinful fire.\n\nG. Look up, thou poor disconsolate; you speak of quitting earthly\nenjoyments. Unfold thy bosom to a friend, who would be willing to\nsacrifice every enjoyment for the restoration of the dignity and\ngentleness of mind which used to grace your walks, and which is so\nnatural to yourself; not only that, but your paths were strewed with\nflowers of every hue and of every order.\n\n\nWith verdant green the mountains glow,\n\nFor thee, for thee, the lilies grow;\n\nFar stretched beneath the tented hills,\n\nA fairer flower the valley fills.\n\nA. Oh, would to Heaven I could give you a short narrative of my\nformer prospects for happiness, since you have acknowledged to be an\nunchangeable confidant--the richest of all other blessings. Oh, ye names\nforever glorious, ye celebrated scenes, ye renowned spot of my hymeneal\nmoments; how replete is your chart with sublime reflections! How many\nprofound vows, decorated with immaculate deeds, are written upon the\nsurface of that precious spot of earth where I yielded up my life of\ncelibacy, bade youth with all its beauties a final adieu, took a last\nfarewell of the laurels that had accompanied me up the hill of my\njuvenile career. It was then I began to descend toward the valley of\ndisappointment and sorrow; it was then I cast my little bark upon a\nmysterious ocean of wedlock, with him who then smiled and caressed me,\nbut, alas! now frowns with bitterness, and has grown jealous and cold\ntoward me, because the ring he gave me is misplaced or lost. Oh, bear\nme, ye flowers of memory, softly through the eventful history of past\ntimes; and ye places that have witnessed the progression of man in\nthe circle of so many societies, and, of, aid my recollection, while I\nendeavor to trace the vicissitudes of a life devoted in endeavoring to\ncomfort him that I claim as the object of my wishes.\n\n\nAh! ye mysterious men, of all the world, how few\n\nAct just to Heaven and to your promise true!\n\nBut He who guides the stars with a watchful eye,\n\nThe deeds of men lay open without disguise;\n\nOh, this alone will avenge the wrongs I bear,\n\nFor all the oppressed are His peculiar care.\n\n(F. makes a slight noise.)\n\nA. Who is there--Farcillo?\n\nG. Then I must gone. Heaven protect you. Oh, Amelia, farewell, be of\ngood cheer.\n\n\nMay you stand like Olympus' towers,\n\nAgainst earth and all jealous powers!\n\nMay you, with loud shouts ascend on high\n\nSwift as an eagle in the upper sky.\n\nA. Why so cold and distant tonight, Farcillo? Come, let us each other\ngreet, and forget all the past, and give security for the future.\n\nF. Security! talk to me about giving security for the future--what an\ninsulting requisition! Have you said your prayers tonight, Madam Amelia?\n\nA. Farcillo, we sometimes forget our duty, particularly when we expect\nto be caressed by others.\n\nF. If you bethink yourself of any crime, or of any fault, that is yet\nconcealed from the courts of Heaven and the thrones of grace, I bid you\nask and solicit forgiveness for it now.\n\nA. Oh, be kind, Farcillo, don't treat me so. What do you mean by all\nthis?\n\nF. Be kind, you say; you, madam, have forgot that kindness you owe to\nme, and bestowed it upon another; you shall suffer for your conduct\nwhen you make your peace with your God. I would not slay thy unprotected\nspirit. I call to Heaven to be my guard and my watch--I would not kill\nthy soul, in which all once seemed just, right, and perfect; but I must\nbe brief, woman.\n\nA. What, talk you of killing? Oh, Farcillo, Farcillo, what is the\nmatter?\n\nF. Aye, I do, without doubt; mark what I say, Amelia.\n\nA. Then, O God, O Heaven, and Angels, be propitious, and have mercy upon\nme.\n\nF. Amen to that, madam, with all my heart, and with all my soul.\n\nA. Farcillo, listen to me one moment; I hope you will not kill me.\n\nF. Kill you, aye, that I will; attest it, ye fair host of light, record\nit, ye dark imps of hell!\n\nA. Oh, I fear you--you are fatal when darkness covers your brow; yet I\nknow not why I should fear, since I never wronged you in all my life. I\nstand, sir, guiltless before you.\n\nF. You pretend to say you are guiltless! Think of thy sins, Amelia;\nthink, oh, think, hidden woman.\n\nA. Wherein have I not been true to you? That death is unkind, cruel, and\nunnatural, that kills for living.\n\nF. Peace, and be still while I unfold to thee.\n\nA. I will, Farcillo, and while I am thus silent, tell me the cause of\nsuch cruel coldness in an hour like this.\n\nF. That _ring_, oh, that ring I so loved, and gave thee as the ring of\nmy heart; the allegiance you took to be faithful, when it was presented;\nthe kisses and smiles with which you honored it. You became tired of\nthe donor, despised it as a plague, and finally gave it to Malos, the\nhidden, the vile traitor.\n\nA. No, upon my word and honor, I never did; I appeal to the Most High to\nbear me out in this matter. Send for Malos, and ask him.\n\nF. Send for Malos, aye! Malos you wish to see; I thought so. I knew you\ncould not keep his name concealed. Amelia, sweet Amelia, take heed,\ntake heed of perjury; you are on the stage of death, to suffer for _your\nsins_.\n\nA. What, not to die I hope, my Farcillo, my ever beloved.\n\nF. Yes, madam, to die a traitor's death. Shortly your spirit shall take\nits exit; therefore confess freely thy sins, for to deny tends only to\nmake me groan under the bitter cup thou hast made for me. Thou art to\ndie with the name of traitor on thy brow!\n\nA. Then, O Lord, have mercy upon me; give me courage, give me grace and\nfortitude to stand this hour of trial.\n\nF. Amen, I say, with all my heart.\n\nA. And, oh, Farcillo, will you have mercy, too? I never intentionally\noffended you in all my life, never _loved _Malos, never gave him cause\nto think so, as the high court of Justice will acquit me before its\ntribunal.\n\nF. Oh, false, perjured woman, thou didst chill my blood, and makest me a\ndemon like thyself. I saw the ring.\n\nA. He found it, then, or got it clandestinely; send for him, and let him\nconfess the truth; let his confession be sifted.\n\nF. And you still wish to see him! I tell you, madam, he hath already\nconfessed, and thou knowest the darkness of thy heart.\n\nA. What, my deceived Farcillo, that I gave him the ring, in which all my\naffections were concentrated? Oh, surely not.\n\nF. Aye, he did. Ask thy conscience, and it will speak with a voice of\nthunder to thy soul.\n\nA. He will not say so, he dare not, he cannot.\n\nF. No, he will not say so now, because his mouth, I trust, is hushed in\ndeath, and his body stretched to the four winds of heaven, to be torn to\npieces by carnivorous birds.\n\nA. What, he is dead, and gone to the world of spirits with that\ndeclaration in his mouth? Oh, unhappy man! Oh, insupportable hour!\n\nF. Yes, and had all his sighs and looks and tears been lives, my great\nrevenge could have slain them all, without the least condemnation.\n\nA. Alas! he is ushered into eternity without testing the matter for\nwhich I am abused and sentenced and condemned to die.\n\nF. Cursed, infernal woman! Weepest thou for him to my face? He that hath\nrobbed me of my peace, my energy, the whole love of my life? Could I\ncall the fabled Hydra, I would have him live and perish, survive and\ndie, until the sun itself would grow dim with age. I would make him\nhave the thirst of a Tantalus, and roll the wheel of an Ixion, until the\nstars of heaven should quit their brilliant stations.\n\nA. Oh, invincible God, save me! Oh, unsupportable moment! Oh, heavy\nhour! Banish me, Farcillo--send me where no eye can ever see me, where\nno sound shall ever great my ear; but, oh, slay me not, Farcillo; vent\nthy rage and thy spite upon this emaciated frame of mine, only spare my\nlife.\n\nF. Your petitions avail nothing, cruel Amelia.\n\nA. Oh, Farcillo, perpetrate the dark deed tomorrow; let me live till\nthen, for my past kindness to you, and it may be some kind angel will\nshow to you that I am not only the object of innocence, but one who\nnever loved another but your noble self.\n\nF. Amelia, the decree has gone forth, it is to be done, and that\nquickly; thou art to die, madam.\n\nA. But half an hour allow me, to see my father and my only child, to\ntell her the treachery and vanity of this world.\n\nF. There is no alternative, there is no pause: my daughter shall not see\nits deceptive mother die; your father shall not know that his daughter\nfell disgraced, despised by all but her enchanting Malos.\n\nA. Oh, Farcillo, put up thy threatening dagger into its scabbard; let\nit rest and be still, just while I say one prayer for thee and for my\nchild.\n\nF. It is too late, thy doom is fixed, thou hast not confessed to Heaven\nor to me, my child's protector--thou art to die. Ye powers of earth and\nheaven, protect and defend me in this alone. (_Stabs her while imploring\nfor mercy._)\n\nA. Oh, Farcillo, Farcillo, a guiltless death I die.\n\nF. Die! die! die!\n\n(Gracia enters running, falls on her knees weeping, and kisses Amelia.)\n\nG. Oh, Farcillo, Farcillo! oh, Farcillo!\n\nF. I am here, the genius of the age, and the avenger of my wrongs.\n\nG. Oh, lady, speak once more; sweet Amelia, oh, speak again. Gone,\ngone--yes, forever gone! Farcillo, oh, cold-hearted Farcillo, some evil\nfiend hath urged you to do this, Farcillo.\n\nF. Say not so again, or you shall receive the same fate. I did the\nglorious deed, madam--beware, then, how you talk.\n\nG. I fear not your implements of war; I will let you know you have not\nthe power to do me harm. If you have a heart of triple brass, it shall\nbe reached and melted, and thy blood shall chill thy veins and grow\nstiff in thy arteries. Here is the ring of the virtuous and innocent\nmurdered Amelia; I obtained it from Malos, who yet lives, in hopes\nthat he will survive the wound given him, and says he got it\nclandestinely--declares Amelia to be the princess of truth and virtue,\ninvulnerable to anything like forgetting her first devotion to thee.\nThe world has heard of your conduct and your jealousy, and with one\nuniversal voice declares her to be the best of all in piety; that she is\nthe star of this great universe, and a more virtuous woman never lived\nsince the wheels of time began. Oh, had you waited till tomorrow, or\nuntil I had returned, some kind window would have been opened to her\nrelief. But, alas! she is gone--yes, forever gone, to try the realities\nof an unknown world!\n\n(Farcillo leaning over the body of Amelia.)\n\nF. Malos not dead, and here is my ring! Oh, Amelia! falsely murdered!\nOh, bloody deed! Oh, wretch that I am! Oh, angels forgive me! Oh, God,\nwithhold thy vengeance! Oh, Amelia! if Heaven would make a thousand\nworlds like this, set with diamonds, and all of one perfect chrysolite,\nI would not have done this for them all, I would not have frowned and\ncursed as I did. Oh, she was heavenly true, nursed in the very lap\nof bright angels! Cursed slave that I am! Jealousy, oh! thou infernal\ndemon! Lost, lost to every sense of honor! Oh! Amelia--heaven-born\nAmelia--dead, dead! Oh! oh! oh!--then let me die with thee. Farewell!\nfarewell! ye world that deceived me! (_Stabs himself_.)\n\nSoon after the excitement of this tragical scene was over, and the\nenlisted feeling for Amelia had grown more buoyant with Elfonzo and\nAmbulinia, he determined to visit his retired home, and make the\nnecessary improvements to enjoy a better day; consequently he conveyed\nthe following lines to Ambulinia:\n\n\nGo tell the world that hope is glowing,\n\nGo bid the rocks their silence break,\n\nGo tell the stars that love is glowing,\n\nThen bid the hero his lover take.\n\nIn the region where scarcely the foot of man hath ever trod, where the\nwoodman hath not found his way, lies a blooming grove, seen only by the\nsun when he mounts his lofty throne, visited only by the light of the\nstars, to whom are entrusted the guardianship of earth, before the\nsun sinks to rest in his rosy bed. High cliffs of rocks surround the\nromantic place, and in the small cavity of the rocky wall grows the\ndaffodil clear and pure; and as the wind blows along the enchanting\nlittle mountain which surrounds the lonely spot, it nourishes the\nflowers with the dew-drops of heaven. Here is the seat of Elfonzo;\ndarkness claims but little victory over this dominion, and in vain does\nshe spread out her gloomy wings. Here the waters flow perpetually, and\nthe trees lash their tops together to bid the welcome visitor a happy\nmuse. Elfonzo, during his short stay in the country, had fully persuaded\nhimself that it was his duty to bring this solemn matter to an issue.\nA duty that he individually owed, as a gentleman, to the parents of\nAmbulinia, a duty in itself involving not only his own happiness and\nhis own standing in society, but one that called aloud the act of the\nparties to make it perfect and complete. How he should communicate his\nintentions to get a favorable reply, he was at a loss to know; he knew\nnot whether to address Esq. Valeer in prose or in poetry, in a jocular\nor an argumentative manner, or whether he should use moral suasion,\nlegal injunction, or seizure and take by reprisal; if it was to do the\nlatter, he would have no difficulty in deciding in his own mind, but his\ngentlemanly honor was at stake; so he concluded to address the following\nletter to the father and mother of Ambulinia, as his address in person\nhe knew would only aggravate the old gentleman, and perhaps his lady.\n\nCumming, Ga., January 22, 1844\n\nMr. and Mrs. Valeer--\n\nAgain I resume the pleasing task of addressing you, and once more beg\nan immediate answer to my many salutations. From every circumstance that\nhas taken place, I feel in duty bound to comply with my obligations; to\nforfeit my word would be more than I dare do; to break my pledge, and my\nvows that have been witnessed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of\nan unseen Deity, would be disgraceful on my part, as well as ruinous to\nAmbulinia. I wish no longer to be kept in suspense about this matter. I\nwish to act gentlemanly in every particular. It is true, the promises I\nhave made are unknown to any but Ambulinia, and I think it unnecessary\nto here enumerate them, as they who promise the most generally perform\nthe least. Can you for a moment doubt my sincerity or my character? My\nonly wish is, sir, that you may calmly and dispassionately look at\nthe situation of the case, and if your better judgment should dictate\notherwise, my obligations may induce me to pluck the flower that you\nso diametrically opposed. We have sworn by the saints--by the gods\nof battle, and by that faith whereby just men are made perfect--to be\nunited. I hope, my dear sir, you will find it convenient as well as\nagreeable to give me a favorable answer, with the signature of Mrs.\nValeer, as well as yourself.\n\nWith very great esteem,\n\nyour humble servant,\n\nJ. I. Elfonzo.\n\nThe moon and stars had grown pale when Ambulinia had retired to rest. A\ncrowd of unpleasant thoughts passed through her bosom. Solitude dwelt\nin her chamber--no sound from the neighboring world penetrated its\nstillness; it appeared a temple of silence, of repose, and of mystery.\nAt that moment she heard a still voice calling her father. In an\ninstant, like the flash of lightning, a thought ran through her mind\nthat it must be the bearer of Elfonzo's communication. \"It is not a\ndream!\" she said, \"no, I cannot read dreams. Oh! I would to Heaven I was\nnear that glowing eloquence--that poetical language--it charms the\nmind in an inexpressible manner, and warms the coldest heart.\" While\nconsoling herself with this strain, her father rushed into her room\nalmost frantic with rage, exclaiming: \"Oh, Ambulinia! Ambulinia!!\nundutiful, ungrateful daughter! What does this mean? Why does this\nletter bear such heart-rending intelligence? Will you quit a father's\nhouse with this debased wretch, without a place to lay his distracted\nhead; going up and down the country, with every novel object that may\nchance to wander through this region. He is a pretty man to make love\nknown to his superiors, and you, Ambulinia, have done but little credit\nto yourself by honoring his visits. Oh, wretchedness! can it be that\nmy hopes of happiness are forever blasted! Will you not listen to a\nfather's entreaties, and pay some regard to a mother's tears. I know,\nand I do pray that God will give me fortitude to bear with this sea\nof troubles, and rescue my daughter, my Ambulinia, as a brand from the\neternal burning.\" \"Forgive me, father, oh! forgive thy child,\" replied\nAmbulinia. \"My heart is ready to break, when I see you in this grieved\nstate of agitation. Oh! think not so meanly of me, as that I mourn for\nmy own danger. Father, I am only woman. Mother, I am only the templement\nof thy youthful years, but will suffer courageously whatever punishment\nyou think proper to inflict upon me, if you will but allow me to comply\nwith my most sacred promises--if you will but give me my personal right\nand my personal liberty. Oh, father! if your generosity will but give me\nthese, I ask nothing more. When Elfonzo offered me his heart, I gave\nhim my hand, never to forsake him, and now may the mighty God banish me\nbefore I leave him in adversity. What a heart must I have to rejoice in\nprosperity with him whose offers I have accepted, and then, when poverty\ncomes, haggard as it may be, for me to trifle with the oracles of\nHeaven, and change with every fluctuation that may interrupt our\nhappiness--like the politician who runs the political gantlet for office\none day, and the next day, because the horizon is darkened a little,\nhe is seen running for his life, for fear he might perish in its ruins.\nWhere is the philosophy, where is the consistency, where is the charity,\nin conduct like this? Be happy then, my beloved father, and forget me;\nlet the sorrow of parting break down the wall of separation and make\nus equal in our feeling; let me now say how ardently I love you; let\nme kiss that age-worn cheek, and should my tears bedew thy face, I will\nwipe them away. Oh, I never can forget you; no, never, never!\"\n\n\"Weep not,\" said the father, \"Ambulinia. I will forbid Elfonzo my house,\nand desire that you may keep retired a few days. I will let him know\nthat my friendship for my family is not linked together by cankered\nchains; and if he ever enters upon my premises again, I will send him\nto his long home.\" \"Oh, father! let me entreat you to be calm upon this\noccasion, and though Elfonzo may be the sport of the clouds and winds,\nyet I feel assured that no fate will send him to the silent tomb until\nthe God of the Universe calls him hence with a triumphant voice.\"\n\nHere the father turned away, exclaiming: \"I will answer his letter in a\nvery few words, and you, madam, will have the goodness to stay at home\nwith your mother; and remember, I am determined to protect you from the\nconsuming fire that looks so fair to your view.\"\n\nCumming, January 22, 1844.\n\nSir--In regard to your request, I am as I ever have been, utterly\nopposed to your marrying into my family; and if you have any regard for\nyourself, or any gentlemanly feeling, I hope you will mention it to me\nno more; but seek some other one who is not so far superior to you in\nstanding.\n\nW. W. Valeer.\n\nWhen Elfonzo read the above letter, he became so much depressed in\nspirits that many of his friends thought it advisable to use other means\nto bring about the happy union. \"Strange,\" said he, \"that the contents\nof this diminutive letter should cause me to have such depressed\nfeelings; but there is a nobler theme than this. I know not why my\n_military title_ is not as great as that of _Squire Valeer_. For my life\nI cannot see that my ancestors are inferior to those who are so bitterly\nopposed to my marriage with Ambulinia. I know I have seen huge mountains\nbefore me, yet, when I think that I know gentlemen will insult me upon\nthis delicate matter, should I become angry at fools and babblers, who\npride themselves in their impudence and ignorance? No. My equals! I\nknow not where to find them. My inferiors! I think it beneath me; and my\nsuperiors! I think it presumption; therefore, if this youthful heart is\nprotected by any of the divine rights, I never will betray my trust.\"\n\nHe was aware that Ambulinia had a confidence that was, indeed, as firm\nand as resolute as she was beautiful and interesting. He hastened to the\ncottage of Louisa, who received him in her usual mode of pleasantness,\nand informed him that Ambulinia had just that moment left. \"Is it\npossible?\" said Elfonzo. \"Oh, murdered hours! Why did she not remain and\nbe the guardian of my secrets? But hasten and tell me how she has stood\nthis trying scene, and what are her future determinations.\" \"You know,\"\nsaid Louisa, \"Major Elfonzo, that you have Ambulinia's first love, which\nis of no small consequence. She came here about twilight, and shed many\nprecious tears in consequence of her own fate with yours. We walked\nsilently in yon little valley you see, where we spent a momentary\nrepose. She seemed to be quite as determined as ever, and before we left\nthat beautiful spot she offered up a prayer to Heaven for thee.\" \"I will\nsee her then,\" replied Elfonzo, \"though legions of enemies may oppose.\nShe is mine by foreordination--she is mine by prophesy--she is mine\nby her own free will, and I will rescue her from the hands of her\noppressors. Will you not, Miss Louisa, assist me in my capture?\"\n\n\"I will certainly, by the aid of Divine Providence,\" answered Louisa,\n\"endeavor to break those slavish chains that bind the richest of prizes;\nthough allow me, Major, to entreat you to use no harsh means on this\nimportant occasion; take a decided stand, and write freely to Ambulinia\nupon this subject, and I will see that no intervening cause hinders its\npassage to her. God alone will save a mourning people. Now is the day\nand now is the hour to obey a command of such valuable worth.\" The Major\nfelt himself grow stronger after this short interview with Louisa. He\nfelt as if he could whip his weight in wildcats--he knew he was master\nof his own feelings, and could now write a letter that would bring this\nlitigation to _an issue._\n\nCumming, January 24, 1844.\n\nDear Ambulinia--\n\nWe have now reached the most trying moment of our lives; we are pledged\nnot to forsake our trust; we have waited for a favorable hour to\ncome, thinking your friends would settle the matter agreeably among\nthemselves, and finally be reconciled to our marriage; but as I have\nwaited in vain, and looked in vain, I have determined in my own mind to\nmake a proposition to you, though you may think it not in accord with\nyour station, or compatible with your rank; yet, \"sub hoc signo\nvinces.\" You know I cannot resume my visits, in consequence of the utter\nhostility that your father has to me; therefore the consummation of\nour union will have to be sought for in a more sublime sphere, at the\nresidence of a respectable friend of this village. You cannot have\nany scruples upon this mode of proceeding, if you will but remember it\nemanates from one who loves you better than his own life--who is more\nthan anxious to bid you welcome to a new and happy home. Your warmest\nassociates say come; the talented, the learned, the wise, and the\nexperienced say come;--all these with their friends say, come. Viewing\nthese, with many other inducements, I flatter myself that you will come\nto the embraces of your Elfonzo; for now is the time of your acceptance\nof the day of your liberation. You cannot be ignorant, Ambulinia, that\nthou art the desire of my heart; its thoughts are too noble, and too\npure, to conceal themselves from you. I shall wait for your answer to\nthis impatiently, expecting that you will set the time to make your\ndeparture, and to be in readiness at a moment's warning to share the\njoys of a more preferable life. This will be handed to you by Louisa,\nwho will take a pleasure in communicating anything to you that may\nrelieve your dejected spirits, and will assure you that I now stand\nready, willing, and waiting to make good my vows.\n\nI am, dear Ambulinia, yours\n\ntruly, and forever,\n\nJ. I. Elfonzo.\n\nLouisa made it convenient to visit Mr. Valeer's, though they did not\nsuspect her in the least the bearer of love epistles; consequently,\nshe was invited in the room to console Ambulinia, where they were left\nalone. Ambulinia was seated by a small table--her head resting on her\nhand--her brilliant eyes were bathed in tears. Louisa handed her the\nletter of Elfonzo, when another spirit animated her features--the\nspirit of renewed confidence that never fails to strengthen the\nfemale character in an hour of grief and sorrow like this, and as she\npronounced the last accent of his name, she exclaimed, \"And does he love\nme yet! I never will forget your generosity, Louisa. Oh, unhappy and yet\nblessed Louisa! may you never feel what I have felt--may you never know\nthe pangs of love. Had I never loved, I never would have been unhappy;\nbut I turn to Him who can save, and if His wisdom does not will my\nexpected union, I know He will give me strength to bear my lot. Amuse\nyourself with this little book, and take it as an apology for my\nsilence,\" said Ambulinia, \"while I attempt to answer this volume of\nconsolation.\" \"Thank you,\" said Louisa, \"you are excusable upon this\noccasion; but I pray you, Ambulinia, to be expert upon this momentous\nsubject, that there may be nothing mistrustful upon my part.\" \"I will,\"\nsaid Ambulinia, and immediately resumed her seat and addressed the\nfollowing to Elfonzo:\n\nCumming, Ga., January 28, 1844.\n\nDevoted Elfonzo--\n\nI hail your letter as a welcome messenger of faith, and can now say\ntruly and firmly that my feelings correspond with yours. Nothing shall\nbe wanting on my part to make my obedience your fidelity. Courage and\nperseverance will accomplish success. Receive this as my oath, that\nwhile I grasp your hand in my own imagination, we stand united before a\nhigher tribunal than any on earth. All the powers of my life, soul, and\nbody, I devote to thee. Whatever dangers may threaten me, I fear not to\nencounter them. Perhaps I have determined upon my own destruction, by\nleaving the house of the best of parents; be it so; I flee to you; I\nshare your destiny, faithful to the end. The day that I have concluded\nupon for this task is _sabbath _next, when the family with the citizens\nare generally at church. For Heaven's sake let not that day pass\nunimproved: trust not till tomorrow, it is the cheat of life--the future\nthat never comes--the grave of many noble births--the cavern of ruined\nenterprise: which like the lightning's flash is born, and dies, and\nperishes, ere the voice of him who sees can cry, _behold! behold!!_ You\nmay trust to what I say, no power shall tempt me to betray confidence.\nSuffer me to add one word more.\n\n\nI will soothe thee, in all thy grief,\n\nBeside the gloomy river;\n\nAnd though thy love may yet be brief;\n\nMine is fixed forever.\n\nReceive the deepest emotions of my heart for thy constant love, and\nmay the power of inspiration be thy guide, thy portion, and thy all. In\ngreat haste,\n\nYours faithfully,\n\nAmbulinia.\n\n\"I now take my leave of you, sweet girl,\" said Louisa, \"sincerely\nwishing you success on Sabbath next.\" When Ambulinia's letter was handed\nto Elfonzo, he perused it without doubting its contents. Louisa charged\nhim to make but few confidants; but like most young men who happened to\nwin the heart of a beautiful girl, he was so elated with the idea that\nhe felt as a commanding general on parade, who had confidence in all,\nconsequently gave orders to all. The appointed Sabbath, with a delicious\nbreeze and cloudless sky, made its appearance. The people gathered in\ncrowds to the church--the streets were filled with neighboring citizens,\nall marching to the house of worship. It is entirely useless for me\nto attempt to describe the feelings of Elfonzo and Ambulinia, who were\nsilently watching the movements of the multitude, apparently counting\nthem as then entered the house of God, looking for the last one to\ndarken the door. The impatience and anxiety with which they waited,\nand the bliss they anticipated on the eventful day, is altogether\nindescribable. Those that have been so fortunate as to embark in such a\nnoble enterprise know all its realities; and those who have not had this\ninestimable privilege will have to taste its sweets before they can tell\nto others its joys, its comforts, and its Heaven-born worth. Immediately\nafter Ambulinia had assisted the family off to church, she took\nadvantage of that opportunity to make good her promises. She left a home\nof enjoyment to be wedded to one whose love had been justifiable. A few\nshort steps brought her to the presence of Louisa, who urged her to make\ngood use of her time, and not to delay a moment, but to go with her to\nher brother's house, where Elfonzo would forever make her happy. With\nlively speed, and yet a graceful air, she entered the door and found\nherself protected by the champion of her confidence. The necessary\narrangements were fast making to have the two lovers united--everything\nwas in readiness except the parson; and as they are generally very\nsanctimonious on such occasions, the news got to the parents of\nAmbulinia before the everlasting knot was tied, and they both came\nrunning, with uplifted hands and injured feelings, to arrest their\ndaughter from an unguarded and hasty resolution. Elfonzo desired to\nmaintain his ground, but Ambulinia thought it best for him to leave, to\nprepare for a greater contest. He accordingly obeyed, as it would have\nbeen a vain endeavor for him to have battled against a man who was armed\nwith deadly weapons; and besides, he could not resist the request of\nsuch a pure heart. Ambulinia concealed herself in the upper story of\nthe house, fearing the rebuke of her father; the door was locked, and no\nchastisement was now expected. Esquire Valeer, whose pride was already\ntouched, resolved to preserve the dignity of his family. He entered\nthe house almost exhausted, looking wildly for Ambulinia. \"Amazed and\nastonished indeed I am,\" said he, \"at a people who call themselves\ncivilized, to allow such behavior as this. Ambulinia, Ambulinia!\"\nhe cried, \"come to the calls of your first, your best, and your only\nfriend. I appeal to you, sir,\" turning to the gentleman of the house,\n\"to know where Ambulinia has gone, or where is she?\" \"Do you mean\nto insult me, sir, in my own house?\" inquired the gentleman. \"I will\nburst,\" said Mr. V., \"asunder every door in your dwelling, in search of\nmy daughter, if you do not speak quickly, and tell me where she is.\nI care nothing about that outcast rubbish of creation, that mean,\nlow-lived Elfonzo, if I can but obtain Ambulinia. Are you not going to\nopen this door?\" said he. \"By the Eternal that made Heaven and earth!\nI will go about the work instantly, if this is not done!\" The confused\ncitizens gathered from all parts of the village, to know the cause of\nthis commotion. Some rushed into the house; the door that was locked\nflew open, and there stood Ambulinia, weeping. \"Father, be still,\" said\nshe, \"and I will follow thee home.\" But the agitated man seized her, and\nbore her off through the gazing multitude. \"Father!\" she exclaimed, \"I\nhumbly beg your pardon--I will be dutiful--I will obey thy commands.\nLet the sixteen years I have lived in obedience to thee be my future\nsecurity.\" \"I don't like to be always giving credit, when the old score\nis not paid up, madam,\" said the father. The mother followed almost in a\nstate of derangement, crying and imploring her to think beforehand, and\nask advice from experienced persons, and they would tell her it was a\nrash undertaking. \"Oh!\" said she, \"Ambulinia, my daughter, did you know\nwhat I have suffered--did you know how many nights I have whiled away in\nagony, in pain, and in fear, you would pity the sorrows of a heartbroken\nmother.\"\n\n\"Well, mother,\" replied Ambulinia, \"I know I have been disobedient; I\nam aware that what I have done might have been done much better; but\noh! what shall I do with my honor? it is so dear to me; I am pledged\nto Elfonzo. His high moral worth is certainly worth some attention;\nmoreover, my vows, I have no doubt, are recorded in the book of life,\nand must I give these all up? must my fair hopes be forever blasted?\nForbid it, father; oh! forbid it, mother; forbid it, Heaven.\" \"I have\nseen so many beautiful skies overclouded,\" replied the mother, \"so many\nblossoms nipped by the frost, that I am afraid to trust you to the\ncare of those fair days, which may be interrupted by thundering and\ntempestuous nights. You no doubt think as I did--life's devious ways\nwere strewn with sweet-scented flowers, but ah! how long they have\nlingered around me and took their flight in the vivid hope that laughs\nat the drooping victims it has murdered.\" Elfonzo was moved at this\nsight. The people followed on to see what was going to become of\nAmbulinia, while he, with downcast looks, kept at a distance, until he\nsaw them enter the abode of the father, thrusting her, that was the sigh\nof his soul, out of his presence into a solitary apartment, when she\nexclaimed, \"Elfonzo! Elfonzo! oh, Elfonzo! where art thou, with all thy\nheroes? haste, oh! haste, come thou to my relief. Ride on the wings of\nthe wind! Turn thy force loose like a tempest, and roll on thy army like\na whirlwind, over this mountain of trouble and confusion. Oh, friends!\nif any pity me, let your last efforts throng upon the green hills, and\ncome to the relief of Ambulinia, who is guilty of nothing but innocent\nlove.\" Elfonzo called out with a loud voice, \"My God, can I stand this!\narise up, I beseech you, and put an end to this tyranny. Come, my brave\nboys,\" said he, \"are you ready to go forth to your duty?\" They stood\naround him. \"Who,\" said he, \"will call us to arms? Where are my\nthunderbolts of war? Speak ye, the first who will meet the foe! Who will\ngo forward with me in this ocean of grievous temptation? If there is\none who desires to go, let him come and shake hands upon the altar of\ndevotion, and swear that he will be a hero; yes, a Hector in a cause\nlike this, which calls aloud for a speedy remedy.\" \"Mine be the deed,\"\nsaid a young lawyer, \"and mine alone; Venus alone shall quit her station\nbefore I will forsake one jot or tittle of my promise to you; what\nis death to me? what is all this warlike army, if it is not to win a\nvictory? I love the sleep of the lover and the mighty; nor would I give\nit over till the blood of my enemies should wreak with that of my own.\nBut God forbid that our fame should soar on the blood of the slumberer.\"\nMr. Valeer stands at his door with the frown of a demon upon his brow,\nwith his dangerous weapon ready to strike the first man who should enter\nhis door. \"Who will arise and go forward through blood and carnage\nto the rescue of my Ambulinia?\" said Elfonzo. \"All,\" exclaimed the\nmultitude; and onward they went, with their implements of battle.\nOthers, of a more timid nature, stood among the distant hills to see the\nresult of the contest.\n\nElfonzo took the lead of his band. Night arose in clouds; darkness\nconcealed the heavens; but the blazing hopes that stimulated them\ngleamed in every bosom. All approached the anxious spot; they rushed to\nthe front of the house and, with one exclamation, demanded Ambulinia.\n\"Away, begone, and disturb my peace no more,\" said Mr. Valeer. \"You are\na set of base, insolent, and infernal rascals. Go, the northern star\npoints your path through the dim twilight of the night; go, and vent\nyour spite upon the lonely hills; pour forth your love, you poor,\nweak-minded wretch, upon your idleness and upon your guitar, and your\nfiddle; they are fit subjects for your admiration, for let me assure\nyou, though this sword and iron lever are cankered, yet they frown in\nsleep, and let one of you dare to enter my house this night and you\nshall have the contents and the weight of these instruments.\" \"Never\nyet did base dishonor blur my name,\" said Elfonzo; \"mine is a cause of\nrenown; here are my warriors; fear and tremble, for this night, though\nhell itself should oppose, I will endeavor to avenge her whom thou hast\nbanished in solitude. The voice of Ambulinia shall be heard from that\ndark dungeon.\" At that moment Ambulinia appeared at the window above,\nand with a tremulous voice said, \"Live, Elfonzo! oh! live to raise my\nstone of moss! why should such language enter your heart? why should\nthy voice rend the air with such agitation? I bid thee live, once more\nremembering these tears of mine are shed alone for thee, in this dark\nand gloomy vault, and should I perish under this load of trouble, join\nthe song of thrilling accents with the raven above my grave, and lay\nthis tattered frame beside the banks of the Chattahoochee or the stream\nof Sawney's brook; sweet will be the song of death to your Ambulinia. My\nghost shall visit you in the smiles of Paradise, and tell your high\nfame to the minds of that region, which is far more preferable than this\nlonely cell. My heart shall speak for thee till the latest hour; I know\nfaint and broken are the sounds of sorrow, yet our souls, Elfonzo, shall\nhear the peaceful songs together. One bright name shall be ours on high,\nif we are not permitted to be united here; bear in mind that I still\ncherish my old sentiments, and the poet will mingle the names of Elfonzo\nand Ambulinia in the tide of other days.\" \"Fly, Elfonzo,\" said the\nvoices of his united band, \"to the wounded heart of your beloved. All\nenemies shall fall beneath thy sword. Fly through the clefts, and the\ndim spark shall sleep in death.\" Elfonzo rushes forward and strikes\nhis shield against the door, which was barricaded, to prevent any\nintercourse. His brave sons throng around him. The people pour along\nthe streets, both male and female, to prevent or witness the melancholy\nscene.\n\n\"To arms, to arms!\" cried Elfonzo; \"here is a victory to be won, a prize\nto be gained that is more to me that the whole world beside.\" \"It\ncannot be done tonight,\" said Mr. Valeer. \"I bear the clang of death; my\nstrength and armor shall prevail. My Ambulinia shall rest in this hall\nuntil the break of another day, and if we fall, we fall together. If we\ndie, we die clinging to our tattered rights, and our blood alone shall\ntell the mournful tale of a murdered daughter and a ruined father.\" Sure\nenough, he kept watch all night, and was successful in defending his\nhouse and family. The bright morning gleamed upon the hills, night\nvanished away, the Major and his associates felt somewhat ashamed that\nthey had not been as fortunate as they expected to have been; however,\nthey still leaned upon their arms in dispersed groups; some were walking\nthe streets, others were talking in the Major's behalf. Many of\nthe citizen suspended business, as the town presented nothing but\nconsternation. A novelty that might end in the destruction of some\nworthy and respectable citizens. Mr. Valeer ventured in the streets,\nthough not without being well armed. Some of his friends congratulated\nhim on the decided stand he had taken, and hoped he would settle the\nmatter amicably with Elfonzo, without any serious injury. \"Me,\" he\nreplied, \"what, me, condescend to fellowship with a coward, and a\nlow-lived, lazy, undermining villain? no, gentlemen, this cannot be; I\nhad rather be borne off, like the bubble upon the dark blue ocean, with\nAmbulinia by my side, than to have him in the ascending or descending\nline of relationship. Gentlemen,\" continued he, \"if Elfonzo is so much\nof a distinguished character, and is so learned in the fine arts, why do\nyou not patronize such men? why not introduce him into your families, as\na gentleman of taste and of unequaled magnanimity? why are you so very\nanxious that he should become a relative of mine? Oh, gentlemen, I fear\nyou yet are tainted with the curiosity of our first parents, who were\nbeguiled by the poisonous kiss of an old ugly serpent, and who, for\none _apple, damned_ all mankind. I wish to divest myself, as far as\npossible, of that untutored custom. I have long since learned that the\nperfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy, is to proportion\nour wants to our possessions, our ambition to our capacities; we will\nthen be a happy and a virtuous people.\" Ambulinia was sent off to\nprepare for a long and tedious journey. Her new acquaintances had been\ninstructed by her father how to treat her, and in what manner, and to\nkeep the anticipated visit entirely secret. Elfonzo was watching the\nmovements of everybody; some friends had told him of the plot that was\nlaid to carry off Ambulinia. At night, he rallied some two or three of\nhis forces, and went silently along to the stately mansion; a faint and\nglimmering light showed through the windows; lightly he steps to the\ndoor; there were many voices rallying fresh in fancy's eye; he tapped\nthe shutter; it was opened instantly, and he beheld once more, seated\nbeside several ladies, the hope of all his toils; he rushed toward\nher, she rose from her seat, rejoicing; he made one mighty grasp, when\nAmbulinia exclaimed, \"Huzza for Major Elfonzo! I will defend myself and\nyou, too, with this conquering instrument I hold in my hand; huzza, I\nsay, I now invoke time's broad wing to shed around us some dewdrops of\nverdant spring.\"\n\nBut the hour had not come for this joyous reunion; her friends struggled\nwith Elfonzo for some time, and finally succeeded in arresting her from\nhis hands. He dared not injure them, because they were matrons whose\ncourage needed no spur; she was snatched from the arms of Elfonzo, with\nso much eagerness, and yet with such expressive signification, that he\ncalmly withdrew from this lovely enterprise, with an ardent hope that he\nshould be lulled to repose by the zephyrs which whispered peace to his\nsoul. Several long days and nights passed unmolested, all seemed to have\ngrounded their arms of rebellion, and no callidity appeared to be going\non with any of the parties. Other arrangements were made by Ambulinia;\nshe feigned herself to be entirely the votary of a mother's care, and\nshe, by her graceful smiles, that manhood might claim his stern dominion\nin some other region, where such boisterous love was not so prevalent.\nThis gave the parents a confidence that yielded some hours of sober joy;\nthey believed that Ambulinia would now cease to love Elfonzo, and that\nher stolen affections would now expire with her misguided opinions. They\ntherefore declined the idea of sending her to a distant land. But oh!\nthey dreamed not of the rapture that dazzled the fancy of Ambulinia, who\nwould say, when alone, youth should not fly away on his rosy pinions,\nand leave her to grapple in the conflict with unknown admirers.\n\n\nNo frowning age shall control\n\nThe constant current of my soul,\n\nNor a tear from pity's eye\n\nShall check my sympathetic sigh.\n\nWith this resolution fixed in her mind, one dark and dreary night, when\nthe winds whistled and the tempest roared, she received intelligence\nthat Elfonzo was then waiting, and every preparation was then ready, at\nthe residence of Dr. Tully, and for her to make a quick escape while\nthe family was reposing. Accordingly she gathered her books, went the\nwardrobe supplied with a variety of ornamental dressing, and ventured\nalone in the streets to make her way to Elfonzo, who was near at hand,\nimpatiently looking and watching her arrival. \"What forms,\" said she,\n\"are those rising before me? What is that dark spot on the clouds? I do\nwonder what frightful ghost that is, gleaming on the red tempest? Oh,\nbe merciful and tell me what region you are from. Oh, tell me, ye strong\nspirits, or ye dark and fleeting clouds, that I yet have a friend.\" \"A\nfriend,\" said a low, whispering voice. \"I am thy unchanging, thy aged,\nand thy disappointed mother. Why brandish in that hand of thine a\njavelin of pointed steel? Why suffer that lip I have kissed a thousand\ntimes to equivocate? My daughter, let these tears sink deep into thy\nsoul, and no longer persist in that which may be your destruction and\nruin. Come, my dear child, retract your steps, and bear me company to\nyour welcome home.\" Without one retorting word, or frown from her brow,\nshe yielded to the entreaties of her mother, and with all the mildness\nof her former character she went along with the silver lamp of age, to\nthe home of candor and benevolence. Her father received her cold and\nformal politeness--\"Where has Ambulinia been, this blustering evening,\nMrs. Valeer?\" inquired he. \"Oh, she and I have been taking a solitary\nwalk,\" said the mother; \"all things, I presume, are now working for the\nbest.\"\n\nElfonzo heard this news shortly after it happened. \"What,\" said he,\n\"has heaven and earth turned against me? I have been disappointed times\nwithout number. Shall I despair?--must I give it over? Heaven's decrees\nwill not fade; I will write again--I will try again; and if it traverses\na gory field, I pray forgiveness at the altar of justice.\"\n\nDesolate Hill, Cumming, Geo., 1844.\n\nUnconquered and Beloved Ambulinia-- I have only time to say to you, not\nto despair; thy fame shall not perish; my visions are brightening before\nme. The whirlwind's rage is past, and we now shall subdue our enemies\nwithout doubt. On Monday morning, when your friends are at breakfast,\nthey will not suspect your departure, or even mistrust me being in town,\nas it has been reported advantageously that I have left for the west.\nYou walk carelessly toward the academy grove, where you will find me\nwith a lightning steed, elegantly equipped to bear you off where we\nshall be joined in wedlock with the first connubial rights. Fail not\nto do this--think not of the tedious relations of our wrongs--be\ninvincible. You alone occupy all my ambition, and I alone will make you\nmy happy spouse, with the same unimpeached veracity. I remain, forever,\nyour devoted friend and admirer, J. I. Elfonzo.\n\nThe appointed day ushered in undisturbed by any clouds; nothing\ndisturbed Ambulinia's soft beauty. With serenity and loveliness she\nobeys the request of Elfonzo. The moment the family seated themselves\nat the table--\"Excuse my absence for a short time,\" said she, \"while I\nattend to the placing of those flowers, which should have been done\na week ago.\" And away she ran to the sacred grove, surrounded with\nglittering pearls, that indicated her coming. Elfonzo hails her with\nhis silver bow and his golden harp. They meet--Ambulinia's countenance\nbrightens--Elfonzo leads up his winged steed. \"Mount,\" said he, \"ye\ntrue-hearted, ye fearless soul--the day is ours.\" She sprang upon the\nback of the young thunder bolt, a brilliant star sparkles upon her head,\nwith one hand she grasps the reins, and with the other she holds an\nolive branch. \"Lend thy aid, ye strong winds,\" they exclaimed, \"ye moon,\nye sun, and all ye fair host of heaven, witness the enemy conquered.\"\n\"Hold,\" said Elfonzo, \"thy dashing steed.\" \"Ride on,\" said Ambulinia,\n\"the voice of thunder is behind us.\" And onward they went, with such\nrapidity that they very soon arrived at Rural Retreat, where they\ndismounted, and were united with all the solemnities that usually attend\nsuch divine operations. They passed the day in thanksgiving and great\nrejoicing, and on that evening they visited their uncle, where many of\ntheir friends and acquaintances had gathered to congratulate them in the\nfield of untainted bliss. The kind old gentleman met them in the yard:\n\"Well,\" said he, \"I wish I may die, Elfonzo, if you and Ambulinia\nhaven't tied a knot with your tongue that you can't untie with your\nteeth. But come in, come in, never mind, all is right--the world still\nmoves on, and no one has fallen in this great battle.\"\n\nHappy now is their lot! Unmoved by misfortune, they live among the fair\nbeauties of the South. Heaven spreads their peace and fame upon the arch\nof the rainbow, and smiles propitiously at their triumph, _through the\ntears of the storm._\n\n\n\nTHE CALIFORNIAN'S TALE\n\nThirty-five years ago I was out prospecting on the Stanislaus, tramping\nall day long with pick and pan and horn, and washing a hatful of dirt\nhere and there, always expecting to make a rich strike, and never doing\nit. It was a lovely region, woodsy, balmy, delicious, and had once been\npopulous, long years before, but now the people had vanished and the\ncharming paradise was a solitude. They went away when the surface\ndiggings gave out. In one place, where a busy little city with banks\nand newspapers and fire companies and a mayor and aldermen had been, was\nnothing but a wide expanse of emerald turf, with not even the faintest\nsign that human life had ever been present there. This was down toward\nTuttletown. In the country neighborhood thereabouts, along the dusty\nroads, one found at intervals the prettiest little cottage homes, snug\nand cozy, and so cobwebbed with vines snowed thick with roses that the\ndoors and windows were wholly hidden from sight--sign that these were\ndeserted homes, forsaken years ago by defeated and disappointed families\nwho could neither sell them nor give them away. Now and then, half an\nhour apart, one came across solitary log cabins of the earliest\nmining days, built by the first gold-miners, the predecessors of the\ncottage-builders. In some few cases these cabins were still occupied;\nand when this was so, you could depend upon it that the occupant was the\nvery pioneer who had built the cabin; and you could depend on another\nthing, too--that he was there because he had once had his opportunity\nto go home to the States rich, and had not done it; had rather lost\nhis wealth, and had then in his humiliation resolved to sever all\ncommunication with his home relatives and friends, and be to them\nthenceforth as one dead. Round about California in that day were\nscattered a host of these living dead men--pride-smitten poor fellows,\ngrizzled and old at forty, whose secret thoughts were made all of\nregrets and longings--regrets for their wasted lives, and longings to be\nout of the struggle and done with it all.\n\nIt was a lonesome land! Not a sound in all those peaceful expanses of\ngrass and woods but the drowsy hum of insects; no glimpse of man or\nbeast; nothing to keep up your spirits and make you glad to be alive.\nAnd so, at last, in the early part of the afternoon, when I caught sight\nof a human creature, I felt a most grateful uplift. This person was a\nman about forty-five years old, and he was standing at the gate of one\nof those cozy little rose-clad cottages of the sort already referred to.\nHowever, this one hadn't a deserted look; it had the look of being lived\nin and petted and cared for and looked after; and so had its front yard,\nwhich was a garden of flowers, abundant, gay, and flourishing. I was\ninvited in, of course, and required to make myself at home--it was the\ncustom of the country.\n\nIt was delightful to be in such a place, after long weeks of daily and\nnightly familiarity with miners' cabins--with all which this implies of\ndirt floor, never-made beds, tin plates and cups, bacon and beans and\nblack coffee, and nothing of ornament but war pictures from the\nEastern illustrated papers tacked to the log walls. That was all hard,\ncheerless, materialistic desolation, but here was a nest which had\naspects to rest the tired eye and refresh that something in one's nature\nwhich, after long fasting, recognizes, when confronted by the\nbelongings of art, howsoever cheap and modest they may be, that it has\nunconsciously been famishing and now has found nourishment. I could not\nhave believed that a rag carpet could feast me so, and so content me;\nor that there could be such solace to the soul in wall-paper and framed\nlithographs, and bright-colored tidies and lamp-mats, and Windsor\nchairs, and varnished what-nots, with sea-shells and books and china\nvases on them, and the score of little unclassifiable tricks and touches\nthat a woman's hand distributes about a home, which one sees without\nknowing he sees them, yet would miss in a moment if they were taken\naway. The delight that was in my heart showed in my face, and the man\nsaw it and was pleased; saw it so plainly that he answered it as if it\nhad been spoken.\n\n\"All her work,\" he said, caressingly; \"she did it all herself--every\nbit,\" and he took the room in with a glance which was full of\naffectionate worship. One of those soft Japanese fabrics with which\nwomen drape with careful negligence the upper part of a picture-frame\nwas out of adjustment. He noticed it, and rearranged it with cautious\npains, stepping back several times to gauge the effect before he got it\nto suit him. Then he gave it a light finishing pat or two with his hand,\nand said: \"She always does that. You can't tell just what it lacks, but\nit does lack something until you've done that--you can see it yourself\nafter it's done, but that is all you know; you can't find out the law of\nit. It's like the finishing pats a mother gives the child's hair after\nshe's got it combed and brushed, I reckon. I've seen her fix all these\nthings so much that I can do them all just her way, though I don't know\nthe law of any of them. But she knows the law. She knows the why and the\nhow both; but I don't know the why; I only know the how.\"\n\nHe took me into a bedroom so that I might wash my hands; such a bedroom\nas I had not seen for years: white counterpane, white pillows, carpeted\nfloor, papered walls, pictures, dressing-table, with mirror and\npin-cushion and dainty toilet things; and in the corner a wash-stand,\nwith real china-ware bowl and pitcher, and with soap in a china dish,\nand on a rack more than a dozen towels--towels too clean and white for\none out of practice to use without some vague sense of profanation. So\nmy face spoke again, and he answered with gratified words:\n\n\"All her work; she did it all herself--every bit. Nothing here that\nhasn't felt the touch of her hand. Now you would think--But I mustn't\ntalk so much.\"\n\nBy this time I was wiping my hands and glancing from detail to detail\nof the room's belongings, as one is apt to do when he is in a new place,\nwhere everything he sees is a comfort to his eye and his spirit; and\nI became conscious, in one of those unaccountable ways, you know, that\nthere was something there somewhere that the man wanted me to discover\nfor myself. I knew it perfectly, and I knew he was trying to help me by\nfurtive indications with his eye, so I tried hard to get on the right\ntrack, being eager to gratify him. I failed several times, as I could\nsee out of the corner of my eye without being told; but at last I knew I\nmust be looking straight at the thing--knew it from the pleasure issuing\nin invisible waves from him. He broke into a happy laugh, and rubbed his\nhands together, and cried out:\n\n\"That's it! You've found it. I knew you would. It's her picture.\"\n\nI went to the little black-walnut bracket on the farther wall, and\ndid find there what I had not yet noticed--a daguerreotype-case. It\ncontained the sweetest girlish face, and the most beautiful, as it\nseemed to me, that I had ever seen. The man drank the admiration from my\nface, and was fully satisfied.\n\n\"Nineteen her last birthday,\" he said, as he put the picture back; \"and\nthat was the day we were married. When you see her--ah, just wait till\nyou see her!\"\n\n\"Where is she? When will she be in?\"\n\n\"Oh, she's away now. She's gone to see her people. They live forty or\nfifty miles from here. She's been gone two weeks today.\"\n\n\"When do you expect her back?\"\n\n\"This is Wednesday. She'll be back Saturday, in the evening--about nine\no'clock, likely.\"\n\nI felt a sharp sense of disappointment.\n\n\"I'm sorry, because I'll be gone then,\" I said, regretfully.\n\n\"Gone? No--why should you go? Don't go. She'll be disappointed.\"\n\nShe would be disappointed--that beautiful creature! If she had said the\nwords herself they could hardly have blessed me more. I was feeling\na deep, strong longing to see her--a longing so supplicating, so\ninsistent, that it made me afraid. I said to myself: \"I will go straight\naway from this place, for my peace of mind's sake.\"\n\n\"You see, she likes to have people come and stop with us--people who\nknow things, and can talk--people like you. She delights in it; for she\nknows--oh, she knows nearly everything herself, and can talk, oh, like\na bird--and the books she reads, why, you would be astonished. Don't go;\nit's only a little while, you know, and she'll be so disappointed.\"\n\nI heard the words, but hardly noticed them, I was so deep in my\nthinkings and strugglings. He left me, but I didn't know. Presently he\nwas back, with the picture case in his hand, and he held it open before\nme and said:\n\n\"There, now, tell her to her face you could have stayed to see her, and\nyou wouldn't.\"\n\nThat second glimpse broke down my good resolution. I would stay and take\nthe risk. That night we smoked the tranquil pipe, and talked till late\nabout various things, but mainly about her; and certainly I had had no\nsuch pleasant and restful time for many a day. The Thursday followed and\nslipped comfortably away. Toward twilight a big miner from three miles\naway came--one of the grizzled, stranded pioneers--and gave us warm\nsalutation, clothed in grave and sober speech. Then he said:\n\n\"I only just dropped over to ask about the little madam, and when is she\ncoming home. Any news from her?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, a letter. Would you like to hear it, Tom?\"\n\n\"Well, I should think I would, if you don't mind, Henry!\"\n\nHenry got the letter out of his wallet, and said he would skip some of\nthe private phrases, if we were willing; then he went on and read the\nbulk of it--a loving, sedate, and altogether charming and gracious\npiece of handiwork, with a postscript full of affectionate regards\nand messages to Tom, and Joe, and Charley, and other close friends and\nneighbors.\n\nAs the reader finished, he glanced at Tom, and cried out:\n\n\"Oho, you're at it again! Take your hands away, and let me see your\neyes. You always do that when I read a letter from her. I will write and\ntell her.\"\n\n\"Oh no, you mustn't, Henry. I'm getting old, you know, and any little\ndisappointment makes me want to cry. I thought she'd be here herself,\nand now you've got only a letter.\"\n\n\"Well, now, what put that in your head? I thought everybody knew she\nwasn't coming till Saturday.\"\n\n\"Saturday! Why, come to think, I did know it. I wonder what's the matter\nwith me lately? Certainly I knew it. Ain't we all getting ready for her?\nWell, I must be going now. But I'll be on hand when she comes, old man!\"\n\nLate Friday afternoon another gray veteran tramped over from his cabin a\nmile or so away, and said the boys wanted to have a little gaiety and\na good time Saturday night, if Henry thought she wouldn't be too tired\nafter her journey to be kept up.\n\n\"Tired? She tired! Oh, hear the man! Joe, _you _know she'd sit up six\nweeks to please any one of you!\"\n\nWhen Joe heard that there was a letter, he asked to have it read, and\nthe loving messages in it for him broke the old fellow all up; but he\nsaid he was such an old wreck that _that _would happen to him if she\nonly just mentioned his name. \"Lord, we miss her so!\" he said.\n\nSaturday afternoon I found I was taking out my watch pretty often. Henry\nnoticed it, and said, with a startled look:\n\n\"You don't think she ought to be here soon, do you?\"\n\nI felt caught, and a little embarrassed; but I laughed, and said it was\na habit of mine when I was in a state of expenctancy. But he didn't seem\nquite satisfied; and from that time on he began to show uneasiness. Four\ntimes he walked me up the road to a point whence we could see a long\ndistance; and there he would stand, shading his eyes with his hand, and\nlooking. Several times he said:\n\n\"I'm getting worried, I'm getting right down worried. I know she's not\ndue till about nine o'clock, and yet something seems to be trying\nto warn me that something's happened. You don't think anything has\nhappened, do you?\"\n\nI began to get pretty thoroughly ashamed of him for his childishness;\nand at last, when he repeated that imploring question still another\ntime, I lost my patience for the moment, and spoke pretty brutally to\nhim. It seemed to shrivel him up and cow him; and he looked so wounded\nand so humble after that, that I detested myself for having done the\ncruel and unnecessary thing. And so I was glad when Charley, another\nveteran, arrived toward the edge of the evening, and nestled up to\nHenry to hear the letter read, and talked over the preparations for the\nwelcome. Charley fetched out one hearty speech after another, and did\nhis best to drive away his friend's bodings and apprehensions.\n\n\"Anything _happened _to her? Henry, that's pure nonsense. There isn't\nanything going to happen to her; just make your mind easy as to that.\nWhat did the letter say? Said she was well, didn't it? And said she'd\nbe here by nine o'clock, didn't it? Did you ever know her to fail of her\nword? Why, you know you never did. Well, then, don't you fret; she'll_\nbe_ here, and that's absolutely certain, and as sure as you are born.\nCome, now, let's get to decorating--not much time left.\"\n\nPretty soon Tom and Joe arrived, and then all hands set about adorning\nthe house with flowers. Toward nine the three miners said that as they\nhad brought their instruments they might as well tune up, for the\nboys and girls would soon be arriving now, and hungry for a good,\nold-fashioned break-down. A fiddle, a banjo, and a clarinet--these were\nthe instruments. The trio took their places side by side, and began to\nplay some rattling dance-music, and beat time with their big boots.\n\nIt was getting very close to nine. Henry was standing in the door with\nhis eyes directed up the road, his body swaying to the torture of his\nmental distress. He had been made to drink his wife's health and safety\nseveral times, and now Tom shouted:\n\n\"All hands stand by! One more drink, and she's here!\"\n\nJoe brought the glasses on a waiter, and served the party. I reached for\none of the two remaining glasses, but Joe growled under his breath:\n\n\"Drop that! Take the other.\"\n\nWhich I did. Henry was served last. He had hardly swallowed his drink\nwhen the clock began to strike. He listened till it finished, his face\ngrowing pale and paler; then he said:\n\n\"Boys, I'm sick with fear. Help me--I want to lie down!\"\n\nThey helped him to the sofa. He began to nestle and drowse, but\npresently spoke like one talking in his sleep, and said: \"Did I hear\nhorses' feet? Have they come?\"\n\nOne of the veterans answered, close to his ear: \"It was Jimmy Parish\ncome to say the party got delayed, but they're right up the road a\npiece, and coming along. Her horse is lame, but she'll be here in half\nan hour.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm_ so_ thankful nothing has happened!\"\n\nHe was asleep almost before the words were out of his mouth. In a moment\nthose handy men had his clothes off, and had tucked him into his bed in\nthe chamber where I had washed my hands. They closed the door and came\nback. Then they seemed preparing to leave; but I said: \"Please don't go,\ngentlemen. She won't know me; I am a stranger.\"\n\nThey glanced at each other. Then Joe said:\n\n\"She? Poor thing, she's been dead nineteen years!\"\n\n\"Dead?\"\n\n\"That or worse. She went to see her folks half a year after she was\nmarried, and on her way back, on a Saturday evening, the Indians\ncaptured her within five miles of this place, and she's never been heard\nof since.\"\n\n\"And he lost his mind in consequence?\"\n\n\"Never has been sane an hour since. But he only gets bad when that time\nof year comes round. Then we begin to drop in here, three days before\nshe's due, to encourage him up, and ask if he's heard from her,\nand Saturday we all come and fix up the house with flowers, and get\neverything ready for a dance. We've done it every year for nineteen\nyears. The first Saturday there was twenty-seven of us, without counting\nthe girls; there's only three of us now, and the girls are gone. We\ndrug him to sleep, or he would go wild; then he's all right for another\nyear--thinks she's with him till the last three or four days come round;\nthen he begins to look for her, and gets out his poor old letter, and we\ncome and ask him to read it to us. Lord, she was a darling!\"\n\n\n\nA HELPLESS SITUATION\n\nOnce or twice a year I get a letter of a certain pattern, a pattern that\nnever materially changes, in form and substance, yet I cannot get used\nto that letter--it always astonishes me. It affects me as the locomotive\nalways affects me: I say to myself, \"I have seen you a thousand times,\nyou always look the same way, yet you are always a wonder, and you are\nalways impossible; to contrive you is clearly beyond human genius--you\ncan't exist, you don't exist, yet here you are!\"\n\nI have a letter of that kind by me, a very old one. I yearn to print it,\nand where is the harm? The writer of it is dead years ago, no doubt, and\nif I conceal her name and address--her this-world address--I am sure\nher shade will not mind. And with it I wish to print the answer which\nI wrote at the time but probably did not send. If it went--which is not\nlikely--it went in the form of a copy, for I find the original still\nhere, pigeonholed with the said letter. To that kind of letters we all\nwrite answers which we do not send, fearing to hurt where we have no\ndesire to hurt; I have done it many a time, and this is doubtless a case\nof the sort.\n\nTHE LETTER\n\nX------, California, JUNE 3, 1879.\n\nMr. S. L. Clemens, HARTFORD, CONN.:\n\nDear Sir,--You will doubtless be surprised to know who has presumed to\nwrite and ask a favor of you. Let your memory go back to your days in\nthe Humboldt mines--'62-'63. You will remember, you and Clagett and\nOliver and the old blacksmith Tillou lived in a lean-to which was\nhalf-way up the gulch, and there were six log cabins in the camp--strung\npretty well separated up the gulch from its mouth at the desert to where\nthe last claim was, at the divide. The lean-to you lived in was the one\nwith a canvas roof that the cow fell down through one night, as told\nabout by you in _Roughing It_--my uncle Simmons remembers it very well.\nHe lived in the principal cabin, half-way up the divide, along with\nDixon and Parker and Smith. It had two rooms, one for kitchen and the\nother for bunks, and was the only one that had. You and your party\nwere there on the great night, the time they had dried-apple-pie, Uncle\nSimmons often speaks of it. It seems curious that dried-apple-pie\nshould have seemed such a great thing, but it was, and it shows how far\nHumboldt was out of the world and difficult to get to, and how slim the\nregular bill of fare was. Sixteen years ago--it is a long time. I was a\nlittle girl then, only fourteen. I never saw you, I lived in Washoe. But\nUncle Simmons ran across you every now and then, all during those weeks\nthat you and party were there working your claim which was like the\nrest. The camp played out long and long ago, there wasn't silver enough\nin it to make a button. You never saw my husband, but he was there after\nyou left, _and lived in that very lean-to_, a bachelor then but married\nto me now. He often wishes there had been a photographer there in\nthose days, he would have taken the lean-to. He got hurt in the old Hal\nClayton claim that was abandoned like the others, putting in a blast and\nnot climbing out quick enough, though he scrambled the best he could.\nIt landed him clear down on the train and hit a Piute. For weeks they\nthought he would not get over it but he did, and is all right, now. Has\nbeen ever since. This is a long introduction but it is the only way\nI can make myself known. The favor I ask I feel assured your generous\nheart will grant: Give me some advice about a book I have written. I do\nnot claim anything for it only it is mostly true and as interesting as\nmost of the books of the times. I am unknown in the literary world and\nyou know what that means unless one has some one of influence (like\nyourself) to help you by speaking a good word for you. I would like to\nplace the book on royalty basis plan with any one you would suggest.\n\nThis is a secret from my husband and family. I intend it as a surprise\nin case I get it published.\n\nFeeling you will take an interest in this and if possible write me a\nletter to some publisher, or, better still, if you could see them for me\nand then let me hear.\n\nI appeal to you to grant me this favor. With deepest gratitude I think\nyou for your attention.\n\nOne knows, without inquiring, that the twin of that embarrassing letter\nis forever and ever flying in this and that and the other direction\nacross the continent in the mails, daily, nightly, hourly, unceasingly,\nunrestingly. It goes to every well-known merchant, and railway official,\nand manufacturer, and capitalist, and Mayor, and Congressman, and\nGovernor, and editor, and publisher, and author, and broker, and\nbanker--in a word, to every person who is supposed to have \"influence.\"\nIt always follows the one pattern: \"You do not know me, _but you once\nknew a relative of mine,_\" etc., etc. We should all like to help the\napplicants, we should all be glad to do it, we should all like to return\nthe sort of answer that is desired, but--Well, there is not a thing we\ncan do that would be a help, for not in any instance does that latter\never come from anyone who _can _be helped. The struggler whom you _could\n_help does his own helping; it would not occur to him to apply to you,\nstranger. He has talent and knows it, and he goes into his fight eagerly\nand with energy and determination--all alone, preferring to be alone.\nThat pathetic letter which comes to you from the incapable, the\nunhelpable--how do you who are familiar with it answer it? What do you\nfind to say? You do not want to inflict a wound; you hunt ways to avoid\nthat. What do you find? How do you get out of your hard place with a\ncontent conscience? Do you try to explain? The old reply of mine to such\na letter shows that I tried that once. Was I satisfied with the result?\nPossibly; and possibly not; probably not; almost certainly not. I have\nlong ago forgotten all about it. But, anyway, I append my effort:\n\nTHE REPLY\n\nI know Mr. H., and I will go to him, dear madam, if upon reflection you\nfind you still desire it. There will be a conversation. I know the form\nit will take. It will be like this:\n\nMR. H. How do her books strike you?\n\nMR. CLEMENS. I am not acquainted with them.\n\nH. Who has been her publisher?\n\nC. I don't know.\n\nH. She _has _one, I suppose?\n\nC. I--I think not.\n\nH. Ah. You think this is her first book?\n\nC. Yes--I suppose so. I think so.\n\nH. What is it about? What is the character of it?\n\nC. I believe I do not know.\n\nH. Have you seen it?\n\nC. Well--no, I haven't.\n\nH. Ah-h. How long have you known her?\n\nC. I don't know her.\n\nH. Don't know her?\n\nC. No.\n\nH. Ah-h. How did you come to be interested in her book, then?\n\nC. Well, she--she wrote and asked me to find a publisher for her, and\nmentioned you.\n\nH. Why should she apply to you instead of me?\n\nC. She wished me to use my influence.\n\nH. Dear me, what has _influence _to do with such a matter?\n\nC. Well, I think she thought you would be more likely to examine her\nbook if you were influenced.\n\nH. Why, what we are here _for _is to examine books--anybody's book\nthat comes along. It's our _business_. Why should we turn away a book\nunexamined because it's a stranger's? It would be foolish. No publisher\ndoes it. On what ground did she request your influence, since you do not\nknow her? She must have thought you knew her literature and could speak\nfor it. Is that it?\n\nC. No; she knew I didn't.\n\nH. Well, what then? She had a reason of _some _sort for believing you\ncompetent to recommend her literature, and also under obligations to do\nit?\n\nC. Yes, I--I knew her uncle.\n\nH. Knew her _uncle_?\n\nC. Yes.\n\nH. Upon my word! So, you knew her uncle; her uncle knows her literature;\nhe endorses it to you; the chain is complete, nothing further needed;\nyou are satisfied, and therefore--\n\nC._ No_, that isn't all, there are other ties. I know the cabin her\nuncle lived in, in the mines; I knew his partners, too; also I came\nnear knowing her husband before she married him, and I _did _know the\nabandoned shaft where a premature blast went off and he went flying\nthrough the air and clear down to the trail and hit an Indian in the\nback with almost fatal consequences.\n\nH. To _him_, or to the Indian?\n\nC. She didn't say which it was.\n\nH. (_With a sigh_). It certainly beats the band! You don't know _her_,\nyou don't know her literature, you don't know who got hurt when the\nblast went off, you don't know a single thing for us to build an\nestimate of her book upon, so far as I--\n\nC. I knew her uncle. You are forgetting her uncle.\n\nH. Oh, what use is_ he_? Did you know him long? How long was it?\n\nC. Well, I don't know that I really knew him, but I must have met him,\nanyway. I think it was that way; you can't tell about these things, you\nknow, except when they are recent.\n\nH. Recent? When was all this?\n\nC. Sixteen years ago.\n\nH. What a basis to judge a book upon! As first you said you knew him,\nand now you don't know whether you did or not.\n\nC. Oh yes, I know him; anyway, I think I thought I did; I'm perfectly\ncertain of it.\n\nH. What makes you think you thought you knew him?\n\nC. Why, she says I did, herself.\n\nH._ She_ says so!\n\nC. Yes, she does, and I _did _know him, too, though I don't remember it\nnow.\n\nH. Come--how can you know it when you don't remember it.\n\nC. _I_ don't know. That is, I don't know the process, but I_ do_ know\nlots of things that I don't remember, and remember lots of things that I\ndon't know. It's so with every educated person.\n\nH. (_After a pause_). Is your time valuable?\n\nC. No--well, not very.\n\nH. Mine is.\n\nSo I came away then, because he was looking tired. Overwork, I reckon; I\nnever do that; I have seen the evil effects of it. My mother was always\nafraid I would overwork myself, but I never did.\n\nDear madam, you see how it would happen if I went there. He would ask\nme those questions, and I would try to answer them to suit him, and he\nwould hunt me here and there and yonder and get me embarrassed more\nand more all the time, and at last he would look tired on account of\noverwork, and there it would end and nothing done. I wish I could be\nuseful to you, but, you see, they do not care for uncles or any of those\nthings; it doesn't move them, it doesn't have the least effect, they\ndon't care for anything but the literature itself, and they as good as\ndespise influence. But they do care for books, and are eager to get them\nand examine them, no matter whence they come, nor from whose pen. If you\nwill send yours to a publisher--any publisher--he will certainly examine\nit, I can assure you of that.\n\n\n\nA TELEPHONIC CONVERSATION\n\nConsider that a conversation by telephone--when you are simply sitting\nby and not taking any part in that conversation--is one of the solemnest\ncuriosities of modern life. Yesterday I was writing a deep article on a\nsublime philosophical subject while such a conversation was going on\nin the room. I notice that one can always write best when somebody is\ntalking through a telephone close by. Well, the thing began in this way.\nA member of our household came in and asked me to have our house put\ninto communication with Mr. Bagley's downtown. I have observed, in many\ncities, that the sex always shrink from calling up the central office\nthemselves. I don't know why, but they do. So I touched the bell, and\nthis talk ensued:\n\n_Central Office. (Gruffly.)_ Hello!\n\nI. Is it the Central Office?\n\nC. O. Of course it is. What do you want?\n\nI. Will you switch me on to the Bagleys, please?\n\nC. O. All right. Just keep your ear to the telephone.\n\nThen I heard _k-look, k-look, k'look--klook-klook-klook-look-look!_ then a\nhorrible \"gritting\" of teeth, and finally a piping female voice: Y-e-s?\n(_Rising inflection._) Did you wish to speak to me?\n\nWithout answering, I handed the telephone to the applicant, and sat\ndown. Then followed that queerest of all the queer things in this\nworld--a conversation with only one end to it. You hear questions asked;\nyou don't hear the answer. You hear invitations given; you hear no\nthanks in return. You have listening pauses of dead silence, followed by\napparently irrelevant and unjustifiable exclamations of glad surprise or\nsorrow or dismay. You can't make head or tail of the talk, because you\nnever hear anything that the person at the other end of the wire says.\nWell, I heard the following remarkable series of observations, all from\nthe one tongue, and all shouted--for you can't ever persuade the sex to\nspeak gently into a telephone:\n\nYes? Why, how did _that _happen?\n\nPause.\n\nWhat did you say?\n\nPause.\n\nOh no, I don't think it was.\n\nPause.\n\n_ No_! Oh no, I didn't mean _that_. I meant, put it in while it is still\nboiling--or just before it _comes _to a boil.\n\nPause.\n\n_What_?\n\nPause.\n\nI turned it over with a backstitch on the selvage edge.\n\nPause.\n\nYes, I like that way, too; but I think it's better to baste it on with\nValenciennes or bombazine, or something of that sort. It gives it such\nan air--and attracts so much noise.\n\nPause.\n\nIt's forty-ninth Deuteronomy, sixty-forth to ninety-seventh inclusive. I\nthink we ought all to read it often.\n\nPause.\n\nPerhaps so; I generally use a hair pin.\n\nPause.\n\nWhat did you say? (_Aside_.) Children, do be quiet!\n\nPause\n\n_Oh!_ B _flat!_ Dear me, I thought you said it was the cat!\n\nPause.\n\nSince _when_?\n\nPause.\n\nWhy, _I_ never heard of it.\n\nPause.\n\nYou astound me! It seems utterly impossible!\n\nPause.\n\n_Who _did?\n\nPause.\n\nGood-ness gracious!\n\nPause.\n\nWell, what_ is_ this world coming to? Was it right in _church_?\n\nPause.\n\nAnd was her _mother _there?\n\nPause.\n\nWhy, Mrs. Bagley, I should have died of humiliation! What did they_ do_?\n\nLong pause.\n\nI can't be perfectly sure, because I haven't the notes by me; but\nI think it goes something like this: te-rolly-loll-loll, loll\nlolly-loll-loll, O tolly-loll-loll-_lee-ly-li_-i-do! And then _repeat_,\nyou know.\n\nPause.\n\nYes, I think it_ is_ very sweet--and very solemn and impressive, if you\nget the andantino and the pianissimo right.\n\nPause.\n\nOh, gum-drops, gum-drops! But I never allow them to eat striped candy.\nAnd of course they _can't_, till they get their teeth, anyway.\n\nPause.\n\n_What_?\n\nPause.\n\nOh, not in the least--go right on. He's here writing--it doesn't bother\n_him_.\n\nPause.\n\nVery well, I'll come if I canI'll come if I can. (_Aside_.) Dear me, how it does tire a\nperson's arm to hold this thing up so long! I wish she'd--\n\nPause.\n\nOh no, not at all; I _like _to talk--but I'm afraid I'm keeping you from\nyour affairs.\n\nPause.\n\nVisitors?\n\nPause.\n\nNo, we never use butter on them.\n\nPause.\n\nYes, that is a very good way; but all the cook-books say they are very\nunhealthy when they are out of season. And_ he_ doesn't like them,\nanyway--especially canned.\n\nPause.\n\nOh, I think that is too high for them; we have never paid over fifty\ncents a bunch.\n\nPause.\n\n_Must _you go? Well, _good_-by.\n\nPause.\n\nYes, I think so. _good_-by.\n\nPause.\n\nFour o'clock, then--I'll be ready. _good_-by.\n\nPause.\n\nThank you ever so much. _good_-by.\n\nPause.\n\nOh, not at all!--just as fresh--_which_? Oh, I'm glad to hear you say\nthat. _Good_-by.\n\n(Hangs up the telephone and says, \"Oh, it _does _tire a person's arm\nso!\")\n\nA man delivers a single brutal \"Good-by,\" and that is the end of it.\nNot so with the gentle sex--I say it in their praise; they cannot abide\nabruptness.\n\n\n\nEDWARD MILLS AND GEORGE BENTON: A TALE\n\nThese two were distantly related to each other--seventh cousins, or\nsomething of that sort. While still babies they became orphans, and were\nadopted by the Brants, a childless couple, who quickly grew very fond\nof them. The Brants were always saying: \"Be pure, honest, sober,\nindustrious, and considerate of others, and success in life is assured.\"\nThe children heard this repeated some thousands of times before they\nunderstood it; they could repeat it themselves long before they could\nsay the Lord's Prayer; it was painted over the nursery door, and was\nabout the first thing they learned to read. It was destined to be the\nunswerving rule of Edward Mills's life. Sometimes the Brants changed\nthe wording a little, and said: \"Be pure, honest, sober, industrious,\nconsiderate, and you will never lack friends.\"\n\nBaby Mills was a comfort to everybody about him. When he wanted candy\nand could not have it, he listened to reason, and contented himself\nwithout it. When Baby Benton wanted candy, he cried for it until he got\nit. Baby Mills took care of his toys; Baby Benton always destroyed his\nin a very brief time, and then made himself so insistently disagreeable\nthat, in order to have peace in the house, little Edward was persuaded\nto yield up his play-things to him.\n\nWhen the children were a little older, Georgie became a heavy expense\nin one respect: he took no care of his clothes; consequently, he shone\nfrequently in new ones, which was not the case with Eddie. The boys\ngrew apace. Eddie was an increasing comfort, Georgie an increasing\nsolicitude. It was always sufficient to say, in answer to Eddie's\npetitions, \"I would rather you would not do it\"--meaning swimming,\nskating, picnicking, berrying, circusing, and all sorts of things which\nboys delight in. But_ no_ answer was sufficient for Georgie; he had\nto be humored in his desires, or he would carry them with a high hand.\nNaturally, no boy got more swimming skating, berrying, and so forth than\nhe; no body ever had a better time. The good Brants did not allow the\nboys to play out after nine in summer evenings; they were sent to bed at\nthat hour; Eddie honorably remained, but Georgie usually slipped out\nof the window toward ten, and enjoyed himself until midnight. It seemed\nimpossible to break Georgie of this bad habit, but the Brants managed\nit at last by hiring him, with apples and marbles, to stay in. The good\nBrants gave all their time and attention to vain endeavors to regulate\nGeorgie; they said, with grateful tears in their eyes, that Eddie needed\nno efforts of theirs, he was so good, so considerate, and in all ways so\nperfect.\n\nBy and by the boys were big enough to work, so they were apprenticed to\na trade: Edward went voluntarily; George was coaxed and bribed. Edward\nworked hard and faithfully, and ceased to be an expense to the good\nBrants; they praised him, so did his master; but George ran away, and it\ncost Mr. Brant both money and trouble to hunt him up and get him back.\nBy and by he ran away again--more money and more trouble. He ran away\na third time--and stole a few things to carry with him. Trouble and\nexpense for Mr. Brant once more; and, besides, it was with the greatest\ndifficulty that he succeeded in persuading the master to let the youth\ngo unprosecuted for the theft.\n\nEdward worked steadily along, and in time became a full partner in his\nmaster's business. George did not improve; he kept the loving hearts of\nhis aged benefactors full of trouble, and their hands full of inventive\nactivities to protect him from ruin. Edward, as a boy, had interested\nhimself in Sunday-schools, debating societies, penny missionary affairs,\nanti-tobacco organizations, anti-profanity associations, and all such\nthings; as a man, he was a quiet but steady and reliable helper in the\nchurch, the temperance societies, and in all movements looking to\nthe aiding and uplifting of men. This excited no remark, attracted no\nattention--for it was his \"natural bent.\"\n\nFinally, the old people died. The will testified their loving pride in\nEdward, and left their little property to George--because he \"needed\nit\"; whereas, \"owing to a bountiful Providence,\" such was not the case\nwith Edward. The property was left to George conditionally: he must\nbuy out Edward's partner with it; else it must go to a benevolent\norganization called the Prisoner's Friend Society. The old people left\na letter, in which they begged their dear son Edward to take their place\nand watch over George, and help and shield him as they had done.\n\nEdward dutifully acquiesced, and George became his partner in the\nbusiness. He was not a valuable partner: he had been meddling with drink\nbefore; he soon developed into a constant tippler now, and his flesh and\neyes showed the fact unpleasantly. Edward had been courting a sweet\nand kindly spirited girl for some time. They loved each other dearly,\nand--But about this period George began to haunt her tearfully and\nimploringly, and at last she went crying to Edward, and said her high\nand holy duty was plain before her--she must not let her own selfish\ndesires interfere with it: she must marry \"poor George\" and \"reform\nhim.\" It would break her heart, she knew it would, and so on; but duty\nwas duty. So she married George, and Edward's heart came very near\nbreaking, as well as her own. However, Edward recovered, and married\nanother girl--a very excellent one she was, too.\n\nChildren came to both families. Mary did her honest best to reform her\nhusband, but the contract was too large. George went on drinking, and by\nand by he fell to misusing her and the little ones sadly. A great many\ngood people strove with George--they were always at it, in fact--but he\ncalmly took such efforts as his due and their duty, and did not mend his\nways. He added a vice, presently--that of secret gambling. He got deeply\nin debt; he borrowed money on the firm's credit, as quietly as he could,\nand carried this system so far and so successfully that one morning the\nsheriff took possession of the establishment, and the two cousins found\nthemselves penniless.\n\nTimes were hard, now, and they grew worse. Edward moved his family into\na garret, and walked the streets day and night, seeking work. He begged\nfor it, but it was really not to be had. He was astonished to see how\nsoon his face became unwelcome; he was astonished and hurt to see how\nquickly the ancient interest which people had had in him faded out and\ndisappeared. Still, he _must _get work; so he swallowed his chagrin, and\ntoiled on in search of it. At last he got a job of carrying bricks up a\nladder in a hod, and was a grateful man in consequence; but after that\n_nobody _knew him or cared anything about him. He was not able to keep\nup his dues in the various moral organizations to which he belonged,\nand had to endure the sharp pain of seeing himself brought under the\ndisgrace of suspension.\n\nBut the faster Edward died out of public knowledge and interest, the\nfaster George rose in them. He was found lying, ragged and drunk, in the\ngutter one morning. A member of the Ladies' Temperance Refuge fished him\nout, took him in hand, got up a subscription for him, kept him sober\na whole week, then got a situation for him. An account of it was\npublished.\n\nGeneral attention was thus drawn to the poor fellow, and a great many\npeople came forward and helped him toward reform with their countenance\nand encouragement. He did not drink a drop for two months, and meantime\nwas the pet of the good. Then he fell--in the gutter; and there was\ngeneral sorrow and lamentation. But the noble sisterhood rescued him\nagain. They cleaned him up, they fed him, they listened to the mournful\nmusic of his repentances, they got him his situation again. An account\nof this, also, was published, and the town was drowned in happy tears\nover the re-restoration of the poor beast and struggling victim of\nthe fatal bowl. A grand temperance revival was got up, and after some\nrousing speeches had been made the chairman said, impressively: \"We are\nnot about to call for signers; and I think there is a spectacle in\nstore for you which not many in this house will be able to view with dry\neyes.\" There was an eloquent pause, and then George Benton, escorted\nby a red-sashed detachment of the Ladies of the Refuge, stepped forward\nupon the platform and signed the pledge. The air was rent with applause,\nand everybody cried for joy. Everybody wrung the hand of the new convert\nwhen the meeting was over; his salary was enlarged next day; he was the\ntalk of the town, and its hero. An account of it was published.\n\nGeorge Benton fell, regularly, every three months, but was faithfully\nrescued and wrought with, every time, and good situations were found for\nhim. Finally, he was taken around the country lecturing, as a reformed\ndrunkard, and he had great houses and did an immense amount of good.\n\nHe was so popular at home, and so trusted--during his sober\nintervals--that he was enabled to use the name of a principal citizen,\nand get a large sum of money at the bank. A mighty pressure was brought\nto bear to save him from the consequences of his forgery, and it was\npartially successful--he was \"sent up\" for only two years. When, at the\nend of a year, the tireless efforts of the benevolent were crowned\nwith success, and he emerged from the penitentiary with a pardon in\nhis pocket, the Prisoner's Friend Society met him at the door with a\nsituation and a comfortable salary, and all the other benevolent people\ncame forward and gave him advice, encouragement and help. Edward Mills\nhad once applied to the Prisoner's Friend Society for a situation, when\nin dire need, but the question, \"Have you been a prisoner?\" made brief\nwork of his case.\n\nWhile all these things were going on, Edward Mills had been quietly\nmaking head against adversity. He was still poor, but was in receipt of\na steady and sufficient salary, as the respected and trusted cashier\nof a bank. George Benton never came near him, and was never heard to\ninquire about him. George got to indulging in long absences from the\ntown; there were ill reports about him, but nothing definite.\n\nOne winter's night some masked burglars forced their way into the bank,\nand found Edward Mills there alone. They commanded him to reveal the\n\"combination,\" so that they could get into the safe. He refused. They\nthreatened his life. He said his employers trusted him, and he could not\nbe traitor to that trust. He could die, if he must, but while he lived\nhe would be faithful; he would not yield up the \"combination.\" The\nburglars killed him.\n\nThe detectives hunted down the criminals; the chief one proved to be\nGeorge Benton. A wide sympathy was felt for the widow and orphans of the\ndead man, and all the newspapers in the land begged that all the banks\nin the land would testify their appreciation of the fidelity and heroism\nof the murdered cashier by coming forward with a generous contribution\nof money in aid of his family, now bereft of support. The result was\na mass of solid cash amounting to upward of five hundred dollars--an\naverage of nearly three-eights of a cent for each bank in the Union. The\ncashier's own bank testified its gratitude by endeavoring to show (but\nhumiliatingly failed in it) that the peerless servant's accounts were\nnot square, and that he himself had knocked his brains out with a\nbludgeon to escape detection and punishment.\n\nGeorge Benton was arraigned for trial. Then everybody seemed to forget\nthe widow and orphans in their solicitude for poor George. Everything\nthat money and influence could do was done to save him, but it all\nfailed; he was sentenced to death. Straightway the Governor was besieged\nwith petitions for commutation or pardon; they were brought by tearful\nyoung girls; by sorrowful old maids; by deputations of pathetic widows;\nby shoals of impressive orphans. But no, the Governor--for once--would\nnot yield.\n\nNow George Benton experienced religion. The glad news flew all around.\nFrom that time forth his cell was always full of girls and women and\nfresh flowers; all the day long there was prayer, and hymn-singing,\nand thanksgiving, and homilies, and tears, with never an interruption,\nexcept an occasional five-minute intermission for refreshments.\n\nThis sort of thing continued up to the very gallows, and George Benton\nwent proudly home, in the black cap, before a wailing audience of the\nsweetest and best that the region could produce. His grave had fresh\nflowers on it every day, for a while, and the head-stone bore these\nwords, under a hand pointing aloft: \"He has fought the good fight.\"\n\nThe brave cashier's head-stone has this inscription: \"Be pure, honest,\nsober, industrious, considerate, and you will never--\"\n\nNobody knows who gave the order to leave it that way, but it was so\ngiven.\n\nThe cashier's family are in stringent circumstances, now, it is said;\nbut no matter; a lot of appreciative people, who were not willing that\nan act so brave and true as his should go unrewarded, have collected\nforty-two thousand dollars--and built a Memorial Church with it.\n\n\n\nTHE FIVE BOONS OF LIFE\n\n\n\nChapter I\n\nIn the morning of life came a good fairy with her basket, and said:\n\n\"Here are gifts. Take one, leave the others. And be wary, choose wisely;\noh, choose wisely! for only one of them is valuable.\"\n\nThe gifts were five: Fame, Love, Riches, Pleasure, Death. The youth\nsaid, eagerly:\n\n\"There is no need to consider\"; and he chose Pleasure.\n\nHe went out into the world and sought out the pleasures that youth\ndelights in. But each in its turn was short-lived and disappointing,\nvain and empty; and each, departing, mocked him. In the end he said:\n\"These years I have wasted. If I could but choose again, I would choose\nwisely.\"\n\n\n\nChapter II\n\nThe fairy appeared, and said:\n\n\"Four of the gifts remain. Choose once more; and oh, remember--time is\nflying, and only one of them is precious.\"\n\nThe man considered long, then chose Love; and did not mark the tears\nthat rose in the fairy's eyes.\n\nAfter many, many years the man sat by a coffin, in an empty home. And he\ncommuned with himself, saying: \"One by one they have gone away and left\nme; and now she lies here, the dearest and the last. Desolation after\ndesolation has swept over me; for each hour of happiness the treacherous\ntrader, Love, has sold me I have paid a thousand hours of grief. Out of\nmy heart of hearts I curse him.\"\n\n\n\nChapter III\n\n\"Choose again.\" It was the fairy speaking.\n\n\"The years have taught you wisdom--surely it must be so. Three gifts\nremain. Only one of them has any worth--remember it, and choose warily.\"\n\nThe man reflected long, then chose Fame; and the fairy, sighing, went\nher way.\n\nYears went by and she came again, and stood behind the man where he sat\nsolitary in the fading day, thinking. And she knew his thought:\n\n\"My name filled the world, and its praises were on every tongue, and it\nseemed well with me for a little while. How little a while it was! Then\ncame envy; then detraction; then calumny; then hate; then persecution.\nThen derision, which is the beginning of the end. And last of all came\npity, which is the funeral of fame. Oh, the bitterness and misery of\nrenown! target for mud in its prime, for contempt and compassion in its\ndecay.\"\n\n\n\nChapter IV\n\n\"Chose yet again.\" It was the fairy's voice.\n\n\"Two gifts remain. And do not despair. In the beginning there was but\none that was precious, and it is still here.\"\n\n\"Wealth--which is power! How blind I was!\" said the man. \"Now, at last,\nlife will be worth the living. I will spend, squander, dazzle. These\nmockers and despisers will crawl in the dirt before me, and I will feed\nmy hungry heart with their envy. I will have all luxuries, all joys, all\nenchantments of the spirit, all contentments of the body that man holds\ndear. I will buy, buy, buy! deference, respect, esteem, worship--every\npinchbeck grace of life the market of a trivial world can furnish forth.\nI have lost much time, and chosen badly heretofore, but let that pass; I\nwas ignorant then, and could but take for best what seemed so.\"\n\nThree short years went by, and a day came when the man sat shivering in\na mean garret; and he was gaunt and wan and hollow-eyed, and clothed in\nrags; and he was gnawing a dry crust and mumbling:\n\n\"Curse all the world's gifts, for mockeries and gilded lies! And\nmiscalled, every one. They are not gifts, but merely lendings. Pleasure,\nLove, Fame, Riches: they are but temporary disguises for lasting\nrealities--Pain, Grief, Shame, Poverty. The fairy said true; in all her\nstore there was but one gift which was precious, only one that was not\nvalueless. How poor and cheap and mean I know those others now to be,\ncompared with that inestimable one, that dear and sweet and kindly one,\nthat steeps in dreamless and enduring sleep the pains that persecute the\nbody, and the shames and griefs that eat the mind and heart. Bring it! I\nam weary, I would rest.\"\n\n\n\nChapter V\n\nThe fairy came, bringing again four of the gifts, but Death was wanting.\nShe said:\n\n\"I gave it to a mother's pet, a little child. It was ignorant, but\ntrusted me, asking me to choose for it. You did not ask me to choose.\"\n\n\"Oh, miserable me! What is left for me?\"\n\n\"What not even you have deserved: the wanton insult of Old Age.\"\n\n\n\nTHE FIRST WRITING-MACHINES\n\nFrom My Unpublished Autobiography\n\nSome days ago a correspondent sent in an old typewritten sheet, faded by\nage, containing the following letter over the signature of Mark Twain:\n\n\"Hartford, March 10, 1875.\n\n\"Please do not use my name in any way. Please do not even divulge that\nfact that I own a machine. I have entirely stopped using the typewriter,\nfor the reason that I never could write a letter with it to anybody\nwithout receiving a request by return mail that I would not only\ndescribe the machine, but state what progress I had made in the use of\nit, etc., etc. I don't like to write letters, and so I don't want people\nto know I own this curiosity-breeding little joker.\"\n\nA note was sent to Mr. Clemens asking him if the letter was genuine\nand whether he really had a typewriter as long ago as that. Mr.\nClemens replied that his best answer is the following chapter from his\nunpublished autobiography:\n\n1904. VILLA QUARTO, FLORENCE, JANUARY.\n\nDictating autobiography to a typewriter is a new experience for me, but\nit goes very well, and is going to save time and \"language\"--the kind of\nlanguage that soothes vexation.\n\nI have dictated to a typewriter before--but not autobiography. Between\nthat experience and the present one there lies a mighty gap--more than\nthirty years! It is a sort of lifetime. In that wide interval much\nhas happened--to the type-machine as well as to the rest of us. At the\nbeginning of that interval a type-machine was a curiosity. The person\nwho owned one was a curiosity, too. But now it is the other way about:\nthe person who _doesn't_ own one is a curiosity. I saw a type-machine\nfor the first time in--what year? I suppose it was 1873--because\nNasby was with me at the time, and it was in Boston. We must have been\nlecturing, or we could not have been in Boston, I take it. I quitted the\nplatform that season.\n\nBut never mind about that, it is no matter. Nasby and I saw the machine\nthrough a window, and went in to look at it. The salesman explained it\nto us, showed us samples of its work, and said it could do fifty-seven\nwords a minute--a statement which we frankly confessed that we did not\nbelieve. So he put his type-girl to work, and we timed her by the\nwatch. She actually did the fifty-seven in sixty seconds. We were partly\nconvinced, but said it probably couldn't happen again. But it did. We\ntimed the girl over and over again--with the same result always: she won\nout. She did her work on narrow slips of paper, and we pocketed them as\nfast as she turned them out, to show as curiosities. The price of the\nmachine was one hundred and twenty-five dollars. I bought one, and we\nwent away very much excited.\n\nAt the hotel we got out our slips and were a little disappointed to find\nthat they contained the same words. The girl had economized time\nand labor by using a formula which she knew by heart. However, we\nargued--safely enough--that the _first _type-girl must naturally take\nrank with the first billiard-player: neither of them could be expected\nto get out of the game any more than a third or a half of what was in\nit. If the machine survived--_if_ it survived--experts would come to the\nfront, by and by, who would double the girl's output without a doubt.\nThey would do one hundred words a minute--my talking speed on the\nplatform. That score has long ago been beaten.\n\nAt home I played with the toy, repeating and repeating and repeating\n\"The Boy stood on the Burning Deck,\" until I could turn that boy's\nadventure out at the rate of twelve words a minute; then I resumed the\npen, for business, and only worked the machine to astonish inquiring\nvisitors. They carried off many reams of the boy and his burning deck.\n\nBy and by I hired a young woman, and did my first dictating (letters,\nmerely), and my last until now. The machine did not do both capitals and\nlower case (as now), but only capitals. Gothic capitals they were, and\nsufficiently ugly. I remember the first letter I dictated, it was to\nEdward Bok, who was a boy then. I was not acquainted with him at that\ntime. His present enterprising spirit is not new--he had it in that\nearly day. He was accumulating autographs, and was not content with mere\nsignatures, he wanted a whole autograph _letter_. I furnished it--in\ntype-written capitals, _signature and all._ It was long; it was a\nsermon; it contained advice; also reproaches. I said writing was my\n_trade_, my bread-and-butter; I said it was not fair to ask a man\nto give away samples of his trade; would he ask the blacksmith for a\nhorseshoe? would he ask the doctor for a corpse?\n\nNow I come to an important matter--as I regard it. In the year '74\nthe young woman copied a considerable part of a book of mine _on the\nmachine_. In a previous chapter of this Autobiography I have claimed\nthat I was the first person in the world that ever had a telephone\nin the house for practical purposes; I will now claim--until\ndispossessed--that I was the first person in the world to _apply the\ntype-machine to literature_. That book must have been _The Adventures Of\nTom Sawyer._ I wrote the first half of it in '72, the rest of it in '74.\nMy machinist type-copied a book for me in '74, so I concluded it was\nthat one.\n\nThat early machine was full of caprices, full of defects--devilish ones.\nIt had as many immoralities as the machine of today has virtues. After\na year or two I found that it was degrading my character, so I thought\nI would give it to Howells. He was reluctant, for he was suspicious of\nnovelties and unfriendly toward them, and he remains so to this day. But\nI persuaded him. He had great confidence in me, and I got him to believe\nthings about the machine that I did not believe myself. He took it home\nto Boston, and my morals began to improve, but his have never recovered.\n\nHe kept it six months, and then returned it to me. I gave it away twice\nafter that, but it wouldn't stay; it came back. Then I gave it to our\ncoachman, Patrick McAleer, who was very grateful, because he did not\nknow the animal, and thought I was trying to make him wiser and better.\nAs soon as he got wiser and better he traded it to a heretic for a\nside-saddle which he could not use, and there my knowledge of its\nhistory ends.\n\n\n\nITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER\n\nIt is almost a fortnight now that I am domiciled in a medieval villa in\nthe country, a mile or two from Florence. I cannot speak the language;\nI am too old now to learn how, also too busy when I am busy, and too\nindolent when I am not; wherefore some will imagine that I am having a\ndull time of it. But it is not so. The \"help\" are all natives; they talk\nItalian to me, I answer in English; I do not understand them, they\ndo not understand me, consequently no harm is done, and everybody is\nsatisfied. In order to be just and fair, I throw in an Italian word when\nI have one, and this has a good influence. I get the word out of the\nmorning paper. I have to use it while it is fresh, for I find that\nItalian words do not keep in this climate. They fade toward night, and\nnext morning they are gone. But it is no matter; I get a new one out of\nthe paper before breakfast, and thrill the domestics with it while it\nlasts. I have no dictionary, and I do not want one; I can select words\nby the sound, or by orthographic aspect. Many of them have French or\nGerman or English look, and these are the ones I enslave for the day's\nservice. That is, as a rule. Not always. If I find a learnable phrase\nthat has an imposing look and warbles musically along I do not care to\nknow the meaning of it; I pay it out to the first applicant, knowing\nthat if I pronounce it carefully_ he_ will understand it, and that's\nenough.\n\nYesterday's word was _avanti_. It sounds Shakespearian, and probably\nmeans Avaunt and quit my sight. Today I have a whole phrase: _sono\ndispiacentissimo_. I do not know what it means, but it seems to fit\nin everywhere and give satisfaction. Although as a rule my words and\nphrases are good for one day and train only, I have several that stay by\nme all the time, for some unknown reason, and these come very handy\nwhen I get into a long conversation and need things to fire up with\nin monotonous stretches. One of the best ones is _dov \u010d il gatto_. It\nnearly always produces a pleasant surprise, therefore I save it up for\nplaces where I want to express applause or admiration. The fourth word\nhas a French sound, and I think the phrase means \"that takes the cake.\"\n\nDuring my first week in the deep and dreamy stillness of this woodsy\nand flowery place I was without news of the outside world, and was well\ncontent without it. It had been four weeks since I had seen a newspaper,\nand this lack seemed to give life a new charm and grace, and to saturate\nit with a feeling verging upon actual delight. Then came a change that\nwas to be expected: the appetite for news began to rise again, after\nthis invigorating rest. I had to feed it, but I was not willing to let\nit make me its helpless slave again; I determined to put it on a diet,\nand a strict and limited one. So I examined an Italian paper, with\nthe idea of feeding it on that, and on that exclusively. On that\nexclusively, and without help of a dictionary. In this way I should\nsurely be well protected against overloading and indigestion.\n\nA glance at the telegraphic page filled me with encouragement. There\nwere no scare-heads. That was good--supremely good. But there were\nheadings--one-liners and two-liners--and that was good too; for without\nthese, one must do as one does with a German paper--pay out precious\ntime in finding out what an article is about, only to discover, in many\ncases, that there is nothing in it of interest to you. The headline is a\nvaluable thing.\n\nNecessarily we are all fond of murders, scandals, swindles, robberies,\nexplosions, collisions, and all such things, when we know the people,\nand when they are neighbors and friends, but when they are strangers we\ndo not get any great pleasure out of them, as a rule. Now the trouble\nwith an American paper is that it has no discrimination; it rakes the\nwhole earth for blood and garbage, and the result is that you are daily\noverfed and suffer a surfeit. By habit you stow this muck every day, but\nyou come by and by to take no vital interest in it--indeed, you\nalmost get tired of it. As a rule, forty-nine-fiftieths of it concerns\nstrangers only--people away off yonder, a thousand miles, two thousand\nmiles, ten thousand miles from where you are. Why, when you come to\nthink of it, who cares what becomes of those people? I would not give\nthe assassination of one personal friend for a whole massacre of those\nothers. And, to my mind, one relative or neighbor mixed up in a scandal\nis more interesting than a whole Sodom and Gomorrah of outlanders gone\nrotten. Give me the home product every time.\n\nVery well. I saw at a glance that the Florentine paper would suit me:\nfive out of six of its scandals and tragedies were local; they were\nadventures of one's very neighbors, one might almost say one's friends.\nIn the matter of world news there was not too much, but just about\nenough. I subscribed. I have had no occasion to regret it. Every morning\nI get all the news I need for the day; sometimes from the headlines,\nsometimes from the text. I have never had to call for a dictionary yet.\nI read the paper with ease. Often I do not quite understand, often some\nof the details escape me, but no matter, I get the idea. I will cut out\na passage or two, then you see how limpid the language is:\n\nIl ritorno dei Beati d'Italia\n\nElargizione del Re all' Ospedale italiano\n\nThe first line means that the Italian sovereigns are coming back--they\nhave been to England. The second line seems to mean that they enlarged\nthe King at the Italian hospital. With a banquet, I suppose. An English\nbanquet has that effect. Further:\n\n_Il ritorno dei sovrani_\n\na Roma\n\nROMA, 24, ore 22,50.--_I Sovrani e le Principessine Reali si attendono a\nRoma domani alle ore_ 15,51.\n\nReturn of the sovereigns to Rome, you see. Date of the telegram, Rome,\nNovember 24, ten minutes before twenty-three o'clock. The telegram seems\nto say, \"The Sovereigns and the Royal Children expect themselves at Rome\ntomorrow at fifty-one minutes after fifteen o'clock.\"\n\nI do not know about Italian time, but I judge it begins at midnight\nand runs through the twenty-four hours without breaking bulk. In the\nfollowing ad, the theaters open at half-past twenty. If these are not\nmatinees, 20.30 must mean 8.30 P.M., by my reckoning.\n\nSpettacolli del di 25\n\nTEATRO DELLA PERGOLA--(Ore 20,30)--Opera. BOHEME. TEATRO\nALFIERI.--Compagnia drammatica Drago--(Ore 20,30)--LA LEGGE.\nALHAMBRA--(Ore 20,30)--Spettacolo variato. SALA EDISON--Grandioso\nspettacolo Cinematografico: QUO-VADIS?--Inaugurazione della\nChiesa Russa -- In coda al Direttissimo -- Vedute di Firenze con gran\nmovimeno -- America: Transporto tronchi giganteschi--I ladri in casa del\nDiavolo -- Scene comiche. CINEMATOGRAFO -- Via Brunelleschi n. 4.--Programma\nstraordinario, DON CHISCIOTTE -- Prezzi populari.\n\nThe whole of that is intelligible to me--and sane and rational,\ntoo--except the remark about the Inauguration of a Russian Cheese. That\none oversizes my hand. Gimme me five cards.\n\nThis is a four-page paper; and as it is set in long primer leaded\nand has a page of advertisements, there is no room for the crimes,\ndisasters, and general sweepings of the outside world--thanks be! Today\nI find only a single importation of the off-color sort:\n\nUna Principessa\n\nche fugge con un cocchiere\n\nPARIGI, 24.--Il MATIN ha da Berlino che la principessa\nSchovenbare-Waldenbure scomparve il 9 novembre. Sarebbe partita col suo\ncocchiere.\n\nLa Principassa ha 27 anni.\n\nTwenty-seven years old, and scomparve--scampered--on the 9th November.\nYou see by the added detail that she departed with her coachman. I hope\nSarebbe has not made a mistake, but I am afraid the chances are that she\nhas. _Sono dispiacentissimo_.\n\nThere are several fires: also a couple of accidents. This is one of\nthem:\n\nGrave disgrazia sul Ponte Vecchio\n\nStammattina, circe le 7,30, mentre Giuseppe Sciatti, di anni 55, di\nCasellina e Torri, passava dal Ponte Vecchio, stando seduto sopra un\nbarroccio carico di verdura, perse l' equilibrio e cadde al suolo,\nrimanendo con la gamba destra sotto una ruota del veicolo.\n\nLo Sciatti fu subito raccolto da alcuni cittadini, che, per mezzo della\npubblica vettura n. 365, lo transporto a San Giovanni di Dio.\n\nIvi il medico di guardia gli riscontro la frattura della gamba destra\ne alcune lievi escoriazioni giudicandolo guaribile in 50 giorni salvo\ncomplicazioni.\n\nWhat it seems to say is this: \"Serious Disgrace on the Old Old Bridge.\nThis morning about 7.30, Mr. Joseph Sciatti, aged 55, of Casellina and\nTorri, while standing up in a sitting posture on top of a carico barrow\nof vedure (foliage? hay? vegetables?), lost his equilibrium and fell\non himself, arriving with his left leg under one of the wheels of the\nvehicle.\n\n\"Said Sciatti was suddenly harvested (gathered in?) by several citizens,\nwho by means of public cab No. 365 transported him to St. John of God.\"\n\nParagraph No. 3 is a little obscure, but I think it says that the medico\nset the broken left leg--right enough, since there was nothing the\nmatter with the other one--and that several are encouraged to hope that\nfifty days well fetch him around in quite giudicandolo-guaribile way, if\nno complications intervene.\n\nI am sure I hope so myself.\n\nThere is a great and peculiar charm about reading news-scraps in a\nlanguage which you are not acquainted with--the charm that always goes\nwith the mysterious and the uncertain. You can never be absolutely\nsure of the meaning of anything you read in such circumstances; you are\nchasing an alert and gamy riddle all the time, and the baffling turns\nand dodges of the prey make the life of the hunt. A dictionary would\nspoil it. Sometimes a single word of doubtful purport will cast a veil\nof dreamy and golden uncertainty over a whole paragraph of cold and\npractical certainties, and leave steeped in a haunting and adorable\nmystery an incident which had been vulgar and commonplace but for that\nbenefaction. Would you be wise to draw a dictionary on that gracious\nword? would you be properly grateful?\n\nAfter a couple of days' rest I now come back to my subject and seek\na case in point. I find it without trouble, in the morning paper; a\ncablegram from Chicago and Indiana by way of Paris. All the words save\none are guessable by a person ignorant of Italian:\n\nRevolverate in teatro\n\nPARIGI, 27.--La PATRIE ha da Chicago:\n\nIl guardiano del teatro dell'opera di Walace (Indiana), avendo voluto\nespellare uno spettatore che continuava a fumare malgrado il diviety,\nquesto spalleggiato dai suoi amici tir`o diversi colpi di rivoltella.\nIl guardiano ripose. Nacque una scarica generale. Grande panico tra gli\nspettatori. Nessun ferito.\n\n_Translation._--\"Revolveration in Theater. _Paris, 27th. La Patrie_ has\nfrom Chicago: The cop of the theater of the opera of Wallace, Indiana,\nhad willed to expel a spectator which continued to smoke in spite of the\nprohibition, who, spalleggiato by his friends, tire (_Fr. Tire, Anglice\nPulled_) manifold revolver-shots; great panic among the spectators.\nNobody hurt.\"\n\nIt is bettable that that harmless cataclysm in the theater of the opera\nof Wallace, Indiana, excited not a person in Europe but me, and so came\nnear to not being worth cabling to Florence by way of France. But it\ndoes excite me. It excites me because I cannot make out, for sure, what\nit was that moved the spectator to resist the officer. I was gliding\nalong smoothly and without obstruction or accident, until I came to that\nword \"spalleggiato,\" then the bottom fell out. You notice what a rich\ngloom, what a somber and pervading mystery, that word sheds all over the\nwhole Wallachian tragedy. That is the charm of the thing, that is the\ndelight of it. This is where you begin, this is where you revel. You can\nguess and guess, and have all the fun you like; you need not be afraid\nthere will be an end to it; none is possible, for no amount of guessing\nwill ever furnish you a meaning for that word that you can be sure is\nthe right one. All the other words give you hints, by their form, their\nsound, or their spelling--this one doesn't, this one throws out no\nhints, this one keeps its secret. If there is even the slightest slight\nshadow of a hint anywhere, it lies in the very meagerly suggestive fact\nthat \"spalleggiato\" carries our word \"egg\" in its stomach. Well, make\nthe most out of it, and then where are you at? You conjecture that\nthe spectator which was smoking in spite of the prohibition and become\nreprohibited by the guardians, was \"egged on\" by his friends, and that\nwas owing to that evil influence that he initiated the revolveration in\ntheater that has galloped under the sea and come crashing through the\nEuropean press without exciting anybody but me. But are you sure, are\nyou dead sure, that that was the way of it? No. Then the uncertainty\nremains, the mystery abides, and with it the charm. Guess again.\n\nIf I had a phrase-book of a really satisfactory sort I would study it,\nand not give all my free time to undictionarial readings, but there is\nno such work on the market. The existing phrase-books are inadequate.\nThey are well enough as far as they go, but when you fall down and skin\nyour leg they don't tell you what to say.\n\n\n\nITALIAN WITH GRAMMAR\n\nI found that a person of large intelligence could read this beautiful\nlanguage with considerable facility without a dictionary, but I\npresently found that to such a person a grammar could be of use at\ntimes. It is because, if he does not know the _were's_ and the\n_was's_ and the _maybe's_ and the _has-beens's_ apart, confusions and\nuncertainties can arise. He can get the idea that a thing is going to\nhappen next week when the truth is that it has already happened week\nbefore last. Even more previously, sometimes. Examination and inquiry\nshowed me that the adjectives and such things were frank and fair-minded\nand straightforward, and did not shuffle; it was the Verb that mixed the\nhands, it was the Verb that lacked stability, it was the Verb that had\nno permanent opinion about anything, it was the Verb that was always\ndodging the issue and putting out the light and making all the trouble.\n\nFurther examination, further inquiry, further reflection, confirmed this\njudgment, and established beyond peradventure the fact that the Verb was\nthe storm-center. This discovery made plain the right and wise course to\npursue in order to acquire certainty and exactness in understanding the\nstatements which the newspaper was daily endeavoring to convey to me: I\nmust catch a Verb and tame it. I must find out its ways, I must spot\nits eccentricities, I must penetrate its disguises, I must intelligently\nforesee and forecast at least the commoner of the dodges it was likely\nto try upon a stranger in given circumstances, I must get in on its main\nshifts and head them off, I must learn its game and play the limit.\n\nI had noticed, in other foreign languages, that verbs are bred in\nfamilies, and that the members of each family have certain features or\nresemblances that are common to that family and distinguish it from the\nother families--the other kin, the cousins and what not. I had noticed\nthat this family-mark is not usually the nose or the hair, so to speak,\nbut the tail--the Termination--and that these tails are quite definitely\ndifferentiated; insomuch that an expert can tell a Pluperfect from a\nSubjunctive by its tail as easily and as certainly as a cowboy can tell\na cow from a horse by the like process, the result of observation and\nculture. I should explain that I am speaking of legitimate verbs, those\nverbs which in the slang of the grammar are called Regular. There are\nothers--I am not meaning to conceal this; others called Irregulars, born\nout of wedlock, of unknown and uninteresting parentage, and naturally\ndestitute of family resemblances, as regards to all features, tails\nincluded. But of these pathetic outcasts I have nothing to say. I do not\napprove of them, I do not encourage them; I am prudishly delicate and\nsensitive, and I do not allow them to be used in my presence.\n\nBut, as I have said, I decided to catch one of the others and break it\ninto harness. One is enough. Once familiar with its assortment of tails,\nyou are immune; after that, no regular verb can conceal its specialty\nfrom you and make you think it is working the past or the future or the\nconditional or the unconditional when it is engaged in some other line\nof business--its tail will give it away. I found out all these things by\nmyself, without a teacher.\n\nI selected the verb _amare, to love._ Not for any personal reason, for\nI am indifferent about verbs; I care no more for one verb than for\nanother, and have little or no respect for any of them; but in foreign\nlanguages you always begin with that one. Why, I don't know. It is\nmerely habit, I suppose; the first teacher chose it, Adam was satisfied,\nand there hasn't been a successor since with originality enough to start\na fresh one. For they _are _a pretty limited lot, you will admit that?\nOriginality is not in their line; they can't think up anything new,\nanything to freshen up the old moss-grown dullness of the language\nlesson and put life and \"go\" into it, and charm and grace and\npicturesqueness.\n\nI knew I must look after those details myself; therefore I thought them\nout and wrote them down, and sent for the _facchino _and explained them\nto him, and said he must arrange a proper plant, and get together a\ngood stock company among the _contadini_, and design the costumes, and\ndistribute the parts; and drill the troupe, and be ready in three days\nto begin on this Verb in a shipshape and workman-like manner. I told him\nto put each grand division of it under a foreman, and each subdivision\nunder a subordinate of the rank of sergeant or corporal or something\nlike that, and to have a different uniform for each squad, so that I\ncould tell a Pluperfect from a Compound Future without looking at the\nbook; the whole battery to be under his own special and particular\ncommand, with the rank of Brigadier, and I to pay the freight.\n\nI then inquired into the character and possibilities of the selected\nverb, and was much disturbed to find that it was over my size, it being\nchambered for fifty-seven rounds--fifty-seven ways of saying I _love_\nwithout reloading; and yet none of them likely to convince a girl that\nwas laying for a title, or a title that was laying for rocks.\n\nIt seemed to me that with my inexperience it would be foolish to go into\naction with this mitrailleuse, so I ordered it to the rear and told the\nfacchino to provide something a little more primitive to start with,\nsomething less elaborate, some gentle old-fashioned flint-lock,\nsmooth-bore, double-barreled thing, calculated to cripple at two hundred\nyards and kill at forty--an arrangement suitable for a beginner who\ncould be satisfied with moderate results on the offstart and did not\nwish to take the whole territory in the first campaign.\n\nBut in vain. He was not able to mend the matter, all the verbs being\nof the same build, all Gatlings, all of the same caliber and delivery,\nfifty-seven to the volley, and fatal at a mile and a half. But he said\nthe auxiliary verb _avere, to have_, was a tidy thing, and easy to\nhandle in a seaway, and less likely to miss stays in going about than\nsome of the others; so, upon his recommendation I chose that one,\nand told him to take it along and scrape its bottom and break out its\nspinnaker and get it ready for business.\n\nI will explain that a facchino is a general-utility domestic. Mine was a\nhorse-doctor in his better days, and a very good one.\n\nAt the end of three days the facchino-doctor-brigadier was ready. I was\nalso ready, with a stenographer. We were in a room called the Rope-Walk.\nThis is a formidably long room, as is indicated by its facetious name,\nand is a good place for reviews. At 9:30 the F.-D.-B. took his place\nnear me and gave the word of command; the drums began to rumble and\nthunder, the head of the forces appeared at an upper door, and the\n\"march-past\" was on. Down they filed, a blaze of variegated color, each\nsquad gaudy in a uniform of its own and bearing a banner inscribed with\nits verbal rank and quality: first the Present Tense in Mediterranean\nblue and old gold, then the Past Definite in scarlet and black, then the\nImperfect in green and yellow, then the Indicative Future in the stars\nand stripes, then the Old Red Sandstone Subjunctive in purple\nand silver--and so on and so on, fifty-seven privates and twenty\ncommissioned and non-commissioned officers; certainly one of the most\nfiery and dazzling and eloquent sights I have ever beheld. I could not\nkeep back the tears. Presently:\n\n\"Halt!\" commanded the Brigadier.\n\n\"Front--face!\"\n\n\"Right dress!\"\n\n\"Stand at ease!\"\n\n\"One--two--three. In unison--_recite!_\"\n\nIt was fine. In one noble volume of sound of all the fifty-seven\nHaves in the Italian language burst forth in an exalting and splendid\nconfusion. Then came commands:\n\n\"About--face! Eyes--front! Helm alee--hard aport! Forward--march!\" and\nthe drums let go again.\n\nWhen the last Termination had disappeared, the commander said the\ninstruction drill would now begin, and asked for suggestions. I said:\n\n\"They say _I have, thou hast, he has_, and so on, but they don't say\n_what_. It will be better, and more definite, if they have something to\nhave; just an object, you know, a something--anything will do; anything\nthat will give the listener a sort of personal as well as grammatical\ninterest in their joys and complaints, you see.\"\n\nHe said:\n\n\"It is a good point. Would a dog do?\"\n\nI said I did not know, but we could try a dog and see. So he sent out an\naide-de-camp to give the order to add the dog.\n\nThe six privates of the Present Tense now filed in, in charge of\nSergeant Avere (_to have_), and displaying their banner. They formed in\nline of battle, and recited, one at a time, thus:\n\n\"_Io ho un cane,_ I have a dog.\"\n\n\"_Tu hai un cane_, thou hast a dog.\"\n\n_\"Egli ha un cane, _he has a dog.\"\n\n_\"Noi abbiamo un cane_, we have a dog.\"\n\n\"_Voi avete un cane_, you have a dog.\"\n\n\"_Eglino hanno un cane,_ they have a dog.\"\n\nNo comment followed. They returned to camp, and I reflected a while. The\ncommander said:\n\n\"I fear you are disappointed.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said; \"they are too monotonous, too singsong, to\ndead-and-alive; they have no expression, no elocution. It isn't natural;\nit could never happen in real life. A person who had just acquired a dog\nis either blame' glad or blame' sorry. He is not on the fence. I never\nsaw a case. What the nation do you suppose is the matter with these\npeople?\"\n\nHe thought maybe the trouble was with the dog. He said:\n\n\"These are _contadini_, you know, and they have a prejudice against\ndogs--that is, against marimane. Marimana dogs stand guard over people's\nvines and olives, you know, and are very savage, and thereby a grief and\nan inconvenience to persons who want other people's things at night. In\nmy judgment they have taken this dog for a marimana, and have soured on\nhim.\"\n\nI saw that the dog was a mistake, and not functionable: we must try\nsomething else; something, if possible, that could evoke sentiment,\ninterest, feeling.\n\n\"What is cat, in Italian?\" I asked.\n\n\"Gatto.\"\n\n\"Is it a gentleman cat, or a lady?\"\n\n\"Gentleman cat.\"\n\n\"How are these people as regards that animal?\"\n\n\"We-ll, they--they--\"\n\n\"You hesitate: that is enough. How are they about chickens?\"\n\nHe tilted his eyes toward heaven in mute ecstasy. I understood.\n\n\"What is chicken, in Italian?\" I asked.\n\n\"Pollo, _Podere._\" (Podere is Italian for master. It is a title of\ncourtesy, and conveys reverence and admiration.) \"Pollo is one chicken\nby itself; when there are enough present to constitute a plural, it is\n_polli._\"\n\n\"Very well, polli will do. Which squad is detailed for duty next?\"\n\n\"The Past Definite.\"\n\n\"Send out and order it to the front--with chickens. And let them\nunderstand that we don't want any more of this cold indifference.\"\n\nHe gave the order to an aide, adding, with a haunting tenderness in his\ntone and a watering mouth in his aspect:\n\n\"Convey to them the conception that these are unprotected chickens.\" He\nturned to me, saluting with his hand to his temple, and explained, \"It\nwill inflame their interest in the poultry, sire.\"\n\nA few minutes elapsed. Then the squad marched in and formed up, their\nfaces glowing with enthusiasm, and the file-leader shouted:\n\n\"_Ebbi polli_, I had chickens!\"\n\n\"Good!\" I said. \"Go on, the next.\"\n\n\"_Avest polli_, thou hadst chickens!\"\n\n\"Fine! Next!\"\n\n\"_Ebbe polli_, he had chickens!\"\n\n\"Moltimoltissimo! Go on, the next!\"\n\n\"_Avemmo polli,_ we had chickens!\"\n\n\"Basta-basta aspettatto avanti--last man--_charge_!\"\n\n\"_Ebbero polli_, they had chickens!\"\n\nThen they formed in echelon, by columns of fours, refused the left, and\nretired in great style on the double-quick. I was enchanted, and said:\n\n\"Now, doctor, that is something _like_! Chickens are the ticket, there\nis no doubt about it. What is the next squad?\"\n\n\"The Imperfect.\"\n\n\"How does it go?\"\n\n\"_Io Aveva_, I had, _tu avevi_, thou hadst, _egli aveva_, he had, _noi\nav_--\"\n\n\"Wait--we've just _had _the hads. What are you giving me?\"\n\n\"But this is another breed.\"\n\n\"What do we want of another breed? Isn't one breed enough? _Had_ is\n_had_, and your tricking it out in a fresh way of spelling isn't going\nto make it any hadder than it was before; now you know that yourself.\"\n\n\"But there is a distinction--they are not just the same Hads.\"\n\n\"How do you make it out?\"\n\n\"Well, you use that first Had when you are referring to something that\nhappened at a named and sharp and perfectly definite moment; you use the\nother when the thing happened at a vaguely defined time and in a more\nprolonged and indefinitely continuous way.\"\n\n\"Why, doctor, it is pure nonsense; you know it yourself. Look here: If\nI have had a had, or have wanted to have had a had, or was in a position\nright then and there to have had a had that hadn't had any chance to go\nout hadding on account of this foolish discrimination which lets one Had\ngo hadding in any kind of indefinite grammatical weather but restricts\nthe other one to definite and datable meteoric convulsions, and keeps it\npining around and watching the barometer all the time, and liable to\nget sick through confinement and lack of exercise, and all that sort of\nthing, why--why, the inhumanity of it is enough, let alone the\nwanton superfluity and uselessness of any such a loafing consumptive\nhospital-bird of a Had taking up room and cumbering the place for\nnothing. These finical refinements revolt me; it is not right, it is not\nhonorable; it is constructive nepotism to keep in office a Had that is\nso delicate it can't come out when the wind's in the nor'west--I won't\nhave this dude on the payroll. Cancel his exequator; and look here--\"\n\n\"But you miss the point. It is like this. You see--\"\n\n\"Never mind explaining, I don't care anything about it. Six Hads is\nenough for me; anybody that needs twelve, let him subscribe; I don't\nwant any stock in a Had Trust. Knock out the Prolonged and Indefinitely\nContinuous; four-fifths of it is water, anyway.\"\n\n\"But I beg you, podere! It is often quite indispensable in cases\nwhere--\"\n\n\"Pipe the next squad to the assault!\"\n\nBut it was not to be; for at that moment the dull boom of the noon\ngun floated up out of far-off Florence, followed by the usual softened\njangle of church-bells, Florentine and suburban, that bursts out in\nmurmurous response; by labor-union law the _colazione_ (1) must stop;\nstop promptly, stop instantly, stop definitely, like the chosen and best\nof the breed of Hads.\n\n1. Colazione is Italian for a collection, a meeting, a seance, a\nsitting.--M.T.\n\n\n\nA BURLESQUE BIOGRAPHY\n\nTwo or three persons having at different times intimated that if I would\nwrite an autobiography they would read it when they got leisure, I yield\nat last to this frenzied public demand and herewith tender my history.\n\nOurs is a noble house, and stretches a long way back into antiquity.\nThe earliest ancestor the Twains have any record of was a friend of the\nfamily by the name of Higgins. This was in the eleventh century, when\nour people were living in Aberdeen, county of Cork, England. Why it is\nthat our long line has ever since borne the maternal name (except when\none of them now and then took a playful refuge in an alias to avert\nfoolishness), instead of Higgins, is a mystery which none of us has ever\nfelt much desire to stir. It is a kind of vague, pretty romance, and we\nleave it alone. All the old families do that way.\n\nArthour Twain was a man of considerable note--a solicitor on the highway\nin William Rufus's time. At about the age of thirty he went to one of\nthose fine old English places of resort called Newgate, to see about\nsomething, and never returned again. While there he died suddenly.\n\nAugustus Twain seems to have made something of a stir about the year\n1160. He was as full of fun as he could be, and used to take his old\nsaber and sharpen it up, and get in a convenient place on a dark night,\nand stick it through people as they went by, to see them jump. He was a\nborn humorist. But he got to going too far with it; and the first time\nhe was found stripping one of these parties, the authorities removed one\nend of him, and put it up on a nice high place on Temple Bar, where it\ncould contemplate the people and have a good time. He never liked any\nsituation so much or stuck to it so long.\n\nThen for the next two hundred years the family tree shows a succession\nof soldiers--noble, high-spirited fellows, who always went into battle\nsinging, right behind the army, and always went out a-whooping, right\nahead of it.\n\nThis is a scathing rebuke to old dead Froissart's poor witticism that\nour family tree never had but one limb to it, and that that one stuck\nout at right angles, and bore fruit winter and summer.\n\nEarly in the fifteenth century we have Beau Twain, called \"the Scholar.\"\nHe wrote a beautiful, beautiful hand. And he could imitate anybody's\nhand so closely that it was enough to make a person laugh his head off\nto see it. He had infinite sport with his talent. But by and by he took\na contract to break stone for a road, and the roughness of the work\nspoiled his hand. Still, he enjoyed life all the time he was in the\nstone business, which, with inconsiderable intervals, was some forty-two\nyears. In fact, he died in harness. During all those long years he gave\nsuch satisfaction that he never was through with one contract a week\ntill the government gave him another. He was a perfect pet. And he was\nalways a favorite with his fellow-artists, and was a conspicuous member\nof their benevolent secret society, called the Chain Gang. He always\nwore his hair short, had a preference for striped clothes, and died\nlamented by the government. He was a sore loss to his country. For he\nwas so regular.\n\nSome years later we have the illustrious John Morgan Twain. He came over\nto this country with Columbus in 1492 as a passenger. He appears to have\nbeen of a crusty, uncomfortable disposition. He complained of the food\nall the way over, and was always threatening to go ashore unless there\nwas a change. He wanted fresh shad. Hardly a day passed over his head\nthat he did not go idling about the ship with his nose in the air,\nsneering about the commander, and saying he did not believe Columbus\nknew where he was going to or had ever been there before. The memorable\ncry of \"Land ho!\" thrilled every heart in the ship but his. He gazed\nawhile through a piece of smoked glass at the penciled line lying on the\ndistant water, and then said: \"Land be hanged--it's a raft!\"\n\nWhen this questionable passenger came on board the ship, he brought\nnothing with him but an old newspaper containing a handkerchief marked\n\"B. G.,\" one cotton sock marked \"L. W. C.,\" one woolen one marked \"D.\nF.,\" and a night-shirt marked \"O. M. R.\" And yet during the voyage he\nworried more about his \"trunk,\" and gave himself more airs about it,\nthan all the rest of the passengers put together. If the ship was \"down\nby the head,\" and would not steer, he would go and move his \"trunk\"\nfurther aft, and then watch the effect. If the ship was \"by the stern,\"\nhe would suggest to Columbus to detail some men to \"shift that baggage.\"\nIn storms he had to be gagged, because his wailings about his \"trunk\"\nmade it impossible for the men to hear the orders. The man does not\nappear to have been openly charged with any gravely unbecoming thing,\nbut it is noted in the ship's log as a \"curious circumstance\" that\nalbeit he brought his baggage on board the ship in a newspaper, he took\nit ashore in four trunks, a queensware crate, and a couple of champagne\nbaskets. But when he came back insinuating, in an insolent, swaggering\nway, that some of this things were missing, and was going to search\nthe other passengers' baggage, it was too much, and they threw him\noverboard. They watched long and wonderingly for him to come up, but not\neven a bubble rose on the quietly ebbing tide. But while every one was\nmost absorbed in gazing over the side, and the interest was momentarily\nincreasing, it was observed with consternation that the vessel was\nadrift and the anchor-cable hanging limp from the bow. Then in the\nship's dimmed and ancient log we find this quaint note:\n\n\"In time it was discouvered yt ye troblesome passenger hadde gone downe\nand got ye anchor, and toke ye same and solde it to ye dam sauvages from\nye interior, saying yt he hadde founde it, ye sonne of a ghun!\"\n\nYet this ancestor had good and noble instincts, and it is with pride\nthat we call to mind the fact that he was the first white person who\never interested himself in the work of elevating and civilizing our\nIndians. He built a commodious jail and put up a gallows, and to\nhis dying day he claimed with satisfaction that he had had a more\nrestraining and elevating influence on the Indians than any other\nreformer that ever labored among them. At this point the chronicle\nbecomes less frank and chatty, and closes abruptly by saying that the\nold voyager went to see his gallows perform on the first white man ever\nhanged in America, and while there received injuries which terminated in\nhis death.\n\nThe great-grandson of the \"Reformer\" flourished in sixteen hundred and\nsomething, and was known in our annals as \"the old Admiral,\" though in\nhistory he had other titles. He was long in command of fleets of swift\nvessels, well armed and manned, and did great service in hurrying up\nmerchantmen. Vessels which he followed and kept his eagle eye on, always\nmade good fair time across the ocean. But if a ship still loitered\nin spite of all he could do, his indignation would grow till he could\ncontain himself no longer--and then he would take that ship home where\nhe lived and keep it there carefully, expecting the owners to come for\nit, but they never did. And he would try to get the idleness and sloth\nout of the sailors of that ship by compelling them to take invigorating\nexercise and a bath. He called it \"walking a plank.\" All the pupils\nliked it. At any rate, they never found any fault with it after trying\nit. When the owners were late coming for their ships, the Admiral always\nburned them, so that the insurance money should not be lost. At last\nthis fine old tar was cut down in the fullness of his years and honors.\nAnd to her dying day, his poor heart-broken widow believed that if\nhe had been cut down fifteen minutes sooner he might have been\nresuscitated.\n\nCharles Henry Twain lived during the latter part of the seventeenth\ncentury, and was a zealous and distinguished missionary. He converted\nsixteen thousand South Sea islanders, and taught them that a dog-tooth\nnecklace and a pair of spectacles was not enough clothing to come to\ndivine service in. His poor flock loved him very, very dearly; and\nwhen his funeral was over, they got up in a body (and came out of the\nrestaurant) with tears in their eyes, and saying, one to another, that\nhe was a good tender missionary, and they wished they had some more of\nhim.\n\nPah-go-to-wah-wah-pukketekeewis (Mighty-Hunter-with-a-Hog-Eye-Twain)\nadorned the middle of the eighteenth century, and aided General Braddock\nwith all his heart to resist the oppressor Washington. It was this\nancestor who fired seventeen times at our Washington from behind a tree.\nSo far the beautiful romantic narrative in the moral story-books is\ncorrect; but when that narrative goes on to say that at the seventeenth\nround the awe-stricken savage said solemnly that that man was being\nreserved by the Great Spirit for some mighty mission, and he dared not\nlift his sacrilegious rifle against him again, the narrative seriously\nimpairs the integrity of history. What he did say was:\n\n\"It ain't no (hic) no use. 'At man's so drunk he can't stan' still long\nenough for a man to hit him. I (hic) I can't 'ford to fool away any more\nam'nition on him.\"\n\nThat was why he stopped at the seventeenth round, and it was a good,\nplain, matter-of-fact reason, too, and one that easily commends itself\nto us by the eloquent, persuasive flavor of probability there is about\nit.\n\nI also enjoyed the story-book narrative, but I felt a marring misgiving\nthat every Indian at Braddock's Defeat who fired at a soldier a couple\nof times (two easily grows to seventeen in a century), and missed\nhim, jumped to the conclusion that the Great Spirit was reserving that\nsoldier for some grand mission; and so I somehow feared that the only\nreason why Washington's case is remembered and the others forgotten is,\nthat in his the prophecy came true, and in that of the others it\ndidn't. There are not books enough on earth to contain the record of the\nprophecies Indians and other unauthorized parties have made; but one may\ncarry in his overcoat pockets the record of all the prophecies that have\nbeen fulfilled.\n\nI will remark here, in passing, that certain ancestors of mine are so\nthoroughly well-known in history by their aliases, that I have not felt\nit to be worth while to dwell upon them, or even mention them in the\norder of their birth. Among these may be mentioned Richard Brinsley\nTwain, alias Guy Fawkes; John Wentworth Twain, alias Sixteen-String\nJack; William Hogarth Twain, alias Jack Sheppard; Ananias Twain, alias\nBaron Munchausen; John George Twain, alias Captain Kydd; and then there\nare George Francis Twain, Tom Pepper, Nebuchadnezzar, and Baalam's\nAss--they all belong to our family, but to a branch of it somewhat\ndistinctly removed from the honorable direct line--in fact, a collateral\nbranch, whose members chiefly differ from the ancient stock in that, in\norder to acquire the notoriety we have always yearned and hungered for,\nthey have got into a low way of going to jail instead of getting hanged.\n\nIt is not well, when writing an autobiography, to follow your ancestry\ndown too close to your own time--it is safest to speak only vaguely of\nyour great-grandfather, and then skip from there to yourself, which I\nnow do.\n\nI was born without teeth--and there Richard III. had the advantage of\nme; but I was born without a humpback, likewise, and there I had the\nadvantage of him. My parents were neither very poor nor conspicuously\nhonest.\n\nBut now a thought occurs to me. My own history would really seem so tame\ncontrasted with that of my ancestors, that it is simply wisdom to leave\nit unwritten until I am hanged. If some other biographies I have read\nhad stopped with the ancestry until a like event occurred, it would have\nbeen a felicitous thing for the reading public. How does it strike you?\n\n\n\nHOW TO TELL A STORY\n\nThe Humorous Story an American Development.--Its Difference from Comic\nand Witty Stories\n\nI do not claim that I can tell a story as it ought to be told. I only\nclaim to know how a story ought to be told, for I have been almost daily\nin the company of the most expert story-tellers for many years.\n\nThere are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind--the\nhumorous. I will talk mainly about that one. The humorous story is\nAmerican, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The\nhumorous story depends for its effect upon the _manner _of the telling;\nthe comic story and the witty story upon the _matter_.\n\nThe humorous story may be spun out to great length, and may wander\naround as much as it pleases, and arrive nowhere in particular; but the\ncomic and witty stories must be brief and end with a point. The humorous\nstory bubbles gently along, the others burst.\n\nThe humorous story is strictly a work of art--high and delicate art--and\nonly an artist can tell it; but no art is necessary in telling the comic\nand the witty story; anybody can do it. The art of telling a humorous\nstory--understand, I mean by word of mouth, not print--was created in\nAmerica, and has remained at home.\n\nThe humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal\nthe fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about\nit; but the teller of the comic story tells you beforehand that it is\none of the funniest things he has ever heard, then tells it with eager\ndelight, and is the first person to laugh when he gets through. And\nsometimes, if he has had good success, he is so glad and happy that\nhe will repeat the \"nub\" of it and glance around from face to face,\ncollecting applause, and then repeat it again. It is a pathetic thing to\nsee.\n\nVery often, of course, the rambling and disjointed humorous story\nfinishes with a nub, point, snapper, or whatever you like to call it.\nThen the listener must be alert, for in many cases the teller will\ndivert attention from that nub by dropping it in a carefully casual and\nindifferent way, with the pretense that he does not know it is a nub.\n\nArtemus Ward used that trick a good deal; then when the belated audience\npresently caught the joke he would look up with innocent surprise, as if\nwondering what they had found to laugh at. Dan Setchell used it before\nhim, Nye and Riley and others use it today.\n\nBut the teller of the comic story does not slur the nub; he shouts it at\nyou--every time. And when he prints it, in England, France, Germany, and\nItaly, he italicizes it, puts some whopping exclamation-points after\nit, and sometimes explains it in a parenthesis. All of which is very\ndepressing, and makes one want to renounce joking and lead a better\nlife.\n\nLet me set down an instance of the comic method, using an anecdote which\nhas been popular all over the world for twelve or fifteen hundred years.\nThe teller tells it in this way:\n\nTHE WOUNDED SOLDIER\n\nIn the course of a certain battle a soldier whose leg had been shot\noff appealed to another soldier who was hurrying by to carry him to the\nrear, informing him at the same time of the loss which he had sustained;\nwhereupon the generous son of Mars, shouldering the unfortunate,\nproceeded to carry out his desire. The bullets and cannon-balls were\nflying in all directions, and presently one of the latter took the\nwounded man's head off--without, however, his deliverer being aware of\nit. In no long time he was hailed by an officer, who said:\n\n\"Where are you going with that carcass?\"\n\n\"To the rear, sir--he's lost his leg!\"\n\n\"His leg, forsooth?\" responded the astonished officer; \"you mean his\nhead, you booby.\"\n\nWhereupon the soldier dispossessed himself of his burden, and stood\nlooking down upon it in great perplexity. At length he said:\n\n\"It is true, sir, just as you have said.\" Then after a pause he added,\n\"_But he TOLD me IT WAS HIS LEG!!!!!_\"\n\nHere the narrator bursts into explosion after explosion of thunderous\nhorse-laughter, repeating that nub from time to time through his gasping\nand shriekings and suffocatings.\n\nIt takes only a minute and a half to tell that in its comic-story form;\nand isn't worth the telling, after all. Put into the humorous-story\nform it takes ten minutes, and is about the funniest thing I have ever\nlistened to--as James Whitcomb Riley tells it.\n\nHe tells it in the character of a dull-witted old farmer who has just\nheard it for the first time, thinks it is unspeakably funny, and is\ntrying to repeat it to a neighbor. But he can't remember it; so he gets\nall mixed up and wanders helplessly round and round, putting in tedious\ndetails that don't belong in the tale and only retard it; taking them\nout conscientiously and putting in others that are just as useless;\nmaking minor mistakes now and then and stopping to correct them and\nexplain how he came to make them; remembering things which he forgot\nto put in in their proper place and going back to put them in there;\nstopping his narrative a good while in order to try to recall the name\nof the soldier that was hurt, and finally remembering that the soldier's\nname was not mentioned, and remarking placidly that the name is of no\nreal importance, anyway--better, of course, if one knew it, but not\nessential, after all--and so on, and so on, and so on.\n\nThe teller is innocent and happy and pleased with himself, and has\nto stop every little while to hold himself in and keep from laughing\noutright; and does hold in, but his body quakes in a jelly-like way with\ninterior chuckles; and at the end of the ten minutes the audience have\nlaughed until they are exhausted, and the tears are running down their\nfaces.\n\nThe simplicity and innocence and sincerity and unconsciousness of the\nold farmer are perfectly simulated, and the result is a performance\nwhich is thoroughly charming and delicious. This is art--and fine and\nbeautiful, and only a master can compass it; but a machine could tell\nthe other story.\n\nTo string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and\nsometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they\nare absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is\ncorrect. Another feature is the slurring of the point. A third is the\ndropping of a studied remark apparently without knowing it, as if one\nwhere thinking aloud. The fourth and last is the pause.\n\nArtemus Ward dealt in numbers three and four a good deal. He would begin\nto tell with great animation something which he seemed to think was\nwonderful; then lose confidence, and after an apparently absent-minded\npause add an incongruous remark in a soliloquizing way; and that was the\nremark intended to explode the mine--and it did.\n\nFor instance, he would say eagerly, excitedly, \"I once knew a man in New\nZealand who hadn't a tooth in his head\"--here his animation would\ndie out; a silent, reflective pause would follow, then he would say\ndreamily, and as if to himself, \"and yet that man could beat a drum\nbetter than any man I ever saw.\"\n\nThe pause is an exceedingly important feature in any kind of story, and\na frequently recurring feature, too. It is a dainty thing, and delicate,\nand also uncertain and treacherous; for it must be exactly the right\nlength--no more and no less--or it fails of its purpose and makes\ntrouble. If the pause is too short the impressive point is passed, and\nthe audience have had time to divine that a surprise is intended--and\nthen you can't surprise them, of course.\n\nOn the platform I used to tell a negro ghost story that had a pause in\nfront of the snapper on the end, and that pause was the most important\nthing in the whole story. If I got it the right length precisely, I\ncould spring the finishing ejaculation with effect enough to make some\nimpressible girl deliver a startled little yelp and jump out of her\nseat--and that was what I was after. This story was called \"The\nGolden Arm,\" and was told in this fashion. You can practice with it\nyourself--and mind you look out for the pause and get it right.\n\n\nTHE GOLDEN ARM\n\nOnce 'pon a time dey wuz a monsus mean man, en he live 'way out in de\nprairie all 'lone by hisself, 'cep'n he had a wife. En bimeby she died,\nen he tuck en toted her way out dah in de prairie en buried her. Well,\nshe had a golden arm--all solid gold, fum de shoulder down. He wuz\npow'ful mean--pow'ful; en dat night he couldn't sleep, caze he want dat\ngolden arm so bad.\n\nWhen it come midnight he couldn't stan' it no mo'; so he git up, he did,\nen tuck his lantern en shoved out thoo de storm en dug her up en got de\ngolden arm; en he bent his head down 'gin de win', en plowed en plowed\nen plowed thoo de snow. Den all on a sudden he stop (make a considerable\npause here, and look startled, and take a listening attitude) en say:\n\"My _lan'_, what's dat?\"\n\nEn he listen--en listen--en de win' say (set your teeth together and\nimitate the wailing and wheezing singsong of the wind), \"Bzzz-z-zzz\"--en\nden, way back yonder whah de grave is, he hear a _voice_!--he hear\na voice all mix' up in de win'--can't hardly tell 'em 'part--\n\"Bzzz--zzz--W-h-o--g-o-t--m-y--g-o-l-d-e-n _arm?_\" (You must begin to\nshiver violently now.)\n\nEn he begin to shiver en shake, en say, \"Oh, my! _Oh_, my lan'!\" en de\nwin' blow de lantern out, en de snow en sleet blow in his face en mos'\nchoke him, en he start a-plowin' knee-deep toward home mos' dead, he so\nsk'yerd--en pooty soon he hear de voice agin, en (pause) it 'us comin\n_after _him! \"Bzzz--zzz--zzz W-h-o--g-o-t--m-y--g-o-l-d-e-n--_arm_?\"\n\nWhen he git to de pasture he hear it agin--closter now, en\n_a-comin'!_--a-comin' back dah in de dark en de storm--(repeat the wind\nand the voice). When he git to de house he rush upstairs en jump in de\nbed en kiver up, head and years, en lay da shiverin' en shakin'--en\nden way out dah he hear it _agin!_--en a-_comin'_! En bimeby he hear\n(pause--awed, listening attitude)--pat--pat--pat _Hit's a-comin'\nupstairs!_ Den he hear de latch, en he _know _it's in de room!\n\nDen pooty soon he know it's a-_stannin' by de bed!_ (Pause.) Den--he\nknow it's a-_bendin' down over him_--en he cain't skasely git his\nbreath! Den--den--he seem to feel someth'n' _c-o-l-d_, right down 'most\nagin his head! (Pause.)\n\nDen de voice say, _right at his year_--\"W-h-o--g-o-t--m-y g-o-l-d-e-n\n_arm?_\" (You must wail it out very plaintively and accusingly; then\nyou stare steadily and impressively into the face of the farthest-gone\nauditor--a girl, preferably--and let that awe-inspiring pause begin to\nbuild itself in the deep hush. When it has reached exactly the right\nlength, jump suddenly at that girl and yell, \"_You've_ got it!\")\n\nIf you've got the _pause _right, she'll fetch a dear little yelp and\nspring right out of her shoes. But you _must _get the pause right; and\nyou will find it the most troublesome and aggravating and uncertain\nthing you ever undertook.\n\n\n\nGENERAL WASHINGTON'S NEGRO BODY-SERVANT\n\nA Biographical Sketch\n\nThe stirring part of this celebrated colored man's life properly began\nwith his death--that is to say, the notable features of his biography\nbegan with the first time he died. He had been little heard of up to\nthat time, but since then we have never ceased to hear of him; we have\nnever ceased to hear of him at stated, unfailing intervals. His was a\nmost remarkable career, and I have thought that its history would make\na valuable addition to our biographical literature. Therefore, I\nhave carefully collated the materials for such a work, from authentic\nsources, and here present them to the public. I have rigidly excluded\nfrom these pages everything of a doubtful character, with the object in\nview of introducing my work into the schools for the instruction of the\nyouth of my country.\n\nThe name of the famous body-servant of General Washington was George.\nAfter serving his illustrious master faithfully for half a century, and\nenjoying throughout this long term his high regard and confidence, it\nbecame his sorrowful duty at last to lay that beloved master to rest in\nhis peaceful grave by the Potomac. Ten years afterward--in 1809--full\nof years and honors, he died himself, mourned by all who knew him. The\n_Boston Gazette_ of that date thus refers to the event:\n\nGeorge, the favorite body-servant of the lamented Washington, died in\nRichmond, Va., last Tuesday, at the ripe age of 95 years. His intellect\nwas unimpaired, and his memory tenacious, up to within a few minutes of\nhis decease. He was present at the second installation of Washington as\nPresident, and also at his funeral, and distinctly remembered all the\nprominent incidents connected with those noted events.\n\nFrom this period we hear no more of the favorite body-servant of General\nWashington until May, 1825, at which time he died again. A Philadelphia\npaper thus speaks of the sad occurrence:\n\nAt Macon, Ga., last week, a colored man named George, who was the\nfavorite body-servant of General Washington, died at the advanced age\nof 95 years. Up to within a few hours of his dissolution he was in full\npossession of all his faculties, and could distinctly recollect the\nsecond installation of Washington, his death and burial, the surrender\nof Cornwallis, the battle of Trenton, the griefs and hardships of Valley\nForge, etc. Deceased was followed to the grave by the entire population\nof Macon.\n\nOn the Fourth of July, 1830, and also of 1834 and 1836, the subject of\nthis sketch was exhibited in great state upon the rostrum of the\norator of the day, and in November of 1840 he died again. The St. Louis\n_Republican_ of the 25th of that month spoke as follows:\n\n\"ANOTHER RELIC OF THE REVOLUTION GONE.\"\n\n\"George, once the favorite body-servant of General Washington, died\nyesterday at the house of Mr. John Leavenworth in this city, at\nthe venerable age of 95 years. He was in the full possession of his\nfaculties up to the hour of his death, and distinctly recollected the\nfirst and second installations and death of President Washington,\nthe surrender of Cornwallis, the battles of Trenton and Monmouth, the\nsufferings of the patriot army at Valley Forge, the proclamation of the\nDeclaration of Independence, the speech of Patrick Henry in the Virginia\nHouse of Delegates, and many other old-time reminiscences of stirring\ninterest. Few white men die lamented as was this aged negro. The funeral\nwas very largely attended.\"\n\nDuring the next ten or eleven years the subject of this sketch appeared\nat intervals at Fourth-of-July celebrations in various parts of the\ncountry, and was exhibited upon the rostrum with flattering success. But\nin the fall of 1855 he died again. The California papers thus speak of\nthe event:\n\nANOTHER OLD HERO GONE\n\nDied, at Dutch Flat, on the 7th of March, George (once the confidential\nbody-servant of General Washington), at the great age of 95 years. His\nmemory, which did not fail him till the last, was a wonderful storehouse\nof interesting reminiscences. He could distinctly recollect the\nfirst and second installations and death of President Washington, the\nsurrender of Cornwallis, the battles of Trenton and Monmouth, and\nBunker Hill, the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence, and\nBraddock's defeat. George was greatly respected in Dutch Flat, and it is\nestimated that there were 10,000 people present at his funeral.\n\nThe last time the subject of this sketch died was in June, 1864;\nand until we learn the contrary, it is just to presume that he died\npermanently this time. The Michigan papers thus refer to the sorrowful\nevent:\n\nANOTHER CHERISHED REMNANT OF THE REVOLUTION GONE\n\nGeorge, a colored man, and once the favorite body-servant of George\nWashington, died in Detroit last week, at the patriarchal age of 95\nyears. To the moment of his death his intellect was unclouded, and he\ncould distinctly remember the first and second installations and death\nof Washington, the surrender of Cornwallis, the battles of Trenton\nand Monmouth, and Bunker Hill, the proclamation of the Declaration of\nIndependence, Braddock's defeat, the throwing over of the tea in Boston\nharbor, and the landing of the Pilgrims. He died greatly respected, and\nwas followed to the grave by a vast concourse of people.\n\nThe faithful old servant is gone! We shall never see him more until\nhe turns up again. He has closed his long and splendid career of\ndissolution, for the present, and sleeps peacefully, as only they sleep\nwho have earned their rest. He was in all respects a remarkable man. He\nheld his age better than any celebrity that has figured in history; and\nthe longer he lived the stronger and longer his memory grew. If he lives\nto die again, he will distinctly recollect the discovery of America.\n\nThe above resume of his biography I believe to be substantially correct,\nalthough it is possible that he may have died once or twice in obscure\nplaces where the event failed of newspaper notoriety. One fault I find\nin all the notices of his death I have quoted, and this ought to be\ncorrected. In them he uniformly and impartially died at the age of 95.\nThis could not have been. He might have done that once, or maybe twice,\nbut he could not have continued it indefinitely. Allowing that when he\nfirst died, he died at the age of 95, he was 151 years old when he died\nlast, in 1864. But his age did not keep pace with his recollections.\nWhen he died the last time, he distinctly remembered the landing of the\nPilgrims, which took place in 1620. He must have been about twenty years\nold when he witnessed that event, wherefore it is safe to assert that\nthe body-servant of General Washington was in the neighborhood of\ntwo hundred and sixty or seventy years old when he departed this life\nfinally.\n\nHaving waited a proper length of time, to see if the subject of his\nsketch had gone from us reliably and irrevocably, I now publish his\nbiography with confidence, and respectfully offer it to a mourning\nnation.\n\nP.S.--I see by the papers that this infamous old fraud has just died\nagain, in Arkansas. This makes six times that he is known to have died,\nand always in a new place. The death of Washington's body-servant has\nceased to be a novelty; it's charm is gone; the people are tired of\nit; let it cease. This well-meaning but misguided negro has now put six\ndifferent communities to the expense of burying him in state, and has\nswindled tens of thousands of people into following him to the grave\nunder the delusion that a select and peculiar distinction was being\nconferred upon them. Let him stay buried for good now; and let that\nnewspaper suffer the severest censure that shall ever, in all the future\ntime, publish to the world that General Washington's favorite colored\nbody-servant has died again.\n\n\n\nWIT INSPIRATIONS OF THE \"TWO-YEAR-OLDS\"\n\nAll infants appear to have an impertinent and disagreeable fashion\nnowadays of saying \"smart\" things on most occasions that offer, and\nespecially on occasions when they ought not to be saying anything at\nall. Judging by the average published specimens of smart sayings, the\nrising generation of children are little better than idiots. And the\nparents must surely be but little better than the children, for in most\ncases they are the publishers of the sunbursts of infantile imbecility\nwhich dazzle us from the pages of our periodicals. I may seem to speak\nwith some heat, not to say a suspicion of personal spite; and I do admit\nthat it nettles me to hear about so many gifted infants in these days,\nand remember that I seldom said anything smart when I was a child. I\ntried it once or twice, but it was not popular. The family were not\nexpecting brilliant remarks from me, and so they snubbed me sometimes\nand spanked me the rest. But it makes my flesh creep and my blood run\ncold to think what might have happened to me if I had dared to utter\nsome of the smart things of this generation's \"four-year-olds\" where my\nfather could hear me. To have simply skinned me alive and considered his\nduty at an end would have seemed to him criminal leniency toward one\nso sinning. He was a stern, unsmiling man, and hated all forms of\nprecocity. If I had said some of the things I have referred to, and said\nthem in his hearing, he would have destroyed me. He would, indeed. He\nwould, provided the opportunity remained with him. But it would not, for\nI would have had judgment enough to take some strychnine first and say\nmy smart thing afterward. The fair record of my life has been tarnished\nby just one pun. My father overheard that, and he hunted me over four\nor five townships seeking to take my life. If I had been full-grown, of\ncourse he would have been right; but, child as I was, I could not know\nhow wicked a thing I had done.\n\nI made one of those remarks ordinarily called \"smart things\" before\nthat, but it was not a pun. Still, it came near causing a serious\nrupture between my father and myself. My father and mother, my uncle\nEphraim and his wife, and one or two others were present, and the\nconversation turned on a name for me. I was lying there trying some\nIndia-rubber rings of various patterns, and endeavoring to make a\nselection, for I was tired of trying to cut my teeth on people's\nfingers, and wanted to get hold of something that would enable me to\nhurry the thing through and get something else. Did you ever notice\nwhat a nuisance it was cutting your teeth on your nurse's finger, or how\nback-breaking and tiresome it was trying to cut them on your big toe?\nAnd did you never get out of patience and wish your teeth were in Jerico\nlong before you got them half cut? To me it seems as if these things\nhappened yesterday. And they did, to some children. But I digress. I\nwas lying there trying the India-rubber rings. I remember looking at the\nclock and noticing that in an hour and twenty-five minutes I would be\ntwo weeks old, and thinking how little I had done to merit the blessings\nthat were so unsparingly lavished upon me. My father said:\n\n\"Abraham is a good name. My grandfather was named Abraham.\"\n\nMy mother said:\n\n\"Abraham is a good name. Very well. Let us have Abraham for one of his\nnames.\"\n\nI said:\n\n\"Abraham suits the subscriber.\"\n\nMy father frowned, my mother looked pleased; my aunt said:\n\n\"What a little darling it is!\"\n\nMy father said:\n\n\"Isaac is a good name, and Jacob is a good name.\"\n\nMy mother assented, and said:\n\n\"No names are better. Let us add Isaac and Jacob to his names.\"\n\nI said:\n\n\"All right. Isaac and Jacob are good enough for yours truly. Pass me\nthat rattle, if you please. I can't chew India-rubber rings all day.\"\n\nNot a soul made a memorandum of these sayings of mine, for publication.\nI saw that, and did it myself, else they would have been utterly lost.\nSo far from meeting with a generous encouragement like other children\nwhen developing intellectually, I was now furiously scowled upon by my\nfather; my mother looked grieved and anxious, and even my aunt had about\nher an expression of seeming to think that maybe I had gone too far. I\ntook a vicious bite out of an India-rubber ring, and covertly broke the\nrattle over the kitten's head, but said nothing. Presently my father\nsaid:\n\n\"Samuel is a very excellent name.\"\n\nI saw that trouble was coming. Nothing could prevent it. I laid down my\nrattle; over the side of the cradle I dropped my uncle's silver watch,\nthe clothes-brush, the toy dog, my tin soldier, the nutmeg-grater, and\nother matters which I was accustomed to examine, and meditate upon and\nmake pleasant noises with, and bang and batter and break when I needed\nwholesome entertainment. Then I put on my little frock and my little\nbonnet, and took my pygmy shoes in one hand and my licorice in the\nother, and climbed out on the floor. I said to myself, Now, if the worse\ncomes to worst, I am ready. Then I said aloud, in a firm voice:\n\n\"Father, I cannot, cannot wear the name of Samuel.\"\n\n\"My son!\"\n\n\"Father, I mean it. I cannot.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Father, I have an invincible antipathy to that name.\"\n\n\"My son, this is unreasonable. Many great and good men have been named\nSamuel.\"\n\n\"Sir, I have yet to hear of the first instance.\"\n\n\"What! There was Samuel the prophet. Was not he great and good?\"\n\n\"Not so very.\"\n\n\"My son! With His own voice the Lord called him.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, and had to call him a couple times before he could come!\"\n\nAnd then I sallied forth, and that stern old man sallied forth after\nme. He overtook me at noon the following day, and when the interview\nwas over I had acquired the name of Samuel, and a thrashing, and other\nuseful information; and by means of this compromise my father's wrath\nwas appeased and a misunderstanding bridged over which might have become\na permanent rupture if I had chosen to be unreasonable. But just judging\nby this episode, what would my father have done to me if I had\never uttered in his hearing one of the flat, sickly things these\n\"two-years-olds\" say in print nowadays? In my opinion there would have\nbeen a case of infanticide in our family.\n\n\n\nAN ENTERTAINING ARTICLE\n\nI take the following paragraph from an article in the Boston\n_Advertiser_:\n\nAN ENGLISH CRITIC ON MARK TWAIN\n\nPerhaps the most successful flights of humor of Mark Twain have been\ndescriptions of the persons who did not appreciate his humor at all. We\nhave become familiar with the Californians who were thrilled with terror\nby his burlesque of a newspaper reporter's way of telling a story,\nand we have heard of the Pennsylvania clergyman who sadly returned his\n_Innocents Abroad_ to the book-agent with the remark that \"the man who\ncould shed tears over the tomb of Adam must be an idiot.\" But Mark Twain\nmay now add a much more glorious instance to his string of trophies.\nThe _Saturday Review,_ in its number of October 8th, reviews his book\nof travels, which has been republished in England, and reviews it\nseriously. We can imagine the delight of the humorist in reading this\ntribute to his power; and indeed it is so amusing in itself that he can\nhardly do better than reproduce the article in full in his next monthly\nMemoranda.\n\n(Publishing the above paragraph thus, gives me a sort of authority for\nreproducing the _Saturday Review's_ article in full in these pages. I\ndearly wanted to do it, for I cannot write anything half so delicious\nmyself. If I had a cast-iron dog that could read this English criticism\nand preserve his austerity, I would drive him off the door-step.)\n\n(From the London \"Saturday Review.\")\n\nREVIEWS OF NEW BOOKS\n\n_The Innocents Abroad_. A Book of Travels. By Mark Twain. London:\nHotten, publisher. 1870.\n\nLord Macaulay died too soon. We never felt this so deeply as when we\nfinished the last chapter of the above-named extravagant work. Macaulay\ndied too soon--for none but he could mete out complete and comprehensive\njustice to the insolence, the impertinence, the presumption, the\nmendacity, and, above all, the majestic ignorance of this author.\n\nTo say that _The Innocents Abroad_ is a curious book, would be to use\nthe faintest language--would be to speak of the Matterhorn as a neat\nelevation or of Niagara as being \"nice\" or \"pretty.\" \"Curious\" is too\ntame a word wherewith to describe the imposing insanity of this work.\nThere is no word that is large enough or long enough. Let us, therefore,\nphotograph a passing glimpse of book and author, and trust the rest to\nthe reader. Let the cultivated English student of human nature\npicture to himself this Mark Twain as a person capable of doing the\nfollowing-described things--and not only doing them, but with incredible\ninnocence _printing them_ calmly and tranquilly in a book. For instance:\n\nHe states that he entered a hair-dresser's in Paris to get shaved, and\nthe first \"rake\" the barber gave him with his razor it _loosened his\n\"hide\"_ and _lifted him out of the chair._\n\nThis is unquestionably exaggerated. In Florence he was so annoyed by\nbeggars that he pretends to have seized and eaten one in a frantic\nspirit of revenge. There is, of course, no truth in this. He gives at\nfull length a theatrical program seventeen or eighteen hundred years\nold, which he professes to have found in the ruins of the Coliseum,\namong the dirt and mold and rubbish. It is a sufficient comment upon\nthis statement to remark that even a cast-iron program would not have\nlasted so long under such circumstances. In Greece he plainly betrays\nboth fright and flight upon one occasion, but with frozen effrontery\nputs the latter in this falsely tamed form: \"We _sidled _toward the\nPiraeus.\" \"Sidled,\" indeed! He does not hesitate to intimate that at\nEphesus, when his mule strayed from the proper course, he got down, took\nhim under his arm, carried him to the road again, pointed him right,\nremounted, and went to sleep contentedly till it was time to restore the\nbeast to the path once more. He states that a growing youth among his\nship's passengers was in the constant habit of appeasing his hunger with\nsoap and oakum between meals. In Palestine he tells of ants that\ncame eleven miles to spend the summer in the desert and brought their\nprovisions with them; yet he shows by his description of the country\nthat the feat was an impossibility. He mentions, as if it were the most\ncommonplace of matters, that he cut a Moslem in two in broad daylight\nin Jerusalem, with Godfrey de Bouillon's sword, and would have shed\nmore blood _if he had had a graveyard of his own._ These statements are\nunworthy a moment's attention. Mr. Twain or any other foreigner who did\nsuch a thing in Jerusalem would be mobbed, and would infallibly lose his\nlife. But why go on? Why repeat more of his audacious and exasperating\nfalsehoods? Let us close fittingly with this one: he affirms that \"in\nthe mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople I got my feet so stuck up\nwith a complication of gums, slime, and general impurity, that I wore\nout more than two thousand pair of bootjacks getting my boots off that\nnight, and even then some Christian hide peeled off with them.\" It is\nmonstrous. Such statements are simply lies--there is no other name\nfor them. Will the reader longer marvel at the brutal ignorance that\npervades the American nation when we tell him that we are informed\nupon perfectly good authority that this extravagant compilation of\nfalsehoods, this exhaustless mine of stupendous lies, this _Innocents\nAbroad_, has actually been adopted by the schools and colleges of\nseveral of the states as a text-book!\n\nBut if his falsehoods are distressing, his innocence and his ignorance\nare enough to make one burn the book and despise the author. In one\nplace he was so appalled at the sudden spectacle of a murdered man,\nunveiled by the moonlight, that he jumped out of the window, going\nthrough sash and all, and then remarks with the most childlike\nsimplicity that he \"was not scared, but was considerably agitated.\"\nIt puts us out of patience to note that the simpleton is densely\nunconscious that Lucrezia Borgia ever existed off the stage. He is\nvulgarly ignorant of all foreign languages, but is frank enough to\ncriticize, the Italians' use of their own tongue. He says they spell the\nname of their great painter \"Vinci, but pronounce it Vinchy\"--and then\nadds with a naivete possible only to helpless ignorance, \"foreigners\nalways spell better than they pronounce.\" In another place he commits\nthe bald absurdity of putting the phrase \"tare an ouns\" into an\nItalian's mouth. In Rome he unhesitatingly believes the legend that St.\nPhilip Neri's heart was so inflamed with divine love that it burst\nhis ribs--believes it wholly because an author with a learned list of\nuniversity degrees strung after his name endorses it--\"otherwise,\" says\nthis gentle idiot, \"I should have felt a curiosity to know what Philip\nhad for dinner.\" Our author makes a long, fatiguing journey to the\nGrotto del Cane on purpose to test its poisoning powers on a dog--got\nelaborately ready for the experiment, and then discovered that he had no\ndog. A wiser person would have kept such a thing discreetly to himself,\nbut with this harmless creature everything comes out. He hurts his foot\nin a rut two thousand years old in exhumed Pompeii, and presently, when\nstaring at one of the cinder-like corpses unearthed in the next square,\nconceives the idea that maybe it is the remains of the ancient Street\nCommissioner, and straightway his horror softens down to a sort of\nchirpy contentment with the condition of things. In Damascus he visits\nthe well of Ananias, three thousand years old, and is as surprised and\ndelighted as a child to find that the water is \"as pure and fresh as if\nthe well had been dug yesterday.\" In the Holy Land he gags desperately\nat the hard Arabic and Hebrew Biblical names, and finally concludes to\ncall them Baldwinsville, Williamsburgh, and so on, \"for convenience of\nspelling.\"\n\nWe have thus spoken freely of this man's stupefying simplicity and\ninnocence, but we cannot deal similarly with his colossal ignorance. We\ndo not know where to begin. And if we knew where to begin, we certainly\nwould not know where to leave off. We will give one specimen, and one\nonly. He did not know, until he got to Rome, that Michael Angelo\nwas dead! And then, instead of crawling away and hiding his shameful\nignorance somewhere, he proceeds to express a pious, grateful sort of\nsatisfaction that he is gone and out of his troubles!\n\nNo, the reader may seek out the author's exhibition of his uncultivation\nfor himself. The book is absolutely dangerous, considering the magnitude\nand variety of its misstatements, and the convincing confidence with\nwhich they are made. And yet it is a text-book in the schools of\nAmerica.\n\nThe poor blunderer mouses among the sublime creations of the Old\nMasters, trying to acquire the elegant proficiency in art-knowledge,\nwhich he has a groping sort of comprehension is a proper thing for a\ntraveled man to be able to display. But what is the manner of his study?\nAnd what is the progress he achieves? To what extent does he\nfamiliarize himself with the great pictures of Italy, and what degree of\nappreciation does he arrive at? Read:\n\n\"When we see a monk going about with a lion and looking up into heaven,\nwe know that that is St. Mark. When we see a monk with a book and a pen,\nlooking tranquilly up to heaven, trying to think of a word, we know\nthat that is St. Matthew. When we see a monk sitting on a rock, looking\ntranquilly up to heaven, with a human skull beside him, and without\nother baggage, we know that that is St. Jerome. Because we know that\nhe always went flying light in the matter of baggage. When we see other\nmonks looking tranquilly up to heaven, but having no trade-mark, we\nalways ask who those parties are. We do this because we humbly wish to\nlearn.\"\n\nHe then enumerates the thousands and thousand of copies of these several\npictures which he has seen, and adds with accustomed simplicity that he\nfeels encouraged to believe that when he has seen \"Some More\" of each,\nand had a larger experience, he will eventually \"begin to take an\nabsorbing interest in them\"--the vulgar boor.\n\nThat we have shown this to be a remarkable book, we think no one\nwill deny. That it is a pernicious book to place in the hands of the\nconfiding and uniformed, we think we have also shown. That the book is\na deliberate and wicked creation of a diseased mind, is apparent upon\nevery page. Having placed our judgment thus upon record, let us close\nwith what charity we can, by remarking that even in this volume there is\nsome good to be found; for whenever the author talks of his own country\nand lets Europe alone, he never fails to make himself interesting, and\nnot only interesting but instructive. No one can read without benefit\nhis occasional chapters and paragraphs, about life in the gold and\nsilver mines of California and Nevada; about the Indians of the plains\nand deserts of the West, and their cannibalism; about the raising of\nvegetables in kegs of gunpowder by the aid of two or three teaspoons of\nguano; about the moving of small arms from place to place at night in\nwheelbarrows to avoid taxes; and about a sort of cows and mules in\nthe Humboldt mines, that climb down chimneys and disturb the people at\nnight. These matters are not only new, but are well worth knowing. It is\na pity the author did not put in more of the same kind. His book is well\nwritten and is exceedingly entertaining, and so it just barely escaped\nbeing quite valuable also.\n\n(One month later)\n\nLatterly I have received several letters, and see a number of newspaper\nparagraphs, all upon a certain subject, and all of about the same tenor.\nI here give honest specimens. One is from a New York paper, one is from\na letter from an old friend, and one is from a letter from a New York\npublisher who is a stranger to me. I humbly endeavor to make these bits\ntoothsome with the remark that the article they are praising (which\nappeared in the December _Galaxy_, and _pretended _to be a criticism\nfrom the London _Saturday Review_ on my _Innocents Abroad_) _was written\nby myself, every line of it_:\n\nThe _Herald _says the richest thing out is the \"serious critique\" in the\nLondon _Saturday Review_, on Mark Twain's _Innocents Abroad_. We thought\nbefore we read it that it must be \"serious,\" as everybody said so, and\nwere even ready to shed a few tears; but since perusing it, we are bound\nto confess that next to Mark Twain's \"_Jumping Frog_\" it's the finest\nbit of humor and sarcasm that we've come across in many a day.\n\n(I do not get a compliment like that every day.)\n\nI used to think that your writings were pretty good, but after reading\nthe criticism in _The Galaxy_ from the _London Review_, have discovered\nwhat an ass I must have been. If suggestions are in order, mine is,\nthat you put that article in your next edition of the _Innocents_, as\nan extra chapter, if you are not afraid to put your own humor in\ncompetition with it. It is as rich a thing as I ever read.\n\n(Which is strong commendation from a book publisher.)\nThe London Reviewer, my friend, is not the stupid, \"serious\" creature he\npretends to be, _I_ think; but, on the contrary, has a keen appreciation\nand enjoyment of your book. As I read his article in _The Galaxy_, I\ncould imagine him giving vent to many a hearty laugh. But he is writing\nfor Catholics and Established Church people, and high-toned, antiquated,\nconservative gentility, whom it is a delight to him to help you shock,\nwhile he pretends to shake his head with owlish density. He is a\nmagnificent humorist himself.\n\n(Now that is graceful and handsome. I take off my hat to my life-long\nfriend and comrade, and with my feet together and my fingers spread over\nmy heart, I say, in the language of Alabama, \"You do me proud.\")\n\nI stand guilty of the authorship of the article, but I did not mean any\nharm. I saw by an item in the Boston _Advertiser_ that a solemn, serious\ncritique on the English edition of my book had appeared in the London\n_Saturday Review_, and the idea of _such _a literary breakfast by a\nstolid, ponderous British ogre of the quill was too much for a naturally\nweak virtue, and I went home and burlesqued it--reveled in it, I may\nsay. I never saw a copy of the real _Saturday Review_ criticism until\nafter my burlesque was written and mailed to the printer. But when I\ndid get hold of a copy, I found it to be vulgar, awkwardly written,\nill-natured, and entirely serious and in earnest. The gentleman who\nwrote the newspaper paragraph above quoted had not been misled as to its\ncharacter.\n\nIf any man doubts my word now, I will kill him. No, I will not kill him;\nI will win his money. I will bet him twenty to one, and let any New York\npublisher hold the stakes, that the statements I have above made as to\nthe authorship of the article in question are entirely true. Perhaps\nI may get wealthy at this, for I am willing to take all the bets that\noffer; and if a man wants larger odds, I will give him all he requires.\nBut he ought to find out whether I am betting on what is termed \"a sure\nthing\" or not before he ventures his money, and he can do that by\ngoing to a public library and examining the London _Saturday Review_ of\nOctober 8th, which contains the real critique.\n\nBless me, some people thought that _I_ was the \"sold\" person!\n\nP.S.--I cannot resist the temptation to toss in this most savory thing\nof all--this easy, graceful, philosophical disquisition, with his happy,\nchirping confidence. It is from the Cincinnati _Enquirer_:\n\nNothing is more uncertain than the value of a fine cigar. Nine smokers\nout of ten would prefer an ordinary domestic article, three for a\nquarter, to a fifty-cent Partaga, if kept in ignorance of the cost of\nthe latter. The flavor of the Partaga is too delicate for palates that\nhave been accustomed to Connecticut seed leaf. So it is with humor. The\nfiner it is in quality, the more danger of its not being recognized\nat all. Even Mark Twain has been taken in by an English review of his\n_Innocents Abroad_. Mark Twain is by no means a coarse humorist, but the\nEnglishman's humor is so much finer than his, that he mistakes it for\nsolid earnest, and \"larfs most consumedly.\"\n\nA man who cannot learn stands in his own light. Hereafter, when I write\nan article which I know to be good, but which I may have reason to fear\nwill not, in some quarters, be considered to amount to much, coming\nfrom an American, I will aver that an Englishman wrote it and that it\nis copied from a London journal. And then I will occupy a back seat and\nenjoy the cordial applause.\n\n(Still later)\n\nMark Twain at last sees that the _Saturday Review's_ criticism of his\n_Innocents Abroad_ was not serious, and he is intensely mortified at the\nthought of having been so badly sold. He takes the only course left him,\nand in the last _Galaxy _claims that _he _wrote the criticism himself,\nand published it in _The Galaxy_ to sell the public. This is ingenious,\nbut unfortunately it is not true. If any of our readers will take the\ntrouble to call at this office we sill show them the original article\nin the _Saturday Review_ of October 8th, which, on comparison, will be\nfound to be identical with the one published in _The Galaxy._ The best\nthing for Mark to do will be to admit that he was sold, and say no more\nabout it.\n\n\nThe above is from the Cincinnati _Enquirer_, and is a falsehood. Come to\nthe proof. If the _Enquirer _people, through any agent, will produce\nat _The Galaxy_ office a London _Saturday Review_ of October 8th,\ncontaining an article which, on comparison, will be found to be\nidentical with the one published in _The Galaxy_, I will pay to that\nagent five hundred dollars cash. Moreover, if at any specified time I\nfail to produce at the same place a copy of the London _Saturday Review_\nof October 8th, containing a lengthy criticism upon the _Innocents\nAbroad_, entirely different, in every paragraph and sentence, from the\none I published in _The Galaxy,_ I will pay to the _Enquirer_ agent\nanother five hundred dollars cash. I offer Sheldon & Co., publishers,\n500 Broadway, New York, as my \"backers.\" Any one in New York, authorized\nby the _Enquirer_, will receive prompt attention. It is an easy and\nprofitable way for the _Enquirer _people to prove that they have not\nuttered a pitiful, deliberate falsehood in the above paragraphs. Will\nthey swallow that falsehood ignominiously, or will they send an agent to\n_ The Galaxy _office. I think the Cincinnati _Enquirer _must be edited\nby children.\n\n\n\nA LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY\n\nRiverdale-on-the-Hudson, OCTOBER 15, 1902.\n\n_The Hon. The Secretary Of The Treasury,_ WASHINGTON, D. C.:\n\nSir,--Prices for the customary kinds of winter fuel having reached\nan altitude which puts them out of the reach of literary persons in\nstraitened circumstances, I desire to place with you the following\norder:\n\nForty-five tons best old dry government bonds, suitable for furnace,\ngold 7 per cents., 1864, preferred.\n\nTwelve tons early greenbacks, range size, suitable for cooking.\n\nEight barrels seasoned 25 and 50 cent postal currency, vintage of 1866,\neligible for kindlings.\n\nPlease deliver with all convenient despatch at my house in Riverdale at\nlowest rates for spot cash, and send bill to\n\nYour obliged servant,\n\nMark Twain, Who will be very grateful, and will vote right.\n\n\n\nAMENDED OBITUARIES\n\nTO THE EDITOR:\n\nSir,--I am approaching seventy; it is in sight; it is only three years\naway. Necessarily, I must go soon. It is but matter-of-course wisdom,\nthen, that I should begin to set my worldly house in order now, so that\nit may be done calmly and with thoroughness, in place of waiting until\nthe last day, when, as we have often seen, the attempt to set both\nhouses in order at the same time has been marred by the necessity for\nhaste and by the confusion and waste of time arising from the inability\nof the notary and the ecclesiastic to work together harmoniously, taking\nturn about and giving each other friendly assistance--not perhaps in\nfielding, which could hardly be expected, but at least in the minor\noffices of keeping game and umpiring; by consequence of which conflict\nof interests and absence of harmonious action a draw has frequently\nresulted where this ill-fortune could not have happened if the houses\nhad been set in order one at a time and hurry avoided by beginning in\nseason, and giving to each the amount of time fairly and justly proper\nto it.\n\nIn setting my earthly house in order I find it of moment that I should\nattend in person to one or two matters which men in my position have\nlong had the habit of leaving wholly to others, with consequences often\nmost regrettable. I wish to speak of only one of these matters at this\ntime: Obituaries. Of necessity, an Obituary is a thing which cannot be\nso judiciously edited by any hand as by that of the subject of it. In\nsuch a work it is not the Facts that are of chief importance, but the\nlight which the obituarist shall throw upon them, the meaning which he\nshall dress them in, the conclusions which he shall draw from them,\nand the judgments which he shall deliver upon them. The Verdicts, you\nunderstand: that is the danger-line.\n\nIn considering this matter, in view of my approaching change, it has\nseemed to me wise to take such measures as may be feasible, to acquire,\nby courtesy of the press, access to my standing obituaries, with the\nprivilege--if this is not asking too much--of editing, not their Facts,\nbut their Verdicts. This, not for the present profit, further than as\nconcerns my family, but as a favorable influence usable on the Other\nSide, where there are some who are not friendly to me.\n\nWith this explanation of my motives, I will now ask you of your courtesy\nto make an appeal for me to the public press. It is my desire that\nsuch journals and periodicals as have obituaries of me lying in their\npigeonholes, with a view to sudden use some day, will not wait longer,\nbut will publish them now, and kindly send me a marked copy. My address\nis simply New York City--I have no other that is permanent and not\ntransient.\n\nI will correct them--not the Facts, but the Verdicts--striking out such\nclauses as could have a deleterious influence on the Other Side, and\nreplacing them with clauses of a more judicious character. I should,\nof course, expect to pay double rates for both the omissions and the\nsubstitutions; and I should also expect to pay quadruple rates for\nall obituaries which proved to be rightly and wisely worded in the\noriginals, thus requiring no emendations at all.\n\nIt is my desire to leave these Amended Obituaries neatly bound behind\nme as a perennial consolation and entertainment to my family, and as an\nheirloom which shall have a mournful but definite commercial value for\nmy remote posterity.\n\nI beg, sir, that you will insert this Advertisement (1t-eow, agate,\ninside), and send the bill to\n\nYours very respectfully.\n\nMark Twain.\n\nP.S.--For the best Obituary--one suitable for me to read in public, and\ncalculated to inspire regret--I desire to offer a Prize, consisting of\na Portrait of me done entirely by myself in pen and ink without previous\ninstructions. The ink warranted to be the kind used by the very best\nartists.\n\n\n\nA MONUMENT TO ADAM\n\nSome one has revealed to the _Tribune _that I once suggested to Rev.\nThomas K. Beecher, of Elmira, New York, that we get up a monument to\nAdam, and that Mr. Beecher favored the project. There is more to it\nthan that. The matter started as a joke, but it came somewhat near to\nmaterializing.\n\nIt is long ago--thirty years. Mr. Darwin's _Descent of Man_ has been in\nprint five or six years, and the storm of indignation raised by it was\nstill raging in pulpits and periodicals. In tracing the genesis of the\nhuman race back to its sources, Mr. Darwin had left Adam out altogether.\nWe had monkeys, and \"missing links,\" and plenty of other kinds of\nancestors, but no Adam. Jesting with Mr. Beecher and other friends in\nElmira, I said there seemed to be a likelihood that the world would\ndiscard Adam and accept the monkey, and that in the course of time\nAdam's very name would be forgotten in the earth; therefore this\ncalamity ought to be averted; a monument would accomplish this, and\nElmira ought not to waste this honorable opportunity to do Adam a favor\nand herself a credit.\n\nThen the unexpected happened. Two bankers came forward and took hold of\nthe matter--not for fun, not for sentiment, but because they saw in the\nmonument certain commercial advantages for the town. The project had\nseemed gently humorous before--it was more than that now, with this\nstern business gravity injected into it. The bankers discussed the\nmonument with me. We met several times. They proposed an indestructible\nmemorial, to cost twenty-five thousand dollars. The insane oddity of a\nmonument set up in a village to preserve a name that would outlast the\nhills and the rocks without any such help, would advertise Elmira to the\nends of the earth--and draw custom. It would be the only monument on the\nplanet to Adam, and in the matter of interest and impressiveness could\nnever have a rival until somebody should set up a monument to the Milky\nWay.\n\nPeople would come from every corner of the globe and stop off to look\nat it, no tour of the world would be complete that left out Adam's\nmonument. Elmira would be a Mecca; there would be pilgrim ships at\npilgrim rates, pilgrim specials on the continent's railways; libraries\nwould be written about the monument, every tourist would kodak it,\nmodels of it would be for sale everywhere in the earth, its form would\nbecome as familiar as the figure of Napoleon.\n\nOne of the bankers subscribed five thousand dollars, and I think the\nother one subscribed half as much, but I do not remember with certainty\nnow whether that was the figure or not. We got designs made--some of\nthem came from Paris.\n\nIn the beginning--as a detail of the project when it was yet a joke--I\nhad framed a humble and beseeching and perfervid petition to Congress\nbegging the government to build the monument, as a testimony of the\nGreat Republic's gratitude to the Father of the Human Race and as a\ntoken of her loyalty to him in this dark day of humiliation when his\nolder children were doubting and deserting him. It seemed to me that\nthis petition ought to be presented, now--it would be widely and\nfeelingly abused and ridiculed and cursed, and would advertise our\nscheme and make our ground-floor stock go off briskly. So I sent it\nto General Joseph R. Hawley, who was then in the House, and he said he\nwould present it. But he did not do it. I think he explained that when\nhe came to read it he was afraid of it: it was too serious, to gushy,\ntoo sentimental--the House might take it for earnest.\n\nWe ought to have carried out our monument scheme; we could have managed\nit without any great difficulty, and Elmira would now be the most\ncelebrated town in the universe.\n\nVery recently I began to build a book in which one of the minor\ncharacters touches incidentally upon a project for a monument to Adam,\nand now the _Tribune _has come upon a trace of the forgotten jest of\nthirty years ago. Apparently mental telegraphy is still in business. It\nis odd; but the freaks of mental telegraphy are usually odd.\n\n\n\nA HUMANE WORD FROM SATAN\n\n(The following letter, signed by Satan and purporting to come from\nhim, we have reason to believe was not written by him, but by Mark\nTwain.--Editor.)\n\nTO THE EDITOR OF HARPER'S WEEKLY:\n\nDear Sir and Kinsman,--Let us have done with this frivolous talk.\nThe American Board accepts contributions from me every year: then why\nshouldn't it from Mr. Rockefeller? In all the ages, three-fourths of the\nsupport of the great charities has been conscience-money, as my books\nwill show: then what becomes of the sting when that term is applied to\nMr. Rockefeller's gift? The American Board's trade is financed mainly\nfrom the graveyards. Bequests, you understand. Conscience-money.\nConfession of an old crime and deliberate perpetration of a new one;\nfor deceased's contribution is a robbery of his heirs. Shall the Board\ndecline bequests because they stand for one of these offenses every time\nand generally for both?\n\nAllow me to continue. The charge most persistently and resentfully\nand remorselessly dwelt upon is that Mr. Rockefeller's contribution is\nincurably tainted by perjury--perjury proved against him in the courts.\n_It makes us smile_--down in my place! Because there isn't a rich man\nin your vast city who doesn't perjure himself every year before the tax\nboard. They are all caked with perjury, many layers thick. Iron-clad,\nso to speak. If there is one that isn't, I desire to acquire him for my\nmuseum, and will pay Dinosaur rates. Will you say it isn't infraction\nof the law, but only annual evasion of it? Comfort yourselves with that\nnice distinction if you like--_for the present_. But by and by, when\nyou arrive, I will show you something interesting: a whole hell-full\nof evaders! Sometimes a frank law-breaker turns up elsewhere, but I get\nthose others every time.\n\nTo return to my muttons. I wish you to remember that my rich perjurers\nare contributing to the American Board with frequency: it is money\nfilched from the sworn-off personal tax; therefore it is the wages of\nsin; therefore it is my money; therefore it is _I_ that contribute it;\nand, finally, it is therefore as I have said: since the Board daily\naccepts contributions from me, why should it decline them from Mr.\nRockefeller, who is as good as I am, let the courts say what they may?\n\nSatan.\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION TO \"THE NEW GUIDE OF THE CONVERSATION IN PORTUGUESE AND\nENGLISH\"\n\nby Pedro Carolino\n\nIn this world of uncertainties, there is, at any rate, one thing which\nmay be pretty confidently set down as a certainty: and that is, that\nthis celebrated little phrase-book will never die while the English\nlanguage lasts. Its delicious unconscious ridiculousness, and its\nenchanting naivete, are as supreme and unapproachable, in their way,\nas are Shakespeare's sublimities. Whatsoever is perfect in its kind, in\nliterature, is imperishable: nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody\ncan hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect, it must and will stand\nalone: its immortality is secure.\n\nIt is one of the smallest books in the world, but few big books have\nreceived such wide attention, and been so much pondered by the grave and\nlearned, and so much discussed and written about by the thoughtful,\nthe thoughtless, the wise, and the foolish. Long notices of it have\nappeared, from time to time, in the great English reviews, and in\nerudite and authoritative philological periodicals; and it has been\nlaughed at, danced upon, and tossed in a blanket by nearly every\nnewspaper and magazine in the English-speaking world. Every scribbler,\nalmost, has had his little fling at it, at one time or another; I had\nmine fifteen years ago. The book gets out of print, every now and then,\nand one ceases to hear of it for a season; but presently the nations and\nnear and far colonies of our tongue and lineage call for it once more,\nand once more it issues from some London or Continental or American\npress, and runs a new course around the globe, wafted on its way by the\nwind of a world's laughter.\n\nMany persons have believed that this book's miraculous stupidities\nwere studied and disingenuous; but no one can read the volume carefully\nthrough and keep that opinion. It was written in serious good faith and\ndeep earnestness, by an honest and upright idiot who believed he knew\nsomething of the English language, and could impart his knowledge to\nothers. The amplest proof of this crops out somewhere or other upon each\nand every page. There are sentences in the book which could have been\nmanufactured by a man in his right mind, and with an intelligent and\ndeliberate purposes to seem innocently ignorant; but there are other\nsentences, and paragraphs, which no mere pretended ignorance could ever\nachieve--nor yet even the most genuine and comprehensive ignorance, when\nunbacked by inspiration.\n\nIt is not a fraud who speaks in the following paragraph of the author's\nPreface, but a good man, an honest man, a man whose conscience is at\nrest, a man who believes he has done a high and worthy work for his\nnation and his generation, and is well pleased with his performance:\n\nWe expect then, who the little book (for the care what we wrote him, and\nfor her typographical correction) that may be worth the acceptation of\nthe studious persons, and especially of the Youth, at which we dedicate\nhim particularly.\n\nOne cannot open this book anywhere and not find richness. To prove that\nthis is true, I will open it at random and copy the page I happen to\nstumble upon. Here is the result:\n\nDIALOGUE 16\n\nFor To See the Town\n\nAnothony, go to accompany they gentilsmen, do they see the town.\n\nWe won't to see all that is it remarquable here.\n\nCome with me, if you please. I shall not folget nothing what can to\nmerit your attention. Here we are near to cathedral; will you come in\nthere?\n\nWe will first to see him in oudside, after we shall go in there for to\nlook the interior.\n\nAdmire this master piece gothic architecture's.\n\nThe chasing of all they figures is astonishing' indeed.\n\nThe cupola and the nave are not less curious to see.\n\nWhat is this palace how I see yonder?\n\nIt is the town hall.\n\nAnd this tower here at this side?\n\nIt is the Observatory.\n\nThe bridge is very fine, it have ten arches, and is constructed of free\nstone.\n\nThe streets are very layed out by line and too paved.\n\nWhat is the circuit of this town?\n\nTwo leagues.\n\nThere is it also hospitals here?\n\nIt not fail them.\n\nWhat are then the edifices the worthest to have seen?\n\nIt is the arsnehal, the spectacle's hall, the Cusiomhouse, and the\nPurse.\n\nWe are going too see the others monuments such that the public\npawnbroker's office, the plants garden's, the money office's, the\nlibrary.\n\nThat it shall be for another day; we are tired.\n\nDIALOGUE 17\n\nTo Inform One'self of a Person\n\nHow is that gentilman who you did speak by and by?\n\nIs a German.\n\nI did think him Englishman.\n\nHe is of the Saxony side.\n\nHe speak the french very well.\n\nTough he is German, he speak so much well italyan, french, spanish and\nenglish, that among the Italyans, they believe him Italyan, he speak\nthe frenche as the Frenches himselves. The Spanishesmen believe him\nSpanishing, and the Englishes, Englishman. It is difficult to enjoy well\nso much several languages.\n\nThe last remark contains a general truth; but it ceases to be a truth\nwhen one contracts it and applies it to an individual--provided that that\nindividual is the author of this book, Senhor Pedro Carolino. I am\nsure I should not find it difficult \"to enjoy well so much several\nlanguages\"--or even a thousand of them--if he did the translating for me\nfrom the originals into his ostensible English.\n\n\n\nADVICE TO LITTLE GIRLS\n\nGood little girls ought not to make mouths at their teachers for every\ntrifling offense. This retaliation should only be resorted to under\npeculiarly aggravated circumstances.\n\nIf you have nothing but a rag-doll stuffed with sawdust, while one of\nyour more fortunate little playmates has a costly China one, you should\ntreat her with a show of kindness nevertheless. And you ought not to\nattempt to make a forcible swap with her unless your conscience would\njustify you in it, and you know you are able to do it.\n\nYou ought never to take your little brother's \"chewing-gum\" away from\nhim by main force; it is better to rope him in with the promise of\nthe first two dollars and a half you find floating down the river on a\ngrindstone. In the artless simplicity natural to this time of life, he\nwill regard it as a perfectly fair transaction. In all ages of the\nworld this eminently plausible fiction has lured the obtuse infant to\nfinancial ruin and disaster.\n\nIf at any time you find it necessary to correct your brother, do not\ncorrect him with mud--never, on any account, throw mud at him, because\nit will spoil his clothes. It is better to scald him a little, for then\nyou obtain desirable results. You secure his immediate attention to the\nlessons you are inculcating, and at the same time your hot water will\nhave a tendency to move impurities from his person, and possibly the\nskin, in spots.\n\nIf your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wrong to reply that you\nwon't. It is better and more becoming to intimate that you will do as\nshe bids you, and then afterward act quietly in the matter according to\nthe dictates of your best judgment.\n\nYou should ever bear in mind that it is to your kind parents that you\nare indebted for your food, and for the privilege of staying home from\nschool when you let on that you are sick. Therefore you ought to respect\ntheir little prejudices, and humor their little whims, and put up with\ntheir little foibles until they get to crowding you too much.\n\nGood little girls always show marked deference for the aged. You ought\nnever to \"sass\" old people unless they \"sass\" you first.\n\n\n\nPOST-MORTEM POETRY (1)\n\nIn Philadelphia they have a custom which it would be pleasant to see\nadopted throughout the land. It is that of appending to published\ndeath-notices a little verse or two of comforting poetry. Any one who is\nin the habit of reading the daily Philadelphia _Ledger _must frequently\nbe touched by these plaintive tributes to extinguished worth. In\nPhiladelphia, the departure of a child is a circumstance which is not\nmore surely followed by a burial than by the accustomed solacing poesy\nin the _Public Ledger_. In that city death loses half its terror because\nthe knowledge of its presence comes thus disguised in the sweet drapery\nof verse. For instance, in a late _Ledger _I find the following (I\nchange the surname):\n\nDIED\n\nHawks.--On the 17th inst., Clara, the daughter of Ephraim and Laura\nHawks, aged 21 months and 2 days.\n\n\nThat merry shout no more I hear, No laughing child I see, No little arms\nare around my neck, No feet upon my knee;\n\nNo kisses drop upon my cheek, These lips are sealed to me. Dear Lord,\nhow could I give Clara up To any but to Thee?\n\nA child thus mourned could not die wholly discontented. From the _Ledger\n_of the same date I make the following extract, merely changing the\nsurname, as before:\n\nBecket.--On Sunday morning, 19th inst., John P., infant son of George\nand Julia Becket, aged 1 year, 6 months, and 15 days.\n\n\nThat merry shout no more I hear, No laughing child I see, No little arms\nare round my neck, No feet upon my knee;\n\nNo kisses drop upon my cheek; These lips are sealed to me. Dear Lord,\nhow could I give Johnnie up To any but to Thee?\n\nThe similarity of the emotions as produced in the mourners in these two\ninstances is remarkably evidenced by the singular similarity of thought\nwhich they experienced, and the surprising coincidence of language used\nby them to give it expression.\n\nIn the same journal, of the same date, I find the following (surname\nsuppressed, as before):\n\nWagner.--On the 10th inst., Ferguson G., the son of William L. and\nMartha Theresa Wagner, aged 4 weeks and 1 day.\n\n\nThat merry shout no more I hear, No laughing child I see, No little arms\nare round my neck, No feet upon my knee;\n\nNo kisses drop upon my cheek, These lips are sealed to me. Dear Lord,\nhow could I give Ferguson up To any but to Thee?\n\nIt is strange what power the reiteration of an essentially poetical\nthought has upon one's feelings. When we take up the _Ledger _and read\nthe poetry about little Clara, we feel an unaccountable depression of\nthe spirits. When we drift further down the column and read the poetry\nabout little Johnnie, the depression and spirits acquires an added\nemphasis, and we experience tangible suffering. When we saunter along\ndown the column further still and read the poetry about little Ferguson,\nthe word torture but vaguely suggests the anguish that rends us.\n\nIn the _Ledger _(same copy referred to above) I find the following (I\nalter surname, as usual):\n\nWelch.--On the 5th inst., Mary C. Welch, wife of William B. Welch, and\ndaughter of Catharine and George W. Markland, in the 29th year of her\nage.\n\n\nA mother dear, a mother kind, Has gone and left us all behind. Cease to\nweep, for tears are vain, Mother dear is out of pain.\n\nFarewell, husband, children dear, Serve thy God with filial fear, And\nmeet me in the land above, Where all is peace, and joy, and love.\n\nWhat could be sweeter than that? No collection of salient facts (without\nreduction to tabular form) could be more succinctly stated than is done\nin the first stanza by the surviving relatives, and no more concise and\ncomprehensive program of farewells, post-mortuary general orders, etc.,\ncould be framed in any form than is done in verse by deceased in the\nlast stanza. These things insensibly make us wiser and tenderer, and\nbetter. Another extract:\n\nBall.--On the morning of the 15th inst., Mary E., daughter of John and\nSarah F. Ball.\n\n\n'Tis sweet to rest in lively hope That when my change shall come Angels\nwill hover round my bed, To waft my spirit home.\n\nThe following is apparently the customary form for heads of families:\n\nBurns.--On the 20th inst., Michael Burns, aged 40 years.\n\n\nDearest father, thou hast left us, Here thy loss we deeply feel; But\n'tis God that has bereft us, He can all our sorrows heal.\n\nFuneral at 2 o'clock sharp.\n\nThere is something very simple and pleasant about the following, which,\nin Philadelphia, seems to be the usual form for consumptives of long\nstanding. (It deplores four distinct cases in the single copy of the\n_Ledger _which lies on the Memoranda editorial table):\n\nBromley.--On the 29th inst., of consumption, Philip Bromley, in the 50th\nyear of his age.\n\n\nAffliction sore long time he bore, Physicians were in vain-- Till God at\nlast did hear him mourn, And eased him of his pain.\n\nThat friend whom death from us has torn, We did not think so soon to\npart; An anxious care now sinks the thorn Still deeper in our bleeding\nheart.\n\nThis beautiful creation loses nothing by repetition. On the\ncontrary, the oftener one sees it in the _Ledger_, the more grand and\nawe-inspiring it seems.\n\nWith one more extract I will close:\n\nDoble.--On the 4th inst., Samuel Pervil Worthington Doble, aged 4 days.\n\n\nOur little Sammy's gone, His tiny spirit's fled; Our little boy we loved\nso dear Lies sleeping with the dead.\n\nA tear within a father's eye, A mother's aching heart, Can only tell the\nagony How hard it is to part.\n\nCould anything be more plaintive than that, without requiring further\nconcessions of grammar? Could anything be likely to do more toward\nreconciling deceased to circumstances, and making him willing to go?\nPerhaps not. The power of song can hardly be estimated. There is an\nelement about some poetry which is able to make even physical suffering\nand death cheerful things to contemplate and consummations to be\ndesired. This element is present in the mortuary poetry of Philadelphia,\nand in a noticeable degree of development.\n\nThe custom I have been treating of is one that should be adopted in all\nthe cities of the land.\n\nIt is said that once a man of small consequence died, and the Rev. T.\nK. Beecher was asked to preach the funeral sermon--a man who abhors the\nlauding of people, either dead or alive, except in dignified and simple\nlanguage, and then only for merits which they actually possessed or\npossess, not merits which they merely ought to have possessed. The\nfriends of the deceased got up a stately funeral. They must have had\nmisgivings that the corpse might not be praised strongly enough, for\nthey prepared some manuscript headings and notes in which nothing was\nleft unsaid on that subject that a fervid imagination and an unabridged\ndictionary could compile, and these they handed to the minister as he\nentered the pulpit. They were merely intended as suggestions, and so the\nfriends were filled with consternation when the minister stood in the\npulpit and proceeded to read off the curious odds and ends in ghastly\ndetail and in a loud voice! And their consternation solidified to\npetrification when he paused at the end, contemplated the multitude\nreflectively, and then said, impressively:\n\n\"The man would be a fool who tried to add anything to that. Let us\npray!\"\n\nAnd with the same strict adhesion to truth it can be said that the man\nwould be a fool who tried to add anything to the following transcendent\nobituary poem. There is something so innocent, so guileless, so\ncomplacent, so unearthly serene and self-satisfied about this peerless\n\"hog-wash,\" that the man must be made of stone who can read it without a\ndulcet ecstasy creeping along his backbone and quivering in his marrow.\nThere is no need to say that this poem is genuine and in earnest, for\nits proofs are written all over its face. An ingenious scribbler\nmight imitate it after a fashion, but Shakespeare himself could not\ncounterfeit it. It is noticeable that the country editor who published\nit did not know that it was a treasure and the most perfect thing of its\nkind that the storehouses and museums of literature could show. He did\nnot dare to say no to the dread poet--for such a poet must have been\nsomething of an apparition--but he just shoveled it into his paper\nanywhere that came handy, and felt ashamed, and put that disgusted\n\"Published by Request\" over it, and hoped that his subscribers would\noverlook it or not feel an impulse to read it:\n\n(Published by Request)\n\nLINES\n\nComposed on the death of Samuel and Catharine Belknap's children\n\nby M. A. Glaze\n\n\nFriends and neighbors all draw near, And listen to what I have to say;\nAnd never leave your children dear When they are small, and go away.\n\nBut always think of that sad fate, That happened in year of '63; Four\nchildren with a house did burn, Think of their awful agony.\n\nTheir mother she had gone away, And left them there alone to stay; The\nhouse took fire and down did burn; Before their mother did return.\n\nTheir piteous cry the neighbors heard, And then the cry of fire was\ngiven; But, ah! before they could them reach, Their little spirits had\nflown to heaven.\n\nTheir father he to war had gone, And on the battle-field was slain; But\nlittle did he think when he went away, But what on earth they would meet\nagain.\n\nThe neighbors often told his wife Not to leave his children there,\nUnless she got some one to stay, And of the little ones take care.\n\nThe oldest he was years not six, And the youngest only eleven months\nold, But often she had left them there alone, As, by the neighbors, I\nhave been told.\n\nHow can she bear to see the place. Where she so oft has left them there,\nWithout a single one to look to them, Or of the little ones to take good\ncare.\n\nOh, can she look upon the spot, Whereunder their little burnt bones lay,\nBut what she thinks she hears them say, ''Twas God had pity, and took us\non high.'\n\nAnd there may she kneel down and pray, And ask God her to forgive; And\nshe may lead a different life While she on earth remains to live.\n\nHer husband and her children too, God has took from pain and woe. May\nshe reform and mend her ways, That she may also to them go.\n\nAnd when it is God's holy will, O, may she be prepared To meet her God\nand friends in peace, And leave this world of care.\n\n1. Written in 1870.\n\n\n\nTHE DANGER OF LYING IN BED\n\nThe man in the ticket-office said:\n\n\"Have an accident insurance ticket, also?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, after studying the matter over a little. \"No, I believe\nnot; I am going to be traveling by rail all day today. However, tomorrow\nI don't travel. Give me one for tomorrow.\"\n\nThe man looked puzzled. He said:\n\n\"But it is for accident insurance, and if you are going to travel by\nrail--\"\n\n\"If I am going to travel by rail I sha'n't need it. Lying at home in bed\nis the thing _I_ am afraid of.\"\n\nI had been looking into this matter. Last year I traveled twenty\nthousand miles, almost entirely by rail; the year before, I traveled\nover twenty-five thousand miles, half by sea and half by rail; and the\nyear before that I traveled in the neighborhood of ten thousand miles,\nexclusively by rail. I suppose if I put in all the little odd journeys\nhere and there, I may say I have traveled sixty thousand miles during\nthe three years I have mentioned. _And never an accident._\n\nFor a good while I said to myself every morning: \"Now I have escaped\nthus far, and so the chances are just that much increased that I shall\ncatch it this time. I will be shrewd, and buy an accident ticket.\" And\nto a dead moral certainty I drew a blank, and went to bed that night\nwithout a joint started or a bone splintered. I got tired of that sort\nof daily bother, and fell to buying accident tickets that were good\nfor a month. I said to myself, \"A man _can't_ buy thirty blanks in one\nbundle.\"\n\nBut I was mistaken. There was never a prize in the the lot. I could read\nof railway accidents every day--the newspaper atmosphere was foggy with\nthem; but somehow they never came my way. I found I had spent a good\ndeal of money in the accident business, and had nothing to show for it.\nMy suspicions were aroused, and I began to hunt around for somebody that\nhad won in this lottery. I found plenty of people who had invested,\nbut not an individual that had ever had an accident or made a cent. I\nstopped buying accident tickets and went to ciphering. The result was\nastounding. THE PERIL LAY NOT IN TRAVELING, BUT IN STAYING AT HOME.\n\nI hunted up statistics, and was amazed to find that after all the\nglaring newspaper headlines concerning railroad disasters, less than\n_three hundred_ people had really lost their lives by those disasters\nin the preceding twelve months. The Erie road was set down as the most\nmurderous in the list. It had killed forty-six--or twenty-six, I do not\nexactly remember which, but I know the number was double that of any\nother road. But the fact straightway suggested itself that the Erie was\nan immensely long road, and did more business than any other line in\nthe country; so the double number of killed ceased to be matter for\nsurprise.\n\nBy further figuring, it appeared that between New York and Rochester the\nErie ran eight passenger-trains each way every day--16 altogether; and\ncarried a daily average of 6,000 persons. That is about a million in six\nmonths--the population of New York City. Well, the Erie kills from 13 to\n23 persons of _its_ million in six months; and in the same time 13,000\nof New York's million die in their beds! My flesh crept, my hair stood\non end. \"This is appalling!\" I said. \"The danger isn't in traveling by\nrail, but in trusting to those deadly beds. I will never sleep in a bed\nagain.\"\n\nI had figured on considerably less than one-half the length of the Erie\nroad. It was plain that the entire road must transport at least eleven\nor twelve thousand people every day. There are many short roads running\nout of Boston that do fully half as much; a great many such roads. There\nare many roads scattered about the Union that do a prodigious passenger\nbusiness. Therefore it was fair to presume that an average of 2,500\npassengers a day for each road in the country would be almost correct.\nThere are 846 railway lines in our country, and 846 times 2,500 are\n2,115,000. So the railways of America move more than two millions of\npeople every day; six hundred and fifty millions of people a year,\nwithout counting the Sundays. They do that, too--there is no question\nabout it; though where they get the raw material is clear beyond the\njurisdiction of my arithmetic; for I have hunted the census through and\nthrough, and I find that there are not that many people in the United\nStates, by a matter of six hundred and ten millions at the very least.\nThey must use some of the same people over again, likely.\n\nSan Francisco is one-eighth as populous as New York; there are 60 deaths\na week in the former and 500 a week in the latter--if they have luck.\nThat is 3,120 deaths a year in San Francisco, and eight times as many\nin New York--say about 25,000 or 26,000. The health of the two places is\nthe same. So we will let it stand as a fair presumption that this will\nhold good all over the country, and that consequently 25,000 out of\nevery million of people we have must die every year. That amounts to\none-fortieth of our total population. One million of us, then, die\nannually. Out of this million ten or twelve thousand are stabbed, shot,\ndrowned, hanged, poisoned, or meet a similarly violent death in some\nother popular way, such as perishing by kerosene-lamp and hoop-skirt\nconflagrations, getting buried in coal-mines, falling off house-tops,\nbreaking through church, or lecture-room floors, taking patent\nmedicines, or committing suicide in other forms. The Erie railroad kills\n23 to 46; the other 845 railroads kill an average of one-third of a man\neach; and the rest of that million, amounting in the aggregate to that\nappalling figure of 987,631 corpses, die naturally in their beds!\n\nYou will excuse me from taking any more chances on those beds. The\nrailroads are good enough for me.\n\nAnd my advice to all people is, Don't stay at home any more than you can\nhelp; but when you have _got _to stay at home a while, buy a package of\nthose insurance tickets and sit up nights. You cannot be too cautious.\n\n(One can see now why I answered that ticket-agent in the manner recorded\nat the top of this sketch.)\n\nThe moral of this composition is, that thoughtless people grumble more\nthan is fair about railroad management in the United States. When we\nconsider that every day and night of the year full fourteen thousand\nrailway-trains of various kinds, freighted with life and armed with\ndeath, go thundering over the land, the marvel is, _not _that they kill\nthree hundred human beings in a twelvemonth, but that they do not kill\nthree hundred times three hundred!\n\n\n\nPORTRAIT OF KING WILLIAM III\n\nI never can look at those periodical portraits in _The Galaxy_ magazine\nwithout feeling a wild, tempestuous ambition to be an artist. I have\nseen thousands and thousands of pictures in my time--acres of them here\nand leagues of them in the galleries of Europe--but never any that moved\nme as these portraits do.\n\nThere is a portrait of Monsignore Capel in the November number, now\n_could_ anything be sweeter than that? And there was Bismarck's, in the\nOctober number; who can look at that without being purer and stronger\nand nobler for it? And Thurlow and Weed's picture in the September\nnumber; I would not have died without seeing that, no, not for anything\nthis world can give. But look back still further and recall my own\nlikeness as printed in the August number; if I had been in my grave a\nthousand years when that appeared, I would have got up and visited the\nartist.\n\nI sleep with all these portraits under my pillow every night, so that I\ncan go on studying them as soon as the day dawns in the morning. I know\nthem all as thoroughly as if I had made them myself; I know every line\nand mark about them. Sometimes when company are present I shuffle the\nportraits all up together, and then pick them out one by one and call\ntheir names, without referring to the printing on the bottom. I seldom\nmake a mistake--never, when I am calm.\n\nI have had the portraits framed for a long time, waiting till my aunt\ngets everything ready for hanging them up in the parlor. But first one\nthing and then another interferes, and so the thing is delayed. Once she\nsaid they would have more of the peculiar kind of light they needed in\nthe attic. The old simpleton! it is as dark as a tomb up there. But she\ndoes not know anything about art, and so she has no reverence for it.\nWhen I showed her my \"Map of the Fortifications of Paris,\" she said it\nwas rubbish.\n\nWell, from nursing those portraits so long, I have come at last to have\na perfect infatuation for art. I have a teacher now, and my enthusiasm\ncontinually and tumultuously grows, as I learn to use with more and\nmore facility the pencil, brush, and graver. I am studying under De\nMellville, the house and portrait painter. (His name was Smith when he\nlived in the West.) He does any kind of artist work a body wants, having\na genius that is universal, like Michael Angelo. Resembles that great\nartist, in fact. The back of his head is like his, and he wears his\nhat-brim tilted down on his nose to expose it.\n\nI have been studying under De Mellville several months now. The first\nmonth I painted fences, and gave general satisfaction. The next month I\nwhite-washed a barn. The third, I was doing tin roofs; the forth, common\nsigns; the fifth, statuary to stand before cigar shops. This present\nmonth is only the sixth, and I am already in portraits!\n\nThe humble offering which accompanies these remarks (see figure)--the\nportrait of his Majesty William III., King of Prussia--is my fifth\nattempt in portraits, and my greatest success. It has received unbounded\npraise from all classes of the community, but that which gratifies me\nmost is the frequent and cordial verdict that it resembles the _Galaxy_\nportraits. Those were my first love, my earliest admiration, the\noriginal source and incentive of my art-ambition. Whatever I am in Art\ntoday, I owe to these portraits. I ask no credit for myself--I deserve\nnone. And I never take any, either. Many a stranger has come to my\nexhibition (for I have had my portrait of King William on exhibition at\none dollar a ticket), and would have gone away blessing_ me_, if I had\nlet him, but I never did. I always stated where I got the idea.\n\nKing William wears large bushy side-whiskers, and some critics have\nthought that this portrait would be more complete if they were added.\nBut it was not possible. There was not room for side-whiskers and\nepaulets both, and so I let the whiskers go, and put in the epaulets,\nfor the sake of style. That thing on his hat is an eagle. The Prussian\neagle--it is a national emblem. When I say hat I mean helmet; but it\nseems impossible to make a picture of a helmet that a body can have\nconfidence in.\n\nI wish kind friends everywhere would aid me in my endeavor to attract a\nlittle attention to the _Galaxy _portraits. I feel persuaded it can be\naccomplished, if the course to be pursued be chosen with judgment. I\nwrite for that magazine all the time, and so do many abler men, and if\nI can get these portraits into universal favor, it is all I ask; the\nreading-matter will take care of itself.\n\n\n\nCOMMENDATIONS OF THE PORTRAIT\n\nThere is nothing like it in the Vatican. Pius IX.\n\nIt has none of that vagueness, that dreamy spirituality about it, which\nmany of the first critics of Arkansas have objected to in the Murillo\nschool of Art. Ruskin.\n\nThe expression is very interesting. J.W. Titian.\n\n(Keeps a macaroni store in Venice, at the old family stand.)\n\nIt is the neatest thing in still life I have seen for years.\n\nRosa Bonheur.\n\nThe smile may be almost called unique. Bismarck.\n\nI never saw such character portrayed in a picture face before. De\nMellville.\n\nThere is a benignant simplicity about the execution of this work which\nwarms the heart toward it as much, full as much, as it fascinates the\neye. Landseer.\n\nOne cannot see it without longing to contemplate the artist.\n\nFrederick William.\n\nSend me the entire edition--together with the plate and the original\nportrait--and name your own price. And--would you like to come over and\nstay awhile with Napoleon at Wilhelmshohe? It shall not cost you a cent.\nWilliam III.\n\n\n\nDOES THE RACE OF MAN LOVE A LORD?\n\nOften a quite assified remark becomes sanctified by use and petrified by\ncustom; it is then a permanency, its term of activity a geologic period.\n\nThe day after the arrival of Prince Henry I met an English friend, and\nhe rubbed his hands and broke out with a remark that was charged to the\nbrim with joy--joy that was evidently a pleasant salve to an old sore\nplace:\n\n\"Many a time I've had to listen without retort to an old saying that is\nirritatingly true, and until now seemed to offer no chance for a return\njibe: 'An Englishman does dearly love a lord'; but after this I shall\ntalk back, and say, 'How about the Americans?'\"\n\nIt is a curious thing, the currency that an idiotic saying can get. The\nman that first says it thinks he has made a discovery. The man he\nsays it to, thinks the same. It departs on its travels, is received\neverywhere with admiring acceptance, and not only as a piece of rare and\nacute observation, but as being exhaustively true and profoundly wise;\nand so it presently takes its place in the world's list of recognized\nand established wisdoms, and after that no one thinks of examining it to\nsee whether it is really entitled to its high honors or not. I call to\nmind instances of this in two well-established proverbs, whose dullness\nis not surpassed by the one about the Englishman and his love for a\nlord: one of them records the American's Adoration of the Almighty\nDollar, the other the American millionaire-girl's ambition to trade cash\nfor a title, with a husband thrown in.\n\nIt isn't merely the American that adores the Almighty Dollar, it is the\nhuman race. The human race has always adored the hatful of shells, or\nthe bale of calico, or the half-bushel of brass rings, or the handful of\nsteel fish-hooks, or the houseful of black wives, or the zareba full of\ncattle, or the two-score camels and asses, or the factory, or the farm,\nor the block of buildings, or the railroad bonds, or the bank stock, or\nthe hoarded cash, or--anything that stands for wealth and consideration\nand independence, and can secure to the possessor that most precious of\nall things, another man's envy. It was a dull person that invented the\nidea that the American's devotion to the dollar is more strenuous than\nanother's.\n\nRich American girls do buy titles, but they did not invent that idea;\nit had been worn threadbare several hundred centuries before America\nwas discovered. European girls still exploit it as briskly as ever;\nand, when a title is not to be had for the money in hand, they buy the\nhusband without it. They must put up the \"dot,\" or there is no trade.\nThe commercialization of brides is substantially universal, except in\nAmerica. It exists with us, to some little extent, but in no degree\napproaching a custom.\n\n\"The Englishman dearly loves a lord.\"\n\nWhat is the soul and source of this love? I think the thing could be\nmore correctly worded:\n\n\"The human race dearly envies a lord.\"\n\nThat is to say, it envies the lord's place. Why? On two accounts, I\nthink: its Power and its Conspicuousness.\n\nWhere Conspicuousness carries with it a Power which, by the light of our\nown observation and experience, we are able to measure and comprehend, I\nthink our envy of the possessor is as deep and as passionate as is\nthat of any other nation. No one can care less for a lord than the\nbackwoodsman, who has had no personal contact with lords and has seldom\nheard them spoken of; but I will not allow that any Englishman has a\nprofounder envy of a lord than has the average American who has lived\nlong years in a European capital and fully learned how immense is the\nposition the lord occupies.\n\nOf any ten thousand Americans who eagerly gather, at vast inconvenience,\nto get a glimpse of Prince Henry, all but a couple of hundred will be\nthere out of an immense curiosity; they are burning up with desire to\nsee a personage who is so much talked about. They envy him; but it is\nConspicuousness they envy mainly, not the Power that is lodged in his\nroyal quality and position, for they have but a vague and spectral\nknowledge and appreciation of that; through their environment and\nassociations they have been accustomed to regard such things lightly,\nand as not being very real; consequently, they are not able to value\nthem enough to consumingly envy them.\n\nBut, whenever an American (or other human being) is in the presence,\nfor the first time, of a combination of great Power and Conspicuousness\nwhich he thoroughly understands and appreciates, his eager curiosity and\npleasure will be well-sodden with that other passion--envy--whether he\nsuspects it or not. At any time, on any day, in any part of America,\nyou can confer a happiness upon any passing stranger by calling his\nattention to any other passing stranger and saying:\n\n\"Do you see that gentleman going along there? It is Mr. Rockefeller.\"\n\nWatch his eye. It is a combination of power and conspicuousness which\nthe man understands.\n\nWhen we understand rank, we always like to rub against it. When a man\nis conspicuous, we always want to see him. Also, if he will pay us an\nattention we will manage to remember it. Also, we will mention it now\nand then, casually; sometimes to a friend, or if a friend is not handy,\nwe will make out with a stranger.\n\nWell, then, what is rank, and what is conspicuousness? At once we\nthink of kings and aristocracies, and of world-wide celebrities in\nsoldierships, the arts, letters, etc., and we stop there. But that is a\nmistake. Rank holds its court and receives its homage on every round of\nthe ladder, from the emperor down to the rat-catcher; and distinction,\nalso, exists on every round of the ladder, and commands its due of\ndeference and envy.\n\nTo worship rank and distinction is the dear and valued privilege of all\nthe human race, and it is freely and joyfully exercised in democracies\nas well as in monarchies--and even, to some extent, among those\ncreatures whom we impertinently call the Lower Animals. For even they\nhave some poor little vanities and foibles, though in this matter they\nare paupers as compared to us.\n\nA Chinese Emperor has the worship of his four hundred millions of\nsubjects, but the rest of the world is indifferent to him. A Christian\nEmperor has the worship of his subjects and of a large part of\nthe Christian world outside of his domains; but he is a matter of\nindifference to all China. A king, class A, has an extensive worship; a\nking, class B, has a less extensive worship; class C, class D, class\nE get a steadily diminishing share of worship; class L (Sultan of\nZanzibar), class P (Sultan of Sulu), and class W (half-king of Samoa),\nget no worship at all outside their own little patch of sovereignty.\n\nTake the distinguished people along down. Each has his group of\nhomage-payers. In the navy, there are many groups; they start with the\nSecretary and the Admiral, and go down to the quartermaster--and below;\nfor there will be groups among the sailors, and each of these groups\nwill have a tar who is distinguished for his battles, or his strength,\nor his daring, or his profanity, and is admired and envied by his group.\nThe same with the army; the same with the literary and journalistic\ncraft; the publishing craft; the cod-fishery craft; Standard Oil; U. S.\nSteel; the class A hotel--and the rest of the alphabet in that line; the\nclass A prize-fighter--and the rest of the alphabet in his line--clear\ndown to the lowest and obscurest six-boy gang of little gamins, with\nits one boy that can thrash the rest, and to whom he is king of Samoa,\nbottom of the royal race, but looked up to with a most ardent admiration\nand envy.\n\nThere is something pathetic, and funny, and pretty, about this human\nrace's fondness for contact with power and distinction, and for the\nreflected glory it gets out of it. The king, class A, is happy in the\nstate banquet and the military show which the emperor provides for him,\nand he goes home and gathers the queen and the princelings around him in\nthe privacy of the spare room, and tells them all about it, and says:\n\n\"His Imperial Majesty put his hand upon my shoulder in the most friendly\nway--just as friendly and familiar, oh, you can't imagine it!--and\neverybody _seeing _him do it; charming, perfectly charming!\"\n\nThe king, class G, is happy in the cold collation and the police parade\nprovided for him by the king, class B, and goes home and tells the\nfamily all about it, and says:\n\n\"And His Majesty took me into his own private cabinet for a smoke and a\nchat, and there we sat just as sociable, and talking away and laughing\nand chatting, just the same as if we had been born in the same bunk; and\nall the servants in the anteroom could see us doing it! Oh, it was too\nlovely for anything!\"\n\nThe king, class Q, is happy in the modest entertainment furnished him by\nthe king, class M, and goes home and tells the household about it,\nand is as grateful and joyful over it as were his predecessors in the\ngaudier attentions that had fallen to their larger lot.\n\nEmperors, kings, artisans, peasants, big people, little people--at the\nbottom we are all alike and all the same; all just alike on the inside,\nand when our clothes are off, nobody can tell which of us is which. We\nare unanimous in the pride we take in good and genuine compliments paid\nus, and distinctions conferred upon us, in attentions shown. There is\nnot one of us, from the emperor down, but is made like that. Do I\nmean attentions shown us by the guest? No, I mean simply flattering\nattentions, let them come whence they may. We despise no source that can\npay us a pleasing attention--there is no source that is humble enough\nfor that. You have heard a dear little girl say to a frowzy and\ndisreputable dog: \"He came right to me and let me pat him on the head,\nand he wouldn't let the others touch him!\" and you have seen her eyes\ndance with pride in that high distinction. You have often seen that. If\nthe child were a princess, would that random dog be able to confer the\nlike glory upon her with his pretty compliment? Yes; and even in her\nmature life and seated upon a throne, she would still remember it, still\nrecall it, still speak of it with frank satisfaction. That charming\nand lovable German princess and poet, Carmen Sylva, Queen of Roumania,\nremembers yet that the flowers of the woods and fields \"talked to her\"\nwhen she was a girl, and she sets it down in her latest book; and that\nthe squirrels conferred upon her and her father the valued compliment of\nnot being afraid of them; and \"once one of them, holding a nut between\nits sharp little teeth, ran right up against my father\"--it has the very\nnote of \"He came right to me and let me pat him on the head\"--\"and when\nit saw itself reflected in his boot it was very much surprised,\nand stopped for a long time to contemplate itself in the polished\nleather\"--then it went its way. And the birds! she still remembers with\npride that \"they came boldly into my room,\" when she had neglected her\n\"duty\" and put no food on the window-sill for them; she knew all the\nwild birds, and forgets the royal crown on her head to remember with\npride that they knew her; also that the wasp and the bee were personal\nfriends of hers, and never forgot that gracious relationship to her\ninjury: \"never have I been stung by a wasp or a bee.\" And here is that\nproud note again that sings in that little child's elation in being\nsingled out, among all the company of children, for the random dog's\nhonor-conferring attentions. \"Even in the very worst summer for wasps,\nwhen, in lunching out of doors, our table was covered with them and\nevery one else was stung, they never hurt me.\"\n\nWhen a queen whose qualities of mind and heart and character are able to\nadd distinction to so distinguished a place as a throne, remembers\nwith grateful exultation, after thirty years, honors and distinctions\nconferred upon her by the humble, wild creatures of the forest, we are\nhelped to realize that complimentary attentions, homage,\ndistinctions, are of no caste, but are above all cast--that they are a\nnobility-conferring power apart.\n\nWe all like these things. When the gate-guard at the railway-station\npasses me through unchallenged and examines other people's tickets, I\nfeel as the king, class A, felt when the emperor put the imperial hand\non his shoulder, \"everybody seeing him do it\"; and as the child felt\nwhen the random dog allowed her to pat his head and ostracized the\nothers; and as the princess felt when the wasps spared her and stung\nthe rest; and I felt just so, four years ago in Vienna (and remember it\nyet), when the helmeted police shut me off, with fifty others, from a\nstreet which the Emperor was to pass through, and the captain of the\nsquad turned and saw the situation and said indignantly to that guard:\n\n\"Can't you see it is the Herr Mark Twain? Let him through!\"\n\nIt was four years ago; but it will be four hundred before I forget the\nwind of self-complacency that rose in me, and strained my buttons when I\nmarked the deference for me evoked in the faces of my fellow-rabble, and\nnoted, mingled with it, a puzzled and resentful expression which said,\nas plainly as speech could have worded it: \"And who in the nation is the\nHerr Mark Twain _um gotteswillen?_\"\n\nHow many times in your life have you heard this boastful remark:\n\n\"I stood as close to him as I am to you; I could have put out my hand\nand touched him.\"\n\nWe have all heard it many and many a time. It was a proud distinction\nto be able to say those words. It brought envy to the speaker, a kind of\nglory; and he basked in it and was happy through all his veins. And\nwho was it he stood so close to? The answer would cover all the grades.\nSometimes it was a king; sometimes it was a renowned highwayman;\nsometimes it was an unknown man killed in an extraordinary way and made\nsuddenly famous by it; always it was a person who was for the moment the\nsubject of public interest of a village.\n\n\"I was there, and I saw it myself.\" That is a common and envy-compelling\nremark. It can refer to a battle; to a hanging; to a coronation; to the\nkilling of Jumbo by the railway-train; to the arrival of Jenny Lind at\nthe Battery; to the meeting of the President and Prince Henry; to the\nchase of a murderous maniac; to the disaster in the tunnel; to the\nexplosion in the subway; to a remarkable dog-fight; to a village\nchurch struck by lightning. It will be said, more or less causally, by\neverybody in America who has seen Prince Henry do anything, or try to.\nThe man who was absent and didn't see him to anything, will scoff. It\nis his privilege; and he can make capital out of it, too; he will seem,\neven to himself, to be different from other Americans, and better.\nAs his opinion of his superior Americanism grows, and swells, and\nconcentrates and coagulates, he will go further and try to belittle the\ndistinction of those that saw the Prince do things, and will spoil their\npleasure in it if he can. My life has been embittered by that kind of\nperson. If you are able to tell of a special distinction that has fallen\nto your lot, it gravels them; they cannot bear it; and they try to make\nbelieve that the thing you took for a special distinction was nothing\nof the kind and was meant in quite another way. Once I was received in\nprivate audience by an emperor. Last week I was telling a jealous person\nabout it, and I could see him wince under it, see him bite, see\nhim suffer. I revealed the whole episode to him with considerable\nelaboration and nice attention to detail. When I was through, he asked\nme what had impressed me most. I said:\n\n\"His Majesty's delicacy. They told me to be sure and back out from the\npresence, and find the door-knob as best I could; it was not allowable\nto face around. Now the Emperor knew it would be a difficult ordeal for\nme, because of lack of practice; and so, when it was time to part, he\nturned, with exceeding delicacy, and pretended to fumble with things on\nhis desk, so I could get out in my own way, without his seeing me.\"\n\nIt went home! It was vitriol! I saw the envy and disgruntlement rise\nin the man's face; he couldn't keep it down. I saw him try to fix up\nsomething in his mind to take the bloom off that distinction. I enjoyed\nthat, for I judged that he had his work cut out for him. He struggled\nalong inwardly for quite a while; then he said, with a manner of a\nperson who has to say something and hasn't anything relevant to say:\n\n\"You said he had a handful of special-brand cigars on the table?\"\n\n\"Yes; _I_ never saw anything to match them.\"\n\nI had him again. He had to fumble around in his mind as much as another\nminute before he could play; then he said in as mean a way as I ever\nheard a person say anything:\n\n\"He could have been counting the cigars, you know.\"\n\nI cannot endure a man like that. It is nothing to him how unkind he is,\nso long as he takes the bloom off. It is all he cares for.\n\n\"An Englishman (or other human being) does dearly love a lord,\" (or\nother conspicuous person.) It includes us all. We love to be noticed by\nthe conspicuous person; we love to be associated with such, or with\na conspicuous event, even in a seventh-rate fashion, even in the\nforty-seventh, if we cannot do better. This accounts for some of our\ncurious tastes in mementos. It accounts for the large private trade in\nthe Prince of Wales's hair, which chambermaids were able to drive in\nthat article of commerce when the Prince made the tour of the world in\nthe long ago--hair which probably did not always come from his brush,\nsince enough of it was marketed to refurnish a bald comet; it accounts\nfor the fact that the rope which lynches a negro in the presence of\nten thousand Christian spectators is salable five minutes later at\ntwo dollars and inch; it accounts for the mournful fact that a royal\npersonage does not venture to wear buttons on his coat in public.\n\nWe do love a lord--and by that term I mean any person whose situation\nis higher than our own. The lord of the group, for instance: a group of\npeers, a group of millionaires, a group of hoodlums, a group of sailors,\na group of newsboys, a group of saloon politicians, a group of college\ngirls. No royal person has ever been the object of a more delirious\nloyalty and slavish adoration than is paid by the vast Tammany herd to\nits squalid idol of Wantage. There is not a bifurcated animal in that\nmenagerie that would not be proud to appear in a newspaper picture in\nhis company. At the same time, there are some in that organization who\nwould scoff at the people who have been daily pictured in company with\nPrince Henry, and would say vigorously that _they _would not consent\nto be photographed with him--a statement which would not be true in any\ninstance. There are hundreds of people in America who would frankly say\nto you that they would not be proud to be photographed in a group\nwith the Prince, if invited; and some of these unthinking people would\nbelieve it when they said it; yet in no instance would it be true. We\nhave a large population, but we have not a large enough one, by several\nmillions, to furnish that man. He has not yet been begotten, and in fact\nhe is not begettable.\n\nYou may take any of the printed groups, and there isn't a person in the\ndim background who isn't visibly trying to be vivid; if it is a crowd of\nten thousand--ten thousand proud, untamed democrats, horny-handed sons\nof toil and of politics, and fliers of the eagle--there isn't one who\nis trying to keep out of range, there isn't one who isn't plainly\nmeditating a purchase of the paper in the morning, with the intention of\nhunting himself out in the picture and of framing and keeping it if he\nshall find so much of his person in it as his starboard ear.\n\nWe all love to get some of the drippings of Conspicuousness, and we\nwill put up with a single, humble drip, if we can't get any more. We may\npretend otherwise, in conversation; but we can't pretend it to ourselves\nprivately--and we don't. We do confess in public that we are the\nnoblest work of God, being moved to it by long habit, and teaching,\nand superstition; but deep down in the secret places of our souls we\nrecognize that, if we _are _the noblest work, the less said about it the\nbetter.\n\nWe of the North poke fun at the South for its fondness of titles--a\nfondness for titles pure and simple, regardless of whether they are\ngenuine or pinchbeck. We forget that whatever a Southerner likes the\nrest of the human race likes, and that there is no law of predilection\nlodged in one people that is absent from another people. There is no\nvariety in the human race. We are all children, all children of the one\nAdam, and we love toys. We can soon acquire that Southern disease if\nsome one will give it a start. It already has a start, in fact. I have\nbeen personally acquainted with over eighty-four thousand persons who,\nat one time or another in their lives, have served for a year or two\non the staffs of our multitudinous governors, and through that\nfatality have been generals temporarily, and colonels temporarily, and\njudge-advocates temporarily; but I have known only nine among them who\ncould be hired to let the title go when it ceased to be legitimate. I\nknow thousands and thousands of governors who ceased to be governors\naway back in the last century; but I am acquainted with only three who\nwould answer your letter if you failed to call them \"Governor\" in it.\nI know acres and acres of men who have done time in a legislature in\nprehistoric days, but among them is not half an acre whose resentment\nyou would not raise if you addressed them as \"Mr.\" instead of \"Hon.\"\nThe first thing a legislature does is to convene in an impressive\nlegislative attitude, and get itself photographed. Each member\nframes his copy and takes it to the woods and hangs it up in the most\naggressively conspicuous place in his house; and if you visit the house\nand fail to inquire what that accumulation is, the conversation will be\nbrought around to it by that aforetime legislator, and he will show you\na figure in it which in the course of years he has almost obliterated\nwith the smut of his finger-marks, and say with a solemn joy, \"It's me!\"\n\nHave you ever seen a country Congressman enter the hotel breakfast-room\nin Washington with his letters?--and sit at his table and let on to\nread them?--and wrinkle his brows and frown statesman-like?--keeping a\nfurtive watch-out over his glasses all the while to see if he is being\nobserved and admired?--those same old letters which he fetches in every\nmorning? Have you seen it? Have you seen him show off? It is _the_\nsight of the national capital. Except one; a pathetic one. That is the\nex-Congressman: the poor fellow whose life has been ruined by a two-year\ntaste of glory and of fictitious consequence; who has been superseded,\nand ought to take his heartbreak home and hide it, but cannot tear\nhimself away from the scene of his lost little grandeur; and so he\nlingers, and still lingers, year after year, unconsidered, sometimes\nsnubbed, ashamed of his fallen estate, and valiantly trying to look\notherwise; dreary and depressed, but counterfeiting breeziness and\ngaiety, hailing with chummy familiarity, which is not always welcomed,\nthe more-fortunates who are still in place and were once his mates. Have\nyou seen him? He clings piteously to the one little shred that is left\nof his departed distinction--the \"privilege of the floor\"; and works it\nhard and gets what he can out of it. That is the saddest figure I know\nof.\n\nYes, we do so love our little distinctions! And then we loftily scoff\nat a Prince for enjoying his larger ones; forgetting that if we only had\nhis chance--ah! \"Senator\" is not a legitimate title. A Senator has no\nmore right to be addressed by it than have you or I; but, in the several\nstate capitals and in Washington, there are five thousand Senators who\ntake very kindly to that fiction, and who purr gratefully when you call\nthem by it--which you may do quite unrebuked. Then those same Senators\nsmile at the self-constructed majors and generals and judges of the\nSouth!\n\nIndeed, we do love our distinctions, get them how we may. And we work\nthem for all they are worth. In prayer we call ourselves \"worms of the\ndust,\" but it is only on a sort of tacit understanding that the remark\nshall not be taken at par._ We_--worms of the dust! Oh, no, we are\nnot that. Except in fact; and we do not deal much in fact when we are\ncontemplating ourselves.\n\nAs a race, we do certainly love a lord--let him be Croker, or a duke, or\na prize-fighter, or whatever other personage shall chance to be the head\nof our group. Many years ago, I saw a greasy youth in overalls standing\nby the _Herald _office, with an expectant look in his face. Soon a large\nman passed out, and gave him a pat on the shoulder. That was what the\nboy was waiting for--the large man's notice. The pat made him proud and\nhappy, and the exultation inside of him shone out through his eyes; and\nhis mates were there to see the pat and envy it and wish they could have\nthat glory. The boy belonged down cellar in the press-room, the large\nman was king of the upper floors, foreman of the composing-room. The\nlight in the boy's face was worship, the foreman was his lord, head of\nhis group. The pat was an accolade. It was as precious to the boy as it\nwould have been if he had been an aristocrat's son and the accolade had\nbeen delivered by his sovereign with a sword. The quintessence of the\nhonor was all there; there was no difference in values; in truth there\nwas no difference present except an artificial one--clothes.\n\nAll the human race loves a lord--that is, loves to look upon or be\nnoticed by the possessor of Power or Conspicuousness; and sometimes\nanimals, born to better things and higher ideals, descend to man's level\nin this matter. In the Jardin des Plantes I have see a cat that was so\nvain of being the personal friend of an elephant that I was ashamed of\nher.\n\n\n\nEXTRACTS FROM ADAM'S DIARY\n\nMONDAY.--This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way.\nIt is always hanging around and following me about. I don't like this; I\nam not used to company. I wish it would stay with the other animals....\nCloudy today, wind in the east; think we shall have rain.... _We?_ Where\ndid I get that word--the new creature uses it.\n\nTUESDAY.--Been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing on\nthe estate, I think. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls--why, I am\nsure I do not know. Says it _looks _like Niagara Falls. That is not a\nreason, it is mere waywardness and imbecility. I get no chance to name\nanything myself. The new creature names everything that comes along,\nbefore I can get in a protest. And always that same pretext is\noffered--it _looks _like the thing. There is a dodo, for instance. Says\nthe moment one looks at it one sees at a glance that it \"looks like a\ndodo.\" It will have to keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret\nabout it, and it does no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a\ndodo than I do.\n\nWEDNESDAY.--Built me a shelter against the rain, but could not have it\nto myself in peace. The new creature intruded. When I tried to put it\nout it shed water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it away with\nthe back of its paws, and made a noise such as some of the other animals\nmake when they are in distress. I wish it would not talk; it is always\ntalking. That sounds like a cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur;\nbut I do not mean it so. I have never heard the human voice before, and\nany new and strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of\nthese dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And this\nnew sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at my\near, first on one side and then on the other, and I am used only to\nsounds that are more or less distant from me.\n\nFRIDAY. The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do.\nI had a very good name for the estate, and it was musical and\npretty--_Garden Of Eden._ Privately, I continue to call it that, but not\nany longer publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and rocks and\nscenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it\n_looks _like a park, and does not look like anything _but _a park.\nConsequently, without consulting me, it has been new-named _Niagara\nFalls Park_. This is sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me. And\nalready there is a sign up:\n\nKEEP OFF THE GRASS\n\nMy life is not as happy as it was.\n\nSATURDAY.--The new creature eats too much fruit. We are going to run\nshort, most likely. \"We\" again--that is _its_ word; mine, too, now, from\nhearing it so much. Good deal of fog this morning. I do not go out in\nthe fog myself. This new creature does. It goes out in all weathers,\nand stumps right in with its muddy feet. And talks. It used to be so\npleasant and quiet here.\n\nSUNDAY.--Pulled through. This day is getting to be more and more trying.\nIt was selected and set apart last November as a day of rest. I had\nalready six of them per week before. This morning found the new creature\ntrying to clod apples out of that forbidden tree.\n\nMONDAY.--The new creature says its name is Eve. That is all right, I\nhave no objections. Says it is to call it by, when I want it to come.\nI said it was superfluous, then. The word evidently raised me in its\nrespect; and indeed it is a large, good word and will bear repetition.\nIt says it is not an It, it is a She. This is probably doubtful; yet it\nis all one to me; what she is were nothing to me if she would but go by\nherself and not talk.\n\nTUESDAY.--She has littered the whole estate with execrable names and\noffensive signs:\n\nThis way to the Whirlpool\n\nThis way to Goat Island\n\nCave of the Winds this way\n\nShe says this park would make a tidy summer resort if there was any\ncustom for it. Summer resort--another invention of hers--just words,\nwithout any meaning. What is a summer resort? But it is best not to ask\nher, she has such a rage for explaining.\n\nFRIDAY.--She has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the Falls.\nWhat harm does it do? Says it makes her shudder. I wonder why; I have\nalways done it--always liked the plunge, and coolness. I supposed it was\nwhat the Falls were for. They have no other use that I can see, and\nthey must have been made for something. She says they were only made for\nscenery--like the rhinoceros and the mastodon.\n\nI went over the Falls in a barrel--not satisfactory to her. Went over\nin a tub--still not satisfactory. Swam the Whirlpool and the Rapids in\na fig-leaf suit. It got much damaged. Hence, tedious complaints about\nmy extravagance. I am too much hampered here. What I need is a change of\nscene.\n\nSATURDAY.--I escaped last Tuesday night, and traveled two days, and\nbuilt me another shelter in a secluded place, and obliterated my tracks\nas well as I could, but she hunted me out by means of a beast which she\nhas tamed and calls a wolf, and came making that pitiful noise again,\nand shedding that water out of the places she looks with. I was obliged\nto return with her, but will presently emigrate again when occasion\noffers. She engages herself in many foolish things; among others; to\nstudy out why the animals called lions and tigers live on grass and\nflowers, when, as she says, the sort of teeth they wear would indicate\nthat they were intended to eat each other. This is foolish, because to\ndo that would be to kill each other, and that would introduce what, as\nI understand, is called \"death\"; and death, as I have been told, has not\nyet entered the Park. Which is a pity, on some accounts.\n\nSUNDAY.--Pulled through.\n\nMONDAY.--I believe I see what the week is for: it is to give time to\nrest up from the weariness of Sunday. It seems a good idea. ... She has\nbeen climbing that tree again. Clodded her out of it. She said nobody\nwas looking. Seems to consider that a sufficient justification for\nchancing any dangerous thing. Told her that. The word justification\nmoved her admiration--and envy, too, I thought. It is a good word.\n\nTUESDAY.--She told me she was made out of a rib taken from my body.\nThis is at least doubtful, if not more than that. I have not missed any\nrib.... She is in much trouble about the buzzard; says grass does not\nagree with it; is afraid she can't raise it; thinks it was intended to\nlive on decayed flesh. The buzzard must get along the best it can with\nwhat is provided. We cannot overturn the whole scheme to accommodate the\nbuzzard.\n\nSATURDAY.--She fell in the pond yesterday when she was looking at\nherself in it, which she is always doing. She nearly strangled, and said\nit was most uncomfortable. This made her sorry for the creatures which\nlive in there, which she calls fish, for she continues to fasten names\non to things that don't need them and don't come when they are called\nby them, which is a matter of no consequence to her, she is such a\nnumbskull, anyway; so she got a lot of them out and brought them in last\nnight and put them in my bed to keep warm, but I have noticed them now\nand then all day and I don't see that they are any happier there then\nthey were before, only quieter. When night comes I shall throw them\noutdoors. I will not sleep with them again, for I find them clammy and\nunpleasant to lie among when a person hasn't anything on.\n\nSUNDAY.--Pulled through.\n\nTUESDAY.--She has taken up with a snake now. The other animals are glad,\nfor she was always experimenting with them and bothering them; and I am\nglad because the snake talks, and this enables me to get a rest.\n\nFRIDAY.--She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of the tree,\nand says the result will be a great and fine and noble education. I told\nher there would be another result, too--it would introduce death into\nthe world. That was a mistake--it had been better to keep the remark to\nmyself; it only gave her an idea--she could save the sick buzzard, and\nfurnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and tigers. I advised her to\nkeep away from the tree. She said she wouldn't. I foresee trouble. Will\nemigrate.\n\nWEDNESDAY.--I have had a variegated time. I escaped last night, and rode\na horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to get clear of the\nPark and hide in some other country before the trouble should begin; but\nit was not to be. About an hour after sun-up, as I was riding through\na flowery plain where thousands of animals were grazing, slumbering, or\nplaying with each other, according to their wont, all of a sudden they\nbroke into a tempest of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain\nwas a frantic commotion and every beast was destroying its neighbor. I\nknew what it meant--Eve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into\nthe world. ... The tigers ate my house, paying no attention when\nI ordered them to desist, and they would have eaten me if I had\nstayed--which I didn't, but went away in much haste.... I found this\nplace, outside the Park, and was fairly comfortable for a few days,\nbut she has found me out. Found me out, and has named the place\nTonawanda--says it _looks _like that. In fact I was not sorry she came,\nfor there are but meager pickings here, and she brought some of those\napples. I was obliged to eat them, I was so hungry. It was against my\nprinciples, but I find that principles have no real force except when\none is well fed.... She came curtained in boughs and bunches of leaves,\nand when I asked her what she meant by such nonsense, and snatched them\naway and threw them down, she tittered and blushed. I had never seen\na person titter and blush before, and to me it seemed unbecoming and\nidiotic. She said I would soon know how it was myself. This was correct.\nHungry as I was, I laid down the apple half-eaten--certainly the best\none I ever saw, considering the lateness of the season--and arrayed\nmyself in the discarded boughs and branches, and then spoke to her with\nsome severity and ordered her to go and get some more and not make a\nspectacle of herself. She did it, and after this we crept down to where\nthe wild-beast battle had been, and collected some skins, and I made her\npatch together a couple of suits proper for public occasions. They are\nuncomfortable, it is true, but stylish, and that is the main point about\nclothes.... I find she is a good deal of a companion. I see I should be\nlonesome and depressed without her, now that I have lost my property.\nAnother thing, she says it is ordered that we work for our living\nhereafter. She will be useful. I will superintend.\n\nTEN DAYS LATER.--She accuses _me _of being the cause of our disaster!\nShe says, with apparent sincerity and truth, that the Serpent assured\nher that the forbidden fruit was not apples, it was chestnuts. I said\nI was innocent, then, for I had not eaten any chestnuts. She said the\nSerpent informed her that \"chestnut\" was a figurative term meaning an\naged and moldy joke. I turned pale at that, for I have made many jokes\nto pass the weary time, and some of them could have been of that sort,\nthough I had honestly supposed that they were new when I made them. She\nasked me if I had made one just at the time of the catastrophe. I was\nobliged to admit that I had made one to myself, though not aloud. It\nwas this. I was thinking about the Falls, and I said to myself, \"How\nwonderful it is to see that vast body of water tumble down there!\" Then\nin an instant a bright thought flashed into my head, and I let it\nfly, saying, \"It would be a deal more wonderful to see it tumble_ up_\nthere!\"--and I was just about to kill myself with laughing at it when\nall nature broke loose in war and death and I had to flee for my life.\n\"There,\" she said, with triumph, \"that is just it; the Serpent mentioned\nthat very jest, and called it the First Chestnut, and said it was coeval\nwith the creation.\" Alas, I am indeed to blame. Would that I were not\nwitty; oh, that I had never had that radiant thought!\n\nNEXT YEAR.--We have named it Cain. She caught it while I was up country\ntrapping on the North Shore of the Erie; caught it in the timber a\ncouple of miles from our dug-out--or it might have been four, she isn't\ncertain which. It resembles us in some ways, and may be a relation. That\nis what she thinks, but this is an error, in my judgment. The difference\nin size warrants the conclusion that it is a different and new kind of\nanimal--a fish, perhaps, though when I put it in the water to see,\nit sank, and she plunged in and snatched it out before there was\nopportunity for the experiment to determine the matter. I still think it\nis a fish, but she is indifferent about what it is, and will not let\nme have it to try. I do not understand this. The coming of the creature\nseems to have changed her whole nature and made her unreasonable about\nexperiments. She thinks more of it than she does of any of the\nother animals, but is not able to explain why. Her mind is\ndisordered--everything shows it. Sometimes she carries the fish in her\narms half the night when it complains and wants to get to the water. At\nsuch times the water comes out of the places in her face that she looks\nout of, and she pats the fish on the back and makes soft sounds with her\nmouth to soothe it, and betrays sorrow and solicitude in a hundred ways.\nI have never seen her do like this with any other fish, and it troubles\nme greatly. She used to carry the young tigers around so, and play with\nthem, before we lost our property, but it was only play; she never took\non about them like this when their dinner disagreed with them.\n\nSUNDAY.--She doesn't work, Sundays, but lies around all tired out, and\nlikes to have the fish wallow over her; and she makes fool noises to\namuse it, and pretends to chew its paws, and that makes it laugh. I have\nnot seen a fish before that could laugh. This makes me doubt.... I have\ncome to like Sunday myself. Superintending all the week tires a body so.\nThere ought to be more Sundays. In the old days they were tough, but now\nthey come handy.\n\nWEDNESDAY.--It isn't a fish. I cannot quite make out what it is. It\nmakes curious devilish noises when not satisfied, and says \"goo-goo\"\nwhen it is. It is not one of us, for it doesn't walk; it is not a bird,\nfor it doesn't fly; it is not a frog, for it doesn't hop; it is not\na snake, for it doesn't crawl; I feel sure it is not a fish, though I\ncannot get a chance to find out whether it can swim or not. It merely\nlies around, and mostly on its back, with its feet up. I have not seen\nany other animal do that before. I said I believed it was an enigma; but\nshe only admired the word without understanding it. In my judgment it is\neither an enigma or some kind of a bug. If it dies, I will take it apart\nand see what its arrangements are. I never had a thing perplex me so.\n\nTHREE MONTHS LATER.--The perplexity augments instead of diminishing. I\nsleep but little. It has ceased from lying around, and goes about on\nits four legs now. Yet it differs from the other four legged animals,\nin that its front legs are unusually short, consequently this causes the\nmain part of its person to stick up uncomfortably high in the air, and\nthis is not attractive. It is built much as we are, but its method of\ntraveling shows that it is not of our breed. The short front legs and\nlong hind ones indicate that it is a of the kangaroo family, but it is a\nmarked variation of that species, since the true kangaroo hops, whereas\nthis one never does. Still it is a curious and interesting variety,\nand has not been catalogued before. As I discovered it, I have felt\njustified in securing the credit of the discovery by attaching my name\nto it, and hence have called it _Kangaroorum Adamiensis_.... It must\nhave been a young one when it came, for it has grown exceedingly since.\nIt must be five times as big, now, as it was then, and when discontented\nit is able to make from twenty-two to thirty-eight times the noise\nit made at first. Coercion does not modify this, but has the contrary\neffect. For this reason I discontinued the system. She reconciles it by\npersuasion, and by giving it things which she had previously told me she\nwouldn't give it. As already observed, I was not at home when it first\ncame, and she told me she found it in the woods. It seems odd that it\nshould be the only one, yet it must be so, for I have worn myself out\nthese many weeks trying to find another one to add to my collection, and\nfor this to play with; for surely then it would be quieter and we\ncould tame it more easily. But I find none, nor any vestige of any; and\nstrangest of all, no tracks. It has to live on the ground, it cannot\nhelp itself; therefore, how does it get about without leaving a track?\nI have set a dozen traps, but they do no good. I catch all small animals\nexcept that one; animals that merely go into the trap out of curiosity,\nI think, to see what the milk is there for. They never drink it.\n\nTHREE MONTHS LATER.--The Kangaroo still continues to grow, which is\nvery strange and perplexing. I never knew one to be so long getting its\ngrowth. It has fur on its head now; not like kangaroo fur, but exactly\nlike our hair except that it is much finer and softer, and instead of\nbeing black is red. I am like to lose my mind over the capricious and\nharassing developments of this unclassifiable zoological freak. If I\ncould catch another one--but that is hopeless; it is a new variety, and\nthe only sample; this is plain. But I caught a true kangaroo and brought\nit in, thinking that this one, being lonesome, would rather have that\nfor company than have no kin at all, or any animal it could feel a\nnearness to or get sympathy from in its forlorn condition here among\nstrangers who do not know its ways or habits, or what to do to make it\nfeel that it is among friends; but it was a mistake--it went into such\nfits at the sight of the kangaroo that I was convinced it had never seen\none before. I pity the poor noisy little animal, but there is nothing\nI can do to make it happy. If I could tame it--but that is out of the\nquestion; the more I try the worse I seem to make it. It grieves me to\nthe heart to see it in its little storms of sorrow and passion. I wanted\nto let it go, but she wouldn't hear of it. That seemed cruel and not\nlike her; and yet she may be right. It might be lonelier than ever; for\nsince I cannot find another one, how could_ it_?\n\nFIVE MONTHS LATER.--It is not a kangaroo. No, for it supports itself by\nholding to her finger, and thus goes a few steps on its hind legs, and\nthen falls down. It is probably some kind of a bear; and yet it has\nno tail--as yet--and no fur, except upon its head. It still keeps on\ngrowing--that is a curious circumstance, for bears get their growth\nearlier than this. Bears are dangerous--since our catastrophe--and I\nshall not be satisfied to have this one prowling about the place much\nlonger without a muzzle on. I have offered to get her a kangaroo if she\nwould let this one go, but it did no good--she is determined to run us\ninto all sorts of foolish risks, I think. She was not like this before\nshe lost her mind.\n\nA FORTNIGHT LATER.--I examined its mouth. There is no danger yet: it has\nonly one tooth. It has no tail yet. It makes more noise now than it ever\ndid before--and mainly at night. I have moved out. But I shall go over,\nmornings, to breakfast, and see if it has more teeth. If it gets a\nmouthful of teeth it will be time for it to go, tail or no tail, for a\nbear does not need a tail in order to be dangerous.\n\nFOUR MONTHS LATER.--I have been off hunting and fishing a month, up\nin the region that she calls Buffalo; I don't know why, unless it is\nbecause there are not any buffaloes there. Meantime the bear has learned\nto paddle around all by itself on its hind legs, and says \"poppa\" and\n\"momma.\" It is certainly a new species. This resemblance to words may\nbe purely accidental, of course, and may have no purpose or meaning;\nbut even in that case it is still extraordinary, and is a thing which no\nother bear can do. This imitation of speech, taken together with general\nabsence of fur and entire absence of tail, sufficiently indicates that\nthis is a new kind of bear. The further study of it will be exceedingly\ninteresting. Meantime I will go off on a far expedition among the\nforests of the north and make an exhaustive search. There must certainly\nbe another one somewhere, and this one will be less dangerous when it\nhas company of its own species. I will go straightway; but I will muzzle\nthis one first.\n\nTHREE MONTHS LATER.--It has been a weary, weary hunt, yet I have had no\nsuccess. In the mean time, without stirring from the home estate, she\nhas caught another one! I never saw such luck. I might have hunted these\nwoods a hundred years, I never would have run across that thing.\n\nNEXT DAY.--I have been comparing the new one with the old one, and it\nis perfectly plain that they are of the same breed. I was going to stuff\none of them for my collection, but she is prejudiced against it for some\nreason or other; so I have relinquished the idea, though I think it is\na mistake. It would be an irreparable loss to science if they should\nget away. The old one is tamer than it was and can laugh and talk like\na parrot, having learned this, no doubt, from being with the parrot so\nmuch, and having the imitative faculty in a high developed degree. I\nshall be astonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot; and yet\nI ought not to be astonished, for it has already been everything else it\ncould think of since those first days when it was a fish. The new one is\nas ugly as the old one was at first; has the same sulphur-and-raw-meat\ncomplexion and the same singular head without any fur on it. She calls\nit Abel.\n\nTEN YEARS LATER.--They are _boys_; we found it out long ago. It was\ntheir coming in that small immature shape that puzzled us; we were not\nused to it. There are some girls now. Abel is a good boy, but if Cain\nhad stayed a bear it would have improved him. After all these years, I\nsee that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to\nlive outside the Garden with her than inside it without her. At first\nI thought she talked too much; but now I should be sorry to have that\nvoice fall silent and pass out of my life. Blessed be the chestnut that\nbrought us near together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart\nand the sweetness of her spirit!\n\n\n\nEVE'S DIARY\n\nTranslated from the Original\n\nSATURDAY.--I am almost a whole day old, now. I arrived yesterday.\nThat is as it seems to me. And it must be so, for if there was a\nday-before-yesterday I was not there when it happened, or I should\nremember it. It could be, of course, that it did happen, and that I\nwas not noticing. Very well; I will be very watchful now, and if any\nday-before-yesterdays happen I will make a note of it. It will be best\nto start right and not let the record get confused, for some instinct\ntells me that these details are going to be important to the historian\nsome day. For I feel like an experiment, I feel exactly like an\nexperiment; it would be impossible for a person to feel more like an\nexperiment than I do, and so I am coming to feel convinced that that is\nwhat I _am_--an experiment; just an experiment, and nothing more.\n\nThen if I am an experiment, am I the whole of it? No, I think not; I\nthink the rest of it is part of it. I am the main part of it, but\nI think the rest of it has its share in the matter. Is my position\nassured, or do I have to watch it and take care of it? The latter,\nperhaps. Some instinct tells me that eternal vigilance is the price of\nsupremacy. (That is a good phrase, I think, for one so young.)\n\nEverything looks better today than it did yesterday. In the rush of\nfinishing up yesterday, the mountains were left in a ragged condition,\nand some of the plains were so cluttered with rubbish and remnants that\nthe aspects were quite distressing. Noble and beautiful works of art\nshould not be subjected to haste; and this majestic new world is indeed\na most noble and beautiful work. And certainly marvelously near to being\nperfect, notwithstanding the shortness of the time. There are too many\nstars in some places and not enough in others, but that can be remedied\npresently, no doubt. The moon got loose last night, and slid down and\nfell out of the scheme--a very great loss; it breaks my heart to think\nof it. There isn't another thing among the ornaments and decorations\nthat is comparable to it for beauty and finish. It should have been\nfastened better. If we can only get it back again--\n\nBut of course there is no telling where it went to. And besides, whoever\ngets it will hide it; I know it because I would do it myself. I believe\nI can be honest in all other matters, but I already begin to realize\nthat the core and center of my nature is love of the beautiful, a\npassion for the beautiful, and that it would not be safe to trust me\nwith a moon that belonged to another person and that person didn't know\nI had it. I could give up a moon that I found in the daytime, because I\nshould be afraid some one was looking; but if I found it in the dark,\nI am sure I should find some kind of an excuse for not saying anything\nabout it. For I do love moons, they are so pretty and so romantic. I\nwish we had five or six; I would never go to bed; I should never get\ntired lying on the moss-bank and looking up at them.\n\nStars are good, too. I wish I could get some to put in my hair. But I\nsuppose I never can. You would be surprised to find how far off they\nare, for they do not look it. When they first showed, last night,\nI tried to knock some down with a pole, but it didn't reach, which\nastonished me; then I tried clods till I was all tired out, but I never\ngot one. It was because I am left-handed and cannot throw good. Even\nwhen I aimed at the one I wasn't after I couldn't hit the other one,\nthough I did make some close shots, for I saw the black blot of the clod\nsail right into the midst of the golden clusters forty or fifty times,\njust barely missing them, and if I could have held out a little longer\nmaybe I could have got one.\n\nSo I cried a little, which was natural, I suppose, for one of my age,\nand after I was rested I got a basket and started for a place on the\nextreme rim of the circle, where the stars were close to the ground and\nI could get them with my hands, which would be better, anyway, because I\ncould gather them tenderly then, and not break them. But it was farther\nthan I thought, and at last I had to give it up; I was so tired I\ncouldn't drag my feet another step; and besides, they were sore and hurt\nme very much.\n\nI couldn't get back home; it was too far and turning cold; but I found\nsome tigers and nestled in among them and was most adorably comfortable,\nand their breath was sweet and pleasant, because they live on\nstrawberries. I had never seen a tiger before, but I knew them in a\nminute by the stripes. If I could have one of those skins, it would make\na lovely gown.\n\nToday I am getting better ideas about distances. I was so eager to get\nhold of every pretty thing that I giddily grabbed for it, sometimes when\nit was too far off, and sometimes when it was but six inches away but\nseemed a foot--alas, with thorns between! I learned a lesson; also I\nmade an axiom, all out of my own head--my very first one; _The scratched\nexperiment shuns the thorn_. I think it is a very good one for one so\nyoung.\n\nI followed the other Experiment around, yesterday afternoon, at a\ndistance, to see what it might be for, if I could. But I was not able\nto make out. I think it is a man. I had never seen a man, but it looked\nlike one, and I feel sure that that is what it is. I realize that I feel\nmore curiosity about it than about any of the other reptiles. If it is a\nreptile, and I suppose it is; for it has frowzy hair and blue eyes, and\nlooks like a reptile. It has no hips; it tapers like a carrot; when\nit stands, it spreads itself apart like a derrick; so I think it is a\nreptile, though it may be architecture.\n\nI was afraid of it at first, and started to run every time it turned\naround, for I thought it was going to chase me; but by and by I found it\nwas only trying to get away, so after that I was not timid any more, but\ntracked it along, several hours, about twenty yards behind, which made\nit nervous and unhappy. At last it was a good deal worried, and climbed\na tree. I waited a good while, then gave it up and went home.\n\nToday the same thing over. I've got it up the tree again.\n\nSUNDAY.--It is up there yet. Resting, apparently. But that is a\nsubterfuge: Sunday isn't the day of rest; Saturday is appointed for\nthat. It looks to me like a creature that is more interested in resting\nthan in anything else. It would tire me to rest so much. It tires me\njust to sit around and watch the tree. I do wonder what it is for; I\nnever see it do anything.\n\nThey returned the moon last night, and I was_ so_ happy! I think it\nis very honest of them. It slid down and fell off again, but I was\nnot distressed; there is no need to worry when one has that kind of\nneighbors; they will fetch it back. I wish I could do something to show\nmy appreciation. I would like to send them some stars, for we have more\nthan we can use. I mean I, not we, for I can see that the reptile cares\nnothing for such things.\n\nIt has low tastes, and is not kind. When I went there yesterday evening\nin the gloaming it had crept down and was trying to catch the little\nspeckled fishes that play in the pool, and I had to clod it to make it\ngo up the tree again and let them alone. I wonder if _that _is what it\nis for? Hasn't it any heart? Hasn't it any compassion for those little\ncreature? Can it be that it was designed and manufactured for such\nungentle work? It has the look of it. One of the clods took it back of\nthe ear, and it used language. It gave me a thrill, for it was the first\ntime I had ever heard speech, except my own. I did not understand the\nwords, but they seemed expressive.\n\nWhen I found it could talk I felt a new interest in it, for I love to\ntalk; I talk, all day, and in my sleep, too, and I am very interesting,\nbut if I had another to talk to I could be twice as interesting, and\nwould never stop, if desired.\n\nIf this reptile is a man, it isn't an_ it_, is it? That wouldn't be\ngrammatical, would it? I think it would be _he_. I think so. In\nthat case one would parse it thus: nominative, _he_; dative, _him_;\npossessive, _his'n._ Well, I will consider it a man and call it he until\nit turns out to be something else. This will be handier than having so\nmany uncertainties.\n\nNEXT WEEK SUNDAY.--All the week I tagged around after him and tried\nto get acquainted. I had to do the talking, because he was shy, but\nI didn't mind it. He seemed pleased to have me around, and I used\nthe sociable \"we\" a good deal, because it seemed to flatter him to be\nincluded.\n\nWEDNESDAY.--We are getting along very well indeed, now, and getting\nbetter and better acquainted. He does not try to avoid me any more,\nwhich is a good sign, and shows that he likes to have me with him. That\npleases me, and I study to be useful to him in every way I can, so as\nto increase his regard. During the last day or two I have taken all the\nwork of naming things off his hands, and this has been a great relief to\nhim, for he has no gift in that line, and is evidently very grateful.\nHe can't think of a rational name to save him, but I do not let him see\nthat I am aware of his defect. Whenever a new creature comes along I\nname it before he has time to expose himself by an awkward silence. In\nthis way I have saved him many embarrassments. I have no defect like\nthis. The minute I set eyes on an animal I know what it is. I don't have\nto reflect a moment; the right name comes out instantly, just as if it\nwere an inspiration, as no doubt it is, for I am sure it wasn't in me\nhalf a minute before. I seem to know just by the shape of the creature\nand the way it acts what animal it is.\n\nWhen the dodo came along he thought it was a wildcat--I saw it in his\neye. But I saved him. And I was careful not to do it in a way that\ncould hurt his pride. I just spoke up in a quite natural way of pleased\nsurprise, and not as if I was dreaming of conveying information,\nand said, \"Well, I do declare, if there isn't the dodo!\" I\nexplained--without seeming to be explaining--how I know it for a dodo,\nand although I thought maybe he was a little piqued that I knew the\ncreature when he didn't, it was quite evident that he admired me.\nThat was very agreeable, and I thought of it more than once with\ngratification before I slept. How little a thing can make us happy when\nwe feel that we have earned it!\n\nTHURSDAY.--my first sorrow. Yesterday he avoided me and seemed to wish\nI would not talk to him. I could not believe it, and thought there was\nsome mistake, for I loved to be with him, and loved to hear him talk,\nand so how could it be that he could feel unkind toward me when I had\nnot done anything? But at last it seemed true, so I went away and sat\nlonely in the place where I first saw him the morning that we were made\nand I did not know what he was and was indifferent about him; but now it\nwas a mournful place, and every little thing spoke of him, and my\nheart was very sore. I did not know why very clearly, for it was a new\nfeeling; I had not experienced it before, and it was all a mystery, and\nI could not make it out.\n\nBut when night came I could not bear the lonesomeness, and went to the\nnew shelter which he has built, to ask him what I had done that was\nwrong and how I could mend it and get back his kindness again; but he\nput me out in the rain, and it was my first sorrow.\n\nSUNDAY.--It is pleasant again, now, and I am happy; but those were heavy\ndays; I do not think of them when I can help it.\n\nI tried to get him some of those apples, but I cannot learn to throw\nstraight. I failed, but I think the good intention pleased him. They\nare forbidden, and he says I shall come to harm; but so I come to harm\nthrough pleasing him, why shall I care for that harm?\n\nMONDAY.--This morning I told him my name, hoping it would interest him.\nBut he did not care for it. It is strange. If he should tell me his\nname, I would care. I think it would be pleasanter in my ears than any\nother sound.\n\nHe talks very little. Perhaps it is because he is not bright, and is\nsensitive about it and wishes to conceal it. It is such a pity that he\nshould feel so, for brightness is nothing; it is in the heart that the\nvalues lie. I wish I could make him understand that a loving good heart\nis riches, and riches enough, and that without it intellect is poverty.\n\nAlthough he talks so little, he has quite a considerable vocabulary.\nThis morning he used a surprisingly good word. He evidently recognized,\nhimself, that it was a good one, for he worked it in twice afterward,\ncasually. It was not good casual art, still it showed that he possesses\na certain quality of perception. Without a doubt that seed can be made\nto grow, if cultivated.\n\nWhere did he get that word? I do not think I have ever used it.\n\nNo, he took no interest in my name. I tried to hide my disappointment,\nbut I suppose I did not succeed. I went away and sat on the moss-bank\nwith my feet in the water. It is where I go when I hunger for\ncompanionship, some one to look at, some one to talk to. It is not\nenough--that lovely white body painted there in the pool--but it is\nsomething, and something is better than utter loneliness. It talks when\nI talk; it is sad when I am sad; it comforts me with its sympathy; it\nsays, \"Do not be downhearted, you poor friendless girl; I will be your\nfriend.\" It_ is_ a good friend to me, and my only one; it is my sister.\n\nThat first time that she forsook me! ah, I shall never forget\nthat--never, never. My heart was lead in my body! I said, \"She was all\nI had, and now she is gone!\" In my despair I said, \"Break, my heart; I\ncannot bear my life any more!\" and hid my face in my hands, and there\nwas no solace for me. And when I took them away, after a little, there\nshe was again, white and shining and beautiful, and I sprang into her\narms!\n\nThat was perfect happiness; I had known happiness before, but it was not\nlike this, which was ecstasy. I never doubted her afterward. Sometimes\nshe stayed away--maybe an hour, maybe almost the whole day, but I waited\nand did not doubt; I said, \"She is busy, or she is gone on a journey,\nbut she will come.\" And it was so: she always did. At night she would\nnot come if it was dark, for she was a timid little thing; but if there\nwas a moon she would come. I am not afraid of the dark, but she is\nyounger than I am; she was born after I was. Many and many are the\nvisits I have paid her; she is my comfort and my refuge when my life is\nhard--and it is mainly that.\n\nTUESDAY.--All the morning I was at work improving the estate; and I\npurposely kept away from him in the hope that he would get lonely and\ncome. But he did not.\n\nAt noon I stopped for the day and took my recreation by flitting all\nabout with the bees and the butterflies and reveling in the flowers,\nthose beautiful creatures that catch the smile of God out of the sky and\npreserve it! I gathered them, and made them into wreaths and garlands\nand clothed myself in them while I ate my luncheon--apples, of course;\nthen I sat in the shade and wished and waited. But he did not come.\n\nBut no matter. Nothing would have come of it, for he does not care for\nflowers. He called them rubbish, and cannot tell one from another, and\nthinks it is superior to feel like that. He does not care for me, he\ndoes not care for flowers, he does not care for the painted sky at\neventide--is there anything he does care for, except building shacks to\ncoop himself up in from the good clean rain, and thumping the melons,\nand sampling the grapes, and fingering the fruit on the trees, to see\nhow those properties are coming along?\n\nI laid a dry stick on the ground and tried to bore a hole in it with\nanother one, in order to carry out a scheme that I had, and soon I got\nan awful fright. A thin, transparent bluish film rose out of the hole,\nand I dropped everything and ran! I thought it was a spirit, and I _was\n_so frightened! But I looked back, and it was not coming; so I leaned\nagainst a rock and rested and panted, and let my limbs go on trembling\nuntil they got steady again; then I crept warily back, alert, watching,\nand ready to fly if there was occasion; and when I was come near, I\nparted the branches of a rose-bush and peeped through--wishing the man\nwas about, I was looking so cunning and pretty--but the sprite was gone.\nI went there, and there was a pinch of delicate pink dust in the hole. I\nput my finger in, to feel it, and said _ouch_! and took it out again. It\nwas a cruel pain. I put my finger in my mouth; and by standing first on\none foot and then the other, and grunting, I presently eased my misery;\nthen I was full of interest, and began to examine.\n\nI was curious to know what the pink dust was. Suddenly the name of it\noccurred to me, though I had never heard of it before. It was _fire_! I\nwas as certain of it as a person could be of anything in the world. So\nwithout hesitation I named it that--fire.\n\nI had created something that didn't exist before; I had added a new\nthing to the world's uncountable properties; I realized this, and was\nproud of my achievement, and was going to run and find him and tell him\nabout it, thinking to raise myself in his esteem--but I reflected, and\ndid not do it. No--he would not care for it. He would ask what it\nwas good for, and what could I answer? for if it was not _good _for\nsomething, but only beautiful, merely beautiful-- So I sighed, and did\nnot go. For it wasn't good for anything; it could not build a shack,\nit could not improve melons, it could not hurry a fruit crop; it was\nuseless, it was a foolishness and a vanity; he would despise it and say\ncutting words. But to me it was not despicable; I said, \"Oh, you fire, I\nlove you, you dainty pink creature, for you are _beautiful_--and that is\nenough!\" and was going to gather it to my breast. But refrained. Then\nI made another maxim out of my head, though it was so nearly like\nthe first one that I was afraid it was only a plagiarism: \"_The burnt\nexperiment shuns the fire_.\"\n\nI wrought again; and when I had made a good deal of fire-dust I emptied\nit into a handful of dry brown grass, intending to carry it home and\nkeep it always and play with it; but the wind struck it and it sprayed\nup and spat out at me fiercely, and I dropped it and ran. When I looked\nback the blue spirit was towering up and stretching and rolling away\nlike a cloud, and instantly I thought of the name of it--smoke!--though,\nupon my word, I had never heard of smoke before.\n\nSoon brilliant yellow and red flares shot up through the smoke, and I\nnamed them in an instant--flames--and I was right, too, though these\nwere the very first flames that had ever been in the world. They climbed\nthe trees, then flashed splendidly in and out of the vast and increasing\nvolume of tumbling smoke, and I had to clap my hands and laugh and\ndance in my rapture, it was so new and strange and so wonderful and so\nbeautiful!\n\nHe came running, and stopped and gazed, and said not a word for many\nminutes. Then he asked what it was. Ah, it was too bad that he should\nask such a direct question. I had to answer it, of course, and I did. I\nsaid it was fire. If it annoyed him that I should know and he must ask;\nthat was not my fault; I had no desire to annoy him. After a pause he\nasked:\n\n\"How did it come?\"\n\nAnother direct question, and it also had to have a direct answer.\n\n\"I made it.\"\n\nThe fire was traveling farther and farther off. He went to the edge of\nthe burned place and stood looking down, and said:\n\n\"What are these?\"\n\n\"Fire-coals.\"\n\nHe picked up one to examine it, but changed his mind and put it down\nagain. Then he went away. _Nothing _interests him.\n\nBut I was interested. There were ashes, gray and soft and delicate\nand pretty--I knew what they were at once. And the embers; I knew the\nembers, too. I found my apples, and raked them out, and was glad; for\nI am very young and my appetite is active. But I was disappointed; they\nwere all burst open and spoiled. Spoiled apparently; but it was not so;\nthey were better than raw ones. Fire is beautiful; some day it will be\nuseful, I think.\n\nFRIDAY.--I saw him again, for a moment, last Monday at nightfall, but\nonly for a moment. I was hoping he would praise me for trying to improve\nthe estate, for I had meant well and had worked hard. But he was not\npleased, and turned away and left me. He was also displeased on another\naccount: I tried once more to persuade him to stop going over the Falls.\nThat was because the fire had revealed to me a new passion--quite new,\nand distinctly different from love, grief, and those others which I\nhad already discovered--fear. And it is horrible!--I wish I had never\ndiscovered it; it gives me dark moments, it spoils my happiness, it\nmakes me shiver and tremble and shudder. But I could not persuade him,\nfor he has not discovered fear yet, and so he could not understand me.\n\n\n\nEXTRACT FROM ADAM'S DIARY\n\nPerhaps I ought to remember that she is very young, a mere girl and make\nallowances. She is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world is to\nher a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she can't speak for delight\nwhen she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it and smell\nit and talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it. And she is\ncolor-mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky;\nthe pearl of the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains, the golden\nislands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon sailing\nthrough the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering in the\nwastes of space--none of them is of any practical value, so far as I can\nsee, but because they have color and majesty, that is enough for her,\nand she loses her mind over them. If she could quiet down and keep still\na couple minutes at a time, it would be a reposeful spectacle. In that\ncase I think I could enjoy looking at her; indeed I am sure I could,\nfor I am coming to realize that she is a quite remarkably comely\ncreature--lithe, slender, trim, rounded, shapely, nimble, graceful; and\nonce when she was standing marble-white and sun-drenched on a boulder,\nwith her young head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes, watching\nthe flight of a bird in the sky, I recognized that she was beautiful.\n\nMONDAY NOON.--If there is anything on the planet that she is not\ninterested in it is not in my list. There are animals that I am\nindifferent to, but it is not so with her. She has no discrimination,\nshe takes to all of them, she thinks they are all treasures, every new\none is welcome.\n\nWhen the mighty brontosaurus came striding into camp, she regarded it as\nan acquisition, I considered it a calamity; that is a good sample of\nthe lack of harmony that prevails in our views of things. She wanted to\ndomesticate it, I wanted to make it a present of the homestead and move\nout. She believed it could be tamed by kind treatment and would be a\ngood pet; I said a pet twenty-one feet high and eighty-four feet long\nwould be no proper thing to have about the place, because, even with the\nbest intentions and without meaning any harm, it could sit down on the\nhouse and mash it, for any one could see by the look of its eye that it\nwas absent-minded.\n\nStill, her heart was set upon having that monster, and she couldn't give\nit up. She thought we could start a dairy with it, and wanted me to help\nmilk it; but I wouldn't; it was too risky. The sex wasn't right, and we\nhadn't any ladder anyway. Then she wanted to ride it, and look at the\nscenery. Thirty or forty feet of its tail was lying on the ground, like\na fallen tree, and she thought she could climb it, but she was mistaken;\nwhen she got to the steep place it was too slick and down she came, and\nwould have hurt herself but for me.\n\nWas she satisfied now? No. Nothing ever satisfies her but demonstration;\nuntested theories are not in her line, and she won't have them. It is\nthe right spirit, I concede it; it attracts me; I feel the influence of\nit; if I were with her more I think I should take it up myself. Well,\nshe had one theory remaining about this colossus: she thought that if we\ncould tame it and make him friendly we could stand him in the river\nand use him for a bridge. It turned out that he was already plenty tame\nenough--at least as far as she was concerned--so she tried her theory,\nbut it failed: every time she got him properly placed in the river and\nwent ashore to cross over him, he came out and followed her around like\na pet mountain. Like the other animals. They all do that.\n\nFRIDAY.--Tuesday--Wednesday--Thursday--and today: all without seeing\nhim. It is a long time to be alone; still, it is better to be alone than\nunwelcome.\n\n\n\nI _had _to have company--I was made for it, I think--so I made friends\nwith the animals. They are just charming, and they have the kindest\ndisposition and the politest ways; they never look sour, they never let\nyou feel that you are intruding, they smile at you and wag their tail,\nif they've got one, and they are always ready for a romp or an excursion\nor anything you want to propose. I think they are perfect gentlemen. All\nthese days we have had such good times, and it hasn't been lonesome for\nme, ever. Lonesome! No, I should say not. Why, there's always a swarm\nof them around--sometimes as much as four or five acres--you can't count\nthem; and when you stand on a rock in the midst and look out over the\nfurry expanse it is so mottled and splashed and gay with color and\nfrisking sheen and sun-flash, and so rippled with stripes, that you\nmight think it was a lake, only you know it isn't; and there's storms\nof sociable birds, and hurricanes of whirring wings; and when the sun\nstrikes all that feathery commotion, you have a blazing up of all the\ncolors you can think of, enough to put your eyes out.\n\nWe have made long excursions, and I have seen a great deal of the world;\nalmost all of it, I think; and so I am the first traveler, and the only\none. When we are on the march, it is an imposing sight--there's nothing\nlike it anywhere. For comfort I ride a tiger or a leopard, because it is\nsoft and has a round back that fits me, and because they are such pretty\nanimals; but for long distance or for scenery I ride the elephant. He\nhoists me up with his trunk, but I can get off myself; when we are ready\nto camp, he sits and I slide down the back way.\n\nThe birds and animals are all friendly to each other, and there are no\ndisputes about anything. They all talk, and they all talk to me, but it\nmust be a foreign language, for I cannot make out a word they say; yet\nthey often understand me when I talk back, particularly the dog and the\nelephant. It makes me ashamed. It shows that they are brighter than I\nam, for I want to be the principal Experiment myself--and I intend to\nbe, too.\n\nI have learned a number of things, and am educated, now, but I wasn't at\nfirst. I was ignorant at first. At first it used to vex me because, with\nall my watching, I was never smart enough to be around when the water\nwas running uphill; but now I do not mind it. I have experimented and\nexperimented until now I know it never does run uphill, except in the\ndark. I know it does in the dark, because the pool never goes dry, which\nit would, of course, if the water didn't come back in the night. It is\nbest to prove things by actual experiment; then you _know_; whereas if\nyou depend on guessing and supposing and conjecturing, you never get\neducated.\n\nSome things you _can't_ find out; but you will never know you can't\nby guessing and supposing: no, you have to be patient and go on\nexperimenting until you find out that you can't find out. And it is\ndelightful to have it that way, it makes the world so interesting. If\nthere wasn't anything to find out, it would be dull. Even trying to find\nout and not finding out is just as interesting as trying to find out and\nfinding out, and I don't know but more so. The secret of the water was\na treasure until I _got _it; then the excitement all went away, and I\nrecognized a sense of loss.\n\nBy experiment I know that wood swims, and dry leaves, and feathers, and\nplenty of other things; therefore by all that cumulative evidence you\nknow that a rock will swim; but you have to put up with simply knowing\nit, for there isn't any way to prove it--up to now. But I shall find a\nway--then _that _excitement will go. Such things make me sad; because\nby and by when I have found out everything there won't be any more\nexcitements, and I do love excitements so! The other night I couldn't\nsleep for thinking about it.\n\nAt first I couldn't make out what I was made for, but now I think it was\nto search out the secrets of this wonderful world and be happy and thank\nthe Giver of it all for devising it. I think there are many things to\nlearn yet--I hope so; and by economizing and not hurrying too fast I\nthink they will last weeks and weeks. I hope so. When you cast up a\nfeather it sails away on the air and goes out of sight; then you throw\nup a clod and it doesn't. It comes down, every time. I have tried it\nand tried it, and it is always so. I wonder why it is? Of course it\n_doesn't_ come down, but why should it _seem _to? I suppose it is an\noptical illusion. I mean, one of them is. I don't know which one. It\nmay be the feather, it may be the clod; I can't prove which it is, I can\nonly demonstrate that one or the other is a fake, and let a person take\nhis choice.\n\nBy watching, I know that the stars are not going to last. I have seen\nsome of the best ones melt and run down the sky. Since one can melt,\nthey can all melt; since they can all melt, they can all melt the same\nnight. That sorrow will come--I know it. I mean to sit up every night\nand look at them as long as I can keep awake; and I will impress those\nsparkling fields on my memory, so that by and by when they are taken\naway I can by my fancy restore those lovely myriads to the black sky and\nmake them sparkle again, and double them by the blur of my tears.\n\nAfter the Fall\n\nWhen I look back, the Garden is a dream to me. It was beautiful,\nsurpassingly beautiful, enchantingly beautiful; and now it is lost, and\nI shall not see it any more.\n\nThe Garden is lost, but I have found _him_, and am content. He loves\nme as well as he can; I love him with all the strength of my passionate\nnature, and this, I think, is proper to my youth and sex. If I ask\nmyself why I love him, I find I do not know, and do not really much\ncare to know; so I suppose that this kind of love is not a product\nof reasoning and statistics, like one's love for other reptiles and\nanimals. I think that this must be so. I love certain birds because of\ntheir song; but I do not love Adam on account of his singing--no, it is\nnot that; the more he sings the more I do not get reconciled to it.\nYet I ask him to sing, because I wish to learn to like everything he is\ninterested in. I am sure I can learn, because at first I could not stand\nit, but now I can. It sours the milk, but it doesn't matter; I can get\nused to that kind of milk.\n\nIt is not on account of his brightness that I love him--no, it is not\nthat. He is not to blame for his brightness, such as it is, for he did\nnot make it himself; he is as God made him, and that is sufficient.\nThere was a wise purpose in it, _that _I know. In time it will develop,\nthough I think it will not be sudden; and besides, there is no hurry; he\nis well enough just as he is.\n\nIt is not on account of his gracious and considerate ways and his\ndelicacy that I love him. No, he has lacks in this regard, but he is\nwell enough just so, and is improving.\n\nIt is not on account of his industry that I love him--no, it is not\nthat. I think he has it in him, and I do not know why he conceals it\nfrom me. It is my only pain. Otherwise he is frank and open with me,\nnow. I am sure he keeps nothing from me but this. It grieves me that he\nshould have a secret from me, and sometimes it spoils my sleep, thinking\nof it, but I will put it out of my mind; it shall not trouble my\nhappiness, which is otherwise full to overflowing.\n\nIt is not on account of his education that I love him--no, it is not\nthat. He is self-educated, and does really know a multitude of things,\nbut they are not so.\n\nIt is not on account of his chivalry that I love him--no, it is not\nthat. He told on me, but I do not blame him; it is a peculiarity of sex,\nI think, and he did not make his sex. Of course I would not have told on\nhim, I would have perished first; but that is a peculiarity of sex, too,\nand I do not take credit for it, for I did not make my sex.\n\nThen why is it that I love him? _Merely because he is masculine_, I\nthink.\n\nAt bottom he is good, and I love him for that, but I could love him\nwithout it. If he should beat me and abuse me, I should go on loving\nhim. I know it. It is a matter of sex, I think.\n\nHe is strong and handsome, and I love him for that, and I admire him\nand am proud of him, but I could love him without those qualities. If\nhe were plain, I should love him; if he were a wreck, I should love\nhim; and I would work for him, and slave over him, and pray for him, and\nwatch by his bedside until I died.\n\nYes, I think I love him merely because he is _mine _and is _masculine_.\nThere is no other reason, I suppose. And so I think it is as I first\nsaid: that this kind of love is not a product of reasonings and\nstatistics. It just _comes_--none knows whence--and cannot explain\nitself. And doesn't need to.\n\nIt is what I think. But I am only a girl, the first that has examined\nthis matter, and it may turn out that in my ignorance and inexperience I\nhave not got it right.\n\nForty Years Later\n\nIt is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life\ntogether--a longing which shall never perish from the earth, but shall\nhave place in the heart of every wife that loves, until the end of time;\nand it shall be called by my name.\n\nBut if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be I;\nfor he is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is to\nme--life without him would not be life; how could I endure it? This\nprayer is also immortal, and will not cease from being offered up while\nmy race continues. I am the first wife; and in the last wife I shall be\nrepeated.\n\nAT EVE'S GRAVE\n\nADAM: Wheresoever she was, _there_ was Eden.\n\n\n"}
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{"17945":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nKLASIKAJ USONAJ NOVELOJ\nMARK TWAIN\n(1835-1910)\nTRI NOVELOJ:\n\u2014 KONFESO DE MORTANTO \u2014\n\u2014 LA FIFAMA SALTANTA RANO DE KALAVERO-KONTEO \u2014\n\u2014 LA RAKONTO PRI LA MALBONKONDUTA KNABETO \u2014\nEsperantigis\nEDWIN GROBE\n1999\nEldonejo-Arizona-Stelo\n1620 North Sunset Drive\nTempe, Arizona 85281-1550\nUsono\nMARK TWAIN: TRI NOVELOJ\nUnua Eldono: Januaro 1999\nOriginaj Anglalingvaj Titoloj:\n\"A DYING MAN'S CONFESSION\"\n\"THE NOTORIOUS JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY\"\n\"THE STORY OF THE BAD LITTLE BOY\"\nCopyright 1999\nEdwin P. Grobe\nfor the herein contained\nEnglish-to-Esperanto Translations\n\n\nENHAVO\n\n\n\n\"Konfeso de Mortanto\"\np. 1\n\n\n\"La Fifama Saltanta Rano de Kalavero-Konteo\"\np. 14\n\n\n\"La Rakonto pri la Malbonkonduta Knabeto\"\np. 19\n\n\n\n\nKONFESO DE MORTANTO\nNi alproksimi\u011dis vila\u011don Napoleonon en \u015dtato Arkansaso. Tial mi komencis pripensi mian tiean taskon. La horo: tagmezo. La vetero: hela kaj suna. Tio estis malbona. Almena\u016d, ne bonega. \u0108ar mia tasko ne estis (la\u016dprefere) tagmeza speco. Ju pli mi meditis, des pli tiu fakto sin trudis al mi\u2014jen unuforme, jen aliforme. Finfine \u011di prenis la formon de preciza demando. \u0108u estas bonsence plenumi la taskon dumtage kiam, vin senigante je iom da komforto kaj inklino, vi povas elprofiti la nokton por tio, sen scivolemaj gvatokuloj? Tio decidis la aferon. Klara demando kaj klara respondo konsistigas la plej mallongan elirejon por la plejmulto da konfuza\u0135oj.\nMi kunvenigis miajn amikojn en mia kajuto kaj diris ke mi beda\u016dras estigi \u011denon kaj malesperon sed ke, post meditado pri la afero, la\u016d\u015dajne estos pli bone ke ni albordigu niajn baga\u0135ojn kaj vizitu Napoleonon. Ilia malaprobo estis tuja kaj la\u016dta; ilia lingva\u0135o, ribelema. Ilia \u0109efa argumento estis tiu kiu \u0109iam malmergi\u011das la unua en tiaj okazoj, ekde la komenco de tempo. \"Sed vi elektis kaj anta\u016dkonsentis resti sur \u0109i tiu boato,\" ktp.; kvaza\u016d, decidi\u011dinte fari malsa\u011da\u0135on, la\u016d nepra neceso oni restu sur la sama vojo kaj aliigi \u011din en du malsa\u011da\u0135ojn per la plenumo de la komenca decidi\u011do. Mi utiligis diversajn taktikojn por mildigi ilian sintenon, kun sufi\u0109e bona sukceso. Rezulte de tiu kura\u011digo mi plimultigis miajn klopodojn. Kaj por komprenigi al ili ke ne estis mi kiu postulis la plenumon de la koncerna taska\u0109o kaj ke mi nepre senkulpas pri la afero, mi balda\u016d ekkura\u011dis rakonti ties historion, preska\u016d samvorte kiel mi \u0109i-poste raportas.\n\u0108irka\u016d la fino de la pasinta jaro mi pasigis kelkajn monatojn en Munkeno, en Bavario. En novembro mi lo\u011dis en la pensiono de Fra\u016dlino Dalvejnero, \u0109e numero 1 de Karlostrato. Sed mia laborejo situis unu mejlon for, en la domo de vidvino sin vivtenanta per gastigado. \u015ci kaj \u015diaj du junaj infanoj kutimis veni \u0109e mi \u0109iun matenon kaj kunbabiladi en la Germana\u2014responde al mia peto. Unu tagon, dum mi vagpromenadis en la urbo, mi vizitis unu el la du lokoj kie la registaro retenas kaj prizorgas kadavrojn \u011dis la kuracistoj certas ke tiuj finmortis kaj ne da\u016dre vivas en tranca stato. Estis makabra loko, tiu \u0109ambrego. Vidi\u011dis tridek ses plenkreskulaj kadavroj, sternite surdorse sur iom oblikvangulaj tabuloj en tri longaj vicoj\u2014kaj havante \u0109iuj vaksoblankajn rigidajn viza\u011dojn sub la blankaj mortotukoj volvitaj \u0109irka\u016d ili. La\u016d la flankoj de la \u0109ambro estis profundaj orielaspektaj alkovoj kaj en \u0109iu el tiuj ku\u015dis pluraj marmormienaj beboj, entute ka\u015dite kaj enterigite sub tavoloj da fre\u015daj floroj krom siaj viza\u011doj kaj interfalditaj manoj. \u0108irka\u016d fingro de \u0109iu el tiuj kvindek senmovaj formoj, grandaj kaj malgrandaj, estis ringo. Ekde la ringo, drato etendi\u011dis \u011dis la plafono kaj de tie \u011dis sonorileto en tiea kontrol\u0109ambro kie, tage kaj nokte, kontrolisto sidas \u0109iam en vigla atendado, preta alvenigi eksaltan ur\u011dohelpon al iu ajn ano de tiu palvanga kompanio kiu, veki\u011dinte el la morto, estigas korpomovon\u2014\u0109ar \u0109iu movo, e\u0109 la plej minimuma, agitos la draton kaj sonigos tiun timindan sonorileton. Mi imagis min mortosentinelo kiu dormetis en nepra tiea soleco en tre malfrua horo dum malrapidege \n evoluanta gvatde\u0135orado de iu mu\u011dventega nokto kaj eksentis sian korpon alii\u011di palpebrumtempe en tremetantan \u0135eleon pro la subita brua\u0109o de tiu terura alvokilo! Tial mi enketis pri tiu a\u0135o, demandis kio kutime okazas? \u0108u la gvatisto mortis kaj la revivinta kadavro alvenis por komfortigi kiel eble plej multe liajn lastajn momentojn? Sed oni ripro\u0109is al mi mian klopodon nutri sencelan kaj senvaloran scivolemon en tiel solena kaj funebra loko. Kaj mi foriris tre humiligite.\nLa sekvintan matenon mi rakontadis mian aventuron al la vidvino kiam \u015di ekkriis:\n\"Venu kun mi. Mi havas lo\u011danton kiu rakontos al vi \u0109ion kion vi deziras ekscii. Li estis noktosentinelo tie.\"\nLi estis vivanta homo sed ne havis vivantan aspekton. Li ku\u015dis surlite kaj altaj kusenoj subtenis lian kapon. Lia forvelkinta viza\u011do estis senkolora. Liaj profunde sinkintaj okuloj estis fermitaj. Lia mano, ku\u015dante sur lia brusto, estis ungegaspekta, tiel osta kaj longfingra \u011di estis. La vidvino komencis min prezenti. La okuloj de la viro malfermi\u011dis malrapide kaj briletis malice el la krepusko de siaj kavernoj. Li kuntiris nigre la brovojn. Li levis la maldikan manon kaj entreprenis nin forsendi per ordonema gesto. Sed la vidvino da\u016dre parolis \u011dis eksciigi al li la fakton ke mi estas fremdulo kaj Usonano. La mieno de la viro tuj \u015dan\u011di\u011dis, pliheli\u011dis, e\u0109 avidi\u011dis\u2014kaj en la sekvinta momento li kaj mi ek\u011duis kunan solecon.\nMi komencis paroli en roksolida Germana lingvo. Li respondis en ege fleksebla Angla lingvo. Post tio ni nepre flankenlasis la Germanan.\nTiu ftizulo kaj mi intime amiki\u011dis. Mi vizitis lin \u0109iun tagon kaj ni parolis pri \u0109io. Almena\u016d pri \u0109io krom edzinoj kaj infanoj. Se mencii\u011dis la edzino a\u016d la infano de iu ajn, \u0109iam postokazis tri fenomenoj: la plej afabla kaj amema kaj dol\u0109a lumo briletis en la okuloj de la viro dum momento; en la sekvinta momento la lumo forpali\u011dis kaj \u011din anstata\u016dis tiu minaca mieno jam ekflaminta tie kiam mi vidis liajn okulojn malfermi\u011di la unuan fojon; triavice, li \u0109esis paroli tie kaj tiam por tiu tago, restis senparole da\u016dre enliti\u011dite, perdite en abstrakta kaj absorbita pensado, la\u016d\u015dajne a\u016ddante nenion kion mi diris, malatentante miajn adia\u016dojn, kaj evidente prikonsciis nek vide nek a\u016dde pri mia foriro el la \u0109ambro.\nKiam mi jam estis dum du monatoj la \u0109iutaga kaj sola intimulo de tiu Karolo Ritero, li diris abrupte ion tagon:\n\"Mi rakontos al vi mian historion.\"\nTiam li da\u016drigis kiel jenas:\n\nMi neniam rezignis anta\u016d nun. Sed nun mi rezignas. Mi estas mortonta. Mi finkonkludis hiera\u016dnokte ke devas okazi tiel kaj, aldone, ege balda\u016d. Vi diras ke vi celas reviziti vian riveron iun tagon kiam la okazo prezenti\u011dos. Nu, bonege. Tio, kune kun stranga sperto kiun hazarda sorto okazigis al mi hiera\u016dnokte, devigas min rakonti al vi mian historion\u2014\u0109ar vi vidos vila\u011don Napoleonon en Arkansaso kaj por mia bono vi haltos tie kaj plenumos taskon por mi\u2014taskon kiun vi entreprenos bonvole post a\u016dskulti mian rakonton.\nNi mallongigu la rakonton kie ajn eblas \u0109ar \u011di estas longa kaj bezonos mallongigon. Vi jam scias kiel okazis al mi aliri Amerikon kaj kiel mi decidi\u011dis eklo\u011di en tiu soleca regiono de la Sudo. Sed vi ne scias ke mi havis edzinon. Mia edzino estis juna, belega, amema, kaj, ho! tiel die bona kaj senkulpa kaj milda. Kaj nia filineto estis miniatura kopio de sia patrino. Tio estis la plej feli\u0109a el \u0109iuj feli\u0109aj hejmoj.\nIun nokton\u2014okazis \u0109irka\u016d la fino de la milito\u2014mi veki\u011dis el ebria stuporo kaj min trovis manligita kaj bu\u015d\u015dtopita <!-- Error in book:\n   bu&#349;stopita --> dum la \u0109irka\u016danta aero estis malpurigita per kloroformo. Mi vidis du virojn en la \u0109ambro kaj unu el ili diris al la alia en ra\u016dka flustrado: \"Mi diris al \u015di ke mi faros tion se \u015di faros bruon, kaj rilate al la infano\u2014\"\nLa alia viro interrompis en malla\u016dta duonplora vo\u0109o:\n\"Vi diris ke ilin ni nur bu\u015d\u015dtopos kaj prirabos, ne difektos, alie mi ne konsentintus alveni.\"\n\"\u0108esu plenda\u0109i. Necesis \u015dan\u011di la planon kiam ili veki\u011dis. Vi faris vian plejon por ilin protekti. Nun tio vin kontentigu. Venu, helpu ser\u0109fosadi.\"\nAmba\u016d viroj surportis maskojn kaj krudajn \u0109ifonajn \"nigrul\"-specajn vesta\u0135ojn. Ili havis celpunktan lanternon helpe de kies lumo mi konsciis ke al la dekstra mano de la pli milda el la du rabistoj mankas dikfingro. Ili ser\u0109fosadis hazardacele en mia malri\u0109a lo\u011dejo dum momento. La \u0109efbandito diris tiam en teatra flustrado:\n\"Tio estas tempomal\u015dparo. Li malka\u015du kie \u011di estas ka\u015dita. Forigu lian bu\u015do\u015dtopilon kaj lin revigligu.\"\nLa alia diris:\n\"Bone. Kondi\u0109e ke ne okazu klabado.\"\n\"Sen klabado estu, tial. Kondi\u0109e ke li da\u016dre silentu.\"\nIli min alproksimi\u011dis. En tiu momento a\u016ddigis eksterdomaj sonoj, sonoj de vo\u0109oj kaj hufotretado. La rabistoj retenis la spiradon kaj a\u016dskultis. Malrapide la sonoj pli kaj pli  proksimi\u011dis. Tiam eksonis kriego:\n\"Saluton, la domo! Vidigu lumon. Ni deziras akvon.\"\n\"La vo\u0109o de la kapitano, per Dio!\" diris la teatre flustrinta brutulo, kaj amba\u016d banditoj forfu\u011dis pere de la malanta\u016dpordo, mal\u015daltante sian lanternon dum la kurado.\nLa fremdulo alvokis plurajn pluajn fojojn, tiam preterrajdis\u2014estis la\u016d\u015dajne dekduo da \u0109evaloj\u2014kaj nenion pluan mi a\u016ddis.\nMi luktis sed ne sukcesis min liberigi el miaj ligoj. Mi klopodis paroli sed malhelpis tion mia bu\u015d\u015dtopilo. Mi kapablis eligi nenian sonon. Mi ser\u0109a\u016dskultis la vo\u0109ojn de miaj edzino kaj infano\u2014a\u016dskultis longe kaj atentege. Tamen nenia sono eliris la alian ekstrema\u0135on de la \u0109ambro kie staris ilia lito. Tiu silento pli kaj pli a\u0109i\u011dis, pli kaj pli minaci\u011dis, en \u0109iu momento. \u0108u vi opinias povinti toleri horoda\u016dron da tia\u0135o? Kompatu min tial, al kiu necesis toleri trihoran da\u016dron. \u0108u trihoran? Trieternecan, diru! Kiam ajn eksonis la horlo\u011do \u015dajnis ke jam forpasis jaroj ekde kiam mi a\u016ddis \u011din la anta\u016dan fojon. Dum la tuta tempo mi baraktis en miaj ligoj kaj finfine, \u0109irka\u016d la nova tagi\u011do mi min liberigis kaj ekstre\u0109is miajn rigidajn membrojn. Mi povis distingi detalojn iom bone. Disrubis la plankon a\u0135oj tien \u0135etitaj per la \u015dtelistoj dum \n ili ser\u0109is miajn \u015dparmonojn. La unua objekto kaptinta mian apartan atenton estis dokumento mia kiun mi vidis ekrigardi kaj tiam for\u0135eti la pli krudan el la du brutuloj. Sango \u011din makuligis. Mi atingis stumblapa\u015de la alian ekstrema\u0135on de la \u0109ambro. Ho, kompatindaj, senofendaj, senhelpaj estuloj, tie ili ku\u015dis. Jam forpasis iliaj \u0109agrenoj. Nur komenci\u011dis la miaj.\n\u0108u mi apelaciis al la juro? \u0108u mi? \u0108u sati\u011das la soifo de la malri\u0109ulo se la re\u011do trinkas por li? Ho, ne, ne, ne! Mi deziris nenian impertinentan sintrudon de la juro. Le\u011doj kaj la pendumilo ne povus kontra\u016dpagi la \u015duldoprezon kiun mi rajtis ricevi. La juro lasu sentime al mi la tiurilatan respondecon. Mi malkovrus la \u015duldanton kaj kolektus la \u015duldon. Kiel efektivigi tion, \u0109u vi diras? Kiel efektivigi tion kaj tiom ekcerti pri \u011di se mi neniam vidis la viza\u011dojn de la \u015dtelistoj nek a\u016ddis iliajn kutimajn vo\u0109ojn nek konceptis ununuran ideon pri kiuj ili povus esti? Malgra\u016d tio tamen mi estis jes ja certa\u2014ege certa, ege memfida. Mi disponis indicon\u2014indicon kiun vi taksintus senvalora\u2014indicon kiu ne multe helpintus e\u0109 detektivon pro tio ke mankus al li la sekreto pri kiel \u011din apliki. Mi parolos pri tio balda\u016d. Vi vidos. Ni da\u016drigu nun, konsiderante la aferon en ta\u016dga ordo. Por komenci estis cirkonstanco kiu disponigis al mi precizdirektan vidpunkton. Tiuj du rabistoj estis klar\u015dajne soldatoj trompvestitaj kiel vagabondoj, kaj ne novvenitaj al milita servado sed spertaj pri \u011di\u2014konstantuloj, eble. Ili ne akiris siajn soldatajn sintenon, gestojn, starpozojn en unu tago, nek en unu monato, nek en unu jaro. Tiel mi opiniis, sed nenion diris. Kaj unu el ili diris, \"La vo\u0109o de la kapitano, per Dio!\"\u2014la viro mem kiun mi deziris senvivigi. Du mejlojn for tendumis pluraj regimentoj kaj du kompanioj de Usona kavalerio. Kiam mi eksciis ke Kapitano Blakelio de Kompanio C preterpasis nin dum la nokto kun eskorto, mi diris nenion sed decidi\u011dis ser\u0109i mian viron en tiu kompanio. Dum diversaj konversacioj studeme kaj obstine mi priskribis la rabistojn kiel vagabondojn, kampadejo-parazitulojn. Kaj inter tiu socia klaso miaj kunkonversaciintoj ser\u0109is vane, \u0109ar nur mi suspektis la soldatojn.\nLaborante pacience dumnokte en mia afliktita hejmo, mi fabrikis kamufla\u0135on por mi el diversaj vesta\u0135pecoj kaj -eroj. En la plej proksima vila\u011do mi a\u0109etis paron da bluaj \u015dirmvitroj. Post kelke da tempo, kiam la milita kampadejo disi\u011dis kaj Kompanio-C-on oni forsendis cent mejlojn norden, al Napoleono, mi ka\u015dis mian etan monprovizon en mia pantalonzono kaj efektivigis mian foriron dum la nokto. Kiam Kompanio C atingis Napoleonon mi estis jam tie. Jes, mi estis tie\u2014kun nova metio: sortodivenisto. Dezirante \u015dajni egalpartia, mi amiki\u011dis kaj divenis sortojn inter \u0109iuj kompanioj tie garnizonigitaj. Tamen mi atentis plejparte pri Kompanio C. Mi min komplezemigis senlime inter tiuj apartaj viroj. Ili petis de mi nenian komplezon, starigis anta\u016d mi nenian minacon kiujn mi malakceptis. Mi fari\u011dis bonvola viktimo de iliaj \u015dercoj. Tio pligrandigis mian popularecon. Mi fari\u011dis favorato.\nBalda\u016d mi trovis soldaton al kiu mankis dikfingro. Kian \u011dojon tio havigis al mi! Kaj kiam mi ekcertis ke nur li, el \u0109iuj kompanianoj siaj, perdis dikfingron, malaperis mia lasta dubo. Mi certegis suresti la \u011dustan spurvojon. La viro nomi\u011dis Krugero. Li estis Germano. Estis na\u016d Germanoj en la kompanio. Mi kontrolgvatadis \n por ekscii kiuj estas liaj intimuloj, sed la\u016d\u015dajne  li havis neniajn apartajn amikojn. Tamen intimulo lia estis mi kaj mi prizorgis kreskigi la rilaton. Kelkfoje mi tiel sopiris al ven\u011do ke mi apena\u016d sukcesis malhelpi min surgenui\u011di anta\u016d li kaj petegi ke li fingremontru la viron mortigintan miajn edzinon kaj infanon sed mi ekscipovis bridi al mi la langon. Mi atendadis pacience kaj da\u016dre sortodivenis, la\u016dokaze.\nMia aparataro estis simpla: iom da ru\u011da farbo kaj peceto da blanka papero. Mi farbis la malsupron de la klienta dikfingro, faris surpaperan prema\u0135on de \u011di, \u011din studadis dum la nokto kaj sciigis lian sorton al li la sekvintan tagon. Kiun ideon mi nutris, efektivigante tian sensenca\u0135on? Jen \u011di estis. Kiam mi estis knabo mi konis maljunan Francon estintan provoso dum tridek jaroj kaj li diris al mi ke \u0109iu homo havas unu trajton kiu neniam \u015dan\u011di\u011das ekde la lulilo \u011dis la tombo: la linioj sur la malsupra flanko de la dikfingro. Kaj li diris ke tiuj linioj neniam nepre samaspektas \u0109e iu ajn homparo. Nuntagare ni fotas la novan krimulon kaj pendas lian bildon en la Kanajlo-Galerio por estonta referenco. Sed tiu Franco, dum sia aktiva laborkariero, kutimis fari prema\u0135on pri la dikfingra malsupra\u0135o de nova malliberulo kaj \u011din staplis por ebla estonta uzado. Li diris \u0109iam ke bildoj senvaloras \u0109ar eventualaj kamuflovesta\u0135oj povas ilin senutiligi. \"La dikfingro estas la ununura certa\u0135o,\" li diris. \"\u011ci ne kamuflovesteblas.\" Kaj li kutimis pravigi sian teorion helpe de miaj amikoj kaj konatoj. Tio sukcesis \u0109iam.\nMi da\u016dre sortodivenis. \u0108iun nokton mi min izoligis, en nepra soleco, kaj pristudis sub lupeo la dikfingrajn prema\u0135ojn de la tago. Vi imagu la vorantan avidon per kiu mi okulkontrolegis tiujn labirintajn ru\u011dajn spiralojn, tenante apude tiun dokumenton surportantan la dekstramanajn dik- kaj alifingrajn prema\u0135ojn de tiu nekonata murdinto, presitajn per la plej kara sango\u2014por mi\u2014iam defaligita sur \u0109i tiu tero! Kaj foje kaj refoje necesis al mi ripeti la saman malnovan senkura\u011digan rimarkon: \"\u0108u neniam samaspektos ili?\"\nSed finfine alvenis mia rekompenco. \u011ci estis la dikfingra prema\u0135o de la kvardektria viro de Kompanio C partopreninta en mia eksperimento: Soldato Franzo Adlero. Unu horon anta\u016de mi sciis nek la nomon nek la vo\u0109on nek la figuron nek la viza\u011don nek la naciecon de la murdinto. Sed nun mi sciis \u0109iujn tiujn detalojn. Mi opiniis rajti certi pri la afero. La ripetitaj demonstradoj de la Franco estis mia rajtigilo. Tamen restis rimedo por \u0109ion nepre certigi. Mi disponis pri prema\u0135o de la maldekstra dikfingro de Krugero. En la mateno mi flankenapartigis lin dum lia malde\u0135orado. Kiam ni staris ekster la vid- kaj a\u016ddkampo de eblaj atestontoj mi diris en impona maniero:\n\"Parto de via sorto estas tiel serioza ke mi ju\u011dis esti pli bone ne malkovri \u011din al vi okaze de publika kunveno. Vi kaj cetera viro, kies sorton mi pristudis hiera\u016dnokte\u2014Soldato Adlero\u2014murdis virinon kaj infanon. Oni vin spuras. Anta\u016d ol forpasos kvin tagoj oni murdos vin amba\u016d.\"\nLi falis surgenuen, timigite \u011dis frenezio. Kaj dum kvin minutoj li ade elver\u015dis la saman litanion, kiel demenculo, kaj en tiu sama duonplora maniero restinta unu el miaj memora\u0135oj pri tiu murdonokto en mia \u0109ambreto:\n\"Mi ne faris tion. La\u016d mia animo, tion mi ne faris. Kaj mi strebis malhelpi ke li faru tion. Tiel mi agis, Dio estu mia atestanto. Li faris tion solapersone.\"\nJen estis \u0109io kion mi volis. Kaj mi klopodis min senigi je la stultulo. Sed ne, li alkro\u0109i\u011dis al mi, petegante ke mi lin protektu kontra\u016d la murdinto. Li diris:\n\"Mi havas monon. Dek mil dolarojn. En ka\u015dejo. La frukta\u0135o de \u015dtelado kaj rabado. Savu min. Diru al mi kion fari kaj \u011di estos al vi, \u0109iu cendo. Du trionoj el \u011di apartenas al mia kuzo, Adlero, sed vi rajtas alpreni \u011din entute. Ni ka\u015dis \u011din kiam ni alvenis \u0109i tien komence. Sed mi reka\u015dis \u011din hiera\u016d en nova loko kaj ne diris tion al li. Mi intencis dizerti kaj \u011din forpreni entute. \u011ci estas oro kaj tro peza por manporti kiam oni kuras kaj evitas. Sed virino kiu jam transiris la riveron anta\u016d du tagoj por pretigi mian vojon postsekvos min kun la mono. Kaj se mi ne havus la \u015dancon priskribi la ka\u015dejon al \u015di, mi intencis ruzdoni mian ar\u011dentan po\u015dhorlo\u011don en \u015dian manon a\u016d transsendi \u011din al \u015di kaj \u015di komprenus la aferon. Estas paperpeco en la malanta\u016da\u0135o de la ujo kiu \u0109ion rakontas. Jen, prenu la horlo\u011don kaj diru al mi kion fari.\"\nLi penadis trudi sian horlo\u011don al mi kaj elmontradis la paperon, klarigante \u011din al mi, kiam Adlero eniris la vidkampon fordistance je \u0109irka\u016d dek du jardoj. Mi diris al la kompatinda Krugero:\n\"Enpo\u015digu denove vian horlo\u011don, \u011din mi ne deziras. Nenia difektado vin atingos. Foriru nun, mi devas diveni lian sorton por Adlero. Balda\u016d mi diros al vi kiel eskapi de la murdinto. Intertempe, necesos al mi rekontroli la prema\u0135on de via dikfingro. Nenion diru al Adlero pri \u0109i tiu afero. Nenion diru al iu ajn.\"\nLi foriris plena je timo kaj dankemo, kompatinda diablulo. Mi diris al Adlero longan sortodivenon\u2014la\u016dintence tiel longan ke mi ne povis \u011din findiri. Promesis alveni lian gvardpostenejon tiun nokton kaj diri al li ties vere gravan parton\u2014ties tragedian parton, mi diris. Tial, necesas esti ekster la a\u016ddkampo de suba\u016dskultantoj. Oni \u0109iam postenigis pikedon ekster la urbo. Nuraj disciplino kaj ceremonio. Nenia bezono tiurilate. Nenia malamiko en la \u0109irka\u016dejo.\n\u0108irka\u016d noktomezo mi survoji\u011dis, provizite per la kontra\u016dsigno, kaj gvidis miajn pa\u015dojn \u011dis la soleca regiono kie Adlero estis gvardonta. Estis tiel malhele ke mi stumblis senpere kontra\u016d malklaran figuron preska\u016d anta\u016d ol povi eligi \u015dirmvorton. La sentinelo salutis kaj mi respondis, amba\u016d en la sama momento. Mi aldonis: \"Estas nur mi, la sortodivenisto.\" Tiam mi glitpa\u015dis al la flanko de la kompatinda diablulo kaj \u015dovegis mian ponardon en lian koron. \"Ja wohl,\" mi ridis. Jen estis, efektive, la tragedia parto de lia sorto.  Dum li falis de sur sia \u0109evalo, li strebis alkro\u0109i\u011di al mi kaj miaj bluaj \u015dirmokuloj postrestis en lia mano. Kaj foren plon\u011dis la besto, lin trenante kun piedo en la piedingo.\nMi forfu\u011dis tra la arbaro kaj efektivigis mian eskapon, postlasinte miajn \u015dirmokulojn en la mano de la mortinto.\nTio okazis anta\u016d dek kvin-dek ses jaroj. Ekde tiam mi vagiradas sencele \u0109irka\u016d la mondo, foje laborante, foje senlabore; foje havante monprovizon, foje senmone; sed \u0109iam lacigite per troa vivado kaj dezirante finvivi, \u0109ar mian surteran mision plenumis la faro de tiu nokto. Kaj la nuraj plezuro, konsolo, kontenti\u011do kiujn \n mi spertis en \u0109iuj tiuj tedaj jaroj estis la \u0109iutaga penso: \"Mi senvivigis lin!\"\nAnta\u016d kvar jaroj mia sano komencis malbonfarti. Mi vagatingintis Munkenon la\u016d mia sencela maniero. Malhavante monon, mi ser\u0109is kaj akiris laborpostenon. Mi plenumis mian taskon fidele dum \u0109irka\u016d unu jaro. Tiam oni postenigis min kiel noktosentinelon tie en tiu mortodomo kiun vi vizitis lastatempe. La loko konvenis al mia humoro. \u011ci pla\u0109is al mi. Pla\u0109is al mi esti kun la mortintoj\u2014esti sola kun ili. Mi kutimis vagiradi inter tiuj rigidaj kadavroj kaj enrigardi iliajn a\u016dsterajn viza\u011dojn dum horoj. Ju pli malfrua estis la horo, des pli impona estis la situacio. Mi preferis la malfruan horon. Foje mi malheligis la lumojn. Tio estigis perspektivon, vi komprenu, kaj liberigis la imagon. \u0108iam la malklaraj, malanta\u016denirantaj mortintovicoj estigis \u0109e oni strangajn kaj fascinajn fantaziojn. Anta\u016d du jaroj\u2014mi jam estis tie ekde unu jaro\u2014mi sidis tute sole en la gvat\u0109ambro en ventega vintra nokto, malvarmigite, sensentigite, senkonsole, ekdormetante iom post iom en senkonscion. La plorego de la vento kaj la klakado de foraj \u015dutroj sonadis pli kaj pli malla\u016dte en miaj sena\u016ddi\u011dontaj oreloj \u0109iumomente kiam subite kaj akute la mortosonorilo eligis sangofrostigan alarmon super mia kapo! Preska\u016d paralizis min la \u015doko \u0109ar neniam anta\u016de mi a\u016ddis la signalon.\nMi min renormaligis kaj hastegis al la kadavro\u0109ambro. Preska\u016d mezdistance for la\u016d la ekstera vico sidis rektaspina figuro envolvita en mortotuko, svingante la kapon malrapide de flanko al flanko: makabra spektaklo! \u011cia flanko alfrontis min. Mi aliris \u011din haste kaj enrigardis fikse \u011dian viza\u011don. \u0108ielo! Adlero \u011di estis!\n\u0108u vi povas diveni kio estis mia unua ekpenso? Envortigite, jen \u011di estis: \"\u015cajnas tial ke vi eskapis de mi unuan fojon. Okazos kontra\u016da rezulto \u0109i-foje!\"\nVer\u015dajne tiu etulo spertis neimageblajn terurojn. Imagu kion li devis eksenti veki\u011dinte meze de tiu senvo\u0109a silento kaj \u0109irka\u016dspektadinte tiun malgajan mortintaron! Kiu dankemo brilegis en lia magrega blanka viza\u011do kiam li vidis vivantan formon anta\u016d si! Kaj kiel la fervoro de tiu senparola dankemo plimulti\u011dis kiam lia rigardo atingis la vivigajn kordialojn kiujn mi portis en la manoj! Tiam imagu la hororon kiu eniris lian pin\u0109itan viza\u011don kiam mi metis la kordialojn malanta\u016d min kaj diris moke:\n\"Ekparolu, Franzo Adlero! Alvoku tiujn mortintojn! Sendube ili a\u016dskultos kaj kompatos. Sed en \u0109i tiu loko au\u015dkultos kaj kompatos neniu alia.\"\nLi penadis paroli. Tamen rezistis kaj malpermesis paroladon tiu parto de la mortotuko kunpremanta liajn makzelojn. Li strebis levi petegajn manojn sed ili restis, kunmetite kaj kunligite, sur lia brusto. Mi kriegis:\n\"Kriegu, Franzo Adlero! Veku la dormantojn en la foraj stratoj, petante ilin alvenigi helpon al vi. Kriegu\u2014sen mal\u015dpari tempon, \u0109ar estas malmulte da tempo por mal\u015dpari. Kio, \u0109u vi ne povas? Kia doma\u011do! Tamen ne gravas. Kriegado ne \u0109iam alvenigas helpon. Kiam vi kaj via kuzo murdis senhelpajn virinon kaj infanon en kabano de Arkansaso\u2014mia edzino estis kaj mia infano\u2014ili kripetis helpon, \u0109u vi memoras? Sed tio ne sukcesis. Vi memoras ke tio ne sukcesis, \u0109u ne? Viaj dentoj klaketadas\u2014tial kial vi ne povas ekkrii? Malfiksu la banda\u011dojn per viaj manoj. Tiam \n vi povos ekkrii. Ho, mi komprenas. Viaj manoj estas ligitaj kaj ne povas helpi vin. Kiom strange eventoj ripeti\u011das post longaj jaroj. \u0108ar anka\u016d miaj manoj estis ligitaj tiun nokton, \u0109u vi memoras? Jes, tiel forte ligitaj kiel viaj manoj estas ligitaj nun. Kiom stranga tio estas! Mi ne povis min liberigi. La ideo malligi min ne eniris vian menson. La ideo malligi vin ne eniras mian menson nun. \u015c\u015d\u015d! Jen malfruhora pa\u015dsono! \u011ci venas en nia direkto. A\u016dskultu, kiom proksima \u011di estas! Eblas kompti la pa\u015dsonojn: unu, du, tri! Jen, \u011di staras \u0135us aliflanke de la pordo. Jen estas la horo! Kriegu, viro, kriegu! Estas la ununura \u015danco inter vi kaj eterneco! Ho, vidu! Vi hezitis tro longan tempon. \u011ci preterpasis. Jen. \u011ci malla\u016dti\u011das. \u011ci estas for! Pripensu tion! Primeditu tion! Vi \u0135us a\u016ddis homan pa\u015dsonon je la lasta fojo. Kiom strange devas esti a\u016dskulti tiel ordinaran sonon kaj konscii ke neniam denove oni a\u016ddos sama\u0135on.\"\nHo, amiko mia! La dolorego en tiu envolvita viza\u011do estis vidinda ekstazo! Mi elpensis novan torturon kaj \u011din aplikis, min helpante per iom da mensoga kreivo:\n\"Tiu kompatinda Krugero strebis savi miajn edzinon kaj infanon kaj mi havigis al li reciprokan komplezon en la ta\u016dga momento. Mi konvinkis lin prirabi vin. Kaj mi kaj iu virino helpis lin dizerti el sia militservo kaj lin alvenigis al sekurejo.\"\nRigardo de surprizo kaj triumfo ekbrilis malhele tra la angoro en la viza\u011do de mia viktimo. Mi perpleksi\u011dis, maltrankvili\u011dis, diris:\n\"Nu, kio? \u0108u li ne eskapis?\"\nNea kapskuo.\n\"\u0108u ne? Kio okazis tial?\"\nLa kontento en la envolvita viza\u011do ankora\u016d pliklari\u011dis. La viro strebis murmura\u0109i kelkajn vortojn\u2014sensukcese; penadis esprimi ion per la malhelpitaj manoj\u2014malsukcesis; pa\u016dzis momenton, tiam klinis malforte la kapon en signifocela maniero, en la direkto al la kadavro ku\u015danta la plej proksime al li.\n\"\u0108u mortinta?\" mi demandis. \"\u0108u ne sukcesis eskapi? \u0108u kaptita fu\u011dante kaj pafita?\"\nCetera kapskuo nea.\n\"Tial, kiel?\"\nDenove la viro entreprenis fari ion permane. Mi zorge atentis sed ne sukcesis diveni la celon. Mi anta\u016denklini\u011dis kaj rigardis e\u0109 pli zorge. Li \u0109irka\u016dtordis dikfingron kaj per \u011di malforte pikis la bruston.\n\"Ho, \u0109u vi volas diri: ponardita?\"\nJesa kapmovo, akompanite de fantoma rideto de tioma diableco ke \u011di ek\u015daltis veklumon en mia malakra cerbo kaj mi kriegis:\n\"\u0108u ponardis lin mi, lin preninte por vi? \u0108ar tiu pikbato celis ununure vin!\"\nLa jesa kapmovo de la denove mortanta fripono estis tiel \u011doja kiel lia mankanta fortiko kapablis elmontri.\n\"Ho, mizera, mizera mi, mortiginte la kompatan personon kiu amiki\u011dis kun miaj karuloj kiam ili estis senhelpaj kaj kiu ilin servintus se li povintus! Mizera, ho, mizera, mizera mi!\"\nMi imagis a\u016ddi la dampitan glugleton de primoka rido. Mi eligis la viza\u011don de \n inter la manoj kaj vidis mian malamikon malanta\u016densinki sur sian klintabulon.\nNecesis al li sufi\u0109e longa tempo por morti. Li disponis mirindan vitalecon, surprizan konstitucion. Jes, li pasigis pla\u0109e longan tempon pri la afero. Mi alportis se\u011don kaj \u0135urnalon, sidi\u011dis apud li kaj legis. De tempo al tempo mi trinketis brandon. Tion mi bezonis pro la malvarmo. Sed mi trinketis anka\u016d pro tio ke, en la komenco, kiam mi etendis la manon por alpreni la botelon, li supozis ke mi celas havigi iom al li. Mi legis la\u016dtvo\u0109e: \u0109efe fantaziajn raportojn pri homoj ur\u011de forkaptitaj de sur la tombosojlo kaj revenigitaj al vivo kaj viglo pere de kelkaj kulerplenoj da likvoro kaj varma bano. Jes, li pasigis longan malfacilan tempon mortante: tri horojn, ses minutojn, ekde la momento kiam li a\u016ddigis la sonorilon.\nLa\u016d onia opinio, dum la dek ok jaroj forpasintaj ekde kiam iniciati\u011dis tiu kadavrogvatado, nenia en tuko envolvita gasto de la Bavariaj mortodomoj iam sonorigis sian sonorilon. Nu, tio estas sen\u011dena opinio. \u011ci restu tia.\nLa malvarmo de la morto\u0109ambro jam penetris miajn ostojn. \u011ci revigligis kaj retrudis al mi la malsanon anta\u016de min afliktintan sed kiu, \u011dis la koncerna nokto, konstante kaj ade malaperis. Tiu viro murdis mian edzinon kaj mian infanon. Kaj post tri tagoj li aldonintos mian nomon al sia murdolisto. Ne gravas! Dio! Kiel bonsapora estas la memora\u0135o pri tio. Mi kaptoatingis lin eskapantan el sia tombo kaj lin re\u015dovis en \u011din!\nPost tiu nokto mi devis enliti\u011di dum tuta semajno. Sed ekde kiam mi povis iom rondiradi, mi konsultis la mortodomajn registrolibrojn kaj eksciis la numeron de la domo en kiu Adlero mortis. Mizera pensiona\u0109o tiu estis. Mi konceptis la ideon ke kompreneble li akirintus la personajn hava\u0135ojn de Krugero, estante la kuzo de tiu, kaj mi deziris obteni la horlo\u011don de Krugero se eblus al mi. Tamen dum mi estis malsana la poseda\u0135ojn de Adlero oni forvendis kaj dislokis, krom pluraj malnovaj leteroj kaj ceteraj senvaloraj diversa\u0135oj. Tamen, pere de tiuj leteroj, mi spurtrovis filon de Krugero, la nuran restantan parencon lian. Tridekjara nun, li estas faka \u015duisto kaj lo\u011das \u0109e Numero 14 Re\u011dostrato en Manhejmo. Vidvo, li havas plurajn junajn gefilojn. Sen klarigi al li la kialon de tio, konstante ekde tiam mi provizas lin per du trionoj el lia financa subteno.\nNu, rilate al tiu horlo\u011do\u2014vidu kiom strange evoluas la aferoj! Mi \u0109irka\u016dspuris \u011din en Germanio dum pli ol jaro je granda mon- kaj \u0109agrenkosto. Kaj finfine mi ekhavis \u011din! Ekhavis \u011din kaj nedireble ek\u011doji\u011dis. Malfermis \u011din kaj nenion trovis interne. Ho, mi devintus anta\u016dscii ke tiu paperpeceto ne restos tie \u0109iun tiun tempon. Kompreneble, mi rezignis pensi pri la dek mil dolaroj tiam. Rezignis tion kaj forigis \u011din el mia menso. Kaj ege mal\u011doje, \u011din dezirinte por la filo de Krugero.\nHiera\u016dnokte, kiam finfine mi konsentis pri mia neevitebla morto, mi komencis pretigi miajn hava\u0135ojn. Mi entreprenis bruligi \u0109iujn senutilajn dokumentojn kaj certege, de inter la dokumentoj de Adlero ne anta\u016de zorge kontrolitaj elfalis tiu longe dezirata peceto. Tuj mi \u011din rekonis. Jen \u011di. Mi \u011din tradukos:\nBrika lustablo, mezurbe, angule de Orleano- kaj Merkato-Stratoj. Angulo \n alfrontanta urbodomon. Tria \u015dtono, kvara vico. Tien en\u015dovu mesa\u011don dirantan kiom alvenos.\nJen. Prenu kaj konservu \u011din! Krugero klarigis ke tiu \u015dtono formoveblas, kaj ke \u011di estas en la norda muro de la fundamento, kvaravice ekde la supro, tria\u015dtone ekde la okcidento. La mono ka\u015di\u011das malanta\u016d \u011di. Li diris ke la lasta frazo estas trompa\u0135o por devojigi okaze ke la papero enfalu mal\u011dustajn manojn. Sendube \u011di plenumis tiun funkcion por Adlero.\nNun mi deziras petegi ke kiam vi faros vian proponitan voja\u011don la\u016d la rivero, vi spurtrovu tiun ka\u015ditan monon kaj sendu \u011din al Adamo Krugero, \u0109e la Manhejma adreso kiun mi menciis. \u011ci ri\u0109uligos lin kaj mi dormos des pli trankvile en mia tombo sciante ke mi faris mian plejon por la filo de la viro kiu klopodis savi miajn edzinon kaj infanon\u2014kvankam mia mano senscie lin mortigis, kontra\u016de al la impulso de mia koro kiu preferintus lin \u015dirmi kaj savi.\n\n\"Tia estis la rakonto de Ritero,\" mi diris al miaj du amikoj. Esti\u011dis profunda kaj impona silento kiu da\u016dris ne mallongan tempon. Tiam amba\u016d viroj estigis pafadon da ekscititaj kaj admiraj ekkrioj pri la strangaj eventoj de la rakonto. Kaj tio, kune kun klakadanta fluego da demandoj kiu da\u016dre persistis \u011dis \u0109iuj partneroj preska\u016d senspiri\u011dis. Tiam miaj amikoj komencis renormali\u011di kaj retiri\u011di, sub\u015dirme de kelkfojaj vortpafoj, en silenton kaj abisman revadon. Dum dek minutoj nun a\u016ddi\u011dis nur silento. Tiam Ro\u011dero diris reveme:\n\"Dek mil dolaroj!\" Aldonante, post pa\u016dzego:\n\"Dek mil. Tio estas vera monamaso.\"\nBalda\u016d la poeto demandis:\n\"\u0108u vi celas sendi \u011din al li tujege?\"\n\"Jes,\" mi diris. \"Tio estas stranga demando.\"\nNenia respondo. Post iom da tempo, Ro\u011dero demandis heziteme:\n\"\u0108u la tutan sumon? Tio estas\u2014mi volas diri\u2014\"\n\"Certege, la tutan sumon.\"\nMi estis dironta pli, sed haltis\u2014haltis pro pensadsinsekvo naski\u011dinta en mi. Tompsono parolis sed mia menso estis for kaj mi ne a\u016ddkaptis lian dira\u0135on. Sed mi a\u016ddis Ro\u011deron respondi:\n\"Jes. Tia \u011di \u015dajnas al mi. Tio devus ege sufi\u0109i. Mi opinias ke li nenion faris.\"\nBalda\u016d la poeto diris:\n\"Kiam vi pripensas la aferon, tio pli ol sufi\u0109as. Vi nur konsideru! Kvin mil dolaroj! Nu, li ne kapablus elspezi tion en la da\u016drotempo de sia vivo. Kaj tio lin difektus, aldone. Eble e\u0109 lin ruinigus. Vi konsideru tion. Post malmulte da tempo li for\u0135etus la restintan monon, fermus sian butikon, eble komencus drinkadi, mistraktus siajn senpatrinajn infanojn, sinkus en ceterajn malboncelajn irvojojn, progresus la\u016dvice de malbono al plimalbono\u2014\"\n\"Jes, vi pravas,\" interrompis Ro\u011dero fervore. \"Mi jam vidis tion cent fojojn. \n Jes, pli ol cent fojojn. Vi metu monon en la manojn de tia viro nur se vi deziras lin detrui, tio estas fakto. Vi nur metu monon en liajn manojn, necesas fari nenion ceteran. Kaj se tio ne malaltigas lin kaj lin senutiligas kaj lin senigas je \u0109iu memestimo kaj \u0109io, tiam mi ne konas la homan naturon\u2014\u0109u ne, Tompsono? Kaj e\u0109 se ni transdonus al li trionon el \u011di; nu, en malpli ol ses monatoj\u2014\"\n\"Malpli ol ses semajnoj, vi diru,\" respondis mi, eksciti\u011dante kaj interrompante. \"Escepte se li metus tiun tri-mil-dolaran sumon en sekurajn manojn kie li ne povus \u011din ektu\u015di, ne pli ol ses semajnoj forpasus anta\u016d ol\u2014\"\n\"Certege, ne pli ol ses semajnoj!\" diris Tompsono. \"Mi redaktis librojn por tiuspecaj homoj kaj en la momento mem kiam ili enmanigas sian tantiemon\u2014eble temas pri tri mil, eble du mil\u2014\"\n\"Kial tiu \u015duisto rajtas disponi du mil dolarojn, pla\u0109us al mi ekscii?\" Ro\u011dero interrompis serioze. \"Viro eble nepre kontenta nun, tie en Manhejmo, \u0109irka\u016date de samranguloj, man\u011dante sian panon kun tiu apetito kiun povas estigi nur laborema entreprenado, \u011duante sian modestan vivon, honesta, justa, purkora, kaj benita! Jes, mi diru 'benita' super la miriadoj \u0109irka\u016dirantaj en silkaj vesta\u0135oj, la\u016dpromenantaj la malplenan artefaritan rondvojon de socia malsa\u011deco. Sed vi nur metu la koncernan tenton anta\u016d li nuran fojon! Vi nur metu dek kvin cent dolarojn anta\u016d tia viro kaj diru\u2014\"\n\"Dek kvin cent diablojn!\" mi protestis. \"Kvin cent putrigus liajn principojn, paralizus lian entreprenadon, trenus lin al la rumvendejo, de tie \u011dis la defluilo, de tie \u011dis la almozdomo, de tie \u011dis\u2014\"\n\"Kial trudi al ni mem tiun krimon, sinjoroj?\" interrompis la poeto serioze kaj alloge. \"Li estas feli\u0109a tie kie li estas ke tia kia li estas. \u0108iu sento pri honoro, \u0109iu sento pri karitato, \u0109iu sento pri alta kaj sankta bonvolo nin avertas, nin petegas, nin ordonas lin lasi en sen\u011deno. Jen vera amikeco, jen a\u016dtenta amikeco. Ni povus funkciigi aliajn rimedojn pli pompajn. Sed nenian tiel vere komplezan kaj sa\u011dan, kredu min.\"\nPost iom da da\u016dra diskutado, evidenti\u011dis ke \u0109iu el ni, en la profundo de sia koro, sentis kelkajn dubojn pri tiu aran\u011do pri la afero. Klarege estis ke \u0109iuj sentis la devon sendi al la kompatinda \u015duisto ion. Esti\u011dis longa kaj pripensa diskuto pri tiu punkto kaj finfine ni elektis sendi al li kolorlitografon.\nNu, post kiam \u0109io la\u016d\u015dajne bonordi\u011dis por \u0109iuj partoprenantoj, elstari\u011dis nova \u011deno. Okazis ke tiuj du viroj celis dividi la monon egalparte kun mi. Mi ne samopiniis. Mi diris ke ili povos sin taksi bon\u015dancaj se ili kunricevos duonon el la mono. Ro\u011dero diris:\n\"Kiu estintus iel ajn bon\u015danca se ne partoprenintus en la afero mi? Estis mi kiu faris la unuan sugeston. Sen mi \u0109io irintus al la \u015duisto.\"\nTompsono diris ke li mem pripensis la aferon jam en la sama momento kiam Ro\u011dero unue parolis.\nMi replikis ke la sugesto naski\u011dintus \u0109e mi sufi\u0109e balda\u016d kaj sen la helpo de iu ajn. Mi estas malrapida pensanto eble, sed fidinda.\nLa debato varmi\u011dis en kverelon, tiam en batalon. \u0108iu viro ekvundi\u011dis iom forte. Post min iom kuraci, la\u016d mia maniero, mi supreniris en malbona\u0109a humoro \n al la uraganferdeko. Mi renkontis Kapitanon Makordon tie kaj diris, tiel pla\u0109e kiel permesis mia humoro:\n\"Mi alvenas por adia\u016di, Kapitano. Mi deziras alteri\u011di \u0109e Napoleono.\"\n\"Vi deziris alteri\u011di kie?\"\n\"\u0108e Napoleono.\"\nLa kapitano ekridis sed, ekkonsciinte ke mi ne estas en gaja humoro, li \u0109esis ridi kaj diris:\n\"Sed \u0109u vi seriozas?\"\n\"Mi jes ja tre seriozas.\"\nLa kapitano rigardis la supranivelan navigejon kaj diris:\n\"Li deziras elboati\u011di \u0109e Napoleono!\"\n\"\u0108u \u0109e Napoleono?\"\n\"Tiel li diras.\"\n\"La\u016d la fantomego de Cezaro!\"\nOnklo Mumfordo alproksimi\u011dis la\u016d la ferdeko. La kapitano diris:\n\"Onklo, jen amiko via kiu deziras elboati\u011di \u0109e Napoleono!\"\n\"Nu, la\u016d\u2014!\"\nMi diris:\n\"Bonvolu, pri kio temas \u0109io tio? \u0108u viro ne rajtas alteri\u011di \u0109e Napoleono se tion li deziras?\"\n\"Nu, damnu, \u0109u vi ne scias? Ne plu ekzistas Napoleono. Jam de jaroj kaj jaroj \u011di ne plu ekzistas. Arkansaso-Rivero \u011din krevis, \u011din \u0109ifonigis, \u011din for\u015dovis en Misisipo-Riveron!\"\n\"\u0108u forbalais la tutan urbon? \u0108u bankojn, pre\u011dejojn, malliberejojn, \u0135urnalajn redaktejojn, urbodomon, teatron, fajrobrigadejon, lustablon\u2014\u0109u \u0109ion?\"\n\"\u0108ion. Nur dekkvinminuta tasko, a\u016d simila\u0135o. Postlasis de la urbo nek ha\u016dton nek haron, nek \u015dira\u0135on nek \u015dindon krom la malanta\u016da ekstrema\u0135o de iu doma\u0109eto kaj unu brika fumtubo. En la nuna momento nia boato padelnavigas en la mezo mem de la anta\u016da starloko de la urbo. Jen fore estas la brika fumtubo\u2014la ununura resta\u0135o de la urbo. Tiu densa arbaro \u0109e la dekstra flanko situis anta\u016de mejlon for de la urbo. Rigardu malanta\u016d vi, kontra\u016dflue. Nun vi komencas rekoni la pejza\u011don, \u0109u ne?\"\n\"Jes, mi jes ja \u011din rekonas nun. Tio estas la plej mirinda afero kiun mi iam pria\u016ddis. De multege la plej mirinda kaj la plej neatendita.\"\nS-ro Tompsono kaj S-ro Ro\u011dero jam alvenis, intertempe, kun valizoj kaj ombreloj kaj a\u016dskultis silente la nova\u0135on de la kapitano. Tompsono metis duondolaron en mian manon kaj diris malla\u016dte:\n\"Por mia porcio de la kolorlitografo.\"\nRo\u011dero agis same.\nJes, mirindege estis vidi Misisipo-Riveron ruli\u011di inter senhomaj bordoj rekte super la loko kie anta\u016d dudek jaroj mi kutimis vidi bonan grandan memkontentan urbeton. Urbeton kiu estis sidejo de granda kaj grava konteo. Urbeton kun granda Usona marsoldatara malsanulejo. Urbeton kiu havis sennombrajn batalojn kun \u0109iutaga \n enketo. Urbeton kie anta\u016de mi konis la plej belan kaj la plej talentan knabinon de la tuta Misisipo-valo. Urbeton kie ni ricevis la unuan presitan nova\u0135on pri la lamentinda katastrofo de batal\u015dipo Pensilvanio anta\u016d kvaronjarcento. Urbeton ne plu ekzistantan, englutitan, forsinkintan nutradi la fi\u015dojn. Urbeton de kiu restas nenio krom ero de doma\u0109eto kaj dispeci\u011danta brika fumtubo!\nLA FIFAMA SALTANTA RANO DE KALAVERO-KONTEO\nKonforme al peto de amiko skribinta al mi el Oriento, mi vizitis afablan paroleman maljunan Simonon Hveleron kaj enketis pri amiko de mia amiko, Leonido V. Smilejo, responde al la peto, kaj mi \u0109i tie alfiksas la rezulta\u0135on. Mi sentas ka\u015ditan suspekton ke Leonido V. Smilejo estas mito; ke mia amiko neniam konis tian personon; kaj ke li nur hipotezis ke se mi demandus al Hvelero pri li, tio memorigus al la multa\u011dulo sian fifaman Ja\u0109jon  Smilejon, kaj li ekoficus, enuigante min per kelkaj agacantaj tiurilataj rememora\u0135oj tiel longaj kaj tedaj kiel senutilaj por mi. Se tio estis la celo, okazis sukceso.\nMi trovis Simonon Hveleron en komforta dormetado apud la servo\u0109ambra stovo de la kadukinta drinkejo de mortanta mineja kampadejo nomi\u011danta \u0108e-An\u011delo kaj konstatis ke li estas dika kaj kalva kaj portas sur sia trankvila viza\u011do mienon de \u0109armaj mildeco kaj simpleco. Li veki\u011dis kaj salutis, dezirante al mi bonan tagon. Mi diris al li ke amiko mia petis ke mi enketu pri kara kamarado de lia knabeco nomi\u011danta Leonido V. Smilejo\u2014Pastoro Leonido V. Smilejo, juna predikisto pri la Biblia mesa\u011do la\u016draporte lo\u011dinta anta\u016de en \u0108e-An\u011delo. Mi aldonis ke, se S-ro Hvelero scipovos informi min pri tiu Pastoro Leonido V. Smilejo, mi \u015duldos al li multajn reciprokajn komplezojn.\nSimono Hvelero malanta\u016denirigis min en angulon kaj blokadis min tie per sia se\u011do, tiam sidi\u011dis kaj evoluadigis la tedan rakonton sekvontan \u0109i tiun alineon. Li neniam ridetis, neniam kuntiris la brovojn, neniam senigis la vo\u0109on je la mildaritma tonalo al kiu li agordis sian komencan frazon, neniam elmontris la plej etan indicon pri entuziasmo. Tamen la\u016d la tuta longo de la senfina rakonto kuris vejno da imponaj seriozo kaj sincero komprenigantaj klarscie al mi ke, anstata\u016d imagi ke lia rakonto ampleksas ridindan a\u016d absurdan temaron, li taksas \u011din vere grava afero kaj admiras ties du heroojn kiel virojn disponantajn transcendan genion pri altnivela lerteco. Mi lasis lin da\u016drigi siamaniere la rakontadon, neniam lin interrompante ununuran fojon.\n\"Pastoro Leonido V.\u2014Ho, nu, Pastoro Leo\u2014Nu, foje \u0109eestis \u0109i tie ulo nomi\u011danta Ja\u0109jo Smilejo, en la vintro de '49, a\u016d eble estis la printempo de '50\u2014mi ne memoras precize, iel, kvankam la kialo pro kiu mi opinias ke estis unu a\u016d la alia estas tio ke mi memoras ke la klintrogego ankora\u016d ne estis finkonstruita kiam li alvenis la kampadejon. Tamen li estis la plej stranga ulo kiun oni iam vidis kiam temis pri \u0109iam veti pri kio ajn sursceneji\u011das kondi\u0109e ke li sukcesu instigi iun veti pri la kontra\u016da flanko, kaj se ne, li mem \u015dan\u011dis vetflankon. Pla\u0109is al li iu ajn aran\u011do pla\u0109anta al la kontra\u016dvetanto. Se li nur sukcesus starigi veton, li kontenti\u011dis. Tamen li estis bon\u015danca, malkutime bon\u015danca. Preska\u016d \u0109iam li venkis. Li estis \u0109iam preta kaj atendanta oportunon. Kion ajn oni menciis, li proponis priveti \u011din kaj priveti iun ajn flankon, la\u016d via deziro, kiel mi \u0135us menciis. Se okazis vetkuro por \u0109evaloj, je ties fini\u011do vi trovis lin multri\u0109igita a\u016d nepre senmonigita. Se okazis hundobatalo, li vetis \n pri \u011di. Se okazis katbatalo, \u011din li privetis. Se okazis kokbatalo, li \u011din privetis. Nu, se du birdoj sidis sur barilo, li vetis pri kiu el ili forflugos anta\u016d la alia. Kaj se okazis evangeliza kunveno, li \u0109eestis \u011din senmanke por veti pri Pastoro Valkero kiu estis, la\u016d lia takso, la plej bona oratoro de la regiono, kaj tia li estis certe, kaj bona viro. Kaj se li vidis krampkrur-insekton eksurvoji\u011di en iu ajn direkto, li vetis pri kiom da tempo la besteto bezonos por atingi sian cellokon\u2014kiu ajn estu la loko. Kaj se vi konsentis priveti kontra\u016d li, li konsentis postsekvi tiun krampkrur-insekton \u011dis Meksikio por ekscii kien \u011di celas iri kaj dum kiom da tempo \u011di estos survoje. Multaj el la knaboj de \u0109i tie vidis tiun Smilejon kaj kapablas raporti al vi pri li. Nu, entute egalis al li\u2014li bonvolis veti pri io ajn\u2014la la\u016ddamne plej stranga ulo. La edzino de Pastoro Valkero malsanis foje, dum multe da tempo, kaj \u015dajnis ke oni ne sukcesos \u015din savi. Tamen iun matenon li eniris kaj Smilejo ekdemandis al li kiel \u015di fartas kaj li diris ke \u015di fartas iom pli bone nun\u2014danke al Nia Sinjoro pro Lia senfina kompato\u2014kaj progresas tiel favore ke, kun la beno de Providenco, \u015di finfine resani\u011dos kaj Smilejo, anta\u016d ol pripensi la aferon, diris: 'Nu, mi vetas je du dolaroj kaj duono ke ne.' <!-- Changed\n   doublequotes to singlequotes for consistency. -->\n\"\u0108i tiu \u0109i Smilejo havis \u0109evalinon\u2014la knaboj kromnomis \u015din la 'dekkvinminuta\u0135o' <!-- Changed\n   doublequotes to singlequotes for consistency. --> sed ili faris tion nur por \u015derci, vi scias, \u0109ar kompreneble \u015di estis pli rapida ol tio\u2014kaj li ofte vetgajnis monon pri tiu \u0109evalina\u0109o, malgra\u016d tio ke \u015di estis tiel malrapida kaj \u0109iam suferis pro astmo a\u016d tempro a\u016d ftizo a\u016d io simila. Kutime ili \u0109iam cedis al \u015di du-tricent-jardan frustarton kaj tiam preterpasis \u015din survoje. Tamen \u0109e la finfini\u011do de la konkurso \u015di eksciti\u011dis kaj fari\u011dis kvaza\u016d ur\u011dpelata kaj komencis anta\u016denkaprioli kaj lar\u011de disapartigi la gambojn, etendante la krurojn facilartike, foje en la aeron, foje vojoflanken en la direkto al la bariloj kaj suprenlevante piedbate tr-o-o-n da polvo kaj estigante tr-o-o-n da brua\u0109ego pro tusado kaj ternado kaj mungado\u2014kaj \u0109iam atingi la venkobudon kun \u0109irka\u016d kololonga anta\u016deco, la\u016d la plej bona takso.\n\"Kaj li havis etan malgrandan buldogidon kiu, kiam vi \u011din rigardis, \u015dajnis tute senvalora, kapabla nur sidadi kun feroca aspekto, atendante bonan \u015dancon por \u015dtelpreni ion. Tamen tuj post kiam oni privetis \u011din, \u011di fari\u011dis tute alia hundo. \u011cia submentono komencis elstari kiel vaporboata te\u016dgo kaj \u011diaj dentoj malkovri\u011dis kaj ekbrilis kiel altfornoj. Kaj se cetera hundo \u011din atakis kaj \u011din skuis \u0109ifona\u0109e kaj mordis \u011din kaj lan\u0109is \u011din du-trifoje trans la \u015dultron, Andreo \u011caksono\u2014tio estis la nomo de la hundido\u2014Andreo \u011caksono \u0109iam \u015dajnigis propran kontenti\u011don, kvaza\u016d atendinte nenion alian\u2014rezulte de kio la vetoj da\u016dre kaj reda\u016dre duobli\u011dis kaj reduobli\u011dis en la kontra\u016da flanko, \u011dis kiam \u0109iuj finvetis. Tiam subitege li alkro\u0109is tiun alian hundon perbu\u015de \u0135us <!-- Error in book: ju&#349;\n   --> \u0109e la artiko de ties malanta\u016da kruro kaj tenis \u011din en seninterrompa frosti\u011do. Li ne ma\u0109a\u0109is, vi komprenu, nur bu\u015dtenis kaj persistegis \u011dis kiam ili koncedis la venkon, e\u0109 se temis pri tutjara da\u016drotempo. Smilejo \u0109iam gajnis la vetpremion helpe de tiu hundido \u011dis kiam la besto devis konkursi kontra\u016d hundo perdinta siajn malanta\u016dajn krurojn forsegitajn per disksegilo, kaj kiam la vetado atingis finan punkton kaj la mono jam ku\u015dis surgrunde kaj Andreo \u011caksono ekpretis efektivigi sian plej \u015datatan alkro\u0109manovron, tujege li konsciis kiel oni lin supertrompis kaj kiel la alia \n hundo lin kontra\u016dmurenigis, por tiel diri, kaj li aspektis surprizite kaj tiam li aspektis iom malkura\u011digite kaj \u0109esis penadi gajni la venkon kaj fini\u011dis tute fintrompite. Li direktis rigardon al Smilejo, kvaza\u016d por diri ke lia koro estas rompita kaj ke la kulpinto estis la mastro pro konsenti priveti kontra\u016d hundo kiu ne havas malanta\u016dajn krurojn al kiuj oni povas alkro\u0109i, kio en batalo estis lia \u0109efa atakmanovro, kaj tiam li iom foriris lampa\u015de, sin ku\u015digis kaj mortis. Bonega hundido estis tiu Andreo \u011caksono kiu sin famigintus se \u011di sukcesintus travivi, \u0109ar \u011din enestis bona konsistiga\u0135o kaj genio. Tion mi scias, \u0109ar anta\u016de \u011di disponis neniajn apartajn priparolindajn oportunojn kaj estas mallogike ke hundo povas batali tiel sukcese en tiaj cirkonstancoj se \u011di ne havas talenton. \u0108iam mi ekbeda\u016dras pensante pri tiu lasta batalo \u011dia kaj ties fini\u011do.\n\"Nu, \u0109i tiu \u0109i Smilejo havis rathundojn kaj virkokojn kaj virkatojn kaj \u0109iujn tiajn speca\u0135ojn \u011dis senripozigi vin kaj vi ne povus alporti al li priveta\u0135on kontra\u016d kiu li ne kapablus kontra\u016dstarigi sama\u0135on. Iun tagon li kaptis ranon kaj hejmenportis \u011din kaj diris intenci \u011din klerigi. Tial dum tri monatoj li faris nenion ceteran krom sidi en sia malanta\u016ddoma \u011dardeno kaj lernigi saltadon al tiu rano. Kaj estu certa ke li jes ja lernigis \u011din. Li kutimis iom \u015doveti la ranon de malanta\u016de kaj en la sekvinta minuto vi vidis la ranon kirli\u011dadi en la aero kiel pastoringo, vin vidis efektivigi transkapi\u011don, a\u016d eble paron da ili, se li sukcesigis bonan starton, kaj retereni\u011di platpiede kaj bonsane, kiel kato. Li alkutimigis la ranon al tiaspeca saltado lernante al \u011di kiel kapti mu\u015dojn kaj trejnis \u011din tiurilate tiel konstante ke la besteto sukcesis trafi mu\u015don \u0109iun fojon kiam la insekto eniris \u011dian vidkampon. Smilejo diris ke mankas al la rano nur ta\u016dga edukado por ke \u011di povu fari ion ajn\u2014kaj mi kredas lin. Nu, mi vidis lin meti Danielon Vebsteron \u0109i tien sur \u0109i tiun plankon\u2014Danielo Vebstero estis la nomo de la rano\u2014kaj ekkriegi, 'Mu\u015doj, Da\u0109jo, mu\u015doj!'\u2014kaj pli rapide ol vi povas palpebrumi \u011di suprensaltis vertikallinie kaj forlekegis la mu\u015don de sur la tablo kaj refala\u0109is surplanken tiel solide kiel kotbulo kaj komencis grati la kapoflankon kun malanta\u016da piedo tute apatie kvaza\u016d ne konsciante esti farinta pli ol kutimas fari iu ajn rano. Vi neniam vidis ranon tiel modestan kaj honestan malgra\u016d ties grandaj talentoj. Kaj kiam temis pri honesta kaj senruza saltado sur ebena plata\u0135o, \u011di kapablis atingi pli grandan distancon en ununura salto ol iu ajn besto de sia speco iam vidita de vi. Saltado sur ebena plata\u0135o estis \u011dia speciala\u0135o, vi komprenu, kaj kiam temis pri tio Smilejo bonvole vetis monon pri \u011di \u011dis restis al li nenia plua cendo. Smilejo fieregis pri sia rano kaj li tute rajtis fieregi \u0109ar uloj voja\u011dintaj \u0109ien kaj estintaj \u0109ie diris \u0109iuj senescepte ke la besto superas \u0109iun ajn ranon iam viditan de ili.\n\"Nu, Smilejo tenis la beston en lata\u0135a skatoleto kaj foje li kunportis \u011din en la kampadejocentron kaj proponis \u011din kiel monvetobjekton. Iun tagon ulo\u2014nekonato en la kampadejo\u2014renkontis lin kun lia skatoleto kaj diris:\n\"'Kio povus esti tio kion vi tenas en la skatoleto?'\n\"Kaj Smilejo respondas, iom indiferente, 'Povus esti papago, a\u016d povus esti kanario, eble, tamen ne estas tia\u0135o. Nur rano \u011di estas.'\n\"Kaj la ulo prenis \u011din kaj okulkontrolis \u011din zorge kaj turnis \u011din en diversaj direktoj kaj diris: 'Nu, vi pravas. Do, por kiu \u011di utilas?'\n\"'Nu,' diris Smilejo, trankvile kaj senzorge, '\u011di utilas por unu afero, mi opinias. \u011ci kapablas pretersalti iun ajn ranon de Kalavero-Konteo.'\n\"La ulo reprenis la skatolon, direktis novan longan apartan rigardon al \u011di, retransdonis \u011din al Smilejo kaj diras meditege: 'Nu,' li diras, 'mi vidas neniajn ecojn \u0109e tiu rano kapablajn plibonigi \u011din rilate al aliaj ranoj.'\n\"'Eble vi ne vidas ilin,' diras Smilejo. 'Eble vi konas ranojn kaj eble vi malkonas ilin. Eble vi estas spertulo pri tio kaj eble vi ne estas nura amatoro tiurilate, por tiel diri. Tamen, opinion mian mi havas kaj kura\u011das veti kvardek dolarojn pri \u011dia kapablo pretersalti iun ajn ranon de Kalavero-Konteo.'\n\"Kaj la ulo primeditis momenton, tiam diras, en iom malfeli\u0109a maniero, 'Nu, mi estas nur fremdulo \u0109i tie kaj ne havas ranon, sed se ranon mi havus, mi bonvolus priveti kontra\u016d vi.'\n\"Kaj tiam Smilejo diras, 'Ne gravas\u2014ne gravas\u2014se vi bonvolos teni mian skatoleton momenton, mi iros akiri ranon por vi.' Tial la ulo prenis la skatolon kaj metis siajn kvardek dolarojn apud tiujn de Smilejo kaj sidi\u011dis por atendi.\n\"Tial li sidis tie dum iom longa tempo pensante kaj repensante pri la afero kaj tiam li eligis la ranon, levstangumis ties bu\u015don kaj prenis kafkuleron kaj plenigis la besteton je koturnkugleta\u0135oj\u2014\u011din plenigis \u011dis preska\u016d la mentono\u2014kaj surplankenigis \u011din. Smilejo, siaflanke, aliris la mar\u0109on kaj vagser\u0109is dum longa tempo en la kota\u0109o kaj finfine mankaptis ranon kaj \u011din revenportis kaj transdonis al la ulo, kaj diras:\n\"'Nu, se vi pretas, metu \u011din apud Danielon, kun \u011diaj anta\u016dpiedoj en paralela pozo kun tiuj de Danielo, kaj mi diros la signalvorton.' Tiam li diras, 'Unu\u2014du\u2014tri\u2014eku! kaj li kaj la ulo ektu\u015dis la ranojn de malanta\u016de kaj la nova rano forsaltis vigle sed Da\u0109jo faris klopodegon kaj kuntiris la \u015dultrojn\u2014tiel\u2014kiel Franca viro\u2014sed sensukcese\u2014li ne povis ekmovi\u011di. Li restis fiksite tiel solide kiel pre\u011dejo kaj ne pli kapablis ekiri ol ankrita \u015dipo. Smilejo estis iom surprizita kaj e\u0109 na\u016dzigita sed kompreneble li havis nenian ideon pri kio temas.\n\"La ulo prenis la vetmonon kaj komencis foriri. Kaj kiam li estis sur la pordosojlo li iom skumovis la dikfingron trans\u015dultren\u2014tiel\u2014en la direkto al Da\u0109jo, kaj rediris, tre egalritme, 'Nu,' li diras, 'mi vidas neniajn ecojn \u0109e tiu rano kapablajn plibonigi \u011din rilate al aliaj ranoj.'\n\"Smilejo, li staris gratante la kapon kaj malsuprenrigardante Da\u0109jon dum longa tempo, kaj finfine li diras, 'Mi jes ja priscivolas kio ajn en la lando estus povinta malebligi tiun ranon\u2014mi scivolas \u0109u eble \u011di spertas iuspecan \u011denon\u2014\u015dajnas al mi ke \u011di estas iom pufigita.' Kaj li alkro\u0109is Da\u0109jon per la kolnuko kaj levis \u011din kaj diras, 'Nu, kulpigu miajn katojn se \u011di ne pezas kvin funtojn!' kaj \u011din renversis kaj la besteto elruktegis duoblan manplenon da kugleta\u0135oj. Kaj tiam li komprenis kio okazis kaj ege koleri\u011dis\u2014li formetis la ranon kaj komencis postkuri la ulon sed neniam lin atingis. Kaj\u2014\"\nEn tiu momento Simono Hvelero a\u016ddis iun alvoki lian nomon en la anta\u016ddoma \u011dardeno kaj stari\u011dis por foriri ekscii pri kio temas. Kaj turni\u011dante al mi, dum li foriris, li diris: \"Restu tie kie vi estas, fremdulo, kaj mallacigu vin, mi estos for nur \n ununuran sekundeton.\"\nSed, kun via permeso, mi ju\u011dis ke da\u016drigo de la historio pri la entreprenema vagabondo Ja\u0109jo Smilejo ne povos disponigi al mi multajn informa\u0135ojn pri Pastoro Leonido V. Smilejo, kaj tial mi survoji\u011dis.\n\u0108e la pordo mi renkontis la afablan Hveleron en revenado kaj li alkro\u0109is min kaj rekomencis:\n\"Nu, \u0109i tiu \u0109i Smilejo havis flavan unuokulan bovinon kiu havis nenian voston, nur mallongan bananaspektan stumpon, kaj\u2014\"\nTamen, disponante nek tempon nek deziron, mi ne restis por a\u016dskulti pri la afliktita bovino sed adia\u016dis kaj foriris.\n\n\nLA RAKONTO PRI LA MALBONKONDUTA KNABETO\nFoje estis malbonkonduta knabeto nomi\u011danta Ja\u0109jo\u2014tamen, se vi bonvolas tion konstati, okazas ke malbonkondutaj knabetoj preska\u016d \u0109iam nomi\u011das Ja\u0109jo en viaj diman\u0109lernejaj instrulibroj. Strange estis, tamen vere, ke \u0109i tiu knabeto nomi\u011dis Ja\u0109jo.\nAnka\u016d li ne havis malsanan patrinon\u2014malsanan patrinon kiu estis pia kaj suferis pro ftizo kaj \u011dojus ku\u015di\u011di en la tombo kaj ripozadi se \u015di ne sentis fortan amon al sia knabo kaj anksiecon ke la mondo fari\u011du kruela kaj malamikema pri li post \u015dia forpaso. Plejparte la malbonkondutaj knaboj de la diman\u0109lernejaj instrulibroj nomi\u011das Jakobo kaj havas malsanajn patrinojn kiuj lernigas al ili kiel diri, \"Nun mi min ku\u015digas,\" ktp., kaj dormigas ilin kantante kun dol\u0109aj plendaj vo\u0109oj kaj tiam kise deziras al ili bonan nokton kaj surgenui\u011das apud la lito kaj ekploras. Sed pri tiu ulo estis malsame. Li nomi\u011dis Ja\u0109jo kaj lia patrino estis tute bonsana\u2014suferis pro nenia ftizo nek alia ajn malsano. \u015ci estis pli dika ol maldika, ne estis pia. Krome, \u015di sentis nenian anksiecon pri Ja\u0109jo. \u015ci diris ke se li rompigus al si la kolon, la perdo ne estus granda. \u015ci \u0109iam deziris bonan nokton al Ja\u0109jo pugfrape, neniam kise. Tute male, kiam \u015di estis preta lin postlasi, \u015di tordis al li la orelojn.\nFoje tiu malbonkonduta knabeto \u015dtelprenis la \u015dlosilon de la man\u011do\u015dranko kaj eniris tien \u015dtelpa\u015de kaj provizis sin per marmelado kaj plenigis la ujon je gudro por ke la patrino neniam prikonsciu la diferencon. Sed subite horora sento ne invadis lin kaj nenio \u015dajnis flustri al li, \"\u0108u estas juste malobei mian patrinon? \u0108u fari tion ne estas peko? Kien foriras malbonkondutaj knabetoj kiuj elman\u011das la marmeladon de sia bona afabla patrino?\" kaj tiam li ne surgenui\u011dis tute sole, promesante neniam plu malbonkonduti kaj stari\u011dis kun malpeza feli\u0109a koro kaj iris konfesi \u0109ion al sia patrino kaj petis ke \u015di lin pardonu kaj ricevis \u015dian benon dum plenigis \u015diajn okulojn larmoj de fiereco kaj dankemo. Ne. Tiel la afero evoluas \u0109e \u0109iuj ceteraj malbonkondutaj knaboj en libroj. Sed tute alimaniere \u011di evoluis \u0109e tiu Ja\u0109jo, malgra\u016d ties strango. Li man\u011dis la marmeladon kaj taksis \u011din \u0109efranga en sia peka kruda maniero; kaj li enigis la gudron kaj taksis anka\u016d tion \u0109efranga kaj ridis kaj rimarkis \"ke la oldulino ekhenos\" kiam \u015di ekscios tion kaj kiam \u015di eksciis efektive tion, li malkonfesis havi informa\u0135ojn pri \u011di kaj \u015di pugfrapis lin severe kaj estis li mem kiu ekploris. \u0108iel tiu knabo estis stranga. \u0108io rezultis malsame \u0109e li ol \u0109e la malbonkondutaj Jakoboj de la libroj.\nFoje li suprengrimpis en la pomarbojn de Kultivisto Akorno por \u015dtelpreni pomojn kaj la bran\u0109ego ne rompi\u011dis kaj li ne falis kaj rompigis al si la brakon, ne sin mordigis per la hundego de la kultivisto, ne malviglis dum semajnoj sur malsanula lito, ne pentis, ne entreprenis ekbonkonduti\u011di. Ho, ne! Li \u015dtelprenis tiom da pomoj kiom li deziris kaj malsuprengrimpis en bona stato. Kaj li estis nepre preta por la hundo anka\u016d kaj renversis \u011din per lan\u0109ita briko kiam tiu atakis lin. Estis ege strange. Simila\u0135o neniam okazis en tiuj mildaj libretoj havantaj jaspitajn kovrilojn kaj bildojn pri viroj \n surportantaj hirundovosta\u0135ajn jakojn kaj sonorilkronitajn \u0109apelojn kaj pantalonojn havantajn malsufi\u0109e longajn krurumojn kaj virinoj kies robtalioj estas subbraknivelaj kaj ne havas subjupajn ringegojn. Nenio simila en iu ajn el la diman\u0109lernejaj libroj.\nFoje li \u015dtelprenis la po\u015dtran\u0109ilon de la instruisto kaj kiam li timis ke la misfaro malkovri\u011du kaj ke la instruisto vipu lin, li \u015dtelmetis \u011din en la kaskedon de Georgo Vilsono\u2014la filo de la kompatinda Vidvino Vilsono, la morala knabo, la bonkonduta knabeto de la vila\u011do kiu \u0109iam obeis al sia patrino, neniam diris mensogojn, \u015datis siajn lecionojn, \u015dategis Diman\u0109-Lernejon. Kaj kiam la tran\u0109ilo terenfalis el la kaskedo kaj la kompatinda Georgo klinis la kapon kaj ru\u011di\u011dis kvaza\u016d agnoskante sian kulpon, kaj la \u0109agrenita instruisto taksis lin kulpa pri la \u015dtelpreno kaj kiam la viro staris apud la knabo, malsuprenigonte la vipon sur la tremantajn \u015dultrojn de tiu, subite aperis meze de ili nenia blankhara malprobabla ju\u011disto de la paco, prenante belan starpozon kaj dirante: \"Liberigu tiun noblan knabon! Jen staras la ka\u016dranta kulpinto! Mi preterpasis la lernejpordon dum la interleciona ludpa\u016dzo kaj, malvidate mi mem, mi vidis fari la \u015dtelprenon!\" Kaj tiam Ja\u0109jo ne ricevis pugbatadon kaj la respektinda ju\u011disto ne deklamis homilion al la plorema lernejanaro kaj ne prenis la manon de Georgo kaj diris ke tia knabo meritas la\u016ddadon kaj tiam ne invitis tiun veni lo\u011di \u0109e li kaj balai la oficejon kaj estigi fajrojn kaj fari irtaskojn kaj haki lignon kaj studi la juron kaj helpi lian edzinon plenumi domtaskojn kaj disponi pri la tuta postrestanta tempo por ludi kaj ricevi \u0109iumonatan kvardekcendosalajron kaj esti feli\u0109a. Ne. En la libroj okazintus tiel sed ne okazis tiel al Ja\u0109jo. Nenia enmiksi\u011dema maljuna pektenaspekta ju\u011disto ekaperis por estigi \u011denojn kaj tial la modelknabo Georgo ricevis pugbatadon kaj Ja\u0109jo feli\u0109is pro tio \u0109ar, vi scias, Ja\u0109jo malamegis moralajn knabojn. Ja\u0109jo diris ke li \"malestimas tiajn mola\u0109ulojn.\" Tia estis la lingva\u0135a\u0109o de tiu malbonkonduta malbonzorgata knabo.\nSed la plej stranga evento iam okazinta al Ja\u0109jo estis la fojo kiam li iris boatadi en diman\u0109o kaj ne sin dronigis kaj tiu cetera fojo kiam \u015dtormo kuratingis lin dum li fi\u015dkaptadis en diman\u0109o kaj ne trafis lin fulmo. Ho, vi povus tralegi \u0109iujn diman\u0109lernejajn instrulibrojn inter nun kaj Kristnasko sen iam malkovri simila\u0135on. Ho, ne! Vi ekscius ke \u0109iuj malbonkondutaj knaboj irantaj boatadi en diman\u0109o senmanke dronas. Kaj \u0109iujn malbonkondutajn knabojn kuratingatajn de \u015dtormoj dum ili fi\u015dkaptadas en diman\u0109o senmanke fulmo trafas. Boatoj veturigantaj malbonkondutajn knabojn \u0109iam renversi\u011das en diman\u0109o kaj \u0109iam okazas \u015dtormoj kiam malbonkondutaj knaboj fi\u015dkaptadas en diman\u0109o. Kiel tiu Ja\u0109jo iam eskapis tian sorton mi taksas nepra mistero.\nTiu Ja\u0109jo \u011duis sor\u0109itan vivon\u2014devas esti tiel. Nenio sukcesis lin difekti. Li e\u0109 transdonis al besto\u011dardena elefanto tabakbulon kaj la elefanto ne forfaligis al li la kapon per rostrobato. Li kontrolis la enhavon de la man\u011do\u015dranko ser\u0109ante pipromentan esencon kaj ne eraris trinkante brandon. Li \u015dtelprenis la pafilon de sia patro kaj iris \u0109asadi en diman\u0109o kaj ne forpafis tri-kvar fingrojn. Li pugnebatis sian fratineton sur la tempion kiam li koleri\u011dis kaj \u015di ne restis en dolorego dum longaj somertagoj kaj ne mortis kun dol\u0109aj surlipaj pardonvortoj kiuj duobligis la angoron de lia rompi\u011danta koro. Ne, \u015di balda\u016d resani\u011dis. Li forfu\u011dis kaj finfine surmari\u011dis kaj kiam li revenis li \n ne estis malfeli\u0109a kaj sola en la mondo kaj liaj gekaruloj ne dormis en la trankvila pre\u011deja tombejo kaj la de grimpoplantoj kovrata lo\u011ddomo de lia knabeco ne falis en kadukecon kaj ruina\u0135ojn. Ho, ne! Li hejmenrevenis tiel ebria kiel sak\u015dalmisto kaj tuj sukcesis ali\u011di al la fajrobrigado.\nKaj li plenkreskuli\u011dis kaj edzi\u011dis kaj naskigis grandan familion kaj sencerbigis ilin \u0109iujn iun nokton per hakilo kaj sin ri\u0109igis uzante diversajn trompa\u0135ojn kaj ruzojn kaj nun li estas la plej infera, plej malica kanajlo de sia naski\u011dvila\u011do kaj estas universale respektata parlamentano.\nTial vi konsciu ke neniam estis malbonkonduta Ja\u0109jo en la diman\u0109lernejaj libroj \u011duinta tian sinsekvon da bon\u015dancoj kiel tiu pekema Ja\u0109jo kun la sor\u0109ita vivo.\n\n\nENHAVO\n\n\n\n\"Konfeso de Mortanto\"\np. 1\n\n\n\"La Fifama Saltanta Rano de Kalavero-Konteo\"\np. 14\n\n\n\"La Rakonto pri la Malbonkonduta Knabeto\"\np. 19\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1837":"Bowler\n\n\n\n\nTHE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER\n\nby Mark Twain\n\nThe Great Seal\n\nI will set down a tale as it was told to me by one who had it of his\nfather, which latter had it of HIS father, this last having in like\nmanner had it of HIS father--and so on, back and still back, three\nhundred years and more, the fathers transmitting it to the sons and so\npreserving it. \u00a0It may be history, it may be only a legend, a tradition.\nIt may have happened, it may not have happened: \u00a0but it COULD have\nhappened. \u00a0It may be that the wise and the learned believed it in the\nold days; it may be that only the unlearned and the simple loved it and\ncredited it.\n\nCONTENTS\n\n    I.          The birth of the Prince and the Pauper.\n    II.  Tom's early life.\n    III.\u00a0\u00a0  Tom's meeting with the Prince.\n    IV.  The Prince's troubles begin.\n    V.          Tom as a patrician.\n    VI.  Tom receives instructions.\n    VII.\u00a0\u00a0  Tom's first royal dinner.\n    VIII.\u00a0\u00a0  The question of the Seal.\n    IX.  The river pageant.\n    X.          The Prince in the toils.\n    XI.  At Guildhall.\n    XII.  The Prince and his deliverer.\n    XIII.\u00a0\u00a0  The disappearance of the Prince.\n    XIV.  'Le Roi est mort--vive le Roi.'\n    XV.  Tom as King.\n    XVI.  The state dinner.\n    XVII.\u00a0\u00a0  Foo-foo the First.\n    XVIII.\u00a0\u00a0  The Prince with the tramps.\n    XIX.  The Prince with the peasants.\n    XX.  The Prince and the hermit.\n    XXI.  Hendon to the rescue.\n    XXII.  A victim of treachery.\n    XXIII.\u00a0\u00a0  The Prince a prisoner.\n    XXIV.  The escape.\n    XXV.  Hendon Hall.\n    XXVI.  Disowned.\n    XXVII.  In prison.\n    XXVIII.\u00a0\u00a0  The sacrifice.\n    XXIX.  To London.\n    XXX.  Tom's progress.\n    XXXI.  The Recognition procession.\n    XXXII.  Coronation Day.\n    XXXIII.  Edward as King.\n    CONCLUSION. \u00a0  Justice and Retribution.\n    \u00a0  Notes.\n\n\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS\n\nTHE GREAT SEAL (frontispiece)\n\nTHE BIRTH OF THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER\n\n\"SPLENDID PAGEANTS AND GREAT BONFIRES\"\n\nTOM'S EARLY LIFE\n\nOFFAL COURT\n\n\"WITH ANY MISERABLE CRUST\"\n\n\"HE OFTEN READ THE PRIEST'S BOOKS\"\n\n\"SAW POOR ANNE ASKEW BURNED\"\n\n\"BROUGHT THEIR PERPLEXITIES TO TOM\"\n\n\"LONGING FOR THE PORK-PIES\"\n\nTOM'S MEETING WITH THE PRINCE\n\n\"AT TEMPLE BAR\"\n\n\"LET HIM IN\"\n\n\"HOW OLD BE THESE\n\n\"DOFF THY RAGS, AND DON THESE SPLENDORS\"\u00a0\u00a0\n\n\"I SALUTE YOUR GRACIOUS HIGHNESS!\"\n\nTHE PRINCE'S TROUBLES BEGIN\n\n\"SET UPON BY DOGS\"\n\n\"A DRUNKEN RUFFIAN COLLARED HIM\"\n\nTOM AS A PATRICIAN\n\n\"NEXT HE DREW THE SWORD\"\n\n\"RESOLVED TO FLY\"\n\n\"THE BOY WAS ON HIS KNEES\"\n\n\"NOBLES WALKED UPON EACH SIDE OF HIM\"\n\n\"HE DROPPED UPON HIS KNEES\"\n\n\"HE TURNED WITH JOYFUL FACE\"\n\n\"THE PHYSICIAN BOWED LOW\"\n\n\"THE KING FELL BACK UPON HIS COUCH\"\n\n\"IS THIS MAN TO LIVE FOREVER?\"\n\nTOM RECEIVES INSTRUCTIONS\n\n\"PRITHEE, INSIST NOT\"\n\n\"THE LORD ST. JOHN MADE REVERENCE\"\n\nHERTFORD AND THE PRINCESSES\n\n\"SHE MADE REVERENCE\"\n\n\"OFFERED IT TO HIM ON A GOLDEN SALVER\"\n\n\"THEY MUSED A WHILE\"\n\n\"PEACE MY LORD, THOU UTTEREST TREASON!\"\n\n\"HE BEGAN TO PACE THE FLOOR\"\n\nTOM'S FIRST ROYAL DINNER\n\n\"FASTENED A NAPKIN ABOUT HIS NECK\"\n\n\"TOM ATE WITH HIS FINGERS\"\n\n\"HE GRAVELY TOOK A DRAUGHT\"\n\n\"TOM PUT ON THE GREAVES\"\n\nTHE QUESTION OF THE SEAL\n\n\"EASED HIM BACK UPON HIS PILLOWS\"\n\nTHE RIVER PAGEANT\n\n\"HALBERDIERS APPEARED IN THE GATEWAY\"\n\n\"TOM CANTY STEPPED INTO VIEW\"\n\nTHE PRINCE IN THE TOILS\n\n\"A DIM FORM SANK TO THE GROUND\"\n\n\"WHO ART THOU?\"\n\n\"INTO GOOD WIFE CANTY'S ARMS\"\n\n\"BENT HEEDFULLY AND WARILY OVER HIM\"\n\n\"THE PRINCE SPRANG UP\"\n\n\"HURRIED HIM ALONG THE DARK WAY\"\n\n\"HE WASTE NO TIME\"\n\nAT GUILDHALL\n\n\"A RICH CANOPY OF STATE\"\n\n\"BEGAN TO LAY ABOUT HIM\"\n\n\"LONG LIVE THE KING!\"\n\nTHE PRINCE AND HIS DELIVERER\n\n\"OUR FRIENDS THREADED THEIR WAY\"\n\n\"OBJECT LESSONS\" IN ENGLISH HISTORY\n\n\"JOHN CANTY MOVED OFF\"\n\n\"SMOOTHING BACK THE TANGLED CURLS\"\n\n\"PRITHEE, POUR THE WATER\"\n\n\"GO ON--TELL ME THY STORY\n\n\"THOU HAST BEEN SHAMEFULLY ABUSED\"\n\n\"HE DROPPED ON ONE KNEE\"\n\n\"RISE, SIR MILES HENDON, BARONET\"\n\nTHE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE PRINCE\n\n\"HE DROPPED ASLEEP\"\n\n\"THESE BE VERY GOOD AND SOUND\"\n\n\"EXPLAIN, THOU LIMB OF SATAN\"\n\n\"HENDON FOLLOWED AFTER HIM\"\n\n\"LE ROI EST MORT-VIVE LE ROI\"\n\n\"WILT DEIGN TO DELIVER THY COMMANDS?\"\n\n\"LORD OF THE BEDCHAMBER\"\n\n\"A SECRETARY OF STATE\"\n\n\"STOOD AT GRACEFUL EASE\"\n\n\"'TIS I THAT TAKE THEM\"\n\n\"BUT TAX YOUR MEMORY\"\n\nTOM AS KING\n\n\"TOM HAD WANDERED TO A WINDOW\"\n\n\"TOM SCANNED THE PRISONERS\"\n\n\"LET THE PRISONER GO FREE!\"\n\n\"WHAT IS IT THAT THESE HAVE DONE?\"\n\n\"NODDED THEIR RECOGNITION\"\n\nTHE STATE DINNER\n\n\"A GENTLEMAN BEARING A ROD\"\n\n\"THE CHANCELLOR BETWEEN TWO\"\n\n\"I THANK YOU MY GOOD PEOPLE\"\n\n\"IN THE MIDST OF HIS PAGEANT\"\n\nFOO-FOO THE FIRST\n\n\"RUFFIAN FOLLOWED THEIR STEPS\"\n\n\"HE SEIZED A BILLET OF WOOD\"\n\n\"HE WAS SOON ABSORBED IN THINKING\"\n\n\"A GRIM AND UNSIGHTLY PICTURE\"\n\n\"THEY ROARED OUT A ROLLICKING DITTY\"\n\n\"WHILST THE FLAMES LICKED UPWARDS\"\n\n\"THEY WERE WHIPPED AT THE CART'S TAIL\"\n\n\"THOU SHALT NOT\"\n\n\"KNOCKING HOBBS DOWN\"\n\n\"THRONE HIM\"\n\nTHE PRINCE WITH THE TRAMPS\n\n\"TROOP OF VAGABONDS SET FORWARD\"\n\n\"THEY THREW BONES AND VEGETABLES\n\n\"WRITHE AND WALLOW IN THE DIRT\"\n\n\"KING FLED IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION\"\n\n\"HE STUMBLED ALONG\"\n\n\"WHAT SEEMED TO BE A WARM ROPE\"\n\n\"CUDDLED UP TO THE CALF\"\n\nTHE PRINCE WITH THE PEASANTS\n\n\"TOOK A GOOD SATISFYING STARE\"\n\n\"MOTHER RECEIVED THE KING KINDLY\"\n\n\"BROUGHT THE KING OUT OF HIS DREAMS\"\n\n\"GAVE HIM A BUTCHER KNIFE TO GRIND\"\n\nTHE PRINCE AND THE HERMIT\n\n\"HE TURNED AND DESCRIED TWO FIGURES\"\n\n\"THE KING ENTERED AND PAUSED\"\n\n\"I WILL TELL YOU A SECRET\"\n\n\"CHATTING PLEASANTLY ALL THE TIME\"\n\n\"DREW HIS THUMB ALONG THE EDGE\"\n\n\"THE NEXT MOMENT THEY WERE BOUND\"\n\nHENDON TO THE RESCUE\n\n\"SUNK UPON HIS KNEES\"\n\n\"GOD MADE EVERY CREATURE BUT YOU!\"\n\n\"THE FETTERED LITTLE KING\"\n\nA VICTIM OF TREACHERY\n\n\"HUGO STOOD NO CHANCE\"\n\n\"BOUND THE POULTICE TIGHT AND FAST\"\n\n\"TARRY HERE TILL I COME AGAIN\n\n\"KING SPRANG TO HIS DELIVERER'S SIDE\"\n\nTHE PRINCE A PRISONER\n\n\"GENTLY, GOOD FRIEND\"\n\n\"SHE SPRANG TO HER FEET\"\n\nTHE ESCAPE\n\n\"THE PIG MAY COST THY NECK, MAN\"\n\n\"BEAR ME UP, BEAR ME UP, SWEET SIR!\"\n\nHENDON HALL\n\n\"JOGGING EASTWARD ON SORRY STEEDS\"\n\n\"THERE IS THE VILLAGE, MY PRINCE!\"\n\n\"'EMBRACE ME, HUGH,' HE CRIED\"\n\n\"HUGH PUT UP HIS HAND IN DISSENT\"\n\n\"A BEAUTIFUL LADY, RICHLY CLOTHED\"\n\n\"HUGH WAS PINNED TO THE WALL\"\n\nDISOWNED\n\n\"OBEY, AND HAVE NO FEAR\"\n\n\"AM I MILES HENDON?\"\n\nIN PRISON\n\n\"CHAINED IN A LARGE ROOM\"\n\n\"THE OLD MAN LOOKED HENDON OVER\"\n\n\"INFORMATION DELIVERED IN A LOW VOICE\"\n\n\"THE KING!\" HE CRIED. \"WHAT KING?\"\n\n\"TWO WOMEN CHAINED TO POSTS\"\n\n\"TORN AWAY BY THE OFFICERS\"\n\n\"THE KING WAS FURIOUS\"\n\nTHE SACRIFICE\n\n\"HE CONFRONTED THE OFFICER IN CHARGE\"\n\n\"WHILE THE LASH WAS APPLIED\"\n\n\"SIR HUGH SPURRED AWAY\"\n\nTO LONDON\n\n\"MOUNTED AND RODE OFF WITH THE KING\"\n\n\"MIDST OF A JAM OF HOWLING PEOPLE\"\n\nTOM'S PROGRESS\n\n\"TO KISS HIS HAND AT PARTING\"\n\n\"COMMANDED HER TO GO TO HER CLOSET\"\n\nTHE RECOGNITION PROCESSION\n\nTHE START FOR THE TOWER\n\n\"WELCOME, O KING!\"\n\n\"A LARGESS! A LARGESS!\"\n\n\"SHE WAS AT HIS SIDE\"\n\n\"IT IS AN ILL TIME FOR DREAMING\"\n\n\"SHE WAS MY MOTHER\"\n\nCORONATION DAY\n\n\"GATHERS UP THE LADY'S LONG TRAIN\"\n\n\"TOM CANTY APPEARED\"\n\n\"AND FELL ON HIS KNEES BEFORE HIM\"\n\n\"THE GREAT SEAL--FETCH IT HITHER\"\n\n\"SIRE, THE SEAL IS NOT THERE\"\n\n\"BETHINK THEE, MY KING\"\n\n\"LONG LIVE THE TRUE KING!\"\n\n\"TO CRACK NUTS WITH\"\n\nEDWARD AS KING\n\n\"HE STRETCHED HIMSELF ON THE GROUND\"\n\n\"ARRESTED AS A SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER\"\n\n\"IT IS HIS RIGHT\"\n\n\"STRIP THIS ROBBER\"\n\n\"TOM ROSE AND KISSED THE KING'S HAND\"\n\nJUSTICE AND RETRIBUTION\n\nNOTES\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I. The birth of the Prince and the Pauper.\n\nIn the ancient city of London, on a certain autumn day in the second\nquarter of the sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor family of the\nname of Canty, who did not want him. \u00a0On the same day another English\nchild was born to a rich family of the name of Tudor, who did want him.\nAll England wanted him too. \u00a0England had so longed for him, and hoped\nfor him, and prayed God for him, that, now that he was really come, the\npeople went nearly mad for joy. \u00a0Mere acquaintances hugged and kissed\neach other and cried. Everybody took a holiday, and high and low, rich\nand poor, feasted and danced and sang, and got very mellow; and they\nkept this up for days and nights together. \u00a0By day, London was a sight\nto see, with gay banners waving from every balcony and housetop, and\nsplendid pageants marching along. \u00a0By night, it was again a sight\nto see, with its great bonfires at every corner, and its troops of\nrevellers making merry around them. \u00a0There was no talk in all England\nbut of the new baby, Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales, who lay lapped in\nsilks and satins, unconscious of all this fuss, and not knowing that\ngreat lords and ladies were tending him and watching over him--and not\ncaring, either. \u00a0But there was no talk about the other baby, Tom Canty,\nlapped in his poor rags, except among the family of paupers whom he had\njust come to trouble with his presence.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II. Tom's early life.\n\nLet us skip a number of years.\n\nLondon was fifteen hundred years old, and was a great town--for that\nday. It had a hundred thousand inhabitants--some think double as many.\n\u00a0The streets were very narrow, and crooked, and dirty, especially in the\npart where Tom Canty lived, which was not far from London Bridge. \u00a0The\nhouses were of wood, with the second story projecting over the first,\nand the third sticking its elbows out beyond the second. \u00a0The higher\nthe houses grew, the broader they grew. \u00a0They were skeletons of strong\ncriss-cross beams, with solid material between, coated with plaster.\n\u00a0The beams were painted red or blue or black, according to the owner's\ntaste, and this gave the houses a very picturesque look. \u00a0The windows\nwere small, glazed with little diamond-shaped panes, and they opened\noutward, on hinges, like doors.\n\nThe house which Tom's father lived in was up a foul little pocket called\nOffal Court, out of Pudding Lane. \u00a0It was small, decayed, and rickety,\nbut it was packed full of wretchedly poor families. Canty's tribe\noccupied a room on the third floor. \u00a0The mother and father had a sort of\nbedstead in the corner; but Tom, his grandmother, and his two sisters,\nBet and Nan, were not restricted--they had all the floor to themselves,\nand might sleep where they chose. \u00a0There were the remains of a blanket\nor two, and some bundles of ancient and dirty straw, but these could not\nrightly be called beds, for they were not organised; they were kicked\ninto a general pile, mornings, and selections made from the mass at\nnight, for service.\n\nBet and Nan were fifteen years old--twins. \u00a0They were good-hearted\ngirls, unclean, clothed in rags, and profoundly ignorant. \u00a0Their mother\nwas like them. \u00a0But the father and the grandmother were a couple of\nfiends. \u00a0They got drunk whenever they could; then they fought each other\nor anybody else who came in the way; they cursed and swore always, drunk\nor sober; John Canty was a thief, and his mother a beggar. \u00a0They made\nbeggars of the children, but failed to make thieves of them. \u00a0Among,\nbut not of, the dreadful rabble that inhabited the house, was a good old\npriest whom the King had turned out of house and home with a pension of\na few farthings, and he used to get the children aside and teach them\nright ways secretly. Father Andrew also taught Tom a little Latin, and\nhow to read and write; and would have done the same with the girls,\nbut they were afraid of the jeers of their friends, who could not have\nendured such a queer accomplishment in them.\n\nAll Offal Court was just such another hive as Canty's house.\nDrunkenness, riot and brawling were the order, there, every night and\nnearly all night long. \u00a0Broken heads were as common as hunger in that\nplace. \u00a0Yet little Tom was not unhappy. \u00a0He had a hard time of it, but\ndid not know it. \u00a0It was the sort of time that all the Offal Court boys\nhad, therefore he supposed it was the correct and comfortable thing.\n\u00a0When he came home empty-handed at night, he knew his father would\ncurse him and thrash him first, and that when he was done the awful\ngrandmother would do it all over again and improve on it; and that away\nin the night his starving mother would slip to him stealthily with any\nmiserable scrap or crust she had been able to save for him by going\nhungry herself, notwithstanding she was often caught in that sort of\ntreason and soundly beaten for it by her husband.\n\nNo, Tom's life went along well enough, especially in summer. \u00a0He only\nbegged just enough to save himself, for the laws against mendicancy were\nstringent, and the penalties heavy; so he put in a good deal of his time\nlistening to good Father Andrew's charming old tales and legends\nabout giants and fairies, dwarfs and genii, and enchanted castles, and\ngorgeous kings and princes. \u00a0His head grew to be full of these wonderful\nthings, and many a night as he lay in the dark on his scant and\noffensive straw, tired, hungry, and smarting from a thrashing, he\nunleashed his imagination and soon forgot his aches and pains in\ndelicious picturings to himself of the charmed life of a petted prince\nin a regal palace. \u00a0One desire came in time to haunt him day and night:\n\u00a0it was to see a real prince, with his own eyes. \u00a0He spoke of it once to\nsome of his Offal Court comrades; but they jeered him and scoffed him so\nunmercifully that he was glad to keep his dream to himself after that.\n\nHe often read the priest's old books and got him to explain and enlarge\nupon them. \u00a0His dreamings and readings worked certain changes in him,\nby-and-by. \u00a0His dream-people were so fine that he grew to lament his\nshabby clothing and his dirt, and to wish to be clean and better clad.\n\u00a0He went on playing in the mud just the same, and enjoying it, too; but,\ninstead of splashing around in the Thames solely for the fun of it,\nhe began to find an added value in it because of the washings and\ncleansings it afforded.\n\nTom could always find something going on around the Maypole in\nCheapside, and at the fairs; and now and then he and the rest of London\nhad a chance to see a military parade when some famous unfortunate was\ncarried prisoner to the Tower, by land or boat. One summer's day he saw\npoor Anne Askew and three men burned at the stake in Smithfield, and\nheard an ex-Bishop preach a sermon to them which did not interest him.\nYes, Tom's life was varied and pleasant enough, on the whole.\n\nBy-and-by Tom's reading and dreaming about princely life wrought such a\nstrong effect upon him that he began to _act_ the prince, unconsciously.\nHis speech and manners became curiously ceremonious and courtly, to the\nvast admiration and amusement of his intimates. \u00a0But Tom's influence\namong these young people began to grow now, day by day; and in time he\ncame to be looked up to, by them, with a sort of wondering awe, as a\nsuperior being. \u00a0He seemed to know so much! and he could do and say such\nmarvellous things! and withal, he was so deep and wise! \u00a0Tom's remarks,\nand Tom's performances, were reported by the boys to their elders; and\nthese, also, presently began to discuss Tom Canty, and to regard him\nas a most gifted and extraordinary creature. \u00a0Full-grown people brought\ntheir perplexities to Tom for solution, and were often astonished at the\nwit and wisdom of his decisions. \u00a0In fact he was become a hero to all\nwho knew him except his own family--these, only, saw nothing in him.\n\nPrivately, after a while, Tom organised a royal court! \u00a0He was the\nprince; his special comrades were guards, chamberlains, equerries, lords\nand ladies in waiting, and the royal family. \u00a0Daily the mock prince was\nreceived with elaborate ceremonials borrowed by Tom from his romantic\nreadings; daily the great affairs of the mimic kingdom were discussed\nin the royal council, and daily his mimic highness issued decrees to his\nimaginary armies, navies, and viceroyalties.\n\nAfter which, he would go forth in his rags and beg a few farthings, eat\nhis poor crust, take his customary cuffs and abuse, and then stretch\nhimself upon his handful of foul straw, and resume his empty grandeurs\nin his dreams.\n\nAnd still his desire to look just once upon a real prince, in the flesh,\ngrew upon him, day by day, and week by week, until at last it absorbed\nall other desires, and became the one passion of his life.\n\nOne January day, on his usual begging tour, he tramped despondently up\nand down the region round about Mincing Lane and Little East Cheap, hour\nafter hour, bare-footed and cold, looking in at cook-shop windows and\nlonging for the dreadful pork-pies and other deadly inventions displayed\nthere--for to him these were dainties fit for the angels; that is,\njudging by the smell, they were--for it had never been his good luck to\nown and eat one. There was a cold drizzle of rain; the atmosphere was\nmurky; it was a melancholy day. \u00a0At night Tom reached home so wet and\ntired and hungry that it was not possible for his father and grandmother\nto observe his forlorn condition and not be moved--after their fashion;\nwherefore they gave him a brisk cuffing at once and sent him to bed.\n\u00a0For a long time his pain and hunger, and the swearing and fighting\ngoing on in the building, kept him awake; but at last his thoughts\ndrifted away to far, romantic lands, and he fell asleep in the company\nof jewelled and gilded princelings who live in vast palaces, and had\nservants salaaming before them or flying to execute their orders. \u00a0And\nthen, as usual, he dreamed that _he_ was a princeling himself.\n\nAll night long the glories of his royal estate shone upon him; he moved\namong great lords and ladies, in a blaze of light, breathing perfumes,\ndrinking in delicious music, and answering the reverent obeisances of\nthe glittering throng as it parted to make way for him, with here a\nsmile, and there a nod of his princely head.\n\nAnd when he awoke in the morning and looked upon the wretchedness\nabout him, his dream had had its usual effect--it had intensified the\nsordidness of his surroundings a thousandfold. \u00a0Then came bitterness,\nand heart-break, and tears.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III. Tom's meeting with the Prince.\n\nTom got up hungry, and sauntered hungry away, but with his thoughts busy\nwith the shadowy splendours of his night's dreams. He wandered here\nand there in the city, hardly noticing where he was going, or what\nwas happening around him. \u00a0People jostled him, and some gave him rough\nspeech; but it was all lost on the musing boy. \u00a0By-and-by he found\nhimself at Temple Bar, the farthest from home he had ever travelled in\nthat direction. \u00a0He stopped and considered a moment, then fell into his\nimaginings again, and passed on outside the walls of London. \u00a0The Strand\nhad ceased to be a country-road then, and regarded itself as a street,\nbut by a strained construction; for, though there was a tolerably\ncompact row of houses on one side of it, there were only some scattered\ngreat buildings on the other, these being palaces of rich nobles, with\nample and beautiful grounds stretching to the river--grounds that are\nnow closely packed with grim acres of brick and stone.\n\nTom discovered Charing Village presently, and rested himself at the\nbeautiful cross built there by a bereaved king of earlier days; then\nidled down a quiet, lovely road, past the great cardinal's\nstately palace, toward a far more mighty and majestic palace\nbeyond--Westminster. Tom stared in glad wonder at the vast pile of\nmasonry, the wide-spreading wings, the frowning bastions and turrets,\nthe huge stone gateway, with its gilded bars and its magnificent array\nof colossal granite lions, and other the signs and symbols of English\nroyalty. \u00a0Was the desire of his soul to be satisfied at last? \u00a0Here,\nindeed, was a king's palace. \u00a0Might he not hope to see a prince now--a\nprince of flesh and blood, if Heaven were willing?\n\nAt each side of the gilded gate stood a living statue--that is to say,\nan erect and stately and motionless man-at-arms, clad from head to heel\nin shining steel armour. \u00a0At a respectful distance were many country\nfolk, and people from the city, waiting for any chance glimpse of\nroyalty that might offer. \u00a0Splendid carriages, with splendid people\nin them and splendid servants outside, were arriving and departing by\nseveral other noble gateways that pierced the royal enclosure.\n\nPoor little Tom, in his rags, approached, and was moving slowly and\ntimidly past the sentinels, with a beating heart and a rising hope, when\nall at once he caught sight through the golden bars of a spectacle that\nalmost made him shout for joy. \u00a0Within was a comely boy, tanned and\nbrown with sturdy outdoor sports and exercises, whose clothing was all\nof lovely silks and satins, shining with jewels; at his hip a little\njewelled sword and dagger; dainty buskins on his feet, with red heels;\nand on his head a jaunty crimson cap, with drooping plumes fastened\nwith a great sparkling gem. \u00a0Several gorgeous gentlemen stood near--his\nservants, without a doubt. \u00a0Oh! he was a prince--a prince, a living\nprince, a real prince--without the shadow of a question; and the prayer\nof the pauper-boy's heart was answered at last.\n\nTom's breath came quick and short with excitement, and his eyes grew big\nwith wonder and delight. \u00a0Everything gave way in his mind instantly\nto one desire: \u00a0that was to get close to the prince, and have a good,\ndevouring look at him. \u00a0Before he knew what he was about, he had his\nface against the gate-bars. \u00a0The next instant one of the soldiers\nsnatched him rudely away, and sent him spinning among the gaping crowd\nof country gawks and London idlers. \u00a0The soldier said,--\n\n\"Mind thy manners, thou young beggar!\"\n\nThe crowd jeered and laughed; but the young prince sprang to the gate\nwith his face flushed, and his eyes flashing with indignation, and cried\nout,--\n\n\"How dar'st thou use a poor lad like that? \u00a0How dar'st thou use the King\nmy father's meanest subject so? \u00a0Open the gates, and let him in!\"\n\nYou should have seen that fickle crowd snatch off their hats then.\nYou should have heard them cheer, and shout, \"Long live the Prince of\nWales!\"\n\nThe soldiers presented arms with their halberds, opened the gates,\nand presented again as the little Prince of Poverty passed in, in his\nfluttering rags, to join hands with the Prince of Limitless Plenty.\n\nEdward Tudor said--\n\n\"Thou lookest tired and hungry: \u00a0thou'st been treated ill. \u00a0Come with\nme.\"\n\nHalf a dozen attendants sprang forward to--I don't know what; interfere,\nno doubt. \u00a0But they were waved aside with a right royal gesture, and\nthey stopped stock still where they were, like so many statues. \u00a0Edward\ntook Tom to a rich apartment in the palace, which he called his cabinet.\n\u00a0By his command a repast was brought such as Tom had never encountered\nbefore except in books. \u00a0The prince, with princely delicacy and\nbreeding, sent away the servants, so that his humble guest might not be\nembarrassed by their critical presence; then he sat near by, and asked\nquestions while Tom ate.\n\n\"What is thy name, lad?\"\n\n\"Tom Canty, an' it please thee, sir.\"\n\n\"'Tis an odd one. \u00a0Where dost live?\"\n\n\"In the city, please thee, sir. \u00a0Offal Court, out of Pudding Lane.\"\n\n\"Offal Court! \u00a0Truly 'tis another odd one. \u00a0Hast parents?\"\n\n\"Parents have I, sir, and a grand-dam likewise that is but indifferently\nprecious to me, God forgive me if it be offence to say it--also twin\nsisters, Nan and Bet.\"\n\n\"Then is thy grand-dam not over kind to thee, I take it?\"\n\n\"Neither to any other is she, so please your worship. \u00a0She hath a wicked\nheart, and worketh evil all her days.\"\n\n\"Doth she mistreat thee?\"\n\n\"There be times that she stayeth her hand, being asleep or overcome with\ndrink; but when she hath her judgment clear again, she maketh it up to\nme with goodly beatings.\"\n\nA fierce look came into the little prince's eyes, and he cried out--\n\n\"What! \u00a0Beatings?\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed, yes, please you, sir.\"\n\n\"_Beatings_!--and thou so frail and little. \u00a0Hark ye: \u00a0before the night\ncome, she shall hie her to the Tower. \u00a0The King my father\"--\n\n\"In sooth, you forget, sir, her low degree. \u00a0The Tower is for the great\nalone.\"\n\n\"True, indeed. \u00a0I had not thought of that. \u00a0I will consider of her\npunishment. \u00a0Is thy father kind to thee?\"\n\n\"Not more than Gammer Canty, sir.\"\n\n\"Fathers be alike, mayhap. \u00a0Mine hath not a doll's temper. \u00a0He smiteth\nwith a heavy hand, yet spareth me: \u00a0he spareth me not always with his\ntongue, though, sooth to say. \u00a0How doth thy mother use thee?\"\n\n\"She is good, sir, and giveth me neither sorrow nor pain of any sort.\nAnd Nan and Bet are like to her in this.\"\n\n\"How old be these?\"\n\n\"Fifteen, an' it please you, sir.\"\n\n\"The Lady Elizabeth, my sister, is fourteen, and the Lady Jane Grey,\nmy cousin, is of mine own age, and comely and gracious withal; but\nmy sister the Lady Mary, with her gloomy mien and--Look you: \u00a0do thy\nsisters forbid their servants to smile, lest the sin destroy their\nsouls?\"\n\n\"They? \u00a0Oh, dost think, sir, that _they_ have servants?\"\n\nThe little prince contemplated the little pauper gravely a moment, then\nsaid--\n\n\"And prithee, why not? \u00a0Who helpeth them undress at night? \u00a0Who attireth\nthem when they rise?\"\n\n\"None, sir. \u00a0Would'st have them take off their garment, and sleep\nwithout--like the beasts?\"\n\n\"Their garment! \u00a0Have they but one?\"\n\n\"Ah, good your worship, what would they do with more? \u00a0Truly they have\nnot two bodies each.\"\n\n\"It is a quaint and marvellous thought! \u00a0Thy pardon, I had not meant\nto laugh. \u00a0But thy good Nan and thy Bet shall have raiment and lackeys\nenow, and that soon, too: \u00a0my cofferer shall look to it. \u00a0No, thank me\nnot; 'tis nothing. \u00a0Thou speakest well; thou hast an easy grace in it.\n\u00a0Art learned?\"\n\n\"I know not if I am or not, sir. \u00a0The good priest that is called Father\nAndrew taught me, of his kindness, from his books.\"\n\n\"Know'st thou the Latin?\"\n\n\"But scantly, sir, I doubt.\"\n\n\"Learn it, lad: \u00a0'tis hard only at first. \u00a0The Greek is harder; but\nneither these nor any tongues else, I think, are hard to the Lady\nElizabeth and my cousin. \u00a0Thou should'st hear those damsels at it! \u00a0But\ntell me of thy Offal Court. \u00a0Hast thou a pleasant life there?\"\n\n\"In truth, yes, so please you, sir, save when one is hungry. There\nbe Punch-and-Judy shows, and monkeys--oh such antic creatures! and so\nbravely dressed!--and there be plays wherein they that play do shout\nand fight till all are slain, and 'tis so fine to see, and costeth but\na farthing--albeit 'tis main hard to get the farthing, please your\nworship.\"\n\n\"Tell me more.\"\n\n\"We lads of Offal Court do strive against each other with the cudgel,\nlike to the fashion of the 'prentices, sometimes.\"\n\nThe prince's eyes flashed. \u00a0Said he--\n\n\"Marry, that would not I mislike. \u00a0Tell me more.\"\n\n\"We strive in races, sir, to see who of us shall be fleetest.\"\n\n\"That would I like also. \u00a0Speak on.\"\n\n\"In summer, sir, we wade and swim in the canals and in the river, and\neach doth duck his neighbour, and splatter him with water, and dive and\nshout and tumble and--\"\n\n\"'Twould be worth my father's kingdom but to enjoy it once! Prithee go\non.\"\n\n\"We dance and sing about the Maypole in Cheapside; we play in the sand,\neach covering his neighbour up; and times we make mud pastry--oh\nthe lovely mud, it hath not its like for delightfulness in all the\nworld!--we do fairly wallow in the mud, sir, saving your worship's\npresence.\"\n\n\"Oh, prithee, say no more, 'tis glorious! \u00a0If that I could but clothe me\nin raiment like to thine, and strip my feet, and revel in the mud once,\njust once, with none to rebuke me or forbid, meseemeth I could forego\nthe crown!\"\n\n\"And if that I could clothe me once, sweet sir, as thou art clad--just\nonce--\"\n\n\"Oho, would'st like it? \u00a0Then so shall it be. \u00a0Doff thy rags, and don\nthese splendours, lad! \u00a0It is a brief happiness, but will be not less\nkeen for that. \u00a0We will have it while we may, and change again before\nany come to molest.\"\n\nA few minutes later the little Prince of Wales was garlanded with Tom's\nfluttering odds and ends, and the little Prince of Pauperdom was tricked\nout in the gaudy plumage of royalty. \u00a0The two went and stood side by\nside before a great mirror, and lo, a miracle: there did not seem to\nhave been any change made! \u00a0They stared at each other, then at the\nglass, then at each other again. \u00a0At last the puzzled princeling said--\n\n\"What dost thou make of this?\"\n\n\"Ah, good your worship, require me not to answer. \u00a0It is not meet that\none of my degree should utter the thing.\"\n\n\"Then will _I_ utter it. \u00a0Thou hast the same hair, the same eyes, the\nsame voice and manner, the same form and stature, the same face and\ncountenance that I bear. \u00a0Fared we forth naked, there is none could\nsay which was you, and which the Prince of Wales. \u00a0And, now that I\nam clothed as thou wert clothed, it seemeth I should be able the more\nnearly to feel as thou didst when the brute soldier--Hark ye, is not\nthis a bruise upon your hand?\"\n\n\"Yes; but it is a slight thing, and your worship knoweth that the poor\nman-at-arms--\"\n\n\"Peace! \u00a0It was a shameful thing and a cruel!\" cried the little prince,\nstamping his bare foot. \u00a0\"If the King--Stir not a step till I come\nagain! It is a command!\"\n\nIn a moment he had snatched up and put away an article of national\nimportance that lay upon a table, and was out at the door and flying\nthrough the palace grounds in his bannered rags, with a hot face and\nglowing eyes. \u00a0As soon as he reached the great gate, he seized the bars,\nand tried to shake them, shouting--\n\n\"Open! \u00a0Unbar the gates!\"\n\nThe soldier that had maltreated Tom obeyed promptly; and as the prince\nburst through the portal, half-smothered with royal wrath, the soldier\nfetched him a sounding box on the ear that sent him whirling to the\nroadway, and said--\n\n\"Take that, thou beggar's spawn, for what thou got'st me from his\nHighness!\"\n\nThe crowd roared with laughter. \u00a0The prince picked himself out of the\nmud, and made fiercely at the sentry, shouting--\n\n\"I am the Prince of Wales, my person is sacred; and thou shalt hang for\nlaying thy hand upon me!\"\n\nThe soldier brought his halberd to a present-arms and said mockingly--\n\n\"I salute your gracious Highness.\" \u00a0Then angrily--\"Be off, thou crazy\nrubbish!\"\n\nHere the jeering crowd closed round the poor little prince, and hustled\nhim far down the road, hooting him, and shouting--\n\n\"Way for his Royal Highness! \u00a0Way for the Prince of Wales!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV. The Prince's troubles begin.\n\nAfter hours of persistent pursuit and persecution, the little prince was\nat last deserted by the rabble and left to himself. \u00a0As long as he had\nbeen able to rage against the mob, and threaten it royally, and\nroyally utter commands that were good stuff to laugh at, he was very\nentertaining; but when weariness finally forced him to be silent, he was\nno longer of use to his tormentors, and they sought amusement elsewhere.\nHe looked about him, now, but could not recognise the locality. \u00a0He\nwas within the city of London--that was all he knew. \u00a0He moved on,\naimlessly, and in a little while the houses thinned, and the passers-by\nwere infrequent. \u00a0He bathed his bleeding feet in the brook which flowed\nthen where Farringdon Street now is; rested a few moments, then passed\non, and presently came upon a great space with only a few scattered\nhouses in it, and a prodigious church. \u00a0He recognised this church.\n\u00a0Scaffoldings were about, everywhere, and swarms of workmen; for it was\nundergoing elaborate repairs. \u00a0The prince took heart at once--he felt\nthat his troubles were at an end, now. \u00a0He said to himself, \"It is the\nancient Grey Friars' Church, which the king my father hath taken from\nthe monks and given for a home for ever for poor and forsaken children,\nand new-named it Christ's Church. \u00a0Right gladly will they serve the son\nof him who hath done so generously by them--and the more that that son\nis himself as poor and as forlorn as any that be sheltered here this\nday, or ever shall be.\"\n\nHe was soon in the midst of a crowd of boys who were running, jumping,\nplaying at ball and leap-frog, and otherwise disporting themselves, and\nright noisily, too. \u00a0They were all dressed alike, and in the fashion\nwhich in that day prevailed among serving-men and 'prentices{1}--that\nis to say, each had on the crown of his head a flat black cap about the\nsize of a saucer, which was not useful as a covering, it being of such\nscanty dimensions, neither was it ornamental; from beneath it the hair\nfell, unparted, to the middle of the forehead, and was cropped straight\naround; a clerical band at the neck; a blue gown that fitted closely\nand hung as low as the knees or lower; full sleeves; a broad red belt;\nbright yellow stockings, gartered above the knees; low shoes with large\nmetal buckles. It was a sufficiently ugly costume.\n\nThe boys stopped their play and flocked about the prince, who said with\nnative dignity--\n\n\"Good lads, say to your master that Edward Prince of Wales desireth\nspeech with him.\"\n\nA great shout went up at this, and one rude fellow said--\n\n\"Marry, art thou his grace's messenger, beggar?\"\n\nThe prince's face flushed with anger, and his ready hand flew to his\nhip, but there was nothing there. \u00a0There was a storm of laughter, and\none boy said--\n\n\"Didst mark that? \u00a0He fancied he had a sword--belike he is the prince\nhimself.\"\n\nThis sally brought more laughter. \u00a0Poor Edward drew himself up proudly\nand said--\n\n\"I am the prince; and it ill beseemeth you that feed upon the king my\nfather's bounty to use me so.\"\n\nThis was vastly enjoyed, as the laughter testified. \u00a0The youth who had\nfirst spoken, shouted to his comrades--\n\n\"Ho, swine, slaves, pensioners of his grace's princely father, where be\nyour manners? \u00a0Down on your marrow bones, all of ye, and do reverence to\nhis kingly port and royal rags!\"\n\nWith boisterous mirth they dropped upon their knees in a body and did\nmock homage to their prey. \u00a0The prince spurned the nearest boy with his\nfoot, and said fiercely--\n\n\"Take thou that, till the morrow come and I build thee a gibbet!\"\n\nAh, but this was not a joke--this was going beyond fun. \u00a0The laughter\nceased on the instant, and fury took its place. \u00a0A dozen shouted--\n\n\"Hale him forth! \u00a0To the horse-pond, to the horse-pond! \u00a0Where be the\ndogs? \u00a0Ho, there, Lion! ho, Fangs!\"\n\nThen followed such a thing as England had never seen before--the sacred\nperson of the heir to the throne rudely buffeted by plebeian hands, and\nset upon and torn by dogs.\n\nAs night drew to a close that day, the prince found himself far down in\nthe close-built portion of the city. \u00a0His body was bruised, his hands\nwere bleeding, and his rags were all besmirched with mud. \u00a0He wandered\non and on, and grew more and more bewildered, and so tired and faint\nhe could hardly drag one foot after the other. \u00a0He had ceased to ask\nquestions of anyone, since they brought him only insult instead of\ninformation. \u00a0He kept muttering to himself, \"Offal Court--that is the\nname; if I can but find it before my strength is wholly spent and I\ndrop, then am I saved--for his people will take me to the palace and\nprove that I am none of theirs, but the true prince, and I shall have\nmine own again.\" \u00a0And now and then his mind reverted to his treatment\nby those rude Christ's Hospital boys, and he said, \"When I am king, they\nshall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books;\nfor a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved, and the\nheart. \u00a0I will keep this diligently in my remembrance, that this day's\nlesson be not lost upon me, and my people suffer thereby; for learning\nsofteneth the heart and breedeth gentleness and charity.\" {1}\n\nThe lights began to twinkle, it came on to rain, the wind rose, and a\nraw and gusty night set in. \u00a0The houseless prince, the homeless heir to\nthe throne of England, still moved on, drifting deeper into the maze\nof squalid alleys where the swarming hives of poverty and misery were\nmassed together.\n\nSuddenly a great drunken ruffian collared him and said--\n\n\"Out to this time of night again, and hast not brought a farthing home,\nI warrant me! \u00a0If it be so, an' I do not break all the bones in thy lean\nbody, then am I not John Canty, but some other.\"\n\nThe prince twisted himself loose, unconsciously brushed his profaned\nshoulder, and eagerly said--\n\n\"Oh, art _his_ father, truly? \u00a0Sweet heaven grant it be so--then wilt\nthou fetch him away and restore me!\"\n\n\"_His_ father? \u00a0I know not what thou mean'st; I but know I am _thy_\nfather, as thou shalt soon have cause to--\"\n\n\"Oh, jest not, palter not, delay not!--I am worn, I am wounded, I can\nbear no more. \u00a0Take me to the king my father, and he will make thee rich\nbeyond thy wildest dreams. \u00a0Believe me, man, believe me!--I speak no\nlie, but only the truth!--put forth thy hand and save me! \u00a0I am indeed\nthe Prince of Wales!\"\n\nThe man stared down, stupefied, upon the lad, then shook his head and\nmuttered--\n\n\"Gone stark mad as any Tom o' Bedlam!\"--then collared him once more,\nand said with a coarse laugh and an oath, \"But mad or no mad, I and thy\nGammer Canty will soon find where the soft places in thy bones lie, or\nI'm no true man!\"\n\nWith this he dragged the frantic and struggling prince away, and\ndisappeared up a front court followed by a delighted and noisy swarm of\nhuman vermin.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V. Tom as a Patrician.\n\nTom Canty, left alone in the prince's cabinet, made good use of his\nopportunity. \u00a0He turned himself this way and that before the great\nmirror, admiring his finery; then walked away, imitating the prince's\nhigh-bred carriage, and still observing results in the glass. \u00a0Next he\ndrew the beautiful sword, and bowed, kissing the blade, and laying it\nacross his breast, as he had seen a noble knight do, by way of salute to\nthe lieutenant of the Tower, five or six weeks before, when delivering\nthe great lords of Norfolk and Surrey into his hands for captivity. \u00a0Tom\nplayed with the jewelled dagger that hung upon his thigh; he examined\nthe costly and exquisite ornaments of the room; he tried each of the\nsumptuous chairs, and thought how proud he would be if the Offal Court\nherd could only peep in and see him in his grandeur. \u00a0He wondered if\nthey would believe the marvellous tale he should tell when he got home,\nor if they would shake their heads, and say his overtaxed imagination\nhad at last upset his reason.\n\nAt the end of half an hour it suddenly occurred to him that the prince\nwas gone a long time; then right away he began to feel lonely; very\nsoon he fell to listening and longing, and ceased to toy with the\npretty things about him; he grew uneasy, then restless, then distressed.\nSuppose some one should come, and catch him in the prince's clothes, and\nthe prince not there to explain. \u00a0Might they not hang him at once,\nand inquire into his case afterward? \u00a0He had heard that the great\nwere prompt about small matters. \u00a0His fear rose higher and higher; and\ntrembling he softly opened the door to the antechamber, resolved to\nfly and seek the prince, and, through him, protection and release. \u00a0Six\ngorgeous gentlemen-servants and two young pages of high degree, clothed\nlike butterflies, sprang to their feet and bowed low before him. \u00a0He\nstepped quickly back and shut the door. \u00a0He said--\n\n\"Oh, they mock at me! \u00a0They will go and tell. \u00a0Oh! why came I here to\ncast away my life?\"\n\nHe walked up and down the floor, filled with nameless fears, listening,\nstarting at every trifling sound. \u00a0Presently the door swung open, and a\nsilken page said--\n\n\"The Lady Jane Grey.\"\n\nThe door closed and a sweet young girl, richly clad, bounded toward him.\nBut she stopped suddenly, and said in a distressed voice--\n\n\"Oh, what aileth thee, my lord?\"\n\nTom's breath was nearly failing him; but he made shift to stammer out--\n\n\"Ah, be merciful, thou! \u00a0In sooth I am no lord, but only poor Tom Canty\nof Offal Court in the city. \u00a0Prithee let me see the prince, and he will\nof his grace restore to me my rags, and let me hence unhurt. \u00a0Oh, be\nthou merciful, and save me!\"\n\nBy this time the boy was on his knees, and supplicating with his eyes\nand uplifted hands as well as with his tongue. \u00a0The young girl seemed\nhorror-stricken. \u00a0She cried out--\n\n\"O my lord, on thy knees?--and to _me_!\"\n\nThen she fled away in fright; and Tom, smitten with despair, sank down,\nmurmuring--\n\n\"There is no help, there is no hope. \u00a0Now will they come and take me.\"\n\nWhilst he lay there benumbed with terror, dreadful tidings were speeding\nthrough the palace. \u00a0The whisper--for it was whispered always--flew from\nmenial to menial, from lord to lady, down all the long corridors, from\nstory to story, from saloon to saloon, \"The prince hath gone mad, the\nprince hath gone mad!\" \u00a0Soon every saloon, every marble hall, had its\ngroups of glittering lords and ladies, and other groups of dazzling\nlesser folk, talking earnestly together in whispers, and every face\nhad in it dismay. Presently a splendid official came marching by these\ngroups, making solemn proclamation--\n\n\"IN THE NAME OF THE KING!\n\nLet none list to this false and foolish matter, upon pain of death, nor\ndiscuss the same, nor carry it abroad. \u00a0In the name of the King!\"\n\nThe whisperings ceased as suddenly as if the whisperers had been\nstricken dumb.\n\nSoon there was a general buzz along the corridors, of \"The prince! See,\nthe prince comes!\"\n\nPoor Tom came slowly walking past the low-bowing groups, trying to\nbow in return, and meekly gazing upon his strange surroundings with\nbewildered and pathetic eyes. \u00a0Great nobles walked upon each side of\nhim, making him lean upon them, and so steady his steps. Behind him\nfollowed the court-physicians and some servants.\n\nPresently Tom found himself in a noble apartment of the palace and heard\nthe door close behind him. \u00a0Around him stood those who had come with\nhim. Before him, at a little distance, reclined a very large and very\nfat man, with a wide, pulpy face, and a stern expression. \u00a0His large\nhead was very grey; and his whiskers, which he wore only around his\nface, like a frame, were grey also. \u00a0His clothing was of rich stuff,\nbut old, and slightly frayed in places. \u00a0One of his swollen legs had a\npillow under it, and was wrapped in bandages. \u00a0There was silence now;\nand there was no head there but was bent in reverence, except this\nman's. \u00a0This stern-countenanced invalid was the dread Henry VIII. \u00a0He\nsaid--and his face grew gentle as he began to speak--\n\n\"How now, my lord Edward, my prince? \u00a0Hast been minded to cozen me, the\ngood King thy father, who loveth thee, and kindly useth thee, with a\nsorry jest?\"\n\nPoor Tom was listening, as well as his dazed faculties would let him,\nto the beginning of this speech; but when the words 'me, the good King'\nfell upon his ear, his face blanched, and he dropped as instantly upon\nhis knees as if a shot had brought him there. Lifting up his hands, he\nexclaimed--\n\n\"Thou the _King_? \u00a0Then am I undone indeed!\"\n\nThis speech seemed to stun the King. \u00a0His eyes wandered from face to\nface aimlessly, then rested, bewildered, upon the boy before him. \u00a0Then\nhe said in a tone of deep disappointment--\n\n\"Alack, I had believed the rumour disproportioned to the truth; but I\nfear me 'tis not so.\" \u00a0He breathed a heavy sigh, and said in a gentle\nvoice, \"Come to thy father, child: \u00a0thou art not well.\"\n\nTom was assisted to his feet, and approached the Majesty of England,\nhumble and trembling. \u00a0The King took the frightened face between his\nhands, and gazed earnestly and lovingly into it awhile, as if seeking\nsome grateful sign of returning reason there, then pressed the curly\nhead against his breast, and patted it tenderly. \u00a0Presently he said--\n\n\"Dost not know thy father, child? \u00a0Break not mine old heart; say thou\nknow'st me. \u00a0Thou _dost_ know me, dost thou not?\"\n\n\"Yea: \u00a0thou art my dread lord the King, whom God preserve!\"\n\n\"True, true--that is well--be comforted, tremble not so; there is none\nhere would hurt thee; there is none here but loves thee. Thou art better\nnow; thy ill dream passeth--is't not so? \u00a0Thou wilt not miscall thyself\nagain, as they say thou didst a little while agone?\"\n\n\"I pray thee of thy grace believe me, I did but speak the truth, most\ndread lord; for I am the meanest among thy subjects, being a pauper\nborn, and 'tis by a sore mischance and accident I am here, albeit I was\ntherein nothing blameful. \u00a0I am but young to die, and thou canst save me\nwith one little word. \u00a0Oh speak it, sir!\"\n\n\"Die? \u00a0Talk not so, sweet prince--peace, peace, to thy troubled\nheart--thou shalt not die!\"\n\nTom dropped upon his knees with a glad cry--\n\n\"God requite thy mercy, O my King, and save thee long to bless thy\nland!\" Then springing up, he turned a joyful face toward the two lords\nin waiting, and exclaimed, \"Thou heard'st it! \u00a0I am not to die: \u00a0the\nKing hath said it!\" \u00a0There was no movement, save that all bowed with\ngrave respect; but no one spoke. \u00a0He hesitated, a little confused, then\nturned timidly toward the King, saying, \"I may go now?\"\n\n\"Go? \u00a0Surely, if thou desirest. \u00a0But why not tarry yet a little? Whither\nwould'st go?\"\n\nTom dropped his eyes, and answered humbly--\n\n\"Peradventure I mistook; but I did think me free, and so was I moved\nto seek again the kennel where I was born and bred to misery, yet which\nharboureth my mother and my sisters, and so is home to me; whereas these\npomps and splendours whereunto I am not used--oh, please you, sir, to\nlet me go!\"\n\nThe King was silent and thoughtful a while, and his face betrayed a\ngrowing distress and uneasiness. \u00a0Presently he said, with something of\nhope in his voice--\n\n\"Perchance he is but mad upon this one strain, and hath his wits\nunmarred as toucheth other matter. \u00a0God send it may be so! \u00a0We will make\ntrial.\"\n\nThen he asked Tom a question in Latin, and Tom answered him lamely in\nthe same tongue. \u00a0The lords and doctors manifested their gratification\nalso. The King said--\n\n\"'Twas not according to his schooling and ability, but showeth that his\nmind is but diseased, not stricken fatally. \u00a0How say you, sir?\"\n\nThe physician addressed bowed low, and replied--\n\n\"It jumpeth with my own conviction, sire, that thou hast divined\naright.\"\n\nThe King looked pleased with this encouragement, coming as it did from\nso excellent authority, and continued with good heart--\n\n\"Now mark ye all: \u00a0we will try him further.\"\n\nHe put a question to Tom in French. \u00a0Tom stood silent a moment,\nembarrassed by having so many eyes centred upon him, then said\ndiffidently--\n\n\"I have no knowledge of this tongue, so please your majesty.\"\n\nThe King fell back upon his couch. \u00a0The attendants flew to his\nassistance; but he put them aside, and said--\n\n\"Trouble me not--it is nothing but a scurvy faintness. \u00a0Raise me! There,\n'tis sufficient. \u00a0Come hither, child; there, rest thy poor troubled head\nupon thy father's heart, and be at peace. \u00a0Thou'lt soon be well: \u00a0'tis\nbut a passing fantasy. \u00a0Fear thou not; thou'lt soon be well.\" \u00a0Then\nhe turned toward the company: \u00a0his gentle manner changed, and baleful\nlightnings began to play from his eyes. \u00a0He said--\n\n\"List ye all! \u00a0This my son is mad; but it is not permanent. \u00a0Over-study\nhath done this, and somewhat too much of confinement. \u00a0Away with his\nbooks and teachers! see ye to it. \u00a0Pleasure him with sports, beguile him\nin wholesome ways, so that his health come again.\" \u00a0He raised himself\nhigher still, and went on with energy, \"He is mad; but he is my son,\nand England's heir; and, mad or sane, still shall he reign! \u00a0And hear ye\nfurther, and proclaim it: whoso speaketh of this his distemper worketh\nagainst the peace and order of these realms, and shall to the gallows!\n. . . Give me to drink--I burn: \u00a0this sorrow sappeth my strength. . . .\nThere, take away the cup. . . . Support me. \u00a0There, that is well. \u00a0Mad,\nis he? \u00a0Were he a thousand times mad, yet is he Prince of Wales, and I\nthe King will confirm it. \u00a0This very morrow shall he be installed in his\nprincely dignity in due and ancient form. \u00a0Take instant order for it, my\nlord Hertford.\"\n\nOne of the nobles knelt at the royal couch, and said--\n\n\"The King's majesty knoweth that the Hereditary Great Marshal of England\nlieth attainted in the Tower. \u00a0It were not meet that one attainted--\"\n\n\"Peace! \u00a0Insult not mine ears with his hated name. \u00a0Is this man to\nlive for ever? \u00a0Am I to be baulked of my will? \u00a0Is the prince to tarry\nuninstalled, because, forsooth, the realm lacketh an Earl Marshal\nfree of treasonable taint to invest him with his honours? No, by the\nsplendour of God! \u00a0Warn my Parliament to bring me Norfolk's doom before\nthe sun rise again, else shall they answer for it grievously!\" {1}\n\nLord Hertford said--\n\n\"The King's will is law;\" and, rising, returned to his former place.\n\nGradually the wrath faded out of the old King's face, and he said--\n\n\"Kiss me, my prince. \u00a0There . . . what fearest thou? \u00a0Am I not thy\nloving father?\"\n\n\"Thou art good to me that am unworthy, O mighty and gracious lord: that\nin truth I know. \u00a0But--but--it grieveth me to think of him that is to\ndie, and--\"\n\n\"Ah, 'tis like thee, 'tis like thee! \u00a0I know thy heart is still the\nsame, even though thy mind hath suffered hurt, for thou wert ever of a\ngentle spirit. \u00a0But this duke standeth between thee and thine honours:\n\u00a0I will have another in his stead that shall bring no taint to his great\noffice. Comfort thee, my prince: \u00a0trouble not thy poor head with this\nmatter.\"\n\n\"But is it not I that speed him hence, my liege? \u00a0How long might he not\nlive, but for me?\"\n\n\"Take no thought of him, my prince: \u00a0he is not worthy. \u00a0Kiss me once\nagain, and go to thy trifles and amusements; for my malady distresseth\nme. \u00a0I am aweary, and would rest. \u00a0Go with thine uncle Hertford and thy\npeople, and come again when my body is refreshed.\"\n\nTom, heavy-hearted, was conducted from the presence, for this last\nsentence was a death-blow to the hope he had cherished that now he would\nbe set free. \u00a0Once more he heard the buzz of low voices exclaiming, \"The\nprince, the prince comes!\"\n\nHis spirits sank lower and lower as he moved between the glittering\nfiles of bowing courtiers; for he recognised that he was indeed a\ncaptive now, and might remain for ever shut up in this gilded cage, a\nforlorn and friendless prince, except God in his mercy take pity on him\nand set him free.\n\nAnd, turn where he would, he seemed to see floating in the air the\nsevered head and the remembered face of the great Duke of Norfolk, the\neyes fixed on him reproachfully.\n\nHis old dreams had been so pleasant; but this reality was so dreary!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI. Tom receives instructions.\n\nTom was conducted to the principal apartment of a noble suite, and made\nto sit down--a thing which he was loth to do, since there were elderly\nmen and men of high degree about him. \u00a0He begged them to be seated\nalso, but they only bowed their thanks or murmured them, and remained\nstanding. He would have insisted, but his 'uncle' the Earl of Hertford\nwhispered in his ear--\n\n\"Prithee, insist not, my lord; it is not meet that they sit in thy\npresence.\"\n\nThe Lord St. John was announced, and after making obeisance to Tom, he\nsaid--\n\n\"I come upon the King's errand, concerning a matter which requireth\nprivacy. \u00a0Will it please your royal highness to dismiss all that attend\nyou here, save my lord the Earl of Hertford?\"\n\nObserving that Tom did not seem to know how to proceed, Hertford\nwhispered him to make a sign with his hand, and not trouble himself to\nspeak unless he chose. \u00a0When the waiting gentlemen had retired, Lord St.\nJohn said--\n\n\"His majesty commandeth, that for due and weighty reasons of state, the\nprince's grace shall hide his infirmity in all ways that be within his\npower, till it be passed and he be as he was before. \u00a0To wit, that he\nshall deny to none that he is the true prince, and heir to England's\ngreatness; that he shall uphold his princely dignity, and shall receive,\nwithout word or sign of protest, that reverence and observance which\nunto it do appertain of right and ancient usage; that he shall cease to\nspeak to any of that lowly birth and life his malady hath conjured\nout of the unwholesome imaginings of o'er-wrought fancy; that he shall\nstrive with diligence to bring unto his memory again those faces which\nhe was wont to know--and where he faileth he shall hold his peace,\nneither betraying by semblance of surprise or other sign that he hath\nforgot; that upon occasions of state, whensoever any matter shall\nperplex him as to the thing he should do or the utterance he should\nmake, he shall show nought of unrest to the curious that look on, but\ntake advice in that matter of the Lord Hertford, or my humble self,\nwhich are commanded of the King to be upon this service and close at\ncall, till this commandment be dissolved. Thus saith the King's majesty,\nwho sendeth greeting to your royal highness, and prayeth that God will\nof His mercy quickly heal you and have you now and ever in His holy\nkeeping.\"\n\nThe Lord St. John made reverence and stood aside. \u00a0Tom replied\nresignedly--\n\n\"The King hath said it. \u00a0None may palter with the King's command, or fit\nit to his ease, where it doth chafe, with deft evasions. The King shall\nbe obeyed.\"\n\nLord Hertford said--\n\n\"Touching the King's majesty's ordainment concerning books and such like\nserious matters, it may peradventure please your highness to ease your\ntime with lightsome entertainment, lest you go wearied to the banquet\nand suffer harm thereby.\"\n\nTom's face showed inquiring surprise; and a blush followed when he saw\nLord St. John's eyes bent sorrowfully upon him. \u00a0His lordship said--\n\n\"Thy memory still wrongeth thee, and thou hast shown surprise--but\nsuffer it not to trouble thee, for 'tis a matter that will not bide,\nbut depart with thy mending malady. \u00a0My Lord of Hertford speaketh of\nthe city's banquet which the King's majesty did promise, some two months\nflown, your highness should attend. \u00a0Thou recallest it now?\"\n\n\"It grieves me to confess it had indeed escaped me,\" said Tom, in a\nhesitating voice; and blushed again.\n\nAt this moment the Lady Elizabeth and the Lady Jane Grey were announced.\nThe two lords exchanged significant glances, and Hertford stepped\nquickly toward the door. \u00a0As the young girls passed him, he said in a\nlow voice--\n\n\"I pray ye, ladies, seem not to observe his humours, nor show surprise\nwhen his memory doth lapse--it will grieve you to note how it doth stick\nat every trifle.\"\n\nMeantime Lord St. John was saying in Tom's ear--\n\n\"Please you, sir, keep diligently in mind his majesty's desire. Remember\nall thou canst--_seem_ to remember all else. \u00a0Let them not perceive that\nthou art much changed from thy wont, for thou knowest how tenderly thy\nold play-fellows bear thee in their hearts and how 'twould grieve them.\nArt willing, sir, that I remain?--and thine uncle?\"\n\nTom signified assent with a gesture and a murmured word, for he was\nalready learning, and in his simple heart was resolved to acquit himself\nas best he might, according to the King's command.\n\nIn spite of every precaution, the conversation among the young people\nbecame a little embarrassing at times. \u00a0More than once, in truth,\nTom was near to breaking down and confessing himself unequal to his\ntremendous part; but the tact of the Princess Elizabeth saved him, or a\nword from one or the other of the vigilant lords, thrown in apparently\nby chance, had the same happy effect. \u00a0Once the little Lady Jane turned\nto Tom and dismayed him with this question,--\n\n\"Hast paid thy duty to the Queen's majesty to-day, my lord?\"\n\nTom hesitated, looked distressed, and was about to stammer out something\nat hazard, when Lord St. John took the word and answered for him\nwith the easy grace of a courtier accustomed to encounter delicate\ndifficulties and to be ready for them--\n\n\"He hath indeed, madam, and she did greatly hearten him, as touching his\nmajesty's condition; is it not so, your highness?\"\n\nTom mumbled something that stood for assent, but felt that he was\ngetting upon dangerous ground. \u00a0Somewhat later it was mentioned that\nTom was to study no more at present, whereupon her little ladyship\nexclaimed--\n\n\"'Tis a pity, 'tis a pity! \u00a0Thou wert proceeding bravely. \u00a0But bide thy\ntime in patience: \u00a0it will not be for long. \u00a0Thou'lt yet be graced\nwith learning like thy father, and make thy tongue master of as many\nlanguages as his, good my prince.\"\n\n\"My father!\" cried Tom, off his guard for the moment. \u00a0\"I trow he cannot\nspeak his own so that any but the swine that kennel in the styes may\ntell his meaning; and as for learning of any sort soever--\"\n\nHe looked up and encountered a solemn warning in my Lord St. John's\neyes.\n\nHe stopped, blushed, then continued low and sadly: \"Ah, my malady\npersecuteth me again, and my mind wandereth. \u00a0I meant the King's grace\nno irreverence.\"\n\n\"We know it, sir,\" said the Princess Elizabeth, taking her 'brother's'\nhand between her two palms, respectfully but caressingly; \"trouble not\nthyself as to that. \u00a0The fault is none of thine, but thy distemper's.\"\n\n\"Thou'rt a gentle comforter, sweet lady,\" said Tom, gratefully, \"and my\nheart moveth me to thank thee for't, an' I may be so bold.\"\n\nOnce the giddy little Lady Jane fired a simple Greek phrase at Tom.\n\u00a0The Princess Elizabeth's quick eye saw by the serene blankness of the\ntarget's front that the shaft was overshot; so she tranquilly delivered\na return volley of sounding Greek on Tom's behalf, and then straightway\nchanged the talk to other matters.\n\nTime wore on pleasantly, and likewise smoothly, on the whole. Snags and\nsandbars grew less and less frequent, and Tom grew more and more at\nhis ease, seeing that all were so lovingly bent upon helping him and\noverlooking his mistakes. \u00a0When it came out that the little ladies were\nto accompany him to the Lord Mayor's banquet in the evening, his heart\ngave a bound of relief and delight, for he felt that he should not be\nfriendless, now, among that multitude of strangers; whereas, an\nhour earlier, the idea of their going with him would have been an\ninsupportable terror to him.\n\nTom's guardian angels, the two lords, had had less comfort in the\ninterview than the other parties to it. \u00a0They felt much as if they were\npiloting a great ship through a dangerous channel; they were on the\nalert constantly, and found their office no child's play. Wherefore,\nat last, when the ladies' visit was drawing to a close and the Lord\nGuilford Dudley was announced, they not only felt that their charge had\nbeen sufficiently taxed for the present, but also that they themselves\nwere not in the best condition to take their ship back and make their\nanxious voyage all over again. \u00a0So they respectfully advised Tom to\nexcuse himself, which he was very glad to do, although a slight shade\nof disappointment might have been observed upon my Lady Jane's face when\nshe heard the splendid stripling denied admittance.\n\nThere was a pause now, a sort of waiting silence which Tom could not\nunderstand. \u00a0He glanced at Lord Hertford, who gave him a sign--but he\nfailed to understand that also. \u00a0The ready Elizabeth came to the rescue\nwith her usual easy grace. \u00a0She made reverence and said--\n\n\"Have we leave of the prince's grace my brother to go?\"\n\nTom said--\n\n\"Indeed your ladyships can have whatsoever of me they will, for the\nasking; yet would I rather give them any other thing that in my poor\npower lieth, than leave to take the light and blessing of their presence\nhence. \u00a0Give ye good den, and God be with ye!\" Then he smiled inwardly\nat the thought, \"'Tis not for nought I have dwelt but among princes in\nmy reading, and taught my tongue some slight trick of their broidered\nand gracious speech withal!\"\n\nWhen the illustrious maidens were gone, Tom turned wearily to his\nkeepers and said--\n\n\"May it please your lordships to grant me leave to go into some corner\nand rest me?\"\n\nLord Hertford said--\n\n\"So please your highness, it is for you to command, it is for us to\nobey. That thou should'st rest is indeed a needful thing, since thou\nmust journey to the city presently.\"\n\nHe touched a bell, and a page appeared, who was ordered to desire the\npresence of Sir William Herbert. \u00a0This gentleman came straightway, and\nconducted Tom to an inner apartment. \u00a0Tom's first movement there was\nto reach for a cup of water; but a silk-and-velvet servitor seized it,\ndropped upon one knee, and offered it to him on a golden salver.\n\nNext the tired captive sat down and was going to take off his buskins,\ntimidly asking leave with his eye, but another silk-and-velvet\ndiscomforter went down upon his knees and took the office from him. \u00a0He\nmade two or three further efforts to help himself, but being promptly\nforestalled each time, he finally gave up, with a sigh of resignation\nand a murmured \"Beshrew me, but I marvel they do not require to breathe\nfor me also!\" \u00a0Slippered, and wrapped in a sumptuous robe, he laid\nhimself down at last to rest, but not to sleep, for his head was too\nfull of thoughts and the room too full of people. \u00a0He could not dismiss\nthe former, so they stayed; he did not know enough to dismiss the\nlatter, so they stayed also, to his vast regret--and theirs.\n\nTom's departure had left his two noble guardians alone. \u00a0They mused a\nwhile, with much head-shaking and walking the floor, then Lord St. John\nsaid--\n\n\"Plainly, what dost thou think?\"\n\n\"Plainly, then, this. \u00a0The King is near his end; my nephew is mad--mad\nwill mount the throne, and mad remain. \u00a0God protect England, since she\nwill need it!\"\n\n\"Verily it promiseth so, indeed. \u00a0But . . . have you no misgivings as to\n. . . as to . . .\"\n\nThe speaker hesitated, and finally stopped. \u00a0He evidently felt that he\nwas upon delicate ground. \u00a0Lord Hertford stopped before him, looked into\nhis face with a clear, frank eye, and said--\n\n\"Speak on--there is none to hear but me. \u00a0Misgivings as to what?\"\n\n\"I am full loth to word the thing that is in my mind, and thou so near\nto him in blood, my lord. \u00a0But craving pardon if I do offend, seemeth it\nnot strange that madness could so change his port and manner?--not but\nthat his port and speech are princely still, but that they _differ_,\nin one unweighty trifle or another, from what his custom was aforetime.\n\u00a0Seemeth it not strange that madness should filch from his memory his\nfather's very lineaments; the customs and observances that are his due\nfrom such as be about him; and, leaving him his Latin, strip him of his\nGreek and French? \u00a0My lord, be not offended, but ease my mind of its\ndisquiet and receive my grateful thanks. \u00a0It haunteth me, his saying he\nwas not the prince, and so--\"\n\n\"Peace, my lord, thou utterest treason! \u00a0Hast forgot the King's command?\nRemember I am party to thy crime if I but listen.\"\n\nSt. John paled, and hastened to say--\n\n\"I was in fault, I do confess it. \u00a0Betray me not, grant me this grace\nout of thy courtesy, and I will neither think nor speak of this thing\nmore. Deal not hardly with me, sir, else am I ruined.\"\n\n\"I am content, my lord. \u00a0So thou offend not again, here or in the\nears of others, it shall be as though thou hadst not spoken. \u00a0But thou\nneed'st not have misgivings. \u00a0He is my sister's son; are not his voice,\nhis face, his form, familiar to me from his cradle? Madness can do all\nthe odd conflicting things thou seest in him, and more. \u00a0Dost not recall\nhow that the old Baron Marley, being mad, forgot the favour of his\nown countenance that he had known for sixty years, and held it was\nanother's; nay, even claimed he was the son of Mary Magdalene, and that\nhis head was made of Spanish glass; and, sooth to say, he suffered none\nto touch it, lest by mischance some heedless hand might shiver it? \u00a0Give\nthy misgivings easement, good my lord. \u00a0This is the very prince--I know\nhim well--and soon will be thy king; it may advantage thee to bear this\nin mind, and more dwell upon it than the other.\"\n\nAfter some further talk, in which the Lord St. John covered up his\nmistake as well as he could by repeated protests that his faith was\nthoroughly grounded now, and could not be assailed by doubts again, the\nLord Hertford relieved his fellow-keeper, and sat down to keep watch and\nward alone. \u00a0He was soon deep in meditation, and evidently the longer he\nthought, the more he was bothered. \u00a0By-and-by he began to pace the floor\nand mutter.\n\n\"Tush, he _must_ be the prince! \u00a0Will any be in all the land maintain\nthere can be two, not of one blood and birth, so marvellously twinned?\n\u00a0And even were it so, 'twere yet a stranger miracle that chance should\ncast the one into the other's place. Nay, 'tis folly, folly, folly!\"\n\nPresently he said--\n\n\"Now were he impostor and called himself prince, look you _that_ would\nbe natural; that would be reasonable. \u00a0But lived ever an impostor yet,\nwho, being called prince by the king, prince by the court, prince by\nall, _denied_ his dignity and pleaded against his exaltation? \u00a0_No_! \u00a0By\nthe soul of St. Swithin, no! \u00a0This is the true prince, gone mad!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII. Tom's first royal dinner.\n\nSomewhat after one in the afternoon, Tom resignedly underwent the ordeal\nof being dressed for dinner. \u00a0He found himself as finely clothed as\nbefore, but everything different, everything changed, from his ruff to\nhis stockings. \u00a0He was presently conducted with much state to a spacious\nand ornate apartment, where a table was already set for one. \u00a0Its\nfurniture was all of massy gold, and beautified with designs which\nwell-nigh made it priceless, since they were the work of Benvenuto. \u00a0The\nroom was half-filled with noble servitors. \u00a0A chaplain said grace, and\nTom was about to fall to, for hunger had long been constitutional with\nhim, but was interrupted by my lord the Earl of Berkeley, who fastened a\nnapkin about his neck; for the great post of Diaperers to the Prince\nof Wales was hereditary in this nobleman's family. \u00a0Tom's cupbearer was\npresent, and forestalled all his attempts to help himself to wine. \u00a0The\nTaster to his highness the Prince of Wales was there also, prepared to\ntaste any suspicious dish upon requirement, and run the risk of being\npoisoned. \u00a0He was only an ornamental appendage at this time, and was\nseldom called upon to exercise his function; but there had been times,\nnot many generations past, when the office of taster had its perils,\nand was not a grandeur to be desired. \u00a0Why they did not use a dog or a\nplumber seems strange; but all the ways of royalty are strange. \u00a0My\nLord d'Arcy, First Groom of the Chamber, was there, to do goodness knows\nwhat; but there he was--let that suffice. \u00a0The Lord Chief Butler was\nthere, and stood behind Tom's chair, overseeing the solemnities, under\ncommand of the Lord Great Steward and the Lord Head Cook, who stood\nnear. \u00a0Tom had three hundred and eighty-four servants beside these;\nbut they were not all in that room, of course, nor the quarter of them;\nneither was Tom aware yet that they existed.\n\nAll those that were present had been well drilled within the hour to\nremember that the prince was temporarily out of his head, and to be\ncareful to show no surprise at his vagaries. \u00a0These 'vagaries' were\nsoon on exhibition before them; but they only moved their compassion and\ntheir sorrow, not their mirth. \u00a0It was a heavy affliction to them to see\nthe beloved prince so stricken.\n\nPoor Tom ate with his fingers mainly; but no one smiled at it, or even\nseemed to observe it. \u00a0He inspected his napkin curiously, and with deep\ninterest, for it was of a very dainty and beautiful fabric, then said\nwith simplicity--\n\n\"Prithee, take it away, lest in mine unheedfulness it be soiled.\"\n\nThe Hereditary Diaperer took it away with reverent manner, and without\nword or protest of any sort.\n\nTom examined the turnips and the lettuce with interest, and asked what\nthey were, and if they were to be eaten; for it was only recently that\nmen had begun to raise these things in England in place of importing\nthem as luxuries from Holland. {1} \u00a0His question was answered with grave\nrespect, and no surprise manifested. \u00a0When he had finished his dessert,\nhe filled his pockets with nuts; but nobody appeared to be aware of it,\nor disturbed by it. \u00a0But the next moment he was himself disturbed by\nit, and showed discomposure; for this was the only service he had been\npermitted to do with his own hands during the meal, and he did not doubt\nthat he had done a most improper and unprincely thing. \u00a0At that moment\nthe muscles of his nose began to twitch, and the end of that organ to\nlift and wrinkle. \u00a0This continued, and Tom began to evince a growing\ndistress. \u00a0He looked appealingly, first at one and then another of the\nlords about him, and tears came into his eyes. \u00a0They sprang forward with\ndismay in their faces, and begged to know his trouble. \u00a0Tom said with\ngenuine anguish--\n\n\"I crave your indulgence: \u00a0my nose itcheth cruelly. \u00a0What is the custom\nand usage in this emergence? \u00a0Prithee, speed, for 'tis but a little time\nthat I can bear it.\"\n\nNone smiled; but all were sore perplexed, and looked one to the other\nin deep tribulation for counsel. \u00a0But behold, here was a dead wall, and\nnothing in English history to tell how to get over it. \u00a0The Master of\nCeremonies was not present: \u00a0there was no one who felt safe to venture\nupon this uncharted sea, or risk the attempt to solve this solemn\nproblem. \u00a0Alas! there was no Hereditary Scratcher. \u00a0Meantime the tears\nhad overflowed their banks, and begun to trickle down Tom's cheeks. \u00a0His\ntwitching nose was pleading more urgently than ever for relief. \u00a0At last\nnature broke down the barriers of etiquette: \u00a0Tom lifted up an inward\nprayer for pardon if he was doing wrong, and brought relief to the\nburdened hearts of his court by scratching his nose himself.\n\nHis meal being ended, a lord came and held before him a broad, shallow,\ngolden dish with fragrant rosewater in it, to cleanse his mouth and\nfingers with; and my lord the Hereditary Diaperer stood by with a napkin\nfor his use. \u00a0Tom gazed at the dish a puzzled moment or two, then raised\nit to his lips, and gravely took a draught. \u00a0Then he returned it to the\nwaiting lord, and said--\n\n\"Nay, it likes me not, my lord: \u00a0it hath a pretty flavour, but it\nwanteth strength.\"\n\nThis new eccentricity of the prince's ruined mind made all the hearts\nabout him ache; but the sad sight moved none to merriment.\n\nTom's next unconscious blunder was to get up and leave the table\njust when the chaplain had taken his stand behind his chair, and with\nuplifted hands, and closed, uplifted eyes, was in the act of beginning\nthe blessing. \u00a0Still nobody seemed to perceive that the prince had done\na thing unusual.\n\nBy his own request our small friend was now conducted to his private\ncabinet, and left there alone to his own devices. \u00a0Hanging upon hooks in\nthe oaken wainscoting were the several pieces of a suit of shining steel\narmour, covered all over with beautiful designs exquisitely inlaid\nin gold. \u00a0This martial panoply belonged to the true prince--a recent\npresent from Madam Parr the Queen. Tom put on the greaves, the\ngauntlets, the plumed helmet, and such other pieces as he could don\nwithout assistance, and for a while was minded to call for help and\ncomplete the matter, but bethought him of the nuts he had brought away\nfrom dinner, and the joy it would be to eat them with no crowd to eye\nhim, and no Grand Hereditaries to pester him with undesired services;\nso he restored the pretty things to their several places, and soon was\ncracking nuts, and feeling almost naturally happy for the first time\nsince God for his sins had made him a prince. \u00a0When the nuts were all\ngone, he stumbled upon some inviting books in a closet, among them one\nabout the etiquette of the English court. \u00a0This was a prize. He lay down\nupon a sumptuous divan, and proceeded to instruct himself with honest\nzeal. \u00a0Let us leave him there for the present.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII. The Question of the Seal.\n\nAbout five o'clock Henry VIII. awoke out of an unrefreshing nap, and\nmuttered to himself, \"Troublous dreams, troublous dreams! Mine end is\nnow at hand: \u00a0so say these warnings, and my failing pulses do confirm\nit.\" Presently a wicked light flamed up in his eye, and he muttered,\n\"Yet will not I die till _He_ go before.\"\n\nHis attendants perceiving that he was awake, one of them asked his\npleasure concerning the Lord Chancellor, who was waiting without.\n\n\"Admit him, admit him!\" exclaimed the King eagerly.\n\nThe Lord Chancellor entered, and knelt by the King's couch, saying--\n\n\"I have given order, and, according to the King's command, the peers of\nthe realm, in their robes, do now stand at the bar of the House, where,\nhaving confirmed the Duke of Norfolk's doom, they humbly wait his\nmajesty's further pleasure in the matter.\"\n\nThe King's face lit up with a fierce joy. \u00a0Said he--\n\n\"Lift me up! \u00a0In mine own person will I go before my Parliament, and\nwith mine own hand will I seal the warrant that rids me of--\"\n\nHis voice failed; an ashen pallor swept the flush from his cheeks; and\nthe attendants eased him back upon his pillows, and hurriedly assisted\nhim with restoratives. \u00a0Presently he said sorrowfully--\n\n\"Alack, how have I longed for this sweet hour! and lo, too late it\ncometh, and I am robbed of this so coveted chance. \u00a0But speed ye, speed\nye! let others do this happy office sith 'tis denied to me. I put my\nGreat Seal in commission: \u00a0choose thou the lords that shall compose it,\nand get ye to your work. \u00a0Speed ye, man! \u00a0Before the sun shall rise and\nset again, bring me his head that I may see it.\"\n\n\"According to the King's command, so shall it be. \u00a0Will't please your\nmajesty to order that the Seal be now restored to me, so that I may\nforth upon the business?\"\n\n\"The Seal? \u00a0Who keepeth the Seal but thou?\"\n\n\"Please your majesty, you did take it from me two days since, saying it\nshould no more do its office till your own royal hand should use it upon\nthe Duke of Norfolk's warrant.\"\n\n\"Why, so in sooth I did: \u00a0I do remember. . . . What did I with it?...\nI am very feeble. . . . So oft these days doth my memory play the\ntraitor with me. . . . 'Tis strange, strange--\"\n\nThe King dropped into inarticulate mumblings, shaking his grey head\nweakly from time to time, and gropingly trying to recollect what he\nhad done with the Seal. \u00a0At last my Lord Hertford ventured to kneel and\noffer information--\n\n\"Sire, if that I may be so bold, here be several that do remember with\nme how that you gave the Great Seal into the hands of his highness the\nPrince of Wales to keep against the day that--\"\n\n\"True, most true!\" interrupted the King. \u00a0\"Fetch it! \u00a0Go: \u00a0time flieth!\"\n\nLord Hertford flew to Tom, but returned to the King before very long,\ntroubled and empty-handed. \u00a0He delivered himself to this effect--\n\n\"It grieveth me, my lord the King, to bear so heavy and unwelcome\ntidings; but it is the will of God that the prince's affliction abideth\nstill, and he cannot recall to mind that he received the Seal. \u00a0So came\nI quickly to report, thinking it were waste of precious time, and\nlittle worth withal, that any should attempt to search the long array of\nchambers and saloons that belong unto his royal high--\"\n\nA groan from the King interrupted the lord at this point. \u00a0After a\nlittle while his majesty said, with a deep sadness in his tone--\n\n\"Trouble him no more, poor child. \u00a0The hand of God lieth heavy upon him,\nand my heart goeth out in loving compassion for him, and sorrow that I\nmay not bear his burden on mine old trouble-weighted shoulders, and so\nbring him peace.\"\n\nHe closed his eyes, fell to mumbling, and presently was silent. After\na time he opened his eyes again, and gazed vacantly around until his\nglance rested upon the kneeling Lord Chancellor. Instantly his face\nflushed with wrath--\n\n\"What, thou here yet! \u00a0By the glory of God, an' thou gettest not about\nthat traitor's business, thy mitre shall have holiday the morrow for\nlack of a head to grace withal!\"\n\nThe trembling Chancellor answered--\n\n\"Good your Majesty, I cry you mercy! \u00a0I but waited for the Seal.\"\n\n\"Man, hast lost thy wits? \u00a0The small Seal which aforetime I was wont\nto take with me abroad lieth in my treasury. \u00a0And, since the Great Seal\nhath flown away, shall not it suffice? \u00a0Hast lost thy wits? \u00a0Begone!\n\u00a0And hark ye--come no more till thou do bring his head.\"\n\nThe poor Chancellor was not long in removing himself from this dangerous\nvicinity; nor did the commission waste time in giving the royal assent\nto the work of the slavish Parliament, and appointing the morrow for the\nbeheading of the premier peer of England, the luckless Duke of Norfolk.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX. The river pageant.\n\nAt nine in the evening the whole vast river-front of the palace was\nblazing with light. \u00a0The river itself, as far as the eye could reach\ncitywards, was so thickly covered with watermen's boats and with\npleasure-barges, all fringed with coloured lanterns, and gently agitated\nby the waves, that it resembled a glowing and limitless garden of\nflowers stirred to soft motion by summer winds. \u00a0The grand terrace of\nstone steps leading down to the water, spacious enough to mass the army\nof a German principality upon, was a picture to see, with its ranks\nof royal halberdiers in polished armour, and its troops of brilliantly\ncostumed servitors flitting up and down, and to and fro, in the hurry of\npreparation.\n\nPresently a command was given, and immediately all living creatures\nvanished from the steps. \u00a0Now the air was heavy with the hush of\nsuspense and expectancy. \u00a0As far as one's vision could carry, he might\nsee the myriads of people in the boats rise up, and shade their eyes\nfrom the glare of lanterns and torches, and gaze toward the palace.\n\nA file of forty or fifty state barges drew up to the steps. \u00a0They were\nrichly gilt, and their lofty prows and sterns were elaborately carved.\nSome of them were decorated with banners and streamers; some with\ncloth-of-gold and arras embroidered with coats-of-arms; others with\nsilken flags that had numberless little silver bells fastened to them,\nwhich shook out tiny showers of joyous music whenever the breezes\nfluttered them; others of yet higher pretensions, since they belonged to\nnobles in the prince's immediate service, had their sides picturesquely\nfenced with shields gorgeously emblazoned with armorial bearings. \u00a0Each\nstate barge was towed by a tender. \u00a0Besides the rowers, these tenders\ncarried each a number of men-at-arms in glossy helmet and breastplate,\nand a company of musicians.\n\nThe advance-guard of the expected procession now appeared in the great\ngateway, a troop of halberdiers. \u00a0'They were dressed in striped hose of\nblack and tawny, velvet caps graced at the sides with silver roses, and\ndoublets of murrey and blue cloth, embroidered on the front and back\nwith the three feathers, the prince's blazon, woven in gold. \u00a0Their\nhalberd staves were covered with crimson velvet, fastened with gilt\nnails, and ornamented with gold tassels. \u00a0Filing off on the right and\nleft, they formed two long lines, extending from the gateway of the\npalace to the water's edge. \u00a0A thick rayed cloth or carpet was\nthen unfolded, and laid down between them by attendants in the\ngold-and-crimson liveries of the prince. \u00a0This done, a flourish of\ntrumpets resounded from within. \u00a0A lively prelude arose from the\nmusicians on the water; and two ushers with white wands marched with a\nslow and stately pace from the portal. \u00a0They were followed by an officer\nbearing the civic mace, after whom came another carrying the city's\nsword; then several sergeants of the city guard, in their full\naccoutrements, and with badges on their sleeves; then the Garter\nKing-at-arms, in his tabard; then several Knights of the Bath, each with\na white lace on his sleeve; then their esquires; then the judges, in\ntheir robes of scarlet and coifs; then the Lord High Chancellor of\nEngland, in a robe of scarlet, open before, and purfled with minever;\nthen a deputation of aldermen, in their scarlet cloaks; and then the\nheads of the different civic companies, in their robes of state. Now\ncame twelve French gentlemen, in splendid habiliments, consisting of\npourpoints of white damask barred with gold, short mantles of\ncrimson velvet lined with violet taffeta, and carnation coloured\nhauts-de-chausses, and took their way down the steps. \u00a0They were of the\nsuite of the French ambassador, and were followed by twelve cavaliers of\nthe suite of the Spanish ambassador, clothed in black velvet, unrelieved\nby any ornament. \u00a0Following these came several great English nobles with\ntheir attendants.'\n\nThere was a flourish of trumpets within; and the Prince's uncle, the\nfuture great Duke of Somerset, emerged from the gateway, arrayed in a\n'doublet of black cloth-of-gold, and a cloak of crimson satin flowered\nwith gold, and ribanded with nets of silver.' \u00a0He turned, doffed\nhis plumed cap, bent his body in a low reverence, and began to step\nbackward, bowing at each step. \u00a0A prolonged trumpet-blast followed, and\na proclamation, \"Way for the high and mighty the Lord Edward, Prince of\nWales!\" \u00a0High aloft on the palace walls a long line of red tongues of\nflame leapt forth with a thunder-crash; the massed world on the river\nburst into a mighty roar of welcome; and Tom Canty, the cause and hero\nof it all, stepped into view and slightly bowed his princely head.\n\nHe was 'magnificently habited in a doublet of white satin, with a\nfront-piece of purple cloth-of-tissue, powdered with diamonds, and edged\nwith ermine. \u00a0Over this he wore a mantle of white cloth-of-gold, pounced\nwith the triple-feathered crest, lined with blue satin, set with pearls\nand precious stones, and fastened with a clasp of brilliants. \u00a0About his\nneck hung the order of the Garter, and several princely foreign orders;'\nand wherever light fell upon him jewels responded with a blinding flash.\n\u00a0O Tom Canty, born in a hovel, bred in the gutters of London, familiar\nwith rags and dirt and misery, what a spectacle is this!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X. The Prince in the toils.\n\nWe left John Canty dragging the rightful prince into Offal Court, with\na noisy and delighted mob at his heels. \u00a0There was but one person in it\nwho offered a pleading word for the captive, and he was not heeded; he\nwas hardly even heard, so great was the turmoil. \u00a0The Prince continued\nto struggle for freedom, and to rage against the treatment he was\nsuffering, until John Canty lost what little patience was left in him,\nand raised his oaken cudgel in a sudden fury over the Prince's head.\n\u00a0The single pleader for the lad sprang to stop the man's arm, and the\nblow descended upon his own wrist. \u00a0Canty roared out--\n\n\"Thou'lt meddle, wilt thou? \u00a0Then have thy reward.\"\n\nHis cudgel crashed down upon the meddler's head: \u00a0there was a groan, a\ndim form sank to the ground among the feet of the crowd, and the next\nmoment it lay there in the dark alone. \u00a0The mob pressed on, their\nenjoyment nothing disturbed by this episode.\n\nPresently the Prince found himself in John Canty's abode, with the door\nclosed against the outsiders. \u00a0By the vague light of a tallow candle\nwhich was thrust into a bottle, he made out the main features of the\nloathsome den, and also the occupants of it. \u00a0Two frowsy girls and\na middle-aged woman cowered against the wall in one corner, with the\naspect of animals habituated to harsh usage, and expecting and dreading\nit now. From another corner stole a withered hag with streaming grey\nhair and malignant eyes. \u00a0John Canty said to this one--\n\n\"Tarry! \u00a0There's fine mummeries here. \u00a0Mar them not till thou'st enjoyed\nthem: \u00a0then let thy hand be heavy as thou wilt. \u00a0Stand forth, lad. \u00a0Now\nsay thy foolery again, an thou'st not forgot it. Name thy name. \u00a0Who art\nthou?\"\n\nThe insulted blood mounted to the little prince's cheek once more, and\nhe lifted a steady and indignant gaze to the man's face and said--\n\n\"'Tis but ill-breeding in such as thou to command me to speak. \u00a0I tell\nthee now, as I told thee before, I am Edward, Prince of Wales, and none\nother.\"\n\nThe stunning surprise of this reply nailed the hag's feet to the floor\nwhere she stood, and almost took her breath. \u00a0She stared at the Prince\nin stupid amazement, which so amused her ruffianly son, that he burst\ninto a roar of laughter. \u00a0But the effect upon Tom Canty's mother and\nsisters was different. \u00a0Their dread of bodily injury gave way at once to\ndistress of a different sort. \u00a0They ran forward with woe and dismay in\ntheir faces, exclaiming--\n\n\"Oh, poor Tom, poor lad!\"\n\nThe mother fell on her knees before the Prince, put her hands upon his\nshoulders, and gazed yearningly into his face through her rising tears.\nThen she said--\n\n\"Oh, my poor boy! \u00a0Thy foolish reading hath wrought its woeful work at\nlast, and ta'en thy wit away. \u00a0Ah! why did'st thou cleave to it when I\nso warned thee 'gainst it? \u00a0Thou'st broke thy mother's heart.\"\n\nThe Prince looked into her face, and said gently--\n\n\"Thy son is well, and hath not lost his wits, good dame. \u00a0Comfort thee:\nlet me to the palace where he is, and straightway will the King my\nfather restore him to thee.\"\n\n\"The King thy father! \u00a0Oh, my child! unsay these words that be freighted\nwith death for thee, and ruin for all that be near to thee. \u00a0Shake of\nthis gruesome dream. \u00a0Call back thy poor wandering memory. \u00a0Look upon\nme. Am not I thy mother that bore thee, and loveth thee?\"\n\nThe Prince shook his head and reluctantly said--\n\n\"God knoweth I am loth to grieve thy heart; but truly have I never\nlooked upon thy face before.\"\n\nThe woman sank back to a sitting posture on the floor, and, covering her\neyes with her hands, gave way to heart-broken sobs and wailings.\n\n\"Let the show go on!\" shouted Canty. \u00a0\"What, Nan!--what, Bet! mannerless\nwenches! will ye stand in the Prince's presence? \u00a0Upon your knees, ye\npauper scum, and do him reverence!\"\n\nHe followed this with another horse-laugh. \u00a0The girls began to plead\ntimidly for their brother; and Nan said--\n\n\"An thou wilt but let him to bed, father, rest and sleep will heal his\nmadness: \u00a0prithee, do.\"\n\n\"Do, father,\" said Bet; \"he is more worn than is his wont. \u00a0To-morrow\nwill he be himself again, and will beg with diligence, and come not\nempty home again.\"\n\nThis remark sobered the father's joviality, and brought his mind to\nbusiness. \u00a0He turned angrily upon the Prince, and said--\n\n\"The morrow must we pay two pennies to him that owns this hole; two\npennies, mark ye--all this money for a half-year's rent, else out of\nthis we go. \u00a0Show what thou'st gathered with thy lazy begging.\"\n\nThe Prince said--\n\n\"Offend me not with thy sordid matters. \u00a0I tell thee again I am the\nKing's son.\"\n\nA sounding blow upon the Prince's shoulder from Canty's broad palm\nsent him staggering into goodwife Canty's arms, who clasped him to her\nbreast, and sheltered him from a pelting rain of cuffs and slaps by\ninterposing her own person. \u00a0The frightened girls retreated to their\ncorner; but the grandmother stepped eagerly forward to assist her son.\n\u00a0The Prince sprang away from Mrs. Canty, exclaiming--\n\n\"Thou shalt not suffer for me, madam. \u00a0Let these swine do their will\nupon me alone.\"\n\nThis speech infuriated the swine to such a degree that they set about\ntheir work without waste of time. \u00a0Between them they belaboured the boy\nright soundly, and then gave the girls and their mother a beating for\nshowing sympathy for the victim.\n\n\"Now,\" said Canty, \"to bed, all of ye. \u00a0The entertainment has tired me.\"\n\nThe light was put out, and the family retired. \u00a0As soon as the snorings\nof the head of the house and his mother showed that they were asleep,\nthe young girls crept to where the Prince lay, and covered him tenderly\nfrom the cold with straw and rags; and their mother crept to him also,\nand stroked his hair, and cried over him, whispering broken words of\ncomfort and compassion in his ear the while. \u00a0She had saved a morsel for\nhim to eat, also; but the boy's pains had swept away all appetite--at\nleast for black and tasteless crusts. \u00a0He was touched by her brave and\ncostly defence of him, and by her commiseration; and he thanked her in\nvery noble and princely words, and begged her to go to her sleep and try\nto forget her sorrows. \u00a0And he added that the King his father would not\nlet her loyal kindness and devotion go unrewarded. \u00a0This return to his\n'madness' broke her heart anew, and she strained him to her breast again\nand again, and then went back, drowned in tears, to her bed.\n\nAs she lay thinking and mourning, the suggestion began to creep into\nher mind that there was an undefinable something about this boy that was\nlacking in Tom Canty, mad or sane. \u00a0She could not describe it, she could\nnot tell just what it was, and yet her sharp mother-instinct seemed to\ndetect it and perceive it. \u00a0What if the boy were really not her son,\nafter all? \u00a0Oh, absurd! \u00a0She almost smiled at the idea, spite of her\ngriefs and troubles. \u00a0No matter, she found that it was an idea that\nwould not 'down,' but persisted in haunting her. \u00a0It pursued her, it\nharassed her, it clung to her, and refused to be put away or ignored.\n\u00a0At last she perceived that there was not going to be any peace for her\nuntil she should devise a test that should prove, clearly and without\nquestion, whether this lad was her son or not, and so banish these\nwearing and worrying doubts. \u00a0Ah, yes, this was plainly the right way\nout of the difficulty; therefore she set her wits to work at once to\ncontrive that test. \u00a0But it was an easier thing to propose than to\naccomplish. \u00a0She turned over in her mind one promising test after\nanother, but was obliged to relinquish them all--none of them were\nabsolutely sure, absolutely perfect; and an imperfect one could not\nsatisfy her. \u00a0Evidently she was racking her head in vain--it seemed\nmanifest that she must give the matter up. \u00a0While this depressing\nthought was passing through her mind, her ear caught the regular\nbreathing of the boy, and she knew he had fallen asleep. \u00a0And while she\nlistened, the measured breathing was broken by a soft, startled\ncry, such as one utters in a troubled dream. \u00a0This chance occurrence\nfurnished her instantly with a plan worth all her laboured tests\ncombined. \u00a0She at once set herself feverishly, but noiselessly, to work\nto relight her candle, muttering to herself, \"Had I but seen him _then_,\nI should have known! \u00a0Since that day, when he was little, that the\npowder burst in his face, he hath never been startled of a sudden out of\nhis dreams or out of his thinkings, but he hath cast his hand before his\neyes, even as he did that day; and not as others would do it, with the\npalm inward, but always with the palm turned outward--I have seen it a\nhundred times, and it hath never varied nor ever failed. \u00a0Yes, I shall\nsoon know, now!\"\n\nBy this time she had crept to the slumbering boy's side, with the\ncandle, shaded, in her hand. \u00a0She bent heedfully and warily over him,\nscarcely breathing in her suppressed excitement, and suddenly flashed\nthe light in his face and struck the floor by his ear with her knuckles.\n\u00a0The sleeper's eyes sprang wide open, and he cast a startled stare about\nhim--but he made no special movement with his hands.\n\nThe poor woman was smitten almost helpless with surprise and grief;\nbut she contrived to hide her emotions, and to soothe the boy to sleep\nagain; then she crept apart and communed miserably with herself upon\nthe disastrous result of her experiment. \u00a0She tried to believe that her\nTom's madness had banished this habitual gesture of his; but she could\nnot do it. \u00a0\"No,\" she said, \"his _hands_ are not mad; they could not\nunlearn so old a habit in so brief a time. \u00a0Oh, this is a heavy day for\nme!\"\n\nStill, hope was as stubborn now as doubt had been before; she could not\nbring herself to accept the verdict of the test; she must try the thing\nagain--the failure must have been only an accident; so she startled the\nboy out of his sleep a second and a third time, at intervals--with the\nsame result which had marked the first test; then she dragged herself to\nbed, and fell sorrowfully asleep, saying, \"But I cannot give him up--oh\nno, I cannot, I cannot--he _must_ be my boy!\"\n\nThe poor mother's interruptions having ceased, and the Prince's pains\nhaving gradually lost their power to disturb him, utter weariness at\nlast sealed his eyes in a profound and restful sleep. Hour after hour\nslipped away, and still he slept like the dead. Thus four or five hours\npassed. Then his stupor began to lighten. Presently, while half asleep\nand half awake, he murmured--\n\n\"Sir William!\"\n\nAfter a moment--\n\n\"Ho, Sir William Herbert! \u00a0Hie thee hither, and list to the strangest\ndream that ever . . . Sir William! dost hear? \u00a0Man, I did think me\nchanged to a pauper, and . . . Ho there! \u00a0Guards! Sir William! \u00a0What!\nis there no groom of the chamber in waiting? Alack! it shall go hard\nwith--\"\n\n\"What aileth thee?\" asked a whisper near him. \u00a0\"Who art thou calling?\"\n\n\"Sir William Herbert. \u00a0Who art thou?\"\n\n\"I? \u00a0Who should I be, but thy sister Nan? \u00a0Oh, Tom, I had forgot!\nThou'rt mad yet--poor lad, thou'rt mad yet: \u00a0would I had never woke to\nknow it again! \u00a0But prithee master thy tongue, lest we be all beaten\ntill we die!\"\n\nThe startled Prince sprang partly up, but a sharp reminder from his\nstiffened bruises brought him to himself, and he sank back among his\nfoul straw with a moan and the ejaculation--\n\n\"Alas! it was no dream, then!\"\n\nIn a moment all the heavy sorrow and misery which sleep had banished\nwere upon him again, and he realised that he was no longer a petted\nprince in a palace, with the adoring eyes of a nation upon him, but\na pauper, an outcast, clothed in rags, prisoner in a den fit only for\nbeasts, and consorting with beggars and thieves.\n\nIn the midst of his grief he began to be conscious of hilarious noises\nand shoutings, apparently but a block or two away. \u00a0The next moment\nthere were several sharp raps at the door; John Canty ceased from\nsnoring and said--\n\n\"Who knocketh? \u00a0What wilt thou?\"\n\nA voice answered--\n\n\"Know'st thou who it was thou laid thy cudgel on?\"\n\n\"No. \u00a0Neither know I, nor care.\"\n\n\"Belike thou'lt change thy note eftsoons. \u00a0An thou would save thy neck,\nnothing but flight may stead thee. \u00a0The man is this moment delivering up\nthe ghost. \u00a0'Tis the priest, Father Andrew!\"\n\n\"God-a-mercy!\" exclaimed Canty. \u00a0He roused his family, and hoarsely\ncommanded, \"Up with ye all and fly--or bide where ye are and perish!\"\n\nScarcely five minutes later the Canty household were in the street and\nflying for their lives. \u00a0John Canty held the Prince by the wrist, and\nhurried him along the dark way, giving him this caution in a low voice--\n\n\"Mind thy tongue, thou mad fool, and speak not our name. \u00a0I will choose\nme a new name, speedily, to throw the law's dogs off the scent. \u00a0Mind\nthy tongue, I tell thee!\"\n\nHe growled these words to the rest of the family--\n\n\"If it so chance that we be separated, let each make for London Bridge;\nwhoso findeth himself as far as the last linen-draper's shop on the\nbridge, let him tarry there till the others be come, then will we flee\ninto Southwark together.\"\n\nAt this moment the party burst suddenly out of darkness into light;\nand not only into light, but into the midst of a multitude of singing,\ndancing, and shouting people, massed together on the river frontage.\nThere was a line of bonfires stretching as far as one could see, up\nand down the Thames; London Bridge was illuminated; Southwark Bridge\nlikewise; the entire river was aglow with the flash and sheen of\ncoloured lights; and constant explosions of fireworks filled the skies\nwith an intricate commingling of shooting splendours and a thick rain\nof dazzling sparks that almost turned night into day; everywhere were\ncrowds of revellers; all London seemed to be at large.\n\nJohn Canty delivered himself of a furious curse and commanded a retreat;\nbut it was too late. \u00a0He and his tribe were swallowed up in that\nswarming hive of humanity, and hopelessly separated from each other in\nan instant. We are not considering that the Prince was one of his tribe;\nCanty still kept his grip upon him. \u00a0The Prince's heart was beating high\nwith hopes of escape, now. \u00a0A burly waterman, considerably exalted with\nliquor, found himself rudely shoved by Canty in his efforts to plough\nthrough the crowd; he laid his great hand on Canty's shoulder and said--\n\n\"Nay, whither so fast, friend? \u00a0Dost canker thy soul with sordid\nbusiness when all that be leal men and true make holiday?\"\n\n\"Mine affairs are mine own, they concern thee not,\" answered Canty,\nroughly; \"take away thy hand and let me pass.\"\n\n\"Sith that is thy humour, thou'lt _not_ pass, till thou'st drunk to the\nPrince of Wales, I tell thee that,\" said the waterman, barring the way\nresolutely.\n\n\"Give me the cup, then, and make speed, make speed!\"\n\nOther revellers were interested by this time. \u00a0They cried out--\n\n\"The loving-cup, the loving-cup! make the sour knave drink the\nloving-cup, else will we feed him to the fishes.\"\n\nSo a huge loving-cup was brought; the waterman, grasping it by one of\nits handles, and with the other hand bearing up the end of an imaginary\nnapkin, presented it in due and ancient form to Canty, who had to grasp\nthe opposite handle with one of his hands and take off the lid with the\nother, according to ancient custom. This left the Prince hand-free for\na second, of course. \u00a0He wasted no time, but dived among the forest of\nlegs about him and disappeared. \u00a0In another moment he could not have\nbeen harder to find, under that tossing sea of life, if its billows had\nbeen the Atlantic's and he a lost sixpence.\n\nHe very soon realised this fact, and straightway busied himself about\nhis own affairs without further thought of John Canty. \u00a0He quickly\nrealised another thing, too. \u00a0To wit, that a spurious Prince of Wales\nwas being feasted by the city in his stead. \u00a0He easily concluded that\nthe pauper lad, Tom Canty, had deliberately taken advantage of his\nstupendous opportunity and become a usurper.\n\nTherefore there was but one course to pursue--find his way to the\nGuildhall, make himself known, and denounce the impostor. \u00a0He also made\nup his mind that Tom should be allowed a reasonable time for spiritual\npreparation, and then be hanged, drawn and quartered, according to the\nlaw and usage of the day in cases of high treason.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI. At Guildhall.\n\nThe royal barge, attended by its gorgeous fleet, took its stately way\ndown the Thames through the wilderness of illuminated boats. The air was\nladen with music; the river banks were beruffled with joy-flames; the\ndistant city lay in a soft luminous glow from its countless invisible\nbonfires; above it rose many a slender spire into the sky, incrusted\nwith sparkling lights, wherefore in their remoteness they seemed like\njewelled lances thrust aloft; as the fleet swept along, it was greeted\nfrom the banks with a continuous hoarse roar of cheers and the ceaseless\nflash and boom of artillery.\n\nTo Tom Canty, half buried in his silken cushions, these sounds and this\nspectacle were a wonder unspeakably sublime and astonishing. To his\nlittle friends at his side, the Princess Elizabeth and the Lady Jane\nGrey, they were nothing.\n\nArrived at the Dowgate, the fleet was towed up the limpid Walbrook\n(whose channel has now been for two centuries buried out of sight under\nacres of buildings) to Bucklersbury, past houses and under bridges\npopulous with merry-makers and brilliantly lighted, and at last came to\na halt in a basin where now is Barge Yard, in the centre of the ancient\ncity of London. \u00a0Tom disembarked, and he and his gallant procession\ncrossed Cheapside and made a short march through the Old Jewry and\nBasinghall Street to the Guildhall.\n\nTom and his little ladies were received with due ceremony by the Lord\nMayor and the Fathers of the City, in their gold chains and scarlet\nrobes of state, and conducted to a rich canopy of state at the head of\nthe great hall, preceded by heralds making proclamation, and by the Mace\nand the City Sword. \u00a0The lords and ladies who were to attend upon Tom\nand his two small friends took their places behind their chairs.\n\nAt a lower table the Court grandees and other guests of noble degree\nwere seated, with the magnates of the city; the commoners took places at\na multitude of tables on the main floor of the hall. \u00a0From their lofty\nvantage-ground the giants Gog and Magog, the ancient guardians of the\ncity, contemplated the spectacle below them with eyes grown familiar\nto it in forgotten generations. \u00a0There was a bugle-blast and a\nproclamation, and a fat butler appeared in a high perch in the leftward\nwall, followed by his servitors bearing with impressive solemnity a\nroyal baron of beef, smoking hot and ready for the knife.\n\nAfter grace, Tom (being instructed) rose--and the whole house with\nhim--and drank from a portly golden loving-cup with the Princess\nElizabeth; from her it passed to the Lady Jane, and then traversed the\ngeneral assemblage. \u00a0So the banquet began.\n\nBy midnight the revelry was at its height. \u00a0Now came one of those\npicturesque spectacles so admired in that old day. \u00a0A description of it\nis still extant in the quaint wording of a chronicler who witnessed it:\n\n'Space being made, presently entered a baron and an earl appareled after\nthe Turkish fashion in long robes of bawdkin powdered with gold; hats on\ntheir heads of crimson velvet, with great rolls of gold, girded with two\nswords, called scimitars, hanging by great bawdricks of gold. \u00a0Next came\nyet another baron and another earl, in two long gowns of yellow satin,\ntraversed with white satin, and in every bend of white was a bend of\ncrimson satin, after the fashion of Russia, with furred hats of gray on\ntheir heads; either of them having an hatchet in their hands, and boots\nwith pykes' (points a foot long), 'turned up. \u00a0And after them came\na knight, then the Lord High Admiral, and with him five nobles, in\ndoublets of crimson velvet, voyded low on the back and before to the\ncannell-bone, laced on the breasts with chains of silver; and over\nthat, short cloaks of crimson satin, and on their heads hats after\nthe dancers' fashion, with pheasants' feathers in them. \u00a0These were\nappareled after the fashion of Prussia. \u00a0The torchbearers, which were\nabout an hundred, were appareled in crimson satin and green, like Moors,\ntheir faces black. Next came in a mommarye. Then the minstrels, which\nwere disguised, danced; and the lords and ladies did wildly dance also,\nthat it was a pleasure to behold.'\n\nAnd while Tom, in his high seat, was gazing upon this 'wild' dancing,\nlost in admiration of the dazzling commingling of kaleidoscopic colours\nwhich the whirling turmoil of gaudy figures below him presented, the\nragged but real little Prince of Wales was proclaiming his rights and\nhis wrongs, denouncing the impostor, and clamouring for admission at\nthe gates of Guildhall! The crowd enjoyed this episode prodigiously,\nand pressed forward and craned their necks to see the small rioter.\nPresently they began to taunt him and mock at him, purposely to goad him\ninto a higher and still more entertaining fury. \u00a0Tears of mortification\nsprang to his eyes, but he stood his ground and defied the mob right\nroyally. \u00a0Other taunts followed, added mockings stung him, and he\nexclaimed--\n\n\"I tell ye again, you pack of unmannerly curs, I am the Prince of Wales!\nAnd all forlorn and friendless as I be, with none to give me word of\ngrace or help me in my need, yet will not I be driven from my ground,\nbut will maintain it!\"\n\n\"Though thou be prince or no prince, 'tis all one, thou be'st a gallant\nlad, and not friendless neither! \u00a0Here stand I by thy side to prove\nit; and mind I tell thee thou might'st have a worser friend than Miles\nHendon and yet not tire thy legs with seeking. Rest thy small jaw, my\nchild; I talk the language of these base kennel-rats like to a very\nnative.\"\n\nThe speaker was a sort of Don Caesar de Bazan in dress, aspect, and\nbearing. \u00a0He was tall, trim-built, muscular. \u00a0His doublet and trunks\nwere of rich material, but faded and threadbare, and their gold-lace\nadornments were sadly tarnished; his ruff was rumpled and damaged;\nthe plume in his slouched hat was broken and had a bedraggled and\ndisreputable look; at his side he wore a long rapier in a rusty iron\nsheath; his swaggering carriage marked him at once as a ruffler of\nthe camp. \u00a0The speech of this fantastic figure was received with an\nexplosion of jeers and laughter. \u00a0Some cried, \"'Tis another prince in\ndisguise!\" \"'Ware thy tongue, friend: \u00a0belike he is dangerous!\"\n\u00a0\"Marry, he looketh it--mark his eye!\" \u00a0\"Pluck the lad from him--to the\nhorse-pond wi' the cub!\"\n\nInstantly a hand was laid upon the Prince, under the impulse of this\nhappy thought; as instantly the stranger's long sword was out and the\nmeddler went to the earth under a sounding thump with the flat of it.\nThe next moment a score of voices shouted, \"Kill the dog! \u00a0Kill him!\nKill him!\" and the mob closed in on the warrior, who backed himself\nagainst a wall and began to lay about him with his long weapon like a\nmadman. \u00a0His victims sprawled this way and that, but the mob-tide poured\nover their prostrate forms and dashed itself against the champion with\nundiminished fury.\n\nHis moments seemed numbered, his destruction certain, when suddenly a\ntrumpet-blast sounded, a voice shouted, \"Way for the King's messenger!\"\nand a troop of horsemen came charging down upon the mob, who fled out of\nharm's reach as fast as their legs could carry them. The bold stranger\ncaught up the Prince in his arms, and was soon far away from danger and\nthe multitude.\n\nReturn we within the Guildhall. \u00a0Suddenly, high above the jubilant roar\nand thunder of the revel, broke the clear peal of a bugle-note. \u00a0There\nwas instant silence--a deep hush; then a single voice rose--that of the\nmessenger from the palace--and began to pipe forth a proclamation, the\nwhole multitude standing listening.\n\nThe closing words, solemnly pronounced, were--\n\n\"The King is dead!\"\n\nThe great assemblage bent their heads upon their breasts with one\naccord; remained so, in profound silence, a few moments; then all sank\nupon their knees in a body, stretched out their hands toward Tom, and a\nmighty shout burst forth that seemed to shake the building--\n\n\"Long live the King!\"\n\nPoor Tom's dazed eyes wandered abroad over this stupefying spectacle,\nand finally rested dreamily upon the kneeling princesses beside him, a\nmoment, then upon the Earl of Hertford. A sudden purpose dawned in his\nface. \u00a0He said, in a low tone, at Lord Hertford's ear--\n\n\"Answer me truly, on thy faith and honour! \u00a0Uttered I here a command,\nthe which none but a king might hold privilege and prerogative to utter,\nwould such commandment be obeyed, and none rise up to say me nay?\"\n\n\"None, my liege, in all these realms. \u00a0In thy person bides the majesty\nof England. \u00a0Thou art the king--thy word is law.\"\n\nTom responded, in a strong, earnest voice, and with great animation--\n\n\"Then shall the king's law be law of mercy, from this day, and never\nmore be law of blood! \u00a0Up from thy knees and away! \u00a0To the Tower, and\nsay the King decrees the Duke of Norfolk shall not die!\"\n\nThe words were caught up and carried eagerly from lip to lip far and\nwide over the hall, and as Hertford hurried from the presence, another\nprodigious shout burst forth--\n\n\"The reign of blood is ended! \u00a0Long live Edward, King of England!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII. The Prince and his Deliverer.\n\nAs soon as Miles Hendon and the little prince were clear of the mob,\nthey struck down through back lanes and alleys toward the river. \u00a0Their\nway was unobstructed until they approached London Bridge; then they\nploughed into the multitude again, Hendon keeping a fast grip upon\nthe Prince's--no, the King's--wrist. \u00a0The tremendous news was already\nabroad, and the boy learned it from a thousand voices at once--\"The King\nis dead!\" \u00a0The tidings struck a chill to the heart of the poor little\nwaif, and sent a shudder through his frame. \u00a0He realised the greatness\nof his loss, and was filled with a bitter grief; for the grim tyrant who\nhad been such a terror to others had always been gentle with him. \u00a0The\ntears sprang to his eyes and blurred all objects. \u00a0For an instant\nhe felt himself the most forlorn, outcast, and forsaken of God's\ncreatures--then another cry shook the night with its far-reaching\nthunders: \u00a0\"Long live King Edward the Sixth!\" and this made his eyes\nkindle, and thrilled him with pride to his fingers' ends. \"Ah,\" he\nthought, \"how grand and strange it seems--_I am King_!\"\n\nOur friends threaded their way slowly through the throngs upon the\nbridge. \u00a0This structure, which had stood for six hundred years, and\nhad been a noisy and populous thoroughfare all that time, was a curious\naffair, for a closely packed rank of stores and shops, with family\nquarters overhead, stretched along both sides of it, from one bank of\nthe river to the other. \u00a0The Bridge was a sort of town to itself; it\nhad its inn, its beer-houses, its bakeries, its haberdasheries, its food\nmarkets, its manufacturing industries, and even its church. \u00a0It\nlooked upon the two neighbours which it linked together--London\nand Southwark--as being well enough as suburbs, but not otherwise\nparticularly important. \u00a0It was a close corporation, so to speak; it was\na narrow town, of a single street a fifth of a mile long, its\npopulation was but a village population and everybody in it knew all\nhis fellow-townsmen intimately, and had known their fathers and mothers\nbefore them--and all their little family affairs into the bargain. \u00a0It\nhad its aristocracy, of course--its fine old families of butchers, and\nbakers, and what-not, who had occupied the same old premises for five\nor six hundred years, and knew the great history of the Bridge from\nbeginning to end, and all its strange legends; and who always talked\nbridgy talk, and thought bridgy thoughts, and lied in a long, level,\ndirect, substantial bridgy way. \u00a0It was just the sort of population to\nbe narrow and ignorant and self-conceited. Children were born on the\nBridge, were reared there, grew to old age, and finally died without\never having set a foot upon any part of the world but London Bridge\nalone. \u00a0Such people would naturally imagine that the mighty and\ninterminable procession which moved through its street night and day,\nwith its confused roar of shouts and cries, its neighings and bellowing\nand bleatings and its muffled thunder-tramp, was the one great thing in\nthis world, and themselves somehow the proprietors of it. \u00a0And so they\nwere, in effect--at least they could exhibit it from their windows, and\ndid--for a consideration--whenever a returning king or hero gave it a\nfleeting splendour, for there was no place like it for affording a long,\nstraight, uninterrupted view of marching columns.\n\nMen born and reared upon the Bridge found life unendurably dull and\ninane elsewhere. \u00a0History tells of one of these who left the Bridge at\nthe age of seventy-one and retired to the country. \u00a0But he could only\nfret and toss in his bed; he could not go to sleep, the deep stillness\nwas so painful, so awful, so oppressive. \u00a0When he was worn out with it,\nat last, he fled back to his old home, a lean and haggard spectre, and\nfell peacefully to rest and pleasant dreams under the lulling music of\nthe lashing waters and the boom and crash and thunder of London Bridge.\n\nIn the times of which we are writing, the Bridge furnished 'object\nlessons' in English history for its children--namely, the livid and\ndecaying heads of renowned men impaled upon iron spikes atop of its\ngateways. \u00a0But we digress.\n\nHendon's lodgings were in the little inn on the Bridge. \u00a0As he neared\nthe door with his small friend, a rough voice said--\n\n\"So, thou'rt come at last! \u00a0Thou'lt not escape again, I warrant thee;\nand if pounding thy bones to a pudding can teach thee somewhat, thou'lt\nnot keep us waiting another time, mayhap,\"--and John Canty put out his\nhand to seize the boy.\n\nMiles Hendon stepped in the way and said--\n\n\"Not too fast, friend. \u00a0Thou art needlessly rough, methinks. \u00a0What is\nthe lad to thee?\"\n\n\"If it be any business of thine to make and meddle in others' affairs,\nhe is my son.\"\n\n\"'Tis a lie!\" cried the little King, hotly.\n\n\"Boldly said, and I believe thee, whether thy small headpiece be sound\nor cracked, my boy. \u00a0But whether this scurvy ruffian be thy father\nor no, 'tis all one, he shall not have thee to beat thee and abuse,\naccording to his threat, so thou prefer to bide with me.\"\n\n\"I do, I do--I know him not, I loathe him, and will die before I will go\nwith him.\"\n\n\"Then 'tis settled, and there is nought more to say.\"\n\n\"We will see, as to that!\" exclaimed John Canty, striding past Hendon to\nget at the boy; \"by force shall he--\"\n\n\"If thou do but touch him, thou animated offal, I will spit thee like a\ngoose!\" said Hendon, barring the way and laying his hand upon his sword\nhilt. \u00a0Canty drew back. \u00a0\"Now mark ye,\" continued Hendon, \"I took this\nlad under my protection when a mob of such as thou would have mishandled\nhim, mayhap killed him; dost imagine I will desert him now to a worser\nfate?--for whether thou art his father or no--and sooth to say, I think\nit is a lie--a decent swift death were better for such a lad than life\nin such brute hands as thine. \u00a0So go thy ways, and set quick about it,\nfor I like not much bandying of words, being not over-patient in my\nnature.\"\n\nJohn Canty moved off, muttering threats and curses, and was swallowed\nfrom sight in the crowd. \u00a0Hendon ascended three flights of stairs to his\nroom, with his charge, after ordering a meal to be sent thither. \u00a0It\nwas a poor apartment, with a shabby bed and some odds and ends of old\nfurniture in it, and was vaguely lighted by a couple of sickly candles.\nThe little King dragged himself to the bed and lay down upon it, almost\nexhausted with hunger and fatigue. \u00a0He had been on his feet a good\npart of a day and a night (for it was now two or three o'clock in the\nmorning), and had eaten nothing meantime. \u00a0He murmured drowsily--\n\n\"Prithee call me when the table is spread,\" and sank into a deep sleep\nimmediately.\n\nA smile twinkled in Hendon's eye, and he said to himself--\n\n\"By the mass, the little beggar takes to one's quarters and usurps one's\nbed with as natural and easy a grace as if he owned them--with never\na by-your-leave or so-please-it-you, or anything of the sort. \u00a0In his\ndiseased ravings he called himself the Prince of Wales, and bravely doth\nhe keep up the character. \u00a0Poor little friendless rat, doubtless his\nmind has been disordered with ill-usage. \u00a0Well, I will be his friend;\nI have saved him, and it draweth me strongly to him; already I love the\nbold-tongued little rascal. \u00a0How soldier-like he faced the smutty rabble\nand flung back his high defiance! \u00a0And what a comely, sweet and gentle\nface he hath, now that sleep hath conjured away its troubles and its\ngriefs. I will teach him; I will cure his malady; yea, I will be his\nelder brother, and care for him and watch over him; and whoso would\nshame him or do him hurt may order his shroud, for though I be burnt for\nit he shall need it!\"\n\nHe bent over the boy and contemplated him with kind and pitying\ninterest, tapping the young cheek tenderly and smoothing back the\ntangled curls with his great brown hand. \u00a0A slight shiver passed over\nthe boy's form. Hendon muttered--\n\n\"See, now, how like a man it was to let him lie here uncovered and fill\nhis body with deadly rheums. \u00a0Now what shall I do? 'twill wake him to\ntake him up and put him within the bed, and he sorely needeth sleep.\"\n\nHe looked about for extra covering, but finding none, doffed his doublet\nand wrapped the lad in it, saying, \"I am used to nipping air and scant\napparel, 'tis little I shall mind the cold!\"--then walked up and down\nthe room, to keep his blood in motion, soliloquising as before.\n\n\"His injured mind persuades him he is Prince of Wales; 'twill be odd to\nhave a Prince of Wales still with us, now that he that _was_ the prince\nis prince no more, but king--for this poor mind is set upon the one\nfantasy, and will not reason out that now it should cast by the prince\nand call itself the king. . . If my father liveth still, after these\nseven years that I have heard nought from home in my foreign dungeon, he\nwill welcome the poor lad and give him generous shelter for my sake; so\nwill my good elder brother, Arthur; my other brother, Hugh--but I will\ncrack his crown an _he_ interfere, the fox-hearted, ill-conditioned\nanimal! Yes, thither will we fare--and straightway, too.\"\n\nA servant entered with a smoking meal, disposed it upon a small deal\ntable, placed the chairs, and took his departure, leaving such cheap\nlodgers as these to wait upon themselves. \u00a0The door slammed after him,\nand the noise woke the boy, who sprang to a sitting posture, and shot\na glad glance about him; then a grieved look came into his face and he\nmurmured to himself, with a deep sigh, \"Alack, it was but a dream, woe\nis me!\" \u00a0Next he noticed Miles Hendon's doublet--glanced from that to\nHendon, comprehended the sacrifice that had been made for him, and said,\ngently--\n\n\"Thou art good to me, yes, thou art very good to me. \u00a0Take it and put it\non--I shall not need it more.\"\n\nThen he got up and walked to the washstand in the corner and stood\nthere, waiting. \u00a0Hendon said in a cheery voice--\n\n\"We'll have a right hearty sup and bite, now, for everything is savoury\nand smoking hot, and that and thy nap together will make thee a little\nman again, never fear!\"\n\nThe boy made no answer, but bent a steady look, that was filled with\ngrave surprise, and also somewhat touched with impatience, upon the tall\nknight of the sword. \u00a0Hendon was puzzled, and said--\n\n\"What's amiss?\"\n\n\"Good sir, I would wash me.\"\n\n\"Oh, is that all? \u00a0Ask no permission of Miles Hendon for aught thou\ncravest. \u00a0Make thyself perfectly free here, and welcome, with all that\nare his belongings.\"\n\nStill the boy stood, and moved not; more, he tapped the floor once or\ntwice with his small impatient foot. \u00a0Hendon was wholly perplexed. \u00a0Said\nhe--\n\n\"Bless us, what is it?\"\n\n\"Prithee pour the water, and make not so many words!\"\n\nHendon, suppressing a horse-laugh, and saying to himself, \"By all the\nsaints, but this is admirable!\" stepped briskly forward and did the\nsmall insolent's bidding; then stood by, in a sort of stupefaction,\nuntil the command, \"Come--the towel!\" woke him sharply up. \u00a0He took up a\ntowel, from under the boy's nose, and handed it to him without comment.\n\u00a0He now proceeded to comfort his own face with a wash, and while he was\nat it his adopted child seated himself at the table and prepared to fall\nto. Hendon despatched his ablutions with alacrity, then drew back the\nother chair and was about to place himself at table, when the boy said,\nindignantly--\n\n\"Forbear! \u00a0Wouldst sit in the presence of the King?\"\n\nThis blow staggered Hendon to his foundations. \u00a0He muttered to himself,\n\"Lo, the poor thing's madness is up with the time! \u00a0It hath changed\nwith the great change that is come to the realm, and now in fancy is\nhe _king_! Good lack, I must humour the conceit, too--there is no other\nway--faith, he would order me to the Tower, else!\"\n\nAnd pleased with this jest, he removed the chair from the table,\ntook his stand behind the King, and proceeded to wait upon him in the\ncourtliest way he was capable of.\n\nWhile the King ate, the rigour of his royal dignity relaxed a little,\nand with his growing contentment came a desire to talk. He said--\"I\nthink thou callest thyself Miles Hendon, if I heard thee aright?\"\n\n\"Yes, Sire,\" Miles replied; then observed to himself, \"If I _must_\nhumour the poor lad's madness, I must 'Sire' him, I must 'Majesty' him,\nI must not go by halves, I must stick at nothing that belongeth to the\npart I play, else shall I play it ill and work evil to this charitable\nand kindly cause.\"\n\nThe King warmed his heart with a second glass of wine, and said--\"I\nwould know thee--tell me thy story. \u00a0Thou hast a gallant way with thee,\nand a noble--art nobly born?\"\n\n\"We are of the tail of the nobility, good your Majesty. \u00a0My father is\na baronet--one of the smaller lords by knight service {2}--Sir Richard\nHendon of Hendon Hall, by Monk's Holm in Kent.\"\n\n\"The name has escaped my memory. \u00a0Go on--tell me thy story.\"\n\n\"'Tis not much, your Majesty, yet perchance it may beguile a short\nhalf-hour for want of a better. \u00a0My father, Sir Richard, is very rich,\nand of a most generous nature. \u00a0My mother died whilst I was yet a\nboy. \u00a0I have two brothers: \u00a0Arthur, my elder, with a soul like to\nhis father's; and Hugh, younger than I, a mean spirit, covetous,\ntreacherous, vicious, underhanded--a reptile. \u00a0Such was he from the\ncradle; such was he ten years past, when I last saw him--a ripe rascal\nat nineteen, I being twenty then, and Arthur twenty-two. \u00a0There is\nnone other of us but the Lady Edith, my cousin--she was sixteen\nthen--beautiful, gentle, good, the daughter of an earl, the last of her\nrace, heiress of a great fortune and a lapsed title. \u00a0My father was her\nguardian. \u00a0I loved her and she loved me; but she was betrothed to Arthur\nfrom the cradle, and Sir Richard would not suffer the contract to be\nbroken. \u00a0Arthur loved another maid, and bade us be of good cheer and\nhold fast to the hope that delay and luck together would some day give\nsuccess to our several causes. \u00a0Hugh loved the Lady Edith's fortune,\nthough in truth he said it was herself he loved--but then 'twas his way,\nalway, to say the one thing and mean the other. \u00a0But he lost his arts\nupon the girl; he could deceive my father, but none else. \u00a0My father\nloved him best of us all, and trusted and believed him; for he was the\nyoungest child, and others hated him--these qualities being in all\nages sufficient to win a parent's dearest love; and he had a smooth\npersuasive tongue, with an admirable gift of lying--and these be\nqualities which do mightily assist a blind affection to cozen itself.\n\u00a0I was wild--in troth I might go yet farther and say _very_ wild, though\n'twas a wildness of an innocent sort, since it hurt none but me, brought\nshame to none, nor loss, nor had in it any taint of crime or baseness,\nor what might not beseem mine honourable degree.\n\n\"Yet did my brother Hugh turn these faults to good account--he seeing\nthat our brother Arthur's health was but indifferent, and hoping the\nworst might work him profit were I swept out of the path--so--but 'twere\na long tale, good my liege, and little worth the telling. \u00a0Briefly,\nthen, this brother did deftly magnify my faults and make them\ncrimes; ending his base work with finding a silken ladder in mine\napartments--conveyed thither by his own means--and did convince my\nfather by this, and suborned evidence of servants and other lying\nknaves, that I was minded to carry off my Edith and marry with her in\nrank defiance of his will.\n\n\"Three years of banishment from home and England might make a soldier\nand a man of me, my father said, and teach me some degree of wisdom.\n\u00a0I fought out my long probation in the continental wars, tasting\nsumptuously of hard knocks, privation, and adventure; but in my last\nbattle I was taken captive, and during the seven years that have waxed\nand waned since then, a foreign dungeon hath harboured me. \u00a0Through wit\nand courage I won to the free air at last, and fled hither straight; and\nam but just arrived, right poor in purse and raiment, and poorer still\nin knowledge of what these dull seven years have wrought at Hendon Hall,\nits people and belongings. \u00a0So please you, sir, my meagre tale is told.\"\n\n\"Thou hast been shamefully abused!\" said the little King, with a\nflashing eye. \u00a0\"But I will right thee--by the cross will I! \u00a0The King\nhath said it.\"\n\nThen, fired by the story of Miles's wrongs, he loosed his tongue and\npoured the history of his own recent misfortunes into the ears of his\nastonished listener. \u00a0When he had finished, Miles said to himself--\n\n\"Lo, what an imagination he hath! \u00a0Verily, this is no common mind; else,\ncrazed or sane, it could not weave so straight and gaudy a tale as this\nout of the airy nothings wherewith it hath wrought this curious romaunt.\nPoor ruined little head, it shall not lack friend or shelter whilst I\nbide with the living. \u00a0He shall never leave my side; he shall be my\npet, my little comrade. \u00a0And he shall be cured!--ay, made whole and\nsound--then will he make himself a name--and proud shall I be to say,\n'Yes, he is mine--I took him, a homeless little ragamuffin, but I saw\nwhat was in him, and I said his name would be heard some day--behold\nhim, observe him--was I right?'\"\n\nThe King spoke--in a thoughtful, measured voice--\n\n\"Thou didst save me injury and shame, perchance my life, and so my\ncrown. Such service demandeth rich reward. \u00a0Name thy desire, and so it\nbe within the compass of my royal power, it is thine.\"\n\nThis fantastic suggestion startled Hendon out of his reverie. \u00a0He was\nabout to thank the King and put the matter aside with saying he had only\ndone his duty and desired no reward, but a wiser thought came into his\nhead, and he asked leave to be silent a few moments and consider the\ngracious offer--an idea which the King gravely approved, remarking that\nit was best to be not too hasty with a thing of such great import.\n\nMiles reflected during some moments, then said to himself, \"Yes, that is\nthe thing to do--by any other means it were impossible to get at it--and\ncertes, this hour's experience has taught me 'twould be most wearing and\ninconvenient to continue it as it is. Yes, I will propose it; 'twas a\nhappy accident that I did not throw the chance away.\" \u00a0Then he dropped\nupon one knee and said--\n\n\"My poor service went not beyond the limit of a subject's simple duty,\nand therefore hath no merit; but since your Majesty is pleased to hold\nit worthy some reward, I take heart of grace to make petition to this\neffect. \u00a0Near four hundred years ago, as your grace knoweth, there being\nill blood betwixt John, King of England, and the King of France, it was\ndecreed that two champions should fight together in the lists, and so\nsettle the dispute by what is called the arbitrament of God. \u00a0These two\nkings, and the Spanish king, being assembled to witness and judge the\nconflict, the French champion appeared; but so redoubtable was he, that\nour English knights refused to measure weapons with him. \u00a0So the matter,\nwhich was a weighty one, was like to go against the English monarch by\ndefault. \u00a0Now in the Tower lay the Lord de Courcy, the mightiest arm in\nEngland, stripped of his honours and possessions, and wasting with\nlong captivity. \u00a0Appeal was made to him; he gave assent, and came forth\narrayed for battle; but no sooner did the Frenchman glimpse his huge\nframe and hear his famous name but he fled away, and the French king's\ncause was lost. \u00a0King John restored De Courcy's titles and possessions,\nand said, 'Name thy wish and thou shalt have it, though it cost me half\nmy kingdom;' whereat De Courcy, kneeling, as I do now, made answer,\n'This, then, I ask, my liege; that I and my successors may have and\nhold the privilege of remaining covered in the presence of the kings of\nEngland, henceforth while the throne shall last.' The boon was granted,\nas your Majesty knoweth; and there hath been no time, these four hundred\nyears, that that line has failed of an heir; and so, even unto this day,\nthe head of that ancient house still weareth his hat or helm before the\nKing's Majesty, without let or hindrance, and this none other may do.\n{3} Invoking this precedent in aid of my prayer, I beseech the King to\ngrant to me but this one grace and privilege--to my more than sufficient\nreward--and none other, to wit: \u00a0that I and my heirs, for ever, may\n_sit_ in the presence of the Majesty of England!\"\n\n\"Rise, Sir Miles Hendon, Knight,\" said the King, gravely--giving the\naccolade with Hendon's sword--\"rise, and seat thyself. \u00a0Thy petition is\ngranted. \u00a0Whilst England remains, and the crown continues, the privilege\nshall not lapse.\"\n\nHis Majesty walked apart, musing, and Hendon dropped into a chair at\ntable, observing to himself, \"'Twas a brave thought, and hath wrought\nme a mighty deliverance; my legs are grievously wearied. An I had not\nthought of that, I must have had to stand for weeks, till my poor lad's\nwits are cured.\" \u00a0After a little, he went on, \"And so I am become a\nknight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows! A most odd and strange\nposition, truly, for one so matter-of-fact as I. \u00a0I will not laugh--no,\nGod forbid, for this thing which is so substanceless to me is _real_ to\nhim. \u00a0And to me, also, in one way, it is not a falsity, for it reflects\nwith truth the sweet and generous spirit that is in him.\" \u00a0After\na pause: \"Ah, what if he should call me by my fine title before\nfolk!--there'd be a merry contrast betwixt my glory and my raiment! \u00a0But\nno matter, let him call me what he will, so it please him; I shall be\ncontent.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII. The disappearance of the Prince.\n\nA heavy drowsiness presently fell upon the two comrades. \u00a0The King\nsaid--\n\n\"Remove these rags.\"--meaning his clothing.\n\nHendon disapparelled the boy without dissent or remark, tucked him up in\nbed, then glanced about the room, saying to himself, ruefully, \"He hath\ntaken my bed again, as before--marry, what shall _I_ do?\" \u00a0The little\nKing observed his perplexity, and dissipated it with a word. \u00a0He said,\nsleepily--\n\n\"Thou wilt sleep athwart the door, and guard it.\" \u00a0In a moment more he\nwas out of his troubles, in a deep slumber.\n\n\"Dear heart, he should have been born a king!\" muttered Hendon,\nadmiringly; \"he playeth the part to a marvel.\"\n\nThen he stretched himself across the door, on the floor, saying\ncontentedly--\n\n\"I have lodged worse for seven years; 'twould be but ill gratitude to\nHim above to find fault with this.\"\n\nHe dropped asleep as the dawn appeared. \u00a0Toward noon he rose, uncovered\nhis unconscious ward--a section at a time--and took his measure with a\nstring. \u00a0The King awoke, just as he had completed his work, complained\nof the cold, and asked what he was doing.\n\n\"'Tis done, now, my liege,\" said Hendon; \"I have a bit of business\noutside, but will presently return; sleep thou again--thou needest it.\nThere--let me cover thy head also--thou'lt be warm the sooner.\"\n\nThe King was back in dreamland before this speech was ended. Miles\nslipped softly out, and slipped as softly in again, in the course of\nthirty or forty minutes, with a complete second-hand suit of boy's\nclothing, of cheap material, and showing signs of wear; but tidy, and\nsuited to the season of the year. \u00a0He seated himself, and began to\noverhaul his purchase, mumbling to himself--\n\n\"A longer purse would have got a better sort, but when one has not the\nlong purse one must be content with what a short one may do--\n\n\"'There was a woman in our town, In our town did dwell--'\n\n\"He stirred, methinks--I must sing in a less thunderous key; 'tis not\ngood to mar his sleep, with this journey before him, and he so wearied\nout, poor chap . . . This garment--'tis well enough--a stitch here and\nanother one there will set it aright. \u00a0This other is better, albeit a\nstitch or two will not come amiss in it, likewise . . . _These_ be very\ngood and sound, and will keep his small feet warm and dry--an odd new\nthing to him, belike, since he has doubtless been used to foot it bare,\nwinters and summers the same . . . Would thread were bread, seeing one\ngetteth a year's sufficiency for a farthing, and such a brave big needle\nwithout cost, for mere love. \u00a0Now shall I have the demon's own time to\nthread it!\"\n\nAnd so he had. \u00a0He did as men have always done, and probably always will\ndo, to the end of time--held the needle still, and tried to thrust the\nthread through the eye, which is the opposite of a woman's way. \u00a0Time\nand time again the thread missed the mark, going sometimes on one side\nof the needle, sometimes on the other, sometimes doubling up against the\nshaft; but he was patient, having been through these experiences before,\nwhen he was soldiering. \u00a0He succeeded at last, and took up the garment\nthat had lain waiting, meantime, across his lap, and began his work.\n\n\"The inn is paid--the breakfast that is to come, included--and there is\nwherewithal left to buy a couple of donkeys and meet our little costs\nfor the two or three days betwixt this and the plenty that awaits us at\nHendon Hall--\n\n\"'She loved her hus--'\n\n\"Body o' me! \u00a0I have driven the needle under my nail! . . . It matters\nlittle--'tis not a novelty--yet 'tis not a convenience, neither. . . .\nWe shall be merry there, little one, never doubt it! Thy troubles will\nvanish there, and likewise thy sad distemper--\n\n\"'She loved her husband dearilee, But another man--'\n\n\"These be noble large stitches!\"--holding the garment up and viewing\nit admiringly--\"they have a grandeur and a majesty that do cause\nthese small stingy ones of the tailor-man to look mightily paltry and\nplebeian--\n\n\"'She loved her husband dearilee, But another man he loved she,--'\n\n\"Marry, 'tis done--a goodly piece of work, too, and wrought with\nexpedition. \u00a0Now will I wake him, apparel him, pour for him, feed him,\nand then will we hie us to the mart by the Tabard Inn in Southwark\nand--be pleased to rise, my liege!--he answereth not--what ho, my\nliege!--of a truth must I profane his sacred person with a touch, sith\nhis slumber is deaf to speech. \u00a0What!\"\n\nHe threw back the covers--the boy was gone!\n\nHe stared about him in speechless astonishment for a moment; noticed for\nthe first time that his ward's ragged raiment was also missing; then he\nbegan to rage and storm and shout for the innkeeper. \u00a0At that moment a\nservant entered with the breakfast.\n\n\"Explain, thou limb of Satan, or thy time is come!\" roared the man of\nwar, and made so savage a spring toward the waiter that this latter\ncould not find his tongue, for the instant, for fright and surprise.\n\u00a0\"Where is the boy?\"\n\nIn disjointed and trembling syllables the man gave the information\ndesired.\n\n\"You were hardly gone from the place, your worship, when a youth came\nrunning and said it was your worship's will that the boy come to you\nstraight, at the bridge-end on the Southwark side. \u00a0I brought him\nhither; and when he woke the lad and gave his message, the lad did\ngrumble some little for being disturbed 'so early,' as he called it, but\nstraightway trussed on his rags and went with the youth, only saying\nit had been better manners that your worship came yourself, not sent a\nstranger--and so--\"\n\n\"And so thou'rt a fool!--a fool and easily cozened--hang all thy breed!\nYet mayhap no hurt is done. \u00a0Possibly no harm is meant the boy. \u00a0I will\ngo fetch him. \u00a0Make the table ready. \u00a0Stay! the coverings of the bed\nwere disposed as if one lay beneath them--happened that by accident?\"\n\n\"I know not, good your worship. \u00a0I saw the youth meddle with them--he\nthat came for the boy.\"\n\n\"Thousand deaths! \u00a0'Twas done to deceive me--'tis plain 'twas done to\ngain time. \u00a0Hark ye! \u00a0Was that youth alone?\"\n\n\"All alone, your worship.\"\n\n\"Art sure?\"\n\n\"Sure, your worship.\"\n\n\"Collect thy scattered wits--bethink thee--take time, man.\"\n\nAfter a moment's thought, the servant said--\n\n\"When he came, none came with him; but now I remember me that as the two\nstepped into the throng of the Bridge, a ruffian-looking man plunged out\nfrom some near place; and just as he was joining them--\"\n\n\"What _then_?--out with it!\" thundered the impatient Hendon,\ninterrupting.\n\n\"Just then the crowd lapped them up and closed them in, and I saw no\nmore, being called by my master, who was in a rage because a joint that\nthe scrivener had ordered was forgot, though I take all the saints to\nwitness that to blame _me_ for that miscarriage were like holding the\nunborn babe to judgment for sins com--\"\n\n\"Out of my sight, idiot! \u00a0Thy prating drives me mad! \u00a0Hold! Whither art\nflying? \u00a0Canst not bide still an instant? \u00a0Went they toward Southwark?\"\n\n\"Even so, your worship--for, as I said before, as to that detestable\njoint, the babe unborn is no whit more blameless than--\"\n\n\"Art here _yet_! \u00a0And prating still! \u00a0Vanish, lest I throttle thee!\" The\nservitor vanished. \u00a0Hendon followed after him, passed him, and plunged\ndown the stairs two steps at a stride, muttering, \"'Tis that scurvy\nvillain that claimed he was his son. \u00a0I have lost thee, my poor little\nmad master--it is a bitter thought--and I had come to love thee so! \u00a0No!\nby book and bell, _not_ lost! \u00a0Not lost, for I will ransack the land\ntill I find thee again. \u00a0Poor child, yonder is his breakfast--and mine,\nbut I have no hunger now; so, let the rats have it--speed, speed! that\nis the word!\" \u00a0As he wormed his swift way through the noisy multitudes\nupon the Bridge he several times said to himself--clinging to the\nthought as if it were a particularly pleasing one--\"He grumbled, but he\n_went_--he went, yes, because he thought Miles Hendon asked it, sweet\nlad--he would ne'er have done it for another, I know it well.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV. 'Le Roi est mort--vive le Roi.'\n\nToward daylight of the same morning, Tom Canty stirred out of a heavy\nsleep and opened his eyes in the dark. \u00a0He lay silent a few moments,\ntrying to analyse his confused thoughts and impressions, and get some\nsort of meaning out of them; then suddenly he burst out in a rapturous\nbut guarded voice--\n\n\"I see it all, I see it all! \u00a0Now God be thanked, I am indeed awake at\nlast! \u00a0Come, joy! vanish, sorrow! \u00a0Ho, Nan! Bet! kick off your straw and\nhie ye hither to my side, till I do pour into your unbelieving ears the\nwildest madcap dream that ever the spirits of night did conjure up to\nastonish the soul of man withal! . . . Ho, Nan, I say! \u00a0Bet!\"\n\nA dim form appeared at his side, and a voice said--\n\n\"Wilt deign to deliver thy commands?\"\n\n\"Commands? . . . O, woe is me, I know thy voice! \u00a0Speak thou--who am I?\"\n\n\"Thou? \u00a0In sooth, yesternight wert thou the Prince of Wales; to-day art\nthou my most gracious liege, Edward, King of England.\"\n\nTom buried his head among his pillows, murmuring plaintively--\n\n\"Alack, it was no dream! \u00a0Go to thy rest, sweet sir--leave me to my\nsorrows.\"\n\nTom slept again, and after a time he had this pleasant dream. \u00a0He\nthought it was summer, and he was playing, all alone, in the fair meadow\ncalled Goodman's Fields, when a dwarf only a foot high, with long red\nwhiskers and a humped back, appeared to him suddenly and said, \"Dig by\nthat stump.\" \u00a0He did so, and found twelve bright new pennies--wonderful\nriches! \u00a0Yet this was not the best of it; for the dwarf said--\n\n\"I know thee. \u00a0Thou art a good lad, and a deserving; thy distresses\nshall end, for the day of thy reward is come. \u00a0Dig here every seventh\nday, and thou shalt find always the same treasure, twelve bright new\npennies. Tell none--keep the secret.\"\n\nThen the dwarf vanished, and Tom flew to Offal Court with his prize,\nsaying to himself, \"Every night will I give my father a penny; he\nwill think I begged it, it will glad his heart, and I shall no more\nbe beaten. One penny every week the good priest that teacheth me shall\nhave; mother, Nan, and Bet the other four. We be done with hunger and\nrags, now, done with fears and frets and savage usage.\"\n\nIn his dream he reached his sordid home all out of breath, but with\neyes dancing with grateful enthusiasm; cast four of his pennies into his\nmother's lap and cried out--\n\n\"They are for thee!--all of them, every one!--for thee and Nan and\nBet--and honestly come by, not begged nor stolen!\"\n\nThe happy and astonished mother strained him to her breast and\nexclaimed--\n\n\"It waxeth late--may it please your Majesty to rise?\"\n\nAh! that was not the answer he was expecting. \u00a0The dream had snapped\nasunder--he was awake.\n\nHe opened his eyes--the richly clad First Lord of the Bedchamber was\nkneeling by his couch. \u00a0The gladness of the lying dream faded away--the\npoor boy recognised that he was still a captive and a king. \u00a0The room\nwas filled with courtiers clothed in purple mantles--the mourning\ncolour--and with noble servants of the monarch. \u00a0Tom sat up in bed and\ngazed out from the heavy silken curtains upon this fine company.\n\nThe weighty business of dressing began, and one courtier after another\nknelt and paid his court and offered to the little King his condolences\nupon his heavy loss, whilst the dressing proceeded. \u00a0In the beginning, a\nshirt was taken up by the Chief Equerry in Waiting, who passed it to the\nFirst Lord of the Buckhounds, who passed it to the Second Gentleman of\nthe Bedchamber, who passed it to the Head Ranger of Windsor Forest,\nwho passed it to the Third Groom of the Stole, who passed it to the\nChancellor Royal of the Duchy of Lancaster, who passed it to the Master\nof the Wardrobe, who passed it to Norroy King-at-Arms, who passed it to\nthe Constable of the Tower, who passed it to the Chief Steward of the\nHousehold, who passed it to the Hereditary Grand Diaperer, who passed it\nto the Lord High Admiral of England, who passed it to the Archbishop of\nCanterbury, who passed it to the First Lord of the Bedchamber, who took\nwhat was left of it and put it on Tom. \u00a0Poor little wondering chap, it\nreminded him of passing buckets at a fire.\n\nEach garment in its turn had to go through this slow and solemn process;\nconsequently Tom grew very weary of the ceremony; so weary that he felt\nan almost gushing gratefulness when he at last saw his long silken hose\nbegin the journey down the line and knew that the end of the matter\nwas drawing near. \u00a0But he exulted too soon. \u00a0The First Lord of the\nBedchamber received the hose and was about to encase Tom's legs in them,\nwhen a sudden flush invaded his face and he hurriedly hustled the things\nback into the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury with an astounded\nlook and a whispered, \"See, my lord!\" pointing to a something connected\nwith the hose. \u00a0The Archbishop paled, then flushed, and passed the\nhose to the Lord High Admiral, whispering, \"See, my lord!\" \u00a0The Admiral\npassed the hose to the Hereditary Grand Diaperer, and had hardly breath\nenough in his body to ejaculate, \"See, my lord!\" \u00a0The hose drifted\nbackward along the line, to the Chief Steward of the Household, the\nConstable of the Tower, Norroy King-at-Arms, the Master of the Wardrobe,\nthe Chancellor Royal of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Third Groom of the\nStole, the Head Ranger of Windsor Forest, the Second Gentleman of the\nBedchamber, the First Lord of the Buckhounds,--accompanied always with\nthat amazed and frightened \"See! see!\"--till they finally reached the\nhands of the Chief Equerry in Waiting, who gazed a moment, with a pallid\nface, upon what had caused all this dismay, then hoarsely whispered,\n\"Body of my life, a tag gone from a truss-point!--to the Tower with\nthe Head Keeper of the King's Hose!\"--after which he leaned upon the\nshoulder of the First Lord of the Buckhounds to regather his vanished\nstrength whilst fresh hose, without any damaged strings to them, were\nbrought.\n\nBut all things must have an end, and so in time Tom Canty was in a\ncondition to get out of bed. \u00a0The proper official poured water, the\nproper official engineered the washing, the proper official stood by\nwith a towel, and by-and-by Tom got safely through the purifying stage\nand was ready for the services of the Hairdresser-royal. \u00a0When he at\nlength emerged from this master's hands, he was a gracious figure and\nas pretty as a girl, in his mantle and trunks of purple satin, and\npurple-plumed cap. \u00a0He now moved in state toward his breakfast-room,\nthrough the midst of the courtly assemblage; and as he passed, these\nfell back, leaving his way free, and dropped upon their knees.\n\nAfter breakfast he was conducted, with regal ceremony, attended by his\ngreat officers and his guard of fifty Gentlemen Pensioners bearing gilt\nbattle-axes, to the throne-room, where he proceeded to transact business\nof state. \u00a0His 'uncle,' Lord Hertford, took his stand by the throne, to\nassist the royal mind with wise counsel.\n\nThe body of illustrious men named by the late King as his executors\nappeared, to ask Tom's approval of certain acts of theirs--rather a\nform, and yet not wholly a form, since there was no Protector as yet.\n\u00a0The Archbishop of Canterbury made report of the decree of the Council\nof Executors concerning the obsequies of his late most illustrious\nMajesty, and finished by reading the signatures of the Executors, to\nwit: \u00a0the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Lord Chancellor of England;\nWilliam Lord St. John; John Lord Russell; Edward Earl of Hertford; John\nViscount Lisle; Cuthbert Bishop of Durham--\n\nTom was not listening--an earlier clause of the document was puzzling\nhim. \u00a0At this point he turned and whispered to Lord Hertford--\n\n\"What day did he say the burial hath been appointed for?\"\n\n\"The sixteenth of the coming month, my liege.\"\n\n\"'Tis a strange folly. \u00a0Will he keep?\"\n\nPoor chap, he was still new to the customs of royalty; he was used to\nseeing the forlorn dead of Offal Court hustled out of the way with a\nvery different sort of expedition. \u00a0However, the Lord Hertford set his\nmind at rest with a word or two.\n\nA secretary of state presented an order of the Council appointing the\nmorrow at eleven for the reception of the foreign ambassadors, and\ndesired the King's assent.\n\nTom turned an inquiring look toward Hertford, who whispered--\n\n\"Your Majesty will signify consent. \u00a0They come to testify their royal\nmasters' sense of the heavy calamity which hath visited your Grace and\nthe realm of England.\"\n\nTom did as he was bidden. \u00a0Another secretary began to read a preamble\nconcerning the expenses of the late King's household, which had amounted\nto 28,000 pounds during the preceding six months--a sum so vast that it\nmade Tom Canty gasp; he gasped again when the fact appeared that 20,000\npounds of this money was still owing and unpaid; {4} and once more when\nit appeared that the King's coffers were about empty, and his twelve\nhundred servants much embarrassed for lack of the wages due them. \u00a0Tom\nspoke out, with lively apprehension--\n\n\"We be going to the dogs, 'tis plain. \u00a0'Tis meet and necessary that we\ntake a smaller house and set the servants at large, sith they be of no\nvalue but to make delay, and trouble one with offices that harass the\nspirit and shame the soul, they misbecoming any but a doll, that hath\nnor brains nor hands to help itself withal. \u00a0I remember me of a small\nhouse that standeth over against the fish-market, by Billingsgate--\"\n\nA sharp pressure upon Tom's arm stopped his foolish tongue and sent a\nblush to his face; but no countenance there betrayed any sign that this\nstrange speech had been remarked or given concern.\n\nA secretary made report that forasmuch as the late King had provided in\nhis will for conferring the ducal degree upon the Earl of Hertford and\nraising his brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, to the peerage, and likewise\nHertford's son to an earldom, together with similar aggrandisements to\nother great servants of the Crown, the Council had resolved to hold a\nsitting on the 16th of February for the delivering and confirming of\nthese honours, and that meantime, the late King not having granted,\nin writing, estates suitable to the support of these dignities, the\nCouncil, knowing his private wishes in that regard, had thought proper\nto grant to Seymour '500 pound lands,' and to Hertford's son '800\npound lands, and 300 pound of the next bishop's lands which should fall\nvacant,'--his present Majesty being willing. {5}\n\nTom was about to blurt out something about the propriety of paying the\nlate King's debts first, before squandering all this money, but a\ntimely touch upon his arm, from the thoughtful Hertford, saved him\nthis indiscretion; wherefore he gave the royal assent, without spoken\ncomment, but with much inward discomfort. \u00a0While he sat reflecting a\nmoment over the ease with which he was doing strange and glittering\nmiracles, a happy thought shot into his mind: \u00a0why not make his mother\nDuchess of Offal Court, and give her an estate? \u00a0But a sorrowful\nthought swept it instantly away: he was only a king in name, these grave\nveterans and great nobles were his masters; to them his mother was only\nthe creature of a diseased mind; they would simply listen to his project\nwith unbelieving ears, then send for the doctor.\n\nThe dull work went tediously on. \u00a0Petitions were read, and\nproclamations, patents, and all manner of wordy, repetitious, and\nwearisome papers relating to the public business; and at last Tom sighed\npathetically and murmured to himself, \"In what have I offended, that the\ngood God should take me away from the fields and the free air and the\nsunshine, to shut me up here and make me a king and afflict me so?\"\n\u00a0Then his poor muddled head nodded a while and presently drooped to his\nshoulder; and the business of the empire came to a standstill for want\nof that august factor, the ratifying power. \u00a0Silence ensued around\nthe slumbering child, and the sages of the realm ceased from their\ndeliberations.\n\nDuring the forenoon, Tom had an enjoyable hour, by permission of his\nkeepers, Hertford and St. John, with the Lady Elizabeth and the little\nLady Jane Grey; though the spirits of the princesses were rather subdued\nby the mighty stroke that had fallen upon the royal house; and at the\nend of the visit his 'elder sister'--afterwards the 'Bloody Mary' of\nhistory--chilled him with a solemn interview which had but one merit in\nhis eyes, its brevity. \u00a0He had a few moments to himself, and then a slim\nlad of about twelve years of age was admitted to his presence, whose\nclothing, except his snowy ruff and the laces about his wrists, was of\nblack,--doublet, hose, and all. \u00a0He bore no badge of mourning but a knot\nof purple ribbon on his shoulder. \u00a0He advanced hesitatingly, with head\nbowed and bare, and dropped upon one knee in front of Tom. Tom sat still\nand contemplated him soberly a moment. \u00a0Then he said--\n\n\"Rise, lad. \u00a0Who art thou. \u00a0What wouldst have?\"\n\nThe boy rose, and stood at graceful ease, but with an aspect of concern\nin his face. \u00a0He said--\n\n\"Of a surety thou must remember me, my lord. \u00a0I am thy whipping-boy.\"\n\n\"My _whipping_-boy?\"\n\n\"The same, your Grace. \u00a0I am Humphrey--Humphrey Marlow.\"\n\nTom perceived that here was someone whom his keepers ought to have\nposted him about. \u00a0The situation was delicate. \u00a0What should he\ndo?--pretend he knew this lad, and then betray by his every utterance\nthat he had never heard of him before? \u00a0No, that would not do. \u00a0An idea\ncame to his relief: accidents like this might be likely to happen with\nsome frequency, now that business urgencies would often call Hertford\nand St. John from his side, they being members of the Council of\nExecutors; therefore perhaps it would be well to strike out a plan\nhimself to meet the requirements of such emergencies. \u00a0Yes, that would\nbe a wise course--he would practise on this boy, and see what sort of\nsuccess he might achieve. \u00a0So he stroked his brow perplexedly a moment\nor two, and presently said--\n\n\"Now I seem to remember thee somewhat--but my wit is clogged and dim\nwith suffering--\"\n\n\"Alack, my poor master!\" ejaculated the whipping-boy, with feeling;\nadding, to himself, \"In truth 'tis as they said--his mind is gone--alas,\npoor soul! \u00a0But misfortune catch me, how am I forgetting! \u00a0They said one\nmust not seem to observe that aught is wrong with him.\"\n\n\"'Tis strange how my memory doth wanton with me these days,\" said Tom.\n\"But mind it not--I mend apace--a little clue doth often serve to bring\nme back again the things and names which had escaped me. \u00a0(And not they,\nonly, forsooth, but e'en such as I ne'er heard before--as this lad shall\nsee.) \u00a0Give thy business speech.\"\n\n\"'Tis matter of small weight, my liege, yet will I touch upon it, an' it\nplease your Grace. \u00a0Two days gone by, when your Majesty faulted thrice\nin your Greek--in the morning lessons,--dost remember it?\"\n\n\"Y-e-s--methinks I do. \u00a0(It is not much of a lie--an' I had meddled with\nthe Greek at all, I had not faulted simply thrice, but forty times.)\nYes, I do recall it, now--go on.\"\n\n\"The master, being wroth with what he termed such slovenly and doltish\nwork, did promise that he would soundly whip me for it--and--\"\n\n\"Whip _thee_!\" said Tom, astonished out of his presence of mind. \"Why\nshould he whip _thee_ for faults of mine?\"\n\n\"Ah, your Grace forgetteth again. \u00a0He always scourgeth me when thou dost\nfail in thy lessons.\"\n\n\"True, true--I had forgot. \u00a0Thou teachest me in private--then if I fail,\nhe argueth that thy office was lamely done, and--\"\n\n\"Oh, my liege, what words are these? \u00a0I, the humblest of thy servants,\npresume to teach _thee_?\"\n\n\"Then where is thy blame? \u00a0What riddle is this? \u00a0Am I in truth gone mad,\nor is it thou? \u00a0Explain--speak out.\"\n\n\"But, good your Majesty, there's nought that needeth simplifying.--None\nmay visit the sacred person of the Prince of Wales with blows;\nwherefore, when he faulteth, 'tis I that take them; and meet it is and\nright, for that it is mine office and my livelihood.\" {1}\n\nTom stared at the tranquil boy, observing to himself, \"Lo, it is a\nwonderful thing,--a most strange and curious trade; I marvel they have\nnot hired a boy to take my combings and my dressings for me--would\nheaven they would!--an' they will do this thing, I will take my lashings\nin mine own person, giving God thanks for the change.\" Then he said\naloud--\n\n\"And hast thou been beaten, poor friend, according to the promise?\"\n\n\"No, good your Majesty, my punishment was appointed for this day, and\nperadventure it may be annulled, as unbefitting the season of mourning\nthat is come upon us; I know not, and so have made bold to come hither\nand remind your Grace about your gracious promise to intercede in my\nbehalf--\"\n\n\"With the master? \u00a0To save thee thy whipping?\"\n\n\"Ah, thou dost remember!\"\n\n\"My memory mendeth, thou seest. \u00a0Set thy mind at ease--thy back shall go\nunscathed--I will see to it.\"\n\n\"Oh, thanks, my good lord!\" cried the boy, dropping upon his knee again.\n\"Mayhap I have ventured far enow; and yet--\"\n\nSeeing Master Humphrey hesitate, Tom encouraged him to go on, saying he\nwas \"in the granting mood.\"\n\n\"Then will I speak it out, for it lieth near my heart. \u00a0Sith thou art\nno more Prince of Wales but King, thou canst order matters as thou wilt,\nwith none to say thee nay; wherefore it is not in reason that thou wilt\nlonger vex thyself with dreary studies, but wilt burn thy books and\nturn thy mind to things less irksome. Then am I ruined, and mine orphan\nsisters with me!\"\n\n\"Ruined? \u00a0Prithee how?\"\n\n\"My back is my bread, O my gracious liege! if it go idle, I starve. \u00a0An'\nthou cease from study mine office is gone thou'lt need no whipping-boy.\nDo not turn me away!\"\n\nTom was touched with this pathetic distress. \u00a0He said, with a right\nroyal burst of generosity--\n\n\"Discomfort thyself no further, lad. \u00a0Thine office shall be permanent in\nthee and thy line for ever.\" \u00a0Then he struck the boy a light blow on the\nshoulder with the flat of his sword, exclaiming, \"Rise, Humphrey Marlow,\nHereditary Grand Whipping-Boy to the Royal House of England! \u00a0Banish\nsorrow--I will betake me to my books again, and study so ill that they\nmust in justice treble thy wage, so mightily shall the business of thine\noffice be augmented.\"\n\nThe grateful Humphrey responded fervidly--\n\n\"Thanks, O most noble master, this princely lavishness doth far surpass\nmy most distempered dreams of fortune. \u00a0Now shall I be happy all my\ndays, and all the house of Marlow after me.\"\n\nTom had wit enough to perceive that here was a lad who could be useful\nto him. \u00a0He encouraged Humphrey to talk, and he was nothing loath.\n\u00a0He was delighted to believe that he was helping in Tom's 'cure'; for\nalways, as soon as he had finished calling back to Tom's diseased mind\nthe various particulars of his experiences and adventures in the royal\nschool-room and elsewhere about the palace, he noticed that Tom was then\nable to 'recall' the circumstances quite clearly. \u00a0At the end of an\nhour Tom found himself well freighted with very valuable information\nconcerning personages and matters pertaining to the Court; so he\nresolved to draw instruction from this source daily; and to this end he\nwould give order to admit Humphrey to the royal closet whenever he might\ncome, provided the Majesty of England was not engaged with other people.\n\u00a0Humphrey had hardly been dismissed when my Lord Hertford arrived with\nmore trouble for Tom.\n\nHe said that the Lords of the Council, fearing that some overwrought\nreport of the King's damaged health might have leaked out and got\nabroad, they deemed it wise and best that his Majesty should begin to\ndine in public after a day or two--his wholesome complexion and vigorous\nstep, assisted by a carefully guarded repose of manner and ease and\ngrace of demeanour, would more surely quiet the general pulse--in case\nany evil rumours _had_ gone about--than any other scheme that could be\ndevised.\n\nThen the Earl proceeded, very delicately, to instruct Tom as to the\nobservances proper to the stately occasion, under the rather thin\ndisguise of 'reminding' him concerning things already known to him; but\nto his vast gratification it turned out that Tom needed very little help\nin this line--he had been making use of Humphrey in that direction, for\nHumphrey had mentioned that within a few days he was to begin to dine\nin public; having gathered it from the swift-winged gossip of the Court.\nTom kept these facts to himself, however.\n\nSeeing the royal memory so improved, the Earl ventured to apply a\nfew tests to it, in an apparently casual way, to find out how far its\namendment had progressed. \u00a0The results were happy, here and there, in\nspots--spots where Humphrey's tracks remained--and on the whole my lord\nwas greatly pleased and encouraged. \u00a0So encouraged was he, indeed, that\nhe spoke up and said in a quite hopeful voice--\n\n\"Now am I persuaded that if your Majesty will but tax your memory yet\na little further, it will resolve the puzzle of the Great Seal--a loss\nwhich was of moment yesterday, although of none to-day, since its term\nof service ended with our late lord's life. May it please your Grace to\nmake the trial?\"\n\nTom was at sea--a Great Seal was something which he was totally\nunacquainted with. \u00a0After a moment's hesitation he looked up innocently\nand asked--\n\n\"What was it like, my lord?\"\n\nThe Earl started, almost imperceptibly, muttering to himself, \"Alack,\nhis wits are flown again!--it was ill wisdom to lead him on to strain\nthem\"--then he deftly turned the talk to other matters, with the purpose\nof sweeping the unlucky seal out of Tom's thoughts--a purpose which\neasily succeeded.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV. Tom as King.\n\nThe next day the foreign ambassadors came, with their gorgeous trains;\nand Tom, throned in awful state, received them. \u00a0The splendours of the\nscene delighted his eye and fired his imagination at first, but\nthe audience was long and dreary, and so were most of the\naddresses--wherefore, what began as a pleasure grew into weariness and\nhome-sickness by-and-by. \u00a0Tom said the words which Hertford put into\nhis mouth from time to time, and tried hard to acquit himself\nsatisfactorily, but he was too new to such things, and too ill at ease\nto accomplish more than a tolerable success. \u00a0He looked sufficiently\nlike a king, but he was ill able to feel like one. \u00a0He was cordially\nglad when the ceremony was ended.\n\nThe larger part of his day was 'wasted'--as he termed it, in his own\nmind--in labours pertaining to his royal office. \u00a0Even the two hours\ndevoted to certain princely pastimes and recreations were rather a\nburden to him than otherwise, they were so fettered by restrictions\nand ceremonious observances. \u00a0However, he had a private hour with\nhis whipping-boy which he counted clear gain, since he got both\nentertainment and needful information out of it.\n\nThe third day of Tom Canty's kingship came and went much as the others\nhad done, but there was a lifting of his cloud in one way--he felt\nless uncomfortable than at first; he was getting a little used to his\ncircumstances and surroundings; his chains still galled, but not all the\ntime; he found that the presence and homage of the great afflicted and\nembarrassed him less and less sharply with every hour that drifted over\nhis head.\n\nBut for one single dread, he could have seen the fourth day approach\nwithout serious distress--the dining in public; it was to begin that\nday. There were greater matters in the programme--for on that day\nhe would have to preside at a council which would take his views and\ncommands concerning the policy to be pursued toward various foreign\nnations scattered far and near over the great globe; on that day, too,\nHertford would be formally chosen to the grand office of Lord Protector;\nother things of note were appointed for that fourth day, also; but to\nTom they were all insignificant compared with the ordeal of dining all\nby himself with a multitude of curious eyes fastened upon him and a\nmultitude of mouths whispering comments upon his performance,--and upon\nhis mistakes, if he should be so unlucky as to make any.\n\nStill, nothing could stop that fourth day, and so it came. \u00a0It found\npoor Tom low-spirited and absent-minded, and this mood continued; he\ncould not shake it off. \u00a0The ordinary duties of the morning dragged upon\nhis hands, and wearied him. \u00a0Once more he felt the sense of captivity\nheavy upon him.\n\nLate in the forenoon he was in a large audience-chamber, conversing\nwith the Earl of Hertford and dully awaiting the striking of the hour\nappointed for a visit of ceremony from a considerable number of great\nofficials and courtiers.\n\nAfter a little while, Tom, who had wandered to a window and become\ninterested in the life and movement of the great highway beyond the\npalace gates--and not idly interested, but longing with all his heart\nto take part in person in its stir and freedom--saw the van of a hooting\nand shouting mob of disorderly men, women, and children of the lowest\nand poorest degree approaching from up the road.\n\n\"I would I knew what 'tis about!\" he exclaimed, with all a boy's\ncuriosity in such happenings.\n\n\"Thou art the King!\" solemnly responded the Earl, with a reverence.\n\"Have I your Grace's leave to act?\"\n\n\"O blithely, yes! \u00a0O gladly, yes!\" exclaimed Tom excitedly, adding to\nhimself with a lively sense of satisfaction, \"In truth, being a king is\nnot all dreariness--it hath its compensations and conveniences.\"\n\nThe Earl called a page, and sent him to the captain of the guard with\nthe order--\n\n\"Let the mob be halted, and inquiry made concerning the occasion of its\nmovement. \u00a0By the King's command!\"\n\nA few seconds later a long rank of the royal guards, cased in flashing\nsteel, filed out at the gates and formed across the highway in front\nof the multitude. \u00a0A messenger returned, to report that the crowd were\nfollowing a man, a woman, and a young girl to execution for crimes\ncommitted against the peace and dignity of the realm.\n\nDeath--and a violent death--for these poor unfortunates! \u00a0The thought\nwrung Tom's heart-strings. \u00a0The spirit of compassion took control of\nhim, to the exclusion of all other considerations; he never thought of\nthe offended laws, or of the grief or loss which these three criminals\nhad inflicted upon their victims; he could think of nothing but the\nscaffold and the grisly fate hanging over the heads of the condemned.\n\u00a0His concern made him even forget, for the moment, that he was but the\nfalse shadow of a king, not the substance; and before he knew it he had\nblurted out the command--\n\n\"Bring them here!\"\n\nThen he blushed scarlet, and a sort of apology sprung to his lips; but\nobserving that his order had wrought no sort of surprise in the Earl or\nthe waiting page, he suppressed the words he was about to utter. \u00a0The\npage, in the most matter-of-course way, made a profound obeisance\nand retired backwards out of the room to deliver the command. \u00a0Tom\nexperienced a glow of pride and a renewed sense of the compensating\nadvantages of the kingly office. He said to himself, \"Truly it is like\nwhat I was used to feel when I read the old priest's tales, and did\nimagine mine own self a prince, giving law and command to all, saying\n'Do this, do that,' whilst none durst offer let or hindrance to my\nwill.\"\n\nNow the doors swung open; one high-sounding title after another was\nannounced, the personages owning them followed, and the place was\nquickly half-filled with noble folk and finery. \u00a0But Tom was hardly\nconscious of the presence of these people, so wrought up was he and so\nintensely absorbed in that other and more interesting matter. \u00a0He seated\nhimself absently in his chair of state, and turned his eyes upon the\ndoor with manifestations of impatient expectancy; seeing which, the\ncompany forbore to trouble him, and fell to chatting a mixture of public\nbusiness and court gossip one with another.\n\nIn a little while the measured tread of military men was heard\napproaching, and the culprits entered the presence in charge of an\nunder-sheriff and escorted by a detail of the king's guard. \u00a0The civil\nofficer knelt before Tom, then stood aside; the three doomed persons\nknelt, also, and remained so; the guard took position behind Tom's\nchair. \u00a0Tom scanned the prisoners curiously. Something about the dress\nor appearance of the man had stirred a vague memory in him. \u00a0\"Methinks\nI have seen this man ere now . . . but the when or the where fail\nme.\"--Such was Tom's thought. Just then the man glanced quickly up and\nquickly dropped his face again, not being able to endure the awful port\nof sovereignty; but the one full glimpse of the face which Tom got was\nsufficient. \u00a0He said to himself: \"Now is the matter clear; this is the\nstranger that plucked Giles Witt out of the Thames, and saved his life,\nthat windy, bitter, first day of the New Year--a brave good deed--pity\nhe hath been doing baser ones and got himself in this sad case . . . I\nhave not forgot the day, neither the hour; by reason that an hour after,\nupon the stroke of eleven, I did get a hiding by the hand of Gammer\nCanty which was of so goodly and admired severity that all that\nwent before or followed after it were but fondlings and caresses by\ncomparison.\"\n\nTom now ordered that the woman and the girl be removed from the presence\nfor a little time; then addressed himself to the under-sheriff, saying--\n\n\"Good sir, what is this man's offence?\"\n\nThe officer knelt, and answered--\n\n\"So please your Majesty, he hath taken the life of a subject by poison.\"\n\nTom's compassion for the prisoner, and admiration of him as the daring\nrescuer of a drowning boy, experienced a most damaging shock.\n\n\"The thing was proven upon him?\" he asked.\n\n\"Most clearly, sire.\"\n\nTom sighed, and said--\n\n\"Take him away--he hath earned his death. \u00a0'Tis a pity, for he was a\nbrave heart--na--na, I mean he hath the _look_ of it!\"\n\nThe prisoner clasped his hands together with sudden energy, and wrung\nthem despairingly, at the same time appealing imploringly to the 'King'\nin broken and terrified phrases--\n\n\"O my lord the King, an' thou canst pity the lost, have pity upon me! \u00a0I\nam innocent--neither hath that wherewith I am charged been more than\nbut lamely proved--yet I speak not of that; the judgment is gone forth\nagainst me and may not suffer alteration; yet in mine extremity I beg a\nboon, for my doom is more than I can bear. A grace, a grace, my lord the\nKing! in thy royal compassion grant my prayer--give commandment that I\nbe hanged!\"\n\nTom was amazed. \u00a0This was not the outcome he had looked for.\n\n\"Odds my life, a strange _boon_! \u00a0Was it not the fate intended thee?\"\n\n\"O good my liege, not so! \u00a0It is ordered that I be _boiled alive_!\"\n\nThe hideous surprise of these words almost made Tom spring from his\nchair. \u00a0As soon as he could recover his wits he cried out--\n\n\"Have thy wish, poor soul! an' thou had poisoned a hundred men thou\nshouldst not suffer so miserable a death.\"\n\nThe prisoner bowed his face to the ground and burst into passionate\nexpressions of gratitude--ending with--\n\n\"If ever thou shouldst know misfortune--which God forefend!--may thy\ngoodness to me this day be remembered and requited!\"\n\nTom turned to the Earl of Hertford, and said--\n\n\"My lord, is it believable that there was warrant for this man's\nferocious doom?\"\n\n\"It is the law, your Grace--for poisoners. \u00a0In Germany coiners be boiled\nto death in _oil_--not cast in of a sudden, but by a rope let down into\nthe oil by degrees, and slowly; first the feet, then the legs, then--\"\n\n\"O prithee no more, my lord, I cannot bear it!\" cried Tom, covering\nhis eyes with his hands to shut out the picture. \u00a0\"I beseech your good\nlordship that order be taken to change this law--oh, let no more poor\ncreatures be visited with its tortures.\"\n\nThe Earl's face showed profound gratification, for he was a man of\nmerciful and generous impulses--a thing not very common with his class\nin that fierce age. \u00a0He said--\n\n\"These your Grace's noble words have sealed its doom. \u00a0History will\nremember it to the honour of your royal house.\"\n\nThe under-sheriff was about to remove his prisoner; Tom gave him a sign\nto wait; then he said--\n\n\"Good sir, I would look into this matter further. \u00a0The man has said his\ndeed was but lamely proved. \u00a0Tell me what thou knowest.\"\n\n\"If the King's grace please, it did appear upon the trial that this\nman entered into a house in the hamlet of Islington where one lay\nsick--three witnesses say it was at ten of the clock in the morning, and\ntwo say it was some minutes later--the sick man being alone at the time,\nand sleeping--and presently the man came forth again and went his\nway. \u00a0The sick man died within the hour, being torn with spasms and\nretchings.\"\n\n\"Did any see the poison given? \u00a0Was poison found?\"\n\n\"Marry, no, my liege.\"\n\n\"Then how doth one know there was poison given at all?\"\n\n\"Please your Majesty, the doctors testified that none die with such\nsymptoms but by poison.\"\n\nWeighty evidence, this, in that simple age. \u00a0Tom recognised its\nformidable nature, and said--\n\n\"The doctor knoweth his trade--belike they were right. \u00a0The matter hath\nan ill-look for this poor man.\"\n\n\"Yet was not this all, your Majesty; there is more and worse. Many\ntestified that a witch, since gone from the village, none know whither,\ndid foretell, and speak it privately in their ears, that the sick\nman _would die by poison_--and more, that a stranger would give it--a\nstranger with brown hair and clothed in a worn and common garb; and\nsurely this prisoner doth answer woundily to the bill. \u00a0Please your\nMajesty to give the circumstance that solemn weight which is its due,\nseeing it was _foretold_.\"\n\nThis was an argument of tremendous force in that superstitious day. \u00a0Tom\nfelt that the thing was settled; if evidence was worth anything, this\npoor fellow's guilt was proved. \u00a0Still he offered the prisoner a chance,\nsaying--\n\n\"If thou canst say aught in thy behalf, speak.\"\n\n\"Nought that will avail, my King. \u00a0I am innocent, yet cannot I make\nit appear. \u00a0I have no friends, else might I show that I was not in\nIslington that day; so also might I show that at that hour they name I\nwas above a league away, seeing I was at Wapping Old Stairs; yea more,\nmy King, for I could show, that whilst they say I was _taking_ life, I\nwas _saving_ it. \u00a0A drowning boy--\"\n\n\"Peace! \u00a0Sheriff, name the day the deed was done!\"\n\n\"At ten in the morning, or some minutes later, the first day of the New\nYear, most illustrious--\"\n\n\"Let the prisoner go free--it is the King's will!\"\n\nAnother blush followed this unregal outburst, and he covered his\nindecorum as well as he could by adding--\n\n\"It enrageth me that a man should be hanged upon such idle, hare-brained\nevidence!\"\n\nA low buzz of admiration swept through the assemblage. \u00a0It was not\nadmiration of the decree that had been delivered by Tom, for the\npropriety or expediency of pardoning a convicted poisoner was a thing\nwhich few there would have felt justified in either admitting or\nadmiring--no, the admiration was for the intelligence and spirit which\nTom had displayed. \u00a0Some of the low-voiced remarks were to this effect--\n\n\"This is no mad king--he hath his wits sound.\"\n\n\"How sanely he put his questions--how like his former natural self was\nthis abrupt imperious disposal of the matter!\"\n\n\"God be thanked, his infirmity is spent! \u00a0This is no weakling, but a\nking. \u00a0He hath borne himself like to his own father.\"\n\nThe air being filled with applause, Tom's ear necessarily caught a\nlittle of it. \u00a0The effect which this had upon him was to put him\ngreatly at his ease, and also to charge his system with very gratifying\nsensations.\n\nHowever, his juvenile curiosity soon rose superior to these pleasant\nthoughts and feelings; he was eager to know what sort of deadly mischief\nthe woman and the little girl could have been about; so, by his command,\nthe two terrified and sobbing creatures were brought before him.\n\n\"What is it that these have done?\" he inquired of the sheriff.\n\n\"Please your Majesty, a black crime is charged upon them, and clearly\nproven; wherefore the judges have decreed, according to the law, that\nthey be hanged. \u00a0They sold themselves to the devil--such is their\ncrime.\"\n\nTom shuddered. \u00a0He had been taught to abhor people who did this wicked\nthing. \u00a0Still, he was not going to deny himself the pleasure of feeding\nhis curiosity for all that; so he asked--\n\n\"Where was this done?--and when?\"\n\n\"On a midnight in December, in a ruined church, your Majesty.\"\n\nTom shuddered again.\n\n\"Who was there present?\"\n\n\"Only these two, your grace--and _that other_.\"\n\n\"Have these confessed?\"\n\n\"Nay, not so, sire--they do deny it.\"\n\n\"Then prithee, how was it known?\"\n\n\"Certain witness did see them wending thither, good your Majesty; this\nbred the suspicion, and dire effects have since confirmed and justified\nit. \u00a0In particular, it is in evidence that through the wicked power so\nobtained, they did invoke and bring about a storm that wasted all the\nregion round about. \u00a0Above forty witnesses have proved the storm; and\nsooth one might have had a thousand, for all had reason to remember it,\nsith all had suffered by it.\"\n\n\"Certes this is a serious matter.\" \u00a0Tom turned this dark piece of\nscoundrelism over in his mind a while, then asked--\n\n\"Suffered the woman also by the storm?\"\n\nSeveral old heads among the assemblage nodded their recognition of\nthe wisdom of this question. \u00a0The sheriff, however, saw nothing\nconsequential in the inquiry; he answered, with simple directness--\n\n\"Indeed did she, your Majesty, and most righteously, as all aver. Her\nhabitation was swept away, and herself and child left shelterless.\"\n\n\"Methinks the power to do herself so ill a turn was dearly bought. She\nhad been cheated, had she paid but a farthing for it; that she paid\nher soul, and her child's, argueth that she is mad; if she is mad she\nknoweth not what she doth, therefore sinneth not.\"\n\nThe elderly heads nodded recognition of Tom's wisdom once more, and one\nindividual murmured, \"An' the King be mad himself, according to report,\nthen is it a madness of a sort that would improve the sanity of some I\nwot of, if by the gentle providence of God they could but catch it.\"\n\n\"What age hath the child?\" asked Tom.\n\n\"Nine years, please your Majesty.\"\n\n\"By the law of England may a child enter into covenant and sell itself,\nmy lord?\" asked Tom, turning to a learned judge.\n\n\"The law doth not permit a child to make or meddle in any weighty\nmatter, good my liege, holding that its callow wit unfitteth it to cope\nwith the riper wit and evil schemings of them that are its elders. \u00a0The\n_Devil_ may buy a child, if he so choose, and the child agree thereto,\nbut not an Englishman--in this latter case the contract would be null\nand void.\"\n\n\"It seemeth a rude unchristian thing, and ill contrived, that English\nlaw denieth privileges to Englishmen to waste them on the devil!\" cried\nTom, with honest heat.\n\nThis novel view of the matter excited many smiles, and was stored\naway in many heads to be repeated about the Court as evidence of Tom's\noriginality as well as progress toward mental health.\n\nThe elder culprit had ceased from sobbing, and was hanging upon Tom's\nwords with an excited interest and a growing hope. \u00a0Tom noticed this,\nand it strongly inclined his sympathies toward her in her perilous and\nunfriended situation. \u00a0Presently he asked--\n\n\"How wrought they to bring the storm?\"\n\n\"_By pulling off their stockings_, sire.\"\n\nThis astonished Tom, and also fired his curiosity to fever heat. He\nsaid, eagerly--\n\n\"It is wonderful! \u00a0Hath it always this dread effect?\"\n\n\"Always, my liege--at least if the woman desire it, and utter the\nneedful words, either in her mind or with her tongue.\"\n\nTom turned to the woman, and said with impetuous zeal--\n\n\"Exert thy power--I would see a storm!\"\n\nThere was a sudden paling of cheeks in the superstitious assemblage, and\na general, though unexpressed, desire to get out of the place--all of\nwhich was lost upon Tom, who was dead to everything but the proposed\ncataclysm. \u00a0Seeing a puzzled and astonished look in the woman's face, he\nadded, excitedly--\n\n\"Never fear--thou shalt be blameless. \u00a0More--thou shalt go free--none\nshall touch thee. \u00a0Exert thy power.\"\n\n\"Oh, my lord the King, I have it not--I have been falsely accused.\"\n\n\"Thy fears stay thee. \u00a0Be of good heart, thou shalt suffer no harm.\n\u00a0Make a storm--it mattereth not how small a one--I require nought great\nor harmful, but indeed prefer the opposite--do this and thy life is\nspared--thou shalt go out free, with thy child, bearing the King's\npardon, and safe from hurt or malice from any in the realm.\"\n\nThe woman prostrated herself, and protested, with tears, that she had\nno power to do the miracle, else she would gladly win her child's life\nalone, and be content to lose her own, if by obedience to the King's\ncommand so precious a grace might be acquired.\n\nTom urged--the woman still adhered to her declarations. \u00a0Finally he\nsaid--\n\n\"I think the woman hath said true. \u00a0An' _my_ mother were in her place\nand gifted with the devil's functions, she had not stayed a moment to\ncall her storms and lay the whole land in ruins, if the saving of my\nforfeit life were the price she got! \u00a0It is argument that other\nmothers are made in like mould. \u00a0Thou art free, goodwife--thou and thy\nchild--for I do think thee innocent. \u00a0_Now_ thou'st nought to fear,\nbeing pardoned--pull off thy stockings!--an' thou canst make me a storm,\nthou shalt be rich!\"\n\nThe redeemed creature was loud in her gratitude, and proceeded to\nobey, whilst Tom looked on with eager expectancy, a little marred\nby apprehension; the courtiers at the same time manifesting decided\ndiscomfort and uneasiness. \u00a0The woman stripped her own feet and her\nlittle girl's also, and plainly did her best to reward the King's\ngenerosity with an earthquake, but it was all a failure and a\ndisappointment. \u00a0Tom sighed, and said--\n\n\"There, good soul, trouble thyself no further, thy power is departed\nout of thee. \u00a0Go thy way in peace; and if it return to thee at any time,\nforget me not, but fetch me a storm.\" {13}\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI. The State Dinner.\n\nThe dinner hour drew near--yet strangely enough, the thought brought\nbut slight discomfort to Tom, and hardly any terror. \u00a0The morning's\nexperiences had wonderfully built up his confidence; the poor little\nash-cat was already more wonted to his strange garret, after four\ndays' habit, than a mature person could have become in a full month. \u00a0A\nchild's facility in accommodating itself to circumstances was never more\nstrikingly illustrated.\n\nLet us privileged ones hurry to the great banqueting-room and have a\nglance at matters there whilst Tom is being made ready for the\nimposing occasion. \u00a0It is a spacious apartment, with gilded pillars\nand pilasters, and pictured walls and ceilings. \u00a0At the door stand tall\nguards, as rigid as statues, dressed in rich and picturesque costumes,\nand bearing halberds. \u00a0In a high gallery which runs all around the place\nis a band of musicians and a packed company of citizens of both sexes,\nin brilliant attire. \u00a0In the centre of the room, upon a raised platform,\nis Tom's table. Now let the ancient chronicler speak:\n\n\"A gentleman enters the room bearing a rod, and along with him another\nbearing a tablecloth, which, after they have both kneeled three times\nwith the utmost veneration, he spreads upon the table, and after\nkneeling again they both retire; then come two others, one with the rod\nagain, the other with a salt-cellar, a plate, and bread; when they have\nkneeled as the others had done, and placed what was brought upon the\ntable, they too retire with the same ceremonies performed by the first;\nat last come two nobles, richly clothed, one bearing a tasting-knife,\nwho, after prostrating themselves three times in the most graceful\nmanner, approach and rub the table with bread and salt, with as much awe\nas if the King had been present.\" {6}\n\nSo end the solemn preliminaries. \u00a0Now, far down the echoing corridors\nwe hear a bugle-blast, and the indistinct cry, \"Place for the King!\n\u00a0Way for the King's most excellent majesty!\" \u00a0These sounds are momently\nrepeated--they grow nearer and nearer--and presently, almost in our\nfaces, the martial note peals and the cry rings out, \"Way for the King!\"\n\u00a0At this instant the shining pageant appears, and files in at the door,\nwith a measured march. Let the chronicler speak again:--\n\n\"First come Gentlemen, Barons, Earls, Knights of the Garter, all richly\ndressed and bareheaded; next comes the Chancellor, between two, one of\nwhich carries the royal sceptre, the other the Sword of State in a red\nscabbard, studded with golden fleurs-de-lis, the point upwards; next\ncomes the King himself--whom, upon his appearing, twelve trumpets and\nmany drums salute with a great burst of welcome, whilst all in the\ngalleries rise in their places, crying 'God save the King!' \u00a0After him\ncome nobles attached to his person, and on his right and left march his\nguard of honour, his fifty Gentlemen Pensioners, with gilt battle-axes.\"\n\nThis was all fine and pleasant. \u00a0Tom's pulse beat high, and a glad light\nwas in his eye. \u00a0He bore himself right gracefully, and all the more\nso because he was not thinking of how he was doing it, his mind being\ncharmed and occupied with the blithe sights and sounds about him--and\nbesides, nobody can be very ungraceful in nicely-fitting beautiful\nclothes after he has grown a little used to them--especially if he is\nfor the moment unconscious of them. Tom remembered his instructions, and\nacknowledged his greeting with a slight inclination of his plumed head,\nand a courteous \"I thank ye, my good people.\"\n\nHe seated himself at table, without removing his cap; and did it without\nthe least embarrassment; for to eat with one's cap on was the one\nsolitary royal custom upon which the kings and the Cantys met upon\ncommon ground, neither party having any advantage over the other in the\nmatter of old familiarity with it. \u00a0The pageant broke up and grouped\nitself picturesquely, and remained bareheaded.\n\nNow to the sound of gay music the Yeomen of the Guard entered,--\"the\ntallest and mightiest men in England, they being carefully selected in\nthis regard\"--but we will let the chronicler tell about it:--\n\n\"The Yeomen of the Guard entered, bareheaded, clothed in scarlet, with\ngolden roses upon their backs; and these went and came, bringing in each\nturn a course of dishes, served in plate. \u00a0These dishes were received\nby a gentleman in the same order they were brought, and placed upon\nthe table, while the taster gave to each guard a mouthful to eat of the\nparticular dish he had brought, for fear of any poison.\"\n\nTom made a good dinner, notwithstanding he was conscious that hundreds\nof eyes followed each morsel to his mouth and watched him eat it with an\ninterest which could not have been more intense if it had been a deadly\nexplosive and was expected to blow him up and scatter him all about\nthe place. \u00a0He was careful not to hurry, and equally careful not to do\nanything whatever for himself, but wait till the proper official knelt\ndown and did it for him. \u00a0He got through without a mistake--flawless and\nprecious triumph.\n\nWhen the meal was over at last and he marched away in the midst of his\nbright pageant, with the happy noises in his ears of blaring bugles,\nrolling drums, and thundering acclamations, he felt that if he had seen\nthe worst of dining in public it was an ordeal which he would be glad\nto endure several times a day if by that means he could but buy himself\nfree from some of the more formidable requirements of his royal office.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII. Foo-foo the First.\n\nMiles Hendon hurried along toward the Southwark end of the bridge,\nkeeping a sharp look-out for the persons he sought, and hoping and\nexpecting to overtake them presently. \u00a0He was disappointed in this,\nhowever. \u00a0By asking questions, he was enabled to track them part of the\nway through Southwark; then all traces ceased, and he was perplexed as\nto how to proceed. \u00a0Still, he continued his efforts as best he\ncould during the rest of the day. \u00a0Nightfall found him leg-weary,\nhalf-famished, and his desire as far from accomplishment as ever; so\nhe supped at the Tabard Inn and went to bed, resolved to make an early\nstart in the morning, and give the town an exhaustive search. \u00a0As he lay\nthinking and planning, he presently began to reason thus: \u00a0The boy would\nescape from the ruffian, his reputed father, if possible; would he go\nback to London and seek his former haunts? \u00a0No, he would not do that,\nhe would avoid recapture. What, then, would he do? \u00a0Never having had a\nfriend in the world, or a protector, until he met Miles Hendon, he would\nnaturally try to find that friend again, provided the effort did not\nrequire him to go toward London and danger. \u00a0He would strike for Hendon\nHall, that is what he would do, for he knew Hendon was homeward bound\nand there he might expect to find him. \u00a0Yes, the case was plain to\nHendon--he must lose no more time in Southwark, but move at once through\nKent, toward Monk's Holm, searching the wood and inquiring as he went.\n\u00a0Let us return to the vanished little King now.\n\nThe ruffian whom the waiter at the inn on the bridge saw 'about to join'\nthe youth and the King did not exactly join them, but fell in close\nbehind them and followed their steps. \u00a0He said nothing. His left arm was\nin a sling, and he wore a large green patch over his left eye; he limped\nslightly, and used an oaken staff as a support. \u00a0The youth led the King\na crooked course through Southwark, and by-and-by struck into the\nhigh road beyond. \u00a0The King was irritated, now, and said he would stop\nhere--it was Hendon's place to come to him, not his to go to Hendon. \u00a0He\nwould not endure such insolence; he would stop where he was. \u00a0The youth\nsaid--\n\n\"Thou'lt tarry here, and thy friend lying wounded in the wood yonder?\n\u00a0So be it, then.\"\n\nThe King's manner changed at once. \u00a0He cried out--\n\n\"Wounded? \u00a0And who hath dared to do it? \u00a0But that is apart; lead on,\nlead on! \u00a0Faster, sirrah! \u00a0Art shod with lead? \u00a0Wounded, is he? \u00a0Now\nthough the doer of it be a duke's son he shall rue it!\"\n\nIt was some distance to the wood, but the space was speedily traversed.\nThe youth looked about him, discovered a bough sticking in the ground,\nwith a small bit of rag tied to it, then led the way into the forest,\nwatching for similar boughs and finding them at intervals; they were\nevidently guides to the point he was aiming at. \u00a0By-and-by an open place\nwas reached, where were the charred remains of a farm-house, and near\nthem a barn which was falling to ruin and decay. \u00a0There was no sign of\nlife anywhere, and utter silence prevailed. \u00a0The youth entered the barn,\nthe King following eagerly upon his heels. \u00a0No one there! The King shot\na surprised and suspicious glance at the youth, and asked--\n\n\"Where is he?\"\n\nA mocking laugh was his answer. \u00a0The King was in a rage in a moment; he\nseized a billet of wood and was in the act of charging upon the youth\nwhen another mocking laugh fell upon his ear. \u00a0It was from the lame\nruffian who had been following at a distance. The King turned and said\nangrily--\n\n\"Who art thou? \u00a0What is thy business here?\"\n\n\"Leave thy foolery,\" said the man, \"and quiet thyself. \u00a0My disguise is\nnone so good that thou canst pretend thou knowest not thy father through\nit.\"\n\n\"Thou art not my father. \u00a0I know thee not. \u00a0I am the King. \u00a0If thou hast\nhid my servant, find him for me, or thou shalt sup sorrow for what thou\nhast done.\"\n\nJohn Canty replied, in a stern and measured voice--\n\n\"It is plain thou art mad, and I am loath to punish thee; \u00a0but if thou\nprovoke me, I must. \u00a0Thy prating doth no harm here, where there are\nno ears that need to mind thy follies; yet it is well to practise thy\ntongue to wary speech, that it may do no hurt when our quarters change.\n\u00a0I have done a murder, and may not tarry at home--neither shalt thou,\nseeing I need thy service. \u00a0My name is changed, for wise reasons; it is\nHobbs--John Hobbs; thine is Jack--charge thy memory accordingly. \u00a0Now,\nthen, speak. \u00a0Where is thy mother? \u00a0Where are thy sisters? \u00a0They came\nnot to the place appointed--knowest thou whither they went?\"\n\nThe King answered sullenly--\n\n\"Trouble me not with these riddles. \u00a0My mother is dead; my sisters are\nin the palace.\"\n\nThe youth near by burst into a derisive laugh, and the King would have\nassaulted him, but Canty--or Hobbs, as he now called himself--prevented\nhim, and said--\n\n\"Peace, Hugo, vex him not; his mind is astray, and thy ways fret him.\nSit thee down, Jack, and quiet thyself; thou shalt have a morsel to eat,\nanon.\"\n\nHobbs and Hugo fell to talking together, in low voices, and the King\nremoved himself as far as he could from their disagreeable company.\n\u00a0He withdrew into the twilight of the farther end of the barn, where\nhe found the earthen floor bedded a foot deep with straw. \u00a0He lay down\nhere, drew straw over himself in lieu of blankets, and was soon absorbed\nin thinking. \u00a0He had many griefs, but the minor ones were swept almost\ninto forgetfulness by the supreme one, the loss of his father. \u00a0To\nthe rest of the world the name of Henry VIII. brought a shiver, and\nsuggested an ogre whose nostrils breathed destruction and whose hand\ndealt scourgings and death; but to this boy the name brought only\nsensations of pleasure; the figure it invoked wore a countenance that\nwas all gentleness and affection. \u00a0He called to mind a long succession\nof loving passages between his father and himself, and dwelt fondly upon\nthem, his unstinted tears attesting how deep and real was the grief that\npossessed his heart. As the afternoon wasted away, the lad, wearied with\nhis troubles, sank gradually into a tranquil and healing slumber.\n\nAfter a considerable time--he could not tell how long--his senses\nstruggled to a half-consciousness, and as he lay with closed eyes\nvaguely wondering where he was and what had been happening, he noted a\nmurmurous sound, the sullen beating of rain upon the roof. A snug sense\nof comfort stole over him, which was rudely broken, the next moment,\nby a chorus of piping cackles and coarse laughter. \u00a0It startled him\ndisagreeably, and he unmuffled his head to see whence this interruption\nproceeded. \u00a0A grim and unsightly picture met his eye. \u00a0A bright fire was\nburning in the middle of the floor, at the other end of the barn; and\naround it, and lit weirdly up by the red glare, lolled and sprawled the\nmotliest company of tattered gutter-scum and ruffians, of both sexes, he\nhad ever read or dreamed of. \u00a0There were huge stalwart men, brown\nwith exposure, long-haired, and clothed in fantastic rags; there were\nmiddle-sized youths, of truculent countenance, and similarly clad; there\nwere blind mendicants, with patched or bandaged eyes; crippled ones,\nwith wooden legs and crutches; diseased ones, with running sores peeping\nfrom ineffectual wrappings; there was a villain-looking pedlar with\nhis pack; a knife-grinder, a tinker, and a barber-surgeon, with the\nimplements of their trades; some of the females were hardly-grown girls,\nsome were at prime, some were old and wrinkled hags, and all were loud,\nbrazen, foul-mouthed; and all soiled and slatternly; there were three\nsore-faced babies; there were a couple of starveling curs, with strings\nabout their necks, whose office was to lead the blind.\n\nThe night was come, the gang had just finished feasting, an orgy was\nbeginning; the can of liquor was passing from mouth to mouth. A general\ncry broke forth--\n\n\"A song! a song from the Bat and Dick and Dot-and-go-One!\"\n\nOne of the blind men got up, and made ready by casting aside the patches\nthat sheltered his excellent eyes, and the pathetic placard which\nrecited the cause of his calamity. \u00a0Dot-and-go-One disencumbered himself\nof his timber leg and took his place, upon sound and healthy limbs,\nbeside his fellow-rascal; then they roared out a rollicking ditty,\nand were reinforced by the whole crew, at the end of each stanza, in\na rousing chorus. \u00a0By the time the last stanza was reached, the\nhalf-drunken enthusiasm had risen to such a pitch, that everybody joined\nin and sang it clear through from the beginning, producing a volume of\nvillainous sound that made the rafters quake. \u00a0These were the inspiring\nwords:--\n\n'Bien Darkman's then, Bouse Mort and Ken, The bien Coves bings awast, On\nChates to trine by Rome Coves dine For his long lib at last. Bing'd out\nbien Morts and toure, and toure, Bing out of the Rome vile bine, And\ntoure the Cove that cloy'd your duds, Upon the Chates to trine.'\n\n(From'The English Rogue.' London, 1665.)\n\nConversation followed; not in the thieves' dialect of the song, for that\nwas only used in talk when unfriendly ears might be listening. \u00a0In the\ncourse of it, it appeared that 'John Hobbs' was not altogether a new\nrecruit, but had trained in the gang at some former time. \u00a0His later\nhistory was called for, and when he said he had 'accidentally' killed a\nman, considerable satisfaction was expressed; when he added that the\nman was a priest, he was roundly applauded, and had to take a drink with\neverybody. \u00a0Old acquaintances welcomed him joyously, and new ones were\nproud to shake him by the hand. \u00a0He was asked why he had 'tarried away\nso many months.' \u00a0He answered--\n\n\"London is better than the country, and safer, these late years, the\nlaws be so bitter and so diligently enforced. \u00a0An' I had not had that\naccident, I had stayed there. \u00a0I had resolved to stay, and never more\nventure country-wards--but the accident has ended that.\"\n\nHe inquired how many persons the gang numbered now. \u00a0The 'ruffler,' or\nchief, answered--\n\n\"Five and twenty sturdy budges, bulks, files, clapperdogeons and\nmaunders, counting the dells and doxies and other morts. {7} \u00a0Most are\nhere, the rest are wandering eastward, along the winter lay. We follow\nat dawn.\"\n\n\"I do not see the Wen among the honest folk about me. \u00a0Where may he be?\"\n\n\"Poor lad, his diet is brimstone, now, and over hot for a delicate\ntaste. He was killed in a brawl, somewhere about midsummer.\"\n\n\"I sorrow to hear that; the Wen was a capable man, and brave.\"\n\n\"That was he, truly. \u00a0Black Bess, his dell, is of us yet, but absent on\nthe eastward tramp; a fine lass, of nice ways and orderly conduct, none\never seeing her drunk above four days in the seven.\"\n\n\"She was ever strict--I remember it well--a goodly wench and worthy\nall commendation. \u00a0Her mother was more free and less particular; a\ntroublesome and ugly-tempered beldame, but furnished with a wit above\nthe common.\"\n\n\"We lost her through it. \u00a0Her gift of palmistry and other sorts of\nfortune-telling begot for her at last a witch's name and fame. The\nlaw roasted her to death at a slow fire. \u00a0It did touch me to a sort of\ntenderness to see the gallant way she met her lot--cursing and reviling\nall the crowd that gaped and gazed around her, whilst the flames licked\nupward toward her face and catched her thin locks and crackled about\nher old gray head--cursing them! why an' thou should'st live a thousand\nyears thoud'st never hear so masterful a cursing. \u00a0Alack, her art died\nwith her. \u00a0There be base and weakling imitations left, but no true\nblasphemy.\"\n\nThe Ruffler sighed; the listeners sighed in sympathy; a general\ndepression fell upon the company for a moment, for even hardened\noutcasts like these are not wholly dead to sentiment, but are able to\nfeel a fleeting sense of loss and affliction at wide intervals and\nunder peculiarly favouring circumstances--as in cases like to this, for\ninstance, when genius and culture depart and leave no heir. \u00a0However, a\ndeep drink all round soon restored the spirits of the mourners.\n\n\"Have any others of our friends fared hardly?\" asked Hobbs.\n\n\"Some--yes. \u00a0Particularly new comers--such as small husbandmen turned\nshiftless and hungry upon the world because their farms were taken from\nthem to be changed to sheep ranges. \u00a0They begged, and were whipped at\nthe cart's tail, naked from the girdle up, till the blood ran; then set\nin the stocks to be pelted; they begged again, were whipped again, and\ndeprived of an ear; they begged a third time--poor devils, what else\ncould they do?--and were branded on the cheek with a red-hot iron, then\nsold for slaves; they ran away, were hunted down, and hanged. \u00a0'Tis\na brief tale, and quickly told. \u00a0Others of us have fared less hardly.\nStand forth, Yokel, Burns, and Hodge--show your adornments!\"\n\nThese stood up and stripped away some of their rags, exposing their\nbacks, criss-crossed with ropy old welts left by the lash; one turned\nup his hair and showed the place where a left ear had once been; another\nshowed a brand upon his shoulder--the letter V--and a mutilated ear; the\nthird said--\n\n\"I am Yokel, once a farmer and prosperous, with loving wife and\nkids--now am I somewhat different in estate and calling; and the wife\nand kids are gone; mayhap they are in heaven, mayhap in--in the other\nplace--but the kindly God be thanked, they bide no more in _England_!\n\u00a0My good old blameless mother strove to earn bread by nursing the sick;\none of these died, the doctors knew not how, so my mother was burnt for\na witch, whilst my babes looked on and wailed. \u00a0English law!--up,\nall, with your cups!--now all together and with a cheer!--drink to the\nmerciful English law that delivered _her_ from the English hell! \u00a0Thank\nyou, mates, one and all. \u00a0I begged, from house to house--I and the\nwife--bearing with us the hungry kids--but it was crime to be hungry in\nEngland--so they stripped us and lashed us through three towns. \u00a0Drink\nye all again to the merciful English law!--for its lash drank deep of my\nMary's blood and its blessed deliverance came quick. \u00a0She lies there, in\nthe potter's field, safe from all harms. \u00a0And the kids--well, whilst\nthe law lashed me from town to town, they starved. Drink, lads--only\na drop--a drop to the poor kids, that never did any creature harm.\n\u00a0I begged again--begged, for a crust, and got the stocks and lost an\near--see, here bides the stump; I begged again, and here is the stump\nof the other to keep me minded of it. And still I begged again, and was\nsold for a slave--here on my cheek under this stain, if I washed it off,\nye might see the red S the branding-iron left there! \u00a0A _slave_! \u00a0Do\nyou understand that word? \u00a0An English _slave_!--that is he that stands\nbefore ye. \u00a0I have run from my master, and when I am found--the heavy\ncurse of heaven fall on the law of the land that hath commanded it!--I\nshall hang!\" {1}\n\nA ringing voice came through the murky air--\n\n\"Thou shalt _not_!--and this day the end of that law is come!\"\n\nAll turned, and saw the fantastic figure of the little King approaching\nhurriedly; as it emerged into the light and was clearly revealed, a\ngeneral explosion of inquiries broke out--\n\n\"Who is it? \u00a0_What_ is it? \u00a0Who art thou, manikin?\"\n\nThe boy stood unconfused in the midst of all those surprised and\nquestioning eyes, and answered with princely dignity--\n\n\"I am Edward, King of England.\"\n\nA wild burst of laughter followed, partly of derision and partly of\ndelight in the excellence of the joke. \u00a0The King was stung. \u00a0He said\nsharply--\n\n\"Ye mannerless vagrants, is this your recognition of the royal boon I\nhave promised?\"\n\nHe said more, with angry voice and excited gesture, but it was lost in\na whirlwind of laughter and mocking exclamations. \u00a0'John Hobbs' made\nseveral attempts to make himself heard above the din, and at last\nsucceeded--saying--\n\n\"Mates, he is my son, a dreamer, a fool, and stark mad--mind him not--he\nthinketh he _is_ the King.\"\n\n\"I _am_ the King,\" said Edward, turning toward him, \"as thou shalt know\nto thy cost, in good time. \u00a0Thou hast confessed a murder--thou shalt\nswing for it.\"\n\n\"_Thou'lt_ betray me?--_thou_? \u00a0An' I get my hands upon thee--\"\n\n\"Tut-tut!\" said the burley Ruffler, interposing in time to save the\nKing, and emphasising this service by knocking Hobbs down with his fist,\n\"hast respect for neither Kings _nor_ Rufflers? \u00a0An' thou insult my\npresence so again, I'll hang thee up myself.\" \u00a0Then he said to his\nMajesty, \"Thou must make no threats against thy mates, lad; and thou\nmust guard thy tongue from saying evil of them elsewhere. \u00a0_Be king_, if\nit please thy mad humour, but be not harmful in it. \u00a0Sink the title thou\nhast uttered--'tis treason; we be bad men in some few trifling ways, but\nnone among us is so base as to be traitor to his King; we be loving\nand loyal hearts, in that regard. \u00a0Note if I speak truth. \u00a0Now--all\ntogether: \u00a0'Long live Edward, King of England!'\"\n\n\"LONG LIVE EDWARD, KING OF ENGLAND!\"\n\nThe response came with such a thundergust from the motley crew that the\ncrazy building vibrated to the sound. \u00a0The little King's face lighted\nwith pleasure for an instant, and he slightly inclined his head, and\nsaid with grave simplicity--\n\n\"I thank you, my good people.\"\n\nThis unexpected result threw the company into convulsions of merriment.\nWhen something like quiet was presently come again, the Ruffler said,\nfirmly, but with an accent of good nature--\n\n\"Drop it, boy, 'tis not wise, nor well. \u00a0Humour thy fancy, if thou must,\nbut choose some other title.\"\n\nA tinker shrieked out a suggestion--\n\n\"Foo-foo the First, King of the Mooncalves!\"\n\nThe title 'took,' at once, every throat responded, and a roaring shout\nwent up, of--\n\n\"Long live Foo-foo the First, King of the Mooncalves!\" followed by\nhootings, cat-calls, and peals of laughter.\n\n\"Hale him forth, and crown him!\"\n\n\"Robe him!\"\n\n\"Sceptre him!\"\n\n\"Throne him!\"\n\nThese and twenty other cries broke out at once! and almost before the\npoor little victim could draw a breath he was crowned with a tin basin,\nrobed in a tattered blanket, throned upon a barrel, and sceptred with\nthe tinker's soldering-iron. \u00a0Then all flung themselves upon their\nknees about him and sent up a chorus of ironical wailings, and mocking\nsupplications, whilst they swabbed their eyes with their soiled and\nragged sleeves and aprons--\n\n\"Be gracious to us, O sweet King!\"\n\n\"Trample not upon thy beseeching worms, O noble Majesty!\"\n\n\"Pity thy slaves, and comfort them with a royal kick!\"\n\n\"Cheer us and warm us with thy gracious rays, O flaming sun of\nsovereignty!\"\n\n\"Sanctify the ground with the touch of thy foot, that we may eat the\ndirt and be ennobled!\"\n\n\"Deign to spit upon us, O Sire, that our children's children may tell of\nthy princely condescension, and be proud and happy for ever!\"\n\nBut the humorous tinker made the 'hit' of the evening and carried off\nthe honours. \u00a0Kneeling, he pretended to kiss the King's foot, and was\nindignantly spurned; whereupon he went about begging for a rag to paste\nover the place upon his face which had been touched by the foot, saying\nit must be preserved from contact with the vulgar air, and that he\nshould make his fortune by going on the highway and exposing it to\nview at the rate of a hundred shillings a sight. \u00a0He made himself so\nkillingly funny that he was the envy and admiration of the whole mangy\nrabble.\n\nTears of shame and indignation stood in the little monarch's eyes; and\nthe thought in his heart was, \"Had I offered them a deep wrong they\ncould not be more cruel--yet have I proffered nought but to do them a\nkindness--and it is thus they use me for it!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII. The Prince with the Tramps.\n\nThe troop of vagabonds turned out at early dawn, and set forward on\ntheir march. \u00a0There was a lowering sky overhead, sloppy ground under\nfoot, and a winter chill in the air. \u00a0All gaiety was gone from the\ncompany; some were sullen and silent, some were irritable and petulant,\nnone were gentle-humoured, all were thirsty.\n\nThe Ruffler put 'Jack' in Hugo's charge, with some brief instructions,\nand commanded John Canty to keep away from him and let him alone; he\nalso warned Hugo not to be too rough with the lad.\n\nAfter a while the weather grew milder, and the clouds lifted somewhat.\nThe troop ceased to shiver, and their spirits began to improve. \u00a0They\ngrew more and more cheerful, and finally began to chaff each other and\ninsult passengers along the highway. \u00a0This showed that they were awaking\nto an appreciation of life and its joys once more. \u00a0The dread in which\ntheir sort was held was apparent in the fact that everybody gave them\nthe road, and took their ribald insolences meekly, without venturing\nto talk back. They snatched linen from the hedges, occasionally in full\nview of the owners, who made no protest, but only seemed grateful that\nthey did not take the hedges, too.\n\nBy-and-by they invaded a small farmhouse and made themselves at home\nwhile the trembling farmer and his people swept the larder clean to\nfurnish a breakfast for them. \u00a0They chucked the housewife and her\ndaughters under the chin whilst receiving the food from their hands, and\nmade coarse jests about them, accompanied with insulting epithets and\nbursts of horse-laughter. \u00a0They threw bones and vegetables at the farmer\nand his sons, kept them dodging all the time, and applauded uproariously\nwhen a good hit was made. They ended by buttering the head of one of\nthe daughters who resented some of their familiarities. \u00a0When they took\ntheir leave they threatened to come back and burn the house over the\nheads of the family if any report of their doings got to the ears of the\nauthorities.\n\nAbout noon, after a long and weary tramp, the gang came to a halt behind\na hedge on the outskirts of a considerable village. \u00a0An hour was allowed\nfor rest, then the crew scattered themselves abroad to enter the village\nat different points to ply their various trades--'Jack' was sent with\nHugo. \u00a0They wandered hither and thither for some time, Hugo watching\nfor opportunities to do a stroke of business, but finding none--so he\nfinally said--\n\n\"I see nought to steal; it is a paltry place. \u00a0Wherefore we will beg.\"\n\n\"_We_, forsooth! \u00a0Follow thy trade--it befits thee. \u00a0But _I_ will not\nbeg.\"\n\n\"Thou'lt not beg!\" exclaimed Hugo, eyeing the King with surprise.\n\"Prithee, since when hast thou reformed?\"\n\n\"What dost thou mean?\"\n\n\"Mean? \u00a0Hast thou not begged the streets of London all thy life?\"\n\n\"I? \u00a0Thou idiot!\"\n\n\"Spare thy compliments--thy stock will last the longer. \u00a0Thy father says\nthou hast begged all thy days. \u00a0Mayhap he lied. Peradventure you will\neven make so bold as to _say_ he lied,\" scoffed Hugo.\n\n\"Him _you_ call my father? \u00a0Yes, he lied.\"\n\n\"Come, play not thy merry game of madman so far, mate; use it for thy\namusement, not thy hurt. \u00a0An' I tell him this, he will scorch thee\nfinely for it.\"\n\n\"Save thyself the trouble. \u00a0I will tell him.\"\n\n\"I like thy spirit, I do in truth; but I do not admire thy judgment.\nBone-rackings and bastings be plenty enow in this life, without going\nout of one's way to invite them. \u00a0But a truce to these matters; _I_\nbelieve your father. \u00a0I doubt not he can lie; I doubt not he _doth_\nlie, upon occasion, for the best of us do that; but there is no occasion\nhere. \u00a0A wise man does not waste so good a commodity as lying for\nnought. \u00a0But come; sith it is thy humour to give over begging,\nwherewithal shall we busy ourselves? \u00a0With robbing kitchens?\"\n\nThe King said, impatiently--\n\n\"Have done with this folly--you weary me!\"\n\nHugo replied, with temper--\n\n\"Now harkee, mate; you will not beg, you will not rob; so be it. But I\nwill tell you what you _will_ do. \u00a0You will play decoy whilst _I_ beg.\nRefuse, an' you think you may venture!\"\n\nThe King was about to reply contemptuously, when Hugo said,\ninterrupting--\n\n\"Peace! \u00a0Here comes one with a kindly face. \u00a0Now will I fall down in\na fit. \u00a0When the stranger runs to me, set you up a wail, and fall upon\nyour knees, seeming to weep; then cry out as all the devils of misery\nwere in your belly, and say, 'Oh, sir, it is my poor afflicted brother,\nand we be friendless; o' God's name cast through your merciful eyes one\npitiful look upon a sick, forsaken, and most miserable wretch; bestow\none little penny out of thy riches upon one smitten of God and ready\nto perish!'--and mind you, keep you _on_ wailing, and abate not till we\nbilk him of his penny, else shall you rue it.\"\n\nThen immediately Hugo began to moan, and groan, and roll his eyes, and\nreel and totter about; and when the stranger was close at hand, down he\nsprawled before him, with a shriek, and began to writhe and wallow in\nthe dirt, in seeming agony.\n\n\"O, dear, O dear!\" cried the benevolent stranger, \"O poor soul, poor\nsoul, how he doth suffer! \u00a0There--let me help thee up.\"\n\n\"O noble sir, forbear, and God love you for a princely gentleman--but it\ngiveth me cruel pain to touch me when I am taken so. \u00a0My brother there\nwill tell your worship how I am racked with anguish when these fits be\nupon me. \u00a0A penny, dear sir, a penny, to buy a little food; then leave\nme to my sorrows.\"\n\n\"A penny! thou shalt have three, thou hapless creature,\"--and he fumbled\nin his pocket with nervous haste and got them out. \"There, poor lad,\ntake them and most welcome. \u00a0Now come hither, my boy, and help me carry\nthy stricken brother to yon house, where--\"\n\n\"I am not his brother,\" said the King, interrupting.\n\n\"What! not his brother?\"\n\n\"Oh, hear him!\" groaned Hugo, then privately ground his teeth. \"He\ndenies his own brother--and he with one foot in the grave!\"\n\n\"Boy, thou art indeed hard of heart, if this is thy brother. \u00a0For\nshame!--and he scarce able to move hand or foot. \u00a0If he is not thy\nbrother, who is he, then?\"\n\n\"A beggar and a thief! \u00a0He has got your money and has picked your pocket\nlikewise. \u00a0An' thou would'st do a healing miracle, lay thy staff over\nhis shoulders and trust Providence for the rest.\"\n\nBut Hugo did not tarry for the miracle. \u00a0In a moment he was up and off\nlike the wind, the gentleman following after and raising the hue and cry\nlustily as he went. \u00a0The King, breathing deep gratitude to Heaven for\nhis own release, fled in the opposite direction, and did not slacken\nhis pace until he was out of harm's reach. \u00a0He took the first road that\noffered, and soon put the village behind him. \u00a0He hurried along, as\nbriskly as he could, during several hours, keeping a nervous watch over\nhis shoulder for pursuit; but his fears left him at last, and a grateful\nsense of security took their place. \u00a0He recognised, now, that he was\nhungry, and also very tired. \u00a0So he halted at a farmhouse; but when\nhe was about to speak, he was cut short and driven rudely away. \u00a0His\nclothes were against him.\n\nHe wandered on, wounded and indignant, and was resolved to put himself\nin the way of like treatment no more. \u00a0But hunger is pride's master; so,\nas the evening drew near, he made an attempt at another farmhouse; but\nhere he fared worse than before; for he was called hard names and was\npromised arrest as a vagrant except he moved on promptly.\n\nThe night came on, chilly and overcast; and still the footsore monarch\nlaboured slowly on. \u00a0He was obliged to keep moving, for every time he\nsat down to rest he was soon penetrated to the bone with the cold. \u00a0All\nhis sensations and experiences, as he moved through the solemn gloom\nand the empty vastness of the night, were new and strange to him. \u00a0At\nintervals he heard voices approach, pass by, and fade into silence; and\nas he saw nothing more of the bodies they belonged to than a sort of\nformless drifting blur, there was something spectral and uncanny about\nit all that made him shudder. \u00a0Occasionally he caught the twinkle of a\nlight--always far away, apparently--almost in another world; if he heard\nthe tinkle of a sheep's bell, it was vague, distant, indistinct;\nthe muffled lowing of the herds floated to him on the night wind in\nvanishing cadences, a mournful sound; now and then came the complaining\nhowl of a dog over viewless expanses of field and forest; all sounds\nwere remote; they made the little King feel that all life and activity\nwere far removed from him, and that he stood solitary, companionless, in\nthe centre of a measureless solitude.\n\nHe stumbled along, through the gruesome fascinations of this new\nexperience, startled occasionally by the soft rustling of the dry leaves\noverhead, so like human whispers they seemed to sound; and by-and-by he\ncame suddenly upon the freckled light of a tin lantern near at hand. \u00a0He\nstepped back into the shadows and waited. \u00a0The lantern stood by the\nopen door of a barn. \u00a0The King waited some time--there was no sound,\nand nobody stirring. \u00a0He got so cold, standing still, and the hospitable\nbarn looked so enticing, that at last he resolved to risk everything and\nenter. He started swiftly and stealthily, and just as he was crossing\nthe threshold he heard voices behind him. \u00a0He darted behind a cask,\nwithin the barn, and stooped down. \u00a0Two farm-labourers came in, bringing\nthe lantern with them, and fell to work, talking meanwhile. \u00a0Whilst they\nmoved about with the light, the King made good use of his eyes and took\nthe bearings of what seemed to be a good-sized stall at the further end\nof the place, purposing to grope his way to it when he should be left to\nhimself. \u00a0He also noted the position of a pile of horse blankets, midway\nof the route, with the intent to levy upon them for the service of the\ncrown of England for one night.\n\nBy-and-by the men finished and went away, fastening the door behind\nthem and taking the lantern with them. \u00a0The shivering King made for the\nblankets, with as good speed as the darkness would allow; gathered them\nup, and then groped his way safely to the stall. \u00a0Of two of the blankets\nhe made a bed, then covered himself with the remaining two. \u00a0He was a\nglad monarch, now, though the blankets were old and thin, and not quite\nwarm enough; and besides gave out a pungent horsey odour that was almost\nsuffocatingly powerful.\n\nAlthough the King was hungry and chilly, he was also so tired and so\ndrowsy that these latter influences soon began to get the advantage\nof the former, and he presently dozed off into a state of\nsemi-consciousness. \u00a0Then, just as he was on the point of losing himself\nwholly, he distinctly felt something touch him! \u00a0He was broad awake in\na moment, and gasping for breath. \u00a0The cold horror of that mysterious\ntouch in the dark almost made his heart stand still. \u00a0He lay motionless,\nand listened, scarcely breathing. But nothing stirred, and there was\nno sound. \u00a0He continued to listen, and wait, during what seemed a long\ntime, but still nothing stirred, and there was no sound. \u00a0So he began\nto drop into a drowse once more, at last; and all at once he felt that\nmysterious touch again! \u00a0It was a grisly thing, this light touch from\nthis noiseless and invisible presence; it made the boy sick with ghostly\nfears. \u00a0What should he do? \u00a0That was the question; but he did not know\nhow to answer it. \u00a0Should he leave these reasonably comfortable quarters\nand fly from this inscrutable horror? \u00a0But fly whither? \u00a0He could\nnot get out of the barn; and the idea of scurrying blindly hither and\nthither in the dark, within the captivity of the four walls, with this\nphantom gliding after him, and visiting him with that soft hideous touch\nupon cheek or shoulder at every turn, was intolerable. \u00a0But to stay\nwhere he was, and endure this living death all night--was that better?\n\u00a0No. \u00a0What, then, was there left to do? \u00a0Ah, there was but one course;\nhe knew it well--he must put out his hand and find that thing!\n\nIt was easy to think this; but it was hard to brace himself up to try\nit. Three times he stretched his hand a little way out into the dark,\ngingerly; and snatched it suddenly back, with a gasp--not because it\nhad encountered anything, but because he had felt so sure it was just\n_going_ to. \u00a0But the fourth time, he groped a little further, and his\nhand lightly swept against something soft and warm. \u00a0This petrified him,\nnearly, with fright; his mind was in such a state that he could imagine\nthe thing to be nothing else than a corpse, newly dead and still warm.\nHe thought he would rather die than touch it again. \u00a0But he thought this\nfalse thought because he did not know the immortal strength of\nhuman curiosity. In no long time his hand was tremblingly groping\nagain--against his judgment, and without his consent--but groping\npersistently on, just the same. \u00a0It encountered a bunch of long hair; he\nshuddered, but followed up the hair and found what seemed to be a warm\nrope; followed up the rope and found an innocent calf!--for the rope was\nnot a rope at all, but the calf's tail.\n\nThe King was cordially ashamed of himself for having gotten all that\nfright and misery out of so paltry a matter as a slumbering calf; but he\nneed not have felt so about it, for it was not the calf that frightened\nhim, but a dreadful non-existent something which the calf stood for; and\nany other boy, in those old superstitious times, would have acted and\nsuffered just as he had done.\n\nThe King was not only delighted to find that the creature was only a\ncalf, but delighted to have the calf's company; for he had been feeling\nso lonesome and friendless that the company and comradeship of even\nthis humble animal were welcome. \u00a0And he had been so buffeted, so rudely\nentreated by his own kind, that it was a real comfort to him to feel\nthat he was at last in the society of a fellow-creature that had at\nleast a soft heart and a gentle spirit, whatever loftier attributes\nmight be lacking. \u00a0So he resolved to waive rank and make friends with\nthe calf.\n\nWhile stroking its sleek warm back--for it lay near him and within easy\nreach--it occurred to him that this calf might be utilised in more ways\nthan one. \u00a0Whereupon he re-arranged his bed, spreading it down close to\nthe calf; then he cuddled himself up to the calf's back, drew the covers\nup over himself and his friend, and in a minute or two was as warm and\ncomfortable as he had ever been in the downy couches of the regal palace\nof Westminster.\n\nPleasant thoughts came at once; life took on a cheerfuller seeming. \u00a0He\nwas free of the bonds of servitude and crime, free of the companionship\nof base and brutal outlaws; he was warm; he was sheltered; in a word, he\nwas happy. \u00a0The night wind was rising; it swept by in fitful gusts\nthat made the old barn quake and rattle, then its forces died down\nat intervals, and went moaning and wailing around corners and\nprojections--but it was all music to the King, now that he was snug and\ncomfortable: let it blow and rage, let it batter and bang, let it moan\nand wail, he minded it not, he only enjoyed it. \u00a0He merely snuggled\nthe closer to his friend, in a luxury of warm contentment, and drifted\nblissfully out of consciousness into a deep and dreamless sleep that\nwas full of serenity and peace. \u00a0The distant dogs howled, the melancholy\nkine complained, and the winds went on raging, whilst furious sheets\nof rain drove along the roof; but the Majesty of England slept on,\nundisturbed, and the calf did the same, it being a simple creature, and\nnot easily troubled by storms or embarrassed by sleeping with a king.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX. The Prince with the peasants.\n\nWhen the King awoke in the early morning, he found that a wet but\nthoughtful rat had crept into the place during the night and made a cosy\nbed for itself in his bosom. \u00a0Being disturbed now, it scampered away.\nThe boy smiled, and said, \"Poor fool, why so fearful? \u00a0I am as forlorn\nas thou. \u00a0'Twould be a sham in me to hurt the helpless, who am myself so\nhelpless. \u00a0Moreover, I owe you thanks for a good omen; for when a king\nhas fallen so low that the very rats do make a bed of him, it surely\nmeaneth that his fortunes be upon the turn, since it is plain he can no\nlower go.\"\n\nHe got up and stepped out of the stall, and just then he heard the sound\nof children's voices. \u00a0The barn door opened and a couple of little girls\ncame in. \u00a0As soon as they saw him their talking and laughing ceased, and\nthey stopped and stood still, gazing at him with strong curiosity; they\npresently began to whisper together, then they approached nearer, and\nstopped again to gaze and whisper. \u00a0By-and-by they gathered courage and\nbegan to discuss him aloud. \u00a0One said--\n\n\"He hath a comely face.\"\n\nThe other added--\n\n\"And pretty hair.\"\n\n\"But is ill clothed enow.\"\n\n\"And how starved he looketh.\"\n\nThey came still nearer, sidling shyly around and about him, examining\nhim minutely from all points, as if he were some strange new kind of\nanimal, but warily and watchfully the while, as if they half feared he\nmight be a sort of animal that would bite, upon occasion. \u00a0Finally they\nhalted before him, holding each other's hands for protection, and took a\ngood satisfying stare with their innocent eyes; then one of them plucked\nup all her courage and inquired with honest directness--\n\n\"Who art thou, boy?\"\n\n\"I am the King,\" was the grave answer.\n\nThe children gave a little start, and their eyes spread themselves wide\nopen and remained so during a speechless half minute. \u00a0Then curiosity\nbroke the silence--\n\n\"The _King_? \u00a0What King?\"\n\n\"The King of England.\"\n\nThe children looked at each other--then at him--then at each other\nagain--wonderingly, perplexedly; then one said--\n\n\"Didst hear him, Margery?--he said he is the King. \u00a0Can that be true?\"\n\n\"How can it be else but true, Prissy? \u00a0Would he say a lie? \u00a0For look\nyou, Prissy, an' it were not true, it _would_ be a lie. \u00a0It surely would\nbe. Now think on't. \u00a0For all things that be not true, be lies--thou\ncanst make nought else out of it.\"\n\nIt was a good tight argument, without a leak in it anywhere; and it left\nPrissy's half-doubts not a leg to stand on. \u00a0She considered a moment,\nthen put the King upon his honour with the simple remark--\n\n\"If thou art truly the King, then I believe thee.\"\n\n\"I am truly the King.\"\n\nThis settled the matter. \u00a0His Majesty's royalty was accepted without\nfurther question or discussion, and the two little girls began at once\nto inquire into how he came to be where he was, and how he came to be so\nunroyally clad, and whither he was bound, and all about his affairs. \u00a0It\nwas a mighty relief to him to pour out his troubles where they would not\nbe scoffed at or doubted; so he told his tale with feeling, forgetting\neven his hunger for the time; and it was received with the deepest and\ntenderest sympathy by the gentle little maids. \u00a0But when he got down\nto his latest experiences and they learned how long he had been without\nfood, they cut him short and hurried him away to the farmhouse to find a\nbreakfast for him.\n\nThe King was cheerful and happy now, and said to himself, \"When I\nam come to mine own again, I will always honour little children,\nremembering how that these trusted me and believed in me in my time\nof trouble; whilst they that were older, and thought themselves wiser,\nmocked at me and held me for a liar.\"\n\nThe children's mother received the King kindly, and was full of pity;\nfor his forlorn condition and apparently crazed intellect touched her\nwomanly heart. \u00a0She was a widow, and rather poor; consequently she had\nseen trouble enough to enable her to feel for the unfortunate. \u00a0She\nimagined that the demented boy had wandered away from his friends or\nkeepers; so she tried to find out whence he had come, in order that\nshe might take measures to return him; but all her references to\nneighbouring towns and villages, and all her inquiries in the same line\nwent for nothing--the boy's face, and his answers, too, showed that the\nthings she was talking of were not familiar to him. \u00a0He spoke earnestly\nand simply about court matters, and broke down, more than once, when\nspeaking of the late King 'his father'; but whenever the conversation\nchanged to baser topics, he lost interest and became silent.\n\nThe woman was mightily puzzled; but she did not give up. \u00a0As she\nproceeded with her cooking, she set herself to contriving devices to\nsurprise the boy into betraying his real secret. \u00a0She talked about\ncattle--he showed no concern; then about sheep--the same result: \u00a0so\nher guess that he had been a shepherd boy was an error; she talked about\nmills; and about weavers, tinkers, smiths, trades and tradesmen of all\nsorts; and about Bedlam, and jails, and charitable retreats: \u00a0but no\nmatter, she was baffled at all points. \u00a0Not altogether, either; for she\nargued that she had narrowed the thing down to domestic service. \u00a0Yes,\nshe was sure she was on the right track, now; he must have been a house\nservant. \u00a0So she led up to that. \u00a0But the result was discouraging. The\nsubject of sweeping appeared to weary him; fire-building failed to stir\nhim; scrubbing and scouring awoke no enthusiasm. The goodwife touched,\nwith a perishing hope, and rather as a matter of form, upon the subject\nof cooking. \u00a0To her surprise, and her vast delight, the King's face\nlighted at once! \u00a0Ah, she had hunted him down at last, she thought; and\nshe was right proud, too, of the devious shrewdness and tact which had\naccomplished it.\n\nHer tired tongue got a chance to rest, now; for the King's, inspired\nby gnawing hunger and the fragrant smells that came from the sputtering\npots and pans, turned itself loose and delivered itself up to such an\neloquent dissertation upon certain toothsome dishes, that within three\nminutes the woman said to herself, \"Of a truth I was right--he hath\nholpen in a kitchen!\" \u00a0Then he broadened his bill of fare, and discussed\nit with such appreciation and animation, that the goodwife said to\nherself, \"Good lack! how can he know so many dishes, and so fine ones\nwithal? \u00a0For these belong only upon the tables of the rich and great.\n\u00a0Ah, now I see! ragged outcast as he is, he must have served in the\npalace before his reason went astray; yes, he must have helped in the\nvery kitchen of the King himself! \u00a0I will test him.\"\n\nFull of eagerness to prove her sagacity, she told the King to mind the\ncooking a moment--hinting that he might manufacture and add a dish or\ntwo, if he chose; then she went out of the room and gave her children a\nsign to follow after. \u00a0The King muttered--\n\n\"Another English king had a commission like to this, in a bygone\ntime--it is nothing against my dignity to undertake an office which the\ngreat Alfred stooped to assume. \u00a0But I will try to better serve my trust\nthan he; for he let the cakes burn.\"\n\nThe intent was good, but the performance was not answerable to it, for\nthis King, like the other one, soon fell into deep thinkings concerning\nhis vast affairs, and the same calamity resulted--the cookery got\nburned. The woman returned in time to save the breakfast from entire\ndestruction; and she promptly brought the King out of his dreams with a\nbrisk and cordial tongue-lashing. Then, seeing how troubled he was\nover his violated trust, she softened at once, and was all goodness and\ngentleness toward him.\n\nThe boy made a hearty and satisfying meal, and was greatly refreshed and\ngladdened by it. \u00a0It was a meal which was distinguished by this curious\nfeature, that rank was waived on both sides; yet neither recipient\nof the favour was aware that it had been extended. \u00a0The goodwife had\nintended to feed this young tramp with broken victuals in a corner,\nlike any other tramp or like a dog; but she was so remorseful for the\nscolding she had given him, that she did what she could to atone for it\nby allowing him to sit at the family table and eat with his betters, on\nostensible terms of equality with them; and the King, on his side, was\nso remorseful for having broken his trust, after the family had been so\nkind to him, that he forced himself to atone for it by humbling himself\nto the family level, instead of requiring the woman and her children to\nstand and wait upon him, while he occupied their table in the solitary\nstate due to his birth and dignity. \u00a0It does us all good to unbend\nsometimes. \u00a0This good woman was made happy all the day long by the\napplauses which she got out of herself for her magnanimous condescension\nto a tramp; and the King was just as self-complacent over his gracious\nhumility toward a humble peasant woman.\n\nWhen breakfast was over, the housewife told the King to wash up the\ndishes. \u00a0This command was a staggerer, for a moment, and the King came\nnear rebelling; but then he said to himself, \"Alfred the Great watched\nthe cakes; doubtless he would have washed the dishes too--therefore will\nI essay it.\"\n\nHe made a sufficiently poor job of it; and to his surprise too, for the\ncleaning of wooden spoons and trenchers had seemed an easy thing to do.\nIt was a tedious and troublesome piece of work, but he finished it\nat last. \u00a0He was becoming impatient to get away on his journey now;\nhowever, he was not to lose this thrifty dame's society so easily. \u00a0She\nfurnished him some little odds and ends of employment, which he got\nthrough with after a fair fashion and with some credit. \u00a0Then she set\nhim and the little girls to paring some winter apples; but he was so\nawkward at this service that she retired him from it and gave him a\nbutcher knife to grind.\n\nAfterwards she kept him carding wool until he began to think he had laid\nthe good King Alfred about far enough in the shade for the present in\nthe matter of showy menial heroisms that would read picturesquely in\nstory-books and histories, and so he was half-minded to resign. \u00a0And\nwhen, just after the noonday dinner, the goodwife gave him a basket\nof kittens to drown, he did resign. \u00a0At least he was just going to\nresign--for he felt that he must draw the line somewhere, and it\nseemed to him that to draw it at kitten-drowning was about the right\nthing--when there was an interruption. \u00a0The interruption was John\nCanty--with a peddler's pack on his back--and Hugo.\n\nThe King discovered these rascals approaching the front gate before they\nhad had a chance to see him; so he said nothing about drawing the line,\nbut took up his basket of kittens and stepped quietly out the back way,\nwithout a word. \u00a0He left the creatures in an out-house, and hurried on,\ninto a narrow lane at the rear.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX. The Prince and the hermit.\n\nThe high hedge hid him from the house, now; and so, under the impulse of\na deadly fright, he let out all his forces and sped toward a wood in the\ndistance. \u00a0He never looked back until he had almost gained the shelter\nof the forest; then he turned and descried two figures in the distance.\nThat was sufficient; he did not wait to scan them critically, but\nhurried on, and never abated his pace till he was far within the\ntwilight depths of the wood. Then he stopped; being persuaded that he\nwas now tolerably safe. He listened intently, but the stillness was\nprofound and solemn--awful, even, and depressing to the spirits. \u00a0At\nwide intervals his straining ear did detect sounds, but they were so\nremote, and hollow, and mysterious, that they seemed not to be real\nsounds, but only the moaning and complaining ghosts of departed\nones. \u00a0So the sounds were yet more dreary than the silence which they\ninterrupted.\n\nIt was his purpose, in the beginning, to stay where he was the rest of\nthe day; but a chill soon invaded his perspiring body, and he was at\nlast obliged to resume movement in order to get warm. He struck straight\nthrough the forest, hoping to pierce to a road presently, but he was\ndisappointed in this. \u00a0He travelled on and on; but the farther he went,\nthe denser the wood became, apparently. \u00a0The gloom began to thicken,\nby-and-by, and the King realised that the night was coming on. \u00a0It made\nhim shudder to think of spending it in such an uncanny place; so he\ntried to hurry faster, but he only made the less speed, for he could\nnot now see well enough to choose his steps judiciously; consequently he\nkept tripping over roots and tangling himself in vines and briers.\n\nAnd how glad he was when at last he caught the glimmer of a light! He\napproached it warily, stopping often to look about him and listen. \u00a0It\ncame from an unglazed window-opening in a shabby little hut. \u00a0He heard\na voice, now, and felt a disposition to run and hide; but he changed his\nmind at once, for this voice was praying, evidently. \u00a0He glided to the\none window of the hut, raised himself on tiptoe, and stole a glance\nwithin. \u00a0The room was small; its floor was the natural earth, beaten\nhard by use; in a corner was a bed of rushes and a ragged blanket or\ntwo; near it was a pail, a cup, a basin, and two or three pots and pans;\nthere was a short bench and a three-legged stool; on the hearth the\nremains of a faggot fire were smouldering; before a shrine, which was\nlighted by a single candle, knelt an aged man, and on an old wooden box\nat his side lay an open book and a human skull. \u00a0The man was of large,\nbony frame; his hair and whiskers were very long and snowy white; he\nwas clothed in a robe of sheepskins which reached from his neck to his\nheels.\n\n\"A holy hermit!\" said the King to himself; \"now am I indeed fortunate.\"\n\nThe hermit rose from his knees; the King knocked. \u00a0A deep voice\nresponded--\n\n\"Enter!--but leave sin behind, for the ground whereon thou shalt stand\nis holy!\"\n\nThe King entered, and paused. \u00a0The hermit turned a pair of gleaming,\nunrestful eyes upon him, and said--\n\n\"Who art thou?\"\n\n\"I am the King,\" came the answer, with placid simplicity.\n\n\"Welcome, King!\" cried the hermit, with enthusiasm. \u00a0Then, bustling\nabout with feverish activity, and constantly saying, \"Welcome, welcome,\"\nhe arranged his bench, seated the King on it, by the hearth, threw some\nfaggots on the fire, and finally fell to pacing the floor with a nervous\nstride.\n\n\"Welcome! \u00a0Many have sought sanctuary here, but they were not worthy,\nand were turned away. \u00a0But a King who casts his crown away, and despises\nthe vain splendours of his office, and clothes his body in rags, to\ndevote his life to holiness and the mortification of the flesh--he is\nworthy, he is welcome!--here shall he abide all his days till death\ncome.\" \u00a0The King hastened to interrupt and explain, but the hermit paid\nno attention to him--did not even hear him, apparently, but went right\non with his talk, with a raised voice and a growing energy. \u00a0\"And thou\nshalt be at peace here. \u00a0None shall find out thy refuge to disquiet thee\nwith supplications to return to that empty and foolish life which God\nhath moved thee to abandon. \u00a0Thou shalt pray here; thou shalt study the\nBook; thou shalt meditate upon the follies and delusions of this world,\nand upon the sublimities of the world to come; thou shalt feed upon\ncrusts and herbs, and scourge thy body with whips, daily, to the\npurifying of thy soul. Thou shalt wear a hair shirt next thy skin;\nthou shalt drink water only; and thou shalt be at peace; yes, wholly at\npeace; for whoso comes to seek thee shall go his way again, baffled; he\nshall not find thee, he shall not molest thee.\"\n\nThe old man, still pacing back and forth, ceased to speak aloud, and\nbegan to mutter. \u00a0The King seized this opportunity to state his case;\nand he did it with an eloquence inspired by uneasiness and apprehension.\n\u00a0But the hermit went on muttering, and gave no heed. \u00a0And still\nmuttering, he approached the King and said impressively--\n\n\"'Sh! \u00a0I will tell you a secret!\" \u00a0He bent down to impart it, but\nchecked himself, and assumed a listening attitude. \u00a0After a moment\nor two he went on tiptoe to the window-opening, put his head out, and\npeered around in the gloaming, then came tiptoeing back again, put his\nface close down to the King's, and whispered--\n\n\"I am an archangel!\"\n\nThe King started violently, and said to himself, \"Would God I were with\nthe outlaws again; for lo, now am I the prisoner of a madman!\" \u00a0His\napprehensions were heightened, and they showed plainly in his face. \u00a0In\na low excited voice the hermit continued--\n\n\"I see you feel my atmosphere! \u00a0There's awe in your face! \u00a0None may\nbe in this atmosphere and not be thus affected; for it is the very\natmosphere of heaven. \u00a0I go thither and return, in the twinkling of an\neye. \u00a0I was made an archangel on this very spot, it is five years ago,\nby angels sent from heaven to confer that awful dignity. \u00a0Their presence\nfilled this place with an intolerable brightness. \u00a0And they knelt to me,\nKing! yes, they knelt to me! for I was greater than they. \u00a0I have walked\nin the courts of heaven, and held speech with the patriarchs. \u00a0Touch\nmy hand--be not afraid--touch it. \u00a0There--now thou hast touched a hand\nwhich has been clasped by Abraham and Isaac and Jacob! \u00a0For I have\nwalked in the golden courts; I have seen the Deity face to face!\" \u00a0He\npaused, to give this speech effect; then his face suddenly changed, and\nhe started to his feet again saying, with angry energy, \"Yes, I am an\narchangel; _a mere archangel!_--I that might have been pope! \u00a0It is\nverily true. \u00a0I was told it from heaven in a dream, twenty years ago;\nah, yes, I was to be pope!--and I _should_ have been pope, for Heaven\nhad said it--but the King dissolved my religious house, and I, poor\nobscure unfriended monk, was cast homeless upon the world, robbed of my\nmighty destiny!\" Here he began to mumble again, and beat his forehead in\nfutile rage, with his fist; now and then articulating a venomous curse,\nand now and then a pathetic \"Wherefore I am nought but an archangel--I\nthat should have been pope!\"\n\nSo he went on, for an hour, whilst the poor little King sat and\nsuffered. Then all at once the old man's frenzy departed, and he became\nall gentleness. \u00a0His voice softened, he came down out of his clouds, and\nfell to prattling along so simply and so humanly, that he soon won the\nKing's heart completely. \u00a0The old devotee moved the boy nearer to the\nfire and made him comfortable; doctored his small bruises and abrasions\nwith a deft and tender hand; and then set about preparing and cooking a\nsupper--chatting pleasantly all the time, and occasionally stroking the\nlad's cheek or patting his head, in such a gently caressing way that in\na little while all the fear and repulsion inspired by the archangel were\nchanged to reverence and affection for the man.\n\nThis happy state of things continued while the two ate the supper; then,\nafter a prayer before the shrine, the hermit put the boy to bed, in a\nsmall adjoining room, tucking him in as snugly and lovingly as a mother\nmight; and so, with a parting caress, left him and sat down by the\nfire, and began to poke the brands about in an absent and aimless way.\nPresently he paused; then tapped his forehead several times with his\nfingers, as if trying to recall some thought which had escaped from his\nmind. \u00a0Apparently he was unsuccessful. \u00a0Now he started quickly up, and\nentered his guest's room, and said--\n\n\"Thou art King?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" was the response, drowsily uttered.\n\n\"What King?\"\n\n\"Of England.\"\n\n\"Of England? \u00a0Then Henry is gone!\"\n\n\"Alack, it is so. \u00a0I am his son.\"\n\nA black frown settled down upon the hermit's face, and he clenched his\nbony hands with a vindictive energy. \u00a0He stood a few moments, breathing\nfast and swallowing repeatedly, then said in a husky voice--\n\n\"Dost know it was he that turned us out into the world houseless and\nhomeless?\"\n\nThere was no response. \u00a0The old man bent down and scanned the boy's\nreposeful face and listened to his placid breathing. \u00a0\"He sleeps--sleeps\nsoundly;\" and the frown vanished away and gave place to an expression of\nevil satisfaction. \u00a0A smile flitted across the dreaming boy's features.\nThe hermit muttered, \"So--his heart is happy;\" and he turned away. \u00a0He\nwent stealthily about the place, seeking here and there for something;\nnow and then halting to listen, now and then jerking his head around\nand casting a quick glance toward the bed; and always muttering, always\nmumbling to himself. \u00a0At last he found what he seemed to want--a rusty\nold butcher knife and a whetstone. \u00a0Then he crept to his place by the\nfire, sat himself down, and began to whet the knife softly on the stone,\nstill muttering, mumbling, ejaculating. \u00a0The winds sighed around the\nlonely place, the mysterious voices of the night floated by out of the\ndistances. \u00a0The shining eyes of venturesome mice and rats peered out at\nthe old man from cracks and coverts, but he went on with his work, rapt,\nabsorbed, and noted none of these things.\n\nAt long intervals he drew his thumb along the edge of his knife, and\nnodded his head with satisfaction. \u00a0\"It grows sharper,\" he said; \"yes,\nit grows sharper.\"\n\nHe took no note of the flight of time, but worked tranquilly on,\nentertaining himself with his thoughts, which broke out occasionally in\narticulate speech--\n\n\"His father wrought us evil, he destroyed us--and is gone down into the\neternal fires! \u00a0Yes, down into the eternal fires! \u00a0He escaped us--but it\nwas God's will, yes it was God's will, we must not repine. \u00a0But he\nhath not escaped the fires! \u00a0No, he hath not escaped the fires, the\nconsuming, unpitying, remorseless fires--and _they_ are everlasting!\"\n\nAnd so he wrought, and still wrought--mumbling, chuckling a low rasping\nchuckle at times--and at times breaking again into words--\n\n\"It was his father that did it all. \u00a0I am but an archangel; but for him\nI should be pope!\"\n\nThe King stirred. \u00a0The hermit sprang noiselessly to the bedside, and\nwent down upon his knees, bending over the prostrate form with his knife\nuplifted. \u00a0The boy stirred again; his eyes came open for an instant, but\nthere was no speculation in them, they saw nothing; the next moment his\ntranquil breathing showed that his sleep was sound once more.\n\nThe hermit watched and listened, for a time, keeping his position and\nscarcely breathing; then he slowly lowered his arms, and presently crept\naway, saying,--\n\n\"It is long past midnight; it is not best that he should cry out, lest\nby accident someone be passing.\"\n\nHe glided about his hovel, gathering a rag here, a thong there, and\nanother one yonder; then he returned, and by careful and gentle handling\nhe managed to tie the King's ankles together without waking him. \u00a0Next\nhe essayed to tie the wrists; he made several attempts to cross them,\nbut the boy always drew one hand or the other away, just as the cord was\nready to be applied; but at last, when the archangel was almost ready\nto despair, the boy crossed his hands himself, and the next moment\nthey were bound. Now a bandage was passed under the sleeper's chin and\nbrought up over his head and tied fast--and so softly, so gradually,\nand so deftly were the knots drawn together and compacted, that the boy\nslept peacefully through it all without stirring.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI. Hendon to the rescue.\n\nThe old man glided away, stooping, stealthy, cat-like, and brought the\nlow bench. \u00a0He seated himself upon it, half his body in the dim and\nflickering light, and the other half in shadow; and so, with his craving\neyes bent upon the slumbering boy, he kept his patient vigil there,\nheedless of the drift of time, and softly whetted his knife, and mumbled\nand chuckled; and in aspect and attitude he resembled nothing so much as\na grizzly, monstrous spider, gloating over some hapless insect that lay\nbound and helpless in his web.\n\nAfter a long while, the old man, who was still gazing,--yet not seeing,\nhis mind having settled into a dreamy abstraction,--observed, on a\nsudden, that the boy's eyes were open! wide open and staring!--staring\nup in frozen horror at the knife. \u00a0The smile of a gratified devil crept\nover the old man's face, and he said, without changing his attitude or\nhis occupation--\n\n\"Son of Henry the Eighth, hast thou prayed?\"\n\nThe boy struggled helplessly in his bonds, and at the same time forced\na smothered sound through his closed jaws, which the hermit chose to\ninterpret as an affirmative answer to his question.\n\n\"Then pray again. \u00a0Pray the prayer for the dying!\"\n\nA shudder shook the boy's frame, and his face blenched. \u00a0Then he\nstruggled again to free himself--turning and twisting himself this way\nand that; tugging frantically, fiercely, desperately--but uselessly--to\nburst his fetters; and all the while the old ogre smiled down upon him,\nand nodded his head, and placidly whetted his knife; mumbling, from time\nto time, \"The moments are precious, they are few and precious--pray the\nprayer for the dying!\"\n\nThe boy uttered a despairing groan, and ceased from his struggles,\npanting. \u00a0The tears came, then, and trickled, one after the other, down\nhis face; but this piteous sight wrought no softening effect upon the\nsavage old man.\n\nThe dawn was coming now; the hermit observed it, and spoke up sharply,\nwith a touch of nervous apprehension in his voice--\n\n\"I may not indulge this ecstasy longer! \u00a0The night is already gone. \u00a0It\nseems but a moment--only a moment; would it had endured a year! \u00a0Seed of\nthe Church's spoiler, close thy perishing eyes, an' thou fearest to look\nupon--\"\n\nThe rest was lost in inarticulate mutterings. \u00a0The old man sank upon his\nknees, his knife in his hand, and bent himself over the moaning boy.\n\nHark! \u00a0There was a sound of voices near the cabin--the knife dropped\nfrom the hermit's hand; he cast a sheepskin over the boy and started up,\ntrembling. \u00a0The sounds increased, and presently the voices became rough\nand angry; then came blows, and cries for help; then a clatter of swift\nfootsteps, retreating. \u00a0Immediately came a succession of thundering\nknocks upon the cabin door, followed by--\n\n\"Hullo-o-o! \u00a0Open! \u00a0And despatch, in the name of all the devils!\"\n\nOh, this was the blessedest sound that had ever made music in the King's\nears; for it was Miles Hendon's voice!\n\nThe hermit, grinding his teeth in impotent rage, moved swiftly out of\nthe bedchamber, closing the door behind him; and straightway the King\nheard a talk, to this effect, proceeding from the 'chapel':--\n\n\"Homage and greeting, reverend sir! \u00a0Where is the boy--_my_ boy?\"\n\n\"What boy, friend?\"\n\n\"What boy! \u00a0Lie me no lies, sir priest, play me no deceptions!--I am not\nin the humour for it. \u00a0Near to this place I caught the scoundrels who I\njudged did steal him from me, and I made them confess; they said he was\nat large again, and they had tracked him to your door. \u00a0They showed me\nhis very footprints. \u00a0Now palter no more; for look you, holy sir, an'\nthou produce him not--Where is the boy?\"\n\n\"O good sir, peradventure you mean the ragged regal vagrant that tarried\nhere the night. \u00a0If such as you take an interest in such as he, know,\nthen, that I have sent him of an errand. \u00a0He will be back anon.\"\n\n\"How soon? \u00a0How soon? \u00a0Come, waste not the time--cannot I overtake him?\nHow soon will he be back?\"\n\n\"Thou need'st not stir; he will return quickly.\"\n\n\"So be it, then. \u00a0I will try to wait. \u00a0But stop!--_you_ sent him of an\nerrand?--you! \u00a0Verily this is a lie--he would not go. \u00a0He would pull thy\nold beard, an' thou didst offer him such an insolence. Thou hast lied,\nfriend; thou hast surely lied! \u00a0He would not go for thee, nor for any\nman.\"\n\n\"For any _man_--no; haply not. \u00a0But I am not a man.\"\n\n\"_What_! \u00a0Now o' God's name what art thou, then?\"\n\n\"It is a secret--mark thou reveal it not. \u00a0I am an archangel!\"\n\nThere was a tremendous ejaculation from Miles Hendon--not altogether\nunprofane--followed by--\n\n\"This doth well and truly account for his complaisance! \u00a0Right well\nI knew he would budge nor hand nor foot in the menial service of any\nmortal; but, lord, even a king must obey when an archangel gives the\nword o' command! \u00a0Let me--'sh! \u00a0What noise was that?\"\n\nAll this while the little King had been yonder, alternately quaking with\nterror and trembling with hope; and all the while, too, he had thrown\nall the strength he could into his anguished moanings, constantly\nexpecting them to reach Hendon's ear, but always realising, with\nbitterness, that they failed, or at least made no impression. \u00a0So this\nlast remark of his servant came as comes a reviving breath from fresh\nfields to the dying; and he exerted himself once more, and with all his\nenergy, just as the hermit was saying--\n\n\"Noise? \u00a0I heard only the wind.\"\n\n\"Mayhap it was. \u00a0Yes, doubtless that was it. \u00a0I have been hearing it\nfaintly all the--there it is again! \u00a0It is not the wind! \u00a0What an odd\nsound! \u00a0Come, we will hunt it out!\"\n\nNow the King's joy was nearly insupportable. \u00a0His tired lungs did\ntheir utmost--and hopefully, too--but the sealed jaws and the muffling\nsheepskin sadly crippled the effort. \u00a0Then the poor fellow's heart sank,\nto hear the hermit say--\n\n\"Ah, it came from without--I think from the copse yonder. \u00a0Come, I will\nlead the way.\"\n\nThe King heard the two pass out, talking; heard their footsteps die\nquickly away--then he was alone with a boding, brooding, awful silence.\n\nIt seemed an age till he heard the steps and voices approaching\nagain--and this time he heard an added sound,--the trampling of hoofs,\napparently. \u00a0Then he heard Hendon say--\n\n\"I will not wait longer. \u00a0I _cannot_ wait longer. \u00a0He has lost his way\nin this thick wood. \u00a0Which direction took he? \u00a0Quick--point it out to\nme.\"\n\n\"He--but wait; I will go with thee.\"\n\n\"Good--good! \u00a0Why, truly thou art better than thy looks. \u00a0Marry I do\nnot think there's not another archangel with so right a heart as thine.\n\u00a0Wilt ride? \u00a0Wilt take the wee donkey that's for my boy, or wilt thou\nfork thy holy legs over this ill-conditioned slave of a mule that I have\nprovided for myself?--and had been cheated in too, had he cost but the\nindifferent sum of a month's usury on a brass farthing let to a tinker\nout of work.\"\n\n\"No--ride thy mule, and lead thine ass; I am surer on mine own feet, and\nwill walk.\"\n\n\"Then prithee mind the little beast for me while I take my life in my\nhands and make what success I may toward mounting the big one.\"\n\nThen followed a confusion of kicks, cuffs, tramplings and plungings,\naccompanied by a thunderous intermingling of volleyed curses, and\nfinally a bitter apostrophe to the mule, which must have broken its\nspirit, for hostilities seemed to cease from that moment.\n\nWith unutterable misery the fettered little King heard the voices and\nfootsteps fade away and die out. \u00a0All hope forsook him, now, for the\nmoment, and a dull despair settled down upon his heart. \"My only friend\nis deceived and got rid of,\" he said; \"the hermit will return and--\" \u00a0He\nfinished with a gasp; and at once fell to struggling so frantically with\nhis bonds again, that he shook off the smothering sheepskin.\n\nAnd now he heard the door open! \u00a0The sound chilled him to the\nmarrow--already he seemed to feel the knife at his throat. \u00a0Horror made\nhim close his eyes; horror made him open them again--and before him\nstood John Canty and Hugo!\n\nHe would have said \"Thank God!\" if his jaws had been free.\n\nA moment or two later his limbs were at liberty, and his captors, each\ngripping him by an arm, were hurrying him with all speed through the\nforest.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII. A Victim of Treachery.\n\nOnce more 'King Foo-foo the First' was roving with the tramps and\noutlaws, a butt for their coarse jests and dull-witted railleries, and\nsometimes the victim of small spitefulness at the hands of Canty and\nHugo when the Ruffler's back was turned. \u00a0None but Canty and Hugo really\ndisliked him. \u00a0Some of the others liked him, and all admired his pluck\nand spirit. \u00a0During two or three days, Hugo, in whose ward and charge\nthe King was, did what he covertly could to make the boy uncomfortable;\nand at night, during the customary orgies, he amused the company by\nputting small indignities upon him--always as if by accident. \u00a0Twice he\nstepped upon the King's toes--accidentally--and the King, as became his\nroyalty, was contemptuously unconscious of it and indifferent to it; but\nthe third time Hugo entertained himself in that way, the King felled\nhim to the ground with a cudgel, to the prodigious delight of the tribe.\n\u00a0Hugo, consumed with anger and shame, sprang up, seized a cudgel, and\ncame at his small adversary in a fury. \u00a0Instantly a ring was formed\naround the gladiators, and the betting and cheering began.\n\nBut poor Hugo stood no chance whatever. \u00a0His frantic and lubberly\n'prentice-work found but a poor market for itself when pitted against\nan arm which had been trained by the first masters of Europe in\nsingle-stick, quarter-staff, and every art and trick of swordsmanship.\n\u00a0The little King stood, alert but at graceful ease, and caught and\nturned aside the thick rain of blows with a facility and precision which\nset the motley on-lookers wild with admiration; and every now and then,\nwhen his practised eye detected an opening, and a lightning-swift rap\nupon Hugo's head followed as a result, the storm of cheers and laughter\nthat swept the place was something wonderful to hear. \u00a0At the end of\nfifteen minutes, Hugo, all battered, bruised, and the target for\na pitiless bombardment of ridicule, slunk from the field; and the\nunscathed hero of the fight was seized and borne aloft upon the\nshoulders of the joyous rabble to the place of honour beside the\nRuffler, where with vast ceremony he was crowned King of the Game-Cocks;\nhis meaner title being at the same time solemnly cancelled and annulled,\nand a decree of banishment from the gang pronounced against any who\nshould thenceforth utter it.\n\nAll attempts to make the King serviceable to the troop had failed. He\nhad stubbornly refused to act; moreover, he was always trying to escape.\n\u00a0He had been thrust into an unwatched kitchen, the first day of his\nreturn; he not only came forth empty-handed, but tried to rouse the\nhousemates. He was sent out with a tinker to help him at his work;\nhe would not work; moreover, he threatened the tinker with his own\nsoldering-iron; and finally both Hugo and the tinker found their\nhands full with the mere matter of keeping his from getting away. \u00a0He\ndelivered the thunders of his royalty upon the heads of all who hampered\nhis liberties or tried to force him to service. \u00a0He was sent out, in\nHugo's charge, in company with a slatternly woman and a diseased baby,\nto beg; but the result was not encouraging--he declined to plead for the\nmendicants, or be a party to their cause in any way.\n\nThus several days went by; and the miseries of this tramping life, and\nthe weariness and sordidness and meanness and vulgarity of it, became\ngradually and steadily so intolerable to the captive that he began at\nlast to feel that his release from the hermit's knife must prove only a\ntemporary respite from death, at best.\n\nBut at night, in his dreams, these things were forgotten, and he was\non his throne, and master again. \u00a0This, of course, intensified the\nsufferings of the awakening--so the mortifications of each succeeding\nmorning of the few that passed between his return to bondage and the\ncombat with Hugo, grew bitterer and bitterer, and harder and harder to\nbear.\n\nThe morning after that combat, Hugo got up with a heart filled with\nvengeful purposes against the King. \u00a0He had two plans, in particular.\nOne was to inflict upon the lad what would be, to his proud spirit\nand 'imagined' royalty, a peculiar humiliation; and if he failed to\naccomplish this, his other plan was to put a crime of some kind upon the\nKing, and then betray him into the implacable clutches of the law.\n\nIn pursuance of the first plan, he purposed to put a 'clime' upon the\nKing's leg; rightly judging that that would mortify him to the last and\nperfect degree; and as soon as the clime should operate, he meant to get\nCanty's help, and _force_ the King to expose his leg in the highway\nand beg for alms. \u00a0'Clime' was the cant term for a sore, artificially\ncreated. To make a clime, the operator made a paste or poultice of\nunslaked lime, soap, and the rust of old iron, and spread it upon a\npiece of leather, which was then bound tightly upon the leg. \u00a0This would\npresently fret off the skin, and make the flesh raw and angry-looking;\nblood was then rubbed upon the limb, which, being fully dried, took on a\ndark and repulsive colour. \u00a0Then a bandage of soiled rags was put on in\na cleverly careless way which would allow the hideous ulcer to be seen,\nand move the compassion of the passer-by. {8}\n\nHugo got the help of the tinker whom the King had cowed with the\nsoldering-iron; they took the boy out on a tinkering tramp, and as soon\nas they were out of sight of the camp they threw him down and the tinker\nheld him while Hugo bound the poultice tight and fast upon his leg.\n\nThe King raged and stormed, and promised to hang the two the moment the\nsceptre was in his hand again; but they kept a firm grip upon him\nand enjoyed his impotent struggling and jeered at his threats. \u00a0This\ncontinued until the poultice began to bite; and in no long time its work\nwould have been perfected, if there had been no interruption. \u00a0But there\nwas; for about this time the 'slave' who had made the speech denouncing\nEngland's laws, appeared on the scene, and put an end to the enterprise,\nand stripped off the poultice and bandage.\n\nThe King wanted to borrow his deliverer's cudgel and warm the jackets\nof the two rascals on the spot; but the man said no, it would bring\ntrouble--leave the matter till night; the whole tribe being together,\nthen, the outside world would not venture to interfere or interrupt. \u00a0He\nmarched the party back to camp and reported the affair to the Ruffler,\nwho listened, pondered, and then decided that the King should not be\nagain detailed to beg, since it was plain he was worthy of something\nhigher and better--wherefore, on the spot he promoted him from the\nmendicant rank and appointed him to steal!\n\nHugo was overjoyed. \u00a0He had already tried to make the King steal, and\nfailed; but there would be no more trouble of that sort, now, for of\ncourse the King would not dream of defying a distinct command delivered\ndirectly from head-quarters. \u00a0So he planned a raid for that very\nafternoon, purposing to get the King in the law's grip in the course of\nit; and to do it, too, with such ingenious strategy, that it should seem\nto be accidental and unintentional; for the King of the Game-Cocks was\npopular now, and the gang might not deal over-gently with an unpopular\nmember who played so serious a treachery upon him as the delivering him\nover to the common enemy, the law.\n\nVery well. \u00a0All in good time Hugo strolled off to a neighbouring village\nwith his prey; and the two drifted slowly up and down one street after\nanother, the one watching sharply for a sure chance to achieve his evil\npurpose, and the other watching as sharply for a chance to dart away and\nget free of his infamous captivity for ever.\n\nBoth threw away some tolerably fair-looking opportunities; for both,\nin their secret hearts, were resolved to make absolutely sure work this\ntime, and neither meant to allow his fevered desires to seduce him into\nany venture that had much uncertainty about it.\n\nHugo's chance came first. \u00a0For at last a woman approached who carried a\nfat package of some sort in a basket. \u00a0Hugo's eyes sparkled with sinful\npleasure as he said to himself, \"Breath o' my life, an' I can but\nput _that_ upon him, 'tis good-den and God keep thee, King of the\nGame-Cocks!\" He waited and watched--outwardly patient, but inwardly\nconsuming with excitement--till the woman had passed by, and the time\nwas ripe; then said, in a low voice--\n\n\"Tarry here till I come again,\" and darted stealthily after the prey.\n\nThe King's heart was filled with joy--he could make his escape, now, if\nHugo's quest only carried him far enough away.\n\nBut he was to have no such luck. \u00a0Hugo crept behind the woman, snatched\nthe package, and came running back, wrapping it in an old piece of\nblanket which he carried on his arm. \u00a0The hue and cry was raised in a\nmoment, by the woman, who knew her loss by the lightening of her burden,\nalthough she had not seen the pilfering done. \u00a0Hugo thrust the bundle\ninto the King's hands without halting, saying--\n\n\"Now speed ye after me with the rest, and cry 'Stop thief!' but mind ye\nlead them astray!\"\n\nThe next moment Hugo turned a corner and darted down a crooked\nalley--and in another moment or two he lounged into view again, looking\ninnocent and indifferent, and took up a position behind a post to watch\nresults.\n\nThe insulted King threw the bundle on the ground; and the blanket fell\naway from it just as the woman arrived, with an augmenting crowd at her\nheels; she seized the King's wrist with one hand, snatched up her bundle\nwith the other, and began to pour out a tirade of abuse upon the boy\nwhile he struggled, without success, to free himself from her grip.\n\nHugo had seen enough--his enemy was captured and the law would get him,\nnow--so he slipped away, jubilant and chuckling, and wended campwards,\nframing a judicious version of the matter to give to the Ruffler's crew\nas he strode along.\n\nThe King continued to struggle in the woman's strong grasp, and now and\nthen cried out in vexation--\n\n\"Unhand me, thou foolish creature; it was not I that bereaved thee of\nthy paltry goods.\"\n\nThe crowd closed around, threatening the King and calling him names; a\nbrawny blacksmith in leather apron, and sleeves rolled to his elbows,\nmade a reach for him, saying he would trounce him well, for a lesson;\nbut just then a long sword flashed in the air and fell with convincing\nforce upon the man's arm, flat side down, the fantastic owner of it\nremarking pleasantly, at the same time--\n\n\"Marry, good souls, let us proceed gently, not with ill blood and\nuncharitable words. \u00a0This is matter for the law's consideration,\nnot private and unofficial handling. \u00a0Loose thy hold from the boy,\ngoodwife.\"\n\nThe blacksmith averaged the stalwart soldier with a glance, then went\nmuttering away, rubbing his arm; the woman released the boy's wrist\nreluctantly; the crowd eyed the stranger unlovingly, but prudently\nclosed their mouths. \u00a0The King sprang to his deliverer's side, with\nflushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, exclaiming--\n\n\"Thou hast lagged sorely, but thou comest in good season, now, Sir\nMiles; carve me this rabble to rags!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII. The Prince a prisoner.\n\nHendon forced back a smile, and bent down and whispered in the King's\near--\n\n\"Softly, softly, my prince, wag thy tongue warily--nay, suffer it not to\nwag at all. \u00a0Trust in me--all shall go well in the end.\" Then he added\nto himself: \u00a0\"_Sir_ Miles! \u00a0Bless me, I had totally forgot I was a\nknight! Lord, how marvellous a thing it is, the grip his memory doth\ntake upon his quaint and crazy fancies! . . . An empty and foolish title\nis mine, and yet it is something to have deserved it; for I think it is\nmore honour to be held worthy to be a spectre-knight in his Kingdom of\nDreams and Shadows, than to be held base enough to be an earl in some of\nthe _real_ kingdoms of this world.\"\n\nThe crowd fell apart to admit a constable, who approached and was about\nto lay his hand upon the King's shoulder, when Hendon said--\n\n\"Gently, good friend, withhold your hand--he shall go peaceably; I am\nresponsible for that. \u00a0Lead on, we will follow.\"\n\nThe officer led, with the woman and her bundle; Miles and the King\nfollowed after, with the crowd at their heels. \u00a0The King was inclined to\nrebel; but Hendon said to him in a low voice--\n\n\"Reflect, Sire--your laws are the wholesome breath of your own royalty;\nshall their source resist them, yet require the branches to respect\nthem? Apparently one of these laws has been broken; when the King is on\nhis throne again, can it ever grieve him to remember that when he was\nseemingly a private person he loyally sank the king in the citizen and\nsubmitted to its authority?\"\n\n\"Thou art right; say no more; thou shalt see that whatsoever the King\nof England requires a subject to suffer, under the law, he will himself\nsuffer while he holdeth the station of a subject.\"\n\nWhen the woman was called upon to testify before the justice of the\npeace, she swore that the small prisoner at the bar was the person who\nhad committed the theft; there was none able to show the contrary, so\nthe King stood convicted. \u00a0The bundle was now unrolled, and when the\ncontents proved to be a plump little dressed pig, the judge looked\ntroubled, whilst Hendon turned pale, and his body was thrilled with an\nelectric shiver of dismay; but the King remained unmoved, protected\nby his ignorance. \u00a0The judge meditated, during an ominous pause, then\nturned to the woman, with the question--\n\n\"What dost thou hold this property to be worth?\"\n\nThe woman courtesied and replied--\n\n\"Three shillings and eightpence, your worship--I could not abate a penny\nand set forth the value honestly.\"\n\nThe justice glanced around uncomfortably upon the crowd, then nodded to\nthe constable, and said--\n\n\"Clear the court and close the doors.\"\n\nIt was done. \u00a0None remained but the two officials, the accused, the\naccuser, and Miles Hendon. \u00a0This latter was rigid and colourless, and\non his forehead big drops of cold sweat gathered, broke and blended\ntogether, and trickled down his face. \u00a0The judge turned to the woman\nagain, and said, in a compassionate voice--\n\n\"'Tis a poor ignorant lad, and mayhap was driven hard by hunger, for\nthese be grievous times for the unfortunate; mark you, he hath not an\nevil face--but when hunger driveth--Good woman! dost know that when one\nsteals a thing above the value of thirteenpence ha'penny the law saith\nhe shall _hang_ for it?\"\n\nThe little King started, wide-eyed with consternation, but controlled\nhimself and held his peace; but not so the woman. \u00a0She sprang to her\nfeet, shaking with fright, and cried out--\n\n\"Oh, good lack, what have I done! \u00a0God-a-mercy, I would not hang\nthe poor thing for the whole world! \u00a0Ah, save me from this, your\nworship--what shall I do, what _can_ I do?\"\n\nThe justice maintained his judicial composure, and simply said--\n\n\"Doubtless it is allowable to revise the value, since it is not yet writ\nupon the record.\"\n\n\"Then in God's name call the pig eightpence, and heaven bless the day\nthat freed my conscience of this awesome thing!\"\n\nMiles Hendon forgot all decorum in his delight; and surprised the King\nand wounded his dignity, by throwing his arms around him and hugging\nhim. The woman made her grateful adieux and started away with her pig;\nand when the constable opened the door for her, he followed her out into\nthe narrow hall. \u00a0The justice proceeded to write in his record book.\n\u00a0Hendon, always alert, thought he would like to know why the officer\nfollowed the woman out; so he slipped softly into the dusky hall and\nlistened. \u00a0He heard a conversation to this effect--\n\n\"It is a fat pig, and promises good eating; I will buy it of thee; here\nis the eightpence.\"\n\n\"Eightpence, indeed! \u00a0Thou'lt do no such thing. \u00a0It cost me three\nshillings and eightpence, good honest coin of the last reign, that old\nHarry that's just dead ne'er touched or tampered with. \u00a0A fig for thy\neightpence!\"\n\n\"Stands the wind in that quarter? \u00a0Thou wast under oath, and so swore\nfalsely when thou saidst the value was but eightpence. \u00a0Come straightway\nback with me before his worship, and answer for the crime!--and then the\nlad will hang.\"\n\n\"There, there, dear heart, say no more, I am content. \u00a0Give me the\neightpence, and hold thy peace about the matter.\"\n\nThe woman went off crying: \u00a0Hendon slipped back into the court room,\nand the constable presently followed, after hiding his prize in some\nconvenient place. \u00a0The justice wrote a while longer, then read the King\na wise and kindly lecture, and sentenced him to a short imprisonment\nin the common jail, to be followed by a public flogging. \u00a0The astounded\nKing opened his mouth, and was probably going to order the good judge to\nbe beheaded on the spot; but he caught a warning sign from Hendon, and\nsucceeded in closing his mouth again before he lost anything out of it.\nHendon took him by the hand, now, made reverence to the justice, and the\ntwo departed in the wake of the constable toward the jail. \u00a0The moment\nthe street was reached, the inflamed monarch halted, snatched away his\nhand, and exclaimed--\n\n\"Idiot, dost imagine I will enter a common jail _alive_?\"\n\nHendon bent down and said, somewhat sharply--\n\n\"_Will_ you trust in me? \u00a0Peace! and forbear to worsen our chances with\ndangerous speech. \u00a0What God wills, will happen; thou canst not hurry it,\nthou canst not alter it; therefore wait, and be patient--'twill be time\nenow to rail or rejoice when what is to happen has happened.\" {1}\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV. The Escape.\n\nThe short winter day was nearly ended. \u00a0The streets were deserted, save\nfor a few random stragglers, and these hurried straight along, with the\nintent look of people who were only anxious to accomplish their errands\nas quickly as possible, and then snugly house themselves from the rising\nwind and the gathering twilight. They looked neither to the right nor to\nthe left; they paid no attention to our party, they did not even seem\nto see them. Edward the Sixth wondered if the spectacle of a king on his\nway to jail had ever encountered such marvellous indifference before.\nBy-and-by the constable arrived at a deserted market-square, and\nproceeded to cross it. \u00a0When he had reached the middle of it, Hendon\nlaid his hand upon his arm, and said in a low voice--\n\n\"Bide a moment, good sir, there is none in hearing, and I would say a\nword to thee.\"\n\n\"My duty forbids it, sir; prithee hinder me not, the night comes on.\"\n\n\"Stay, nevertheless, for the matter concerns thee nearly. \u00a0Turn thy back\na moment and seem not to see: \u00a0_let this poor lad escape_.\"\n\n\"This to me, sir! \u00a0I arrest thee in--\"\n\n\"Nay, be not too hasty. \u00a0See thou be careful and commit no foolish\nerror,\"--then he shut his voice down to a whisper, and said in the man's\near--\"the pig thou hast purchased for eightpence may cost thee thy neck,\nman!\"\n\nThe poor constable, taken by surprise, was speechless, at first, then\nfound his tongue and fell to blustering and threatening; but Hendon\nwas tranquil, and waited with patience till his breath was spent; then\nsaid--\n\n\"I have a liking to thee, friend, and would not willingly see thee\ncome to harm. \u00a0Observe, I heard it all--every word. \u00a0I will prove it to\nthee.\" Then he repeated the conversation which the officer and the woman\nhad had together in the hall, word for word, and ended with--\n\n\"There--have I set it forth correctly? \u00a0Should not I be able to set it\nforth correctly before the judge, if occasion required?\"\n\nThe man was dumb with fear and distress, for a moment; then he rallied,\nand said with forced lightness--\n\n\"'Tis making a mighty matter, indeed, out of a jest; I but plagued the\nwoman for mine amusement.\"\n\n\"Kept you the woman's pig for amusement?\"\n\nThe man answered sharply--\n\n\"Nought else, good sir--I tell thee 'twas but a jest.\"\n\n\"I do begin to believe thee,\" said Hendon, with a perplexing mixture of\nmockery and half-conviction in his tone; \"but tarry thou here a\nmoment whilst I run and ask his worship--for nathless, he being a man\nexperienced in law, in jests, in--\"\n\nHe was moving away, still talking; the constable hesitated, fidgeted,\nspat out an oath or two, then cried out--\n\n\"Hold, hold, good sir--prithee wait a little--the judge! \u00a0Why, man, he\nhath no more sympathy with a jest than hath a dead corpse!--come, and we\nwill speak further. \u00a0Ods body! \u00a0I seem to be in evil case--and all for\nan innocent and thoughtless pleasantry. I am a man of family; and my\nwife and little ones--List to reason, good your worship: what wouldst\nthou of me?\"\n\n\"Only that thou be blind and dumb and paralytic whilst one may count a\nhundred thousand--counting slowly,\" said Hendon, with the expression of\na man who asks but a reasonable favour, and that a very little one.\n\n\"It is my destruction!\" said the constable despairingly. \u00a0\"Ah, be\nreasonable, good sir; only look at this matter, on all its sides, and\nsee how mere a jest it is--how manifestly and how plainly it is so. \u00a0And\neven if one granted it were not a jest, it is a fault so small that\ne'en the grimmest penalty it could call forth would be but a rebuke and\nwarning from the judge's lips.\"\n\nHendon replied with a solemnity which chilled the air about him--\n\n\"This jest of thine hath a name, in law,--wot you what it is?\"\n\n\"I knew it not! \u00a0Peradventure I have been unwise. \u00a0I never dreamed it\nhad a name--ah, sweet heaven, I thought it was original.\"\n\n\"Yes, it hath a name. \u00a0In the law this crime is called Non compos mentis\nlex talionis sic transit gloria mundi.\"\n\n\"Ah, my God!\"\n\n\"And the penalty is death!\"\n\n\"God be merciful to me a sinner!\"\n\n\"By advantage taken of one in fault, in dire peril, and at thy mercy,\nthou hast seized goods worth above thirteenpence ha'penny, paying but\na trifle for the same; and this, in the eye of the law, is constructive\nbarratry, misprision of treason, malfeasance in office, ad hominem\nexpurgatis in statu quo--and the penalty is death by the halter, without\nransom, commutation, or benefit of clergy.\"\n\n\"Bear me up, bear me up, sweet sir, my legs do fail me! \u00a0Be thou\nmerciful--spare me this doom, and I will turn my back and see nought\nthat shall happen.\"\n\n\"Good! now thou'rt wise and reasonable. \u00a0And thou'lt restore the pig?\"\n\n\"I will, I will indeed--nor ever touch another, though heaven send it\nand an archangel fetch it. \u00a0Go--I am blind for thy sake--I see nothing.\n\u00a0I will say thou didst break in and wrest the prisoner from my hands by\nforce. \u00a0It is but a crazy, ancient door--I will batter it down myself\nbetwixt midnight and the morning.\"\n\n\"Do it, good soul, no harm will come of it; the judge hath a loving\ncharity for this poor lad, and will shed no tears and break no jailer's\nbones for his escape.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV. Hendon Hall.\n\nAs soon as Hendon and the King were out of sight of the constable, his\nMajesty was instructed to hurry to a certain place outside the town, and\nwait there, whilst Hendon should go to the inn and settle his account.\nHalf an hour later the two friends were blithely jogging eastward on\nHendon's sorry steeds. \u00a0The King was warm and comfortable, now, for\nhe had cast his rags and clothed himself in the second-hand suit which\nHendon had bought on London Bridge.\n\nHendon wished to guard against over-fatiguing the boy; he judged that\nhard journeys, irregular meals, and illiberal measures of sleep would be\nbad for his crazed mind; whilst rest, regularity, and moderate exercise\nwould be pretty sure to hasten its cure; he longed to see the stricken\nintellect made well again and its diseased visions driven out of the\ntormented little head; therefore he resolved to move by easy stages\ntoward the home whence he had so long been banished, instead of obeying\nthe impulse of his impatience and hurrying along night and day.\n\nWhen he and the King had journeyed about ten miles, they reached a\nconsiderable village, and halted there for the night, at a good inn.\n\u00a0The former relations were resumed; Hendon stood behind the King's\nchair, while he dined, and waited upon him; undressed him when he was\nready for bed; then took the floor for his own quarters, and slept\nathwart the door, rolled up in a blanket.\n\nThe next day, and the day after, they jogged lazily along talking\nover the adventures they had met since their separation, and mightily\nenjoying each other's narratives. \u00a0Hendon detailed all his wide\nwanderings in search of the King, and described how the archangel had\nled him a fool's journey all over the forest, and taken him back to\nthe hut, finally, when he found he could not get rid of him. \u00a0Then--he\nsaid--the old man went into the bedchamber and came staggering back\nlooking broken-hearted, and saying he had expected to find that the boy\nhad returned and laid down in there to rest, but it was not so. \u00a0Hendon\nhad waited at the hut all day; hope of the King's return died out, then,\nand he departed upon the quest again.\n\n\"And old Sanctum Sanctorum _was_ truly sorry your highness came not\nback,\" said Hendon; \"I saw it in his face.\"\n\n\"Marry I will never doubt _that_!\" said the King--and then told his own\nstory; after which, Hendon was sorry he had not destroyed the archangel.\n\nDuring the last day of the trip, Hendon's spirits were soaring. His\ntongue ran constantly. \u00a0He talked about his old father, and his brother\nArthur, and told of many things which illustrated their high and\ngenerous characters; he went into loving frenzies over his Edith,\nand was so glad-hearted that he was even able to say some gentle and\nbrotherly things about Hugh. \u00a0He dwelt a deal on the coming meeting\nat Hendon Hall; what a surprise it would be to everybody, and what an\noutburst of thanksgiving and delight there would be.\n\nIt was a fair region, dotted with cottages and orchards, and the road\nled through broad pasture lands whose receding expanses, marked with\ngentle elevations and depressions, suggested the swelling and subsiding\nundulations of the sea. \u00a0In the afternoon the returning prodigal made\nconstant deflections from his course to see if by ascending some hillock\nhe might not pierce the distance and catch a glimpse of his home. \u00a0At\nlast he was successful, and cried out excitedly--\n\n\"There is the village, my Prince, and there is the Hall close by! You\nmay see the towers from here; and that wood there--that is my father's\npark. Ah, _now_ thou'lt know what state and grandeur be! A house with\nseventy rooms--think of that!--and seven and twenty servants! \u00a0A brave\nlodging for such as we, is it not so? \u00a0Come, let us speed--my impatience\nwill not brook further delay.\"\n\nAll possible hurry was made; still, it was after three o'clock before\nthe village was reached. \u00a0The travellers scampered through it, Hendon's\ntongue going all the time. \u00a0\"Here is the church--covered with the same\nivy--none gone, none added.\" \u00a0\"Yonder is the inn, the old Red Lion,--and\nyonder is the market-place.\" \u00a0\"Here is the Maypole, and here the\npump--nothing is altered; nothing but the people, at any rate; ten years\nmake a change in people; some of these I seem to know, but none know\nme.\" \u00a0So his chat ran on. The end of the village was soon reached; then\nthe travellers struck into a crooked, narrow road, walled in with tall\nhedges, and hurried briskly along it for half a mile, then passed into a\nvast flower garden through an imposing gateway, whose huge stone pillars\nbore sculptured armorial devices. \u00a0A noble mansion was before them.\n\n\"Welcome to Hendon Hall, my King!\" exclaimed Miles. \u00a0\"Ah, 'tis a great\nday! \u00a0My father and my brother, and the Lady Edith will be so mad with\njoy that they will have eyes and tongue for none but me in the first\ntransports of the meeting, and so thou'lt seem but coldly welcomed--but\nmind it not; 'twill soon seem otherwise; for when I say thou art my\nward, and tell them how costly is my love for thee, thou'lt see them\ntake thee to their breasts for Miles Hendon's sake, and make their house\nand hearts thy home for ever after!\"\n\nThe next moment Hendon sprang to the ground before the great door,\nhelped the King down, then took him by the hand and rushed within. A few\nsteps brought him to a spacious apartment; he entered, seated the King\nwith more hurry than ceremony, then ran toward a young man who sat at a\nwriting-table in front of a generous fire of logs.\n\n\"Embrace me, Hugh,\" he cried, \"and say thou'rt glad I am come again! and\ncall our father, for home is not home till I shall touch his hand, and\nsee his face, and hear his voice once more!\"\n\nBut Hugh only drew back, after betraying a momentary surprise, and bent\na grave stare upon the intruder--a stare which indicated somewhat of\noffended dignity, at first, then changed, in response to some inward\nthought or purpose, to an expression of marvelling curiosity, mixed with\na real or assumed compassion. \u00a0Presently he said, in a mild voice--\n\n\"Thy wits seem touched, poor stranger; doubtless thou hast suffered\nprivations and rude buffetings at the world's hands; thy looks and dress\nbetoken it. \u00a0Whom dost thou take me to be?\"\n\n\"Take thee? \u00a0Prithee for whom else than whom thou art? \u00a0I take thee to\nbe Hugh Hendon,\" said Miles, sharply.\n\nThe other continued, in the same soft tone--\n\n\"And whom dost thou imagine thyself to be?\"\n\n\"Imagination hath nought to do with it! \u00a0Dost thou pretend thou knowest\nme not for thy brother Miles Hendon?\"\n\nAn expression of pleased surprise flitted across Hugh's face, and he\nexclaimed--\n\n\"What! thou art not jesting? can the dead come to life? \u00a0God be praised\nif it be so! \u00a0Our poor lost boy restored to our arms after all these\ncruel years! \u00a0Ah, it seems too good to be true, it _is_ too good to be\ntrue--I charge thee, have pity, do not trifle with me! \u00a0Quick--come to\nthe light--let me scan thee well!\"\n\nHe seized Miles by the arm, dragged him to the window, and began to\ndevour him from head to foot with his eyes, turning him this way and\nthat, and stepping briskly around him and about him to prove him\nfrom all points of view; whilst the returned prodigal, all aglow with\ngladness, smiled, laughed, and kept nodding his head and saying--\n\n\"Go on, brother, go on, and fear not; thou'lt find nor limb nor feature\nthat cannot bide the test. \u00a0Scour and scan me to thy content, my good\nold Hugh--I am indeed thy old Miles, thy same old Miles, thy lost\nbrother, is't not so? \u00a0Ah, 'tis a great day--I _said_ 'twas a great day!\n\u00a0Give me thy hand, give me thy cheek--lord, I am like to die of very\njoy!\"\n\nHe was about to throw himself upon his brother; but Hugh put up his hand\nin dissent, then dropped his chin mournfully upon his breast, saying\nwith emotion--\n\n\"Ah, God of his mercy give me strength to bear this grievous\ndisappointment!\"\n\nMiles, amazed, could not speak for a moment; then he found his tongue,\nand cried out--\n\n\"_What_ disappointment? \u00a0Am I not thy brother?\"\n\nHugh shook his head sadly, and said--\n\n\"I pray heaven it may prove so, and that other eyes may find the\nresemblances that are hid from mine. \u00a0Alack, I fear me the letter spoke\nbut too truly.\"\n\n\"What letter?\"\n\n\"One that came from over sea, some six or seven years ago. \u00a0It said my\nbrother died in battle.\"\n\n\"It was a lie! \u00a0Call thy father--he will know me.\"\n\n\"One may not call the dead.\"\n\n\"Dead?\" Miles's voice was subdued, and his lips trembled. \u00a0\"My father\ndead!--oh, this is heavy news. \u00a0Half my new joy is withered now.\n\u00a0Prithee let me see my brother Arthur--he will know me; he will know me\nand console me.\"\n\n\"He, also, is dead.\"\n\n\"God be merciful to me, a stricken man! \u00a0Gone,--both gone--the worthy\ntaken and the worthless spared, in me! \u00a0Ah! I crave your mercy!--do not\nsay the Lady Edith--\"\n\n\"Is dead? \u00a0No, she lives.\"\n\n\"Then, God be praised, my joy is whole again! \u00a0Speed thee, brother--let\nher come to me! \u00a0An' _she_ say I am not myself--but she will not; no,\nno, _she_ will know me, I were a fool to doubt it. Bring her--bring the\nold servants; they, too, will know me.\"\n\n\"All are gone but five--Peter, Halsey, David, Bernard, and Margaret.\"\n\nSo saying, Hugh left the room. \u00a0Miles stood musing a while, then began\nto walk the floor, muttering--\n\n\"The five arch-villains have survived the two-and-twenty leal and\nhonest--'tis an odd thing.\"\n\nHe continued walking back and forth, muttering to himself; he had\nforgotten the King entirely. \u00a0By-and-by his Majesty said gravely, and\nwith a touch of genuine compassion, though the words themselves were\ncapable of being interpreted ironically--\n\n\"Mind not thy mischance, good man; there be others in the world whose\nidentity is denied, and whose claims are derided. \u00a0Thou hast company.\"\n\n\"Ah, my King,\" cried Hendon, colouring slightly, \"do not thou condemn\nme--wait, and thou shalt see. \u00a0I am no impostor--she will say it; you\nshall hear it from the sweetest lips in England. \u00a0I an impostor? \u00a0Why, I\nknow this old hall, these pictures of my ancestors, and all these things\nthat are about us, as a child knoweth its own nursery. \u00a0Here was I born\nand bred, my lord; I speak the truth; I would not deceive thee; and\nshould none else believe, I pray thee do not _thou_ doubt me--I could\nnot bear it.\"\n\n\"I do not doubt thee,\" said the King, with a childlike simplicity and\nfaith.\n\n\"I thank thee out of my heart!\" exclaimed Hendon with a fervency which\nshowed that he was touched. \u00a0The King added, with the same gentle\nsimplicity--\n\n\"Dost thou doubt _me_?\"\n\nA guilty confusion seized upon Hendon, and he was grateful that the door\nopened to admit Hugh, at that moment, and saved him the necessity of\nreplying.\n\nA beautiful lady, richly clothed, followed Hugh, and after her came\nseveral liveried servants. \u00a0The lady walked slowly, with her head bowed\nand her eyes fixed upon the floor. \u00a0The face was unspeakably sad. \u00a0Miles\nHendon sprang forward, crying out--\n\n\"Oh, my Edith, my darling--\"\n\nBut Hugh waved him back, gravely, and said to the lady--\n\n\"Look upon him. \u00a0Do you know him?\"\n\nAt the sound of Miles's voice the woman had started slightly, and her\ncheeks had flushed; she was trembling now. \u00a0She stood still, during an\nimpressive pause of several moments; then slowly lifted up her head and\nlooked into Hendon's eyes with a stony and frightened gaze; the blood\nsank out of her face, drop by drop, till nothing remained but the grey\npallor of death; then she said, in a voice as dead as the face, \"I know\nhim not!\" and turned, with a moan and a stifled sob, and tottered out of\nthe room.\n\nMiles Hendon sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands.\nAfter a pause, his brother said to the servants--\n\n\"You have observed him. \u00a0Do you know him?\"\n\nThey shook their heads; then the master said--\n\n\"The servants know you not, sir. \u00a0I fear there is some mistake. You have\nseen that my wife knew you not.\"\n\n\"Thy _wife_!\" \u00a0In an instant Hugh was pinned to the wall, with an iron\ngrip about his throat. \u00a0\"Oh, thou fox-hearted slave, I see it all!\n\u00a0Thou'st writ the lying letter thyself, and my stolen bride and goods\nare its fruit. \u00a0There--now get thee gone, lest I shame mine honourable\nsoldiership with the slaying of so pitiful a mannikin!\"\n\nHugh, red-faced, and almost suffocated, reeled to the nearest chair, and\ncommanded the servants to seize and bind the murderous stranger. \u00a0They\nhesitated, and one of them said--\n\n\"He is armed, Sir Hugh, and we are weaponless.\"\n\n\"Armed! \u00a0What of it, and ye so many? \u00a0Upon him, I say!\"\n\nBut Miles warned them to be careful what they did, and added--\n\n\"Ye know me of old--I have not changed; come on, an' it like you.\"\n\nThis reminder did not hearten the servants much; they still held back.\n\n\"Then go, ye paltry cowards, and arm yourselves and guard the doors,\nwhilst I send one to fetch the watch!\" said Hugh. \u00a0He turned at the\nthreshold, and said to Miles, \"You'll find it to your advantage to\noffend not with useless endeavours at escape.\"\n\n\"Escape? \u00a0Spare thyself discomfort, an' that is all that troubles thee.\nFor Miles Hendon is master of Hendon Hall and all its belongings. \u00a0He\nwill remain--doubt it not.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI. Disowned.\n\nThe King sat musing a few moments, then looked up and said--\n\n\"'Tis strange--most strange. \u00a0I cannot account for it.\"\n\n\"No, it is not strange, my liege. \u00a0I know him, and this conduct is but\nnatural. \u00a0He was a rascal from his birth.\"\n\n\"Oh, I spake not of _him_, Sir Miles.\"\n\n\"Not of him? \u00a0Then of what? \u00a0What is it that is strange?\"\n\n\"That the King is not missed.\"\n\n\"How? \u00a0Which? \u00a0I doubt I do not understand.\"\n\n\"Indeed? \u00a0Doth it not strike you as being passing strange that the land\nis not filled with couriers and proclamations describing my person and\nmaking search for me? \u00a0Is it no matter for commotion and distress that\nthe Head of the State is gone; that I am vanished away and lost?\"\n\n\"Most true, my King, I had forgot.\" \u00a0Then Hendon sighed, and muttered to\nhimself, \"Poor ruined mind--still busy with its pathetic dream.\"\n\n\"But I have a plan that shall right us both--I will write a paper, in\nthree tongues--Latin, Greek and English--and thou shalt haste away with\nit to London in the morning. \u00a0Give it to none but my uncle, the Lord\nHertford; when he shall see it, he will know and say I wrote it. \u00a0Then\nhe will send for me.\"\n\n\"Might it not be best, my Prince, that we wait here until I prove myself\nand make my rights secure to my domains? \u00a0I should be so much the better\nable then to--\"\n\nThe King interrupted him imperiously--\n\n\"Peace! \u00a0What are thy paltry domains, thy trivial interests, contrasted\nwith matters which concern the weal of a nation and the integrity of a\nthrone?\" \u00a0Then, he added, in a gentle voice, as if he were sorry for his\nseverity, \"Obey, and have no fear; I will right thee, I will make thee\nwhole--yes, more than whole. \u00a0I shall remember, and requite.\"\n\nSo saying, he took the pen, and set himself to work. \u00a0Hendon\ncontemplated him lovingly a while, then said to himself--\n\n\"An' it were dark, I should think it _was_ a king that spoke; there's\nno denying it, when the humour's upon on him he doth thunder and lighten\nlike your true King; now where got he that trick? \u00a0See him scribble and\nscratch away contentedly at his meaningless pot-hooks, fancying them to\nbe Latin and Greek--and except my wit shall serve me with a lucky device\nfor diverting him from his purpose, I shall be forced to pretend to post\naway to-morrow on this wild errand he hath invented for me.\"\n\nThe next moment Sir Miles's thoughts had gone back to the recent\nepisode. So absorbed was he in his musings, that when the King presently\nhanded him the paper which he had been writing, he received it and\npocketed it without being conscious of the act. \"How marvellous strange\nshe acted,\" he muttered. \u00a0\"I think she knew me--and I think she did\n_not_ know me. These opinions do conflict, I perceive it plainly; I\ncannot reconcile them, neither can I, by argument, dismiss either of the\ntwo, or even persuade one to outweigh the other. \u00a0The matter standeth\nsimply thus: she _must_ have known my face, my figure, my voice, for how\ncould it be otherwise? \u00a0Yet she __said_ _she knew me not, and that is\nproof perfect, for she cannot lie. \u00a0But stop--I think I begin to see.\nPeradventure he hath influenced her, commanded her, compelled her to\nlie. \u00a0That is the solution. \u00a0The riddle is unriddled. \u00a0She seemed dead\nwith fear--yes, she was under his compulsion. \u00a0I will seek her; I will\nfind her; now that he is away, she will speak her true mind. \u00a0She will\nremember the old times when we were little playfellows together, and\nthis will soften her heart, and she will no more betray me, but will\nconfess me. \u00a0There is no treacherous blood in her--no, she was always\nhonest and true. \u00a0She has loved me, in those old days--this is my\nsecurity; for whom one has loved, one cannot betray.\"\n\nHe stepped eagerly toward the door; at that moment it opened, and the\nLady Edith entered. \u00a0She was very pale, but she walked with a firm step,\nand her carriage was full of grace and gentle dignity. Her face was as\nsad as before.\n\nMiles sprang forward, with a happy confidence, to meet her, but she\nchecked him with a hardly perceptible gesture, and he stopped where he\nwas. \u00a0She seated herself, and asked him to do likewise. Thus simply did\nshe take the sense of old comradeship out of him, and transform him\ninto a stranger and a guest. \u00a0The surprise of it, the bewildering\nunexpectedness of it, made him begin to question, for a moment, if he\n_was_ the person he was pretending to be, after all. \u00a0The Lady Edith\nsaid--\n\n\"Sir, I have come to warn you. \u00a0The mad cannot be persuaded out of\ntheir delusions, perchance; but doubtless they may be persuaded to avoid\nperils. \u00a0I think this dream of yours hath the seeming of honest truth to\nyou, and therefore is not criminal--but do not tarry here with it; for\nhere it is dangerous.\" \u00a0She looked steadily into Miles's face a moment,\nthen added, impressively, \"It is the more dangerous for that you _are_\nmuch like what our lost lad must have grown to be if he had lived.\"\n\n\"Heavens, madam, but I _am_ he!\"\n\n\"I truly think you think it, sir. \u00a0I question not your honesty in that;\nI but warn you, that is all. \u00a0My husband is master in this region; his\npower hath hardly any limit; the people prosper or starve, as he wills.\nIf you resembled not the man whom you profess to be, my husband might\nbid you pleasure yourself with your dream in peace; but trust me, I know\nhim well; I know what he will do; he will say to all that you are but a\nmad impostor, and straightway all will echo him.\" \u00a0She bent upon Miles\nthat same steady look once more, and added: \u00a0\"If you _were_ Miles\nHendon, and he knew it and all the region knew it--consider what I\nam saying, weigh it well--you would stand in the same peril, your\npunishment would be no less sure; he would deny you and denounce you,\nand none would be bold enough to give you countenance.\"\n\n\"Most truly I believe it,\" said Miles, bitterly. \u00a0\"The power that\ncan command one life-long friend to betray and disown another, and be\nobeyed, may well look to be obeyed in quarters where bread and life are\non the stake and no cobweb ties of loyalty and honour are concerned.\"\n\nA faint tinge appeared for a moment in the lady's cheek, and she dropped\nher eyes to the floor; but her voice betrayed no emotion when she\nproceeded--\n\n\"I have warned you--I must still warn you--to go hence. \u00a0This man will\ndestroy you, else. \u00a0He is a tyrant who knows no pity. \u00a0I, who am\nhis fettered slave, know this. \u00a0Poor Miles, and Arthur, and my dear\nguardian, Sir Richard, are free of him, and at rest: \u00a0better that\nyou were with them than that you bide here in the clutches of this\nmiscreant. \u00a0Your pretensions are a menace to his title and possessions;\nyou have assaulted him in his own house: \u00a0you are ruined if you stay.\n\u00a0Go--do not hesitate. If you lack money, take this purse, I beg of you,\nand bribe the servants to let you pass. Oh, be warned, poor soul, and\nescape while you may.\"\n\nMiles declined the purse with a gesture, and rose up and stood before\nher.\n\n\"Grant me one thing,\" he said. \u00a0\"Let your eyes rest upon mine, so that I\nmay see if they be steady. \u00a0There--now answer me. \u00a0Am I Miles Hendon?\"\n\n\"No. \u00a0I know you not.\"\n\n\"Swear it!\"\n\nThe answer was low, but distinct--\n\n\"I swear.\"\n\n\"Oh, this passes belief!\"\n\n\"Fly! \u00a0Why will you waste the precious time? \u00a0Fly, and save yourself.\"\n\nAt that moment the officers burst into the room, and a violent struggle\nbegan; but Hendon was soon overpowered and dragged away. The King was\ntaken also, and both were bound and led to prison.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII. In Prison.\n\nThe cells were all crowded; so the two friends were chained in a large\nroom where persons charged with trifling offences were commonly kept.\nThey had company, for there were some twenty manacled and fettered\nprisoners here, of both sexes and of varying ages,--an obscene and noisy\ngang. \u00a0The King chafed bitterly over the stupendous indignity thus put\nupon his royalty, but Hendon was moody and taciturn. \u00a0He was pretty\nthoroughly bewildered; he had come home, a jubilant prodigal, expecting\nto find everybody wild with joy over his return; and instead had got the\ncold shoulder and a jail. \u00a0The promise and the fulfilment differed so\nwidely that the effect was stunning; he could not decide whether it\nwas most tragic or most grotesque. \u00a0He felt much as a man might who had\ndanced blithely out to enjoy a rainbow, and got struck by lightning.\n\nBut gradually his confused and tormenting thoughts settled down into\nsome sort of order, and then his mind centred itself upon Edith. \u00a0He\nturned her conduct over, and examined it in all lights, but he could not\nmake anything satisfactory out of it. \u00a0Did she know him--or didn't she\nknow him? \u00a0It was a perplexing puzzle, and occupied him a long time; but\nhe ended, finally, with the conviction that she did know him, and had\nrepudiated him for interested reasons. \u00a0He wanted to load her name with\ncurses now; but this name had so long been sacred to him that he found\nhe could not bring his tongue to profane it.\n\nWrapped in prison blankets of a soiled and tattered condition, Hendon\nand the King passed a troubled night. \u00a0For a bribe the jailer had\nfurnished liquor to some of the prisoners; singing of ribald songs,\nfighting, shouting, and carousing was the natural consequence. \u00a0At last,\na while after midnight, a man attacked a woman and nearly killed her by\nbeating her over the head with his manacles before the jailer could\ncome to the rescue. \u00a0The jailer restored peace by giving the man a sound\nclubbing about the head and shoulders--then the carousing ceased;\nand after that, all had an opportunity to sleep who did not mind the\nannoyance of the moanings and groanings of the two wounded people.\n\nDuring the ensuing week, the days and nights were of a monotonous\nsameness as to events; men whose faces Hendon remembered more or less\ndistinctly, came, by day, to gaze at the 'impostor' and repudiate\nand insult him; and by night the carousing and brawling went on with\nsymmetrical regularity. \u00a0However, there was a change of incident at\nlast. The jailer brought in an old man, and said to him--\n\n\"The villain is in this room--cast thy old eyes about and see if thou\ncanst say which is he.\"\n\nHendon glanced up, and experienced a pleasant sensation for the first\ntime since he had been in the jail. \u00a0He said to himself, \"This is Blake\nAndrews, a servant all his life in my father's family--a good honest\nsoul, with a right heart in his breast. That is, formerly. \u00a0But none are\ntrue now; all are liars. \u00a0This man will know me--and will deny me, too,\nlike the rest.\"\n\nThe old man gazed around the room, glanced at each face in turn, and\nfinally said--\n\n\"I see none here but paltry knaves, scum o' the streets. \u00a0Which is he?\"\n\nThe jailer laughed.\n\n\"Here,\" he said; \"scan this big animal, and grant me an opinion.\"\n\nThe old man approached, and looked Hendon over, long and earnestly, then\nshook his head and said--\n\n\"Marry, _this_ is no Hendon--nor ever was!\"\n\n\"Right! \u00a0Thy old eyes are sound yet. \u00a0An' I were Sir Hugh, I would take\nthe shabby carle and--\"\n\nThe jailer finished by lifting himself a-tip-toe with an imaginary\nhalter, at the same time making a gurgling noise in his throat\nsuggestive of suffocation. \u00a0The old man said, vindictively--\n\n\"Let him bless God an' he fare no worse. \u00a0An' _I_ had the handling o'\nthe villain he should roast, or I am no true man!\"\n\nThe jailer laughed a pleasant hyena laugh, and said--\n\n\"Give him a piece of thy mind, old man--they all do it. \u00a0Thou'lt find it\ngood diversion.\"\n\nThen he sauntered toward his ante-room and disappeared. \u00a0The old man\ndropped upon his knees and whispered--\n\n\"God be thanked, thou'rt come again, my master! \u00a0I believed thou wert\ndead these seven years, and lo, here thou art alive! \u00a0I knew thee the\nmoment I saw thee; and main hard work it was to keep a stony countenance\nand seem to see none here but tuppenny knaves and rubbish o' the\nstreets. I am old and poor, Sir Miles; but say the word and I will go\nforth and proclaim the truth though I be strangled for it.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Hendon; \"thou shalt not. \u00a0It would ruin thee, and yet help\nbut little in my cause. \u00a0But I thank thee, for thou hast given me back\nsomewhat of my lost faith in my kind.\"\n\nThe old servant became very valuable to Hendon and the King; for\nhe dropped in several times a day to 'abuse' the former, and always\nsmuggled in a few delicacies to help out the prison bill of fare; he\nalso furnished the current news. \u00a0Hendon reserved the dainties for the\nKing; without them his Majesty might not have survived, for he was\nnot able to eat the coarse and wretched food provided by the jailer.\n\u00a0Andrews was obliged to confine himself to brief visits, in order to\navoid suspicion; but he managed to impart a fair degree of information\neach time--information delivered in a low voice, for Hendon's benefit,\nand interlarded with insulting epithets delivered in a louder voice for\nthe benefit of other hearers.\n\nSo, little by little, the story of the family came out. \u00a0Arthur had\nbeen dead six years. \u00a0This loss, with the absence of news from Hendon,\nimpaired the father's health; he believed he was going to die, and he\nwished to see Hugh and Edith settled in life before he passed away; but\nEdith begged hard for delay, hoping for Miles's return; then the letter\ncame which brought the news of Miles's death; the shock prostrated Sir\nRichard; he believed his end was very near, and he and Hugh insisted\nupon the marriage; Edith begged for and obtained a month's respite,\nthen another, and finally a third; the marriage then took place by\nthe death-bed of Sir Richard. \u00a0It had not proved a happy one. \u00a0It was\nwhispered about the country that shortly after the nuptials the bride\nfound among her husband's papers several rough and incomplete drafts of\nthe fatal letter, and had accused him of precipitating the marriage--and\nSir Richard's death, too--by a wicked forgery. Tales of cruelty to the\nLady Edith and the servants were to be heard on all hands; and since the\nfather's death Sir Hugh had thrown off all soft disguises and become\na pitiless master toward all who in any way depended upon him and his\ndomains for bread.\n\nThere was a bit of Andrew's gossip which the King listened to with a\nlively interest--\n\n\"There is rumour that the King is mad. \u00a0But in charity forbear to say\n_I_ mentioned it, for 'tis death to speak of it, they say.\"\n\nHis Majesty glared at the old man and said--\n\n\"The King is _not_ mad, good man--and thou'lt find it to thy advantage\nto busy thyself with matters that nearer concern thee than this\nseditious prattle.\"\n\n\"What doth the lad mean?\" said Andrews, surprised at this brisk assault\nfrom such an unexpected quarter. \u00a0Hendon gave him a sign, and he did not\npursue his question, but went on with his budget--\n\n\"The late King is to be buried at Windsor in a day or two--the 16th of\nthe month--and the new King will be crowned at Westminster the 20th.\"\n\n\"Methinks they must needs find him first,\" muttered his Majesty; then\nadded, confidently, \"but they will look to that--and so also shall I.\"\n\n\"In the name of--\"\n\nBut the old man got no further--a warning sign from Hendon checked his\nremark. \u00a0He resumed the thread of his gossip--\n\n\"Sir Hugh goeth to the coronation--and with grand hopes. \u00a0He confidently\nlooketh to come back a peer, for he is high in favour with the Lord\nProtector.\"\n\n\"What Lord Protector?\" asked his Majesty.\n\n\"His Grace the Duke of Somerset.\"\n\n\"What Duke of Somerset?\"\n\n\"Marry, there is but one--Seymour, Earl of Hertford.\"\n\nThe King asked sharply--\n\n\"Since when is _he_ a duke, and Lord Protector?\"\n\n\"Since the last day of January.\"\n\n\"And prithee who made him so?\"\n\n\"Himself and the Great Council--with help of the King.\"\n\nHis Majesty started violently. \u00a0\"The _King_!\" he cried. \u00a0\"_What_ king,\ngood sir?\"\n\n\"What king, indeed! (God-a-mercy, what aileth the boy?) \u00a0Sith we have\nbut one, 'tis not difficult to answer--his most sacred Majesty King\nEdward the Sixth--whom God preserve! \u00a0Yea, and a dear and gracious\nlittle urchin is he, too; and whether he be mad or no--and they say he\nmendeth daily--his praises are on all men's lips; and all bless him,\nlikewise, and offer prayers that he may be spared to reign long in\nEngland; for he began humanely with saving the old Duke of Norfolk's\nlife, and now is he bent on destroying the cruellest of the laws that\nharry and oppress the people.\"\n\nThis news struck his Majesty dumb with amazement, and plunged him into\nso deep and dismal a reverie that he heard no more of the old man's\ngossip. He wondered if the 'little urchin' was the beggar-boy whom\nhe left dressed in his own garments in the palace. \u00a0It did not seem\npossible that this could be, for surely his manners and speech would\nbetray him if he pretended to be the Prince of Wales--then he would be\ndriven out, and search made for the true prince. \u00a0Could it be that the\nCourt had set up some sprig of the nobility in his place? \u00a0No, for his\nuncle would not allow that--he was all-powerful and could and would\ncrush such a movement, of course. \u00a0The boy's musings profited him\nnothing; the more he tried to unriddle the mystery the more perplexed he\nbecame, the more his head ached, and the worse he slept. \u00a0His\nimpatience to get to London grew hourly, and his captivity became almost\nunendurable.\n\nHendon's arts all failed with the King--he could not be comforted; but a\ncouple of women who were chained near him succeeded better. Under their\ngentle ministrations he found peace and learned a degree of patience.\n\u00a0He was very grateful, and came to love them dearly and to delight in\nthe sweet and soothing influence of their presence. \u00a0He asked them why\nthey were in prison, and when they said they were Baptists, he smiled,\nand inquired--\n\n\"Is that a crime to be shut up for in a prison? \u00a0Now I grieve, for I\nshall lose ye--they will not keep ye long for such a little thing.\"\n\nThey did not answer; and something in their faces made him uneasy. He\nsaid, eagerly--\n\n\"You do not speak; be good to me, and tell me--there will be no other\npunishment? \u00a0Prithee tell me there is no fear of that.\"\n\nThey tried to change the topic, but his fears were aroused, and he\npursued it--\n\n\"Will they scourge thee? \u00a0No, no, they would not be so cruel! \u00a0Say they\nwould not. \u00a0Come, they _will_ not, will they?\"\n\nThe women betrayed confusion and distress, but there was no avoiding an\nanswer, so one of them said, in a voice choked with emotion--\n\n\"Oh, thou'lt break our hearts, thou gentle spirit!--God will help us to\nbear our--\"\n\n\"It is a confession!\" the King broke in. \u00a0\"Then they _will_ scourge\nthee, the stony-hearted wretches! \u00a0But oh, thou must not weep, I cannot\nbear it. \u00a0Keep up thy courage--I shall come to my own in time to save\nthee from this bitter thing, and I will do it!\"\n\nWhen the King awoke in the morning, the women were gone.\n\n\"They are saved!\" he said, joyfully; then added, despondently, \"but woe\nis me!--for they were my comforters.\"\n\nEach of them had left a shred of ribbon pinned to his clothing, in token\nof remembrance. \u00a0He said he would keep these things always; and that\nsoon he would seek out these dear good friends of his and take them\nunder his protection.\n\nJust then the jailer came in with some subordinates, and commanded that\nthe prisoners be conducted to the jail-yard. \u00a0The King was overjoyed--it\nwould be a blessed thing to see the blue sky and breathe the fresh air\nonce more. \u00a0He fretted and chafed at the slowness of the officers, but\nhis turn came at last, and he was released from his staple and ordered\nto follow the other prisoners with Hendon.\n\nThe court or quadrangle was stone-paved, and open to the sky. \u00a0The\nprisoners entered it through a massive archway of masonry, and were\nplaced in file, standing, with their backs against the wall. A rope\nwas stretched in front of them, and they were also guarded by their\nofficers. It was a chill and lowering morning, and a light snow which\nhad fallen during the night whitened the great empty space and added\nto the general dismalness of its aspect. Now and then a wintry wind\nshivered through the place and sent the snow eddying hither and thither.\n\nIn the centre of the court stood two women, chained to posts. \u00a0A glance\nshowed the King that these were his good friends. \u00a0He shuddered, and\nsaid to himself, \"Alack, they are not gone free, as I had thought. \u00a0To\nthink that such as these should know the lash!--in England! \u00a0Ay, there's\nthe shame of it--not in Heathennesse, Christian England! \u00a0They will be\nscourged; and I, whom they have comforted and kindly entreated, must\nlook on and see the great wrong done; it is strange, so strange, that\nI, the very source of power in this broad realm, am helpless to protect\nthem. But let these miscreants look well to themselves, for there is a\nday coming when I will require of them a heavy reckoning for this work.\n\u00a0For every blow they strike now, they shall feel a hundred then.\"\n\nA great gate swung open, and a crowd of citizens poured in. \u00a0They\nflocked around the two women, and hid them from the King's view. A\nclergyman entered and passed through the crowd, and he also was hidden.\n\u00a0The King now heard talking, back and forth, as if questions were being\nasked and answered, but he could not make out what was said. \u00a0Next there\nwas a deal of bustle and preparation, and much passing and repassing of\nofficials through that part of the crowd that stood on the further side\nof the women; and whilst this proceeded a deep hush gradually fell upon\nthe people.\n\nNow, by command, the masses parted and fell aside, and the King saw a\nspectacle that froze the marrow in his bones. \u00a0Faggots had been piled\nabout the two women, and a kneeling man was lighting them!\n\nThe women bowed their heads, and covered their faces with their hands;\nthe yellow flames began to climb upward among the snapping and crackling\nfaggots, and wreaths of blue smoke to stream away on the wind; the\nclergyman lifted his hands and began a prayer--just then two young girls\ncame flying through the great gate, uttering piercing screams, and threw\nthemselves upon the women at the stake. \u00a0Instantly they were torn away\nby the officers, and one of them was kept in a tight grip, but the other\nbroke loose, saying she would die with her mother; and before she could\nbe stopped she had flung her arms about her mother's neck again. \u00a0She\nwas torn away once more, and with her gown on fire. \u00a0Two or three men\nheld her, and the burning portion of her gown was snatched off and\nthrown flaming aside, she struggling all the while to free herself, and\nsaying she would be alone in the world, now; and begging to be allowed\nto die with her mother. \u00a0Both the girls screamed continually, and fought\nfor freedom; but suddenly this tumult was drowned under a volley of\nheart-piercing shrieks of mortal agony--the King glanced from the\nfrantic girls to the stake, then turned away and leaned his ashen face\nagainst the wall, and looked no more. \u00a0He said, \"That which I have seen,\nin that one little moment, will never go out from my memory, but will\nabide there; and I shall see it all the days, and dream of it all the\nnights, till I die. \u00a0Would God I had been blind!\"\n\nHendon was watching the King. \u00a0He said to himself, with satisfaction,\n\"His disorder mendeth; he hath changed, and groweth gentler. \u00a0If he had\nfollowed his wont, he would have stormed at these varlets, and said he\nwas King, and commanded that the women be turned loose unscathed. \u00a0Soon\nhis delusion will pass away and be forgotten, and his poor mind will be\nwhole again. \u00a0God speed the day!\"\n\nThat same day several prisoners were brought in to remain over night,\nwho were being conveyed, under guard, to various places in the kingdom,\nto undergo punishment for crimes committed. \u00a0The King conversed with\nthese--he had made it a point, from the beginning, to instruct himself\nfor the kingly office by questioning prisoners whenever the opportunity\noffered--and the tale of their woes wrung his heart. \u00a0One of them was\na poor half-witted woman who had stolen a yard or two of cloth from a\nweaver--she was to be hanged for it. \u00a0Another was a man who had been\naccused of stealing a horse; he said the proof had failed, and he had\nimagined that he was safe from the halter; but no--he was hardly free\nbefore he was arraigned for killing a deer in the King's park; this was\nproved against him, and now he was on his way to the gallows. \u00a0There was\na tradesman's apprentice whose case particularly distressed the King;\nthis youth said he found a hawk, one evening, that had escaped from its\nowner, and he took it home with him, imagining himself entitled to it;\nbut the court convicted him of stealing it, and sentenced him to death.\n\nThe King was furious over these inhumanities, and wanted Hendon to break\njail and fly with him to Westminster, so that he could mount his throne\nand hold out his sceptre in mercy over these unfortunate people and\nsave their lives. \u00a0\"Poor child,\" sighed Hendon, \"these woeful tales\nhave brought his malady upon him again; alack, but for this evil hap, he\nwould have been well in a little time.\"\n\nAmong these prisoners was an old lawyer--a man with a strong face and a\ndauntless mien. \u00a0Three years past, he had written a pamphlet against the\nLord Chancellor, accusing him of injustice, and had been punished for\nit by the loss of his ears in the pillory, and degradation from the\nbar, and in addition had been fined 3,000 pounds and sentenced to\nimprisonment for life. \u00a0Lately he had repeated his offence; and in\nconsequence was now under sentence to lose _what remained of his ears_,\npay a fine of 5,000 pounds, be branded on both cheeks, and remain in\nprison for life.\n\n\"These be honourable scars,\" he said, and turned back his grey hair and\nshowed the mutilated stubs of what had once been his ears.\n\nThe King's eye burned with passion. \u00a0He said--\n\n\"None believe in me--neither wilt thou. \u00a0But no matter--within the\ncompass of a month thou shalt be free; and more, the laws that have\ndishonoured thee, and shamed the English name, shall be swept from the\nstatute books. \u00a0The world is made wrong; kings should go to school to\ntheir own laws, at times, and so learn mercy.\" {1}\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII. The sacrifice.\n\nMeantime Miles was growing sufficiently tired of confinement and\ninaction. \u00a0But now his trial came on, to his great gratification, and\nhe thought he could welcome any sentence provided a further imprisonment\nshould not be a part of it. \u00a0But he was mistaken about that. \u00a0He was in\na fine fury when he found himself described as a 'sturdy vagabond' and\nsentenced to sit two hours in the stocks for bearing that character\nand for assaulting the master of Hendon Hall. \u00a0His pretensions as to\nbrothership with his prosecutor, and rightful heirship to the Hendon\nhonours and estates, were left contemptuously unnoticed, as being not\neven worth examination.\n\nHe raged and threatened on his way to punishment, but it did no good; he\nwas snatched roughly along by the officers, and got an occasional cuff,\nbesides, for his irreverent conduct.\n\nThe King could not pierce through the rabble that swarmed behind; so\nhe was obliged to follow in the rear, remote from his good friend and\nservant. \u00a0The King had been nearly condemned to the stocks himself for\nbeing in such bad company, but had been let off with a lecture and a\nwarning, in consideration of his youth. \u00a0When the crowd at last halted,\nhe flitted feverishly from point to point around its outer rim, hunting\na place to get through; and at last, after a deal of difficulty and\ndelay, succeeded. \u00a0There sat his poor henchman in the degrading stocks,\nthe sport and butt of a dirty mob--he, the body servant of the King\nof England! \u00a0Edward had heard the sentence pronounced, but he had not\nrealised the half that it meant. \u00a0His anger began to rise as the sense\nof this new indignity which had been put upon him sank home; it jumped\nto summer heat, the next moment, when he saw an egg sail through the air\nand crush itself against Hendon's cheek, and heard the crowd roar\nits enjoyment of the episode. \u00a0He sprang across the open circle and\nconfronted the officer in charge, crying--\n\n\"For shame! \u00a0This is my servant--set him free! \u00a0I am the--\"\n\n\"Oh, peace!\" exclaimed Hendon, in a panic, \"thou'lt destroy thyself.\nMind him not, officer, he is mad.\"\n\n\"Give thyself no trouble as to the matter of minding him, good man, I\nhave small mind to mind him; but as to teaching him somewhat, to that\nI am well inclined.\" \u00a0He turned to a subordinate and said, \"Give the\nlittle fool a taste or two of the lash, to mend his manners.\"\n\n\"Half a dozen will better serve his turn,\" suggested Sir Hugh, who had\nridden up, a moment before, to take a passing glance at the proceedings.\n\nThe King was seized. \u00a0He did not even struggle, so paralysed was he\nwith the mere thought of the monstrous outrage that was proposed to be\ninflicted upon his sacred person. \u00a0History was already defiled with\nthe record of the scourging of an English king with whips--it was an\nintolerable reflection that he must furnish a duplicate of that shameful\npage. \u00a0He was in the toils, there was no help for him; he must either\ntake this punishment or beg for its remission. \u00a0Hard conditions; he\nwould take the stripes--a king might do that, but a king could not beg.\n\nBut meantime, Miles Hendon was resolving the difficulty. \u00a0\"Let the child\ngo,\" said he; \"ye heartless dogs, do ye not see how young and frail he\nis? \u00a0Let him go--I will take his lashes.\"\n\n\"Marry, a good thought--and thanks for it,\" said Sir Hugh, his face\nlighting with a sardonic satisfaction. \u00a0\"Let the little beggar go, and\ngive this fellow a dozen in his place--an honest dozen, well laid on.\"\nThe King was in the act of entering a fierce protest, but Sir Hugh\nsilenced him with the potent remark, \"Yes, speak up, do, and free thy\nmind--only, mark ye, that for each word you utter he shall get six\nstrokes the more.\"\n\nHendon was removed from the stocks, and his back laid bare; and whilst\nthe lash was applied the poor little King turned away his face and\nallowed unroyal tears to channel his cheeks unchecked. \"Ah, brave good\nheart,\" he said to himself, \"this loyal deed shall never perish out of\nmy memory. \u00a0I will not forget it--and neither shall _they_!\" he added,\nwith passion. \u00a0Whilst he mused, his appreciation of Hendon's magnanimous\nconduct grew to greater and still greater dimensions in his mind, and\nso also did his gratefulness for it. \u00a0Presently he said to himself, \"Who\nsaves his prince from wounds and possible death--and this he did for\nme--performs high service; but it is little--it is nothing--oh, less\nthan nothing!--when 'tis weighed against the act of him who saves his\nprince from _shame_!\"\n\nHendon made no outcry under the scourge, but bore the heavy blows with\nsoldierly fortitude. \u00a0This, together with his redeeming the boy by\ntaking his stripes for him, compelled the respect of even that forlorn\nand degraded mob that was gathered there; and its gibes and hootings\ndied away, and no sound remained but the sound of the falling blows.\n\u00a0The stillness that pervaded the place, when Hendon found himself once\nmore in the stocks, was in strong contrast with the insulting clamour\nwhich had prevailed there so little a while before. \u00a0The King came\nsoftly to Hendon's side, and whispered in his ear--\n\n\"Kings cannot ennoble thee, thou good, great soul, for One who is higher\nthan kings hath done that for thee; but a king can confirm thy nobility\nto men.\" \u00a0He picked up the scourge from the ground, touched Hendon's\nbleeding shoulders lightly with it, and whispered, \"Edward of England\ndubs thee Earl!\"\n\nHendon was touched. \u00a0The water welled to his eyes, yet at the same time\nthe grisly humour of the situation and circumstances so undermined his\ngravity that it was all he could do to keep some sign of his inward\nmirth from showing outside. \u00a0To be suddenly hoisted, naked and gory,\nfrom the common stocks to the Alpine altitude and splendour of\nan Earldom, seemed to him the last possibility in the line of the\ngrotesque. \u00a0He said to himself, \"Now am I finely tinselled, indeed!\n\u00a0The spectre-knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows is become a\nspectre-earl--a dizzy flight for a callow wing! \u00a0An' this go on, I\nshall presently be hung like a very maypole with fantastic gauds and\nmake-believe honours. \u00a0But I shall value them, all valueless as\nthey are, for the love that doth bestow them. Better these poor mock\ndignities of mine, that come unasked, from a clean hand and a right\nspirit, than real ones bought by servility from grudging and interested\npower.\"\n\nThe dreaded Sir Hugh wheeled his horse about, and as he spurred away,\nthe living wall divided silently to let him pass, and as silently closed\ntogether again. \u00a0And so remained; nobody went so far as to venture\na remark in favour of the prisoner, or in compliment to him; but no\nmatter--the absence of abuse was a sufficient homage in itself. \u00a0A\nlate comer who was not posted as to the present circumstances, and who\ndelivered a sneer at the 'impostor,' and was in the act of following it\nwith a dead cat, was promptly knocked down and kicked out, without any\nwords, and then the deep quiet resumed sway once more.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX. To London.\n\nWhen Hendon's term of service in the stocks was finished, he was\nreleased and ordered to quit the region and come back no more. His sword\nwas restored to him, and also his mule and his donkey. He mounted\nand rode off, followed by the King, the crowd opening with quiet\nrespectfulness to let them pass, and then dispersing when they were\ngone.\n\nHendon was soon absorbed in thought. \u00a0There were questions of high\nimport to be answered. \u00a0What should he do? \u00a0Whither should he go?\nPowerful help must be found somewhere, or he must relinquish his\ninheritance and remain under the imputation of being an impostor\nbesides. \u00a0Where could he hope to find this powerful help? \u00a0Where,\nindeed! \u00a0It was a knotty question. By-and-by a thought occurred to him\nwhich pointed to a possibility--the slenderest of slender possibilities,\ncertainly, but still worth considering, for lack of any other that\npromised anything at all. \u00a0He remembered what old Andrews had said about\nthe young King's goodness and his generous championship of the wronged\nand unfortunate. \u00a0Why not go and try to get speech of him and beg for\njustice? \u00a0Ah, yes, but could so fantastic a pauper get admission to the\naugust presence of a monarch? Never mind--let that matter take care of\nitself; it was a bridge that would not need to be crossed till he should\ncome to it. \u00a0He was an old campaigner, and used to inventing shifts and\nexpedients: \u00a0no doubt he would be able to find a way. \u00a0Yes, he would\nstrike for the capital. Maybe his father's old friend Sir Humphrey\nMarlow would help him--'good old Sir Humphrey, Head Lieutenant of the\nlate King's kitchen, or stables, or something'--Miles could not remember\njust what or which. \u00a0Now that he had something to turn his energies to,\na distinctly defined object to accomplish, the fog of humiliation and\ndepression which had settled down upon his spirits lifted and blew away,\nand he raised his head and looked about him. \u00a0He was surprised to see\nhow far he had come; the village was away behind him. \u00a0The King was\njogging along in his wake, with his head bowed; for he, too, was deep\nin plans and thinkings. \u00a0A sorrowful misgiving clouded Hendon's new-born\ncheerfulness: \u00a0would the boy be willing to go again to a city where,\nduring all his brief life, he had never known anything but ill-usage and\npinching want? \u00a0But the question must be asked; it could not be avoided;\nso Hendon reined up, and called out--\n\n\"I had forgotten to inquire whither we are bound. \u00a0Thy commands, my\nliege!\"\n\n\"To London!\"\n\nHendon moved on again, mightily contented with the answer--but astounded\nat it too.\n\nThe whole journey was made without an adventure of importance. But it\nended with one. \u00a0About ten o'clock on the night of the 19th of February\nthey stepped upon London Bridge, in the midst of a writhing, struggling\njam of howling and hurrahing people, whose beer-jolly faces stood out\nstrongly in the glare from manifold torches--and at that instant the\ndecaying head of some former duke or other grandee tumbled down between\nthem, striking Hendon on the elbow and then bounding off among the\nhurrying confusion of feet. So evanescent and unstable are men's works\nin this world!--the late good King is but three weeks dead and three\ndays in his grave, and already the adornments which he took such pains\nto select from prominent people for his noble bridge are falling. \u00a0A\ncitizen stumbled over that head, and drove his own head into the back of\nsomebody in front of him, who turned and knocked down the first person\nthat came handy, and was promptly laid out himself by that person's\nfriend. \u00a0It was the right ripe time for a free fight, for the\nfestivities of the morrow--Coronation Day--were already beginning;\neverybody was full of strong drink and patriotism; within five minutes\nthe free fight was occupying a good deal of ground; within ten or twelve\nit covered an acre of so, and was become a riot. \u00a0By this time Hendon\nand the King were hopelessly separated from each other and lost in the\nrush and turmoil of the roaring masses of humanity. \u00a0And so we leave\nthem.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX. Tom's progress.\n\nWhilst the true King wandered about the land poorly clad, poorly\nfed, cuffed and derided by tramps one while, herding with thieves\nand murderers in a jail another, and called idiot and impostor by\nall impartially, the mock King Tom Canty enjoyed quite a different\nexperience.\n\nWhen we saw him last, royalty was just beginning to have a bright side\nfor him. \u00a0This bright side went on brightening more and more every\nday: in a very little while it was become almost all sunshine and\ndelightfulness. \u00a0He lost his fears; his misgivings faded out and died;\nhis embarrassments departed, and gave place to an easy and confident\nbearing. \u00a0He worked the whipping-boy mine to ever-increasing profit.\n\nHe ordered my Lady Elizabeth and my Lady Jane Grey into his presence\nwhen he wanted to play or talk, and dismissed them when he was done with\nthem, with the air of one familiarly accustomed to such performances.\n\u00a0It no longer confused him to have these lofty personages kiss his hand\nat parting.\n\nHe came to enjoy being conducted to bed in state at night, and dressed\nwith intricate and solemn ceremony in the morning. \u00a0It came to be a\nproud pleasure to march to dinner attended by a glittering procession\nof officers of state and gentlemen-at-arms; insomuch, indeed, that he\ndoubled his guard of gentlemen-at-arms, and made them a hundred. \u00a0He\nliked to hear the bugles sounding down the long corridors, and the\ndistant voices responding, \"Way for the King!\"\n\nHe even learned to enjoy sitting in throned state in council, and\nseeming to be something more than the Lord Protector's mouthpiece. He\nliked to receive great ambassadors and their gorgeous trains, and listen\nto the affectionate messages they brought from illustrious monarchs who\ncalled him brother. \u00a0O happy Tom Canty, late of Offal Court!\n\nHe enjoyed his splendid clothes, and ordered more: \u00a0he found his four\nhundred servants too few for his proper grandeur, and trebled them. \u00a0The\nadulation of salaaming courtiers came to be sweet music to his ears. \u00a0He\nremained kind and gentle, and a sturdy and determined champion of all\nthat were oppressed, and he made tireless war upon unjust laws: \u00a0yet\nupon occasion, being offended, he could turn upon an earl, or even a\nduke, and give him a look that would make him tremble. \u00a0Once, when his\nroyal 'sister,' the grimly holy Lady Mary, set herself to reason with\nhim against the wisdom of his course in pardoning so many people who\nwould otherwise be jailed, or hanged, or burned, and reminded him that\ntheir august late father's prisons had sometimes contained as high as\nsixty thousand convicts at one time, and that during his admirable reign\nhe had delivered seventy-two thousand thieves and robbers over to death\nby the executioner, {9} the boy was filled with generous indignation,\nand commanded her to go to her closet, and beseech God to take away the\nstone that was in her breast, and give her a human heart.\n\nDid Tom Canty never feel troubled about the poor little rightful prince\nwho had treated him so kindly, and flown out with such hot zeal to\navenge him upon the insolent sentinel at the palace-gate? Yes; his first\nroyal days and nights were pretty well sprinkled with painful thoughts\nabout the lost prince, and with sincere longings for his return, and\nhappy restoration to his native rights and splendours. \u00a0But as time\nwore on, and the prince did not come, Tom's mind became more and more\noccupied with his new and enchanting experiences, and by little and\nlittle the vanished monarch faded almost out of his thoughts; and\nfinally, when he did intrude upon them at intervals, he was become an\nunwelcome spectre, for he made Tom feel guilty and ashamed.\n\nTom's poor mother and sisters travelled the same road out of his mind.\nAt first he pined for them, sorrowed for them, longed to see them, but\nlater, the thought of their coming some day in their rags and dirt, and\nbetraying him with their kisses, and pulling him down from his lofty\nplace, and dragging him back to penury and degradation and the slums,\nmade him shudder. \u00a0At last they ceased to trouble his thoughts almost\nwholly. \u00a0And he was content, even glad: \u00a0for, whenever their mournful\nand accusing faces did rise before him now, they made him feel more\ndespicable than the worms that crawl.\n\nAt midnight of the 19th of February, Tom Canty was sinking to sleep in\nhis rich bed in the palace, guarded by his loyal vassals, and surrounded\nby the pomps of royalty, a happy boy; for tomorrow was the day appointed\nfor his solemn crowning as King of England. At that same hour, Edward,\nthe true king, hungry and thirsty, soiled and draggled, worn with\ntravel, and clothed in rags and shreds--his share of the results of the\nriot--was wedged in among a crowd of people who were watching with deep\ninterest certain hurrying gangs of workmen who streamed in and out of\nWestminster Abbey, busy as ants: \u00a0they were making the last preparation\nfor the royal coronation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI. The Recognition procession.\n\nWhen Tom Canty awoke the next morning, the air was heavy with a\nthunderous murmur: \u00a0all the distances were charged with it. \u00a0It was\nmusic to him; for it meant that the English world was out in its\nstrength to give loyal welcome to the great day.\n\nPresently Tom found himself once more the chief figure in a wonderful\nfloating pageant on the Thames; for by ancient custom the 'recognition\nprocession' through London must start from the Tower, and he was bound\nthither.\n\nWhen he arrived there, the sides of the venerable fortress seemed\nsuddenly rent in a thousand places, and from every rent leaped a\nred tongue of flame and a white gush of smoke; a deafening explosion\nfollowed, which drowned the shoutings of the multitude, and made the\nground tremble; the flame-jets, the smoke, and the explosions, were\nrepeated over and over again with marvellous celerity, so that in a few\nmoments the old Tower disappeared in the vast fog of its own smoke, all\nbut the very top of the tall pile called the White Tower; this, with\nits banners, stood out above the dense bank of vapour as a mountain-peak\nprojects above a cloud-rack.\n\nTom Canty, splendidly arrayed, mounted a prancing war-steed, whose rich\ntrappings almost reached to the ground; his 'uncle,' the Lord Protector\nSomerset, similarly mounted, took place in his rear; the King's Guard\nformed in single ranks on either side, clad in burnished armour;\nafter the Protector followed a seemingly interminable procession of\nresplendent nobles attended by their vassals; after these came the lord\nmayor and the aldermanic body, in crimson velvet robes, and with their\ngold chains across their breasts; and after these the officers and\nmembers of all the guilds of London, in rich raiment, and bearing the\nshowy banners of the several corporations. \u00a0Also in the procession, as a\nspecial guard of honour through the city, was the Ancient and Honourable\nArtillery Company--an organisation already three hundred years old\nat that time, and the only military body in England possessing the\nprivilege (which it still possesses in our day) of holding itself\nindependent of the commands of Parliament. \u00a0It was a brilliant\nspectacle, and was hailed with acclamations all along the line, as it\ntook its stately way through the packed multitudes of citizens. The\nchronicler says, 'The King, as he entered the city, was received by the\npeople with prayers, welcomings, cries, and tender words, and all signs\nwhich argue an earnest love of subjects toward their sovereign; and the\nKing, by holding up his glad countenance to such as stood afar off, and\nmost tender language to those that stood nigh his Grace, showed himself\nno less thankful to receive the people's goodwill than they to offer it.\n\u00a0To all that wished him well, he gave thanks. \u00a0To such as bade \"God save\nhis Grace,\" he said in return, \"God save you all!\" and added that \"he\nthanked them with all his heart.\" Wonderfully transported were the\npeople with the loving answers and gestures of their King.'\n\nIn Fenchurch Street a 'fair child, in costly apparel,' stood on a stage\nto welcome his Majesty to the city. \u00a0The last verse of his greeting was\nin these words--\n\n'Welcome, O King! as much as hearts can think; Welcome, again, as much\nas tongue can tell,--Welcome to joyous tongues, and hearts that will\nnot shrink: God thee preserve, we pray, and wish thee ever well.'\n\nThe people burst forth in a glad shout, repeating with one voice what\nthe child had said. \u00a0Tom Canty gazed abroad over the surging sea of\neager faces, and his heart swelled with exultation; and he felt that\nthe one thing worth living for in this world was to be a king, and a\nnation's idol. \u00a0Presently he caught sight, at a distance, of a couple\nof his ragged Offal Court comrades--one of them the lord high admiral in\nhis late mimic court, the other the first lord of the bedchamber in the\nsame pretentious fiction; and his pride swelled higher than ever. \u00a0Oh,\nif they could only recognise him now! \u00a0What unspeakable glory it would\nbe, if they could recognise him, and realise that the derided mock king\nof the slums and back alleys was become a real King, with illustrious\ndukes and princes for his humble menials, and the English world at his\nfeet! \u00a0But he had to deny himself, and choke down his desire, for such\na recognition might cost more than it would come to: \u00a0so he turned away\nhis head, and left the two soiled lads to go on with their shoutings and\nglad adulations, unsuspicious of whom it was they were lavishing them\nupon.\n\nEvery now and then rose the cry, \"A largess! a largess!\" and Tom\nresponded by scattering a handful of bright new coins abroad for the\nmultitude to scramble for.\n\nThe chronicler says, 'At the upper end of Gracechurch Street, before the\nsign of the Eagle, the city had erected a gorgeous arch, beneath which\nwas a stage, which stretched from one side of the street to the other.\nThis was an historical pageant, representing the King's immediate\nprogenitors. \u00a0There sat Elizabeth of York in the midst of an immense\nwhite rose, whose petals formed elaborate furbelows around her; by her\nside was Henry VII., issuing out of a vast red rose, disposed in the\nsame manner: \u00a0the hands of the royal pair were locked together, and the\nwedding-ring ostentatiously displayed. \u00a0From the red and white roses\nproceeded a stem, which reached up to a second stage, occupied by Henry\nVIII., issuing from a red and white rose, with the effigy of the new\nKing's mother, Jane Seymour, represented by his side. \u00a0One branch sprang\nfrom this pair, which mounted to a third stage, where sat the effigy of\nEdward VI. himself, enthroned in royal majesty; and the whole pageant\nwas framed with wreaths of roses, red and white.'\n\nThis quaint and gaudy spectacle so wrought upon the rejoicing people,\nthat their acclamations utterly smothered the small voice of the child\nwhose business it was to explain the thing in eulogistic rhymes. \u00a0But\nTom Canty was not sorry; for this loyal uproar was sweeter music to him\nthan any poetry, no matter what its quality might be. \u00a0Whithersoever Tom\nturned his happy young face, the people recognised the exactness of his\neffigy's likeness to himself, the flesh and blood counterpart; and new\nwhirlwinds of applause burst forth.\n\nThe great pageant moved on, and still on, under one triumphal arch after\nanother, and past a bewildering succession of spectacular and symbolical\ntableaux, each of which typified and exalted some virtue, or talent, or\nmerit, of the little King's. \u00a0'Throughout the whole of Cheapside, from\nevery penthouse and window, hung banners and streamers; and the richest\ncarpets, stuffs, and cloth-of-gold tapestried the streets--specimens\nof the great wealth of the stores within; and the splendour of this\nthoroughfare was equalled in the other streets, and in some even\nsurpassed.'\n\n\"And all these wonders and these marvels are to welcome me--me!\"\nmurmured Tom Canty.\n\nThe mock King's cheeks were flushed with excitement, his eyes were\nflashing, his senses swam in a delirium of pleasure. \u00a0At this point,\njust as he was raising his hand to fling another rich largess, he caught\nsight of a pale, astounded face, which was strained forward out of\nthe second rank of the crowd, its intense eyes riveted upon him. \u00a0A\nsickening consternation struck through him; he recognised his\nmother! and up flew his hand, palm outward, before his eyes--that old\ninvoluntary gesture, born of a forgotten episode, and perpetuated by\nhabit. \u00a0In an instant more she had torn her way out of the press, and\npast the guards, and was at his side. \u00a0She embraced his leg, she covered\nit with kisses, she cried, \"O my child, my darling!\" lifting toward him\na face that was transfigured with joy and love. \u00a0The same instant an\nofficer of the King's Guard snatched her away with a curse, and sent\nher reeling back whence she came with a vigorous impulse from his\nstrong arm. \u00a0The words \"I do not know you, woman!\" were falling from Tom\nCanty's lips when this piteous thing occurred; but it smote him to the\nheart to see her treated so; and as she turned for a last glimpse of\nhim, whilst the crowd was swallowing her from his sight, she seemed so\nwounded, so broken-hearted, that a shame fell upon him which consumed\nhis pride to ashes, and withered his stolen royalty. \u00a0His grandeurs were\nstricken valueless: they seemed to fall away from him like rotten rags.\n\nThe procession moved on, and still on, through ever augmenting\nsplendours and ever augmenting tempests of welcome; but to Tom Canty\nthey were as if they had not been. \u00a0He neither saw nor heard. \u00a0Royalty\nhad lost its grace and sweetness; its pomps were become a reproach.\n\u00a0Remorse was eating his heart out. \u00a0He said, \"Would God I were free of\nmy captivity!\"\n\nHe had unconsciously dropped back into the phraseology of the first days\nof his compulsory greatness.\n\nThe shining pageant still went winding like a radiant and interminable\nserpent down the crooked lanes of the quaint old city, and through the\nhuzzaing hosts; but still the King rode with bowed head and vacant eyes,\nseeing only his mother's face and that wounded look in it.\n\n\"Largess, largess!\" \u00a0The cry fell upon an unheeding ear.\n\n\"Long live Edward of England!\" \u00a0It seemed as if the earth shook with the\nexplosion; but there was no response from the King. \u00a0He heard it only as\none hears the thunder of the surf when it is blown to the ear out of a\ngreat distance, for it was smothered under another sound which was still\nnearer, in his own breast, in his accusing conscience--a voice which\nkept repeating those shameful words, \"I do not know you, woman!\"\n\nThe words smote upon the King's soul as the strokes of a funeral bell\nsmite upon the soul of a surviving friend when they remind him of secret\ntreacheries suffered at his hands by him that is gone.\n\nNew glories were unfolded at every turning; new wonders, new marvels,\nsprang into view; the pent clamours of waiting batteries were released;\nnew raptures poured from the throats of the waiting multitudes: \u00a0but the\nKing gave no sign, and the accusing voice that went moaning through his\ncomfortless breast was all the sound he heard.\n\nBy-and-by the gladness in the faces of the populace changed a little,\nand became touched with a something like solicitude or anxiety: \u00a0an\nabatement in the volume of the applause was observable too. \u00a0The Lord\nProtector was quick to notice these things: \u00a0he was as quick to detect\nthe cause. \u00a0He spurred to the King's side, bent low in his saddle,\nuncovered, and said--\n\n\"My liege, it is an ill time for dreaming. \u00a0The people observe thy\ndowncast head, thy clouded mien, and they take it for an omen. \u00a0Be\nadvised: \u00a0unveil the sun of royalty, and let it shine upon these boding\nvapours, and disperse them. \u00a0Lift up thy face, and smile upon the\npeople.\"\n\nSo saying, the Duke scattered a handful of coins to right and left, then\nretired to his place. \u00a0The mock King did mechanically as he had been\nbidden. \u00a0His smile had no heart in it, but few eyes were near enough\nor sharp enough to detect that. \u00a0The noddings of his plumed head as he\nsaluted his subjects were full of grace and graciousness; the largess\nwhich he delivered from his hand was royally liberal: \u00a0so the people's\nanxiety vanished, and the acclamations burst forth again in as mighty a\nvolume as before.\n\nStill once more, a little before the progress was ended, the Duke was\nobliged to ride forward, and make remonstrance. \u00a0He whispered--\n\n\"O dread sovereign! shake off these fatal humours; the eyes of the world\nare upon thee.\" \u00a0Then he added with sharp annoyance, \"Perdition catch\nthat crazy pauper! 'twas she that hath disturbed your Highness.\"\n\nThe gorgeous figure turned a lustreless eye upon the Duke, and said in a\ndead voice--\n\n\"She was my mother!\"\n\n\"My God!\" groaned the Protector as he reined his horse backward to his\npost, \"the omen was pregnant with prophecy. \u00a0He is gone mad again!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII. Coronation Day.\n\nLet us go backward a few hours, and place ourselves in Westminster\nAbbey, at four o'clock in the morning of this memorable Coronation Day.\n\u00a0We are not without company; for although it is still night, we find\nthe torch-lighted galleries already filling up with people who are well\ncontent to sit still and wait seven or eight hours till the time shall\ncome for them to see what they may not hope to see twice in their\nlives--the coronation of a King. \u00a0Yes, London and Westminster have been\nastir ever since the warning guns boomed at three o'clock, and already\ncrowds of untitled rich folk who have bought the privilege of trying\nto find sitting-room in the galleries are flocking in at the entrances\nreserved for their sort.\n\nThe hours drag along tediously enough. \u00a0All stir has ceased for some\ntime, for every gallery has long ago been packed. \u00a0We may sit, now, and\nlook and think at our leisure. \u00a0We have glimpses, here and there\nand yonder, through the dim cathedral twilight, of portions of many\ngalleries and balconies, wedged full with other people, the other\nportions of these galleries and balconies being cut off from sight by\nintervening pillars and architectural projections. \u00a0We have in view\nthe whole of the great north transept--empty, and waiting for England's\nprivileged ones. \u00a0We see also the ample area or platform, carpeted with\nrich stuffs, whereon the throne stands. \u00a0The throne occupies the centre\nof the platform, and is raised above it upon an elevation of four steps.\nWithin the seat of the throne is enclosed a rough flat rock--the stone\nof Scone--which many generations of Scottish kings sat on to be crowned,\nand so it in time became holy enough to answer a like purpose for\nEnglish monarchs. \u00a0Both the throne and its footstool are covered with\ncloth of gold.\n\nStillness reigns, the torches blink dully, the time drags heavily.\nBut at last the lagging daylight asserts itself, the torches are\nextinguished, and a mellow radiance suffuses the great spaces. All\nfeatures of the noble building are distinct now, but soft and dreamy,\nfor the sun is lightly veiled with clouds.\n\nAt seven o'clock the first break in the drowsy monotony occurs; for on\nthe stroke of this hour the first peeress enters the transept, clothed\nlike Solomon for splendour, and is conducted to her appointed place\nby an official clad in satins and velvets, whilst a duplicate of him\ngathers up the lady's long train, follows after, and, when the lady is\nseated, arranges the train across her lap for her. \u00a0He then places her\nfootstool according to her desire, after which he puts her coronet where\nit will be convenient to her hand when the time for the simultaneous\ncoroneting of the nobles shall arrive.\n\nBy this time the peeresses are flowing in in a glittering stream, and\nthe satin-clad officials are flitting and glinting everywhere, seating\nthem and making them comfortable. \u00a0The scene is animated enough now.\n\u00a0There is stir and life, and shifting colour everywhere. \u00a0After a time,\nquiet reigns again; for the peeresses are all come and are all in their\nplaces, a solid acre or such a matter, of human flowers, resplendent in\nvariegated colours, and frosted like a Milky Way with diamonds. \u00a0There\nare all ages here: brown, wrinkled, white-haired dowagers who are able\nto go back, and still back, down the stream of time, and recall the\ncrowning of Richard III. and the troublous days of that old forgotten\nage; and there are handsome middle-aged dames; and lovely and gracious\nyoung matrons; and gentle and beautiful young girls, with beaming eyes\nand fresh complexions, who may possibly put on their jewelled coronets\nawkwardly when the great time comes; for the matter will be new to\nthem, and their excitement will be a sore hindrance. Still, this may\nnot happen, for the hair of all these ladies has been arranged with a\nspecial view to the swift and successful lodging of the crown in its\nplace when the signal comes.\n\nWe have seen that this massed array of peeresses is sown thick with\ndiamonds, and we also see that it is a marvellous spectacle--but now we\nare about to be astonished in earnest. \u00a0About nine, the clouds suddenly\nbreak away and a shaft of sunshine cleaves the mellow atmosphere, and\ndrifts slowly along the ranks of ladies; and every rank it touches\nflames into a dazzling splendour of many-coloured fires, and we tingle\nto our finger-tips with the electric thrill that is shot through us by\nthe surprise and the beauty of the spectacle! \u00a0Presently a special envoy\nfrom some distant corner of the Orient, marching with the general body\nof foreign ambassadors, crosses this bar of sunshine, and we catch our\nbreath, the glory that streams and flashes and palpitates about him is\nso overpowering; for he is crusted from head to heel with gems, and his\nslightest movement showers a dancing radiance all around him.\n\nLet us change the tense for convenience. \u00a0The time drifted along--one\nhour--two hours--two hours and a half; then the deep booming of\nartillery told that the King and his grand procession had arrived at\nlast; so the waiting multitude rejoiced. \u00a0All knew that a further delay\nmust follow, for the King must be prepared and robed for the solemn\nceremony; but this delay would be pleasantly occupied by the assembling\nof the peers of the realm in their stately robes. \u00a0These were conducted\nceremoniously to their seats, and their coronets placed conveniently\nat hand; and meanwhile the multitude in the galleries were alive with\ninterest, for most of them were beholding for the first time, dukes,\nearls, and barons, whose names had been historical for five hundred\nyears. \u00a0When all were finally seated, the spectacle from the galleries\nand all coigns of vantage was complete; a gorgeous one to look upon and\nto remember.\n\nNow the robed and mitred great heads of the church, and their\nattendants, filed in upon the platform and took their appointed places;\nthese were followed by the Lord Protector and other great officials, and\nthese again by a steel-clad detachment of the Guard.\n\nThere was a waiting pause; then, at a signal, a triumphant peal of music\nburst forth, and Tom Canty, clothed in a long robe of cloth of gold,\nappeared at a door, and stepped upon the platform. \u00a0The entire multitude\nrose, and the ceremony of the Recognition ensued.\n\nThen a noble anthem swept the Abbey with its rich waves of sound; and\nthus heralded and welcomed, Tom Canty was conducted to the throne.\n\u00a0The ancient ceremonies went on, with impressive solemnity, whilst the\naudience gazed; and as they drew nearer and nearer to completion, Tom\nCanty grew pale, and still paler, and a deep and steadily deepening woe\nand despondency settled down upon his spirits and upon his remorseful\nheart.\n\nAt last the final act was at hand. \u00a0The Archbishop of Canterbury lifted\nup the crown of England from its cushion and held it out over the\ntrembling mock-King's head. \u00a0In the same instant a rainbow-radiance\nflashed along the spacious transept; for with one impulse every\nindividual in the great concourse of nobles lifted a coronet and poised\nit over his or her head--and paused in that attitude.\n\nA deep hush pervaded the Abbey. \u00a0At this impressive moment, a startling\napparition intruded upon the scene--an apparition observed by none in\nthe absorbed multitude, until it suddenly appeared, moving up the great\ncentral aisle. \u00a0It was a boy, bareheaded, ill shod, and clothed in\ncoarse plebeian garments that were falling to rags. \u00a0He raised his hand\nwith a solemnity which ill comported with his soiled and sorry aspect,\nand delivered this note of warning--\n\n\"I forbid you to set the crown of England upon that forfeited head. \u00a0I\nam the King!\"\n\nIn an instant several indignant hands were laid upon the boy; but in\nthe same instant Tom Canty, in his regal vestments, made a swift step\nforward, and cried out in a ringing voice--\n\n\"Loose him and forbear! \u00a0He _is_ the King!\"\n\nA sort of panic of astonishment swept the assemblage, and they partly\nrose in their places and stared in a bewildered way at one another and\nat the chief figures in this scene, like persons who wondered whether\nthey were awake and in their senses, or asleep and dreaming. \u00a0The Lord\nProtector was as amazed as the rest, but quickly recovered himself, and\nexclaimed in a voice of authority--\n\n\"Mind not his Majesty, his malady is upon him again--seize the\nvagabond!\"\n\nHe would have been obeyed, but the mock-King stamped his foot and cried\nout--\n\n\"On your peril! \u00a0Touch him not, he is the King!\"\n\nThe hands were withheld; a paralysis fell upon the house; no one moved,\nno one spoke; indeed, no one knew how to act or what to say, in so\nstrange and surprising an emergency. \u00a0While all minds were struggling to\nright themselves, the boy still moved steadily forward, with high port\nand confident mien; he had never halted from the beginning; and while\nthe tangled minds still floundered helplessly, he stepped upon the\nplatform, and the mock-King ran with a glad face to meet him; and fell\non his knees before him and said--\n\n\"Oh, my lord the King, let poor Tom Canty be first to swear fealty to\nthee, and say, 'Put on thy crown and enter into thine own again!'\"\n\nThe Lord Protector's eye fell sternly upon the new-comer's face; but\nstraightway the sternness vanished away, and gave place to an expression\nof wondering surprise. \u00a0This thing happened also to the other great\nofficers. \u00a0They glanced at each other, and retreated a step by a common\nand unconscious impulse. \u00a0The thought in each mind was the same: \u00a0\"What\na strange resemblance!\"\n\nThe Lord Protector reflected a moment or two in perplexity, then he\nsaid, with grave respectfulness--\n\n\"By your favour, sir, I desire to ask certain questions which--\"\n\n\"I will answer them, my lord.\"\n\nThe Duke asked him many questions about the Court, the late King, the\nprince, the princesses--the boy answered them correctly and without\nhesitating. \u00a0He described the rooms of state in the palace, the late\nKing's apartments, and those of the Prince of Wales.\n\nIt was strange; it was wonderful; yes, it was unaccountable--so all said\nthat heard it. \u00a0The tide was beginning to turn, and Tom Canty's hopes to\nrun high, when the Lord Protector shook his head and said--\n\n\"It is true it is most wonderful--but it is no more than our lord the\nKing likewise can do.\" \u00a0This remark, and this reference to himself as\nstill the King, saddened Tom Canty, and he felt his hopes crumbling from\nunder him. \u00a0\"These are not _proofs_,\" added the Protector.\n\nThe tide was turning very fast now, very fast indeed--but in the wrong\ndirection; it was leaving poor Tom Canty stranded on the throne,\nand sweeping the other out to sea. \u00a0The Lord Protector communed with\nhimself--shook his head--the thought forced itself upon him, \"It is\nperilous to the State and to us all, to entertain so fateful a riddle as\nthis; it could divide the nation and undermine the throne.\" \u00a0He turned\nand said--\n\n\"Sir Thomas, arrest this--No, hold!\" \u00a0His face lighted, and he\nconfronted the ragged candidate with this question--\n\n\"Where lieth the Great Seal? \u00a0Answer me this truly, and the riddle is\nunriddled; for only he that was Prince of Wales _can_ so answer! On so\ntrivial a thing hang a throne and a dynasty!\"\n\nIt was a lucky thought, a happy thought. \u00a0That it was so considered by\nthe great officials was manifested by the silent applause that shot from\neye to eye around their circle in the form of bright approving glances.\nYes, none but the true prince could dissolve the stubborn mystery of the\nvanished Great Seal--this forlorn little impostor had been taught his\nlesson well, but here his teachings must fail, for his teacher himself\ncould not answer _that_ question--ah, very good, very good indeed;\nnow we shall be rid of this troublesome and perilous business in\nshort order! And so they nodded invisibly and smiled inwardly with\nsatisfaction, and looked to see this foolish lad stricken with a palsy\nof guilty confusion. How surprised they were, then, to see nothing of\nthe sort happen--how they marvelled to hear him answer up promptly, in a\nconfident and untroubled voice, and say--\n\n\"There is nought in this riddle that is difficult.\" \u00a0Then, without so\nmuch as a by-your-leave to anybody, he turned and gave this command,\nwith the easy manner of one accustomed to doing such things: \"My Lord\nSt. John, go you to my private cabinet in the palace--for none knoweth\nthe place better than you--and, close down to the floor, in the left\ncorner remotest from the door that opens from the ante-chamber, you\nshall find in the wall a brazen nail-head; press upon it and a little\njewel-closet will fly open which not even you do know of--no, nor\nany soul else in all the world but me and the trusty artisan that did\ncontrive it for me. The first thing that falleth under your eye will be\nthe Great Seal--fetch it hither.\"\n\nAll the company wondered at this speech, and wondered still more to see\nthe little mendicant pick out this peer without hesitancy or apparent\nfear of mistake, and call him by name with such a placidly convincing\nair of having known him all his life. \u00a0The peer was almost surprised\ninto obeying. \u00a0He even made a movement as if to go, but quickly\nrecovered his tranquil attitude and confessed his blunder with a blush.\n\u00a0Tom Canty turned upon him and said, sharply--\n\n\"Why dost thou hesitate? \u00a0Hast not heard the King's command? \u00a0Go!\"\n\nThe Lord St. John made a deep obeisance--and it was observed that it was\na significantly cautious and non-committal one, it not being delivered\nat either of the kings, but at the neutral ground about half-way between\nthe two--and took his leave.\n\nNow began a movement of the gorgeous particles of that official group\nwhich was slow, scarcely perceptible, and yet steady and persistent--a\nmovement such as is observed in a kaleidoscope that is turned slowly,\nwhereby the components of one splendid cluster fall away and join\nthemselves to another--a movement which, little by little, in the\npresent case, dissolved the glittering crowd that stood about Tom Canty\nand clustered it together again in the neighbourhood of the new-comer.\n\u00a0Tom Canty stood almost alone. Now ensued a brief season of deep\nsuspense and waiting--during which even the few faint hearts still\nremaining near Tom Canty gradually scraped together courage enough to\nglide, one by one, over to the majority. \u00a0So at last Tom Canty, in his\nroyal robes and jewels, stood wholly alone and isolated from the world,\na conspicuous figure, occupying an eloquent vacancy.\n\nNow the Lord St. John was seen returning. \u00a0As he advanced up\nthe mid-aisle the interest was so intense that the low murmur of\nconversation in the great assemblage died out and was succeeded by\na profound hush, a breathless stillness, through which his footfalls\npulsed with a dull and distant sound. \u00a0Every eye was fastened upon him\nas he moved along. \u00a0He reached the platform, paused a moment, then moved\ntoward Tom Canty with a deep obeisance, and said--\n\n\"Sire, the Seal is not there!\"\n\nA mob does not melt away from the presence of a plague-patient with more\nhaste than the band of pallid and terrified courtiers melted away from\nthe presence of the shabby little claimant of the Crown. \u00a0In a moment\nhe stood all alone, without friend or supporter, a target upon which\nwas concentrated a bitter fire of scornful and angry looks. \u00a0The Lord\nProtector called out fiercely--\n\n\"Cast the beggar into the street, and scourge him through the town--the\npaltry knave is worth no more consideration!\"\n\nOfficers of the guard sprang forward to obey, but Tom Canty waved them\noff and said--\n\n\"Back! \u00a0Whoso touches him perils his life!\"\n\nThe Lord Protector was perplexed in the last degree. \u00a0He said to the\nLord St. John--\n\n\"Searched you well?--but it boots not to ask that. \u00a0It doth seem passing\nstrange. \u00a0Little things, trifles, slip out of one's ken, and one does\nnot think it matter for surprise; but how so bulky a thing as the\nSeal of England can vanish away and no man be able to get track of it\nagain--a massy golden disk--\"\n\nTom Canty, with beaming eyes, sprang forward and shouted--\n\n\"Hold, that is enough! \u00a0Was it round?--and thick?--and had it letters\nand devices graved upon it?--yes? \u00a0Oh, _now_ I know what this Great Seal\nis that there's been such worry and pother about. An' ye had described\nit to me, ye could have had it three weeks ago. \u00a0Right well I know where\nit lies; but it was not I that put it there--first.\"\n\n\"Who, then, my liege?\" asked the Lord Protector.\n\n\"He that stands there--the rightful King of England. \u00a0And he shall tell\nyou himself where it lies--then you will believe he knew it of his own\nknowledge. \u00a0Bethink thee, my King--spur thy memory--it was the last, the\nvery _last_ thing thou didst that day before thou didst rush forth from\nthe palace, clothed in my rags, to punish the soldier that insulted me.\"\n\nA silence ensued, undisturbed by a movement or a whisper, and all eyes\nwere fixed upon the new-comer, who stood, with bent head and corrugated\nbrow, groping in his memory among a thronging multitude of valueless\nrecollections for one single little elusive fact, which, found, would\nseat him upon a throne--unfound, would leave him as he was, for good and\nall--a pauper and an outcast. \u00a0Moment after moment passed--the moments\nbuilt themselves into minutes--still the boy struggled silently on, and\ngave no sign. \u00a0But at last he heaved a sigh, shook his head slowly, and\nsaid, with a trembling lip and in a despondent voice--\n\n\"I call the scene back--all of it--but the Seal hath no place in it.\"\n\u00a0He paused, then looked up, and said with gentle dignity, \"My lords and\ngentlemen, if ye will rob your rightful sovereign of his own for lack of\nthis evidence which he is not able to furnish, I may not stay ye, being\npowerless. \u00a0But--\"\n\n\"Oh, folly, oh, madness, my King!\" cried Tom Canty, in a panic,\n\"wait!--think! \u00a0Do not give up!--the cause is not lost! \u00a0Nor _shall_ be,\nneither! List to what I say--follow every word--I am going to bring that\nmorning back again, every hap just as it happened. \u00a0We talked--I told\nyou of my sisters, Nan and Bet--ah, yes, you remember that; and about\nmine old grandam--and the rough games of the lads of Offal Court--yes,\nyou remember these things also; very well, follow me still, you shall\nrecall everything. \u00a0You gave me food and drink, and did with princely\ncourtesy send away the servants, so that my low breeding might not shame\nme before them--ah, yes, this also you remember.\"\n\nAs Tom checked off his details, and the other boy nodded his head in\nrecognition of them, the great audience and the officials stared in\npuzzled wonderment; the tale sounded like true history, yet how could\nthis impossible conjunction between a prince and a beggar-boy have come\nabout? \u00a0Never was a company of people so perplexed, so interested, and\nso stupefied, before.\n\n\"For a jest, my prince, we did exchange garments. \u00a0Then we stood before\na mirror; and so alike were we that both said it seemed as if there had\nbeen no change made--yes, you remember that. \u00a0Then you noticed that the\nsoldier had hurt my hand--look! here it is, I cannot yet even write with\nit, the fingers are so stiff. \u00a0At this your Highness sprang up, vowing\nvengeance upon that soldier, and ran towards the door--you passed a\ntable--that thing you call the Seal lay on that table--you snatched\nit up and looked eagerly about, as if for a place to hide it--your eye\ncaught sight of--\"\n\n\"There, 'tis sufficient!--and the good God be thanked!\" exclaimed the\nragged claimant, in a mighty excitement. \u00a0\"Go, my good St. John--in an\narm-piece of the Milanese armour that hangs on the wall, thou'lt find\nthe Seal!\"\n\n\"Right, my King! right!\" cried Tom Canty; \"_Now_ the sceptre of England\nis thine own; and it were better for him that would dispute it that he\nhad been born dumb! \u00a0Go, my Lord St. John, give thy feet wings!\"\n\nThe whole assemblage was on its feet now, and well-nigh out of its mind\nwith uneasiness, apprehension, and consuming excitement. \u00a0On the floor\nand on the platform a deafening buzz of frantic conversation burst\nforth, and for some time nobody knew anything or heard anything or was\ninterested in anything but what his neighbour was shouting into his ear,\nor he was shouting into his neighbour's ear. \u00a0Time--nobody knew how much\nof it--swept by unheeded and unnoted. \u00a0At last a sudden hush fell upon\nthe house, and in the same moment St. John appeared upon the platform,\nand held the Great Seal aloft in his hand. \u00a0Then such a shout went up--\n\n\"Long live the true King!\"\n\nFor five minutes the air quaked with shouts and the crash of musical\ninstruments, and was white with a storm of waving handkerchiefs; and\nthrough it all a ragged lad, the most conspicuous figure in England,\nstood, flushed and happy and proud, in the centre of the spacious\nplatform, with the great vassals of the kingdom kneeling around him.\n\nThen all rose, and Tom Canty cried out--\n\n\"Now, O my King, take these regal garments back, and give poor Tom, thy\nservant, his shreds and remnants again.\"\n\nThe Lord Protector spoke up--\n\n\"Let the small varlet be stripped and flung into the Tower.\"\n\nBut the new King, the true King, said--\n\n\"I will not have it so. \u00a0But for him I had not got my crown again--none\nshall lay a hand upon him to harm him. \u00a0And as for thee, my good uncle,\nmy Lord Protector, this conduct of thine is not grateful toward\nthis poor lad, for I hear he hath made thee a duke\"--the Protector\nblushed--\"yet he was not a king; wherefore what is thy fine title\nworth now? \u00a0To-morrow you shall sue to me, _through him_, for its\nconfirmation, else no duke, but a simple earl, shalt thou remain.\"\n\nUnder this rebuke, his Grace the Duke of Somerset retired a little from\nthe front for the moment. \u00a0The King turned to Tom, and said kindly--\"My\npoor boy, how was it that you could remember where I hid the Seal when I\ncould not remember it myself?\"\n\n\"Ah, my King, that was easy, since I used it divers days.\"\n\n\"Used it--yet could not explain where it was?\"\n\n\"I did not know it was _that_ they wanted. \u00a0They did not describe it,\nyour Majesty.\"\n\n\"Then how used you it?\"\n\nThe red blood began to steal up into Tom's cheeks, and he dropped his\neyes and was silent.\n\n\"Speak up, good lad, and fear nothing,\" said the King. \u00a0\"How used you\nthe Great Seal of England?\"\n\nTom stammered a moment, in a pathetic confusion, then got it out--\n\n\"To crack nuts with!\"\n\nPoor child, the avalanche of laughter that greeted this nearly swept him\noff his feet. \u00a0But if a doubt remained in any mind that Tom Canty was\nnot the King of England and familiar with the august appurtenances of\nroyalty, this reply disposed of it utterly.\n\nMeantime the sumptuous robe of state had been removed from Tom's\nshoulders to the King's, whose rags were effectually hidden from sight\nunder it. \u00a0Then the coronation ceremonies were resumed; the true King\nwas anointed and the crown set upon his head, whilst cannon thundered\nthe news to the city, and all London seemed to rock with applause.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII. Edward as King.\n\nMiles Hendon was picturesque enough before he got into the riot on\nLondon Bridge--he was more so when he got out of it. \u00a0He had but little\nmoney when he got in, none at all when he got out. \u00a0The pickpockets had\nstripped him of his last farthing.\n\nBut no matter, so he found his boy. \u00a0Being a soldier, he did not go at\nhis task in a random way, but set to work, first of all, to arrange his\ncampaign.\n\nWhat would the boy naturally do? \u00a0Where would he naturally go?\nWell--argued Miles--he would naturally go to his former haunts, for that\nis the instinct of unsound minds, when homeless and forsaken, as well\nas of sound ones. \u00a0Whereabouts were his former haunts? \u00a0His rags,\ntaken together with the low villain who seemed to know him and who even\nclaimed to be his father, indicated that his home was in one or another\nof the poorest and meanest districts of London. \u00a0Would the search for\nhim be difficult, or long? \u00a0No, it was likely to be easy and brief. \u00a0He\nwould not hunt for the boy, he would hunt for a crowd; in the centre of\na big crowd or a little one, sooner or later, he should find his poor\nlittle friend, sure; and the mangy mob would be entertaining itself\nwith pestering and aggravating the boy, who would be proclaiming himself\nKing, as usual. \u00a0Then Miles Hendon would cripple some of those people,\nand carry off his little ward, and comfort and cheer him with loving\nwords, and the two would never be separated any more.\n\nSo Miles started on his quest. \u00a0Hour after hour he tramped through back\nalleys and squalid streets, seeking groups and crowds, and finding no\nend of them, but never any sign of the boy. \u00a0This greatly surprised him,\nbut did not discourage him. \u00a0To his notion, there was nothing the matter\nwith his plan of campaign; the only miscalculation about it was that the\ncampaign was becoming a lengthy one, whereas he had expected it to be\nshort.\n\nWhen daylight arrived, at last, he had made many a mile, and canvassed\nmany a crowd, but the only result was that he was tolerably tired,\nrather hungry and very sleepy. \u00a0He wanted some breakfast, but there was\nno way to get it. \u00a0To beg for it did not occur to him; as to pawning\nhis sword, he would as soon have thought of parting with his honour;\nhe could spare some of his clothes--yes, but one could as easily find a\ncustomer for a disease as for such clothes.\n\nAt noon he was still tramping--among the rabble which followed after\nthe royal procession, now; for he argued that this regal display would\nattract his little lunatic powerfully. \u00a0He followed the pageant through\nall its devious windings about London, and all the way to Westminster\nand the Abbey. \u00a0He drifted here and there amongst the multitudes\nthat were massed in the vicinity for a weary long time, baffled and\nperplexed, and finally wandered off, thinking, and trying to contrive\nsome way to better his plan of campaign. \u00a0By-and-by, when he came to\nhimself out of his musings, he discovered that the town was far behind\nhim and that the day was growing old. \u00a0He was near the river, and in the\ncountry; it was a region of fine rural seats--not the sort of district\nto welcome clothes like his.\n\nIt was not at all cold; so he stretched himself on the ground in the lee\nof a hedge to rest and think. \u00a0Drowsiness presently began to settle upon\nhis senses; the faint and far-off boom of cannon was wafted to his ear,\nand he said to himself, \"The new King is crowned,\" and straightway fell\nasleep. \u00a0He had not slept or rested, before, for more than thirty hours.\nHe did not wake again until near the middle of the next morning.\n\nHe got up, lame, stiff, and half famished, washed himself in the river,\nstayed his stomach with a pint or two of water, and trudged off toward\nWestminster, grumbling at himself for having wasted so much time.\n\u00a0Hunger helped him to a new plan, now; he would try to get speech with\nold Sir Humphrey Marlow and borrow a few marks, and--but that was enough\nof a plan for the present; it would be time enough to enlarge it when\nthis first stage should be accomplished.\n\nToward eleven o'clock he approached the palace; and although a host of\nshowy people were about him, moving in the same direction, he was not\ninconspicuous--his costume took care of that. \u00a0He watched these people's\nfaces narrowly, hoping to find a charitable one whose possessor might\nbe willing to carry his name to the old lieutenant--as to trying to get\ninto the palace himself, that was simply out of the question.\n\nPresently our whipping-boy passed him, then wheeled about and scanned\nhis figure well, saying to himself, \"An' that is not the very vagabond\nhis Majesty is in such a worry about, then am I an ass--though belike I\nwas that before. \u00a0He answereth the description to a rag--that God should\nmake two such would be to cheapen miracles by wasteful repetition. \u00a0I\nwould I could contrive an excuse to speak with him.\"\n\nMiles Hendon saved him the trouble; for he turned about, then, as a man\ngenerally will when somebody mesmerises him by gazing hard at him from\nbehind; and observing a strong interest in the boy's eyes, he stepped\ntoward him and said--\n\n\"You have just come out from the palace; do you belong there?\"\n\n\"Yes, your worship.\"\n\n\"Know you Sir Humphrey Marlow?\"\n\nThe boy started, and said to himself, \"Lord! mine old departed father!\"\nThen he answered aloud, \"Right well, your worship.\"\n\n\"Good--is he within?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the boy; and added, to himself, \"within his grave.\"\n\n\"Might I crave your favour to carry my name to him, and say I beg to say\na word in his ear?\"\n\n\"I will despatch the business right willingly, fair sir.\"\n\n\"Then say Miles Hendon, son of Sir Richard, is here without--I shall be\ngreatly bounden to you, my good lad.\"\n\nThe boy looked disappointed. \u00a0\"The King did not name him so,\" he said to\nhimself; \"but it mattereth not, this is his twin brother, and can give\nhis Majesty news of t'other Sir-Odds-and-Ends, I warrant.\" \u00a0So he said\nto Miles, \"Step in there a moment, good sir, and wait till I bring you\nword.\"\n\nHendon retired to the place indicated--it was a recess sunk in the\npalace wall, with a stone bench in it--a shelter for sentinels in bad\nweather. He had hardly seated himself when some halberdiers, in charge\nof an officer, passed by. \u00a0The officer saw him, halted his men, and\ncommanded Hendon to come forth. \u00a0He obeyed, and was promptly arrested\nas a suspicious character prowling within the precincts of the palace.\n\u00a0Things began to look ugly. \u00a0Poor Miles was going to explain, but the\nofficer roughly silenced him, and ordered his men to disarm him and\nsearch him.\n\n\"God of his mercy grant that they find somewhat,\" said poor Miles; \"I\nhave searched enow, and failed, yet is my need greater than theirs.\"\n\nNothing was found but a document. \u00a0The officer tore it open, and Hendon\nsmiled when he recognised the 'pot-hooks' made by his lost little friend\nthat black day at Hendon Hall. \u00a0The officer's face grew dark as he read\nthe English paragraph, and Miles blenched to the opposite colour as he\nlistened.\n\n\"Another new claimant of the Crown!\" cried the officer. \u00a0\"Verily they\nbreed like rabbits, to-day. \u00a0Seize the rascal, men, and see ye keep\nhim fast whilst I convey this precious paper within and send it to the\nKing.\"\n\nHe hurried away, leaving the prisoner in the grip of the halberdiers.\n\n\"Now is my evil luck ended at last,\" muttered Hendon, \"for I shall\ndangle at a rope's end for a certainty, by reason of that bit of\nwriting. \u00a0And what will become of my poor lad!--ah, only the good God\nknoweth.\"\n\nBy-and-by he saw the officer coming again, in a great hurry; so he\nplucked his courage together, purposing to meet his trouble as became a\nman. \u00a0The officer ordered the men to loose the prisoner and return his\nsword to him; then bowed respectfully, and said--\n\n\"Please you, sir, to follow me.\"\n\nHendon followed, saying to himself, \"An' I were not travelling to death\nand judgment, and so must needs economise in sin, I would throttle this\nknave for his mock courtesy.\"\n\nThe two traversed a populous court, and arrived at the grand entrance of\nthe palace, where the officer, with another bow, delivered Hendon into\nthe hands of a gorgeous official, who received him with profound respect\nand led him forward through a great hall, lined on both sides with rows\nof splendid flunkeys (who made reverential obeisance as the two passed\nalong, but fell into death-throes of silent laughter at our stately\nscarecrow the moment his back was turned), and up a broad staircase,\namong flocks of fine folk, and finally conducted him into a vast room,\nclove a passage for him through the assembled nobility of England, then\nmade a bow, reminded him to take his hat off, and left him standing in\nthe middle of the room, a mark for all eyes, for plenty of indignant\nfrowns, and for a sufficiency of amused and derisive smiles.\n\nMiles Hendon was entirely bewildered. \u00a0There sat the young King, under\na canopy of state, five steps away, with his head bent down and aside,\nspeaking with a sort of human bird of paradise--a duke, maybe. \u00a0Hendon\nobserved to himself that it was hard enough to be sentenced to death\nin the full vigour of life, without having this peculiarly public\nhumiliation added. \u00a0He wished the King would hurry about it--some of the\ngaudy people near by were becoming pretty offensive. \u00a0At this moment\nthe King raised his head slightly, and Hendon caught a good view of his\nface. The sight nearly took his breath away!--He stood gazing at the\nfair young face like one transfixed; then presently ejaculated--\n\n\"Lo, the Lord of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows on his throne!\"\n\nHe muttered some broken sentences, still gazing and marvelling; then\nturned his eyes around and about, scanning the gorgeous throng and the\nsplendid saloon, murmuring, \"But these are _real_--verily these are\n_real_--surely it is not a dream.\"\n\nHe stared at the King again--and thought, \"_Is_ it a dream . . . or _is_\nhe the veritable Sovereign of England, and not the friendless poor Tom\no' Bedlam I took him for--who shall solve me this riddle?\"\n\nA sudden idea flashed in his eye, and he strode to the wall, gathered up\na chair, brought it back, planted it on the floor, and sat down in it!\n\nA buzz of indignation broke out, a rough hand was laid upon him and a\nvoice exclaimed--\n\n\"Up, thou mannerless clown! would'st sit in the presence of the King?\"\n\nThe disturbance attracted his Majesty's attention, who stretched forth\nhis hand and cried out--\n\n\"Touch him not, it is his right!\"\n\nThe throng fell back, stupefied. \u00a0The King went on--\n\n\"Learn ye all, ladies, lords, and gentlemen, that this is my trusty and\nwell-beloved servant, Miles Hendon, who interposed his good sword and\nsaved his prince from bodily harm and possible death--and for this he is\na knight, by the King's voice. \u00a0Also learn, that for a higher service,\nin that he saved his sovereign stripes and shame, taking these upon\nhimself, he is a peer of England, Earl of Kent, and shall have gold\nand lands meet for the dignity. \u00a0More--the privilege which he hath just\nexercised is his by royal grant; for we have ordained that the chiefs\nof his line shall have and hold the right to sit in the presence of the\nMajesty of England henceforth, age after age, so long as the crown shall\nendure. \u00a0Molest him not.\"\n\nTwo persons, who, through delay, had only arrived from the country\nduring this morning, and had now been in this room only five minutes,\nstood listening to these words and looking at the King, then at the\nscarecrow, then at the King again, in a sort of torpid bewilderment.\n\u00a0These were Sir Hugh and the Lady Edith. \u00a0But the new Earl did not\nsee them. \u00a0He was still staring at the monarch, in a dazed way, and\nmuttering--\n\n\"Oh, body o' me! \u00a0_this_ my pauper! \u00a0This my lunatic! \u00a0This is he whom\n_I_ would show what grandeur was, in my house of seventy rooms and\nseven-and-twenty servants! \u00a0This is he who had never known aught but\nrags for raiment, kicks for comfort, and offal for diet! \u00a0This is he\nwhom _I_ adopted and would make respectable! Would God I had a bag to\nhide my head in!\"\n\nThen his manners suddenly came back to him, and he dropped upon his\nknees, with his hands between the King's, and swore allegiance and did\nhomage for his lands and titles. \u00a0Then he rose and stood respectfully\naside, a mark still for all eyes--and much envy, too.\n\nNow the King discovered Sir Hugh, and spoke out with wrathful voice and\nkindling eye--\n\n\"Strip this robber of his false show and stolen estates, and put him\nunder lock and key till I have need of him.\"\n\nThe late Sir Hugh was led away.\n\nThere was a stir at the other end of the room, now; the assemblage fell\napart, and Tom Canty, quaintly but richly clothed, marched down, between\nthese living walls, preceded by an usher. \u00a0He knelt before the King, who\nsaid--\n\n\"I have learned the story of these past few weeks, and am well pleased\nwith thee. \u00a0Thou hast governed the realm with right royal gentleness and\nmercy. \u00a0Thou hast found thy mother and thy sisters again? \u00a0Good; they\nshall be cared for--and thy father shall hang, if thou desire it and the\nlaw consent. \u00a0Know, all ye that hear my voice, that from this day, they\nthat abide in the shelter of Christ's Hospital and share the King's\nbounty shall have their minds and hearts fed, as well as their baser\nparts; and this boy shall dwell there, and hold the chief place in its\nhonourable body of governors, during life. \u00a0And for that he hath been\na king, it is meet that other than common observance shall be his due;\nwherefore note this his dress of state, for by it he shall be known, and\nnone shall copy it; and wheresoever he shall come, it shall remind the\npeople that he hath been royal, in his time, and none shall deny him his\ndue of reverence or fail to give him salutation. \u00a0He hath the throne's\nprotection, he hath the crown's support, he shall be known and called by\nthe honourable title of the King's Ward.\"\n\nThe proud and happy Tom Canty rose and kissed the King's hand, and was\nconducted from the presence. \u00a0He did not waste any time, but flew to his\nmother, to tell her and Nan and Bet all about it and get them to help\nhim enjoy the great news. {1}\n\nConclusion. Justice and retribution.\n\nWhen the mysteries were all cleared up, it came out, by confession of\nHugh Hendon, that his wife had repudiated Miles by his command, that\nday at Hendon Hall--a command assisted and supported by the perfectly\ntrustworthy promise that if she did not deny that he was Miles Hendon,\nand stand firmly to it, he would have her life; whereupon she said,\n\"Take it!\"--she did not value it--and she would not repudiate\nMiles; then the husband said he would spare her life but have Miles\nassassinated! \u00a0This was a different matter; so she gave her word and\nkept it.\n\nHugh was not prosecuted for his threats or for stealing his brother's\nestates and title, because the wife and brother would not testify\nagainst him--and the former would not have been allowed to do it, even\nif she had wanted to. \u00a0Hugh deserted his wife and went over to the\ncontinent, where he presently died; and by-and-by the Earl of Kent\nmarried his relict. There were grand times and rejoicings at Hendon\nvillage when the couple paid their first visit to the Hall.\n\nTom Canty's father was never heard of again.\n\nThe King sought out the farmer who had been branded and sold as a slave,\nand reclaimed him from his evil life with the Ruffler's gang, and put\nhim in the way of a comfortable livelihood.\n\nHe also took that old lawyer out of prison and remitted his fine. He\nprovided good homes for the daughters of the two Baptist women whom he\nsaw burned at the stake, and roundly punished the official who laid the\nundeserved stripes upon Miles Hendon's back.\n\nHe saved from the gallows the boy who had captured the stray falcon, and\nalso the woman who had stolen a remnant of cloth from a weaver; but he\nwas too late to save the man who had been convicted of killing a deer in\nthe royal forest.\n\nHe showed favour to the justice who had pitied him when he was supposed\nto have stolen a pig, and he had the gratification of seeing him grow in\nthe public esteem and become a great and honoured man.\n\nAs long as the King lived he was fond of telling the story of his\nadventures, all through, from the hour that the sentinel cuffed him\naway from the palace gate till the final midnight when he deftly mixed\nhimself into a gang of hurrying workmen and so slipped into the Abbey\nand climbed up and hid himself in the Confessor's tomb, and then slept\nso long, next day, that he came within one of missing the Coronation\naltogether. \u00a0He said that the frequent rehearsing of the precious lesson\nkept him strong in his purpose to make its teachings yield benefits to\nhis people; and so, whilst his life was spared he should continue to\ntell the story, and thus keep its sorrowful spectacles fresh in his\nmemory and the springs of pity replenished in his heart.\n\nMiles Hendon and Tom Canty were favourites of the King, all through his\nbrief reign, and his sincere mourners when he died. The good Earl\nof Kent had too much sense to abuse his peculiar privilege; but he\nexercised it twice after the instance we have seen of it before he was\ncalled from this world--once at the accession of Queen Mary, and once at\nthe accession of Queen Elizabeth. \u00a0A descendant of his exercised it\nat the accession of James I. \u00a0Before this one's son chose to use the\nprivilege, near a quarter of a century had elapsed, and the 'privilege\nof the Kents' had faded out of most people's memories; so, when the Kent\nof that day appeared before Charles I. and his court and sat down in the\nsovereign's presence to assert and perpetuate the right of his house,\nthere was a fine stir indeed! \u00a0But the matter was soon explained, and\nthe right confirmed. \u00a0The last Earl of the line fell in the wars of the\nCommonwealth fighting for the King, and the odd privilege ended with\nhim.\n\nTom Canty lived to be a very old man, a handsome, white-haired old\nfellow, of grave and benignant aspect. \u00a0As long as he lasted he was\nhonoured; and he was also reverenced, for his striking and peculiar\ncostume kept the people reminded that 'in his time he had been royal;'\nso, wherever he appeared the crowd fell apart, making way for him, and\nwhispering, one to another, \"Doff thy hat, it is the King's Ward!\"--and\nso they saluted, and got his kindly smile in return--and they valued it,\ntoo, for his was an honourable history.\n\nYes, King Edward VI. lived only a few years, poor boy, but he lived them\nworthily. \u00a0More than once, when some great dignitary, some gilded vassal\nof the crown, made argument against his leniency, and urged that some\nlaw which he was bent upon amending was gentle enough for its purpose,\nand wrought no suffering or oppression which any one need mightily mind,\nthe young King turned the mournful eloquence of his great compassionate\neyes upon him and answered--\n\n\"What dost _thou_ know of suffering and oppression? \u00a0I and my people\nknow, but not thou.\"\n\nThe reign of Edward VI. was a singularly merciful one for those harsh\ntimes. \u00a0Now that we are taking leave of him, let us try to keep this in\nour minds, to his credit.\n\nFOOTNOTES AND TWAIN'S NOTES\n\n{1} \u00a0For Mark Twain's note see below under the relevant chapter heading.\n\n{2} \u00a0He refers to the order of baronets, or baronettes; the barones\nminores, as distinct from the parliamentary barons--not, it need hardly\nbe said, to the baronets of later creation.\n\n{3} \u00a0The lords of Kingsale, descendants of De Courcy, still enjoy this\ncurious privilege.\n\n{4} \u00a0Hume.\n\n{5} \u00a0Ib.\n\n{6} \u00a0Leigh Hunt's 'The Town,' p.408, quotation from an early tourist.\n\n{7} \u00a0Canting terms for various kinds of thieves, beggars and vagabonds,\nand their female companions.\n\n{8} \u00a0From 'The English Rogue.' \u00a0London, 1665.\n\n{9} \u00a0Hume's England.\n\n{10} \u00a0See Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull's Blue Laws, True and False, p. 11.\n\nNOTE 1, Chapter IV. Christ's Hospital Costume.\n\nIt is most reasonable to regard the dress as copied from the costume\nof the citizens of London of that period, when long blue coats were the\ncommon habit of apprentices and serving-men, and yellow stockings\nwere generally worn; the coat fits closely to the body, but has loose\nsleeves, and beneath is worn a sleeveless yellow under-coat; around the\nwaist is a red leathern girdle; a clerical band around the neck, and\na small flat black cap, about the size of a saucer, completes the\ncostume.--Timbs' Curiosities of London.\n\nNOTE 2, Chapter IV.\n\nIt appears that Christ's Hospital was not originally founded as a\n_school_; its object was to rescue children from the streets, to\nshelter, feed, clothe them.--Timbs' Curiosities of London.\n\nNOTE 3, Chapter V. The Duke of Norfolk's Condemnation commanded.\n\nThe King was now approaching fast towards his end; and fearing lest\nNorfolk should escape him, he sent a message to the Commons, by which\nhe desired them to hasten the Bill, on pretence that Norfolk enjoyed the\ndignity of Earl Marshal, and it was necessary to appoint another, who\nmight officiate at the ensuing ceremony of installing his son Prince of\nWales.--Hume's History of England, vol. iii. p. 307.\n\nNOTE 4, Chapter VII.\n\nIt was not till the end of this reign (Henry VIII.) that any salads,\ncarrots, turnips, or other edible roots were produced in England. \u00a0The\nlittle of these vegetables that was used was formerly imported from\nHolland and Flanders. \u00a0Queen Catherine, when she wanted a salad, was\nobliged to despatch a messenger thither on purpose.--Hume's History of\nEngland, vol. iii. p. 314.\n\nNOTE 5, Chapter VIII. Attainder of Norfolk.\n\nThe House of Peers, without examining the prisoner, without trial or\nevidence, passed a Bill of Attainder against him and sent it down to the\nCommons . . . The obsequious Commons obeyed his (the King's)\ndirections; and the King, having affixed the Royal assent to the Bill by\ncommissioners, issued orders for the execution of Norfolk on the morning\nof January 29 (the next day).--Hume's History of England, vol iii. p\n306.\n\nNOTE 6, Chapter X. The Loving-cup.\n\nThe loving-cup, and the peculiar ceremonies observed in drinking from\nit, are older than English history. \u00a0It is thought that both are Danish\nimportations. \u00a0As far back as knowledge goes, the loving-cup has always\nbeen drunk at English banquets. \u00a0Tradition explains the ceremonies in\nthis way. \u00a0In the rude ancient times it was deemed a wise precaution\nto have both hands of both drinkers employed, lest while the pledger\npledged his love and fidelity to the pledgee, the pledgee take that\nopportunity to slip a dirk into him!\n\nNOTE 7, Chapter XI. The Duke of Norfolk's narrow Escape.\n\nHad Henry VIII. survived a few hours longer, his order for the duke's\nexecution would have been carried into effect. 'But news being\ncarried to the Tower that the King himself had expired that night,\nthe lieutenant deferred obeying the warrant; and it was not thought\nadvisable by the Council to begin a new reign by the death of the\ngreatest nobleman in the kingdom, who had been condemned by a sentence\nso unjust and tyrannical.'--Hume's History of England, vol. iii, p. 307.\n\nNOTE 8, Chapter XIV. The Whipping-boy.\n\nJames I. and Charles II. had whipping-boys, when they were little\nfellows, to take their punishment for them when they fell short in their\nlessons; so I have ventured to furnish my small prince with one, for my\nown purposes.\n\nNOTES to Chapter XV.\n\nCharacter of Hertford.\n\nThe young King discovered an extreme attachment to his uncle, who\nwas, in the main, a man of moderation and probity.--Hume's History of\nEngland, vol. iii, p324.\n\nBut if he (the Protector) gave offence by assuming too much state, he\ndeserves great praise on account of the laws passed this session,\nby which the rigour of former statutes was much mitigated, and some\nsecurity given to the freedom of the constitution. \u00a0All laws were\nrepealed which extended the crime of treason beyond the statute of the\ntwenty-fifth of Edward III.; all laws enacted during the late reign\nextending the crime of felony; all the former laws against Lollardy or\nheresy, together with the statute of the Six Articles. \u00a0None were to be\naccused for words, but within a month after they were spoken. \u00a0By\nthese repeals several of the most rigorous laws that ever had passed\nin England were annulled; and some dawn, both of civil and religious\nliberty, began to appear to the people. \u00a0A repeal also passed of that\nlaw, the destruction of all laws, by which the King's proclamation was\nmade of equal force with a statute.--Ibid. vol. iii. p. 339.\n\nBoiling to Death.\n\nIn the reign of Henry VIII. poisoners were, by Act of Parliament,\ncondemned to be _boiled to death_. \u00a0This Act was repealed in the\nfollowing reign.\n\nIn Germany, even in the seventeenth century, this horrible punishment\nwas inflicted on coiners and counterfeiters. \u00a0Taylor, the Water Poet,\ndescribes an execution he witnessed in Hamburg in 1616. \u00a0The judgment\npronounced against a coiner of false money was that he should '_be\nboiled to death in oil_; not thrown into the vessel at once, but with\na pulley or rope to be hanged under the armpits, and then let down into\nthe oil _by degrees_; first the feet, and next the legs, and so to boil\nhis flesh from his bones alive.'--Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull's Blue Laws,\nTrue and False, p. 13.\n\nThe Famous Stocking Case.\n\nA woman and her daughter, _nine years old_, were hanged in Huntingdon\nfor selling their souls to the devil, and raising a storm by pulling off\ntheir stockings!--Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull's Blue Laws, True and False,\np. 20.\n\nNOTE 10, Chapter XVII. Enslaving.\n\nSo young a King and so ignorant a peasant were likely to make mistakes;\nand this is an instance in point. \u00a0This peasant was suffering from this\nlaw _by anticipation_; the King was venting his indignation against a\nlaw which was not yet in existence; for this hideous statute was to\nhave birth in this little King's _own reign_. However, we know, from the\nhumanity of his character, that it could never have been suggested by\nhim.\n\nNOTES to Chapter XXIII. Death for Trifling Larcenies.\n\nWhen Connecticut and New Haven were framing their first codes, larceny\nabove the value of twelve pence was a capital crime in England--as it\nhad been since the time of Henry I.--Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull's Blue\nLaws, True and False, p. 17.\n\nThe curious old book called The English Rogue makes the limit thirteen\npence ha'penny: \u00a0death being the portion of any who steal a thing 'above\nthe value of thirteen pence ha'penny.'\n\nNOTES to Chapter XXVII.\n\nFrom many descriptions of larceny the law expressly took away the\nbenefit of clergy: \u00a0to steal a horse, or a _hawk_, or woollen cloth from\nthe weaver, was a hanging matter. \u00a0So it was to kill a deer from the\nKing's forest, or to export sheep from the kingdom.--Dr. J. Hammond\nTrumbull's Blue Laws, True and False, p.13.\n\nWilliam Prynne, a learned barrister, was sentenced (long after Edward\nVI.'s time) to lose both his ears in the pillory, to degradation from\nthe bar, a fine of 3,000 pounds, and imprisonment for life. \u00a0Three years\nafterwards he gave new offence to Laud by publishing a pamphlet against\nthe hierarchy. \u00a0He was again prosecuted, and was sentenced to lose _what\nremained of his ears_, to pay a fine of 5,000 pounds, to be _branded on\nboth his cheeks_ with the letters S. L. (for Seditious Libeller), and to\nremain in prison for life. \u00a0The severity of this sentence was equalled\nby the savage rigour of its execution.--Ibid. p. 12.\n\nNOTES to Chapter XXXIII.\n\nChrist's Hospital, or Bluecoat School, 'the noblest institution in the\nworld.'\n\nThe ground on which the Priory of the Grey Friars stood was conferred\nby Henry VIII. on the Corporation of London (who caused the institution\nthere of a home for poor boys and girls). Subsequently, Edward VI.\ncaused the old Priory to be properly repaired, and founded within\nit that noble establishment called the Bluecoat School, or Christ's\nHospital, for the _education_ and maintenance of orphans and the\nchildren of indigent persons . . . Edward would not let him (Bishop\nRidley) depart till the letter was written (to the Lord Mayor), and then\ncharged him to deliver it himself, and signify his special request and\ncommandment that no time might be lost in proposing what was convenient,\nand apprising him of the proceedings. \u00a0The work was zealously\nundertaken, Ridley himself engaging in it; and the result was the\nfounding of Christ's Hospital for the education of poor children. (The\nKing endowed several other charities at the same time.) \"Lord God,\" said\nhe, \"I yield Thee most hearty thanks that Thou hast given me life thus\nlong to finish this work to the glory of Thy name!\" \u00a0That innocent and\nmost exemplary life was drawing rapidly to its close, and in a few days\nhe rendered up his spirit to his Creator, praying God to defend the\nrealm from Papistry.--J. Heneage Jesse's London: \u00a0its Celebrated\nCharacters and Places.\n\nIn the Great Hall hangs a large picture of King Edward VI. seated on his\nthrone, in a scarlet and ermined robe, holding the sceptre in his left\nhand, and presenting with the other the Charter to the kneeling Lord\nMayor. \u00a0By his side stands the Chancellor, holding the seals, and next\nto him are other officers of state. \u00a0Bishop Ridley kneels before him\nwith uplifted hands, as if supplicating a blessing on the event; whilst\nthe Aldermen, etc., with the Lord Mayor, kneel on both sides, occupying\nthe middle ground of the picture; and lastly, in front, are a double row\nof boys on one side and girls on the other, from the master and matron\ndown to the boy and girl who have stepped forward from their respective\nrows, and kneel with raised hands before the King.--Timbs' Curiosities\nof London, p. 98.\n\nChrist's Hospital, by ancient custom, possesses the privilege of\naddressing the Sovereign on the occasion of his or her coming into the\nCity to partake of the hospitality of the Corporation of London.--Ibid.\n\nThe Dining Hall, with its lobby and organ-gallery, occupies the entire\nstorey, which is 187 feet long, 51 feet wide, and 47 feet high; it is\nlit by nine large windows, filled with stained glass on the south side;\nand is, next to Westminster Hall, the noblest room in the metropolis.\n\u00a0Here the boys, now about 800 in number, dine; and here are held the\n'Suppings in Public,' to which visitors are admitted by tickets issued\nby the Treasurer and by the Governors of Christ's Hospital. \u00a0The tables\nare laid with cheese in wooden bowls, beer in wooden piggins, poured\nfrom leathern jacks, and bread brought in large baskets. \u00a0The official\ncompany enter; the Lord Mayor, or President, takes his seat in a state\nchair made of oak from St. Catherine's Church, by the Tower; a hymn\nis sung, accompanied by the organ; a 'Grecian,' or head boy, reads the\nprayers from the pulpit, silence being enforced by three drops of a\nwooden hammer. \u00a0After prayer the supper commences, and the visitors walk\nbetween the tables. \u00a0At its close the 'trade-boys' take up the baskets,\nbowls, jacks, piggins, and candlesticks, and pass in procession, the\nbowing to the Governors being curiously formal. \u00a0This spectacle was\nwitnessed by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1845.\n\nAmong the more eminent Bluecoat boys are Joshua Barnes, editor\nof Anacreon and Euripides; Jeremiah Markland, the eminent critic,\nparticularly in Greek Literature; Camden, the antiquary; Bishop\nStillingfleet; Samuel Richardson, the novelist; Thomas Mitchell, the\ntranslator of Aristophanes; Thomas Barnes, many years editor of the\nLondon Times; Coleridge, Charles Lamb, and Leigh Hunt.\n\nNo boy is admitted before he is seven years old, or after he is nine;\nand no boy can remain in the school after he is fifteen, King's boys and\n'Grecians' alone excepted. \u00a0There are about 500 Governors, at the head\nof whom are the Sovereign and the Prince of Wales. \u00a0The qualification\nfor a Governor is payment of 500 pounds.--Ibid.\n\nGENERAL NOTE.\n\nOne hears much about the 'hideous Blue Laws of Connecticut,' and is\naccustomed to shudder piously when they are mentioned. \u00a0There are people\nin America--and even in England!--who imagine that they were a very\nmonument of malignity, pitilessness, and inhumanity; whereas in reality\nthey were about the first _sweeping departure from judicial atrocity_\nwhich the 'civilised' world had seen. \u00a0This humane and kindly Blue Law\nCode, of two hundred and forty years ago, stands all by itself,\nwith ages of bloody law on the further side of it, and a century and\nthree-quarters of bloody English law on _this_ side of it.\n\nThere has never been a time--under the Blue Laws or any other--when\nabove _fourteen_ crimes were punishable by death in Connecticut. \u00a0But in\nEngland, within the memory of men who are still hale in body and mind,\n_two hundred and twenty-three_ crimes were punishable by death! {10}\n\u00a0These facts are worth knowing--and worth thinking about, too.\n\n\n\n"}
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{"18381":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                           Mark Twain\n\n\n                 De lotgevallen van Tom Sawyer\n\n\n                         Met platen van\n\n                       Johan Braakensiek\n\n\n\n                           Zesde druk\n\n               Amsterdam Van Holkema & Warendorf\n\n\n\n\n\n\n    Boek-, Courant- en Steendrukkerij G. J. Thieme, Nijmegen\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK I.\n\n\n\"Tom!\"\n\nGeen antwoord.\n\n\"Tom!\"\n\nGeen antwoord.\n\n\"Waar zou die drommelsche jongen toch zitten? Hoor je me niet, Tom?\"\n\nDe oude dame, die deze woorden sprak, trok haar bril naar beneden\nom er overheen te kijken. Daarna duwde zij hem naar boven om er\nonderdoor te kijken. Zelden of nooit gebruikte zij hem om er _door_\nte kijken, althans niet naar een zoo onbeduidend voorwerp als een\nkleine jongen. Immers haar bril was haar roem, de trots van haar hart,\nen zij had hem gekocht om ontzag in te boezemen,--niet om dienst te\ndoen. Voor hare oogen toch kon zij evengoed een deksel van een sauspan\ngenomen hebben. Een oogenblik zag zij onthutst in het rond en zeide,\nniet bepaald barsch, maar luid genoeg om door al de meubelen in de\nkamer gehoord te worden:\n\n\"Als ik je krijg, dan zal....\"\n\nMeer kon zij niet uitbrengen, want al pratende had zij zich\nvoorovergebukt om met een bezem onder het bed te voelen of zich daar\nook iemand verscholen had; en zij hijgde naar adem, toen zij na lang\nduwen en stompen niets dan de kat te voorschijn haalde.\n\n\"Ik heb nooit van mijn leven zoo'n jongen gezien! Nu zullen wij eens\nbuiten kijken.\"\n\nZij ging voor de open deur staan en keek den tuin rond, tusschen de\ntomato-boompjes en het doorn-appelkruid. Geen Tom. Daarna gebruikte\nzij hare handen als spreektrompet en schreeuwde: \"Ben je daar, Tom!\"\n\nWacht! daar hoort ze plotseling een licht gedruisch achter zich en\nzij keert zich om juist bijtijds om een jongen bij de panden van\nzijn buisje te vatten en hem het ontkomen te beletten. \"Wel, ik had\ner aan moeten denken dat je in de provisiekast zoudt zitten,\" zeide\nzij. \"Wat heb je daar gedaan?\"\n\n\"Niets, tante.\"\n\n\"Niets? Kijk eens naar je handen en je mond! Waarom kleven die zoo?\"\n\n\"Dat weet ik niet, tante.\"\n\n\"Nu, ik wel. Er zit gelei aan. Heb ik je niet honderdmaal gezegd,\ndat je voor de broek zoudt hebben, als je gelei snoepte. Geef mij\ndie roede eens aan.\"\n\nDe roede werd in de lucht gezwaaid en was op het punt on op den jongen\nneer te komen, toen hij uitriep:\n\n\"Tante, kijk eens achter u!\"\n\nDe oude dame draaide zich om en legde de roede neer om een partij\nhemden te redden, die zij op de haag te drogen had gehangen en die,\ndoor haar ijver om parate executie te houden, op den grond waren\ngevallen.\n\nDe jongen maakte van de gelegenheid gebruik om over de schutting te\nklauteren en was in een ommezien verdwenen.\n\nTante stond hem een oogenblik beteuterd na te kijken en barstte toen\nin lachen uit.\n\n\"Die duivelsche jongen! Zal ik dan nooit wijzer worden Het spreekwoord\nheeft gelijk: 'Hoe ouder, hoe gekker.' Een ouden hond kan men geen\nnieuwe kunsten leeren. Elken dag verzint de jongen iets anders; maar\nwie kan dat allemaal vooruit weten? 't Is alsof hij voelt hoe lang hij\nmij plagen kan v\u00f3\u00f3rdat ik kwaad word. En als ik dan eindelijk boos ben,\nbrengt hij mij een oogenblik van het onderwerp af of laat mij lachen,\nen voorbij is het; hij glijdt mij onder de vingers weg, voordat ik\nhem kan straffen. Ik doe mijn plicht niet aan dien jongen, zoo waar\nals ik leef. Staat er niet geschreven: 'Die de roede spaart, bederft\nhet kind.' Ik vergroot ons beider zonde en lijden. Hij is gansch en\nal bedorven. Maar, helaas het arme schaap is het eigen kind van mijne\nzuster zaliger ik kan het niet over mij verkrijgen hem te slaan. Ieder\nkeer, dat ik hem niet straf, klaagt mijn geweten mij aan en ieder\nkeer dat ik hem slaag geef, breekt mij het hart. Wat zal er van hem\nworden? Zoo zal hij voor galg en rad opgroeien? Hij zal van middag\nzeker weer gaan strijken en dan zal ik, om te straffen, hem morgen\nmoeten laten werken. 't Is vreeselijk hard om hem op Zaterdag aan\nden arbeid te zetten, als andere jongens vacantie hebben maar ik moet\nten minste mijn plicht doen, of ik zal het kind nog tot bederf worden.\"\n\nTom bleef uit school en had een prettigen middag. Hij kwam juist tijdig\ngenoeg tehuis, om Jim, den zwarten loopjongen, te helpen houtzagen en\nde blokjes voor het avondeten te hakken. Of liever hij kwam bijtijds,\nom Jim zijne avonturen te vertellen, terwijl deze drie vierden van\nhet werk deed. Toms jongere broeder (of eigenlijk stiefbroeder) Sid,\nwas al lang klaar met zijn werk van spaanders op te rapen; immers\nhij was een bedaarde jongen, die volstrekt niet van avonturen en\nwaaghalzerijen hield.\n\nOnder het eten deed tante haar neef, die af en toe stilletjes uit\nden suikerpot nam, allerlei listige, diepzinnige vragen, om hem er in\nte laten loopen. Gelijk vele andere eenvoudige lieden, beroemde zij\ner zich op, dat zij een aangeboren talent bezat voor geheimzinnige\ndiplomatie en beschouwde zij de meest alledaagsche kunstgrepen,\nwaarvan zij gebruik maakte, als wonderen van list en vindingrijkheid.\n\n\"Was 't niet warm op school?\" vroeg zij.\n\n\"Ja, tante.\"\n\n\"Schrikkelijk warm, niet waar?\"\n\n\"Ja, tante.\"\n\n\"Had je geen lust om te gaan zwemmen, Tom?\"\n\nTom begon lont te ruiken en trachtte tantes gelaat uit te vorschen\nmaar het bleef onwrikbaar in dezelfde plooi.\n\n\"Neen, tante,\" antwoordde hij, \"niet zoo bijzonder.\"\n\nDe oude dame strekte de hand uit, om te voelen of Toms overhemd ook\nnat was, en zeide:\n\n\"Je bent nu toch niet zoo bijzonder warm, Tom!\"\n\nZij was verbaasd over haar eigen slimheid; zij had op deze manier\nontdekt dat Toms overhemd droog was, zonder dat iemand vermoedde dat\nhet juist dat was, waar zij achter wilde komen. Maar Tom wist al uit\nwelken hoek de wind woei en dacht dat 't beste zou zijn de vraag te\nvoorkomen, die nu volgen zou.\n\n\"Wij hebben ons hoofd onder de pomp gehouden,\" zeide hij, \"en 't\nmijne is nog nat. Voel maar?\"\n\nTante Polly was boos op zich zelve, omdat zij aan die omstandigheid,\nwelke hem van de schuld had moeten overtuigen, niet gedacht had en\ndus niet bijdehand genoeg was geweest.\n\nMaar ze kreeg een nieuwe ingeving.\n\n\"Tom, je hebt toch het boordje, dat ik aan je hemd heb vastgenaaid,\nniet behoeven los te maken om je hoofd onder de pomp te houden. Wacht,\nontknoop je buis eens.\" Toms gezicht klaarde weer op. Hij ontknoopte\nzijn buis. Het boordje zat aan het hemd vast.\n\n\"Wel, loop dan maar heen. Ik dacht zeker, dat je van school waart gaan\nstrijken om te zwemmen. Doch ik zal je maar vergeven. 't Is met jou\ntoch maar boter aan de galg gesmeerd.\" Zij was half boos, dat hare\nscherpzinnigheid gefaald had, en half blij, dat Tom toevallig niet\nongehoorzaam bleek te zijn. Toen zeide Sidney:\n\n\"Tante, hebt u het boordje met wit of zwart garen genaaid?\"\n\n\"Wel, natuurlijk met wit.--Tom!\"\n\nMaar Tom wachtte de rest niet af. Eer hij de deur uitvloog, riep hij\nnog even:\n\n\"Je krijgt een pak slaag, Sid, voor het klikken.\"\n\nZoodra Tom buiten het bereik van zijne tante was, haalde hij twee\ngroote naalden voor den dag, de een met zwart en de andere met wit\ngaren omwonden, die hij aan den binnenkant van zijn buis had gestoken,\nen zeide:\n\n\"Ze zou het nooit gemerkt hebben als Sid het niet verklapt had. 't Is\neen drommelsch werk; nu eens naait ze met zwart en dan weder met wit\ngaren. Ik wou maar, dat ze zich bij het een of het andere bepaalde;\ndan wist ik waar ik mij aan te houden had. Maar Sid zal er voor lusten,\nof ik heet geen Tom Sawyer meer!\"\n\nTom was niet de modeljongen van het dorp. Hij wist echter best,\nwie dat _wel_ was en ook dat hij een geduchten hekel aan hem had.\n\nIn minder dan twee minuten had hij zijn verdriet vergeten. Niet\nomdat hij het minder voelde dan volwassenen, maar omdat iets anders,\ndat zijne belangstelling geheel innam, het onderdrukte en voor een\noogenblik uit zijne ziel verdreef. Dat andere was het aanleeren\nvan eene nieuwe manier van fluiten, die hij juist van een neger had\nafgezien en waarin hij zich thans ongestoord kon oefenen. Het was een\nsoort van zacht gekweel, dat aan het geluid van een vogel deed denken\nen voortgebracht werd door bij tusschenpoozen midden onder het fluiten\nmet de tong het verhemelte aan te raken. De lezer zal zich uit zijne\njongensjaren wel herinneren hoe men dat doet. Door vlijt en volharding\nkreeg hij het kunstje spoedig beet en stapte hij door de straten met\neen mond vol harmonie en een hart zoo vol dankbaarheid als dat van\neen sterrekundige, die eene nieuwe planeet ontdekt heeft. Wanneer men\nhet genot van den astronoom had kunnen vergelijken met dat van Tom,\nzou dat van den knaap het in onvermengdheid gewonnen hebben.\n\nHet was midden in den zomer en de avonden waren lang. De duisternis was\nnog niet ingevallen, toen Tom al fluitende zijn weg vervolgde. Een\nvreemdeling liep voor hem uit, een jongen, een paar duim langer\ndan hij zelf. Een vreemdeling, van welken leeftijd of sekse ook,\nwas eene merkwaardigheid in het kleine plaatsje St. Petersburg. Deze\njongen was mooi gekleed,--veel te mooi voor een weekdag. Dat was al\niets vreemds. Zijn pet was splinternieuw, zijn toegeknoopt blauw\nbuisje dito, zijn broek evenzoo. Hij had schoenen aan, en dat nog\nwel op Vrijdag! Zelfs had hij een mooie zijden das on! Hij zag er zoo\ndeftig uit, dat Tom er kippenvel van kreeg. Hij stond dit monster van\npracht aan te gapen, doch hoe langer hij zijn neus tegen hem optrok,\ndes te smeriger en te slordiger scheen hem zijn eigen plunje. Geen\nvan beiden sprak een woord. Als de een zich bewoog, deed de ander\nhetzelfde. Zij bleven elkander aanstaren, totdat Tom uitriep:\n\n\"Ik kan je wel aan.\"\n\n\"Probeer het dan eens.\"\n\n\"Zeker, ik kan wel, als ik maar wil.\"\n\n\"Dat kun je niet.\"\n\n\"Jawel.\"\n\n\"Neen.\"\n\n\"Ja.\"\n\n\"Neen.\"\n\nEr volgde eene onheilspellende stilte, waarna Tom zeide:\n\n\"Hoe heet je?\"\n\n\"Dat raakt je niet?\"\n\n\"Ik zal je leeren, dat het me wel raakt.\"\n\n\"Nu, doe het dan.\"\n\n\"Als je nog een woord spreekt, doe ik het.\"\n\n\"Nog een woord! Wat verbeeld jij je wel?\"\n\n\"Je vindt je eigen nogal mooi, niet waar? Ik zou je wel met \u00e9\u00e9ne hand\nop den grond kunnen krijgen, als ik het verkoos.\"\n\n\"Waarom doe je het dan niet. Je zegt altijd, dat je het kunt.\"\n\n\"Als je den gek met me steekt, doe ik het.\"\n\n\"O! dat heb ik wel honderd jongens hooren zeggen.\"\n\n\"Je denkt zeker, dat je een heele Piet bent.\"\n\n\"Wat een vieze pet heb jij op!\"\n\n\"Probeer eens, mij dien pet van het hoofd te nemen. Doe het eens!\"\n\n\"Je bent een lafaard.\"\n\n\"En jij ook.\"\n\n\"Je bent een groote lafaard en je durft me niet aan.\"\n\n\"Ga eens verder, als je durft,\"\n\n\"Als je nog meer praatjes maakt, zal ik je een slag op den kop geven.\"\n\n\"Wel zeker, zul je dat?\"\n\n\"Ja, dat zal ik.\"\n\n\"Waarom doe je het dan niet? Waarom zeg je altijd, dat je het doen\nzult. Is het, omdat je bang bent?\"\n\n\"Ik ben niet bang.\"\n\n\"Jawel.\"\n\n\"Neen.\"\n\n\"Jawel.\"\n\nWeder eene pauze. De jongens duwen gedurig meer tegen elkander aan. Zij\nstaan al schouder tegen schouder. Tom roept:\n\n\"Ga uit den weg!\"\n\n\"Ga jij uit den weg.\"\n\n\"Ik doe het niet.\"\n\n\"Ik doe het ook niet.\"\n\nZoo stonden zij beiden met \u00e9\u00e9n voet vooruit, elkander duwende dat\nhet een aard had. Maar geen van beiden kon den ander uit den weg\nkrijgen. Na tegen elkander aangebonsd en gestooten te hebben, totdat\nde zweetdroppels hun over het gezicht liepen, weken beiden voorzichtig\neen weinig achteruit en Tom zeide:\n\n\"Je bent een lafaard. Ik zal mijn oudsten broer eens op je afsturen;\ndie kan je wel met zijn pink aan en hij zal het doen ook.\"\n\n\"Wat kan mij je oudste broer schelen! Ik heb een broer, die nog\nveel grooter is dan die van jou, en die smijt jou vierkant over de\nschutting.\" (De twee broeders bestonden slechts in hunne verbeelding.)\n\n\"Dat is een leugen.\"\n\n\"Iets is nog geen leugen, omdat jij het blieft te zeggen.\"\n\nTom maakte eene streep in het zand met zijn grooten teen en zeide:\n\n\"Stap hier eens over en ik zal je een pak geven, dat je niet meer op\nje beenen staan kunt.\"\n\nDe nieuwe jongen stapte er dadelijk over en zeide:\n\n\"Nou, je zei dat je het doen zoudt; doe het dan ook.\"\n\n\"Sar me niet; pas op!\"\n\n\"Wel, je _zei_ dat je het doen zoudt. Waarom doe je 't dan niet?\"\n\n\"Sapperloot, ik doe het voor twee centen!\"\n\nDe nieuwe jongen haalde twee vuile centen uit zijn zak en bood die\nTom met een spottend gezicht aan.\n\nTom smeet de centen op den grond.\n\nIn een oogenblik rolden en buitelden de jongens in het stof en vochten\nals leeuwen; een minuut lang rukten en plukten zij elkaar, trokken\nelkaar bij het haar en de kleeren, stompten en krabden elkander en\noverdekten zich met modder en lauweren. Een oogenblik later kwam\ner orde uit de verwarring en Tom werd uit den damp van het slagveld\nzichtbaar, op den nieuwen jongen gezeten en een regen van vuistslagen\nop hem doende nederdalen.\n\n\"Is het nou genoeg?\" vroeg hij.\n\nDe jongen worstelde om van den grond op te komen. Hij schreeuwde meer\nuit woede dan van pijn.\n\n\"Is het nou genoeg?\" zeide Tom, en het kloppen ving weer aan. Eindelijk\nontsnapte den nieuwen jongen een onderdrukt \"genoeg,\" en Tom liet hem\nopstaan met de woorden: \"Dat is een goede les voor je, mannetje. Ik\nzou je raden een volgenden keer te kijken wien je voor hebt, eer je\nmet iemand den gek steekt.\"\n\nDe nieuwe jongen stond op, sloeg het stof van zijne kleederen, en\nliep snikkende weg, terwijl hij gedurig het hoofd omdraaide en Tom\ndreigde, dat hij hem een ander maal wel te pakken zou krijgen. Tom\nbeantwoordde de dreigementen met schimpscheuten en stapte voort met\nhooge borst. Hij had zijn rug echter nog niet gekeerd of de nieuwe\njongen nam een steen op, smeet hem dien achterna, raakte hem daarmede\ntusschen de schouders en rende toen weg, zoo snel als zijne beenen\nhem dragen konden. Tom zette den verrader na tot aan zijn huis en\nontdekte alzoo waar hij woonde. Een tijdlang bleef hij bij de deur\npost vatten, den vijand tartende buiten te komen, maar deze hield\nzich schuil achter het raam, waar hij tegen Tom gezichten stond\nte trekken. Eindelijk kwam de moeder van den vijand voor den dag,\ndie Tom voor een leelijken, gemeenen jongen uitschold en hem gelaste\nzijn biezen te pakken. Toen ging Tom heen en mompelde tusschen zijne\ntanden, dat de nieuwe jongen geen cent waard was.\n\nHij kwam vrij laat te huis, en toen hij voorzichtig het raam insprong,\nviel hij in eene hinderlaag, in de persoon van zijne tante, bij\nwie, toen zij den staat zag, waarin zijne kleederen verkeerden, het\nbesluit om zijn vrijen Zaterdag in een gevangenschap met dwangarbeid\nte veranderen, onherroepelijk vaststond.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK II.\n\n\nDe Zaterdagmorgen kwam; een heerlijke, warme zomerdag vol vroolijkheid\nen leven. Alle harten waren blijde gestemd en de jeugd uitte hare\nblijdschap in een opgewekt gezang. Genot was op elk gelaat te lezen\nen van veerkracht getuigde iedere stap.\n\nDe acacia's stonden in vollen bloei en de lucht was van den geur der\nbloesems vervuld.\n\nDe heuvels in en buiten St. Petersburg waren met een groen zomerkleed\ngetooid en zagen er zoo rustig en uitlokkend uit, dat hij die ze in\nde verte zag droomde van het land van belofte, overvloeiende van melk\nen honig.\n\nTom verscheen aan de deur met een emmer vol witkalk en een verf kwast\nmet een langen steel. Hij overzag de schutting die hij moest witten,\nen de vroolijkheid week uit zijn hart en eene diepe droefgeestigheid\ndaalde daarin neder. Dertig el schutting negen voet hoog! Ach, het\nleven was een last, zwaar om te dragen! Al zuchtende doopte hij zijn\nkwast in de kalk en maakte eene dikke streek; hij herhaalde het werk\nnog eens en nog eens, vergeleek het onbeteekenend streepje gewitte\nschutting met het groote veld, dat nog gewit moest worden, en zette\nzich ontmoedigd op een boomstam neder.\n\nDaar kwam Jim, een liedje zingende, met een emmer aan den arm, de deur\nuithuppelen. Water uit de stadspomp halen was tot nu toe in Toms oogen\neen hatelijk werk geweest, maar vandaag scheen het hem zoo heel naar\nniet. Immers hij wist, dat er menschen bij de pomp zouden zijn. Zij\nwas op sommige uren ongenaakbaar vanwege de jongens en meisjes van\nallerlei soort; blanken, kleurlingen en negers waren er altijd in\nmenigte, die, terwijl zij hun beurt afwachtten, zich met speelgoed\nverkwanselen, twisten, vechten en krijgertje spelen vermaakten. Vandaar\ndat, hoewel de pomp vlak bij was, Jim nooit binnen het uur terugkwam;\nen dan nog moest hij meestal gehaald worden.\n\nDaarom zei Tom: \"Zeg eens, Jim, zal ik water halen en jij witten?\"\n\nJim schudde het hoofd en zei:\n\n\"Dat kan niet, jongeheer. De oude juffer heeft me gezegd, dat ik water\nmoest halen en met niemand moest blijven staan praten. Zij zei ook,\ndat, als de jongeheer Tom me vroeg om te witten, ik net doen moest\nalsof ik het niet hoorde;--en dat ze zou komen zien of ik gedaan had,\nwat ze gezeid had.\"\n\n\"O, stoor je daar niet aan, Jim; dat zegt ze altijd. Geef den emmer:\nik ben binnen twee minuten terug. Zij zal het nooit te weten komen.\"\n\n\"Ik durf niet, jongeheer. Als de juffer het zag, zou ze me de haren\nuit het hoofd trekken.\"\n\n\"Zij? Ze slaat haast nooit,--en als ze het doet, is het alsof er een\nveer over je rug gaat. Zij heeft een grooten mond, maar praatjes\ndoen geen zeer. Jim, als je het doet, krijg je een knikker, een\nalbasten knikker.\"\n\nJim begon te weifelen.\n\n\"Een albasten knikker Jim, en een baas ook?\"\n\n\"Wel, het is verleidelijk, jongeheer, maar ik ben zoo bang voor de\noude juffer.\"\n\nDoch Jim was een mensch en de verleiding was te groot. Hij zette den\nemmer neder en nam den witten knikker. Een kwartier later, juist toen\ntante Polly met een pantoffel in de hand, een glans van triomf op het\ngelaat, uit den tuin kwam, hoorde men Jim luid klingelend den vollen\nemmer in de gang zetten en stond Tom weder dapper te witten.\n\nMaar die witwoede duurde niet lang. Tom verviel spoedig in gepeins\nover de pretjes, die hij zich van dezen Zaterdag had voorgesteld en\nzijn gemoed schoot vol. Thans zouden al de jongens, die vrijaf hadden,\nvol heerlijke plannen voorbijkomen en dan zouden zij hem uitlachen,\nomdat hij moest witten.\n\nDat was al te erg. Hij haalde zijne wereldsche schatten voor den dag,\nbekeek die en zag dat zij uit gebroken speelgoed en andere prullen\nbestonden. 't Was genoeg om zijn werk voor een paar minuten af te\nkoopen, maar veel te weinig om een half uur vrij te krijgen. Hij\nstak zijne bezittingen weer in den zak en gaf het denkbeeld, van\nte trachten met die voorwerpen de jongens om te koopen, op. In dit\nwanhopige oogenblik kreeg hij een schitterenden inval. Hij nam den\nkwast en werkte rustig voort. Daar kwam Ben Rogers in 't gezicht,\nde jongen wiens spot hij boven alles vreesde.\n\nBens tred was een aanhoudend huppelen en springen, een teeken dat\nzijn hart licht en zijne verwachtingen groot waren. Hij at een appel\nen deed nu en dan een lang liefelijk gefluit hooren, gevolgd door een\nzwaarklinkend: ding dong dong, ding dong dong. Immers hij stelde een\nstoomboot voor.\n\nNaarmate hij dichterbij kwam, vertraagde hij zijn stap, hield\nhet midden van de straat, leunde ver over stuurboord en begon\nzeer kunstig, met veel gewicht te laveeren, daar hij de stoomboot\n\"de groote Missouri\" vertoonde. Hij was tegelijk boot, kapitein en\nmachinebel en moest zich zelven dus verbeelden op het dek te staan,\ndaarop bevelen te geven en die ten uitvoer te brengen.\n\n\"Stop, mijnheer! Ling-ling-ling.\" De boot ging iets te\nspoedig vooruit en de knaap trok langzaam zijwaarts. \"Iets naar\nachteren! Ling-ling-ling!\" Toen liet hij zijn arm stijf langs de\nzijden glijden. \"Zet haar terug naar stuurboord! Ling-ling-ling,\nChow-ch-chow chow!\" Daarna begon hij met de rechterhand een cirkel te\nbeschrijven, welke beweging het draaien van een wiel verbeelde. \"Terug\nnaar bakboord. Ling-ling-ling! Chow-chow-ch!\" De linkerhand begon\ncirkels te beschrijven.\n\n\"Aan stuurboordszijde, stop! Ling-ling-ling! Aan\nbakboordszijde, stop! Laat maar langzaam\nbijdraaien! Ling-ling-ling! Chow-chow-ow! Gebruik de hoofdtouwen. Vlug,\nnu de boeglijn.--Wat doet ge daar? Wind den kabel on dien paal. Naar\nden steiger toe--vooruit! Machine stil! Ling-ling-ling!\" Tom ging\nvoort met witten en sloeg geen acht op de stoomboot. Ben staarde hem\neen oogenblik aan en zeide toen:\n\n\"Hi-hi! Je bent een ongelukkige stumperd!\"\n\nGeen antwoord. Tom bekeek de laatste streek van den witkwast met\nhet oog van een kunstenaar, maakte nog een keurig haaltje en zag,\nhoe dat voldeed. Ben ging naast hem staan. Tom watertandde bij het\ngezicht van den appel, doch hij witte ijverig door.\n\nBen zeide:\n\n\"Heila, oude jongen, je moet voor straf werken, he?\"\n\n\"Wel, Ben, ben jij daar? Ik zag je niet.\"\n\n\"Zeg, ik ga zwemmen. Zou jij ook niet willen, als je mocht? Maar jij\nmoet werken, niet waar?\"\n\nTom keek den jongen aan en zeide:\n\n\"Wat noem je werken?\"\n\n\"Wel, is dit geen werken?\"\n\nTom begon weer te witten en antwoordde koeltjes: \"Nu, het mag werken\nzijn of niet, wat ik weet, is, dat Tom Sawyer het dol prettig vindt.\"\n\nDaar kwam de zaak in een ander licht. Ben stond stil en beet op\nzijn appel. Tom streek met zijn kwast voorzichtig op en neer, ging\neen stap of wat achteruit, om te zien hoe zijn werk voldeed, maakte\neen haaltje hier en een haaltje daar, keek nog eens naar het effect,\nterwijl Ben elke beweging bespiedde en hoe langer hoe meer belang in\nden arbeid begon te stellen. Eindelijk zeide hij:\n\n\"Och, Tom, laat mij eens even witten.\"\n\nTom bedacht zich een oogenblik en was op het punt toe te geven, maar\nkwam even spoedig op dat voornemen terug. \"Neen, neen, dat zal niet\ngaan, Ben. Je moet weten, Ben, dat tante Polly verschrikkelijk precies\nis op die schutting; zij staat zoo vlak aan den weg, weet je.--Als\nhet nog achter was, zou ik er niet tegen hebben, en zou tante het wel\ngoedvinden. Zij is vreeselijk precies op het witten; het moet keurig\nnetjes gedaan worden, en ik geloof niet, dat er van de duizend, neen\nvan de tweeduizend jongens \u00e9\u00e9n is, die het doet zooals het behoort.\"\n\n\"Zoo, is het zoo moeilijk? Och toe, laat mij het eens probeeren;\neventjes maar! Ik had het jou al lang laten doen, als je het mij\ngevraagd had, Tom!\"\n\n\"Ben, ik zou het, op mijn woord dolgraag doen, maar tante Polly...--Jim\nvroeg het ook, maar zij wou het niet hebben; Sid ook, maar hij mocht\nevenmin. Begrijp je nu niet, dat ik er voor verantwoordelijk ben? Als\nje eens kladden op de schutting maakte, als er iets mee gebeurde....\"\n\n\"O, ik zal wel oppassen. Toe laat me het maar eens probeeren. Ik zal\nje het klokhuis van mijn appel geven.\"\n\n\"Nu, goed dan; neen, toch niet, Ben;--ik ben bang voor....\"\n\n\"Ik zal je den heelen appel geven.\"\n\nTom gaf den kwast met aarzelenden blik en een verheugd gemoed over. En\nterwijl de stoomboot \"de groote Missouri\" in de barre zon stond te\nwerken en te zweeten, zat de kunstenaar rustig in de schaduw op een\nbiervat zijn appel op te muizen en peinsde over nieuwe plannen om\nnog meer argeloozen in de val te lokken. De gelegenheid liet zich\nniet wachten. Verschillende jongens kwamen voorbij: zij kwamen om te\nspotten--en bleven om te witten. Toen Ben uitgeput van vermoeienis den\nkwast had neergelegd, werd de beurt aan Billy Fischer afgestaan voor\neen vlieger; en toen die gedaan had, kocht John Miller een beurt voor\neen dooden rat en een touw om hem aan te laten schommelen; en zoo ging\nhet, het eene uur voor en het andere na. En op het midden van den dag,\nbaadde de 's ochtends doodarme jongen zich in zijn rijkdom. Hij had\nbehalve de dingen, die ik vermeld heb, twaalf knikkers gekregen,\neen half kapot blaasinstrument, een stukje blauw glas om door te\nkijken, een garenspoeltje, een roestigen sleutel, een stukje krijt,\neen kurk met een glazen stop, een looden soldaat, een paar jonge\nkikvorschen, zes sissers, een koperen deurknop, het heft van een mes,\neen halsbandje voor een hond, vier chinaasappelschillen en een stukje\nglas. Hij had den ganschen dag lekkertjes geluierd en de schutting\nwas met drie duim witsel besmeerd! Als de kalk niet opgeraakt was,\nzou hij al zijne vrienden geru\u00efneerd hebben.\n\nTom dacht, dat het bij slot van rekening toch nog niet zoo heel\nvervelend op deze aarde was. Hij had onbewust een der voornaamste\nwetten, waardoor de menschenwereld geregeerd wordt, leeren kennen,\nnamelijk: dat om iemand op iets verzot te maken, men het slechts als\nzeer moeilijk verkrijgbaar behoeft voor te stellen. Ware hij een groot\nwijsgeer geweest, zooals de schrijver van dit boek, hij zou begrepen\nhebben, dat \"werken\" bestaat in hetgeen men verplicht is te doen en\n\"spelen\" in te doen wat men niet verplicht is te verrichten. En dat\nzou hem hebben doen vatten, waarom het maken van kunstbloemen of het\narbeiden op den tredmolen \"werken\" en waarom kegelen en het beklimmen\nvan den Mont Blanc \"uitspanning\" is.\n\nEr zijn rijke heeren in Engeland, die iederen dag twintig of dertig\nmijlen met een vierspan afrennen, omdat dit voorrecht hun een groote\nsom gelds kost. Wanneer zij echter voor datzelfde genot betaald werden,\nzou het \"werken\" worden en dan zouden zij het er aan geven.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK III.\n\n\nNa het volbrengen van zijn arbeid maakte Tom zijne opwachting bij\ntante Polly, die voor het raam zat in een vroolijk vertrek aan den\nachterkant, dat te gelijk als slaap-, eet- en zitkamer dienst deed. De\nlekkere zomerlucht, de kalme rust, de geur der bloemen en dommelig\ngegons der bijen waren niet zonder uitwerking op haar gebleven en zij\nzat over haar brijwerk te knikkebollen. Haar eenig gezelschap was de\nkat, en deze lag te slapen op haar schoot. Veiligheidshalve had zij\nhaar bril boven haar grijs hoofd gezet. Zij verwachte niet anders dan\ndat Tom lang van zijn werk zou zijn afgeloopen, en het verwonderde\nhaar derhalve ten hoogste hem op eens met een onverschrokken gelaat\nvoor haar te zien staan. Zijn eerste woord was: \"Mag ik nou gaan\nspelen, tante?\"\n\n\"Wat, nu al? Hoe ver ben je?\"\n\n\"Alles is klaar, tante.\"\n\n\"Tom, lieg niet! Leugenaars kan ik niet uitstaan.\"\n\n\"Het is geen leugen. Alles is klaar.\"\n\nTante Polly sloeg maar half geloof aan deze verzekering en ging naar\nbuiten om zelve te kijken. Zij zou reeds tevreden geweest zijn,\nindien twintig percent van Toms verklaring waarheid geweest ware,\nen toen zij nu de gansche schutting met witsel bestreken vond, en\nbestreken niet alleen, maar netjes en met zorg bewerkt, en zelfs den\ngrond met een streek kalk bedeeld, had zij geen woorden genoeg om\nhare bewondering lucht te geven en riep zij uit:\n\n\"Wel, heb ik ooit zoo iets gezien! 't Is ongeloofelijk. Jij kunt\nwerken, als je het op je heupen hebt, Tom!\" Doch meteen verkleinde zij\nde waarde van het compliment door er bij te voegen: \"'t Is jammer,\ndat dit zelden gebeurt. Kom, ga nu maar spelen, doch denk er aan,\ndat je bijtijds tehuis komt, of ik zal je spreken.\"\n\nToms heldenstuk had zulk een overweldigenden indruk op haar gemaakt,\ndat zij hem meenam naar de provisiekamer en een prachtigen appel\nuitkoos, dien ze hem overhandigde met een nuttige les over de waarde\nen den bijzonderen geur die eene lekkernij verkrijgt wanneer zij\nde vrucht is, niet van zonde, maar van naarstigheid. En terwijl zij\ntot slot eene toepasselijke plaats uit de Schrift aanhaalde, kaapte\nhaar neef een spekpannekoek. Toen liep hij vroolijk weg en zag juist\nSid verschrikt de trap ophollen, die naar de achterkamer op de tweede\nverdieping voerde. Voor de deur lag een hoop aarde en in een oogenblik\nwas de lucht vol kluiten, die als een hagelbui op Sid neervielen. Eer\ntante Polly van hare verbazing bekomen kon en haar neef hulp verleenen,\nwaren reeds een stuk af wat kluiten op haar eigen hoofd neergekomen en\nwas Tom over de schutting verdwenen. Hij had wel door de poort kunnen\ngaan, maar het ontbrak hem aan tijd om zulk een omweg te maken. Nu\nkon hij met een gerust hart gaan spelen, want de rekening met Sid\nover het klikken van het zwarte garen, was vereffend.\n\nTom hield den achterkant van de huizen, totdat hij in een modderig\nsteegje achter tantes koestal kwam. Toen achtte hij zich tegen\ngevangenneming en straf beveiligd en begaf zich naar het marktplein,\nwaar twee militaire compagnie\u00ebn van schooljongens, volgens afspraak,\nbijeen waren gekomen om slag te leveren. Tom was de generaal van\nhet eene leger en Joe Hasper (zijn boezemvriend) de aanvoerder van\nhet andere. De twee groote bevelhebbers verwaardigden zich niet\npersoonlijk aan dit gevecht deel te nemen, maar lieten dat aan de\nkleine bakvischjes over. Zij zetten zich naast elkander op eene hoogte\nneder, en leiden de krijgsverrichtingen door bevelen te geven, welke\ndoor veldmaarschalken werden overgebracht. Het leger van Tom behaalde\nna een langen en bangen strijd eene schitterende overwinning. Daarna\nwerd het aantal dooden geteld, de gevangenen uitgeleverd, de bepalingen\nvoor het volgende geschil gemaakt en den dag voor den vereischten\nveldslag bepaald, waarna de beide legers zich met elkander vereenigden\nen afmarcheerden, terwijl Tom alleen naar huis ging.\n\nToen hij het huis van Jeff Thatcher voorbij stapte, zag hij daar\neen hem onbekend meisje in den tuin,--een lief, klein ding met\nblauwe oogen, blond, in twee lange vlechten gescheiden haar, een wit\nzomerjurkje en een geborduurde pantalon. In een oogenblik verdween\neene zekere Amy Laurence uit zijn hart en was alsof die nooit had\nbestaan. Hij had zich verbeeld dat hij halfgek van verliefdheid op\nhaar was, hij had gedacht dat hij haar aanbad, en zie, het bleek niets\ndan eene kleine, voorbijgaande ingenomenheid geweest te zijn. Maanden\nlang had hij zijn best gedaan om haar hart te winnen en zij had hem\njuist acht dagen geleden bekend, dat zij hem wederliefde schonk. Een\nweek lang was hij dronken van geluk en de wereld te rijk geweest,\nen nu was zij heel uit zijne gedachten verdwenen, als het vluchtig\nbezoek van een ons onverschilligen vreemde. Hij bleef zijn nieuwe\nengel in stilte aanbidden, totdat hij bemerkte, dat zij hem in 't oog\nkreeg. Toen deed hij alsof hij haar niet zag en begon allerlei dwaze\nkunsten en grimassen te maken om haar aandacht te trekken. Na die\nzonderlinge grappen een tijdlang volgehouden te hebben, keek hij te\nmidden van eene gymnastische oefening toevallig op zijde en zag dat\nhet meisje naar huis ging. Dadelijk hield hij op, liep naar de haag\nen ging met een bedrukt gezicht voor de stekelige doornen staan, in\nde hoop dat zij nog even zou toeven. Een oogenblik bleef zij op het\nbordes staan en ging daarop naar de deur. Toen zij den voet op den\ndrempel zette slaakte Tom een diepen zucht, maar zijn gelaat klaarde\nterstond weer op, want eer zij de deur inging, wierp zij een viooltje\nover de haag. Tom liep naar de plek waar het viooltje lag, bleef op\neen paar treden afstand van het bloempje staan en hield toen de hand\nvoor de oogen, alsof hij iets heel bijzonders op straat zag. Hij\nraapte een stroohalm op en deed dien, met het hoofd achterover op\nzijn neus balanceeren. Onder die beweging naderde hij langzamerhand\nhet viooltje; eindelijk rustte zijn bloote voet op het bloempje;\nzijne buigzame teenen maakten er zich meester van, hij hinkte met\nzijn schat weg en verdween om den hoek van de straat. Voor een minuut\nslechts,--alleen maar om zich den tijd te gunnen de bloem onder zijn\nbuis op zijn hart of waarschijnlijk op zijne maag te steken.\n\nZoodra de bloem veilig geborgen was, keerde hij terug en bleef tot het\nvallen van den avond om den tuin hangen en kunsten maken; maar het\nmeisje vertoonde zich niet meer en Tom moest zich tevredenstellen\nmet de hoop, dat zij wel ergens voor een venster staan en zijne\noplettendheden voor haar zou bemerken. Eindelijk ging hij met looden\nschoenen huiswaarts.\n\nOnder het avondeten was hij zoo opgewonden, dat tante zich verwonderde\nwat het kind toch zou hebben. Hij kreeg een verbazend standje over\nhet gooien met de aardkluiten, doch scheen er niets om te geven. Toen\nhij trachtte de suiker onder den neus van zijne tante weg te halen,\nliet hij zich bedaard op de vingers tikken, zich slechts de vraag\nveroorlovende:\n\n\"Waarom wordt Sid nooit geslagen, als hij suiker snoept?\"\n\nWaarop het antwoord volgde: \"Omdat Sid een mensch niet zoo plaagt\nals jij. Als ik je niet voortdurend strafte, zou je altijd met je\nvingers in den pot zitten.\"\n\nToen ging tante naar de keuken, en Sid, zalig in het bewustzijn\nvan zijne onschendbaarheid, greep naar de suikerpot, eene wijze\nvan zich tegenover Tom op zijne rechten te verhoovaardigen, die ten\neenen male onuitstaanbaar was. Maar de vingers gleden uit, de pot\nviel op den grond en brak. Tom was boven de wolken van pleizier,--ja,\nzoo verrukt, dat hij zijn tong in toom hield en geen woord sprak. Hij\noverlegde bij zichzelven, dat hij geen mond open zou doen, zelfs niet\nals tante binnenkwam, maar doodstil blijven zitten, totdat zij vroeg\nwie het gedaan had. En dan zou hij het vertellen en hij zou iets\nzien dat hij nooit had gezien, namelijk, dat de modeljongen slaag\nkreeg. In zijne opgetogenheid kon hij zich nauwelijks inhouden, toen\nde oude dame binnenkwam en met bliksemende oogen over haar bril op\nde verwoesting neerzag. \"Ha!\" dacht hij, \"nu komt het,\" maar, jawel,\nhet volgende oogenblik lag hij zelf op den grond te spartelen.\n\nDe machtige arm werd opgeheven om weder te slaan, toen Tom uitriep:\n\n\"Houd op! Waarom moet ik geslagen worden? Sid heeft het gedaan.\"\n\nSprakeloos van ontzetting liet tante Polly den arm neervallen, en\nTom keek haar aan om een woord van mededoogen op te vangen.\n\nHelaas! zoodra zij weder tot adem kwam, zeide zij:\n\n\"Nu, je hebt toch niet onverdiend slaag gehad; al braakt ge den pot\nniet, dan heb je toch zeker ander kattekwaad, uitgevoerd, terwijl ik\nin de keuken was.\"\n\nDoch nauwelijks had zij dit gezegd, of daar begon haar geweten te\nspreken en zij brandde van verlangen om Tom een vriendelijk woordje\ntoe te voegen. Maar, neen, dat kon als een bekentenis van schuld\nbeschouwd worden, en zoo iets zou met alle beginselen van orde en\ntucht in strijd geweest zijn. Daarom hield zij zich stil en ging\nmet een onrustig hart aan het werk. Tom zette zich in een hoek van\nde kamer en vermeide zich in zijne droefheid. Hij wist, dat tante in\nhaar hart wel voor hem op de knie\u00ebn zou willen vallen en voelde zich,\nal snikkende, eigenlijk door de overtuiging gestreeld. Toch wilde\nhij geene signalen geven, noch evenmin op die van tante acht slaan.\n\nHij wist, dat er nu en dan, door een nevel van tranen, smeekende\nblikken op hem geworpen werden, maar hij hield zich alsof hij dat niet\nbemerkte. In zijne verbeelding zag hij zich als doodziek te bed liggen\nen tante over hem heengebogen, om een woord van vergiffenis smeekende;\nmaar hij lag daar, met het hoofd naar den muur gekeerd en stierf zonder\ndat dit woord gesproken werd. Hoe zou zij zich dan wel voelen? En\nhij verbeeldde zich, dat hij uit de rivier opgehaald en dood te huis\nwerd gebracht met druipnatte haren en handen die zich niet meer roeren\nkonden en een hart dat niet meer klopte, zag hoe zij zich op hem wierp,\nin tranen baadde en God smeekte haar haren jongen terug te geven,\ndien zij nooit, nooit meer valsch zou beschuldigen. Doch hij lag daar\nkoud en bleek neder, zonder een teeken van leven te geven--hij, de arme\nlijder wiens smarten nu geleden waren. Langzamerhand verdiepte hij zich\nzoozeer in deze sombere gedachten, dat hij een brok in zijn keel voelde\nen nauwelijks kon slikken. En zijne oogen zwommen in een stroom van\nwater, die bij elken snik overvloeide en langs zijn neus naar beneden\ndruppelde. Ja, het genot van zijn smart te koesteren werd zoo groot,\ndat hij het door geen wereldsche vreugde of luide vroolijkheid wilde\nlaten verstoren. Toen dan ook zijn nicht Marie dansende de kamer\ninkwam, opgetogen van blijdschap dat zij weer te huis was na een\neeuwenlange week buiten te hebben doorgebracht, stond hij op en stapte\nin wolken en duisternis de achterdeur uit, terwijl zij vroolijkheid\nen zonneschijn door de voordeur binnenliet. Hij verwijderde zich ver\nvan de gewone vereenigingsplaatsen zijner makkers en zocht eenzame\nplekjes op, in overeenkomst met zijne gemoedsstemming. Op een in\nde rivier liggend stuk van een houtvlot zette hij zich neder en\nbeschouwde den somberen, onafzienbaren stroom, met het verlangen van\nop eens door dezen verzwolgen te worden, zonder den onaangenamen weg\nte gaan die door de natuur wordt voorgeschreven. Toen dacht hij aan\nzijn bloem! Hij haalde haar voor den dag. Helaas! zij was verkwijnd\nen verlept, en zijne droefheid werd nog grooter. Hij vroeg zich af:\nZou _zij_ medelijden met hem hebben, indien zij het wist? Zou _zij_\nschreien en wenschen, dat zij hare armen om zijn hals mocht slaan\nom hem te te troosten? Of zou ook _zij_, evenals de geheele valsche\nwereld hem den rug toekeeren? Deze gedachte was zoo folterend en toch\nzoo zalig te gelijk, dat hij haar op allerlei wijzen ging uitwerken,\ntotdat zij op het laatst een akelig schrikbeeld werd. Eindelijk stond\nhij zuchtende op en wandelde in de duisternis voort. Tegen half\ntien liep hij in de verlaten straat, waar de aangebeden onbekende\nwoonde. Hij bleef een oogenblik stilstaan; zijn luisterend oor vernam\ngeen geluid. Een kaars wierp een bijzonderen glans op de gordijnen van\nhet venster eener bovenkamer. Zou de heilige daar verblijf houden? Hij\nklauterde de heg over, baande zich een weg door de planten, totdat hij\nonder het verlichte venster stond. Een poos bleef hij diep ontroerd\nstaan kijken; toen ging hij op den grond op zijn rug liggen, met de\nhanden, waarin het verlepte bloempje verborgen was, gevouwen op de\nborst. Dus wilde hij sterven, de koude wereld verlaten, zonder dak\nboven zijn arm hoofd, zonder vriendelijke hand om het doodzweet van\nzijn voorhoofd te wisschen, zonder een liefhebbend gelaat om zich vol\nmedelijden tot hem voorover te buigen, wanneer de bange doodsstrijd\nkwam. En zoo zou _zij_ hem zien, als zij in den vroolijken morgen\nnaar buiten keek. En o! zou zij een traan op zijn arm lijk laten\nvallen? Zou zij een zucht slaken, als zij zulk een jong leven zoo\nruw verwoest en zoo ontijdig afgesneden zag?\n\nDaar ging het raam open, de schrille stem van eene dienstmeid\nontheiligde de plechtige stilte en een stortbad van ijskoud water\ndoorweekte den martelaar, die daar achterover op den grond lag.\n\nOnze half gesmoorde held sprong op met een kreet, die hem\nverlichtte. Toen kwam er een gesuis in de lucht als van een\nslingersteen, vermengd met het mompelen van een vloek, waarop een\ngeluid volgde als van rinkelend glas en van voetstappen, die over\nden muur klommen en in de duisternis wegstierven.\n\nNiet lang daarna, toen Tom ontkleed, bij een eindje vetkaars, zijn\ndoorweekt pak stond te bekijken, werd Sid wakker.\n\nIndien het denkbeeld om te klikken een oogenblik in zijne ziel opkwam,\nwerd hij daarvan door een onheilspellende uitdrukking op Toms gelaat\nteruggehouden.\n\nDeze laatste stapte in bed zonder zijn gewoon avondgebed op te zeggen,\nen Sid maakte in stilte proces-verbaal op van dat verzuim.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK IV.\n\n\nDe zon ging op over een rustende wereld en wierp hare weldadige stralen\nover het vreedzame stedeke St. Petersburg. 's Zondags na het ontbijt\nwas tante Polly gewoon huiselijke godsdienstoefening te houden. Deze\nbegon met een gebed, bestaande uit een reeks bijbelplaatsen, bedekt\nmet een dunne laag woorden van eigen vinding, en eindigde met een\nvan grimmigheid overvloeiend hoofdstuk uit de Moza\u00efsche wetgeving.\n\nNa afloop daarvan omgordde Tom, om zoo te spreken, zich de lendenen\nen ging aan het werk om zijne teksten in het hoofd te krijgen. Sid\nhad zijne les dagen vooruit geleerd, maar Tom moest al zijn krachten\ninspannen om vijf verzen te onthouden ofschoon hij een gedeelte\nvan de Bergrede gekozen had, daar hij geene teksten kon vinden die\nkorter waren.\n\nEen half uur had Tom een vaag begrip van het geheel, maar meer niet,\nwant zijn geest zwierf over het gansche veld der menschelijke gedachten\nen zijne handen hielden zich tot afleiding met allerlei vermakelijke\nkunstjes bezig.\n\nMarie nam het boek om de les te overhooren en hij trachtte den weg\ndoor den zwaren mist te vinden.\n\n\"Zalig zijn de ar-r.... ar....\"\n\n\"Armen.\"\n\n\"Ja- de ar-remen; zalig zijn de ar-remen.\"\n\n\"Van geest.\"\n\n\"Van geest. Zalig zijn de armen van geest, want zij... zij...\"\n\n\"Want hunner...\"\n\n\"Want hunner. Zalig zijn de armen van geest want hunner... is het\nkoninkrijk der hemelen! Zalig zijn zij die treuren, want zij....\"\n\n\"Zij...?\"\n\n\"Zul...\"\n\n\"Want zij zul...\"\n\n\"Z-u-l-l-e-n. Want zij zul... O, ik weet niet wat zij zullen!\"\n\n\"Zullen...\"\n\n\"O ja, zullen--zij zullen--zij zullen treuren; zalig zijn zij--die\ntreuren, want zij zullen... Wat zullen zij? Waarom zeg je het mij niet,\nMarie? Het is gemeen om me zoo te plagen!\"\n\n\"Tom, arme jongen, ik plaag je niet. Ik zou het niet over mijn hart\nkunnen krijgen. Probeer het nog eens. Geef den moed niet op; je zult\nhet wel leeren,--en als je het doet, krijg je iets moois van mij. Zoo;\nnu is het goed, mijn jongen.\"\n\n\"Ik zal het doen, maar zeg mij dan eerst wat het is, Marie.\"\n\n\"Neen, Tom. Je weet als ik zeg dat het mooi is, dan is het mooi.\"\n\n\"Op je woord van eer Marie. Goed, dan zal ik het er wel zien in\nte pompen.\"\n\nHij ging aan het werk, en door nieuwsgierigheid en het vooruitzicht\nvan eene belooning geprikkeld, stampte hij de teksten in zijn geheugen\nen eindigde met een schitterende overwinning te behalen. Marie gaf hem\neen splinternieuw mes van twaalf en een halven cent, en Tom was boven\nde wolken van vreugde. Het is waar, het mes sneed eigenlijk niet,\nmaar het was van echt staal en dat was al iets buitengewoons. Hij\nmaakte dadelijk een plan om het buffet door snijwerk te verfraaien\nen wilde juist zijne krachten op de etenskast beproeven, toen hij\ngeroepen werd om zich voor de zondagsschool te kleeden.\n\nMarie gaf hem een tinnen kom met water en een stuk zeep, welke\nvoorwerpen hij buiten de deur op een bank zette. Toen maakte hij de\nzeep nat en legde die naast de kom; stroopte zijne mouwen op, stortte\nhet water zachtjes op den grond uit, trad daarop de keuken binnen en\nbegon ijverig zijn gezicht met een handdoek die achter de deur hing,\naf te drogen. Doch Marie nam den handdoek weg en zeide:\n\n\"Schaam je je niet, Tom? Wees toch niet zoo stout. Water zal je geen\nkwaad doen.\"\n\nTom was een weinig uit het veld geslagen. De kom werd weder gevuld,\nde knaap bedacht zich een oogenblikje, slaakte een diepen zucht en\nbegon. Toen hij nu de keuken weder binnentrad en met toegeknepen oogen\nnaar den handdoek rondtaste, droop er een eervol getuigschrift van\nzeepsop en water over zijn gezicht. Maar bij nauwkeurige bezichtiging,\nbleek de staat van zaken nog niet bevredigd te zijn, want het\ngereinigde grondgebied hield, als een masker, bij de kin en wangen op;\nbuiten en onder die lijn was eene donkere uitgestrektheid onbesproeide\ngrond, die zich voor en achter zijn hals uitbreidde. Marie nam hem\nonder handen en binnen een kwartier was hij een mensch uit \u00e9\u00e9n stuk,\nzonder verschil van kleur en zijn doorweekt haar was keurig geborsteld\nen in kleine evenredige krullen opgemaakt. In het geheim streek hij\naltijd met moeite en inspanning de krullen glad en plakte hij zijn\nhaar aan zijne slapen vast, want krullen waren meisjesachtig en dat\nwas genoeg om ze te haten. Daarna haalde Marie een pak kleeren voor den\ndag, dat gedurende de laatste twee jaren alleen op zondag gedragen was;\nhet werd eenvoudige zijn \"andere pak\" genoemd; uit welke benaming wij\ntot den omvang van zijn garderobe kunnen besluiten. Toen hij het pak\nhad aangetrokken, legde het meisje de laatste hand aan zijn toilet;\nzij knoopte zijn buisje tot onder de kin vast, sloeg hem een groote\nhalskraag over de schouders, schuierde hem af en kroonde hem met een\ngesprikkelden strooien hoed. Hij hoopte, dat Marie zijne schoenen zou\nvergeten, doch die hoop werd verijdeld; zij poetste ze naar behooren\nen zette ze voor hem neder. Dit verdroot hem en hij beklaagde zich\nover zijn gebrek aan vrijheid. Doch Marie antwoordde overredend:\n\n\"Als je blieft, Tom; kom, wees een goede jongen.\"\n\nEn zoo stapt hij brommend in zijne schoenen. Marie was spoedig klaar\nen de kinderen vertrokken naar de zondagsschool, eene plaats die Tom\nhaatte met zijn gansche hart, maar waar Sid en Marie dol op waren.\n\nDie sabbatsschool duurde van negenen tot halfelf en dan begon de\nkerk. Marie en Sid bleven altijd vrijwillig naar de preek luisteren,\nTom alleen, omdat het hem van hooger hand gelast werd. De kerk was een\nklein, onaanzienlijk gebouw, met eene soort van koepel van sparrenhout\nen op de hooge, harde banken was voor omstreeks driehonderd personen\nplaats. Aan de deur bleef Tom een stap of wat achter en hield een\nkeurig gekleeden jongen staande.\n\n\"Zeg eens, Willem, heb jij ook een geel kaartje?\"\n\n\"Ja.\"\n\n\"Wat moet je daarvoor hebben?\"\n\n\"Wat geef je er voor?\"\n\n\"En stuk zoethout en een vischhaak.\"\n\n\"Laat kijken.\"\n\nTom vertoonde die twee artikelen; zij werden goed bevonden en de\ngoederen veranderden van eigenaar. Daarna verkocht Tom een paar\nalbasten knikkers voor drie roode kaartjes en een paar andere prullen\nvoor blauwe. Bijna al de jongens, die voorbijkwamen werden aangeklampt\nen het koopen en verkoopen van kaartjes van verschillende kleuren\nwerd nog een kwartier voortgezet. Toen ging hij de kerk binnen met een\ntroep andere schoon gewasschen, luidruchtige knapen en meisjes, begaf\nzich naar zijne zitplaats en maakte een standje met den jongen, die\nnaast hem zat. De onderwijzer, een deftig oud heer, kwam tusschenbeide,\nmaar zoodra hij zijn rug gekeerd had, trok Tom een jongen die voor hem\nzat bij het haar en was in zijn boek verdiept, toen het slachtoffer\nomkeek. Een seconde later prikte hij een anderen jongen met een speld,\nom hem \"ai\" te hooren zeggen en haalde zich daardoor andermaal eene\nberisping op den hals. De geheele klasse van Tom waren vogels van\neenerlei veeren,--woelige, drukke, lastige snaken. Toen zij hunne\nles moesten opzeggen, was er geen enkele, die zijne verzen volkomen\nkende, maar door voorzeggen en influisteren brachten zij het allen\ngelukkig zoo ver, dat zij eenige kleine, blauwe kaartjes machtig\nwerden, waarop een bijbeltekst geschreven stond. Het opzeggen van\ntwee teksten werd met een blauw kaartje beloond, tien blauwe kaartjes\nstonden gelijk met \u00e9\u00e9n rood en mochten daartegen geruild worden. Tien\nroode kaartjes stonden weder gelijk met \u00e9\u00e9n geel, en een leerling,\ndie tien gele kaartjes had, kreeg van den catechiseermeester een\nzeer eenvoudig ingebonden bijbeltje, dat in die goedkoope tijden de\nwaarde had van veertig cents. Ik twijfel of er onder mijne lezers\nvelen zullen zijn, die moed en volharding zouden hebben on twee\nduizend verzen van buiten te leeren, zelfs indien zij met een bijbel\nvan Dor\u00e9 beloond werden. En toch had Marie op deze wijs twee bijbels\nverdiend. Maar 't was een geduldwerk geweest, dat twee jaren gekost\nhad. Een Duitsche jongen had er vier of vijf gewonnen; deze had eens\ndrie duizend verzen achter elkander opgezegd, doch zijn geestvermogens\nhadden onder dat inspannend werk zoo geleden, dat hij van dien dag\naf idioot was geworden. 't Was een groot verlies voor de school,\nwant bij plechtige gelegenheden placht de catechiseermeester hem\naltijd te gebruiken om mede te bluffen, zooals Tom zeide.\n\nDoorgaans waren het alleen de oudere leerlingen, die in het bezit\nvan gele kaartjes kwamen en het vervelende werk volhielden, totdat\nzij een bijbel veroverd hadden. Vandaar dat de uitdeeling van eene\ndergelijken prijs eene zeldzame merkwaardige gebeurtenis was, en\nhij die dat monsterwerk verricht had, was de held van den dag. Deze\nreuzenarbeid deed doorgaans een nieuw vuur van ijver in de borst van de\nleerlingen ontbranden, dat niet zelden een week of wat aanhield. Het\nis zeer wel mogelijk dat Toms verstandelijke vermogens nooit naar\nden prijs gehongerd of gedorst hadden, maar de wereldlijke mensch in\nhem had ontegenzeglijk sedert geruimen tijd verlangend uitgezien naar\nden roem en den luister, waarvan de uitdeeling vergezeld ging.\n\nOp den daartoe bestemden tijd stond de catechiseermeester op en ging\nvoor den predikstoel staan met een gesloten gezangboek in de hand, de\nwijsvinger tusschen de bladen verborgen, en verzocht om stilte. Als\neen catechiseermeester zijne gewone aanspraak op de zondagsschool\nhoudt, is het gezangboek voor hem een even onmisbaar artikel als het\nblad muziek voor den zanger, die een solo op het orkest moet zingen,\nofschoon noch het gezangboek noch het blad muziek wordt geraadpleegd.\n\nOnze catechiseermeester was een klein, nietig mannetje van vijf\nen dertig jaren, met borstelig, zandkleurig bokkenhaar; hij droeg\neen staand boord, waarvan de bovenste rand bijna tot aan zijne\nooren reikte, en welks scherpe punten boven de hoeken van zijn mond\nuitkwamen,--een schutsmuur die hem dwong altijd rechtuit te kijken,\nof wanneer een zijdelingsche blik vereischt werd, het geheele lichaam\nom te wenden. Zijn kin werd geschraagd door een breede, zich over\nhet gansche boord uitstrekkende das, welks tippen van franje waren\nvoorzien. De voorstukken van zijne schoenen liepen, naar het gebruik\nvan dien tijd, puntsgewijs, in den vorm van een slede, naar boven, eene\nmode die de toenmalige jongelieden trachten te volgen, door geduldig\nen volhardend met hunne voeten stijf tegen den muur te gaan zitten.\n\nDe heer Walter had een ernstig gelaat en een hart als goud. Hij\nkoesterde zulk een diepen eerbied voor gewijde dingen en plaatsen, en\nhield die zoo zorgvuldig van wereldsche zaken gescheiden, dat zonder\ndat hij het bemerkt had, zijne zondagsschoolstem een bijzondere klank\nhad gekregen, welke op weekdagen geheel ontbrak.\n\n\"Kinderen,\" dus begon hij, \"mag ik u verzoeken zoo recht en netjes\nte gaan zitten als gij kunt, en mij voor een paar minuten uwe geheele\naandacht te schenken. Dus betaamt het aan brave jongens en meisjes. Ik\nzie een klein meisje uit het raam kijken; ik vrees dat zij denkt dat ik\nbuiten sta,--misschien wel op een van die boomen, om een praatje met\nde vogeltjes te houden (toejuichend gegiegel). Het doet mij waarlijk\ngoed, zoovele heldere, vriendelijke gezichtjes op eene plaats als\ndeze bijeen te zien on te leeren wat braaf en goed is.\"\n\nEn in dien geest ging het voort. Het zal niet noodig zijn er meer bij\nte voegen, want de redevoering liep over een onderwerp, waarin weinig\nverscheidenheid is en dat wij allen honderd malen gehoord hebben.\n\nHet laatste gedeelte der speech viel in het water door het\nhervatten der gevechten en andere vermakelijkheden onder sommigen\nder ondeugendste jongens en door een zich wijd en zijd verspreidend\ngefluister en gedraai, dat zelfs doordrong tot aan den voet van\nongenaakbare rotsen als Marie en Sid. Doch zoodra Mr. Walter's stem\nhare diepste tonen liet hooren, hield elk geluid eensklaps op en het\neind der rede werd dankbaar, maar zwijgend begroet.\n\nDit gefluister had zijne oorzaak te danken aan een min of meer\nmerkwaardig feit, het binnentreden van bezoekers. Deze waren de rechter\nThatcher, vergezeld van drie andere personen, t. w. een stumperig\noud mannetje, een zwaarlijvigen heer van middelbaren leeftijd met\ngrijsachtig haar, en eene deftige dame, blijkbaar de echtgenoote van\nden dikken heer. De dame hield een klein kind bij de hand.\n\nTom was den ganschen morgen onrustig en ontevreden op zichzelven\ngeweest en hij werd, telkens wanneer hij Amy Lawrence's oog ontmoette,\nof haar van liefde getuigenden blik opving, door gewetenswroegingen\ngekweld. Maar toen hij het meisje aan de hand der dame zag, klopte\nzijn hart op eens van gelukzaligheid. In een oogenblik was hij met\nal zijne macht aan het uitdeelen van klappen, plukharen, gezichten\ntrekken, in \u00e9\u00e9n woord, aan het gebruiken van die kunstgrepen, welke\nhem geschikt voorkwamen om een meisje te bekoren en hare toejuiching\nte winnen. En de reden van die opgetogenheid was--de herinnering aan\nde vernedering in den tuin van zijn engel ondervonden.\n\nDe bezoekers kregen de eereplaats, en zoodra de heer Walter\nge\u00ebindigd had, stelde hij hen aan het schoolpersoneel voor. De man\nvan middelbaren leeftijd bleek een zeer gewichtig persoon te zijn,\nniet minder dan een raadsheer,--in het kinderoog het meest verheven\nwezen, dat ooit heeft bestaan. Zij waren dan ook meer dan verlangend\nom te weten van wat voor stof hij gemaakt was en zaten half hoopvol,\nhalf angstig te luisteren of zij hem ook zouden hooren brullen. Hij\nkwam van Konstantinopel,--zeer ver van St. Petersburg; hij had dus\ngereisd en de wereld gezien, ja; zijne oogen hadden het rechtsgebouw\nder hoofdplaats aanschouwd, dat--zeide men--een koperen dak had.\n\nDe doodelijke stilte en de rijen van starende oogen waren getuigen van\nhet ontzag, dat dit denkbeeld inboezemde. Hij was de groote raadsheer\nThatcher, de eigen broeder van hun rechter. Jeff Thatcher stond\ndadelijk op om op gemeenzamen toon met den grooten man te spreken en\ndoor de gansche school benijd te worden. Het zou als muziek in zijne\nooren geklonken hebben, indien hij het gefluister had kunnen verstaan.\n\n\"Kijk eens, Jim! hij gaat naar hem toe! Kijk eens, hij geeft hem eene\nhand, een _hand_! Wou jij niet, dat je Jeff was?\"\n\nIntusschen was het geheele personeel bezig zijn best te doen, om\nin een voordeelig licht te treden. De heer Walter trachtte \"uit\nte komen\" door het verrichten van allerlei soort van luidruchtige\nambtsbezigheden, door orders te geven hier, straffen op te leggen\ndaar, en terechtwijzingen uit te deelen, waar de gelegenheid zich\nmaar voordeed. De bibliothecaris trachtte \"uit te komen\" door met\nonmogelijke pakken boeken van het eene einde van het lokaal naar het\nandere te loopen en door dat rumoer en die opschudding te maken, waarin\nzulke lieden behagen scheppen. De leeraressen trachtten \"uit te komen\"\ndoor zich vriendelijk tot de leerlingen voorover te buigen, die zij een\noogenblik te voren een oorveeg gegeven hadden, en door coquet kleine\nvingertjes tegen stoute jongens op te heffen en de zoeten vriendelijk\nop de schouders te kloppen. De ondermeesters trachtten \"uit te komen\"\ndoor zachte vermaningen uit te deelen en door ander gezagsvertoon,\ndat blijk moest geven van hun slag om de orde te handhaven. De kleine\njongens en meisjes trachten \"uit te komen\" door de lucht met proppen\npapier en het geluid van schuifende voeten te vervullen. En boven\ndit alles zat de groote man en liet een raadsheerlijken glimlach over\nde geheele school gaan en koesterde zich in den zonneschijn van zijn\neigen grootheid, want ook hij trachtte \"uit te komen.\"\n\nEr ontbrak nog slechts \u00e9\u00e9n ding, om des heeren Walters verrukking\ntot haar hoogste volkomenheid te brengen--en dat was de kans om een\nbijbelprijs uit te deelen en een wonder te vertoonen. Verscheidene\nleerlingen bezaten een paar gele kaartjes, maar geen enkele had er\ngenoeg; hij was reeds bij de wonderkinderen onder zijn leerlingen rond\ngeweest en zou goud gegeven hebben om den Duitschen jongen eventjes\nmet gezonde hersenen terug te hebben.\n\nJuist op dit op ogenblik, toen alle hoop hem dreigde te ontvlieden,\nkwam Tom Sawyer uit de bank met negen gele, negen roode en tien blauwe\nkaartjes en verzocht om den bijbel.\n\nDit was een donderslag uit een onbewolkten hemel! Uit dien hoek zou\nWalter in geen tien jaar dergelijk blijk van naastigheid verwacht\nhebben. Maar er was niets aan te doen;--daar lagen de bewijzen en\nzij waren echt. Aan Tom werd daarom eene eereplaats aangewezen in\nde nabijheid van den Raadsheer en de andere uitverkorenen, en het\ngroote nieuws werd in de hoofdkwartieren verspreid. Het was eene\nverbazende verrassing, en de held werd tot des Raadsheers hoogte\nverheven, zoodat de school in plaats van \u00e9\u00e9n wonder er twee te\naanschouwen kreeg. Al de jongens verteerden van afgunst, maar de\nbitterste kwellingen verduurden de knapen, die te laat bemerkten,\ndat zij tot dezen hatelijken luister hadden medegewerkt, door aan\nTom kaartjes te verkoopen voor de schatten, die hij met het witten\nverdiend had. Dezen verachtten zichzelven als de _dupes_ van een\nsluwen bedrieger, van een verraderlijken adder in het gras.\n\nDe prijs werd aan Tom uitgereikt met al de loftuigingen, welke\nde catechiseermeester onder de bestaande omstandigheden uit zijn\nbinnenste kon oppompen, doch waaraan slechts \u00e9\u00e9n ding ontbrak namelijk\nwaarheid, want de arme man voelde instinctmatig, dat hij hier voor\neen geheim stond, hetgeen misschien het licht niet zien kon. Het was\nde ongerijmdheid zelve, dat deze knaap een voorraad van twee duizend\nschoven schriftuurlijke wijsheid had vergaard, aangezien ongetwijfeld\nreeds een dozijn te veel voor zijne krachten geweest zou zijn. Amy\nLawrence was trotsch en verheugd en zij deed haar best Tom dit te doen\nzien, maar hij wilde niet kijken. Dit verwonderde haar; zij werd een\nweinig ongerust, kreeg toen een onbestemd gevoel van argwaan, dat kwam\nen verdween en weer terugkwam, totdat een steelswijs geworpen blik\nhaar alles openbaarde. En toen brak haar hart en zij werd jaloersch\nen boos; zij begon te schreien en haatte de geheele wereld, en Tom\nmet haar,--zoo dacht zij ten minste.\n\nTom werd aan den Raadsheer voorgesteld, maar zijn tong kleefde hem aan\n't verhemelte. Zijn hart bonsde,--gedeeltelijk ten gevolge van de\nangstwekkende grootheid van dien man, maar vooral omdat hij _haar_\noom was. Indien het donker was geweest, zou hij wel op zijne knie\u00ebn\nhebben willen vallen om hem te aanbidden. De Raadsheer legde zijne hand\nop Toms hoofd, noemde hem een aardig kereltje en vroeg hem, hoe hij\nheette. De jongen stamelde, hijgde naar adem en stootte eindelijk uit:\n\n\"Tom!\"\n\n\"Neen, niet Tom, niet waar? Gij heet....?\"\n\n\"Thomas!\"\n\n\"Juist. Maar er behoort _nog_ nog iets bij. Gij hebt toch ook een\ngeslachtsnaam, niet waar--en dien wilt gij mij immers wel mededeelen?\"\n\n\"Zeg mijnheer uw anderen naam, Thomas,\" zeide de heer Walter,\n\"en voeg er 'mijnheer' achter. Gij hebt toch manieren geleerd.\"\n\n\"Thomas Sawyer, mijnheer.\"\n\n\"Ziezoo, dat is een goede jongen. Een lieve jongen! Een aardig,\nmanhaftig kereltje! Twee duizend verzen is een groot aantal, Thomas,\neen zeer groot aantal. Maar gij zult u nooit de moeite berouwen,\nze geleerd te hebben. Want kennis is meerder waard dan al wat deze\nwereld ons geven kan, daar kennis ons groot en goed maakt. Gij zult\neens een groot en een goed man worden, Thomas, en dan zult gij op\nhet verleden terugzien en zeggen: Dat alles heb ik te danken aan\nhet voorrecht van in mijn jeugd de zondagsschool bezocht te hebben;\nalles aan mijn brave meesters, alles aan den goeden catechiseermeester,\ndie mij aanmoedigde en mij een bijbel gaf, een prachtigen, sierlijken\nbijbel, dien ik voorgoed mocht houden; alles aan mijne uitnemende\nopvoeding. Dat zult gij eens zeggen, Thomas, en voor geen geld ter\nwereld zult ge het genot willen missen deze twee duizend verzen in het\ngeheugen geprent te hebben,--neen, waarlijk niet. En nu zult gij mij\nen deze dame wel iets willen mededeelen van hetgeen gij geleerd hebt,\nwant wij stellen groot belang in vlijtige jongens. Zonder twijfel\nkent gij de namen der apostelen, niet waar? Wilt gij mij eens zeggen,\nwie de twee eersten waren, die den Heer volgden?\"\n\nTom trok aan een der knoopen van zijn buis en keek den Raadsheer\nbedremmeld aan. Hij bloosde en sloeg de oogen neder. Den heer\nWalter zonk het hart in de schoenen. Hij wist, dat de jongen zelf de\neenvoudigste vraag niet beantwoorden kon. Waarom vroeg de Raadsheer\nhem? Toch voelde hij zich verplicht te spreken en zeide:\n\n\"Antwoord mijnheer, Thomas! Wees niet bang.\"\n\nTom stond op heete kolen.\n\n\"Ik weet zeker, dat gij het _mij_ wel zult willen zeggen,\" zeide de\ndame. \"De namen der twee eerste discipelen waren....?\"\n\n\"David en Goliath!\"\n\nLaat ons over het overige van het tooneel meedoogend een sluier werpen.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK V.\n\n\nOm halfelf begon de oude klok van het kleine stadje te luiden en\naanstonds stroomde de goede gemeente naar den morgendienst. De\nkinderen van de Zondagsschool verspreidden zich in het gebouw en\nbezetten de banken met hunne ouders, om behoorlijk onder toezicht te\nzijn. Tante Polly kwam, gevolgd door Tom, Sid en Marie. Tom werd naast\nde koorgang geplaatst, ten einde zoo ver mogelijk van het open raam\nen de verleidelijke zomertooneelen daar buiten te wezen. De schare\ntrok op naar de zijvleugels; de oude en behoeftige postmeester,\ndie betere dagen gekend had; de Mayor en zijne vrouw,--want men had\nte St. Petersburg, onder andere overtolligheden, ook een Mayor:\nde kantonrechter; de knappe, opgedirkte, veertigjarige weduwe\nDouglas, een goedhartige ziel die er warmpjes inzat en wier op den\nheuvel gelegen heerenhuis het eenige paleis der plaats uitmaakt,\nhet onbekrompenste huis waarop St. Petersburg kon bogen, als 't op\nfeesten geven aankwam; de gebogen en eerwaardige burgemeester met\nzijn echtgenoot; de advocaat Riverson, de nieuwe notabele; daarna de\n_belle_ van het stadje, gevolgd door een troep met prachtige overhemden\npronkende hofmakers, toen eenige jeugdige stedelijke ambtenaren, die\nop de knoppen hunner rottingen zuigende, in het voorportaal een ronden\nmuur van gepommadeerde en glimlachende bewonderaars hadden gevormd,\ntotdat het laatste meisje de _revue_ gepasseerd had; en eindelijk\nde modeljongen, Willie Mufferson, die zoo zorgvuldig op zijn moeder\npast. Hij vergezelde zijn mama altijd naar de kerk en was de trots\nvan alle matronen. De jongens echter haatten hem, omdat hij zoo braaf\nwas en nog meer omdat hij steeds als voorbeeld werd aangehaald. Zijn\nwitte zakdoek hing als iederen Zondag, toevallig uit den zak van\nzijn buis. Tom had geen zakdoek; hij noemde het dragen van zulk een\nweeldeartikel \"kwasterig.\"\n\nToen de gemeente vergaderd was, werd de klok nog eens geluid om\nde tragen en talmend te waarschuwen, en daarop ontstond er een\nplechtige stilte in de kerk, nu en dan afgewisseld door het gegiegel\nen gefluister van de koorjongens op de galerij. Koorknapen giegelen\nen fluisteren gewoonlijk den geheelen dienst door. Ik ken maar \u00e9\u00e9ne\nplaats, waar zulks het geval niet was, maar ik ben vergeten waar die\nligt. Het is ook vele, vele jaren geleden, sinds ik haar bezocht en ik\nherinner mij er nauwelijks iets meer van; alleen ligt mij flauw bij,\ndat het ergens in het buitenland was.\n\nDe predikant gaf het gezang op en las het voor met innig zelfbehagen\nen op een eigenaardige wijze, welke in die streek zeer bewonderd\nwerd. Zijne stem, begonnen in een gemiddelden toon, klom gestadig,\ntotdat zij een zeker punt bereikt had (meestal het voorlaatste woord\nvan den regel en plofte dan onmiddellijk als de straal van een fontein\nnaar beneden) aldus:\n\n                                                                   bed\n                                                    't donzig       |\n                                          leggen op                 |\n                            omhoog en mij                        terneer,\n                worden naar                                     't bloedig\n    ik gedragen                                        vaart op     |\nZal                                        en moeizaam              |\n                                   strijdt                          |\n                     den kampprijs                                meer?\n        een ander om\nTerwijl\n\n\nHij werd beschouwd als een puikjuweel in de kunst van voorlezen. Op\ngodsdienstige bijeenkomsten werd hij altijd uitgenoodigd om te\nreciteer en, en zoodra hij zijne stem verhief, sloegen de dames de\nhanden ineen, on ze daarna machteloos in haar schoot te laten vallen,\nkeken met zwemmende oogen naar boven en schudden het hoofd, als wilden\nzij uitroepen: \"Woorden kunnen het niet weergeven; het is te schoon,\nte schoon voor deze wereld!\"\n\nNadat het lied gezongen was, nam de eerwaarde heer Sprague het bulletin\nin de hand en las de kennisgeving voor van al de vergaderingen,\nbijeenkomsten enz. die er in die week zouden plaats hebben, eene lijst\ndie tot den jongsten dag scheen te duren. Deze zonderlinge gewoonte\nwordt nog altijd in Amerika gevolgd, zelfs in groote steden en in\neen eeuw waarin het nieuwsbladen regent. 't Gebeurt echter meer,\ndat een oud gebruik, naarmate het minder te rechtvaardigen is, te\nmoeielijker schijnt afgeschaft te kunnen worden.\n\nEn nu begon de dominee te bidden,--een goed, grootmoedig gebed, waarin\nniets werd overgeslagen. Hij bad voor de kerk en voor de kinderen der\nkerk; voor de andere kerken der stad; voor de stad zelve; voor het\ndistrict; voor den Staat; voor die dienaars van den Staat; voor de\nVereenigde Staten; voor de kerken van de Vereenigde Staten, voor het\nCongres; voor den President, voor de andere leden van de regeering;\nvoor de arme zeevaarders, die op onstuimige wateren geslingerd worden;\nvoor de millioenen, die onder Europeesche monarchie en Oostersche\ndwingelandij zuchten; voor hen die, ofschoon in het licht van het\nEvangelie geboren, geene oogen hebben om te zien en geene ooren om\nte hooren; voor de heidenen op de verre eilanden in de zee;--en hij\neindigde met eene smeekbede, dat de woorden, die hij zou spreken,\nin genade mochten worden aangenomen en als het zaad mochten zijn,\ndat in vruchtbare aarde word geworpen en te zijner tijd een heerlijken\noogst van Godzalige vruchten zal afwerpen. Amen.\n\nNu volgde een geruisch van japonnen en de staande vergadering ging\nzitten.\n\nDe knaap, wiens geschiedenis in dit boek verhaald wordt, putte geen\ngeestelijk genot uit de preek; hij droeg die als een kruis--en niet\naltijd met geduld. Hij deed zijn best om stil te zitten en hield\nonbewust aanteekening van al de bijzonderheden, waarin de preek\nafdaalde; want ofschoon hij niets met aandacht volgde kende hij het\nterrein en den weg, dien den predikant nam, sedert lang,--en wanneer\ner maar iets nieuws werd ingelascht, ontdekte dat zijn oor, en zijn\ngansche gemoed kwam er tegen in opstand. Elke toevoeging was in zijne\nschatting oneerlijk en schelmachtig.\n\nMidden onder de preek, had een vlieg zich achter tegen de v\u00f3\u00f3r hem\nstaande bank neergezet en dat beestje werd eene kwelling voor zijne\nziel. Het wreef zich de pootjes zoo kalm tegen elkaar, en nam zijn\nkopje tusschen de voorpooten en poetste dat met zooveel geweld, dat\ndit lichaamsdeel op het punt scheen den romp vaarwel te zeggen en het\nnekje, als een draad te kijken kwam; het schuurde zijn vleugeltjes met\nde achterpootjes en streek die zoo glad tegen het lichaam, alsof ze de\npanden waren van een rok en maakte zijn toilet zoo rustig, alsof het\nwist dat het volkomen veilig was. En dat was het ook; want ofschoon\nToms handen jeukten om het te grijpen, durfde hij dit niet ondernemen,\ndaar hij in de overtuiging leefde, dat hij verloren was, wanneer hij\nzoo iets deed, terwijl het gebed aan den gang was. Maar toen dit op een\neind liep, begon zijn hand zich te krommen en ging zachtjes vooruit;\nen zoodra het \"amen\" weerklonk, was de vlieg krijgsgevangen. Doch\ntante ontdekte het en liet Tom haar de vrijheid hergeven.\n\nDe dominee las een tekst voor en was in zijn preek z\u00f3\u00f3 eentonig en\ndroog, dat menig hoofd zich te sluimeren neigde,--en toch spuwde hij\nin zijne rede vuur en vlam en dreigde het uitverkoren Godsvolk met\nhel en verdoemenis. Tom had de gewoonte de bladen van de preek na\nte tellen. Na kerktijd was 't hem altijd bekend hoeveel pagina's er\nomgeslagen waren doch meestal was dat ook het eenige, wat hij van\nde rede onthouden had. Ditmaal echter werd zijn aandacht voor een\nkort oogenblik geboeid. De predikant schetste prachtig en treffend\nhoe het zijn zou in den welaangenamen tijd van het duizendjarig rijk,\nals de leeuw en het Lam te zamen zouden nederliggen en een klein kind\nhen zou leiden. Maar het verhevene, de leering en de moraal van dat\ngrootsche schouwspel gingen voor den knaap verloren; hij dacht alleen\naan de heerlijkheid van het tooneel voor de toeschouwende nati\u00ebn;\nen zijn gelaat glansde van verrukking bij het denkbeeld, dat hij dat\nkind mocht zijn,--zoo de bedoelde leeuw maar een tamme was.\n\nToen evenwel het dorre hoofdonderwerp weer werd opgevat, verviel hij\nopnieuw in een toestand van duldend dragen. Op eens schoot hem in\nde gedachten, dat hij een schat bij zich had en deze werd voor den\ndag gehaald. Het was een groote zwarte kever, met een puntigen bek,\ndien hij met den naam van \"bijtende tor\" bestempelde. Die \"bijtende\ntor\" was geborgen in een percussie-doos. Zoodra de doos openging,\npakte de kever hem bij den vinger en beet hem. Daarop werd het beest\nnatuurlijk weggeknipt en de kever vloog door de kerk en viel daarna\nop den rug, terwijl Tom den zeeren vinger in den mond stak.\n\nIntusschen bleef het diertje hulpeloos liggen, buiten staat zich om\nte keeren. Tom oogde hem met een blik vol verlangen na, maar de kever\nwas buiten zijn bereik. Andere lieden, wier gedachten van de preek\nafgedwaald waren, vonden eene gewenschte afleiding in den kever en\ngingen eveneens diens bewegingen gadeslaan.\n\nDaar kwam eensklaps druipstaartend en met hangende ooren, een\nverdwaalde poedel de kerk binnensluipen. Hij ziet den kever; de\nneerhangende staart gaat in de hoogte en begint te kwispelen. Hij neemt\nden buit in oogenschouw, loopt er omheen, beruikt hem op behoorlijken\nafstand, loopt er nog eens omheen, wordt moediger en beruikt hem iets\nmeer van nabij, opent zijn bek, waagt behoedzaam een poging on hem te\ngrijpen en mist zijn doel, waagt een tweede poging, daarna een derde,\nbegint er schik in te krijgen, tracht den kever tusschen zijne pooten\nte vangen, maar wordt moede van het vruchteloos werk en gaat er bij\nzitten. De slaap bevangt hem; hij laat den kop hangen en zoetjes aan\nsukkelt zijn kin naar beneden, totdat zij met den puntigen bek in\naanraking komt en een beet krijgt van het dier. Daarop volgt een luid\ngejank, eene snelle beweging van poedels kop en de kever vliegt weg,\non terstond weder op zijn rug terecht te komen.\n\nDe in de buurt zittende toeschouwers schudden inwendig van het\nlachen. Verscheidene gezichten werden achter waaiers of in zakdoeken\nverborgen en Tom zat zich bovenmate te verkneuteren. De hond zag er\nuit, alsof hij niet wist hoe hij het had, en wist dat waarschijnlijk\nook niet. Er was toorn in zijn hart en hij dorstte naar wraak. Daarom\nging hij nogmaals naar den kever toe en hernieuwde omzichtig den\naanval, sprong gedurig in een cirkel op hem toe, trachtte hem op\neen duimbreeds afstand met zijne voorpooten te pakken, hapte naar\nhem en gooide met zijn kop, totdat hij er duizelig van werd. Weldra\nechter werd hij het spelletje moe en zocht hij zich met een vlieg\nte vermaken. Toen vervolgde hij, met zijn neus vlak op den grond,\neen mier en kreeg ook daar al heel spoedig zijn bekomst van; hij\ngaapte, zuchtte, vergat den kever en--ging er op zitten! Geen seconde\nlater verhief zich een oorverdoovend geblaf in de kerk en de hond\nrende door het ruim. Het geblaf hield aan en de hond bleef aan 't\nrennen; hij vloog dwars door de kerk heen, langs den eenen vleugel,\ntoen weer naar den anderen vleugel, liep voor de deuren op en neer,\njankte luide alsof hij voor zijns meesters huis stond en wenschte\nbinnengelaten te worden. Zijn angst nam toe, naarmate hij rondliep,\ntotdat hij een komeet geleek, die met de snelheid van het licht\nschitterend voortholt op haar baan. Eindelijk staakte het razende\ndier zijn woeste vaart en sprong op den schoot zijns meesters, die\nhem uit het venster wierp, en het geluid der klagende stem verzwakte\non eindelijk in het verschiet weg te sterven.\n\nIntusschen zat de geheele kerk met gloeiende wangen en bijna stikkende\nvan het lachen, dit tooneel aan te staren en de dominee moest zijn\nredevoering voor een oogenblik staken. De preek werd weder hervat,\nmaar zij ging gebrekkig en hakkelend voort, en alle pogingen om indruk\nte maken waren vergeefs. Zelfs de ernstigste zaken werden met eene\nonderdrukte uitbarsting van zondige vroolijkheid door de achter den\nrug der banken wegschuilende vergadering aangehoord, alsof de arme\nman iets bijzonders grappigs had verteld.\n\nHet was eene ware verlichting voor de gansche gemeente, toen de\nvuurproef doorgestaan en de zegen uitgesproken was. Tom verliet\nvroolijk en opgewekt het godshuis en overlegde bij zichzelf, dat\nkerkgaan nog zoo vervelend niet was, indien er, zooals vandaag, eene\nkleine afwisseling in kwam. Er was maar \u00e9\u00e9ne gedachte, die hem kwelde:\nhij had er niet tegen, dat de hond met de kever speelde doch hij vond\nhet valsch van den poedel dat hij hem meegepakt had.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK VI.\n\n\nDe maandagmorgen vond Tom diep ellendig. Dat deed elke maandagmorgen,\nomdat dan weder het slepend lijden van zes dagen schoolgaan\nvolgde. Gewoonlijk begon hij dien dag met den wensch, dat er toch\ngeene tusschenbeide komende vacantiedagen mochten zijn, daar deze\nden gang naar de boeien en de slavernij nog hatelijker maakten.\n\nTom lag te denken, en het verlangen kwam bij hem op dat hij ziek\nmocht worden, opdat hij tehuis kon blijven. Zou dat onmogelijk\nzijn? Hij voelde overal of er ook een plekje zeer deed, maar alles\nwas gezond. Toch meende hij verschijnselen van buikpijn te ontdekken\nen dadelijk werden alle zeilen bijgezet on die ongesteldheid te\nbevorderen. Maar helaas! zij verminderde ras en verdween allengs geheel\nen al. Hij pijnsde verder. Een van de boventanden zat los. Dat was een\nbuitenkansje. Juist wilde hij uit al zijn macht gaan kreunen, toen het\nhem in de gedachten schoot, dat, wanneer hij met die smart voor den\ndag kwam tante den tand zou uittrekken en dat pijn zou doen. Daarna\nbesloot hij voor het tegenwoordige den tand als noodschot te bewaren\nen verder te zoeken. Eerst deed zich niets op, doch daar herinnerde\nhij zich, den dokter te hebben hooren spreken over eene ziekte,\nwaarbij een pati\u00ebnt twee of drie weken te bed moest liggen en die\nsomtijds eindigde met iets wat hij het koudvuur genoemd had. Toms\ngroote teen had hem zeer gedaan; misschien kon dat wat geven. Gretig\ntrok hij dien dan ook onder de dekens uit en hield hem in de hoogte,\non hem te onderzoeken. Ofschoon hij de verschijnselen van de kwaal\nniet kende, dacht hij dat het toch wel de moeite waard was het eens\nte wagen en begon bitter te steunen.\n\nMaar Sid sliep door.\n\nTom steunde harder en verbeelde zich, dat hij werkelijk pijn begon\nte gevoelen.\n\nSid bleef onbeweeglijk liggen.\n\nTom ging met de uiterste inspanning aan het beven en trillen. Hij\nhield zijn adem in, blies zich op en bracht eene reeks van uitmuntend\nnagebootste zuchten voor den dag.\n\nSid snorkte door.\n\nTom was ten einde raad. Ten laatste riep hij uit: \"Sid, Sid!\" en\nschudde zijn stiefbroeder uit alle macht.\n\nDit hielp en Tom hervatte zijn steunen. Sid gaapte, rekte zich uit,\nverhief zich snorkend op zijn elleboog en begon Tom aan te staren. Tom\nsteunde al door, totdat Sid riep:\n\n\"Tom! zeg eens.... Tom!\"\n\nGeen antwoord.\n\n\"Och Tom! Tom! wat scheelt er aan, Tom?\" En hij greep hem bij den\narm en zag hem angstig aan.\n\nTom jammerde: \"O Sid, houd op, schud me niet zoo hard!\"\n\n\"Zeg, wat scheelt er aan, Tom? Ik zal tante roepen.\"\n\n\"O, neen! Doe dat niet!\"\n\n\"Jawel! Ach, steun zoo niet, Tom! 't Is zoo vreeselijk. Hoe lang heb\nje al zoo gelegen?\"\n\n\"Al uren. Ai, o! maak niet zoo'n beweging, Sid; je zult me vermoorden.\"\n\n\"Tom, waarom heb je me niet eer geroepen? O, Tom, houd op. Ik kan\nhet niet meer aanhooren, Tom, wat scheelt er aan?\"\n\n\"Ik vergeef je alles, Sid, (gesteun).... alles wat je ooit tegen me\nmisdreven hebt. Als ik zal heen....\"\n\n\"O, Tom, gij gaat toch niet sterven, niet waar? Och, doe het niet,\nTom. Misschien....\"\n\n\"Ik vergeef iedereen, Sid, (gesteun). Zeg hun dat Sid. En, Sid, geef\nhet raamkozijn en mijn kat aan het nieuwe meisje, dat hier is komen\nwonen en zeg haar....\" Maar Sid had zijne kleeren al aangeschoten en\nwas de kamer uit. Tom had nu wezenlijk pijn, dusdadig had hij zijne\nverbeelding laten werken en zoo was het geluid van zijn gekerm der\nwaarheid nabij gekomen.\n\nSid ijlde de trappen af en zeide:\n\n\"O Tante Polly, Tom gaat sterven.\"\n\n\"Sterven?\"\n\n\"Ja, wacht niet; kom gauw mede.\"\n\n\"Onzin! Ik geloof er niets van.\"\n\nDesniettemin vloog zij doodsbleek en met bevende lippen de trappen\nop en Sid en Marie achter haar aan.\n\nToen zij voor het ledikant stond, bracht zij met moeite uit:\n\n\"Tom, wat scheelt er aan?\"\n\n\"O, lieve tante, ik....\"\n\n\"Wat scheelt er aan? Wat heb je, kind?\"\n\n\"O, lieve Tante, ik heb het koudvuur in mijn zieken teen.\"\n\nDe oude dame viel in een stoel neder, begon te lachen, toen te\nschreien, eindelijk beide te gelijk. Dat bracht haar tot zichzelve\nen zij zeide:\n\n\"O, Tom, wat een poets heb je me gebakken! Wil je eens gauw met die\nmalligheid ophouden en je bed uitstappen!\"\n\nHet gekreun hield op en de pijn verdween. De knaap was een weinig\nmet zijn figuur verlegen en zeide:\n\n\"Tante Polly, het was een gevoel van koudvuur en het deed zoo'n pijn,\ndat ik zelfs mijn lossen tand vergat.\"\n\n\"Je tand, kind? Wat scheelde er aan je tand?\"\n\n\"Er is er een los en die doet mij vreeselijk zeer.\"\n\n\"Nu, begin maar niet weer te kreunen. Doe je mond eens open. Ha,\nde tand _is_ los, maar daar zul je niet aan sterven. Marie, haal een\nzijden draad uit mijn werkdoos.\"\n\n\"O tantelief, trek hem als 't u belieft niet uit. Hij doet mij niets\ngeen zeer meer. Och, als 't u belieft, doe het niet, tantelief! Ik\nzal heusch naar school gaan!\"\n\n\"Zoo, naar school gaan! Dus was al dat lawaai in de hoop van thuis\nte blijven en te gaan visschen! Tom, Tom, ik houd zooveel van je en\nje schijnt op alle manieren te beproeven of je mijn oud hart ook door\nje schandelijke ondeugendheid kunt breken.\"\n\nOnderwijl was het trekinstrument binnengebracht. De oude dame maakte\nhet eene eind van den zijden draad aan Toms lossen tand vast en bond\nhet aan den beddenpost. Toen sloeg zij er hard midden op en in een\noogenblik hing de tand aan het ledikant te bungelen.\n\nAlle rampen brengen hunne lichtzijde mede. Toen Tom na het ontbijt\nnaar school ging, werd hij door alle jongens benijd om de holte in\nzijn bovenste rij tanden, die hem in staat stelde op een nieuwe en\nwonderlijke wijs te spuwen. Weldra had hij een stoet jongens on zich\nheen, en een van hen, die zich in den vinger gesneden had en tot dit\noogenblik het mikpunt van bewondering en huldebetoon geweest was,\nhad geen enkelen aanhanger meer en voelde dat hij zijn roem had\noverleefd. Hij was diep gekrenkt en zeide op verachtelijken toon,\ndat er geen kunst aan was om te spuwen als Tom Sawyer. Maar een andere\njongen riep iets van druiven die zuur waren en hij liep mismoedig heen.\n\nKort daarop kwam Tom den jeugdigen paria van het stadje, Huckleberry\nFinn, den zoon van den stadsdronkaard, tegen. Huckleberry werd met hart\nen ziel door al de moeders van de plaats gehaat, omdat hij zoo lui en\nmorzig was--en voornamelijk omdat hunne kinderen hem zoo bewonderden\nen er behagen in schepten, heimelijk het verbod van met hem om te gaan,\nte overtreden en van harte wenschten den moed te hebben te zijn zooals\nhij. Tom benijdde Huck evenals alle andere ordentelijke jongens, maar\nhad den bepaalden last om niet met hem te spelen. Daarom juist deed\nhij dat telkens, wanneer de gelegenheid zich voordeed. Huckleberry\ndroeg altijd de afgedragen pakken van volwassenen en deze hingen\ndoorgaans van scheuren en lappen aan elkaar. Zijn hoofd was meestal\ngedekt met een ingedrukten hoed, welks rand er als een halve maan\nbijfladderde. Zijn jas, wanneer hij er een droeg, hing hem bijkans\nop de hielen en de achterknoopen zaten menigmaal een eind onder zijn\nrug. Zijn broek werd door \u00e9\u00e9n bretel opgehouden en het kruis van dat\nkleedingstuk zat dikwijls ter hoogte van zijn kuiten. Zijn gerafelde\nkousen sleepten, als zij niet omgerold waren, bijna altijd in de\nmodder. Huckleberry deed wat hij verkoos. Bij mooi weer sliep hij\nop de stoepen, bij slecht weer in leege vaten. Hij behoefde school\nnoch kerk te bezoeken, niemand meester te noemen en geen mensch te\ngehoorzamen. Hij mocht gaan visschen en zwemmen, wanneer en waar hij\nverkoos en zoolang uitblijven als hem goeddacht. Niemand verbood hem\nooit om te vechten, hij kon zoo laat opblijven als het hem behaagde, en\nhij was altijd de eerste die in het voorjaar op bloote voeten liep, en\nde laatste die ze in het najaar in leder stak. Hij mocht naar hartelust\nvloeken. Hij behoefte zich nooit te wasschen en nooit schoone kleeren\naan te trekken. In \u00e9\u00e9n woord, hij mocht alles doen en laten wat het\njongensleven aangenaam maakt. Zoo dachten ten minste al de gedrilde,\naan banden gelegde, fatsoenlijke jongens van St. Petersburg.\n\nTom hield den romantischen verschoppeling staande met den uitroep:\n\n\"Hola, Huckleberry, wat heb je daar?\"\n\n\"Een doode kat.\"\n\n\"Laat kijken, Huck. Zij is goed stijf. Waar heb je die vandaan\ngehaald?\"\n\n\"Geruild van een jongen.\"\n\n\"Wat heb je er voor gegeven?\"\n\n\"Een blauw kaartje en een blaas, die ik in het slachthuis gekregen\nhad.\"\n\n\"Hoe kwam je aan dat blauwe kaartje?\"\n\n\"Voor veertien dagen van Ben Rogers gekocht voor een hoepelstok.\"\n\n\"Zeg eens; waar zijne doode katten eigenlijk goed voor?\"\n\n\"Goed voor? Om wratten weg te maken.\"\n\n\"Wat? Wezen? Ik weet iets, wat nog beter is.\"\n\n\"Wedden dat je het niet weet? Wat is het dan?\"\n\n\"Wel, water uit vermolmd hout.\"\n\n\"Water uit vermolmd hout! Ik geef geen cent on water uit vermolmd\nhout!\"\n\n\"Niet? Heb je het dan nooit geprobeerd?\"\n\n\"Neen, ik niet, maar Bob Tanner wel.\"\n\n\"Wie heeft je dat gezegd?\"\n\n\"Wel, hij zei het aan Jeff Hatcher en Jeff aan John Baker en John\nBaker aan Jim Hollis en Jim Hollis aan Ben Rogers en Ben Rogers aan\neen neger en de neger aan mij. Wat heb je nou nog te zeggen?\"\n\n\"Wat ik te zeggen heb? Dat ze 't allemaal liegen. Van allen weet ik\nhet zeker, behalve van den neger, want dien ken ik niet. Maar ik heb\nnog nooit een neger gezien, die niet loog. Nu, vertel mij dan eens,\nhoe Bob Tanner het gedaan heeft?\"\n\n\"Wel, hij stak zijn hand in een hollen boom, waarin regenwater was.\"\n\n\"Over dag.\"\n\n\"Zeker.\"\n\n\"Met zijn gezicht naar den boomstam gekeerd?\"\n\n\"Ja, dat denk ik ten minste wel.\"\n\n\"Zeide hij er niets bij?\"\n\n\"Dat geloof ik niet,--maar ik weet het niet zeker.\"\n\n\"Och wat,--loop been! Wie neemt op zoo'n bespottelijke manier wratten\nweg! Je moet het heel anders doen. Je gaat zelf naar het bosch toe,\nwaar je weet dat een holle boom staat met water er in, en tegen\nmiddernacht ga je met je rug naar- en met je hand in de holte staan\nen zegt:\n\n\"Gerstekorrel, gerstekorrel, breng meel in 't vat, Molm-water,\nmolm-water, verteer de wrat,\"\n\nEn dan ga je gauw elf passen achteruit, en dan keer je je driemaal\nom en je gaat naar huis zonder een woord tegen iemand spreken. Want\nals je spreekt is de betoovering voorbij.\n\n\"Nu dat klinkt mooi, maar zoo heeft Bob Tanner het niet gedaan.\"\n\n\"Neen, man, je kunt er gerust op zijn, dat hij 't zoo niet heeft\ngedaan, omdat niemand in de stad zoo vol wratten zit als hij; en hij\nzou geen enkele wrat hebben als hij wist hoe je met water uit vermolmd\nhout werken moet. Ik heb op die manier wel duizend wratten van mijn\nhanden doen verdwijnen. Ik speel zooveel met kikkers, dat ik altijd\neen hoop wratten krijg. Soms maak ik ze weg met een groote boon.\"\n\n\"Ja, eene groote boon is goed. Dat heb ik ook wel gedaan.\"\n\n\"Zoo? Hoe moet het dan gedaan worden?\"\n\n\"Je neemt een boon en splijt die en dan maak je een snede in de wrat,\ndat er een beetje bloed uitkomt, en dan leg je dat bloed op een stukje\nvan de boon, en dan graaf je een gat in den grond en daarin leg je 't\nstukje in den nacht bij maneschijn, op een kruisweg, en dan verbrand\nje de rest van de boon. En dan gaat het stuk boon, dat het bloed\ningezogen heeft, aan het trekken en trekken, on het andere stuk meester\nte worden, en dan helpt het bloed de wrat en deze valt spoedig af.\"\n\n\"Ja, dat is waar, hoewel je er onder het begraven bij moet voegen:\n'Weg, boon, weg, wrat, kom me niet meer plagen.' Zoo doet Joe Harper\nhet ten minste. Maar hoe genees jij ze met doode katten?\"\n\n\"Wel, je neemt je kat en gaat tegen middernacht naar het kerkhof, naar\neen plaats, waar een slecht mensch begraven ligt. Precies om twaalf\nuur komt er een duivel, misschien wel twee of drie: en die nemen dat\nslechte mensch mee. Maar die duivels kun je niet zien. Je hoort ook\nniets dan een geluid als van den wind, hetgeen beduidt dat ze met\nelkaar praten. En als de duivel dien slechten man heeft meegepakt,\nmoet je de kat in de lucht zwaaien en zeggen:\n\n\"Duivel, volg het lijk; kat, volg den duivel; wrat, volg de kat;\nik wil niets meer met je te doen hebben.\" Dat neemt elke wrat weg.\"\n\n\"Het klinkt mooi, maar heb je het wel eens geprobeerd, Huck?\"\n\n\"Ik niet, maar moeder Hopkins heeft het mij gezegd.\"\n\n\"Dan zal het wel waar zijn, want ze zeggen, dat ze een tooverkol is.\"\n\n\"Zeggen? Wel, Tom, ik _weet_, dat zij er een is. Ze heeft Pap\nbetooverd. Pap heeft het me zelf verteld. Op een dag kwam hij haar\ntegen, en hij bemerkte, dat ze hem betooverde. Toen nam hij een steen,\nen als zij niet uit den weg was gegaan, had hij haar doodgegooid. Nu,\ndien eigen nacht rolde hij van een vliering, waarop hij dronken lag\nte slapen naar beneden, en brak zijn arm.\"\n\n\"H\u00e8, dat is verschrikkelijk. Hoe weet hij, dat zij hem betooverde?\"\n\n\"Hemel, dat moet Pap je zelf vertellen. Pap zegt: als ze je stijf\naankijken, dan betooveren ze je, vooral als ze mummelen, omdat ze\ndan het 'Onze Vader' 't achterste voor opzeggen.\"\n\n\"Zeg eens, Huck, wanneer ga jij het met de doode kat probeeren?\"\n\n\"Van nacht. Ik geloof, dat de duivels den ouden Hol Williams van\nnacht komen halen.\"\n\n\"Maar hij is Zaterdag al begraven, Huck. Hebben zij hem dan Zaterdag\nniet weggehaald?\"\n\n\"Wat dacht je?--Op Zondag?--De duivels loopen 's Zondags niet rond,\nzou je denken.\"\n\n\"Dat wist ik niet. Laat mij meegaan.\"\n\n\"Goed,--als je niet bang bent.\"\n\n\"Bang!--Nou nog mooier. Zul je om elf uur tegen het raam miauwen?\"\n\n\"Ja, en dan moet jij terug-miauwen en niet doen zooals den laatsten\nkeer. Toen heb ik voor dat raam staan schreeuwen, tot dat de\nnachtwacht me met een steen gooide en riep: 'Dat is voor jou, ouwe\nkat!' Natuurlijk smeet ik toen een kei door zijn raam, maar dat mag\nje niet vertellen.\"\n\n\"Neen. Dien nacht kon ik het niet doen, omdat tante me stond te\nbespieden; maar ik zal dezen keer miauwen. Zeg eens, Huck, wat heb\nje daar?\"\n\n\"Niets dan een schallebijter.\"\n\n\"Waar heb je dien vandaan gehaald.\"\n\n\"Uit het bosch.\"\n\n\"Waarvoor geef je hem?\"\n\n\"Ik weet het niet. Ik heb geen plan on hem te verkoopen.\"\n\n\"Ook al goed. 't Is in alle geval een erg klein beestje.\"\n\n\"O 't is gemakkelijk aanmerkingen op een schallebijter te maken,\ndie je niet toebehoort. Ik ben er mede tevreden; hij is groot genoeg\nvoor mij.\"\n\n\"O, er zijn schallebijters genoeg. Ik kan er wel duizend krijgen,\nals ik wil.\"\n\n\"Wel, waarom vang je ze dan niet? Omdat je verduiveld goed weet,\ndat je niet kunt. Dit is een bijzonder vroege schallebijter: het is\nde eerste, dien ik dit jaar gezien heb.\"\n\n\"Zeg eens, Huck, ik zal er je mijn tand voor geven.\"\n\n\"Laat dien eens kijken.\"\n\nTom haalde een stukje papier voor den dag en ontrolde dat voorzichtig,\nen Huckleberry onderzocht den tand nauwkeurig. De verleiding was zeer\nsterk. Eindelijk zeide hij:\n\n\"Is hij echt?\"\n\nTom toonde de open plek in zijn mond.\n\n\"Akkoord,\" zeide Huckleberry, \"de koop is gesloten.\"\n\nTom sloot den schallebijter in de percussiedoos, waarin onlangs\nde tor gevangengezeten had en de knapen namen afscheid van elkaar,\nbeiden gelukkig in het bezit van een nieuwen schat.\n\nTom bereikte het kleine eenzame schoolgebouw, waar hij met veel lawaai\nbinnenstapte, hing zijn hoed aan een kapstok en ijlde naar zijne\nplaats. De meester, door het gebrom van 't lessen leeren slaperig\ngeworden, was op zijn hoogen matten stoel ingesluimerd. Doch hij werd\ndoor de stoornis gewekt en riep uit:\n\n\"Thomas Sawyer!\"\n\nTom wist, dat, wanneer zijn naam voluit genoemd werd, er onweer aan\nde lucht was.\n\n\"Mijnheer.\"\n\n\"Kom hier bij mij staan. Zeg mij eens: waarom zijt ge weer zoo laat?\"\n\nTom was op het punt zijne toevlucht tot een leugen te nemen, toen\nhij langs een paar fijne schoudertjes, twee lange blonde vlechten\nzag hangen, die hij dadelijk herkende als toebehoorende aan Becky\nThatcher en naast die vlechten was de _eenige ledige plaats_ aan de\nmeisjeskant. Oogenblikkelijk zei hij:\n\n\"Ik heb met Huckleberry Finn staan praten!\"\n\nDe pols van den meester stond stil en hij zelf staarde verbijsterd in\nhet rond. Het gebrom van 't leeren hield op en de leerlingen dachten,\ndat de overmoedige jongen krankzinnig was geworden. De meester zeide:\n\n\"Gij--gij deedt--wat?\"\n\n\"Praten met Huckleberry Finn.\"\n\nHij had niet misverstaan.\n\n\"Thomas Sawyer, dit is de meest vermetele bekentenis die ooit mijne\nooren vernamen. Dat kan met de roede alleen niet afgedaan worden. Trek\nuw buis uit.\"\n\nDes meesters arm deed zijn plicht, totdat hij niet meer kon en de\nbundel teenen, waaruit de roede bestond, aanmerkelijk verminderd\nwas. Daarop werd het bevel uitgevaardigd:\n\n\"Ga nu bij de _meisjes_ zitten! En laat dit u een waarschuwing zijn.\"\n\nHet gegiegel, dat in het vertrek vernomen werd, scheen den jongen\nverlegen te maken, doch in werkelijkheid verbijsterde hem de\naanmoediging van zijn blonden afgod en het met smart vermengd genoegen,\ndat hij aan zijn gelukkig gesternte te danken had. Hij ging op den\nhoek van de bank zitten, en het meisje kroop zoo ver mogelijk van hem\naf. Hierop volgde een gestoot, gewenk en gefluister, waaraan Tom zich\nechter niet stoorde. Integendeel hij bleef stil zitten, met de armen\nop den langen, lagen lessenaar? en scheen in zijn boek verdiept te\nzijn. Gaandeweg werd de aandacht van hem afgeleid en de duffe atmosfeer\nwerd weder van het gewone schoolgegons vervuld. Nu en dan begon de\nknaap tersluiks blikken op het meisje te werpen. Zij bemerkte het,\nzette een nuffig gezichtje tegen hem op, en liet hem een minuut lang\nhaar rug zien. Toen zij voorzichtig nog eens omkeek lag er een perzik\nvoor haar. Deze werd weggeduwd. Tom legde de vrucht zachtjes weder\nvoor haar; zij werd nogmaals weggeduwd, maar dezen keer op minder\nheftige wijze. Tom legde geduldig de perzik ten derden male voor\nhet meisje en de vrucht bleef liggen. Toen krabbelde hij op de lei:\n\"Neem haar, als het u blieft; ik heb er meer.\"\n\nHet meisje keek naar die woorden, doch hield zich stil. Daarna begon\nde knaap iets op de lei te teekenen en bedekte zijn werk met de\nlinkerhand. Een tijdlang deed het meisje alsof zij er niet op lette;\nmaar hare vrouwelijke nieuwsgierigheid begon zich door nauw merkbare\nteekenen te verraden. De jongen werkte door, schijnbaar zonder er\nacht op te slaan. Het meisje trachtte te zien wat hij er op zette,\nmaar de jongen hield zich alsof hij er niets van bemerkte. Eindelijk\nzwichtte zij en fluisterde aarzelend:\n\n\"Laat mij eens kijken.\"\n\nTom liet een gedeelte zien van een caricatuur van een huis, met\neen dubbelen gevel en een wolk van rook, die in den vorm van een\nkurketrekker uit den schoorsteen opsteeg. Dit was voldoende voor\nhet meisje om haar gansche belangstelling aan het werk te schenken\nen zij vergat alles on zich heen. Toen het af was, keek zij Tom een\noogenblik aan en fluisterde:\n\n\"Het is mooi!--Teeken nu een mannetje.\"\n\nDe kunstenaar deed een man op den voorgrond verrijzen, die sprekend\nop een toppenant geleek, welke over het huis zou hebben kunnen\nheenstappen, maar het meisje was niet kieschkeurig. Zij was tevreden\nmet het monster en fluisterde: \"Het is een mooie man; teeken mij er\nnu naast.\"\n\nTom schetste een zandlooper, met een gezicht als een volle maan en\neen lichaam zoo dun als een stroohalm, en wapende de uitgespreide\nvingers met een verbazend grooten waaier. Het meisje zeide:\n\n\"'t Is prachtig.--Ik wou, dat ik ook kon teekenen.\"\n\n\"Het is niet moeielijk,\" fluisterde Tom. \"Ik zal 't je leeren.\"\n\n\"O, als je blieft.--Wanneer?\"\n\n\"Van middag. Ga je om twaalf uur naar huis om te eten?\"\n\n\"Ik kan ook wel hier blijven, als je dat wilt.\"\n\n\"Goed; dat zal prettig zijn. Hoe heet je?\"\n\n\"Becky Thatcher.\"\n\n\"En jij?--O, ik weet het, jij heet Thomas Sawyer.\"\n\n\"Dat is de naam, waarmee ik slaag krijg. Ik heet Tom, als ik goed\noppas. Jij zult me Tom noemen, niet waar?\"\n\n\"Ja.\"\n\nDaarop begon Tom iets op de lei te krabben, dat hij voor het meisje\nverborg. Doch zij was er nu vlugger bij en verzocht Tom het te\nmogen zien.\n\n\"Och, het is niets.\"\n\n\"Jawel.\"\n\n\"Neen, het is niets; je behoeft het niet te zien.\"\n\n\"Jawel, ik moet het zien. Och toe, als je blieft.\"\n\n\"Ja, maar zul je het niet over vertellen?\"\n\n\"Neen, zeker niet. Op mijn woord van eer niet.\"\n\n\"Zul je het niemand vertellen, zoolang als je leeft?\"\n\n\"Neen, ik zal het niemand vertellen. Laat me nou kijken.\"\n\n\"Och, je moogt het niet zien.\"\n\n\"Nu je me z\u00f3\u00f3 behandelt, _wil_ ik het zien, Tom,\"--en zij legde\nhaar handje vlak op het zijne, waarop eene kleine schermutseling\nontstond. Tom deed alsof hij in ernst weerstand bood, maar liet zijne\nhand van lieverlede glippen, totdat deze woorden openbaar werden:\n\"Ik heb u lief.\"\n\n\"O, ondeugende jongen.\" En zij gaf hem een lief, klein klapje op de\nhand, bloosde en keek toch verheugd.\n\nOp datzelfde oogenblik voelde de knaap zich door iemand langzaam bij\nde ooren pakken en met kracht ophijschen. In die houding werd hij door\nhet lokaal gedragen en, onder de brandende pijn van het gemeesmuil der\ngeheele school, op zijn eigen plaats neergezet. Toen bleef de meester\ngedurende een paar vreeselijke minuten v\u00f3\u00f3r hem staan, en verhuisde\neindelijk weder zonder een woord te spreken naar zijn troon. En Tom,\nofschoon zijn ooren suisden, juichte in zijn hart.\n\nToen de school tot rust was gekomen, deed Tom eene oprechte poging\nom te leeren, maar de verwarring in zijn hoofd was te groot. Op\nzijn beurt nam hij deel aan de leesles en brabbelde verschrikkelijk;\ndaarna aan de aardrijkskundige les en maakte van meren bergen, van\nbergen rivieren en van rivieren landen, totdat de aarde weer een\nchaos geworden was; eindelijk ook aan de spel-les, maar daarvan kon\nhij niets maken en z\u00f3\u00f3 verspeelde hij zijn onderscheidingsteeken,\ndat hij met zooveel trots maanden lang had gedragen.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK VII.\n\n\nHoe meer Tom zijn best deed on zijne gedachten bij zijn boek te houden,\ndes te meer dwaalden zij af, totdat hij het ten laatste zuchtende en\ngapende opgaf. Het was hem alsof de middag-vacantie nooit zou komen. 't\nWas doodstil. De atmosfeer waarin hij ademde, scheen den eeuwigen slaap\ningesluimerd te zijn. 't Was de heetste van al de heete zomerdagen,\nen het gebrom van vijf en twintig studeerende scholieren had een even\nslaapwekkenden invloed als het gegons van een bijenzwerm.\n\nIn de verte, in den glans van den zonneschijn, verhieven zich door\neen lichten, doorschijnenden sluier van warmen zomerdamp, dien de\nafstand met purper had getint, de groene heuvelen van Cardiff. Een\nenkele vogel zweefde op trage vleugelen hoog in de lucht, en verder\nwas er geen levend wezen te zien, behalve eenige koeien en ook\ndie waren ingedommeld. Tom snakte naar vrijheid en naar iets dat\nhem genoeg belangstelling inboezemde on de vervelende uren door te\nworstelen. Hij liet zijne hand in zijn zak glijden en een gloed van\ndankbaarheid, welke zich, zonder dat hij er zich zelf van bewust was,\nin een gebed uitte, overtoog zijn omhooggekeerd gelaat. Daar kwam\ntersluiks de percussiedoos voor den dag. Hij liet een schallebijter\nlos en zette dien op de lage, platte lessenaar. Het beestje was niet\nminder erkentelijk dan Tom, doch zijne blijdschap bleek wat voorbarig\nte zijn geweest, want toen het dankbaar pogingen deed om te ontkomen,\nlegde Tom het, met behulp van een speld, op den rug en dwong het een\nanderen weg te nemen.\n\nTom had zijn boezemvriend naast zich, die onder hetzelfde leed\ngebukt ging als zijn makker en, vol vreugde over de afleiding,\noogenblikkelijk een warme belangstelling in deze vermakelijkheid aan\nden dag legde. Die boezemvriend was Joe Harper. De beide jongens\nwaren de gansche week door verklaarde vrienden, maar 's Zaterdags\nmeestal geslagen vijanden. Joe nam een speld uit de panden van zijn\nbuisje en begon de behulpzame hand te bieden om het diertje mores te\nleeren. Het spel werd terstond hoogst belangwekkend. Spoedig verklaarde\nTom, dat zij met elkaar in botsing kwamen en daardoor geen van beiden\niets aan den schallebijter hadden. Hij nam Joe's lei en trok een lijn\nop de lessenaar van boven naar beneden.\n\n\"Nu,\" zeide hij, \"zoolang hij op uw grondgebied blijft, moogt gij hem\nprikken, en ik zal er mij niet mede bemoeien, maar als hij aan mijne\nzijde komt, moet ge hem met vrede laten, zoolang ik hem beletten kan\nde grenzen over te trekken.\"\n\n\"Best! Vooruit maar;--laat hem los.\"\n\nDe schallebijter ontsnapte Tom en stak de evenachtslijn over. Na een\ntijdlang door Joe geplaagd te zijn liep hij weg en ging naar Tom. Dit\nveranderen van grondgebied duurde een geruimen tijd voort. Terwijl\nde eene jongen het beest met hart en ziel kwelde, keek de andere met\neen even groote belangstelling toe, en de beide hoofden bogen zich\nte zamen over de lei en beide zielen gingen gansch en al in de pret\nop. Eindelijk scheen de fortuin ten gunste van Joe te keeren en bij\nhem te blijven. De schallebijter deed wat hij kon om los te komen en\nwerd bijna even opgewonden en angstig als de knapen zelven. Juist toen\nhij op het punt stond van de klauwen van Joe te ontsnappen en Tom's\nvingers alweder jeukten om hem in zijne macht te krijgen, versperde de\neerste hem met zijne speld den weg tot zijn grondgebied. Tom kon het\nniet langer uithouden. De verleiding was te groot. Hij stak zijne hand\nuit en kwam met zijne speld over zijne grenzen. Joe werd boos en zeide:\n\n\"Tom, laat hem aan zijn lot over.\"\n\n\"Ik wou hem alleen maar een beetje helpen, Joe.\"\n\n\"Neen, dat is niet eerlijk; laat hem aan zijn lot over.\"\n\n\"Pas op of ik ga hem helpen zoo hard als ik wil.\"\n\n\"Tom, laat hem met rust, zeg ik je.\"\n\n\"Ik doe het niet.\"\n\n\"Je zult;--hij is op mijn grondgebied.\"\n\n\"Hoor eens, Joe Harper, wien behoort hij toe?\"\n\n\"Het kan mij niet schelen, wien hij toebehoort; hij is aan mijn kant\nen je zult hem niet aanraken.\"\n\n\"Wedden, dat ik het toch doe. 't Is mijn schallebijter en ik zal met\nhem doen wat ik verkies.\"\n\nOp eens voelde Tom een klap op zijn schouder en Joe een anderen op\nden zijnen. Twee minuten lang zag men een rookwolk uit de buizen\nder jongens opgaan en hoorde men de gansche school lachen. De knapen\nwaren te zeer in hun spel om de stilte te bemerken, die zich over de\nschool had verspreid, even voordat de meester op zijn teenen naar hen\ntoegeslopen en tegen hen over was gaan staan. Hij had het tooneel op\nzijn gemak gadegeslagen en daarna de verraderlijke klappen toegebracht.\n\nToen de school 's middags uitging, vloog Tom naar Becky Thatcher toe\nen fluisterde haar in 't oor:\n\n\"Zet je hoed op en zeg dat je naar huis gaat; en als je den hoek\nvan de straat om zijt, loop dan van de kinderen af, sla de steeg\nin en keer zoo naar de school terug. Ik zal den anderen kant gaan:\ndan komen wij elkaar vanzelf tegen.\"\n\nDaarop verliet Tom de school en voegde zich bij een groep kinderen,\ndie eene andere straat insloegen dan de kameraadjes van Becky. Heel\nspoedig kwamen de knaap en het meisje elkaar midden in 't steegje\ntegen, keerden naar het schoollokaal terug, dat zij nu geheel voor zich\nhadden. Zij gingen naast elkander zitten met een lei voor zich. Tom\ngaf Becky een griffel, stuurde haar hand en riep op deze wijze een\nwonderbaar huis in het aanzijn.\n\nDoch de teekenwoede duurde niet lang en ze begonnen samen te\npraten. Tom was in den derden hemel van geluk en zei:\n\n\"Houd je van ratten?\"\n\n\"Neen, ik heb een hekel aan die dieren.\"\n\n\"Ik ook,--ten minste aan levende. Maar ik meen doode, die je aan een\ntouwtje over je hoofd kunt laten draaien.\"\n\n\"Neen, ik geef niet veel om ratten, ook niet om doode. Maar, weet je\nwaar ik van houd? Van gom kauwen.\"\n\n\"Zoo, ik heb toevallig een paar stukjes bij mij. Eerst mag jij een\nbeetje kauwen en dan ik weer.\"\n\nDat was prettig; ze kauwden beurt om beurt en schommelden met hun\nbeenen onder de bank van pleizier.\n\n\"Ben je wel eens in een paardenspel geweest?\" vroeg Tom.\n\n\"Ja; mijn pa neemt me wel eens mee, als ik zoet ben.\"\n\n\"Ik ben er drie of vier malen geweest. Neen nog meer. De kerk is geen\nlor waard in vergelijking met een paardenspel. Daar zie je altijd\ndoor wat. Als ik groot ben, wordt ik clown in een paardenspel.\"\n\n\"Wezenlijk? Dat zal heerlijk wezen! De clowns zijn immers die mooi\naangekleede mannen vol gekleurde spikkeltjes?\"\n\n\"Ja, en ze krijgen schatten van geld; meestal een dollar daags. Dat\nzegt Ben Rogers ten minste. Zeg eens, Becky, ben je wel eens\nge\u00ebngageerd geweest?\"\n\n\"Wat is dat?\"\n\n\"Ge\u00ebngageerd, om te gaan trouwen.\"\n\n\"Neen.\"\n\n\"Zou je het wel willen?\"\n\n\"Misschien wel. Ik weet het niet. Wat moet je dan doen?\"\n\n\"Doen? Je zegt eenvoudig tegen een jongen, dat je nooit iemand anders\nhebben wilt dan hem, nooit, nooit, nooit--en dan geef je hem een\nzoen. Iedereen kan het doen.\"\n\n\"Een zoen? Waarom geef je elkaar een zoen?\"\n\n\"Wel, weet je--wel--omdat.... ze dat allemaal doen.\"\n\n\"Alle menschen?\"\n\n\"Ja, alle menschen die van elkaar houden. Weet je nog wel wat ik van\nmorgen op mijn lei geschreven heb?\"\n\n\"Ja--a.\"\n\n\"Wat was het?\"\n\n\"Dat zeg ik je niet.\"\n\n\"Dan zal ik het je zeggen.\"\n\n\"Dat is goed,--maar op een anderen keer.\"\n\n\"Neen, nu.\"\n\n\"Neen, nu niet, maar morgen.\"\n\n\"O, als je blieft, nu Becky. Ik zal het zoo zachtjes zeggen, dat je\nhet bijna niet hooren kunt.\"\n\nBecky aarzelde en Tom zag het stilzwijgen voor toestemmen aan. Hij\nsloeg zijn arm om haar middel en fluisterde haar de oude geschiedenis\nin 't oor, terwijl hij er bijvoegde:\n\n\"Nu moet je het mij ook influisteren,--precies hetzelfde.\"\n\nZij zweeg een oogenblik en sprak toen:\n\n\"Keer je gezicht naar den anderen kant, zoodat je mij niet zien kunt,\ndan zal ik het doen. Maar je moogt het niemand vertellen. Beloof je\nme dat op je woord van eer?\"\n\n\"Ja. Kom zeg het nu, Becky.\"\n\nHij keerde zijn gezicht on. Zij boog zich schroomvallig naar hem toe,\nzoo dicht dat hij haar adem onder zijn krulhaar voelde en fluisterde:\n\n\"Ik--houd--dol--van je.\"\n\nToen sprong zij weg en liep on de lessenaar en banken heen en Tom\nachter haar aan, totdat zij zich eindelijk in een hoek verschanste\nen haar wit schortje over haar gezichtje trok. Tom pakte haar om den\nhals en zei smeekend:\n\n\"Nu, Becky, is het klaar behalve de zoen. Wees daar maar niet bang\nvoor, dat is niets. Toe, Becky.\"\n\nEn met deze woorden trok hij aan haar boezelaar, totdat deze langzaam\nnaar beneden gleed en zij zich met gloeiende wangen aan de operatie\nonderwierp. Tom zoende de roode lipjes en zei:\n\n\"Nu is het geheel en al in orde, Becky. En nu weetje vooreens en\nvoorgoed, dat je van niemand anders dan van mij moogt houden en met\nniemand dan met mij moogt trouwen; neen, nooit, nooit. Beloof je dat?\"\n\n\"Ja, ik zal van niemand anders houden dan van jou, Tom. Maar jij\nmoogt ook met niemand anders trouwen dan met mij.\"\n\n\"Natuurlijk. Dat spreekt vanzelf. En nu hoort er ook bij, dat je bij\nhet naar school of naar huis gaan met me wandelt, ten minste als\nniemand het ziet, en dat bij feestjes jij mij en ik jou kies. Dat\ndoen ge\u00ebngageerde menschen altijd.\"\n\n\"Dat vind ik heel aardig. Ik had er nog nooit van gehoord.\"\n\n\"O, het is zoo prettig. Toen ik met Amy Lawrence...\"\n\nDe groote oogen van Becky zeiden Tom, dat hij een flater begaan had,\nen hij hield verlegen op.\n\n\"O, Tom! Dus is het niet de eerste keer, dat je ge\u00ebngageerd bent?\"\n\nHet kind begon te schreien, en Tom zeide:\n\n\"Och, schrei niet, Becky; ik geef niets meer om haar.\"\n\n\"Ja, dat doe je wel, Tom,--ik weet, dat je het wel doet.\"\n\nTom trachtte zijn arm on haar hals te slaan, doch zij duwde hem terug\nen wendde schreiend haar gelaat naar den muur. Tom beproefde het,\nonder het spreken van allerlei vleiende woordjes, nogmaals, maar met\nhetzelfde gevolg. Toen werd hij boos en rende met groote stappen de\ndeur uit.\n\nEen poosje bleef hij met een onrustig hart buiten staan, wierp nu en\ndan een blik naar de deur, in de hoop dat zij berouw krijgen en naar\nhem toe zou komen, maar zij kwam niet. Toen begon hij te denken, of\nhij ook ongelijk kon hebben. Het was een harde strijd on de eerste\npogingen tot toenadering te doen, doch hij vermande zich en trad\nde school binnen. Zij stond nog in denzelfden hoek, snikkende, met\nhaar gelaat tegen den muur. Diep ontroerd ging Tom naar haar toe en\nbleef een oogenblik voor haar staan, zonder eigenlijk te weten wat\nhij zeggen moest. Toen sprak hij aarzelend:\n\n\"Becky--ik--ik geef om niemand dan om jou.\"\n\nGeen antwoord;--niets dan snikken.\n\n\"Becky, waarom spreek je niet?\"\n\nHevige snikken.\n\nTom haalde zijn grootste schat voor den dag, een koperen knop van\neen schelkoord, hield haar dien voor en zeide:\n\n\"Becky, die is voor jou; neem hem, als je blieft.\"\n\nZij smeet het geschenk op den grond. Toen stapte Tom de deur uit\nen ijlde naar buiten, naar de heuvelen, om dien dag niet meer naar\nschool terug te keeren.\n\nNauwelijks was hij verdwenen, of Becky gevoelde berouw. Zij liep naar\nde deur, doch Tom was niet meer in het gezicht. Zij ijlden over de\nspeelplaats: ook daar was hij niet. Toen gilde zij:\n\n\"Tom! Tom! kom terug.\"\n\nZij luisterde aandachtig, doch er kwam geen antwoord; zij was met de\nstilte en het gevoel van verlatenheid alleen. Er schoot haar niets\nover dan te gaan zitten, opnieuw te schreien en zich zelfverwijten\nte doen. Daarbij moest zij haar verdriet voor de langzamerhand weer\nbijeenkomende schoolkinderen verbergen en het kruis opnemen van een\nlangen, drukkend warmen achtermiddag in de school te zitten, zonder\niemand te hebben, voor wien zij haar hart kon uitstorten.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK VIII.\n\n\nTom sloop voort door straten en stegen, totdat hij uit het vaarwater\nder terugkeerende schooljeugd was, en gaf zich toen aan zijne sombere\ngemoedsstemming over. Hij stak een paar malen met een schuitje\neen smal strookje der rivier over, omdat er onder de jeugd eene\noverlevering bestond, dat het oversteken van water voor vervolging\nbewaart. Een half uur later was hij achter het huis van de weduwe\nDouglas, dat op Cardiff Hill stond, verdwenen, en het schoolgebouw\nwas nauwelijks meer in de vallei achter hem te onderkennen. Hij trad\neen dicht woud binnen, kroop door struiken en ongebaande wegen voort,\ntotdat hij het midden bereikt had, waar hij zich op een mosachtig\nplekje onder een breedgetakten eik nederzette. Er was geen zuchtje\nin de lucht; de drukkende middaghitte, scheen zelfs de zingende\nvogels tot rust gebracht te hebben. De natuur lag in een staat van\nbewusteloosheid, welke door geen geluid werd verbroken, dan bijwijlen\ndoor het verwijderd gehamer van den boomspecht en dit scheen de alles\ndoordringende stilte nog stiller en de eenzaamheid nog eenzamer te\nmaken. De ziel van Tom was erg bedroefd en zijne gevoelens waren\nin volkomen overeenstemming met het hem omringend tooneel. Met de\nellebogen op de knie\u00ebn gesteund en de handen onder de kin, bleef\nhij in gepeins verzonken zitten. De aarde scheen hem op zijn best\neen tranendal en hij benijdde bijna Jimmy Hodges, die daaruit was\nverlost. Het moest zoo vreedzaam wezen, dacht hij, on voor eeuwig in\ndroomen verzonken onder de aarde te liggen, terwijl de wind door de\nboomen ruischt en het gras en de bloemen kuste, en er niets meer was\nom zich over te kwellen en te bedroeven. Indien hij slechts een goed\ngetuigenis van de zondagsschool kon mede krijgen, zou hij volgaarne\nwillen optrekken en met dit leven niets meer te maken hebben. En\nwat nu dit meisje betreft,--wat had hij gedaan? Niets. Hij had het\ngoed met haar voorgehad en was als een hond behandeld, ja, als een\nhond. Eens zou het haar berouwen, wellicht wanneer het te laat was. O,\nindien hij slechts _tijdelijk_ mocht sterven.\n\nDoch het veerkrachtig gemoed der jeugd blijft niet lang in een\nkunstmatig opgeschroefden staat van droefheid en moedeloosheid. Weldra\nwerd Tom onmerkbaar tot de bemoeiingen van dit leven teruggevoerd. Als\nhij de wereld eens den rug toekeerde en geheimzinnig verdween? Als\nhij eens heenging--ver,--ver weg, in onbekende landen over de zee--en\nnooit terugkwam? Hoe zou zij zich dan wel gevoelen? Het denkbeeld\nvan clown te worden kwam hem ook weder voor den geest, doch alleen om\nhem met afschuw te vervullen. Want, was het zich moeten bezighouden\nmet grappen en kluchten en met gouden sterretjes bezaaide tricots\nniet eene beleediging voor een geest, die omhooggestegen was naar\nhet onbestemde, verheven rijk van het onbegrijpelijke. Neen, hij zou\nsoldaat worden, en na jaren en jaren van krijg voeren, het strijden\nmoe, met roem beladen wederkeeren. Neen, nog beter; hij zou zich bij\nde Indianen en buffeljagers voegen en het oorlogspad betreden in de\nbergen, in de onmetelijke, ongebaande vlakten van het verre Westen en\nlater terugkeeren als een groot opperhoofd, getooid met schitterende\nvederen en afzichtelijk met verf besmeerd--en hij zou op een zomerschen\nsabbatmorgen met eene hooge borst de zondagsschool binnentreden en\ndaar een krijgsgeschreeuw aanheffen, dat zijne makkers het bloed in de\naderen deed stollen en hen doen verteren van jaloezie. Ook dat niet;\ner was iets nog grootscher dan dit. Hij zou zeeroover worden. Ja,\ndat was het! _Nu_ lag de toekomst duidelijk voor hem, schitterend van\nondenkbare pracht. Zijn naam zou de aarde vervullen en de volkeren\ndoen beven. Hoe roemrijk zou hij de woedende zee\u00ebn ploegen met zijn\nsnelvarend, zwart gekleurd roofschip, \"De Geest van den Storm,\" welks\nschrikaanjagende vlag grimmig van de voorplecht zou wapperen. En\nwanneer hij het toppunt van roem had bereikt, zou hij op eens in het\noude stadje terugkomen en de kerk binnen stappen met een door storm en\nonweer gebruinde huid, in een zwartfluweelen wambuis en wijde broek,\nmet hooge kaplaarzen, donkerroode sjerp en met zware pistolen gevulden\ngordel en een in misdaad geroesten hartsvanger aan de zijde. En zijn\nhoofd zou bedekt zijn met een diep in de oogen gedrukten hoed, met\neen wuivenden vederbos getooid, en in de hand zou hij dragen zijn\nontplooide banier, die met een schedel en gekruiste doodsbeenderen\nbeschilderd zou zijn, en met namelooze verrukking zouden zijne ooren\nhet gefluister vernemen:\n\n\"Dit is Tom Sawyer, de zeeroover, de schrik der Spaansche zee!\"\n\nJa, zijn plan stond vast, zijn loopbaan was aangewezen. Hij zou van\nhuis wegloopen en zoo spoedig mogelijk zijn nieuw beroep ter hand\nnemen, hij zou morgen vertrekken en daarom oogenblikkelijk met het\nmaken van de noodige toebereidselen aanvangen en zijne bezittingen\nbijeenverzamelen.\n\nTe dien einde liep hij naar een verrotte houtmijt, welke in de\nnabijheid stond en begon die met zijn mes aan de eene zijde te\nondergraven. Spoedig stootte hij op een stuk hout dat hol klonk, legde\nzijn hand daarop en sprak met nadruk het volgende tooverformulier uit:\n\n\"Wat nog niet hier is, kome! Wat hier is blijve!\" Toen schraapte hij\nde aarde weg en er kwam een steen voor den dag. Deze werd weggenomen\nen daar vertoonde zich een keurig schatkamertje, welks bodem en\nzijwanden van opeengehoopte steentjes gemaakt waren en waarin een\nknikker lag. Verbaasd staarde Tom den knikker aan. Hij krabde het\nhoofd en zeide:\n\n\"Wel, is het mogelijk!\"\n\nToen duwde hij den knikker gemelijk weg en bleef in gedachten\nverzonken staan.--Wat was er gebeurd? De zaak was deze: Tom bemerkte,\ndat hij zich in iets, hetgeen hij en zijne makkers steeds als eene\nonfeilbare zekerheid hadden beschouwd, bedrogen had. Hij geloofde\ndat, wanneer een knikker met de noodige bezweringen werd begraven\nen dan een dag of veertien rustig in den schoot der aarde gelaten\nen daarna met de tooverwoorden die hij juist had uitgesproken, weer\nopgegraven werd, men al de knikkers, die men ooit verloren had, daar\nin dien tusschentijd bijeengekomen zou vinden, hoe wijd zij ook over\nde wereld verspreid mochten zijn. Tom's vertrouwen in dit bijgeloof\nwas tot op zijn fondamenten geschokt. Hij had menigmaal gehoord,\ndat deze proef gelukt, maar nooit dat zij mislukt was.\n\nHet kwam niet in hem op, dat hij het verscheidene malen te voren\nbeproefd had, maar dat hij de plaats, waar hij de knikkers had\nverborgen, nooit had kunnen vinden. Hij dacht zich half suf over de\nzaak en kwam eindelijk tot het besluit, dat er een heks tusschenbeide\nwas gekomen, die de betoovering verbroken had. Toch wilde hij zich op\ndit punt overtuigen en zocht, totdat hij een klein zanderig plekje\nmet een trechtervormig indruksel gevonden had. Hij legde zich naast\ndat plekje op den grond, met den mond vlak op het indruksel en riep:\n\n\"Kevertje, kevertje, zeg mij wat ik weten moet!\n\n\"Kevertje, kevertje, zeg mij wat ik weten moet!\"\n\nHet zand begon te werken en voor een oogenblik kwam er een zwart\nkevertje voor den dag, dat echter spoedig doodelijk verschrikt\nwegholde.\n\n\"Hij zegt niets! Dus was het een toovenaar, die het gedaan heeft. Ik\ndacht het wel.\"\n\nTom wist wel hoe weinig het baatte tegen heksen te strijden en gaf\nhet plan ontmoedigd op. Doch daar schoot hem in de gedachten, dat\nhij den knikker, dien hij juist had weggeworpen, toch wel gaarne\nterug zou hebben, en ging hem dus geduldig zoeken. Helaas! hij kon\nhem niet meer vinden. Toen keerde hij naar zijn schatkamer terug en\nzette zich behoedzaam neder in dezelfde houding, als toen hij den\nknikker had weggeduwd. Daarop nam hij een anderen knikker uit den zak,\nslingerde dien eveneens weg en riep:\n\n\"Broeder, ga uw broeder halen!\"\n\nHij zag waar de knikker zou stilhouden en ging derwaarts om hem na\nte kijken. Doch het speeltuig was niet ver genoeg of te ver gerold;\ndus wendde hij een tweede poging aan. Deze laatste werd met een goeden\nuitslag bekroond, want de beide knikkers lagen omtrent een duim van\nelkaar af.\n\nJuist op dat oogenblik verhief zich door het groene gewelf des wouds\nhet geschal van een tinnen trompet. In een oogenblik had Tom buis\nen broek uitgetrokken, van zijne bretels een gordel gemaakt, eenige\ntakken achter de mijt bijeen vergaard, een ruwen pijl, een boog, een\nhouten zwaard en een trompet voor den dag gehaald en was, met deze\nzaken beladen, blootbeens en in een fladderend hemd weggeijld. Onder\neen grooten olmboom hield hij stil, beantwoordde het trompetgeschal\nen begon op zijne teenen loopende, omzichtig in alle richtingen rond\nte kijken. Toen riep hij zacht tot een denkbeeldigen makker:\n\n\"Halt, grappenmaker! Houd u schuil, tot ik blaas.\"\n\nDaar verscheen Joe Harper, even luchtig gekleed en zwaar gewapend\nals Tom. Deze riep:\n\n\"Halt! Wie komt hier in de wouden van Sherwood zonder vrijgeleide?\"\n\n\"Guy van Guisborne heeft niemands vrijgeleide noodig. Wie zijt gij,\ndat ...?\"\n\n\"Dat gij dus durft spreken,\" vulde Tom aan, want de knapen waren\nbezig eene plaats uit een boek op te zeggen.\n\n\"Wie zijt gij, dat ge dus durft spreken?\"\n\n\"Ik? Wel, ik ben Robin Hood, zooals uw schavuitengeraamte spoedig\nzal bemerken.\"\n\n\"Dan zijt gij waarlijk de beruchte bandiet! Zeer aangenaam zal het\nmij zijn met u over den vrijen doortocht door deze wouden te twisten.\"\n\n\"Pas op!\"\n\nZij trokken hunne houten zwaarden, wierpen hunne andere wapenen op\nden grond en begonnen een ernstig en bedaard tweegevecht.\n\n\"Kom,\" zeide Tom, \"als gij goed slaags zijt geraakt, zet het dan met\nkracht door.\"\n\nEn zij zetten het met kracht door, totdat zij hijgden en zweetten\nvan inspanning. Eindelijk zeide Tom:\n\n\"Val! val! Waarom val je niet?\"\n\n\"Ik doe het niet. Waarom val je zelf niet? Je bent er het ergste\naan toe.\"\n\n\"Wel, dat behoort zoo niet. _Ik_ kan niet vallen. Dat staat niet in\nhet boek. Het boek zegt:\n\n\"'Toen viel hij Guy van Guisborne van achteren aan en sloeg hem\nneder.' Nu moet gij u omkeeren en mij u in den rug laten treffen.\"\n\nTegen dit gezag viel niet te twisten en Joe keerde zich om, ontving\nden slag en viel.\n\n\"Nu,\" zeide hij, toen hij weder opstond, \"Nu moet gij mij u laten\ndoodmaken; dat is eerlijk.\"\n\n\"Wel, dat kan ik niet doen. Dat staat niet in het boek.\"\n\n\"Zoo, dat is gemeen.\"\n\n\"Hoor eens, Joe, je moogt Tuck de monnik of Muck de zoon van den\nmolenaar zijn en mij met een knuppel afrossen, of ik zal de Sherif\nvan Nottingham zijn en jij Robin Hood, dan zul je mij doodmaken.\"\n\nDit werd goedgekeurd en deze tafereelen uit het boek werden\nvertoond. Toen werd Tom weder Robin Hood en de verraderlijke non\nliet hem doodbloeden door zijne wond te verwaarloozen. Joe, die\neen geheele bende roovers voorstelde, trok hem onder het aanheffen\nvan klaagliederen voort, legde hem zijn boog in de zwakke handen en\nTom zeide:\n\n\"Waar deze pijl zal vallen, begraaf daar den armen Robin Hood\nonder den groenen boom.\" Toen werd de pijl afgeschoten en Robin\nHood viel op den rug en zou gestorven zijn, indien hij niet op een\nbrandnetel terechtgekomen en voor een lijk wat al te vlug opgesprongen\nwas. Daarop kleedden de knapen zich weder aan, borgen hunne zonderlinge\nwapenrusting weder op en gingen naar huis, vol spijt dat zij geene\nwezenlijke roovers waren, terwijl zij zich verbaasd afvraagden, in\nwelk opzicht toch de moderne beschaving het verlies van de roovers\nvergoedde. Het eindresultaat was, dat zij verklaarden liever een jaar\nlang bandieten in de wouden van Sherwood, dan voor altijd President\nvan de Vereenigde Staten te willen zijn.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK IX.\n\n\nTom en Sid werden dien avond als gewoonlijk on halftien naar bed\ngezonden. Ze zeiden hun avondgebed op en Sid was spoedig in een zoeten\nslaap verzonken. Tom lag met koortsachtig ongeduld het middernachtelijk\nuur af te wachten. Toen hij dacht, dat de dag wel haast aan den hemel\nmoest zijn, hoorde hij het tien uren slaan. Dat was wanhopig. Hij was\nzoo zenuwachtig, dat ware hij niet bang geweest Sid wakker te maken,\nhij grooten lust gehad zou hebben met de voeten te gaan stampen. Doch\nhij bleef rustig liggen en staarde in de duisternis. Eerst was\nhet akelig stil. Toen scheen het, dat de angstige stilte door nauw\nmerkbare geluiden afgebroken werd. De klok begon door haar getik\nzijn aandacht te trekken. Het oude kabinet ging geheimzinnig aan 't\nkraken. Ook de trappen lieten een flauw gekrikkrak hooren. Blijkbaar\nwaarden er geesten rond. Uit tante Polly's kamer werd een geregeld,\nhalf onderdrukt gesnork vernomen. En nu begon het eentonig gepiep van\nden krekel, dien geen menschelijk vernuft kan doen verstommen. Bij dit\nalles kwam nog het spookachtig getik van een houtworm in het beschot\nbij het hoofdeinde van Toms bed, dat hem deed sidderen. Immers, het\nbeteekende dat iemands dagen waren geteld. En dan nog werd door den\nadem van de nachtkoelte het geluid voortgedragen van een verwijderden\nhond, dat uit de verte door een nog droeviger gejank beantwoord\nwerd. Tom stierf duizend dooden. Eindelijk scheen het alsof de tijd\nniet meer was en de eeuwigheid een aanvang had genomen. Ondanks\nzichzelven begon hij in te sluimeren; de klok sloeg elf uren, maar\nhij hoorde het niet. Op eens vermengde zich onder zijne verwarde\ndroomen een doodsomber kattengekrol, dat door het openschuiven\nvan des buurmans raam verstoord werd. Een geschreeuw van: \"Voort,\nduivelsche kat!\" en het rinkelen van een leege flesch, die tegen den\nmuur van tantes houtschuur geslingerd werd, maakte hem klaar wakker,\nen in een oogwenk was hij gekleed en uit het raam en kroop op handen\nen voeten langs het dak. Voorzichtig miauwde hij nog een paar malen,\nsprong toen op het dak van de schuur en van daar op den grond. Daar\nstond Huckleberry Finn met zijne doode kat. De jongens maakten zich\nweg en verdwenen in de duisternis. Een half uur later doorwaadden\nzij het lange gras van het kerkhof.\n\nDe doodouderwetsche godsakker lag op een heuvel, omtrent anderhalve\nmijl van het stadje verwijderd. Hij was omrasterd door een vervallen\nhouten hek, dat op sommige plaatsen binnenwaarts, op andere\nbuitenwaarts leunde, maar nergens rechtop stond. Onkruid en gras\ngroeiden er in milden overvloed. Al de grafplaatsen waren verzakt;\ngeen enkele zerk was er te zien; ronde wormstekige naamborden waggelden\nover de graven, alsof zij naar een steun zochten, dien zij nergens\nvonden. Eens had er op gestaan: \"Ter gedachtenis van die of die,\"\nmaar die woorden waren thans bij de meeste, zelfs op klaarlichten\ndag, onleesbaar.\n\nDe wind ruischte zachtjes door de boomtoppen en Tom meende in dat\ngeluid de geesten der afgestorvenen te hooren, die zich beklaagden, dat\nzij in hun rust gestoord werden. De jongens spraken weinig en alleen\nop fluisterenden toon, want de tijd, de plaats en de aangrijpende\nplechtigheid en stilte joegen hen vrees aan. Zij vonden het versch\ngedolven graf, dat zij zochten, onder drie groote olmboomen, die op\neen paar voet afstands van die plek een klein boschje vormden.\n\nDaar bleven zij een (naar het hun scheen) ontzettend langen tijd\nwachten. Het zuchten van den nachtuil was het eenige geluid, wat de\ndoodelijke stilte verbrak. Duizenden akelige gedachten hoopten zich\nin Toms brein opeen, waar hij ten laatste lucht moest geven.\n\n\"Hucky,\" zeide hij angstig, \"denk je, dat de doode menschen het\nprettig vinden, dat wij hier zijn?\"\n\nHuckleberry fluisterde:\n\n\"Ik wou, dat ik het wist. 't Is akelig stil, vind je niet?\"\n\n\"Ja.\"\n\nEr volgde een lange pauze, gedurende welke zij dit onderwerp in hun\nbinnenste bepeinsden.\n\nEindelijk zei Tom nauw hoorbaar:\n\n\"Denk je, Huck, dat Hoss Williams ons hoort praten?\"\n\n\"Natuurlijk,--ten minste zijn geest.\"\n\nNa eene pauze zeide Tom weer:\n\n\"Ik wou, dat ik gezeid had, mijnheer Williams; maar ik bedoelde geen\nkwaad. Iedereen noemt hem Hoss.\"\n\n\"Een mensch kan anders niet te beleefd zijn, als hij over doode\nmenschen spreekt, Tom.\"\n\nDit antwoord was niet opwekkend en het gesprek begon weder te\nkwijnen. Op eens greep Tom zijn kameraad bij den arm en zeide:\n\n\"St!\"\n\n\"Wat is er, Tom?\" En de twee klemden zich met kloppende harten aan\nelkaar vast.\n\n\"St! Daar is het weer. Hoor je het niet?\"\n\n\"Wat?\"\n\n\"Daar,--hoor je het nu?\"\n\n\"O hemel, Tom, daar komen zij. Wat zullen wij doen!\"\n\n\"Dat weet ik niet. Denk je, dat ze ons zullen zien?\"\n\n\"O, Tom, zij zien in het donker als katten. Ik wou, dat ik nooit\ngekomen was.\"\n\n\"O, wees niet bang; ik geloof niet, dat ze ons zullen plagen. Wij\ndoen geen kwaad. Als wij ons doodstil houden, zullen ze misschien\nniet op ons letten.\"\n\n\"Ik zal mijn best doen, Tom; maar o hemel, ik beef als een riet!\"\n\n\"Luister!\"\n\nDe jongens hielden hunne hoofden bij elkaar en haalden ternauwernood\nadem. Een bedekt geluid van stemmen werd van het andere eind van het\nkerkhof vernomen.\n\n\"Kijk, kijk! daar!\" fluisterde Tom. \"Wat is dat?\"\n\n\"Het is duivelsvuur, Tom! Het is vreeselijk!\"\n\nDoor de duisternis heen werden nu eenige figuren zichtbaar, die\neen ouderwetsche lantaarn been en weer bewogen, welke den grond met\nontelbare lichtspranken bezaaide.\n\nSidderend fluisterde Huckleberry:\n\n\"Het zijn de duivels, dat is zeker. Drie! O God. Tom! het is met ons\ngedaan. Kun je bidden?\"\n\n\"Ik zal het probeeren; wees maar niet bang. Zij zullen ons geen kwaad\ndoen. Ik ga plat op den grond liggen slapen. Ik ...\"\n\n\"Ik ...\"\n\n\"Wat is er, Huck.\"\n\n\"Het zijn duivels in menschengedaante! Een van hen ten minste heeft\nde stem van Muff Potter!\"\n\n\"'t Is toch niet waar?\"\n\n\"Wedden van wel. Blijf zoo stil als een muis liggen. Beweeg je\nniet. Hij ziet niet scherp genoeg on ons te ontdekken. Zeker dronken,\nzooals gewoonlijk,--dat gemeene oude vloekbeest!\"\n\n\"Goed, ik zal mij niet bewegen. Nu houden zij stil. Zij kunnen het\nniet vinden. Daar komen ze weer. Nu zijn ze warm. Nu weer koud. Alweer\nwarm. Zij branden zich. En nu gaan ze er recht op af. Zeg eens, Huck,\nik herken nog een stem. 't Is Injun Joe.\"\n\n\"Ja, ja, dat is zoo. Die fielterige kleurling! Ik houd het er voor,\ndat de duivels bang voor hem zijn.\"\n\nHet gefluister hield op; de drie mannen hadden het graf bereikt en\nstonden op een paar voet afstands van de schuilplaats der jongens.\n\n\"Hier is het,\" zeide de derde stem, en de persoon, aan wien deze\ntoebehoorde, hield de lantaarn op en liet het gelaat van den jongen\ndokter Robinson zien.\n\nPotter en Injun Joe droegen een burrie, waarop een touw en een paar\nschoppen lagen. Ze legden hun last neder en begonnen het graf open\nte maken. De dokter plaatste de lantaarn aan 't boveneind van de kuil\nen zette zich met den rug tegen een der olmboomen. Hij was zoo dicht\nbij de jongens, dat hij hen had kunnen aanraken.\n\n\"Maak haast, mannen!\" zeide hij met gedempte stem. \"De maan kan elk\noogenblik opkomen.\"\n\nDe gravers bromden ten antwoord iets tusschen de tanden en gingen\nmet delven voort. Een tijdlang werd er geen ander geluid gehoord\ndan het eentonig gekras der spaden, die hare vracht zand en aarde\nopwierpen. Eindelijk stootte een der schoppen met een doffen hollen\nklank op de doodkist en een minuut daarna hadden de mannen haar uit\nden kuil geheschen en op den grond gezet. Zij lichtten er met hun\nspaden het deksel af, namen het lijk er uit en wierpen dat met ruwe\nhand op den grond. Juist kwam de maan tusschen de wolken te voorschijn\nen wierp haar schijnsel op het loodkleurig gelaat. De draagbaar werd\ngereedgemaakt, het lijk er op gelegd, met een deken overdekt en met\nhet touw vastgebonden. Potter haalde een groot snoeimes voor den dag\nen sneed het er bij hangend eind touw af, zeggende:\n\n\"Ziezoo, het vervloekte werk is gedaan, mijnheer de viller! En nu\ndadelijk vijf dollars, of het lijk blijft hier.\"\n\n\"Dat zeg ik ook!\" zeide Injun Joe.\n\n\"Wat beteekent dit?\" zeide de dokter. \"Je hebt gedwongen, dat ik\njelui vooruit zou betalen, en ik heb je betaald.\"\n\n\"Ja, en je hebt meer gedaan dan dat,\" zeide Injun Joe, en ging vlak\nvoor den dokter staan, die opgerezen was. \"Vijf jaar geleden heb je\nme op een avond uit je vaders keuken weggejaagd, toen ik om een stuk\nbrood kwam vragen, en zei je dat ik nergens voor deugde. En ik zwoer,\ndat ik het je betaald zou zetten, al was het over honderd jaar; en toen\nliet je vader me als een bedelaar in de gevangenis stoppen. Denk je dat\nik dat vergeten ben. Het bloed der Injuns stroomt me niet voor niets\ndoor de aderen. Nu heb ik je, en nu zullen we eens afrekenen, hoor je.\"\n\nHij balde de vuist en hield die dreigend den dokter voor het\ngezicht. Maar deze pakte op eens den booswicht bij den kraag en wierp\nhem op den grond, Potter hief zijn mes op en zeide:\n\n\"Je zult mijn kameraad niet slaan!\"\n\nIn een oogenblik was hij met den dokter handgemeen en de twee mannen\nvochten met kracht en geweld, terwijl zij het gras vertrapten en\nden grond met hunne hielen openscheurden. Injun Joe sprong op met\nvlammende oogen, greep Potters mes en kroop als een kat, loerende op\nhaar prooi, om de strijdenden heen. Opeens rukte de dokter zich los,\nvatte een der zware planken van Williams graf en velde er Potter\nmede ter aarde. Toen nam de kleurling zijne kans waar en dreef den\njongen man het mes tot aan het heft in de borst. Deze waggelde, viel\nop Potter neder en overstroomde dien met zijn bloed. Te gelijker tijd\nonttrok een wolkenfloers dit vreeselijk tooneel aan 't gezicht en de\njongens ijlden in de duisternis weg.\n\nToen de maan weer voor den dag kwam, stond Injun Joe over de twee\ngestalten heengebogen en aanschouwde die aandachtig. De dokter mompelde\neenige onsamenhangende woorden, gaf een paar snikken en bleef toen\nroerloos liggen.\"\n\n\"Die schuld is, Godv..., vereffend!\" riep de kleurling uit. Vervolgens\nplunderde hij het lijk, stak het noodlottige mes in Potters\nopen rechterhand en zette zich toen op de ledige doodkist\nneder. Drie--vier--vijf minuten gingen voorbij en Potter begon\nzich te bewegen en te kreunen. Hij klemde het mes, dat hij in de\nhand had, vast, hief het in de hoogte, keek er naar en liet het vol\nhuivering vallen. Toen richtte hij zich op, wierp het lijk van zich\naf, en staarde het met verglaasde oogen aan en keek verward in het\nrond. Zijne oogen ontmoetten die van Joe.\n\n\"God, wat is dit Joe?\" zeide hij.\n\n\"Het is een gemeene geschiedenis,\" zeide Joe, met een kalm\ngelaat. \"Waarom heb je het gedaan?\"\n\n\"Ik?--Ik heb het niet gedaan.\"\n\n\"Kijk eens om je heen! Dat laat zich niet loochenen.\"\n\nPotter beefde en werd doodsbleek.\n\n\"Ik dacht dat ik nuchteren geworden was. Ik had van nacht niet moeten\ndrinken, maar ik voel het nog in mijn hoofd,--nog erger dan toen wij\nhierheen gingen. Ik ben heelemaal in de war, ik kan mij er nauwlijks\niets van herinneren. Zeg eens eerlijk, Joe, oude jongen, heb ik het\ngedaan? Het was mijne bedoeling niet. Zeg eens, hoe ik het gedaan heb,\nJoe!--O 't is ontzettend, zoo'n jonge beste man!\"\n\n\"Wel, jelui vocht samen en hij sloeg je met een plank en je viel\nplat op den grond en toen stond je waggelend op en greep het mes,\nen toen hij je nog een slag wou geven, stak je het hem door 't lijf,\nen daar heb jelui tot nou toe, zoo dood als pieren, gelegen.\"\n\n\"O, ik wist niet wat ik deed. Ik wil op dezen oogenblik sterven, als ik\nhet wist. Het is alles de schuld van de jenever en de opgewondenheid,\ngeloof ik. Ik heb nog nooit in mijn leven een wapen gebruikt,\nJoe. Gevochten heb ik wel, maar nooit met wapenen, dat zal iedereen\nmoeten zeggen. Joe, vertel het aan niemand. Beloof je me, dat je het\nnooit vertellen zult, Joe? Ik ben altijd voor je in de bres gesprongen,\ndat weet je. Zul je het nooit zeggen, Joe?\" En de arme man viel voor\nden verstokten moordenaar op de knie\u00ebn en wrong smeekend de handen.\n\n\"Neen, je hebt altijd als een eerlijk man met mij gehandeld, Muff\nPotter, en ik zal je met gelijke munt betalen. Me dunkt, mooier kan\nik het niet zeggen.\"\n\n\"O, Joe, je bent een engel. Ik zal er je voor zegenen, zoolang ik\nleef.\" En Potter begon te schreien.\n\n\"Kom, schei maar uit,\" zei Joe, \"'t Is nouw geen tijd om te janken. Ga\njij dezen kant uit, dan zal ik den anderen weg gaan. Voort nu en laat\ngeen spoor van je achter!\"\n\nPotter liep weg op een draf, die weldra in een hollenden pas\noverging. De kleurling stond hem na te kijken en mompelde:\n\n\"Als hij maar zoo duizelig van den val en zoo dronken van den\nbrandewijn is, als hij er uitziet, zal hij niet aan het mes denken,\ntotdat hij te ver weg en te bang is on naar eene plaats als deze\nalleen terug te keeren. Dat kuiken!\"\n\nEen paar minuten later was de maan de eenige, die het in de deken\ngewikkelde lijk, de deksellooze doodkist en het open graf aanschouwde,\nen heerschte er weder eene volmaakte stilte op het kerkhof.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK X.\n\n\nDe beide knapen ijlden sprakeloos van ontzetting den weg op naar\nde stad. Van tijd tot tijd zagen zij angstig om, als vreesden zij\nachtervolgd te worden. In elken boomtronk, die zich op den weg\nverhief, meenden zij een vijand te zien, en dat deed hun den adem\ninhouden, en telkens wanneer zij een eenzame nabij de stad gelegen\nhut voorbijrenden, scheen het geblaf der opgeschrikte kettinghonden\nhunne voeten vleugelen aan te binden.\n\n\"Als wij het maar tot de oude looierij kunnen brengen, voordat wij het\nafleggen,\" fluisterde Tom, en hijgde bij ieder woord naar adem. \"Ik\nkan het niet langer uithouden!\" Huckleberry antwoordde met een\nzwaren zucht en de knapen vestigden hun oogen op het doelwit hunner\nhoop en spanden alle krachten in on dat te bereiken. Zij naderden\nhet hoe langer hoe meer, stormden eindelijk hals over hoofd de\nopenstaande deur binnen en vielen dankbaar en uitgeput in de donkere\nschuilplaats neer. Langzamerhand bedaarde het kloppen van hun hart\nen Tom fluisterde: \"Huckleberry, wat denk jij, dat er op staat?\"\n\n\"Als dokter Robinson sterft, loopt het op hangen uit.\"\n\n\"Denk je dat wezenlijk.\"\n\n\"Wel, ik weet het zeker, Tom.\"\n\nTom dacht een oogenblik na en zeide:\n\n\"Wie zal het vertellen? Wij?\"\n\n\"Wat verzin je nou! Verbeeld je, dat er eens iets gebeurde waardoor\nInjun Joe niet opgehangen werd, dan zou hij ons immers op een goeden\ndag vermoorden.\"\n\n\"Dat lag ik juist te bedenken, Huck.\"\n\n\"Als iemand het zeggen moet, laat Muff Potter het dan doen indien\nhij er althans niet te gek of te dronken toe is.\"\n\nTom antwoordde niets--en ging voort met denken. Eindelijk zei hij\nzachtjes:\n\n\"Huck, Muff Potter weet het niet. Hoe kan hij het vertellen?\"\n\n\"Waarom weet hij het niet?\"\n\n\"Omdat hij juist die plank op zijn kop heeft gekregen, toen Injun\nJoe het deed. Denk jij, dat hij iets kan gezien hebben? Denk jij,\ndat hij iets weet?\"\n\n\"Bij mijne zolen, dat is waar ook, Tom.\"\n\n\"En bovendien, wie weet of die plank hem niet gedood heeft!\"\n\n\"Neen, dat geloof ik niet, Tom. Hij was dronken, dat kon ik wel\nzien; dronken, net als altijd. Wel, als Pop zat is, kun je wel een\nkerk op zijn hoofd laten invallen, zonder dat 't hem deert. Dat zeit\nhij zelf. Zoo is het natuurlijk precies met Muff Potter. Als de man\ndoodnuchteren geweest was, zou de plank hem wel gemold hebben, maar\nnu niet.\"\n\nNa een oogenblik peinzend zeide Tom:\n\n\"Hucky, weet je zeker, dat je je mond kunt houden?\"\n\n\"Tom, wij _moeten_ den mond houden. Die duivel van een Injun zou er\ngeen been in zien ons als katten te verdrinken, als we van den moord\nrepten en hij niet gehangen werd. Hoor eens hier, Tom, laat ons elkaar\nmet een eed beloven, dat wij geen woord zullen spreken.\"\n\n\"Dat is goed, Huck; dat zal 't beste zijn. Zullen wij onze handen\nopsteken en zweren, dat we...?\"\n\n\"O, neen, dat is niet voldoende voor zoo iets als dit. Dat is goed\nvoor wissewasjes, vooral onder jongens, die den boel verklappen\nzoodra ze nijdig worden; maar bij zoo'n groot ding als dit behoort\nschrift en--bloed!\"\n\nTom juichte dit denkbeeld van ganscher harte toe. Er was iets\ngeheimzinnigs en ijzingswekkends in: het nachtelijk uur, de duisternis,\nde omgeving, alles was er mede in overeenstemming. Hij raapte een\nwitten, in de maneschijn liggenden tegel op, haalde een stukje rood\nkrijt uit zijn zak en krabbelde, bij het licht van de maneschijn,\nmet moeite de volgende woorden op den tegel:\n\n\n                         \"Hugh Finn en\n                       Tom Sawyer zweren,\n                  dat zij zullen zwijgen over\n                deze zaak, en verklaren, dat zij\n                liever op de plaats zelve zullen\n                doodvallen dan ooit de waarheid\n                        te verklappen.\"\n\n\nHuckleberry was verbaasd over de gemakkelijkheid waarmede Tom schreef\nen over de prachtige woorden. Hij nam dadelijk een speld uit zijn\nlompen en wilde zich in den vinger prikken, toen Tom zeide:\n\n\"Houd op, doe dat niet! De speld is van koper; er mocht eens kopergroen\naan zijn.\"\n\n\"Wat is kopergroen?\"\n\n\"Dat is vergif, en als je dat eens insliktet ... Begrijp jij?\"\n\nDaarop nam Tom het garen uit een van zijn naalden, en de jongens\nprikten zich in den duim en drukten er een droppel bloed uit.\n\nNa lang persen gelukte het Tom de voorletters van zijn naam met bloed\nop den tegel te teekenen, en gebruikte daarbij zijn pink als pen. Toen\nwees hij Huckleberry, hoe hij een H en een F moest maken, en hiermede\nwaren de formaliteiten der eedsaflegging voltooid. Zij begroeven den\ntegel vlak bij den muur, met de noodige griezelige plechtigheden en\nonder het spreken van tooverformulieren en beschouwden van nu aan\nhun geheim als heilig en onschendbaar.\n\nOnderwijl was, zonder dat de knapen het bemerkt hadden eene gedaante\ndoor eene opening aan de andere zijde van het vervallen gebouw naar\nbinnen geslopen.\n\n\"Tom,\" fluisterde Huckleberry, \"mogen wij het nu nooit verklappen?\"\n\n\"Neen, natuurlijk niet. Wat er ook gebeure, wij mogen, er geen woord\nvan spreken, want als wij dat deden, zouden wij dood op den grond\nvallen,--begrijp je?\"\n\n\"Ja, dat begrijp ik?\"\n\nZij bleven nog eenige minuten staan fluisteren, toen buiten,\nomstreeks tien stappen van de plek waar zij stonden, een hond zijn\nlang, somber gejank aanhief. De knapen klemden zich doodelijk ontsteld\naan elkander vast.\n\n\"Wie van ons beiden zou er om koud zijn?\" bracht Huckleberry, naar\nadem snakkende, uit.\n\n\"Ik weet het niet. Kijk maar eens door deze scheur in den muur.\"\n\n\"Neen, doe jij het zelf, Tom.\"\n\n\"Ik, ik kan het niet doen, Huck.\"\n\n\"Och, als je blieft, Tom. Daar begint het weer.\"\n\n\"O Hemeltje, wat ben ik blij,\" fluisterde Tom. \"Ik ken zijn stem:\nhet is Harbisons hond.\"\n\n\"O, dat is gelukkig!--Zal ik je eens wat zeggen, Tom? ik was zoo bang,\ndat het een verdwaalde hond zou zijn.\"\n\nDe hond begon weder te huilen en weer ontzonk den jongens de moed.\n\n\"O wee! Het is Harbisons hond niet,\" fluisterde Huckleberry; \"kijk\nnog eens Tom.\"\n\nBevende van schrik bracht Tom zijn oog nogmaals voor de\nopening. Nauwlijks verstaanbaar fluisterde hij:\n\n\"O Huck! Het is een _verdwaalde hond_!\"\n\n\"Gauw, Tom, gauw! Wien van ons bedoelt hij?\"\n\n\"Huck, ik denk ons allebei.\"\n\n\"O, Tom, het is met ons gedaan. Waar ik naar toe zal gaan, is niet\ntwijfelachtig. Ik ben altijd zoo slecht geweest.\"\n\n\"Ik ook.--Dat komt van het uit school blijven en van het ongehoorzaam\nzijn. Als ik gewild had, zou ik wel even goed hebben kunnen zijn als\nSid,--maar, neen, dat zou ik toch niet, natuurlijk niet. Breng ik\nhet er nu dezen keer goed af, dan zal ik mijn best doen om voortaan\nop de zondagsschool op te passen.\" En Tom begon aanstalten te maken\ntot schreien.\n\n\"Jij slecht?\" en Huckleberry begon ook te schreien. \"Bewaar me, Tom\nSawyer, als jij niet een brave jongen bent geweest in vergelijking\nvan mij. O hemeltje, hemeltje, hemeltje! Ik wou, dat ik de helft van\njou kansen had!\"\n\nTom viel hem in de rede en fluisterde:\n\n\"Kijk eens, Huck, kijk eens! Hij staat met zijn rug naar ons toe.\"\n\nHuckleberry keek verheugd door de opening.\n\n\"Sapperloot, het is waar. Heeft hij altijd zoo gestaan?\"\n\n\"Ja; maar ik ben zoo gek geweest het niet te zien. Nu wie zou hij\nthans op het oog hebben?\"\n\nHet gehuil hield op. Tom splitste de ooren.\n\n\"H\u00e8! wat is dat?\" fluisterde hij.\n\n\"Een geluid als--als het knorren van een varken. Neen, toch niet;\ner ligt iemand te snorken, Tom.\"\n\n\"Ja, dat is het.--Waar komt het vandaan, Huck?\"\n\n\"Ik geloof van gindschen kant. Zoo klinkt het ten minste. Pop slaapt\nhier wel eens met de varkens, maar zijn gesnork is een heel ander\ngeblaas. Buitendien geloof ik, dat hij niet meer in de stad durft\nkomen.\"\n\nDe lust tot het zoeken van avonturen ontwaakte weder in het hart\nder knapen.\n\n\"Hucky, durf jij er langs loopen, als ik vooruit ga?\"\n\n\"Ik heb er niet veel lust in, Tom. Vooronderstel eens, dat het Injun\nJoe was!\"\n\nTom stond een oogenblik in tweestrijd, doch de verzoeking werd te sterk\nen de jongens besloten het te doen met dien verstande, dat zij hunne\nbiezen zouden pakken, als het snorken ophield. Zoo slopen zij op de\nteenen, achter elkander, naar het andere einde van het gebouw. Toen\nzij zoo wat een pas of vijf van den snorker af waren, trapte Tom op\neen stok en brak dien met een harden krak. De man steunde, keerde\nzich om, en zijn gelaat werd in den maneschijn zichtbaar.\n\nHet was Muff Potter.\n\nDe knapen waren als versteend blijven staan, toen de man zich bewoog,\nmaar hunne vrees was nu geweken. Zij slopen naar buiten, langs\nde vermolmde schutting en hielden daar stil on elkaar \"goedendag\"\nte zeggen.\n\nDaar klonk weder het somber gehuil door de nachtlucht. De knapen\nkeken om en zagen den vreemden hond staan, vlak bij de plek waar\nPotter lag, en het dier hield zijn hemelwaarts gekeerden kop naar\nden dronkaard gericht.\n\n\"O, j\u00e9min\u00e9, het geldt _hem_!\" riepen de knapen in \u00e9\u00e9nen adem uit.\n\n\"Hoor eens, Tom; zij zeggen, dat een dag of veertien geleden een hond\nhuilende tegen middernacht langs John Millers huis geloopen heeft,\nen dat toen een Wipperwil [1] op zijn dak is gaan zitten zingen;\nen toch is daar niemand gestorven.\"\n\n\"Dat weet ik wel. Maar is Grace Miller niet verleden Zaterdag in\nde keuken op het vuur gevallen en heeft zij zich niet schrikkelijk\ngebrand?\"\n\n\"Ja, maar zij is niet dood. En wat sterker is, zij wordt beter.\"\n\n\"'t Kan wel wezen, doch wacht maar; zij is er zoo zeker om koud als\nMuff Potter. Dat zeggen de negers althans en die weten al die soort\nvan dingen.\"\n\nDaarop namen zij peinzend afscheid van elkander.\n\nToen Tom het raam van zijne slaapkamer insprong, had de dag omtrent\nvoor den nacht plaats gemaakt. Hij kleedde zich behoedzaam uit en viel\nin slaap, zich gelukwenschend dat niemand iets van zijn uitstapje\nbemerkt had. Maar hij wist niet, dat de zacht snorkende Sid al een\nuur wakker had gelegen.\n\nToen Tom ontwaakte, was Sid al verdwenen. De zon zag er uit alsof zij\nreeds lang geschenen had en ook de atmosfeer gaf den indruk dat het\nal laat was. Verschrikt sprong hij het bed uit. Waarom was hij niet\ngeroepen,--hij, die anders altijd uit zijn bed getrokken werd? Dat\nwas een slecht voorteeken. Binnen vijf minuten was hij gekleed en\nstapte hij met een loom en slaperig gevoel de trap af. De familie\nzat nog rondom de tafel, maar had het ontbijt gebruikt. Er was geene\nbestraffende stem, doch er waren oogen, die zich afwendden, en er\nwas iets stils en plechtigs, dat den schuldigen eene rilling door\nde leden joeg. Hij ging zitten en trachtte vroolijk te kijken doch\ndat was echter zwaar werk, want zijn glimlach werd niet beantwoord,\nzoodat hij eindelijk diep verslagen de oogen op den grond sloeg. Na het\nontbijt nam tante hem onder vier oogen en de hoop dat hij slaag zou\nkrijgen maakte Tom bijkans vroolijk; doch niets van dat alles. Zijne\ntante begon te schreien en vroeg hem, hoe het mogelijk was dat hij\ner behagen in schepte, haar oud hart te breken, en eindigde met hem\nte zeggen, dat hij maar voort moest gaan met zichzelven ongelukkig\nte maken en hare grijze haren met kommer ten grave te doen dalen,\nwant dat zij het met hem opgaf. Dat was erger dan duizend zweepslagen\nen Tom voelde iets in zijn hart, dat zwaarder te dragen was dan\nlichamelijk lijden. Hij schreide, smeekte om vergiffenis, beloofde\nherhaalde malen beterschap en werd toen weggezonden met het gevoel,\ndat hij slechts ten halve vergeven en ten halve vertrouwd werd.\n\nHij verliet de kamer in een staat te ellendig zelfs om wraak jegens\nSid te koesteren, zoodat de laatste zich onnoodig achter de tuindeur\nging verschuilen. Neerslachtig en zwaarmoedig drentelde hij naar\nschool en onderging de hem en Joe Harper wegens hun schoolverzuim\nvan den vorigen dag toebedeelde klappen, met het uiterlijk van\niemand, wiens hart onder veel zwaarder leed gebukt gaat en die\naan zulke beuzelingen afgestorven is. Vervolgens zette hij zich op\nzijne plaats neder, met de ellebogen op zijn lessenaar en de handen\nonder den kin, en tuurden op den blinden muur met dien matten blik,\nwelke van een lijden getuigt, dat zijn toppunt bereikt heeft. Daar\nstoot plotseling zijn elleboog tegen een hard voorwerp. Langzaam en\ndroevig verandert hij van houding en neemt het voorwerp op. Het was\nin een papier gewikkeld. Dit papier wordt ontrold en een lang gerekte\nzucht ontsnapt zijn borst. Zijn koperen schelknop staat voor hem! Dit\nlaatste vedertje brak des kemels rug.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XI.\n\n\nV\u00f3\u00f3rdat de klok dien morgen \"negen\" had geslagen, verspreidde het\nakelige nieuws zich plotseling door de geheele stad. Zelfs zonder\nde toen nog onbekende telegraaf vloog het verhaal, met meer dan\ntelegrafischen spoed, van mond tot mond, van groep tot groep,\nvan huis tot huis. Natuurlijk gaf de schoolmeester vacantie. De\nSt. Petersburgers zouden niet geweten hebben hoe zij 't met hem hadden,\nindien hij dat niet gedaan had. Er was, zoo luidde het gerucht, een\nbebloed mes vlak bij den vermoorden man gevonden, en dat mes was door\niemand herkend als aan Muff Potter toe te behooren. En, werd er verder\nverteld, een man, die laat in den nacht op weg was geweest, had om twee\nuren na middernacht Potter zich aan een beek zien staan wasschen en\ntoen op eens wegsluipen. Al te maal verdachte omstandigheden, vooral\nhet wasschen, dat volstrekt niet tot Potters gewoonte behoorde. Men\nwist ook, dat de gansche stad was doorzocht on dezen \"moordenaar\"\nop te sporen (het publiek heeft in den regel spoedig de bewijzen bij\nde hand en het vonnis klaar), maar dat hij nergens te vinden was. Men\nhad op alle wegen en in allerlei richtingen mannen te paard gezien en\nde sherif hield zich verzekerd, dat hij v\u00f3\u00f3r den nacht gevat zou zijn.\n\nDe geheele stad liep uit naar het kerkhof. Tom vergat ook voor het\noogenblik zijn hartzeer en voegde zich bij den stoet, niet omdat hij\nniet duizendmaal liever overal elders zou zijn heengegaan, maar omdat\neene huiveringwekkende onweerstaanbare betoovering hem voortdreef. Bij\nde akelige plaats gekomen, drong hij met zijn klein lichaam door de\nmenigte heen en aanschouwde het afgrijselijk tooneel. Het was hem\nalsof er een eeuw was voorbijgegaan, sedert hij daar geweest was. Op\neens werd hij in den arm geknepen. Hij keerde zich on en zijne oogen\nontmoetten die van Huckleberry. Daarop keken de knapen dadelijk den\nanderen kant uit en hun hart klopte bij de gedachte, dat iemand dien\nblik van verstandhouding mocht bemerkt hebben. Doch iedereen was aan\nhet praten en verdiept in het vreeselijk schouwspel, dat zich voor\nhet oog vertoonde.\n\n\"Die arme man! Het is een goede les voor lijkendieven. Muff Potter\nzal er voor hangen, als ze hem krijgen!\" Dit was zoo ongeveer de loop\nvan het gesprek op het kerkhof en de dominee maakte de opmerking,\n\"dat het een 'Godsoordeel' was en dat des Heeren hand hier kennelijk\nwerd gezien.\"\n\nPlotseling begon Tom van het hoofd tot de voeten te beven want zijn\noog viel op het verstokte gelaat van Injun Joe. Op dit oogenblik\nontstond er eene kleine opschudding onder de menigte en verscheidene\nmenschen riepen: \"Daar is hij! daar is hij! Hij komt zelf!\"\n\n\"Wie? Wie?\" herhaalden twintig stemmen.\n\n\"Muff Potter!\n\n\"Heila! Hij wordt tegengehouden. Kijk, hij keert terug! Laat hem\nniet wegloopen!\"\n\nEen paar mannen, die in de boomen geklommen waren boven Toms hoofd,\nriepen dat hij volstrekt geen pogingen deed om weg te loopen en dat\nhij er achterdochtig en verschrikt uitzag.\n\n\"Duivelsch onbeschaamd!\" zei een der omstanders. \"Zeker wou hij\neens rustig een kijkje van zijn werk komen nemen en verwachtte geen\ngezelschap.\"\n\nDe schare maakte nu plaats voor den sherif, die met veel praalvertoon\nMuff Potter bij den arm leidende, in haar midden ging staan. De arme\nman zag er verwilderd uit en zijne oogen verrieden den doodsangst,\nwaarin hij verkeerde. Toen hij tegenover den verslagene stond, was\nhet alsof hij door eene beroerte getroffen werd; hij verborg zijn\ngelaat in zijne handen en barstte in tranen uit.\n\n\"Ik heb het niet gedaan, vrienden,\" snikte hij. \"Op mijn woord van eer,\nik heb het niet gedaan.\"\n\n\"Wie beschuldigt u?\" donderde een stem.\n\nDit schot scheen doel te treffen. Potter hief het gelaat omhoog en\nzag met roerende hopeloosheid in het rond. Toen hij Injun Joe zag,\nriep hij uit:\n\n\"O, Injun Joe! gij beloofdet, dat gij het nooit....\"\n\n\"Is dat uw mes?\" En het bebloed werktuig werd hem door den sherif\nvoorgehouden.\n\nPotter zou op den grond gevallen zijn, indien men hem niet aangegrepen\nhad. Toen sprak hij:\n\n\"Iets in mijn binnenste zeide mij, dat, als ik niet terugkwam om het\nte halen....\"\n\nSidderend hield hij op en wuifde met de machtelooze hand, als wilde\nhij te kennen geven, dat hij zich overwonnen achtte, en zeide:\n\"Zeg het maar, Joe--zeg het maar;--het helpt toch niet meer.\"\n\nHuckleberry en Tom waren sprakeloos van ontzetting, toen zij den\nverstokten moordenaar kalm zijne verklaring hoorden afleggen. Zij\nverwachten elk oogenblik, dat God een bliksemstraal uit den helderen\nhemel op hem zou doen nederschieten, en verwonderden er zich over, dat\ndie straf zich voortdurend liet wachten. En toen Injun Joe uitgesproken\nhad en nog levend en gezond voor hen stond, verdween uit hun hart de\naandrang om hun eed te breken en het leven van den armen bedrogen\ngevangene te redden want deze ellendeling, die er zoo goed afkwam,\nhad zich ongetwijfeld aan den duivel verkocht en het zou gevaarlijk\nwezen zich met het eigendom van een macht als deze in te laten.\n\n\"Waarom zijt gij niet weggebleven? Wat behoefdet gij hier terug te\nkomen?\" vroeg een der omstanders.\n\n\"Ik, ik kon niet anders,\" kermde Potter; \"ik zou zoo gaarne weggeloopen\nzijn, maar ik werd naar deze plaats als gedreven.\" En hij begon weder\nte snikken.\n\nEen paar minuten later, bij het gerechtelijk onderzoek, herhaalde\nInjun Joe met dezelfde kalmte als den eersten keer zijne verklaringen\nonder eede en de omstandigheid dat hij nu weder niet door den\nbliksemschicht getroffen werd, versterkte de knapen in hun geloof,\ndat Joe zich aan den Duivel had verkocht. Hij werd thans in hunne\noogen het vreeselijkste en belangwekkendste wezen, dat zij ooit hadden\naanschouwd, en hij boeide hen in zulk eene mate, dat zij hunne oogen\nniet van hem konden afhouden. Bij zichzelven besloten zij, on zoodra\nde gelegenheid zich voordeed, hem des nachts te bespieden, in de hoop\ndan iets van zijn vreeselijken meester te zien te krijgen.\n\nInjun Joe hielp het lijk van den vermoorde optillen en ten vervoer\nin den ziekenwagen leggen, en onder de sidderende menigte werd het\ngemompel gehoord, dat de wond een weinig bloedde. De jongens dachten,\ndat deze gelukkige omstandigheid het vermoeden in de juiste richting\nzou wenden, maar ze werden teleurgesteld, want iemand maakte de\nopmerking, dat \"Muff Potter op drie treden afstands van het lijk\ngestaan had, toen het gebeurde.\"\n\nHet vreeselijk geheim en zijn knagend geweten vervolgden Tom van den\nmorgen tot den avond en verstoorden zelfs zijn nachtrust. Op zekeren\nmorgen aan het ontbijt zeide Sid:\n\n\"Tom, je woelt tegenwoordig den ganschen nacht door en je praat zoo\nin je slaap, dat je me uren wakker houdt.\"\n\nTom verbleekte en sloeg de oogen neder.\n\n\"Dat is een kwaad teeken,\" zeide tante Polly, ernstig. \"Je hebt toch\nniets op je geweten, Tom?\"\n\n\"Niet, dat ik weet,\" antwoordde de knaap, doch zijne hand beefde zoo,\ndat hij zijne koffie op het tafelblad stortte.\n\n\"En je praat zulken onzin,\" zeide Sid. \"Gisterenacht riep je: 'Het\nis bloed, het is bloed, dat is het!' Dat heb je wel twintig keer\ngezegd. En je zei ook: 'Plaag me niet zoo;--ik zal het vertellen,'\"\n\n\"Vertellen? Wat zul je me toch vertellen?\" vroeg tante.\n\nDe geheele kamer draaide voor Toms oogen in het rond en de hemel weet\nwat er gebeurd zou zijn, indien de onrust niet uit tantes gelaat\nverdwenen en zij, zonder het zelve te weten, haar neef te hulp was\ngekomen. Zij zeide: \"O! dat komt van dien vreeselijken moord. Ik\ndroom er ook elken nacht van; soms wel, dat ik het zelve gedaan heb.\"\n\nOok Marie verzekerde, dat het haar eveneens ging, en Sid scheen\nbevredigd. Tom echter sloop zoo spoedig weg als hij kon, en van dien\ndag af, klaagde hij over kiespijn en deed des snachts den doek om\nzijn gezicht. Weinig vermoedde hij echter, dat Sid hem uren lang\nlag te bespieden den doek wegtrok, op zijn elleboog geleund ging\nliggen luisteren, en dan het verband weer handig op zijne plaats\nschoof. Langzamerhand begon Toms angst te verminderen en werd de\nkiespijn afgedankt. Indien Sid het werkelijk er op aanlegde om iets\nuit Toms onsamenhangend gemompel op te maken, hield hij het toch\nzorgvuldig voor zich.\n\nEr scheen in Toms oog geen einde te komen aan het spelletje zijner\nschoolmakkers om lijkschouwing van doode katten te houden, en dusdoende\naanhoudend zijne kwelling te verlevendigen. Sid merkte dit, dat bij\ndeze instructies, Tom nooit weer lijkschouwer wilde wezen, ofschoon\nhij vroeger bij elke nieuwe uitvinding altijd \"haantje de voorste\"\nwas. Het viel hem ook op, dat Tom nooit getuige wilde zijn--ja, zelfs\neen in 't oog loopenden afkeer van vermakelijkheden als deze verkregen\nhad en ze zooveel mogelijk vermeed. Sid verwonderde zich daarover,\nmaar zeide niets. Gelukkig gingen deze lijkschouwingen eindelijk uit\nde mode en hielden dus op Toms geweten te pijnigen.\n\nGedurende dit kommervolle tijdperk zijns levens ging Tom om den\nanderen of om de twee dagen, zoo dikwijls als hij wist dat niemand hem\nbespiedde, voor het kleine getraliede venster van de gevangenis staan\nen stak daardoor \"den moordenaar\" al de verkwikkingen en lekkernijen\ntoe, waarvan hij zich kon meester maken.\n\nDe gevangenis van St. Petersburg was een klein steenen gebouw, dat in\neen moeras vlak buiten het stadje lag, en waarvoor geen schildwachten\nnoodig geacht werden. Zij was zelden bezet en Tom kon er dus veilig\nheengaan om Muff Potter de offeranden te schenken, waarmede hij zijn\ngeweten weder eenigszins tot rust zocht te brengen.\n\nDe bewoners van het stadje zouden zeker anders het gebruik gevolgd\nhebben om Injun Joe, beteerd en met veeren beplakt in een kooi rond\nte rijden, (de gewone straf van lijkendieven,) maar hij was zulk\neen berucht en gevreesd persoon, dat niemand de leiding van deze\nonderneming op zich durfde nemen. Injun Joe, van zijn kant, had wel\nopgepast bij beide zijne getuigenissen alleen van het gevecht te\nspreken, en den voorafgeganen diefstal te verzwijgen. Vandaar dat de\nzaak vooralsnog niet bij het Hof aanhangig werd gemaakt.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XII.\n\n\nEen der oorzaken, waardoor Toms geheime kwellingen meer op den\nachtergrond geraakten, was te vinden in eene nieuwe en gewichtige zaak,\ndie zijn gemoed vervulde. Becky Thatcher kwam niet meer op school. Hij\nhad een dag of wat met zijn trots strijd gevoerd en getracht te doen\nalsof zij niet bestond, maar het was hem niet gelukt. Van lieverlede\nbegon hij weer langs haar vaders huis te slenteren en zich ongelukkig\nte gevoelen. Als zij eens stierf! Die gedachte was genoeg om hem\nkrankzinnig te maken. Hij had geen liefhebberij meer in oorlog spelen,\nzelfs niet in het zeerooverspel. De bekoorlijkheid van het leven was\nverdwenen en niets dan ellende was overgebleven. Hij borg zijn hoepel\nen zijn kolfstok, want al de pret van hoepelen was voorbij. Zijne\nsomberheid wekte tantes onrust en zij begon allerlei soorten van\ngeneesmiddelen op hem toe te passen.\n\nJuffrouw Polly behoorde tot die lieden, welke verzot zijn op\nhuismiddeltjes en dwepen met alle pas uitgevonden methodes tot\nverbetering en onderhoud der gezondheid. De lust om van al die dingen\nde proef te nemen was haar als ingeroest. Zoodra er op dit gebied\niets nieuws op het tapijt kwam, rustte zij niet eer het aan haar huis\nwas toegepast;--niet op haar zelve, want zij was nooit ziek, maar op\nieder ander, dien zij onder handen kon krijgen. Zij had ingeteekend\nop alle mogelijke tijdschriften over de gezondheidsleer en op alle\ndwaze vertoogschriften over de geneeskunde, en de hoogdravende\nartikelen waarmede deze waren opgevuld, werden door haar met gejuich\nontvangen. Al de onzin, die er werd uitgekraamd over ventilatie en\nde voorschriften die gegeven werden over het opstaan en het naar bed\ngaan, het gebruik van spijs en drank, het nemen van lichaamsbeweging,\nover de gemoedsstemming waarin men moet verkeeren, over de soort van\nkleeding die men dragen moet, was evangelietaal voor haar, en zij\nbemerkte nooit, dat hare gezondheidsjournalen van de loopende maand\ngewoonlijk tegenspraken wat zij in de vorige met veel ophef verkondigd\nhadden. Zij was het eenvoudigste en oprechtste schepsel dat er leefde\nen werd daardoor gemakkelijk om den tuin geleid. Zij verzamelde al\nde kwakzalverachtige tijdschriften en geneesmiddelen om zich heen,\nen leefde dan in de overtuiging dat zij een engel in menschengedaante\nwas, die den balsem van Gilead aan hare lijdende naasten kwam brengen.\n\nOp dat tijdstip waarvan wij spreken, begon de koudwaterkuur aan de orde\nte komen, en Toms droefgeestigheid kwam haar tot het toepassen van\nde kuur verbazend in de hand. Voor dag en dauw werd hij uit zijn bed\ngehaald en in de houtschuur gesleept en met een stortvloed van koud\nwater overstelpt. Dat water werd met een harden handdoek afgedroogd,\nen vervolgens werd de jongen in natte lakens gewikkeld en onder de\ndekens gestopt, totdat hij zoo ging zweeten, dat zijn ziel, zooals\nhij zeide, door zijne pori\u00ebn kwam kijken.\n\nNiettegenstaande al die geneesmiddelen werd de knaap hoe langer\nhoe neerslachtiger, bleeker en slapper. Toen kwamen de heete\nbaden, zitbaden, stortbaden en douches. De knaap was en bleef\ndroefgeestig. Daarop werd aan de waterkuur een di\u00ebet toegevoegd van\ndunne havergortpap en werden er Spaansche vliegen toegepast. Tante\nPolly toch berekende de inhoudsruimte van haar neef naar die van een\nkruik en vulde hem op, totdat hij vol was.\n\nLangzamerhand geraakte Tom door al dat wasschen en plassen in een\nstaat van verdooving en onverschilligheid. Dit verschijnsel vervulde\nde oude dame met schrik en er moest een einde aan gemaakt worden,\nhet kostte wat het wilde. Daar leest zij in de courant van een nieuw\nzenuwmiddel! Dadelijk werd er een flesch besteld, geproefd en goed\nbevonden. De waterkuur werd opgegeven en alles van het zenuwmiddel\nverwacht. Een theelepeltje vol werd den knaap ingegeven, waarvan\nhet resultaat in angstige spanning werd te gemoet gezien. Reeds bij\nde eerste proef week haar onrust en keerde de kalmte in haar ziel\nterug. Immers de onverschilligheid was op eens verdwenen. De knaap,\nal had zij hem op een gloeiende plaat gezet, kon niet schielijker\nwoest en luidruchtig zijn.\n\nWat was hiervan de reden? Tom voelde, dat het tijd werd, weder wakker\nte worden. Het leven, 't welk hij thans leidde, mocht in zijn treurigen\ntoestand iets romantisch hebben, het was te saai en te gelijk te vol\nakelige afwisseling om lang z\u00f3\u00f3 te kunnen blijven. Daarom zon hij op\nallerlei middelen om er een eind aan te maken, en besloot verzotheid\nop het nieuwe drankje voor te wenden. Hij vroeg er zoo dikwijls om,\ndat het tante begon te vervelen en zij eindigde met hem te zeggen,\ndat hij maar leeren moest zelf in te nemen en haar er niet meer mede\nlastig vallen. Ware het Sid geweest, zij zou die liefhebberij in het\ngeneesmiddel niet mistrouwd hebben, maar op Tom moest heimelijk een\noogje gehouden worden. Tot hare geruststelling echter bemerkte zij,\ndat de inhoud wezenlijk verminderde, doch het kwam niet in haar op\nte vermoeden, dat de knaap de geneeskracht van den drank, niet op\nzijn eigen lichaam beproefde, maar op den vloer der huiskamer en het\nvocht in een spleet onder het karpet uitgoot.\n\nOp zekeren dag was hij daar juist mede bezig, toen tantes gele kat,\nkopjes gevende en spinnende, naar het theelepeltje kwam kijken,\nblijkbaar vol lust om er van te snoepen.\n\n\"Dat is verboden waar voor jou, poesje,\" zeide Tom tot de kat.\n\nDoch de poes maakte een gebaar alsof zij er anders over dacht.\n\n\"Neen, poes, raak er niet aan.\"\n\nDe poes hield echter vol.\n\n\"Nu, als je het dan volstrekt wilt hebben, zal ik het je wel geven,\nwant mij helpt het geen zier. Doch als het je niet goed bekomt,\nkan ik het niet helpen.\"\n\nPoesje stemde stilzwijgend toe en Tom spalkte haar den bek open en\ngoot er eene hoeveelheid van den drank in. De kat sprong een paar el\nin de lucht, hief toen een jammerlijk geschreeuw aan, danste de kamer\nrond, sloeg tegen de meubels, wierp de bloempotten omver en gooide\nalles het onderstboven. Vervolgens ging zij op de achterpooten staan,\ndraaide met den kop en miauwde van angst. Daarna liep ze weer als een\nrazende het huis door en bracht overal verwarring en vernieling met\nzich. Juist toen tante Polly de kamer binnenkwam, was zij bezig een\npaar kostbare planten te vernielen en met een helsch geschreeuw door\nhet open raam te springen, inderhaast nog de rest van de bloempotten\nmet zich sleepende. De oude dame stond versteend van schrik over haar\nbril te staren, terwijl Tom op den grond lag te gillen van het lachen.\n\n\"Wat, in 's hemels naam, scheelt de kat, Tom?\"\n\n\"Ik, ik zou het u niet kunnen zeggen,\" grinnikte de knaap.\n\n\"Wel, ik heb nog nooit zoo iets gezien. Hoe komt zij zoo?\"\n\n\"Ik weet het wezenlijk niet, tante Polly. Katten doen altijd zoo,\nals zij schik hebben.\"\n\n\"Doen ze dat?\" Er was iets in den toon, dat Tom vrees aanjoeg.\n\n\"Ja, tante,\" zeide hij, iets minder boud; \"dat geloof ik ten minste.\"\n\n\"Geloof je dat?\"\n\n\"Ja.\"\n\nDe oude dame bukte zich en Tom verbeidde met angst den afloop. Doch hij\nbegreep hare bedoeling te laat. Daar lag het verklappend theelepeltje\nachter de franjes van het bedgordijn. Tante Polly nam het op en\nhield het hem voor den neus. Tom deinsde terug en sloeg de oogen\nneder. Tante pakte hem bij het gewone handvatsel--zijn oor--en kneep\ndit lichaamsdeel zoo, dat men zijn hoofd hoorde kraken.\n\n\"Nu, jongeheer, waarom moest dat stomme dier zoo mishandeld worden?\"\n\n\"Ik deed het uit medelijden met haar,--omdat zij geen tante heeft.\"\n\n\"Geen tante, deugniet?--Wat heeft dat er mede te maken?\"\n\n\"O, heel veel! Omdat, als zij er eene had, deze haar gebrand zou hebben\nen haar de ingewanden geroosterd als ware zij een mensch geweest.\"\n\nTante Polly voelde plotseling een knagende gewetenswroeging. Hetgeen\nwreed was voor de kat, kon ook wreed voor een jongen wezen. Haar hart\nwerd verteederd. Zij kreeg spijt en hare oogen begonnen vochtig te\nworden; en hare hand op Toms hoofd leggende, zeide zij vriendelijk:\n\n\"Ik deed het om bestwil, Tom. En, jongen, 't _heeft_ u immers goed\ngedaan?\"\n\nTom keek haar aan en zeide, terwijl hij een knipoogje maakte:\n\n\"Ik weet, dat u het voor mij om bestwil gedaan hebt, en ik deed\neveneens met de poes. Het heeft haar ook goed gedaan, want ik heb\nhaar nooit zoo netjes zien dansen.\n\n\"O, maak dat je wegkomt, voordat ik weer boos word!\" riep tante\nuit. \"En doe nu eindelijk je best eens om een brave jongen te\nworden. Medicijnen behoef je voorloopig niet meer te nemen.\"\n\nTom ging dien middag vroeg naar school en bleef voor de deur staan,\nin plaats van met zijne makkers te spelen. Hij verklaarde zich voor\nziek en zag er ook niet heel goed uit. Schijnbaar keek hij naar\nalles, behalve naar hetgeen waarop hij wezenlijk zijn oog gericht\nhield--namelijk, naar den weg.\n\nDaar kwam Jeff Thatcher aan en Toms gelaat klaarde wat op. Hij begon\neen gesprek met hem en zocht op allerlei manieren iets omtrent Becky te\nweten te komen, doch de looze jongen scheen er niets van te merken. Tom\nwachtte en wachtte, en zijn oogen schitterden telkens, wanneer er een\njurkje in het gezicht kwam, doch zoodra hij ontdekte dat de draagster\nvan het jurkje niet de rechte persoon was, sloeg hij ze verdrietig\nneer. Eindelijk kwamen er geen japonnetjes meer voorbij en hij verviel\nin eene hopelooze neerslachtigheid. Hij trad het leege schoolgebouw\nbinnen en gaf zich aan zijn verdriet over. Maar op eens ontdekte hij\nweder een jurkje en zijn hart klopte hoorbaar. Geen minuut later was\nhij de school uit en als een clown aan het kunsten maken. Hij gilde,\nlachte, zat de jongens achterna, sprong met levensgevaar over het hek,\nging op zijn hoofd staan en verrichtte al de heldendaden, die hij\nmaar kon uitdenken, terzelfder tijd voortdurend heimelijke blikken\nwerpend op Becky Thatcher, om te zien of zij het wel merkte. Doch zij\nscheen er niet op te letten en keek steeds een anderen kant uit. Was\nhet mogelijk dat zij niet zag, dat hij daar was? Toen ging hij zijne\ngymnastische oefeningen in hare onmiddellijke nabijheid uitvoeren, liep\nmet veel lawaai tusschen de jongens door, greep er een de pet van het\nhoofd, slingerde die over het dak van de school en danste en sprong,\ntotdat hij vlak voor Becky stond en bijna tegen haar aanliep. En zij,\nzij keerde zich om, en Tom hoorde haar zeggen:\n\n\"Ba! sommige menschen verbeelden zich, dat zij ijselijk grappig zijn;\nzij doen altijd kunsten om gezien te worden.\"\n\nTom werd gloeiend rood en droop verslagen af.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XIII.\n\n\nDe beleediging van Becky Thatcher bracht bij Tom Sawyer een besluit\ntot rijpheid. De knaap was aan de uiterste grens van wanhoop. Hij was,\nzoo sprak hij bij zichzelven, een verlaten jongen zonder vrienden;\nniemand hield van hem. Wanneer de menschen te eeniger tijd ontdekten\nwaartoe zij hem gebracht hadden, zouden zij misschien spijt gevoelen\nover hunne koelheid. Hij had getracht te doen wat goed was en had\nhet pad der deugd willen bewandelen, doch zelfs daarin had men hem\ngedwarsboomd. Aangezien men toch niets wenschte dan van hem af te zijn,\nzou de menschheid haar zin hebben: en zij mocht hem er de gevolgen van\ntoerekenen. Waarom zou zij dat niet? Wat recht had hij, de verlatene,\non zich daarover te beklagen? Ja, zij had er hem toe gedwongen; hij\nzou een misdadig leven gaan leiden; men had hem geene andere keus\ngelaten. Inmiddels was hij onder deze alleenspraak een eind buiten\nde stad gekomen en hoorde in de verte het geklingel der bel, die de\nkinderen naar school riep. Hij snikte bij de gedachte, dat hij nooit,\nnooit meer dat oude gezellige geluid zou hooren; het was zeer hard,\nmaar hij kon niet anders: de koude wereld had hem er toe gebracht en\nhij moest zich in zijn lot schikken.\n\nToen begon hij bitter te schreien. Juist op dat oogenblik kwam\nhij zijn boezemvriend Joe Harper tegen, ook met behuilde oogen en\nblijkbaar met plannen, gewichtig en somber als de zijne. Kennelijk\nwaren deze beide zielen van \u00e9\u00e9ne en dezelfde gedachte vervuld. Tom\nmaakte, terwijl hij zijne oogen met zijn mouw afveegde, onder veel\nsnikken zijn besluit bekend, on, ten einde de slechte behandeling en\nhet gebrek aan sympathie te huis te ontvluchten, naar buiten in de\nwijde wereld te gaan rondzwerven en nooit terug te komen--en eindigde\nmet de wensch, dat Joe Harper hem niet vergeten zou.\n\nMaar daar kwam het uit, dat Joe juist datzelfde verzoek aan Tom\nhad willen gaan doen en hem deelgenoot maken van een dergelijk\nvoornemen. Zijne moeder had hem geslagen, omdat hij room zou gesnoept\nhebben, die hij nooit geproefd had en waarvan hij niets af wist. Het\nwas duidelijk, dat zij haar zoon moede was en van hem ontslagen\nverlangde te zijn. Als dat zoo was, had hij niet anders te doen\ndan voor dien wil te bukken. Hij hoopte dat zij gelukkig zou wezen\nzonder hem en dat het haar nooit berouwen zou, haar armen jongen\nuitgedreven te hebben in eene ongevoelige wereld, om daarin te lijden\nen te sterven.\n\nTerwijl de beide knapen droevig voortwandelden, sloten zij samen een\nnieuw verbond on elkander als broeders bij te staan en nimmermeer\nte scheiden, totdat de dood hen van hun verdriet zou verlossen. Toen\nbegonnen zij plannen te maken. Joe was er voor om kluizenaar te worden\nin een afgelegen grot, van water en brood te leven en dan van koude,\nongemak en verdriet te sterven: doch na Tom aangehoord te hebben, kwam\nhij tot de overtuiging, dat er aan een misdadig leven groote voordeelen\nverbonden waren, en dus stemde hij er in toe zeeroover te worden.\n\nAnderhalf uur ten zuiden van St. Petersburg, waar de Mississipi\nzeer smal was, lag een klein boschrijk eiland, met eene ondiepe\nlandingsplaats, en dit werd een zeer geschikt toevluchtsoord\ngeacht. Het was onbewoond en lag ver van den oever, tegenover een\ndicht en eenzaam woud. Daarom werd Jacksons Island gekozen. Wie het\nmikpunt der zeerooverijen zou zijn, was eene zaak die hun niet in de\ngedachten kwam. Toen zochten zij Huckleberry Finn op en hij voegde\nzich dadelijk bij hen, daar alle baantjes dien vagebond hetzelfde\nwaren. Voor het oogenblik scheidden de vrienden en spraken af,\ndat zij elkaar op een weinig bezochte plek aan den oever der rivier,\nomstreeks een uur van de stad, zouden ontmoeten, en wel te middernacht,\nder knapen lievelingsuur. Daar lag een klein houtvlot, dat zij hoopten\nte bemachtigen. Zij zouden alle drie vischhaken en hengels medebrengen\nen zooveel teerkost als zij slechts op de meest geheimzinnige wijze\nkonden buitmaken, zooals dat aan roovers paste. En nog voordat de zon\nter kimme daalde, hadden zij zich reeds eene kleine vreugde bereid,\ndoor uit te strooien, \"dat de stad eerlang van iets hooren zou.\" Allen,\ndie deze vage mededeeling ontvingen, werden verzocht te zwijgen en\nte wachten.\n\nTegen middernacht kwam Tom ter bestemder plaatse, met eene gekookte\nham en enkele andere levensmiddelen van minder omvang. Hij hield\nstil bij een dicht begroeid kreupelboschje op eene kleine hoogte,\nvan waar men de plaats der bijeenkomst kon overzien. De lucht was\nmet sterren bezaaid en het was bladstil. De machtige rivier lag kalm\ntusschen hare oevers als een oceaan na hevigen storm. Tom luisterde\neen oogenblik, maar de stilte werd door geen geluid verstoord. Toen\nbegon hij zacht te fluiten en dit geluid werd onder het kreupelboschje\nbeantwoord. Tom floot nog eens en het signaal werd weder op dezelfde\nwijze herhaald. Toen riep eene gedempte stem:\n\n\"Wie nadert daar?\"\n\n\"Tom Sawyer, de Zwarte Roover der Spaansche Zee. Noemt uwe namen.\"\n\n\"Huck Finn met de Roode Hand en Joe Harper, de Schrik van den\nOceaan.\" Tom had deze titels uit zijn lievelingsboeken geleverd.\n\n\"In orde. Geef het contra-signaal.\"\n\nTwee schorre stemmen fluisterden gelijktijdig het volgende\nschrikkelijke woord in den stikdonkeren nacht: \"Bloed!\"\n\nToen wierp Tom zijn ham over den heuvel en klom er daarna zelf af,\nterwijl hij onder 't afdalen zich nu en dan het vel openreet en zijne\nkleeren scheurde. Er was wel een geschikt en gemakkelijk pad langs\nden oever, om van de hoogte af te dalen, maar dat miste het voordeel\nvan moeite en gevaar, door een zeeroover zoo gewaardeerd.\n\nDe Schrik van den Oceaan had een zijde spek medegebracht en\nwas onder het dragen van dien last bijna bezweken. Finn had een\nkoekenpan gestolen en voor een voorraadje tabak en eenige korte pijpen\ngezorgd. 't Was maar jammer, dat hij de eenige der drie roovers was,\ndie de kunst van rooken en pruimen verstond. De Zwarte Roover der\nSpaansche Zee maakte de opmerking, dat het gevaarlijk was zonder vuur\nop tochten te gaan, en dat was eene verstandige opmerking. Lucifers\nwaren in dien tijd nog onbekend, maar op eenige ellen afstands zagen\nzij op een groot vlot een vuur smeulen. Dadelijk slopen zij daarheen\nen namen een kooltje weg. Van die kleine dieverij werd een verbazend\navontuur gemaakt. Telkens riepen zij \"St.\" en stonden stil met den\nwijsvinger op de lippen, grepen naar denkbeeldige dolkgevesten en gaven\nfluisterende schrikwekkende bevelen om den vijand, als hij hen mocht\novervallen, \"den dolk tot aan 't gevest in 't lijf te steken,\" omdat\n\"lijken niets navertellen.\" Zij wisten wel, dat de bemanning van het\nvlot in het stadje aan het hout stapelen was of in de herberg zat,\ndoch die wetenschap ontsloeg hen niet van de verplichting het geval\nop zeerooverswijs te behandelen. Daarop staken zij met hun vlot\nvan wal. Tom nam de bevelhebbersplaats in. Huck posteerde zich bij\nde achterriemen en Joe op den voorsteven. Tom stond midden op het\nvaartuig met gefronste wenkbrauwen en over elkaar geslagen armen en\ngaf zijne bevelen met eene onderdrukte, barsche stem.\n\n\"Laveeren en het schip onder den wind brengen!\"\n\n\"Ja, ja, kapitein!\"\n\n\"Vooruit, voor--uit!\"\n\n\"Het gaat vooruit, kapitein!\"\n\n\"Zet het iets naar voren!\"\n\n\"Het is geschied, kapitein!\"\n\nDaar de knapen steeds in dezelfde richting midden in den stroom de\nrivier afzakten, was het niet twijfelachtig of deze bevelen werden\nmaar voor de leus geven en hadden geen bijzonder doel.\n\n\"Welke zeilen voert het in top?\"\n\n\"De boeglijnszeilen, de topzeilen en de fokken, kapitein!\"\n\n\"Hijsch de voormarszeilen! Maak boven aan de steng een stuk of zes\nlijnen los! Past op nu!\"\n\n\"Ja, ja, kapitein.\"\n\n\"De topzeilen reven! Toe dan, jongen!\"\n\n\"Ja, ja, kapitein.\"\n\n\"Het roer tegen den wind! Naar bakboord! Houdt je je goed,\nmannen! Voorwaarts.\"\n\n\"Het gaat voorwaarts, kapitein.\"\n\nHet vlot dreef een weinig naar den kant af, de knapen roeiden weder\nnaar het midden en legden toen de riemen neder. Het water was laag en\nde stroom dus niet sterk. Gedurende de eerste drie kwartier werd er\nnauwelijks een woord gesproken. Toen gleed het vlot langs de op eenigen\nafstand liggende stad, welker richting door enkele flikkerende lichten\nwerd aangewezen. Daar lag zij, in diepen slaap verzonken, ver van de\nonmetelijke watervlakte, waarin duizenden sterren zich spiegelden,\nonbewust van de vreeselijke gebeurtenis, die juist plaats greep. De\nzwarte Roover stond nog met over elkaar geslagen armen op het dek,\neen laatsten blik werpende op het tooneel van geluk en lijden, vervuld\nvan de begeerte dat zij hem zien mocht, terwijl hij daar buiten op\nde onstuimige wateren, met een onverschrokken gemoed, gevaar en dood\ntrotseerde en met een koelen glimlach op de lippen zijn lot te gemoet\nging. Hij verbeeldde zich--zonder veel moeite--dat Jacksons Island\noneindig ver van St. Petersburg verwijderd was en daarom wierp hij,\nbij de gedachte aan dien afstand, een laatsten blik op de stad, met\neen gebroken maar toch bevredigd hart. De andere zeeroovers stonden\nook laatste blikken te werpen en allen keken zoo lang, dat zij bijna\nuit den koers van het eiland dreven. Doch zij bemerkten het gevaar\nbijtijds en beijverden zich om het af te wenden.\n\nTegen twee uur in den morgen landde het vlot een paar honderd ellen\nboven de aanlegplaats van het eiland, en de knapen waadden door het\nwater om hunne lading te ontschepen. Tot de kleine uitrusting van\nhet vlot behoorde ook een oud zeil. Dit werd over een uithoek in de\nstruiken gespannen, om als tent ter beschutting van de proviand te\ndienen, doch zelven besloten zij bij gunstig weder in de open lucht\nte slapen, zooals dat bandieten betaamt.\n\nDaarop legden zij een vuurtje aan tegen den kant van een hooge\nhoutmijt, diep in het sombere woud en begonnen wat spek in de koekenpan\nte bakken, terwijl zij hierbij de helft verorberden van den voorraad\nbrood, dien zij hadden medegebracht. Het was een ontzaglijk genot om\ndaar hun feestmaal te houden, als wilden in een maagdelijk woud, op een\nonbewoond eiland, ver van de verblijfplaatsen der menschen. Al etende\nlegden zij dan ook de gelofte af om nooit weder tot de beschaafde\nstreken terug te keeren.\n\nDe stijgende vlammen verlichten hun aangezicht en wierpen een rooden\ngloed op het glinsterend groen en de zich sierlijk om de boomstammen\nslingerende ranken. Toen de laatste knappende stukjes spek verdwenen\nwaren en het laatste brokje brood was verslonden, strekten de knapen\nwelbehagelijk hunne leden op het mostapijt uit. Zij hadden wel een\nkoeler plekje kunnen vinden, doch zij wilden zich het romantisch\ngenot van een knetterend kampvuur niet ontzeggen.\n\n\"Is het niet heerlijk?\" vroeg Joe.\n\n\"Ja, het is verrukkelijk,\" antwoordde Tom.\n\n\"Wat zouden de jongens nu wel zeggen, als zij ons zagen?\"\n\n\"Zeggen? Wel, zij zouden goud geven on hier te zitten. Wat zeg jij,\nHucky?\"\n\n\"Ik zeg,\" antwoordde Huckleberry, \"dat het mij bevalt. Ik verlang\nhet nooit beter te hebben. Gewoonlijk krijg ik niet genoeg te eten\nen hier kunnen ze me niet komen schoppen en mishandelen.\"\n\n\"'t Is ook juist een leventje voor mij,\" zeide Tom. \"Je behoeft\n's morgens niet vroeg op te staan, je niet te wasschen, niet naar\nschool te gaan en allerlei onzin te doen. Zie je nu wel, Joe, dat\neen zeeroover, als hij aan wal is, _niets_ te doen heeft, terwijl een\nkluizenaar moet bidden en nooit gekheid kan maken, omdat hij altijd\nalleen zit.\"\n\n\"Ja, je hebt gelijk,\" zeide Joe; \"ik verwachtte er niet veel goeds\nvan, dat weet je, maar nu ik het geprobeerd heb, vind ik het veel\npleizieriger om zeeroover te zijn.\"\n\n\"Je ziet ook,\" zeide Tom: \"de menschen geven tegenwoordig niet zoo veel\nmeer om kluizenaars als in den ouden tijd, maar voor zeeroovers hebben\nzij altijd ontzag. En buitendien moet een kluizenaar op de hardste\nplaats slapen die hij maar vinden kan en zich in zakken kleeden,\nen asch op zijn hoofd strooien, en in den regen buiten staan en...\"\n\n\"Waarom moet hij zakken dragen en asch op zijn hoofd strooien?\" vroeg\nHuck.\n\n\"Dat weet ik niet. Maar ze doen het allemaal. Als jij een kluizenaar\nwas, zou je het ook moeten doen.\"\n\n\"Ik zou je bedanken,\" zeide Huck.\n\n\"Wat zou je dan?\"\n\n\"Dat weet ik niet, maar dat zeker niet.\"\n\n\"Wel, Huck, je zoudt het _moeten_; je zoudt niet anders kunnen.\"\n\n\"Wel, ik zou het niet verdragen; ik zou op den loop gaan.\"\n\n\"Op den loop gaan! Nu, je zoudt eene mooie soort van heremiet wezen. Je\nzoudt ze tot schande maken.\"\n\nDe Roode Hand gaf geen antwoord, daar zijn brein vervuld was met iets\nanders. Hij had juist een pijpekop schoongemaakt, er een rieten steel\naan vastgehecht, den kop met tabak gevuld en was bezig, met behulp\nvan een stukje brandende steenkool, dat tegen de tabak gedrukt werd,\nwolken van geurigen rook uit te blazen.\n\nHij baadde zich in weelde en genot en de andere zeeroovers benijdden\nhem deze heerlijke ondeugd en besloten bij zichzelven, zich haar\neigen te maken. Een oogenblik later zeide Huck:\n\n\"Wat hebben zeeroovers te doen?\"\n\n\"O,\" zeide Tom, \"zij leiden een woelig leventje: kapen schepen en\nverbranden die, stelen geld en begraven dat op geheimzinnige plaatsen\nop hun eiland, waar het door geesten en spoken bewaakt wordt. Voorts\nvermoorden zij de geheele bemanning van het schip.\"\n\n\"En zij nemen de vrouwen met zich naar het eiland,\" zeide Joe,\n\"want vrouwen worden niet vermoord.\"\n\n\"Neen,\" antwoordde Tom toestemmend, \"zij vermoorden geene vrouwen,\ndaarvoor zijn zij te edelmoedig. En de vrouwen zijn altijd mooi ook.\"\n\n\"En dragen zij niet kleeren van beestenvellen?\"\n\n\"Neen, toch niet,\" antwoordde Joe vol geestdrift. \"Geheel van goud,\nzilver en diamanten.\"\n\n\"Wie?\" vroeg Huck.\n\n\"Wel, de zeeroovers.\"\n\nHuck keek met een wanhopigen blik naar zijn eigen plunje.\n\n\"Ik geloof niet, dat ik geschikte kleeren voor een zeeroover heb,\"\nzeide hij met een droevig pathos in zijne stem, \"maar ik heb geene\nandere dan deze.\"\n\nDoch Tom en Joe vertelden hem, dat de mooie kleeren spoedig zouden\nkomen, wanneer zij op avonturen zouden zijn uitgegaan. Zij gaven\nhem te verstaan, dat zijne lompen voldoende waren on te beginnen,\nofschoon het bij rijke zeeroovers de gewoonte was met eene behoorlijke\ngarderobe van wal te steken.\n\nVan lieverlede begon het gebabbel te verminderen en daalde de\nslaap op de oogleden der jeugdige vluchtelingen neer. De pijp\ngleed de \"Roode Hand\" uit de vingers en hij sliep weldra den slaap\ndes rechtvaardigen. De Schrik van den Oceaan en de Zwarte Roover\nder Spaansche Zee sliepen niet zoo gemakkelijk in. Zij zeiden hun\navondgebed zachtjes en liggend op, daar er niemand was, die hen gebood\nte knielen en hen het luide deed uitspreken. Wel hadden zij veel lust\nhet gebed achterwege te laten, doch zij maakten zich bevreesd, dat\nzij, wanneer ze zoo goddeloos waren op eens een bliksemstraal van den\nhemel op hunne hoofden zouden doen nederdalen. Juist toen zij in het\nrijk der droomen zouden gaan zweven, kwam een kwelgeest hen storen,\ndie niet wilde wijken. Deze was het geweten. Eerst achtervolgde hij\nhen met de beschuldiging dat zij weggeloopen waren en daarna met het\nverwijt, dat zij vleesch gestolen hadden. Zij trachtten hem tot zwijgen\nte brengen, door hem te herinneren, dat zij toch dikwijls koekjes en\nappels hadden weggenomen, doch hij liet zich door schoonschijnende\nredeneeringen niet afschepen. Hij wilde over het onweerlegbaar feit\nniet heenstappen, dat lekkers wegnemen slechts \"snoepen\" was, terwijl\nhet ontvreemden van spek, ham en dergelijke, niets anders mocht\nheeten dan \"stelen\" en dat dit in den Bijbel verboden werd. Daarop\nbesloten zij in hun binnenste, om zoolang zij het door hen gekozen\nberoep uitoefenden, hunne zeerooverijen niet meer met de misdaad van\nstelen te bezoedelen. Op die wijs werd er een wapenstilstand met het\ngeweten gesloten en onze zeeroovertjes vielen gerust in slaap.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XIV.\n\n\nToen Tom den volgenden ochtend wakker werd, begreep hij eerst niet\nwaar hij was. Hij ging opzitten, wreef zich de oogen en keek in\n't rond; toen vatte hij het. De ochtendschemering had haar koelen\ngrauwen sluier uitgespreid en de aangrijpende kalmte en stilte van\nhet woud gaf een heerlijk gevoel van rust en vrede. Geen blad bewoog,\ngeen geluid verstoorde de overdenkingen der groote natuur. Diamanten\ndauwdroppels schitterden op de bladeren en het gras. Uit het met een\nlaag witte asch bedekte kampvuur steeg een dunne, blauwe rookwolk\nrecht naar boven. Joe en Huck lagen nog te slapen. Daar deed ver\nachter in de bosschen een vogel zijne roepstem hooren, die dadelijk\ndoor anderen beantwoord werd, en te gelijk vernam men het gehamer van\nden boomspecht. Langzamerhand ging de grijze morgendamp in een witten\nnevel over en werd het minder koud. Van lieverlede vermenigvuldigden\nzich ook de geluiden en openbaarde zich het leven. De wonderbare\nnatuur schudde den slaap af en ontplooide zich voor de oogen van den\npeinzenden knaap. Een klein, groen wormpje kroop over een bedauwd\nblad, hief bij wijlen twee derden van zijn lichaam op, snuffelde\nin alle hoekjes en gaatjes en ging toen weder voort. Volgens Tom\nwas dat wormpje bezig opmetingen te doen. Toen het eindelijk uit\neigen beweging naar hem toe kwam, bleef de knaap doodstil zitten\nen al naarmate het beestje hem naderde of een anderen weg scheen te\nwillen nemen, klom of daalde zijn hoop. Eindelijk bleef het gedurende\neenige voor den knaap angstige oogenblikken, het kopje onbeweeglijk\nopwaarts gericht houden en zette zich ten slotte op Toms been neder,\nover het lichaam van den knaap een reis te maken. Dat deed hem het\nhart van vreugde opspringen, want het beduidde, dat hij een nieuw\npak zou krijgen,--zonder eenigen twijfel een zeerooversuniform.\n\nDaarop verscheen er zonder dat men zeggen kon van waar, een optocht\nvan mieren, die haar dagtaak aanvingen. Een van haar sleepte moedig\neen doode spin, vijfmaal grooter dan zij zelve, tusschen hare\npooten voort en zette die op een boomstam. Een bruin gespikkeld\nOnze-Lieven-Heersbeestje beklom de duizelingwekkende hoogte van een\ngrasscheut en Tom boog zich over het diertje been en zeide:\n\n\n    \"Lieven-Heershaantje, Lieven-Heershaantje, vlucht heen,\n                                                    vlucht heen;\n    Uw huis staat in brand, uwe kinderen zijn alleen.\"\n\n\nEn het diertje sloeg de vleugeltjes uit en vloog weg om te zien\nof de knaap waarheid sprak, waarover deze zich in 't minst niet\nverbaasde. Immers hij wist vanouds, dat dit insect lichtgeloovig\nwas op 't punt van brand en hij had menigmaal de onnoozelheid van\n't beestje verschalkt. Toen kwam er een steenmot, die traag zijn\nrond lichaam medesleepte en Tom raakte het diertje aan om het met\nopgetrokken pooten te zien ineenrollen en te doen alsof het dood was.\n\nDe vogels waren intusschen druk aan het zingen en kweelen gegaan. Een\nspotvogel zette zich op een boom boven Toms hoofd neder en bootste, dol\nvan pret, met trillende stem, de geluiden na der andere vogels. Toen\nstreek een schrille meerkol, als een blauwe vlam, naar omlaag en ging\nop een tak zitten, bijkans binnen het bereik van den knaap. Hij hield\nzijn kopje op zijde en keek de vreemdelingen verbaasd en nieuwsgierig\naan. Een grijze eekhoorn en een groote vos sprongen om hem heen en\ngingen af en toe opzitten, on hem te bekijken en op hun manier tegen\nhem te praten. Deze bewoners der wildernis toch hadden blijkbaar nooit\nte voren een menschelijk wezen gezien en wisten nauwelijks of zij er\nbang voor moesten zijn of niet. De geheele natuur was klaar wakker\nen in beweging; lange zonnestralen schoten door het dichte loover en\nenkele kapellen verschenen fladderend op het tooneel.\n\nTom schudde de andere zeeroovers wakker; juichend sprongen zij op en\nbinnen een paar minuten hadden de drie knapen hunne kleeren uitgegooid\nen speelden zij \"krijgertje\" en \"haasjeover\" in het ondiepe, heldere\nwater bij de witte zandbank. Zij dachten niet meer aan het stadje, dat\ndaar achter de majestueuze watervlakte lag te slapen. Een wisselzieke\nvloed of eene lichte wassing der rivier had hun vlot medegenomen,\ndoch dit maakte hen niet bezorgd. Integendeel zij verheugden zich\ner over, want het was hun alsof daarmede de band die hen nog aan de\nbeschaafde wereld hechtte, voorgoed was verbroken.\n\nToen keerden zij verfrischt, vroolijk en verrukt naar hun kamp terug\nen weldra spreidde het opgerakelde vuur lustig zijne vlammen in 't\nrond. Huck ontdekte in de buurt een bron van helder, koud water en\nde jongens vervaardigde kopjes uit groote eiken en walnoten bladeren\nen maakten de opmerking dat water, gedronken in zulk een woest oord\nen onder zulke romantische omstandigheden, een uitmuntend surrogaat\nvoor koffie is. Toen Joe het mes in de zijde spek wilde zetten, om\nreepjes voor het ontbijt te snijden, werd hij door de andere verzocht\ndaarmede eenige minuten te wachten, daar zij een veelbelovend plekje\nin de rivier ontdekt hadden om te visschen. Bijna onmiddellijk daarop,\neer Joe nog ongeduldig kon worden, kwamen zij terug met een stuk of\nwat mooie forellen en een paar baarsjes, voorraad genoeg, meende ze,\nvoor een geheel huisgezin. De visch werd dadelijk met spekvet gebakken,\nen nooit scheen ze zoo lekker te hebben gesmaakt. Zij wisten niet\ndat zoetwatervisch altijd 't best smaakt, wanneer zij, dadelijk nadat\nzij is gevangen, gekookt of gebakken wordt, en dat slapen in de open\nlucht, baden en ferme honger de beste saus bij den maaltijd is. Na\nhet ontbijt zochten zij een schaduwrijk plekje op, waar zij zich\nnederlegden, terwijl Huck zijn pijpje rookte, en toen de vermoeidheid\ngeweken was, gingen zij het bosch in, op een verkenningstocht. Zij\nwandelden vroolijk voort over stukken vermolmd hout, door dichte\nkreupelbosschen en onder reusachtige woudkoningen van wier kruin tot\nop den grond, sierlijke kransen van wilde-wijngaardloof afhingen;\nterwijl zij nu en dan verrast werden door allerliefste open plekjes\nbedekt met een grastapijt en met schitterende bloemen bezaaid. Zij\nvonden eene menigte zaken, die hen in verrukking brachten, doch niets\ndat hen bepaald verbaasde. Om het uur namen zij een zwembad en tegen\nhet midden van den dag keerden zij weder naar het kamp terug. Zij\nwaren te hongerig om zich den tijd tot visschen te gunnen, doch\nniet te hongerig om zich met een maal van koude ham te vergenoegen\nen vlijden zich daarna op een schaduwrijke plaats neder on wat te\nbabbelen. Hun praatlust begon echter alras te kwijnen en verdween\nweldra geheel. De plechtige stilte van het woud en de doodelijke\neenzaamheid gingen haar invloed op hen uitoefenen. Zij raakten aan\n't mijmeren. Een onbestemde lusteloosheid overviel hen, die gaandeweg\neen bepaalden vorm aannam, namelijk het pijnigend heimwee. Zelf Finn\nmet de Roode Hand droomde van zijne stoepen en leege vaten. Doch zij\nschaamden zich over hunne kinderachtigheid, en niemand had den moed\nzijne gedachten uit te spreken. Reeds gedurig hadden zij gemeend in\nde verte een vreemdsoortig geluid te hooren, iets als het verwijderd\ntikken van een klok. Maar nu werd dat geluid sterker en trok het\nbepaald de aandacht. De jongens voelden zich niet op hun gemak,\nkeken elkaar aan en gingen zitten luisteren. Eerst hoorden ze niets\nmeer en daarna een dof gerommel als van naderenden donder.\n\n\"Wat is dat?\" riep Joe angstig uit.\n\n\"Ja, wat zou dat kunnen wezen!\" fluisterde Tom.\n\n\"'t Is geen donder,\" zeide Huckleberry, op allesbehalve gerusten toon,\n\"want donder....\"\n\n\"Stil,\" zeide Tom \"luister en spreek geen woord.\"\n\nZij wachtten eenige oogenblikken, die een eeuw schenen en toen werd\nde plechtige stilte weder door het doffe gerommel verstoord.\n\n\"Laat ons hoogte gaan nemen!\"\n\nZij sprongen op, ijlden naar den oever, kropen onder het kreupelhout\ndoor en staarden over de breede watervlakte. Daar zagen zij de kleine\nstoomveerboot, zoo wat een uur van de stad op en neder varen. Het dek\nscheen zwart van menschen. Een aantal schuitjes en roeibootjes dreven\nom en bij de veerboot, doch de knapen konden niet zien wat de mannen,\ndie er in zaten, uitvoerden. Plotseling rees een wolk van witten rook\nuit de boot op, voorafgegaan door een harden knal en daarop liet zich\nhet doffe gerommel weder hooren.\n\n\"Ik weet het!\" riep Tom uit, \"er is iemand verdronken!\"\n\n\"Daar heb je het,\" zeide Huck; \"dat hebben ze van den zomer ook gedaan,\ntoen Bill Tanner verdronken is. Toen schoten zij ook een kanon op\nhet water af, omdat dan het lijk gewoonlijk komt bovendrijven. Ja,\nen soms nemen zij brooden en doen daar kwikzilver in en laten ze dan\ndrijven, en die brooden dobberen naar den persoon die verdronken is\ntoe en houden daar stil.\"\n\n\"Daar heb ik ook wel van gehoord,\" zeide Joe, \"maar ik zou wel eens\nwillen weten, hoe het brood dan blijft stilstaan.\"\n\n\"O,\" zeide Tom, \"dat ligt niet zoozeer aan het brood, als wel aan de\nwoorden, die er bij gesproken worden, eer zij het te water laten.\"\n\n\"Maar zij zeggen er niets bij,\" zeide Huck. \"Ik zelf ben er bij\ngeweest, toen zij het deden, en zij spraken geen woord.\"\n\n\"Wel, dat is grappig,\" zeide Tom. \"Maar het is toch zeker, dat zij\ner iets bij denken. Dat spreekt vanzelf, dat weet iedereen.\"\n\nDe andere jongens stemden toe, dat voor die bewering van Tom\nveel te zeggen was, omdat een redelooze klomp brood, die niet in\ntooverformulieren onderricht was, niet verwacht kon worden, als een\nmet rede begaafd wezen te handelen, wanneer hij zulk een ernstig werk\nte verrichten had.\n\n\"Sapperloot, ik wou dat ik er bij was,\" zeide Joe.\n\n\"Ik ook,\" zeide Huck; \"en ik zou goud geven, als ik wist wie het is.\"\n\nDe knapen bleven luisteren en de boot bespieden. Op eens kreeg Tom\neene ingeving en riep uit:\n\n\"Jongens, ik weet al wie er verdronken is! Wij zijn het.\"\n\nIn een oogenblik waren zij helden geworden. Zij hadden een schitterende\nzege behaald, want zij werden gemist en betreurd. Harten waren\nom hunnentwil gebroken, tranen over hen geschreid, gewetens aan\nhet knagen gebracht en verdriet en berouw gevoeld. En wat nog het\nheerlijkste was van alles, zij waren het onderwerp van gesprek van de\ngansche stad en werden dientengevolge door al de jongens benijd. Dit\nwas verrukkelijk. Nu was het toch wel de moeite waard om zeeroover\nte worden.\n\nTegen licht en donker voer de veerboot naar hare gewone ankerplaats\nterug en verdwenen de schuitjes. De zeeroovers keerden weder naar\nhun kamp en jubelden van vreugde over hunne fonkelnieuwe grootheid\nen de onrust, die zij hadden doen ontstaan. Er werd weder visch\ngevangen en gebakken, en toen deze verorberd was, ging men zich in\ngissingen verdiepen, omtrent de geruchten, die er te St. Petersburg\nover hen zouden verspreid worden; en de schilderijen, die zij over den\nalgemeenen rouw ophingen, gaven van hun standpunt gezien, reden tot\ntevredenheid. Doch naarmate de schaduwen van den nacht hen bedekten,\nwerden de knapen stiller en zij eindigden met in het vuur te staren,\nterwijl hunne gedachten blijkbaar elders verwijlden. De opgewondenheid\nwas voorbij en Tom en Joe konden het denkbeeld niet verzetten, dat er\nte huis personen waren, die niet zooveel plezier in deze grap hadden\nals zij. Zij begonnen zich angstig te maken en ongelukkig te gevoelen\nen onverhoeds ontsnapte hun een paar malen een zware zucht. Eindelijk\nwaagde Joe het, beschroomd te vragen, wat de anderen er van zouden\ndenken, als zij weder tot de beschaving terugkeerden,--nu niet--maar...\n\nTom beantwoordde die vraag met een spotlach en Huck, die hoogst\nvrijheidlievend was, hield zich bij Tom en de weifelaar palmde dadelijk\nin, zeggende, dat hij er niets van gemeend had en dat men volstrekt\nniet moest denken, dat hij naar huis verlangde. Het oproer was alzoo\nvoor het oogenblik gedempt.\n\nBij het vallen van den avond begon Huck te dommelen en was kort daarna\naan 't snorken. Joe volgde zijn voorbeeld. Tom bleef onbeweeglijk\nop zijne armen liggen en staarde hem eenige oogenblikken strak\naan. Eindelijk stond hij voorzichtig op en ging bij den weerschijn\nvan het flikkerend kampvuur aan het zoeken in het gras. Hij raapte\neenige stukjes van den witten bast van een vijgeboom op en koos er\ntwee, die hem naar den zin schenen te zijn. Toen knielde hij bij het\nvuur neder en schreef met moeite, met een stukje roodkrijt, iets op\nelk van die beide. Daarna rolde hij er een op, stak dat in den zak\nvan zijn buis en legde het andere in den hoed van Joe, dien hij vlak\nbij den eigenaar neerzette. Verder vulde hij den hoed met eenige\nschooljongensschatten van schier onmetelijke waarde, als een stuk\nwit krijt, een gomlastieken bal, drie vischhaken en een zoogenaamden\n\"echten glazen knikker.\" Vervolgens sloop hij behoedzaam op de teenen\ntusschen de boomen weg, totdat hij buiten het gehoor was en liep toen\nzoo gauw als zijne beenen hem dragen konden, in de richting van de\nzandbank voort.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XV.\n\n\nEenige oogenblikken later was Tom in de ondiepe rivier verdwenen.\n\nEer hij met het halve lijf onder water was, had hij reeds de helft\nvan den weg afgelegd. Daar de stroom hem nu niet langer veroorloofde\nte waden, sloeg hij moedig armen en beenen uit, om de overschietende\nhonderd el door te zwemmen. Hij zwom zooveel mogelijk met den stroom\nmede, doch werd gedurig met meer kracht teruggedreven dan hij verwacht\nhad. Toch bereikte hij eindelijk den oever en liet zich langs den kant\nvoortdrijven, totdat hij een geschikt plekje vond om te landen. Aan\nwal gekomen, bevoelde hij eerst zijn borstzak on zich te overtuigen,\ndat de boomschors nog op hare plaats zat, en toen maakte hij zich met\nzijne druipnatte kleederen, steeds den oever volgend, door de bosschen\nvoort. Even voor tien uren, kwam hij aan een open plek tegenover de\nstad en zag de veerboot in de schaduw der boomen bij den hoogen dijk\nliggen. Alles onder de flikkerende sterren was rustig. Tom kroop den\ndijk af, loerde naar alle kanten, liet zich in het water glijden en\nzwom met drie of vier slagen naar het bootje toe, dat sleepdienst\ndeed bij de veerboot. Hij klom er in, ging onder de roeibank liggen\nen wachtte met een kloppend hart. Spoedig werd de oude bel geluid en\neene stem gaf bevel om het anker te lichten. Een minuut of wat daarna\nwerd de voorsteven van het schuitje door de golven, die de boot deed\nontstaan, omhooggeheven en de reis nam een aanvang. Tom was zeer in\nzijn schik, dat hij nog juist bijtijds was gekomen: immers hij wist,\ndat de boot dien dag voor de laatste maal dienst deed.\n\nNa tien of twaalf minuten stopte de boot, waarop Tom overboord\nstapte en in de duisternis naar den oever kroop. Hij ging echter\nvoorzichtigheidshalve omstreeks vijftien el beneden het vaarwater\naan wal, ten einde het gevaar van ontdekt te worden te ontkomen. Toen\nsloop hij voort, langs weinig bezochte stegen en straten, totdat hij\nvoor de schutting aan den achterkant van tantes huis stond. Na deze te\nzijn overgeklauterd, stapte hij voort tot aan den elzeboom en tuurde\nnaar binnen door het raam van de zitkamer, waar een licht brandde.\n\nDaar zaten tante Polly, Sid, Marie en de moeder van Joe bij\nelkander. Zij hadden zich rondom de tafel geschaard en het bed stond\nvlak bij den ingang. Tom stapte behoedzaam naar de deur, en lichtte\nvoorzichtig de klink op; toen drukte hij zachtjes met zijne knie\ntegen de paneelen en de deur week met een licht gekraak. Hij ging\nvoorzichtig met duwen voort, telkens bevende, wanneer hij gerucht\nmaakte, totdat hij dacht dat hij er zich op de knie\u00ebn wel door zou\nkunnen persen. Reeds was zijn hoofd in de kamer, toen hij tante Polly\nhoorde zeggen:\n\n\"Hoe zou de kaars zoo waaien? Ik geloof waarempel, dat de deur\nopenstaat. Wel, al zijn leven! De wonderen staan niet stil. Kom,\nSid ga haar sluiten.\"\n\nTom verdween van pas onder het bed. Hij bleef een oogenblik stil\nliggen om adem te scheppen en kroop toen zoover naar voren, dat hij\nbijkans tantes voet raakte.\n\n\"Maar, zooals ik zeide,\" vervolgde tante Polly, \"eigenlijk slecht was\nhij niet, alleen maar wat ondeugend, een beetje lichtzinnig en wild,\nweet je. Het kind dacht geen kwaad en was de goedhartigste jongen\nvan de wereld.\" En zij begon te schreien.\n\n\"Precies zoo was 't met mijn Joe: altijd vol jongensstreken en\nhandig in allerlei kattekwaad,--maar hij was de onbaatzuchtigheid en\nvriendelijkheid zelve. En, de hemel zij mij genadig--te moeten denken,\ndat ik hem zweepslagen gegeven heb, omdat hij room gesnoept had, die\nik zelve uit het raam heb geworpen, omdat ze zuur was geworden!--En\ndat ik hem nooit, nooit, nooit meer op deze aarde zal terugzien,--die\narme, miskende jongen!\"\n\nEn juffrouw Harper snikte, alsof haar het hart zou breken.\n\n\"Ik hoop dat Tom in betere gewesten is,\" zeide Sid; \"doch als hij\nhier wat meer...\"\n\n\"Sid!\"\n\nTom voelde het fonkelen van tantes oog, ofschoon hij het niet zien\nkon. \"Geen woord ten nadeele van Tom, nu hij is heengegaan. God zal\nhem oordeelen, en gij behoeft u daarover niet moeilijk te maken,\njongenheer.--Och, juffrouw Harper, ik kan hem niet missen; ik weet\nniet, hoe ik het zonder hem stellen moet. Hij was mij zulk een troost,\nhoewel hij mijn arm hart ten bloede toe kon plagen.\"\n\n\"De Heer heeft gegeven, de Heer heeft genomen, de naam des Heeren\nzij geloofd!\" snikte juffrouw Harper. \"Maar 't is zoo hard, o het\nis zoo hard! Verleden Zaterdag nog stak Joe vlak onder mijn neus een\nvoetzoeker af en ik heb hem geslagen, totdat hij op den grond lag te\nspartelen. Weinig dacht ik toen, hoe spoedig.... O, als het nog over\nte doen was, ik zou er hem voor aan mijn hart drukken en zeggen....\"\n\n\"Ja, ja, ja, ik begrijp volkomen wat gij voelen moet, juffrouw Harper:\nik kan het mij best voorstellen. Gisterenmiddag liet Tom mijn arme\nkat van zijn drankje nemen, en ik dacht dat mijn huis onderstboven\nzou keeren. En, God vergeve mij, ik kneep, met mijn vingerhoed aan\nden vinger, het kind in zijn oor dat het kraakte. Mijn jongen, mijn\narme, gestorven jongen! Doch hij is nu uit zijn lijden. En de laatste\nwoorden, die ik hem hoorde zeggen, waren een verwijt....\"\n\nDe gedachte aan dit feit was te bitter voor de oude juffrouw en zij\nbarstte in tranen uit. Tom voelde dat zijn oogen vochtig werden,\nnog meer uit medelijden met zichzelven dan met de anderen. Hij kon\nMarie hooren snikken en nu en dan een vriendelijk woordje over hem\nin het midden brengen. Meer dan ooit kreeg hij een hoogen dunk van\nzichzelven. Toch was hij zoo diep door de droefheid zijner tante\ngeschokt, dat hij snakte om het bed uit te springen en zich in hare\narmen te werpen,--doch hij bedwong zich en bleef liggen.\n\nAl luisterend, ving hij bij stukken en brokken op, dat men eerst\nverondersteld had, dat de knapen met zwemmen verdronken waren:\ntoen was het kleine houtvlot vermist en was er door een paar jongens\nmedegedeeld, dat de verloren knapen voorspeld hadden, dat het stadje\neerlang iets hooren zou. De wijzen van St. Petersburg hadden het een\nmet het ander in verband gebracht en waren tot het besluit gekomen,\ndat de knapen met het houtvlot van wal gestoken waren en bij de\neerstvolgende stad aan wal gegaan waren. Doch tegen den middag was\nhet houtvlot aan den oever van de Missouri, eenige uren van de stad,\nteruggevonden en toen was de hoop verdwenen. Zij moesten verdronken\nzijn, anders zou de honger hen bij het vallen van den nacht, zooal\nniet eerder, naar huis hebben gejaagd. Men geloofde algemeen, dat\nhet eene wanhopige zaak was naar de lijken te zoeken, daar de knapen\nongetwijfeld midden in de rivier verdronken waren. Anders immers zouden\nzij, die voor goede zwemmers bekend stonden, het wel tot den oever\nhebben kunnen brengen. Deze dingen waren voorgevallen op Woensdag,\nen als de lijken v\u00f3\u00f3r Zondag niet werden gevonden, zou men de hoop\nopgeven en er dien morgen een lijkdienst gehouden worden. Deze laatste\nmededeeling deed Tom even sidderen.\n\nTegen elf uren stond Juffrouw Harper snikkend op om heen te gaan,\nen door eene opwelling van wederzijdsch medelijden gedreven, vlogen\nde beide van kinderen beroofde vrouwen elkander in de armen en namen\ndaarna afscheid.\n\nTante Polly zeide Sid en Marie dien avond met een buitengewone\nhartelijkheid \"goedennacht,\" en Sid perste zich een paar tranen uit\nde oogen, terwijl Marie luid snikkend naar boven ging. Toen knielde de\noude juffrouw neder en bad voor Tom z\u00f3\u00f3 vurig, z\u00f3\u00f3 roerend en met zulk\neen oneindige liefde, en hare oude stem beefde z\u00f3\u00f3, dat eer de laatste\nwoorden van dat gesprek uitgesproken waren, Tom in een bad van tranen\nlag. Hij moest zich, nadat de arme vrouw naar bed was gegaan, nog lang\nstilhouden, want zij bleef geruimen tijd wakker en gaf voortdurend\nin hartbrekende uitroepen aan hare droefheid lucht. Eindelijk, na\nzich nu op de eene en dan op de andere zijde geworpen te hebben,\nwas zij stil en kreunde alleen nog maar een weinig in haar slaap.\n\nNu kroop de knaap onder het bed uit, richtte zich langzaam op, hield\nzijne hand voor het nachtlicht en keek zijne tante aandachtig aan. Diep\nmedelijden met haar vervulde zijn hart. Hij haalde zijne vijgeboombast\nvoor den dag en hield dien bij het licht. Plotseling schoot hem iets\ngrappigs te binnen, verhelderde zijn gelaat; haastig stak hij zijne\nboomschors weer op, boog zich over tantes aangezicht heen en drukte\neen kus op hare bleeke lippen. Toen nam hij de terugreis aan en liet\nde deur in de klink vallen. Hij vond, zonder door iemand ontdekt\nte worden, op den tast zijn weg naar het veerbootje terug en stapte\nmoedig aan boord. Immers hij wist, dat de boot onbemand was behalve\nmisschien door den klepperman, die er altijd in kroop en doorgaans als\neen os sliep. Hij maakte het schuitje van den voorsteven der boot los,\nsloop er in en roeide omzichtig stroomopwaarts. Toen hij omstreeks\neen mijl had voortgeroeid, hield hij op eens schuins aan, begon te\nwerken zoo hard als hij kon en bereikte handig de overzijde. Hij\nhad grooten lust om het bootje buit te maken, daar hij het schip als\nwettige zeerooversprooi beschouwde, doch hij begreep te gelijkertijd\ndat er overal naar gezocht zou worden en dat eene ontdekking er het\ngevolg van kon zijn. Daarom stapte hij zonder buit aan wal en ging\nhet bosch in. Hij zette zich op den grond neder om uit te rusten,\nlegde zich de marteling op van wakker te blijven en zocht eindelijk\nzijne oude verblijfplaats weder op. De nacht was bijna voorbij en\nhet was klaar dag, toen hij voor de zandbank stond. Daar hield hij\nopnieuw halt en legde zich op den grond te slapen tot de zon aan den\nhemel stond en de groote rivier met haar glans verguldde.\n\nToen dompelde de knaap zich in den stroom en hield een oogenblik\nlater bij den ingang van het kamp stil, juist toen Joe uitriep:\n\n\"Neen, Tom is een eerlijke jongen en hij zal terugkeeren. Hij zal ons\nniet verlaten. Hij is er te trotsch voor, want hij weet, dat dit eene\nschande zou wezen voor een zeeroover. Zeker is hij op avonturen uit;\nhet zal mij benieuwen wat hij nu weer heeft uitgespookt.\"\n\n\"Goed,\" antwoordde Huck, \"maar als hij niet op zijn tijd past, is\nzijn ontbijt voor ons.\"\n\n\"Ja, als hij er niet is, maar dat is nog niet zeker. Er stond immers\nop de boomschors geschreven: _als_ ik er niet ben, is het ontbijt\nvoor ulieden.\"\n\n\"Wie is die hij?\" riep Tom met eene tooneelstem uit, terwijl hij met\nfiere houding het kamp binnenstapte.\n\nSpoedig was er een weelderig ontbijt van spek en visch opgedischt,\nwaaraan de knapen zich naar hartelust te goed deden. Onderwijl vertelde\nTom, met de noodige opsieringen, zijne avonturen van dien nacht. Toen\nhet verhaal ge\u00ebindigd was, werden zij drie snoevende, grootsprekende\nhelden. Na het ontbijt verschool Tom zich op een schaduwrijk plekje om\nte gaan slapen, en de beide andere zeeroovers gingen op de vischvangst.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XVI.\n\n\nNa het eten vertrokken de drie knapen naar de zandbank om\nschildpadeieren te zoeken. Zij stootten met stokken in het zand, en\nwanneer zij eene weeke plek vonden, legden zij zich op de knie\u00ebn en\ngroeven haar met de handen uit. Somtijds haalden zij vijftig of zestig\neieren uit \u00e9\u00e9n gat. Het waren witte, bolronde eitjes, iets kleiner dan\neen walnoot. Dien avond hadden zij een heerlijk maal van spiegeleieren,\ndat Vrijdagochtend nog eens herhaald werd. Na dat ontbijt van gebakken\neieren, begaven zij zich schreeuwend en jubelend naar de zandbank,\nspeelden \"krijgertje,\" ontdeden zich onderweg van hunne kleederen\nen liepen in Adams kostuum voort, totdat zij midden in het ondiepe\nwater stonden. Daarna spongen zij tegen den steilen oever op, van\nwelken zij gedurig tot groote vermeerdering der pret afsukkelden. Nu\nen dan hielden zij bij elkaar stand en gooiden elkaar met water,\nterwijl zij, on het kille nat te vermijden, elkander gedurig met\nafgewend gelaat naderden en eindigden met te grijpen en te worstelen,\ntotdat de sterkste zijn buurman onder water geduwd had en zij ten\nlaatste allen in een warnet van witte armen en beenen verdwenen, om\nspoedig daarop, blazend, spuwend, lachend en naar den adem hijgend,\nweder boven te komen.\n\nAls de krachten hun begaven, spartelden zij naar het droge, heete\nzand en legden zich daarop neder, om er zich mede te bedekken. En\ndan sprongen zij langzamerhand weder naar het water en vertoonden\ndat spelletje voor de tweede maal.\n\nEindelijk viel het hun in, dat hunne huid sprekend op een\nvleeschkleurig tricot geleek; dientengevolge werd er in het zand\neen cirkel getrokken en een paardenspel vertoond, met drie clowns,\nwant geen hunner wilde die schitterende rol aan den anderen afstaan.\n\nVervolgens werden de knikkers gehaald en werd er gestuit en gerold,\ntotdat ook dat spel verveelde. Daarna gingen Joe en Huck weder zwemmen,\nmaar Tom durfde zich daaraan niet meer wagen, omdat hij bij het\nuittrekken van zijn broek, het palingvel van zijne enkels gestroopt\nhad en hij zich niet kon begrijpen, dat hij zonder dit geheimzinnig\nvoorbehoedmiddel zoo lang aan de kramp ontkomen was. Hij waagde zich\nniet weder, eer hij dien talisman teruggevonden had, en toen waren de\nandere jongens moede en verlangden naar rust. Van lieverlede begonnen\nzij met loomen tred rond te dolen, werden zwaarmoedig en staarden\nverlangend over de breede rivier, naar de plek, waar St. Petersburg\nzich in de zon lag te koesteren. Tom bemerkte, dat hij met zijn grooten\nteen het woord \"Becky\" in het zand had geschreven. Hij wischte het\nuit en was boos op zichzelven om zijne zwakheid. Doch hij schreef het\nniettemin nog eens, wischte het nogmaals uit en ontworstelde zich\ntoen aan de verzoeking, door de andere jongens op te halen en zich\nbij hen te voegen.\n\nMaar de opgewektheid van Joe was voorbij en scheen niet terug te\nkeeren. Hij had zulk een heimwee, dat hij het nauwelijks meer uithouden\nkon. De tranen stonden hem in de oogen. Ook Huck was zwaarmoedig\nevenals Tom, doch de laatste durfde het niet toonen. Hij droeg een\ngeheim met zich om, dat hij niet gaarne wilde openbaren, doch waarmede\nhij, indien deze sombere, oproerige geest niet werd gefnuikt, wel voor\nden dag zoude moeten komen. Daarom zeide hij, schijnbaar zeer opgewekt:\n\n\"Ik wed, dat vroeger op dit eiland ook zeeroovers zijn geweest. Zullen\nwij eens op verkenning uitgaan? Zij hebben zeker hier of daar een\nschat begraven! Wat zou jelui hiervan zeggen, als je daar eens een\nverrotte kist vol goud en zilver voor je zaagt liggen,--h\u00e9?\"\n\nDit vooruitzicht echter wekte geen de minste opgewondenheid en\ner werd niet eens op geantwoord. Een paar andere verleidelijke\nvoorstellen vielen eveneens in het water. Dat was ontmoedigend. Joe\nkeek mistroostig voor zich en krabbelde met zijn stok in het\nzand. Eindelijk riep hij uit:\n\n\"O, jongens, laat ons het opgeven. Ik _moet_ naar huis; ik voel mij\nzoo verlaten.\"\n\n\"Kom, Joe dat zal langzamerhand wel beter worden,\" zeide Tom. \"Denk\nmaar eens aan al de gelegenheden, die je hier hebt om te visschen.\n\n\"Ik geef niet om visschen; ik verlang naar huis!\"\n\n\"Maar, Joe, nergens is zoo'n zwemplaats als hier.\"\n\n\"Wat kan mij het zwemmen schelen: 't is alsof het mij verveelt,\nnu niemand het mij verbiedt. Ik wil naar huis!\"\n\n\"O, hoe kinderachtig! Hij verlangt naar zijn moesje!\"\n\n\"Ja, ik _verlang_ naar moeder en dat zou jij ook doen, als je er een\nhadt. Ik ben niet kinderachtiger dan jij.\" En Joe begon te schreien.\n\n\"Wel, dan zullen wij het schreeuwpoppetje maar naar huis laten gaan,\nniet waar Huck? Arme jongen! Hij verlangt naar moesje! Nu, hij zal\nook naar haar toe gaan. Jij vindt het prettig hier, h\u00e9, Huck? Wij\nzullen blijven, niet waar?\"\n\nHuck antwoordde: \"Ja--a,\" maar het ging niet van harte.\n\n\"Ik spreek van mijn leven niet meer tegen jelui,\" zeide Joe en stond\nop. \"Daar nu!\"\n\nEn hij draaide de beide jongens den rug toe en ging zich verder\naankleeden.\n\n\"Wie geeft wat om jou?\" zeide Tom. \"Niemand heeft je noodig. Ga maar\nnaar huis on uitgelachen te worden. Jij bent een mooie zeeroover. Huck\nen ik zijn geen schreeuwpoppetjes. Wij blijven, niet waar, Huck? Wij\nlaten hem stilletjes trekken. Wij zullen het wel zonder hem stellen.\"\n\nMaar Tom voelde zich allesbehalve prettig en was in ernst ongerust,\ntoen hij Joe mismoedig zag voortgaan om zich te kleeden. Buitendien\nwas het onrustbarend te bemerken, dat Huck met belangstelling Joes\ntoebereidselen gadesloeg en een onheilspellend stilzwijgen in acht\nnam. Daar stapte Joe, zonder een woord tot afscheid, den kant op\nder zandbank. Het hart zonk Tom in de schoenen. Hij keek naar Huck,\nen Huck, die hem niet durfde aanzien, sloeg de oogen neder en zeide:\n\n\"Ik verlang ook zoo, Tom; ik heb mij hier nog meer verlaten gevoeld\ndat overal elders en nu zal het nog erger worden. Kom, Tom, laten\nwij ook gaan.\"\n\n\"Dank je wel; jelui kunt allebei gaan, als je verkiest. Ik denk\nte blijven.\"\n\n\"Tom, ik wou liever gaan.\"\n\n\"Nu, ga dan! Wie belet je?\"\n\n\"Tom, ik wou, dat jij ook meegingt. Toe, denk er eens over. Wij zullen\nbij de zandbank op je wachten.\"\n\n\"Dan zul je verduiveld lang moeten wachten; dat is alles wat ik je\nte zeggen heb.\"\n\nHuck ging verdrietig heen en Tom stond hem na te oogen, brandende van\nverlangen om hem te volgen en toch te trotsch om dat te doen. Hij\nhoopte dat de jongens zouden omkeeren, doch zij waren al uit het\ngezicht. Op eens voelde hij, dat het ontzettend eenzaam en stil om\nhem heen was geworden.\n\nNog eenmaal worstelde hij met zijn hooghartig gemoed, ijlde zijne\nmakkers achterna en gilde:\n\n\"Wacht! wacht! Ik moet je wat vertellen!\"\n\nDadelijk hielden zij stil en keerden zich om.\n\nToen hij hen had ingehaald, deelde hij hun een plannetje mede. Eerst\nhoorden zij hem gemelijk aan, maar toen zij eindelijk het punt\nontdekten waar hij hen hebben wilde, werd zijn plan met een luid\n\"hoera\" begroet, een prachtig denkbeeld genoemd en werd er verklaard,\ndat, als hij het dadelijk had medegedeeld, zij niet aan naar huis\ngaan gedacht zouden hebben.\n\nTom maakte over zijne terughoudendheid eenige schoonschijnende\nverontschuldigingen; de ware reden daarvan echter was de vrees,\ndat zelfs dit geheim niet langer in staat mocht zijn hen nog te doen\nblijven, en hij had het daarom als het laatste noodschot bewaard.\n\nDe knapen keerden vroolijk terug en gingen met opgewekt gemoed weder\naan het spelen, niet uitgepraat over het heerlijke denkbeeld van\nTom en vol bewondering over zijn vernuft. Na een smakelijk maal van\neieren en visch verklaarde Tom, dat hij lust had on te rooken. Joe\nvond dit een voortreffelijke inval en zeide, dat hij het ook eens\nwilde probeeren. Huck maakte pijpjes en stopte die. Onze nieuwelingen\nhadden nooit iets anders gerookt dan stroo-sigaren, doch dat waren\n\"flauwe dingen,\" te kinderachtig on meegeteld te worden.\n\nNu strekten zij zich op het mos uit, leunden welbehaaglijk op hunne\nellebogen en begonnen dapper te blazen. De tabak was lang niet lekker\nen maakte hen een beetje draaierig; doch Tom zeide:\n\n\"Nu, dat is gemakkelijk. Had ik geweten, dat er zoo weinig aan was,\ndan had ik het al lang geleerd.\"\n\n\"Ik ook,\" zeide Joe; \"het beduidt niets.\"\n\n\"Hoe menig keer,\" zeide Tom, \"heb ik rookers aangekeken en gedacht:\n'H\u00e8, ik wenschte dat ik het kon,' en dan hield ik het er voor, dat ik\nhet nooit zou kunnen leeren. Heb ik dat niet gezegd, Huck? Heb jij het\nmij niet hooren zeggen, Huck? Laat Huck zeggen, of het niet waar is.\"\n\n\"Ja, wel twintigmaal,\" zeide Huck.\n\n\"Neen,\" zeide Tom, \"wel honderdmaal. Eens nog, toen wij bij het\nslachthuis stonden. Herinner jij je dat niet, Huck? Bob Tanner was\ner ook bij en Johan Hatcher en Jeff Hatcher. Weet je niet meer, Huck,\ndat ik het zeide?\"\n\n\"Ja, zeker,\" antwoordde Huck. \"'t Was op denzelfden dag, waarop ik\nmijn albasten knikker verloor;--neen, 't was den dag te voren.\"\n\n\"Heb ik het je niet gezegd?\" zeide Tom. \"Huck herinnert het zich nog.\"\n\n\"Ik geloof, dat ik den geheelen dag wel pijpen zou kunnen rooken. Ik\nben niets misselijk.\"\n\n\"Ik ook niet,\" zeide Tom. \"Ik zou wel van den morgen tot den avond\nkunnen rooken, maar ik wed, dat Jeff Hatcher het niet zou kunnen.\"\n\n\"Jeff Hatcher! Wel, hij zou bij den tweeden trek al katterig\nworden. Laat hij het maar eens wagen, dan zul je wat zien!\"\n\n\"Ik geloof het ook.--En Johnny Miller... Ik zou Johnny Miller wel\neens met een pijp willen zien!\"\n\n\"En ik!\" zeide Joe. \"Ik ben zeker, dat Johnny Miller geen trekje kan\ndoen. Als hij maar \u00e9\u00e9n pijpje rookt, zou hij al ziek worden.\"\n\n\"Dat zou hij zeker, Joe.--Zeg, ik wou dat de jongens ons nu eens\nkonden zien.\"\n\n\"Ik ook.\"\n\n\"Zeg, jongens,\" zeide Tom, \"we moeten er niet van vertellen, en als we\ndan weder eens bij elkaar zijn, dan zal ik op je afkomen en zeggen:\n'Joe, kom geef mij een pijp; ik wou eens rooken,' en dan moet jij\nzeggen, zoo onverschillig mogelijk, alsof het niets was: 'Goed, ik heb\nmijn oude pijp en ook nog een andere, maar mijn tabak deugt niet.' En\ndan zal ik weer zeggen: 'O, dat doet er niet toe, als ze maar _zwaar_\nis.' En dan moet jij met de pijpen voor den dag komen en wij zullen\nze kalmpjes opsteken--en dan zul je ze eens zien kijken.\"\n\n\"Waaratje, dat zal grappig zijn, Tom; ik wou, dat het nu al zoo\nver was!\"\n\n\"Ik ook. En wanneer wij hun vertellen, dat we het geleerd hebben\ntoen we zeeroovers waren, zouden zij dan niet willen dat zij er bij\ngeweest waren?\"\n\n\"Neen, dat geloof ik niet; maar wij zullen er om wedden.\"\n\nDus ongeveer liep het gesprek der knapen. Langzamerhand echter begon\nhet een weinig te verflauwen en wilde het niet meer vlotten. De\ngapingen tusschen het eene onderwerp en het andere werden grooter en\nhet spuwen verbazingwekkend. Elke porie in de wangen der knapen werd\neen spuitende fontein en zij konden de kelders onder hun tong niet\nschielijk genoeg uitscheppen on eene overstrooming te voorkomen. Er\nkwamen tegen wil en dank kleine opwellingen in hun keel, die gevolgd\nwerden door aanvallen van misselijkheid. De beide knapen zagen er\nbleek en akelig uit. Eindelijk viel Joes pijp hem uit de krachtelooze\nvingers. Daarop volgde die van Tom. De beide fonteinen sprongen\nmet onstuimige woede en de beide pompen werden met kracht en geweld\nuitgeschept. Joe zeide flauwtjes:\n\n\"Ik heb mijn mes verloren, ik ga het eventjes opzoeken.\"\n\nTom zeide met bevende lippen en ingehouden adem:\n\n\"Ik zal je helpen. Ga jij dezen kant, dan loop ik langs de bron.--Neen,\nje behoeft niet mede te gaan, Huck;--wij zullen het wel vinden.\"\n\nHuck ging weer zitten en wachtte een uur. Toen begon hij zich te\nvervelen en ging zijne kameraden zoeken. Zij lagen ver van elkander,\ndiep in het woud, beiden zeer bleek en vast in slaap. Maar uit\neen waarneming, welke hij deed, bleek hem dat zij, van hetgeen hen\nhinderde, verlost waren.\n\nZij hadden dien avond aan het souper niet veel te vertellen en zagen\nverlegen voor zich. Toen Huck na het avondeten zijn pijp voor den\ndag haalde en er ook een voor hen wilde klaarmaken, bedankten zij\nen verklaarden dat zij zich niet wel voelden, omdat iets, dat zij\n's middags gegeten hadden, hun nog in de maag zat.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XVII.\n\n\nTegen middernacht werd Joe wakker en riep de jongens. Er was eene\ndrukkende benauwheid in de lucht, die weersverandering scheen\nte voorspellen. De knapen schoten haastig hunne kleeren aan en\nschaarden zich voor de gezelligheid om een vriendelijk vuurtje,\nniettegenstaande men in den snikheeten, door geen enkel koeltje\nbewogen dampkring dreigde te stikken. Zij bleven stil, in gespannen\nverwachting, om het vuur zitten. Een pikzwarte duisternis, slechts\nafgewisseld door het schijnsel van het vuur lag over het landschap\nuitgespreid. Daar verlichtte eensklaps, voor een oogenblik, een\nflikkerende lichtstraal het donker geboomte. Een tweede volgde, iets\nheller daarna een derde. Toen werd er een zacht gesuis door het woud\ngehoord en een nauw merkbaar tochtje verkoelde de wangen der sidderende\nknapen, die zich verbeeldden, dat de Geest van den Nacht hun was\nvoorbijgegaan. Daarop werd het weder bladstil. Maar op eens veranderde\neen onheilspellende bliksemstraal den nacht in z\u00f3\u00f3 helderen dag, dat\nelk grasscheutje op den bodem, het kleinste zelfs, duidelijk zichtbaar\nwerd--en tevens drie bleeke, verschrikte gezichten te zien kwamen. Een\nzware donderslag rolde door de lucht en verloor zich in de verte in\neen dof gerommel. Een kille windvlaag streek hun langs het hoofd,\nschudde al de bladeren en joeg de asch on het vuur in groote vlokken\nnaar omhoog. Opnieuw zette een geweldige bliksemstraal het woud als in\nvuur en onmiddellijk daarna knalde een donderslag, die de boomtoppen\nboven het hoofd der kinderen scheen te splijten. Doodelijk ontsteld\nklemden zij zich in de dikke duisternis, die thans alles weder omhulde,\naan elkaar vast. Enkele dikke regendroppels kletterden op de bladeren.\n\n\"Gauw, jongens, naar de tent!\" riep Tom uit.\n\nZij spoedden zich weg en stommelden over wortels en door\nwijngaardranken voort. Een weldoende rukwind loeide door het\nbosch. Bliksemstraal volgde op bliksemstraal en ratelslag op\nratelslag. En nu stroomde de regen naar beneden en de razende orkaan\ndreef dien in breede golven over den grond. De knapen schreeuwden\nluid tegen elkaar doch de bulderende storm en de rommelende donder\noverstemden hun geroep. Eindelijk bereikten zij de tent, waaronder zij\nkoud, verschrikt en druipende van het water eene schuilplaats zochten,\ndankbaar dat zij in hunne ellende lotgenooten hadden in elkander. Zich\naan elkaar verstaanbaar maken konden zij, al hadden andere geluiden\nzulks niet verhinderd, niet, door het woedend klepperen van het oude\nzeil. De storm verhief zich meer en meer, en weldra rukte het zeil\nzich van zijne banden los en ijlde voort op de vleugelen van den\nwind. De knapen grepen elkaar bij de hand en vluchtten onder het\nschutsdak van den grooten eik, aan den kant der rivier. Nu had de\nstrijd zijn toppunt van heftigheid bereikt en bij den onafgebroken\ngloed van het in de lucht vlammend bliksemvuur teekende zich alles\ndaarbeneden akelig scherp af.\n\nDe zwiepende boomen, de kokende rivier met hare witte golven, de\nschuimvlokken die haar als met een sprei overdekten, de donkere\nomtrekken van den hoogen oever aan den overkant en daarboven de\njagende wolken en de schuin neervallende regen. Telkens gaf een\nreusachtige boom den strijd op en viel krakend over het jongere\ngewas; en de onvermoeide donderslagen barstten onafgebroken, met\neen oorverdoovend, alles doordringend, onuitsprekelijk schrikwekkend\ngeraas, in knallen los. De storm spande met eene uiterste poging al\nzijne krachten in om het eiland stuk te slaan, in vlam te zetten,\nonder water te dompelen, tot aan de kruinen der boomen toe, en alle\nschepselen die er op huisden te vernietigen. Het was een vreeselijke\nnacht om onder den blooten hemel door te brengen.\n\nMaar eindelijk was de strijd volstreden; de legermachten trokken\nonder steeds zwakker dreigen en rommelen af en de vrede nam de teugels\nvan het bewind weder in handen. De knapen gingen vol angst naar hun\nkamp terug en bemerkten, dat zij nog reden tot dankbaarheid hadden,\nwant de groote vijgeboom, onder welken zij des nachts hadden gerust,\nwas door den bliksem vernield en aan splinters geslagen.\n\nHet geheele kamp was doorweekt en het kampvuur daarbij, want onze\nonbedachtzame knaapjes hadden geene voorzorgen tegen den regen\ngenomen. Stof genoeg om moedeloos te zijn: immers zij waren nat tot op\nhet hemd en beefden van koude. Al pratende over hun ongeval ontdekten\nzij, dat het vuur onder het groote blok hout, waartegen het aangelegd\nwas, zoo ver had voortgewoekerd, dat daar waar het blok zich opwaarts\nkromde en boven den grond verhief, slechts een handje vol hout was\nblijven smeulen.\n\nToen gingen zij ijverig aan het werk, on met boomschors en afval van\ndroog hout, dat zij hier en daar opzamelden, de uitgedoofde vlam aan\nte wakkeren, en nadat hun dit gelukt was legden zij er doode takken\nbovenop en hadden tot hunne groote vreugde weldra weder een knappend\nvuurtje. Zij droogden hun gekookte ham, deden zich daaraan te goed,\ngingen daarna bij het vuur zitten en wijdden tot aan den morgenstond\nuit over hun nachtelijk avontuur.\n\nToen de zon de knapen met hare stralen begon te beschijnen, werden\nzij slaperig en trokken naar de zandbank, waarop zij zich ter ruste\nlegden. Zij ontwaakten bijna geroosterd door de heete dagvorstin en\nzetten zich met droge kleeren aan hun ontbijt. Doch daarna gevoelden\nzij zich onaangenaam stijf en begon het heimwee terug te komen. Tom\nbemerkte die kwade teekens en beurde de zeeroovers op, zooveel als\nhij kon. Alles echter liet hen onverschillig, knikkers zoowel als het\npaardenspel en het zwemmen. Hij bracht hun het afgesproken geheim\nte binnen en wist hierdoor een straaltje van opgewektheid in hun\ngemoed te doen doorschemeren. Zoolang dat aanhield, boezemde hij hun\nbelangstelling in voor een nieuw spel. Dit was: het zeerooverschap er\neen poos aan te geven en voor de verandering Indianen te worden. Dit\ndenkbeeld trok hen aan. Het duurde dan ook niet lang, of zij hadden\nzich geheel ontkleed en van het hoofd tot de voeten met modderstrepen\nbesmeerd. Als Zebra's gingen zij woest schreeuwend, door het woud,\nom eene Engelsche kolonie aan te vallen.\n\nVan lieverlede scheidden zij zich in drie vijandelijke stammen en\nbeschoten elkaar uit hinderlagen, onder vreeselijke strijdkreten en\nmoordden en scalpeerden elkander bij duizenden. Het was een bloedige\ndag en daarom zeer aangenaam. Tegen den avond verzamelden zij zich\nhongerig en tevreden in hun kamp. Thans evenwel deed zich eene\nmoeilijkheid voor:--vijandige Indianen konden te zamen het brood der\ngastvrijheid niet breken, eer zij vrede gesloten hadden, en dit was\nbepaald onmogelijk zonder het rooken van de vredepijp. Van eene andere\nwijze om een twist te beslechten hadden zij nooit gehoord. Twee der\nwilden wenschten bijna, dat zij zeeroovers gebleven waren. Toch was er\ngeen andere weg. Met gehuichelde vroolijkheid vroegen zij om eene pijp\nen dampten zooals het behoort. En ziet, zij waren blijde dat zij wilden\ngeworden waren, want zij hadden er iets bij gewonnen. Zij bemerkten\nnamelijk, dat zij een weinig konden rooken, zonder naar een verloren\nmes te behoeven te gaan zoeken. Natuurlijk werd er van deze heerlijke\nontdekking partij getrokken en werd er na het eten voorzichtig nog\neen pijpje aangestoken. Hun pogen werd met een goeden uitslag bekroond\nen zoo brachten zij een verrukkelijken avond door. Zij waren trotsch\ner op en gelukkiger met het verworven talent, dan zij geweest zouden\nzijn, indien zij de zes nati\u00ebn gescalpeerd en afgestroopt hadden.\n\nEn hier zullen wij hen aan hun pijp en hun gezwets overlaten, daar\nwij voor het tegenwoordige niets met hen te maken hebben.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XVIII.\n\n\nOp dien stillen Zaterdag heerschte er in het stadje St. Petersburg\nver van algemeene vroolijkheid. Juffrouw Harper en tante Polly met de\nharen, zaten onder zuchten en tranen rouwkleeren te maken en de anders\ntoch reeds stille straten waren als uitgestorven. De bewoners gingen\nsomber en zwijgend huns weegs en liepen elkaar, onder het slaken van\nzware zuchten, sprakeloos voorbij. De kinderen waren verlegen met hun\nvrijen Zaterdagmiddag; hun hart was niet bij het spel en het was nog\nniet begonnen of het was alweer gedaan.\n\nIn den namiddag zou men Becky Thatcher met een bezwaard gemoed langs\nhet verlaten schoolgebouw hebben kunnen zien zwerven, zonder iets of\niemand te vinden on haar te troosten. Eindelijk sprak zij verdrietig\ntot zich zelve:\n\n\"Och, had ik toch zijn koperen knop maar! Helaas ik heb geen enkele\ngedachtenis, niets dat mij aan hem herinnert!\" En de woorden bleven\nhaar in de keel steken.\n\nNa een poos hernam zij:\n\n\"Het gebeurde juist op deze plek. O, als ik het over kon doen,--ik\nzou hem voor geen wereld zoo behandelen! Nu is hij heengegaan, en ik\nzal hem nooit, nooit meer terugzien!\"\n\nDit denkbeeld maakte haar zoo van streek, dat, op den ganschen weg\nhuiswaarts, haar de tranen langs de wangen biggelden.\n\nToen kwam er een troepje jongens en meisjes aan,--speelkameraden van\nTom en Joe. Zij bleven voor het ijzeren hek staan kijken en vertelden\nelkaar op eerbiedigen toon, wat Tom, de laatste maal dat zij hem gezien\nhadden, gedaan had en wat Joe gezegd had, woorden waaraan zij toen niet\ngehecht hadden, maar die gebleken waren eene vreeselijke voorspelling\nte zijn. Sommigen wezen de juiste plek aan, waar de ongelukkige knapen\ntoen gestaan hadden en voegden er gedurig volzinnen bij als deze:\n\"En ik stond juist, juist, zooals ik nu sta,--en hij stond juist,\nwaar jij nu staat--juist zoo dicht bij--en hij lachte precies zooals\nik nu doe--en toen ging mij een rilling door de leden: waarom, dat\nwist ik zelf niet, maar nu begrijp ik het.\"\n\nDaarop volgde een geschil over de vraag, wie de overledenen het laatst\ngezien had, en velen maakten aanspraak op de droevige onderscheiding,\nterwijl zij hunne beweringen met meer of minder afdoende bewijzen\nstaafden. En toen zij het er eindelijk over eens waren, wie de\ngelukkige geweest was, kreeg deze eene plechtige voornaamheid en werd\nhij door al de anderen bewonderd en benijd. Een klein jongentje in\nhun midden, dat zich toch ook gaarne op iets ten aanzien van Joe en\nTom beroemen wilde, zeide met den noodigen trots:\n\n\"Tom Sawyer heeft mij ook een pak slaag gegeven.\"\n\nDoch deze onderscheiding werd met te veel anderen gedeeld, om aanspraak\nop haar naam te kunnen maken, en het kleine mannetje droop verlegen af.\n\nNa nog eenigen tijd op fluisterenden toon over de daden der overleden\nhelden gesproken te hebben, verspreidde zich de schare.\n\nToen den volgenden morgen de Zondagsschool uitging, begon de dood-\nin plaats van de gewone kerkklok te luiden. Het was een rustige\nsabbatmorgen en het sombere gelui was volkomen in overeenstemming\nmet de stille, kalme natuur. Uit alle straten en stegen zag men\nmenschen naar de kerk stroomen en de meesten bleven, voordat zij\nbinnentraden, een oogenblik in het voorportaal van het Godshuis\nstaan, om met gedempte stem over het ongeval te spreken. In de kerk\nevenwel hield het gefluister op. Daar werd geen geluid vernomen,\nbehalve het geritsel der japonnen van de vrouwen die zich naar hare\nzitplaatsen begaven. Bij menschengeheugenis was de kerk nooit zoo\nvol geweest. Toen iedereen gezeten was, volgde er een akelige pauze;\nwant, zie, daar kwam tante Polly binnen, gevolgd door Sid en Marie,\nen daarachter de familie Harper,--allen in diepen rouw gekleed. De\ngeheele vergadering, de predikant niet uitgezonderd, rees eerbiedig op\nen bleef staan, totdat de rouwdragers in de voorste bank hadden plaats\ngenomen. En nu volgde weder eene indrukwekkende stilte, afgebroken\ndoor een onderdrukt gesnik, dat eerst ophield, toen de predikant\nzegenend zijne handen over de menigte uitspreidde en ging bidden. Op\nhet gebed volgde een aandoenlijk, toepasselijk gezang en vervolgens\nwerd de tekst voorgelezen: \"Ik ben de opstanding en het leven.\"\n\nIn den loop zijner rede schilderde de predikant het beminnelijk\nkarakter der veelbelovende jeugdige overledenen z\u00f3\u00f3 aangrijpend af,\ndat elk lid der vergaderde gemeente zich het hart voelde toeknijpen bij\nde gedachte aan zijne opzettelijke verblinding, die halsstarrig niets\ndan fouten en gebreken in de arme knapen had willen ontdekken. Menig\ntreffend voorval uit het leven der afgestorvenen bracht hij bij,\nwaarin hunne zachtheid en de adel van hun gemoed schitterend voor\nden dag kwamen. Duidelijk zag men thans in, dat de schijnbaar\nondeugende knapen in waarheid goed waren geweest, en men herinnerde\nzich met hartzeer, hoe men menige edele daad der beide kinderen als\nbooze streken had beschouwd, die men met een vracht zweepslagen had\nbeloond. De vergadering werd hoe langer zoo meer bewogen, al naarmate\nde redenaar zijne pathetische schetsen vervolgde, zoodat op het eind\nal de aanwezigen in tranen versmolten en met de weenende rouwdragers\neen koor van zenuwachtig gesnik aanhieven. Zelfs de prediker was\nzijn gevoel niet langer meester en zette zich bitter schreiende in\nden preekstoel neder.\n\nJuist op dat oogenblik ontstond er een klein geritsel in het\nvoorportaal, waarop toevallig niemand acht sloeg. Een oogenblik later\nkraakte de kerkdeur, en de domin\u00e9e nam den zakdoek van zijne betraande\noogen weg, rees op en bleef, als van den donder getroffen, in den\npreekstoel staan. Eerst volgde \u00e9\u00e9n en daarna eene tweede paar oogen\nde richting van des predikers blik, en binnen eenige oogenblikken\nverhieven zich al de vergaderden van hunne zitplaatsen en staarden\nnaar de deur, door welke de drie doodgewaande knapen voorwaarts\nstapten;--Tom vooruit, toen Joe en verlegen in de achterhoede,\nde ongelukkige, in lompen gehulde Huck. Zij hadden zich achter een\npilaar schuilgehouden, om hun eigen lijkpredikatie te hooren.\n\nTante Polly, Marie en de Harpers wierpen zich op de hun teruggegeven\nkinderen, versmoorden hen bijna onder kussen en goten een stortvloed\nvan dankgebeden over hun hoofd uit, terwijl Huck bedeesd in een hoek\nbleef staan, niet wetende wat hij doen moest en hoe hij zich voor\nzoovele onwelkome oogen moest verbergen. Hij week zachtjes achteruit\nom af te druipen, Maar Tom vatte hem bij den arm en zeide:\n\n\"Tante Polly, dat is niet mooi; er moest ook iemand verheugd zijn,\ndat Huck is teruggekomen.\"\n\n\"En dat zal ook zoo zijn. Ik ben blijde hem te zien, dien ongelukkigen,\nmoederloozen jongen!\" En in hare verrukking ging de oude juffrouw hem\nzoo hartelijk omhelzen, dat de arme knaap zich ten laatste niet meer\nwist te bergen van verlegenheid.\n\nPlotseling riep de domin\u00e9e met luider stem:\n\n\"Juich, aarde! juich alom den Heer!\"\n\n\"Zing!--en doe het met geheel uw ziel!\"\n\nEn dat deden zij.--En de tonen van den ouden honderdsten psalm klonken\nzegevierend door het eerwaarde kerkgebouw, en terwijl zij de muren\ndeden trillen, keek Tom Sawyer, de zeeroover, naar de hem benijdende\njeugd en beleed in zijn hart, dat dit het schoonste oogenblik zijns\nlevens was.\n\nToen de \"beetgenomen\" kerkgangers uiteengingen, verklaarden zij, dat\nzij bijna wenschten nog eens zoo voor den gek gehouden te worden, on\nhet genot te smaken, den ouden honderdsten psalm z\u00f3\u00f3 te hooren zingen.\n\nTom kreeg dien dag meer zoenen en klappen, al naar gelang van tantes\nveranderlijke gemoedsstemming, dan hem te voren in een jaar waren\ntoebedeeld. De oude juffrouw toch was zoo vervuld van dankbaarheid\naan God en liefde voor haar neef, dat zij nauwelijks wist of zij\naan die gevoelens door kastijdingen dan wel door liefkozingen moest\nlucht geven.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XIX.\n\n\nDit nu was Toms groot geheim:--het plan om met zijne mede-zeeroovers\nnaar huis terug te keeren, op het oogenblik dat de lijkdienst over\nhen zou gehouden worden. Zij waren Zaterdag, tegen schemerdonker,\nop een blok hout de rivier afgezakt en vijf of zes mijlen beneden het\nstadje aan land gegaan. Zij hadden in een bosch, in de nabijheid van\nSt. Petersburg, geslapen en waren bij het aanbreken van den dag door\nallerlei straatjes en steegjes gekropen, totdat zij de kerk bereikt\nhadden, waar zij te midden van een chaos van vermolmde banken nog\neen uiltje hadden geknapt.\n\nDen volgenden morgen na het ontbijt waren tante Polly en Marie\nbuitengewoon hartelijk jegens Tom en voorkwamen zijne wenschen. Het\ngesprek was bijzonder levendig en tante Polly zeide:\n\n\"Ik zal niet ontkennen, Tom, dat ik het nogal grappig van je vond, om\nde gansche stad eene week lang te laten treuren, terwijl jelui pleizier\nmaakten; maar ik kan mij niet begrijpen, hoe je zoo ongevoelig kondt\nzijn, om mij zoo lang in de benauwdheid te laten. Als je op een blok\nhout de rivier kondt oversteken voor je lijkdienst, had je ook wel\neens kunnen komen overvaren om mij te verstaan te geven, dat je niet\ndood, doch alleen weggeloopen waart.\"\n\n\"Ja, waarom heb je dat niet gedaan?\" zeide Marie. \"Ik geloof zeker,\ndat, als je er aan gedacht hadt, je wel even hier zoudt gekomen zijn.\"\n\n\"Zou je, Tom?\" vroeg tante Polly, terwijl zij peinzend haar gelaat\ntot hem ophief. \"Zeg, zou je het gedaan hebben, als je er aan gedacht\nhadt?\"\n\n\"Ik... wel, ik weet het niet. Het zou alles bedorven hebben.\"\n\n\"Tom, ik dacht dat je ten minste zooveel van mij hieldt, om dat voor\nmij over te hebben,\" zeide tante Polly, op een toon zoo vol weemoed,\ndat het gemoed van den knaap volschoot. \"Het zou mij een troost\ngeweest zijn te weten, dat je er aan gedacht had, zelfs zonder het\nte hebben gedaan.\"\n\n\"Nu, lieve tante, maak er u niet naar over,\" vleide Marie; \"'t is\nniets dan onnadenkendheid van Tom. Hij is altijd zoo--zoo onbezonnen.\"\n\n\"'t Spijt mij vreeselijk! Sid zou er aan gedacht hebben; hij zou\nbij mij gekomen zijn. O Tom, eens zal het je berouwen, als het te\nlaat is, en dan zul je zeggen: 'Was ik maar wat meer bezorgd voor\nhaar geweest!'\"\n\n\"Och tante,\" zeide Tom, \"u weet toch wel, dat ik veel van u houd.\"\n\n\"Ik zou het beter weten, indien je er een weinigje meer naar\nhandeldet.\"\n\n\"Ik wou nu wel, dat ik het maar gedaan had,\" zeide Tom, op berouwvollen\ntoon; \"maar ik heb toch van u gedroomd; dat is al wat.\"\n\n\"Dat zegt nog niet veel; een kat doet hetzelfde: maar 't is toch\nbeter dan niets. Wat heb je gedroomd?\"\n\n\"Wel, Woensdagnacht droomde ik, dat u bij het bed zat en Sid op de\nhoutkist en Marie naast hem.\"\n\n\"Nu, dat doen we immers altijd. Het verheugt me, dat je ons de moeite\nwaard geacht heb, dat van ons te droomen.\"\n\n\"En ik droomde, dat de moeder van Joe Harper hier was.\"\n\n\"Wel, zij was hier! Heb je nog meer gedroomd?\"\n\n\"O, nog zooveel! Doch het staat mij niet duidelijk meer voor.\"\n\n\"Tracht het je te binnen te brengen.--Gaat het?\"\n\n\"Er ligt mij iets van bij, dat het heel hard woei.\"\n\n\"Bezin je nog eens! De wind woei hard en...\" Tom hield een minuut\nlang peinzend zijne hand voor zijn voorhoofd en zeide toen:\n\n\"Ik ben er! Ik ben er! De wind blies de kaars uit!\"\n\n\"God zij ons genadig! Ga voort, ga voort!\"\n\n\"En het was mij, als zeidet gij: 'Wel, ik geloof, dat de deur...'\"\n\n\"Ga voort, Tom!\"\n\n\"Laat mij een oogenblikje, een klein oogenblikje bedenken. O ja,--u\nzei, dat u dacht dat de deur open was.\"\n\n\"Zoo waar als ik leef, dat heb ik gezegd! Heb ik niet, Marie? Ga\nverder!\"\n\n\"En toen--en toen--ik ben er niet zeker van, maar toen meende ik,\ndat u Sid de deur liet...\"\n\n\"Nu! Wat liet ik Sid, Tom? Wat liet ik Sid doen?\"\n\n\"U liet hem--u--O--u liet hem de deur dichtdoen!\"\n\n\"Hemelsche goedheid! Zoo iets heb ik nog nooit gehoord! Zeg mij niet\nmeer, dat droomen bedrog is. Sientje Harper zal dit weten, eer ik\neen uur ouder ben. Het zal mij eens benieuwen of zij mij nu nog zal\nbespotten over mijne lichtgeloovigheid!\"\n\n\"O, tante, het wordt mij zoo klaar als het licht! Toen zei u, dat ik\nniet slecht was, alleen maar een beetje lichtzinnig en ondeugend.\"\n\n\"Zoo was het. Hemelsche genade!--Ga verder, Tom.\"\n\n\"En toen begon u te schreien.\"\n\n\"Dat deed ik, dat deed ik! En voorwaar niet voor de eerste maal.--en\ntoen?\"\n\n\"Toen begon juffrouw Harper te schreien en zeide, dat het precies\nhetzelfde met haar Joe was en dat ze wilde dat zij hem geen zweepslagen\ngegeven had omdat hij room had gesnoept, dien zij zelve uit het raam\nhad gegooid.\"\n\n\"Tom! De Geest was op u,--gij waart aan het profeteeren, dat waart\nge! God in den hemel!--Ga voort, Tom!\"\n\n\"Toen zei Sid... Hij zei...\"\n\n\"Ik, geloof niet, dat ik iets gezegd heb,\" sprak Sid.\n\n\"Jawel Sid,\" zeide Marie.\n\n\"Houdt jelui je mond en laat Tom voortgaan. Wat zeide hij, Tom?\"\n\n\"Hij zei--geloof ik--dat hij hoopte, dat ik het goed zou hebben in de\nplaats waar ik was heengegaan, maar indien ik beter had opgepast....\"\n\n\"Hoor jelui dat? Het ware zijne eigen woorden.\"\n\n\"En u sloot hem den mond.\"\n\n\"Waarempel, dat heb ik gedaan. Er moet een engel op dat eiland\ngeweest zijn.\"\n\n\"En juffrouw Harper vertelde, dat Joe haar met een voetzoeker\nverschrikt gemaakt had, en u, dat ik de kat met den drank geplaagd\nhad.\"\n\n\"Zoo waar als ik leef!\"\n\n\"En toen werd er gepraat over het opvisschen van onze lijken en over\nden lijkdienst, en bij het heengaan hebt u juffrouw Harper gezoend\nen toen zijt gij beiden in tranen uitgebarsten.\"\n\n\"Het gebeurde precies zoo! Precies zoo, zoo waar als ik hier in de\nkamer zit. Je kondt het niet beter verteld hebben, al had je er bij\ngezeten.--En wat toen? Ga voort, Tom.\"\n\n\"Toen droomde ik, dat gij voor mij badt,--en ik kon u zien en elk\nwoord hooren dat gij spraakt. En gij gingt naar bed, en ik was zoo\nbedroefd, dat ik een stuk van den vijgeboom nam en daarop krabbelde:\n'Wij zijn niet dood, wij zijn alleen maar weggegaan om zeeroovers\nte worden,' en dat bij den kandelaar op de tafel legde. En toen nam\nik den kandelaar van de tafel en hield dien boven uw gelaat, en gij\nzaagt er in uw slaap zoo vriendelijk uit,--en ik droomde, dat ik mij\nover u heenboog en u op de lippen kuste.\"\n\n\"Hebt ge dat gedaan, Tom? Nu vergeef ik u alles!\" En zij greep den\nknaap en omhelsde hem met zulk eene verpletterende hartelijkheid,\ndat hij zich den misdadigsten schurk der aarde voelde.\n\n\"Het was zeer lief, ofschoon het slechts een droom was,\" zeide Sid\nhoorbaar in zichzelven.\n\n\"Houd je mond, Sid! Iemand doet in zijn droom juist wat hij wakende zou\nverrichten. Hier heb je een grooten appel, Tom, dien ik voor je bewaard\nheb, als je ooit terug gevonden werdt. En ga nu naar school. Ik ben\nden goeden God, ons aller Vader, dankbaar dat Hij mij u teruggegeven\nheeft. Hij is lankmoedig en vol goedertierenheid voor hen die in hem\ngelooven en Zijn woord houden, hoewel de Hemel weet dat ik die genade\nniet waardig ben. Doch indien slechts de waardigen zijne zegeningen\ngenoten en zijne hand mochten vatten om hen te leiden over hobbelige\npaden, zouden er weinigen zijn, die hier vroolijk konden leven of\nin zijne rusten konden ingaan, als de nacht komt. Gaat nu heen, Sid,\nMarie en Tom:--gij hebt mij reeds lang genoeg in den weg geloopen.\"\n\nDe kinderen gingen naar school en de oude juffrouw stapte de straat op,\nom een bezoek bij juffrouw Harper te brengen, ten einde haar ongeloof\ndoor Toms wondervollen droom den doodsteek te geven.\n\nSid was slim genoeg on zich stil te houden, zoolang hij in de kamer\nwas. Toen hij de deur achter zich had dichtgeslagen, riep hij uit:\n\n\"Een mooie grap--zoo'n lange droom, zonder een enkele vergissing!\"\n\nWat een held was Tom nu geworden! Hij sprong en huppelde niet meer\nlangs den weg, maar bewoog zich voort met de waardige voornaamheid,\nwelke aan den zeeroover past, die voelt dat hij een man van beteekenis\nis in het oog van 't publiek. En dat was hij inderdaad. Hij hield\nzich, als zag hij de blikken, als hoorde hij de opmerkingen niet,\nwaarvan hij het voorwerp was, doch zij waren spijs en drank voor\nzijne ziel. Jongere knapen liepen achter hem aan en verhoovaardigden\nzich op de eer van met hem gezien en door hem geduld te worden, en\nbehandelden hem alsof hij de Tamboer Majoor was van een optocht, of\nde olifant onder wiens leiding eene menagerie de stad binnentrekt. De\njongens van zijne jaren deden, alsof zij er niets van wisten dat hij\nweg geweest was, maar vergingen niettemin van afgunst. Zij zouden\ner wat voor gegeven hebben om zijne bruine, door de zon verbrande\nhuid en zijne vermaardheid te bezitten, en Tom zou daarvan voor geen\nwereldsch geld afstand hebben gedaan.\n\nOp school werd aan Tom en Joe zoo het hof gemaakt en werden ze\nzoozeer bewonderd, dat de beide helden weldra onuitstaanbaar pedant\nwerden. Zij begonnen hunne avonturen aan gretig luisterende toehoorders\nte vertellen, doch brachten het nooit verder, dan het begin; want eene\nverbeelding als de hunne, steeds klaar om nieuwe stof aan te brengen,\nzou moeielijk tot een eind hebben kunnen komen. En toen zij ten slotte\nhunne pijpen voor den dag haalden en kalm de rookwolken in het rond\nbliezen, hadden zij het toppunt van roem bereikt.\n\nTom was tot het besluit gekomen, dat hij thans wel van Becky Thatcher\nkon afzien. Zijne glorie was hem genoeg en voor deze alleen zou\nhij voortaan leven. Nu hij zulk een voornaam persoon geworden was,\nkon het wel eens zijn, dat zij lust kreeg bij te draaien. Welnu,\nals zij dat deed, zou zij ervaren, dat hij even onverschillig kon\nzijn als sommige andere lieden.\n\nDaar kwam zij juist toevallig aan. Tom deed alsof hij haar niet zag\nen voegde zich bij een ander troepje jongens en meisjes, met wie\nhij dadelijk een druk gesprek aanknoopte. Spoedig ontwaarde hij, dat\nBecky met gloeiende wangen en schitterende oogen, vroolijk nu achter\ndan vooruit huppelde, schijnbaar met hart en ziel krijgertje speelde\nen het uitgilde van 't lachen, wanneer zij een van haar kameraadjes\ngevangen had. Maar het ontging hem niet, dat zij hare vangsten altijd\nin zijne buurt deed en dan tersluiks naar hem keek.\n\nDit streelde zijne booze ijdelheid ongemeen en deed hem, in plaats\nvan hem voor haar te winnen, nog meer op zijne hoede zijn, om door\ntaal noch teeken te verraden, dat hij haar toeleg bemerkte. Weldra\ngaf zij vruchteloos de moeite op en ging onder het slaken van zware\nzuchten besluiteloos op en neer wandelen, terwijl zij nu en dan\nheimelijk veelbeteekenende blikken op Tom wierp. Het viel haar op,\ndat Tom drukker met Amy Lawrence praatte dan met iemand anders. Dit\ngezicht verbitterde haar zoozeer, dat zij het besluit nam naar huis te\ngaan. Doch hare verraderlijke voetjes droegen haar tegen wil en dank\nnaar de plaats, waar Tom en Amy stonden. Met geveinsde opgewektheid\nzeide zij dicht bij Toms oor tot een meisje:\n\n\"Wel, Marie Austin, ondeugende meid, waarom ben je niet op de\nzondagsschool geweest?\"\n\n\"Ik ben er geweest. Heb je me niet gezien?\"\n\n\"Neen. Waart ge er? Waar heb je gezeten?\"\n\n\"In de klasse van juffrouw Peters, waar ik altijd zit. Ik heb jou\nwel gezien.\"\n\n\"Zoo! Hoe mal, dat ik jou niet zag! Ik had je van de pic-nic willen\nvertellen, die gegeven wordt.\"\n\n\"O, dat is heerlijk! En wie geeft die?\"\n\n\"Mijn ma!\"\n\n\"O, heertje, ik hoop dat zij mij ook vragen zal.\"\n\n\"Natuurlijk; het is mijn partij. Zij vraagt iedereen, die ik hebben\nwil.\"\n\n\"Verrukkelijk!--wanneer zal het gebeuren?\"\n\n\"Al spoedig. In de vacantie, denk ik.\"\n\n\"Voortreffelijk!--Je vraagt zeker al de jongens en meisjes?\"\n\n\"Ja, al mijne kennissen, dat is te zeggen, al de jongens en meisjes,\ndie lief tegen mij zijn,\" en meteen werd er tersluiks naar Tom\ngekeken. Doch deze had het juist ontzettend druk met Amy Lawrence\nover het vreeselijke onweer op het eiland en over den bliksem,\ndie den grooten vijgeboom aan spaanders sloeg, terwijl hij, Tom,\nop geen tien pas afstands stond.\n\n\"En mag ik ook komen?\"\n\n\"Ja.\"\n\n\"En ik?\" zeide Sally Rogers.\n\n\"Ja.\"\n\n\"En ik ook!\" riep Suze Harper. \"En Joe?\"\n\n\"Ja.\"\n\nEn zoo ging het met vroolijk handgeklap voort, totdat de geheele\ntroep om eene uitnoodiging gebedeld had, behalve Tom en Amy. Deze\ntwee keerden koeltjes de anderen den rug toe en wandelden pratende\nvoort. Becky's lippen begonnen te beven en hare oogen schoten vol\ntranen, en ofschoon zij deze teekenen van smart onder een vroolijk\ngelaat en een eindeloos gekeuvel zocht te verbergen, was de pret van\nde pic-nic en eigenlijk van alles af. Zoodra zij zulks onopgemerkt\ndoen kon, sloop zij heen en ging in een hoekje zitten, om, zooals\nhaar geslacht dat noemt, eens flink \"uit te huilen.\" Daar bleef zij,\ngebelgd over hare gekrenkte ijdelheid, zitten, totdat de schoolbel\nhaar gelui deed hooren. Toen stond zij met wraak in het hart op,\nschudde met een vergramd gelaat haar gevlochten haarbos en mompelde,\ndat zij wel wist wat zij doen zou.\n\nBij het uitgaan der school zette Tom zijne hofmakerij aan Amy Lawrence\nmet onuitsprekelijke zelfvoldoening voort. Hij bleef voortdurend in\nden omtrek, in de hoop van Becky te vinden en haar door zijn wreed\nspel te kwellen. Eindelijk ontdekte hij haar--en de hooge temperatuur\nzijner gemoedsstemming daalde op eens tot het vriespunt.\n\nZij zat welbehaaglijk op een bankje achter de school, in een boek\nprentjes te kijken met Alfred Temple, en zij waren zoo in hunne\nbeschouwing verdiept en hielden hunne hoofden zoo dicht bij elkaar, dat\ner buiten hen en het prentenboek niets in de wereld scheen te bestaan.\n\nEen vuur van jaloezie gloeide Tom door de aderen. Hij verwenschte\nzichzelven, omdat hij de kans tot eene verzoening met Becky zoo\njammerlijk had verspeeld. Hij noemde zich een dwaas en de Hemel weet\nwat niet al meer, en het huilen stond hem nader dan het lachen. De\nnaast hem loopende Amy keuvelde lustig voort en juichte in haar\nhart,--doch Toms tong scheen hem aan het verhemelte te kleven. Hij\nhoorde niet wat Amy zeide, en wanneer zij stilhield om op een antwoord\nte wachten, kwamen er onsamenhangende, verwarde klanken, die veeltijds\nop de vraag niet sloegen. Niettemin bleef hij achter het schoolgebouw\nop-en nederloopen, om zich de oogballen met het hatelijk schouwspel\nte pijnigen. Hij kon niet anders, en de gedachte dat Becky Thatcher\nniet eens scheen te vermoeden dat hij in het land der levenden was,\nmaakte hem bijna krankzinnig.\n\nToch zag zij het maar al te goed en wist zij dat zij veld won ook, en\nwas blijde dat hij nu ondervond, wat zij had uitgestaan. Amys vroolijk\ngebabbel werd hem ondraaglijk. Tom begon verontschuldigingen te maken\nen zeide dat hij naar huis moest om te werken, daar het laat werd. Doch\ntevergeefs: het vogeltje kirde altijd maar voort: \"Ik wou, dat ze\nnaar de maan vloog! Zal ik dan nooit van haar afkomen?\" Eindelijk\nzeide hij dat hij weg moest, en het meisje antwoordde argeloos,\ndat zij zorgen zou morgenochtend weder op haar post te zijn. En hij\nspoedde zich voort en haatte haar om die belofte.\n\n\"Een andere jongen!\" sprak Tom tot zich zelven en knarste met de\ntanden. \"Zij mocht, wat mij betreft, elken jongen van de plaats\ngenomen hebben, behalve dien vromen Piet, die zich zoo mooi kleedt en\nzoo voornaam is! Best, jongen! ik heb je een pak gegeven den eersten\ndag dat je hier kwaamt, en je zult er nog een hebben. Wacht je beurt\nmaar af. Dan gaat het zoo!\"\n\nEn toen ging hij in zijne verbeelding aan het afkloppen van den\njongen, maakte de bewegingen van \"iemand een pak geven\"--en sloeg,\nschopte in de lucht, onder het uitroepen van: \"Ziezoo, dat 's voor\njou goed? Heb je nou genoeg, zeg? Laat dit je een les zijn.\"\n\nToen snelde hij naar huis. Hij kon de gedachte aan Amys dankbaar\ngeluk en aan dat andere tooneel niet meer verdragen. Becky intusschen\nzette hare plaatjesbeschouwing met Alfred voort; maar toen de minuten\nvoortkropen en er geen Tom kwam, verloor haar zegepraal iets van\nhaar luister en verdween hare belangstelling. Zij werd rusteloos en\nafgetrokken en eindelijk neerslachtig. Een paar malen spitste zij de\nooren bij het geluid van een voetstap, maar de hoop, waarmede zij zich\nstreelde, bleek ijdel te zijn. Er kwam geen Tom. Eindelijk voelde zij\nzich zoo ellendig, dat zij goud zou gegeven hebben, indien zij het\nniet zoover had laten komen. Toen de arme Alfred, ziende dat zij--hoe\nhet kwam wist hij niet--ophield hem haar aandacht te schenken, zijn\nijver verdubbelde en gedurig uitriep: \"O, hier is een mooi plaatje,\nkijk eens!\" verloor zij alle geduld en zeide:\n\n\"O, kwel mij niet langer! Het kan mij niet schelen,\" en in tranen\nuitbarstende, stond zij op en ging heen.\n\nAlfred liep haar achterna en trachtte haar te troosten, doch zij zeide:\n\n\"Ga weg en laat mij met rust. Ik heb een hekel aan je!\"\n\nDe arme jongen zag haar verbijsterd aan en kon maar niet begrijpen,\nwat hij toch misdaan had.--Zij had hem zoo even nog gezegd, dat zij\nden geheelen middag prenten wilde kijken, en nu liep zij schreiend\nvan hem weg.\n\nOntstemd zette hij zich in de leege school neder. Hij was boos en\ngekrenkt en vond spoedig den sleutel tot de waarheid;--het meisje had\nhem eenvoudig tot speelbal gemaakt, om haar woede tegen Tom Sawyer\nte koelen. Deze gedachte verminderde zijn haat tegen Tom niet en hij\nzon op een middel, om hem een poets te spelen, zonder er zelf in te\nloopen. Daar viel zijn oog op Toms leesboek. Dat was een schoone\ngelegenheid. Hij sloeg de les op, welke dien middag gelezen moest\nworden en bekladde die flink met inkt.\n\nBecky, die op dat oogenblik toevallig naar binnen keek, zag de\ndaad en verwijderde zich zonder iets van hare ontdekking te laten\nmerken. Zij ging huiswaarts in de hoop Tom tegen te komen om hem alles\nte vertellen. Tom zou er haar erkentelijk voor zijn en hun verschil\nzou worden bijgelegd. Maar eer zij halverwegen was, kwam zij van\nhaar plan terug. De gedachte aan Toms behandeling bij gelegenheid\nvan de te berde gebrachte pic-nic kwam haar weder voor den geest en\nvernieuwde haar spijt. Zij besloot aan te zien, dat hij, ter zake van\nde vlekken in zijn boek, slaag kreeg en nam zich voor hem nog op den\nkoop toe voor eeuwig te haten.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XX.\n\n\nTom kwam te huis in een allertreurigste gemoedsstemming, en de eerste\nwoorden, die zijne tante tot hem richtte, bewezen hem dat bij haar\ngeen troost voor zijn verdriet te vinden was, want het luidde terstond:\n\n\"Tom, ik zou wel grooten lust hebben je levend te villen!\"\n\n\"Wat heb ik dan gedaan, tantelief?\"\n\n\"Genoeg om die straf te verdienen. Zoodra je weg waart, ben ik, oude\ngekkin, naar Sientje Harper geloopen, in de hoop van haar al den onzin\nover dien droom van jou te doen gelooven, en daar vertelt zij mij,\ndat zij van Joe gehoord heeft, dat je de rivier overgezwommen bent en\n's avonds onder mijn bed alles hebt afgeluisterd wat wij dien nacht\ngesproken hebben. Tom, ik weet niet wat er van een jongen groeien moet,\ndie zich zoo gedraagt als jij. Ik schaam me dood, als ik er aan denk,\ndat je me stilletjes, zonder een gezicht te vertrekken, naar Sientje\nHarper hebt laten gaan!\"\n\nUit dat oogpunt had Tom de zaak nog niet beschouwd. Het verhaal,\ndat hem v\u00f3\u00f3r schooltijd zoo ijselijk grappig had toegeschenen, was\nnu een gemeene leugen geworden. Hij liet het hoofd hangen en wist\nniet wat hij zeggen zou. Eindelijk stamelde hij:\n\n\"Tantelief, ik wou dat ik het niet gedaan had, maar ik deed het\nzonder nadenken.\"\n\n\"O kind, je denkt nooit,--behalve wanneer het je zelf geldt. Je\ndacht wel, toen je in den pikdonkeren nacht van Jackson Island kwaamt\nafzakken, om ons over onze droefheid uit te lachen, en toen je mij\nmet een leugen over een droom voor den gek hield; maar om medelijden\nmet ons te hebben en ons angst te sparen, daaraan had je niet gedacht.\"\n\n\"Tante, ik weet dat het gemeen was, maar waarlijk het was mijne\nbedoeling niet zoo slecht te zijn,--neen, wezenlijk niet. En dan dien\nnacht ben ik heusch niet gekomen om u uit te lachen.\"\n\n\"Waarom kwam je dan?\"\n\n\"Eigenlijk om u te zeggen, dat ge niet ongerust over ons behoefdet\nte wezen, omdat wij niet verdronken waren.\n\n\"Tom, Tom, ik zou het dankbaarste schepsel van de wereld zijn, indien\nik gelooven kon, dat je ooit zulk een goede gedachte gehad hebt,\nmaar je weet best, dat het niet zoo was.\"\n\n\"Waarachtig, tante, ik heb het daarom gedaan;--ik mag sterven, als\nhet niet waar is.\"\n\n\"Tom lieg niet,--doe dat toch niet. Dat maakt het geval nog honderdmaal\nerger.\"\n\n\"Ik lieg niet, tantelief; het is de waarheid. Ik wilde u verdriet\nsparen; daarom all\u00e9\u00e9n ben ik gekomen.\"\n\n\"Ik zou een wereld geven, als ik 't gelooven kon; hij zou eene macht\nvan zonde bedekken. Ik zou er dan bijna blij om zijn, dat gij zijt\nweggeloopen en zoo slecht hebt gehandeld. Maar 't is niet aan te nemen;\nwant waarom heb je het dan niet gezegd, kind?\"\n\n\"Wel, ziet u, tantelief, toen ik over den lijkdienst hoorde spreken,\nwerd ik zoo vervuld door het heerlijk denkbeeld om mij met Joe en Huck\nin de kerk te verbergen, dat ik het niet over mij kon verkrijgen den\nboel te bederven, en daarom stak ik de boomschors weder in den zak\"\n\n\"Welke boomschors?\"\n\n\"Och de schors, waarop ik geschreven had, dat wij zeeroovers waren. Ik\nwou nu, dat u maar wakker geworden waart, toen ik u kuste; wezenlijk,\ndat wou ik.\"\n\n\"Heb je mij gezoend?\"\n\n\"Ja zeker.\"\n\n\"Stellig, Tom?\"\n\n\"Ja, wezenlijk, tantetje,--op mijn woord van eer.\"\n\n\"Waarom heb je dat gedaan, Tom?\"\n\n\"Omdat ik het zoo lief van u vond, dat ge zoo bedroefd over mij\nwaart;--dat speet mij zoo.\"\n\nDe woorden klonken als de waarheid. De oude tante kon eene kleine\ntrilling in hare stem niet verbergen, toen zij sprak:\n\n\"Kus mij nog eens, Tom!--en loop dan naar school en plaag mij niet\nmeer\"\n\nToen hij weg was, ging tante Polly naar een kleerkast en haalde daaruit\nhet buisje, dat Tom tijdens zijn zeerooverschap had aangehad. Zij\nhield het een oogenblik in de hand en zeide tot zich zelve:\n\n\"Neen, ik durf niet.--Arme jongen, ik weet zeker dat hij gelogen\nheeft,--maar het was een gezegende, driewerf gezegende leugen! Ik\nhoop, dat de Heer.... neen, ik weet zeker, dat Hij hem vergeven zal,\nomdat het zoo lief van hem was, dat hij het vertelde. Maar ik wil er\ngeen onderzoek naar doen.\"\n\nZij legde het buisje weg en bleef een oogenblik in gedachten verzonken,\nvoor de kast staan. Tweemaal stak zij de hand uit, om het kleedingstuk\nnog eens op te nemen en twee malen bedwong zij zich. Nogmaals,\nen dezen keer waagde zij het, zich zelve troost insprekende met de\ngedachte: \"Het is een goede leugen--een beste leugen; ik zal het mij\nniet aantrekken dat het onwaar is.\"--En het buisje werd doorzocht. En\ndaar vond ze Toms stukje hout en las onder een vloed van tranen de\nwoorden, die er op geschreven stonden, zeggende:\n\n\"Nu kan ik het den jongen vergeven, ook al had hij millioenen zonden\nbegaan.\"\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXI.\n\n\nEr was iets in Tante Polly's wijze van doen, toen zij Tom omhelsde,\ndat zijne neerslachtigheid verdreef en hem weder vroolijk en\ngelukkig maakte. Hij ging naar school en smaakte het genot op den\nhoek van Meadow Lane toevallig Becky Tatcher tegen te komen. Zijn\ngemoedstoestand bepaalde doorgaans zijne handelingen. Zonder een\noogenblik te aarzelen, liep hij naar haar toe en zeide:\n\n\"Ik heb je vandaag heel gemeen behandeld, Becky, en dat spijt mij. Ik\nzal het nooit van mijn leven weer doen. Zullen wij, als je blieft,\nmaar weder goede vrienden worden?\"\n\nHet meisje hield stil, keek hem met een blik vol verachting aan\nen zeide:\n\n\"Wilt u de goedheid hebben, mijnheer Thomas Sawyer u bij uw eigen\nvrienden te houden. Ik denk mij niet meer met u te bemoeien.\"\n\nEn het hoofd in den nek werpende, ging zij voorbij.\n\nTom was zoo verpletterd, dat hij zelfs de tegenwoordigheid van geest\nmiste om te zeggen:\n\n\"Ik geef geen zier om je, nufje dundoek,\" totdat het geschikte\noogenblik voor dien uitval voorbij was. Dus zweeg hij met een woedend\ngezicht. Ziedende van toorn stapte hij de schoolplaats binnen en\nmompelde, dat hij wou dat zij een jongen was, om het haar eens fiks\nin te peperen. Toen hij haar voorbijging, wierp hij haar een paar\nhatelijkheden naar het hoofd, die behoorlijk teruggeslingerd werden,\nen de hoop op het herstel van den vrede scheen onherroepelijk\nverloren. Becky kon in hare drift den tijd haast niet afwachten,\nwaarop de les zou beginnen en zij Tom zou zien afrossen voor het\nbeschadigde leesboek. Indien zij nog een oogenblik plan had on Alfred\nTemple ten toon te stellen, was dit voornemen door Toms beleedigende\nschimpscheuten geheel uit hare ziel verdwenen.\n\nArm kind! zij wist niet, hoezeer zij op weg was zich een wereld van\nverdriet te bezorgen.\n\nDe schoolmeester, de heer Dobbins, was een man, die den middelbaren\nleeftijd bereikt had onder het drukkend lijden van onbevredigde\neerzucht. Zijne lievelingswensch was geneesheer te worden, doch\ngeldgebrek had hem verhinderd het hooger dan tot schoolmeester te\nbrengen. Toch was de liefde tot de studie hem bijgebleven. Hij nam\nten minste iederen dag een geheimzinnig boek uit de lessenaar on zich\ndaarin te verdiepen, zoodra de verschillende klassen hunne lessen\nhadden opgezegd.\n\nDat boek hield hij achter slot en grendel,--doch er was geen deugniet\nin de gansche school, die niet brandde van begeerte het eens in te\nzien. Daartoe echter bood zich de kans nooit aan. Elke scholier had\nzijne of hare eigen meening over den inhoud van het boek, doch er\nwas geen middel om het rechte er van te weten te komen.\n\nToen nu op dezen achtermiddag Becky langs den lessenaar schoof,\ndie vlak bij de deur stond, zag zij dat de sleutel in het slot\nstak. Welk eene kostelijke gelegenheid! Zij keek in het rond, zag dat\nzij alleen was en geen seconde later had zij het boek in de hand. Het\ntitelblad, \"De Ontleedkunde, door Professor N. N.\" maakte haar niet\nveel wijzer. Derhalve sloeg zij bladen op. Op eens ontdekte haar oog,\nop eene der eerste bladzijden, een prachtige gekleurde gravure van\neen naakt menschenbeeld. Op hetzelfde oogenblik viel er een schaduw\nop het blad en stapte Tom Sawyer de deur in, die een vluchtigen blik\nop het afbeeldsel wierp. In haar haast om het boek dicht te slaan,\nwas Becky ongelukkig genoeg het blad met de figuren door midden te\nscheuren. Zij wierp het boek in de lessenaar, draaide den sleutel om\nen barstte uit in tranen van schaamte en verdriet.\n\n\"Tom Sawyer,\" snikte zij, \"ik vind het gemeen van je om achter iemand\naan te sluipen en hem te begluren.\"\n\n\"Hoe wist ik, dat je iets stond te bekijken?\"\n\n\"Je moest je schamen, Tom Sawyer; ik weet, dat je me zult verklikken,\nen o, wat zal ik beginnen! Ik zal slaag krijgen,--ik die nog nooit\nop school een klap gehad heb!\"\n\nZij stampte met haar voetje op den grond en vervolgde:\n\n\"Wees maar zoo laag als je wilt! Ik weet iets, dat hier zal plaats\nhebben. Wacht maar en je zult eens wat zien.\"--En zij vloog de school\nuit en barstte opnieuw in tranen los.\n\nTom stond stil, geheel overbluft door dien uitval. Toen zeide hij\ntot zichzelven:\n\n\"Welk een vreemd soort van wezens zijn die meisjes! Nooit op school\ngeslagen! Wat zou een pak ransel! Juist iets voor een meisje: zij zijn\nzoo laf en kleinzeerig. Zij hebben geen ruggegraat. Natuurlijk zal ik\ndie dwaze meid niet aan den ouden Dobbins gaan verklappen; er zijn\nwel andere middelen om haar klein te krijgen, die niet zoo gemeen\nzijn. Maar wat moet er met het boek gedaan worden? De oude Dobbins\nzal vragen, wie het gescheurd heeft. Niemand zal antwoorden. Dan\nzal hij doen als altijd en de meisjes beurt om beurt ondervragen,\nen wanneer hij bij het meisje komt dat het gedaan heeft, zal hij\nhet weten zonder dat het gezegd wordt. De meisjes verraden zich\naltijd.--Becky zal klappen krijgen; 't is een naar geval, maar ik\nzie er geen gat in om het te verraden.\"\n\nTom peinsde nog een oogenblik over de zaak en riep toen uit: \"In\norde! Zij wou mij in de klem zien; laat haar dat genot hebben.\"\n\nDaarop voegde hij zich bij de \"krijgertje\" spelende schooljeugd,\ntotdat de meester kwam en de school begon. Toms gedachten dwaalden\ngedurig van zijn werk af en telkens, wanneer hij een blik naar den\nmeisjes-kant wierp, werd hij ontroerd door het gelaat van Becky. Alles\nte zamen genomen, behoefde hij geen medelijden met haar te hebben\nen toch was hij diep met haar begaan. Toen de ontdekking van het\nleesboek gedaan werd, was Tom voor een tijdlang geheel vervuld van\nzijn eigen leed en werd Becky uit hare verdooving wakker. Zij volgde\nhet proces met groote belangstelling, want zij wist, dat Tom niets\ntegen de beschuldiging, van inkt op het boek gemorst te hebben, kon\ninbrengen. Tom ontkende het feit, en maakte door die ontkenning de zaak\neer erger dan beter. Becky maakte zich wijs, dat zij er schik in had,\ndoch eene stem in haar binnenste fluisterde haar toe, dat zulks het\ngeval niet was. Toen het er zeer bedenkelijk voor Tom begon uit te\nzien, voelde zij eene sterke neiging om op te staan en Alfred Temple\naan te klagen, doch zij bedwong zich en legde zich de verplichting\nop om stil te blijven zitten. \"Immers,\" dus sprak zij bij zichzelve,\n\"hij zal zeker zeggen, dat ik die plaat gescheurd heb. Neen, al kon\nik hem er het leven mede redden, ik zeg het niet.\"\n\nTom kreeg de hem toegedachte zweepslagen en ging kalm naar zijne\nzitplaats terug, in den waan dat hij, misschien zonder het te\nbemerken, onder het krijgertje spelen, den inkpot op het boek had\nlaten vallen.--Hij had maar uit gewoonte ontkend en uit beginsel zich\nbij de ontkentenis gehouden.\n\nEen geheel uur ging voorbij. De meester zat op zijn troon te\nknikkebollen, daar het gebrom der studeerende jeugd hem altijd slaperig\nmaakte. Langzamerhand echter richtte hij zich op, gaapte, ontsloot zijn\nlessenaar en greep naar zijn boek, doch scheen het niet met zichzelven\neens te kunnen worden, of hij lezen zou al dan niet. Het meerendeel\nder scholieren zag droomerig van hun werk op, doch er waren er twee,\ndie met de oogen vol belangstelling zijne beweging gadesloegen.\n\nEen tijdlang hield de heer Dobbins gedachteloos zijn boek in de hand,\ndoch eindelijk vlijde hij zich op zijn stoel neder on te lezen.\n\nTom wierp een blik op Becky, en het arme kind zag er uit als\neen hulpeloos, opgejaagd haasje, dat het geweer op zich ziet\naanleggen. Oogenblikkelijk werd zijn geschil met haar vergeten. Er\nmoest redding komen en dadelijk ook. Doch het dreigend gevaar scheen\nzijne vindingrijkheid te verstompten. Goddank! daar schoot hem iets te\nbinnen. Hij zou de bank uitgaan, het boek grijpen, de deur uitspringen\nen er mede wegloopen! Doch een minuut wankelens, tot het nemen van dit\nbesluit, was genoeg om zijne kans verloren te doen gaan. De meester\nhad het boek geopend. Het was te laat; er was niets aan te doen;\nBecky was reddeloos verloren!\n\nHet volgende oogenblik zag de meester zijne leerlingen in het gelaat,\nmet een blik, die al de kinderen de oogen deed neerslaan. Gedurende\ntien tellen heerschte er een angstige stilte, waarin de meester kracht\ntot toornen verzamelde. Toen sprak hij:\n\n\"Wie heeft dit boek gescheurd?\"\n\nEr werd geen geluid vernomen. Men zou een speld hebben kunnen hooren\nvallen. De meester zag gezicht voor gezicht aan, om teekenen van\nschuld te ontdekken?\"\n\n\"Benjamin Hogers, hebt gij dit boek gescheurd?\"\n\nEen ontkennend antwoord, gevolgd door een pauze.\n\n\"Jozef Harper, gij?\"\n\nWeder een ontkennend antwoord. Tom werd onder de kwelling van den\nlangzamen voortgang der zaak, hoe langer hoe onrustiger. De meester\nonderzocht nauwkeurig de lange rijen jongensgezichten en wendde zich\ntoen tot de meisjes.\n\n\"Amy Lawrence?\"\n\nEen ontkennend hoofdschudden.\n\n\"Gracie Willer?\"\n\nHetzelfde gebaar.\n\n\"Suze Harper, hebt gij het gedaan?\"\n\nWeder een ontkennend antwoord. Het volgende meisje was Becky\nThatcher. Tom beefde van het hoofd tot de voeten.\n\n\"Rebekka Thatcher\"--(Tom keek naar haar gelaat; het was bleek van\nangst) \"hebt gij,--neen, zie mij aan\" --(zij hief de handen smeekend\nomhoog)--\"hebt gij dit boek gescheurd?\"\n\nSnel als de bliksem schoot Tom eene gedachte door de ziel. Hij sprong\nop en gilde:\n\n\"Ik heb het gedaan!\"\n\nDe schooljeugd stond versteld over zulk eene onbegrijpelijke\ndwaasheid. Tom bleef een oogenblik staan om tot zichzelven te komen,\nen toen hij de bank uitstapte om zijne straf te ondergaan, werd hij\ndoor de bewondering en de dankbare aanbidding, die hem uit Becky's\noogen tegenstraalden, betaald voor honderd zweepslagen.\n\nDoor zijne edele daad zelf in verrukking gebracht, verdroeg hij\nzonder een geluid te geven, de onbarmhartigste geeseling, waaraan\nde heer Dobbins zich ooit had schuldig gemaakt, en hoorde hij ook\nmet volkomen onverschilligheid de wreede uitspraak aan, om twee uren\nschool te blijven. Immers hij wist, wie met het grootste geduld buiten\nop hem wachten zou, totdat zijne straf geleden was.\n\nDienzelfden middag nog vertelde Becky hem met schaamte en berouw,\nhoe verraderlijk zij zich jegens hem gedragen had. Tom ging dan ook\nnaar bed, vol wraakzuchtige plannen jegens Alfred Temple; maar zijn\nwrok maakte spoedig voor aangename overpeinzingen plaats en hij viel\nin slaap en droomde van Becky's laatste woorden, die hem als muziek\nin de ooren hadden geklonken en aldus hadden geluid:\n\n\"Tom, hoe kon je zoo edel zijn?\"\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXII.\n\n\nDe vacantie begon te naderen. De altijd strenge schoolmeester werd\nstrenger en veeleischender dan ooit, en scheen het er op gezet te\nhebben, op den \"examendag\" met de scholieren te pronken. Zijn roede\nen plak waren thans zelden werkeloos, ten minste onder de kleinere\nleerlingen. De grootste jongens en de dames van zestien en zeventien\njaren hadden het geluk de roede ontwassen te zijn. De zweepslagen van\nmeester Dobbins waren voorwaar niet kinderachtig, want ofschoon hij\nonder zijn pruik een geheel kaal en glimmend hoofd verborg, bezaten\nzijne spieren nog haar volle kracht. Naarmate de groote dag naderde\nscheen al wat er van den dwingeland in hem was, naar boven te komen,\nen 't was alsof hij er een wreed behagen in schepte, de scholieren voor\nde geringste tekortkomingen te straffen. Het gevolg daarvan was, dat de\nkleineren onder zijne leerlingen overdag zwoegden onder angst en smart\nen bij nacht zonnen op wraak. Zij lieten dan ook geene gelegenheid om\nden meester een poets te spelen, ongebruikt voorbijgaan. Ongelukkig\nwas hij voortdurend op zijn hoede. De vergelding, die op elke zegepraal\nhunner wraakzucht volgde, was zoo vreeselijk, dat de knapen doorgaans\nmet blauwe plekken op het lijf het veld ruimden. Eindelijk werd\ner een plan beraamd, dat eene schitterende overwinning beloofde. De\nverversjongen werd in het komplot opgenomen, met hunne ontwerpen bekend\ngemaakt en zijne hulp ingeroepen. Die verversjongen had zijn eigen\nredenen om tot het verbond toe te treden, want de meester woonde op\nkamers bij zijn vader en had den knaap reden te over gegeven om hem\nte haten. De vrouw van den meester zou een paar dagen uit de stad\ngaan en er bestond dus geen vrees, dat van dien kant een spaak in\n't wiel zou gestoken worden.\n\nDe meester had de gewoonte om zich voor de examens en andere groote\nplechtigheden voor te bereiden, door zich een een roes aan te drinken,\nen de verversjongen beloofde, dat, wanneer de onderwijzer op den\navond van het examen weer boven zijn bier was en in zijn stoel lag\nte dommelen, hij \"het dingetje wel klaar zou spelen.\" Hij zou hem\ndan zoo laat mogelijk wakker maken, omdat hij alleen maar tijd zou\nhebben om in vliegende vaart naar school te ijlen.\n\nToen de volheid der tijden gekomen was, greep het belangwekkende\nfeit plaats.\n\nOm acht uren in den avond was het schoollokaal schitterend verlicht\nen met kransen en festoenen van bloemen en loofwerk versierd.\n\nDe soezerige, halfdronken meester troonde in zijn leuningstoel,\nop eene opzettelijk daartoe vervaardigde verhevenheid, met het\nschrijfbord achter zich. Drie rijen met zitbanken en zes rijen in het\nfront waren bezet door de waardigheidsbekleders van het stadje en de\nouders der leerlingen. Links van den meester, achter de zitplaatsen der\nburgerij, was een hoog getimmerte gemaakt, waarop de in hun beste pak\ngekleede knaapjes gezeten waren, die proeven van hunne bedrevenheid\nzouden afleggen. Achter dezen zaten eenige rijen magere, opgeschoten\njongens. Daarop volgden de hooge banken met meisjes en jonge dames\nin katoen en neteldoek, die zich blijkbaar heel voornaam gevoelden\nmet hare bloote armen, haar grootmoeders ouderwetsche kostbaarheden,\nhaar rose en blauwe strikken en haar bloemen in het haar. Verder was\nhet lokaal opgevuld met toeschouwers en scholieren.\n\nDe oefeningen begonnen. Een heel klein jongetje stond op en bracht\ndoodverlegen de van buiten geleerde woorden uit:\n\n\"Mijne hoorders,\n\n\"Gij hadt zeker niet verwacht iemand van mijn leeftijd het\nspreekgestoelte te zien beklimmen, om in het openbaar het woord te\nvoeren, enz.\". En de knaap deed zijne woorden vergezeld gaan van\noverdreven juiste en krampachtige bewegingen, die aan een machine\ndeden denken, die van de wijs is. Hij bracht het er, ofschoon in\nduizend angsten, heelhuids af en werd verbazend toegejuicht, toen\nhij zijne gekunstelde buiging maakte en het tooneel verliet.\n\nEen klein bedeesd meisje lispelde het versje:\n\n\"Marietje had een lammetje, enz.,\" maakte eene medelijdenswekkende\ndienares, kreeg haar voegzaam deel toejuichingen en ging blozend\nen voldaan weer zitten. Tom Sawyer trad voorwaarts met gemaakt\nzelfvertrouwen en wond zich met prachtig nagebootste en allerzotste\ngebaren op tot het onsterfelijke: \"Geef mij de vrijheid, of geef mij\nden dood!\"--doch werd in het midden door een akelige tooneelvrees\nbevangen. Zijne knie\u00ebn knikten en hij dreigde in zijne woorden te\nstikken. Wel is waar wekte hij zichtbaar het medelijden en de sympathie\nvan de toehoorders, maar zij hielden zich doodstil, en dat zwijgen van\nhet publiek was erger dan medegevoel. Tot overmaat van smart fronste\nde meester zijne wenkbrauwen. Tom spande nogmaals alle krachten in,\ndoch zag zich verplicht verslagen af te treden. Voor een oogenblik\nkwam er eene zwakke poging om te applaudisseeren, doch zij werd in\nhare wording gesmoord.\n\nDaarop volgde: \"De knaap stond op het brandende dek;\" toen:\n\"De Assyri\u00ebrs zakten den stroom af;\" en andere juweeltjes voor de\ndeclamatiekunst. Toen had men de leesoefeningen en een kampstrijd in\nhet spellen. De schraal bezette klasse der Latinisten bracht het er\nmet haar voordracht schitterend af.\n\nHet eerste bedrijf was naar behooren afgeloopen en nu volgde de\n\"zelfgemaakte\" opstellen van de jonge dames, die elk op hare beurt\nop de verhevenheid stapten, kuchten, haar handschrift, dat met\neen keurig lintje was vastgemaakt, in de hand hielden en begonnen\nte lezen. De onderwerpen waren dezelfde, waarmede bij dergelijke\ngelegenheden hare moeders, hare grootmoeders en ongetwijfeld al de\nvoorouders in de vrouwelijke linie geschitterd hadden. Daar was er\neen over de \"Vriendschap,\" en verder; \"Herinnering aan vroegere\ndagen,\" \"Godsdienst in de geschiedenis,\" \"Het land der droomen,\"\n\"De voordeelen der beschaving;\" \"Het verschil en de overeenkomst van\nde onderscheidene staatsvormen,\" \"Droefgeestigheid,\" \"Kinderliefde,\"\n\"Hartstochten,\" enz. enz.\n\nEen hoofdgebrek van al deze opstellen was eene zorgvuldig gekweekte\ndroefgeestigheid en een kwistige overvloed van mooie woorden.\n\nIn sommigen was een merkbare neiging om modewoorden er met\nde haren bij te sleepen, zoo dikwijls zelfs, dat zij geheel\nafgezaagd werden. En dan was er eene bijzonderheid, welke ze\nalle kenmerkte en bedierf,--namelijk de onuitstaanbare zedepreek,\ndie zijn gebrekkelijken staart aan het eind van elk opstel deed\nkwispelen. Welk ook het onderwerp mocht wezen, er werd altijd een\nhersens folterende poging gedaan om er op de een of andere wijze\niets in te lasschen waarop het zedelijk en godsdienstig gemoed met\nstichting kon nederzien. Niettegenstaande de ergerlijke onoprechtheid,\ndie het publiek uit dergelijke zedepreken tegenblonk, werden zij niet\nafgeschaft. En zij zijn dat nog niet en zullen het waarschijnlijk\nnooit worden, zoolang de wereld zal bestaan.\n\nEr is geen school in gansch Amerika, waar de jonge dames zich niet\nverplicht gevoelen hare opstellen met een preek te eindigen; en het\nzijn doorgaans de lichtzinnigste en minst godsdienstige meisjes,\ndie de mooiste preken maken. Maar genoeg hiervan. De waarheid wil\nniet altijd gezegd zijn. Laat ons daarom tot het examen terugkeeren.\n\nHet eerste opstel, dat voorgelezen werd, droeg tot opschrift:\n\n\"Is dit nu het leven?\"\n\nDe lezer zal mij wel willen vergunnen er een uittreksel van mede te\ndeelen. Het luidde ongeveer aldus:\n\n\"Met welk een verrukking ziet gewoonlijk het jeugdig gemoed niet uit\nnaar een hem wachtend feest! De verbeelding toovert rooskleurige\ntafereelen van genot. Daar ziet de aanbidster van wereldsche\ngenoegens zich reeds te midden der feestvierende menigte als\n'de bewonderde door al de bewonderaars.' Haar bevallige gestalte,\nin een sneeuwwit kleed gehuld, zweeft rond in den doolhof van den\nvroolijken dans; haar oog is schitterender, haar tred lichter dan die\nvan de gansche lustige schare. Onder zulke heerlijke droomen glijdt\nde tijd spoedig voort en weldra is de gelukkige ure daar, waarop zij\nde Elyseesche velden betreden zal, van welke zij zoo verrukkelijk\nhad gedroomd. Hoe tooverachtig schoon vertoont zich alles aan hare\nontvlamde verbeelding! Elk nieuw tooneel wint aan bekoring. Maar na\neene wijle ervaart zij, dat onder dat schoon vernis niets dan ijdelheid\nschuilt. De vleitaal, welke eens haar hart streelde, klinkt haar schril\nin het oor; de balzaal heeft hare aantrekkelijkheid voor haar verloren\nen met een verwoeste gezondheid en een verbitterd hart trekt zij zich\nuit de wereld terug, de overtuiging met zich voerende, dat aardsch\ngenot de ziel, die naar hoogere dingen streeft, niet bevredigen kan.\"\n\nEn zoo ging het voort. Van tijd tot deed zich onder het lezen een\ngegons van bijvalsbetuigingen hooren, vergezeld van fluisterende\nuitroepen, als: \"Hoe lief! Hoe welsprekend! Hoe waar!\" enz. enz. En\ntoen het stuk met een ijselijk sombere preek eindigde, volgde er een\nuitbundige toejuiching.\n\nVervolgens stond een tenger, droefgeestig meisje op, dat zich door\nde belangwekkende bleekheid onderscheidde, welke het gevolg is van\npillen en indigestie, en droeg een gedicht voor, waarvan ik u twee\ncoupletten zal mededeelen:\n\n\n    Alabama, vaarwel! Och 'k min U zoo teer!\n    Toch ga 'k voor een poos van U scheiden!\n    Maar het denken aan U doet mij 't harte zoo zeer,\n    Mijn ziel blijft bij U steeds verbeiden.\n    Uw lommerrijke wouden heb 'k dikwijls doorkruist;\n    'k Heb gedoold langs Uw liefelijke stroomen;\n    Gehoord hoe uw water bij stormwinden bruist\n    En bewonderend Aurora zien komen.\n\n    De tranen die 'k schrei, o! ik schaam ze mij niet,\n    Geen blos dekt mijne vochtige wangen;\n    Niet vreemd is mij 't land, dat mijn aandoening ziet,\n    't Is een vriend waar mijn ziel aan blijft hangen.\n    Een meer hartelijke ontvangst vond ik nergens, o neen!\n    Dan bij U, wien 'k _mijn_ land wel mag heeten;\n    En mijn hoofd en mijn hart moest wel koud zijn als steen,\n    Alabama, als het U kon vergeten!\"\n\n\nEr waren er slechts zeer weinigen, die wisten wat het woord \"Aurora\"\nbeteekende, doch het gedicht viel niettemin zeer in den smaak.\n\nDaarop verscheen een jonge dame met een donkere gelaatskleur, donkere\noogen en donker haar, die een indrukwekkend oogenblik pauseerde,\nhaar best deed om haar gelaat eene tragische uitdrukking te geven en\ntoen op afgemeten toon begon:\n\n\"Zwart en stormachtig was de nacht. Om den hemeltroon flikkerde een\nenkele ster, doch zware donderslagen trilden aanhoudend door het zwerk,\nterwijl de vreeselijke bliksem gramstorig door de onbewolkte hemelzalen\ndartelde, alsof hij de macht bespotte, welke de beroemde Franklin\nzich over zijne verschrikkingen had aangematigd! Zelfs de onstuimige\nwinden kwamen eendrachtig uit hunne geheimzinnige woonplaatsen te\nvoorschijn en bulderden in het rond, begeerig naar 't scheen, om de\nwoestheid van het tooneel door hunne hulp te verhoogen.\n\n\"Op zulk een tijdstip, zoo duister, zoo droevig, zuchtte mijn hart\nnaar menschelijk medegevoel,--maar in plaats daarvan,\n\n\n    Mijn dierbaarste vriendin, mijn gids en mijn geleide,\n    Mijn vreugde bij mijn smart, stondt ge eensklaps aan mijn zijde!\n\n\n\"Zij bewoog zich voort als een van die liefelijke wezens, welke\nde romantische jeugd zich op de zonnige paden van het Eden der\nverbeelding, voor den geest toovert,--een koningin der schoonheid,\nzonder versierselen, maar getooid met hare alles overtreffende\nbekoorlijkheid. Haar tred was zoo licht, dat het oor hare nadering niet\nvernam, en indien hare bezielde aanraking niet eene magische trilling\nhad doen ontstaan, zou zij ongemerkt, ongezocht voorbijgegleden\nzijn. Een zonderlinge droefheid zetelde op hare gelaatstrekken, als\nijzige tranen op Decembers winterkleed, toen zij naar de strijdende\nelementen daar buiten wees en mij verzocht de beide wezens, die daar\nwerden voorgesteld, te aanschouwen.\" [2]\n\nDeze nachtmerrie omvatte tien bladzijden schrifts en sloot met een\npreek, wanhopig akelig voor de Anti-Presbyterianen, doch die den\neersten prijs behaalde en als de schoonste proeve van den avond\nwerd beschouwd.\n\nDe burgemeester van St. Petersburg hield onder het overreiken van den\nprijs aan haar, die hem behaald had, eene schitterende redevoering,\nin welke hij betuigde, dat dit de welsprekendste rede was, die zijne\nooren ooit gehoord hadden en dat Daniel Webster zelfs er trotsch op\nhad kunnen zijn.\n\nIn het voorbijgaan moet gezegd worden, dat de opstellen, welke\novervloeiden van het woord \"heerlijk\" als ook van de vergelijking\n\"menschelijke ondervinding,\" met \"een bladzijde uit het leven,\"\nhet gemiddeld aantal overtrof.\n\nThans schoof de meester, opgewonden tot aan luidruchtigheid toe,\nzijn stoel op zijde, ging met den rug naar het publiek staan en begon\nzijne aardrijkskundige lessen door op het bord eene kaart van Amerika\nte teekenen. Doch hij maakte met zijne onvaste hand een figuur--en\ner werd een onderdrukt gelach in de school gehoord. Hij wist wat er\naan haperde en deed zijn best om de fout te herstellen, veegde enkele\nlijnen met de spons uit en maakte weder nieuwe. Helaas! zij werden\nhoe langer hoe slechter en het gegiegel werd luider. Hij wijdde zijn\ngansche aandacht aan het werk, alsof hij besloten had zich niet door\nhet publiek uit het veld te laten slaan. Hij voelde, dat aller oogen\nop hem gevestigd waren, en verbeeldde zich dat het beter ging. En toch\nhield het gegiegel aan, ja, het vermeerderde blijkbaar. En daartoe\nwas wel reden. Boven zijn hoofd was een vliering met een luik, en\nuit dat luik, kwam een kat te voorschijn, welke men een touw om de\nachterpooten gehecht had. Die kat had een doekje om den kop en de\nkaken gebonden, on haar het miauwen te beletten. Terwijl zij langzaam\nnaar beneden sukkelde, kromde zij zich naar alle kanten, sloeg hare\nklauwen om het touw, schommelde vervolgens naar de laagte en krabde\ntegen de ontastbare lucht. Het gegiegel werd erger en erger: de kat was\nomstreeks zes duim van des soezerigen meesters hoofd. Nog een weinig\nlater en zij greep met hare klauwen wanhopig naar des meesters pruik,\nklemde zich daaraan vast en werd een oogenblik later weder tot de\nvliering opgetrokken, met haar zegeteeken tusschen de pooten. En welk\neen lichtgloed verspreidde zich toen van des meesters hoofd. Immers\nde verversjongen had dat lichaamsdeel met verguldsel besmeerd.\n\nMet dit tooneel werd de vergadering gesloten. De jongens waren gewroken\nen de vacantie was begonnen.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXIII.\n\n\nAangetrokken door de schitterende uniform der \"Matigheids-Cadetten\"\nwerd Tom lid der afdeeling van het nieuw opgerichte genootschap en\nbeloofde hij zich gedurende zijn lidmaatschap te onthouden van rooken\nen vloeken. Bij deze gelegenheid ontdekte de knaap iets, waaraan hij\nvroeger nooit gedacht had, namelijk--dat de aflegging der belofte om\niets _niet_ te doen, het beste middel is om iets te leeren doen. Tom\nvoelde zich door een nooit gekenden lust gekweld on te rooken en te\nvloeken: ja, de begeerte werd zoo sterk, dat alleen de hoop om zijn\nroode sjerp te vertoonen, hem er van terughield zijn lidmaatschap op\nte zeggen.\n\nHet was 4 Juli toen hij tot den bond toetrad, en hij was nog geen\nacht en veertig uren lid geweest of hij was gereed en gezind zich\nvan zijne boeien te ontslaan. Doch juist dien dag vernam hij, dat\nde oude vrederechter ziek was en waarschijnlijk zou sterven. Zulk\neen voornaam ambtenaar zou zeker met groote plechtigheid begraven\nworden en dan had hij een kansje om in zijn uniform den stoet te\nvolgen. Drie dagen lang was Tom diep begaan met des rechters toestand\nen vol verlangen naar tijding. Nu en dan klom zijn hoop zoodanig,\ndat hij het waagde zijn sjerp uit de kast te halen en zich voor den\nspiegel voor de groote gebeurtenis te oefenen. Doch de rechter bleef\nwanhopig lang tusschen dood en leven dobberen en werd ten slotte\naan de betere hand en daarna voor hersteld verklaard. Tom was boos\nen zeide onverwijld zijn lidmaatschap op. Helaas! dienzelfden nacht\nstortte de rechter in en stierf.\n\nTom besloot oude vrederechters nooit meer te vertrouwen. De\nbegrafenis was prachtig en de cadetten paradeerden op een wijze,\ndie er op toegelegd scheen om het vroegere lid van afgunst te doen\nvergaan. Doch hij was vrij en kon weder naar hartelust rooken en\nvloeken. En nu bemerkte hij tot zijne verwondering, dat hij er op\neens geene behoefte meer aan had. De wetenschap alleen, dat hij het\ndoen kon nam den lust en het genot er van weg.\n\nTot Toms groote verbazing begon hij te bemerken, dat de lang gewenschte\nvacantie wat vervelend werd.\n\nHij beproefde een dagboek te maken, doch aangezien er de eerste drie\ndagen niets merkwaardigs voorviel, gaf hij het op. Toen kwam het \"Caf\u00e9\nChantant,\" der negerzangers in de stad en maakte sensatie. Dadelijk\nwerd er door Tom en Joe Harper een speel- en zanggezelschap opgericht\nen de knapen vermaakten zich daarmede een paar dagen. Zelfs de\ndag van den intocht des nieuwen Senators mislukte gedeeltelijk,\nomdat het hard regende. Dientengevolge was er geen optocht,--en\nzelfs in den grootsten man der wereld (naar het oordeel van Tom),\nden heer Beuton, een wezenlijken Senator van de Vereenigde Staten,\nwerd hij bitter teleurgesteld, want deze bleek op geen stukken na\nvijf en twintig voet lang te zijn.\n\nToen kwam er een paardenspel. De jongens speelden drie dagen \"cirque\",\nin tenten van lompen en oude tapijten, met toegangskaarten van drie\ncenten en twee voor meisjes, en daarna werd het paardenspel opgegeven.\n\nEindelijk kwam er een buikspreker en een goochelaar--die weder\nvertrokken en het stadje achterlieten somberder en droeviger dan ooit.\n\nOok werden er enkele kinderpartijen gegeven, doch zij waren zoo\nzeldzaam en zoo heerlijk, dat de pijnlijke leemte tusschen de eene\nvisite en de andere er te meer om werd gevoeld.\n\nBecky Thatcher was naar huis gegaan, naar Konstantinopel, om de\nvacantie bij hare ouders door te brengen: dus was er nergens een\nzonnestraaltje te vinden. Daarbij kwam nog het vreeselijk geheim van\nden moord, dat eene slepende ellende bleef voor den armen knaap.\n\nMidden in de vacantie vertoonde zich de mazelen-epidemie en Tom was\ntwee weken lang een gevangene, dood voor de wereld en hetgeen daarin\nvoorviel. Hij was zeer ziek en stelde nergens belang in. Toen hij\neindelijk weder buiten mocht komen en zachtjes de stad doordrentelde,\nscheen alles en elk schepsel een treurige verandering ondergaan te\nhebben. Er was een straatprediker geweest, die de menschen bekeerd\nhad, niet alleen de volwassenen, maar zelfs de kleine jongens en\nmeisjes. Tom ging de stad rond in de hopelooze hoop van ten minste\neen enkel zondig gezicht tegen te komen, doch overal wachtte hem\nteleurstelling. Hij vond Joe Harper verdiept in de studie van het\nNieuwe Testament en hij wendde zich droevig van dit drukkend schouwspel\naf. Hij zocht Ben Rogers en vond hem aan het bezoeken van armen,\nmet een mandje met traktaatjes, als eene waarschuwing tot bekeering,\nbij zich. Hij spoorde Jim Hollis op, die hem wees op de zegen van de\nmazelen. Iedere jongen, dien hij tegenkwam, bracht een dosis tot zijn\ntoestand van neerslachtigheid toe, en toen hij in wanhoop eindelijk\nzijn toevlucht nam tot Huckleberry Finn en ook door hem met eene\naanhaling uit de Schrift ontvangen werd, brak hem het hart en sloop\nhij naar zijn bed en maakte zich wijs, dat hij de eenige in de stad\nwas, die voor eeuwig, eeuwig was verloren.\n\nJuist dien nacht kwam er een vreeselijke storm met slagregen,\nontzettende donderslagen en verblindende bliksemstralen. Tom kroop\nonder de dekens en wachtte in een akelige onzekerheid zijn doemvonnis\naf: immers hij was volkomen overtuigd, dat dit woeden der elementen\nom zijnentwil geschiedde. Hij geloofde, dat hij de verdraagzaamheid\nder bovenaardsche machten getart had, meer dan zij dragen konden, en\ndat dit er het gevolg van was. Het zou hem wel vreemd voorgekomen zijn\nals zooveel vertooning en geschut was aangewend om een mug te dooden,\ndoch hij vond het heusch niet ongerijmd, dat er zulk een onweder was\nontstaan om een worm als hij te vernietigen.\n\nLangzamerhand bedaarde de storm en verdween, zonder zijn voornemen te\nhebben ten uitvoer gebracht. De eerste aandrang van den knaap was,\ndankbaar te zijn en zich te verbeteren. De tweede was, te wachten:\nimmers er mochten nog eens meer stormen komen.\n\nDen volgenden dag stond de dokter opnieuw voor zijn bed. Tom was weder\ningestort. De drie volgende weken, die hij op zijn rug doorbracht,\nschenen eene eeuwigheid. Toen hij eindelijk weder buiten kwam, was\nhij nauwlijks dankbaar dat hij gespaard was gebleven, daar hij immers\nverlaten en van makkers beroofd was. Hij zwierf lusteloos door de\nstraat en vond Jim Hollis voor rechter spelende in een gerechtshof\nvan jongelieden, die een kat wegens moord hadden aangeklaagd, in de\ntegenwoordigheid van haar slachtoffer, een vogel. Daarna zag hij\nJoe Harper en Huck Finn, die in plaats van de Schriften te lezen,\nbezig waren een gestolen meloen op te muizen. Arme knapen, ook zij\nwaren weder ingestort!\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXIV.\n\n\nEindelijk kwam er beweging in de droomerige atmosfeer--en\ngeweldige beweging ook. De zaak van den moord zou voorkomen bij\nhet Gerechtshof. Natuurlijk werd deze zaak het onderwerp van alle\ngesprekken; ook in Toms kring werd er druk over gesproken. Maar\ntelkens, als het woord genoemd werd, voer hem eene rilling door de\nleden en hij verbeeldde zich in zijn angst, dat er voorbedachtelijk\nzoo gedurig in zijne tegenwoordigheid over gesproken werd, om te\nzien of hij er ook iets mede te maken had. Ofschoon hij zeker wist,\ndat niemand eenig vermoeden omtrent zijne bekendheid met de misdaad\nkon hebben, voelde hij zich toch onder die praatjes niet op zijn\ngemak. Hij stierf elken dag duizend dooden en nam eindelijk Huck met\nzich naar eene eenzame plaats om de zaak met hem te bepraten. Het\nzou eene verlichting wezen, eens even zijn tong vrij te laten en den\nlijdenslast met een lotgenoot te deelen. Bovendien wilde hij er zich\nvan overtuigen, dat Huck gezwegen had.\n\n\"Huck, heb je nooit iemand daarover gesproken?\"\n\n\"Waarover?\"\n\n\"Dat weet je wel!\"\n\n\"O, natuurlijk niet.\"\n\n\"Nooit een woord?\"\n\n\"Nooit een enkel woord.--Waarom vraag je dat?\"\n\n\"Wel, ik was er bang voor.\"\n\n\"Maar Tom Sawyer! Wij zouden geen vier en twintig uur meer geleefd\nhebben, als het ontdekt was. Dat weet je immers wel.\"\n\nTom werd kalmer. Na een pauze hernam hij:\n\n\"Huck, je zoudt je immers door niets, noch door iemand laten ompraten.\"\n\n\"Laten ompraten? Wel, als ik zin krijg om me door dien duivel van\neen kleurling te laten verzuipen, dan zal ik me laten ompraten.\"\n\n\"Nu, dan is het in orde. Ik geloof, dat we veilig zijn, zoolang we\nzwijgen. Doch laat ons voor de securiteit nog eens zweren.\"\n\n\"Best.\"\n\nDus zwoeren de knapen ten tweede male met dure eeden.\n\n\"Wat zeggen de menschen toch, Huck? Ik heb er nog zoo weinig van\ngehoord.\"\n\n\"Zeggen! 't Is Muff Potter en 't blijft Muff Potter. Het koude zweet\nstaat mij op 't voorhoofd, als ik het hoor, en ik zou wel onder den\ngrond willen kruipen.\"\n\n\"Zoo gaat het mij ook. Ik weet, dat hij er om koud is.--Heb je niet\nsomtijds medelijden met hem?\"\n\n\"Ja, dag en nacht. 't Is wel geen beste, die Muff Potter, maar hij\nheeft nooit iemand kwaad gedaan. Hij bedelt wel eens langs de straat\nom geld te krijgen voor drank en hij loopt ook te luieren, maar o,\nHeertje, dat doen we allemaal, ten minste de meesten, vooral de\ndominees en dat slag van volk. Maar hij is een goede kerel, want\nhij heeft me eens de helft van zijn visch gegeven, terwijl hij zelf\nnog honger had; en ik weet niet hoeveel maal hij mij geholpen heeft,\nals ik in de knijp zat.\"\n\n\"En voor mij heeft hij oude vliegers opgelapt, Huck, en vischnetten\ngebreid. Ik wou, dat ik hem uit de kast kon krijgen.\"\n\n\"We kunnen er hem niet uit krijgen, Tom; en 't zou hem niet veel baten,\nwant ze zouden hem er wel gauw weder inpakken.\"\n\n\"Ja, dat zouden zij. Maar ik vind het akelig om hem zoo duivelsch\nvalsch te hooren beschuldigen van iets, dat hij niet gedaan heeft.\"\n\n\"Ik ook, Tom. Ik heb ze hooren zeggen, dat hij de gemeenste schurk\nuit het land was en dat het een wonder is, dat hij niet eerder\ngehangen werd.\"\n\n\"Ja, zoo praten zij. Ik heb hooren zeggen, dat, als hij vrij kwam,\nzij hem zouden _lynchen_ [3]--en dat zouden zij doen ook.\"\n\nDe jongens praatten nog een tijdlang op deze wijze voort, doch het\ngesprek bracht hun weinig troost aan. Tegen schemeravond stonden zij\nvoor de kleine eenzame gevangenis, wellicht met een vage hoop in het\nhart, dat er iets zou gebeuren, waardoor hunne moeielijkheden uit\nden weg zouden worden geruimd. Doch er gebeurde niets; de engelen en\nfee\u00ebn schenen zich het lot van dezen ongelukkige niet aan te trekken.\n\nTom en Huck deden dien avond wat zij al menigmaal hadden gedaan;\nzij zetten zich voor het tralievenster der cel neder en gaven Potter\nwat tabak en een paar zwavelstokken. Daar de gevangene in een laag\nhok lag en door geen schildwachten werd bewaakt, konden zij hem deze\nkleine giften zonder moeite toereiken.\n\nZijne dankbaarheid voor hunne geschenken had hen altijd pijnlijk\naangedaan,--doch ditmaal trof zij hen meer dan ooit. Zij vonden\nzichzelven onuitsprekelijk laf en valsch, toen Potter zeide:\n\n\"Jelui bent almachtig goed voor me geweest, jongens, beter dan\niemand anders in de geheele stad, en ik zal het nooit, nooit\nvergeten. Dikwijls zeg ik tot mijzelven: 'Ik placht al de vliegers en\ndingen voor de jongens in orde te maken en hen te wijzen waar de beste\nvisch te vangen was en hun pleizier te doen zooveel ik kon, en thans,\nnu hij in nood is, hebben zij allen den ouden Muff vergeten--allen\nbehalve Tom en Huck. Die vergeten hem niet,' zeg ik, en ik vergeet\nhen niet. Wel jongens, ik heb een vreeselijke misdaad gepleegd,\nin mijne dronkenschap,--anders begrijp ik niet, hoe ik het gedaan\nkon hebben,--en nu moet ik er voor hangen, en dat is maar goed, ja,\n't beste wat ze met mij doen kunnen. Doch daar zullen wij niet verder\nover spreken. Ik wil jelui niet akelig maken, daarvoor ben jelui te\ngoed voor mij geweest! Maar wat ik zeggen wou, is dit: drinkt nooit\nte veel, en jelui zult nooit hier komen. Ga een beetje dichter bij\nhet raam staan, dan kan ik jelui beter zien; 't is zoo'n troost,\nvriendelijke gezichten te zien, als men zich zoo diep ellendig\nvoelt,--en ik zie ze hier nooit, behalve die van jelui. Goede,\nvriendelijke gezichten. Goede, vriendelijke gezichten! Gaat op\nelkanders rug staan en geef mij de hand; uwe handen kunnen wel door de\ntralies doch de mijne niet, die zijn te groot. Kleine, teere handjes,\ndie Muff Potters last verlicht hebben en welke, als ze maar konden,\ndien wel heelemaal zouden wegnemen!\"\n\nTom ging dien avond diep rampzalig naar huis en werd den ganschen nacht\ndoor afgrijselijke droomen gekweld. De twee volgende dagen was hij\nal vroeger op straat en en bleef hij om de zaal van het gerechtshof\nheen zweven, naar welk gebouw hij onwederstaanbaar gedreven werd,\nofschoon hij al zijne krachten inspande om zich te dwingen er vandaan\nte blijven. Huck ondervond hetzelfde en de beide knapen vermeden\nelkander opzettelijk. Soms liepen zij voor een oogenblik weg, doch\ndezelfde vreeselijke betoovering dreef hen altijd weder naar het gebouw\nterug. Telkens spitste Tom de ooren, wanneer er een leeglooper de zaal\nin- of uitslenterde, doch hij hoorde onveranderlijk treurig nieuws;\nhet net werd hoe langer hoe dichter om den armen Potter toegehaald. Aan\nden avond van den tweeden dag liep in het stadje het gerucht dat het\nfeit door Injun Joe's verklaring volkomen was bewezen en dat er geen\ntwijfel meer bestond omtrent de uitspraak der jury.\n\nTom kwam laat in den avond tehuis en klom door het venster in zijne\nslaapkamer. Hij was in een staat van vreeselijke opgewondenheid\nen uren verliepen, eer hij den slaap kon vatten. Den volgenden\nmorgen liep de gansche stad uit naar het Hof, want dit was de groote\ndag. De beide geslachten waren gelijkelijk in dit zich opeenhoopend\npubliek vertegenwoordigd. Na lang op zich te hebben laten wachten,\nkwam de jury binnen en nam haar zetels in. Kort daarop werd Potter\ngeboeid binnengebracht. Hij zag er bleek en ontdaan uit en werd\nzoo geplaatst, dat al de nieuwsgierige oogen hem konden zien. Niet\nminder viel Injun Joe in 't oog, verstaald als altijd. Na eene kleine\npauze kwam de voorzitter binnen en de sherif verklaarde de zitting\nvoor geopend. Daarop volgde het gewone gefluister onder de leden\nder balie en het bijeenverzamelen der stukken. Deze bijzonderheden\nen het haar vergezellend oponthoud brachten niet weinig bij om het\nindrukwekkende dezer bijeenkomst te verhoogen en de vergadering in\nde grootste spanning te brengen. Nu werd er een getuige voorgeroepen\ndie verklaarde, dat hij Muff Potter in den vroegen morgen van den\ndag, waarop de moord ontdekt was, zich in een beek had zien wasschen\nen onmiddellijk daarop door het kreupelhout wegsluipen. Nadat dien\ngetuige enkele vragen gedaan waren, zeide de openbare aanklager;\n\n\"Hebt gij den getuige nog verder iets te vragen?\"\n\nDe gevangene hief een oogenblik de oogen op, doch sloeg ze terstond\nweder neer, toen zijn verdediger zeide:\n\n\"Ik heb hem geene vragen te doen.\"\n\nDe volgende getuige deelde mede, dat er een mes bij het lijk gevonden\nwas. Op de vraag, of hij dezen ook iets te vragen had, antwoordde de\nadvocaat van Potter:\n\n\"Ik heb ook dezen niets te vragen.\"\n\nHet publiek begon teekenen van ontevredenheid te geven.--Was deze\nadvocaat van plan zijn cli\u00ebnt het leven te doen verliezen, zonder\neen enkele poging te wagen om hem te redden?\n\nVerscheidene getuigen legden verklaringen af omtrent de schuld\nverradende houding van Potter, toen hij op de plaats waar de moord\ngepleegd was, gebracht werd. Zij mochten allen aftrekken zonder\nkruisvragen te ondergaan.\n\nAl de bezwarende omstandigheden, welke in dien morgen op het kerkhof\nhadden plaats gegrepen en die de aanwezigen zich zoo goed wisten te\nherinneren, werden door geloofwaardige getuigen gestaafd, maar tot\ngeen hunner werd door Potters verdediger een vraag gericht.\n\nDe verslagenheid en ontevredenheid van het publiek uitte zich in een\ndof gemompel en gaf aanleiding tot eene berisping van de zijde van\nden voorzitter. De woordvoerder voor de beschuldiging zeide daarop:\n\nDoor de be\u00ebedigde getuigenissen van burgers, wier geloofwaardigheid\nboven alle verdenking verheven is, hebben wij het onweerlegbaar\nbewijs geleverd, dat de ongelukkige gevangene, die in gindsche bank\ngezeten is, het vreeselijk misdrijf heeft bedreven. Onze taak is\nhiermede ge\u00ebindigd.\n\nEen kreet ontsnapte den armen Potter en hij sloeg zijne handen voor\nhet gelaat en bewoog zich onrustig op zijne plaats, terwijl er in de\ngerechtszaal een pijnlijk stilzwijgen heerschte. Vele mannen waren\nbewogen en menige vrouw gaf door tranen van medelijden blijk.\n\nDe verdediger stond op en sprak:\n\n\"Mijnheer de Voorzitter!\n\n\"Toen wij bij het begin der behandeling van dit geding ons enkele\naanmerkingen over de zaak veroorloofden, hebben wij gezegd, dat wij\nzouden trachten aan te toonen, dat onze cli\u00ebnt bij het plegen dezer\nontzettende daad handelde in een toestand van waanzin, ontstaan uit\nmisbruik van sterken drank, die zijne aansprakelijkheid uitsloot. Wij\nzijn op dat voornemen teruggekomen; die verdediging zullen wij niet\nvoeren.\" (En toen tot den deurwaarder) \"Roep Thomas Sawyer.\"\n\nDe grootste verbazing teekende zich op ieders gelaat, dat van Potter\nniet uitgezonderd. Aller oogen wendden zich vol bevreemding en\nbelangstelling op Tom, toen deze opstond en in het getuigenbankje\nplaats nam. De knaap zag er bleek en doodelijk verschrikt uit. De\need werd hem afgenomen.\n\n\"Tom Sawyer, waar zijt gij den zeventienden Juni, omstreeks middernacht\ngeweest?\"\n\nTom keek naar het verstaalde gezicht van Injun Joe en zijne tong\nweigerde hare diensten. Het publiek luisterde met ingehouden adem,\ndoch de woorden wilden niet komen. Na een paar minuten echter kwam de\nontstelde knaap eenigermate tot zich zelven en trachtte hij zijne stem\nte verheffen, om zich door de aanwezigen te doen verstaan en zeide:\n\n\"Op het kerkhof!\"\n\n\"Een weinig luider, als 't u belieft. Wees niet bang.--Gij waart....?\"\n\n\"Op het kerkhof!\"\n\nEene minachtende glimlach speelde om de lippen van Injun Joe.\n\n\"Waart gij in de nabijheid van het graf van Hoss Williams?\"\n\n\"Ja, mijnheer.\"\n\n\"Spreek nog iets luider. Hoe dicht waart ge er bij?\"\n\n\"Zoo dicht, als ik thans bij u sta.\"\n\n\"Hieldt gij u verborgen of niet?\"\n\n\"Verborgen, mijnheer.\"\n\n\"Waar?\"\n\n\"Achter de olmboomen, aan den rand van het graf.\"\n\nInjun Joe deinsde onwillekeurig achteruit.\n\n\"Hadt gij niemand bij u?\"\n\n\"Ja, mijnheer. Ik was daar met...\"\n\n\"Wacht, wacht een oogenblik. Gij behoeft den naam van uw makker niet\nte noemen. Wij zullen hem te zijner tijd voorbrengen. Hadt gij iets\nbij u?\"\n\nTom aarzelde en keek verlegen voor zich.\n\n\"Spreek vrij uit, mijn jongen;--wees niet bedeesd. 't Is altijd braaf\non de waarheid te spreken. Wat hebt gij mede naar het kerkhof genomen?\"\n\n\"Niets dan een--een doode kat!\"\n\nVoor een oogenblik verhief zich zulk een luid glimlach onder de\nmenigte, dat de voorzitter den hamer moest gebruiken.\n\n\"Nu, mijn jongen, vertel ons al wat er is voorgevallen. Zeg het in\nuw eigen taal;--sla niets over en wees niet bang.\"\n\nTom begon. Eerst aarzelend, doch naarmate hij zich warmer over het\nonderwerp maakte, vloeiden zijne woorden met grooter gemak, en het\nduurde niet lang of er werd geen geluid gehoord dan dat van zijne\nstem. Aller oogen waren op hem gericht en met open mond en ingehouden\nadem hing het publiek aan zijne lippen, ontzet door het verhaal van\nde afgrijselijke geschiedenis. De hooggespannen aandacht bereikte\nhaar toppunt, toen de jongen zeide:\n\n\"En toen de dokter de plank opnam en Muff Potter viel, sprong Injun\nJoe met het mes op hem toe en....\"\n\nKrak! Sneller dan de bliksem vloog de kleurling door een raam, duwde\nallen die hem trachten tegen te houden terug en was verdwenen.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXV.\n\n\nTom was ten tweede male de held van den dag,--het troetelkind der\nouden van dagen, het voorwerp van afgunst der jeugd. Zijn naam werd\nzelfs door de drukpers onsterfelijk gemaakt, want hij werd eervol in\nhet \"Peterburgsche blaadje\" vermeld. Er waren er zelfs, die in hem,\nindien hij aan de galg ontkwam, een toekomstigen President zagen.\n\nZooals dat gewoonlijk gaat, koesterde de veranderlijke, onredelijke\nwereld Muff Potter aan haar hart en vertroetelde hem even dwaas\nals zij hem te voren had beschimpt. Doch aangezien deze gewoonte de\nmenschheid eer tot lof dan tot blaam strekt, zou het onheusch zijn\ner haar een verwijt van te maken.\n\nDe eerstvolgende dagen waren voor Tom een tijdperk van onvermengd\ngenot, maar zijne nachten waren vreeselijk. Het beeld van Injun Joe\nvervolgde hem in zijn droomen en de moordenaar stond gedurig voor\nhem, met verdelging in zijn oog. De knaap was er voor geen geld toe\nte bewegen om na zonsondergang de deur uit te gaan. De arme Huck\nverkeerde in denzelfden toestand van ellende en schrik, want Tom\nhad den avond voor den rechtsdag de geheele geschiedenis aan den\npleitbezorger verteld, en Huck was doodbang dat het uitlekken zou,\ndat ook hij in de zaak betrokken was, ofschoon de vlucht van Injun\nJoe hem de marteling gespaard had van op 's Hofs zitting getuigenis\nte moeten afleggen.\n\nSedert Toms bezwaard geweten hem in den laten avond naar het huis van\nden advocaat gedreven had en deze het huiveringwekkend verhaal had\nontwrongen aan lippen, die door de vreeselijkste en geheimzinnigste\needen gesloten waren geweest, had Huck zijn vertrouwen in de menschheid\nvoor eeuwig verloren. Zoolang het daglicht scheen, maakte Muff Potters\ndankbaarheid Tom blijde dat hij gesproken had; maar zoodra de avond\nwas gedaald, zou hij om alles gewild hebben dat zijn mond gesloten\nwas gebleven. Het eene oogenblik bekroop hem de vrees, dat Injun Joe\nnooit gevat zou worden, en het andere beefde hij bij de gedachte dat\nhet wel zou gebeuren. Het was hem alsof hij niet weder vrij zou ademen,\nvoordat die man dood was en hij zijn lijk had gezien. Geldsommen waren\nuitgeloofd, men had het land doorkruist, doch er werd geen Injun Joe\ngevonden. Op zekeren dag kwam er uit St Louis een van die alwetende,\nontzagwekkende wonderen in menschengedaante, een agent van de geheime\npolitie, hoofdschuddend en met een voornaam gezicht te St Peterburg\nen maakte dien kolossalen opgang, welke leden van dat verheven lichaam\naltijd maken. Hij kwam zeggen dat hij den \"sleutel\" gevonden had. Doch\naangezien men geen \"sleutel\" wegens moord kon ophangen, bracht het\nbezoek van den grooten man weinig licht aan en voelde Tom zich al even\nbezwaard als vroeger. De eene dag voor en de andere na ging voorbij,\nzonder dat hem het drukkend wicht van den angst werd afgenomen.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXVI.\n\n\nEr komt een tijd in elk wel ingericht jongensleven, dat hij door eene\nvurige begeerte wordt aangegrepen om ergens een verborgen schat te\ngaan zoeken. Dat verlangen bekroop plotseling Tom. Hij stapte de deur\nuit om Joe Harper op te zoeken, doch zonder baat. Toen ging hij naar\nBen Rogers; helaas! deze was visschen. Weldra echter liep hij Huck\ntegen 't lijf en de beruchte straatjongen stond hem te woord. Tom\nnam hem met zich naar een eenzame plaats en deelde in vertrouwen zijn\nvoornemen mede. Huck werd bereid gevonden; hij had gaarne de hand in\nelke onderneming, welke genot beloofde en geen geld kostte, daar hij\neen lastigen overvloed van die soort van tijd had, die _geen_ geld is.\n\n\"Waar zullen wij graven!\" vroeg Huck.\n\n\"O, overal!\"\n\n\"Zoo, zijn dan overal schatten begraven?\"\n\n\"Neen, waarachtig niet. Zij zijn meestal op allervreemdste plaatsen\nverborgen, Huck;--somtijds op eilanden en ook wel in verrotte\nkisten, onder een tak van een ouden dooden boom op welken de maan te\nmiddernacht haar schaduw werpt. Doch doorgaans vindt men ze veel in\nden grond onder spookhuizen.\"\n\n\"Wie verstopt ze?\"\n\n\"Wel de roovers natuurlijk.--Wie anders, denk je. De catechiseermeester\nvan de zondagsschool?\"\n\n\"Ik weet het zoo niet. Indien ik een schat had, zou ik hem niet\nverstoppen: ik zou er hem doorlappen om een lekker leventje te hebben.\"\n\n\"Ik ook; maar roovers doen dat niet; zij verbergen hem en laten hem\nwaar hij is.\"\n\n\"Komen zij hem nooit halen?\"\n\n\"Neen; zij hebben er wel plan op, maar zij vergeten doorgaans de\nplaats, waar zij hem verstopt hebben, of zij gaan dood. Hoe dan ook,\nhij blijft lang onder den grond liggen en begint te roesten; en in\nverloop van tijd vindt de een of ander een oud geel stukje papier,\ndat hem zegt waar de schat begraven is;--een papiertje dat men in\neen week niet ontcijferen kan, omdat het schrift enkel uit teekens\nen hi\u00ebroglyphen bestaat.\"\n\n\"Hi\u00ebro... wat?\"\n\n\"Hi\u00ebroglyphen! Dat zijn prentjes en dingen, schijnbaar zonder\nbeteekenis.\"\n\n\"Heb jij ook van die papiertjes, Tom?\"\n\n\"Neen.\"\n\n\"Hoe kun je dan de teekenen uitvinden?\"\n\n\"Wel, ik heb geen teekenen noodig. Schatten worden ook wel onder\neen spookhuis begraven of op een eiland, of onder een dooden boom\nmet vooruitstekende takken. Wij hebben het op Jacksons Island al\nzoo wat geprobeerd en nu kunnen wij weer ergens anders aan den gang\ngaan. Daar heb je bij voorbeeld het oude spookhuis, Hill-House Branch,\nen verder zijn er een menigte boomen met doode takken.\"\n\n\"Vindt men ze onder alle?\"\n\n\"Wat praat je toch! Natuurlijk niet!\"\n\n\"Hoe weet je dan onder welke je moet zoeken?\"\n\n\"Wij moeten ze alle uitgraven.\"\n\n\"Maar, Tom, dan kunnen wij den geheelen zomer wel aan den gang\nblijven!\"\n\n\"Wat kan dat schelen? Verbeeld je, dat we eens een koperen pot\nvinden met honderd roestige dollars er in, of een verrotte kist met\ndiamanten. Wat zou je daarvan zeggen?\"\n\nHucks oogen glinsterden.\n\n\"Dat is zat, meer dan zat voor mij. Geef mij de honderd dollars,\ndan mag jij de diamanten houden!\"\n\n\"Afgesproken! De diamanten zijn lang niet te verwerpen. Sommigen zijn\ntwintig dollars het stuk waard. Er zijn er haast geen, die je onder\nde zes verkoopen kunt.\"\n\n\"Wezenlijk? Is dat zoo?\"\n\n\"Zeker; dat weet iedereen. Heb je er nooit een gezien, Huck?\"\n\n\"Niet, dat ik mij herinner!\"\n\n\"O, de koningen hebben ze bij menigte.\"\n\n\"Maar ik ken geen enkelen koning, Tom.\"\n\n\"Dat wil ik wel gelooven. Hier zijn geen koningen; maar als je eens\nnaar Europa gingt, zou je er een mud in het rond zien springen.\"\n\n\"Springen zij?\"\n\n\"Springen,--eend! Wel neen!\"\n\n\"Wel, waarom zeg je het dan?\"\n\n\"Och, ik bedoelde alleen maar, dat je ze zien zoudt,--maar niet zien\nspringen, natuurlijk niet. Waarom zouden zij dat doen? Ik meen, dat\nje er den grond mede bezaaid zoudt zien, evenals bij dien Richard\nden Bultenaar.\"\n\n\"Richard ...? Hoe heet hij nog meer?\"\n\n\"Hij heeft geen anderen naam. Koningen hebben alleen maar \u00e9\u00e9n voornaam.\n\n\"Zoo?\"\n\n\"Zeker, zoo is 't.\"\n\n\"Nu, als ze dat prettig vinden, laten ze hun gang gaan. Ik zou geen\nkoning willen zijn, om alleen maar \u00e9\u00e9n voornaam te hebben, evenals\nde nikkers.--Maar zeg, waar ga je eerst graven?\"\n\n\"Dat weet ik nog niet. Zullen wij eerst beginnen onder dien ouden\ndooden tak op den heuvel, aan de overzijde van Hill-House Branch?\"\n\n\"Akkoord.\"\n\nDe knapen wisten een gebrekkige bijl en een schoffel machtig te worden\nen ondernamen de voetreis van anderhalf uur. Zij kwamen bezweet en\nhijgend aan en legden zich onder de schaduw van een olmboom neder om\nuit te rusten en een pijp te rooken.\n\n\"Het bevalt mij,\" zei Tom.\n\n\"Mij ook,\" antwoordde Huck.\n\n\"Zeg eens, Huck, als wij hier den schat vinden, wat doe jij dan met\njouw aandeel?\"\n\n\"Ik? Ik koop elken dag een pastei en een glas sodawater en ik ga\nnaar elk paardenspel dat hier in de buurt komt. Ik verzeker je,\ndat ik het er van nemen zal.\"\n\n\"Zou je er niets van opsparen?\"\n\n\"Opsparen? Waarvoor zou dat dienen?\"\n\n\"Om wat te hebben om later van te leven.\"\n\n\"O, dat hoeft niet, als ik dat deed, zou Pop op een goeden dag\nterugkomen en er zijne klauwen op zetten, om er spoedig een eind aan\nte maken.--Wat doe jij met jouw part?\"\n\n\"Ik koop een nieuwe trom, een sabel, een roode das, een groote\npoppenkast--en ik ga trouwen.\"\n\n\"Trouwen?\"\n\n\"Ja zeker.\"\n\n\"Tom, ben je mal, of wat scheelt je?\"\n\n\"Wacht maar: je zult het zien gebeuren.\"\n\n\"Hemel, dat is nu het gekste ding, dat je doen kunt. Denk maar eens\naan Pop en mijne moeder; ze deden niets dan vechten. Ik herinner mij\ndat als den dag van gisteren.\"\n\n\"Dat doet er niet toe. Het meisje, waarmede ik ga trouwen, zal niet\nvechten.\"\n\n\"Tom, ik geloof dat zij allen hetzelfde zijn. Je kunt ze allen over\n\u00e9\u00e9n kam scheeren. Ik zou me, als ik jou was, nog eens bedenken eer\nik dat deed. Ik zeg je, dat het je berouwen zal. Hoe heet die meid?\"\n\n\"'t Is geen meid;--'t is een meisje.\"\n\n\"Dat is hetzelfde; sommigen zeggen meid en anderen meisje. 't Is\nallebei goed. Hoe is haar naam?\"\n\n\"Ik zal hem je later zeggen; nu nog niet.\"\n\n\"Ook al goed. Alleen als je gaat trouwen, zal ik verlatener zijn\ndan ooit.\"\n\n\"Neen, dat zul je niet, want je zult bij ons komen inwonen. Laat ons\nnu maar spoedig opstaan en aan het graven gaan.\"\n\nZij werkten een half uur in het zweet hun aanschijns, doch zonder\ngevolg. Zij zwoegden nog een half uur, weder zonder baat. Toen\nzeide Huck:\n\n\"Worden die schatten altijd zoo diep begraven als deze?\"\n\n\"Somtijds, niet altijd. Meestal niet. Ik geloof, dat wij op de\nverkeerde plaats zijn.\"\n\nZij kozen daarom een andere plek uit en begonnen weder. De arbeid\nging wat langzamer, doch zij maakten toch vorderingen en hielden het\nzwijgend eenigen tijd vol. Eindelijk ging Huck op zijne spade leunen,\nveegde zich met zijn mouw de parelen zweet van het voorhoofd en zeide:\n\n\"Waar ga je graven, wanneer wij door dezen boom heen zijn?\"\n\n\"Dan konden wij den ouden boom bij Cardiff Hill, achter het huis van\nde weduwe wel eens opdelven.\"\n\n\"Dat zal wel een goede zijn. Maar zal de weduwe ons den schat niet\nafnemen, Tom? 't is op haar land.\"\n\n\"Zij hem ons afnemen? Laat zij 't eens probeeren. Al wie een verborgen\nschat vindt, mag hem houden. Het doet er niet toe op wiens land\nhet is.\"\n\nHuck was met dit argument tevreden. De arbeid werd\nvoortgezet. Eindelijk zeide Huck:\n\n\"Verduiveld, wij zijn zeker weer op de verkeerde plaats. Wat denk\njij ervan?\"\n\n\"Het is erg vreemd, Huck. Ik begrijp het niet. Soms komen er wel eens\nheksen tusschenbeide. Ik denk, dat dit nu het geval is.\"\n\n\"Onzin! Heksen kunnen niets doen bij daglicht.\"\n\n\"Ja, dat is waar ook. Daar dacht ik niet aan. O, ik weet al wat het\nis. Wat zijn wij toch uilskuikens! Wij moeten zien te ontdekken, op\nwelken tak tegen middernacht de schaduw van de maan valt, en onder\ndien tak graven.\"\n\n\"Vervloekt! dus hebben wij monnikenwerk gedaan. Nu zullen wij van nacht\nterugkomen. 't Is een verduiveld lange weg. Kun jij de deur uitkomen?\"\n\n\"Ik denk het wel. Wij moeten het van nacht doen ook, want als iemand\ndeze gaten ziet, zal hij het dadelijk begrijpen en zelf gaan zoeken.\"\n\n\"Goed, dan zal ik van nacht weer komen miauwen.\"\n\n\"Best. Laat ons de spaden zoolang in het kreupelbosch verbergen.\"\n\nDe knapen waren ter bestemder tijd op de afgesproken plaats en zaten\nin de schaduw van den boom te wachten. Het was een eenzaam oord en\neene van oudsher plechtige ure. Geesten fluisterden door de ruischende\nbladeren, spoken loerden in sombere hoeken, het holklinkend geblaf van\neen hond werd in de verte gehoord en door een uil met zijne grafstem\nbeantwoord. De knapen waren geheel onder den indruk dezer ernstige\nzaken en spraken bijna geen woord. Na een poosje meenden zij, dat het\nwel twaalf uren zou zijn; zij gaven nauwkeurig acht op de schaduwen en\ngingen aan het graven. De hoop begon in hun hart te herleven; hunne\nbelangstelling werd grooter en hun vlijt hield daarmede gelijken\ntred. Het gat werd al dieper en dieper en telkens, wanneer de bijl\nop iets hards sloeg, sprong hun hart op van vreugde. Doch de eene\nteleurstelling volgde de andere. Het was nooit iets anders dan een\nsteen of een paar stukken van beenderen. Eindelijk zeide Tom:\n\n\"Het zal niet baten Huck; wij zijn alweer aan den verkeerden boom.\"\n\n\"Maar wij kunnen niet verkeerd zijn: wij hebben precies de beschaduwde\nplek genomen.\"\n\n\"Dat weet ik wel, maar er is iets anders.\"\n\n\"Wat dan?\"\n\n\"Dat wij naar den tijd geraden hebben. Waarschijnlijk was het te laat\nof te vroeg.\"\n\nHuck liet zijn schop vallen.\n\n\"Daar zul je het hebben,\" zeide hij. \"Dat is het vervelende ervan. Wij\nkunnen nooit het juiste oogenblik bepalen, en buitendien, 't is hier\nal te griezelig om dezen tijd van den nacht, met ronddolende spoken\nen geesten. Ik heb een gevoel, alsof er voortdurend iets achter mij\nstaat, en ik durf mij nauwelijks omkeeren, omdat er anderen achter\nmij kunnen zijn, die hun kans afwachten. Ik heb gebeefd als een riet,\nzoolang ik hier gestaan heb.\"\n\n\"Ik ook, Huck. Zij leggen meestal een dooden man in den kuil, onder\nden boom waarin zij een schat geborgen hebben.\"\n\n\"Hemelsche vader!\"\n\n\"Ja, dat doen zij. Dat heb ik altijd gehoord.\"\n\n\"Tom, ik houd er niet van, om in de buurt van doode menschen te\nzwerven. Je hebt er altijd min of meer last van.\"\n\n\"Ik ben er ook niet voor om ze aan den gang te maken, Huck. Verbeeld\nje eens, dat er zijn schedel opstak en begon te praten.\"\n\n\"Spreek er niet van, Tom; 't is te vreeselijk.\"\n\n\"Gij hebt gelijk, Huck. Ik voel mij niets op mijn gemak.\"\n\n\"Zeg eens Tom, zullen wij deze plaats opgeven en het ergens anders\ngaan beproeven?\"\n\n\"Goed. Ik geloof ook dat het beter zal zijn. Waar moeten we nu heen?\"\n\nTom bedacht zich een oogenblik en zeide toen:\n\n\"Naar het spookhuis.\"\n\n\"Dank je; ik houd niet van spookhuizen, Tom. Daar zie je gezichten\nnog akeliger dan die van doode menschen. Lijken mogen praten, maar ze\nschuiven niet, als je er niet op verdacht bent, langs je heen in een\nlijkkleed, om over de schouders te kijken, en ze kunnen ook niet met\nhunne tanden knarsen, zooals een spook doet. Ik zou het besterven,\nTom--en iedereen met mij.\"\n\n\"Ja maar, Huck, spoken sluipen alleen 's nachts rond; zij zullen ons\nover dag het graven niet beletten.\"\n\n\"Dat kan wel zijn. Maar je weet net zoo goed als ik, dat de menschen\nbij dag zoo min als bij nacht in de buurt van het spookhuis komen.\"\n\n\"Dat is omdat zij niet gaarne naar eene plaats gaan, waar een mensch\nvermoord is. Maar er is eigenlijk 's nachts nooit iets om dat huis\ngezien,--behalve een blauw licht bij het raam, doch geen echte spoken.\"\n\n\"Wel, daar waar blauwe lichten dwarrelen, kun je er op aan dat geesten\nzijn. Dat is zoo zeker als iets, en iedereen weet, dat niemand dan\ngeesten ze gebruiken.\"\n\n\"Ja, dat is zoo. Maar zij komen nooit over dag; daarom behoeven wij\nniet bang te zijn.\"\n\n\"Nu, goed dan; wij zullen bij het spookhuis gaan graven, als jij het\nwilt. Maar ik zeg je, dat je vrijwillig in gevaar loopt.\"\n\nZij waren thans aan den voet van den heuvel. Daar, midden in de\ndoor de maan verlichte vallei, stond het spookhuis, geheel verlaten,\nmet een vermolmd houten hek en welig, tot aan den drempel groeiend\nonkruid en met een bouwvalligen schoorsteen, ledige raamkozijnen en\ngaten in het dak.\n\nDe knapen bleven een oogenblik staan kijken, half verwachtend een blauw\nlicht bij het venster te zien bewegen. Zij spraken op fluisterenden\ntoon, zooals bij den tijd en de omstandigheden paste, weken een\neindweegs ter rechterzijde af, om de ligging van het spookhuis op\nte nemen, en begaven zich toen huiswaarts, door de bosschen die de\nachterzijde van Cardiff Hill versierden.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXVII.\n\n\nDen volgenden dag, tegen twaalf uren, stonden de knapen bij den dooden\nboom om hun gereedschap te halen. Tom brandde van verlangen om naar\nhet spookhuis te gaan. Huck was minder opgewonden en zeide:\n\n\"Zeg eens, Tom: weet jij wat dag het is?\"\n\nTom doorliep in gedachten de dagen der week en hief toen verschrikt\nde oogen op.\n\n\"Hemel, ik heb er in 't geheel niet aan gedacht, Huck.\"\n\n\"Ik ook niet, maar op eens schoot het mij te binnen, dat het wel\nVrijdag kon zijn.\"\n\n\"Bewaar me; een mensch kan niet te voorzichtig wezen. Wij konden er\nwel eens inloopen, door zoo iets op Vrijdag aan te vangen.\"\n\n\"Konden! Zeg liever zouden. Er zijn misschien geluksdagen, maar\nVrijdag is er geen.\"\n\n\"Dat weet elke gek. Ik geloof niet, dat jij de eerste bent, die dat\nuitgevonden hebt, Huck.\"\n\n\"Nu, ik heb niet gezegd dat ik het was, heb ik wel? En het is\nniet alleen omdat het Vrijdag is; ik heb van nacht akelig gedroomd\nook,--van ratten.\"\n\n\"'t Is toch niet waar? Een zeker teeken van naderend onheil! Vochten\nzij?\"\n\n\"Neen.\"\n\n\"Dat is tenminste nog een zegen, Huck. Wanneer zij niet vechten,\nis het all\u00e9\u00e9n maar een teeken dat er een onheil _kan_ komen. We\nbehoeven dus niets te doen dan scherp toe te kijken en ons niet in\ngevaar te begeven. Wij zullen het graven vandaag maar laten en liever\ngaan spelen. Ken je Robin Hood, Huck?\"\n\n\"Neen, Wie is Robin Hood?\"\n\n\"Wel, hij was een van de grootste mannen van Engeland en van de beste\nook. Hij was een roover.\"\n\n\"Heerej\u00e9, ik wou dat ik hem was. En wat heeft hij gekaapt?\"\n\n\"Alleen maar bisschoppen en rijke lui en koningen en zulk volk. Maar\nhij plaagde de arme lui nooit. Hij had ze lief en deelde alles eerlijk\nmet hen.\"\n\n\"Zoo, dan moet hij een beste kerel geweest zijn!\"\n\n\"Waarachtig was hij dat, Huck. Hij was de grootmoedigste man, die ooit\nheeft bestaan. Je hebt tegenwoordig zulke lui niet meer, daar ben ik\nzeker van. Hij kon, met zijne handen achter zijn rug gebonden, elken\nEngelschman afranselen, en met zijn boog van taxishout, op anderhalve\nmijl afstand, een stuivertje doorboren, zonder ooit te missen.\"\n\n\"Wat is een boog van taxishout?\"\n\n\"Dat weet ik niet. 't Is een boog, dat is zeker. En als hij het\ngeldstuk een enkelen keer aan den kant raakte, dan raasde en tierde\nhij als een kind.--Kom laten wij Robin Hood spelen; 't is een prettig\nspel. Ik zal het je leeren.\"\n\nZe speelden den geheelen middag Robin Hood, terwijl zij nu en dan\neen verlangenden blik op het spookhuis wierpen en spraken over de\nplannen en vooruitzichten voor den volgenden dag. Toen de zon in het\nwesten onderging, wandelden zij langs de breede schaduwen der boomen\nnaar huis en waren in de bosschen van Cardiff Hill spoedig uit het\ngezicht verdwenen.\n\nZaterdagmiddag waren de knapen weder bij den dooden boom.\n\nEerst zaten zij in de schaduw een poosje te rooken en te babbelen\nen gingen toen het gemaakte gat weder opgraven. Zij deden dat, niet\nomdat zij groote verwachtingen hadden, maar alleen omdat Tom gezegd\nhad, dat het dikwijls gebeurd was, dat menschen, toen zij den schat\ntot op een duim na bereikt hadden, het opgegeven hadden, en dat er\ntoen anderen gekomen waren, die met \u00e9\u00e9n stoot van de spade hem te\nvoorschijn hadden gehaald.\n\nHun streven mislukte echter ditmaal en ze namen daarom hun gereedschap\nmaar weder op en gingen heen, niet met de gedachte dat zij met\nde fortuin een loopje hadden genomen, maar in de overtuiging dat\nzij aan alle voorwaarden, aan het delven naar schatten verbonden,\nhadden voldaan.\n\nToen zij het spookhuis naderden, was er iets zoo akeligs en\nhuiveringwekkends in de doodelijke stilte onder de brandende zon en\niets zoo neerdrukkends in de eenzame, verlatene plaats, dat zij een\noogenblik bang waren om binnen te gaan. Zij kropen naar de deur en\nkeken bevend door een reetje. Zij zagen een met onkruid begroeide,\nvan vloer beroofde kamer, zonder behangsel, met een ouderwetsche\nhaardstede, vensters zonder gordijnen en een bouwvallige trap,\nen overal flarden van spinnewebben. Toen traden zij met versnelden\npolsslag, fluisterende stem, gretige ooren en gezwollen spieren binnen,\ngereed om desnoods onmiddellijk weder den aftocht te blazen.\n\nEen oogenblikje later, toen hun blik aan de huiveringwekkende\nomgeving was gewend, verminderde hun angst en namen zij de plaats\nnauwkeuriger op, vol verbazing en verwondering over hun eigen\nstoutmoedigheid. Daarop wilden zij boven een kijkje nemen. 't Had\niets van zich den terugweg af te snijden, maar zij zagen elkander met\nmoedige blikken aan en kwamen tot een kloek besluit om hun gereedschap\nin een hoek te werpen en de trap te beklimmen. Boven vertoonden zich\ndezelfde teekenen van verval. In een donkeren hoek vonden zij een\nkabinetje, dat iets geheimzinnigs beloofde; doch die belofte bleek\nijdel te zijn, want het was ledig. Zij hadden thans moed verzameld\nen waren gereed hunne onderneming door te zetten. Juist toen zij naar\nbeneden wilden stappen om aan het werk te gaan, zeide Tom: \"Stil!\"\n\n\"Wat is er?\" fluisterde Huck, bleek van schrik.\n\n\"Stil! Daar! Hoort gij het?\"\n\n\"Ja, O, heer! Laat ons wegloopen!\"\n\n\"Houd je stil! Beweeg je niet! Zij komen naar de deur toe.\"\n\nDe jongens gingen plat op den grond liggen en keken door de openingen\ntusschen de planken, in doodangst afwachtende wat er gebeuren zou.\n\n\"Zij houden stil,\" fluisterden zij eindelijk.\n\n\"Neen--zij komen! Hier zijn zij! Geen woord meer, Huck. Goede hemel,\nik wou dat ik er uit was!\"\n\nTwee mannen traden binnen. De knapen dachten:\n\n\"Dit is de oude, doofstomme Spanjaard, die onlangs een paar malen in\nde stad is geweest, en den anderen man heb ik nooit gezien.\"\n\nDe andere was een havelooze bandiet, ongekamd en ongeschoren, met een\nhoogst ongunstig uiterlijk. De Spanjaard was in eene _serape_ gehuld;\nhij had zware, witte bakkebaarden, lang wit haar, dat golvend onder\nzijn hoofddeksel te voorschijn kwam en hij droeg groene ooglappen. Toen\nzij binnentraden, begon de \"andere\" heel zacht te spreken. Zij zetten\nzich op den grond neder, het gelaat naar de deur gekeerd en met den\nrug tegen den muur, en de \"andere\" hervatte zijn gesprek. Hij werd\niets minder omzichtig in houding en gebaren en zijne woorden werden\ngaandeweg duidelijker.\n\n\"Neen,\" zei hij, \"ik heb er goed over gedacht en ik heb er geen zin\nin: het is gevaarlijk.\"\n\n\"Gevaarlijk?\" gromde de doofstomme Spanjaard, tot verbazing der\nknapen. \"Gevaarlijk, melkbaard?\"\n\nDeze stem deed de knapen beven en naar adem snakken. Het was die van\nInjun Joe!\n\nEr volgde een oogenblik van stilte, waarop Joe hernam:\n\n\"Wat kan gevaarlijker zijn dan die karwei van daarginds--en er is\ntoch niets van gekomen.\"\n\n\"Dat was heel wat anders. Dicht bij de rivier en geen enkel huis in\nde nabijheid. 't Zal nooit bekend worden, dat wij het beproefd hebben,\nvooral niet daar het mislukt is.\"\n\n\"Wel, wat kan gevaarlijker zijn dan over dag hier te komen? Ieder,\ndie ons ziet, kan argwaan krijgen!\"\n\n\"Dat weet ik, maar er was geen andere plaats geschikt na die malle\nkarwei. Ik hunker er naar dit hol te verlaten. Ik wou gisteren al\ngaan, maar er was geen denken aan zich buiten te wagen, met die\nhelsche jongens, die bij den heuvel speelden.\"\n\nDe \"helsche jongens\" beefden bij dit gezegde en dachten hoe gelukkig\nhet was, dat zij zich herinnerd hadden dat het Vrijdag was en dat\nzij tot het besluit waren gekomen een dag te wachten. Zij wenschten\nin hun hart, dat zij het een jaar hadden uitgesteld.\n\nDe twee mannen haalden eenig voedsel voor den dag en begonnen te\neten. Na eenige oogenblikken van stilzwijgen zeide Injun Joe:\n\n\"Kijk eens, jongen: ga jij naar de rivier, waar je behoort, wacht daar\ntotdat je van mij hoort. Ik zal het er op wagen nog wat hier in de\nstad te blijven om den boel op te nemen. Wij zullen dat gevaarlijke\nkarweitje ondernemen, als ik alles goed bespionneerd en bemerkt\nheb dat de kansen goed staan. En dan naar Texas. Wij zullen eerlijk\nsamen deelen.\"\n\nDe andere was met dit plan tevreden.\n\nOnderwijl raakten de beide mannen aan het gapen en Injun Joe zeide:\n\n\"Ik ben dood van den slaap! 't Is jouw beurt om te waken.\"\n\nEn hij rolde zich in het onkruid en begon te snorken. Zijn metgezel\nstootte hem een paar malen aan en hij werd rustig. Daarop begon de\nwaker te knikkebollen; zijn hoofd zonk lager en lager en beiden hieven\nthans een duo van snorken aan.\n\nDe knapen haalden dankbaar adem. Tom fluisterde:\n\n\"Nu de kans waarnemen, kom!\"\n\nHuck zeide: \"Ik kan het niet doen;--Ik zou sterven, indien zij\nontwaakten.\"\n\nTom smeekte en Huck bleef weigeren. Eindelijk stond Tom zachtjes\nop on alleen te vertrekken. De eerste stap echter, dien hij deed,\nveroorzaakte zulk een afschuwelijk gekraak in den vloer, dat hij\nbijna dood van schrik nederviel. Hij waagde geen tweede poging. De\nknapen telden de traag verloopende oogenblikken, totdat het hun was\nalsof de tijd was ge\u00ebindigd en de sombere eeuwigheid een aanvang had\ngenomen. Eindelijk bemerkten zij tot hun vreugde dat de zon onderging.\n\nNu hield het gesnork van een der mannen op. Injun Joe richtte zich\nop, zag rond, keek boosaardig glimlachend naar zijn metgezel, stootte\nhem met zijn voet aan en zeide:\n\n\"Hoor eens! jij bent een goede waker, dat ben je.\"\n\n\"Nu, er is toch niets gebeurd.\"\n\n\"Niet? Heb je geslapen?\"\n\n\"Och, zoo wat gesluimerd. 't Is haast tijd voor ons om op te rukken,\nkameraad. Wat zullen wij doen met den kleinen buit, waarvan wij ons\nmeester gemaakt hebben?\"\n\n\"Ik weet het niet. Hier laten zooals wij altijd doen. Wij hebben haar\nniet noodig, voordat wij naar het zuiden gaan. Zeshonderd vijftig in\nzilveren munt is een last!\"\n\n\"Nu, goed dan. Maar dan behoeven wij hier ook niet terug te komen.\"\n\n\"Zou je denken? Wel, ik geloof dat het veilig is hier de nachten door\nte brengen, zooals gewoonlijk; ja, dat is beter.\"\n\n\"Ja, maar, kijk eens: het kan nog wel lang duren eer wij eene\ngoede gelegenheid hebben voor dat andere karweitje;--er kan iets\ntusschenbeide komen en het is niet zoo'n heel veilige plaats. Wij\nzullen den buit liever begraven, en diep ook.\"\n\n\"Dat is een goede inval,\" zeide zijn kameraad en liep naar het andere\neind der kamer, knielde voor den haard neder en haalde tusschen\nde steenen een zak te voorschijn, die een liefelijk geklingel deed\nhooren. Hij nam er twintig of dertig dollars uit voor zich zelven en\neven zooveel voor Injun Joe en reikte den zak toen aan den laatste\nover, die in een hoek van het vertrek op zijne knie\u00ebn zat en bezig\nwas met zijn snoeimes een gat te graven.\n\nIn een oogenblik vergaten de knapen hun vrees en hunne ellende. Met\nfonkelende oogen sloegen zij elke beweging gade. 't Was een onmetelijke\nschat! Zeshonderd dollars!--geld genoeg om een half dozijn jongens rijk\nte maken. Hier bood zich eene gelegenheid tot het graven van schatten\naan onder de gelukkigste voorteekenen. Hier was geene kwellende\nonzekerheid omtrent de plek waar gegraven moest worden. Zij stootten\nelkander gedurig aan,--met gebaren, die zeggen wilden:\n\n\"O, zijt gij niet blijde, dat wij hier zijn?\"\n\nOnder het graven stootte Joe's mes op een hard voorwerp.\n\n\"Heila!\"\n\n\"Wat is het?\" vroeg zijn kameraad.\n\n\"Een half verrotte plank,--neen, het is een kist, geloof ik. Kom,\nhelp een handje en wij zullen zien wat het is. Pas op, ik heb er een\ngat in gestooten.\"\n\nHij reikte hem de behulpzame hand en zij trokken het voorwerp naar\nboven.\n\n\"Man, het is geld!\"\n\nDe beide mannen haalden een handvol klinkende munt voor den dag. Het\nwaren goudstukken. De jongens boven hun hoofd waren even opgewonden\nen verrukt als zij.\n\nJoe's kameraad zeide:\n\n\"We zullen eens gauw zien hoeveel er in zit. Wacht, ik heb in een hoek\nonder den schoorsteen een roestige bijl onder het onkruid zien liggen.\"\n\nHij liep weg en haalde de bijl en spade der knapen. Injun Joe nam\nde bijl op, bekeek haar nauwkeurig, schudde het hoofd, mompelde iets\ntusschen zijne tanden en ging er toen mede aan het werk.\n\nDe kist was spoedig opgedolven. Zij was niet zeer groot, met ijzer\nbeslagen en moest zeer sterk geweest zijn, voordat de tijd haar\nbeschadigd had. De mannen beschouwden den schat een poos onder zalig\nstilzwijgen.\n\n\"Kameraad, er zitten duizend dollars in!\" zeide Injun Joe.\n\n\"Zij zeggen, dat de rooverbende van Murrel hier een zomer heeft\nrondgezworven,\" merkte de vreemdeling op.\n\n\"Dat weet ik wel,\" zeide Injun Joe, \"en nu ik dit zie, geloof ik\nhet bepaald.\"\n\n\"Nu behoeven wij die andere karwei immers niet te doen,\" zeide\nde ander.\n\nDe kleurling fronste het voorhoofd en zeide:\n\n\"Je kent me niet, of je weet niet van die zaak. 't Is niet om te\nstelen,--maar om wraak te nemen!\" En er flikkerde een boosaardig licht\nin zijne oogen. \"Ik heb je hulp er bij noodig. Zoodra het geschied\nis, gaan wij naar Texas. Ga jij maar naar huis, naar je wijf en je\nkinderen, en wacht totdat je van mij hoort.\"\n\n\"Nu, als je het zegt, zal ik het doen. Wat zullen wij met deze kist\nuitvoeren? Haar weder begraven?\"\n\n\"Ja!\" (Een inwendig gejuich op de bovenverdieping). \"Neen, bij\nden grooten Sachem, neen!\" (Een diepe neerslachtigheid boven.) \"Ik\nhad het haast vergeten: op die bijl zit versche aarde.\" (De knapen\nbeefden van schrik). \"Wat doen hier een bijl en een spade? Hoe zit\ner versche aarde aan? Wie heeft die hier gebracht, en waar zijn zij\nheengegaan? Heb je niemand gehoord of gezien?--Wat! die kist weer\nbegraven en permissie geven om hier te komen, on te zien dat de vloer\nomgewoeld is? Dat nu niet bepaald!--niet bepaald! Wij zullen de kist\nmedenemen naar mijn hol!\"\n\n\"Dat is goed. Jammer dat wij dit niet eerder bedacht hebben. Gij\nmeent numero \u00e9\u00e9n?\"\n\n\"Neen,\" \"numero twee,\"--onder het kruis. De andere plaats is te slecht\nen te gemeen.\"\n\n\"Goed; 't is bijna donker genoeg om te vertrekken.\"\n\nInjun Joe stond op, ging van het eene raam naar het andere en zag\nvoorzichtig naar buiten. Daarop zeide hij:\n\n\"Wie zou dit gereedschap hier gebracht hebben? Denk je, dat ze boven\nkunnen zijn?\"\n\nDe knapen hielden hun adem in. Injun Joe legde zijne hand op zijn\nmes, hield een oogenblik besluiteloos stil en stapte toen naar\nde trap. De knapen dachten aan het kabinetje, maar hun kracht was\ngebroken. Voetstappen kraakten op de trap.--De vreeselijke toestand,\nwaarin zij zich bevonden, wakkerde de laatste vonk van moed in hun hart\nnog eens op;--zij waren op het punt om in het kabinetje te springen,\ntoen zij een gekraak van verrot hout hoorden. Injun Joe lag op den\ngrond, onder de brokstukken der vermolmde trap! Hij stond op met een\nvloek en zijn kameraad zeide:\n\n\"Nu, wat doet er dat toe of er iemand boven is;--laten zij er\nblijven--wat raakt het! Indien zij naar beneden willen springen en\nden nek breken--wie belet het hun? Het zal binnen vijftien minuten\ndonker zijn-- en dan kunnen zij ons volgen, indien zij willen; ik ben\ngereed hen te ontvangen. Ik geloof, dat de lui die deze dingen hier\nin gesleept hebben, ons hebben gezien en ons voor duivels of spoken\nof zoo iets hebben gehouden. Ik wed, dat zij nog aan den haal zijn.\"\n\nJoe mompelde eenige onverstaanbare klanken en toen stemde hij met\nzijn kameraad in, om van het karige daglicht gebruik te maken en te\nvertrekken. Kort daarna slopen zij in de schemering het huis uit en\nstapten met hunne kostbare lading naar de rivier.\n\nTom en Huck stonden bevend, maar met een gevoel van verlichting op en\nstaarden hen door de reten tusschen de planken na. Volgen? Neen! Zij\nwaren tevreden, toen zij den vasten bodem weder bereikten en zonder\nden nek gebroken te hebben, over den heuvel naar huis konden gaan. Zij\nspraken niet veel, daar zij te zeer verdiept waren in zelfverwijt\nen woede tegen het noodlot, dat hun de spade en de bijl daar had\ndoen neerzetten. Indien die er niet gestaan hadden, zou Injun Joe\nnooit argwaan gekoesterd hebben. Hij zou het zilver met het goud\ndaar verborgen hebben, totdat hij aan zijn plan van wraakneming had\nvoldaan. En dan zou hij ondervonden hebben, wat het zegt een schat\nniet meer te vinden. 't Was een bitter noodlot, dat het gereedschap\ndaar gebracht had. Zij besloten een oog te houden op den Spanjaard,\nwanneer hij naar de stad zou gaan, om zijne kans voor zijn wraakzuchtig\nplan waar te nemen en namen zich voor \"numero twee\" op te sporen,\nwaar het ook zijn mocht.\n\nOp eens schoot Tom eene vreeselijke gedachte door de ziel.\n\n\"Wraak! Wat, indien hij ons bedoelt, Huck?\"\n\n\"O, neen,\" zeide Huck, en viel bijna flauw van schrik.\n\nZij praatten nog geruimen tijd over het vreeselijk geval, en toen\nzij de stad binnentraden, kwamen zij tot het besluit te gelooven,\ndat het ook wel iemand anders kon zijn,--ten minste dat hij niemand\nanders kon bedoelen dan Tom, daar deze de eenige was geweest die\ngetuigenis had afgelegd.\n\nHet was een zeer magere troost voor Tom, dat hij alleen maar in gevaar\nwas. Gezelschap zou naar zijne meening verkieslijker zijn geweest.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXVIII.\n\n\nTom werd dien nacht in zijne droomen vreeselijk gekweld door het\navontuur van den vorigen dag. Vier malen had hij zijne handen op\nden kostbaren schat gelegd en vier malen ook gleed die, wanneer de\nslaap hem begaf en het ontwaken hem tot de werkelijkheid terugbracht,\ntusschen zijn vingers door.\n\nToen hij in den vroegen morgen al die bizonderheden van die\nmerkwaardige gebeurtenis nog eens voor den geest riep, scheen ze hem\nwonderbaar ver af en lang geleden, alsof zij in een andere wereld\nof in een lang verloopen tijdperk had plaats gehad. De gedachte kwam\nzelfs in hem op, dat het groote avontuur misschien niets geweest was\ndan een droom. Er was een krachtige bewijsgrond voor dat denkbeeld bij\nte brengen, deze namelijk, dat de hoeveelheid muntspecie, die zijne\noogen hadden aanschouwd, te kolossaal was om werkelijkheid te wezen.\n\nHij had nooit in zijn leven vijftig dollars bijeen gezien en hij\ngeleek daarin op alle knapen van zijn leeftijd en stand. In zijn\nverbeelding werden de woorden \"honderden\" en \"duizenden\" alleen maar\nbij manier van spreken gebruikt en bestonden er zulke sommen in de\nwereld niet. Hij vermoedde geen oogenblik, dat een zoo groote som,\nals meer dan honderd dollars in klinkende munt, in iemands bezit\nkon zijn. Indien hij zijn begrip van een verborgen schat had moeten\nontleden, zou hij gezegd hebben, dat deze bestond uit een handvol\ndollars en een schepel prachtige, andere munten.\n\nLangzamerhand echter onder het overdenken werden de bijzonderheden van\nzijn avontuur scherper en klaarder, en eindelijk kreeg de gedachte,\ndat het toch geen droom was geweest, bij hem de overhand. Aan deze\nonzekerheid moest een einde gemaakt worden. Hij zou haastig zijn\nboterham eten en dan Huck opzoeken.\n\nHuck zat aan dolboord van een plat vaartuig, achteloos met zijn voeten\nin het water te schoppen en zag er zeer droefgeestig uit. Tom besloot\nte wachten, totdat Huck over de zaak zou beginnen. Als hij dat niet\ndeed, was het avontuur slechts een droom geweest.\n\n\"Heila, Huck!\"\n\n\"Heila, jij!\"\n\nEen oogenblik stilte.\n\n\"Tom, indien wij dit vervloekte gereedschap bij den dooden boom\ngelaten hadden, was het geld reeds ons. O, is het niet vreeselijk?\"\n\n\"'t Is dus geen droom? Geen droom? Toch zou ik haast willen, dat het\ner een was; ja 'k mag een boon zijn, als ik het niet wou!\"\n\n\"Wat is geen droom?\"\n\n\"O, dat ding van gisteren. Ik denk soms half, dat alles een droom is.\"\n\n\"Een droom? Indien die trappen niet kapot waren gegaan, zou je eens\ngezien hebben of het een droom was! Ik droom 's nachts al genoeg van\ndien Spanjaard met zijn ooglappen; hij vervolgt mij overal. Ik wou\ndat hij stikte.\"\n\n\"Neen, niet stikken. Wij moeten hem vinden. Het geld opsporen!\"\n\n\"Tom, wij zullen den schat nooit vinden. Een mensch heeft maar eens\neen kans voor zoo'n hoop geld, en die hebben wij verspeeld. Ik zou\nbeven als ik hem zag.\"\n\n\"Ik ook; maar ik zou hem toch graag zien en naspeuren--naar zijn\n'nommer twee.'\"\n\n\"Nommer twee, ja, dat is het. Ik heb er over loopen denken, maar ik\nkan het niet uitmaken. Wat denk jij, dat het is?\"\n\n\"Ik weet het niet. 't Is mij te geheimzinnig, Huck. Zou het ook het\nnummer van een huis kunnen zijn?\"\n\n\"Onmogelijk! Neen, Tom, dat is het niet. Indien het dat is, dan is\nhet niet in dit kleine stadje: hier zijn geen nummers.\"\n\n\"Ja, dat is waar. Laat mij even bedenken! Wacht--het is een nommer\nvan een kamer in een herberg!\"\n\n\"O, daar zul je het hebben! Er zijn hier maar twee kroegen. Wij kunnen\ndat spoedig uitvinden!\"\n\n\"Blijf jij hier, Huck, totdat ik terug ben!\"\n\nTom was op eens verdwenen, daar hij op publieke plaatsen niet gaarne\nmet Huck gezien werd.\n\nBinnen een half uur had hij ontdekt, dat in de voornaamste herberg\nkamer \"nommer twee\" bewoond werd door een jong advocaat. In de andere,\neen logement van den derden rang, was aan een der logeerkamers iets\ngeheimzinnigs verbonden. Het zoontje van den herbergier zeide, dat\ndie kamer altijd op slot was, en dat hij er nooit iemand had zien in-\nof uitgaan, behalve des nachts. Waarom dit geschiedde, wist hij niet;\nwel betuigde hij soms verlangd te hebben er achter te komen, doch hij\nwas er niet zoo bijzonder nieuwsgierig naar, en stelde zich tevreden\nmet te gelooven dat het in die kamer spookte. Verder vertelde hij\nook nog, dat hij er den vorigen nacht een licht had zien branden.\n\n\"Dat is alles wat ik te weten ben gekomen, Huck. Ik geloof, dat wij\nhet wezenlijke 'nummer twee' gevonden hebben.\"\n\n\"Ik vermoed het ook. Wat zullen we doen?\"\n\n\"Laat mij eens bedenken.\"\n\nTom bedacht zich een geruimen tijd. Toen zeide hij:\n\n\"Ik zal het je zeggen. De achterdeur van dat 'nummer twee' komt uit\nin dat kleine steegje tusschen de herberg en die oude trap van den\nkalkoven. Nu moet je al de deursleutels opsnorren die jij krijgen\nkunt, en ik zal die van tante wegkapen, en in den eersten donkeren\nnacht den besten zullen wij ze gaan probeeren. En denk er aan, dat je\nop den uitkijk blijft naar Injun Joe, omdat hij gezegd heeft dat hij\nin de stad zou komen en nog op een kans zou loeren om aan zijn wraak\nte voldoen. Als je hem ziet, moet je hem volgen; en als hij niet naar\n'nummer twee' gaat, dan is dat de plaats niet.\"\n\n\"Tom, ik durf hem niet alleen volgen.\"\n\n\"Och kom; 't is natuurlijk nacht. Hij zal je misschien niet eens zien;\nen als hij dat doet, zal hij je toch niet verdenken.\"\n\n\"Nu, als het donker is, zal ik hem misschien volgen. Maar ik weet\nhet nog niet zeker. Ik zal zien wat ik doe.\"\n\n\"Wedden, Huck, dat _ik_ hem wel volg, als het donker is. Hij\nkon waarachtig wel eens geen gelegenheid hebben om zijn plan tot\nwraakneming ten uitvoer te brengen en zou hij op zijn geld afgaan.\"\n\n\"Je hebt gelijk, Tom, je hebt gelijk! Ik zal hem volgen. Sapperloot,\ndat zal ik!\"\n\n\"Nu praat je naar mijn zin! Geef den moed niet op, Huck, en ik zal\nhet ook niet doen.\"\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXIX.\n\n\nDienzelfden avond waren Huck en Tom van zessen klaar on het waagstuk\nte ondernemen. Zij bleven tot na negen uren in de buurt der herberg\nomhangen, terwijl de een bij de steeg en de ander bij de deur der\nherberg wacht hield. Niemand ging het straatje in of uit; niemand\ndie op den Spanjaard geleek, stapte naar de herberg of kwam er\nvandaan. Daar de nacht beloofde zeer helder te zijn, ging Tom naar\nhuis met de afspraak, dat indien het onverhoopt nog donker werd, Huck\nzou komen \"miauwen,\" en hij de deur zou uitsluipen en de sleutels\nprobeeren. Doch de nacht bleef onbewolkt en Huck gaf het wachthouden\nop en ging tegen middernacht in een leege suikerton slapen.\n\nDinsdag hadden de knapen denzelfden tegenspoed. Woensdag ook. Doch\nDonderdagnacht beloofde beter te zijn. Tom sloop ter goeder ure met\ntantes dievenlantarentje de deur uit en nam een grooten handdoek met\nzich, om daarmede het licht te bedekken. Hij verborg de lantaarn in\nHucks suikerton en het wachthouden begon.\n\nTegen elf uren werd de herberg gesloten en werden de lichten, de eenige\nuit de geheele buurt, uitgedaan. Geen Spanjaard werd er gezien. Niemand\nwas het steegje in- of uitgegaan. Alles was gunstig. Overal zwarte\nduisternis en doodelijke stilte, alleen afgewisseld door het verwijderd\ngerommel van den donder.\n\nTom nam zijn lantaren, stak haar in de ton aan en bedekte haar\nzorgvuldig met den handdoek, en de avonturiers kropen in de duisternis\nnaar de herberg. Huck bleef op schildwacht staan en Tom liep op den\ntast de steeg in.\n\nAl wachtende voelde Huck zich door een doodelijken angst gedrukt en\nhunkerde hij naar het oogenblik, waarop hij een straaltje van Toms\nlantaarn zou zien, opdat hij een teeken mocht hebben dat zijn kameraad\nnog leefde. Uren schenen voorbijgegaan sedert Tom was verdwenen. Hij\nwas zeker flauw gevallen, wellicht dood; misschien was hem van angst\nen schrik het hart gebroken. In zijn angst ging Huck hoe langer hoe\ndichter bij de steeg staan, in vreeze van allerlei ontzettende dingen\nte zullen zien en elk oogenblik verwachtende dat er een ongeluk zou\nkomen, dat hem den laatsten adem zou doen uitblazen. Daarvoor was niet\nveel noodig, want hij scheen nauwelijks in staat een vingerhoedje adem\nte halen, en zijn hart bonsde zoo geweldig, dat het welhaast moest\nbarsten. Plotseling zag hij een lichtstraal en fluisterde Tom hem in\n't oor:\n\n\"Loop! loop, als ge uw leven liefhebt!\"\n\nHij behoefde het niet te herhalen; eenmaal was genoeg. Huck was\nin vliegenden galop voortgeijld eer het woord ten tweeden male was\nuitgesproken. De knapen hielden niet stil, eer zij de loods van een\nverlaten slachthuis hadden bereikt. Juist toen zij deze schuilplaats\ngevonden hadden, barstte het onweder los en stroomde de regen naar\nbinnen. Zoodra Tom weder kon ademhalen, zeide hij:\n\n\"Huck, het was verschrikkelijk! Ik probeerde twee of drie sleutels,\nzoo zacht als ik kon, maar zij maakten zulk een drommelsch geraas,\ndat ik van schrik nauwelijks op mijne beenen kon blijven staan. Ik\nkon het slot ook niet omdraaien. Op eens bemerkte ik, dat ik den knop\nvasthield en dat de deur openging. Zij was niet dicht geweest. Ik\nstrompelde naar binnen, nam den handdoek van de lantaarn en--o,\ngroote geest van Cesar....!\"\n\n\"Wat--wat zag je, Tom?\"\n\n\"Huck, ik was bijna op de hand gestapt van Injun Joe!\"\n\n\"'t Is toch niet waar?\"\n\n\"Ja wel. Hij lag daar, met den groenen lap op zijn oog en uitgestrekte\narmen op den vloer te slapen.\"\n\n\"Heere, Heere! En wat heb je toen gedaan? Werd hij wakker?\"\n\n\"Neen, hij bewoog zich niet. Zeker dronken. Ik greep den handdoek en\nijlde weg.\"\n\n\"Waarachtig, ik zou niet eens aan den handdoek gedacht hebben!\"\n\n\"Nu, ik wel. Tante zou mij krijgen, als ik hem verloren had.\"\n\n\"Zeg, eens, Tom, heb je de kist gezien?\"\n\n\"Huck, ik heb niet gewacht on rond te kijken; ik heb de kist niet\ngezien en ik heb het kruis niet gezien. Ik zag niets dan een flesch\nen een tinnen kroes op den grond naast Injun Joe. Ja toch, ik zag\ntwee vaatjes en een menigte flesschen in de kamer. Vat je nu niet,\nwat ze in die spookkamer uitvoeren?\"\n\n\"Wat dan?\"\n\n\"Wel, zij spookt van de brandewijnvaatjes, 't Is best mogelijk,\ndat al de Matigheidsherbergen zoo'n spookkamer hebben, Huck.\"\n\n\"Ja, dat kan wel. Wie zou dat ooit gedacht hebben! Maar Tom, 't is\nnu juist een allemachtig goed oogenblik on de kist te krijgen, als\nInjun Joe dronken is.\"\n\n\"Dat is waar! Wil je het probeeren?\"\n\nHuck sidderde.\n\n\"Neen, liever niet.\"\n\n\"Ik ook niet, Huck. E\u00e9n flesch naast Injun Joe is niet genoeg. Indien\ner drie gestaan hadden, zou ik het gedaan hebben.\"\n\nEr volgde een lange pauze; eindelijk zeide Tom: \"Zie eens Huck,\nik geloof dat het beter is, dat zaakje niet te probeeren, totdat we\nweten dat Injun Joe er niet is. 't Is te vreeselijk.--Nu, indien wij\nelken nacht de wacht houden, kunnen wij er zeker van zijn, hem den\nof anderen tijd de kamer te zien uitgaan, en dan zullen wij de kist\ner zoo gauw mogelijk uithalen.\"\n\n\"Uitmuntend. Ik zal den heelen nachten waken en zal dat de eerste\nweken blijven doen, als jij het andere deel van de karwei op je neemt.\"\n\n\"Goed, ik beloof het je. Al wat jij te doen hebt, is op een draf te\nloopen naar Hooper-street en te miauwen; en als ik slaap, gooi je\nmaar wat zand tegen het raam, dan word ik wel wakker.\n\n\"Best, dat blijft afgesproken.\"\n\n\"Nu, Huck, het onweder is voorbij en ik ga naar huis. Over een paar\nuren breekt de dag aan. Jij gaat terug en blijft wachten, niet waar?\"\n\n\"Ik heb gezegd, Tom, dat ik het doen zal en ik zal het doen. Ik zal een\njaar lang om de herberg blijven ronddolen. Ik zal over dag slapen en\n's nachts waken.\"\n\n\"Dat is goed. Waar ga je dan slapen?\"\n\n\"In de hooischuur van Ben Rogers. Hij laat mij dat vrij doen, en de\nzwarte knecht van zijn ouden heer, oom Jack, vindt het ook goed. Ik\ndraag wel eens water voor oom Jack, en hij geeft mij, als hij het\nmissen kan, nu en dan een beetje eten. 't Is een verduiveld goede\nnikker, die Jack, Tom!--Hij houdt van mij, omdat ik niet altijd\ndoe alsof ik voornamer ben dan hij. Wij hebben ook wel eens samen\ngegeten. Maar dat moet je niet vertellen. Een mensch doet soms dingen,\nals hij honger heeft, die hij laten zou, als hij altijd genoeg kreeg.\"\n\n\"Nu, als ik je over dag niet noodig heb, Huck, zal ik je laten\nslapen. Ik zal je niet komen plagen. Als je 's nachts wat ziet,\nloop dan even aan om te miauwen.\"\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXX.\n\n\nHet eerste wat Tom Vrijdagochtend hoorde was een heerlijke tijding: de\nfamilie Thatcher was den vorigen avond in de stad teruggekomen. Beiden\nInjun Joe en de schat werden voor het oogenblik van ondergeschikt\nbelang en Becky nam de voornaamste plaats in het hart van den knaap\nin. Hij kwam haar tegen en zij hadden een oneindig genot met elkaar\nin het spelen van \"verstoppertje\" en \"slootje springen.\" De dag\neindigde op een bijzonder prettige wijs. Becky smeekte hare moeder,\nden volgenden dag voor de lang beloofde en lang uitgestelde pic-nic\nvast te stellen, en deze stemde toe. De vreugde der kleine kende geen\npalen en Tom was niet minder uitgelaten. Voor zonsondergang waren de\nuitnoodigingen rondgezonden en onmiddellijk daarop was de jeugd van\nSt. Petersburg in eene koortsachtige opgewondenheid over de pret,\ndie haar te wachten stond. Tom kon niet slapen van pleizier en hij\nleefde in de hoop Huck te hooren \"miauwen\" en zijn schat te krijgen,\nom daarmede Becky en de pic-nickers den volgenden dag in verbazing\nte brengen. Maar hij werd teleurgesteld. Er kwam dien nacht geen\nteeken. Eindelijk daagde de morgen en tusschen tien en elf uren\nvereenigde zich ten huize van den heer Thatcher een hoop dartele,\nstoeiende jongens en meisjes en was alles tot vertrekken gereed.\n\nHet was toenmaals de gewoonte niet van bejaarde lieden, om\nbuitenpartijen door hunne tegenwoordigheid te bederven. De kinderen\nwerden veilig geacht onder de vleugelen van een paar jonge dames van\nachttien en van een paar jonge heeren van drie- of vier en twintig\njaren.\n\nDe oude stoomboot was voor de gelegenheid afgehuurd, en toen al de\ngenoodigden bijeen waren, stapte de vroolijke troep, met manden vol\nproviand, door de hoofdstraat naar de rivier. Sid was ongesteld en\nliep het pretje mis, en Marie bleef bij hem te huis. Bij het afscheid\nnemen zeide mevrouw Thatcher tot Becky:\n\n\"Je zult wel wat laat tehuis komen. Misschien was het wel beter\ndat je bij een van de meisjes bleeft slapen, die het dichtst bij de\nkade woont.\"\n\n\"Dan zal ik maar bij Suze Harper blijven, mama.\"\n\n\"Goed, maar gedraag je behoorlijk en wees niet lastig.\"\n\nOnder de wandeling zeide Tom tot Becky:\n\n\"Hoor eens: ik zal je vertellen wat wij zullen doen. In plaats van naar\nde Harpers te gaan, zullen wij den heuvel beklimmen en in het huis\nvan de weduwe Douglas overnachten. Zij zal wel room-ijs hebben. Zij\nheeft het bijna elken dag, bij massa's, ja, bij hoopen! En zij zal\nblij zijn, als zij ons ziet.\"\n\n\"O, dat zal grappig zijn!\" riep Becky uit. Doch een oogenblik later\nhernam zij:\n\n\"Maar wat zal mama zeggen?\"\n\n\"Hoe zal zij het te weten komen?\"\n\nHet meisje overdacht de zaak nog eens en zeide aarzelend:\n\n\"Ik geloof, dat het verkeerd is, maar....\"\n\n\"Och, kom, het is geen lor waard! Je moeder zal het niet te weten\nkomen. En wat steekt er in? Al wat zij verlangt, is dat je op een\nveilige plaats zult zijn, en ik wed dat, indien zij er aan gedacht\nhad, ze je geraden zou hebben naar de weduwe te gaan. Ja, ik weet\ndat zij dat gedaan zou hebben!\"\n\nHet heerlijke gastvrije dak der weduwe Douglas was een verleidelijk\nlokaas. Het bleef dan ook, met Toms overredingen, overwinnaar. Er werd\nderhalve besloten niemand iets van het programma voor den nacht mede\nte deelen. Opeens schoot Tom te binnen, dat Huck dien nacht wel eens\nkon komen, om het teeken te geven. Deze gedachte bracht een gevoeligen\nschok aan zijne blijde verwachtingen. Toch kon hij er niet toe komen\nhet pretje bij de weduwe Douglas er aan te geven. En waarom zou hij\ndat doen? Het teeken was den vorigen nacht niet gekomen. Waarom zou\nhet dan juist dezen nacht gebeuren? De zekere pret van dezen avond\nwoog nog zwaarder dan de onzekere schat; en als een echte jongen\nbesloot hij aan den sterksten lust toe te geven en zich op te leggen,\ndien dag niet meer aan de geldkist te denken.\n\nDrie mijlen voorbij de stad werd de boot bij een boschrijk dal ter\nreede gelegd. Het gezelschap verdrong zich naar den oever en weldra\nweerklonken de wouden en rotsige hoogten wijd en zijd van het gejubel\nder kinderen. Alle middelen om moede en bezweet te worden werden in\npraktijk gebracht, totdat men zich eindelijk bij het kamp verzamelde en\nmet flinken eetlust gewapend, op de medegebrachte proviand aanviel. Na\nden maaltijd ging men over tot een verkwikkend rust- en praatuurtje\nonder de schaduw der breedgetakte eiken. Na een wijle jubelde eene\nstem:\n\n\"Wie gaat er mede naar de grot?\"\n\n\"Iedereen!\" Dadelijk werden er pakken met waskaarsen voor den dag\ngehaald en onmiddellijk daarop werd de heuvel beklommen. De ingang\nder grot lag aan de helling van den berg en was kenbaar aan eene\nopening in den vorm van de letter A. De zware eikenhouten deur\nstond open. Door deze kwam men in een klein kamertje, kil als een\nijskelder en door de natuur met stevige, vochtige kalksteenen muren\nomringd. Het was hoogst belangwekkend en geheimzinnig om daar in de\ndiepe duisternis te staan en dan het gezicht te hebben op de groene,\ndoor de zon beschenen vallei. Doch de indruk van dit tooneel werd\nspoedig vergeten en het stoeien hervat. Zoodra er een kaars werd\naangestoken, werd de bezitter aangevallen, 't geen een worsteling\nen dappere verdediging ten gevolge had. Maar de kaars was spoedig op\nden grond geworpen en uitgeblazen, waarop een luid gejuich ontstond\nen eene nieuwe vervolging. Doch aan alle lofzangen komt een einde\nen de stoet rukte op naar den hoofdtoegang, terwijl de flikkerende\nkaarsen de reusachtige rotsgewelven, waar deze zich zestig voet boven\nhet hoofd aaneensloten, flauw te zien gaven. De hoofdtoegang zelf was\nten hoogste acht of tien voet breed. Bij elke trede werden nieuwe en\nengere rotsspleten ontdekt. De grot van Mc. Douglas was dan ook een\ndoolhof van gangen, die in het oneindige in en uit elkander liepen\nen nergens heen leidden. Men vertelde, dat men dagen en nachten door\ndit labyrinth van spleten en gangen kon dwalen, zonder den uitgang\nder grot te vinden, en dat, naarmate men dieper naar beneden ging,\nhet onveranderlijk hetzelfde bleef: doolhof onder doolhof en alle\nzonder einde. Niemand kende de grot geheel, dit behoorde tot de\nonmogelijkheden. De meeste jongelieden hadden er een gedeelde van\ngezien en het was niet gebruikelijk zich ooit verder dat dit bekend\nterrein te wagen. Tom Sawyer wist al evenveel van de spelonk als\niedereen.\n\nDe stoet bewoog zich omstreeks drie kwartier langs den hoofdgang voort\nen langzamerhand begonnen enkele paren in zijgangen weg te sluipen,\ndoor donkere gaanderijen te kruipen en elkaar bij verrassing te\novervallen, op punten waar de gangen weder in elkander liepen. Een\npaar slaagden er in zich een half uur te verstoppen, zonder van het\nbezochte grondgebied te zijn afgeweken.\n\nVan lieverlede kwam de eene groep na de andere, jubelend, hijgende naar\nadem, van het hoofd tot de voeten met afgedropen kaarsvet besmeerd\nen uitgelaten van de pret, terug. Zij waren verbaasd te bemerken,\ndat zij aan tijd noch ruimte gedacht hadden en dat de avond viel. De\nbel der stoomboot had reeds een half uur haar schel geklingel doen\nhooren, doch, 't was zoo heerlijk, zoo romantisch den dag op deze\nwijs te besluiten. En toen de boot met hare luidruchtige bemanning\nvan wal stak, was de kapitein de eenige, die er geen schik in had,\ndat het reeds zoo laat was geworden.\n\nHuck stond op zijn post, toen de lichten der veerboot langs de kade\nflikkerden. Hij hoorde geen gerucht aan boord, want de jongeluidjes\nwaren vreedzaam en stil, zooals doodmoede lieden gewoonlijk zijn. Hij\nwas wel verlangend te weten, welke boot dit zijn kon en waarom\nzij niet aan de kade aanlegde,--maar zijne gedachten bepaalden\nzich niet lang bij dit onderwerp, en hij was weldra geheel in zijn\neigen aangelegenheden verdiept. De nacht werd donker en de lucht was\nbewolkt. Het werd gaandeweg tien uren en alle geraas van rijtuigen\nen voetstappen hield op; de schaarsche lichten werden al flauwer;\nde nog op straat slenterende voetgangers verdwenen en de stad ging\nde nachtrust in en liet den kleinen waker met de eenzaamheid en de\nspoken alleen.\n\nHet sloeg elf uren en de lichten in de herberg werden uitgedaan en\nnu heerschte er duisternis alom.\n\nHuck wachtte, naar het hem toescheen, een eindeloos langen tijd,\ndoch er gebeurde niets. Zijn vertrouwen begon te wankelen. Was het\nde moeite waard? Was het werkelijk de moeite waard? Waarom zou hij\nhet niet opgeven en naar bed gaan?\n\nPlotseling vernam zijn oor een geluid. In een oogenblik\nwas hij geheel aandacht. De deur in het steegje werd zachtjes\ndichtgedaan. Onmiddellijk kroop hij in een hoek bij den kalkoven. Het\nvolgende oogenblik slopen twee mannen langs hem heen, van wie de een\niets onder zijn arm scheen te dragen. Het moest de kist zijn! Zij\ngingen dus den schat verplaatsen! Waarom zou hij Tom nu roepen? Het\nzou een dwaasheid wezen!--De mannen zouden met de kist wegloopen en zij\nzou nooit gevonden worden. Neen, hij zou blijven waken en hen volgen;\nhij zou zich aan de duisternis toevertrouwen, als een waarborg tegen\nontdekking. Deze dingen bij zich zelven overleggende, sloop hij stil\nvoort en kroop voorzichtig als een kat, blootsvoets achter de mannen\naan, terwijl hij hen zoover voor zich uit liet gaan dat hij hen nog\njuist in het gezicht had.\n\nZij slopen de op de rivier uitloopende straat door en sloegen toen\nlinks af, eene zijstraat in. Daarna gingen zij rechtuit, totdat\nzij aan het pad kwamen, dat naar Cardiff Hill leidde. Dit werd\ningeslagen en zij stapten al maar voort, tot nabij het huis van den\nouden boschwachter, dat halverwege den heuvel gelegen was.\n\n\"Goed,\" dacht Huck, \"zij zullen den schat in de oude steengroeve\nbegraven.\" Maar zij hielden niet eens bij de steengroeve stil. Zij\ngingen door naar den top. Toen kozen zij een zijpaadje tusschen de\ngroote sumakboomen en waren op eens in de duisternis verdwenen. Huck\nversnelde zijn pas en liet minder ruimte tusschen hen en zich zelven;\nzij konden hem thans immers onmogelijk zien. Hij draafde een poosje,\nging toen weder wat langzamer; uit vrees van te ver te zullen, loopen,\nliep zachtjes weer een eindje door en hield toen stil. Hij luisterde,\ngeen geluid, behalve het gebons van zijn eigen hart. Daar werd op\neens over den heuvel het zuchten van een uil vernomen.\n\nOnheilspellend geluid! Maar geen voetstappen. Hemel! was alles\nverloren? Hij was op het punt met gevleugelde voeten weg te snellen,\ntoen hij, geen vier pas van zich af, een man hoorde hoesten. Het\nhart schoot den knaap in de keel, doch hij bekwam weder. Toch beefde\nhij, alsof hem een dozijn koortsen op het lijf werden gejaagd, en\nhij stond zoo wankel op zijne beenen, dat hij bepaald dacht op den\ngrond te zullen vallen. Hij wist waar hij was. Het was hem bekend,\ndat hij zich op vijf treden afstand bevond van het hek, dat hem naar\nde landerijen van de weduwe Douglas bracht.\n\n\"Heel goed,\" dacht hij, \"laten zij den schat hier begraven dan zal\nhij niet moeilijk te vinden zijn.\"\n\nThans werd er een zachte, zeer zachte stem gehoord;--het was die van\nInjun Joe.\n\n\"Godv....! zij heeft zeker gezelschap: er is nog licht aan, zoo laat\nals het is.\"\n\n\"Ik zie geen lichten.\"\n\nDit was de stem van dien vreemdeling,--den vreemdeling uit het\nspookhuis. Een ijskoude rilling voor Huck door de leden. Dus dit was de\ndag der wrake! Zijne eerste gedachte was te vluchten. Toen schoot hem\nte binnen, dat de weduwe Douglas meer dan eens vriendelijk geweest was\nen het kon zijn, dat deze mannen plan hadden haar te vermoorden. Hij\nzou zoo gaarne moed gehad hebben om haar te waarschuwen, maar hij\nwist dat hij het niet durfde;--zij mochten hem eens beetpakken.\n\nHij overdacht dit alles en meer nog in het oogenblik, dat verliep\ntusschen de opmerking van den vreemdeling en het antwoord van Injun\nJoe, hetwelk aldus luidde:\n\n\"Omdat het kreupelhout je in den weg staat. Kom dezen kant uit.--Zie\nje het nu?\"\n\n\"Ja, zeker, er zijn menschen. Ik geloof dat het beter is, het op\nte geven.\"\n\n\"Opgeven? Juist nu ik dit land voor altijd ga verlaten! Het\nopgeven,--om nooit weer een kans te krijgen. Ik zeg je nog eens,\nwat ik je al meer gezegd heb, dat ik niets om den buit geef;--dien\nmag jij hebben. Maar haar man heeft mij gemeen behandeld--en meer\ndan eens, en vooral daarin dat hij, die vrederechter was, mij als\neen vagebond in de gevangenis heeft gezet. En dat niet alles. Dat is\nniet het millioenste deel. Hij heeft mij laten geeselen!--geeselen,\nvlak voor de gevangenis, als een neger, terwijl de geheele stad er\nnaar stond te kijken. Geeselen, versta je het? Hij is mij voor geweest\nen is gestorven. Maar zij zal er voor boeten.\"\n\n\"Och, vermoord haar niet! Doe het niet!\"\n\n\"Vermoorden? Wie spreekt van vermoorden? Ik zou hem vermoorden,\nals hij hier was; maar haar niet. Wanneer men zich op eene vrouw\nwreekt, vermoordt men haar niet:--ba! maar men berooft haar van hare\nschoonheden. Men snijdt haar de neusgaten in twee\u00ebn;--men kerft haar\nde ooren als een varken!\"\n\n\"Bij God, dat is...\"\n\n\"Houd je gevoelens voor je, dat is je geraden! Ik zal haar aan haar\nbed vastbinden. Als zij doodbloedt, kan ik het helpen? Ik zal er mij\nniet naar over maken. Vriendje, je zult mij in dit zaakje helpen--om\nmij te pleizieren; daarvoor ben je hier,--want 't kan zijn, dat ik het\nniet alleen af kan. Als je weifelt ben je een man des doods! Versta je\ndat? En indien ik jou doodmaak, is zij er ook om koud--en dan geloof\nik niet dat iemand ooit veel van deze zaak zal te weten komen.\"\n\n\"Wel, als het dan moet, laat ons er dan aan beginnen. Hoe eer hoe\nbeter;--ik beef als een riet!\"\n\n\"Het nu doen?--En er is gezelschap! Kijk eens hier: zorg, dat ik je\nniet ga mistrouwen! Neen,--wij zullen wachten, totdat de lichten uit\nzijn. Het heeft geen haast.\"\n\nHuck voelde, dat er een oogenblik van stilzwijgen zou volgen--en dat\nwas nog vreeselijker dan het moorddadig gesprek. Daarom hield hij\nzijn adem in, deed omzichtig een stap achteruit, zette behoedzaam\nzijn voet stevig neer, na heel gevaarlijk op \u00e9\u00e9n been te hebben staan\nbalanceeren en bijkans gevallen te zijn, eerst den eenen kant uit en\ntoen den anderen. Hij deed met dezelfde moeite en hetzelfde gevaar nog\neen stap achteruit; toen nog een en nog een.--Daar brak een tak onder\nzijn voet! Hij hield zijn adem in en luisterde. Hij vernam geen geluid;\nhet was volmaakt stil. Zijne dankbaarheid kende geen palen. Nu kwam\nhij in het sumakboschje;--daar wendde en keerde hij zich voorzichtig\nals een laveerend schip en stapte vervolgens haastig, maar behoedzaam\nvoort. Toen hij de steengroeve voorbij was, achtte hij zich veilig\nen zette het op een loopen. Hij ijlde al maar voort, totdat hij het\nhuis van den ouden boschwachter had bereikt. Daar klopte hij aan de\ndeur en weldra werden de hoofden van den ouden man en van zijn beide\nforschgespierde zonen voor de ramen zichtbaar.\n\n\"Wat een rumoer daar? Wie klopt er? Wat moet je?\"\n\n\"Laat mij binnen--en gauw ook. Ik zal alles vertellen.\"\n\n\"Wat? Wie ben je?\"\n\n\"Huckleberry Finn. Gauw, laat mij binnen!\"\n\n\"Huckleberry Finn, waarachtig! 't Is geen naam, waarvoor zich vele\ndeuren openen, geloof ik. Maar laat hem binnen, jongens, en laat ons\nzien wat er te doen is.\"\n\n\"Zeg het, als je blieft, nooit, dat ik je het verteld heb,\" waren\nHucks eerste woorden, toen hij binnentrad. \"Doe het als je blieft\nniet;--ik zal zeker vermoord worden; maar de weduwe is zoo goed voor\nmij geweest, en ik moet het zeggen;--ik zal het vertellen, als je\nmij belooft, dat je nooit zult zeggen dat ik het was.\"\n\n\"Bij den Hemel, hij heeft iets te vertellen, of hij zou zoo niet\nspreken!\" riep de oude man uit. \"Voor den dag er mee, en niemand zal\nhet verklappen.\"\n\nTien minuten later beklommen de oude man en zijne zonen, behoorlijk\ngewapend, den heuvel en stapten op hun teenen het pad der sumakboomen\nin. Huck vergezelde hen niet verder; hij verborg zich achter een\nrotsblok en luisterde.\n\nEr volgden eenige oogenblikken van lange, akelige stilte. Plotseling\nwerd er een geknal van vuurwapenen gehoord en een gil.\n\nHuck wachtte niet om eenige bijzonderheden te vernemen, maar ijlde\nzoo spoedig, als zijne beenen hem dragen konden, den heuvel af.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXXI.\n\n\nZondagochtend voor dag en dauw kroop Huck reeds den berg op en klopte\naan de deur van den ouden boschwachter. De huisgenooten lagen nog te\nbed en sliepen een hazenslaap, tengevolge van de spanning waarin zij\neen gedeelte van den nacht hadden doorgebracht. Een stem riep uit\neen raam:\n\n\"Wie is daar?\"\n\nHuck antwoordde verschrikt, op zachten toon:\n\n\"Laat mij, als 't u blieft, binnen. Het is niemand dan Huck Finn.\"\n\n\"Dat is een naam voor welken de deur dag en nacht open staat!--Wees\nwelkom!\"\n\nDit waren vreemde woorden in de ooren van den jeugdigen vagebond\nen de liefelijkste die hij ooit had vernomen. Hij herinnerde zich\nniet de twee laatste immer gehoord te hebben. De deur werd haastig\nontsloten en de knaap trad binnen. Men gaf hem een stoel, en de oude\nman en zijne zonen kleedden zich in aller ijl aan.\n\n\"Nu, mijn jongen, ik hoop dat gij een goeden eetlust hebt meegebracht,\nwant wij gaan ontbijten zoodra de zon opkomt, en 't zal een brandend\nzonnetje zijn ook. Ik en de jongens hoopten al dat ge gisteren hier\nzoudt zijn teruggekeerd en in ons huis zoudt geslapen hebben.\"\n\n\"Ik was zoo vreeselijk geschrikt,\" zeide Huck, \"en ik heb het op\neen loopen gezet. Ik rende weg zoodra de pistolen afgingen, en ik\nholde drie mijlen ver voort, en ik ben nu gekomen omdat ik er iets\nvan weten wou. Ik kom voor het daglicht, omdat ik de duivels niet\ngraag tegen het lijf zou loopen, zelfs al zijn ze dood.\"\n\n\"Wel, arme jongen, je ziet er uit alsof je een akeligen nacht\ngehad hebt,--maar hier staat een bed voor je, wanneer je ontbeten\nhebt. Neen, zij zijn niet dood, jongen;--dat spijt ons genoeg. Wij\nwisten, door jouw beschrijving, waar wij de hand op hen moesten\nleggen. Wij kropen op de teenen voort, totdat wij omstreeks vijftien\npas van hen verwijderd waren--en 't pad der sumakboomen was zoo donker\nals een kelder--en juist toen voelde ik dat ik moest niezen. 't Was\nbitter ongelukkig; ik trachtte het in te houden, maar 't hielp niet:\nhet wilde komen en het kwam. Ik liep vooruit met opgeheven pistool en\ntoen het genies de schurken verschrikt uit het bosch deed opspringen,\nriep ik: 'Vuur jongens!' en schoot in de richting, waar het geritsel\nvandaan kwam. En dat deden de jongens ook, maar de schelmen waren in\neen ommezien weg en wij holden hen in het bosch achterna. Ik geloof,\ndat wij hen niet eens geraakt hebben. Toen wij stilhielden, schoten\nzij op ons, maar hunne kogels sisten langs ons heen, zonder ons te\nderen. Zoodra wij het geluid hunner voetstappen niet meer hoorden,\ngaven wij de jacht op en gingen naar de stad om de politie roepen. Deze\nriep de gewapende macht bijeen en hield de wacht langs den oever der\nrivier, en zoodra het licht wordt, zal de sherif met zijne kornuiten\nde bosschen doorkruisen. Mijne jongens zullen meegaan. Ik wou, dat wij\nde rekels zoo wat konden beschrijven;--dat zou heel wat helpen. Maar\ngij kondt zeker in het duister niet zien hoe zij er uitzagen, h\u00e9?\"\n\n\"O, jawel, ik heb ze door de stad zien gaan en ben hen gevolgd.\"\n\n\"Prachtig! Beschrijf ze dan, beschrijf ze dan, mijn jongen.\"\n\n\"De eene is de doofstomme Spanjaard, die een paar malen hier geweest\nis en de andere is een kerel met een gemeen gezicht, in lompen.\"\n\n\"Genoeg, jongen! Wij kennen de kerels. Wij zijn ze een dag of wat\ngeleden, achter in de bosschen van de weduwe Douglas tegengekomen en\nzij kropen voor ons weg. Er uit, jongens, naar den sherif.--Morgen\nkomt er weer een dag om te ontbijten.\"\n\nDe zonen van den boschwachter vertrokken dadelijk. Toen zij de kamer\nuit waren, sprong Huck op en riep uit:\n\n\"O, vertel als het u blieft aan niemand, dat ik ze op het spoor ben\ngekomen! O, als het u blieft niet.\"\n\n\"Heel goed, Huck, als gij dat verkiest; maar gij moest eigenlijk de\neer hebben van 't geen gij gedaan hebt.\"\n\n\"O, neen, neen! Zeg het als het u blieft niet.\"\n\n\"Neen,\" antwoordde de boschwachter, \"de jongens zullen het niet\nzeggen--en ik ook niet. Maar waarom wilt gij het niet weten?\"\n\nHuck wilde zich niet verder uitlaten en zeide alleen, dat hij een\nder beide mannen goed kende en dat hij bang was dat die man te weten\nzou komen, dat hij iets kwaads van hem wist, daar hij hem dan zeker\nzou vermoorden.\n\nDe oude man beloofde nogmaals te zullen zwijgen en zeide:\n\n\"Hoe zijt gij er toch toe gekomen om deze kerels te volgen,\njongen? Zagen zij er verdacht uit?\"\n\nHuck zweeg en bedacht zich even, om naar een voorzichtig antwoord te\nzoeken. Toen zeide hij:\n\n\"Wel, ziet gij, ik heb een hard lot,--ten minste dat zeggen de\nlui--en ik kan er niets aan doen--en soms kan ik niet slapen, omdat\nik er zoo lang over lig te denken en op middelen zin om er een eind\naan te maken. Dat deed ik juist gisteren-nacht. Ik kon niet slapen\nen ging daarom tegen middernacht de straat op, om er nog eens over\nte denken, en toen ik bij dien ouden, wrakken steenoven kwam bij de\nMatigheidsherberg, ging ik met mijn rug tegen den muur staan. Juist op\ndat oogenblik slopen die twee kerels mij voorbij, met iets onder den\narm, 't welk ik vermoedde dat zij gestolen hadden. De een rookte en de\nander nam een zwavelstok, om zijn sigaar op te steken. Zij hielden\nvlak voor mij stil en hunne sigaren verlichtten hun 't gezicht,\nen ik zag aan de witte bakkebaarden en den lap op zijn oog, dat\n'de lange' de doofstomme Spanjaard en dat de andere een havelooze,\ngemeene duivel was.\"\n\n\"Kondt gij bij het licht der sigaar zien, dat hij er gemeen in de\nkleeren uitzag?\"\n\nDie vraag bracht Huck een oogenblik van zijn stuk. Toen hernam hij:\n\"Dat weet ik zoo niet--maar, ik geloof het toch wel.\"\n\n\"Toen gingen zij voort, en gij....?\"\n\n\"Ik volgde hen. Ja, dat deed ik. Ik wou eens zien waar zij heen\nslopen. Ik speurde het na tot aan 't hek bij de weduwe en bleef in het\nduister staan en hoorde den havelooze smeekend vragen, om medelijden\nmet de weduwe te hebben, en den Spanjaard zweren, dat hij haar neus\nkapot zou snijden en haar ooren kerven, juist zooals...\"\n\n\"Wat! zeide de _doofstomme_ man dat alles?\"\n\nHuck had weder een verschrikkelijken flater gemaakt. Hij deed al zijn\nbest om den ouden man niet te laten merken wie die Spanjaard was, en\ntoch scheen zijn tong het er op gezet te hebben hem er in te laten\nloopen. Hij deed zijn uiterste best om zich uit deze moeielijkheid\nte redden, doch de oude man keek hem strak in het gezicht en de knaap\nmaakte het eene abuis na het andere. Eindelijk zeide de boschwachter:\n\n\"Jongen, wees niet zoo bang voor mij; ik zou voor al het geld van\nde wereld geen haar van uw hoofd willen krenken. Neen, ik zal u\nbeschermen,--dat zal ik. Deze Spanjaard is niet doofstom: gij hebt u\ndat onwetend laten ontvallen; gij kunt het niet weder intrekken. Gij\nweet meer van den Spanjaard. Vertrouw mij; zeg mij wat het is. Ik\nzal u niet verraden.\"\n\nHuck zag den ouden man een oogenblik in de eerlijke oogen, boog zich\ntoen over hem been en fluisterde hem in 't oor:\n\n\"Het is geen Spanjaard; het is Injun Joe.\"\n\nDe boschwachter viel van schrik bijna van zijn stoel en zeide:\n\n\"Nu is mij alles duidelijk. Toen gij spraakt van ooren kerven en\nneuzen opensnijden, dacht ik, dat gij er dit bij hadt gemaakt, omdat\nblanken nooit op deze wijze wraak nemen. Maar een kleurling! dat is\nheel wat anders.\"\n\nZij praatten al ontbijtende voort en in den loop van het gesprek zeide\nde oude man, dat het laatste wat hij en zijne zonen gedaan hadden\neer zij naar bed gingen, was geweest een lantaarntje nemen en in de\nbuurt van het hek zoeken, of zij ook sporen van bloed ontdekten. Zij\nvonden er echter geene, maar wel een grooten bos...\n\n\"Wat?\"\n\nIndien de woorden een bliksemstraal geweest waren, konden zij\nniet met meer verpletterende snelheid aan Hucks bleeke lippen zijn\nontsnapt. Zijne oogen stonden strak en zijn adem stokte, toen hij\nnaar een antwoord wachtte.\n\nDe boschwachter schrikte, zag hem een paar seconden zwijgend aan en\nzeide toen:\n\n\"Breekijzers. Maar, wat scheelt u?\"\n\nHuck zonk achterover en haalde zacht en onuitsprekelijk dankbaar\nadem. De boschwachter zag hem weder aan en hernam:\n\n\"Ja, breekijzers. Dat schijnt u een pak van 't hart te nemen. Maar\nwaarom verschriktet gij zoo? Wat dacht gij, dat wij gevonden hadden?\"\n\nHuck zat in een benauwd hoekje; de vragende oogen waren op hem gericht;\nhij zou alles gegeven hebben, indien hij een aannemelijk antwoord had\nkunnen vinden. Maar niets deed zich voor. Het vragend oog doorboorde\nhem al dieper en dieper.--Daar schoot hem een allerdwaast antwoord\nin. Er was geen tijd om te overwegen, dus mompelde hij op goed geluk:\n\n\"Ik dacht, boeken van de zondagsschool.\"\n\nDe arme knaap was te beangst om zelfs te kunnen glimlachen,--doch\nde oude man lachte luid en vroolijk, schudde Huck door elkander en\neindigde met te zeggen, dat zulk een lach goud waard was, omdat deze\nhet geld voor den dokter in den zak hielp houden. Toen voegde hij\ner bij:\n\n\"Arme jongen, je ziet er bleek en vermoeid uit. Je bent niet wel. Geen\nwonder dat je hersenen wat verward zijn. Maar je zult er wel bovenop\nkomen. Rust en slaap zullen je, hoop ik, wel weder in orde brengen.\"\n\nHuck was boos op zich zelven, dat hij zoo dom was geweest, zich door\nzulk eene verdachte verlegenheid te verraden, want hij had, zoodra\nhij het gesprek bij het hek had afgeluisterd, het denkbeeld laten\nvaren dat het pakje, 't welk zij uit de herberg hadden medegebracht,\nde schat was. Hij had althans maar gedacht, doch niet geweten dat\nhet de schat _niet_ was, en vandaar dat de mededeeling van den\nbuitgemaakten bundel te prachtig was om er zijne tegenwoordigheid\nvan geest bij te blijven bewaren. Alles te zamen genomen evenwel,\nwas hij blijde dat deze kleine episode had plaats gehad, want nu wist\nhij stellig en zeker, dat deze buit de schat niet was en dus kwam\nzijn gemoed tot rust en voelde hij zich grootelijks verruimd. Ja,\nwaarlijk, alles scheen thans naar de juiste richting te drijven: de\nschat moest nog op \"nummer twee\" zijn; de mannen zouden dien dag gepakt\nen in de gevangenis gezet worden en hij en Tom zouden morgen-nacht,\nzonder moeite en zonder vrees voor stoornis, het geld in beslag nemen.\n\nJuist toen het ontbijt was afgeloopen, werd er op de deur geklopt. Hij\nsprong op om eene schuilplaats te zoeken, want hij had geen lust om\nzelfs in de verste verte met de gebeurtenis van den vorigen nacht in\nverband te worden gebracht. De boschwachter liet verscheidene dames\nen heeren binnen, onder welke de weduwe Douglas, en hij bemerkte dat\nheele zwermen den heuvel beklommen, om het hek te bekijken. Het nieuws\nhad zich dus verspreid.\n\nDe boschwachter moest zijnen bezoekers de geschiedenis van dien nacht\nvertellen. De weduwe kon geen woorden vinden on hare dankbaarheid\nvoor hare bescherming uit te drukken.\n\n\"Spreek er niet van, mevrouw,\" zeide de boschwachter. \"Er is een ander,\naan wien gij meer verplicht zijt dan aan mij en aan mijne jongens. Maar\ndeze wil zijn naam niet genoemd hebben. Wij zouden daar nooit geweest\nzijn, indien hij ons niet gewaarschuwd had.\"\n\nNatuurlijk wekte dit eene mate van nieuwsgierigheid op, die de\nhoofdzaak in de schaduw stelde; doch de boschwachter liet de bezoekers\nin het onzekere en door hen werd deze tijding door de geheele stad\ngebracht. Toen zij al het overige vernomen had, zeide de weduwe:\n\n\"Ik heb in bed liggen lezen en ben zoo in slaap gevallen en heb niets\nvan het leven gehoord. Waarom hebt gij mij niet wakker gemaakt?\"\n\n\"Wij dachten, dat het niet noodig was. De kerels zouden waarschijnlijk\nniet terugkomen. Zij hadden geen gereedschap om mede te werken;\nen waartoe zou het dienen u te wekken en u doodelijk te doen\nontstellen? Mijne drie zwarte knechts hebben den ganschen nacht voor\nuw huis de wacht gehouden. Zij zijn juist teruggekomen.\"\n\nEr kwamen hoe langer hoe meer bezoekers en de geschiedenis moest een\npaar uren lang aanhoudend verteld en oververteld worden.\n\nIn de vacantie was er geen zondagsschool, maar men ging wat vroeger\nnaar de kerk. De ontrustbarende gebeurtenis werd daar dien morgen\nbehoorlijk uitgeplozen en iedereen kon vernemen, dat er nog geen taal\nof teeken van de schelmen ontdekt was.\n\nToen de kerk uitging, liep mevrouw Thatcher toevallig naast juffrouw\nHarper, die met de schare het Godshuis verliet, en zeide:\n\n\"Slaapt mijn Becky den heelen dag? Ik dacht wel, dat zij erg vermoeid\nzou zijn.\"\n\n\"Uwe Becky?\"\n\n\"Ja,\" zeide de ander met een verschrikt gelaat. \"Heeft zij van nacht\ndan niet bij u gelogeerd?\"\n\n\"Wel neen.\"\n\nMevrouw Thatcher werd bleek en viel op eene bank neder, juist toen\ntante Polly, in een levendig gesprek met eene oude vriendin, haar\nvoorbijging. Tante Polly zeide:\n\n\"Goeden morgen, mevrouw Thatcher; goeden morgen, juffrouw Harper. Ik\nmis een van mijne jongens. Tom is zeker van nacht aan uw huis blijven\nslapen en durft nu niet in de kerk komen, niet waar? Ik zal weer een\nappeltje met hem te schillen hebben.\"\n\nMevrouw Thatcher schudde het hoofd en werd nog bleeker.\n\n\"Hij is niet bij ons geweest,'\" zeide juffrouw Harper, met een\nverontrust gelaat. Ook tante Polly werd angstig.\n\n\"Joe Harper, heb je mijn Tom van morgen al gesproken?\"\n\n\"Neen, juffrouw.\"\n\n\"Wanneer heb je hem het laatst gezien?\"\n\nJoe trachtte zich dit te binnen te brengen, maar hij herinnerde\nhet zich niet. De kerkgangers bleven met bedrukte gezichten staan\nkijken; er ontstond een geheimzinnig gefluister, en onrust teekende\nzich op ieders gelaat. De kinderen en de onderwijzers werden angstig\nondervraagd, doch niemand had er op gelet of Tom en Becky aan boord\nvan de stoomboot waren, toen zij naar huis voeren. Het was zoo donker,\nen men had er niet aan gedacht om te vragen, of er ook een gemist\nwerd. Een der aanwezige jongelieden liet zich ontvallen, dat hij\nvreesde dat ze nog in de grot waren! Bij deze veronderstelling viel\nmevrouw Thatcher dadelijk in onmacht en tante Polly begon te schreien\nen hare handen te wringen.\n\nIn een oogenblik ging de noodkreet van mond tot mond, van groep\ntot groep, van straat tot straat, en binnen vijf minuten luidde de\nnoodklok met woesten klank en was de gansche stad in rep en roer. De\ngebeurtenis te Cardiff Hill zonk dadelijk in het niet; de inbrekers\nwaren vergeten. Paarden werden gezadeld, schuitjes bemand, de stoomboot\nwerd uitgezonden, en eer de vreeselijke tijding een half uur oud was,\nwaren er tweehonderd man in vaartuigen of te voet op weg naar de grot.\n\nIn den namiddag was de stad als uitgestorven. Vele dames kwamen tante\nPolly en mevrouw Thatcher bezoeken en zochten haar te troosten. Zij\nschreiden met haar, en dat deed de bedroefden nog meer goed dan\nhare woorden.\n\nDen ganschen langen nacht wachtte men op tijding, en toen de dag\neindelijk aanbrak, kwam er niets dan de boodschap: \"Zend meer kaarsen\nen meer voedsel.\" Mevrouw Thatcher was bijna krankzinnig van angst,\nen tante Polly ook. De heer Thatcher zond nu en dan bemoedigende\nboodschappen uit de grot, doch dezen brachten weinig troost.\n\nDe oude boschwachter kwam tegen het aanbreken van den dag, met\nkaarsvet besmeerd, met modder bespat en doodmoede tehuis. Hij vond\nHuck nog in het bed, dat hij voor hem had gereedgemaakt. De knaap\nlag in ijlende koorts. De dokters waren allen naar de grot en dus\nnam de weduwe Douglas de zorg voor den pati\u00ebnt op zich. Zij zeide\ndat zij voor hem doen zou wat zij kon, omdat, 't zij hij goed was\nof slecht, hij des Heeren was, en niets wat den Heer toebehoorde,\nmocht veronachtzaamd worden. De boschwachter verklaarde, dat Huck\nnog zoo'n slechte jongen niet was, waarop de weduwe antwoordde:\n\n\"Dat spreekt vanzelf. Dat is de stempel des Heeren; deze kan niet\nuitgewischt worden. God doet dat nooit, maar drukt Zijn merk op elk\nschepsel, dat uit Zijne hand komt.\"\n\nVroeg in den middag kwam het meerendeel der St. Petersburgers, die\nuitgegaan waren om te zoeken, doodelijk vermoeid in de stad terug, doch\nde sterksten onder de burgers zetten het onderzoek voort. De eenige\ntijding die zij meebrachten was, dat men bezig was een verwijderd\ngedeelte van de spelonk te doorzoeken, waarin nooit menschelijke\nvoetstappen waren doorgedrongen, en dat elke hoek en spleet zou\nworden nagespeurd. Verder, dat door den ganschen doolhof, lichten\nher- en derwaarts flikkerden en de doffe klank van pistoolschoten\ndoor de sombere gewelven weerkaatste. Op eene plaats, ver van het\ngewoonlijk door de toeristen bezochte gedeelte, had men de namen\n\"Becky\" en \"Tom\" met kaarssnuitsel op een rotsachtigen muur gevonden\nen vlak daarbij een met vet besmeerd stukje lint. Mevrouw Thatcher\nherkende het lint en schreide er bittere tranen over. Zij zeide,\ndat dit het laatste aandenken was, 't welk zij ooit van haar kind\nzou bezitten; dat geen andere gedachtenis haar zoo dierbaar zou zijn,\ndaar dit voorwerp het laatst van het levende lichaam gescheiden was,\nvoordat de vreeselijke dood was gekomen. Sommigen verhaalden, dat\nmen nu en dan in de grot een verwijderd stipje licht zag flikkeren,\nen dat telkens, als dit te zien kwam, door een twintigtal mannen, die\ntroepsgewijze door de holklinkende gangen liepen, een jubelkreet werd\naangeheven, die telkens door wanhopige teleurstelling werd gevolgd.\n\nDus sleepten drie vreeselijke dagen en nachten hunne trage uren\nvoort en de stedelingen vervielen welhaast in wanhoop. De toevallige\nontdekking, onlangs gedaan, dat de eigenaar van de Matigheidsherberg\nin een bijgebouw sterken drank bewaarde, scheen het publiek nauwelijks\nte treffen, hoe verschrikkelijk de gebeurtenis ook zijn mocht.\n\nIn een helder oogenblik gedurende zijne ziekte, bracht Huck\nschoorvoetend het gesprek op herbergen en vroeg eindelijk, met een\nvaag vermoeden van het ergste, of er sedert zijne ziekte ook iets in\nde Matigheidsherberg ontdekt was.\n\n\"Ja,\" zeide de weduwe.\n\nHuck sprong met verwilderde oogen in zijn bed op.\n\n\"Wat? Wat was het?\"\n\n\"Drank! En de herberg is gesloten. Ga stil liggen, kind;--gij doet\nmij schrikken.\"\n\n\"Zeg mij slechts \u00e9\u00e9n ding--\u00e9\u00e9n ding als het u blieft. Heeft Tom Sawyer\nhet ontdekt?\"\n\nDe weduwe barstte in tranen uit.\n\n\"Stil, kind, stil! Ik heb al meer gezegd, dat gij niet moet praten. Gij\nzijt zeer, zeer ziek.\"\n\nZoo! dus was er niets dan drank gevonden. Het zou wel eene groote\nopschudding gegeven hebben, indien het de schat was geweest. Dus was\ndeze voor eeuwig verloren! Maar waarom zou zij schreien? Hoe vreemd\ndat zij schreide. Deze gedachten doorkruisten Hucks brein en onder de\nvermoeienis van het peinzen viel hij in slaap. Toen zeide de weduwe\ntot zich zelve:\n\n\"Daar slaapt hij, de arme drommel. Tom Sawyer hem vinden! Gave God,\ndat iemand Tom Sawyer vond! Ach, er zijn er niet veel meer, die nog\nhoop en kracht hebben om met zoeken voort te gaan.\"\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXXII.\n\n\nWij moeten thans naar de pic-nic en Tom en Becky's aandeel in de\npret terugkeeren. Zij hadden met de anderen door de donkere gangen\ngehuppeld en de bekende wonderen van de grot bezocht,--wonderen\nmet wel te grootsche namen bestempeld, zooals: het \"Salon,\" de\n\"Kathedraal,\" het \"Paleis van Aladdin,\" enz. Aan het daarop gevolgd\n\"verstoppertje\" spelen hadden zij ijverig deelgenomen, totdat zij\nvan de inspanning moede waren geworden. Daarna eens opwandelende,\nwaren zij in een kronkelpad afgedwaald en hadden daar, bij het licht\nhunner omhooggehouden kaarsen, het krabbelschrift van namen, datums,\nadressen en motto's gelezen, waarmede de rotswanden (met kaarssnuitsel)\nbeschreven waren. Al voortgaande en pratende, hadden zij niet eens\nbemerkt, dat zij zich in een gedeelte der grot bevonden, op welks\nmuren geene namen te lezen stonden. Hier schreven zij hun eigen\nnaam met kaarssnuitsel op een vooruitstekend rotsblok en gingen\nverder. Kort daarop kwamen zij op eene plaats, waar een, over een\nzandrif naar beneden vlietend en een laag kalksteen met zich voerend\nwaterstroompje, in de langzaam voortgaande eeuwen, een versteende\nNiagara van schitterend en onvergankelijk stalactiet had gevormd.\n\nOm Becky pleizier te doen, kroop Tom met zijn tenger lichaam\ntusschen de steenen door, om de plaats te verlichten. Te midden dier\nrotsenmassa ontdekte hij eene door de natuur gevormde trap, door nauwe\nmuren ingesloten, en bij dat gezicht werd hij door den lust tot een\nontdekkingstocht aangegrepen. Becky verklaarde zich bereid hem te\nvergezellen en zij maakten met den walm der kaars een teeken, dat hen\nden terugweg zou doen weervinden, en gingen op verkenning uit. Zij\nsloegen allerlei paden in, tot ver in de grot; zij maakten nog eens\neen merkteeken en gingen steeds voort om nieuwe wonderen te zoeken,\ndie zij aan de bovenwereld zouden vertellen. Op eens ontdekten zij een\nruim hol, van welks zoldering een massa glinsterend druipsteen afhing,\nin lengte en vorm aan een menschenbeen gelijk. Vol bewondering en\nverbazing wandelden zij daarin rond en verlieten het hol weder door\neen der vele gangen, die er op uitliepen. Hun weg bracht hen bij\neen tooverachtig schoone springbron, welker bodem met schitterende\ngekristallisseerde waterdroppen als ingelegd was. De bron stond midden\nin een grot, met muren door allervreemdsoortigste pilaren gestut,\ngevormd door de verbinding van groote stalactieten en stalagmieten,\ndie wederom aan het eeuwenlang neerdruppelen van water hun ontstaan te\ndanken hadden. Onder dit dak hadden zich dikke zwermen vledermuizen\nbij duizendtallen opeengehoopt. Door het licht verschrikt, kwamen\ndeze dieren bij honderden naar beneden en fladderden met een akelig\ngeschreeuw woedend om de kaarsen been. Tom kende hun aard en het\ngevaar, dat van dien kant dreigde. Hij greep Becky bij de hand en\nduwde haar in een der vele gangen--en voorwaar niet te vroeg, want\neen vledermuis sloeg, juist toen zij den grot verlieten, met hare\nvleugels Becky's licht uit. De booze dieren vervolgden de kinderen\nnog een tijdlang, doch de vluchtelingen liepen telkens een nauwen\ngang in en ontkwamen eindelijk aan deze gevaarlijke beesten.\n\nKort daarna ontdekte Tom een onderaardsch meer, welks eindelooze\nlengte zich in de duisternis verloor. Ofschoon hij groote geneigdheid\nhad om de oevers van dat meer te gaan verkennen, kwam hij tot het\nbesluit, dat het beter zou zijn een oogenblik te gaan zitten, on\nuit te rusten. En nu eerst wekte de doodelijke stilte van het oord\nverlammend op hun jeugdig gemoed.\n\n\"Tom, ik verbeeld mij, dat wij sedert uren niets van de anderen\ngehoord hebben.\"'\n\n\"Becky, ik geloof dat wij veel dieper zijn dan zij, maar ik weet niet\nin welke richting, in het noorden, zuiden of oosten. Ik geloof niet,\ndat het mogelijk is hen hier te hooren.\"\n\nBecky begon bang te worden.\n\n\"Ik zou wel eens willen weten, hoe lang wij al hier zijn.--Zou het\nniet beter wezen terug te keeren?\"\n\n\"Ja, dat geloof ik ook.\"\n\n\"Kunt gij den weg terugvinden? Ik zie niets dan kronkelpaden en\nslingerwegen.\"\n\n\"Ik zou het wel kunnen, maar ik ben bang voor de vleermuizen. Indien\nzij ook mijn kaars uitdeden, zouden wij er ellendig aan toe zijn. We\nmoeten het met een anderen weg beproeven.\n\n\"Och, ik hoop maar dat wij niet zullen verdwalen. Dat zou zoo\nvreeselijk wezen!\"\n\nEn het meisje begon te beven bij de gedachte aan die ontzettende\nmogelijkheid.\n\nZij liepen een gang in en gingen zwijgend een geruimen tijd voort,\nnaar elke nieuwe opening kijkende, om te zien of zij ook iets ontdekten\ndat hun bekend voorkwam, doch 't was alles even vreemd. Telkens als\nTom de plaats opnam, bespiedde Becky angstig zijn gelaat en telkens\nantwoordde hij vroolijk:\n\n\"O, wees zonder zorg; dit is het pad niet, maar wij zullen het rechte\nzeker vinden.\"\n\nBij elke mislukte poging echter verloor de knaap iets van zijn moed\nen nu op goed geluk, in allerlei richtingen, verschillende gangen in\nte slaan, in het wanhopend vertrouwen, dat hij den doorgang dien zij\nnoodig hadden, wel vinden zou. Voortdurend riep hij:\n\n\"'t Zal wel gaan.\" Doch er lag hem zulk een looden wicht op het hart,\ndat de woorden hun klank verloren en luidden alsof hij geroepen had:\n\"Alles is verloren.\"\n\nBecky klampte zich angstig aan hem vast en deed haar best om niet\nte schreien, maar de tranen sprongen haar ondanks haar zelve uit de\noogen.--Eindelijk riep zij uit:\n\n\"O, Tom, ik geef niets om de vleermuizen! Laat ons liever langs den\nouden weg teruggaan. 't Is alsof wij hoe langer hoe verder van het\nrechte pad afdwalen.\"\n\nTom hield stil.\n\n\"Luister!\" zeide hij.\n\nNiets dan diepe stilte,--eene stilte zoo groot, dat de kinderen hun\nadem konden hooren.\n\nTom begon te roepen. De kreet weerkaatste door de holle gangen en\nstierf in de verte weg, in een geluid dat aan een spotlach deed denken.\n\n\"O, doe het niet meer, Tom! het is al te akelig!\" zeide Becky.\n\n\"'t Is akelig, maar 't is toch beter, Becky. Misschien kunnen zij\nhet hooren.\"\n\nDe woorden \"misschien kunnen\" joegen Becky een rilling door de\nleden, nog kouder dan het spookachtig geluid had gedaan, want zij\nwaren de taal der wanhoop. De kinderen stonden stil en luisterden,\nalweder zonder gevolg. Opeens keerde Tom op zijne schreden terug en\nverhaastte zijn stappen. Een oogenblik later verried eene angstige\nonbeslistheid in zijne manieren aan Becky het vreeselijk feit: hij\nhad het spoor van den terugweg verloren!\"\n\n\"O, Tom, heb je geen teekens gemaakt?\"\n\n\"Becky, ik was zoo dwaas! Ik dacht, dat wij niet langs dezen kant\nzouden behoeven terug te gaan. Ik kan den weg niet meer vinden. 't\nIs alles even verward!\"\n\n\"Tom! Tom! wij zijn verloren. Wij zullen het daglicht nooit meer\nzien. O, waarom hebben wij de anderen verlaten?\"\n\nZij zonk op den grond neder en barstte in zulk een waanzinnig\ngekrijt uit, dat Tom bang werd dat zij zoude sterven of het verstand\nverliezen. Hij ging naast haar zitten en sloeg zijne armen om haar\nheen: zij verborg haar gezichtje tegen zijn borst, hield hem stijf\nvast en stortte hare angsten en haar tot niets leidend berouw tot hem\nuit;--en de verwijderde echo's verkeerden dat alles in een hoonend\ngelach. Tom smeekte haar moed te houden, maar zij antwoordde dat dit\nhaar onmogelijk was.\n\nToen begon hij er zich een verwijt van te maken, dat hij haar in dezen\nellendigen toestand gebracht had. Dit had eene goede uitwerking; want\nzoodra hij zich zelven beschuldigde, beloofde zij, dat zij haar best\nzou doen om zich goed te houden en dat zij zou opstaan en hem volgen,\nwerwaarts hij haar wilde heenleiden, als hij haar beloofde niet meer\nzoo te praten; beiden hadden zij immers, zoo zeide zij, schuld.\n\nZoo gingen zij dan weer verder,--zonder doel, enkel op goed geluk\naf. Het beste ook wat zij doen konden, was te loopen, steeds te\nloopen. De hoop scheen voor een oogenblik te herleven, niet omdat er\neenig uitzicht op redding was, maar dewijl het in haar natuur ligt\nsteeds te herleven, zoolang zij door de jaren en de ervaring van\nteleurstellingen, haar veerkracht nog niet verloren heeft.\n\nEen poos daarna nam Tom Becky's kaars en blies die uit. Dat was\neen veelbeteekenende spaarzaamheid. Ook zonder dat het gezegd werd,\nbegreep Becky wat dit beduidde en de hoop ontzonk haar weder. Zij\nwist, dat Tom nog eene geheele kaars en drie of vier eindjes in den\nzak had en toch zuinig moest zijn.\n\nAllengs begon het vermoeiend zwerven hun invloed op hen uit te\noefenen. De kinderen trachtten te doen alsof zij 't niet merkten,\nwant de gedachte alleen aan zitten, terwijl elke minuut kostbaar was,\nwas vreeselijk. Zich bewegen, hoe dan ook en waarheen dan ook, was\nvorderen en kon met een gewenschten uitslag worden bekroond. Stilzitten\ndaarentegen, was den dood inroepen en zijn komst verhaasten.\n\nEindelijk weigerden Becky's zwakke leden haar verder te dragen. Zij\nlegde zich op den grond neder, en Tom zette zich naast haar. Zij\nspraken van huis, van hunne ouders, van hun heerlijk bed en voor alle\ndingen van het verrukkelijke licht; Becky schreide en Tom verzon van\nalles on haar op te beuren! Maar alle troostwoorden waren afgesleten\nen klonken als bijtende spot. Uitgeput van vermoeidheid viel Becky\nten laatste in slaap. Tom was er blijde om en bleef op haar bedroevend\ngelaat turen. Hij zag het, onder den invloed van vriendelijke droomen,\nweer glad en effen worden en bemerkte, dat een glimlach op hare\nlippen neerdaalde en zich er bleef vestigen. Die kalmte bracht zijn\neigen gemoed ook eenigszins tot rust en zijne gedachten dwaalden\nterug naar vroegere tijden en nevelachtige herinneringen. Te midden\nzijner overpeinzingen ontwaakte Becky met een vroolijk lachje,--doch\nhet stierf op hare lippen weg en werd gevolgd door een diepen zucht.\n\n\"O, hoe kon ik slapen? Ik wou dat ik maar nooit, nooit meer was wakker\ngeworden! Neen, neen, Tom, zie mij niet zoo angstig aan! Ik zal het\nnooit meer zeggen.\"\n\n\"Ik ben zoo blijde dat gij geslapen hebt, Becky. Gij zult nu minder\nmoede zijn en wij zullen den weg vinden.\"\n\n\"Wij kunnen het probeeren, Tom, maar ik heb zulk een mooi land in\nmijn droom gezien--en daarheen zullen wij gaan, denk ik.\"\n\n\"Misschien nog wel niet. Houd je goed, Becky, en laat ons voortgaan.\"\n\nZij stonden op en dwaalden hand in hand, hopeloos voort. Zij trachtten\nden tijd te begrooten, dien zij in de grot hadden doorgebracht, maar\ndien bij benadering berekenen konden zij niet. Het scheen hun dagen\nen weken te zijn, ofschoon dat onmogelijk was, want hunne kaarsen\nwaren nog niet opgebrand.\n\nEen langen, zeer langen tijd daarna zeide Tom, dat zij zachtjes\nmoesten loopen en luisteren of zij ook water hoorden druppelen,\ndaar zij bij een bron moesten zijn. Deze vonden zij ook werkelijk\nen Tom stelde voor om weer wat te rusten. Beiden waren doodmoede en\ntoch zeide Becky, dat zij nog wel een eind verder zou kunnen gaan;\nmaar tot hare verbazing wilde Tom daar niet van hooren. Daarom gingen\nzij weder zitten, en Tom maakte zijne kaars met klei aan den muur\nvast. Ieder was in zijn eigen gedachten verdiept; een geruimen tijd\nwerd er geen woord gesproken. Becky verbrak het stilzwijgen het eerst.\n\n\"Tom,\" zeide zij, \"ik heb zoo'n honger.\"\n\nTom haalde iets uit den zak.\n\n\"Herken je dit?\" zeide hij.\n\nBecky trachtte te glimlachen en zeide:\n\n\"Het is onze bruidskoek, Tom!\"\n\n\"Ja, ik wou dat hij tienmaal grooter was, want het is alles wat\nwij hebben.\"\n\n\"Ik had hem voor de pic-nic medegenomen, on hem met u te deelen, Tom,\nzooals groote menschen doen;--maar ik vrees dat het onze....\" Zij\nvoltooide den volzin niet. Tom verdeelde den koek en Becky at met\ngraagte, terwijl Tom zijne helft langzaam opmuisde. Er was overvloed\nvan water om bij het eten te gebruiken. Eindelijk opperde Becky de\nvraag, of het niet beter zou zijn weder verder te gaan. Tom zweeg\neen oogenblik en zeide toen:\n\n\"Becky, kun je verdragen, dat ik je iets zeg?\"\n\nBecky werd bleek, doch knikte toestemmend.\n\n\"Nu dan, Becky, wij moeten hier blijven, omdat hier water voorhanden\nis; want dit kleine stukje is ons laatste eindje kaars.\"\n\nBecky barstte in tranen en weeklagen uit.\n\nTom deed zijn best on haar te troosten, doch zonder baat. Eindelijk\nriep zij uit.\n\n\"Tom!\"\n\n\"Wat is er, Becky?\"\n\n\"Zou men ons missen en trachten op te sporen?\"\n\n\"Ja, zeker.\"\n\n\"Zou men nog bezig zijn met zoeken?\"\n\n\"Ik geloof het bepaald en ik hoop het.\"\n\n\"Wanneer zou men ons het eerst gemist hebben?\"\n\n\"Toen zij naar de boot terugkeerden, denk ik.\"\n\n\"Tom, het kon wel zijn, dat het toen donker was;--zouden zij dan wel\nopgemerkt hebben, dat wij er niet waren?\n\n\"Ik weet het niet. Maar in elk geval moet je moeder je gemist hebben,\nzoodra zij te huis waren.\"\n\nEen uitdrukking van schrik op Becky's gelaat bracht Tom tot bezinning\nen hij zag, dat hij een misslag had begaan. Tom en Becky zouden\ndien avond niet naar huis gegaan zijn. De kinderen spraken niet meer\nen bleven zitten peinzen. Een nieuwe uitbarsting van droefheid van\nBecky deed Tom zien, dat ook zij dacht aan 't geen er in zijne ziel\nomging,--namelijk, dat de Zondagochtend al voorbij kon zijn, eer\nmevrouw Thatcher tot de ontdekking kwam, dat Becky niet bij juffrouw\nHarper was. De kinderen hielden de oogen strak op het stukje kaars\ngevestigd en verbeidden met een kloppend hart, angstig het oogenblik,\nwaarop het zou wegsmelten en uitgaan. Zij zagen het pitje eindelijk\nalleen staan; zij zagen de zwakke vlam rijzen en dalen, dalen en\nrijzen en het dunne rookkolommetje klimmen; zij zagen een laatste\nflikkering aan den top--en toen heerschte de vreeselijkste duisternis.\n\nHoe lang het duurde, eer Becky tot het bewustzijn kwam dat zij in\nde armen van Tom lag te schreien, zou geen van beiden hebben kunnen\nzeggen. Zij wisten alleen maar, dat zij beiden, na een schijnbaar\noneindig lang verloop van tijd, uit een soort van verdooving wakker\nwerden, on hun ellendig bestaan voor te zetten. Tom dacht dat het\nZondag, misschien ook Maandag was. Hij trachtte Becky aan het praten te\nkrijgen, doch zij was sprakeloos van verdriet en wanhoop. Om haar te\ntroosten zeide Tom, dat men hen stellig al lang gemist had en bepaald\nnog aan het zoeken was. Hij zou nog eens roepen, want wellicht waren\ner menschen in de nabijheid. En dat deed hij ook, maar de verwijderde\necho's herhaalden in de duisternis zijn geluid zoo akelig, dat hij\ngeen moed had nogmaals zijne stem te verheffen.\n\nWeder gingen er uren voorbij en weder begon de honger de arme\ngevangenen te kwellen. Gelukkig had Tom nog een stukje koek bewaard,\n't welke zij verdeelden en opaten. Maar 't was alsof dit armzalig\nmondjevol hen nog hongeriger maakte.\n\nOp eens riep Tom uit:\n\n\"Stil! hoort gij niet wat?\"\n\nBeiden hielden den adem in en luisterden.\n\nDaar klonk een geluid alsof er in de verte geroepen werd. Tom\nbeantwoordde dat geroep oogenblikkelijk en ging, Becky bij de hand\nnemende, op den tast de gang door, in de richting van waar het geluid\ngehoord was. Een oogenblik hield hij stil om nogmaals te luisteren\nen weder klonk het geroep, ditmaal iets naderbij.\n\n\"Zij zijn het!\" zeide Tom. \"Zij komen! Ga maar mede; wij zijn nu op\nden rechten weg.\"\n\nDe kinderen waren uitgelaten van vreugde. Toch liepen zij behoedzaam\nvoort, want valputten waren geen ongewoon verschijnsel in de grot en\ndaarvoor moest gewaakt worden. Zij hadden dan ook nog niet lang hun\nweg vervolgd of zij moesten stilhouden. Het gat waarvoor zij stonden\nkon drie, maar ook honderd voet diep zijn. Aan verder gaan was geen\ndenken. Tom ging op zijn buik liggen en reikte naar beneden zoo ver\nhij kon, doch voelde geen bodem. Hier moesten zij dus blijven wachten,\ntotdat er hulp komen zou. Weer luisterden zij scherp; het verwijderd\ngeluid werd blijkbaar zwakker; nog een oogenblik en alles was weder\ndoodstil.\n\nWelk eene bittere teleurstelling! Tom schreeuwde zich heesch, doch\ntevergeefs. Toch bleef hij Becky moed inspreken. Nogmaals ging er\neene eeuwigheid van angstig wachten voorbij, zonder dat het geroep\nherhaald werd.\n\nDe kinderen slopen naar de bron terug. Langzaam kropen de uren\nvoort en zij vielen weer in slaap, on uitgehongerd en rampzalig te\nontwaken. Naar Toms gissing moest het thans Dinsdag wezen. Daar viel\nhem iets in. In hun buurt waren eenige zijgangen. Zou het niet beter\nzijn deze te onderzoeken, dan werkeloos te blijven zitten wachten? Hij\nhaalde een vliegertouw uit den zak, maakte dat aan een vooruitstekend\nrotsblok vast en ging verder, en Becky kwam achter hem aan, terwijl hij\nhet touw loswond, naarmate zij voortslopen. Twintig stappen verder liep\nde gang op een viersprong uit. Tom legde zich op de knie\u00ebn en kroop op\nhanden en voeten voort, totdat hij een der hoeken om was. Hij deed eene\npoging om het nog een eind verder te brengen; en op datzelfde oogenblik\nkwam achter een rots, op geen twintig pas afstands, eene menschenhand\nte voorschijn, die eene kaars vasthield. Tom slaakte een kreet van\nvreugde en onmiddellijk daarop werd de hand gevolgd door het lichaam,\nwaaraan zij toebehoorde--en dat was van Injun Joe! Verlamd van schrik\nbleef Tom als aan den grond vastgenageld staan. Een oogenblik later\nechter werd hij gerustgesteld, daar hij den Spanjaard zag wegloopen\nen uit het gezicht verdwijnen. Tom verbaasde zich, dat Injun Joe\nzijne stem niet had herkend en niet naar hem was toegekomen on hem te\nvermoorden, wegens zijn getuigen voor het Gerechtshof. Doch de echo's,\nzoo dacht hij, hadden zeker zijne stem onkenbaar gemaakt. Toch trilde\nelke spier van zijn lichaam en hij nam zich voor om, als hij kracht\ngenoeg had, naar de bron terug te keeren, daar te blijven, en zich\ndoor niets te laten verleiden nogmaals het gevaar te loopen van Injun\nJoe te ontmoeten. Zorgvuldig hield hij zijn wedervaren voor Becky\nverborgen en vertelde haar, dat hij op goed geluk af geschreeuwd had.\n\nDoch honger en ellende kregen ten laatste de overhand over angst en\nvrees. Nog eenige lange uren wachtens aan de bron en nog eenige uren\nslapens brachten eene verandering teweeg. De kinderen werden met\neen woedenden honger wakker. Tom verbeeldde zich dat het Woensdag\nof Donderdag, ja, misschien Vrijdag of Zaterdag was en dat men\nhet zoeken had opgegeven. Hij voelde zich bereid Injun Joe en alle\nandere vreeselijkheden te trotseeren. Maar Becky was in een treurige\nonverschilligheid vervallen, waaruit Tom vruchteloos trachtte haar op\nte wekken. Zij zeide, dat zij wilde blijven waar zij nu was, on daar\nte sterven;--de dood zou zeker niet lang meer uitblijven. Tom mocht,\nals hij wilde, met het vliegertouw gaan zoeken, doch zij smeekte\nhem, nu en dan eens terug te komen, on haar een woord toe te spreken\nen zij liet hem beloven, dat wanneer de vreeselijke ure kwam, hij\naan hare zijde zou staan en hare hand zou vasthouden, totdat alles\nvoorbij was. Tom kuste haar, met een gevoel in zijne keel alsof\ndeze werd toegeknepen, en vertelde haar, dat hij er zeker van was,\n\u00f2f de zoekenden \u00f2f een uitweg uit de grot te zullen vinden. Daarop\nnam hij het vliegertouw in de hand en sloop, flauw van den honger\nen beklemd door een vreeselijk voorgevoel van den naderenden dood,\nop handen en voeten door een der gangen voort.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXXIII.\n\n\nHet was Dinsdagmiddag, het werd Dinsdagavond en nog was het\nstadje St. Petersburg in rouw. Men had openbare bidstonden voor de\nverloren kinderen gehouden en ook in menige binnenkamer was een stil,\nhartelijk gebed voor hen opgegaan, doch er kwam nog geen goed nieuws\nuit de grot. De meerderheid der lieden, die zich in de spelonk hadden\ngewaagd, hadden het zoeken opgegeven en waren naar hun dagelijksch\nwerk teruggekeerd, met de boodschap, dat de kinderen onmogelijk\ngevonden konden worden. Mevrouw Thatcher was zeer ziek en bij tijden\nijlhoofdig. De menschen zeiden dat het hartverscheurend was haar om\nhaar kind te hooren roepen, en te aanschouwen hoe zij somtijds het\nhoofd opbeurde en luisterde, om het terstond daarop moede en weeklagend\nin het kussen te leggen. Tante Polly was diep neerslachtig en hare\ngrijze haren waren bijna wit geworden. En met weemoed in het hart\nlegden de inwoners van St. Petersburg zich dien Dinsdagavond ter rust.\n\nMaar ziet, in het holst van den nacht deed zich op eens het luiden\nder torenklok hooren en in een oogenblik wemelden de straten van\nopgewonden, halfgekleede menschen, die jubelden: \"Sta op! sta op! Zij\nzijn gevonden!\" Er werd op horens geblazen en op bekkens geslagen en\nde bevolking stroomde in grooten getale naar de rivier, de kinderen te\ngemoet, die in een open rijtuig, door jubelende burgers voortgetrokken,\nnaar huis gereden werden. Men verdrong zich om den wagen en voegde zich\nbij den uitgelaten troep, die onder een oorverdoovend hoezee-geroep,\nplechtstatig door de hoofdstraten huiswaarts stapte.\n\nHet stadje werd ge\u00efllumineerd, niemand ging meer naar bed en 't was\nde heerlijkste nacht, dien St. Petersburg ooit had beleefd. Het\neerste half uur trok een stoet in optocht het huis van den heer\nThatcher voorbij, drukte de geredden aan het hart, kuste hen, schudden\nmevrouw Thatcher de hand, poogde haar toe te spreken en bevochtigde\nde straat met heete vreugdetranen. Tante Polly was buiten zichzelve\nvan blijdschap en mevrouw Thatcher evenzeer. Het geluk der laatste\nechter kon eerst volmaakt wezen, zoodra de boodschapper, die de blijde\ntijding aan haar echtgenoot bracht, terug zou zijn.\n\nTom lag op de sofa, met een gretig luisterend gehoor om zich heen,\nen vertelde zijn wonderbaar avontuur, zich nu en dan de vrijheid\nveroorlovende het verhaal door treffende toevoegsels op te sieren,\nen eindigde met eene beschrijving van den staat waarin hij Becky\nverliet, om nogmaals op verkenning uit te gaan. Hij verhaalde, hoe\nhij zich twee gangen, zoover als het vliegertouw reikte, gewaagd had;\nhoe hij een derden was ingegaan en hoe hij op het punt was terug te\nkeeren, toen hij, heel in de verte eene opening ontdekt had, waaruit\neen blauw stipje schemerde, dat aan daglicht deed denken; hoe hij het\nvliegertouw had losgelaten en er op den tast heen was gekropen, zijn\nhoofd en zijne schouders door eene kleine opening gestoken had en de\nbreede Mississipi had zien stroomen. En indien het nacht geweest was,\nzou hij dat stipje daglicht niet gezien hebben en die gang niet zijn\ningegaan! Hij vertelde, hoe hij naar Becky was teruggeloopen en haar de\nblijde tijding had gebracht en zij hem gezegd had, haar niet met zulken\nonzin aan het hoofd te malen, daar zij doodmoede was en wist dat zij\nging sterven en dat ook maar liever deed. Daarna beschreef hij, hoe\nhij zich had ingespannen on haar te overtuigen, en hoe zij bijna van\nzichzelve was gevallen van blijdschap, toen zij naar de plaats gekropen\nwaren, van waar het blauwe stipje daglicht zichtbaar was; hoe hij\nzich door de opening gewrongen had en haar er toen uit had geholpen;\nhoe zij daar gezeten hadden en geschreid hadden van blijdschap; hoe\neen paar mannen in een schuit waren voorbijgevaren, en hoe Tom hen\nhad gewenkt en geroepen en hen met hun treurigen toestand had bekend\ngemaakt; hoe de mannen de vreeselijke geschiedenis eerst niet hadden\ngeloofd, omdat, zeiden zij, de kinderen drie en een half uur van\nden ingang der grot verwijderd waren; hoe zij hen aan boord hadden\ngenomen, naar huis hadden gevoerd, hun voedsel gegeven hadden, hen\neen paar uur hadden laten rusten en hen toen naar huis hadden gebracht.\n\nV\u00f3\u00f3r het aanbreken van den dag werden de heer Thatcher en de enkele\nzoekers, die nog met hem in de grot waren, ontdekt, door het kluwen\ntouw dat zij achter zich gespannen hadden, en werd hun het groote\nnieuws verteld.\n\nTom en Becky ontwaarden spoedig, dat drie dagen en nachten, zonder\neten, in een vochtige spelonk doorgebracht, hun niet in de koude\nkleeren gingen zitten. Zij moesten Woensdag en Donderdag te bed\nblijven en schenen toch hoe langer hoe vermoeider te worden. Tom\nmocht Donderdag een uurtje opzitten, ging Vrijdag weer eens uit en\nwerd Zaterdag voor hersteld verklaard, doch Becky hield haar kamertje\ntot Zondag, en toen zag zij er uit alsof zij maanden ziek was geweest.\n\nTom hoorde dat Huck ongesteld was en ging hem Vrijdag bezoeken, maar\nwerd niet in de ziekenkamer toegelaten; zelfs Zaterdag en Zondag kreeg\nhij hem nog niet te zien. Daarna evenwel mocht hij dagelijks bij hem\nkomen, onder voorwaarde dat hij over het avontuur niet spreken zou\nen geen onderwerpen zou aanroeren, die den zieken knaap opgewonden\nkonden maken. De weduwe Douglas bleef in de kamer, om te zien of haar\ngebod gehoorzaamd werd. Tehuis vernam Tom het gebeurde te Cardiff Hill\nen ook dat het lichaam van den in lompen gekleeden onbekende, in de\nrivier gevonden was bij de aanlegplaats der veerboot. Waarschijnlijk\nwas hij verdronken, toen hij trachtte zich door de vlucht te redden.\n\nOp zekeren morgen, omstreeks veertien dagen na hunne redding uit de\ngrot, ging Tom Huck zijn gewoon bezoek brengen. De kleine vagebond\nwas thans genoegzaam hersteld om een opwekkend verhaal te mogen\naanhooren, en Tom had hem iets te vertellen, dat, naar hij meende,\nzijne belangstelling gaande zou maken.\n\nHet huis van den heer Thatcher lag op zijn weg en de jongeheer Sawyer\nging er, eer hij Huck bezocht, even aan om Becky te zien. De rechter\nen een paar zijner vrienden verzochten Tom, hun zijn wedervaren nog\neens te verhalen, en een van hen vroeg hem spottend, of hij nog niet\neens gaarne in de grot zou gaan, waarop Tom antwoordde, dat hij er\nniet tegen op zou zien.\n\nToen zeide de rechter:\n\n\"Er zijn er nog wel meer, die daarin behagen zouden scheppen. Maar\nwij hebben er voor gezorgd, dat dit niet meer kan gebeuren. Niemand\nzal er ooit meer in verdwalen.\"\n\n\"Waarom niet?\"\n\n\"Omdat ik, veertien dagen geleden, de groote deur van een ijzeren hek\nmet een dubbelen grendel heb laten voorzien, waarvan ik den sleutel\nin mijn bezit heb.\"\n\nTom werd zoo wit als een laken.\n\n\"Wat scheelt er aan, jongen? Hier, loop, haal een glas water!\"\n\nHet water kwam en Toms gezicht werd er mede besproeid.\n\n\"O, nu komt hij weer bij!--Wat scheelde er aan Tom?\"\n\n\"O, mijnheer Thatcher, Injun Joe is in de grot!\"\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXXIV.\n\n\nBinnen een paar minuten was de tijding wijd en zijd verspreid en\nwaren er al een dozijn bootslieden op weg naar de Douglasgrot, op de\nhielen gevolgd door het propvolle veerbootje. Tom Sawyer zat in een\nschuitje met den heer Thatcher. Toen de deur der grot geopend werd,\nvertoonde zich in de donkere plaats een droevig schouwspel. Injun\nJoe lag dood op den grond uitgestrekt, met zijn gezicht naar de deur,\nalsof zijne smeekende oogen tot het laatste toe, op het licht en de\nvroolijkheid der buitenwereld gericht waren geweest. Tom was zeer\ngetroffen: immers hij wist bij ondervinding hoeveel deze ongelukkige\nmoest geleden hebben. Doch hoeveel medelijden hij ook met hem mocht\ngevoelen, werd hem, bij het aanschouwen van Injuns lijk, een pak\nvan het hart genomen, en nu eerst gevoelde hij, welk een loodzwaren\nlast van ellende hij getorst had, sedert hij zijne stem tegen dien\nbloeddorstigen kleurling verheven had.\n\nInjun Joe's zakmes lag met gebroken lemmer vlak bij zijn lijk. Van den\nzwaren balk, waarop de deur rustte, waren met eindelooze inspanning,\nstukken afgehakt en aan splinters gesneden;--vruchtelooze arbeid, want\nonder den balk lag een reusachtig rotsblok en tegen dien onbuigzamen\nhinderpaal vermocht het mes niets en brak het lemmer. En zelfs al\nhad die steenen versperring er niet gelegen, zoo zou Injun Joe toch\nvergeefsch werk verricht hebben, want indien het hem al gelukt was, den\nbalk geheel aan spaanders te snijden, zou hij zijn lichaam toch niet\nonder de deur hebben kunnen heen persen, en dat wist hij. Toch had hij\nzijn krachten op den balk beproefd, alleen maar om de vervelende uren\ndoor te komen en zijne gemartelde leden te kunnen gebruiken. Gewoonlijk\nwaren er een half dozijn eindjes kaars in de spleten bij den ingang te\nvinden, door de bezichtigers der grot achtergelaten; maar thans was er\ngeen enkel te zien. De gevangene had ze opgezocht en opgegeten! Hij was\ner ook in geslaagd een paar vleermuizen te vangen, die hij eveneens\nhad verslonden en waarvan alleen de klauwen waren overgelaten. De\nongelukkige was den hongerdood gestorven!\n\nOp eene plek in zijne nabijheid, had zich in den loop der jaren,\ndoor het droppelen van het water, een stalagmiet gevormd. Dezen\nhad de gevangene vernield en op de plaats waar hij gestaan had,\neen steentje neergezet, waarin hij een gaatje had geboord, om er den\nkostbaren droppel in op te vangen, die iedere twintig minuten, met\nde vreeselijke regelmaat van het getik eener klok, naar beneden viel;\nin de vier en twintig uren niet meer dan een dessertlepeltje vol. Die\ndroppel viel er reeds, toen de Pyramiden waren voltooid; toen Troje\nonderging; toen de fondamenten van Rome werden gelegd; toen Christus\ngekruisigd werd; toen de Veroveraar naar Brittanni\u00eb zeilde.\n\nInjun Joe werd aan den ingang der grot begraven en uren in den omtrek\nstroomden de menschen, in booten en rijtuigen, uit steden, dorpen en\ngehuchten, naar de plaats toe. Zij brachten hunne kinderen met zich,\nalsook wagens met proviand--en gingen naar huis, met de bekentenis\nop de lippen, dat zij, bij de begrafenis van den moordenaar evenveel\ngenot gesmaakt hadden, als wanneer zij hem hadden zien hangen.\n\nDe ochtend na de begrafenis nam Tom Huck met zich naar eene eenzame\nplaats, om hem iets zeer gewichtigs mede te deelen. Huck had door den\nboschwachter en de weduwe Douglas alles van Toms avontuur vernomen;\nmaar Tom beweerde, dat er iets was, dat zij hem niet verteld hadden,\nen over dat verzwegene wenschte hij hem nu te spreken. Hucks gelaat\nbetrok en hij zeide:\n\n\"Ik weet, wat het is. Je bent op 'nommer twee' geweest en hebt niets\ndan brandewijn gevonden. Niemand heeft mij verteld dat jij het waart,\nmaar ik wist dat jij het moest geweest zijn, zoodra ik over die\n'brandewijn-zaak' hoorde spreken. En ik wist, dat jij het geld niet\nhadt, anders zou je het mij wel op de een of andere wijze hebben doen\nweten, al had je er met niemand anders over gesproken. Tom, ik heb\naltijd wel gedacht, dat wij dien buit nooit zouden machtig worden.\"\n\n\"Wel, Huck, ik heb nooit met iemand over dien kroeghouder gesproken. Je\nweet, dat het op den Zaterdag van de pic-nic in zijne herberg nog in\norde was. Herinner je je niet, dat jij er dien nacht zoudt waken?\"\n\n\"O, jawel! Het was dezelfde nacht, waarin ik Injun Joe naar de\nweduwe volgde.\"\n\n\"Ben je hem gevolgd?\"\n\n\"Ja! maar je moet je mond houden. Ik weet zeker, dat er nog vrienden\nvan Injun Joe hier in den omtrek zijn, en ik heb geen zin om door\ndezen zuur aangezien en gemeen behandeld te worden. Indien ik er niet\ngeweest was, zou hij nu goed en wel in Texas zitten\".\n\nToen vertelde Huck zijn geheele avontuur aan Tom, die alleen nog maar\ndat gedeelte gehoord had, waarin de boschwachter was betrokken.\n\n\"Ja,\" zeide Huck, op de hoofdzaak terugkomende, \"hij die den brandewijn\nin 'nommer twee' gekaapt heeft, die heeft ook het geld weggenomen;\nin allen gevalle is 't voor ons verkeken.\"\n\n\"Huck, dat geld is nog altijd op 'nommer twee' gebleven.\"\n\n\"Wat zeg je?\" Huck zag zijn makker scherp aan. \"Hebt je het spoor\nvan den schat teruggevonden, Tom?\"\n\n\"Huck, hij is in de grot.\"\n\nHucks oogen schitterden.\n\n\"Zeg het nog eens, Tom!\"\n\n\"Het geld is in de grot!\"\n\n\"Tom,--zeg, meen je 't, of meen je 't niet?\"\n\n\"Ik meen het, Huck, en ik zeg het in allen ernst. Wil je er met mij\nheen gaan en mij helpen het er uit te halen?\"\n\n\"Waarachtig wil ik dat! Ik wil het, als wij er onzen weg kunnen vinden\nzonder gevaar van te verdwalen.\"\n\n\"Dat zal heel gemakkelijk gaan, Huck.\"\n\n\"Waarom denk je, dat het geld in....?\"\n\n\"Huck wacht totdat wij er zijn. Als wij het er niet vinden krijg\nje mijn trom en alles wat ik in de wereld bezit. Waarachtig, dat\nkrijg je.\"\n\n\"Best;--dat blijft afgesproken. Wanneer zullen we gaan?\"\n\n\"Nu dadelijk, als je 't goedvindt. Ben je sterk genoeg?\"\n\n\"Is het diep in de grot? Ik ben pas een dag of drie, vier op de been\nen ik kan, geloof ik, niet veel verder dan een half uur loopen, Tom.\"\n\n\"Als wij den weg volgen, die iedereen gaat, is het omstreeks drie\nuren gaans, maar ik weet een veel korteren, dien niemand kent. Huck,\nik zal je er been brengen in een bootje. Ik zal het bootje hierheen\nroeien en ik zal alleen weer teruggaan. Je hoeft er je hand niet om\nte verleggen.\"\n\n\"Laat ons dan aanstonds maar vertrekken, Tom.\"\n\n\"Best. Wij hebben wat brood en vleesch noodig, benevens onze pijpen\nen een paar zakjes en een stuk of drie vliegertouwen en eenige van\ndie nieuwerwetsche dingen, die ze lucifers noemen. Ik zeg je, dat ik\nwat gegeven had, als ik die gehad had, toen ik laatst in de grot was.\"\n\nEven na twaalven namen de knapen een klein bootje in beslag, van een\nschipper die van huis was, en begaven zich onmiddellijk op weg. Toen\nzij op eenigen afstand van de \"Holle Grot\" waren, zeide Tom:\n\n\"Je ziet, dat die steile oeverkant langs de 'Holle Grot'\ner overal gelijk uitziet; geen huizen, geen houtwerven, niets\ndan kreupelhout. Maar zie je die witte plek daarginds, waar een\naardstorting is geweest? Nu dat is een van mijn teekenen. Daar zullen\nwij aan wal gaan.\"\n\nZij gingen aan wal.\n\n\"Op deze plaats, Huck, zou je het hol, waar ik uitgekropen ben,\nmet een hengelroede kunnen aanraken. Zie eens, of je het vinden kunt.\"\n\nHuck keek naar alle kanten en vond niets. Tom stapte met hooge borst\nnaar een dicht boschje van sumakhout en zeide:\n\n\"Hier is het, Huck; het is het aardigste holletje uit de gansche\nstreek. Je moet het niet verklappen. Ik heb al lang zin gehad om\nroover te worden, maar ik wist, dat ik eerst zoo'n ding moest hebben\nals dit;--maar dat te vinden, daar zat het hem! Nu hebben wij het\nen wij zullen het alleen aan Joe Harper en Ben Rogers vertellen,\nwant die zullen natuurlijk tot de bende behooren, anders zouden wij\ner niets aan hebben. De 'Bende van Tom Sawyer,' klinkt prachtig;\ndoet het niet, Huck?\"\n\n\"Ja, Tom, 't klinkt best. En wie zullen we bestelen?\"\n\n\"Wel, iedereen. Verdwaalde lui;--dat is zoo de gewoonte.\"\n\n\"En ze doodmaken?\"\n\n\"Neen, niet altijd. Ze in de grot opsluiten, totdat zij een losprijs\nbetaald hebben.\"\n\n\"Wat is een losprijs.\"\n\n\"Geld. Je laat ze alles wat zij van hun vrienden krijgen kunnen,\nbijeengaren, en als ze dat, nadat je ze een jaar gehouden hebt, niet\nkunnen geven, maak je ze dood. Dat is zoo de gewone manier. Alleen\nde vrouwen worden niet vermoord. Die sluit je op, maar je vermoordt\nze niet. Zij zijn altijd mooi en rijk en vreeselijk bang. Je berooft\nze van haar horloges en dingen, maar je neemt in haar bijzijn altijd\nje hoed van je hoofd en spreekt beleefd tegen haar. Er zijn geen\nbeleefder lui dan roovers, dat staat in alle boeken. De vrouwen gaan\nvan je houden, en als ze een dag of veertien in de grot geweest zijn,\nhouden ze op met schreien en dan kun je ze niet meer kwijtraken. Als\nje ze wegjoegt, zouden zij dadelijk omkeeren en terugkeeren. Dat kun\nje in alle rooversgeschiedenissen lezen.\"\n\n\"Jongens, dat is mij een leventje, Tom. Ik geloof, dat het prettiger\nis dan zeeroover te zijn.\n\n\"Ja; en 't is in sommige opzichten beter ook, omdat het dicht is bij\nhuis, en bij de paardenspellen en alles.\"\n\nThans waren de jongens gereed en zij stapten, Tom in de voorhoede,\nde grot binnen. Zij kropen het gat door, maakten hunne aaneengebonden\nvliegertouwen aan een rotsblok vast en gingen verder. Weldra waren\nzij bij de bron, en het gezicht van die plaats joeg Tom eene rilling\ndoor de leden. Hij toonde Huck het overblijfsel van een kaarspit,\nop een stukje klei tegen den muur en beschreef hem, hoe hij en Becky\nde vlam hadden zien worstelen en sterven.\n\nDe knapen begonnen nu te fluisteren, want de stilte en de duisternis\nder plaats maakten hen een weinig benauwd. Zij gingen voort en traden\nde gangen in die Tom aanwees, totdat zij den valput bereikten. Hunne\nwaskaarsen brachten hen tot de ontdekking, dat het geen echte afgrond\nwas, maar slechts eene steile helling van klei, omstreeks twintig of\ndertig voet naar omlaag.\n\nTom fluisterde:\n\n\"Nu zal ik je wat laten kijken, Huck.\"\n\nHij hield zijne kaars omhoog en zeide:\n\n\"Kijk zoo ver om den hoek als je kunt. Zie je dat? Daar, op gindsche\ngroote rots, die met kaarsvet is besmeerd.\"\n\n\"Tom, het is een kruis!\"\n\n\"En waar is uw nommer twee?--Onder het kruis, h\u00e9? Vlak bij die rots\nzag ik Injun Joe zijne kaars snuiten, Huck.\"\n\nHuck keek een oogenblik naar het geheimzinnige teeken en zeide met\neene bevende stem:\n\n\"Tom, laat ons van hier weggaan!\"\n\n\"Wat! En den schat laten staan?\"\n\n\"Ja. De geest van Injun Joe dwaalt hier bepaald rond.\"\n\n\"Neen, dat doet hij niet, Huck; dat doet hij niet. Dat doet hij\nalleen op de plaats, waar hij stierf,--bij den ingang der grot,\ndrie uren van hier.\"\n\n\"Neen, Tom, dat is zoo niet. De geesten dwalen, waar hun geld is. Ik\nken hun gewoonte en jij weet het ook.\"\n\nTom begon bang te worden dat Huck gelijk had, en er rees twijfel op\nin zijn hart. Doch plotseling schoot hem iets te binnen. \"Zie eens,\nHuck, hoe dwaas wij ons aanstellen! De geest van Injun Joe kan niet\nkomen waar een kruis staat!\"\n\nDat was een afdoende bewering, vond Huck. \"Daar dacht ik niet aan;\nTom. Maar, 't is waar. Dat kruis is een geluk voor ons. Ik geloof,\ndat wij nu wel kunnen afdalen, om naar de kist te zoeken.\"\n\nTom ging eerst en maakte, al dalende, groote indruksels van voetstappen\nin de klei. Huck volgde. Vier gangen leidden uit de kleine spelonk naar\nde plaats, waar de groote rots stond. De knapen namen drie dezer gangen\nop, doch zonder gevolg. In den vierden, die het dichtst bij den voet\nder rots was, vonden zij een kleinen inham, waarin een stroobed lag\nen een paar dekens, verder een paar oude bretels, een weinig spekvet\nen een paar rondom afgeknabbelde vogelpooten. De knapen zochten en\ndoorzochten de plaats aan alle kanten, doch tevergeefs. Eindelijk\nzeide Tom:\n\n\"Hij zeide _onder_ het kruis. En dit is er bijna onder. Het kan niet\nonder de rots zelve zijn, want daar is de grond te hard.\"\n\nZij onderzochten alles nog eens en zetten zich toen ontmoedigd\nneder. Huck had niets te vertellen. Eindelijk zeide Tom:\n\n\"Kijk eens, Huck, aan deze zijde der rots zijn voetstappen en kaarsvet\nop de klei, doch niet aan den anderen kant. Ik weet, dat het geld\ntoch onder de rots is. Ik ga de klei eens opgraven.\"\n\n\"Dat is zoo gek nog niet bedacht, Tom!\" zeide Huck blijmoedig.\n\nToms mes van \"echt\" staal werd voor den dag gehaald, en hij had geen\nvier duim gegraven of hij krabbelde op hout.\n\n\"Hei, Huck! hoor je dat?\"\n\nHuck begon ook te graven en te krabbelen. Eenige planken werden\nspoedig gevonden en verwijderd. Zij dienden om een door de natuur\ngevormden kelder te verbergen, die zich onder de rots bevond. Tom\nkroop in dien kelder en hield zijne kaars zoo ver vooruit, als hem\nmogelijk was, doch kon--zoo zeide hij--niet tot aan het einde der\nkloof zien. Daarom stelde hij voor, haar geheel te doorzoeken. Hij\nbukte zich en stapte onder de rots door in den kelder. Een enge weg\nleide langzaam naar beneden. Hij volgde het kronkelend pad, eerst\nter rechter- en toen ter linkerzijde, en Huck vlak achter hem. Op\neens stond Tom voor eene kleine, halfronde, open plek en riep hij uit:\n\n\"Hemeltje, Huck, zie eens hier!\"\n\nHet was de kist, veilig en wel, in een klein, aardig holletje,\nbij een leege kruitdoos, een paar geweren in lederen overtrekken,\ntwee of drie paar oude schoenen, een lederen gordel en eenig ander\njachtgereedschap, doorweekt van het druppelend water.\n\n\"Eindelijk gevonden!\" zeide Huck, terwijl hij met zijne handen in de\nvuile muntstukken grabbelde. \"Ja, wij zijn rijk, Tom!\"\n\n\"Huck, ik heb altijd gedacht, dat wij het geld krijgen zouden. Het is\nhaast al te heerlijk om het te kunnen gelooven, maar wij hebben het,\ndat is zeker. Doch wij zullen hier niet blijven talmen, maar het er\nuitdragen. Laat mij eens zien, of ik die kist kan optillen.\"\n\nZij woog omstreeks vijftig pond. Tom kon haar optillen, wanneer hij\nhaar schuin hield, maar haar niet dragen.\n\n\"Dat dacht ik wel,\" zeide hij. \"In het spookhuis zag ik aan hun manier\nvan dragen, dat zij zwaar was. Ik geloof dat het maar goed is, dat\nik er aan gedacht heb de zakken mede te nemen.\"\n\nHet geld was spoedig in de zakken, en de jongens namen ze op en\ndroegen ze naar de rots met het kruis.\n\n\"Laat ons nu de geweren en de andere dingen halen,\" zeide Huck.\n\n\"Neen, Huck, die zullen wij hier laten. Dat zijn juist de zaken die\nwij noodig hebben, als wij op rooftochten uitgaan. Wij zullen ze hier\nlaten en onze slemppartijen hier ook houden.\"\n\n\"Wat zijn slemppartijen?\"\n\n\"Dat weet ik niet, maar roovers houden altijd slemppartijen en wij\nmoeten zulks natuurlijk ook doen.--Kom mee, Huck, wij zijn hier\nlang genoeg geweest. Ik heb honger ook. Wij zullen eten en rooken,\nals wij in de boot zijn.\"\n\nKort daarop kwamen zij uit het sumakboschje te voorschijn, keken\nvoorzichtig rond, vonden de kust veilig en zaten spoedig in het bootje\nte eten en te rooken. Toen de zon ter kimme daalde, stootten zij van\nwal en begaven zich op weg. Tom gleed in het schemerdonker, vroolijk\nmet Huck keuvelende, langs den oever voort en zette voet aan wal,\ntoen het geheel duister geworden was.\n\n\"Nu, Huck,\" zeide Tom, \"wij zullen het geld op de vliering der\nhoutloods van de weduwe brengen en morgen terugkomen om den boel te\ntellen en te verdeelen, en dan zullen wij een plaatsje in het bosch\nopzoeken, waar wij het geld veilig kunnen bewaren. Ga jij hier stil\nliggen en blijf op de kist passen, dan zal ik het kruiwagentje van\nBenny Taylor zien op te schommelen. Ik ben binnen een minuut weer\nbij je.\"\n\nHij verdween en kwam spoedig terug met het wagentje, waarin hij de\nbeide zakken neerlegde, en nadat hij ze met eenige oude prullen bedekt\nhad, gingen de knapen met hunne lading op weg.\n\nToen zij bij het huis van den boschwachter kwamen, hielden zij stil\nom te rusten. Juist toen zij weder verder wilden gaan, stapte de\nboschwachter uit de deur en zeide:\n\n\"Heila! wie is dat?\"\n\n\"Huck Finn en Tom Sawyer!\"\n\n\"Dat treft bijzonder. Gaat gauw met me mee, jongens; iedereen zit op\njelui te wachten! Hier, spoedig maar, naar boven. Ik zal het wagentje\nwel dragen. 't Is waarachtig een vracht! Wat zit er in, steenen of\noud ijzer?\"\n\n\"Oud ijzer,\" zeide Tom.\n\n\"Dat dacht ik al; de jongens hier in de stad geven zich meer moeite\nom een paar brokken oud ijzer op te snorren, om die aan den smid voor\nden smeltoven te verkoopen, dan zij zouden overhebben voor geregeld\nwerk, dat hun tweemaal zooveel opbracht. Maar dat is nu eenmaal de\nmenschelijke natuur. Gauw maar, gauw maar!\"\n\nDe jongens vroegen, waar die spoed voor diende.\n\n\"Dat doet er niet toe; je zult het zien, als wij bij de weduwe\nDouglas zijn.\"\n\nHuck zeide, want hij was bevreesd valsch beschuldigd te worden,\nmet zekeren angst:\n\n\"Mijnheer Jones, wij hebben niets gedaan?\"\n\nDe boschwachter lachte.\n\n\"Wel, ik kan niets zeggen, mijn jongen. Ik weet nergens van. Ge zijt\nimmers goede vrienden met de weduwe?\"\n\n\"Ja. Zij is zoo goed voor mij geweest\"\n\n\"Nu, dan is het in orde. Waarom zou je dan bang zijn?\"\n\nDeze vraag was in Hucks tragen geest nog niet beantwoord, toen hij zich\nmet Tom in het salon van mevrouw Douglas geduwd zag. De boschwachter\nliet het wagentje bij de deur staan en volgde. Het geheele huis was\nprachtig verlicht en alle personen van gewicht waren daar bijeen. De\nThatchers waren tegenwoordig, de Harpers, de Rogers', tante Polly,\nSid, Marie, de predikant, de dokter en een menigte anderen, allen in\nhunne beste kleederen.\n\nDe weduwe ontving de knapen zoo hartelijk, als men twee jongens,\ndie er uitzagen als zij, ontvangen kan. Zij waren van het hoofd\ntot de voeten met modder en kaarsvet besmeerd. Tante Polly werd\nvuurrood van schaamte, fronste hare wenkbrauwen en schudde haar hoofd\ntegen Tom. Doch niemand leed half zooveel al de knapen zelven. De\nboschwachter zeide:\n\n\"Tom was niet tehuis en ik had het juist opgegeven, toen ik hem en\nHuck vlak bij mijne deur tegen 't lijf liep, en ik bracht hen in\naller ijl hier.\"\n\n\"En daar deedt ge goed aan,\" zeide de weduwe. \"Komt met mij mede,\njongens.\"\n\nZij nam hen met zich naar eene slaapkamer en zeide:\n\n\"Gaat u nu wasschen en kleeden. Hier zijn twee pakken nieuwe\nkleederen, hemden, sokken, alles bijeen. Zij zijn voor Huck.--Neen,\ngeen dank, Huck! De boschwachter heeft er een voor u gekocht, en ik\nhet andere. Maar zij zullen beide zeker passen. Stap er maar in. Wij\nzullen wachten. Komt beneden, als gij u gepoetst hebt.\"\n\nToen verliet zij hen.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXXV.\n\n\nZoodra de weduwe weg was, zeide Huck: \"Tom, wij kunnen, als wij een\ntouw hebben, ons naar beneden laten zakken. Het raam is niet hoog\nboven den grond.\"\n\n\"Waarom zouden wij dat doen?\"\n\n\"Och, ik ben aan zoo'n troep menschen niet gewoon. Ik kan het niet\nuitstaan. Ik ga niet naar binnen, Tom.\"\n\n\"Och, onzin! 't Is niets. Ik geef er niet om en ik zal wel voor\nje praten.\"\n\nDaar kwam Sid binnen.\n\n\"Tom,\" zeide hij, \"tante heeft den geheelen middag op je zitten\nwachten. Marie had je zondagsche kleeren klaargelegd en iedereen heeft\nzich boos over je gemaakt. Zeg, is dat geen vet en klei dat er op je\nbroek zit?\"\n\n\"Nu, mijnheer Sidje, bemoei je met je eigen zaken. Waarvoor dient al\ndat lawaai daar binnen?\"\n\n\"'t Is een van de partijen, die de weduwe zoo dikwijls geeft. Dezen\nkeer is het voor den boschwachter en zijn zoons, omdat zij haar\nverleden week uit den nood gered hebben. En zeg,--ik zal je iets\nzeggen, als je het weten wilt.\"\n\n\"Wat dan?\"\n\n\"Wel, de oude Jones zal van avond hier aan de menschen een geheim\nvertellen; maar ik heb alles afgeluisterd, toen hij het vandaag\naan tante kwam zeggen, en ik geloof dat het nu geen geheim meer\nis. Iedereen weet het,--de weduwe ook, al doet ze net alsof zij het\nniet weet. Verbeeld je, Jones had beloofd dat Huck hier zou wezen;\nwant hij kon het groote geheim niet aan den dag brengen zonder Huck,\nweet je?\"\n\n\"Het geheim? Welk geheim, Sid?\"\n\n\"Och, dat Huck de dieven bij de weduwe ontdekt heeft. Ik geloof dat\nJones zich heel wat voorstelt van de verrassing, maar zij zal in\n't water vallen.\"\n\nSid wreef zich tevreden in de handen.\n\n\"Sid, heb jij het verklapt?\"\n\n\"Dat doet er niet toe. Iemand heeft het gedaan, dat is genoeg.\"\n\n\"Sid, er is maar \u00e9\u00e9n persoon in de geheele stad, gemeen genoeg om\ndat te doen, en dat ben jij. Als je in Hucks plaats geweest waart,\nzou je als een slang den heuvel afgekropen zijn en nooit iets van de\ndieven verteld hebben. Jij kunt niet anders dan gemeene dingen doen\nen jij kunt niet aanzien, dat er een ander geprezen wordt, omdat\nhij goed heeft gedaan. Daar, je behoeft er niet voor te bedanken,\nzooals de weduwe zegt.\" En Tom gaf Sid een klap om zijne ooren en\nschopte hem de deur uit, \"Kom, ga het nu aan tantetje vertellen en\nmorgen zul je er van lusten.\"\n\nNiet lang hierna zaten al de gasten der weduwe aan tafel en een\ndozijn kinderen werden, naar de gewoonte van dat land en dien tijd,\naan kleine tafeltjes, in dezelfde kamer opeengehoopt. Op een gepast\noogenblik hield de heer Jones een kleine toespraak, waarin hij de\nweduwe zijn dank betuigde voor de eer die zij hem en zijnen zonen\nbewees; maar er was, zeide hij een ander persoon wiens nederigheid,\nenz. enz. Hij bracht het geheim van Hucks aandeel aan het vraagstuk\nop de treffendste wijze en met de schoonste dramatische wendingen,\ndie hij in zijne macht had, voor den dag; doch de verrassing, die deze\nontdekking veroorzaakte, was eenigszins gehuicheld, en het gejuich\nwas niet zoo groot als het onder gelukkiger omstandigheden geweest zou\nzijn. Toch deed de weduwe haar best om een verrast gezicht te zetten en\nhoopte zulk een tal van complimenten en zooveel dankbaarheid op Hucks\nhoofd, dat de knaap den bijna ondraaglijken last zijner nieuwe kleeren\nhaast vergat, door het onuitstaanbaar lijden van als een mikpunt\nvoor ieders blikken en ieders loftuigingen gebruikt te worden. De\nweduwe zeide, dat zij Huck een tehuis zou geven onder haar dak en\nvoor zijne opvoeding zou zorgen; en dat, als zij geld te missen had,\nzij hem een eerlijk beroep zou doen leeren.\n\nNu kwam de gelegenheid voor Tom en hij zeide:\n\n\"Huck heeft het niet noodig. Huck is rijk!\"\n\nKieschheid alleen deed den lach terughouden, dien deze grappige uitval\nonwillekeurig uitlokte. Men zweeg en er ontstond eene onaangename\nstilte, die door Tom verbroken werd.\n\n\"Huck heeft geld genoeg. Jelui moogt het gelooven of niet, maar hij\nheeft bergen geld! O, jelui behoeft niet te lachen; ik kan het jelui\nlaten zien. Wacht maar een minuut.\" Dit zeggende liep hij de deur uit.\n\nDe gasten zagen elkander verbijsterd en nieuwsgierig aan en keken\ndaarna naar Huck, die geen woord sprak.\n\n\"Sid, wat scheelt Tom?\" zeide tante Polly. \"Hij.... Wel, er is met\ndien jongen niets aan te vangen. Ik heb nooit.... \"\n\nTom kwam binnen, gebogen onder den last zijner zakken, en tante Polly\neindigde haar volzin niet. Tom wierp de massa gele geldstukken op\ntafel en zeide:\n\n\"Daar--wat heb ik gezegd? Het geld is van ons beiden; Huck de helft\nen ik de helft.\"\n\nDit tooneel deed iedereen den adem inhouden. Allen keken; niemand\nsprak. Toen volgde er een eenstemmig geroep om eene verklaring van\nhet geval. Tom zeide, dat hij die geven kon,--en dat deed hij. Het\nverhaal was lang, maar hoogst belangrijk, en de vergaderde menigte\nwas sprakeloos van verbazing. Toen de knaap aan het einde was gekomen,\nzeide de boschwachter:\n\n\"Ik dacht, dat ik voor deze gelegenheid den gasten eene kleine\nverrassing had bereid, maar zij is, hierbij vergeleken, niets\nwaard. Deze doet de mijne, ik moet het eerlijk bekennen, geheel in\nhet niet zinken.\"\n\nHet geld werd geteld. De som bedroeg over de twaalfduizend dollars. Het\nwas meer dan een der aanwezigen ooit bijeen had gezien, ofschoon\nverscheidenen der hier vergaderde personen meer waard waren dan geheel\nde gevonden schat.\n\n\n\n\nHOOFDSTUK XXXVI.\n\n\nDe lezer mag zich overtuigd houden, dat het buitenkansje van Tom\nen Huck eene groote opschudding in het eenvoudige, kleine stadje\nveroorzaakte. Zulk een groote som, in klinkende munt, was een bijna\nongelooflijk bezit. Men sprak zoo veel over deze daad en verheerlijkte\nhaar in zulk een mate, dat zij eindelijk het verstand van menigen\nziekelijk opgewonden burger aan het wankelen bracht. Elk spookhuis te\nSt. Petersburg en in de naburige dorpen werd onderzocht; de vloeren\nwerden plank voor plank opgenomen en de fondamenten opgegraven en\ngeplunderd, in de hoop van verborgen schatten op te leveren. En dat\nniet door kleine jongens, maar door volwassen menschen en ernstige,\nnuchtere lieden ook. Waar Tom en Huck ook verschenen, werden zij\nbewonderd en vol verbazing aangestaard. Alles wat zij deden, werd als\niets heel bijzonders beschouwd. Zij hadden blijkbaar het vermogen\nverloren om gewone dingen te zeggen of te doen. Bovendien werd de\ngeschiedenis van hun vroeger leven opgehaald en werden daarin bewijzen\nvan een buitengewonen aanleg en een buitengewoon verstand ontdekt.\n\nDe weduwe Douglas zette Hucks geld uit tegen zes percent, en de heer\nThatcher deed, op verzoek van tante Polly, hetzelfde voor Tom. De\nknapen hadden nu elk een ontzaglijk inkomen: een dollar voor elken\nwerkdag en een halve voor de Zondagen. Het was juist zooveel als\nde dominee ontving,--neen, het was zooveel als hem was toegezegd,\nwant hij kon het gewoonlijk niet bijeenkrijgen. Een en een kwart\ndollar was in die dagen voldoende weekgeld voor eens jongens kost,\ninwoning, kleeding en bewassching.\n\nDe heer Thatcher had een hoog denkbeeld van Tom Sawyer gekregen. Hij\nverklaarde, dat geen gewone jongen zijne dochter uit de grot zou gered\nhebben. Toen Becky haar vader in vertrouwen vertelde, hoe grootmoedig\nTom hare zweepslagen op school op zich had genomen, was de rechter\nzichtbaar bewogen; en toen zij haar vader smeekte de vreeselijke leugen\nover het hoofd te zien, waaraan Tom zich had schuldig gemaakt, om de\nzweepslagen van hare schouders te nemen, zeide de rechter opgewonden,\ndat het een brave, een edele, een grootmoedige leugen was, een leugen\ndie verdiende in Amerika's geschiedrollen te worden te boek gesteld.\n\nBecky vond, dat haar vader er nooit zoo fier en mannelijk had\nuitgezien, als toen hij, onder het uiten dezer woorden, met van\ngeestdrift schitterende oogen, de kamer doorliep. Geen wonder dat\nzij alles dadelijk aan Tom ging overbrieven!\n\nDe heer Thatcher hield zich overtuigd, dat Tom eens een groot\nrechtsgeleerde of een beroemd militair zou worden. Hij zeide dat\nhij zijn best zou doen, dat de knaap naar de Militaire Academie werd\ngezonden en dan naar de beste hoogeschool in het land, opdat hij voor\nbeide vakken klaar zou zijn.\n\nDe schatten van Huck Finn en het feit dat hij onder de bescherming der\nweduwe Douglas kwam, brachten of liever trokken en sleurden hem in de\nmaatschappij en zijn lijden was meer dan hij kon dragen. De dienstboden\nder weduwe hielden hem rein, zorgden dat hij er netjes uitzag, kamden\nen borstelden hem en legden hem 's nachts in ongemakkelijke bedden,\nwaarop geen vlekje of spatje te ontdekken was. Hij moest met mes en\nvork eten, een servet gebruiken en een kopje en schoteltje; hij moest\nzijne lessen leeren, naar de kerk gaan en netjes spreken. Waarheen\nhij zich ook wendde, overal werd hij door de grendels en ketenen der\nbeschaving ingesloten en aan handen en voeten gebonden.\n\nHij droeg zijne ellende drie weken lang, geduldig en onderworpen,\nen toen werd hij op zekeren dag gemist. Gedurende acht en veertig\nuren liet de weduwe overal naar hem zoeken. Het publiek was er\ndiep mede begaan; men zocht rechts en links en de rivier werd zelfs\ngebaggerd. Den derden morgen nadat hij gemist was, ging Tom verstandig\nonder een paar leege vaten achter het verlaten slachthuis snuffelen\nen vond den vluchteling in een van deze. Huck had daar geslapen, hij\nhad juist zijn ontbijt genuttigd, bestaande uit een paar armzalige\nstukjes brood en vleesch, die hij hier en daar had weggekaapt, en hij\nzat nu dood op zijn gemak in een okshoofd zijn pijpje te rooken. Hij\nwas ongekamd, ongewasschen en gekleed in dezelfde oude lompen,\ndie hem in de dagen, waarin hij nog vrij en gelukkig was, zulk een\neigenaardig voorkomen gaven. Tom las hem de les, zeide hem hoezeer\nhij allen verontrust had en verzocht hem naar huis te gaan. Hucks\ngelaat verloor de uitdrukking van kalme tevredenheid en betrok.\n\nHij zeide:\n\n\"Spreek er niet van, Tom. Ik heb mijn best gedaan, maar het gaat niet;\nneen, het gaat niet voor mij: ik ben er niet aan gewoon. De weduwe is\ngoed en vriendelijk; maar ik kan het niet bij haar uithouden. Ik moet\nalle ochtenden op hetzelfde uur opstaan en mij het vel van het lijf\nlaten wasschen en kammen; zij wil mij niet eens in de schuur laten\nslapen; ik moet kleeren dragen waaronder ik bezwijk; en zij zijn\nzoo akelig mooi, dat ik er niet mede kan zitten, liggen, noch op den\ngrond rollen; ik mag nergens aankomen en moet naar de kerk gaan. Ik\nmag er geene vliegen vangen, niet pruimen, en moet den geheelen Zondag\nschoenen dragen. De weduwe eet, als de bel luidt; zij gaat naar bed,\nals de bel luidt; zij staat op, als de bel luidt; en alles gaat zoo\ndrommels geregeld, dat een gewoon mensch er niet tegen bestand is.\"\n\n\"Maar, Huck, zoo leeft iedereen.\"\n\n\"'t Kan me niet schelen, Tom; ik ben niet als iedereen en ik kan\nhet niet uithouden. Het is vreeselijk om zoo aan banden gelegd te\nworden. En je komt er zoo gemakkelijk aan je eten, dat het mij niet\nsmaakt. Als ik wil visschen, moet ik het vragen; als ik wil zwemmen,\nmoet ik het vragen; en vroeger kon ik alles doen wat ik wou. Elken\ndag vlucht ik een uurtje naar den zolder om te rooken, omdat ik zoo'n\nflauwen smaak in mijn mond heb. Als ik dat niet deed zou ik sterven,\nTom. De weduwe gunt me geen pijp; ik mag niet gapen, mij niet uitrekken\nen mij niet krabben, als er anderen bij zijn. Ik moet ook op mijne\nknie\u00ebn liggen, ik moet naar school gaan--en dat wil ik niet, Tom. 't Is\nmij een kwelling om rijk te zijn en te zweeten, totdat je woudt dat je\ndood was. Neen, deze kleeren lijken mij, een vat lijkt me,--en ik denk\nniet weder te veranderen. Toch, ik zou nooit in al die ellende gekomen\nzijn, als het niet was door dat geld. Nu moet je mijn part maar bij\ndat van jou doen en mij nu en dan een cent of wat geven,--doch niet\nvaak, omdat ik geen penning geef om dingen, die ik kan koopen. En dan,\noch toe, maak jij het weer voor mij af met de weduwe!\"\n\n\"O, Huck, je weet, dat ik dat niet doen kan! Dat is niet mooi; en\nbuitendien, als je het nog een poos probeert, zul je eindigen met\nhet prettig te vinden.\"\n\n\"Prettig vinden? Ja--net zoo zeker als ik het prettig zal vinden,\nom een uur op een brandende kachel te zitten. Neen, Tom, ik wil niet\nrijk zijn en in die vervloekte, mooie huizen wonen. Ik houd van de\nbosschen en van de rivier en van leege vaten--en daarbij denk ik te\nblijven. Juist toen we een grot gevonden hadden en geweren, en alles\nklaar was om roovers te worden, daar komt me die verdraaide weduwe\nen bederft alles!\"\n\nTom zag een lichtstraal.\n\n\"Kijk eens hier, Huck. Rijk zijn verhindert een mensch niet om roover\nte worden.\"\n\n\"Niet? O, dat is gelukkig! Meen je dat, Tom? Meen je het wezenlijk?\"\n\n\"Ja, zoo waar als ik hier zit. Maar, Huck, je kunt niet meer met ons\nmee doen, als je geen fatsoenlijke jongen wordt.\"\n\n\"Waarom niet, Tom? Ben ik dan ook niet zeeroover geweest?\"\n\n\"Jawel, maar dat is heel wat anders. Een struikroover is veel voornamer\ndan een zeeroover. In de meeste landen zijn de groote lui allemaal\nroovers.\"\n\n\"Tom, jij die altijd zoo goed jegens mij geweest bent, waarom sluit\nje me nu buiten? Neen, je meent het niet, Tom.\"\n\n\"Huck, ik wou dat ik het niet behoefde te doen en ik voor mij zou\nhet je ook niet behoeven; maar wat zouden de menschen zeggen? De\nmenschen zouden zeggen: 'Nu! de bende van Tom Sawyer.... gemeene\nlui.' En daarmede zouden ze jou meenen, Huck. Dat zou je ook niet\nprettig vinden.\" Huck zweeg eenige oogenblikken en had een bitteren\nstrijd in zijn binnenste te voeren. Eindelijk sprak hij:\n\n\"Wel, ik zal voor een maand naar de weduwe teruggaan en het probeeren,\nen zien of ik het kan uithouden, als je me belooft dat ik bij de\nbende zal behooren, Tom.\"\n\n\"Best, Huck, dat blijft afgesproken. Ga maar mee, oude jongen; ik\nzal aan de weduwe vragen, of ze je een beetje meer vrijheid wil geven.\"\n\n\"Zul je dat wezenlijk doen, Tom? Dat is goed. Als ze mij maar enkele\ndingen toelaat, die ik graag doe, zal ik wel vloeken en rooken, waar\nze mij niet hoort of ziet, en mij er dan wel doorredden. Wanneer ga\nje de bende in orde maken, en wanneer worden we roovers?\"\n\n\"Nu, zoo dadelijk. Wij zullen de jongens bij elkaar zien te krijgen\nen van nacht het initiatief nemen.\"\n\n\"Het initiatief? Wat is dat?\"\n\n\"Dat is, dat we zweren zullen, elkander bij te staan en nooit de\ngeheimen der bende te verklappen, zelfs al werden we aan stukken\ngehakt, en het geheele huisgezin uit te moorden van hen, die de bende\nkwaad doet.\"\n\n\"Dat is aardig,--dat is allemachtig aardig, Tom.\"\n\n\"Wel, waarachtig is het dat. En wij moeten tegen middernacht zweren,\nop de akeligste, eenzaamste plaats, die we maar vinden kunnen. Een\nspookhuis is het beste; maar die zijn nu allemaal omvergehaald. En\nwij moeten zweren op een doodkist en den eed met bloed bezegelen.\"\n\n\"Nu, dat lijkt mij! Wel, dat is duizendmaal prettiger dan zeeroover\nte zijn. Ik zal tot aan mijn dood bij de weduwe blijven; en als ik\neen geduchte roover zal zijn, van wien iedereen den mond vol heeft,\nzal ze nog blij toe wezen, dat ze me uit het slijk heeft gehaald.\"\n\nDus eindigt dit verhaal. Daar het uitsluitend mijne bedoeling was,\nde geschiedenis van een jongen te vertellen, mag ik thans ophouden;\nanders zou het de levensbeschrijving van een man worden. Als men\neen roman schrijft over volwassenen, weet de schrijver precies hoe\nhij moet eindigen,--te weten, met een huwelijk. Doch wanneer hij\niets uit de kinderwereld weergeeft, moet hij ophouden, waar het hem\n't best toeschijnt.\n\nDe meesten der personen die in dit boek voorkomen leven nog en zijn\nvoorspoedig en gelukkig. Misschien zal het de moeite waard zijn te\neeniger tijd de geschiedenis der kinderen nog eens op te nemen en\nte zien wat voor soort van mannen en vrouwen zij geworden zijn. [4]\nDaarom zal het 't verstandigst wezen voor het oogenblik van dat\ntijdperk huns levens niet te spreken.\n\n\nDE SCHRIJVER.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAANTEEKENINGEN\n\n\n[1] Vogel.\n\n[2] De dusgenaamde \"opstellen\", die wij hier hebben aangehaald, zijn\nzonder eenige verandering genomen uit een werkje getiteld: \"Proza en\npo\u00ebzie, door eene dame uit het verre Westen.\" Zij zijn volmaakt naar\nhet gewone schoolmeisjesmodel, en vandaar dat wij beter geslaagd zijn,\ndan wanneer wij er een hadden verzonnen.\n\n[3] Buitengerechtelijk veroordeelen en ter dood brengen.\n\n[4] Zulks is geschied in het latere werk van Mark Twain \"De Lotgevallen\nvan Huckleberry Finn\", waarvan eveneens eene goede ge\u00efllustreerde\nuitgave in de Nederlandsche taal is verschenen.\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1892":"\n\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nExtracts From Adam\u2019s Diary\n\nTranslated from the original MS.\n\nby Mark Twain\n\n\n\n\n[NOTE.\u2014I translated a portion of this diary some years ago, and a\nfriend of mine printed a few copies in an incomplete form, but the\npublic never got them. Since then I have deciphered some more of Adam\u2019s\nhieroglyphics, and think he has now become sufficiently important as a\npublic character to justify this publication.\u2014M. T.]\n\n\n\n\nMonday\n\n\nThis new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way. It is\nalways hanging around and following me about. I don\u2019t like this; I am\nnot used to company. I wish it would stay with the other animals.\nCloudy to-day, wind in the east; think we shall have rain\u2026. Where did I\nget that word?\u2026 I remember now\u2014the new creature uses it.\n\n\n\n\nTuesday\n\n\nBeen examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing on the\nestate, I think. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls\u2014why, I am sure\nI do not know. Says it looks like Niagara Falls. That is not a reason;\nit is mere waywardness and imbecility. I get no chance to name anything\nmyself. The new creature names everything that comes along, before I\ncan get in a protest. And always that same pretext is offered\u2014it looks\nlike the thing. There is the dodo, for instance. Says the moment one\nlooks at it one sees at a glance that it \u201clooks like a dodo.\u201d It will\nhave to keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret about it, and\nit does no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a dodo than I do.\n\n\n\n\nWednesday\n\n\nBuilt me a shelter against the rain, but could not have it to myself in\npeace. The new creature intruded. When I tried to put it out it shed\nwater out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it away with the back\nof its paws, and made a noise such as some of the other animals make\nwhen they are in distress. I wish it would not talk; it is always\ntalking. That sounds like a cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur;\nbut I do not mean it so. I have never heard the human voice before, and\nany new and strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of\nthese dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And\nthis new sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at\nmy ear, first on one side and then on the other, and I am used only to\nsounds that are more or less distant from me.\n\n\n\n\nFriday\n\n\nThe naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do. I had a\nvery good name for the estate, and it was musical and pretty\n\u2014GARDEN-OF-EDEN. Privately, I continue to call it that, but not any\nlonger publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and rocks and\nscenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it looks\nlike a park, and does not look like anything but a park. Consequently,\nwithout consulting me, it has been new-named \u2014NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This\nis sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me. And already there is a\nsign up:\n\nKEEP OFF THE GRASS\n\nMy life is not as happy as it was.\n\n\n\n\nSaturday\n\n\nThe new creature eats too much fruit. We are going to run short, most\nlikely. \u201cWe\u201d again\u2014that is its word; mine too, now, from hearing it so\nmuch. Good deal of fog this morning. I do not go out in the fog myself.\nThe new creature does. It goes out in all weathers, and stumps right in\nwith its muddy feet. And talks. It used to be so pleasant and quiet\nhere.\n\n\n\n\nSunday\n\n\nPulled through. This day is getting to be more and more trying. It was\nselected and set apart last November as a day of rest. I already had\nsix of them per week, before. This morning found the new creature\ntrying to clod apples out of that forbidden tree.\n\n\n\n\nMonday\n\n\nThe new creature says its name is Eve. That is all right, I have no\nobjections. Says it is to call it by when I want it to come. I said it\nwas superfluous, then. The word evidently raised me in its respect; and\nindeed it is a large, good word, and will bear repetition. It says it\nis not an It, it is a She. This is probably doubtful; yet it is all one\nto me; what she is were nothing to me if she would but go by herself\nand not talk.\n\n\n\n\nTuesday\n\n\nShe has littered the whole estate with execrable names and offensive\nsigns:\n\nTHIS WAY TO THE WHIRLPOOL.\n\nTHIS WAY TO GOAT ISLAND.\n\nCAVE OF THE WINDS THIS WAY.\n\nShe says this park would make a tidy summer resort, if there was any\ncustom for it. Summer resort\u2014another invention of hers\u2014just words,\nwithout any meaning. What is a summer resort? But it is best not to ask\nher, she has such a rage for explaining.\n\n\n\n\nFriday\n\n\nShe has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the Falls. What harm\ndoes it do? Says it makes her shudder. I wonder why. I have always done\nit\u2014always liked the plunge, and the excitement, and the coolness. I\nsupposed it was what the Falls were for. They have no other use that I\ncan see, and they must have been made for something. She says they were\nonly made for scenery\u2014like the rhinoceros and the mastodon.\n\nI went over the Falls in a barrel\u2014not satisfactory to her. Went over in\na tub\u2014still not satisfactory. Swam the Whirlpool and the Rapids in a\nfig-leaf suit. It got much damaged. Hence, tedious complaints about my\nextravagance. I am too much hampered here. What I need is change of\nscene.\n\n\n\n\nSaturday\n\n\nI escaped last Tuesday night, and travelled two days, and built me\nanother shelter, in a secluded place, and obliterated my tracks as well\nas I could, but she hunted me out by means of a beast which she has\ntamed and calls a wolf, and came making that pitiful noise again, and\nshedding that water out of the places she looks with. I was obliged to\nreturn with her, but will presently emigrate again, when occasion\noffers. She engages herself in many foolish things: among others,\ntrying to study out why the animals called lions and tigers live on\ngrass and flowers, when, as she says, the sort of teeth they wear would\nindicate that they were intended to eat each other. This is foolish,\nbecause to do that would be to kill each other, and that would\nintroduce what, as I understand it, is called \u201cdeath;\u201d and death, as I\nhave been told, has not yet entered the Park. Which is a pity, on some\naccounts.\n\n\n\n\nSunday\n\n\nPulled through.\n\n\n\n\nMonday\n\n\nI believe I see what the week is for: it is to give time to rest up\nfrom the weariness of Sunday. It seems a good idea\u2026. She has been\nclimbing that tree again. Clodded her out of it. She said nobody was\nlooking. Seems to consider that a sufficient justification for chancing\nany dangerous thing. Told her that. The word justification moved her\nadmiration\u2014and envy too, I thought. It is a good word.\n\n\n\n\nThursday\n\n\nShe told me she was made out of a rib taken from my body. This is at\nleast doubtful, if not more than that. I have not missed any rib\u2026. She\nis in much trouble about the buzzard; says grass does not agree with\nit; is afraid she can\u2019t raise it; thinks it was intended to live on\ndecayed flesh. The buzzard must get along the best it can with what is\nprovided. We cannot overturn the whole scheme to accommodate the\nbuzzard.\n\n\n\n\nSaturday\n\n\nShe fell in the pond yesterday, when she was looking at herself in it,\nwhich she is always doing. She nearly strangled, and said it was most\nuncomfortable. This made her sorry for the creatures which live in\nthere, which she calls fish, for she continues to fasten names on to\nthings that don\u2019t need them and don\u2019t come when they are called by\nthem, which is a matter of no consequence to her, as she is such a\nnumskull anyway; so she got a lot of them out and brought them in last\nnight and put them in my bed to keep warm, but I have noticed them now\nand then all day, and I don\u2019t see that they are any happier there than\nthey were before, only quieter. When night comes I shall throw them\nout-doors. I will not sleep with them again, for I find them clammy and\nunpleasant to lie among when a person hasn\u2019t anything on.\n\n\n\n\nSunday\n\n\nPulled through.\n\n\n\n\nTuesday\n\n\nShe has taken up with a snake now. The other animals are glad, for she\nwas always experimenting with them and bothering them; and I am glad,\nbecause the snake talks, and this enables me to get a rest.\n\n\n\n\nFriday\n\n\nShe says the snake advises her to try the fruit of that tree, and says\nthe result will be a great and fine and noble education. I told her\nthere would be another result, too\u2014it would introduce death into the\nworld. That was a mistake\u2014it had been better to keep the remark to\nmyself; it only gave her an idea\u2014she could save the sick buzzard, and\nfurnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and tigers. I advised her to\nkeep away from the tree. She said she wouldn\u2019t. I foresee trouble. Will\nemigrate.\n\n\n\n\nWednesday\n\n\nI have had a variegated time. I escaped that night, and rode a horse\nall night as fast as he could go, hoping to get clear out of the Park\nand hide in some other country before the trouble should begin; but it\nwas not to be. About an hour after sunup, as I was riding through a\nflowery plain where thousands of animals were grazing, slumbering, or\nplaying with each other, according to their wont, all of a sudden they\nbroke into a tempest of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain\nwas in a frantic commotion and every beast was destroying its neighbor.\nI knew what it meant\u2014Eve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into\nthe world\u2026. The tigers ate my horse, paying no attention when I ordered\nthem to desist, and they would even have eaten me if I had stayed\u2014which\nI didn\u2019t, but went away in much haste\u2026. I found this place, outside the\nPark, and was fairly comfortable for a few days, but she has found me\nout. Found me out, and has named the place Tonawanda\u2014says it looks like\nthat. In fact, I was not sorry she came, for there are but meagre\npickings here, and she brought some of those apples. I was obliged to\neat them, I was so hungry. It was against my principles, but I find\nthat principles have no real force except when one is well fed\u2026. She\ncame curtained in boughs and bunches of leaves, and when I asked her\nwhat she meant by such nonsense, and snatched them away and threw them\ndown, she tittered and blushed. I had never seen a person titter and\nblush before, and to me it seemed unbecoming and idiotic. She said I\nwould soon know how it was myself. This was correct. Hungry as I was, I\nlaid down the apple half eaten\u2014certainly the best one I ever saw,\nconsidering the lateness of the season\u2014and arrayed myself in the\ndiscarded boughs and branches, and then spoke to her with some severity\nand ordered her to go and get some more and not make such a spectacle\nof herself. She did it, and after this we crept down to where the\nwild-beast battle had been, and collected some skins, and I made her\npatch together a couple of suits proper for public occasions. They are\nuncomfortable, it is true, but stylish, and that is the main point\nabout clothes. \u2026 I find she is a good deal of a companion. I see I\nshould be lonesome and depressed without her, now that I have lost my\nproperty. Another thing, she says it is ordered that we work for our\nliving hereafter. She will be useful. I will superintend.\n\n\n\n\nTen Days Later\n\n\nShe accuses me of being the cause of our disaster! She says, with\napparent sincerity and truth, that the Serpent assured her that the\nforbidden fruit was not apples, it was chestnuts. I said I was\ninnocent, then, for I had not eaten any chestnuts. She said the Serpent\ninformed her that \u201cchestnut\u201d was a figurative term meaning an aged and\nmouldy joke. I turned pale at that, for I have made many jokes to pass\nthe weary time, and some of them could have been of that sort, though I\nhad honestly supposed that they were new when I made them. She asked me\nif I had made one just at the time of the catastrophe. I was obliged to\nadmit that I had made one to myself, though not aloud. It was this. I\nwas thinking about the Falls, and I said to myself, \u201cHow wonderful it\nis to see that vast body of water tumble down there!\u201d Then in an\ninstant a bright thought flashed into my head, and I let it fly,\nsaying, \u201cIt would be a deal more wonderful to see it tumble up\nthere!\u201d\u2014and I was just about to kill myself with laughing at it when\nall nature broke loose in war and death, and I had to flee for my life.\n\u201cThere,\u201d she said, with triumph, \u201cthat is just it; the Serpent\nmentioned that very jest, and called it the First Chestnut, and said it\nwas coeval with the creation.\u201d Alas, I am indeed to blame. Would that I\nwere not witty; oh, would that I had never had that radiant thought!\n\n\n\n\nNext Year\n\n\nWe have named it Cain. She caught it while I was up country trapping on\nthe North Shore of the Erie; caught it in the timber a couple of miles\nfrom our dug-out\u2014or it might have been four, she isn\u2019t certain which.\nIt resembles us in some ways, and may be a relation. That is what she\nthinks, but this is an error, in my judgment. The difference in size\nwarrants the conclusion that it is a different and new kind of animal\u2014a\nfish, perhaps, though when I put it in the water to see, it sank, and\nshe plunged in and snatched it out before there was opportunity for the\nexperiment to determine the matter. I still think it is a fish, but she\nis indifferent about what it is, and will not let me have it to try. I\ndo not understand this. The coming of the creature seems to have\nchanged her whole nature and made her unreasonable about experiments.\nShe thinks more of it than she does of any of the other animals, but is\nnot able to explain why. Her mind is disordered\u2014everything shows it.\nSometimes she carries the fish in her arms half the night when it\ncomplains and wants to get to the water. At such times the water comes\nout of the places in her face that she looks out of, and she pats the\nfish on the back and makes soft sounds with her mouth to soothe it, and\nbetrays sorrow and solicitude in a hundred ways. I have never seen her\ndo like this with any other fish, and it troubles me greatly. She used\nto carry the young tigers around so, and play with them, before we lost\nour property; but it was only play; she never took on about them like\nthis when their dinner disagreed with them.\n\n\n\n\nSunday\n\n\nShe doesn\u2019t work Sundays, but lies around all tired out, and likes to\nhave the fish wallow over her; and she makes fool noises to amuse it,\nand pretends to chew its paws, and that makes it laugh. I have not seen\na fish before that could laugh. This makes me doubt\u2026. I have come to\nlike Sunday myself. Superintending all the week tires a body so. There\nought to be more Sundays. In the old days they were tough, but now they\ncome handy.\n\n\n\n\nWednesday\n\n\nIt isn\u2019t a fish. I cannot quite make out what it is. It makes curious,\ndevilish noises when not satisfied, and says \u201cgoo-goo\u201d when it is. It\nis not one of us, for it doesn\u2019t walk; it is not a bird, for it doesn\u2019t\nfly; it is not a frog, for it doesn\u2019t hop; it is not a snake, for it\ndoesn\u2019t crawl; I feel sure it is not a fish, though I cannot get a\nchance to find out whether it can swim or not. It merely lies around,\nand mostly on its back, with its feet up. I have not seen any other\nanimal do that before. I said I believed it was an enigma, but she only\nadmired the word without understanding it. In my judgment it is either\nan enigma or some kind of a bug. If it dies, I will take it apart and\nsee what its arrangements are. I never had a thing perplex me so.\n\n\n\n\nThree Months Later\n\n\nThe perplexity augments instead of diminishing. I sleep but little. It\nhas ceased from lying around, and goes about on its four legs now. Yet\nit differs from the other four-legged animals in that its front legs\nare unusually short, consequently this causes the main part of its\nperson to stick up uncomfortably high in the air, and this is not\nattractive. It is built much as we are, but its method of travelling\nshows that it is not of our breed. The short front legs and long hind\nones indicate that it is of the kangaroo family, but it is a marked\nvariation of the species, since the true kangaroo hops, whereas this\none never does. Still, it is a curious and interesting variety, and has\nnot been catalogued before. As I discovered it, I have felt justified\nin securing the credit of the discovery by attaching my name to it, and\nhence have called it Kangaroorum Adamiensis\u2026. It must have been a young\none when it came, for it has grown exceedingly since. It must be five\ntimes as big, now, as it was then, and when discontented is able to\nmake from twenty-two to thirty-eight times the noise it made at first.\nCoercion does not modify this, but has the contrary effect. For this\nreason I discontinued the system. She reconciles it by persuasion, and\nby giving it things which she had previously told it she wouldn\u2019t give\nit. As already observed, I was not at home when it first came, and she\ntold me she found it in the woods. It seems odd that it should be the\nonly one, yet it must be so, for I have worn myself out these many\nweeks trying to find another one to add to my collection, and for this\none to play with; for surely then it would be quieter, and we could\ntame it more easily. But I find none, nor any vestige of any; and\nstrangest of all, no tracks. It has to live on the ground, it cannot\nhelp itself; therefore, how does it get about without leaving a track?\nI have set a dozen traps, but they do no good. I catch all small\nanimals except that one; animals that merely go into the trap out of\ncuriosity, I think, to see what the milk is there for. They never drink\nit.\n\n\n\n\nThree Months Later\n\n\nThe kangaroo still continues to grow, which is very strange and\nperplexing. I never knew one to be so long getting its growth. It has\nfur on its head now; not like kangaroo fur, but exactly like our hair,\nexcept that it is much finer and softer, and instead of being black is\nred. I am like to lose my mind over the capricious and harassing\ndevelopments of this unclassifiable zoological freak. If I could catch\nanother one\u2014but that is hopeless; it is a new variety, and the only\nsample; this is plain. But I caught a true kangaroo and brought it in,\nthinking that this one, being lonesome, would rather have that for\ncompany than have no kin at all, or any animal it could feel a nearness\nto or get sympathy from in its forlorn condition here among strangers\nwho do not know its ways or habits, or what to do to make it feel that\nit is among friends; but it was a mistake\u2014it went into such fits at the\nsight of the kangaroo that I was convinced it had never seen one\nbefore. I pity the poor noisy little animal, but there is nothing I can\ndo to make it happy. If I could tame it\u2014but that is out of the\nquestion; the more I try, the worse I seem to make it. It grieves me to\nthe heart to see it in its little storms of sorrow and passion. I\nwanted to let it go, but she wouldn\u2019t hear of it. That seemed cruel and\nnot like her; and yet she may be right. It might be lonelier than ever;\nfor since I cannot find another one, how could it?\n\n\n\n\nFive Months Later\n\n\nIt is not a kangaroo. No, for it supports itself by holding to her\nfinger, and thus goes a few steps on its hind legs, and then falls\ndown. It is probably some kind of a bear; and yet it has no tail\u2014as\nyet\u2014and no fur, except on its head. It still keeps on growing\u2014that is a\ncurious circumstance, for bears get their growth earlier than this.\nBears are dangerous\u2014since our catastrophe\u2014and I shall not be satisfied\nto have this one prowling about the place much longer without a muzzle\non. I have offered to get her a kangaroo if she would let this one go,\nbut it did no good\u2014she is determined to run us into all sorts of\nfoolish risks, I think. She was not like this before she lost her mind.\n\n\n\n\nA Fortnight Later\n\n\nI examined its mouth. There is no danger yet; it has only one tooth. It\nhas no tail yet. It makes more noise now than it ever did before\u2014and\nmainly at night. I have moved out. But I shall go over, mornings, to\nbreakfast, and to see if it has more teeth. If it gets a mouthful of\nteeth, it will be time for it to go, tail or no tail, for a bear does\nnot need a tail in order to be dangerous.\n\n\n\n\nFour Months Later\n\n\nI have been off hunting and fishing a month, up in the region that she\ncalls Buffalo; I don\u2019t know why, unless it is because there are not any\nbuffaloes there. Meantime the bear has learned to paddle around all by\nitself on its hind legs, and says \u201cpoppa\u201d and \u201cmomma.\u201d It is certainly\na new species. This resemblance to words may be purely accidental, of\ncourse, and may have no purpose or meaning; but even in that case it is\nstill extraordinary, and is a thing which no other bear can do. This\nimitation of speech, taken together with general absence of fur and\nentire absence of tail, sufficiently indicates that this is a new kind\nof bear. The further study of it will be exceedingly interesting.\nMeantime I will go off on a far expedition among the forests of the\nNorth and make an exhaustive search. There must certainly be another\none somewhere, and this one will be less dangerous when it has company\nof its own species. I will go straightway; but I will muzzle this one\nfirst.\n\n\n\n\nThree Months Later\n\n\nIt has been a weary, weary hunt, yet I have had no success. In the mean\ntime, without stirring from the home estate, she has caught another\none! I never saw such luck. I might have hunted these woods a hundred\nyears, I never should have run across that thing.\n\n\n\n\nNext Day\n\n\nI have been comparing the new one with the old one, and it is perfectly\nplain that they are the same breed. I was going to stuff one of them\nfor my collection, but she is prejudiced against it for some reason or\nother; so I have relinquished the idea, though I think it is a mistake.\nIt would be an irreparable loss to science if they should get away. The\nold one is tamer than it was, and can laugh and talk like the parrot,\nhaving learned this, no doubt, from being with the parrot so much, and\nhaving the imitative faculty in a highly developed degree. I shall be\nastonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot, and yet I ought\nnot to be astonished, for it has already been everything else it could\nthink of, since those first days when it was a fish. The new one is as\nugly now as the old one was at first; has the same sulphur-and-raw-meat\ncomplexion and the same singular head without any fur on it. She calls\nit Abel.\n\n\n\n\nTen Years Later\n\n\nThey are boys; we found it out long ago. It was their coming in that\nsmall, immature shape that puzzled us; we were not used to it. There\nare some girls now. Abel is a good boy, but if Cain had stayed a bear\nit would have improved him. After all these years, I see that I was\nmistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the\nGarden with her than inside it without her. At first I thought she\ntalked too much; but now I should be sorry to have that voice fall\nsilent and pass out of my life. Blessed be the chestnut that brought us\nnear together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart and the\nsweetness of her spirit!\n\n\n\n"}
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{"19484":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEditorial Wild Oats\n\nBY\n\nMark Twain\n\nILLUSTRATED\n\nNEW YORK AND LONDON\nHARPER & BROTHERS\nPUBLISHERS--MCMV\n\n\n\n\nCopyright, 1875, 1899, 1903, by SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.\n\nCopyright, 1879, 1899, by SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.\n\nCopyright, 1905, by HARPER & BROTHERS.\n\n_All rights reserved._\n\nPublished September, 1905.\n\n[Illustration: See p. 57\n\n\"I FANCIED HE WAS DISPLEASED\"]\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\n                                                   PAGE\nMY FIRST LITERARY VENTURE                             3\n\nJOURNALISM IN TENNESSEE                              11\n\nNICODEMUS DODGE--PRINTER                             30\n\nMR. BLOKE'S ITEM                                     41\n\nHOW I EDITED AN AGRICULTURAL\nPAPER                                                52\n\nTHE KILLING OF JULIUS C\u00c6SAR \"LOCALIZED\"              70\n\n\n\n\nIllustrations\n\n\n\"I FANCIED HE WAS DISPLEASED\"            _Frontispiece_\n\n\"HE HAD CONCLUDED HE\nWOULDN'T\"                              _Facing p._    4\n\n\"GILLESPIE HAD CALLED\"                 \"             24\n\n\"WHEEZING THE MUSIC OF 'CAMPTOWN\nRACES'\"                                \"             38\n\n\"I HAVE READ THIS ABSURD ITEM\nOVER\"                                  \"             50\n\n\"A LONG CADAVEROUS CREATURE\"           \"             58\n\n\"THERE WAS NOTHING IN THE\nPOCKETS\"                               \"             82\n\n\n+----------------------------------------------------------------------+\n|Transcriber's Note: The dialect in this book is transcribed exactly as|\n|in the original.                                                         |\n+----------------------------------------------------------------------+\n\n\n\n\nEditorial Wild Oats\n\n\n\n\nMy First Literary Venture\n\n\nI was a very smart child at the age of thirteen--an unusually\nsmart child, I thought at the time. It was then that I did my first\nnewspaper scribbling, and most unexpectedly to me it stirred up a\nfine sensation in the community. It did, indeed, and I was very\nproud of it, too. I was a printer's \"devil,\" and a progressive and\naspiring one. My uncle had me on his paper (the _Weekly Hannibal\nJournal_, two dollars a year, in advance--five hundred subscribers,\nand they paid in cord-wood, cabbages, and unmarketable turnips),\nand on a lucky summer's day he left town to be gone a week, and\nasked me if I thought I could edit one issue of the paper\njudiciously. Ah! didn't I want to try! Higgins was the editor on\nthe rival paper. He had lately been jilted, and one night a friend\nfound an open note on the poor fellow's bed, in which he stated\nthat he could no longer endure life and had drowned himself in Bear\nCreek. The friend ran down there and discovered Higgins wading back\nto shore. He had concluded he wouldn't. The village was full of it\nfor several days, but Higgins did not suspect it. I thought this\nwas a fine opportunity. I wrote an elaborately wretched account of\nthe whole matter, and then illustrated it with villanous cuts\nengraved on the bottoms of wooden type with a jack-knife--one of\nthem a picture of Higgins wading out into the creek in his shirt,\nwith a lantern, sounding the depth of the water with a walking-stick.\nI thought it was desperately funny, and was densely unconscious that\nthere was any moral obliquity about such a publication. Being\nsatisfied with this effort, I looked around for other worlds to\nconquer, and it struck me that it would make good, interesting matter\nto charge the editor of a neighboring country paper with a piece of\ngratuitous rascality and \"see him squirm.\"\n\n[Illustration: \"HE HAD CONCLUDED HE WOULDN'T\"]\n\nI did it, putting the article into the form of a parody on the\n\"Burial of Sir John Moore\"--and a pretty crude parody it was, too.\n\nThen I lampooned two prominent citizens outrageously--not because\nthey had done anything to deserve it, but merely because I thought\nit was my duty to make the paper lively.\n\nNext I gently touched up the newest stranger--the lion of the day,\nthe gorgeous journeyman tailor from Quincy. He was a simpering\ncoxcomb of the first water, and the \"loudest\" dressed man in the\nState. He was an inveterate woman-killer. Every week he wrote lushy\n\"poetry\" for the _Journal_, about his newest conquest. His rhymes\nfor my week were headed, \"TO MARY IN H--L,\" meaning to Mary in\nHannibal, of course. But while setting up the piece I was suddenly\nriven from head to heel by what I regarded as a perfect thunderbolt\nof humor, and I compressed it into a snappy footnote at the\nbottom--thus:\n\n  \"We will let this thing pass, just this once; but we wish Mr. J.\n  Gordon Runnels to understand distinctly that we have a character\n  to sustain, and from this time forth when he wants to commune\n  with his friends in h--l, he must select some other medium than\n  the columns of this journal!\"\n\nThe paper came out, and I never knew any little thing attract so\nmuch attention as those playful trifles of mine.\n\nFor once the _Hannibal Journal_ was in demand--a novelty it had\nnot experienced before. The whole town was stirred. Higgins dropped\nin with a double-barrelled shot-gun early in the forenoon. When he\nfound that it was an infant (as he called me) that had done him the\ndamage, he simply pulled my ears and went away; but he threw up his\nsituation that night and left town for good. The tailor came with\nhis goose and a pair of shears; but he despised me, too, and\ndeparted for the South that night. The two lampooned citizens came\nwith threats of libel, and went away incensed at my insignificance.\nThe country editor pranced in with a warwhoop next day, suffering\nfor blood to drink; but he ended by forgiving me cordially and\ninviting me down to the drug-store to wash away all animosity in a\nfriendly bumper of \"Fahnestock's Vermifuge.\" It was his little\njoke. My uncle was very angry when he got back--unreasonably so, I\nthought, considering what an impetus I had given the paper, and\nconsidering also that gratitude for his preservation ought to have\nbeen uppermost in his mind, inasmuch as by his delay he had so\nwonderfully escaped dissection, tomahawking, libel, and getting his\nhead shot off. But he softened when he looked at the accounts and\nsaw that I had actually booked the unparalleled number of\nthirty-three new subscribers, and had the vegetables to show for\nit--cord-wood, cabbage, beans, and unsalable turnips enough to run\nthe family for two years!\n\n\n\n\nJournalism in Tennessee\n\n    The editor of the Memphis _Avalanche_ swoops thus mildly down upon\n    a correspondent who posted him as a Radical: \"While he was writing\n    the first word, the middle, dotting his i's, crossing his t's, and\n    punching his period, he knew he was concocting a sentence that was\n    saturated with infamy and reeking with falsehood.\"--_Exchange_.\n\n\nI was told by the physician that a Southern climate would improve\nmy health, and so I went down to Tennessee and got a berth on the\n_Morning-Glory and Johnson County Warwhoop_ as associate editor.\nWhen I went on duty I found the chief editor sitting tilted back in\na three-legged chair with his feet on a pine table. There was\nanother pine table in the room and another afflicted chair, and\nboth were half buried under newspapers and scraps and sheets of\nmanuscript. There was a wooden box of sand, sprinkled with\ncigar-stubs and \"old soldiers,\" and a stove with a door hanging by\nits upper hinge. The chief editor had a long-tailed black cloth\nfrock-coat on, and white linen pants. His boots were small and\nneatly blacked. He wore a ruffled shirt, a large seal ring, a\nstanding collar of obsolete pattern, and a checkered neckerchief\nwith the ends hanging down. Date of costume about 1848. He was\nsmoking a cigar, and trying to think of a word, and in pawing his\nhair he had rumpled his locks a good deal. He was scowling\nfearfully, and I judged that he was concocting a particularly\nknotty editorial. He told me to take the exchanges and skim through\nthem and write up the \"Spirit of the Tennessee Press,\" condensing\ninto the article all of their contents that seemed of interest.\n\nI wrote as follows:\n\n  \"SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS\n\n  \"The editors of the _Semi-Weekly Earthquake_ evidently labor\n  under a misapprehension with regard to the Ballyhack railroad. It\n  is not the object of the company to leave Buzzardville off to one\n  side. On the contrary, they consider it one of the most important\n  points along the line, and consequently can have no desire to\n  slight it. The gentlemen of the _Earthquake_ will, of course,\n  take pleasure in making the correction.\n\n  \"John W. Blossom, Esq., the able editor of the Higginsville\n  _Thunderbolt and Battle-Cry of Freedom_, arrived in the city\n  yesterday. He is stopping at the Van Buren House.\n\n  \"We observe that our contemporary of the Mud Springs _Morning\n  Howl_ has fallen into the error of supposing that the election of\n  Van Werter is not an established fact, but he will have\n  discovered his mistake before this reminder reaches him, no\n  doubt. He was doubtless misled by incomplete election returns.\n\n  \"It is pleasant to note that the city of Blathersville is\n  endeavoring to contract with some New York gentlemen to pave its\n  wellnigh impassable streets with the Nicholson pavement. The\n  _Daily Hurrah_ urges the measure with ability, and seems\n  confident of ultimate success.\"\n\nI passed my manuscript over to the chief editor for acceptance,\nalteration, or destruction. He glanced at it and his face clouded.\nHe ran his eye down the pages, and his countenance grew portentous.\nIt was easy to see that something was wrong. Presently he sprang up\nand said:\n\n\"Thunder and lightning! Do you suppose I am going to speak of\nthose cattle that way? Do you suppose my subscribers are going to\nstand such gruel as that? Give me the pen!\"\n\nI never saw a pen scrape and scratch its way so viciously, or\nplough through another man's verbs and adjectives so relentlessly.\nWhile he was in the midst of his work, somebody shot at him through\nthe open window, and marred the symmetry of my ear.\n\n\"Ah,\" said he, \"that is that scoundrel Smith, of the _Moral\nVolcano_--he was due yesterday.\" And he snatched a navy revolver\nfrom his belt and fired. Smith dropped, shot in the thigh. The shot\nspoiled Smith's aim, who was just taking a second chance, and he\ncrippled a stranger. It was me. Merely a finger shot off.\n\nThen the chief editor went on with his erasures and\ninterlineations. Just as he finished them a hand-grenade came down\nthe stove-pipe, and the explosion shivered the stove into a\nthousand fragments. However, it did no further damage, except that\na vagrant piece knocked a couple of my teeth out.\n\n\"That stove is utterly ruined,\" said the chief editor.\n\nI said I believed it was.\n\n\"Well, no matter--don't want it this kind of weather. I know the\nman that did it. I'll get him. Now, _here_ is the way this stuff\nought to be written.\"\n\nI took the manuscript. It was scarred with erasures and\ninterlineations till its mother wouldn't have known it if it had\nhad one. It now read as follows:\n\n  \"SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS\n\n  \"The inveterate liars of the _Semi-Weekly Earthquake_ are\n  evidently endeavoring to palm off upon a noble and chivalrous\n  people another of their vile and brutal falsehoods with regard to\n  that most glorious conception of the nineteenth century, the\n  Ballyhack railroad. The idea that Buzzardville was to be left off\n  at one side originated in their own fulsome brains--or rather in\n  the settlings which _they_ regard as brains. They had better\n  swallow this lie if they want to save their abandoned reptile\n  carcasses the cowhiding they so richly deserve.\n\n  \"That ass, Blossom, of the Higginsville _Thunderbolt and\n  Battle-Cry of Freedom_, is down here again sponging at the Van\n  Buren.\n\n  \"We observe that the besotted blackguard of the Mud Springs\n  _Morning Howl_ is giving out, with his usual propensity for\n  lying, that Van Werter is not elected. The heaven-born mission of\n  journalism is to disseminate truth: to eradicate error; to\n  educate, refine, and elevate the tone of public morals and\n  manners, and make all men more gentle, more virtuous, more\n  charitable, and in all ways better, and holier, and happier; and\n  yet this black-hearted scoundrel degrades his great office\n  persistently to the dissemination of falsehood, calumny,\n  vituperation, and vulgarity.\n\n  \"Blathersville wants a Nicholson pavement--it wants a jail and a\n  poor-house more. The idea of a pavement in a one-horse town\n  composed of two gin-mills, a blacksmith-shop, and that\n  mustard-plaster of a newspaper, the _Daily Hurrah_! The crawling\n  insect, Buckner, who edits the _Hurrah_, is braying about this\n  business with his customary imbecility, and imagining that he is\n  talking sense.\"\n\n\"Now _that_ is the way to write--peppery and to the point.\nMush-and-milk journalism gives me the fan-tods.\"\n\nAbout this time a brick came through the window with a splintering\ncrash, and gave me a considerable of a jolt in the back. I moved\nout of range--I began to feel in the way.\n\nThe chief said: \"That was the Colonel, likely. I've been expecting\nhim for two days. He will be up now right away.\"\n\nHe was correct. The Colonel appeared in the door a moment\nafterwards with a dragoon revolver in his hand.\n\nHe said: \"Sir, have I the honor of addressing the poltroon who\nedits this mangy sheet?\"\n\n\"You have. Be seated, sir. Be careful of the chair, one of its legs\nis gone. I believe I have the honor of addressing the putrid liar,\nColonel Blatherskite Tecumseh?\"\n\n\"Right, sir. I have a little account to settle with you. If you are\nat leisure we will begin.\"\n\n\"I have an article on the 'Encouraging Progress of Moral and\nIntellectual Development in America' to finish, but there is no\nhurry. Begin.\"\n\nBoth pistols rang out their fierce clamor at the same instant. The\nchief lost a lock of his hair, and the Colonel's bullet ended its\ncareer in the fleshy part of my thigh. The Colonel's left shoulder\nwas clipped a little. They fired again. Both missed their men this\ntime, but I got my share, a shot in the arm. At the third fire both\ngentlemen were wounded slightly, and I had a knuckle chipped. I\nthen said I believed I would go out and take a walk, as this was a\nprivate matter, and I had a delicacy about participating in it\nfurther. But both gentlemen begged me to keep my seat, and assured\nme that I was not in the way.\n\nThey then talked about the elections and the crops while they\nreloaded, and I fell to tying up my wounds. But presently they\nopened fire again with animation, and every shot took effect--but\nit is proper to remark that five out of the six fell to my share.\nThe sixth one mortally wounded the Colonel, who remarked, with fine\nhumor, that he would have to say good-morning now, as he had\nbusiness up-town. He then inquired the way to the undertaker's and\nleft.\n\nThe chief turned to me and said: \"I am expecting company to dinner,\nand shall have to get ready. It will be a favor to me if you will\nread proof and attend to the customers.\"\n\nI winced a little at the idea of attending to the customers, but I\nwas too bewildered by the fusillade that was still ringing in my\nears to think of anything to say.\n\nHe continued: \"Jones will be here at three--cowhide him. Gillespie\nwill call earlier, perhaps--throw him out of the window. Ferguson\nwill be along about four--kill him. That is all for to-day, I\nbelieve. If you have any odd time, you may write a blistering\narticle on the police--give the chief inspector rats. The cowhides\nare under the table; weapons in the drawer--ammunition there in the\ncorner--lint and bandages up there in the pigeon-holes. In case of\naccident, go to Lancet, the surgeon, down-stairs. He advertises--we\ntake it out in trade.\"\n\n[Illustration: \"GILLESPIE HAD CALLED\"]\n\nHe was gone. I shuddered. At the end of the next three hours I\nhad been through perils so awful that all peace of mind and all\ncheerfulness were gone from me. Gillespie had called and thrown\n_me_ out of the window. Jones arrived promptly, and when I got\nready to do the cowhiding he took the job off my hands. In an\nencounter with a stranger, not in the bill of fare, I had lost my\nscalp. Another stranger, by the name of Thompson, left me a mere\nwreck and ruin of chaotic rags. And at last, at bay in the corner,\nand beset by an infuriated mob of editors, blacklegs, politicians,\nand desperadoes, who raved and swore and flourished their weapons\nabout my head till the air shimmered with glancing flashes of\nsteel, I was in the act of resigning my berth on the paper when the\nchief arrived, and with him a rabble of charmed and enthusiastic\nfriends. Then ensued a scene of riot and carnage such as no human\npen, or steel one either, could describe. People were shot, probed,\ndismembered, blown up, thrown out of the window. There was a brief\ntornado of murky blasphemy, with a confused and frantic war-dance\nglimmering through it, and then all was over. In five minutes there\nwas silence, and the gory chief and I sat alone and surveyed the\nsanguinary ruin that strewed the floor around us.\n\nHe said: \"You'll like this place when you get used to it.\"\n\nI said: \"I'll have to get you to excuse me; I think maybe I\nmight write to suit you after a while; as soon as I had had some\npractice and learned the language I am confident I could. But, to\nspeak the plain truth, that sort of energy of expression has its\ninconveniences, and a man is liable to interruption. You see that\nyourself. Vigorous writing is calculated to elevate the public, no\ndoubt, but then I do not like to attract so much attention as it\ncalls forth. I can't write with comfort when I am interrupted so\nmuch as I have been to-day. I like this berth well enough, but I\ndon't like to be left here to wait on the customers. The\nexperiences are novel, I grant you, and entertaining, too, after a\nfashion, but they are not judiciously distributed. A gentleman\nshoots at you through the window and cripples _me_; a bomb-shell\ncomes down the stove-pipe for your gratification and sends the\nstove-door down _my_ throat; a friend drops in to swap compliments\nwith you, and freckles _me_ with bullet-holes till my skin won't\nhold my principles; you go to dinner, and Jones comes with his\ncowhide, Gillespie throws me out of the window, Thompson tears all\nmy clothes off, and an entire stranger takes my scalp with the easy\nfreedom of an old acquaintance; and in less than five minutes all\nthe blackguards in the country arrive in their war-paint, and\nproceed to scare the rest of me to death with their tomahawks. Take\nit altogether, I never had such a spirited time in all my life as I\nhave had to-day. No; I like you, and I like your calm, unruffled\nway of explaining things to the customers, but you see I am not\nused to it. The Southern heart is too impulsive; Southern\nhospitality is too lavish with the stranger. The paragraphs which I\nhave written to-day, and into whose cold sentences your masterly\nhand has infused the fervent spirit of Tennessean journalism, will\nwake up another nest of hornets. All that mob of editors will\ncome--and they will come hungry, too, and want somebody for\nbreakfast. I shall have to bid you adieu. I decline to be present\nat these festivities. I came South for my health; I will go back on\nthe same errand, and suddenly. Tennessean journalism is too\nstirring for me.\"\n\nAfter which we parted with mutual regret, and I took apartments at\nthe hospital.\n\n\n\n\nNicodemus Dodge--Printer\n\n\nWhen I was a boy in a printing-office in Missouri, a\nloose-jointed, long-legged, tow-headed, jeans-clad, countrified cub\nof about sixteen lounged in one day, and without removing his hands\nfrom the depths of his trousers pockets or taking off his faded\nruin of a slouch hat, whose broken rim hung limp and ragged about\nhis eyes and ears like a bug-eaten cabbage-leaf, stared\nindifferently around, then leaned his hip against the editors'\ntable, crossed his mighty brogans, aimed at a distant fly from a\ncrevice in his upper teeth, laid him low, and said, with composure:\n\n\"Whar's the boss?\"\n\n\"I am the boss,\" said the editor, following this curious bit of\narchitecture wonderingly along up to its clock-face with his eye.\n\n\"Don't want anybody fur to learn the business, 'tain't likely?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know. Would you like to learn it?\"\n\n\"Pap's so po' he cain't run me no mo', so I want to git a show\nsomers if I kin, 'tain't no diffunce what--I'm strong and hearty,\nand I don't turn my back on no kind of work, hard nur soft.\"\n\n\"Do you think you would like to learn the printing business?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't re'ly k'yer a durn what I _do_ learn, so's I git a\nchance fur to make my way. I'd jist as soon learn print'n' 's\nanything.\"\n\n\"Can you read?\"\n\n\"Yes--middlin'.\"\n\n\"Write?\"\n\n\"Well, I've seed people could lay over me thar.\"\n\n\"Cipher?\"\n\n\"Not good enough to keep store, I don't reckon, but up as fur as\ntwelve-times-twelve I ain't no slouch. 'Tother side of that is what\ngits me.\"\n\n\"Where is your home?\"\n\n\"I'm f'm old Shelby.\"\n\n\"What's your father's religious denomination?\"\n\n\"Him? Oh, he's a blacksmith.\"\n\n\"No, no--I don't mean his trade. What's his _religious_\ndenomination?\"\n\n\"_Oh_--I didn't understand you befo'. He's a Freemason.\"\n\n\"No, no; you don't get my meaning yet. What I mean is, does he\nbelong to any _church_?\"\n\n\"_Now_ you're talkin'! Gouldn't make out what you was\na-tryin' to git through yo' head no way. B'long to a _church_! Why,\nboss, he's be'n the pizenest kind of a Free-will Babtis' for forty\nyear. They ain't no pizener ones 'n' what _he_ is. Mighty good man,\npap is. Everybody says that. If they said any diffrunt they\nwouldn't say it whar _I_ wuz--not _much_ they wouldn't.\"\n\n\"What is your own religion?\"\n\n\"Well, boss, you've kind o' got me thar--and yit you hain't got me\nso mighty much, nuther. I think 't if a feller he'ps another feller\nwhen he's in trouble, and don't cuss, and don't do no mean things,\nnur noth'n' he ain' no business to do, and don't spell the\nSaviour's name with a little g, he ain't runnin' no resks--he's\nabout as saift as if he b'longed to a church.\"\n\n\"But suppose he did spell it with a little g--what then?\"\n\n\"Well, if he done it a-purpose, I reckon he wouldn't stand no\nchance,--he _oughtn't_ to have no chance, anyway, I'm most rotten\ncertain 'bout that.\"\n\n\"What is your name?\"\n\n\"Nicodemus Dodge.\"\n\n\"I think maybe you'll do, Nicodemus. We'll give you a trial,\nanyway.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\n\"When would you like to begin?\"\n\n\"Now.\"\n\nSo, within ten minutes after we had first glimpsed this nondescript\nhe was one of us, and with his coat off and hard at it.\n\nBeyond that end of our establishment which was farthest from the\nstreet was a deserted garden, pathless, and thickly grown with the\nbloomy and villanous \"jimpson\" weed and its common friend the\nstately sunflower. In the midst of this mournful spot was a decayed\nand aged little \"frame\" house with but one room, one window, and no\nceiling--it had been a smoke-house a generation before. Nicodemus\nwas given this lonely and ghostly den as a bedchamber.\n\nThe village smarties recognized a treasure in Nicodemus right\naway--a butt to play jokes on. It was easy to see that he was\ninconceivably green and confiding. George Jones had the glory of\nperpetrating the first joke on him; he gave him a cigar with a\nfire-cracker in it and winked to the crowd to come; the thing\nexploded presently and swept away the bulk of Nicodemus's eyebrows\nand eyelashes. He simply said:\n\n\"I consider them kind of seeg'yars dangersome\"--and seemed to\nsuspect nothing. The next evening Nicodemus waylaid George and\npoured a bucket of ice-water over him.\n\nOne day, while Nicodemus was in swimming, Tom McElroy \"tied\" his\nclothes. Nicodemus made a bonfire of Tom's by way of retaliation.\n\nA third joke was played upon Nicodemus a day or two later--he\nwalked up the middle aisle of the village church, Sunday night,\nwith a staring hand-bill pinned between his shoulders. The joker\nspent the remainder of the night, after church, in the cellar of a\ndeserted house, and Nicodemus sat on the cellar door till towards\nbreakfast-time to make sure that the prisoner remembered that if\nany noise was made some rough treatment would be the consequence.\nThe cellar had two feet of stagnant water in it, and was bottomed\nwith six inches of soft mud.\n\nBut I wander from the point. It was the subject of skeletons that\nbrought this boy back to my recollection. Before a very long time\nhad elapsed, the village smarties began to feel an uncomfortable\nconsciousness of not having made a very shining success out of\ntheir attempts on the simpleton from \"old Shelby.\" Experimenters\ngrew scarce and chary. Now the young doctor came to the rescue.\nThere was delight and applause when he proposed to scare Nicodemus\nto death, and explained how he was going to do it. He had a noble\nnew skeleton--the skeleton of the late and only local celebrity,\nJimmy Finn, the village drunkard--a grisly piece of property which\nhe had bought of Jimmy Finn himself, at auction, for fifty dollars,\nunder great competition, when Jimmy lay very sick in the tanyard a\nfortnight before his death. The fifty dollars had gone promptly for\nwhiskey and had considerably hurried up the change of ownership in\nthe skeleton. The doctor would put Jimmy Finn's skeleton in\nNicodemus's bed!\n\nThis was done--about half-past ten in the evening. About Nicodemus's\nusual bedtime--midnight--the village jokers came creeping stealthily\nthrough the jimpson weeds and sunflowers towards the lonely frame\nden. They reached the window and peeped in. There sat the long-legged\npauper, on his bed, in a very short shirt, and nothing more; he was\ndangling his legs contentedly back and forth, and wheezing the music\nof \"Camptown Races\" out of a paper-overlaid comb which he was pressing\nagainst his mouth; by him lay a new jews-harp, a new top, a solid\nindia-rubber ball, a handful of painted marbles, five pounds of\n\"store\" candy, and a well-knawed slab of gingerbread as big and as\nthick as a volume of sheet music. He had sold the skeleton to a\ntravelling quack for three dollars and was enjoying the result!\n\n[Illustration: \"WHEEZING THE MUSIC OF 'CAMPTOWN RACES'\"]\n\n\n\n\nMr. Bloke's Item\n\n\nOur esteemed friend, Mr. John William Bloke, of Virginia City,\nwalked into the office where we are sub-editor at a late hour last\nnight, with an expression of profound and heartfelt suffering upon\nhis countenance, and, sighing heavily, laid the following item\nreverently upon the desk, and walked slowly out again. He paused a\nmoment at the door, and seemed struggling to command his feelings\nsufficiently to enable him to speak, and then, nodding his head\ntowards his manuscript, ejaculated in a broken voice, \"Friend of\nmine--oh! how sad!\" and burst into tears. We were so moved at his\ndistress that we did not think to call him back and endeavor to\ncomfort him until he was gone, and it was too late. The paper had\nalready gone to press, but knowing that our friend would consider\nthe publication of this item important, and cherishing the hope\nthat to print it would afford a melancholy satisfaction to his\nsorrowing heart, we stopped the press at once and inserted it in\nour columns:\n\n  DISTRESSING ACCIDENT.--Last evening, about six o'clock, as Mr.\n  William Schuyler, an old and respectable citizen of South Park,\n  was leaving his residence to go down-town, as has been his usual\n  custom for many years with the exception only of a short interval\n  in the spring of 1850, during which he was confined to his bed by\n  injuries received in attempting to stop a runaway horse by\n  thoughtlessly placing himself directly in its wake and throwing\n  up his hands and shouting, which, if he had done so even a single\n  moment sooner, must inevitably have frightened the animal still\n  more instead of checking its speed, although disastrous enough to\n  himself as it was, and rendered more melancholy and distressing\n  by reason of the presence of his wife's mother, who was there and\n  saw the sad occurrence, notwithstanding it is at least likely,\n  though not necessarily so, that she should be reconnoitring in\n  another direction when incidents occur, not being vivacious and\n  on the lookout, as a general thing, but even the reverse, as her\n  own mother is said to have stated, who is no more, but died in\n  the full hope of a glorious resurrection, upward of three years\n  ago, aged eighty-six, being a Christian woman and without guile,\n  as it were, or property, in consequence of the fire of 1849,\n  which destroyed every single thing she had in the world. But such\n  is life. Let us all take warning by this solemn occurrence, and\n  let us endeavor so to conduct ourselves that when we come to die\n  we can do it. Let us place our hands upon our heart, and say with\n  earnestness and sincerity that from this day forth we will beware\n  of the intoxicating bowl.--_First edition of the Californian._\n\nThe head editor has been in here raising the mischief, and tearing\nhis hair and kicking the furniture about, and abusing me like a\npickpocket. He says that every time he leaves me in charge of the\npaper for half an hour, I get imposed upon by the first infant or\nthe first idiot that comes along. And he says that that distressing\nitem of Mr. Bloke's is nothing but a lot of distressing bosh, and\nhas no point to it, and no sense in it, and no information in it,\nand that there was no sort of necessity for stopping the press to\npublish it.\n\nNow all this comes of being good-hearted. If I had been as\nunaccommodating and unsympathetic as some people, I would have told\nMr. Bloke that I wouldn't receive his communication at such a late\nhour; but no, his snuffling distress touched my heart, and I jumped\nat the chance of doing something to modify his misery. I never read\nhis item to see whether there was anything wrong about it, but\nhastily wrote the few lines which preceded it, and sent it to the\nprinters. And what has my kindness done for me? It has done nothing\nbut bring down upon me a storm of abuse and ornamental blasphemy.\n\nNow I will read that item myself, and see if there is any\nfoundation for all this fuss. And if there is, the author of it\nshall hear from me.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have read it, and I am bound to admit that it seems a little\nmixed at a first glance. However, I will peruse it once more.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have read it again, and it does really seem a good deal more\nmixed than ever.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI have read it over five times, but if I can get at the meaning of\nit, I wish I may get my just deserts. It won't bear analysis. There\nare things about it which I cannot understand at all. It don't say\nwhat ever became of William Schuyler. It just says enough about him\nto get one interested in his career, and then drops him. Who is\nWilliam Schuyler, anyhow, and what part of South Park did he live in,\nand if he started down-town at six o'clock, did he ever get there,\nand if he did, did anything happen to him? Is _he_ the individual\nthat met with the \"distressing accident\"? Considering the elaborate\ncircumstantiality of detail observable in the item, it seems to me\nthat it ought to contain more information than it does. On the\ncontrary, it is obscure--and not only obscure, but utterly\nincomprehensible. Was the breaking of Mr. Schuyler's leg, fifteen\nyears ago, the \"distressing accident\" that plunged Mr. Bloke into\nunspeakable grief, and caused him to come up here at dead of night\nand stop our press to acquaint the world with the circumstance? Or\ndid the \"distressing accident\" consist in the destruction of\nSchuyler's mother-in-law's property in early times? Or did it consist\nin the death of that person herself three years ago (albeit it does\nnot appear that she died by accident)? In a word, what _did_ that\n\"distressing accident\" consist in? What did that drivelling ass of a\nSchuyler stand _in the wake_ of a runaway horse for, with his\nshouting and gesticulating, if he wanted to stop him? And how the\nmischief could he get run over by a horse that had already passed\nbeyond him? And what are we to take \"warning\" by? And how is this\nextraordinary chapter of incomprehensibilities going to be a \"lesson\"\nto us? And, above all, what has the intoxicating \"bowl\" got to do\nwith it, anyhow? It is not stated that Schuyler drank, or that his\nwife drank, or that his mother-in-law drank, or that the horse\ndrank--wherefore, then, the reference to the intoxicating bowl? It\ndoes seem to me that if Mr. Bloke had let the intoxicating bowl alone\nhimself, he never would have got into so much trouble about this\nexasperating imaginary accident. I have read this absurd item over\nand over again, with all its insinuating plausibility, until my head\nswims, but I can make neither head nor tail of it. There certainly\nseems to have been an accident of some kind or other, but it is\nimpossible to determine what the nature of it was, or who was the\nsufferer by it. I do not like to do it, but I feel compelled to\nrequest that the next time anything happens to one of Mr. Bloke's\nfriends, he will append such explanatory notes to his account of it\nas will enable me to find out what sort of an accident it was and whom\nit happened to. I had rather all his friends should die than that I\nshould be driven to the verge of lunacy again in trying to cipher out\nthe meaning of another such production as the above.\n\n[Illustration: \"I HAVE READ THIS ABSURD ITEM OVER\"]\n\n\n\n\nHow I Edited an Agricultural Paper\n\n\nI did not take temporary editorship of an agricultural paper\nwithout misgivings. Neither would a landsman take command of a ship\nwithout misgivings. But I was in circumstances that made the salary\nan object. The regular editor of the paper was going off for a\nholiday, and I accepted the terms he offered, and took his place.\n\nThe sensation of being at work again was luxurious, and I wrought\nall the week with unflagging pleasure. We went to press, and I\nwaited a day with some solicitude to see whether my effort was\ngoing to attract any notice. As I left the office, towards sundown,\na group of men and boys at the foot of the stairs dispersed with\none impulse, and gave me passageway, and I heard one or two of them\nsay, \"That's him!\" I was naturally pleased by this incident. The\nnext morning I found a similar group at the foot of the stairs, and\nscattering couples and individuals standing here and there in the\nstreet, and over the way, watching me with interest. The group\nseparated and fell back as I approached, and I heard a man say,\n\"Look at his eye!\" I pretended not to observe the notice I was\nattracting, but secretly I was pleased with it, and was purposing\nto write an account of it to my aunt. I went up the short flight of\nstairs, and heard cheery voices and a ringing laugh as I drew near\nthe door, which I opened, and caught a glimpse of two young\nrural-looking men, whose faces blanched and lengthened when they\nsaw me, and then they both plunged through the window with a great\ncrash. I was surprised.\n\nIn about half an hour an old gentleman, with a flowing beard and a\nfine but rather austere face, entered, and sat down at my invitation.\nHe seemed to have something on his mind. He took off his hat and set\nit on the floor, and got out of it a red silk handkerchief and a copy\nof our paper.\n\nHe put the paper on his lap, and while he polished his spectacles\nwith his handkerchief, he said, \"Are you the new editor?\"\n\nI said I was.\n\n\"Have you ever edited an agricultural paper before?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said; \"this is my first attempt.\"\n\n\"Very likely. Have you had any experience in agriculture\npractically?\"\n\n\"No; I believe I have not.\"\n\n\"Some instinct told me so,\" said the old gentleman, putting on his\nspectacles, and looking over them at me with asperity, while he\nfolded his paper into a convenient shape. \"I wish to read you what\nmust have made me have that instinct. It was this editorial.\nListen, and see if it was you that wrote it:\n\n  \"Turnips should never be pulled, it injures them. It is much\n  better to send a boy up and let him shake the tree.\"\n\n\"Now, what do you think of that--for I really suppose you wrote\nit?\"\n\n\"Think of it? Why, I think it is good. I think it is sense. I have\nno doubt that every year millions and millions of bushels of\nturnips are spoiled in this township alone by being pulled in a\nhalf-ripe condition, when, if they had sent a boy up to shake the\ntree--\"\n\n\"Shake your grandmother! Turnips don't grow on trees!\"\n\n\"Oh, they don't, don't they! Well, who said they did? The language\nwas intended to be figurative, wholly figurative. Anybody that\nknows anything will know that I meant that the boy should shake the\nvine.\"\n\nThen this old person got up and tore his paper all into small\nshreds, and stamped on them, and broke several things with his\ncane, and said I did not know as much as a cow; and then went out\nand banged the door after him, and, in short, acted in such a way\nthat I fancied he was displeased about something. But not knowing\nwhat the trouble was, I could not be any help to him.\n\nPretty soon after this a long cadaverous creature, with lanky\nlocks hanging down to his shoulders, and a week's stubble bristling\nfrom the hills and valleys of his face, darted within the door, and\nhalted, motionless, with finger on lip, and head and body bent in\nlistening attitude. No sound was heard. Still he listened. No\nsound. Then he turned the key in the door, and came elaborately\ntiptoeing towards me till he was within long reaching distance of\nme, when he stopped and, after scanning my face with intense\ninterest for a while, drew a folded copy of our paper from his\nbosom, and said:\n\n\"There, you wrote that. Read it to me--quick! Relieve me. I\nsuffer.\"\n\n[Illustration: \"A LONG CADAVEROUS CREATURE\"]\n\nI read as follows; and as the sentences fell from my lips I could see\nthe relief come, I could see the drawn muscles relax, and the anxiety\ngo out of the face, and rest and peace steal over the features like\nthe merciful moonlight over a desolate landscape:\n\n  \"The guano is a fine bird, but great care is necessary in rearing\n  it. It should not be imported earlier than June or later than\n  September. In the winter it should be kept in a warm place, where\n  it can hatch out its young.\n\n  \"It is evident that we are to have a backward season for grain.\n  Therefore it will be well for the farmer to begin setting out his\n  corn-stalks and planting his buckwheat-cakes in July instead of\n  August.\n\n  \"Concerning the pumpkin.--This berry is a favorite with the\n  natives of the interior of New England, who prefer it to the\n  gooseberry for the making of fruit-cake, and who likewise give it\n  the preference over the raspberry for feeding cows, as being more\n  filling and fully as satisfying. The pumpkin is the only esculent\n  of the orange family that will thrive in the North, except the\n  gourd and one or two varieties of the squash. But the custom of\n  planting it in the front yard with the shrubbery is fast going\n  out of vogue, for it is now generally conceded that the pumpkin\n  as a shade tree is a failure.\n\n  \"Now, as the warm weather approaches, and the ganders begin to\n  spawn\"--\n\nThe excited listener sprang towards me to shake hands, and said:\n\n\"There, there--that will do. I know I am all right now, because\nyou have read it just as I did, word for word. But, stranger, when\nI first read it this morning, I said to myself, I never, never\nbelieved it before, notwithstanding my friends kept me under watch\nso strict, but now I believe I _am_ crazy; and with that I fetched\na howl that you might have heard two miles, and started out to kill\nsomebody--because, you know, I knew it would come to that sooner or\nlater, and so I might as well begin. I read one of them paragraphs\nover again, so as to be certain, and then I burned my house down\nand started. I have crippled several people, and have got one\nfellow up a tree, where I can get him if I want him. But I thought\nI would call in here as I passed along and make the thing perfectly\ncertain; and now it _is_ certain, and I tell you it is lucky for\nthe chap that is in the tree. I should have killed him sure, as I\nwent back. Good-bye, sir, good-bye; you have taken a great load off\nmy mind. My reason has stood the strain of one of your agricultural\narticles, and I know that nothing can ever unseat it now.\n_Good_-bye, sir.\"\n\nI felt a little uncomfortable about the cripplings and arsons this\nperson had been entertaining himself with, for I could not help\nfeeling remotely accessory to them. But these thoughts were quickly\nbanished, for the regular editor walked in! [I thought to myself,\nNow if you had gone to Egypt, as I recommended you to, I might have\nhad a chance to get my hand in; but you wouldn't do it, and here\nyou are. I sort of expected you.]\n\nThe editor was looking sad and perplexed and dejected.\n\nHe surveyed the wreck which that old rioter and these two young\nfarmers had made, and then said: \"This is a sad business--a very\nsad business. There is the mucilage-bottle broken, and six panes of\nglass, and a spittoon, and two candlesticks. But that is not the\nworst. The reputation of the paper is injured--and permanently, I\nfear. True, there never was such a call for the paper before, and\nit never sold such a large edition or soared to such celebrity; but\ndoes one want to be famous for lunacy, and prosper upon the\ninfirmities of his mind? My friend, as I am an honest man, the\nstreet out here is full of people, and others are roosting on the\nfences, waiting to get a glimpse of you, because they think you are\ncrazy. And well they might after reading your editorials. They are\na disgrace to journalism. Why, what put it into your head that you\ncould edit a paper of this nature? You do not seem to know the first\nrudiments of agriculture. You speak of a furrow and a harrow as being\nthe same thing; you talk of the moulting season for cows; and you\nrecommend the domestication of the polecat on account of its\nplayfulness and its excellence as a ratter! Your remark that clams\nwill lie quiet if music be played to them was superfluous--entirely\nsuperfluous. Nothing disturbs clams. Clams _always_ lie quiet. Clams\ncare nothing whatever about music. Ah, heavens and earth, friend! if\nyou had made the acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you\ncould not have graduated with higher honor than you could to-day. I\nnever saw anything like it. Your observation that the horse-chestnut\nas an article of commerce is steadily gaining in favor, is simply\ncalculated to destroy this journal. I want you to throw up your\nsituation and go. I want no more holiday--I could not enjoy it if I\nhad it. Certainly not with you in my chair. I would always stand in\ndread of what you might be going to recommend next. It makes me lose\nall patience every time I think of your discussing oyster-beds under\nthe head of 'Landscape Gardening.' I want you to go. Nothing on earth\ncould persuade me to take another holiday. Oh! why didn't you _tell_\nme you didn't know anything about agriculture?\"\n\n\"_Tell_ you, you cornstalk, you cabbage, you son of a\ncauliflower? It's the first time I ever heard such an unfeeling\nremark. I tell you I have been in the editorial business going on\nfourteen years, and it is the first time I ever heard of a man's\nhaving to know anything in order to edit a newspaper. You turnip!\nWho write the dramatic critiques for the second-rate papers? Why, a\nparcel of promoted shoemakers and apprentice apothecaries, who know\njust as much about good acting as I do about good farming and no\nmore. Who review the books? People who never wrote one. Who do up\nthe heavy leaders on finance? Parties who have had the largest\nopportunities for knowing nothing about it. Who criticise the\nIndian campaigns? Gentlemen who do not know a warwhoop from a\nwigwam, and who never have had to run a foot-race with a tomahawk,\nor pluck arrows out of the several members of their families to\nbuild the evening campfire with. Who write the temperance appeals,\nand clamor about the flowing bowl? Folks who will never draw\nanother sober breath till they do it in the grave. Who edit the\nagricultural papers, you--yam? Men, as a general thing, who fail in\nthe poetry line, yellow-colored novel line, sensation-drama line,\ncity-editor line, and finally fall back on agriculture as a\ntemporary reprieve from the poor-house. _You_ try to tell _me_\nanything about the newspaper business! Sir, I have been through it\nfrom Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the\nbigger the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands.\nHeaven knows if I had but been ignorant instead of cultivated, and\nimpudent instead of diffident, I could have made a name for myself\nin this cold selfish world. I take my leave, sir. Since I have been\ntreated as you have treated me, I am perfectly willing to go. But I\nhave done my duty. I have fulfilled my contract as far as I was\npermitted to do it. I said I could make your paper of interest to\nall classes--and I have. I said I could run your circulation up to\ntwenty thousand copies, and if I had had two more weeks I'd have\ndone it. And I'd have given you the best class of readers that ever\nan agricultural paper had--not a farmer in it, nor a solitary\nindividual who could tell a watermelon-tree from a peach-vine to\nsave his life. _You_ are the loser by this rupture, not me,\nPie-plant. Adios.\"\n\nI then left.\n\n\n\n\nThe Killing of Julius C\u00e6sar \"Localized\"\n\n    _Being the only true and reliable account ever published; taken from\n    the \"Roman Daily Evening Fasces,\" of the date of that tremendous\n    occurrence._\n\n\nNothing in the world affords a newspaper reporter so much\nsatisfaction as gathering up the details of a bloody and mysterious\nmurder, and writing them up with aggravating circumstantiality. He\ntakes a living delight in this labor of love--for such it is to\nhim, especially if he knows that all the other papers have gone to\npress, and his will be the only one that will contain the dreadful\nintelligence. A feeling of regret has often come over me that I was\nnot reporting in Rome when C\u00e6sar was killed--reporting on an\nevening paper, and the only one in the city, and getting at least\ntwelve hours ahead of the morning-paper boys with this most\nmagnificent \"item\" that ever fell to the lot of the craft. Other\nevents have happened as startling as this, but none that possessed\nso peculiarly all the characteristics of the favorite \"item\" of the\npresent day, magnified into grandeur and sublimity by the high\nrank, fame, and social and political standing of the actors in it.\n\nHowever, as I was not permitted to report C\u00e6sar's assassination in\nthe regular way, it has at least afforded me rare satisfaction to\ntranslate the following able account of it from the original Latin\nof the _Roman Daily Evening Fasces_ of that date--second edition.\n\n  \"Our usually quiet city of Rome was thrown into a state of wild\n  excitement yesterday by the occurrence of one of those bloody\n  affrays which sicken the heart and fill the soul with fear, while\n  they inspire all thinking men with forebodings for the future of\n  a city where human life is held so cheaply, and the gravest laws\n  are so openly set at defiance. As the result of that affray, it\n  is our painful duty, as public journalists, to record the death\n  of one of our most esteemed citizens--a man whose name is known\n  wherever this paper circulates, and whose fame it has been our\n  pleasure and our privilege to extend, and also to protect from\n  the tongue of slander and falsehood, to the best of our poor\n  ability. We refer to Mr. J. C\u00e6sar, the Emperor-elect.\n\n  \"The facts of the case, as nearly as our reporter could\n  determine them from the conflicting statements of eyewitnesses,\n  were about as follows:--The affair was an election row, of\n  course. Nine-tenths of the ghastly butcheries that disgrace the\n  city nowadays grow out of the bickerings and jealousies and\n  animosities engendered by these accursed elections. Rome would be\n  the gainer by it if her very constables were elected to serve a\n  century; for in our experience we have never even been able to\n  choose a dog-pelter without celebrating the event with a dozen\n  knockdowns and a general cramming of the station-house with\n  drunken vagabonds overnight. It is said that when the immense\n  majority for C\u00e6sar at the polls in the market was declared the\n  other day, and the crown was offered to that gentleman, even his\n  amazing unselfishness in refusing it three times was not\n  sufficient to save him from the whispered insults of such men as\n  Casca, of the Tenth Ward, and other hirelings of the disappointed\n  candidate, hailing mostly from the Eleventh and Thirteenth and\n  other outside districts, who were overheard speaking ironically\n  and contemptuously of Mr. C\u00e6sar's conduct upon that occasion.\n\n  \"We are further informed that there are many among us who think\n  they are justified in believing that the assassination of Julius\n  C\u00e6sar was a put-up thing--a cut-and-dried arrangement, hatched by\n  Marcus Brutus and a lot of his hired roughs, and carried out only\n  too faithfully according to the programme. Whether there be good\n  grounds for this suspicion or not, we leave to the people to\n  judge for themselves, only asking that they will read the\n  following account of the sad occurrence carefully and\n  dispassionately before they render that judgment.\n\n  \"The Senate was already in session, and C\u00e6sar was coming down\n  the street towards the Capitol, conversing with some personal\n  friends, and followed, as usual, by a large number of citizens.\n  Just as he was passing in front of Demosthenes & Thucydides'\n  drug-store, he was observing casually to a gentleman, who, our\n  informant thinks, is a fortune-teller, that the Ides of March\n  were come. The reply was, 'Yes, they are come, but not gone yet.'\n  At this moment Artemidorus stepped up and passed the time of day,\n  and asked C\u00e6sar to read a schedule or a tract or something of the\n  kind, which he had brought for his perusal. Mr. Decius Brutus\n  also said something about an 'humble suit' which _he_ wanted\n  read. Artemidorus begged that attention might be paid to his\n  first, because it was of personal consequence to C\u00e6sar. The\n  latter replied that what concerned himself should be read last,\n  or words to that effect. Artemidorus begged and beseeched him to\n  read the paper instantly.[1] However, C\u00e6sar shook him off, and\n  refused to read any petition in the street. He then entered the\n  Capitol, and the crowd followed him.\n\n  \"About this time the following conversation was overheard, and we\n  consider that, taken in connection with the events which\n  succeeded it, it bears an appalling significance: Mr. Papilius\n  Lena remarked to George W. Cassius (commonly known as the 'Nobby\n  Boy of the Third Ward'), a bruiser in the pay of the Opposition,\n  that he hoped his enterprise to-day might thrive; and when\n  Cassius asked, 'What enterprise?' he only closed his left eye\n  temporarily and said with simulated indifference, 'Fare you\n  well,' and sauntered towards C\u00e6sar. Marcus Brutus, who is\n  suspected of being the ringleader of the band that killed C\u00e6sar,\n  asked what it was that Lena had said. Cassius told him, and\n  added, in a low tone, '_I fear our purpose is discovered._'\n\n  \"Brutus told his wretched accomplice to keep an eye on Lena,\n  and a moment after Cassius urged that lean and hungry vagrant,\n  Casca, whose reputation here is none of the best, to be sudden\n  for _he feared prevention_. He then turned to Brutus, apparently\n  much excited, and asked what should be done, and swore that\n  either he or C\u00e6sar _should never turn back_--he would kill\n  himself first. At this time C\u00e6sar was talking to some of the\n  back-country members about the approaching fall elections, and\n  paying little attention to what was going on around him. Billy\n  Trebonius got into conversation with the people's friend and\n  C\u00e6sar's--Mark Antony--and under some pretence or other got him\n  away, and Brutus, Decius, Casca, Cinna, Metellus Cimber, and\n  others of the gang of infamous desperadoes that infest Rome at\n  present, closed around the doomed C\u00e6sar. Then Metellus Cimber\n  knelt down and begged that his brother might be recalled from\n  banishment, but C\u00e6sar rebuked him for his fawning conduct, and\n  refused to grant his petition. Immediately, at Cimber's request,\n  first Brutus and then Cassius begged for the return of the\n  banished Publius; but C\u00e6sar still refused. He said he could not\n  be moved; that he was as fixed as the North Star, and proceeded\n  to speak in the most complimentary terms of the firmness of that\n  star and its steady character. Then he said he was like it, and\n  he believed he was the only man in the country that was;\n  therefore, since he was 'constant' that Cimber should be\n  banished, he was also 'constant' that he should stay banished,\n  and he'd be hanged if he didn't keep him so!\n\n  \"Instantly seizing upon this shallow pretext for a fight,\n  Casca sprang at C\u00e6sar and struck him with a dirk. C\u00e6sar grabbing\n  him by the arm with his right hand, and launching a blow straight\n  from the shoulder with his left that sent the reptile bleeding to\n  the earth. He then backed up against Pompey's statue, and squared\n  himself to receive his assailants. Cassius and Cimber and Cinna\n  rushed upon him with their daggers drawn, and the former\n  succeeded in inflicting a wound upon his body; but before he\n  could strike again, and before either of the others could strike\n  at all, C\u00e6sar stretched the three miscreants at his feet with as\n  many blows of his powerful fist. By this time the Senate was in\n  an indescribable uproar; the throng of citizens in the lobbies\n  had blockaded the doors in their frantic efforts to escape from\n  the building, the sergeant-at-arms and his assistants were\n  struggling with the assassins, venerable senators had cast aside\n  their encumbering robes, and were leaping over benches and flying\n  down the aisles in wild confusion towards the shelter of the\n  committee-rooms, and a thousand voices were shouting 'Po-lice!\n  Po-lice!' in discordant tones that rose above the frightful din\n  like shrieking winds above the roaring of a tempest. And amid it\n  all, great C\u00e6sar stood with his back against the statue, like a\n  lion at bay, and fought his assailants weaponless and hand to\n  hand, with the defiant bearing and the unwavering courage which\n  he had shown before on many a bloody field. Billy Trebonius and\n  Caius Legarius struck him with their daggers and fell, as their\n  brother-conspirators before them had fallen. But at last, when\n  C\u00e6sar saw his old friend Brutus step forward armed with a\n  murderous knife, it is said he seemed utterly overpowered with\n  grief and amazement, and dropping his invincible left arm by his\n  side, he hid his face in the folds of his mantle and received the\n  treacherous blow without an effort to stay the hand that gave it.\n  He only said, '_Et tu, Brute?_' and fell lifeless on the marble\n  pavement.\n\n  \"We learn that the coat deceased had on when he was killed was\n  the same one he wore in his tent on the afternoon of the day he\n  overcame the Nervii, and that when it was removed from the corpse\n  it was found to be cut and gashed in no less than seven different\n  places. There was nothing in the pockets. It will be exhibited at\n  the coroner's inquest, and will be damning proof of the fact of\n  the killing. These latter facts may be relied on, as we get them\n  from Mark Antony, whose position enables him to learn every item\n  of news connected with the one subject of absorbing interest of\n  to-day.\n\n  [Illustration: \"THERE WAS NOTHING IN THE POCKETS\"]\n\n  \"LATER.--While the coroner was summoning a jury, Mark Antony and\n  other friends of the late C\u00e6sar got hold of the body, and lugged\n  it off to the Forum, and at last accounts Antony and Brutus were\n  making speeches over it and raising such a row among the people\n  that, as we go to press, the chief of police is satisfied there\n  is going to be a riot, and is taking measures accordingly.\"\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Mark that: It is hinted by William Shakespeare, who\nsaw the beginning and the end of the unfortunate affray, that this\n\"schedule\" was simply a note discovering to C\u00e6sar that a plot was\nbrewing to take his life.]\n\n\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"19987":"\n\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DXCVIII.\n\nSEPTEMBER 7, 1906\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--I.[1]\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n     PREFATORY NOTE.--Mr. Clemens began to write his autobiography many\n     years ago, and he continues to add to it day by day. It was his\n     original intention to permit no publication of his memoirs until\n     after his death; but, after leaving \"Pier No. 70,\" he concluded\n     that a considerable portion might now suitably be given to the\n     public. It is that portion, garnered from the quarter-million of\n     words already written, which will appear in this REVIEW during the\n     coming year. No part of the autobiography will be published in book\n     form during the lifetime of the author.--EDITOR N. A. R.\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\nI intend that this autobiography shall become a model for all future\nautobiographies when it is published, after my death, and I also intend\nthat it shall be read and admired a good many centuries because of its\nform and method--a form and method whereby the past and the present are\nconstantly brought face to face, resulting in contrasts which newly fire\nup the interest all along, like contact of flint with steel. Moreover,\nthis autobiography of mine does not select from my life its showy\nepisodes, but deals mainly in the common experiences which go to make up\nthe life of the average human being, because these episodes are of a\nsort which he is familiar with in his own life, and in which he sees his\nown life reflected and set down in print. The usual, conventional\nautobiographer seems to particularly hunt out those occasions in his\ncareer when he came into contact with celebrated persons, whereas his\ncontacts with the uncelebrated were just as interesting to him, and\nwould be to his reader, and were vastly more numerous than his\ncollisions with the famous.\n\nHowells was here yesterday afternoon, and I told him the whole scheme of\nthis autobiography and its apparently systemless system--only apparently\nsystemless, for it is not really that. It is a deliberate system, and\nthe law of the system is that I shall talk about the matter which for\nthe moment interests me, and cast it aside and talk about something else\nthe moment its interest for me is exhausted. It is a system which\nfollows no charted course and is not going to follow any such course. It\nis a system which is a complete and purposed jumble--a course which\nbegins nowhere, follows no specified route, and can never reach an end\nwhile I am alive, for the reason that, if I should talk to the\nstenographer two hours a day for a hundred years, I should still never\nbe able to set down a tenth part of the things which have interested me\nin my lifetime. I told Howells that this autobiography of mine would\nlive a couple of thousand years, without any effort, and would then take\na fresh start and live the rest of the time.\n\nHe said he believed it would, and asked me if I meant to make a library\nof it.\n\nI said that that was my design; but that, if I should live long enough,\nthe set of volumes could not be contained merely in a city, it would\nrequire a State, and that there would not be any multi-billionaire\nalive, perhaps, at any time during its existence who would be able to\nbuy a full set, except on the instalment plan.\n\nHowells applauded, and was full of praises and endorsement, which was\nwise in him and judicious. If he had manifested a different spirit, I\nwould have thrown him out of the window. I like criticism, but it must\nbe my way.\n\n\nI.\n\nBack of the Virginia Clemenses is a dim procession of ancestors\nstretching back to Noah's time. According to tradition, some of them\nwere pirates and slavers in Elizabeth's time. But this is no discredit\nto them, for so were Drake and Hawkins and the others. It was a\nrespectable trade, then, and monarchs were partners in it. In my time I\nhave had desires to be a pirate myself. The reader--if he will look deep\ndown in his secret heart, will find--but never mind what he will find\nthere; I am not writing his Autobiography, but mine. Later, according to\ntradition, one of the procession was Ambassador to Spain in the time of\nJames I, or of Charles I, and married there and sent down a strain of\nSpanish blood to warm us up. Also, according to tradition, this one or\nanother--Geoffrey Clement, by name--helped to sentence Charles to death.\n\nI have not examined into these traditions myself, partly because I was\nindolent, and partly because I was so busy polishing up this end of the\nline and trying to make it showy; but the other Clemenses claim that\nthey have made the examination and that it stood the test. Therefore I\nhave always taken for granted that I did help Charles out of his\ntroubles, by ancestral proxy. My instincts have persuaded me, too.\nWhenever we have a strong and persistent and ineradicable instinct, we\nmay be sure that it is not original with us, but inherited--inherited\nfrom away back, and hardened and perfected by the petrifying influence\nof time. Now I have been always and unchangingly bitter against Charles,\nand I am quite certain that this feeling trickled down to me through the\nveins of my forebears from the heart of that judge; for it is not my\ndisposition to be bitter against people on my own personal account I am\nnot bitter against Jeffreys. I ought to be, but I am not. It indicates\nthat my ancestors of James II's time were indifferent to him; I do not\nknow why; I never could make it out; but that is what it indicates. And\nI have always felt friendly toward Satan. Of course that is ancestral;\nit must be in the blood, for I could not have originated it.\n\n... And so, by the testimony of instinct, backed by the assertions of\nClemenses who said they had examined the records, I have always been\nobliged to believe that Geoffrey Clement the martyr-maker was an\nancestor of mine, and to regard him with favor, and in fact pride. This\nhas not had a good effect upon me, for it has made me vain, and that is\na fault. It has made me set myself above people who were less fortunate\nin their ancestry than I, and has moved me to take them down a peg, upon\noccasion, and say things to them which hurt them before company.\n\nA case of the kind happened in Berlin several years ago. William Walter\nPhelps was our Minister at the Emperor's Court, then, and one evening he\nhad me to dinner to meet Count S., a cabinet minister. This nobleman was\nof long and illustrious descent. Of course I wanted to let out the fact\nthat I had some ancestors, too; but I did not want to pull them out of\ntheir graves by the ears, and I never could seem to get the chance to\nwork them in in a way that would look sufficiently casual. I suppose\nPhelps was in the same difficulty. In fact he looked distraught, now and\nthen--just as a person looks who wants to uncover an ancestor purely by\naccident, and cannot think of a way that will seem accidental enough.\nBut at last, after dinner, he made a try. He took us about his\ndrawing-room, showing us the pictures, and finally stopped before a rude\nand ancient engraving. It was a picture of the court that tried Charles\nI. There was a pyramid of judges in Puritan slouch hats, and below them\nthree bare-headed secretaries seated at a table. Mr. Phelps put his\nfinger upon one of the three, and said with exulting indifference--\n\n\"An ancestor of mine.\"\n\nI put my finger on a judge, and retorted with scathing languidness--\n\n\"Ancestor of mine. But it is a small matter. I have others.\"\n\nIt was not noble in me to do it. I have always regretted it since. But\nit landed him. I wonder how he felt? However, it made no difference in\nour friendship, which shows that he was fine and high, notwithstanding\nthe humbleness of his origin. And it was also creditable in me, too,\nthat I could overlook it. I made no change in my bearing toward him, but\nalways treated him as an equal.\n\nBut it was a hard night for me in one way. Mr. Phelps thought I was the\nguest of honor, and so did Count S.; but I didn't, for there was nothing\nin my invitation to indicate it. It was just a friendly offhand note, on\na card. By the time dinner was announced Phelps was himself in a state\nof doubt. Something had to be done; and it was not a handy time for\nexplanations. He tried to get me to go out with him, but I held back;\nthen he tried S., and he also declined. There was another guest, but\nthere was no trouble about him. We finally went out in a pile. There was\na decorous plunge for seats, and I got the one at Mr. Phelps's left, the\nCount captured the one facing Phelps, and the other guest had to take\nthe place of honor, since he could not help himself. We returned to the\ndrawing-room in the original disorder. I had new shoes on, and they were\ntight. At eleven I was privately crying; I couldn't help it, the pain\nwas so cruel. Conversation had been dead for an hour. S. had been due at\nthe bedside of a dying official ever since half past nine. At last we\nall rose by one blessed impulse and went down to the street door without\nexplanations--in a pile, and no precedence; and so, parted.\n\nThe evening had its defects; still, I got my ancestor in, and was\nsatisfied.\n\nAmong the Virginian Clemenses were Jere. (already mentioned), and\nSherrard. Jere. Clemens had a wide reputation as a good pistol-shot, and\nonce it enabled him to get on the friendly side of some drummers when\nthey wouldn't have paid any attention to mere smooth words and\narguments. He was out stumping the State at the time. The drummers were\ngrouped in front of the stand, and had been hired by the opposition to\ndrum while he made his speech. When he was ready to begin, he got out\nhis revolver and laid it before him, and said in his soft, silky way--\n\n\"I do not wish to hurt anybody, and shall try not to; but I have got\njust a bullet apiece for those six drums, and if you should want to play\non them, don't stand behind them.\"\n\nSherrard Clemens was a Republican Congressman from West Virginia in the\nwar days, and then went out to St. Louis, where the James Clemens branch\nlived, and still lives, and there he became a warm rebel. This was after\nthe war. At the time that he was a Republican I was a rebel; but by the\ntime he had become a rebel I was become (temporarily) a Republican. The\nClemenses have always done the best they could to keep the political\nbalances level, no matter how much it might inconvenience them. I did\nnot know what had become of Sherrard Clemens; but once I introduced\nSenator Hawley to a Republican mass meeting in New England, and then I\ngot a bitter letter from Sherrard from St. Louis. He said that the\nRepublicans of the North--no, the \"mudsills of the North\"--had swept\naway the old aristocracy of the South with fire and sword, and it ill\nbecame me, an aristocrat by blood, to train with that kind of swine. Did\nI forget that I was a Lambton?\n\nThat was a reference to my mother's side of the house. As I have already\nsaid, she was a Lambton--Lambton with a p, for some of the American\nLamptons could not spell very well in early times, and so the name\nsuffered at their hands. She was a native of Kentucky, and married my\nfather in Lexington in 1823, when she was twenty years old and he\ntwenty-four. Neither of them had an overplus of property. She brought\nhim two or three negroes, but nothing else, I think. They removed to the\nremote and secluded village of Jamestown, in the mountain solitudes of\neast Tennessee. There their first crop of children was born, but as I\nwas of a later vintage I do not remember anything about it. I was\npostponed--postponed to Missouri. Missouri was an unknown new State and\nneeded attractions.\n\nI think that my eldest brother, Orion, my sisters Pamela and Margaret,\nand my brother Benjamin were born in Jamestown. There may have been\nothers, but as to that I am not sure. It was a great lift for that\nlittle village to have my parents come there. It was hoped that they\nwould stay, so that it would become a city. It was supposed that they\nwould stay. And so there was a boom; but by and by they went away, and\nprices went down, and it was many years before Jamestown got another\nstart. I have written about Jamestown in the \"Gilded Age,\" a book of\nmine, but it was from hearsay, not from personal knowledge. My father\nleft a fine estate behind him in the region round about\nJamestown--75,000 acres.[2] When he died in 1847 he had owned it about\ntwenty years. The taxes were almost nothing (five dollars a year for the\nwhole), and he had always paid them regularly and kept his title\nperfect. He had always said that the land would not become valuable in\nhis time, but that it would be a commodious provision for his children\nsome day. It contained coal, copper, iron and timber, and he said that\nin the course of time railways would pierce to that region, and then the\nproperty would be property in fact as well as in name. It also produced\na wild grape of a promising sort. He had sent some samples to Nicholas\nLongworth, of Cincinnati, to get his judgment upon them, and Mr.\nLongworth had said that they would make as good wine as his Catawbas.\nThe land contained all these riches; and also oil, but my father did not\nknow that, and of course in those early days he would have cared nothing\nabout it if he had known it. The oil was not discovered until about\n1895. I wish I owned a couple of acres of the land now. In which case I\nwould not be writing Autobiographies for a living. My father's dying\ncharge was, \"Cling to the land and wait; let nothing beguile it away\nfrom you.\" My mother's favorite cousin, James Lampton, who figures in\nthe \"Gilded Age\" as \"Colonel Sellers,\" always said of that land--and\nsaid it with blazing enthusiasm, too,--\"There's millions in\nit--millions!\" It is true that he always said that about everything--and\nwas always mistaken, too; but this time he was right; which shows that a\nman who goes around with a prophecy-gun ought never to get discouraged;\nif he will keep up his heart and fire at everything he sees, he is bound\nto hit something by and by.\n\nMany persons regarded \"Colonel Sellers\" as a fiction, an invention, an\nextravagant impossibility, and did me the honor to call him a\n\"creation\"; but they were mistaken. I merely put him on paper as he was;\nhe was not a person who could be exaggerated. The incidents which looked\nmost extravagant, both in the book and on the stage, were not inventions\nof mine but were facts of his life; and I was present when they were\ndeveloped. John T. Raymond's audiences used to come near to dying with\nlaughter over the turnip-eating scene; but, extravagant as the scene\nwas, it was faithful to the facts, in all its absurd details. The thing\nhappened in Lampton's own house, and I was present. In fact I was myself\nthe guest who ate the turnips. In the hands of a great actor that\npiteous scene would have dimmed any manly spectator's eyes with tears,\nand racked his ribs apart with laughter at the same time. But Raymond\nwas great in humorous portrayal only. In that he was superb, he was\nwonderful--in a word, great; in all things else he was a pigmy of the\npigmies.\n\nThe real Colonel Sellers, as I knew him in James Lampton, was a pathetic\nand beautiful spirit, a manly man, a straight and honorable man, a man\nwith a big, foolish, unselfish heart in his bosom, a man born to be\nloved; and he was loved by all his friends, and by his family\nworshipped. It is the right word. To them he was but little less than a\ngod. The real Colonel Sellers was never on the stage. Only half of him\nwas there. Raymond could not play the other half of him; it was above\nhis level. That half was made up of qualities of which Raymond was\nwholly destitute. For Raymond was not a manly man, he was not an\nhonorable man nor an honest one, he was empty and selfish and vulgar and\nignorant and silly, and there was a vacancy in him where his heart\nshould have been. There was only one man who could have played the whole\nof Colonel Sellers, and that was Frank Mayo.[3]\n\nIt is a world of surprises. They fall, too, where one is least expecting\nthem. When I introduced Sellers into the book, Charles Dudley Warner,\nwho was writing the story with me, proposed a change of Seller's\nChristian name. Ten years before, in a remote corner of the West, he had\ncome across a man named Eschol Sellers, and he thought that Eschol was\njust the right and fitting name for our Sellers, since it was odd and\nquaint and all that. I liked the idea, but I said that that man might\nturn up and object. But Warner said it couldn't happen; that he was\ndoubtless dead by this time, a man with a name like that couldn't live\nlong; and be he dead or alive we must have the name, it was exactly the\nright one and we couldn't do without it. So the change was made.\nWarner's man was a farmer in a cheap and humble way. When the book had\nbeen out a week, a college-bred gentleman of courtly manners and ducal\nupholstery arrived in Hartford in a sultry state of mind and with a\nlibel suit in his eye, and _his_ name was Eschol Sellers! He had never\nheard of the other one, and had never been within a thousand miles of\nhim. This damaged aristocrat's programme was quite definite and\nbusinesslike: the American Publishing Company must suppress the edition\nas far as printed, and change the name in the plates, or stand a suit\nfor $10,000. He carried away the Company's promise and many apologies,\nand we changed the name back to Colonel Mulberry Sellers, in the plates.\nApparently there is nothing that cannot happen. Even the existence of\ntwo unrelated men wearing the impossible name of Eschol Sellers is a\npossible thing.\n\nJames Lampton floated, all his days, in a tinted mist of magnificent\ndreams, and died at last without seeing one of them realized. I saw him\nlast in 1884, when it had been twenty-six years since I ate the basin of\nraw turnips and washed them down with a bucket of water in his house. He\nwas become old and white-headed, but he entered to me in the same old\nbreezy way of his earlier life, and he was all there, yet--not a detail\nwanting: the happy light in his eye, the abounding hope in his heart,\nthe persuasive tongue, the miracle-breeding imagination--they were all\nthere; and before I could turn around he was polishing up his Aladdin's\nlamp and flashing the secret riches of the world before me. I said to\nmyself, \"I did not overdraw him by a shade, I set him down as he was;\nand he is the same man to-day. Cable will recognize him.\" I asked him to\nexcuse me a moment, and ran into the next room, which was Cable's; Cable\nand I were stumping the Union on a reading tour. I said--\n\n\"I am going to leave your door open, so that you can listen. There is a\nman in there who is interesting.\"\n\nI went back and asked Lampton what he was doing now. He began to tell me\nof a \"small venture\" he had begun in New Mexico through his son; \"only a\nlittle thing--a mere trifle--partly to amuse my leisure, partly to keep\nmy capital from lying idle, but mainly to develop the boy--develop the\nboy; fortune's wheel is ever revolving, he may have to work for his\nliving some day--as strange things have happened in this world. But it's\nonly a little thing--a mere trifle, as I said.\"\n\nAnd so it was--as he began it. But under his deft hands it grew, and\nblossomed, and spread--oh, beyond imagination. At the end of half an\nhour he finished; finished with the remark, uttered in an adorably\nlanguid manner:\n\n\"Yes, it is but a trifle, as things go nowadays--a bagatelle--but\namusing. It passes the time. The boy thinks great things of it, but he\nis young, you know, and imaginative; lacks the experience which comes of\nhandling large affairs, and which tempers the fancy and perfects the\njudgment. I suppose there's a couple of millions in it, possibly three,\nbut not more, I think; still, for a boy, you know, just starting in\nlife, it is not bad. I should not want him to make a fortune--let that\ncome later. It could turn his head, at his time of life, and in many\nways be a damage to him.\"\n\nThen he said something about his having left his pocketbook lying on the\ntable in the main drawing-room at home, and about its being after\nbanking hours, now, and--\n\nI stopped him, there, and begged him to honor Cable and me by being our\nguest at the lecture--with as many friends as might be willing to do us\nthe like honor. He accepted. And he thanked me as a prince might who\nhad granted us a grace. The reason I stopped his speech about the\ntickets was because I saw that he was going to ask me to furnish them to\nhim and let him pay next day; and I knew that if he made the debt he\nwould pay it if he had to pawn his clothes. After a little further chat\nhe shook hands heartily and affectionately, and took his leave. Cable\nput his head in at the door, and said--\n\n\"That was Colonel Sellers.\"\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Copyright, 1906, by Harper & Brothers. All Rights Reserved.\n\n[2] Correction. 1906: it was above 100,000, it appears.\n\n[3] Raymond was playing \"Colonel Sellers\" in 1876 and along there. About\ntwenty years later Mayo dramatized \"Pudd'nhead Wilson\" and played the\ntitle role delightfully.\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DXCIX.\n\nSEPTEMBER 21, 1906.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--II.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\nII.\n\nMy experiences as an author began early in 1867. I came to New York from\nSan Francisco in the first month of that year and presently Charles H.\nWebb, whom I had known in San Francisco as a reporter on _The Bulletin_,\nand afterward editor of _The Californian_, suggested that I publish a\nvolume of sketches. I had but a slender reputation to publish it on, but\nI was charmed and excited by the suggestion and quite willing to venture\nit if some industrious person would save me the trouble of gathering the\nsketches together. I was loath to do it myself, for from the beginning\nof my sojourn in this world there was a persistent vacancy in me where\nthe industry ought to be. (\"Ought to was\" is better, perhaps, though\nthe most of the authorities differ as to this.)\n\nWebb said I had some reputation in the Atlantic States, but I knew quite\nwell that it must be of a very attenuated sort. What there was of it\nrested upon the story of \"The Jumping Frog.\" When Artemus Ward passed\nthrough California on a lecturing tour, in 1865 or '66, I told him the\n\"Jumping Frog\" story, in San Francisco, and he asked me to write it out\nand send it to his publisher, Carleton, in New York, to be used in\npadding out a small book which Artemus had prepared for the press and\nwhich needed some more stuffing to make it big enough for the price\nwhich was to be charged for it.\n\nIt reached Carleton in time, but he didn't think much of it, and was not\nwilling to go to the typesetting expense of adding it to the book. He\ndid not put it in the waste-basket, but made Henry Clapp a present of\nit, and Clapp used it to help out the funeral of his dying literary\njournal, _The Saturday Press_. \"The Jumping Frog\" appeared in the last\nnumber of that paper, was the most joyous feature of the obsequies, and\nwas at once copied in the newspapers of America and England. It\ncertainly had a wide celebrity, and it still had it at the time that I\nam speaking of--but I was aware that it was only the frog that was\ncelebrated. It wasn't I. I was still an obscurity.\n\nWebb undertook to collate the sketches. He performed this office, then\nhanded the result to me, and I went to Carleton's establishment with it.\nI approached a clerk and he bent eagerly over the counter to inquire\ninto my needs; but when he found that I had come to sell a book and not\nto buy one, his temperature fell sixty degrees, and the old-gold\nintrenchments in the roof of my mouth contracted three-quarters of an\ninch and my teeth fell out. I meekly asked the privilege of a word with\nMr. Carleton, and was coldly informed that he was in his private office.\nDiscouragements and difficulties followed, but after a while I got by\nthe frontier and entered the holy of holies. Ah, now I remember how I\nmanaged it! Webb had made an appointment for me with Carleton; otherwise\nI never should have gotten over that frontier. Carleton rose and said\nbrusquely and aggressively,\n\n\"Well, what can I do for you?\"\n\nI reminded him that I was there by appointment to offer him my book for\npublication. He began to swell, and went on swelling and swelling and\nswelling until he had reached the dimensions of a god of about the\nsecond or third degree. Then the fountains of his great deep were broken\nup, and for two or three minutes I couldn't see him for the rain. It was\nwords, only words, but they fell so densely that they darkened the\natmosphere. Finally he made an imposing sweep with his right hand, which\ncomprehended the whole room and said,\n\n\"Books--look at those shelves! Every one of them is loaded with books\nthat are waiting for publication. Do I want any more? Excuse me, I\ndon't. Good morning.\"\n\nTwenty-one years elapsed before I saw Carleton again. I was then\nsojourning with my family at the Schweitzerhof, in Luzerne. He called on\nme, shook hands cordially, and said at once, without any preliminaries,\n\n\"I am substantially an obscure person, but I have at least one\ndistinction to my credit of such colossal dimensions that it entitles me\nto immortality--to wit: I refused a book of yours, and for this I stand\nwithout competitor as the prize ass of the nineteenth century.\"\n\nIt was a most handsome apology, and I told him so, and said it was a\nlong-delayed revenge but was sweeter to me than any other that could be\ndevised; that during the lapsed twenty-one years I had in fancy taken\nhis life several times every year, and always in new and increasingly\ncruel and inhuman ways, but that now I was pacified, appeased, happy,\neven jubilant; and that thenceforth I should hold him my true and valued\nfriend and never kill him again.\n\nI reported my adventure to Webb, and he bravely said that not all the\nCarletons in the universe should defeat that book; he would publish it\nhimself on a ten per cent. royalty. And so he did. He brought it out in\nblue and gold, and made a very pretty little book of it, I think he\nnamed it \"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other\nSketches,\" price $1.25. He made the plates and printed and bound the\nbook through a job-printing house, and published it through the American\nNews Company.\n\nIn June I sailed in the _Quaker City_ Excursion. I returned in November,\nand in Washington found a letter from Elisha Bliss, of the American\nPublishing Company of Hartford, offering me five per cent. royalty on a\nbook which should recount the adventures of the Excursion. In lieu of\nthe royalty, I was offered the alternative of ten thousand dollars cash\nupon delivery of the manuscript. I consulted A. D. Richardson and he\nsaid \"take the royalty.\" I followed his advice and closed with Bliss. By\nmy contract I was to deliver the manuscript in July of 1868. I wrote the\nbook in San Francisco and delivered the manuscript within contract time.\nBliss provided a multitude of illustrations for the book, and then\nstopped work on it. The contract date for the issue went by, and there\nwas no explanation of this. Time drifted along and still there was no\nexplanation. I was lecturing all over the country; and about thirty\ntimes a day, on an average, I was trying to answer this conundrum:\n\n\"When is your book coming out?\"\n\nI got tired of inventing new answers to that question, and by and by I\ngot horribly tired of the question itself. Whoever asked it became my\nenemy at once, and I was usually almost eager to make that appear.\n\nAs soon as I was free of the lecture-field I hastened to Hartford to\nmake inquiries. Bliss said that the fault was not his; that he wanted to\npublish the book but the directors of his Company were staid old fossils\nand were afraid of it. They had examined the book, and the majority of\nthem were of the opinion that there were places in it of a humorous\ncharacter. Bliss said the house had never published a book that had a\nsuspicion like that attaching to it, and that the directors were afraid\nthat a departure of this kind would seriously injure the house's\nreputation; that he was tied hand and foot, and was not permitted to\ncarry out his contract. One of the directors, a Mr. Drake--at least he\nwas the remains of what had once been a Mr. Drake--invited me to take a\nride with him in his buggy, and I went along. He was a pathetic old\nrelic, and his ways and his talk were also pathetic. He had a delicate\npurpose in view and it took him some time to hearten himself\nsufficiently to carry it out, but at last he accomplished it. He\nexplained the house's difficulty and distress, as Bliss had already\nexplained it. Then he frankly threw himself and the house upon my mercy\nand begged me to take away \"The Innocents Abroad\" and release the\nconcern from the contract. I said I wouldn't--and so ended the interview\nand the buggy excursion. Then I warned Bliss that he must get to work or\nI should make trouble. He acted upon the warning, and set up the book\nand I read the proofs. Then there was another long wait and no\nexplanation. At last toward the end of July (1869, I think), I lost\npatience and telegraphed Bliss that if the book was not on sale in\ntwenty-four hours I should bring suit for damages.\n\nThat ended the trouble. Half a dozen copies were bound and placed on\nsale within the required time. Then the canvassing began, and went\nbriskly forward. In nine months the book took the publishing house out\nof debt, advanced its stock from twenty-five to two hundred, and left\nseventy thousand dollars profit to the good. It was Bliss that told me\nthis--but if it was true, it was the first time that he had told the\ntruth in sixty-five years. He was born in 1804.\n\n\nIII.\n\n... This was in 1849. I was fourteen years old, then. We were still\nliving in Hannibal, Missouri, on the banks of the Mississippi, in the\nnew \"frame\" house built by my father five years before. That is, some of\nus lived in the new part, the rest in the old part back of it--the \"L.\"\nIn the autumn my sister gave a party, and invited all the marriageable\nyoung people of the village. I was too young for this society, and was\ntoo bashful to mingle with young ladies, anyway, therefore I was not\ninvited--at least not for the whole evening. Ten minutes of it was to be\nmy whole share. I was to do the part of a bear in a small fairy play. I\nwas to be disguised all over in a close-fitting brown hairy stuff proper\nfor a bear. About half past ten I was told to go to my room and put on\nthis disguise, and be ready in half an hour. I started, but changed my\nmind; for I wanted to practise a little, and that room was very small. I\ncrossed over to the large unoccupied house on the corner of Main and\nHill streets,[4] unaware that a dozen of the young people were also\ngoing there to dress for their parts. I took the little black slave boy,\nSandy, with me, and we selected a roomy and empty chamber on the second\nfloor. We entered it talking, and this gave a couple of half-dressed\nyoung ladies an opportunity to take refuge behind a screen undiscovered.\nTheir gowns and things were hanging on hooks behind the door, but I did\nnot see them; it was Sandy that shut the door, but all his heart was in\nthe theatricals, and he was as unlikely to notice them as I was myself.\n\nThat was a rickety screen, with many holes in it, but as I did not know\nthere were girls behind it, I was not disturbed by that detail. If I had\nknown, I could not have undressed in the flood of cruel moonlight that\nwas pouring in at the curtainless windows; I should have died of shame.\nUntroubled by apprehensions, I stripped to the skin and began my\npractice. I was full of ambition; I was determined to make a hit; I was\nburning to establish a reputation as a bear and get further engagements;\nso I threw myself into my work with an abandon that promised great\nthings. I capered back and forth from one end of the room to the other\non all fours, Sandy applauding with enthusiasm; I walked upright and\ngrowled and snapped and snarled; I stood on my head, I flung\nhandsprings, I danced a lubberly dance with my paws bent and my\nimaginary snout sniffing from side to side; I did everything a bear\ncould do, and many things which no bear could ever do and no bear with\nany dignity would want to do, anyway; and of course I never suspected\nthat I was making a spectacle of myself to any one but Sandy. At last,\nstanding on my head, I paused in that attitude to take a minute's rest.\nThere was a moment's silence, then Sandy spoke up with excited interest\nand said--\n\n\"Marse Sam, has you ever seen a smoked herring?\"\n\n\"No. What is that?\"\n\n\"It's a fish.\"\n\n\"Well, what of it? Anything peculiar about it?\"\n\n\"Yes, suh, you bet you dey is. _Dey eats 'em guts and all!_\"\n\nThere was a smothered burst of feminine snickers from behind the screen!\nAll the strength went out of me and I toppled forward like an undermined\ntower and brought the screen down with my weight, burying the young\nladies under it. In their fright they discharged a couple of piercing\nscreams--and possibly others, but I did not wait to count. I snatched my\nclothes and fled to the dark hall below, Sandy following. I was dressed\nin half a minute, and out the back way. I swore Sandy to eternal\nsilence, then we went away and hid until the party was over. The\nambition was all out of me. I could not have faced that giddy company\nafter my adventure, for there would be two performers there who knew my\nsecret, and would be privately laughing at me all the time. I was\nsearched for but not found, and the bear had to be played by a young\ngentleman in his civilized clothes. The house was still and everybody\nasleep when I finally ventured home. I was very heavy-hearted, and full\nof a sense of disgrace. Pinned to my pillow I found a slip of paper\nwhich bore a line that did not lighten my heart, but only made my face\nburn. It was written in a laboriously disguised hand, and these were its\nmocking terms:\n\n\"You probably couldn't have played _bear_, but you played _bare_ very\nwell--oh, very very well!\"\n\nWe think boys are rude, unsensitive animals, but it is not so in all\ncases. Each boy has one or two sensitive spots, and if you can find out\nwhere they are located you have only to touch them and you can scorch\nhim as with fire. I suffered miserably over that episode. I expected\nthat the facts would be all over the village in the morning, but it was\nnot so. The secret remained confined to the two girls and Sandy and me.\nThat was some appeasement of my pain, but it was far from\nsufficient--the main trouble remained: I was under four mocking eyes,\nand it might as well have been a thousand, for I suspected all girls'\neyes of being the ones I so dreaded. During several weeks I could not\nlook any young lady in the face; I dropped my eyes in confusion when any\none of them smiled upon me and gave me greeting; and I said to myself,\n\"_That is one of them_,\" and got quickly away. Of course I was meeting\nthe right girls everywhere, but if they ever let slip any betraying sign\nI was not bright enough to catch it. When I left Hannibal four years\nlater, the secret was still a secret; I had never guessed those girls\nout, and was no longer expecting to do it. Nor wanting to, either.\n\nOne of the dearest and prettiest girls in the village at the time of my\nmishap was one whom I will call Mary Wilson, because that was not her\nname. She was twenty years old; she was dainty and sweet, peach-bloomy\nand exquisite, gracious and lovely in character, and I stood in awe of\nher, for she seemed to me to be made out of angel-clay and rightfully\nunapproachable by an unholy ordinary kind of a boy like me. I probably\nnever suspected her. But--\n\nThe scene changes. To Calcutta--forty-seven years later. It was in 1896.\nI arrived there on my lecturing trip. As I entered the hotel a divine\nvision passed out of it, clothed in the glory of the Indian\nsunshine--the Mary Wilson of my long-vanished boyhood! It was a\nstartling thing. Before I could recover from the bewildering shock and\nspeak to her she was gone. I thought maybe I had seen an apparition, but\nit was not so, she was flesh. She was the granddaughter of the other\nMary, the original Mary. That Mary, now a widow, was up-stairs, and\npresently sent for me. She was old and gray-haired, but she looked young\nand was very handsome. We sat down and talked. We steeped our thirsty\nsouls in the reviving wine of the past, the beautiful past, the dear and\nlamented past; we uttered the names that had been silent upon our lips\nfor fifty years, and it was as if they were made of music; with reverent\nhands we unburied our dead, the mates of our youth, and caressed them\nwith our speech; we searched the dusty chambers of our memories and\ndragged forth incident after incident, episode after episode, folly\nafter folly, and laughed such good laughs over them, with the tears\nrunning down; and finally Mary said suddenly, and without any leading\nup--\n\n\"Tell me! What is the special peculiarity of smoked herrings?\"\n\nIt seemed a strange question at such a hallowed time as this. And so\ninconsequential, too. I was a little shocked. And yet I was aware of a\nstir of some kind away back in the deeps of my memory somewhere. It set\nme to musing--thinking--searching. Smoked herrings. Smoked herrings. The\npeculiarity of smo.... I glanced up. Her face was grave, but there was a\ndim and shadowy twinkle in her eye which--All of a sudden I knew! and\nfar away down in the hoary past I heard a remembered voice murmur, \"Dey\neats 'em guts and all!\"\n\n\"At--last! I've found one of you, anyway! Who was the other girl?\"\n\nBut she drew the line there. She wouldn't tell me.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[4] That house still stands.\n\n\nIV.\n\n... But it was on a bench in Washington Square that I saw the most of\nLouis Stevenson. It was an outing that lasted an hour or more, and was\nvery pleasant and sociable. I had come with him from his house, where I\nhad been paying my respects to his family. His business in the Square\nwas to absorb the sunshine. He was most scantily furnished with flesh,\nhis clothes seemed to fall into hollows as if there might be nothing\ninside but the frame for a sculptor's statue. His long face and lank\nhair and dark complexion and musing and melancholy expression seemed to\nfit these details justly and harmoniously, and the altogether of it\nseemed especially planned to gather the rays of your observation and\nfocalize them upon Stevenson's special distinction and commanding\nfeature, his splendid eyes. They burned with a smouldering rich fire\nunder the penthouse of his brows, and they made him beautiful.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI said I thought he was right about the others, but mistaken as to Bret\nHarte; in substance I said that Harte was good company and a thin but\npleasant talker; that he was always bright, but never brilliant; that in\nthis matter he must not be classed with Thomas Bailey Aldrich, nor must\nany other man, ancient or modern; that Aldrich was always witty, always\nbrilliant, if there was anybody present capable of striking his flint at\nthe right angle; that Aldrich was as sure and prompt and unfailing as\nthe red-hot iron on the blacksmith's anvil--you had only to hit it\ncompetently to make it deliver an explosion of sparks. I added--\n\n\"Aldrich has never had his peer for prompt and pithy and witty and\nhumorous sayings. None has equalled him, certainly none has surpassed\nhim, in the felicity of phrasing with which he clothed these children of\nhis fancy. Aldrich was always brilliant, he couldn't help it, he is a\nfire-opal set round with rose diamonds; when he is not speaking, you\nknow that his dainty fancies are twinkling and glimmering around in him;\nwhen he speaks the diamonds flash. Yes, he was always brilliant, he will\nalways be brilliant; he will be brilliant in hell--you will see.\"\n\nStevenson, smiling a chuckly smile, \"I hope not.\"\n\n\"Well, you will, and he will dim even those ruddy fires and look like a\ntransfigured Adonis backed against a pink sunset.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere on that bench we struck out a new phrase--one or the other of us,\nI don't remember which--\"submerged renown.\" Variations were discussed:\n\"submerged fame,\" \"submerged reputation,\" and so on, and a choice was\nmade; \"submerged renown\" was elected, I believe. This important matter\nrose out of an incident which had been happening to Stevenson in Albany.\nWhile in a book-shop or book-stall there he had noticed a long rank of\nsmall books, cheaply but neatly gotten up, and bearing such titles as\n\"Davis's Selected Speeches,\" \"Davis's Selected Poetry,\" Davis's this and\nDavis's that and Davis's the other thing; compilations, every one of\nthem, each with a brief, compact, intelligent and useful introductory\nchapter by this same Davis, whose first name I have forgotten. Stevenson\nhad begun the matter with this question:\n\n\"Can you name the American author whose fame and acceptance stretch\nwidest in the States?\"\n\nI thought I could, but it did not seem to me that it would be modest to\nspeak out, in the circumstances. So I diffidently said nothing.\nStevenson noticed, and said--\n\n\"Save your delicacy for another time--you are not the one. For a\nshilling you can't name the American author of widest note and\npopularity in the States. But I can.\"\n\nThen he went on and told about that Albany incident. He had inquired of\nthe shopman--\n\n\"Who is this Davis?\"\n\nThe answer was--\n\n\"An author whose books have to have freight-trains to carry them, not\nbaskets. Apparently you have not heard of him?\"\n\nStevenson said no, this was the first time. The man said--\n\n\"Nobody has heard of Davis: you may ask all around and you will see. You\nnever see his name mentioned in print, not even in advertisement; these\nthings are of no use to Davis, not any more than they are to the wind\nand the sea. You never see one of Davis's books floating on top of the\nUnited States, but put on your diving armor and get yourself lowered\naway down and down and down till you strike the dense region, the\nsunless region of eternal drudgery and starvation wages--there you'll\nfind them by the million. The man that gets that market, his fortune is\nmade, his bread and butter are safe, for those people will never go back\non him. An author may have a reputation which is confined to the\nsurface, and lose it and become pitied, then despised, then forgotten,\nentirely forgotten--the frequent steps in a surface reputation. At\nsurface reputation, however great, is always mortal, and always killable\nif you go at it right--with pins and needles, and quiet slow poison, not\nwith the club and tomahawk. But it is a different matter with the\nsubmerged reputation--down in the deep water; once a favorite there,\nalways a favorite; once beloved, always beloved; once respected, always\nrespected, honored, and believed in. For, what the reviewer says never\nfinds its way down into those placid deeps; nor the newspaper sneers,\nnor any breath of the winds of slander blowing above. Down there they\nnever hear of these things. Their idol may be painted clay, up then at\nthe surface, and fade and waste and crumble and blow away, there being\nmuch weather there; but down below he is gold and adamant and\nindestructible.\"\n\n\nV.\n\nThis is from this morning's paper:\n\n\n                        MARK TWAIN LETTER SOLD.\n\n            _Written to Thomas Nast, it Proposed a Joint Tour._\n\n     A Mark Twain autograph letter brought $43 yesterday at the auction\n     by the Merwin-Clayton Company of the library and correspondence of\n     the late Thomas Nast, cartoonist. The letter is nine pages\n     note-paper, is dated Hartford, Nov. 12, 1877, and it addressed to\n     Nast. It reads in part as follows:\n\n\n                                                 Hartford, _Nov. 12_.\n\n     MY DEAR NAST: I did not think I should ever stand on a platform\n     again until the time was come for me to say I die innocent. But the\n     same old offers keep arriving that have arriven every year, and\n     been every year declined--$500 for Louisville, $500 for St. Louis,\n     $1,000 gold for two nights in Toronto, half gross proceeds for New\n     York, Boston, Brooklyn, &c. I have declined them all just as usual,\n     though sorely tempted as usual.\n\n     Now, I do not decline because I mind talking to an audience, but\n     because (1) travelling alone is so heart-breakingly dreary, and (2)\n     shouldering the whole show is such cheer-killing responsibility.\n\n     Therefore I now propose to you what you proposed to me in November,\n     1867--ten years ago, (when I was unknown,) viz.; That you should\n     stand on the platform and make pictures, and I stand by you and\n     blackguard the audience. I should enormously enjoy meandering\n     around (to big towns--don't want to go to little ones) with you for\n     company.\n\n     The letter includes a schedule of cities and the number of\n     appearances planned for each.\n\n\nThis is as it should be. This is worthy of all praise. I say it myself\nlest other competent persons should forget to do it. It appears that\nfour of my ancient letters were sold at auction, three of them at\ntwenty-seven dollars, twenty-eight dollars, and twenty-nine dollars\nrespectively, and the one above mentioned at forty-three dollars. There\nis one very gratifying circumstance about this, to wit: that my\nliterature has more than held its own as regards money value through\nthis stretch of thirty-six years. I judge that the forty-three-dollar\nletter must have gone at about ten cents a word, whereas if I had\nwritten it to-day its market rate would be thirty cents--so I have\nincreased in value two or three hundred per cent. I note another\ngratifying circumstance--that a letter of General Grant's sold at\nsomething short of eighteen dollars. I can't rise to General Grant's\nlofty place in the estimation of this nation, but it is a deep happiness\nto me to know that when it comes to epistolary literature he can't sit\nin the front seat along with me.\n\nThis reminds me--nine years ago, when we were living in Tedworth Square,\nLondon, a report was cabled to the American journals that I was dying. I\nwas not the one. It was another Clemens, a cousin of mine,--Dr. J. Ross\nClemens, now of St. Louis--who was due to die but presently escaped, by\nsome chicanery or other characteristic of the tribe of Clemens. The\nLondon representatives of the American papers began to flock in, with\nAmerican cables in their hands, to inquire into my condition. There was\nnothing the matter with me, and each in his turn was astonished, and\ndisappointed, to find me reading and smoking in my study and worth next\nto nothing as a text for transatlantic news. One of these men was a\ngentle and kindly and grave and sympathetic Irishman, who hid his sorrow\nthe best he could, and tried to look glad, and told me that his paper,\nthe _Evening Sun_, had cabled him that it was reported in New York that\nI was dead. What should he cable in reply? I said--\n\n\"Say the report is greatly exaggerated.\"\n\nHe never smiled, but went solemnly away and sent the cable in those\nwords. The remark hit the world pleasantly, and to this day it keeps\nturning up, now and then, in the newspapers when people have occasion to\ndiscount exaggerations.\n\nThe next man was also an Irishman. He had his New York cablegram in his\nhand--from the New York _World_--and he was so evidently trying to get\naround that cable with invented softnesses and palliations that my\ncuriosity was aroused and I wanted to see what it did really say. So\nwhen occasion offered I slipped it out of his hand. It said,\n\n\"If Mark Twain dying send five hundred words. If dead send a thousand.\"\n\nNow that old letter of mine sold yesterday for forty-three dollars. When\nI am dead it will be worth eighty-six.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DC.\n\nOCTOBER 5, 1906.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--III.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\nVI.\n\nTo-morrow will be the thirty-sixth anniversary of our marriage. My wife\npassed from this life one year and eight months ago, in Florence, Italy,\nafter an unbroken illness of twenty-two months' duration.\n\nI saw her first in the form of an ivory miniature in her brother\nCharley's stateroom in the steamer \"Quaker City,\" in the Bay of Smyrna,\nin the summer of 1867, when she was in her twenty-second year. I saw her\nin the flesh for the first time in New York in the following December.\nShe was slender and beautiful and girlish--and she was both girl and\nwoman. She remained both girl and woman to the last day of her life.\nUnder a grave and gentle exterior burned inextinguishable fires of\nsympathy, energy, devotion, enthusiasm, and absolutely limitless\naffection. She was _always_ frail in body, and she lived upon her\nspirit, whose hopefulness and courage were indestructible. Perfect\ntruth, perfect honesty, perfect candor, were qualities of her character\nwhich were born with her. Her judgments of people and things were sure\nand accurate. Her intuitions almost never deceived her. In her judgments\nof the characters and acts of both friends and strangers, there was\nalways room for charity, and this charity never failed. I have compared\nand contrasted her with hundreds of persons, and my conviction remains\nthat hers was the most perfect character I have ever met. And I may add\nthat she was the most winningly dignified person I have ever known. Her\ncharacter and disposition were of the sort that not only invites\nworship, but commands it. No servant ever left her service who deserved\nto remain in it. And, as she could choose with a glance of her eye, the\nservants she selected did in almost all cases deserve to remain, and\nthey _did_ remain. She was always cheerful; and she was always able to\ncommunicate her cheerfulness to others. During the nine years that we\nspent in poverty and debt, she was always able to reason me out of my\ndespairs, and find a bright side to the clouds, and make me see it. In\nall that time, I never knew her to utter a word of regret concerning our\naltered circumstances, nor did I ever know her children to do the like.\nFor she had taught them, and they drew their fortitude from her. The\nlove which she bestowed upon those whom she loved took the form of\nworship, and in that form it was returned--returned by relatives,\nfriends and the servants of her household. It was a strange combination\nwhich wrought into one individual, so to speak, by marriage--her\ndisposition and character and mine. She poured out her prodigal\naffections in kisses and caresses, and in a vocabulary of endearments\nwhose profusion was always an astonishment to me. I was born _reserved_\nas to endearments of speech and caresses, and hers broke upon me as the\nsummer waves break upon Gibraltar. I was reared in that atmosphere of\nreserve. As I have already said, in another chapter, I never knew a\nmember of my father's family to kiss another member of it except once,\nand that at a death-bed. And our village was not a kissing community.\nThe kissing and caressing ended with courtship--along with the deadly\npiano-playing of that day.\n\nShe had the heart-free laugh of a girl. It came seldom, but when it\nbroke upon the ear it was as inspiring as music. I heard it for the last\ntime when she had been occupying her sickbed for more than a year, and I\nmade a written note of it at the time--a note not to be repeated.\n\nTo-morrow will be the thirty-sixth anniversary. We were married in her\nfather's house in Elmira, New York, and went next day, by special train,\nto Buffalo, along with the whole Langdon family, and with the Beechers\nand the Twichells, who had solemnized the marriage. We were to live in\nBuffalo, where I was to be one of the editors of the Buffalo \"Express,\"\nand a part owner of the paper. I knew nothing about Buffalo, but I had\nmade my household arrangements there through a friend, by letter. I had\ninstructed him to find a boarding-house of as respectable a character as\nmy light salary as editor would command. We were received at about nine\no'clock at the station in Buffalo, and were put into several sleighs and\ndriven all over America, as it seemed to me--for, apparently, we turned\nall the corners in the town and followed all the streets there were--I\nscolding freely, and characterizing that friend of mine in very\nuncomplimentary words for securing a boarding-house that apparently had\nno definite locality. But there was a conspiracy--and my bride knew of\nit, but I was in ignorance. Her father, Jervis Langdon, had bought and\nfurnished a new house for us in the fashionable street, Delaware Avenue,\nand had laid in a cook and housemaids, and a brisk and electric young\ncoachman, an Irishman, Patrick McAleer--and we were being driven all\nover that city in order that one sleighful of those people could have\ntime to go to the house, and see that the gas was lighted all over it,\nand a hot supper prepared for the crowd. We arrived at last, and when I\nentered that fairy place my indignation reached high-water mark, and\nwithout any reserve I delivered my opinion to that friend of mine for\nbeing so stupid as to put us into a boarding-house whose terms would be\nfar out of my reach. Then Mr. Langdon brought forward a very pretty box\nand opened it, and took from it a deed of the house. So the comedy ended\nvery pleasantly, and we sat down to supper.\n\nThe company departed about midnight, and left us alone in our new\nquarters. Then Ellen, the cook, came in to get orders for the morning's\nmarketing--and neither of us knew whether beefsteak was sold by the\nbarrel or by the yard. We exposed our ignorance, and Ellen was fall of\nIrish delight over it. Patrick McAleer, that brisk young Irishman, came\nin to get his orders for next day--and that was our first glimpse of\nhim....\n\nOur first child, Langdon Clemens, was born the 7th of November, 1870,\nand lived twenty-two months. Susy was born the 19th of March, 1872, and\npassed from life in the Hartford home, the 18th of August, 1896. With\nher, when the end came, were Jean and Katy Leary, and John and Ellen\n(the gardener and his wife). Clara and her mother and I arrived in\nEngland from around the world on the 31st of July, and took a house in\nGuildford. A week later, when Susy, Katy and Jean should have been\narriving from America, we got a letter instead.\n\nIt explained that Susy was slightly ill--nothing of consequence. But we\nwere disquieted, and began to cable for later news. This was Friday. All\nday no answer--and the ship to leave Southampton next day, at noon.\nClara and her mother began packing, to be ready in case the news should\nbe bad. Finally came a cablegram saying, \"Wait for cablegram in the\nmorning.\" This was not satisfactory--not reassuring. I cabled again,\nasking that the answer be sent to Southampton, for the day was now\nclosing. I waited in the post-office that night till the doors were\nclosed, toward midnight, in the hope that good news might still come,\nbut there was no message. We sat silent at home till one in the morning,\nwaiting--waiting for we knew not what. Then we took the earliest morning\ntrain, and when we reached Southampton the message was there. It said\nthe recovery would be long, but certain. This was a great relief to me,\nbut not to my wife. She was frightened. She and Clara went aboard the\nsteamer at once and sailed for America, to nurse Susy. I remained behind\nto search for a larger house in Guildford.\n\nThat was the 15th of August, 1896. Three days later, when my wife and\nClara were about half-way across the ocean, I was standing in our\ndining-room thinking of nothing in particular, when a cablegram was put\ninto my hand. It said, \"Susy was peacefully released to-day.\"\n\nIt is one of the mysteries of our nature that a man, all unprepared, can\nreceive a thunder-stroke like that and live. There is but one reasonable\nexplanation of it. The intellect is stunned by the shock, and but\ngropingly gathers the meaning of the words. The power to realize their\nfall import is mercifully wanting. The mind has a dumb sense of vast\nloss--that is all. It will take mind and memory months, and possibly\nyears, to gather together the details, and thus learn and know the whole\nextent of the loss. A man's house burns down. The smoking wreckage\nrepresents only a ruined home that was dear through years of use and\npleasant associations. By and by, as the days and weeks go on, first he\nmisses this, then that, then the other thing. And, when he casts about\nfor it, he finds that it was in that house. Always it is an\n_essential_--there was but one of its kind. It cannot be replaced. It\nwas in that house. It is irrevocably lost. He did not realize that it\nwas an essential when he had it; he only discovers it now when he finds\nhimself balked, hampered, by its absence. It will be years before the\ntale of lost essentials is complete, and not till then can he truly know\nthe magnitude of his disaster.\n\nThe 18th of August brought me the awful tidings. The mother and the\nsister were out there in mid-Atlantic, ignorant of what was happening;\nflying to meet this incredible calamity. All that could be done to\nprotect them from the full force of the shock was done by relatives and\ngood friends. They went down the Bay and met the ship at night, but did\nnot show themselves until morning, and then only to Clara. When she\nreturned to the stateroom she did not speak, and did not need to. Her\nmother looked at her and said:\n\n\"Susy is dead.\"\n\nAt half past ten o'clock that night, Clara and her mother completed\ntheir circuit of the globe, and drew up at Elmira by the same train and\nin the same car which had borne them and me Westward from it one year,\none month, and one week before. And again Susy was there--not waving her\nwelcome in the glare of the lights, as she had waved her farewell to us\nthirteen months before, but lying white and fair in her coffin, in the\nhouse where she was born.\n\nThe last thirteen days of Susy's life were spent in our own house in\nHartford, the home of her childhood, and always the dearest place in the\nearth to her. About her she had faithful old friends--her pastor, Mr.\nTwichell, who had known her from the cradle, and who had come a long\njourney to be with her; her uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Crane;\nPatrick, the coachman; Katy, who had begun to serve us when Susy was a\nchild of eight years; John and Ellen, who had been with us many years.\nAlso Jean was there.\n\nAt the hour when my wife and Clara set sail for America, Susy was in no\ndanger. Three hours later there came a sudden change for the worse.\nMeningitis set in, and it was immediately apparent that she was\ndeath-struck. That was Saturday, the 15th of August.\n\n\"That evening she took food for the last time,\" (Jean's letter to me).\nThe next morning the brain-fever was raging. She walked the floor a\nlittle in her pain and delirium, then succumbed to weakness and returned\nto her bed. Previously she had found hanging in a closet a gown which\nshe had seen her mother wear. She thought it was her mother, dead, and\nshe kissed it, and cried. About noon she became blind (an effect of the\ndisease) and bewailed it to her uncle.\n\nFrom Jean's letter I take this sentence, which needs no comment:\n\n\"About one in the afternoon Susy spoke for the last time.\"\n\nIt was only one word that she said when she spoke that last time, and it\ntold of her longing. She groped with her hands and found Katy, and\ncaressed her face, and said \"Mamma.\"\n\nHow gracious it was that, in that forlorn hour of wreck and ruin, with\nthe night of death closing around her, she should have been granted that\nbeautiful illusion--that the latest vision which rested upon the clouded\nmirror of her mind should have been the vision of her mother, and the\nlatest emotion she should know in life the joy and peace of that dear\nimagined presence.\n\nAbout two o'clock she composed herself as if for sleep, and never moved\nagain. She fell into unconsciousness and so remained two days and five\nhours, until Tuesday evening at seven minutes past seven, when the\nrelease came. She was twenty-four years and five months old.\n\nOn the 23d, her mother and her sisters saw her laid to rest--she that\nhad been our wonder and our worship.\n\nIn one of her own books I find some verses which I will copy here.\nApparently, she always put borrowed matter in quotation marks. These\nverses lack those marks, and therefore I take them to be her own:\n\n\n     Love came at dawn, when all the world was fair,\n       When crimson glories' bloom and sun were rife;\n     Love came at dawn, when hope's wings fanned the air,\n       And murmured, \"I am life.\"\n\n     Love came at eve, and when the day was done,\n       When heart and brain were tired, and slumber pressed;\n     Love came at eve, shut out the sinking sun,\n       And whispered, \"I am rest.\"\n\n\nThe summer seasons of Susy's childhood were spent at Quarry Farm, on the\nhills east of Elmira, New York; the other seasons of the year at the\nhome in Hartford. Like other children, she was blithe and happy, fond of\nplay; unlike the average of children, she was at times much given to\nretiring within herself, and trying to search out the hidden meanings of\nthe deep things that make the puzzle and pathos of human existence, and\nin all the ages have baffled the inquirer and mocked him. As a little\nchild aged seven, she was oppressed and perplexed by the maddening\nrepetition of the stock incidents of our race's fleeting sojourn here,\njust as the same thing has oppressed and perplexed maturer minds from\nthe beginning of time. A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat\nand struggle for bread; they squabble and scold and fight; they scramble\nfor little mean advantages over each other; age creeps upon them;\ninfirmities follow; shames and humiliations bring down their prides and\ntheir vanities; those they love are taken from them, and the joy of life\nis turned to aching grief. The burden of pain, care, misery, grows\nheavier year by year; at length, ambition is dead, pride is dead; vanity\nis dead; longing for release is in their place. It comes at last--the\nonly unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them--and they vanish from a\nworld where they were of no consequence; where they achieved nothing;\nwhere they were a mistake and a failure and a foolishness; there they\nhave left no sign that they have existed--a world which will lament them\na day and forget them forever. Then another myriad takes their place,\nand copies all they did, and goes along the same profitless road, and\nvanishes as they vanished--to make room for another, and another, and a\nmillion other myriads, to follow the same arid path through the same\ndesert, and accomplish what the first myriad, and all the myriads that\ncame after it, accomplished--nothing!\n\n\"Mamma, what is it all for?\" asked Susy, preliminarily stating the\nabove details in her own halting language, after long brooding over them\nalone in the privacy of the nursery.\n\nA year later, she was groping her way alone through another sunless bog,\nbut this time she reached a rest for her feet. For a week, her mother\nhad not been able to go to the nursery, evenings, at the child's prayer\nhour. She spoke of it--was sorry for it, and said she would come\nto-night, and hoped she could continue to come every night and hear Susy\npray, as before. Noticing that the child wished to respond, but was\nevidently troubled as to how to word her answer, she asked what the\ndifficulty was. Susy explained that Miss Foote (the governess) had been\nteaching her about the Indians and their religious beliefs, whereby it\nappeared that they had not only a God, but several. This had set Susy to\nthinking. As a result of this thinking, she had stopped praying. She\nqualified this statement--that is, she modified it--saying she did not\nnow pray \"in the same way\" as she had formerly done. Her mother said:\n\n\"Tell me about it, dear.\"\n\n\"Well, mamma, the Indians believed they knew, but now we know they were\nwrong. By and by, it can turn out that we are wrong. So now I only pray\nthat there may be a God and a Heaven--or something better.\"\n\nI wrote down this pathetic prayer in its precise wording, at the time,\nin a record which we kept of the children's sayings, and my reverence\nfor it has grown with the years that have passed over my head since\nthen. Its untaught grace and simplicity are a child's, but the wisdom\nand the pathos of it are of all the ages that have come and gone since\nthe race of man has lived, and longed, and hoped, and feared, and\ndoubted.\n\nTo go back a year--Susy aged seven. Several times her mother said to\nher:\n\n\"There, there, Susy, you mustn't cry over little things.\"\n\nThis furnished Susy a text for thought She had been breaking her heart\nover what had seemed vast disasters--a broken toy; a picnic cancelled by\nthunder and lightning and rain; the mouse that was growing tame and\nfriendly in the nursery caught and killed by the cat--and now came this\nstrange revelation. For some unaccountable reason, these were not vast\ncalamities. Why? How is the size of calamities measured? What is the\nrule? There must be some way to tell the great ones from the small\nones; what is the law of these proportions? She examined the problem\nearnestly and long. She gave it her best thought from time to time, for\ntwo or three days--but it baffled her--defeated her. And at last she\ngave up and went to her mother for help.\n\n\"Mamma, what is '_little_ things'?\"\n\nIt seemed a simple question--at first. And yet, before the answer could\nbe put into words, unsuspected and unforeseen difficulties began to\nappear. They increased; they multiplied; they brought about another\ndefeat. The effort to explain came to a standstill. Then Susy tried to\nhelp her mother out--with an instance, an example, an illustration. The\nmother was getting ready to go down-town, and one of her errands was to\nbuy a long-promised toy-watch for Susy.\n\n\"If you forgot the watch, mamma, would that be a little thing?\"\n\nShe was not concerned about the watch, for she knew it would not be\nforgotten. What she was hoping for was that the answer would unriddle\nthe riddle, and bring rest and peace to her perplexed little mind.\n\nThe hope was disappointed, of course--for the reason that the size of a\nmisfortune is not determinate by an outsider's measurement of it, but\nonly by the measurements applied to it by the person specially affected\nby it. The king's lost crown is a vast matter to the king, but of no\nconsequence to the child. The lost toy is a great matter to the child,\nbut in the king's eyes it is not a thing to break the heart about. A\nverdict was reached, but it was based upon the above model, and Susy was\ngranted leave to measure her disasters thereafter with her own\ntape-line.\n\nAs a child, Susy had a passionate temper; and it cost her much remorse\nand many tears before she learned to govern it, but after that it was a\nwholesome salt, and her character was the stronger and healthier for its\npresence. It enabled her to be good with dignity; it preserved her not\nonly from being good for vanity's sake, but from even the appearance of\nit. In looking back over the long vanished years, it seems but natural\nand excusable that I should dwell with longing affection and preference\nupon incidents of her young life which made it beautiful to us, and that\nI should let its few small offences go unsummoned and unreproached.\n\nIn the summer of 1880, when Susy was just eight years of age, the\nfamily were at Quarry Farm, as usual at that season of the year.\nHay-cutting time was approaching, and Susy and Clara were counting the\nhours, for the time was big with a great event for them; they had been\npromised that they might mount the wagon and ride home from the fields\non the summit of the hay mountain. This perilous privilege, so dear to\ntheir age and species, had never been granted them before. Their\nexcitement had no bounds. They could talk of nothing but this\nepoch-making adventure, now. But misfortune overtook Susy on the very\nmorning of the important day. In a sudden outbreak of passion, she\ncorrected Clara--with a shovel, or stick, or something of the sort. At\nany rate, the offence committed was of a gravity clearly beyond the\nlimit allowed in the nursery. In accordance with the rule and custom of\nthe house, Susy went to her mother to confess, and to help decide upon\nthe size and character of the punishment due. It was quite understood\nthat, as a punishment could have but one rational object and\nfunction--to act as a reminder, and warn the transgressor against\ntransgressing in the same way again--the children would know about as\nwell as any how to choose a penalty which would be rememberable and\neffective. Susy and her mother discussed various punishments, but none\nof them seemed adequate. This fault was an unusually serious one, and\nrequired the setting up of a danger-signal in the memory that would not\nblow out nor burn out, but remain a fixture there and furnish its saving\nwarning indefinitely. Among the punishments mentioned was deprivation of\nthe hay-wagon ride. It was noticeable that this one hit Susy hard.\nFinally, in the summing up, the mother named over the list and asked:\n\n\"Which one do you think it ought to be, Susy?\"\n\nSusy studied, shrank from her duty, and asked:\n\n\"Which do you think, mamma?\"\n\n\"Well, Susy, I would rather leave it to you. _You_ make the choice\nyourself.\"\n\nIt cost Susy a struggle, and much and deep thinking and weighing--but\nshe came out where any one who knew her could have foretold she would.\n\n\"Well, mamma, I'll make it the hay-wagon, because you know the other\nthings might not make me remember not to do it again, but if I don't get\nto ride on the hay-wagon I can remember it easily.\"\n\nIn this world the real penalty, the sharp one, the lasting one, never\nfalls otherwise than on the wrong person. It was not _I_ that corrected\nClara, but the remembrance of poor Susy's lost hay-ride still brings\n_me_ a pang--after twenty-six years.\n\nApparently, Susy was born with humane feelings for the animals, and\ncompassion for their troubles. This enabled her to see a new point in an\nold story, once, when she was only six years old--a point which had been\noverlooked by older, and perhaps duller, people for many ages. Her\nmother told her the moving story of the sale of Joseph by his brethren,\nthe staining of his coat with the blood of the slaughtered kid, and the\nrest of it. She dwelt upon the inhumanity of the brothers; their cruelty\ntoward their helpless young brother; and the unbrotherly treachery which\nthey practised upon him; for she hoped to teach the child a lesson in\ngentle pity and mercifulness which she would remember. Apparently, her\ndesire was accomplished, for the tears came into Susy's eyes and she was\ndeeply moved. Then she said:\n\n\"Poor little kid!\"\n\nA child's frank envy of the privileges and distinctions of its elders is\noften a delicately flattering attention and the reverse of unwelcome,\nbut sometimes the envy is not placed where the beneficiary is expecting\nit to be placed. Once, when Susy was seven, she sat breathlessly\nabsorbed in watching a guest of ours adorn herself for a ball. The lady\nwas charmed by this homage; this mute and gentle admiration; and was\nhappy in it. And when her pretty labors were finished, and she stood at\nlast perfect, unimprovable, clothed like Solomon in all his glory, she\npaused, confident and expectant, to receive from Susy's tongue the\ntribute that was burning in her eyes. Susy drew an envious little sigh\nand said:\n\n\"I wish _I_ could have crooked teeth and spectacles!\"\n\nOnce, when Susy was six months along in her eighth year, she did\nsomething one day in the presence of company, which subjected her to\ncriticism and reproof. Afterward, when she was alone with her mother, as\nwas her custom she reflected a little while over the matter. Then she\nset up what I think--and what the shade of Burns would think--was a\nquite good philosophical defence.\n\n\"Well, mamma, you know I didn't see myself, and so I couldn't know how\nit looked.\"\n\nIn homes where the near friends and visitors are mainly literary\npeople--lawyers, judges, professors and clergymen--the children's ears\nbecome early familiarized with wide vocabularies. It is natural for them\nto pick up any words that fall in their way; it is natural for them to\npick up big and little ones indiscriminately; it is natural for them to\nuse without fear any word that comes to their net, no matter how\nformidable it may be as to size. As a result, their talk is a curious\nand funny musketry clatter of little words, interrupted at intervals by\nthe heavy artillery crash of a word of such imposing sound and size that\nit seems to shake the ground and rattle the windows. Sometimes the child\ngets a wrong idea of a word which it has picked up by chance, and\nattaches to it a meaning which impairs its usefulness--but this does not\nhappen as often as one might expect it would. Indeed, it happens with an\ninfrequency which may be regarded as remarkable. As a child, Susy had\ngood fortune with her large words, and she employed many of them. She\nmade no more than her fair share of mistakes. Once when she thought\nsomething very funny was going to happen (but it didn't), she was racked\nand torn with laughter, by anticipation. But, apparently, she still felt\nsure of her position, for she said, \"If it had happened, I should have\nbeen transformed [transported] with glee.\"\n\nAnd earlier, when she was a little maid of five years, she informed a\nvisitor that she had been in a church only once, and that was the time\nwhen Clara was \"crucified\" [christened]....\n\nIn Heidelberg, when Susy was six, she noticed that the Schloss gardens\nwere populous with snails creeping all about everywhere. One day she\nfound a new dish on her table and inquired concerning it, and learned\nthat it was made of snails. She was awed and impressed, and said:\n\n\"Wild ones, mamma?\"\n\nShe was thoughtful and considerate of others--an acquired quality, no\ndoubt. No one seems to be born with it. One hot day, at home in\nHartford, when she was a little child, her mother borrowed her fan\nseveral times (a Japanese one, value five cents), refreshed herself with\nit a moment or two, then handed it back with a word of thanks. Susy knew\nher mother would use the fan all the time if she could do it without\nputting a deprivation upon its owner. She also knew that her mother\ncould not be persuaded to do that. A relief most be devised somehow;\nSusy devised it. She got five cents out of her money-box and carried it\nto Patrick, and asked him to take it down-town (a mile and a half) and\nbuy a Japanese fan and bring it home. He did it--and thus thoughtfully\nand delicately was the exigency met and the mother's comfort secured. It\nis to the child's credit that she did not save herself expense by\nbringing down another and more costly kind of fan from up-stairs, but\nwas content to act upon the impression that her mother desired the\nJapanese kind--content to accomplish the desire and stop with that,\nwithout troubling about the wisdom or unwisdom of it.\n\nSometimes, while she was still a child, her speech fell into quaint and\nstrikingly expressive forms. Once--aged nine or ten--she came to her\nmother's room, when her sister Jean was a baby, and said Jean was crying\nin the nursery, and asked if she might ring for the nurse. Her mother\nasked:\n\n\"Is she crying hard?\"--meaning cross, ugly.\n\n\"Well, no, mamma. It is a weary, lonesome cry.\"\n\nIt is a pleasure to me to recall various incidents which reveal the\ndelicacies of feeling that were so considerable a part of her budding\ncharacter. Such a revelation came once in a way which, while creditable\nto her heart, was defective in another direction. She was in her\neleventh year then. Her mother had been making the Christmas purchases,\nand she allowed Susy to see the presents which were for Patrick's\nchildren. Among these was a handsome sled for Jimmy, on which a stag was\npainted; also, in gilt capitals, the word \"Deer.\" Susy was excited and\njoyous over everything, until she came to this sled. Then she became\nsober and silent--yet the sled was the choicest of all the gifts. Her\nmother was surprised, and also disappointed, and said:\n\n\"Why, Susy, doesn't it please you? Isn't it fine?\"\n\nSusy hesitated, and it was plain that she did not want to say the thing\nthat was in her mind. However, being urged, she brought it haltingly\nout:\n\n\"Well, mamma, it _is_ fine, and of course it _did_ cost a good\ndeal--but--but--why should that be mentioned?\"\n\nSeeing that she was not understood, she reluctantly pointed to that word\n\"Deer.\" It was her orthography that was at fault, not her heart. She had\ninherited both from her mother.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCI.\n\nOCTOBER 19, 1906.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--IV.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\nWhen Susy was thirteen, and was a slender little maid with plaited tails\nof copper-tinged brown hair down her back, and was perhaps the busiest\nbee in the household hive, by reason of the manifold studies, health\nexercises and recreations she had to attend to, she secretly, and of her\nown motion, and out of love, added another task to her labors--the\nwriting of a biography of me. She did this work in her bedroom at night,\nand kept her record hidden. After a little, the mother discovered it and\nfilched it, and let me see it; then told Susy what she had done, and how\npleased I was, and how proud. I remember that time with a deep\npleasure. I had had compliments before, but none that touched me like\nthis; none that could approach it for value in my eyes. It has kept that\nplace always since. I have had no compliment, no praise, no tribute from\nany source, that was so precious to me as this one was and still is. As\nI read it _now_, after all these many years, it is still a king's\nmessage to me, and brings me the same dear surprise it brought me\nthen--with the pathos added, of the thought that the eager and hasty\nhand that sketched it and scrawled it will not touch mine again--and I\nfeel as the humble and unexpectant must feel when their eyes fall upon\nthe edict that raises them to the ranks of the noble.\n\nYesterday while I was rummaging in a pile of ancient note-books of mine\nwhich I had not seen for years, I came across a reference to that\nbiography. It is quite evident that several times, at breakfast and\ndinner, in those long-past days, I was posing for the biography. In\nfact, I clearly remember that I _was_ doing that--and I also remember\nthat Susy detected it. I remember saying a very smart thing, with a good\ndeal of an air, at the breakfast-table one morning, and that Susy\nobserved to her mother privately, a little later, that papa was doing\nthat for the biography.\n\nI cannot bring myself to change any line or word in Susy's sketch of me,\nbut will introduce passages from it now and then just as they came in\ntheir quaint simplicity out of her honest heart, which was the beautiful\nheart of a child. What comes from that source has a charm and grace of\nits own which may transgress all the recognized laws of literature, if\nit choose, and yet be literature still, and worthy of hospitality. I\nshall print the whole of this little biography, before I have done with\nit--every word, every sentence.\n\nThe spelling is frequently desperate, but it was Susy's, and it shall\nstand. I love it, and cannot profane it. To me, it is gold. To correct\nit would alloy it, not refine it. It would spoil it. It would take from\nit its freedom and flexibility and make it stiff and formal. Even when\nit is most extravagant I am not shocked. It is Susy's spelling, and she\nwas doing the best she could--and nothing could better it for me....\n\nSusy began the biography in 1885, when I was in the fiftieth year of my\nage, and she just entering the fourteenth of hers. She begins in this\nway:\n\n\n     We are a very happy family. We consist of Papa, Mamma, Jean, Clara\n     and me. It is papa I am writing about, and I shall have no trouble\n     in not knowing what to say about him, as he is a _very_ striking\n     character.\n\n\nBut wait a minute--I will return to Susy presently.\n\nIn the matter of slavish imitation, man is the monkey's superior all the\ntime. The average man is destitute of independence of opinion. He is not\ninterested in contriving an opinion of his own, by study and reflection,\nbut is only anxious to find out what his neighbor's opinion is and\nslavishly adopt it. A generation ago, I found out that the latest review\nof a book was pretty sure to be just a reflection of the _earliest_\nreview of it; that whatever the first reviewer found to praise or\ncensure in the book would be repeated in the latest reviewer's report,\nwith nothing fresh added. Therefore more than once I took the precaution\nof sending my book, in manuscript, to Mr. Howells, when he was editor of\nthe \"Atlantic Monthly,\" so that he could prepare a review of it at\nleisure. I knew he would say the truth about the book--I also knew that\nhe would find more merit than demerit in it, because I already knew that\nthat was the condition of the book. I allowed no copy of it to go out to\nthe press until after Mr. Howells's notice of it had appeared. That book\nwas always safe. There wasn't a man behind a pen in all America that had\nthe courage to find anything in the book which Mr. Howells had not\nfound--there wasn't a man behind a pen in America that had spirit enough\nto say a brave and original thing about the book on his own\nresponsibility.\n\nI believe that the trade of critic, in literature, music, and the drama,\nis the most degraded of all trades, and that it has no real\nvalue--certainly no large value. When Charles Dudley Warner and I were\nabout to bring out \"The Gilded Age,\" the editor of the \"Daily Graphic\"\npersuaded me to let him have an advance copy, he giving me his word of\nhonor that no notice of it would appear in his paper until after the\n\"Atlantic Monthly\" notice should have appeared. This reptile published a\nreview of the book within three days afterward. I could not really\ncomplain, because he had only given me his word of honor as security; I\nought to have required of him something substantial. I believe his\nnotice did not deal mainly with the merit of the book, or the lack of\nit, but with my moral attitude toward the public. It was charged that I\nhad used my reputation to play a swindle upon the public; that Mr.\nWarner had written as much as half of the book, and that I had used my\nname to float it and give it currency; a currency--so the critic\naverred--which it could not have acquired without my name, and that this\nconduct of mine was a grave fraud upon the people. The \"Graphic\" was not\nan authority upon any subject whatever. It had a sort of distinction, in\nthat it was the first and only illustrated daily newspaper that the\nworld had seen; but it was without character; it was poorly and cheaply\nedited; its opinion of a book or of any other work of art was of no\nconsequence. Everybody knew this, yet all the critics in America, one\nafter the other, copied the \"Graphic's\" criticism, merely changing the\nphraseology, and left me under that charge of dishonest conduct. Even\nthe great Chicago \"Tribune,\" the most important journal in the Middle\nWest, was not able to invent anything fresh, but adopted the view of the\nhumble \"Daily Graphic,\" dishonesty-charge and all.\n\nHowever, let it go. It is the will of God that we must have critics, and\nmissionaries, and Congressmen, and humorists, and we must bear the\nburden. Meantime, I seem to have been drifting into criticism myself.\nBut that is nothing. At the worst, criticism is nothing more than a\ncrime, and I am not unused to that.\n\nWhat I have been travelling toward all this time is this: the first\ncritic that ever had occasion to describe my personal appearance\nlittered his description with foolish and inexcusable errors whose\naggregate furnished the result that I was distinctly and distressingly\nunhandsome. That description floated around the country in the papers,\nand was in constant use and wear for a quarter of a century. It seems\nstrange to me that apparently no critic in the country could be found\nwho could look at me and have the courage to take up his pen and destroy\nthat lie. That lie began its course on the Pacific coast, in 1864, and\nit likened me in personal appearance to Petroleum V. Nasby, who had been\nout there lecturing. For twenty-five years afterward, no critic could\nfurnish a description of me without fetching in Nasby to help out my\nportrait. I knew Nasby well, and he was a good fellow, but in my life I\nhave not felt malignant enough about any more than three persons to\ncharge those persons with resembling Nasby. It hurts me to the heart. I\nwas always handsome. Anybody but a critic could have seen it. And it\nhad long been a distress to my family--including Susy--that the critics\nshould go on making this wearisome mistake, year after year, when there\nwas no foundation for it. Even when a critic wanted to be particularly\nfriendly and complimentary to me, he didn't dare to go beyond my\nclothes. He never ventured beyond that old safe frontier. When he had\nfinished with my clothes he had said all the kind things, the pleasant\nthings, the complimentary things he could risk. Then he dropped back on\nNasby.\n\nYesterday I found this clipping in the pocket of one of those ancient\nmemorandum-books of mine. It is of the date of thirty-nine years ago,\nand both the paper and the ink are yellow with the bitterness that I\nfelt in that old day when I clipped it out to preserve it and brood over\nit, and grieve about it. I will copy it here, to wit:\n\n\n     A correspondent of the Philadelphia \"Press,\" writing of one of\n     Schuyler Colfax's receptions, says of our Washington correspondent:\n     \"Mark Twain, the delicate humorist, was present: quite a lion, as\n     he deserves to be. Mark is a bachelor, faultless in taste, whose\n     snowy vest is suggestive of endless quarrels with Washington\n     washerwomen; but the heroism of Mark is settled for all time, for\n     such purity and smoothness were never seen before. His lavender\n     gloves might have been stolen from some Turkish harem, so delicate\n     were they in size; but more likely--anything else were more likely\n     than that. In form and feature he bears some resemblance to the\n     immortal Nasby; but whilst Petroleum is brunette to the core, Twain\n     is golden, amber-hued, melting, blonde.\"\n\n\nLet us return to Susy's biography now, and get the opinion of one who is\nunbiassed:\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Papa's appearance has been described many times, but very\n     incorrectly. He has beautiful gray hair, not any too thick or any\n     too long, but just right; a Roman nose, which greatly improves the\n     beauty of his features; kind blue eyes and a small mustache. He has\n     a wonderfully shaped head and profile. He has a very good\n     figure--in short, he is an extrodinarily fine looking man. All his\n     features are perfect, except that he hasn't extrodinary teeth. His\n     complexion is very fair, and he doesn't ware a beard. He is a very\n     good man and a very funny one. He _has_ got a temper, but we all of\n     us have in this family. He is the loveliest man I ever saw or ever\n     hope to see--and oh, so absent-minded. He does tell perfectly\n     delightful stories. Clara and I used to sit on each arm of his\n     chair and listen while he told us stories about the pictures on the\n     wall.\n\n\nI remember the story-telling days vividly. They were a difficult and\nexacting audience--those little creatures.\n\nAlong one side of the library, in the Hartford home, the bookshelves\njoined the mantelpiece--in fact there were shelves on both sides of the\nmantelpiece. On these shelves, and on the mantelpiece, stood various\nornaments. At one end of the procession was a framed oil-painting of a\ncat's head, at the other end was a head of a beautiful young girl,\nlife-size--called Emmeline, because she looked just about like that--an\nimpressionist water-color. Between the one picture and the other there\nwere twelve or fifteen of the bric-\u00e0-brac things already mentioned; also\nan oil-painting by Elihu Vedder, \"The Young Medusa.\" Every now and then\nthe children required me to construct a romance--always impromptu--not a\nmoment's preparation permitted--and into that romance I had to get all\nthat bric-\u00e0-brac and the three pictures. I had to start always with the\ncat and finish with Emmeline. I was never allowed the refreshment of a\nchange, end-for-end. It was not permissible to introduce a bric-\u00e0-brac\nornament into the story out of its place in the procession.\n\nThese bric-\u00e0-bracs were never allowed a peaceful day, a reposeful day, a\nrestful Sabbath. In their lives there was no Sabbath, in their lives\nthere was no peace; they knew no existence but a monotonous career of\nviolence and bloodshed. In the course of time, the bric-\u00e0-brac and the\npictures showed wear. It was because they had had so many and such\ntumultuous adventures in their romantic careers.\n\nAs romancer to the children I had a hard time, even from the beginning.\nIf they brought me a picture, in a magazine, and required me to build a\nstory to it, they would cover the rest of the page with their pudgy\nhands to keep me from stealing an idea from it. The stories had to come\nhot from the bat, always. They had to be absolutely original and fresh.\nSometimes the children furnished me simply a character or two, or a\ndozen, and required me to start out at once on that slim basis and\ndeliver those characters up to a vigorous and entertaining life of\ncrime. If they heard of a new trade, or an unfamiliar animal, or\nanything like that, I was pretty sure to have to deal with those things\nin the next romance. Once Clara required me to build a sudden tale out\nof a plumber and a \"bawgunstrictor,\" and I had to do it. She didn't\nknow what a boa-constrictor was, until he developed in the tale--then\nshe was better satisfied with it than ever.\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Papa's favorite game is billiards, and when he is tired and wishes\n     to rest himself he stays up all night and plays billiards, it seems\n     to rest his head. He smokes a great deal almost incessantly. He has\n     the mind of an author exactly, some of the simplest things he cant\n     understand. Our burglar-alarm is often out of order, and papa had\n     been obliged to take the mahogany-room off from the alarm\n     altogether for a time, because the burglar-alarm had been in the\n     habit of ringing even when the mahogany-room was closed. At length\n     he thought that perhaps the burglar-alarm might be in order, and he\n     decided to try and see; accordingly he put it on and then went down\n     and opened the window; consequently the alarm bell rang, it would\n     even if the alarm had been in order. Papa went despairingly\n     upstairs and said to mamma, \"Livy the mahogany-room won't go on. I\n     have just opened the window to see.\"\n\n     \"Why, Youth,\" mamma replied \"if you've opened the window, why of\n     coarse the alarm will ring!\"\n\n     \"That's what I've opened it for, why I just went down to see if it\n     would ring!\"\n\n     Mamma tried to explain to papa that when he wanted to go and see\n     whether the alarm would ring while the window was closed he\n     _mustn't_ go and open the window--but in vain, papa couldn't\n     understand, and got very impatient with mamma for trying to make\n     him believe an impossible thing true.\n\n\nThis is a frank biographer, and an honest one; she uses no sand-paper on\nme. I have, to this day, the same dull head in the matter of conundrums\nand perplexities which Susy had discovered in those long-gone days.\nComplexities annoy me; they irritate me; then this progressive feeling\npresently warms into anger. I cannot get far in the reading of the\ncommonest and simplest contract--with its \"parties of the first part,\"\nand \"parties of the second part,\" and \"parties of the third\npart,\"--before my temper is all gone. Ashcroft comes up here every day\nand pathetically tries to make me understand the points of the lawsuit\nwhich we are conducting against Henry Butters, Harold Wheeler, and the\nrest of those Plasmon buccaneers, but daily he has to give it up. It is\npitiful to see, when he bends his earnest and appealing eyes upon me and\nsays, after one of his efforts, \"Now you _do_ understand _that_, don't\nyou?\"\n\nI am always obliged to say, \"I _don't_, Ashcroft. I wish I could\nunderstand it, but I don't. Send for the cat.\"\n\nIn the days which Susy is talking about, a perplexity fell to my lot one\nday. F. G. Whitmore was my business agent, and he brought me out from\ntown in his buggy. We drove by the _porte-coch\u00e8re_ and toward the\nstable. Now this was a _single_ road, and was like a spoon whose handle\nstretched from the gate to a great round flower-bed in the neighborhood\nof the stable. At the approach to the flower-bed the road divided and\ncircumnavigated it, making a loop, which I have likened to the bowl of\nthe spoon. As we neared the loop, I saw that Whitmore was laying his\ncourse to port, (I was sitting on the starboard side--the side the house\nwas on), and was going to start around that spoon-bowl on that left-hand\nside. I said,\n\n\"Don't do that, Whitmore; take the right-hand side. Then I shall be next\nto the house when we get to the door.\"\n\nHe said, \"_That_ will not happen in _any case_, it doesn't make any\ndifference which way I go around this flower-bed.\"\n\nI explained to him that he was an ass, but he stuck to his proposition,\nand I said,\n\n\"Go on and try it, and see.\"\n\nHe went on and tried it, and sure enough he fetched me up at the door on\nthe very side that he had said I would be. I was not able to believe it\nthen, and I don't believe it yet.\n\nI said, \"Whitmore, that is merely an accident. You can't do it again.\"\n\nHe said he could--and he drove down into the street, fetched around,\ncame back, and actually did it again. I was stupefied, paralyzed,\npetrified, with these strange results, but they did not convince me. I\ndidn't believe he could do it another time, but he did. He said he could\ndo it all day, and fetch up the same way every time. By that time my\ntemper was gone, and I asked him to go home and apply to the Asylum and\nI would pay the expenses; I didn't want to see him any more for a week.\n\nI went up-stairs in a rage and started to tell Livy about it, expecting\nto get her sympathy for me and to breed aversion in her for Whitmore;\nbut she merely burst into peal after peal of laughter, as the tale of my\nadventure went on, for her head was like Susy's: riddles and\ncomplexities had no terrors for it. Her mind and Susy's were analytical;\nI have tried to make it appear that mine was different. Many and many a\ntime I have told that buggy experiment, hoping against hope that I would\nsome time or other find somebody who would be on my side, but it has\nnever happened. And I am never able to go glibly forward and state the\ncircumstances of that buggy's progress without having to halt and\nconsider, and call up in my mind the spoon-handle, the bowl of the\nspoon, the buggy and the horse, and my position in the buggy: and the\nminute I have got that far and try to turn it to the left it goes to\nruin; I can't see how it is ever going to fetch me out right when we get\nto the door. Susy is right in her estimate. I can't understand things.\n\nThat burglar-alarm which Susy mentions led a gay and careless life, and\nhad no principles. It was generally out of order at one point or\nanother; and there was plenty of opportunity, because all the windows\nand doors in the house, from the cellar up to the top floor, were\nconnected with it. However, in its seasons of being out of order it\ncould trouble us for only a very little while: we quickly found out that\nit was fooling us, and that it was buzzing its blood-curdling alarm\nmerely for its own amusement. Then we would shut it off, and send to New\nYork for the electrician--there not being one in all Hartford in those\ndays. When the repairs were finished we would set the alarm again and\nreestablish our confidence in it. It never did any real business except\nupon one single occasion. All the rest of its expensive career was\nfrivolous and without purpose. Just that one time it performed its duty,\nand its whole duty--gravely, seriously, admirably. It let fly about two\no'clock one black and dreary March morning, and I turned out promptly,\nbecause I knew that it was not fooling, this time. The bath-room door\nwas on my side of the bed. I stepped in there, turned up the gas, looked\nat the annunciator, and turned off the alarm--so far as the door\nindicated was concerned--thus stopping the racket. Then I came back to\nbed. Mrs. Clemens opened the debate:\n\n\"What was it?\"\n\n\"It was the cellar door.\"\n\n\"Was it a burglar, do you think?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"of course it was. Did you suppose it was a Sunday-school\nsuperintendent?\"\n\n\"No. What do you suppose he wants?\"\n\n\"I suppose he wants jewelry, but he is not acquainted with the house and\nhe thinks it is in the cellar. I don't like to disappoint a burglar whom\nI am not acquainted with, and who has done me no harm, but if he had\nhad common sagacity enough to inquire, I could have told him we kept\nnothing down there but coal and vegetables. Still it may be that he is\nacquainted with the place, and that what he really wants is coal and\nvegetables. On the whole, I think it is vegetables he is after.\"\n\n\"Are you going down to see?\"\n\n\"No; I could not be of any assistance. Let him select for himself; I\ndon't know where the things are.\"\n\nThen she said, \"But suppose he comes up to the ground floor!\"\n\n\"That's all right. We shall know it the minute he opens a door on that\nfloor. It will set off the alarm.\"\n\nJust then the terrific buzzing broke out again. I said,\n\n\"He has arrived. I told you he would. I know all about burglars and\ntheir ways. They are systematic people.\"\n\nI went into the bath-room to see if I was right, and I was. I shut off\nthe dining-room and stopped the buzzing, and came back to bed. My wife\nsaid,\n\n\"What do you suppose he is after now?\"\n\nI said, \"I think he has got all the vegetables he wants and is coming up\nfor napkin-rings and odds and ends for the wife and children. They all\nhave families--burglars have--and they are always thoughtful of them,\nalways take a few necessaries of life for themselves, and fill out with\ntokens of remembrance for the family. In taking them they do not forget\nus: those very things represent tokens of his remembrance of us, and\nalso of our remembrance of him. We never get them again; the memory of\nthe attention remains embalmed in our hearts.\"\n\n\"Are you going down to see what it is he wants now?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, \"I am no more interested than I was before. They are\nexperienced people,--burglars; _they_ know what they want; I should be\nno help to him. I _think_ he is after ceramics and bric-\u00e0-brac and such\nthings. If he knows the house he knows that that is all that he can find\non the dining-room floor.\"\n\nShe said, with a strong interest perceptible in her tone, \"Suppose he\ncomes up here!\"\n\nI said, \"It is all right. He will give us notice.\"\n\n\"What shall we do then then?\"\n\n\"Climb out of the window.\"\n\nShe said, a little restively, \"Well, what is the use of a burglar-alarm\nfor us?\"\n\n\"You have seen, dear heart, that it has been useful up to the present\nmoment, and I have explained to you how it will be continuously useful\nafter he gets up here.\"\n\nThat was the end of it. He didn't ring any more alarms. Presently I\nsaid,\n\n\"He is disappointed, I think. He has gone off with the vegetables and\nthe bric-\u00e0-brac, and I think he is dissatisfied.\"\n\nWe went to sleep, and at a quarter before eight in the morning I was\nout, and hurrying, for I was to take the 8.29 train for New York. I\nfound the gas burning brightly--full head--all over the first floor. My\nnew overcoat was gone; my old umbrella was gone; my new patent-leather\nshoes, which I had never worn, were gone. The large window which opened\ninto the _ombra_ at the rear of the house was standing wide. I passed\nout through it and tracked the burglar down the hill through the trees;\ntracked him without difficulty, because he had blazed his progress with\nimitation silver napkin-rings, and my umbrella, and various other things\nwhich he had disapproved of; and I went back in triumph and proved to my\nwife that he _was_ a disappointed burglar. I had suspected he would be,\nfrom the start, and from his not coming up to our floor to get human\nbeings.\n\nThings happened to me that day in New York. I will tell about them\nanother time.\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Papa has a peculiar gait we like, it seems just to sute him, but\n     most people do not; he always walks up and down the room while\n     thinking and between each coarse at meals.\n\n\nA lady distantly related to us came to visit us once in those days. She\ncame to stay a week, but all our efforts to make her happy failed, we\ncould not imagine why, and she got up her anchor and sailed the next\nmorning. We did much guessing, but could not solve the mystery. Later we\nfound out what the trouble was. It was my tramping up and down between\nthe courses. She conceived the idea that I could not stand her society.\n\nThat word \"Youth,\" as the reader has perhaps already guessed, was my\nwife's pet name for me. It was gently satirical, but also affectionate.\nI had certain mental and material peculiarities and customs proper to a\nmuch younger person than I was.\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Papa is very fond of animals particularly of cats, we had a dear\n     little gray kitten once that he named \"Lazy\" (papa always wears\n     gray to match his hair and eyes) and he would carry him around on\n     his shoulder, it was a mighty pretty sight! the gray cat sound\n     asleep against papa's gray coat and hair. The names that he has\n     given our different cats, are realy remarkably funny, they are\n     namely Stray Kit, Abner, Motley, Fraeulein, Lazy, Bufalo Bill,\n     Cleveland, Sour Mash, and Pestilence and Famine.\n\n\nAt one time when the children were small, we had a very black mother-cat\nnamed Satan, and Satan had a small black offspring named Sin. Pronouns\nwere a difficulty for the children. Little Clara came in one day, her\nblack eyes snapping with indignation, and said,\n\n\"Papa, Satan ought to be punished. She is out there at the greenhouse\nand there she stays and stays, and his kitten is down-stairs crying.\"\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Papa uses very strong language, but I have an idea not nearly so\n     strong as when he first maried mamma. A lady acquaintance of his is\n     rather apt to interupt what one is saying, and papa told mamma that\n     he thought he should say to the lady's husband \"I am glad your wife\n     wasn't present when the Deity said 'Let there be light.'\"\n\n\nIt is as I have said before. This is a frank historian. She doesn't\ncover up one's deficiencies, but gives them an equal showing with one's\nhandsomer qualities. Of course I made the remark which she has\nquoted--and even at this distant day I am still as much as half\npersuaded that if that lady had been present when the Creator said, \"Let\nthere be light,\" she would have interrupted Him and we shouldn't ever\nhave got it.\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Papa said the other day, \"I am a mugwump and a mugwump is pure from\n     the marrow out.\" (Papa knows that I am writing this biography of\n     him, and he said this for it.) He doesn't like to go to church at\n     all, why I never understood, until just now, he told us the other\n     day that he couldn't bear to hear any one talk but himself, but\n     that he could listen to himself talk for hours without getting\n     tired, of course he said this in joke, but I've no dought it was\n     founded on truth.\n\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCII.\n\nNOVEMBER 2, 1906.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--V.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\nSusy's remark about my strong language troubles me, and I must go back\nto it. All through the first ten years of my married life I kept a\nconstant and discreet watch upon my tongue while in the house, and went\noutside and to a distance when circumstances were too much for me and I\nwas obliged to seek relief. I prized my wife's respect and approval\nabove all the rest of the human race's respect and approval. I dreaded\nthe day when she should discover that I was but a whited sepulchre\npartly freighted with suppressed language. I was so careful, during ten\nyears, that I had not a doubt that my suppressions had been successful.\nTherefore I was quite as happy in my guilt as I could have been if I had\nbeen innocent.\n\nBut at last an accident exposed me. I went into the bath-room one\nmorning to make my toilet, and carelessly left the door two or three\ninches ajar. It was the first time that I had ever failed to take the\nprecaution of closing it tightly. I knew the necessity of being\nparticular about this, because shaving was always a trying ordeal for\nme, and I could seldom carry it through to a finish without verbal\nhelps. Now this time I was unprotected, but did not suspect it. I had no\nextraordinary trouble with my razor on this occasion, and was able to\nworry through with mere mutterings and growlings of an improper sort,\nbut with nothing noisy or emphatic about them--no snapping and barking.\nThen I put on a shirt. My shirts are an invention of my own. They open\nin the back, and are buttoned there--when there are buttons. This time\nthe button was missing. My temper jumped up several degrees in a moment,\nand my remarks rose accordingly, both in loudness and vigor of\nexpression. But I was not troubled, for the bath-room door was a solid\none and I supposed it was firmly closed. I flung up the window and threw\nthe shirt out. It fell upon the shrubbery where the people on their way\nto church could admire it if they wanted to; there was merely fifty feet\nof grass between the shirt and the passer-by. Still rumbling and\nthundering distantly, I put on another shirt. Again the button was\nabsent. I augmented my language to meet the emergency, and threw that\nshirt out of the window. I was too angry--too insane--to examine the\nthird shirt, but put it furiously on. Again the button was absent, and\nthat shirt followed its comrades out of the window. Then I straightened\nup, gathered my reserves, and let myself go like a cavalry charge. In\nthe midst of that great assault, my eye fell upon that gaping door, and\nI was paralyzed.\n\nIt took me a good while to finish my toilet. I extended the time\nunnecessarily in trying to make up my mind as to what I would best do in\nthe circumstances. I tried to hope that Mrs. Clemens was asleep, but I\nknew better. I could not escape by the window. It was narrow, and suited\nonly to shirts. At last I made up my mind to boldly loaf through the\nbedroom with the air of a person who had not been doing anything. I made\nhalf the journey successfully. I did not turn my eyes in her direction,\nbecause that would not be safe. It is very difficult to look as if you\nhave not been doing anything when the facts are the other way, and my\nconfidence in my performance oozed steadily out of me as I went along. I\nwas aiming for the left-hand door because it was furthest from my wife.\nIt had never been opened from the day that the house was built, but it\nseemed a blessed refuge for me now. The bed was this one, wherein I am\nlying now, and dictating these histories morning after morning with so\nmuch serenity. It was this same old elaborately carved black Venetian\nbedstead--the most comfortable bedstead that ever was, with space enough\nin it for a family, and carved angels enough surmounting its twisted\ncolumns and its headboard and footboard to bring peace to the sleepers,\nand pleasant dreams. I had to stop in the middle of the room. I hadn't\nthe strength to go on. I believed that I was under accusing eyes--that\neven the carved angels were inspecting me with an unfriendly gaze. You\nknow how it is when you are convinced that somebody behind you is\nlooking steadily at you. You _have_ to turn your face--you can't help\nit. I turned mine. The bed was placed as it is now, with the foot where\nthe head ought to be. If it had been placed as it should have been, the\nhigh headboard would have sheltered me. But the footboard was no\nsufficient protection, for I could be seen over it. I was exposed. I was\nwholly without protection. I turned, because I couldn't help it--and my\nmemory of what I saw is still vivid, after all these years.\n\nAgainst the white pillows I saw the black head--I saw that young and\nbeautiful face; and I saw the gracious eyes with a something in them\nwhich I had never seen there before. They were snapping and flashing\nwith indignation. I felt myself crumbling; I felt myself shrinking away\nto nothing under that accusing gaze. I stood silent under that\ndesolating fire for as much as a minute, I should say--it seemed a very,\nvery long time. Then my wife's lips parted, and from them issued--_my\nlatest bath-room remark_. The language perfect, but the expression\nvelvety, unpractical, apprenticelike, ignorant, inexperienced, comically\ninadequate, absurdly weak and unsuited to the great language. In my\nlifetime I had never heard anything so out of tune, so inharmonious, so\nincongruous, so ill-suited to each other as were those mighty words set\nto that feeble music. I tried to keep from laughing, for I was a guilty\nperson in deep need of charity and mercy. I tried to keep from\nbursting, and I succeeded--until she gravely said, \"There, now you know\nhow it sounds.\"\n\nThen I exploded; the air was filled with my fragments, and you could\nhear them whiz. I said, \"Oh Livy, if it sounds like _that_ I will never\ndo it again!\"\n\nThen she had to laugh herself. Both of us broke into convulsions, and\nwent on laughing until we were physically exhausted and spiritually\nreconciled.\n\nThe children were present at breakfast--Clara aged six and Susy\neight--and the mother made a guarded remark about strong language;\nguarded because she did not wish the children to suspect anything--a\nguarded remark which censured strong language. Both children broke out\nin one voice with this comment, \"Why, mamma, papa uses it!\"\n\nI was astonished. I had supposed that that secret was safe in my own\nbreast, and that its presence had never been suspected. I asked,\n\n\"How did you know, you little rascals?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" they said, \"we often listen over the balusters when you are in the\nhall explaining things to George.\"\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     One of papa's latest books is \"The Prince and the Pauper\" and it is\n     unquestionably the best book he has ever written, some people want\n     him to keep to his old style, some gentleman wrote him, \"I enjoyed\n     Huckleberry Finn immensely and am glad to see that you have\n     returned to your old style.\" That enoyed me that enoyed me greatly,\n     because it trobles me [Susy was troubled by that word, and\n     uncertain; she wrote a u above it in the proper place, but\n     reconsidered the matter and struck it out] to have so few people\n     know papa, I mean realy know him, they think of Mark Twain as a\n     humorist joking at everything; \"And with a mop of reddish brown\n     hair which sorely needs the barbars brush a roman nose, short\n     stubby mustache, a sad care-worn face, with maney crow's feet\" etc.\n     That is the way people picture papa, I have wanted papa to write a\n     book that would reveal something of his kind sympathetic nature,\n     and \"The Prince and the Pauper\" partly does it. The book is full of\n     lovely charming ideas, and oh the language! It is _perfect_. I\n     think that one of the most touching scenes in it, is where the\n     pauper is riding on horseback with his nobles in the \"recognition\n     procession\" and he sees his mother oh and then what followed! How\n     she runs to his side, when she sees him throw up his hand palm\n     outward, and is rudely pushed off by one of the King's officers,\n     and then how the little pauper's consceince troubles him when he\n     remembers the shameful words that were falling from his lips, when\n     she was turned from his side \"I know you not woman\" and how his\n     grandeurs were stricken valueless, and his pride consumed to ashes.\n     It is a wonderfully beautiful and touching little scene, and papa\n     has described it so wonderfully. I never saw a man with so much\n     variety of feeling as papa has; now the \"Prince and the Pauper\" is\n     full of touching places; but there is most always a streak of humor\n     in them somewhere. Now in the coronation--in the stirring\n     coronation, just after the little king has got his crown back again\n     papa brings that in about the Seal, where the pauper says he used\n     the Seal \"to crack nuts with.\" Oh it is so funny and nice! Papa\n     very seldom writes a passage without some humor in it somewhere,\n     and I dont think he ever will.\n\n\nThe children always helped their mother to edit my books in manuscript.\nShe would sit on the porch at the farm and read aloud, with her pencil\nin her hand, and the children would keep an alert and suspicious eye\nupon her right along, for the belief was well grounded in them that\nwhenever she came across a particularly satisfactory passage she would\nstrike it out. Their suspicions were well founded. The passages which\nwere so satisfactory to them always had an element of strength in them\nwhich sorely needed modification or expurgation, and were always sure to\nget it at their mother's hand. For my own entertainment, and to enjoy\nthe protests of the children, I often abused my editor's innocent\nconfidence. I often interlarded remarks of a studied and felicitously\natrocious character purposely to achieve the children's brief delight,\nand then see the remorseless pencil do its fatal work. I often joined my\nsupplications to the children's for mercy, and strung the argument out\nand pretended to be in earnest. They were deceived, and so was their\nmother. It was three against one, and most unfair. But it was very\ndelightful, and I could not resist the temptation. Now and then we\ngained the victory and there was much rejoicing. Then I privately struck\nthe passage out myself. It had served its purpose. It had furnished\nthree of us with good entertainment, and in being removed from the book\nby me it was only suffering the fate originally intended for it.\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Papa was born in Missouri. His mother is Grandma Clemens (Jane\n     Lampton Clemens) of Kentucky. Grandpa Clemens was of the F.F.V's of\n     Virginia.\n\n\nWithout doubt it was I that gave Susy that impression. I cannot imagine\nwhy, because I was never in my life much impressed by grandeurs which\nproceed from the accident of birth. I did not get this indifference from\nmy mother. She was always strongly interested in the ancestry of the\nhouse. She traced her own line back to the Lambtons of Durham,\nEngland--a family which had been occupying broad lands there since Saxon\ntimes. I am not sure, but I think that those Lambtons got along without\ntitles of nobility for eight or nine hundred years, then produced a\ngreat man, three-quarters of a century ago, and broke into the peerage.\nMy mother knew all about the Clemenses of Virginia, and loved to\naggrandize them to me, but she has long been dead. There has been no one\nto keep those details fresh in my memory, and they have grown dim.\n\nThere was a Jere. Clemens who was a United States Senator, and in his\nday enjoyed the usual Senatorial fame--a fame which perishes whether it\nspring from four years' service or forty. After Jere. Clemens's fame as\na Senator passed away, he was still remembered for many years on account\nof another service which he performed. He shot old John Brown's Governor\nWise in the hind leg in a duel. However, I am not very clear about this.\nIt may be that Governor Wise shot _him_ in the hind leg. However, I\ndon't think it is important. I think that the only thing that is really\nimportant is that one of them got shot in the hind leg. It would have\nbeen better and nobler and more historical and satisfactory if both of\nthem had got shot in the hind leg--but it is of no use for me to try to\nrecollect history. I never had a historical mind. Let it go. Whichever\nway it happened I am glad of it, and that is as much enthusiasm as I can\nget up for a person bearing my name. But I am forgetting the first\nClemens--the one that stands furthest back toward the really original\n_first_ Clemens, which was Adam.\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Clara and I are sure that papa played the trick on Grandma, about\n     the whipping, that is related in \"The Adventures of Tom Sayer\":\n     \"Hand me that switch.\" The switch hovered in the air, the peril was\n     desperate--\"My, look behind you Aunt!\" The old lady whirled around\n     and snatched her skirts out of danger. The lad fled on the instant,\n     scrambling up the high board fence and dissapeared over it.\n\n\nSusy and Clara were quite right about that.\n\nThen Susy says:\n\n\n     And we know papa played \"Hookey\" all the time. And how readily\n     would papa pretend to be dying so as not to have to go to school!\n\n\nThese revelations and exposures are searching, but they are just If I am\nas transparent to other people as I was to Susy, I have wasted much\neffort in this life.\n\n\n     Grandma couldn't make papa go to school, no she let him go into a\n     printing-office to learn the trade. He did so, and gradually picked\n     up enough education to enable him to do about as well as those who\n     were more studious in early life.\n\n\nIt is noticeable that Susy does not get overheated when she is\ncomplimenting me, but maintains a proper judicial and biographical calm.\nIt is noticeable, also, and it is to her credit as a biographer, that\nshe distributes compliment and criticism with a fair and even hand.\n\nMy mother had a good deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed\nit. She had none at all with my brother Henry, who was two years younger\nthan I, and I think that the unbroken monotony of his goodness and\ntruthfulness and obedience would have been a burden to her but for the\nrelief and variety which I furnished in the other direction. I was a\ntonic. I was valuable to her. I never thought of it before, but now I\nsee it. I never knew Henry to do a vicious thing toward me, or toward\nany one else--but he frequently did righteous ones that cost me as\nheavily. It was his duty to report me, when I needed reporting and\nneglected to do it myself, and he was very faithful in discharging that\nduty. He is \"Sid\" in \"Tom Sawyer.\" But Sid was not Henry. Henry was a\nvery much finer and better boy than ever Sid was.\n\nIt was Henry who called my mother's attention to the fact that the\nthread with which she had sewed my collar together to keep me from going\nin swimming, had changed color. My mother would not have discovered it\nbut for that, and she was manifestly piqued when she recognized that\nthat prominent bit of circumstantial evidence had escaped her sharp eye.\nThat detail probably added a detail to my punishment. It is human. We\ngenerally visit our shortcomings on somebody else when there is a\npossible excuse for it--but no matter, I took it out of Henry. There is\nalways compensation for such as are unjustly used. I often took it out\nof him--sometimes as an advance payment for something which I hadn't yet\ndone. These were occasions when the opportunity was too strong a\ntemptation, and I had to draw on the future. I did not need to copy this\nidea from my mother, and probably didn't. Still she wrought upon that\nprinciple upon occasion.\n\nIf the incident of the broken sugar-bowl is in \"Tom Sawyer\"--I don't\nremember whether it is or not--that is an example of it. Henry never\nstole sugar. He took it openly from the bowl. His mother knew he\nwouldn't take sugar when she wasn't looking, but she had her doubts\nabout me. Not exactly doubts, either. She knew very well I _would._ One\nday when she was not present, Henry took sugar from her prized and\nprecious old English sugar-bowl, which was an heirloom in the\nfamily--and he managed to break the bowl. It was the first time I had\never had a chance to tell anything on him, and I was inexpressibly glad.\nI told him I was going to tell on him, but he was not disturbed. When my\nmother came in and saw the bowl lying on the floor in fragments, she was\nspeechless for a minute. I allowed that silence to work; I judged it\nwould increase the effect. I was waiting for her to ask \"Who did\nthat?\"--so that I could fetch out my news. But it was an error of\ncalculation. When she got through with her silence she didn't ask\nanything about it--she merely gave me a crack on the skull with her\nthimble that I felt all the way down to my heels. Then I broke out with\nmy injured innocence, expecting to make her very sorry that she had\npunished the wrong one. I expected her to do something remorseful and\npathetic. I told her that I was not the one--it was Henry. But there was\nno upheaval. She said, without emotion, \"It's all right. It isn't any\nmatter. You deserve it for something you've done that I didn't know\nabout; and if you haven't done it, why then you deserve it for something\nthat you are going to do, that I sha'n't hear about.\"\n\nThere was a stairway outside the house, which led up to the rear part of\nthe second story. One day Henry was sent on an errand, and he took a tin\nbucket along. I knew he would have to ascend those stairs, so I went up\nand locked the door on the inside, and came down into the garden, which\nhad been newly ploughed and was rich in choice firm clods of black mold.\nI gathered a generous equipment of these, and ambushed him. I waited\ntill he had climbed the stairs and was near the landing and couldn't\nescape. Then I bombarded him with clods, which he warded off with his\ntin bucket the best he could, but without much success, for I was a good\nmarksman. The clods smashing against the weather-boarding fetched my\nmother out to see what was the matter, and I tried to explain that I was\namusing Henry. Both of them were after me in a minute, but I knew the\nway over that high board fence and escaped for that time. After an hour\nor two, when I ventured back, there was no one around and I thought the\nincident was closed. But it was not. Henry was ambushing me. With an\nunusually competent aim for him, he landed a stone on the side of my\nhead which raised a bump there that felt like the Matterhorn. I carried\nit to my mother straightway for sympathy, but she was not strongly\nmoved. It seemed to be her idea that incidents like this would\neventually reform me if I harvested enough of them. So the matter was\nonly educational. I had had a sterner view of it than that, before.\n\nIt was not right to give the cat the \"Pain-Killer\"; I realize it now. I\nwould not repeat it in these days. But in those \"Tom Sawyer\" days it was\na great and sincere satisfaction to me to see Peter perform under its\ninfluence--and if actions _do_ speak as loud as words, he took as much\ninterest in it as I did. It was a most detestable medicine, Perry\nDavis's Pain-Killer. Mr. Pavey's negro man, who was a person of good\njudgment and considerable curiosity, wanted to sample it, and I let him.\nIt was his opinion that it was made of hell-fire.\n\nThose were the cholera days of '49. The people along the Mississippi\nwere paralyzed with fright. Those who could run away, did it. And many\ndied of fright in the flight. Fright killed three persons where the\ncholera killed one. Those who couldn't flee kept themselves drenched\nwith cholera preventives, and my mother chose Perry Davis's Pain-Killer\nfor me. She was not distressed about herself. She avoided that kind of\npreventive. But she made me promise to take a teaspoonful of Pain-Killer\nevery day. Originally it was my intention to keep the promise, but at\nthat time I didn't know as much about Pain-Killer as I knew after my\nfirst experiment with it. She didn't watch Henry's bottle--she could\ntrust Henry. But she marked my bottle with a pencil, on the label, every\nday, and examined it to see if the teaspoonful had been removed. The\nfloor was not carpeted. It had cracks in it, and I fed the Pain-Killer\nto the cracks with very good results--no cholera occurred down below.\n\nIt was upon one of these occasions that that friendly cat came waving\nhis tail and supplicating for Pain-Killer--which he got--and then went\ninto those hysterics which ended with his colliding with all the\nfurniture in the room and finally going out of the open window and\ncarrying the flower-pots with him, just in time for my mother to arrive\nand look over her glasses in petrified astonishment and say, \"What in\nthe world is the matter with Peter?\"\n\nI don't remember what my explanation was, but if it is recorded in that\nbook it may not be the right one.\n\nWhenever my conduct was of such exaggerated impropriety that my mother's\nextemporary punishments were inadequate, she saved the matter up for\nSunday, and made me go to church Sunday night--which was a penalty\nsometimes bearable, perhaps, but as a rule it was not, and I avoided it\nfor the sake of my constitution. She would never believe that I had been\nto church until she had applied her test: she made me tell her what the\ntext was. That was a simple matter, and caused me no trouble. I didn't\nhave to go to church to get a text. I selected one for myself. This\nworked very well until one time when my text and the one furnished by a\nneighbor, who had been to church, didn't tally. After that my mother\ntook other methods. I don't know what they were now.\n\nIn those days men and boys wore rather long cloaks in the winter-time.\nThey were black, and were lined with very bright and showy Scotch\nplaids. One winter's night when I was starting to church to square a\ncrime of some kind committed during the week, I hid my cloak near the\ngate and went off and played with the other boys until church was over.\nThen I returned home. But in the dark I put the cloak on wrong side out,\nentered the room, threw the cloak aside, and then stood the usual\nexamination. I got along very well until the temperature of the church\nwas mentioned. My mother said,\n\n\"It must have been impossible to keep warm there on such a night.\"\n\nI didn't see the art of that remark, and was foolish enough to explain\nthat I wore my cloak all the time that I was in church. She asked if I\nkept it on from church home, too. I didn't see the bearing of that\nremark. I said that that was what I had done. She said,\n\n\"You wore it in church with that red Scotch plaid outside and glaring?\nDidn't that attract any attention?\"\n\nOf course to continue such a dialogue would have been tedious and\nunprofitable, and I let it go, and took the consequences.\n\nThat was about 1849. Tom Nash was a boy of my own age--the postmaster's\nson. The Mississippi was frozen across, and he and I went skating one\nnight, probably without permission. I cannot see why we should go\nskating in the night unless without permission, for there could be no\nconsiderable amusement to be gotten out of skating at night if nobody\nwas going to object to it. About midnight, when we were more than half a\nmile out toward the Illinois shore, we heard some ominous rumbling and\ngrinding and crashing going on between us and the home side of the\nriver, and we knew what it meant--the ice was breaking up. We started\nfor home, pretty badly scared. We flew along at full speed whenever the\nmoonlight sifting down between the clouds enabled us to tell which was\nice and which was water. In the pauses we waited; started again whenever\nthere was a good bridge of ice; paused again when we came to naked water\nand waited in distress until a floating vast cake should bridge that\nplace. It took us an hour to make the trip--a trip which we made in a\nmisery of apprehension all the time. But at last we arrived within a\nvery brief distance of the shore. We waited again; there was another\nplace that needed bridging. All about us the ice was plunging and\ngrinding along and piling itself up in mountains on the shore, and the\ndangers were increasing, not diminishing. We grew very impatient to get\nto solid ground, so we started too early and went springing from cake to\ncake. Tom made a miscalculation, and fell short. He got a bitter bath,\nbut he was so close to shore that he only had to swim a stroke or\ntwo--then his feet struck hard bottom and he crawled out. I arrived a\nlittle later, without accident. We had been in a drenching perspiration,\nand Tom's bath was a disaster for him. He took to his bed sick, and had\na procession of diseases. The closing one was scarlet-fever, and he came\nout of it stone deaf. Within a year or two speech departed, of course.\nBut some years later he was taught to talk, after a fashion--one\ncouldn't always make out what it was he was trying to say. Of course he\ncould not modulate his voice, since he couldn't hear himself talk. When\nhe supposed he was talking low and confidentially, you could hear him in\nIllinois.\n\nFour years ago (1902) I was invited by the University of Missouri to\ncome out there and receive the honorary degree of LL.D. I took that\nopportunity to spend a week in Hannibal--a city now, a village in my\nday. It had been fifty-three years since Tom Nash and I had had that\nadventure. When I was at the railway station ready to leave Hannibal,\nthere was a crowd of citizens there. I saw Tom Nash approaching me\nacross a vacant space, and I walked toward him, for I recognized him at\nonce. He was old and white-headed, but the boy of fifteen was still\nvisible in him. He came up to me, made a trumpet of his hands at my ear,\nnodded his head toward the citizens and said confidentially--in a yell\nlike a fog-horn--\n\n\"Same damned fools, Sam!\"\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Papa was about twenty years old when he went on the Mississippi as\n     a pilot. Just before he started on his tripp Grandma Clemens asked\n     him to promise her on the Bible not to touch intoxicating liquors\n     or swear, and he said \"Yes, mother, I will,\" and he kept that\n     promise seven years when Grandma released him from it.\n\n\nUnder the inspiring influence of that remark, what a garden of forgotten\nreforms rises upon my sight!\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCIII.\n\nNOVEMBER 16, 1906.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--VI.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n_From Susy's Biography_.\n\n\n     Papa made arrangements to read at Vassar College the 1st of May,\n     and I went with him. We went by way of New York City. Mamma went\n     with us to New York and stayed two days to do some shopping. We\n     started Tuesday, at 1/2 past two o'clock in the afternoon, and\n     reached New York about 1/4 past six. Papa went right up to General\n     Grants from the station and mamma and I went to the Everett House.\n     Aunt Clara came to supper with us up in our room....\n\n     We and Aunt Clara were going were going to the theatre right after\n     supper, and we expected papa to take us there and to come home as\n     early as he could. But we got through dinner and he didn't come,\n     and didn't come, and mamma got more perplexed and worried, but at\n     last we thought we would have to go without him. So we put on our\n     things and started down stairs but before we'd goten half down we\n     met papa coming up with a great bunch of roses in his hand. He\n     explained that the reason he was so late was that his watch stopped\n     and he didn't notice and kept thinking it an hour earlier than it\n     really was. The roses he carried were some Col. Fred Grant sent to\n     mamma. We went to the theatre and enjoyed \"Adonis\" [word illegible]\n     acted very much. We reached home about 1/2 past eleven o'clock and\n     went right to bed. Wednesday morning we got up rather late and had\n     breakfast about 1/2 past nine o'clock. After breakfast mamma went\n     out shopping and papa and I went to see papa's agent about some\n     business matters. After papa had gotten through talking to Cousin\n     Charlie, [Webster] papa's agent, we went to get a friend of papa's,\n     Major Pond, to go and see a Dog Show with us. Then we went to see\n     the dogs with Major Pond and we had a delightful time seeing so\n     many dogs together; when we got through seeing the dogs papa\n     thought he would go and see General Grant and I went with him--this\n     was April 29, 1885. Papa went up into General Grant's room and he\n     took me with him, I felt greatly honored and delighted when papa\n     took me into General Grant's room and let me see the General and\n     Col. Grant, for General Grant is a man I shall be glad all my life\n     that I have seen. Papa and General Grant had a long talk together\n     and papa has written an account of his talk and visit with General\n     Grant for me to put into this biography.\n\n\nSusy has inserted in this place that account of mine--as follows:\n\n\n                                                    April 29, 1885.\n\n     I called on General Grant and took Susy with me. The General was\n     looking and feeling far better than he had looked or felt for some\n     months. He had ventured to work again on his book that morning--the\n     first time he had done any work for perhaps a month. This morning's\n     work was his first attempt at dictating, and it was a thorough\n     success, to his great delight. He had always said that it would be\n     impossible for him to dictate anything, but I had said that he was\n     noted for clearness of statement, and as a narrative was simply a\n     statement of consecutive facts, he was consequently peculiarly\n     qualified and equipped for dictation. This turned out to be true.\n     For he had dictated two hours that morning to a shorthand writer,\n     had never hesitated for words, had not repeated himself, and the\n     manuscript when finished needed no revision. The two hours' work\n     was an account of Appomattox--and this was such an extremely\n     important feature that his book would necessarily have been\n     severely lame without it. Therefore I had taken a shorthand writer\n     there before, to see if I could not get him to write at least a few\n     lines about Appomattox.[5] But he was at that time not well enough\n     to undertake it. I was aware that of all the hundred versions of\n     Appomattox, not one was really correct. Therefore I was extremely\n     anxious that he should leave behind him the truth. His throat was\n     not distressing him, and his voice was much better and stronger\n     than usual. He was so delighted to have gotten Appomattox\n     accomplished once more in his life--to have gotten the matter off\n     his mind--that he was as talkative as his old self. He received\n     Susy very pleasantly, and then fell to talking about certain\n     matters which he hoped to be able to dictate next day; and he said\n     in substance that, among other things, he wanted to settle once for\n     all a question that had been bandied about from mouth to mouth and\n     from newspaper to newspaper. That question was, \"With whom\n     originated the idea of the march to the sea? Was it Grant's, or was\n     it Sherman's idea?\" Whether I, or some one else (being anxious to\n     get the important fact settled) asked him with whom the idea\n     originated, I don't remember. But I remember his answer. I shall\n     always remember his answer. General Grant said:\n\n     \"Neither of us originated the idea of Sherman's march to the sea.\n     The enemy did it.\"\n\n     He went on to say that the enemy, however, necessarily originated a\n     great many of the plans that the general on the opposite side gets\n     the credit for; at the same time that the enemy is doing that, he\n     is laying open other moves which the opposing general sees and\n     takes advantage of. In this case, Sherman had a plan all thought\n     out, of course. He meant to destroy the two remaining railroads in\n     that part of the country, and that would finish up that region. But\n     General Hood did not play the military part that he was expected to\n     play. On the contrary, General Hood made a dive at Chattanooga.\n     This left the march to the sea open to Sherman, and so after\n     sending part of his army to defend and hold what he had acquired in\n     the Chattanooga region, he was perfectly free to proceed, with the\n     rest of it, through Georgia. He saw the opportunity, and he would\n     not have been fit for his place if he had not seized it.\n\n     \"He wrote me\" (the General is speaking) \"what his plan was, and I\n     sent him word to go ahead. My staff were opposed to the movement.\"\n     (I think the General said they tried to persuade him to stop\n     Sherman. The chief of his staff, the General said, even went so far\n     as to go to Washington without the General's knowledge and get the\n     ear of the authorities, and he succeeded in arousing their fears to\n     such an extent that they telegraphed General Grant to stop\n     Sherman.)\n\n     Then General Grant said, \"Out of deference to the Government, I\n     telegraphed Sherman and stopped him twenty-four hours; and then\n     considering that that was deference enough to the Government, I\n     telegraphed him to go ahead again.\"\n\n     I have not tried to give the General's language, but only the\n     general idea of what he said. The thing that mainly struck me was\n     his terse remark that the enemy originated the idea of the march to\n     the sea. It struck me because it was so suggestive of the General's\n     epigrammatic fashion--saying a great deal in a single crisp\n     sentence. (This is my account, and signed \"Mark Twain.\")\n\n\n_Susy Resumes._\n\n\n     After papa and General Grant had had their talk, we went back to\n     the hotel where mamma was, and papa told mamma all about his\n     interview with General Grant. Mamma and I had a nice quiet\n     afternoon together.\n\n\nThat pair of devoted comrades were always shutting themselves up\ntogether when there was opportunity to have what Susy called \"a cozy\ntime.\" From Susy's nursery days to the end of her life, she and her\nmother were close friends; intimate friends, passionate adorers of each\nother. Susy's was a beautiful mind, and it made her an interesting\ncomrade. And with the fine mind she had a heart like her mother's. Susy\nnever had an interest or an occupation which she was not glad to put\naside for that something which was in all cases more precious to her--a\nvisit with her mother. Susy died at the right time, the fortunate time\nof life; the happy age--twenty-four years. At twenty-four, such a girl\nhas seen the best of life--life as a happy dream. After that age the\nrisks begin; responsibility comes, and with it the cares, the sorrows,\nand the inevitable tragedy. For her mother's sake I would have brought\nher back from the grave if I could, but I would not have done it for my\nown.\n\n_From Susy's Biography_.\n\n\n     Then papa went to read in public; there were a great many authors\n     that read, that Thursday afternoon, beside papa; I would have liked\n     to have gone and heard papa read, but papa said he was going to\n     read in Vassar just what he was planning to read in New York, so I\n     stayed at home with mamma.\n\n     The next day mamma planned to take the four o'clock car back to\n     Hartford. We rose quite early that morning and went to the Vienna\n     Bakery and took breakfast there. From there we went to a German\n     bookstore and bought some German books for Clara's birthday.\n\n\nDear me, the power of association to snatch mouldy dead memories out of\ntheir graves and make them walk! That remark about buying foreign books\nthrows a sudden white glare upon the distant past; and I see the long\nstretch of a New York street with an unearthly vividness, and John Hay\nwalking down it, grave and remorseful. I was walking down it too, that\nmorning, and I overtook Hay and asked him what the trouble was. He\nturned a lustreless eye upon me and said:\n\n\"My case is beyond cure. In the most innocent way in the world I have\ncommitted a crime which will never be forgiven by the sufferers, for\nthey will never believe--oh, well, no, I was going to say they would\nnever believe that I did the thing innocently. The truth is they will\nknow that I acted innocently, because they are rational people; but what\nof that? I never can look them in the face again--nor they me, perhaps.\"\n\nHay was a young bachelor, and at that time was on the \"Tribune\" staff.\nHe explained his trouble in these words, substantially:\n\n\"When I was passing along here yesterday morning on my way down-town to\nthe office, I stepped into a bookstore where I am acquainted, and asked\nif they had anything new from the other side. They handed me a French\nnovel, in the usual yellow paper cover, and I carried it away. I didn't\neven look at the title of it. It was for recreation reading, and I was\non my way to my work. I went mooning and dreaming along, and I think I\nhadn't gone more than fifty yards when I heard my name called. I\nstopped, and a private carriage drew up at the sidewalk and I shook\nhands with the inmates--mother and young daughter, excellent people.\nThey were on their way to the steamer to sail for Paris. The mother\nsaid,\n\n\"'I saw that book in your hand and I judged by the look of it that it\nwas a French novel. Is it?'\n\n\"I said it was.\n\n\"She said, 'Do let me have it, so that my daughter can practise her\nFrench on it on the way over.'\n\n\"Of course I handed her the book, and we parted. Ten minutes ago I was\npassing that bookstore again, and I stepped in and fetched away another\ncopy of that book. Here it is. Read the first page of it. That is\nenough. You will know what the rest is like. I think it must be the\nfoulest book in the French language--one of the foulest, anyway. I would\nbe ashamed to offer it to a harlot--but, oh dear, I gave it to that\nsweet young girl without shame. Take my advice; don't give away a book\nuntil you have examined it.\"\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     Then mamma and I went to do some shopping and papa went to see\n     General Grant. After we had finnished doing our shopping we went\n     home to the hotel together. When we entered our rooms in the hotel\n     we saw on the table a vase full of exquisett red roses. Mamma who\n     is very fond of flowers exclaimed \"Oh I wonder who could have sent\n     them.\" We both looked at the card in the midst of the roses and saw\n     that it was written on in papa's handwriting, it was written in\n     German. 'Liebes Geshchenk on die mamma.' [I am sure I didn't say\n     \"on\"--that is Susy's spelling, not mine; also I am sure I didn't\n     spell Geschenk so liberally as all that.--S. L. C.] Mamma was\n     delighted. Papa came home and gave mamma her ticket; and after\n     visiting a while with her went to see Major Pond and mamma and I\n     sat down to our lunch. After lunch most of our time was taken up\n     with packing, and at about three o'clock we went to escort mamma to\n     the train. We got on board the train with her and stayed with her\n     about five minutes and then we said good-bye to her and the train\n     started for Hartford. It was the first time I had ever beene away\n     from home without mamma in my life, although I was 13 yrs. old.\n     Papa and I drove back to the hotel and got Major Pond and then went\n     to see the Brooklyn Bridge we went across it to Brooklyn on the\n     cars and then walked back across it from Brooklyn to New York. We\n     enjoyed looking at the beautiful scenery and we could see the\n     bridge moove under the intense heat of the sun. We had a perfectly\n     delightful time, but weer pretty tired when we got back to the\n     hotel.\n\n     The next morning we rose early, took our breakfast and took an\n     early train to Poughkeepsie. We had a very pleasant journey to\n     Poughkeepsie. The Hudson was magnificent--shrouded with beautiful\n     mist. When we arived at Poughkeepsie it was raining quite hard;\n     which fact greatly dissapointed me because I very much wanted to\n     see the outside of the buildings of Vassar College and as it rained\n     that would be impossible. It was quite a long drive from the\n     station to Vasser College and papa and I had a nice long time to\n     discuss and laugh over German profanity. One of the German phrases\n     papa particularly enjoys is \"O heilige maria Mutter Jesus!\" Jean\n     has a German nurse, and this was one of her phrases, there was a\n     time when Jean exclaimed \"Ach Gott!\" to every trifle, but when\n     mamma found it out she was shocked and instantly put a stop to it.\n\n\nIt brings that pretty little German girl vividly before me--a sweet and\ninnocent and plump little creature with peachy cheeks; a clear-souled\nlittle maiden and without offence, notwithstanding her profanities, and\nshe was loaded to the eyebrows with them. She was a mere child. She was\nnot fifteen yet. She was just from Germany, and knew no English. She was\nalways scattering her profanities around, and they were such a\nsatisfaction to me that I never dreamed of such a thing as modifying\nher. For my own sake, I had no disposition to tell on her. Indeed I took\npains to keep her from being found out. I told her to confine her\nreligious exercises to the children's quarters, and urged her to\nremember that Mrs. Clemens was prejudiced against pieties on week-days.\nTo the children, the little maid's profanities sounded natural and\nproper and right, because they had been used to that kind of talk in\nGermany, and they attached no evil importance to it. It grieves me that\nI have forgotten those vigorous remarks. I long hoarded them in my\nmemory as a treasure. But I remember one of them still, because I heard\nit so many times. The trial of that little creature's life was the\nchildren's hair. She would tug and strain with her comb, accompanying\nher work with her misplaced pieties. And when finally she was through\nwith her triple job she always fired up and exploded her thanks toward\nthe sky, where they belonged, in this form: \"_Gott sei Dank ich bin\nfertig mit'm Gott verdammtes Haar!_\" (I believe I am not quite brave\nenough to translate it.)\n\n_From Susy's Biography_.\n\n\n     We at length reached Vassar College and she looked very finely, her\n     buildings and her grounds being very beautiful. We went to the\n     front doore and range the bell. The young girl who came to the\n     doore wished to know who we wanted to see. Evidently we were not\n     expected. Papa told her who we wanted to see and she showed us to\n     the parlor. We waited, no one came; and waited, no one came, still\n     no one came. It was beginning to seem pretty awkward, \"Oh well this\n     is a pretty piece of business,\" papa exclaimed. At length we heard\n     footsteps coming down the long corridor and Miss C, (the lady who\n     had invited papa) came into the room. She greeted papa very\n     pleasantly and they had a nice little chatt together. Soon the lady\n     principal also entered and she was very pleasant and agreable. She\n     showed us to our rooms and said she would send for us when dinner\n     was ready. We went into our rooms, but we had nothing to do for\n     half an hour exept to watch the rain drops as they fell upon the\n     window panes. At last we were called to dinner, and I went down\n     without papa as he never eats anything in the middle of the day. I\n     sat at the table with the lady principal and enjoyed very much\n     seeing all the young girls trooping into the dining-room. After\n     dinner I went around the College with the young ladies and papa\n     stayed in his room and smoked. When it was supper time papa went\n     down and ate supper with us and we had a very delightful supper.\n     After supper the young ladies went to their rooms to dress for the\n     evening. Papa went to his room and I went with the lady principal.\n     At length the guests began to arive, but papa still remained in his\n     room until called for. Papa read in the chapell. It was the first\n     time I had ever heard him read in my life--that is in public. When\n     he came out on to the stage I remember the people behind me\n     exclaimed \"Oh how queer he is! Isn't he funny!\" I thought papa was\n     very funny, although I did not think him queer. He read \"A Trying\n     Situation\" and \"The Golden Arm,\" a ghost story that he heard down\n     South when he was a little boy. \"The Golden Arm\" papa had told me\n     before, but he had startled me so that I did not much wish to hear\n     it again. But I had resolved this time to be prepared and not to\n     let myself be startled, but still papa did, and very very much; he\n     startled the whole roomful of people and they jumped as one man.\n     The other story was also very funny and interesting and I enjoyed\n     the evening inexpressibly much. After papa had finished reading we\n     all went down to the collation in the dining-room and after that\n     there was dancing and singing. Then the guests went away and papa\n     and I went to bed. The next morning we rose early, took an early\n     train for Hartford and reached Hartford at 1/2 past 2 o'clock. We\n     were very glad to get back.\n\n\nHow charitably she treats that ghastly experience! It is a dear and\nlovely disposition, and a most valuable one, that can brush away\nindignities and discourtesies and seek and find the pleasanter features\nof an experience. Susy had that disposition, and it was one of the\njewels of her character that had come to her straight from her mother.\nIt is a feature that was left out of me at birth. And, at seventy, I\nhave not yet acquired it. I did not go to Vassar College professionally,\nbut as a guest--as a guest, and gratis. Aunt Clara (now Mrs. John B.\nStanchfield) was a graduate of Vassar and it was to please her that I\ninflicted that journey upon Susy and myself. The invitation had come to\nme from both the lady mentioned by Susy and the President of the\nCollege--a sour old saint who has probably been gathered to his fathers\nlong ago; and I hope they enjoy him; I hope they value his society. I\nthink I can get along without it, in either end of the next world.\n\nWe arrived at the College in that soaking rain, and Susy has described,\nwith just a suggestion of dissatisfaction, the sort of reception we got.\nSusy had to sit in her damp clothes half an hour while we waited in the\nparlor; then she was taken to a fireless room and left to wait there\nagain, as she has stated. I do not remember that President's name, and I\nam sorry. He did not put in an appearance until it was time for me to\nstep upon the platform in front of that great garden of young and lovely\nblossoms. He caught up with me and advanced upon the platform with me\nand was going to introduce me. I said in substance:\n\n\"You have allowed me to get along without your help thus far, and if you\nwill retire from the platform I will try to do the rest without it.\"\n\nI did not see him any more, but I detest his memory. Of course my\nresentment did not extend to the students, and so I had an unforgettable\ngood time talking to them. And I think they had a good time too, for\nthey responded \"as one man,\" to use Susy's unimprovable phrase.\n\nGirls are charming creatures. I shall have to be twice seventy years old\nbefore I change my mind as to that. I am to talk to a crowd of them this\nafternoon, students of Barnard College (the sex's annex to Columbia\nUniversity), and I think I shall have as pleasant a time with those\nlasses as I had with the Vassar girls twenty-one years ago.\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     I stopped in the middle of mamma's early history to tell about our\n     tripp to Vassar because I was afraid I would forget about it, now I\n     will go on where I left off. Some time after Miss Emma Nigh died\n     papa took mamma and little Langdon to Elmira for the summer. When\n     in Elmira Langdon began to fail but I think mamma did not know just\n     what was the matter with him.\n\n\nI was the cause of the child's illness. His mother trusted him to my\ncare and I took him a long drive in an open barouche for an airing. It\nwas a raw, cold morning, but he was well wrapped about with furs and, in\nthe hands of a careful person, no harm would have come to him. But I\nsoon dropped into a reverie and forgot all about my charge. The furs\nfell away and exposed his bare legs. By and by the coachman noticed\nthis, and I arranged the wraps again, but it was too late. The child was\nalmost frozen. I hurried home with him. I was aghast at what I had done,\nand I feared the consequences. I have always felt shame for that\ntreacherous morning's work and have not allowed myself to think of it\nwhen I could help it. I doubt if I had the courage to make confession at\nthat time. I think it most likely that I have never confessed until now.\n\n_From Susy's Biography._\n\n\n     At last it was time for papa to return to Hartford, and Langdon was\n     real sick at that time, but still mamma decided to go with him,\n     thinking the journey might do him good. But after they reached\n     Hartford he became very sick, and his trouble prooved to be\n     diptheeria. He died about a week after mamma and papa reached\n     Hartford. He was burried by the side of grandpa at Elmira, New\n     York. [Susy rests there with them.--S. L. C.] After that, mamma\n     became very very ill, so ill that there seemed great danger of\n     death, but with a great deal of good care she recovered. Some\n     months afterward mamma and papa [and Susy, who was perhaps fourteen\n     or fifteen months old at the time.--S. L. C.] went to Europe and\n     stayed for a time in Scotland and England. In Scotland mamma and\n     papa became very well equanted with Dr. John Brown, the author of\n     \"Rab and His Friends,\" and he mett, but was not so well equanted\n     with, Mr. Charles Kingsley, Mr. Henry M. Stanley, Sir Thomas Hardy\n     grandson of the Captain Hardy to whom Nellson said \"Kiss me Hardy,\"\n     when dying on shipboard, Mr. Henry Irving, Robert Browning, Sir\n     Charles Dilke, Mr. Charles Reade, Mr. William Black, Lord Houghton,\n     Frank Buckland, Mr. Tom Hughes, Anthony Trollope, Tom Hood, son of\n     the poet--and mamma and papa were quite well equanted with Dr.\n     Macdonald and family, and papa met Harrison Ainsworth.\n\n\nI remember all these men very well indeed, except the last one. I do not\nrecall Ainsworth. By my count, Susy mentions fourteen men. They are all\ndead except Sir Charles Dilke.\n\nWe met a great many other interesting people, among them Lewis Carroll,\nauthor of the immortal \"Alice\"--but he was only interesting to look at,\nfor he was the stillest and shyest full-grown man I have ever met except\n\"Uncle Remus.\" Dr. Macdonald and several other lively talkers were\npresent, and the talk went briskly on for a couple of hours, but Carroll\nsat still all the while except that now and then he answered a question.\nHis answers were brief. I do not remember that he elaborated any of\nthem.\n\nAt a dinner at Smalley's we met Herbert Spencer. At a large luncheon\nparty at Lord Houghton's we met Sir Arthur Helps, who was a celebrity of\nworld-wide fame at the time, but is quite forgotten now. Lord Elcho, a\nlarge vigorous man, sat at some distance down the table. He was talking\nearnestly about Godalming. It was a deep and flowing and unarticulated\nrumble, but I got the Godalming pretty clearly every time it broke free\nof the rumble, and as all the strength was on the first end of the word\nit startled me every time, because it sounded so like swearing. In the\nmiddle of the luncheon Lady Houghton rose, remarked to the guests on her\nright and on her left in a matter-of-fact way, \"Excuse me, I have an\nengagement,\" and without further ceremony she went off to meet it. This\nwould have been doubtful etiquette in America. Lord Houghton told a\nnumber of delightful stories. He told them in French, and I lost nothing\nof them but the nubs.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[5] I was his publisher. I was putting his \"Personal Memoirs\" to press\nat the time.--S. L. C.\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCIV.\n\nDECEMBER 7, 1906.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--VII.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\nI was always heedless. I was born heedless; and therefore I was\nconstantly, and quite unconsciously, committing breaches of the minor\nproprieties, which brought upon me humiliations which ought to have\nhumiliated me but didn't, because I didn't know anything had happened.\nBut Livy knew; and so the humiliations fell to her share, poor child,\nwho had not earned them and did not deserve them. She always said I was\nthe most difficult child she had. She was very sensitive about me. It\ndistressed her to see me do heedless things which could bring me under\ncriticism, and so she was always watchful and alert to protect me from\nthe kind of transgressions which I have been speaking of.\n\nWhen I was leaving Hartford for Washington, upon the occasion referred\nto, she said: \"I have written a small warning and put it in a pocket of\nyour dress-vest. When you are dressing to go to the Authors' Reception\nat the White House you will naturally put your fingers in your vest\npockets, according to your custom, and you will find that little note\nthere. Read it carefully, and do as it tells you. I cannot be with you,\nand so I delegate my sentry duties to this little note. If I should give\nyou the warning by word of mouth, now, it would pass from your head and\nbe forgotten in a few minutes.\"\n\nIt was President Cleveland's first term. I had never seen his wife--the\nyoung, the beautiful, the good-hearted, the sympathetic, the\nfascinating. Sure enough, just as I had finished dressing to go to the\nWhite House I found that little note, which I had long ago forgotten. It\nwas a grave little note, a serious little note, like its writer, but it\nmade me laugh. Livy's gentle gravities often produced that effect upon\nme, where the expert humorist's best joke would have failed, for I do\nnot laugh easily.\n\nWhen we reached the White House and I was shaking hands with the\nPresident, he started to say something, but I interrupted him and said:\n\n\"If your Excellency will excuse me, I will come back in a moment; but\nnow I have a very important matter to attend to, and it must be attended\nto at once.\"\n\nI turned to Mrs. Cleveland, the young, the beautiful, the fascinating,\nand gave her my card, on the back of which I had written \"_He\ndidn't_\"--and I asked her to sign her name below those words.\n\nShe said: \"He didn't? He didn't what?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I said, \"never mind. We cannot stop to discuss that now. This is\nurgent. Won't you please sign your name?\" (I handed her a fountain-pen.)\n\n\"Why,\" she said, \"I cannot commit myself in that way. Who is it that\ndidn't?--and what is it that he didn't?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I said, \"time is flying, flying, flying. Won't you take me out of\nmy distress and sign your name to it? It's all right. I give you my word\nit's all right.\"\n\nShe looked nonplussed; but hesitatingly and mechanically she took the\npen and said:\n\n\"I will sign it. I will take the risk. But you must tell me all about\nit, right afterward, so that you can be arrested before you get out of\nthe house in case there should be anything criminal about this.\"\n\nThen she signed; and I handed her Mrs. Clements's note, which was very\nbrief, very simple, and to the point. It said: \"_Don't wear your arctics\nin the White House._\" It made her shout; and at my request she summoned\na messenger and we sent that card at once to the mail on its way to Mrs.\nClemens in Hartford.\n\nWhen the little Ruth was about a year or a year and a half old, Mason,\nan old and valued friend of mine, was consul-general at\nFrankfort-on-the-Main. I had known him well in 1867, '68 and '69, in\nAmerica, and I and mine had spent a good deal of time with him and his\nfamily in Frankfort in '78. He was a thoroughly competent, diligent, and\nconscientious official. Indeed he possessed these qualities in so large\na degree that among American consuls he might fairly be said to be\nmonumental, for at that time our consular service was largely--and I\nthink I may say mainly--in the hands of ignorant, vulgar, and incapable\nmen who had been political heelers in America, and had been taken care\nof by transference to consulates where they could be supported at the\nGovernment's expense instead of being transferred to the poor house,\nwhich would have been cheaper and more patriotic. Mason, in '78, had\nbeen consul-general in Frankfort several years--four, I think. He had\ncome from Marseilles with a great record. He had been consul there\nduring thirteen years, and one part of his record was heroic. There had\nbeen a desolating cholera epidemic, and Mason was the only\nrepresentative of any foreign country who stayed at his post and saw it\nthrough. And during that time he not only represented his own country,\nbut he represented all the other countries in Christendom and did their\nwork, and did it well and was praised for it by them in words of no\nuncertain sound. This great record of Mason's had saved him from\nofficial decapitation straight along while Republican Presidents\noccupied the chair, but now it was occupied by a Democrat. Mr. Cleveland\nwas not seated in it--he was not yet inaugurated--before he was deluged\nwith applications from Democratic politicians desiring the appointment\nof a thousand or so politically useful Democrats to Mason's place. A\nyear or two later Mason wrote me and asked me if I couldn't do something\nto save him from destruction.\n\nI was very anxious to keep him in his place, but at first I could not\nthink of any way to help him, for I was a mugwump. We, the mugwumps, a\nlittle company made up of the unenslaved of both parties, the very best\nmen to be found in the two great parties--that was our idea of it--voted\nsixty thousand strong for Mr. Cleveland in New York and elected him. Our\nprinciples were high, and very definite. We were not a party; we had no\ncandidates; we had no axes to grind. Our vote laid upon the man we cast\nit for no obligation of any kind. By our rule we could not ask for\noffice; we could not accept office. When voting, it was our duty to vote\nfor the best man, regardless of his party name. We had no other creed.\nVote for the best man--that was creed enough.\n\nSuch being my situation, I was puzzled to know how to try to help Mason,\nand, at the same time, save my mugwump purity undefiled. It was a\ndelicate place. But presently, out of the ruck of confusions in my mind,\nrose a sane thought, clear and bright--to wit: since it was a mugwump's\nduty to do his best to put the beet man in office, necessarily it must\nbe a mugwump's duty to try to _keep_ the best man in when he was already\nthere. My course was easy now. It might not be quite delicate for a\nmugwump to approach the President directly, but I could approach him\nindirectly, with all delicacy, since in that case not even courtesy\nwould require him to take notice of an application which no one could\nprove had ever reached him.\n\nYes, it was easy and simple sailing now. I could lay the matter before\nRuth, in her cradle, and wait for results. I wrote the little child, and\nsaid to her all that I have just been saying about mugwump principles\nand the limitations which they put upon me. I explained that it would\nnot be proper for me to apply to her father in Mr. Mason's behalf, but I\ndetailed to her Mr. Mason's high and honorable record and suggested that\nshe take the matter in her own hands and do a patriotic work which I\nfelt some delicacy about venturing upon myself. I asked her to forget\nthat her father was only President of the United States, and her subject\nand servant; I asked her not to put her application in the form of a\ncommand, but to modify it, and give it the fictitious and pleasanter\nform of a mere request--that it would be no harm to let him gratify\nhimself with the superstition that he was independent and could do as he\npleased in the matter. I begged her to put stress, and plenty of it,\nupon the proposition that to keep Mason in his place would be a\nbenefaction to the nation; to enlarge upon that, and keep still about\nall other considerations.\n\nIn due time I received a letter from the President, written with his own\nhand, signed by his own hand, acknowledging Ruth's intervention and\nthanking me for enabling him to save to the country the services of so\ngood and well-tried a servant as Mason, and thanking me, also, for the\ndetailed fulness of Mason's record, which could leave no doubt in any\none's mind that Mason was in his right place and ought to be kept there.\nMason has remained in the service ever since, and is now consul-general\nat Paris.\n\nDuring the time that we were living in Buffalo in '70-'71, Mr. Cleveland\nwas sheriff, but I never happened to make his acquaintance, or even see\nhim. In fact, I suppose I was not even aware of his existence. Fourteen\nyears later, he was become the greatest man in the State. I was not\nliving in the State at the time. He was Governor, and was about to step\ninto the post of President of the United States. At that time I was on\nthe public highway in company with another bandit, George W. Cable. We\nwere robbing the public with readings from our works during four\nmonths--and in the course of time we went to Albany to levy tribute, and\nI said, \"We ought to go and pay our respects to the Governor.\"\n\nSo Cable and I went to that majestic Capitol building and stated our\nerrand. We were shown into the Governor's private office, and I saw Mr.\nCleveland for the first time. We three stood chatting together. I was\nborn lazy, and I comforted myself by turning the corner of a table into\na sort of seat. Presently the Governor said:\n\n\"Mr. Clemens, I was a fellow citizen of yours in Buffalo a good many\nmonths, a good while ago, and during those months you burst suddenly\ninto a mighty fame, out of a previous long-continued and no doubt proper\nobscurity--but I was a nobody, and you wouldn't notice me nor have\nanything to do with me. But now that I have become somebody, you have\nchanged your style, and you come here to shake hands with me and be\nsociable. How do you explain this kind of conduct?\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I said, \"it is very simple, your Excellency. In Buffalo you were\nnothing but a sheriff. I was in society. I couldn't afford to associate\nwith sheriffs. But you are a Governor now, and you are on your way to\nthe Presidency. It is a great difference, and it makes you worth while.\"\n\nThere appeared to be about sixteen doors to that spacious room. From\neach door a young man now emerged, and the sixteen lined up and moved\nforward and stood in front of the Governor with an aspect of respectful\nexpectancy in their attitude. No one spoke for a moment. Then the\nGovernor said:\n\n\"You are dismissed, gentlemen. Your services are not required. Mr.\nClemens is sitting on the bells.\"\n\nThere was a cluster of sixteen bell buttons on the corner of the table;\nmy proportions at that end of me were just right to enable me to cover\nthe whole of that nest, and that is how I came to hatch out those\nsixteen clerks.\n\nIn accordance with the suggestion made in Gilder's letter recently\nreceived I have written the following note to ex-President Cleveland\nupon his sixty-ninth birthday:\n\n\n     HONORED SIR:--\n\n     Your patriotic virtues have won for you the homage of half the\n     nation and the enmity of the other half. This places your character\n     as a citizen upon a summit as high as Washington's. The verdict is\n     unanimous and unassailable. The votes of both sides are necessary\n     in cases like these, and the votes of the one side are quite as\n     valuable as are the votes of the other. Where the votes are all in\n     a man's favor the verdict is against him. It is sand, and history\n     will wash it away. But the verdict for you is rock, and will stand.\n\n                                                       S. L. CLEMENS.\n\n        As of date March 18, 1906....\n\n\nIn a diary which Mrs. Clemens kept for a little while, a great many\nyears ago, I find various mentions of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, who\nwas a near neighbor of ours in Hartford, with no fences between. And in\nthose days she made as much use of our grounds as of her own, in\npleasant weather. Her mind had decayed, and she was a pathetic figure.\nShe wandered about all the day long in the care of a muscular\nIrishwoman. Among the colonists of our neighborhood the doors always\nstood open in pleasant weather. Mrs. Stowe entered them at her own free\nwill, and as she was always softly slippered and generally full of\nanimal spirits, she was able to deal in surprises, and she liked to do\nit. She would slip up behind a person who was deep in dreams and\nmusings and fetch a war-whoop that would jump that person out of his\nclothes. And she had other moods. Sometimes we would hear gentle music\nin the drawing-room and would find her there at the piano singing\nancient and melancholy songs with infinitely touching effect.\n\nHer husband, old Professor Stowe, was a picturesque figure. He wore a\nbroad slouch hat. He was a large man, and solemn. His beard was white\nand thick and hung far down on his breast. The first time our little\nSusy ever saw him she encountered him on the street near our house and\ncame flying wide-eyed to her mother and said, \"Santa Claus has got\nloose!\"\n\nWhich reminds me of Rev. Charley Stowe's little boy--a little boy of\nseven years. I met Rev. Charley crossing his mother's grounds one\nmorning and he told me this little tale. He had been out to Chicago to\nattend a Convention of Congregational clergymen, and had taken his\nlittle boy with him. During the trip he reminded the little chap, every\nnow and then, that he must be on his very best behavior there in\nChicago. He said: \"We shall be the guests of a clergyman, there will be\nother guests--clergymen and their wives--and you must be careful to let\nthose people see by your walk and conversation that you are of a godly\nhousehold. Be very careful about this.\" The admonition bore fruit. At\nthe first breakfast which they ate in the Chicago clergyman's house he\nheard his little son say in the meekest and most reverent way to the\nlady opposite him,\n\n\"Please, won't you, for Christ's sake, pass the butter?\"\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCV.\n\nDECEMBER 21, 1906.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--VIII.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1864.)]\n\n[_Dictated in 1906._] In those early days duelling suddenly became a\nfashion in the new Territory of Nevada, and by 1864 everybody was\nanxious to have a chance in the new sport, mainly for the reason that he\nwas not able to thoroughly respect himself so long as he had not killed\nor crippled somebody in a duel or been killed or crippled in one\nhimself.\n\nAt that time I had been serving as city editor on Mr. Goodman's Virginia\nCity \"Enterprise\" for a matter of two years. I was twenty-nine years\nold. I was ambitious in several ways, but I had entirely escaped the\nseductions of that particular craze. I had had no desire to fight a\nduel; I had no intention of provoking one. I did not feel respectable,\nbut I got a certain amount of satisfaction out of feeling safe. I was\nashamed of myself; the rest of the staff were ashamed of me--but I got\nalong well enough. I had always been accustomed to feeling ashamed of\nmyself, for one thing or another, so there was no novelty for me in the\nsituation. I bore it very well. Plunkett was on the staff; R. M. Daggett\nwas on the staff. These had tried to get into duels, but for the present\nhad failed, and were waiting. Goodman was the only one of us who had\ndone anything to shed credit upon the paper. The rival paper was the\nVirginia \"Union.\" Its editor for a little while was Tom Fitch, called\nthe \"silver-tongued orator of Wisconsin\"--that was where he came from.\nHe tuned up his oratory in the editorial columns of the \"Union,\" and Mr.\nGoodman invited him out and modified him with a bullet. I remember the\njoy of the staff when Goodman's challenge was accepted by Fitch. We ran\nlate that night, and made much of Joe Goodman. He was only twenty-four\nyears old; he lacked the wisdom which a person has at twenty-nine, and\nhe was as glad of being _it_ as I was that I wasn't. He chose Major\nGraves for his second (that name is not right, but it's close enough; I\ndon't remember the Major's name). Graves came over to instruct Joe in\nthe duelling art. He had been a Major under Walker, the \"gray-eyed man\nof destiny,\" and had fought all through that remarkable man's\nfilibustering campaign in Central America. That fact gauges the Major.\nTo say that a man was a Major under Walker, and came out of that\nstruggle ennobled by Walker's praise, is to say that the Major was not\nmerely a brave man but that he was brave to the very utmost limit of\nthat word. All of Walker's men were like that. I knew the Gillis family\nintimately. The father made the campaign under Walker, and with him one\nson. They were in the memorable Plaza fight, and stood it out to the\nlast against overwhelming odds, as did also all of the Walker men. The\nson was killed at the father's side. The father received a bullet\nthrough the eye. The old man--for he was an old man at the time--wore\nspectacles, and the bullet and one of the glasses went into his skull\nand remained there. There were some other sons: Steve, George, and Jim,\nvery young chaps--the merest lads--who wanted to be in the Walker\nexpedition, for they had their father's dauntless spirit. But Walker\nwouldn't have them; he said it was a serious expedition, and no place\nfor children.\n\nThe Major was a majestic creature, with a most stately and dignified and\nimpressive military bearing, and he was by nature and training\ncourteous, polite, graceful, winning; and he had that quality which I\nthink I have encountered in only one other man--Bob Howland--a\nmysterious quality which resides in the eye; and when that eye is turned\nupon an individual or a squad, in warning, that is enough. The man that\nhas that eye doesn't need to go armed; he can move upon an armed\ndesperado and quell him and take him prisoner without saying a single\nword. I saw Bob Howland do that, once--a slender, good-natured, amiable,\ngentle, kindly little skeleton of a man, with a sweet blue eye that\nwould win your heart when it smiled upon you, or turn cold and freeze\nit, according to the nature of the occasion.\n\nThe Major stood Joe up straight; stood Steve Gillis up fifteen paces\naway; made Joe turn right side towards Steve, cock his navy\nsix-shooter--that prodigious weapon--and hold it straight down against\nhis leg; told him that _that_ was the correct position for the gun--that\nthe position ordinarily in use at Virginia City (that is to say, the gun\nstraight up in the air, then brought slowly down to your man) was all\nwrong. At the word \"_One_,\" you must raise the gun slowly and steadily\nto the place on the other man's body that you desire to convince. Then,\nafter a pause, \"_two, three--fire--Stop!_\" At the word \"stop,\" you may\nfire--but not earlier. You may give yourself as much time as you please\n_after_ that word. Then, when you fire, you may advance and go on firing\nat your leisure and pleasure, if you can get any pleasure out of it.\nAnd, in the meantime, the other man, if he has been properly instructed\nand is alive to his privileges, is advancing on _you_, and firing--and\nit is always likely that more or less trouble will result.\n\nNaturally, when Joe's revolver had risen to a level it was pointing at\nSteve's breast, but the Major said \"No, that is not wise. Take all the\nrisks of getting murdered yourself, but don't run any risk of murdering\nthe other man. If you survive a duel you want to survive it in such a\nway that the memory of it will not linger along with you through the\nrest of your life and interfere with your sleep. Aim at your man's leg;\nnot at the knee, not above the knee; for those are dangerous spots. Aim\nbelow the knee; cripple him, but leave the rest of him to his mother.\"\n\nBy grace of these truly wise and excellent instructions, Joe tumbled\nFitch down next morning with a bullet through his lower leg, which\nfurnished him a permanent limp. And Joe lost nothing but a lock of hair,\nwhich he could spare better then than he could now. For when I saw him\nhere in New York a year ago, his crop was gone: he had nothing much left\nbut a fringe, with a dome rising above.\n\n[Sidenote: (1864.)]\n\nAbout a year later I got _my_ chance. But I was not hunting for it.\nGoodman went off to San Francisco for a week's holiday, and left me to\nbe chief editor. I had supposed that that was an easy berth, there being\nnothing to do but write one editorial per day; but I was disappointed in\nthat superstition. I couldn't find anything to write an article about,\nthe first day. Then it occurred to me that inasmuch as it was the 22nd\nof April, 1864, the next morning would be the three-hundredth\nanniversary of Shakespeare's birthday--and what better theme could I\nwant than that? I got the Cyclop\u00e6dia and examined it, and found out who\nShakespeare was and what he had done, and I borrowed all that and laid\nit before a community that couldn't have been better prepared for\ninstruction about Shakespeare than if they had been prepared by art.\nThere wasn't enough of what Shakespeare had done to make an editorial of\nthe necessary length, but I filled it out with what he hadn't\ndone--which in many respects was more important and striking and\nreadable than the handsomest things he had really accomplished. But next\nday I was in trouble again. There were no more Shakespeares to work up.\nThere was nothing in past history, or in the world's future\npossibilities, to make an editorial out of, suitable to that community;\nso there was but one theme left. That theme was Mr. Laird, proprietor of\nthe Virginia \"Union.\" _His_ editor had gone off to San Francisco too,\nand Laird was trying his hand at editing. I woke up Mr. Laird with some\ncourtesies of the kind that were fashionable among newspaper editors in\nthat region, and he came back at me the next day in a most vitriolic\nway. He was hurt by something I had said about him--some little thing--I\ndon't remember what it was now--probably called him a horse-thief, or\none of those little phrases customarily used to describe another\neditor. They were no doubt just, and accurate, but Laird was a very\nsensitive creature, and he didn't like it. So we expected a challenge\nfrom Mr. Laird, because according to the rules--according to the\netiquette of duelling as reconstructed and reorganized and improved by\nthe duellists of that region--whenever you said a thing about another\nperson that he didn't like, it wasn't sufficient for him to talk back in\nthe same offensive spirit: etiquette required him to send a challenge;\nso we waited for a challenge--waited all day. It didn't come. And as the\nday wore along, hour after hour, and no challenge came, the boys grew\ndepressed. They lost heart. But I was cheerful; I felt better and better\nall the time. They couldn't understand it, but _I_ could understand it.\nIt was my _make_ that enabled me to be cheerful when other people were\ndespondent. So then it became necessary for us to waive etiquette and\nchallenge Mr. Laird. When we reached that decision, they began to cheer\nup, but I began to lose some of my animation. However, in enterprises of\nthis kind you are in the hands of your friends; there is nothing for you\nto do but to abide by what they consider to be the best course. Daggett\nwrote a challenge for me, for Daggett had the language--the right\nlanguage--the convincing language--and I lacked it. Daggett poured out a\nstream of unsavory epithets upon Mr. Laird, charged with a vigor and\nvenom of a strength calculated to persuade him; and Steve Gillis, my\nsecond, carried the challenge and came back to wait for the return. It\ndidn't come. The boys were exasperated, but I kept my temper. Steve\ncarried another challenge, hotter than the other, and we waited again.\nNothing came of it. I began to feel quite comfortable. I began to take\nan interest in the challenges myself. I had not felt any before; but it\nseemed to me that I was accumulating a great and valuable reputation at\nno expense, and my delight in this grew and grew, as challenge after\nchallenge was declined, until by midnight I was beginning to think that\nthere was nothing in the world so much to be desired as a chance to\nfight a duel. So I hurried Daggett up; made him keep on sending\nchallenge after challenge. Oh, well, I overdid it; Laird accepted. I\nmight have known that that would happen--Laird was a man you couldn't\ndepend on.\n\nThe boys were jubilant beyond expression. They helped me make my will,\nwhich was another discomfort--and I already had enough. Then they took\nme home. I didn't sleep any--didn't want to sleep. I had plenty of\nthings to think about, and less than four hours to do it in,--because\nfive o'clock was the hour appointed for the tragedy, and I should have\nto use up one hour--beginning at four--in practising with the revolver\nand finding out which end of it to level at the adversary. At four we\nwent down into a little gorge, about a mile from town, and borrowed a\nbarn door for a mark--borrowed it of a man who was over in California on\na visit--and we set the barn door up and stood a fence-rail up against\nthe middle of it, to represent Mr. Laird. But the rail was no proper\nrepresentative of him, for he was longer than a rail and thinner.\nNothing would ever fetch him but a line shot, and then as like as not he\nwould split the bullet--the worst material for duelling purposes that\ncould be imagined. I began on the rail. I couldn't hit the rail; then I\ntried the barn door; but I couldn't hit the barn door. There was nobody\nin danger except stragglers around on the flanks of that mark. I was\nthoroughly discouraged, and I didn't cheer up any when we presently\nheard pistol-shots over in the next little ravine. I knew what that\nwas--that was Laird's gang out practising him. They would hear my shots,\nand of course they would come up over the ridge to see what kind of a\nrecord I was making--see what their chances were against me. Well, I\nhadn't any record; and I knew that if Laird came over that ridge and saw\nmy barn door without a scratch on it, he would be as anxious to fight as\nI was--or as I had been at midnight, before that disastrous acceptance\ncame.\n\nNow just at this moment, a little bird, no bigger than a sparrow, flew\nalong by and lit on a sage-bush about thirty yards away. Steve whipped\nout his revolver and shot its head off. Oh, he was a marksman--much\nbetter than I was. We ran down there to pick up the bird, and just then,\nsure enough, Mr. Laird and his people came over the ridge, and they\njoined us. And when Laird's second saw that bird, with its head shot\noff, he lost color, he faded, and you could see that he was interested.\nHe said:\n\n\"Who did that?\"\n\nBefore I could answer, Steve spoke up and said quite calmly, and in a\nmatter-of-fact way,\n\n\"Clemens did it.\"\n\nThe second said, \"Why, that is wonderful. How far off was that bird?\"\n\nSteve said, \"Oh, not far--about thirty yards.\"\n\nThe second said, \"Well, that is astonishing shooting. How often can he\ndo that?\"\n\nSteve said languidly, \"Oh, about four times out of five.\"\n\nI knew the little rascal was lying, but I didn't say anything. The\nsecond said, \"Why, that is _amazing_ shooting; I supposed he couldn't\nhit a church.\"\n\nHe was supposing very sagaciously, but I didn't say anything. Well, they\nsaid good morning. The second took Mr. Laird home, a little tottery on\nhis legs, and Laird sent back a note in his own hand declining to fight\na duel with me on any terms whatever.\n\nWell, my life was saved--saved by that accident. I don't know what the\nbird thought about that interposition of Providence, but I felt very,\nvery comfortable over it--satisfied and content. Now, we found out,\nlater, that Laird had _hit_ his mark four times out of six, right along.\nIf the duel had come off, he would have so filled my skin with\nbullet-holes that it wouldn't have held my principles.\n\nBy breakfast-time the news was all over town that I had sent a challenge\nand Steve Gillis had carried it. Now that would entitle us to two years\napiece in the penitentiary, according to the brand-new law. Judge North\nsent us no message as coming from himself, but a message _came_ from a\nclose friend of his. He said it would be a good idea for us to leave the\nterritory by the first stage-coach. This would sail next morning, at\nfour o'clock--and in the meantime we would be searched for, but not with\navidity; and if we were in the Territory after that stage-coach left, we\nwould be the first victims of the new law. Judge North was anxious to\nhave some object-lessons for that law, and he would absolutely keep us\nin the prison the full two years.\n\nWell, it seemed to me that our society was no longer desirable in\nNevada; so we stayed in our quarters and observed proper caution all\nday--except that once Steve went over to the hotel to attend to another\ncustomer of mine. That was a Mr. Cutler. You see Laird was not the only\nperson whom I had tried to reform during my occupancy of the editorial\nchair. I had looked around and selected several other people, and\ndelivered a new zest of life into them through warm criticism and\ndisapproval--so that when I laid down my editorial pen I had four\nhorse-whippings and two duels owing to me. We didn't care for the\nhorse-whippings; there was no glory in them; they were not worth the\ntrouble of collecting. But honor required that some notice should be\ntaken of that other duel. Mr. Cutler had come up from Carson City, and\nhad sent a man over with a challenge from the hotel. Steve went over to\npacify him. Steve weighed only ninety-five pounds, but it was well known\nthroughout the territory that with his fists he could whip anybody that\nwalked on two legs, let his weight and science be what they might. Steve\nwas a Gillis, and when a Gillis confronted a man and had a proposition\nto make, the proposition always contained business. When Cutler found\nthat Steve was my second he cooled down; he became calm and rational,\nand was ready to listen. Steve gave him fifteen minutes to get out of\nthe hotel, and half an hour to get out of town or there would be\nresults. So _that_ duel went off successfully, because Mr. Cutler\nimmediately left for Carson a convinced and reformed man.\n\nI have never had anything to do with duels since. I thoroughly\ndisapprove of duels. I consider them unwise, and I know they are\ndangerous. Also, sinful. If a man should challenge me now, I would go to\nthat man and take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to\na quiet retired spot, and _kill_ him.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCVI.\n\nJANUARY 4, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--IX.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[_Dictated December 13, 1906._] As regards the coming American monarchy.\nIt was before the Secretary of State had been heard from that the\nchairman of the banquet said:\n\n\"In this time of unrest it is of great satisfaction that such a man as\nyou, Mr. Root, is chief adviser of the President.\"\n\nMr. Root then got up and in the most quiet and orderly manner touched\noff the successor to the San Francisco earthquake. As a result, the\nseveral State governments were well shaken up and considerably weakened.\nMr. Root was prophesying. He was prophesying, and it seems to me that no\nshrewder and surer forecasting has been done in this country for a good\nmany years.\n\nHe did not say, in so many words, that we are proceeding, in a steady\nmarch, toward eventual and unavoidable replacement of the republic by\nmonarchy; but I suppose he was aware that that is the case. He notes the\nseveral steps, the customary steps, which in all the ages have led to\nthe consolidation of loose and scattered governmental forces into\nformidable centralizations of authority; but he stops there, and doesn't\nadd up the sum. He is not unaware that heretofore the sum has been\nultimate monarchy, and that the same figures can fairly be depended upon\nto furnish the same sum whenever and wherever they can be produced, so\nlong as human nature shall remain as it is; but it was not needful that\nhe do the adding, since any one can do it; neither would it have been\ngracious in him to do it.\n\nIn observing the changed conditions which in the course of time have\nmade certain and sure the eventual seizure by the Washington government\nof a number of State duties and prerogatives which have been betrayed\nand neglected by the several States, he does not attribute those changes\nand the vast results which are to flow from them to any thought-out\npolicy of any party or of any body of dreamers or schemers, but properly\nand rightly attributes them to that stupendous power--_Circumstance_--\nwhich moves by laws of its own, regardless of parties and policies, and\nwhose decrees are final, and must be obeyed by all--and will be. The\nrailway is a Circumstance, the steamship is a Circumstance, the\ntelegraph is a Circumstance. They were mere happenings; and to the whole\nworld, the wise and the foolish alike, they were entirely trivial,\nwholly inconsequential; indeed silly, comical, grotesque. No man, and no\nparty, and no thought-out policy said, \"Behold, we will build railways\nand steamships and telegraphs, and presently you will see the condition\nand way of life of every man and woman and child in the nation totally\nchanged; unimaginable changes of law and custom will follow, in spite of\nanything that anybody can do to prevent it.\"\n\nThe changed conditions have come, and Circumstance knows what is\nfollowing, and will follow. So does Mr. Root. His language is not\nunclear, it is crystal:\n\n\n     \"Our whole life has swung away from the old State centres, and is\n     crystallizing about national centres.\"\n\n     \" ... The old barriers which kept the States as separate\n     communities are completely lost from sight.\"\n\n     \" ... That [State] power of regulation and control is gradually\n     passing into the hands of the national government.\"\n\n     \"Sometimes by an assertion of the inter-State commerce power,\n     sometimes by an assertion of the taxing power, the national\n     government is taking up the performance of duties which under the\n     changed conditions the separate States are no longer capable of\n     adequately performing.\"\n\n     \"We are urging forward in a development of business and social life\n     which tends more and more to the obliteration of State lines and\n     the decrease of State power as compared with national power.\"\n\n     \"It is useless for the advocates of State rights to inveigh against\n     ... the extension of national authority in the fields of necessary\n     control where the States themselves fail in the performance of\n     their duty.\"\n\n\nHe is not announcing a policy; he is not forecasting what a party of\nplanners will bring about; he is merely telling what the people will\nrequire and compel. And he could have added--which would be perfectly\ntrue--that the people will not be moved to it by speculation and\ncogitation and planning, but by _Circumstance_--that power which\narbitrarily compels all their actions, and over which they have not the\nslightest control.\n\n_\"The end is not yet.\"_\n\nIt is a true word. We are on the march, but at present we are only just\ngetting started.\n\nIf the States continue to fail to do their duty as required by the\npeople--\n\n\" ... _constructions of the Constitution will be found_ to vest the\npower where it will be exercised--in the national government.\"\n\nI do not know whether that has a sinister meaning or not, and so I will\nnot enlarge upon it lest I should chance to be in the wrong. It sounds\nlike ship-money come again, but it may not be so intended.\n\n\nHuman nature being what it is, I suppose we must expect to drift into\nmonarchy by and by. It is a saddening thought, but we cannot change our\nnature: we are all alike, we human beings; and in our blood and bone,\nand ineradicable, we carry the seeds out of which monarchies and\naristocracies are grown: worship of gauds, titles, distinctions, power.\nWe have to worship these things and their possessors, we are all born\nso, and we cannot help it. We have to be despised by somebody whom we\nregard as above us, or we are not happy; we have to have somebody to\nworship and envy, or we cannot be content. In America we manifest this\nin all the ancient and customary ways. In public we scoff at titles and\nhereditary privilege, but privately we hanker after them, and when we\nget a chance we buy them for cash and a daughter. Sometimes we get a\ngood man and worth the price, but we are ready to take him anyway,\nwhether he be ripe or rotten, whether he be clean and decent, or merely\na basket of noble and sacred and long-descended offal. And when we get\nhim the whole nation publicly chaffs and scoffs--and privately envies;\nand also is proud of the honor which has been conferred upon us. We run\nover our list of titled purchases every now and then, in the newspapers,\nand discuss them and caress them, and are thankful and happy.\n\nLike all the other nations, we worship money and the possessors of\nit--they being our aristocracy, and we have to have one. We like to read\nabout rich people in the papers; the papers know it, and they do their\nbest to keep this appetite liberally fed. They even leave out a football\nbull-fight now and then to get room for all the particulars of\nhow--according to the display heading--\"Rich Woman Fell Down Cellar--Not\nHurt.\" The falling down the cellar is of no interest to us when the\nwoman is not rich, but no rich woman can fall down cellar and we not\nyearn to know all about it and wish it was us.\n\nIn a monarchy the people willingly and rejoicingly revere and take pride\nin their nobilities, and are not humiliated by the reflection that this\nhumble and hearty homage gets no return but contempt. Contempt does not\nshame them, they are used to it, and they recognize that it is their\nproper due. We are all made like that. In Europe we easily and quickly\nlearn to take that attitude toward the sovereigns and the aristocracies;\nmoreover, it has been observed that when we get the attitude we go on\nand exaggerate it, presently becoming more servile than the natives, and\nvainer of it. The next step is to rail and scoff at republics and\ndemocracies. All of which is natural, for we have not ceased to be human\nbeings by becoming Americans, and the human race was always intended to\nbe governed by kingship, not by popular vote.\n\nI suppose we must expect that unavoidable and irresistible Circumstances\nwill gradually take away the powers of the States and concentrate them\nin the central government, and that the republic will then repeat the\nhistory of all time and become a monarchy; but I believe that if we\nobstruct these encroachments and steadily resist them the monarchy can\nbe postponed for a good while yet.\n\n[Sidenote: (1849-'51.)]\n\n[_Dictated December 1, 1906._] An exciting event in our village\n(Hannibal) was the arrival of the mesmerizer. I think the year was 1850.\nAs to that I am not sure, but I know the month--it was May; that detail\nhas survived the wear of fifty-five years. A pair of connected little\nincidents of that month have served to keep the memory of it green for\nme all this time; incidents of no consequence, and not worth embalming,\nyet my memory has preserved them carefully and flung away things of real\nvalue to give them space and make them comfortable. The truth is, a\nperson's memory has no more sense than his conscience, and no\nappreciation whatever of values and proportions. However, never mind\nthose trifling incidents; my subject is the mesmerizer, now.\n\nHe advertised his show, and promised marvels. Admission as usual: 25\ncents, children and negroes half price. The village had heard of\nmesmerism, in a general way, but had not encountered it yet. Not many\npeople attended, the first night, but next day they had so many wonders\nto tell that everybody's curiosity was fired, and after that for a\nfortnight the magician had prosperous times. I was fourteen or fifteen\nyears old--the age at which a boy is willing to endure all things,\nsuffer all things, short of death by fire, if thereby he may be\nconspicuous and show off before the public; and so, when I saw the\n\"subjects\" perform their foolish antics on the platform and make the\npeople laugh and shout and admire, I had a burning desire to be a\nsubject myself. Every night, for three nights, I sat in the row of\ncandidates on the platform, and held the magic disk in the palm of my\nhand, and gazed at it and tried to get sleepy, but it was a failure; I\nremained wide awake, and had to retire defeated, like the majority.\nAlso, I had to sit there and be gnawed with envy of Hicks, our\njourneyman; I had to sit there and see him scamper and jump when Simmons\nthe enchanter exclaimed, \"See the snake! see the snake!\" and hear him\nsay, \"My, how beautiful!\" in response to the suggestion that he was\nobserving a splendid sunset; and so on--the whole insane business. I\ncouldn't laugh, I couldn't applaud; it filled me with bitterness to have\nothers do it, and to have people make a hero of Hicks, and crowd around\nhim when the show was over, and ask him for more and more particulars of\nthe wonders he had seen in his visions, and manifest in many ways that\nthey were proud to be acquainted with him. Hicks--the idea! I couldn't\nstand it; I was getting boiled to death in my own bile.\n\nOn the fourth night temptation came, and I was not strong enough to\nresist. When I had gazed at the disk awhile I pretended to be sleepy,\nand began to nod. Straightway came the professor and made passes over my\nhead and down my body and legs and arms, finishing each pass with a snap\nof his fingers in the air, to discharge the surplus electricity; then he\nbegan to \"draw\" me with the disk, holding it in his fingers and telling\nme I could not take my eyes off it, try as I might; so I rose slowly,\nbent and gazing, and followed that disk all over the place, just as I\nhad seen the others do. Then I was put through the other paces. Upon\nsuggestion I fled from snakes; passed buckets at a fire; became excited\nover hot steamboat-races; made love to imaginary girls and kissed them;\nfished from the platform and landed mud-cats that outweighed me--and so\non, all the customary marvels. But not in the customary way. I was\ncautious at first, and watchful, being afraid the professor would\ndiscover that I was an impostor and drive me from the platform in\ndisgrace; but as soon as I realized that I was not in danger, I set\nmyself the task of terminating Hicks's usefulness as a subject, and of\nusurping his place.\n\nIt was a sufficiently easy task. Hicks was born honest; I, without that\nincumbrance--so some people said. Hicks saw what he saw, and reported\naccordingly; I saw more than was visible, and added to it such details\nas could help. Hicks had no imagination, I had a double supply. He was\nborn calm, I was born excited. No vision could start a rapture in him,\nand he was constipated as to language, anyway; but if I saw a vision I\nemptied the dictionary onto it and lost the remnant of my mind into the\nbargain.\n\nAt the end of my first half-hour Hicks was a thing of the past, a fallen\nhero, a broken idol, and I knew it and was glad, and said in my heart,\nSuccess to crime! Hicks could never have been mesmerized to the point\nwhere he could kiss an imaginary girl in public, or a real one either,\nbut I was competent. Whatever Hicks had failed in, I made it a point to\nsucceed in, let the cost be what it might, physically or morally. He\nhad shown several bad defects, and I had made a note of them. For\ninstance, if the magician asked, \"What do you see?\" and left him to\ninvent a vision for himself, Hicks was dumb and blind, he couldn't see a\nthing nor say a word, whereas the magician soon found that when it came\nto seeing visions of a stunning and marketable sort I could get along\nbetter without his help than with it. Then there was another thing:\nHicks wasn't worth a tallow dip on mute mental suggestion. Whenever\nSimmons stood behind him and gazed at the back of his skull and tried to\ndrive a mental suggestion into it, Hicks sat with vacant face, and never\nsuspected. If he had been noticing, he could have seen by the rapt faces\nof the audience that something was going on behind his back that\nrequired a response. Inasmuch as I was an impostor I dreaded to have\nthis test put upon me, for I knew the professor would be \"willing\" me to\ndo something, and as I couldn't know what it was, I should be exposed\nand denounced. However, when my time came, I took my chance. I perceived\nby the tense and expectant faces of the people that Simmons was behind\nme willing me with all his might. I tried my best to imagine what he\nwanted, but nothing suggested itself. I felt ashamed and miserable,\nthen. I believed that the hour of my disgrace was come, and that in\nanother moment I should go out of that place disgraced. I ought to be\nashamed to confess it, but my next thought was, not how I could win the\ncompassion of kindly hearts by going out humbly and in sorrow for my\nmisdoings, but how I could go out most sensationally and spectacularly.\n\nThere was a rusty and empty old revolver lying on the table, among the\n\"properties\" employed in the performances. On May-day, two or three\nweeks before, there had been a celebration by the schools, and I had had\na quarrel with a big boy who was the school-bully, and I had not come\nout of it with credit. That boy was now seated in the middle of the\nhouse, half-way down the main aisle. I crept stealthily and impressively\ntoward the table, with a dark and murderous scowl on my face, copied\nfrom a popular romance, seized the revolver suddenly, flourished it,\nshouted the bully's name, jumped off the platform, and made a rush for\nhim and chased him out of the house before the paralyzed people could\ninterfere to save him. There was a storm of applause, and the magician,\naddressing the house, said, most impressively--\n\n\"That you may know how really remarkable this is, and how wonderfully\ndeveloped a subject we have in this boy, I assure you that without a\nsingle spoken word to guide him he has carried out what I mentally\ncommanded him to do, to the minutest detail. I could have stopped him at\na moment in his vengeful career by a mere exertion of my will, therefore\nthe poor fellow who has escaped was at no time in danger.\"\n\nSo I was not in disgrace. I returned to the platform a hero, and happier\nthan I have ever been in this world since. As regards mental suggestion,\nmy fears of it were gone. I judged that in case I failed to guess what\nthe professor might be willing me to do, I could count on putting up\nsomething that would answer just as well. I was right, and exhibitions\nof unspoken suggestion became a favorite with the public. Whenever I\nperceived that I was being willed to do something I got up and did\nsomething--anything that occurred to me--and the magician, not being a\nfool, always ratified it. When people asked me, \"How _can_ you tell what\nhe is willing you to do?\" I said, \"It's just as easy,\" and they always\nsaid, admiringly, \"Well it beats _me_ how you can do it.\"\n\nHicks was weak in another detail. When the professor made passes over\nhim and said \"his whole body is without sensation now--come forward and\ntest him, ladies and gentlemen,\" the ladies and gentlemen always\ncomplied eagerly, and stuck pins into Hicks, and if they went deep Hicks\nwas sure to wince, then that poor professor would have to explain that\nHicks \"wasn't sufficiently under the influence.\" But I didn't wince; I\nonly suffered, and shed tears on the inside. The miseries that a\nconceited boy will endure to keep up his \"reputation\"! And so will a\nconceited man; I know it in my own person, and have seen it in a hundred\nthousand others. That professor ought to have protected me, and I often\nhoped he would, when the tests were unusually severe, but he didn't. It\nmay be that he was deceived as well as the others, though I did not\nbelieve it nor think it possible. Those were dear good people, but they\nmust have carried simplicity and credulity to the limit. They would\nstick a pin in my arm and bear on it until they drove it a third of its\nlength in, and then be lost in wonder that by a mere exercise of\nwill-power the professor could turn my arm to iron and make it\ninsensible to pain. Whereas it was not insensible at all; I was\nsuffering agonies of pain.\n\nAfter that fourth night, that proud night, that triumphant night, I was\nthe only subject. Simmons invited no more candidates to the platform. I\nperformed alone, every night, the rest of the fortnight. In the\nbeginning of the second week I conquered the last doubters. Up to that\ntime a dozen wise old heads, the intellectual aristocracy of the town,\nhad held out, as implacable unbelievers. I was as hurt by this as if I\nwere engaged in some honest occupation. There is nothing surprising\nabout this. Human beings feel dishonor the most, sometimes, when they\nmost deserve it. That handful of overwise old gentlemen kept on shaking\ntheir heads all the first week, and saying they had seen no marvels\nthere that could not have been produced by collusion; and they were\npretty vain of their unbelief, too, and liked to show it and air it, and\nbe superior to the ignorant and the gullible. Particularly old Dr.\nPeake, who was the ringleader of the irreconcilables, and very\nformidable; for he was an F.F.V., he was learned, white-haired and\nvenerable, nobly and richly clad in the fashions of an earlier and a\ncourtlier day, he was large and stately, and he not only seemed wise,\nbut was what he seemed, in that regard. He had great influence, and his\nopinion upon any matter was worth much more than that of any other\nperson in the community. When I conquered him, at last, I knew I was\nundisputed master of the field; and now, after more than fifty years, I\nacknowledge, with a few dry old tears, that I rejoiced without shame.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1847.)]\n\n[_Dictated December 2, 1906._] In 1847 we were living in a large white\nhouse on the corner of Hill and Main Streets--a house that still stands,\nbut isn't large now, although it hasn't lost a plank; I saw it a year\nago and noticed that shrinkage. My father died in it in March of the\nyear mentioned, but our family did not move out of it until some months\nafterward. Ours was not the only family in the house, there was\nanother--Dr. Grant's. One day Dr. Grant and Dr. Reyburn argued a matter\non the street with sword-canes, and Grant was brought home\nmultifariously punctured. Old Dr. Peake calked the leaks, and came every\nday for a while, to look after him. The Grants were Virginians, like\nPeake, and one day when Grant was getting well enough to be on his feet\nand sit around in the parlor and talk, the conversation fell upon\nVirginia and old times. I was present, but the group were probably quite\nunconscious of me, I being only a lad and a negligible quantity. Two of\nthe group--Dr. Peake and Mrs. Crawford, Mrs. Grant's mother--had been of\nthe audience when the Richmond theatre burned down, thirty-six years\nbefore, and they talked over the frightful details of that memorable\ntragedy. These were eye-witnesses, and with their eyes I saw it all with\nan intolerable vividness: I saw the black smoke rolling and tumbling\ntoward the sky, I saw the flames burst through it and turn red, I heard\nthe shrieks of the despairing, I glimpsed their faces at the windows,\ncaught fitfully through the veiling smoke, I saw them jump to their\ndeath, or to mutilation worse than death. The picture is before me yet,\nand can never fade.\n\nIn due course they talked of the colonial mansion of the Peakes, with\nits stately columns and its spacious grounds, and by odds and ends I\npicked up a clearly defined idea of the place. I was strongly\ninterested, for I had not before heard of such palatial things from the\nlips of people who had seen them with their own eyes. One detail,\ncasually dropped, hit my imagination hard. In the wall, by the great\nfront door, there was a round hole as big as a saucer--a British\ncannon-ball had made it, in the war of the Revolution. It was\nbreath-taking; it made history real; history had never been real to me\nbefore.\n\nVery well, three or four years later, as already mentioned, I was\nking-bee and sole \"subject\" in the mesmeric show; it was the beginning\nof the second week; the performance was half over; just then the\nmajestic Dr. Peake, with his ruffled bosom and wristbands and his\ngold-headed cane, entered, and a deferential citizen vacated his seat\nbeside the Grants and made the great chief take it. This happened while\nI was trying to invent something fresh in the way of a vision, in\nresponse to the professor's remark--\n\n\"Concentrate your powers. Look--look attentively. There--don't you see\nsomething? Concentrate--concentrate. Now then--describe it.\"\n\nWithout suspecting it, Dr. Peake, by entering the place, had reminded me\nof the talk of three years before. He had also furnished me capital and\nwas become my confederate, an accomplice in my frauds. I began on a\nvision, a vague and dim one (that was part of the game at the beginning\nof a vision; it isn't best to see it too clearly at first, it might look\nas if you had come loaded with it). The vision developed, by degrees,\nand gathered swing, momentum, energy. It was the Richmond fire. Dr.\nPeake was cold, at first, and his fine face had a trace of polite scorn\nin it; but when he began to recognize that fire, that expression\nchanged, and his eyes began to light up. As soon as I saw that, I threw\nthe valves wide open and turned on all the steam, and gave those people\na supper of fire and horrors that was calculated to last them one while!\nThey couldn't gasp, when I got through--they were petrified. Dr. Peake\nhad risen, and was standing,--and breathing hard. He said, in a great\nvoice--\n\n\"My doubts are ended. No collusion could produce that miracle. It was\ntotally impossible for him to know those details, yet he has described\nthem with the clarity of an eye-witness--and with what unassailable\ntruthfulness God knows I know!\"\n\nI saved the colonial mansion for the last night, and solidified and\nperpetuated Dr. Peake's conversion with the cannon-ball hole. He\nexplained to the house that I could never have heard of that small\ndetail, which differentiated this mansion from all other Virginian\nmansions and perfectly identified it, therefore the fact stood proven\nthat I had _seen_ it in my vision. Lawks!\n\nIt is curious. When the magician's engagement closed there was but one\nperson in the village who did not believe in mesmerism, and I was the\none. All the others were converted, but I was to remain an implacable\nand unpersuadable disbeliever in mesmerism and hypnotism for close upon\nfifty years. This was because I never would examine them, in after life.\nI couldn't. The subject revolted me. Perhaps because it brought back to\nme a passage in my life which for pride's sake I wished to forget;\nthough I thought--or persuaded myself I thought--I should never come\nacross a \"proof\" which wasn't thin and cheap, and probably had a fraud\nlike me behind it.\n\nThe truth is, I did not have to wait long to get tired of my triumphs.\nNot thirty days, I think. The glory which is built upon a lie soon\nbecomes a most unpleasant incumbrance. No doubt for a while I enjoyed\nhaving my exploits told and retold and told again in my presence and\nwondered over and exclaimed about, but I quite distinctly remember that\nthere presently came a time when the subject was wearisome and odious to\nme and I could not endure the disgusting discomfort of it. I am well\naware that the world-glorified doer of a deed of great and real splendor\nhas just my experience; I know that he deliciously enjoys hearing about\nit for three or four weeks, and that pretty soon after that he begins to\ndread the mention of it, and by and by wishes he had been with the\ndamned before he ever thought of doing that deed; I remember how General\nSherman used to rage and swear over \"When we were Marching through\nGeorgia,\" which was played at him and sung at him everywhere he went;\nstill, I think I suffered a shade more than the legitimate hero does, he\nbeing privileged to soften his misery with the reflection that his glory\nwas at any rate golden and reproachless in its origin, whereas I had no\nsuch privilege, there being no possible way to make mine respectable.\n\nHow easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo\nthat work again! Thirty-five years after those evil exploits of mine I\nvisited my old mother, whom I had not seen for ten years; and being\nmoved by what seemed to me a rather noble and perhaps heroic impulse, I\nthought I would humble myself and confess my ancient fault. It cost me a\ngreat effort to make up my mind; I dreaded the sorrow that would rise in\nher face, and the shame that would look out of her eyes; but after long\nand troubled reflection, the sacrifice seemed due and right, and I\ngathered my resolution together and made the confession.\n\nTo my astonishment there were no sentimentalities, no dramatics, no\nGeorge Washington effects; she was not moved in the least degree; she\nsimply did not believe me, and said so! I was not merely disappointed, I\nwas nettled, to have my costly truthfulness flung out of the market in\nthis placid and confident way when I was expecting to get a profit out\nof it. I asserted, and reasserted, with rising heat, my statement that\nevery single thing I had done on those long-vanished nights was a lie\nand a swindle; and when she shook her head tranquilly and said she knew\nbetter, I put up my hand and _swore_ to it--adding a triumphant \"_Now_\nwhat do you say?\"\n\nIt did not affect her at all; it did not budge her the fraction of an\ninch from her position. If this was hard for me to endure, it did not\nbegin with the blister she put upon the raw when she began to put my\nsworn oath out of court with _arguments_ to prove that I was under a\ndelusion and did not know what I was talking about. Arguments! Arguments\nto show that a person on a man's outside can know better what is on his\ninside than he does himself! I had cherished some contempt for arguments\nbefore, I have not enlarged my respect for them since. She refused to\nbelieve that I had invented my visions myself; she said it was folly:\nthat I was only a child at the time and could not have done it. She\ncited the Richmond fire and the colonial mansion and said they were\nquite beyond my capacities. Then I saw my chance! I said she was\nright--I didn't invent those, I got them from Dr. Peake. Even this great\nshot did no damage. She said Dr. Peake's evidence was better than mine,\nand he had said in plain words that it was impossible for me to have\nheard about those things. Dear, dear, what a grotesque and unthinkable\nsituation: a confessed swindler convicted of honesty and condemned to\nacquittal by circumstantial evidence furnished by the swindled!\n\nI realised, with shame and with impotent vexation, that I was defeated\nall along the line. I had but one card left, but it was a formidable\none. I played it--and stood from under. It seemed ignoble to demolish\nher fortress, after she had defended it so valiantly; but the defeated\nknow not mercy. I played that matter card. It was the pin-sticking. I\nsaid, solemnly--\n\n\"I give you my honor, a pin was never stuck into me without causing me\ncruel pain.\"\n\nShe only said--\n\n\"It is thirty-five years. I believe you do think that, _now_, but I was\nthere, and I know better. You never winced.\"\n\nShe was so calm! and I was so far from it, so nearly frantic.\n\n\"Oh, my goodness!\" I said, \"let me _show_ you that I am speaking the\ntruth. Here is my arm; drive a pin into it--drive it to the head--I\nshall not wince.\"\n\nShe only shook her gray head and said, with simplicity and conviction--\n\n\"You are a man, now, and could dissemble the hurt; but you were only a\nchild then, and could not have done it.\"\n\nAnd so the lie which I played upon her in my youth remained with her as\nan unchallengeable truth to the day of her death. Carlyle said \"a lie\ncannot live.\" It shows that he did not know how to tell them. If I had\ntaken out a life policy on this one the premiums would have bankrupted\nme ages ago.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCVII.\n\nJANUARY 18, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--X.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1825.)]\n\n[Sidenote: (1837.)]\n\n[_Dictated March 28, 1906._] Orion Clemens was born in Jamestown,\nFentress County, Tennessee, in 1825. He was the family's first-born, and\nantedated me ten years. Between him and me came a sister, Margaret, who\ndied, aged ten, in 1837, in that village of Florida, Missouri, where I\nwas born; and Pamela, mother of Samuel E. Moffett, who was an invalid\nall her life and died in the neighborhood of New York a year ago, aged\nabout seventy-five. Her character was without blemish, and she was of a\nmost kindly and gentle disposition. Also there was a brother, Benjamin,\nwho died in 1848 aged ten or twelve.\n\n[Sidenote: (1843.)]\n\nOrion's boyhood was spent in that wee little log hamlet of Jamestown up\nthere among the \"knobs\"--so called--of East Tennessee. The family\nmigrated to Florida, Missouri, then moved to Hannibal, Missouri, when\nOrion was twelve and a half years old. When he was fifteen or sixteen he\nwas sent to St. Louis and there he learned the printer's trade. One of\nhis characteristics was eagerness. He woke with an eagerness about some\nmatter or other every morning; it consumed him all day; it perished in\nthe night and he was on fire with a fresh new interest next morning\nbefore he could get his clothes on. He exploited in this way three\nhundred and sixty-five red-hot new eagernesses every year of his life.\nBut I am forgetting another characteristic, a very pronounced one. That\nwas his deep glooms, his despondencies, his despairs; these had their\nplace in each and every day along with the eagernesses. Thus his day was\ndivided--no, not divided, mottled--from sunrise to midnight with\nalternating brilliant sunshine and black cloud. Every day he was the\nmost joyous and hopeful man that ever was, I think, and also every day\nhe was the most miserable man that ever was.\n\nWhile he was in his apprenticeship in St. Louis, he got well acquainted\nwith Edward Bates, who was afterwards in Mr. Lincoln's first cabinet.\nBates was a very fine man, an honorable and upright man, and a\ndistinguished lawyer. He patiently allowed Orion to bring to him each\nnew project; he discussed it with him and extinguished it by argument\nand irresistible logic--at first. But after a few weeks he found that\nthis labor was not necessary; that he could leave the new project alone\nand it would extinguish itself the same night. Orion thought he would\nlike to become a lawyer. Mr. Bates encouraged him, and he studied law\nnearly a week, then of course laid it aside to try something new. He\nwanted to become an orator. Mr. Bates gave him lessons. Mr. Bates walked\nthe floor reading from an English book aloud and rapidly turning the\nEnglish into French, and he recommended this exercise to Orion. But as\nOrion knew no French, he took up that study and wrought at it like a\nvolcano for two or three days; then gave it up. During his\napprenticeship in St. Louis he joined a number of churches, one after\nanother, and taught in their Sunday-schools--changing his Sunday-school\nevery time he changed his religion. He was correspondingly erratic in\nhis politics--Whig to-day, Democrat next week, and anything fresh that\nhe could find in the political market the week after. I may remark here\nthat throughout his long life he was always trading religions and\nenjoying the change of scenery. I will also remark that his sincerity\nwas never doubted; his truthfulness was never doubted; and in matters of\nbusiness and money his honesty was never questioned. Notwithstanding his\nforever-recurring caprices and changes, his principles were high, always\nhigh, and absolutely unshakable. He was the strangest compound that ever\ngot mixed in a human mould. Such a person as that is given to acting\nupon impulse and without reflection; that was Orion's way. Everything he\ndid he did with conviction and enthusiasm and with a vainglorious pride\nin the thing he was doing--and no matter what that thing was, whether\ngood, bad or indifferent, he repented of it every time in sackcloth and\nashes before twenty-four hours had sped. Pessimists are born, not made.\nOptimists are born, not made. But I think he was the only person I have\never known in whom pessimism and optimism were lodged in exactly equal\nproportions. Except in the matter of grounded principle, he was as\nunstable as water. You could dash his spirits with a single word; you\ncould raise them into the sky again with another one. You could break\nhis heart with a word of disapproval; you could make him as happy as an\nangel with a word of approval. And there was no occasion to put any\nsense or any vestige of mentality of any kind into these miracles;\nanything you might say would answer.\n\nHe had another conspicuous characteristic, and it was the father of\nthose which I have just spoken of. This was an intense lust for\napproval. He was so eager to be approved, so girlishly anxious to be\napproved by anybody and everybody, without discrimination, that he was\ncommonly ready to forsake his notions, opinions and convictions at a\nmoment's notice in order to get the approval of any person who disagreed\nwith them. I wish to be understood as reserving his fundamental\nprinciples all the time. He never forsook those to please anybody. Born\nand reared among slaves and slaveholders, he was yet an abolitionist\nfrom his boyhood to his death. He was always truthful; he was always\nsincere; he was always honest and honorable. But in light\nmatters--matters of small consequence, like religion and politics and\nsuch things--he never acquired a conviction that could survive a\ndisapproving remark from a cat.\n\nHe was always dreaming; he was a dreamer from birth, and this\ncharacteristic got him into trouble now and then.\n\nOnce when he was twenty-three or twenty-four years old, and was become a\njourneyman, he conceived the romantic idea of coming to Hannibal without\ngiving us notice, in order that he might furnish to the family a\npleasant surprise. If he had given notice, he would have been informed\nthat we had changed our residence and that that gruff old bass-voiced\nsailorman, Dr. G., our family physician, was living in the house which\nwe had formerly occupied and that Orion's former room in that house was\nnow occupied by Dr. G.'s two middle-aged maiden sisters. Orion arrived\nat Hannibal per steamboat in the middle of the night, and started with\nhis customary eagerness on his excursion, his mind all on fire with his\nromantic project and building and enjoying his surprise in advance. He\nwas always enjoying things in advance; it was the make of him. He never\ncould wait for the event, but must build it out of dream-stuff and enjoy\nit beforehand--consequently sometimes when the event happened he saw\nthat it was not as good as the one he had invented in his imagination,\nand so he had lost profit by not keeping the imaginary one and letting\nthe reality go.\n\nWhen he arrived at the house he went around to the back door and slipped\noff his boots and crept up-stairs and arrived at the room of those\nelderly ladies without having wakened any sleepers. He undressed in the\ndark and got into bed and snuggled up against somebody. He was a little\nsurprised, but not much--for he thought it was our brother Ben. It was\nwinter, and the bed was comfortable, and the supposed Ben added to the\ncomfort--and so he was dropping off to sleep very well satisfied with\nhis progress so far and full of happy dreams of what was going to happen\nin the morning. But something else was going to happen sooner than that,\nand it happened now. The maid that was being crowded fumed and fretted\nand struggled and presently came to a half-waking condition and\nprotested against the crowding. That voice paralyzed Orion. He couldn't\nmove a limb; he couldn't get his breath; and the crowded one discovered\nhis new whiskers and began to scream. This removed the paralysis, and\nOrion was out of bed and clawing round in the dark for his clothes in a\nfraction of a second. Both maids began to scream then, so Orion did not\nwait to get his whole wardrobe. He started with such parts of it as he\ncould grab. He flew to the head of the stairs and started down, and was\nparalyzed again at that point, because he saw the faint yellow flame of\na candle soaring up the stairs from below and he judged that Dr. G. was\nbehind it, and he was. He had no clothes on to speak of, but no matter,\nhe was well enough fixed for an occasion like this, because he had a\nbutcher-knife in his hand. Orion shouted to him, and this saved his\nlife, for the Doctor recognized his voice. Then in those deep-sea-going\nbass tones of his that I used to admire so much when I was a little boy,\nhe explained to Orion the change that had been made, told him where to\nfind the Clemens family, and closed with some quite unnecessary advice\nabout posting himself before he undertook another adventure like\nthat--advice which Orion probably never needed again as long as he\nlived.\n\nOne bitter December night, Orion sat up reading until three o'clock in\nthe morning and then, without looking at a clock, sallied forth to call\non a young lady. He hammered and hammered at the door; couldn't get any\nresponse; didn't understand it. Anybody else would have regarded that as\nan indication of some kind or other and would have drawn inferences and\ngone home. But Orion didn't draw inferences, he merely hammered and\nhammered, and finally the father of the girl appeared at the door in a\ndressing-gown. He had a candle in his hand and the dressing-gown was all\nthe clothing he had on--except an expression of unwelcome which was so\nthick and so large that it extended all down his front to his instep and\nnearly obliterated the dressing-gown. But Orion didn't notice that this\nwas an unpleasant expression. He merely walked in. The old gentleman\ntook him into the parlor, set the candle on a table, and stood. Orion\nmade the usual remarks about the weather, and sat down--sat down and\ntalked and talked and went on talking--that old man looking at him\nvindictively and waiting for his chance--waiting treacherously and\nmalignantly for his chance. Orion had not asked for the young lady. It\nwas not customary. It was understood that a young fellow came to see the\ngirl of the house, not the founder of it. At last Orion got up and made\nsome remark to the effect that probably the young lady was busy and he\nwould go now and call again. That was the old man's chance, and he said\nwith fervency \"Why good land, aren't you going to stop to breakfast?\"\n\n\nOrion did not come to Hannibal until two or three years after my\nfather's death. Meantime he remained in St Louis. He was a journeyman\nprinter and earning wages. Out of his wage he supported my mother and my\nbrother Henry, who was two years younger than I. My sister Pamela helped\nin this support by taking piano pupils. Thus we got along, but it was\npretty hard sledding. I was not one of the burdens, because I was taken\nfrom school at once, upon my father's death, and placed in the office of\nthe Hannibal \"Courier,\" as printer's apprentice, and Mr. S., the editor\nand proprietor of the paper, allowed me the usual emolument of the\noffice of apprentice--that is to say board and clothes, but no money.\nThe clothes consisted of two suits a year, but one of the suits always\nfailed to materialize and the other suit was not purchased so long as\nMr. S.'s old clothes held out. I was only about half as big as Mr. S.,\nconsequently his shirts gave me the uncomfortable sense of living in a\ncircus tent, and I had to turn up his pants to my ears to make them\nshort enough.\n\nThere were two other apprentices. One was Steve Wilkins, seventeen or\neighteen years old and a giant. When he was in Mr. S.'s clothes they\nfitted him as the candle-mould fits the candle--thus he was generally in\na suffocated condition, particularly in the summer-time. He was a\nreckless, hilarious, admirable creature; he had no principles, and was\ndelightful company. At first we three apprentices had to feed in the\nkitchen with the old slave cook and her very handsome and bright and\nwell-behaved young mulatto daughter. For his own amusement--for he was\nnot generally laboring for other people's amusement--Steve was\nconstantly and persistently and loudly and elaborately making love to\nthat mulatto girl and distressing the life out of her and worrying the\nold mother to death. She would say, \"Now, Marse Steve, Marse Steve,\ncan't you behave yourself?\" With encouragement like that, Steve would\nnaturally renew his attentions and emphasize them. It was killingly\nfunny to Ralph and me. And, to speak truly, the old mother's distress\nabout it was merely a pretence. She quite well understood that by the\ncustoms of slaveholding communities it was Steve's right to make love to\nthat girl if he wanted to. But the girl's distress was very real. She\nhad a refined nature, and she took all Steve's extravagant love-making\nin resentful earnest.\n\nWe got but little variety in the way of food at that kitchen table, and\nthere wasn't enough of it anyway. So we apprentices used to keep alive\nby arts of our own--that is to say, we crept into the cellar nearly\nevery night, by a private entrance which we had discovered, and we\nrobbed the cellar of potatoes and onions and such things, and carried\nthem down-town to the printing-office, where we slept on pallets on the\nfloor, and cooked them at the stove and had very good times.\n\nAs I have indicated, Mr. S.'s economies were of a pretty close and rigid\nkind. By and by, when we apprentices were promoted from the basement to\nthe ground floor and allowed to sit at the family table, along with the\none journeyman, Harry H., the economies continued. Mrs. S. was a bride.\nShe had attained to that distinction very recently, after waiting a good\npart of a lifetime for it, and she was the right woman in the right\nplace, according to the economics of the place, for she did not trust\nthe sugar-bowl to us, but sweetened our coffee herself. That is, she\nwent through the motions. She didn't really sweeten it. She seemed to\nput one heaping teaspoonful of brown sugar into each cup, but, according\nto Steve, that was a deceit. He said she dipped the spoon in the coffee\nfirst to make the sugar stick, and then scooped the sugar out of the\nbowl with the spoon upside down, so that the effect to the eye was a\nheaped-up spoon, whereas the sugar on it was nothing but a layer. This\nall seems perfectly true to me, and yet that thing would be so difficult\nto perform that I suppose it really didn't happen, but was one of\nSteve's lies.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCVIII.\n\nFEBRUARY 1, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XI.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1850.)]\n\n[_Dictated March 28th, 1906._] About 1849 or 1850 Orion severed his\nconnection with the printing-house in St. Louis and came up to Hannibal,\nand bought a weekly paper called the Hannibal \"Journal,\" together with\nits plant and its good-will, for the sum of five hundred dollars cash.\nHe borrowed the cash at ten per cent. interest, from an old farmer named\nJohnson who lived five miles out of town. Then he reduced the\nsubscription price of the paper from two dollars to one dollar. He\nreduced the rates for advertising in about the same proportion, and\nthus he created one absolute and unassailable certainty--to wit: that\nthe business would never pay him a single cent of profit. He took me out\nof the \"Courier\" office and engaged my services in his own at three\ndollars and a half a week, which was an extravagant wage, but Orion was\nalways generous, always liberal with everybody except himself. It cost\nhim nothing in my case, for he never was able to pay me a penny as long\nas I was with him. By the end of the first year he found he must make\nsome economies. The office rent was cheap, but it was not cheap enough.\nHe could not afford to pay rent of any kind, so he moved the whole plant\ninto the house we lived in, and it cramped the dwelling-place cruelly.\nHe kept that paper alive during four years, but I have at this time no\nidea how he accomplished it. Toward the end of each year he had to turn\nout and scrape and scratch for the fifty dollars of interest due Mr.\nJohnson, and that fifty dollars was about the only cash he ever received\nor paid out, I suppose, while he was proprietor of that newspaper,\nexcept for ink and printing-paper. The paper was a dead failure. It had\nto be that from the start. Finally he handed it over to Mr. Johnson, and\nwent up to Muscatine, Iowa, and acquired a small interest in a weekly\nnewspaper there. It was not a sort of property to marry on--but no\nmatter. He came across a winning and pretty girl who lived in Quincy,\nIllinois, a few miles below Keokuk, and they became engaged. He was\nalways falling in love with girls, but by some accident or other he had\nnever gone so far as engagement before. And now he achieved nothing but\nmisfortune by it, because he straightway fell in love with a Keokuk\ngirl. He married the Keokuk girl and they began a struggle for life\nwhich turned out to be a difficult enterprise, and very unpromising.\n\nTo gain a living in Muscatine was plainly impossible, so Orion and his\nnew wife went to Keokuk to live, for she wanted to be near her\nrelatives. He bought a little bit of a job-printing plant--on credit, of\ncourse--and at once put prices down to where not even the apprentices\ncould get a living out of it, and this sort of thing went on.\n\n[Sidenote: (1853.)]\n\nI had not joined the Muscatine migration. Just before that happened\n(which I think was in 1853) I disappeared one night and fled to St.\nLouis. There I worked in the composing-room of the \"Evening News\" for a\ntime, and then started on my travels to see the world. The world was New\nYork City, and there was a little World's Fair there. It had just been\nopened where the great reservoir afterward was, and where the sumptuous\npublic library is now being built--Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street.\nI arrived in New York with two or three dollars in pocket change and a\nten-dollar bank-bill concealed in the lining of my coat. I got work at\nvillainous wages in the establishment of John A. Gray and Green in Cliff\nStreet, and I found board in a sufficiently villainous mechanics'\nboarding-house in Duane Street. The firm paid my wages in wildcat money\nat its face value, and my week's wage merely sufficed to pay board and\nlodging. By and by I went to Philadelphia and worked there some months\nas a \"sub\" on the \"Inquirer\" and the \"Public Ledger.\" Finally I made a\nflying trip to Washington to see the sights there, and in 1854 I went\nback to the Mississippi Valley, sitting upright in the smoking-car two\nor three days and nights. When I reached St. Louis I was exhausted. I\nwent to bed on board a steamboat that was bound for Muscatine. I fell\nasleep at once, with my clothes on, and didn't wake again for thirty-six\nhours.\n\n[Sidenote: (1854.)]\n\n... I worked in that little job-office in Keokuk as much as two years, I\nshould say, without ever collecting a cent of wages, for Orion was never\nable to pay anything--but Dick Higham and I had good times. I don't know\nwhat Dick got, but it was probably only uncashable promises.\n\n[Sidenote: (1856.)]\n\nOne day in the midwinter of 1856 or 1857--I think it was 1856--I was\ncoming along the main street of Keokuk in the middle of the forenoon. It\nwas bitter weather--so bitter that that street was deserted, almost. A\nlight dry snow was blowing here and there on the ground and on the\npavement, swirling this way and that way and making all sorts of\nbeautiful figures, but very chilly to look at. The wind blew a piece of\npaper past me and it lodged against a wall of a house. Something about\nthe look of it attracted my attention and I gathered it in. It was a\nfifty-dollar bill, the only one I had ever seen, and the largest\nassemblage of money I had ever encountered in one spot. I advertised it\nin the papers and suffered more than a thousand dollars' worth of\nsolicitude and fear and distress during the next few days lest the owner\nshould see the advertisement and come and take my fortune away. As many\nas four days went by without an applicant; then I could endure this kind\nof misery no longer. I felt sure that another four could not go by in\nthis safe and secure way. I felt that I must take that money out of\ndanger. So I bought a ticket for Cincinnati and went to that city. I\nworked there several months in the printing-office of Wrightson and\nCompany. I had been reading Lieutenant Herndon's account of his\nexplorations of the Amazon and had been mightily attracted by what he\nsaid of coca. I made up my mind that I would go to the head waters of\nthe Amazon and collect coca and trade in it and make a fortune. I left\nfor New Orleans in the steamer \"Paul Jones\" with this great idea filling\nmy mind. One of the pilots of that boat was Horace Bixby. Little by\nlittle I got acquainted with him, and pretty soon I was doing a lot of\nsteering for him in his daylight watches. When I got to New Orleans I\ninquired about ships leaving for Par\u00e1 and discovered that there weren't\nany, and learned that there probably wouldn't be any during that\ncentury. It had not occurred to me to inquire about those particulars\nbefore leaving Cincinnati, so there I was. I couldn't get to the Amazon.\nI had no friends in New Orleans and no money to speak of. I went to\nHorace Bixby and asked him to make a pilot out of me. He said he would\ndo it for a hundred dollars cash in advance. So I steered for him up to\nSt. Louis, borrowed the money from my brother-in-law and closed the\nbargain. I had acquired this brother-in-law several years before. This\nwas Mr. William A. Moffett, a merchant, a Virginian--a fine man in every\nway. He had married my sister Pamela, and the Samuel E. Moffett of whom\nI have been speaking was their son. Within eighteen months I became a\ncompetent pilot, and I served that office until the Mississippi River\ntraffic was brought to a standstill by the breaking out of the civil\nwar.\n\n... Meantime Orion had gone down the river and established his little\njob-printing-office in Keokuk. On account of charging next to nothing\nfor the work done in his job-office, he had almost nothing to do there.\nHe was never able to comprehend that work done on a profitless basis\ndeteriorates and is presently not worth anything, and that customers are\nthen obliged to go where they can get better work, even if they must pay\nbetter prices for it. He had plenty of time, and he took up Blackstone\nagain. He also put up a sign which offered his services to the public\nas a lawyer. He never got a case, in those days, nor even an applicant,\nalthough he was quite willing to transact law business for nothing and\nfurnish the stationery himself. He was always liberal that way.\n\n[Sidenote: (1861.)]\n\nPresently he moved to a wee little hamlet called Alexandria, two or\nthree miles down the river, and he put up that sign there. He got no\ncustom. He was by this time very hard aground. But by this time I was\nbeginning to earn a wage of two hundred and fifty dollars a month as\npilot, and so I supported him thenceforth until 1861, when his ancient\nfriend, Edward Bates, then a member of Mr. Lincoln's first cabinet, got\nhim the place of Secretary of the new Territory of Nevada, and Orion and\nI cleared for that country in the overland stage-coach, I paying the\nfares, which were pretty heavy, and carrying with me what money I had\nbeen able to save--this was eight hundred dollars, I should say--and it\nwas all in silver coin and a good deal of a nuisance because of its\nweight. And we had another nuisance, which was an Unabridged Dictionary.\nIt weighed about a thousand pounds, and was a ruinous expense, because\nthe stage-coach Company charged for extra baggage by the ounce. We could\nhave kept a family for a time on what that dictionary cost in the way of\nextra freight--and it wasn't a good dictionary anyway--didn't have any\nmodern words in it--only had obsolete ones that they used to use when\nNoah Webster was a child.\n\nThe Government of the new Territory of Nevada was an interesting\nmenagerie. Governor Nye was an old and seasoned politician from New\nYork--politician, not statesman. He had white hair; he was in fine\nphysical condition; he had a winningly friendly face and deep lustrous\nbrown eyes that could talk as a native language the tongue of every\nfeeling, every passion, every emotion. His eyes could outtalk his\ntongue, and this is saying a good deal, for he was a very remarkable\ntalker, both in private and on the stump. He was a shrewd man; he\ngenerally saw through surfaces and perceived what was going on inside\nwithout being suspected of having an eye on the matter.\n\nWhen grown-up persons indulge in practical jokes, the fact gauges them.\nThey have lived narrow, obscure, and ignorant lives, and at full manhood\nthey still retain and cherish a job-lot of left-over standards and\nideals that would have been discarded with their boyhood if they had\nthen moved out into the world and a broader life. There were many\npractical jokers in the new Territory. I do not take pleasure in\nexposing this fact, for I liked those people; but what I am saying is\ntrue. I wish I could say a kindlier thing about them instead--that they\nwere burglars, or hat-rack thieves, or something like that, that\nwouldn't be utterly uncomplimentary. I would prefer it, but I can't say\nthose things, they would not be true. These people were practical\njokers, and I will not try to disguise it. In other respects they were\nplenty good-enough people; honest people; reputable and likable. They\nplayed practical jokes upon each other with success, and got the\nadmiration and applause and also the envy of the rest of the community.\nNaturally they were eager to try their arts on big game, and that was\nwhat the Governor was. But they were not able to score. They made\nseveral efforts, but the Governor defeated these efforts without any\ntrouble and went on smiling his pleasant smile as if nothing had\nhappened. Finally the joker chiefs of Carson City and Virginia City\nconspired together to see if their combined talent couldn't win a\nvictory, for the jokers were getting into a very uncomfortable place:\nthe people were laughing at them, instead of at their proposed victim.\nThey banded themselves together to the number of ten and invited the\nGovernor to what was a most extraordinary attention in those\ndays--pickled oyster stew and champagne--luxuries very seldom seen in\nthat region, and existing rather as fabrics of the imagination than as\nfacts.\n\nThe Governor took me with him. He said disparagingly,\n\n\"It's a poor invention. It doesn't deceive. Their idea is to get me\ndrunk and leave me under the table, and from their standpoint this will\nbe very funny. But they don't know me. I am familiar with champagne and\nhave no prejudices against it.\"\n\nThe fate of the joke was not decided until two o'clock in the morning.\nAt that hour the Governor was serene, genial, comfortable, contented,\nhappy and sober, although he was so full that he couldn't laugh without\nshedding champagne tears. Also, at that hour the last joker joined his\ncomrades under the table, drunk to the last perfection. The Governor\nremarked,\n\n\"This is a dry place, Sam, let's go and get something to drink and go to\nbed.\"\n\nThe Governor's official menagerie had been drawn from the humblest\nranks of his constituents at home--harmless good fellows who had helped\nin his campaigns, and now they had their reward in petty salaries\npayable in greenbacks that were worth next to nothing. Those boys had a\nhard time to make both ends meet. Orion's salary was eighteen hundred\ndollars a year, and he wouldn't even support his dictionary on it. But\nthe Irishwoman who had come out on the Governor's staff charged the\nmenagerie only ten dollars a week apiece for board and lodging. Orion\nand I were of her boarders and lodgers; and so, on these cheap terms the\nsilver I had brought from home held out very well.\n\n[Sidenote: ('62 or '63)]\n\nAt first I roamed about the country seeking silver, but at the end of\n'62 or the beginning of '63 when I came up from Aurora to begin a\njournalistic life on the Virginia City \"Enterprise,\" I was presently\nsent down to Carson City to report the legislative session. Orion was\nsoon very popular with the members of the legislature, because they\nfound that whereas they couldn't usually trust each other, nor anybody\nelse, they could trust him. He easily held the belt for honesty in that\ncountry, but it didn't do him any good in a pecuniary way, because he\nhad no talent for either persuading or scaring legislators. But I was\ndifferently situated. I was there every day in the legislature to\ndistribute compliment and censure with evenly balanced justice and\nspread the same over half a page of the \"Enterprise\" every morning,\nconsequently I was an influence. I got the legislature to pass a wise\nand very necessary law requiring every corporation doing business in the\nTerritory to record its charter in full, without skipping a word, in a\nrecord to be kept by the Secretary of the Territory--my brother. All the\ncharters were framed in exactly the same words. For this record-service\nhe was authorized to charge forty cents a folio of one hundred words for\nmaking the record; also five dollars for furnishing a certificate of\neach record, and so on. Everybody had a toll-road franchise, but no\ntoll-road. But the franchise had to be recorded and paid for. Everybody\nwas a mining corporation, and had to have himself recorded and pay for\nit. Very well, we prospered. The record-service paid an average of a\nthousand dollars a month, in gold.\n\nGovernor Nye was often absent from the Territory. He liked to run down\nto San Francisco every little while and enjoy a rest from Territorial\ncivilization. Nobody complained, for he was prodigiously popular, he\nhad been a stage-driver in his early days in New York or New England,\nand had acquired the habit of remembering names and faces, and of making\nhimself agreeable to his passengers. As a politician this had been\nvaluable to him, and he kept his arts in good condition by practice. By\nthe time he had been Governor a year, he had shaken hands with every\nhuman being in the Territory of Nevada, and after that he always knew\nthese people instantly at sight and could call them by name. The whole\npopulation, of 20,000 persons, were his personal friends, and he could\ndo anything he chose to do and count upon their being contented with it.\nWhenever he was absent from the Territory--which was generally--Orion\nserved his office in his place, as Acting Governor, a title which was\nsoon and easily shortened to \"Governor.\" He recklessly built and\nfurnished a house at a cost of twelve thousand dollars, and there was no\nother house in the sage-brush capital that could approach this property\nfor style and cost.\n\nWhen Governor Nye's four-year term was drawing to a close, the mystery\nof why he had ever consented to leave the great State of New York and\nhelp inhabit that jack-rabbit desert was solved: he had gone out there\nin order to become a United States Senator. All that was now necessary\nwas to turn the Territory into a State. He did it without any\ndifficulty. That undeveloped country and that sparse population were not\nwell fitted for the heavy burden of a State Government, but no matter,\nthe people were willing to have the change, and so the Governor's game\nwas made.\n\nOrion's game was made too, apparently, for he was as popular because of\nhis honesty as the Governor was for more substantial reasons; but at the\ncritical moment the inborn capriciousness of his character rose up\nwithout warning, and disaster followed.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCIX.\n\nFEBRUARY 15, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XII.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1864-5.)]\n\n_Orion Clemens--resumed._\n\n[_Dictated April 5, 1906._] There were several candidates for all the\noffices in the gift of the new State of Nevada save two--United States\nSenator, and Secretary of State. Nye was certain to get a Senatorship,\nand Orion was so sure to get the Secretaryship that no one but him was\nnamed for that office. But he was hit with one of his spasms of virtue\non the very day that the Republican party was to make its nominations in\nthe Convention, and refused to go near the Convention. He was urged, but\nall persuasions failed. He said his presence there would be an unfair\nand improper influence and that if he was to be nominated the compliment\nmust come to him as a free and unspotted gift. This attitude would have\nsettled his case for him without further effort, but he had another\nattack of virtue on the same day, that made it absolutely sure. It had\nbeen his habit for a great many years to change his religion with his\nshirt, and his ideas about temperance at the same time. He would be a\nteetotaler for a while and the champion of the cause; then he would\nchange to the other side for a time. On nomination day he suddenly\nchanged from a friendly attitude toward whiskey--which was the popular\nattitude--to uncompromising teetotalism, and went absolutely dry. His\nfriends besought and implored, but all in vain. He could not be\npersuaded to cross the threshold of a saloon. The paper next morning\ncontained the list of chosen nominees. His name was not in it. He had\nnot received a vote.\n\nHis rich income ceased when the State government came into power. He was\nwithout an occupation. Something had to be done. He put up his sign as\nattorney-at-law, but he got no clients. It was strange. It was difficult\nto account for. I cannot account for it--but if I were going to guess at\na solution I should guess that by the make of him he would examine both\nsides of a case so diligently and so conscientiously that when he got\nthrough with his argument neither he nor a jury would know which side he\nwas on. I think that his client would find out his make in laying his\ncase before him, and would take warning and withdraw it in time to save\nhimself from probable disaster.\n\nI had taken up my residence in San Francisco about a year before the\ntime I have just been speaking of. One day I got a tip from Mr. Camp, a\nbold man who was always making big fortunes in ingenious speculations\nand losing them again in the course of six months by other speculative\ningenuities. Camp told me to buy some shares in the Hale and Norcross. I\nbought fifty shares at three hundred dollars a share. I bought on a\nmargin, and put up twenty per cent. It exhausted my funds. I wrote Orion\nand offered him half, and asked him to send his share of the money. I\nwaited and waited. He wrote and said he was going to attend to it. The\nstock went along up pretty briskly. It went higher and higher. It\nreached a thousand dollars a share. It climbed to two thousand, then to\nthree thousand; then to twice that figure. The money did not come, but I\nwas not disturbed. By and by that stock took a turn and began to gallop\ndown. Then I wrote urgently. Orion answered that he had sent the money\nlong ago--said he had sent it to the Occidental Hotel. I inquired for\nit. They said it was not there. To cut a long story short, that stock\nwent on down until it fell below the price I had paid for it. Then it\nbegan to eat up the margin, and when at last I got out I was very badly\ncrippled.\n\nWhen it was too late, I found out what had become of Orion's money. Any\nother human being would have sent a check, but he sent gold. The hotel\nclerk put it in the safe and went on vacation, and there it had reposed\nall this time enjoying its fatal work, no doubt. Another man might have\nthought to tell me that the money was not in a letter, but was in an\nexpress package, but it never occurred to Orion to do that.\n\nLater, Mr. Camp gave me another chance. He agreed to buy our Tennessee\nland for two hundred thousand dollars, pay a part of the amount in cash\nand give long notes for the rest. His scheme was to import foreigners\nfrom grape-growing and wine-making districts in Europe, settle them on\nthe land, and turn it into a wine-growing country. He knew what Mr.\nLongworth thought of those Tennessee grapes, and was satisfied. I sent\nthe contracts and things to Orion for his signature, he being one of the\nthree heirs. But they arrived at a bad time--in a doubly bad time, in\nfact. The temperance virtue was temporarily upon him in strong force,\nand he wrote and said that he would not be a party to debauching the\ncountry with wine. Also he said how could he know whether Mr. Camp was\ngoing to deal fairly and honestly with those poor people from Europe or\nnot?--and so, without waiting to find out, he quashed the whole trade,\nand there it fell, never to be brought to life again. The land, from\nbeing suddenly worth two hundred thousand dollars, became as suddenly\nworth what it was before--nothing, and taxes to pay. I had paid the\ntaxes and the other expenses for some years, but I dropped the Tennessee\nland there, and have never taken any interest in it since, pecuniarily\nor otherwise, until yesterday.\n\nI had supposed, until yesterday, that Orion had frittered away the last\nacre, and indeed that was his own impression. But a gentleman arrived\nyesterday from Tennessee and brought a map showing that by a correction\nof the ancient surveys we still own a thousand acres, in a coal\ndistrict, out of the hundred thousand acres which my father left us when\nhe died in 1847. The gentleman brought a proposition; also he brought a\nreputable and well-to-do citizen of New York. The proposition was that\nthe Tennesseean gentleman should sell that land; that the New York\ngentleman should pay all the expenses and fight all the lawsuits, in\ncase any should turn up, and that of such profit as might eventuate the\nTennesseean gentleman should take a third, the New-Yorker a third, and\nSam Moffett and his sister and I--who are surviving heirs--the remaining\nthird.\n\nThis time I hope we shall get rid of the Tennessee land for good and all\nand never hear of it again.\n\n[Sidenote: (1867.)]\n\n[Sidenote: (1871.)]\n\nI came East in January, 1867. Orion remained in Carson City perhaps a\nyear longer. Then he sold his twelve-thousand-dollar house and its\nfurniture for thirty-five hundred in greenbacks at about sixty per cent.\ndiscount. He and his wife took passage in the steamer for home in\nKeokuk. About 1871 or '72 they came to New York. Orion had been trying\nto make a living in the law ever since he had arrived from the Pacific\nCoast, but he had secured only two cases. Those he was to try free of\ncharge--but the possible result will never be known, because the parties\nsettled the cases out of court without his help.\n\nOrion got a job as proof-reader on the New York \"Evening Post\" at ten\ndollars a week. By and by he came to Hartford and wanted me to get him a\nplace as reporter on a Hartford paper. Here was a chance to try my\nscheme again, and I did it. I made him go to the Hartford \"Evening\nPost,\" without any letter of introduction, and propose to scrub and\nsweep and do all sorts of things for nothing, on the plea that he didn't\nneed money but only needed work, and that that was what he was pining\nfor. Within six weeks he was on the editorial staff of that paper at\ntwenty dollars a week, and he was worth the money. He was presently\ncalled for by some other paper at better wages, but I made him go to the\n\"Post\" people and tell them about it. They stood the raise and kept him.\nIt was the pleasantest berth he had ever had in his life. It was an easy\nberth. He was in every way comfortable. But ill-luck came. It was bound\nto come.\n\nA new Republican daily was to be started in a New England city by a\nstock company of well-to-do politicians, and they offered him the chief\neditorship at three thousand a year. He was eager to accept. My\nbeseechings and reasonings went for nothing. I said,\n\n\"You are as weak as water. Those people will find it out right away.\nThey will easily see that you have no backbone; that they can deal with\nyou as they would deal with a slave. You may last six months, but not\nlonger. Then they will not dismiss you as they would dismiss a\ngentleman: they will fling you out as they would fling out an intruding\ntramp.\"\n\nIt happened just so. Then he and his wife migrated to Keokuk once more.\nOrion wrote from there that he was not resuming the law; that he thought\nthat what his health needed was the open air, in some sort of outdoor\noccupation; that his father-in-law had a strip of ground on the river\nborder a mile above Keokuk with some sort of a house on it, and his idea\nwas to buy that place and start a chicken-farm and provide Keokuk with\nchickens and eggs, and perhaps butter--but I don't know whether you can\nraise butter on a chicken-farm or not. He said the place could be had\nfor three thousand dollars cash, and I sent the money. He began to raise\nchickens, and he made a detailed monthly report to me, whereby it\nappeared that he was able to work off his chickens on the Keokuk people\nat a dollar and a quarter a pair. But it also appeared that it cost a\ndollar and sixty cents to raise the pair. This did not seem to\ndiscourage Orion, and so I let it go. Meantime he was borrowing a\nhundred dollars per month of me regularly, month by month. Now to show\nOrion's stern and rigid business ways--and he really prided himself on\nhis large business capacities--the moment he received the advance of a\nhundred dollars at the beginning of each month, he always sent me his\nnote for the amount, and with it he sent, _out of that money, three\nmonths' interest_ on the hundred dollars at six per cent. per annum,\nthese notes being always for three months.\n\nAs I say, he always sent a detailed statement of the month's profit and\nloss on the chickens--at least the month's loss on the chickens--and\nthis detailed statement included the various items of expense--corn for\nthe chickens, boots for himself, and so on; even car fares, and the\nweekly contribution of ten cents to help out the missionaries who were\ntrying to damn the Chinese after a plan not satisfactory to those\npeople.\n\nI think the poultry experiment lasted about a year, possibly two years.\nIt had then cost me six thousand dollars.\n\nOrion returned to the law business, and I suppose he remained in that\nharness off and on for the succeeding quarter of a century, but so far\nas my knowledge goes he was only a lawyer in name, and had no clients.\n\n[Sidenote: (1890.)]\n\nMy mother died, in her eighty-eighth year, in the summer of 1890. She\nhad saved some money, and she left it to me, because it had come from\nme. I gave it to Orion and he said, with thanks, that I had supported\nhim long enough and now he was going to relieve me of that burden, and\nwould also hope to pay back some of that expense, and maybe the whole of\nit. Accordingly, he proceeded to use up that money in building a\nconsiderable addition to the house, with the idea of taking boarders and\ngetting rich. We need not dwell upon this venture. It was another of his\nfailures. His wife tried hard to make the scheme succeed, and if anybody\ncould have made it succeed she would have done it. She was a good woman,\nand was greatly liked. She had a practical side, and she would have made\nthat boarding-house lucrative if circumstances had not been against her.\n\nOrion had other projects for recouping me, but as they always required\ncapital I stayed out of them, and they did not materialize. Once he\nwanted to start a newspaper. It was a ghastly idea, and I squelched it\nwith a promptness that was almost rude. Then he invented a wood-sawing\nmachine and patched it together himself, and he really sawed wood with\nit. It was ingenious; it was capable; and it would have made a\ncomfortable little fortune for him; but just at the wrong time\nProvidence interfered again. Orion applied for a patent and found that\nthe same machine had already been patented and had gone into business\nand was thriving.\n\nPresently the State of New York offered a fifty-thousand-dollar prize\nfor a practical method of navigating the Erie Canal with steam\ncanal-boats. Orion worked at that thing for two or three years, invented\nand completed a method, and was once more ready to reach out and seize\nupon imminent wealth when somebody pointed out a defect: his steam\ncanal-boat could not be used in the winter-time; and in the summer-time\nthe commotion its wheels would make in the water would wash away the\nState of New York on both sides.\n\nInnumerable were Orion's projects for acquiring the means to pay off\nthe debt to me. These projects extended straight through the succeeding\nthirty years, but in every case they failed. During all those thirty\nyears his well-established honesty kept him in offices of trust where\nother people's money had to be taken care of, but where no salary was\npaid. He was treasurer of all the benevolent institutions; he took care\nof the money and other property of widows and orphans; he never lost a\ncent for anybody, and never made one for himself. Every time he changed\nhis religion the church of his new faith was glad to get him; made him\ntreasurer at once, and at once he stopped the graft and the leaks in\nthat church. He exhibited a facility in changing his political\ncomplexion that was a marvel to the whole community. Once the following\ncurious thing happened, and he wrote me all about it himself.\n\nOne morning he was a Republican, and upon invitation he agreed to make a\ncampaign speech at the Republican mass-meeting that night. He prepared\nthe speech. After luncheon he became a Democrat and agreed to write a\nscore of exciting mottoes to be painted upon the transparencies which\nthe Democrats would carry in their torchlight procession that night. He\nwrote these shouting Democratic mottoes during the afternoon, and they\noccupied so much of his time that it was night before he had a chance to\nchange his politics again; so he actually made a rousing Republican\ncampaign speech in the open air while his Democratic transparencies\npassed by in front of him, to the joy of every witness present.\n\nHe was a most strange creature--but in spite of his eccentricities he\nwas beloved, all his life, in whatsoever community he lived. And he was\nalso held in high esteem, for at bottom he was a sterling man.\n\nAbout twenty-five years ago--along there somewhere--I suggested to Orion\nthat he write an autobiography. I asked him to try to tell the straight\ntruth in it; to refrain from exhibiting himself in creditable attitudes\nexclusively, and to honorably set down all the incidents of his life\nwhich he had found interesting to him, including those which were burned\ninto his memory because he was ashamed of them. I said that this had\nnever been done, and that if he could do it his autobiography would be a\nmost valuable piece of literature. I said I was offering him a job which\nI could not duplicate in my own case, but I would cherish the hope that\nhe might succeed with it. I recognise now that I was trying to saddle\nupon him an impossibility. I have been dictating this autobiography of\nmine daily for three months; I have thought of fifteen hundred or two\nthousand incidents in my life which I am ashamed of, but I have not\ngotten one of them to consent to go on paper yet. I think that that\nstock will still be complete and unimpaired when I finish these memoirs,\nif I ever finish them. I believe that if I should put in all or any of\nthose incidents I should be sure to strike them out when I came to\nrevise this book.\n\nOrion wrote his autobiography and sent it to me. But great was my\ndisappointment; and my vexation, too. In it he was constantly making a\nhero of himself, exactly as I should have done and am doing now, and he\nwas constantly forgetting to put in the episodes which placed him in an\nunheroic light. I knew several incidents of his life which were\ndistinctly and painfully unheroic, but when I came across them in his\nautobiography they had changed color. They had turned themselves inside\nout, and were things to be intemperately proud of. In my dissatisfaction\nI destroyed a considerable part of that autobiography. But in what\nremains there are passages which are interesting, and I shall quote from\nthem here and there and now and then, as I go along.\n\n[Sidenote: (1898.)]\n\nWhile we were living in Vienna in 1898 a cablegram came from Keokuk\nannouncing Orion's death. He was seventy-two years old. He had gone down\nto the kitchen in the early hours of a bitter December morning; he had\nbuilt the fire, and had then sat down at a table to write something; and\nthere he died, with the pencil in his hand and resting against the paper\nin the middle of an unfinished word--an indication that his release from\nthe captivity of a long and troubled and pathetic and unprofitable life\nwas mercifully swift and painless.\n\n[_Dictated in 1904._] A quarter of a century ago I was visiting John Hay\nat Whitelaw Reid's house in New York, which Hay was occupying for a few\nmonths while Reid was absent on a holiday in Europe. Temporarily also,\nHay was editing Reid's paper, the New York \"Tribune.\" I remember two\nincidents of that Sunday visit particularly well. I had known John Hay a\ngood many years, I had known him when he was an obscure young editorial\nwriter on the \"Tribune\" in Horace Greely's time, earning three or four\ntimes the salary he got, considering the high character of the work\nwhich came from his pen. In those earlier days he was a picture to look\nat, for beauty of feature, perfection of form and grace of carriage and\nmovement. He had a charm about him of a sort quite unusual to my Western\nignorance and inexperience--a charm of manner, intonation, apparently\nnative and unstudied elocution, and all that--the groundwork of it\nnative, the ease of it, the polish of it, the winning naturalness of it,\nacquired in Europe where he had been Charg\u00e9 d'Affaires some time at the\nCourt of Vienna. He was joyous and cordial, a most pleasant comrade. One\nof the two incidents above referred to as marking that visit was this:\n\nIn trading remarks concerning our ages I confessed to forty-two and Hay\nto forty. Then he asked if I had begun to write my autobiography, and I\nsaid I hadn't. He said that I ought to begin at once, and that I had\nalready lost two years. Then he said in substance this:\n\n\"At forty a man reaches the top of the hill of life and starts down on\nthe sunset side. The ordinary man, the average man, not to particularize\ntoo closely and say the commonplace man, has at that age succeeded or\nfailed; in either case he has lived all of his life that is likely to be\nworth recording; also in either case the life lived is worth setting\ndown, and cannot fail to be interesting if he comes as near to telling\nthe truth about himself as he can. And he _will_ tell the truth in spite\nof himself, for his facts and his fictions will work loyally together\nfor the protection of the reader; each fact and each fiction will be a\ndab of paint, each will fall in its right place, and together they will\npaint his portrait; not the portrait _he_ thinks they are painting, but\nhis real portrait, the inside of him, the soul of him, his character.\nWithout intending to lie he will lie all the time; not bluntly,\nconsciously, not dully unconsciously, but half-consciously--\nconsciousness in twilight; a soft and gentle and merciful twilight which\nmakes his general form comely, with his virtuous prominences and\nprojections discernible and his ungracious ones in shadow. His truths\nwill be recognizable as truths, his modifications of facts which would\ntell against him will go for nothing, the reader will see the fact\nthrough the film and know his man.\n\n\"There is a subtle devilish something or other about autobiographical\ncomposition that defeats all the writer's attempts to paint his portrait\n_his_ way.\"\n\nHay meant that he and I were ordinary average commonplace people, and I\ndid not resent my share of the verdict, but nursed my wound in silence.\nHis idea that we had finished our work in life, passed the summit and\nwere westward bound down-hill, with me two years ahead of him and\nneither of us with anything further to do as benefactors to mankind, was\nall a mistake. I had written four books then, possibly five. I have been\ndrowning the world in literary wisdom ever since, volume after volume;\nsince that day's sun went down he has been the historian of Mr. Lincoln,\nand his book will never perish; he has been ambassador, brilliant\norator, competent and admirable Secretary of State.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCX.\n\nMARCH 1, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XIII.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1847.)]\n\n... As I have said, that vast plot of Tennessee land[6] was held by my\nfather twenty years--intact. When he died in 1847, we began to manage it\nourselves. Forty years afterward, we had managed it all away except\n10,000 acres, and gotten nothing to remember the sales by. About\n1887--possibly it was earlier--the 10,000 went. My brother found a\nchance to trade it for a house and lot in the town of Corry, in the oil\nregions of Pennsylvania. About 1894 he sold this property for $250. That\nended the Tennessee Land.\n\nIf any penny of cash ever came out of my father's wise investment but\nthat, I have no recollection of it. No, I am overlooking a detail. It\nfurnished me a field for Sellers and a book. Out of my half of the book\nI got $15,000 or $20,000; out of the play I got $75,000 or $80,000--just\nabout a dollar an acre. It is curious: I was not alive when my father\nmade the investment, therefore he was not intending any partiality; yet\nI was the only member of the family that ever profited by it. I shall\nhave occasion to mention this land again, now and then, as I go along,\nfor it influenced our life in one way or another during more than a\ngeneration. Whenever things grew dark it rose and put out its hopeful\nSellers hand and cheered us up, and said \"Do not be afraid--trust in\nme--wait.\" It kept us hoping and hoping, during forty years, and forsook\nus at last. It put our energies to sleep and made visionaries of\nus--dreamers and indolent. We were always going to be rich next year--no\noccasion to work. It is good to begin life poor; it is good to begin\nlife rich--these are wholesome; but to begin it _prospectively_ rich!\nThe man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the curse of it.\n\nMy parents removed to Missouri in the early thirties; I do not remember\njust when, for I was not born then, and cared nothing for such things.\nIt was a long journey in those days, and must have been a rough and\ntiresome one. The home was made in the wee village of Florida, in Monroe\ncounty, and I was born there in 1835. The village contained a hundred\npeople and I increased the population by one per cent. It is more than\nthe best man in history ever did for any other town. It may not be\nmodest in me to refer to this, but it is true. There is no record of a\nperson doing as much--not even Shakespeare. But I did it for Florida,\nand it shows that I could have done it for any place--even London, I\nsuppose.\n\nRecently some one in Missouri has sent me a picture of the house I was\nborn in. Heretofore I have always stated that it was a palace, but I\nshall be more guarded, now.\n\nI remember only one circumstance connected with my life in it. I\nremember it very well, though I was but two and a half years old at the\ntime. The family packed up everything and started in wagons for\nHannibal, on the Mississippi, thirty miles away. Toward night, when they\ncamped and counted up the children, one was missing. I was the one. I\nhad been left behind. Parents ought always to count the children before\nthey start. I was having a good enough time playing by myself until I\nfound that the doors were fastened and that there was a grisly deep\nsilence brooding over the place. I knew, then, that the family were\ngone, and that they had forgotten me. I was well frightened, and I made\nall the noise I could, but no one was near and it did no good. I spent\nthe afternoon in captivity and was not rescued until the gloaming had\nfallen and the place was alive with ghosts.\n\nMy brother Henry was six months old at that time. I used to remember his\nwalking into a fire outdoors when he was a week old. It was remarkable\nin me to remember a thing like that, which occurred when I was so young.\nAnd it was still more remarkable that I should cling to the delusion,\nfor thirty years, that I _did_ remember it--for of course it never\nhappened; he would not have been able to walk at that age. If I had\nstopped to reflect, I should not have burdened my memory with that\nimpossible rubbish so long. It is believed by many people that an\nimpression deposited in a child's memory within the first two years of\nits life cannot remain there five years, but that is an error. The\nincident of Benvenuto Cellini and the salamander must be accepted as\nauthentic and trustworthy; and then that remarkable and indisputable\ninstance in the experience of Helen Keller--however, I will speak of\nthat at another time. For many years I believed that I remembered\nhelping my grandfather drink his whiskey toddy when I was six weeks old,\nbut I do not tell about that any more, now; I am grown old, and my\nmemory is not as active as it used to be. When I was younger I could\nremember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are\ndecaying, now, and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the\nthings that happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this, but we all\nhave to do it.\n\nMy uncle, John A. Quarles, was a farmer, and his place was in the\ncountry four miles from Florida. He had eight children, and fifteen or\ntwenty negroes, and was also fortunate in other ways. Particularly in\nhis character. I have not come across a better man than he was. I was\nhis guest for two or three months every year, from the fourth year after\nwe removed to Hannibal till I was eleven or twelve years old. I have\nnever consciously used him or his wife in a book, but his farm has come\nvery handy to me in literature, once or twice. In \"Huck Finn\" and in\n\"Tom Sawyer Detective\" I moved it down to Arkansas. It was all of six\nhundred miles, but it was no trouble, it was not a very large farm;\nfive hundred acres, perhaps, but I could have done it if it had been\ntwice as large. And as for the morality of it, I cared nothing for that;\nI would move a State if the exigencies of literature required it.\n\nIt was a heavenly place for a boy, that farm of my uncle John's. The\nhouse was a double log one, with a spacious floor (roofed in) connecting\nit with the kitchen. In the summer the table was set in the middle of\nthat shady and breezy floor, and the sumptuous meals--well, it makes me\ncry to think of them. Fried chicken, roast pig, wild and tame turkeys,\nducks and geese; venison just killed; squirrels, rabbits, pheasants,\npartridges, prairie-chickens; biscuits, hot batter cakes, hot buckwheat\ncakes, hot \"wheat bread,\" hot rolls, hot corn pone; fresh corn boiled on\nthe ear, succotash, butter-beans, string-beans, tomatoes, pease, Irish\npotatoes, sweet-potatoes; buttermilk, sweet milk, \"clabber\";\nwatermelons, musk-melons, cantaloups--all fresh from the garden--apple\npie, peach pie, pumpkin pie, apple dumplings, peach cobbler--I can't\nremember the rest. The way that the things were cooked was perhaps the\nmain splendor--particularly a certain few of the dishes. For instance,\nthe corn bread, the hot biscuits and wheat bread, and the fried chicken.\nThese things have never been properly cooked in the North--in fact, no\none there is able to learn the art, so far as my experience goes. The\nNorth thinks it knows how to make corn bread, but this is gross\nsuperstition. Perhaps no bread in the world is quite as good as Southern\ncorn bread, and perhaps no bread in the world is quite so bad as the\nNorthern imitation of it. The North seldom tries to fry chicken, and\nthis is well; the art cannot be learned north of the line of Mason and\nDixon, nor anywhere in Europe. This is not hearsay; it is experience\nthat is speaking. In Europe it is imagined that the custom of serving\nvarious kinds of bread blazing hot is \"American,\" but that is too broad\na spread; it is custom in the South, but is much less than that in the\nNorth. In the North and in Europe hot bread is considered unhealthy.\nThis is probably another fussy superstition, like the European\nsuperstition that ice-water is unhealthy. Europe does not need\nice-water, and does not drink it; and yet, notwithstanding this, its\nword for it is better than ours, because it describes it, whereas ours\ndoesn't. Europe calls it \"iced\" water. Our word describes water made\nfrom melted ice--a drink which we have but little acquaintance with.\n\nIt seem a pity that the world should throw away so many good things\nmerely because they are unwholesome. I doubt if God has given us any\nrefreshment which, taken in moderation, is unwholesome, except microbes.\nYet there are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every\neatable, drinkable and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady\nreputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get\nfor it. How strange it is; it is like paying out your whole fortune for\na cow that has gone dry.\n\nThe farmhouse stood in the middle of a very large yard, and the yard was\nfenced on three sides with rails and on the rear side with high palings;\nagainst these stood the smokehouse; beyond the palings was the orchard;\nbeyond the orchard were the negro quarter and the tobacco-fields. The\nfront yard was entered over a stile, made of sawed-off logs of graduated\nheights; I do not remember any gate. In a corner of the front yard were\na dozen lofty hickory-trees and a dozen black-walnuts, and in the\nnutting season riches were to be gathered there.\n\nDown a piece, abreast the house, stood a little log cabin against the\nrail fence; and there the woody hill fell sharply away, past the barns,\nthe corn-crib, the stables and the tobacco-curing house, to a limpid\nbrook which sang along over its gravelly bed and curved and frisked in\nand out and here and there and yonder in the deep shade of overhanging\nfoliage and vines--a divine place for wading, and it had swimming-pools,\ntoo, which were forbidden to us and therefore much frequented by us. For\nwe were little Christian children, and had early been taught the value\nof forbidden fruit.\n\nIn the little log cabin lived a bedridden white-headed slave woman whom\nwe visited daily, and looked upon with awe, for we believed she was\nupwards of a thousand years old and had talked with Moses. The younger\nnegroes credited these statistics, and had furnished them to us in good\nfaith. We accommodated all the details which came to us about her; and\nso we believed that she had lost her health in the long desert trip\ncoming out of Egypt, and had never been able to get it back again. She\nhad a round bald place on the crown of her head, and we used to creep\naround and gaze at it in reverent silence, and reflect that it was\ncaused by fright through seeing Pharaoh drowned. We called her \"Aunt\"\nHannah, Southern fashion. She was superstitious like the other negroes;\nalso, like them, she was deeply religious. Like them, she had great\nfaith in prayer, and employed it in all ordinary exigencies, but not in\ncases where a dead certainty of result was urgent. Whenever witches were\naround she tied up the remnant of her wool in little tufts, with white\nthread, and this promptly made the witches impotent.\n\nAll the negroes were friends of ours, and with those of our own age we\nwere in effect comrades. I say in effect, using the phrase as a\nmodification. We were comrades, and yet not comrades; color and\ncondition interposed a subtle line which both parties were conscious of,\nand which rendered complete fusion impossible. We had a faithful and\naffectionate good friend, ally and adviser in \"Uncle Dan'l,\" a\nmiddle-aged slave whose head was the best one in the negro quarter,\nwhose sympathies were wide and warm, and whose heart was honest and\nsimple and knew no guile. He has served me well, these many, many years.\nI have not seen him for more than half a century, and yet spiritually I\nhave had his welcome company a good part of that time, and have staged\nhim in books under his own name and as \"Jim,\" and carted him all\naround--to Hannibal, down the Mississippi on a raft, and even across the\nDesert of Sahara in a balloon--and he has endured it all with the\npatience and friendliness and loyalty which were his birthright. It was\non the farm that I got my strong liking for his race and my appreciation\nof certain of its fine qualities. This feeling and this estimate have\nstood the test of sixty years and more and have suffered no impairment.\nThe black face is as welcome to me now as it was then.\n\nIn my schoolboy days I had no aversion to slavery. I was not aware that\nthere was anything wrong about it. No one arraigned it in my hearing;\nthe local papers said nothing against it; the local pulpit taught us\nthat God approved it, that it was a holy thing, and that the doubter\nneed only look in the Bible if he wished to settle his mind--and then\nthe texts were read aloud to us to make the matter sure; if the slaves\nthemselves had an aversion to slavery they were wise and said nothing.\nIn Hannibal we seldom saw a slave misused; on the farm, never.\n\nThere was, however, one small incident of my boyhood days which touched\nthis matter, and it must have meant a good deal to me or it would not\nhave stayed in my memory, clear and sharp, vivid and shadowless, all\nthese slow-drifting years. We had a little slave boy whom we had hired\nfrom some one, there in Hannibal. He was from the Eastern Shore of\nMaryland, and had been brought away from his family and his friends,\nhalf-way across the American continent, and sold. He was a cheery\nspirit, innocent and gentle, and the noisiest creature that ever was,\nperhaps. All day long he was singing, whistling, yelling, whooping,\nlaughing--it was maddening, devastating, unendurable. At last, one day,\nI lost all my temper, and went raging to my mother, and said Sandy had\nbeen singing for an hour without a single break, and I couldn't stand\nit, and _wouldn't_ she please shut him up. The tears came into her eyes,\nand her lip trembled, and she said something like this--\n\n\"Poor thing, when he sings, it shows that he is not remembering, and\nthat comforts me; but when he is still, I am afraid he is thinking, and\nI cannot bear it. He will never see his mother again; if he can sing, I\nmust not hinder it, but be thankful for it. If you were older, you would\nunderstand me; then that friendless child's noise would make you glad.\"\n\nIt was a simple speech, and made up of small words, but it went home,\nand Sandy's noise was not a trouble to me any more. She never used large\nwords, but she had a natural gift for making small ones do effective\nwork. She lived to reach the neighborhood of ninety years, and was\ncapable with her tongue to the last--especially when a meanness or an\ninjustice roused her spirit. She has come handy to me several times in\nmy books, where she figures as Tom Sawyer's \"Aunt Polly.\" I fitted her\nout with a dialect, and tried to think up other improvements for her,\nbut did not find any. I used Sandy once, also; it was in \"Tom Sawyer\"; I\ntried to get him to whitewash the fence, but it did not work. I do not\nremember what name I called him by in the book.\n\nI can see the farm yet, with perfect clearness. I can see all its\nbelongings, all its details; the family room of the house, with a\n\"trundle\" bed in one corner and a spinning-wheel in another--a wheel\nwhose rising and falling wail, heard from a distance, was the\nmournfulest of all sounds to me, and made me homesick and low-spirited,\nand filled my atmosphere with the wandering spirits of the dead: the\nvast fireplace, piled high, on winter nights, with flaming hickory logs\nfrom whose ends a sugary sap bubbled out but did not go to waste, for we\nscraped it off and ate it; the lazy cat spread out on the rough\nhearthstones, the drowsy dogs braced against the jambs and blinking; my\naunt in one chimney-corner knitting, my uncle in the other smoking his\ncorn-cob pipe; the slick and carpetless oak floor faintly mirroring the\ndancing flame-tongues and freckled with black indentations where\nfire-coals had popped out and died a leisurely death; half a dozen\nchildren romping in the background twilight; \"split\"-bottomed chairs\nhere and there, some with rockers; a cradle--out of service, but\nwaiting, with confidence; in the early cold mornings a snuggle of\nchildren, in shirts and chemises, occupying the hearthstone and\nprocrastinating--they could not bear to leave that comfortable place and\ngo out on the wind-swept floor-space between the house and kitchen where\nthe general tin basin stood, and wash.\n\nAlong outside of the front fence ran the country road; dusty in the\nsummer-time, and a good place for snakes--they liked to lie in it and\nsun themselves; when they were rattlesnakes or puff adders, we killed\nthem: when they were black snakes, or racers, or belonged to the fabled\n\"hoop\" breed, we fled, without shame; when they were \"house snakes\" or\n\"garters\" we carried them home and put them in Aunt Patsy's work-basket\nfor a surprise; for she was prejudiced against snakes, and always when\nshe took the basket in her lap and they began to climb out of it it\ndisordered her mind. She never could seem to get used to them; her\nopportunities went for nothing. And she was always cold toward bats,\ntoo, and could not bear them; and yet I think a bat is as friendly a\nbird as there is. My mother was Aunt Patsy's sister, and had the same\nwild superstitions. A bat is beautifully soft and silky: I do not know\nany creature that is pleasanter to the touch, or is more grateful for\ncaressings, if offered in the right spirit. I know all about these\ncoleoptera, because our great cave, three miles below Hannibal, was\nmultitudinously stocked with them, and often I brought them home to\namuse my mother with. It was easy to manage if it was a school day,\nbecause then I had ostensibly been to school and hadn't any bats. She\nwas not a suspicious person, but full of trust and confidence; and when\nI said \"There's something in my coat pocket for you,\" she would put her\nhand in. But she always took it out again, herself; I didn't have to\ntell her. It was remarkable, the way she couldn't learn to like private\nbats.\n\nI think she was never in the cave in her life; but everybody else went\nthere. Many excursion parties came from considerable distances up and\ndown the river to visit the cave. It was miles in extent, and was a\ntangled wilderness of narrow and lofty clefts and passages. It was an\neasy place to get lost in; anybody could do it--including the bats. I\ngot lost in it myself, along with a lady, and our last candle burned\ndown to almost nothing before we glimpsed the search-party's lights\nwinding about in the distance.\n\n\"Injun Joe\" the half-breed got lost in there once, and would have\nstarved to death if the bats had run short. But there was no chance of\nthat; there were myriads of them. He told me all his story. In the book\ncalled \"Tom Sawyer\" I starved him entirely to death in the cave, but\nthat was in the interest of art; it never happened. \"General\" Gaines,\nwho was our first town drunkard before Jimmy Finn got the place, was\nlost in there for the space of a week, and finally pushed his\nhandkerchief out of a hole in a hilltop near Saverton, several miles\ndown the river from the cave's mouth, and somebody saw it and dug him\nout. There is nothing the matter with his statistics except the\nhandkerchief. I knew him for years, and he hadn't any. But it could have\nbeen his nose. That would attract attention.\n\nBeyond the road where the snakes sunned themselves was a dense young\nthicket, and through it a dim-lighted path led a quarter of a mile; then\nout of the dimness one emerged abruptly upon a level great prairie which\nwas covered with wild strawberry-plants, vividly starred with prairie\npinks, and walled in on all sides by forests. The strawberries were\nfragrant and fine, and in the season we were generally there in the\ncrisp freshness of the early morning, while the dew-beads still sparkled\nupon the grass and the woods were ringing with the first songs of the\nbirds.\n\nDown the forest slopes to the left were the swings. They were made of\nbark stripped from hickory saplings. When they became dry they were\ndangerous. They usually broke when a child was forty feet in the air,\nand this was why so many bones had to be mended every year. I had no\nill-luck myself, but none of my cousins escaped. There were eight of\nthem, and at one time and another they broke fourteen arms among them.\nBut it cost next to nothing, for the doctor worked by the year--$25 for\nthe whole family. I remember two of the Florida doctors, Chowning and\nMeredith. They not only tended an entire family for $25 a year, but\nfurnished the medicines themselves. Good measure, too. Only the largest\npersons could hold a whole dose. Castor-oil was the principal beverage.\nThe dose was half a dipperful, with half a dipperful of New Orleans\nmolasses added to help it down and make it taste good, which it never\ndid. The next standby was calomel; the next, rhubarb; and the next,\njalap. Then they bled the patient, and put mustard-plasters on him. It\nwas a dreadful system, and yet the death-rate was not heavy. The calomel\nwas nearly sure to salivate the patient and cost him some of his teeth.\nThere were no dentists. When teeth became touched with decay or were\notherwise ailing, the doctor knew of but one thing to do: he fetched his\ntongs and dragged them out. If the jaw remained, it was not his fault.\n\nDoctors were not called, in cases of ordinary illness; the family's\ngrandmother attended to those. Every old woman was a doctor, and\ngathered her own medicines in the woods, and knew how to compound doses\nthat would stir the vitals of a cast-iron dog. And then there was the\n\"Indian doctor\"; a grave savage, remnant of his tribe, deeply read in\nthe mysteries of nature and the secret properties of herbs; and most\nbackwoodsmen had high faith in his powers and could tell of wonderful\ncures achieved by him. In Mauritius, away off yonder in the solitudes of\nthe Indian Ocean, there is a person who answers to our Indian doctor of\nthe old times. He is a negro, and has had no teaching as a doctor, yet\nthere is one disease which he is master of and can cure, and the doctors\ncan't. They send for him when they have a case. It is a child's disease\nof a strange and deadly sort, and the negro cures it with a herb\nmedicine which he makes, himself, from a prescription which has come\ndown to him from his father and grandfather. He will not let any one see\nit. He keeps the secret of its components to himself, and it is feared\nthat he will die without divulging it; then there will be consternation\nin Mauritius. I was told these things by the people there, in 1896.\n\nWe had the \"faith doctor,\" too, in those early days--a woman. Her\nspecialty was toothache. She was a farmer's old wife, and lived five\nmiles from Hannibal. She would lay her hand on the patient's jaw and say\n\"Believe!\" and the cure was prompt. Mrs. Utterback. I remember her very\nwell. Twice I rode out there behind my mother, horseback, and saw the\ncure performed. My mother was the patient.\n\nDr. Meredith removed to Hannibal, by and by, and was our family\nphysician there, and saved my life several times. Still, he was a good\nman and meant well. Let it go.\n\nI was always told that I was a sickly and precarious and tiresome and\nuncertain child, and lived mainly on allopathic medicines during the\nfirst seven years of my life. I asked my mother about this, in her old\nage--she was in her 88th year--and said:\n\n\"I suppose that during all that time you were uneasy about me?\"\n\n\"Yes, the whole time.\"\n\n\"Afraid I wouldn't live?\"\n\nAfter a reflective pause--ostensibly to think out the facts--\n\n\"No--afraid you would.\"\n\nIt sounds like a plagiarism, but it probably wasn't. The country\nschoolhouse was three miles from my uncle's farm. It stood in a clearing\nin the woods, and would hold about twenty-five boys and girls. We\nattended the school with more or less regularity once or twice a week,\nin summer, walking to it in the cool of the morning by the forest paths,\nand back in the gloaming at the end of the day. All the pupils brought\ntheir dinners in baskets--corn-dodger, buttermilk and other good\nthings--and sat in the shade of the trees at noon and ate them. It is\nthe part of my education which I look back upon with the most\nsatisfaction. My first visit to the school was when I was seven. A\nstrapping girl of fifteen, in the customary sunbonnet and calico dress,\nasked me if I \"used tobacco\"--meaning did I chew it. I said, no. It\nroused her scorn. She reported me to all the crowd, and said--\n\n\"Here is a boy seven years old who can't chaw tobacco.\"\n\nBy the looks and comments which this produced, I realized that I was a\ndegraded object; I was cruelly ashamed of myself. I determined to\nreform. But I only made myself sick; I was not able to learn to chew\ntobacco. I learned to smoke fairly well, but that did not conciliate\nanybody, and I remained a poor thing, and characterless. I longed to be\nrespected, but I never was able to rise. Children have but little\ncharity for each other's defects.\n\nAs I have said, I spent some part of every year at the farm until I was\ntwelve or thirteen years old. The life which I led there with my cousins\nwas full of charm, and so is the memory of it yet. I can call back the\nsolemn twilight and mystery of the deep woods, the earthy smells, the\nfaint odors of the wild flowers, the sheen of rain-washed foliage, the\nrattling clatter of drops when the wind shook the trees, the far-off\nhammering of woodpeckers and the muffled drumming of wood-pheasants in\nthe remoteness of the forest, the snap-shot glimpses of disturbed wild\ncreatures skurrying through the grass,--I can call it all back and make\nit as real as it ever was, and as blessed. I can call back the prairie,\nand its loneliness and peace, and a vast hawk hanging motionless in the\nsky, with his wings spread wide and the blue of the vault showing\nthrough the fringe of their end-feathers. I can see the woods in their\nautumn dress, the oaks purple, the hickories washed with gold, the\nmaples and the sumacs luminous with crimson fires, and I can hear the\nrustle made by the fallen leaves as we ploughed through them. I can see\nthe blue clusters of wild grapes hanging amongst the foliage of the\nsaplings, and I remember the taste of them and the smell. I know how the\nwild blackberries looked, and how they tasted; and the same with the\npawpaws, the hazelnuts and the persimmons; and I can feel the thumping\nrain, upon my head, of hickory-nuts and walnuts when we were out in the\nfrosty dawn to scramble for them with the pigs, and the gusts of wind\nloosed them and sent them down. I know the stain of blackberries, and\nhow pretty it is; and I know the stain of walnut hulls, and how little\nit minds soap and water; also what grudged experience it had of either\nof them. I know the taste of maple sap, and when to gather it, and how\nto arrange the troughs and the delivery tubes, and how to boil down the\njuice, and how to hook the sugar after it is made; also how much better\nhooked sugar tastes than any that is honestly come by, let bigots say\nwhat they will. I know how a prize watermelon looks when it is sunning\nits fat rotundity among pumpkin-vines and \"simblins\"; I know how to tell\nwhen it is ripe without \"plugging\" it; I know how inviting it looks when\nit is cooling itself in a tub of water under the bed, waiting; I know\nhow it looks when it lies on the table in the sheltered great\nfloor-space between house and kitchen, and the children gathered for the\nsacrifice and their mouths watering; I know the crackling sound it makes\nwhen the carving-knife enters its end, and I can see the split fly along\nin front of the blade as the knife cleaves its way to the other end; I\ncan see its halves fall apart and display the rich red meat and the\nblack seeds, and the heart standing up, a luxury fit for the elect; I\nknow how a boy looks, behind a yard-long slice of that melon, and I know\nhow he feels; for I have been there. I know the taste of the watermelon\nwhich has been honestly come by, and I know the taste of the watermelon\nwhich has been acquired by art. Both taste good, but the experienced\nknow which tastes best. I know the look of green apples and peaches and\npears on the trees, and I know how entertaining they are when they are\ninside of a person. I know how ripe ones look when they are piled in\npyramids under the trees, and how pretty they are and how vivid their\ncolors. I know how a frozen apple looks, in a barrel down cellar in the\nwinter-time, and how hard it is to bite, and how the frost makes the\nteeth ache, and yet how good it is, notwithstanding. I know the\ndisposition of elderly people to select the specked apples for the\nchildren, and I once knew ways to beat the game. I know the look of an\napple that is roasting and sizzling on a hearth on a winter's evening,\nand I know the comfort that comes of eating it hot, along with some\nsugar and a drench of cream. I know the delicate art and mystery of so\ncracking hickory-nuts and walnuts on a flatiron with a hammer that the\nkernels will be delivered whole, and I know how the nuts, taken in\nconjunction with winter apples, cider and doughnuts, make old people's\ntales and old jokes sound fresh and crisp and enchanting, and juggle an\nevening away before you know what went with the time. I know the look of\nUncle Dan'l's kitchen as it was on privileged nights when I was a child,\nand I can see the white and black children grouped on the hearth, with\nthe firelight playing on their faces and the shadows flickering upon the\nwalls, clear back toward the cavernous gloom of the rear, and I can hear\nUncle Dan'l telling the immortal tales which Uncle Remus Harris was to\ngather into his books and charm the world with, by and by; and I can\nfeel again the creepy joy which quivered through me when the time for\nthe ghost-story of the \"Golden Arm\" was reached--and the sense of\nregret, too, which came over me, for it was always the last story of the\nevening, and there was nothing between it and the unwelcome bed.\n\nI can remember the bare wooden stairway in my uncle's house, and the\nturn to the left above the landing, and the rafters and the slanting\nroof over my bed, and the squares of moonlight on the floor, and the\nwhite cold world of snow outside, seen through the curtainless window.\nI can remember the howling of the wind and the quaking of the house on\nstormy nights, and how snug and cozy one felt, under the blankets,\nlistening, and how the powdery snow used to sift in, around the sashes,\nand lie in little ridges on the floor, and make the place look chilly in\nthe morning, and curb the wild desire to get up--in case there was any.\nI can remember how very dark that room was, in the dark of the moon, and\nhow packed it was with ghostly stillness when one woke up by accident\naway in the night, and forgotten sins came flocking out of the secret\nchambers of the memory and wanted a hearing; and how ill chosen the time\nseemed for this kind of business; and how dismal was the hoo-hooing of\nthe owl and the wailing of the wolf, sent mourning by on the night wind.\n\nI remember the raging of the rain on that roof, summer nights, and how\npleasant it was to lie and listen to it, and enjoy the white splendor of\nthe lightning and the majestic booming and crashing of the thunder. It\nwas a very satisfactory room; and there was a lightning-rod which was\nreachable from the window, an adorable and skittish thing to climb up\nand down, summer nights, when there were duties on hand of a sort to\nmake privacy desirable.\n\nI remember the 'coon and 'possum hunts, nights, with the negroes, and\nthe long marches through the black gloom of the woods, and the\nexcitement which fired everybody when the distant bay of an experienced\ndog announced that the game was treed; then the wild scramblings and\nstumblings through briars and bushes and over roots to get to the spot;\nthen the lighting of a fire and the felling of the tree, the joyful\nfrenzy of the dogs and the negroes, and the weird picture it all made in\nthe red glare--I remember it all well, and the delight that every one\ngot out of it, except the 'coon.\n\nI remember the pigeon seasons, when the birds would come in millions,\nand cover the trees, and by their weight break down the branches. They\nwere clubbed to death with sticks; guns were not necessary, and were not\nused. I remember the squirrel hunts, and the prairie-chicken hunts, and\nthe wild-turkey hunts, and all that; and how we turned out, mornings,\nwhile it was still dark, to go on these expeditions, and how chilly and\ndismal it was, and how often I regretted that I was well enough to go. A\ntoot on a tin horn brought twice as many dogs as were needed, and in\ntheir happiness they raced and scampered about, and knocked small people\ndown, and made no end of unnecessary noise. At the word, they vanished\naway toward the woods, and we drifted silently after them in the\nmelancholy gloom. But presently the gray dawn stole over the world, the\nbirds piped up, then the sun rose and poured light and comfort all\naround, everything was fresh and dewy and fragrant, and life was a boon\nagain. After three hours of tramping we arrived back wholesomely tired,\noverladen with game, very hungry, and just in time for breakfast.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[6] 100,000 acres.\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXI.\n\nMARCH 15, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XIV.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[_Dictated Thursday, December 6, 1906._]\n\n_From Susy's Biography of Me._\n\n\n     _Feb. 27, Sunday._\n\n     Clara's reputation as a baby was always a fine one, mine exactly\n     the contrary. One often related story concerning her braveness as a\n     baby and her own opinion of this quality of hers is this. Clara and\n     I often got slivers in our hands and when mama took them out with a\n     much dreaded needle, Clara was always very brave, and I very\n     cowardly. One day Clara got one of these slivers in her hand, a\n     very bad one, and while mama was taking it out, Clara stood\n     perfectly still without even wincing: I saw how brave she was and\n     turning to mamma said \"Mamma isn't she a brave little thing!\"\n     presently mamma had to give the little hand quite a dig with the\n     needle and noticing how perfectly quiet Clara was about it she\n     exclaimed, Why Clara! you are a brave little thing! Clara responded\n     \"No bodys braver but  God!\"--\n\n\nClara's pious remark is the main detail, and Susy has accurately\nremembered its phrasing. The three-year-older's wound was of a\nformidable sort, and not one which the mother's surgery would have been\nequal to. The flesh of the finger had been burst by a cruel accident. It\nwas the doctor that sewed it up, and to all appearances it was he, and\nthe other independent witnesses, that did the main part of the\nsuffering; each stitch that he took made Clara wince slightly, but it\nshrivelled the others.\n\nI take pride in Clara's remark, because it shows that although she was\nonly three years old, her fireside teachings were already making her a\nthinker--a thinker and also an observer of proportions. I am not\nclaiming any credit for this. I furnished to the children worldly\nknowledge and wisdom, but was not competent to go higher, and so I left\ntheir spiritual education in the hands of the mother. A result of this\nmodesty of mine was made manifest to me in a very striking way, some\nyears afterward, when Jean was nine years old. We had recently arrived\nin Berlin, at the time, and had begun housekeeping in a furnished\napartment. One morning at breakfast a vast card arrived--an invitation.\nTo be precise, it was a command from the Emperor of Germany to come to\ndinner. During several months I had encountered socially, on the\nContinent, men bearing lofty titles; and all this while Jean was\nbecoming more and more impressed, and awed, and subdued, by these\nimposing events, for she had not been abroad before, and they were new\nto her--wonders out of dreamland turned into realities. The imperial\ncard was passed from hand to hand, around the table, and examined with\ninterest; when it reached Jean she exhibited excitement and emotion, but\nfor a time was quite speechless; then she said,\n\n\"Why, papa, if it keeps going on like this, pretty soon there won't be\nanybody left for you to get acquainted with but God.\"\n\nIt was not complimentary to think I was not acquainted in that quarter,\nbut she was young, and the young jump to conclusions without reflection.\n\nNecessarily, I did myself the honor to obey the command of the Emperor\nWilhelm II. Prince Heinrich, and six or eight other guests were\npresent. The Emperor did most of the talking, and he talked well, and in\nfaultless English. In both of these conspicuousnesses I was gratified to\nrecognize a resemblance to myself--a very exact resemblance; no, almost\nexact, but not quite that--a modified exactness, with the advantage in\nfavor of the Emperor. My English, like his, is nearly faultless; like\nhim I talk well; and when I have guests at dinner I prefer to do all the\ntalking myself. It is the best way, and the pleasantest. Also the most\nprofitable for the others.\n\nI was greatly pleased to perceive that his Majesty was familiar with my\nbooks, and that his attitude toward them was not uncomplimentary. In the\ncourse of his talk he said that my best and most valuable book was \"Old\nTimes on the Mississippi.\" I will refer to that remark again, presently.\n\nAn official who was well up in the Foreign Office at that time, and had\nserved under Bismarck for fourteen years, was still occupying his old\nplace under Chancellor Caprivi. Smith, I will call him of whom I am\nspeaking, though that is not his name. He was a special friend of mine,\nand I greatly enjoyed his society, although in order to have it it was\nnecessary for me to seek it as late as midnight, and not earlier. This\nwas because Government officials of his rank had to work all day, after\nnine in the morning, and then attend official banquets in the evening;\nwherefore they were usually unable to get life-restoring fresh air and\nexercise for their jaded minds and bodies earlier than midnight; then\nthey turned out, in groups of two or three, and gratefully and violently\ntramped the deserted streets until two in the morning. Smith had been in\nthe Government service, at home and abroad, for more than thirty years,\nand he was now sixty years old, or close upon it. He could not remember\na year in which he had had a vacation of more than a fortnight's length;\nhe was weary all through to the bones and the marrow, now, and was\nyearning for a holiday of a whole three months--yearning so longingly\nand so poignantly that he had at last made up his mind to make a\ndesperate cast for it and stand the consequences, whatever they might\nbe. It was against all rules to _ask_ for a vacation--quite against all\netiquette; the shock of it would paralyze the Chancellery; stem\netiquette and usage required another form: the applicant was not\nprivileged to ask for a vacation, he must send in his _resignation_. The\nchancellor would know that the applicant was not really trying to\nresign, and didn't want to resign, but was merely trying in this\nleft-handed way to get a vacation.\n\nThe night before the Emperor's dinner I helped Smith take his exercise,\nafter midnight, and he was full of his project. He had sent in his\nresignation that day, and was trembling for the result; and naturally,\nbecause it might possibly be that the chancellor would be happy to fill\nhis place with somebody else, in which case he could accept the\nresignation without comment and without offence. Smith was in a very\nanxious frame of mind; not that he feared that Caprivi was dissatisfied\nwith him, for he had no such fear; it was the Emperor that he was afraid\nof; he did not know how he stood with the Emperor. He said that while\napparently it was Caprivi who would decide his case, it was in reality\nthe Emperor who would perform that service; that the Emperor kept\npersonal watch upon everything, and that no official sparrow could fall\nto the ground without his privity and consent; that the resignation\nwould be laid before his Majesty, who would accept it or decline to\naccept it, according to his pleasure, and that then his pleasure in the\nmatter would be communicated by Caprivi. Smith said he would know his\nfate the next evening, after the imperial dinner; that when I should\nescort his Majesty into the large salon contiguous to the dining-room, I\nwould find there about thirty men--Cabinet ministers, admirals, generals\nand other great officials of the Empire--and that these men would be\nstanding talking together in little separate groups of two or three\npersons; that the Emperor would move from group to group and say a word\nto each, sometimes two words, sometimes ten words; and that the length\nof his speech, whether brief or not so brief, would indicate the exact\nstanding in the Emperor's regard, of the man accosted; and that by\nobserving this thermometer an expert could tell, to half a degree, the\nstate of the imperial weather in each case; that in Berlin, as in the\nimperial days of Rome, the Emperor was the sun, and that his smile or\nhis frown meant good fortune or disaster to the man upon whom it should\nfall. Smith suggested that I watch the thermometer while the Emperor\nwent his rounds of the groups; and added that if his Majesty talked four\nminutes with any person there present, it meant high favor, and that the\nsun was in the zenith, and cloudless, for that man.\n\nI mentally recorded that four-minute altitude, and resolved to see if\nany man there on that night stood in sufficient favor to achieve it.\n\nVery well. After the dinner I watched the Emperor while he passed from\ngroup to group, and privately I timed him with a watch. Two or three\ntimes he came near to reaching the four-minute altitude, but always he\nfell short a little. The last man he came to was Smith. He put his hand\non Smith's shoulder and began to talk to him; and when he finished, the\nthermometer had scored seven minutes! The company then moved toward the\nsmoking-room, where cigars, beer and anecdotes would be in brisk service\nuntil midnight, and as Smith passed me he whispered,\n\n\"That settles it. The chancellor will ask me how much of a vacation I\nwant, and I sha'n't be afraid to raise the limit. I shall call for six\nmonths.\"\n\n[Sidenote: (1891)]\n\n[Sidenote: (1899)]\n\nSmith's dream had been to spend his three months' vacation--in case he\ngot a vacation instead of the other thing--in one of the great capitals\nof the Continent--a capital whose name I shall suppress, at present. The\nnext day the chancellor asked him how much of a vacation he wanted, and\nwhere he desired to spend it. Smith told him. His prayer was granted,\nand rather more than granted. The chancellor augmented his salary and\nattached him to the German Embassy of that selected capital, giving him\na place of high dignity bearing an imposing title, and with nothing to\ndo except attend banquets of an extraordinary character at the Embassy,\nonce or twice a year. The term of his vacation was not specified; he was\nto continue it until requested to come back to his work in the Foreign\nOffice. This was in 1891. Eight years later Smith was passing through\nVienna, and he called upon me. There had been no interruption of his\nvacation, as yet, and there was no likelihood that an interruption of it\nwould occur while he should still be among the living.\n\n[_Dictated Monday, December 17, 1906._] As I have already remarked, \"Old\nTimes on the Mississippi\" got the Kaiser's best praise. It was after\nmidnight when I reached home; I was usually out until toward midnight,\nand the pleasure of being out late was poisoned, every night, by the\ndread of what I must meet at my front door--an indignant face, a\nresentful face, the face of the _portier_. The _portier_ was a\ntow-headed young German, twenty-two or three years old; and it had been\nfor some time apparent to me that he did not enjoy being hammered out of\nhis sleep, nights, to let me in. He never had a kind word for me, nor a\npleasant look. I couldn't understand it, since it was his business to be\non watch and let the occupants of the several flats in at any and all\nhours of the night. I could not see why he so distinctly failed to get\nreconciled to it.\n\nThe fact is, I was ignorantly violating, every night, a custom in which\nhe was commercially interested. I did not suspect this. No one had told\nme of the custom, and if I had been left to guess it, it would have\ntaken me a very long time to make a success of it. It was a custom which\nwas so well established and so universally recognized, that it had all\nthe force and dignity of law. By authority of this custom, whosoever\nentered a Berlin house after ten at night must pay a trifling toll to\nthe _portier_ for breaking his sleep to let him in. This tax was either\ntwo and a half cents or five cents, I don't remember which; but I had\nnever paid it, and didn't know I owed it, and as I had been residing in\nBerlin several weeks, I was so far in arrears that my presence in the\nGerman capital was getting to be a serious disaster to that young\nfellow.\n\nI arrived from the imperial dinner sorrowful and anxious, made my\npresence known and prepared myself to wait in patience the tedious\nminute or two which the _portier_ usually allowed himself to keep me\ntarrying--as a punishment. But this time there was no stage-wait; the\ndoor was instantly unlocked, unbolted, unchained and flung wide; and in\nit appeared the strange and welcome apparition of the _portier's_ round\nface all sunshine and smiles and welcome, in place of the black frowns\nand hostility that I was expecting. Plainly he had not come out of his\nbed: he had been waiting for me, watching for me. He began to pour out\nupon me in the most enthusiastic and energetic way a generous stream of\nGerman welcome and homage, meanwhile dragging me excitedly to his small\nbedroom beside the front door; there he made me bend down over a row of\nGerman translations of my books and said,\n\n\"There--you wrote them! I have found it out! By God, I did not know it\nbefore, and I ask a million pardons! That one there, the 'Old Times on\nthe Mississippi,' is the best book you ever wrote!\"\n\nThe usual number of those curious accidents which we call coincidences\nhave fallen to my share in this life, but for picturesqueness this one\nputs all the others in the shade: that a crowned head and a _portier_,\nthe very top of an empire and the very bottom of it, should pass the\nvery same criticism and deliver the very same verdict upon a book of\nmine--and almost in the same hour and the same breath--is a coincidence\nwhich out-coincidences any coincidence which I could have imagined with\nsuch powers of imagination as I have been favored with; and I have not\nbeen accustomed to regard them as being small or of an inferior quality.\nIt is always a satisfaction to me to remember that whereas I do not\nknow, for sure, what any other nation thinks of any one of my\ntwenty-three volumes, I do at least know for a certainty what one nation\nof fifty millions thinks of one of them, at any rate; for if the mutual\nverdict of the top of an empire and the bottom of it does not establish\nfor good and all the judgment of the entire nation concerning that book,\nthen the axiom that we can get a sure estimate of a thing by arriving at\na general average of all the opinions involved, is a fallacy.\n\n[_Dictated Monday, February 10, 1907._] Two months ago (December 6) I\nwas dictating a brief account of a private dinner in Berlin, where the\nEmperor of Germany was host and I the chief guest. Something happened\nday before yesterday which moves me to take up that matter again.\n\nAt the dinner his Majesty chatted briskly and entertainingly along in\neasy and flowing English, and now and then he interrupted himself to\naddress a remark to me, or to some other individual of the guests. When\nthe reply had been delivered, he resumed his talk. I noticed that the\ntable etiquette tallied with that which was the law of my house at home\nwhen we had guests: that is to say, the guests answered when the host\nfavored them with a remark, and then quieted down and behaved themselves\nuntil they got another chance. If I had been in the Emperor's chair and\nhe in mine, I should have felt infinitely comfortable and at home, and\nshould have done a world of talking, and done it well; but I was guest\nnow, and consequently I felt less at home. From old experience, I was\nfamiliar with the rules of the game, and familiar with their exercise\nfrom the high place of host; but I was not familiar with the trammelled\nand less satisfactory position of guest, therefore I felt a little\nstrange and out of place. But there was no animosity--no, the Emperor\nwas host, therefore according to my own rule he had a right to do the\ntalking, and it was my honorable duty to intrude no interruptions or\nother improvements, except upon invitation; and of course it could be\n_my_ turn some day: some day, on some friendly visit of inspection to\nAmerica, it might be my pleasure and distinction to have him as guest at\nmy table; then I would give him a rest, and a remarkably quiet time.\n\nIn one way there was a difference between his table and mine--for\ninstance, atmosphere; the guests stood in awe of him, and naturally they\nconferred that feeling upon me, for, after all, I am only human,\nalthough I regret it. When a guest answered a question he did it with\ndeferential voice and manner; he did not put any emotion into it, and he\ndid not spin it out, but got it out of his system as quickly as he\ncould, and then looked relieved. The Emperor was used to this\natmosphere, and it did not chill his blood; maybe it was an inspiration\nto him, for he was alert, brilliant and full of animation; also he was\nmost gracefully and felicitously complimentary to my books,--and I will\nremark here that the happy phrasing of a compliment is one of the rarest\nof human gifts, and the happy delivery of it another. In that other\nchapter I mentioned the high compliment which he paid to the book, \"Old\nTimes on the Mississippi,\" but there were others; among them some\ngratifying praise of my description in \"A Tramp Abroad\" of certain\nstriking phases of German student life. I mention these things here\nbecause I shall have occasion to hark back to them presently.\n\n[_Dictated Tuesday, February 12, 1907._]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThose stars indicate the long chapter which I dictated yesterday, a\nchapter which is much too long for magazine purposes, and therefore must\nwait until this Autobiography shall appear in book form, five years\nhence, when I am dead: five years according to my calculation,\ntwenty-seven years according to the prediction furnished me a week ago\nby the latest and most confident of all the palmists who have ever read\nmy future in my hand. The Emperor's dinner, and its beer-and-anecdote\nappendix, covered six hours of diligent industry, and this accounts for\nthe extraordinary length of that chapter.\n\nA couple of days ago a gentleman called upon me with a message. He had\njust arrived from Berlin, where he had been acting for our Government in\na matter concerning tariff revision, he being a member of the commission\nappointed by our Government to conduct our share of the affair. Upon the\ncompletion of the commission's labors, the Emperor invited the members\nof it to an audience, and in the course of the conversation he made a\nreference to me; continuing, he spoke of my chapter on the German\nlanguage in \"A Tramp Abroad,\" and characterized it by an adjective which\nis too complimentary for me to repeat here without bringing my modesty\nunder suspicion. Then he paid some compliments to \"The Innocents\nAbroad,\" and followed these with the remark that my account in one of my\nbooks of certain striking phases of German student life was the best and\ntruest that had ever been written. By this I perceive that he remembers\nthat dinner of sixteen years ago, for he said the same thing to me about\nthe student-chapter at that time. Next he said he wished this gentleman\nto convey two messages to America from him and deliver them--one to the\nPresident, the other to me. The wording of the message to me was:\n\n\"Convey to Mr. Clemens my kindest regards. Ask him if he remembers that\ndinner, and ask him why he didn't do any talking.\"\n\nWhy, how could I talk when he was talking? He \"held the age,\" as the\npoker-clergy say, and two can't talk at the same time with good effect.\nIt reminds me of the man who was reproached by a friend, who said,\n\n\"I think it a shame that you have not spoken to your wife for fifteen\nyears. How do you explain it? How do you justify it?\"\n\nThat poor man said,\n\n\"I didn't want to interrupt her.\"\n\nIf the Emperor had been at my table, he would not have suffered from my\nsilence, he would only have suffered from the sorrows of his own\nsolitude. If I were not too old to travel, I would go to Berlin and\nintroduce the etiquette of my own table, which tallies with the\netiquette observable at other royal tables. I would say, \"Invite me\nagain, your Majesty, and give me a chance\"; then I would courteously\nwaive rank and do all the talking myself. I thank his Majesty for his\nkind message, and am proud to have it and glad to express my sincere\nreciprocation of its sentiments.\n\n[_Dictated January 17, 1906._] ... Rev. Joseph T. Harris and I have been\nvisiting General Sickles. Once, twenty or twenty-five years ago, just as\nHarris was coming out of his gate Sunday morning to walk to his church\nand preach, a telegram was put into his hand. He read it immediately,\nand then, in a manner, collapsed. It said: \"General Sickles died last\nnight at midnight.\" [He had been a chaplain under Sickles through the\nwar.]\n\n[Sidenote: (1880.)]\n\nIt wasn't so. But no matter--it was so to Harris at the time. He walked\nalong--walked to the church--but his mind was far away. All his\naffection and homage and worship of his General had come to the fore.\nHis heart was full of these emotions. He hardly knew where he was. In\nhis pulpit, he stood up and began the service, but with a voice over\nwhich he had almost no command. The congregation had never seen him thus\nmoved, before, in his pulpit. They sat there and gazed at him and\nwondered what was the matter; because he was now reading, in this broken\nvoice and with occasional tears trickling down his face, what to them\nseemed a quite unemotional chapter--that one about Moses begat Aaron,\nand Aaron begat Deuteronomy, and Deuteronomy begat St. Peter, and St.\nPeter begat Cain, and Cain begat Abel--and he was going along with this,\nand half crying--his voice continually breaking. The congregation left\nthe church that morning without being able to account for this most\nextraordinary thing--as it seemed to them. That a man who had been a\nsoldier for more than four years, and who had preached in that pulpit so\nmany, many times on really moving subjects, without even the quiver of a\nlip, should break all down over the Begats, they couldn't understand.\nBut there it is--any one can see how such a mystery as that would arouse\nthe curiosity of those people to the boiling-point.\n\nHarris has had many adventures. He has more adventures in a year than\nanybody else has in five. One Saturday night he noticed a bottle on his\nuncle's dressing-bureau. He thought the label said \"Hair Restorer,\" and\nhe took it in his room and gave his head a good drenching and sousing\nwith it and carried it back and thought no more about it. Next morning\nwhen he got up his head was a bright green! He sent around everywhere\nand couldn't get a substitute preacher, so he had to go to his church\nhimself and preach--and he did it. He hadn't a sermon in his barrel--as\nit happened--of any lightsome character, so he had to preach a very\ngrave one--a very serious one--and it made the matter worse. The gravity\nof the sermon did not harmonize with the gayety of his head, and the\npeople sat all through it with handkerchiefs stuffed in their mouths to\ntry to keep down their joy. And Harris told me that he was sure he never\nhad seen his congregation--the whole body of his congregation--the\n_entire_ body of his congregation--absorbed in interest in his sermon,\nfrom beginning to end, before. Always there had been an aspect of\nindifference, here and there, or wandering, somewhere; but this time\nthere was nothing of the kind. Those people sat there as if they\nthought, \"Good for this day and train only: we must have all there is of\nthis show, not waste any of it.\" And he said that when he came down out\nof the pulpit more people waited to shake him by the hand and tell him\nwhat a good sermon it was, than ever before. And it seemed a pity that\nthese people should do these fictions in such a place--right in the\nchurch--when it was quite plain they were not interested in the sermon\nat all; they only wanted to get a near view of his head.\n\nWell, Harris said--no, Harris didn't say, _I_ say, that as the days went\non and Sunday followed Sunday, the interest in Harris's hair grew and\ngrew; because it didn't stay merely and monotonously green, it took on\ndeeper and deeper shades of green; and then it would change and become\nreddish, and would go from that to some other color--purplish,\nyellowish, bluish, and so on--but it was never a solid color. It was\nalways mottled. And each Sunday it was a little more interesting than it\nwas the Sunday before--and Harris's head became famous, and people came\nfrom New York, and Boston, and South Carolina, and Japan, and so on, to\nlook. There wasn't seating-capacity for all the people that came while\nhis head was undergoing these various and fascinating mottlings. And it\nwas a good thing in several ways, because the business had been\nlanguishing a little, and now a lot of people joined the church so that\nthey could have the show, and it was the beginning of a prosperity for\nthat church which has never diminished in all these years.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXII.\n\nAPRIL 5, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XV.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n[_Dictated October 8, 1906._]\n\n_From Susy's Biography of Me._\n\n\n     Papa says that if the collera comes here he will take Sour Mash to\n     the mountains.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1885.)]\n\nThis remark about the cat is followed by various entries, covering a\nmonth, in which Jean, General Grant, the sculptor Gerhardt, Mrs. Candace\nWheeler, Miss Dora Wheeler, Mr. Frank Stockton, Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge,\nand the widow of General Custer appear and drift in procession across\nthe page, then vanish forever from the Biography; then Susy drops this\nremark in the wake of the vanished procession:\n\n\n     Sour Mash is a constant source of anxiety, care, and pleasure to\n     papa.\n\n\nI did, in truth, think a great deal of that old tortoise-shell harlot;\nbut I haven't a doubt that in order to impress Susy I was pretending\nagonies of solicitude which I didn't honestly feel. Sour Mash never gave\nme any real anxiety; she was always able to take care of herself, and\nshe was ostentatiously vain of the fact; vain of it to a degree which\noften made me ashamed of her, much as I esteemed her.\n\nMany persons would like to have the society of cats during the summer\nvacation in the country, but they deny themselves this pleasure because\nthey think they must either take the cats along when they return to the\ncity, where they would be a trouble and an encumbrance, or leave them in\nthe country, houseless and homeless. These people have no ingenuity, no\ninvention, no wisdom; or it would occur to them to do as I do: rent cats\nby the month for the summer and return them to their good homes at the\nend of it. Early last May I rented a kitten of a farmer's wife, by the\nmonth; then I got a discount by taking three. They have been good\ncompany for about five months now, and are still kittens--at least they\nhave not grown much, and to all intents and purposes are still kittens,\nand as full of romping energy and enthusiasm as they were in the\nbeginning. This is remarkable. I am an expert in cats, but I have not\nseen a kitten keep its kittenhood nearly so long before.\n\nThese are beautiful creatures--these triplets. Two of them wear the\nblackest and shiniest and thickest of sealskin vestments all over their\nbodies except the lower half of their faces and the terminations of\ntheir paws. The black masks reach down below the eyes, therefore when\nthe eyes are closed they are not visible; the rest of the face, and the\ngloves and stockings, are snow white. These markings are just the same\non both cats--so exactly the same that when you call one the other is\nlikely to answer, because they cannot tell each other apart. Since the\ncats are precisely alike, and can't be told apart by any of us, they do\nnot need two names, so they have but one between them. We call both of\nthem Sackcloth, and we call the gray one Ashes. I believe I have never\nseen such intelligent cats as these before. They are full of the nicest\ndiscriminations. When I read German aloud they weep; you can see the\ntears run down. It shows what pathos there is in the German tongue. I\nhad not noticed before that all German is pathetic, no matter what the\nsubject is nor how it is treated. It was these humble observers that\nbrought the knowledge to me. I have tried all kinds of German on these\ncats; romance, poetry, philosophy, theology, market reports; and the\nresult has always been the same--the cats sob, and let the tears run\ndown, which shows that all German is pathetic. French is not a familiar\ntongue to me, and the pronunciation is difficult, and comes out of me\nencumbered with a Missouri accent; but the cats like it, and when I make\nimpassioned speeches in that language they sit in a row and put up their\npaws, palm to palm, and frantically give thanks. Hardly any cats are\naffected by music, but these are; when I sing they go reverently away,\nshowing how deeply they feel it. Sour Mash never cared for these things.\nShe had many noble qualities, but at bottom she was not refined, and\ncared little or nothing for theology and the arts.\n\nIt is a pity to say it, but these cats are not above the grade of human\nbeings, for I know by certain signs that they are not sincere in their\nexhibitions of emotion, but exhibit them merely to show off and attract\nattention--conduct which is distinctly human, yet with a difference:\nthey do not know enough to conceal their desire to show off, but the\ngrown human being does. What is ambition? It is only the desire to be\nconspicuous. The desire for fame is only the desire to be continuously\nconspicuous and attract attention and be talked about.\n\nThese cats are like human beings in another way: when Ashes began to\nwork his fictitious emotions, and show off, the other members of the\nfirm followed suit, in order to be in the fashion. That is the way with\nhuman beings; they are afraid to be outside; whatever the fashion\nhappens to be, they conform to it, whether it be a pleasant fashion or\nthe reverse, they lacking the courage to ignore it and go their own way.\nAll human beings would like to dress in loose and comfortable and highly\ncolored and showy garments, and they had their desire until a century\nago, when a king, or some other influential ass, introduced sombre hues\nand discomfort and ugly designs into masculine clothing. The meek public\nsurrendered to the outrage, and by consequence we are in that odious\ncaptivity to-day, and are likely to remain in it for a long time to\ncome.\n\nFortunately the women were not included in the disaster, and so their\ngraces and their beauty still have the enhancing help of delicate\nfabrics and varied and beautiful colors. Their clothing makes a great\nopera audience an enchanting spectacle, a delight to the eye and the\nspirit, a Garden of Eden for charm and color. The men, clothed in dismal\nblack, are scattered here and there and everywhere over the Garden, like\nso many charred stumps, and they damage the effect, but cannot\nannihilate it.\n\nIn summer we poor creatures have a respite, and may clothe ourselves in\nwhite garments; loose, soft, and in some degree shapely; but in the\nwinter--the sombre winter, the depressing winter, the cheerless winter,\nwhen white clothes and bright colors are especially needed to brighten\nour spirits and lift them up--we all conform to the prevailing insanity,\nand go about in dreary black, each man doing it because the others do\nit, and not because he wants to. They are really no sincerer than\nSackcloth and Ashes. At bottom the Sackcloths do not care to exhibit\ntheir emotions when I am performing before them, they only do it because\nAshes started it.\n\nI would like to dress in a loose and flowing costume made all of silks\nand velvets, resplendent with all the stunning dyes of the rainbow, and\nso would every sane man I have ever known; but none of us dares to\nventure it. There is such a thing as carrying conspicuousness to the\npoint of discomfort; and if I should appear on Fifth Avenue on a Sunday\nmorning, at church-time, clothed as I would like to be clothed, the\nchurches would be vacant, and I should have all the congregations\ntagging after me, to look, and secretly envy, and publicly scoff. It is\nthe way human beings are made; they are always keeping their real\nfeelings shut up inside, and publicly exploiting their fictitious ones.\n\nNext after fine colors, I like plain white. One of my sorrows, when the\nsummer ends, is that I must put off my cheery and comfortable white\nclothes and enter for the winter into the depressing captivity of the\nshapeless and degrading black ones. It is mid-October now, and the\nweather is growing cold up here in the New Hampshire hills, but it will\nnot succeed in freezing me out of these white garments, for here the\nneighbors are few, and it is only of crowds that I am afraid. I made a\nbrave experiment, the other night, to see how it would feel to shock a\ncrowd with these unseasonable clothes, and also to see how long it might\ntake the crowd to reconcile itself to them and stop looking astonished\nand outraged. On a stormy evening I made a talk before a full house, in\nthe village, clothed like a ghost, and looking as conspicuously, all\nsolitary and alone on that platform, as any ghost could have looked; and\nI found, to my gratification, that it took the house less than ten\nminutes to forget about the ghost and give its attention to the tidings\nI had brought.\n\nI am nearly seventy-one, and I recognize that my age has given me a good\nmany privileges; valuable privileges; privileges which are not granted\nto younger persons. Little by little I hope to get together courage\nenough to wear white clothes all through the winter, in New York. It\nwill be a great satisfaction to me to show off in this way; and perhaps\nthe largest of all the satisfactions will be the knowledge that every\nscoffer, of my sex, will secretly envy me and wish he dared to follow my\nlead.\n\nThat mention that I have acquired new and great privileges by grace of\nmy age, is not an uncalculated remark. When I passed the seventieth\nmile-stone, ten months ago, I instantly realized that I had entered a\nnew country and a new atmosphere. To all the public I was become\nrecognizably old, undeniably old; and from that moment everybody assumed\na new attitude toward me--the reverent attitude granted by custom to\nage--and straightway the stream of generous new privileges began to flow\nin upon me and refresh my life. Since then, I have lived an ideal\nexistence; and I now believe what Choate said last March, and which at\nthe time I didn't credit: that the best of life begins at seventy; for\nthen your work is done; you know that you have done your best, let the\nquality of the work be what it may; that you have earned your holiday--a\nholiday of peace and contentment--and that thenceforth, to the setting\nof your sun, nothing will break it, nothing interrupt it.\n\n[_Dictated January 22, 1907._] In an earlier chapter I inserted some\nverses beginning \"Love Came at Dawn\" which had been found among Susy's\npapers after her death. I was not able to say that they were hers, but I\njudged that they might be, for the reason that she had not enclosed them\nin quotation marks according to her habit when storing up treasures\ngathered from other people. Stedman was not able to determine the\nauthorship for me, as the verses were new to him, but the authorship has\nnow been traced. The verses were written by William Wilfred Campbell, a\nCanadian poet, and they form a part of the contents of his book called\n\"Beyond the Hills of Dream.\"\n\nThe authorship of the beautiful lines which my wife and I inscribed upon\nSusy's gravestone was untraceable for a time. We had found them in a\nbook in India, but had lost the book and with it the author's name. But\nin time an application to the editor of \"Notes and Queries\" furnished me\nthe author's name,[7] and it has been added to the verses upon the\ngravestone.\n\nLast night, at a dinner-party where I was present, Mr. Peter Dunne\nDooley handed to the host several dollars, in satisfaction of a lost\nbet. I seemed to see an opportunity to better my condition, and I\ninvited Dooley, apparently disinterestedly, to come to my house Friday\nand play billiards. He accepted, and I judge that there is going to be a\ndeficit in the Dooley treasury as a result. In great qualities of the\nheart and brain, Dooley is gifted beyond all propriety. He is brilliant;\nhe is an expert with his pen, and he easily stands at the head of all\nthe satirists of this generation--but he is going to walk in darkness\nFriday afternoon. It will be a fraternal kindness to teach him that with\nall his light and culture, he does not know all the valuable things; and\nit will also be a fraternal kindness to him to complete his education\nfor him--and I shall do this on Friday, and send him home in that\nperfected condition.\n\nI possess a billiard secret which can be valuable to the Dooley sept,\nafter I shall have conferred it upon Dooley--for a consideration. It is\na discovery which I made by accident, thirty-eight years ago, in my\nfather-in-law's house in Elmira. There was a scarred and battered and\nancient billiard-table in the garret, and along with it a peck of\nchecked and chipped balls, and a rackful of crooked and headless cues. I\nplayed solitaire up there every day with that difficult outfit. The\ntable was not level, but slanted sharply to the southeast; there wasn't\na ball that was round, or would complete the journey you started it on,\nbut would always get tired and stop half-way and settle, with a jolty\nwabble, to a standstill on its chipped side. I tried making counts with\nfour balls, but found it difficult and discouraging, so I added a fifth\nball, then a sixth, then a seventh, and kept on adding until at last I\nhad twelve balls on the table and a thirteenth to play with. My game was\ncaroms--caroms solely--caroms plain, or caroms with cushion to\nhelp--anything that could furnish a count. In the course of time I found\nto my astonishment that I was never able to run fifteen, under any\ncircumstances. By huddling the balls advantageously in the beginning, I\ncould now and then coax fourteen out of them, but I couldn't reach\nfifteen by either luck or skill. Sometimes the balls would get scattered\ninto difficult positions and defeat me in that way; sometimes if I\nmanaged to keep them together, I would freeze; and always when I froze,\nand had to play away from the contact, there was sure to be nothing to\nplay at but a wide and uninhabited vacancy.\n\nOne day Mr. Dalton called on my brother-in-law, on a matter of business,\nand I was asked if I could entertain him awhile, until my brother-in-law\nshould finish an engagement with another gentleman. I said I could, and\ntook him up to the billiard-table. I had played with him many times at\nthe club, and knew that he could play billiards tolerably well--only\ntolerably well--but not any better than I could. He and I were just a\nmatch. He didn't know our table; he didn't know those balls; he didn't\nknow those warped and headless cues; he didn't know the southeastern\nslant of the table, and how to allow for it. I judged it would be safe\nand profitable to offer him a bet on my scheme. I emptied the avalanche\nof thirteen balls on the table and said:\n\n\"Take a ball and begin, Mr. Dalton. How many can you run with an outlay\nlike that?\"\n\nHe said, with the half-affronted air of a mathematician who has been\nasked how much of the multiplication table he can recite without a\nbreak:\n\n\"I suppose a million--eight hundred thousand, anyway.\"\n\nI said \"You shall hove the privilege of placing the balls to suit\nyourself, and I want to bet you a dollar that you can't run fifteen.\"\n\nI will not dwell upon the sequel. At the end of an hour his face was\nred, and wet with perspiration; his outer garments lay scattered here\nand there over the place; he was the angriest man in the State, and\nthere wasn't a rag or remnant of an injurious adjective left in him\nanywhere--and I had all his small change.\n\nWhen the summer was over, we went home to Hartford, and one day Mr.\nGeorge Robertson arrived from Boston with two or three hours to spare\nbetween then and the return train, and as he was a young gentleman to\nwhom we were in debt for much social pleasure, it was my duty, and a\nwelcome duty, to make his two or three hours interesting for him. So I\ntook him up-stairs and set up my billiard scheme for his comfort. Mine\nwas a good table, in perfect repair; the cues were in perfect condition;\nthe balls were ivory, and flawless--but I knew that Mr. Robertson was my\nprey, just the same, for by exhaustive tests with this outfit I had\nfound that my limit was thirty-one. I had proved to my satisfaction that\nwhereas I could not fairly expect to get more than six or eight or a\ndozen caroms out of a run, I could now and then reach twenty and\ntwenty-five, and after a long procession of failures finally achieve a\nrun of thirty-one; but in no case had I ever got beyond thirty-one.\nRobertson's game, as I knew, was a little better than mine, so I\nresolved to require him to make thirty-two. I believed it would\nentertain him. He was one of these brisk and hearty and cheery and\nself-satisfied young fellows who are brimful of confidence, and who\nplunge with grateful eagerness into any enterprise that offers a showy\ntest of their abilities. I emptied the balls on the table and said,\n\n\"Take a cue and a ball, George, and begin. How many caroms do you think\nyou can make out of that layout?\"\n\nHe laughed the laugh of the gay and the care-free, as became his youth\nand inexperience, and said,\n\n\"I can punch caroms out of that bunch a week without a break.\"\n\nI said \"Place the balls to suit yourself, and begin.\"\n\nConfidence is a necessary thing in billiards, but overconfidence is bad.\nGeorge went at his task with much too much lightsomeness of spirit and\ndisrespect for the situation. On his first shot he scored three caroms;\non his second shot he scored four caroms; and on his third shot he\nmissed as simple a carom as could be devised. He was very much\nastonished, and said he would not have supposed that careful play could\nbe needed with an acre of bunched balls in front of a person.\n\nHe began again, and played more carefully, but still with too much\nlightsomeness; he couldn't seem to learn to take the situation\nseriously. He made about a dozen caroms and broke down. He was irritated\nwith himself now, and he thought he caught me laughing. He didn't. I do\nnot laugh publicly at my client when this game is going on; I only do it\ninside--or save it for after the exhibition is over. But he thought he\nhad caught me laughing, and it increased his irritation. Of course I\nknew he thought I was laughing privately--for I was experienced; they\nall think that, and it has a good effect; it sharpens their annoyance\nand debilitates their play.\n\nHe made another trial and failed. Once more he was astonished; once more\nhe was humiliated--and as for his anger, it rose to summer-heat. He\narranged the balls again, grouping them carefully, and said he would win\nthis time, or die. When a client reaches this condition, it is a good\ntime to damage his nerve further, and this can always be done by saying\nsome little mocking thing or other that has the outside appearance of a\nfriendly remark--so I employed this art. I suggested that a bet might\ntauten his nerves, and that I would offer one, but that as I did not\nwant it to be an expense to him, but only a help, I would make it\nsmall--a cigar, if he were willing--a cigar that he would fail again;\nnot an expensive one, but a cheap native one, of the Crown Jewel breed,\nsuch as is manufactured in Hartford for the clergy. It set him afire all\nover! I could see the blue flame issue from his eyes. He said,\n\n\"Make it a hundred!--and no Connecticut cabbage-leaf product, but\nHavana, $25 the box!\"\n\nI took him up, but said I was sorry to see him do this, because it did\nnot seem to me right or fair for me to rob him under our own roof, when\nhe had been so kind to us. He said, with energy and acrimony:\n\n\"You take care of your own pocket, if you'll be so good, and leave me to\ntake care of mine.\"\n\nAnd he plunged at the congress of balls with a vindictiveness which was\ninfinitely contenting to me. He scored a failure--and began to undress.\nI knew it would come to that, for he was in the condition now that Mr.\nDooley will be in at about that stage of the contest on Friday\nafternoon. A clothes-rack will be provided for Mr. Dooley to hang his\nthings on as fast as he shall from time to time shed them. George raised\nhis voice four degrees and flung out the challenge--\n\n\"Double or quits!\"\n\n\"Done,\" I responded, in the gentle and compassionate voice of one who is\napparently getting sorrier and sorrier.\n\nThere was an hour and a half of straight disaster after that, and if it\nwas a sin to enjoy it, it is no matter--I did enjoy it. It is half a\nlifetime ago, but I enjoy it yet, every time I think of it George made\nfailure after failure. His fury increased with each failure as he\nscored it. With each defeat he flung off one or another rag of his\nraiment, and every time he started on a fresh inning he made it \"double\nor quits\" once more. Twice he reached thirty and broke down; once he\nreached thirty-one and broke down. These \"nears\" made him frantic, and I\nbelieve I was never so happy in my life, except the time, a few years\nlater, when the Rev. J. H. Twichell and I walked to Boston and he had\nthe celebrated conversation with the hostler at the Inn at Ashford,\nConnecticut.\n\nAt last, when we were notified that Patrick was at the door to drive him\nto his train, George owed me five thousand cigars at twenty-five cents\napiece, and I was so sorry I could have hugged him. But he shouted,\n\n\"Give me ten minutes more!\" and added stormily, \"it's double or quits\nagain, and I'll win out free of debt or owe you ten thousand cigars, and\nyou'll pay the funeral expenses.\"\n\nHe began on his final effort, and I believe that in all my experience\namong both amateurs and experts, I have never seen a cue so carefully\nhandled in my lifetime as George handled his upon this intensely\ninteresting occasion. He got safely up to twenty-five, and then ceased\nto breathe. So did I. He labored along, and added a point, another\npoint, still another point, and finally reached thirty-one. He stopped\nthere, and we took a breath. By this time the balls were scattered all\ndown the cushions, about a foot or two apart, and there wasn't a shot in\nsight anywhere that any man might hope to make. In a burst of anger and\nconfessed defeat, he sent his ball flying around the table at random,\nand it crotched a ball that was packed against the cushion and sprang\nacross to a ball against the bank on the opposite side, and counted!\n\nHis luck had set him free, and he didn't owe me anything. He had used up\nall his spare time, but we carried his clothes to the carriage, and he\ndressed on his way to the station, greatly wondered at and admired by\nthe ladies, as he drove along--but he got his train.\n\nI am very fond of Mr. Dooley, and shall await his coming with\naffectionate and pecuniary interest.\n\n_P.S. Saturday._ He has been here. Let us not talk about it.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[7] Robert Richardson, deceased, of Australia.\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXIII.\n\nAPRIL 19, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XVI.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[_Dictated January 12th, 1905._] ... But I am used to having my\nstatements discounted. My mother began it before I was seven years old.\nYet all through my life my facts have had a substratum of truth, and\ntherefore they were not without preciousness. Any person who is familiar\nwith me knows how to strike my average, and therefore knows how to get\nat the jewel of any fact of mine and dig it out of its blue-clay matrix.\nMy mother knew that art. When I was seven or eight, or ten, or twelve\nyears old--along there--a neighbor said to her,\n\n\"Do you ever believe anything that that boy says?\"\n\nMy mother said,\n\n\"He is the well-spring of truth, but you can't bring up the whole well\nwith one bucket\"--and she added, \"I know his average, therefore he never\ndeceives me. I discount him thirty per cent. for embroidery, and what is\nleft is perfect and priceless truth, without a flaw in it anywhere.\"\n\nNow to make a jump of forty years, without breaking the connection: that\nword \"embroidery\" was used again in my presence and concerning me, when\nI was fifty years old, one night at Rev. Frank Goodwin's house in\nHartford, at a meeting of the Monday Evening Club. The Monday Evening\nClub still exists. It was founded about forty-five years ago by that\ntheological giant, Rev. Dr. Bushnell, and some comrades of his, men of\nlarge intellectual calibre and more or less distinction, local or\nnational. I was admitted to membership in it in the fall of 1871 and was\nan active member thenceforth until I left Hartford in the summer of\n1891. The membership was restricted, in those days, to eighteen--\npossibly twenty. The meetings began about the 1st of October and were\nheld in the private houses of the members every fortnight thereafter\nthroughout the cold months until the 1st of May. Usually there were a\ndozen members present--sometimes as many as fifteen. There was an essay\nand a discussion. The essayists followed each other in alphabetical\norder through the season. The essayist could choose his own subject and\ntalk twenty minutes on it, from MS. or orally, according to his\npreference. Then the discussion followed, and each member present was\nallowed ten minutes in which to express his views. The wives of these\npeople were always present. It was their privilege. It was also their\nprivilege to keep still; they were not allowed to throw any light upon\nthe discussion. After the discussion there was a supper, and talk, and\ncigars. This supper began at ten o'clock promptly, and the company broke\nup and went away at midnight. At least they did except upon one\noccasion. In my recent Birthday speech I remarked upon the fact that I\nhave always bought cheap cigars, and that is true. I have never bought\ncostly ones.\n\nWell, that night at the Club meeting--as I was saying--George, our\ncolored butler, came to me when the supper was nearly over, and I\nnoticed that he was pale. Normally his complexion was a clear black, and\nvery handsome, but now it had modified to old amber. He said:\n\n\"Mr. Clemens, what are we going to do? There is not a cigar in the house\nbut those old Wheeling long nines. Can't nobody smoke them but you. They\nkill at thirty yards. It is too late to telephone--we couldn't get any\ncigars out from town--what can we do? Ain't it best to say nothing, and\nlet on that we didn't think?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said, \"that would not be honest. Fetch out the long\nnines\"--which he did.\n\nI had just come across those \"long nines\" a few days or a week before. I\nhadn't seen a long nine for years. When I was a cub pilot on the\nMississippi in the late '50's, I had had a great affection for them,\nbecause they were not only--to my mind--perfect, but you could get a\nbasketful of them for a cent--or a dime, they didn't use cents out there\nin those days. So when I saw them advertised in Hartford I sent for a\nthousand at once. They came out to me in badly battered and\ndisreputable-looking old square pasteboard boxes, two hundred in a box.\nGeorge brought a box, which was caved in on all sides, looking the worst\nit could, and began to pass them around. The conversation had been\nbrilliantly animated up to that moment--but now a frost fell upon the\ncompany. That is to say, not all of a sudden, but the frost fell upon\neach man as he took up a cigar and held it poised in the air--and there,\nin the middle, his sentence broke off. That kind of thing went on all\naround the table, until when George had completed his crime the whole\nplace was full of a thick solemnity and silence.\n\nThose men began to light the cigars. Rev. Dr. Parker was the first man\nto light. He took three or four heroic whiffs--then gave it up. He got\nup with the remark that he had to go to the bedside of a sick\nparishioner. He started out. Rev. Dr. Burton was the next man. He took\nonly one whiff, and followed Parker. He furnished a pretext, and you\ncould see by the sound of his voice that he didn't think much of the\npretext, and was vexed with Parker for getting in ahead with a\nfictitious ailing client. Rev. Mr. Twichell followed, and said he had to\ngo now because he must take the midnight train for Boston. Boston was\nthe first place that occurred to him, I suppose.\n\nIt was only a quarter to eleven when they began to distribute pretexts.\nAt ten minutes to eleven all those people were out of the house. When\nnobody was left but George and me I was cheerful--I had no compunctions\nof conscience, no griefs of any kind. But George was beyond speech,\nbecause he held the honor and credit of the family above his own, and he\nwas ashamed that this smirch had been put upon it. I told him to go to\nbed and try to sleep it off. I went to bed myself. At breakfast in the\nmorning when George was passing a cup of coffee, I saw it tremble in his\nhand. I knew by that sign that there was something on his mind. He\nbrought the cup to me and asked impressively,\n\n\"Mr. Clemens, how far is it from the front door to the upper gate?\"\n\nI said, \"It is a hundred and twenty-five steps.\"\n\nHe said, \"Mr. Clemens, you can start at the front door and you can go\nplumb to the upper gate and tread on one of them cigars every time.\"\n\nIt wasn't true in detail, but in essentials it was.\n\nThe subject under discussion on the night in question was Dreams. The\ntalk passed from mouth to mouth in the usual serene way.\n\nI do not now remember what form my views concerning dreams took at the\ntime. I don't remember now what my notion about dreams was then, but I\ndo remember telling a dream by way of illustrating some detail of my\nspeech, and I also remember that when I had finished it Rev. Dr. Burton\nmade that doubting remark which contained that word I have already\nspoken of as having been uttered by my mother, in some such connection,\nforty or fifty years before. I was probably engaged in trying to make\nthose people believe that now and then, by some accident, or otherwise,\na dream which was prophetic turned up in the dreamer's mind. The date of\nmy memorable dream was about the beginning of May, 1858. It was a\nremarkable dream, and I had been telling it several times every year for\nmore than fifteen years--and now I was telling it again, here in the\nclub.\n\nIn 1858 I was a steersman on board the swift and popular New Orleans and\nSt. Louis packet, \"Pennsylvania,\" Captain Kleinfelter. I had been lent\nto Mr. Brown, one of the pilots of the \"Pennsylvania,\" by my owner, Mr.\nHorace E. Bixby, and I had been steering for Brown about eighteen\nmonths, I think. Then in the early days of May, 1858, came a tragic\ntrip--the last trip of that fleet and famous steamboat. I have told all\nabout it in one of my books called \"Old Times on the Mississippi.\" But\nit is not likely that I told the dream in that book. It is impossible\nthat I can ever have published it, I think, because I never wanted my\nmother to know about the dream, and she lived several years after I\npublished that volume.\n\nI had found a place on the \"Pennsylvania\" for my brother Henry, who was\ntwo years my junior. It was not a place of profit, it was only a place\nof promise. He was \"mud\" clerk. Mud clerks received no salary, but they\nwere in the line of promotion. They could become, presently, third clerk\nand second clerk, then chief clerk--that is to say, purser. The dream\nbegins when Henry had been mud clerk about three months. We were lying\nin port at St. Louis. Pilots and steersmen had nothing to do during the\nthree days that the boat lay in port in St. Louis and New Orleans, but\nthe mud clerk had to begin his labors at dawn and continue them into the\nnight, by the light of pine-knot torches. Henry and I, moneyless and\nunsalaried, had billeted ourselves upon our brother-in-law, Mr. Moffet,\nas night lodgers while in port. We took our meals on board the boat. No,\nI mean _I_ lodged at the house, not Henry. He spent the _evenings_ at\nthe house, from nine until eleven, then went to the boat to be ready for\nhis early duties. On the night of the dream he started away at eleven,\nshaking hands with the family, and said good-by according to custom. I\nmay mention that hand-shaking as a good-by was not merely the custom of\nthat family, but the custom of the region--the custom of Missouri, I may\nsay. In all my life, up to that time, I had never seen one member of the\nClemens family kiss another one--except once. When my father lay dying\nin our home in Hannibal--the 24th of March, 1847--he put his arm around\nmy sister's neck and drew her down and kissed her, saying \"Let me die.\"\nI remember that, and I remember the death rattle which swiftly followed\nthose words, which were his last. These good-bys of Henry's were always\nexecuted in the family sitting-room on the second floor, and Henry went\nfrom that room and down-stairs without further ceremony. But this time\nmy mother went with him to the head of the stairs and said good-by\n_again_. As I remember it she was moved to this by something in Henry's\nmanner, and she remained at the head of the stairs while he descended.\nWhen he reached the door he hesitated, and climbed the stairs and shook\nhands good-by once more.\n\nIn the morning, when I awoke I had been dreaming, and the dream was so\nvivid, so like reality, that it deceived me, and I thought it was real.\nIn the dream I had seen Henry a corpse. He lay in a metallic\nburial-case. He was dressed in a suit of my clothing, and on his breast\nlay a great bouquet of flowers, mainly white roses, with a red rose in\nthe centre. The casket stood upon a couple of chairs. I dressed, and\nmoved toward that door, thinking I would go in there and look at it, but\nI changed my mind. I thought I could not yet bear to meet my mother. I\nthought I would wait awhile and make some preparation for that ordeal.\nThe house was in Locust Street, a little above 13th, and I walked to\n14th, and to the middle of the block beyond, before it suddenly flashed\nupon me that there was nothing real about this--it was only a dream. I\ncan still feel something of the grateful upheaval of joy of that moment,\nand I can also still feel the remnant of doubt, the suspicion that maybe\nit _was_ real, after all. I returned to the house almost on a run, flew\nup the stairs two or three steps at a jump, and rushed into that\nsitting-room--and was made glad again, for there was no casket there.\n\nWe made the usual eventless trip to New Orleans--no, it was not\neventless, for it was on the way down that I had the fight with Mr.\nBrown[8] which resulted in his requiring that I be left ashore at New\nOrleans. In New Orleans I always had a job. It was my privilege to watch\nthe freight-piles from seven in the evening until seven in the morning,\nand get three dollars for it. It was a three-night job and occurred\nevery thirty-five days. Henry always joined my watch about nine in the\nevening, when his own duties were ended, and we often walked my rounds\nand chatted together until midnight. This time we were to part, and so\nthe night before the boat sailed I gave Henry some advice. I said, \"In\ncase of disaster to the boat, don't lose your head--leave that unwisdom\nto the passengers--they are competent--they'll attend to it. But you\nrush for the hurricane-deck, and astern to one of the life-boats lashed\naft the wheel-house, and obey the mate's orders--thus you will be\nuseful. When the boat is launched, give such help as you can in getting\nthe women and children into it, and be sure you don't try to get into it\nyourself. It is summer weather, the river is only a mile wide, as a\nrule, and you can swim that without any trouble.\" Two or three days\nafterward the boat's boilers exploded at Ship Island, below Memphis,\nearly one morning--and what happened afterward I have already told in\n\"Old Times on the Mississippi.\" As related there, I followed the\n\"Pennsylvania\" about a day later, on another boat, and we began to get\nnews of the disaster at every port we touched at, and so by the time we\nreached Memphis we knew all about it.\n\nI found Henry stretched upon a mattress on the floor of a great\nbuilding, along with thirty or forty other scalded and wounded persons,\nand was promptly informed, by some indiscreet person, that he had\ninhaled steam; that his body was badly scalded, and that he would live\nbut a little while; also, I was told that the physicians and nurses were\ngiving their whole attention to persons who had a chance of being saved.\nThey were short-handed in the matter of physicians and nurses; and Henry\nand such others as were considered to be fatally hurt were receiving\nonly such attention as could be spared, from time to time, from the more\nurgent cases. But Dr. Peyton, a fine and large-hearted old physician of\ngreat reputation in the community, gave me his sympathy and took\nvigorous hold of the case, and in about a week he had brought Henry\naround. Dr. Peyton never committed himself with prognostications which\nmight not materialize, but at eleven o'clock one night he told me that\nHenry was out of danger, and would get well. Then he said, \"At midnight\nthese poor fellows lying here and there all over this place will begin\nto mourn and mutter and lament and make outcries, and if this commotion\nshould disturb Henry it will be bad for him; therefore ask the physician\non watch to give him an eighth of a grain of morphine, but this is not\nto be done unless Henry shall show signs that he is being disturbed.\"\n\nOh well, never mind the rest of it. The physicians on watch were young\nfellows hardly out of the medical college, and they made a mistake--they\nhad no way of measuring the eighth of a grain of morphine, so they\nguessed at it and gave him a vast quantity heaped on the end of a\nknife-blade, and the fatal effects were soon apparent. I think he died\nabout dawn, I don't remember as to that. He was carried to the dead-room\nand I went away for a while to a citizen's house and slept off some of\nmy accumulated fatigue--and meantime something was happening. The\ncoffins provided for the dead were of unpainted white pine, but in this\ninstance some of the ladies of Memphis had made up a fund of sixty\ndollars and bought a metallic case, and when I came back and entered the\ndead-room Henry lay in that open case, and he was dressed in a suit of\nmy clothing. He had borrowed it without my knowledge during our last\nsojourn in St. Louis; and I recognized instantly that my dream of\nseveral weeks before was here exactly reproduced, so far as these\ndetails went--and I think I missed one detail; but that one was\nimmediately supplied, for just then an elderly lady entered the place\nwith a large bouquet consisting mainly of white roses, and in the centre\nof it was a red rose, and she laid it on his breast.\n\nI told the dream there in the Club that night just as I have told it\nhere.\n\nRev. Dr. Burton swung his leonine head around, focussed me with his eye,\nand said:\n\n\"When was it that this happened?\"\n\n\"In June, '58.\"\n\n\"It is a good many years ago. Have you told it several times since?\"\n\n\"Yes, I have, a good many times.\"\n\n\"How many?\"\n\n\"Why, I don't know how many.\"\n\n\"Well, strike an average. How many times a year do you think you have\ntold it?\"\n\n\"Well, I have told it as many as six times a year, possibly oftener.\"\n\n\"Very well, then you've told it, we'll say, seventy or eighty times\nsince it happened?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"that's a conservative estimate.\"\n\n\"Now then, Mark, a very extraordinary thing happened to me a great many\nyears ago, and I used to tell it a number of times--a good many\ntimes--every year, for it was so wonderful that it always astonished the\nhearer, and that astonishment gave me a distinct pleasure every time. I\nnever suspected that that tale was acquiring any auxiliary advantages\nthrough repetition until one day after I had been telling it ten or\nfifteen years it struck me that either I was getting old, and slow in\ndelivery, or that the tale was longer than it was when it was born.\nMark, I diligently and prayerfully examined that tale with this result:\nthat I found that its proportions were now, as nearly as I could make\noat, one part fact, straight fact, fact pure and undiluted, golden fact,\nand twenty-four parts embroidery. I never told that tale afterwards--I\nwas never able to tell it again, for I had lost confidence in it, and so\nthe pleasure of telling it was gone, and gone permanently. How much of\nthis tale of yours is embroidery?\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"I don't know. I don't think any of it is embroidery. I\nthink it is all just as I have stated it, detail by detail.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" he said, \"then it is all right, but I wouldn't tell it any\nmore; because if you keep on, it will begin to collect embroidery sure.\nThe safest thing is to stop now.\"\n\nThat was a great many years ago. And to-day is the first time that I\nhave told that dream since Dr. Burton scared me into fatal doubts about\nit. No, I don't believe I can say that. I don't believe that I ever\nreally had any doubts whatever concerning the salient points of the\ndream, for those points are of such a nature that they are _pictures_,\nand pictures can be remembered, when they are vivid, much better than\none can remember remarks and unconcreted facts. Although it has been so\nmany years since I have told that dream, I can see those pictures now\njust as clearly defined as if they were before me in this room. I have\nnot told the entire dream. There was a good deal more of it. I mean I\nhave not told all that happened in the dream's fulfilment. After the\nincident in the death-room I may mention one detail, and that is this.\nWhen I arrived in St. Louis with the casket it was about eight o'clock\nin the morning, and I ran to my brother-in-law's place of business,\nhoping to find him there, but I missed him, for while I was on the way\nto his office he was on his way from the house to the boat. When I got\nback to the boat the casket was gone. He had conveyed it out to his\nhouse. I hastened thither, and when I arrived the men were just removing\nthe casket from the vehicle to carry it up-stairs. I stopped that\nprocedure, for I did not want my mother to see the dead face, because\none side of it was drawn and distorted by the effects of the opium. When\nI went up-stairs, there stood the two chairs--placed to receive the\ncoffin--just as I had seen them in my dream; and if I had arrived two or\nthree minutes later, the casket would have been resting upon them,\nprecisely as in my dream of several weeks before.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[8] See \"Old Times on the Mississippi.\"\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXIV.\n\nMAY 3, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XVII.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n_From Susy's Biography of Me._\n\n\n     _Sept. 9, '85._--Mamma is teaching Jean a little natural history\n     and is making a little collection of insects for her. But mamma\n     does not allow Jean to kill any insects she only collects those\n     insects that are found dead. Mamma has told us all, perticularly\n     Jean, to bring her all the little dead insects that she finds. The\n     other day as we were all sitting at supper Jean broke into the room\n     and ran triumfantly up to Mamma and presented her with a plate full\n     of dead flies. Mamma thanked Jean vary enthusiastically although\n     she with difficulty concealed her amusement. Just then Soar Mash\n     entered the room and Jean believing her hungry asked Mamma for\n     permission to give her the flies. Mamma laughingly consented and\n     the flies almost immediately dissapeared.\n\n\n[_Monday, October 15, 1906._] Sour Hash's presence indicates that this\nadventure occurred at Quarry Farm. Susy's Biography interests itself\npretty exclusively with historical facts; where they happen is not a\nmatter of much concern to her. When other historians refer to the Bunker\nHill Monument they know it is not necessary to mention that that\nmonument is in Boston. Susy recognizes that when she mentions Sour Mash\nit is not necessary to localize her. To Susy, Sour Mash is the Bunker\nHill Monument of Quarry Farm.\n\nOrdinary cats have some partiality for living flies, but none for dead\nones; but Susy does not trouble herself to apologize for Sour Mash's\neccentricities of taste. This Biography was for _us_, and Susy knew that\nnothing that Sour Mash might do could startle us or need explanation, we\nbeing aware that she was not an ordinary cat, but moving upon a plane\nfar above the prejudices and superstitions which are law to common\ncatdom.\n\nOnce in Hartford the flies were so numerous for a time, and so\ntroublesome, that Mrs. Clemens conceived the idea of paying George[9] a\nbounty on all the flies he might kill. The children saw an opportunity\nhere for the acquisition of sudden wealth. They supposed that their\nmother merely wanted to accumulate dead flies, for some \u00e6sthetic or\nscientific reason or other, and they judged that the more flies she\ncould get the happier she would be; so they went into business with\nGeorge on a commission. Straightway the dead flies began to arrive in\nsuch quantities that Mrs. Clemens was pleased beyond words with the\nsuccess of her idea. Next, she was astonished that one house could\nfurnish so many. She was paying an extravagantly high bounty, and it\npresently began to look as if by this addition to our expenses we were\nnow probably living beyond our income. After a few days there was peace\nand comfort; not a fly was discoverable in the house: there wasn't a\nstraggler left. Still, to Mrs. Clement's surprise, the dead flies\ncontinued to arrive by the plateful, and the bounty expense was as\ncrushing as ever. Then she made inquiry, and found that our innocent\nlittle rascals had established a Fly Trust, and had hired all the\nchildren in the neighborhood to collect flies on a cheap and\nunburdensome commission.\n\nMrs. Clemens's experience in this matter was a new one for her, but the\ngovernments of the world had tried it, and wept over it, and discarded\nit, every half-century since man was created. Any Government could have\ntold her that the best way to increase wolves in America, rabbits in\nAustralia, and snakes in India, is to pay a bounty on their scalps. Then\nevery patriot goes to raising them.\n\n_From Susy's Biography of Me._\n\n\n     _Sept. 10, '85._--The other evening Clara and I brought down our\n     new soap bubble water and we all blew soap bubles. Papa blew his\n     soap bubles and filled them with tobacco smoke and as the light\n     shone on then they took very beautiful opaline colors. Papa would\n     hold them and then let us catch them in our hand and they felt\n     delightful to the touch the mixture of the smoke and water had a\n     singularly pleasant effect.\n\n\nIt is human life. We are blown upon the world; we float buoyantly upon\nthe summer air a little while, complacently showing off our grace of\nform and our dainty iridescent colors; then we vanish with a little\npuff, leaving nothing behind but a memory--and sometimes not even that.\nI suppose that at those solemn times when we wake in the deeps of the\nnight and reflect, there is not one of us who is not willing to confess\nthat he is really only a soap-bubble, and as little worth the making.\n\nI remember those days of twenty-one years ago, and a certain pathos\nclings about them. Susy, with her manifold young charms and her\niridescent mind, was as lovely a bubble as any we made that day--and as\ntransitory. She passed, as they passed, in her youth and beauty, and\nnothing of her is left but a heartbreak and a memory. That long-vanished\nday came vividly back to me a few weeks ago when, for the first time in\ntwenty-one years, I found myself again amusing a child with\nsmoke-charged soap-bubbles.\n\n[Sidenote: (1885.)]\n\nSusy's next date is November 29th, 1885, the eve of my fiftieth\nbirthday. It seems a good while ago. I must have been rather young for\nmy age then, for I was trying to tame an old-fashioned bicycle nine feet\nhigh. It is to me almost unbelievable, at my present stage of life, that\nthere have really been people willing to trust themselves upon a dizzy\nand unstable altitude like that, and that I was one of them. Twichell\nand I took lessons every day. He succeeded, and became a master of the\nart of riding that wild vehicle, but I had no gift in that direction and\nwas never able to stay on mine long enough to get any satisfactory view\nof the planet. Every time I tried to steal a look at a pretty girl, or\nany other kind of scenery, that single moment of inattention gave the\nbicycle the chance it had been waiting for, and I went over the front of\nit and struck the ground on my head or my back before I had time to\nrealise that something was happening. I didn't always go over the front\nway; I had other ways, and practised them all; but no matter which way\nwas chosen for me there was always one monotonous result--the bicycle\nskinned my leg and leaped up into the air and came down on top of me.\nSometimes its wires were so sprung by this violent performance that it\nhad the collapsed look of an umbrella that had had a misunderstanding\nwith a cyclone. After each day's practice I arrived at home with my skin\nhanging in ribbons, from my knees down. I plastered the ribbons on where\nthey belonged, and bound them there with handkerchiefs steeped in Pond's\nExtract, and was ready for more adventures next day. It was always a\nsurprise to me that I had so much skin, and that it held out so well.\nThere was always plenty, and I soon came to understand that the supply\nwas going to remain sufficient for all my needs. It turned out that I\nhad nine skins, in layers, one on top of the other like the leaves of a\nbook, and some of the doctors said it was quite remarkable.\n\nI was full of enthusiasm over this insane amusement. My teacher was a\nyoung German from the bicycle factory, a gentle, kindly, patient\ncreature, with a pathetically grave face. He never smiled; he never made\na remark; he always gathered me tenderly up when I plunged off, and\nhelped me on again without a word. When he had been teaching me twice a\nday for three weeks I introduced a new gymnastic--one that he had never\nseen before--and so at last a compliment was wrung from him, a thing\nwhich I had been risking my life for days to achieve. He gathered me up\nand said mournfully: \"Mr. Clemens, you can fall off a bicycle in more\ndifferent ways than any person I ever saw before.\"\n\n[Sidenote: (1849.)]\n\nA boy's life is not all comedy; much of the tragic enters into it. The\ndrunken tramp--mentioned in \"Tom Sawyer\" or \"Huck Finn\"--who was burned\nup in the village jail, lay upon my conscience a hundred nights\nafterward and filled them with hideous dreams--dreams in which I saw his\nappealing face as I had seen it in the pathetic reality, pressed against\nthe window-bars, with the red hell glowing behind him--a face which\nseemed to say to me, \"If you had not give me the matches, this would not\nhave happened; you are responsible for my death.\" I was _not_\nresponsible for it, for I had meant him no harm, but only good, when I\nlet him have the matches; but no matter, mine was a trained Presbyterian\nconscience, and knew but the one duty--to hunt and harry its slave upon\nall pretexts and on all occasions; particularly when there was no sense\nor reason in it. The tramp--who was to blame--suffered ten minutes; I,\nwho was not to blame, suffered three months.\n\nThe shooting down of poor old Smarr in the main street[10] at noonday\nsupplied me with some more dreams; and in them I always saw again the\ngrotesque closing picture--the great family Bible spread open on the\nprofane old man's breast by some thoughtful idiot, and rising and\nsinking to the labored breathings, and adding the torture of its leaden\nweight to the dying struggles. We are curiously made. In all the throng\nof gaping and sympathetic onlookers there was not one with common sense\nenough to perceive that an anvil would have been in better taste there\nthan the Bible, less open to sarcastic criticism, and swifter in its\natrocious work. In my nightmares I gasped and struggled for breath under\nthe crush of that vast book for many a night.\n\nAll within the space of a couple of years we had two or three other\ntragedies, and I had the ill-luck to be too near by on each occasion.\nThere was the slave man who was struck down with a chunk of slag for\nsome small offence; I saw him die. And the young California emigrant who\nwas stabbed with a bowie knife by a drunken comrade: I saw the red life\ngush from his breast. And the case of the rowdy young Hyde brothers and\ntheir harmless old uncle: one of them held the old man down with his\nknees on his breast while the other one tried repeatedly to kill him\nwith an Allen revolver which wouldn't go off. I happened along just\nthen, of course.\n\nThen there was the case of the young California emigrant who got drunk\nand proposed to raid the \"Welshman's house\" all alone one dark and\nthreatening night.[11] This house stood half-way up Holliday's Hill\n(\"Cardiff\" Hill), and its sole occupants were a poor but quite\nrespectable widow and her young and blameless daughter. The invading\nruffian woke the whole village with his ribald yells and coarse\nchallenges and obscenities. I went up there with a comrade--John Briggs,\nI think--to look and listen. The figure of the man was dimly risible;\nthe women were on their porch, but not visible in the deep shadow of its\nroof, but we heard the elder woman's voice. She had loaded an old musket\nwith slugs, and she warned the man that if he stayed where he was while\nshe counted ten it would cost him his life. She began to count, slowly:\nhe began to laugh. He stopped laughing at \"six\"; then through the deep\nstillness, in a steady voice, followed the rest of the tale: \"seven ...\neight ... nine\"--a long pause, we holding our breath--\"ten!\" A red spout\nof flame gushed out into the night, and the man dropped, with his breast\nriddled to rags. Then the rain and the thunder burst loose and the\nwaiting town swarmed up the hill in the glare of the lightning like an\ninvasion of ants. Those people saw the rest; I had had my share and was\nsatisfied. I went home to dream, and was not disappointed.\n\nMy teaching and training enabled me to see deeper into these tragedies\nthan an ignorant person could have done. I knew what they were for. I\ntried to disguise it from myself, but down in the secret deeps of my\nheart I knew--and I _knew_ that I knew. They were inventions of\nProvidence to beguile me to a better life. It sounds curiously innocent\nand conceited, now, but to me there was nothing strange about it; it was\nquite in accordance with the thoughtful and judicious ways of Providence\nas I understood them. It would not have surprised me, nor even\nover-flattered me, if Providence had killed off that whole community in\ntrying to save an asset like me. Educated as I had been, it would have\nseemed just the thing, and well worth the expense. _Why_ Providence\nshould take such an anxious interest in such a property--that idea never\nentered my head, and there was no one in that simple hamlet who would\nhave dreamed of putting it there. For one thing, no one was equipped\nwith it.\n\nIt is quite true I took all the tragedies to myself; and tallied them\noff, in turn as they happened, saying to myself in each case, with a\nsigh, \"Another one gone--and on my account; this ought to bring me to\nrepentance; His patience will not always endure.\" And yet privately I\nbelieved it would. That is, I believed it in the daytime; but not in the\nnight. With the going down of the sun my faith failed, and the clammy\nfears gathered about my heart. It was then that I repented. Those were\nawful nights, nights of despair, nights charged with the bitterness of\ndeath. After each tragedy I recognized the warning and repented;\nrepented and begged; begged like a coward, begged like a dog; and not in\nthe interest of those poor people who had been extinguished for my sake,\nbut only in my own interest. It seems selfish, when I look back on it\nnow.\n\nMy repentances were very real, very earnest; and after each tragedy they\nhappened every night for a long time. But as a rule they could not stand\nthe daylight. They faded out and shredded away and disappeared in the\nglad splendor of the sun. They were the creatures of fear and darkness,\nand they could not live out of their own place. The day gave me cheer\nand peace, and at night I repented again. In all my boyhood life I am\nnot sure that I ever tried to lead a better life in the daytime--or\nwanted to. In my age I should never think of wishing to do such a thing.\nBut in my age, as in my youth, night brings me many a deep remorse. I\nrealize that from the cradle up I have been like the rest of the\nrace--never quite sane in the night. When \"Injun Joe\" died.[12] ... But\nnever mind: in another chapter I have already described what a raging\nhell of repentance I passed through then. I believe that for months I\nwas as pure as the driven snow. After dark.\n\nIt was back in those far-distant days--1848 or '9--that Jim Wolf came to\nus. He was from Shelbyville, a hamlet thirty or forty miles back in the\ncountry, and he brought all his native sweetnesses and gentlenesses and\nsimplicities with him. He was approaching seventeen, a grave and slender\nlad, trustful, honest, a creature to love and cling to. And he was\nincredibly bashful.\n\nIt is to this kind that untoward things happen. My sister gave a\n\"candy-pull\" on a winter's night. I was too young to be of the company,\nand Jim was too diffident. I was sent up to bed early, and Jim followed\nof his own motion. His room was in the new part of the house, and his\nwindow looked out on the roof of the L annex. That roof was six inches\ndeep in snow, and the snow had an ice-crust upon it which was as slick\nas glass. Out of the comb of the roof projected a short chimney, a\ncommon resort for sentimental cats on moonlight nights--and this was a\nmoonlight night. Down at the eaves, below the chimney, a canopy of dead\nvines spread away to some posts, making a cozy shelter, and after an\nhour or two the rollicking crowd of young ladies and gentlemen grouped\nthemselves in its shade, with their saucers of liquid and piping-hot\ncandy disposed about them on the frozen ground to cool. There was joyous\nchaffing and joking and laughter--peal upon peal of it.\n\nAbout this time a couple of old disreputable tom-cats got up on the\nchimney and started a heated argument about something; also about this\ntime I gave up trying to get to sleep, and went visiting to Jim's room.\nHe was awake and fuming about the cats and their intolerable yowling. I\nasked him, mockingly, why he didn't climb out and drive them away. He\nwas nettled, and said over-boldly that for two cents he _would_.\n\nIt was a rash remark, and was probably repented of before it was fairly\nout of his mouth. But it was too late--he was committed. I knew him; and\nI knew he would rather break his neck than back down, if I egged him on\njudiciously.\n\n\"Oh, of course you would! Who's doubting it?\"\n\nIt galled him, and he burst out, with sharp irritation--\n\n\"Maybe _you_ doubt it!\"\n\n\"I? Oh no, I shouldn't think of such a thing. You are always doing\nwonderful things. With your mouth.\"\n\nHe was in a passion, now. He snatched on his yarn socks and began to\nraise the window, saying in a voice unsteady with anger--\n\n\"_You_ think I dasn't--_you_ do! Think what you blame please--_I_ don't\ncare what you think. I'll show you!\"\n\nThe window made him rage; it wouldn't stay up. I said--\n\n\"Never mind, I'll hold it.\"\n\nIndeed, I would have done anything to help. I was only a boy, and was\nalready in a radiant heaven of anticipation. He climbed carefully out,\nclung to the window-sill until his feet were safely placed, then began\nto pick his perilous way on all fours along the glassy comb, a foot and\na hand on each side of it. I believe I enjoy it now as much as I did\nthen: yet it is a good deal over fifty years ago. The frosty breeze\nflapped his short shirt about his lean legs; the crystal roof shone like\npolished marble in the intense glory of the moon; the unconscious cats\nsat erect upon the chimney, alertly watching each other, lashing their\ntails and pouring out their hollow grievances; and slowly and\ncautiously Jim crept on, flapping as he went, the gay and frolicsome\nyoung creatures under the vine-canopy unaware, and outraging these\nsolemnities with their misplaced laughter. Every time Jim slipped I had\na hope; but always on he crept and disappointed it. At last he was\nwithin reaching distance. He paused, raised himself carefully up,\nmeasured his distance deliberately, then made a frantic grab at the\nnearest cat--and missed. Of course he lost his balance. His heels flew\nup, he struck on his back, and like a rocket he darted down the roof\nfeet first, crashed through the dead vines and landed in a sitting\nposture in fourteen saucers of red-hot candy, in the midst of all that\nparty--and dressed as _he_ was: this lad who could not look a girl in\nthe face with his clothes on. There was a wild scramble and a storm of\nshrieks, and Jim fled up the stairs, dripping broken crockery all the\nway.\n\n[Sidenote: (1867.)]\n\nThe incident was ended. But I was not done with it yet, though I\nsupposed I was. Eighteen or twenty years later I arrived in New York\nfrom California, and by that time I had failed in all my other\nundertakings and had stumbled into literature without intending it. This\nwas early in 1867. I was offered a large sum to write something for the\n\"Sunday Mercury,\" and I answered with the tale of \"Jim Wolf and the\nCats.\" I also collected the money for it--twenty-five dollars. It seemed\nover-pay, but I did not say anything about that, for I was not so\nscrupulous then as I am now.\n\nA year or two later \"Jim Wolf and the Cats\" appeared in a Tennessee\npaper in a new dress--as to spelling; spelling borrowed from Artemus\nWard. The appropriator of the tale had a wide reputation in the West,\nand was exceedingly popular. Deservedly so, I think. He wrote some of\nthe breeziest and funniest things I have ever read, and did his work\nwith distinguished ease and fluency. His name has passed out of my\nmemory.\n\nA couple of years went by; then the original story--my own\nversion--cropped up again and went floating around in the spelling, and\nwith my name to it. Soon first one paper and then another fell upon me\nrigorously for \"stealing\" Jim Wolf and the Cats from the Tennessee man.\nI got a merciless beating, but I did not mind it. It's all in the game.\nBesides, I had learned, a good while before that, that it is not wise to\nkeep the fire going under a slander unless you can get some large\nadvantage out of keeping it alive. Few slanders can stand the wear of\nsilence.\n\n[Sidenote: (1873.)]\n\n[Sidenote: (1900.)]\n\nBut I was not done with Jim and the Cats yet. In 1873 I was lecturing in\nLondon, in the Queen's Concert Rooms, Hanover Square, and was living at\nthe Langham Hotel, Portland place. I had no domestic household, and no\nofficial household except George Dolby, lecture-agent, and Charles\nWarren Stoddard, the California poet, now (1900) Professor of English\nLiterature in the Roman Catholic University, Washington. Ostensibly\nStoddard was my private secretary; in reality he was merely my\ncomrade--I hired him in order to have his company. As secretary there\nwas nothing for him to do except to scrap-book the daily reports of the\ngreat trial of the Tichborne Claimant for perjury. But he made a\nsufficient job out of that, for the reports filled six columns a day and\nhe usually postponed the scrap-booking until Sunday; then he had 36\ncolumns to cut out and paste in--a proper labor for Hercules. He did his\nwork well, but if he had been older and feebler it would have killed him\nonce a week. Without doubt he does his literary lectures well, but also\nwithout doubt he prepares them fifteen minutes before he is due on his\nplatform and thus gets into them a freshness and sparkle which they\nmight lack if they underwent the staling process of overstudy.\n\nHe was good company when he was awake. He was refined, sensitive,\ncharming, gentle, generous, honest himself and unsuspicious of other\npeople's honesty, and I think he was the purest male I have known, in\nmind and speech. George Dolby was something of a contrast to him, but\nthe two were very friendly and sociable together, nevertheless. Dolby\nwas large and ruddy, full of life and strength and spirits, a tireless\nand energetic talker, and always overflowing with good-nature and\nbursting with jollity. It was a choice and satisfactory menagerie, this\npensive poet and this gladsome gorilla. An indelicate story was a sharp\ndistress to Stoddard; Dolby told him twenty-five a day. Dolby always\ncame home with us after the lecture, and entertained Stoddard till\nmidnight. Me too. After he left, I walked the floor and talked, and\nStoddard went to sleep on the sofa. I hired him for company.\n\nDolby had been agent for concerts, and theatres, and Charles Dickens and\nall sorts of shows and \"attractions\" for many years; he had known the\nhuman being in many aspects, and he didn't much believe in him. But the\npoet did. The waifs and estrays found a friend in Stoddard: Dolby tried\nto persuade him that he was dispensing his charities unworthily, but he\nwas never able to succeed.\n\nOne night a young American got access to Stoddard at the Concert Rooms\nand told him a moving tale. He said he was living on the Surrey side,\nand for some strange reason his remittances had failed to arrive from\nhome; he had no money, he was out of employment, and friendless; his\ngirl-wife and his new baby were actually suffering for food; for the\nlove of heaven could he lend him a sovereign until his remittances\nshould resume? Stoddard was deeply touched, and gave him a sovereign on\nmy account. Dolby scoffed, but Stoddard stood his ground. Each told me\nhis story later in the evening, and I backed Stoddard's judgment. Dolby\nsaid we were women in disguise, and not a sane kind of women, either.\n\nThe next week the young man came again. His wife was ill with the\npleurisy, the baby had the bots, or something, I am not sure of the name\nof the disease; the doctor and the drugs had eaten up the money, the\npoor little family was starving. If Stoddard \"in the kindness of his\nheart could only spare him another sovereign,\" etc., etc. Stoddard was\nmuch moved, and spared him a sovereign for me. Dolby was outraged. He\nspoke up and said to the customer--\n\n\"Now, young man, you are going to the hotel with us and state your case\nto the other member of the family. If you don't make him believe in you\nI sha'n't honor this poet's drafts in your interest any longer, for I\ndon't believe in you myself.\"\n\nThe young man was quite willing. I found no fault in him. On the\ncontrary, I believed in him at once, and was solicitous to heal the\nwounds inflicted by Dolby's too frank incredulity; therefore I did\neverything I could think of to cheer him up and entertain him and make\nhim feel at home and comfortable. I spun many yarns; among others the\ntale of Jim Wolf and the Cats. Learning that he had done something in a\nsmall way in literature, I offered to try to find a market for him in\nthat line. His face lighted joyfully at that, and he said that if I\ncould only sell a small manuscript to Tom Hood's Annual for him it would\nbe the happiest event of his sad life and he would hold me in grateful\nremembrance always. That was a most pleasant night for three of us, but\nDolby was disgusted and sarcastic.\n\nNext week the baby died. Meantime I had spoken to Tom Hood and gained\nhis sympathy. The young man had sent his manuscript to him, and the very\nday the child died the money for the MS. came--three guineas. The young\nman came with a poor little strip of crape around his arm and thanked\nme, and said that nothing could have been more timely than that money,\nand that his poor little wife was grateful beyond words for the service\nI had rendered. He wept, and in fact Stoddard and I wept with him, which\nwas but natural. Also Dolby wept. At least he wiped his eyes and wrung\nout his handkerchief, and sobbed stertorously and made other exaggerated\nshows of grief. Stoddard and I were ashamed of Dolby, and tried to make\nthe young man understand that he meant no harm, it was only his way. The\nyoung man said sadly that he was not minding it, his grief was too deep\nfor other hurts; that he was only thinking of the funeral, and the heavy\nexpenses which--\n\nWe cut that short and told him not to trouble about it, leave it all to\nus; send the bills to Mr. Dolby and--\n\n\"Yes,\" said Dolby, with a mock tremor in his voice, \"send them to me,\nand I will pay them. What, are you going? You must not go alone in your\nworn and broken condition; Mr. Stoddard and I will go with you. Come,\nStoddard. We will comfort the bereaved mamma and get a lock of the\nbaby's hair.\"\n\nIt was shocking. We were ashamed of him again, and said so. But he was\nnot disturbed. He said--\n\n\"Oh, I know this kind, the woods are full of them. I'll make this offer:\nif he will show me his family I will give him twenty pounds. Come!\" The\nyoung man said he would not remain to be insulted; and he said\ngood-night and took his hat. But Dolby said he would go with him, and\nstay by him until he found the family. Stoddard went along to soothe the\nyoung man and modify Dolby. They drove across the river and all over\nSouthwark, but did not find the family. At last the young man confessed\nthere wasn't any.\n\nThe thing he sold to Tom Hood's Annual was \"Jim and the Cats.\" And he\ndid not put my name to it.\n\nSo that small tale was sold three times. I am selling it again, now. It\nis one of the best properties I have come across.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[9] The colored butler.\n\n[10] See \"Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.\"\n\n[11] Used in \"Huck Finn,\" I think.\n\n[12] Used in \"Tom Sawyer.\"\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXV.\n\nMAY 17, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XVIII.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[_Dictated December 21, 1906._] I wish to insert here some pages of\nSusy's Biography of me in which the biographer does not scatter,\naccording to her custom, but sticks pretty steadily to a single subject\nuntil she has fought it to a finish:\n\n\n     _Feb. 27, '86._--Last summer while we were in Elmira an article\n     came out in the \"Christian Union\" by name \"What ought he to have\n     done\" treating of the government of children, or rather giving an\n     account of a fathers battle with his little baby boy, by the mother\n     of the child and put in the form of a question as to whether the\n     father disciplined the child corectly or not, different people\n     wrote their opinions of the fathers behavior, and told what they\n     thought he should have done. Mamma had long known how to disciplin\n     children, for in fact the bringing up of children had been one of\n     her specialties for many years. She had a great many theories, but\n     one of them was, that if a child was big enough to be nauty, it was\n     big enough to be whipped and here we all agreed with her. I\n     remember one morning when Dr. ---- came up to the farm he had a\n     long discussion with mamma, upon the following topic. Mamma gave\n     _this_ as illustrative of one important rule for punishing a child.\n     She said we will suppose the boy has thrown a handkerchief onto the\n     floor, I tell him to pick it up, he refuses. I tell him again, he\n     refuses. Then I say you must either pick up the handkerchief or\n     have a whipping. My theory is never to make a child have a whipping\n     and pick up the handkerchief too. I say \"If you do not pick it up,\n     I must punish you,\" if he doesn't he gets the whipping, but _I_\n     pick up the handkerchief, if he does he gets no punishment. I tell\n     him to do a thing if he disobeys me he is punished for so doing,\n     but not forced to obey me afterwards.\n\n     When Clara and I had been very nauty or were being very nauty, the\n     nurse would go and call Mamma and she would appear suddenly and\n     look at us (she had a way of looking at us when she was displeased\n     as if she could see right through us) till we were ready to sink\n     through the floor from embarasment, and total absence of knowing\n     what to say. This look was usually followed with \"Clara\" or \"Susy\n     what do you mean by this? do you want to come to the bath-room with\n     me?\" Then followed the climax for Clara and I both new only too\n     well what going to the bath-room meant.\n\n     But mamma's first and foremost object was to make the child\n     understand that he is being punished for _his_ sake, and because\n     the mother so loves him that she cannot allow him to do wrong; also\n     that it is as hard for her to punish him as for him to be punished\n     and even harder. Mamma never allowed herself to punish us when she\n     was angry with us she never struck us because she was enoyed at us\n     and felt like striking us if we had been nauty and had enoyed her,\n     so that she thought she felt or would show the least bit of temper\n     toward us while punnishing us, she always postponed the punishment\n     until _she_ was no more chafed by our behavior. She never humored\n     herself by striking or punishing us because or while she was the\n     least bit enoyed with us.\n\n     Our very worst nautinesses were punished by being taken to the\n     bath-room and being whipped by the paper cutter. But after the\n     whipping was over, mamma did not allow us to leave her until we\n     were perfectly happy, and perfectly understood why we had been\n     whipped. I never remember having felt the least bit bitterly toward\n     mamma for punishing me. I always felt I had deserved my punishment,\n     and was much happier for having received it. For after mamma had\n     punished us and shown her displeasure, she showed no signs of\n     further displeasure, but acted as if we had not displeased her in\n     any way.\n\n\nOrdinary punishments answered very well for Susy. She was a thinker, and\nwould reason out the purpose of them, apply the lesson, and achieve the\nreform required. But it was much less easy to devise punishments that\nwould reform Clara. This was because she was a philosopher who was\nalways turning her attention to finding something good and satisfactory\nand entertaining in everything that came her way; consequently it was\nsometimes pretty discouraging to the troubled mother to find that after\nall her pains and thought in inventing what she meant to be a severe and\nreform-compelling punishment, the child had entirely missed the\nseverities through her native disposition to get interest and pleasure\nout of them as novelties. The mother, in her anxiety to find a penalty\nthat would take sharp hold and do its work effectively, at last\nresorted, with a sore heart, and with a reproachful conscience, to that\npunishment which the incorrigible criminal in the penitentiary dreads\nabove all the other punitive miseries which the warden inflicts upon him\nfor his good--solitary confinement in the dark chamber. The grieved and\nworried mother shut Clara up in a very small clothes-closet and went\naway and left her there--for fifteen minutes--it was all that the\nmother-heart could endure. Then she came softly back and\nlistened--listened for the sobs, but there weren't any; there were\nmuffled and inarticulate sounds, but they could not be construed into\nsobs. The mother waited half an hour longer; by that time she was\nsuffering so intensely with sorrow and compassion for the little\nprisoner that she was not able to wait any longer for the distressed\nsounds which she had counted upon to inform her when there had been\npunishment enough and the reform accomplished. She opened the closet to\nset the prisoner free and take her back into her loving favor and\nforgiveness, but the result was not the one expected. The captive had\nmanufactured a fairy cavern out of the closet, and friendly fairies out\nof the clothes hanging from the hooks, and was having a most sinful and\nunrepentant good time, and requested permission to spend the rest of the\nday there!\n\n_From Susy's Biography of Me._\n\n\n     But Mamma's oppinions and ideas upon the subject of bringing up\n     children has always been more or less of a joke in our family,\n     perticularly since Papa's article in the \"Christian Union,\" and I\n     am sure Clara and I have related the history of our old family\n     paper-cutter, our punishments and privations with rather more pride\n     and triumph than any other sentiment, because of Mamma's way of\n     rearing us.\n\n     When the article \"What ought he to have done?\" came out Mamma read\n     it, and was very much interested in it. And when papa heard that\n     she had read it he went to work and secretly wrote his opinion of\n     what the father ought to have done. He told Aunt Susy, Clara and I,\n     about it but mamma was not to see it or hear any thing about it\n     till it came out. He gave it to Aunt Susy to read, and after Clara\n     and I had gone up to get ready for bed he brought it up for us to\n     read. He told what he thought the father ought to have done by\n     telling what mamma would have done. The article was a beautiful\n     tribute to mamma and every word in it true. But still in writing\n     about mamma he partly forgot that the article was going to be\n     published, I think, and expressed himself more fully than he would\n     do the second time he wrote it; I think the article has done and\n     will do a great deal of good, and I think it would have been\n     perfect for the family and friend's enjoyment, but a little bit too\n     private to have been published as it was. And Papa felt so too,\n     because the very next day or a few days after, he went down to New\n     York to see if he couldn't get it back before it was published but\n     it was too late, and he had to return without it. When the\n     Christian Union reached the farm and papa's article in it all ready\n     and waiting to be read to mamma papa hadn't the courage to show it\n     to her (for he knew she wouldn't like it at all) at first, and he\n     didn't but he might have let it go and never let her see it, but\n     finally he gave his consent to her seeing it, and told Clara and I\n     we could take it to her, which we did, with tardiness, and we all\n     stood around mamma while she read it, all wondering what she would\n     say and think about it.\n\n     She was too much surprised, (and pleased privately, too) to say\n     much at first, but as we all expected publicly, (or rather when she\n     remembered that this article was to be read by every one that took\n     the Christian Union) she was rather shocked and a little\n     displeased.\n\n     Clara and I had great fun the night papa gave it to us to read and\n     then hide, so mamma couldn't see it, for just as we were in the\n     midst of reading it mamma appeared, papa following anxiously and\n     asked why we were not in bed? then a scuffle ensued for we told her\n     it was a secret and tried to hide it; but she chased us wherever we\n     went, till she thought it was time for us to go to bed, then she\n     surendered and left us to tuck it under Clara's matress.\n\n     A little while after the article was published letters began to\n     come in to papa crittisizing it, there were some very pleasant ones\n     but a few very disagreable. One of these, the very worst, mamma got\n     hold of and read, to papa's great regret, it was full of the most\n     disagreble things, and so very enoying to papa that he for a time\n     felt he must do something to show the author of it his great\n     displeasure at being so insulted. But he finally decided not to,\n     because he felt the man had some cause for feeling enoyed at, for\n     papa had spoken of him, (he was the baby's father) rather\n     slightingly in his Christian Union Article.\n\n     After all this, papa and mamma both wished I think they might never\n     hear or be spoken to on the subject of the Christian Union article,\n     and whenever any has spoken to me and told me \"How much they did\n     enjoy my father's article in the Christian Union\" I almost laughed\n     in their faces when I remembered what a great variety of oppinions\n     had been expressed upon the subject of the Christian Union article\n     of papa's.\n\n     The article was written in July or August and just the other day\n     papa received quite a bright letter from a gentleman who has read\n     the C. U. article and gave his opinion of it in these words.\n\n\nIt is missing. She probably put the letter between the leaves of the\nBiography and it got lost out. She threw away the hostile letters, but\ntried to keep the pleasantest one for her book; surely there has been no\nkindlier biographer than this one. Yet to a quite creditable degree she\nis loyal to the responsibilities of her position as historian--not\neulogist--and honorably gives me a quiet prod now and then. But how\nmany, many, many she has withheld that I deserved! I could prize them\nnow; there would be no acid in her words, and it is loss to me that she\ndid not set them all down. Oh, Susy, you sweet little biographer, you\nbreak my old heart with your gentle charities!\n\nI think a great deal of her work. Her canvases are on their easels, and\nher brush flies about in a care-free and random way, delivering a dash\nhere, a dash there and another yonder, and one might suppose that there\nwould be no definite result; on the contrary I think that an intelligent\nreader of her little book must find that by the time he has finished it\nhe has somehow accumulated a pretty clear and nicely shaded idea of the\nseveral members of this family--including Susy herself--and that the\nrandom dashes on the canvases have developed into portraits. I feel that\nmy own portrait, with some of the defects fined down and others left\nout, is here; and I am sure that any who knew the mother will recognize\nher without difficulty, and will say that the lines are drawn with a\njust judgment and a sure hand. Little creature though Susy was, the\npenetration which was born in her finds its way to the surface more than\nonce in these pages.\n\nBefore Susy began the Biography she let fall a remark now and then\nconcerning my character which showed that she had it under observation.\nIn the Record which we kept of the children's sayings there is an\ninstance of this. She was twelve years old at the time. We had\nestablished a rule that each member of the family must bring a fact to\nbreakfast--a fact drawn from a book or from any other source; any fact\nwould answer. Susy's first contribution was in substance as follows. Two\ngreat exiles and former opponents in war met in Ephesus--Scipio and\nHannibal. Scipio asked Hannibal to name the greatest general the world\nhad produced.\n\n\"Alexander\"--and he explained why.\n\n\"And the next greatest?\"\n\n\"Pyrrhus\"--and he explained why.\n\n\"But where do you place yourself, then?\"\n\n\"If I had conquered you I would place myself before the others.\"\n\nSusy's grave comment was--\n\n\"That _attracted_ me, it was just like papa--he is so frank about his\nbooks.\"\n\nSo frank in admiring them, she meant.\n\n\n[_Thursday, March 28, 1907._] Some months ago I commented upon a chapter\nof Susy's Biography wherein she very elaborately discussed an article\nabout the training and disciplining of children, which I had published\nin the \"Christian Union\" (this was twenty-one years ago), an article\nwhich was full of worshipful praises of Mrs. Clemens as a mother, and\nwhich little Clara, and Susy, and I had been hiding from this lovely and\nadmirable mother because we knew she would disapprove of public and\nprinted praises of herself. At the time that I was dictating these\ncomments, several months ago, I was trying to call back to my memory\nsome of the details of that article, but I was not able to do it, and I\nwished I had a copy of the article so that I could see what there was\nabout it which gave it such large interest for Susy.\n\nYesterday afternoon I elected to walk home from the luncheon at the St.\nRegis, which is in 56th Street and Fifth Avenue, for it was a fine\nspring day and I hadn't had a walk for a year or two, and felt the need\nof exercise. As I walked along down Fifth Avenue the desire to see that\n\"Christian Union\" article came into my head again. I had just reached\nthe corner of 42nd Street then, and there was the usual jam of wagons,\ncarriages, and automobiles there. I stopped to let it thin out before\ntrying to cross the street, but a stranger, who didn't require as much\nroom as I do, came racing by and darted into a crack among the vehicles\nand made the crossing. But on his way past me he thrust a couple of\nancient newspaper clippings into my hand, and said,\n\n\"There, you don't know me, but I have saved them in my scrap-book for\ntwenty years, and it occurred to me this morning that perhaps you would\nlike to see them, so I was carrying them down-town to mail them, I not\nexpecting to run across you in this accidental way, of course; but I\nwill give them into your own hands now. Good-by!\"--and he disappeared\namong the wagons.\n\nThose scraps which he had put into my hand were ancient newspaper copies\nof that \"Christian Union\" article! It is a handsome instance of mental\ntelegraphy--or if it isn't that, it is a handsome case of coincidence.\n\n_From the Biography._\n\n\n     _March 14th, '86._--Mr. Laurence Barrette and Mr. and Mrs. Hutton\n     were here a little while ago, and we had a very interesting visit\n     from them. Papa said Mr. Barette never had acted so well before\n     when he had seen him, as he did the first night he was staying with\n     us. And Mrs. ---- said she never had seen an actor on the stage,\n     whom she more wanted to speak with.\n\n     Papa has been very much interested of late, in the \"Mind Cure\"\n     theory. And in fact so have we all. A young lady in town has worked\n     wonders by using the \"Mind Cure\" upon people; she is constantly\n     busy now curing peoples deseases in this way--and curing her own\n     even, which to me seems the most remarkable of all.\n\n     A little while past, papa was delighted with the knowledge of what\n     he thought the best way of curing a cold, which was by starving it.\n     This starving did work beautifully, and freed him from a great many\n     severe colds. Now he says it wasn't the starving that helped his\n     colds, but the trust in the starving, the mind cure connected with\n     the starving.\n\n     I shouldn't wonder if we finally became firm believers in Mind\n     Cure. The next time papa has a cold, I haven't a doubt, he will\n     send for Miss H---- the young lady who is doctoring in the \"Mind\n     Cure\" theory, to cure him of it.\n\n     Mamma was over at Mrs. George Warners to lunch the other day, and\n     Miss H---- was there too. Mamma asked if anything as natural as\n     near sightedness could be cured she said oh yes just as well as\n     other deseases.\n\n     When mamma came home, she took me into her room, and told me that\n     perhaps my near-sightedness could be cured by the \"Mind Cure\" and\n     that she was going to have me try the treatment any way, there\n     could be no harm in it, and there might be great good. If her plan\n     succeeds there certainly will be a great deal in \"Mind Cure\" to my\n     oppinion, for I am very near sighted and so is mamma, and I never\n     expected there could be any more cure for it than for blindness,\n     but now I dont know but what theres a cure for _that_.\n\n\nIt was a disappointment; her near-sightedness remained with her to the\nend. She was born with it, no doubt; yet, strangely enough, she must\nhave been four years old, and possibly five, before we knew of its\nexistence. It is not easy to understand how that could have happened. I\ndiscovered the defect by accident. I was half-way up the hall stairs one\nday at home, and was leading her by the hand, when I glanced back\nthrough the open door of the dining-room and saw what I thought she\nwould recognise as a pretty picture. It was \"Stray Kit,\" the slender,\nthe graceful, the sociable, the beautiful, the incomparable, the cat of\ncats, the tortoise-shell, curled up as round as a wheel and sound asleep\non the fire-red cover of the dining-table, with a brilliant stream of\nsunlight falling across her. I exclaimed about it, but Susy said she\ncould see nothing there, neither cat nor table-cloth. The distance was\nso slight--not more than twenty feet, perhaps--that if it had been any\nother child I should not have credited the statement.\n\n_From the Biography._\n\n\n     _March 14th, '86._--Clara sprained her ankle, a little while ago,\n     by running into a tree, when coasting, and while she was unable to\n     walk with it she played solotaire with cards a great deal. While\n     Clara was sick and papa saw her play solotaire so much, he got very\n     much interested in the game, and finally began to play it himself a\n     little, then Jean took it up, and at last _mamma_, even played it\n     ocasionally; Jean's and papa's love for it rapidly increased, and\n     now Jean brings the cards every night to the table and papa and\n     mamma help her play, and before dinner is at an end, papa has\n     gotten a separate pack of cards, and is playing alone, with great\n     interest. Mamma and Clara next are made subject to the contagious\n     solatair, and there are four solotaireans at the table; while you\n     hear nothing but \"Fill up the place\" etc. It is dreadful! after\n     supper Clara goes into the library, and gets a little red mahogany\n     table, and placing it under the gas fixture seats herself and\n     begins to play again, then papa follows with another table of the\n     same discription, and they play solatair till bedtime.\n\n     We have just had our Prince and Pauper pictures taken; two groups\n     and some little single ones. The groups (the Interview and Lady\n     Jane Grey scene) were pretty good, the lady Jane scene was perfect,\n     just as pretty as it could be, the Interview was not so good; and\n     two of the little single pictures were very good indeed, but one\n     was very bad. Yet on the whole we think they were a success.\n\n     Papa has done a great deal in his life I think, that is good, and\n     very remarkable, but I think if he had had the advantages with\n     which he could have developed the gifts which he has made no use of\n     in writing his books, or in any other way for other peoples\n     pleasure and benefit outside of his own family and intimate\n     friends, he could have done _more_ than he has and a great deal\n     more even. He is known to the public as a humorist, but he has much\n     more in him that is earnest than that is humorous. He has a keen\n     sense of the ludicrous, notices funny stories and incidents knows\n     how to tell them, to improve upon them, and does not forget them.\n     He has been through a great many of the funny adventures related in\n     \"Tom Sawyer\" and in \"Huckleberry Finn,\" _himself_ and he lived among\n     just such boys, and in just such villages all the days of his early\n     life. His \"Prince and Pauper\" is his most orriginal, and best\n     production; it shows the most of any of his books what kind of\n     pictures are in his mind, usually. Not that the pictures of England\n     in the 16th Century and the adventures of a little prince and\n     pauper are the kind of things he mainly thinks about; but that\n     _that_ book, and those pictures represent the train of thought and\n     imagination he would be likely to be thinking of to-day, to-morrow,\n     or next day, more nearly than those given in \"Tom Sawyer\" or\n     \"Huckleberry Finn.\"[13]\n\n     Papa can make exceedingly bright jokes, and he enjoys funny things,\n     and when he is with people he jokes and laughs a great deal, but\n     still he is more interested in earnest books and earnest subjects\n     to talk upon, than in humorous ones.[14]\n\n     When we are all alone at home, nine times out of ten, he talks\n     about some very earnest subjects, (with an ocasional joke thrown\n     in) and he a good deal more often talks upon such subjects than\n     upon the other kind.\n\n     He is as much of a Pholosopher as anything I think. I think he\n     could have done a great deal in this direction if he had studied\n     while young, for he seems to enjoy reasoning out things, no matter\n     what; in a great many such directions he has greater ability than\n     in the gifts which have made him famous.\n\n\nThus at fourteen she had made up her mind about me, and in no timorous\nor uncertain terms had set down her reasons for her opinion. Fifteen\nyears were to pass before any other critic--except Mr. Howells, I\nthink--was to reutter that daring opinion and print it. Right or wrong,\nit was a brave position for that little analyser to take. She never\nwithdrew it afterward, nor modified it. She has spoken of herself as\nlacking physical courage, and has evinced her admiration of Clara's; but\nshe had moral courage, which is the rarest of human qualities, and she\nkept it functionable by exercising it. I think that in questions of\nmorals and politics she was usually on my side; but when she was not\nshe had her reasons and maintained her ground. Two years after she\npassed out of my life I wrote a Philosophy. Of the three persons who\nhave seen the manuscript only one understood it, and all three condemned\nit. If she could have read it, she also would have condemned it,\npossibly,--probably, in fact--but she would have understood it. It would\nhave had no difficulties for her on that score; also she would have\nfound a tireless pleasure in analyzing and discussing its problems.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[13] It is so yet--M. T.\n\n[14] She has said it well and correctly. Humor is a subject which has\nnever had much interest for me. This is why I have never examined it,\nnor written about it nor used it as a topic for a speech. A hundred\ntimes it has been offered me as a topic in these past forty years, but\nin no case has it attracted me.--M. T.\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXVI.\n\nJUNE 7, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XIX.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n_From Susy's Biography of Me._\n\n\n     _March 23, '86._--The other day was my birthday, and I had a little\n     birthday party in the evening and papa acted some very funny\n     charades with Mr. Gherhardt, Mr. Jesse Grant (who had come up from\n     New York and was spending the evening with us) and Mr. Frank\n     Warner. One of them was \"on his knees\" honys-sneeze. There were a\n     good many other funny ones, all of which I dont remember. Mr. Grant\n     was very pleasant, and began playing the charades in the most\n     delightful way.\n\n\nSusy's spelling has defeated me, this time. I cannot make out what\n\"honys-sneeze\" stands for. Impromptu charades were almost a nightly\npastime of ours, from the children's earliest days--they played in them\nwith me when they were only five or six years old. As they increased in\nyears and practice their love for the sport almost amounted to a\npassion, and they acted their parts with a steadily increasing ability.\nAt first they required much drilling; but later they were generally\nready as soon as the parts were assigned, and they acted them according\nto their own devices. Their stage facility and absence of constraint and\nself-consciousness in the \"Prince and Pauper\" was a result of their\ncharading practice.\n\nAt ten and twelve Susy wrote plays, and she and Daisy Warner and Clara\nplayed them in the library or up-stairs in the school-room, with only\nthemselves and the servants for audience. They were of a tragic and\ntremendous sort, and were performed with great energy and earnestness.\nThey were dramatized (freely) from English history, and in them Mary\nQueen of Scots and Elizabeth had few holidays. The clothes were borrowed\nfrom the mother's wardrobe and the gowns were longer than necessary, but\nthat was not regarded as a defect. In one of these plays Jean (three\nyears old, perhaps) was Sir Francis Bacon. She was not dressed for the\npart, and did not have to say anything, but sat silent and decorous at a\ntiny table and was kept busy signing death-warrants. It was a really\nimportant office, for few entered those plays and got out of them alive.\n\n\n     _March 26._--Mamma and Papa have been in New York for two or three\n     days, and Miss Corey has been staying with us. They are coming home\n     to-day at two o'clock.\n\n     Papa has just begun to play chess, and he is very fond of it, so he\n     has engaged to play with Mrs. Charles Warner every morning from 10\n     to 12, he came down to supper last night, full of this pleasant\n     prospect, but evidently with something on his mind. Finally he said\n     to mamma in an appologetical tone, Susy Warner and I have a plan.\n\n     \"Well\" mamma said \"what now, I wonder?\"\n\n     Papa said that Susy Warner and he were going to name the chess\n     after some of the old bible heroes, and then play chess on Sunday.\n\n\n     _April 18, '86._--Mamma and papa Clara and Daisy have gone to New\n     York to see the \"Mikado.\" They are coming home to-night at half\n     past seven.\n\n     Last winter when Mr. Cable was lecturing with papa, he wrote this\n     letter to him just before he came to visit us.\n\n\n     DEAR UNCLE,--That's one nice thing about me, I never bother any\n     one, to offer me a good thing twice. You dont ask me to stay over\n     Sunday, but then you dont ask me to leave Saturday night, and\n     knowing the nobility of your nature as I do--thank you, I'll stay\n     till Monday morning.[15]\n\n                   Your's and the dear familie's\n                                              GEORGE W. CABLE.\n\n\n[_December 22, 1906._] It seems a prodigious while ago! Two or three\nnights ago I dined at a friend's house with a score of other men, and at\nmy side was Cable--actually almost an old man, really almost an old man,\nthat once so young chap! 62 years old, frost on his head, seven\ngrandchildren in stock, and a brand-new wife to re-begin life with!\n\n[_Dictated Nov. 19, 1906._]\n\n\n     Ever since papa and mamma were married, papa has written his books\n     and then taken them to mamma in manuscript and she has expergated\n     them. Papa read \"Huckleberry Finn\" to us in manuscript just before\n     it came out, and then he would leave parts of it with mamma to\n     expergate, while he went off up to the study to work, and sometimes\n     Clara and I would be sitting with mamma while she was looking the\n     manuscript over, and I remember so well, with what pangs of regret\n     we used to see her turn down the leaves of the pages, which meant\n     that some delightfully dreadful part must be scratched out. And I\n     remember one part pertickularly which was perfectly fascinating it\n     was dreadful, that Clara and I used to delight in, and oh with what\n     dispair we saw mamma turn down the leaf on which it was written, we\n     thought the book would be almost ruined without it. But we\n     gradually came to feel as mamma did.\n\n\nIt would be a pity to replace the vivacity and quaintness and felicity\nof Susy's innocent free spelling with the dull and petrified\nuniformities of the spelling-book. Nearly all the grimness it taken out\nof the \"expergating\" of my books by the subtle mollification\naccidentally infused into the word by Susy's modification of the\nspelling of it.\n\nI remember the special case mentioned by Susy, and can see the group\nyet--two-thirds of it pleading for the life of the culprit sentence that\nwas so fascinatingly dreadful and the other third of it patiently\nexplaining why the court could not grant the prayer of the pleaders; but\nI do not remember what the condemned phrase was. It had much company,\nand they all went to the gallows; but it is possible that that specially\ndreadful one which gave those little people so much delight was\ncunningly devised and put into the book for just that function, and not\nwith any hope or expectation that it would get by the \"exper-gator\"\nalive. It is possible, for I had that custom.\n\nSusy's quaint and effective spelling falls quite opportunely into\nto-day's atmosphere, which is heavy with the rumblings and grumblings\nand mutterings of the Simplified Spelling Reform. Andrew Carnegie\nstarted this storm, a couple of years ago, by moving a simplifying of\nEnglish orthography, and establishing a fund for the prosecution and\nmaintenance of the crusade. He began gently. He addressed a circular to\nsome hundreds of his friends, asking them to simplify the spelling of a\ndozen of our badly spelt words--I think they were only words which end\nwith the superfluous _ugh_. He asked that these friends use the\nsuggested spellings in their private correspondence.\n\nBy this, one perceives that the beginning was sufficiently quiet and\nunaggressive.\n\nNext stage: a small committee was appointed, with Brander Matthews for\nmanaging director and spokesman. It issued a list of three hundred\nwords, of average silliness as to spelling, and proposed new and sane\nspellings for these words. The President of the United States,\nunsolicited, adopted these simplified three hundred officially, and\nordered that they be used in the official documents of the Government.\nIt was now remarked, by all the educated and the thoughtful except the\nclergy that Sheol was to pay. This was most justly and comprehensively\ndescriptive. The indignant British lion rose, with a roar that was heard\nacross the Atlantic, and stood there on his little isle, gazing,\nred-eyed, out over the glooming seas, snow-flecked with driving\nspindrift, and lathing his tail--a most scary spectacle to see.\n\nThe lion was outraged because we, a nation of children, without any\ngrown-up people among us, with no property in the language, but using it\nmerely by courtesy of its owner the English nation, were trying to\ndefile the sacredness of it by removing from it peculiarities which had\nbeen its ornament and which had made it holy and beautiful for ages.\n\nIn truth there is a certain sardonic propriety in preserving our\northography, since ours is a mongrel language which started with a\nchild's vocabulary of three hundred words, and now consists of two\nhundred and twenty-five thousand; the whole lot, with the exception of\nthe original and legitimate three hundred, borrowed, stolen, smouched\nfrom every unwatched language under the sun, the spelling of each\nindividual word of the lot locating the source of the theft and\npreserving the memory of the revered crime.\n\nWhy is it that I have intruded into this turmoil and manifested a desire\nto get our orthography purged of its asininities? Indeed I do not know\nwhy I should manifest any interest in the matter, for at bottom I\ndisrespect our orthography most heartily, and as heartily disrespect\neverything that has been said by anybody in defence of it. Nothing\nprofessing to be a defence of our ludicrous spellings has had any basis,\nso far as my observation goes, except sentimentality. In these\n\"arguments\" the term venerable is used instead of mouldy, and hallowed\ninstead of devilish; whereas there is nothing properly venerable or\nantique about a language which is not yet four hundred years old, and\nabout a jumble of imbecile spellings which were grotesque in the\nbeginning, and which grow more and more grotesque with the flight of the\nyears.\n\n[_Dictated Monday, November 30, 1906._]\n\n\n     Jean and Papa were walking out past the barn the other day when\n     Jean saw some little newly born baby ducks, she exclaimed as she\n     perceived them \"I dont see why God gives us so much ducks when\n     Patrick kills them so.\"\n\n\nSusy is mistaken as to the origin of the ducks. They were not a gift, I\nbought them. I am not finding fault with her, for that would be most\nunfair. She is remarkably accurate in her statements as a historian, as\na rule, and it would not be just to make much of this small slip of\nhers; besides I think it was a quite natural slip, for by heredity and\nhabit ours was a religious household, and it was a common thing with us\nwhenever anybody did a handsome thing, to give the credit of it to\nProvidence, without examining into the matter. This may be called\nautomatic religion--in fact that is what it is; it is so used to its\nwork that it can do it without your help or even your privity; out of\nall the facts and statistics that may be placed before it, it will\nalways get the one result, since it has never been taught to seek any\nother. It is thus the unreflecting cause of much injustice. As we have\nseen, it betrayed Susy into an injustice toward me. It had to be\nautomatic, for she would have been far from doing me an injustice when\nin her right mind. It was a dear little biographer, and she meant me no\nharm, and I am not censuring her now, but am only desirous of correcting\nin advance an erroneous impression which her words would be sure to\nconvey to a reader's mind. No elaboration of this matter is necessary;\nit is sufficient to say _I_ provided the ducks.\n\nIt was in Hartford. The greensward sloped down-hill from the house to\nthe sluggish little river that flowed through the grounds, and Patrick,\nwho was fertile in good ideas, had early conceived the idea of having\nhome-made ducks for our table. Every morning he drove them from the\nstable down to the river, and the children were always there to see and\nadmire the waddling white procession; they were there again at sunset to\nsee Patrick conduct the procession back to its lodgings in the stable.\nBut this was not always a gay and happy holiday show, with joy in it for\nthe witnesses; no, too frequently there was a tragedy connected with it,\nand then there were tears and pain for the children. There was a\nstranded log or two in the river, and on these certain families of\nsnapping-turtles used to congregate and drowse in the sun and give\nthanks, in their dumb way, to Providence for benevolence extended to\nthem. It was but another instance of misplaced credit; it was the young\nducks that those pious reptiles were so thankful for--whereas they were\n_my_ ducks. I bought the ducks.\n\nWhen a crop of young ducks, not yet quite old enough for the table but\napproaching that age, began to join the procession, and paddle around in\nthe sluggish water, and give thanks--not to me--for that privilege, the\nsnapping-turtles would suspend their songs of praise and slide off the\nlogs and paddle along under the water and chew the feet of the young\nducks. Presently Patrick would notice that two or three of those little\ncreatures were not moving about, but were apparently at anchor, and were\nnot looking as thankful as they had been looking a short time before. He\nearly found out what that sign meant--a submerged snapping-turtle was\ntaking his breakfast, and silently singing his gratitude. Every day or\ntwo Patrick would rescue and fetch up a little duck with incomplete legs\nto stand upon--nothing left of their extremities but gnawed and bleeding\nstumps. Then the children said pitying things and wept--and at dinner we\nfinished the tragedy which the turtles had begun. Thus, as will be\nseen--out of season, at least--it was really the turtles that gave us\nso much ducks. At my expense.\n\n\n     Papa has written a new version of \"There is a happy land\" it is--\n\n\n     \"There is a boarding-house\n               Far, far away,\n     Where they have ham and eggs,\n               Three times a day.\n     Oh dont those boarders yell\n     When they hear the dinner-bell,\n     They give that land-lord rats\n               Three times a day.\"\n\n\nAgain Susy has made a small error. It was not I that wrote the song. I\nheard Billy Rice sing it in the negro minstrel show, and I brought it\nhome and sang it--with great spirit--for the elevation of the household.\nThe children admired it to the limit, and made me sing it with\nburdensome frequency. To their minds it was superior to the Battle Hymn\nof the Republic.\n\nHow many years ago that was! Where now is Billy Rice? He was a joy to\nme, and so were the other stars of the nigger-show--Billy Birch, David\nWambold, Backus, and a delightful dozen of their brethren, who made life\na pleasure to me forty years ago, and later. Birch, Wambold, and Backus\nare gone years ago; and with them departed to return no more forever, I\nsuppose, the real nigger-show--the genuine nigger-show, the extravagant\nnigger-show,--the show which to me had no peer and whose peer has not\nyet arrived, in my experience. We have the grand opera; and I have\nwitnessed, and greatly enjoyed, the first act of everything which Wagner\ncreated, but the effect on me has always been so powerful that one act\nwas quite sufficient; whenever I have witnessed two acts I have gone\naway physically exhausted; and whenever I have ventured an entire opera\nthe result has been the next thing to suicide. But if I could have the\nnigger-show back again, in its pristine purity and perfection, I should\nhave but little further use for opera. It seems to me that to the\nelevated mind and the sensitive spirit the hand-organ and the\nnigger-show are a standard and a summit to whose rarefied altitude the\nother forms of musical art may not hope to reach.\n\n[_Dictated September 5, 1906._] It is years since I have examined \"The\nChildren's Record.\" I have turned over a few of its pages this morning.\nThis book is a record in which Mrs. Clemens and I registered some of\nthe sayings and doings of the children, in the long ago, when they were\nlittle chaps. Of course, we wrote these things down at the time because\nthey were of momentary interest--things of the passing hour, and of no\npermanent value--but at this distant day I find that they still possess\nan interest for me and also a value, because it turns out that they were\n_registrations of character_. The qualities then revealed by fitful\nglimpses, in childish acts and speeches, remained as a permanency in the\nchildren's characters in the drift of the years, and were always\nafterwards clearly and definitely recognizable.\n\nThere is a masterful streak in Jean that now and then moves her to set\nmy authority aside for a moment and end a losing argument in that prompt\nand effective fashion. And here in this old book I find evidence that\nshe was just like that before she was quite four years old.\n\n\n     _From The Children's Record. Quarry Farm, July 7, 1884._--Yesterday\n     evening our cows (after being inspected and worshipped by Jean from\n     the shed for an hour,) wandered off down into the pasture, and left\n     her bereft. I thought I was going to get back home, now, but that\n     was an error. Jean knew of some more cows, in a field somewhere,\n     and took my hand and led me thitherward. When we turned the corner\n     and took the right-hand road, I saw that we should presently be out\n     of range of call and sight; so I began to argue against continuing\n     the expedition, and Jean began to argue in favor of it--she using\n     English for light skirmishing, and German for \"business.\" I kept up\n     my end with vigor, and demolished her arguments in detail, one\n     after the other, till I judged I had her about cornered. She\n     hesitated a moment, then answered up sharply:\n\n     \"_Wir werden nichts mehr dar\u00fcber sprechen!_\" (We won't talk any\n     more about it!)\n\n     It nearly took my breath away; though I thought I might possibly\n     have misunderstood. I said:\n\n     \"Why, you little rascal! _Was hast du gesagt?_\"\n\n     But she said the same words over again, and in the same decided\n     way. I suppose I ought to have been outraged; but I wasn't, I was\n     charmed. And I suppose I ought to have spanked her; but I didn't, I\n     fraternized with the enemy, and we went on and spent half an hour\n     with the cows.\n\n\nThat incident is followed in the \"Record\" by the following paragraph,\nwhich is another instance of a juvenile characteristic maintaining\nitself into mature age. Susy was persistently and conscientiously\ntruthful throughout her life with the exception of one interruption\ncovering several months, and perhaps a year. This was while she was\nstill a little child. Suddenly--not gradually--she began to lie; not\nfurtively, but frankly, openly, and on a scale quite disproportioned to\nher size. Her mother was so stunned, so nearly paralyzed for a day or\ntwo, that she did not know what to do with the emergency. Reasonings,\npersuasions, beseechings, all went for nothing; they produced no effect;\nthe lying went tranquilly on. Other remedies were tried, but they\nfailed. There is a tradition that success was finally accomplished by\nwhipping. I think the Record says so, but if it does it is because the\nRecord is incomplete. Whipping was indeed tried, and was faithfully kept\nup during two or three weeks, but the results were merely temporary; the\nreforms achieved were discouragingly brief.\n\nFortunately for Susy, an incident presently occurred which put a\ncomplete stop to all the mother's efforts in the direction of reform.\nThis incident was the chance discovery in Darwin of a passage which said\nthat when a child exhibits a sudden and unaccountable disposition to\nforsake the truth and restrict itself to lying, the explanation must be\nsought away back in the past; that an ancestor of the child had had the\nsame disease, at the same tender age; that it was irremovable by\npersuasion or punishment, and that it had ceased as suddenly and as\nmysteriously as it had come, when it had run its appointed course. I\nthink Mr. Darwin said that nothing was necessary but to leave the matter\nalone and let the malady have its way and perish by the statute of\nlimitations.\n\nWe had confidence in Darwin, and after that day Susy was relieved of our\nreformatory persecutions. She went on lying without let or hindrance\nduring several months, or a year; then the lying suddenly ceased, and\nshe became as conscientiously and exactingly truthful as she had been\nbefore the attack, and she remained so to the end of her life.\n\nThe paragraph in the Record to which I have been leading up is in my\nhandwriting, and is of a date so long posterior to the time of the lying\nmalady that she had evidently forgotten that truth-speaking had ever had\nany difficulties for her.\n\n\n     Mama was speaking of a servant who had been pretty unveracious, but\n     was now \"trying to tell the truth.\" Susy was a good deal surprised,\n     and said she shouldn't think anybody would have to _try_ to tell\n     the truth.\n\n\nIn the Record the children's acts and speeches quite definitely define\ntheir characters. Susy's indicated the presence of mentality--\nthought--and they were generally marked by gravity. She was timid, on\nher physical side, but had an abundance of moral courage. Clara was\nsturdy, independent, orderly, practical, persistent, plucky--just a\nlittle animal, and very satisfactory. Charles Dudley Warner said Susy\nwas made of mind, and Clara of matter.\n\nWhen Motley, the kitten, died, some one said that the thoughts of the\ntwo children need not be inquired into, they could be divined: that Susy\nwas wondering if this was the _end_ of Motley, and had his life been\nworth while; whereas Clara was merely interested in seeing to it that\nthere should be a creditable funeral.\n\nIn those days Susy was a dreamer, a thinker, a poet and philosopher, and\nClara--well, Clara wasn't. In after-years a passion for music developed\nthe latent spirituality and intellectuality in Clara, and her\npracticality took second and, in fact, even third place. Jean was from\nthe beginning orderly, steady, diligent, persistent; and remains so. She\npicked up languages easily, and kept them.\n\n\n     _Susy aged eleven, Jean three._--Susy said the other day when she\n     saw Jean bringing a cat to me of her own motion, \"Jean has found\n     out already that mamma loves morals and papa loves cats.\"\n\n\nIt is another of Susy's remorselessly sound verdicts.\n\nAs a child, Jean neglected my books. When she was nine years old Will\nGillette invited her and the rest of us to a dinner at the Murray Hill\nHotel in New York, in order that we might get acquainted with Mrs.\nLeslie and her daughters. Elsie Leslie was nine years old, and was a\ngreat celebrity on the stage. Jean was astonished and awed to see that\nlittle slip of a thing sit up at table and take part in the conversation\nof the grown people, capably and with ease and tranquillity. Poor Jean\nwas obliged to keep still, for the subjects discussed never happened to\nhit her level, but at last the talk fell within her limit and she had\nher chance to contribute to it. \"Tom Sawyer\" was mentioned. Jean spoke\ngratefully up and said,\n\n\"I know who wrote that book--Harriet Beecher Stowe!\"\n\n\n     One evening Susy had prayed, Clara was curled up for sleep; she was\n     reminded that it was her turn to pray now. She laid \"Oh! one's\n     enough,\" and dropped off to slumber.\n\n     _Clara five years old._--We were in Germany. The nurse, Rosa, was\n     not allowed to speak to the children otherwise than in German.\n     Clara grew very tired of it; by and by the little creature's\n     patience was exhausted, and she said \"Aunt Clara, I wish God had\n     made Rosa in English.\"\n\n     _Clara four years old, Susy six._--This morning when Clara\n     discovered that this is my birthday, she was greatly troubled\n     because she had provided no gift for me, and repeated her sorrow\n     several times. Finally she went musing to the nursery and presently\n     returned with her newest and dearest treasure, a large toy horse,\n     and said, \"You shall have this horse for your birthday, papa.\"\n\n     I accepted it with many thanks. After an hour she was racing up and\n     down the room with the horse, when Susy said,\n\n     \"Why Clara, you gave that horse to papa, and now you've tooken it\n     again.\"\n\n     _Clara._--\"I never give it to him for always; I give it to him for\n     his birthday.\"\n\n\n     In Geneva, in September, I lay abed late one morning, and as Clara\n     was passing through the room I took her on my bed a moment. Then\n     the child went to Clara Spaulding and said,\n\n     \"Aunt Clara, papa is a good deal of trouble to me.\"\n\n     \"Is he? Why?\"\n\n     \"Well, he wants me to get in bed with him, and I can't do that with\n     jelmuls [gentlemen]--I don't like jelmuls anyway.\"\n\n     \"What, you don't like gentlemen! Don't you like Uncle Theodore\n     Crane?\"\n\n     \"Oh yes, but he's not a jelmul, he's a friend.\"\n\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[15] Cable never travelled Sundays.\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXVIII.\n\nJULY 5, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XX.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1868.)]\n\n[_Notes on \"Innocents Abroad.\" Dictated in Florence, Italy, April,\n1904._]--I will begin with a note upon the dedication. I wrote the book\nin the months of March and April, 1868, in San Francisco. It was\npublished in August, 1869. Three years afterward Mr. Goodman, of\nVirginia City, Nevada, on whose newspaper I had served ten years before,\ncame East, and we were walking down Broadway one day when he said: \"How\ndid you come to steal Oliver Wendell Holmes's dedication and put it in\nyour book?\"\n\nI made a careless and inconsequential answer, for I supposed he was\njoking. But he assured me that he was in earnest. He said: \"I'm not\ndiscussing the question of whether you stole it or didn't--for that is a\nquestion that can be settled in the first bookstore we come to--I am\nonly asking you _how_ you came to steal it, for that is where my\ncuriosity is focalized.\"\n\nI couldn't accommodate him with this information, as I hadn't it in\nstock. I could have made oath that I had not stolen anything, therefore\nmy vanity was not hurt nor my spirit troubled. At bottom I supposed that\nhe had mistaken another book for mine, and was now getting himself into\nan untenable place and preparing sorrow for himself and triumph for me.\nWe entered a bookstore and he asked for \"The Innocents Abroad\" and for\nthe dainty little blue and gold edition of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes's\npoems. He opened the books, exposed their dedications and said: \"Read\nthem. It is plain that the author of the second one stole the first one,\nisn't it?\"\n\nI was very much ashamed, and unspeakably astonished. We continued our\nwalk, but I was not able to throw any gleam of light upon that original\nquestion of his. I could not remember ever having seen Dr. Holmes's\ndedication. I knew the poems, but the dedication was new to me.\n\nI did not get hold of the key to that secret until months afterward,\nthen it came in a curious way, and yet it was a natural way; for the\nnatural way provided by nature and the construction of the human mind\nfor the discovery of a forgotten event is to employ another forgotten\nevent for its resurrection.\n\n[Sidenote: (1866.)]\n\nI received a letter from the Rev. Dr. Rising, who had been rector of the\nEpiscopal church in Virginia City in my time, in which letter Dr. Rising\nmade reference to certain things which had happened to us in the\nSandwich Islands six years before; among things he made casual mention\nof the Honolulu Hotel's poverty in the matter of literature. At first I\ndid not see the bearing of the remark, it called nothing to my mind. But\npresently it did--with a flash! There was but one book in Mr. Kirchhof's\nhotel, and that was the first volume of Dr. Holmes's blue and gold\nseries. I had had a fortnight's chance to get well acquainted with its\ncontents, for I had ridden around the big island (Hawaii) on horseback\nand had brought back so many saddle boils that if there had been a duty\non them it would have bankrupted me to pay it. They kept me in my room,\nunclothed, and in persistent pain for two weeks, with no company but\ncigars and the little volume of poems. Of course I read them almost\nconstantly; I read them from beginning to end, then read them backwards,\nthen began in the middle and read them both ways, then read them wrong\nend first and upside down. In a word, I read the book to rags, and was\ninfinitely grateful to the hand that wrote it.\n\nHere we have an exhibition of what repetition can do, when persisted in\ndaily and hourly over a considerable stretch of time, where one is\nmerely reading for entertainment, without thought or intention of\npreserving in the memory that which is read. It is a process which in\nthe course of years dries all the juice out of a familiar verse of\nScripture, leaving nothing but a sapless husk behind. In that case you\nat least know the origin of the husk, but in the case in point I\napparently preserved the husk but presently forgot whence it came. It\nlay lost in some dim corner of my memory a year or two, then came\nforward when I needed a dedication, and was promptly mistaken by me as a\nchild of my own happy fancy.\n\nI was new, I was ignorant, the mysteries of the human mind were a sealed\nbook to me as yet, and I stupidly looked upon myself as a tough and\nunforgivable criminal. I wrote to Dr. Holmes and told him the whole\ndisgraceful affair, implored him in impassioned language to believe that\nI had never intended to commit this crime, and was unaware that I had\ncommitted it until I was confronted with the awful evidence. I have lost\nhis answer, I could better have afforded to lose an uncle. Of these I\nhad a surplus, many of them of no real value to me, but that letter was\nbeyond price, beyond uncledom, and unsparable. In it Dr. Holmes laughed\nthe kindest and healingest laugh over the whole matter, and at\nconsiderable length and in happy phrase assured me that there was no\ncrime in unconscious plagiarism; that I committed it every day, that he\ncommitted it every day, that every man alive on the earth who writes or\nspeaks commits it every day and not merely once or twice but every time\nhe opens his mouth; that all our phrasings are spiritualized shadows\ncast multitudinously from our readings; that no happy phrase of ours is\never quite original with us, there is nothing of our own in it except\nsome slight change born of our temperament, character, environment,\nteachings and associations; that this slight change differentiates it\nfrom another man's manner of saying it, stamps it with our special\nstyle, and makes it our own for the time being; all the rest of it being\nold, moldy, antique, and smelling of the breath of a thousand\ngenerations of them that have passed it over their teeth before!\n\nIn the thirty-odd years which have come and gone since then, I have\nsatisfied myself that what Dr. Holmes said was true.\n\nI wish to make a note upon the preface of the \"Innocents.\" In the last\nparagraph of that brief preface, I speak of the proprietors of the\n\"Daily Alta California\" having \"waived their rights\" in certain letters\nwhich I wrote for that journal while absent on the \"Quaker City\" trip. I\nwas young then, I am white-headed now, but the insult of that word\nrankles yet, now that I am reading that paragraph for the first time in\nmany years, reading it for the first time since it was written, perhaps.\nThere were rights, it is true--such rights as the strong are able to\nacquire over the weak and the absent. Early in '66 George Barnes invited\nme to resign my reportership on his paper, the San Francisco \"Morning\nCall,\" and for some months thereafter I was without money or work; then\nI had a pleasant turn of fortune. The proprietors of the \"Sacramento\nUnion,\" a great and influential daily journal, sent me to the Sandwich\nIslands to write four letters a month at twenty dollars apiece. I was\nthere four or five months, and returned to find myself about the best\nknown honest man on the Pacific Coast. Thomas McGuire, proprietor of\nseveral theatres, said that now was the time to make my fortune--strike\nwhile the iron was hot!--break into the lecture field! I did it. I\nannounced a lecture on the Sandwich Islands, closing the advertisement\nwith the remark, \"Admission one dollar; doors open at half-past 7, the\ntrouble begins at 8.\" A true prophecy. The trouble certainly did begin\nat 8, when I found myself in front of the only audience I had ever\nfaced, for the fright which pervaded me from head to foot was\nparalyzing. It lasted two minutes and was as bitter as death, the memory\nof it is indestructible, but it had its compensations, for it made me\nimmune from timidity before audiences for all time to come. I lectured\nin all the principal Californian towns and in Nevada, then lectured once\nor twice more in San Francisco, then retired from the field rich--for\nme--and laid out a plan to sail Westward from San Francisco, and go\naround the world. The proprietors of the \"Alta\" engaged me to write an\naccount of the trip for that paper--fifty letters of a column and a half\neach, which would be about two thousand words per letter, and the pay to\nbe twenty dollars per letter.\n\nI went East to St. Louis to say good-bye to my mother, and then I was\nbitten by the prospectus of Captain Duncan of the \"Quaker City\"\nexcursion, and I ended by joining it. During the trip I wrote and sent\nthe fifty letters; six of them miscarried, and I wrote six new ones to\ncomplete my contract. Then I put together a lecture on the trip and\ndelivered it in San Francisco at great and satisfactory pecuniary\nprofit, then I branched out into the country and was aghast at the\nresult: I had been entirely forgotten, I never had people enough in my\nhouses to sit as a jury of inquest on my lost reputation! I inquired\ninto this curious condition of things and found that the thrifty owners\nof that prodigiously rich \"Alta\" newspaper had _copyrighted_ all those\npoor little twenty-dollar letters, and had threatened with prosecution\nany journal which should venture to copy a paragraph from them!\n\nAnd there I was! I had contracted to furnish a large book, concerning\nthe excursion, to the American Publishing Co. of Hartford, and I\nsupposed I should need all those letters to fill it out with. I was in\nan uncomfortable situation--that is, if the proprietors of this\nstealthily acquired copyright should refuse to let me use the letters.\nThat is just what they did; Mr. Mac--something--I have forgotten the\nrest of his name--said his firm were going to make a book out of the\nletters in order to get back the thousand dollars which they had paid\nfor them. I said that if they had acted fairly and honorably, and had\nallowed the country press to use the letters or portions of them, my\nlecture-skirmish on the coast would have paid me ten thousand dollars,\nwhereas the \"Alta\" had lost me that amount. Then he offered a\ncompromise: he would publish the book and allow me ten per cent. royalty\non it. The compromise did not appeal to me, and I said so. I was now\nquite unknown outside of San Francisco, the book's sale would be\nconfined to that city, and my royalty would not pay me enough to board\nme three months; whereas my Eastern contract, if carried out, could be\nprofitable to me, for I had a sort of reputation on the Atlantic\nseaboard acquired through the publication of six excursion-letters in\nthe New York \"Tribune\" and one or two in the \"Herald.\"\n\nIn the end Mr. Mac agreed to suppress his book, on certain conditions:\nin my preface I must thank the \"Alta\" for waiving \"rights\" and granting\nme permission. I objected to the thanks. I could not with any large\ndegree of sincerity thank the \"Alta\" for bankrupting my lecture-raid.\nAfter considerable debate my point was conceded and the thanks left out.\n\n[Sidenote: (1902.)]\n\n[Sidenote: (1904.)]\n\n[Sidenote: (1897.)]\n\nNoah Brooks was the editor of the \"Alta\" at the time, a man of sterling\ncharacter and equipped with a right heart, also a good historian where\nfacts were not essential. In biographical sketches of me written many\nyears afterward (1902), he was quite eloquent in praises of the\ngenerosity of the \"Alta\" people in giving to me without compensation a\nbook which, as history had afterward shown, was worth a fortune. After\nall the fuss, I did not levy heavily upon the \"Alta\" letters. I found\nthat they were newspaper matter, not book matter. They had been written\nhere and there and yonder, as opportunity had given me a chance\nworking-moment or two during our feverish flight around about Europe or\nin the furnace-heat of my stateroom on board the \"Quaker City,\"\ntherefore they were loosely constructed, and needed to have some of the\nwind and water squeezed out of them. I used several of them--ten or\ntwelve, perhaps. I wrote the rest of \"The Innocents Abroad\" in sixty\ndays, and I could have added a fortnight's labor with the pen and gotten\nalong without the letters altogether. I was very young in those days,\nexceedingly young, marvellously young, younger than I am now, younger\nthan I shall ever be again, by hundreds of years. I worked every night\nfrom eleven or twelve until broad day in the morning, and as I did two\nhundred thousand words in the sixty days, the average was more than\nthree thousand words a day--nothing for Sir Walter Scott, nothing for\nLouis Stevenson, nothing for plenty of other people, but quite handsome\nfor me. In 1897, when we were living in Tedworth Square, London, and I\nwas writing the book called \"Following the Equator\" my average was\neighteen hundred words a day; here in Florence (1904), my average seems\nto be fourteen hundred words per sitting of four or five hours.[16]\n\nI was deducing from the above that I have been slowing down steadily in\nthese thirty-six years, but I perceive that my statistics have a\ndefect: three thousand words in the spring of 1868 when I was working\nseven or eight or nine hours at a sitting has little or no advantage\nover the sitting of to-day, covering half the time and producing half\nthe output. Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the\narranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to\nDisraeli would often apply with justice and force:\n\n\"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.\"\n\n[_Dictated, January 23, 1907._]--The proverb says that Providence\nprotects children and idiots. This is really true. I know it because I\nhave tested it. It did not protect George through the most of his\ncampaign, but it saved him in his last inning, and the veracity of the\nproverb stood confirmed.\n\n[Sidenote: (1865.)]\n\nI have several times been saved by this mysterious interposition, when I\nwas manifestly in extreme peril. It has been common, all my life, for\nsmart people to perceive in me an easy prey for selfish designs, and I\nhave walked without suspicion into the trap set for me, yet have often\ncome out unscathed, against all the likelihoods. More than forty years\nago, in San Francisco, the office staff adjourned, upon conclusion of\nits work at two o'clock in the morning, to a great bowling establishment\nwhere there were twelve alleys. I was invited, rather perfunctorily, and\nas a matter of etiquette--by which I mean that I was invited politely,\nbut not urgently. But when I diffidently declined, with thanks, and\nexplained that I knew nothing about the game, those lively young fellows\nbecame at once eager and anxious and urgent to have my society. This\nflattered me, for I perceived no trap, and I innocently and gratefully\naccepted their invitation. I was given an alley all to myself. The boys\nexplained the game to me, and they also explained to me that there would\nbe an hour's play, and that the player who scored the fewest ten-strikes\nin the hour would have to provide oysters and beer for the combination.\nThis disturbed me very seriously, since it promised me bankruptcy, and I\nwas sorry that this detail had been overlooked in the beginning. But my\npride would not allow me to back out now, so I stayed in, and did what I\ncould to look satisfied and glad I had come. It is not likely that I\nlooked as contented as I wanted to, but the others looked glad enough to\nmake up for it, for they were quite unable to hide their evil joy. They\nshowed me how to stand, and how to stoop, and how to aim the ball, and\nhow to let fly; and then the game began. The results were astonishing.\nIn my ignorance I delivered the balls in apparently every way except the\nright one; but no matter--during half an hour I never started a ball\ndown the alley that didn't score a ten-strike, every time, at the other\nend. The others lost their grip early, and their joy along with it. Now\nand then one of them got a ten-strike, but the occurrence was so rare\nthat it made no show alongside of my giant score. The boys surrendered\nat the end of the half-hour, and put on their coats and gathered around\nme and in courteous, but sufficiently definite, language expressed their\nopinion of an experience-worn and seasoned expert who would stoop to\nlying and deception in order to rob kind and well-meaning friends who\nhad put their trust in him under the delusion that he was an honest and\nhonorable person. I was not able to convince them that I had not lied,\nfor now my character was gone, and they refused to attach any value to\nanything I said. The proprietor of the place stood by for a while saying\nnothing, then he came to my defence. He said: \"It looks like a mystery,\ngentlemen, but it isn't a mystery after it's explained. That is a\n_grooved_ alley; you've only to start a ball down it any way you please\nand the groove will do the rest; it will slam the ball against the\nnortheast curve of the head pin every time, and nothing can save the ten\nfrom going down.\"\n\nIt was true. The boys made the experiment and they found that there was\nno art that could send a ball down that alley and fail to score a\nten-strike with it. When I had told those boys that I knew nothing about\nthat game I was speaking only the truth; but it was ever thus, all\nthrough my life: whenever I have diverged from custom and principle and\nuttered a truth, the rule has been that the hearer hadn't strength of\nmind enough to believe it.\n\n[Sidenote: (1873.)]\n\nA quarter of a century ago I arrived in London to lecture a few weeks\nunder the management of George Dolby, who had conducted the Dickens\nreadings in America five or six years before. He took me to the\nAlbemarle and fed me, and in the course of the dinner he enlarged a good\ndeal, and with great satisfaction, upon his reputation as a player of\nfifteen-ball pool, and when he learned by my testimony that I had never\nseen the game played, and knew nothing of the art of pocketing balls,\nhe enlarged more and more, and still more, and kept on enlarging, until\nI recognized that I was either in the presence of the very father of\nfifteen-ball pool or in the presence of his most immediate descendant.\nAt the end of the dinner Dolby was eager to introduce me to the game and\nshow me what he could do. We adjourned to the billiard-room and he\nframed the balls in a flat pyramid and told me to fire at the apex ball\nand then go on and do what I could toward pocketing the fifteen, after\nwhich he would take the cue and show me what a past-master of the game\ncould do with those balls. I did as required. I began with the\ndiffidence proper to my ignorant estate, and when I had finished my\ninning all the balls were in the pockets and Dolby was burying me under\na volcanic irruption of acid sarcasms.\n\nSo I was a liar in Dolby's belief. He thought he had been sold, and at a\ncheap rate; but he divided his sarcasms quite fairly and quite equally\nbetween the two of us. He was full of ironical admiration of his\nchildishness and innocence in letting a wandering and characterless and\nscandalous American load him up with deceptions of so transparent a\ncharacter that they ought not to have deceived the house cat. On the\nother hand, he was remorselessly severe upon me for beguiling him, by\nstudied and discreditable artifice, into bragging and boasting about his\npoor game in the presence of a professional expert disguised in lies and\nfrauds, who could empty more balls in billiard pockets in an hour than\nhe could empty into a basket in a day.\n\nIn the matter of fifteen-ball pool I never got Dolby's confidence wholly\nback, though I got it in other ways, and kept it until his death. I have\nplayed that game a number of times since, but that first time was the\nonly time in my life that I have ever pocketed all the fifteen in a\nsingle inning.\n\n[Sidenote: (1876.)]\n\nMy unsuspicious nature has made it necessary for Providence to save me\nfrom traps a number of times. Thirty years ago, a couple of Elmira\nbankers invited me to play the game of \"Quaker\" with them. I had never\nheard of the game before, and said that if it required intellect, I\nshould not be able to entertain them. But they said it was merely a game\nof chance, and required no mentality--so I agreed to make a trial of it.\nThey appointed four in the afternoon for the sacrifice. As the place,\nthey chose a ground-floor room with a large window in it. Then they\nwent treacherously around and advertised the \"sell\" which they were\ngoing to play upon me.\n\nI arrived on time, and we began the game--with a large and eager\nfree-list to superintend it. These superintendents were outside, with\ntheir noses pressed against the window-pane. The bankers described the\ngame to me. So far as I recollect, the pattern of it was this: they had\na pile of Mexican dollars on the table; twelve of them were of even\ndate, fifty of them were of odd dates. The bankers were to separate a\ncoin from the pile and hide it under a hand, and I must guess \"odd\" or\n\"even.\" If I guessed correctly, the coin would be mine; if incorrectly,\nI lost a dollar. The first guess I made was \"even,\" and was right. I\nguessed again, \"even,\" and took the money. They fed me another one and I\nguessed \"even\" again, and took the money. I guessed \"even\" the fourth\ntime, and took the money. It seemed to me that \"even\" was a good guess,\nand I might as well stay by it, which I did. I guessed \"even\" twelve\ntimes, and took the twelve dollars. I was doing as they secretly\ndesired. Their experience of human nature had convinced them that any\nhuman being as innocent as my face proclaimed me to be, would repeat his\nfirst guess if it won, and would go on repeating it if it should\ncontinue to win. It was their belief that an innocent would be almost\nsure at the beginning to guess \"even,\" and not \"odd,\" and that if an\ninnocent should guess \"even\" twelve times in succession and win every\ntime, he would go on guessing \"even\" to the end--so it was their purpose\nto let me win those twelve even dates and then advance the odd dates,\none by one, until I should lose fifty dollars, and furnish those\nsuperintendents something to laugh about for a week to come.\n\nBut it did not come out in that way; for by the time I had won the\ntwelfth dollar and last even date, I withdrew from the game because it\nwas so one-sided that it was monotonous, and did not entertain me. There\nwas a burst of laughter from the superintendents at the window when I\ncame out of the place, but I did not know what they were laughing at nor\nwhom they were laughing at, and it was a matter of no interest to me\nanyway. Through that incident I acquired an enviable reputation for\nsmartness and penetration, but it was not my due, for I had not\npenetrated anything that the cow could not have penetrated.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[16] With the pen, I mean. This Autobiography is dictated, not written.\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXX.\n\nAUGUST 2, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XXI.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n_From Susy's Biography of Me._\n\n\n     _Feb. 12, '86._\n\n     Mamma and I have both been very much troubled of late because papa\n     since he has been publishing Gen. Grant's book has seemed to forget\n     his own books and work entirely, and the other evening as papa and\n     I were promonading up and down the library he told me that he\n     didn't expect to write but one more book, and then he was ready to\n     give up work altogether, die, or do anything, he said that he had\n     written more than he had ever expected to, and the only book that\n     he had been pertickularly anxious to write was one locked up in the\n     safe down stairs, not yet published.[17]\n\n     But this intended future of course will never do, and although papa\n     usually holds to his own opinions and intents with outsiders, when\n     mamma realy desires anything and says that it must be, papa allways\n     gives up his plans (at least so far) and does as she says is right\n     (and she is usually right, if she dissagrees with him at all). It\n     was because he knew his great tendency to being convinced by her,\n     that he published without her knowledge that article in the\n     \"Christian Union\" concerning the government of children. So judging\n     by the proofs of past years, I think that we will be able to\n     persuade papa to go back to work as before, and not leave off\n     writing with the end of his next story. Mamma says that she\n     sometimes feels, and I do too, that she would rather have papa\n     depend on his writing for a living than to have him think of giving\n     it up.\n\n\n[_Dictated, November 8, 1906._] I have a defect of a sort which I think\nis not common; certainly I hope it isn't: it is rare that I can call\nbefore my mind's eye the form and face of either friend or enemy. If I\nshould make a list, now, of persons whom I know in America and\nabroad--say to the number of even an entire thousand--it is quite\nunlikely that I could reproduce five of them in my mind's eye. Of my\ndearest and most intimate friends, I could name eight whom I have seen\nand talked with four days ago, but when I try to call them before me\nthey are formless shadows. Jean has been absent, this past eight or ten\ndays, in the country, and I wish I could reproduce her in the mirror of\nmy mind, but I can't do it.\n\nIt may be that this defect is not constitutional, but a result of\nlifelong absence of mind and indolent and inadequate observation. Once\nor twice in my life it has been an embarrassment to me. Twenty years\nago, in the days of Susy's Biography of Me, there was a dispute one\nmorning at the breakfast-table about the color of a neighbor's eyes. I\nwas asked for a verdict, but had to confess that if that valued neighbor\nand old friend had eyes I was not sure that I had ever seen them. It was\nthen mockingly suggested that perhaps I didn't even know the color of\nthe eyes of my own family, and I was required to shut my own at once and\ntestify. I was able to name the color of Mrs. Clemens's eyes, but was\nnot able to even suggest a color for Jean's, or Clara's, or Susy's.\n\nAll this talk is suggested by Susy's remark: \"The other evening as papa\nand I were promenading up and down the library.\" Down to the bottom of\nmy heart I am thankful that I can see _that_ picture! And it is not dim,\nbut stands out clear in the unfaded light of twenty-one years ago. In\nthose days Susy and I used to \"promonade\" daily up and down the\nlibrary, with our arms about each other's waists, and deal in intimate\ncommunion concerning affairs of State, or the deep questions of human\nlife, or our small personal affairs.\n\nIt was quite natural that I should think I had written myself out when I\nwas only fifty years old, for everybody who has ever written has been\nsmitten with that superstition at about that age. Not even yet have I\nreally written myself out. I have merely stopped writing because\ndictating is pleasanter work, and because dictating has given me a\nstrong aversion to the pen, and because two hours of talking per day is\nenough, and because--But I am only damaging my mind with this digging\naround in it for pretexts where no pretext is needed, and where the\nsimple truth is for this one time better than any invention, in this\nsmall emergency. I shall never finish my five or six unfinished books,\nfor the reason that by forty years of slavery to the pen I have earned\nmy freedom. I detest the pen and I wouldn't use it again to sign the\ndeath warrant of my dearest enemy.\n\n[_Dictated, March 8, 1906._] For thirty years, I have received an\naverage of a dozen letters a year from strangers who remember me, or\nwhose fathers remember me as boy and young man. But these letters are\nalmost always disappointing. I have not known these strangers nor their\nfathers. I have not heard of the names they mention; the reminiscences\nto which they call attention have had no part in my experience; all of\nwhich means that these strangers have been mistaking me for somebody\nelse. But at last I have the refreshment, this morning, of a letter from\na man who deals in names that were familiar to me in my boyhood. The\nwriter encloses a newspaper clipping which has been wandering through\nthe press for four or five weeks, and he wants to know if Capt Tonkray,\nlately deceased, was (as stated in the clipping) the original of\n\"Huckleberry Finn.\"\n\nI have replied that \"Huckleberry Finn\" was Frank F. As this inquirer\nevidently knew the Hannibal of the forties, he will easily recall Frank.\nFrank's father was at one time Town Drunkard, an exceedingly\nwell-defined and unofficial office of those days. He succeeded \"General\"\nGaines, and for a time he was sole and only incumbent of the office; but\nafterward Jimmy Finn proved competency and disputed the place with him,\nso we had two town drunkards at one time--and it made as much trouble in\nthat village as Christendom experienced in the fourteenth century when\nthere were two Popes at the same time.\n\nIn \"Huckleberry Finn\" I have drawn Frank exactly as he was. He was\nignorant, unwashed, insufficiently fed; but he had as good a heart as\never any boy had. His liberties were totally unrestricted. He was the\nonly really independent person--boy or man--in the community, and by\nconsequence he was tranquilly and continuously happy, and was envied by\nall the rest of us. We liked him; we enjoyed his society. And as his\nsociety was forbidden us by our parents, the prohibition trebled and\nquadrupled its value, and therefore we sought and got more of his\nsociety than of any other boy's. I heard, four years ago, that he was\nJustice of the Peace in a remote village in the State of ----, and was a\ngood citizen and was greatly respected.\n\nDuring Jimmy Finn's term he (Jimmy) was not exclusive; he was not\nfinical; he was not hypercritical; he was largely and handsomely\ndemocratic--and slept in the deserted tan-yard with the hogs. My father\ntried to reform him once, but did not succeed. My father was not a\nprofessional reformer. In him the spirit of reform was spasmodic. It\nonly broke out now and then, with considerable intervals between. Once\nhe tried to reform Injun Joe. That also was a failure. It was a failure,\nand we boys were glad. For Injun Joe, drunk, was interesting and a\nbenefaction to us, but Injun Joe, sober, was a dreary spectacle. We\nwatched my father's experiments upon him with a good deal of anxiety,\nbut it came out all right and we were satisfied. Injun Joe got drunk\noftener than before, and became intolerably interesting.\n\nI think that in \"Tom Sawyer\" I starved Injun Joe to death in the cave.\nBut that may have been to meet the exigencies of romantic literature. I\ncan't remember now whether the real Injun Joe died in the cave or out of\nit, but I do remember that the news of his death reached me at a most\nunhappy time--that is to say, just at bedtime on a summer night when a\nprodigious storm of thunder and lightning accompanied by a deluging rain\nthat turned the streets and lanes into rivers, caused me to repent and\nresolve to lead a better life. I can remember those awful thunder-bursts\nand the white glare of the lightning yet, and the wild lashing of the\nrain against the window-panes. By my teachings I perfectly well knew\nwhat all that wild riot was for--Satan had come to get Injun Joe. I had\nno shadow of doubt about it. It was the proper thing when a person like\nInjun Joe was required in the under world, and I should have thought it\nstrange and unaccountable if Satan had come for him in a less impressive\nway. With every glare of lightning I shrivelled and shrunk together in\nmortal terror, and in the interval of black darkness that followed I\npoured out my lamentings over my lost condition, and my supplications\nfor just one more chance, with an energy and feeling and sincerity quite\nforeign to my nature.\n\nBut in the morning I saw that it was a false alarm and concluded to\nresume business at the old stand and wait for another reminder.\n\nThe axiom says \"History repeats itself.\" A week or two ago Mr.\nBlank-Blank dined with us. At dinner he mentioned a circumstance which\nflashed me back over about sixty years and landed me in that little\nbedroom on that tempestuous night, and brought to my mind how creditable\nto me was my conduct through the whole night, and how barren it was of\nmoral spot or fleck during that entire period: he said Mr. X was sexton,\nor something, of the Episcopal church in his town, and had been for many\nyears the competent superintendent of all the church's worldly affairs,\nand was regarded by the whole congregation as a stay, a blessing, a\npriceless treasure. But he had a couple of defects--not large defects,\nbut they seemed large when flung against the background of his\nprofoundly religious character: he drank a good deal, and he could\noutswear a brakeman. A movement arose to persuade him to lay aside these\nvices, and after consulting with his pal, who occupied the same position\nas himself in the other Episcopal church, and whose defects were\nduplicates of his own and had inspired regret in the congregation he was\nserving, they concluded to try for reform--not wholesale, but half at a\ntime. They took the liquor pledge and waited for results. During nine\ndays the results were entirely satisfactory, and they were recipients of\nmany compliments and much congratulation. Then on New-year's eve they\nhad business a mile and a half out of town, just beyond the State line.\nEverything went well with them that evening in the barroom of the\ninn--but at last the celebration of the occasion by those villagers\ncame to be of a burdensome nature. It was a bitter cold night and the\nmultitudinous hot toddies that were circulating began by and by to exert\na powerful influence upon the new prohibitionists. At last X's friend\nremarked,\n\n\"X, does it occur to you that we are _outside the diocese_?\"\n\nThat ended reform No. 1. Then they took a chance in reform No. 2. For a\nwhile that one prospered, and they got much applause. I now reach the\nincident which sent me back a matter of sixty years, as I have remarked\na while ago.\n\nOne morning Mr. Blank-Blank met X on the street and said,\n\n\"You have made a gallant struggle against those defects of yours. I am\naware that you failed on No. 1, but I am also aware that you are having\nbetter luck with No. 2.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" X said; \"No. 2 is all right and sound up to date, and we are full\nof hope.\"\n\nBlank-Blank said, \"X, of course you have your troubles like other\npeople, but they never show on the outside. I have never seen you when\nyou were not cheerful. Are you always cheerful? Really always cheerful?\"\n\n\"Well, no,\" he said, \"no, I can't say that I am always cheerful,\nbut--well, you know that kind of a night that comes: _say_--you wake up\n'way in the night and the whole world is sunk in gloom and there are\nstorms and earthquakes and all sorts of disasters in the air\nthreatening, and you get cold and clammy; and when that happens to me I\nrecognize how sinful I am and it all goes clear to my heart and wrings\nit and I have such terrors and terrors!--oh, they are indescribable,\nthose terrors that assail me, and I slip out of bed and get on my knees\nand pray and pray and promise that I will be good, if I can only have\nanother chance. And then, you know, in the morning the sun shines out so\nlovely, and the birds sing and the whole world is so beautiful, and--_b'\nGod, I rally!_\"\n\nNow I will quote a brief paragraph from this letter which I have a\nminute ago spoken of. The writer says:\n\n\n     You no doubt are at a loss to know who I am. I will tell you. In my\n     younger days I was a resident of Hannibal, Mo., and you and I were\n     schoolmates attending Mr. Dawson's school along with Sam and Will\n     Bowen and Andy Fuqua and others whose names I have forgotten. I was\n     then about the smallest boy in school, for my age, and they called\n     me little Aleck for short.\n\n\nI only dimly remember him, but I knew those other people as well as I\nknew the town drunkards. I remember Dawson's schoolhouse perfectly. If I\nwanted to describe it I could save myself the trouble by conveying the\ndescription of it to these pages from \"Tom Sawyer.\" I can remember the\ndrowsy and inviting summer sounds that used to float in through the open\nwindows from that distant boy-Paradise, Cardiff Hill (Holliday's Hill),\nand mingle with the murmurs of the studying pupils and make them the\nmore dreary by the contrast. I remember Andy Fuqua, the oldest pupil--a\nman of twenty-five. I remember the youngest pupil, Nannie Owsley, a\nchild of seven. I remember George Robards, eighteen or twenty years old,\nthe only pupil who studied Latin. I remember--in some cases vividly, in\nothers vaguely--the rest of the twenty-five boys and girls. I remember\nMr. Dawson very well. I remember his boy, Theodore, who was as good as\nhe could be. In fact, he was inordinately good, extravagantly good,\noffensively good, detestably good--and he had pop-eyes--and I would have\ndrowned him if I had had a chance. In that school we were all about on\nan equality, and, so far as I remember, the passion of envy had no place\nin our hearts, except in the case of Arch Fuqua--the other one's\nbrother. Of course we all went barefoot in the summer-time. Arch Fuqua\nwas about my own age--ten or eleven. In the winter we could stand him,\nbecause he wore shoes then, and his great gift was hidden from our sight\nand we were enabled to forget it. But in the summer-time he was a\nbitterness to us. He was our envy, for he could double back his big toe\nand let it fly and you could hear it snap thirty yards. There was not\nanother boy in the school that could approach this feat. He had not a\nrival as regards a physical distinction--except in Theodore Eddy, who\ncould work his ears like a horse. But he was no real rival, because you\ncouldn't hear him work his ears; so all the advantage lay with Arch\nFuqua.\n\nI am not done with Dawson's school; I will return to it in a later\nchapter.\n\n[_Dictated at Hamilton, Bermuda, January 6, 1907._] \"That reminds me.\"\nIn conversation we are always using that phrase, and seldom or never\nnoticing how large a significance it bears. It stands for a curious and\ninteresting fact, to wit: that sleeping or waking, dreaming or talking,\nthe thoughts which swarm through our heads are almost constantly,\nalmost continuously, accompanied by a like swarm of reminders of\nincidents and episodes of our past. A man can never know what a large\ntraffic this commerce of association carries on in our minds until he\nsets out to write his autobiography; he then finds that a thought is\nseldom born to him that does not immediately remind him of some event,\nlarge or small, in his past experience. Quite naturally these remarks\nremind me of various things, among others this: that sometimes a\nthought, by the power of association, will bring back to your mind a\nlost word or a lost name which you have not been able to recover by any\nother process known to your mental equipment. Yesterday we had an\ninstance of this. Rev. Joseph H. Twichell is with me on this flying trip\nto Bermuda. He was with me on my last visit to Bermuda, and to-day we\nwere trying to remember when it was. We thought it was somewhere in the\nneighborhood of thirty years ago, but that was as near as we could get\nat the date. Twichell said that the landlady in whose boarding-house we\nsojourned in that ancient time could doubtless furnish us the date, and\nwe must look her up. We wanted to see her, anyway, because she and her\nblooming daughter of eighteen were the only persons whose acquaintance\nwe had made at that time, for we were travelling under fictitious names,\nand people who wear aliases are not given to seeking society and\nbringing themselves under suspicion. But at this point in our talk we\nencountered an obstruction: we could not recall the landlady's name. We\nhunted all around through our minds for that name, using all the\ncustomary methods of research, but without success; the name was gone\nfrom us, apparently permanently. We finally gave the matter up, and fell\nto talking about something else. The talk wandered from one subject to\nanother, and finally arrived at Twichell's school-days in Hartford--the\nHartford of something more than half a century ago--and he mentioned\nseveral of his schoolmasters, dwelling with special interest upon the\npeculiarities of an aged one named Olney. He remarked that Olney, humble\nvillage schoolmaster as he was, was yet a man of superior parts, and had\npublished text-books which had enjoyed a wide currency in America in\ntheir day. I said I remembered those books, and had studied Olney's\nGeography in school when I was a boy. Then Twichell said,\n\n\"That reminds me--our landlady's name was a name that was associated\nwith school-books of some kind or other fifty or sixty years ago. I\nwonder what it was. I believe it began with K.\"\n\nAssociation did the rest, and did it instantly. I said,\n\n\"Kirkham's Grammar!\"\n\nThat settled it. Kirkham was the name; and we went out to seek for the\nowner of it. There was no trouble about that, for Bermuda is not large,\nand is like the earlier Garden of Eden, in that everybody in it knows\neverybody else, just as it was in the serpent's headquarters in Adam's\ntime. We easily found Miss Kirkham--she that had been the blooming girl\nof a generation before--and she was still keeping boarders; but her\nmother had passed from this life. She settled the date for us, and did\nit with certainty, by help of a couple of uncommon circumstances, events\nof that ancient time. She said we had sailed from Bermuda on the 24th of\nMay, 1877, which was the day on which her only nephew was born--and he\nis now thirty years of age. The other unusual circumstance--she called\nit an unusual circumstance, and I didn't say anything--was that on that\nday the Rev. Mr. Twichell (bearing the assumed name of Peters) had made\na statement to her which she regarded as a fiction. I remembered the\ncircumstance very well. We had bidden the young girl good-by and had\ngone fifty yards, perhaps, when Twichell said he had forgotten something\n(I doubted it) and must go back. When he rejoined me he was silent, and\nthis alarmed me, because I had not seen an example of it before. He\nseemed quite uncomfortable, and I asked him what the trouble was. He\nsaid he had been inspired to give the girl a pleasant surprise, and so\nhad gone back and said to her--\n\n\"That young fellow's name is not Wilkinson--that's Mark Twain.\"\n\nShe did not lose her mind; she did not exhibit any excitement at all,\nbut said quite simply, quite tranquilly,\n\n\"Tell it to the marines, Mr. Peters--if that should happen to be _your_\nname.\"\n\nIt was very pleasant to meet her again. We were white-headed, but she\nwas not; in the sweet and unvexed spiritual atmosphere of the Bermudas\none does not achieve gray hairs at forty-eight.\n\nI had a dream last night, and of course it was born of association, like\nnearly everything else that drifts into a person's head, asleep or\nawake. On board ship, on the passage down, Twichell was talking about\nthe swiftly developing possibilities of aerial navigation, and he quoted\nthose striking verses of Tennyson's which forecast a future when\nair-borne vessels of war shall meet and fight above the clouds and\nredden the earth below with a rain of blood. This picture of carnage and\nblood and death reminded me of something which I had read a fortnight\nago--statistics of railway accidents compiled by the United States\nGovernment, wherein the appalling fact was set forth that on our 200,000\nmiles of railway we annually kill 10,000 persons outright and injure\n80,000. The war-ships in the air suggested the railway horrors, and\nthree nights afterward the railway horrors suggested my dream. The work\nof association was going on in my head, unconsciously, all that time. It\nwas an admirable dream, what there was of it.\n\nIn it I saw a funeral procession; I saw it from a mountain peak; I saw\nit crawling along and curving here and there, serpentlike, through a\nlevel vast plain. I seemed to see a hundred miles of the procession, but\nneither the beginning of it nor the end of it was within the limits of\nmy vision. The procession was in ten divisions, each division marked by\na sombre flag, and the whole represented ten years of our railway\nactivities in the accident line; each division was composed of 80,000\ncripples, and was bearing its own year's 10,000 mutilated corpses to the\ngrave: in the aggregate 800,000 cripples and 100,000 dead, drenched in\nblood!\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[17] It isn't yet. Title of it, \"Captain Stormfield's Visit to\nHeaven.\"--S. L. C.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XXII.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1890.)]\n\n[_Dictated, October 10, 1906._] Susy has named a number of the friends\nwho were assembled at Onteora at the time of our visit, but there were\nothers--among them Laurence Hutton, Charles Dudley Warner, and Carroll\nBeckwith, and their wives. It was a bright and jolly company. Some of\nthose choice spirits are still with us; the others have passed from this\nlife: Mrs. Clemens, Susy, Mr. Warner, Mary Mapes Dodge, Laurence Hutton,\nDean Sage--peace to their ashes! Susy is in error in thinking Mrs. Dodge\nwas not there at that time; we were her guests.\n\nWe arrived at nightfall, dreary from a tiresome journey; but the\ndreariness did not last. Mrs. Dodge had provided a home-made banquet,\nand the happy company sat down to it, twenty strong, or more. Then the\nthing happened which always happens at large dinners, and is always\nexasperating: everybody talked to his elbow-mates and all talked at\nonce, and gradually raised their voices higher, and higher, and higher,\nin the desperate effort to be heard. It was like a riot, an\ninsurrection; it was an intolerable volume of noise. Presently I said to\nthe lady next me--\n\n\"I will subdue this riot, I will silence this racket. There is only one\nway to do it, but I know the art. You must tilt your head toward mine\nand seem to be deeply interested in what I am saying; I will talk in a\nlow voice; then, just because our neighbors won't be able to hear me,\nthey will _want_ to hear me. If I mumble long enough--say two\nminutes--you will see that the dialogues will one after another come to\na standstill, and there will be silence, not a sound anywhere but my\nmumbling.\"\n\nThen in a very low voice I began:\n\n\"When I went out to Chicago, eleven years ago, to witness the Grant\nfestivities, there was a great banquet on the first night, with six\nhundred ex-soldiers present. The gentleman who sat next me was Mr. X. X.\nHe was very hard of hearing, and he had a habit common to deaf people of\nshouting his remarks instead of delivering them in an ordinary voice. He\nwould handle his knife and fork in reflective silence for five or six\nminutes at a time and then suddenly fetch out a shout that would make\nyou jump out of the United States.\"\n\nBy this time the insurrection at Mrs. Dodge's table--at least that part\nof it in my immediate neighborhood--had died down, and the silence was\nspreading, couple by couple, down the long table. I went on in a lower\nand still lower mumble, and most impressively--\n\n\"During one of Mr. X. X.'s mute intervals, a man opposite us approached\nthe end of a story which he had been telling his elbow-neighbor. He was\nspeaking in a low voice--there was much noise--I was deeply interested,\nand straining my ears to catch his words, stretching my neck, holding my\nbreath, to hear, unconscious of everything but the fascinating tale. I\nheard him say, 'At this point he seized her by her long hair--she\nshrieking and begging--bent her neck across his knee, and with one awful\nsweep of the razor--'\n\n\"HOW DO YOU LIKE CHICA-A-AGO?!!!\"\n\nThat was X. X.'s interruption, hearable at thirty miles. By the time I\nhad reached that place in my mumblings Mrs. Dodge's dining-room was so\nsilent, so breathlessly still, that if you had dropped a thought\nanywhere in it you could have heard it smack the floor.[18] When I\ndelivered that yell the entire dinner company jumped as one person, and\npunched their heads through the ceiling, damaging it, for it was only\nlath and plaster, and it all came down on us, and much of it went into\nthe victuals and made them gritty, but no one was hurt. Then I explained\nwhy it was that I had played that game, and begged them to take the\nmoral of it home to their hearts and be rational and merciful\nthenceforth, and cease from screaming in mass, and agree to let one\nperson talk at a time and the rest listen in grateful and unvexed peace.\nThey granted my prayer, and we had a happy time all the rest of the\nevening; I do not think I have ever had a better time in my life. This\nwas largely because the new terms enabled me to keep the floor--now that\nI had it--and do all the talking myself. I do like to hear myself talk.\nSusy has exposed this in her Biography of me.\n\nDean Sage was a delightful man, yet in one way a terror to his friends,\nfor he loved them so well that he could not refrain from playing\npractical jokes on them. We have to be pretty deeply in love with a\nperson before we can do him the honor of joking familiarly with him.\nDean Sage was the best citizen I have known in America. It takes courage\nto be a good citizen, and he had plenty of it. He allowed no individual\nand no corporation to infringe his smallest right and escape unpunished.\nHe was very rich, and very generous, and benevolent, and he gave away\nhis money with a prodigal hand; but if an individual or corporation\ninfringed a right of his, to the value of ten cents, he would spend\nthousands of dollars' worth of time and labor and money and persistence\non the matter, and would not lower his flag until he had won his battle\nor lost it.\n\nHe and Rev. Mr. Harris had been classmates in college, and to the day of\nSage's death they were as fond of each other as an engaged pair. It\nfollows, without saying, that whenever Sage found an opportunity to play\na joke upon Harris, Harris was sure to suffer.\n\nAlong about 1873 Sage fell a victim to an illness which reduced him to a\nskeleton, and defied all the efforts of the physicians to cure it. He\nwent to the Adirondacks and took Harris with him. Sage had always been\nan active man, and he couldn't idle any day wholly away in inanition,\nbut walked every day to the limit of his strength. One day, toward\nnightfall, the pair came upon a humble log cabin which bore these words\npainted upon a shingle: \"Entertainment for Man and Beast.\" They were\nobliged to stop there for the night, Sage's strength being exhausted.\nThey entered the cabin and found its owner and sole occupant there, a\nrugged and sturdy and simple-hearted man of middle age. He cooked supper\nand placed it before the travellers--salt junk, boiled beans, corn bread\nand black coffee. Sage's stomach could abide nothing but the most\ndelicate food, therefore this banquet revolted him, and he sat at the\ntable unemployed, while Harris fed ravenously, limitlessly, gratefully;\nfor he had been chaplain in a fighting regiment all through the war, and\nhad kept in perfection the grand and uncritical appetite and splendid\nphysical vigor which those four years of tough fare and activity had\nfurnished him. Sage went supperless to bed, and tossed and writhed all\nnight upon a shuck mattress that was full of attentive and interested\ncorn-cobs. In the morning Harris was ravenous again, and devoured the\nodious breakfast as contentedly and as delightedly as he had devoured\nits twin the night before. Sage sat upon the porch, empty, and\ncontemplated the performance and meditated revenge. Presently he\nbeckoned to the landlord and took him aside and had a confidential talk\nwith him. He said,\n\n\"I am the paymaster. What is the bill?\"\n\n\"Two suppers, fifty cents; two beds, thirty cents; two breakfasts, fifty\ncents--total, a dollar and thirty cents.\"\n\nSage said, \"Go back and make out the bill and fetch it to me here on the\nporch. Make it thirteen dollars.\"\n\n\"Thirteen dollars! Why, it's impossible! I am no robber. I am charging\nyou what I charge everybody. It's a dollar and thirty cents, and that's\nall it is.\"\n\n\"My man, I've got something to say about this as well as you. It's\nthirteen dollars. You'll make out your bill for that, and you'll _take_\nit, too, or you'll not get a cent.\"\n\nThe man was troubled, and said, \"I don't understand this. I can't make\nit out.\"\n\n\"Well, I understand it. I know what I am about. It's thirteen dollars,\nand I want the bill made out for that. There's no other terms. Get it\nready and bring it out here. I will examine it and be outraged. You\nunderstand? I will dispute the bill. You must stand to it. You must\nrefuse to take less. I will begin to lose my temper; you must begin to\nlose yours. I will call you hard names; you must answer with harder\nones. I will raise my voice; you must raise yours. You must go into a\nrage--foam at the mouth, if you can; insert some soap to help it along.\nNow go along and follow your instructions.\"\n\nThe man played his assigned part, and played it well. He brought the\nbill and stood waiting for results. Sage's face began to cloud up, his\neyes to snap, and his nostrils to inflate like a horse's; then he broke\nout with--\n\n\"_Thirteen dollars!_ You mean to say that you charge thirteen dollars\nfor these damned inhuman hospitalities of yours? Are you a professional\nbuccaneer? Is it your custom to--\"\n\nThe man burst in with spirit: \"Now, I don't want any more out of\nyou--that's a plenty. The bill is thirteen dollars and you'll _pay_\nit--that's all; a couple of characterless adventurers bilking their way\nthrough this country and attempting to dictate terms to a gentleman! a\ngentleman who received you supposing you were gentlemen yourselves,\nwhereas in my opinion hell's full of--\"\n\nSage broke in--\n\n\"Not another word of that!--I won't have it. I regard you as the\nlowest-down thief that ever--\"\n\n\"Don't you use that word again! By ----, I'll take you by the neck\nand--\"\n\nHarris came rushing out, and just as the two were about to grapple he\npushed himself between them and began to implore--\n\n\"Oh, Dean, don't, _don't_--now, Mr. Smith, control yourself! Oh, think\nof your family, Dean!--think what a scandal--\"\n\nBut they burst out with maledictions, imprecations and all the hard\nnames they could dig out of the rich accumulations of their educated\nmemories, and in the midst of it the man shouted--\n\n\"When _gentlemen_ come to this house, I treat them _as_ gentlemen. When\npeople come to this house with the ordinary appetites of gentlemen, I\ncharge them a dollar and thirty cents for what I furnished you; but when\na man brings a hell-fired Famine here that gorges a barrel of pork and\nfour barrels of beans at two sittings--\"\n\nSage broke in, in a voice that was eloquent with remorse and\nself-reproach, \"I never thought of that, and I ask your pardon; I am\nashamed of myself and of my friend. Here's your thirteen dollars, and my\napologies along with it.\"\n\n\n[_Dictated March 12, 1906._] I have always taken a great interest in\nother people's duels. One always feels an abiding interest in any heroic\nthing which has entered into his own experience.\n\n[Sidenote: (1878.)]\n\nIn 1878, fourteen years after my unmaterialized duel, Messieurs Fortu\nand Gambetta fought a duel which made heroes of both of them in France,\nbut made them rather ridiculous throughout the rest of the world. I was\nliving in Munich that fall and winter, and I was so interested in that\nfunny tragedy that I wrote a long account of it, and it is in one of my\nbooks, somewhere--an account which had some inaccuracies in it, but as\nan exhibition of the _spirit_ of that duel, I think it was correct and\ntrustworthy. And when I was living in Vienna, thirty-four years after my\nineffectual duel, my interest in that kind of incident was still strong;\nand I find here among my Autobiographical manuscripts of that day a\nchapter which I began concerning it, but did not finish. I wanted to\nfinish it, but held it open in the hope that the Italian ambassador, M.\nNigra, would find time to furnish me the _full_ history of Se\u00f1or\nCavalotti's adventures in that line. But he was a busy man; there was\nalways an interruption before he could get well started; so my hope was\nnever fulfilled. The following is the unfinished chapter:\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1898.)]\n\n     As concerns duelling. This pastime is as common in Austria to-day\n     as it is in France. But with this difference, that here in the\n     Austrian States the duel is dangerous, while in France it is not.\n     Here it is tragedy, in France it in comedy; here it is a solemnity,\n     there it is monkey-shines; here the duellist risks his life, there\n     he does not even risk his shirt. Here he fights with pistol or\n     sabre, in France with a hairpin--a blunt one. Here the desperately\n     wounded man tries to walk to the hospital; there they paint the\n     scratch so that they can find it again, lay the sufferer on a\n     stretcher, and conduct him off the field with a band of music.\n\n     At the end of a French duel the pair hug and kiss and cry, and\n     praise each other's valor; then the surgeons make an examination\n     and pick out the scratched one, and the other one helps him on to\n     the litter and pays his fare; and in return the scratched one\n     treats to champagne and oysters in the evening, and then \"the\n     incident is closed,\" as the French say. It is all polite, and\n     gracious, and pretty, and impressive. At the end of an Austrian\n     duel the antagonist that is alive gravely offers his hand to the\n     other man, utters some phrases of courteous regret, then bids him\n     good-by and goes his way, and that incident also is closed. The\n     French duellist is painstakingly protected from danger, by the\n     rules of the game. His antagonist's weapon cannot reach so far as\n     his body; if he get a scratch it will not be above his elbow. But\n     in Austria the rules of the game do not provide against danger,\n     they carefully provide _for_ it, usually. Commonly the combat must\n     be kept up until one of the men is disabled; a non-disabling slash\n     or stab does not retire him.\n\n     For a matter of three months I watched the Viennese journals, and\n     whenever a duel was reported in their telegraphic columns I\n     scrap-booked it. By this record I find that duelling in Austria is\n     not confined to journalists and old maids, as in France, but is\n     indulged in by military men, journalists, students, physicians,\n     lawyers, members of the legislature, and even the Cabinet, the\n     Bench and the police. Duelling is forbidden by law; and so it seems\n     odd to see the makers and administrators of the laws dancing on\n     their work in this way. Some months ago Count Bodeni, at that time\n     Chief of the Government, fought a pistol-duel here in the capital\n     city of the Empire with representative Wolf, and both of those\n     distinguished Christians came near getting turned out of the\n     Church--for the Church as well as the State forbids duelling.\n\n     In one case, lately, in Hungary, the police interfered and stopped\n     a duel after the first innings. This was a sabre-duel between the\n     chief of police and the city attorney. Unkind things were said\n     about it by the newspapers. They said the police remembered their\n     duty uncommonly well when their own officials were the parties\n     concerned in duels. But I think the underlings showed good\n     bread-and-butter judgment. If their superiors had carved each other\n     well, the public would have asked, Where were the police? and their\n     places would have been endangered; but custom does not require them\n     to be around where mere unofficial citizens are explaining a thing\n     with sabres.\n\n     There was another duel--a double duel--going on in the immediate\n     neighborhood at the time, and in this case the police obeyed custom\n     and did not disturb it. Their bread and butter was not at stake\n     there. In this duel a physician fought a couple of surgeons, and\n     wounded both--one of them lightly, the other seriously. An\n     undertaker wanted to keep people from interfering, but that was\n     quite natural again.\n\n     Selecting at random from my record, I next find a duel at Tarnopol\n     between military men. An officer of the Tenth Dragoons charged an\n     officer of the Ninth Dragoons with an offence against the laws of\n     the card-table. There was a defect or a doubt somewhere in the\n     matter, and this had to be examined and passed upon by a Court of\n     Honor. So the case was sent up to Lemberg for this purpose. One\n     would like to know what the defect was, but the newspaper does not\n     say. A man here who has fought many duels and has a graveyard, says\n     that probably the matter in question was as to whether the\n     accusation was true or not; that if the charge was a very grave\n     one--cheating, for instance--proof of its truth would rule the\n     guilty officer out of the field of honor; the Court would not allow\n     a gentleman to fight with such a person. You see what a solemn\n     thing it is; you see how particular they are; any little careless\n     act can lose you your privilege of getting yourself shot, here. The\n     Court seems to have gone into the matter in a searching and careful\n     fashion, for several months elapsed before it reached a decision.\n     It then sanctioned a duel and the accused killed his accuser.\n\n     Next I find a duel between a prince and a major; first with\n     pistols--no result satisfactory to either party; then with sabres,\n     and the major badly hurt.\n\n     Next, a sabre-duel between journalists--the one a strong man, the\n     other feeble and in poor health. It was brief; the strong one drove\n     his sword through the weak one, and death was immediate.\n\n     Next, a duel between a lieutenant and a student of medicine.\n     According to the newspaper report these are the details. The\n     student was in a restaurant one evening: passing along, he halted\n     at a table to speak with some friends; near by sat a dozen military\n     men; the student conceived that one of these was \"staring\" at him;\n     he asked the officer to step outside and explain. This officer and\n     another one gathered up their caps and sabres and went out with the\n     student. Outside--this is the student's account--the student\n     introduced himself to the offending officer and said, \"You seemed\n     to stare at me\"; for answer, the officer struck at the student with\n     his fist; the student parried the blow; both officers drew their\n     sabres and attacked the young fellow, and one of them gave him a\n     wound on the left arm; then they withdrew. This was Saturday night.\n     The duel followed on Monday, in the military riding-school--the\n     customary duelling-ground all over Austria, apparently. The weapons\n     were pistols. The duelling terms were somewhat beyond custom in the\n     matter of severity, if I may gather that from the statement that\n     the combat was fought \"_unter sehr schweren Bedingungen_\"--to wit,\n     \"Distance, 15 steps--with 3 steps advance.\" There was but one\n     exchange of shots. The student was hit. \"He put his hand on his\n     breast, his body began to bend slowly forward, then collapsed in\n     death and sank to the ground.\"\n\n     It is pathetic. There are other duels in my list, but I find in\n     each and all of them one and the same ever-recurring defect--the\n     _principals_ are never present, but only their sham\n     representatives. The _real_ principals in any duel are not the\n     duellists themselves, but their families. They do the mourning, the\n     suffering, theirs is the loss and theirs the misery. They stake all\n     that, the duellist stakes nothing but his life, and that is a\n     trivial thing compared with what his death must cost those whom he\n     leaves behind him. Challenges should not mention the duellist; he\n     has nothing much at stake, and the real vengeance cannot reach him.\n     The challenge should summon the offender's old gray mother, and his\n     young wife and his little children,--these, or any to whom he is a\n     dear and worshipped possession--and should say, \"You have done me\n     no harm, but I am the meek slave of a custom which requires me to\n     crush the happiness out of your hearts and condemn you to years of\n     pain and grief, in order that I may wash clean with your tears a\n     stain which has been put upon me by another person.\"\n\n     The logic of it is admirable: a person has robbed me of a penny; I\n     must beggar ten innocent persons to make good my loss. Surely\n     nobody's \"honor\" is worth all that.\n\n     Since the duellist's family are the real principals in a duel, the\n     State ought to compel them to be present at it. Custom, also, ought\n     to be so amended as to require it; and without it no duel ought to\n     be allowed to go on. If that student's unoffending mother had been\n     present and watching the officer through her tears as he raised his\n     pistol, he--why, he would have fired in the air. We know that. For\n     we know how we are all made. Laws ought to be based upon the\n     ascertained facts of our nature. It would be a simple thing to make\n     a duelling law which would stop duelling.\n\n     As things are now, the mother is never invited. She submits to\n     this; and without outward complaint, for she, too, is the vassal of\n     custom, and custom requires her to conceal her pain when she learns\n     the disastrous news that her son must go to the duelling-field, and\n     by the powerful force that is lodged in habit and custom she is\n     enabled to obey this trying requirement--a requirement which exacts\n     a miracle of her, and gets it. Last January a neighbor of ours who\n     has a young son in the army was wakened by this youth at three\n     o'clock one morning, and she sat up in bed and listened to his\n     message:\n\n     \"I have come to tell you something, mother, which will distress\n     you, but you must be good and brave, and bear it. I have been\n     affronted by a fellow officer, and we fight at three this\n     afternoon. Lie down and sleep, now, and think no more about it.\"\n\n     She kissed him good night and lay down paralyzed with grief and\n     fear, but said nothing. But she did not sleep; she prayed and\n     mourned till the first streak of dawn, then fled to the nearest\n     church and implored the Virgin for help; and from that church she\n     went to another and another and another; church after church, and\n     still church after church, and so spent all the day until three\n     o'clock on her knees in agony and tears; then dragged herself home\n     and sat down comfortless and desolate, to count the minutes, and\n     wait, with an outward show of calm, for what had been ordained for\n     her--happiness, or endless misery. Presently she heard the clank of\n     a sabre--she had not known before what music was in that\n     sound!--and her son put his head in and said:\n\n     \"X was in the wrong, and he apologized.\"\n\n     So that incident was closed; and for the rest of her life the\n     mother will always find something pleasant about the clank of a\n     sabre, no doubt.\n\n     In one of my listed duels--however, let it go, there is nothing\n     particularly striking about it except that the seconds interfered.\n     And prematurely, too, for neither man was dead. This was certainly\n     irregular. Neither of the men liked it. It was a duel with cavalry\n     sabres, between an editor and a lieutenant. The editor walked to\n     the hospital, the lieutenant was carried. In this country an editor\n     who can write well is valuable, but he is not likely to remain so\n     unless he can handle a sabre with charm.\n\n     The following very recent telegram shows that also in France duels\n     are humanely stopped as soon as they approach the (French)\n     danger-point:\n\n     \"_Reuter's Telegram._--PARIS, _March 5_.--The duel between Colonels\n     Henry and Picquart took place this morning in the Riding School of\n     the Ecole Militaire, the doors of which were strictly guarded in\n     order to prevent intrusion. The combatants, who fought with swords,\n     were in position at ten o'clock.\n\n     \"At the first reengagement Lieutenant-Colonel Henry was slightly\n     scratched in the fore arm, and just at the same moment his own\n     blade appeared to touch his adversary's neck. Senator Ranc, who was\n     Colonel Picquart's second, stopped the fight, but as it was found\n     that his principal had not been touched, the combat continued. A\n     very sharp encounter ensued, in which Colonel Henry was wounded in\n     the elbow, and the duel terminated.\"\n\n     After which, the stretcher and the band. In lurid contrast with\n     this delicate flirtation, we have this fatal duel of day before\n     yesterday in Italy, where the earnest Austrian duel is in vogue. I\n     knew Cavalotti slightly, and this gives me a sort of personal\n     interest in his duel. I first saw him in Rome several years ago. He\n     was sitting on a block of stone in the Forum, and was writing\n     something in his note-book--a poem or a challenge, or something\n     like that--and the friend who pointed him out to me said, \"That is\n     Cavalotti--he has fought thirty duels; do not disturb him.\" I did\n     not disturb him.\n\n\n[_May 13, 1907._] It is a long time ago. Cavalotti--poet, orator,\nsatirist, statesman, patriot--was a great man, and his death was deeply\nlamented by his countrymen: many monuments to his memory testify to\nthis. In his duels he killed several of his antagonists and disabled the\nrest. By nature he was a little irascible. Once when the officials of\nthe library of Bologna threw out his books the gentle poet went up there\nand challenged the whole fifteen! His parliamentary duties were\nexacting, but he proposed to keep coming up and fighting duels between\ntrains until all those officials had been retired from the activities of\nlife. Although he always chose the sword to fight with, he had never had\na lesson with that weapon. When game was called he waited for nothing,\nbut always plunged at his opponent and rained such a storm of wild and\noriginal thrusts and whacks upon him that the man was dead or crippled\nbefore he could bring his science to bear. But his latest antagonist\ndiscarded science, and won. He held his sword straight forward like a\nlance when Cavalotti made his plunge--with the result that he impaled\nhimself upon it. It entered his mouth and passed out at the back of his\nneck. Death was instantaneous.\n\n\n[_Dictated December 20, 1906._] Six months ago, when I was recalling\nearly days in San Francisco, I broke off at a place where I was about\nto tell about Captain Osborn's odd adventure at the \"What Cheer,\" or\nperhaps it was at another cheap feeding-place--the \"Miners' Restaurant.\"\nIt was a place where one could get good food on the cheapest possible\nterms, and its popularity was great among the multitudes whose purses\nwere light It was a good place to go to, to observe mixed humanity.\nCaptain Osborn and Bret Harte went there one day and took a meal, and in\nthe course of it Osborn fished up an interesting reminiscence of a dozen\nyears before and told about it. It was to this effect:\n\nHe was a midshipman in the navy when the Californian gold craze burst\nupon the world and set it wild with excitement. His ship made the long\njourney around the Horn and was approaching her goal, the Golden Gate,\nwhen an accident happened.\n\n\"It happened to me,\" said Osborn. \"I fell overboard. There was a heavy\nsea running, but no one was much alarmed about me, because we had on\nboard a newly patented life-saving device which was believed to be\ncompetent to rescue anything that could fall overboard, from a\nmidshipman to an anchor. Ours was the only ship that had this device; we\nwere very proud of it, and had been anxious to give its powers a\npractical test. This thing was lashed to the garboard-strake of the\nmain-to'gallant mizzen-yard amidships,[19] and there was nothing to do\nbut cut the lashings and heave it over; it would do the rest. One day\nthe cry of 'Man overboard!' brought all hands on deck. Instantly the\nlashings were cut and the machine flung joyously over. Damnation, it\nwent to the bottom like an anvil! By the time that the ship was brought\nto and a boat manned, I was become but a bobbing speck on the waves half\na mile astern and losing my strength very fast; but by good luck there\nwas a common seaman on board who had practical ideas in his head and\nhadn't waited to see what the patent machine was going to do, but had\nrun aft and sprung over after me the moment the alarm was cried through\nthe ship. I had a good deal of a start of him, and the seas made his\nprogress slow and difficult, but he stuck to his work and fought his way\nto me, and just in the nick of time he put his saving arms about me when\nI was about to go down. He held me up until the boat reached us and\nrescued us. By that time I was unconscious, and I was still unconscious\nwhen we arrived at the ship. A dangerous fever followed, and I was\ndelirious for three days; then I come to myself and at once inquired\nfor my benefactor, of course. He was gone. We were lying at anchor in\nthe Bay and every man had deserted to the gold-mines except the\ncommissioned officers. I found out nothing about my benefactor but his\nname--Burton Sanders--a name which I have held in grateful memory ever\nsince. Every time I have been on the Coast, these twelve or thirteen\nyears, I have tried to get track of him, but have never succeeded. I\nwish I could find him and make him understand that his brave act has\nnever been forgotten by me. Harte, I would rather see him and take him\nby the hand than any other man on the planet.\"\n\nAt this stage or a little later there was an interruption. A waiter near\nby said to another waiter, pointing,\n\n\"Take a look at that tramp that's coming in. Ain't that the one that\nbilked the house, last week, out of ten cents?\"\n\n\"I believe it is. Let him alone--don't pay any attention to him; wait\ntill we can get a good look at him.\"\n\nThe tramp approached timidly and hesitatingly, with the air of one\nunsure and apprehensive. The waiters watched him furtively. When he was\npassing behind Harte's chair one of them said,\n\n\"He's the one!\"--and they pounced upon him and proposed to turn him over\nto the police as a bilk. He begged piteously. He confessed his guilt,\nbut said he had been driven to his crime by necessity--that when he had\neaten the plate of beans and flipped out without paying for it, it was\nbecause he was starving, and hadn't the ten cents to pay for it with.\nBut the waiters would listen to no explanations, no palliations; he must\nbe placed in custody. He brushed his hand across his eyes and said\nmeekly that he would submit, being friendless. Each waiter took him by\nan arm and faced him about to conduct him away. Then his melancholy eyes\nfell upon Captain Osborn, and a light of glad and eager recognition\nflashed from them. He said,\n\n\"Weren't you a midshipman once, sir, in the old 'Lancaster'?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Osborn. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Didn't you fall overboard?\"\n\n\"Yes, I did. How do you come to know about it?\"\n\n\"Wasn't there a new patent machine aboard, and didn't they throw it over\nto save you?\"\n\n\"Why, yes,\" said Osborn, laughing gently, \"but it didn't do it.\"\n\n\"No, sir, it was a sailor that done it.\"\n\n\"It certainly was. Look here, my man, you are getting distinctly\ninteresting. Were you of our crew?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, I was.\"\n\n\"I reckon you may be right. You do certainly know a good deal about that\nincident. What is your name?\"\n\n\"Burton Sanders.\"\n\nThe Captain sprang up, excited, and said,\n\n\"Give me your hand! Give me both your hands! I'd rather shake them than\ninherit a fortune!\"--and then he cried to the waiters, \"Let him\ngo!--take your hands off! He is my guest, and can have anything and\neverything this house is able to furnish. I am responsible.\"\n\nThere was a love-feast, then. Captain Osborn ordered it regardless of\nexpense, and he and Harte sat there and listened while the man told\nstirring adventures of his life and fed himself up to the eyebrows. Then\nOsborn wanted to be benefactor in his turn, and pay back some of his\ndebt. The man said it could all be paid with ten dollars--that it had\nbeen so long since he had owned that amount of money that it would seem\na fortune to him, and he should be grateful beyond words if the Captain\ncould spare him that amount. The Captain spared him ten broad\ntwenty-dollar gold pieces, and made him take them in spite of his modest\nprotestations, and gave him his address and said he must never fail to\ngive him notice when he needed grateful service.\n\nSeveral months later Harte stumbled upon the man in the street. He was\nmost comfortably drunk, and pleasant and chatty. Harte remarked upon the\nsplendidly and movingly dramatic incident of the restaurant, and said,\n\n\"How curious and fortunate and happy and interesting it was that you two\nshould come together, after that long separation, and at exactly the\nright moment to save you from disaster and turn your defeat by the\nwaiters into a victory. A preacher could make a great sermon out of\nthat, for it does look as if the hand of Providence was in it.\"\n\nThe hero's face assumed a sweetly genial expression, and he said,\n\n\"Well now, it wasn't Providence this time. I was running the\narrangements myself.\"\n\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\n\"Oh, I hadn't ever seen the gentleman before. I was at the next table,\nwith my back to you the whole time he was telling about it. I saw my\nchance, and slipped out and fetched the two waiters with me and offered\nto give them a commission out of what I could get out of the Captain if\nthey would do a quarrel act with me and give me an opening. So, then,\nafter a minute or two I straggled back, and you know the rest of it as\nwell as I do.\"\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[18] This was tried. I well remember it.--M. T., _October, '06_.\n\n[19] Can this be correct? I think there must be some mistake.--M. T.\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXXIII.\n\nOCTOBER, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XXIII.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n[Sidenote: (1845.)]\n\n[_Dictated March 9, 1906._] ... I am talking of a time sixty years ago,\nand upwards. I remember the names of some of those schoolmates, and, by\nfitful glimpses, even their faces rise dimly before me for a\nmoment--only just long enough to be recognized; then they vanish. I\ncatch glimpses of George Robards, the Latin pupil--slender, pale,\nstudious, bending over his book and absorbed in it, his long straight\nblack hair hanging down below his jaws like a pair of curtains on the\nsides of his face. I can see him give his head a toss and flirt one of\nthe curtains back around his head--to get it out of his way, apparently;\nreally to show off. In that day it was a great thing among the boys to\nhave hair of so flexible a sort that it could be flung back in that way,\nwith a flirt of the head. George Robards was the envy of us all. For\nthere was no hair among us that was so competent for this exhibition as\nhis--except, perhaps, the yellow locks of Will Bowen and John Robards.\nMy hair was a dense ruck of short curls, and so was my brother Henry's.\nWe tried all kinds of devices to get these crooks straightened out so\nthat they would flirt, but we never succeeded. Sometimes, by soaking our\nheads and then combing and brushing our hair down tight and flat to our\nskulls, we could get it straight, temporarily, and this gave us a\ncomforting moment of joy; but the first time we gave it a flirt it all\nshrivelled into curls again and our happiness was gone.\n\nJohn Robards was the little brother of George; he was a wee chap with\nsilky golden curtains to his face which dangled to his shoulders and\nbelow, and could be flung back ravishingly. When he was twelve years old\nhe crossed the plains with his father amidst the rush of the\ngold-seekers of '49; and I remember the departure of the cavalcade when\nit spurred westward. We were all there to see and to envy. And I can\nstill see that proud little chap sailing by on a great horse, with his\nlong locks streaming out behind. We were all on hand to gaze and envy\nwhen he returned, two years later, in unimaginable glory--_for he had\ntravelled_! None of us had ever been forty miles from home. But he had\ncrossed the Continent. He had been in the gold-mines, that fairyland of\nour imagination. And he had done a still more wonderful thing. He had\nbeen in ships--in ships on the actual ocean; in ships on three actual\noceans. For he had sailed down the Pacific and around the Horn among\nicebergs and through snow-storms and wild wintry gales, and had sailed\non and turned the corner and flown northward in the trades and up\nthrough the blistering equatorial waters--and there in his brown face\nwere the proofs of what he had been through. We would have sold our\nsouls to Satan for the privilege of trading places with him.\n\nI saw him when I was out on that Missouri trip four years ago. He was\nold then--though not quite so old as I--and the burden of life was upon\nhim. He said his granddaughter, twelve years old, had read my books and\nwould like to see me. It was a pathetic time, for she was a prisoner in\nher room and marked for death. And John knew that she was passing\nswiftly away. Twelve years old--just her grandfather's age when he rode\naway on that great journey with his yellow hair flapping behind him. In\nher I seemed to see that boy again. It was as if he had come back out of\nthat remote past and was present before me in his golden youth. Her\nmalady was heart disease, and her brief life came to a close a few days\nlater.\n\nAnother of those schoolboys was John Garth. He became a prosperous\nbanker and a prominent and valued citizen; and a few years ago he died,\nrich and honored. _He died._ It is what I have to say about so many of\nthose boys and girls. The widow still lives, and there are\ngrandchildren. In her pantalette days and my barefoot days she was a\nschoolmate of mine. I saw John's tomb when I made that Missouri visit.\n\nHer father, Mr. Kercheval, had an apprentice in the early days when I\nwas nine years old, and he had also a slave woman who had many merits.\nBut I can't feel very kindly or forgivingly toward either that good\napprentice boy or that good slave woman, for they saved my life. One day\nwhen I was playing on a loose log which I supposed was attached to a\nraft--but it wasn't--it tilted me into Bear Creek. And when I had been\nunder water twice and was coming up to make the third and fatal descent\nmy fingers appeared above the water and that slave woman seized them and\npulled me out. Within a week I was in again, and that apprentice had to\ncome along just at the wrong time, and he plunged in and dived, pawed\naround on the bottom and found me, and dragged me out and emptied the\nwater out of me, and I was saved again. I was drowned seven times after\nthat before I learned to swim--once in Bear Creek and six times in the\nMississippi. I do not now know who the people were who interfered with\nthe intentions of a Providence wiser than themselves, but I hold a\ngrudge against them yet. When I told the tale of these remarkable\nhappenings to Rev. Dr. Burton of Hartford, he said he did not believe\nit. _He slipped on the ice the very next year and sprained his ankle._\n\nWill Bowen was another schoolmate, and so was his brother, Sam, who was\nhis junior by a couple of years. Before the Civil War broke out, both\nbecame St. Louis and New Orleans pilots. Both are dead, long ago.\n\n[Sidenote: (1845.)]\n\n[_Dictated March 16, 1906._] We will return to those schoolchildren of\nsixty years ago. I recall Mary Miller. She was not my first sweetheart,\nbut I think she was the first one that furnished me a broken heart. I\nfell in love with her when she was eighteen and I was nine, but she\nscorned me, and I recognized that this was a cold world. I had not\nnoticed that temperature before. I believe I was as miserable as even a\ngrown man could be. But I think that this sorrow did not remain with me\nlong. As I remember it, I soon transferred my worship to Artimisia\nBriggs, who was a year older than Mary Miller. When I revealed my\npassion to her she did not scoff at it. She did not make fun of it. She\nwas very kind and gentle about it. But she was also firm, and said she\ndid not want to be pestered by children.\n\nAnd there was Mary Lacy. She was a schoolmate. But she also was out of\nmy class because of her advanced age. She was pretty wild and determined\nand independent. But she married, and at once settled down and became in\nall ways a model matron and was as highly respected as any matron in the\ntown. Four years ago she was still living, and had been married fifty\nyears.\n\nJimmie McDaniel was another schoolmate. His age and mine about tallied.\nHis father kept the candy-shop and he was the most envied little chap in\nthe town--after Tom Blankenship (\"Huck Finn\")--for although we never saw\nhim eating candy, we supposed that it was, nevertheless, his ordinary\ndiet. He pretended that he never ate it, and didn't care for it because\nthere was nothing forbidden about it--there was plenty of it and he\ncould have as much of it as he wanted. He was the first human being to\nwhom I ever told a humorous story, so far as I can remember. This was\nabout Jim Wolfe and the cats; and I gave him that tale the morning after\nthat memorable episode. I thought he would laugh his teeth out. I had\nnever been so proud and happy before, and have seldom been so proud and\nhappy since. I saw him four years ago when I was out there. He wore a\nbeard, gray and venerable, that came half-way down to his knees, and yet\nit was not difficult for me to recognize him. He had been married\nfifty-four years. He had many children and grandchildren and\ngreat-grandchildren, and also even posterity, they all said--\nthousands--yet the boy to whom I had told the cat story when we were\ncallow juveniles was still present in that cheerful little old man.\n\nArtimisia Briggs got married not long after refusing me. She married\nRichmond, the stone mason, who was my Methodist Sunday-school teacher in\nthe earliest days, and he had one distinction which I envied him: at\nsome time or other he had hit his thumb with his hammer and the result\nwas a thumb nail which remained permanently twisted and distorted and\ncurved and pointed, like a parrot's beak. I should not consider it an\nornament now, I suppose, but it had a fascination for me then, and a\nvast value, because it was the only one in the town. He was a very\nkindly and considerate Sunday-school teacher, and patient and\ncompassionate, so he was the favorite teacher with us little chaps. In\nthat school they had slender oblong pasteboard blue tickets, each with a\nverse from the Testament printed on it, and you could get a blue ticket\nby reciting two verses. By reciting five verses you could get three blue\ntickets, and you could trade these at the bookcase and borrow a book for\na week. I was under Mr. Richmond's spiritual care every now and then for\ntwo or three years, and he was never hard upon me. I always recited the\nsame five verses every Sunday. He was always satisfied with the\nperformance. He never seemed to notice that these were the same five\nfoolish virgins that he had been hearing about every Sunday for months.\nI always got my tickets and exchanged them for a book. They were pretty\ndreary books, for there was not a bad boy in the entire bookcase. They\nwere _all_ good boys and good girls and drearily uninteresting, but they\nwere better society than none, and I was glad to have their company and\ndisapprove of it.\n\n[Sidenote: (1849.)]\n\nTwenty years ago Mr. Richmond had become possessed of Tom Sawyer's cave\nin the hills three miles from town, and had made a tourist-resort of it.\nIn 1849 when the gold-seekers were streaming through our little town of\nHannibal, many of our grown men got the gold fever, and I think that all\nthe boys had it. On the Saturday holidays in summer-time we used to\nborrow skiffs whose owners were not present and go down the river three\nmiles to the cave hollow (Missourian for \"valley\"), and there we staked\nout claims and pretended to dig gold, panning out half a dollar a day at\nfirst; two or three times as much, later, and by and by whole fortunes,\nas our imaginations became inured to the work. Stupid and unprophetic\nlads! We were doing this in play and never suspecting. Why, that cave\nhollow and all the adjacent hills were made of gold! But we did not know\nit. We took it for dirt. We left its rich secret in its own peaceful\npossession and grew up in poverty and went wandering about the world\nstruggling for bread--and this because we had not the gift of prophecy.\nThat region was all dirt and rocks to us, yet all it needed was to be\nground up and scientifically handled and it was gold. That is to say,\nthe whole region was a cement-mine--and they make the finest kind of\nPortland cement there now, five thousand barrels a day, with a plant\nthat cost $2,000,000.\n\nFor a little while Reuel Gridley attended that school of ours. He was an\nelderly pupil; he was perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three years old. Then\ncame the Mexican War and he volunteered. A company of infantry was\nraised in our town and Mr. Hickman, a tall, straight, handsome athlete\nof twenty-five, was made captain of it and had a sword by his side and a\nbroad yellow stripe down the leg of his gray pants. And when that\ncompany marched back and forth through the streets in its smart\nuniform--which it did several times a day for drill--its evolutions were\nattended by all the boys whenever the school hours permitted. I can see\nthat marching company yet, and I can almost feel again the consuming\ndesire that I had to join it. But they had no use for boys of twelve and\nthirteen, and before I had a chance in another war the desire to kill\npeople to whom I had not been introduced had passed away.\n\nI saw the splendid Hickman in his old age. He seemed about the oldest\nman I had ever seen--an amazing and melancholy contrast with the showy\nyoung captain I had seen preparing his warriors for carnage so many,\nmany years before. Hickman is dead--it is the old story. As Susy said,\n\"What is it all for?\"\n\nReuel Gridley went away to the wars and we heard of him no more for\nfifteen or sixteen years. Then one day in Carson City while I was having\na difficulty with an editor on the sidewalk--an editor better built for\nwar than I was--I heard a voice say, \"Give him the best you've got, Sam,\nI'm at your back.\" It was Reuel Gridley. He said he had not recognized\nme by my face but by my drawling style of speech.\n\nHe went down to the Reese River mines about that time and presently he\nlost an election bet in his mining camp, and by the terms of it he was\nobliged to buy a fifty-pound sack of self-raising flour and carry it\nthrough the town, preceded by music, and deliver it to the winner of the\nbet. Of course the whole camp was present and full of fluid and\nenthusiasm. The winner of the bet put up the sack at auction for the\nbenefit of the United States Sanitary Fund, and sold it. The excitement\ngrew and grew. The sack was sold over and over again for the benefit of\nthe Fund. The news of it came to Virginia City by telegraph. It produced\ngreat enthusiasm, and Reuel Gridley was begged by telegraph to bring the\nsack and have an auction in Virginia City. He brought it. An open\nbarouche was provided, also a brass band. The sack was sold over and\nover again at Gold Hill, then was brought up to Virginia City toward\nnight and sold--and sold again, and again, and still again, netting\ntwenty or thirty thousand dollars for the Sanitary Fund. Gridley carried\nit across California and sold it at various towns. He sold it for large\nsums in Sacramento and in San Francisco. He brought it East, sold it in\nNew York and in various other cities, then carried it out to a great\nFair at St. Louis, and went on selling it; and finally made it up into\nsmall cakes and sold those at a dollar apiece. First and last, the sack\nof flour which had originally cost ten dollars, perhaps, netted more\nthan two hundred thousand dollars for the Sanitary Fund. Reuel Gridley\nhas been dead these many, many years--it is the old story.\n\nIn that school were the first Jews I had ever seen. It took me a good\nwhile to get over the awe of it. To my fancy they were clothed invisibly\nin the damp and cobwebby mould of antiquity. They carried me back to\nEgypt, and in imagination I moved among the Pharaohs and all the shadowy\ncelebrities of that remote age. The name of the boys was Levin. We had a\ncollective name for them which was the only really large and handsome\nwitticism that was ever born in that Congressional district. We called\nthem \"Twenty-two\"--and even when the joke was old and had been worn\nthreadbare we always followed it with the explanation, to make sure that\nit would be understood, \"Twice Levin--twenty-two.\"\n\nThere were other boys whose names remain with me. Irving Ayres--but no\nmatter, he is dead. Then there was George Butler, whom I remember as a\nchild of seven wearing a blue leather belt with a brass buckle, and\nhated and envied by all the boys on account of it. He was a nephew of\nGeneral Ben Butler and fought gallantly at Ball's Bluff and in several\nother actions of the Civil War. He is dead, long and long ago.\n\nWill Bowen (dead long ago), Ed Stevens (dead long ago) and John Briggs\nwere special mates of mine. John is still living.\n\n[Sidenote: (1845.)]\n\nIn 1845, when I was ten years old, there was an epidemic of measles in\nthe town and it made a most alarming slaughter among the little people.\nThere was a funeral almost daily, and the mothers of the town were\nnearly demented with fright. My mother was greatly troubled. She worried\nover Pamela and Henry and me, and took constant and extraordinary pains\nto keep us from coming into contact with the contagion. But upon\nreflection I believed that her judgment was at fault. It seemed to me\nthat I could improve upon it if left to my own devices. I cannot\nremember now whether I was frightened about the measles or not, but I\nclearly remember that I grew very tired of the suspense I suffered on\naccount of being continually under the threat of death. I remember that\nI got so weary of it and so anxious to have the matter settled one way\nor the other, and promptly, that this anxiety spoiled my days and my\nnights. I had no pleasure in them. I made up my mind to end this\nsuspense and be done with it. Will Bowen was dangerously ill with the\nmeasles and I thought I would go down there and catch them. I entered\nthe house by the front way and slipped along through rooms and halls,\nkeeping sharp watch against discovery, and at last I reached Will's\nbed-chamber in the rear of the house on the second floor and got into it\nuncaptured. But that was as far as my victory reached. His mother caught\nme there a moment later and snatched me out of the house and gave me a\nmost competent scolding and drove me away. She was so scared that she\ncould hardly get her words out, and her face was white. I saw that I\nmust manage better next time, and I did. I hung about the lane at the\nrear of the house and watched through cracks in the fence until I was\nconvinced that the conditions were favorable; then I slipped through the\nback yard and up the back way and got into the room and into the bed\nwith Will Bowen without being observed. I don't know how long I was in\nthe bed. I only remember that Will Bowen, as society, had no value for\nme, for he was too sick to even notice that I was there. When I heard\nhis mother coming I covered up my head, but that device was a failure.\nIt was dead summer-time--the cover was nothing more than a limp blanket\nor sheet, and anybody could see that there were two of us under it. It\ndidn't remain two very long. Mrs. Bowen snatched me out of the bed and\nconducted me home herself, with a grip on my collar which she never\nloosened until she delivered me into my mother's hands along with her\nopinion of that kind of a boy.\n\nIt was a good case of measles that resulted. It brought me within a\nshade of death's door. It brought me to where I no longer took any\ninterest in anything, but, on the contrary, felt a total absence of\ninterest--which was most placid and enchanting. I have never enjoyed\nanything in my life any more than I enjoyed dying that time. I _was_, in\neffect, dying. The word had been passed and the family notified to\nassemble around the bed and see me off. I knew them all. There was no\ndoubtfulness in my vision. They were all crying, but that did not affect\nme. I took but the vaguest interest in it, and that merely because I was\nthe centre of all this emotional attention and was gratified by it and\nvain of it.\n\nWhen Dr. Cunningham had made up his mind that nothing more could be done\nfor me he put bags of hot ashes all over me. He put them on my breast,\non my wrists, on my ankles; and so, very much to his astonishment--and\ndoubtless to my regret--he dragged me back into this world and set me\ngoing again.\n\n[_Dictated July 26, 1907._] In an article entitled \"England's Ovation to\nMark Twain,\" Sydney Brooks--but never mind that, now.\n\nI was in Oxford by seven o'clock that evening (June 25, 1907), and\ntrying on the scarlet gown which the tailor had been constructing, and\nfound it right--right and surpassingly becoming. At half past ten the\nnext morning we assembled at All Souls College and marched thence,\ngowned, mortar-boarded and in double file, down a long street to the\nSheldonian Theatre, between solid walls of the populace, very much\nhurrah'd and limitlessly kodak'd. We made a procession of considerable\nlength and distinction and picturesqueness, with the Chancellor, Lord\nCurzon, late Viceroy of India, in his rich robe of black and gold, in\nthe lead, followed by a pair of trim little boy train-bearers, and the\ntrain-bearers followed by the young Prince Arthur of Connaught, who was\nto be made a D.C.L. The detachment of D.C.L.'s were followed by the\nDoctors of Science, and these by the Doctors of Literature, and these\nin turn by the Doctors of Music. Sidney Colvin marched in front of me; I\nwas coupled with Sidney Lee, and Kipling followed us; General Booth, of\nthe Salvation Army, was in the squadron of D.C.L.'s.\n\nOur journey ended, we were halted in a fine old hall whence we could\nsee, through a corridor of some length, the massed audience in the\ntheatre. Here for a little time we moved about and chatted and made\nacquaintanceships; then the D.C.L.'s were summoned, and they marched\nthrough that corridor and the shouting began in the theatre. It would be\nsome time before the Doctors of Literature and of Science would be\ncalled for, because each of those D.C.L.'s had to have a couple of Latin\nspeeches made over him before his promotion would be complete--one by\nthe Regius Professor of Civil Law, the other by the Chancellor. After a\nwhile I asked Sir William Ramsay if a person might smoke here and not\nget shot. He said, \"Yes,\" but that whoever did it and got caught would\nbe fined a guinea, and perhaps hanged later. He said he knew of a place\nwhere we could accomplish at least as much as half of a smoke before any\ninformers would be likely to chance upon us, and he was ready to show\nthe way to any who might be willing to risk the guinea and the hanging.\nBy request he led the way, and Kipling, Sir Norman Lockyer and I\nfollowed. We crossed an unpopulated quadrangle and stood under one of\nits exits--an archway of massive masonry--and there we lit up and began\nto take comfort. The photographers soon arrived, but they were courteous\nand friendly and gave us no trouble, and we gave them none. They grouped\nus in all sorts of ways and photographed us at their diligent leisure,\nwhile we smoked and talked. We were there more than an hour; then we\nreturned to headquarters, happy, content, and greatly refreshed.\nPresently we filed into the theatre, under a very satisfactory hurrah,\nand waited in a crimson column, dividing the crowded pit through the\nmiddle, until each of us in his turn should be called to stand before\nthe Chancellor and hear our merits set forth in sonorous Latin.\nMeantime, Kipling and I wrote autographs until some good kind soul\ninterfered in our behalf and procured for us a rest.\n\nI will now save what is left of my modesty by quoting a paragraph from\nSydney Brooks's \"Ovation.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLet those stars take the place of it for the present. Sydney Brooks has\ndone it well. It makes me proud to read it; as proud as I was in that\nold day, sixty-two years ago, when I lay dying, the centre of\nattraction, with one eye piously closed upon the fleeting vanities of\nthis life--an excellent effect--and the other open a crack to observe\nthe tears, the sorrow, the admiration--all for me--all for me!\n\nAh, that was the proudest moment of my long life--until Oxford!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMost Americans have been to Oxford and will remember what a dream of the\nMiddle Ages it is, with its crooked lanes, its gray and stately piles of\nancient architecture and its meditation-breeding air of repose and\ndignity and unkinship with the noise and fret and hurry and bustle of\nthese modern days. As a dream of the Middle Ages Oxford was not perfect\nuntil Pageant day arrived and furnished certain details which had been\nfor generations lacking. These details began to appear at mid-afternoon\non the 27th. At that time singles, couples, groups and squadrons of the\nthree thousand five hundred costumed characters who were to take part in\nthe Pageant began to ooze and drip and stream through house doors, all\nover the old town, and wend toward the meadows outside the walls. Soon\nthe lanes were thronged with costumes which Oxford had from time to time\nseen and been familiar with in bygone centuries--fashions of dress which\nmarked off centuries as by dates, and mile-stoned them back, and back,\nand back, until history faded into legend and tradition, when Arthur was\na fact and the Round Table a reality. In this rich commingling of quaint\nand strange and brilliantly colored fashions in dress the dress-changes\nof Oxford for twelve centuries stood livid and realized to the eye;\nOxford as a dream of the Middle Ages was complete now as it had never,\nin our day, before been complete; at last there was no discord; the\nmouldering old buildings, and the picturesque throngs drifting past\nthem, were in harmony; soon--astonishingly soon!--the only persons that\nseemed out of place, and grotesquely and offensively and criminally out\nof place were such persons as came intruding along clothed in the ugly\nand odious fashions of the twentieth century; they were a bitterness to\nthe feelings, an insult to the eye.\n\nThe make-ups of illustrious historic personages seemed perfect, both as\nto portraiture and costume; one had no trouble in recognizing them.\nAlso, I was apparently quite easily recognizable myself. The first\ncorner I turned brought me suddenly face to face with Henry VIII, a\nperson whom I had been implacably disliking for sixty years; but when he\nput out his hand with royal courtliness and grace and said, \"Welcome,\nwell-beloved stranger, to my century and to the hospitalities of my\nrealm,\" my old prejudices vanished away and I forgave him. I think now\nthat Henry the Eighth has been over-abused, and that most of us, if we\nhad been situated as he was, domestically, would not have been able to\nget along with as limited a graveyard as he forced himself to put up\nwith. I feel now that he was one of the nicest men in history. Personal\ncontact with a king is more effective in removing baleful prejudices\nthan is any amount of argument drawn from tales and histories. If I had\na child I would name it Henry the Eighth, regardless of sex.\n\nDo you remember Charles the First?--and his broad slouch with the plume\nin it? and his slender, tall figure? and his body clothed in velvet\ndoublet with lace sleeves, and his legs in leather, with long rapier at\nhis side and his spurs on his heels? I encountered him at the next\ncorner, and knew him in a moment--knew him as perfectly and as vividly\nas I should know the Grand Chain in the Mississippi if I should see it\nfrom the pilot-house after all these years. He bent his body and gave\nhis hat a sweep that fetched its plume within an inch of the ground, and\ngave me a welcome that went to my heart. This king has been much\nmaligned; I shall understand him better hereafter, and shall regret him\nmore than I have been in the habit of doing these fifty or sixty years.\nHe did some things in his time, which might better have been left\nundone, and which cast a shadow upon his name--we all know that, we all\nconcede it--but our error has been in regarding them as crimes and in\ncalling them by that name, whereas I perceive now that they were only\nindiscretions. At every few steps I met persons of deathless name whom I\nhad never encountered before outside of pictures and statuary and\nhistory, and these were most thrilling and charming encounters. I had\nhand-shakes with Henry the Second, who had not been seen in the Oxford\nstreets for nearly eight hundred years; and with the Fair Rosamond, whom\nI now believe to have been chaste and blameless, although I had thought\ndifferently about it before; and with Shakespeare, one of the\npleasantest foreigners I have ever gotten acquainted with; and with\nRoger Bacon; and with Queen Elizabeth, who talked five minutes and never\nswore once--a fact which gave me a new and good opinion of her and moved\nme to forgive her for beheading the Scottish Mary, if she really did it,\nwhich I now doubt; and with the quaintly and anciently clad young King\nHarold Harefoot, of near nine hundred years ago, who came flying by on a\nbicycle and smoking a pipe, but at once checked up and got off to shake\nwith me; and also I met a bishop who had lost his way because this was\nthe first time he had been inside the walls of Oxford for as much as\ntwelve hundred years or thereabouts. By this time I had grown so used to\nthe obliterated ages and their best-known people that if I had met Adam\nI should not have been either surprised or embarrassed; and if he had\ncome in a racing automobile and a cloud of dust, with nothing on but his\nfig-leaf, it would have seemed to me all right and harmonious.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XXIV.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n_From Susy's Biography of Me_ [1885-6].\n\n\n     Mamma and papa have returned from Onteora and they have had a\n     delightful visit. Mr. Frank Stockton was down in Virginia and could\n     not reach Onteora in time, so they did not see him, and Mrs. Mary\n     Mapes Dodge was ill and couldn't go to Onteora, but Mrs. General\n     Custer was there, and mamma said that she was a very attractive,\n     sweet appearing woman.\n\n\n[_Dictated October 9, 1906._] Onteora was situated high up in the\nCatskill Mountains, in the centre of a far-reaching solitude. I do not\nmean that the region was wholly uninhabited; there were farmhouses here\nand there, at generous distances apart. Their occupants were descendants\nof ancestors who had built the houses in Rip Van Winkle's time, or\nearlier; and those ancestors were not more primitive than were this\nposterity of theirs. The city people were as foreign and unfamiliar and\nstrange to them as monkeys would have been, and they would have\nrespected the monkeys as much as they respected these elegant\nsummer-resorters. The resorters were a puzzle to them, their ways were\nso strange and their interests so trivial. They drove the resorters over\nthe mountain roads and listened in shamed surprise at their bursts of\nenthusiasm over the scenery. The farmers had had that scenery on\nexhibition from their mountain roosts all their lives, and had never\nnoticed anything remarkable about it. By way of an incident: a pair of\nthese primitives were overheard chatting about the resorters, one day,\nand in the course of their talk this remark was dropped:\n\n\"I was a-drivin' a passel of 'em round about yisterday evenin', quiet\nones, you know, still and solemn, and all to wunst they busted out to\nmake your hair lift and I judged hell was to pay. Now what do you reckon\nit was? It wa'n't anything but jest one of them common damned yaller\nsunsets.\"\n\nIn those days--\n\n[_Tuesday, October 16, 1906._] ... Warner is gone. Stockton is gone. I\nattended both funerals. Warner was a near neighbor, from the autumn of\n'71 until his death, nineteen years afterward. It is not the privilege\nof the most of us to have many intimate friends--a dozen is our\naggregate--but I think he could count his by the score. It is seldom\nthat a man is so beloved by both sexes and all ages as Warner was. There\nwas a charm about his spirit, and his ways, and his words, that won all\nthat came within the sphere of its influence. Our children adopted him\nwhile they were little creatures, and thenceforth, to the end, he was\n\"Cousin Charley\" to them. He was \"Uncle Charley\" to the children of more\nthan one other friend. Mrs. Clemens was very fond of him, and he always\ncalled her by her first name--shortened. Warner died, as she died, and\nas I would die--without premonition, without a moment's warning.\n\nUncle Remus still lives, and must be over a thousand years old. Indeed,\nI know that this must be so, because I have seen a new photograph of him\nin the public prints within the last month or so, and in that picture\nhis aspects are distinctly and strikingly geological, and one can see he\nis thinking about the mastodons and plesiosaurians that he used to play\nwith when he was young.\n\nIt is just a quarter of a century since I have seen Uncle Remus. He\nvisited us in our home in Hartford and was reverently devoured by the\nbig eyes of Susy and Clara, for I made a deep and awful impression upon\nthe little creatures--who knew his book by heart through my nightly\ndeclamation of its tales to them--by revealing to them privately that he\nwas the real Uncle Remus whitewashed so that he could come into people's\nhouses the front way.\n\nHe was the bashfulest grown person I have ever met. When there were\npeople about he stayed silent, and seemed to suffer until they were\ngone. But he was lovely, nevertheless; for the sweetness and benignity\nof the immortal Remus looked out from his eyes, and the graces and\nsincerities of his character shone in his face.\n\nIt may be that Jim Wolf was as bashful as Harris. It hardly seems\npossible, yet as I look back fifty-six years and consider Jim Wolf, I am\nalmost persuaded that he was. He was our long slim apprentice in my\nbrother's printing-office in Hannibal. He was seventeen, and yet he was\nas much as four times as bashful as I was, though I was only fourteen.\nHe boarded and slept in the house, but he was always tongue-tied in the\npresence of my sister, and when even my gentle mother spoke to him he\ncould not answer save in frightened monosyllables. He would not enter a\nroom where a girl was; nothing could persuade him to do such a thing.\nOnce when he was in our small parlor alone, two majestic old maids\nentered and seated themselves in such a way that Jim could not escape\nwithout passing by them. He would as soon have thought of passing by one\nof Harris's plesiosaurians ninety feet long. I came in presently, was\ncharmed with the situation, and sat down in a corner to watch Jim\nsuffer, and enjoy it. My mother followed a minute later and sat down\nwith the visitors and began to talk. Jim sat upright in his chair, and\nduring a quarter of an hour he did not change his position by a\nshade--neither General Grant nor a bronze image could have maintained\nthat immovable pose more successfully. I mean as to body and limbs; with\nthe face there was a difference. By fleeting revealments of the face I\nsaw that something was happening--something out of the common. There\nwould be a sudden twitch of the muscles of the face, an instant\ndistortion, which in the next instant had passed and left no trace.\nThese twitches gradually grew in frequency, but no muscle outside of the\nface lost any of its rigidity, or betrayed any interest in what was\nhappening to Jim. I mean if something _was_ happening to him, and I knew\nperfectly well that that was the case. At last a pair of tears began to\nswim slowly down his cheeks amongst the twitchings, but Jim sat still\nand let them run; then I saw his right hand steal along his thigh until\nhalf-way to his knee, then take a vigorous grip upon the cloth.\n\nThat was a _wasp_ that he was grabbing! A colony of them were climbing\nup his legs and prospecting around, and every time he winced they\nstabbed him to the hilt--so for a quarter of an hour one group of\nexcursionists after another climbed up Jim's legs and resented even the\nslightest wince or squirm that he indulged himself with, in his misery.\nWhen the entertainment had become nearly unbearable, he conceived the\nidea of gripping them between his fingers and putting them out of\ncommission. He succeeded with many of them, but at great cost, for, as\nhe couldn't see the wasp, he was as likely to take hold of the wrong end\nof him as he was the right; then the dying wasp gave him a punch to\nremember the incident by.\n\nIf those ladies had stayed all day, and if all the wasps in Missouri had\ncome and climbed up Jim's legs, nobody there would ever have known it\nbut Jim and the wasps and me. There he would have sat until the ladies\nleft.\n\nWhen they finally went away we went up-stairs and he took his clothes\noff, and his legs were a picture to look at. They looked as if they were\nmailed all over with shirt buttons, each with a single red hole in the\ncentre. The pain was intolerable--no, would have been intolerable, but\nthe pain of the presence of those ladies had been so much harder to bear\nthat the pain of the wasps' stings was quite pleasant and enjoyable by\ncomparison.\n\nJim never could enjoy wasps. I remember once--\n\n\n     _From Susy's Biography of Me_ [1885-6].\n\n     Mamma has given me a very pleasant little newspaper scrap about\n     papa, to copy. I will put it in here.\n\n\n[_Thursday, October 11, 1906._] It was a rather strong compliment; I\nthink I will leave it out. It was from James Redpath.\n\nThe chief ingredients of Redpath's make-up were honesty, sincerity,\nkindliness, and pluck. He wasn't afraid. He was one of Ossawatomie\nBrown's right-hand men in the bleeding Kansas days; he was all through\nthat struggle. He carried his life in his hands, and from one day to\nanother it wasn't worth the price of a night's lodging. He had a small\nbody of daring men under him, and they were constantly being hunted by\nthe \"jayhawkers,\" who were proslavery Missourians, guerillas, modern\nfree lances.\n\n[_Friday, October 12, 1906._] ... I can't think of the name of that\ndaredevil guerilla who led the jayhawkers and chased Redpath up and\ndown the country, and, in turn, was chased by Redpath. By grace of the\nchances of war, the two men never met in the field, though they several\ntimes came within an ace of it.\n\nTen or twelve years later, Redpath was earning his living in Boston as\nchief of the lecture business in the United States. Fifteen or sixteen\nyears after his Kansas adventures I became a public lecturer, and he was\nmy agent. Along there somewhere was a press dinner, one November night,\nat the Tremont Hotel in Boston, and I attended it. I sat near the head\nof the table, with Redpath between me and the chairman; a stranger sat\non my other side. I tried several times to talk with the stranger, but\nhe seemed to be out of words and I presently ceased from troubling him.\nHe was manifestly a very shy man, and, moreover, he might have been\nlosing sleep the night before.\n\nThe first man called up was Redpath. At the mention of the name the\nstranger started, and showed interest. He fixed a fascinated eye on\nRedpath, and lost not a word of his speech. Redpath told some stirring\nincidents of his career in Kansas, and said, among other things:\n\n\"Three times I came near capturing the gallant jayhawker chief, and once\nhe actually captured _me_, but didn't know me and let me go, because he\nsaid he was hot on Redpath's trail and couldn't afford to waste time and\nrope on inconsequential small fry.\"\n\nMy stranger was called up next, and when Redpath heard his name he, in\nturn, showed a startled interest. The stranger said, bending a caressing\nglance upon Redpath and speaking gently--I may even say sweetly:\n\n\"You realize that I was that jayhawker chief. I am glad to know you now\nand take you to my heart and call you friend\"--then he added, in a voice\nthat was pathetic with regret, \"but if I had only known you then, what\ntumultuous happiness I should have had in your society!--while it\nlasted.\"\n\nThe last quarter of a century of my life has been pretty constantly and\nfaithfully devoted to the study of the human race--that is to say, the\nstudy of myself, for, in my individual person, I am the entire human\nrace compacted together. I have found that then is no ingredient of the\nrace which I do not possess in either a small way or a large way. When\nit is small, as compared with the same ingredient in somebody else,\nthere is still enough of it for all the purposes of examination. In my\ncontacts with the species I find no one who possesses a quality which I\ndo not possess. The shades of difference between other people and me\nserve to make variety and prevent monotony, but that is all; broadly\nspeaking, we are all alike; and so by studying myself carefully and\ncomparing myself with other people, and noting the divergences, I have\nbeen enabled to acquire a knowledge of the human race which I perceive\nis more accurate and more comprehensive than that which has been\nacquired and revealed by any other member of our species. As a result,\nmy private and concealed opinion of myself is not of a complimentary\nsort. It follows that my estimate of the human race is the duplicate of\nmy estimate of myself.\n\nI am not proposing to discuss all of the peculiarities of the human\nrace, at this time; I only wish to touch lightly upon one or two of\nthem. To begin with, I wonder why a man should prefer a good\nbilliard-table to a poor one; and why he should prefer straight cues to\ncrooked ones; and why he should prefer round balls to chipped ones; and\nwhy he should prefer a level table to one that slants; and why he should\nprefer responsive cushions to the dull and unresponsive kind. I wonder\nat these things, because when we examine the matter we find that the\nessentials involved in billiards are as competently and exhaustively\nfurnished by a bad billiard outfit as they are by the best one. One of\nthe essentials is amusement. Very well, if there is any more amusement\nto be gotten out of the one outfit than out of the other, the facts are\nin favor of the bad outfit. The bad outfit will always furnish thirty\nper cent. more fun for the players and for the spectators than will the\ngood outfit. Another essential of the game is that the outfit shall give\nthe players full opportunity to exercise their best skill, and display\nit in a way to compel the admiration of the spectators. Very well, the\nbad outfit is nothing behind the good one in this regard. It is a\ndifficult matter to estimate correctly the eccentricities of chipped\nballs and a slanting table, and make the right allowance for them and\nsecure a count; the finest kind of skill is required to accomplish the\nsatisfactory result. Another essential of the game is that it shall add\nto the interest of the game by furnishing opportunities to bet. Very\nwell, in this regard no good outfit can claim any advantage over a bad\none. I know, by experience, that a bad outfit is as valuable as the\nbest one; that an outfit that couldn't be sold at auction for seven\ndollars is just as valuable for all the essentials of the game as an\noutfit that is worth a thousand.\n\nI acquired some of this learning in Jackass Gulch, California, more than\nforty years ago. Jackass Gulch had once been a rich and thriving\nsurface-mining camp. By and by its gold deposits were exhausted; then\nthe people began to go away, and the town began to decay, and rapidly;\nin my time it had disappeared. Where the bank, and the city hall, and\nthe church, and the gambling-dens, and the newspaper office, and the\nstreets of brick blocks had been, was nothing now but a wide and\nbeautiful expanse of green grass, a peaceful and charming solitude. Half\na dozen scattered dwellings were still inhabited, and there was still\none saloon of a ruined and rickety character struggling for life, but\ndoomed. In its bar was a billiard outfit that was the counterpart of the\none in my father-in-law's garret. The balls were chipped, the cloth was\ndarned and patched, the table's surface was undulating, and the cues\nwere headless and had the curve of a parenthesis--but the forlorn\nremnant of marooned miners played games there, and those games were more\nentertaining to look at than a circus and a grand opera combined.\nNothing but a quite extraordinary skill could score a carom on that\ntable--a skill that required the nicest estimate of force, distance, and\nhow much to allow for the various slants of the table and the other\nformidable peculiarities and idiosyncrasies furnished by the\ncontradictions of the outfit. Last winter, here in New York, I saw Hoppe\nand Schaefer and Sutton and the three or four other billiard champions\nof world-wide fame contend against each other, and certainly the art and\nscience displayed were a wonder to see; yet I saw nothing there in the\nway of science and art that was more wonderful than shots which I had\nseen Texas Tom make on the wavy surface of that poor old wreck in the\nperishing saloon at Jackass Gulch forty years before. Once I saw Texas\nTom make a string of seven points on a single inning!--all calculated\nshots, and not a fluke or a scratch among them. I often saw him make\nruns of four, but when he made his great string of seven, the boys went\nwild with enthusiasm and admiration. The joy and the noise exceeded that\nwhich the great gathering at Madison Square produced when Sutton scored\nfive hundred points at the eighteen-inch game, on a world-famous night\nlast winter. With practice, that champion could score nineteen or\ntwenty on the Jackass Gulch table; but to start with, Texas Tom would\nshow him miracles that would astonish him; also it might have another\nhandsome result: it might persuade the great experts to discard their\nown trifling game and bring the Jackass Gulch outfit here and exhibit\ntheir skill in a game worth a hundred of the discarded one, for profound\nand breathless interest, and for displays of almost superhuman skill.\n\nIn my experience, games played with a fiendish outfit furnish ecstasies\nof delight which games played with the other kind cannot match.\nTwenty-seven years ago my budding little family spent the summer at\nBateman's Point, near Newport, Rhode Island. It was a comfortable\nboarding-place, well stocked with sweet mothers and little children, but\nthe male sex was scarce; however, there was another young fellow besides\nmyself, and he and I had good times--Higgins was his name, but that was\nnot his fault. He was a very pleasant and companionable person. On the\npremises there was what had once been a bowling-alley. It was a single\nalley, and it was estimated that it had been out of repair for sixty\nyears--but not the balls, the balls were in good condition; there were\nforty-one of them, and they ranged in size from a grapefruit up to a\nlignum-vit\u00e6 sphere that you could hardly lift. Higgins and I played on\nthat alley day after day. At first, one of us located himself at the\nbottom end to set up the pins in case anything should happen to them,\nbut nothing happened. The surface of that alley consisted of a rolling\nstretch of elevations and depressions, and neither of us could, by any\nart known to us, persuade a ball to stay on the alley until it should\naccomplish something. Little balls and big, the same thing always\nhappened--the ball left the alley before it was half-way home and went\nthundering down alongside of it the rest of the way and made the\ngamekeeper climb out and take care of himself. No matter, we persevered,\nand were rewarded. We examined the alley, noted and located a lot of its\npeculiarities, and little by little we learned how to deliver a ball in\nsuch a way that it would travel home and knock down a pin or two. By and\nby we succeeded in improving our game to a point where we were able to\nget all of the pins with thirty-five balls--so we made it a\nthirty-five-ball game. If the player did not succeed with thirty-five,\nhe had lost the game. I suppose that all the balls, taken together,\nweighed five hundred pounds, or maybe a ton--or along there\nsomewhere--but anyway it was hot weather, and by the time that a player\nhad sent thirty-five of them home he was in a drench of perspiration,\nand physically exhausted.\n\nNext, we started cocked hat--that is to say, a triangle of three pins,\nthe other seven being discarded. In this game we used the three smallest\nballs and kept on delivering them until we got the three pins down.\nAfter a day or two of practice we were able to get the chief pin with an\noutput of four balls, but it cost us a great many deliveries to get the\nother two; but by and by we succeeded in perfecting our art--at least we\nperfected it to our limit. We reached a scientific excellence where we\ncould get the three pins down with twelve deliveries of the three small\nballs, making thirty-six shots to conquer the cocked hat.\n\nHaving reached our limit for daylight work, we set up a couple of\ncandles and played at night. As the alley was fifty or sixty feet long,\nwe couldn't see the pins, but the candles indicated their locality. We\ncontinued this game until we were able to knock down the invisible pins\nwith thirty-six shots. Having now reached the limit of the candle game,\nwe changed and played it left-handed. We continued the left-handed game\nuntil we conquered its limit, which was fifty-four shots. Sometimes we\nsent down a succession of fifteen balls without getting anything at all.\nWe easily got out of that old alley five times the fun that anybody\ncould have gotten out of the best alley in New York.\n\nOne blazing hot day, a modest and courteous officer of the regular army\nappeared in our den and introduced himself. He was about thirty-five\nyears old, well built and militarily erect and straight, and he was\nhermetically sealed up in the uniform of that ignorant old day--a\nuniform made of heavy material, and much properer for January than July.\nWhen he saw the venerable alley, and glanced from that to the long\nprocession of shining balls in the trough, his eye lit with desire, and\nwe judged that he was our meat. We politely invited him to take a hand,\nand he could not conceal his gratitude; though his breeding, and the\netiquette of his profession, made him try. We explained the game to him,\nand said that there were forty-one balls, and that the player was\nprivileged to extend his inning and keep on playing until he had used\nthem all up--repeatedly--and that for every ten-strike he got a prize.\nWe didn't name the prize--it wasn't necessary, as no prize would ever be\nneeded or called for. He started a sarcastic smile, but quenched it,\naccording to the etiquette of his profession. He merely remarked that he\nwould like to select a couple of medium balls and one small one, adding\nthat he didn't think he would need the rest.\n\nThen he began, and he was an astonished man. He couldn't get a ball to\nstay on the alley. When he had fired about fifteen balls and hadn't yet\nreached the cluster of pins, his annoyance began to show out through his\nclothes. He wouldn't let it show in his face; but after another fifteen\nballs he was not able to control his face; he didn't utter a word, but\nhe exuded mute blasphemy from every pore. He asked permission to take\noff his coat, which was granted; then he turned himself loose, with\nbitter determination, and although he was only an infantry officer he\ncould have been mistaken for a battery, he got up such a volleying\nthunder with those balls. Presently he removed his cravat; after a\nlittle he took off his vest; and still he went bravely on. Higgins was\nsuffocating. My condition was the same, but it would not be courteous to\nlaugh; it would be better to burst, and we came near it. That officer\nwas good pluck. He stood to his work without uttering a word, and kept\nthe balls going until he had expended the outfit four times, making four\ntimes forty-one shots; then he had to give it up, and he did; for he was\nno longer able to stand without wobbling. He put on his clothes, bade us\na courteous good-by, invited us to call at the Fort, and started away.\nThen he came back, and said,\n\n\"What is the prize for the ten-strike?\"\n\nWe had to confess that we had not selected it yet.\n\nHe said, gravely, that he thought there was no occasion for hurry about\nit.\n\nI believe Bateman's alley was a better one than any other in America, in\nthe matter of the essentials of the game. It compelled skill; it\nprovided opportunity for bets; and if you could get a stranger to do the\nbowling for you, there was more and wholesomer and delightfuler\nentertainment to be gotten out of his industries than out of the finest\ngame by the best expert, and played upon the best alley elsewhere in\nexistence.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n                       (_To be Continued._)\n\n\n\n\nNORTH AMERICAN REVIEW\n\nNo. DCXXV.\n\nDECEMBER, 1907.\n\n\nCHAPTERS FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.--XXV.\n\nBY MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n_January 11, 1906._ Answer to a letter received this morning:\n\n\n     DEAR MRS. H.,--I am forever your debtor for reminding me of that\n     curious passage in my life. During the first year or two after it\n     happened, I could not bear to think of it. My pain and shame were\n     so intense, and my sense of having been an imbecile so settled,\n     established and confirmed, that I drove the episode entirely from\n     my mind--and so all these twenty-eight or twenty-nine years I have\n     lived in the conviction that my performance of that time was\n     coarse, vulgar and destitute of humor. But your suggestion that you\n     and your family found humor in it twenty-eight years ago moved me\n     to look into the matter. So I commissioned a Boston typewriter to\n     delve among the Boston papers of that bygone time and send me a\n     copy of it.\n\n     It came this morning, and if there is any vulgarity about it I am\n     not able to discover it. If it isn't innocently and ridiculously\n     funny, I am no judge. I will see to it that you get a copy.\n\n\n                Address of Samuel L. Clemens (\"Mark Twain\")\n            From a report of the dinner given by the Publishers\n                 of the Atlantic Monthly in honor of the\n                      Seventieth Anniversary of the\n         Birth of John Greenleaf Whittier, at the Hotel Brunswick,\n                         Boston, December 17, 1877,\n                            as published in the\n                         BOSTON EVENING TRANSCRIPT,\n                             December 18, 1877\n\n\n     Mr. Chairman--This is an occasion peculiarly meet for the digging\n     up of pleasant reminiscences concerning literary folk; therefore I\n     will drop lightly into history myself. Standing here on the shore\n     of the Atlantic and contemplating certain of its largest literary\n     billows, I am reminded of a thing which happened to me thirteen\n     years ago, when I had just succeeded in stirring up a little\n     Nevadian literary puddle myself, whose spume-flakes were beginning\n     to blow thinly Californiawards. I started an inspection tramp\n     through the southern mines of California. I was callow and\n     conceited, and I resolved to try the virtue of my _nom de guerre._\n     I very soon had an opportunity. I knocked at a miner's lonely log\n     cabin in the foothills of the Sierras just at nightfall. It was\n     snowing at the time. A jaded, melancholy man of fifty, barefooted,\n     opened the door to me. When he heard my _nom de guerre_ he looked\n     more dejected than before. He let me in--pretty reluctantly, I\n     thought--and after the customary bacon and beans, black coffee and\n     hot whiskey, I took a pipe. This sorrowful man had not said three\n     words up to this time. Now he spoke up and said, in the voice of\n     one who is secretly suffering, \"You're the fourth--I'm going to\n     move.\" \"The fourth what!\" said I. \"The fourth littery man that has\n     been here in twenty-four hours--I'm going to move.\" \"You don't tell\n     me!\" said I; \"who were the others!\" \"Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Emerson\n     and Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes--consound the lot!\"\n\n     You can easily believe I was interested. I supplicated--three hot\n     whiskeys did the rest--and finally the melancholy miner began. Said\n     he--\n\n     \"They came here just at dark yesterday evening, and I let them in\n     of course. Said they were going to the Yosemite. They were a rough\n     lot, but that's nothing; everybody looks rough that travels afoot.\n     Mr. Emerson was a seedy little bit of a chap, red-headed. Mr.\n     Holmes as fat as a balloon; he weighed as much as three hundred,\n     and double chins all the way down to his stomach. Mr. Longfellow\n     built like a prize-fighter. His head was cropped and bristly, like\n     as if he had a wig made of hair-brushes. His nose lay straight down\n     his face, like a finger with the end joint tilted up. They had been\n     drinking, I could see that. And what queer talk they used! Mr.\n     Holmes inspected this cabin, then he took me by the buttonhole, and\n     says he--\n\n\n     \"'Through the deep cares of thought\n     I hear a voice that sings,\n     Build thee more stately mansions,\n     O my soul!'\n\n\n     \"Says I, 'I can't afford it, Mr. Holmes, and moreover I don't want\n     to.' Blamed if I liked it pretty well, either, coming from a\n     stranger, that way. However, I started to get out my bacon and\n     beans, when Mr. Emerson came and looked on awhile, and then he\n     takes me aside by the buttonhole and says--\n\n\n     \"'Give me agates for my meat;\n     Give me cantharids to eat;\n     From air and ocean bring me foods,\n     From all zones and altitudes.'\n\n\n     \"Says I, 'Mr. Emerson, if you'll excuse me, this ain't no hotel.'\n     You see it sort of riled me--I warn't used to the ways of littery\n     swells. But I went on a-sweating over my work, and next comes Mr.\n     Longfellow and buttonholes me, and interrupts me. Says he,\n\n\n     \"'Honor be to Mudjekeewis!\n     You shall hear how Pau-Puk-Keewis--'\n\n\n     \"But I broke in, and says I, 'Beg your pardon, Mr. Longfellow, if\n     you'll be so kind as to hold your yawp for about five minutes and\n     let me get this grub ready, you'll do me proud.' Well, sir, after\n     they'd filled up I set out the jug. Mr. Holmes looks at it and then\n     he fires up all of a sudden and yells--\n\n\n     \"'Flash out a stream of blood-red wine!\n     For I would drink to other days.'\n\n\n     \"By George, I was getting kind of worked up. I don't deny it, I was\n     getting kind of worked up. I turns to Mr. Holmes, and says I,\n     'Looky here, my fat friend, I'm a-running this shanty, and if the\n     court knows herself, you'll take whiskey straight or you'll go\n     dry.' Them's the very words I said to him. Now I don't want to sass\n     such famous littery people, but you see they kind of forced me.\n     There ain't nothing onreasonable 'bout me; I don't mind a passel of\n     guests a-treadin' on my tail three or four times, but when it comes\n     to _standing_ on it it's different, 'and if the court knows\n     herself,' I says, 'you'll take whiskey straight or you'll go dry.'\n     Well, between drinks they'd swell around the cabin and strike\n     attitudes and spout; and pretty soon they got out a greasy old deck\n     and went to playing euchre at ten cents a corner--on trust. I began\n     to notice some pretty suspicious things. Mr. Emerson dealt, looked\n     at his hand, shook his head, says--\n\n\n     \"'I am the doubter and the doubt--'\n\n\n     and ca'mly bunched the hands and went to shuffling for a new\n     layout. Says he--\n\n\n     \"'They reckon ill who leave me out;\n     They know not well the subtle ways I keep.\n     I pass and deal _again_!'\n\n\n     Hang'd if he didn't go ahead and do it, too! O, he was a cool one!\n     Well, in about a minute, things were running pretty tight, but all\n     of a sudden I see by Mr. Emerson's eye he judged he had 'em. He had\n     already corralled two tricks and each of the others one. So now he\n     kind of lifts a little in his chair and says--\n\n\n     \"'I tire of globes and aces!--\n     Too long the game is played!'\n\n\n     --and down he fetched a right bower. Mr. Longfellow smiles as sweet\n     as pie and says--\n\n\n     \"'Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,\n     For the lesson thou hast taught,'\n\n\n     --and blamed if he didn't down with _another_ right bower! Emerson\n     claps his hand on his bowie, Longfellow claps his on his revolver,\n     and I went under a bunk. There was going to be trouble; but that\n     monstrous Holmes rose up, wobbling his double chins, and says he,\n     'Order, gentlemen; the first man that draws, I'll lay down on him\n     and smother him!' All quiet on the Potomac, you bet!\n\n     \"They were pretty how-come-you-so, by now, and they begun to blow.\n     Emerson says, 'The nobbiest thing I ever wrote was Barbara\n     Frietchie.' Says Longfellow, 'It don't begin with my Biglow\n     Papers.' Says Holmes, 'My Thanatopsis lays over 'em both.' They\n     mighty near ended in a fight. Then they wished they had some more\n     company--and Mr. Emerson pointed to me and says--\n\n\n     \"'Is yonder squalid peasant all\n     That this proud nursery could breed?'\n\n\n     He was a-whetting his bowie on his boot--so I let it pass. Well,\n     sir, next they took it into their heads that they would like some\n     music; so they made me stand up and sing 'When Johnny Comes\n     Marching Home' till I dropped--at thirteen minutes past four this\n     morning. That's what I've been through, my friend. When I woke at\n     seven, they were leaving, thank goodness, and Mr. Longfellow had my\n     only boots on, and his'n under his arm. Says I, 'Hold on, there,\n     Evangeline, what are you going to do with _them_! He says, 'Going\n     to make tracks with 'em; because--\n\n\n     \"'Lives of great men all remind us\n     We can make our lives sublime;\n     And, departing, leave behind us\n     Footprints on the sands of time.'\n\n\n     As I said, Mr. Twain, you are the fourth in twenty-four hours--and\n     I'm going to move; I ain't suited to a littery atmosphere.\"\n\n     I said to the miner, \"Why, my dear sir, _these_ were not the\n     gracious singers to whom we and the world pay loving reverence and\n     homage; these were impostors.\"\n\n     The miner investigated me with a calm eye for a while; then said\n     he, \"Ah! impostors, were they? Are _you_?\n\n     I did not pursue the subject, and since then I have not travelled\n     on my _nom de guerre_ enough to hurt. Such was the reminiscence I\n     was moved to contribute, Mr. Chairman. In my enthusiasm I may have\n     exaggerated the details a little, but you will easily forgive me\n     that fault, since I believe it is the first time I have ever\n     deflected from perpendicular fact on an occasion like this.\n\n\nWhat I have said to Mrs. H. is true. I did suffer during a year or two\nfrom the deep humiliations of that episode. But at last, in 1888, in\nVenice, my wife and I came across Mr. and Mrs. A. P. C., of Concord,\nMassachusetts, and a friendship began then of the sort which nothing but\ndeath terminates. The C.'s were very bright people and in every way\ncharming and companionable. We were together a month or two in Venice\nand several months in Rome, afterwards, and one day that lamented break\nof mine was mentioned. And when I was on the point of lathering those\npeople for bringing it to my mind when I had gotten the memory of it\nalmost squelched, I perceived with joy that the C.'s were indignant\nabout the way that my performance had been received in Boston. They\npoured out their opinions most freely and frankly about the frosty\nattitude of the people who were present at that performance, and about\nthe Boston newspapers for the position they had taken in regard to the\nmatter. That position was that I had been irreverent beyond belief,\nbeyond imagination. Very well, I had accepted that as a fact for a year\nor two, and had been thoroughly miserable about it whenever I thought of\nit--which was not frequently, if I could help it. Whenever I thought of\nit I wondered how I ever could have been inspired to do so unholy a\nthing. Well, the C.'s comforted me, but they did not persuade me to\ncontinue to think about the unhappy episode. I resisted that. I tried to\nget it out of my mind, and let it die, and I succeeded. Until Mrs. H.'s\nletter came, it had been a good twenty-five years since I had thought of\nthat matter; and when she said that the thing was funny I wondered if\npossibly she might be right. At any rate, my curiosity was aroused, and\nI wrote to Boston and got the whole thing copied, as above set forth.\n\nI vaguely remember some of the details of that gathering--dimly I can\nsee a hundred people--no, perhaps fifty--shadowy figures sitting at\ntables feeding, ghosts now to me, and nameless forever more. I don't\nknow who they were, but I can very distinctly see, seated at the grand\ntable and facing the rest of us, Mr. Emerson, supernaturally grave,\nunsmiling; Mr. Whittier, grave, lovely, his beautiful spirit shining out\nof his face; Mr. Longfellow, with his silken white hair and his\nbenignant face; Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, flashing smiles and affection\nand all good-fellowship everywhere like a rose-diamond whose facets are\nbeing turned toward the light first one way and then another--a charming\nman, and always fascinating, whether he was talking or whether he was\nsitting still (what _he_ would call still, but what would be more or\nlees motion to other people). I can see those figures with entire\ndistinctness across this abyss of time.\n\nOne other feature is clear--Willie Winter (for these past thousand years\ndramatic editor of the \"New York Tribune,\" and still occupying that high\npost in his old age) was there. He was much younger then than he is now,\nand he showed it. It was always a pleasure to me to see Willie Winter at\na banquet. During a matter of twenty years I was seldom at a banquet\nwhere Willie Winter was not also present, and where he did not read a\ncharming poem written for the occasion. He did it this time, and it was\nup to standard: dainty, happy, choicely phrased, and as good to listen\nto as music, and sounding exactly as if it was pouring unprepared out of\nheart and brain.\n\nNow at that point ends all that was pleasurable about that notable\ncelebration of Mr. Whittier's seventieth birthday--because I got up at\nthat point and followed Winter, with what I have no doubt I supposed\nwould be the gem of the evening--the gay oration above quoted from the\nBoston paper. I had written it all out the day before and had perfectly\nmemorized it, and I stood up there at my genial and happy and\nself-satisfied ease, and began to deliver it. Those majestic guests,\nthat row of venerable and still active volcanoes, listened, as did\neverybody else in the house, with attentive interest. Well, I delivered\nmyself of--we'll say the first two hundred words of my speech. I was\nexpecting no returns from that part of the speech, but this was not the\ncase as regarded the rest of it. I arrived now at the dialogue: 'The old\nminer said, \"You are the fourth, I'm going to move.\" \"The fourth what?\"\nsaid I. He answered, \"The fourth littery man that has been here in\ntwenty-four hours. I am going to move.\" \"Why, you don't tell me,\" said\nI. \"Who were the others?\" \"Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Emerson, Mr. Oliver\nWendell Holmes, consound the lot--\"'\n\nNow then the house's _attention_ continued, but the expression of\ninterest in the faces turned to a sort of black frost. I wondered what\nthe trouble was. I didn't know. I went on, but with difficulty--I\nstruggled along, and entered upon that miner's fearful description of\nthe bogus Emerson, the bogus Holmes, the bogus Longfellow, always\nhoping--but with a gradually perishing hope--that somebody would laugh,\nor that somebody would at least smile, but nobody did. I didn't know\nenough to give it up and sit down, I was too new to public speaking, and\nso I went on with this awful performance, and carried it clear through\nto the end, in front of a body of people who seemed turned to stone with\nhorror. It was the sort of expression their faces would have worn if I\nhad been making these remarks about the Deity and the rest of the\nTrinity; there is no milder way in which to describe the petrified\ncondition and the ghastly expression of those people.\n\nWhen I sat down it was with a heart which had long ceased to beat. I\nshall never be as dead again as I was then. I shall never be as\nmiserable again as I was then. I speak now as one who doesn't know what\nthe condition of things may be in the next world, but in this one I\nshall never be as wretched again as I was then. Howells, who was near\nme, tried to say a comforting word, but couldn't get beyond a gasp.\nThere was no use--he understood the whole size of the disaster. He had\ngood intentions, but the words froze before they could get out. It was\nan atmosphere that would freeze anything. If Benvenuto Cellini's\nsalamander had been in that place he would not have survived to be put\ninto Cellini's autobiography. There was a frightful pause. There was an\nawful silence, a desolating silence. Then the next man on the list had\nto get up--there was no help for it. That was Bishop--Bishop had just\nburst handsomely upon the world with a most acceptable novel, which had\nappeared in the \"Atlantic Monthly,\" a place which would make any novel\nrespectable and any author noteworthy. In this case the novel itself was\nrecognized as being, without extraneous help, respectable. Bishop was\naway up in the public favor, and he was an object of high interest,\nconsequently there was a sort of national expectancy in the air; we may\nsay our American millions were standing, from Maine to Texas and from\nAlaska to Florida, holding their breath, their lips parted, their hands\nready to applaud when Bishop should get up on that occasion, and for the\nfirst time in his life speak in public. It was under these damaging\nconditions that he got up to \"make good,\" as the vulgar say. I had\nspoken several times before, and that in the reason why I was able to go\non without dying in my tracks, as I ought to have done--but Bishop had\nhad no experience. He was up facing those awful deities--facing those\nother people, those strangers--facing human beings for the first time in\nhis life, with a speech to utter. No doubt it was well packed away in\nhis memory, no doubt it was fresh and usable, until I had been heard\nfrom. I suppose that after that, and under the smothering pall of that\ndreary silence, it began to waste away and disappear out of his head\nlike the rags breaking from the edge of a fog, and presently there\nwasn't any fog left. He didn't go on--he didn't last long. It was not\nmany sentences after his first before he began to hesitate, and break,\nand lose his grip, and totter, and wobble, and at last he slumped down\nin a limp and mushy pile.\n\nWell, the programme for the occasion was probably not more than\none-third finished, but it ended there. Nobody rose. The next man hadn't\nstrength enough to get up, and everybody looked so dazed, so stupefied,\nparalyzed, it was impossible for anybody to do anything, or even try.\nNothing could go on in that strange atmosphere. Howells mournfully, and\nwithout words, hitched himself to Bishop and me and supported us out of\nthe room. It was very kind--he was most generous. He towed us tottering\naway into some room in that building, and we sat down there. I don't\nknow what my remark was now, but I know the nature of it. It was the\nkind of remark you make when you know that nothing in the world can help\nyour case. But Howells was honest--he had to say the heart-breaking\nthings he did say: that there was no help for this calamity, this\nshipwreck, this cataclysm; that this was the most disastrous thing that\nhad ever happened in anybody's history--and then he added, \"That is, for\n_you_--and consider what you have done for Bishop. It is bad enough in\nyour case, you deserve to suffer. You have committed this crime, and you\ndeserve to have all you are going to get. But here is an innocent man.\nBishop had never done you any harm, and see what you have done to him.\nHe can never hold his head up again. The world can never look upon\nBishop as being a live person. He is a corpse.\"\n\nThat is the history of that episode of twenty-eight years ago, which\npretty nearly killed me with shame during that first year or two\nwhenever it forced its way into my mind.\n\nNow, then, I take that speech up and examine it. As I said, it arrived\nthis morning, from Boston. I have read it twice, and unless I am an\nidiot, it hasn't a single defect in it from the first word to the last.\nIt is just as good as good can be. It is smart; it is saturated with\nhumor. There isn't a suggestion of coarseness or vulgarity in it\nanywhere. What could have been the matter with that house? It is\namazing, it is incredible, that they didn't shout with laughter, and\nthose deities the loudest of them all. Could the fault have been with\nme? Did I lose courage when I saw those great men up there whom I was\ngoing to describe in such a strange fashion? If that happened, if I\nshowed doubt, that can account for it, for you can't be successfully\nfunny if you show that you are afraid of it. Well, I can't account for\nit, but if I had those beloved and revered old literary immortals back\nhere now on the platform at Carnegie Hall I would take that same old\nspeech, deliver it, word for word, and melt them till they'd run all\nover that stage. Oh, the fault must have been with _me_, it is not in\nthe speech at all.\n\n[_Dictated October 3, 1907._] In some ways, I was always honest; even\nfrom my earliest years I could never bring myself to use money which I\nhad acquired in questionable ways; many a time I tried, but principle\nwas always stronger than desire. Six or eight months ago,\nLieutenant-General Nelson A. Miles was given a great dinner-party in New\nYork, and when he and I were chatting together in the drawing-room\nbefore going out to dinner he said,\n\n\"I've known you as much as thirty years, isn't it?\"\n\nI said, \"Yes, that's about it, I think.\"\n\nHe mused a moment or two and then said,\n\n\"I wonder we didn't meet in Washington in 1867; you were there at that\ntime, weren't you?\"\n\nI said, \"Yes, but there was a difference; I was not known then; I had\nnot begun to bud--I was an obscurity; but you had been adding to your\nfine Civil War record; you had just come back from your brilliant\nIndian campaign in the Far West, and had been rewarded with a\nbrigadier-generalship in the regular army, and everybody was talking\nabout you and praising you. If you had met me, you wouldn't be able to\nremember it now--unless some unusual circumstance of the meeting had\nburnt it into your memory. It is forty years ago, and people don't\nremember nobodies over a stretch of time like that.\"\n\nI didn't wish to continue the conversation along that line, so I changed\nthe subject. I could have proven to him, without any trouble, that we\ndid meet in Washington in 1867, but I thought it might embarrass one or\nthe other of us, so I didn't do it. I remember the incident very well.\nThis was the way of it:\n\nI had just come back from the Quaker City Excursion, and had made a\ncontract with Bliss of Hartford to write \"The Innocents Abroad.\" I was\nout of money, and I went down to Washington to see if I could earn\nenough there to keep me in bread and butter while I should write the\nbook. I came across William Clinton, brother of the astronomer, and\ntogether we invented a scheme for our mutual sustenance; we became the\nfathers and originators of what is a common feature in the newspaper\nworld now--the syndicate. We became the old original first Newspaper\nSyndicate on the planet; it was on a small scale, but that is usual with\nuntried new enterprises. We had twelve journals on our list; they were\nall weeklies, all obscure and poor, and all scattered far away among the\nback settlements. It was a proud thing for those little newspapers to\nhave a Washington correspondence, and a fortunate thing for us that they\nfelt in that way about it. Each of the twelve took two letters a week\nfrom us, at a dollar per letter; each of us wrote one letter per week\nand sent off six duplicates of it to these benefactors, thus acquiring\ntwenty-four dollars a week to live on--which was all we needed, in our\ncheap and humble quarters.\n\nClinton was one of the dearest and loveliest human beings I have ever\nknown, and we led a charmed existence together, in a contentment which\nknew no bounds. Clinton was refined by nature and breeding; he was a\ngentleman by nature and breeding; he was highly educated; he was of a\nbeautiful spirit; he was pure in heart and speech. He was a Scotchman,\nand a Presbyterian; a Presbyterian of the old and genuine school, being\nhonest and sincere in his religion, and loving it, and finding serenity\nand peace in it. He hadn't a vice--unless a large and grateful sympathy\nwith Scotch whiskey may be called by that name. I didn't regard it as a\nvice, because he was a Scotchman, and Scotch whiskey to a Scotchman is\nas innocent as milk is to the rest of the human race. In Clinton's case\nit was a virtue, and not an economical one. Twenty-four dollars a week\nwould really have been riches to us if we hadn't had to support that\njug; because of the jug we were always sailing pretty close to the wind,\nand any tardiness in the arrival of any part of our income was sure to\ncause us some inconvenience.\n\nI remember a time when a shortage occurred; we had to have three\ndollars, and we had to have it before the close of the day. I don't know\nnow how we happened to want all that money at one time; I only know we\nhad to have it. Clinton told me to go out and find it--and he said he\nwould also go out and see what he could do. He didn't seem to have any\ndoubt that we would succeed, but I knew that that was his religion\nworking in him; I hadn't the same confidence; I hadn't any idea where to\nturn to raise all that bullion, and I said so. I think he was ashamed of\nme, privately, because of my weak faith. He told me to give myself no\nuneasiness, no concern; and said in a simple, confident, and\nunquestioning way, \"the Lord will provide.\" I saw that he fully believed\nthe Lord would provide, but it seemed to me that if he had had my\nexperience--\n\nBut never mind that; before he was done with me his strong faith had had\nits influence, and I went forth from the place almost convinced that the\nLord really would provide.\n\nI wandered around the streets for an hour, trying to think up some way\nto get that money, but nothing suggested itself. At last I lounged into\nthe big lobby of the Ebbitt House, which was then a new hotel, and sat\ndown. Presently a dog came loafing along. He paused, glanced up at me\nand said, with his eyes, \"Are you friendly?\" I answered, with my eyes,\nthat I was. He gave his tail a grateful little wag and came forward and\nrested his jaw on my knee and lifted his brown eyes to my face in a\nwinningly affectionate way. He was a lovely creature--as beautiful as a\ngirl, and he was made all of silk and velvet. I stroked his smooth brown\nhead and fondled his drooping ears, and we were a pair of lovers right\naway. Pretty soon Brigadier-General Miles, the hero of the land, came\nstrolling by in his blue and gold splendors, with everybody's admiring\ngaze upon him. He saw the dog and stopped, and there was a light in his\neye which showed that he had a warm place in his heart for dogs like\nthis gracious creature; then he came forward and patted the dog and\nsaid,\n\n\"He is very fine--he is a wonder; would you sell him?\"\n\nI was greatly moved; it seemed a marvellous thing to me, the way\nClinton's prediction had come true. I said,\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThe General said,\n\n\"What do you ask for him?\"\n\n\"Three dollars.\"\n\nThe General was manifestly surprised. He said,\n\n\"Three dollars? Only three dollars? Why, that dog is a most uncommon\ndog; he can't possibly be worth leas than fifty. If he were mine, I\nwouldn't take a hundred for him. I'm afraid you are not aware of his\nvalue. Reconsider your price if you like, I don't wish to wrong you.\"\n\nBut if he had known me he would have known that I was no more capable of\nwronging him than he was of wronging me. I responded with the same quiet\ndecision as before,\n\n\"No--three dollars. That is his price.\"\n\n\"Very well, since you insist upon it,\" said the General, and he gave me\nthree dollars and led the dog away, and disappeared up-stairs.\n\nIn about ten minutes a gentle-faced middle-aged gentleman came along,\nand began to look around here and there and under tables and everywhere,\nand I said to him,\n\n\"Is it a dog you are looking for?\"\n\nHis face was sad, before, and troubled; but it lit up gladly now, and he\nanswered,\n\n\"Yes--have you seen him?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"he was here a minute ago, and I saw him follow a\ngentleman away. I think I could find him for you if you would like me to\ntry.\"\n\nI have seldom seen a person look so grateful--and there was gratitude in\nhis voice, too, when he conceded that he would like me to try. I said I\nwould do it with great pleasure, but that as it might take a little time\nI hoped he would not mind paying me something for my trouble. He said he\nwould do it most gladly--repeating that phrase \"most gladly\"--and asked\nme how much. I said--\n\n\"Three dollars.\"\n\nHe looked surprised, and said,\n\n\"Dear me, it is nothing! I will pay you ten, quite willingly.\"\n\nBut I said,\n\n\"No, three is the price\"--and I started for the stairs without waiting\nfor any further argument, for Clinton had said that that was the amount\nthat the Lord would provide, and it seemed to me that it would be\nsacrilegious to take a penny more than was promised.\n\nI got the number of the General's room from the office-clerk, as I\npassed by his wicket, and when I reached the room I found the General\nthere caressing his dog, and quite happy. I said,\n\n\"I am sorry, but I have to take the dog again.\"\n\nHe seemed very much surprised, and said,\n\n\"Take him again? Why, he is my dog; you sold him to me, and at your own\nprice.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"it is true--but I have to have him, because the man\nwants him again.\"\n\n\"What man?\"\n\n\"The man that owns him; he wasn't my dog.\"\n\nThe General looked even more surprised than before, and for a moment he\ncouldn't seem to find his voice; then he said,\n\n\"Do you mean to tell me that you were selling another man's dog--and\nknew it?\"\n\n\"Yes, I knew it wasn't my dog.\"\n\n\"Then why did you sell him?\"\n\nI said,\n\n\"Well, that is a curious question to ask. I sold him because you wanted\nhim. You offered to buy the dog; you can't deny that I was not anxious\nto sell him--I had not even thought of selling him, but it seemed to me\nthat if it could be any accommodation to you--\"\n\nHe broke me off in the middle, and said,\n\n\"_Accommodation_ to me? It is the most extraordinary spirit of\naccommodation I have ever heard of--the idea of your selling a dog that\ndidn't belong to you--\"\n\nI broke him off there, and said,\n\n\"There is no relevancy about this kind of argument; you said yourself\nthat the dog was probably worth a hundred dollars, I only asked you\nthree; was there anything unfair about that? You offered to pay more,\nyou know you did. I only asked you three; you can't deny it.\"\n\n\"Oh, what in the world has that to do with it! The crux of the matter is\nthat you didn't own the dog--can't you see that? You seem to think that\nthere is no impropriety in selling property that isn't yours provided\nyou sell it cheap. Now, then--\"\n\nI said,\n\n\"Please don't argue about it any more. You can't get around the fact\nthat the price was perfectly fair, perfectly reasonable--considering\nthat I didn't own the dog--and so arguing about it is only a waste of\nwords. I have to have him back again because the man wants him; don't\nyou see that I haven't any choice in the matter? Put yourself in my\nplace. Suppose you had sold a dog that didn't belong to you; suppose\nyou--\"\n\n\"Oh,\" he said, \"don't muddle my brains any more with your idiotic\nreasonings! Take him along, and give me a rest.\"\n\nSo I paid back the three dollars and led the dog down-stairs and passed\nhim over to his owner, and collected three for my trouble.\n\nI went away then with a good conscience, because I had acted honorably;\nI never could have used the three that I sold the dog for, because it\nwas not rightly my own, but the three I got for restoring him to his\nrightful owner was righteously and properly mine, because I had earned\nit. That man might never have gotten that dog back at all, if it hadn't\nbeen for me. My principles have remained to this day what they were\nthen. I was always honest; I know I can never be otherwise. It is as I\nsaid in the beginning--I was never able to persuade myself to use money\nwhich I had acquired in questionable ways.\n\nNow, then, that is the tale. Some of it is true.\n\n                                                     MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"20943":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNoto de tekstpreparulo:\nIom literumaj eraroj kaj malkonformaj citiloj de la fontteksto estas \u0109i sube korektita, kaj estas priskribita en HTML-aj komentoj.\n\n\nKLASIKAJ USONAJ\nNOVELOJ\nMARK TWAIN\n(1835-1910)\nTRI CETERAJ\nNOVELOJ:\n-LA AMAVENTURO\nDE LA ESKIMOA FRA\u016cLINO-\n-KANIBALISMO EN LA VAGONOJ-\n-BON\u015cANCO-\nEsperantigis\nEDWIN GROBE\n1999\nEldonejo-Arizona-Stelo\n1620 North Sunset Drive\nTempe, Arizona 85281-1550\nUsono\n\n\nMARK TWAIN: TRI CETERAJ NOVELOJ\nUnua Eldono: Aprilo 1999\n\n\nOriginaj Anglalingvaj Titoloj:\n\u201cTHE ESKIMAU MAIDEN\u2019S ROMANCE\u201d\n\u201cCANNIBALISM IN THE CARS\u201d\n\u201cLUCK\u201d\n\nLA AMAVENTURO DE LA ESKIMOA FRA\u016cLINO\n\u201cJes, mi rakontos al vi \u0109ion ajn pri mia vivo kion pla\u0109us al vi ekscii, S-ro Tvajno,\u201d \u015di diris en sia dol\u0109a vo\u0109o kaj lasante ripozi trankvile sur mian viza\u011don siajn honestajn okulojn, \u201c\u0109ar estas afable kaj bonkore ke vi \u015datas min kaj deziras informi\u011di pri mi.\u201d\nTiel parolante, \u015di senatente forskrapis balengrason de sur siaj vangoj per malgranda ostotran\u0109ilo kaj \u011din transigis sur sian peltan manikon dum \u015di spektadis Arktan A\u016droron svingi siajn flamantajn flagrubandojn el la \u0109ielo kaj lavi la solecan ne\u011debena\u0135on kaj la temploformajn glacimontojn per ri\u0109aj prismofarboj, spektaklo de preska\u016d netolereblaj pompo kaj beleco. Sed nun \u015di forskuis sian revadon kaj preti\u011dis rakonti al mi la modestan historieton kiun mi petis.\n\u015ci komfortigis sin konvene sur la glacibloko kiun ni utiligis kiel sofon kaj mi ekpretis a\u016dskulti.\n\u015ci estis belega esta\u0135o. Mi parolas la\u016d la Eskimoa vidpunkto. Aliaj \u015din taksintus iomete tro plenforma. \u015ci estis nur dudekjara kaj \u015diaj samgentanoj ju\u011dis \u015din la plej sor\u0109anta junulino de la tribo. E\u0109 nun, en la sub\u0109iela aero, kun \u015diaj \u011denpeza kaj senforma peltomantelo kaj pantalono kaj botoj kaj ampleksa kapu\u0109o, almena\u016d la beleco de \u015dia viza\u011do videblis, sed \u015dian figuron oni povis nur diveni. Inter \u0109iuj gastoj alvenintaj kaj foririntaj mi vidis nenian knabinon \u0109e la gastama trogo de \u015dia patro povantan \u015din egali. Tamen \u015di ne estis troindulgita. \u015ci estis afabla kaj natura kaj sincera kaj se \u015di konsciis esti bela, \u015dia kondutmaniero neniel elmontris tian konscion.\n\u015ci estis mia \u0109iutaga kunestanto jam de unu semajno kaj ju pli bone mi konis \u015din des pli bone \u015di pla\u0109is al mi. \u015ci estis ame kaj zorge edukita en etoso de aparte malkomuna rafinado por la polusaj regionoj \u0109ar \u015dia patro estis la plej grava homo de la tribo kaj rangis \u0109e la supro de Eskimoa kulturo. Mi faris longajn hundosledajn ekskursojn trans la vastajn glacikampojn kun Laskino\u2014tio estis \u015dia nomo\u2014kaj trovis \u015dian kompanion \u0109iam pla\u0109a kaj \u015dian konversacion \u0109iam agrabla. Mi iris fi\u015dkaptadi kun \u015di sed ne en \u015dia dan\u011derega boato. Mi nur sekvis \u015din la\u016d la glacio kaj spektadis \u015din trafi sian predon per sia pereige preciza lanco. Mi akompanis \u015din okaze de fokkaptaj ekspedicioj. Plurajn fojojn mi staris aparte kaj rigardis \u015din kaj \u015dian familion elfosi grason el grundita baleno kaj iun fojon akompanis \u015din mezdistancen kiam \u015di \u0109asis urson sed mi forturni\u011dis anta\u016d la fino \u0109ar finanalize mi timas ursojn.\nTamen \u015di pretis komenci sian rakonton nun kaj jen tio kion \u015di diris:\n\u201cNia tribo \u0109iam kutimis \u0109irka\u016dnomadi de loko al loko sur la frostaj maroj same kiel la ceteraj triboj sed mia patro laci\u011dis pri tio anta\u016d du jaroj kaj konstruis \u0109i tiun vastan domegon el glacii\u011dintaj ne\u011dblokoj. Rigardu \u011din. \u011ci altas je sep futoj kaj estas tri-kvaroble pli longa ol la aliaj. Kaj \u0109i tie ni da\u016dre lo\u011das ekde tiam. Li estis tre fiera pri sia domego kaj tiu fiereco ta\u016dgis. \u0108ar se vi jam \u011din kontrolis, la\u016dnecese vi rimarkis kiom pli bela kaj kompleta \u011di estas ol domoj kutimas esti. Se ne, tamen, vi devas, \u0109ar vi konscios ke \u011di havas luksajn apartena\u0135ojn kiuj multe preteriras la kutimon. Ekzemple, en tiu ekstrema\u0135o kiun vi nomis \u2018salono\u2019,  la podio levita por gastigi vizitantojn kaj la familion je man\u011dohoroj estas la plej granda kiun vi vidis iam ajn en iu ajn domo, \u0109u ne?\u201d\n\u201cJes, vi pravas, Laskino. \u011ci estas la plej granda. Ni havas nenion kiu \u011din similas e\u0109 en la plej luksaj domoj de Usono.\u201d Tiu agnosko briligis \u015diajn okulojn pro fiereco kaj plezuro. Mi rimarkis tion kaj kondutis konforme.\n\u201cMi ju\u011dis ke tio la\u016dnecese vin surprizis,\u201d \u015di diris. \u201cKaj estas cetera\u0135o. \u011ci estas koverta de pli da peltoj ol kutimas\u2014\u0109iuspecaj peltoj\u2014fokaj, marlutraj, ar\u011dent-griz-vulpaj, ursaj, martesaj, zibelaj\u2014\u0109iu speco de pelto, abundakvante. Kaj same pri la glaciblokaj la\u016dmuraj dormbenkoj, kiujn vi nomas \u2018litoj\u2019. \u0108u viaj podioj kaj dormbenkoj estas pli bone provizitaj \u0109e vi?\u201d\n\u201cEfektive, ne, Laskino. Tia kvalito ege mankas al ili.\u201d Tio pla\u0109is al \u015di denove. \u015ci pensis nur pri la kvanto da peltoj kiun \u015dia estetika patro penadis reteni \u0109emane, ne pri ilia valoro. Mi povintus diri al \u015di ke tiuj amasoj da ri\u0109aj peltoj konsistigus trezoregon\u2014a\u016d  almena\u016d en mia lando\u2014sed tion \u015di ne komprenintus. Tiuj ne estis la speco de poseda\u0135oj kiuj taksi\u011das kiel valora\u0135oj \u0109e \u015dia gento. Mi povintus diri al \u015di ke la vesta\u0135oj surportataj de \u015di, a\u016d la \u0109iutagaj vesta\u0135oj de la plej ordinara najbaro \u015dia, valoras dek du-dek kvin cent dolarojn, kaj ke \u0109e mi mi konas neniun kiu surmetas dekducentdolaran vesta\u0135on por iri fi\u015dkaptadi. Tamen \u015di ne komprenintus. Tial mi diris nenion. \u015ci reparolis:\n\u201cKaj aldone la for\u0135etakvujoj. Ni havas du en la salono kaj du en la resta\u0135o de la domo. Tre maloftas ke oni havu du en la salono. \u0108u vi havas du en la salono \u0109e vi?\u201d Mi anhelis pensante pri tiuj kuvoj, sed renormali\u011dis anta\u016d ol \u015di konsciis pri mia kondi\u0109o kaj mi diris entuziasme:\n\u201cNu, Laskino, mi hontas perfidante mian landon kaj vi promesu ne \u0109irka\u016dsciigu tion \u0109ar mi parolas al vi konfidence, sed mi \u0135uras la\u016d mia honoro ke e\u0109 la plej ri\u0109a viro de Nov-Jorko ne havas du for\u0135etakvujojn en sia salono.\u201d\n\u015ci apla\u016ddigis siajn peltokovritajn manojn pro senkulpa \u011dojego kaj kriegis:\n\u201cHo, sed ne eblas ke vi verdiras, nepre ne eblas!\u201d\n\u201cEfektive, ege eblas, mia karulino. Ni konsideru Vanderbilton. Vanderbilto estas preska\u016d la plej ri\u0109a homo de la tuta mondo. Nu, se mi ku\u015dus sur mia mortolito, mi ade dirus al vi ke e\u0109 li ne havas du en sia salono. Ho, li havas e\u0109 ne unu. Mi mortfalu surloke se mi ne diras la veron.\u201d\n\u015ciaj belaj okuloj lar\u011di\u011dis pro surprizo kaj \u015di diris malrapide kun speco de miro en la vo\u0109o:\n\u201cKiel strange! Kiel nekredeble! Oni apena\u016d povas koncepti tion. \u0108u li estas avara?\u201d\n\u201cNe\u2014ne temas pri tio. Li ne maltrankvili\u011das pri la kosto. Sed, nu, ho, nu, vi scias, tio povus \u015dajni pompega. Jes, jen estas la ideo. Li estas simpla viro kaj malbonvolas sin meti en elmontradon.\u201d\n\u201cNu, tia humileco ta\u016dgas,\u201d diris Laskino, \u201cse ni ne troigas la aferon. Sed kiel aspektas lia lo\u011dejo?\u201d\n\u201cNu, devige \u011di aspektas malplene kaj malfinkonstruite, sed\u2014\u201d\n\u201cMi povas kredi tion! Mi neniam a\u016ddis tia\u0135on. \u0108u \u011di estas bela lo\u011dejo\u2014tio estas, alirilate?\u201d\n\u201cSufi\u0109e bela, jes. Oni ege alttaksas \u011din.\u201d\nLa knabino silentis dum kelke da tempo kaj sidis reveme, ron\u011dante kandel-ekstrema\u0135on, ver\u015dajne strebante trapensi la aferon. Finfine \u015di iom flankenskuis la kapon kaj sciigis decidige sian opinion:\n\u201cNu, la\u016d mi, estas speco de humileco kiu estas en si speco de pompo, kiam vi penetras la temon \u011dismedole. Kaj kiam viro kapablas elporti la koston de du for\u0135etakvujoj en sia salono sed malkonsentas ilin meti tie, povas esti ke li estas a\u016dtente humilmensa, sed centoble pli eblas ke li nur strebas atentigi la publikan rigardon. La\u016d mia ju\u011do via S-ro Vanderbilto scias kion li faras.\u201d\nMi entreprenis modifi tiun verdikton, opiniante ke du-for\u0135etakvujoj-normo malta\u016dgas por taksi homojn la\u016d tutmonda skalo kvankam \u011di sufi\u0109e  ta\u016dgas en propra socia medio. Sed la opinio de la knabino estis fiksita kaj mi ne sukcesis \u015din konvinki. Balda\u016d \u015di diris:\n\u201c\u0108e vi \u0109u la ri\u0109uloj havas dormbenkojn tiel bonajn kiel la niaj, kaj faritajn el belaj lar\u011daj glaciblokoj?\u201d\n\u201cNu, ili estas iom bonaj, sufi\u0109e bonaj. Sed ili ne estas faritaj el glaciblokoj.\u201d\n\u201cMi ege scivolas. Kial ili ne estas faritaj el glaciblokoj?\u201d\nMi klarigis la malfacila\u0135ojn pri tio kaj la alta kosto de glacio en lando kie necesas atente kontroli vian glaciliveriston, sen kio via glacifakturo pezos pli ol via glacio. Tiam \u015di demandis krivo\u0109e:\n\u201cNekredeble! \u0108u vi a\u0109etas vian glacion?\u201d\n\u201cJes ja, devige, karulino.\u201d\n\u015ci eligis ventegon da senruza ridado, kaj diris:\n\u201cHo, neniam mi a\u016ddis similan stulta\u0135on! Do, estas abundego da \u011di. \u011ci havas nenian valoron. Vi konsideru! Glacio \u011dis distanco de cent mejloj videblas en la nunega momento. Mi ne konsentus inter\u015dan\u011di fi\u015dvezikon kontra\u016d la tuta amaso da \u011di.\u201d\n\u201cNu, vi diras tion \u0109ar vi ne scipovas \u011din taksi, vi provinca simplamensulineto. Se vi disponus tiun glacion en Nov-Jorko dum la somero, inter\u015dan\u011de de \u011di vi povus a\u0109eti \u0109iujn balenojn de la merkato.\u201d\n\u015ci rigardis min dubeme kaj diris:\n\u201c\u0108u vi parolas honestavorte?\u201d\n\u201cNeprege. Tion mi pri\u0135uras.\u201d\nTio meditemigis \u015din. Balda\u016d \u015di diris, kun eta suspiro:\n\u201cPla\u0109us al mi ekpovi lo\u011di tie.\u201d\nMi nur celis provizi \u015din per valornormo kiun \u015di scipovus kompreni. Sed mia celo mistrafis. Mi nur naskigis en \u015di la supozon ke en Nov-Jorko balenoj estas abundaj kaj malmultkostaj kaj eksalivigis \u015dian bu\u015don pri ili. Mi opiniis ke pli bone estus entrepreni mildigi la malbonon faritan de mi. Tial mi diris:\n\u201cSed se vi lo\u011dus tie, ne pla\u0109us al vi balenviando. \u011ci pla\u0109as al neniu.\u201d\n\u201cKio!\u201d\n\u201cEfektive, balenviando pla\u0109as al neniu.\u201d\n\u201cSed kial ne?\u201d\n\u201cNu, mi ne bone scias. Temas pri anta\u016dju\u011dado, mi opinias. Jes, jen la kialo. Nura anta\u016dju\u011dado. Mi supozas ke starigis anta\u016dju\u011dadon pri \u011di iun anta\u016dan fojon persono havanta nenion pli bonan por fari kaj post kiam tia kaprico estas eksurvojigita, vi scias, \u011di emas da\u016dri senfine.\u201d\n\u201cTio veras, nepre veras,\u201d diris la knabino mediteme. \u201cSame kiel nia anta\u016dju\u011do pri sapo \u0109i tie\u2014niaj triboj sentis anta\u016dju\u011don kontra\u016d sapo en la komenco, vi scias.\u201d\nMi ekrigardis \u015din por certigi \u0109u \u015di seriozas. Ver\u015dajne \u015di jes ja seriozis. Mi hezitis, tiam diris, singarde:\n\u201cSed pardonu min. \u0108u ili sentis anta\u016dju\u011don kontra\u016d sapo? \u0108u sentis, kun isa fina\u0135o?\u201d  kaj mia vo\u0109o subenmoduli\u011dis.\n\u201cJes. Sed nur en la komenco. Neniu bonvolis man\u011di \u011din.\u201d\n\u201cHo, jes. Nun mi komprenas. Anta\u016de mi ne kaptis vian ideon.\u201d\n\u015ci reparolis:\n\u201cEstis nura anta\u016dju\u011do. Kiam fremduloj alvenigis sapon \u0109i tien la unuan fojon, \u011di pla\u0109is al neniu. Sed post kiam \u011di la\u016dmodi\u011dis, \u011di pla\u0109is al \u0109iuj kaj nun havas \u011din \u0109iu povanta pagi ties prezon. \u0108u vi \u015datas \u011din?\u201d\n\u201cJes ja, efektive. Se mi ne disponus pri \u011di, mi mortus, precipe \u0109i tie. \u0108u vi \u015datas \u011din?\u201d\n\u201cMi \u011din amegas. \u0108u vi \u015datas kandelojn?\u201d\n\u201cMi ilin ju\u011das nepra bezona\u0135o. \u0108u \u015datas ilin vi?\u201d\n\u015ciaj okuloj kvaza\u016d ekdancadis kaj \u015di proklamis:\n\u201cHo! Ne parolu pri tio! Kandeloj! Kaj sapo!\n\u201cKaj fi\u015dinterna\u0135oj!\u201d\n\u201cKaj fervojmazuto!\u201d\n\u201cKaj ne\u011d\u015dlimo!\u201d\n\u201cKaj balengraso!\u201d\n\u201cKaj kadavra\u0135o! Kaj sa\u016drkra\u016dto! Kaj abelvakso! Kaj gudro! Kaj terebinto! Kaj melaso! Kaj\u2014\u201d\n\u201cHo, ne! Ne da\u016drigu la liston! Mi pereos pro ekstazo!\u201d\n\u201cKaj tiam kunservi \u0109ion en \u015dlimtrogo kaj inviti la najbarojn kaj ekman\u011degi!\u201d\nSed tiu vizio pri ideala bankedo estis troa\u0135o por \u015di kaj la kompatindulino svenis. Mi frotigis ne\u011don kontra\u016d \u015dian viza\u011don kaj \u015din reanimigis kaj post iom da tempo sukcesis mildigi \u015dian eksciti\u011don. Iom post iom \u015di reaktivigis sian rakontadon:\n\u201cDo, ni komencis lo\u011di \u0109i tie, en tiu bonega domo. Sed mi estis malfeli\u0109a. Jen estas la kialo. Mi naski\u011dis por ami. Mi opiniis ne povi vere feli\u0109i\u011di sen amo. Mi deziris esti amata por mi mem. Mi deziris idolon kaj mi deziris esti la idolino de mia idolo. Nur reciproka idoladorado kontentigus mian ardan naturon. Mi disponis abunde pri amkandidatoj\u2014tro abunde, efektive\u2014sed \u0109iu el ili, senescepte, havis fatalan difekton. Neniu el ili sukcesis \u011din kamufli. Ne estis mi kiun ili deziris sed mian ri\u0109econ.\u201d\n\u201c\u0108u vian ri\u0109econ?\u201d\n\u201cJes, \u0109ar mia patro estas la plej ri\u0109a homo de nia tribo, e\u0109 de iu ajn tribo de \u0109i tiuj regionoj.\u201d\nMi scivolemis pri la konsistigo de la ri\u0109eco de \u015dia patro. Ne povus temi pri la domo. Iu ajn povus konstrui ties sama\u0135on. Ne povus temi pri la peltoj. La tribo taksis ilin senvaloraj. Ne povus temi pri la sledo, la hundoj, la harpunoj, la boato, la ostaj fi\u015dhokoj kaj kudriloj, a\u016d ceteraj tia\u0135oj. Ne, tiuj ne konsistigis ri\u0109econ. Tial, kio povus esti la fonto de la ri\u0109eco de tiu viro? Kio povintus alvenigi al lia domo tiun amason da ficelaj edzi\u011dkandidatoj? \u015cajnis al mi, finanalize, ke pli bone estus pridemandi tion. Tial mi pridemandis. Videble mia demando tiel kontentigis la knabinon ke mi ekkonsciis ke \u015di jam anta\u016de deziregis ke mi \u011din starigu. \u015ci suferis tiom multe dezirante sciigi la aferon kiom mi dezirante \u011din ekscii. \u015ci sin alpremis konfidence kontra\u016d min kaj diris:\n\u201cDivenu kiom li valoras\u2014vi neniam scipovos diveni.\u201d\nMi \u015dajnigis konsideri la aferon profunde dum \u015di rigardis mian anksian kaj laboreman mienon kun voranta kaj ravita interesi\u011do. Kaj kiam finfine mi rezignis kaj petis \u015din kontentigi mian deziron dirante al mi \u015di mem kiom valoras tiu polusa Vanderbilto, \u015di metis la bu\u015don kontra\u016d mian orelon kaj flustris, impone:\n\u201cDudek du fi\u015dhokoj\u2014ne ostaj, sed fremdaj\u2014fabrikitaj el a\u016dtenta fero!\u201d\nTiam \u015di retiri\u011dis kun teatra salteto, por observi la efekton. Mi faris mian nepran plejon por ne malkontentigi \u015din.\nMi pali\u011dis kaj murmuretis:\n\u201cNome de la Granda Skoto!\u201d\n\u201cTio tiel veras kiel vi vivas, S-ro Tvajno!\u201d\n\u201cLaskino, vi min trompas. Vi ne parolas sincere.\u201d\n\u015ci ektimi\u011dis kaj maltrankvili\u011dis. \u015ci proklamis:\n\u201cS-ro Tvajno, \u0109iu vorto veras, \u0109iu vorto. Kredu min. Vi jes ja min kredas, \u0109u ne? Diru ke vi min kredas. Bonvolu diri ke vi kredas min!\u201d\n\u201cMi\u2014nu, jes, mi kredas\u2014almena\u016d mi penadas kredi. Sed \u0109io okazis tiel subite. Tiel subite kaj humilige. Vi ne devus fari tia\u0135on en tiu rapida maniero. Tio\u2014\u201d\n\u201cHo, mi tiom beda\u016dras! Se mi nur anta\u016dpensintus\u2014\u201d\n\u201cNu, ne gravas, kaj mi ne plu vin kulpigas \u0109ar vi estas juna kaj senpripensa kaj kompreneble vi ne scipovis anta\u016dscii kiun efekton\u2014\u201d\n\u201cSed, ho, ve, mi certe devintus pli bone taksi la situacion. Nu\u2014\u201d\n\u201cVidu, Laskino, se vi parolintus pri kvin-ses fi\u015dhokoj por anonci la temon kaj tiam iom post iom\u2014\u201d\n\u201cHo, mi komprenas, mi komprenas. Tiam iom post iom aldonintus unu, tiam du, tiam\u2014ho, kial mi ne elpensis tion?\u201d\n\u201cNe gravas, kara infano, tute ne gravas. Mi fartas pli bone nun. Post iom da tempo mi estos renormali\u011dinta. Sed\u2014eklan\u0109i la tutan dudekduensemblon al malpretulo kiu aldone iom malbonfartas\u2014\u201d\n\u201cHo, krimo jes ja tio estis. Sed vi pardonu min. Bonvolu diri ke vi min pardonas. Bonvolu!\u201d\nPost rikolti bonan provizon da tre pla\u0109aj petado kaj persvado kaj konvinkado, mi pardonis \u015din kaj \u015di refeli\u0109i\u011dis kaj post iom da tempo rekomencis rakonti sian aventuron. Balda\u016d mi konsciis ke la familia trezoro enhavas ankora\u016d ceteran valora\u0135on\u2014iuspecan juvela\u0135on, ver\u015dajne\u2014kaj ke \u015di klopodas eviti paroli malka\u015de pri \u011di, timante ke mi denove paralizi\u011du. Sed mi deziris informi\u011di anka\u016d pri tiu a\u0135o kaj petegis \u015din diri al mi kio \u011di estas. \u015ci timis. Sed mi insistis kaj promesis anta\u016dapogi min \u0109i tiun fojon kaj esti preta por ke la \u015doko ne min difektu. \u015ci plenis je malcertoj sed tro fortis por \u015di la tento sciigi tiun mirinda\u0135on al mi kaj \u011dui miajn miron kaj admiron kaj \u015di konfesis \u011din porti sur sia persono kaj diris ke se mi certas esti preta\u2014kaj tiel plu kaj tiel plu\u2014kaj tiam enigis manon en la sinon kaj eligis batitan kvadraton de latuno, samtempe kontrolante anksie mian rigardon. Mi falis kontra\u016d \u015din en bone \u015dajnigita sveno, kiu kontentigis \u015dian koron kaj samtempe preska\u016d senigis \u015din je \u011di. Kiam mi renormali\u011dis kaj trankvili\u011dis, \u015di deziregis ekscii kion mi opinias pri \u015dia juvela\u0135o.\n\u201cKion mi opinias pri \u011di? Mi taksas \u011din la plej ekskvizita a\u0135o kiun mi iam vidis.\u201d\n\u201c\u0108u vere? Kiom agrable estas ke vi tiel diras. Sed \u011di estas jes ja vera aminda\u0135o, \u0109u ne?\u201d\n\u201cNu, mi nepre ne povas malkonsenti. Pli pla\u0109us al mi \u011din posedi ol la ekvatoron.\u201d\n\u201cMi opiniis ke vi admiros \u011din,\u201d \u015di diris. \u201cMi ju\u011das \u011din tiom bela. Kaj ne ekzistas cetera en \u0109iuj \u0109i tiuj latitudoj. Homoj alvenis la tutan distancon ekde Malfermata Polusa Maro por \u011din rigardi. \u0108u iam anta\u016de vi vidis simila\u0135on?\u201d\nMi diris ke ne, \u0109i tiu estas la unua kiun mi vidis iam. Multe min dolorigis devi diri tiun malavaran mensogon, pro tio ke mi jam vidis en anta\u016daj tempoj milionon da ili \u0109ar tiu simpla juvelo \n\u015dia estis nenio alia ol malnova difektita baga\u011didentigilo de Nov-Jorko-Centra-Trajndomo.\n\u201cSankta tero!\u201d mi diris. \u201cVi certe ne \u0109irka\u016diras portante tion sur via persono tiumaniere, tute sole kaj sen\u015dirme, e\u0109 senhunde, \u0109u?\u201d\n\u201c\u015c\u015d\u015d! Ne tiel la\u016dte!\u201d \u015di diris. \u201cNeniu scias ke mi \u011din surportas. Ili supozas ke \u011di estas en la trezorejo de Pa\u0109jo. Kutime \u011di estas tie.\u201d\n\u201cKie estas la trezorejo?\u201d\nEstis malsubtila demando kaj dum momento \u015di aspektis surprizite kaj iom suspekte, sed mi diris:\n\u201cHo, komprenu, vi ne pritimu min. En mia lando estas sepdek milionoj da lo\u011dantoj kaj, kvankam ne decas ke mi mem diru tion, \u0109iuj el senescepte, bonvolus konfidi al mi sennombrajn fi\u015dhokojn.\u201d\nTio retrankviligis \u015din kaj \u015di diris al mi kie en la domo la hokoj estas ka\u015ditaj. Tiam \u015di iom forlasis sian temon por fanfaroneti pri la grando de la tabuloj da travidebla glacio konsistigantaj la fenestrojn de la domego kaj demandis al mi \u0109u iam mi vidis simila\u0135ojn \u0109e mi kaj mi respondis senhezite kaj tute malka\u015de ke ne, kio pli pla\u0109is al \u015di ol \u015di sukcesis eltrovi vortojn en kiuj vesti sian kontenti\u011don. Estis tiel facile pla\u0109i al \u015di kaj tiel pla\u0109e al mi ke mi da\u016drigis la temon, dirante:\n\u201cHo, Laskino, vi estas jes ja bon\u015danca knabino\u2014\u0109i tiu belega domo, \u0109i tiu delikata juvela\u0135o, tiu ri\u0109a trezoro, la tuta\u0135o de tiu impona ne\u011do, kaj luksaj glacimontoj kaj senfina sterileco, kaj publikaj ursoj kaj rosmaroj, kaj noblaj libereco kaj grandeco, kaj \u0109ies admiraj okuloj vin rigardantaj, kaj \u0109ies oma\u011do kaj respekto senpete disponeblaj al vi; juna, ri\u0109a, belega, ser\u0109ata, amindumata, enviata, kun \u0109iu bezono havebla, \u0109iu deziro atingebla, \u0109iu volo plenumebla\u2014tio estas senlima bonfortuno! Mi jam vidis miriadojn da knabinoj, sed \u0109iujn tiujn eksterordinarajn komplimentojn mi rajtas aserti verdire nur pri vi. Kaj vi meritas\u2014vi meritas \u0109ion tion, Laskino\u2014tion mi kredas en mia koro.\u201d\nFierigis kaj feli\u0109igis \u015din a\u016ddi min diri tion kaj \u015di dankis min foje kaj refoje pro tiu lasta aserta\u0135o kaj \u015diaj vo\u0109o kaj okuloj komprenigis al mi ke \u015dia koro estis tu\u015dita. Balda\u016d \u015di diris:\n\u201cTamen ne \u0109io estas sunbrilo. Anka\u016d nuban flankon havas la situacio. La \u015dar\u011do de ri\u0109eco estas peza por subteni. Foje mi scivolis \u0109u ne estus pli bone esti malri\u0109a\u2014almena\u016d ne pretermodere ri\u0109a. Dolorigas min vidi najbarajn tribanojn kiuj preterpasas kaj suba\u016ddi ilin diri, respektege, unu al la alia, \u2018Jen\u2014jen  \u015di estas\u2014la filino de la milionulo!\u2019  Kaj foje ili diras beda\u016dre, \u2018\u015ci  ruli\u011das en fi\u015dhokoj dum mi\u2014nenion mi havas.\u2019  Tio rompas al mi la koron. Kiam mi estis infano kaj ni estis malri\u0109aj, ni dormis sen fermi la pordon, se ni tiel deziris. Sed nun\u2014nun ni bezonas dungi noktogardiston. En tiu epoko mia patro estis mildahumora kaj komplezema al \u0109iuj. Sed nun li estas a\u016dstera kaj aroganta kaj maltoleras senformalecon. Pasintece li pensis nur pri sia familio sed nun, dum li \u0109irka\u016diras, liaj fi\u015dhokoj konsistigas lian ununuran priokupa\u0135on. Kaj pro lia ri\u0109eco \u0109iuj ka\u016dras anta\u016d li kaj montri\u011das servema\u0109aj pri li. Anta\u016de neniu ridis pri liaj \u015dercoj \u0109ar \u0109iam ili estis malnovmodaj kaj preterkredeblaj kaj senbonkvalitaj \u0109ar mankis al ili la ununura elemento povanta pravigi \u015dercon\u2014la humurelementon. Sed nun \u0109iuj ridas kaj rida\u0109as pri tiuj morna\u0135oj kaj se iu ajn forgesas fari tion, tio ege malpla\u0109as al mia patro kaj li ne hezitas elmontri sian mal\u011dojon. Anta\u016de oni ne petis lian opinion pri io ajn kaj kiam li sciigis \u011din senpete, \u011di estis senvalora. \u011ci havas ankora\u016d tiun difekton, tamen \u0109iuj petas \u011din kaj \u011din apla\u016ddas. Kaj li mem partoprenas en la apla\u016ddado, \u0109ar mankas al li a\u016dtenta diskreteco kaj abunda takto. Li malaltigis la karakteron de nia tuta tribo. Anta\u016de \u011di estis honesta kaj vireca gento. Nun \u011di konsistas el mizeraj hipokritoj, moligitaj per servitudo. En la profundego de mia koro mi abomenas \u0109iujn milionulajn vivmanierojn! Nia tribo estis anta\u016de ordinara simpla gento kiun kontentigis la ostaj fi\u015dhokoj de iliaj gepatroj. Nun avareco ilin konsumas kaj ili volonte sin senigus je \u0109iu sento pri honoro kaj honesteco por havigi al si la malnobligantajn ferajn fi\u015dhokojn de la fremdulo. Tamen mi ne rajtas insisti pri tiuj mal\u011dojaj temoj. Kiel mi jam diris, estis mia revo esti amata por mi mem.\n\u201cFinfine \u015dajnis ke tiu revo estis plenumota. Iun tagon alvenis nekonato dirante ke lia nomo estas Kalulo. Mi sciigis al li mian nomon kaj li diris ke li min amas. Mia koro saltegis pro dankemo kaj plezuro \u0109ar mi jam ekamis lin unuavide kaj nun mi agnoskis al li tiun amon. Li min alprenis sur la bruston kaj diris ne deziri esti pli feli\u0109a ol nun. Ni piedpromenadis kune trans la bankizerojn, rakontante \u0109ion pri si unu al la alia kaj planante, ho! la plej belan estontecon. Kiam ni laci\u011dis ni sidi\u011dis kaj man\u011dis \u0109ar li havis sapon kaj kandelojn kaj mi kunportis balengrason. Ni malsatis kaj neniam anta\u016de man\u011da\u0135o havis tiel bonan guston.\n\u201cLi apartenis al tribo kies frekventejoj situis en la fora nordo kaj mi eksciis ke li neniam a\u016ddis pri mia patro, kio ege min \u011dojigis. Mi volas diri ke li jam a\u016ddis pri la milionulo sed neniam a\u016ddis lian nomon. Tial, vi komprenu, li ne povis scii ke mi estas la heredontino. Vi rajtas kredi ke mi ne diris tion al li. Finfine mi estis amata por mi kaj estis kontenta. Mi estis tiel feli\u0109a\u2014ho! pli feli\u0109a ol vi povas imagi.\n\u201cIom post iom la vesperman\u011dhoro alproksimi\u011dis kaj mi kondukis lin al nia hejmo. Kiam ni estis atingontaj nian domon li ekmiregis kaj kriis:\n\u201c\u2018Kiom bonega! \u0108u apartenas al via patro tio?\u2019\n\u201cA\u016ddi tiun vo\u0109tonon kaj vidi tiun admiran lumon en lia rigardo min ekdolorigetis, sed balda\u016d la sento forpasis \u0109ar mi tiom amis lin kaj li havis tiel belan kaj noblan aspekton. Mia tuta familio da onklinoj kaj onkloj kaj gekuzoj kontenti\u011dis pri li kaj oni invitis multajn gastojn kaj fermegis la domon kaj ekbruligis la \u0109ifonlampojn kaj kiam \u0109io estis varma kaj komforta kaj sufokega, ni estigis \u011dojan bankedon por festi mian fian\u0109ini\u011don.\n\u201cKiam la bankedo fini\u011dis, la orgojlo de mia patro lin superis kaj li ne rezistis al la tento elmontri siajn ri\u0109ecojn kaj vidigi al Kalulo kian bon\u015dancon tiu atingis hazardavoje\u2014kaj \u0109efkiale, kompreneble, li deziris \u011dui la mirego de la kompatindulo. Mi povintus ekplori\u2014sed tia\u0135o ne sukcesintus malpersvadi mian patron, tial mi diris nenion sed da\u016dre sidadis kaj suferis.\n\u201cMia patro aliris rektalinie la ka\u015dejon, en la plena vidkampo de \u0109iuj, kaj eligis la fi\u015dhokojn kaj revenportis ilin kaj sving\u0135etis ilin super mia kapo, tiamaniere ke ili falis en brila miksa\u0135o sur la provizoran tableton kiun konsistigis la genuo de mia amanto.\n\u201cKompreneble, la miriga spektaklo senspirigis la kompatindan knabon. Li sukcesis nur fiksrigardi pro stulta surprizi\u011do kaj scivoli kiel ununura homo povas akiri tiajn nekredeblajn ri\u0109ecojn. Tiam balda\u016d li suprenrigardis brilokule kaj ekkriis:\n\u201c\u2018Tial, estas vi kiu estas la renoma milionulo!\u2019\n\u201cMia patro kaj \u0109iuj ceteraj \u0109eestantoj kvaza\u016d eksplodis per kriegoj de feli\u0109a ridado kaj kiam mia patro kunigis la trezoron senzorge same kiel \u011di estus nura ruba\u0135o havanta nenian valoron kaj \u011din revenportis al ties ka\u015dloko, la surprizo de Kalulo estis studinda\u0135o. Li diris:\n\u201c\u2018\u0108u eblas ke vi staplas tia\u0135ojn sen ilin kompti?\u2019\n\u201cMia patro eligis orgojlan \u0109evalridegon kaj diris:\n\u201c\u2018Nu, verdire, oni konscias ke vi neniam estis ri\u0109a pro tio ke tiel gravas por vi simpla afero kiel unu-du fi\u015dhokoj.\u2019\n\u201cKalulo konfuzi\u011dis kaj klinis la kapon, tamen diris:\n\u201c\u2018Ho, efektive, sinjoro, mi neniam valoris e\u0109 la pikilon de unu el tiaj multkosta\u0135oj kaj neniam anta\u016de vidis viron tiel ri\u0109an je ili ke valoris la penon nombri lian provizon \u0109ar \u011dis nun la plej ri\u0109a viro kiun mi konis disponis nur tri.\u2019\n\u201cMia stulta patro kriegis denove pro naiva plezurego kaj ne entreprenis korekti la supozon ke li ne kutimas nombri siajn hokojn por ilin atente kontroli. Li pavadis, vi komprenu. \u0108u ilin nombri? Ho, \u0109iun tagon li nombris ilin.\n\u201cMi renkontis mian karulon kaj konati\u011dis kun li je tagi\u011do kaj lin kondukis \u0109e mi je nokti\u011do nur tri horojn poste\u2014\u0109ar en tiu tempo la tagoj malplilongi\u011dis anticipe al la sesmonatda\u016dra nokto. Ni festis dum multaj horoj. Tiam finfine la gastoj foriris kaj ni ceteraj nin situigis dise la\u016d la muroj sur la dormbenkoj kaj balda\u016d \u0109iuj krom mi perdi\u011dis en son\u011dado. Mi estis tro feli\u0109a, tro ekscitita por dormi. Post kiam mi jam ku\u015dis senbrue dum longa, longa tempo, malklara formo preterpasis min kaj engluti\u011dis en la malhelo pleniganta la foran ekstrema\u0135on de la domo. Mi ne scipovis distingi kiu \u011di estis, nek \u0109u \u011di estis viro a\u016d virino. Balda\u016d la formo, a\u016d eble alia formo, preterpasis irante en la kontra\u016da direkto. Mi scivolis kion signifas \u0109io tio sed scivoli malutilis. Kaj scivolante, mi ekdormis.\n\u201cMi ne scias dum kiom da tempo mi dormis sed subite mi plene veki\u011dis kaj a\u016ddis mian patron diri en terura vo\u0109o: \u2018La\u016d la granda Ne\u011do-Dio, mankas fi\u015dhoko!\u2019 Io diris al mi ke tio a\u016dguras mal\u011dojon por mi kaj la sango de miaj vejnoj ekmalvarmi\u011dis. Mia anta\u016dsento konfirmi\u011dis en la same instanto. Mia patro kriegis: \u2018Veki\u011du \u0109iuj kaj ekkaptu la fremdulon!\u2019 Tiam a\u016ddi\u011dis ekbruo de kriegoj kaj sakra\u0135oj el \u0109iuj flankoj kaj vidi\u011dis freneza hastado de malklaraj figuroj tra la malhelo. Mi kuregis subteni mian karulon sed kion mi povis fari krom stari kaj premtordi la manojn? Jam apartigis lin disde mi vivanta hommuro. Oni ligis al li manojn kaj piedojn. Nur post kiam li estis sekure ligita oni permesis ke mi lin aliru. Mi lan\u0109is min sur lian kompatindan ofenditan formon kaj ploregis pro mal\u011dojo sur lia brusto dum mia patro kaj mia tuta familio min primokis kaj lin mistraktis per minacoj kaj hontigaj epitetoj. Li toleris tiun malbontraktadon kun trankvila digno kiu amatigis lin de mi e\u0109 pli ol iam ajn kaj fierigis kaj feli\u0109igis min, benitan per la \u015danco suferi kun li kaj por li. Mi a\u016ddis mian patron ordoni ke la plia\u011duloj de la tribo kunveni\u011du cele al ju\u011di mian Kalulon por lia vivo.\n\u201c\u2018Kio?\u2019 mi diris. \u2018\u0108u anta\u016d ol ser\u0109i la perditan hokon?\u2019 \n\u201c\u2018\u0108u perditan hokon?\u2019 \u0109iuj kriegis priride. Kaj mia patro aldonis moke: \u2018Retiri\u011du, \u0109iuj, kaj dece ekseriozi\u011du. \u015ci deziras ser\u0109i tiun perditan hokon. Ho, sendube \u015di malkovros \u011din.\u2019 Post kio \u0109iuj ekridis denove.\n\u201cMi ne perturbi\u011dis. Mi sentis neniajn timojn, neniajn dubojn. Mi diris:\n\u201c\u2018En la nuna momento estas via vico ridi. Sed alvenos nia vico. Atendu kaj konsciu.\u2019\n\u201cMi alprenis \u0109ifonlampon, opiniante povi malkovri tiun mizera\u0109a\u0135on en nura momenteto. Kaj mi iniciatis mian ser\u0109adon kun tiom da memfido ke miaj tribanoj seriozi\u011dis, ekante suspekti esti eble tro hastintaj. Sed, ve! ho, ve! Ho, la amareco de \u0109i tiu ser\u0109ado. Okazis profunda silento dum kiu oni povis nombri la fingrojn dek-dek du fojojn. Tiam mia koro komencis malforti\u011di kaj \u0109irka\u016d mi rekomenci\u011dis la kunmokado kiu da\u016dre plila\u016dti\u011dis kaj plicerti\u011dis \u011dis, kiam finfine mi rezignis, ili eksplodis en salvo post salvo da kruda ridado.\n\u201cNeniu ekscios iam kion mi suferis tiam. Sed mia amo subtenis kaj plifortigis min kaj mi aliris mian decan postenon flanke de Kalulo kaj \u0109irka\u016dbrakis lian kolon kaj flustris en lian orelon, dirante:\n\u201c\u2018Vi estas senkulpa, mia proprulo. Tion mi pricertas. Sed diru tion al mi vi mem por min komfortigi por ke mi toleru kian ajn nin atendantan estontecon.\u2019\n\u201cLi respondis:\n\u201c\u2018Tiel certege kiel mi staras mortorande en la nuna momento, mi estas senkulpa. Trankvili\u011du, tial, ho, kontuzita koro! Estu en paco, ho, vi spirado de miaj naztruoj, vivo de mia vivo!\u2019\n\u201c\u2018Nun, tial, alvenu la plia\u011duloj!\u2019 Kaj dum mi eldiris la vortojn, mi a\u016ddis ekstere alproksimi\u011dantan sonadon de knaranta ne\u011do kaj tiam vizion pri klini\u011dantaj formoj enirantaj la\u016dvice traporde\u2014la plia\u011duloj.\n\u201cMia patro akuzis plenceremonie la kaptiton kaj rakontis la eventojn de la nokto. Li diris ke la sentinelo staris ekstere anta\u016dporde kaj ke enestis la domon neniu krom la familianoj kaj la fremdulo. \u2018\u0108u familianoj \u015dtelprenus proprajn hava\u0135ojn?\u2019\n\u201cLi pa\u016dzis. La plia\u011duloj sidis senparole dum multaj minutoj. Finfine unu post la alia \u0109iu diris al sia najbaro, \u2018\u0108i tio a\u016dguras malbone por la fremdulo.\u2019 Dolorigaj vortoj por miaj oreloj. Tiam mia patro sidi\u011dis. Ho, mizera, mizerulino ke mi! En tiu sama momento mi disponis la eblon senkulpigi mian karulon sed pri tio ne konsciis!\n\u201cLa tribunalestro demandis:\n\u201c\u2018\u0108u \u0109eestas iu ajn deziranta defendi la akuziton?\u2019\n\u201cMi stari\u011dis kaj diris:\n\u201c\u2018Kial li volintus \u015dtelpreni tiun hokon, a\u016d iun ajn ceteran a\u016d \u0109iujn el ili? Post plua tago li fari\u011dintus heredonto de la tuta aro!\u2019\n\u201cMi staris, atendante. Estis longa silento dum la vaporoj de la multaj spiradoj levi\u011dis \u0109irka\u016d mi kiel nebulo. Finfine unu post la alia la plia\u011duloj kapjesis plurfoje malrapide kaj murmuris: \u2018La eldira\u0135o de la knabino havas forton!\u2019 Ho, kiel korkomfortigaj estis tiuj vortoj! Tiel efemeraj, tamen tiel altvaloraj! Mi sidi\u011dis.\n\u201c\u2018Se iu ajn deziras paroli pli longe, ekparolu nun li a\u016d \u015di. Se ne, tiu restu de nun anta\u016den en silento,\u2019 diris la tribunalestro.\n\u201cMia patro stari\u011dis kaj diris:\n\u201c\u2018En la nokto, formo preterpasis min en la malhelo, irante en la direkto al la trezorejo, kaj balda\u016d revenis. Mi nun opinias ke estis la fremdulo.\u2019\n\u201cHo, mi estis svenonta! \u011cis nun mi supozis ke tio estas mia sekreto. E\u0109 la alkro\u0109o de la granda Glaci-Dio mem ne povintus \u011din eltrenegi el mia koro.\n\u201cLa tribunalestro diris severe al mia kompatinda Kalulo:\n\u201c\u2018Parolu!\u2019\n\u201cKalulo hezitis, tiam respondis:\n\u201c\u2018Estis mi. Mi ne sukcesis dormi tiom mi pensis pri la belaj hokoj. Mi iris tien kaj kisis ilin kaj ilin karesis por pacigi mian spiriton kaj \u011din dronigi en senkulpa \u011dojo. Tiam mi remetis ilin. Eblas ke mi faligis unu sed mi \u015dtelprenis ne e\u0109 unu.\u2019\n\u201cHo, pereiga konfeso por fari en tia loko! Okazis terura silento. Mi konsciis ke li proklamis propran kondamnon kaj ke \u0109io fini\u011dis. Sur \u0109iu viza\u011do hieroglifi\u011dis la vortoj: \u2018Konfeso \u011di estas! kaj bagatela, lama, malsolida.\u2019\n\u201cMi sidis, spirante anhele, atendante. Balda\u016d mi a\u016ddis la solenajn vortojn kiujn mi sciis esti venontaj. Kaj \u0109iu vorto, kiam \u011di alvenis, estis tran\u0109ilo en mia koro:\n\u201c\u2018Estas la ordono de la tribunalo ke la akuzito estu submetita al ju\u011dado per akvo.\u2019\n\u201cHo, malbenita estu la kapo de tiu alportinta al nia lando \u2018ju\u011dadon per akvo\u2019. \u011ci alvenis, anta\u016d generacioj, el iu fora lando situanta neniu scias kie. Anta\u016d tio niaj patroj utiligis a\u016dguradon kaj aliajn malcertajn ju\u011drimedojn kaj sendube okazis fojfoje ke kelkaj kompatindaj esta\u0135oj travivis la sperton. Sed ne okazas tiel  en la kazo de ju\u011dado per akvo kiu estas eltrova\u0135o de homoj pli sa\u011daj ol ni kompatindaj sensciaj sova\u011duloj. Pere de \u011di la senkulpuloj montri\u011das senkulpaj sendube, sendispute, \u0109ar ili dronas. Kaj la kulpuloj montri\u011das kulpaj kun la sama certeco \u0109ar ili ne dronas. Mia koro rompi\u011dis en mia brusto, \u0109ar mi diris, \u2018Li estas senkulpa, kaj li subiros la ondojn kaj neniam plu mi lin revidos.\u2019\n\u201cMi ne forlasis lin post tio. Mi lamentis en liaj brakoj dum la tuta da\u016dro de la pretervaloraj horoj kaj li elver\u015dis sur min la profundan fluadon de lia amo kaj, ho! mi estis tiel mizera kaj tiel feli\u0109a! Finfine, \u015dirprene ili disapartigis nin kaj mi postsekvis ilin ploregante kaj vidis ilin lin forlan\u0109i en la maron. Tiam mi kovris la viza\u011don permane. \u0108u dolorego? Ho, mi konas la plej profundajn el la diversaj profundaj signifojn de tiu vorto!\n\u201cEn la sekvinta momento la homoj kriegis eksplode pro malica \u011dojo kaj mi malkovris la viza\u011don, surprizegite. Ho, amara vida\u0135o! Li na\u011dadis!\n\u201cTuj mia koro \u015dtoni\u011dis, glacii\u011dis. Mi diris: \u2018Li estis kulpa kaj li mensogis al mi!\u2019\n\u201cMi forturni\u011dis malestime kaj survoji\u011dis hejmdirekten.\n\u201cIli kondukis lin sur la foran maron kaj lin postlasis sur glacimonto drivanta suden en la grandaj akvoj. Tiam mia familio hejmenrevenis kaj mia patro diris al mi:\n\u201c\u2018Via \u015dtelisto sendis al vi sian mesa\u011don de mortanto, dirante: \u201cDiru al \u015di ke mi estas senkulpa kaj ke la\u016dlonge de la tagoj kaj la horoj kaj la minutoj dum kiuj mi malsatos kaj pereos mi da\u016dre amos \u015din kaj pensos pri \u015di kaj benos la tagon kiu disponigis al mi la vida\u0135on pri \u015dia dol\u0109a viza\u011do.\u201d Tre bela, e\u0109 poezia!\u2019\n\u201cMi diris: \u2018Li estas malpura\u0135o! Mi neniam plu a\u016ddu pri li denove!\u2019 Kaj, ho! konsideru! Li estis jes ja malgra\u016d \u0109io senkulpa. \n\u201cNa\u016d monatoj\u2014na\u016d mornaj, malfeli\u0109aj monatoj\u2014forpasis kaj finfine alvenis la tago de la Granda \u0108iujara Ofero, kiam \u0109iuj fra\u016dlinoj de la tribo lavas la viza\u011don kaj kombas la hararon. Responde al la unua movo de mia kombilo, elfalis la fatala fi\u015dhoko de kie \u011di nestis dum \u0109iuj tiuj monatoj kaj mi falis en svenado en la brakojn de mia rimorsa patro! \u011cemante, li diris: \u2018Ni murdis lin kaj neniam plu mi ridetos.\u2019 Li tenis la promeson. A\u016dskultu: ekde tiu tago \u011dis la hodia\u016da ne forpasas ununura monato sen ke mi kombu la hararon. Sed, ho! por kio utilas \u0109io tio nun?\u201d\nTial fini\u011dis la modesta rakonteto de la kompatinda fra\u016dlino, pere de kiu ni ekscias ke, pro tio ke cent milionoj da dolaroj en Nov-Jorko kaj dudek du fi\u015dhokoj sur la limo de Arkta Cirklo reprezentas la saman financan superecon, homo trovi\u011danta en malri\u0109aj cirkonstancoj stultuli\u011das restante en Nov-Jorko kiam li povas a\u0109eti fi\u015dhokojn \u011dis valoro de dek cendoj kaj elmigri.\nKANIBALISMO EN LA VAGONOJ\nMi vizitis Sankta-Luizon lastatempe kaj dum mia \u011disokcidenta voja\u011do, post vagon\u015dan\u011do \u0109e Tero-Hoto, en \u015dtato Indianio, milda bonvolaspekta sinjoro \u0109irka\u016d kvardekkvin-, a\u016d eble kvindekjara, entrajni\u011dis \u0109e unu el la la\u016dvojaj stacionoj kaj sidi\u011dis apud mi. Ni interparolis afable pri diversaj temoj dum, eble, horo, kaj mi ju\u011dis lin ege inteligenta kaj distra. Kiam li eksciis ke mi lo\u011das en Va\u015dingtono, li tuj komencis starigi demandojn pri diversaj publikaj homoj kaj pri Uson-Parlamentaj aferoj. Kaj mi balda\u016d konsciis ke mi interparolas kun viro bone konanta la publikajn kaj malpublikajn flankojn de la politika vivo de la \u0108efurbo, e\u0109 la kutimojn kaj manierojn kaj procedrimedojn de Senatoroj kaj Reprezentantoj en la \u0108ambroj de la tutlanda Parlamento. Balda\u016d du viroj haltis apud ni dum ununura momento kaj unu diris al la alia:\n\u201cHariso, se vi konsentos fari tion por mi, mi neniam vin forgesos, mia knabo.\u201d\nLa rigardo de mia nova kamarado eklumi\u011dis pla\u0109e. La vortoj revigligis feli\u0109an memora\u0135on, mi supozis. Tiam lia viza\u011do fari\u011dis meditema, preska\u016d mal\u011doja. Li turni\u011dis al mi kaj diris, \u201cPermesu ke mi rakontu al vi historieton. Permesu ke mi vin informu pri sekreta \u0109apitro de mia vivo\u2014\u0109apitro neniam aludita de mi ekde la tago kiam okazis ties eventoj. A\u016dskultu pacience kaj promesu al mi ke vi min ne interrompos.\u201d\nMi promesis kaj li rakontis la sekvontan strangan aventuron, parolante foje kun vigleco, foje kun melankolio, sed \u0109iam kun emocio kaj seriozo.\n\nEn la 19a de decembro 1853 mi forlasis Sankta-Luizon sur la vespera trajno aliranta \u0108ikagon. Entute estis nur dudek kvar pasa\u011deroj. Estis neniaj virinoj, neniaj infanoj. Ni estis en bona humoro kaj balda\u016d formi\u011dis pla\u0109aj kunrilatoj. La voja\u011do promesis esti feli\u0109a. Nenia ano de nia kompanio, mi opinias, spertis e\u0109 la plej svagan anta\u016dsenton pri la honora\u0135oj balda\u016d nin surfalontaj.\nJe la dekunua de la vespero peza ne\u011do komencis faladi. Balda\u016d post eliri vila\u011deton Veldenon, ni eniris tiun vastegan prerian solecejon etendantan sian senfinan le\u016dgaron da sendoma morno en la direkto al Jubileaj Kolonioj. La ventoj, malbremsataj far arboj a\u016d montetoj, a\u016d e\u0109 nomadaj rokoj, fajfegis feroce trans la ebenan sova\u011dejon, pelante la falantan ne\u011don anta\u016d si kiel \u015dpruca\u0135on fontintan el la kresthavaj ondoj de \u015dtorma maro. La ne\u011do pliprofundi\u011dis rapide kaj ni sciis, pro la mildigita rapido de la trajno, ke la lokomotivo traplugis \u011din kun konstante pligrandi\u011danta malfacileco. Efektive, foje \u011di preska\u016d plenhaltis meze de grandegaj driva\u0135oj sin amasigintaj kiel kolosaj tomboj trans la fervojon. Interparolado komencis malofti\u011di. Gajecon anstata\u016dis serioza maltrankvili\u011do. La eblo ekmalliberi\u011di en la ne\u011do, sur la malmilda prerio, kvindek mejlojn for de iu ajn konstrua\u0135o, sin anoncis al \u0109iu menso kaj etendis sur \u0109iun spiriton sian malesperigantan influon.\nJe la dua de la mateno mi veki\u011dis el malfacila dormado pro la \u0109eso de \u0109iu movado \u0109irka\u016d mi. La timigega vero sin trudis al mi kun fulma rapideco: negodriva\u0135o malliberigis nin! \u201c\u0108iuj manoj eksaltu al la savado!\u201d \u0108iu viro obeis tujege. En la sova\u011dan nokton, la pe\u0109an malhelon, la ondegan ne\u011don \u0109iu estulo sin lan\u0109is, plene konsciante ke momento mal\u015dparata nun povos pereigi nin \u0109iujn poste. \u015covelilojn, manojn, tabulojn\u2014ion ajn, \u0109ion ajn povantan flankenmovi ne\u011don ni ekfunciigis. Strangan bildon konsistigis tiu malgranda kompanio da frenezaj viroj batalantaj kontra\u016d la amasi\u011dantaj ne\u011doj, duone en la plej malhela ombro, duone en la kolerigita lumo de la lokomotiva reflektoro.\nNura mallonga horo sufi\u0109is por pruvi la nepran senutilon de niaj klopodoj. La \u015dtormo barikadis la vojon per dekduo da driva\u0135oj dum ni for\u015dovelis unu. Kaj e\u0109 pli malbone, ni eksciis ke la lasta granda anta\u016denpelo de la lokomotivo rompis la anta\u016d-malanta\u016d-\u015dafton de la pelrado! E\u0109 havante malfermitan vojon anta\u016d ni, ni estintus tamen senhelpaj. Ni eniris la vagonon lacigitaj pro nia laboro kaj ege mal\u011dojaj. Ni kuni\u011dis \u0109irka\u016d la hejtostovoj kaj analizis tre serioze nian situacion. Ni disponis pri nepre neniaj provizoj\u2014sur tio bazi\u011dis nia \u0109efa \u0109agreno. Maleblis ke ni frosti\u011du \u0109ar estis bona provizo da ligno en la tendro. Jen estis nia sola konsola\u0135o. La diskutado fini\u011dis je nia agnosko pri la malkura\u011diga decido de la konduktoro, t.e., ke certege mortus iu ajn homo klopodonta piediri kvindek mejlojn tra tia ne\u011do. Maleblis ke ni alvoku helpon kaj e\u0109 se eblus, helpo ne alvenus. Necesis ke ni rezignu kaj atendu, kiel eble plej pacience, helpon a\u016d malsatmorton! Miaopinie, e\u0109 la plej forta koro tiea sentis dummomentan ekmalvarmon kiam estis diritaj tiuj vortoj.\nAnta\u016d ol forpasis nova horo, interparolado mildi\u011dis \u011dis malla\u016dta murmurado en diversaj anguloj de la vagono, suba\u016ddate la\u016dintervale inter la plila\u016dti\u011do kaj malplila\u016dti\u011do de la \u015dtormo. La lampoj malbrili\u011dis. La plejparto el la abandonitoj sin komfortigis inter la flagretantaj ombroj por meditadi\u2014por forgesi la nunan tempon, se eblus al ili\u2014por ekdormi, se ili povus.\nLa eterna nokto\u2014certege \u011di \u015dajnis eterna al ni\u2014eluzis finfine siajn lantintajn horojn kaj malvarma griza tagi\u011do aperis en la oriento. Dum la lumo pliforti\u011dis la pasa\u011deroj komencis veki\u011di kaj elmontri vivosignojn, unu post la alia, kaj la\u016dvice \u0109iu forlevis de sur la frunto sian tien \u015dovitan \u0109apelon, stre\u0109is siajn malmoligitajn membrojn kaj ekrigardis tra la fenestroj la sen\u011dojan perspektivon. Sen\u011doja tio estis, efektive! Nenia vivanta\u0135o videblis ie ajn, nenia homa lo\u011dejo! Videblis nur vasta blanka dezerto. Levitaj ne\u011dtabuloj drivis tien kaj reen anta\u016d la vento: mondo da kirli\u011dantaj ne\u011deroj elbarantaj la supran firmamenton.\nDum la tuta tago ni malgajadis en la vagonoj, dirante malmulte, multe pensante. Denova lantanta morna nokto\u2014kaj malsato.\nNova tagi\u011do\u2014nova tago da silento, malfeli\u0109o, atrofia malsato, senespera anticipado pri helpo malvenonta. Nokto da senripoza dormado, plena je son\u011doj pri bankedoj\u2014ekveki\u011doj \u011denegitaj per malsatron\u011dado.\nLa kvara tago alvenis kaj foriris\u2014kaj la kvina! Kvin tagoj da terura malliberi\u011do! Sova\u011da malsato spektadis el \u0109iu okulo. Enestis \u011din signo de horora signifo. La anta\u016danonco pri io malklare formi\u011danta en \u0109iu koro\u2014io kiun nenia lango ankora\u016d kura\u011dis envortigi.\nLa sesa taga forpasis\u2014la sepa eklumigis la plej marasman kaj grizviza\u011dan kaj senesperan viraron iam starintan en la ombro de la morto. Nun necesas ke tio eksteri\u011du! Tiu a\u0135o kreskadinta en \u0109iu koro nun pretis trasalti finfine \u0109iun lipparon! La naturo estis \u015dar\u011dita \u011dis la lasta tolerebla nivelo\u2014necesis ke \u011di cedu. RIKARDO H. GASTONO, el \u015dtato Minesoto, alta, kadavrema, pala, stari\u011dis. \u0108iuj anta\u016dsciis kio estas okazonta. \u0108iuj preti\u011dis\u2014\u0109iu emocio, \u0109iu signo pri eksciti\u011do estis subpremitaj\u2014nur trankvila pensema seriozo aperis en la okuloj kiuj nur lastatempe estis tiel sova\u011daj.\n\u201cSinjoroj: Tion ni ne povas da\u016dre prokrasti! La horo \u0109emanas! Ni devas elekti tiun el ni devontan morti por provizi per man\u011da\u0135o la ceterajn.\u201d\nS-RO JOHANO J. VILJAMSO, el \u015dtato Ilinojso, stari\u011dis kaj diris: \u201cSinjoroj, mi kandidatigas Pastoron Jakobon Sa\u016djeron el \u015dtato Tenesio.\u201d\nS-RO VILHELMO R. ADAMSO, el \u015dtato Indianio, diris: \u201cMi kandidatigas S-ron Danielon Sloton el Nov-Jorko.\u201d\nS-RO KAROLO J. LANGDONO: \u201cMi kandidatigas S-ron Samuelon A. Bovenon de Sankta-Luizo.\u201d\nS-RO SLOTO: \u201cSinjoroj, mi deziras malakcepti favore al S-ro Johano A. Van-Nostrando, Filo, el \u015dtato Nov-\u0134erzeo.\u201d\nS-RO GASTONO: \u201cSe ne estas protesto, ni konsentu pri la deziro de la sinjoro.\u201d\nS-RO VAN-NOSTRANDO protestis; tial la malakcepto de S-ro Sloto malakcepti\u011dis. Anka\u016d la malakceptoj de S-roj Sa\u016djero kaj Boveno estis proponitaj kaj malakceptitaj pro la samaj kialoj.\nS-RO A. L. BASKOMO el \u015dtato Ohio: \u201cMi proponas ke la kandidatigprocedo fermi\u011du kaj ke la \u0108ambro nun entreprenu elekti per balotado.\u201d\nS-RO SA\u016cJERO: \u201cSinjoroj, mi kontra\u016dstaru seriozege tiujn procedojn. Ili estas, \u0109iumaniere, kontra\u016dregulaj kaj maldecaj. Mi petegu ke ni tuj forlasu ilin kaj elektu prezidanton de la kunveno kaj ta\u016dgajn funkciulojn por lin helpi kaj tiam ni povos denove konsideri la aferon nun nin alfrontantan, sed kun pli granda komprenkapablo.\u201d\nS-RO BELO el \u015dtato Iovao: \u201cSinjoroj, mi malaprobas. Ne estas tempo por respekti formalajn kaj ceremoniajn regulojn. Ni jam pasigis pli ol sep tagoj sen man\u011di. \u0108iun momenton kiun ni mal\u015dparas per sencela diskutado pligrandigas nian \u0109agrenon. Kontentigas min la kandidatoj jam proponitaj\u2014\u0109iun \u0109eestantan sinjoron ili kontentigas, mi opinias\u2014kaj mi, miaflanke, ne komprenas kial ni ne tuj entreprenu elekti unu a\u016d pli el ili. Mi deziras proponi rezolucion\u2014\u201d\nS-RO GASTONO: \u201cOni kontra\u016dstarus \u011din kaj necesus ke \u011di atendu en suspendi\u011do dum unu tago, kio okazigus la prokraston mem kiun vi deziras eviti. La sinjoro el Nov-\u0134erzeo\u2014\u201d\nS-RO VAN-NOSTRANDO: \u201cSinjoroj, jen mi estas fremdulo inter vi. Mi ne ser\u0109is la honoron alju\u011ditan al mi kaj mi sentas diskretecon\u2014\u201d\nS-RO MORGANO de \u015dtato Alabamio (interrompante): \u201cMi mocias la anta\u016dan proponon.\u201d\nLa propono akcepti\u011dis kaj bremsi\u011dis da\u016dra debatado, kompreneble. La propono elekti funkciulojn sukcesis vo\u0109done kaj sub \u011di S-ro Gastono elekti\u011dis kiel prezidanto; S-ro Blako, sekretario; S-roj Holkombo, Dajero kaj Baldvino, kandidatigkomitato; kaj S-ro R. M. Ha\u016dlando, provizianto, por helpi la komitaton fari elektojn.\nSekvis duonhora pa\u016dzo dum kiu okazis flankaj kunsidetoj. Kiam la maleo eksonis, la partoprenantoj rekuni\u011dis kaj la komitato raportis, aprobante S-rojn Georgon Fergusonon de \u015dtato Kentukio, Lucienon Hermanon de \u015dtato Luiziano kaj V.-on Mesikon de \u015dtato Koloradio kiel kandidatojn. La raporto akcepti\u011dis.\nS-RO RO\u011cERO de \u015dtato Misurio: \u201cSinjoro Prezidanto, pro tio ke la raporto staras dece anta\u016d la \u0108ambro nun, mi mocias \u011din amendi, anstata\u016digante la nomon de S-ro Hermano per tiu de S-ro Lucio Hariso de Sankta-Luizo  kiu bone konatas kaj honoratas de ni \u0109iuj. Oni ne supozu ke mi suspektigas la altajn karakteron kaj starrangon de la sinjoro de Luiziano. Tute kontra\u016de. Mi tiom respektas kaj estimas lin kiom kapablas fari iu ajn \u0109i-tiea sinjoro. Sed neniu el ni povas malkonscii ke li perdis pli da karno dum la semajno kiun ni pasigis \u0109i tie ol iu ajn inter ni\u2014neniu el ni povas malkonscii ke la komitato neglektis sian devon, \u0109u pro malatento, \u0109u pro pli grava kialo, proponante provizi niajn bezonojn per sinjoro kiu, kiom ajn puraj estu liaj apartaj motivoj, enhavas en si efektive malpli da nutra\u0135o\u2014\u201d\nLA ESTRO: \u201cLa sinjoro de Misurio sidi\u011du. La Estro ne rajtas permesi dubindigi la honestecon de la komitato krom per la kutima procedo la\u016d la reguloj. Kiun agon la \u0108ambro efektivigu responde al la propono de la sinjoro?\u201d\nS-RO HALIDEJO, de Virginio: \u201cMi proponas aldone amendi la raporton, anstata\u016digante S-ron Mesikon per S-ro Harvejo Daviso de Oregono. Iuj sinjoroj deziros emfazi eble ke la malfacila\u0135oj kaj senigadoj de preterlimeja vivo malmoligis S-ron Davison. Sed, sinjoroj, \u0109u estas nun la momento \u0109ikani pri malmoleco? \u0108u nun estas la momento elektemi\u011di pri malgrava\u0135oj? \u0108u nun estas la momento disputadi pri temoj de malmulta signifo? Ne, sinjoroj. Kio necesas al ni estas maso\u2014solideco, pezo, maso\u2014jen estas nun la \u0109efegaj bezona\u0135oj\u2014ne talento, ne genio, ne klereco. Mi insistas pri mia propono.\u201d\nS-RO MORGANO (ekscite): \u201cSinjoro Estro\u2014mi ja fortege malaprobas \u0109i tiun amendon. La sinjoro de Oregono estas maljuna kaj aldone estas masa nur je osto, ne je karno. Mi demandas al la sinjoro de Virginio, \u0109u estas supo kiun ni deziras anstata\u016d solida nutra\u0135o? \u0108u li deziras dupi nin per ombroj? \u0108u li celas primoki nian suferadon per Oregona fantomo? Mi demandas al li \u0109u li scipovas rigardi la anksiajn viza\u011dojn lin \u0109irka\u016dantajn, \u0109u li sukcesas enrigardi niajn mal\u011dojajn okulojn, \u0109u li kura\u011das a\u016dskulti la batadon de niaj esperantaj koroj kaj da\u016dre \u015dovtrudi al ni tiun malsategigitan fra\u016ddulon? Mi petas de li \u0109u li rajtas pensi pri nia dezertigita stato, pri niaj pasintaj mal\u011dojoj, pri nia malhela estonteco, kaj tamen senkompate tromptrudi al ni tiun frakasulon, tiun ruinulon, tiun \u015danceli\u011dantan dupulon, tiun nodecan, velkintan, kaj sensukan vagabondon de la malamikemaj bordoj de Oregono? Neniam!\u201d [Apla\u016ddo.]\nOni vo\u0109donis pri la amendo post arda debato kaj \u011di malsukcesis. Rilate al la origina amendo, oni substituis la nomon de S-ro Hariso al tiu de S-ro Hermano. Tiam komenci\u011dis la vo\u0109donado. Kvin vo\u0109donoj okazis senrezulte. Je la sesa, S-ro Hariso elekti\u011dis kiam \u0109iuj krom li mem vo\u0109donis por li. Tiam oni proponis ke la elekto ratifiki\u011du aklame, sed tio malsukcesis pro la denova malkonsento de S-ro Hariso.\nS-RO RADVAJO proponis ke la \u0108ambro nun konsideru la ceterajn kandidatojn kaj fari elekton por la matenman\u011do. La propono aprobi\u011dis.\nJe la unua vo\u0109donado okazis egala\u0135o kiam duono el la partoprenintoj favoris unu kandidaton pro lia juna\u011do kaj duono favoris la alian pro lia supera grandeco. La Prezidanto faris la decidigan vo\u0109donon favore al tiulasta, S-ro Mesiko. Tiu decido estigis grandan malkontenton inter la amikoj de S-ro Fergusono, la venkita kandidato, kaj oni diskutis la eblon postuli novan vo\u0109donadon; sed meze de tio oni aprobis proponon fermi la kunvenon, kiu tuj disi\u011dis.\nLa prepara\u0135oj por la vesperman\u011do deviigis dum longa tempo la atenton de la Ferguson-partieto disde la diskutado pri ilia plendo kaj tiam, kiam ili ekvolis rediskuti \u011din, forpelis \u0109iun pensadon pri \u011di kvaza\u016d en la ventojn la feli\u0109a anonco ke S-ro Hariso pretas.\nNi improvizis tablojn subtenante la apogilojn de la vagonse\u011doj kaj sidi\u011dis kun koroj plenaj je dankemo anta\u016d la plej bona vesperman\u011do beninta nian vidon dum sep torturaj tagoj. Kiom multe ni estis \u015dan\u011ditaj kompare al nia kondi\u0109o de anta\u016d kelkaj mallongaj horoj! Senpromesa, mal\u011dojokula mizero, malsato, febra anksieco, senespero, tiam; dankemo, sereneco, \u011dojo tro profunda por envortigo, nun. Tio, mi scias, estis la plej gaja horo de mia eventoplena vivo. La ventoj hurlis kaj disblovis la ne\u011don sova\u011de \u0109irka\u016d nia malliberejo, sed ili ne plu havis la kapablon nin malkura\u011digi. Hariso pla\u0109is al mi. Li povintus esti iom pli bone kuirita eble, sed mi ne hezitas diri ke nenia homo iam pli konvenis al mi ol Hariso, a\u016d havigis al mi tiel altan gradon de kontenti\u011do. Mesiko estis sufi\u0109e pla\u0109a, kvankam iom altsapora, sed se temas pri a\u016dtenta nutrado kaj delikateco de fibro, servu al mi Harison. Mesiko havis siajn bonajn kvalitojn\u2014mi ne entreprenas nei tion kaj mi ne deziras fari tion\u2014sed li ne pli ta\u016dgis kiel matenman\u011da\u0135o ol mumio, sinjoro\u2014nepre ne. \u0108u magra? Ho, benu min! Kaj \u0109u malmola? Ho, li estis malmolega! Ne eblus ke vi tion imagu! Ion similan ne eblus ke vi iam imagu.\n\n\u201c\u0108u vi volas diri ke\u2014\u201d\n\u201cBonvolu ne interrompi min. Post la matenman\u011do ni elektis viron nomi\u011dantan Valkero, el Detrojto, por la vesperman\u011do. Li estis tre bongusta. Poste mi diris tion en letero kiun mi skribis al lia edzino. Li estis \u0109iumaniere la\u016ddindega. Mi memoros \u0109iam Valkeron. Li estis iom subkuirita sed ege bongusta. Kaj tiam la sekvintan matenon ni \u011duis Morganon el Alabamo kiel matenman\u011da\u0135on. Li estis unu el la plej bonaj viroj anta\u016d kiu mi iam \u0109etabli\u011dis\u2014belaspekta, klerigita, rafinita, scipovis paroli flue plurajn lingvojn\u2014nepra \u011dentlemano\u2014nepra \u011dentlemano li estis, kaj aparte sukplena. Kiel vesperman\u011da\u0135on ni prenis tiun Oregonan patriarkon, kaj li ja estis fra\u016ddulo, ne dubendas\u2014maljuna, malgrasa, malmola, neniu povas imagi la realecon. Finfine mi diris, \u2018Sinjoroj, vi rajtas agi la\u016dvole, sed miaflanke, mi preferas atendi alian elekton.\u2019 Kaj Grajmzo, el Ilinojso, diris, \u2018Sinjoroj, anka\u016d mi atendos. Kiam vi elektos viron havantan ion por lin rekomendi, feli\u0109e mi ali\u011dos al vi denove.\u2019 Balda\u016d evidenti\u011dis ke la malkontento pri Daviso de Oregono estis \u011denerala kaj tial, por konservi la bonvolon regintan tiel pla\u0109e ekde kiam ni \u011duis Harison, oni okazigis elekton, rezulte de kio nomi\u011dis Bakero, el Georgio. Li estis bonega! Nu, nu\u2014post tio ni prenis Dulitlon kaj Ha\u016dkinzon kaj Makelrojon (a\u016ddi\u011dis kelkaj plendoj pri Makelrojo, \u0109ar li estis malkutime malalta kaj maldika) kaj Penrodon, kaj du Smitojn, kaj Bajlejon (Bajlejo havis lignan kruron, kio estis nepra perdo, sed li estis alie bongusta) kaj Indianknabon kaj gurdiston kaj \u011dentlemanon nomi\u011dantan Bukminstero\u2014kompatindan batonaspektan vagabondon kiu malvaloris kaj kiel konversacianto kaj kiel man\u011da\u0135o. Ni \u011dojis povinte elektigi lin anta\u016d la alveno de helpo.\u201d\n\u201cKaj tial la benita helpo ja alvenis finfine, \u0109u?\u201d\n\u201cJes, \u011di alvenis iun brilan sunan matenon, \u0135us post la elekto. Johano Murfio estis la elektito kaj ke neniam estis pli bona mi bonvolas atesti. Sed Johano Murfio hejmenrevenis kun ni, en la trajno alveninta nin savi, kaj vivis sufi\u0109e longan tempon por edzi\u011di kun Vidvino Hariso\u2014\u201d\n\u201cPosteulino de\u2014\u201d\n\u201cPosteulino de nia unua elekto. Li edzi\u011dis kun \u015di kaj estas feli\u0109a kaj respektata kaj prospera ankora\u016d hodia\u016d. Ho, estis kiel romano, sinjoro\u2014estis kiel romanco. Jen estas mia haltejo, sinjoro. Mi devas adia\u016di. Kiam ajn vi havos la tempon pasigi unu-du tagojn \u0109e mi, \u011doje mi vin gastigos. Vi pla\u0109as al mi, sinjoro. Mi sentas karecon estante kun vi. Vi povus pla\u0109i al mi e\u0109 tiom kiom Hariso mem, sinjoro. Bonan tagon, sinjoro, kaj bonan voja\u011don.\u201d\n\nLi estis for. Neniam en mia vivo mi min sentis tiel \u015dokita, tiel afliktita, tiel mistifikita. Sed en mia animo mi \u011dojis pri lia foriro. Malgra\u016d lia afabla maniero kaj lia dol\u0109a vo\u0109o, mi trema\u0109is kiam ajn li direktis al mi sian malsatan rigardon kaj kiam mi a\u016ddis ke mi gajnis lian dan\u011deran karecon kaj ke mi staras anta\u016d lia estimo preska\u016d samnivele kiel la forpasinta Hariso, preska\u016d senmovi\u011dis mia koro.\nMi mistifiki\u011dis preska\u016d preter priskribo. Mi ne dubis kion li diris. Mi ne rajtis kontesti ununuran eron de deklaro tiel sigelita per la honesteco de la vero kiel la lia. Sed \u011diaj teruraj detaloj supervenkis min kaj \u0135etis miajn pensadojn en senesperan konfuzon. Mi vidis la konduktoron kiu min rigardis. Mi diris: \u201cKiu estas tiu viro?\u201d\n\u201cLi estis Kongresano foje, kaj bona Kongresano. Sed li estis kaptita en la vagonoj en ne\u011dduno kaj preska\u016d malsatmortis. Li estis tiel frostvundita kaj \u011denerale frostigita kaj eluzita pro manko de man\u011da\u0135o ke li malsani\u011dis kaj ekstercerbumi\u011dis poste dum du-tri monatoj. Li bonsanas nun krom ke li estas monomaniulo kaj kiam li komencas paroli pri tiu malnova temo, li neniam \u0109esas anta\u016d ol elman\u011di la tutan vagonplenon da homoj pri kiuj li parolas. Li jam estus elman\u011dinta la tutan aron nun, krom ke li devis foriri. Li scipovas reciti iliajn nomojn tiel facile kiel A-B-C. Kiam li elman\u011das \u0109iun krom si mem, li diras \u0109iam: \u2018Tiam kiam alvenis la horo por la kutima elekto por la matenman\u011do, pro tio ke estis nenia kontra\u016dstarado, mi mem elekti\u011dis la\u016dregule, post kio, pro manko da malaproboj, mi demisiis. Tial jen mi estas.\u2019\u201d\nMi senzorgi\u011dis \u011dis nedirebla grado, eksciinte ke mi nur a\u016dskultis la sendan\u011derajn kapricojn de frenezulo anstata\u016d la a\u016dtentaj spertoj de sangavida kanibalo.\nBON\u015cANCO\nOkazis dum bankedo de Londono honoranta unu el la du-tri elstare renomaj Anglaj militaj nomoj de la nuna generacio. Pro kialoj balda\u016d aperontaj, mi retenos lian veran nomon kaj titolojn kaj lin nomos Le\u016dtenanto-Generalo Lordo Arturo Skorzbio, J.C., K.C.B., ktp., ktp., ktp. Kia fascino enestas renoman nomon! Jen sidis la viro, en sia vera karno, pri kiu mi a\u016ddis je tiom da miloj da fojoj ekde tiu tago, tridek jarojn anta\u016de, kiam lia nomo eklevi\u011dis kuglorapide al la zenito ekde Krimea batalkampo, por resti \u0109iam festata. Estis por mi man\u011da\u0135o kaj trinka\u0135o povi rigardi, kaj rigardi, kaj rigardi tiun duondion; kontrolante, ser\u0109ante, konstatante: la trankvilon, la rezervon, la noblan gravecon de lia mieno; la simplan honestecon kiu sin dislimis \u0109ie sur li; la dol\u0109an senkonscion pri lia eminenteco\u2014senkonscion pri la centoj da admiraj okuloj lin fiksrigardantaj, senkonscion pri la profunda, ama, sincera respektego tajdfontanta el la brustoj de tiuj homoj kaj lin \u011disfluantaj.\nLa kleriko sidanta maldekstre de mi estis malnova konato mia\u2014kleriko nun, sed li pasigis la unuan duonon de sia vivo en garnizono kaj sur kampo kaj kiel instruisto \u0109e la militlernejo de Vulvi\u0109o. En tiu sama momento kiun mi priparolas, vualita kaj malkutima lumo ekbriletis en liaj okuloj kaj li flankenklini\u011dis kaj murmuris konfidence al mi\u2014indikante pergeste la bankedan heroon.\n\u201cPrivate dirite, li estas nepra stultulo.\u201d\nTiu verdikto ege surprizis min. Se ties temo estintus Napoleono a\u016d Sokrato a\u016d Salomono, mi ne povintus pli miregi. Mi bone konsciis pri du faktoj: la pastoro estis viro de nepra honesteco kaj lia ju\u011dkapablo pri homoj estis bona. Tial mi sciis, preter dubo a\u016d kontesto, ke la mondo eraris pri tiu heroo; li ja estis stultulo. Tial mi ekcelis ekscii, en ta\u016dga momento, kiel la kleriko, solece kaj sole, malkovris la sekreton.\n\nKelkajn tagojn poste prezenti\u011dis la oportuno, kaj jen kion diris al mi la pastoro:\nAnta\u016d \u0109irka\u016d kvardek jaroj mi estis instruisto \u0109e la militakademio de Vulvi\u0109o. Mi estis tie en unu el la sekcioj kiam la juna Skorzbio spertis sian preparan ekzamenon. Mi sentis kompaton \u011diskarne, \u0109ar la cetero de la klaso respondis vigle kaj bele, dum li\u2014ho, pardonu min, li sciis nenion, por tiel diri. Li estis ver\u015dajne bonkonduta, dol\u0109ahumora, aminda kaj senruza. Tial estis ege \u011dene vidi lin stari tie, tiel serena kiel \u0109izita figuro, kaj eligi respondojn verfakte miraklajn pri stulteco kaj malscio. Mia tuta provizo da kompato aktivi\u011dis nome de li. Mi diris al mi, ke kiam li devos ekzameni\u011di denove, li malsukcesos a\u0109e, kompreneble. Tial estos simple sen\u011dena faro de karitato mildigi lian falon kiel eble plej multe. Mi flankenkondukis lin kaj eksciis ke li iom konas la historion de Cezaro. Kaj \u0109ar li sciis nenion ceteran, mi eklaboris kaj lin trejnegis kiel galersklavon per aparta sinsekvo da kutimaj demandoj pri Cezaro kiujn, mi certis, utiligos la ekzamenontoj. Se vi bonvolos kredi min, li sukcesis brilegkolore en la ekzamentago! Li sukcesis pro tiu nepre supra\u0135a mensofar\u0109o kaj cetere ricevis komplimentojn dum aliaj, kiuj sciis miloble pli ol li, malsukcesa\u0109is. Sekve al strange bon\u015danca hazardo\u2014hazardo malprobable okazonta dufoje en unuopa jarcento\u2014oni starigis al li nenian demandon preterpasantan la mallar\u011dajn limojn de lia far\u0109otrejnado.\nStuporige estis. Nu, dum lia tuta kursaro mi lin subtenis, kun iom de la sento kiun patrino spertas pri kripligita infano. Kaj \u0109iam li sin savis\u2014kaj nur mirakle, ver\u015dajne.\nNu, kompreneble, estis matematiko kiu lin elmetus kaj mortigus finfine. Mi decidi\u011dis fari lian morton la\u016deble plej mal\u011dena. Tial mi trejnis lin kaj far\u0109instruis lin, kaj far\u0109instruis lin kaj trejnis lin, nur pri la sinsekvo da demandoj kiujn la ekzamenontoj plej probable starigus kaj tiam survojigis lin en la direkto al lia sorto. Nu, sinjoro, klopodu koncepti la rezulton: je mia konsterni\u011do, li meritis la unuan premion! Kaj aldone li ricevis nepran ovacion en la formo de komplimentoj.\n\u0108u dormi? Mi ne sukcesis dormi dum pli ol semajno. Mia konscienco min torturis tage kaj nokte. Kion mi faris, tion mi faris nur por karitato kaj nur por faciligi la falon de la kompatinda junulo. Mi neniam imagis rezulton tiel absurdan kiel la okazinta\u0135on. Mi sentis min tiel kulpa kaj mizera kiel Frankenstejno. Jen estis lignokapulo kiun mi starigis survoje al brilaj promocioj kaj mirigaj respondecoj, kaj povus okazi nur unuopa\u0135o: li kaj \u0109iuj respondecoj liaj kunfalus en ruini\u011don je la unua oportuno.\nKrimea Milito \u0135us eksplodis. Kompreneble, necesis ke okazu milito, mi diris al mi. Ne eblis da\u016drigi la pacon kaj havigu al tiu stultulo la \u015dancon morti anta\u016d ol malkovrigi la veron pri si. Mi atendis la tertremon. \u011ci okazis. Kaj \u011di \u015dancelegis min kiam \u011di okazis. Oni lin promociis al kapitaneco en mar\u015dregimento! Pli valoraj viroj maljuni\u011das kaj grizhari\u011das anta\u016d ol grimpatingi tian superan rangon. Kaj kiu iam anta\u016dvidintus ke la a\u016dtoritatuloj elektos deponi tian \u015dar\u011don da respondeco sur \u015dultrojn tiel malspertajn kaj malta\u016dgajn? Mi apena\u016d tolerintus ke oni nomu lin standardisto. Sed \u0109u kapitano? Pripensu tion! Mi certis ke mia hararo blanki\u011dos.\nKonsideru kion mi faris\u2014mi kiu tiel preferis ripozon kaj malagadon\u2014mi diris al mi, mi respondecas al la lando pri tio kaj mi devas lin akompani kaj protekti la landon kontra\u016d li kiel eble plej multe. Tial mi prenis mian kompatindan malmultvaloran monprovizon \u015dparamasitan dum jaroj da laboro kaj malfacilega ekonomio kaj eksuspire a\u0109etis standardistecon en lia regimento kaj jen ni foriris cele al la batalkampo.\nKaj jen\u2014ho, mia koro, estis terure. \u0108u eraregoj? Li faris nenion krom eraregi. Tamen, vi vidu, neniu konsciis pri la sekreto de la ulo. \u0108iuj havis mal\u011dustan opinion pri li kaj \u0109iun fojon misinterpretis lian faradon. Rezulte ili taksis liajn stultajn misfarojn agoj de inspirita geniulo. Honestavorte, tiel ili taksis ilin! Liaj plej mildaj eraretoj sufi\u0109is por ekploregi bonsenculon. Kaj ili ja ploregis min\u2014kaj furiozigis kaj delirigis min, aparte. Kaj kio tenis min en konstanta \u015dvito de timego estis tio ke \u0109iu nova fu\u015dfaro de li pligrandigis la brilon de lia renomo! Mi da\u016drege diris al mi ke li tiel altrangi\u011dos ke, kiam okazos la malkovro, estos kvaza\u016d la suno elfalanta la \u0109ielon.\nLi da\u016dre suprenprogresis, gradon post grado, trans la mortajn korpojn de siaj superuloj, \u011dis finfine, en la plej varma momento de la batalo de ...., ekfalis nia kolonelo kaj mia koro ensaltis mian bu\u015don, \u0109ar Skorzbio estis la plej proksima la\u016drange! Jen tio alvenas, mi diris. \u0108iuj ni fini\u011dos en \u015ceolo post nur dek minutoj, certege.\nLa batalo estis ege feroca. Konstante la aliancanoj cedis \u0109iuloke sur la kampo. Nia regimento okupis gravegan lokon. Nuna fu\u015do ka\u016dzus nian detruon. En tiu kriza momento kion faras tiu senmorta stultulo? Li eligas la regimenton de \u011dia loko kaj ordonas sturmon trans najbaran monteton elmontrantan nenian indicon pri malamika \u0109eestado! \u201cJen vi ekas!\u201d mi diris al mi. \u201c\u0108i tio ja estas la finfino.\u201d\nKaj jen ni ja ekis, kaj transiris la firston de la monteto anta\u016d ol eblis al iu ajn malkovri kaj haltigi la frenezan movon. Kaj kion ni renkontis? Tutan kaj neatenditan Rusan armeon starantan en rezervo. Kaj kio okazis? \u0108u ni nin elman\u011digis? Jen kio devige okazintus en na\u016ddek na\u016d kazoj el cent. Sed ne. Tiuj Rusoj decidi\u011dis ke nenia unuopa regimento alvenos vagrigardi tie en tia momento. Tial devas temi pri la tuta Angla armeo kaj la ruza Rusa manovro estas malkovrita kaj blokita. Tial ili forturni\u011dis kaj kuris pelmele, trans la monteton kaj malsupren sur la kampon, en sova\u011da konfuzi\u011do, kaj ni ilin postkuris. Ili mem rompis la solidan Rusan centron sur la kampo kaj \u011din transkura\u0109is kaj balda\u016dege okazis la plej giganta disvenko ian vidita de vi, kaj la malvenko de la Aliancanoj alii\u011dis en nepran kaj grandiozan venkon! Mar\u015dalo Kanroberto spektadis, kapturni\u011da pro miro, admiro kaj ekstazo, kaj tuj alvenigis Skorzbion kaj lin \u0109irka\u016dbrakis kaj lin medalis surkampe anta\u016d la tuta armaro!\nKaj kio estis la fu\u015dego de Skorzbio tiun fojon? Nur la preno de sia dekstra mano por sia maldekstra\u2014nur tio. Li ricevis ordonon retiri\u011di kaj apogi nian dekstran flankon. Kaj, anstata\u016de, li retiri\u011dis anta\u016den kaj transiris la monteton en la maldekstra flanko. Sed la renomo kiun li meritis tiun tagon kiel mirinda milita geniulo plenigis la mondon je lia gloro kaj tiu gloro neniam pali\u011dos dum da\u016dros libroj pri historio.\nLi estas tiel bona kaj afabla kaj aminda kaj sen\u015dajniga kiel eblas esti, sed li ne estas sufi\u0109e inteligenta por endomi\u011di kiam pluvas. Nu tio estas la nepra vero. Li estas la plej altranga azenmensulo de la universo. \u011cis anta\u016d duonhoro prikonsciis tion nur li kaj mi. Postsekvis lin, tagon post tago, jaron post jaro, la plej fenomena kaj miriga bon\u015danco. Jam ekde generacio li sin renomigas kiel brila soldato en \u0109iuj militoj niaj. Li sternis sian tutan militan vivon per fu\u015degoj, tamen neniam faris fu\u015degon malsukcesintan lin promociigi en kavaliron a\u016d baroneton a\u016d lordon a\u016d ion. Rigardu lian bruston. Ho, entute vestas lin landaj kaj eksterlandaj medaloj. Nu, sinjoro, \u0109iu el ili estas registro pri iu malla\u016ddinda stulta\u0135o. Kaj, kunkonsiderate, ili konsistigas pruvon ke la plej bona evento povanta okazi al viro estas naski\u011di bon\u015danca. Mi rediru, kiel mi jam diris dum la bankedo, ke Skorzbio estas nepra stultulo.\nENHAVO\n\n\u201cLa Amaventuro de la Eskimoa Fra\u016dlino\u201d p. 1\n\u201cKanibalismo en la Vagonoj\u201d p. 13\n\u201cBon\u015danco\u201d p. 20\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"2431":"\n\nTranscribed from the 1909 Harper & Brothers edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org.  Proofing by Alan Ross, Ana Charlton and David.\n\n\n\n\n\n                            IS SHAKESPEARE DEAD?\n\n\n                          FROM MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY\n\n                                MARK TWAIN\n\n                       HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS\n                           NEW YORK AND LONDON\n                                M C M I X\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\nScattered here and there through the stacks of unpublished manuscript\nwhich constitute this formidable Autobiography and Diary of mine, certain\nchapters will in some distant future be found which deal with\n\"Claimants\"--claimants historically notorious: Satan, Claimant; the\nGolden Calf, Claimant; the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, Claimant; Louis\nXVII., Claimant; William Shakespeare, Claimant; Arthur Orton, Claimant;\nMary Baker G. Eddy, Claimant--and the rest of them.  Eminent Claimants,\nsuccessful Claimants, defeated Claimants, royal Claimants, pleb\nClaimants, showy Claimants, shabby Claimants, revered Claimants, despised\nClaimants, twinkle starlike here and there and yonder through the mists\nof history and legend and tradition--and oh, all the darling tribe are\nclothed in mystery and romance, and we read about them with deep interest\nand discuss them with loving sympathy or with rancorous resentment,\naccording to which side we hitch ourselves to.  It has always been so\nwith the human race.  There was never a Claimant that couldn't get a\nhearing, nor one that couldn't accumulate a rapturous following, no\nmatter how flimsy and apparently unauthentic his claim might be.  Arthur\nOrton's claim that he was the lost Tichborne baronet come to life again\nwas as flimsy as Mrs. Eddy's that she wrote _Science and Health_ from the\ndirect dictation of the Deity; yet in England near forty years ago Orton\nhad a huge army of devotees and incorrigible adherents, many of whom\nremained stubbornly unconvinced after their fat god had been proven an\nimpostor and jailed as a perjurer, and to-day Mrs. Eddy's following is\nnot only immense, but is daily augmenting in numbers and enthusiasm.\nOrton had many fine and educated minds among his adherents, Mrs. Eddy has\nhad the like among hers from the beginning.  Her church is as well\nequipped in those particulars as is any other church.  Claimants can\nalways count upon a following, it doesn't matter who they are, nor what\nthey claim, nor whether they come with documents or without.  It was\nalways so.  Down out of the long-vanished past, across the abyss of the\nages, if you listen you can still hear the believing multitudes shouting\nfor Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel.\n\nA friend has sent me a new book, from England--_The Shakespeare Problem\nRestated_--well restated and closely reasoned; and my fifty years'\ninterest in that matter--asleep for the last three years--is excited once\nmore.  It is an interest which was born of Delia Bacon's book--away back\nin that ancient day--1857, or maybe 1856.  About a year later my\npilot-master, Bixby, transferred me from his own steamboat to the\n_Pennsylvania_, and placed me under the orders and instructions of George\nEaler--dead now, these many, many years.  I steered for him a good many\nmonths--as was the humble duty of the pilot-apprentice: stood a daylight\nwatch and spun the wheel under the severe superintendence and correction\nof the master.  He was a prime chess player and an idolater of\nShakespeare.  He would play chess with anybody; even with me, and it cost\nhis official dignity something to do that.  Also--quite uninvited--he\nwould read Shakespeare to me; not just casually, but by the hour, when it\nwas his watch, and I was steering.  He read well, but not profitably for\nme, because he constantly injected commands into the text.  That broke it\nall up, mixed it all up, tangled it all up--to that degree, in fact, that\nif we were in a risky and difficult piece of river an ignorant person\ncouldn't have told, sometimes, which observations were Shakespeare's and\nwhich were Ealer's.  For instance:\n\n    What man dare, _I_ dare!\n\n    Approach thou _what_ are you laying in the leads for? what a hell of\n    an idea! like the rugged ease her off a little, ease her off! rugged\n    Russian bear, the armed rhinoceros or the _there_ she goes! meet her,\n    meet her! didn't you _know_ she'd smell the reef if you crowded it\n    like that?  Hyrcan tiger; take any shape but that and my firm nerves\n    she'll be in the _woods_ the first you know! stop the starboard! come\n    ahead strong on the larboard! back the starboard! . . . _Now_ then,\n    you're all right; come ahead on the starboard; straighten up and go\n    'long, never tremble: or be alive again, and dare me to the desert\n    damnation can't you keep away from that greasy water? pull her down!\n    snatch her! snatch her baldheaded! with thy sword; if trembling I\n    inhabit then, lay in the leads!--no, only the starboard one, leave\n    the other alone, protest me the baby of a girl.  Hence horrible\n    shadow! eight bells--that watchman's asleep again, I reckon, go down\n    and call Brown yourself, unreal mockery, hence!\n\nHe certainly was a good reader, and splendidly thrilling and stormy and\ntragic, but it was a damage to me, because I have never since been able\nto read Shakespeare in a calm and sane way.  I cannot rid it of his\nexplosive interlardings, they break in everywhere with their irrelevant\n\"What in hell are you up to _now_! pull her down! more! _more_!--there\nnow, steady as you go,\" and the other disorganizing interruptions that\nwere always leaping from his mouth.  When I read Shakespeare now, I can\nhear them as plainly as I did in that long-departed time--fifty-one years\nago.  I never regarded Ealer's readings as educational.  Indeed they were\na detriment to me.\n\nHis contributions to the text seldom improved it, but barring that detail\nhe was a good reader, I can say that much for him.  He did not use the\nbook, and did not need to; he knew his Shakespeare as well as Euclid ever\nknew his multiplication table.\n\nDid he have something to say--this Shakespeare-adoring Mississippi\npilot--anent Delia Bacon's book?  Yes.  And he said it; said it all the\ntime, for months--in the morning watch, the middle watch, the dog watch;\nand probably kept it going in his sleep.  He bought the literature of the\ndispute as fast as it appeared, and we discussed it all through thirteen\nhundred miles of river four times traversed in every thirty-five\ndays--the time required by that swift boat to achieve two round trips.\nWe discussed, and discussed, and discussed, and disputed and disputed and\ndisputed; at any rate he did, and I got in a word now and then when he\nslipped a cog and there was a vacancy.  He did his arguing with heat,\nwith energy, with violence; and I did mine with the reserve and\nmoderation of a subordinate who does not like to be flung out of a\npilot-house that is perched forty feet above the water.  He was fiercely\nloyal to Shakespeare and cordially scornful of Bacon and of all the\npretensions of the Baconians.  So was I--at first.  And at first he was\nglad that that was my attitude.  There were even indications that he\nadmired it; indications dimmed, it is true, by the distance that lay\nbetween the lofty boss-pilotical altitude and my lowly one, yet\nperceptible to me; perceptible, and translatable into a\ncompliment--compliment coming down from above the snow-line and not well\nthawed in the transit, and not likely to set anything afire, not even a\ncub-pilot's self-conceit; still a detectable compliment, and precious.\n\nNaturally it flattered me into being more loyal to Shakespeare--if\npossible--than I was before, and more prejudiced against Bacon--if\npossible than I was before.  And so we discussed and discussed, both on\nthe same side, and were happy.  For a while.  Only for a while.  Only for\na very little while, a very, very, very little while.  Then the\natmosphere began to change; began to cool off.\n\nA brighter person would have seen what the trouble was, earlier than I\ndid, perhaps, but I saw it early enough for all practical purposes.  You\nsee, he was of an argumentative disposition.  Therefore it took him but a\nlittle time to get tired of arguing with a person who agreed with\neverything he said and consequently never furnished him a provocative to\nflare up and show what he could do when it came to clear, cold, hard,\nrose-cut, hundred-faceted, diamond-flashing reasoning.  That was his name\nfor it.  It has been applied since, with complacency, as many as several\ntimes, in the Bacon-Shakespeare scuffle.  On the Shakespeare side.\n\nThen the thing happened which has happened to more persons than to me\nwhen principle and personal interest found themselves in opposition to\neach other and a choice had to be made: I let principle go, and went over\nto the other side.  Not the entire way, but far enough to answer the\nrequirements of the case.  That is to say, I took this attitude, to wit:\nI only _believed_ Bacon wrote Shakespeare, whereas I _knew_ Shakespeare\ndidn't.  Ealer was satisfied with that, and the war broke loose.  Study,\npractice, experience in handling my end of the matter presently enabled\nme to take my new position almost seriously; a little bit later, utterly\nseriously; a little later still, lovingly, gratefully, devotedly;\nfinally: fiercely, rabidly, uncompromisingly.  After that, I was welded\nto my faith, I was theoretically ready to die for it, and I looked down\nwith compassion not unmixed with scorn, upon everybody else's faith that\ndidn't tally with mine.  That faith, imposed upon me by self-interest in\nthat ancient day, remains my faith to-day, and in it I find comfort,\nsolace, peace, and never-failing joy.  You see how curiously theological\nit is.  The \"rice Christian\" of the Orient goes through the very same\nsteps, when he is after rice and the missionary is after _him_; he goes\nfor rice, and remains to worship.\n\nEaler did a lot of our \"reasoning\"--not to say substantially all of it.\nThe slaves of his cult have a passion for calling it by that large name.\nWe others do not call our inductions and deductions and reductions by any\nname at all.  They show for themselves, what they are, and we can with\ntranquil confidence leave the world to ennoble them with a title of its\nown choosing.\n\nNow and then when Ealer had to stop to cough, I pulled my\ninduction-talents together and hove the controversial lead myself: always\ngetting eight feet, eight-and-a-half, often nine, sometimes even\nquarter-less-twain--as _I_ believed; but always \"no bottom,\" as _he_\nsaid.\n\nI got the best of him only once.  I prepared myself.  I wrote out a\npassage from Shakespeare--it may have been the very one I quoted a while\nago, I don't remember--and riddled it with his wild steamboatful\ninterlardings.  When an unrisky opportunity offered, one lovely summer\nday, when we had sounded and buoyed a tangled patch of crossings known as\nHell's Half Acre, and were aboard again and he had sneaked the\nPennsylvania triumphantly through it without once scraping sand, and the\n_A. T. Lacey_ had followed in our wake and got stuck, and he was feeling\ngood, I showed it to him.  It amused him.  I asked him to fire it off:\nread it; read it, I diplomatically added, as only he could read dramatic\npoetry.  The compliment touched him where he lived.  He did read it; read\nit with surpassing fire and spirit; read it as it will never be read\nagain; for _he_ knew how to put the right music into those thunderous\ninterlardings and make them seem a part of the text, make them sound as\nif they were bursting from Shakespeare's own soul, each one of them a\ngolden inspiration and not to be left out without damage to the massed\nand magnificent whole.\n\nI waited a week, to let the incident fade; waited longer; waited until he\nbrought up for reasonings and vituperation my pet position, my pet\nargument, the one which I was fondest of, the one which I prized far\nabove all others in my ammunition-wagon, to wit: that Shakespeare\ncouldn't have written Shakespeare's works, for the reason that the man\nwho wrote them was limitlessly familiar with the laws, and the\nlaw-courts, and law-proceedings, and lawyer-talk, and lawyer-ways--and if\nShakespeare was possessed of the infinitely-divided star-dust that\nconstituted this vast wealth, how did he get it, and _where_, and _when_?\n\n\"From books.\"\n\nFrom books!  That was always the idea.  I answered as my readings of the\nchampions of my side of the great controversy had taught me to answer:\nthat a man can't handle glibly and easily and comfortably and\nsuccessfully the _argot_ of a trade at which he has not personally\nserved.  He will make mistakes; he will not, and cannot, get the\ntrade-phrasings precisely and exactly right; and the moment he departs,\nby even a shade, from a common trade-form, the reader who has served that\ntrade will know the writer _hasn't_.  Ealer would not be convinced; he\nsaid a man could learn how to correctly handle the subtleties and\nmysteries and free-masonries of any trade by careful reading and\nstudying.  But when I got him to read again the passage from Shakespeare\nwith the interlardings, he perceived, himself, that books couldn't teach\na student a bewildering multitude of pilot-phrases so thoroughly and\nperfectly that he could talk them off in book and play or conversation\nand make no mistake that a pilot would not immediately discover.  It was\na triumph for me.  He was silent awhile, and I knew what was happening:\nhe was losing his temper.  And I knew he would presently close the\nsession with the same old argument that was always his stay and his\nsupport in time of need; the same old argument, the one I couldn't\nanswer--because I dasn't: the argument that I was an ass, and better shut\nup.  He delivered it, and I obeyed.\n\nOh, dear, how long ago it was--how pathetically long ago!  And here am I,\nold, forsaken, forlorn and alone, arranging to get that argument out of\nsomebody again.\n\nWhen a man has a passion for Shakespeare, it goes without saying that he\nkeeps company with other standard authors.  Ealer always had several\nhigh-class books in the pilot-house, and he read the same ones over and\nover again, and did not care to change to newer and fresher ones.  He\nplayed well on the flute, and greatly enjoyed hearing himself play.  So\ndid I.  He had a notion that a flute would keep its health better if you\ntook it apart when it was not standing a watch; and so, when it was not\non duty it took its rest, disjointed, on the compass-shelf under the\nbreast-board.  When the _Pennsylvania_ blew up and became a drifting\nrack-heap freighted with wounded and dying poor souls (my young brother\nHenry among them), pilot Brown had the watch below, and was probably\nasleep and never knew what killed him; but Ealer escaped unhurt.  He and\nhis pilot-house were shot up into the air; then they fell, and Ealer sank\nthrough the ragged cavern where the hurricane deck and the boiler deck\nhad been, and landed in a nest of ruins on the main deck, on top of one\nof the unexploded boilers, where he lay prone in a fog of scalding and\ndeadly steam.  But not for long.  He did not lose his head: long\nfamiliarity with danger had taught him to keep it, in any and all\nemergencies.  He held his coat-lappels to his nose with one hand, to keep\nout the steam, and scrabbled around with the other till he found the\njoints of his flute, then he is took measures to save himself alive, and\nwas successful.  I was not on board.  I had been put ashore in New\nOrleans by Captain Klinefelter.  The reason--however, I have told all\nabout it in the book called _Old Times on the Mississippi_, and it isn't\nimportant anyway, it is so long ago.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\nWhen I was a Sunday-school scholar something more than sixty years ago, I\nbecame interested in Satan, and wanted to find out all I could about him.\nI began to ask questions, but my class-teacher, Mr. Barclay the\nstone-mason, was reluctant about answering them, it seemed to me.  I was\nanxious to be praised for turning my thoughts to serious subjects when\nthere wasn't another boy in the village who could be hired to do such a\nthing.  I was greatly interested in the incident of Eve and the serpent,\nand thought Eve's calmness was perfectly noble.  I asked Mr. Barclay if\nhe had ever heard of another woman who, being approached by a serpent,\nwould not excuse herself and break for the nearest timber.  He did not\nanswer my question, but rebuked me for inquiring into matters above my\nage and comprehension.  I will say for Mr. Barclay that he was willing to\ntell me the facts of Satan's history, but he stopped there: he wouldn't\nallow any discussion of them.\n\nIn the course of time we exhausted the facts.  There were only five or\nsix of them, you could set them all down on a visiting-card.  I was\ndisappointed.  I had been meditating a biography, and was grieved to find\nthat there were no materials.  I said as much, with the tears running\ndown.  Mr. Barclay's sympathy and compassion were aroused, for he was a\nmost kind and gentle-spirited man, and he patted me on the head and\ncheered me up by saying there was a whole vast ocean of materials!  I can\nstill feel the happy thrill which these blessed words shot through me.\n\nThen he began to bail out that ocean's riches for my encouragement and\njoy.  Like this: it was \"conjectured\"--though not established--that Satan\nwas originally an angel in heaven; that he fell; that he rebelled, and\nbrought on a war; that he was defeated, and banished to perdition.  Also,\n\"we have reason to believe\" that later he did so-and-so; that \"we are\nwarranted in supposing\" that at a subsequent time he travelled\nextensively, seeking whom he might devour; that a couple of centuries\nafterward, \"as tradition instructs us,\" he took up the cruel trade of\ntempting people to their ruin, with vast and fearful results; that\nby-and-by, \"as the probabilities seem to indicate,\" he may have done\ncertain things, he might have done certain other things, he must have\ndone still other things.\n\nAnd so on and so on.  We set down the five known facts by themselves, on\na piece of paper, and numbered it \"page 1\"; then on fifteen hundred other\npieces of paper we set down the \"conjectures,\" and \"suppositions,\" and\n\"maybes,\" and \"perhapses,\" and \"doubtlesses,\" and \"rumors,\" and\n\"guesses,\" and \"probabilities,\" and \"likelihoods,\" and \"we are permitted\nto thinks,\" and \"we are warranted in believings,\" and \"might have beens,\"\nand \"could have beens,\" and \"must have beens,\" and \"unquestionablys,\" and\n\"without a shadow of doubts\"--and behold!\n\n_Materials_?  Why, we had enough to build a biography of Shakespeare!\n\nYet he made me put away my pen; he would not let me write the history of\nSatan.  Why?  Because, as he said, he had suspicions; suspicions that my\nattitude in this matter was not reverent; and that a person must be\nreverent when writing about the sacred characters.  He said any one who\nspoke flippantly of Satan would be frowned upon by the religious world\nand also be brought to account.\n\nI assured him, in earnest and sincere words, that he had wholly\nmisconceived my attitude; that I had the highest respect for Satan, and\nthat my reverence for him equalled, and possibly even exceeded, that of\nany member of any church.  I said it wounded me deeply to perceive by his\nwords that he thought I would make fun of Satan, and deride him, laugh at\nhim, scoff at him: whereas in truth I had never thought of such a thing,\nbut had only a warm desire to make fun of those others and laugh at\n_them_.  \"What others?\"  \"Why, the Supposers, the Perhapsers, the\nMight-Have-Beeners, the Could-Have-Beeners, the Must-Have-Beeners, the\nWithout-a-Shadow-of-Doubters, the We-are-Warranted-in-Believingers, and\nall that funny crop of solemn architects who have taken a good solid\nfoundation of five indisputable and unimportant facts and built upon it a\nConjectural Satan thirty miles high.\"\n\nWhat did Mr. Barclay do then?  Was he disarmed?  Was he silenced?  No.\nHe was shocked.  He was so shocked that he visibly shuddered.  He said\nthe Satanic Traditioners and Perhapsers and Conjecturers were\n_themselves_ sacred!  As sacred as their work.  So sacred that whoso\nventured to mock them or make fun of their work, could not afterward\nenter any respectable house, even by the back door.\n\nHow true were his words, and how wise!  How fortunate it would have been\nfor me if I had heeded them.  But I was young, I was but seven years of\nage, and vain, foolish, and anxious to attract attention.  I wrote the\nbiography, and have never been in a respectable house since.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\nHow curious and interesting is the parallel--as far as poverty of\nbiographical details is concerned--between Satan and Shakespeare.  It is\nwonderful, it is unique, it stands quite alone, there is nothing\nresembling it in history, nothing resembling it in romance, nothing\napproaching it even in tradition.  How sublime is their position, and how\nover-topping, how sky-reaching, how supreme--the two Great Unknowns, the\ntwo Illustrious Conjecturabilities!  They are the best-known unknown\npersons that have ever drawn breath upon the planet.\n\nFor the instruction of the ignorant I will make a list, now, of those\ndetails of Shakespeare's history which are _facts_--verified facts,\nestablished facts, undisputed facts.\n\n\n\nFACTS\n\n\nHe was born on the 23d of April, 1564.\n\nOf good farmer-class parents who could not read, could not write, could\nnot sign their names.\n\nAt Stratford, a small back settlement which in that day was shabby and\nunclean, and densely illiterate.  Of the nineteen important men charged\nwith the government of the town, thirteen had to \"make their mark\" in\nattesting important documents, because they could not write their names.\n\nOf the first eighteen years of his life _nothing_ is known.  They are a\nblank.\n\nOn the 27th of November (1582) William Shakespeare took out a license to\nmarry Anne Whateley.\n\nNext day William Shakespeare took out a license to marry Anne Hathaway.\nShe was eight years his senior.\n\nWilliam Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway.  In a hurry.  By grace of a\nreluctantly-granted dispensation there was but one publication of the\nbanns.\n\nWithin six months the first child was born.\n\nAbout two (blank) years followed, during which period _nothing at all\nhappened to Shakespeare_, so far as anybody knows.\n\nThen came twins--1585.  February.\n\nTwo blank years follow.\n\nThen--1587--he makes a ten-year visit to London, leaving the family\nbehind.\n\nFive blank years follow.  During this period _nothing happened to him_,\nas far as anybody actually knows.\n\nThen--1592--there is mention of him as an actor.\n\nNext year--1593--his name appears in the official list of players.\n\nNext year--1594--he played before the queen.  A detail of no consequence:\nother obscurities did it every year of the forty-five of her reign.  And\nremained obscure.\n\nThree pretty full years follow.  Full of play-acting.  Then\n\nIn 1597 he bought New Place, Stratford.\n\nThirteen or fourteen busy years follow; years in which he accumulated\nmoney, and also reputation as actor and manager.\n\nMeantime his name, liberally and variously spelt, had become associated\nwith a number of great plays and poems, as (ostensibly) author of the\nsame.\n\nSome of these, in these years and later, were pirated, but he made no\nprotest.  Then--1610-11--he returned to Stratford and settled down for\ngood and all, and busied himself in lending money, trading in tithes,\ntrading in land and houses; shirking a debt of forty-one shillings,\nborrowed by his wife during his long desertion of his family; suing\ndebtors for shillings and coppers; being sued himself for shillings and\ncoppers; and acting as confederate to a neighbor who tried to rob the\ntown of its rights in a certain common, and did not succeed.\n\nHe lived five or six years--till 1616--in the joy of these elevated\npursuits.  Then he made a will, and signed each of its three pages with\nhis name.\n\nA thoroughgoing business man's will.  It named in minute detail every\nitem of property he owned in the world--houses, lands, sword, silver-gilt\nbowl, and so on--all the way down to his \"second-best bed\" and its\nfurniture.\n\nIt carefully and calculatingly distributed his riches among the members\nof his family, overlooking no individual of it.  Not even his wife: the\nwife he had been enabled to marry in a hurry by urgent grace of a special\ndispensation before he was nineteen; the wife whom he had left\nhusbandless so many years; the wife who had had to borrow forty-one\nshillings in her need, and which the lender was never able to collect of\nthe prosperous husband, but died at last with the money still lacking.\nNo, even this wife was remembered in Shakespeare's will.\n\nHe left her that \"second-best bed.\"\n\nAnd _not another thing_; not even a penny to bless her lucky widowhood\nwith.\n\nIt was eminently and conspicuously a business man's will, not a poet's.\n\nIt mentioned _not a single book_.\n\nBooks were much more precious than swords and silver-gilt bowls and\nsecond-best beds in those days, and when a departing person owned one he\ngave it a high place in his will.\n\nThe will mentioned _not a play_,_ not a poem_,_ not an unfinished\nliterary work_, _not a scrap of manuscript of any kind_.\n\nMany poets have died poor, but this is the only one in history that has\ndied _this_ poor; the others all left literary remains behind.  Also a\nbook.  Maybe two.\n\nIf Shakespeare had owned a dog--but we need not go into that: we know he\nwould have mentioned it in his will.  If a good dog, Susanna would have\ngot it; if an inferior one his wife would have got a dower interest in\nit.  I wish he had had a dog, just so we could see how painstakingly he\nwould have divided that dog among the family, in his careful business\nway.\n\nHe signed the will in three places.\n\nIn earlier years he signed two other official documents.\n\nThese five signatures still exist.\n\nThere are _no other specimens of his penmanship in existence_.  Not a\nline.\n\nWas he prejudiced against the art?  His granddaughter, whom he loved, was\neight years old when he died, yet she had had no teaching, he left no\nprovision for her education although he was rich, and in her mature\nwomanhood she couldn't write and couldn't tell her husband's manuscript\nfrom anybody else's--she thought it was Shakespeare's.\n\nWhen Shakespeare died in Stratford _it was not an event_.  It made no\nmore stir in England than the death of any other forgotten theatre-actor\nwould have made.  Nobody came down from London; there were no lamenting\npoems, no eulogies, no national tears--there was merely silence, and\nnothing more.  A striking contrast with what happened when Ben Jonson,\nand Francis Bacon, and Spenser, and Raleigh and the other distinguished\nliterary folk of Shakespeare's time passed from life!  No praiseful voice\nwas lifted for the lost Bard of Avon; even Ben Jonson waited seven years\nbefore he lifted his.\n\n_So far as anybody actually knows and can prove_, Shakespeare of\nStratford-on-Avon never wrote a play in his life.\n\n_So far as anybody knows and can prove_, he never wrote a letter to\nanybody in his life.\n\n_So far as any one knows_, _he received only one letter during his life_.\n\nSo far as any one _knows and can prove_, Shakespeare of Stratford wrote\nonly one poem during his life.  This one is authentic.  He did write that\none--a fact which stands undisputed; he wrote the whole of it; he wrote\nthe whole of it out of his own head.  He commanded that this work of art\nbe engraved upon his tomb, and he was obeyed.  There it abides to this\nday.  This is it:\n\n    Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare\n    To digg the dust encloased heare:\n    Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones\n    And curst be he yt moves my bones.\n\nIn the list as above set down, will be found _every positively known_\nfact of Shakespeare's life, lean and meagre as the invoice is.  Beyond\nthese details we know _not a thing_ about him.  All the rest of his vast\nhistory, as furnished by the biographers, is built up, course upon\ncourse, of guesses, inferences, theories, conjectures--an Eiffel Tower of\nartificialities rising sky-high from a very flat and very thin foundation\nof inconsequential facts.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV--CONJECTURES\n\n\nThe historians \"suppose\" that Shakespeare attended the Free School in\nStratford from the time he was seven years old till he was thirteen.\nThere is no _evidence_ in existence that he ever went to school at all.\n\nThe historians \"infer\" that he got his Latin in that school--the school\nwhich they \"suppose\" he attended.\n\nThey \"suppose\" his father's declining fortunes made it necessary for him\nto leave the school they supposed he attended, and get to work and help\nsupport his parents and their ten children.  But there is no evidence\nthat he ever entered or retired from the school they suppose he attended.\n\nThey \"suppose\" he assisted his father in the butchering business; and\nthat, being only a boy, he didn't have to do full-grown butchering, but\nonly slaughtered calves.  Also, that whenever he killed a calf he made a\nhigh-flown speech over it.  This supposition rests upon the testimony of\na man who wasn't there at the time; a man who got it from a man who could\nhave been there, but did not say whether he was or not; and neither of\nthem thought to mention it for decades, and decades, and decades, and two\nmore decades after Shakespeare's death (until old age and mental decay\nhad refreshed and vivified their memories).  They hadn't two facts in\nstock about the long-dead distinguished citizen, but only just the one:\nhe slaughtered calves and broke into oratory while he was at it.\nCurious.  They had only one fact, yet the distinguished citizen had spent\ntwenty-six years in that little town--just half his lifetime.  However,\nrightly viewed, it was the most important fact, indeed almost the only\nimportant fact, of Shakespeare's life in Stratford.  Rightly viewed.  For\nexperience is an author's most valuable asset; experience is the thing\nthat puts the muscle and the breath and the warm blood into the book he\nwrites.  Rightly viewed, calf-butchering accounts for _Titus Andronicus_,\nthe only play--ain't it?--that the Stratford Shakespeare ever wrote; and\nyet it is the only one everybody tries to chouse him out of, the\nBaconians included.\n\nThe historians find themselves \"justified in believing\" that the young\nShakespeare poached upon Sir Thomas Lucy's deer preserves and got haled\nbefore that magistrate for it.  But there is no shred of respectworthy\nevidence that anything of the kind happened.\n\nThe historians, having argued the thing that _might_ have happened into\nthe thing that _did_ happen, found no trouble in turning Sir Thomas Lucy\ninto Mr. Justice Shallow.  They have long ago convinced the world--on\nsurmise and without trustworthy evidence--that Shallow _is_ Sir Thomas.\n\nThe next addition to the young Shakespeare's Stratford history comes\neasy.  The historian builds it out of the surmised deer-stealing, and the\nsurmised trial before the magistrate, and the surmised vengeance-prompted\nsatire upon the magistrate in the play: result, the young Shakespeare was\na wild, wild, wild, oh _such_ a wild young scamp, and that gratuitous\nslander is established for all time!  It is the very way Professor Osborn\nand I built the colossal skeleton brontosaur that stands fifty-seven feet\nlong and sixteen feet high in the Natural History Museum, the awe and\nadmiration of all the world, the stateliest skeleton that exists on the\nplanet.  We had nine bones, and we built the rest of him out of plaster\nof paris.  We ran short of plaster of paris, or we'd have built a\nbrontosaur that could sit down beside the Stratford Shakespeare and none\nbut an expert could tell which was biggest or contained the most plaster.\n\nShakespeare pronounced _Venus and Adonis_ \"the first heir of his\ninvention,\" apparently implying that it was his first effort at literary\ncomposition.  He should not have said it.  It has been an embarrassment\nto his historians these many, many years.  They have to make him write\nthat graceful and polished and flawless and beautiful poem before he\nescaped from Stratford and his family--1586 or '87--age, twenty-two, or\nalong there; because within the next five years he wrote five great\nplays, and could not have found time to write another line.\n\nIt is sorely embarrassing.  If he began to slaughter calves, and poach\ndeer, and rollick around, and learn English, at the earliest likely\nmoment--say at thirteen, when he was supposably wrenched from that school\nwhere he was supposably storing up Latin for future literary use--he had\nhis youthful hands full, and much more than full.  He must have had to\nput aside his Warwickshire dialect, which wouldn't be understood in\nLondon, and study English very hard.  Very hard indeed; incredibly hard,\nalmost, if the result of that labor was to be the smooth and rounded and\nflexible and letter-perfect English of the _Venus and Adonis_ in the\nspace of ten years; and at the same time learn great and fine and\nunsurpassable literary form.\n\nHowever, it is \"conjectured\" that he accomplished all this and more, much\nmore: learned law and its intricacies; and the complex procedure of the\nlaw courts; and all about soldiering, and sailoring, and the manners and\ncustoms and ways of royal courts and aristocratic society; and likewise\naccumulated in his one head every kind of knowledge the learned then\npossessed, and every kind of humble knowledge possessed by the lowly and\nthe ignorant; and added thereto a wider and more intimate knowledge of\nthe world's great literatures, ancient and modern, than was possessed by\nany other man of his time--for he was going to make brilliant and easy\nand admiration-compelling use of these splendid treasures the moment he\ngot to London.  And according to the surmisers, that is what he did.\nYes, although there was no one in Stratford able to teach him these\nthings, and no library in the little village to dig them out of.  His\nfather could not read, and even the surmisers surmise that he did not\nkeep a library.\n\nIt is surmised by the biographers that the young Shakespeare got his vast\nknowledge of the law and his familiar and accurate acquaintance with the\nmanners and customs and shop-talk of lawyers through being for a time the\n_clerk of a Stratford court_; just as a bright lad like me, reared in a\nvillage on the banks of the Mississippi, might become perfect in\nknowledge of the Behring Strait whale-fishery and the shop-talk of the\nveteran exercisers of that adventure-bristling trade through catching\ncatfish with a \"trot-line\" Sundays.  But the surmise is damaged by the\nfact that there is no evidence--and not even tradition--that the young\nShakespeare was ever clerk of a law court.\n\nIt is further surmised that the young Shakespeare accumulated his\nlaw-treasures in the first years of his sojourn in London, through\n\"amusing himself\" by learning book-law in his garret and by picking up\nlawyer-talk and the rest of it through loitering about the law-courts and\nlistening.  But it is only surmise; there is no _evidence_ that he ever\ndid either of those things.  They are merely a couple of chunks of\nplaster of paris.\n\nThere is a legend that he got his bread and butter by holding horses in\nfront of the London theatres, mornings and afternoons.  Maybe he did.  If\nhe did, it seriously shortened his law-study hours and his\nrecreation-time in the courts.  In those very days he was writing great\nplays, and needed all the time he could get.  The horse-holding legend\nought to be strangled; it too formidably increases the historian's\ndifficulty in accounting for the young Shakespeare's erudition--an\nerudition which he was acquiring, hunk by hunk and chunk by chunk every\nday in those strenuous times, and emptying each day's catch into next\nday's imperishable drama.\n\nHe had to acquire a knowledge of war at the same time; and a knowledge of\nsoldier-people and sailor-people and their ways and talk; also a\nknowledge of some foreign lands and their languages: for he was daily\nemptying fluent streams of these various knowledges, too, into his\ndramas.  How did he acquire these rich assets?\n\nIn the usual way: by surmise.  It is _surmised_ that he travelled in\nItaly and Germany and around, and qualified himself to put their scenic\nand social aspects upon paper; that he perfected himself in French,\nItalian and Spanish on the road; that he went in Leicester's expedition\nto the Low Countries, as soldier or sutler or something, for several\nmonths or years--or whatever length of time a surmiser needs in his\nbusiness--and thus became familiar with soldiership and soldier-ways and\nsoldier-talk, and generalship and general-ways and general-talk, and\nseamanship and sailor-ways and sailor-talk.\n\nMaybe he did all these things, but I would like to know who held the\nhorses in the meantime; and who studied the books in the garret; and who\nfrollicked in the law-courts for recreation.  Also, who did the\ncall-boying and the play-acting.\n\nFor he became a call-boy; and as early as '93 he became a \"vagabond\"--the\nlaw's ungentle term for an unlisted actor; and in '94 a \"regular\" and\nproperly and officially listed member of that (in those days)\nlightly-valued and not much respected profession.\n\nRight soon thereafter he became a stockholder in two theatres, and\nmanager of them.  Thenceforward he was a busy and flourishing business\nman, and was raking in money with both hands for twenty years.  Then in a\nnoble frenzy of poetic inspiration he wrote his one poem--his only poem,\nhis darling--and laid him down and died:\n\n    Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare\n    To digg the dust encloased heare:\n    Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones\n    And curst be he yt moves my bones.\n\nHe was probably dead when he wrote it.  Still, this is only conjecture.\nWe have only circumstantial evidence.  Internal evidence.\n\nShall I set down the rest of the Conjectures which constitute the giant\nBiography of William Shakespeare?  It would strain the Unabridged\nDictionary to hold them.  He is a Brontosaur: nine bones and six hundred\nbarrels of plaster of paris.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V--\"We May Assume\"\n\n\nIn the Assuming trade three separate and independent cults are\ntransacting business.  Two of these cults are known as the Shakespearites\nand the Baconians, and I am the other one--the Brontosaurian.\n\nThe Shakespearite knows that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare's Works; the\nBaconian knows that Francis Bacon wrote them; the Brontosaurian doesn't\nreally know which of them did it, but is quite composedly and contentedly\nsure that Shakespeare _didn't_, and strongly suspects that Bacon _did_.\nWe all have to do a good deal of assuming, but I am fairly certain that\nin every case I can call to mind the Baconian assumers have come out\nahead of the Shakespearites.  Both parties handle the same materials, but\nthe Baconians seem to me to get much more reasonable and rational and\npersuasive results out of them than is the case with the Shakespearites.\nThe Shakespearite conducts his assuming upon a definite principle, an\nunchanging and immutable law--which is: 2 and 8 and 7 and 14, added\ntogether, make 165.  I believe this to be an error.  No matter, you\ncannot get a habit-sodden Shakespearite to cipher-up his materials upon\nany other basis.  With the Baconian it is different.  If you place before\nhim the above figures and set him to adding them up, he will never in any\ncase get more than 45 out of them, and in nine cases out of ten he will\nget just the proper 31.\n\nLet me try to illustrate the two systems in a simple and homely way\ncalculated to bring the idea within the grasp of the ignorant and\nunintelligent.  We will suppose a case: take a lap-bred, house-fed,\nuneducated, inexperienced kitten; take a rugged old Tom that's scarred\nfrom stem to rudder-post with the memorials of strenuous experience, and\nis so cultured, so educated, so limitlessly erudite that one may say of\nhim \"all cat-knowledge is his province\"; also, take a mouse.  Lock the\nthree up in a holeless, crackless, exitless prison-cell.  Wait half an\nhour, then open the cell, introduce a Shakespearite and a Baconian, and\nlet them cipher and assume.  The mouse is missing: the question to be\ndecided is, where is it?  You can guess both verdicts beforehand.  One\nverdict will say the kitten contains the mouse; the other will as\ncertainly say the mouse is in the tomcat.\n\nThe Shakespearite will Reason like this--(that is not my word, it is\nhis).  He will say the kitten _may have been_ attending school when\nnobody was noticing; therefore _we are warranted in assuming_ that it did\nso; also, it _could have been_ training in a court-clerk's office when no\none was noticing; since that could have happened, _we are justified in\nassuming_ that it did happen; it _could have studied catology in a\ngarret_ when no one was noticing--therefore it _did_; it _could have_\nattended cat-assizes on the shed-roof nights, for recreation, when no one\nwas noticing, and harvested a knowledge of cat court-forms and cat\nlawyer-talk in that way: it _could_ have done it, therefore without a\ndoubt it did; it could have gone soldiering with a war-tribe when no one\nwas noticing, and learned soldier-wiles and soldier-ways, and what to do\nwith a mouse when opportunity offers; the plain inference, therefore is,\nthat that is what it _did_.  Since all these manifold things _could_ have\noccurred, we have _every right to believe_ they did occur.  These\npatiently and painstakingly accumulated vast acquirements and competences\nneeded but one thing more--opportunity--to convert themselves into\ntriumphant action.  The opportunity came, we have the result; _beyond\nshadow of question_ the mouse is in the kitten.\n\nIt is proper to remark that when we of the three cults plant a \"_We think\nwe may assume_,\" we expect it, under careful watering and fertilizing and\ntending, to grow up into a strong and hardy and weather-defying \"_there\nisn't a shadow of a doubt_\" at last--and it usually happens.\n\nWe know what the Baconian's verdict would be: \"_There is not a rag of\nevidence that the kitten has had any training_, _any education_, _any\nexperience qualifying it for the present occasion_, _or is indeed\nequipped for any achievement above lifting such unclaimed milk as comes\nits way_; _but there is abundant evidence_--_unassailable proof_, _in\nfact_--_that the other animal is equipped_, _to the last detail_, _with\nevery qualification necessary for the event_.  _Without shadow of doubt\nthe tomcat contains the mouse_.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\nWhen Shakespeare died, in 1616, great literary productions attributed to\nhim as author had been before the London world and in high favor for\ntwenty-four years.  Yet his death was not an event.  It made no stir, it\nattracted no attention.  Apparently his eminent literary contemporaries\ndid not realize that a celebrated poet had passed from their midst.\nPerhaps they knew a play-actor of minor rank had disappeared, but did not\nregard him as the author of his Works.  \"We are justified in assuming\"\nthis.\n\nHis death was not even an event in the little town of Stratford.  Does\nthis mean that in Stratford he was not regarded as a celebrity of _any_\nkind?\n\n\"We are privileged to assume\"--no, we are indeed _obliged_ to\nassume--that such was the case.  He had spent the first twenty-two or\ntwenty-three years of his life there, and of course knew everybody and\nwas known by everybody of that day in the town, including the dogs and\nthe cats and the horses.  He had spent the last five or six years of his\nlife there, diligently trading in every big and little thing that had\nmoney in it; so we are compelled to assume that many of the folk there in\nthose said latter days knew him personally, and the rest by sight and\nhearsay.  But not as a _celebrity_?  Apparently not.  For everybody soon\nforgot to remember any contact with him or any incident connected with\nhim.  The dozens of townspeople, still alive, who had known of him or\nknown about him in the first twenty-three years of his life were in the\nsame unremembering condition: if they knew of any incident connected with\nthat period of his life they didn't tell about it.  Would they if they\nhad been asked?  It is most likely.  Were they asked?  It is pretty\napparent that they were not.  Why weren't they?  It is a very plausible\nguess that nobody there or elsewhere was interested to know.\n\nFor seven years after Shakespeare's death nobody seems to have been\ninterested in him.  Then the quarto was published, and Ben Jonson awoke\nout of his long indifference and sang a song of praise and put it in the\nfront of the book.  Then silence fell _again_.\n\nFor sixty years.  Then inquiries into Shakespeare's Stratford life began\nto be made, of Stratfordians.  Of Stratfordians who had known Shakespeare\nor had seen him?  No.  Then of Stratfordians who had seen people who had\nknown or seen people who had seen Shakespeare?  No.  Apparently the\ninquiries were only made of Stratfordians who were not Stratfordians of\nShakespeare's day, but later comers; and what they had learned had come\nto them from persons who had not seen Shakespeare; and what they had\nlearned was not claimed as _fact_, but only as legend--dim and fading and\nindefinite legend; legend of the calf-slaughtering rank, and not worth\nremembering either as history or fiction.\n\nHas it ever happened before--or since--that a celebrated person who had\nspent exactly half of a fairly long life in the village where he was born\nand reared, was able to slip out of this world and leave that village\nvoiceless and gossipless behind him--utterly voiceless, utterly\ngossipless?  And permanently so?  I don't believe it has happened in any\ncase except Shakespeare's.  And couldn't and wouldn't have happened in\nhis case if he had been regarded as a celebrity at the time of his death.\n\nWhen I examine my own case--but let us do that, and see if it will not be\nrecognizable as exhibiting a condition of things quite likely to result,\nmost likely to result, indeed substantially _sure_ to result in the case\nof a celebrated person, a benefactor of the human race.  Like me.\n\nMy parents brought me to the village of Hannibal, Missouri, on the banks\nof the Mississippi, when I was two and a half years old.  I entered\nschool at five years of age, and drifted from one school to another in\nthe village during nine and a half years.  Then my father died, leaving\nhis family in exceedingly straitened circumstances; wherefore my\nbook-education came to a standstill forever, and I became a printer's\napprentice, on board and clothes, and when the clothes failed I got a\nhymn-book in place of them.  This for summer wear, probably.  I lived in\nHannibal fifteen and a half years, altogether, then ran away, according\nto the custom of persons who are intending to become celebrated.  I never\nlived there afterward.  Four years later I became a \"cub\" on a\nMississippi steamboat in the St. Louis and New Orleans trade, and after a\nyear and a half of hard study and hard work the U. S. inspectors\nrigorously examined me through a couple of long sittings and decided that\nI knew every inch of the Mississippi--thirteen hundred miles--in the dark\nand in the day--as well as a baby knows the way to its mother's paps day\nor night.  So they licensed me as a pilot--knighted me, so to speak--and\nI rose up clothed with authority, a responsible servant of the United\nStates government.\n\nNow then.  Shakespeare died young--he was only fifty-two.  He had lived\nin his native village twenty-six years, or about that.  He died\ncelebrated (if you believe everything you read in the books).  Yet when\nhe died nobody there or elsewhere took any notice of it; and for sixty\nyears afterward no townsman remembered to say anything about him or about\nhis life in Stratford.  When the inquirer came at last he got but one\nfact--no, _legend_--and got that one at second hand, from a person who\nhad only heard it as a rumor, and didn't claim copyright in it as a\nproduction of his own.  He couldn't, very well, for its date antedated\nhis own birth-date.  But necessarily a number of persons were still alive\nin Stratford who, in the days of their youth, had seen Shakespeare nearly\nevery day in the last five years of his life, and they would have been\nable to tell that inquirer some first-hand things about him if he had in\nthose last days been a celebrity and therefore a person of interest to\nthe villagers.  Why did not the inquirer hunt them up and interview them?\nWasn't it worth while?  Wasn't the matter of sufficient consequence?  Had\nthe inquirer an engagement to see a dog-fight and couldn't spare the\ntime?\n\nIt all seems to mean that he never had any literary celebrity, there or\nelsewhere, and no considerable repute as actor and manager.\n\nNow then, I am away along in life--my seventy-third year being already\nwell behind me--yet _sixteen_ of my Hannibal schoolmates are still alive\nto-day, and can tell--and do tell--inquirers dozens and dozens of\nincidents of their young lives and mine together; things that happened to\nus in the morning of life, in the blossom of our youth, in the good days,\nthe dear days, \"the days when we went gipsying, a long time ago.\"  Most\nof them creditable to me, too.  One child to whom I paid court when she\nwas five years old and I eight still lives in Hannibal, and she visited\nme last summer, traversing the necessary ten or twelve hundred miles of\nrailroad without damage to her patience or to her old-young vigor.\nAnother little lassie to whom I paid attention in Hannibal when she was\nnine years old and I the same, is still alive--in London--and hale and\nhearty, just as I am.  And on the few surviving steamboats--those\nlingering ghosts and remembrancers of great fleets that plied the big\nriver in the beginning of my water-career--which is exactly as long ago\nas the whole invoice of the life-years of Shakespeare number--there are\nstill findable two or three river-pilots who saw me do creditable things\nin those ancient days; and several white-headed engineers; and several\nroustabouts and mates; and several deck-hands who used to heave the lead\nfor me and send up on the still night air the \"six--feet--_scant_!\" that\nmade me shudder, and the \"_M-a-r-k--twain_!\" that took the shudder away,\nand presently the darling \"By the d-e-e-p--four!\" that lifted me to\nheaven for joy. {1}  They know about me, and can tell.  And so do\nprinters, from St. Louis to New York; and so do newspaper reporters, from\nNevada to San Francisco.  And so do the police.  If Shakespeare had\nreally been celebrated, like me, Stratford could have told things about\nhim; and if my experience goes for anything, they'd have done it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\nIf I had under my superintendence a controversy appointed to decide\nwhether Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare or not, I believe I would place\nbefore the debaters only the one question, _Was Shakespeare ever a\npracticing lawyer_? and leave everything else out.\n\nIt is maintained that the man who wrote the plays was not merely\nmyriad-minded, but also myriad-accomplished: that he not only knew some\nthousands of things about human life in all its shades and grades, and\nabout the hundred arts and trades and crafts and professions which men\nbusy themselves in, but that he could _talk_ about the men and their\ngrades and trades accurately, making no mistakes.  Maybe it is so, but\nhave the experts spoken, or is it only Tom, Dick, and Harry?  Does the\nexhibit stand upon wide, and loose, and eloquent generalizing--which is\nnot evidence, and not proof--or upon details, particulars, statistics,\nillustrations, demonstrations?\n\nExperts of unchallengeable authority have testified definitely as to only\none of Shakespeare's multifarious craft-equipments, so far as my\nrecollections of Shakespeare-Bacon talk abide with me--his law-equipment.\nI do not remember that Wellington or Napoleon ever examined Shakespeare's\nbattles and sieges and strategies, and then decided and established for\ngood and all, that they were militarily flawless; I do not remember that\nany Nelson, or Drake or Cook ever examined his seamanship and said it\nshowed profound and accurate familiarity with that art; I don't remember\nthat any king or prince or duke has ever testified that Shakespeare was\nletter-perfect in his handling of royal court-manners and the talk and\nmanners of aristocracies; I don't remember that any illustrious Latinist\nor Grecian or Frenchman or Spaniard or Italian has proclaimed him a\npast-master in those languages; I don't remember--well, I don't remember\nthat there is _testimony_--great testimony--imposing\ntestimony--unanswerable and unattackable testimony as to any of\nShakespeare's hundred specialties, except one--the law.\n\nOther things change, with time, and the student cannot trace back with\ncertainty the changes that various trades and their processes and\ntechnicalities have undergone in the long stretch of a century or two and\nfind out what their processes and technicalities were in those early\ndays, but with the law it is different: it is mile-stoned and documented\nall the way back, and the master of that wonderful trade, that complex\nand intricate trade, that awe-compelling trade, has competent ways of\nknowing whether Shakespeare-law is good law or not; and whether his\nlaw-court procedure is correct or not, and whether his legal shop-talk is\nthe shop-talk of a veteran practitioner or only a machine-made\ncounterfeit of it gathered from books and from occasional loiterings in\nWestminster.\n\nRichard H. Dana served two years before the mast, and had every\nexperience that falls to the lot of the sailor before the mast of our\nday.  His sailor-talk flows from his pen with the sure touch and the ease\nand confidence of a person who has _lived_ what he is talking about, not\ngathered it from books and random listenings.  Hear him:\n\n    Having hove short, cast off the gaskets, and made the bunt of each\n    sail fast by the jigger, with a man on each yard, at the word the\n    whole canvas of the ship was loosed, and with the greatest rapidity\n    possible everything was sheeted home and hoisted up, the anchor\n    tripped and cat-headed, and the ship under headway.\n\nAgain:\n\n    The royal yards were all crossed at once, and royals and sky-sails\n    set, and, as we had the wind free, the booms were run out, and all\n    were aloft, active as cats, laying out on the yards and booms,\n    reeving the studding-sail gear; and sail after sail the captain piled\n    upon her, until she was covered with canvas, her sails looking like a\n    great white cloud resting upon a black speck.\n\nOnce more.  A race in the Pacific:\n\n    Our antagonist was in her best trim.  Being clear of the point, the\n    breeze became stiff, and the royal-masts bent under our sails, but we\n    would not take them in until we saw three boys spring into the\n    rigging of the _California_; then they were all furled at once, but\n    with orders to our boys to stay aloft at the top-gallant mast-heads\n    and loose them again at the word.  It was my duty to furl the\n    fore-royal; and while standing by to loose it again, I had a fine\n    view of the scene.  From where I stood, the two vessels seemed\n    nothing but spars and sails, while their narrow decks, far below,\n    slanting over by the force of the wind aloft, appeared hardly capable\n    of supporting the great fabrics raised upon them.  The _California_\n    was to windward of us, and had every advantage; yet, while the breeze\n    was stiff we held our own.  As soon as it began to slacken she ranged\n    a little ahead, and the order was given to loose the royals.  In an\n    instant the gaskets were off and the bunt dropped.  \"Sheet home the\n    fore-royal!\"--\"Weather sheet's home!\"--\"Lee sheet's home!\"--\"Hoist\n    away, sir!\" is bawled from aloft.  \"Overhaul your clewlines!\" shouts\n    the mate.  \"Aye-aye, sir, all clear!\"--\"Taut leech! belay!  Well the\n    lee brace; haul taut to windward!\" and the royals are set.\n\nWhat would the captain of any sailing-vessel of our time say to that?  He\nwould say, \"The man that wrote that didn't learn his trade out of a book,\nhe has _been_ there!\"  But would this same captain be competent to sit in\njudgment upon Shakespeare's seamanship--considering the changes in ships\nand ship-talk that have necessarily taken place, unrecorded,\nunremembered, and lost to history in the last three hundred years?  It is\nmy conviction that Shakespeare's sailor-talk would be Choctaw to him.\nFor instance--from _The Tempest_:\n\n    _Master_.  Boatswain!\n\n    _Boatswain_.  Here, master; what cheer?\n\n    _Master_.  Good, speak to the mariners: fall to't, yarely, or we run\n    ourselves to ground; bestir, bestir!\n\n    (_Enter mariners_.)\n\n    _Boatswain_.  Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! yare,\n    yare!  Take in the topsail.  Tend to the master's whistle . . . Down\n    with the topmast! yare! lower, lower!  Bring her to try wi' the main\n    course . . . Lay her a-hold, a-hold!  Set her two courses.  Off to\n    sea again; lay her off.\n\nThat will do, for the present; let us yare a little, now, for a change.\n\nIf a man should write a book and in it make one of his characters say,\n\"Here, devil, empty the quoins into the standing galley and the imposing\nstone into the hell-box; assemble the comps around the frisket and let\nthem jeff for takes and be quick about it,\" I should recognize a mistake\nor two in the phrasing, and would know that the writer was only a printer\ntheoretically, not practically.\n\nI have been a quartz miner in the silver regions--a pretty hard life; I\nknow all the palaver of that business: I know all about discovery claims\nand the subordinate claims; I know all about lodes, ledges, outcroppings,\ndips, spurs, angles, shafts, drifts, inclines, levels, tunnels,\nair-shafts, \"horses,\" clay casings, granite casings; quartz mills and\ntheir batteries; arastras, and how to charge them with quicksilver and\nsulphate of copper; and how to clean them up, and how to reduce the\nresulting amalgam in the retorts, and how to cast the bullion into pigs;\nand finally I know how to screen tailings, and also how to hunt for\nsomething less robust to do, and find it.  I know the _argot_ of the\nquartz-mining and milling industry familiarly; and so whenever Bret Harte\nintroduces that industry into a story, the first time one of his miners\nopens his mouth I recognize from his phrasing that Harte got the phrasing\nby listening--like Shakespeare--I mean the Stratford one--not by\nexperience.  No one can talk the quartz dialect correctly without\nlearning it with pick and shovel and drill and fuse.\n\nI have been a surface-miner--gold--and I know all its mysteries, and the\ndialect that belongs with them; and whenever Harte introduces that\nindustry into a story I know by the phrasing of his characters that\nneither he nor they have ever served that trade.\n\nI have been a \"pocket\" miner--a sort of gold mining not findable in any\nbut one little spot in the world, so far as I know.  I know how, with\nhorn and water, to find the trail of a pocket and trace it step by step\nand stage by stage up the mountain to its source, and find the compact\nlittle nest of yellow metal reposing in its secret home under the ground.\nI know the language of that trade, that capricious trade, that\nfascinating buried-treasure trade, and can catch any writer who tries to\nuse it without having learned it by the sweat of his brow and the labor\nof his hands.\n\nI know several other trades and the _argot_ that goes with them; and\nwhenever a person tries to talk the talk peculiar to any of them without\nhaving learned it at its source I can trap him always before he gets far\non his road.\n\nAnd so, as I have already remarked, if I were required to superintend a\nBacon-Shakespeare controversy, I would narrow the matter down to a single\nquestion--the only one, so far as the previous controversies have\ninformed me, concerning which illustrious experts of unimpeachable\ncompetency have testified: _Was the author of Shakespeare's Works a\nlawyer_?--a lawyer deeply read and of limitless experience?  I would put\naside the guesses, and surmises, and perhapses, and might-have-beens, and\ncould-have beens, and must-have-beens, and we-are\njustified-in-presumings, and the rest of those vague spectres and shadows\nand indefinitenesses, and stand or fall, win or lose, by the verdict\nrendered by the jury upon that single question.  If the verdict was Yes,\nI should feel quite convinced that the Stratford Shakespeare, the actor,\nmanager, and trader who died so obscure, so forgotten, so destitute of\neven village consequence that sixty years afterward no fellow-citizen and\nfriend of his later days remembered to tell anything about him, did not\nwrite the Works.\n\nChapter XIII of _The Shakespeare Problem Restated_ bears the heading\n\"Shakespeare as a Lawyer,\" and comprises some fifty pages of expert\ntestimony, with comments thereon, and I will copy the first nine, as\nbeing sufficient all by themselves, as it seems to me, to settle the\nquestion which I have conceived to be the master-key to the\nShakespeare-Bacon puzzle.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII--Shakespeare as a Lawyer {2}\n\n\nThe Plays and Poems of Shakespeare supply ample evidence that their\nauthor not only had a very extensive and accurate knowledge of law, but\nthat he was well acquainted with the manners and customs of members of\nthe Inns of Court and with legal life generally.\n\n\"While novelists and dramatists are constantly making mistakes as to the\nlaws of marriage, of wills, and inheritance, to Shakespeare's law,\nlavishly as he expounds it, there can neither be demurrer, nor bill of\nexceptions, nor writ of error.\"  Such was the testimony borne by one of\nthe most distinguished lawyers of the nineteenth century who was raised\nto the high office of Lord Chief Justice in 1850, and subsequently became\nLord Chancellor.  Its weight will, doubtless, be more appreciated by\nlawyers than by laymen, for only lawyers know how impossible it is for\nthose who have not served an apprenticeship to the law to avoid\ndisplaying their ignorance if they venture to employ legal terms and to\ndiscuss legal doctrines.  \"There is nothing so dangerous,\" wrote Lord\nCampbell, \"as for one not of the craft to tamper with our freemasonry.\"\nA layman is certain to betray himself by using some expression which a\nlawyer would never employ.  Mr. Sidney Lee himself supplies us with an\nexample of this.  He writes (p. 164): \"On February 15, 1609, Shakespeare\n. . . obtained judgment from a jury against Addenbroke for the payment of\nNo. 6, and No. 1. 5_s._ 0_d._ costs.\"  Now a lawyer would never have\nspoken of obtaining \"judgment from a jury,\" for it is the function of a\njury not to deliver judgment (which is the prerogative of the court), but\nto find a verdict on the facts.  The error is, indeed, a venial one, but\nit is just one of those little things which at once enable a lawyer to\nknow if the writer is a layman or \"one of the craft.\"\n\nBut when a layman ventures to plunge deeply into legal subjects, he is\nnaturally apt to make an exhibition of his incompetence.  \"Let a\nnon-professional man, however acute,\" writes Lord Campbell again,\n\"presume to talk law, or to draw illustrations from legal science in\ndiscussing other subjects, and he will speedily fall into laughable\nabsurdity.\"\n\nAnd what does the same high authority say about Shakespeare?  He had \"a\ndeep technical knowledge of the law,\" and an easy familiarity with \"some\nof the most abstruse proceedings in English jurisprudence.\"  And again:\n\"Whenever he indulges this propensity he uniformly lays down good law.\"\nOf _Henry IV._, Part 2, he says: \"If Lord Eldon could be supposed to have\nwritten the play, I do not see how he could be chargeable with having\nforgotten any of his law while writing it.\"  Charles and Mary Cowden\nClarke speak of \"the marvelous intimacy which he displays with legal\nterms, his frequent adoption of them in illustration, and his curiously\ntechnical knowledge of their form and force.\"  Malone, himself a lawyer,\nwrote: \"His knowledge of legal terms is not merely such as might be\nacquired by the casual observation of even his all-comprehending mind; it\nhas the appearance of technical skill.\"  Another lawyer and well-known\nShakespearean, Richard Grant White, says: \"No dramatist of the time, not\neven Beaumont, who was the younger son of a judge of the Common Pleas,\nand who after studying in the Inns of Court abandoned law for the drama,\nused legal phrases with Shakespeare's readiness and exactness.  And the\nsignificance of this fact is heightened by another, that it is only to\nthe language of the law that he exhibits this inclination.  The phrases\npeculiar to other occupations serve him on rare occasions by way of\ndescription, comparison or illustration, generally when something in the\nscene suggests them, but legal phrases flow from his pen as part of his\nvocabulary, and parcel of his thought.  Take the word 'purchase' for\ninstance, which, in ordinary use, means to acquire by giving value, but\napplies in law to all legal modes of obtaining property except by\ninheritance or descent, and in this peculiar sense the word occurs five\ntimes in Shakespeare's thirty-four plays, and only in one single instance\nin the fifty-four plays of Beaumont and Fletcher.  It has been suggested\nthat it was in attendance upon the courts in London that he picked up his\nlegal vocabulary.  But this supposition not only fails to account for\nShakespeare's peculiar freedom and exactness in the use of that\nphraseology, it does not even place him in the way of learning those\nterms his use of which is most remarkable, which are not such as he would\nhave heard at ordinary proceedings at _nisi prius_, but such as refer to\nthe tenure or transfer of real property, 'fine and recovery,' 'statutes\nmerchant,' 'purchase,' 'indenture,' 'tenure,' 'double voucher,' 'fee\nsimple,' 'fee farm,' 'remainder,' 'reversion,' 'forfeiture,' etc.  This\nconveyancer's jargon could not have been picked up by hanging round the\ncourts of law in London two hundred and fifty years ago, when suits as to\nthe title of real property were comparatively rare.  And beside,\nShakespeare uses his law just as freely in his first plays, written in\nhis first London years, as in those produced at a later period.  Just as\nexactly, too; for the correctness and propriety with which these terms\nare introduced have compelled the admiration of a Chief Justice and a\nLord Chancellor.\"\n\nSenator Davis wrote: \"We seem to have something more than a sciolist's\ntemerity of indulgence in the terms of an unfamiliar art.  No legal\nsolecisms will be found.  The abstrusest elements of the common law are\nimpressed into a disciplined service.  Over and over again, where such\nknowledge is unexampled in writers unlearned in the law, Shakespeare\nappears in perfect possession of it.  In the law of real property, its\nrules of tenure and descents, its entails, its fines and recoveries,\ntheir vouchers and double vouchers, in the procedure of the Courts, the\nmethod of bringing writs and arrests, the nature of actions, the rules of\npleading, the law of escapes and of contempt of court, in the principles\nof evidence, both technical and philosophical, in the distinction between\nthe temporal and spiritual tribunals, in the law of attainder and\nforfeiture, in the requisites of a valid marriage, in the presumption of\nlegitimacy, in the learning of the law of prerogative, in the inalienable\ncharacter of the Crown, this mastership appears with surprising\nauthority.\"\n\nTo all this testimony (and there is much more which I have not cited) may\nnow be added that of a great lawyer of our own times, _viz._: Sir James\nPlaisted Wilde, Q.C. created a Baron of the Exchequer in 1860, promoted\nto the post of Judge-Ordinary and Judge of the Courts of Probate and\nDivorce in 1863, and better known to the world as Lord Penzance, to which\ndignity he was raised in 1869.  Lord Penzance, as all lawyers know, and\nas the late Mr. Inderwick, K.C., has testified, was one of the first\nlegal authorities of his day, famous for his \"remarkable grasp of legal\nprinciples,\" and \"endowed by nature with a remarkable facility for\nmarshalling facts, and for a clear expression of his views.\"\n\nLord Penzance speaks of Shakespeare's \"perfect familiarity with not only\nthe principles, axioms, and maxims, but the technicalities of English\nlaw, a knowledge so perfect and intimate that he was never incorrect and\nnever at fault . . . The mode in which this knowledge was pressed into\nservice on all occasions to express his meaning and illustrate his\nthoughts, was quite unexampled.  He seems to have had a special pleasure\nin his complete and ready mastership of it in all its branches.  As\nmanifested in the plays, this legal knowledge and learning had therefore\na special character which places it on a wholly different footing from\nthe rest of the multifarious knowledge which is exhibited in page after\npage of the plays.  At every turn and point at which the author required\na metaphor, simile, or illustration, his mind ever turned _first_ to the\nlaw.  He seems almost to have _thought_ in legal phrases, the commonest\nof legal expressions were ever at the end of his pen in description or\nillustration.  That he should have descanted in lawyer language when he\nhad a forensic subject in hand, such as Shylock's bond, was to be\nexpected, but the knowledge of law in 'Shakespeare' was exhibited in a\nfar different manner: it protruded itself on all occasions, appropriate\nor inappropriate, and mingled itself with strains of thought widely\ndivergent from forensic subjects.\"  Again: \"To acquire a perfect\nfamiliarity with legal principles, and an accurate and ready use of the\ntechnical terms and phrases not only of the conveyancer's office but of\nthe pleader's chambers and the Courts at Westminster, nothing short of\nemployment in some career involving constant contact with legal questions\nand general legal work would be requisite.  But a continuous employment\ninvolves the element of time, and time was just what the manager of two\ntheatres had not at his disposal.  In what portion of Shakespeare's\n(_i.e._ Shakspere's) career would it be possible to point out that time\ncould be found for the interposition of a legal employment in the\nchambers or offices of practising lawyers?\"\n\nStratfordians, as is well known, casting about for some possible\nexplanation of Shakespeare's extraordinary knowledge of law, have made\nthe suggestion that Shakespeare might, conceivably, have been a clerk in\nan attorney's office before he came to London.  Mr. Collier wrote to Lord\nCampbell to ask his opinion as to the probability of this being true.\nHis answer was as follows: \"You require us to believe implicitly a fact,\nof which, if true, positive and irrefragable evidence in his own\nhandwriting might have been forthcoming to establish it.  Not having been\nactually enrolled as an attorney, neither the records of the local court\nat Stratford nor of the superior Courts at Westminster would present his\nname as being concerned in any suit as an attorney, but it might\nreasonably have been expected that there would be deeds or wills\nwitnessed by him still extant, and after a very diligent search none such\ncan be discovered.\"\n\nUpon this Lord Penzance comments: \"It cannot be doubted that Lord\nCampbell was right in this.  No young man could have been at work in an\nattorney's office without being called upon continually to act as a\nwitness, and in many other ways leaving traces of his work and name.\"\nThere is not a single fact or incident in all that is known of\nShakespeare, even by rumor or tradition, which supports this notion of a\nclerkship.  And after much argument and surmise which has been indulged\nin on this subject, we may, I think, safely put the notion on one side,\nfor no less an authority than Mr. Grant White says finally that the idea\nof his having been clerk to an attorney has been \"blown to pieces.\"\n\nIt is altogether characteristic of Mr. Churton Collins that he,\nnevertheless, adopts this exploded myth.  \"That Shakespeare was in early\nlife employed as a clerk in an attorney's office, may be correct.  At\nStratford there was by royal charter a Court of Record sitting every\nfortnight, with six attorneys, beside the town clerk, belonging to it,\nand it is certainly not straining probability to suppose that the young\nShakespeare may have had employment in one of them.  There is, it is\ntrue, no tradition to this effect, but such traditions as we have about\nShakespeare's occupation between the time of leaving school and going to\nLondon are so loose and baseless that no confidence can be placed in\nthem.  It is, to say the least, more probable that he was in an\nattorney's office than that he was a butcher killing calves 'in a high\nstyle,' and making speeches over them.\"\n\nThis is a charming specimen of Stratfordian argument.  There is, as we\nhave seen, a very old tradition that Shakespeare was a butcher's\napprentice.  John Dowdall, who made a tour in Warwickshire in 1693,\ntestifies to it as coming from the old clerk who showed him over the\nchurch, and it is unhesitatingly accepted as true by Mr.\nHalliwell-Phillipps.  (Vol I, p. 11, and see Vol. II, p. 71, 72.)  Mr.\nSidney Lee sees nothing improbable in it, and it is supported by Aubrey,\nwho must have written his account some time before 1680, when his\nmanuscript was completed.  Of the attorney's clerk hypothesis, on the\nother hand, there is not the faintest vestige of a tradition.  It has\nbeen evolved out of the fertile imaginations of embarrassed\nStratfordians, seeking for some explanation of the Stratford rustic's\nmarvellous acquaintance with law and legal terms and legal life.  But Mr.\nChurton Collins has not the least hesitation in throwing over the\ntradition which has the warrant of antiquity and setting up in its stead\nthis ridiculous invention, for which not only is there no shred of\npositive evidence, but which, as Lord Campbell and Lord Penzance point\nout, is really put out of court by the negative evidence, since \"no young\nman could have been at work in an attorney's office without being called\nupon continually to act as a witness, and in many other ways leaving\ntraces of his work and name.\"  And as Mr. Edwards further points out,\nsince the day when Lord Campbell's book was published (between forty and\nfifty years ago), \"every old deed or will, to say nothing of other legal\npapers, dated during the period of William Shakespeare's youth, has been\nscrutinized over half a dozen shires, and not one signature of the young\nman has been found.\"\n\nMoreover, if Shakespeare had served as clerk in an attorney's office it\nis clear that he must have so served for a considerable period in order\nto have gained (if indeed it is credible that he could have so gained)\nhis remarkable knowledge of law.  Can we then for a moment believe that,\nif this had been so, tradition would have been absolutely silent on the\nmatter?  That Dowdall's old clerk, over eighty years of age, should have\nnever heard of it (though he was sure enough about the butcher's\napprentice), and that all the other ancient witnesses should be in\nsimilar ignorance!\n\nBut such are the methods of Stratfordian controversy.  Tradition is to be\nscouted when it is found inconvenient, but cited as irrefragable truth\nwhen it suits the case.  Shakespeare of Stratford was the author of the\n_Plays_ and _Poems_, but the author of the _Plays_ and _Poems_ could not\nhave been a butcher's apprentice.  Away, therefore, with tradition.  But\nthe author of the _Plays_ and _Poems must_ have had a very large and a\nvery accurate knowledge of the law.  Therefore, Shakespeare of Stratford\nmust have been an attorney's clerk!  The method is simplicity itself.  By\nsimilar reasoning Shakespeare has been made a country schoolmaster, a\nsoldier, a physician, a printer, and a good many other things beside,\naccording to the inclination and the exigencies of the commentator.  It\nwould not be in the least surprising to find that he was studying Latin\nas a schoolmaster and law in an attorney's office at the same time.\n\nHowever, we must do Mr. Collins the justice of saying that he has fully\nrecognized, what is indeed tolerably obvious, that Shakespeare must have\nhad a sound legal training.  \"It may, of course, be urged,\" he writes,\n\"that Shakespeare's knowledge of medicine, and particularly that branch\nof it which related to morbid psychology, is equally remarkable, and that\nno one has ever contended that he was a physician.  (Here Mr. Collins is\nwrong; that contention also has been put forward.) It may be urged that\nhis acquaintance with the technicalities of other crafts and callings,\nnotably of marine and military affairs, was also extraordinary, and yet\nno one has suspected him of being a sailor or a soldier.  (Wrong again.\nWhy even Messrs. Garnett and Gosse 'suspect' that he was a soldier!)\nThis may be conceded, but the concession hardly furnishes an analogy.  To\nthese and all other subjects he recurs occasionally, and in season, but\nwith reminiscences of the law his memory, as is abundantly clear, was\nsimply saturated.  In season and out of season now in manifest, now in\nrecondite application, he presses it into the service of expression and\nillustration.  At least a third of his myriad metaphors are derived from\nit.  It would indeed be difficult to find a single act in any of his\ndramas, nay, in some of them, a single scene, the diction and imagery of\nwhich is not colored by it.  Much of his law may have been acquired from\nthree books easily accessible to him, namely Tottell's _Precedents_\n(1572), Pulton's _Statutes_ (1578), and Fraunce's _Lawier's Logike_\n(1588), works with which he certainly seems to have been familiar; but\nmuch of it could only have come from one who had an intimate acquaintance\nwith legal proceedings.  We quite agree with Mr. Castle that\nShakespeare's legal knowledge is not what could have been picked up in an\nattorney's office, but could only have been learned by an actual\nattendance at the Courts, at a Pleader's Chambers, and on circuit, or by\nassociating intimately with members of the Bench and Bar.\"\n\nThis is excellent.  But what is Mr. Collins' explanation.  \"Perhaps the\nsimplest solution of the problem is to accept the hypothesis that in\nearly life he was in an attorney's office (!), that he there contracted a\nlove for the law which never left him, that as a young man in London, he\ncontinued to study or dabble in it for his amusement, to stroll in\nleisure hours into the Courts, and to frequent the society of lawyers.\nOn no other supposition is it possible to explain the attraction which\nthe law evidently had for him, and his minute and undeviating accuracy in\na subject where no layman who has indulged in such copious and\nostentatious display of legal technicalities has ever yet succeeded in\nkeeping himself from tripping.\"\n\nA lame conclusion.  \"No other supposition\" indeed!  Yes, there is\nanother, and a very obvious supposition, namely, that Shakespeare was\nhimself a lawyer, well versed in his trade, versed in all the ways of the\ncourts, and living in close intimacy with judges and members of the Inns\nof Court.\n\nOne is, of course, thankful that Mr. Collins has appreciated the fact\nthat Shakespeare must have had a sound legal training, but I may be\nforgiven if I do not attach quite so much importance to his\npronouncements on this branch of the subject as to those of Malone, Lord\nCampbell, Judge Holmes, Mr. Castle, K.C., Lord Penzance, Mr. Grant White,\nand other lawyers, who have expressed their opinion on the matter of\nShakespeare's legal acquirements.\n\nHere it may, perhaps, be worth while to quote again from Lord Penzance's\nbook as to the suggestion that Shakespeare had somehow or other managed\n\"to acquire a perfect familiarity with legal principles, and an accurate\nand ready use of the technical terms and phrases, not only of the\nconveyancer's office, but of the pleader's chambers and the courts at\nWestminster.\"  This, as Lord Penzance points out, \"would require nothing\nshort of employment in some career involving _constant contact_ with\nlegal questions and general legal work.\"  But \"in what portion of\nShakespeare's career would it be possible to point out that time could be\nfound for the interposition of a legal employment in the chambers or\noffices of practising lawyers? . . . It is beyond doubt that at an early\nperiod he was called upon to abandon his attendance at school and assist\nhis father, and was soon after, at the age of sixteen, bound apprentice\nto a trade.  While under the obligation of this bond he could not have\npursued any other employment.  Then he leaves Stratford and comes to\nLondon.  He has to provide himself with the means of a livelihood, and\nthis he did in some capacity at the theatre.  No one doubts that.  The\nholding of horses is scouted by many, and perhaps with justice, as being\nunlikely and certainly unproved; but whatever the nature of his\nemployment was at the theatre, there is hardly room for the belief that\nit could have been other than continuous, for his progress there was so\nrapid.  Ere long he had been taken into the company as an actor, and was\nsoon spoken of as a 'Johannes Factotum.'  His rapid accumulation of\nwealth speaks volumes for the constancy and activity of his services.\nOne fails to see when there could be a break in the current of his life\nat this period of it, giving room or opportunity for legal or indeed any\nother employment.  'In 1589,' says Knight, 'we have undeniable evidence\nthat he had not only a casual engagement, was not only a salaried\nservant, as many players were, but was a shareholder in the company of\nthe Queen's players with other shareholders below him on the list.'  This\n(1589) would be within two years after his arrival in London, which is\nplaced by White and Halliwell-Phillipps about the year 1587.  The\ndifficulty in supposing that, starting with a state of ignorance in 1587,\nwhen he is supposed to have come to London, he was induced to enter upon\na course of most extended study and mental culture, is almost\ninsuperable.  Still it was physically possible, provided always that he\ncould have had access to the needful books.  But this legal training\nseems to me to stand on a different footing.  It is not only\nunaccountable and incredible, but it is actually negatived by the known\nfacts of his career.\"  Lord Penzance then refers to the fact that \"by\n1592 (according to the best authority, Mr. Grant White) several of the\nplays had been written.  _The Comedy of Errors_ in 1589, _Love's Labour's\nLost_ in 1589, _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ in 1589 or 1590, and so forth,\"\nand then asks, \"with this catalogue of dramatic work on hand . . . was it\npossible that he could have taken a leading part in the management and\nconduct of two theatres, and if Mr. Phillipps is to be relied upon, taken\nhis share in the performances of the provincial tours of his company--and\nat the same time devoted himself to the study of the law in all its\nbranches so efficiently as to make himself complete master of its\nprinciples and practice, and saturate his mind with all its most\ntechnical terms?\"\n\nI have cited this passage from Lord Penzance's book, because it lay\nbefore me, and I had already quoted from it on the matter of\nShakespeare's legal knowledge; but other writers have still better set\nforth the insuperable difficulties, as they seem to me, which beset the\nidea that Shakespeare might have found time in some unknown period of\nearly life, amid multifarious other occupations, for the study of\nclassics, literature and law, to say nothing of languages and a few other\nmatters.  Lord Penzance further asks his readers: \"Did you ever meet with\nor hear of an instance in which a young man in this country gave himself\nup to legal studies and engaged in legal employments, which is the only\nway of becoming familiar with the technicalities of practice, unless with\nthe view of practicing in that profession?  I do not believe that it\nwould be easy, or indeed possible, to produce an instance in which the\nlaw has been seriously studied in all its branches, except as a\nqualification for practice in the legal profession.\"\n\n                                * * * * *\n\nThis testimony is so strong, so direct, so authoritative; and so\nuncheapened, unwatered by guesses, and surmises, and maybe-so's, and\nmight-have-beens, and could-have-beens, and must-have-beens, and the rest\nof that ton of plaster of paris out of which the biographers have built\nthe colossal brontosaur which goes by the Stratford actor's name, that it\nquite convinces me that the man who wrote Shakespeare's Works knew all\nabout law and lawyers.  Also, that that man could not have been the\nStratford Shakespeare--and _wasn't_.\n\nWho did write these Works, then?\n\nI wish I knew.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\n\nDid Francis Bacon write Shakespeare's Works?\n\nNobody knows.\n\nWe cannot say we _know_ a thing when that thing has not been proved.\n_Know_ is too strong a word to use when the evidence is not final and\nabsolutely conclusive.  We can infer, if we want to, like those slaves\n. . . No, I will not write that word, it is not kind, it is not courteous.\nThe upholders of the Stratford-Shakespeare superstition call _us_ the\nhardest names they can think of, and they keep doing it all the time;\nvery well, if they like to descend to that level, let them do it, but I\nwill not so undignify myself as to follow them.  I cannot call them harsh\nnames; the most I can do is to indicate them by terms reflecting my\ndisapproval; and this without malice, without venom.\n\nTo resume.  What I was about to say, was, those thugs have built their\nentire superstition upon _inferences_, not upon known and established\nfacts.  It is a weak method, and poor, and I am glad to be able to say\nour side never resorts to it while there is anything else to resort to.\n\nBut when we must, we must; and we have now arrived at a place of that\nsort.\n\nSince the Stratford Shakespeare couldn't have written the Works, we infer\nthat somebody did.  Who was it, then?  This requires some more inferring.\n\nOrdinarily when an unsigned poem sweeps across the continent like a tidal\nwave, whose roar and boom and thunder are made up of admiration, delight\nand applause, a dozen obscure people rise up and claim the authorship.\nWhy a dozen, instead of only one or two?  One reason is, because there's\na dozen that are recognizably competent to do that poem.  Do you remember\n\"Beautiful Snow\"?  Do you remember \"Rock Me to Sleep, Mother, Rock Me to\nSleep\"?  Do you remember \"Backward, turn backward, O Time, in thy flight!\nMake me a child again just for to-night\"?  I remember them very well.\nTheir authorship was claimed by most of the grown-up people who were\nalive at the time, and every claimant had one plausible argument in his\nfavor, at least: to wit, he could have done the authoring; he was\ncompetent.\n\nHave the Works been claimed by a dozen?  They haven't.  There was good\nreason.  The world knows there was but one man on the planet at the time\nwho was competent--not a dozen, and not two.  A long time ago the\ndwellers in a far country used now and then to find a procession of\nprodigious footprints stretching across the plain--footprints that were\nthree miles apart, each footprint a third of a mile long and a furlong\ndeep, and with forests and villages mashed to mush in it.  Was there any\ndoubt as to who had made that mighty trail?  Were there a dozen\nclaimants?  Were there two?  No--the people knew who it was that had been\nalong there: there was only one Hercules.\n\nThere has been only one Shakespeare.  There couldn't be two; certainly\nthere couldn't be two at the same time.  It takes ages to bring forth a\nShakespeare, and some more ages to match him.  This one was not matched\nbefore his time; nor during his time; and hasn't been matched since.  The\nprospect of matching him in our time is not bright.\n\nThe Baconians claim that the Stratford Shakespeare was not qualified to\nwrite the Works, and that Francis Bacon was.  They claim that Bacon\npossessed the stupendous equipment--both natural and acquired--for the\nmiracle; and that no other Englishman of his day possessed the like; or,\nindeed, anything closely approaching it.\n\nMacaulay, in his Essay, has much to say about the splendor and\nhorizonless magnitude of that equipment.  Also, he has synopsized Bacon's\nhistory: a thing which cannot be done for the Stratford Shakespeare, for\nhe hasn't any history to synopsize.  Bacon's history is open to the\nworld, from his boyhood to his death in old age--a history consisting of\nknown facts, displayed in minute and multitudinous detail; _facts_, not\nguesses and conjectures and might-have-beens.\n\nWhereby it appears that he was born of a race of statesmen, and had a\nLord Chancellor for his father, and a mother who was \"distinguished both\nas a linguist and a theologian: she corresponded in Greek with Bishop\nJewell, and translated his _Apologia_ from the Latin so correctly that\nneither he nor Archbishop Parker could suggest a single alteration.\"  It\nis the atmosphere we are reared in that determines how our inclinations\nand aspirations shall tend.  The atmosphere furnished by the parents to\nthe son in this present case was an atmosphere saturated with learning;\nwith thinkings and ponderings upon deep subjects; and with polite\nculture.  It had its natural effect.  Shakespeare of Stratford was reared\nin a house which had no use for books, since its owners, his parents,\nwere without education.  This may have had an effect upon the son, but we\ndo not know, because we have no history of him of an informing sort.\nThere were but few books anywhere, in that day, and only the well-to-do\nand highly educated possessed them, they being almost confined to the\ndead languages.  \"All the valuable books then extant in all the\nvernacular dialects of Europe would hardly have filled a single\nshelf\"--imagine it!  The few existing books were in the Latin tongue\nmainly.  \"A person who was ignorant of it was shut out from all\nacquaintance--not merely with Cicero and Virgil, but with the most\ninteresting memoirs, state papers, and pamphlets of his own time\"--a\nliterature necessary to the Stratford lad, for his fictitious\nreputation's sake, since the writer of his Works would begin to use it\nwholesale and in a most masterly way before the lad was hardly more than\nout of his teens and into his twenties.\n\nAt fifteen Bacon was sent to the university, and he spent three years\nthere.  Thence he went to Paris in the train of the English Ambassador,\nand there he mingled daily with the wise, the cultured, the great, and\nthe aristocracy of fashion, during another three years.  A total of six\nyears spent at the sources of knowledge; knowledge both of books and of\nmen.  The three spent at the university were coeval with the second and\nlast three spent by the little Stratford lad at Stratford school\nsupposedly, and perhapsedly, and maybe, and by inference--with nothing to\ninfer from.  The second three of the Baconian six were \"presumably\" spent\nby the Stratford lad as apprentice to a butcher.  That is, the thugs\npresume it--on no evidence of any kind.  Which is their way, when they\nwant a historical fact.  Fact and presumption are, for business purposes,\nall the same to them.  They know the difference, but they also know how\nto blink it.  They know, too, that while in history-building a fact is\nbetter than a presumption, it doesn't take a presumption long to bloom\ninto a fact when _they_ have the handling of it.  They know by old\nexperience that when they get hold of a presumption-tadpole he is not\ngoing to _stay_ tadpole in their history-tank; no, they know how to\ndevelop him into the giant four-legged bullfrog of _fact_, and make him\nsit up on his hams, and puff out his chin, and look important and\ninsolent and come-to-stay; and assert his genuine simon-pure authenticity\nwith a thundering bellow that will convince everybody because it is so\nloud.  The thug is aware that loudness convinces sixty persons where\nreasoning convinces but one.  I wouldn't be a thug, not even if--but\nnever mind about that, it has nothing to do with the argument, and it is\nnot noble in spirit besides.  If I am better than a thug, is the merit\nmine?  No, it is His.  Then to Him be the praise.  That is the right\nspirit.\n\nThey \"presume\" the lad severed his \"presumed\" connection with the\nStratford school to become apprentice to a butcher.  They also \"presume\"\nthat the butcher was his father.  They don't know.  There is no written\nrecord of it, nor any other actual evidence.  If it would have helped\ntheir case any, they would have apprenticed him to thirty butchers, to\nfifty butchers, to a wilderness of butchers--all by their patented method\n\"presumption.\"  If it will help their case they will do it yet; and if it\nwill further help it, they will \"presume\" that all those butchers were\nhis father.  And the week after, they will _say_ it.  Why, it is just\nlike being the past tense of the compound reflexive adverbial\nincandescent hypodermic irregular accusative Noun of Multitude; which is\nfather to the expression which the grammarians call Verb.  It is like a\nwhole ancestry, with only one posterity.\n\nTo resume.  Next, the young Bacon took up the study of law, and mastered\nthat abstruse science.  From that day to the end of his life he was daily\nin close contact with lawyers and judges; not as a casual onlooker in\nintervals between holding horses in front of a theatre, but as a\npracticing lawyer--a great and successful one, a renowned one, a\nLauncelot of the bar, the most formidable lance in the high brotherhood\nof the legal Table Round; he lived in the law's atmosphere thenceforth,\nall his years, and by sheer ability forced his way up its difficult\nsteeps to its supremest summit, the Lord Chancellorship, leaving behind\nhim no fellow craftsman qualified to challenge his divine right to that\nmajestic place.\n\nWhen we read the praises bestowed by Lord Penzance and the other\nillustrious experts upon the legal condition and legal aptnesses,\nbrilliances, profundities and felicities so prodigally displayed in the\nPlays, and try to fit them to the history-less Stratford stage-manager,\nthey sound wild, strange, incredible, ludicrous; but when we put them in\nthe mouth of Bacon they do not sound strange, they seem in their natural\nand rightful place, they seem at home there.  Please turn back and read\nthem again.  Attributed to Shakespeare of Stratford they are meaningless,\nthey are inebriate extravagancies--intemperate admirations of the dark\nside of the moon, so to speak; attributed to Bacon, they are admirations\nof the golden glories of the moon's front side, the moon at the full--and\nnot intemperate, not overwrought, but sane and right, and justified.  \"At\nevery turn and point at which the author required a metaphor, simile or\nillustration, his mind ever turned _first_ to the law; he seems almost to\nhave _thought_ in legal phrases; the commonest legal phrases, the\ncommonest of legal expressions were ever at the end of his pen.\"  That\ncould happen to no one but a person whose _trade_ was the law; it could\nnot happen to a dabbler in it.  Veteran mariners fill their conversation\nwith sailor-phrases and draw all their similes from the ship and the sea\nand the storm, but no mere _passenger_ ever does it, be he of Stratford\nor elsewhere; or could do it with anything resembling accuracy, if he\nwere hardy enough to try.  Please read again what Lord Campbell and the\nother great authorities have said about Bacon when they thought they were\nsaying it about Shakespeare of Stratford.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X--The Rest of the Equipment\n\n\nThe author of the Plays was equipped, beyond every other man of his time,\nwith wisdom, erudition, imagination, capaciousness of mind, grace and\nmajesty of expression.  Every one has said it, no one doubts it.  Also,\nhe had humor, humor in rich abundance, and always wanting to break out.\nWe have no evidence of any kind that Shakespeare of Stratford possessed\nany of these gifts or any of these acquirements.  The only lines he ever\nwrote, so far as we know, are substantially barren of them--barren of all\nof them.\n\n    Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare\n    To digg the dust encloased heare:\n    Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones\n    And curst be he yt moves my bones.\n\nBen Jonson says of Bacon, as orator:\n\n    His language, _where he could spare and pass by a jest_, was nobly\n    censorious.  No man ever spoke more neatly, more pressly, more\n    weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he\n    uttered.  No member of his speech but consisted of his (its) own\n    graces . . . The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should\n    make an end.\n\nFrom Macaulay:\n\n    He continued to distinguish himself in Parliament, particularly by\n    his exertions in favor of one excellent measure on which the King's\n    heart was set--the union of England and Scotland.  It was not\n    difficult for such an intellect to discover many irresistible\n    arguments in favor of such a scheme.  He conducted the great case of\n    the _Post Nati_ in the Exchequer Chamber; and the decision of the\n    judges--a decision the legality of which may be questioned, but the\n    beneficial effect of which must be acknowledged--was in a great\n    measure attributed to his dexterous management.\n\nAgain:\n\n    While actively engaged in the House of Commons and in the courts of\n    law, he still found leisure for letters and philosophy.  The noble\n    treatise on the _Advancement of Learning_, which at a later period\n    was expanded into the _De Augmentis_, appeared in 1605.\n\n    The _Wisdom of the Ancients_, a work which if it had proceeded from\n    any other writer would have been considered as a masterpiece of wit\n    and learning, was printed in 1609.\n\n    In the meantime the _Novum Organum_ was slowly proceeding.  Several\n    distinguished men of learning had been permitted to see portions of\n    that extraordinary book, and they spoke with the greatest admiration\n    of his genius.\n\n    Even Sir Thomas Bodley, after perusing the _Cogitata et Visa_, one of\n    the most precious of those scattered leaves out of which the great\n    oracular volume was afterward made up, acknowledged that \"in all\n    proposals and plots in that book, Bacon showed himself a master\n    workman\"; and that \"it could not be gainsaid but all the treatise\n    over did abound with choice conceits of the present state of\n    learning, and with worthy contemplations of the means to procure it.\"\n\n    In 1612 a new edition of the _Essays_ appeared, with additions\n    surpassing the original collection both in bulk and quality.\n\n    Nor did these pursuits distract Bacon's attention from a work the\n    most arduous, the most glorious, and the most useful that even his\n    mighty powers could have achieved, \"the reducing and recompiling,\" to\n    use his own phrase, \"of the laws of England.\"\n\nTo serve the exacting and laborious offices of Attorney General and\nSolicitor General would have satisfied the appetite of any other man for\nhard work, but Bacon had to add the vast literary industries just\ndescribed, to satisfy his.  He was a born worker.\n\n    The service which he rendered to letters during the last five years\n    of his life, amid ten thousand distractions and vexations, increase\n    the regret with which we think on the many years which he had wasted,\n    to use the words of Sir Thomas Bodley, \"on such study as was not\n    worthy such a student.\"\n\n    He commenced a digest of the laws of England, a History of England\n    under the Princes of the House of Tudor, a body of National History,\n    a Philosophical Romance.  He made extensive and valuable additions to\n    his Essays.  He published the inestimable _Treatise De Argumentis\n    Scientiarum_.\n\nDid these labors of Hercules fill up his time to his contentment, and\nquiet his appetite for work?  Not entirely:\n\n    The trifles with which he amused himself in hours of pain and languor\n    bore the mark of his mind.  _The best jestbook in the world_ is that\n    which he dictated from memory, without referring to any book, on a\n    day on which illness had rendered him incapable of serious study.\n\nHere are some scattered remarks (from Macaulay) which throw light upon\nBacon, and seem to indicate--and maybe demonstrate--that he was competent\nto write the Plays and Poems:\n\n    With great minuteness of observation he had an amplitude of\n    comprehension such as has never yet been vouchsafed to any other\n    human being.\n\n    The \"Essays\" contain abundant proofs that no nice feature of\n    character, no peculiarity in the ordering of a house, a garden or a\n    court-masque, could escape the notice of one whose mind was capable\n    of taking in the whole world of knowledge.\n\n    His understanding resembled the tent which the fairy Paribanou gave\n    to Prince Ahmed: fold it, and it seemed a toy for the hand of a lady;\n    spread it, and the armies of powerful Sultans might repose beneath\n    its shade.\n\n    The knowledge in which Bacon excelled all men was a knowledge of the\n    mutual relations of all departments of knowledge.\n\n    In a letter written when he was only thirty-one, to his uncle, Lord\n    Burleigh, he said, \"I have taken all knowledge to be my province.\"\n\n    Though Bacon did not arm his philosophy with the weapons of logic, he\n    adorned her profusely with all the richest decorations of rhetoric.\n\n    The practical faculty was powerful in Bacon; but not, like his wit,\n    so powerful as occasionally to usurp the place of his reason, and to\n    tyrannize over the whole man.\n\nThere are too many places in the Plays where this happens.  Poor old\ndying John of Gaunt volleying second-rate puns at his own name, is a\npathetic instance of it.  \"We may assume\" that it is Bacon's fault, but\nthe Stratford Shakespeare has to bear the blame.\n\n    No imagination was ever at once so strong and so thoroughly\n    subjugated.  It stopped at the first check from good sense.\n\n    In truth much of Bacon's life was passed in a visionary world--amid\n    things as strange as any that are described in the \"Arabian Tales\" .\n    . . amid buildings more sumptuous than the palace of Aladdin,\n    fountains more wonderful than the golden water of Parizade,\n    conveyances more rapid than the hippogryph of Ruggiero, arms more\n    formidable than the lance of Astolfo, remedies more efficacious than\n    the balsam of Fierabras.  Yet in his magnificent day-dreams there was\n    nothing wild--nothing but what sober reason sanctioned.\n\n    Bacon's greatest performance is the first book of the _Novum Organum_\n    . . . Every part of it blazes with wit, but with wit which is\n    employed only to illustrate and decorate truth.  No book ever made so\n    great a revolution in the mode of thinking, overthrew so many\n    prejudices, introduced so many new opinions.\n\n    But what we most admire is the vast capacity of that intellect which,\n    without effort, takes in at once all the domains of science--all the\n    past, the present and the future, all the errors of two thousand\n    years, all the encouraging signs of the passing times, all the bright\n    hopes of the coming age.\n\n    He had a wonderful talent for packing thought close and rendering it\n    portable.\n\n    His eloquence would alone have entitled him to a high rank in\n    literature.\n\nIt is evident that he had each and every one of the mental gifts and each\nand every one of the acquirements that are so prodigally displayed in the\nPlays and Poems, and in much higher and richer degree than any other man\nof his time or of any previous time.  He was a genius without a mate, a\nprodigy not matable.  There was only one of him; the planet could not\nproduce two of him at one birth, nor in one age.  He could have written\nanything that is in the Plays and Poems.  He could have written this:\n\n    The cloud-cap'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,\n    The solemn temples, the great globe itself,\n    Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,\n    And, like an insubstantial pageant faded,\n    Leave not a rack behind.  We are such stuff\n    As dreams are made on, and our little life\n    Is rounded with a sleep.\n\nAlso, he could have written this, but he refrained:\n\n    Good friend for Iesus sake forbeare\n    To digg the dust encloased heare:\n    Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones\n    And curst be ye yt moves my bones.\n\nWhen a person reads the noble verses about the cloud-cap'd towers, he\nought not to follow it immediately with Good friend for Iesus sake\nforbeare, because he will find the transition from great poetry to poor\nprose too violent for comfort.  It will give him a shock.  You never\nnotice how commonplace and unpoetic gravel is, until you bite into a\nlayer of it in a pie.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\n\nAm I trying to convince anybody that Shakespeare did not write\nShakespeare's Works?  Ah, now, what do you take me for?  Would I be so\nsoft as that, after having known the human race familiarly for nearly\nseventy-four years?  It would grieve me to know that any one could think\nso injuriously of me, so uncomplimentarily, so unadmiringly of me.\nNo-no, I am aware that when even the brightest mind in our world has been\ntrained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be\npossible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely,\ndispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance\nwhich shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition.\nI doubt if I could do it myself.  We always get at second hand our\nnotions about systems of government; and high-tariff and low-tariff; and\nprohibition and anti-prohibition; and the holiness of peace and the\nglories of war; and codes of honor and codes of morals; and approval of\nthe duel and disapproval of it; and our beliefs concerning the nature of\ncats; and our ideas as to whether the murder of helpless wild animals is\nbase or is heroic; and our preferences in the matter of religious and\npolitical parties; and our acceptance or rejection of the Shakespeares\nand the Arthur Ortons and the Mrs. Eddys.  We get them all at\nsecond-hand, we reason none of them out for ourselves.  It is the way we\nare made.  It is the way we are all made, and we can't help it, we can't\nchange it.  And whenever we have been furnished a fetish, and have been\ntaught to believe in it, and love it and worship it, and refrain from\nexamining it, there is no evidence, howsoever clear and strong, that can\npersuade us to withdraw from it our loyalty and our devotion.  In morals,\nconduct, and beliefs we take the color of our environment and\nassociations, and it is a color that can safely be warranted to wash.\nWhenever we have been furnished with a tar baby ostensibly stuffed with\njewels, and warned that it will be dishonorable and irreverent to\ndisembowel it and test the jewels, we keep our sacrilegious hands off it.\nWe submit, not reluctantly, but rather gladly, for we are privately\nafraid we should find, upon examination, that the jewels are of the sort\nthat are manufactured at North Adams, Mass.\n\nI haven't any idea that Shakespeare will have to vacate his pedestal this\nside of the year 2209.  Disbelief in him cannot come swiftly, disbelief\nin a healthy and deeply-loved tar baby has never been known to\ndisintegrate swiftly, it is a very slow process.  It took several\nthousand years to convince our fine race--including every splendid\nintellect in it--that there is no such thing as a witch; it has taken\nseveral thousand years to convince that same fine race--including every\nsplendid intellect in it--that there is no such person as Satan; it has\ntaken several centuries to remove perdition from the Protestant Church's\nprogram of postmortem entertainments; it has taken a weary long time to\npersuade American Presbyterians to give up infant damnation and try to\nbear it the best they can; and it looks as if their Scotch brethren will\nstill be burning babies in the everlasting fires when Shakespeare comes\ndown from his perch.\n\nWe are The Reasoning Race.  We can't prove it by the above examples, and\nwe can't prove it by the miraculous \"histories\" built by those\nStratfordolaters out of a hatful of rags and a barrel of sawdust, but\nthere is a plenty of other things we can prove it by, if I could think of\nthem.  We are The Reasoning Race, and when we find a vague file of\nchipmunk-tracks stringing through the dust of Stratford village, we know\nby our reasoning powers that Hercules has been along there.  I feel that\nour fetish is safe for three centuries yet.  The bust, too--there in the\nStratford Church.  The precious bust, the priceless bust, the calm bust,\nthe serene bust, the emotionless bust, with the dandy moustache, and the\nputty face, unseamed of care--that face which has looked passionlessly\ndown upon the awed pilgrim for a hundred and fifty years and will still\nlook down upon the awed pilgrim three hundred more, with the deep, deep,\ndeep, subtle, subtle, subtle, expression of a bladder.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII--Irreverence\n\n\nOne of the most trying defects which I find in these--these--what shall I\ncall them? for I will not apply injurious epithets to them, the way they\ndo to us, such violations of courtesy being repugnant to my nature and my\ndignity.  The furthest I can go in that direction is to call them by\nnames of limited reverence--names merely descriptive, never unkind, never\noffensive, never tainted by harsh feeling.  If _they_ would do like this,\nthey would feel better in their hearts.  Very well, then--to proceed.\nOne of the most trying defects which I find in these Stratfordolaters,\nthese Shakesperoids, these thugs, these bangalores, these troglodytes,\nthese herumfrodites, these blatherskites, these buccaneers, these\nbandoleers, is their spirit of irreverence.  It is detectable in every\nutterance of theirs when they are talking about us.  I am thankful that\nin me there is nothing of that spirit.  When a thing is sacred to me it\nis impossible for me to be irreverent toward it.  I cannot call to mind a\nsingle instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the\nthings which were sacred to other people.  Am I in the right?  I think\nso.  But I ask no one to take my unsupported word; no, look at the\ndictionary; let the dictionary decide.  Here is the definition:\n\n    _Irreverence_.  The quality or condition of irreverence toward God\n    and sacred things.\n\nWhat does the Hindu say?  He says it is correct.  He says irreverence is\nlack of respect for Vishnu, and Brahma, and Chrishna, and his other gods,\nand for his sacred cattle, and for his temples and the things within\nthem.  He endorses the definition, you see; and there are 300,000,000\nHindus or their equivalents back of him.\n\nThe dictionary had the acute idea that by using the capital G it could\nrestrict irreverence to lack of reverence for _our_ Deity and our sacred\nthings, but that ingenious and rather sly idea miscarried: for by the\nsimple process of spelling _his_ deities with capitals the Hindu\nconfiscates the definition and restricts it to his own sects, thus making\nit clearly compulsory upon us to revere _his_ gods and _his_ sacred\nthings, and nobody's else.  We can't say a word, for he has our own\ndictionary at his back, and its decision is final.\n\nThis law, reduced to its simplest terms, is this: 1.  Whatever is sacred\nto the Christian must be held in reverence by everybody else; 2, whatever\nis sacred to the Hindu must be held in reverence by everybody else; 3,\ntherefore, by consequence, logically, and indisputably, whatever is\nsacred to _me_ must be held in reverence by everybody else.\n\nNow then, what aggravates me is, that these troglodytes and muscovites\nand bandoleers and buccaneers are _also_ trying to crowd in and share the\nbenefit of the law, and compel everybody to revere their Shakespeare and\nhold him sacred.  We can't have that: there's enough of us already.  If\nyou go on widening and spreading and inflating the privilege, it will\npresently come to be conceded that each man's sacred things are the\n_only_ ones, and the rest of the human race will have to be humbly\nreverent toward them or suffer for it.  That can surely happen, and when\nit happens, the word Irreverence will be regarded as the most\nmeaningless, and foolish, and self-conceited, and insolent, and impudent\nand dictatorial word in the language.  And people will say, \"Whose\nbusiness is it, what gods I worship and what things hold sacred?  Who has\nthe right to dictate to my conscience, and where did he get that right?\"\n\nWe cannot afford to let that calamity come upon us.  We must save the\nword from this destruction.  There is but one way to do it, and that is,\nto stop the spread of the privilege, and strictly confine it to its\npresent limits: that is, to all the Christian sects, to all the Hindu\nsects, and me.  We do not need any more, the stock is watered enough,\njust as it is.\n\nIt would be better if the privilege were limited to me alone.  I think so\nbecause I am the only sect that knows how to employ it gently, kindly,\ncharitably, dispassionately.  The other sects lack the quality of\nself-restraint.  The Catholic Church says the most irreverent things\nabout matters which are sacred to the Protestants, and the Protestant\nChurch retorts in kind about the confessional and other matters which\nCatholics hold sacred; then both of these irreverencers turn upon Thomas\nPaine and charge _him_ with irreverence.  This is all unfortunate,\nbecause it makes it difficult for students equipped with only a low grade\nof mentality to find out what Irreverence really _is_.\n\nIt will surely be much better all around if the privilege of regulating\nthe irreverent and keeping them in order shall eventually be withdrawn\nfrom all the sects but me.  Then there will be no more quarrelling, no\nmore bandying of disrespectful epithets, no more heart burnings.\n\nThere will then be nothing sacred involved in this Bacon-Shakespeare\ncontroversy except what is sacred to me.  That will simplify the whole\nmatter, and trouble will cease.  There will be irreverence no longer,\nbecause I will not allow it.  The first time those criminals charge me\nwith irreverence for calling their Stratford myth an\nArthur-Orton-Mary-Baker-Thompson-Eddy-Louis-the-Seventeenth-Veiled-\nProphet-of-Khorassan will be the last.  Taught by the methods\nfound effective in extinguishing earlier offenders by the Inquisition, of\nholy memory, I shall know how to quiet them.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\n\nIsn't it odd, when you think of it: that you may list all the celebrated\nEnglishmen, Irishmen, and Scotchmen of modern times, clear back to the\nfirst Tudors--a list containing five hundred names, shall we say?--and\nyou can go to the histories, biographies and cyclopedias and learn the\nparticulars of the lives of every one of them.  Every one of them except\none--the most famous, the most renowned--by far the most illustrious of\nthem all--Shakespeare!  You can get the details of the lives of all the\ncelebrated ecclesiastics in the list; all the celebrated tragedians,\ncomedians, singers, dancers, orators, judges, lawyers, poets, dramatists,\nhistorians, biographers, editors, inventors, reformers, statesmen,\ngenerals, admirals, discoverers, prize-fighters, murderers, pirates,\nconspirators, horse-jockeys, bunco-steerers, misers, swindlers,\nexplorers, adventurers by land and sea, bankers, financiers, astronomers,\nnaturalists, Claimants, impostors, chemists, biologists, geologists,\nphilologists, college presidents and professors, architects, engineers,\npainters, sculptors, politicians, agitators, rebels, revolutionists,\npatriots, demagogues, clowns, cooks, freaks, philosophers, burglars,\nhighwaymen, journalists, physicians, surgeons--you can get the\nlife-histories of all of them but _one_.  Just one--the most\nextraordinary and the most celebrated of them all--Shakespeare!\n\nYou may add to the list the thousand celebrated persons furnished by the\nrest of Christendom in the past four centuries, and you can find out the\nlife-histories of all those people, too.  You will then have listed 1500\ncelebrities, and you can trace the authentic life-histories of the whole\nof them.  Save one--far and away the most colossal prodigy of the entire\naccumulation--Shakespeare!  About him you can find out _nothing_.\nNothing of even the slightest importance.  Nothing worth the trouble of\nstowing away in your memory.  Nothing that even remotely indicates that\nhe was ever anything more than a distinctly common-place person--a\nmanager, an actor of inferior grade, a small trader in a small village\nthat did not regard him as a person of any consequence, and had forgotten\nall about him before he was fairly cold in his grave.  We can go to the\nrecords and find out the life-history of every renowned _race-horse_ of\nmodern times--but not Shakespeare's!  There are many reasons why, and\nthey have been furnished in cartloads (of guess and conjecture) by those\ntroglodytes; but there is one that is worth all the rest of the reasons\nput together, and is abundantly sufficient all by itself--_he hadn't any\nhistory to record_.  There is no way of getting around that deadly fact.\nAnd no sane way has yet been discovered of getting around its formidable\nsignificance.\n\nIts quite plain significance--to any but those thugs (I do not use the\nterm unkindly) is, that Shakespeare had no prominence while he lived, and\nnone until he had been dead two or three generations.  The Plays enjoyed\nhigh fame from the beginning; and if he wrote them it seems a pity the\nworld did not find it out.  He ought to have explained that he was the\nauthor, and not merely a _nom de plume_ for another man to hide behind.\nIf he had been less intemperately solicitous about his bones, and more\nsolicitous about his Works, it would have been better for his good name,\nand a kindness to us.  The bones were not important.  They will moulder\naway, they will turn to dust, but the Works will endure until the last\nsun goes down.\n\n                                                               MARK TWAIN.\n\nP.S.  _March_ 25.  About two months ago I was illuminating this\nAutobiography with some notions of mine concerning the Bacon-Shakespeare\ncontroversy, and I then took occasion to air the opinion that the\nStratford Shakespeare was a person of no public consequence or celebrity\nduring his lifetime, but was utterly obscure and unimportant.  And not\nonly in great London, but also in the little village where he was born,\nwhere he lived a quarter of a century, and where he died and was buried.\nI argued that if he had been a person of any note at all, aged villagers\nwould have had much to tell about him many and many a year after his\ndeath, instead of being unable to furnish inquirers a single fact\nconnected with him.  I believed, and I still believe, that if he had been\nfamous, his notoriety would have lasted as long as mine has lasted in my\nnative village out in Missouri.  It is a good argument, a prodigiously\nstrong one, and a most formidable one for even the most gifted, and\ningenious, and plausible Stratfordolater to get around or explain away.\nTo-day a Hannibal _Courier-Post_ of recent date has reached me, with an\narticle in it which reinforces my contention that a really celebrated\nperson cannot be forgotten in his village in the short space of sixty\nyears.  I will make an extract from it:\n\n    Hannibal, as a city, may have many sins to answer for, but\n    ingratitude is not one of them, or reverence for the great men she\n    has produced, and as the years go by her greatest son Mark Twain, or\n    S. L. Clemens as a few of the unlettered call him, grows in the\n    estimation and regard of the residents of the town he made famous and\n    the town that made him famous.  His name is associated with every old\n    building that is torn down to make way for the modern structures\n    demanded by a rapidly growing city, and with every hill or cave over\n    or through which he might by any possibility have roamed, while the\n    many points of interest which he wove into his stories, such as\n    Holiday Hill, Jackson's Island, or Mark Twain Cave, are now monuments\n    to his genius.  Hannibal is glad of any opportunity to do him honor\n    as he has honored her.\n\n    So it has happened that the \"old timers\" who went to school with Mark\n    or were with him on some of his usual escapades have been honored\n    with large audiences whenever they were in a reminiscent mood and\n    condescended to tell of their intimacy with the ordinary boy who came\n    to be a very extraordinary humorist and whose every boyish act is now\n    seen to have been indicative of what was to come.  Like Aunt Beckey\n    and Mrs. Clemens, they can now see that Mark was hardly appreciated\n    when he lived here and that the things he did as a boy and was\n    whipped for doing were not all bad after all.  So they have been in\n    no hesitancy about drawing out the bad things he did as well as the\n    good in their efforts to get a \"Mark Twain story,\" all incidents\n    being viewed in the light of his present fame, until the volume of\n    \"Twainiana\" is already considerable and growing in proportion as the\n    \"old timers\" drop away and the stories are retold second and third\n    hand by their descendants.  With some seventy-three years young and\n    living in a villa instead of a house he is a fair target, and let him\n    incorporate, copyright, or patent himself as he will, there are some\n    of his \"works\" that will go swooping up Hannibal chimneys as long as\n    gray-beards gather about the fires and begin with \"I've heard father\n    tell\" or possibly \"Once when I.\"\n\nThe Mrs. Clemens referred to is my mother--_was_ my mother.\n\nAnd here is another extract from a Hannibal paper.  Of date twenty days\nago:\n\n    Miss Becca Blankenship died at the home of William Dickason, 408 Rock\n    Street, at 2.30 o'clock yesterday afternoon, aged 72 years.  The\n    deceased was a sister of \"Huckleberry Finn,\" one of the famous\n    characters in Mark Twain's _Tom Sawyer_.  She had been a member of\n    the Dickason family--the housekeeper--for nearly forty-five years,\n    and was a highly respected lady.  For the past eight years she had\n    been an invalid, but was as well cared for by Mr. Dickason and his\n    family as if she had been a near relative.  She was a member of the\n    Park Methodist Church and a Christian woman.\n\nI remember her well.  I have a picture of her in my mind which was graven\nthere, clear and sharp and vivid, sixty-three years ago.  She was at that\ntime nine years old, and I was about eleven.  I remember where she stood,\nand how she looked; and I can still see her bare feet, her bare head, her\nbrown face, and her short tow-linen frock.  She was crying.  What it was\nabout, I have long ago forgotten.  But it was the tears that preserved\nthe picture for me, no doubt.  She was a good child, I can say that for\nher.  She knew me nearly seventy years ago.  Did she forget me, in the\ncourse of time?  I think not.  If she had lived in Stratford in\nShakespeare's time, would she have forgotten him?  Yes.  For he was never\nfamous during his lifetime, he was utterly obscure in Stratford, and\nthere wouldn't be any occasion to remember him after he had been dead a\nweek.\n\n\"Injun Joe,\" \"Jimmy Finn,\" and \"General Gaines\" were prominent and very\nintemperate ne'er-do-weels in Hannibal two generations ago.  Plenty of\ngray-heads there remember them to this day, and can tell you about them.\nIsn't it curious that two \"town-drunkards\" and one half-breed loafer\nshould leave behind them, in a remote Missourian village, a fame a\nhundred times greater and several hundred times more particularized in\nthe matter of definite facts than Shakespeare left behind him in the\nvillage where he had lived the half of his lifetime?\n\n                                                               MARK TWAIN.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n\n{1}  Four fathoms--twenty-four feet.\n\n{2}  From chapter XIII of \"The Shakespeare Problem Restated.\"\n\n\n"}
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{"245":"Allan\n\n\n\n\nLIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n\n\n\nTABLE OF CONTENTS\n\nCHAPTER I. The Mississippi is Well worth Reading about.--It is\nRemarkable.--Instead of Widening towards its Mouth, it grows\nNarrower.--It Empties four hundred and six million Tons of Mud.--It\nwas First Seen in 1542.--It is Older than some Pages in European\nHistory.--De Soto has the Pull.--Older than the Atlantic Coast.--Some\nHalf-breeds chip in.--La Salle Thinks he will Take a Hand.\n\nCHAPTER II. La Salle again Appears, and so does a Cat-fish.--Buffaloes\nalso.--Some Indian Paintings are Seen on the Rocks.--\"The Father of\nWaters \"does not Flow into the Pacific.--More History and Indians.\n--Some Curious Performances--not Early English.--Natchez, or the Site of\nit, is Approached.\n\nCHAPTER III. A little History.--Early Commerce.--Coal Fleets and Timber\nRafts.--We start on a Voyage.--I seek Information.--Some Music.--The\nTrouble begins.--Tall Talk.--The Child of Calamity.--Ground and\nlofty Tumbling.--The Wash-up.--Business and Statistics.--Mysterious\nBand.--Thunder and Lightning.--The Captain speaks.--Allbright\nweeps.--The Mystery settled.--Chaff.--I am Discovered.--Some Art-work\nproposed.--I give an Account of Myself.--Released.\n\nCHAPTER IV. The Boys' Ambition.--Village Scenes.--Steamboat Pictures.\n--A Heavy Swell.--A Runaway.\n\nCHAPTER V. A Traveller.--A Lively Talker.--A Wild-cat Victim\n\nCHAPTER VI. Besieging the Pilot.--Taken along.--Spoiling a Nap.--Fishing\nfor a Plantation.--\"Points\" on the River.--A Gorgeous Pilot-house.\n\nCHAPTER VII. River Inspectors.--Cottonwoods and Plum Point.--Hat-Island\nCrossing.--Touch and Go.--It is a Go.--A Lightning Pilot\n\nCHAPTER VIII. A Heavy-loaded Big Gun.--Sharp Sights in\nDarkness.--Abandoned to his Fate.--Scraping the Banks.--Learn him or\nKill him.\n\nCHAPTER IX. Shake the Reef.--Reason Dethroned.--The Face of the Water.\n--A Bewitching Scene.-Romance and Beauty.\n\nCHAPTER X. Putting on Airs.--Taken down a bit.--Learn it as it is.--The\nRiver Rising.\n\nCHAPTER XI. In thg Tract Business.--Effects of the Rise.--Plantations\ngone.--A Measureless Sea.--A Somnambulist Pilot.--Supernatural\nPiloting.--Nobody there.--All Saved.\n\nCHAPTER XII. Low Water.--Yawl sounding.--Buoys and Lanterns.--Cubs and\nSoundings.--The Boat Sunk.--Seeking the Wrecked.\n\nCHAPTER XIII. A Pilot's Memory.--Wages soaring.--A Universal\nGrasp.--Skill and Nerve.--Testing a \"Cub.\"--\"Back her for Life.\"--A Good\nLesson.\n\nCHAPTER XIV. Pilots and Captains.--High-priced Pilots.--Pilots in\nDemand.--A Whistler.--A cheap Trade.--Two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar\nSpeed.\n\nCHAPTER XV. New Pilots undermining the Pilots' Association.--Crutches\nand Wages.--Putting on Airs.--The Captains Weaken.--The Association\nLaughs.--The Secret Sign.--An Admirable System.--Rough on Outsiders.\n--A Tight Monopoly.--No Loophole.--The Railroads and the War.\n\nCHAPTER XVI. All Aboard.--A Glorious Start.--Loaded to Win.--Bands and\nBugles.--Boats and Boats.--Racers and Racing.\n\nCHAPTER XVII. Cut-offs.--Ditching and Shooting.--Mississippi Changes.--A\nWild Night.--Swearing and Guessing.--Stephen in Debt.--He Confuses his\nCreditors.--He makes a New Deal.--Will Pay them Alphabetically.\n\nCHAPTER XVIII. Sharp Schooling.--Shadows.--I am Inspected.--Where did\nyou get them Shoes?--Pull her Down.--I want to kill Brown.--I try to run\nher.--I am Complimented.\n\nCHAPTER XIX. A Question of Veracity.--A Little Unpleasantness.--I have\nan Audience with the Captain.--Mr. Brown Retires.\n\nCHAPTER XX. I become a Passenger.--We hear the News.--A Thunderous\nCrash.--They Stand to their Posts.--In the Blazing Sun.--A Grewsome\nSpectacle.--His Hour has Struck.\n\nCHAPTER XXI. I get my License.--The War Begins.--I become a\nJack-of-all-trades.\n\nCHAPTER XXII. I try the Alias Business.--Region of Goatees--Boots begin\nto Appear.--The River Man is Missing.--The Young Man is Discouraged.--\nSpecimen Water.--A Fine Quality of Smoke.--A Supreme Mistake.--We\nInspect the Town.--Desolation Way-traffic.--A Wood-yard.\n\nCHAPTER XXIII. Old French Settlements.--We start for Memphis.--Young\nLadies and Russia-leather Bags.\n\nCHAPTER XXIV. I receive some Information.--Alligator Boats.--Alligator\nTalk.--She was a Rattler to go.--I am Found Out.\n\nCHAPTER XXV. The Devil's Oven and Table.--A Bombshell falls.--No\nWhitewash.--Thirty Years on the River.-Mississippi Uniforms.--Accidents\nand Casualties.--Two hundred Wrecks.--A Loss to Literature.--Sunday-\nSchools and Brick Masons.\n\nCHAPTER XXVI. War Talk.--I Tilt over Backwards.--Fifteen Shot-holes.--A\nPlain Story.--Wars and Feuds.--Darnell versus Watson.--A Gang and a\nWoodpile.--Western Grammar.--River Changes.--New Madrid.--Floods and\nFalls.\n\nCHAPTER XXVII. Tourists and their Note-books.--Captain Hall.--Mrs.\nTrollope's Emotions.--Hon. Charles Augustus Murray's Sentiment.--Captain\nMarryat's Sensations.--Alexander Mackay's Feelings.--Mr. Parkman\nReports\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII. Swinging down the River.--Named for Me.--Plum Point\nagain.--Lights and Snag Boats.--Infinite Changes.--A Lawless\nRiver.--Changes and Jetties.--Uncle Mumford Testifies.--Pegging\nthe River.--What the Government does.--The Commission.--Men and\nTheories.--\"Had them Bad.\"--Jews and Prices.\n\nCHAPTER XXIX. Murel's Gang.--A Consummate Villain.--Getting Rid of\nWitnesses.--Stewart turns Traitor.--I Start a Rebellion.--I get a New\nSuit of Clothes.--We Cover our Tracks.--Pluck and Capacity.--A Good\nSamaritan City.--The Old and the New.\n\nCHAPTER XXX. A Melancholy Picture.--On the Move.--River Gossip.--She\nWent By a-Sparklin'.--Amenities of Life.--A World of Misinformation.--\nEloquence of Silence.--Striking a Snag.--Photographically Exact.--Plank\nSide-walks.\n\nCHAPTER XXXI. Mutinous Language.--The Dead-house.--Cast-iron German and\nFlexible English.--A Dying Man's Confession.--I am Bound and Gagged.\n--I get Myself Free.--I Begin my Search.--The Man with one Thumb.\n--Red Paint and White Paper.--He Dropped on his Knees.--Fright and\nGratitude.--I Fled through the Woods.--A Grisly Spectacle.--Shout, Man,\nShout.--A look of Surprise and Triumph.--The Muffled Gurgle of a Mocking\nLaugh.--How strangely Things happen.--The Hidden Money.\n\nCHAPTER XXXII. Ritter's Narrative.--A Question of\nMoney.--Napoleon.--Somebody is Serious.--Where the Prettiest Girl used\nto Live.\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII. A Question of Division.--A Place where there was\nno License.--The Calhoun Land Company.--A Cotton-planter's\nEstimate.--Halifax and Watermelons.--Jewelled-up Bar-keepers.\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV. An Austere Man.--A Mosquito Policy.--Facts dressed in\nTights.--A \u00a0swelled Left Ear.\n\nCHAPTER XXXV. Signs and Scars.--Cannon-thunder Rages.--Cave-dwellers.\n--A Continual Sunday.--A ton of Iron and no Glass.--The Ardent is\nSaved.--Mule Meat--A National Cemetery.--A Dog and a Shell.--Railroads\nand Wealth.--Wharfage Economy.--Vicksburg versus The \"Gold Dust.\"--A\nNarrative in Anticipation.\n\nCHAPTER XXXVI. The Professor Spins a Yarn.--An Enthusiast in Cattle.--He\nmakes a Proposition.--Loading Beeves at Acapulco.--He was n't Raised to\nit.--He is Roped In.--His Dull Eyes Lit Up.--Four Aces, you Ass!--He\ndoes n't Care for the Gores.\n\nCHAPTER XXXVII. A Terrible Disaster.--The \"Gold Dust\" explodes her\nBoilers.--The End of a Good Man.\n\nCHAPTER XXXVIII. Mr. Dickens has a Word.--Best Dwellings and\ntheir Furniture.--Albums and Music.--Pantelettes and\nConch-shells.--Sugar-candy Rabbits and Photographs.--Horse-hair Sofas\nand Snuffers.--Rag Carpets and Bridal Chambers.\n\nCHAPTER XXXIX. Rowdies and Beauty.--Ice as Jewelry.--Ice\nManufacture.--More Statistics.--Some Drummers.--Oleomargarine versus\nButter.--Olive Oil versus Cotton Seed.--The Answer was not Caught.\n--A Terrific Episode.--A Sulphurous Canopy.--The Demons of War.--The\nTerrible Gauntlet.\n\nCHAPTER XL. In Flowers, like a Bride.--A White-washed Castle.--A\nSouthern Prospectus.--Pretty Pictures.--An Alligator's Meal.\n\nCHAPTER XLI. The Approaches to New Orleans.--A Stirring\nStreet.--Sanitary Improvements.--Journalistic Achievements.--Cisterns\nand Wells.\n\nCHAPTER XLII. Beautiful Grave-yards.--Chameleons and\nPanaceas.--Inhumation and Infection.--Mortality and Epidemics.--The Cost\nof Funerals.\n\nCHAPTER XLIII. I meet an Acquaintance.--Coffins and Swell Houses.--Mrs.\nO'Flaherty goes One Better.--Epidemics and Embamming.--Six hundred for a\nGood Case.--Joyful High Spirits.\n\nCHAPTER XLIV. French and Spanish Parts of the City.--Mr. Cable and the\nAncient Quarter.--Cabbages and Bouquets.--Cows and Children.--The Shell\nRoad. The West End.--A Good Square Meal.--The Pompano.--The Broom-\nBrigade.--Historical Painting.--Southern Speech.--Lagniappe.\n\nCHAPTER XLV. \"Waw\" Talk.--Cock-Fighting.--Too Much to Bear.--Fine\nWriting.--Mule Racing.\n\nCHAPTER XLVI. Mardi-Gras.--The Mystic Crewe.--Rex and Relics.--Sir\nWalter Scott.--A World Set Back.--Titles and Decorations.--A Change.\n\nCHAPTER XLVII. Uncle Remus.--The Children Disappointed.--We Read Aloud.\n--Mr. Cable and Jean au Poquelin.--Involuntary Trespass.--The Gilded\nAge.--An Impossible Combination.--The Owner Materializes and Protests.\n\nCHAPTER XLVIII. Tight Curls and Springy Steps.--Steam-plows.--\"No. I.\"\nSugar.--A Frankenstein Laugh.--Spiritual Postage.--A Place where there\nare no Butchers or Plumbers.--Idiotic Spasms.\n\nCHAPTER XLIX. Pilot-Farmers.--Working on Shares.--Consequences.--Men who\nStick to their Posts.--He saw what he would do.--A Day after the Fair.\n\nCHAPTER L. A Patriarch.--Leaves from a Diary.--A Tongue-stopper.--The\nAncient Mariner.--Pilloried in Print.--Petrified Truth.\n\nCHAPTER LI. A Fresh \"Cub\" at the Wheel.--A Valley Storm.--Some Remarks\non Construction.--Sock and Buskin.--The Man who never played Hamlet.--I\ngot Thirsty.--Sunday Statistics.\n\nCHAPTER LII. I Collar an Idea.--A Graduate of Harvard.--A Penitent\nThief.--His Story in the Pulpit.--Something Symmetrical.--A Literary\nArtist.--A Model Epistle.--Pumps again Working.--The \"Nub\" of the Note.\n\nCHAPTER LIII. A Masterly Retreat.--A Town at Rest.--Boyhood's\nPranks.--Friends of my Youth.--The Refuge for Imbeciles.--I am Presented\nwith my Measure.\n\nCHAPTER LIV. A Special Judgment.--Celestial Interest.--A Night of\nAgony.--Another Bad Attack.--I become Convalescent.--I address a\nSunday-school.--A Model Boy.\n\nCHAPTER LV. A second Generation.--A hundred thousand Tons of Saddles.--A\nDark and Dreadful Secret.--A Large Family.--A Golden-haired Darling.\n--The Mysterious Cross.--My Idol is Broken.--A Bad Season of Chills and\nFever.--An Interesting Cave.\n\nCHAPTER LVI. Perverted History--A Guilty Conscience.--A Supposititious\nCase.--A Habit to be Cultivated.--I Drop my Burden.--Difference in\nTime.\n\nCHAPTER LVII. A Model Town.--A Town that Comes up to Blow in the Summer.\n--The Scare-crow Dean.--Spouting Smoke and Flame.--An Atmosphere that\ntastes good.--The Sunset Land.\n\nCHAPTER LVIII. An Independent Race.--Twenty-four-hour Towns.--Enchanting\nScenery.--The Home of the Plow.--Black Hawk.--Fluctuating Securities.\n--A Contrast.--Electric Lights.\n\nCHAPTER LIX. Indian Traditions and Rattlesnakes.--A Three-ton\nWord.--Chimney Rock.--The Panorama Man.--A Good Jump.--The Undying Head.\n--Peboan and Seegwun.\n\nCHAPTER LX. The Head of Navigation.--From Roses to Snow.--Climatic\nVaccination.--A Long Ride.--Bones of Poverty.--The Pioneer of\nCivilization.--Jug of Empire.--Siamese Twins.--The Sugar-bush.--He Wins\nhis Bride.--The Mystery about the Blanket.--A City that is always a\nNovelty.--Home again.\n\n\nAPPENDIX. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0B \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0C \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0D\n\n\n\n\nTHE 'BODY OF THE NATION'\n\nBUT the basin of the Mississippi is the _Body of The Nation_. All the\nother parts are but members, important in themselves, yet more important\nin their relations to this. Exclusive of the Lake basin and of 300,000\nsquare miles in Texas and New Mexico, which in many aspects form a part\nof it, this basin contains about 1,250,000 square miles. In extent it is\nthe second great valley of the world, being exceeded only by that of the\nAmazon. The valley of the frozen Obi approaches it in extent; that of\nLa Plata comes next in space, and probably in habitable capacity, having\nabout eight-ninths of its area; then comes that of the Yenisei, with\nabout seven-ninths; the Lena, Amoor, Hoang-ho, Yang-tse-kiang, and\nNile, five-ninths; the Ganges, less than one-half; the Indus, less\nthan one-third; the Euphrates, one-fifth; the Rhine, one-fifteenth. It\nexceeds in extent the whole of Europe, exclusive of Russia, Norway,\nand Sweden. _It would contain austria four times, germany or spain\nfive times, france six times, the british islands or italy ten times._\nConceptions formed from the river-basins of Western Europe are rudely\nshocked when we consider the extent of the valley of the Mississippi;\nnor are those formed from the sterile basins of the great rivers of\nSiberia, the lofty plateaus of Central Asia, or the mighty sweep of\nthe swampy Amazon more adequate. Latitude, elevation, and rainfall\nall combine to render every part of the Mississippi Valley capable of\nsupporting a dense population. _As a dwelling-place for civilized man it\nis by far the first upon our globe_.\n\nEDITOR'S TABLE, HARPER'S MAGAZINE, FEBRUARY 1863\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 1\n\nThe River and Its History\n\nTHE Mississippi is well worth reading about. It is not a commonplace\nriver, but on the contrary is in all ways remarkable. Considering the\nMissouri its main branch, it is the longest river in the world--four\nthousand three hundred miles. It seems safe to say that it is also the\ncrookedest river in the world, since in one part of its journey it uses\nup one thousand three hundred miles to cover the same ground that the\ncrow would fly over in six hundred and seventy-five. It discharges three\ntimes as much water as the St. Lawrence, twenty-five times as much\nas the Rhine, and three hundred and thirty-eight times as much as the\nThames. No other river has so vast a drainage-basin: it draws its water\nsupply from twenty-eight States and Territories; from Delaware, on the\nAtlantic seaboard, and from all the country between that and Idaho on\nthe Pacific slope--a spread of forty-five degrees of longitude. The\nMississippi receives and carries to the Gulf water from fifty-four\nsubordinate rivers that are navigable by steamboats, and from some\nhundreds that are navigable by flats and keels. The area of its\ndrainage-basin is as great as the combined areas of England, Wales,\nScotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Italy,\nand Turkey; and almost all this wide region is fertile; the Mississippi\nvalley, proper, is exceptionally so.\n\nIt is a remarkable river in this: that instead of widening toward its\nmouth, it grows narrower; grows narrower and deeper. From the junction\nof the Ohio to a point half way down to the sea, the width averages a\nmile in high water: thence to the sea the width steadily diminishes,\nuntil, at the 'Passes,' above the mouth, it is but little over half\na mile. At the junction of the Ohio the Mississippi's depth is\neighty-seven feet; the depth increases gradually, reaching one hundred\nand twenty-nine just above the mouth.\n\nThe difference in rise and fall is also remarkable--not in the upper,\nbut in the lower river. The rise is tolerably uniform down to Natchez\n(three hundred and sixty miles above the mouth)--about fifty feet.\nBut at Bayou La Fourche the river rises only twenty-four feet; at New\nOrleans only fifteen, and just above the mouth only two and one half.\n\nAn article in the New Orleans 'Times-Democrat,' based upon reports of\nable engineers, states that the river annually empties four hundred and\nsix million tons of mud into the Gulf of Mexico--which brings to mind\nCaptain Marryat's rude name for the Mississippi--'the Great Sewer.' This\nmud, solidified, would make a mass a mile square and two hundred and\nforty-one feet high.\n\nThe mud deposit gradually extends the land--but only gradually; it has\nextended it not quite a third of a mile in the two hundred years which\nhave elapsed since the river took its place in history. The belief of\nthe scientific people is, that the mouth used to be at Baton Rouge,\nwhere the hills cease, and that the two hundred miles of land between\nthere and the Gulf was built by the river. This gives us the age of that\npiece of country, without any trouble at all--one hundred and twenty\nthousand years. Yet it is much the youthfullest batch of country that\nlies around there anywhere.\n\nThe Mississippi is remarkable in still another way--its disposition to\nmake prodigious jumps by cutting through narrow necks of land, and thus\nstraightening and shortening itself. More than once it has shortened\nitself thirty miles at a single jump! These cut-offs have had curious\neffects: they have thrown several river towns out into the rural\ndistricts, and built up sand bars and forests in front of them. The town\nof Delta used to be three miles below Vicksburg: a recent cutoff has\nradically changed the position, and Delta is now _two miles above_\nVicksburg.\n\nBoth of these river towns have been retired to the country by that\ncut-off. A cut-off plays havoc with boundary lines and jurisdictions:\nfor instance, a man is living in the State of Mississippi to-day, a\ncut-off occurs to-night, and to-morrow the man finds himself and his\nland over on the other side of the river, within the boundaries and\nsubject to the laws of the State of Louisiana! Such a thing, happening\nin the upper river in the old times, could have transferred a slave from\nMissouri to Illinois and made a free man of him.\n\nThe Mississippi does not alter its locality by cut-offs alone: it\nis always changing its habitat _bodily_--is always moving bodily\n_sidewise_. At Hard Times, La., the river is two miles west of the\nregion it used to occupy. As a result, the original _site _of that\nsettlement is not now in Louisiana at all, but on the other side of\nthe river, in the State of Mississippi. _Nearly the whole of that one\nthousand three hundred miles of old mississippi river which la salle\nfloated down in his canoes, two hundred years ago, is good solid dry\nground now_. The river lies to the right of it, in places, and to the\nleft of it in other places.\n\nAlthough the Mississippi's mud builds land but slowly, down at the\nmouth, where the Gulfs billows interfere with its work, it builds fast\nenough in better protected regions higher up: for instance, Prophet's\nIsland contained one thousand five hundred acres of land thirty years\nago; since then the river has added seven hundred acres to it.\n\nBut enough of these examples of the mighty stream's eccentricities for\nthe present--I will give a few more of them further along in the book.\n\nLet us drop the Mississippi's physical history, and say a word about its\nhistorical history--so to speak. We can glance briefly at its slumbrous\nfirst epoch in a couple of short chapters; at its second and wider-awake\nepoch in a couple more; at its flushest and widest-awake epoch in a good\nmany succeeding chapters; and then talk about its comparatively tranquil\npresent epoch in what shall be left of the book.\n\nThe world and the books are so accustomed to use, and over-use, the word\n'new' in connection with our country, that we early get and permanently\nretain the impression that there is nothing old about it. We do of\ncourse know that there are several comparatively old dates in American\nhistory, but the mere figures convey to our minds no just idea, no\ndistinct realization, of the stretch of time which they represent.\nTo say that De Soto, the first white man who ever saw the Mississippi\nRiver, saw it in 1542, is a remark which states a fact without\ninterpreting it: it is something like giving the dimensions of a sunset\nby astronomical measurements, and cataloguing the colors by their\nscientific names;--as a result, you get the bald fact of the sunset, but\nyou don't see the sunset. It would have been better to paint a picture\nof it.\n\nThe date 1542, standing by itself, means little or nothing to us; but\nwhen one groups a few neighboring historical dates and facts around it,\nhe adds perspective and color, and then realizes that this is one of the\nAmerican dates which is quite respectable for age.\n\nFor instance, when the Mississippi was first seen by a white man, less\nthan a quarter of a century had elapsed since Francis I.'s defeat at\nPavia; the death of Raphael; the death of Bayard, _Sans Peur Et Sans\nReproche_; the driving out of the Knights-Hospitallers from Rhodes by\nthe Turks; and the placarding of the Ninety-Five Propositions,--the act\nwhich began the Reformation. When De Soto took his glimpse of the river,\nIgnatius Loyola was an obscure name; the order of the Jesuits was not\nyet a year old; Michael Angelo's paint was not yet dry on the Last\nJudgment in the Sistine Chapel; Mary Queen of Scots was not yet born,\nbut would be before the year closed. Catherine de Medici was a child;\nElizabeth of England was not yet in her teens; Calvin, Benvenuto\nCellini, and the Emperor Charles V. were at the top of their fame, and\neach was manufacturing history after his own peculiar fashion; Margaret\nof Navarre was writing the 'Heptameron' and some religious books,--the\nfirst survives, the others are forgotten, wit and indelicacy being\nsometimes better literature preservers than holiness; lax court morals\nand the absurd chivalry business were in full feather, and the joust and\nthe tournament were the frequent pastime of titled fine gentlemen who\ncould fight better than they could spell, while religion was the passion\nof their ladies, and classifying their offspring into children of full\nrank and children by brevet their pastime.\n\nIn fact, all around, religion was in a peculiarly blooming condition:\nthe Council of Trent was being called; the Spanish Inquisition was\nroasting, and racking, and burning, with a free hand; elsewhere on the\ncontinent the nations were being persuaded to holy living by the sword\nand fire; in England, Henry VIII. had suppressed the monasteries,\nburnt Fisher and another bishop or two, and was getting his English\nreformation and his harem effectively started. When De Soto stood on the\nbanks of the Mississippi, it was still two years before Luther's death;\neleven years before the burning of Servetus; thirty years before the St.\nBartholomew slaughter; Rabelais was not yet published; 'Don Quixote' was\nnot yet written; Shakespeare was not yet born; a hundred long years must\nstill elapse before Englishmen would hear the name of Oliver Cromwell.\n\nUnquestionably the discovery of the Mississippi is a datable fact which\nconsiderably mellows and modifies the shiny newness of our country, and\ngives her a most respectable outside-aspect of rustiness and antiquity.\n\nDe Soto merely glimpsed the river, then died and was buried in it by his\npriests and soldiers. One would expect the priests and the soldiers\nto multiply the river's dimensions by ten--the Spanish custom of the\nday--and thus move other adventurers to go at once and explore it. On\nthe contrary, their narratives when they reached home, did not excite\nthat amount of curiosity. The Mississippi was left unvisited by whites\nduring a term of years which seems incredible in our energetic days. One\nmay 'sense' the interval to his mind, after a fashion, by dividing it\nup in this way: After De Soto glimpsed the river, a fraction short of\na quarter of a century elapsed, and then Shakespeare was born; lived a\ntrifle more than half a century, then died; and when he had been in his\ngrave considerably more than half a century, the _second _white man saw\nthe Mississippi. In our day we don't allow a hundred and thirty years to\nelapse between glimpses of a marvel. If somebody should discover a creek\nin the county next to the one that the North Pole is in, Europe and\nAmerica would start fifteen costly expeditions thither: one to explore\nthe creek, and the other fourteen to hunt for each other.\n\nFor more than a hundred and fifty years there had been white settlements\non our Atlantic coasts. These people were in intimate communication\nwith the Indians: in the south the Spaniards were robbing, slaughtering,\nenslaving and converting them; higher up, the English were trading beads\nand blankets to them for a consideration, and throwing in civilization\nand whiskey, 'for lagniappe;' and in Canada the French were schooling\nthem in a rudimentary way, missionarying among them, and drawing whole\npopulations of them at a time to Quebec, and later to Montreal, to buy\nfurs of them. Necessarily, then, these various clusters of whites must\nhave heard of the great river of the far west; and indeed, they did\nhear of it vaguely,--so vaguely and indefinitely, that its course,\nproportions, and locality were hardly even guessable. The mere\nmysteriousness of the matter ought to have fired curiosity and compelled\nexploration; but this did not occur. Apparently nobody happened to want\nsuch a river, nobody needed it, nobody was curious about it; so, for\na century and a half the Mississippi remained out of the market and\nundisturbed. When De Soto found it, he was not hunting for a river, and\nhad no present occasion for one; consequently he did not value it or\neven take any particular notice of it.\n\nBut at last La Salle the Frenchman conceived the idea of seeking out\nthat river and exploring it. It always happens that when a man seizes\nupon a neglected and important idea, people inflamed with the same\nnotion crop up all around. It happened so in this instance.\n\nNaturally the question suggests itself, Why did these people want the\nriver now when nobody had wanted it in the five preceding generations?\nApparently it was because at this late day they thought they had\ndiscovered a way to make it useful; for it had come to be believed\nthat the Mississippi emptied into the Gulf of California, and therefore\nafforded a short cut from Canada to China. Previously the supposition\nhad been that it emptied into the Atlantic, or Sea of Virginia.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 2\n\nThe River and Its Explorers\n\nLA SALLE himself sued for certain high privileges, and they were\ngraciously accorded him by Louis XIV of inflated memory. Chief among\nthem was the privilege to explore, far and wide, and build forts, and\nstake out continents, and hand the same over to the king, and pay the\nexpenses himself; receiving, in return, some little advantages of one\nsort or another; among them the monopoly of buffalo hides. He spent\nseveral years and about all of his money, in making perilous and painful\ntrips between Montreal and a fort which he had built on the Illinois,\nbefore he at last succeeded in getting his expedition in such a shape\nthat he could strike for the Mississippi.\n\nAnd meantime other parties had had better fortune. In 1673 Joliet the\nmerchant, and Marquette the priest, crossed the country and reached the\nbanks of the Mississippi. They went by way of the Great Lakes; and from\nGreen Bay, in canoes, by way of Fox River and the Wisconsin. Marquette\nhad solemnly contracted, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, that\nif the Virgin would permit him to discover the great river, he would\nname it Conception, in her honor. He kept his word. In that day, all\nexplorers traveled with an outfit of priests. De Soto had twenty-four\nwith him. La Salle had several, also. The expeditions were often out of\nmeat, and scant of clothes, but they always had the furniture and other\nrequisites for the mass; they were always prepared, as one of the quaint\nchroniclers of the time phrased it, to 'explain hell to the savages.'\n\nOn the 17th of June, 1673, the canoes of Joliet and Marquette and\ntheir five subordinates reached the junction of the Wisconsin with the\nMississippi. Mr. Parkman says: 'Before them a wide and rapid current\ncoursed athwart their way, by the foot of lofty heights wrapped thick\nin forests.' He continues: 'Turning southward, they paddled down the\nstream, through a solitude unrelieved by the faintest trace of man.'\n\nA big cat-fish collided with Marquette's canoe, and startled him; and\nreasonably enough, for he had been warned by the Indians that he was\non a foolhardy journey, and even a fatal one, for the river contained\na demon 'whose roar could be heard at a great distance, and who would\nengulf them in the abyss where he dwelt.' I have seen a Mississippi\ncat-fish that was more than six feet long, and weighed two hundred and\nfifty pounds; and if Marquette's fish was the fellow to that one, he had\na fair right to think the river's roaring demon was come.\n\n'At length the buffalo began to appear, grazing in herds on the great\nprairies which then bordered the river; and Marquette describes the\nfierce and stupid look of the old bulls as they stared at the intruders\nthrough the tangled mane which nearly blinded them.'\n\nThe voyagers moved cautiously: 'Landed at night and made a fire to cook\ntheir evening meal; then extinguished it, embarked again, paddled some\nway farther, and anchored in the stream, keeping a man on the watch till\nmorning.'\n\nThey did this day after day and night after night; and at the end of two\nweeks they had not seen a human being. The river was an awful solitude,\nthen. And it is now, over most of its stretch.\n\nBut at the close of the fortnight they one day came upon the footprints\nof men in the mud of the western bank--a Robinson Crusoe experience\nwhich carries an electric shiver with it yet, when one stumbles on it in\nprint. They had been warned that the river Indians were as ferocious and\npitiless as the river demon, and destroyed all comers without waiting\nfor provocation; but no matter, Joliet and Marquette struck into the\ncountry to hunt up the proprietors of the tracks. They found them, by\nand by, and were hospitably received and well treated--if to be received\nby an Indian chief who has taken off his last rag in order to appear\nat his level best is to be received hospitably; and if to be treated\nabundantly to fish, porridge, and other game, including dog, and have\nthese things forked into one's mouth by the ungloved fingers of Indians\nis to be well treated. In the morning the chief and six hundred of his\ntribesmen escorted the Frenchmen to the river and bade them a friendly\nfarewell.\n\nOn the rocks above the present city of Alton they found some rude and\nfantastic Indian paintings, which they describe. A short distance below\n'a torrent of yellow mud rushed furiously athwart the calm blue current\nof the Mississippi, boiling and surging and sweeping in its course logs,\nbranches, and uprooted trees.' This was the mouth of the Missouri, 'that\nsavage river,' which 'descending from its mad career through a vast\nunknown of barbarism, poured its turbid floods into the bosom of its\ngentle sister.'\n\nBy and by they passed the mouth of the Ohio; they passed cane-brakes;\nthey fought mosquitoes; they floated along, day after day, through the\ndeep silence and loneliness of the river, drowsing in the scant shade\nof makeshift awnings, and broiling with the heat; they encountered and\nexchanged civilities with another party of Indians; and at last\nthey reached the mouth of the Arkansas (about a month out from their\nstarting-point), where a tribe of war-whooping savages swarmed out to\nmeet and murder them; but they appealed to the Virgin for help; so in\nplace of a fight there was a feast, and plenty of pleasant palaver and\nfol-de-rol.\n\nThey had proved to their satisfaction, that the Mississippi did not\nempty into the Gulf of California, or into the Atlantic. They believed\nit emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. They turned back, now, and carried\ntheir great news to Canada.\n\nBut belief is not proof. It was reserved for La Salle to furnish the\nproof. He was provokingly delayed, by one misfortune after another, but\nat last got his expedition under way at the end of the year 1681. In the\ndead of winter he and Henri de Tonty, son of Lorenzo Tonty, who invented\nthe tontine, his lieutenant, started down the Illinois, with a\nfollowing of eighteen Indians brought from New England, and twenty-three\nFrenchmen. They moved in procession down the surface of the frozen\nriver, on foot, and dragging their canoes after them on sledges.\n\nAt Peoria Lake they struck open water, and paddled thence to the\nMississippi and turned their prows southward. They plowed through the\nfields of floating ice, past the mouth of the Missouri; past the mouth\nof the Ohio, by-and-by; 'and, gliding by the wastes of bordering swamp,\nlanded on the 24th of February near the Third Chickasaw Bluffs,' where\nthey halted and built Fort Prudhomme.\n\n'Again,' says Mr. Parkman, 'they embarked; and with every stage of their\nadventurous progress, the mystery of this vast new world was more and\nmore unveiled. More and more they entered the realms of spring. The\nhazy sunlight, the warm and drowsy air, the tender foliage, the opening\nflowers, betokened the reviving life of nature.'\n\nDay by day they floated down the great bends, in the shadow of the dense\nforests, and in time arrived at the mouth of the Arkansas. First, they\nwere greeted by the natives of this locality as Marquette had before\nbeen greeted by them--with the booming of the war drum and the flourish\nof arms. The Virgin composed the difficulty in Marquette's case; the\npipe of peace did the same office for La Salle. The white man and the\nred man struck hands and entertained each other during three days. Then,\nto the admiration of the savages, La Salle set up a cross with the\narms of France on it, and took possession of the whole country for the\nking--the cool fashion of the time--while the priest piously consecrated\nthe robbery with a hymn. The priest explained the mysteries of the faith\n'by signs,' for the saving of the savages; thus compensating them with\npossible possessions in Heaven for the certain ones on earth which they\nhad just been robbed of. And also, by signs, La Salle drew from these\nsimple children of the forest acknowledgments of fealty to Louis the\nPutrid, over the water. Nobody smiled at these colossal ironies.\n\nThese performances took place on the site of the future town of\nNapoleon, Arkansas, and there the first confiscation-cross was raised\non the banks of the great river. Marquette's and Joliet's voyage\nof discovery ended at the same spot--the site of the future town of\nNapoleon. When De Soto took his fleeting glimpse of the river, away back\nin the dim early days, he took it from that same spot--the site of the\nfuture town of Napoleon, Arkansas. Therefore, three out of the four\nmemorable events connected with the discovery and exploration of the\nmighty river, occurred, by accident, in one and the same place. It is a\nmost curious distinction, when one comes to look at it and think about\nit. France stole that vast country on that spot, the future Napoleon;\nand by and by Napoleon himself was to give the country back again!--make\nrestitution, not to the owners, but to their white American heirs.\n\nThe voyagers journeyed on, touching here and there; 'passed the sites,\nsince become historic, of Vicksburg and Grand Gulf,' and visited an\nimposing Indian monarch in the Teche country, whose capital city was a\nsubstantial one of sun-baked bricks mixed with straw--better houses than\nmany that exist there now. The chiefs house contained an audience room\nforty feet square; and there he received Tonty in State, surrounded by\nsixty old men clothed in white cloaks. There was a temple in the town,\nwith a mud wall about it ornamented with skulls of enemies sacrificed to\nthe sun.\n\nThe voyagers visited the Natchez Indians, near the site of the\npresent city of that name, where they found a 'religious and political\ndespotism, a privileged class descended from the sun, a temple and a\nsacred fire.' It must have been like getting home again; it was home\nwith an advantage, in fact, for it lacked Louis XIV.\n\nA few more days swept swiftly by, and La Salle stood in the shadow of\nhis confiscating cross, at the meeting of the waters from Delaware, and\nfrom Itaska, and from the mountain ranges close upon the Pacific,\nwith the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, his task finished, his prodigy\nachieved. Mr. Parkman, in closing his fascinating narrative, thus sums\nup:\n\n'On that day, the realm of France received on parchment a stupendous\naccession. The fertile plains of Texas; the vast basin of the\nMississippi, from its frozen northern springs to the sultry borders of\nthe Gulf; from the woody ridges of the Alleghanies to the bare peaks\nof the Rocky Mountains--a region of savannas and forests, sun-cracked\ndeserts and grassy prairies, watered by a thousand rivers, ranged by\na thousand warlike tribes, passed beneath the scepter of the Sultan of\nVersailles; and all by virtue of a feeble human voice, inaudible at half\na mile.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 3\n\nFrescoes from the Past\n\nAPPARENTLY the river was ready for business, now. But no, the\ndistribution of a population along its banks was as calm and deliberate\nand time-devouring a process as the discovery and exploration had been.\n\nSeventy years elapsed, after the exploration, before the river's borders\nhad a white population worth considering; and nearly fifty more before\nthe river had a commerce. Between La Salle's opening of the river and\nthe time when it may be said to have become the vehicle of anything like\na regular and active commerce, seven sovereigns had occupied the throne\nof England, America had become an independent nation, Louis XIV. and\nLouis XV. had rotted and died, the French monarchy had gone down in\nthe red tempest of the revolution, and Napoleon was a name that was\nbeginning to be talked about. Truly, there were snails in those days.\n\nThe river's earliest commerce was in great barges--keelboats,\nbroadhorns. They floated and sailed from the upper rivers to New\nOrleans, changed cargoes there, and were tediously warped and poled back\nby hand. A voyage down and back sometimes occupied nine months. In time\nthis commerce increased until it gave employment to hordes of rough and\nhardy men; rude, uneducated, brave, suffering terrific hardships with\nsailor-like stoicism; heavy drinkers, coarse frolickers in moral sties\nlike the Natchez-under-the-hill of that day, heavy fighters, reckless\nfellows, every one, elephantinely jolly, foul-witted, profane; prodigal\nof their money, bankrupt at the end of the trip, fond of barbaric\nfinery, prodigious braggarts; yet, in the main, honest, trustworthy,\nfaithful to promises and duty, and often picturesquely magnanimous.\n\nBy and by the steamboat intruded. Then for fifteen or twenty years,\nthese men continued to run their keelboats down-stream, and the steamers\ndid all of the upstream business, the keelboatmen selling their boats in\nNew Orleans, and returning home as deck passengers in the steamers.\n\nBut after a while the steamboats so increased in number and in speed\nthat they were able to absorb the entire commerce; and then keelboating\ndied a permanent death. The keelboatman became a deck hand, or a mate,\nor a pilot on the steamer; and when steamer-berths were not open to him,\nhe took a berth on a Pittsburgh coal-flat, or on a pine-raft constructed\nin the forests up toward the sources of the Mississippi.\n\nIn the heyday of the steamboating prosperity, the river from end to end\nwas flaked with coal-fleets and timber rafts, all managed by hand,\nand employing hosts of the rough characters whom I have been trying to\ndescribe. I remember the annual processions of mighty rafts that used\nto glide by Hannibal when I was a boy,--an acre or so of white,\nsweet-smelling boards in each raft, a crew of two dozen men or more,\nthree or four wigwams scattered about the raft's vast level space for\nstorm-quarters,--and I remember the rude ways and the tremendous talk\nof their big crews, the ex-keelboatmen and their admiringly patterning\nsuccessors; for we used to swim out a quarter or third of a mile and get\non these rafts and have a ride.\n\nBy way of illustrating keelboat talk and manners, and that now-departed\nand hardly-remembered raft-life, I will throw in, in this place, a\nchapter from a book which I have been working at, by fits and starts,\nduring the past five or six years, and may possibly finish in the course\nof five or six more. The book is a story which details some passages in\nthe life of an ignorant village boy, Huck Finn, son of the town drunkard\nof my time out west, there. He has run away from his persecuting\nfather, and from a persecuting good widow who wishes to make a nice,\ntruth-telling, respectable boy of him; and with him a slave of the\nwidow's has also escaped. They have found a fragment of a lumber raft\n(it is high water and dead summer time), and are floating down the river\nby night, and hiding in the willows by day,--bound for Cairo,--whence\nthe negro will seek freedom in the heart of the free States. But in a\nfog, they pass Cairo without knowing it. By and by they begin to suspect\nthe truth, and Huck Finn is persuaded to end the dismal suspense by\nswimming down to a huge raft which they have seen in the distance ahead\nof them, creeping aboard under cover of the darkness, and gathering the\nneeded information by eavesdropping:--\n\nBut you know a young person can't wait very well when he is impatient to\nfind a thing out. We talked it over, and by and by Jim said it was such\na black night, now, that it wouldn't be no risk to swim down to the big\nraft and crawl aboard and listen--they would talk about Cairo, because\nthey would be calculating to go ashore there for a spree, maybe, or\nanyway they would send boats ashore to buy whiskey or fresh meat or\nsomething. Jim had a wonderful level head, for a nigger: he could most\nalways start a good plan when you wanted one.\n\nI stood up and shook my rags off and jumped into the river, and struck\nout for the raft's light. By and by, when I got down nearly to her,\nI eased up and went slow and cautious. But everything was all\nright--nobody at the sweeps. So I swum down along the raft till I was\nmost abreast the camp fire in the middle, then I crawled aboard and\ninched along and got in amongst some bundles of shingles on the weather\nside of the fire. There was thirteen men there--they was the watch on\ndeck of course. And a mighty rough-looking lot, too. They had a jug, and\ntin cups, and they kept the jug moving. One man was singing--roaring,\nyou may say; and it wasn't a nice song--for a parlor anyway. He roared\nthrough his nose, and strung out the last word of every line very long.\nWhen he was done they all fetched a kind of Injun war-whoop, and then\nanother was sung. It begun:--\n\n'There was a woman in our towdn, In our towdn did dwed'l (dwell,) She\nloved her husband dear-i-lee, But another man twysteas wed'l.\n\nSinging too, riloo, riloo, riloo, Ri-too, riloo, rilay--She loved her\nhusband dear-i-lee, But another man twyste as wed'l.\n\nAnd so on--fourteen verses. It was kind of poor, and when he was going\nto start on the next verse one of them said it was the tune the old cow\ndied on; and another one said, 'Oh, give us a rest.' And another one\ntold him to take a walk. They made fun of him till he got mad and jumped\nup and begun to cuss the crowd, and said he could lame any thief in the\nlot.\n\nThey was all about to make a break for him, but the biggest man there\njumped up and says--\n\n'Set whar you are, gentlemen. Leave him to me; he's my meat.'\n\nThen he jumped up in the air three times and cracked his heels together\nevery time. He flung off a buckskin coat that was all hung with fringes,\nand says, 'You lay thar tell the chawin-up's done;' and flung his hat\ndown, which was all over ribbons, and says, 'You lay thar tell his\nsufferin's is over.'\n\nThen he jumped up in the air and cracked his heels together again and\nshouted out--\n\n'Whoo-oop! I'm the old original iron-jawed, brass-mounted,\ncopper-bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of Arkansaw!--Look at me!\nI'm the man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a\nhurricane, dam'd by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly\nrelated to the small-pox on the mother's side! Look at me! I take\nnineteen alligators and a bar'l of whiskey for breakfast when I'm in\nrobust health, and a bushel of rattlesnakes and a dead body when I'm\nailing! I split the everlasting rocks with my glance, and I squench the\nthunder when I speak! Whoo-oop! Stand back and give me room according\nto my strength! Blood's my natural drink, and the wails of the dying is\nmusic to my ear! Cast your eye on me, gentlemen!--and lay low and hold\nyour breath, for I'm bout to turn myself loose!'\n\nAll the time he was getting this off, he was shaking his head and\nlooking fierce, and kind of swelling around in a little circle, tucking\nup his wrist-bands, and now and then straightening up and beating his\nbreast with his fist, saying, 'Look at me, gentlemen!' When he got\nthrough, he jumped up and cracked his heels together three times, and\nlet off a roaring 'Whoo-oop! I'm the bloodiest son of a wildcat that\nlives!'\n\nThen the man that had started the row tilted his old slouch hat down\nover his right eye; then he bent stooping forward, with his back sagged\nand his south end sticking out far, and his fists a-shoving out and\ndrawing in in front of him, and so went around in a little circle\nabout three times, swelling himself up and breathing hard. Then he\nstraightened, and jumped up and cracked his heels together three times,\nbefore he lit again (that made them cheer), and he begun to shout like\nthis--\n\n'Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for the kingdom of sorrow's\na-coming! Hold me down to the earth, for I feel my powers a-working!\nwhoo-oop! I'm a child of sin, don't let me get a start! Smoked\nglass, here, for all! Don't attempt to look at me with the naked\neye, gentlemen! When I'm playful I use the meridians of longitude and\nparallels of latitude for a seine, and drag the Atlantic Ocean for\nwhales! I scratch my head with the lightning, and purr myself to sleep\nwith the thunder! When I'm cold, I bile the Gulf of Mexico and bathe\nin it; when I'm hot I fan myself with an equinoctial storm; when I'm\nthirsty I reach up and suck a cloud dry like a sponge; when I range the\nearth hungry, famine follows in my tracks! Whoo-oop! Bow your neck and\nspread! I put my hand on the sun's face and make it night in the earth;\nI bite a piece out of the moon and hurry the seasons; I shake myself\nand crumble the mountains! Contemplate me through leather--don't use the\nnaked eye! I'm the man with a petrified heart and biler-iron bowels! The\nmassacre of isolated communities is the pastime of my idle moments,\nthe destruction of nationalities the serious business of my life! The\nboundless vastness of the great American desert is my enclosed property,\nand I bury my dead on my own premises!' He jumped up and cracked his\nheels together three times before he lit (they cheered him again), and\nas he come down he shouted out: 'Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for\nthe pet child of calamity's a-coming!'\n\nThen the other one went to swelling around and blowing again--the first\none--the one they called Bob; next, the Child of Calamity chipped in\nagain, bigger than ever; then they both got at it at the same time,\nswelling round and round each other and punching their fists most into\neach other's faces, and whooping and jawing like Injuns; then Bob called\nthe Child names, and the Child called him names back again: next, Bob\ncalled him a heap rougher names and the Child come back at him with the\nvery worst kind of language; next, Bob knocked the Child's hat off, and\nthe Child picked it up and kicked Bob's ribbony hat about six foot; Bob\nwent and got it and said never mind, this warn't going to be the last\nof this thing, because he was a man that never forgot and never forgive,\nand so the Child better look out, for there was a time a-coming, just\nas sure as he was a living man, that he would have to answer to him with\nthe best blood in his body. The Child said no man was willinger than\nhe was for that time to come, and he would give Bob fair warning, now,\nnever to cross his path again, for he could never rest till he had waded\nin his blood, for such was his nature, though he was sparing him now on\naccount of his family, if he had one.\n\nBoth of them was edging away in different directions, growling and\nshaking their heads and going on about what they was going to do; but a\nlittle black-whiskered chap skipped up and says--\n\n'Come back here, you couple of chicken-livered cowards, and I'll thrash\nthe two of ye!'\n\nAnd he done it, too. He snatched them, he jerked them this way and that,\nhe booted them around, he knocked them sprawling faster than they could\nget up. Why, it warn't two minutes till they begged like dogs--and\nhow the other lot did yell and laugh and clap their hands all the way\nthrough, and shout 'Sail in, Corpse-Maker!' 'Hi! at him again, Child of\nCalamity!' 'Bully for you, little Davy!' Well, it was a perfect pow-wow\nfor a while. Bob and the Child had red noses and black eyes when they\ngot through. Little Davy made them own up that they were sneaks and\ncowards and not fit to eat with a dog or drink with a nigger; then Bob\nand the Child shook hands with each other, very solemn, and said they\nhad always respected each other and was willing to let bygones be\nbygones. So then they washed their faces in the river; and just then\nthere was a loud order to stand by for a crossing, and some of them went\nforward to man the sweeps there, and the rest went aft to handle the\nafter-sweeps.\n\nI laid still and waited for fifteen minutes, and had a smoke out of a\npipe that one of them left in reach; then the crossing was finished, and\nthey stumped back and had a drink around and went to talking and singing\nagain. Next they got out an old fiddle, and one played and another\npatted juba, and the rest turned themselves loose on a regular\nold-fashioned keel-boat break-down. They couldn't keep that up very long\nwithout getting winded, so by and by they settled around the jug again.\n\nThey sung 'jolly, jolly raftman's the life for me,' with a rousing\nchorus, and then they got to talking about differences betwixt hogs, and\ntheir different kind of habits; and next about women and their different\nways: and next about the best ways to put out houses that was afire; and\nnext about what ought to be done with the Injuns; and next about what\na king had to do, and how much he got; and next about how to make cats\nfight; and next about what to do when a man has fits; and next about\ndifferences betwixt clear-water rivers and muddy-water ones. The man\nthey called Ed said the muddy Mississippi water was wholesomer to drink\nthan the clear water of the Ohio; he said if you let a pint of this\nyaller Mississippi water settle, you would have about a half to\nthree-quarters of an inch of mud in the bottom, according to the stage\nof the river, and then it warn't no better than Ohio water--what you\nwanted to do was to keep it stirred up--and when the river was low, keep\nmud on hand to put in and thicken the water up the way it ought to be.\n\nThe Child of Calamity said that was so; he said there was nutritiousness\nin the mud, and a man that drunk Mississippi water could grow corn in\nhis stomach if he wanted to. He says--\n\n'You look at the graveyards; that tells the tale. Trees won't grow worth\nchucks in a Cincinnati graveyard, but in a Sent Louis graveyard they\ngrow upwards of eight hundred foot high. It's all on account of the\nwater the people drunk before they laid up. A Cincinnati corpse don't\nrichen a soil any.'\n\nAnd they talked about how Ohio water didn't like to mix with Mississippi\nwater. Ed said if you take the Mississippi on a rise when the Ohio is\nlow, you'll find a wide band of clear water all the way down the east\nside of the Mississippi for a hundred mile or more, and the minute you\nget out a quarter of a mile from shore and pass the line, it is all\nthick and yaller the rest of the way across. Then they talked about how\nto keep tobacco from getting moldy, and from that they went into ghosts\nand told about a lot that other folks had seen; but Ed says--\n\n'Why don't you tell something that you've seen yourselves? Now let me\nhave a say. Five years ago I was on a raft as big as this, and right\nalong here it was a bright moonshiny night, and I was on watch and boss\nof the stabboard oar forrard, and one of my pards was a man named Dick\nAllbright, and he come along to where I was sitting, forrard--gaping and\nstretching, he was--and stooped down on the edge of the raft and washed\nhis face in the river, and come and set down by me and got out his pipe,\nand had just got it filled, when he looks up and says--\n\n'\"Why looky-here,\" he says, \"ain't that Buck Miller's place, over yander\nin the bend.\"\n\n'\"Yes,\" says I, \"it is--why.\" He laid his pipe down and leant his head\non his hand, and says--\n\n'\"I thought we'd be furder down.\" I says--\n\n'\"I thought it too, when I went off watch\"--we was standing six hours on\nand six off--\"but the boys told me,\" I says, \"that the raft didn't seem\nto hardly move, for the last hour,\" says I, \"though she's a slipping\nalong all right, now,\" says I. He give a kind of a groan, and says--\n\n'\"I've seed a raft act so before, along here,\" he says, \"'pears to me\nthe current has most quit above the head of this bend durin' the last\ntwo years,\" he says.\n\n'Well, he raised up two or three times, and looked away off and around\non the water. That started me at it, too. A body is always doing what he\nsees somebody else doing, though there mayn't be no sense in it. Pretty\nsoon I see a black something floating on the water away off to stabboard\nand quartering behind us. I see he was looking at it, too. I says--\n\n'\"What's that?\" He says, sort of pettish,--\n\n'\"Tain't nothing but an old empty bar'l.\"\n\n'\"An empty bar'l!\" says I, \"why,\" says I, \"a spy-glass is a fool to your\neyes. How can you tell it's an empty bar'l?\" He says--\n\n'\"I don't know; I reckon it ain't a bar'l, but I thought it might be,\"\nsays he.\n\n'\"Yes,\" I says, \"so it might be, and it might be anything else, too; a\nbody can't tell nothing about it, such a distance as that,\" I says.\n\n'We hadn't nothing else to do, so we kept on watching it. By and by I\nsays--\n\n'\"Why looky-here, Dick Allbright, that thing's a-gaining on us, I\nbelieve.\"\n\n'He never said nothing. The thing gained and gained, and I judged it\nmust be a dog that was about tired out. Well, we swung down into\nthe crossing, and the thing floated across the bright streak of the\nmoonshine, and, by George, it was bar'l. Says I--\n\n'\"Dick Allbright, what made you think that thing was a bar'l, when it\nwas a half a mile off,\" says I. Says he--\n\n'\"I don't know.\" Says I--\n\n'\"You tell me, Dick Allbright.\" He says--\n\n'\"Well, I knowed it was a bar'l; I've seen it before; lots has seen it;\nthey says it's a haunted bar'l.\"\n\n'I called the rest of the watch, and they come and stood there, and\nI told them what Dick said. It floated right along abreast, now, and\ndidn't gain any more. It was about twenty foot off. Some was for having\nit aboard, but the rest didn't want to. Dick Allbright said rafts that\nhad fooled with it had got bad luck by it. The captain of the watch\nsaid he didn't believe in it. He said he reckoned the bar'l gained on us\nbecause it was in a little better current than what we was. He said it\nwould leave by and by.\n\n'So then we went to talking about other things, and we had a song, and\nthen a breakdown; and after that the captain of the watch called for\nanother song; but it was clouding up, now, and the bar'l stuck right\nthar in the same place, and the song didn't seem to have much warm-up to\nit, somehow, and so they didn't finish it, and there warn't any cheers,\nbut it sort of dropped flat, and nobody said anything for a minute. Then\neverybody tried to talk at once, and one chap got off a joke, but it\nwarn't no use, they didn't laugh, and even the chap that made the joke\ndidn't laugh at it, which ain't usual. We all just settled down glum,\nand watched the bar'l, and was oneasy and oncomfortable. Well, sir, it\nshut down black and still, and then the wind begin to moan around, and\nnext the lightning begin to play and the thunder to grumble. And pretty\nsoon there was a regular storm, and in the middle of it a man that was\nrunning aft stumbled and fell and sprained his ankle so that he had\nto lay up. This made the boys shake their heads. And every time the\nlightning come, there was that bar'l with the blue lights winking around\nit. We was always on the look-out for it. But by and by, towards dawn,\nshe was gone. When the day come we couldn't see her anywhere, and we\nwarn't sorry, neither.\n\n'But next night about half-past nine, when there was songs and high\njinks going on, here she comes again, and took her old roost on the\nstabboard side. There warn't no more high jinks. Everybody got solemn;\nnobody talked; you couldn't get anybody to do anything but set around\nmoody and look at the bar'l. It begun to cloud up again. When the watch\nchanged, the off watch stayed up, 'stead of turning in. The storm ripped\nand roared around all night, and in the middle of it another man tripped\nand sprained his ankle, and had to knock off. The bar'l left towards\nday, and nobody see it go.\n\n'Everybody was sober and down in the mouth all day. I don't mean the\nkind of sober that comes of leaving liquor alone--not that. They was\nquiet, but they all drunk more than usual--not together--but each man\nsidled off and took it private, by himself.\n\n'After dark the off watch didn't turn in; nobody sung, nobody talked;\nthe boys didn't scatter around, neither; they sort of huddled together,\nforrard; and for two hours they set there, perfectly still, looking\nsteady in the one direction, and heaving a sigh once in a while. And\nthen, here comes the bar'l again. She took up her old place. She staid\nthere all night; nobody turned in. The storm come on again, after\nmidnight. It got awful dark; the rain poured down; hail, too; the\nthunder boomed and roared and bellowed; the wind blowed a hurricane; and\nthe lightning spread over everything in big sheets of glare, and showed\nthe whole raft as plain as day; and the river lashed up white as milk\nas far as you could see for miles, and there was that bar'l jiggering\nalong, same as ever. The captain ordered the watch to man the after\nsweeps for a crossing, and nobody would go--no more sprained ankles for\nthem, they said. They wouldn't even walk aft. Well then, just then the\nsky split wide open, with a crash, and the lightning killed two men of\nthe after watch, and crippled two more. Crippled them how, says you?\nWhy, sprained their ankles!\n\n'The bar'l left in the dark betwixt lightnings, towards dawn. Well, not\na body eat a bite at breakfast that morning. After that the men loafed\naround, in twos and threes, and talked low together. But none of them\nherded with Dick Allbright. They all give him the cold shake. If he come\naround where any of the men was, they split up and sidled away. They\nwouldn't man the sweeps with him. The captain had all the skiffs hauled\nup on the raft, alongside of his wigwam, and wouldn't let the dead men\nbe took ashore to be planted; he didn't believe a man that got ashore\nwould come back; and he was right.\n\n'After night come, you could see pretty plain that there was going to be\ntrouble if that bar'l come again; there was such a muttering going on. A\ngood many wanted to kill Dick Allbright, because he'd seen the bar'l on\nother trips, and that had an ugly look. Some wanted to put him ashore.\nSome said, let's all go ashore in a pile, if the bar'l comes again.\n\n'This kind of whispers was still going on, the men being bunched\ntogether forrard watching for the bar'l, when, lo and behold you, here\nshe comes again. Down she comes, slow and steady, and settles into her\nold tracks. You could a heard a pin drop. Then up comes the captain, and\nsays:--\n\n'\"Boys, don't be a pack of children and fools; I don't want this bar'l\nto be dogging us all the way to Orleans, and _you _don't; well, then,\nhow's the best way to stop it? Burn it up,--that's the way. I'm going\nto fetch it aboard,\" he says. And before anybody could say a word, in he\nwent.\n\n'He swum to it, and as he come pushing it to the raft, the men spread\nto one side. But the old man got it aboard and busted in the head,\nand there was a baby in it! Yes, sir, a stark naked baby. It was Dick\nAllbright's baby; he owned up and said so.\n\n'\"Yes,\" he says, a-leaning over it, \"yes, it is my own lamented darling,\nmy poor lost Charles William Allbright deceased,\" says he,--for he could\ncurl his tongue around the bulliest words in the language when he was a\nmind to, and lay them before you without a jint started, anywheres. Yes,\nhe said he used to live up at the head of this bend, and one night he\nchoked his child, which was crying, not intending to kill it,--which was\nprob'ly a lie,--and then he was scared, and buried it in a bar'l, before\nhis wife got home, and off he went, and struck the northern trail and\nwent to rafting; and this was the third year that the bar'l had chased\nhim. He said the bad luck always begun light, and lasted till four men\nwas killed, and then the bar'l didn't come any more after that. He\nsaid if the men would stand it one more night,--and was a-going on like\nthat,--but the men had got enough. They started to get out a boat to\ntake him ashore and lynch him, but he grabbed the little child all of a\nsudden and jumped overboard with it hugged up to his breast and shedding\ntears, and we never see him again in this life, poor old suffering soul,\nnor Charles William neither.'\n\n'_Who _was shedding tears?' says Bob; 'was it Allbright or the baby?'\n\n'Why, Allbright, of course; didn't I tell you the baby was dead. Been\ndead three years--how could it cry?'\n\n'Well, never mind how it could cry--how could it _keep _all that time?'\nsays Davy. 'You answer me that.'\n\n'I don't know how it done it,' says Ed. 'It done it though--that's all I\nknow about it.'\n\n'Say--what did they do with the bar'l?' says the Child of Calamity.\n\n'Why, they hove it overboard, and it sunk like a chunk of lead.'\n\n'Edward, did the child look like it was choked?' says one.\n\n'Did it have its hair parted?' says another.\n\n'What was the brand on that bar'l, Eddy?' says a fellow they called\nBill.\n\n'Have you got the papers for them statistics, Edmund?' says Jimmy.\n\n'Say, Edwin, was you one of the men that was killed by the lightning.'\nsays Davy.\n\n'Him? O, no, he was both of 'em,' says Bob. Then they all haw-hawed.\n\n'Say, Edward, don't you reckon you'd better take a pill? You look\nbad--don't you feel pale?' says the Child of Calamity.\n\n'O, come, now, Eddy,' says Jimmy, 'show up; you must a kept part of that\nbar'l to prove the thing by. Show us the bunghole--do--and we'll all\nbelieve you.'\n\n'Say, boys,' says Bill, 'less divide it up. Thar's thirteen of us. I can\nswaller a thirteenth of the yarn, if you can worry down the rest.'\n\nEd got up mad and said they could all go to some place which he ripped\nout pretty savage, and then walked off aft cussing to himself, and they\nyelling and jeering at him, and roaring and laughing so you could hear\nthem a mile.\n\n'Boys, we'll split a watermelon on that,' says the Child of Calamity;\nand he come rummaging around in the dark amongst the shingle bundles\nwhere I was, and put his hand on me. I was warm and soft and naked; so\nhe says 'Ouch!' and jumped back.\n\n'Fetch a lantern or a chunk of fire here, boys--there's a snake here as\nbig as a cow!'\n\nSo they run there with a lantern and crowded up and looked in on me.\n\n'Come out of that, you beggar!' says one.\n\n'Who are you?' says another.\n\n'What are you after here? Speak up prompt, or overboard you go.\n\n'Snake him out, boys. Snatch him out by the heels.'\n\nI began to beg, and crept out amongst them trembling. They looked me\nover, wondering, and the Child of Calamity says--\n\n'A cussed thief! Lend a hand and less heave him overboard!'\n\n'No,' says Big Bob, 'less get out the paint-pot and paint him a sky blue\nall over from head to heel, and then heave him over!'\n\n'Good, that 's it. Go for the paint, Jimmy.'\n\nWhen the paint come, and Bob took the brush and was just going to begin,\nthe others laughing and rubbing their hands, I begun to cry, and that\nsort of worked on Davy, and he says--\n\n''Vast there! He 's nothing but a cub. 'I'll paint the man that tetches\nhim!'\n\nSo I looked around on them, and some of them grumbled and growled, and\nBob put down the paint, and the others didn't take it up.\n\n'Come here to the fire, and less see what you're up to here,' says Davy.\n'Now set down there and give an account of yourself. How long have you\nbeen aboard here?'\n\n'Not over a quarter of a minute, sir,' says I.\n\n'How did you get dry so quick?'\n\n'I don't know, sir. I'm always that way, mostly.'\n\n'Oh, you are, are you. What's your name?'\n\nI warn't going to tell my name. I didn't know what to say, so I just\nsays--\n\n'Charles William Allbright, sir.'\n\nThen they roared--the whole crowd; and I was mighty glad I said that,\nbecause maybe laughing would get them in a better humor.\n\nWhen they got done laughing, Davy says--\n\n'It won't hardly do, Charles William. You couldn't have growed this much\nin five year, and you was a baby when you come out of the bar'l, you\nknow, and dead at that. Come, now, tell a straight story, and nobody'll\nhurt you, if you ain't up to anything wrong. What _is_ your name?'\n\n'Aleck Hopkins, sir. Aleck James Hopkins.'\n\n'Well, Aleck, where did you come from, here?'\n\n'From a trading scow. She lays up the bend yonder. I was born on her.\nPap has traded up and down here all his life; and he told me to swim off\nhere, because when you went by he said he would like to get some of you\nto speak to a Mr. Jonas Turner, in Cairo, and tell him--'\n\n'Oh, come!'\n\n'Yes, sir; it's as true as the world; Pap he says--'\n\n'Oh, your grandmother!'\n\nThey all laughed, and I tried again to talk, but they broke in on me and\nstopped me.\n\n'Now, looky-here,' says Davy; 'you're scared, and so you talk wild.\nHonest, now, do you live in a scow, or is it a lie?'\n\n'Yes, sir, in a trading scow. She lays up at the head of the bend. But I\nwarn't born in her. It's our first trip.'\n\n'Now you're talking! What did you come aboard here, for? To steal?'\n\n'No, sir, I didn't.--It was only to get a ride on the raft. All boys\ndoes that.'\n\n'Well, I know that. But what did you hide for?'\n\n'Sometimes they drive the boys off.'\n\n'So they do. They might steal. Looky-here; if we let you off this time,\nwill you keep out of these kind of scrapes hereafter?'\n\n''Deed I will, boss. You try me.'\n\n'All right, then. You ain't but little ways from shore. Overboard with\nyou, and don't you make a fool of yourself another time this way.--Blast\nit, boy, some raftsmen would rawhide you till you were black and blue!'\n\nI didn't wait to kiss good-bye, but went overboard and broke for shore.\nWhen Jim come along by and by, the big raft was away out of sight around\nthe point. I swum out and got aboard, and was mighty glad to see home\nagain.\n\nThe boy did not get the information he was after, but his adventure has\nfurnished the glimpse of the departed raftsman and keelboatman which I\ndesire to offer in this place.\n\nI now come to a phase of the Mississippi River life of the flush times\nof steamboating, which seems to me to warrant full examination--the\nmarvelous science of piloting, as displayed there. I believe there has\nbeen nothing like it elsewhere in the world.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 4\n\nThe Boys' Ambition\n\nWHEN I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades\nin our village {footnote [1. Hannibal, Missouri]} on the west bank of\nthe Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman. We had transient\nambitions of other sorts, but they were only transient. When a circus\ncame and went, it left us all burning to become clowns; the first negro\nminstrel show that came to our section left us all suffering to try that\nkind of life; now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good,\nGod would permit us to be pirates. These ambitions faded out, each in\nits turn; but the ambition to be a steamboatman always remained.\n\nOnce a day a cheap, gaudy packet arrived upward from St. Louis, and\nanother downward from Keokuk. Before these events, the day was glorious\nwith expectancy; after them, the day was a dead and empty thing. Not\nonly the boys, but the whole village, felt this. After all these years I\ncan picture that old time to myself now, just as it was then: the white\ntown drowsing in the sunshine of a summer's morning; the streets empty,\nor pretty nearly so; one or two clerks sitting in front of the Water\nStreet stores, with their splint-bottomed chairs tilted back against\nthe wall, chins on breasts, hats slouched over their faces, asleep--with\nshingle-shavings enough around to show what broke them down; a sow and\na litter of pigs loafing along the sidewalk, doing a good business in\nwatermelon rinds and seeds; two or three lonely little freight piles\nscattered about the 'levee;' a pile of 'skids' on the slope of the\nstone-paved wharf, and the fragrant town drunkard asleep in the shadow\nof them; two or three wood flats at the head of the wharf, but nobody to\nlisten to the peaceful lapping of the wavelets against them; the great\nMississippi, the majestic, the magnificent Mississippi, rolling its\nmile-wide tide along, shining in the sun; the dense forest away on the\nother side; the 'point' above the town, and the 'point' below, bounding\nthe river-glimpse and turning it into a sort of sea, and withal a very\nstill and brilliant and lonely one. Presently a film of dark smoke\nappears above one of those remote 'points;' instantly a negro drayman,\nfamous for his quick eye and prodigious voice, lifts up the cry,\n'S-t-e-a-m-boat a-comin'!' and the scene changes! The town drunkard\nstirs, the clerks wake up, a furious clatter of drays follows, every\nhouse and store pours out a human contribution, and all in a twinkling\nthe dead town is alive and moving.\n\nDrays, carts, men, boys, all go hurrying from many quarters to a common\ncenter, the wharf. Assembled there, the people fasten their eyes upon\nthe coming boat as upon a wonder they are seeing for the first time. And\nthe boat _is_ rather a handsome sight, too. She is long and sharp and\ntrim and pretty; she has two tall, fancy-topped chimneys, with a gilded\ndevice of some kind swung between them; a fanciful pilot-house, a glass\nand 'gingerbread', perched on top of the 'texas' deck behind them; the\npaddle-boxes are gorgeous with a picture or with gilded rays above the\nboat's name; the boiler deck, the hurricane deck, and the texas deck\nare fenced and ornamented with clean white railings; there is a flag\ngallantly flying from the jack-staff; the furnace doors are open and the\nfires glaring bravely; the upper decks are black with passengers; the\ncaptain stands by the big bell, calm, imposing, the envy of all; great\nvolumes of the blackest smoke are rolling and tumbling out of the\nchimneys--a husbanded grandeur created with a bit of pitch pine just\nbefore arriving at a town; the crew are grouped on the forecastle; the\nbroad stage is run far out over the port bow, and an envied deckhand\nstands picturesquely on the end of it with a coil of rope in his hand;\nthe pent steam is screaming through the gauge-cocks, the captain lifts\nhis hand, a bell rings, the wheels stop; then they turn back, churning\nthe water to foam, and the steamer is at rest. Then such a scramble as\nthere is to get aboard, and to get ashore, and to take in freight and to\ndischarge freight, all at one and the same time; and such a yelling\nand cursing as the mates facilitate it all with! Ten minutes later the\nsteamer is under way again, with no flag on the jack-staff and no black\nsmoke issuing from the chimneys. After ten more minutes the town is dead\nagain, and the town drunkard asleep by the skids once more.\n\nMy father was a justice of the peace, and I supposed he possessed\nthe power of life and death over all men and could hang anybody that\noffended him. This was distinction enough for me as a general thing; but\nthe desire to be a steamboatman kept intruding, nevertheless. I first\nwanted to be a cabin-boy, so that I could come out with a white apron\non and shake a tablecloth over the side, where all my old comrades could\nsee me; later I thought I would rather be the deckhand who stood on the\nend of the stage-plank with the coil of rope in his hand, because he was\nparticularly conspicuous. But these were only day-dreams,--they were too\nheavenly to be contemplated as real possibilities. By and by one of our\nboys went away. He was not heard of for a long time. At last he turned\nup as apprentice engineer or 'striker' on a steamboat. This thing shook\nthe bottom out of all my Sunday-school teachings. That boy had been\nnotoriously worldly, and I just the reverse; yet he was exalted to this\neminence, and I left in obscurity and misery. There was nothing generous\nabout this fellow in his greatness. He would always manage to have a\nrusty bolt to scrub while his boat tarried at our town, and he would sit\non the inside guard and scrub it, where we could all see him and envy\nhim and loathe him. And whenever his boat was laid up he would come home\nand swell around the town in his blackest and greasiest clothes, so that\nnobody could help remembering that he was a steamboatman; and he used\nall sorts of steamboat technicalities in his talk, as if he were so used\nto them that he forgot common people could not understand them. He would\nspeak of the 'labboard' side of a horse in an easy, natural way that\nwould make one wish he was dead. And he was always talking about 'St.\nLooy' like an old citizen; he would refer casually to occasions when\nhe 'was coming down Fourth Street,' or when he was 'passing by the\nPlanter's House,' or when there was a fire and he took a turn on the\nbrakes of 'the old Big Missouri;' and then he would go on and lie about\nhow many towns the size of ours were burned down there that day. Two\nor three of the boys had long been persons of consideration among\nus because they had been to St. Louis once and had a vague general\nknowledge of its wonders, but the day of their glory was over now. They\nlapsed into a humble silence, and learned to disappear when the ruthless\n'cub'-engineer approached. This fellow had money, too, and hair oil.\nAlso an ignorant silver watch and a showy brass watch chain. He wore\na leather belt and used no suspenders. If ever a youth was cordially\nadmired and hated by his comrades, this one was. No girl could withstand\nhis charms. He 'cut out' every boy in the village. When his boat blew up\nat last, it diffused a tranquil contentment among us such as we had not\nknown for months. But when he came home the next week, alive, renowned,\nand appeared in church all battered up and bandaged, a shining hero,\nstared at and wondered over by everybody, it seemed to us that the\npartiality of Providence for an undeserving reptile had reached a point\nwhere it was open to criticism.\n\nThis creature's career could produce but one result, and it speedily\nfollowed. Boy after boy managed to get on the river. The minister's son\nbecame an engineer. The doctor's and the post-master's sons became 'mud\nclerks;' the wholesale liquor dealer's son became a barkeeper on a\nboat; four sons of the chief merchant, and two sons of the county judge,\nbecame pilots. Pilot was the grandest position of all. The pilot, even\nin those days of trivial wages, had a princely salary--from a hundred\nand fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and no board to pay.\nTwo months of his wages would pay a preacher's salary for a year. Now\nsome of us were left disconsolate. We could not get on the river--at\nleast our parents would not let us.\n\nSo by and by I ran away. I said I never would come home again till I was\na pilot and could come in glory. But somehow I could not manage it.\nI went meekly aboard a few of the boats that lay packed together like\nsardines at the long St. Louis wharf, and very humbly inquired for the\npilots, but got only a cold shoulder and short words from mates and\nclerks. I had to make the best of this sort of treatment for the time\nbeing, but I had comforting daydreams of a future when I should be a\ngreat and honored pilot, with plenty of money, and could kill some of\nthese mates and clerks and pay for them.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 5\n\nI Want to be a Cub-pilot\n\nMONTHS afterward the hope within me struggled to a reluctant death, and\nI found myself without an ambition. But I was ashamed to go home. I was\nin Cincinnati, and I set to work to map out a new career. I had\nbeen reading about the recent exploration of the river Amazon by an\nexpedition sent out by our government. It was said that the expedition,\nowing to difficulties, had not thoroughly explored a part of the country\nlying about the head-waters, some four thousand miles from the mouth of\nthe river. It was only about fifteen hundred miles from Cincinnati to\nNew Orleans, where I could doubtless get a ship. I had thirty dollars\nleft; I would go and complete the exploration of the Amazon. This was\nall the thought I gave to the subject. I never was great in matters of\ndetail. I packed my valise, and took passage on an ancient tub called\nthe 'Paul Jones,' for New Orleans. For the sum of sixteen dollars I had\nthe scarred and tarnished splendors of 'her' main saloon principally\nto myself, for she was not a creature to attract the eye of wiser\ntravelers.\n\nWhen we presently got under way and went poking down the broad Ohio,\nI became a new being, and the subject of my own admiration. I was a\ntraveler! A word never had tasted so good in my mouth before. I had an\nexultant sense of being bound for mysterious lands and distant climes\nwhich I never have felt in so uplifting a degree since. I was in such a\nglorified condition that all ignoble feelings departed out of me, and I\nwas able to look down and pity the untraveled with a compassion that had\nhardly a trace of contempt in it. Still, when we stopped at villages and\nwood-yards, I could not help lolling carelessly upon the railings of the\nboiler deck to enjoy the envy of the country boys on the bank. If\nthey did not seem to discover me, I presently sneezed to attract their\nattention, or moved to a position where they could not help seeing me.\nAnd as soon as I knew they saw me I gaped and stretched, and gave other\nsigns of being mightily bored with traveling.\n\nI kept my hat off all the time, and stayed where the wind and the sun\ncould strike me, because I wanted to get the bronzed and weather-beaten\nlook of an old traveler. Before the second day was half gone I\nexperienced a joy which filled me with the purest gratitude; for I saw\nthat the skin had begun to blister and peel off my face and neck. I\nwished that the boys and girls at home could see me now.\n\nWe reached Louisville in time--at least the neighborhood of it. We stuck\nhard and fast on the rocks in the middle of the river, and lay there\nfour days. I was now beginning to feel a strong sense of being a part\nof the boat's family, a sort of infant son to the captain and younger\nbrother to the officers. There is no estimating the pride I took in this\ngrandeur, or the affection that began to swell and grow in me for those\npeople. I could not know how the lordly steamboatman scorns that sort\nof presumption in a mere landsman. I particularly longed to acquire the\nleast trifle of notice from the big stormy mate, and I was on the alert\nfor an opportunity to do him a service to that end. It came at last. The\nriotous powwow of setting a spar was going on down on the forecastle,\nand I went down there and stood around in the way--or mostly skipping\nout of it--till the mate suddenly roared a general order for somebody to\nbring him a capstan bar. I sprang to his side and said: 'Tell me where\nit is--I'll fetch it!'\n\nIf a rag-picker had offered to do a diplomatic service for the Emperor\nof Russia, the monarch could not have been more astounded than the mate\nwas. He even stopped swearing. He stood and stared down at me. It took\nhim ten seconds to scrape his disjointed remains together again. Then\nhe said impressively: 'Well, if this don't beat hell!' and turned to his\nwork with the air of a man who had been confronted with a problem too\nabstruse for solution.\n\nI crept away, and courted solitude for the rest of the day. I did not go\nto dinner; I stayed away from supper until everybody else had finished.\nI did not feel so much like a member of the boat's family now as before.\nHowever, my spirits returned, in installments, as we pursued our way\ndown the river. I was sorry I hated the mate so, because it was not in\n(young) human nature not to admire him. He was huge and muscular, his\nface was bearded and whiskered all over; he had a red woman and a blue\nwoman tattooed on his right arm,--one on each side of a blue anchor with\na red rope to it; and in the matter of profanity he was sublime. When he\nwas getting out cargo at a landing, I was always where I could see and\nhear. He felt all the majesty of his great position, and made the world\nfeel it, too. When he gave even the simplest order, he discharged\nit like a blast of lightning, and sent a long, reverberating peal of\nprofanity thundering after it. I could not help contrasting the way in\nwhich the average landsman would give an order, with the mate's way\nof doing it. If the landsman should wish the gang-plank moved a foot\nfarther forward, he would probably say: 'James, or William, one of you\npush that plank forward, please;' but put the mate in his place and he\nwould roar out: 'Here, now, start that gang-plank for'ard! Lively, now!\n_what_'re you about! Snatch it! SNATCH it! There! there! Aft again! aft\nagain! don't you hear me. Dash it to dash! are you going to _sleep _over\nit! '_Vast _heaving. 'Vast heaving, I tell you! Going to heave it clear\nastern? _Where_'re you going with that barrel! _For'ard_ with it 'fore\nI make you swallow it, you dash-dash-dash-_dashed _split between a tired\nmud-turtle and a crippled hearse-horse!'\n\nI wished I could talk like that.\n\nWhen the soreness of my adventure with the mate had somewhat worn off,\nI began timidly to make up to the humblest official connected with\nthe boat--the night watchman. He snubbed my advances at first, but I\npresently ventured to offer him a new chalk pipe; and that softened him.\nSo he allowed me to sit with him by the big bell on the hurricane deck,\nand in time he melted into conversation. He could not well have helped\nit, I hung with such homage on his words and so plainly showed that\nI felt honored by his notice. He told me the names of dim capes and\nshadowy islands as we glided by them in the solemnity of the night,\nunder the winking stars, and by and by got to talking about himself.\nHe seemed over-sentimental for a man whose salary was six dollars a\nweek--or rather he might have seemed so to an older person than I. But\nI drank in his words hungrily, and with a faith that might have moved\nmountains if it had been applied judiciously. What was it to me that he\nwas soiled and seedy and fragrant with gin? What was it to me that his\ngrammar was bad, his construction worse, and his profanity so void\nof art that it was an element of weakness rather than strength in his\nconversation? He was a wronged man, a man who had seen trouble, and that\nwas enough for me. As he mellowed into his plaintive history his tears\ndripped upon the lantern in his lap, and I cried, too, from sympathy.\n\nHe said he was the son of an English nobleman--either an earl or an\nalderman, he could not remember which, but believed was both; his\nfather, the nobleman, loved him, but his mother hated him from the\ncradle; and so while he was still a little boy he was sent to 'one of\nthem old, ancient colleges'--he couldn't remember which; and by and by\nhis father died and his mother seized the property and 'shook' him as\nhe phrased it. After his mother shook him, members of the nobility with\nwhom he was acquainted used their influence to get him the position of\n'loblolly-boy in a ship;' and from that point my watchman threw off all\ntrammels of date and locality and branched out into a narrative that\nbristled all along with incredible adventures; a narrative that was so\nreeking with bloodshed and so crammed with hair-breadth escapes and\nthe most engaging and unconscious personal villainies, that I sat\nspeechless, enjoying, shuddering, wondering, worshipping.\n\nIt was a sore blight to find out afterwards that he was a low, vulgar,\nignorant, sentimental, half-witted humbug, an untraveled native of the\nwilds of Illinois, who had absorbed wildcat literature and appropriated\nits marvels, until in time he had woven odds and ends of the mess into\nthis yarn, and then gone on telling it to fledglings like me, until he\nhad come to believe it himself.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 6\n\nA Cub-pilot's Experience\n\nWHAT with lying on the rocks four days at Louisville, and some other\ndelays, the poor old 'Paul Jones' fooled away about two weeks in making\nthe voyage from Cincinnati to New Orleans. This gave me a chance to get\nacquainted with one of the pilots, and he taught me how to steer the\nboat, and thus made the fascination of river life more potent than ever\nfor me.\n\nIt also gave me a chance to get acquainted with a youth who had taken\ndeck passage--more's the pity; for he easily borrowed six dollars of me\non a promise to return to the boat and pay it back to me the day after\nwe should arrive. But he probably died or forgot, for he never came. It\nwas doubtless the former, since he had said his parents were wealthy,\nand he only traveled deck passage because it was cooler.{footnote [1.\n'Deck' Passage, i.e. steerage passage.]}\n\nI soon discovered two things. One was that a vessel would not be likely\nto sail for the mouth of the Amazon under ten or twelve years; and the\nother was that the nine or ten dollars still left in my pocket would not\nsuffice for so imposing an exploration as I had planned, even if I could\nafford to wait for a ship. Therefore it followed that I must contrive\na new career. The 'Paul Jones' was now bound for St. Louis. I planned\na siege against my pilot, and at the end of three hard days he\nsurrendered. He agreed to teach me the Mississippi River from New\nOrleans to St. Louis for five hundred dollars, payable out of the\nfirst wages I should receive after graduating. I entered upon the small\nenterprise of 'learning' twelve or thirteen hundred miles of the great\nMississippi River with the easy confidence of my time of life. If I had\nreally known what I was about to require of my faculties, I should not\nhave had the courage to begin. I supposed that all a pilot had to do was\nto keep his boat in the river, and I did not consider that that could be\nmuch of a trick, since it was so wide.\n\nThe boat backed out from New Orleans at four in the afternoon, and it\nwas 'our watch' until eight. Mr. Bixby, my chief, 'straightened her\nup,' plowed her along past the sterns of the other boats that lay at the\nLevee, and then said, 'Here, take her; shave those steamships as close\nas you'd peel an apple.' I took the wheel, and my heart-beat fluttered\nup into the hundreds; for it seemed to me that we were about to scrape\nthe side off every ship in the line, we were so close. I held my breath\nand began to claw the boat away from the danger; and I had my own\nopinion of the pilot who had known no better than to get us into such\nperil, but I was too wise to express it. In half a minute I had a wide\nmargin of safety intervening between the 'Paul Jones' and the ships; and\nwithin ten seconds more I was set aside in disgrace, and Mr. Bixby was\ngoing into danger again and flaying me alive with abuse of my cowardice.\nI was stung, but I was obliged to admire the easy confidence with which\nmy chief loafed from side to side of his wheel, and trimmed the ships so\nclosely that disaster seemed ceaselessly imminent. When he had cooled a\nlittle he told me that the easy water was close ashore and the current\noutside, and therefore we must hug the bank, up-stream, to get the\nbenefit of the former, and stay well out, down-stream, to take advantage\nof the latter. In my own mind I resolved to be a down-stream pilot and\nleave the up-streaming to people dead to prudence.\n\nNow and then Mr. Bixby called my attention to certain things. Said\nhe, 'This is Six-Mile Point.' I assented. It was pleasant enough\ninformation, but I could not see the bearing of it. I was not conscious\nthat it was a matter of any interest to me. Another time he said, 'This\nis Nine-Mile Point.' Later he said, 'This is Twelve-Mile Point.' They\nwere all about level with the water's edge; they all looked about alike\nto me; they were monotonously unpicturesque. I hoped Mr. Bixby would\nchange the subject. But no; he would crowd up around a point, hugging\nthe shore with affection, and then say: 'The slack water ends here,\nabreast this bunch of China-trees; now we cross over.' So he crossed\nover. He gave me the wheel once or twice, but I had no luck. I either\ncame near chipping off the edge of a sugar plantation, or I yawed too\nfar from shore, and so dropped back into disgrace again and got abused.\n\nThe watch was ended at last, and we took supper and went to bed. At\nmidnight the glare of a lantern shone in my eyes, and the night watchman\nsaid--\n\n'Come! turn out!'\n\nAnd then he left. I could not understand this extraordinary procedure;\nso I presently gave up trying to, and dozed off to sleep. Pretty soon\nthe watchman was back again, and this time he was gruff. I was annoyed.\nI said:--\n\n'What do you want to come bothering around here in the middle of the\nnight for. Now as like as not I'll not get to sleep again to-night.'\n\nThe watchman said--\n\n'Well, if this an't good, I'm blest.'\n\nThe 'off-watch' was just turning in, and I heard some brutal laughter\nfrom them, and such remarks as 'Hello, watchman! an't the new cub turned\nout yet? He's delicate, likely. Give him some sugar in a rag and send\nfor the chambermaid to sing rock-a-by-baby to him.'\n\nAbout this time Mr. Bixby appeared on the scene. Something like a minute\nlater I was climbing the pilot-house steps with some of my clothes on\nand the rest in my arms. Mr. Bixby was close behind, commenting. Here\nwas something fresh--this thing of getting up in the middle of the night\nto go to work. It was a detail in piloting that had never occurred to\nme at all. I knew that boats ran all night, but somehow I had never\nhappened to reflect that somebody had to get up out of a warm bed to run\nthem. I began to fear that piloting was not quite so romantic as I had\nimagined it was; there was something very real and work-like about this\nnew phase of it.\n\nIt was a rather dingy night, although a fair number of stars were out.\nThe big mate was at the wheel, and he had the old tub pointed at a star\nand was holding her straight up the middle of the river. The shores on\neither hand were not much more than half a mile apart, but they seemed\nwonderfully far away and ever so vague and indistinct. The mate said:--\n\n'We've got to land at Jones's plantation, sir.'\n\nThe vengeful spirit in me exulted. I said to myself, I wish you joy\nof your job, Mr. Bixby; you'll have a good time finding Mr. Jones's\nplantation such a night as this; and I hope you never _will _find it as\nlong as you live.\n\nMr. Bixby said to the mate:--\n\n'Upper end of the plantation, or the lower?'\n\n'Upper.'\n\n'I can't do it. The stumps there are out of water at this stage: It's no\ngreat distance to the lower, and you'll have to get along with that.'\n\n'All right, sir. If Jones don't like it he'll have to lump it, I\nreckon.'\n\nAnd then the mate left. My exultation began to cool and my wonder to\ncome up. Here was a man who not only proposed to find this plantation on\nsuch a night, but to find either end of it you preferred. I dreadfully\nwanted to ask a question, but I was carrying about as many short answers\nas my cargo-room would admit of, so I held my peace. All I desired\nto ask Mr. Bixby was the simple question whether he was ass enough to\nreally imagine he was going to find that plantation on a night when all\nplantations were exactly alike and all the same color. But I held in. I\nused to have fine inspirations of prudence in those days.\n\nMr. Bixby made for the shore and soon was scraping it, just the same as\nif it had been daylight. And not only that, but singing--\n\n'Father in heaven, the day is declining,' etc.\n\nIt seemed to me that I had put my life in the keeping of a peculiarly\nreckless outcast. Presently he turned on me and said:--\n\n'What's the name of the first point above New Orleans?'\n\nI was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I\ndidn't know.\n\n'Don't _know_?'\n\nThis manner jolted me. I was down at the foot again, in a moment. But I\nhad to say just what I had said before.\n\n'Well, you're a smart one,' said Mr. Bixby. 'What's the name of the\n_next_ point?'\n\nOnce more I didn't know.\n\n'Well, this beats anything. Tell me the name of _any _point or place I\ntold you.'\n\nI studied a while and decided that I couldn't.\n\n'Look here! What do you start out from, above Twelve-Mile Point, to\ncross over?'\n\n'I--I--don't know.'\n\n'You--you--don't know?' mimicking my drawling manner of speech. 'What\n_do_ you know?'\n\n'I--I--nothing, for certain.'\n\n'By the great Caesar's ghost, I believe you! You're the stupidest\ndunderhead I ever saw or ever heard of, so help me Moses! The idea of\nyou being a pilot--you! Why, you don't know enough to pilot a cow down a\nlane.'\n\nOh, but his wrath was up! He was a nervous man, and he shuffled from one\nside of his wheel to the other as if the floor was hot. He would boil a\nwhile to himself, and then overflow and scald me again.\n\n'Look here! What do you suppose I told you the names of those points\nfor?'\n\nI tremblingly considered a moment, and then the devil of temptation\nprovoked me to say:--\n\n'Well--to--to--be entertaining, I thought.'\n\nThis was a red rag to the bull. He raged and stormed so (he was crossing\nthe river at the time) that I judge it made him blind, because he ran\nover the steering-oar of a trading-scow. Of course the traders sent up\na volley of red-hot profanity. Never was a man so grateful as Mr. Bixby\nwas: because he was brim full, and here were subjects who would\n_talk back_. He threw open a window, thrust his head out, and such an\nirruption followed as I never had heard before. The fainter and farther\naway the scowmen's curses drifted, the higher Mr. Bixby lifted his voice\nand the weightier his adjectives grew. When he closed the window he was\nempty. You could have drawn a seine through his system and not caught\ncurses enough to disturb your mother with. Presently he said to me in\nthe gentlest way--\n\n'My boy, you must get a little memorandum book, and every time I tell\nyou a thing, put it down right away. There's only one way to be a pilot,\nand that is to get this entire river by heart. You have to know it just\nlike A B C.'\n\nThat was a dismal revelation to me; for my memory was never loaded with\nanything but blank cartridges. However, I did not feel discouraged long.\nI judged that it was best to make some allowances, for doubtless Mr.\nBixby was 'stretching.' Presently he pulled a rope and struck a few\nstrokes on the big bell. The stars were all gone now, and the night was\nas black as ink. I could hear the wheels churn along the bank, but I\nwas not entirely certain that I could see the shore. The voice of the\ninvisible watchman called up from the hurricane deck--\n\n'What's this, sir?'\n\n'Jones's plantation.'\n\nI said to myself, I wish I might venture to offer a small bet that it\nisn't. But I did not chirp. I only waited to see. Mr. Bixby handled the\nengine bells, and in due time the boat's nose came to the land, a torch\nglowed from the forecastle, a man skipped ashore, a darky's voice on the\nbank said, 'Gimme de k'yarpet-bag, Mars' Jones,' and the next moment we\nwere standing up the river again, all serene. I reflected deeply awhile,\nand then said--but not aloud--'Well, the finding of that plantation was\nthe luckiest accident that ever happened; but it couldn't happen again\nin a hundred years.' And I fully believed it was an accident, too.\n\nBy the time we had gone seven or eight hundred miles up the river, I had\nlearned to be a tolerably plucky up-stream steersman, in daylight,\nand before we reached St. Louis I had made a trifle of progress in\nnight-work, but only a trifle. I had a note-book that fairly bristled\nwith the names of towns, 'points,' bars, islands, bends, reaches, etc.;\nbut the information was to be found only in the notebook--none of it was\nin my head. It made my heart ache to think I had only got half of the\nriver set down; for as our watch was four hours off and four hours on,\nday and night, there was a long four-hour gap in my book for every time\nI had slept since the voyage began.\n\nMy chief was presently hired to go on a big New Orleans boat, and I\npacked my satchel and went with him. She was a grand affair. When I\nstood in her pilot-house I was so far above the water that I seemed\nperched on a mountain; and her decks stretched so far away, fore and\naft, below me, that I wondered how I could ever have considered the\nlittle 'Paul Jones' a large craft. There were other differences, too.\nThe 'Paul Jones's' pilot-house was a cheap, dingy, battered rattle-trap,\ncramped for room: but here was a sumptuous glass temple; room enough to\nhave a dance in; showy red and gold window-curtains; an imposing sofa;\nleather cushions and a back to the high bench where visiting pilots sit,\nto spin yarns and 'look at the river;' bright, fanciful 'cuspadores'\ninstead of a broad wooden box filled with sawdust; nice new oil-cloth\non the floor; a hospitable big stove for winter; a wheel as high as my\nhead, costly with inlaid work; a wire tiller-rope; bright brass knobs\nfor the bells; and a tidy, white-aproned, black 'texas-tender,' to bring\nup tarts and ices and coffee during mid-watch, day and night. Now this\nwas 'something like,' and so I began to take heart once more to believe\nthat piloting was a romantic sort of occupation after all. The moment we\nwere under way I began to prowl about the great steamer and fill myself\nwith joy. She was as clean and as dainty as a drawing-room; when I\nlooked down her long, gilded saloon, it was like gazing through a\nsplendid tunnel; she had an oil-picture, by some gifted sign-painter,\non every stateroom door; she glittered with no end of prism-fringed\nchandeliers; the clerk's office was elegant, the bar was marvelous, and\nthe bar-keeper had been barbered and upholstered at incredible cost.\nThe boiler deck (i.e. the second story of the boat, so to speak) was as\nspacious as a church, it seemed to me; so with the forecastle; and\nthere was no pitiful handful of deckhands, firemen, and roustabouts down\nthere, but a whole battalion of men. The fires were fiercely glaring\nfrom a long row of furnaces, and over them were eight huge boilers!\nThis was unutterable pomp. The mighty engines--but enough of this. I had\nnever felt so fine before. And when I found that the regiment of natty\nservants respectfully 'sir'd' me, my satisfaction was complete.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 7\n\nA Daring Deed\n\nWHEN I returned to the pilot-house St. Louis was gone and I was lost.\nHere was a piece of river which was all down in my book, but I could\nmake neither head nor tail of it: you understand, it was turned around.\nI had seen it when coming up-stream, but I had never faced about to see\nhow it looked when it was behind me. My heart broke again, for it was\nplain that I had got to learn this troublesome river _both ways_.\n\nThe pilot-house was full of pilots, going down to 'look at the river.'\nWhat is called the 'upper river' (the two hundred miles between St.\nLouis and Cairo, where the Ohio comes in) was low; and the Mississippi\nchanges its channel so constantly that the pilots used to always find\nit necessary to run down to Cairo to take a fresh look, when their boats\nwere to lie in port a week; that is, when the water was at a low stage.\nA deal of this 'looking at the river' was done by poor fellows who\nseldom had a berth, and whose only hope of getting one lay in their\nbeing always freshly posted and therefore ready to drop into the shoes\nof some reputable pilot, for a single trip, on account of such pilot's\nsudden illness, or some other necessity. And a good many of them\nconstantly ran up and down inspecting the river, not because they ever\nreally hoped to get a berth, but because (they being guests of the boat)\nit was cheaper to 'look at the river' than stay ashore and pay board. In\ntime these fellows grew dainty in their tastes, and only infested boats\nthat had an established reputation for setting good tables. All visiting\npilots were useful, for they were always ready and willing, winter or\nsummer, night or day, to go out in the yawl and help buoy the channel\nor assist the boat's pilots in any way they could. They were likewise\nwelcome because all pilots are tireless talkers, when gathered together,\nand as they talk only about the river they are always understood and\nare always interesting. Your true pilot cares nothing about anything on\nearth but the river, and his pride in his occupation surpasses the pride\nof kings.\n\nWe had a fine company of these river-inspectors along, this trip. There\nwere eight or ten; and there was abundance of room for them in our great\npilot-house. Two or three of them wore polished silk hats, elaborate\nshirt-fronts, diamond breast-pins, kid gloves, and patent-leather boots.\nThey were choice in their English, and bore themselves with a dignity\nproper to men of solid means and prodigious reputation as pilots. The\nothers were more or less loosely clad, and wore upon their heads tall\nfelt cones that were suggestive of the days of the Commonwealth.\n\nI was a cipher in this august company, and felt subdued, not to say\ntorpid. I was not even of sufficient consequence to assist at the wheel\nwhen it was necessary to put the tiller hard down in a hurry; the guest\nthat stood nearest did that when occasion required--and this was pretty\nmuch all the time, because of the crookedness of the channel and the\nscant water. I stood in a corner; and the talk I listened to took the\nhope all out of me. One visitor said to another--\n\n'Jim, how did you run Plum Point, coming up?'\n\n'It was in the night, there, and I ran it the way one of the boys on the\n\"Diana\" told me; started out about fifty yards above the wood pile on\nthe false point, and held on the cabin under Plum Point till I raised\nthe reef--quarter less twain--then straightened up for the middle bar\ntill I got well abreast the old one-limbed cotton-wood in the bend,\nthen got my stern on the cotton-wood and head on the low place above the\npoint, and came through a-booming--nine and a half.'\n\n'Pretty square crossing, an't it?'\n\n'Yes, but the upper bar 's working down fast.'\n\nAnother pilot spoke up and said--\n\n'I had better water than that, and ran it lower down; started out from\nthe false point--mark twain--raised the second reef abreast the big snag\nin the bend, and had quarter less twain.'\n\nOne of the gorgeous ones remarked--\n\n'I don't want to find fault with your leadsmen, but that's a good deal\nof water for Plum Point, it seems to me.'\n\nThere was an approving nod all around as this quiet snub dropped on\nthe boaster and 'settled' him. And so they went on talk-talk-talking.\nMeantime, the thing that was running in my mind was, 'Now if my ears\nhear aright, I have not only to get the names of all the towns and\nislands and bends, and so on, by heart, but I must even get up a warm\npersonal acquaintanceship with every old snag and one-limbed cotton-wood\nand obscure wood pile that ornaments the banks of this river for twelve\nhundred miles; and more than that, I must actually know where these\nthings are in the dark, unless these guests are gifted with eyes that\ncan pierce through two miles of solid blackness; I wish the piloting\nbusiness was in Jericho and I had never thought of it.'\n\nAt dusk Mr. Bixby tapped the big bell three times (the signal to land),\nand the captain emerged from his drawing-room in the forward end of the\ntexas, and looked up inquiringly. Mr. Bixby said--\n\n'We will lay up here all night, captain.'\n\n'Very well, sir.'\n\nThat was all. The boat came to shore and was tied up for the night. It\nseemed to me a fine thing that the pilot could do as he pleased, without\nasking so grand a captain's permission. I took my supper and\nwent immediately to bed, discouraged by my day's observations and\nexperiences. My late voyage's note-booking was but a confusion of\nmeaningless names. It had tangled me all up in a knot every time I had\nlooked at it in the daytime. I now hoped for respite in sleep; but\nno, it reveled all through my head till sunrise again, a frantic and\ntireless nightmare.\n\nNext morning I felt pretty rusty and low-spirited. We went booming\nalong, taking a good many chances, for we were anxious to 'get out of\nthe river' (as getting out to Cairo was called) before night should\novertake us. But Mr. Bixby's partner, the other pilot, presently\ngrounded the boat, and we lost so much time in getting her off that\nit was plain that darkness would overtake us a good long way above\nthe mouth. This was a great misfortune, especially to certain of our\nvisiting pilots, whose boats would have to wait for their return, no\nmatter how long that might be. It sobered the pilot-house talk a good\ndeal. Coming up-stream, pilots did not mind low water or any kind\nof darkness; nothing stopped them but fog. But down-stream work was\ndifferent; a boat was too nearly helpless, with a stiff current pushing\nbehind her; so it was not customary to run down-stream at night in low\nwater.\n\nThere seemed to be one small hope, however: if we could get through\nthe intricate and dangerous Hat Island crossing before night, we could\nventure the rest, for we would have plainer sailing and better water.\nBut it would be insanity to attempt Hat Island at night. So there was\na deal of looking at watches all the rest of the day, and a constant\nciphering upon the speed we were making; Hat Island was the eternal\nsubject; sometimes hope was high and sometimes we were delayed in a\nbad crossing, and down it went again. For hours all hands lay under the\nburden of this suppressed excitement; it was even communicated to me,\nand I got to feeling so solicitous about Hat Island, and under such\nan awful pressure of responsibility, that I wished I might have five\nminutes on shore to draw a good, full, relieving breath, and start over\nagain. We were standing no regular watches. Each of our pilots ran such\nportions of the river as he had run when coming up-stream, because of\nhis greater familiarity with it; but both remained in the pilot house\nconstantly.\n\nAn hour before sunset, Mr. Bixby took the wheel and Mr. W----stepped\naside. For the next thirty minutes every man held his watch in his hand\nand was restless, silent, and uneasy. At last somebody said, with a\ndoomful sigh--\n\n'Well, yonder's Hat Island--and we can't make it.' All the watches\nclosed with a snap, everybody sighed and muttered something about its\nbeing 'too bad, too bad--ah, if we could only have got here half an hour\nsooner!' and the place was thick with the atmosphere of disappointment.\nSome started to go out, but loitered, hearing no bell-tap to land. The\nsun dipped behind the horizon, the boat went on. Inquiring looks passed\nfrom one guest to another; and one who had his hand on the door-knob\nand had turned it, waited, then presently took away his hand and let the\nknob turn back again. We bore steadily down the bend. More looks were\nexchanged, and nods of surprised admiration--but no words. Insensibly\nthe men drew together behind Mr. Bixby, as the sky darkened and one or\ntwo dim stars came out. The dead silence and sense of waiting became\noppressive. Mr. Bixby pulled the cord, and two deep, mellow notes from\nthe big bell floated off on the night. Then a pause, and one more note\nwas struck. The watchman's voice followed, from the hurricane deck--\n\n'Labboard lead, there! Stabboard lead!'\n\nThe cries of the leadsmen began to rise out of the distance, and were\ngruffly repeated by the word-passers on the hurricane deck.\n\n'M-a-r-k three!... M-a-r-k three!... Quarter-less three!... Half\ntwain!... Quarter twain!... M-a-r-k twain!... Quarter-less--'\n\nMr. Bixby pulled two bell-ropes, and was answered by faint jinglings far\nbelow in the engine room, and our speed slackened. The steam began to\nwhistle through the gauge-cocks. The cries of the leadsmen went on--and\nit is a weird sound, always, in the night. Every pilot in the lot was\nwatching now, with fixed eyes, and talking under his breath. Nobody was\ncalm and easy but Mr. Bixby. He would put his wheel down and stand on\na spoke, and as the steamer swung into her (to me) utterly invisible\nmarks--for we seemed to be in the midst of a wide and gloomy sea--he\nwould meet and fasten her there. Out of the murmur of half-audible talk,\none caught a coherent sentence now and then--such as--\n\n'There; she's over the first reef all right!'\n\nAfter a pause, another subdued voice--\n\n'Her stern's coming down just exactly right, by George!'\n\n'Now she's in the marks; over she goes!'\n\nSomebody else muttered--\n\n'Oh, it was done beautiful--_beautiful_!'\n\nNow the engines were stopped altogether, and we drifted with the\ncurrent. Not that I could see the boat drift, for I could not, the stars\nbeing all gone by this time. This drifting was the dismalest work; it\nheld one's heart still. Presently I discovered a blacker gloom than\nthat which surrounded us. It was the head of the island. We were closing\nright down upon it. We entered its deeper shadow, and so imminent\nseemed the peril that I was likely to suffocate; and I had the strongest\nimpulse to do _something_, anything, to save the vessel. But still Mr.\nBixby stood by his wheel, silent, intent as a cat, and all the pilots\nstood shoulder to shoulder at his back.\n\n'She'll not make it!' somebody whispered.\n\nThe water grew shoaler and shoaler, by the leadsman's cries, till it was\ndown to--\n\n'Eight-and-a-half!.... E-i-g-h-t feet!.... E-i-g-h-t feet!....\nSeven-and--'\n\nMr. Bixby said warningly through his speaking tube to the engineer--\n\n'Stand by, now!'\n\n'Aye-aye, sir!'\n\n'Seven-and-a-half! Seven feet! Six-and--'\n\nWe touched bottom! Instantly Mr. Bixby set a lot of bells ringing,\nshouted through the tube, 'NOW, let her have it--every ounce you've\ngot!' then to his partner, 'Put her hard down! snatch her! snatch her!'\nThe boat rasped and ground her way through the sand, hung upon the apex\nof disaster a single tremendous instant, and then over she went! And\nsuch a shout as went up at Mr. Bixby's back never loosened the roof of a\npilot-house before!\n\nThere was no more trouble after that. Mr. Bixby was a hero that night;\nand it was some little time, too, before his exploit ceased to be talked\nabout by river men.\n\nFully to realize the marvelous precision required in laying the great\nsteamer in her marks in that murky waste of water, one should know that\nnot only must she pick her intricate way through snags and blind\nreefs, and then shave the head of the island so closely as to brush\nthe overhanging foliage with her stern, but at one place she must pass\nalmost within arm's reach of a sunken and invisible wreck that would\nsnatch the hull timbers from under her if she should strike it, and\ndestroy a quarter of a million dollars' worth of steam-boat and cargo\nin five minutes, and maybe a hundred and fifty human lives into the\nbargain.\n\nThe last remark I heard that night was a compliment to Mr. Bixby,\nuttered in soliloquy and with unction by one of our guests. He said--\n\n'By the Shadow of Death, but he's a lightning pilot!'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 8\n\nPerplexing Lessons\n\nAt the end of what seemed a tedious while, I had managed to pack my\nhead full of islands, towns, bars, 'points,' and bends; and a curiously\ninanimate mass of lumber it was, too. However, inasmuch as I could shut\nmy eyes and reel off a good long string of these names without leaving\nout more than ten miles of river in every fifty, I began to feel that\nI could take a boat down to New Orleans if I could make her skip those\nlittle gaps. But of course my complacency could hardly get start enough\nto lift my nose a trifle into the air, before Mr. Bixby would think of\nsomething to fetch it down again. One day he turned on me suddenly with\nthis settler--\n\n'What is the shape of Walnut Bend?'\n\nHe might as well have asked me my grandmother's opinion of protoplasm.\nI reflected respectfully, and then said I didn't know it had any\nparticular shape. My gunpowdery chief went off with a bang, of course,\nand then went on loading and firing until he was out of adjectives.\n\nI had learned long ago that he only carried just so many rounds of\nammunition, and was sure to subside into a very placable and even\nremorseful old smooth-bore as soon as they were all gone. That word\n'old' is merely affectionate; he was not more than thirty-four. I\nwaited. By and by he said--\n\n'My boy, you've got to know the _shape _of the river perfectly. It is\nall there is left to steer by on a very dark night. Everything else\nis blotted out and gone. But mind you, it hasn't the same shape in the\nnight that it has in the day-time.'\n\n'How on earth am I ever going to learn it, then?'\n\n'How do you follow a hall at home in the dark. Because you know the\nshape of it. You can't see it.'\n\n'Do you mean to say that I've got to know all the million trifling\nvariations of shape in the banks of this interminable river as well as I\nknow the shape of the front hall at home?'\n\n'On my honor, you've got to know them _better _than any man ever did\nknow the shapes of the halls in his own house.'\n\n'I wish I was dead!'\n\n'Now I don't want to discourage you, but--'\n\n'Well, pile it on me; I might as well have it now as another time.'\n\n'You see, this has got to be learned; there isn't any getting around\nit. A clear starlight night throws such heavy shadows that if you didn't\nknow the shape of a shore perfectly you would claw away from every bunch\nof timber, because you would take the black shadow of it for a solid\ncape; and you see you would be getting scared to death every fifteen\nminutes by the watch. You would be fifty yards from shore all the time\nwhen you ought to be within fifty feet of it. You can't see a snag in\none of those shadows, but you know exactly where it is, and the shape\nof the river tells you when you are coming to it. Then there's your\npitch-dark night; the river is a very different shape on a pitch-dark\nnight from what it is on a starlight night. All shores seem to be\nstraight lines, then, and mighty dim ones, too; and you'd _run _them for\nstraight lines only you know better. You boldly drive your boat right\ninto what seems to be a solid, straight wall (you knowing very well that\nin reality there is a curve there), and that wall falls back and makes\nway for you. Then there's your gray mist. You take a night when there's\none of these grisly, drizzly, gray mists, and then there isn't any\nparticular shape to a shore. A gray mist would tangle the head of the\noldest man that ever lived. Well, then, different kinds of _moonlight\n_change the shape of the river in different ways. You see--'\n\n'Oh, don't say any more, please! Have I got to learn the shape of the\nriver according to all these five hundred thousand different ways? If\nI tried to carry all that cargo in my head it would make me\nstoop-shouldered.'\n\n'_No_! you only learn _the _shape of the river, and you learn it with\nsuch absolute certainty that you can always steer by the shape that's\n_in your head_, and never mind the one that's before your eyes.'\n\n'Very well, I'll try it; but after I have learned it can I depend on it.\nWill it keep the same form and not go fooling around?'\n\nBefore Mr. Bixby could answer, Mr. W---- came in to take the watch, and\nhe said--\n\n'Bixby, you'll have to look out for President's Island and all that\ncountry clear away up above the Old Hen and Chickens. The banks are\ncaving and the shape of the shores changing like everything. Why,\nyou wouldn't know the point above 40. You can go up inside the old\nsycamore-snag, now.{footnote [1. It may not be necessary, but still it\ncan do no harm to explain that 'inside' means between the snag and the\nshore.--M.T.]}\n\nSo that question was answered. Here were leagues of shore changing\nshape. My spirits were down in the mud again. Two things seemed pretty\napparent to me. One was, that in order to be a pilot a man had got to\nlearn more than any one man ought to be allowed to know; and the other\nwas, that he must learn it all over again in a different way every\ntwenty-four hours.\n\nThat night we had the watch until twelve. Now it was an ancient river\ncustom for the two pilots to chat a bit when the watch changed. While\nthe relieving pilot put on his gloves and lit his cigar, his partner,\nthe retiring pilot, would say something like this--\n\n'I judge the upper bar is making down a little at Hale's Point; had\nquarter twain with the lower lead and mark twain {footnote [Two fathoms.\n'Quarter twain' is two-and-a-quarter fathoms, thirteen-and-a-half feet.\n'Mark three' is three fathoms.]} with the other.'\n\n'Yes, I thought it was making down a little, last trip. Meet any boats?'\n\n'Met one abreast the head of 21, but she was away over hugging the\nbar, and I couldn't make her out entirely. I took her for the \"Sunny\nSouth\"--hadn't any skylights forward of the chimneys.'\n\nAnd so on. And as the relieving pilot took the wheel his partner\n{footnote ['Partner' is a technical term for 'the other pilot'.]} would\nmention that we were in such-and-such a bend, and say we were abreast\nof such-and-such a man's wood-yard or plantation. This was courtesy;\nI supposed it was necessity. But Mr. W---- came on watch full twelve\nminutes late on this particular night,--a tremendous breach of\netiquette; in fact, it is the unpardonable sin among pilots. So Mr.\nBixby gave him no greeting whatever, but simply surrendered the wheel\nand marched out of the pilot-house without a word. I was appalled; it\nwas a villainous night for blackness, we were in a particularly wide\nand blind part of the river, where there was no shape or substance to\nanything, and it seemed incredible that Mr. Bixby should have left that\npoor fellow to kill the boat trying to find out where he was. But I\nresolved that I would stand by him any way. He should find that he was\nnot wholly friendless. So I stood around, and waited to be asked where\nwe were. But Mr. W---- plunged on serenely through the solid firmament\nof black cats that stood for an atmosphere, and never opened his mouth.\nHere is a proud devil, thought I; here is a limb of Satan that would\nrather send us all to destruction than put himself under obligations to\nme, because I am not yet one of the salt of the earth and privileged to\nsnub captains and lord it over everything dead and alive in a steamboat.\nI presently climbed up on the bench; I did not think it was safe to go\nto sleep while this lunatic was on watch.\n\nHowever, I must have gone to sleep in the course of time, because the\nnext thing I was aware of was the fact that day was breaking, Mr. W----\ngone, and Mr. Bixby at the wheel again. So it was four o'clock and all\nwell--but me; I felt like a skinful of dry bones and all of them trying\nto ache at once.\n\nMr. Bixby asked me what I had stayed up there for. I confessed that it\nwas to do Mr. W---- a benevolence,--tell him where he was. It took five\nminutes for the entire preposterousness of the thing to filter into Mr.\nBixby's system, and then I judge it filled him nearly up to the chin;\nbecause he paid me a compliment--and not much of a one either. He said,\n\n'Well, taking you by-and-large, you do seem to be more different kinds\nof an ass than any creature I ever saw before. What did you suppose he\nwanted to know for?'\n\nI said I thought it might be a convenience to him.\n\n'Convenience D-nation! Didn't I tell you that a man's got to know the\nriver in the night the same as he'd know his own front hall?'\n\n'Well, I can follow the front hall in the dark if I know it _is_ the\nfront hall; but suppose you set me down in the middle of it in the dark\nand not tell me which hall it is; how am I to know?'\n\n'Well you've _got _to, on the river!'\n\n'All right. Then I'm glad I never said anything to Mr. W---- '\n\n'I should say so. Why, he'd have slammed you through the window and\nutterly ruined a hundred dollars' worth of window-sash and stuff.'\n\nI was glad this damage had been saved, for it would have made me\nunpopular with the owners. They always hated anybody who had the name of\nbeing careless, and injuring things.\n\nI went to work now to learn the shape of the river; and of all the\neluding and ungraspable objects that ever I tried to get mind or hands\non, that was the chief. I would fasten my eyes upon a sharp, wooded\npoint that projected far into the river some miles ahead of me, and go\nto laboriously photographing its shape upon my brain; and just as I was\nbeginning to succeed to my satisfaction, we would draw up toward it and\nthe exasperating thing would begin to melt away and fold back into the\nbank! If there had been a conspicuous dead tree standing upon the very\npoint of the cape, I would find that tree inconspicuously merged into\nthe general forest, and occupying the middle of a straight shore, when\nI got abreast of it! No prominent hill would stick to its shape long\nenough for me to make up my mind what its form really was, but it was as\ndissolving and changeful as if it had been a mountain of butter in the\nhottest corner of the tropics. Nothing ever had the same shape when\nI was coming downstream that it had borne when I went up. I mentioned\nthese little difficulties to Mr. Bixby. He said--\n\n'That's the very main virtue of the thing. If the shapes didn't change\nevery three seconds they wouldn't be of any use. Take this place where\nwe are now, for instance. As long as that hill over yonder is only one\nhill, I can boom right along the way I'm going; but the moment it splits\nat the top and forms a V, I know I've got to scratch to starboard in a\nhurry, or I'll bang this boat's brains out against a rock; and then the\nmoment one of the prongs of the V swings behind the other, I've got to\nwaltz to larboard again, or I'll have a misunderstanding with a snag\nthat would snatch the keelson out of this steamboat as neatly as if it\nwere a sliver in your hand. If that hill didn't change its shape on bad\nnights there would be an awful steamboat grave-yard around here inside\nof a year.'\n\nIt was plain that I had got to learn the shape of the river in all the\ndifferent ways that could be thought of,--upside down, wrong end first,\ninside out, fore-and-aft, and 'thortships,'--and then know what to do on\ngray nights when it hadn't any shape at all. So I set about it. In the\ncourse of time I began to get the best of this knotty lesson, and my\nself-complacency moved to the front once more. Mr. Bixby was all fixed,\nand ready to start it to the rear again. He opened on me after this\nfashion--\n\n'How much water did we have in the middle crossing at Hole-in-the-Wall,\ntrip before last?'\n\nI considered this an outrage. I said--\n\n'Every trip, down and up, the leadsmen are singing through that tangled\nplace for three-quarters of an hour on a stretch. How do you reckon I\ncan remember such a mess as that?'\n\n'My boy, you've got to remember it. You've got to remember the exact\nspot and the exact marks the boat lay in when we had the shoalest water,\nin everyone of the five hundred shoal places between St. Louis and New\nOrleans; and you mustn't get the shoal soundings and marks of one trip\nmixed up with the shoal soundings and marks of another, either, for\nthey're not often twice alike. You must keep them separate.'\n\nWhen I came to myself again, I said--\n\n'When I get so that I can do that, I'll be able to raise the dead,\nand then I won't have to pilot a steamboat to make a living. I want to\nretire from this business. I want a slush-bucket and a brush; I'm only\nfit for a roustabout. I haven't got brains enough to be a pilot; and\nif I had I wouldn't have strength enough to carry them around, unless I\nwent on crutches.'\n\n'Now drop that! When I say I'll learn {footnote ['Teach' is not in the\nriver vocabulary.]} a man the river, I mean it. And you can depend on\nit, I'll learn him or kill him.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 9\n\nContinued Perplexities\n\nTHERE was no use in arguing with a person like this. I promptly put\nsuch a strain on my memory that by and by even the shoal water and the\ncountless crossing-marks began to stay with me. But the result was just\nthe same. I never could more than get one knotty thing learned before\nanother presented itself. Now I had often seen pilots gazing at the\nwater and pretending to read it as if it were a book; but it was a\nbook that told me nothing. A time came at last, however, when Mr.\nBixby seemed to think me far enough advanced to bear a lesson on\nwater-reading. So he began--\n\n'Do you see that long slanting line on the face of the water? Now,\nthat's a reef. Moreover, it's a bluff reef. There is a solid sand-bar\nunder it that is nearly as straight up and down as the side of a house.\nThere is plenty of water close up to it, but mighty little on top of it.\nIf you were to hit it you would knock the boat's brains out. Do you see\nwhere the line fringes out at the upper end and begins to fade away?'\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'Well, that is a low place; that is the head of the reef. You can climb\nover there, and not hurt anything. Cross over, now, and follow along\nclose under the reef--easy water there--not much current.'\n\nI followed the reef along till I approached the fringed end. Then Mr.\nBixby said--\n\n'Now get ready. Wait till I give the word. She won't want to mount the\nreef; a boat hates shoal water. Stand by--wait--WAIT--keep her well in\nhand. NOW cramp her down! Snatch her! snatch her!'\n\nHe seized the other side of the wheel and helped to spin it around until\nit was hard down, and then we held it so. The boat resisted, and refused\nto answer for a while, and next she came surging to starboard, mounted\nthe reef, and sent a long, angry ridge of water foaming away from her\nbows.\n\n'Now watch her; watch her like a cat, or she'll get away from you. When\nshe fights strong and the tiller slips a little, in a jerky, greasy sort\nof way, let up on her a trifle; it is the way she tells you at night\nthat the water is too shoal; but keep edging her up, little by little,\ntoward the point. You are well up on the bar, now; there is a bar under\nevery point, because the water that comes down around it forms an eddy\nand allows the sediment to sink. Do you see those fine lines on the face\nof the water that branch out like the ribs of a fan. Well, those are\nlittle reefs; you want to just miss the ends of them, but run them\npretty close. Now look out--look out! Don't you crowd that slick,\ngreasy-looking place; there ain't nine feet there; she won't stand it.\nShe begins to smell it; look sharp, I tell you! Oh blazes, there you go!\nStop the starboard wheel! Quick! Ship up to back! Set her back!\n\nThe engine bells jingled and the engines answered promptly, shooting\nwhite columns of steam far aloft out of the 'scape pipes, but it was\ntoo late. The boat had 'smelt' the bar in good earnest; the foamy ridges\nthat radiated from her bows suddenly disappeared, a great dead swell\ncame rolling forward and swept ahead of her, she careened far over to\nlarboard, and went tearing away toward the other shore as if she were\nabout scared to death. We were a good mile from where we ought to have\nbeen, when we finally got the upper hand of her again.\n\nDuring the afternoon watch the next day, Mr. Bixby asked me if I knew\nhow to run the next few miles. I said--\n\n'Go inside the first snag above the point, outside the next one, start\nout from the lower end of Higgins's wood-yard, make a square crossing\nand--'\n\n'That's all right. I'll be back before you close up on the next point.'\n\nBut he wasn't. He was still below when I rounded it and entered upon a\npiece of river which I had some misgivings about. I did not know that\nhe was hiding behind a chimney to see how I would perform. I went gaily\nalong, getting prouder and prouder, for he had never left the boat in\nmy sole charge such a length of time before. I even got to 'setting'\nher and letting the wheel go, entirely, while I vaingloriously turned\nmy back and inspected the stem marks and hummed a tune, a sort of easy\nindifference which I had prodigiously admired in Bixby and other great\npilots. Once I inspected rather long, and when I faced to the front\nagain my heart flew into my mouth so suddenly that if I hadn't clapped\nmy teeth together I should have lost it. One of those frightful bluff\nreefs was stretching its deadly length right across our bows! My head\nwas gone in a moment; I did not know which end I stood on; I gasped and\ncould not get my breath; I spun the wheel down with such rapidity that\nit wove itself together like a spider's web; the boat answered and\nturned square away from the reef, but the reef followed her! I fled, and\nstill it followed, still it kept--right across my bows! I never looked\nto see where I was going, I only fled. The awful crash was imminent--why\ndidn't that villain come! If I committed the crime of ringing a bell,\nI might get thrown overboard. But better that than kill the boat. So\nin blind desperation I started such a rattling 'shivaree' down below as\nnever had astounded an engineer in this world before, I fancy. Amidst\nthe frenzy of the bells the engines began to back and fill in a furious\nway, and my reason forsook its throne--we were about to crash into the\nwoods on the other side of the river. Just then Mr. Bixby stepped calmly\ninto view on the hurricane deck. My soul went out to him in gratitude.\nMy distress vanished; I would have felt safe on the brink of Niagara,\nwith Mr. Bixby on the hurricane deck. He blandly and sweetly took\nhis tooth-pick out of his mouth between his fingers, as if it were a\ncigar--we were just in the act of climbing an overhanging big tree,\nand the passengers were scudding astern like rats--and lifted up these\ncommands to me ever so gently--\n\n'Stop the starboard. Stop the larboard. Set her back on both.'\n\nThe boat hesitated, halted, pressed her nose among the boughs a critical\ninstant, then reluctantly began to back away.\n\n'Stop the larboard. Come ahead on it. Stop the starboard. Come ahead on\nit. Point her for the bar.'\n\nI sailed away as serenely as a summer's morning. Mr. Bixby came in and\nsaid, with mock simplicity--\n\n'When you have a hail, my boy, you ought to tap the big bell three times\nbefore you land, so that the engineers can get ready.'\n\nI blushed under the sarcasm, and said I hadn't had any hail.\n\n'Ah! Then it was for wood, I suppose. The officer of the watch will tell\nyou when he wants to wood up.'\n\nI went on consuming and said I wasn't after wood.\n\n'Indeed? Why, what could you want over here in the bend, then? Did you\never know of a boat following a bend up-stream at this stage of the\nriver?'\n\n'No sir,--and I wasn't trying to follow it. I was getting away from a\nbluff reef.'\n\n'No, it wasn't a bluff reef; there isn't one within three miles of where\nyou were.'\n\n'But I saw it. It was as bluff as that one yonder.'\n\n'Just about. Run over it!'\n\n'Do you give it as an order?'\n\n'Yes. Run over it.'\n\n'If I don't, I wish I may die.'\n\n'All right; I am taking the responsibility.' I was just as anxious to\nkill the boat, now, as I had been to save her before. I impressed my\norders upon my memory, to be used at the inquest, and made a straight\nbreak for the reef. As it disappeared under our bows I held my breath;\nbut we slid over it like oil.\n\n'Now don't you see the difference? It wasn't anything but a _wind _reef.\nThe wind does that.'\n\n'So I see. But it is exactly like a bluff reef. How am I ever going to\ntell them apart?'\n\n'I can't tell you. It is an instinct. By and by you will just naturally\n_know _one from the other, but you never will be able to explain why or\nhow you know them apart'\n\nIt turned out to be true. The face of the water, in time, became a\nwonderful book--a book that was a dead language to the uneducated\npassenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its\nmost cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice.\nAnd it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new\nstory to tell every day. Throughout the long twelve hundred miles there\nwas never a page that was void of interest, never one that you could\nleave unread without loss, never one that you would want to skip,\nthinking you could find higher enjoyment in some other thing. There\nnever was so wonderful a book written by man; never one whose interest\nwas so absorbing, so unflagging, so sparkingly renewed with every\nreperusal. The passenger who could not read it was charmed with a\npeculiar sort of faint dimple on its surface (on the rare occasions\nwhen he did not overlook it altogether); but to the pilot that was an\n_italicized _passage; indeed, it was more than that, it was a legend of\nthe largest capitals, with a string of shouting exclamation points at\nthe end of it; for it meant that a wreck or a rock was buried there that\ncould tear the life out of the strongest vessel that ever floated. It is\nthe faintest and simplest expression the water ever makes, and the most\nhideous to a pilot's eye. In truth, the passenger who could not read\nthis book saw nothing but all manner of pretty pictures in it painted by\nthe sun and shaded by the clouds, whereas to the trained eye these\nwere not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of\nreading-matter.\n\nNow when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know\nevery trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I\nknew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition.\nBut I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be\nrestored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had\ngone out of the majestic river! I still keep in mind a certain wonderful\nsunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad\nexpanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red\nhue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating,\nblack and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling\nupon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling\nrings, that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was\nfaintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and\nradiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was\ndensely wooded, and the somber shadow that fell from this forest was\nbroken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver;\nand high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single\nleafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that\nwas flowing from the sun. There were graceful curves, reflected images,\nwoody heights, soft distances; and over the whole scene, far and near,\nthe dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching it, every passing\nmoment, with new marvels of coloring.\n\nI stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The\nworld was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home.\nBut as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the\nglories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight\nwrought upon the river's face; another day came when I ceased altogether\nto note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should\nhave looked upon it without rapture, and should have commented upon it,\ninwardly, after this fashion: This sun means that we are going to have\nwind to-morrow; that floating log means that the river is rising, small\nthanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef\nwhich is going to kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, if\nit keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling 'boils' show a\ndissolving bar and a changing channel there; the lines and circles in\nthe slick water over yonder are a warning that that troublesome place is\nshoaling up dangerously; that silver streak in the shadow of the forest\nis the 'break' from a new snag, and he has located himself in the very\nbest place he could have found to fish for steamboats; that tall dead\ntree, with a single living branch, is not going to last long, and\nthen how is a body ever going to get through this blind place at night\nwithout the friendly old landmark.\n\nNo, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river. All the\nvalue any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it\ncould furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat. Since\nthose days, I have pitied doctors from my heart. What does the lovely\nflush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a 'break' that ripples\nabove some deadly disease. Are not all her visible charms sown thick\nwith what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he ever\nsee her beauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her professionally, and\ncomment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself? And doesn't he\nsometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his\ntrade?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 10\n\nCompleting My Education\n\nWHOSOEVER has done me the courtesy to read my chapters which have\npreceded this may possibly wonder that I deal so minutely with piloting\nas a science. It was the prime purpose of those chapters; and I am not\nquite done yet. I wish to show, in the most patient and painstaking way,\nwhat a wonderful science it is. Ship channels are buoyed and lighted,\nand therefore it is a comparatively easy undertaking to learn to run\nthem; clear-water rivers, with gravel bottoms, change their channels\nvery gradually, and therefore one needs to learn them but once; but\npiloting becomes another matter when you apply it to vast streams like\nthe Mississippi and the Missouri, whose alluvial banks cave and change\nconstantly, whose snags are always hunting up new quarters, whose\nsandbars are never at rest, whose channels are for ever dodging and\nshirking, and whose obstructions must be confronted in all nights and\nall weathers without the aid of a single light-house or a single buoy;\nfor there is neither light nor buoy to be found anywhere in all this\nthree or four thousand miles of villainous river.{footnote [True at the\ntime referred to; not true now (1882).]} I feel justified in enlarging\nupon this great science for the reason that I feel sure no one has ever\nyet written a paragraph about it who had piloted a steamboat himself,\nand so had a practical knowledge of the subject. If the theme were\nhackneyed, I should be obliged to deal gently with the reader; but\nsince it is wholly new, I have felt at liberty to take up a considerable\ndegree of room with it.\n\nWhen I had learned the name and position of every visible feature of the\nriver; when I had so mastered its shape that I could shut my eyes and\ntrace it from St. Louis to New Orleans; when I had learned to read the\nface of the water as one would cull the news from the morning paper;\nand finally, when I had trained my dull memory to treasure up an endless\narray of soundings and crossing-marks, and keep fast hold of them, I\njudged that my education was complete: so I got to tilting my cap to the\nside of my head, and wearing a tooth-pick in my mouth at the wheel. Mr.\nBixby had his eye on these airs. One day he said--\n\n'What is the height of that bank yonder, at Burgess's?'\n\n'How can I tell, sir. It is three-quarters of a mile away.'\n\n'Very poor eye--very poor. Take the glass.'\n\nI took the glass, and presently said--'I can't tell. I suppose that that\nbank is about a foot and a half high.'\n\n'Foot and a half! That's a six-foot bank. How high was the bank along\nhere last trip?'\n\n'I don't know; I never noticed.'\n\n'You didn't? Well, you must always do it hereafter.'\n\n'Why?'\n\n'Because you'll have to know a good many things that it tells you.\nFor one thing, it tells you the stage of the river--tells you whether\nthere's more water or less in the river along here than there was last\ntrip.'\n\n'The leads tell me that.' I rather thought I had the advantage of him\nthere.\n\n'Yes, but suppose the leads lie? The bank would tell you so, and then\nyou'd stir those leadsmen up a bit. There was a ten-foot bank here last\ntrip, and there is only a six-foot bank now. What does that signify?'\n\n'That the river is four feet higher than it was last trip.'\n\n'Very good. Is the river rising or falling?'\n\n'Rising.'\n\n'No it ain't.'\n\n'I guess I am right, sir. Yonder is some drift-wood floating down the\nstream.'\n\n'A rise starts the drift-wood, but then it keeps on floating a while\nafter the river is done rising. Now the bank will tell you about this.\nWait till you come to a place where it shelves a little. Now here; do\nyou see this narrow belt of fine sediment That was deposited while the\nwater was higher. You see the driftwood begins to strand, too. The bank\nhelps in other ways. Do you see that stump on the false point?'\n\n'Ay, ay, sir.'\n\n'Well, the water is just up to the roots of it. You must make a note of\nthat.'\n\n'Why?'\n\n'Because that means that there's seven feet in the chute of 103.'\n\n'But 103 is a long way up the river yet.'\n\n'That's where the benefit of the bank comes in. There is water enough in\n103 _now_, yet there may not be by the time we get there; but the bank\nwill keep us posted all along. You don't run close chutes on a falling\nriver, up-stream, and there are precious few of them that you are\nallowed to run at all down-stream. There's a law of the United States\nagainst it. The river may be rising by the time we get to 103, and in\nthat case we'll run it. We are drawing--how much?'\n\n'Six feet aft,--six and a half forward.'\n\n'Well, you do seem to know something.'\n\n'But what I particularly want to know is, if I have got to keep up an\neverlasting measuring of the banks of this river, twelve hundred miles,\nmonth in and month out?'\n\n'Of course!'\n\nMy emotions were too deep for words for a while. Presently I said--'\n\nAnd how about these chutes. Are there many of them?'\n\n'I should say so. I fancy we shan't run any of the river this trip as\nyou've ever seen it run before--so to speak. If the river begins to rise\nagain, we'll go up behind bars that you've always seen standing out of\nthe river, high and dry like the roof of a house; we'll cut across low\nplaces that you've never noticed at all, right through the middle of\nbars that cover three hundred acres of river; we'll creep through cracks\nwhere you've always thought was solid land; we'll dart through the woods\nand leave twenty-five miles of river off to one side; we'll see the\nhind-side of every island between New Orleans and Cairo.'\n\n'Then I've got to go to work and learn just as much more river as I\nalready know.'\n\n'Just about twice as much more, as near as you can come at it.'\n\n'Well, one lives to find out. I think I was a fool when I went into this\nbusiness.'\n\n'Yes, that is true. And you are yet. But you'll not be when you've\nlearned it.'\n\n'Ah, I never can learn it.'\n\n'I will see that you _do_.'\n\nBy and by I ventured again--\n\n'Have I got to learn all this thing just as I know the rest of the\nriver--shapes and all--and so I can run it at night?'\n\n'Yes. And you've got to have good fair marks from one end of the river\nto the other, that will help the bank tell you when there is water\nenough in each of these countless places--like that stump, you know.\nWhen the river first begins to rise, you can run half a dozen of the\ndeepest of them; when it rises a foot more you can run another dozen;\nthe next foot will add a couple of dozen, and so on: so you see you have\nto know your banks and marks to a dead moral certainty, and never get\nthem mixed; for when you start through one of those cracks, there's\nno backing out again, as there is in the big river; you've got to go\nthrough, or stay there six months if you get caught on a falling river.\nThere are about fifty of these cracks which you can't run at all except\nwhen the river is brim full and over the banks.'\n\n'This new lesson is a cheerful prospect.'\n\n'Cheerful enough. And mind what I've just told you; when you start into\none of those places you've got to go through. They are too narrow to\nturn around in, too crooked to back out of, and the shoal water is\nalways up at the head; never elsewhere. And the head of them is always\nlikely to be filling up, little by little, so that the marks you reckon\ntheir depth by, this season, may not answer for next.'\n\n'Learn a new set, then, every year?'\n\n'Exactly. Cramp her up to the bar! What are you standing up through the\nmiddle of the river for?'\n\nThe next few months showed me strange things. On the same day that we\nheld the conversation above narrated, we met a great rise coming down\nthe river. The whole vast face of the stream was black with drifting\ndead logs, broken boughs, and great trees that had caved in and been\nwashed away. It required the nicest steering to pick one's way through\nthis rushing raft, even in the day-time, when crossing from point to\npoint; and at night the difficulty was mightily increased; every now and\nthen a huge log, lying deep in the water, would suddenly appear right\nunder our bows, coming head-on; no use to try to avoid it then; we could\nonly stop the engines, and one wheel would walk over that log from one\nend to the other, keeping up a thundering racket and careening the boat\nin a way that was very uncomfortable to passengers. Now and then we\nwould hit one of these sunken logs a rattling bang, dead in the center,\nwith a full head of steam, and it would stun the boat as if she had hit\na continent. Sometimes this log would lodge, and stay right across\nour nose, and back the Mississippi up before it; we would have to do a\nlittle craw-fishing, then, to get away from the obstruction. We often\nhit _white _logs, in the dark, for we could not see them till we were\nright on them; but a black log is a pretty distinct object at night. A\nwhite snag is an ugly customer when the daylight is gone.\n\nOf course, on the great rise, down came a swarm of prodigious\ntimber-rafts from the head waters of the Mississippi, coal barges from\nPittsburgh, little trading scows from everywhere, and broad-horns from\n'Posey County,' Indiana, freighted with 'fruit and furniture'--the\nusual term for describing it, though in plain English the freight thus\naggrandized was hoop-poles and pumpkins. Pilots bore a mortal hatred to\nthese craft; and it was returned with usury. The law required all such\nhelpless traders to keep a light burning, but it was a law that was\noften broken. All of a sudden, on a murky night, a light would hop up,\nright under our bows, almost, and an agonized voice, with the backwoods\n'whang' to it, would wail out--\n\n'Whar'n the ---- you goin' to! Cain't you see nothin', you dash-dashed\naig-suckin', sheep-stealin', one-eyed son of a stuffed monkey!'\n\nThen for an instant, as we whistled by, the red glare from our furnaces\nwould reveal the scow and the form of the gesticulating orator as if\nunder a lightning-flash, and in that instant our firemen and deck-hands\nwould send and receive a tempest of missiles and profanity, one of our\nwheels would walk off with the crashing fragments of a steering-oar, and\ndown the dead blackness would shut again. And that flatboatman would be\nsure to go into New Orleans and sue our boat, swearing stoutly that he\nhad a light burning all the time, when in truth his gang had the lantern\ndown below to sing and lie and drink and gamble by, and no watch on\ndeck.\n\nOnce, at night, in one of those forest-bordered crevices (behind an\nisland) which steamboatmen intensely describe with the phrase 'as dark\nas the inside of a cow,' we should have eaten up a Posey County family,\nfruit, furniture, and all, but that they happened to be fiddling down\nbelow, and we just caught the sound of the music in time to sheer off,\ndoing no serious damage, unfortunately, but coming so near it that we\nhad good hopes for a moment. These people brought up their lantern,\nthen, of course; and as we backed and filled to get away, the precious\nfamily stood in the light of it--both sexes and various ages--and cursed\nus till everything turned blue. Once a coalboatman sent a bullet through\nour pilot-house, when we borrowed a steering oar of him in a very narrow\nplace.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 11\n\nThe River Rises\n\nDURING this big rise these small-fry craft were an intolerable nuisance.\nWe were running chute after chute,--a new world to me,--and if there was\na particularly cramped place in a chute, we would be pretty sure to meet\na broad-horn there; and if he failed to be there, we would find him in a\nstill worse locality, namely, the head of the chute, on the shoal water.\nAnd then there would be no end of profane cordialities exchanged.\n\nSometimes, in the big river, when we would be feeling our way cautiously\nalong through a fog, the deep hush would suddenly be broken by yells and\na clamor of tin pans, and all in instant a log raft would appear vaguely\nthrough the webby veil, close upon us; and then we did not wait to swap\nknives, but snatched our engine bells out by the roots and piled on all\nthe steam we had, to scramble out of the way! One doesn't hit a rock or\na solid log craft with a steamboat when he can get excused.\n\nYou will hardly believe it, but many steamboat clerks always carried\na large assortment of religious tracts with them in those old departed\nsteamboating days. Indeed they did. Twenty times a day we would be\ncramping up around a bar, while a string of these small-fry rascals\nwere drifting down into the head of the bend away above and beyond us a\ncouple of miles. Now a skiff would dart away from one of them, and come\nfighting its laborious way across the desert of water. It would 'ease\nall,' in the shadow of our forecastle, and the panting oarsmen would\nshout, 'Gimme a pa-a-per!' as the skiff drifted swiftly astern. The\nclerk would throw over a file of New Orleans journals. If these were\npicked up without comment, you might notice that now a dozen other\nskiffs had been drifting down upon us without saying anything. You\nunderstand, they had been waiting to see how No. 1 was going to fare.\nNo. 1 making no comment, all the rest would bend to their oars and\ncome on, now; and as fast as they came the clerk would heave over\nneat bundles of religious tracts, tied to shingles. The amount of hard\nswearing which twelve packages of religious literature will command when\nimpartially divided up among twelve raftsmen's crews, who have pulled a\nheavy skiff two miles on a hot day to get them, is simply incredible.\n\nAs I have said, the big rise brought a new world under my vision. By the\ntime the river was over its banks we had forsaken our old paths and were\nhourly climbing over bars that had stood ten feet out of water before;\nwe were shaving stumpy shores, like that at the foot of Madrid Bend,\nwhich I had always seen avoided before; we were clattering through\nchutes like that of 82, where the opening at the foot was an unbroken\nwall of timber till our nose was almost at the very spot. Some of these\nchutes were utter solitudes. The dense, untouched forest overhung both\nbanks of the crooked little crack, and one could believe that human\ncreatures had never intruded there before. The swinging grape-vines, the\ngrassy nooks and vistas glimpsed as we swept by, the flowering creepers\nwaving their red blossoms from the tops of dead trunks, and all the\nspendthrift richness of the forest foliage, were wasted and thrown away\nthere. The chutes were lovely places to steer in; they were deep, except\nat the head; the current was gentle; under the 'points' the water was\nabsolutely dead, and the invisible banks so bluff that where the tender\nwillow thickets projected you could bury your boat's broadside in them\nas you tore along, and then you seemed fairly to fly.\n\nBehind other islands we found wretched little farms, and wretcheder\nlittle log-cabins; there were crazy rail fences sticking a foot or two\nabove the water, with one or two jeans-clad, chills-racked, yellow-faced\nmale miserables roosting on the top-rail, elbows on knees, jaws in\nhands, grinding tobacco and discharging the result at floating chips\nthrough crevices left by lost teeth; while the rest of the family and\nthe few farm-animals were huddled together in an empty wood-flat riding\nat her moorings close at hand. In this flat-boat the family would have\nto cook and eat and sleep for a lesser or greater number of days (or\npossibly weeks), until the river should fall two or three feet and let\nthem get back to their log-cabin and their chills again--chills being\na merciful provision of an all-wise Providence to enable them to take\nexercise without exertion. And this sort of watery camping out was a\nthing which these people were rather liable to be treated to a couple\nof times a year: by the December rise out of the Ohio, and the June rise\nout of the Mississippi. And yet these were kindly dispensations, for\nthey at least enabled the poor things to rise from the dead now and\nthen, and look upon life when a steamboat went by. They appreciated the\nblessing, too, for they spread their mouths and eyes wide open and made\nthe most of these occasions. Now what _could _these banished creatures\nfind to do to keep from dying of the blues during the low-water season!\n\nOnce, in one of these lovely island chutes, we found our course\ncompletely bridged by a great fallen tree. This will serve to show how\nnarrow some of the chutes were. The passengers had an hour's recreation\nin a virgin wilderness, while the boat-hands chopped the bridge away;\nfor there was no such thing as turning back, you comprehend.\n\nFrom Cairo to Baton Rouge, when the river is over its banks, you have\nno particular trouble in the night, for the thousand-mile wall of dense\nforest that guards the two banks all the way is only gapped with a farm\nor wood-yard opening at intervals, and so you can't 'get out of the\nriver' much easier than you could get out of a fenced lane; but from\nBaton Rouge to New Orleans it is a different matter. The river is more\nthan a mile wide, and very deep--as much as two hundred feet, in places.\nBoth banks, for a good deal over a hundred miles, are shorn of their\ntimber and bordered by continuous sugar plantations, with only here and\nthere a scattering sapling or row of ornamental China-trees. The timber\nis shorn off clear to the rear of the plantations, from two to four\nmiles. When the first frost threatens to come, the planters snatch off\ntheir crops in a hurry. When they have finished grinding the cane, they\nform the refuse of the stalks (which they call _bagasse_) into great\npiles and set fire to them, though in other sugar countries the bagasse\nis used for fuel in the furnaces of the sugar mills. Now the piles of\ndamp bagasse burn slowly, and smoke like Satan's own kitchen.\n\nAn embankment ten or fifteen feet high guards both banks of the\nMississippi all the way down that lower end of the river, and this\nembankment is set back from the edge of the shore from ten to perhaps a\nhundred feet, according to circumstances; say thirty or forty feet, as\na general thing. Fill that whole region with an impenetrable gloom of\nsmoke from a hundred miles of burning bagasse piles, when the river is\nover the banks, and turn a steamboat loose along there at midnight and\nsee how she will feel. And see how you will feel, too! You find yourself\naway out in the midst of a vague dim sea that is shoreless, that fades\nout and loses itself in the murky distances; for you cannot discern\nthe thin rib of embankment, and you are always imagining you see\na straggling tree when you don't. The plantations themselves are\ntransformed by the smoke, and look like a part of the sea. All through\nyour watch you are tortured with the exquisite misery of uncertainty.\nYou hope you are keeping in the river, but you do not know. All that you\nare sure about is that you are likely to be within six feet of the bank\nand destruction, when you think you are a good half-mile from shore. And\nyou are sure, also, that if you chance suddenly to fetch up against the\nembankment and topple your chimneys overboard, you will have the small\ncomfort of knowing that it is about what you were expecting to do. One\nof the great Vicksburg packets darted out into a sugar plantation one\nnight, at such a time, and had to stay there a week. But there was no\nnovelty about it; it had often been done before.\n\nI thought I had finished this chapter, but I wish to add a curious\nthing, while it is in my mind. It is only relevant in that it is\nconnected with piloting. There used to be an excellent pilot on the\nriver, a Mr. X., who was a somnambulist. It was said that if his mind\nwas troubled about a bad piece of river, he was pretty sure to get up\nand walk in his sleep and do strange things. He was once fellow-pilot\nfor a trip or two with George Ealer, on a great New Orleans passenger\npacket. During a considerable part of the first trip George was uneasy,\nbut got over it by and by, as X. seemed content to stay in his bed when\nasleep. Late one night the boat was approaching Helena, Arkansas; the\nwater was low, and the crossing above the town in a very blind and\ntangled condition. X. had seen the crossing since Ealer had, and as the\nnight was particularly drizzly, sullen, and dark, Ealer was considering\nwhether he had not better have X. called to assist in running the place,\nwhen the door opened and X. walked in. Now on very dark nights, light is\na deadly enemy to piloting; you are aware that if you stand in a lighted\nroom, on such a night, you cannot see things in the street to any\npurpose; but if you put out the lights and stand in the gloom you can\nmake out objects in the street pretty well. So, on very dark nights,\npilots do not smoke; they allow no fire in the pilot-house stove if\nthere is a crack which can allow the least ray to escape; they order the\nfurnaces to be curtained with huge tarpaulins and the sky-lights to\nbe closely blinded. Then no light whatever issues from the boat. The\nundefinable shape that now entered the pilot-house had Mr. X.'s voice.\nThis said--\n\n'Let me take her, George; I've seen this place since you have, and it\nis so crooked that I reckon I can run it myself easier than I could tell\nyou how to do it.'\n\n'It is kind of you, and I swear _I_ am willing. I haven't got another\ndrop of perspiration left in me. I have been spinning around and around\nthe wheel like a squirrel. It is so dark I can't tell which way she is\nswinging till she is coming around like a whirligig.'\n\nSo Ealer took a seat on the bench, panting and breathless. The black\nphantom assumed the wheel without saying anything, steadied the waltzing\nsteamer with a turn or two, and then stood at ease, coaxing her a little\nto this side and then to that, as gently and as sweetly as if the time\nhad been noonday. When Ealer observed this marvel of steering, he wished\nhe had not confessed! He stared, and wondered, and finally said--\n\n'Well, I thought I knew how to steer a steamboat, but that was another\nmistake of mine.'\n\nX. said nothing, but went serenely on with his work. He rang for the\nleads; he rang to slow down the steam; he worked the boat carefully and\nneatly into invisible marks, then stood at the center of the wheel\nand peered blandly out into the blackness, fore and aft, to verify his\nposition; as the leads shoaled more and more, he stopped the engines\nentirely, and the dead silence and suspense of 'drifting' followed when\nthe shoalest water was struck, he cracked on the steam, carried her\nhandsomely over, and then began to work her warily into the next system\nof shoal marks; the same patient, heedful use of leads and engines\nfollowed, the boat slipped through without touching bottom, and entered\nupon the third and last intricacy of the crossing; imperceptibly\nshe moved through the gloom, crept by inches into her marks, drifted\ntediously till the shoalest water was cried, and then, under a\ntremendous head of steam, went swinging over the reef and away into deep\nwater and safety!\n\nEaler let his long-pent breath pour out in a great, relieving sigh, and\nsaid--\n\n'That's the sweetest piece of piloting that was ever done on the\nMississippi River! I wouldn't believed it could be done, if I hadn't\nseen it.'\n\nThere was no reply, and he added--\n\n'Just hold her five minutes longer, partner, and let me run down and get\na cup of coffee.'\n\nA minute later Ealer was biting into a pie, down in the 'texas,' and\ncomforting himself with coffee. Just then the night watchman happened\nin, and was about to happen out again, when he noticed Ealer and\nexclaimed--\n\n'Who is at the wheel, sir?'\n\n'X.'\n\n'Dart for the pilot-house, quicker than lightning!'\n\nThe next moment both men were flying up the pilot-house companion way,\nthree steps at a jump! Nobody there! The great steamer was whistling\ndown the middle of the river at her own sweet will! The watchman shot\nout of the place again; Ealer seized the wheel, set an engine back with\npower, and held his breath while the boat reluctantly swung away from\na 'towhead' which she was about to knock into the middle of the Gulf of\nMexico!\n\nBy and by the watchman came back and said--\n\n'Didn't that lunatic tell you he was asleep, when he first came up\nhere?'\n\n'_No_.'\n\n'Well, he was. I found him walking along on top of the railings just as\nunconcerned as another man would walk a pavement; and I put him to bed;\nnow just this minute there he was again, away astern, going through that\nsort of tight-rope deviltry the same as before.'\n\n'Well, I think I'll stay by, next time he has one of those fits. But I\nhope he'll have them often. You just ought to have seen him take this\nboat through Helena crossing. I never saw anything so gaudy before. And\nif he can do such gold-leaf, kid-glove, diamond-breastpin piloting when\nhe is sound asleep, what _couldn't_ he do if he was dead!'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 12\n\nSounding\n\nWHEN the river is very low, and one's steamboat is 'drawing all the\nwater' there is in the channel,--or a few inches more, as was often\nthe case in the old times,--one must be painfully circumspect in his\npiloting. We used to have to 'sound' a number of particularly bad places\nalmost every trip when the river was at a very low stage.\n\nSounding is done in this way. The boat ties up at the shore, just above\nthe shoal crossing; the pilot not on watch takes his 'cub' or steersman\nand a picked crew of men (sometimes an officer also), and goes out in\nthe yawl--provided the boat has not that rare and sumptuous luxury, a\nregularly-devised 'sounding-boat'--and proceeds to hunt for the best\nwater, the pilot on duty watching his movements through a spy-glass,\nmeantime, and in some instances assisting by signals of the boat's\nwhistle, signifying 'try higher up' or 'try lower down;' for the surface\nof the water, like an oil-painting, is more expressive and intelligible\nwhen inspected from a little distance than very close at hand. The\nwhistle signals are seldom necessary, however; never, perhaps, except\nwhen the wind confuses the significant ripples upon the water's surface.\nWhen the yawl has reached the shoal place, the speed is slackened, the\npilot begins to sound the depth with a pole ten or twelve feet long,\nand the steersman at the tiller obeys the order to 'hold her up to\nstarboard;' or, 'let her fall off to larboard;'{footnote [The term\n'larboard' is never used at sea now, to signify the left hand; but was\nalways used on the river in my time]} or 'steady--steady as you go.'\n\nWhen the measurements indicate that the yawl is approaching the shoalest\npart of the reef, the command is given to 'ease all!' Then the men stop\nrowing and the yawl drifts with the current. The next order is, 'Stand\nby with the buoy!' The moment the shallowest point is reached, the pilot\ndelivers the order, 'Let go the buoy!' and over she goes. If the pilot\nis not satisfied, he sounds the place again; if he finds better water\nhigher up or lower down, he removes the buoy to that place. Being\nfinally satisfied, he gives the order, and all the men stand their\noars straight up in the air, in line; a blast from the boat's whistle\nindicates that the signal has been seen; then the men 'give way' on\ntheir oars and lay the yawl alongside the buoy; the steamer comes\ncreeping carefully down, is pointed straight at the buoy, husbands her\npower for the coming struggle, and presently, at the critical moment,\nturns on all her steam and goes grinding and wallowing over the buoy and\nthe sand, and gains the deep water beyond. Or maybe she doesn't; maybe\nshe 'strikes and swings.' Then she has to while away several hours (or\ndays) sparring herself off.\n\nSometimes a buoy is not laid at all, but the yawl goes ahead, hunting\nthe best water, and the steamer follows along in its wake. Often there\nis a deal of fun and excitement about sounding, especially if it is a\nglorious summer day, or a blustering night. But in winter the cold and\nthe peril take most of the fun out of it.\n\nA buoy is nothing but a board four or five feet long, with one end\nturned up; it is a reversed school-house bench, with one of the supports\nleft and the other removed. It is anchored on the shoalest part of the\nreef by a rope with a heavy stone made fast to the end of it. But for\nthe resistance of the turned-up end of the reversed bench, the current\nwould pull the buoy under water. At night, a paper lantern with a candle\nin it is fastened on top of the buoy, and this can be seen a mile or\nmore, a little glimmering spark in the waste of blackness.\n\nNothing delights a cub so much as an opportunity to go out sounding.\nThere is such an air of adventure about it; often there is danger; it is\nso gaudy and man-of-war-like to sit up in the stern-sheets and steer\na swift yawl; there is something fine about the exultant spring of the\nboat when an experienced old sailor crew throw their souls into the\noars; it is lovely to see the white foam stream away from the bows;\nthere is music in the rush of the water; it is deliciously exhilarating,\nin summer, to go speeding over the breezy expanses of the river when the\nworld of wavelets is dancing in the sun. It is such grandeur, too, to\nthe cub, to get a chance to give an order; for often the pilot will\nsimply say, 'Let her go about!' and leave the rest to the cub, who\ninstantly cries, in his sternest tone of command, 'Ease starboard!\nStrong on the larboard! Starboard give way! With a will, men!' The cub\nenjoys sounding for the further reason that the eyes of the passengers\nare watching all the yawl's movements with absorbing interest if the\ntime be daylight; and if it be night he knows that those same wondering\neyes are fastened upon the yawl's lantern as it glides out into the\ngloom and dims away in the remote distance.\n\nOne trip a pretty girl of sixteen spent her time in our pilot-house with\nher uncle and aunt, every day and all day long. I fell in love with her.\nSo did Mr. Thornburg's cub, Tom G----. Tom and I had been bosom friends\nuntil this time; but now a coolness began to arise. I told the girl a\ngood many of my river adventures, and made myself out a good deal of a\nhero; Tom tried to make himself appear to be a hero, too, and succeeded\nto some extent, but then he always had a way of embroidering. However,\nvirtue is its own reward, so I was a barely perceptible trifle ahead\nin the contest. About this time something happened which promised\nhandsomely for me: the pilots decided to sound the crossing at the head\nof 21. This would occur about nine or ten o'clock at night, when\nthe passengers would be still up; it would be Mr. Thornburg's watch,\ntherefore my chief would have to do the sounding. We had a perfect love\nof a sounding-boat--long, trim, graceful, and as fleet as a greyhound;\nher thwarts were cushioned; she carried twelve oarsmen; one of the mates\nwas always sent in her to transmit orders to her crew, for ours was a\nsteamer where no end of 'style' was put on.\n\nWe tied up at the shore above 21, and got ready. It was a foul night,\nand the river was so wide, there, that a landsman's uneducated eyes\ncould discern no opposite shore through such a gloom. The passengers\nwere alert and interested; everything was satisfactory. As I hurried\nthrough the engine-room, picturesquely gotten up in storm toggery, I met\nTom, and could not forbear delivering myself of a mean speech--\n\n'Ain't you glad _you _don't have to go out sounding?'\n\nTom was passing on, but he quickly turned, and said--\n\n'Now just for that, you can go and get the sounding-pole yourself. I was\ngoing after it, but I'd see you in Halifax, now, before I'd do it.'\n\n'Who wants you to get it? I don't. It's in the sounding-boat.'\n\n'It ain't, either. It's been new-painted; and it's been up on the\nladies' cabin guards two days, drying.'\n\nI flew back, and shortly arrived among the crowd of watching and\nwondering ladies just in time to hear the command:\n\n'Give way, men!'\n\nI looked over, and there was the gallant sounding-boat booming away, the\nunprincipled Tom presiding at the tiller, and my chief sitting by him\nwith the sounding-pole which I had been sent on a fool's errand to\nfetch. Then that young girl said to me--\n\n'Oh, how awful to have to go out in that little boat on such a night! Do\nyou think there is any danger?'\n\nI would rather have been stabbed. I went off, full of venom, to help in\nthe pilot-house. By and by the boat's lantern disappeared, and after an\ninterval a wee spark glimmered upon the face of the water a mile away.\nMr. Thornburg blew the whistle, in acknowledgment, backed the steamer\nout, and made for it. We flew along for a while, then slackened steam\nand went cautiously gliding toward the spark. Presently Mr. Thornburg\nexclaimed--\n\n'Hello, the buoy-lantern's out!'\n\nHe stopped the engines. A moment or two later he said--\n\n'Why, there it is again!'\n\nSo he came ahead on the engines once more, and rang for the leads.\nGradually the water shoaled up, and then began to deepen again! Mr.\nThornburg muttered--\n\n'Well, I don't understand this. I believe that buoy has drifted off the\nreef. Seems to be a little too far to the left. No matter, it is safest\nto run over it anyhow.'\n\nSo, in that solid world of darkness we went creeping down on the light.\nJust as our bows were in the act of plowing over it, Mr. Thornburg\nseized the bell-ropes, rang a startling peal, and exclaimed--\n\n'My soul, it's the sounding-boat!'\n\nA sudden chorus of wild alarms burst out far below--a pause--and then\nthe sound of grinding and crashing followed. Mr. Thornburg exclaimed--\n\n'There! the paddle-wheel has ground the sounding-boat to lucifer\nmatches! Run! See who is killed!'\n\nI was on the main deck in the twinkling of an eye. My chief and the\nthird mate and nearly all the men were safe. They had discovered their\ndanger when it was too late to pull out of the way; then, when the great\nguards overshadowed them a moment later, they were prepared and knew\nwhat to do; at my chiefs order they sprang at the right instant, seized\nthe guard, and were hauled aboard. The next moment the sounding-yawl\nswept aft to the wheel and was struck and splintered to atoms. Two of\nthe men and the cub Tom, were missing--a fact which spread like wildfire\nover the boat. The passengers came flocking to the forward gangway,\nladies and all, anxious-eyed, white-faced, and talked in awed voices of\nthe dreadful thing. And often and again I heard them say, 'Poor fellows!\npoor boy, poor boy!'\n\nBy this time the boat's yawl was manned and away, to search for the\nmissing. Now a faint call was heard, off to the left. The yawl had\ndisappeared in the other direction. Half the people rushed to one side\nto encourage the swimmer with their shouts; the other half rushed the\nother way to shriek to the yawl to turn about. By the callings,\nthe swimmer was approaching, but some said the sound showed failing\nstrength. The crowd massed themselves against the boiler-deck railings,\nleaning over and staring into the gloom; and every faint and fainter cry\nwrung from them such words as, 'Ah, poor fellow, poor fellow! is there\nno way to save him?'\n\nBut still the cries held out, and drew nearer, and presently the voice\nsaid pluckily--\n\n'I can make it! Stand by with a rope!'\n\nWhat a rousing cheer they gave him! The chief mate took his stand in the\nglare of a torch-basket, a coil of rope in his hand, and his men grouped\nabout him. The next moment the swimmer's face appeared in the circle of\nlight, and in another one the owner of it was hauled aboard, limp and\ndrenched, while cheer on cheer went up. It was that devil Tom.\n\nThe yawl crew searched everywhere, but found no sign of the two men.\nThey probably failed to catch the guard, tumbled back, and were struck\nby the wheel and killed. Tom had never jumped for the guard at all, but\nhad plunged head-first into the river and dived under the wheel. It was\nnothing; I could have done it easy enough, and I said so; but everybody\nwent on just the same, making a wonderful to do over that ass, as if he\nhad done something great. That girl couldn't seem to have enough of that\npitiful 'hero' the rest of the trip; but little I cared; I loathed her,\nany way.\n\nThe way we came to mistake the sounding-boat's lantern for the\nbuoy-light was this. My chief said that after laying the buoy he fell\naway and watched it till it seemed to be secure; then he took up a\nposition a hundred yards below it and a little to one side of the\nsteamer's course, headed the sounding-boat up-stream, and waited. Having\nto wait some time, he and the officer got to talking; he looked up when\nhe judged that the steamer was about on the reef; saw that the buoy was\ngone, but supposed that the steamer had already run over it; he went\non with his talk; he noticed that the steamer was getting very close on\nhim, but that was the correct thing; it was her business to shave him\nclosely, for convenience in taking him aboard; he was expecting her to\nsheer off, until the last moment; then it flashed upon him that she was\ntrying to run him down, mistaking his lantern for the buoy-light; so he\nsang out, 'Stand by to spring for the guard, men!' and the next instant\nthe jump was made.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 13\n\nA Pilot's Needs\n\nBUT I am wandering from what I was intending to do, that is, make\nplainer than perhaps appears in the previous chapters, some of the\npeculiar requirements of the science of piloting. First of all, there\nis one faculty which a pilot must incessantly cultivate until he has\nbrought it to absolute perfection. Nothing short of perfection will do.\nThat faculty is memory. He cannot stop with merely thinking a thing is\nso and so; he must know it; for this is eminently one of the 'exact'\nsciences. With what scorn a pilot was looked upon, in the old times, if\nhe ever ventured to deal in that feeble phrase 'I think,' instead of the\nvigorous one 'I know!' One cannot easily realize what a tremendous thing\nit is to know every trivial detail of twelve hundred miles of river and\nknow it with absolute exactness. If you will take the longest street\nin New York, and travel up and down it, conning its features patiently\nuntil you know every house and window and door and lamp-post and big and\nlittle sign by heart, and know them so accurately that you can instantly\nname the one you are abreast of when you are set down at random in\nthat street in the middle of an inky black night, you will then have a\ntolerable notion of the amount and the exactness of a pilot's knowledge\nwho carries the Mississippi River in his head. And then if you will\ngo on until you know every street crossing, the character, size, and\nposition of the crossing-stones, and the varying depth of mud in each of\nthose numberless places, you will have some idea of what the pilot must\nknow in order to keep a Mississippi steamer out of trouble. Next, if\nyou will take half of the signs in that long street, and _change their\nplaces_ once a month, and still manage to know their new positions\naccurately on dark nights, and keep up with these repeated changes\nwithout making any mistakes, you will understand what is required of a\npilot's peerless memory by the fickle Mississippi.\n\nI think a pilot's memory is about the most wonderful thing in the world.\nTo know the Old and New Testaments by heart, and be able to recite them\nglibly, forward or backward, or begin at random anywhere in the book\nand recite both ways and never trip or make a mistake, is no extravagant\nmass of knowledge, and no marvelous facility, compared to a pilot's\nmassed knowledge of the Mississippi and his marvelous facility in the\nhandling of it. I make this comparison deliberately, and believe I am\nnot expanding the truth when I do it. Many will think my figure too\nstrong, but pilots will not.\n\nAnd how easily and comfortably the pilot's memory does its work; how\nplacidly effortless is its way; how _unconsciously _it lays up its vast\nstores, hour by hour, day by day, and never loses or mislays a single\nvaluable package of them all! Take an instance. Let a leadsman cry,\n'Half twain! half twain! half twain! half twain! half twain!' until\nit become as monotonous as the ticking of a clock; let conversation be\ngoing on all the time, and the pilot be doing his share of the talking,\nand no longer consciously listening to the leadsman; and in the midst\nof this endless string of half twains let a single 'quarter twain!' be\ninterjected, without emphasis, and then the half twain cry go on again,\njust as before: two or three weeks later that pilot can describe with\nprecision the boat's position in the river when that quarter twain\nwas uttered, and give you such a lot of head-marks, stern-marks, and\nside-marks to guide you, that you ought to be able to take the boat\nthere and put her in that same spot again yourself! The cry of 'quarter\ntwain' did not really take his mind from his talk, but his trained\nfaculties instantly photographed the bearings, noted the change of\ndepth, and laid up the important details for future reference without\nrequiring any assistance from him in the matter. If you were walking\nand talking with a friend, and another friend at your side kept up a\nmonotonous repetition of the vowel sound A, for a couple of blocks, and\nthen in the midst interjected an R, thus, A, A, A, A, A, R, A, A, A,\netc., and gave the R no emphasis, you would not be able to state, two or\nthree weeks afterward, that the R had been put in, nor be able to tell\nwhat objects you were passing at the moment it was done. But you could\nif your memory had been patiently and laboriously trained to do that\nsort of thing mechanically.\n\nGive a man a tolerably fair memory to start with, and piloting will\ndevelop it into a very colossus of capability. But _only in the matters\nit is daily drilled in_. A time would come when the man's faculties\ncould not help noticing landmarks and soundings, and his memory could\nnot help holding on to them with the grip of a vise; but if you asked\nthat same man at noon what he had had for breakfast, it would be ten\nchances to one that he could not tell you. Astonishing things can be\ndone with the human memory if you will devote it faithfully to one\nparticular line of business.\n\nAt the time that wages soared so high on the Missouri River, my chief,\nMr. Bixby, went up there and learned more than a thousand miles of that\nstream with an ease and rapidity that were astonishing. When he had seen\neach division once in the daytime and once at night, his education was\nso nearly complete that he took out a 'daylight' license; a few\ntrips later he took out a full license, and went to piloting day and\nnight--and he ranked A 1, too.\n\nMr. Bixby placed me as steersman for a while under a pilot whose feats\nof memory were a constant marvel to me. However, his memory was born in\nhim, I think, not built. For instance, somebody would mention a name.\nInstantly Mr. Brown would break in--\n\n'Oh, I knew _him_. Sallow-faced, red-headed fellow, with a little scar\non the side of his throat, like a splinter under the flesh. He was only\nin the Southern trade six months. That was thirteen years ago. I made a\ntrip with him. There was five feet in the upper river then; the \"Henry\nBlake\" grounded at the foot of Tower Island drawing four and a half; the\n\"George Elliott\" unshipped her rudder on the wreck of the \"Sunflower\"--'\n\n'Why, the \"Sunflower\" didn't sink until--'\n\n'I know when she sunk; it was three years before that, on the 2nd of\nDecember; Asa Hardy was captain of her, and his brother John was first\nclerk; and it was his first trip in her, too; Tom Jones told me these\nthings a week afterward in New Orleans; he was first mate of the\n\"Sunflower.\" Captain Hardy stuck a nail in his foot the 6th of July of\nthe next year, and died of the lockjaw on the 15th. His brother died\ntwo years after 3rd of March,--erysipelas. I never saw either of the\nHardys,--they were Alleghany River men,--but people who knew them told\nme all these things. And they said Captain Hardy wore yarn socks winter\nand summer just the same, and his first wife's name was Jane Shook--she\nwas from New England--and his second one died in a lunatic asylum. It\nwas in the blood. She was from Lexington, Kentucky. Name was Horton\nbefore she was married.'\n\nAnd so on, by the hour, the man's tongue would go. He could _not _forget\nany thing. It was simply impossible. The most trivial details remained\nas distinct and luminous in his head, after they had lain there for\nyears, as the most memorable events. His was not simply a pilot's\nmemory; its grasp was universal. If he were talking about a trifling\nletter he had received seven years before, he was pretty sure to deliver\nyou the entire screed from memory. And then without observing that he\nwas departing from the true line of his talk, he was more than likely\nto hurl in a long-drawn parenthetical biography of the writer of that\nletter; and you were lucky indeed if he did not take up that writer's\nrelatives, one by one, and give you their biographies, too.\n\nSuch a memory as that is a great misfortune. To it, all occurrences\nare of the same size. Its possessor cannot distinguish an interesting\ncircumstance from an uninteresting one. As a talker, he is bound to clog\nhis narrative with tiresome details and make himself an insufferable\nbore. Moreover, he cannot stick to his subject. He picks up every little\ngrain of memory he discerns in his way, and so is led aside. Mr. Brown\nwould start out with the honest intention of telling you a vastly funny\nanecdote about a dog. He would be 'so full of laugh' that he could\nhardly begin; then his memory would start with the dog's breed and\npersonal appearance; drift into a history of his owner; of his owner's\nfamily, with descriptions of weddings and burials that had occurred in\nit, together with recitals of congratulatory verses and obituary poetry\nprovoked by the same: then this memory would recollect that one of these\nevents occurred during the celebrated 'hard winter' of such and such a\nyear, and a minute description of that winter would follow, along with\nthe names of people who were frozen to death, and statistics showing the\nhigh figures which pork and hay went up to. Pork and hay would suggest\ncorn and fodder; corn and fodder would suggest cows and horses; cows and\nhorses would suggest the circus and certain celebrated bare-back riders;\nthe transition from the circus to the menagerie was easy and natural;\nfrom the elephant to equatorial Africa was but a step; then of course\nthe heathen savages would suggest religion; and at the end of three or\nfour hours' tedious jaw, the watch would change, and Brown would go out\nof the pilot-house muttering extracts from sermons he had heard years\nbefore about the efficacy of prayer as a means of grace. And the\noriginal first mention would be all you had learned about that dog,\nafter all this waiting and hungering.\n\nA pilot must have a memory; but there are two higher qualities which he\nmust also have. He must have good and quick judgment and decision, and a\ncool, calm courage that no peril can shake. Give a man the merest trifle\nof pluck to start with, and by the time he has become a pilot he cannot\nbe unmanned by any danger a steamboat can get into; but one cannot quite\nsay the same for judgment. Judgment is a matter of brains, and a man\nmust _start _with a good stock of that article or he will never succeed\nas a pilot.\n\nThe growth of courage in the pilot-house is steady all the time, but it\ndoes not reach a high and satisfactory condition until some time after\nthe young pilot has been 'standing his own watch,' alone and under\nthe staggering weight of all the responsibilities connected with the\nposition. When an apprentice has become pretty thoroughly acquainted\nwith the river, he goes clattering along so fearlessly with his\nsteamboat, night or day, that he presently begins to imagine that it is\n_his _courage that animates him; but the first time the pilot steps out\nand leaves him to his own devices he finds out it was the other man's.\nHe discovers that the article has been left out of his own cargo\naltogether. The whole river is bristling with exigencies in a moment;\nhe is not prepared for them; he does not know how to meet them; all his\nknowledge forsakes him; and within fifteen minutes he is as white as a\nsheet and scared almost to death. Therefore pilots wisely train these\ncubs by various strategic tricks to look danger in the face a little\nmore calmly. A favorite way of theirs is to play a friendly swindle upon\nthe candidate.\n\nMr. Bixby served me in this fashion once, and for years afterward I\nused to blush even in my sleep when I thought of it. I had become a good\nsteersman; so good, indeed, that I had all the work to do on our watch,\nnight and day; Mr. Bixby seldom made a suggestion to me; all he ever did\nwas to take the wheel on particularly bad nights or in particularly bad\ncrossings, land the boat when she needed to be landed, play gentleman of\nleisure nine-tenths of the watch, and collect the wages. The lower river\nwas about bank-full, and if anybody had questioned my ability to run any\ncrossing between Cairo and New Orleans without help or instruction,\nI should have felt irreparably hurt. The idea of being afraid of any\ncrossing in the lot, in the _day-time_, was a thing too preposterous for\ncontemplation. Well, one matchless summer's day I was bowling down the\nbend above island 66, brimful of self-conceit and carrying my nose as\nhigh as a giraffe's, when Mr. Bixby said--\n\n'I am going below a while. I suppose you know the next crossing?'\n\nThis was almost an affront. It was about the plainest and simplest\ncrossing in the whole river. One couldn't come to any harm, whether he\nran it right or not; and as for depth, there never had been any bottom\nthere. I knew all this, perfectly well.\n\n'Know how to _run _it? Why, I can run it with my eyes shut.'\n\n'How much water is there in it?'\n\n'Well, that is an odd question. I couldn't get bottom there with a\nchurch steeple.'\n\n'You think so, do you?'\n\nThe very tone of the question shook my confidence. That was what Mr.\nBixby was expecting. He left, without saying anything more. I began to\nimagine all sorts of things. Mr. Bixby, unknown to me, of course, sent\nsomebody down to the forecastle with some mysterious instructions to the\nleadsmen, another messenger was sent to whisper among the officers,\nand then Mr. Bixby went into hiding behind a smoke-stack where he could\nobserve results. Presently the captain stepped out on the hurricane\ndeck; next the chief mate appeared; then a clerk. Every moment or two a\nstraggler was added to my audience; and before I got to the head of\nthe island I had fifteen or twenty people assembled down there under my\nnose. I began to wonder what the trouble was. As I started across, the\ncaptain glanced aloft at me and said, with a sham uneasiness in his\nvoice--\n\n'Where is Mr. Bixby?'\n\n'Gone below, sir.'\n\nBut that did the business for me. My imagination began to construct\ndangers out of nothing, and they multiplied faster than I could keep the\nrun of them. All at once I imagined I saw shoal water ahead! The wave\nof coward agony that surged through me then came near dislocating every\njoint in me. All my confidence in that crossing vanished. I seized the\nbell-rope; dropped it, ashamed; seized it again; dropped it once more;\nclutched it tremblingly one again, and pulled it so feebly that I could\nhardly hear the stroke myself. Captain and mate sang out instantly, and\nboth together--\n\n'Starboard lead there! and quick about it!'\n\nThis was another shock. I began to climb the wheel like a squirrel;\nbut I would hardly get the boat started to port before I would see new\ndangers on that side, and away I would spin to the other; only to find\nperils accumulating to starboard, and be crazy to get to port again.\nThen came the leadsman's sepulchral cry--\n\n'D-e-e-p four!'\n\nDeep four in a bottomless crossing! The terror of it took my breath\naway.\n\n'M-a-r-k three!... M-a-r-k three... Quarter less three!... Half twain!'\n\nThis was frightful! I seized the bell-ropes and stopped the engines.\n\n'Quarter twain! Quarter twain! _Mark _twain!'\n\nI was helpless. I did not know what in the world to do. I was quaking\nfrom head to foot, and I could have hung my hat on my eyes, they stuck\nout so far.\n\n'Quarter _less _twain! Nine and a _half_!'\n\nWe were _drawing _nine! My hands were in a nerveless flutter. I could\nnot ring a bell intelligibly with them. I flew to the speaking-tube and\nshouted to the engineer--\n\n'Oh, Ben, if you love me, _back _her! Quick, Ben! Oh, back the immortal\n_soul_ out of her!'\n\nI heard the door close gently. I looked around, and there stood Mr.\nBixby, smiling a bland, sweet smile. Then the audience on the hurricane\ndeck sent up a thundergust of humiliating laughter. I saw it all, now,\nand I felt meaner than the meanest man in human history. I laid in the\nlead, set the boat in her marks, came ahead on the engines, and said--\n\n'It was a fine trick to play on an orphan, _wasn't_ it? I suppose I'll\nnever hear the last of how I was ass enough to heave the lead at the\nhead of 66.'\n\n'Well, no, you won't, maybe. In fact I hope you won't; for I want you\nto learn something by that experience. Didn't you _know _there was no\nbottom in that crossing?'\n\n'Yes, sir, I did.'\n\n'Very well, then. You shouldn't have allowed me or anybody else to shake\nyour confidence in that knowledge. Try to remember that. And another\nthing: when you get into a dangerous place, don't turn coward. That\nisn't going to help matters any.'\n\nIt was a good enough lesson, but pretty hardly learned. Yet about the\nhardest part of it was that for months I so often had to hear a phrase\nwhich I had conceived a particular distaste for. It was, 'Oh, Ben, if\nyou love me, back her!'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 14\n\nRank and Dignity of Piloting\n\nIN my preceding chapters I have tried, by going into the minutiae of the\nscience of piloting, to carry the reader step by step to a comprehension\nof what the science consists of; and at the same time I have tried to\nshow him that it is a very curious and wonderful science, too, and very\nworthy of his attention. If I have seemed to love my subject, it is no\nsurprising thing, for I loved the profession far better than any I have\nfollowed since, and I took a measureless pride in it. The reason is\nplain: a pilot, in those days, was the only unfettered and entirely\nindependent human being that lived in the earth. Kings are but the\nhampered servants of parliament and people; parliaments sit in chains\nforged by their constituency; the editor of a newspaper cannot be\nindependent, but must work with one hand tied behind him by party and\npatrons, and be content to utter only half or two-thirds of his mind; no\nclergyman is a free man and may speak the whole truth, regardless of\nhis parish's opinions; writers of all kinds are manacled servants of the\npublic. We write frankly and fearlessly, but then we 'modify' before we\nprint. In truth, every man and woman and child has a master, and worries\nand frets in servitude; but in the day I write of, the Mississippi pilot\nhad none. The captain could stand upon the hurricane deck, in the pomp\nof a very brief authority, and give him five or six orders while the\nvessel backed into the stream, and then that skipper's reign was over.\n\nThe moment that the boat was under way in the river, she was under the\nsole and unquestioned control of the pilot. He could do with her exactly\nas he pleased, run her when and whither he chose, and tie her up to the\nbank whenever his judgment said that that course was best. His movements\nwere entirely free; he consulted no one, he received commands from\nnobody, he promptly resented even the merest suggestions. Indeed,\nthe law of the United States forbade him to listen to commands or\nsuggestions, rightly considering that the pilot necessarily knew better\nhow to handle the boat than anybody could tell him. So here was the\nnovelty of a king without a keeper, an absolute monarch who was absolute\nin sober truth and not by a fiction of words. I have seen a boy of\neighteen taking a great steamer serenely into what seemed almost certain\ndestruction, and the aged captain standing mutely by, filled with\napprehension but powerless to interfere. His interference, in that\nparticular instance, might have been an excellent thing, but to permit\nit would have been to establish a most pernicious precedent. It will\neasily be guessed, considering the pilot's boundless authority, that he\nwas a great personage in the old steamboating days. He was treated with\nmarked courtesy by the captain and with marked deference by all\nthe officers and servants; and this deferential spirit was quickly\ncommunicated to the passengers, too. I think pilots were about the only\npeople I ever knew who failed to show, in some degree, embarrassment in\nthe presence of traveling foreign princes. But then, people in one's own\ngrade of life are not usually embarrassing objects.\n\nBy long habit, pilots came to put all their wishes in the form of\ncommands. It 'gravels' me, to this day, to put my will in the weak shape\nof a request, instead of launching it in the crisp language of an order.\nIn those old days, to load a steamboat at St. Louis, take her to New\nOrleans and back, and discharge cargo, consumed about twenty-five\ndays, on an average. Seven or eight of these days the boat spent at the\nwharves of St. Louis and New Orleans, and every soul on board was hard\nat work, except the two pilots; they did nothing but play gentleman up\ntown, and receive the same wages for it as if they had been on duty. The\nmoment the boat touched the wharf at either city, they were ashore; and\nthey were not likely to be seen again till the last bell was ringing and\neverything in readiness for another voyage.\n\nWhen a captain got hold of a pilot of particularly high reputation, he\ntook pains to keep him. When wages were four hundred dollars a month on\nthe Upper Mississippi, I have known a captain to keep such a pilot in\nidleness, under full pay, three months at a time, while the river was\nfrozen up. And one must remember that in those cheap times four hundred\ndollars was a salary of almost inconceivable splendor. Few men on shore\ngot such pay as that, and when they did they were mightily looked up\nto. When pilots from either end of the river wandered into our small\nMissouri village, they were sought by the best and the fairest, and\ntreated with exalted respect. Lying in port under wages was a thing\nwhich many pilots greatly enjoyed and appreciated; especially if they\nbelonged in the Missouri River in the heyday of that trade (Kansas\ntimes), and got nine hundred dollars a trip, which was equivalent to\nabout eighteen hundred dollars a month. Here is a conversation of that\nday. A chap out of the Illinois River, with a little stern-wheel tub,\naccosts a couple of ornate and gilded Missouri River pilots--\n\n'Gentlemen, I've got a pretty good trip for the upcountry, and shall\nwant you about a month. How much will it be?'\n\n'Eighteen hundred dollars apiece.'\n\n'Heavens and earth! You take my boat, let me have your wages, and I'll\ndivide!'\n\nI will remark, in passing, that Mississippi steamboatmen were important\nin landsmen's eyes (and in their own, too, in a degree) according to the\ndignity of the boat they were on. For instance, it was a proud thing to\nbe of the crew of such stately craft as the 'Aleck Scott' or the 'Grand\nTurk.' Negro firemen, deck hands, and barbers belonging to those boats\nwere distinguished personages in their grade of life, and they were well\naware of that fact too. A stalwart darkey once gave offense at a negro\nball in New Orleans by putting on a good many airs. Finally one of the\nmanagers bustled up to him and said--\n\n'Who _is_ you, any way? Who is you? dat's what I wants to know!'\n\nThe offender was not disconcerted in the least, but swelled himself\nup and threw that into his voice which showed that he knew he was not\nputting on all those airs on a stinted capital.\n\n'Who _is_ I? Who _is _I? I let you know mighty quick who I is! I want\nyou niggers to understan' dat I fires de middle do'{footnote [Door]} on\nde \"Aleck Scott!\"'\n\nThat was sufficient.\n\nThe barber of the 'Grand Turk' was a spruce young negro, who aired his\nimportance with balmy complacency, and was greatly courted by the circle\nin which he moved. The young colored population of New Orleans were much\ngiven to flirting, at twilight, on the banquettes of the back streets.\nSomebody saw and heard something like the following, one evening, in\none of those localities. A middle-aged negro woman projected her head\nthrough a broken pane and shouted (very willing that the neighbors\nshould hear and envy), 'You Mary Ann, come in de house dis minute!\nStannin' out dah foolin' 'long wid dat low trash, an' heah's de barber\noffn de \"Gran' Turk\" wants to conwerse wid you!'\n\nMy reference, a moment ago, to the fact that a pilot's peculiar official\nposition placed him out of the reach of criticism or command, brings\nStephen W---- naturally to my mind. He was a gifted pilot, a good\nfellow, a tireless talker, and had both wit and humor in him. He had a\nmost irreverent independence, too, and was deliciously easy-going and\ncomfortable in the presence of age, official dignity, and even the most\naugust wealth. He always had work, he never saved a penny, he was a most\npersuasive borrower, he was in debt to every pilot on the river, and to\nthe majority of the captains. He could throw a sort of splendor around\na bit of harum-scarum, devil-may-care piloting, that made it almost\nfascinating--but not to everybody. He made a trip with good old Captain\nY----once, and was 'relieved' from duty when the boat got to New\nOrleans. Somebody expressed surprise at the discharge. Captain Y----\nshuddered at the mere mention of Stephen. Then his poor, thin old voice\npiped out something like this:--\n\n'Why, bless me! I wouldn't have such a wild creature on my boat for the\nworld--not for the whole world! He swears, he sings, he whistles, he\nyells--I never saw such an Injun to yell. All times of the night--it\nnever made any difference to him. He would just yell that way, not for\nanything in particular, but merely on account of a kind of devilish\ncomfort he got out of it. I never could get into a sound sleep but\nhe would fetch me out of bed, all in a cold sweat, with one of those\ndreadful war-whoops. A queer being--very queer being; no respect for\nanything or anybody. Sometimes he called me \"Johnny.\" And he kept a\nfiddle, and a cat. He played execrably. This seemed to distress the cat,\nand so the cat would howl. Nobody could sleep where that man--and his\nfamily--was. And reckless. There never was anything like it. Now you may\nbelieve it or not, but as sure as I am sitting here, he brought my boat\na-tilting down through those awful snags at Chicot under a rattling\nhead of steam, and the wind a-blowing like the very nation, at that! My\nofficers will tell you so. They saw it. And, sir, while he was a-tearing\nright down through those snags, and I a-shaking in my shoes and praying,\nI wish I may never speak again if he didn't pucker up his mouth and go\nto _whistling_! Yes, sir; whistling \"Buffalo gals, can't you come out\ntonight, can't you come out to-night, can't you come out to-night;\" and\ndoing it as calmly as if we were attending a funeral and weren't related\nto the corpse. And when I remonstrated with him about it, he smiled down\non me as if I was his child, and told me to run in the house and try to\nbe good, and not be meddling with my superiors!'\n\nOnce a pretty mean captain caught Stephen in New Orleans out of work\nand as usual out of money. He laid steady siege to Stephen, who was in\na very 'close place,' and finally persuaded him to hire with him at one\nhundred and twenty-five dollars per month, just half wages, the captain\nagreeing not to divulge the secret and so bring down the contempt of all\nthe guild upon the poor fellow. But the boat was not more than a day out\nof New Orleans before Stephen discovered that the captain was boasting\nof his exploit, and that all the officers had been told. Stephen winced,\nbut said nothing. About the middle of the afternoon the captain stepped\nout on the hurricane deck, cast his eye around, and looked a good deal\nsurprised. He glanced inquiringly aloft at Stephen, but Stephen was\nwhistling placidly, and attending to business. The captain stood around\na while in evident discomfort, and once or twice seemed about to make a\nsuggestion; but the etiquette of the river taught him to avoid that sort\nof rashness, and so he managed to hold his peace. He chafed and puzzled\na few minutes longer, then retired to his apartments. But soon he\nwas out again, and apparently more perplexed than ever. Presently he\nventured to remark, with deference--\n\n'Pretty good stage of the river now, ain't it, sir?'\n\n'Well, I should say so! Bank-full _is_ a pretty liberal stage.'\n\n'Seems to be a good deal of current here.'\n\n'Good deal don't describe it! It's worse than a mill-race.'\n\n'Isn't it easier in toward shore than it is out here in the middle?'\n\n'Yes, I reckon it is; but a body can't be too careful with a steamboat.\nIt's pretty safe out here; can't strike any bottom here, you can depend\non that.'\n\nThe captain departed, looking rueful enough. At this rate, he would\nprobably die of old age before his boat got to St. Louis. Next day he\nappeared on deck and again found Stephen faithfully standing up the\nmiddle of the river, fighting the whole vast force of the Mississippi,\nand whistling the same placid tune. This thing was becoming serious.\nIn by the shore was a slower boat clipping along in the easy water and\ngaining steadily; she began to make for an island chute; Stephen stuck\nto the middle of the river. Speech was _wrung _from the captain. He\nsaid--\n\n'Mr. W----, don't that chute cut off a good deal of distance?'\n\n'I think it does, but I don't know.'\n\n'Don't know! Well, isn't there water enough in it now to go through?'\n\n'I expect there is, but I am not certain.'\n\n'Upon my word this is odd! Why, those pilots on that boat yonder are\ngoing to try it. Do you mean to say that you don't know as much as they\ndo?'\n\n'_They_! Why, _they _are two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar pilots! But\ndon't you be uneasy; I know as much as any man can afford to know for a\nhundred and twenty-five!'\n\nThe captain surrendered.\n\nFive minutes later Stephen was bowling through the chute and showing the\nrival boat a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar pair of heels.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 15\n\nThe Pilots' Monopoly\n\nONE day, on board the 'Aleck Scott,' my chief, Mr. Bixby, was crawling\ncarefully through a close place at Cat Island, both leads going, and\neverybody holding his breath. The captain, a nervous, apprehensive man,\nkept still as long as he could, but finally broke down and shouted from\nthe hurricane deck--\n\n'For gracious' sake, give her steam, Mr. Bixby! give her steam! She'll\nnever raise the reef on this headway!'\n\nFor all the effect that was produced upon Mr. Bixby, one would have\nsupposed that no remark had been made. But five minutes later, when\nthe danger was past and the leads laid in, he burst instantly into a\nconsuming fury, and gave the captain the most admirable cursing I ever\nlistened to. No bloodshed ensued; but that was because the captain's\ncause was weak; for ordinarily he was not a man to take correction\nquietly.\n\nHaving now set forth in detail the nature of the science of piloting,\nand likewise described the rank which the pilot held among the\nfraternity of steamboatmen, this seems a fitting place to say a few\nwords about an organization which the pilots once formed for the\nprotection of their guild. It was curious and noteworthy in this,\nthat it was perhaps the compactest, the completest, and the strongest\ncommercial organization ever formed among men.\n\nFor a long time wages had been two hundred and fifty dollars a month;\nbut curiously enough, as steamboats multiplied and business increased,\nthe wages began to fall little by little. It was easy to discover the\nreason of this. Too many pilots were being 'made.' It was nice to have\na 'cub,' a steersman, to do all the hard work for a couple of years,\ngratis, while his master sat on a high bench and smoked; all pilots and\ncaptains had sons or nephews who wanted to be pilots. By and by it came\nto pass that nearly every pilot on the river had a steersman. When a\nsteersman had made an amount of progress that was satisfactory to any\ntwo pilots in the trade, they could get a pilot's license for him by\nsigning an application directed to the United States Inspector. Nothing\nfurther was needed; usually no questions were asked, no proofs of\ncapacity required.\n\nVery well, this growing swarm of new pilots presently began to undermine\nthe wages, in order to get berths. Too late--apparently--the knights of\nthe tiller perceived their mistake. Plainly, something had to be done,\nand quickly; but what was to be the needful thing. A close organization.\nNothing else would answer. To compass this seemed an impossibility; so\nit was talked, and talked, and then dropped. It was too likely to ruin\nwhoever ventured to move in the matter. But at last about a dozen of\nthe boldest--and some of them the best--pilots on the river launched\nthemselves into the enterprise and took all the chances. They got a\nspecial charter from the legislature, with large powers, under the name\nof the Pilots' Benevolent Association; elected their officers, completed\ntheir organization, contributed capital, put 'association' wages up to\ntwo hundred and fifty dollars at once--and then retired to their homes,\nfor they were promptly discharged from employment. But there were two\nor three unnoticed trifles in their by-laws which had the seeds of\npropagation in them. For instance, all idle members of the association,\nin good standing, were entitled to a pension of twenty-five dollars per\nmonth. This began to bring in one straggler after another from the ranks\nof the new-fledged pilots, in the dull (summer) season. Better have\ntwenty-five dollars than starve; the initiation fee was only twelve\ndollars, and no dues required from the unemployed.\n\nAlso, the widows of deceased members in good standing could draw\ntwenty-five dollars per month, and a certain sum for each of their\nchildren. Also, the said deceased would be buried at the association's\nexpense. These things resurrected all the superannuated and forgotten\npilots in the Mississippi Valley. They came from farms, they came from\ninterior villages, they came from everywhere. They came on crutches, on\ndrays, in ambulances,--any way, so they got there. They paid in their\ntwelve dollars, and straightway began to draw out twenty-five dollars a\nmonth, and calculate their burial bills.\n\nBy and by, all the useless, helpless pilots, and a dozen first-class\nones, were in the association, and nine-tenths of the best pilots out\nof it and laughing at it. It was the laughing-stock of the whole river.\nEverybody joked about the by-law requiring members to pay ten per cent.\nof their wages, every month, into the treasury for the support of the\nassociation, whereas all the members were outcast and tabooed, and\nno one would employ them. Everybody was derisively grateful to the\nassociation for taking all the worthless pilots out of the way and\nleaving the whole field to the excellent and the deserving; and\neverybody was not only jocularly grateful for that, but for a result\nwhich naturally followed, namely, the gradual advance of wages as the\nbusy season approached. Wages had gone up from the low figure of one\nhundred dollars a month to one hundred and twenty-five, and in some\ncases to one hundred and fifty; and it was great fun to enlarge upon the\nfact that this charming thing had been accomplished by a body of men not\none of whom received a particle of benefit from it. Some of the jokers\nused to call at the association rooms and have a good time chaffing the\nmembers and offering them the charity of taking them as steersmen for\na trip, so that they could see what the forgotten river looked like.\nHowever, the association was content; or at least it gave no sign to the\ncontrary. Now and then it captured a pilot who was 'out of luck,' and\nadded him to its list; and these later additions were very valuable,\nfor they were good pilots; the incompetent ones had all been absorbed\nbefore. As business freshened, wages climbed gradually up to two hundred\nand fifty dollars--the association figure--and became firmly fixed\nthere; and still without benefiting a member of that body, for no member\nwas hired. The hilarity at the association's expense burst all bounds,\nnow. There was no end to the fun which that poor martyr had to put up\nwith.\n\nHowever, it is a long lane that has no turning. Winter approached,\nbusiness doubled and trebled, and an avalanche of Missouri, Illinois and\nUpper Mississippi River boats came pouring down to take a chance in the\nNew Orleans trade. All of a sudden pilots were in great demand, and were\ncorrespondingly scarce. The time for revenge was come. It was a bitter\npill to have to accept association pilots at last, yet captains and\nowners agreed that there was no other way. But none of these outcasts\noffered! So there was a still bitterer pill to be swallowed: they must\nbe sought out and asked for their services. Captain ---- was the first\nman who found it necessary to take the dose, and he had been the\nloudest derider of the organization. He hunted up one of the best of the\nassociation pilots and said--\n\n'Well, you boys have rather got the best of us for a little while, so\nI'll give in with as good a grace as I can. I've come to hire you; get\nyour trunk aboard right away. I want to leave at twelve o'clock.'\n\n'I don't know about that. Who is your other pilot?'\n\n'I've got I. S----. Why?'\n\n'I can't go with him. He don't belong to the association.'\n\n'What!'\n\n'It's so.'\n\n'Do you mean to tell me that you won't turn a wheel with one of the\nvery best and oldest pilots on the river because he don't belong to your\nassociation?'\n\n'Yes, I do.'\n\n'Well, if this isn't putting on airs! I supposed I was doing you a\nbenevolence; but I begin to think that I am the party that wants a favor\ndone. Are you acting under a law of the concern?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'Show it to me.'\n\nSo they stepped into the association rooms, and the secretary soon\nsatisfied the captain, who said--\n\n'Well, what am I to do? I have hired Mr. S---- for the entire season.'\n\n'I will provide for you,' said the secretary. 'I will detail a pilot to\ngo with you, and he shall be on board at twelve o'clock.'\n\n'But if I discharge S----, he will come on me for the whole season's\nwages.'\n\n'Of course that is a matter between you and Mr. S----, captain. We\ncannot meddle in your private affairs.'\n\nThe captain stormed, but to no purpose. In the end he had to discharge\nS----, pay him about a thousand dollars, and take an association pilot\nin his place. The laugh was beginning to turn the other way now. Every\nday, thenceforward, a new victim fell; every day some outraged captain\ndischarged a non-association pet, with tears and profanity, and\ninstalled a hated association man in his berth. In a very little while,\nidle non-associationists began to be pretty plenty, brisk as business\nwas, and much as their services were desired. The laugh was shifting to\nthe other side of their mouths most palpably. These victims, together\nwith the captains and owners, presently ceased to laugh altogether,\nand began to rage about the revenge they would take when the passing\nbusiness 'spurt' was over.\n\nSoon all the laughers that were left were the owners and crews of boats\nthat had two non-association pilots. But their triumph was not very\nlong-lived. For this reason: It was a rigid rule of the association\nthat its members should never, under any circumstances whatever, give\ninformation about the channel to any 'outsider.' By this time about half\nthe boats had none but association pilots, and the other half had none\nbut outsiders. At the first glance one would suppose that when it came\nto forbidding information about the river these two parties could play\nequally at that game; but this was not so. At every good-sized town from\none end of the river to the other, there was a 'wharf-boat' to land\nat, instead of a wharf or a pier. Freight was stored in it for\ntransportation; waiting passengers slept in its cabins. Upon each\nof these wharf-boats the association's officers placed a strong box\nfastened with a peculiar lock which was used in no other service but\none--the United States mail service. It was the letter-bag lock, a\nsacred governmental thing. By dint of much beseeching the government\nhad been persuaded to allow the association to use this lock. Every\nassociation man carried a key which would open these boxes. That key, or\nrather a peculiar way of holding it in the hand when its owner was asked\nfor river information by a stranger--for the success of the St. Louis\nand New Orleans association had now bred tolerably thriving branches in\na dozen neighboring steamboat trades--was the association man's sign and\ndiploma of membership; and if the stranger did not respond by producing\na similar key and holding it in a certain manner duly prescribed, his\nquestion was politely ignored.\n\nFrom the association's secretary each member received a package of more\nor less gorgeous blanks, printed like a billhead, on handsome paper,\nproperly ruled in columns; a bill-head worded something like this--\n\nThese blanks were filled up, day by day, as the voyage progressed, and\ndeposited in the several wharf-boat boxes. For instance, as soon as the\nfirst crossing, out from St. Louis, was completed, the items would be\nentered upon the blank, under the appropriate headings, thus--\n\n'St. Louis. Nine and a half (feet). Stern on court-house, head on dead\ncottonwood above wood-yard, until you raise the first reef, then pull up\nsquare.' Then under head of Remarks: 'Go just outside the wrecks; this\nis important. New snag just where you straighten down; go above it.'\n\nThe pilot who deposited that blank in the Cairo box (after adding to it\nthe details of every crossing all the way down from St. Louis) took\nout and read half a dozen fresh reports (from upward-bound steamers)\nconcerning the river between Cairo and Memphis, posted himself\nthoroughly, returned them to the box, and went back aboard his boat\nagain so armed against accident that he could not possibly get his boat\ninto trouble without bringing the most ingenious carelessness to his\naid.\n\nImagine the benefits of so admirable a system in a piece of river twelve\nor thirteen hundred miles long, whose channel was shifting every day!\nThe pilot who had formerly been obliged to put up with seeing a shoal\nplace once or possibly twice a month, had a hundred sharp eyes to watch\nit for him, now, and bushels of intelligent brains to tell him how to\nrun it. His information about it was seldom twenty-four hours old. If\nthe reports in the last box chanced to leave any misgivings on his\nmind concerning a treacherous crossing, he had his remedy; he blew his\nsteam-whistle in a peculiar way as soon as he saw a boat approaching;\nthe signal was answered in a peculiar way if that boat's pilots were\nassociation men; and then the two steamers ranged alongside and all\nuncertainties were swept away by fresh information furnished to the\ninquirer by word of mouth and in minute detail.\n\nThe first thing a pilot did when he reached New Orleans or St. Louis was\nto take his final and elaborate report to the association parlors and\nhang it up there,--after which he was free to visit his family. In these\nparlors a crowd was always gathered together, discussing changes in the\nchannel, and the moment there was a fresh arrival, everybody stopped\ntalking till this witness had told the newest news and settled the\nlatest uncertainty. Other craftsmen can 'sink the shop,' sometimes,\nand interest themselves in other matters. Not so with a pilot; he must\ndevote himself wholly to his profession and talk of nothing else; for it\nwould be small gain to be perfect one day and imperfect the next. He has\nno time or words to waste if he would keep 'posted.'\n\nBut the outsiders had a hard time of it. No particular place to meet\nand exchange information, no wharf-boat reports, none but chance and\nunsatisfactory ways of getting news. The consequence was that a man\nsometimes had to run five hundred miles of river on information that\nwas a week or ten days old. At a fair stage of the river that might have\nanswered; but when the dead low water came it was destructive.\n\nNow came another perfectly logical result. The outsiders began to\nground steamboats, sink them, and get into all sorts of trouble,\nwhereas accidents seemed to keep entirely away from the association men.\nWherefore even the owners and captains of boats furnished exclusively\nwith outsiders, and previously considered to be wholly independent of\nthe association and free to comfort themselves with brag and laughter,\nbegan to feel pretty uncomfortable. Still, they made a show of keeping\nup the brag, until one black day when every captain of the lot was\nformally ordered to immediately discharge his outsiders and take\nassociation pilots in their stead. And who was it that had the dashing\npresumption to do that? Alas, it came from a power behind the throne\nthat was greater than the throne itself. It was the underwriters!\n\nIt was no time to 'swap knives.' Every outsider had to take his trunk\nashore at once. Of course it was supposed that there was collusion\nbetween the association and the underwriters, but this was not so. The\nlatter had come to comprehend the excellence of the 'report' system of\nthe association and the safety it secured, and so they had made their\ndecision among themselves and upon plain business principles.\n\nThere was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in the camp of\nthe outsiders now. But no matter, there was but one course for them to\npursue, and they pursued it. They came forward in couples and groups,\nand proffered their twelve dollars and asked for membership. They were\nsurprised to learn that several new by-laws had been long ago added. For\ninstance, the initiation fee had been raised to fifty dollars; that\nsum must be tendered, and also ten per cent. of the wages which the\napplicant had received each and every month since the founding of\nthe association. In many cases this amounted to three or four hundred\ndollars. Still, the association would not entertain the application\nuntil the money was present. Even then a single adverse vote killed the\napplication. Every member had to vote 'Yes' or 'No' in person and before\nwitnesses; so it took weeks to decide a candidacy, because many pilots\nwere so long absent on voyages. However, the repentant sinners scraped\ntheir savings together, and one by one, by our tedious voting process,\nthey were added to the fold. A time came, at last, when only about ten\nremained outside. They said they would starve before they would apply.\nThey remained idle a long while, because of course nobody could venture\nto employ them.\n\nBy and by the association published the fact that upon a certain date\nthe wages would be raised to five hundred dollars per month. All the\nbranch associations had grown strong, now, and the Red River one had\nadvanced wages to seven hundred dollars a month. Reluctantly the ten\noutsiders yielded, in view of these things, and made application. There\nwas another new by-law, by this time, which required them to pay dues\nnot only on all the wages they had received since the association was\nborn, but also on what they would have received if they had continued at\nwork up to the time of their application, instead of going off to pout\nin idleness. It turned out to be a difficult matter to elect them, but\nit was accomplished at last. The most virulent sinner of this batch had\nstayed out and allowed 'dues' to accumulate against him so long that he\nhad to send in six hundred and twenty-five dollars with his application.\n\nThe association had a good bank account now, and was very strong. There\nwas no longer an outsider. A by-law was added forbidding the reception\nof any more cubs or apprentices for five years; after which time\na limited number would be taken, not by individuals, but by the\nassociation, upon these terms: the applicant must not be less than\neighteen years old, and of respectable family and good character; he\nmust pass an examination as to education, pay a thousand dollars in\nadvance for the privilege of becoming an apprentice, and must remain\nunder the commands of the association until a great part of the\nmembership (more than half, I think) should be willing to sign his\napplication for a pilot's license.\n\nAll previously-articled apprentices were now taken away from their\nmasters and adopted by the association. The president and secretary\ndetailed them for service on one boat or another, as they chose, and\nchanged them from boat to boat according to certain rules. If a pilot\ncould show that he was in infirm health and needed assistance, one of\nthe cubs would be ordered to go with him.\n\nThe widow and orphan list grew, but so did the association's financial\nresources. The association attended its own funerals in state, and paid\nfor them. When occasion demanded, it sent members down the river upon\nsearches for the bodies of brethren lost by steamboat accidents; a\nsearch of this kind sometimes cost a thousand dollars.\n\nThe association procured a charter and went into the insurance business,\nalso. It not only insured the lives of its members, but took risks on\nsteamboats.\n\nThe organization seemed indestructible. It was the tightest monopoly in\nthe world. By the United States law, no man could become a pilot unless\ntwo duly licensed pilots signed his application; and now there was\nnobody outside of the association competent to sign. Consequently the\nmaking of pilots was at an end. Every year some would die and others\nbecome incapacitated by age and infirmity; there would be no new ones\nto take their places. In time, the association could put wages up to any\nfigure it chose; and as long as it should be wise enough not to carry\nthe thing too far and provoke the national government into amending the\nlicensing system, steamboat owners would have to submit, since there\nwould be no help for it.\n\nThe owners and captains were the only obstruction that lay between\nthe association and absolute power; and at last this one was removed.\nIncredible as it may seem, the owners and captains deliberately did it\nthemselves. When the pilots' association announced, months beforehand,\nthat on the first day of September, 1861, wages would be advanced to\nfive hundred dollars per month, the owners and captains instantly put\nfreights up a few cents, and explained to the farmers along the river\nthe necessity of it, by calling their attention to the burdensome rate\nof wages about to be established. It was a rather slender argument, but\nthe farmers did not seem to detect it. It looked reasonable to them that\nto add five cents freight on a bushel of corn was justifiable under\nthe circumstances, overlooking the fact that this advance on a cargo of\nforty thousand sacks was a good deal more than necessary to cover the\nnew wages.\n\nSo, straightway the captains and owners got up an association of their\nown, and proposed to put captains' wages up to five hundred dollars,\ntoo, and move for another advance in freights. It was a novel idea,\nbut of course an effect which had been produced once could be produced\nagain. The new association decreed (for this was before all the\noutsiders had been taken into the pilots' association) that if any\ncaptain employed a non-association pilot, he should be forced to\ndischarge him, and also pay a fine of five hundred dollars. Several\nof these heavy fines were paid before the captains' organization grew\nstrong enough to exercise full authority over its membership; but that\nall ceased, presently. The captains tried to get the pilots to decree\nthat no member of their corporation should serve under a non-association\ncaptain; but this proposition was declined. The pilots saw that they\nwould be backed up by the captains and the underwriters anyhow, and so\nthey wisely refrained from entering into entangling alliances.\n\nAs I have remarked, the pilots' association was now the compactest\nmonopoly in the world, perhaps, and seemed simply indestructible.\nAnd yet the days of its glory were numbered. First, the new railroad\nstretching up through Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky, to Northern\nrailway centers, began to divert the passenger travel from the steamers;\nnext the war came and almost entirely annihilated the steamboating\nindustry during several years, leaving most of the pilots idle, and the\ncost of living advancing all the time; then the treasurer of the St.\nLouis association put his hand into the till and walked off with\nevery dollar of the ample fund; and finally, the railroads intruding\neverywhere, there was little for steamers to do, when the war was over,\nbut carry freights; so straightway some genius from the Atlantic coast\nintroduced the plan of towing a dozen steamer cargoes down to New\nOrleans at the tail of a vulgar little tug-boat; and behold, in the\ntwinkling of an eye, as it were, the association and the noble science\nof piloting were things of the dead and pathetic past!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 16\n\nRacing Days\n\nIT was always the custom for the boats to leave New Orleans between four\nand five o'clock in the afternoon. From three o'clock onward they would\nbe burning rosin and pitch pine (the sign of preparation), and so one\nhad the picturesque spectacle of a rank, some two or three miles long,\nof tall, ascending columns of coal-black smoke; a colonnade which\nsupported a sable roof of the same smoke blended together and spreading\nabroad over the city. Every outward-bound boat had its flag flying at\nthe jack-staff, and sometimes a duplicate on the verge staff astern.\nTwo or three miles of mates were commanding and swearing with more than\nusual emphasis; countless processions of freight barrels and boxes were\nspinning athwart the levee and flying aboard the stage-planks, belated\npassengers were dodging and skipping among these frantic things, hoping\nto reach the forecastle companion way alive, but having their doubts\nabout it; women with reticules and bandboxes were trying to keep up with\nhusbands freighted with carpet-sacks and crying babies, and making a\nfailure of it by losing their heads in the whirl and roar and general\ndistraction; drays and baggage-vans were clattering hither and thither\nin a wild hurry, every now and then getting blocked and jammed together,\nand then during ten seconds one could not see them for the profanity,\nexcept vaguely and dimly; every windlass connected with every forehatch,\nfrom one end of that long array of steamboats to the other, was keeping\nup a deafening whiz and whir, lowering freight into the hold, and the\nhalf-naked crews of perspiring negroes that worked them were roaring\nsuch songs as 'De Las' Sack! De Las' Sack!'--inspired to unimaginable\nexaltation by the chaos of turmoil and racket that was driving everybody\nelse mad.\n\nBy this time the hurricane and boiler decks of the steamers would be\npacked and black with passengers. The 'last bells' would begin to clang,\nall down the line, and then the powwow seemed to double; in a moment or\ntwo the final warning came,--a simultaneous din of Chinese gongs, with\nthe cry, 'All dat ain't goin', please to git asho'!'--and behold, the\npowwow quadrupled! People came swarming ashore, overturning excited\nstragglers that were trying to swarm aboard. One more moment later a\nlong array of stage-planks was being hauled in, each with its customary\nlatest passenger clinging to the end of it with teeth, nails, and\neverything else, and the customary latest procrastinator making a wild\nspring shoreward over his head.\n\nNow a number of the boats slide backward into the stream, leaving wide\ngaps in the serried rank of steamers. Citizens crowd the decks of boats\nthat are not to go, in order to see the sight. Steamer after steamer\nstraightens herself up, gathers all her strength, and presently comes\nswinging by, under a tremendous head of steam, with flag flying, black\nsmoke rolling, and her entire crew of firemen and deck-hands (usually\nswarthy negroes) massed together on the forecastle, the best 'voice' in\nthe lot towering from the midst (being mounted on the capstan), waving\nhis hat or a flag, and all roaring a mighty chorus, while the parting\ncannons boom and the multitudinous spectators swing their hats and\nhuzza! Steamer after steamer falls into line, and the stately procession\ngoes winging its flight up the river.\n\nIn the old times, whenever two fast boats started out on a race, with a\nbig crowd of people looking on, it was inspiring to hear the crews sing,\nespecially if the time were night-fall, and the forecastle lit up with\nthe red glare of the torch-baskets. Racing was royal fun. The public\nalways had an idea that racing was dangerous; whereas the opposite was\nthe case--that is, after the laws were passed which restricted each boat\nto just so many pounds of steam to the square inch. No engineer was ever\nsleepy or careless when his heart was in a race. He was constantly on\nthe alert, trying gauge-cocks and watching things. The dangerous place\nwas on slow, plodding boats, where the engineers drowsed around and\nallowed chips to get into the 'doctor' and shut off the water supply\nfrom the boilers.\n\nIn the 'flush times' of steamboating, a race between two notoriously\nfleet steamers was an event of vast importance. The date was set for\nit several weeks in advance, and from that time forward, the whole\nMississippi Valley was in a state of consuming excitement. Politics and\nthe weather were dropped, and people talked only of the coming race. As\nthe time approached, the two steamers 'stripped' and got ready. Every\nencumbrance that added weight, or exposed a resisting surface to wind\nor water, was removed, if the boat could possibly do without it. The\n'spars,' and sometimes even their supporting derricks, were sent ashore,\nand no means left to set the boat afloat in case she got aground. When\nthe 'Eclipse' and the 'A. L. Shotwell' ran their great race many years\nago, it was said that pains were taken to scrape the gilding off the\nfanciful device which hung between the 'Eclipse's' chimneys, and that\nfor that one trip the captain left off his kid gloves and had his head\nshaved. But I always doubted these things.\n\nIf the boat was known to make her best speed when drawing five and a\nhalf feet forward and five feet aft, she was carefully loaded to that\nexact figure--she wouldn't enter a dose of homoeopathic pills on her\nmanifest after that. Hardly any passengers were taken, because they not\nonly add weight but they never will 'trim boat.' They always run to\nthe side when there is anything to see, whereas a conscientious and\nexperienced steamboatman would stick to the center of the boat and part\nhis hair in the middle with a spirit level.\n\nNo way-freights and no way-passengers were allowed, for the racers would\nstop only at the largest towns, and then it would be only 'touch and\ngo.' Coal flats and wood flats were contracted for beforehand, and\nthese were kept ready to hitch on to the flying steamers at a moment's\nwarning. Double crews were carried, so that all work could be quickly\ndone.\n\nThe chosen date being come, and all things in readiness, the two great\nsteamers back into the stream, and lie there jockeying a moment, and\napparently watching each other's slightest movement, like sentient\ncreatures; flags drooping, the pent steam shrieking through\nsafety-valves, the black smoke rolling and tumbling from the chimneys\nand darkening all the air. People, people everywhere; the shores, the\nhouse-tops, the steamboats, the ships, are packed with them, and you\nknow that the borders of the broad Mississippi are going to be fringed\nwith humanity thence northward twelve hundred miles, to welcome these\nracers.\n\nPresently tall columns of steam burst from the 'scape-pipes of both\nsteamers, two guns boom a good-bye, two red-shirted heroes mounted\non capstans wave their small flags above the massed crews on the\nforecastles, two plaintive solos linger on the air a few waiting\nseconds, two mighty choruses burst forth--and here they come! Brass\nbands bray Hail Columbia, huzza after huzza thunders from the shores,\nand the stately creatures go whistling by like the wind.\n\nThose boats will never halt a moment between New Orleans and St. Louis,\nexcept for a second or two at large towns, or to hitch thirty-cord\nwood-boats alongside. You should be on board when they take a couple of\nthose wood-boats in tow and turn a swarm of men into each; by the time\nyou have wiped your glasses and put them on, you will be wondering what\nhas become of that wood.\n\nTwo nicely matched steamers will stay in sight of each other day after\nday. They might even stay side by side, but for the fact that pilots are\nnot all alike, and the smartest pilots will win the race. If one of the\nboats has a 'lightning' pilot, whose 'partner' is a trifle his inferior,\nyou can tell which one is on watch by noting whether that boat has\ngained ground or lost some during each four-hour stretch. The shrewdest\npilot can delay a boat if he has not a fine genius for steering.\nSteering is a very high art. One must not keep a rudder dragging across\na boat's stem if he wants to get up the river fast.\n\nThere is a great difference in boats, of course. For a long time I was\non a boat that was so slow we used to forget what year it was we left\nport in. But of course this was at rare intervals. Ferryboats used to\nlose valuable trips because their passengers grew old and died, waiting\nfor us to get by. This was at still rarer intervals. I had the documents\nfor these occurrences, but through carelessness they have been mislaid.\nThis boat, the 'John J. Roe,' was so slow that when she finally sunk in\nMadrid Bend, it was five years before the owners heard of it. That was\nalways a confusing fact to me, but it is according to the record, any\nway. She was dismally slow; still, we often had pretty exciting times\nracing with islands, and rafts, and such things. One trip, however, we\ndid rather well. We went to St. Louis in sixteen days. But even at\nthis rattling gait I think we changed watches three times in Fort Adams\nreach, which is five miles long. A 'reach' is a piece of straight river,\nand of course the current drives through such a place in a pretty lively\nway.\n\nThat trip we went to Grand Gulf, from New Orleans, in four days (three\nhundred and forty miles); the 'Eclipse' and 'Shotwell' did it in one.\nWe were nine days out, in the chute of 63 (seven hundred miles); the\n'Eclipse' and 'Shotwell' went there in two days. Something over a\ngeneration ago, a boat called the 'J. M. White' went from New Orleans\nto Cairo in three days, six hours, and forty-four minutes. In 1853 the\n'Eclipse' made the same trip in three days, three hours, and twenty\nminutes.{footnote [Time disputed. Some authorities add 1 hour and 16\nminutes to this.]} In 1870 the 'R. E. Lee' did it in three days and\n_one_ hour. This last is called the fastest trip on record. I will\ntry to show that it was not. For this reason: the distance between\nNew Orleans and Cairo, when the 'J. M. White' ran it, was about eleven\nhundred and six miles; consequently her average speed was a trifle over\nfourteen miles per hour. In the 'Eclipse's' day the distance between\nthe two ports had become reduced to one thousand and eighty miles;\nconsequently her average speed was a shade under fourteen and\nthree-eighths miles per hour. In the 'R. E. Lee's' time the distance\nhad diminished to about one thousand and thirty miles; consequently her\naverage was about fourteen and one-eighth miles per hour. Therefore the\n'Eclipse's' was conspicuously the fastest time that has ever been made.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 17\n\nCut-offs and Stephen\n\nTHESE dry details are of importance in one particular. They give me\nan opportunity of introducing one of the Mississippi's oddest\npeculiarities,--that of shortening its length from time to time. If\nyou will throw a long, pliant apple-paring over your shoulder, it will\npretty fairly shape itself into an average section of the Mississippi\nRiver; that is, the nine or ten hundred miles stretching from Cairo,\nIllinois, southward to New Orleans, the same being wonderfully crooked,\nwith a brief straight bit here and there at wide intervals. The two\nhundred-mile stretch from Cairo northward to St. Louis is by no means so\ncrooked, that being a rocky country which the river cannot cut much.\n\nThe water cuts the alluvial banks of the 'lower' river into deep\nhorseshoe curves; so deep, indeed, that in some places if you were to\nget ashore at one extremity of the horseshoe and walk across the neck,\nhalf or three quarters of a mile, you could sit down and rest a couple\nof hours while your steamer was coming around the long elbow, at a speed\nof ten miles an hour, to take you aboard again. When the river is\nrising fast, some scoundrel whose plantation is back in the country, and\ntherefore of inferior value, has only to watch his chance, cut a little\ngutter across the narrow neck of land some dark night, and turn the\nwater into it, and in a wonderfully short time a miracle has happened:\nto wit, the whole Mississippi has taken possession of that little ditch,\nand placed the countryman's plantation on its bank (quadrupling its\nvalue), and that other party's formerly valuable plantation finds itself\naway out yonder on a big island; the old watercourse around it will soon\nshoal up, boats cannot approach within ten miles of it, and down goes\nits value to a fourth of its former worth. Watches are kept on those\nnarrow necks, at needful times, and if a man happens to be caught\ncutting a ditch across them, the chances are all against his ever having\nanother opportunity to cut a ditch.\n\nPray observe some of the effects of this ditching business. Once there\nwas a neck opposite Port Hudson, Louisiana, which was only half a mile\nacross, in its narrowest place. You could walk across there in fifteen\nminutes; but if you made the journey around the cape on a raft, you\ntraveled thirty-five miles to accomplish the same thing. In 1722 the\nriver darted through that neck, deserted its old bed, and thus\nshortened itself thirty-five miles. In the same way it shortened itself\ntwenty-five miles at Black Hawk Point in 1699. Below Red River Landing,\nRaccourci cut-off was made (forty or fifty years ago, I think). This\nshortened the river twenty-eight miles. In our day, if you travel by\nriver from the southernmost of these three cut-offs to the northernmost,\nyou go only seventy miles. To do the same thing a hundred and\nseventy-six years ago, one had to go a hundred and fifty-eight\nmiles!--shortening of eighty-eight miles in that trifling distance.\nAt some forgotten time in the past, cut-offs were made above Vidalia,\nLouisiana; at island 92; at island 84; and at Hale's Point. These\nshortened the river, in the aggregate, seventy-seven miles.\n\nSince my own day on the Mississippi, cut-offs have been made at\nHurricane Island; at island 100; at Napoleon, Arkansas; at Walnut\nBend; and at Council Bend. These shortened the river, in the aggregate,\nsixty-seven miles. In my own time a cut-off was made at American Bend,\nwhich shortened the river ten miles or more.\n\nTherefore, the Mississippi between Cairo and New Orleans was twelve\nhundred and fifteen miles long one hundred and seventy-six years ago.\nIt was eleven hundred and eighty after the cut-off of 1722. It was\none thousand and forty after the American Bend cut-off. It has lost\nsixty-seven miles since. Consequently its length is only nine hundred\nand seventy-three miles at present.\n\nNow, if I wanted to be one of those ponderous scientific people, and\n'let on' to prove what had occurred in the remote past by what had\noccurred in a given time in the recent past, or what will occur in the\nfar future by what has occurred in late years, what an opportunity is\nhere! Geology never had such a chance, nor such exact data to argue\nfrom! Nor 'development of species,' either! Glacial epochs are great\nthings, but they are vague--vague. Please observe:--\n\nIn the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi\nhas shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average\nof a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm\nperson, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic\nSilurian Period,' just a million years ago next November, the Lower\nMississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand\nmiles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod.\nAnd by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and\nforty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and\nthree-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their\nstreets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor\nand a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about\nscience. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a\ntrifling investment of fact.\n\nWhen the water begins to flow through one of those ditches I have been\nspeaking of, it is time for the people thereabouts to move. The water\ncleaves the banks away like a knife. By the time the ditch has become\ntwelve or fifteen feet wide, the calamity is as good as accomplished,\nfor no power on earth can stop it now. When the width has reached a\nhundred yards, the banks begin to peel off in slices half an acre wide.\nThe current flowing around the bend traveled formerly only five miles\nan hour; now it is tremendously increased by the shortening of the\ndistance. I was on board the first boat that tried to go through the\ncut-off at American Bend, but we did not get through. It was toward\nmidnight, and a wild night it was--thunder, lightning, and torrents of\nrain. It was estimated that the current in the cut-off was making about\nfifteen or twenty miles an hour; twelve or thirteen was the best our\nboat could do, even in tolerably slack water, therefore perhaps we were\nfoolish to try the cut-off. However, Mr. Brown was ambitious, and he\nkept on trying. The eddy running up the bank, under the 'point,' was\nabout as swift as the current out in the middle; so we would go flying\nup the shore like a lightning express train, get on a big head of steam,\nand 'stand by for a surge' when we struck the current that was whirling\nby the point. But all our preparations were useless. The instant the\ncurrent hit us it spun us around like a top, the water deluged the\nforecastle, and the boat careened so far over that one could hardly keep\nhis feet. The next instant we were away down the river, clawing with\nmight and main to keep out of the woods. We tried the experiment\nfour times. I stood on the forecastle companion way to see. It was\nastonishing to observe how suddenly the boat would spin around and turn\ntail the moment she emerged from the eddy and the current struck her\nnose. The sounding concussion and the quivering would have been about\nthe same if she had come full speed against a sand-bank. Under the\nlightning flashes one could see the plantation cabins and the goodly\nacres tumble into the river; and the crash they made was not a bad\neffort at thunder. Once, when we spun around, we only missed a house\nabout twenty feet, that had a light burning in the window; and in\nthe same instant that house went overboard. Nobody could stay on our\nforecastle; the water swept across it in a torrent every time we plunged\nathwart the current. At the end of our fourth effort we brought up\nin the woods two miles below the cut-off; all the country there was\noverflowed, of course. A day or two later the cut-off was three-quarters\nof a mile wide, and boats passed up through it without much difficulty,\nand so saved ten miles.\n\nThe old Raccourci cut-off reduced the river's length twenty-eight miles.\nThere used to be a tradition connected with it. It was said that a boat\ncame along there in the night and went around the enormous elbow the\nusual way, the pilots not knowing that the cut-off had been made. It was\na grisly, hideous night, and all shapes were vague and distorted. The\nold bend had already begun to fill up, and the boat got to running\naway from mysterious reefs, and occasionally hitting one. The perplexed\npilots fell to swearing, and finally uttered the entirely unnecessary\nwish that they might never get out of that place. As always happens\nin such cases, that particular prayer was answered, and the others\nneglected. So to this day that phantom steamer is still butting around\nin that deserted river, trying to find her way out. More than one grave\nwatchman has sworn to me that on drizzly, dismal nights, he has glanced\nfearfully down that forgotten river as he passed the head of the island,\nand seen the faint glow of the specter steamer's lights drifting through\nthe distant gloom, and heard the muffled cough of her 'scape-pipes and\nthe plaintive cry of her leadsmen.\n\nIn the absence of further statistics, I beg to close this chapter with\none more reminiscence of 'Stephen.'\n\nMost of the captains and pilots held Stephen's note for borrowed sums,\nranging from two hundred and fifty dollars upward. Stephen never paid\none of these notes, but he was very prompt and very zealous about\nrenewing them every twelve months.\n\nOf course there came a time, at last, when Stephen could no longer\nborrow of his ancient creditors; so he was obliged to lie in wait for\nnew men who did not know him. Such a victim was good-hearted, simple\nnatured young Yates (I use a fictitious name, but the real name began,\nas this one does, with a Y). Young Yates graduated as a pilot, got a\nberth, and when the month was ended and he stepped up to the clerk's\noffice and received his two hundred and fifty dollars in crisp new\nbills, Stephen was there! His silvery tongue began to wag, and in a very\nlittle while Yates's two hundred and fifty dollars had changed hands.\nThe fact was soon known at pilot headquarters, and the amusement and\nsatisfaction of the old creditors were large and generous. But innocent\nYates never suspected that Stephen's promise to pay promptly at the\nend of the week was a worthless one. Yates called for his money at the\nstipulated time; Stephen sweetened him up and put him off a week. He\ncalled then, according to agreement, and came away sugar-coated again,\nbut suffering under another postponement. So the thing went on. Yates\nhaunted Stephen week after week, to no purpose, and at last gave it\nup. And then straightway Stephen began to haunt Yates! Wherever Yates\nappeared, there was the inevitable Stephen. And not only there, but\nbeaming with affection and gushing with apologies for not being able to\npay. By and by, whenever poor Yates saw him coming, he would turn and\nfly, and drag his company with him, if he had company; but it was of\nno use; his debtor would run him down and corner him. Panting and\nred-faced, Stephen would come, with outstretched hands and eager eyes,\ninvade the conversation, shake both of Yates's arms loose in their\nsockets, and begin--\n\n'My, what a race I've had! I saw you didn't see me, and so I clapped on\nall steam for fear I'd miss you entirely. And here you are! there, just\nstand so, and let me look at you! just the same old noble countenance.'\n[To Yates's friend:] 'Just look at him! _Look _at him! Ain't it just\n_good _to look at him! _ain't_ it now? Ain't he just a picture! _Some\n_call him a picture; I call him a panorama! That's what he is--an entire\npanorama. And now I'm reminded! How I do wish I could have seen you an\nhour earlier! For twenty-four hours I've been saving up that two hundred\nand fifty dollars for you; been looking for you everywhere. I waited at\nthe Planter's from six yesterday evening till two o'clock this morning,\nwithout rest or food; my wife says, \"Where have you been all night?\"\nI said, \"This debt lies heavy on my mind.\" She says, \"In all my days I\nnever saw a man take a debt to heart the way you do.\" I said, \"It's my\nnature; how can I change it?\" She says, \"Well, do go to bed and get some\nrest.\" I said, \"Not till that poor, noble young man has got his money.\"\nSo I set up all night, and this morning out I shot, and the first man\nI struck told me you had shipped on the \"Grand Turk\" and gone to New\nOrleans. Well, sir, I had to lean up against a building and cry. So help\nme goodness, I couldn't help it. The man that owned the place come\nout cleaning up with a rag, and said he didn't like to have people cry\nagainst his building, and then it seemed to me that the whole world had\nturned against me, and it wasn't any use to live any more; and coming\nalong an hour ago, suffering no man knows what agony, I met Jim Wilson\nand paid him the two hundred and fifty dollars on account; and to think\nthat here you are, now, and I haven't got a cent! But as sure as I am\nstanding here on this ground on this particular brick,--there, I've\nscratched a mark on the brick to remember it by,--I'll borrow that money\nand pay it over to you at twelve o'clock sharp, tomorrow! Now, stand so;\nlet me look at you just once more.'\n\nAnd so on. Yates's life became a burden to him. He could not escape his\ndebtor and his debtor's awful sufferings on account of not being able\nto pay. He dreaded to show himself in the street, lest he should find\nStephen lying in wait for him at the corner.\n\nBogart's billiard saloon was a great resort for pilots in those days.\nThey met there about as much to exchange river news as to play. One\nmorning Yates was there; Stephen was there, too, but kept out of sight.\nBut by and by, when about all the pilots had arrived who were in town,\nStephen suddenly appeared in the midst, and rushed for Yates as for a\nlong-lost brother.\n\n'_Oh_, I am so glad to see you! Oh my soul, the sight of you is such a\ncomfort to my eyes! Gentlemen, I owe all of you money; among you I owe\nprobably forty thousand dollars. I want to pay it; I intend to pay it\nevery last cent of it. You all know, without my telling you, what sorrow\nit has cost me to remain so long under such deep obligations to such\npatient and generous friends; but the sharpest pang I suffer--by far\nthe sharpest--is from the debt I owe to this noble young man here; and I\nhave come to this place this morning especially to make the announcement\nthat I have at last found a method whereby I can pay off all my debts!\nAnd most especially I wanted _him _to be here when I announced it. Yes,\nmy faithful friend,--my benefactor, I've found the method! I've found\nthe method to pay off all my debts, and you'll get your money!' Hope\ndawned in Yates's eye; then Stephen, beaming benignantly, and placing\nhis hand upon Yates's head, added, 'I am going to pay them off in\nalphabetical order!'\n\nThen he turned and disappeared. The full significance of Stephen's\n'method' did not dawn upon the perplexed and musing crowd for some two\nminutes; and then Yates murmured with a sigh--\n\n'Well, the Y's stand a gaudy chance. He won't get any further than the\nC's in _this _world, and I reckon that after a good deal of eternity has\nwasted away in the next one, I'll still be referred to up there as \"that\npoor, ragged pilot that came here from St. Louis in the early days!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 18\n\nI Take a Few Extra Lessons\n\nDURING the two or two and a half years of my apprenticeship, I served\nunder many pilots, and had experience of many kinds of steamboatmen and\nmany varieties of steamboats; for it was not always convenient for Mr.\nBixby to have me with him, and in such cases he sent me with somebody\nelse. I am to this day profiting somewhat by that experience; for in\nthat brief, sharp schooling, I got personally and familiarly acquainted\nwith about all the different types of human nature that are to be found\nin fiction, biography, or history. The fact is daily borne in upon me,\nthat the average shore-employment requires as much as forty years\nto equip a man with this sort of an education. When I say I am still\nprofiting by this thing, I do not mean that it has constituted me a\njudge of men--no, it has not done that; for judges of men are born, not\nmade. My profit is various in kind and degree; but the feature of it\nwhich I value most is the zest which that early experience has given\nto my later reading. When I find a well-drawn character in fiction or\nbiography, I generally take a warm personal interest in him, for the\nreason that I have known him before--met him on the river.\n\nThe figure that comes before me oftenest, out of the shadows of that\nvanished time, is that of Brown, of the steamer 'Pennsylvania'--the man\nreferred to in a former chapter, whose memory was so good and tiresome.\nHe was a middle-aged, long, slim, bony, smooth-shaven, horse-faced,\nignorant, stingy, malicious, snarling, fault hunting, mote-magnifying\ntyrant. I early got the habit of coming on watch with dread at my heart.\nNo matter how good a time I might have been having with the off-watch\nbelow, and no matter how high my spirits might be when I started aloft,\nmy soul became lead in my body the moment I approached the pilot-house.\n\nI still remember the first time I ever entered the presence of that man.\nThe boat had backed out from St. Louis and was 'straightening down;'\nI ascended to the pilot-house in high feather, and very proud to be\nsemi-officially a member of the executive family of so fast and famous\na boat. Brown was at the wheel. I paused in the middle of the room, all\nfixed to make my bow, but Brown did not look around. I thought he took a\nfurtive glance at me out of the corner of his eye, but as not even this\nnotice was repeated, I judged I had been mistaken. By this time he was\npicking his way among some dangerous 'breaks' abreast the woodyards;\ntherefore it would not be proper to interrupt him; so I stepped softly\nto the high bench and took a seat.\n\nThere was silence for ten minutes; then my new boss turned and inspected\nme deliberately and painstakingly from head to heel for about--as\nit seemed to me--a quarter of an hour. After which he removed his\ncountenance and I saw it no more for some seconds; then it came around\nonce more, and this question greeted me--\n\n'Are you Horace Bigsby's cub?'\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\nAfter this there was a pause and another inspection. Then--\n\n'What's your name?'\n\nI told him. He repeated it after me. It was probably the only thing he\never forgot; for although I was with him many months he never addressed\nhimself to me in any other way than 'Here!' and then his command\nfollowed.\n\n'Where was you born?'\n\n'In Florida, Missouri.'\n\nA pause. Then--\n\n'Dern sight better staid there!'\n\nBy means of a dozen or so of pretty direct questions, he pumped my\nfamily history out of me.\n\nThe leads were going now, in the first crossing. This interrupted the\ninquest. When the leads had been laid in, he resumed--\n\n'How long you been on the river?'\n\nI told him. After a pause--\n\n'Where'd you get them shoes?'\n\nI gave him the information.\n\n'Hold up your foot!'\n\nI did so. He stepped back, examined the shoe minutely and\ncontemptuously, scratching his head thoughtfully, tilting his\nhigh sugar-loaf hat well forward to facilitate the operation, then\nejaculated, 'Well, I'll be dod derned!' and returned to his wheel.\n\nWhat occasion there was to be dod derned about it is a thing which is\nstill as much of a mystery to me now as it was then. It must have\nbeen all of fifteen minutes--fifteen minutes of dull, homesick\nsilence--before that long horse-face swung round upon me again--and\nthen, what a change! It was as red as fire, and every muscle in it was\nworking. Now came this shriek--\n\n'Here!--You going to set there all day?'\n\nI lit in the middle of the floor, shot there by the electric\nsuddenness of the surprise. As soon as I could get my voice I said,\napologetically:--'I have had no orders, sir.'\n\n'You've had no _orders_! My, what a fine bird we are! We must have\n_orders_! Our father was a _gentleman_--owned slaves--and we've been\nto _school_. Yes, _we _are a gentleman, _too_, and got to have _orders!\norders_, is it? _Orders _is what you want! Dod dern my skin, _i'll_\nlearn you to swell yourself up and blow around here about your\ndod-derned _orders_! G'way from the wheel!' (I had approached it without\nknowing it.)\n\nI moved back a step or two, and stood as in a dream, all my senses\nstupefied by this frantic assault.\n\n'What you standing there for? Take that ice-pitcher down to the\ntexas-tender-come, move along, and don't you be all day about it!'\n\nThe moment I got back to the pilot-house, Brown said--\n\n'Here! What was you doing down there all this time?'\n\n'I couldn't find the texas-tender; I had to go all the way to the\npantry.'\n\n'Derned likely story! Fill up the stove.'\n\nI proceeded to do so. He watched me like a cat. Presently he shouted--\n\n'Put down that shovel! Deadest numskull I ever saw--ain't even got sense\nenough to load up a stove.'\n\nAll through the watch this sort of thing went on. Yes, and the\nsubsequent watches were much like it, during a stretch of months. As I\nhave said, I soon got the habit of coming on duty with dread. The moment\nI was in the presence, even in the darkest night, I could feel those\nyellow eyes upon me, and knew their owner was watching for a pretext to\nspit out some venom on me. Preliminarily he would say--\n\n'Here! Take the wheel.'\n\nTwo minutes later--\n\n'_Where _in the nation you going to? Pull her down! pull her down!'\n\nAfter another moment--\n\n'Say! You going to hold her all day? Let her go--meet her! meet her!'\n\nThen he would jump from the bench, snatch the wheel from me, and meet\nher himself, pouring out wrath upon me all the time.\n\nGeorge Ritchie was the other pilot's cub. He was having good times now;\nfor his boss, George Ealer, was as kindhearted as Brown wasn't. Ritchie\nhad steeled for Brown the season before; consequently he knew exactly\nhow to entertain himself and plague me, all by the one operation.\nWhenever I took the wheel for a moment on Ealer's watch, Ritchie would\nsit back on the bench and play Brown, with continual ejaculations of\n'Snatch her! snatch her! Derndest mud-cat I ever saw!' 'Here! Where you\ngoing _now_? Going to run over that snag?' 'Pull her _down_! Don't you\nhear me? Pull her _down!_' 'There she goes! _Just _as I expected! I\n_told_ you not to cramp that reef. G'way from the wheel!'\n\nSo I always had a rough time of it, no matter whose watch it was; and\nsometimes it seemed to me that Ritchie's good-natured badgering was\npretty nearly as aggravating as Brown's dead-earnest nagging.\n\nI often wanted to kill Brown, but this would not answer. A cub had\nto take everything his boss gave, in the way of vigorous comment and\ncriticism; and we all believed that there was a United States law making\nit a penitentiary offense to strike or threaten a pilot who was on\nduty. However, I could _imagine _myself killing Brown; there was no law\nagainst that; and that was the thing I used always to do the moment I\nwas abed. Instead of going over my river in my mind as was my duty,\nI threw business aside for pleasure, and killed Brown. I killed Brown\nevery night for months; not in old, stale, commonplace ways, but in new\nand picturesque ones;--ways that were sometimes surprising for freshness\nof design and ghastliness of situation and environment.\n\nBrown was _always _watching for a pretext to find fault; and if he could\nfind no plausible pretext, he would invent one. He would scold you for\nshaving a shore, and for not shaving it; for hugging a bar, and for not\nhugging it; for 'pulling down' when not invited, and for not pulling\ndown when not invited; for firing up without orders, and for waiting\n_for_ orders. In a word, it was his invariable rule to find fault with\n_everything _you did; and another invariable rule of his was to throw\nall his remarks (to you) into the form of an insult.\n\nOne day we were approaching New Madrid, bound down and heavily laden.\nBrown was at one side of the wheel, steering; I was at the other,\nstanding by to 'pull down' or 'shove up.' He cast a furtive glance at me\nevery now and then. I had long ago learned what that meant; viz., he was\ntrying to invent a trap for me. I wondered what shape it was going to\ntake. By and by he stepped back from the wheel and said in his usual\nsnarly way--\n\n'Here!--See if you've got gumption enough to round her to.'\n\nThis was simply _bound _to be a success; nothing could prevent it; for\nhe had never allowed me to round the boat to before; consequently, no\nmatter how I might do the thing, he could find free fault with it. He\nstood back there with his greedy eye on me, and the result was what\nmight have been foreseen: I lost my head in a quarter of a minute, and\ndidn't know what I was about; I started too early to bring the boat\naround, but detected a green gleam of joy in Brown's eye, and corrected\nmy mistake; I started around once more while too high up, but corrected\nmyself again in time; I made other false moves, and still managed to\nsave myself; but at last I grew so confused and anxious that I tumbled\ninto the very worst blunder of all--I got too far down before beginning\nto fetch the boat around. Brown's chance was come.\n\nHis face turned red with passion; he made one bound, hurled me across\nthe house with a sweep of his arm, spun the wheel down, and began to\npour out a stream of vituperation upon me which lasted till he was out\nof breath. In the course of this speech he called me all the different\nkinds of hard names he could think of, and once or twice I thought he\nwas even going to swear--but he didn't this time. 'Dod dern' was the\nnearest he ventured to the luxury of swearing, for he had been brought\nup with a wholesome respect for future fire and brimstone.\n\nThat was an uncomfortable hour; for there was a big audience on the\nhurricane deck. When I went to bed that night, I killed Brown in\nseventeen different ways--all of them new.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 19\n\nBrown and I Exchange Compliments\n\nTwo trips later, I got into serious trouble. Brown was steering; I was\n'pulling down.' My younger brother appeared on the hurricane deck, and\nshouted to Brown to stop at some landing or other a mile or so below.\nBrown gave no intimation that he had heard anything. But that was his\nway: he never condescended to take notice of an under clerk. The wind\nwas blowing; Brown was deaf (although he always pretended he wasn't),\nand I very much doubted if he had heard the order. If I had two heads,\nI would have spoken; but as I had only one, it seemed judicious to take\ncare of it; so I kept still.\n\nPresently, sure enough, we went sailing by that plantation. Captain\nKlinefelter appeared on the deck, and said--\n\n'Let her come around, sir, let her come around. Didn't Henry tell you to\nland here?'\n\n'_No_, sir!'\n\n'I sent him up to do, it.'\n\n'He did come up; and that's all the good it done, the dod-derned fool.\nHe never said anything.'\n\n'Didn't _you _hear him?' asked the captain of me.\n\nOf course I didn't want to be mixed up in this business, but there was\nno way to avoid it; so I said--\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\nI knew what Brown's next remark would be, before he uttered it; it was--\n\n'Shut your mouth! you never heard anything of the kind.'\n\nI closed my mouth according to instructions. An hour later, Henry\nentered the pilot-house, unaware of what had been going on. He was a\nthoroughly inoffensive boy, and I was sorry to see him come, for I knew\nBrown would have no pity on him. Brown began, straightway--\n\n'Here! why didn't you tell me we'd got to land at that plantation?'\n\n'I did tell you, Mr. Brown.'\n\n'It's a lie!'\n\nI said--\n\n'You lie, yourself. He did tell you.'\n\nBrown glared at me in unaffected surprise; and for as much as a moment\nhe was entirely speechless; then he shouted to me--\n\n'I'll attend to your case in half a minute!' then to Henry, 'And you\nleave the pilot-house; out with you!'\n\nIt was pilot law, and must be obeyed. The boy started out, and even had\nhis foot on the upper step outside the door, when Brown, with a sudden\naccess of fury, picked up a ten-pound lump of coal and sprang after him;\nbut I was between, with a heavy stool, and I hit Brown a good honest\nblow which stretched-him out.\n\nI had committed the crime of crimes--I had lifted my hand against a\npilot on duty! I supposed I was booked for the penitentiary sure, and\ncouldn't be booked any surer if I went on and squared my long account\nwith this person while I had the chance; consequently I stuck to him and\npounded him with my fists a considerable time--I do not know how long,\nthe pleasure of it probably made it seem longer than it really was;--but\nin the end he struggled free and jumped up and sprang to the wheel: a\nvery natural solicitude, for, all this time, here was this steamboat\ntearing down the river at the rate of fifteen miles an hour and nobody\nat the helm! However, Eagle Bend was two miles wide at this bank-full\nstage, and correspondingly long and deep; and the boat was steering\nherself straight down the middle and taking no chances. Still, that was\nonly luck--a body _might _have found her charging into the woods.\n\nPerceiving, at a glance, that the 'Pennsylvania' was in no danger, Brown\ngathered up the big spy-glass, war-club fashion, and ordered me out of\nthe pilot-house with more than Comanche bluster. But I was not afraid of\nhim now; so, instead of going, I tarried, and criticized his grammar; I\nreformed his ferocious speeches for him, and put them into good English,\ncalling his attention to the advantage of pure English over the bastard\ndialect of the Pennsylvanian collieries whence he was extracted.\nHe could have done his part to admiration in a cross-fire of mere\nvituperation, of course; but he was not equipped for this species of\ncontroversy; so he presently laid aside his glass and took the wheel,\nmuttering and shaking his head; and I retired to the bench. The racket\nhad brought everybody to the hurricane deck, and I trembled when I\nsaw the old captain looking up from the midst of the crowd. I said\nto myself, 'Now I _am_ done for!'--For although, as a rule, he was so\nfatherly and indulgent toward the boat's family, and so patient of minor\nshortcomings, he could be stern enough when the fault was worth it.\n\nI tried to imagine what he _would _do to a cub pilot who had been guilty\nof such a crime as mine, committed on a boat guard-deep with costly\nfreight and alive with passengers. Our watch was nearly ended. I thought\nI would go and hide somewhere till I got a chance to slide ashore. So\nI slipped out of the pilot-house, and down the steps, and around to\nthe texas door--and was in the act of gliding within, when the captain\nconfronted me! I dropped my head, and he stood over me in silence a\nmoment or two, then said impressively--\n\n'Follow me.'\n\nI dropped into his wake; he led the way to his parlor in the forward end\nof the texas. We were alone, now. He closed the after door; then moved\nslowly to the forward one and closed that. He sat down; I stood before\nhim. He looked at me some little time, then said--\n\n'So you have been fighting Mr. Brown?'\n\nI answered meekly--\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'Do you know that that is a very serious matter?'\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'Are you aware that this boat was plowing down the river fully five\nminutes with no one at the wheel?'\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'Did you strike him first?'\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'What with?'\n\n'A stool, sir.'\n\n'Hard?'\n\n'Middling, sir.'\n\n'Did it knock him down?'\n\n'He--he fell, sir.'\n\n'Did you follow it up? Did you do anything further?'\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'What did you do?'\n\n'Pounded him, sir.'\n\n'Pounded him?'\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'Did you pound him much?--that is, severely?'\n\n'One might call it that, sir, maybe.'\n\n'I'm deuced glad of it! Hark ye, never mention that I said that. You\nhave been guilty of a great crime; and don't you ever be guilty of it\nagain, on this boat. _But_--lay for him ashore! Give him a good sound\nthrashing, do you hear? I'll pay the expenses. Now go--and mind you, not\na word of this to anybody. Clear out with you!--you've been guilty of a\ngreat crime, you whelp!'\n\nI slid out, happy with the sense of a close shave and a mighty\ndeliverance; and I heard him laughing to himself and slapping his fat\nthighs after I had closed his door.\n\nWhen Brown came off watch he went straight to the captain, who was\ntalking with some passengers on the boiler deck, and demanded that I be\nput ashore in New Orleans--and added--\n\n'I'll never turn a wheel on this boat again while that cub stays.'\n\nThe captain said--\n\n'But he needn't come round when you are on watch, Mr. Brown.\n\n'I won't even stay on the same boat with him. One of us has got to go\nashore.'\n\n'Very well,' said the captain, 'let it be yourself;' and resumed his\ntalk with the passengers.\n\nDuring the brief remainder of the trip, I knew how an emancipated slave\nfeels; for I was an emancipated slave myself. While we lay at landings,\nI listened to George Ealer's flute; or to his readings from his two\nbibles, that is to say, Goldsmith and Shakespeare; or I played chess\nwith him--and would have beaten him sometimes, only he always took back\nhis last move and ran the game out differently.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 20\n\nA Catastrophe\n\nWE lay three days in New Orleans, but the captain did not succeed in\nfinding another pilot; so he proposed that I should stand a daylight\nwatch, and leave the night watches to George Ealer. But I was afraid; I\nhad never stood a watch of any sort by myself, and I believed I should\nbe sure to get into trouble in the head of some chute, or ground the\nboat in a near cut through some bar or other. Brown remained in his\nplace; but he would not travel with me. So the captain gave me an order\non the captain of the 'A. T. Lacey,' for a passage to St. Louis, and\nsaid he would find a new pilot there and my steersman's berth could\nthen be resumed. The 'Lacey' was to leave a couple of days after the\n'Pennsylvania.'\n\nThe night before the '_Pennsylvania_' left, Henry and I sat chatting\non a freight pile on the levee till midnight. The subject of the chat,\nmainly, was one which I think we had not exploited before--steamboat\ndisasters. One was then on its way to us, little as we suspected it;\nthe water which was to make the steam which should cause it, was washing\npast some point fifteen hundred miles up the river while we talked;--but\nit would arrive at the right time and the right place. We doubted if\npersons not clothed with authority were of much use in cases of disaster\nand attendant panic; still, they might be of _some _use; so we decided\nthat if a disaster ever fell within our experience we would at least\nstick to the boat, and give such minor service as chance might throw in\nthe way. Henry remembered this, afterward, when the disaster came, and\nacted accordingly.\n\nThe 'Lacey' started up the river two days behind the 'Pennsylvania.' We\ntouched at Greenville, Mississippi, a couple of days out, and somebody\nshouted--\n\n'The \"Pennsylvania\" is blown up at Ship Island, and a hundred and fifty\nlives lost!'\n\nAt Napoleon, Arkansas, the same evening, we got an extra, issued by a\nMemphis paper, which gave some particulars. It mentioned my brother, and\nsaid he was not hurt.\n\nFurther up the river we got a later extra. My brother was again\nmentioned; but this time as being hurt beyond help. We did not get\nfull details of the catastrophe until we reached Memphis. This is the\nsorrowful story--\n\nIt was six o'clock on a hot summer morning. The 'Pennsylvania' was\ncreeping along, north of Ship Island, about sixty miles below Memphis on\na half-head of steam, towing a wood-flat which was fast being emptied.\nGeorge Ealer was in the pilot-house-alone, I think; the second engineer\nand a striker had the watch in the engine room; the second mate had\nthe watch on deck; George Black, Mr. Wood, and my brother, clerks, were\nasleep, as were also Brown and the head engineer, the carpenter, the\nchief mate, and one striker; Captain Klinefelter was in the barber's\nchair, and the barber was preparing to shave him. There were a good many\ncabin passengers aboard, and three or four hundred deck passengers--so\nit was said at the time--and not very many of them were astir. The wood\nbeing nearly all out of the flat now, Ealer rang to 'come ahead' full\nsteam, and the next moment four of the eight boilers exploded with a\nthunderous crash, and the whole forward third of the boat was hoisted\ntoward the sky! The main part of the mass, with the chimneys, dropped\nupon the boat again, a mountain of riddled and chaotic rubbish--and\nthen, after a little, fire broke out.\n\nMany people were flung to considerable distances, and fell in the\nriver; among these were Mr. Wood and my brother, and the carpenter. The\ncarpenter was still stretched upon his mattress when he struck the water\nseventy-five feet from the boat. Brown, the pilot, and George Black,\nchief clerk, were never seen or heard of after the explosion. The\nbarber's chair, with Captain Klinefelter in it and unhurt, was left with\nits back overhanging vacancy--everything forward of it, floor and all,\nhad disappeared; and the stupefied barber, who was also unhurt,\nstood with one toe projecting over space, still stirring his lather\nunconsciously, and saying, not a word.\n\nWhen George Ealer saw the chimneys plunging aloft in front of him, he\nknew what the matter was; so he muffled his face in the lapels of his\ncoat, and pressed both hands there tightly to keep this protection in\nits place so that no steam could get to his nose or mouth. He had ample\ntime to attend to these details while he was going up and returning. He\npresently landed on top of the unexploded boilers, forty feet below the\nformer pilot-house, accompanied by his wheel and a rain of other stuff,\nand enveloped in a cloud of scalding steam. All of the many who breathed\nthat steam, died; none escaped. But Ealer breathed none of it. He made\nhis way to the free air as quickly as he could; and when the steam\ncleared away he returned and climbed up on the boilers again, and\npatiently hunted out each and every one of his chessmen and the several\njoints of his flute.\n\nBy this time the fire was beginning to threaten. Shrieks and groans\nfilled the air. A great many persons had been scalded, a great many\ncrippled; the explosion had driven an iron crowbar through one man's\nbody--I think they said he was a priest. He did not die at once, and his\nsufferings were very dreadful. A young French naval cadet, of fifteen,\nson of a French admiral, was fearfully scalded, but bore his tortures\nmanfully. Both mates were badly scalded, but they stood to their posts,\nnevertheless. They drew the wood-boat aft, and they and the captain\nfought back the frantic herd of frightened immigrants till the wounded\ncould be brought there and placed in safety first.\n\nWhen Mr. Wood and Henry fell in the water, they struck out for shore,\nwhich was only a few hundred yards away; but Henry presently said he\nbelieved he was not hurt (what an unaccountable error!), and therefore\nwould swim back to the boat and help save the wounded. So they parted,\nand Henry returned.\n\nBy this time the fire was making fierce headway, and several persons\nwho were imprisoned under the ruins were begging piteously for help.\nAll efforts to conquer the fire proved fruitless; so the buckets were\npresently thrown aside and the officers fell-to with axes and tried to\ncut the prisoners out. A striker was one of the captives; he said he was\nnot injured, but could not free himself; and when he saw that the fire\nwas likely to drive away the workers, he begged that some one would\nshoot him, and thus save him from the more dreadful death. The fire did\ndrive the axmen away, and they had to listen, helpless, to this poor\nfellow's supplications till the flames ended his miseries.\n\nThe fire drove all into the wood-flat that could be accommodated there;\nit was cut adrift, then, and it and the burning steamer floated down\nthe river toward Ship Island. They moored the flat at the head of the\nisland, and there, unsheltered from the blazing sun, the half-naked\noccupants had to remain, without food or stimulants, or help for their\nhurts, during the rest of the day. A steamer came along, finally,\nand carried the unfortunates to Memphis, and there the most lavish\nassistance was at once forthcoming. By this time Henry was insensible.\nThe physicians examined his injuries and saw that they were fatal, and\nnaturally turned their main attention to patients who could be saved.\n\nForty of the wounded were placed upon pallets on the floor of a great\npublic hall, and among these was Henry. There the ladies of Memphis\ncame every day, with flowers, fruits, and dainties and delicacies of\nall kinds, and there they remained and nursed the wounded. All the\nphysicians stood watches there, and all the medical students; and the\nrest of the town furnished money, or whatever else was wanted. And\nMemphis knew how to do all these things well; for many a disaster\nlike the 'Pennsylvania's' had happened near her doors, and she was\nexperienced, above all other cities on the river, in the gracious office\nof the Good Samaritan.'\n\nThe sight I saw when I entered that large hall was new and strange to\nme. Two long rows of prostrate forms--more than forty, in all--and every\nface and head a shapeless wad of loose raw cotton. It was a gruesome\nspectacle. I watched there six days and nights, and a very melancholy\nexperience it was. There was one daily incident which was peculiarly\ndepressing: this was the removal of the doomed to a chamber apart. It\nwas done in order that the _morale _of the other patients might not be\ninjuriously affected by seeing one of their number in the death-agony.\nThe fated one was always carried out with as little stir as possible,\nand the stretcher was always hidden from sight by a wall of assistants;\nbut no matter: everybody knew what that cluster of bent forms, with\nits muffled step and its slow movement meant; and all eyes watched it\nwistfully, and a shudder went abreast of it like a wave.\n\nI saw many poor fellows removed to the 'death-room,' and saw them no\nmore afterward. But I saw our chief mate carried thither more than\nonce. His hurts were frightful, especially his scalds. He was clothed in\nlinseed oil and raw cotton to his waist, and resembled nothing human.\nHe was often out of his mind; and then his pains would make him rave and\nshout and sometimes shriek. Then, after a period of dumb exhaustion, his\ndisordered imagination would suddenly transform the great apartment into\na forecastle, and the hurrying throng of nurses into the crew; and\nhe would come to a sitting posture and shout, 'Hump yourselves, _hump\n_yourselves, you petrifactions, snail-bellies, pall-bearers! going to\nbe all _day_ getting that hatful of freight out?' and supplement this\nexplosion with a firmament-obliterating irruption or profanity which\nnothing could stay or stop till his crater was empty. And now and then\nwhile these frenzies possessed him, he would tear off handfuls of the\ncotton and expose his cooked flesh to view. It was horrible. It was\nbad for the others, of course--this noise and these exhibitions; so the\ndoctors tried to give him morphine to quiet him. But, in his mind or out\nof it, he would not take it. He said his wife had been killed by that\ntreacherous drug, and he would die before he would take it. He suspected\nthat the doctors were concealing it in his ordinary medicines and in his\nwater--so he ceased from putting either to his lips. Once, when he had\nbeen without water during two sweltering days, he took the dipper in his\nhand, and the sight of the limpid fluid, and the misery of his thirst,\ntempted him almost beyond his strength; but he mastered himself and\nthrew it away, and after that he allowed no more to be brought near him.\nThree times I saw him carried to the death-room, insensible and supposed\nto be dying; but each time he revived, cursed his attendants, and\ndemanded to be taken back. He lived to be mate of a steamboat again.\n\nBut he was the only one who went to the death-room and returned alive.\nDr. Peyton, a principal physician, and rich in all the attributes that\ngo to constitute high and flawless character, did all that educated\njudgment and trained skill could do for Henry; but, as the newspapers\nhad said in the beginning, his hurts were past help. On the evening of\nthe sixth day his wandering mind busied itself with matters far away,\nand his nerveless fingers 'picked at his coverlet.' His hour had struck;\nwe bore him to the death-room, poor boy.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 21\n\nA Section in My Biography\n\nIN due course I got my license. I was a pilot now, full fledged. I\ndropped into casual employments; no misfortunes resulting, intermittent\nwork gave place to steady and protracted engagements. Time drifted\nsmoothly and prosperously on, and I supposed--and hoped--that I was\ngoing to follow the river the rest of my days, and die at the wheel\nwhen my mission was ended. But by and by the war came, commerce was\nsuspended, my occupation was gone.\n\nI had to seek another livelihood. So I became a silver miner in Nevada;\nnext, a newspaper reporter; next, a gold miner, in California; next, a\nreporter in San Francisco; next, a special correspondent in the Sandwich\nIslands; next, a roving correspondent in Europe and the East; next,\nan instructional torch-bearer on the lecture platform; and, finally, I\nbecame a scribbler of books, and an immovable fixture among the other\nrocks of New England.\n\nIn so few words have I disposed of the twenty-one slow-drifting years\nthat have come and gone since I last looked from the windows of a\npilot-house.\n\nLet us resume, now.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 22\n\nI Return to My Muttons\n\nAFTER twenty-one years' absence, I felt a very strong desire to see the\nriver again, and the steamboats, and such of the boys as might be left;\nso I resolved to go out there. I enlisted a poet for company, and a\nstenographer to 'take him down,' and started westward about the middle\nof April.\n\nAs I proposed to make notes, with a view to printing, I took some\nthought as to methods of procedure. I reflected that if I were\nrecognized, on the river, I should not be as free to go and come, talk,\ninquire, and spy around, as I should be if unknown; I remembered that it\nwas the custom of steamboatmen in the old times to load up the confiding\nstranger with the most picturesque and admirable lies, and put\nthe sophisticated friend off with dull and ineffectual facts: so I\nconcluded, that, from a business point of view, it would be an advantage\nto disguise our party with fictitious names. The idea was certainly\ngood, but it bred infinite bother; for although Smith, Jones, and\nJohnson are easy names to remember when there is no occasion to remember\nthem, it is next to impossible to recollect them when they are wanted.\nHow do criminals manage to keep a brand-new _alias _in mind? This is a\ngreat mystery. I was innocent; and yet was seldom able to lay my hand on\nmy new name when it was needed; and it seemed to me that if I had had\na crime on my conscience to further confuse me, I could never have kept\nthe name by me at all.\n\nWe left per Pennsylvania Railroad, at 8 A.M. April 18.\n\n'EVENING. Speaking of dress. Grace and picturesqueness drop gradually\nout of it as one travels away from New York.'\n\nI find that among my notes. It makes no difference which direction you\ntake, the fact remains the same. Whether you move north, south, east,\nor west, no matter: you can get up in the morning and guess how far you\nhave come, by noting what degree of grace and picturesqueness is by that\ntime lacking in the costumes of the new passengers,--I do not mean of\nthe women alone, but of both sexes. It may be that _carriage _is at the\nbottom of this thing; and I think it is; for there are plenty of ladies\nand gentlemen in the provincial cities whose garments are all made\nby the best tailors and dressmakers of New York; yet this has no\nperceptible effect upon the grand fact: the educated eye never mistakes\nthose people for New-Yorkers. No, there is a godless grace, and snap,\nand style about a born and bred New-Yorker which mere clothing cannot\neffect.\n\n'APRIL 19. This morning, struck into the region of full\ngoatees--sometimes accompanied by a mustache, but only occasionally.'\n\nIt was odd to come upon this thick crop of an obsolete and uncomely\nfashion; it was like running suddenly across a forgotten acquaintance\nwhom you had supposed dead for a generation. The goatee extends over\na wide extent of country; and is accompanied by an iron-clad belief in\nAdam and the biblical history of creation, which has not suffered from\nthe assaults of the scientists.\n\n'AFTERNOON. At the railway stations the loafers carry _both _hands in\ntheir breeches pockets; it was observable, heretofore, that one hand\nwas sometimes out of doors,--here, never. This is an important fact in\ngeography.'\n\nIf the loafers determined the character of a country, it would be still\nmore important, of course.\n\n'Heretofore, all along, the station-loafer has been often observed to\nscratch one shin with the other foot; here, these remains of activity\nare wanting. This has an ominous look.'\n\nBy and by, we entered the tobacco-chewing region. Fifty years ago, the\ntobacco-chewing region covered the Union. It is greatly restricted now.\n\nNext, boots began to appear. Not in strong force, however. Later--away\ndown the Mississippi--they became the rule. They disappeared from other\nsections of the Union with the mud; no doubt they will disappear from\nthe river villages, also, when proper pavements come in.\n\nWe reached St. Louis at ten o'clock at night. At the counter of the\nhotel I tendered a hurriedly-invented fictitious name, with a miserable\nattempt at careless ease. The clerk paused, and inspected me in the\ncompassionate way in which one inspects a respectable person who is\nfound in doubtful circumstances; then he said--\n\n'It's all right; I know what sort of a room you want. Used to clerk at\nthe St. James, in New York.'\n\nAn unpromising beginning for a fraudulent career. We started to the\nsupper room, and met two other men whom I had known elsewhere. How odd\nand unfair it is: wicked impostors go around lecturing under my _Nom\nDe Guerre_ and nobody suspects them; but when an honest man attempts an\nimposture, he is exposed at once.\n\nOne thing seemed plain: we must start down the river the next day, if\npeople who could not be deceived were going to crop up at this rate:\nan unpalatable disappointment, for we had hoped to have a week in\nSt. Louis. The Southern was a good hotel, and we could have had a\ncomfortable time there. It is large, and well conducted, and its\ndecorations do not make one cry, as do those of the vast Palmer House,\nin Chicago. True, the billiard-tables were of the Old Silurian Period,\nand the cues and balls of the Post-Pliocene; but there was refreshment\nin this, not discomfort; for there is rest and healing in the\ncontemplation of antiquities.\n\nThe most notable absence observable in the billiard-room, was the\nabsence of the river man. If he was there he had taken in his sign,\nhe was in disguise. I saw there none of the swell airs and graces, and\nostentatious displays of money, and pompous squanderings of it, which\nused to distinguish the steamboat crowd from the dry-land crowd in\nthe bygone days, in the thronged billiard-rooms of St. Louis. In those\ntimes, the principal saloons were always populous with river men; given\nfifty players present, thirty or thirty-five were likely to be from\nthe river. But I suspected that the ranks were thin now, and the\nsteamboatmen no longer an aristocracy. Why, in my time they used to\ncall the 'barkeep' Bill, or Joe, or Tom, and slap him on the shoulder;\nI watched for that. But none of these people did it. Manifestly a glory\nthat once was had dissolved and vanished away in these twenty-one years.\n\nWhen I went up to my room, I found there the young man called Rogers,\ncrying. Rogers was not his name; neither was Jones, Brown, Dexter,\nFerguson, Bascom, nor Thompson; but he answered to either of these that\na body found handy in an emergency; or to any other name, in fact, if he\nperceived that you meant him. He said--\n\n'What is a person to do here when he wants a drink of water?--drink this\nslush?'\n\n'Can't you drink it?'\n\n'I could if I had some other water to wash it with.'\n\nHere was a thing which had not changed; a score of years had not\naffected this water's mulatto complexion in the least; a score of\ncenturies would succeed no better, perhaps. It comes out of the\nturbulent, bank-caving Missouri, and every tumblerful of it holds nearly\nan acre of land in solution. I got this fact from the bishop of the\ndiocese. If you will let your glass stand half an hour, you can separate\nthe land from the water as easy as Genesis; and then you will find them\nboth good: the one good to eat, the other good to drink. The land is\nvery nourishing, the water is thoroughly wholesome. The one appeases\nhunger; the other, thirst. But the natives do not take them separately,\nbut together, as nature mixed them. When they find an inch of mud in the\nbottom of a glass, they stir it up, and then take the draught as they\nwould gruel. It is difficult for a stranger to get used to this batter,\nbut once used to it he will prefer it to water. This is really the case.\nIt is good for steamboating, and good to drink; but it is worthless for\nall other purposes, except baptizing.\n\nNext morning, we drove around town in the rain. The city seemed but\nlittle changed. It _was _greatly changed, but it did not seem so;\nbecause in St. Louis, as in London and Pittsburgh, you can't persuade\na new thing to look new; the coal smoke turns it into an antiquity the\nmoment you take your hand off it. The place had just about doubled its\nsize, since I was a resident of it, and was now become a city of 400,000\ninhabitants; still, in the solid business parts, it looked about as it\nhad looked formerly. Yet I am sure there is not as much smoke in St.\nLouis now as there used to be. The smoke used to bank itself in a dense\nbillowy black canopy over the town, and hide the sky from view. This\nshelter is very much thinner now; still, there is a sufficiency of smoke\nthere, I think. I heard no complaint.\n\nHowever, on the outskirts changes were apparent enough; notably in\ndwelling-house architecture. The fine new homes are noble and beautiful\nand modern. They stand by themselves, too, with green lawns around them;\nwhereas the dwellings of a former day are packed together in blocks,\nand are all of one pattern, with windows all alike, set in an arched\nframe-work of twisted stone; a sort of house which was handsome enough\nwhen it was rarer.\n\nThere was another change--the Forest Park. This was new to me. It is\nbeautiful and very extensive, and has the excellent merit of having been\nmade mainly by nature. There are other parks, and fine ones, notably\nTower Grove and the Botanical Gardens; for St. Louis interested herself\nin such improvements at an earlier day than did the most of our cities.\n\nThe first time I ever saw St. Louis, I could have bought it for six\nmillion dollars, and it was the mistake of my life that I did not do\nit. It was bitter now to look abroad over this domed and steepled\nmetropolis, this solid expanse of bricks and mortar stretching away on\nevery hand into dim, measure-defying distances, and remember that I had\nallowed that opportunity to go by. Why I should have allowed it to go\nby seems, of course, foolish and inexplicable to-day, at a first glance;\nyet there were reasons at the time to justify this course.\n\nA Scotchman, Hon. Charles Augustus Murray, writing some forty-five\nor fifty years ago, said--'The streets are narrow, ill paved and ill\nlighted.' Those streets are narrow still, of course; many of them are\nill paved yet; but the reproach of ill lighting cannot be repeated, now.\nThe 'Catholic New Church' was the only notable building then, and Mr.\nMurray was confidently called upon to admire it, with its 'species of\nGrecian portico, surmounted by a kind of steeple, much too diminutive\nin its proportions, and surmounted by sundry ornaments' which the\nunimaginative Scotchman found himself 'quite unable to describe;' and\ntherefore was grateful when a German tourist helped him out with the\nexclamation--'By--, they look exactly like bed-posts!' St. Louis is\nwell equipped with stately and noble public buildings now, and the\nlittle church, which the people used to be so proud of, lost its\nimportance a long time ago. Still, this would not surprise Mr. Murray,\nif he could come back; for he prophesied the coming greatness of St.\nLouis with strong confidence.\n\nThe further we drove in our inspection-tour, the more sensibly I\nrealized how the city had grown since I had seen it last; changes in\ndetail became steadily more apparent and frequent than at first, too:\nchanges uniformly evidencing progress, energy, prosperity.\n\nBut the change of changes was on the 'levee.' This time, a departure\nfrom the rule. Half a dozen sound-asleep steamboats where I used to see\na solid mile of wide-awake ones! This was melancholy, this was\nwoeful. The absence of the pervading and jocund steamboatman from the\nbilliard-saloon was explained. He was absent because he is no more. His\noccupation is gone, his power has passed away, he is absorbed into the\ncommon herd, he grinds at the mill, a shorn Samson and inconspicuous.\nHalf a dozen lifeless steamboats, a mile of empty wharves, a negro\nfatigued with whiskey stretched asleep, in a wide and soundless vacancy,\nwhere the serried hosts of commerce used to contend!{footnote [Capt.\nMarryat, writing forty-five years ago says: 'St. Louis has 20,000\ninhabitants. _The river abreast of the town is crowded with steamboats,\nlying in two or three tiers_.']} Here was desolation, indeed.\n\n'The old, old sea, as one in tears, Comes murmuring, with foamy lips,\nAnd knocking at the vacant piers, Calls for his long-lost multitude of\nships.'\n\nThe towboat and the railroad had done their work, and done it well and\ncompletely. The mighty bridge, stretching along over our heads, had\ndone its share in the slaughter and spoliation. Remains of former\nsteamboatmen told me, with wan satisfaction, that the bridge doesn't\npay. Still, it can be no sufficient compensation to a corpse, to know\nthat the dynamite that laid him out was not of as good quality as it had\nbeen supposed to be.\n\nThe pavements along the river front were bad: the sidewalks were rather\nout of repair; there was a rich abundance of mud. All this was familiar\nand satisfying; but the ancient armies of drays, and struggling throngs\nof men, and mountains of freight, were gone; and Sabbath reigned in\ntheir stead. The immemorial mile of cheap foul doggeries remained, but\nbusiness was dull with them; the multitudes of poison-swilling Irishmen\nhad departed, and in their places were a few scattering handfuls of\nragged negroes, some drinking, some drunk, some nodding, others\nasleep. St. Louis is a great and prosperous and advancing city; but the\nriver-edge of it seems dead past resurrection.\n\nMississippi steamboating was born about 1812; at the end of thirty\nyears, it had grown to mighty proportions; and in less than thirty\nmore, it was dead! A strangely short life for so majestic a creature. Of\ncourse it is not absolutely dead, neither is a crippled octogenarian who\ncould once jump twenty-two feet on level ground; but as contrasted with\nwhat it was in its prime vigor, Mississippi steamboating may be called\ndead.\n\nIt killed the old-fashioned keel-boating, by reducing the freight-trip\nto New Orleans to less than a week. The railroads have killed the\nsteamboat passenger traffic by doing in two or three days what the\nsteamboats consumed a week in doing; and the towing-fleets have killed\nthe through-freight traffic by dragging six or seven steamer-loads of\nstuff down the river at a time, at an expense so trivial that steamboat\ncompetition was out of the question.\n\nFreight and passenger way-traffic remains to the steamers. This is in\nthe hands--along the two thousand miles of river between St. Paul and\nNew Orleans---of two or three close corporations well fortified with\ncapital; and by able and thoroughly business-like management and system,\nthese make a sufficiency of money out of what is left of the once\nprodigious steamboating industry. I suppose that St. Louis and New\nOrleans have not suffered materially by the change, but alas for the\nwood-yard man!\n\nHe used to fringe the river all the way; his close-ranked merchandise\nstretched from the one city to the other, along the banks, and he sold\nuncountable cords of it every year for cash on the nail; but all\nthe scattering boats that are left burn coal now, and the seldomest\nspectacle on the Mississippi to-day is a wood-pile. Where now is the\nonce wood-yard man?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 23\n\nTraveling Incognito\n\nMY idea was, to tarry a while in every town between St. Louis and New\nOrleans. To do this, it would be necessary to go from place to place by\nthe short packet lines. It was an easy plan to make, and would have been\nan easy one to follow, twenty years ago--but not now. There are wide\nintervals between boats, these days.\n\nI wanted to begin with the interesting old French settlements of St.\nGenevieve and Kaskaskia, sixty miles below St. Louis. There was only one\nboat advertised for that section--a Grand Tower packet. Still, one\nboat was enough; so we went down to look at her. She was a venerable\nrack-heap, and a fraud to boot; for she was playing herself for personal\nproperty, whereas the good honest dirt was so thickly caked all over her\nthat she was righteously taxable as real estate. There are places in\nNew England where her hurricane deck would be worth a hundred and fifty\ndollars an acre. The soil on her forecastle was quite good--the new crop\nof wheat was already springing from the cracks in protected places.\nThe companionway was of a dry sandy character, and would have been well\nsuited for grapes, with a southern exposure and a little subsoiling. The\nsoil of the boiler deck was thin and rocky, but good enough for grazing\npurposes. A colored boy was on watch here--nobody else visible. We\ngathered from him that this calm craft would go, as advertised, 'if she\ngot her trip;' if she didn't get it, she would wait for it.\n\n'Has she got any of her trip?'\n\n'Bless you, no, boss. She ain't unloadened, yit. She only come in dis\nmawnin'.'\n\nHe was uncertain as to when she might get her trip, but thought it might\nbe to-morrow or maybe next day. This would not answer at all; so we had\nto give up the novelty of sailing down the river on a farm. We had one\nmore arrow in our quiver: a Vicksburg packet, the 'Gold Dust,' was to\nleave at 5 P.M. We took passage in her for Memphis, and gave up the idea\nof stopping off here and there, as being impracticable. She was neat,\nclean, and comfortable. We camped on the boiler deck, and bought some\ncheap literature to kill time with. The vender was a venerable Irishman\nwith a benevolent face and a tongue that worked easily in the socket,\nand from him we learned that he had lived in St. Louis thirty-four years\nand had never been across the river during that period. Then he wandered\ninto a very flowing lecture, filled with classic names and allusions,\nwhich was quite wonderful for fluency until the fact became rather\napparent that this was not the first time, nor perhaps the fiftieth,\nthat the speech had been delivered. He was a good deal of a character,\nand much better company than the sappy literature he was selling. A\nrandom remark, connecting Irishmen and beer, brought this nugget of\ninformation out of him--\n\nThey don't drink it, sir. They can't drink it, sir. Give an Irishman\nlager for a month, and he's a dead man. An Irishman is lined with\ncopper, and the beer corrodes it. But whiskey polishes the copper and is\nthe saving of him, sir.'\n\nAt eight o'clock, promptly, we backed out and crossed the river. As we\ncrept toward the shore, in the thick darkness, a blinding glory of white\nelectric light burst suddenly from our forecastle, and lit up the\nwater and the warehouses as with a noon-day glare. Another big\nchange, this--no more flickering, smoky, pitch-dripping, ineffectual\ntorch-baskets, now: their day is past. Next, instead of calling out a\nscore of hands to man the stage, a couple of men and a hatful of\nsteam lowered it from the derrick where it was suspended, launched it,\ndeposited it in just the right spot, and the whole thing was over\nand done with before a mate in the olden time could have got his\nprofanity-mill adjusted to begin the preparatory services. Why this new\nand simple method of handling the stages was not thought of when the\nfirst steamboat was built, is a mystery which helps one to realize what\na dull-witted slug the average human being is.\n\nWe finally got away at two in the morning, and when I turned out at\nsix, we were rounding to at a rocky point where there was an old\nstone warehouse--at any rate, the ruins of it; two or three decayed\ndwelling-houses were near by, in the shelter of the leafy hills; but\nthere were no evidences of human or other animal life to be seen.\nI wondered if I had forgotten the river; for I had no recollection\nwhatever of this place; the shape of the river, too, was unfamiliar;\nthere was nothing in sight, anywhere, that I could remember ever having\nseen before. I was surprised, disappointed, and annoyed.\n\nWe put ashore a well-dressed lady and gentleman, and two well-dressed,\nlady-like young girls, together with sundry Russia-leather bags. A\nstrange place for such folk! No carriage was waiting. The party moved\noff as if they had not expected any, and struck down a winding country\nroad afoot.\n\nBut the mystery was explained when we got under way again; for these\npeople were evidently bound for a large town which lay shut in behind\na tow-head (i.e., new island) a couple of miles below this landing.\nI couldn't remember that town; I couldn't place it, couldn't call its\nname. So I lost part of my temper. I suspected that it might be St.\nGenevieve--and so it proved to be. Observe what this eccentric river had\nbeen about: it had built up this huge useless tow-head directly in\nfront of this town, cut off its river communications, fenced it away\ncompletely, and made a 'country' town of it. It is a fine old place,\ntoo, and deserved a better fate. It was settled by the French, and is a\nrelic of a time when one could travel from the mouths of the Mississippi\nto Quebec and be on French territory and under French rule all the way.\n\nPresently I ascended to the hurricane deck and cast a longing glance\ntoward the pilot-house.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 24\n\nMy Incognito is Exploded\n\nAFTER a close study of the face of the pilot on watch, I was satisfied\nthat I had never seen him before; so I went up there. The pilot\ninspected me; I re-inspected the pilot. These customary preliminaries\nover, I sat down on the high bench, and he faced about and went on with\nhis work. Every detail of the pilot-house was familiar to me, with one\nexception,--a large-mouthed tube under the breast-board. I puzzled over\nthat thing a considerable time; then gave up and asked what it was for.\n\n'To hear the engine-bells through.'\n\nIt was another good contrivance which ought to have been invented half a\ncentury sooner. So I was thinking, when the pilot asked--\n\n'Do you know what this rope is for?'\n\nI managed to get around this question, without committing myself.\n\n'Is this the first time you were ever in a pilot-house?'\n\nI crept under that one.\n\n'Where are you from?'\n\n'New England.'\n\n'First time you have ever been West?'\n\nI climbed over this one.\n\n'If you take an interest in such things, I can tell you what all these\nthings are for.'\n\nI said I should like it.\n\n'This,' putting his hand on a backing-bell rope, 'is to sound the\nfire-alarm; this,' putting his hand on a go-ahead bell, 'is to call the\ntexas-tender; this one,' indicating the whistle-lever, 'is to call the\ncaptain'--and so he went on, touching one object after another, and\nreeling off his tranquil spool of lies.\n\nI had never felt so like a passenger before. I thanked him, with\nemotion, for each new fact, and wrote it down in my note-book. The\npilot warmed to his opportunity, and proceeded to load me up in the good\nold-fashioned way. At times I was afraid he was going to rupture his\ninvention; but it always stood the strain, and he pulled through all\nright. He drifted, by easy stages, into revealments of the river's\nmarvelous eccentricities of one sort and another, and backed them up\nwith some pretty gigantic illustrations. For instance--\n\n'Do you see that little boulder sticking out of the water yonder? well,\nwhen I first came on the river, that was a solid ridge of rock, over\nsixty feet high and two miles long. All washed away but that.' [This\nwith a sigh.]\n\nI had a mighty impulse to destroy him, but it seemed to me that killing,\nin any ordinary way, would be too good for him.\n\nOnce, when an odd-looking craft, with a vast coal-scuttle slanting aloft\non the end of a beam, was steaming by in the distance, he indifferently\ndrew attention to it, as one might to an object grown wearisome through\nfamiliarity, and observed that it was an 'alligator boat.'\n\n'An alligator boat? What's it for?'\n\n'To dredge out alligators with.'\n\n'Are they so thick as to be troublesome?'\n\n'Well, not now, because the Government keeps them down. But they used\nto be. Not everywhere; but in favorite places, here and there, where\nthe river is wide and shoal-like Plum Point, and Stack Island, and so\non--places they call alligator beds.'\n\n'Did they actually impede navigation?'\n\n'Years ago, yes, in very low water; there was hardly a trip, then, that\nwe didn't get aground on alligators.'\n\nIt seemed to me that I should certainly have to get out my tomahawk.\nHowever, I restrained myself and said--\n\n'It must have been dreadful.'\n\n'Yes, it was one of the main difficulties about piloting. It was so\nhard to tell anything about the water; the damned things shift around\nso--never lie still five minutes at a time. You can tell a wind-reef,\nstraight off, by the look of it; you can tell a break; you can tell a\nsand-reef--that's all easy; but an alligator reef doesn't show up, worth\nanything. Nine times in ten you can't tell where the water is; and when\nyou do see where it is, like as not it ain't there when _you _get there,\nthe devils have swapped around so, meantime. Of course there were some\nfew pilots that could judge of alligator water nearly as well as they\ncould of any other kind, but they had to have natural talent for it; it\nwasn't a thing a body could learn, you had to be born with it. Let\nme see: there was Ben Thornburg, and Beck Jolly, and Squire Bell, and\nHorace Bixby, and Major Downing, and John Stevenson, and Billy Gordon,\nand Jim Brady, and George Ealer, and Billy Youngblood--all A-1 alligator\npilots. _They _could tell alligator water as far as another Christian\ncould tell whiskey. Read it?--Ah, _couldn't_ they, though! I only wish I\nhad as many dollars as they could read alligator water a mile and a half\noff. Yes, and it paid them to do it, too. A good alligator pilot could\nalways get fifteen hundred dollars a month. Nights, other people had to\nlay up for alligators, but those fellows never laid up for alligators;\nthey never laid up for anything but fog. They could _smell _the best\nalligator water it was said; I don't know whether it was so or not, and\nI think a body's got his hands full enough if he sticks to just what he\nknows himself, without going around backing up other people's say-so's,\nthough there's a plenty that ain't backward about doing it, as long as\nthey can roust out something wonderful to tell. Which is not the style\nof Robert Styles, by as much as three fathom--maybe quarter-_less_.'\n\n[My! Was this Rob Styles?--This mustached and stately figure?-A\nslim enough cub, in my time. How he has improved in comeliness in\nfive-and-twenty year and in the noble art of inflating his facts.] After\nthese musings, I said aloud--\n\n'I should think that dredging out the alligators wouldn't have done much\ngood, because they could come back again right away.'\n\n'If you had had as much experience of alligators as I have, you wouldn't\ntalk like that. You dredge an alligator once and he's _convinced_. It's\nthe last you hear of _him_. He wouldn't come back for pie. If there's\none thing that an alligator is more down on than another, it's being\ndredged. Besides, they were not simply shoved out of the way; the most\nof the scoopful were scooped aboard; they emptied them into the\nhold; and when they had got a trip, they took them to Orleans to the\nGovernment works.'\n\n'What for?'\n\n'Why, to make soldier-shoes out of their hides. All the Government shoes\nare made of alligator hide. It makes the best shoes in the world. They\nlast five years, and they won't absorb water. The alligator fishery is\na Government monopoly. All the alligators are Government property--just\nlike the live-oaks. You cut down a live-oak, and Government fines you\nfifty dollars; you kill an alligator, and up you go for misprision\nof treason--lucky duck if they don't hang you, too. And they will, if\nyou're a Democrat. The buzzard is the sacred bird of the South, and you\ncan't touch him; the alligator is the sacred bird of the Government, and\nyou've got to let him alone.'\n\n'Do you ever get aground on the alligators now?'\n\n'Oh, no! it hasn't happened for years.'\n\n'Well, then, why do they still keep the alligator boats in service?'\n\n'Just for police duty--nothing more. They merely go up and down now\nand then. The present generation of alligators know them as easy as a\nburglar knows a roundsman; when they see one coming, they break camp and\ngo for the woods.'\n\nAfter rounding-out and finishing-up and polishing-off the alligator\nbusiness, he dropped easily and comfortably into the historical vein,\nand told of some tremendous feats of half-a-dozen old-time steamboats\nof his acquaintance, dwelling at special length upon a certain\nextraordinary performance of his chief favorite among this distinguished\nfleet--and then adding--\n\n'That boat was the \"_Cyclone_,\"--last trip she ever made--she sunk, that\nvery trip--captain was Tom Ballou, the most immortal liar that ever I\nstruck. He couldn't ever seem to tell the truth, in any kind of weather.\nWhy, he would make you fairly shudder. He _was _the most scandalous\nliar! I left him, finally; I couldn't stand it. The proverb says, \"like\nmaster, like man;\" and if you stay with that kind of a man, you'll come\nunder suspicion by and by, just as sure as you live. He paid first-class\nwages; but said I, What's wages when your reputation's in danger? So I\nlet the wages go, and froze to my reputation. And I've never regretted\nit. Reputation's worth everything, ain't it? That's the way I look at\nit. He had more selfish organs than any seven men in the world--all\npacked in the stern-sheets of his skull, of course, where they belonged.\nThey weighed down the back of his head so that it made his nose tilt up\nin the air. People thought it was vanity, but it wasn't, it was malice.\nIf you only saw his foot, you'd take him to be nineteen feet high, but\nhe wasn't; it was because his foot was out of drawing. He was intended\nto be nineteen feet high, no doubt, if his foot was made first, but he\ndidn't get there; he was only five feet ten. That's what he was, and\nthat's what he is. You take the lies out of him, and he'll shrink to the\nsize of your hat; you take the malice out of him, and he'll disappear.\nThat \"Cyclone\" was a rattler to go, and the sweetest thing to steer that\never walked the waters. Set her amidships, in a big river, and just let\nher go; it was all you had to do. She would hold herself on a star\nall night, if you let her alone. You couldn't ever feel her rudder. It\nwasn't any more labor to steer her than it is to count the Republican\nvote in a South Carolina election. One morning, just at daybreak, the\nlast trip she ever made, they took her rudder aboard to mend it; I\ndidn't know anything about it; I backed her out from the wood-yard\nand went a-weaving down the river all serene. When I had gone about\ntwenty-three miles, and made four horribly crooked crossings--'\n\n'Without any rudder?'\n\n'Yes--old Capt. Tom appeared on the roof and began to find fault with me\nfor running such a dark night--'\n\n'Such a _dark night_?--Why, you said--'\n\n'Never mind what I said,--'twas as dark as Egypt now, though pretty soon\nthe moon began to rise, and--'\n\n'You mean the _sun_--because you started out just at break of--look\nhere! Was this _before _you quitted the captain on account of his lying,\nor--'\n\n'It was before--oh, a long time before. And as I was saying, he--'\n\n'But was this the trip she sunk, or was--'\n\n'Oh, no!--months afterward. And so the old man, he--'\n\n'Then she made _two _last trips, because you said--'\n\nHe stepped back from the wheel, swabbing away his perspiration, and\nsaid--\n\n'Here!' (calling me by name), '_you _take her and lie a while--you're\nhandier at it than I am. Trying to play yourself for a stranger and an\ninnocent!--why, I knew you before you had spoken seven words; and I made\nup my mind to find out what was your little game. It was to _draw me\nout_. Well, I let you, didn't I? Now take the wheel and finish the\nwatch; and next time play fair, and you won't have to work your\npassage.'\n\nThus ended the fictitious-name business. And not six hours out from St.\nLouis! but I had gained a privilege, any way, for I had been itching\nto get my hands on the wheel, from the beginning. I seemed to have\nforgotten the river, but I hadn't forgotten how to steer a steamboat,\nnor how to enjoy it, either.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 25\n\nFrom Cairo to Hickman\n\nTHE scenery, from St. Louis to Cairo--two hundred miles--is varied and\nbeautiful. The hills were clothed in the fresh foliage of spring now,\nand were a gracious and worthy setting for the broad river flowing\nbetween. Our trip began auspiciously, with a perfect day, as to\nbreeze and sunshine, and our boat threw the miles out behind her with\nsatisfactory despatch.\n\nWe found a railway intruding at Chester, Illinois; Chester has also a\npenitentiary now, and is otherwise marching on. At Grand Tower, too,\nthere was a railway; and another at Cape Girardeau. The former town gets\nits name from a huge, squat pillar of rock, which stands up out of the\nwater on the Missouri side of the river--a piece of nature's fanciful\nhandiwork--and is one of the most picturesque features of the scenery of\nthat region. For nearer or remoter neighbors, the Tower has the Devil's\nBake Oven--so called, perhaps, because it does not powerfully resemble\nanybody else's bake oven; and the Devil's Tea Table--this latter a great\nsmooth-surfaced mass of rock, with diminishing wine-glass stem, perched\nsome fifty or sixty feet above the river, beside a beflowered and\ngarlanded precipice, and sufficiently like a tea-table to answer for\nanybody, Devil or Christian. Away down the river we have the Devil's\nElbow and the Devil's Race-course, and lots of other property of his\nwhich I cannot now call to mind.\n\nThe Town of Grand Tower was evidently a busier place than it had been in\nold times, but it seemed to need some repairs here and there, and a new\ncoat of whitewash all over. Still, it was pleasant to me to see the old\ncoat once more. 'Uncle' Mumford, our second officer, said the place had\nbeen suffering from high water, and consequently was not looking its\nbest now. But he said it was not strange that it didn't waste white-wash\non itself, for more lime was made there, and of a better quality, than\nanywhere in the West; and added--'On a dairy farm you never can get any\nmilk for your coffee, nor any sugar for it on a sugar plantation; and it\nis against sense to go to a lime town to hunt for white-wash.' In my own\nexperience I knew the first two items to be true; and also that people\nwho sell candy don't care for candy; therefore there was plausibility in\nUncle Mumford's final observation that 'people who make lime run more to\nreligion than whitewash.' Uncle Mumford said, further, that Grand Tower\nwas a great coaling center and a prospering place.\n\nCape Girardeau is situated on a hillside, and makes a handsome\nappearance. There is a great Jesuit school for boys at the foot of the\ntown by the river. Uncle Mumford said it had as high a reputation for\nthoroughness as any similar institution in Missouri! There was another\ncollege higher up on an airy summit--a bright new edifice, picturesquely\nand peculiarly towered and pinnacled--a sort of gigantic casters, with\nthe cruets all complete. Uncle Mumford said that Cape Girardeau was the\nAthens of Missouri, and contained several colleges besides those already\nmentioned; and all of them on a religious basis of one kind or another.\nHe directed my attention to what he called the 'strong and pervasive\nreligious look of the town,' but I could not see that it looked more\nreligious than the other hill towns with the same slope and built of the\nsame kind of bricks. Partialities often make people see more than really\nexists.\n\nUncle Mumford has been thirty years a mate on the river. He is a man of\npractical sense and a level head; has observed; has had much experience\nof one sort and another; has opinions; has, also, just a perceptible\ndash of poetry in his composition, an easy gift of speech, a thick\ngrowl in his voice, and an oath or two where he can get at them when the\nexigencies of his office require a spiritual lift. He is a mate of the\nblessed old-time kind; and goes gravely damning around, when there is\nwork to the fore, in a way to mellow the ex-steamboatman's heart with\nsweet soft longings for the vanished days that shall come no more.\n'_Git _up there you! Going to be all day? Why d'n't you _say _you was\npetrified in your hind legs, before you shipped!'\n\nHe is a steady man with his crew; kind and just, but firm; so they\nlike him, and stay with him. He is still in the slouchy garb of the\nold generation of mates; but next trip the Anchor Line will have him in\nuniform--a natty blue naval uniform, with brass buttons, along with all\nthe officers of the line--and then he will be a totally different style\nof scenery from what he is now.\n\nUniforms on the Mississippi! It beats all the other changes put\ntogether, for surprise. Still, there is another surprise--that it was\nnot made fifty years ago. It is so manifestly sensible, that it might\nhave been thought of earlier, one would suppose. During fifty years, out\nthere, the innocent passenger in need of help and information, has been\nmistaking the mate for the cook, and the captain for the barber--and\nbeing roughly entertained for it, too. But his troubles are ended now.\nAnd the greatly improved aspect of the boat's staff is another advantage\nachieved by the dress-reform period.\n\nSteered down the bend below Cape Girardeau. They used to call it\n'Steersman's Bend;' plain sailing and plenty of water in it, always;\nabout the only place in the Upper River that a new cub was allowed to\ntake a boat through, in low water.\n\nThebes, at the head of the Grand Chain, and Commerce at the foot of it,\nwere towns easily rememberable, as they had not undergone conspicuous\nalteration. Nor the Chain, either--in the nature of things; for it is a\nchain of sunken rocks admirably arranged to capture and kill steamboats\non bad nights. A good many steamboat corpses lie buried there, out of\nsight; among the rest my first friend the 'Paul Jones;' she knocked her\nbottom out, and went down like a pot, so the historian told me--Uncle\nMumford. He said she had a gray mare aboard, and a preacher. To me,\nthis sufficiently accounted for the disaster; as it did, of course, to\nMumford, who added--\n\n'But there are many ignorant people who would scoff at such a matter,\nand call it superstition. But you will always notice that they are\npeople who have never traveled with a gray mare and a preacher. I went\ndown the river once in such company. We grounded at Bloody Island; we\ngrounded at Hanging Dog; we grounded just below this same Commerce;\nwe jolted Beaver Dam Rock; we hit one of the worst breaks in the\n'Graveyard' behind Goose Island; we had a roustabout killed in a fight;\nwe burnt a boiler; broke a shaft; collapsed a flue; and went into Cairo\nwith nine feet of water in the hold--may have been more, may have been\nless. I remember it as if it were yesterday. The men lost their heads\nwith terror. They painted the mare blue, in sight of town, and threw the\npreacher overboard, or we should not have arrived at all. The preacher\nwas fished out and saved. He acknowledged, himself, that he had been to\nblame. I remember it all, as if it were yesterday.'\n\nThat this combination--of preacher and gray mare--should breed calamity,\nseems strange, and at first glance unbelievable; but the fact is\nfortified by so much unassailable proof that to doubt is to dishonor\nreason. I myself remember a case where a captain was warned by numerous\nfriends against taking a gray mare and a preacher with him, but\npersisted in his purpose in spite of all that could be said; and the\nsame day--it may have been the next, and some say it was, though I think\nit was the same day--he got drunk and fell down the hatchway, and was\nborne to his home a corpse. This is literally true.\n\nNo vestige of Hat Island is left now; every shred of it is washed away.\nI do not even remember what part of the river it used to be in,\nexcept that it was between St. Louis and Cairo somewhere. It was a bad\nregion--all around and about Hat Island, in early days. A farmer who\nlived on the Illinois shore there, said that twenty-nine steamboats had\nleft their bones strung along within sight from his house. Between\nSt. Louis and Cairo the steamboat wrecks average one to the mile;--two\nhundred wrecks, altogether.\n\nI could recognize big changes from Commerce down. Beaver Dam Rock was\nout in the middle of the river now, and throwing a prodigious 'break;'\nit used to be close to the shore, and boats went down outside of it.\nA big island that used to be away out in mid-river, has retired to the\nMissouri shore, and boats do not go near it any more. The island called\nJacket Pattern is whittled down to a wedge now, and is booked for early\ndestruction. Goose Island is all gone but a little dab the size of a\nsteamboat. The perilous 'Graveyard,' among whose numberless wrecks\nwe used to pick our way so slowly and gingerly, is far away from the\nchannel now, and a terror to nobody. One of the islands formerly called\nthe Two Sisters is gone entirely; the other, which used to lie close\nto the Illinois shore, is now on the Missouri side, a mile away; it is\njoined solidly to the shore, and it takes a sharp eye to see where the\nseam is--but it is Illinois ground yet, and the people who live on\nit have to ferry themselves over and work the Illinois roads and pay\nIllinois taxes: singular state of things!\n\nNear the mouth of the river several islands were missing--washed away.\nCairo was still there--easily visible across the long, flat point upon\nwhose further verge it stands; but we had to steam a long way around\nto get to it. Night fell as we were going out of the 'Upper River' and\nmeeting the floods of the Ohio. We dashed along without anxiety; for\nthe hidden rock which used to lie right in the way has moved up stream\na long distance out of the channel; or rather, about one county has gone\ninto the river from the Missouri point, and the Cairo point has 'made\ndown' and added to its long tongue of territory correspondingly. The\nMississippi is a just and equitable river; it never tumbles one man's\nfarm overboard without building a new farm just like it for that man's\nneighbor. This keeps down hard feelings.\n\nGoing into Cairo, we came near killing a steamboat which paid no\nattention to our whistle and then tried to cross our bows. By doing some\nstrong backing, we saved him; which was a great loss, for he would have\nmade good literature.\n\nCairo is a brisk town now; and is substantially built, and has a city\nlook about it which is in noticeable contrast to its former estate, as\nper Mr. Dickens's portrait of it. However, it was already building with\nbricks when I had seen it last--which was when Colonel (now General)\nGrant was drilling his first command there. Uncle Mumford says the\nlibraries and Sunday-schools have done a good work in Cairo, as well as\nthe brick masons. Cairo has a heavy railroad and river trade, and her\nsituation at the junction of the two great rivers is so advantageous\nthat she cannot well help prospering.\n\nWhen I turned out, in the morning, we had passed Columbus, Kentucky,\nand were approaching Hickman, a pretty town, perched on a handsome hill.\nHickman is in a rich tobacco region, and formerly enjoyed a great and\nlucrative trade in that staple, collecting it there in her warehouses\nfrom a large area of country and shipping it by boat; but Uncle Mumford\nsays she built a railway to facilitate this commerce a little more, and\nhe thinks it facilitated it the wrong way--took the bulk of the trade\nout of her hands by 'collaring it along the line without gathering it at\nher doors.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 26\n\nUnder Fire\n\nTALK began to run upon the war now, for we were getting down into the\nupper edge of the former battle-stretch by this time. Columbus was just\nbehind us, so there was a good deal said about the famous battle of\nBelmont. Several of the boat's officers had seen active service in the\nMississippi war-fleet. I gathered that they found themselves sadly out\nof their element in that kind of business at first, but afterward got\naccustomed to it, reconciled to it, and more or less at home in it. One\nof our pilots had his first war experience in the Belmont fight, as a\npilot on a boat in the Confederate service. I had often had a curiosity\nto know how a green hand might feel, in his maiden battle, perched all\nsolitary and alone on high in a pilot house, a target for Tom, Dick\nand Harry, and nobody at his elbow to shame him from showing the white\nfeather when matters grew hot and perilous around him; so, to me his\nstory was valuable--it filled a gap for me which all histories had left\ntill that time empty.\n\nTHE PILOT'S FIRST BATTLE\n\nHe said--\n\nIt was the 7th of November. The fight began at seven in the morning. I\nwas on the 'R. H. W. Hill.' Took over a load of troops from Columbus.\nCame back, and took over a battery of artillery. My partner said he\nwas going to see the fight; wanted me to go along. I said, no, I wasn't\nanxious, I would look at it from the pilot-house. He said I was a\ncoward, and left.\n\nThat fight was an awful sight. General Cheatham made his men strip their\ncoats off and throw them in a pile, and said, 'Now follow me to hell\nor victory!' I heard him say that from the pilot-house; and then he\ngalloped in, at the head of his troops. Old General Pillow, with his\nwhite hair, mounted on a white horse, sailed in, too, leading his troops\nas lively as a boy. By and by the Federals chased the rebels back, and\nhere they came! tearing along, everybody for himself and Devil take the\nhindmost! and down under the bank they scrambled, and took shelter. I\nwas sitting with my legs hanging out of the pilot-house window. All at\nonce I noticed a whizzing sound passing my ear. Judged it was a bullet.\nI didn't stop to think about anything, I just tilted over backwards and\nlanded on the floor, and staid there. The balls came booming around.\nThree cannon-balls went through the chimney; one ball took off the\ncorner of the pilot-house; shells were screaming and bursting all\naround. Mighty warm times--I wished I hadn't come.\n\nI lay there on the pilot-house floor, while the shots came faster\nand faster. I crept in behind the big stove, in the middle of the\npilot-house. Presently a minie-ball came through the stove, and just\ngrazed my head, and cut my hat. I judged it was time to go away\nfrom there. The captain was on the roof with a red-headed major from\nMemphis--a fine-looking man. I heard him say he wanted to leave here,\nbut 'that pilot is killed.' I crept over to the starboard side to pull\nthe bell to set her back; raised up and took a look, and I saw about\nfifteen shot holes through the window panes; had come so lively I hadn't\nnoticed them. I glanced out on the water, and the spattering shot were\nlike a hailstorm. I thought best to get out of that place. I went down\nthe pilot-house guy, head first--not feet first but head first--slid\ndown--before I struck the deck, the captain said we must leave there. So\nI climbed up the guy and got on the floor again. About that time, they\ncollared my partner and were bringing him up to the pilot-house between\ntwo soldiers. Somebody had said I was killed. He put his head in and saw\nme on the floor reaching for the backing bells. He said, 'Oh, hell, he\nain't shot,' and jerked away from the men who had him by the collar, and\nran below. We were there until three o'clock in the afternoon, and then\ngot away all right.\n\nThe next time I saw my partner, I said, 'Now, come out, be honest, and\ntell me the truth. Where did you go when you went to see that battle?'\nHe says, 'I went down in the hold.'\n\nAll through that fight I was scared nearly to death. I hardly knew\nanything, I was so frightened; but you see, nobody knew that but me.\nNext day General Polk sent for me, and praised me for my bravery and\ngallant conduct. I never said anything, I let it go at that. I judged it\nwasn't so, but it was not for me to contradict a general officer.\n\nPretty soon after that I was sick, and used up, and had to go off to\nthe Hot Springs. When there, I got a good many letters from commanders\nsaying they wanted me to come back. I declined, because I wasn't well\nenough or strong enough; but I kept still, and kept the reputation I had\nmade.\n\nA plain story, straightforwardly told; but Mumford told me that that\npilot had 'gilded that scare of his, in spots;' that his subsequent\ncareer in the war was proof of it.\n\nWe struck down through the chute of Island No. 8, and I went below\nand fell into conversation with a passenger, a handsome man, with easy\ncarriage and an intelligent face. We were approaching Island No. 10,\na place so celebrated during the war. This gentleman's home was on the\nmain shore in its neighborhood. I had some talk with him about the war\ntimes; but presently the discourse fell upon 'feuds,' for in no part of\nthe South has the vendetta flourished more briskly, or held out longer\nbetween warring families, than in this particular region. This gentleman\nsaid--\n\n'There's been more than one feud around here, in old times, but I reckon\nthe worst one was between the Darnells and the Watsons. Nobody don't\nknow now what the first quarrel was about, it's so long ago; the\nDarnells and the Watsons don't know, if there's any of them living,\nwhich I don't think there is. Some says it was about a horse or a\ncow--anyway, it was a little matter; the money in it wasn't of no\nconsequence--none in the world--both families was rich. The thing could\nhave been fixed up, easy enough; but no, that wouldn't do. Rough words\nhad been passed; and so, nothing but blood could fix it up after that.\nThat horse or cow, whichever it was, cost sixty years of killing and\ncrippling! Every year or so somebody was shot, on one side or the other;\nand as fast as one generation was laid out, their sons took up the feud\nand kept it a-going. And it's just as I say; they went on shooting each\nother, year in and year out--making a kind of a religion of it, you\nsee--till they'd done forgot, long ago, what it was all about. Wherever\na Darnell caught a Watson, or a Watson caught a Darnell, one of 'em was\ngoing to get hurt--only question was, which of them got the drop on\nthe other. They'd shoot one another down, right in the presence of the\nfamily. They didn't hunt for each other, but when they happened to meet,\nthey puffed and begun. Men would shoot boys, boys would shoot men. A man\nshot a boy twelve years old--happened on him in the woods, and didn't\ngive him no chance. If he _had _'a' given him a chance, the boy'd 'a'\nshot him. Both families belonged to the same church (everybody around\nhere is religious); through all this fifty or sixty years' fuss, both\ntribes was there every Sunday, to worship. They lived each side of the\nline, and the church was at a landing called Compromise. Half the church\nand half the aisle was in Kentucky, the other half in Tennessee. Sundays\nyou'd see the families drive up, all in their Sunday clothes, men,\nwomen, and children, and file up the aisle, and set down, quiet and\norderly, one lot on the Tennessee side of the church and the other on\nthe Kentucky side; and the men and boys would lean their guns up against\nthe wall, handy, and then all hands would join in with the prayer and\npraise; though they say the man next the aisle didn't kneel down, along\nwith the rest of the family; kind of stood guard. I don't know; never\nwas at that church in my life; but I remember that that's what used to\nbe said.\n\n'Twenty or twenty-five years ago, one of the feud families caught a\nyoung man of nineteen out and killed him. Don't remember whether it was\nthe Darnells and Watsons, or one of the other feuds; but anyway, this\nyoung man rode up--steamboat laying there at the time--and the first\nthing he saw was a whole gang of the enemy. He jumped down behind a\nwood-pile, but they rode around and begun on him, he firing back, and\nthey galloping and cavorting and yelling and banging away with all their\nmight. Think he wounded a couple of them; but they closed in on him\nand chased him into the river; and as he swum along down stream, they\nfollowed along the bank and kept on shooting at him; and when he struck\nshore he was dead. Windy Marshall told me about it. He saw it. He was\ncaptain of the boat.\n\n'Years ago, the Darnells was so thinned out that the old man and his two\nsons concluded they'd leave the country. They started to take steamboat\njust above No. 10; but the Watsons got wind of it; and they arrived just\nas the two young Darnells was walking up the companion-way with their\nwives on their arms. The fight begun then, and they never got no\nfurther--both of them killed. After that, old Darnell got into trouble\nwith the man that run the ferry, and the ferry-man got the worst\nof it--and died. But his friends shot old Darnell through and\nthrough--filled him full of bullets, and ended him.'\n\nThe country gentleman who told me these things had been reared in ease\nand comfort, was a man of good parts, and was college bred. His loose\ngrammar was the fruit of careless habit, not ignorance. This habit\namong educated men in the West is not universal, but it is\nprevalent--prevalent in the towns, certainly, if not in the cities; and\nto a degree which one cannot help noticing, and marveling at. I heard a\nWesterner who would be accounted a highly educated man in any country,\nsay 'never mind, it _don't make no difference_, anyway.' A life-long\nresident who was present heard it, but it made no impression upon her.\nShe was able to recall the fact afterward, when reminded of it; but\nshe confessed that the words had not grated upon her ear at the\ntime--a confession which suggests that if educated people can hear such\nblasphemous grammar, from such a source, and be unconscious of the deed,\nthe crime must be tolerably common--so common that the general ear has\nbecome dulled by familiarity with it, and is no longer alert, no longer\nsensitive to such affronts.\n\nNo one in the world speaks blemishless grammar; no one has ever written\nit--_no_ one, either in the world or out of it (taking the Scriptures\nfor evidence on the latter point); therefore it would not be fair to\nexact grammatical perfection from the peoples of the Valley; but they\nand all other peoples may justly be required to refrain from _knowingly\nand purposely_ debauching their grammar.\n\nI found the river greatly changed at Island No. 10. The island which\nI remembered was some three miles long and a quarter of a mile wide,\nheavily timbered, and lay near the Kentucky shore--within two hundred\nyards of it, I should say. Now, however, one had to hunt for it with a\nspy-glass. Nothing was left of it but an insignificant little tuft, and\nthis was no longer near the Kentucky shore; it was clear over against\nthe opposite shore, a mile away. In war times the island had been an\nimportant place, for it commanded the situation; and, being heavily\nfortified, there was no getting by it. It lay between the upper and\nlower divisions of the Union forces, and kept them separate, until a\njunction was finally effected across the Missouri neck of land; but the\nisland being itself joined to that neck now, the wide river is without\nobstruction.\n\nIn this region the river passes from Kentucky into Tennessee, back into\nMissouri, then back into Kentucky, and thence into Tennessee again. So a\nmile or two of Missouri sticks over into Tennessee.\n\nThe town of New Madrid was looking very unwell; but otherwise unchanged\nfrom its former condition and aspect. Its blocks of frame-houses were\nstill grouped in the same old flat plain, and environed by the same\nold forests. It was as tranquil as formerly, and apparently had neither\ngrown nor diminished in size. It was said that the recent high water had\ninvaded it and damaged its looks. This was surprising news; for in low\nwater the river bank is very high there (fifty feet), and in my day an\noverflow had always been considered an impossibility. This present flood\nof 1882 Will doubtless be celebrated in the river's history for several\ngenerations before a deluge of like magnitude shall be seen. It put all\nthe unprotected low lands under water, from Cairo to the mouth; it broke\ndown the levees in a great many places, on both sides of the river;\nand in some regions south, when the flood was at its highest, the\nMississippi was _seventy miles_ wide! a number of lives were lost,\nand the destruction of property was fearful. The crops were destroyed,\nhouses washed away, and shelterless men and cattle forced to take refuge\non scattering elevations here and there in field and forest, and wait\nin peril and suffering until the boats put in commission by the national\nand local governments and by newspaper enterprise could come and rescue\nthem. The properties of multitudes of people were under water for\nmonths, and the poorer ones must have starved by the hundred if succor\nhad not been promptly afforded.{footnote [For a detailed and interesting\ndescription of the great flood, written on board of the New Orleans\n_Times-Democrat's_ relief-boat, see Appendix A]} The water had been\nfalling during a considerable time now, yet as a rule we found the banks\nstill under water.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 27\n\nSome Imported Articles\n\nWE met two steamboats at New Madrid. Two steamboats in sight at once! an\ninfrequent spectacle now in the lonesome Mississippi. The loneliness\nof this solemn, stupendous flood is impressive--and depressing. League\nafter league, and still league after league, it pours its chocolate tide\nalong, between its solid forest walls, its almost untenanted shores,\nwith seldom a sail or a moving object of any kind to disturb the surface\nand break the monotony of the blank, watery solitude; and so the day\ngoes, the night comes, and again the day--and still the same, night\nafter night and day after day--majestic, unchanging sameness of\nserenity, repose, tranquillity, lethargy, vacancy--symbol of eternity,\nrealization of the heaven pictured by priest and prophet, and longed for\nby the good and thoughtless!\n\nImmediately after the war of 1812, tourists began to come to America,\nfrom England; scattering ones at first, then a sort of procession of\nthem--a procession which kept up its plodding, patient march through the\nland during many, many years. Each tourist took notes, and went home and\npublished a book--a book which was usually calm, truthful, reasonable,\nkind; but which seemed just the reverse to our tender-footed\nprogenitors. A glance at these tourist-books shows us that in certain\nof its aspects the Mississippi has undergone no change since those\nstrangers visited it, but remains to-day about as it was then. The\nemotions produced in those foreign breasts by these aspects were not\nall formed on one pattern, of course; they _had _to be various, along\nat first, because the earlier tourists were obliged to originate their\nemotions, whereas in older countries one can always borrow emotions\nfrom one's predecessors. And, mind you, emotions are among the toughest\nthings in the world to manufacture out of whole cloth; it is easier\nto manufacture seven facts than one emotion. Captain Basil Hall. R.N.,\nwriting fifty-five years ago, says--\n\n'Here I caught the first glimpse of the object I had so long wished to\nbehold, and felt myself amply repaid at that moment for all the trouble\nI had experienced in coming so far; and stood looking at the river\nflowing past till it was too dark to distinguish anything. But it was\nnot till I had visited the same spot a dozen times, that I came to a\nright comprehension of the grandeur of the scene.'\n\nFollowing are Mrs. Trollope's emotions. She is writing a few months\nlater in the same year, 1827, and is coming in at the mouth of the\nMississippi--\n\n'The first indication of our approach to land was the appearance of this\nmighty river pouring forth its muddy mass of waters, and mingling with\nthe deep blue of the Mexican Gulf. I never beheld a scene so utterly\ndesolate as this entrance of the Mississippi. Had Dante seen it, he\nmight have drawn images of another Borgia from its horrors. One only\nobject rears itself above the eddying waters; this is the mast of a\nvessel long since wrecked in attempting to cross the bar, and it still\nstands, a dismal witness of the destruction that has been, and a boding\nprophet of that which is to come.'\n\nEmotions of Hon. Charles Augustus Murray (near St. Louis), seven years\nlater--\n\n'It is only when you ascend the mighty current for fifty or a hundred\nmiles, and use the eye of imagination as well as that of nature,\nthat you begin to understand all his might and majesty. You see him\nfertilizing a boundless valley, bearing along in his course the trophies\nof his thousand victories over the shattered forest--here carrying away\nlarge masses of soil with all their growth, and there forming islands,\ndestined at some future period to be the residence of man; and while\nindulging in this prospect, it is then time for reflection to suggest\nthat the current before you has flowed through two or three thousand\nmiles, and has yet to travel one thousand three hundred more before\nreaching its ocean destination.'\n\nReceive, now, the emotions of Captain Marryat, R.N. author of the sea\ntales, writing in 1837, three years after Mr. Murray--\n\n'Never, perhaps, in the records of nations, was there an instance of a\ncentury of such unvarying and unmitigated crime as is to be collected\nfrom the history of the turbulent and blood-stained Mississippi. The\nstream itself appears as if appropriate for the deeds which have been\ncommitted. It is not like most rivers, beautiful to the sight, bestowing\nfertility in its course; not one that the eye loves to dwell upon as\nit sweeps along, nor can you wander upon its banks, or trust yourself\nwithout danger to its stream. It is a furious, rapid, desolating\ntorrent, loaded with alluvial soil; and few of those who are received\ninto its waters ever rise again, {footnote [There was a foolish\nsuperstition of some little prevalence in that day, that the Mississippi\nwould neither buoy up a swimmer, nor permit a drowned person's body to\nrise to the surface.]} or can support themselves long upon its surface\nwithout assistance from some friendly log. It contains the coarsest and\nmost uneatable of fish, such as the cat-fish and such genus, and as\nyou descend, its banks are occupied with the fetid alligator, while the\npanther basks at its edge in the cane-brakes, almost impervious to man.\nPouring its impetuous waters through wild tracks covered with trees of\nlittle value except for firewood, it sweeps down whole forests in its\ncourse, which disappear in tumultuous confusion, whirled away by the\nstream now loaded with the masses of soil which nourished their roots,\noften blocking up and changing for a time the channel of the river,\nwhich, as if in anger at its being opposed, inundates and devastates the\nwhole country round; and as soon as it forces its way through its former\nchannel, plants in every direction the uprooted monarchs of the forest\n(upon whose branches the bird will never again perch, or the raccoon,\nthe opossum, or the squirrel climb) as traps to the adventurous\nnavigators of its waters by steam, who, borne down upon these concealed\ndangers which pierce through the planks, very often have not time to\nsteer for and gain the shore before they sink to the bottom. There are\nno pleasing associations connected with the great common sewer of\nthe Western America, which pours out its mud into the Mexican Gulf,\npolluting the clear blue sea for many miles beyond its mouth. It is a\nriver of desolation; and instead of reminding you, like other beautiful\nrivers, of an angel which has descended for the benefit of man, you\nimagine it a devil, whose energies have been only overcome by the\nwonderful power of steam.'\n\nIt is pretty crude literature for a man accustomed to handling a pen;\nstill, as a panorama of the emotions sent weltering through this noted\nvisitor's breast by the aspect and traditions of the 'great common\nsewer,' it has a value. A value, though marred in the matter of\nstatistics by inaccuracies; for the catfish is a plenty good enough fish\nfor anybody, and there are no panthers that are 'impervious to man.'\n\nLater still comes Alexander Mackay, of the Middle Temple, Barrister at\nLaw, with a better digestion, and no catfish dinner aboard, and feels as\nfollows--\n\n'The Mississippi! It was with indescribable emotions that I first felt\nmyself afloat upon its waters. How often in my schoolboy dreams, and in\nmy waking visions afterwards, had my imagination pictured to itself the\nlordly stream, rolling with tumultuous current through the boundless\nregion to which it has given its name, and gathering into itself, in its\ncourse to the ocean, the tributary waters of almost every latitude in\nthe temperate zone! Here it was then in its reality, and I, at length,\nsteaming against its tide. I looked upon it with that reverence with\nwhich everyone must regard a great feature of external nature.'\n\nSo much for the emotions. The tourists, one and all, remark upon the\ndeep, brooding loneliness and desolation of the vast river. Captain\nBasil Hall, who saw it at flood-stage, says--\n\n'Sometimes we passed along distances of twenty or thirty miles without\nseeing a single habitation. An artist, in search of hints for a painting\nof the deluge, would here have found them in abundance.'\n\nThe first shall be last, etc. just two hundred years ago, the old\noriginal first and gallantest of all the foreign tourists, pioneer, head\nof the procession, ended his weary and tedious discovery-voyage down the\nsolemn stretches of the great river--La Salle, whose name will last as\nlong as the river itself shall last. We quote from Mr. Parkman--\n\n'And now they neared their journey's end. On the sixth of April, the\nriver divided itself into three broad channels. La Salle followed that\nof the west, and D'Autray that of the east; while Tonty took the middle\npassage. As he drifted down the turbid current, between the low and\nmarshy shores, the brackish water changed to brine, and the breeze grew\nfresh with the salt breath of the sea. Then the broad bosom of the\ngreat Gulf opened on his sight, tossing its restless billows, limitless,\nvoiceless, lonely as when born of chaos, without a sail, without a sign\nof life.'\n\nThen, on a spot of solid ground, La Salle reared a column 'bearing the\narms of France; the Frenchmen were mustered under arms; and while the\nNew England Indians and their squaws looked on in wondering silence,\nthey chanted the _Te Deum, The Exaudiat_, and the _Domine Salvum Fac\nRegem_.'\n\nThen, whilst the musketry volleyed and rejoicing shouts burst forth,\nthe victorious discoverer planted the column, and made proclamation in a\nloud voice, taking formal possession of the river and the vast\ncountries watered by it, in the name of the King. The column bore this\ninscription--\n\nLOUIS LE GRAND, ROY DE FRANCE ET DE NAVARRE, REGNE; LE NEUVIEME AVRIL,\n1682.\n\nNew Orleans intended to fittingly celebrate, this present year, the\nbicentennial anniversary of this illustrious event; but when the\ntime came, all her energies and surplus money were required in other\ndirections, for the flood was upon the land then, making havoc and\ndevastation everywhere.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 28\n\nUncle Mumford Unloads\n\nALL day we swung along down the river, and had the stream almost wholly\nto ourselves. Formerly, at such a stage of the water, we should have\npassed acres of lumber rafts, and dozens of big coal barges; also\noccasional little trading-scows, peddling along from farm to farm, with\nthe peddler's family on board; possibly, a random scow, bearing a humble\nHamlet and Co. on an itinerant dramatic trip. But these were all absent.\nFar along in the day, we saw one steamboat; just one, and no more. She\nwas lying at rest in the shade, within the wooded mouth of the Obion\nRiver. The spy-glass revealed the fact that she was named for me--or\n_he_ was named for me, whichever you prefer. As this was the first time\nI had ever encountered this species of honor, it seems excusable to\nmention it, and at the same time call the attention of the authorities\nto the tardiness of my recognition of it.\n\nNoted a big change in the river, at Island 21. It was a very large\nisland, and used to be out toward mid-stream; but it is joined fast to\nthe main shore now, and has retired from business as an island.\n\nAs we approached famous and formidable Plum Point, darkness fell, but\nthat was nothing to shudder about--in these modern times. For now\nthe national government has turned the Mississippi into a sort of\ntwo-thousand-mile torchlight procession. In the head of every crossing,\nand in the foot of every crossing, the government has set up a\nclear-burning lamp. You are never entirely in the dark, now; there is\nalways a beacon in sight, either before you, or behind you, or abreast.\nOne might almost say that lamps have been squandered there. Dozens of\ncrossings are lighted which were not shoal when they were created,\nand have never been shoal since; crossings so plain, too, and also so\nstraight, that a steamboat can take herself through them without any\nhelp, after she has been through once. Lamps in such places are of\ncourse not wasted; it is much more convenient and comfortable for a\npilot to hold on them than on a spread of formless blackness that won't\nstay still; and money is saved to the boat, at the same time, for she\ncan of course make more miles with her rudder amidships than she can\nwith it squared across her stern and holding her back.\n\nBut this thing has knocked the romance out of piloting, to a large\nextent. It, and some other things together, have knocked all the romance\nout of it. For instance, the peril from snags is not now what it once\nwas. The government's snag-boats go patrolling up and down, in these\nmatter-of-fact days, pulling the river's teeth; they have rooted out\nall the old clusters which made many localities so formidable; and they\nallow no new ones to collect. Formerly, if your boat got away from you,\non a black night, and broke for the woods, it was an anxious time with\nyou; so was it also, when you were groping your way through solidified\ndarkness in a narrow chute; but all that is changed now--you flash out\nyour electric light, transform night into day in the twinkling of an\neye, and your perils and anxieties are at an end. Horace Bixby and\nGeorge Ritchie have charted the crossings and laid out the courses\nby compass; they have invented a lamp to go with the chart, and have\npatented the whole. With these helps, one may run in the fog now, with\nconsiderable security, and with a confidence unknown in the old days.\n\nWith these abundant beacons, the banishment of snags, plenty of daylight\nin a box and ready to be turned on whenever needed, and a chart and\ncompass to fight the fog with, piloting, at a good stage of water, is\nnow nearly as safe and simple as driving stage, and is hardly more than\nthree times as romantic.\n\nAnd now in these new days, these days of infinite change, the Anchor\nLine have raised the captain above the pilot by giving him the bigger\nwages of the two. This was going far, but they have not stopped there.\nThey have decreed that the pilot shall remain at his post, and stand\nhis watch clear through, whether the boat be under way or tied up to the\nshore. We, that were once the aristocrats of the river, can't go to bed\nnow, as we used to do, and sleep while a hundred tons of freight are\nlugged aboard; no, we must sit in the pilot-house; and keep awake, too.\nVerily we are being treated like a parcel of mates and engineers. The\nGovernment has taken away the romance of our calling; the Company has\ntaken away its state and dignity.\n\nPlum Point looked as it had always looked by night, with the exception\nthat now there were beacons to mark the crossings, and also a lot of\nother lights on the Point and along its shore; these latter glinting\nfrom the fleet of the United States River Commission, and from a village\nwhich the officials have built on the land for offices and for the\nemployees of the service. The military engineers of the Commission\nhave taken upon their shoulders the job of making the Mississippi over\nagain--a job transcended in size by only the original job of creating\nit. They are building wing-dams here and there, to deflect the current;\nand dikes to confine it in narrower bounds; and other dikes to make it\nstay there; and for unnumbered miles along the Mississippi, they are\nfelling the timber-front for fifty yards back, with the purpose of\nshaving the bank down to low-water mark with the slant of a house roof,\nand ballasting it with stones; and in many places they have protected\nthe wasting shores with rows of piles. One who knows the Mississippi\nwill promptly aver--not aloud, but to himself--that ten thousand River\nCommissions, with the mines of the world at their back, cannot tame that\nlawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, Go\nhere, or Go there, and make it obey; cannot save a shore which it has\nsentenced; cannot bar its path with an obstruction which it will not\ntear down, dance over, and laugh at. But a discreet man will not put\nthese things into spoken words; for the West Point engineers have not\ntheir superiors anywhere; they know all that can be known of their\nabstruse science; and so, since they conceive that they can fetter and\nhandcuff that river and boss him, it is but wisdom for the unscientific\nman to keep still, lie low, and wait till they do it. Captain Eads,\nwith his jetties, has done a work at the mouth of the Mississippi which\nseemed clearly impossible; so we do not feel full confidence now to\nprophesy against like impossibilities. Otherwise one would pipe out and\nsay the Commission might as well bully the comets in their courses and\nundertake to make them behave, as try to bully the Mississippi into\nright and reasonable conduct.\n\nI consulted Uncle Mumford concerning this and cognate matters; and I\ngive here the result, stenographically reported, and therefore to be\nrelied on as being full and correct; except that I have here and there\nleft out remarks which were addressed to the men, such as 'where in\nblazes are you going with that barrel now?' and which seemed to me to\nbreak the flow of the written statement, without compensating by adding\nto its information or its clearness. Not that I have ventured to\nstrike out all such interjections; I have removed only those which were\nobviously irrelevant; wherever one occurred which I felt any question\nabout, I have judged it safest to let it remain.\n\nUNCLE MUMFORD'S IMPRESSIONS\n\nUncle Mumford said--\n\n'As long as I have been mate of a steamboat--thirty years--I have\nwatched this river and studied it. Maybe I could have learnt more about\nit at West Point, but if I believe it I wish I may be _what are you\nsucking your fingers there for ?--collar that kag of nails!_ Four years\nat West Point, and plenty of books and schooling, will learn a man a\ngood deal, I reckon, but it won't learn him the river. You turn one\nof those little European rivers over to this Commission, with its hard\nbottom and clear water, and it would just be a holiday job for them to\nwall it, and pile it, and dike it, and tame it down, and boss it around,\nand make it go wherever they wanted it to, and stay where they put it,\nand do just as they said, every time. But this ain't that kind of a\nriver. They have started in here with big confidence, and the best\nintentions in the world; but they are going to get left. What does\nEcclesiastes vii. 13 say? Says enough to knock _their _little game\ngalley-west, don't it? Now you look at their methods once. There at\nDevil's Island, in the Upper River, they wanted the water to go one way,\nthe water wanted to go another. So they put up a stone wall. But what\ndoes the river care for a stone wall? When it got ready, it just bulged\nthrough it. Maybe they can build another that will stay; that is, up\nthere--but not down here they can't. Down here in the Lower River, they\ndrive some pegs to turn the water away from the shore and stop it from\nslicing off the bank; very well, don't it go straight over and cut\nsomebody else's bank? Certainly. Are they going to peg all the banks?\nWhy, they could buy ground and build a new Mississippi cheaper. They are\npegging Bulletin Tow-head now. It won't do any good. If the river has\ngot a mortgage on that island, it will foreclose, sure, pegs or no pegs.\nAway down yonder, they have driven two rows of piles straight through\nthe middle of a dry bar half a mile long, which is forty foot out of the\nwater when the river is low. What do you reckon that is for? If I know,\nI wish I may land in--_hump yourself, you son of an undertaker!--out\nwith that coal-oil, now, lively, lively!_ And just look at what they are\ntrying to do down there at Milliken's Bend. There's been a cut-off in\nthat section, and Vicksburg is left out in the cold. It's a country town\nnow. The river strikes in below it; and a boat can't go up to the town\nexcept in high water. Well, they are going to build wing-dams in the\nbend opposite the foot of 103, and throw the water over and cut off the\nfoot of the island and plow down into an old ditch where the river\nused to be in ancient times; and they think they can persuade the water\naround that way, and get it to strike in above Vicksburg, as it used\nto do, and fetch the town back into the world again. That is, they are\ngoing to take this whole Mississippi, and twist it around and make it\nrun several miles _up stream_. Well you've got to admire men that deal\nin ideas of that size and can tote them around without crutches; but you\nhaven't got to believe they can _do_ such miracles, have you! And yet\nyou ain't absolutely obliged to believe they can't. I reckon the safe\nway, where a man can afford it, is to copper the operation, and at the\nsame time buy enough property in Vicksburg to square you up in case they\nwin. Government is doing a deal for the Mississippi, now--spending loads\nof money on her. When there used to be four thousand steamboats and ten\nthousand acres of coal-barges, and rafts and trading scows, there wasn't\na lantern from St. Paul to New Orleans, and the snags were thicker than\nbristles on a hog's back; and now when there's three dozen steamboats\nand nary barge or raft, Government has snatched out all the snags, and\nlit up the shores like Broadway, and a boat's as safe on the river as\nshe'd be in heaven. And I reckon that by the time there ain't any boats\nleft at all, the Commission will have the old thing all reorganized, and\ndredged out, and fenced in, and tidied up, to a degree that will make\nnavigation just simply perfect, and absolutely safe and profitable; and\nall the days will be Sundays, and all the mates will be Sunday-school\nsu----_what-in-the-nation-you-fooling-around-there-for, you sons of\nunrighteousness, heirs of perdition! going to be a year getting that\nhogshead ashore?'_\n\nDuring our trip to New Orleans and back, we had many conversations\nwith river men, planters, journalists, and officers of the River\nCommission--with conflicting and confusing results. To wit:--\n\n1. Some believed in the Commission's scheme to arbitrarily and\npermanently confine (and thus deepen) the channel, preserve threatened\nshores, etc.\n\n2. Some believed that the Commission's money ought to be spent only on\nbuilding and repairing the great system of levees.\n\n3. Some believed that the higher you build your levee, the higher the\nriver's bottom will rise; and that consequently the levee system is a\nmistake.\n\n4. Some believed in the scheme to relieve the river, in flood-time, by\nturning its surplus waters off into Lake Borgne, etc.\n\n5. Some believed in the scheme of northern lake-reservoirs to replenish\nthe Mississippi in low-water seasons.\n\nWherever you find a man down there who believes in one of these theories\nyou may turn to the next man and frame your talk upon the hypothesis\nthat he does not believe in that theory; and after you have had\nexperience, you do not take this course doubtfully, or hesitatingly, but\nwith the confidence of a dying murderer--converted one, I mean. For you\nwill have come to know, with a deep and restful certainty, that you are\nnot going to meet two people sick of the same theory, one right after\nthe other. No, there will always be one or two with the other diseases\nalong between. And as you proceed, you will find out one or two other\nthings. You will find out that there is no distemper of the lot but is\ncontagious; and you cannot go where it is without catching it. You may\nvaccinate yourself with deterrent facts as much as you please--it will\ndo no good; it will seem to 'take,' but it doesn't; the moment you rub\nagainst any one of those theorists, make up your mind that it is time to\nhang out your yellow flag.\n\nYes, you are his sure victim: yet his work is not all to your hurt--only\npart of it; for he is like your family physician, who comes and cures\nthe mumps, and leaves the scarlet-fever behind. If your man is a\nLake-Borgne-relief theorist, for instance, he will exhale a cloud of\ndeadly facts and statistics which will lay you out with that disease,\nsure; but at the same time he will cure you of any other of the five\ntheories that may have previously got into your system.\n\nI have had all the five; and had them 'bad;' but ask me not, in mournful\nnumbers, which one racked me hardest, or which one numbered the biggest\nsick list, for I do not know. In truth, no one can answer the latter\nquestion. Mississippi Improvement is a mighty topic, down yonder. Every\nman on the river banks, south of Cairo, talks about it every day, during\nsuch moments as he is able to spare from talking about the war; and each\nof the several chief theories has its host of zealous partisans; but,\nas I have said, it is not possible to determine which cause numbers the\nmost recruits.\n\nAll were agreed upon one point, however: if Congress would make a\nsufficient appropriation, a colossal benefit would result. Very well;\nsince then the appropriation has been made--possibly a sufficient one,\ncertainly not too large a one. Let us hope that the prophecy will be\namply fulfilled.\n\nOne thing will be easily granted by the reader; that an opinion from Mr.\nEdward Atkinson, upon any vast national commercial matter, comes as near\nranking as authority, as can the opinion of any individual in the Union.\nWhat he has to say about Mississippi River Improvement will be found in\nthe Appendix.{footnote [See Appendix B.]}\n\nSometimes, half a dozen figures will reveal, as with a lightning-flash,\nthe importance of a subject which ten thousand labored words, with the\nsame purpose in view, had left at last but dim and uncertain. Here is a\ncase of the sort--paragraph from the 'Cincinnati Commercial'--\n\n'The towboat \"Jos. B. Williams\" is on her way to New Orleans with a\ntow of thirty-two barges, containing six hundred thousand bushels\n(seventy-six pounds to the bushel) of coal exclusive of her own fuel,\nbeing the largest tow ever taken to New Orleans or anywhere else in the\nworld. Her freight bill, at 3 cents a bushel, amounts to $18,000. It\nwould take eighteen hundred cars, of three hundred and thirty-three\nbushels to the car, to transport this amount of coal. At $10 per ton, or\n$100 per car, which would be a fair price for the distance by rail, the\nfreight bill would amount to $180,000, or $162,000 more by rail than by\nriver. The tow will be taken from Pittsburg to New Orleans in fourteen\nor fifteen days. It would take one hundred trains of eighteen cars to\nthe train to transport this one tow of six hundred thousand bushels\nof coal, and even if it made the usual speed of fast freight lines, it\nwould take one whole summer to put it through by rail.'\n\nWhen a river in good condition can enable one to save $162,000 and a\nwhole summer's time, on a single cargo, the wisdom of taking measures to\nkeep the river in good condition is made plain to even the uncommercial\nmind.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 29\n\nA Few Specimen Bricks\n\nWE passed through the Plum Point region, turned Craighead's Point,\nand glided unchallenged by what was once the formidable Fort Pillow,\nmemorable because of the massacre perpetrated there during the war.\nMassacres are sprinkled with some frequency through the histories of\nseveral Christian nations, but this is almost the only one that can be\nfound in American history; perhaps it is the only one which rises to a\nsize correspondent to that huge and somber title. We have the 'Boston\nMassacre,' where two or three people were killed; but we must bunch\nAnglo-Saxon history together to find the fellow to the Fort Pillow\ntragedy; and doubtless even then we must travel back to the days and the\nperformances of Coeur de Lion, that fine 'hero,' before we accomplish\nit.\n\nMore of the river's freaks. In times past, the channel used to strike\nabove Island 37, by Brandywine Bar, and down towards Island 39.\nAfterward, changed its course and went from Brandywine down through\nVogelman's chute in the Devil's Elbow, to Island 39--part of this course\nreversing the old order; the river running _up_ four or five miles,\ninstead of down, and cutting off, throughout, some fifteen miles of\ndistance. This in 1876. All that region is now called Centennial Island.\n\nThere is a tradition that Island 37 was one of the principal abiding\nplaces of the once celebrated 'Murel's Gang.' This was a colossal\ncombination of robbers, horse-thieves, negro-stealers, and\ncounterfeiters, engaged in business along the river some fifty or sixty\nyears ago. While our journey across the country towards St. Louis was in\nprogress we had had no end of Jesse James and his stirring history; for\nhe had just been assassinated by an agent of the Governor of Missouri,\nand was in consequence occupying a good deal of space in the newspapers.\nCheap histories of him were for sale by train boys. According to these,\nhe was the most marvelous creature of his kind that had ever existed. It\nwas a mistake. Murel was his equal in boldness; in pluck; in rapacity;\nin cruelty, brutality, heartlessness, treachery, and in general and\ncomprehensive vileness and shamelessness; and very much his superior\nin some larger aspects. James was a retail rascal; Murel, wholesale.\nJames's modest genius dreamed of no loftier flight than the planning\nof raids upon cars, coaches, and country banks; Murel projected negro\ninsurrections and the capture of New Orleans; and furthermore, on\noccasion, this Murel could go into a pulpit and edify the congregation.\nWhat are James and his half-dozen vulgar rascals compared with this\nstately old-time criminal, with his sermons, his meditated insurrections\nand city-captures, and his majestic following of ten hundred men, sworn\nto do his evil will!\n\nHere is a paragraph or two concerning this big operator, from a now\nforgotten book which was published half a century ago--\n\nHe appears to have been a most dexterous as well as consummate villain.\nWhen he traveled, his usual disguise was that of an itinerant preacher;\nand it is said that his discourses were very 'soul-moving'--interesting\nthe hearers so much that they forgot to look after their horses, which\nwere carried away by his confederates while he was preaching. But the\nstealing of horses in one State, and selling them in another, was but\na small portion of their business; the most lucrative was the enticing\nslaves to run away from their masters, that they might sell them in\nanother quarter. This was arranged as follows; they would tell a negro\nthat if he would run away from his master, and allow them to sell him,\nhe should receive a portion of the money paid for him, and that upon his\nreturn to them a second time they would send him to a free State, where\nhe would be safe.\n\nThe poor wretches complied with this request, hoping to obtain money and\nfreedom; they would be sold to another master, and run away again, to\ntheir employers; sometimes they would be sold in this manner three or\nfour times, until they had realized three or four thousand dollars by\nthem; but as, after this, there was fear of detection, the usual custom\nwas to get rid of the only witness that could be produced against them,\nwhich was the negro himself, by murdering him, and throwing his body\ninto the Mississippi. Even if it was established that they had stolen\na negro, before he was murdered, they were always prepared to evade\npunishment; for they concealed the negro who had run away, until he\nwas advertised, and a reward offered to any man who would catch him. An\nadvertisement of this kind warrants the person to take the property, if\nfound. And then the negro becomes a property in trust, when, therefore,\nthey sold the negro, it only became a breach of trust, not stealing; and\nfor a breach of trust, the owner of the property can only have redress\nby a civil action, which was useless, as the damages were never paid.\nIt may be inquired, how it was that Murel escaped Lynch law under such\ncircumstances This will be easily understood when it is stated that he\nhad _more than a thousand sworn confederates_, all ready at a moment's\nnotice to support any of the gang who might be in trouble. The names of\nall the principal confederates of Murel were obtained from himself, in\na manner which I shall presently explain. The gang was composed of two\nclasses: the Heads or Council, as they were called, who planned and\nconcerted, but seldom acted; they amounted to about four hundred.\nThe other class were the active agents, and were termed strikers, and\namounted to about six hundred and fifty. These were the tools in the\nhands of the others; they ran all the risk, and received but a small\nportion of the money; they were in the power of the leaders of the gang,\nwho would sacrifice them at any time by handing them over to justice, or\nsinking their bodies in the Mississippi. The general rendezvous of this\ngang of miscreants was on the Arkansas side of the river, where they\nconcealed their negroes in the morasses and cane-brakes.\n\nThe depredations of this extensive combination were severely felt; but\nso well were their plans arranged, that although Murel, who was always\nactive, was everywhere suspected, there was no proof to be obtained. It\nso happened, however, that a young man of the name of Stewart, who was\nlooking after two slaves which Murel had decoyed away, fell in with him\nand obtained his confidence, took the oath, and was admitted into the\ngang as one of the General Council. By this means all was discovered;\nfor Stewart turned traitor, although he had taken the oath, and having\nobtained every information, exposed the whole concern, the names of all\nthe parties, and finally succeeded in bringing home sufficient\nevidence against Murel, to procure his conviction and sentence to the\nPenitentiary (Murel was sentenced to fourteen years' imprisonment); so\nmany people who were supposed to be honest, and bore a respectable name\nin the different States, were found to be among the list of the Grand\nCouncil as published by Stewart, that every attempt was made to throw\ndiscredit upon his assertions--his character was vilified, and more\nthan one attempt was made to assassinate him. He was obliged to quit the\nSouthern States in consequence. It is, however, now well ascertained\nto have been all true; and although some blame Mr. Stewart for having\nviolated his oath, they no longer attempt to deny that his revelations\nwere correct. I will quote one or two portions of Murel's confessions to\nMr. Stewart, made to him when they were journeying together. I ought to\nhave observed, that the ultimate intentions of Murel and his associates\nwere, by his own account, on a very extended scale; having no less\nan object in view than _raising the blacks against the whites, taking\npossession of, and plundering new orleans, and making themselves\npossessors of the territory_. The following are a few extracts:--\n\n'I collected all my friends about New Orleans at one of our friends'\nhouses in that place, and we sat in council three days before we got all\nour plans to our notion; we then determined to undertake the rebellion\nat every hazard, and make as many friends as we could for that purpose.\nEvery man's business being assigned him, I started to Natchez on foot,\nhaving sold my horse in New Orleans,--with the intention of stealing\nanother after I started. I walked four days, and no opportunity offered\nfor me to get a horse. The fifth day, about twelve, I had become tired,\nand stopped at a creek to get some water and rest a little. While I was\nsitting on a log, looking down the road the way that I had come, a man\ncame in sight riding on a good-looking horse. The very moment I saw him,\nI was determined to have his horse, if he was in the garb of a traveler.\nHe rode up, and I saw from his equipage that he was a traveler. I arose\nand drew an elegant rifle pistol on him and ordered him to dismount. He\ndid so, and I took his horse by the bridle and pointed down the creek,\nand ordered him to walk before me. He went a few hundred yards and\nstopped. I hitched his horse, and then made him undress himself, all to\nhis shirt and drawers, and ordered him to turn his back to me. He said,\n'If you are determined to kill me, let me have time to pray before I\ndie,' I told him I had no time to hear him pray. He turned around and\ndropped on his knees, and I shot him through the back of the head.\n\nI ripped open his belly and took out his entrails, and sunk him in the\ncreek. I then searched his pockets, and found four hundred dollars and\nthirty-seven cents, and a number of papers that I did not take time to\nexamine. I sunk the pocket-book and papers and his hat, in the creek.\nHis boots were brand-new, and fitted me genteelly; and I put them on\nand sunk my old shoes in the creek, to atone for them. I rolled up his\nclothes and put them into his portmanteau, as they were brand-new cloth\nof the best quality. I mounted as fine a horse as ever I straddled, and\ndirected my course for Natchez in much better style than I had been for\nthe last five days.\n\n'Myself and a fellow by the name of Crenshaw gathered four good horses\nand started for Georgia. We got in company with a young South Carolinian\njust before we got to Cumberland Mountain, and Crenshaw soon knew all\nabout his business. He had been to Tennessee to buy a drove of hogs, but\nwhen he got there pork was dearer than he calculated, and he declined\npurchasing. We concluded he was a prize. Crenshaw winked at me; I\nunderstood his idea. Crenshaw had traveled the road before, but I never\nhad; we had traveled several miles on the mountain, when he passed near\na great precipice; just before we passed it Crenshaw asked me for my\nwhip, which had a pound of lead in the butt; I handed it to him, and he\nrode up by the side of the South Carolinian, and gave him a blow on the\nside of the head and tumbled him from his horse; we lit from our horses\nand fingered his pockets; we got twelve hundred and sixty-two dollars.\nCrenshaw said he knew a place to hide him, and he gathered him under his\narms, and I by his feet, and conveyed him to a deep crevice in the brow\nof the precipice, and tumbled him into it, and he went out of sight; we\nthen tumbled in his saddle, and took his horse with us, which was worth\ntwo hundred dollars.\n\n'We were detained a few days, and during that time our friend went to a\nlittle village in the neighborhood and saw the negro advertised (a negro\nin our possession), and a description of the two men of whom he had been\npurchased, and giving his suspicions of the men. It was rather squally\ntimes, but any port in a storm: we took the negro that night on the bank\nof a creek which runs by the farm of our friend, and Crenshaw shot him\nthrough the head. We took out his entrails and sunk him in the creek.\n\n'He had sold the other negro the third time on Arkansaw River for\nupwards of five hundred dollars; and then stole him and delivered him\ninto the hand of his friend, who conducted him to a swamp, and veiled\nthe tragic scene, and got the last gleanings and sacred pledge of\nsecrecy; as a game of that kind will not do unless it ends in a mystery\nto all but the fraternity. He sold the negro, first and last, for nearly\ntwo thousand dollars, and then put him for ever out of the reach of all\npursuers; and they can never graze him unless they can find the negro;\nand that they cannot do, for his carcass has fed many a tortoise and\ncatfish before this time, and the frogs have sung this many a long day\nto the silent repose of his skeleton.'\n\nWe were approaching Memphis, in front of which city, and witnessed by\nits people, was fought the most famous of the river battles of the Civil\nWar. Two men whom I had served under, in my river days, took part in\nthat fight: Mr. Bixby, head pilot of the Union fleet, and Montgomery,\nCommodore of the Confederate fleet. Both saw a great deal of active\nservice during the war, and achieved high reputations for pluck and\ncapacity.\n\nAs we neared Memphis, we began to cast about for an excuse to stay\nwith the 'Gold Dust' to the end of her course--Vicksburg. We were so\npleasantly situated, that we did not wish to make a change. I had an\nerrand of considerable importance to do at Napoleon, Arkansas, but\nperhaps I could manage it without quitting the 'Gold Dust.' I said as\nmuch; so we decided to stick to present quarters.\n\nThe boat was to tarry at Memphis till ten the next morning. It is a\nbeautiful city, nobly situated on a commanding bluff overlooking the\nriver. The streets are straight and spacious, though not paved in a way\nto incite distempered admiration. No, the admiration must be reserved\nfor the town's sewerage system, which is called perfect; a recent\nreform, however, for it was just the other way, up to a few years ago--a\nreform resulting from the lesson taught by a desolating visitation\nof the yellow-fever. In those awful days the people were swept off by\nhundreds, by thousands; and so great was the reduction caused by flight\nand by death together, that the population was diminished three-fourths,\nand so remained for a time. Business stood nearly still, and the streets\nbore an empty Sunday aspect.\n\nHere is a picture of Memphis, at that disastrous time, drawn by a German\ntourist who seems to have been an eye-witness of the scenes which he\ndescribes. It is from Chapter VII, of his book, just published, in\nLeipzig, 'Mississippi-Fahrten, von Ernst von Hesse-Wartegg.'--\n\n'In August the yellow-fever had reached its extremest height. Daily,\nhundreds fell a sacrifice to the terrible epidemic. The city was become\na mighty graveyard, two-thirds of the population had deserted the place,\nand only the poor, the aged and the sick, remained behind, a sure prey\nfor the insidious enemy. The houses were closed: little lamps burned in\nfront of many--a sign that here death had entered. Often, several lay\ndead in a single house; from the windows hung black crape. The stores\nwere shut up, for their owners were gone away or dead.\n\n'Fearful evil! In the briefest space it struck down and swept away even\nthe most vigorous victim. A slight indisposition, then an hour of\nfever, then the hideous delirium, then--the Yellow Death! On the street\ncorners, and in the squares, lay sick men, suddenly overtaken by the\ndisease; and even corpses, distorted and rigid. Food failed. Meat\nspoiled in a few hours in the fetid and pestiferous air, and turned\nblack.\n\n'Fearful clamors issue from many houses; then after a season they cease,\nand all is still: noble, self-sacrificing men come with the coffin,\nnail it up, and carry it away, to the graveyard. In the night stillness\nreigns. Only the physicians and the hearses hurry through the streets;\nand out of the distance, at intervals, comes the muffled thunder of the\nrailway train, which with the speed of the wind, and as if hunted by\nfuries, flies by the pest-ridden city without halting.'\n\nBut there is life enough there now. The population exceeds forty\nthousand and is augmenting, and trade is in a flourishing condition.\nWe drove about the city; visited the park and the sociable horde of\nsquirrels there; saw the fine residences, rose-clad and in other ways\nenticing to the eye; and got a good breakfast at the hotel.\n\nA thriving place is the Good Samaritan City of the Mississippi: has\na great wholesale jobbing trade; foundries, machine shops; and\nmanufactories of wagons, carriages, and cotton-seed oil; and is shortly\nto have cotton mills and elevators.\n\nHer cotton receipts reached five hundred thousand bales last year--an\nincrease of sixty thousand over the year before. Out from her healthy\ncommercial heart issue five trunk lines of railway; and a sixth is being\nadded.\n\nThis is a very different Memphis from the one which the vanished and\nunremembered procession of foreign tourists used to put into their books\nlong time ago. In the days of the now forgotten but once renowned and\nvigorously hated Mrs. Trollope, Memphis seems to have consisted mainly\nof one long street of log-houses, with some outlying cabins sprinkled\naround rearward toward the woods; and now and then a pig, and no end of\nmud. That was fifty-five years ago. She stopped at the hotel. Plainly it\nwas not the one which gave us our breakfast. She says--\n\n'The table was laid for fifty persons, and was nearly full. They ate in\nperfect silence, and with such astonishing rapidity that their dinner\nwas over literally before ours was begun; the only sounds heard were\nthose produced by the knives and forks, with the unceasing chorus of\ncoughing, _etc_.'\n\n'Coughing, etc.' The 'etc.' stands for an unpleasant word there, a word\nwhich she does not always charitably cover up, but sometimes prints. You\nwill find it in the following description of a steamboat dinner which\nshe ate in company with a lot of aristocratic planters; wealthy,\nwell-born, ignorant swells they were, tinselled with the usual harmless\nmilitary and judicial titles of that old day of cheap shams and windy\npretense--\n\n'The total want of all the usual courtesies of the table; the voracious\nrapidity with which the viands were seized and devoured; the strange\nuncouth phrases and pronunciation; the loathsome spitting, from the\ncontamination of which it was absolutely impossible to protect our\ndresses; the frightful manner of feeding with their knives, till the\nwhole blade seemed to enter into the mouth; and the still more frightful\nmanner of cleaning the teeth afterward with a pocket knife, soon forced\nus to feel that we were not surrounded by the generals, colonels, and\nmajors of the old world; and that the dinner hour was to be anything\nrather than an hour of enjoyment.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 30\n\nSketches by the Way\n\nIT was a big river, below Memphis; banks brimming full, everywhere, and\nvery frequently more than full, the waters pouring out over the land,\nflooding the woods and fields for miles into the interior; and in\nplaces, to a depth of fifteen feet; signs, all about, of men's hard work\ngone to ruin, and all to be done over again, with straitened means and a\nweakened courage. A melancholy picture, and a continuous one;--hundreds\nof miles of it. Sometimes the beacon lights stood in water three feet\ndeep, in the edge of dense forests which extended for miles without\nfarm, wood-yard, clearing, or break of any kind; which meant that the\nkeeper of the light must come in a skiff a great distance to discharge\nhis trust,--and often in desperate weather. Yet I was told that the\nwork is faithfully performed, in all weathers; and not always by\nmen, sometimes by women, if the man is sick or absent. The Government\nfurnishes oil, and pays ten or fifteen dollars a month for the lighting\nand tending. A Government boat distributes oil and pays wages once a\nmonth.\n\nThe Ship Island region was as woodsy and tenantless as ever. The island\nhas ceased to be an island; has joined itself compactly to the main\nshore, and wagons travel, now, where the steamboats used to navigate. No\nsigns left of the wreck of the 'Pennsylvania.' Some farmer will turn up\nher bones with his plow one day, no doubt, and be surprised.\n\nWe were getting down now into the migrating negro region. These poor\npeople could never travel when they were slaves; so they make up for\nthe privation now. They stay on a plantation till the desire to travel\nseizes them; then they pack up, hail a steamboat, and clear out. Not for\nany particular place; no, nearly any place will answer; they only want\nto be moving. The amount of money on hand will answer the rest of the\nconundrum for them. If it will take them fifty miles, very well; let it\nbe fifty. If not, a shorter flight will do.\n\nDuring a couple of days, we frequently answered these hails. Sometimes\nthere was a group of high-water-stained, tumble-down cabins, populous\nwith colored folk, and no whites visible; with grassless patches of dry\nground here and there; a few felled trees, with skeleton cattle, mules,\nand horses, eating the leaves and gnawing the bark--no other food for\nthem in the flood-wasted land. Sometimes there was a single lonely\nlanding-cabin; near it the colored family that had hailed us; little and\nbig, old and young, roosting on the scant pile of household goods; these\nconsisting of a rusty gun, some bed-ticks, chests, tinware, stools,\na crippled looking-glass, a venerable arm-chair, and six or eight\nbase-born and spiritless yellow curs, attached to the family by strings.\nThey must have their dogs; can't go without their dogs. Yet the dogs are\nnever willing; they always object; so, one after another, in ridiculous\nprocession, they are dragged aboard; all four feet braced and sliding\nalong the stage, head likely to be pulled off; but the tugger marching\ndeterminedly forward, bending to his work, with the rope over his\nshoulder for better purchase. Sometimes a child is forgotten and left on\nthe bank; but never a dog.\n\nThe usual river-gossip going on in the pilot-house. Island No. 63--an\nisland with a lovely 'chute,' or passage, behind it in the former times.\nThey said Jesse Jamieson, in the 'Skylark,' had a visiting pilot with\nhim one trip--a poor old broken-down, superannuated fellow--left him at\nthe wheel, at the foot of 63, to run off the watch. The ancient mariner\nwent up through the chute, and down the river outside; and up the chute\nand down the river again; and yet again and again; and handed the\nboat over to the relieving pilot, at the end of three hours of honest\nendeavor, at the same old foot of the island where he had originally\ntaken the wheel! A darkey on shore who had observed the boat go by,\nabout thirteen times, said, 'clar to gracious, I wouldn't be s'prised if\ndey's a whole line o' dem Sk'ylarks!'\n\nAnecdote illustrative of influence of reputation in the changing of\nopinion. The 'Eclipse' was renowned for her swiftness. One day she\npassed along; an old darkey on shore, absorbed in his own matters, did\nnot notice what steamer it was. Presently someone asked--\n\n'Any boat gone up?'\n\n'Yes, sah.'\n\n'Was she going fast?'\n\n'Oh, so-so--loafin' along.'\n\n'Now, do you know what boat that was?'\n\n'No, sah.'\n\n'Why, uncle, that was the \"Eclipse.\"'\n\n'No! Is dat so? Well, I bet it was--cause she jes' went by here\na-_sparklin_'!'\n\nPiece of history illustrative of the violent style of some of the people\ndown along here, During the early weeks of high water, A's fence rails\nwashed down on B's ground, and B's rails washed up in the eddy and\nlanded on A's ground. A said, 'Let the thing remain so; I will use your\nrails, and you use mine.' But B objected--wouldn't have it so. One day,\nA came down on B's ground to get his rails. B said, 'I'll kill you!' and\nproceeded for him with his revolver. A said, 'I'm not armed.' So B, who\nwished to do only what was right, threw down his revolver; then pulled\na knife, and cut A's throat all around, but gave his principal attention\nto the front, and so failed to sever the jugular. Struggling around, A\nmanaged to get his hands on the discarded revolver, and shot B dead with\nit--and recovered from his own injuries.\n\nFurther gossip;--after which, everybody went below to get afternoon\ncoffee, and left me at the wheel, alone, Something presently reminded\nme of our last hour in St. Louis, part of which I spent on this boat's\nhurricane deck, aft. I was joined there by a stranger, who dropped into\nconversation with me--a brisk young fellow, who said he was born in a\ntown in the interior of Wisconsin, and had never seen a steamboat until\na week before. Also said that on the way down from La Crosse he had\ninspected and examined his boat so diligently and with such passionate\ninterest that he had mastered the whole thing from stem to rudder-blade.\nAsked me where I was from. I answered, New England. 'Oh, a Yank!' said\nhe; and went chatting straight along, without waiting for assent or\ndenial. He immediately proposed to take me all over the boat and tell\nme the names of her different parts, and teach me their uses. Before I\ncould enter protest or excuse, he was already rattling glibly away at\nhis benevolent work; and when I perceived that he was misnaming the\nthings, and inhospitably amusing himself at the expense of an innocent\nstranger from a far country, I held my peace, and let him have his way.\nHe gave me a world of misinformation; and the further he went, the wider\nhis imagination expanded, and the more he enjoyed his cruel work of\ndeceit. Sometimes, after palming off a particularly fantastic and\noutrageous lie upon me, he was so 'full of laugh' that he had to\nstep aside for a minute, upon one pretext or another, to keep me from\nsuspecting. I staid faithfully by him until his comedy was finished.\nThen he remarked that he had undertaken to 'learn' me all about a\nsteamboat, and had done it; but that if he had overlooked anything, just\nask him and he would supply the lack. 'Anything about this boat that you\ndon't know the name of or the purpose of, you come to me and I'll tell\nyou.' I said I would, and took my departure; disappeared, and approached\nhim from another quarter, whence he could not see me. There he sat, all\nalone, doubling himself up and writhing this way and that, in the throes\nof unappeasable laughter. He must have made himself sick; for he was\nnot publicly visible afterward for several days. Meantime, the episode\ndropped out of my mind.\n\nThe thing that reminded me of it now, when I was alone at the wheel,\nwas the spectacle of this young fellow standing in the pilot-house door,\nwith the knob in his hand, silently and severely inspecting me. I don't\nknow when I have seen anybody look so injured as he did. He did not\nsay anything--simply stood there and looked; reproachfully looked and\npondered. Finally he shut the door, and started away; halted on the\ntexas a minute; came slowly back and stood in the door again, with that\ngrieved look in his face; gazed upon me awhile in meek rebuke, then\nsaid--\n\n'You let me learn you all about a steamboat, didn't you?'\n\n'Yes,' I confessed.\n\n'Yes, you did--_didn't_ you?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'You are the feller that--that--'\n\nLanguage failed. Pause--impotent struggle for further words--then he\ngave it up, choked out a deep, strong oath, and departed for good.\nAfterward I saw him several times below during the trip; but he was\ncold--would not look at me. Idiot, if he had not been in such a sweat to\nplay his witless practical joke upon me, in the beginning, I would have\npersuaded his thoughts into some other direction, and saved him from\ncommitting that wanton and silly impoliteness.\n\nI had myself called with the four o'clock watch, mornings, for one\ncannot see too many summer sunrises on the Mississippi. They are\nenchanting. First, there is the eloquence of silence; for a deep hush\nbroods everywhere. Next, there is the haunting sense of loneliness,\nisolation, remoteness from the worry and bustle of the world. The dawn\ncreeps in stealthily; the solid walls of black forest soften to gray,\nand vast stretches of the river open up and reveal themselves; the water\nis glass-smooth, gives off spectral little wreaths of white mist, there\nis not the faintest breath of wind, nor stir of leaf; the tranquillity\nis profound and infinitely satisfying. Then a bird pipes up, another\nfollows, and soon the pipings develop into a jubilant riot of music.\nYou see none of the birds; you simply move through an atmosphere of song\nwhich seems to sing itself. When the light has become a little stronger,\nyou have one of the fairest and softest pictures imaginable. You have\nthe intense green of the massed and crowded foliage near by; you see it\npaling shade by shade in front of you; upon the next projecting cape,\na mile off or more, the tint has lightened to the tender young green of\nspring; the cape beyond that one has almost lost color, and the furthest\none, miles away under the horizon, sleeps upon the water a mere dim\nvapor, and hardly separable from the sky above it and about it. And all\nthis stretch of river is a mirror, and you have the shadowy reflections\nof the leafage and the curving shores and the receding capes pictured in\nit. Well, that is all beautiful; soft and rich and beautiful; and when\nthe sun gets well up, and distributes a pink flush here and a powder of\ngold yonder and a purple haze where it will yield the best effect, you\ngrant that you have seen something that is worth remembering.\n\nWe had the Kentucky Bend country in the early morning--scene of a\nstrange and tragic accident in the old times, Captain Poe had a small\nstern-wheel boat, for years the home of himself and his wife. One night\nthe boat struck a snag in the head of Kentucky Bend, and sank with\nastonishing suddenness; water already well above the cabin floor when\nthe captain got aft. So he cut into his wife's state-room from above\nwith an ax; she was asleep in the upper berth, the roof a flimsier one\nthan was supposed; the first blow crashed down through the rotten boards\nand clove her skull.\n\nThis bend is all filled up now--result of a cut-off; and the same agent\nhas taken the great and once much-frequented Walnut Bend, and set\nit away back in a solitude far from the accustomed track of passing\nsteamers.\n\nHelena we visited, and also a town I had not heard of before, it being\nof recent birth--Arkansas City. It was born of a railway; the Little\nRock, Mississippi River and Texas Railroad touches the river there.\nWe asked a passenger who belonged there what sort of a place it was.\n'Well,' said he, after considering, and with the air of one who wishes\nto take time and be accurate, 'It's a hell of a place.' A description\nwhich was photographic for exactness. There were several rows and\nclusters of shabby frame-houses, and a supply of mud sufficient to\ninsure the town against a famine in that article for a hundred years;\nfor the overflow had but lately subsided. There were stagnant ponds\nin the streets, here and there, and a dozen rude scows were scattered\nabout, lying aground wherever they happened to have been when the waters\ndrained off and people could do their visiting and shopping on foot once\nmore. Still, it is a thriving place, with a rich country behind it, an\nelevator in front of it, and also a fine big mill for the manufacture of\ncotton-seed oil. I had never seen this kind of a mill before.\n\nCotton-seed was comparatively valueless in my time; but it is worth $12\nor $13 a ton now, and none of it is thrown away. The oil made from it is\ncolorless, tasteless, and almost if not entirely odorless. It is claimed\nthat it can, by proper manipulation, be made to resemble and perform the\noffice of any and all oils, and be produced at a cheaper rate than\nthe cheapest of the originals. Sagacious people shipped it to Italy,\ndoctored it, labeled it, and brought it back as olive oil. This trade\ngrew to be so formidable that Italy was obliged to put a prohibitory\nimpost upon it to keep it from working serious injury to her oil\nindustry.\n\nHelena occupies one of the prettiest situations on the Mississippi. Her\nperch is the last, the southernmost group of hills which one sees on\nthat side of the river. In its normal condition it is a pretty town; but\nthe flood (or possibly the seepage) had lately been ravaging it; whole\nstreets of houses had been invaded by the muddy water, and the outsides\nof the buildings were still belted with a broad stain extending upwards\nfrom the foundations. Stranded and discarded scows lay all about;\nplank sidewalks on stilts four feet high were still standing; the board\nsidewalks on the ground level were loose and ruinous,--a couple of men\ntrotting along them could make a blind man think a cavalry charge\nwas coming; everywhere the mud was black and deep, and in many\nplaces malarious pools of stagnant water were standing. A Mississippi\ninundation is the next most wasting and desolating infliction to a fire.\n\nWe had an enjoyable time here, on this sunny Sunday: two full hours'\nliberty ashore while the boat discharged freight. In the back streets\nbut few white people were visible, but there were plenty of colored\nfolk--mainly women and girls; and almost without exception upholstered\nin bright new clothes of swell and elaborate style and cut--a glaring\nand hilarious contrast to the mournful mud and the pensive puddles.\n\nHelena is the second town in Arkansas, in point of population--which\nis placed at five thousand. The country about it is exceptionally\nproductive. Helena has a good cotton trade; handles from forty to sixty\nthousand bales annually; she has a large lumber and grain commerce; has\na foundry, oil mills, machine shops and wagon factories--in brief has\n$1,000,000 invested in manufacturing industries. She has two railways,\nand is the commercial center of a broad and prosperous region. Her gross\nreceipts of money, annually, from all sources, are placed by the New\nOrleans 'Times-Democrat' at $4,000,000.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 31\n\nA Thumb-print and What Came of It\n\nWE were approaching Napoleon, Arkansas. So I began to think about my\nerrand there. Time, noonday; and bright and sunny. This was bad--not\nbest, anyway; for mine was not (preferably) a noonday kind of errand.\nThe more I thought, the more that fact pushed itself upon me--now in one\nform, now in another. Finally, it took the form of a distinct question:\nis it good common sense to do the errand in daytime, when, by a little\nsacrifice of comfort and inclination, you can have night for it, and\nno inquisitive eyes around. This settled it. Plain question and plain\nanswer make the shortest road out of most perplexities.\n\nI got my friends into my stateroom, and said I was sorry to create\nannoyance and disappointment, but that upon reflection it really seemed\nbest that we put our luggage ashore and stop over at Napoleon. Their\ndisapproval was prompt and loud; their language mutinous. Their main\nargument was one which has always been the first to come to the surface,\nin such cases, since the beginning of time: 'But you decided and _agreed\n_to stick to this boat, etc.; as if, having determined to do an unwise\nthing, one is thereby bound to go ahead and make _two _unwise things of\nit, by carrying out that determination.\n\nI tried various mollifying tactics upon them, with reasonably good\nsuccess: under which encouragement, I increased my efforts; and, to show\nthem that I had not created this annoying errand, and was in no way to\nblame for it, I presently drifted into its history--substantially as\nfollows:\n\nToward the end of last year, I spent a few months in Munich, Bavaria.\nIn November I was living in Fraulein Dahlweiner's _pension_, 1a,\nKarlstrasse; but my working quarters were a mile from there, in the\nhouse of a widow who supported herself by taking lodgers. She and her\ntwo young children used to drop in every morning and talk German to\nme--by request. One day, during a ramble about the city, I visited one\nof the two establishments where the Government keeps and watches corpses\nuntil the doctors decide that they are permanently dead, and not in\na trance state. It was a grisly place, that spacious room. There were\nthirty-six corpses of adults in sight, stretched on their backs on\nslightly slanted boards, in three long rows--all of them with wax-white,\nrigid faces, and all of them wrapped in white shrouds. Along the sides\nof the room were deep alcoves, like bay windows; and in each of these\nlay several marble-visaged babes, utterly hidden and buried under banks\nof fresh flowers, all but their faces and crossed hands. Around a finger\nof each of these fifty still forms, both great and small, was a ring;\nand from the ring a wire led to the ceiling, and thence to a bell in a\nwatch-room yonder, where, day and night, a watchman sits always alert\nand ready to spring to the aid of any of that pallid company who,\nwaking out of death, shall make a movement--for any, even the slightest,\nmovement will twitch the wire and ring that fearful bell. I imagined\nmyself a death-sentinel drowsing there alone, far in the dragging\nwatches of some wailing, gusty night, and having in a twinkling all\nmy body stricken to quivering jelly by the sudden clamor of that awful\nsummons! So I inquired about this thing; asked what resulted usually? if\nthe watchman died, and the restored corpse came and did what it could to\nmake his last moments easy. But I was rebuked for trying to feed an idle\nand frivolous curiosity in so solemn and so mournful a place; and went\nmy way with a humbled crest.\n\nNext morning I was telling the widow my adventure, when she exclaimed--\n\n'Come with me! I have a lodger who shall tell you all you want to know.\nHe has been a night-watchman there.'\n\nHe was a living man, but he did not look it. He was abed, and had his\nhead propped high on pillows; his face was wasted and colorless,\nhis deep-sunken eyes were shut; his hand, lying on his breast, was\ntalon-like, it was so bony and long-fingered. The widow began her\nintroduction of me. The man's eyes opened slowly, and glittered wickedly\nout from the twilight of their caverns; he frowned a black frown; he\nlifted his lean hand and waved us peremptorily away. But the widow kept\nstraight on, till she had got out the fact that I was a stranger and\nan American. The man's face changed at once; brightened, became even\neager--and the next moment he and I were alone together.\n\nI opened up in cast-iron German; he responded in quite flexible English;\nthereafter we gave the German language a permanent rest.\n\nThis consumptive and I became good friends. I visited him every day,\nand we talked about everything. At least, about everything but wives and\nchildren. Let anybody's wife or anybody's child be mentioned, and three\nthings always followed: the most gracious and loving and tender light\nglimmered in the man's eyes for a moment; faded out the next, and in its\nplace came that deadly look which had flamed there the first time I ever\nsaw his lids unclose; thirdly, he ceased from speech, there and then for\nthat day; lay silent, abstracted, and absorbed; apparently heard nothing\nthat I said; took no notice of my good-byes, and plainly did not know,\nby either sight or hearing, when I left the room.\n\nWhen I had been this Karl Ritter's daily and sole intimate during two\nmonths, he one day said, abruptly--\n\n'I will tell you my story.'\n\nA DYING MAN S CONFESSION\n\nThen he went on as follows:--\n\nI have never given up, until now. But now I have given up. I am going to\ndie. I made up my mind last night that it must be, and very soon, too.\nYou say you are going to revisit your river, by-and-bye, when you find\nopportunity. Very well; that, together with a certain strange\nexperience which fell to my lot last night, determines me to tell you my\nhistory--for you will see Napoleon, Arkansas; and for my sake you\nwill stop there, and do a certain thing for me--a thing which you will\nwillingly undertake after you shall have heard my narrative.\n\nLet us shorten the story wherever we can, for it will need it, being\nlong. You already know how I came to go to America, and how I came to\nsettle in that lonely region in the South. But you do not know that I\nhad a wife. My wife was young, beautiful, loving, and oh, so divinely\ngood and blameless and gentle! And our little girl was her mother in\nminiature. It was the happiest of happy households.\n\nOne night--it was toward the close of the war--I woke up out of a sodden\nlethargy, and found myself bound and gagged, and the air tainted with\nchloroform! I saw two men in the room, and one was saying to the other,\nin a hoarse whisper, 'I told her I would, if she made a noise, and as\nfor the child--'\n\nThe other man interrupted in a low, half-crying voice--\n\n'You said we'd only gag them and rob them, not hurt them; or I wouldn't\nhave come.'\n\n'Shut up your whining; had to change the plan when they waked up; you\ndone all you could to protect them, now let that satisfy you; come, help\nrummage.'\n\nBoth men were masked, and wore coarse, ragged 'nigger' clothes; they had\na bull's-eye lantern, and by its light I noticed that the gentler robber\nhad no thumb on his right hand. They rummaged around my poor cabin for a\nmoment; the head bandit then said, in his stage whisper--\n\n'It's a waste of time--he shall tell where it's hid. Undo his gag, and\nrevive him up.'\n\nThe other said--\n\n'All right--provided no clubbing.'\n\n'No clubbing it is, then--provided he keeps still.'\n\nThey approached me; just then there was a sound outside; a sound of\nvoices and trampling hoofs; the robbers held their breath and listened;\nthe sounds came slowly nearer and nearer; then came a shout--\n\n'_Hello_, the house! Show a light, we want water.'\n\n'The captain's voice, by G--!' said the stage-whispering ruffian,\nand both robbers fled by the way of the back door, shutting off their\nbull's-eye as they ran.\n\nThe strangers shouted several times more, then rode by--there seemed to\nbe a dozen of the horses--and I heard nothing more.\n\nI struggled, but could not free myself from my bonds. I tried to speak,\nbut the gag was effective; I could not make a sound. I listened for my\nwife's voice and my child's--listened long and intently, but no sound\ncame from the other end of the room where their bed was. This silence\nbecame more and more awful, more and more ominous, every moment. Could\nyou have endured an hour of it, do you think? Pity me, then, who had\nto endure three. Three hours--? it was three ages! Whenever the clock\nstruck, it seemed as if years had gone by since I had heard it last. All\nthis time I was struggling in my bonds; and at last, about dawn, I got\nmyself free, and rose up and stretched my stiff limbs. I was able to\ndistinguish details pretty well. The floor was littered with things\nthrown there by the robbers during their search for my savings. The\nfirst object that caught my particular attention was a document of mine\nwhich I had seen the rougher of the two ruffians glance at and then cast\naway. It had blood on it! I staggered to the other end of the room. Oh,\npoor unoffending, helpless ones, there they lay, their troubles ended,\nmine begun!\n\nDid I appeal to the law--I? Does it quench the pauper's thirst if the\nKing drink for him? Oh, no, no, no--I wanted no impertinent interference\nof the law. Laws and the gallows could not pay the debt that was owing\nto me! Let the laws leave the matter in my hands, and have no fears: I\nwould find the debtor and collect the debt. How accomplish this, do you\nsay? How accomplish it, and feel so sure about it, when I had neither\nseen the robbers' faces, nor heard their natural voices, nor had any\nidea who they might be? Nevertheless, I _was _sure--quite sure, quite\nconfident. I had a clue--a clue which you would not have valued--a clue\nwhich would not have greatly helped even a detective, since he would\nlack the secret of how to apply it. I shall come to that, presently--you\nshall see. Let us go on, now, taking things in their due order. There\nwas one circumstance which gave me a slant in a definite direction\nto begin with: Those two robbers were manifestly soldiers in tramp\ndisguise; and not new to military service, but old in it--regulars,\nperhaps; they did not acquire their soldierly attitude, gestures,\ncarriage, in a day, nor a month, nor yet in a year. So I thought,\nbut said nothing. And one of them had said, 'the captain's voice,\nby G--!'--the one whose life I would have. Two miles away, several\nregiments were in camp, and two companies of U.S. cavalry. When I\nlearned that Captain Blakely, of Company C had passed our way, that\nnight, with an escort, I said nothing, but in that company I resolved to\nseek my man. In conversation I studiously and persistently described the\nrobbers as tramps, camp followers; and among this class the people made\nuseless search, none suspecting the soldiers but me.\n\nWorking patiently, by night, in my desolated home, I made a disguise for\nmyself out of various odds and ends of clothing; in the nearest village\nI bought a pair of blue goggles. By-and-bye, when the military camp\nbroke up, and Company C was ordered a hundred miles north, to Napoleon,\nI secreted my small hoard of money in my belt, and took my departure in\nthe night. When Company C arrived in Napoleon, I was already there. Yes,\nI was there, with a new trade--fortune-teller. Not to seem partial, I\nmade friends and told fortunes among all the companies garrisoned there;\nbut I gave Company C the great bulk of my attentions. I made myself\nlimitlessly obliging to these particular men; they could ask me no\nfavor, put upon me no risk, which I would decline. I became the willing\nbutt of their jokes; this perfected my popularity; I became a favorite.\n\nI early found a private who lacked a thumb--what joy it was to me! And\nwhen I found that he alone, of all the company, had lost a thumb, my\nlast misgiving vanished; I was _sure _I was on the right track. This\nman's name was Kruger, a German. There were nine Germans in the company.\nI watched, to see who might be his intimates; but he seemed to have no\nespecial intimates. But I was his intimate; and I took care to make\nthe intimacy grow. Sometimes I so hungered for my revenge that I could\nhardly restrain myself from going on my knees and begging him to point\nout the man who had murdered my wife and child; but I managed to bridle\nmy tongue. I bided my time, and went on telling fortunes, as opportunity\noffered.\n\nMy apparatus was simple: a little red paint and a bit of white paper. I\npainted the ball of the client's thumb, took a print of it on the paper,\nstudied it that night, and revealed his fortune to him next day. What\nwas my idea in this nonsense? It was this: When I was a youth, I knew an\nold Frenchman who had been a prison-keeper for thirty years, and he told\nme that there was one thing about a person which never changed, from\nthe cradle to the grave--the lines in the ball of the thumb; and he said\nthat these lines were never exactly alike in the thumbs of any two human\nbeings. In these days, we photograph the new criminal, and hang his\npicture in the Rogues' Gallery for future reference; but that Frenchman,\nin his day, used to take a print of the ball of a new prisoner's thumb\nand put that away for future reference. He always said that pictures\nwere no good--future disguises could make them useless; 'The thumb's\nthe only sure thing,' said he; 'you can't disguise that.' And he used\nto prove his theory, too, on my friends and acquaintances; it always\nsucceeded.\n\nI went on telling fortunes. Every night I shut myself in, all alone,\nand studied the day's thumb-prints with a magnifying-glass. Imagine the\ndevouring eagerness with which I pored over those mazy red spirals,\nwith that document by my side which bore the right-hand\nthumb-and-finger-marks of that unknown murderer, printed with the\ndearest blood--to me--that was ever shed on this earth! And many and\nmany a time I had to repeat the same old disappointed remark, 'will they\n_never _correspond!'\n\nBut my reward came at last. It was the print of the thumb of the\nforty-third man of Company C whom I had experimented on--Private Franz\nAdler. An hour before, I did not know the murderer's name, or voice,\nor figure, or face, or nationality; but now I knew all these things!\nI believed I might feel sure; the Frenchman's repeated demonstrations\nbeing so good a warranty. Still, there was a way to _make _sure. I had\nan impression of Kruger's left thumb. In the morning I took him aside\nwhen he was off duty; and when we were out of sight and hearing of\nwitnesses, I said, impressively--\n\n'A part of your fortune is so grave, that I thought it would be better\nfor you if I did not tell it in public. You and another man, whose\nfortune I was studying last night,--Private Adler,--have been murdering\na woman and a child! You are being dogged: within five days both of you\nwill be assassinated.'\n\nHe dropped on his knees, frightened out of his wits; and for five\nminutes he kept pouring out the same set of words, like a demented\nperson, and in the same half-crying way which was one of my memories of\nthat murderous night in my cabin--\n\n'I didn't do it; upon my soul I didn't do it; and I tried to keep _him\n_from doing it; I did, as God is my witness. He did it alone.'\n\nThis was all I wanted. And I tried to get rid of the fool; but no, he\nclung to me, imploring me to save him from the assassin. He said--\n\n'I have money--ten thousand dollars--hid away, the fruit of loot and\nthievery; save me--tell me what to do, and you shall have it, every\npenny. Two-thirds of it is my cousin Adler's; but you can take it\nall. We hid it when we first came here. But I hid it in a new place\nyesterday, and have not told him--shall not tell him. I was going to\ndesert, and get away with it all. It is gold, and too heavy to carry\nwhen one is running and dodging; but a woman who has been gone over the\nriver two days to prepare my way for me is going to follow me with it;\nand if I got no chance to describe the hiding-place to her I was going\nto slip my silver watch into her hand, or send it to her, and she would\nunderstand. There's a piece of paper in the back of the case, which\ntells it all. Here, take the watch--tell me what to do!'\n\nHe was trying to press his watch upon me, and was exposing the paper\nand explaining it to me, when Adler appeared on the scene, about a dozen\nyards away. I said to poor Kruger--\n\n'Put up your watch, I don't want it. You shan't come to any harm. Go,\nnow; I must tell Adler his fortune. Presently I will tell you how to\nescape the assassin; meantime I shall have to examine your thumbmark\nagain. Say nothing to Adler about this thing--say nothing to anybody.'\n\nHe went away filled with fright and gratitude, poor devil. I told Adler\na long fortune--purposely so long that I could not finish it; promised\nto come to him on guard, that night, and tell him the really important\npart of it--the tragical part of it, I said--so must be out of reach of\neavesdroppers. They always kept a picket-watch outside the town--mere\ndiscipline and ceremony--no occasion for it, no enemy around.\n\nToward midnight I set out, equipped with the countersign, and picked my\nway toward the lonely region where Adler was to keep his watch. It was\nso dark that I stumbled right on a dim figure almost before I could get\nout a protecting word. The sentinel hailed and I answered, both at the\nsame moment. I added, 'It's only me--the fortune-teller.' Then I slipped\nto the poor devil's side, and without a word I drove my dirk into his\nheart! _Ya wohl_, laughed I, it _was _the tragedy part of his fortune,\nindeed! As he fell from his horse, he clutched at me, and my blue\ngoggles remained in his hand; and away plunged the beast dragging him,\nwith his foot in the stirrup.\n\nI fled through the woods, and made good my escape, leaving the accusing\ngoggles behind me in that dead man's hand.\n\nThis was fifteen or sixteen years ago. Since then I have wandered\naimlessly about the earth, sometimes at work, sometimes idle; sometimes\nwith money, sometimes with none; but always tired of life, and wishing\nit was done, for my mission here was finished, with the act of that\nnight; and the only pleasure, solace, satisfaction I had, in all those\ntedious years, was in the daily reflection, 'I have killed him!'\n\nFour years ago, my health began to fail. I had wandered into Munich, in\nmy purposeless way. Being out of money, I sought work, and got it; did\nmy duty faithfully about a year, and was then given the berth of night\nwatchman yonder in that dead-house which you visited lately. The place\nsuited my mood. I liked it. I liked being with the dead--liked being\nalone with them. I used to wander among those rigid corpses, and peer\ninto their austere faces, by the hour. The later the time, the more\nimpressive it was; I preferred the late time. Sometimes I turned the\nlights low: this gave perspective, you see; and the imagination could\nplay; always, the dim receding ranks of the dead inspired one with weird\nand fascinating fancies. Two years ago--I had been there a year then--I\nwas sitting all alone in the watch-room, one gusty winter's night,\nchilled, numb, comfortless; drowsing gradually into unconsciousness; the\nsobbing of the wind and the slamming of distant shutters falling fainter\nand fainter upon my dulling ear each moment, when sharp and suddenly\nthat dead-bell rang out a blood-curdling alarum over my head! The shock\nof it nearly paralyzed me; for it was the first time I had ever heard\nit.\n\nI gathered myself together and flew to the corpse-room. About midway\ndown the outside rank, a shrouded figure was sitting upright, wagging\nits head slowly from one side to the other--a grisly spectacle! Its side\nwas toward me. I hurried to it and peered into its face. Heavens, it was\nAdler!\n\nCan you divine what my first thought was? Put into words, it was this:\n'It seems, then, you escaped me once: there will be a different result\nthis time!'\n\nEvidently this creature was suffering unimaginable terrors. Think what\nit must have been to wake up in the midst of that voiceless hush, and,\nlook out over that grim congregation of the dead! What gratitude shone\nin his skinny white face when he saw a living form before him! And how\nthe fervency of this mute gratitude was augmented when his eyes fell\nupon the life-giving cordials which I carried in my hands! Then imagine\nthe horror which came into this pinched face when I put the cordials\nbehind me, and said mockingly--\n\n'Speak up, Franz Adler--call upon these dead. Doubtless they will listen\nand have pity; but here there is none else that will.'\n\nHe tried to speak, but that part of the shroud which bound his jaws,\nheld firm and would not let him. He tried to lift imploring hands, but\nthey were crossed upon his breast and tied. I said--\n\n'Shout, Franz Adler; make the sleepers in the distant streets hear you\nand bring help. Shout--and lose no time, for there is little to lose.\nWhat, you cannot? That is a pity; but it is no matter--it does not\nalways bring help. When you and your cousin murdered a helpless woman\nand child in a cabin in Arkansas--my wife, it was, and my child!--they\nshrieked for help, you remember; but it did no good; you remember that\nit did no good, is it not so? Your teeth chatter--then why cannot\nyou shout? Loosen the bandages with your hands--then you can. Ah, I\nsee--your hands are tied, they cannot aid you. How strangely things\nrepeat themselves, after long years; for _my_ hands were tied, that\nnight, you remember? Yes, tied much as yours are now--how odd that is.\nI could not pull free. It did not occur to you to untie me; it does not\noccur to me to untie you. Sh--! there's a late footstep. It is\ncoming this way. Hark, how near it is! One can count the\nfootfalls--one--two--three. There--it is just outside. Now is the time!\nShout, man, shout!--it is the one sole chance between you and eternity!\nAh, you see you have delayed too long--it is gone by. There--it is dying\nout. It is gone! Think of it--reflect upon it--you have heard a human\nfootstep for the last time. How curious it must be, to listen to so\ncommon a sound as that, and know that one will never hear the fellow to\nit again.'\n\nOh, my friend, the agony in that shrouded face was ecstasy to see! I\nthought of a new torture, and applied it--assisting myself with a trifle\nof lying invention--\n\n'That poor Kruger tried to save my wife and child, and I did him a\ngrateful good turn for it when the time came. I persuaded him to\nrob you; and I and a woman helped him to desert, and got him away in\nsafety.' A look as of surprise and triumph shone out dimly through the\nanguish in my victim's face. I was disturbed, disquieted. I said--\n\n'What, then--didn't he escape?'\n\nA negative shake of the head.\n\n'No? What happened, then?'\n\nThe satisfaction in the shrouded face was still plainer. The man tried\nto mumble out some words--could not succeed; tried to express something\nwith his obstructed hands--failed; paused a moment, then feebly tilted\nhis head, in a meaning way, toward the corpse that lay nearest him.\n\n'Dead?' I asked. 'Failed to escape?--caught in the act and shot?'\n\nNegative shake of the head.\n\n'How, then?'\n\nAgain the man tried to do something with his hands. I watched closely,\nbut could not guess the intent. I bent over and watched still more\nintently. He had twisted a thumb around and was weakly punching at his\nbreast with it. 'Ah--stabbed, do you mean?'\n\nAffirmative nod, accompanied by a spectral smile of such peculiar\ndevilishness, that it struck an awakening light through my dull brain,\nand I cried--\n\n'Did I stab him, mistaking him for you?--for that stroke was meant for\nnone but you.'\n\nThe affirmative nod of the re-dying rascal was as joyous as his failing\nstrength was able to put into its expression.\n\n'O, miserable, miserable me, to slaughter the pitying soul that, stood a\nfriend to my darlings when they were helpless, and would have saved them\nif he could! miserable, oh, miserable, miserable me!'\n\nI fancied I heard the muffled gurgle of a mocking laugh. I took my face\nout of my hands, and saw my enemy sinking back upon his inclined board.\n\nHe was a satisfactory long time dying. He had a wonderful vitality, an\nastonishing constitution. Yes, he was a pleasant long time at it. I got\na chair and a newspaper, and sat down by him and read. Occasionally I\ntook a sip of brandy. This was necessary, on account of the cold. But I\ndid it partly because I saw, that along at first, whenever I reached\nfor the bottle, he thought I was going to give him some. I read aloud:\nmainly imaginary accounts of people snatched from the grave's threshold\nand restored to life and vigor by a few spoonsful of liquor and a warm\nbath. Yes, he had a long, hard death of it--three hours and six minutes,\nfrom the time he rang his bell.\n\nIt is believed that in all these eighteen years that have elapsed\nsince the institution of the corpse-watch, no shrouded occupant of the\nBavarian dead-houses has ever rung its bell. Well, it is a harmless\nbelief. Let it stand at that.\n\nThe chill of that death-room had penetrated my bones. It revived and\nfastened upon me the disease which had been afflicting me, but which, up\nto that night, had been steadily disappearing. That man murdered my wife\nand my child; and in three days hence he will have added me to his list.\nNo matter--God! how delicious the memory of it!--I caught him escaping\nfrom his grave, and thrust him back into it.\n\nAfter that night, I was confined to my bed for a week; but as soon as\nI could get about, I went to the dead-house books and got the number of\nthe house which Adler had died in. A wretched lodging-house, it was.\nIt was my idea that he would naturally have gotten hold of Kruger's\neffects, being his cousin; and I wanted to get Kruger's watch, if I\ncould. But while I was sick, Adler's things had been sold and scattered,\nall except a few old letters, and some odds and ends of no value.\nHowever, through those letters, I traced out a son of Kruger's, the\nonly relative left. He is a man of thirty now, a shoemaker by trade,\nand living at No. 14 Konigstrasse, Mannheim--widower, with several small\nchildren. Without explaining to him why, I have furnished two-thirds of\nhis support, ever since.\n\nNow, as to that watch--see how strangely things happen! I traced it\naround and about Germany for more than a year, at considerable cost in\nmoney and vexation; and at last I got it. Got it, and was unspeakably\nglad; opened it, and found nothing in it! Why, I might have known that\nthat bit of paper was not going to stay there all this time. Of course\nI gave up that ten thousand dollars then; gave it up, and dropped it out\nof my mind: and most sorrowfully, for I had wanted it for Kruger's son.\n\nLast night, when I consented at last that I must die, I began to make\nready. I proceeded to burn all useless papers; and sure enough, from a\nbatch of Adler's, not previously examined with thoroughness, out dropped\nthat long-desired scrap! I recognized it in a moment. Here it is--I will\ntranslate it:\n\n'Brick livery stable, stone foundation, middle of town, corner of\nOrleans and Market. Corner toward Court-house. Third stone, fourth row.\nStick notice there, saying how many are to come.'\n\nThere--take it, and preserve it. Kruger explained that that stone was\nremovable; and that it was in the north wall of the foundation, fourth\nrow from the top, and third stone from the west. The money is secreted\nbehind it. He said the closing sentence was a blind, to mislead in\ncase the paper should fall into wrong hands. It probably performed that\noffice for Adler.\n\nNow I want to beg that when you make your intended journey down the\nriver, you will hunt out that hidden money, and send it to Adam Kruger,\ncare of the Mannheim address which I have mentioned. It will make a rich\nman of him, and I shall sleep the sounder in my grave for knowing that I\nhave done what I could for the son of the man who tried to save my\nwife and child--albeit my hand ignorantly struck him down, whereas the\nimpulse of my heart would have been to shield and serve him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 32\n\nThe Disposal of a Bonanza\n\n'SUCH was Ritter's narrative,' said I to my two friends. There was a\nprofound and impressive silence, which lasted a considerable time; then\nboth men broke into a fusillade of exciting and admiring ejaculations\nover the strange incidents of the tale; and this, along with a rattling\nfire of questions, was kept up until all hands were about out of breath.\nThen my friends began to cool down, and draw off, under shelter of\noccasional volleys, into silence and abysmal reverie. For ten minutes\nnow, there was stillness. Then Rogers said dreamily--\n\n'Ten thousand dollars.'\n\nAdding, after a considerable pause--\n\n'Ten thousand. It is a heap of money.'\n\nPresently the poet inquired--\n\n'Are you going to send it to him right away?'\n\n'Yes,' I said. 'It is a queer question.'\n\nNo reply. After a little, Rogers asked, hesitatingly:\n\n'_All _of it?--That is--I mean--'\n\n'Certainly, all of it.'\n\nI was going to say more, but stopped--was stopped by a train of thought\nwhich started up in me. Thompson spoke, but my mind was absent, and I\ndid not catch what he said. But I heard Rogers answer--\n\n'Yes, it seems so to me. It ought to be quite sufficient; for I don't\nsee that he has done anything.'\n\nPresently the poet said--\n\n'When you come to look at it, it is more than sufficient. Just look at\nit--five thousand dollars! Why, he couldn't spend it in a lifetime! And\nit would injure him, too; perhaps ruin him--you want to look at that.\nIn a little while he would throw his last away, shut up his shop, maybe\ntake to drinking, maltreat his motherless children, drift into other\nevil courses, go steadily from bad to worse--'\n\n'Yes, that's it,' interrupted Rogers, fervently, 'I've seen it a hundred\ntimes--yes, more than a hundred. You put money into the hands of a man\nlike that, if you want to destroy him, that's all; just put money into\nhis hands, it's all you've got to do; and if it don't pull him down,\nand take all the usefulness out of him, and all the self-respect and\neverything, then I don't know human nature--ain't that so, Thompson?\nAnd even if we were to give him a _third _of it; why, in less than six\nmonths--'\n\n'Less than six _weeks_, you'd better say!' said I, warming up and\nbreaking in. 'Unless he had that three thousand dollars in safe hands\nwhere he couldn't touch it, he would no more last you six weeks than--'\n\n'Of _course _he wouldn't,' said Thompson; 'I've edited books for\nthat kind of people; and the moment they get their hands on the\nroyalty--maybe it's three thousand, maybe it's two thousand--'\n\n'What business has that shoemaker with two thousand dollars, I should\nlike to know?' broke in Rogers, earnestly. 'A man perhaps perfectly\ncontented now, there in Mannheim, surrounded by his own class, eating\nhis bread with the appetite which laborious industry alone can\ngive, enjoying his humble life, honest, upright, pure in heart; and\n_blest_!--yes, I say blest! blest above all the myriads that go in silk\nattire and walk the empty artificial round of social folly--but just\nyou put that temptation before him once! just you lay fifteen hundred\ndollars before a man like that, and say--'\n\n'Fifteen hundred devils!' cried I, '_five _hundred would rot his\nprinciples, paralyze his industry, drag him to the rumshop, thence to\nthe gutter, thence to the almshouse, thence to----'\n\n'_Why _put upon ourselves this crime, gentlemen?' interrupted the poet\nearnestly and appealingly. 'He is happy where he is, and _as _he is.\nEvery sentiment of honor, every sentiment of charity, every sentiment of\nhigh and sacred benevolence warns us, beseeches us, commands us to leave\nhim undisturbed. That is real friendship, that is true friendship. We\ncould follow other courses that would be more showy; but none that would\nbe so truly kind and wise, depend upon it.'\n\nAfter some further talk, it became evident that each of us, down in his\nheart, felt some misgivings over this settlement of the matter. It\nwas manifest that we all felt that we ought to send the poor shoemaker\n_something_. There was long and thoughtful discussion of this point; and\nwe finally decided to send him a chromo.\n\nWell, now that everything seemed to be arranged satisfactorily to\neverybody concerned, a new trouble broke out: it transpired that these\ntwo men were expecting to share equally in the money with me. That was\nnot my idea. I said that if they got half of it between them they might\nconsider themselves lucky. Rogers said--\n\n'Who would have had _any _if it hadn't been for me? I flung out the\nfirst hint--but for that it would all have gone to the shoemaker.'\n\nThompson said that he was thinking of the thing himself at the very\nmoment that Rogers had originally spoken.\n\nI retorted that the idea would have occurred to me plenty soon enough,\nand without anybody's help. I was slow about thinking, maybe, but I was\nsure.\n\nThis matter warmed up into a quarrel; then into a fight; and each man\ngot pretty badly battered. As soon as I had got myself mended up after\na fashion, I ascended to the hurricane deck in a pretty sour humor. I\nfound Captain McCord there, and said, as pleasantly as my humor would\npermit--\n\n'I have come to say good-bye, captain. I wish to go ashore at Napoleon.'\n\n'Go ashore where?'\n\n'Napoleon.'\n\nThe captain laughed; but seeing that I was not in a jovial mood, stopped\nthat and said--\n\n'But are you serious?'\n\n'Serious? I certainly am.'\n\nThe captain glanced up at the pilot-house and said--\n\n'He wants to get off at Napoleon!'\n\n'Napoleon?'\n\n'That's what he says.'\n\n'Great Caesar's ghost!'\n\nUncle Mumford approached along the deck. The captain said--\n\n'Uncle, here's a friend of yours wants to get off at Napoleon!'\n\n'Well, by--?'\n\nI said--\n\n'Come, what is all this about? Can't a man go ashore at Napoleon if he\nwants to?'\n\n'Why, hang it, don't you know? There _isn't_ any Napoleon any more.\nHasn't been for years and years. The Arkansas River burst through it,\ntore it all to rags, and emptied it into the Mississippi!'\n\n'Carried the _whole _town away?-banks, churches, jails,\nnewspaper-offices, court-house, theater, fire department, livery stable\n_everything _?'\n\n'Everything. just a fifteen-minute job.' or such a matter. Didn't leave\nhide nor hair, shred nor shingle of it, except the fag-end of a shanty\nand one brick chimney. This boat is paddling along right now, where the\ndead-center of that town used to be; yonder is the brick chimney-all\nthat's left of Napoleon. These dense woods on the right used to be a\nmile back of the town. Take a look behind you--up-stream--now you begin\nto recognize this country, don't you?'\n\n'Yes, I do recognize it now. It is the most wonderful thing I ever heard\nof; by a long shot the most wonderful--and unexpected.'\n\nMr. Thompson and Mr. Rogers had arrived, meantime, with satchels and\numbrellas, and had silently listened to the captain's news. Thompson put\na half-dollar in my hand and said softly--\n\n'For my share of the chromo.'\n\nRogers followed suit.\n\nYes, it was an astonishing thing to see the Mississippi rolling between\nunpeopled shores and straight over the spot where I used to see a good\nbig self-complacent town twenty years ago. Town that was county-seat\nof a great and important county; town with a big United States marine\nhospital; town of innumerable fights--an inquest every day; town where\nI had used to know the prettiest girl, and the most accomplished in the\nwhole Mississippi Valley; town where we were handed the first printed\nnews of the 'Pennsylvania's' mournful disaster a quarter of a century\nago; a town no more--swallowed up, vanished, gone to feed the fishes;\nnothing left but a fragment of a shanty and a crumbling brick chimney!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 33\n\nRefreshments and Ethics\n\nIN regard to Island 74, which is situated not far from the former\nNapoleon, a freak of the river here has sorely perplexed the laws of\nmen and made them a vanity and a jest. When the State of Arkansas was\nchartered, she controlled 'to the center of the river'--a most unstable\nline. The State of Mississippi claimed 'to the channel'--another shifty\nand unstable line. No. 74 belonged to Arkansas. By and by a cut-off\nthrew this big island out of Arkansas, and yet not within Mississippi.\n'Middle of the river' on one side of it, 'channel' on the other. That\nis as I understand the problem. Whether I have got the details right\nor wrong, this _fact _remains: that here is this big and exceedingly\nvaluable island of four thousand acres, thrust out in the cold, and\nbelonging to neither the one State nor the other; paying taxes to\nneither, owing allegiance to neither. One man owns the whole island, and\nof right is 'the man without a country.'\n\nIsland 92 belongs to Arkansas. The river moved it over and joined it\nto Mississippi. A chap established a whiskey shop there, without a\nMississippi license, and enriched himself upon Mississippi custom under\nArkansas protection (where no license was in those days required).\n\nWe glided steadily down the river in the usual privacy--steamboat or\nother moving thing seldom seen. Scenery as always: stretch upon stretch\nof almost unbroken forest, on both sides of the river; soundless\nsolitude. Here and there a cabin or two, standing in small openings on\nthe gray and grassless banks--cabins which had formerly stood a quarter\nor half-mile farther to the front, and gradually been pulled farther\nand farther back as the shores caved in. As at Pilcher's Point, for\ninstance, where the cabins had been moved back three hundred yards in\nthree months, so we were told; but the caving banks had already caught\nup with them, and they were being conveyed rearward once more.\n\nNapoleon had but small opinion of Greenville, Mississippi, in the old\ntimes; but behold, Napoleon is gone to the cat-fishes, and here is\nGreenville full of life and activity, and making a considerable flourish\nin the Valley; having three thousand inhabitants, it is said, and doing\na gross trade of $2,500,000 annually. A growing town.\n\nThere was much talk on the boat about the Calhoun Land Company, an\nenterprise which is expected to work wholesome results. Colonel Calhoun,\na grandson of the statesman, went to Boston and formed a syndicate\nwhich purchased a large tract of land on the river, in Chicot County,\nArkansas--some ten thousand acres--for cotton-growing. The purpose is to\nwork on a cash basis: buy at first hands, and handle their own product;\nsupply their negro laborers with provisions and necessaries at a\ntrifling profit, say 8 or 10 per cent.; furnish them comfortable\nquarters, etc., and encourage them to save money and remain on the\nplace. If this proves a financial success, as seems quite certain, they\npropose to establish a banking-house in Greenville, and lend money at an\nunburdensome rate of interest--6 per cent. is spoken of.\n\nThe trouble heretofore has been--I am quoting remarks of planters and\nsteamboatmen--that the planters, although owning the land, were without\ncash capital; had to hypothecate both land and crop to carry on the\nbusiness. Consequently, the commission dealer who furnishes the money\ntakes some risk and demands big interest--usually 10 per cent., and\n2{half} per cent. for negotiating the loan. The planter has also to buy\nhis supplies through the same dealer, paying commissions and profits.\nThen when he ships his crop, the dealer adds his commissions, insurance,\netc. So, taking it by and large, and first and last, the dealer's share\nof that crop is about 25 per cent.'{footnote ['But what can the State do\nwhere the people are under subjection to rates of interest ranging from\n18 to 30 per cent., and are also under the necessity of purchasing their\ncrops in advance even of planting, at these rates, for the privilege\nof purchasing all their supplies at 100 per cent. profit?'--_Edward\nAtkinson_.]}\n\nA cotton-planter's estimate of the average margin of profit on planting,\nin his section: One man and mule will raise ten acres of cotton, giving\nten bales cotton, worth, say, $500; cost of producing, say $350; net\nprofit, $150, or $15 per acre. There is also a profit now from\nthe cotton-seed, which formerly had little value--none where much\ntransportation was necessary. In sixteen hundred pounds crude cotton\nfour hundred are lint, worth, say, ten cents a pound; and twelve hundred\npounds of seed, worth $12 or $13 per ton. Maybe in future even the stems\nwill not be thrown away. Mr. Edward Atkinson says that for each bale\nof cotton there are fifteen hundred pounds of stems, and that these are\nvery rich in phosphate of lime and potash; that when ground and mixed\nwith ensilage or cotton-seed meal (which is too rich for use as fodder\nin large quantities), the stem mixture makes a superior food, rich in\nall the elements needed for the production of milk, meat, and bone.\nHeretofore the stems have been considered a nuisance.\n\nComplaint is made that the planter remains grouty toward the former\nslave, since the war; will have nothing but a chill business relation\nwith him, no sentiment permitted to intrude, will not keep a 'store'\nhimself, and supply the negro's wants and thus protect the negro's\npocket and make him able and willing to stay on the place and an\nadvantage to him to do it, but lets that privilege to some thrifty\nIsraelite, who encourages the thoughtless negro and wife to buy all\nsorts of things which they could do without--buy on credit, at big\nprices, month after month, credit based on the negro's share of the\ngrowing crop; and at the end of the season, the negro's share belongs\nto the Israelite,' the negro is in debt besides, is discouraged,\ndissatisfied, restless, and both he and the planter are injured; for he\nwill take steamboat and migrate, and the planter must get a stranger in\nhis place who does not know him, does not care for him, will fatten the\nIsraelite a season, and follow his predecessor per steamboat.\n\nIt is hoped that the Calhoun Company will show, by its humane and\nprotective treatment of its laborers, that its method is the most\nprofitable for both planter and negro; and it is believed that a general\nadoption of that method will then follow.\n\nAnd where so many are saying their say, shall not the barkeeper testify?\nHe is thoughtful, observant, never drinks; endeavors to earn his salary,\nand _would _earn it if there were custom enough. He says the people\nalong here in Mississippi and Louisiana will send up the river to buy\nvegetables rather than raise them, and they will come aboard at the\nlandings and buy fruits of the barkeeper. Thinks they 'don't know\nanything but cotton;' believes they don't know how to raise vegetables\nand fruit--'at least the most of them.' Says 'a nigger will go to H for\na watermelon' ('H' is all I find in the stenographer's report--means\nHalifax probably, though that seems a good way to go for a watermelon).\nBarkeeper buys watermelons for five cents up the river, brings them\ndown and sells them for fifty. 'Why does he mix such elaborate and\npicturesque drinks for the nigger hands on the boat?' Because they won't\nhave any other. 'They want a big drink; don't make any difference what\nyou make it of, they want the worth of their money. You give a nigger a\nplain gill of half-a-dollar brandy for five cents--will he touch it? No.\nAin't size enough to it. But you put up a pint of all kinds of worthless\nrubbish, and heave in some red stuff to make it beautiful--red's the\nmain thing--and he wouldn't put down that glass to go to a circus.'\n\nAll the bars on this Anchor Line are rented and owned by one firm.\nThey furnish the liquors from their own establishment, and hire the\nbarkeepers 'on salary.' Good liquors? Yes, on some of the boats, where\nthere are the kind of passengers that want it and can pay for it. On\nthe other boats? No. Nobody but the deck hands and firemen to drink it.\n'Brandy? Yes, I've got brandy, plenty of it; but you don't want any of\nit unless you've made your will.' It isn't as it used to be in the\nold times. Then everybody traveled by steamboat, everybody drank, and\neverybody treated everybody else. 'Now most everybody goes by railroad,\nand the rest don't drink.' In the old times the barkeeper owned the bar\nhimself, 'and was gay and smarty and talky and all jeweled up, and was\nthe toniest aristocrat on the boat; used to make $2,000 on a trip. A\nfather who left his son a steamboat bar, left him a fortune. Now he\nleaves him board and lodging; yes, and washing, if a shirt a trip will\ndo. Yes, indeedy, times are changed. Why, do you know, on the principal\nline of boats on the Upper Mississippi, they don't have any bar at all!\nSounds like poetry, but it's the petrified truth.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 34\n\nTough Yarns\n\nSTACK island. I remembered Stack Island; also Lake Providence,\nLouisiana--which is the first distinctly Southern-looking town you come\nto, downward-bound; lies level and low, shade-trees hung with venerable\ngray beards of Spanish moss; 'restful, pensive, Sunday aspect about the\nplace,' comments Uncle Mumford, with feeling--also with truth.\n\nA Mr. H. furnished some minor details of fact concerning this region\nwhich I would have hesitated to believe if I had not known him to be a\nsteamboat mate. He was a passenger of ours, a resident of Arkansas City,\nand bound to Vicksburg to join his boat, a little Sunflower packet.\nHe was an austere man, and had the reputation of being singularly\nunworldly, for a river man. Among other things, he said that Arkansas\nhad been injured and kept back by generations of exaggerations\nconcerning the mosquitoes here. One may smile, said he, and turn the\nmatter off as being a small thing; but when you come to look at the\neffects produced, in the way of discouragement of immigration, and\ndiminished values of property, it was quite the opposite of a small\nthing, or thing in any wise to be coughed down or sneered at. These\nmosquitoes had been persistently represented as being formidable and\nlawless; whereas 'the truth is, they are feeble, insignificant in size,\ndiffident to a fault, sensitive'--and so on, and so on; you would have\nsupposed he was talking about his family. But if he was soft on the\nArkansas mosquitoes, he was hard enough on the mosquitoes of Lake\nProvidence to make up for it--'those Lake Providence colossi,' as he\nfinely called them. He said that two of them could whip a dog, and that\nfour of them could hold a man down; and except help come, they would\nkill him--'butcher him,' as he expressed it. Referred in a sort of\ncasual way--and yet significant way--to 'the fact that the life policy\nin its simplest form is unknown in Lake Providence--they take out a\nmosquito policy besides.' He told many remarkable things about those\nlawless insects. Among others, said he had seen them try to vote.\nNoticing that this statement seemed to be a good deal of a strain on us,\nhe modified it a little: said he might have been mistaken, as to that\nparticular, but knew he had seen them around the polls 'canvassing.'\n\nThere was another passenger--friend of H.'s--who backed up the harsh\nevidence against those mosquitoes, and detailed some stirring adventures\nwhich he had had with them. The stories were pretty sizable, merely\npretty sizable; yet Mr. H. was continually interrupting with a cold,\ninexorable 'Wait--knock off twenty-five per cent. of that; now go\non;' or, 'Wait--you are getting that too strong; cut it down, cut it\ndown--you get a leetle too much costumery on to your statements: always\ndress a fact in tights, never in an ulster;' or, 'Pardon, once more: if\nyou are going to load anything more on to that statement, you want to\nget a couple of lighters and tow the rest, because it's drawing all the\nwater there is in the river already; stick to facts--just stick to\nthe cold facts; what these gentlemen want for a book is the frozen\ntruth--ain't that so, gentlemen?' He explained privately that it was\nnecessary to watch this man all the time, and keep him within bounds;\nit would not do to neglect this precaution, as he, Mr. H., 'knew to his\nsorrow.' Said he, 'I will not deceive you; he told me such a monstrous\nlie once, that it swelled my left ear up, and spread it so that I was\nactually not able to see out around it; it remained so for months, and\npeople came miles to see me fan myself with it.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 35\n\nVicksburg During the Trouble\n\nWE used to plow past the lofty hill-city, Vicksburg, down-stream; but\nwe cannot do that now. A cut-off has made a country town of it, like\nOsceola, St. Genevieve, and several others. There is currentless\nwater--also a big island--in front of Vicksburg now. You come down the\nriver the other side of the island, then turn and come up to the town;\nthat is, in high water: in low water you can't come up, but must land\nsome distance below it.\n\nSigns and scars still remain, as reminders of Vicksburg's tremendous\nwar experiences; earthworks, trees crippled by the cannon balls,\ncave-refuges in the clay precipices, etc. The caves did good service\nduring the six weeks' bombardment of the city--May 8 to July 4, 1863.\nThey were used by the non-combatants--mainly by the women and children;\nnot to live in constantly, but to fly to for safety on occasion. They\nwere mere holes, tunnels, driven into the perpendicular clay bank, then\nbranched Y shape, within the hill. Life in Vicksburg, during the six\nweeks was perhaps--but wait; here are some materials out of which to\nreproduce it:--\n\nPopulation, twenty-seven thousand soldiers and three thousand\nnon-combatants; the city utterly cut off from the world--walled solidly\nin, the frontage by gunboats, the rear by soldiers and batteries;\nhence, no buying and selling with the outside; no passing to and fro;\nno God-speeding a parting guest, no welcoming a coming one; no printed\nacres of world-wide news to be read at breakfast, mornings--a tedious\ndull absence of such matter, instead; hence, also, no running to see\nsteamboats smoking into view in the distance up or down, and plowing\ntoward the town--for none came, the river lay vacant and undisturbed;\nno rush and turmoil around the railway station, no struggling over\nbewildered swarms of passengers by noisy mobs of hackmen--all quiet\nthere; flour two hundred dollars a barrel, sugar thirty, corn ten\ndollars a bushel, bacon five dollars a pound, rum a hundred dollars a\ngallon; other things in proportion: consequently, no roar and racket of\ndrays and carriages tearing along the streets; nothing for them to\ndo, among that handful of non-combatants of exhausted means; at three\no'clock in the morning, silence; silence so dead that the measured\ntramp of a sentinel can be heard a seemingly impossible distance; out of\nhearing of this lonely sound, perhaps the stillness is absolute: all in\na moment come ground-shaking thunder-crashes of artillery, the sky\nis cobwebbed with the crisscrossing red lines streaming from soaring\nbomb-shells, and a rain of iron fragments descends upon the city;\ndescends upon the empty streets: streets which are not empty a moment\nlater, but mottled with dim figures of frantic women and children\nscurrying from home and bed toward the cave dungeons--encouraged by the\nhumorous grim soldiery, who shout 'Rats, to your holes!' and laugh.\n\nThe cannon-thunder rages, shells scream and crash overhead, the iron\nrain pours down, one hour, two hours, three, possibly six, then stops;\nsilence follows, but the streets are still empty; the silence continues;\nby-and-bye a head projects from a cave here and there and yonder, and\nreconnoitres, cautiously; the silence still continuing, bodies follow\nheads, and jaded, half smothered creatures group themselves about,\nstretch their cramped limbs, draw in deep draughts of the grateful fresh\nair, gossip with the neighbors from the next cave; maybe straggle off\nhome presently, or take a lounge through the town, if the stillness\ncontinues; and will scurry to the holes again, by-and-bye, when the\nwar-tempest breaks forth once more.\n\nThere being but three thousand of these cave-dwellers--merely the\npopulation of a village--would they not come to know each other, after a\nweek or two, and familiarly; insomuch that the fortunate or unfortunate\nexperiences of one would be of interest to all?\n\nThose are the materials furnished by history. From them might not almost\nanybody reproduce for himself the life of that time in Vicksburg? Could\nyou, who did not experience it, come nearer to reproducing it to the\nimagination of another non-participant than could a Vicksburger who did\nexperience it? It seems impossible; and yet there are reasons why it\nmight not really be. When one makes his first voyage in a ship, it is\nan experience which multitudinously bristles with striking novelties;\nnovelties which are in such sharp contrast with all this person's\nformer experiences that they take a seemingly deathless grip upon his\nimagination and memory. By tongue or pen he can make a landsman live\nthat strange and stirring voyage over with him; make him see it all and\nfeel it all. But if he wait? If he make ten voyages in succession--what\nthen? Why, the thing has lost color, snap, surprise; and has become\ncommonplace. The man would have nothing to tell that would quicken a\nlandsman's pulse.\n\nYears ago, I talked with a couple of the Vicksburg non-combatants--a man\nand his wife. Left to tell their story in their own way, those people\ntold it without fire, almost without interest.\n\nA week of their wonderful life there would have made their tongues\neloquent for ever perhaps; but they had six weeks of it, and that wore\nthe novelty all out; they got used to being bomb-shelled out of home\nand into the ground; the matter became commonplace. After that, the\npossibility of their ever being startlingly interesting in their talks\nabout it was gone. What the man said was to this effect:--\n\n'It got to be Sunday all the time. Seven Sundays in the week--to us,\nanyway. We hadn't anything to do, and time hung heavy. Seven Sundays,\nand all of them broken up at one time or another, in the day or in the\nnight, by a few hours of the awful storm of fire and thunder and iron.\nAt first we used to shin for the holes a good deal faster than we did\nafterwards. The first time, I forgot the children, and Maria fetched\nthem both along. When she was all safe in the cave she fainted. Two or\nthree weeks afterwards, when she was running for the holes, one morning,\nthrough a shell-shower, a big shell burst near her, and covered her all\nover with dirt, and a piece of the iron carried away her game-bag of\nfalse hair from the back of her head. Well, she stopped to get that\ngame-bag before she shoved along again! Was getting used to things\nalready, you see. We all got so that we could tell a good deal about\nshells; and after that we didn't always go under shelter if it was a\nlight shower. Us men would loaf around and talk; and a man would say,\n'There she goes!' and name the kind of shell it was from the sound of\nit, and go on talking--if there wasn't any danger from it. If a\nshell was bursting close over us, we stopped talking and stood\nstill;--uncomfortable, yes, but it wasn't safe to move. When it let\ngo, we went on talking again, if nobody hurt--maybe saying, 'That was a\nripper!' or some such commonplace comment before we resumed; or, maybe,\nwe would see a shell poising itself away high in the air overhead.\nIn that case, every fellow just whipped out a sudden, 'See you again,\ngents!' and shoved. Often and often I saw gangs of ladies promenading\nthe streets, looking as cheerful as you please, and keeping an eye\ncanted up watching the shells; and I've seen them stop still when they\nwere uncertain about what a shell was going to do, and wait and make\ncertain; and after that they sa'ntered along again, or lit out for\nshelter, according to the verdict. Streets in some towns have a litter\nof pieces of paper, and odds and ends of one sort or another lying\naround. Ours hadn't; they had _iron _litter. Sometimes a man\nwould gather up all the iron fragments and unbursted shells in his\nneighborhood, and pile them into a kind of monument in his front\nyard--a ton of it, sometimes. No glass left; glass couldn't stand such\na bombardment; it was all shivered out. Windows of the houses\nvacant--looked like eye-holes in a skull. _Whole _panes were as scarce\nas news.\n\n'We had church Sundays. Not many there, along at first; but by-and-bye\npretty good turnouts. I've seen service stop a minute, and everybody sit\nquiet--no voice heard, pretty funeral-like then--and all the more so on\naccount of the awful boom and crash going on outside and overhead; and\npretty soon, when a body could be heard, service would go on again.\nOrgans and church-music mixed up with a bombardment is a powerful queer\ncombination--along at first. Coming out of church, one morning, we had\nan accident--the only one that happened around me on a Sunday. I was\njust having a hearty handshake with a friend I hadn't seen for a while,\nand saying, 'Drop into our cave to-night, after bombardment; we've got\nhold of a pint of prime wh--.' Whiskey, I was going to say, you know,\nbut a shell interrupted. A chunk of it cut the man's arm off, and left\nit dangling in my hand. And do you know the thing that is going to stick\nthe longest in my memory, and outlast everything else, little and big, I\nreckon, is the mean thought I had then? It was 'the whiskey _is saved_.'\nAnd yet, don't you know, it was kind of excusable; because it was as\nscarce as diamonds, and we had only just that little; never had another\ntaste during the siege.\n\n'Sometimes the caves were desperately crowded, and always hot and close.\nSometimes a cave had twenty or twenty-five people packed into it; no\nturning-room for anybody; air so foul, sometimes, you couldn't have made\na candle burn in it. A child was born in one of those caves one night,\nThink of that; why, it was like having it born in a trunk.\n\n'Twice we had sixteen people in our cave; and a number of times we had a\ndozen. Pretty suffocating in there. We always had eight; eight belonged\nthere. Hunger and misery and sickness and fright and sorrow, and I\ndon't know what all, got so loaded into them that none of them were ever\nrightly their old selves after the siege. They all died but three of us\nwithin a couple of years. One night a shell burst in front of the hole\nand caved it in and stopped it up. It was lively times, for a while,\ndigging out. Some of us came near smothering. After that we made two\nopenings--ought to have thought of it at first.\n\n'Mule meat. No, we only got down to that the last day or two. Of course\nit was good; anything is good when you are starving.\n\nThis man had kept a diary during--six weeks? No, only the first six\ndays. The first day, eight close pages; the second, five; the third,\none--loosely written; the fourth, three or four lines; a line or two\nthe fifth and sixth days; seventh day, diary abandoned; life in terrific\nVicksburg having now become commonplace and matter of course.\n\nThe war history of Vicksburg has more about it to interest the general\nreader than that of any other of the river-towns. It is full of variety,\nfull of incident, full of the picturesque. Vicksburg held out longer\nthan any other important river-town, and saw warfare in all its phases,\nboth land and water--the siege, the mine, the assault, the repulse, the\nbombardment, sickness, captivity, famine.\n\nThe most beautiful of all the national cemeteries is here. Over the\ngreat gateway is this inscription:--\n\n\"HERE REST IN PEACE 16,600 WHO DIED FOR THEIR COUNTRY IN THE YEARS 1861\nTO 1865.\"\n\nThe grounds are nobly situated; being very high and commanding a wide\nprospect of land and river. They are tastefully laid out in broad\nterraces, with winding roads and paths; and there is profuse adornment\nin the way of semi-tropical shrubs and flowers,' and in one part is a\npiece of native wild-wood, left just as it grew, and, therefore, perfect\nin its charm. Everything about this cemetery suggests the hand of the\nnational Government. The Government's work is always conspicuous for\nexcellence, solidity, thoroughness, neatness. The Government does its\nwork well in the first place, and then takes care of it.\n\nBy winding-roads--which were often cut to so great a depth between\nperpendicular walls that they were mere roofless tunnels--we drove out a\nmile or two and visited the monument which stands upon the scene of the\nsurrender of Vicksburg to General Grant by General Pemberton. Its metal\nwill preserve it from the hackings and chippings which so defaced\nits predecessor, which was of marble; but the brick foundations\nare crumbling, and it will tumble down by-and-bye. It overlooks a\npicturesque region of wooded hills and ravines; and is not unpicturesque\nitself, being well smothered in flowering weeds. The battered remnant of\nthe marble monument has been removed to the National Cemetery.\n\nOn the road, a quarter of a mile townward, an aged colored man showed\nus, with pride, an unexploded bomb-shell which has lain in his yard\nsince the day it fell there during the siege.\n\n'I was a-stannin' heah, an' de dog was a-stannin' heah; de dog he went\nfor de shell, gwine to pick a fuss wid it; but I didn't; I says, \"Jes'\nmake you'seff at home heah; lay still whah you is, or bust up de place,\njes' as you's a mind to, but I's got business out in de woods, I has!\"'\n\nVicksburg is a town of substantial business streets and pleasant\nresidences; it commands the commerce of the Yazoo and Sunflower Rivers;\nis pushing railways in several directions, through rich agricultural\nregions, and has a promising future of prosperity and importance.\n\nApparently, nearly all the river towns, big and little, have made up\ntheir minds that they must look mainly to railroads for wealth and\nupbuilding, henceforth. They are acting upon this idea. The signs are,\nthat the next twenty years will bring about some noteworthy changes in\nthe Valley, in the direction of increased population and wealth, and in\nthe intellectual advancement and the liberalizing of opinion which go\nnaturally with these. And yet, if one may judge by the past, the river\ntowns will manage to find and use a chance, here and there, to cripple\nand retard their progress. They kept themselves back in the days of\nsteamboating supremacy, by a system of wharfage-dues so stupidly graded\nas to prohibit what may be called small _retail _traffic in freights and\npassengers. Boats were charged such heavy wharfage that they could not\nafford to land for one or two passengers or a light lot of freight.\nInstead of encouraging the bringing of trade to their doors, the towns\ndiligently and effectively discouraged it. They could have had many\nboats and low rates; but their policy rendered few boats and high\nrates compulsory. It was a policy which extended--and extends--from New\nOrleans to St. Paul.\n\nWe had a strong desire to make a trip up the Yazoo and the Sunflower--an\ninteresting region at any time, but additionally interesting at this\ntime, because up there the great inundation was still to be seen in\nforce--but we were nearly sure to have to wait a day or more for a New\nOrleans boat on our return; so we were obliged to give up the project.\n\nHere is a story which I picked up on board the boat that night. I insert\nit in this place merely because it is a good story, not because it\nbelongs here--for it doesn't. It was told by a passenger--a college\nprofessor--and was called to the surface in the course of a general\nconversation which began with talk about horses, drifted into talk\nabout astronomy, then into talk about the lynching of the gamblers\nin Vicksburg half a century ago, then into talk about dreams and\nsuperstitions; and ended, after midnight, in a dispute over free trade\nand protection.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 36\n\nThe Professor's Yarn\n\nIT was in the early days. I was not a college professor then. I was a\nhumble-minded young land-surveyor, with the world before me--to survey,\nin case anybody wanted it done. I had a contract to survey a route for a\ngreat mining-ditch in California, and I was on my way thither, by sea--a\nthree or four weeks' voyage. There were a good many passengers, but I\nhad very little to say to them; reading and dreaming were my passions,\nand I avoided conversation in order to indulge these appetites. There\nwere three professional gamblers on board--rough, repulsive fellows. I\nnever had any talk with them, yet I could not help seeing them with some\nfrequency, for they gambled in an upper-deck stateroom every day and\nnight, and in my promenades I often had glimpses of them through their\ndoor, which stood a little ajar to let out the surplus tobacco smoke and\nprofanity. They were an evil and hateful presence, but I had to put up\nwith it, of course,\n\nThere was one other passenger who fell under my eye a good deal, for he\nseemed determined to be friendly with me, and I could not have gotten\nrid of him without running some chance of hurting his feelings, and I\nwas far from wishing to do that. Besides, there was something engaging\nin his countrified simplicity and his beaming good-nature. The first\ntime I saw this Mr. John Backus, I guessed, from his clothes and his\nlooks, that he was a grazier or farmer from the backwoods of some\nwestern State--doubtless Ohio--and afterward when he dropped into his\npersonal history and I discovered that he _was _a cattle-raiser from\ninterior Ohio, I was so pleased with my own penetration that I warmed\ntoward him for verifying my instinct.\n\nHe got to dropping alongside me every day, after breakfast, to help me\nmake my promenade; and so, in the course of time, his easy-working jaw\nhad told me everything about his business, his prospects, his family,\nhis relatives, his politics--in fact everything that concerned a Backus,\nliving or dead. And meantime I think he had managed to get out of me\neverything I knew about my trade, my tribe, my purposes, my prospects,\nand myself. He was a gentle and persuasive genius, and this thing showed\nit; for I was not given to talking about my matters. I said something\nabout triangulation, once; the stately word pleased his ear; he inquired\nwhat it meant; I explained; after that he quietly and inoffensively\nignored my name, and always called me Triangle.\n\nWhat an enthusiast he was in cattle! At the bare name of a bull or\na cow, his eye would light and his eloquent tongue would turn itself\nloose. As long as I would walk and listen, he would walk and talk; he\nknew all breeds, he loved all breeds, he caressed them all with his\naffectionate tongue. I tramped along in voiceless misery whilst the\ncattle question was up; when I could endure it no longer, I used to\ndeftly insert a scientific topic into the conversation; then my eye\nfired and his faded; my tongue fluttered, his stopped; life was a joy to\nme, and a sadness to him.\n\nOne day he said, a little hesitatingly, and with somewhat of\ndiffidence--\n\n'Triangle, would you mind coming down to my stateroom a minute, and have\na little talk on a certain matter?'\n\nI went with him at once. Arrived there, he put his head out, glanced up\nand down the saloon warily, then closed the door and locked it. He sat\ndown on the sofa, and he said--\n\n'I'm a-going to make a little proposition to you, and if it strikes\nyou favorable, it'll be a middling good thing for both of us. You ain't\na-going out to Californy for fun, nuther am I--it's business, ain't that\nso? Well, you can do me a good turn, and so can I you, if we see fit.\nI've raked and scraped and saved, a considerable many years, and I've\ngot it all here.' He unlocked an old hair trunk, tumbled a chaos of\nshabby clothes aside, and drew a short stout bag into view for a moment,\nthen buried it again and relocked the trunk. Dropping his voice to a\ncautious low tone, he continued, 'She's all there--a round ten thousand\ndollars in yellow-boys; now this is my little idea: What I don't know\nabout raising cattle, ain't worth knowing. There's mints of money in it,\nin Californy. Well, I know, and you know, that all along a line that\n's being surveyed, there 's little dabs of land that they call \"gores,\"\nthat fall to the surveyor free gratis for nothing. All you've got to do,\non your side, is to survey in such a way that the \"gores\" will fall on\ngood fat land, then you turn 'em over to me, I stock 'em with cattle,\nin rolls the cash, I plank out your share of the dollars regular, right\nalong, and--'\n\nI was sorry to wither his blooming enthusiasm, but it could not be\nhelped. I interrupted, and said severely--\n\n'I am not that kind of a surveyor. Let us change the subject, Mr.\nBackus.'\n\nIt was pitiful to see his confusion and hear his awkward and shamefaced\napologies. I was as much distressed as he was--especially as he seemed\nso far from having suspected that there was anything improper in his\nproposition. So I hastened to console him and lead him on to forget his\nmishap in a conversational orgy about cattle and butchery. We were lying\nat Acapulco; and, as we went on deck, it happened luckily that the crew\nwere just beginning to hoist some beeves aboard in slings. Backus's\nmelancholy vanished instantly, and with it the memory of his late\nmistake.\n\n'Now only look at that!' cried he; 'My goodness, Triangle, what _would\n_they say to it in _Ohio_. Wouldn't their eyes bug out, to see 'em\nhandled like that?--wouldn't they, though?'\n\nAll the passengers were on deck to look--even the gamblers--and Backus\nknew them all, and had afflicted them all with his pet topic. As I moved\naway, I saw one of the gamblers approach and accost him; then another\nof them; then the third. I halted; waited; watched; the conversation\ncontinued between the four men; it grew earnest; Backus drew gradually\naway; the gamblers followed, and kept at his elbow. I was uncomfortable.\nHowever, as they passed me presently, I heard Backus say, with a tone of\npersecuted annoyance--\n\n'But it ain't any use, gentlemen; I tell you again, as I've told you a\nhalf a dozen times before, I warn't raised to it, and I ain't a-going to\nresk it.'\n\nI felt relieved. 'His level head will be his sufficient protection,' I\nsaid to myself.\n\nDuring the fortnight's run from Acapulco to San Francisco I several\ntimes saw the gamblers talking earnestly with Backus, and once I threw\nout a gentle warning to him. He chuckled comfortably and said--\n\n'Oh, yes! they tag around after me considerable--want me to play a\nlittle, just for amusement, they say--but laws-a-me, if my folks have\ntold me once to look out for that sort of live-stock, they've told me a\nthousand times, I reckon.'\n\nBy-and-bye, in due course, we were approaching San Francisco. It was\nan ugly black night, with a strong wind blowing, but there was not much\nsea. I was on deck, alone. Toward ten I started below. A figure issued\nfrom the gamblers' den, and disappeared in the darkness. I experienced\na shock, for I was sure it was Backus. I flew down the companion-way,\nlooked about for him, could not find him, then returned to the deck just\nin time to catch a glimpse of him as he re-entered that confounded nest\nof rascality. Had he yielded at last? I feared it. What had he gone\nbelow for?--His bag of coin? Possibly. I drew near the door, full of\nbodings. It was a-crack, and I glanced in and saw a sight that made me\nbitterly wish I had given my attention to saving my poor cattle-friend,\ninstead of reading and dreaming my foolish time away. He was gambling.\nWorse still, he was being plied with champagne, and was already showing\nsome effect from it. He praised the 'cider,' as he called it, and said\nnow that he had got a taste of it he almost believed he would drink it\nif it was spirits, it was so good and so ahead of anything he had ever\nrun across before. Surreptitious smiles, at this, passed from one rascal\nto another, and they filled all the glasses, and whilst Backus honestly\ndrained his to the bottom they pretended to do the same, but threw the\nwine over their shoulders.\n\nI could not bear the scene, so I wandered forward and tried to interest\nmyself in the sea and the voices of the wind. But no, my uneasy spirit\nkept dragging me back at quarter-hour intervals; and always I saw Backus\ndrinking his wine--fairly and squarely, and the others throwing theirs\naway. It was the painfullest night I ever spent.\n\nThe only hope I had was that we might reach our anchorage with\nspeed--that would break up the game. I helped the ship along all I could\nwith my prayers. At last we went booming through the Golden Gate, and my\npulses leaped for joy. I hurried back to that door and glanced in. Alas,\nthere was small room for hope--Backus's eyes were heavy and bloodshot,\nhis sweaty face was crimson, his speech maudlin and thick, his body\nsawed drunkenly about with the weaving motion of the ship. He drained\nanother glass to the dregs, whilst the cards were being dealt.\n\nHe took his hand, glanced at it, and his dull eyes lit up for a moment.\nThe gamblers observed it, and showed their gratification by hardly\nperceptible signs.\n\n'How many cards?'\n\n'None!' said Backus.\n\nOne villain--named Hank Wiley--discarded one card, the others three\neach. The betting began. Heretofore the bets had been trifling--a dollar\nor two; but Backus started off with an eagle now, Wiley hesitated a\nmoment, then 'saw it' and 'went ten dollars better.' The other two threw\nup their hands.\n\nBackus went twenty better. Wiley said--\n\n'I see that, and go you a hundred better!' then smiled and reached for\nthe money.\n\n'Let it alone,' said Backus, with drunken gravity.\n\n'What! you mean to say you're going to cover it?'\n\n'Cover it? Well, I reckon I am--and lay another hundred on top of it,\ntoo.'\n\nHe reached down inside his overcoat and produced the required sum.\n\n'Oh, that's your little game, is it? I see your raise, and raise it five\nhundred!' said Wiley.\n\n'Five hundred better.' said the foolish bull-driver, and pulled out the\namount and showered it on the pile. The three conspirators hardly tried\nto conceal their exultation.\n\nAll diplomacy and pretense were dropped now, and the sharp exclamations\ncame thick and fast, and the yellow pyramid grew higher and higher. At\nlast ten thousand dollars lay in view. Wiley cast a bag of coin on the\ntable, and said with mocking gentleness--\n\n'Five thousand dollars better, my friend from the rural districts--what\ndo you say _now_?'\n\n'I _call _you!' said Backus, heaving his golden shot-bag on the pile.\n'What have you got?'\n\n'Four kings, you d--d fool!' and Wiley threw down his cards and\nsurrounded the stakes with his arms.\n\n'Four _aces_, you ass!' thundered Backus, covering his man with a cocked\nrevolver. '_I'm a professional gambler myself, and i've been laying for\nyou duffers all this voyage!'_\n\nDown went the anchor, rumbledy-dum-dum! and the long trip was ended.\n\nWell--well, it is a sad world. One of the three gamblers was Backus's\n'pal.' It was he that dealt the fateful hands. According to an\nunderstanding with the two victims, he was to have given Backus four\nqueens, but alas, he didn't.\n\nA week later, I stumbled upon Backus--arrayed in the height of\nfashion--in Montgomery Street. He said, cheerily, as we were parting--\n\n'Ah, by-the-way, you needn't mind about those gores. I don't really know\nanything about cattle, except what I was able to pick up in a week's\napprenticeship over in Jersey just before we sailed. My cattle-culture\nand cattle-enthusiasm have served their turn--I shan't need them any\nmore.'\n\nNext day we reluctantly parted from the 'Gold Dust' and her officers,\nhoping to see that boat and all those officers again, some day. A thing\nwhich the fates were to render tragically impossible!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 37\n\nThe End of the 'Gold Dust'\n\nFOR, three months later, August 8, while I was writing one of these\nforegoing chapters, the New York papers brought this telegram--\n\nA TERRIBLE DISASTER.\n\nSEVENTEEN PERSONS KILLED BY AN EXPLOSION ON THE STEAMER 'GOLD DUST.'\n\n'NASHVILLE, Aug. 7.--A despatch from Hickman, Ky., says--\n\n'The steamer \"Gold Dust\" exploded her boilers at three o'clock to-day,\njust after leaving Hickman. Forty-seven persons were scalded and\nseventeen are missing. The boat was landed in the eddy just above the\ntown, and through the exertions of the citizens the cabin passengers,\nofficers, and part of the crew and deck passengers were taken ashore and\nremoved to the hotels and residences. Twenty-four of the injured were\nlying in Holcomb's dry-goods store at one time, where they received\nevery attention before being removed to more comfortable places.'\n\nA list of the names followed, whereby it appeared that of the seventeen\ndead, one was the barkeeper; and among the forty-seven wounded, were the\ncaptain, chief mate, second mate, and second and third clerks; also Mr.\nLem S. Gray, pilot, and several members of the crew.\n\nIn answer to a private telegram, we learned that none of these was\nseverely hurt, except Mr. Gray. Letters received afterward confirmed\nthis news, and said that Mr. Gray was improving and would get well.\nLater letters spoke less hopefully of his case; and finally came one\nannouncing his death. A good man, a most companionable and manly man,\nand worthy of a kindlier fate.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 38\n\nThe House Beautiful\n\nWE took passage in a Cincinnati boat for New Orleans; or on a Cincinnati\nboat--either is correct; the former is the eastern form of putting it,\nthe latter the western.\n\nMr. Dickens declined to agree that the Mississippi steamboats were\n'magnificent,' or that they were 'floating palaces,'--terms which\nhad always been applied to them; terms which did not over-express the\nadmiration with which the people viewed them.\n\nMr. Dickens's position was unassailable, possibly; the people's position\nwas certainly unassailable. If Mr. Dickens was comparing these boats\nwith the crown jewels; or with the Taj, or with the Matterhorn; or with\nsome other priceless or wonderful thing which he had seen, they were not\nmagnificent--he was right. The people compared them with what they had\nseen; and, thus measured, thus judged, the boats were magnificent--the\nterm was the correct one, it was not at all too strong. The people were\nas right as was Mr. Dickens. The steamboats were finer than anything on\nshore. Compared with superior dwelling-houses and first-class hotels in\nthe Valley, they were indubitably magnificent, they were 'palaces.' To\na few people living in New Orleans and St. Louis, they were not\nmagnificent, perhaps; not palaces; but to the great majority of those\npopulations, and to the entire populations spread over both banks\nbetween Baton Rouge and St. Louis, they were palaces; they tallied with\nthe citizen's dream of what magnificence was, and satisfied it.\n\nEvery town and village along that vast stretch of double river-frontage\nhad a best dwelling, finest dwelling, mansion,--the home of its\nwealthiest and most conspicuous citizen. It is easy to describe it:\nlarge grassy yard, with paling fence painted white--in fair repair;\nbrick walk from gate to door; big, square, two-story 'frame' house,\npainted white and porticoed like a Grecian temple--with this difference,\nthat the imposing fluted columns and Corinthian capitals were a pathetic\nsham, being made of white pine, and painted; iron knocker; brass door\nknob--discolored, for lack of polishing. Within, an uncarpeted hall, of\nplaned boards; opening out of it, a parlor, fifteen feet by fifteen--in\nsome instances five or ten feet larger; ingrain carpet; mahogany\ncenter-table; lamp on it, with green-paper shade--standing on a\ngridiron, so to speak, made of high-colored yarns, by the young ladies\nof the house, and called a lamp-mat; several books, piled and disposed,\nwith cast-iron exactness, according to an inherited and unchangeable\nplan; among them, Tupper, much penciled; also, 'Friendship's Offering,'\nand 'Affection's Wreath,' with their sappy inanities illustrated\nin die-away mezzotints; also, Ossian; 'Alonzo and Melissa:'\nmaybe 'Ivanhoe:' also 'Album,' full of original 'poetry' of the\nThou-hast-wounded-the-spirit-that-loved-thee breed; two or three\ngoody-goody works--'Shepherd of Salisbury Plain,' etc.; current\nnumber of the chaste and innocuous Godey's 'Lady's Book,' with painted\nfashion-plate of wax-figure women with mouths all alike--lips and\neyelids the same size--each five-foot woman with a two-inch wedge\nsticking from under her dress and letting-on to be half of her foot.\nPolished air-tight stove (new and deadly invention), with pipe passing\nthrough a board which closes up the discarded good old fireplace. On\neach end of the wooden mantel, over the fireplace, a large basket of\npeaches and other fruits, natural size, all done in plaster, rudely, or\nin wax, and painted to resemble the originals--which they don't. Over\nmiddle of mantel, engraving--Washington Crossing the Delaware; on the\nwall by the door, copy of it done in thunder-and-lightning crewels by\none of the young ladies--work of art which would have made Washington\nhesitate about crossing, if he could have foreseen what advantage was\ngoing to be taken of it. Piano--kettle in disguise--with music, bound\nand unbound, piled on it, and on a stand near by: Battle of Prague;\nBird Waltz; Arkansas Traveler; Rosin the Bow; Marseilles Hymn; On a Lone\nBarren Isle (St. Helena); The Last Link is Broken; She wore a Wreath of\nRoses the Night when last we met; Go, forget me, Why should Sorrow o'er\nthat Brow a Shadow fling; Hours there were to Memory Dearer; Long, Long\nAgo; Days of Absence; A Life on the Ocean Wave, a Home on the Rolling\nDeep; Bird at Sea; and spread open on the rack, where the plaintive\nsinger has left it, _ro_-holl on, silver _moo_-hoon, guide the\n_trav_-el-lerr his _way_, etc. Tilted pensively against the piano, a\nguitar--guitar capable of playing the Spanish Fandango by itself, if you\ngive it a start. Frantic work of art on the wall--pious motto, done on\nthe premises, sometimes in colored yarns, sometimes in faded grasses:\nprogenitor of the 'God Bless Our Home' of modern commerce. Framed in\nblack moldings on the wall, other works of arts, conceived and committed\non the premises, by the young ladies; being grim black-and-white\ncrayons; landscapes, mostly: lake, solitary sail-boat, petrified clouds,\npre-geological trees on shore, anthracite precipice; name of criminal\nconspicuous in the corner. Lithograph, Napoleon Crossing the Alps.\nLithograph, The Grave at St. Helena. Steel-plates, Trumbull's Battle of\nBunker Hill, and the Sally from Gibraltar. Copper-plates, Moses Smiting\nthe Rock, and Return of the Prodigal Son. In big gilt frame, slander\nof the family in oil: papa holding a book ('Constitution of the United\nStates'); guitar leaning against mamma, blue ribbons fluttering from\nits neck; the young ladies, as children, in slippers and scalloped\npantelettes, one embracing toy horse, the other beguiling kitten with\nball of yarn, and both simpering up at mamma, who simpers back. These\npersons all fresh, raw, and red--apparently skinned. Opposite, in\ngilt frame, grandpa and grandma, at thirty and twenty-two, stiff,\nold-fashioned, high-collared, puff-sleeved, glaring pallidly out from\na background of solid Egyptian night. Under a glass French clock dome,\nlarge bouquet of stiff flowers done in corpsy-white wax. Pyramidal\nwhat-not in the corner, the shelves occupied chiefly with bric-a-brac of\nthe period, disposed with an eye to best effect: shell, with the Lord's\nPrayer carved on it; another shell--of the long-oval sort, narrow,\nstraight orifice, three inches long, running from end to end--portrait\nof Washington carved on it; not well done; the shell had Washington's\nmouth, originally--artist should have built to that. These two are\nmemorials of the long-ago bridal trip to New Orleans and the French\nMarket. Other bric-a-brac: Californian 'specimens'--quartz, with gold\nwart adhering; old Guinea-gold locket, with circlet of ancestral hair in\nit; Indian arrow-heads, of flint; pair of bead moccasins, from uncle\nwho crossed the Plains; three 'alum' baskets of various colors--being\nskeleton-frame of wire, clothed-on with cubes of crystallized alum in\nthe rock-candy style--works of art which were achieved by the young\nladies; their doubles and duplicates to be found upon all what-nots\nin the land; convention of desiccated bugs and butterflies pinned to a\ncard; painted toy-dog, seated upon bellows-attachment--drops its\nunder jaw and squeaks when pressed upon; sugar-candy rabbit--limbs\nand features merged together, not strongly defined; pewter\npresidential-campaign medal; miniature card-board wood-sawyer, to be\nattached to the stove-pipe and operated by the heat; small Napoleon,\ndone in wax; spread-open daguerreotypes of dim children, parents,\ncousins, aunts, and friends, in all attitudes but customary ones; no\ntempled portico at back, and manufactured landscape stretching away in\nthe distance--that came in later, with the photograph; all these vague\nfigures lavishly chained and ringed--metal indicated and secured from\ndoubt by stripes and splashes of vivid gold bronze; all of them too much\ncombed, too much fixed up; and all of them uncomfortable in inflexible\nSunday-clothes of a pattern which the spectator cannot realize\ncould ever have been in fashion; husband and wife generally grouped\ntogether--husband sitting, wife standing, with hand on his shoulder--and\nboth preserving, all these fading years, some traceable effect of the\ndaguerreotypist's brisk 'Now smile, if you please!' Bracketed over\nwhat-not--place of special sacredness--an outrage in water-color, done\nby the young niece that came on a visit long ago, and died. Pity,\ntoo; for she might have repented of this in time. Horse-hair chairs,\nhorse-hair sofa which keeps sliding from under you. Window shades,\nof oil stuff, with milk-maids and ruined castles stenciled on them in\nfierce colors. Lambrequins dependent from gaudy boxings of beaten tin,\ngilded. Bedrooms with rag carpets; bedsteads of the 'corded' sort,\nwith a sag in the middle, the cords needing tightening; snuffy\nfeather-bed--not aired often enough; cane-seat chairs, splint-bottomed\nrocker; looking-glass on wall, school-slate size, veneered frame;\ninherited bureau; wash-bowl and pitcher, possibly--but not certainly;\nbrass candlestick, tallow candle, snuffers. Nothing else in the room.\nNot a bathroom in the house; and no visitor likely to come along who has\never seen one.\n\nThat was the residence of the principal citizen, all the way from the\nsuburbs of New Orleans to the edge of St. Louis. When he stepped aboard\na big fine steamboat, he entered a new and marvelous world: chimney-tops\ncut to counterfeit a spraying crown of plumes--and maybe painted red;\npilot-house, hurricane deck, boiler-deck guards, all garnished with\nwhite wooden filigree work of fanciful patterns; gilt acorns topping the\nderricks; gilt deer-horns over the big bell; gaudy symbolical picture\non the paddle-box, possibly; big roomy boiler-deck, painted blue, and\nfurnished with Windsor armchairs; inside, a far-receding snow-white\n'cabin;' porcelain knob and oil-picture on every stateroom door; curving\npatterns of filigree-work touched up with gilding, stretching overhead\nall down the converging vista; big chandeliers every little way, each\nan April shower of glittering glass-drops; lovely rainbow-light falling\neverywhere from the colored glazing of the skylights; the whole a\nlong-drawn, resplendent tunnel, a bewildering and soul-satisfying\nspectacle! In the ladies' cabin a pink and white Wilton carpet, as soft\nas mush, and glorified with a ravishing pattern of gigantic flowers.\nThen the Bridal Chamber--the animal that invented that idea was still\nalive and unhanged, at that day--Bridal Chamber whose pretentious\nflummery was necessarily overawing to the now tottering intellect of\nthat hosannahing citizen. Every state-room had its couple of cozy clean\nbunks, and perhaps a looking-glass and a snug closet; and sometimes\nthere was even a washbowl and pitcher, and part of a towel which could\nbe told from mosquito netting by an expert--though generally these\nthings were absent, and the shirt-sleeved passengers cleansed themselves\nat a long row of stationary bowls in the barber shop, where were also\npublic towels, public combs, and public soap.\n\nTake the steamboat which I have just described, and you have her in her\nhighest and finest, and most pleasing, and comfortable, and satisfactory\nestate. Now cake her over with a layer of ancient and obdurate dirt,\nand you have the Cincinnati steamer awhile ago referred to. Not all\nover--only inside; for she was ably officered in all departments except\nthe steward's.\n\nBut wash that boat and repaint her, and she would be about the\ncounterpart of the most complimented boat of the old flush times: for\nthe steamboat architecture of the West has undergone no change; neither\nhas steamboat furniture and ornamentation undergone any.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 39\n\nManufactures and Miscreants\n\nWHERE the river, in the Vicksburg region, used to be corkscrewed, it\nis now comparatively straight--made so by cut-off; a former distance\nof seventy miles is reduced to thirty-five. It is a change which threw\nVicksburg's neighbor, Delta, Louisiana, out into the country and ended\nits career as a river town. Its whole river-frontage is now occupied by\na vast sand-bar, thickly covered with young trees--a growth which will\nmagnify itself into a dense forest by-and-bye, and completely hide the\nexiled town.\n\nIn due time we passed Grand Gulf and Rodney, of war fame, and reached\nNatchez, the last of the beautiful hill-cities--for Baton Rouge, yet\nto come, is not on a hill, but only on high ground. Famous\nNatchez-under-the-hill has not changed notably in twenty years; in\noutward aspect--judging by the descriptions of the ancient procession\nof foreign tourists--it has not changed in sixty; for it is still small,\nstraggling, and shabby. It had a desperate reputation, morally, in\nthe old keel-boating and early steamboating times--plenty of drinking,\ncarousing, fisticuffing, and killing there, among the riff-raff of the\nriver, in those days. But Natchez-on-top-of-the-hill is attractive; has\nalways been attractive. Even Mrs. Trollope (1827) had to confess its\ncharms:\n\n'At one or two points the wearisome level line is relieved by bluffs,\nas they call the short intervals of high ground. The town of Natchez is\nbeautifully situated on one of those high spots. The contrast that\nits bright green hill forms with the dismal line of black forest that\nstretches on every side, the abundant growth of the pawpaw, palmetto\nand orange, the copious variety of sweet-scented flowers that flourish\nthere, all make it appear like an oasis in the desert. Natchez is the\nfurthest point to the north at which oranges ripen in the open air,\nor endure the winter without shelter. With the exception of this\nsweet spot, I thought all the little towns and villages we passed\nwretched-looking in the extreme.'\n\nNatchez, like her near and far river neighbors, has railways now, and is\nadding to them--pushing them hither and thither into all rich outlying\nregions that are naturally tributary to her. And like Vicksburg and New\nOrleans, she has her ice-factory: she makes thirty tons of ice a day.\nIn Vicksburg and Natchez, in my time, ice was jewelry; none but the rich\ncould wear it. But anybody and everybody can have it now. I visited one\nof the ice-factories in New Orleans, to see what the polar regions\nmight look like when lugged into the edge of the tropics. But there was\nnothing striking in the aspect of the place. It was merely a spacious\nhouse, with some innocent steam machinery in one end of it and some big\nporcelain pipes running here and there. No, not porcelain--they merely\nseemed to be; they were iron, but the ammonia which was being breathed\nthrough them had coated them to the thickness of your hand with solid\nmilk-white ice. It ought to have melted; for one did not require winter\nclothing in that atmosphere: but it did not melt; the inside of the pipe\nwas too cold.\n\nSunk into the floor were numberless tin boxes, a foot square and two\nfeet long, and open at the top end. These were full of clear water;\nand around each box, salt and other proper stuff was packed; also, the\nammonia gases were applied to the water in some way which will always\nremain a secret to me, because I was not able to understand the process.\nWhile the water in the boxes gradually froze, men gave it a stir or two\nwith a stick occasionally--to liberate the air-bubbles, I think. Other\nmen were continually lifting out boxes whose contents had become hard\nfrozen. They gave the box a single dip into a vat of boiling water, to\nmelt the block of ice free from its tin coffin, then they shot the block\nout upon a platform car, and it was ready for market. These big blocks\nwere hard, solid, and crystal-clear. In certain of them, big bouquets\nof fresh and brilliant tropical flowers had been frozen-in; in others,\nbeautiful silken-clad French dolls, and other pretty objects.\nThese blocks were to be set on end in a platter, in the center of\ndinner-tables, to cool the tropical air; and also to be ornamental, for\nthe flowers and things imprisoned in them could be seen as through plate\nglass. I was told that this factory could retail its ice, by wagon,\nthroughout New Orleans, in the humblest dwelling-house quantities, at\nsix or seven dollars a ton, and make a sufficient profit. This being the\ncase, there is business for ice-factories in the North; for we get ice\non no such terms there, if one take less than three hundred and fifty\npounds at a delivery.\n\nThe Rosalie Yarn Mill, of Natchez, has a capacity of 6,000 spindles and\n160 looms, and employs 100 hands. The Natchez Cotton Mills Company began\noperations four years ago in a two-story building of 50 x 190 feet, with\n4,000 spindles and 128 looms; capital $105,000, all subscribed in the\ntown. Two years later, the same stockholders increased their capital to\n$225,000; added a third story to the mill, increased its length to 317\nfeet; added machinery to increase the capacity to 10,300 spindles and\n304 looms. The company now employ 250 operatives, many of whom are\ncitizens of Natchez. 'The mill works 5,000 bales of cotton annually and\nmanufactures the best standard quality of brown shirtings and\nsheetings and drills, turning out 5,000,000 yards of these goods per\nyear.'{footnote [New Orleans Times-Democrat, 26 Aug, 1882.]} A close\ncorporation--stock held at $5,000 per share, but none in the market.\n\nThe changes in the Mississippi River are great and strange, yet were to\nbe expected; but I was not expecting to live to see Natchez and these\nother river towns become manufacturing strongholds and railway centers.\n\nSpeaking of manufactures reminds me of a talk upon that topic which I\nheard--which I overheard--on board the Cincinnati boat. I awoke out of\na fretted sleep, with a dull confusion of voices in my ears. I\nlistened--two men were talking; subject, apparently, the great\ninundation. I looked out through the open transom. The two men were\neating a late breakfast; sitting opposite each other; nobody else\naround. They closed up the inundation with a few words--having used it,\nevidently, as a mere ice-breaker and acquaintanceship-breeder--then they\ndropped into business. It soon transpired that they were drummers--one\nbelonging in Cincinnati, the other in New Orleans. Brisk men, energetic\nof movement and speech; the dollar their god, how to get it their\nreligion.\n\n'Now as to this article,' said Cincinnati, slashing into the ostensible\nbutter and holding forward a slab of it on his knife-blade, 'it's from\nour house; look at it--smell of it--taste it. Put any test on it you\nwant to. Take your own time--no hurry--make it thorough. There\nnow--what do you say? butter, ain't it. Not by a thundering sight--it's\noleomargarine! Yes, sir, that's what it is--oleomargarine. You can't\ntell it from butter; by George, an _expert _can't. It's from our house.\nWe supply most of the boats in the West; there's hardly a pound of\nbutter on one of them. We are crawling right along--_jumping _right\nalong is the word. We are going to have that entire trade. Yes, and the\nhotel trade, too. You are going to see the day, pretty soon, when you\ncan't find an ounce of butter to bless yourself with, in any hotel in\nthe Mississippi and Ohio Valleys, outside of the biggest cities. Why, we\nare turning out oleomargarine _now _by the thousands of tons. And we can\nsell it so dirt-cheap that the whole country has _got _to take it--can't\nget around it you see. Butter don't stand any show--there ain't any\nchance for competition. Butter's had its _day_--and from this out,\nbutter goes to the wall. There's more money in oleomargarine than--why,\nyou can't imagine the business we do. I've stopped in every town from\nCincinnati to Natchez; and I've sent home big orders from every one of\nthem.'\n\nAnd so-forth and so-on, for ten minutes longer, in the same fervid\nstrain. Then New Orleans piped up and said--\n\nYes, it's a first-rate imitation, that's a certainty; but it ain't the\nonly one around that's first-rate. For instance, they make olive-oil out\nof cotton-seed oil, nowadays, so that you can't tell them apart.'\n\n'Yes, that's so,' responded Cincinnati, 'and it was a tip-top business\nfor a while. They sent it over and brought it back from France and\nItaly, with the United States custom-house mark on it to indorse it for\ngenuine, and there was no end of cash in it; but France and Italy broke\nup the game--of course they naturally would. Cracked on such a rattling\nimpost that cotton-seed olive-oil couldn't stand the raise; had to hang\nup and quit.'\n\n'Oh, it _did_, did it? You wait here a minute.'\n\nGoes to his state-room, brings back a couple of long bottles, and takes\nout the corks--says:\n\n'There now, smell them, taste them, examine the bottles, inspect the\nlabels. One of 'm's from Europe, the other's never been out of this\ncountry. One's European olive-oil, the other's American cotton-seed\nolive-oil. Tell 'm apart? 'Course you can't. Nobody can. People that\nwant to, can go to the expense and trouble of shipping their oils to\nEurope and back--it's their privilege; but our firm knows a trick worth\nsix of that. We turn out the whole thing--clean from the word go--in our\nfactory in New Orleans: labels, bottles, oil, everything. Well, no, not\nlabels: been buying them abroad--get them dirt-cheap there. You see,\nthere's just one little wee speck, essence, or whatever it is, in\na gallon of cotton-seed oil, that give it a smell, or a flavor, or\nsomething--get that out, and you're all right--perfectly easy then to\nturn the oil into any kind of oil you want to, and there ain't anybody\nthat can detect the true from the false. Well, we know how to get that\none little particle out--and we're the only firm that does. And we turn\nout an olive-oil that is just simply perfect--undetectable! We are doing\na ripping trade, too--as I could easily show you by my order-book for\nthis trip. Maybe you'll butter everybody's bread pretty soon, but we'll\ncotton-seed his salad for him from the Gulf to Canada, and that's a\ndead-certain thing.'\n\nCincinnati glowed and flashed with admiration. The two scoundrels\nexchanged business-cards, and rose. As they left the table, Cincinnati\nsaid--\n\n'But you have to have custom-house marks, don't you? How do you manage\nthat?'\n\nI did not catch the answer.\n\nWe passed Port Hudson, scene of two of the most terrific episodes of the\nwar--the night-battle there between Farragut's fleet and the Confederate\nland batteries, April 14th, 1863; and the memorable land battle, two\nmonths later, which lasted eight hours--eight hours of exceptionally\nfierce and stubborn fighting--and ended, finally, in the repulse of the\nUnion forces with great slaughter.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 40\n\nCastles and Culture\n\nBATON ROUGE was clothed in flowers, like a bride--no, much more so; like\na greenhouse. For we were in the absolute South now--no modifications,\nno compromises, no half-way measures. The magnolia-trees in the Capitol\ngrounds were lovely and fragrant, with their dense rich foliage and huge\nsnow-ball blossoms. The scent of the flower is very sweet, but you want\ndistance on it, because it is so powerful. They are not good bedroom\nblossoms--they might suffocate one in his sleep. We were certainly\nin the South at last; for here the sugar region begins, and the\nplantations--vast green levels, with sugar-mill and negro quarters\nclustered together in the middle distance--were in view. And there was a\ntropical sun overhead and a tropical swelter in the air.\n\nAnd at this point, also, begins the pilot's paradise: a wide river hence\nto New Orleans, abundance of water from shore to shore, and no bars,\nsnags, sawyers, or wrecks in his road.\n\nSir Walter Scott is probably responsible for the Capitol building; for\nit is not conceivable that this little sham castle would ever have been\nbuilt if he had not run the people mad, a couple of generations ago,\nwith his medieval romances. The South has not yet recovered from the\ndebilitating influence of his books. Admiration of his fantastic heroes\nand their grotesque 'chivalry' doings and romantic juvenilities still\nsurvives here, in an atmosphere in which is already perceptible the\nwholesome and practical nineteenth-century smell of cotton-factories\nand locomotives; and traces of its inflated language and other windy\nhumbuggeries survive along with it. It is pathetic enough, that a\nwhitewashed castle, with turrets and things--materials all ungenuine\nwithin and without, pretending to be what they are not--should ever\nhave been built in this otherwise honorable place; but it is much more\npathetic to see this architectural falsehood undergoing restoration and\nperpetuation in our day, when it would have been so easy to let\ndynamite finish what a charitable fire began, and then devote this\nrestoration-money to the building of something genuine.\n\nBaton Rouge has no patent on imitation castles, however, and no monopoly\nof them. Here is a picture from the advertisement of the 'Female\nInstitute' of Columbia; Tennessee. The following remark is from the same\nadvertisement--\n\n'The Institute building has long been famed as a model of striking and\nbeautiful architecture. Visitors are charmed with its resemblance to\nthe old castles of song and story, with its towers, turreted walls, and\nivy-mantled porches.'\n\nKeeping school in a castle is a romantic thing; as romantic as keeping\nhotel in a castle.\n\nBy itself the imitation castle is doubtless harmless, and well enough;\nbut as a symbol and breeder and sustainer of maudlin Middle-Age\nromanticism here in the midst of the plainest and sturdiest and\ninfinitely greatest and worthiest of all the centuries the world has\nseen, it is necessarily a hurtful thing and a mistake.\n\nHere is an extract from the prospectus of a Kentucky 'Female College.'\nFemale college sounds well enough; but since the phrasing it in that\nunjustifiable way was done purely in the interest of brevity, it seems\nto me that she-college would have been still better--because shorter,\nand means the same thing: that is, if either phrase means anything at\nall--\n\n'The president is southern by birth, by rearing, by education, and by\nsentiment; the teachers are all southern in sentiment, and with the\nexception of those born in Europe were born and raised in the south.\nBelieving the southern to be the highest type of civilization this\ncontinent has seen, the young ladies are trained according to the\nsouthern ideas of delicacy, refinement, womanhood, religion, and\npropriety; hence we offer a first-class female college for the south and\nsolicit southern patronage.'\n\n{footnote [Illustrations of it thoughtlessly omitted by the advertiser:\n\nKNOXVILLE, Tenn., October 19.--This morning a few minutes after ten\no'clock, General Joseph A. Mabry, Thomas O'Connor, and Joseph A. Mabry,\nJr., were killed in a shooting affray. The difficulty began yesterday\nafternoon by General Mabry attacking Major O'Connor and threatening to\nkill him. This was at the fair grounds, and O'Connor told Mabry that it\nwas not the place to settle their difficulties. Mabry then told O'Connor\nhe should not live. It seems that Mabry was armed and O'Connor was not.\nThe cause of the difficulty was an old feud about the transfer of some\nproperty from Mabry to O'Connor. Later in the afternoon Mabry sent word\nto O'Connor that he would kill him on sight. This morning Major O'Connor\nwas standing in the door of the Mechanics' National Bank, of which\nhe was president. General Mabry and another gentleman walked down Gay\nStreet on the opposite side from the bank. O'Connor stepped into the\nbank, got a shot gun, took deliberate aim at General Mabry and fired.\nMabry fell dead, being shot in the left side. As he fell O'Connor fired\nagain, the shot taking effect in Mabry's thigh. O'Connor then reached\ninto the bank and got another shot gun. About this time Joseph A. Mabry,\nJr., son of General Mabry, came rushing down the street, unseen by\nO'Connor until within forty feet, when the young man fired a pistol, the\nshot taking effect in O'Connor's right breast, passing through the body\nnear the heart. The instant Mabry shot, O'Connor turned and fired, the\nload taking effect in young Mabry's right breast and side. Mabry fell\npierced with twenty buckshot, and almost instantly O'Connor fell dead\nwithout a struggle. Mabry tried to rise, but fell back dead. The whole\ntragedy occurred within two minutes, and neither of the three spoke\nafter he was shot. General Mabry had about thirty buckshot in his body.\nA bystander was painfully wounded in the thigh with a buckshot, and\nanother was wounded in the arm. Four other men had their clothing\npierced by buckshot. The affair caused great excitement, and Gay Street\nwas thronged with thousands of people. General Mabry and his son Joe\nwere acquitted only a few days ago of the murder of Moses Lusby and Don\nLusby, father and son, whom they killed a few weeks ago. Will Mabry was\nkilled by Don Lusby last Christmas. Major Thomas O'Connor was President\nof the Mechanics' National Bank here, and was the wealthiest man in the\nState.--_Associated Press Telegram_.\n\nOne day last month, Professor Sharpe, of the Somerville, Tenn.,\nFemale College, 'a quiet and gentlemanly man,' was told that his\nbrother-in-law, a Captain Burton, had threatened to kill him. Burton, it\nseems, had already killed one man and driven his knife into another. The\nProfessor armed himself with a double-barreled shot gun, started out in\nsearch of his brother-in-law, found him playing billiards in a saloon,\nand blew his brains out. The 'Memphis Avalanche' reports that the\nProfessor's course met with pretty general approval in the community;\nknowing that the law was powerless, in the actual condition of public\nsentiment, to protect him, he protected himself.\n\nAbout the same time, two young men in North Carolina quarreled about a\ngirl, and 'hostile messages' were exchanged. Friends tried to reconcile\nthem, but had their labor for their pains. On the 24th the young men\nmet in the public highway. One of them had a heavy club in his hand, the\nother an ax. The man with the club fought desperately for his life, but\nit was a hopeless fight from the first. A well-directed blow sent his\nclub whirling out of his grasp, and the next moment he was a dead man.\n\nAbout the same time, two 'highly connected' young Virginians, clerks in\na hardware store at Charlottesville, while 'skylarking,' came to blows.\nPeter Dick threw pepper in Charles Roads's eyes; Roads demanded an\napology; Dick refused to give it, and it was agreed that a duel was\ninevitable, but a difficulty arose; the parties had no pistols, and\nit was too late at night to procure them. One of them suggested that\nbutcher-knives would answer the purpose, and the other accepted the\nsuggestion; the result was that Roads fell to the floor with a gash in\nhis abdomen that may or may not prove fatal. If Dick has been arrested,\nthe news has not reached us. He 'expressed deep regret,' and we are\ntold by a Staunton correspondent of the _Philadelphia Press_ that 'every\neffort has been made to hush the matter up.'--_Extracts From The Public\nJournals_.]}\n\nWhat, warder, ho! the man that can blow so complacent a blast as that,\nprobably blows it from a castle.\n\nFrom Baton Rouge to New Orleans, the great sugar plantations border both\nsides of the river all the way, and stretch their league-wide levels\nback to the dim forest-walls of bearded cypress in the rear.\nShores lonely no longer. Plenty of dwellings all the way, on both\nbanks--standing so close together, for long distances, that the broad\nriver lying between the two rows, becomes a sort of spacious street.\nA most home-like and happy-looking region. And now and then you see a\npillared and porticoed great manor-house, embowered in trees. Here is\ntestimony of one or two of the procession of foreign tourists that filed\nalong here half a century ago. Mrs. Trollope says--\n\n'The unbroken flatness of the banks of the Mississippi continued\nunvaried for many miles above New Orleans; but the graceful and\nluxuriant palmetto, the dark and noble ilex, and the bright orange,\nwere everywhere to be seen, and it was many days before we were weary of\nlooking at them.'\n\nCaptain Basil Hall--\n\n'The district of country which lies adjacent to the Mississippi, in\nthe lower parts of Louisiana, is everywhere thickly peopled by sugar\nplanters, whose showy houses, gay piazzas, trig gardens, and numerous\nslave-villages, all clean and neat, gave an exceedingly thriving air to\nthe river scenery.\n\nAll the procession paint the attractive picture in the same way. The\ndescriptions of fifty years ago do not need to have a word changed in\norder to exactly describe the same region as it appears to-day--except\nas to the 'trigness' of the houses. The whitewash is gone from the\nnegro cabins now; and many, possibly most, of the big mansions, once so\nshining white, have worn out their paint and have a decayed, neglected\nlook. It is the blight of the war. Twenty-one years ago everything was\ntrim and trig and bright along the 'coast,' just as it had been in 1827,\nas described by those tourists.\n\nUnfortunate tourists! People humbugged them with stupid and silly lies,\nand then laughed at them for believing and printing the same. They\ntold Mrs. Trollope that the alligators--or crocodiles, as she calls\nthem--were terrible creatures; and backed up the statement with a\nblood-curdling account of how one of these slandered reptiles crept into\na squatter cabin one night, and ate up a woman and five children.\nThe woman, by herself, would have satisfied any ordinarily-impossible\nalligator; but no, these liars must make him gorge the five children\nbesides. One would not imagine that jokers of this robust breed would be\nsensitive--but they were. It is difficult, at this day, to understand,\nand impossible to justify, the reception which the book of the grave,\nhonest, intelligent, gentle, manly, charitable, well-meaning Capt. Basil\nHall got.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 41\n\nThe Metropolis of the South\n\nTHE approaches to New Orleans were familiar; general aspects were\nunchanged. When one goes flying through London along a railway propped\nin the air on tall arches, he may inspect miles of upper bedrooms\nthrough the open windows, but the lower half of the houses is under\nhis level and out of sight. Similarly, in high-river stage, in the New\nOrleans region, the water is up to the top of the enclosing levee-rim,\nthe flat country behind it lies low--representing the bottom of a\ndish--and as the boat swims along, high on the flood, one looks down\nupon the houses and into the upper windows. There is nothing but that\nfrail breastwork of earth between the people and destruction.\n\nThe old brick salt-warehouses clustered at the upper end of the city\nlooked as they had always looked; warehouses which had had a kind of\nAladdin's lamp experience, however, since I had seen them; for when the\nwar broke out the proprietor went to bed one night leaving them packed\nwith thousands of sacks of vulgar salt, worth a couple of dollars a\nsack, and got up in the morning and found his mountain of salt turned\ninto a mountain of gold, so to speak, so suddenly and to so dizzy a\nheight had the war news sent up the price of the article.\n\nThe vast reach of plank wharves remained unchanged, and there were as\nmany ships as ever: but the long array of steamboats had vanished; not\naltogether, of course, but not much of it was left.\n\nThe city itself had not changed--to the eye. It had greatly increased\nin spread and population, but the look of the town was not altered. The\ndust, waste-paper-littered, was still deep in the streets; the deep,\ntrough-like gutters alongside the curbstones were still half full of\nreposeful water with a dusty surface; the sidewalks were still--in the\nsugar and bacon region--encumbered by casks and barrels and hogsheads;\nthe great blocks of austerely plain commercial houses were as\ndusty-looking as ever.\n\nCanal Street was finer, and more attractive and stirring than formerly,\nwith its drifting crowds of people, its several processions of hurrying\nstreet-cars, and--toward evening--its broad second-story verandas\ncrowded with gentlemen and ladies clothed according to the latest mode.\n\nNot that there is any 'architecture' in Canal Street: to speak in broad,\ngeneral terms, there is no architecture in New Orleans, except in the\ncemeteries. It seems a strange thing to say of a wealthy, far-seeing,\nand energetic city of a quarter of a million inhabitants, but it is\ntrue. There is a huge granite U.S. Custom-house--costly enough, genuine\nenough, but as a decoration it is inferior to a gasometer. It looks like\na state prison. But it was built before the war. Architecture in America\nmay be said to have been born since the war. New Orleans, I believe,\nhas had the good luck--and in a sense the bad luck--to have had no great\nfire in late years. It must be so. If the opposite had been the case,\nI think one would be able to tell the 'burnt district' by the radical\nimprovement in its architecture over the old forms. One can do this\nin Boston and Chicago. The 'burnt district' of Boston was commonplace\nbefore the fire; but now there is no commercial district in any city\nin the world that can surpass it--or perhaps even rival it--in beauty,\nelegance, and tastefulness.\n\nHowever, New Orleans has begun--just this moment, as one may say. When\ncompleted, the new Cotton Exchange will be a stately and beautiful\nbuilding; massive, substantial, full of architectural graces; no shams\nor false pretenses or uglinesses about it anywhere. To the city, it will\nbe worth many times its cost, for it will breed its species. What has\nbeen lacking hitherto, was a model to build toward; something to educate\neye and taste; a _suggester_, so to speak.\n\nThe city is well outfitted with progressive men--thinking, sagacious,\nlong-headed men. The contrast between the spirit of the city and the\ncity's architecture is like the contrast between waking and sleep.\nApparently there is a 'boom' in everything but that one dead feature.\nThe water in the gutters used to be stagnant and slimy, and a potent\ndisease-breeder; but the gutters are flushed now, two or three times\na day, by powerful machinery; in many of the gutters the water never\nstands still, but has a steady current. Other sanitary improvements have\nbeen made; and with such effect that New Orleans claims to be (during\nthe long intervals between the occasional yellow-fever assaults) one\nof the healthiest cities in the Union. There's plenty of ice now for\neverybody, manufactured in the town. It is a driving place commercially,\nand has a great river, ocean, and railway business. At the date of our\nvisit, it was the best lighted city in the Union, electrically speaking.\nThe New Orleans electric lights were more numerous than those of New\nYork, and very much better. One had this modified noonday not only in\nCanal and some neighboring chief streets, but all along a stretch\nof five miles of river frontage. There are good clubs in the city\nnow--several of them but recently organized--and inviting modern-style\npleasure resorts at West End and Spanish Fort. The telephone is\neverywhere. One of the most notable advances is in journalism. The\nnewspapers, as I remember them, were not a striking feature. Now they\nare. Money is spent upon them with a free hand. They get the news,\nlet it cost what it may. The editorial work is not hack-grinding, but\nliterature. As an example of New Orleans journalistic achievement, it\nmay be mentioned that the 'Times-Democrat' of August 26, 1882, contained\na report of the year's business of the towns of the Mississippi Valley,\nfrom New Orleans all the way to St. Paul--two thousand miles. That issue\nof the paper consisted of forty pages; seven columns to the page; two\nhundred and eighty columns in all; fifteen hundred words to the column;\nan aggregate of four hundred and twenty thousand words. That is to say,\nnot much short of three times as many words as there are in this book.\nOne may with sorrow contrast this with the architecture of New Orleans.\n\nI have been speaking of public architecture only. The domestic article\nin New Orleans is reproachless, notwithstanding it remains as it always\nwas. All the dwellings are of wood--in the American part of the town, I\nmean--and all have a comfortable look. Those in the wealthy quarter are\nspacious; painted snow-white usually, and generally have wide verandas,\nor double-verandas, supported by ornamental columns. These mansions\nstand in the center of large grounds, and rise, garlanded with roses,\nout of the midst of swelling masses of shining green foliage and\nmany-colored blossoms. No houses could well be in better harmony with\ntheir surroundings, or more pleasing to the eye, or more home-like and\ncomfortable-looking.\n\nOne even becomes reconciled to the cistern presently; this is a mighty\ncask, painted green, and sometimes a couple of stories high, which\nis propped against the house-corner on stilts. There is a\nmansion-and-brewery suggestion about the combination which seems very\nincongruous at first. But the people cannot have wells, and so they\ntake rain-water. Neither can they conveniently have cellars, or\ngraves,{footnote [The Israelites are buried in graves--by permission, I\ntake it, not requirement; but none else, except the destitute, who are\nburied at public expense. The graves are but three or four feet deep.]}\nthe town being built upon 'made' ground; so they do without both, and\nfew of the living complain, and none of the others.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 42\n\nHygiene and Sentiment\n\nTHEY bury their dead in vaults, above the ground. These vaults have\na resemblance to houses--sometimes to temples; are built of marble,\ngenerally; are architecturally graceful and shapely; they face the walks\nand driveways of the cemetery; and when one moves through the midst of a\nthousand or so of them and sees their white roofs and gables stretching\ninto the distance on every hand, the phrase 'city of the dead' has all\nat once a meaning to him. Many of the cemeteries are beautiful, and\nare kept in perfect order. When one goes from the levee or the business\nstreets near it, to a cemetery, he observes to himself that if those\npeople down there would live as neatly while they are alive as they do\nafter they are dead, they would find many advantages in it; and besides,\ntheir quarter would be the wonder and admiration of the business world.\nFresh flowers, in vases of water, are to be seen at the portals of many\nof the vaults: placed there by the pious hands of bereaved parents and\nchildren, husbands and wives, and renewed daily. A milder form of sorrow\nfinds its inexpensive and lasting remembrancer in the coarse and ugly\nbut indestructible 'immortelle'--which is a wreath or cross or some such\nemblem, made of rosettes of black linen, with sometimes a yellow rosette\nat the conjunction of the cross's bars--kind of sorrowful breast-pin, so\nto say. The immortelle requires no attention: you just hang it up, and\nthere you are; just leave it alone, it will take care of your grief for\nyou, and keep it in mind better than you can; stands weather first-rate,\nand lasts like boiler-iron.\n\nOn sunny days, pretty little chameleons--gracefullest of legged\nreptiles--creep along the marble fronts of the vaults, and catch flies.\nTheir changes of color--as to variety--are not up to the creature's\nreputation. They change color when a person comes along and hangs up\nan immortelle; but that is nothing: any right-feeling reptile would do\nthat.\n\nI will gradually drop this subject of graveyards. I have been trying\nall I could to get down to the sentimental part of it, but I cannot\naccomplish it. I think there is no genuinely sentimental part to it.\nIt is all grotesque, ghastly, horrible. Graveyards may have been\njustifiable in the bygone ages, when nobody knew that for every dead\nbody put into the ground, to glut the earth and the plant-roots, and the\nair with disease-germs, five or fifty, or maybe a hundred persons must\ndie before their proper time; but they are hardly justifiable now, when\neven the children know that a dead saint enters upon a century-long\ncareer of assassination the moment the earth closes over his corpse. It\nis a grim sort of a thought. The relics of St. Anne, up in Canada, have\nnow, after nineteen hundred years, gone to curing the sick by the dozen.\nBut it is merest matter-of-course that these same relics, within a\ngeneration after St. Anne's death and burial, _made _several\nthousand people sick. Therefore these miracle-performances are simply\ncompensation, nothing more. St. Anne is somewhat slow pay, for a Saint,\nit is true; but better a debt paid after nineteen hundred years, and\noutlawed by the statute of limitations, than not paid at all; and most\nof the knights of the halo do not pay at all. Where you find one that\npays--like St. Anne--you find a hundred and fifty that take the benefit\nof the statute. And none of them pay any more than the principal of what\nthey owe--they pay none of the interest either simple or compound. A\nSaint can never _quite _return the principal, however; for his dead body\n_kills _people, whereas his relics _heal _only--they never restore the\ndead to life. That part of the account is always left unsettled.\n\n'Dr. F. Julius Le Moyne, after fifty years of medical practice, wrote:\n\"The inhumation of human bodies, dead from infectious diseases, results\nin constantly loading the atmosphere, and polluting the waters, with\nnot only the germs that rise from simply putrefaction, but also with the\n_specific_ germs of the diseases from which death resulted.\"\n\n'The gases (from buried corpses) will rise to the surface through\neight or ten feet of gravel, just as coal-gas will do, and there is\npractically no limit to their power of escape.\n\n'During the epidemic in New Orleans in 1853, Dr. E. H. Barton reported\nthat in the Fourth District the mortality was four hundred and fifty-two\nper thousand--more than double that of any other. In this district were\nthree large cemeteries, in which during the previous year more than\nthree thousand bodies had been buried. In other districts the proximity\nof cemeteries seemed to aggravate the disease.\n\n'In 1828 Professor Bianchi demonstrated how the fearful reappearance of\nthe plague at Modena was caused by excavations in ground where, _three\nhundred years previously_, the victims of the pestilence had been\nburied. Mr. Cooper, in explaining the causes of some epidemics, remarks\nthat the opening of the plague burial-grounds at Eyam resulted in an\nimmediate outbreak of disease.'--_North American Review, No. 3, Vol.\n135._\n\nIn an address before the Chicago Medical Society, in advocacy of\ncremation, Dr. Charles W. Purdy made some striking comparisons to show\nwhat a burden is laid upon society by the burial of the dead:--\n\n'One and one-fourth times more money is expended annually in funerals\nin the United States than the Government expends for public-school\npurposes. Funerals cost this country in 1880 enough money to pay the\nliabilities of all the commercial failures in the United States during\nthe same year, and give each bankrupt a capital of $8,630 with which to\nresume business. Funerals cost annually more money than the value of the\ncombined gold and silver yield of the United States in the year 1880!\nThese figures do not include the sums invested in burial-grounds and\nexpended in tombs and monuments, nor the loss from depreciation of\nproperty in the vicinity of cemeteries.'\n\nFor the rich, cremation would answer as well as burial; for the\nceremonies connected with it could be made as costly and ostentatious\nas a Hindu suttee; while for the poor, cremation would be better than\nburial, because so cheap {footnote [Four or five dollars is the minimum\ncost.]}--so cheap until the poor got to imitating the rich, which they\nwould do by-and-bye. The adoption of cremation would relieve us of a\nmuck of threadbare burial-witticisms; but, on the other hand, it would\nresurrect a lot of mildewed old cremation-jokes that have had a rest for\ntwo thousand years.\n\nI have a colored acquaintance who earns his living by odd jobs and heavy\nmanual labor. He never earns above four hundred dollars in a year, and\nas he has a wife and several young children, the closest scrimping is\nnecessary to get him through to the end of the twelve months debtless.\nTo such a man a funeral is a colossal financial disaster. While I was\nwriting one of the preceding chapters, this man lost a little child.\nHe walked the town over with a friend, trying to find a coffin that was\nwithin his means. He bought the very cheapest one he could find, plain\nwood, stained. It cost him twenty-six dollars. It would have cost less\nthan four, probably, if it had been built to put something useful into.\nHe and his family will feel that outlay a good many months.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 43\n\nThe Art of Inhumation\n\nABOUT the same time, I encountered a man in the street, whom I had not\nseen for six or seven years; and something like this talk followed. I\nsaid--\n\n'But you used to look sad and oldish; you don't now. Where did you get\nall this youth and bubbling cheerfulness? Give me the address.'\n\nHe chuckled blithely, took off his shining tile, pointed to a notched\npink circlet of paper pasted into its crown, with something lettered on\nit, and went on chuckling while I read, 'J. B----, _Undertaker_.' Then\nhe clapped his hat on, gave it an irreverent tilt to leeward, and cried\nout--\n\n'That's what's the matter! It used to be rough times with me when you\nknew me--insurance-agency business, you know; mighty irregular. Big\nfire, all right--brisk trade for ten days while people scared; after\nthat, dull policy-business till next fire. Town like this don't have\nfires often enough--a fellow strikes so many dull weeks in a row that\nhe gets discouraged. But you bet you, this is the business! People don't\nwait for examples to die. No, sir, they drop off right along--there\nain't any dull spots in the undertaker line. I just started in with\ntwo or three little old coffins and a hired hearse, and now look at the\nthing! I've worked up a business here that would satisfy any man, don't\ncare who he is. Five years ago, lodged in an attic; live in a swell\nhouse now, with a mansard roof, and all the modern inconveniences.'\n\n'Does a coffin pay so well. Is there much profit on a coffin?'\n\n'Go-way! How you talk!' Then, with a confidential wink, a dropping of\nthe voice, and an impressive laying of his hand on my arm; 'Look here;\nthere's one thing in this world which isn't ever cheap. That's a coffin.\nThere's one thing in this world which a person don't ever try to jew you\ndown on. That's a coffin. There's one thing in this world which a person\ndon't say--\"I'll look around a little, and if I find I can't do better\nI'll come back and take it.\" That's a coffin. There's one thing in this\nworld which a person won't take in pine if he can go walnut; and won't\ntake in walnut if he can go mahogany; and won't take in mahogany if he\ncan go an iron casket with silver door-plate and bronze handles. That's\na coffin. And there's one thing in this world which you don't have to\nworry around after a person to get him to pay for. And that's a coffin.\nUndertaking?--why it's the dead-surest business in Christendom, and the\nnobbiest.\n\n'Why, just look at it. A rich man won't have anything but your very\nbest; and you can just pile it on, too--pile it on and sock it to\nhim--he won't ever holler. And you take in a poor man, and if you work\nhim right he'll bust himself on a single lay-out. Or especially a woman.\nF'r instance: Mrs. O'Flaherty comes in--widow--wiping her eyes and kind\nof moaning. Unhandkerchiefs one eye, bats it around tearfully over the\nstock; says--\n\n'\"And fhat might ye ask for that wan?\"\n\n'\"Thirty-nine dollars, madam,\" says I.\n\n'\"It 's a foine big price, sure, but Pat shall be buried like a\ngintleman, as he was, if I have to work me fingers off for it. I'll have\nthat wan, sor.\"\n\n'\"Yes, madam,\" says I, \"and it is a very good one, too; not costly, to\nbe sure, but in this life we must cut our garment to our clothes, as the\nsaying is.\" And as she starts out, I heave in, kind of casually, \"This\none with the white satin lining is a beauty, but I am afraid--well,\nsixty-five dollars is a rather--rather--but no matter, I felt obliged to\nsay to Mrs. O'Shaughnessy--\"\n\n'\"D'ye mane to soy that Bridget O'Shaughnessy bought the mate to that\njoo-ul box to ship that dhrunken divil to Purgatory in?\"\n\n'\"Yes, madam.\"\n\n'\"Then Pat shall go to heaven in the twin to it, if it takes the last\nrap the O'Flaherties can raise; and moind you, stick on some extras,\ntoo, and I'll give ye another dollar.\"\n\n'And as I lay-in with the livery stables, of course I don't forget to\nmention that Mrs. O'Shaughnessy hired fifty-four dollars' worth of hacks\nand flung as much style into Dennis's funeral as if he had been a duke\nor an assassin. And of course she sails in and goes the O'Shaughnessy\nabout four hacks and an omnibus better. That used to be, but that's all\nplayed now; that is, in this particular town. The Irish got to piling up\nhacks so, on their funerals, that a funeral left them ragged and hungry\nfor two years afterward; so the priest pitched in and broke it all up.\nHe don't allow them to have but two hacks now, and sometimes only one.'\n\n'Well,' said I, 'if you are so light-hearted and jolly in ordinary\ntimes, what must you be in an epidemic?'\n\nHe shook his head.\n\n'No, you're off, there. We don't like to see an epidemic. An epidemic\ndon't pay. Well, of course I don't mean that, exactly; but it don't pay\nin proportion to the regular thing. Don't it occur to you, why?'\n\nNo.\n\n'Think.'\n\n'I can't imagine. What is it?'\n\n'It's just two things.'\n\n'Well, what are they?'\n\n'One's Embamming.'\n\n'And what's the other?'\n\n'Ice.'\n\n'How is that?'\n\n'Well, in ordinary times, a person dies, and we lay him up in ice; one\nday two days, maybe three, to wait for friends to come. Takes a lot of\nit--melts fast. We charge jewelry rates for that ice, and war-prices for\nattendance. Well, don't you know, when there's an epidemic, they rush\n'em to the cemetery the minute the breath's out. No market for ice in an\nepidemic. Same with Embamming. You take a family that's able to embam,\nand you've got a soft thing. You can mention sixteen different ways to\ndo it--though there _ain't_ only one or two ways, when you come down to\nthe bottom facts of it--and they'll take the highest-priced way, every\ntime. It's human nature--human nature in grief. It don't reason,\nyou see. Time being, it don't care a dam. All it wants is physical\nimmortality for deceased, and they're willing to pay for it. All you've\ngot to do is to just be ca'm and stack it up--they'll stand the racket.\nWhy, man, you can take a defunct that you couldn't _give _away; and get\nyour embamming traps around you and go to work; and in a couple of hours\nhe is worth a cool six hundred--that's what _he's_ worth. There ain't\nanything equal to it but trading rats for di'monds in time of famine.\nWell, don't you see, when there's an epidemic, people don't wait to\nembam. No, indeed they don't; and it hurts the business like hell-th,\nas we say--hurts it like hell-th, _health_, see?--Our little joke in the\ntrade. Well, I must be going. Give me a call whenever you need any--I\nmean, when you're going by, sometime.'\n\nIn his joyful high spirits, he did the exaggerating himself, if any has\nbeen done. I have not enlarged on him.\n\nWith the above brief references to inhumation, let us leave the subject.\nAs for me, I hope to be cremated. I made that remark to my pastor once,\nwho said, with what he seemed to think was an impressive manner--\n\n'I wouldn't worry about that, if I had your chances.' Much he knew about\nit--the family all so opposed to it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 44\n\nCity Sights\n\nTHE old French part of New Orleans--anciently the Spanish part--bears no\nresemblance to the American end of the city: the American end which lies\nbeyond the intervening brick business-center. The houses are massed in\nblocks; are austerely plain and dignified; uniform of pattern, with here\nand there a departure from it with pleasant effect; all are plastered\non the outside, and nearly all have long, iron-railed verandas running\nalong the several stories. Their chief beauty is the deep, warm,\nvaricolored stain with which time and the weather have enriched the\nplaster. It harmonizes with all the surroundings, and has as natural\na look of belonging there as has the flush upon sunset clouds. This\ncharming decoration cannot be successfully imitated; neither is it to be\nfound elsewhere in America.\n\nThe iron railings are a specialty, also. The pattern is often\nexceedingly light and dainty, and airy and graceful--with a large cipher\nor monogram in the center, a delicate cobweb of baffling, intricate\nforms, wrought in steel. The ancient railings are hand-made, and are\nnow comparatively rare and proportionately valuable. They are become\n_bric-a-brac_.\n\nThe party had the privilege of idling through this ancient quarter of\nNew Orleans with the South's finest literary genius, the author of 'the\nGrandissimes.' In him the South has found a masterly delineator of its\ninterior life and its history. In truth, I find by experience, that the\nuntrained eye and vacant mind can inspect it, and learn of it, and judge\nof it, more clearly and profitably in his books than by personal contact\nwith it.\n\nWith Mr. Cable along to see for you, and describe and explain and\nilluminate, a jog through that old quarter is a vivid pleasure. And you\nhave a vivid sense as of unseen or dimly seen things--vivid, and yet\nfitful and darkling; you glimpse salient features, but lose the fine\nshades or catch them imperfectly through the vision of the imagination:\na case, as it were, of ignorant near-sighted stranger traversing the\nrim of wide vague horizons of Alps with an inspired and enlightened\nlong-sighted native.\n\nWe visited the old St. Louis Hotel, now occupied by municipal offices.\nThere is nothing strikingly remarkable about it; but one can say of it\nas of the Academy of Music in New York, that if a broom or a shovel has\never been used in it there is no circumstantial evidence to back up the\nfact. It is curious that cabbages and hay and things do not grow in the\nAcademy of Music; but no doubt it is on account of the interruption\nof the light by the benches, and the impossibility of hoeing the\ncrop except in the aisles. The fact that the ushers grow their\nbuttonhole-bouquets on the premises shows what might be done if they had\nthe right kind of an agricultural head to the establishment.\n\nWe visited also the venerable Cathedral, and the pretty square in front\nof it; the one dim with religious light, the other brilliant with the\nworldly sort, and lovely with orange-trees and blossomy shrubs; then we\ndrove in the hot sun through the wilderness of houses and out on to the\nwide dead level beyond, where the villas are, and the water wheels to\ndrain the town, and the commons populous with cows and children; passing\nby an old cemetery where we were told lie the ashes of an early pirate;\nbut we took him on trust, and did not visit him. He was a pirate with\na tremendous and sanguinary history; and as long as he preserved\nunspotted, in retirement, the dignity of his name and the grandeur of\nhis ancient calling, homage and reverence were his from high and\nlow; but when at last he descended into politics and became a paltry\nalderman, the public 'shook' him, and turned aside and wept. When he\ndied, they set up a monument over him; and little by little he has come\ninto respect again; but it is respect for the pirate, not the alderman.\nTo-day the loyal and generous remember only what he was, and charitably\nforget what he became.\n\nThence, we drove a few miles across a swamp, along a raised shell road,\nwith a canal on one hand and a dense wood on the other; and here and\nthere, in the distance, a ragged and angular-limbed and moss-bearded\ncypress, top standing out, clear cut against the sky, and as quaint of\nform as the apple-trees in Japanese pictures--such was our course and\nthe surroundings of it. There was an occasional alligator swimming\ncomfortably along in the canal, and an occasional picturesque colored\nperson on the bank, flinging his statue-rigid reflection upon the still\nwater and watching for a bite.\n\nAnd by-and-bye we reached the West End, a collection of hotels of the\nusual light summer-resort pattern, with broad verandas all around,\nand the waves of the wide and blue Lake Pontchartrain lapping the\nthresholds. We had dinner on a ground-veranda over the water--the\nchief dish the renowned fish called the pompano, delicious as the less\ncriminal forms of sin.\n\nThousands of people come by rail and carriage to West End and to Spanish\nFort every evening, and dine, listen to the bands, take strolls in\nthe open air under the electric lights, go sailing on the lake, and\nentertain themselves in various and sundry other ways.\n\nWe had opportunities on other days and in other places to test the\npompano. Notably, at an editorial dinner at one of the clubs in the\ncity. He was in his last possible perfection there, and justified his\nfame. In his suite was a tall pyramid of scarlet cray-fish--large ones;\nas large as one's thumb--delicate, palatable, appetizing. Also deviled\nwhitebait; also shrimps of choice quality; and a platter of small\nsoft-shell crabs of a most superior breed. The other dishes were what\none might get at Delmonico's, or Buckingham Palace; those I have spoken\nof can be had in similar perfection in New Orleans only, I suppose.\n\nIn the West and South they have a new institution--the Broom Brigade.\nIt is composed of young ladies who dress in a uniform costume, and go\nthrough the infantry drill, with broom in place of musket. It is a\nvery pretty sight, on private view. When they perform on the stage of\na theater, in the blaze of colored fires, it must be a fine and\nfascinating spectacle. I saw them go through their complex manual with\ngrace, spirit, and admirable precision. I saw them do everything which\na human being can possibly do with a broom, except sweep. I did not see\nthem sweep. But I know they could learn. What they have already learned\nproves that. And if they ever should learn, and should go on the\nwar-path down Tchoupitoulas or some of those other streets around there,\nthose thoroughfares would bear a greatly improved aspect in a very few\nminutes. But the girls themselves wouldn't; so nothing would be really\ngained, after all.\n\nThe drill was in the Washington Artillery building. In this building\nwe saw many interesting relics of the war. Also a fine oil-painting\nrepresenting Stonewall Jackson's last interview with General Lee. Both\nmen are on horseback. Jackson has just ridden up, and is accosting Lee.\nThe picture is very valuable, on account of the portraits, which are\nauthentic. But, like many another historical picture, it means nothing\nwithout its label. And one label will fit it as well as another--\n\nFirst Interview between Lee and Jackson.\n\nLast Interview between Lee and Jackson.\n\nJackson Introducing Himself to Lee.\n\nJackson Accepting Lee's Invitation to Dinner.\n\nJackson Declining Lee's Invitation to Dinner--with Thanks.\n\nJackson Apologizing for a Heavy Defeat.\n\nJackson Reporting a Great Victory.\n\nJackson Asking Lee for a Match.\n\nIt tells _one _story, and a sufficient one; for it says quite plainly\nand satisfactorily, 'Here are Lee and Jackson together.' The artist\nwould have made it tell that this is Lee and Jackson's last interview if\nhe could have done it. But he couldn't, for there wasn't any way to do\nit. A good legible label is usually worth, for information, a ton of\nsignificant attitude and expression in a historical picture. In Rome,\npeople with fine sympathetic natures stand up and weep in front of the\ncelebrated 'Beatrice Cenci the Day before her Execution.' It shows what\na label can do. If they did not know the picture, they would inspect it\nunmoved, and say, 'Young girl with hay fever; young girl with her head\nin a bag.'\n\nI found the half-forgotten Southern intonations and elisions as pleasing\nto my ear as they had formerly been. A Southerner talks music. At\nleast it is music to me, but then I was born in the South. The educated\nSoutherner has no use for an r, except at the beginning of a word. He\nsays 'honah,' and 'dinnah,' and 'Gove'nuh,' and 'befo' the waw,' and so\non. The words may lack charm to the eye, in print, but they have it to\nthe ear. When did the r disappear from Southern speech, and how did it\ncome to disappear? The custom of dropping it was not borrowed from\nthe North, nor inherited from England. Many Southerners--most\nSoutherners--put a y into occasional words that begin with the k sound.\nFor instance, they say Mr. K'yahtah (Carter) and speak of playing\nk'yahds or of riding in the k'yahs. And they have the pleasant\ncustom--long ago fallen into decay in the North--of frequently employing\nthe respectful 'Sir.' Instead of the curt Yes, and the abrupt No, they\nsay 'Yes, Suh', 'No, Suh.'\n\nBut there are some infelicities. Such as 'like' for 'as,' and the\naddition of an 'at' where it isn't needed. I heard an educated gentleman\nsay, 'Like the flag-officer did.' His cook or his butler would have\nsaid, 'Like the flag-officer done.' You hear gentlemen say, 'Where have\nyou been at?' And here is the aggravated form--heard a ragged street\nArab say it to a comrade: 'I was a-ask'n' Tom whah you was a-sett'n'\nat.' The very elect carelessly say 'will' when they mean 'shall'; and\nmany of them say, 'I didn't go to do it,' meaning 'I didn't mean to do\nit.' The Northern word 'guess'--imported from England, where it used\nto be common, and now regarded by satirical Englishmen as a Yankee\noriginal--is but little used among Southerners. They say 'reckon.' They\nhaven't any 'doesn't' in their language; they say 'don't' instead.\nThe unpolished often use 'went' for 'gone.' It is nearly as bad as\nthe Northern 'hadn't ought.' This reminds me that a remark of a very\npeculiar nature was made here in my neighborhood (in the North) a few\ndays ago: 'He hadn't ought to have went.' How is that? Isn't that a good\ndeal of a triumph? One knows the orders combined in this half-breed's\narchitecture without inquiring: one parent Northern, the other Southern.\nTo-day I heard a schoolmistress ask, 'Where is John gone?' This form is\nso common--so nearly universal, in fact--that if she had used 'whither'\ninstead of 'where,' I think it would have sounded like an affectation.\n\nWe picked up one excellent word--a word worth traveling to New Orleans\nto get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word--'lagniappe.' They\npronounce it lanny-yap. It is Spanish--so they said. We discovered it\nat the head of a column of odds and ends in the Picayune, the first day;\nheard twenty people use it the second; inquired what it meant the\nthird; adopted it and got facility in swinging it the fourth. It has a\nrestricted meaning, but I think the people spread it out a little when\nthey choose. It is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a 'baker's\ndozen.' It is something thrown in, gratis, for good measure. The custom\noriginated in the Spanish quarter of the city. When a child or a servant\nbuys something in a shop--or even the mayor or the governor, for aught I\nknow--he finishes the operation by saying--\n\n'Give me something for lagniappe.'\n\nThe shopman always responds; gives the child a bit of licorice-root,\ngives the servant a cheap cigar or a spool of thread, gives the\ngovernor--I don't know what he gives the governor; support, likely.\n\nWhen you are invited to drink, and this does occur now and then in New\nOrleans--and you say, 'What, again?--no, I've had enough;' the other\nparty says, 'But just this one time more--this is for lagniappe.' When\nthe beau perceives that he is stacking his compliments a trifle too\nhigh, and sees by the young lady's countenance that the edifice would\nhave been better with the top compliment left off, he puts his 'I beg\npardon--no harm intended,' into the briefer form of 'Oh, that's for\nlagniappe.' If the waiter in the restaurant stumbles and spills a gill\nof coffee down the back of your neck, he says 'For lagniappe, sah,' and\ngets you another cup without extra charge.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 45\n\nSouthern Sports\n\nIN the North one hears the war mentioned, in social conversation, once a\nmonth; sometimes as often as once a week; but as a distinct subject\nfor talk, it has long ago been relieved of duty. There are sufficient\nreasons for this. Given a dinner company of six gentlemen to-day, it\ncan easily happen that four of them--and possibly five--were not in the\nfield at all. So the chances are four to two, or five to one, that the\nwar will at no time during the evening become the topic of conversation;\nand the chances are still greater that if it become the topic it will\nremain so but a little while. If you add six ladies to the company, you\nhave added six people who saw so little of the dread realities of the\nwar that they ran out of talk concerning them years ago, and now would\nsoon weary of the war topic if you brought it up.\n\nThe case is very different in the South. There, every man you meet was\nin the war; and every lady you meet saw the war. The war is the great\nchief topic of conversation. The interest in it is vivid and constant;\nthe interest in other topics is fleeting. Mention of the war will wake\nup a dull company and set their tongues going, when nearly any other\ntopic would fail. In the South, the war is what A.D. is elsewhere: they\ndate from it. All day long you hear things 'placed' as having happened\nsince the waw; or du'in' the waw; or befo' the waw; or right aftah the\nwaw; or 'bout two yeahs or five yeahs or ten yeahs befo' the waw or\naftah the waw. It shows how intimately every individual was visited, in\nhis own person, by that tremendous episode. It gives the inexperienced\nstranger a better idea of what a vast and comprehensive calamity\ninvasion is than he can ever get by reading books at the fireside.\n\nAt a club one evening, a gentleman turned to me and said, in an aside--\n\n'You notice, of course, that we are nearly always talking about the war.\nIt isn't because we haven't anything else to talk about, but because\nnothing else has so strong an interest for us. And there is another\nreason: In the war, each of us, in his own person, seems to have sampled\nall the different varieties of human experience; as a consequence, you\ncan't mention an outside matter of any sort but it will certainly remind\nsome listener of something that happened during the war--and out he\ncomes with it. Of course that brings the talk back to the war. You may\ntry all you want to, to keep other subjects before the house, and we may\nall join in and help, but there can be but one result: the most random\ntopic would load every man up with war reminiscences, and shut him up,\ntoo; and talk would be likely to stop presently, because you can't talk\npale inconsequentialities when you've got a crimson fact or fancy in\nyour head that you are burning to fetch out.'\n\nThe poet was sitting some little distance away; and presently he began\nto speak--about the moon.\n\nThe gentleman who had been talking to me remarked in an 'aside:' 'There,\nthe moon is far enough from the seat of war, but you will see that it\nwill suggest something to somebody about the war; in ten minutes from\nnow the moon, as a topic, will be shelved.'\n\nThe poet was saying he had noticed something which was a surprise to\nhim; had had the impression that down here, toward the equator, the\nmoonlight was much stronger and brighter than up North; had had the\nimpression that when he visited New Orleans, many years ago, the moon--\n\nInterruption from the other end of the room--\n\n'Let me explain that. Reminds me of an anecdote. Everything is changed\nsince the war, for better or for worse; but you'll find people down here\nborn grumblers, who see no change except the change for the worse. There\nwas an old negro woman of this sort. A young New-Yorker said in her\npresence, \"What a wonderful moon you have down here!\" She sighed and\nsaid, \"Ah, bless yo' heart, honey, you ought to seen dat moon befo' de\nwaw!\"'\n\nThe new topic was dead already. But the poet resurrected it, and gave it\na new start.\n\nA brief dispute followed, as to whether the difference between Northern\nand Southern moonlight really existed or was only imagined. Moonlight\ntalk drifted easily into talk about artificial methods of dispelling\ndarkness. Then somebody remembered that when Farragut advanced upon\nPort Hudson on a dark night--and did not wish to assist the aim of the\nConfederate gunners--he carried no battle-lanterns, but painted the\ndecks of his ships white, and thus created a dim but valuable light,\nwhich enabled his own men to grope their way around with considerable\nfacility. At this point the war got the floor again--the ten minutes not\nquite up yet.\n\nI was not sorry, for war talk by men who have been in a war is always\ninteresting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been in the moon is\nlikely to be dull.\n\nWe went to a cockpit in New Orleans on a Saturday afternoon. I had never\nseen a cock-fight before. There were men and boys there of all ages and\nall colors, and of many languages and nationalities. But I noticed one\nquite conspicuous and surprising absence: the traditional brutal faces.\nThere were no brutal faces. With no cock-fighting going on, you could\nhave played the gathering on a stranger for a prayer-meeting; and after\nit began, for a revival--provided you blindfolded your stranger--for the\nshouting was something prodigious.\n\nA negro and a white man were in the ring; everybody else outside. The\ncocks were brought in in sacks; and when time was called, they were\ntaken out by the two bottle-holders, stroked, caressed, poked toward\neach other, and finally liberated. The big black cock plunged instantly\nat the little gray one and struck him on the head with his spur. The\ngray responded with spirit. Then the Babel of many-tongued shoutings\nbroke out, and ceased not thenceforth. When the cocks had been fighting\nsome little time, I was expecting them momently to drop dead, for both\nwere blind, red with blood, and so exhausted that they frequently fell\ndown. Yet they would not give up, neither would they die. The negro and\nthe white man would pick them up every few seconds, wipe them off, blow\ncold water on them in a fine spray, and take their heads in their mouths\nand hold them there a moment--to warm back the perishing life perhaps;\nI do not know. Then, being set down again, the dying creatures would\ntotter gropingly about, with dragging wings, find each other, strike a\nguesswork blow or two, and fall exhausted once more.\n\nI did not see the end of the battle. I forced myself to endure it\nas long as I could, but it was too pitiful a sight; so I made frank\nconfession to that effect, and we retired. We heard afterward that the\nblack cock died in the ring, and fighting to the last.\n\nEvidently there is abundant fascination about this 'sport' for such\nas have had a degree of familiarity with it. I never saw people enjoy\nanything more than this gathering enjoyed this fight. The case was the\nsame with old gray-heads and with boys of ten. They lost themselves\nin frenzies of delight. The 'cocking-main' is an inhuman sort of\nentertainment, there is no question about that; still, it seems a much\nmore respectable and far less cruel sport than fox-hunting--for the\ncocks like it; they experience, as well as confer enjoyment; which is\nnot the fox's case.\n\nWe assisted--in the French sense--at a mule race, one day. I believe I\nenjoyed this contest more than any other mule there. I enjoyed it more\nthan I remember having enjoyed any other animal race I ever saw. The\ngrand-stand was well filled with the beauty and the chivalry of New\nOrleans. That phrase is not original with me. It is the Southern\nreporter's. He has used it for two generations. He uses it twenty\ntimes a day, or twenty thousand times a day; or a million times a\nday--according to the exigencies. He is obliged to use it a million\ntimes a day, if he have occasion to speak of respectable men and women\nthat often; for he has no other phrase for such service except that\nsingle one. He never tires of it; it always has a fine sound to him.\nThere is a kind of swell medieval bulliness and tinsel about it that\npleases his gaudy barbaric soul. If he had been in Palestine in the\nearly times, we should have had no references to 'much people' out of\nhim. No, he would have said 'the beauty and the chivalry of Galilee'\nassembled to hear the Sermon on the Mount. It is likely that the men\nand women of the South are sick enough of that phrase by this time, and\nwould like a change, but there is no immediate prospect of their getting\nit.\n\nThe New Orleans editor has a strong, compact, direct, unflowery\nstyle; wastes no words, and does not gush. Not so with his average\ncorrespondent. In the Appendix I have quoted a good letter, penned by a\ntrained hand; but the average correspondent hurls a style which differs\nfrom that. For instance--\n\nThe 'Times-Democrat' sent a relief-steamer up one of the bayous, last\nApril. This steamer landed at a village, up there somewhere, and the\nCaptain invited some of the ladies of the village to make a short trip\nwith him. They accepted and came aboard, and the steamboat shoved out\nup the creek. That was all there was 'to it.' And that is all that\nthe editor of the 'Times-Democrat' would have got out of it. There was\nnothing in the thing but statistics, and he would have got nothing else\nout of it. He would probably have even tabulated them, partly to secure\nperfect clearness of statement, and partly to save space. But his\nspecial correspondent knows other methods of handling statistics. He\njust throws off all restraint and wallows in them--\n\n'On Saturday, early in the morning, the beauty of the place graced our\ncabin, and proud of her fair freight the gallant little boat glided up\nthe bayou.'\n\nTwenty-two words to say the ladies came aboard and the boat shoved\nout up the creek, is a clean waste of ten good words, and is also\ndestructive of compactness of statement.\n\nThe trouble with the Southern reporter is--Women. They unsettle\nhim; they throw him off his balance. He is plain, and sensible, and\nsatisfactory, until a woman heaves in sight. Then he goes all to pieces;\nhis mind totters, he becomes flowery and idiotic. From reading the above\nextract, you would imagine that this student of Sir Walter Scott is\nan apprentice, and knows next to nothing about handling a pen. On the\ncontrary, he furnishes plenty of proofs, in his long letter, that he\nknows well enough how to handle it when the women are not around to give\nhim the artificial-flower complaint. For instance--\n\n'At 4 o'clock ominous clouds began to gather in the south-east, and\npresently from the Gulf there came a blow which increased in severity\nevery moment. It was not safe to leave the landing then, and there was\na delay. The oaks shook off long tresses of their mossy beards to the\ntugging of the wind, and the bayou in its ambition put on miniature\nwaves in mocking of much larger bodies of water. A lull permitted a\nstart, and homewards we steamed, an inky sky overhead and a heavy wind\nblowing. As darkness crept on, there were few on board who did not wish\nthemselves nearer home.'\n\nThere is nothing the matter with that. It is good description, compactly\nput. Yet there was great temptation, there, to drop into lurid writing.\n\nBut let us return to the mule. Since I left him, I have rummaged around\nand found a full report of the race. In it I find confirmation of the\ntheory which I broached just now--namely, that the trouble with the\nSouthern reporter is Women: Women, supplemented by Walter Scott and his\nknights and beauty and chivalry, and so on. This is an excellent report,\nas long as the women stay out of it. But when they intrude, we have this\nfrantic result--\n\n'It will be probably a long time before the ladies' stand presents such\na sea of foam-like loveliness as it did yesterday. The New Orleans women\nare always charming, but never so much so as at this time of the year,\nwhen in their dainty spring costumes they bring with them a breath of\nbalmy freshness and an odor of sanctity unspeakable. The stand was so\ncrowded with them that, walking at their feet and seeing no possibility\nof approach, many a man appreciated as he never did before the Peri's\nfeeling at the Gates of Paradise, and wondered what was the priceless\nboon that would admit him to their sacred presence. Sparkling on their\nwhite-robed breasts or shoulders were the colors of their favorite\nknights, and were it not for the fact that the doughty heroes appeared\non unromantic mules, it would have been easy to imagine one of King\nArthur's gala-days.'\n\nThere were thirteen mules in the first heat; all sorts of mules, they\nwere; all sorts of complexions, gaits, dispositions, aspects. Some were\nhandsome creatures, some were not; some were sleek, some hadn't had\ntheir fur brushed lately; some were innocently gay and frisky; some were\nfull of malice and all unrighteousness; guessing from looks, some of\nthem thought the matter on hand was war, some thought it was a lark, the\nrest took it for a religious occasion. And each mule acted according to\nhis convictions. The result was an absence of harmony well compensated\nby a conspicuous presence of variety--variety of a picturesque and\nentertaining sort.\n\nAll the riders were young gentlemen in fashionable society. If the\nreader has been wondering why it is that the ladies of New Orleans\nattend so humble an orgy as a mule-race, the thing is explained now. It\nis a fashion-freak; all connected with it are people of fashion.\n\nIt is great fun, and cordially liked. The mule-race is one of the marked\noccasions of the year. It has brought some pretty fast mules to the\nfront. One of these had to be ruled out, because he was so fast that he\nturned the thing into a one-mule contest, and robbed it of one of its\nbest features--variety. But every now and then somebody disguises him\nwith a new name and a new complexion, and rings him in again.\n\nThe riders dress in full jockey costumes of bright-colored silks,\nsatins, and velvets.\n\nThe thirteen mules got away in a body, after a couple of false starts,\nand scampered off with prodigious spirit. As each mule and each rider\nhad a distinct opinion of his own as to how the race ought to be run,\nand which side of the track was best in certain circumstances, and how\noften the track ought to be crossed, and when a collision ought to\nbe accomplished, and when it ought to be avoided, these twenty-six\nconflicting opinions created a most fantastic and picturesque confusion,\nand the resulting spectacle was killingly comical.\n\nMile heat; time 2:22. Eight of the thirteen mules distanced. I had a bet\non a mule which would have won if the procession had been reversed. The\nsecond heat was good fun; and so was the 'consolation race for beaten\nmules,' which followed later; but the first heat was the best in that\nrespect.\n\nI think that much the most enjoyable of all races is a steamboat race;\nbut, next to that, I prefer the gay and joyous mule-rush. Two red-hot\nsteamboats raging along, neck-and-neck, straining every nerve--that is\nto say, every rivet in the boilers--quaking and shaking and groaning\nfrom stem to stern, spouting white steam from the pipes, pouring black\nsmoke from the chimneys, raining down sparks, parting the river into\nlong breaks of hissing foam--this is sport that makes a body's very\nliver curl with enjoyment. A horse-race is pretty tame and colorless\nin comparison. Still, a horse-race might be well enough, in its way,\nperhaps, if it were not for the tiresome false starts. But then,\nnobody is ever killed. At least, nobody was ever killed when I was at a\nhorse-race. They have been crippled, it is true; but this is little to\nthe purpose.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 46\n\nEnchantments and Enchanters\n\nTHE largest annual event in New Orleans is a something which we arrived\ntoo late to sample--the Mardi-Gras festivities. I saw the procession of\nthe Mystic Crew of Comus there, twenty-four years ago--with knights\nand nobles and so on, clothed in silken and golden Paris-made\ngorgeousnesses, planned and bought for that single night's use; and\nin their train all manner of giants, dwarfs, monstrosities, and other\ndiverting grotesquerie--a startling and wonderful sort of show, as it\nfiled solemnly and silently down the street in the light of its smoking\nand flickering torches; but it is said that in these latter days the\nspectacle is mightily augmented, as to cost, splendor, and variety.\nThere is a chief personage--'Rex;' and if I remember rightly, neither\nthis king nor any of his great following of subordinates is known to any\noutsider. All these people are gentlemen of position and consequence;\nand it is a proud thing to belong to the organization; so the mystery in\nwhich they hide their personality is merely for romance's sake, and not\non account of the police.\n\nMardi-Gras is of course a relic of the French and Spanish occupation;\nbut I judge that the religious feature has been pretty well knocked out\nof it now. Sir Walter has got the advantage of the gentlemen of the cowl\nand rosary, and he will stay. His medieval business, supplemented by the\nmonsters and the oddities, and the pleasant creatures from fairy-land,\nis finer to look at than the poor fantastic inventions and performances\nof the reveling rabble of the priest's day, and serves quite as well,\nperhaps, to emphasize the day and admonish men that the grace-line\nbetween the worldly season and the holy one is reached.\n\nThis Mardi-Gras pageant was the exclusive possession of New Orleans\nuntil recently. But now it has spread to Memphis and St. Louis and\nBaltimore. It has probably reached its limit. It is a thing which could\nhardly exist in the practical North; would certainly last but a very\nbrief time; as brief a time as it would last in London. For the soul\nof it is the romantic, not the funny and the grotesque. Take away the\nromantic mysteries, the kings and knights and big-sounding titles, and\nMardi-Gras would die, down there in the South. The very feature that\nkeeps it alive in the South--girly-girly romance--would kill it in the\nNorth or in London. Puck and Punch, and the press universal, would fall\nupon it and make merciless fun of it, and its first exhibition would be\nalso its last.\n\nAgainst the crimes of the French Revolution and of Bonaparte may be set\ntwo compensating benefactions: the Revolution broke the chains of the\n_ancien regime_ and of the Church, and made of a nation of abject slaves\na nation of freemen; and Bonaparte instituted the setting of merit above\nbirth, and also so completely stripped the divinity from royalty, that\nwhereas crowned heads in Europe were gods before, they are only men,\nsince, and can never be gods again, but only figureheads, and answerable\nfor their acts like common clay. Such benefactions as these compensate\nthe temporary harm which Bonaparte and the Revolution did, and leave the\nworld in debt to them for these great and permanent services to liberty,\nhumanity, and progress.\n\nThen comes Sir Walter Scott with his enchantments, and by his single\nmight checks this wave of progress, and even turns it back; sets the\nworld in love with dreams and phantoms; with decayed and swinish forms\nof religion; with decayed and degraded systems of government; with\nthe sillinesses and emptinesses, sham grandeurs, sham gauds, and sham\nchivalries of a brainless and worthless long-vanished society. He did\nmeasureless harm; more real and lasting harm, perhaps, than any other\nindividual that ever wrote. Most of the world has now outlived good part\nof these harms, though by no means all of them; but in our South they\nflourish pretty forcefully still. Not so forcefully as half a generation\nago, perhaps, but still forcefully. There, the genuine and wholesome\ncivilization of the nineteenth century is curiously confused and\ncommingled with the Walter Scott Middle-Age sham civilization; and so\nyou have practical, common-sense, progressive ideas, and progressive\nworks; mixed up with the duel, the inflated speech, and the jejune\nromanticism of an absurd past that is dead, and out of charity ought\nto be buried. But for the Sir Walter disease, the character of the\nSoutherner--or Southron, according to Sir Walter's starchier way of\nphrasing it--would be wholly modern, in place of modern and medieval\nmixed, and the South would be fully a generation further advanced than\nit is. It was Sir Walter that made every gentleman in the South a Major\nor a Colonel, or a General or a Judge, before the war; and it was he,\nalso, that made these gentlemen value these bogus decorations. For it\nwas he that created rank and caste down there, and also reverence\nfor rank and caste, and pride and pleasure in them. Enough is laid on\nslavery, without fathering upon it these creations and contributions of\nSir Walter.\n\nSir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern character, as it\nexisted before the war, that he is in great measure responsible for\nthe war. It seems a little harsh toward a dead man to say that we never\nshould have had any war but for Sir Walter; and yet something of a\nplausible argument might, perhaps, be made in support of that wild\nproposition. The Southerner of the American Revolution owned slaves; so\ndid the Southerner of the Civil War: but the former resembles the latter\nas an Englishman resembles a Frenchman. The change of character can be\ntraced rather more easily to Sir Walter's influence than to that of any\nother thing or person.\n\nOne may observe, by one or two signs, how deeply that influence\npenetrated, and how strongly it holds. If one take up a Northern or\nSouthern literary periodical of forty or fifty years ago, he will\nfind it filled with wordy, windy, flowery 'eloquence,' romanticism,\nsentimentality--all imitated from Sir Walter, and sufficiently badly\ndone, too--innocent travesties of his style and methods, in fact. This\nsort of literature being the fashion in both sections of the country,\nthere was opportunity for the fairest competition; and as a consequence,\nthe South was able to show as many well-known literary names,\nproportioned to population, as the North could.\n\nBut a change has come, and there is no opportunity now for a fair\ncompetition between North and South. For the North has thrown out\nthat old inflated style, whereas the Southern writer still clings\nto it--clings to it and has a restricted market for his wares, as a\nconsequence. There is as much literary talent in the South, now, as ever\nthere was, of course; but its work can gain but slight currency under\npresent conditions; the authors write for the past, not the present;\nthey use obsolete forms, and a dead language. But when a Southerner of\ngenius writes modern English, his book goes upon crutches no longer, but\nupon wings; and they carry it swiftly all about America and England,\nand through the great English reprint publishing houses of Germany--as\nwitness the experience of Mr. Cable and Uncle Remus, two of the very\nfew Southern authors who do not write in the Southern style. Instead\nof three or four widely-known literary names, the South ought to have a\ndozen or two--and will have them when Sir Walter's time is out.\n\nA curious exemplification of the power of a single book for good or harm\nis shown in the effects wrought by 'Don Quixote' and those wrought\nby 'Ivanhoe.' The first swept the world's admiration for the medieval\nchivalry-silliness out of existence; and the other restored it. As far\nas our South is concerned, the good work done by Cervantes is pretty\nnearly a dead letter, so effectually has Scott's pernicious work\nundermined it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 47\n\nUncle Remus and Mr. Cable\n\nMR. JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS ('Uncle Remus') was to arrive from Atlanta at\nseven o'clock Sunday morning; so we got up and received him. We were\nable to detect him among the crowd of arrivals at the hotel-counter by\nhis correspondence with a description of him which had been furnished us\nfrom a trustworthy source. He was said to be undersized, red-haired,\nand somewhat freckled. He was the only man in the party whose outside\ntallied with this bill of particulars. He was said to be very shy. He\nis a shy man. Of this there is no doubt. It may not show on the surface,\nbut the shyness is there. After days of intimacy one wonders to see\nthat it is still in about as strong force as ever. There is a fine and\nbeautiful nature hidden behind it, as all know who have read the Uncle\nRemus book; and a fine genius, too, as all know by the same sign. I seem\nto be talking quite freely about this neighbor; but in talking to the\npublic I am but talking to his personal friends, and these things are\npermissible among friends.\n\nHe deeply disappointed a number of children who had flocked eagerly to\nMr. Cable's house to get a glimpse of the illustrious sage and oracle of\nthe nation's nurseries. They said--\n\n'Why, he 's white!'\n\nThey were grieved about it. So, to console them, the book was brought,\nthat they might hear Uncle Remus's Tar-Baby story from the lips of Uncle\nRemus himself--or what, in their outraged eyes, was left of him. But it\nturned out that he had never read aloud to people, and was too shy to\nventure the attempt now. Mr. Cable and I read from books of ours, to\nshow him what an easy trick it was; but his immortal shyness was proof\nagainst even this sagacious strategy, so we had to read about Brer\nRabbit ourselves.\n\nMr. Harris ought to be able to read the negro dialect better than\nanybody else, for in the matter of writing it he is the only master the\ncountry has produced. Mr. Cable is the only master in the writing of\nFrench dialects that the country has produced; and he reads them\nin perfection. It was a great treat to hear him read about Jean-ah\nPoquelin, and about Innerarity and his famous 'pigshoo' representing\n'Louisihanna _rif_-fusing to Hanter the Union,' along with passages of\nnicely-shaded German dialect from a novel which was still in manuscript.\n\nIt came out in conversation, that in two different instances Mr. Cable\ngot into grotesque trouble by using, in his books, next-to-impossible\nFrench names which nevertheless happened to be borne by living and\nsensitive citizens of New Orleans. His names were either inventions or\nwere borrowed from the ancient and obsolete past, I do not now remember\nwhich; but at any rate living bearers of them turned up, and were a good\ndeal hurt at having attention directed to themselves and their affairs\nin so excessively public a manner.\n\nMr. Warner and I had an experience of the same sort when we wrote\nthe book called 'The Gilded Age.' There is a character in it called\n'Sellers.' I do not remember what his first name was, in the beginning;\nbut anyway, Mr. Warner did not like it, and wanted it improved. He asked\nme if I was able to imagine a person named 'Eschol Sellers.' Of course I\nsaid I could not, without stimulants. He said that away out West, once,\nhe had met, and contemplated, and actually shaken hands with a man\nbearing that impossible name--'Eschol Sellers.' He added--\n\n'It was twenty years ago; his name has probably carried him off before\nthis; and if it hasn't, he will never see the book anyhow. We will\nconfiscate his name. The name you are using is common, and therefore\ndangerous; there are probably a thousand Sellerses bearing it, and the\nwhole horde will come after us; but Eschol Sellers is a safe name--it is\na rock.'\n\nSo we borrowed that name; and when the book had been out about a week,\none of the stateliest and handsomest and most aristocratic looking white\nmen that ever lived, called around, with the most formidable libel\nsuit in his pocket that ever--well, in brief, we got his permission to\nsuppress an edition of ten million {footnote [Figures taken from memory,\nand probably incorrect. Think it was more.]} copies of the book and\nchange that name to 'Mulberry Sellers' in future editions.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 48\n\nSugar and Postage\n\nONE day, on the street, I encountered the man whom, of all men, I most\nwished to see--Horace Bixby; formerly pilot under me--or rather, over\nme--now captain of the great steamer 'City of Baton Rouge,' the latest\nand swiftest addition to the Anchor Line. The same slender figure, the\nsame tight curls, the same springy step, the same alertness, the same\ndecision of eye and answering decision of hand, the same erect military\nbearing; not an inch gained or lost in girth, not an ounce gained or\nlost in weight, not a hair turned. It is a curious thing, to leave a man\nthirty-five years old, and come back at the end of twenty-one years and\nfind him still only thirty-five. I have not had an experience of this\nkind before, I believe. There were some crow's-feet, but they counted\nfor next to nothing, since they were inconspicuous.\n\nHis boat was just in. I had been waiting several days for her, purposing\nto return to St. Louis in her. The captain and I joined a party of\nladies and gentlemen, guests of Major Wood, and went down the river\nfifty-four miles, in a swift tug, to ex-Governor Warmouth's sugar\nplantation. Strung along below the city, were a number of decayed,\nram-shackly, superannuated old steamboats, not one of which had I ever\nseen before. They had all been built, and worn out, and thrown aside,\nsince I was here last. This gives one a realizing sense of the frailness\nof a Mississippi boat and the briefness of its life.\n\nSix miles below town a fat and battered brick chimney, sticking above\nthe magnolias and live-oaks, was pointed out as the monument erected by\nan appreciative nation to celebrate the battle of New Orleans--Jackson's\nvictory over the British, January 8, 1815. The war had ended, the two\nnations were at peace, but the news had not yet reached New Orleans. If\nwe had had the cable telegraph in those days, this blood would not have\nbeen spilt, those lives would not have been wasted; and better still,\nJackson would probably never have been president. We have gotten over\nthe harms done us by the war of 1812, but not over some of those done us\nby Jackson's presidency.\n\nThe Warmouth plantation covers a vast deal of ground, and the\nhospitality of the Warmouth mansion is graduated to the same large\nscale. We saw steam-plows at work, here, for the first time. The\ntraction engine travels about on its own wheels, till it reaches the\nrequired spot; then it stands still and by means of a wire rope pulls\nthe huge plow toward itself two or three hundred yards across the field,\nbetween the rows of cane. The thing cuts down into the black mold a foot\nand a half deep. The plow looks like a fore-and-aft brace of a Hudson\nriver steamer, inverted. When the negro steersman sits on one end of it,\nthat end tilts down near the ground, while the other sticks up high in\nair. This great see-saw goes rolling and pitching like a ship at sea,\nand it is not every circus rider that could stay on it.\n\nThe plantation contains two thousand six hundred acres; six hundred and\nfifty are in cane; and there is a fruitful orange grove of five thousand\ntrees. The cane is cultivated after a modern and intricate scientific\nfashion, too elaborate and complex for me to attempt to describe; but it\nlost $40,000 last year. I forget the other details. However, this year's\ncrop will reach ten or twelve hundred tons of sugar, consequently last\nyear's loss will not matter. These troublesome and expensive scientific\nmethods achieve a yield of a ton and a half and from that to two tons,\nto the acre; which is three or four times what the yield of an acre was\nin my time.\n\nThe drainage-ditches were everywhere alive with little\ncrabs--'fiddlers.' One saw them scampering sidewise in every direction\nwhenever they heard a disturbing noise. Expensive pests, these crabs;\nfor they bore into the levees, and ruin them.\n\nThe great sugar-house was a wilderness of tubs and tanks and vats and\nfilters, pumps, pipes, and machinery. The process of making sugar\nis exceedingly interesting. First, you heave your cane into the\ncentrifugals and grind out the juice; then run it through the\nevaporating pan to extract the fiber; then through the bone-filter to\nremove the alcohol; then through the clarifying tanks to discharge the\nmolasses; then through the granulating pipe to condense it; then through\nthe vacuum pan to extract the vacuum. It is now ready for market. I have\njotted these particulars down from memory. The thing looks simple and\neasy. Do not deceive yourself. To make sugar is really one of the\nmost difficult things in the world. And to make it right, is next to\nimpossible. If you will examine your own supply every now and then for\na term of years, and tabulate the result, you will find that not two men\nin twenty can make sugar without getting sand into it.\n\nWe could have gone down to the mouth of the river and visited Captain\nEads' great work, the 'jetties,' where the river has been compressed\nbetween walls, and thus deepened to twenty-six feet; but it was voted\nuseless to go, since at this stage of the water everything would be\ncovered up and invisible.\n\nWe could have visited that ancient and singular burg, 'Pilot-town,'\nwhich stands on stilts in the water--so they say; where nearly all\ncommunication is by skiff and canoe, even to the attending of weddings\nand funerals; and where the littlest boys and girls are as handy with\nthe oar as unamphibious children are with the velocipede.\n\nWe could have done a number of other things; but on account of limited\ntime, we went back home. The sail up the breezy and sparkling river was\na charming experience, and would have been satisfyingly sentimental\nand romantic but for the interruptions of the tug's pet parrot,\nwhose tireless comments upon the scenery and the guests were always\nthis-worldly, and often profane. He had also a superabundance of\nthe discordant, ear-splitting, metallic laugh common to his breed--a\nmachine-made laugh, a Frankenstein laugh, with the soul left out of it.\nHe applied it to every sentimental remark, and to every pathetic song.\nHe cackled it out with hideous energy after 'Home again, home again from\na foreign shore,' and said he 'wouldn't give a damn for a tug-load\nof such rot.' Romance and sentiment cannot long survive this sort of\ndiscouragement; so the singing and talking presently ceased; which so\ndelighted the parrot that he cursed himself hoarse for joy.\n\nThen the male members of the party moved to the forecastle, to smoke and\ngossip. There were several old steamboatmen along, and I learned from\nthem a great deal of what had been happening to my former river friends\nduring my long absence. I learned that a pilot whom I used to steer\nfor is become a spiritualist, and for more than fifteen years has been\nreceiving a letter every week from a deceased relative, through a\nNew York spiritualist medium named Manchester--postage graduated by\ndistance: from the local post-office in Paradise to New York, five\ndollars; from New York to St. Louis, three cents. I remember Mr.\nManchester very well. I called on him once, ten years ago, with a couple\nof friends, one of whom wished to inquire after a deceased uncle. This\nuncle had lost his life in a peculiarly violent and unusual way, half\na dozen years before: a cyclone blew him some three miles and knocked\na tree down with him which was four feet through at the butt and\nsixty-five feet high. He did not survive this triumph. At the seance\njust referred to, my friend questioned his late uncle, through Mr.\nManchester, and the late uncle wrote down his replies, using Mr.\nManchester's hand and pencil for that purpose. The following is a fair\nexample of the questions asked, and also of the sloppy twaddle in the\nway of answers, furnished by Manchester under the pretense that it came\nfrom the specter. If this man is not the paltriest fraud that lives, I\nowe him an apology--\n\nQUESTION. Where are you?\n\nANSWER. In the spirit world.\n\nQ. Are you happy?\n\nA. Very happy. Perfectly happy.\n\nQ. How do you amuse yourself?\n\nA. Conversation with friends, and other spirits.\n\nQ. What else?\n\nA. Nothing else. Nothing else is necessary.\n\nQ. What do you talk about?\n\nA. About how happy we are; and about friends left behind in the earth,\nand how to influence them for their good.\n\nQ. When your friends in the earth all get to the spirit land, what shall\nyou have to talk about then?--nothing but about how happy you all are?\n\nNo reply. It is explained that spirits will not answer frivolous\nquestions.\n\nQ. How is it that spirits that are content to spend an eternity in\nfrivolous employments, and accept it as happiness, are so fastidious\nabout frivolous questions upon the subject?\n\nNo reply.\n\nQ. Would you like to come back?\n\nA. No.\n\nQ. Would you say that under oath?\n\nA. Yes.\n\nQ. What do you eat there?\n\nA. We do not eat.\n\nQ. What do you drink?\n\nA. We do not drink.\n\nQ. What do you smoke?\n\nA. We do not smoke.\n\nQ. What do you read?\n\nA. We do not read.\n\nQ. Do all the good people go to your place?\n\nA. Yes.\n\nQ. You know my present way of life. Can you suggest any additions to it,\nin the way of crime, that will reasonably insure my going to some other\nplace.\n\nA. No reply.\n\nQ. When did you die?\n\nA. I did not die, I passed away.\n\nQ. Very well, then, when did you pass away? How long have you been in\nthe spirit land?\n\nA. We have no measurements of time here.\n\nQ. Though you may be indifferent and uncertain as to dates and times in\nyour present condition and environment, this has nothing to do with your\nformer condition. You had dates then. One of these is what I ask for.\nYou departed on a certain day in a certain year. Is not this true?\n\nA. Yes.\n\nQ. Then name the day of the month.\n\n(Much fumbling with pencil, on the part of the medium, accompanied by\nviolent spasmodic jerkings of his head and body, for some little time.\nFinally, explanation to the effect that spirits often forget dates, such\nthings being without importance to them.)\n\nQ. Then this one has actually forgotten the date of its translation to\nthe spirit land?\n\nThis was granted to be the case.\n\nQ. This is very curious. Well, then, what year was it?\n\n(More fumbling, jerking, idiotic spasms, on the part of the medium.\nFinally, explanation to the effect that the spirit has forgotten the\nyear.)\n\nQ. This is indeed stupendous. Let me put one more question, one last\nquestion, to you, before we part to meet no more;--for even if I fail\nto avoid your asylum, a meeting there will go for nothing as a meeting,\nsince by that time you will easily have forgotten me and my name: did\nyou die a natural death, or were you cut off by a catastrophe?\n\nA. (After long hesitation and many throes and spasms.) _Natural death_.\n\nThis ended the interview. My friend told the medium that when his\nrelative was in this poor world, he was endowed with an extraordinary\nintellect and an absolutely defectless memory, and it seemed a great\npity that he had not been allowed to keep some shred of these for\nhis amusement in the realms of everlasting contentment, and for the\namazement and admiration of the rest of the population there.\n\nThis man had plenty of clients--has plenty yet. He receives letters from\nspirits located in every part of the spirit world, and delivers them\nall over this country through the United States mail. These letters are\nfilled with advice--advice from 'spirits' who don't know as much as a\ntadpole--and this advice is religiously followed by the receivers. One\nof these clients was a man whom the spirits (if one may thus plurally\ndescribe the ingenious Manchester) were teaching how to contrive an\nimproved railway car-wheel. It is coarse employment for a spirit, but it\nis higher and wholesomer activity than talking for ever about 'how happy\nwe are.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 49\n\nEpisodes in Pilot Life\n\nIN the course of the tug-boat gossip, it came out that out of every five\nof my former friends who had quitted the river, four had chosen farming\nas an occupation. Of course this was not because they were peculiarly\ngifted, agriculturally, and thus more likely to succeed as farmers than\nin other industries: the reason for their choice must be traced to some\nother source. Doubtless they chose farming because that life is\nprivate and secluded from irruptions of undesirable strangers--like the\npilot-house hermitage. And doubtless they also chose it because on a\nthousand nights of black storm and danger they had noted the twinkling\nlights of solitary farm-houses, as the boat swung by, and pictured to\nthemselves the serenity and security and coziness of such refuges at\nsuch times, and so had by-and-bye come to dream of that retired and\npeaceful life as the one desirable thing to long for, anticipate, earn,\nand at last enjoy.\n\nBut I did not learn that any of these pilot-farmers had astonished\nanybody with their successes. Their farms do not support them: they\nsupport their farms. The pilot-farmer disappears from the river\nannually, about the breaking of spring, and is seen no more till next\nfrost. Then he appears again, in damaged homespun, combs the hayseed out\nof his hair, and takes a pilot-house berth for the winter. In this way\nhe pays the debts which his farming has achieved during the agricultural\nseason. So his river bondage is but half broken; he is still the river's\nslave the hardest half of the year.\n\nOne of these men bought a farm, but did not retire to it. He knew a\ntrick worth two of that. He did not propose to pauperize his farm by\napplying his personal ignorance to working it. No, he put the farm into\nthe hands of an agricultural expert to be worked on shares--out of every\nthree loads of corn the expert to have two and the pilot the third.\nBut at the end of the season the pilot received no corn. The expert\nexplained that his share was not reached. The farm produced only two\nloads.\n\nSome of the pilots whom I had known had had adventures--the outcome\nfortunate, sometimes, but not in all cases. Captain Montgomery, whom I\nhad steered for when he was a pilot, commanded the Confederate fleet\nin the great battle before Memphis; when his vessel went down, he swam\nashore, fought his way through a squad of soldiers, and made a gallant\nand narrow escape. He was always a cool man; nothing could disturb\nhis serenity. Once when he was captain of the 'Crescent City,' I was\nbringing the boat into port at New Orleans, and momently expecting\norders from the hurricane deck, but received none. I had stopped\nthe wheels, and there my authority and responsibility ceased. It was\nevening--dim twilight--the captain's hat was perched upon the big bell,\nand I supposed the intellectual end of the captain was in it, but such\nwas not the case. The captain was very strict; therefore I knew better\nthan to touch a bell without orders. My duty was to hold the boat\nsteadily on her calamitous course, and leave the consequences to take\ncare of themselves--which I did. So we went plowing past the sterns of\nsteamboats and getting closer and closer--the crash was bound to come\nvery soon--and still that hat never budged; for alas, the captain was\nnapping in the texas.... Things were becoming exceedingly nervous and\nuncomfortable. It seemed to me that the captain was not going to appear\nin time to see the entertainment. But he did. Just as we were walking\ninto the stern of a steamboat, he stepped out on deck, and said, with\nheavenly serenity, 'Set her back on both'--which I did; but a trifle\nlate, however, for the next moment we went smashing through that other\nboat's flimsy outer works with a most prodigious racket. The captain\nnever said a word to me about the matter afterwards, except to remark\nthat I had done right, and that he hoped I would not hesitate to act in\nthe same way again in like circumstances.\n\nOne of the pilots whom I had known when I was on the river had died a\nvery honorable death. His boat caught fire, and he remained at the wheel\nuntil he got her safe to land. Then he went out over the breast-board\nwith his clothing in flames, and was the last person to get ashore. He\ndied from his injuries in the course of two or three hours, and his was\nthe only life lost.\n\nThe history of Mississippi piloting affords six or seven instances of\nthis sort of martyrdom, and half a hundred instances of escapes from a\nlike fate which came within a second or two of being fatally too late;\n_but there is no instance of a pilot deserting his post to save his life\nwhile by remaining and sacrificing it he might secure other lives from\ndestruction._ It is well worth while to set down this noble fact, and\nwell worth while to put it in italics, too.\n\nThe 'cub' pilot is early admonished to despise all perils connected with\na pilot's calling, and to prefer any sort of death to the deep dishonor\nof deserting his post while there is any possibility of his being useful\nin it. And so effectively are these admonitions inculcated, that even\nyoung and but half-tried pilots can be depended upon to stick to the\nwheel, and die there when occasion requires. In a Memphis graveyard is\nburied a young fellow who perished at the wheel a great many years ago,\nin White River, to save the lives of other men. He said to the captain\nthat if the fire would give him time to reach a sand bar, some distance\naway, all could be saved, but that to land against the bluff bank of the\nriver would be to insure the loss of many lives. He reached the bar\nand grounded the boat in shallow water; but by that time the flames had\nclosed around him, and in escaping through them he was fatally burned.\nHe had been urged to fly sooner, but had replied as became a pilot to\nreply--\n\n'I will not go. If I go, nobody will be saved; if I stay, no one will be\nlost but me. I will stay.'\n\nThere were two hundred persons on board, and no life was lost but the\npilot's. There used to be a monument to this young fellow, in that\nMemphis graveyard. While we tarried in Memphis on our down trip, I\nstarted out to look for it, but our time was so brief that I was obliged\nto turn back before my object was accomplished.\n\nThe tug-boat gossip informed me that Dick Kennet was dead--blown up,\nnear Memphis, and killed; that several others whom I had known had\nfallen in the war--one or two of them shot down at the wheel; that\nanother and very particular friend, whom I had steered many trips for,\nhad stepped out of his house in New Orleans, one night years ago, to\ncollect some money in a remote part of the city, and had never been seen\nagain--was murdered and thrown into the river, it was thought; that Ben\nThornburgh was dead long ago; also his wild 'cub' whom I used to quarrel\nwith, all through every daylight watch. A heedless, reckless creature he\nwas, and always in hot water, always in mischief. An Arkansas passenger\nbrought an enormous bear aboard, one day, and chained him to a life-boat\non the hurricane deck. Thornburgh's 'cub' could not rest till he had\ngone there and unchained the bear, to 'see what he would do.' He was\npromptly gratified. The bear chased him around and around the deck,\nfor miles and miles, with two hundred eager faces grinning through the\nrailings for audience, and finally snatched off the lad's coat-tail and\nwent into the texas to chew it. The off-watch turned out with alacrity,\nand left the bear in sole possession. He presently grew lonesome, and\nstarted out for recreation. He ranged the whole boat--visited every part\nof it, with an advance guard of fleeing people in front of him and a\nvoiceless vacancy behind him; and when his owner captured him at last,\nthose two were the only visible beings anywhere; everybody else was in\nhiding, and the boat was a solitude.\n\nI was told that one of my pilot friends fell dead at the wheel, from\nheart disease, in 1869. The captain was on the roof at the time. He saw\nthe boat breaking for the shore; shouted, and got no answer; ran up, and\nfound the pilot lying dead on the floor.\n\nMr. Bixby had been blown up, in Madrid bend; was not injured, but the\nother pilot was lost.\n\nGeorge Ritchie had been blown up near Memphis--blown into the river from\nthe wheel, and disabled. The water was very cold; he clung to a cotton\nbale--mainly with his teeth--and floated until nearly exhausted, when\nhe was rescued by some deck hands who were on a piece of the wreck. They\ntore open the bale and packed him in the cotton, and warmed the life\nback into him, and got him safe to Memphis. He is one of Bixby's pilots\non the 'Baton Rouge' now.\n\nInto the life of a steamboat clerk, now dead, had dropped a bit of\nromance--somewhat grotesque romance, but romance nevertheless. When I\nknew him he was a shiftless young spendthrift, boisterous, goodhearted,\nfull of careless generosities, and pretty conspicuously promising to\nfool his possibilities away early, and come to nothing. In a Western\ncity lived a rich and childless old foreigner and his wife; and in their\nfamily was a comely young girl--sort of friend, sort of servant. The\nyoung clerk of whom I have been speaking--whose name was not George\nJohnson, but who shall be called George Johnson for the purposes of this\nnarrative--got acquainted with this young girl, and they sinned; and\nthe old foreigner found them out, and rebuked them. Being ashamed, they\nlied, and said they were married; that they had been privately married.\nThen the old foreigner's hurt was healed, and he forgave and blessed\nthem. After that, they were able to continue their sin without\nconcealment. By-and-bye the foreigner's wife died; and presently he\nfollowed after her. Friends of the family assembled to mourn; and among\nthe mourners sat the two young sinners. The will was opened and solemnly\nread. It bequeathed every penny of that old man's great wealth to _Mrs.\nGeorge Johnson!_\n\nAnd there was no such person. The young sinners fled forth then, and did\na very foolish thing: married themselves before an obscure Justice of\nthe Peace, and got him to antedate the thing. That did no sort of good.\nThe distant relatives flocked in and exposed the fraudful date with\nextreme suddenness and surprising ease, and carried off the fortune,\nleaving the Johnsons very legitimately, and legally, and irrevocably\nchained together in honorable marriage, but with not so much as a penny\nto bless themselves withal. Such are the actual facts; and not all\nnovels have for a base so telling a situation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 50\n\nThe 'Original Jacobs'\n\nWE had some talk about Captain Isaiah Sellers, now many years dead. He\nwas a fine man, a high-minded man, and greatly respected both ashore and\non the river. He was very tall, well built, and handsome; and in his old\nage--as I remember him--his hair was as black as an Indian's, and his\neye and hand were as strong and steady and his nerve and judgment as\nfirm and clear as anybody's, young or old, among the fraternity of\npilots. He was the patriarch of the craft; he had been a keelboat pilot\nbefore the day of steamboats; and a steamboat pilot before any other\nsteamboat pilot, still surviving at the time I speak of, had ever turned\na wheel. Consequently his brethren held him in the sort of awe in\nwhich illustrious survivors of a bygone age are always held by their\nassociates. He knew how he was regarded, and perhaps this fact added\nsome trifle of stiffening to his natural dignity, which had been\nsufficiently stiff in its original state.\n\nHe left a diary behind him; but apparently it did not date back to his\nfirst steamboat trip, which was said to be 1811, the year the first\nsteamboat disturbed the waters of the Mississippi. At the time of his\ndeath a correspondent of the 'St. Louis Republican' culled the following\nitems from the diary--\n\n'In February, 1825, he shipped on board the steamer \"Rambler,\" at\nFlorence, Ala., and made during that year three trips to New Orleans and\nback--this on the \"Gen. Carrol,\" between Nashville and New Orleans. It\nwas during his stay on this boat that Captain Sellers introduced the tap\nof the bell as a signal to heave the lead, previous to which time it was\nthe custom for the pilot to speak to the men below when soundings were\nwanted. The proximity of the forecastle to the pilot-house, no doubt,\nrendered this an easy matter; but how different on one of our palaces of\nthe present day.\n\n'In 1827 we find him on board the \"President,\" a boat of two hundred and\neighty-five tons burden, and plying between Smithland and New Orleans.\nThence he joined the \"Jubilee\" in 1828, and on this boat he did his\nfirst piloting in the St. Louis trade; his first watch extending from\nHerculaneum to St. Genevieve. On May 26, 1836, he completed and left\nPittsburgh in charge of the steamer \"Prairie,\" a boat of four hundred\ntons, and the first steamer with a _State-Room cabin_ ever seen at St.\nLouis. In 1857 he introduced the signal for meeting boats, and which\nhas, with some slight change, been the universal custom of this day; in\nfact, is rendered obligatory by act of Congress.\n\n'As general items of river history, we quote the following marginal\nnotes from his general log--\n\n'In March, 1825, Gen. Lafayette left New Orleans for St. Louis on the\nlow-pressure steamer \"Natchez.\"\n\n'In January, 1828, twenty-one steamers left the New Orleans wharf to\ncelebrate the occasion of Gen. Jackson's visit to that city.\n\n'In 1830 the \"North American\" made the run from New Orleans to Memphis\nin six days--best time on record to that date. It has since been made in\ntwo days and ten hours.\n\n'In 1831 the Red River cut-off formed.\n\n'In 1832 steamer \"Hudson\" made the run from White River to Helena, a\ndistance of seventy-five miles, in twelve hours. This was the source of\nmuch talk and speculation among parties directly interested.\n\n'In 1839 Great Horseshoe cut-off formed.\n\n'Up to the present time, a term of thirty-five years, we ascertain, by\nreference to the diary, he has made four hundred and sixty round trips\nto New Orleans, which gives a distance of one million one hundred and\nfour thousand miles, or an average of eighty-six miles a day.'\n\nWhenever Captain Sellers approached a body of gossiping pilots, a chill\nfell there, and talking ceased. For this reason: whenever six pilots\nwere gathered together, there would always be one or two newly fledged\nones in the lot, and the elder ones would be always 'showing off' before\nthese poor fellows; making them sorrowfully feel how callow they were,\nhow recent their nobility, and how humble their degree, by talking\nlargely and vaporously of old-time experiences on the river; always\nmaking it a point to date everything back as far as they could, so as to\nmake the new men feel their newness to the sharpest degree possible,\nand envy the old stagers in the like degree. And how these complacent\nbaldheads _would_ swell, and brag, and lie, and date back--ten, fifteen,\ntwenty years,--and how they did enjoy the effect produced upon the\nmarveling and envying youngsters!\n\nAnd perhaps just at this happy stage of the proceedings, the stately\nfigure of Captain Isaiah Sellers, that real and only genuine Son of\nAntiquity, would drift solemnly into the midst. Imagine the size of the\nsilence that would result on the instant. And imagine the feelings of\nthose bald-heads, and the exultation of their recent audience when the\nancient captain would begin to drop casual and indifferent remarks of a\nreminiscent nature--about islands that had disappeared, and cutoffs that\nhad been made, a generation before the oldest bald-head in the company\nhad ever set his foot in a pilot-house!\n\nMany and many a time did this ancient mariner appear on the scene in the\nabove fashion, and spread disaster and humiliation around him. If one\nmight believe the pilots, he always dated his islands back to the misty\ndawn of river history; and he never used the same island twice; and\nnever did he employ an island that still existed, or give one a name\nwhich anybody present was old enough to have heard of before. If you\nmight believe the pilots, he was always conscientiously particular\nabout little details; never spoke of 'the State of Mississippi,' for\ninstance--no, he would say, 'When the State of Mississippi was where\nArkansas now is,' and would never speak of Louisiana or Missouri in\na general way, and leave an incorrect impression on your mind--no, he\nwould say, 'When Louisiana was up the river farther,' or 'When Missouri\nwas on the Illinois side.'\n\nThe old gentleman was not of literary turn or capacity, but he used\nto jot down brief paragraphs of plain practical information about the\nriver, and sign them '_Mark Twain_,' and give them to the 'New Orleans\nPicayune.' They related to the stage and condition of the river, and\nwere accurate and valuable; and thus far, they contained no poison.\nBut in speaking of the stage of the river to-day, at a given point, the\ncaptain was pretty apt to drop in a little remark about this being the\nfirst time he had seen the water so high or so low at that particular\npoint for forty-nine years; and now and then he would mention Island\nSo-and-so, and follow it, in parentheses, with some such observation\nas 'disappeared in 1807, if I remember rightly.' In these antique\ninterjections lay poison and bitterness for the other old pilots, and\nthey used to chaff the 'Mark Twain' paragraphs with unsparing mockery.\n\nIt so chanced that one of these paragraphs--{footnote [The original MS.\nof it, in the captain's own hand, has been sent to me from New Orleans.\nIt reads as follows--\n\nVICKSBURG May 4, 1859.\n\n'My opinion for the benefit of the citizens of New Orleans: The water\nis higher this far up than it has been since 8. My opinion is that the\nwater will be feet deep in Canal street before the first of next June.\nMrs. Turner's plantation at the head of Big Black Island is all under\nwater, and it has not been since 1815.\n\n'I. Sellers.']}\n\nbecame the text for my first newspaper article. I burlesqued it broadly,\nvery broadly, stringing my fantastics out to the extent of eight hundred\nor a thousand words. I was a 'cub' at the time. I showed my performance\nto some pilots, and they eagerly rushed it into print in the 'New\nOrleans True Delta.' It was a great pity; for it did nobody any worthy\nservice, and it sent a pang deep into a good man's heart. There was no\nmalice in my rubbish; but it laughed at the captain. It laughed at a man\nto whom such a thing was new and strange and dreadful. I did not know\nthen, though I do now, that there is no suffering comparable with that\nwhich a private person feels when he is for the first time pilloried in\nprint.\n\nCaptain Sellers did me the honor to profoundly detest me from that day\nforth. When I say he did me the honor, I am not using empty words. It\nwas a very real honor to be in the thoughts of so great a man as Captain\nSellers, and I had wit enough to appreciate it and be proud of it. It\nwas distinction to be loved by such a man; but it was a much greater\ndistinction to be hated by him, because he loved scores of people; but\nhe didn't sit up nights to hate anybody but me.\n\nHe never printed another paragraph while he lived, and he never again\nsigned 'Mark Twain' to anything. At the time that the telegraph brought\nthe news of his death, I was on the Pacific coast. I was a fresh new\njournalist, and needed a nom de guerre; so I confiscated the ancient\nmariner's discarded one, and have done my best to make it remain what it\nwas in his hands--a sign and symbol and warrant that whatever is found\nin its company may be gambled on as being the petrified truth; how I\nhave succeeded, it would not be modest in me to say.\n\nThe captain had an honorable pride in his profession and an abiding love\nfor it. He ordered his monument before he died, and kept it near\nhim until he did die. It stands over his grave now, in Bellefontaine\ncemetery, St. Louis. It is his image, in marble, standing on duty at\nthe pilot wheel; and worthy to stand and confront criticism, for it\nrepresents a man who in life would have stayed there till he burned to a\ncinder, if duty required it.\n\nThe finest thing we saw on our whole Mississippi trip, we saw as we\napproached New Orleans in the steam-tug. This was the curving frontage\nof the crescent city lit up with the white glare of five miles of\nelectric lights. It was a wonderful sight, and very beautiful.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 51\n\nReminiscences\n\nWE left for St. Louis in the 'City of Baton Rouge,' on a delightfully\nhot day, but with the main purpose of my visit but lamely accomplished.\nI had hoped to hunt up and talk with a hundred steamboatmen, but got so\npleasantly involved in the social life of the town that I got nothing\nmore than mere five-minute talks with a couple of dozen of the craft.\n\nI was on the bench of the pilot-house when we backed out and\n'straightened up' for the start--the boat pausing for a 'good ready,'\nin the old-fashioned way, and the black smoke piling out of the chimneys\nequally in the old-fashioned way. Then we began to gather momentum, and\npresently were fairly under way and booming along. It was all as natural\nand familiar--and so were the shoreward sights--as if there had been no\nbreak in my river life. There was a 'cub,' and I judged that he\nwould take the wheel now; and he did. Captain Bixby stepped into the\npilot-house. Presently the cub closed up on the rank of steamships. He\nmade me nervous, for he allowed too much water to show between our boat\nand the ships. I knew quite well what was going to happen, because\nI could date back in my own life and inspect the record. The captain\nlooked on, during a silent half-minute, then took the wheel himself, and\ncrowded the boat in, till she went scraping along within a hand-breadth\nof the ships. It was exactly the favor which he had done me, about a\nquarter of a century before, in that same spot, the first time I ever\nsteamed out of the port of New Orleans. It was a very great and sincere\npleasure to me to see the thing repeated--with somebody else as victim.\n\nWe made Natchez (three hundred miles) in twenty-two hours and a half--\nmuch the swiftest passage I have ever made over that piece of water.\n\nThe next morning I came on with the four o'clock watch, and saw Ritchie\nsuccessfully run half a dozen crossings in a fog, using for his guidance\nthe marked chart devised and patented by Bixby and himself. This\nsufficiently evidenced the great value of the chart.\n\nBy and by, when the fog began to clear off, I noticed that the\nreflection of a tree in the smooth water of an overflowed bank, six\nhundred yards away, was stronger and blacker than the ghostly tree\nitself. The faint spectral trees, dimly glimpsed through the shredding\nfog, were very pretty things to see.\n\nWe had a heavy thunder-storm at Natchez, another at Vicksburg, and\nstill another about fifty miles below Memphis. They had an old-fashioned\nenergy which had long been unfamiliar to me. This third storm was\naccompanied by a raging wind. We tied up to the bank when we saw the\ntempest coming, and everybody left the pilot-house but me. The wind bent\nthe young trees down, exposing the pale underside of the leaves; and\ngust after gust followed, in quick succession, thrashing the branches\nviolently up and down, and to this side and that, and creating swift\nwaves of alternating green and white according to the side of the leaf\nthat was exposed, and these waves raced after each other as do their\nkind over a wind-tossed field of oats. No color that was visible\nanywhere was quite natural--all tints were charged with a leaden tinge\nfrom the solid cloud-bank overhead. The river was leaden; all distances\nthe same; and even the far-reaching ranks of combing white-caps were\ndully shaded by the dark, rich atmosphere through which their swarming\nlegions marched. The thunder-peals were constant and deafening;\nexplosion followed explosion with but inconsequential intervals between,\nand the reports grew steadily sharper and higher-keyed, and more trying\nto the ear; the lightning was as diligent as the thunder, and produced\neffects which enchanted the eye and sent electric ecstasies of mixed\ndelight and apprehension shivering along every nerve in the body in\nunintermittent procession. The rain poured down in amazing volume; the\near-splitting thunder-peals broke nearer and nearer; the wind increased\nin fury and began to wrench off boughs and tree-tops and send them\nsailing away through space; the pilot-house fell to rocking and\nstraining and cracking and surging, and I went down in the hold to see\nwhat time it was.\n\nPeople boast a good deal about Alpine thunderstorms; but the storms\nwhich I have had the luck to see in the Alps were not the equals of some\nwhich I have seen in the Mississippi Valley. I may not have seen the\nAlps do their best, of course, and if they can beat the Mississippi, I\ndon't wish to.\n\nOn this up trip I saw a little towhead (infant island) half a mile long,\nwhich had been formed during the past nineteen years. Since there was\nso much time to spare that nineteen years of it could be devoted to\nthe construction of a mere towhead, where was the use, originally, in\nrushing this whole globe through in six days? It is likely that if more\ntime had been taken, in the first place, the world would have been made\nright, and this ceaseless improving and repairing would not be necessary\nnow. But if you hurry a world or a house, you are nearly sure to find\nout by and by that you have left out a towhead, or a broom-closet,\nor some other little convenience, here and there, which has got to be\nsupplied, no matter how much expense and vexation it may cost.\n\nWe had a succession of black nights, going up the river, and it was\nobservable that whenever we landed, and suddenly inundated the trees\nwith the intense sunburst of the electric light, a certain curious\neffect was always produced: hundreds of birds flocked instantly out\nfrom the masses of shining green foliage, and went careering hither and\nthither through the white rays, and often a song-bird tuned up and fell\nto singing. We judged that they mistook this superb artificial day\nfor the genuine article. We had a delightful trip in that thoroughly\nwell-ordered steamer, and regretted that it was accomplished so\nspeedily. By means of diligence and activity, we managed to hunt out\nnearly all the old friends. One was missing, however; he went to his\nreward, whatever it was, two years ago. But I found out all about him.\nHis case helped me to realize how lasting can be the effect of a\nvery trifling occurrence. When he was an apprentice-blacksmith in our\nvillage, and I a schoolboy, a couple of young Englishmen came to the\ntown and sojourned a while; and one day they got themselves up in cheap\nroyal finery and did the Richard III swordfight with maniac energy and\nprodigious powwow, in the presence of the village boys. This blacksmith\ncub was there, and the histrionic poison entered his bones. This\nvast, lumbering, ignorant, dull-witted lout was stage-struck, and\nirrecoverably. He disappeared, and presently turned up in St. Louis.\nI ran across him there, by and by. He was standing musing on a street\ncorner, with his left hand on his hip, the thumb of his right supporting\nhis chin, face bowed and frowning, slouch hat pulled down over his\nforehead--imagining himself to be Othello or some such character, and\nimagining that the passing crowd marked his tragic bearing and were\nawestruck.\n\nI joined him, and tried to get him down out of the clouds, but did not\nsucceed. However, he casually informed me, presently, that he was a\nmember of the Walnut Street theater company--and he tried to say it with\nindifference, but the indifference was thin, and a mighty exultation\nshowed through it. He said he was cast for a part in Julius Caesar, for\nthat night, and if I should come I would see him. _If_ I should come! I\nsaid I wouldn't miss it if I were dead.\n\nI went away stupefied with astonishment, and saying to myself, 'How\nstrange it is! _We_ always thought this fellow a fool; yet the moment he\ncomes to a great city, where intelligence and appreciation abound,\nthe talent concealed in this shabby napkin is at once discovered, and\npromptly welcomed and honored.'\n\nBut I came away from the theater that night disappointed and offended;\nfor I had had no glimpse of my hero, and his name was not in the bills.\nI met him on the street the next morning, and before I could speak, he\nasked--\n\n'Did you see me?'\n\n'No, you weren't there.'\n\nHe looked surprised and disappointed. He said--\n\n'Yes, I was. Indeed I was. I was a Roman soldier.'\n\n'Which one?'\n\n'Why didn't you see them Roman soldiers that stood back there in a rank,\nand sometimes marched in procession around the stage?'\n\n'Do you mean the Roman army?--those six sandaled roustabouts in\nnightshirts, with tin shields and helmets, that marched around treading\non each other's heels, in charge of a spider-legged consumptive dressed\nlike themselves?'\n\n'That's it! that's it! I was one of them Roman soldiers. I was the next\nto the last one. A half a year ago I used to always be the last one; but\nI've been promoted.'\n\nWell, they told me that that poor fellow remained a Roman soldier to\nthe last--a matter of thirty-four years. Sometimes they cast him for a\n'speaking part,' but not an elaborate one. He could be trusted to go\nand say, 'My lord, the carriage waits,' but if they ventured to add a\nsentence or two to this, his memory felt the strain and he was likely to\nmiss fire. Yet, poor devil, he had been patiently studying the part of\nHamlet for more than thirty years, and he lived and died in the belief\nthat some day he would be invited to play it!\n\nAnd this is what came of that fleeting visit of those young Englishmen\nto our village such ages and ages ago! What noble horseshoes this man\nmight have made, but for those Englishmen; and what an inadequate Roman\nsoldier he _did _make!\n\nA day or two after we reached St. Louis, I was walking along Fourth\nStreet when a grizzly-headed man gave a sort of start as he passed me,\nthen stopped, came back, inspected me narrowly, with a clouding brow,\nand finally said with deep asperity--\n\n'Look here, _have you got that drink yet?_'\n\nA maniac, I judged, at first. But all in a flash I recognized him. I\nmade an effort to blush that strained every muscle in me, and answered\nas sweetly and winningly as ever I knew how--\n\n'Been a little slow, but am just this minute closing in on the place\nwhere they keep it. Come in and help.'\n\nHe softened, and said make it a bottle of champagne and he was\nagreeable. He said he had seen my name in the papers, and had put all\nhis affairs aside and turned out, resolved to find me or die; and make\nme answer that question satisfactorily, or kill me; though the most of\nhis late asperity had been rather counterfeit than otherwise.\n\nThis meeting brought back to me the St. Louis riots of about thirty\nyears ago. I spent a week there, at that time, in a boarding-house, and\nhad this young fellow for a neighbor across the hall. We saw some of\nthe fightings and killings; and by and by we went one night to an armory\nwhere two hundred young men had met, upon call, to be armed and go forth\nagainst the rioters, under command of a military man. We drilled till\nabout ten o'clock at night; then news came that the mob were in great\nforce in the lower end of the town, and were sweeping everything before\nthem. Our column moved at once. It was a very hot night, and my musket\nwas very heavy. We marched and marched; and the nearer we approached the\nseat of war, the hotter I grew and the thirstier I got. I was behind my\nfriend; so, finally, I asked him to hold my musket while I dropped out\nand got a drink. Then I branched off and went home. I was not feeling\nany solicitude about him of course, because I knew he was so well armed,\nnow, that he could take care of himself without any trouble. If I had\nhad any doubts about that, I would have borrowed another musket for him.\nI left the city pretty early the next morning, and if this grizzled man\nhad not happened to encounter my name in the papers the other day in St.\nLouis, and felt moved to seek me out, I should have carried to my grave\na heart-torturing uncertainty as to whether he ever got out of the riots\nall right or not. I ought to have inquired, thirty years ago; I know\nthat. And I would have inquired, if I had had the muskets; but, in the\ncircumstances, he seemed better fixed to conduct the investigations than\nI was.\n\nOne Monday, near the time of our visit to St. Louis, the\n'Globe-Democrat' came out with a couple of pages of Sunday statistics,\nwhereby it appeared that 119,448 St. Louis people attended the morning\nand evening church services the day before, and 23,102 children attended\nSunday-school. Thus 142,550 persons, out of the city's total of 400,000\npopulation, respected the day religious-wise. I found these statistics,\nin a condensed form, in a telegram of the Associated Press, and\npreserved them. They made it apparent that St. Louis was in a higher\nstate of grace than she could have claimed to be in my time. But now\nthat I canvass the figures narrowly, I suspect that the telegraph\nmutilated them. It cannot be that there are more than 150,000 Catholics\nin the town; the other 250,000 must be classified as Protestants. Out\nof these 250,000, according to this questionable telegram, only 26,362\nattended church and Sunday-school, while out of the 150,000 Catholics,\n116,188 went to church and Sunday-school.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 52\n\nA Burning Brand\n\n_All _at once the thought came into my mind, 'I have not sought out Mr.\nBrown.'\n\nUpon that text I desire to depart from the direct line of my subject,\nand make a little excursion. I wish to reveal a secret which I have\ncarried with me nine years, and which has become burdensome.\n\nUpon a certain occasion, nine years ago, I had said, with strong\nfeeling, 'If ever I see St. Louis again, I will seek out Mr. Brown, the\ngreat grain merchant, and ask of him the privilege of shaking him by the\nhand.'\n\nThe occasion and the circumstances were as follows. A friend of mine, a\nclergyman, came one evening and said--\n\n'I have a most remarkable letter here, which I want to read to you, if\nI can do it without breaking down. I must preface it with some\nexplanations, however. The letter is written by an ex-thief and\nex-vagabond of the lowest origin and basest rearing, a man all stained\nwith crime and steeped in ignorance; but, thank God, with a mine of pure\ngold hidden away in him, as you shall see. His letter is written to a\nburglar named Williams, who is serving a nine-year term in a certain\nState prison, for burglary. Williams was a particularly daring burglar,\nand plied that trade during a number of years; but he was caught at last\nand jailed, to await trial in a town where he had broken into a house at\nnight, pistol in hand, and forced the owner to hand over to him $8,000\nin government bonds. Williams was not a common sort of person, by\nany means; he was a graduate of Harvard College, and came of good New\nEngland stock. His father was a clergyman. While lying in jail, his\nhealth began to fail, and he was threatened with consumption. This\nfact, together with the opportunity for reflection afforded by solitary\nconfinement, had its effect--its natural effect. He fell into serious\nthought; his early training asserted itself with power, and wrought with\nstrong influence upon his mind and heart. He put his old life behind\nhim, and became an earnest Christian. Some ladies in the town heard of\nthis, visited him, and by their encouraging words supported him in his\ngood resolutions and strengthened him to continue in his new life. The\ntrial ended in his conviction and sentence to the State prison for\nthe term of nine years, as I have before said. In the prison he became\nacquainted with the poor wretch referred to in the beginning of my talk,\nJack Hunt, the writer of the letter which I am going to read. You will\nsee that the acquaintanceship bore fruit for Hunt. When Hunt's time was\nout, he wandered to St. Louis; and from that place he wrote his letter\nto Williams. The letter got no further than the office of the prison\nwarden, of course; prisoners are not often allowed to receive letters\nfrom outside. The prison authorities read this letter, but did not\ndestroy it. They had not the heart to do it. They read it to several\npersons, and eventually it fell into the hands of those ladies of whom I\nspoke a while ago. The other day I came across an old friend of mine--a\nclergyman--who had seen this letter, and was full of it. The mere\nremembrance of it so moved him that he could not talk of it without\nhis voice breaking. He promised to get a copy of it for me; and here it\nis--an exact copy, with all the imperfections of the original preserved.\nIt has many slang expressions in it--thieves' argot--but their meaning\nhas been interlined, in parentheses, by the prison authorities'--\n\nSt. Louis, June 9th 1872.\n\nMr. W---- friend Charlie if i may call you so: i no you are surprised to\nget a letter from me, but i hope you won't be mad at my writing to you.\ni want to tell you my thanks for the way you talked to me when i was in\nprison--it has led me to try and be a better man; i guess you thought\ni did not cair for what you said, & at the first go off I didn't, but i\nnoed you was a man who had don big work with good men & want no sucker,\nnor want gasing & all the boys knod it.\n\nI used to think at nite what you said, & for it i nocked off swearing\nmonths before my time was up, for i saw it want no good, nohow--the day\nmy time was up you told me if i would shake the cross (_quit stealing_)\n& live on the square for months, it would be the best job i ever done\nin my life. The state agent give me a ticket to here, & on the car i\nthought more of what you said to me, but didn't make up my mind. When\nwe got to Chicago on the cars from there to here, I pulled off an old\nwoman's leather;\n\n(_Robbed her of her pocketbook_) i hadn't no more than got it off when i\nwished i hadn't done it, for awhile before that i made up my mind to be\na square bloke, for months on your word, but forgot it when i saw the\nleather was a grip (_easy to get_)--but i kept clos to her & when she\ngot out of the cars at a way place i said, marm have you lost anything.\n& she tumbled (_discovered_) her leather was off (_gone_)--is this\nit says i, giving it to her--well if you aint honest, says she, but i\nhadn't got cheak enough to stand that sort of talk, so i left her in a\nhurry. When i got here i had $1 and 25 cents left & i didn't get no work\nfor 3 days as i aint strong enough for roust about on a steam bote (_for\na deck hand_)--The afternoon of the 3rd day I spent my last 10 cts for\nmoons (_large, round sea-biscuit_) & cheese & i felt pretty rough & was\nthinking i would have to go on the dipe (_picking pockets_) again, when\ni thought of what you once said about a fellows calling on the Lord when\nhe was in hard luck, & i thought i would try it once anyhow, but when i\ntryed it i got stuck on the start, & all i could get off wos, Lord give\na poor fellow a chance to square it for 3 months for Christ's sake,\namen; & i kept a thinking, of it over and over as i went along--about an\nhour after that i was in 4th St. & this is what happened & is the cause\nof my being where i am now & about which i will tell you before i get\ndone writing. As i was walking along herd a big noise & saw a horse\nrunning away with a carriage with 2 children in it, & I grabed up a\npeace of box cover from the side walk & run in the middle of the street,\n& when the horse came up i smashed him over the head as hard as i could\ndrive--the bord split to peces & the horse checked up a little &\nI grabbed the reigns & pulled his head down until he stopped--the\ngentleman what owned him came running up & soon as he saw the children\nwere all rite, he shook hands with me and gave me a $50 green back, & my\nasking the Lord to help me come into my head, & i was so thunderstruck i\ncouldn't drop the reigns nor say nothing--he saw something was up, &\n\ncoming back to me said, my boy are you hurt? & the thought come into my\nhead just then to ask him for work; & i asked him to take back the bill\nand give me a job--says he, jump in here & lets talk about it, but keep\nthe money--he asked me if i could take care of horses & i said yes, for\ni used to hang round livery stables & often would help clean & drive\nhorses, he told me he wanted a man for that work, & would give me $16\na month & bord me. You bet i took that chance at once. that nite in my\nlittle room over the stable i sat a long time thinking over my past life\n& of what had just happened & i just got down on my nees & thanked the\nLord for the job & to help me to square it, & to bless you for putting\nme up to it, & the next morning i done it again & got me some new togs\n(clothes) & a bible for i made up my mind after what the Lord had done\nfor me i would read the bible every nite and morning, & ask him to keep\nan eye on me. When I had been there about a week Mr. Brown (that's his\nname) came in my room one nite and saw me reading the bible--he asked me\nif i was a Christian & i told him no--he asked me how it was i read the\nbible instead of papers & books--Well Charlie i thought i had better\ngive him a square deal in the start, so i told him all about my being in\nprison & about you, & how i had almost done give up looking for work &\nhow the Lord got me the job when I asked him; & the only way i had to\npay him back was to read the bible & square it, & i asked him to give me\na chance for 3 months--he talked to me like a father for a long time,\n& told me i could stay & then i felt better than ever i had done in my\nlife, for i had given Mr. Brown a fair start with me & now i didn't fear\nno one giving me a back cap (_exposing his past life_) & running me\noff the job--the next morning he called me into the library & gave me\nanother square talk, & advised me to study some every day, & he would\nhelp me one or 2 hours every nite, & he gave me a Arithmetic, a spelling\nbook, a Geography & a writing book, & he hers me every nite--he lets me\ncome into the house to prayers every morning, & got me put in a bible\nclass in the Sunday School which i likes very much for it helps me to\nunderstand my bible better.\n\nNow, Charlie the 3 months on the square are up 2 months ago, & as you\nsaid, it is the best job i ever did in my life, & i commenced another\nof the same sort right away, only it is to God helping me to last a\nlifetime Charlie--i wrote this letter to tell you I do think God has\nforgiven my sins & herd your prayers, for you told me you should pray\nfor me--i no i love to read his word & tell him all my troubles & he\nhelps me i know for i have plenty of chances to steal but i don't feel\nto as i once did & now i take more pleasure in going to church than to\nthe theater & that wasnt so once--our minister and others often talk\nwith me & a month ago they wanted me to join the church, but I said no,\nnot now, i may be mistaken in my feelings, i will wait awhile, but now\ni feel that God has called me & on the first Sunday in July i will join\nthe church--dear friend i wish i could write to you as i feel, but i\ncant do it yet--you no i learned to read and write while prisons & i\naint got well enough along to write as i would talk; i no i aint spelled\nall the words rite in this & lots of other mistakes but you will excuse\nit i no, for you no i was brought up in a poor house until i run away, &\nthat i never new who my father and mother was & i dont no my right name,\n& i hope you wont be mad at me, but i have as much rite to one name as\nanother & i have taken your name, for you wont use it when you get out\ni no, & you are the man i think most of in the world; so i hope you wont\nbe mad--I am doing well, i put $10 a month in bank with $25 of the $50--\nif you ever want any or all of it let me know, & it is yours. i wish\nyou would let me send you some now. I send you with this a receipt for\na year of Littles Living Age, i didn't know what you would like & i told\nMr. Brown & he said he thought you would like it--i wish i was nere you\nso i could send you chuck (_refreshments_) on holidays; it would spoil\nthis weather from here, but i will send you a box next thanksgiving any\nway--next week Mr. Brown takes me into his store as lite porter & will\nadvance me as soon as i know a little more--he keeps a big granary\nstore, wholesale--i forgot to tell you of my mission school, sunday\nschool class--the school is in the sunday afternoon, i went out two\nsunday afternoons, and picked up seven kids (_little boys_) & got them\nto come in. two of them new as much as i did & i had them put in a class\nwhere they could learn something. i dont no much myself, but as these\nkids cant read i get on nicely with them. i make sure of them by going\nafter them every Sunday hour before school time, I also got 4 girls\nto come. tell Mack and Harry about me, if they will come out here when\ntheir time is up i will get them jobs at once. i hope you will excuse\nthis long letter & all mistakes, i wish i could see you for i cant write\nas i would talk--i hope the warm weather is doing your lungs good--i was\nafraid when you was bleeding you would die--give my respects to all the\nboys and tell them how i am doing--i am doing well and every one here\ntreats me as kind as they can--Mr. Brown is going to write to you\nsometime--i hope some day you will write to me, this letter is from your\nvery true friend\n\nC---- W----\n\nwho you know as Jack Hunt.\n\nI send you Mr. Brown's card. Send my letter to him.\n\nHere was true eloquence; irresistible eloquence; and without a single\ngrace or ornament to help it out. I have seldom been so deeply stirred\nby any piece of writing. The reader of it halted, all the way through,\non a lame and broken voice; yet he had tried to fortify his feelings\nby several private readings of the letter before venturing into company\nwith it. He was practising upon me to see if there was any hope of his\nbeing able to read the document to his prayer-meeting with anything\nlike a decent command over his feelings. The result was not promising.\nHowever, he determined to risk it; and did. He got through tolerably\nwell; but his audience broke down early, and stayed in that condition to\nthe end.\n\nThe fame of the letter spread through the town. A brother minister came\nand borrowed the manuscript, put it bodily into a sermon, preached the\nsermon to twelve hundred people on a Sunday morning, and the letter\ndrowned them in their own tears. Then my friend put it into a sermon and\nwent before his Sunday morning congregation with it. It scored another\ntriumph. The house wept as one individual.\n\nMy friend went on summer vacation up into the fishing regions of our\nnorthern British neighbors, and carried this sermon with him, since he\nmight possibly chance to need a sermon. He was asked to preach, one day.\nThe little church was full. Among the people present were the late Dr.\nJ. G. Holland, the late Mr. Seymour of the 'New York Times,' Mr. Page,\nthe philanthropist and temperance advocate, and, I think, Senator Frye,\nof Maine. The marvelous letter did its wonted work; all the people were\nmoved, all the people wept; the tears flowed in a steady stream down Dr.\nHolland's cheeks, and nearly the same can be said with regard to all who\nwere there. Mr. Page was so full of enthusiasm over the letter that he\nsaid he would not rest until he made pilgrimage to that prison, and had\nspeech with the man who had been able to inspire a fellow-unfortunate to\nwrite so priceless a tract.\n\nAh, that unlucky Page!--and another man. If they had only been in\nJericho, that letter would have rung through the world and stirred all\nthe hearts of all the nations for a thousand years to come, and nobody\nmight ever have found out that it was the confoundedest, brazenest,\ningeniousest piece of fraud and humbuggery that was ever concocted to\nfool poor confiding mortals with!\n\nThe letter was a pure swindle, and that is the truth. And take it by and\nlarge, it was without a compeer among swindles. It was perfect, it was\nrounded, symmetrical, complete, colossal!\n\nThe reader learns it at this point; but we didn't learn it till some\nmiles and weeks beyond this stage of the affair. My friend came back\nfrom the woods, and he and other clergymen and lay missionaries began\nonce more to inundate audiences with their tears and the tears of\nsaid audiences; I begged hard for permission to print the letter in a\nmagazine and tell the watery story of its triumphs; numbers of people\ngot copies of the letter, with permission to circulate them in writing,\nbut not in print; copies were sent to the Sandwich Islands and other far\nregions.\n\nCharles Dudley Warner was at church, one day, when the worn letter\nwas read and wept over. At the church door, afterward, he dropped a\npeculiarly cold iceberg down the clergyman's back with the question--\n\n'Do you know that letter to be genuine?'\n\nIt was the first suspicion that had ever been voiced; but it had that\nsickening effect which first-uttered suspicions against one's idol\nalways have. Some talk followed--\n\n'Why--what should make you suspect that it isn't genuine?'\n\n'Nothing that I know of, except that it is too neat, and compact, and\nfluent, and nicely put together for an ignorant person, an unpractised\nhand. I think it was done by an educated man.'\n\nThe literary artist had detected the literary machinery. If you will\nlook at the letter now, you will detect it yourself--it is observable in\nevery line.\n\nStraightway the clergyman went off, with this seed of suspicion\nsprouting in him, and wrote to a minister residing in that town where\nWilliams had been jailed and converted; asked for light; and also asked\nif a person in the literary line (meaning me) might be allowed to print\nthe letter and tell its history. He presently received this answer--\n\nRev.--------\n\nMY dear friend,--In regard to that 'convict's letter' there can be no\ndoubt as to its genuineness. 'Williams,' to whom it was written, lay in\nour jail and professed to have been converted, and Rev. Mr.----, the\nchaplain, had great faith in the genuineness of the change--as much as\none can have in any such case.\n\nThe letter was sent to one of our ladies, who is a Sunday-school\nteacher,--sent either by Williams himself, or the chaplain of the\nState's prison, probably. She has been greatly annoyed in having so much\npublicity, lest it might seem a breach of confidence, or be an injury to\nWilliams. In regard to its publication, I can give no permission; though\nif the names and places were omitted, and especially if sent out of the\ncountry, I think you might take the responsibility and do it.\n\nIt is a wonderful letter, which no Christian genius, much less one\nunsanctified, could ever have written. As showing the work of grace in\na human heart, and in a very degraded and wicked one, it proves its own\norigin and reproves our weak faith in its power to cope with any form of\nwickedness.\n\n'Mr. Brown' of St. Louis, some one said, was a Hartford man. Do all whom\nyou send from Hartford serve their Master as well?\n\nP.S.--Williams is still in the State's prison, serving out a long\nsentence--of nine years, I think. He has been sick and threatened with\nconsumption, but I have not inquired after him lately. This lady that I\nspeak of corresponds with him, I presume, and will be quite sure to look\nafter him.\n\nThis letter arrived a few days after it was written--and up went Mr.\nWilliams's stock again. Mr. Warner's low-down suspicion was laid in the\ncold, cold grave, where it apparently belonged. It was a suspicion\nbased upon mere internal evidence, anyway; and when you come to internal\nevidence, it's a big field and a game that two can play at: as witness\nthis other internal evidence, discovered by the writer of the note above\nquoted, that 'it is a wonderful letter--which no Christian genius, much\nless one unsanctified, could ever have written.'\n\nI had permission now to print--provided I suppressed names and places\nand sent my narrative out of the country. So I chose an Australian\nmagazine for vehicle, as being far enough out of the country, and set\nmyself to work on my article. And the ministers set the pumps going\nagain, with the letter to work the handles.\n\nBut meantime Brother Page had been agitating. He had not visited the\npenitentiary, but he had sent a copy of the illustrious letter to\nthe chaplain of that institution, and accompanied it with--apparently\ninquiries. He got an answer, dated four days later than that other\nBrother's reassuring epistle; and before my article was complete, it\nwandered into my hands. The original is before me, now, and I here\nappend it. It is pretty well loaded with internal evidence of the most\nsolid description--\n\nSTATE'S PRISON, CHAPLAIN'S OFFICE, July 11, 1873.\n\n_Dear Bro. Page_,--Herewith please find the letter kindly loaned me.\nI am afraid its genuineness cannot be established. It purports to be\naddressed to some prisoner here. No such letter ever came to a prisoner\nhere. All letters received are carefully read by officers of the prison\nbefore they go into the hands of the convicts, and any such letter could\nnot be forgotten. Again, Charles Williams is not a Christian man, but a\ndissolute, cunning prodigal, whose father is a minister of the gospel.\nHis name is an assumed one. I am glad to have made your acquaintance.\nI am preparing a lecture upon life seen through prison bars, and should\nlike to deliver the same in your vicinity.\n\nAnd so ended that little drama. My poor article went into the fire;\nfor whereas the materials for it were now more abundant and infinitely\nricher than they had previously been, there were parties all around\nme, who, although longing for the publication before, were a unit\nfor suppression at this stage and complexion of the game. They said:\n'Wait--the wound is too fresh, yet.' All the copies of the famous\nletter except mine disappeared suddenly; and from that time onward, the\naforetime same old drought set in in the churches. As a rule, the town\nwas on a spacious grin for a while, but there were places in it where\nthe grin did not appear, and where it was dangerous to refer to the\nex-convict's letter.\n\nA word of explanation. 'Jack Hunt,' the professed writer of the letter,\nwas an imaginary person. The burglar Williams--Harvard graduate, son of\na minister--wrote the letter himself, to himself: got it smuggled out of\nthe prison; got it conveyed to persons who had supported and encouraged\nhim in his conversion--where he knew two things would happen: the\ngenuineness of the letter would not be doubted or inquired into; and the\nnub of it would be noticed, and would have valuable effect--the effect,\nindeed, of starting a movement to get Mr. Williams pardoned out of\nprison.\n\nThat 'nub' is so ingeniously, so casually, flung in, and immediately\nleft there in the tail of the letter, undwelt upon, that an indifferent\nreader would never suspect that it was the heart and core of the\nepistle, if he even took note of it at all, This is the 'nub'--\n\n'i hope the warm weather is doing your lungs good--_I was afraid when\nyou was bleeding you would die_--give my respects,' etc.\n\nThat is all there is of it--simply touch and go--no dwelling upon it.\nNevertheless it was intended for an eye that would be swift to see it;\nand it was meant to move a kind heart to try to effect the liberation\nof a poor reformed and purified fellow lying in the fell grip of\nconsumption.\n\nWhen I for the first time heard that letter read, nine years ago, I felt\nthat it was the most remarkable one I had ever encountered. And it\nso warmed me toward Mr. Brown of St. Louis that I said that if ever I\nvisited that city again, I would seek out that excellent man and kiss\nthe hem of his garment if it was a new one. Well, I visited St. Louis,\nbut I did not hunt for Mr. Brown; for, alas! the investigations of long\nago had proved that the benevolent Brown, like 'Jack Hunt,' was not a\nreal person, but a sheer invention of that gifted rascal, Williams--\nburglar, Harvard graduate, son of a clergyman.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 53\n\nMy Boyhood's Home\n\nWE took passage in one of the fast boats of the St. Louis and St. Paul\nPacket Company, and started up the river.\n\nWhen I, as a boy, first saw the mouth of the Missouri River, it was\ntwenty-two or twenty-three miles above St. Louis, according to the\nestimate of pilots; the wear and tear of the banks have moved it down\neight miles since then; and the pilots say that within five years the\nriver will cut through and move the mouth down five miles more, which\nwill bring it within ten miles of St. Louis.\n\nAbout nightfall we passed the large and flourishing town of Alton,\nIllinois; and before daylight next morning the town of Louisiana,\nMissouri, a sleepy village in my day, but a brisk railway center now;\nhowever, all the towns out there are railway centers now. I could not\nclearly recognize the place. This seemed odd to me, for when I retired\nfrom the rebel army in '61 I retired upon Louisiana in good order; at\nleast in good enough order for a person who had not yet learned how\nto retreat according to the rules of war, and had to trust to native\ngenius. It seemed to me that for a first attempt at a retreat it was not\nbadly done. I had done no advancing in all that campaign that was at all\nequal to it.\n\nThere was a railway bridge across the river here well sprinkled with\nglowing lights, and a very beautiful sight it was.\n\nAt seven in the morning we reached Hannibal, Missouri, where my boyhood\nwas spent. I had had a glimpse of it fifteen years ago, and another\nglimpse six years earlier, but both were so brief that they hardly\ncounted. The only notion of the town that remained in my mind was the\nmemory of it as I had known it when I first quitted it twenty-nine\nyears ago. That picture of it was still as clear and vivid to me as a\nphotograph. I stepped ashore with the feeling of one who returns out of\na dead-and-gone generation. I had a sort of realizing sense of what the\nBastille prisoners must have felt when they used to come out and look\nupon Paris after years of captivity, and note how curiously the familiar\nand the strange were mixed together before them. I saw the new houses--\nsaw them plainly enough--but they did not affect the older picture in\nmy mind, for through their solid bricks and mortar I saw the vanished\nhouses, which had formerly stood there, with perfect distinctness.\n\nIt was Sunday morning, and everybody was abed yet. So I passed through\nthe vacant streets, still seeing the town as it was, and not as it is,\nand recognizing and metaphorically shaking hands with a hundred familiar\nobjects which no longer exist; and finally climbed Holiday's Hill to get\na comprehensive view. The whole town lay spread out below me then, and I\ncould mark and fix every locality, every detail. Naturally, I was a good\ndeal moved. I said, 'Many of the people I once knew in this tranquil\nrefuge of my childhood are now in heaven; some, I trust, are in the\nother place.' The things about me and before me made me feel like a boy\nagain--convinced me that I was a boy again, and that I had simply been\ndreaming an unusually long dream; but my reflections spoiled all that;\nfor they forced me to say, 'I see fifty old houses down yonder, into\neach of which I could enter and find either a man or a woman who was a\nbaby or unborn when I noticed those houses last, or a grandmother who\nwas a plump young bride at that time.'\n\nFrom this vantage ground the extensive view up and down the river, and\nwide over the wooded expanses of Illinois, is very beautiful--one of the\nmost beautiful on the Mississippi, I think; which is a hazardous remark\nto make, for the eight hundred miles of river between St. Louis and St.\nPaul afford an unbroken succession of lovely pictures. It may be that\nmy affection for the one in question biases my judgment in its favor; I\ncannot say as to that. No matter, it was satisfyingly beautiful to me,\nand it had this advantage over all the other friends whom I was about\nto greet again: it had suffered no change; it was as young and fresh\nand comely and gracious as ever it had been; whereas, the faces of the\nothers would be old, and scarred with the campaigns of life, and marked\nwith their griefs and defeats, and would give me no upliftings of\nspirit.\n\nAn old gentleman, out on an early morning walk, came along, and we\ndiscussed the weather, and then drifted into other matters. I could not\nremember his face. He said he had been living here twenty-eight years.\nSo he had come after my time, and I had never seen him before. I asked\nhim various questions; first about a mate of mine in Sunday school--what\nbecame of him?\n\n'He graduated with honor in an Eastern college, wandered off into the\nworld somewhere, succeeded at nothing, passed out of knowledge and\nmemory years ago, and is supposed to have gone to the dogs.'\n\n'He was bright, and promised well when he was a boy.'\n\n'Yes, but the thing that happened is what became of it all.'\n\nI asked after another lad, altogether the brightest in our village\nschool when I was a boy.\n\n'He, too, was graduated with honors, from an Eastern college; but life\nwhipped him in every battle, straight along, and he died in one of the\nTerritories, years ago, a defeated man.'\n\nI asked after another of the bright boys.\n\n'He is a success, always has been, always will be, I think.'\n\nI inquired after a young fellow who came to the town to study for one of\nthe professions when I was a boy.\n\n'He went at something else before he got through--went from medicine to\nlaw, or from law to medicine--then to some other new thing; went away\nfor a year, came back with a young wife; fell to drinking, then to\ngambling behind the door; finally took his wife and two young children\nto her father's, and went off to Mexico; went from bad to worse, and\nfinally died there, without a cent to buy a shroud, and without a friend\nto attend the funeral.'\n\n'Pity, for he was the best-natured, and most cheery and hopeful young\nfellow that ever was.'\n\nI named another boy.\n\n'Oh, he is all right. Lives here yet; has a wife and children, and is\nprospering.'\n\nSame verdict concerning other boys.\n\nI named three school-girls.\n\n'The first two live here, are married and have children; the other is\nlong ago dead--never married.'\n\nI named, with emotion, one of my early sweethearts.\n\n'She is all right. Been married three times; buried two husbands,\ndivorced from the third, and I hear she is getting ready to marry an old\nfellow out in Colorado somewhere. She's got children scattered around\nhere and there, most everywheres.'\n\nThe answer to several other inquiries was brief and simple--\n\n'Killed in the war.'\n\nI named another boy.\n\n'Well, now, his case is curious! There wasn't a human being in this town\nbut knew that that boy was a perfect chucklehead; perfect dummy; just\na stupid ass, as you may say. Everybody knew it, and everybody said it.\nWell, if that very boy isn't the first lawyer in the State of Missouri\nto-day, I'm a Democrat!'\n\n'Is that so?'\n\n'It's actually so. I'm telling you the truth.'\n\n'How do you account for it?'\n\n'Account for it? There ain't any accounting for it, except that if you\nsend a damned fool to St. Louis, and you don't tell them he's a damned\nfool they'll never find it out. There's one thing sure--if I had a\ndamned fool I should know what to do with him: ship him to St. Louis--\nit's the noblest market in the world for that kind of property. Well,\nwhen you come to look at it all around, and chew at it and think it\nover, don't it just bang anything you ever heard of?'\n\n'Well, yes, it does seem to. But don't you think maybe it was the\nHannibal people who were mistaken about the boy, and not the St. Louis\npeople.'\n\n'Oh, nonsense! The people here have known him from the very cradle--\nthey knew him a hundred times better than the St. Louis idiots could\nhave known him. No, if you have got any damned fools that you want to\nrealize on, take my advice--send them to St. Louis.'\n\nI mentioned a great number of people whom I had formerly known. Some\nwere dead, some were gone away, some had prospered, some had come\nto naught; but as regarded a dozen or so of the lot, the answer was\ncomforting:\n\n'Prosperous--live here yet--town littered with their children.'\n\nI asked about Miss----.\n\nDied in the insane asylum three or four years ago--never was out of it\nfrom the time she went in; and was always suffering, too; never got a\nshred of her mind back.'\n\nIf he spoke the truth, here was a heavy tragedy, indeed. Thirty-six\nyears in a madhouse, that some young fools might have some fun! I was\na small boy, at the time; and I saw those giddy young ladies come\ntiptoeing into the room where Miss ---- sat reading at midnight by a\nlamp. The girl at the head of the file wore a shroud and a doughface,\nshe crept behind the victim, touched her on the shoulder, and she looked\nup and screamed, and then fell into convulsions. She did not recover\nfrom the fright, but went mad. In these days it seems incredible that\npeople believed in ghosts so short a time ago. But they did.\n\nAfter asking after such other folk as I could call to mind, I finally\ninquired about _myself_:\n\n'Oh, he succeeded well enough--another case of damned fool. If they'd\nsent him to St. Louis, he'd have succeeded sooner.'\n\nIt was with much satisfaction that I recognized the wisdom of having\ntold this candid gentleman, in the beginning, that my name was Smith.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 54\n\nPast and Present\n\nBeing left to myself, up there, I went on picking out old houses in the\ndistant town, and calling back their former inmates out of the moldy\npast. Among them I presently recognized the house of the father of Lem\nHackett (fictitious name). It carried me back more than a generation in\na moment, and landed me in the midst of a time when the happenings of\nlife were not the natural and logical results of great general laws,\nbut of special orders, and were freighted with very precise and distinct\npurposes--partly punitive in intent, partly admonitory; and usually\nlocal in application.\n\nWhen I was a small boy, Lem Hackett was drowned--on a Sunday. He fell\nout of an empty flat-boat, where he was playing. Being loaded with sin,\nhe went to the bottom like an anvil. He was the only boy in the village\nwho slept that night. We others all lay awake, repenting. We had not\nneeded the information, delivered from the pulpit that evening, that\nLem's was a case of special judgment--we knew that, already. There was\na ferocious thunder-storm, that night, and it raged continuously until\nnear dawn. The winds blew, the windows rattled, the rain swept along\nthe roof in pelting sheets, and at the briefest of intervals the inky\nblackness of the night vanished, the houses over the way glared out\nwhite and blinding for a quivering instant, then the solid darkness shut\ndown again and a splitting peal of thunder followed, which seemed to\nrend everything in the neighborhood to shreds and splinters. I sat up\nin bed quaking and shuddering, waiting for the destruction of the world,\nand expecting it. To me there was nothing strange or incongruous in\nheaven's making such an uproar about Lem Hackett. Apparently it was the\nright and proper thing to do. Not a doubt entered my mind that all the\nangels were grouped together, discussing this boy's case and observing\nthe awful bombardment of our beggarly little village with satisfaction\nand approval. There was one thing which disturbed me in the most serious\nway; that was the thought that this centering of the celestial interest\non our village could not fail to attract the attention of the observers\nto people among us who might otherwise have escaped notice for years.\nI felt that I was not only one of those people, but the very one most\nlikely to be discovered. That discovery could have but one result: I\nshould be in the fire with Lem before the chill of the river had been\nfairly warmed out of him. I knew that this would be only just and fair.\nI was increasing the chances against myself all the time, by feeling a\nsecret bitterness against Lem for having attracted this fatal attention\nto me, but I could not help it--this sinful thought persisted in\ninfesting my breast in spite of me. Every time the lightning glared\nI caught my breath, and judged I was gone. In my terror and misery, I\nmeanly began to suggest other boys, and mention acts of theirs which\nwere wickeder than mine, and peculiarly needed punishment--and I tried\nto pretend to myself that I was simply doing this in a casual way, and\nwithout intent to divert the heavenly attention to them for the purpose\nof getting rid of it myself. With deep sagacity I put these\nmentions into the form of sorrowing recollections and left-handed\nsham-supplications that the sins of those boys might be allowed to pass\nunnoticed--'Possibly they may repent.' 'It is true that Jim Smith broke\na window and lied about it--but maybe he did not mean any harm. And\nalthough Tom Holmes says more bad words than any other boy in the\nvillage, he probably intends to repent--though he has never said he\nwould. And whilst it is a fact that John Jones did fish a little on\nSunday, once, he didn't really catch anything but only just one small\nuseless mud-cat; and maybe that wouldn't have been so awful if he had\nthrown it back--as he says he did, but he didn't. Pity but they would\nrepent of these dreadful things--and maybe they will yet.'\n\nBut while I was shamefully trying to draw attention to these poor\nchaps--who were doubtless directing the celestial attention to me at the\nsame moment, though I never once suspected that--I had heedlessly\nleft my candle burning. It was not a time to neglect even trifling\nprecautions. There was no occasion to add anything to the facilities for\nattracting notice to me--so I put the light out.\n\nIt was a long night to me, and perhaps the most distressful one I\never spent. I endured agonies of remorse for sins which I knew I had\ncommitted, and for others which I was not certain about, yet was sure\nthat they had been set down against me in a book by an angel who was\nwiser than I and did not trust such important matters to memory.\nIt struck me, by and by, that I had been making a most foolish and\ncalamitous mistake, in one respect: doubtless I had not only made my\nown destruction sure by directing attention to those other boys, but had\nalready accomplished theirs!--Doubtless the lightning had stretched them\nall dead in their beds by this time! The anguish and the fright which\nthis thought gave me made my previous sufferings seem trifling by\ncomparison.\n\nThings had become truly serious. I resolved to turn over a new leaf\ninstantly; I also resolved to connect myself with the church the next\nday, if I survived to see its sun appear. I resolved to cease from sin\nin all its forms, and to lead a high and blameless life for ever after.\nI would be punctual at church and Sunday-school; visit the sick;\ncarry baskets of victuals to the poor (simply to fulfil the regulation\nconditions, although I knew we had none among us so poor but they would\nsmash the basket over my head for my pains); I would instruct other boys\nin right ways, and take the resulting trouncings meekly; I would subsist\nentirely on tracts; I would invade the rum shop and warn the drunkard--\nand finally, if I escaped the fate of those who early become too good to\nlive, I would go for a missionary.\n\nThe storm subsided toward daybreak, and I dozed gradually to sleep with\na sense of obligation to Lem Hackett for going to eternal suffering in\nthat abrupt way, and thus preventing a far more dreadful disaster--my\nown loss.\n\nBut when I rose refreshed, by and by, and found that those other boys\nwere still alive, I had a dim sense that perhaps the whole thing was\na false alarm; that the entire turmoil had been on Lem's account and\nnobody's else. The world looked so bright and safe that there did not\nseem to be any real occasion to turn over a new leaf. I was a little\nsubdued, during that day, and perhaps the next; after that, my purpose\nof reforming slowly dropped out of my mind, and I had a peaceful,\ncomfortable time again, until the next storm.\n\nThat storm came about three weeks later; and it was the most\nunaccountable one, to me, that I had ever experienced; for on the\nafternoon of that day, 'Dutchy' was drowned. Dutchy belonged to our\nSunday-school. He was a German lad who did not know enough to come in\nout of the rain; but he was exasperatingly good, and had a prodigious\nmemory. One Sunday he made himself the envy of all the youth and the\ntalk of all the admiring village, by reciting three thousand verses of\nScripture without missing a word; then he went off the very next day and\ngot drowned.\n\nCircumstances gave to his death a peculiar impressiveness. We were all\nbathing in a muddy creek which had a deep hole in it, and in this hole\nthe coopers had sunk a pile of green hickory hoop poles to soak, some\ntwelve feet under water. We were diving and 'seeing who could stay under\nlongest.' We managed to remain down by holding on to the hoop poles.\nDutchy made such a poor success of it that he was hailed with laughter\nand derision every time his head appeared above water. At last he seemed\nhurt with the taunts, and begged us to stand still on the bank and be\nfair with him and give him an honest count--'be friendly and kind just\nthis once, and not miscount for the sake of having the fun of laughing\nat him.' Treacherous winks were exchanged, and all said 'All right,\nDutchy--go ahead, we'll play fair.'\n\nDutchy plunged in, but the boys, instead of beginning to count, followed\nthe lead of one of their number and scampered to a range of blackberry\nbushes close by and hid behind it. They imagined Dutchy's humiliation,\nwhen he should rise after a superhuman effort and find the place silent\nand vacant, nobody there to applaud. They were 'so full of laugh' with\nthe idea, that they were continually exploding into muffled cackles.\nTime swept on, and presently one who was peeping through the briers,\nsaid, with surprise--\n\n'Why, he hasn't come up, yet!'\n\nThe laughing stopped.\n\n'Boys, it 's a splendid dive,' said one.\n\n'Never mind that,' said another, 'the joke on him is all the better for\nit.'\n\nThere was a remark or two more, and then a pause. Talking ceased, and\nall began to peer through the vines. Before long, the boys' faces\nbegan to look uneasy, then anxious, then terrified. Still there was no\nmovement of the placid water. Hearts began to beat fast, and faces\nto turn pale. We all glided out, silently, and stood on the bank, our\nhorrified eyes wandering back and forth from each other's countenances\nto the water.\n\n'Somebody must go down and see!'\n\nYes, that was plain; but nobody wanted that grisly task.\n\n'Draw straws!'\n\nSo we did--with hands which shook so, that we hardly knew what we were\nabout. The lot fell to me, and I went down. The water was so muddy I\ncould not see anything, but I felt around among the hoop poles, and\npresently grasped a limp wrist which gave me no response--and if it\nhad I should not have known it, I let it go with such a frightened\nsuddenness.\n\nThe boy had been caught among the hoop poles and entangled there,\nhelplessly. I fled to the surface and told the awful news. Some of\nus knew that if the boy were dragged out at once he might possibly\nbe resuscitated, but we never thought of that. We did not think of\nanything; we did not know what to do, so we did nothing--except that the\nsmaller lads cried, piteously, and we all struggled frantically into\nour clothes, putting on anybody's that came handy, and getting them\nwrong-side-out and upside-down, as a rule. Then we scurried away and\ngave the alarm, but none of us went back to see the end of the tragedy.\nWe had a more important thing to attend to: we all flew home, and lost\nnot a moment in getting ready to lead a better life.\n\nThe night presently closed down. Then came on that tremendous and\nutterly unaccountable storm. I was perfectly dazed; I could not\nunderstand it. It seemed to me that there must be some mistake. The\nelements were turned loose, and they rattled and banged and blazed away\nin the most blind and frantic manner. All heart and hope went out of\nme, and the dismal thought kept floating through my brain, 'If a boy who\nknows three thousand verses by heart is not satisfactory, what chance is\nthere for anybody else?'\n\nOf course I never questioned for a moment that the storm was on Dutchy's\naccount, or that he or any other inconsequential animal was worthy of\nsuch a majestic demonstration from on high; the lesson of it was the\nonly thing that troubled me; for it convinced me that if Dutchy, with\nall his perfections, was not a delight, it would be vain for me to turn\nover a new leaf, for I must infallibly fall hopelessly short of that\nboy, no matter how hard I might try. Nevertheless I did turn it over--a\nhighly educated fear compelled me to do that--but succeeding days of\ncheerfulness and sunshine came bothering around, and within a month\nI had so drifted backward that again I was as lost and comfortable as\never.\n\nBreakfast time approached while I mused these musings and called these\nancient happenings back to mind; so I got me back into the present and\nwent down the hill.\n\nOn my way through town to the hotel, I saw the house which was my home\nwhen I was a boy. At present rates, the people who now occupy it are of\nno more value than I am; but in my time they would have been worth not\nless than five hundred dollars apiece. They are colored folk.\n\nAfter breakfast, I went out alone again, intending to hunt up some of\nthe Sunday-schools and see how this generation of pupils might compare\nwith their progenitors who had sat with me in those places and had\nprobably taken me as a model--though I do not remember as to that now.\nBy the public square there had been in my day a shabby little brick\nchurch called the 'Old Ship of Zion,' which I had attended as a\nSunday-school scholar; and I found the locality easily enough, but not\nthe old church; it was gone, and a trig and rather hilarious new edifice\nwas in its place. The pupils were better dressed and better looking\nthan were those of my time; consequently they did not resemble their\nancestors; and consequently there was nothing familiar to me in their\nfaces. Still, I contemplated them with a deep interest and a yearning\nwistfulness, and if I had been a girl I would have cried; for they were\nthe offspring, and represented, and occupied the places, of boys and\ngirls some of whom I had loved to love, and some of whom I had loved to\nhate, but all of whom were dear to me for the one reason or the other,\nso many years gone by--and, Lord, where be they now!\n\nI was mightily stirred, and would have been grateful to be allowed to\nremain unmolested and look my fill; but a bald-summited superintendent\nwho had been a tow-headed Sunday-school mate of mine on that spot in the\nearly ages, recognized me, and I talked a flutter of wild nonsense to\nthose children to hide the thoughts which were in me, and which could\nnot have been spoken without a betrayal of feeling that would have been\nrecognized as out of character with me.\n\nMaking speeches without preparation is no gift of mine; and I was\nresolved to shirk any new opportunity, but in the next and larger\nSunday-school I found myself in the rear of the assemblage; so I was\nvery willing to go on the platform a moment for the sake of getting a\ngood look at the scholars. On the spur of the moment I could not recall\nany of the old idiotic talks which visitors used to insult me with when\nI was a pupil there; and I was sorry for this, since it would have given\nme time and excuse to dawdle there and take a long and satisfying look\nat what I feel at liberty to say was an array of fresh young comeliness\nnot matchable in another Sunday-school of the same size. As I talked\nmerely to get a chance to inspect; and as I strung out the random\nrubbish solely to prolong the inspection, I judged it but decent to\nconfess these low motives, and I did so.\n\nIf the Model Boy was in either of these Sunday-schools, I did not see\nhim. The Model Boy of my time--we never had but the one--was perfect:\nperfect in manners, perfect in dress, perfect in conduct, perfect in\nfilial piety, perfect in exterior godliness; but at bottom he was a\nprig; and as for the contents of his skull, they could have changed\nplace with the contents of a pie and nobody would have been the worse\noff for it but the pie. This fellow's reproachlessness was a standing\nreproach to every lad in the village. He was the admiration of all the\nmothers, and the detestation of all their sons. I was told what became\nof him, but as it was a disappointment to me, I will not enter into\ndetails. He succeeded in life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 55\n\nA Vendetta and Other Things\n\nDURING my three days' stay in the town, I woke up every morning with the\nimpression that I was a boy--for in my dreams the faces were all young\nagain, and looked as they had looked in the old times--but I went to bed\na hundred years old, every night--for meantime I had been seeing those\nfaces as they are now.\n\nOf course I suffered some surprises, along at first, before I had become\nadjusted to the changed state of things. I met young ladies who did not\nseem to have changed at all; but they turned out to be the daughters of\nthe young ladies I had in mind--sometimes their grand-daughters. When\nyou are told that a stranger of fifty is a grandmother, there is nothing\nsurprising about it; but if, on the contrary, she is a person whom you\nknew as a little girl, it seems impossible. You say to yourself, 'How\ncan a little girl be a grandmother.' It takes some little time to accept\nand realize the fact that while you have been growing old, your friends\nhave not been standing still, in that matter.\n\nI noticed that the greatest changes observable were with the women, not\nthe men. I saw men whom thirty years had changed but slightly; but their\nwives had grown old. These were good women; it is very wearing to be\ngood.\n\nThere was a saddler whom I wished to see; but he was gone. Dead, these\nmany years, they said. Once or twice a day, the saddler used to go\ntearing down the street, putting on his coat as he went; and then\neverybody knew a steamboat was coming. Everybody knew, also, that John\nStavely was not expecting anybody by the boat--or any freight, either;\nand Stavely must have known that everybody knew this, still it made no\ndifference to him; he liked to seem to himself to be expecting a hundred\nthousand tons of saddles by this boat, and so he went on all his life,\nenjoying being faithfully on hand to receive and receipt for those\nsaddles, in case by any miracle they should come. A malicious Quincy\npaper used always to refer to this town, in derision as 'Stavely's\nLanding.' Stavely was one of my earliest admirations; I envied him his\nrush of imaginary business, and the display he was able to make of it,\nbefore strangers, as he went flying down the street struggling with his\nfluttering coat.\n\nBut there was a carpenter who was my chiefest hero. He was a mighty\nliar, but I did not know that; I believed everything he said. He was a\nromantic, sentimental, melodramatic fraud, and his bearing impressed\nme with awe. I vividly remember the first time he took me into his\nconfidence. He was planing a board, and every now and then he would\npause and heave a deep sigh; and occasionally mutter broken sentences--\nconfused and not intelligible--but out of their midst an ejaculation\nsometimes escaped which made me shiver and did me good: one was, 'O God,\nit is his blood!' I sat on the tool-chest and humbly and shudderingly\nadmired him; for I judged he was full of crime. At last he said in a low\nvoice--\n\n'My little friend, can you keep a secret?'\n\nI eagerly said I could.\n\n'A dark and dreadful one?'\n\nI satisfied him on that point.\n\n'Then I will tell you some passages in my history; for oh, I _must\n_relieve my burdened soul, or I shall die!'\n\nHe cautioned me once more to be 'as silent as the grave;' then he told\nme he was a 'red-handed murderer.' He put down his plane, held his hands\nout before him, contemplated them sadly, and said--\n\n'Look--with these hands I have taken the lives of thirty human beings!'\n\nThe effect which this had upon me was an inspiration to him, and he\nturned himself loose upon his subject with interest and energy. He\nleft generalizing, and went into details,--began with his first murder;\ndescribed it, told what measures he had taken to avert suspicion; then\npassed to his second homicide, his third, his fourth, and so on. He had\nalways done his murders with a bowie-knife, and he made all my hairs\nrise by suddenly snatching it out and showing it to me.\n\nAt the end of this first seance I went home with six of his fearful\nsecrets among my freightage, and found them a great help to my dreams,\nwhich had been sluggish for a while back. I sought him again and again,\non my Saturday holidays; in fact I spent the summer with him--all of\nit which was valuable to me. His fascinations never diminished, for\nhe threw something fresh and stirring, in the way of horror, into each\nsuccessive murder. He always gave names, dates, places--everything. This\nby and by enabled me to note two things: that he had killed his victims\nin every quarter of the globe, and that these victims were always named\nLynch. The destruction of the Lynches went serenely on, Saturday after\nSaturday, until the original thirty had multiplied to sixty--and more to\nbe heard from yet; then my curiosity got the better of my timidity, and\nI asked how it happened that these justly punished persons all bore the\nsame name.\n\nMy hero said he had never divulged that dark secret to any living being;\nbut felt that he could trust me, and therefore he would lay bare before\nme the story of his sad and blighted life. He had loved one 'too fair\nfor earth,' and she had reciprocated 'with all the sweet affection of\nher pure and noble nature.' But he had a rival, a 'base hireling' named\nArchibald Lynch, who said the girl should be his, or he would 'dye his\nhands in her heart's best blood.' The carpenter, 'innocent and happy\nin love's young dream,' gave no weight to the threat, but led his\n'golden-haired darling to the altar,' and there, the two were made one;\nthere also, just as the minister's hands were stretched in blessing over\ntheir heads, the fell deed was done--with a knife--and the bride fell\na corpse at her husband's feet. And what did the husband do? He plucked\nforth that knife, and kneeling by the body of his lost one, swore to\n'consecrate his life to the extermination of all the human scum that\nbear the hated name of Lynch.'\n\nThat was it. He had been hunting down the Lynches and slaughtering\nthem, from that day to this--twenty years. He had always used that same\nconsecrated knife; with it he had murdered his long array of Lynches,\nand with it he had left upon the forehead of each victim a peculiar\nmark--a cross, deeply incised. Said he--\n\n'The cross of the Mysterious Avenger is known in Europe, in America,\nin China, in Siam, in the Tropics, in the Polar Seas, in the deserts of\nAsia, in all the earth. Wherever in the uttermost parts of the globe,\na Lynch has penetrated, there has the Mysterious Cross been seen, and\nthose who have seen it have shuddered and said, \"It is his mark, he has\nbeen here.\" You have heard of the Mysterious Avenger--look upon him, for\nbefore you stands no less a person! But beware--breathe not a word to\nany soul. Be silent, and wait. Some morning this town will flock aghast\nto view a gory corpse; on its brow will be seen the awful sign, and\nmen will tremble and whisper, \"He has been here--it is the Mysterious\nAvenger's mark!\" You will come here, but I shall have vanished; you will\nsee me no more.'\n\nThis ass had been reading the 'Jibbenainosay,' no doubt, and had had\nhis poor romantic head turned by it; but as I had not yet seen the book\nthen, I took his inventions for truth, and did not suspect that he was a\nplagiarist.\n\nHowever, we had a Lynch living in the town; and the more I reflected\nupon his impending doom, the more I could not sleep. It seemed my plain\nduty to save him, and a still plainer and more important duty to get\nsome sleep for myself, so at last I ventured to go to Mr. Lynch and tell\nhim what was about to happen to him--under strict secrecy. I advised him\nto 'fly,' and certainly expected him to do it. But he laughed at me; and\nhe did not stop there; he led me down to the carpenter's shop, gave the\ncarpenter a jeering and scornful lecture upon his silly pretensions,\nslapped his face, made him get down on his knees and beg--then went off\nand left me to contemplate the cheap and pitiful ruin of what, in my\neyes, had so lately been a majestic and incomparable hero.\n\nThe carpenter blustered, flourished his knife, and doomed this Lynch in\nhis usual volcanic style, the size of his fateful words undiminished;\nbut it was all wasted upon me; he was a hero to me no longer, but only\na poor, foolish, exposed humbug. I was ashamed of him, and ashamed of\nmyself; I took no further interest in him, and never went to his shop\nany more. He was a heavy loss to me, for he was the greatest hero I\nhad ever known. The fellow must have had some talent; for some of his\nimaginary murders were so vividly and dramatically described that I\nremember all their details yet.\n\nThe people of Hannibal are not more changed than is the town. It is\nno longer a village; it is a city, with a mayor, and a council, and\nwater-works, and probably a debt. It has fifteen thousand people, is a\nthriving and energetic place, and is paved like the rest of the west\nand south--where a well-paved street and a good sidewalk are things so\nseldom seen, that one doubts them when he does see them. The customary\nhalf-dozen railways center in Hannibal now, and there is a new depot\nwhich cost a hundred thousand dollars. In my time the town had no\nspecialty, and no commercial grandeur; the daily packet usually landed\na passenger and bought a catfish, and took away another passenger and a\nhatful of freight; but now a huge commerce in lumber has grown up and\na large miscellaneous commerce is one of the results. A deal of money\nchanges hands there now.\n\nBear Creek--so called, perhaps, because it was always so particularly\nbare of bears--is hidden out of sight now, under islands and continents\nof piled lumber, and nobody but an expert can find it. I used to get\ndrowned in it every summer regularly, and be drained out, and inflated\nand set going again by some chance enemy; but not enough of it is\nunoccupied now to drown a person in. It was a famous breeder of chills\nand fever in its day. I remember one summer when everybody in town had\nthis disease at once. Many chimneys were shaken down, and all the houses\nwere so racked that the town had to be rebuilt. The chasm or gorge\nbetween Lover's Leap and the hill west of it is supposed by scientists\nto have been caused by glacial action. This is a mistake.\n\nThere is an interesting cave a mile or two below Hannibal, among the\nbluffs. I would have liked to revisit it, but had not time. In my\ntime the person who then owned it turned it into a mausoleum for his\ndaughter, aged fourteen. The body of this poor child was put into a\ncopper cylinder filled with alcohol, and this was suspended in one of\nthe dismal avenues of the cave. The top of the cylinder was removable;\nand it was said to be a common thing for the baser order of tourists to\ndrag the dead face into view and examine it and comment upon it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 56\n\nA Question of Law\n\nTHE slaughter-house is gone from the mouth of Bear Creek and so is the\nsmall jail (or 'calaboose') which once stood in its neighborhood. A\ncitizen asked, 'Do you remember when Jimmy Finn, the town drunkard, was\nburned to death in the calaboose?'\n\nObserve, now, how history becomes defiled, through lapse of time and\nthe help of the bad memories of men. Jimmy Finn was not burned in the\ncalaboose, but died a natural death in a tan vat, of a combination of\ndelirium tremens and spontaneous combustion. When I say natural death, I\nmean it was a natural death for Jimmy Finn to die. The calaboose victim\nwas not a citizen; he was a poor stranger, a harmless whiskey-sodden\ntramp. I know more about his case than anybody else; I knew too much\nof it, in that bygone day, to relish speaking of it. That tramp was\nwandering about the streets one chilly evening, with a pipe in his\nmouth, and begging for a match; he got neither matches nor courtesy; on\nthe contrary, a troop of bad little boys followed him around and amused\nthemselves with nagging and annoying him. I assisted; but at last, some\nappeal which the wayfarer made for forbearance, accompanying it with a\npathetic reference to his forlorn and friendless condition, touched such\nsense of shame and remnant of right feeling as were left in me, and I\nwent away and got him some matches, and then hied me home and to bed,\nheavily weighted as to conscience, and unbuoyant in spirit. An hour or\ntwo afterward, the man was arrested and locked up in the calaboose by\nthe marshal--large name for a constable, but that was his title. At two\nin the morning, the church bells rang for fire, and everybody turned\nout, of course--I with the rest. The tramp had used his matches\ndisastrously: he had set his straw bed on fire, and the oaken sheathing\nof the room had caught. When I reached the ground, two hundred men,\nwomen, and children stood massed together, transfixed with horror, and\nstaring at the grated windows of the jail. Behind the iron bars, and\ntugging frantically at them, and screaming for help, stood the tramp; he\nseemed like a black object set against a sun, so white and intense was\nthe light at his back. That marshal could not be found, and he had the\nonly key. A battering-ram was quickly improvised, and the thunder of its\nblows upon the door had so encouraging a sound that the spectators broke\ninto wild cheering, and believed the merciful battle won. But it was not\nso. The timbers were too strong; they did not yield. It was said that\nthe man's death-grip still held fast to the bars after he was dead; and\nthat in this position the fires wrapped him about and consumed him. As\nto this, I do not know. What was seen after I recognized the face that\nwas pleading through the bars was seen by others, not by me.\n\nI saw that face, so situated, every night for a long time afterward; and\nI believed myself as guilty of the man's death as if I had given him the\nmatches purposely that he might burn himself up with them. I had not a\ndoubt that I should be hanged if my connection with this tragedy were\nfound out. The happenings and the impressions of that time are burnt\ninto my memory, and the study of them entertains me as much now as they\nthemselves distressed me then. If anybody spoke of that grisly matter,\nI was all ears in a moment, and alert to hear what might be said, for I\nwas always dreading and expecting to find out that I was suspected; and\nso fine and so delicate was the perception of my guilty conscience,\nthat it often detected suspicion in the most purposeless remarks, and in\nlooks, gestures, glances of the eye which had no significance, but which\nsent me shivering away in a panic of fright, just the same. And how sick\nit made me when somebody dropped, howsoever carelessly and barren of\nintent, the remark that 'murder will out!' For a boy of ten years, I was\ncarrying a pretty weighty cargo.\n\nAll this time I was blessedly forgetting one thing--the fact that I was\nan inveterate talker in my sleep. But one night I awoke and found my\nbed-mate--my younger brother--sitting up in bed and contemplating me by\nthe light of the moon. I said--\n\n'What is the matter?'\n\n'You talk so much I can't sleep.'\n\nI came to a sitting posture in an instant, with my kidneys in my throat\nand my hair on end.\n\n'What did I say. Quick--out with it--what did I say?'\n\n'Nothing much.'\n\n'It's a lie--you know everything.'\n\n'Everything about what?'\n\n'You know well enough. About _that_.'\n\n'About _what_?--I don't know what you are talking about. I think you are\nsick or crazy or something. But anyway, you're awake, and I'll get to\nsleep while I've got a chance.'\n\nHe fell asleep and I lay there in a cold sweat, turning this new terror\nover in the whirling chaos which did duty as my mind. The burden of\nmy thought was, How much did I divulge? How much does he know?--what a\ndistress is this uncertainty! But by and by I evolved an idea--I would\nwake my brother and probe him with a supposititious case. I shook him\nup, and said--\n\n'Suppose a man should come to you drunk--'\n\n'This is foolish--I never get drunk.'\n\n'I don't mean you, idiot--I mean the man. Suppose a _man _should come\nto you drunk, and borrow a knife, or a tomahawk, or a pistol, and you\nforgot to tell him it was loaded, and--'\n\n'How could you load a tomahawk?'\n\n'I don't mean the tomahawk, and I didn't say the tomahawk; I said\nthe pistol. Now don't you keep breaking in that way, because this is\nserious. There's been a man killed.'\n\n'What! in this town?'\n\n'Yes, in this town.'\n\n'Well, go on--I won't say a single word.'\n\n'Well, then, suppose you forgot to tell him to be careful with it,\nbecause it was loaded, and he went off and shot himself with that\npistol--fooling with it, you know, and probably doing it by accident,\nbeing drunk. Well, would it be murder?'\n\n'No--suicide.'\n\n'No, no. I don't mean _his _act, I mean yours: would you be a murderer\nfor letting him have that pistol?'\n\nAfter deep thought came this answer--\n\n'Well, I should think I was guilty of something--maybe murder--yes,\nprobably murder, but I don't quite know.'\n\nThis made me very uncomfortable. However, it was not a decisive verdict.\nI should have to set out the real case--there seemed to be no other\nway. But I would do it cautiously, and keep a watch out for suspicious\neffects. I said--\n\n'I was supposing a case, but I am coming to the real one now. Do you\nknow how the man came to be burned up in the calaboose?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'Haven't you the least idea?'\n\n'Not the least.'\n\n'Wish you may die in your tracks if you have?'\n\n'Yes, wish I may die in my tracks.'\n\n'Well, the way of it was this. The man wanted some matches to light his\npipe. A boy got him some. The man set fire to the calaboose with those\nvery matches, and burnt himself up.'\n\n'Is that so?'\n\n'Yes, it is. Now, is that boy a murderer, do you think?'\n\n'Let me see. The man was drunk?'\n\n'Yes, he was drunk.'\n\n'Very drunk?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'And the boy knew it?'\n\n'Yes, he knew it.'\n\nThere was a long pause. Then came this heavy verdict--\n\n'If the man was drunk, and the boy knew it, the boy murdered that man.\nThis is certain.'\n\nFaint, sickening sensations crept along all the fibers of my body, and\nI seemed to know how a person feels who hears his death sentence\npronounced from the bench. I waited to hear what my brother would say\nnext. I believed I knew what it would be, and I was right. He said--\n\n'I know the boy.'\n\nI had nothing to say; so I said nothing. I simply shuddered. Then he\nadded--\n\n'Yes, before you got half through telling about the thing, I knew\nperfectly well who the boy was; it was Ben Coontz!'\n\nI came out of my collapse as one who rises from the dead. I said, with\nadmiration--\n\n'Why, how in the world did you ever guess it?'\n\n'You told it in your sleep.'\n\nI said to myself, 'How splendid that is! This is a habit which must be\ncultivated.'\n\nMy brother rattled innocently on--\n\n'When you were talking in your sleep, you kept mumbling something about\n\"matches,\" which I couldn't make anything out of; but just now, when\nyou began to tell me about the man and the calaboose and the matches,\nI remembered that in your sleep you mentioned Ben Coontz two or three\ntimes; so I put this and that together, you see, and right away I knew\nit was Ben that burnt that man up.'\n\nI praised his sagacity effusively. Presently he asked--\n\n'Are you going to give him up to the law?'\n\n'No,' I said; 'I believe that this will be a lesson to him. I shall keep\nan eye on him, of course, for that is but right; but if he stops where\nhe is and reforms, it shall never be said that I betrayed him.'\n\n'How good you are!'\n\n'Well, I try to be. It is all a person can do in a world like this.'\n\nAnd now, my burden being shifted to other shoulders, my terrors soon\nfaded away.\n\nThe day before we left Hannibal, a curious thing fell under my\nnotice--the surprising spread which longitudinal time undergoes there.\nI learned it from one of the most unostentatious of men--the colored\ncoachman of a friend of mine, who lives three miles from town. He was\nto call for me at the Park Hotel at 7.30 P.M., and drive me out. But he\nmissed it considerably--did not arrive till ten. He excused himself by\nsaying--\n\n'De time is mos' an hour en a half slower in de country en what it is in\nde town; you'll be in plenty time, boss. Sometimes we shoves out early\nfor church, Sunday, en fetches up dah right plum in de middle er de\nsermon. Diffunce in de time. A body can't make no calculations 'bout\nit.'\n\nI had lost two hours and a half; but I had learned a fact worth four.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 57\n\nAn Archangel\n\nFROM St. Louis northward there are all the enlivening signs of the\npresence of active, energetic, intelligent, prosperous, practical\nnineteenth-century populations. The people don't dream, they work. The\nhappy result is manifest all around in the substantial outside aspect\nof things, and the suggestions of wholesome life and comfort that\neverywhere appear.\n\nQuincy is a notable example--a brisk, handsome, well-ordered city; and\nnow, as formerly, interested in art, letters, and other high things.\n\nBut Marion City is an exception. Marion City has gone backwards in\na most unaccountable way. This metropolis promised so well that the\nprojectors tacked 'city' to its name in the very beginning, with full\nconfidence; but it was bad prophecy. When I first saw Marion City,\nthirty-five years ago, it contained one street, and nearly or quite six\nhouses. It contains but one house now, and this one, in a state of ruin,\nis getting ready to follow the former five into the river. Doubtless\nMarion City was too near to Quincy. It had another disadvantage: it was\nsituated in a flat mud bottom, below high-water mark, whereas Quincy\nstands high up on the slope of a hill.\n\nIn the beginning Quincy had the aspect and ways of a model New England\ntown: and these she has yet: broad, clean streets, trim, neat dwellings\nand lawns, fine mansions, stately blocks of commercial buildings. And\nthere are ample fair-grounds, a well kept park, and many attractive\ndrives; library, reading-rooms, a couple of colleges, some handsome and\ncostly churches, and a grand court-house, with grounds which occupy a\nsquare. The population of the city is thirty thousand. There are some\nlarge factories here, and manufacturing, of many sorts, is done on a\ngreat scale.\n\nLa Grange and Canton are growing towns, but I missed Alexandria; was\ntold it was under water, but would come up to blow in the summer.\n\nKeokuk was easily recognizable. I lived there in 1857--an extraordinary\nyear there in real-estate matters. The 'boom' was something wonderful.\nEverybody bought, everybody sold--except widows and preachers; they\nalways hold on; and when the tide ebbs, they get left. Anything in the\nsemblance of a town lot, no matter how situated, was salable, and at a\nfigure which would still have been high if the ground had been sodded\nwith greenbacks.\n\nThe town has a population of fifteen thousand now, and is progressing\nwith a healthy growth. It was night, and we could not see details, for\nwhich we were sorry, for Keokuk has the reputation of being a beautiful\ncity. It was a pleasant one to live in long ago, and doubtless has\nadvanced, not retrograded, in that respect.\n\nA mighty work which was in progress there in my day is finished now.\nThis is the canal over the Rapids. It is eight miles long, three hundred\nfeet wide, and is in no place less than six feet deep. Its masonry is\nof the majestic kind which the War Department usually deals in, and will\nendure like a Roman aqueduct. The work cost four or five millions.\n\nAfter an hour or two spent with former friends, we started up the river\nagain. Keokuk, a long time ago, was an occasional loafing-place of that\nerratic genius, Henry Clay Dean. I believe I never saw him but once; but\nhe was much talked of when I lived there. This is what was said of him--\n\nHe began life poor and without education. But he educated himself--on\nthe curbstones of Keokuk. He would sit down on a curbstone with his\nbook, careless or unconscious of the clatter of commerce and the tramp\nof the passing crowds, and bury himself in his studies by the hour,\nnever changing his position except to draw in his knees now and then\nto let a dray pass unobstructed; and when his book was finished, its\ncontents, however abstruse, had been burnt into his memory, and were his\npermanent possession. In this way he acquired a vast hoard of all sorts\nof learning, and had it pigeon-holed in his head where he could put his\nintellectual hand on it whenever it was wanted.\n\nHis clothes differed in no respect from a 'wharf-rat's,' except that\nthey were raggeder, more ill-assorted and inharmonious (and therefore\nmore extravagantly picturesque), and several layers dirtier. Nobody\ncould infer the master-mind in the top of that edifice from the edifice\nitself.\n\nHe was an orator--by nature in the first place, and later by the\ntraining of experience and practice. When he was out on a canvass, his\nname was a lodestone which drew the farmers to his stump from fifty\nmiles around. His theme was always politics. He used no notes, for\na volcano does not need notes. In 1862, a son of Keokuk's late\ndistinguished citizen, Mr. Claggett, gave me this incident concerning\nDean--\n\nThe war feeling was running high in Keokuk (in '61), and a great\nmass meeting was to be held on a certain day in the new Athenaeum. A\ndistinguished stranger was to address the house. After the building had\nbeen packed to its utmost capacity with sweltering folk of both sexes,\nthe stage still remained vacant--the distinguished stranger had failed\nto connect. The crowd grew impatient, and by and by indignant and\nrebellious. About this time a distressed manager discovered Dean on a\ncurb-stone, explained the dilemma to him, took his book away from him,\nrushed him into the building the back way, and told him to make for the\nstage and save his country.\n\nPresently a sudden silence fell upon the grumbling audience, and\neverybody's eyes sought a single point--the wide, empty, carpetless\nstage. A figure appeared there whose aspect was familiar to hardly a\ndozen persons present. It was the scarecrow Dean--in foxy shoes, down at\nthe heels; socks of odd colors, also 'down;' damaged trousers, relics of\nantiquity, and a world too short, exposing some inches of naked ankle;\nan unbuttoned vest, also too short, and exposing a zone of soiled and\nwrinkled linen between it and the waistband; shirt bosom open; long\nblack handkerchief, wound round and round the neck like a bandage;\nbob-tailed blue coat, reaching down to the small of the back,\nwith sleeves which left four inches of forearm unprotected; small,\nstiff-brimmed soldier-cap hung on a corner of the bump of--whichever\nbump it was. This figure moved gravely out upon the stage and, with\nsedate and measured step, down to the front, where it paused, and\ndreamily inspected the house, saying no word. The silence of surprise\nheld its own for a moment, then was broken by a just audible ripple\nof merriment which swept the sea of faces like the wash of a wave.\nThe figure remained as before, thoughtfully inspecting. Another wave\nstarted--laughter, this time. It was followed by another, then a\nthird--this last one boisterous.\n\nAnd now the stranger stepped back one pace, took off his soldier-cap,\ntossed it into the wing, and began to speak, with deliberation, nobody\nlistening, everybody laughing and whispering. The speaker talked on\nunembarrassed, and presently delivered a shot which went home, and\nsilence and attention resulted. He followed it quick and fast, with\nother telling things; warmed to his work and began to pour his words\nout, instead of dripping them; grew hotter and hotter, and fell to\ndischarging lightnings and thunder--and now the house began to break\ninto applause, to which the speaker gave no heed, but went hammering\nstraight on; unwound his black bandage and cast it away, still\nthundering; presently discarded the bob tailed coat and flung it aside,\nfiring up higher and higher all the time; finally flung the vest after\nthe coat; and then for an untimed period stood there, like another\nVesuvius, spouting smoke and flame, lava and ashes, raining pumice-stone\nand cinders, shaking the moral earth with intellectual crash upon crash,\nexplosion upon explosion, while the mad multitude stood upon their feet\nin a solid body, answering back with a ceaseless hurricane of cheers,\nthrough a thrashing snowstorm of waving handkerchiefs.\n\n'When Dean came,' said Claggett, 'the people thought he was an escaped\nlunatic; but when he went, they thought he was an escaped archangel.'\n\nBurlington, home of the sparkling Burdette, is another hill city; and\nalso a beautiful one; unquestionably so; a fine and flourishing\ncity, with a population of twenty-five thousand, and belted with busy\nfactories of nearly every imaginable description. It was a very sober\ncity, too--for the moment--for a most sobering bill was pending; a bill\nto forbid the manufacture, exportation, importation, purchase, sale,\nborrowing, lending, stealing, drinking, smelling, or possession, by\nconquest, inheritance, intent, accident, or otherwise, in the State of\nIowa, of each and every deleterious beverage known to the human race,\nexcept water. This measure was approved by all the rational people in\nthe State; but not by the bench of Judges.\n\nBurlington has the progressive modern city's full equipment of devices\nfor right and intelligent government; including a paid fire department,\na thing which the great city of New Orleans is without, but still\nemploys that relic of antiquity, the independent system.\n\nIn Burlington, as in all these Upper-River towns, one breathes a\ngo-ahead atmosphere which tastes good in the nostrils. An opera-house\nhas lately been built there which is in strong contrast with the shabby\ndens which usually do duty as theaters in cities of Burlington's size.\n\nWe had not time to go ashore in Muscatine, but had a daylight view of it\nfrom the boat. I lived there awhile, many years ago, but the place, now,\nhad a rather unfamiliar look; so I suppose it has clear outgrown the\ntown which I used to know. In fact, I know it has; for I remember it as\na small place--which it isn't now. But I remember it best for a\nlunatic who caught me out in the fields, one Sunday, and extracted a\nbutcher-knife from his boot and proposed to carve me up with it,\nunless I acknowledged him to be the only son of the Devil. I tried\nto compromise on an acknowledgment that he was the only member of the\nfamily I had met; but that did not satisfy him; he wouldn't have any\nhalf-measures; I must say he was the sole and only son of the Devil--he\nwhetted his knife on his boot. It did not seem worth while to make\ntrouble about a little thing like that; so I swung round to his view of\nthe matter and saved my skin whole. Shortly afterward, he went to visit\nhis father; and as he has not turned up since, I trust he is there yet.\n\nAnd I remember Muscatine--still more pleasantly--for its summer sunsets.\nI have never seen any, on either side of the ocean, that equaled them.\nThey used the broad smooth river as a canvas, and painted on it every\nimaginable dream of color, from the mottled daintinesses and delicacies\nof the opal, all the way up, through cumulative intensities, to blinding\npurple and crimson conflagrations which were enchanting to the eye, but\nsharply tried it at the same time. All the Upper Mississippi region\nhas these extraordinary sunsets as a familiar spectacle. It is the true\nSunset Land: I am sure no other country can show so good a right to the\nname. The sunrises are also said to be exceedingly fine. I do not know.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 58\n\nOn the Upper River\n\nTHE big towns drop in, thick and fast, now: and between stretch\nprocessions of thrifty farms, not desolate solitude. Hour by hour, the\nboat plows deeper and deeper into the great and populous North-west; and\nwith each successive section of it which is revealed, one's surprise\nand respect gather emphasis and increase. Such a people, and such\nachievements as theirs, compel homage. This is an independent race who\nthink for themselves, and who are competent to do it, because they are\neducated and enlightened; they read, they keep abreast of the best\nand newest thought, they fortify every weak place in their land with a\nschool, a college, a library, and a newspaper; and they live under law.\nSolicitude for the future of a race like this is not in order.\n\nThis region is new; so new that it may be said to be still in its\nbabyhood. By what it has accomplished while still teething, one may\nforecast what marvels it will do in the strength of its maturity. It\nis so new that the foreign tourist has not heard of it yet; and has not\nvisited it. For sixty years, the foreign tourist has steamed up and\ndown the river between St. Louis and New Orleans, and then gone home and\nwritten his book, believing he had seen all of the river that was worth\nseeing or that had anything to see. In not six of all these books is\nthere mention of these Upper River towns--for the reason that the five\nor six tourists who penetrated this region did it before these towns\nwere projected. The latest tourist of them all (1878) made the same old\nregulation trip--he had not heard that there was anything north of St.\nLouis.\n\nYet there was. There was this amazing region, bristling with great\ntowns, projected day before yesterday, so to speak, and built next\nmorning. A score of them number from fifteen hundred to five thousand\npeople. Then we have Muscatine, ten thousand; Winona, ten thousand;\nMoline, ten thousand; Rock Island, twelve thousand; La Crosse, twelve\nthousand; Burlington, twenty-five thousand; Dubuque, twenty-five\nthousand; Davenport, thirty thousand; St. Paul, fifty-eight thousand,\nMinneapolis, sixty thousand and upward.\n\nThe foreign tourist has never heard of these; there is no note of them\nin his books. They have sprung up in the night, while he slept. So new\nis this region, that I, who am comparatively young, am yet older than\nit is. When I was born, St. Paul had a population of three persons,\nMinneapolis had just a third as many. The then population of Minneapolis\ndied two years ago; and when he died he had seen himself undergo an\nincrease, in forty years, of fifty-nine thousand nine hundred and\nninety-nine persons. He had a frog's fertility.\n\nI must explain that the figures set down above, as the population of St.\nPaul and Minneapolis, are several months old. These towns are far larger\nnow. In fact, I have just seen a newspaper estimate which gives the\nformer seventy-one thousand, and the latter seventy-eight thousand. This\nbook will not reach the public for six or seven months yet; none of the\nfigures will be worth much then.\n\nWe had a glimpse of Davenport, which is another beautiful city, crowning\na hill--a phrase which applies to all these towns; for they are all\ncomely, all well built, clean, orderly, pleasant to the eye, and\ncheering to the spirit; and they are all situated upon hills. Therefore\nwe will give that phrase a rest. The Indians have a tradition that\nMarquette and Joliet camped where Davenport now stands, in 1673. The\nnext white man who camped there, did it about a hundred and seventy\nyears later--in 1834. Davenport has gathered its thirty thousand people\nwithin the past thirty years. She sends more children to her schools\nnow, than her whole population numbered twenty-three years ago. She has\nthe usual Upper River quota of factories, newspapers, and institutions\nof learning; she has telephones, local telegraphs, an electric alarm,\nand an admirable paid fire department, consisting of six hook and ladder\ncompanies, four steam fire engines, and thirty churches. Davenport is\nthe official residence of two bishops--Episcopal and Catholic.\n\nOpposite Davenport is the flourishing town of Rock Island, which lies at\nthe foot of the Upper Rapids. A great railroad bridge connects the two\ntowns--one of the thirteen which fret the Mississippi and the pilots,\nbetween St. Louis and St. Paul.\n\nThe charming island of Rock Island, three miles long and half a mile\nwide, belongs to the United States, and the Government has turned it\ninto a wonderful park, enhancing its natural attractions by art, and\nthreading its fine forests with many miles of drives. Near the center\nof the island one catches glimpses, through the trees, of ten vast stone\nfour-story buildings, each of which covers an acre of ground. These\nare the Government workshops; for the Rock Island establishment is a\nnational armory and arsenal.\n\nWe move up the river--always through enchanting scenery, there being no\nother kind on the Upper Mississippi--and pass Moline, a center of vast\nmanufacturing industries; and Clinton and Lyons, great lumber centers;\nand presently reach Dubuque, which is situated in a rich mineral region.\nThe lead mines are very productive, and of wide extent. Dubuque has a\ngreat number of manufacturing establishments; among them a plow factory\nwhich has for customers all Christendom in general. At least so I was\ntold by an agent of the concern who was on the boat. He said--\n\n'You show me any country under the sun where they really know how to\nplow, and if I don't show you our mark on the plow they use, I'll eat\nthat plow; and I won't ask for any Woostershyre sauce to flavor it up\nwith, either.'\n\nAll this part of the river is rich in Indian history and traditions.\nBlack Hawk's was once a puissant name hereabouts; as was\nKeokuk's, further down. A few miles below Dubuque is the Tete de\nMort--Death's-head rock, or bluff--to the top of which the French drove\na band of Indians, in early times, and cooped them up there, with death\nfor a certainty, and only the manner of it matter of choice--to starve,\nor jump off and kill themselves. Black Hawk adopted the ways of the\nwhite people, toward the end of his life; and when he died he was\nburied, near Des Moines, in Christian fashion, modified by Indian\ncustom; that is to say, clothed in a Christian military uniform, and\nwith a Christian cane in his hand, but deposited in the grave in a\nsitting posture. Formerly, a horse had always been buried with a chief.\nThe substitution of the cane shows that Black Hawk's haughty nature was\nreally humbled, and he expected to walk when he got over.\n\nWe noticed that above Dubuque the water of the Mississippi was\nolive-green--rich and beautiful and semi-transparent, with the sun on\nit. Of course the water was nowhere as clear or of as fine a complexion\nas it is in some other seasons of the year; for now it was at flood\nstage, and therefore dimmed and blurred by the mud manufactured from\ncaving banks.\n\nThe majestic bluffs that overlook the river, along through this region,\ncharm one with the grace and variety of their forms, and the soft\nbeauty of their adornment. The steep verdant slope, whose base is at\nthe water's edge is topped by a lofty rampart of broken, turreted rocks,\nwhich are exquisitely rich and mellow in color--mainly dark browns\nand dull greens, but splashed with other tints. And then you have the\nshining river, winding here and there and yonder, its sweep interrupted\nat intervals by clusters of wooded islands threaded by silver channels;\nand you have glimpses of distant villages, asleep upon capes; and of\nstealthy rafts slipping along in the shade of the forest walls; and of\nwhite steamers vanishing around remote points. And it is all as\ntranquil and reposeful as dreamland, and has nothing this-worldly about\nit--nothing to hang a fret or a worry upon.\n\nUntil the unholy train comes tearing along--which it presently does,\nripping the sacred solitude to rags and tatters with its devil's\nwarwhoop and the roar and thunder of its rushing wheels--and straightway\nyou are back in this world, and with one of its frets ready to hand for\nyour entertainment: for you remember that this is the very road whose\nstock always goes down after you buy it, and always goes up again as\nsoon as you sell it. It makes me shudder to this day, to remember that\nI once came near not getting rid of my stock at all. It must be an awful\nthing to have a railroad left on your hands.\n\nThe locomotive is in sight from the deck of the steamboat almost\nthe whole way from St. Louis to St. Paul--eight hundred miles. These\nrailroads have made havoc with the steamboat commerce. The clerk of our\nboat was a steamboat clerk before these roads were built. In that day\nthe influx of population was so great, and the freight business so\nheavy, that the boats were not able to keep up with the demands made\nupon their carrying capacity; consequently the captains were very\nindependent and airy--pretty 'biggity,' as Uncle Remus would say. The\nclerk nut-shelled the contrast between the former time and the present,\nthus--\n\n'Boat used to land--captain on hurricane roof--mighty stiff and\nstraight--iron ramrod for a spine--kid gloves, plug tile, hair parted\nbehind--man on shore takes off hat and says--\n\n'\"Got twenty-eight tons of wheat, cap'n--be great favor if you can take\nthem.\"\n\n'Captain says--\n\n'\"'ll take two of them\"--and don't even condescend to look at him.\n\n'But nowadays the captain takes off his old slouch, and smiles all the\nway around to the back of his ears, and gets off a bow which he hasn't\ngot any ramrod to interfere with, and says--\n\n'\"Glad to see you, Smith, glad to see you--you're looking well--haven't\nseen you looking so well for years--what you got for us?\"\n\n'\"Nuth'n\", says Smith; and keeps his hat on, and just turns his back and\ngoes to talking with somebody else.\n\n'Oh, yes, eight years ago, the captain was on top; but it's Smith's turn\nnow. Eight years ago a boat used to go up the river with every stateroom\nfull, and people piled five and six deep on the cabin floor; and a solid\ndeck-load of immigrants and harvesters down below, into the bargain. To\nget a first-class stateroom, you'd got to prove sixteen quarterings of\nnobility and four hundred years of descent, or be personally acquainted\nwith the nigger that blacked the captain's boots. But it's all changed\nnow; plenty staterooms above, no harvesters below--there's a patent\nself-binder now, and they don't have harvesters any more; they've gone\nwhere the woodbine twineth--and they didn't go by steamboat, either;\nwent by the train.'\n\nUp in this region we met massed acres of lumber rafts coming down--but\nnot floating leisurely along, in the old-fashioned way, manned with\njoyous and reckless crews of fiddling, song-singing, whiskey-drinking,\nbreakdown-dancing rapscallions; no, the whole thing was shoved swiftly\nalong by a powerful stern-wheeler, modern fashion, and the small\ncrews were quiet, orderly men, of a sedate business aspect, with not a\nsuggestion of romance about them anywhere.\n\nAlong here, somewhere, on a black night, we ran some exceedingly narrow\nand intricate island-chutes by aid of the electric light. Behind was\nsolid blackness--a crackless bank of it; ahead, a narrow elbow of water,\ncurving between dense walls of foliage that almost touched our bows on\nboth sides; and here every individual leaf, and every individual ripple\nstood out in its natural color, and flooded with a glare as of noonday\nintensified. The effect was strange, and fine, and very striking.\n\nWe passed Prairie du Chien, another of Father Marquette's\ncamping-places; and after some hours of progress through varied and\nbeautiful scenery, reached La Crosse. Here is a town of twelve or\nthirteen thousand population, with electric lighted streets, and with\nblocks of buildings which are stately enough, and also architecturally\nfine enough, to command respect in any city. It is a choice town, and we\nmade satisfactory use of the hour allowed us, in roaming it over, though\nthe weather was rainier than necessary.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 59\n\nLegends and Scenery\n\nWE added several passengers to our list, at La Crosse; among others an\nold gentleman who had come to this north-western region with the early\nsettlers, and was familiar with every part of it. Pardonably proud of\nit, too. He said--\n\n'You'll find scenery between here and St. Paul that can give the Hudson\npoints. You'll have the Queen's Bluff--seven hundred feet high, and\njust as imposing a spectacle as you can find anywheres; and Trempeleau\nIsland, which isn't like any other island in America, I believe, for it\nis a gigantic mountain, with precipitous sides, and is full of Indian\ntraditions, and used to be full of rattlesnakes; if you catch the sun\njust right there, you will have a picture that will stay with you. And\nabove Winona you'll have lovely prairies; and then come the Thousand\nIslands, too beautiful for anything; green? why you never saw foliage so\ngreen, nor packed so thick; it's like a thousand plush cushions afloat\non a looking-glass--when the water 's still; and then the monstrous\nbluffs on both sides of the river--ragged, rugged, dark-complected--just\nthe frame that's wanted; you always want a strong frame, you know, to\nthrow up the nice points of a delicate picture and make them stand out.'\n\nThe old gentleman also told us a touching Indian legend or two--but not\nvery powerful ones.\n\nAfter this excursion into history, he came back to the scenery, and\ndescribed it, detail by detail, from the Thousand Islands to St. Paul;\nnaming its names with such facility, tripping along his theme with such\nnimble and confident ease, slamming in a three-ton word, here and\nthere, with such a complacent air of 't\nisn't-anything,-I-can-do-it-any-time-I-want-to, and letting off fine\nsurprises of lurid eloquence at such judicious intervals, that I\npresently began to suspect--\n\nBut no matter what I began to suspect. Hear him--\n\n'Ten miles above Winona we come to Fountain City, nestling sweetly at\nthe feet of cliffs that lift their awful fronts, Jovelike, toward the\nblue depths of heaven, bathing them in virgin atmospheres that have\nknown no other contact save that of angels' wings.\n\n'And next we glide through silver waters, amid lovely and stupendous\naspects of nature that attune our hearts to adoring admiration, about\ntwelve miles, and strike Mount Vernon, six hundred feet high, with\nromantic ruins of a once first-class hotel perched far among the cloud\nshadows that mottle its dizzy heights--sole remnant of once-flourishing\nMount Vernon, town of early days, now desolate and utterly deserted.\n\n'And so we move on. Past Chimney Rock we fly--noble shaft of six hundred\nfeet; then just before landing at Minnieska our attention is attracted\nby a most striking promontory rising over five hundred feet--the ideal\nmountain pyramid. Its conic shape--thickly-wooded surface girding its\nsides, and its apex like that of a cone, cause the spectator to wonder\nat nature's workings. From its dizzy heights superb views of the\nforests, streams, bluffs, hills and dales below and beyond for miles are\nbrought within its focus. What grander river scenery can be conceived,\nas we gaze upon this enchanting landscape, from the uppermost point of\nthese bluffs upon the valleys below? The primeval wildness and awful\nloneliness of these sublime creations of nature and nature's God, excite\nfeelings of unbounded admiration, and the recollection of which can\nnever be effaced from the memory, as we view them in any direction.\n\n'Next we have the Lion's Head and the Lioness's Head, carved by nature's\nhand, to adorn and dominate the beauteous stream; and then anon the\nriver widens, and a most charming and magnificent view of the valley\nbefore us suddenly bursts upon our vision; rugged hills, clad with\nverdant forests from summit to base, level prairie lands, holding in\ntheir lap the beautiful Wabasha, City of the Healing Waters, puissant\nfoe of Bright's disease, and that grandest conception of nature's\nworks, incomparable Lake Pepin--these constitute a picture whereon the\ntourist's eye may gaze uncounted hours, with rapture unappeased and\nunappeasable.\n\n'And so we glide along; in due time encountering those majestic domes,\nthe mighty Sugar Loaf, and the sublime Maiden's Rock--which latter,\nromantic superstition has invested with a voice; and oft-times as the\nbirch canoe glides near, at twilight, the dusky paddler fancies he hears\nthe soft sweet music of the long-departed Winona, darling of Indian song\nand story.\n\n'Then Frontenac looms upon our vision, delightful resort of jaded summer\ntourists; then progressive Red Wing; and Diamond Bluff, impressive and\npreponderous in its lone sublimity; then Prescott and the St. Croix; and\nanon we see bursting upon us the domes and steeples of St. Paul, giant\nyoung chief of the North, marching with seven-league stride in the\nvan of progress, banner-bearer of the highest and newest civilization,\ncarving his beneficent way with the tomahawk of commercial enterprise,\nsounding the warwhoop of Christian culture, tearing off the reeking\nscalp of sloth and superstition to plant there the steam-plow and the\nschool-house--ever in his front stretch arid lawlessness, ignorance,\ncrime, despair; ever in his wake bloom the jail, the gallows, and the\npulpit; and ever--'\n\n'Have you ever traveled with a panorama?'\n\n'I have formerly served in that capacity.'\n\nMy suspicion was confirmed.\n\n'Do you still travel with it?'\n\n'No, she is laid up till the fall season opens. I am helping now to work\nup the materials for a Tourist's Guide which the St. Louis and St.\nPaul Packet Company are going to issue this summer for the benefit of\ntravelers who go by that line.'\n\n'When you were talking of Maiden's Rock, you spoke of the long-departed\nWinona, darling of Indian song and story. Is she the maiden of the\nrock?--and are the two connected by legend?'\n\n'Yes, and a very tragic and painful one. Perhaps the most celebrated, as\nwell as the most pathetic, of all the legends of the Mississippi.'\n\nWe asked him to tell it. He dropped out of his conversational vein and\nback into his lecture-gait without an effort, and rolled on as follows--\n\n'A little distance above Lake City is a famous point known as Maiden's\nRock, which is not only a picturesque spot, but is full of romantic\ninterest from the event which gave it its name, Not many years ago this\nlocality was a favorite resort for the Sioux Indians on account of the\nfine fishing and hunting to be had there, and large numbers of them were\nalways to be found in this locality. Among the families which used\nto resort here, was one belonging to the tribe of Wabasha. We-no-na\n(first-born) was the name of a maiden who had plighted her troth to a\nlover belonging to the same band. But her stern parents had promised her\nhand to another, a famous warrior, and insisted on her wedding him. The\nday was fixed by her parents, to her great grief. She appeared to accede\nto the proposal and accompany them to the rock, for the purpose of\ngathering flowers for the feast. On reaching the rock, We-no-na ran\nto its summit and standing on its edge upbraided her parents who were\nbelow, for their cruelty, and then singing a death-dirge, threw herself\nfrom the precipice and dashed them in pieces on the rock below.'\n\n'Dashed who in pieces--her parents?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'Well, it certainly was a tragic business, as you say. And moreover,\nthere is a startling kind of dramatic surprise about it which I was not\nlooking for. It is a distinct improvement upon the threadbare form of\nIndian legend. There are fifty Lover's Leaps along the Mississippi from\nwhose summit disappointed Indian girls have jumped, but this is the only\njump in the lot hat turned out in the right and satisfactory way. What\nbecame of Winona?'\n\n'She was a good deal jarred up and jolted: but she got herself together\nand disappeared before the coroner reached the fatal spot; and 'tis\nsaid she sought and married her true love, and wandered with him to\nsome distant clime, where she lived happy ever after, her gentle spirit\nmellowed and chastened by the romantic incident which had so early\ndeprived her of the sweet guidance of a mother's love and a father's\nprotecting arm, and thrown her, all unfriended, upon the cold charity of\na censorious world.'\n\nI was glad to hear the lecturer's description of the scenery, for it\nassisted my appreciation of what I saw of it, and enabled me to imagine\nsuch of it as we lost by the intrusion of night.\n\nAs the lecturer remarked, this whole region is blanketed with Indian\ntales and traditions. But I reminded him that people usually merely\nmention this fact--doing it in a way to make a body's mouth water--and\njudiciously stopped there. Why? Because the impression left, was that\nthese tales were full of incident and imagination--a pleasant impression\nwhich would be promptly dissipated if the tales were told. I showed him\na lot of this sort of literature which I had been collecting, and he\nconfessed that it was poor stuff, exceedingly sorry rubbish; and I\nventured to add that the legends which he had himself told us were of\nthis character, with the single exception of the admirable story of\nWinona. He granted these facts, but said that if I would hunt up Mr.\nSchoolcraft's book, published near fifty years ago, and now doubtless\nout of print, I would find some Indian inventions in it that were very\nfar from being barren of incident and imagination; that the tales in\nHiawatha were of this sort, and they came from Schoolcraft's book; and\nthat there were others in the same book which Mr. Longfellow could have\nturned into verse with good effect. For instance, there was the legend\nof 'The Undying Head.' He could not tell it, for many of the details\nhad grown dim in his memory; but he would recommend me to find it and\nenlarge my respect for the Indian imagination. He said that this tale,\nand most of the others in the book, were current among the Indians\nalong this part of the Mississippi when he first came here; and that\nthe contributors to Schoolcraft's book had got them directly from Indian\nlips, and had written them down with strict exactness, and without\nembellishments of their own.\n\nI have found the book. The lecturer was right. There are several legends\nin it which confirm what he said. I will offer two of them--'The Undying\nHead,' and 'Peboan and Seegwun, an Allegory of the Seasons.' The latter\nis used in Hiawatha; but it is worth reading in the original form, if\nonly that one may see how effective a genuine poem can be without the\nhelps and graces of poetic measure and rhythm--\n\nPEBOAN AND SEEGWUN.\n\nAn old man was sitting alone in his lodge, by the side of a frozen\nstream. It was the close of winter, and his fire was almost out, He\nappeared very old and very desolate. His locks were white with age, and\nhe trembled in every joint. Day after day passed in solitude, and he\nheard nothing but the sound of the tempest, sweeping before it the\nnew-fallen snow.\n\nOne day, as his fire was just dying, a handsome young man approached and\nentered his dwelling. His cheeks were red with the blood of youth,\nhis eyes sparkled with animation, and a smile played upon his lips. He\nwalked with a light and quick step. His forehead was bound with a wreath\nof sweet grass, in place of a warrior's frontlet, and he carried a bunch\nof flowers in his hand.\n\n'Ah, my son,' said the old man, 'I am happy to see you. Come in. Come\nand tell me of your adventures, and what strange lands you have been to\nsee. Let us pass the night together. I will tell you of my prowess and\nexploits, and what I can perform. You shall do the same, and we will\namuse ourselves.'\n\nHe then drew from his sack a curiously wrought antique pipe, and having\nfilled it with tobacco, rendered mild by a mixture of certain leaves,\nhanded it to his guest. When this ceremony was concluded they began to\nspeak.\n\n'I blow my breath,' said the old man, 'and the stream stands still. The\nwater becomes stiff and hard as clear stone.'\n\n'I breathe,' said the young man, 'and flowers spring up over the plain.'\n\n'I shake my locks,' retorted the old man, 'and snow covers the land. The\nleaves fall from the trees at my command, and my breath blows them away.\nThe birds get up from the water, and fly to a distant land. The animals\nhide themselves from my breath, and the very ground becomes as hard as\nflint.'\n\n'I shake my ringlets,' rejoined the young man, 'and warm showers of\nsoft rain fall upon the earth. The plants lift up their heads out of\nthe earth, like the eyes of children glistening with delight. My voice\nrecalls the birds. The warmth of my breath unlocks the streams. Music\nfills the groves wherever I walk, and all nature rejoices.'\n\nAt length the sun began to rise. A gentle warmth came over the place.\nThe tongue of the old man became silent. The robin and bluebird began\nto sing on the top of the lodge. The stream began to murmur by the door,\nand the fragrance of growing herbs and flowers came softly on the vernal\nbreeze.\n\nDaylight fully revealed to the young man the character of his\nentertainer. When he looked upon him, he had the icy visage of\nPeboan.{footnote [Winter.]} Streams began to flow from his eyes. As the\nsun increased, he grew less and less in stature, and anon had melted\ncompletely away. Nothing remained on the place of his lodge-fire but the\nmiskodeed,{footnote [The trailing arbutus.]} a small white flower, with\na pink border, which is one of the earliest species of northern plants.\n\n'The Undying Head' is a rather long tale, but it makes up in weird\nconceits, fairy-tale prodigies, variety of incident, and energy of\nmovement, for what it lacks in brevity.{footnote [See appendix D.]}\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 60\n\nSpeculations and Conclusions\n\nWE reached St. Paul, at the head of navigation of the Mississippi, and\nthere our voyage of two thousand miles from New Orleans ended. It is\nabout a ten-day trip by steamer. It can probably be done quicker by\nrail. I judge so because I know that one may go by rail from St. Louis\nto Hannibal--a distance of at least a hundred and twenty miles--in seven\nhours. This is better than walking; unless one is in a hurry.\n\nThe season being far advanced when we were in New Orleans, the roses and\nmagnolia blossoms were falling; but here in St. Paul it was the snow,\nIn New Orleans we had caught an occasional withering breath from over a\ncrater, apparently; here in St. Paul we caught a frequent benumbing one\nfrom over a glacier, apparently.\n\nBut I wander from my theme. St. Paul is a wonderful town. It is put\ntogether in solid blocks of honest brick and stone, and has the air of\nintending to stay. Its post-office was established thirty-six years ago;\nand by and by, when the postmaster received a letter, he carried it to\nWashington, horseback, to inquire what was to be done with it. Such is\nthe legend. Two frame houses were built that year, and several persons\nwere added to the population. A recent number of the leading St. Paul\npaper, the 'Pioneer Press,' gives some statistics which furnish a vivid\ncontrast to that old state of things, to wit: Population, autumn of the\npresent year (1882), 71,000; number of letters handled, first half of\nthe year, 1,209,387; number of houses built during three-quarters of\nthe year, 989; their cost, $3,186,000. The increase of letters over the\ncorresponding six months of last year was fifty per cent. Last year\nthe new buildings added to the city cost above $4,500,000. St.\nPaul's strength lies in her commerce--I mean his commerce. He is a\nmanufacturing city, of course--all the cities of that region are--but\nhe is peculiarly strong in the matter of commerce. Last year his jobbing\ntrade amounted to upwards of $52,000,000.\n\nHe has a custom-house, and is building a costly capitol to replace the\none recently burned--for he is the capital of the State. He has churches\nwithout end; and not the cheap poor kind, but the kind that the rich\nProtestant puts up, the kind that the poor Irish 'hired-girl' delights\nto erect. What a passion for building majestic churches the Irish\nhired-girl has. It is a fine thing for our architecture but too often we\nenjoy her stately fanes without giving her a grateful thought. In\nfact, instead of reflecting that 'every brick and every stone in this\nbeautiful edifice represents an ache or a pain, and a handful of sweat,\nand hours of heavy fatigue, contributed by the back and forehead and\nbones of poverty,' it is our habit to forget these things entirely,\nand merely glorify the mighty temple itself, without vouchsafing one\npraiseful thought to its humble builder, whose rich heart and withered\npurse it symbolizes.\n\nThis is a land of libraries and schools. St. Paul has three public\nlibraries, and they contain, in the aggregate, some forty thousand\nbooks. He has one hundred and sixteen school-houses, and pays out more\nthan seventy thousand dollars a year in teachers' salaries.\n\nThere is an unusually fine railway station; so large is it, in fact,\nthat it seemed somewhat overdone, in the matter of size, at first;\nbut at the end of a few months it was perceived that the mistake was\ndistinctly the other way. The error is to be corrected.\n\nThe town stands on high ground; it is about seven hundred feet above\nthe sea level. It is so high that a wide view of river and lowland is\noffered from its streets.\n\nIt is a very wonderful town indeed, and is not finished yet. All\nthe streets are obstructed with building material, and this is being\ncompacted into houses as fast as possible, to make room for more--for\nother people are anxious to build, as soon as they can get the use of\nthe streets to pile up their bricks and stuff in.\n\nHow solemn and beautiful is the thought, that the earliest pioneer of\ncivilization, the van-leader of civilization, is never the steamboat,\nnever the railroad, never the newspaper, never the Sabbath-school, never\nthe missionary--but always whiskey! Such is the case. Look history over;\nyou will see. The missionary comes after the whiskey--I mean he arrives\nafter the whiskey has arrived; next comes the poor immigrant, with ax\nand hoe and rifle; next, the trader; next, the miscellaneous rush; next,\nthe gambler, the desperado, the highwayman, and all their kindred in sin\nof both sexes; and next, the smart chap who has bought up an old grant\nthat covers all the land; this brings the lawyer tribe; the vigilance\ncommittee brings the undertaker. All these interests bring the\nnewspaper; the newspaper starts up politics and a railroad; all hands\nturn to and build a church and a jail--and behold, civilization\nis established for ever in the land. But whiskey, you see, was the\nvan-leader in this beneficent work. It always is. It was like a\nforeigner--and excusable in a foreigner--to be ignorant of this great\ntruth, and wander off into astronomy to borrow a symbol. But if he had\nbeen conversant with the facts, he would have said--\n\nWestward the Jug of Empire takes its way.\n\nThis great van-leader arrived upon the ground which St. Paul now\noccupies, in June 1837. Yes, at that date, Pierre Parrant, a Canadian,\nbuilt the first cabin, uncorked his jug, and began to sell whiskey to\nthe Indians. The result is before us.\n\nAll that I have said of the newness, briskness, swift progress, wealth,\nintelligence, fine and substantial architecture, and general slash\nand go, and energy of St. Paul, will apply to his near neighbor,\nMinneapolis--with the addition that the latter is the bigger of the two\ncities.\n\nThese extraordinary towns were ten miles apart, a few months ago, but\nwere growing so fast that they may possibly be joined now, and getting\nalong under a single mayor. At any rate, within five years from\nnow there will be at least such a substantial ligament of buildings\nstretching between them and uniting them that a stranger will not be\nable to tell where the one Siamese twin leaves off and the other begins.\nCombined, they will then number a population of two hundred and fifty\nthousand, if they continue to grow as they are now growing. Thus, this\ncenter of population at the head of Mississippi navigation, will then\nbegin a rivalry as to numbers, with that center of population at the\nfoot of it--New Orleans.\n\nMinneapolis is situated at the falls of St. Anthony, which stretch\nacross the river, fifteen hundred feet, and have a fall of eighty-two\nfeet--a waterpower which, by art, has been made of inestimable\nvalue, business-wise, though somewhat to the damage of the Falls as\na spectacle, or as a background against which to get your photograph\ntaken.\n\nThirty flouring-mills turn out two million barrels of the very choicest\nof flour every year; twenty sawmills produce two hundred million feet\nof lumber annually; then there are woolen mills, cotton mills, paper\nand oil mills; and sash, nail, furniture, barrel, and other factories,\nwithout number, so to speak. The great flouring-mills here and at St.\nPaul use the 'new process' and mash the wheat by rolling, instead of\ngrinding it.\n\nSixteen railroads meet in Minneapolis, and sixty-five passenger trains\narrive and depart daily. In this place, as in St. Paul, journalism\nthrives. Here there are three great dailies, ten weeklies, and three\nmonthlies.\n\nThere is a university, with four hundred students--and, better still,\nits good efforts are not confined to enlightening the one sex. There are\nsixteen public schools, with buildings which cost $500,000; there are\nsix thousand pupils and one hundred and twenty-eight teachers. There\nare also seventy churches existing, and a lot more projected. The banks\naggregate a capital of $3,000,000, and the wholesale jobbing trade of\nthe town amounts to $50,000,000 a year.\n\nNear St. Paul and Minneapolis are several points of interest--Fort\nSnelling, a fortress occupying a river-bluff a hundred feet high; the\nfalls of Minnehaha, White-bear Lake, and so forth. The beautiful falls\nof Minnehaha are sufficiently celebrated--they do not need a lift from\nme, in that direction. The White-bear Lake is less known. It is a lovely\nsheet of water, and is being utilized as a summer resort by the wealth\nand fashion of the State. It has its club-house, and its hotel, with the\nmodern improvements and conveniences; its fine summer residences; and\nplenty of fishing, hunting, and pleasant drives. There are a dozen minor\nsummer resorts around about St. Paul and Minneapolis, but the White-bear\nLake is the resort. Connected with White-bear Lake is a most idiotic\nIndian legend. I would resist the temptation to print it here, if I\ncould, but the task is beyond my strength. The guide-book names the\npreserver of the legend, and compliments his 'facile pen.' Without\nfurther comment or delay then, let us turn the said facile pen loose\nupon the reader--\n\nA LEGEND OF WHITE-BEAR LAKE.\n\nEvery spring, for perhaps a century, or as long as there has been a\nnation of red men, an island in the middle of White-bear Lake has been\nvisited by a band of Indians for the purpose of making maple sugar.\n\nTradition says that many springs ago, while upon this island, a young\nwarrior loved and wooed the daughter of his chief, and it is said, also,\nthe maiden loved the warrior. He had again and again been refused her\nhand by her parents, the old chief alleging that he was no brave, and\nhis old consort called him a woman!\n\nThe sun had again set upon the 'sugar-bush,' and the bright moon rose\nhigh in the bright blue heavens, when the young warrior took down his\nflute and went out alone, once more to sing the story of his love, the\nmild breeze gently moved the two gay feathers in his head-dress, and as\nhe mounted on the trunk of a leaning tree, the damp snow fell from his\nfeet heavily. As he raised his flute to his lips, his blanket slipped\nfrom his well-formed shoulders, and lay partly on the snow beneath. He\nbegan his weird, wild love-song, but soon felt that he was cold, and as\nhe reached back for his blanket, some unseen hand laid it gently on his\nshoulders; it was the hand of his love, his guardian angel. She took her\nplace beside him, and for the present they were happy; for the Indian\nhas a heart to love, and in this pride he is as noble as in his own\nfreedom, which makes him the child of the forest. As the legend runs, a\nlarge white-bear, thinking, perhaps, that polar snows and dismal winter\nweather extended everywhere, took up his journey southward. He at length\napproached the northern shore of the lake which now bears his name,\nwalked down the bank and made his way noiselessly through the deep heavy\nsnow toward the island. It was the same spring ensuing that the lovers\nmet. They had left their first retreat, and were now seated among the\nbranches of a large elm which hung far over the lake. (The same tree is\nstill standing, and excites universal curiosity and interest.) For fear\nof being detected, they talked almost in a whisper, and now, that they\nmight get back to camp in good time and thereby avoid suspicion, they\nwere just rising to return, when the maiden uttered a shriek which was\nheard at the camp, and bounding toward the young brave, she caught his\nblanket, but missed the direction of her foot and fell, bearing the\nblanket with her into the great arms of the ferocious monster. Instantly\nevery man, woman, and child of the band were upon the bank, but all\nunarmed. Cries and wailings went up from every mouth. What was to be\ndone'? In the meantime this white and savage beast held the breathless\nmaiden in his huge grasp, and fondled with his precious prey as if he\nwere used to scenes like this. One deafening yell from the lover warrior\nis heard above the cries of hundreds of his tribe, and dashing away\nto his wigwam he grasps his faithful knife, returns almost at a single\nbound to the scene of fear and fright, rushes out along the leaning tree\nto the spot where his treasure fell, and springing with the fury of\na mad panther, pounced upon his prey. The animal turned, and with one\nstroke of his huge paw brought the lovers heart to heart, but the next\nmoment the warrior, with one plunge of the blade of his knife, opened\nthe crimson sluices of death, and the dying bear relaxed his hold.\n\nThat night there was no more sleep for the band or the lovers, and as\nthe young and the old danced about the carcass of the dead monster, the\ngallant warrior was presented with another plume, and ere another moon\nhad set he had a living treasure added to his heart. Their children for\nmany years played upon the skin of the white-bear--from which the lake\nderives its name--and the maiden and the brave remembered long the\nfearful scene and rescue that made them one, for Kis-se-me-pa and\nKa-go-ka could never forget their fearful encounter with the huge\nmonster that came so near sending them to the happy hunting-ground.\n\nIt is a perplexing business. First, she fell down out of the tree--she\nand the blanket; and the bear caught her and fondled her--her and the\nblanket; then she fell up into the tree again--leaving the blanket;\nmeantime the lover goes war-whooping home and comes back 'heeled,'\nclimbs the tree, jumps down on the bear, the girl jumps down after\nhim--apparently, for she was up the tree--resumes her place in the\nbear's arms along with the blanket, the lover rams his knife into the\nbear, and saves--whom, the blanket? No--nothing of the sort. You get\nyourself all worked up and excited about that blanket, and then all of\na sudden, just when a happy climax seems imminent you are let down\nflat--nothing saved but the girl. Whereas, one is not interested in\nthe girl; she is not the prominent feature of the legend. Nevertheless,\nthere you are left, and there you must remain; for if you live a\nthousand years you will never know who got the blanket. A dead man could\nget up a better legend than this one. I don't mean a fresh dead man\neither; I mean a man that's been dead weeks and weeks.\n\nWe struck the home-trail now, and in a few hours were in that\nastonishing Chicago--a city where they are always rubbing the lamp, and\nfetching up the genii, and contriving and achieving new impossibilities.\nIt is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep up with\nChicago--she outgrows his prophecies faster than he can make them.\nShe is always a novelty; for she is never the Chicago you saw when you\npassed through the last time. The Pennsylvania road rushed us to New\nYork without missing schedule time ten minutes anywhere on the route;\nand there ended one of the most enjoyable five-thousand-mile journeys I\nhave ever had the good fortune to make.\n\nAPPENDIX\n\nAPPENDIX A\n\n(FROM THE NEW ORLEANS TIMES DEMOCRAT OF MARCH 29, 1882.)\n\nVOYAGE OF THE TIMES-DEMOCRAT'S RELIEF BOAT THROUGH THE INUNDATED REGIONS\n\nIT was nine o'clock Thursday morning when the 'Susie' left the\nMississippi and entered Old River, or what is now called the mouth of\nthe Red. Ascending on the left, a flood was pouring in through and over\nthe levees on the Chandler plantation, the most northern point in Pointe\nCoupee parish. The water completely covered the place, although the\nlevees had given way but a short time before. The stock had been\ngathered in a large flat-boat, where, without food, as we passed, the\nanimals were huddled together, waiting for a boat to tow them off. On\nthe right-hand side of the river is Turnbull's Island, and on it is a\nlarge plantation which formerly was pronounced one of the most fertile\nin the State. The water has hitherto allowed it to go scot-free in usual\nfloods, but now broad sheets of water told only where fields were. The\ntop of the protecting levee could be seen here and there, but nearly all\nof it was submerged.\n\nThe trees have put on a greener foliage since the water has poured in,\nand the woods look bright and fresh, but this pleasant aspect to the eye\nis neutralized by the interminable waste of water. We pass mile after\nmile, and it is nothing but trees standing up to their branches in\nwater. A water-turkey now and again rises and flies ahead into the long\navenue of silence. A pirogue sometimes flits from the bushes and crosses\nthe Red River on its way out to the Mississippi, but the sad-faced\npaddlers never turn their heads to look at our boat. The puffing of the\nboat is music in this gloom, which affects one most curiously. It is not\nthe gloom of deep forests or dark caverns, but a peculiar kind of solemn\nsilence and impressive awe that holds one perforce to its recognition.\nWe passed two negro families on a raft tied up in the willows this\nmorning. They were evidently of the well-to-do class, as they had a\nsupply of meal and three or four hogs with them. Their rafts were about\ntwenty feet square, and in front of an improvised shelter earth had been\nplaced, on which they built their fire.\n\nThe current running down the Atchafalaya was very swift, the Mississippi\nshowing a predilection in that direction, which needs only to be seen to\nenforce the opinion of that river's desperate endeavors to find a short\nway to the Gulf. Small boats, skiffs, pirogues, etc., are in great\ndemand, and many have been stolen by piratical negroes, who take them\nwhere they will bring the greatest price. From what was told me by Mr.\nC. P. Ferguson, a planter near Red River Landing, whose place has just\ngone under, there is much suffering in the rear of that place. The\nnegroes had given up all thoughts of a crevasse there, as the upper\nlevee had stood so long, and when it did come they were at its mercy.\nOn Thursday a number were taken out of trees and off of cabin roofs and\nbrought in, many yet remaining.\n\nOne does not appreciate the sight of earth until he has traveled through\na flood. At sea one does not expect or look for it, but here, with\nfluttering leaves, shadowy forest aisles, house-tops barely visible, it\nis expected. In fact a grave-yard, if the mounds were above water, would\nbe appreciated. The river here is known only because there is an opening\nin the trees, and that is all. It is in width, from Fort Adams on the\nleft bank of the Mississippi to the bank of Rapides Parish, a distance\nof about sixty miles. A large portion of this was under cultivation,\nparticularly along the Mississippi and back of the Red. When Red River\nproper was entered, a strong current was running directly across it,\npursuing the same direction as that of the Mississippi.\n\nAfter a run of some hours, Black River was reached. Hardly was it\nentered before signs of suffering became visible. All the willows\nalong the banks were stripped of their leaves. One man, whom your\ncorrespondent spoke to, said that he had had one hundred and fifty head\nof cattle and one hundred head of hogs. At the first appearance of water\nhe had started to drive them to the high lands of Avoyelles, thirty-five\nmiles off, but he lost fifty head of the beef cattle and sixty hogs.\nBlack River is quite picturesque, even if its shores are under water.\nA dense growth of ash, oak, gum, and hickory make the shores almost\nimpenetrable, and where one can get a view down some avenue in\nthe trees, only the dim outlines of distant trunks can be barely\ndistinguished in the gloom.\n\nA few miles up this river, the depth of water on the banks was fully\neight feet, and on all sides could be seen, still holding against the\nstrong current, the tops of cabins. Here and there one overturned was\nsurrounded by drift-wood, forming the nucleus of possibly some future\nisland.\n\nIn order to save coal, as it was impossible to get that fuel at any\npoint to be touched during the expedition, a look-out was kept for a\nwood-pile. On rounding a point a pirogue, skilfully paddled by a youth,\nshot out, and in its bow was a girl of fifteen, of fair face, beautiful\nblack eyes, and demure manners. The boy asked for a paper, which was\nthrown to him, and the couple pushed their tiny craft out into the swell\nof the boat.\n\nPresently a little girl, not certainly over twelve years, paddled out in\nthe smallest little canoe and handled it with all the deftness of an old\nvoyageur. The little one looked more like an Indian than a white child,\nand laughed when asked if she were afraid. She had been raised in a\npirogue and could go anywhere. She was bound out to pick willow leaves\nfor the stock, and she pointed to a house near by with water three\ninches deep on the floors. At its back door was moored a raft about\nthirty feet square, with a sort of fence built upon it, and inside of\nthis some sixteen cows and twenty hogs were standing. The family did not\ncomplain, except on account of losing their stock, and promptly brought\na supply of wood in a flat.\n\nFrom this point to the Mississippi River, fifteen miles, there is not\na spot of earth above water, and to the westward for thirty-five miles\nthere is nothing but the river's flood. Black River had risen during\nThursday, the 23rd, 1{three-quarters} inches, and was going up at night\nstill. As we progress up the river habitations become more frequent,\nbut are yet still miles apart. Nearly all of them are deserted, and the\nout-houses floated off. To add to the gloom, almost every living thing\nseems to have departed, and not a whistle of a bird nor the bark of\nthe squirrel can be heard in this solitude. Sometimes a morose gar\nwill throw his tail aloft and disappear in the river, but beyond this\neverything is quiet--the quiet of dissolution. Down the river floats\nnow a neatly whitewashed hen-house, then a cluster of neatly split\nfence-rails, or a door and a bloated carcass, solemnly guarded by a pair\nof buzzards, the only bird to be seen, which feast on the carcass as it\nbears them along. A picture-frame in which there was a cheap lithograph\nof a soldier on horseback, as it floated on told of some hearth invaded\nby the water and despoiled of this ornament.\n\nAt dark, as it was not prudent to run, a place alongside the woods was\nhunted and to a tall gum-tree the boat was made fast for the night.\n\nA pretty quarter of the moon threw a pleasant light over forest and\nriver, making a picture that would be a delightful piece of landscape\nstudy, could an artist only hold it down to his canvas. The motion of\nthe engines had ceased, the puffing of the escaping steam was stilled,\nand the enveloping silence closed upon us, and such silence it was!\nUsually in a forest at night one can hear the piping of frogs, the hum\nof insects, or the dropping of limbs; but here nature was dumb. The dark\nrecesses, those aisles into this cathedral, gave forth no sound, and\neven the ripplings of the current die away.\n\nAt daylight Friday morning all hands were up, and up the Black we\nstarted. The morning was a beautiful one, and the river, which is\nremarkably straight, put on its loveliest garb. The blossoms of the haw\nperfumed the air deliciously, and a few birds whistled blithely along\nthe banks. The trees were larger, and the forest seemed of older growth\nthan below. More fields were passed than nearer the mouth, but the same\nscene presented itself--smoke-houses drifting out in the pastures,\nnegro quarters anchored in confusion against some oak, and the modest\nresidence just showing its eaves above water. The sun came up in a\nglory of carmine, and the trees were brilliant in their varied shades\nof green. Not a foot of soil is to be seen anywhere, and the water is\napparently growing deeper and deeper, for it reaches up to the branches\nof the largest trees. All along, the bordering willows have been denuded\nof leaves, showing how long the people have been at work gathering this\nfodder for their animals. An old man in a pirogue was asked how the\nwillow leaves agreed with his cattle. He stopped in his work, and with\nan ominous shake of his head replied: 'Well, sir, it 's enough to keep\nwarmth in their bodies and that's all we expect, but it's hard on the\nhogs, particularly the small ones. They is dropping off powerful fast.\nBut what can you do? It 's all we've got.'\n\nAt thirty miles above the mouth of Black River the water extends from\nNatchez on the Mississippi across to the pine hills of Louisiana, a\ndistance of seventy-three miles, and there is hardly a spot that is not\nten feet under it. The tendency of the current up the Black is toward\nthe west. In fact, so much is this the case, the waters of Red River\nhave been driven down from toward the Calcasieu country, and the waters\nof the Black enter the Red some fifteen miles above the mouth of the\nformer, a thing never before seen by even the oldest steamboatmen. The\nwater now in sight of us is entirely from the Mississippi.\n\nUp to Trinity, or rather Troy, which is but a short distance below,\nthe people have nearly all moved out, those remaining having enough for\ntheir present personal needs. Their cattle, though, are suffering and\ndying off quite fast, as the confinement on rafts and the food they get\nbreeds disease.\n\nAfter a short stop we started, and soon came to a section where there\nwere many open fields and cabins thickly scattered about. Here were seen\nmore pictures of distress. On the inside of the houses the inmates\nhad built on boxes a scaffold on which they placed the furniture. The\nbed-posts were sawed off on top, as the ceiling was not more than four\nfeet from the improvised floor. The buildings looked very insecure,\nand threatened every moment to float off. Near the houses were cattle\nstanding breast high in the water, perfectly impassive. They did not\nmove in their places, but stood patiently waiting for help to come. The\nsight was a distressing one, and the poor creatures will be sure to\ndie unless speedily rescued. Cattle differ from horses in this peculiar\nquality. A horse, after finding no relief comes, will swim off in search\nof food, whereas a beef will stand in its tracks until with exhaustion\nit drops in the water and drowns.\n\nAt half-past twelve o'clock a hail was given from a flat-boat inside the\nline of the bank. Rounding to we ran alongside, and General York stepped\naboard. He was just then engaged in getting off stock, and welcomed the\n'Times-Democrat' boat heartily, as he said there was much need for her.\nHe said that the distress was not exaggerated in the least. People were\nin a condition it was difficult even for one to imagine. The water was\nso high there was great danger of their houses being swept away. It had\nalready risen so high that it was approaching the eaves, and when it\nreaches this point there is always imminent risk of their being swept\naway. If this occurs, there will be great loss of life. The General\nspoke of the gallant work of many of the people in their attempts to\nsave their stock, but thought that fully twenty-five per cent. had\nperished. Already twenty-five hundred people had received rations from\nTroy, on Black River, and he had towed out a great many cattle, but a\nvery great quantity remained and were in dire need. The water was now\neighteen inches higher than in 1874, and there was no land between\nVidalia and the hills of Catahoula.\n\nAt two o'clock the 'Susie' reached Troy, sixty-five miles above the\nmouth of Black River. Here on the left comes in Little River; just\nbeyond that the Ouachita, and on the right the Tensas. These three\nrivers form the Black River. Troy, or a portion of it, is situated on\nand around three large Indian mounds, circular in shape, which rise\nabove the present water about twelve feet. They are about one hundred\nand fifty feet in diameter, and are about two hundred yards apart. The\nhouses are all built between these mounds, and hence are all flooded to\na depth of eighteen inches on their floors.\n\nThese elevations, built by the aborigines, hundreds of years ago, are\nthe only points of refuge for miles. When we arrived we found them\ncrowded with stock, all of which was thin and hardly able to stand up.\nThey were mixed together, sheep, hogs, horses, mules, and cattle. One of\nthese mounds has been used for many years as the grave-yard, and to-day\nwe saw attenuated cows lying against the marble tomb-stones, chewing\ntheir cud in contentment, after a meal of corn furnished by General\nYork. Here, as below, the remarkable skill of the women and girls in the\nmanagement of the smaller pirogues was noticed. Children were paddling\nabout in these most ticklish crafts with all the nonchalance of adepts.\n\nGeneral York has put into operation a perfect system in regard to\nfurnishing relief. He makes a personal inspection of the place where it\nis asked, sees what is necessary to be done, and then, having two boats\nchartered, with flats, sends them promptly to the place, when the cattle\nare loaded and towed to the pine hills and uplands of Catahoula. He\nhas made Troy his headquarters, and to this point boats come for their\nsupply of feed for cattle. On the opposite side of Little River, which\nbranches to the left out of Black, and between it and the Ouachita,\nis situated the town of Trinity, which is hourly threatened with\ndestruction. It is much lower than Troy, and the water is eight and nine\nfeet deep in the houses. A strong current sweeps through it, and it is\nremarkable that all of its houses have not gone before. The residents of\nboth Troy and Trinity have been cared for, yet some of their stock have\nto be furnished with food.\n\nAs soon as the 'Susie' reached Troy, she was turned over to General\nYork, and placed at his disposition to carry out the work of relief more\nrapidly. Nearly all her supplies were landed on one of the mounds to\nlighten her, and she was headed down stream to relieve those below.\nAt Tom Hooper's place, a few miles from Troy, a large flat, with about\nfifty head of stock on board, was taken in tow. The animals were fed,\nand soon regained some strength. To-day we go on Little River, where the\nsuffering is greatest.\n\nDOWN BLACK RIVER\n\nSaturday Evening, March 25.\n\nWe started down Black River quite early, under the direction of General\nYork, to bring out what stock could be reached. Going down river a flat\nin tow was left in a central locality, and from there men poled her back\nin the rear of plantations, picking up the animals wherever found. In\nthe loft of a gin-house there were seventeen head found, and after a\ngangway was built they were led down into the flat without difficulty.\nTaking a skiff with the General, your reporter was pulled up to a little\nhouse of two rooms, in which the water was standing two feet on the\nfloors. In one of the large rooms were huddled the horses and cows of\nthe place, while in the other the Widow Taylor and her son were seated\non a scaffold raised on the floor. One or two dug-outs were drifting\nabout in the roam ready to be put in service at any time. When the flat\nwas brought up, the side of the house was cut away as the only means of\ngetting the animals out, and the cattle were driven on board the boat.\nGeneral York, in this as in every case, inquired if the family desired\nto leave, informing them that Major Burke, of 'The Times-Democrat,' has\nsent the 'Susie' up for that purpose. Mrs. Taylor said she thanked Major\nBurke, but she would try and hold out. The remarkable tenacity of the\npeople here to their homes is beyond all comprehension. Just below, at\na point sixteen miles from Troy, information was received that the\nhouse of Mr. Tom Ellis was in danger, and his family were all in it. We\nsteamed there immediately, and a sad picture was presented. Looking out\nof the half of the window left above water, was Mrs. Ellis, who is in\nfeeble health, whilst at the door were her seven children, the oldest\nnot fourteen years. One side of the house was given up to the work\nanimals, some twelve head, besides hogs. In the next room the family\nlived, the water coming within two inches of the bed-rail. The stove was\nbelow water, and the cooking was done on a fire on top of it. The house\nthreatened to give way at any moment: one end of it was sinking, and,\nin fact, the building looked a mere shell. As the boat rounded to, Mr.\nEllis came out in a dug-out, and General York told him that he had come\nto his relief; that 'The Times-Democrat' boat was at his service, and\nwould remove his family at once to the hills, and on Monday a flat\nwould take out his stock, as, until that time, they would be busy.\nNotwithstanding the deplorable situation himself and family were in,\nMr. Ellis did not want to leave. He said he thought he would wait until\nMonday, and take the risk of his house falling. The children around the\ndoor looked perfectly contented, seeming to care little for the danger\nthey were in. These are but two instances of the many. After weeks of\nprivation and suffering, people still cling to their houses and leave\nonly when there is not room between the water and the ceiling to build\na scaffold on which to stand. It seemed to be incomprehensible, yet the\nlove for the old place was stronger than that for safety.\n\nAfter leaving the Ellis place, the next spot touched at was the Oswald\nplace. Here the flat was towed alongside the gin-house where there were\nfifteen head standing in water; and yet, as they stood on scaffolds,\ntheir heads were above the top of the entrance. It was found impossible\nto get them out without cutting away a portion of the front; and so\naxes were brought into requisition and a gap made. After much labor the\nhorses and mules were securely placed on the flat.\n\nAt each place we stop there are always three, four, or more dug-outs\narriving, bringing information of stock in other places in need.\nNotwithstanding the fact that a great many had driven a part of their\nstock to the hills some time ago, there yet remains a large quantity,\nwhich General York, who is working with indomitable energy, will get\nlanded in the pine hills by Tuesday.\n\nAll along Black River the 'Susie' has been visited by scores of\nplanters, whose tales are the repetition of those already heard of\nsuffering and loss. An old planter, who has lived on the river since\n1844, said there never was such a rise, and he was satisfied more than\none quarter of the stock has been lost. Luckily the people cared first\nfor their work stock, and when they could find it horses and mules were\nhoused in a place of safety. The rise which still continues, and was two\ninches last night, compels them to get them out to the hills; hence it\nis that the work of General York is of such a great value. From daylight\nto late at night he is going this way and that, cheering by his\nkindly words and directing with calm judgment what is to be done. One\nunpleasant story, of a certain merchant in New Orleans, is told all\nalong the river. It appears for some years past the planters have been\ndealing with this individual, and many of them had balances in his\nhands. When the overflow came they wrote for coffee, for meal, and, in\nfact, for such little necessities as were required. No response to these\nletters came, and others were written, and yet these old customers, with\nplantations under water, were refused even what was necessary to sustain\nlife. It is needless to say he is not popular now on Back River.\n\nThe hills spoken of as the place of refuge for the people and stock on\nBlack River are in Catahoula parish, twenty-four miles from Black River.\n\nAfter filling the flat with cattle we took on board the family of T. S.\nHooper, seven in number, who could not longer remain in their dwelling,\nand we are now taking them up Little River to the hills.\n\nTHE FLOOD STILL RISING\n\nTroy: March 27, 1882, noon.\n\nThe flood here is rising about three and a half inches every twenty-four\nhours, and rains have set in which will increase this. General York\nfeels now that our efforts ought to be directed towards saving life, as\nthe increase of the water has jeopardized many houses. We intend to\ngo up the Tensas in a few minutes, and then we will return and go\ndown Black River to take off families. There is a lack of steam\ntransportation here to meet the emergency. The General has three boats\nchartered, with flats in tow, but the demand for these to tow out stock\nis greater than they can meet with promptness. All are working night and\nday, and the 'Susie' hardly stops for more than an hour anywhere. The\nrise has placed Trinity in a dangerous plight, and momentarily it\nis expected that some of the houses will float off. Troy is a little\nhigher, yet all are in the water. Reports have come in that a woman\nand child have been washed away below here, and two cabins floated\noff. Their occupants are the same who refused to come off day before\nyesterday. One would not believe the utter passiveness of the people.\n\nAs yet no news has been received of the steamer 'Delia,' which is\nsupposed to be the one sunk in yesterday's storm on Lake Catahoula.\nShe is due here now, but has not arrived. Even the mail here is most\nuncertain, and this I send by skiff to Natchez to get it to you. It is\nimpossible to get accurate data as to past crops, etc., as those who\nknow much about the matter have gone, and those who remain are not well\nversed in the production of this section.\n\nGeneral York desires me to say that the amount of rations formerly sent\nshould be duplicated and sent at once. It is impossible to make any\nestimate, for the people are fleeing to the hills, so rapid is the\nrise. The residents here are in a state of commotion that can only be\nappreciated when seen, and complete demoralization has set in.\n\nIf rations are drawn for any particular section hereabouts, they would\nnot be certain to be distributed, so everything should be sent to Troy\nas a center, and the General will have it properly disposed of. He\nhas sent for one hundred tents, and, if all go to the hills who are in\nmotion now, two hundred will be required.\n\nAPPENDIX B\n\nTHE MISSISSIPPI RIVER COMMISSION\n\nTHE condition of this rich valley of the Lower Mississippi, immediately\nafter and since the war, constituted one of the disastrous effects of\nwar most to be deplored. Fictitious property in slaves was not only\nrighteously destroyed, but very much of the work which had depended upon\nthe slave labor was also destroyed or greatly impaired, especially the\nlevee system.\n\nIt might have been expected by those who have not investigated the\nsubject, that such important improvements as the construction and\nmaintenance of the levees would have been assumed at once by the several\nStates. But what can the State do where the people are under subjection\nto rates of interest ranging from 18 to 30 per cent., and are also under\nthe necessity of pledging their crops in advance even of planting, at\nthese rates, for the privilege of purchasing all of their supplies at\n100 per cent. profit?\n\nIt has needed but little attention to make it perfectly obvious that\nthe control of the Mississippi River, if undertaken at all, must be\nundertaken by the national government, and cannot be compassed by\nStates. The river must be treated as a unit; its control cannot be\ncompassed under a divided or separate system of administration.\n\nNeither are the States especially interested competent to combine among\nthemselves for the necessary operations. The work must begin far up the\nriver; at least as far as Cairo, if not beyond; and must be conducted\nupon a consistent general plan throughout the course of the river.\n\nIt does not need technical or scientific knowledge to comprehend the\nelements of the case if one will give a little time and attention to the\nsubject, and when a Mississippi River commission has been constituted,\nas the existing commission is, of thoroughly able men of different walks\nin life, may it not be suggested that their verdict in the case should\nbe accepted as conclusive, so far as any a priori theory of construction\nor control can be considered conclusive?\n\nIt should be remembered that upon this board are General Gilmore,\nGeneral Comstock, and General Suter, of the United States Engineers;\nProfessor Henry Mitchell (the most competent authority on the question\nof hydrography), of the United States Coast Survey; B. B. Harrod,\nthe State Engineer of Louisiana; Jas. B. Eads, whose success with the\njetties at New Orleans is a warrant of his competency, and Judge Taylor,\nof Indiana.\n\nIt would be presumption on the part of any single man, however skilled,\nto contest the judgment of such a board as this.\n\nThe method of improvement proposed by the commission is at once in\naccord with the results of engineering experience and with observations\nof nature where meeting our wants. As in nature the growth of trees and\ntheir proneness where undermined to fall across the slope and support\nthe bank secures at some points a fair depth of channel and some degree\nof permanence, so in the project of the engineer the use of timber and\nbrush and the encouragement of forest growth are the main features. It\nis proposed to reduce the width where excessive by brushwood dykes, at\nfirst low, but raised higher and higher as the mud of the river settles\nunder their shelter, and finally slope them back at the angle upon which\nwillows will grow freely. In this work there are many details connected\nwith the forms of these shelter dykes, their arrangements so as to\npresent a series of settling basins, etc., a description of which would\nonly complicate the conception. Through the larger part of the river\nworks of contraction will not be required, but nearly all the banks\non the concave side of the beds must be held against the wear of the\nstream, and much of the opposite banks defended at critical points.\nThe works having in view this conservative object may be generally\ndesignated works of revetment; and these also will be largely of\nbrushwood, woven in continuous carpets, or twined into wire-netting.\nThis veneering process has been successfully employed on the Missouri\nRiver; and in some cases they have so covered themselves with sediments,\nand have become so overgrown with willows, that they may be regarded as\npermanent. In securing these mats rubble-stone is to be used in small\nquantities, and in some instances the dressed slope between high and low\nriver will have to be more or less paved with stone.\n\nAny one who has been on the Rhine will have observed operations not\nunlike those to which we have just referred; and, indeed, most of the\nrivers of Europe flowing among their own alluvia have required similar\ntreatment in the interest of navigation and agriculture.\n\nThe levee is the crowning work of bank revetment, although not\nnecessarily in immediate connection. It may be set back a short distance\nfrom the revetted bank; but it is, in effect, the requisite parapet.\nThe flood river and the low river cannot be brought into register, and\ncompelled to unite in the excavation of a single permanent channel,\nwithout a complete control of all the stages; and even the abnormal rise\nmust be provided against, because this would endanger the levee, and\nonce in force behind the works of revetment would tear them also away.\n\nUnder the general principle that the local slope of a river is the\nresult and measure of the resistance of its bed, it is evident that\na narrow and deep stream should have less slope, because it has less\nfrictional surface in proportion to capacity; i.e., less perimeter in\nproportion to area of cross section. The ultimate effect of levees and\nrevetments confining the floods and bringing all the stages of the river\ninto register is to deepen the channel and let down the slope. The first\neffect of the levees is to raise the surface; but this, by inducing\ngreater velocity of flow, inevitably causes an enlargement of section,\nand if this enlargement is prevented from being made at the expense of\nthe banks, the bottom must give way and the form of the waterway be so\nimproved as to admit this flow with less rise. The actual experience\nwith levees upon the Mississippi River, with no attempt to hold the\nbanks, has been favorable, and no one can doubt, upon the evidence\nfurnished in the reports of the commission, that if the earliest levees\nhad been accompanied by revetment of banks, and made complete, we should\nhave to-day a river navigable at low water, and an adjacent country safe\nfrom inundation.\n\nOf course it would be illogical to conclude that the constrained river\ncan ever lower its flood slope so as to make levees unnecessary, but it\nis believed that, by this lateral constraint, the river as a conduit may\nbe so improved in form that even those rare floods which result from the\ncoincident rising of many tributaries will find vent without destroying\nlevees of ordinary height. That the actual capacity of a channel through\nalluvium depends upon its service during floods has been often shown,\nbut this capacity does not include anomalous, but recurrent, floods.\n\nIt is hardly worth while to consider the projects for relieving\nthe Mississippi River floods by creating new outlets, since these\nsensational propositions have commended themselves only to unthinking\nminds, and have no support among engineers. Were the river bed\ncast-iron, a resort to openings for surplus waters might be a necessity;\nbut as the bottom is yielding, and the best form of outlet is a single\ndeep channel, as realizing the least ratio of perimeter to area of\ncross section, there could not well be a more unphilosophical method of\ntreatment than the multiplication of avenues of escape.\n\nIn the foregoing statement the attempt has been made to condense in\nas limited a space as the importance of the subject would permit,\nthe general elements of the problem, and the general features of the\nproposed method of improvement which has been adopted by the Mississippi\nRiver Commission.\n\nThe writer cannot help feeling that it is somewhat presumptuous on his\npart to attempt to present the facts relating to an enterprise which\ncalls for the highest scientific skill; but it is a matter which\ninterests every citizen of the United States, and is one of the methods\nof reconstruction which ought to be approved. It is a war claim which\nimplies no private gain, and no compensation except for one of the cases\nof destruction incident to war, which may well be repaired by the people\nof the whole country.\n\nEDWARD ATKINSON.\n\nBoston: April 14, 1882.\n\nAPPENDIX C\n\nRECEPTION OF CAPTAIN BASIL HALL'S BOOK IN THE UNITED STATES\n\nHAVING now arrived nearly at the end of our travels, I am induced, ere I\nconclude, again to mention what I consider as one of the most remarkable\ntraits in the national character of the Americans; namely, their\nexquisite sensitiveness and soreness respecting everything said or\nwritten concerning them. Of this, perhaps, the most remarkable example I\ncan give is the effect produced on nearly every class of readers by the\nappearance of Captain Basil Hall's 'Travels in North America.' In fact,\nit was a sort of moral earthquake, and the vibration it occasioned\nthrough the nerves of the republic, from one corner of the Union to\nthe other, was by no means over when I left the country in July 1831, a\ncouple of years after the shock.\n\nI was in Cincinnati when these volumes came out, but it was not till\nJuly 1830, that I procured a copy of them. One bookseller to whom I\napplied told me that he had had a few copies before he understood the\nnature of the work, but that, after becoming acquainted with it, nothing\nshould induce him to sell another. Other persons of his profession must,\nhowever, have been less scrupulous; for the book was read in city, town,\nvillage, and hamlet, steamboat, and stage-coach, and a sort of war-whoop\nwas sent forth perfectly unprecedented in my recollection upon any\noccasion whatever.\n\nAn ardent desire for approbation, and a delicate sensitiveness under\ncensure, have always, I believe, been considered as amiable traits of\ncharacter; but the condition into which the appearance of Captain Hall's\nwork threw the republic shows plainly that these feelings, if carried to\nexcess, produce a weakness which amounts to imbecility.\n\nIt was perfectly astonishing to hear men who, on other subjects, were\nof some judgment, utter their opinions upon this. I never heard of any\ninstance in which the commonsense generally found in national criticism\nwas so overthrown by passion. I do not speak of the want of justice, and\nof fair and liberal interpretation: these, perhaps, were hardly to be\nexpected. Other nations have been called thin-skinned, but the citizens\nof the Union have, apparently, no skins at all; they wince if a breeze\nblows over them, unless it be tempered with adulation. It was not,\ntherefore, very surprising that the acute and forcible observations of a\ntraveler they knew would be listened to should be received testily. The\nextraordinary features of the business were, first, the excess of the\nrage into which they lashed themselves; and, secondly, the puerility of\nthe inventions by which they attempted to account for the severity with\nwhich they fancied they had been treated.\n\nNot content with declaring that the volumes contained no word of truth,\nfrom beginning to end (which is an assertion I heard made very nearly as\noften as they were mentioned), the whole country set to work to discover\nthe causes why Captain Hall had visited the United States, and why he\nhad published his book.\n\nI have heard it said with as much precision and gravity as if the\nstatement had been conveyed by an official report, that Captain Hall\nhad been sent out by the British Government expressly for the purpose\nof checking the growing admiration of England for the Government of the\nUnited States,--that it was by a commission from the treasury he had\ncome, and that it was only in obedience to orders that he had found\nanything to object to.\n\nI do not give this as the gossip of a coterie; I am persuaded that it is\nthe belief of a very considerable portion of the country. So deep is\nthe conviction of this singular people that they cannot be seen without\nbeing admired, that they will not admit the possibility that any one\nshould honestly and sincerely find aught to disapprove in them or their\ncountry.\n\nThe American Reviews are, many of them, I believe, well known in\nEngland; I need not, therefore, quote them here, but I sometimes\nwondered that they, none of them, ever thought of translating Obadiah's\ncurse into classic American; if they had done so, on placing (he, Basil\nHall) between brackets, instead of (he, Obadiah) it would have saved\nthem a world of trouble.\n\nI can hardly describe the curiosity with which I sat down at length\nto peruse these tremendous volumes; still less can I do justice to my\nsurprise at their contents. To say that I found not one exaggerated\nstatement throughout the work is by no means saying enough. It is\nimpossible for any one who knows the country not to see that Captain\nHall earnestly sought out things to admire and commend. When he praises,\nit is with evident pleasure; and when he finds fault, it is with evident\nreluctance and restraint, excepting where motives purely patriotic urge\nhim to state roundly what it is for the benefit of his country should be\nknown.\n\nIn fact, Captain Hall saw the country to the greatest possible\nadvantage. Furnished, of course, with letters of introduction to the\nmost distinguished individuals, and with the still more influential\nrecommendation of his own reputation, he was received in full\ndrawing-room style and state from one end of the Union to the other.\nHe saw the country in full dress, and had little or no opportunity\nof judging of it unhouselled, unanointed, unannealed, with all its\nimperfections on its head, as I and my family too often had.\n\nCaptain Hall had certainly excellent opportunities of making himself\nacquainted with the form of the government and the laws; and of\nreceiving, moreover, the best oral commentary upon them, in conversation\nwith the most distinguished citizens. Of these opportunities he made\nexcellent use; nothing important met his eye which did not receive that\nsort of analytical attention which an experienced and philosophical\ntraveler alone can give. This has made his volumes highly interesting\nand valuable; but I am deeply persuaded, that were a man of equal\npenetration to visit the United States with no other means of becoming\nacquainted with the national character than the ordinary working-day\nintercourse of life, he would conceive an infinitely lower idea of the\nmoral atmosphere of the country than Captain Hall appears to have done;\nand the internal conviction on my mind is strong, that if Captain\nHall had not placed a firm restraint on himself, he must have given\nexpression to far deeper indignation than any he has uttered against\nmany points in the American character, with which he shows from other\ncircumstances that he was well acquainted. His rule appears to have been\nto state just so much of the truth as would leave on the mind of his\nreaders a correct impression, at the least cost of pain to the sensitive\nfolks he was writing about. He states his own opinions and feelings, and\nleaves it to be inferred that he has good grounds for adopting them;\nbut he spares the Americans the bitterness which a detail of the\ncircumstances would have produced.\n\nIf any one chooses to say that some wicked antipathy to twelve millions\nof strangers is the origin of my opinion, I must bear it; and were the\nquestion one of mere idle speculation, I certainly would not court the\nabuse I must meet for stating it. But it is not so.\n\n. . . . . . .\n\nThe candor which he expresses, and evidently feels, they mistake for\nirony, or totally distrust; his unwillingness to give pain to\npersons from whom he has received kindness, they scornfully reject as\naffectation, and although they must know right well, in their own secret\nhearts, how infinitely more they lay at his mercy than he has chosen to\nbetray; they pretend, even to themselves, that he has exaggerated the\nbad points of their character and institutions; whereas, the truth is,\nthat he has let them off with a degree of tenderness which may be quite\nsuitable for him to exercise, however little merited; while, at the\nsame time, he has most industriously magnified their merits, whenever he\ncould possibly find anything favorable.\n\nAPPENDIX D\n\nTHE UNDYING HEAD\n\nIN a remote part of the North lived a man and his sister, who had never\nseen a human being. Seldom, if ever, had the man any cause to go from\nhome; for, as his wants demanded food, he had only to go a little\ndistance from the lodge, and there, in some particular spot, place his\narrows, with their barbs in the ground. Telling his sister where they\nhad been placed, every morning she would go in search, and never fail\nof finding each stuck through the heart of a deer. She had then only to\ndrag them into the lodge and prepare their food. Thus she lived till she\nattained womanhood, when one day her brother, whose name was Iamo, said\nto her: 'Sister, the time is at hand when you will be ill. Listen to my\nadvice. If you do not, it will probably be the cause of my death. Take\nthe implements with which we kindle our fires. Go some distance from our\nlodge and build a separate fire. When you are in want of food, I will\ntell you where to find it. You must cook for yourself, and I will for\nmyself. When you are ill, do not attempt to come near the lodge, or\nbring any of the utensils you use. Be sure always to fasten to your belt\nthe implements you need, for you do not know when the time will come. As\nfor myself, I must do the best I can.' His sister promised to obey him\nin all he had said.\n\nShortly after, her brother had cause to go from home. She was alone in\nher lodge, combing her hair. She had just untied the belt to which the\nimplements were fastened, when suddenly the event, to which her brother\nhad alluded, occurred. She ran out of the lodge, but in her haste forgot\nthe belt. Afraid to return, she stood for some time thinking. Finally,\nshe decided to enter the lodge and get it. For, thought she, my brother\nis not at home, and I will stay but a moment to catch hold of it. She\nwent back. Running in suddenly, she caught hold of it, and was coming\nout when her brother came in sight. He knew what was the matter. 'Oh,'\nhe said, 'did I not tell you to take care. But now you have killed me.'\nShe was going on her way, but her brother said to her, 'What can you\ndo there now. The accident has happened. Go in, and stay where you have\nalways stayed. And what will become of you? You have killed me.'\n\nHe then laid aside his hunting-dress and accoutrements, and soon after\nboth his feet began to turn black, so that he could not move. Still he\ndirected his sister where to place the arrows, that she might always\nhave food. The inflammation continued to increase, and had now reached\nhis first rib; and he said: 'Sister, my end is near. You must do as\nI tell you. You see my medicine-sack, and my war-club tied to it. It\ncontains all my medicines, and my war-plumes, and my paints of all\ncolors. As soon as the inflammation reaches my breast, you will take my\nwar-club. It has a sharp point, and you will cut off my head. When it is\nfree from my body, take it, place its neck in the sack, which you must\nopen at one end. Then hang it up in its former place. Do not forget\nmy bow and arrows. One of the last you will take to procure food. The\nremainder, tie in my sack, and then hang it up, so that I can look\ntowards the door. Now and then I will speak to you, but not often.' His\nsister again promised to obey.\n\nIn a little time his breast was affected. 'Now,' said he, 'take the\nclub and strike off my head.' She was afraid, but he told her to muster\ncourage. 'Strike,' said he, and a smile was on his face. Mustering all\nher courage, she gave the blow and cut off the head. 'Now,' said the\nhead, 'place me where I told you.' And fearfully she obeyed it in all\nits commands. Retaining its animation, it looked around the lodge\nas usual, and it would command its sister to go in such places as it\nthought would procure for her the flesh of different animals she needed.\nOne day the head said: 'The time is not distant when I shall be freed\nfrom this situation, and I shall have to undergo many sore evils. So\nthe superior manito decrees, and I must bear all patiently.' In this\nsituation we must leave the head.\n\nIn a certain part of the country was a village inhabited by a numerous\nand warlike band of Indians. In this village was a family of ten young\nmen--brothers. It was in the spring of the year that the youngest of\nthese blackened his face and fasted. His dreams were propitious. Having\nended his fast, he went secretly for his brothers at night, so that none\nin the village could overhear or find out the direction they intended\nto go. Though their drum was heard, yet that was a common occurrence.\nHaving ended the usual formalities, he told how favorable his dreams\nwere, and that he had called them together to know if they would\naccompany him in a war excursion. They all answered they would. The\nthird brother from the eldest, noted for his oddities, coming up with\nhis war-club when his brother had ceased speaking, jumped up. 'Yes,'\nsaid he, 'I will go, and this will be the way I will treat those I am\ngoing to fight;' and he struck the post in the center of the lodge, and\ngave a yell. The others spoke to him, saying: 'Slow, slow, Mudjikewis,\nwhen you are in other people's lodges.' So he sat down. Then, in turn,\nthey took the drum, and sang their songs, and closed with a feast. The\nyoungest told them not to whisper their intention to their wives, but\nsecretly to prepare for their journey. They all promised obedience, and\nMudjikewis was the first to say so.\n\nThe time for their departure drew near. Word was given to assemble on a\ncertain night, when they would depart immediately. Mudjikewis was loud\nin his demands for his moccasins. Several times his wife asked him the\nreason. 'Besides,' said she, 'you have a good pair on.' 'Quick, quick,'\nsaid he, 'since you must know, we are going on a war excursion; so be\nquick.' He thus revealed the secret. That night they met and started.\nThe snow was on the ground, and they traveled all night, lest others\nshould follow them. When it was daylight, the leader took snow and made\na ball of it, then tossing it into the air, he said: 'It was in this way\nI saw snow fall in a dream, so that I could not be tracked.' And he told\nthem to keep close to each other for fear of losing themselves, as the\nsnow began to fall in very large flakes. Near as they walked, it was\nwith difficulty they could see each other. The snow continued falling\nall that day and the following night, so it was impossible to track\nthem.\n\nThey had now walked for several days, and Mudjikewis was always in\nthe rear. One day, running suddenly forward, he gave the\n_saw-saw-quan_,{footnote [War-whoop.]} and struck a tree with his\nwar-club, and it broke into pieces as if struck with lightning.\n'Brothers,' said he, 'this will be the way I will serve those we are\ngoing to fight.' The leader answered, 'Slow, slow, Mudjikewis, the one I\nlead you to is not to be thought of so lightly.' Again he fell back and\nthought to himself: 'What! what! who can this be he is leading us to?'\nHe felt fearful and was silent. Day after day they traveled on, till\nthey came to an extensive plain, on the borders of which human bones\nwere bleaching in the sun. The leader spoke: 'They are the bones of\nthose who have gone before us. None has ever yet returned to tell the\nsad tale of their fate.' Again Mudjikewis became restless, and, running\nforward, gave the accustomed yell. Advancing to a large rock which stood\nabove the ground, he struck it, and it fell to pieces. 'See, brothers,'\nsaid he, 'thus will I treat those whom we are going to fight.' 'Still,\nstill,' once more said the leader; 'he to whom I am leading you is not\nto be compared to the rock.'\n\nMudjikewis fell back thoughtful, saying to himself: 'I wonder who\nthis can be that he is going to attack;' and he was afraid. Still they\ncontinued to see the remains of former warriors, who had been to the\nplace where they were now going, some of whom had retreated as far back\nas the place where they first saw the bones, beyond which no one had\never escaped. At last they came to a piece of rising ground, from which\nthey plainly distinguished, sleeping on a distant mountain, a mammoth\nbear.\n\nThe distance between them was very great, but the size of the animal\ncaused him to be plainly seen. 'There,' said the leader, 'it is he to\nwhom I am leading you; here our troubles will commence, for he is a\nmishemokwa and a manito. It is he who has that we prize so dearly (i.e.\nwampum), to obtain which, the warriors whose bones we saw, sacrificed\ntheir lives. You must not be fearful: be manly. We shall find him\nasleep.' Then the leader went forward and touched the belt around the\nanimal's neck. 'This,' said he, 'is what we must get. It contains the\nwampum.' Then they requested the eldest to try and slip the belt over\nthe bear's head, who appeared to be fast asleep, as he was not in the\nleast disturbed by the attempt to obtain the belt. All their efforts\nwere in vain, till it came to the one next the youngest. He tried, and\nthe belt moved nearly over the monster's head, but he could get it no\nfarther. Then the youngest one, and the leader, made his attempt, and\nsucceeded. Placing it on the back of the oldest, he said, 'Now we must\nrun,' and off they started. When one became fatigued with its weight,\nanother would relieve him. Thus they ran till they had passed the bones\nof all former warriors, and were some distance beyond, when looking\nback, they saw the monster slowly rising. He stood some time before he\nmissed his wampum. Soon they heard his tremendous howl, like distant\nthunder, slowly filling all the sky; and then they heard him speak and\nsay, 'Who can it be that has dared to steal my wampum? earth is not\nso large but that I can find them;' and he descended from the hill in\npursuit. As if convulsed, the earth shook with every jump he made. Very\nsoon he approached the party. They, however, kept the belt, exchanging\nit from one to another, and encouraging each other; but he gained on\nthem fast. 'Brothers,' said the leader, 'has never any one of you,\nwhen fasting, dreamed of some friendly spirit who would aid you as a\nguardian?' A dead silence followed. 'Well,' said he, 'fasting, I dreamed\nof being in danger of instant death, when I saw a small lodge, with\nsmoke curling from its top. An old man lived in it, and I dreamed he\nhelped me; and may it be verified soon,' he said, running forward and\ngiving the peculiar yell, and a howl as if the sounds came from the\ndepths of his stomach, and what is called _checaudum_. Getting upon a\npiece of rising ground, behold! a lodge, with smoke curling from its\ntop, appeared. This gave them all new strength, and they ran forward\nand entered it. The leader spoke to the old man who sat in the lodge,\nsaying, 'Nemesho, help us; we claim your protection, for the great bear\nwill kill us.' 'Sit down and eat, my grandchildren,' said the old man.\n'Who is a great manito?' said he. 'There is none but me; but let me\nlook,' and he opened the door of the lodge, when, lo! at a little\ndistance he saw the enraged animal coming on, with slow but powerful\nleaps. He closed the door. 'Yes,' said he, 'he is indeed a great manito:\nmy grandchildren, you will be the cause of my losing my life; you asked\nmy protection, and I granted it; so now, come what may, I will protect\nyou. When the bear arrives at the door, you must run out of the other\ndoor of the lodge.' Then putting his hand to the side of the lodge where\nhe sat, he brought out a bag which he opened. Taking out two small\nblack dogs, he placed them before him. 'These are the ones I use when I\nfight,' said he; and he commenced patting with both hands the sides of\none of them, and he began to swell out, so that he soon filled the lodge\nby his bulk; and he had great strong teeth. When he attained his full\nsize he growled, and from that moment, as from instinct, he jumped out\nat the door and met the bear, who in another leap would have reached the\nlodge. A terrible combat ensued. The skies rang with the howls of the\nfierce monsters. The remaining dog soon took the field. The brothers,\nat the onset, took the advice of the old man, and escaped through the\nopposite side of the lodge. They had not proceeded far before they heard\nthe dying cry of one of the dogs, and soon after of the other. 'Well,'\nsaid the leader, 'the old man will share their fate: so run; he will\nsoon be after us.' They started with fresh vigor, for they had received\nfood from the old man: but very soon the bear came in sight, and again\nwas fast gaining upon them. Again the leader asked the brothers if they\ncould do nothing for their safety. All were silent. The leader, running\nforward, did as before. 'I dreamed,' he cried, 'that, being in great\ntrouble, an old man helped me who was a manito; we shall soon see his\nlodge.' Taking courage, they still went on. After going a short distance\nthey saw the lodge of the old manito. They entered immediately and\nclaimed his protection, telling him a manito was after them. The old\nman, setting meat before them, said: 'Eat! who is a manito? there is no\nmanito but me; there is none whom I fear;' and the earth trembled as\nthe monster advanced. The old man opened the door and saw him coming.\nHe shut it slowly, and said: 'Yes, my grandchildren, you have brought\ntrouble upon me.' Procuring his medicine-sack, he took out his small\nwar-clubs of black stone, and told the young men to run through the\nother side of the lodge. As he handled the clubs, they became very\nlarge, and the old man stepped out just as the bear reached the door.\nThen striking him with one of the clubs, it broke in pieces; the bear\nstumbled. Renewing the attempt with the other war-club, that also was\nbroken, but the bear fell senseless. Each blow the old man gave him\nsounded like a clap of thunder, and the howls of the bear ran along till\nthey filled the heavens.\n\nThe young men had now run some distance, when they looked back. They\ncould see that the bear was recovering from the blows. First he moved\nhis paws, and soon they saw him rise on his feet. The old man shared\nthe fate of the first, for they now heard his cries as he was torn in\npieces. Again the monster was in pursuit, and fast overtaking them. Not\nyet discouraged, the young men kept on their way; but the bear was now\nso close, that the leader once more applied to his brothers, but they\ncould do nothing. 'Well,' said he, 'my dreams will soon be exhausted;\nafter this I have but one more.' He advanced, invoking his guardian\nspirit to aid him. 'Once,' said he, 'I dreamed that, being sorely\npressed, I came to a large lake, on the shore of which was a canoe,\npartly out of water, having ten paddles all in readiness. Do not fear,'\nhe cried, 'we shall soon get it.' And so it was, even as he had said.\nComing to the lake, they saw the canoe with ten paddles, and immediately\nthey embarked. Scarcely had they reached the center of the lake, when\nthey saw the bear arrive at its borders. Lifting himself on his hind\nlegs, he looked all around. Then he waded into the water; then losing\nhis footing he turned back, and commenced making the circuit of the\nlake. Meantime the party remained stationary in the center to watch his\nmovements. He traveled all around, till at last he came to the place\nfrom whence he started. Then he commenced drinking up the water, and\nthey saw the current fast setting in towards his open mouth. The leader\nencouraged them to paddle hard for the opposite shore. When only a short\ndistance from land, the current had increased so much, that they were\ndrawn back by it, and all their efforts to reach it were in vain.\n\nThen the leader again spoke, telling them to meet their fates manfully.\n'Now is the time, Mudjikewis,' said he, 'to show your prowess. Take\ncourage and sit at the bow of the canoe; and when it approaches his\nmouth, try what effect your club will have on his head.' He obeyed, and\nstood ready to give the blow; while the leader, who steered, directed\nthe canoe for the open mouth of the monster.\n\nRapidly advancing, they were just about to enter his mouth, when\nMudjikewis struck him a tremendous blow on the head, and gave the\n_saw-saw-quan_. The bear's limbs doubled under him, and he fell, stunned\nby the blow. But before Mudjikewis could renew it, the monster disgorged\nall the water he had drank, with a force which sent the canoe with great\nvelocity to the opposite shore. Instantly leaving the canoe, again they\nfled, and on they went till they were completely exhausted. The earth\nagain shook, and soon they saw the monster hard after them. Their\nspirits drooped, and they felt discouraged. The leader exerted himself,\nby actions and words, to cheer them up; and once more he asked them if\nthey thought of nothing, or could do nothing for their rescue; and, as\nbefore, all were silent. 'Then,' he said, 'this is the last time I can\napply to my guardian spirit. Now, if we do not succeed, our fates are\ndecided.' He ran forward, invoking his spirit with great earnestness,\nand gave the yell. 'We shall soon arrive,' said he to his brothers, 'at\nthe place where my last guardian spirit dwells. In him I place great\nconfidence. Do not, do not be afraid, or your limbs will be fear-bound.\nWe shall soon reach his lodge. Run, run,' he cried.\n\nReturning now to Iamo, he had passed all the time in the same condition\nwe had left him, the head directing his sister, in order to procure\nfood, where to place the magic arrows, and speaking at long intervals.\nOne day the sister saw the eyes of the head brighten, as if with\npleasure. At last it spoke. 'Oh, sister,' it said, 'in what a pitiful\nsituation you have been the cause of placing me! Soon, very soon, a\nparty of young men will arrive and apply to me for aid; but alas! How\ncan I give what I would have done with so much pleasure? Nevertheless,\ntake two arrows, and place them where you have been in the habit of\nplacing the others, and have meat prepared and cooked before they\narrive. When you hear them coming and calling on my name, go out and\nsay, \"Alas! it is long ago that an accident befell him. I was the cause\nof it.\" If they still come near, ask them in, and set meat before them.\nAnd now you must follow my directions strictly. When the bear is near,\ngo out and meet him. You will take my medicine-sack, bows and arrows,\nand my head. You must then untie the sack, and spread out before you my\npaints of all colors, my war-eagle feathers, my tufts of dried hair,\nand whatever else it contains. As the bear approaches, you will take\nall these articles, one by one, and say to him, \"This is my deceased\nbrother's paint,\" and so on with all the other articles, throwing each\nof them as far as you can. The virtues contained in them will cause him\nto totter; and, to complete his destruction, you will take my head, and\nthat too you will cast as far off as you can, crying aloud, \"See, this\nis my deceased brother's head.\" He will then fall senseless. By this\ntime the young men will have eaten, and you will call them to your\nassistance. You must then cut the carcass into pieces, yes, into small\npieces, and scatter them to the four winds; for, unless you do this, he\nwill again revive.' She promised that all should be done as he said.\nShe had only time to prepare the meat, when the voice of the leader\nwas heard calling upon Iamo for aid. The woman went out and said as her\nbrother had directed. But the war party being closely pursued, came\nup to the lodge. She invited them in, and placed the meat before them.\nWhile they were eating, they heard the bear approaching. Untying the\nmedicine-sack and taking the head, she had all in readiness for his\napproach. When he came up she did as she had been told; and, before she\nhad expended the paints and feathers, the bear began to totter, but,\nstill advancing, came close to the woman. Saying as she was commanded,\nshe then took the head, and cast it as far from her as she could. As it\nrolled along the ground, the blood, excited by the feelings of the\nhead in this terrible scene, gushed from the nose and mouth. The bear,\ntottering, soon fell with a tremendous noise. Then she cried for help,\nand the young men came rushing out, having partially regained their\nstrength and spirits.\n\nMudjikewis, stepping up, gave a yell and struck him a blow upon the\nhead. This he repeated, till it seemed like a mass of brains, while the\nothers, as quick as possible, cut him into very small pieces, which they\nthen scattered in every direction. While thus employed, happening to\nlook around where they had thrown the meat, wonderful to behold, they\nsaw starting up and turning off in every direction small black bears,\nsuch as are seen at the present day. The country was soon overspread\nwith these black animals. And it was from this monster that the present\nrace of bears derived their origin.\n\nHaving thus overcome their pursuer, they returned to the lodge. In the\nmeantime, the woman, gathering the implements she had used, and the\nhead, placed them again in the sack. But the head did not speak again,\nprobably from its great exertion to overcome the monster.\n\nHaving spent so much time and traversed so vast a country in their\nflight, the young men gave up the idea of ever returning to their own\ncountry, and game being plenty, they determined to remain where they\nnow were. One day they moved off some distance from the lodge for the\npurpose of hunting, having left the wampum with the woman. They were\nvery successful, and amused themselves, as all young men do when alone,\nby talking and jesting with each other. One of them spoke and said, 'We\nhave all this sport to ourselves; let us go and ask our sister if she\nwill not let us bring the head to this place, as it is still alive. It\nmay be pleased to hear us talk, and be in our company. In the meantime\ntake food to our sister.' They went and requested the head. She told\nthem to take it, and they took it to their hunting-grounds, and tried\nto amuse it, but only at times did they see its eyes beam with pleasure.\nOne day, while busy in their encampment, they were unexpectedly attacked\nby unknown Indians. The skirmish was long contested and bloody; many of\ntheir foes were slain, but still they were thirty to one. The young men\nfought desperately till they were all killed. The attacking party then\nretreated to a height of ground, to muster their men, and to count the\nnumber of missing and slain. One of their young men had stayed away,\nand, in endeavoring to overtake them, came to the place where the head\nwas hung up. Seeing that alone retain animation, he eyed it for some\ntime with fear and surprise. However, he took it down and opened the\nsack, and was much pleased to see the beautiful feathers, one of which\nhe placed on his head.\n\nStarting off, it waved gracefully over him till he reached his party,\nwhen he threw down the head and sack, and told them how he had found it,\nand that the sack was full of paints and feathers. They all looked at\nthe head and made sport of it. Numbers of the young men took the paint\nand painted themselves, and one of the party took the head by the hair\nand said--\n\n'Look, you ugly thing, and see your paints on the faces of warriors.'\n\nBut the feathers were so beautiful, that numbers of them also placed\nthem on their heads. Then again they used all kinds of indignity to the\nhead, for which they were in turn repaid by the death of those who\nhad used the feathers. Then the chief commanded them to throw away all\nexcept the head. 'We will see,' said he, 'when we get home, what we can\ndo with it. We will try to make it shut its eyes.'\n\nWhen they reached their homes they took it to the council-lodge, and\nhung it up before the fire, fastening it with raw hide soaked, which\nwould shrink and become tightened by the action of the fire. 'We will\nthen see,' they said, 'if we cannot make it shut its eyes.'\n\nMeantime, for several days, the sister had been waiting for the young\nmen to bring back the head; till, at last, getting impatient, she went\nin search of it. The young men she found lying within short distances\nof each other, dead, and covered with wounds. Various other bodies lay\nscattered in different directions around them. She searched for the head\nand sack, but they were nowhere to be found. She raised her voice and\nwept, and blackened her face. Then she walked in different directions,\ntill she came to the place from whence the head had been taken. Then she\nfound the magic bow and arrows, where the young men, ignorant of their\nqualities, had left them. She thought to herself that she would find her\nbrother's head, and came to a piece of rising ground, and there saw some\nof his paints and feathers. These she carefully put up, and hung upon\nthe branch of a tree till her return.\n\nAt dusk she arrived at the first lodge of a very extensive village. Here\nshe used a charm, common among Indians when they wish to meet with a\nkind reception. On applying to the old man and woman of the lodge, she\nwas kindly received. She made known her errand. The old man promised to\naid her, and told her the head was hung up before the council-fire, and\nthat the chiefs of the village, with their young men, kept watch over\nit continually. The former are considered as manitoes. She said she only\nwished to see it, and would be satisfied if she could only get to the\ndoor of the lodge. She knew she had not sufficient power to take it by\nforce. 'Come with me,' said the Indian, 'I will take you there.' They\nwent, and they took their seats near the door. The council-lodge was\nfilled with warriors, amusing themselves with games, and constantly\nkeeping up a fire to smoke the head, as they said, to make dry meat.\nThey saw the head move, and not knowing what to make of it, one spoke\nand said: 'Ha! ha! It is beginning to feel the effects of the smoke.'\nThe sister looked up from the door, and her eyes met those of her\nbrother, and tears rolled down the cheeks of the head. 'Well,' said the\nchief, 'I thought we would make you do something at last. Look! look at\nit--shedding tears,' said he to those around him; and they all laughed\nand passed their jokes upon it. The chief, looking around, and observing\nthe woman, after some time said to the man who came with her: 'Who have\nyou got there? I have never seen that woman before in our village.'\n'Yes,' replied the man, 'you have seen her; she is a relation of mine,\nand seldom goes out. She stays at my lodge, and asked me to allow her to\ncome with me to this place.' In the center of the lodge sat one of those\nyoung men who are always forward, and fond of boasting and displaying\nthemselves before others. 'Why,' said he, 'I have seen her often, and it\nis to this lodge I go almost every night to court her.' All the others\nlaughed and continued their games. The young man did not know he was\ntelling a lie to the woman's advantage, who by that means escaped.\n\nShe returned to the man's lodge, and immediately set out for her own\ncountry. Coming to the spot where the bodies of her adopted brothers\nlay, she placed them together, their feet toward the east. Then taking\nan ax which she had, she cast it up into the air, crying out, 'Brothers,\nget up from under it, or it will fall on you.' This she repeated three\ntimes, and the third time the brothers all arose and stood on their\nfeet.\n\nMudjikewis commenced rubbing his eyes and stretching himself. 'Why,'\nsaid he, 'I have overslept myself.' 'No, indeed,' said one of the\nothers, 'do you not know we were all killed, and that it is our sister\nwho has brought us to life?' The young men took the bodies of their\nenemies and burned them. Soon after, the woman went to procure wives for\nthem, in a distant country, they knew not where; but she returned with\nten young women, which she gave to the ten young men, beginning with the\neldest. Mudjikewis stepped to and fro, uneasy lest he should not get the\none he liked. But he was not disappointed, for she fell to his lot. And\nthey were well matched, for she was a female magician. They then all\nmoved into a very large lodge, and their sister told them that the women\nmust now take turns in going to her brother's head every night, trying\nto untie it. They all said they would do so with pleasure. The eldest\nmade the first attempt, and with a rushing noise she fled through the\nair.\n\nToward daylight she returned. She had been unsuccessful, as she\nsucceeded in untying only one of the knots. All took their turns\nregularly, and each one succeeded in untying only one knot each time.\nBut when the youngest went, she commenced the work as soon as she\nreached the lodge; although it had always been occupied, still the\nIndians never could see any one. For ten nights now, the smoke had not\nascended, but filled the lodge and drove them out. This last night they\nwere all driven out, and the young woman carried off the head.\n\nThe young people and the sister heard the young woman coming high\nthrough the air, and they heard her saying: 'Prepare the body of our\nbrother.' And as soon as they heard it, they went to a small lodge where\nthe black body of Iamo lay. His sister commenced cutting the neck part,\nfrom which the neck had been severed. She cut so deep as to cause it to\nbleed; and the others who were present, by rubbing the body and applying\nmedicines, expelled the blackness. In the meantime, the one who brought\nit, by cutting the neck of the head, caused that also to bleed.\n\nAs soon as she arrived, they placed that close to the body, and, by aid\nof medicines and various other means, succeeded in restoring Iamo to all\nhis former beauty and manliness. All rejoiced in the happy termination\nof their troubles, and they had spent some time joyfully together, when\nIamo said: 'Now I will divide the wampum,' and getting the belt which\ncontained it, he commenced with the eldest, giving it in equal portions.\nBut the youngest got the most splendid and beautiful, as the bottom of\nthe belt held the richest and rarest.\n\nThey were told that, since they had all once died, and were restored to\nlife, they were no longer mortal, but spirits, and they were assigned\ndifferent stations in the invisible world. Only Mudjikewis's place was,\nhowever, named. He was to direct the west wind, hence generally called\nKebeyun, there to remain for ever. They were commanded, as they had\nit in their power, to do good to the inhabitants of the earth, and,\nforgetting their sufferings in procuring the wampum, to give all things\nwith a liberal hand. And they were also commanded that it should also\nbe held by them sacred; those grains or shells of the pale hue to be\nemblematic of peace, while those of the darker hue would lead to evil\nand war.\n\nThe spirits then, amid songs and shouts, took their flight to their\nrespective abodes on high; while Iamo, with his sister Iamoqua,\ndescended into the depths below.\n"}
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{"2572":"\n\n\n\n\nON THE DECAY OF THE ART OF LYING\n\nby Mark Twain [Sameul Clemens]\n\n\n\n\nESSAY, FOR DISCUSSION, READ AT A MEETING OF THE HISTORICAL\nAND ANTIQUARIAN CLUB OF HARTFORD, AND OFFERED FOR THE\nTHIRTY-DOLLAR PRIZE.[*]\n\n[*] Did not take the prize.\n\n\n\nObserve, I do not mean to suggest that the _custom_ of lying has\nsuffered any decay or interruption--no, for the Lie, as a Virtue, A\nPrinciple, is eternal; the Lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in\ntime of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest\nfriend, is immortal, and cannot perish from the earth while this club\nremains. My complaint simply concerns the decay of the _art_ of lying.\nNo high-minded man, no man of right feeling, can contemplate the\nlumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to see\na noble art so prostituted. In this veteran presence I naturally enter\nupon this theme with diffidence; it is like an old maid trying to teach\nnursery matters to the mothers in Israel. It would not become to me to\ncriticise you, gentlemen--who are nearly all my elders--and my\nsuperiors, in this thing--if I should here and there _seem_ to do it, I\ntrust it will in most cases be more in a spirit of admiration than\nfault-finding; indeed if this finest of the fine arts had everywhere\nreceived the attention, the encouragement, and conscientious practice\nand development which this club has devoted to it, I should not need to\nutter this lament, or shed a single tear. I do not say this to flatter:\nI say it in a spirit of just and appreciative recognition. [It had been\nmy intention, at this point, to mention names and to give illustrative\nspecimens, but indications observable about me admonished me to beware\nof the particulars and confine myself to generalities.]\n\nNo fact is more firmly established than that lying is a necessity of our\ncircumstances--the deduction that it is then a Virtue goes without\nsaying. No virtue can reach its highest usefulness without careful and\ndiligent cultivation--therefore, it goes without saying that this one\nought to be taught in the public schools--even in the newspapers. What\nchance has the ignorant uncultivated liar against the educated expert?\nWhat chance have I against Mr. Per--against a lawyer? _Judicious_ lying\nis what the world needs. I sometimes think it were even better and safer\nnot to lie at all than to lie injudiciously. An awkward, unscientific\nlie is often as ineffectual as the truth.\n\nNow let us see what the philosophers say. Note that venerable proverb:\nChildren and fools _always_ speak the truth. The deduction is plain\n--adults and wise persons _never_ speak it. Parkman, the historian, says,\n\"The principle of truth may itself be carried into an absurdity.\" In\nanother place in the same chapters he says, \"The saying is old that\ntruth should not be spoken at all times; and those whom a sick\nconscience worries into habitual violation of the maxim are imbeciles\nand nuisances.\" It is strong language, but true. None of us could _live_\nwith an habitual truth-teller; but thank goodness none of us has to. An\nhabitual truth-teller is simply an impossible creature; he does not\nexist; he never has existed. Of course there are people who _think_ they\nnever lie, but it is not so--and this ignorance is one of the very\nthings that shame our so-called civilization. Everybody lies--every day;\nevery hour; awake; asleep; in his dreams; in his joy; in his mourning;\nif he keeps his tongue still, his hands, his feet, his eyes, his\nattitude, will convey deception--and purposely. Even in sermons--but\nthat is a platitude.\n\nIn a far country where I once lived the ladies used to go around paying\ncalls, under the humane and kindly pretence of wanting to see each\nother; and when they returned home, they would cry out with a glad\nvoice, saying, \"We made sixteen calls and found fourteen of them out\"\n--not meaning that they found out anything important against the\nfourteen--no, that was only a colloquial phrase to signify that they\nwere not at home--and their manner of saying it expressed their lively\nsatisfaction in that fact. Now their pretence of wanting to see the\nfourteen--and the other two whom they had been less lucky with--was that\ncommonest and mildest form of lying which is sufficiently described as a\ndeflection from the truth. Is it justifiable? Most certainly. It is\nbeautiful, it is noble; for its object is, _not_ to reap profit, but to\nconvey a pleasure to the sixteen. The iron-souled truth-monger would\nplainly manifest, or even utter the fact that he didn't want to see\nthose people--and he would be an ass, and inflict totally unnecessary\npain. And next, those ladies in that far country--but never mind, they\nhad a thousand pleasant ways of lying, that grew out of gentle impulses,\nand were a credit to their intelligence and an honor to their hearts.\nLet the particulars go.\n\nThe men in that far country were liars, every one. Their mere howdy-do\nwas a lie, because _they_ didn't care how you did, except they were\nundertakers. To the ordinary inquirer you lied in return; for you made\nno conscientious diagnostic of your case, but answered at random, and\nusually missed it considerably. You lied to the undertaker, and said\nyour health was failing--a wholly commendable lie, since it cost you\nnothing and pleased the other man. If a stranger called and interrupted\nyou, you said with your hearty tongue, \"I'm glad to see you,\" and said\nwith your heartier soul, \"I wish you were with the cannibals and it was\ndinner-time.\" When he went, you said regretfully, \"_Must_ you go?\" and\nfollowed it with a \"Call again;\" but you did no harm, for you did not\ndeceive anybody nor inflict any hurt, whereas the truth would have made\nyou both unhappy.\n\nI think that all this courteous lying is a sweet and loving art, and\nshould be cultivated. The highest perfection of politeness is only a\nbeautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of graceful and\ngilded forms of charitable and unselfish lying.\n\nWhat I bemoan is the growing prevalence of the brutal truth. Let us do\nwhat we can to eradicate it. An injurious truth has no merit over an\ninjurious lie. Neither should ever be uttered. The man who speaks an\ninjurious truth lest his soul be not saved if he do otherwise, should\nreflect that that sort of a soul is not strictly worth saving. The man\nwho tells a lie to help a poor devil out of trouble, is one of whom the\nangels doubtless say, \"Lo, here is an heroic soul who casts his own\nwelfare in jeopardy to succor his neighbor's; let us exalt this\nmagnanimous liar.\"\n\nAn injurious lie is an uncommendable thing; and so, also, and in the\nsame degree, is an injurious truth--a fact that is recognized by the law\nof libel.\n\nAmong other common lies, we have the _silent_ lie--the deception which\none conveys by simply keeping still and concealing the truth. Many\nobstinate truth-mongers indulge in this dissipation, imagining that if\nthey _speak_ no lie, they lie not at all. In that far country where I\nonce lived, there was a lovely spirit, a lady whose impulses were always\nhigh and pure, and whose character answered to them. One day I was there\nat dinner, and remarked, in a general way, that we are all liars. She\nwas amazed, and said, \"Not _all_?\" It was before \"Pinafore's\" time so I\ndid not make the response which would naturally follow in our day, but\nfrankly said, \"Yes, _all_--we are all liars. There are no exceptions.\"\nShe looked almost offended, \"Why, do you include _me_?\" \"Certainly,\" I\nsaid. \"I think you even rank as an expert.\" She said \"Sh-'sh! the\nchildren!\" So the subject was changed in deference to the children's\npresence, and we went on talking about other things. But as soon as the\nyoung people were out of the way, the lady came warmly back to the\nmatter and said, \"I have made a rule of my life to never tell a lie; and\nI have never departed from it in a single instance.\" I said, \"I don't\nmean the least harm or disrespect, but really you have been lying like\nsmoke ever since I've been sitting here. It has caused me a good deal of\npain, because I'm not used to it.\" She required of me an instance--just\na single instance. So I said--\n\n\"Well, here is the unfilled duplicate of the blank, which the Oakland\nhospital people sent to you by the hand of the sick-nurse when she came\nhere to nurse your little nephew through his dangerous illness. This\nblank asks all manners of questions as to the conduct of that\nsick-nurse: 'Did she ever sleep on her watch? Did she ever forget to\ngive the medicine?' and so forth and so on. You are warned to be very\ncareful and explicit in your answers, for the welfare of the service\nrequires that the nurses be promptly fined or otherwise punished for\nderelictions. You told me you were perfectly delighted with this nurse\n--that she had a thousand perfections and only one fault: you found you\nnever could depend on her wrapping Johnny up half sufficiently while he\nwaited in a chilly chair for her to rearrange the warm bed. You filled\nup the duplicate of this paper, and sent it back to the hospital by the\nhand of the nurse. How did you answer this question--'Was the nurse at\nany time guilty of a negligence which was likely to result in the\npatient's taking cold?' Come--everything is decided by a bet here in\nCalifornia: ten dollars to ten cents you lied when you answered that\nquestion.\" She said, \"I didn't; _I left it blank!_\" \"Just so--you have\ntold a _silent_ lie; you have left it to be inferred that you had no\nfault to find in that matter.\" She said, \"Oh, was that a lie? And _how_\ncould I mention her one single fault, and she is so good?--It would have\nbeen cruel.\" I said, \"One ought always to lie, when one can do good by\nit; your impulse was right, but your judgment was crude; this comes of\nunintelligent practice. Now observe the results of this inexpert\ndeflection of yours. You know Mr. Jones's Willie is lying very low with\nscarlet-fever; well, your recommendation was so enthusiastic that that\ngirl is there nursing him, and the worn-out family have all been\ntrustingly sound asleep for the last fourteen hours, leaving their\ndarling with full confidence in those fatal hands, because you, like\nyoung George Washington, have a reputa--However, if you are not going to\nhave anything to do, I will come around to-morrow and we'll attend the\nfuneral together, for, of course, you'll naturally feel a peculiar\ninterest in Willie's case--as personal a one, in fact, as the\nundertaker.\"\n\nBut that was not all lost. Before I was half-way through she was in a\ncarriage and making thirty miles an hour toward the Jones mansion to\nsave what was left of Willie and tell all she knew about the deadly\nnurse. All of which was unnecessary, as Willie wasn't sick; I had been\nlying myself. But that same day, all the same, she sent a line to the\nhospital which filled up the neglected blank, and stated the _facts,_\ntoo, in the squarest possible manner.\n\nNow, you see, this lady's fault was _not_ in lying, but in lying\ninjudiciously. She should have told the truth, _there,_ and made it up\nto the nurse with a fraudulent compliment further along in the paper.\nShe could have said, \"In one respect this sick-nurse is perfection--when\nshe is on the watch, she never snores.\" Almost any little pleasant lie\nwould have taken the sting out of that troublesome but necessary\nexpression of the truth.\n\nLying is universal--we _all_ do it. Therefore, the wise thing is for us\ndiligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie\nwith a good object, and not an evil one; to lie for others' advantage,\nand not our own; to lie healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly,\nhurtfully, maliciously; to lie gracefully and graciously, not awkwardly\nand clumsily; to lie firmly, frankly, squarely, with head erect, not\nhaltingly, tortuously, with pusillanimous mien, as being ashamed of our\nhigh calling. Then shall we be rid of the rank and pestilent truth that\nis rotting the land; then shall we be great and good and beautiful, and\nworthy dwellers in a world where even benign Nature habitually lies,\nexcept when she promises execrable weather. Then--But I am but a new and\nfeeble student in this gracious art; I cannot instruct _this_ club.\n\nJoking aside, I think there is much need of wise examination into what\nsorts of lies are best and wholesomest to be indulged, seeing we _must_\nall lie and we _do_ all lie, and what sorts it may be best to avoid--and\nthis is a thing which I feel I can confidently put into the hands of\nthis experienced Club--a ripe body, who may be termed, in this regard,\nand without undue flattery, Old Masters.\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"2874":"\n\n\n\n\nPERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF\n\nJOAN OF ARC\n\n VOLUME 1 (of 2)\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\nConsider this unique and imposing distinction. Since the writing of\nhuman history began, Joan of Arc is the only person, of either sex, who\nhas ever held supreme command of the military forces of a nation at the\nage of seventeen\n\nLOUIS KOSSUTH.\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\nPERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC\n\nTRANSLATOR'S PREFACE\n\nA PECULIARITY OF JOAN OF ARC'S HISTORY\n\nTHE SIEUR LOUIS DE CONTE\n\n\nBOOK I IN DOMREMY\n\nChapter 1 When Wolves Ran Free in Paris\n\nChapter 2 The Fairy Tree of Domremy\n\nChapter 3 All Aflame with Love of France\n\nChapter 4 Joan Tames the Mad Man\n\nChapter 5 Domremy Pillaged and Burned\n\nChapter 6 Joan and Archangel Michael\n\nChapter 7 She Delivers the Divine Command\n\nChapter 8 Why the Scorners Relented\n\n\nBOOK II IN COURT AND CAMP\n\nChapter 1 Joan Says Good-By\n\nChapter 2 The Governor Speeds Joan\n\nChapter 3 The Paladin Groans and Boasts\n\nChapter 4 Joan Leads Us Through the Enemy\n\nChapter 5 We Pierce the Last Ambuscades\n\nChapter 6 Joan Convinces the King\n\nChapter 7 Our Paladin in His Glory\n\nChapter 8 Joan Persuades Her Inquisitors\n\nChapter 9 She Is Made General-in-Chief\n\nChapter 10 The Maid's Sword and Banner\n\nChapter 11 The War March Is Begun\n\nChapter 12 Joan Puts Heart in Her Army\n\nChapter 13 Checked by the Folly of the Wise\n\nChapter 14 What the English Answered\n\nChapter 15 My Exquisite Poem Goes to Smash\n\nChapter 16 The Finding of the Dwarf\n\nChapter 17 Sweet Fruit of Bitter Truth\n\nChapter 18 Joan's First Battle-Field\n\nChapter 19 We Burst In Upon Ghosts\n\nChapter 20 Joan Makes Cowards Brave Victors\n\nChapter 21 She Gently Reproves Her Dear Friend\n\nChapter 22 The Fate of France Decided\n\nChapter 23 Joan Inspires the Tawdry King\n\nChapter 24 Tinsel Trappings of Nobility\n\nChapter 25 At Last\u0097Forward!\n\nChapter 26 The Last Doubts Scattered\n\nChapter 27 How Joan Took Jargeau\n\n\n\n\n\nPERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC\n\nBy The Sieur Louis De Conte\n\n (her page and secretary)\n\nIn Two Volumes\n\nVolume 1.\n\nFreely translated out of the ancient French into modern English from the\noriginal unpublished manuscript in the National Archives of France\n\nBy Jean Francois Alden\n\nAuthorities examined in verification of the truthfulness of this\nnarrative:\n\n\n  J. E. J. QUICHERAT, Condamnation et Rehabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc.\n  J. FABRE, Proces de Condamnation de Jeanne d'Arc.\n  H. A. WALLON, Jeanne d'Arc.\n  M. SEPET, Jeanne d'Arc.\n  J. MICHELET, Jeanne d'Arc.\n  BERRIAT DE SAINT-PRIX, La Famille de Jeanne d'Arc.\n  La Comtesse A. DE CHABANNES, La Vierge Lorraine.\n  Monseigneur RICARD, Jeanne d'Arc la Venerable.\n  Lord RONALD GOWER, F.S.A., Joan of Arc. JOHN O'HAGAN, Joan of Arc.\n  JANET TUCKEY, Joan of Arc the Maid.\n\n\n\nTRANSLATOR'S PREFACE\n\nTo arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man's character one must\njudge it by the standards of his time, not ours. Judged by the standards\nof one century, the noblest characters of an earlier one lose much of\ntheir luster; judged by the standards of to-day, there is probably no\nillustrious man of four or five centuries ago whose character could meet\nthe test at all points. But the character of Joan of Arc is unique.\nIt can be measured by the standards of all times without misgiving\nor apprehension as to the result. Judged by any of them, it is still\nflawless, it is still ideally perfect; it still occupies the loftiest\nplace possible to human attainment, a loftier one than has been reached\nby any other mere mortal.\n\nWhen we reflect that her century was the brutalest, the wickedest, the\nrottenest in history since the darkest ages, we are lost in wonder at\nthe miracle of such a product from such a soil. The contrast between her\nand her century is the contrast between day and night. She was truthful\nwhen lying was the common speech of men; she was honest when honesty was\nbecome a lost virtue; she was a keeper of promises when the keeping of\na promise was expected of no one; she gave her great mind to great\nthoughts and great purposes when other great minds wasted themselves\nupon pretty fancies or upon poor ambitions; she was modest, and fine,\nand delicate when to be loud and coarse might be said to be universal;\nshe was full of pity when a merciless cruelty was the rule; she was\nsteadfast when stability was unknown, and honorable in an age which had\nforgotten what honor was; she was a rock of convictions in a time when\nmen believed in nothing and scoffed at all things; she was unfailingly\ntrue to an age that was false to the core; she maintained her personal\ndignity unimpaired in an age of fawnings and servilities; she was of a\ndauntless courage when hope and courage had perished in the hearts of\nher nation; she was spotlessly pure in mind and body when society in the\nhighest places was foul in both\u0097she was all these things in an age when\ncrime was the common business of lords and princes, and when the highest\npersonages in Christendom were able to astonish even that infamous era\nand make it stand aghast at the spectacle of their atrocious lives black\nwith unimaginable treacheries, butcheries, and beastialities.\n\nShe was perhaps the only entirely unselfish person whose name has a\nplace in profane history. No vestige or suggestion of self-seeking can\nbe found in any word or deed of hers. When she had rescued her King\nfrom his vagabondage, and set his crown upon his head, she was offered\nrewards and honors, but she refused them all, and would take nothing.\nAll she would take for herself\u0097if the King would grant it\u0097was leave\nto go back to her village home, and tend her sheep again, and feel\nher mother's arms about her, and be her housemaid and helper. The\nselfishness of this unspoiled general of victorious armies, companion of\nprinces, and idol of an applauding and grateful nation, reached but that\nfar and no farther.\n\nThe work wrought by Joan of Arc may fairly be regarded as ranking any\nrecorded in history, when one considers the conditions under which it\nwas undertaken, the obstacles in the way, and the means at her disposal.\nCaesar carried conquests far, but he did it with the trained and\nconfident veterans of Rome, and was a trained soldier himself; and\nNapoleon swept away the disciplined armies of Europe, but he also was a\ntrained soldier, and he began his work with patriot battalions inflamed\nand inspired by the miracle-working new breath of Liberty breathed upon\nthem by the Revolution\u0097eager young apprentices to the splendid trade of\nwar, not old and broken men-at-arms, despairing survivors of an age-long\naccumulation of monotonous defeats; but Joan of Arc, a mere child in\nyears, ignorant, unlettered, a poor village girl unknown and without\ninfluence, found a great nation lying in chains, helpless and hopeless\nunder an alien domination, its treasury bankrupt, its soldiers\ndisheartened and dispersed, all spirit torpid, all courage dead in the\nhearts of the people through long years of foreign and domestic outrage\nand oppression, their King cowed, resigned to its fate, and preparing\nto fly the country; and she laid her hand upon this nation, this corpse,\nand it rose and followed her. She led it from victory to victory, she\nturned back the tide of the Hundred Years' War, she fatally crippled the\nEnglish power, and died with the earned title of DELIVERER OF FRANCE,\nwhich she bears to this day.\n\nAnd for all reward, the French King, whom she had crowned, stood supine\nand indifferent, while French priests took the noble child, the most\ninnocent, the most lovely, the most adorable the ages have produced, and\nburned her alive at the stake.\n\n\n\n\n\nA PECULIARITY OF JOAN OF ARC'S HISTORY\n\nThe details of the life of Joan of Arc form a biography which is unique\namong the world's biographies in one respect: It is the only story of a\nhuman life which comes to us under oath, the only one which comes to us\nfrom the witness-stand. The official records of the Great Trial of 1431,\nand of the Process of Rehabilitation of a quarter of a century later,\nare still preserved in the National Archives of France, and they furnish\nwith remarkable fullness the facts of her life. The history of no other\nlife of that remote time is known with either the certainty or the\ncomprehensiveness that attaches to hers.\n\nThe Sieur Louis de Conte is faithful to her official history in\nhis Personal Recollections, and thus far his trustworthiness is\nunimpeachable; but his mass of added particulars must depend for credit\nupon his word alone.\n\nTHE TRANSLATOR.\n\n\n\nTHE SIEUR LOUIS DE CONTE\n\nTo his Great-Great-Grand Nephews and Nieces\n\nThis is the year 1492. I am eighty-two years of age. The things I am\ngoing to tell you are things which I saw myself as a child and as a\nyouth.\n\nIn all the tales and songs and histories of Joan of Arc, which you and\nthe rest of the world read and sing and study in the books wrought in\nthe late invented art of printing, mention is made of me, the Sieur\nLouis de Conte\u0097I was her page and secretary, I was with her from the\nbeginning until the end.\n\nI was reared in the same village with her. I played with her every day,\nwhen we were little children together, just as you play with your mates.\nNow that we perceive how great she was, now that her name fills the\nwhole world, it seems strange that what I am saying is true; for it is\nas if a perishable paltry candle should speak of the eternal sun riding\nin the heavens and say, \"He was gossip and housemate to me when we\nwere candles together.\" And yet it is true, just as I say. I was her\nplaymate, and I fought at her side in the wars; to this day I carry in\nmy mind, fine and clear, the picture of that dear little figure, with\nbreast bent to the flying horse's neck, charging at the head of the\narmies of France, her hair streaming back, her silver mail plowing\nsteadily deeper and deeper into the thick of the battle, sometimes\nnearly drowned from sight by tossing heads of horses, uplifted\nsword-arms, wind-blow plumes, and intercepting shields. I was with her\nto the end; and when that black day came whose accusing shadow will lie\nalways upon the memory of the mitered French slaves of England who were\nher assassins, and upon France who stood idle and essayed no rescue, my\nhand was the last she touched in life.\n\nAs the years and the decades drifted by, and the spectacle of the\nmarvelous child's meteor flight across the war firmament of France\nand its extinction in the smoke-clouds of the stake receded deeper and\ndeeper into the past and grew ever more strange, and wonderful, and\ndivine, and pathetic, I came to comprehend and recognize her at last for\nwhat she was\u0097the most noble life that was ever born into this world save\nonly One.\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK I IN DOMREMY\n\n\n\nChapter 1 When Wolves Ran Free in Paris\n\nI, THE SIEUR LOUIS DE CONTE, was born in Neufchateau, on the 6th of\nJanuary, 1410; that is to say, exactly two years before Joan of Arc was\nborn in Domremy. My family had fled to those distant regions from the\nneighborhood of Paris in the first years of the century. In politics\nthey were Armagnacs\u0097patriots; they were for our own French King, crazy\nand impotent as he was. The Burgundian party, who were for the English,\nhad stripped them, and done it well. They took everything but my\nfather's small nobility, and when he reached Neufchateau he reached it\nin poverty and with a broken spirit. But the political atmosphere there\nwas the sort he liked, and that was something. He came to a region of\ncomparative quiet; he left behind him a region peopled with furies,\nmadmen, devils, where slaughter was a daily pastime and no man's life\nsafe for a moment. In Paris, mobs roared through the streets nightly,\nsacking, burning, killing, unmolested, uninterrupted. The sun rose upon\nwrecked and smoking buildings, and upon mutilated corpses lying here,\nthere, and yonder about the streets, just as they fell, and stripped\nnaked by thieves, the unholy gleaners after the mob. None had the\ncourage to gather these dead for burial; they were left there to rot and\ncreate plagues.\n\nAnd plagues they did create. Epidemics swept away the people like\nflies, and the burials were conducted secretly and by night, for public\nfunerals were not allowed, lest the revelation of the magnitude of the\nplague's work unman the people and plunge them into despair. Then came,\nfinally, the bitterest winter which had visited France in five hundred\nyears. Famine, pestilence, slaughter, ice, snow\u0097Paris had all these at\nonce. The dead lay in heaps about the streets, and wolves entered the\ncity in daylight and devoured them.\n\nAh, France had fallen low\u0097so low! For more than three quarters of a\ncentury the English fangs had been bedded in her flesh, and so cowed\nhad her armies become by ceaseless rout and defeat that it was said and\naccepted that the mere sight of an English army was sufficient to put a\nFrench one to flight.\n\nWhen I was five years old the prodigious disaster of Agincourt fell upon\nFrance; and although the English King went home to enjoy his glory, he\nleft the country prostrate and a prey to roving bands of Free Companions\nin the service of the Burgundian party, and one of these bands came\nraiding through Neufchateau one night, and by the light of our burning\nroof-thatch I saw all that were dear to me in this world (save an elder\nbrother, your ancestor, left behind with the court) butchered while\nthey begged for mercy, and heard the butchers laugh at their prayers and\nmimic their pleadings. I was overlooked, and escaped without hurt. When\nthe savages were gone I crept out and cried the night away watching the\nburning houses; and I was all alone, except for the company of the dead\nand the wounded, for the rest had taken flight and hidden themselves.\n\nI was sent to Domremy, to the priest, whose housekeeper became a loving\nmother to me. The priest, in the course of time, taught me to read and\nwrite, and he and I were the only persons in the village who possessed\nthis learning.\n\nAt the time that the house of this good priest, Guillaume Fronte, became\nmy home, I was six years old. We lived close by the village church, and\nthe small garden of Joan's parents was behind the church. As to that\nfamily there were Jacques d'Arc the father, his wife Isabel Romee; three\nsons\u0097Jacques, ten years old, Pierre, eight, and Jean, seven; Joan, four,\nand her baby sister Catherine, about a year old. I had these\nchildren for playmates from the beginning. I had some other playmates\nbesides\u0097particularly four boys: Pierre Morel, Etienne Roze, Noel\nRainguesson, and Edmond Aubrey, whose father was maire at that time;\nalso two girls, about Joan's age, who by and by became her favorites;\none was named Haumetter, the other was called Little Mengette. These\ngirls were common peasant children, like Joan herself. When they grew\nup, both married common laborers. Their estate was lowly enough, you\nsee; yet a time came, many years after, when no passing stranger,\nhowsoever great he might be, failed to go and pay his reverence to\nthose two humble old women who had been honored in their youth by the\nfriendship of Joan of Arc.\n\nThese were all good children, just of the ordinary peasant type;\nnot bright, of course\u0097you would not expect that\u0097but good-hearted and\ncompanionable, obedient to their parents and the priest; and as they\ngrew up they became properly stocked with narrowness and prejudices\ngot at second hand from their elders, and adopted without reserve; and\nwithout examination also\u0097which goes without saying. Their religion was\ninherited, their politics the same. John Huss and his sort might find\nfault with the Church, in Domremy it disturbed nobody's faith; and when\nthe split came, when I was fourteen, and we had three Popes at once,\nnobody in Domremy was worried about how to choose among them\u0097the Pope of\nRome was the right one, a Pope outside of Rome was no Pope at all.\nEvery human creature in the village was an Armagnac\u0097a patriot\u0097and if we\nchildren hotly hated nothing else in the world, we did certainly hate\nthe English and Burgundian name and polity in that way.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 2 The Fairy Tree of Domremy\n\nOUR DOMREMY was like any other humble little hamlet of that remote time\nand region. It was a maze of crooked, narrow lanes and alleys shaded and\nsheltered by the overhanging thatch roofs of the barnlike houses. The\nhouses were dimly lighted by wooden-shuttered windows\u0097that is, holes in\nthe walls which served for windows. The floors were dirt, and there was\nvery little furniture. Sheep and cattle grazing was the main industry;\nall the young folks tended flocks.\n\nThe situation was beautiful. From one edge of the village a flowery\nplain extended in a wide sweep to the river\u0097the Meuse; from the rear\nedge of the village a grassy slope rose gradually, and at the top was\nthe great oak forest\u0097a forest that was deep and gloomy and dense, and\nfull of interest for us children, for many murders had been done in it\nby outlaws in old times, and in still earlier times prodigious dragons\nthat spouted fire and poisonous vapors from their nostrils had their\nhomes in there. In fact, one was still living in there in our own time.\nIt was as long as a tree, and had a body as big around as a tierce, and\nscales like overlapping great tiles, and deep ruby eyes as large as a\ncavalier's hat, and an anchor-fluke on its tail as big as I don't know\nwhat, but very big, even unusually so for a dragon, as everybody\nsaid who knew about dragons. It was thought that this dragon was of a\nbrilliant blue color, with gold mottlings, but no one had ever seen it,\ntherefore this was not known to be so, it was only an opinion. It was\nnot my opinion; I think there is no sense in forming an opinion when\nthere is no evidence to form it on. If you build a person without any\nbones in him he may look fair enough to the eye, but he will be limber\nand cannot stand up; and I consider that evidence is the bones of an\nopinion. But I will take up this matter more at large at another time,\nand try to make the justness of my position appear. As to that dragon,\nI always held the belief that its color was gold and without blue, for\nthat has always been the color of dragons. That this dragon lay but a\nlittle way within the wood at one time is shown by the fact that Pierre\nMorel was in there one day and smelt it, and recognized it by the smell.\nIt gives one a horrid idea of how near to us the deadliest danger can be\nand we not suspect it.\n\nIn the earliest times a hundred knights from many remote places in the\nearth would have gone in there one after another, to kill the dragon and\nget the reward, but in our time that method had gone out, and the priest\nhad become the one that abolished dragons. Pere Guillaume Fronte did it\nin this case. He had a procession, with candles and incense and banners,\nand marched around the edge of the wood and exorcised the dragon, and it\nwas never heard of again, although it was the opinion of many that the\nsmell never wholly passed away. Not that any had ever smelt the smell\nagain, for none had; it was only an opinion, like that other\u0097and lacked\nbones, you see. I know that the creature was there before the exorcism,\nbut whether it was there afterward or not is a thing which I cannot be\nso positive about.\n\nIn a noble open space carpeted with grass on the high ground toward\nVaucouleurs stood a most majestic beech tree with wide-reaching arms and\na grand spread of shade, and by it a limpid spring of cold water; and on\nsummer days the children went there\u0097oh, every summer for more than five\nhundred years\u0097went there and sang and danced around the tree for hours\ntogether, refreshing themselves at the spring from time to time, and\nit was most lovely and enjoyable. Also they made wreaths of flowers and\nhung them upon the tree and about the spring to please the fairies that\nlived there; for they liked that, being idle innocent little creatures,\nas all fairies are, and fond of anything delicate and pretty like wild\nflowers put together in that way. And in return for this attention the\nfairies did any friendly thing they could for the children, such as\nkeeping the spring always full and clear and cold, and driving away\nserpents and insects that sting; and so there was never any unkindness\nbetween the fairies and the children during more than five hundred\nyears\u0097tradition said a thousand\u0097but only the warmest affection and the\nmost perfect trust and confidence; and whenever a child died the fairies\nmourned just as that child's playmates did, and the sign of it was there\nto see; for before the dawn on the day of the funeral they hung a little\nimmortelle over the place where that child was used to sit under the\ntree. I know this to be true by my own eyes; it is not hearsay. And the\nreason it was known that the fairies did it was this\u0097that it was made\nall of black flowers of a sort not known in France anywhere.\n\nNow from time immemorial all children reared in Domremy were called the\nChildren of the Tree; and they loved that name, for it carried with it\na mystic privilege not granted to any others of the children of this\nworld. Which was this: whenever one of these came to die, then beyond\nthe vague and formless images drifting through his darkening mind rose\nsoft and rich and fair a vision of the Tree\u0097if all was well with his\nsoul. That was what some said. Others said the vision came in two ways:\nonce as a warning, one or two years in advance of death, when the soul\nwas the captive of sin, and then the Tree appeared in its desolate\nwinter aspect\u0097then that soul was smitten with an awful fear. If\nrepentance came, and purity of life, the vision came again, this time\nsummer-clad and beautiful; but if it were otherwise with that soul the\nvision was withheld, and it passed from life knowing its doom. Still\nothers said that the vision came but once, and then only to the sinless\ndying forlorn in distant lands and pitifully longing for some last dear\nreminder of their home. And what reminder of it could go to their hearts\nlike the picture of the Tree that was the darling of their love and the\ncomrade of their joys and comforter of their small griefs all through\nthe divine days of their vanished youth?\n\nNow the several traditions were as I have said, some believing one and\nsome another. One of them I knew to be the truth, and that was the last\none. I do not say anything against the others; I think they were true,\nbut I only know that the last one was; and it is my thought that if one\nkeep to the things he knows, and not trouble about the things which he\ncannot be sure about, he will have the steadier mind for it\u0097and there is\nprofit in that. I know that when the Children of the Tree die in a far\nland, then\u0097if they be at peace with God\u0097they turn their longing eyes\ntoward home, and there, far-shining, as through a rift in a cloud that\ncurtains heaven, they see the soft picture of the Fairy Tree, clothed\nin a dream of golden light; and they see the bloomy mead sloping away to\nthe river, and to their perishing nostrils is blown faint and sweet\nthe fragrance of the flowers of home. And then the vision fades and\npasses\u0097but they know, they know! and by their transfigured faces you\nknow also, you who stand looking on; yes, you know the message that has\ncome, and that it has come from heaven.\n\nJoan and I believed alike about this matter. But Pierre Morel and\nJacques d'Arc, and many others believed that the vision appeared\ntwice\u0097to a sinner. In fact, they and many others said they knew it.\nProbably because their fathers had known it and had told them; for one\ngets most things at second hand in this world.\n\nNow one thing that does make it quite likely that there were really two\napparitions of the Tree is this fact: From the most ancient times if one\nsaw a villager of ours with his face ash-white and rigid with a ghastly\nfright, it was common for every one to whisper to his neighbor, \"Ah, he\nis in sin, and has got his warning.\" And the neighbor would shudder at\nthe thought and whisper back, \"Yes, poor soul, he has seen the Tree.\"\n\nSuch evidences as these have their weight; they are not to be put\naside with a wave of the hand. A thing that is backed by the cumulative\nevidence of centuries naturally gets nearer and nearer to being proof\nall the time; and if this continue and continue, it will some day become\nauthority\u0097and authority is a bedded rock, and will abide.\n\nIn my long life I have seen several cases where the tree appeared\nannouncing a death which was still far away; but in none of these was\nthe person in a state of sin. No; the apparition was in these cases\nonly a special grace; in place of deferring the tidings of that soul's\nredemption till the day of death, the apparition brought them long\nbefore, and with them peace\u0097peace that might no more be disturbed\u0097the\neternal peace of God. I myself, old and broken, wait with serenity; for\nI have seen the vision of the Tree. I have seen it, and am content.\n\nAlways, from the remotest times, when the children joined hands and\ndanced around the Fairy Tree they sang a song which was the Tree's song,\nthe song of L'Arbre fee de Bourlemont. They sang it to a quaint sweet\nair\u0097a solacing sweet air which has gone murmuring through my dreaming\nspirit all my life when I was weary and troubled, resting me and\ncarrying me through night and distance home again. No stranger can know\nor feel what that song has been, through the drifting centuries, to\nexiled Children of the Tree, homeless and heavy of heart in countries\nforeign to their speech and ways. You will think it a simple thing, that\nsong, and poor, perchance; but if you will remember what it was to\nus, and what it brought before our eyes when it floated through our\nmemories, then you will respect it. And you will understand how the\nwater wells up in our eyes and makes all things dim, and our voices\nbreak and we cannot sing the last lines:\n\n\"And when, in Exile wand'ring, we Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of\nthee, Oh, rise upon our sight!\"\n\nAnd you will remember that Joan of Arc sang this song with us around the\nTree when she was a little child, and always loved it. And that hallows\nit, yes, you will grant that:\n\n\n     L'ARBRE FEE DE BOURLEMONT\n\n     SONG OF THE CHILDREN\n\n     Now what has kept your leaves so green,\n     Arbre Fee de Bourlemont?\n\n     The children's tears! They brought each grief,\n     And you did comfort them and cheer\n     Their bruised hearts, and steal a tear\n     That, healed, rose a leaf.\n\n     And what has built you up so strong,\n     Arbre Fee de Bourlemont?\n\n     The children's love! They've loved you long\n     Ten hundred years, in sooth,\n     They've nourished you with praise and song,\n     And warmed your heart and kept it young\u0097\n     A thousand years of youth!\n\n     Bide always green in our young hearts,\n     Arbre Fee de Bourlemont!\n     And we shall always youthful be,\n     Not heeding Time his flight;\n     And when, in exile wand'ring, we\n     Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee,\n     Oh, rise upon our sight!\n\n\nThe fairies were still there when we were children, but we never saw\nthem; because, a hundred years before that, the priest of Domremy had\nheld a religious function under the tree and denounced them as being\nblood-kin to the Fiend and barred them from redemption; and then\nhe warned them never to show themselves again, nor hang any more\nimmortelles, on pain of perpetual banishment from that parish.\n\nAll the children pleaded for the fairies, and said they were their good\nfriends and dear to them and never did them any harm, but the priest\nwould not listen, and said it was sin and shame to have such friends.\nThe children mourned and could not be comforted; and they made an\nagreement among themselves that they would always continue to hang\nflower-wreaths on the tree as a perpetual sign to the fairies that they\nwere still loved and remembered, though lost to sight.\n\nBut late one night a great misfortune befell. Edmond Aubrey's mother\npassed by the Tree, and the fairies were stealing a dance, not thinking\nanybody was by; and they were so busy, and so intoxicated with the wild\nhappiness of it, and with the bumpers of dew sharpened up with honey\nwhich they had been drinking, that they noticed nothing; so Dame Aubrey\nstood there astonished and admiring, and saw the little fantastic atoms\nholding hands, as many as three hundred of them, tearing around in a\ngreat ring half as big as an ordinary bedroom, and leaning away back\nand spreading their mouths with laughter and song, which she could hear\nquite distinctly, and kicking their legs up as much as three inches\nfrom the ground in perfect abandon and hilarity\u0097oh, the very maddest and\nwitchingest dance the woman ever saw.\n\nBut in about a minute or two minutes the poor little ruined creatures\ndiscovered her. They burst out in one heartbreaking squeak of grief and\nterror and fled every which way, with their wee hazel-nut fists in their\neyes and crying; and so disappeared.\n\nThe heartless woman\u0097no, the foolish woman; she was not heartless, but\nonly thoughtless\u0097went straight home and told the neighbors all about it,\nwhilst we, the small friends of the fairies, were asleep and not witting\nthe calamity that was come upon us, and all unconscious that we ought to\nbe up and trying to stop these fatal tongues. In the morning everybody\nknew, and the disaster was complete, for where everybody knows a thing\nthe priest knows it, of course. We all flocked to Pere Fronte, crying\nand begging\u0097and he had to cry, too, seeing our sorrow, for he had a most\nkind and gentle nature; and he did not want to banish the fairies, and\nsaid so; but said he had no choice, for it had been decreed that if they\never revealed themselves to man again, they must go. This all happened\nat the worst time possible, for Joan of Arc was ill of a fever and out\nof her head, and what could we do who had not her gifts of reasoning and\npersuasion? We flew in a swarm to her bed and cried out, \"Joan, wake!\nWake, there is no moment to lose! Come and plead for the fairies\u0097come\nand save them; only you can do it!\"\n\nBut her mind was wandering, she did not know what we said nor what we\nmeant; so we went away knowing all was lost. Yes, all was lost, forever\nlost; the faithful friends of the children for five hundred years must\ngo, and never come back any more.\n\nIt was a bitter day for us, that day that Pere Fronte held the function\nunder the tree and banished the fairies. We could not wear mourning that\nany could have noticed, it would not have been allowed; so we had to be\ncontent with some poor small rag of black tied upon our garments where\nit made no show; but in our hearts we wore mourning, big and noble and\noccupying all the room, for our hearts were ours; they could not get at\nthem to prevent that.\n\nThe great tree\u0097l'Arbre Fee de Bourlemont was its beautiful name\u0097was\nnever afterward quite as much to us as it had been before, but it was\nalways dear; is dear to me yet when I go there now, once a year in my\nold age, to sit under it and bring back the lost playmates of my youth\nand group them about me and look upon their faces through my tears\nand break my heart, oh, my God! No, the place was not quite the same\nafterward. In one or two ways it could not be; for, the fairies'\nprotection being gone, the spring lost much of its freshness and\ncoldness, and more than two-thirds of its volume, and the banished\nserpents and stinging insects returned, and multiplied, and became a\ntorment and have remained so to this day.\n\nWhen that wise little child, Joan, got well, we realized how much her\nillness had cost us; for we found that we had been right in believing\nshe could save the fairies. She burst into a great storm of anger, for\nso little a creature, and went straight to Pere Fronte, and stood up\nbefore him where he sat, and made reverence and said:\n\n\"The fairies were to go if they showed themselves to people again, is it\nnot so?\"\n\n\"Yes, that was it, dear.\"\n\n\"If a man comes prying into a person's room at midnight when that person\nis half-naked, will you be so unjust as to say that that person is\nshowing himself to that man?\"\n\n\"Well\u0097no.\" The good priest looked a little troubled and uneasy when he\nsaid it.\n\n\"Is a sin a sin, anyway, even if one did not intend to commit it?\"\n\nPere Fronte threw up his hands and cried out:\n\n\"Oh, my poor little child, I see all my fault,\" and he drew her to his\nside and put an arm around her and tried to make his peace with her, but\nher temper was up so high that she could not get it down right away, but\nburied her head against his breast and broke out crying and said:\n\n\"Then the fairies committed no sin, for there was no intention to commit\none, they not knowing that any one was by; and because they were little\ncreatures and could not speak for themselves and say the law was against\nthe intention, not against the innocent act, because they had no friend\nto think that simple thing for them and say it, they have been sent away\nfrom their home forever, and it was wrong, wrong to do it!\"\n\nThe good father hugged her yet closer to his side and said:\n\n\"Oh, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings the heedless and\nunthinking are condemned; would God I could bring the little creatures\nback, for your sake. And mine, yes, and mine; for I have been unjust.\nThere, there, don't cry\u0097nobody could be sorrier than your poor old\nfriend\u0097don't cry, dear.\"\n\n\"But I can't stop right away, I've got to. And it is no little matter,\nthis thing that you have done. Is being sorry penance enough for such an\nact?\"\n\nPere Fronte turned away his face, for it would have hurt her to see him\nlaugh, and said:\n\n\"Oh, thou remorseless but most just accuser, no, it is not. I will put\non sackcloth and ashes; there\u0097are you satisfied?\"\n\nJoan's sobs began to diminish, and she presently looked up at the old\nman through her tears, and said, in her simple way:\n\n\"Yes, that will do\u0097if it will clear you.\"\n\nPere Fronte would have been moved to laugh again, perhaps, if he had not\nremembered in time that he had made a contract, and not a very agreeable\none. It must be fulfilled. So he got up and went to the fireplace, Joan\nwatching him with deep interest, and took a shovelful of cold ashes, and\nwas going to empty them on his old gray head when a better idea came to\nhim, and he said:\n\n\"Would you mind helping me, dear?\"\n\n\"How, father?\"\n\nHe got down on his knees and bent his head low, and said:\n\n\"Take the ashes and put them on my head for me.\"\n\nThe matter ended there, of course. The victory was with the priest. One\ncan imagine how the idea of such a profanation would strike Joan or any\nother child in the village. She ran and dropped upon her knees by his\nside and said:\n\n\"Oh, it is dreadful. I didn't know that that was what one meant by\nsackcloth and ashes\u0097do please get up, father.\"\n\n\"But I can't until I am forgiven. Do you forgive me?\"\n\n\"I? Oh, you have done nothing to me, father; it is yourself that must\nforgive yourself for wronging those poor things. Please get up, father,\nwon't you?\"\n\n\"But I am worse off now than I was before. I thought I was earning\nyour forgiveness, but if it is my own, I can't be lenient; it would not\nbecome me. Now what can I do? Find me some way out of this with your\nwise little head.\"\n\nThe Pere would not stir, for all Joan's pleadings. She was about to cry\nagain; then she had an idea, and seized the shovel and deluged her\nown head with the ashes, stammering out through her chokings and\nsuffocations:\n\n\"There\u0097now it is done. Oh, please get up, father.\"\n\nThe old man, both touched and amused, gathered her to his breast and\nsaid:\n\n\"Oh, you incomparable child! It's a humble martyrdom, and not of a sort\npresentable in a picture, but the right and true spirit is in it; that I\ntestify.\"\n\nThen he brushed the ashes out of her hair, and helped her scour her face\nand neck and properly tidy herself up. He was in fine spirits now, and\nready for further argument, so he took his seat and drew Joan to his\nside again, and said:\n\n\"Joan, you were used to make wreaths there at the Fairy Tree with the\nother children; is it not so?\"\n\nThat was the way he always started out when he was going to corner me up\nand catch me in something\u0097just that gentle, indifferent way that fools\na person so, and leads him into the trap, he never noticing which way he\nis traveling until he is in and the door shut on him. He enjoyed that.\nI knew he was going to drop corn along in front of Joan now. Joan\nanswered:\n\n\"Yes, father.\"\n\n\"Did you hang them on the tree?\"\n\n\"No, father.\"\n\n\"Didn't hang them there?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you?\"\n\n\"I\u0097well, I didn't wish to.\"\n\n\"Didn't wish to?\"\n\n\"No, father.\"\n\n\"What did you do with them?\"\n\n\"I hung them in the church.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you want to hang them in the tree?\"\n\n\"Because it was said that the fairies were of kin to the Fiend, and that\nit was sinful to show them honor.\"\n\n\"Did you believe it was wrong to honor them so?\"\n\n\"Yes. I thought it must be wrong.\"\n\n\"Then if it was wrong to honor them in that way, and if they were of\nkin to the Fiend, they could be dangerous company for you and the other\nchildren, couldn't they?\"\n\n\"I suppose so\u0097yes, I think so.\"\n\nHe studied a minute, and I judged he was going to spring his trap, and\nhe did. He said:\n\n\"Then the matter stands like this. They were banned creatures, of\nfearful origin; they could be dangerous company for the children. Now\ngive me a rational reason, dear, if you can think of any, why you call\nit a wrong to drive them into banishment, and why you would have saved\nthem from it. In a word, what loss have you suffered by it?\"\n\nHow stupid of him to go and throw his case away like that! I could have\nboxed his ears for vexation if he had been a boy. He was going along all\nright until he ruined everything by winding up in that foolish and fatal\nway. What had she lost by it! Was he never going to find out what kind\nof a child Joan of Arc was? Was he never going to learn that things\nwhich merely concerned her own gain or loss she cared nothing about?\nCould he never get the simple fact into his head that the sure way and\nthe only way to rouse her up and set her on fire was to show her where\nsome other person was going to suffer wrong or hurt or loss? Why, he had\ngone and set a trap for himself\u0097that was all he had accomplished.\n\nThe minute those words were out of his mouth her temper was up, the\nindignant tears rose in her eyes, and she burst out on him with an\nenergy and passion which astonished him, but didn't astonish me, for I\nknew he had fired a mine when he touched off his ill-chosen climax.\n\n\"Oh, father, how can you talk like that? Who owns France?\"\n\n\"God and the King.\"\n\n\"Not Satan?\"\n\n\"Satan, my child? This is the footstool of the Most High\u0097Satan owns no\nhandful of its soil.\"\n\n\"Then who gave those poor creatures their home? God. Who protected them\nin it all those centuries? God. Who allowed them to dance and play there\nall those centuries and found no fault with it? God. Who disapproved of\nGod's approval and put a threat upon them? A man. Who caught them again\nin harmless sports that God allowed and a man forbade, and carried out\nthat threat, and drove the poor things away from the home the good God\ngave them in His mercy and His pity, and sent down His rain and dew and\nsunshine upon it five hundred years in token of His peace? It was their\nhome\u0097theirs, by the grace of God and His good heart, and no man had a\nright to rob them of it. And they were the gentlest, truest friends that\nchildren ever had, and did them sweet and loving service all these five\nlong centuries, and never any hurt or harm; and the children loved them,\nand now they mourn for them, and there is no healing for their grief.\nAnd what had the children done that they should suffer this cruel\nstroke? The poor fairies could have been dangerous company for the\nchildren? Yes, but never had been; and could is no argument. Kinsmen of\nthe Fiend? What of it? Kinsmen of the Fiend have rights, and these had;\nand children have rights, and these had; and if I had been there I would\nhave spoken\u0097I would have begged for the children and the fiends, and\nstayed your hand and saved them all. But now\u0097oh, now, all is lost;\neverything is lost, and there is no help more!\"\n\nThen she finished with a blast at that idea that fairy kinsmen of the\nFiend ought to be shunned and denied human sympathy and friendship\nbecause salvation was barred against them. She said that for that very\nreason people ought to pity them, and do every humane and loving thing\nthey could to make them forget the hard fate that had been put upon them\nby accident of birth and no fault of their own. \"Poor little creatures!\"\nshe said. \"What can a person's heart be made of that can pity a\nChristian's child and yet can't pity a devil's child, that a thousand\ntimes more needs it!\"\n\nShe had torn loose from Pere Fronte, and was crying, with her knuckles\nin her eyes, and stamping her small feet in a fury; and now she burst\nout of the place and was gone before we could gather our senses together\nout of this storm of words and this whirlwind of passion.\n\nThe Pere had got upon his feet, toward the last, and now he stood there\npassing his hand back and forth across his forehead like a person who is\ndazed and troubled; then he turned and wandered toward the door of\nhis little workroom, and as he passed through it I heard him murmur\nsorrowfully:\n\n\"Ah, me, poor children, poor fiends, they have rights, and she said\ntrue\u0097I never thought of that. God forgive me, I am to blame.\"\n\nWhen I heard that, I knew I was right in the thought that he had set\na trap for himself. It was so, and he had walked into it, you see. I\nseemed to feel encouraged, and wondered if mayhap I might get him into\none; but upon reflection my heart went down, for this was not my gift.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 3 All Aflame with Love of France\n\nSPEAKING of this matter reminds me of many incidents, many things that I\ncould tell, but I think I will not try to do it now. It will be more\nto my present humor to call back a little glimpse of the simple and\ncolorless good times we used to have in our village homes in those\npeaceful days\u0097especially in the winter. In the summer we children were\nout on the breezy uplands with the flocks from dawn till night, and then\nthere was noisy frolicking and all that; but winter was the cozy time,\nwinter was the snug time. Often we gathered in old Jacques d'Arc's big\ndirt-floored apartment, with a great fire going, and played games, and\nsang songs, and told fortunes, and listened to the old villagers tell\ntales and histories and lies and one thing and another till twelve\no'clock at night.\n\nOne winter's night we were gathered there\u0097it was the winter that for\nyears afterward they called the hard winter\u0097and that particular night\nwas a sharp one. It blew a gale outside, and the screaming of the wind\nwas a stirring sound, and I think I may say it was beautiful, for I\nthink it is great and fine and beautiful to hear the wind rage and storm\nand blow its clarions like that, when you are inside and comfortable.\nAnd we were. We had a roaring fire, and the pleasant spit-spit of the\nsnow and sleet falling in it down the chimney, and the yarning and\nlaughing and singing went on at a noble rate till about ten o'clock,\nand then we had a supper of hot porridge and beans, and meal cakes with\nbutter, and appetites to match.\n\nLittle Joan sat on a box apart, and had her bowl and bread on another\none, and her pets around her helping. She had more than was usual of\nthem or economical, because all the outcast cats came and took up with\nher, and homeless or unlovable animals of other kinds heard about it and\ncame, and these spread the matter to the other creatures, and they came\nalso; and as the birds and the other timid wild things of the woods were\nnot afraid of her, but always had an idea she was a friend when they\ncame across her, and generally struck up an acquaintance with her to get\ninvited to the house, she always had samples of those breeds in stock.\nShe was hospitable to them all, for an animal was an animal to her,\nand dear by mere reason of being an animal, no matter about its sort\nor social station; and as she would allow of no cages, no collars, no\nfetters, but left the creatures free to come and go as they liked, that\ncontented them, and they came; but they didn't go, to any extent, and\nso they were a marvelous nuisance, and made Jacques d'Arc swear a good\ndeal; but his wife said God gave the child the instinct, and knew what\nHe was doing when He did it, therefore it must have its course; it would\nbe no sound prudence to meddle with His affairs when no invitation had\nbeen extended. So the pets were left in peace, and here they were, as\nI have said, rabbits, birds, squirrels, cats, and other reptiles, all\naround the child, and full of interest in her supper, and helping what\nthey could. There was a very small squirrel on her shoulder, sitting\nup, as those creatures do, and turning a rocky fragment of prehistoric\nchestnut-cake over and over in its knotty hands, and hunting for the\nless indurated places, and giving its elevated bushy tail a flirt and\nits pointed ears a toss when it found one\u0097signifying thankfulness and\nsurprise\u0097and then it filed that place off with those two slender front\nteeth which a squirrel carries for that purpose and not for ornament,\nfor ornamental they never could be, as any will admit that have noticed\nthem.\n\nEverything was going fine and breezy and hilarious, but then there came\nan interruption, for somebody hammered on the door. It was one of those\nragged road-stragglers\u0097the eternal wars kept the country full of them.\nHe came in, all over snow, and stamped his feet, and shook, and brushed\nhimself, and shut the door, and took off his limp ruin of a hat, and\nslapped it once or twice against his leg to knock off its fleece of\nsnow, and then glanced around on the company with a pleased look upon\nhis thin face, and a most yearning and famished one in his eye when it\nfell upon the victuals, and then he gave us a humble and conciliatory\nsalutation, and said it was a blessed thing to have a fire like that on\nsuch a night, and a roof overhead like this, and that rich food to eat,\nand loving friends to talk with\u0097ah, yes, this was true, and God help the\nhomeless, and such as must trudge the roads in this weather.\n\nNobody said anything. The embarrassed poor creature stood there and\nappealed to one face after the other with his eyes, and found no welcome\nin any, the smile on his own face flickering and fading and perishing,\nmeanwhile; then he dropped his gaze, the muscles of his face began to\ntwitch, and he put up his hand to cover this womanish sign of weakness.\n\n\"Sit down!\"\n\nThis thunder-blast was from old Jacques d'Arc, and Joan was the object\nof it. The stranger was startled, and took his hand away, and there\nwas Joan standing before him offering him her bowl of porridge. The man\nsaid:\n\n\"God Almighty bless you, my darling!\" and then the tears came, and ran\ndown his cheeks, but he was afraid to take the bowl.\n\n\"Do you hear me? Sit down, I say!\"\n\nThere could not be a child more easy to persuade than Joan, but this was\nnot the way. Her father had not the art; neither could he learn it. Joan\nsaid:\n\n\"Father, he is hungry; I can see it.\"\n\n\"Let him work for food, then. We are being eaten out of house and home\nby his like, and I have said I would endure it no more, and will keep\nmy word. He has the face of a rascal anyhow, and a villain. Sit down, I\ntell you!\"\n\n\"I know not if he is a rascal or no, but he is hungry, father, and shall\nhave my porridge\u0097I do not need it.\"\n\n\"If you don't obey me I'll\u0097Rascals are not entitled to help from honest\npeople, and no bite nor sup shall they have in this house. Joan!\"\n\nShe set her bowl down on the box and came over and stood before her\nscowling father, and said:\n\n\"Father, if you will not let me, then it must be as you say; but I would\nthat you would think\u0097then you would see that it is not right to punish\none part of him for what the other part has done; for it is that poor\nstranger's head that does the evil things, but it is not his head that\nis hungry, it is his stomach, and it has done no harm to anybody, but is\nwithout blame, and innocent, not having any way to do a wrong, even if\nit was minded to it. Please let\u0097\"\n\n\"What an idea! It is the most idiotic speech I ever heard.\"\n\nBut Aubrey, the maire, broke in, he being fond of an argument, and\nhaving a pretty gift in that regard, as all acknowledged. Rising in his\nplace and leaning his knuckles upon the table and looking about him with\neasy dignity, after the manner of such as be orators, he began, smooth\nand persuasive:\n\n\"I will differ with you there, gossip, and will undertake to show\nthe company\"\u0097here he looked around upon us and nodded his head in a\nconfident way\u0097\"that there is a grain of sense in what the child has\nsaid; for look you, it is of a certainty most true and demonstrable that\nit is a man's head that is master and supreme ruler over his whole body.\nIs that granted? Will any deny it?\" He glanced around again; everybody\nindicated assent. \"Very well, then; that being the case, no part of\nthe body is responsible for the result when it carries out an order\ndelivered to it by the head; ergo, the head is alone responsible for\ncrimes done by a man's hands or feet or stomach\u0097do you get the idea? am\nI right thus far?\" Everybody said yes, and said it with enthusiasm, and\nsome said, one to another, that the maire was in great form to-night and\nat his very best\u0097which pleased the maire exceedingly and made his eyes\nsparkle with pleasure, for he overheard these things; so he went on in\nthe same fertile and brilliant way. \"Now, then, we will consider what\nthe term responsibility means, and how it affects the case in point.\nResponsibility makes a man responsible for only those things for which\nhe is properly responsible\"\u0097and he waved his spoon around in a\nwide sweep to indicate the comprehensive nature of that class of\nresponsibilities which render people responsible, and several exclaimed,\nadmiringly, \"He is right!\u0097he has put that whole tangled thing into a\nnutshell\u0097it is wonderful!\" After a little pause to give the interest\nopportunity to gather and grow, he went on: \"Very good. Let us suppose\nthe case of a pair of tongs that falls upon a man's foot, causing a\ncruel hurt. Will you claim that the tongs are punishable for that? The\nquestion is answered; I see by your faces that you would call such a\nclaim absurd. Now, why is it absurd? It is absurd because, there being\nno reasoning faculty\u0097that is to say, no faculty of personal command\u0097in\na pair of tongs, personal responsibility for the acts of the tongs is\nwholly absent from the tongs; and, therefore, responsibility being\nabsent, punishment cannot ensue. Am I right?\" A hearty burst of applause\nwas his answer. \"Now, then, we arrive at a man's stomach. Consider how\nexactly, how marvelously, indeed, its situation corresponds to that of\na pair of tongs. Listen\u0097and take careful note, I beg you. Can a man's\nstomach plan a murder? No. Can it plan a theft? No. Can it plan an\nincendiary fire? No. Now answer me\u0097can a pair of tongs?\" (There were\nadmiring shouts of \"No!\" and \"The cases are just exact!\" and \"Don't he\ndo it splendid!\") \"Now, then, friends and neighbors, a stomach which\ncannot plan a crime cannot be a principal in the commission of it\u0097that\nis plain, as you see. The matter is narrowed down by that much; we will\nnarrow it further. Can a stomach, of its own motion, assist at a crime?\nThe answer is no, because command is absent, the reasoning faculty is\nabsent, volition is absent\u0097as in the case of the tongs. We perceive\nnow, do we not, that the stomach is totally irresponsible for crimes\ncommitted, either in whole or in part, by it?\" He got a rousing cheer\nfor response. \"Then what do we arrive at as our verdict? Clearly this:\nthat there is no such thing in this world as a guilty stomach; that\nin the body of the veriest rascal resides a pure and innocent stomach;\nthat, whatever it's owner may do, it at least should be sacred in our\neyes; and that while God gives us minds to think just and charitable and\nhonorable thoughts, it should be, and is, our privilege, as well as\nour duty, not only to feed the hungry stomach that resides in a\nrascal, having pity for its sorrow and its need, but to do it gladly,\ngratefully, in recognition of its sturdy and loyal maintenance of\nits purity and innocence in the midst of temptation and in company so\nrepugnant to its better feelings. I am done.\"\n\nWell, you never saw such an effect! They rose\u0097the whole house rose\u0097an\nclapped, and cheered, and praised him to the skies; and one after\nanother, still clapping and shouting, they crowded forward, some with\nmoisture in their eyes, and wrung his hands, and said such glorious\nthings to him that he was clear overcome with pride and happiness,\nand couldn't say a word, for his voice would have broken, sure. It was\nsplendid to see; and everybody said he had never come up to that speech\nin his life before, and never could do it again. Eloquence is a power,\nthere is no question of that. Even old Jacques d'Arc was carried away,\nfor once in his life, and shouted out:\n\n\"It's all right, Joan\u0097give him the porridge!\"\n\nShe was embarrassed, and did not seem to know what to say, and so didn't\nsay anything. It was because she had given the man the porridge long ago\nand he had already eaten it all up. When she was asked why she had not\nwaited until a decision was arrived at, she said the man's stomach was\nvery hungry, and it would not have been wise to wait, since she could\nnot tell what the decision would be. Now that was a good and thoughtful\nidea for a child.\n\nThe man was not a rascal at all. He was a very good fellow, only he was\nout of luck, and surely that was no crime at that time in France. Now\nthat his stomach was proved to be innocent, it was allowed to make\nitself at home; and as soon as it was well filled and needed nothing\nmore, the man unwound his tongue and turned it loose, and it was really\na noble one to go. He had been in the wars for years, and the things he\ntold and the way he told them fired everybody's patriotism away up high,\nand set all hearts to thumping and all pulses to leaping; then, before\nanybody rightly knew how the change was made, he was leading us a\nsublime march through the ancient glories of France, and in fancy we saw\nthe titanic forms of the twelve paladins rise out of the mists of the\npast and face their fate; we heard the tread of the innumerable hosts\nsweeping down to shut them in; we saw this human tide flow and ebb, ebb\nand flow, and waste away before that little band of heroes; we saw each\ndetail pass before us of that most stupendous, most disastrous, yet most\nadored and glorious day in French legendary history; here and there and\nyonder, across that vast field of the dead and dying, we saw this and\nthat and the other paladin dealing his prodigious blows with weary arm\nand failing strength, and one by one we saw them fall, till only one\nremained\u0097he that was without peer, he whose name gives name to the Song\nof Songs, the song which no Frenchman can hear and keep his feelings\ndown and his pride of country cool; then, grandest and pitifulest scene\nof all, we saw his own pathetic death; and our stillness, as we sat with\nparted lips and breathless, hanging upon this man's words, gave us a\nsense of the awful stillness that reigned in that field of slaughter\nwhen that last surviving soul had passed.\n\nAnd now, in this solemn hush, the stranger gave Joan a pat or two on the\nhead and said:\n\n\"Little maid\u0097whom God keep!\u0097you have brought me from death to life this\nnight; now listen: here is your reward,\" and at that supreme time for\nsuch a heart-melting, soul-rousing surprise, without another word he\nlifted up the most noble and pathetic voice that was ever heard, and\nbegan to pour out the great Song of Roland!\n\nThink of that, with a French audience all stirred up and ready. Oh,\nwhere was your spoken eloquence now! what was it to this! How fine he\nlooked, how stately, how inspired, as he stood there with that mighty\nchant welling from his lips and his heart, his whole body transfigured,\nand his rags along with it.\n\nEverybody rose and stood while he sang, and their faces glowed and their\neyes burned; and the tears came and flowed down their cheeks and their\nforms began to sway unconsciously to the swing of the song, and their\nbosoms to heave and pant; and moanings broke out, and deep ejaculations;\nand when the last verse was reached, and Roland lay dying, all alone,\nwith his face to the field and to his slain, lying there in heaps and\nwinrows, and took off and held up his gauntlet to God with his failing\nhand, and breathed his beautiful prayer with his paling pips, all burst\nout in sobs and wailings. But when the final great note died out and the\nsong was done, they all flung themselves in a body at the singer, stark\nmad with love of him and love of France and pride in her great deeds and\nold renown, and smothered him with their embracings; but Joan was there\nfirst, hugged close to his breast, and covering his face with idolatrous\nkisses.\n\nThe storm raged on outside, but that was no matter; this was the\nstranger's home now, for as long as he might please.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 4 Joan Tames the Mad Man\n\nALL CHILDREN have nicknames, and we had ours. We got one apiece early,\nand they stuck to us; but Joan was richer in this matter, for, as time\nwent on, she earned a second, and then a third, and so on, and we gave\nthem to her. First and last she had as many as half a dozen. Several\nof these she never lost. Peasant-girls are bashful naturally; but she\nsurpassed the rule so far, and colored so easily, and was so easily\nembarrassed in the presence of strangers, that we nicknamed her the\nBashful. We were all patriots, but she was called the Patriot, because\nour warmest feeling for our country was cold beside hers. Also she\nwas called the Beautiful; and this was not merely because of the\nextraordinary beauty of her face and form, but because of the loveliness\nof her character. These names she kept, and one other\u0097the Brave.\n\nWe grew along up, in that plodding and peaceful region, and got to be\ngood-sized boys and girls\u0097big enough, in fact, to begin to know as much\nabout the wars raging perpetually to the west and north of us as our\nelders, and also to feel as stirred up over the occasional news from\nthese red fields as they did. I remember certain of these days very\nclearly. One Tuesday a crowd of us were romping and singing around the\nFairy Tree, and hanging garlands on it in memory of our lost little\nfairy friends, when Little Mengette cried out:\n\n\"Look! What is that?\"\n\nWhen one exclaims like that in a way that shows astonishment and\napprehension, he gets attention. All the panting breasts and flushed\nfaces flocked together, and all the eager eyes were turned in one\ndirection\u0097down the slope, toward the village.\n\n\"It's a black flag.\"\n\n\"A black flag! No\u0097is it?\"\n\n\"You can see for yourself that it is nothing else.\"\n\n\"It is a black flag, sure! Now, has any ever seen the like of that\nbefore?\"\n\n\"What can it mean?\"\n\n\"Mean? It means something dreadful\u0097what else?\"\n\n\"That is nothing to the point; anybody knows that without the telling.\nBut what?\u0097that is the question.\"\n\n\"It is a chance that he that bears it can answer as well as any that are\nhere, if you contain yourself till he comes.\"\n\n\"He runs well. Who is it?\"\n\nSome named one, some another; but presently all saw that it was Etienne\nRoze, called the Sunflower, because he had yellow hair and a round\npock-marked face. His ancestors had been Germans some centuries ago.\nHe came straining up the slope, now and then projecting his flag-stick\naloft and giving his black symbol of woe a wave in the air, whilst all\neyes watched him, all tongues discussed him, and every heart beat faster\nand faster with impatience to know his news. At last he sprang among us,\nand struck his flag-stick into the ground, saying:\n\n\"There! Stand there and represent France while I get my breath. She\nneeds no other flag now.\"\n\nAll the giddy chatter stopped. It was as if one had announced a death.\nIn that chilly hush there was no sound audible but the panting of the\nbreath-blown boy. When he was presently able to speak, he said:\n\n\"Black news is come. A treaty has been made at Troyes between France\nand the English and Burgundians. By it France is betrayed and delivered\nover, tied hand and foot, to the enemy. It is the work of the Duke of\nBurgundy and that she-devil, the Queen of France. It marries Henry of\nEngland to Catharine of France\u0097\"\n\n\"Is not this a lie? Marries the daughter of France to the Butcher of\nAgincourt? It is not to be believed. You have not heard aright.\"\n\n\"If you cannot believe that, Jacques d'Arc, then you have a difficult\ntask indeed before you, for worse is to come. Any child that is born of\nthat marriage\u0097if even a girl\u0097is to inherit the thrones of both England\nand France, and this double ownership is to remain with its posterity\nforever!\"\n\n\"Now that is certainly a lie, for it runs counter to our Salic law, and\nso is not legal and cannot have effect,\" said Edmond Aubrey, called the\nPaladin, because of the armies he was always going to eat up some day.\nHe would have said more, but he was drowned out by the clamors of the\nothers, who all burst into a fury over this feature of the treaty, all\ntalking at once and nobody hearing anybody, until presently Haumette\npersuaded them to be still, saying:\n\n\"It is not fair to break him up so in his tale; pray let him go on.\nYou find fault with his history because it seems to be lies. That were\nreason for satisfaction\u0097that kind of lies\u0097not discontent. Tell the rest,\nEtienne.\"\n\n\"There is but this to tell: Our King, Charles VI., is to reign until he\ndies, then Henry V. of England is to be Regent of France until a child\nof his shall be old enough to\u0097\"\n\n\"That man is to reign over us\u0097the Butcher? It is lies! all lies!\" cried\nthe Paladin. \"Besides, look you\u0097what becomes of our Dauphin? What says\nthe treaty about him?\"\n\n\"Nothing. It takes away his throne and makes him an outcast.\"\n\nThen everybody shouted at once and said the news was a lie; and all\nbegan to get cheerful again, saying, \"Our King would have to sign the\ntreaty to make it good; and that he would not do, seeing how it serves\nhis own son.\"\n\nBut the Sunflower said: \"I will ask you this: Would the Queen sign a\ntreaty disinheriting her son?\"\n\n\"That viper? Certainly. Nobody is talking of her. Nobody expects better\nof her. There is no villainy she will stick at, if it feed her spite;\nand she hates her son. Her signing it is of no consequence. The King\nmust sign.\"\n\n\"I will ask you another thing. What is the King's condition? Mad, isn't\nhe?\"\n\n\"Yes, and his people love him all the more for it. It brings him near to\nthem by his sufferings; and pitying him makes them love him.\"\n\n\"You say right, Jacques d'Arc. Well, what would you of one that is mad?\nDoes he know what he does? No. Does he do what others make him do? Yes.\nNow, then, I tell you he has signed the treaty.\"\n\n\"Who made him do it?\"\n\n\"You know, without my telling. The Queen.\"\n\nThen there was another uproar\u0097everybody talking at once, and all heaping\nexecrations upon the Queen's head. Finally Jacques d'Arc said:\n\n\"But many reports come that are not true. Nothing so shameful as this\nhas ever come before, nothing that cuts so deep, nothing that has\ndragged France so low; therefore there is hope that this tale is but\nanother idle rumor. Where did you get it?\"\n\nThe color went out of his sister Joan's face. She dreaded the answer;\nand her instinct was right.\n\n\"The cure of Maxey brought it.\"\n\nThere was a general gasp. We knew him, you see, for a trusty man.\n\n\"Did he believe it?\"\n\nThe hearts almost stopped beating. Then came the answer:\n\n\"He did. And that is not all. He said he knew it to be true.\"\n\nSome of the girls began to sob; the boys were struck silent. The\ndistress in Joan's face was like that which one sees in the face of a\ndumb animal that has received a mortal hurt. The animal bears it, making\nno complaint; she bore it also, saying no word. Her brother Jacques put\nhis hand on her head and caressed her hair to indicate his sympathy, and\nshe gathered the hand to her lips and kissed it for thanks, not saying\nanything. Presently the reaction came, and the boys began to talk. Noel\nRainguesson said:\n\n\"Oh, are we never going to be men! We do grow along so slowly, and\nFrance never needed soldiers as she needs them now, to wipe out this\nblack insult.\"\n\n\"I hate youth!\" said Pierre Morel, called the Dragon-fly because his\neyes stuck out so. \"You've always got to wait, and wait, and wait\u0097and\nhere are the great wars wasting away for a hundred years, and you never\nget a chance. If I could only be a soldier now!\"\n\n\"As for me, I'm not going to wait much longer,\" said the Paladin; \"and\nwhen I do start you'll hear from me, I promise you that. There are some\nwho, in storming a castle, prefer to be in the rear; but as for me, give\nme the front or none; I will have none in front of me but the officers.\"\n\nEven the girls got the war spirit, and Marie Dupont said:\n\n\"I would I were a man; I would start this minute!\" and looked very proud\nof herself, and glanced about for applause.\n\n\"So would I,\" said Cecile Letellier, sniffing the air like a war-horse\nthat smells the battle; \"I warrant you I would not turn back from the\nfield though all England were in front of me.\"\n\n\"Pooh!\" said the Paladin; \"girls can brag, but that's all they are good\nfor. Let a thousand of them come face to face with a handful of soldiers\nonce, if you want to see what running is like. Here's little Joan\u0097next\nshe'll be threatening to go for a soldier!\"\n\nThe idea was so funny, and got such a good laugh, that the Paladin gave\nit another trial, and said: \"Why you can just see her!\u0097see her plunge\ninto battle like any old veteran. Yes, indeed; and not a poor shabby\ncommon soldier like us, but an officer\u0097an officer, mind you, with\narmor on, and the bars of a steel helmet to blush behind and hide her\nembarrassment when she finds an army in front of her that she hasn't\nbeen introduced to. An officer? Why, she'll be a captain! A captain,\nI tell you, with a hundred men at her back\u0097or maybe girls. Oh, no\ncommon-soldier business for her! And, dear me, when she starts for that\nother army, you'll think there's a hurricane blowing it away!\"\n\nWell, he kept it up like that till he made their sides ache with\nlaughing; which was quite natural, for certainly it was a very funny\nidea\u0097at that time\u0097I mean, the idea of that gentle little creature, that\nwouldn't hurt a fly, and couldn't bear the sight of blood, and was so\ngirlish and shrinking in all ways, rushing into battle with a gang of\nsoldiers at her back. Poor thing, she sat there confused and ashamed to\nbe so laughed at; and yet at that very minute there was something about\nto happen which would change the aspect of things, and make those young\npeople see that when it comes to laughing, the person that laughs last\nhas the best chance. For just then a face which we all knew and all\nfeared projected itself from behind the Fairy Tree, and the thought that\nshot through us all was, crazy Benoist has gotten loose from his cage,\nand we are as good as dead! This ragged and hairy and horrible creature\nglided out from behind the tree, and raised an ax as he came. We all\nbroke and fled, this way and that, the girls screaming and crying. No,\nnot all; all but Joan. She stood up and faced the man, and remained so.\nAs we reached the wood that borders the grassy clearing and jumped\ninto its shelter, two or three of us glanced back to see if Benoist was\ngaining on us, and that is what we saw\u0097Joan standing, and the maniac\ngliding stealthily toward her with his ax lifted. The sight was\nsickening. We stood where we were, trembling and not able to move. I did\nnot want to see the murder done, and yet I could not take my eyes away.\nNow I saw Joan step forward to meet the man, though I believed my eyes\nmust be deceiving me. Then I saw him stop. He threatened her with his\nax, as if to warn her not to come further, but she paid no heed, but\nwent steadily on, until she was right in front of him\u0097right under his\nax. Then she stopped, and seemed to begin to talk with him. It made me\nsick, yes, giddy, and everything swam around me, and I could not see\nanything for a time\u0097whether long or brief I do not know. When this\npassed and I looked again, Joan was walking by the man's side toward the\nvillage, holding him by his hand. The ax was in her other hand.\n\nOne by one the boys and girls crept out, and we stood there gazing,\nopen-mouthed, till those two entered the village and were hid from\nsight. It was then that we named her the Brave.\n\nWe left the black flag there to continue its mournful office, for we had\nother matter to think of now. We started for the village on a run,\nto give warning, and get Joan out of her peril; though for one, after\nseeing what I had seen, it seemed to me that while Joan had the ax the\nman's chance was not the best of the two. When we arrived the danger\nwas past, the madman was in custody. All the people were flocking to the\nlittle square in front of the church to talk and exclaim and wonder over\nthe event, and it even made the town forget the black news of the treaty\nfor two or three hours.\n\nAll the women kept hugging and kissing Joan, and praising her, and\ncrying, and the men patted her on the head and said they wished she\nwas a man, they would send her to the wars and never doubt but that she\nwould strike some blows that would be heard of. She had to tear herself\naway and go and hide, this glory was so trying to her diffidence.\n\nOf course the people began to ask us for the particulars. I was so\nashamed that I made an excuse to the first comer, and got privately away\nand went back to the Fairy Tree, to get relief from the embarrassment of\nthose questionings. There I found Joan, but she was there to get relief\nfrom the embarrassment of glory. One by one the others shirked the\ninquirers and joined us in our refuge. Then we gathered around Joan, and\nasked her how she had dared to do that thing. She was very modest about\nit, and said:\n\n\"You make a great thing of it, but you mistake; it was not a great\nmatter. It was not as if I had been a stranger to the man. I know him,\nand have known him long; and he knows me, and likes me. I have fed him\nthrough the bars of his cage many times; and last December, when\nthey chopped off two of his fingers to remind him to stop seizing and\nwounding people passing by, I dressed his hand every day till it was\nwell again.\"\n\n\"That is all well enough,\" said Little Mengette, \"but he is a madman,\ndear, and so his likings and his gratitude and friendliness go for\nnothing when his rage is up. You did a perilous thing.\"\n\n\"Of course you did,\" said the Sunflower. \"Didn't he threaten to kill you\nwith the ax?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Didn't he threaten you more than once?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Didn't you feel afraid?\"\n\n\"No\u0097at least not much\u0097very little.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you?\"\n\nShe thought a moment, then said, quite simply:\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\nIt made everybody laugh. Then the Sunflower said it was like a lamb\ntrying to think out how it had come to eat a wolf, but had to give it\nup.\n\nCecile Letellier asked, \"Why didn't you run when we did?\"\n\n\"Because it was necessary to get him to his cage; else he would kill\nsome one. Then he would come to the like harm himself.\"\n\nIt is noticeable that this remark, which implies that Joan was entirely\nforgetful of herself and her own danger, and had thought and wrought\nfor the preservation of other people alone, was not challenged, or\ncriticized, or commented upon by anybody there, but was taken by all\nas matter of course and true. It shows how clearly her character was\ndefined, and how well it was known and established.\n\nThere was silence for a time, and perhaps we were all thinking of the\nsame thing\u0097namely, what a poor figure we had cut in that adventure as\ncontrasted with Joan's performance. I tried to think up some good way of\nexplaining why I had run away and left a little girl at the mercy of\na maniac armed with an ax, but all of the explanations that offered\nthemselves to me seemed so cheap and shabby that I gave the matter up\nand remained still. But others were less wise. Noel Rainguesson fidgeted\nawhile, then broke out with a remark which showed what his mind had been\nrunning on:\n\n\"The fact is, I was taken by surprise. That is the reason. If I had had\na moment to think, I would no more have thought of running that I would\nthink of running from a baby. For, after all, what is Theophile Benoist,\nthat I should seem to be afraid of him? Pooh! the idea of being afraid\nof that poor thing! I only wish he would come along now\u0097I'd show you!\"\n\n\"So do I!\" cried Pierre Morel. \"If I wouldn't make him climb this\ntree quicker than\u0097well, you'd see what I would do! Taking a person by\nsurprise, that way\u0097why, I never meant to run; not in earnest, I mean. I\nnever thought of running in earnest; I only wanted to have some fun, and\nwhen I saw Joan standing there, and him threatening her, it was all I\ncould do to restrain myself from going there and just tearing the livers\nand lights out of him. I wanted to do it bad enough, and if it was to do\nover again, I would! If ever he comes fooling around me again, I'll\u0097\"\n\n\"Oh, hush!\" said the Paladin, breaking in with an air of disdain; \"the\nway you people talk, a person would think there's something heroic\nabout standing up and facing down that poor remnant of a man. Why, it's\nnothing! There's small glory to be got in facing him down, I should say.\nWhy, I wouldn't want any better fun than to face down a hundred like\nhim. If he was to come along here now, I would walk up to him just as I\nam now\u0097I wouldn't care if he had a thousand axes\u0097and say\u0097\"\n\nAnd so he went on and on, telling the brave things he would say and the\nwonders he would do; and the others put in a word from time to time,\ndescribing over again the gory marvels they would do if ever that madman\nventured to cross their path again, for next time they would be ready\nfor him, and would soon teach him that if he thought he could surprise\nthem twice because he had surprised them once, he would find himself\nvery seriously mistaken, that's all.\n\nAnd so, in the end, they all got back their self-respect; yes, and even\nadded somewhat to it; indeed when the sitting broke up they had a finer\nopinion of themselves than they had ever had before.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 5 Domremy Pillaged and Burned\n\nTHEY WERE peaceful and pleasant, those young and smoothly flowing days\nof ours; that is, that was the case as a rule, we being remote from the\nseat of war; but at intervals roving bands approached near enough for\nus to see the flush in the sky at night which marked where they were\nburning some farmstead or village, and we all knew, or at least felt,\nthat some day they would come yet nearer, and we should have our turn.\nThis dull dread lay upon our spirits like a physical weight. It was\ngreatly augmented a couple of years after the Treaty of Troyes.\n\nIt was truly a dismal year for France. One day we had been over to have\none of our occasional pitched battles with those hated Burgundian boys\nof the village of Maxey, and had been whipped, and were arriving on our\nside of the river after dark, bruised and weary, when we heard the bell\nringing the tocsin. We ran all the way, and when we got to the square\nwe found it crowded with the excited villagers, and weirdly lighted by\nsmoking and flaring torches.\n\nOn the steps of the church stood a stranger, a Burgundian priest, who\nwas telling the people news which made them weep, and rave, and rage,\nand curse, by turns. He said our old mad King was dead, and that now we\nand France and the crown were the property of an English baby lying in\nhis cradle in London. And he urged us to give that child our allegiance,\nand be its faithful servants and well-wishers; and said we should now\nhave a strong and stable government at last, and that in a little time\nthe English armies would start on their last march, and it would be a\nbrief one, for all that it would need to do would be to conquer what\nodds and ends of our country yet remained under that rare and almost\nforgotten rag, the banner of France.\n\nThe people stormed and raged at him, and you could see dozens of them\nstretch their fists above the sea of torch-lighted faces and shake them\nat him; and it was all a wild picture, and stirring to look at; and\nthe priest was a first-rate part of it, too, for he stood there in the\nstrong glare and looked down on those angry people in the blandest and\nmost indifferent way, so that while you wanted to burn him at the stake,\nyou still admired the aggravating coolness of him. And his winding-up\nwas the coolest thing of all. For he told them how, at the funeral of\nour old King, the French King-at-Arms had broken his staff of office\nover the coffin of \"Charles VI. and his dynasty,\" at the same time\nsaying, in a loud voice, \"God grant long life to Henry, King of France\nand England, our sovereign lord!\" and then he asked them to join him\nin a hearty Amen to that! The people were white with wrath, and it tied\ntheir tongues for the moment, and they could not speak. But Joan was\nstanding close by, and she looked up in his face, and said in her sober,\nearnest way:\n\n\"I would I might see thy head struck from thy body!\"\u0097then, after a\npause, and crossing herself\u0097\"if it were the will of God.\"\n\nThis is worth remembering, and I will tell you why: it is the only harsh\nspeech Joan ever uttered in her life. When I shall have revealed to you\nthe storms she went through, and the wrongs and persecutions, then you\nwill see that it was wonderful that she said but one bitter thing while\nshe lived.\n\nFrom the day that that dreary news came we had one scare after another,\nthe marauders coming almost to our doors every now and then; so that we\nlived in ever-increasing apprehension, and yet were somehow mercifully\nspared from actual attack. But at last our turn did really come. This\nwas in the spring of '28. The Burgundians swarmed in with a great noise,\nin the middle of a dark night, and we had to jump up and fly for our\nlives. We took the road to Neufchateau, and rushed along in the wildest\ndisorder, everybody trying to get ahead, and thus the movements of all\nwere impeded; but Joan had a cool head\u0097the only cool head there\u0097and\nshe took command and brought order out of that chaos. She did her work\nquickly and with decision and despatch, and soon turned the panic flight\ninto a quite steady-going march. You will grant that for so young a\nperson, and a girl at that, this was a good piece of work.\n\nShe was sixteen now, shapely and graceful, and of a beauty so\nextraordinary that I might allow myself any extravagance of language in\ndescribing it and yet have no fear of going beyond the truth. There was\nin her face a sweetness and serenity and purity that justly reflected\nher spiritual nature. She was deeply religious, and this is a thing\nwhich sometimes gives a melancholy cast to a person's countenance, but\nit was not so in her case. Her religion made her inwardly content and\njoyous; and if she was troubled at times, and showed the pain of it in\nher face and bearing, it came of distress for her country; no part of it\nwas chargeable to her religion.\n\nA considerable part of our village was destroyed, and when it became\nsafe for us to venture back there we realized what other people had\nbeen suffering in all the various quarters of France for many years\u0097yes,\ndecades of years. For the first time we saw wrecked and smoke-blackened\nhomes, and in the lanes and alleys carcasses of dumb creatures that had\nbeen slaughtered in pure wantonness\u0097among them calves and lambs that had\nbeen pets of the children; and it was pity to see the children lament\nover them.\n\nAnd then, the taxes, the taxes! Everybody thought of that. That burden\nwould fall heavy now in the commune's crippled condition, and all faces\ngrew long with the thought of it. Joan said:\n\n\"Paying taxes with naught to pay them with is what the rest of France\nhas been doing these many years, but we never knew the bitterness of\nthat before. We shall know it now.\"\n\nAnd so she went on talking about it and growing more and more troubled\nabout it, until one could see that it was filling all her mind.\n\nAt last we came upon a dreadful object. It was the madman\u0097hacked and\nstabbed to death in his iron cage in the corner of the square. It was a\nbloody and dreadful sight. Hardly any of us young people had ever seen\na man before who had lost his life by violence; so this cadaver had an\nawful fascination for us; we could not take our eyes from it. I mean, it\nhad that sort of fascination for all of us but one. That one was Joan.\nShe turned away in horror, and could not be persuaded to go near it\nagain. There\u0097it is a striking reminder that we are but creatures of use\nand custom; yes, and it is a reminder, too, of how harshly and unfairly\nfate deals with us sometimes. For it was so ordered that the very ones\namong us who were most fascinated with mutilated and bloody death were\nto live their lives in peace, while that other, who had a native and\ndeep horror of it, must presently go forth and have it as a familiar\nspectacle every day on the field of battle.\n\nYou may well believe that we had plenty of matter for talk now, since\nthe raiding of our village seemed by long odds the greatest event that\nhad really ever occurred in the world; for although these dull peasants\nmay have thought they recognized the bigness of some of the previous\noccurrences that had filtered from the world's history dimly into their\nminds, the truth is that they hadn't. One biting little fact, visible\nto their eyes of flesh and felt in their own personal vitals, became\nat once more prodigious to them than the grandest remote episode in the\nworld's history which they had got at second hand and by hearsay. It\namuses me now when I recall how our elders talked then. They fumed and\nfretted in a fine fashion.\n\n\"Ah, yes,\" said old Jacques d'Arc, \"things are come to a pretty pass,\nindeed! The King must be informed of this. It is time that he cease from\nidleness and dreaming, and get at his proper business.\" He meant our\nyoung disinherited King, the hunted refugee, Charles VII.\n\n\"You say well,\" said the maire. \"He should be informed, and that at\nonce. It is an outrage that such things would be permitted. Why, we are\nnot safe in our beds, and he taking his ease yonder. It shall be made\nknown, indeed it shall\u0097all France shall hear of it!\"\n\nTo hear them talk, one would have imagined that all the previous ten\nthousand sackings and burnings in France had been but fables, and this\none the only fact. It is always the way; words will answer as long as it\nis only a person's neighbor who is in trouble, but when that person gets\ninto trouble himself, it is time that the King rise up and do something.\n\nThe big event filled us young people with talk, too. We let it flow in\na steady stream while we tended the flocks. We were beginning to feel\npretty important now, for I was eighteen and the other youths were from\none to four years older\u0097young men, in fact. One day the Paladin was\narrogantly criticizing the patriot generals of France and said:\n\n\"Look at Dunois, Bastard of Orleans\u0097call him a general! Just put me in\nhis place once\u0097never mind what I would do, it is not for me to say,\nI have no stomach for talk, my way is to act and let others do the\ntalking\u0097but just put me in his place once, that's all! And look at\nSaintrailles\u0097pooh! and that blustering La Hire, now what a general that\nis!\"\n\nIt shocked everybody to hear these great names so flippantly handled,\nfor to us these renowned soldiers were almost gods. In their far-off\nsplendor they rose upon our imaginations dim and huge, shadowy and\nawful, and it was a fearful thing to hear them spoken of as if they were\nmere men, and their acts open to comment and criticism. The color rose\nin Joan's face, and she said:\n\n\"I know not how any can be so hardy as to use such words regarding these\nsublime men, who are the very pillars of the French state, supporting it\nwith their strength and preserving it at daily cost of their blood. As\nfor me, I could count myself honored past all deserving if I might be\nallowed but the privilege of looking upon them once\u0097at a distance, I\nmean, for it would not become one of my degree to approach them too\nnear.\"\n\nThe Paladin was disconcerted for a moment, seeing by the faces around\nhim that Joan had put into words what the others felt, then he pulled\nhis complacency together and fell to fault-finding again. Joan's brother\nJean said:\n\n\"If you don't like what our generals do, why don't you go to the great\nwars yourself and better their work? You are always talking about going\nto the wars, but you don't go.\"\n\n\"Look you,\" said the Paladin, \"it is easy to say that. Now I will tell\nyou why I remain chafing here in a bloodless tranquillity which my\nreputation teaches you is repulsive to my nature. I do not go because\nI am not a gentleman. That is the whole reason. What can one private\nsoldier do in a contest like this? Nothing. He is not permitted to\nrise from the ranks. If I were a gentleman would I remain here? Not one\nmoment. I can save France\u0097ah, you may laugh, but I know what is in me, I\nknow what is hid under this peasant cap. I can save France, and I stand\nready to do it, but not under these present conditions. If they want me,\nlet them send for me; otherwise, let them take the consequences; I shall\nnot budge but as an officer.\"\n\n\"Alas, poor France\u0097France is lost!\" said Pierre d'Arc.\n\n\"Since you sniff so at others, why don't you go to the wars yourself,\nPierre d'Arc?\"\n\n\"Oh, I haven't been sent for, either. I am no more a gentleman than you.\nYet I will go; I promise to go. I promise to go as a private under your\norders\u0097when you are sent for.\"\n\nThey all laughed, and the Dragon-fly said:\n\n\"So soon? Then you need to begin to get ready; you might be called for\nin five years\u0097who knows? Yes, in my opinion you'll march for the wars in\nfive years.\"\n\n\"He will go sooner,\" said Joan. She said it in a low voice and musingly,\nbut several heard it.\n\n\"How do you know that, Joan?\" said the Dragon-fly, with a surprised\nlook. But Jean d'Arc broke in and said:\n\n\"I want to go myself, but as I am rather young yet, I also will wait,\nand march when the Paladin is sent for.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Joan, \"he will go with Pierre.\"\n\nShe said it as one who talks to himself aloud without knowing it, and\nnone heard it but me. I glanced at her and saw that her knitting-needles\nwere idle in her hands, and that her face had a dreamy and absent look\nin it. There were fleeting movements of her lips as if she might be\noccasionally saying parts of sentences to herself. But there was no\nsound, for I was the nearest person to her and I heard nothing. But I\nset my ears open, for those two speeches had affected me uncannily, I\nbeing superstitious and easily troubled by any little thing of a strange\nand unusual sort.\n\nNoel Rainguesson said:\n\n\"There is one way to let France have a chance for her salvation. We've\ngot one gentleman in the commune, at any rate. Why can't the Scholar\nchange name and condition with the Paladin? Then he can be an officer.\nFrance will send for him then, and he will sweep these English and\nBurgundian armies into the sea like flies.\"\n\nI was the Scholar. That was my nickname, because I could read and write.\nThere was a chorus of approval, and the Sunflower said:\n\n\"That is the very thing\u0097it settles every difficulty. The Sieur de Conte\nwill easily agree to that. Yes, he will march at the back of Captain\nPaladin and die early, covered with common-soldier glory.\"\n\n\"He will march with Jean and Pierre, and live till these wars are\nforgotten,\" Joan muttered; \"and at the eleventh hour Noel and the\nPaladin will join these, but not of their own desire.\" The voice was so\nlow that I was not perfectly sure that these were the words, but they\nseemed to be. It makes one feel creepy to hear such things.\n\n\"Come, now,\" Noel continued, \"it's all arranged; there's nothing to do\nbut organize under the Paladin's banner and go forth and rescue France.\nYou'll all join?\"\n\nAll said yes, except Jacques d'Arc, who said:\n\n\"I'll ask you to excuse me. It is pleasant to talk war, and I am with\nyou there, and I've always thought I should go soldiering about this\ntime, but the look of our wrecked village and that carved-up and bloody\nmadman have taught me that I am not made for such work and such sights.\nI could never be at home in that trade. Face swords and the big guns and\ndeath? It isn't in me. No, no; count me out. And besides, I'm the eldest\nson, and deputy prop and protector of the family. Since you are going to\ncarry Jean and Pierre to the wars, somebody must be left behind to take\ncare of our Joan and her sister. I shall stay at home, and grow old in\npeace and tranquillity.\"\n\n\"He will stay at home, but not grow old,\" murmured Joan.\n\nThe talk rattled on in the gay and careless fashion privileged to youth,\nand we got the Paladin to map out his campaigns and fight his battles\nand win his victories and extinguish the English and put our King upon\nhis throne and set his crown upon his head. Then we asked him what he\nwas going to answer when the King should require him to name his\nreward. The Paladin had it all arranged in his head, and brought it out\npromptly:\n\n\"He shall give me a dukedom, name me premier peer, and make me\nHereditary Lord High Constable of France.\"\n\n\"And marry you to a princess\u0097you're not going to leave that out, are\nyou?\"\n\nThe Paladin colored a trifle, and said, brusquely:\n\n\"He may keep his princesses\u0097I can marry more to my taste.\"\n\nMeaning Joan, though nobody suspected it at that time. If any had, the\nPaladin would have been finely ridiculed for his vanity. There was no\nfit mate in that village for Joan of Arc. Every one would have said\nthat.\n\nIn turn, each person present was required to say what reward he would\ndemand of the King if he could change places with the Paladin and do the\nwonders the Paladin was going to do. The answers were given in fun, and\neach of us tried to outdo his predecessors in the extravagance of the\nreward he would claim; but when it came to Joan's turn, and they rallied\nher out of her dreams and asked her to testify, they had to explain to\nher what the question was, for her thought had been absent, and she had\nheard none of this latter part of our talk. She supposed they wanted a\nserious answer, and she gave it. She sat considering some moments, then\nshe said:\n\n\"If the Dauphin, out of his grace and nobleness, should say to me, 'Now\nthat I am rich and am come to my own again, choose and have,' I should\nkneel and ask him to give command that our village should nevermore be\ntaxed.\"\n\nIt was so simple and out of her heart that it touched us and we did not\nlaugh, but fell to thinking. We did not laugh; but there came a day when\nwe remembered that speech with a mournful pride, and were glad that\nwe had not laughed, perceiving then how honest her words had been, and\nseeing how faithfully she made them good when the time came, asking\njust that boon of the King and refusing to take even any least thing for\nherself.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 6 Joan and Archangel Michael\n\nALL THROUGH her childhood and up to the middle of her fourteenth year,\nJoan had been the most light-hearted creature and the merriest in the\nvillage, with a hop-skip-and-jump gait and a happy and catching laugh;\nand this disposition, supplemented by her warm and sympathetic nature\nand frank and winning ways, had made her everybody's pet. She had been\na hot patriot all this time, and sometimes the war news had sobered\nher spirits and wrung her heart and made her acquainted with tears, but\nalways when these interruptions had run their course her spirits rose\nand she was her old self again.\n\nBut now for a whole year and a half she had been mainly grave; not\nmelancholy, but given to thought, abstraction, dreams. She was carrying\nFrance upon her heart, and she found the burden not light. I knew that\nthis was her trouble, but others attributed her abstraction to religious\necstasy, for she did not share her thinkings with the village at large,\nyet gave me glimpses of them, and so I knew, better than the rest, what\nwas absorbing her interest. Many a time the idea crossed my mind that\nshe had a secret\u0097a secret which she was keeping wholly to herself,\nas well from me as from the others. This idea had come to me because\nseveral times she had cut a sentence in two and changed the subject when\napparently she was on the verge of a revelation of some sort. I was to\nfind this secret out, but not just yet.\n\nThe day after the conversation which I have been reporting we were\ntogether in the pastures and fell to talking about France, as usual. For\nher sake I had always talked hopefully before, but that was mere lying,\nfor really there was not anything to hang a rag of hope for France upon.\nNow it was such a pain to lie to her, and cost me such shame to offer\nthis treachery to one so snow-pure from lying and treachery, and even\nfrom suspicion of such baseness in others, as she was, that I was\nresolved to face about now and begin over again, and never insult her\nmore with deception. I started on the new policy by saying\u0097still opening\nup with a small lie, of course, for habit is habit, and not to be flung\nout of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time:\n\n\"Joan, I have been thinking the thing all over last night, and have\nconcluded that we have been in the wrong all this time; that the case\nof France is desperate; that it has been desperate ever since Agincourt;\nand that to-day it is more than desperate, it is hopeless.\"\n\nI did not look her in the face while I was saying it; it could not be\nexpected of a person. To break her heart, to crush her hope with a so\nfrankly brutal speech as that, without one charitable soft place in\nit\u0097it seemed a shameful thing, and it was. But when it was out, the\nweight gone, and my conscience rising to the surface, I glanced at her\nface to see the result.\n\nThere was none to see. At least none that I was expecting. There was a\nbarely perceptible suggestion of wonder in her serious eyes, but that\nwas all; and she said, in her simple and placid way:\n\n\"The case of France hopeless? Why should you think that? Tell me.\"\n\nIt is a most pleasant thing to find that what you thought would inflict\na hurt upon one whom you honor, has not done it. I was relieved now,\nand could say all my say without any furtivenesses and without\nembarrassment. So I began:\n\n\"Let us put sentiment and patriotic illusions aside, and look at the\nfacts in the face. What do they say? They speak as plainly as the\nfigures in a merchant's account-book. One has only to add the two\ncolumns up to see that the French house is bankrupt, that one-half of\nits property is already in the English sheriff's hands and the other\nhalf in nobody's\u0097except those of irresponsible raiders and robbers\nconfessing allegiance to nobody. Our King is shut up with his favorites\nand fools in inglorious idleness and poverty in a narrow little patch\nof the kingdom\u0097a sort of back lot, as one may say\u0097and has no authority\nthere or anywhere else, hasn't a farthing to his name, nor a regiment of\nsoldiers; he is not fighting, he is not intending to fight, he means to\nmake no further resistance; in truth, there is but one thing that he is\nintending to do\u0097give the whole thing up, pitch his crown into the sewer,\nand run away to Scotland. There are the facts. Are they correct?\"\n\n\"Yes, they are correct.\"\n\n\"Then it is as I have said: one needs but to add them together in order\nto realize what they mean.\"\n\nShe asked, in an ordinary, level tone:\n\n\"What\u0097that the case of France is hopeless?\"\n\n\"Necessarily. In face of these facts, doubt of it is impossible.\"\n\n\"How can you say that? How can you feel like that?\"\n\n\"How can I? How could I think or feel in any other way, in the\ncircumstances? Joan, with these fatal figures before, you, have you\nreally any hope for France\u0097really and actually?\"\n\n\"Hope\u0097oh, more than that! France will win her freedom and keep it. Do\nnot doubt it.\"\n\nIt seemed to me that her clear intellect must surely be clouded to-day.\nIt must be so, or she would see that those figures could mean only one\nthing. Perhaps if I marshaled them again she would see. So I said:\n\n\"Joan, your heart, which worships France, is beguiling your head. You\nare not perceiving the importance of these figures. Here\u0097I want to make\na picture of them, here on the ground with a stick. Now, this rough\noutline is France. Through its middle, east and west, I draw a river.\"\n\n\"Yes, the Loire.\"\n\n\"Now, then, this whole northern half of the country is in the tight grip\nof the English.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And this whole southern half is really in nobody's hands at all\u0097as our\nKing confesses by meditating desertion and flight to a foreign land.\nEngland has armies here; opposition is dead; she can assume full\npossession whenever she may choose. In very truth, all France is gone,\nFrance is already lost, France has ceased to exist. What was France is\nnow but a British province. Is this true?\"\n\nHer voice was low, and just touched with emotion, but distinct:\n\n\"Yes, it is true.\"\n\n\"Very well. Now add this clinching fact, and surely the sum is complete:\nWhen have French soldiers won a victory? Scotch soldiers, under the\nFrench flag, have won a barren fight or two a few years back, but I\nam speaking of French ones. Since eight thousand Englishmen nearly\nannihilated sixty thousand Frenchmen a dozen years ago at Agincourt,\nFrench courage has been paralyzed. And so it is a common saying to-day\nthat if you confront fifty French soldiers with five English ones, the\nFrench will run.\"\n\n\"It is a pity, but even these things are true.\"\n\n\"Then certainly the day for hoping is past.\"\n\nI believed the case would be clear to her now. I thought it could not\nfail to be clear to her, and that she would say, herself, that there\nwas no longer any ground for hope. But I was mistaken; and disappointed\nalso. She said, without any doubt in her tone:\n\n\"France will rise again. You shall see.\"\n\n\"Rise?\u0097with this burden of English armies on her back!\"\n\n\"She will cast it off; she will trample it under foot!\" This with\nspirit.\n\n\"Without soldiers to fight with?\"\n\n\"The drums will summon them. They will answer, and they will march.\"\n\n\"March to the rear, as usual?\"\n\n\"No; to the front\u0097ever to the front\u0097always to the front! You shall see.\"\n\n\"And the pauper King?\"\n\n\"He will mount his throne\u0097he will wear his crown.\"\n\n\"Well, of a truth this makes one's head dizzy. Why, if I could believe\nthat in thirty years from now the English domination would be broken\nand the French monarch's head find itself hooped with a real crown of\nsovereignty\u0097\"\n\n\"Both will have happened before two years are sped.\"\n\n\"Indeed? and who is going to perform all these sublime impossibilities?\"\n\n\"God.\"\n\nIt was a reverent low note, but it rang clear.\n\nWhat could have put those strange ideas in her head? This question kept\nrunning in my mind during two or three days. It was inevitable that I\nshould think of madness. What other way was there to account for such\nthings? Grieving and brooding over the woes of France had weakened that\nstrong mind, and filled it with fantastic phantoms\u0097yes, that must be it.\n\nBut I watched her, and tested her, and it was not so. Her eye was clear\nand sane, her ways were natural, her speech direct and to the point. No,\nthere was nothing the matter with her mind; it was still the soundest in\nthe village and the best. She went on thinking for others, planning for\nothers, sacrificing herself for others, just as always before. She went\non ministering to her sick and to her poor, and still stood ready to\ngive the wayfarer her bed and content herself with the floor. There was\na secret somewhere, but madness was not the key to it. This was plain.\n\nNow the key did presently come into my hands, and the way that it\nhappened was this. You have heard all the world talk of this matter\nwhich I am about to speak of, but you have not heard an eyewitness talk\nof it before.\n\nI was coming from over the ridge, one day\u0097it was the 15th of May,\n'28\u0097and when I got to the edge of the oak forest and was about to step\nout of it upon the turfy open space in which the haunted beech tree\nstood, I happened to cast a glance from cover, first\u0097then I took a step\nbackward, and stood in the shelter and concealment of the foliage. For\nI had caught sight of Joan, and thought I would devise some sort of\nplayful surprise for her. Think of it\u0097that trivial conceit was neighbor,\nwith but a scarcely measurable interval of time between, to an event\ndestined to endure forever in histories and songs.\n\nThe day was overcast, and all that grassy space wherein the Tree stood\nlay in a soft rich shadow. Joan sat on a natural seat formed by gnarled\ngreat roots of the Tree. Her hands lay loosely, one reposing in the\nother, in her lap. Her head was bent a little toward the ground, and her\nair was that of one who is lost to thought, steeped in dreams, and\nnot conscious of herself or of the world. And now I saw a most strange\nthing, for I saw a white shadow come slowly gliding along the grass\ntoward the Tree. It was of grand proportions\u0097a robed form, with\nwings\u0097and the whiteness of this shadow was not like any other whiteness\nthat we know of, except it be the whiteness of lightnings, but even\nthe lightnings are not so intense as it was, for one can look at them\nwithout hurt, whereas this brilliancy was so blinding that it pained my\neyes and brought the water into them. I uncovered my head, perceiving\nthat I was in the presence of something not of this world. My breath\ngrew faint and difficult, because of the terror and the awe that\npossessed me.\n\nAnother strange thing. The wood had been silent\u0097smitten with that deep\nstillness which comes when a storm-cloud darkens a forest, and the wild\ncreatures lose heart and are afraid; but now all the birds burst forth\ninto song, and the joy, the rapture, the ecstasy of it was beyond\nbelief; and was so eloquent and so moving, withal, that it was plain\nit was an act of worship. With the first note of those birds Joan cast\nherself upon her knees, and bent her head low and crossed her hands upon\nher breast.\n\nShe had not seen the shadow yet. Had the song of the birds told her\nit was coming? It had that look to me. Then the like of this must have\nhappened before. Yes, there might be no doubt of that.\n\nThe shadow approached Joan slowly; the extremity of it reached her,\nflowed over her, clothed her in its awful splendor. In that immortal\nlight her face, only humanly beautiful before, became divine; flooded\nwith that transforming glory her mean peasant habit was become like to\nthe raiment of the sun-clothed children of God as we see them thronging\nthe terraces of the Throne in our dreams and imaginings.\n\nPresently she rose and stood, with her head still bowed a little, and\nwith her arms down and the ends of her fingers lightly laced together in\nfront of her; and standing so, all drenched with that wonderful light,\nand yet apparently not knowing it, she seemed to listen\u0097but I heard\nnothing. After a little she raised her head, and looked up as one might\nlook up toward the face of a giant, and then clasped her hands and\nlifted them high, imploringly, and began to plead. I heard some of the\nwords. I heard her say:\n\n\"But I am so young! oh, so young to leave my mother and my home and go\nout into the strange world to undertake a thing so great! Ah, how can I\ntalk with men, be comrade with men?\u0097soldiers! It would give me over to\ninsult, and rude usage, and contempt. How can I go to the great wars,\nand lead armies?\u0097I a girl, and ignorant of such things, knowing\nnothing of arms, nor how to mount a horse, nor ride it.... Yet\u0097if it is\ncommanded\u0097\"\n\nHer voice sank a little, and was broken by sobs, and I made out no\nmore of her words. Then I came to myself. I reflected that I had been\nintruding upon a mystery of God\u0097and what might my punishment be? I was\nafraid, and went deeper into the wood. Then I carved a mark in the bark\nof a tree, saying to myself, it may be that I am dreaming and have not\nseen this vision at all. I will come again, when I know that I am awake\nand not dreaming, and see if this mark is still here; then I shall know.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 7 She Delivers the Divine Command\n\nI HEARD my name called. It was Joan's voice. It startled me, for how\ncould she know I was there? I said to myself, it is part of the dream;\nit is all dream\u0097voice, vision and all; the fairies have done this. So I\ncrossed myself and pronounced the name of God, to break the enchantment.\nI knew I was awake now and free from the spell, for no spell can\nwithstand this exorcism. Then I heard my name called again, and I\nstepped at once from under cover, and there indeed was Joan, but not\nlooking as she had looked in the dream. For she was not crying now, but\nwas looking as she had used to look a year and a half before, when her\nheart was light and her spirits high. Her old-time energy and fire were\nback, and a something like exaltation showed itself in her face and\nbearing. It was almost as if she had been in a trance all that time and\nhad come awake again. Really, it was just as if she had been away and\nlost, and was come back to us at last; and I was so glad that I felt\nlike running to call everybody and have them flock around her and give\nher welcome. I ran to her excited and said:\n\n\"Ah, Joan, I've got such a wonderful thing to tell you about! You would\nnever imagine it. I've had a dream, and in the dream I saw you right\nhere where you are standing now, and\u0097\"\n\nBut she put up her hand and said:\n\n\"It was not a dream.\"\n\nIt gave me a shock, and I began to feel afraid again.\n\n\"Not a dream?\" I said, \"how can you know about it, Joan?\"\n\n\"Are you dreaming now?\"\n\n\"I\u0097I suppose not. I think I am not.\"\n\n\"Indeed you are not. I know you are not. And yow were not dreaming when\nyou cut the mark in the tree.\"\n\nI felt myself turning cold with fright, for now I knew of a certainty\nthat I had not been dreaming, but had really been in the presence of a\ndread something not of this world. Then I remembered that my sinful feet\nwere upon holy ground\u0097the ground where that celestial shadow had rested.\nI moved quickly away, smitten to the bones with fear. Joan followed, and\nsaid:\n\n\"Do not be afraid; indeed there is no need. Come with me. We will sit by\nthe spring and I will tell you all my secret.\"\n\nWhen she was ready to begin, I checked her and said:\n\n\"First tell me this. You could not see me in the wood; how did you know\nI cut a mark in the tree?\"\n\n\"Wait a little; I will soon come to that; then you will see.\"\n\n\"But tell me one thing now; what was that awful shadow that I saw?\"\n\n\"I will tell you, but do not be disturbed; you are not in danger. It was\nthe shadow of an archangel\u0097Michael, the chief and lord of the armies of\nheaven.\"\n\nI could but cross myself and tremble for having polluted that ground\nwith my feet.\n\n\"You were not afraid, Joan? Did you see his face\u0097did you see his form?\"\n\n\"Yes; I was not afraid, because this was not the first time. I was\nafraid the first time.\"\n\n\"When was that, Joan?\"\n\n\"It is nearly three years ago now.\"\n\n\"So long? Have you seen him many times?\"\n\n\"Yes, many times.\"\n\n\"It is this, then, that has changed you; it was this that made you\nthoughtful and not as you were before. I see it now. Why did you not\ntell us about it?\"\n\n\"It was not permitted. It is permitted now, and soon I shall tell all.\nBut only you, now. It must remain a secret for a few days still.\"\n\n\"Has none seen that white shadow before but me?\"\n\n\"No one. It has fallen upon me before when you and others were present,\nbut none could see it. To-day it has been otherwise, and I was told why;\nbut it will not be visible again to any.\"\n\n\"It was a sign to me, then\u0097and a sign with a meaning of some kind?\"\n\n\"Yes, but I may not speak of that.\"\n\n\"Strange\u0097that that dazzling light could rest upon an object before one's\neyes and not be visible.\"\n\n\"With it comes speech, also. Several saints come, attended by myriads\nof angels, and they speak to me; I hear their voices, but others do not.\nThey are very dear to me\u0097my Voices; that is what I call them to myself.\"\n\n\"Joan, what do they tell you?\"\n\n\"All manner of things\u0097about France, I mean.\"\n\n\"What things have they been used to tell you?\"\n\nShe sighed, and said:\n\n\"Disasters\u0097only disasters, and misfortunes, and humiliation. There was\nnaught else to foretell.\"\n\n\"They spoke of them to you beforehand?\" \"Yes. So that I knew what was\ngoing to happen before it happened. It made me grave\u0097as you saw. It\ncould not be otherwise. But always there was a word of hope, too. More\nthan that: France was to be rescued, and made great and free again. But\nhow and by whom\u0097that was not told. Not until to-day.\" As she said those\nlast words a sudden deep glow shone in her eyes, which I was to see\nthere many times in after-days when the bugles sounded the charge and\nlearn to call it the battle-light. Her breast heaved, and the color\nrose in her face. \"But to-day I know. God has chosen the meanest of His\ncreatures for this work; and by His command, and in His protection, and\nby His strength, not mine, I am to lead His armies, and win back France,\nand set the crown upon the head of His servant that is Dauphin and shall\nbe King.\"\n\nI was amazed, and said:\n\n\"You, Joan? You, a child, lead armies?\"\n\n\"Yes. For one little moment or two the thought crushed me; for it is as\nyou say\u0097I am only a child; a child and ignorant\u0097ignorant of everything\nthat pertains to war, and not fitted for the rough life of camps and the\ncompanionship of soldiers. But those weak moments passed; they will not\ncome again. I am enlisted, I will not turn back, God helping me, till\nthe English grip is loosed from the throat of France. My Voices have\nnever told me lies, they have not lied to-day. They say I am to go to\nRobert de Baudricourt, governor of Vaucouleurs, and he will give me\nmen-at-arms for escort and send me to the King. A year from now a blow\nwill be struck which will be the beginning of the end, and the end will\nfollow swiftly.\"\n\n\"Where will it be struck?\"\n\n\"My Voices have not said; nor what will happen this present year, before\nit is struck. It is appointed me to strike it, that is all I know; and\nfollow it with others, sharp and swift, undoing in ten weeks England's\nlong years of costly labor, and setting the crown upon the Dauphin's\nhead\u0097for such is God's will; my Voices have said it, and shall I doubt\nit? No; it will be as they have said, for they say only that which is\ntrue.\"\n\nThese were tremendous sayings. They were impossibilities to my reason,\nbut to my heart they rang true; and so, while my reason doubted, my\nheart believed\u0097believed, and held fast to the belief from that day.\nPresently I said:\n\n\"Joan, I believe the things which you have said, and now I am glad that\nI am to march with you to the great wars\u0097that is, if it is with you I am\nto march when I go.\"\n\nShe looked surprised, and said:\n\n\"It is true that you will be with me when I go to the wars, but how did\nyou know?\"\n\n\"I shall march with you, and so also will Jean and Pierre, but not\nJacques.\"\n\n\"All true\u0097it is so ordered, as was revealed to me lately, but I did not\nknow until to-day that the marching would be with me, or that I should\nmarch at all. How did you know these things?\"\n\nI told her when it was that she had said them. But she did not remember\nabout it. So then I knew that she had been asleep, or in a trance or an\necstasy of some kind, at that time. She bade me keep these and the other\nrevelations to myself for the present, and I said I would, and kept the\nfaith I promised.\n\nNone who met Joan that day failed to notice the change that had come\nover her. She moved and spoke with energy and decision; there was\na strange new fire in her eye, and also a something wholly new and\nremarkable in her carriage and in the set of her head. This new light in\nthe eye and this new bearing were born of the authority and leadership\nwhich had this day been vested in her by the decree of God, and they\nasserted that authority as plainly as speech could have done it, yet\nwithout ostentation or bravado. This calm consciousness of command, and\ncalm unconscious outward expression of it, remained with her thenceforth\nuntil her mission was accomplished.\n\nLike the other villagers, she had always accorded me the deference due\nmy rank; but now, without word said on either side, she and I changed\nplaces; she gave orders, not suggestions. I received them with the\ndeference due a superior, and obeyed them without comment. In the\nevening she said to me:\n\n\"I leave before dawn. No one will know it but you. I go to speak with\nthe governor of Vaucouleurs as commanded, who will despise me and treat\nme rudely, and perhaps refuse my prayer at this time. I go first to\nBurey, to persuade my uncle Laxart to go with me, it not being meet that\nI go alone. I may need you in Vaucouleurs; for if the governor will not\nreceive me I will dictate a letter to him, and so must have some one by\nme who knows the art of how to write and spell the words. You will go\nfrom here to-morrow in the afternoon, and remain in Vaucouleurs until I\nneed you.\"\n\nI said I would obey, and she went her way. You see how clear a head she\nhad, and what a just and level judgment. She did not order me to go with\nher; no, she would not subject her good name to gossiping remark. She\nknew that the governor, being a noble, would grant me, another noble,\naudience; but no, you see, she would not have that, either. A poor\npeasant-girl presenting a petition through a young nobleman\u0097how would\nthat look? She always protected her modesty from hurt; and so, for\nreward, she carried her good name unsmirched to the end. I knew what I\nmust do now, if I would have her approval: go to Vaucouleurs, keep out\nof her sight, and be ready when wanted.\n\nI went the next afternoon, and took an obscure lodging; the next day I\ncalled at the castle and paid my respects to the governor, who invited\nme to dine with him at noon of the following day. He was an ideal\nsoldier of the time; tall, brawny, gray-headed, rough, full of strange\noaths acquired here and there and yonder in the wars and treasured as if\nthey were decorations. He had been used to the camp all his life, and to\nhis notion war was God's best gift to man. He had his steel cuirass on,\nand wore boots that came above his knees, and was equipped with a huge\nsword; and when I looked at this martial figure, and heard the marvelous\noaths, and guessed how little of poetry and sentiment might be looked\nfor in this quarter, I hoped the little peasant-girl would not get the\nprivilege of confronting this battery, but would have to content herself\nwith the dictated letter.\n\nI came again to the castle the next day at noon, and was conducted to\nthe great dining-hall and seated by the side of the governor at a small\ntable which was raised a couple of steps higher than the general table.\nAt the small table sat several other guests besides myself, and at the\ngeneral table sat the chief officers of the garrison. At the entrance\ndoor stood a guard of halberdiers, in morion and breastplate.\n\nAs for talk, there was but one topic, of course\u0097the desperate situation\nof France. There was a rumor, some one said, that Salisbury was making\npreparations to march against Orleans. It raised a turmoil of excited\nconversation, and opinions fell thick and fast. Some believed he would\nmarch at once, others that he could not accomplish the investment before\nfall, others that the siege would be long, and bravely contested; but\nupon one thing all voices agreed: that Orleans must eventually fall, and\nwith it France. With that, the prolonged discussion ended, and there was\nsilence. Every man seemed to sink himself in his own thoughts, and to\nforget where he was. This sudden and profound stillness, where before\nhad been so much animation, was impressive and solemn. Now came a\nservant and whispered something to the governor, who said:\n\n\"Would talk with me?\"\n\n\"Yes, your Excellency.\"\n\n\"H'm! A strange idea, certainly. Bring them in.\"\n\nIt was Joan and her uncle Laxart. At the spectacle of the great people\nthe courage oozed out of the poor old peasant and he stopped midway and\nwould come no further, but remained there with his red nightcap crushed\nin his hands and bowing humbly here, there, and everywhere, stupefied\nwith embarrassment and fear. But Joan came steadily forward, erect and\nself-possessed, and stood before the governor. She recognized me, but in\nno way indicated it. There was a buzz of admiration, even the governor\ncontributing to it, for I heard him mutter, \"By God's grace, it is a\nbeautiful creature!\" He inspected her critically a moment or two, then\nsaid:\n\n\"Well, what is your errand, my child?\"\n\n\"My message is to you, Robert de Baudricourt, governor of Vaucouleurs,\nand it is this: that you will send and tell the Dauphin to wait and not\ngive battle to his enemies, for God will presently send him help.\"\n\nThis strange speech amazed the company, and many murmured, \"The poor\nyoung thing is demented.\" The governor scowled, and said:\n\n\"What nonsense is this? The King\u0097or the Dauphin, as you call him\u0097needs\nno message of that sort. He will wait, give yourself no uneasiness as to\nthat. What further do you desire to say to me?\"\n\n\"This. To beg that you will give me an escort of men-at-arms and send me\nto the Dauphin.\"\n\n\"What for?\"\n\n\"That he may make me his general, for it is appointed that I shall drive\nthe English out of France, and set the crown upon his head.\"\n\n\"What\u0097you? Why, you are but a child!\"\n\n\"Yet am I appointed to do it, nevertheless.\"\n\n\"Indeed! And when will all this happen?\"\n\n\"Next year he will be crowned, and after that will remain master of\nFrance.\"\n\nThere was a great and general burst of laughter, and when it had\nsubsided the governor said:\n\n\"Who has sent you with these extravagant messages?\"\n\n\"My Lord.\"\n\n\"What Lord?\"\n\n\"The King of Heaven.\"\n\nMany murmured, \"Ah, poor thing, poor thing!\" and others, \"Ah, her mind\nis but a wreck!\" The governor hailed Laxart, and said:\n\n\"Harkye!\u0097take this mad child home and whip her soundly. That is the best\ncure for her ailment.\"\n\nAs Joan was moving away she turned and said, with simplicity:\n\n\"You refuse me the soldiers, I know not why, for it is my Lord that has\ncommanded you. Yes, it is He that has made the command; therefore I must\ncome again, and yet again; then I shall have the men-at-arms.\"\n\nThere was a great deal of wondering talk, after she was gone; and the\nguards and servants passed the talk to the town, the town passed it to\nthe country; Domremy was already buzzing with it when we got back.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 8 Why the Scorners Relented\n\nHUMAN NATURE is the same everywhere: it defies success, it has nothing\nbut scorn for defeat. The village considered that Joan had disgraced it\nwith her grotesque performance and its ridiculous failure; so all the\ntongues were busy with the matter, and as bilious and bitter as they\nwere busy; insomuch that if the tongues had been teeth she would not\nhave survived her persecutions. Those persons who did not scold did what\nwas worse and harder to bear; for they ridiculed her, and mocked at her,\nand ceased neither day nor night from their witticisms and jeerings and\nlaughter. Haumette and Little Mengette and I stood by her, but the\nstorm was too strong for her other friends, and they avoided her, being\nashamed to be seen with her because she was so unpopular, and because\nof the sting of the taunts that assailed them on her account. She shed\ntears in secret, but none in public. In public she carried herself\nwith serenity, and showed no distress, nor any resentment\u0097conduct which\nshould have softened the feeling against her, but it did not. Her father\nwas so incensed that he could not talk in measured terms about her wild\nproject of going to the wars like a man. He had dreamed of her doing\nsuch a thing, some time before, and now he remembered that dream with\napprehension and anger, and said that rather than see her unsex herself\nand go away with the armies, he would require her brothers to drown her;\nand that if they should refuse, he would do it with his own hands.\n\nBut none of these things shook her purpose in the least. Her parents\nkept a strict watch upon her to keep her from leaving the village, but\nshe said her time was not yet; that when the time to go was come she\nshould know it, and then the keepers would watch in vain.\n\nThe summer wasted along; and when it was seen that her purpose continued\nsteadfast, the parents were glad of a chance which finally offered\nitself for bringing her projects to an end through marriage. The Paladin\nhad the effrontery to pretend that she had engaged herself to him\nseveral years before, and now he claimed a ratification of the\nengagement.\n\nShe said his statement was not true, and refused to marry him. She was\ncited to appear before the ecclesiastical court at Toul to answer\nfor her perversity; when she declined to have counsel, and elected to\nconduct her case herself, her parents and all her ill-wishers rejoiced,\nand looked upon her as already defeated. And that was natural enough;\nfor who would expect that an ignorant peasant-girl of sixteen would be\notherwise than frightened and tongue-tied when standing for the first\ntime in presence of the practised doctors of the law, and surrounded\nby the cold solemnities of a court? Yet all these people were mistaken.\nThey flocked to Toul to see and enjoy this fright and embarrassment\nand defeat, and they had their trouble for their pains. She was modest,\ntranquil, and quite at her ease. She called no witnesses, saying she\nwould content herself with examining the witnesses for the prosecution.\nWhen they had testified, she rose and reviewed their testimony in a few\nwords, pronounced it vague, confused, and of no force, then she placed\nthe Paladin again on the stand and began to search him. His previous\ntestimony went rag by rag to ruin under her ingenious hands, until at\nlast he stood bare, so to speak, he that had come so richly clothed\nin fraud and falsehood. His counsel began an argument, but the court\ndeclined to hear it, and threw out the case, adding a few words of grave\ncompliment for Joan, and referring to her as \"this marvelous child.\"\n\nAfter this victory, with this high praise from so imposing a source\nadded, the fickle village turned again, and gave Joan countenance,\ncompliment, and peace. Her mother took her back to her heart, and even\nher father relented and said he was proud of her. But the time hung\nheavy on her hands, nevertheless, for the siege of Orleans was begun,\nthe clouds lowered darker and darker over France, and still her Voices\nsaid wait, and gave her no direct commands. The winter set in, and wore\ntediously along; but at last there was a change.\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK II IN COURT AND CAMP\n\n\n\nChapter 1 Joan Says Good-By\n\nTHE 5th of January, 1429, Joan came to me with her uncle Laxart, and\nsaid:\n\n\"The time is come. My Voices are not vague now, but clear, and they have\ntold me what to do. In two months I shall be with the Dauphin.\"\n\nHer spirits were high, and her bearing martial. I caught the infection\nand felt a great impulse stirring in me that was like what one feels\nwhen he hears the roll of the drums and the tramp of marching men.\n\n\"I believe it,\" I said.\n\n\"I also believe it,\" said Laxart. \"If she had told me before, that she\nwas commanded of God to rescue France, I should not have believed; I\nshould have let her seek the governor by her own ways and held myself\nclear of meddling in the matter, not doubting she was mad. But I have\nseen her stand before those nobles and mighty men unafraid, and say her\nsay; and she had not been able to do that but by the help of God. That\nI know. Therefore with all humbleness I am at her command, to do with me\nas she will.\"\n\n\"My uncle is very good to me,\" Joan said. \"I sent and asked him to come\nand persuade my mother to let him take me home with him to tend his\nwife, who is not well. It is arranged, and we go at dawn to-morrow. From\nhis house I shall go soon to Vaucouleurs, and wait and strive until my\nprayer is granted. Who were the two cavaliers who sat to your left at\nthe governor's table that day?\"\n\n\"One was the Sieur Jean de Novelonpont de Metz, the other the Sieur\nBertrand de Poulengy.\"\n\n\"Good metal\u0097good metal, both. I marked them for men of mine.... What is\nit I see in your face? Doubt?\"\n\nI was teaching myself to speak the truth to her, not trimming it or\npolishing it; so I said:\n\n\"They considered you out of your head, and said so. It is true they\npitied you for being in such misfortune, but still they held you to be\nmad.\"\n\nThis did not seem to trouble her in any way or wound her. She only said:\n\n\"The wise change their minds when they perceive that they have been in\nerror. These will. They will march with me. I shall see them presently..\n.. You seem to doubt again? Do you doubt?\"\n\n\"N-no. Not now. I was remembering that it was a year ago, and that they\ndid not belong here, but only chanced to stop a day on their journey.\"\n\n\"They will come again. But as to matters now in hand; I came to leave\nwith you some instructions. You will follow me in a few days. Order your\naffairs, for you will be absent long.\"\n\n\"Will Jean and Pierre go with me?\"\n\n\"No; they would refuse now, but presently they will come, and with them\nthey will bring my parents' blessing, and likewise their consent that\nI take up my mission. I shall be stronger, then\u0097stronger for that; for\nlack of it I am weak now.\" She paused a little while, and the tears\ngathered in her eyes; then she went on: \"I would say good-by to Little\nMengette. Bring her outside the village at dawn; she must go with me a\nlittle of the way\u0097\"\n\n\"And Haumette?\"\n\nShe broke down and began to cry, saying:\n\n\"No, oh, no\u0097she is too dear to me, I could not bear it, knowing I should\nnever look upon her face again.\"\n\nNext morning I brought Mengette, and we four walked along the road in\nthe cold dawn till the village was far behind; then the two girls said\ntheir good-bys, clinging about each other's neck, and pouring out their\ngrief in loving words and tears, a pitiful sight to see. And Joan took\none long look back upon the distant village, and the Fairy Tree, and the\noak forest, and the flowery plain, and the river, as if she was trying\nto print these scenes on her memory so that they would abide there\nalways and not fade, for she knew she would not see them any more in\nthis life; then she turned, and went from us, sobbing bitterly. It was\nher birthday and mine. She was seventeen years old.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 2 The Governor Speeds Joan\n\nAfter a few days, Laxart took Joan to Vaucouleurs, and found lodging\nand guardianship for her with Catherine Royer, a wheelwright's wife, an\nhonest and good woman. Joan went to mass regularly, she helped do the\nhousework, earning her keep in that way, and if any wished to talk\nwith her about her mission\u0097and many did\u0097she talked freely, making no\nconcealments regarding the matter now. I was soon housed near by, and\nwitnessed the effects which followed. At once the tidings spread that a\nyoung girl was come who was appointed of God to save France. The common\npeople flocked in crowds to look at her and speak with her, and her fair\nyoung loveliness won the half of their belief, and her deep earnestness\nand transparent sincerity won the other half. The well-to-do remained\naway and scoffed, but that is their way.\n\nNext, a prophecy of Merlin's, more than eight hundred years old, was\ncalled to mind, which said that in a far future time France would be\nlost by a woman and restored by a woman. France was now, for the first\ntime, lost\u0097and by a woman, Isabel of Bavaria, her base Queen; doubtless\nthis fair and pure young girl was commissioned of Heaven to complete the\nprophecy.\n\nThis gave the growing interest a new and powerful impulse; the\nexcitement rose higher and higher, and hope and faith along with it; and\nso from Vaucouleurs wave after wave of this inspiring enthusiasm\nflowed out over the land, far and wide, invading all the villages and\nrefreshing and revivifying the perishing children of France; and from\nthese villages came people who wanted to see for themselves, hear for\nthemselves; and they did see and hear, and believe. They filled the\ntown; they more than filled it; inns and lodgings were packed, and\nyet half of the inflow had to go without shelter. And still they came,\nwinter as it was, for when a man's soul is starving, what does he care\nfor meat and roof so he can but get that nobler hunger fed? Day after\nday, and still day after day the great tide rose. Domremy was dazed,\namazed, stupefied, and said to itself, \"Was this world-wonder in our\nfamiliar midst all these years and we too dull to see it?\" Jean and\nPierre went out from the village, stared at and envied like the great\nand fortunate of the earth, and their progress to Vaucouleurs was like a\ntriumph, all the country-side flocking to see and salute the brothers\nof one with whom angels had spoken face to face, and into whose hands by\ncommand of God they had delivered the destinies of France.\n\nThe brothers brought the parents' blessing and godspeed to Joan, and\ntheir promise to bring it to her in person later; and so, with this\nculminating happiness in her heart and the high hope it inspired, she\nwent and confronted the governor again. But he was no more tractable\nthan he had been before. He refused to send her to the King. She was\ndisappointed, but in no degree discouraged. She said:\n\n\"I must still come to you until I get the men-at-arms; for so it is\ncommanded, and I may not disobey. I must go to the Dauphin, though I go\non my knees.\"\n\nI and the two brothers were with Joan daily, to see the people that came\nand hear what they said; and one day, sure enough, the Sieur Jean de\nMetz came. He talked with her in a petting and playful way, as one talks\nwith children, and said:\n\n\"What are you doing here, my little maid? Will they drive the King out\nof France, and shall we all turn English?\"\n\nShe answered him in her tranquil, serious way:\n\n\"I am come to bid Robert de Baudricourt take or send me to the King, but\nhe does not heed my words.\"\n\n\"Ah, you have an admirable persistence, truly; a whole year has not\nturned you from your wish. I saw you when you came before.\"\n\nJoan said, as tranquilly as before:\n\n\"It is not a wish, it is a purpose. He will grant it. I can wait.\"\n\n\"Ah, perhaps it will not be wise to make too sure of that, my child.\nThese governors are stubborn people to deal with. In case he shall not\ngrant your prayer\u0097\"\n\n\"He will grant it. He must. It is not a matter of choice.\"\n\nThe gentleman's playful mood began to disappear\u0097one could see that, by\nhis face. Joan's earnestness was affecting him. It always happened that\npeople who began in jest with her ended by being in earnest. They soon\nbegan to perceive depths in her that they had not suspected; and then\nher manifest sincerity and the rocklike steadfastness of her convictions\nwere forces which cowed levity, and it could not maintain its\nself-respect in their presence. The Sieur de Metz was thoughtful for a\nmoment or two, then he began, quite soberly:\n\n\"Is it necessary that you go to the King soon?\u0097that is, I mean\u0097\"\n\n\"Before Mid-Lent, even though I wear away my legs to the knees!\"\n\nShe said it with that sort of repressed fieriness that means so much\nwhen a person's heart is in a thing. You could see the response in that\nnobleman's face; you could see his eye light up; there was sympathy\nthere. He said, most earnestly:\n\n\"God knows I think you should have the men-at-arms, and that somewhat\nwould come of it. What is it that you would do? What is your hope and\npurpose?\"\n\n\"To rescue France. And it is appointed that I shall do it. For no one\nelse in the world, neither kings, nor dukes, no any other, can recover\nthe kingdom of France, and there is no help but in me.\"\n\nThe words had a pleading and pathetic sound, and they touched that good\nnobleman. I saw it plainly. Joan dropped her voice a little, and said:\n\"But indeed I would rather spin with my poor mother, for this is not my\ncalling; but I must go and do it, for it is my Lord's will.\"\n\n\"Who is your Lord?\"\n\n\"He is God.\"\n\nThen the Sieur de Metz, following the impressive old feudal fashion,\nknelt and laid his hands within Joan's in sign of fealty, and made oath\nthat by God's help he himself would take her to the king.\n\nThe next day came the Sieur Bertrand de Poulengy, and he also\npledged his oath and knightly honor to abide with her and follow her\nwitherosever she might lead.\n\nThis day, too, toward evening, a great rumor went flying abroad through\nthe town\u0097namely, that the very governor himself was going to visit the\nyoung girl in her humble lodgings. So in the morning the streets and\nlanes were packed with people waiting to see if this strange thing would\nindeed happen. And happen it did. The governor rode in state, attended\nby his guards, and the news of it went everywhere, and made a great\nsensation, and modified the scoffings of the people of quality and\nraised Joan's credit higher than ever.\n\nThe governor had made up his mind to one thing: Joan was either a witch\nor a saint, and he meant to find out which it was. So he brought a\npriest with him to exorcise the devil that was in her in case there\nwas one there. The priest performed his office, but found no devil. He\nmerely hurt Joan's feelings and offended her piety without need, for he\nhad already confessed her before this, and should have known, if he knew\nanything, that devils cannot abide the confessional, but utter cries\nof anguish and the most profane and furious cursings whenever they are\nconfronted with that holy office.\n\nThe governor went away troubled and full of thought, and not knowing\nwhat to do. And while he pondered and studied, several days went by and\nthe 14th of February was come. Then Joan went to the castle and said:\n\n\"In God's name, Robert de Baudricourt, you are too slow about sending\nme, and have caused damage thereby, for this day the Dauphin's cause has\nlost a battle near Orleans, and will suffer yet greater injury if you do\nnot send me to him soon.\"\n\nThe governor was perplexed by this speech, and said:\n\n\"To-day, child, to-day? How can you know what has happened in that\nregion to-day? It would take eight or ten days for the word to come.\"\n\n\"My Voices have brought the word to me, and it is true. A battle was\nlost to-day, and you are in fault to delay me so.\"\n\nThe governor walked the floor awhile, talking within himself, but\nletting a great oath fall outside now and then; and finally he said:\n\n\"Harkye! go in peace, and wait. If it shall turn out as you say, I will\ngive you the letter and send you to the King, and not otherwise.\"\n\nJoan said with fervor:\n\n\"Now God be thanked, these waiting days are almost done. In nine days\nyou will fetch me the letter.\"\n\nAlready the people of Vaucouleurs had given her a horse and had armed\nand equipped her as a soldier. She got no chance to try the horse and\nsee if she could ride it, for her great first duty was to abide at her\npost and lift up the hopes and spirits of all who would come to talk\nwith her, and prepare them to help in the rescue and regeneration of\nthe kingdom. This occupied every waking moment she had. But it was no\nmatter. There was nothing she could not learn\u0097and in the briefest time,\ntoo. Her horse would find this out in the first hour. Meantime the\nbrothers and I took the horse in turn and began to learn to ride. And we\nhad teaching in the use of the sword and other arms also.\n\nOn the 20th Joan called her small army together\u0097the two knights and\nher two brothers and me\u0097for a private council of war. No, it was not a\ncouncil, that is not the right name, for she did not consult with us,\nshe merely gave us orders. She mapped out the course she would travel\ntoward the King, and did it like a person perfectly versed in geography;\nand this itinerary of daily marches was so arranged as to avoid here and\nthere peculiarly dangerous regions by flank movements\u0097which showed that\nshe knew her political geography as intimately as she knew her physical\ngeography; yet she had never had a day's schooling, of course, and was\nwithout education. I was astonished, but thought her Voices must have\ntaught her. But upon reflection I saw that this was not so. By her\nreferences to what this and that and the other person had told her,\nI perceived that she had been diligently questioning those crowds of\nvisiting strangers, and that out of them she had patiently dug all this\nmass of invaluable knowledge. The two knights were filled with wonder at\nher good sense and sagacity.\n\nShe commanded us to make preparations to travel by night and sleep by\nday in concealment, as almost the whole of our long journey would be\nthrough the enemy's country.\n\nAlso, she commanded that we should keep the date of our departure a\nsecret, since she meant to get away unobserved. Otherwise we should\nbe sent off with a grand demonstration which would advertise us to the\nenemy, and we should be ambushed and captured somewhere. Finally she\nsaid:\n\n\"Nothing remains, now, but that I confide to you the date of our\ndeparture, so that you may make all needful preparation in time, leaving\nnothing to be done in haste and badly at the last moment. We march the\n23d, at eleven of the clock at night.\"\n\nThen we were dismissed. The two knights were startled\u0097yes, and troubled;\nand the Sieur Bertrand said:\n\n\"Even if the governor shall really furnish the letter and the escort,\nhe still may not do it in time to meet the date she has chosen. Then how\ncan she venture to name that date? It is a great risk\u0097a great risk to\nselect and decide upon the date, in this state of uncertainty.\"\n\nI said:\n\n\"Since she has named the 23d, we may trust her. The Voices have told\nher, I think. We shall do best to obey.\"\n\nWe did obey. Joan's parents were notified to come before the 23d, but\nprudence forbade that they be told why this limit was named.\n\nAll day, the 23d, she glanced up wistfully whenever new bodies of\nstrangers entered the house, but her parents did not appear. Still she\nwas not discouraged, but hoped on. But when night fell at last, her\nhopes perished, and the tears came; however, she dashed them away, and\nsaid:\n\n\"It was to be so, no doubt; no doubt it was so ordered; I must bear it,\nand will.\"\n\nDe Metz tried to comfort her by saying:\n\n\"The governor sends no word; it may be that they will come to-morrow,\nand\u0097\"\n\nHe got no further, for she interrupted him, saying:\n\n\"To what good end? We start at eleven to-night.\"\n\nAnd it was so. At ten the governor came, with his guard and arms, with\nhorses and equipment for me and for the brothers, and gave Joan a letter\nto the King. Then he took off his sword, and belted it about her waist\nwith his own hands, and said:\n\n\"You said true, child. The battle was lost, on the day you said. So I\nhave kept my word. Now go\u0097come of it what may.\"\n\nJoan gave him thanks, and he went his way.\n\nThe lost battle was the famous disaster that is called in history the\nBattle of the Herrings.\n\nAll the lights in the house were at once put out, and a little while\nafter, when the streets had become dark and still, we crept stealthily\nthrough them and out at the western gate and rode away under whip and\nspur.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 3 The Paladin Groans and Boasts\n\nWE WERE twenty-five strong, and well equipped. We rode in double file,\nJoan and her brothers in the center of the column, with Jean de Metz\nat the head of it and the Sieur Bertrand at its extreme rear. In two\nor three hours we should be in the enemy's country, and then none\nwould venture to desert. By and by we began to hear groans and sobs and\nexecrations from different points along the line, and upon inquiry found\nthat six of our men were peasants who had never ridden a horse before,\nand were finding it very difficult to stay in their saddles, and\nmoreover were now beginning to suffer considerable bodily torture. They\nhad been seized by the governor at the last moment and pressed into the\nservice to make up the tale, and he had placed a veteran alongside of\neach with orders to help him stick to the saddle, and kill him if he\ntried to desert.\n\nThese poor devils had kept quiet as long as they could, but their\nphysical miseries were become so sharp by this time that they were\nobliged to give them vent. But we were within the enemy's country now,\nso there was no help for them, they must continue the march, though\nJoan said that if they chose to take the risk they might depart.\nThey preferred to stay with us. We modified our pace now, and moved\ncautiously, and the new men were warned to keep their sorrows to\nthemselves and not get the command into danger with their curses and\nlamentations.\n\nToward dawn we rode deep into a forest, and soon all but the sentries\nwere sound asleep in spite of the cold ground and the frosty air.\n\nI woke at noon out of such a solid and stupefying sleep that at first my\nwits were all astray, and I did not know where I was nor what had been\nhappening. Then my senses cleared, and I remembered. As I lay there\nthinking over the strange events of the past month or two the thought\ncame into my mind, greatly surprising me, that one of Joan's prophecies\nhad failed; for where were Noel and the Paladin, who were to join us at\nthe eleventh hour? By this time, you see, I had gotten used to expecting\neverything Joan said to come true. So, being disturbed and troubled by\nthese thoughts, I opened my eyes. Well, there stood the Paladin leaning\nagainst a tree and looking down on me! How often that happens; you think\nof a person, or speak of a person, and there he stands before you, and\nyou not dreaming he is near. It looks as if his being near is really the\nthing that makes you think of him, and not just an accident, as people\nimagine. Well, be that as it may, there was the Paladin, anyway, looking\ndown in my face and waiting for me to wake. I was ever so glad to see\nhim, and jumped up and shook him by the hand, and led him a little way\nfrom the camp\u0097he limping like a cripple\u0097and told him to sit down, and\nsaid:\n\n\"Now, where have you dropped down from? And how did you happen to light\nin this place? And what do the soldier-clothes mean? Tell me all about\nit.\"\n\nHe answered:\n\n\"I marched with you last night.\"\n\n\"No!\" (To myself I said, \"The prophecy has not all failed\u0097half of it\nhas come true.\") \"Yes, I did. I hurried up from Domremy to join, and was\nwithin a half a minute of being too late. In fact, I was too late, but I\nbegged so hard that the governor was touched by my brave devotion to\nmy country's cause\u0097those are the words he used\u0097and so he yielded, and\nallowed me to come.\"\n\nI thought to myself, this is a lie, he is one of those six the governor\nrecruited by force at the last moment; I know it, for Joan's prophecy\nsaid he would join at the eleventh hour, but not by his own desire. Then\nI said aloud:\n\n\"I am glad you came; it is a noble cause, and one should not sit at home\nin times like these.\"\n\n\"Sit at home! I could no more do it than the thunderstone could stay hid\nin the clouds when the storm calls it.\"\n\n\"That is the right talk. It sounds like you.\"\n\nThat pleased him.\n\n\"I'm glad you know me. Some don't. But they will, presently. They will\nknow me well enough before I get done with this war.\"\n\n\"That is what I think. I believe that wherever danger confronts you you\nwill make yourself conspicuous.\"\n\nHe was charmed with this speech, and it swelled him up like a bladder.\nHe said:\n\n\"If I know myself\u0097and I think I do\u0097my performances in this campaign will\ngive you occasion more than once to remember those words.\"\n\n\"I were a fool to doubt it. That I know.\"\n\n\"I shall not be at my best, being but a common soldier; still, the\ncountry will hear of me. If I were where I belong; if I were in the\nplace of La Hire, or Saintrailles, or the Bastard of Orleans\u0097well, I\nsay nothing. I am not of the talking kind, like Noel Rainguesson and his\nsort, I thank God. But it will be something, I take it\u0097a novelty in this\nworld, I should say\u0097to raise the fame of a private soldier above theirs,\nand extinguish the glory of their names with its shadow.\"\n\n\"Why, look here, my friend,\" I said, \"do you know that you have hit out\na most remarkable idea there? Do you realize the gigantic proportions\nof it? For look you; to be a general of vast renown, what is that?\nNothing\u0097history is clogged and confused with them; one cannot keep their\nnames in his memory, there are so many. But a common soldier of\nsupreme renown\u0097why, he would stand alone! He would the be one moon in a\nfirmament of mustard-seed stars; his name would outlast the human race!\nMy friend, who gave you that idea?\"\n\nHe was ready to burst with happiness, but he suppressed betrayal of it\nas well as he could. He simply waved the compliment aside with his hand\nand said, with complacency:\n\n\"It is nothing. I have them often\u0097ideas like that\u0097and even greater ones.\nI do not consider this one much.\"\n\n\"You astonish me; you do, indeed. So it is really your own?\"\n\n\"Quite. And there is plenty more where it came from\"\u0097tapping his head\nwith his finger, and taking occasion at the same time to cant his morion\nover his right ear, which gave him a very self-satisfied air\u0097\"I do not\nneed to borrow my ideas, like Noel Rainguesson.\"\n\n\"Speaking of Noel, when did you see him last?\"\n\n\"Half an hour ago. He is sleeping yonder like a corpse. Rode with us\nlast night.\"\n\nI felt a great upleap in my heart, and said to myself, now I am at rest\nand glad; I will never doubt her prophecies again. Then I said aloud:\n\n\"It gives me joy. It makes me proud of our village. There is not keeping\nour lion-hearts at home in these great times, I see that.\"\n\n\"Lion-heart! Who\u0097that baby? Why, he begged like a dog to be let off.\nCried, and said he wanted to go to his mother. Him a lion-heart!\u0097that\ntumble-bug!\"\n\n\"Dear me, why I supposed he volunteered, of course. Didn't he?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, he volunteered the way people do to the headsman. Why, when he\nfound I was coming up from Domremy to volunteer, he asked me to let\nhim come along in my protection, and see the crowds and the excitement.\nWell, we arrived and saw the torches filing out at the Castle, and ran\nthere, and the governor had him seized, along with four more, and\nhe begged to be let off, and I begged for his place, and at last the\ngovernor allowed me to join, but wouldn't let Noel off, because he was\ndisgusted with him, he was such a cry-baby. Yes, and much good he'll\ndo the King's service; he'll eat for six and run for sixteen. I hate a\npygmy with half a heart and nine stomachs!\"\n\n\"Why, this is very surprising news to me, and I am sorry and\ndisappointed to hear it. I thought he was a very manly fellow.\"\n\nThe Paladin gave me an outraged look, and said:\n\n\"I don't see how you can talk like that, I'm sure I don't. I don't see\nhow you could have got such a notion. I don't dislike him, and I'm not\nsaying these things out of prejudice, for I don't allow myself to have\nprejudices against people. I like him, and have always comraded with him\nfrom the cradle, but he must allow me to speak my mind about his faults,\nand I am willing he shall speak his about mine, if I have any. And, true\nenough, maybe I have; but I reckon they'll bear inspection\u0097I have that\nidea, anyway. A manly fellow! You should have heard him whine and wail\nand swear, last night, because the saddle hurt him. Why didn't the\nsaddle hurt me? Pooh\u0097I was as much at home in it as if I had been born\nthere. And yet it was the first time I was ever on a horse. All those\nold soldiers admired my riding; they said they had never seen anything\nlike it. But him\u0097why, they had to hold him on, all the time.\"\n\nAn odor as of breakfast came stealing through the wood; the Paladin\nunconsciously inflated his nostrils in lustful response, and got up and\nlimped painfully away, saying he must go and look to his horse.\n\nAt bottom he was all right and a good-hearted giant, without any harm\nin him, for it is no harm to bark, if one stops there and does not bite,\nand it is no harm to be an ass, if one is content to bray and not kick.\nIf this vast structure of brawn and muscle and vanity and foolishness\nseemed to have a libelous tongue, what of it? There was no malice behind\nit; and besides, the defect was not of his own creation; it was the work\nof Noel Rainguesson, who had nurtured it, fostered it, built it up and\nperfected it, for the entertainment he got out of it. His careless light\nheart had to have somebody to nag and chaff and make fun of, the\nPaladin had only needed development in order to meet its requirements,\nconsequently the development was taken in hand and diligently attended\nto and looked after, gnat-and-bull fashion, for years, to the neglect\nand damage of far more important concerns. The result was an unqualified\nsuccess. Noel prized the society of the Paladin above everybody else's;\nthe Paladin preferred anybody's to Noel's. The big fellow was often seen\nwith the little fellow, but it was for the same reason that the bull is\noften seen with the gnat.\n\nWith the first opportunity, I had a talk with Noel. I welcomed him to\nour expedition, and said:\n\n\"It was fine and brave of you to volunteer, Noel.\"\n\nHis eye twinkled, and he answered:\n\n\"Yes, it was rather fine, I think. Still, the credit doesn't all belong\nto me; I had help.\"\n\n\"Who helped you?\"\n\n\"The governor.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"Well, I'll tell you the whole thing. I came up from Domremy to see the\ncrowds and the general show, for I hadn't ever had any experience of\nsuch things, of course, and this was a great opportunity; but I hadn't\nany mind to volunteer. I overtook the Paladin on the road and let him\nhave my company the rest of the way, although he did not want it and\nsaid so; and while we were gawking and blinking in the glare of the\ngovernor's torches they seized us and four more and added us to the\nescort, and that is really how I came to volunteer. But, after all, I\nwasn't sorry, remembering how dull life would have been in the village\nwithout the Paladin.\"\n\n\"How did he feel about it? Was he satisfied?\"\n\n\"I think he was glad.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because he said he wasn't. He was taken by surprise, you see, and it is\nnot likely that he could tell the truth without preparation. Not that\nhe would have prepared, if he had had the chance, for I do not think he\nwould. I am not charging him with that. In the same space of time that\nhe could prepare to speak the truth, he could also prepare to lie;\nbesides, his judgment would be cool then, and would warn him against\nfooling with new methods in an emergency. No, I am sure he was glad,\nbecause he said he wasn't.\"\n\n\"Do you think he was very glad?\"\n\n\"Yes, I know he was. He begged like a slave, and bawled for his mother.\nHe said his health was delicate, and he didn't know how to ride a horse,\nand he knew he couldn't outlive the first march. But really he wasn't\nlooking as delicate as he was feeling. There was a cask of wine there,\na proper lift for four men. The governor's temper got afire, and he\ndelivered an oath at him that knocked up the dust where it struck the\nground, and told him to shoulder that cask or he would carve him to\ncutlets and send him home in a basket. The Paladin did it, and that\nsecured his promotion to a privacy in the escort without any further\ndebate.\"\n\n\"Yes, you seem to make it quite plain that he was glad to join\u0097that is,\nif your premises are right that you start from. How did he stand the\nmarch last night?\"\n\n\"About as I did. If he made the more noise, it was the privilege of his\nbulk. We stayed in our saddles because we had help. We are equally lame\nto-day, and if he likes to sit down, let him; I prefer to stand.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 4 Joan Leads Us Through the Enemy\n\nWE WERE called to quarters and subjected to a searching inspection by\nJoan. Then she made a short little talk in which she said that even the\nrude business of war could be conducted better without profanity and\nother brutalities of speech than with them, and that she should strictly\nrequire us to remember and apply this admonition. She ordered half an\nhour's horsemanship drill for the novices then, and appointed one of the\nveterans to conduct it. It was a ridiculous exhibition, but we learned\nsomething, and Joan was satisfied and complimented us. She did not take\nany instruction herself or go through the evolutions and manoeuvres, but\nmerely sat her horse like a martial little statue and looked on. That\nwas sufficient for her, you see. She would not miss or forget a detail\nof the lesson, she would take it all in with her eye and her mind, and\napply it afterward with as much certainty and confidence as if she had\nalready practised it.\n\nWe now made three night marches of twelve or thirteen leagues each,\nriding in peace and undisturbed, being taken for a roving band of Free\nCompanions. Country-folk were glad to have that sort of people go\nby without stopping. Still, they were very wearying marches, and not\ncomfortable, for the bridges were few and the streams many, and as we\nhad to ford them we found the water dismally cold, and afterward had to\nbed ourselves, still wet, on the frosty or snowy ground, and get warm\nas we might and sleep if we could, for it would not have been prudent\nto build fires. Our energies languished under these hardships and deadly\nfatigues, but Joan's did not. Her step kept its spring and firmness and\nher eye its fire. We could only wonder at this, we could not explain it.\n\nBut if we had had hard times before, I know not what to call the five\nnights that now followed, for the marches were as fatiguing, the baths\nas cold, and we were ambuscaded seven times in addition, and lost two\nnovices and three veterans in the resulting fights. The news had leaked\nout and gone abroad that the inspired Virgin of Vaucouleurs was making\nfor the King with an escort, and all the roads were being watched now.\n\nThese five nights disheartened the command a good deal. This was\naggravated by a discovery which Noel made, and which he promptly made\nknown at headquarters. Some of the men had been trying to understand why\nJoan continued to be alert, vigorous, and confident while the strongest\nmen in the company were fagged with the heavy marches and exposure and\nwere become morose and irritable. There, it shows you how men can have\neyes and yet not see. All their lives those men had seen their own\nwomen-folks hitched up with a cow and dragging the plow in the fields\nwhile the men did the driving. They had also seen other evidences that\nwomen have far more endurance and patience and fortitude than men\u0097but\nwhat good had their seeing these things been to them? None. It had\ntaught them nothing. They were still surprised to see a girl of\nseventeen bear the fatigues of war better than trained veterans of the\narmy. Moreover, they did not reflect that a great soul, with a great\npurpose, can make a weak body strong and keep it so; and here was the\ngreatest soul in the universe; but how could they know that, those dumb\ncreatures? No, they knew nothing, and their reasonings were of a piece\nwith their ignorance. They argued and discussed among themselves, with\nNoel listening, and arrived at the decision that Joan was a witch, and\nhad her strange pluck and strength from Satan; so they made a plan to\nwatch for a safe opportunity to take her life.\n\nTo have secret plottings of this sort going on in our midst was a very\nserious business, of course, and the knights asked Joan's permission to\nhang the plotters, but she refused without hesitancy. She said:\n\n\"Neither these men nor any others can take my life before my mission is\naccomplished, therefore why should I have their blood upon my hands? I\nwill inform them of this, and also admonish them. Call them before me.\"\n\nWhen they came she made that statement to them in a plain matter-of-fact\nway, and just as if the thought never entered her mind that any one\ncould doubt it after she had given her word that it was true. The men\nwere evidently amazed and impressed to hear her say such a thing in\nsuch a sure and confident way, for prophecies boldly uttered never fall\nbarren on superstitious ears. Yes, this speech certainly impressed\nthem, but her closing remark impressed them still more. It was for the\nringleader, and Joan said it sorrowfully:\n\n\"It is a pity that you should plot another's death when your own is so\nclose at hand.\"\n\nThat man's horse stumbled and fell on him in the first ford which we\ncrossed that night, and he was drowned before we could help him. We had\nno more conspiracies.\n\nThis night was harassed with ambuscades, but we got through without\nhaving any men killed. One more night would carry us over the hostile\nfrontier if we had good luck, and we saw the night close down with\na good deal of solicitude. Always before, we had been more or less\nreluctant to start out into the gloom and the silence to be frozen in\nthe fords and persecuted by the enemy, but this time we were impatient\nto get under way and have it over, although there was promise of more\nand harder fighting than any of the previous nights had furnished.\nMoreover, in front of us about three leagues there was a deep stream\nwith a frail wooden bridge over it, and as a cold rain mixed with snow\nhad been falling steadily all day we were anxious to find out whether we\nwere in a trap or not. If the swollen stream had washed away the bridge,\nwe might properly consider ourselves trapped and cut off from escape.\n\nAs soon as it was dark we filed out from the depth of the forest where\nwe had been hidden and began the march. From the time that we had begun\nto encounter ambushes Joan had ridden at the head of the column, and she\ntook this post now. By the time we had gone a league the rain and snow\nhad turned to sleet, and under the impulse of the storm-wind it lashed\nmy face like whips, and I envied Joan and the knights, who could close\ntheir visors and shut up their heads in their helmets as in a box. Now,\nout of the pitchy darkness and close at hand, came the sharp command:\n\n\"Halt!\"\n\nWe obeyed. I made out a dim mass in front of us which might be a body of\nhorsemen, but one could not be sure. A man rode up and said to Joan in a\ntone of reproof:\n\n\"Well, you have taken your time, truly. And what have you found out? Is\nshe still behind us, or in front?\"\n\nJoan answered in a level voice:\n\n\"She is still behind.\"\n\nThis news softened the stranger's tone. He said:\n\n\"If you know that to be true, you have not lost your time, Captain. But\nare you sure? How do you know?\"\n\n\"Because I have seen her.\"\n\n\"Seen her! Seen the Virgin herself?\"\n\n\"Yes, I have been in her camp.\"\n\n\"Is it possible! Captain Raymond, I ask you to pardon me for speaking in\nthat tone just now. You have performed a daring and admirable service.\nWhere was she camped?\"\n\n\"In the forest, not more than a league from here.\"\n\n\"Good! I was afraid we might be still behind her, but now that we know\nshe is behind us, everything is safe. She is our game. We will hang her.\nYou shall hang her yourself. No one has so well earned the privilege of\nabolishing this pestilent limb of Satan.\"\n\n\"I do not know how to thank you sufficiently. If we catch her, I\u0097\"\n\n\"If! I will take care of that; give yourself no uneasiness. All I want\nis just a look at her, to see what the imp is like that has been able to\nmake all this noise, then you and the halter may have her. How many men\nhas she?\"\n\n\"I counted but eighteen, but she may have had two or three pickets out.\"\n\n\"Is that all? It won't be a mouthful for my force. Is it true that she\nis only a girl?\"\n\n\"Yes; she is not more than seventeen.\"\n\n\"It passes belief! Is she robust, or slender?\"\n\n\"Slender.\"\n\nThe officer pondered a moment or two, then he said:\n\n\"Was she preparing to break camp?\"\n\n\"Not when I had my last glimpse of her.\"\n\n\"What was she doing?\"\n\n\"She was talking quietly with an officer.\"\n\n\"Quietly? Not giving orders?\"\n\n\"No, talking as quietly as we are now.\"\n\n\"That is good. She is feeling a false security. She would have been\nrestless and fussy else\u0097it is the way of her sex when danger is about.\nAs she was making no preparation to break camp\u0097\"\n\n\"She certainly was not when I saw her last.\"\n\n\"\u0097and was chatting quietly and at her ease, it means that this weather\nis not to her taste. Night-marching in sleet and wind is not for chits\nof seventeen. No; she will stay where she is. She has my thanks. We will\ncamp, ourselves; here is as good a place as any. Let us get about it.\"\n\n\"If you command it\u0097certainly. But she has two knights with her. They\nmight force her to march, particularly if the weather should improve.\"\n\nI was scared, and impatient to be getting out of this peril, and it\ndistressed and worried me to have Joan apparently set herself to work\nto make delay and increase the danger\u0097still, I thought she probably knew\nbetter than I what to do. The officer said:\n\n\"Well, in that case we are here to block the way.\"\n\n\"Yes, if they come this way. But if they should send out spies, and find\nout enough to make them want to try for the bridge through the woods? Is\nit best to allow the bridge to stand?\"\n\nIt made me shiver to hear her.\n\nThe officer considered awhile, then said:\n\n\"It might be well enough to send a force to destroy the bridge. I was\nintending to occupy it with the whole command, but that is not necessary\nnow.\"\n\nJoan said, tranquilly:\n\n\"With your permission, I will go and destroy it myself.\"\n\nAh, now I saw her idea, and was glad she had had the cleverness to\ninvent it and the ability to keep her head cool and think of it in that\ntight place. The officer replied:\n\n\"You have it, Captain, and my thanks. With you to do it, it will be well\ndone; I could send another in your place, but not a better.\"\n\nThey saluted, and we moved forward. I breathed freer. A dozen times I\nhad imagined I heard the hoofbeats of the real Captain Raymond's troop\narriving behind us, and had been sitting on pins and needles all the\nwhile that that conversation was dragging along. I breathed freer, but\nwas still not comfortable, for Joan had given only the simple command,\n\"Forward!\" Consequently we moved in a walk. Moved in a dead walk past\na dim and lengthening column of enemies at our side. The suspense was\nexhausting, yet it lasted but a short while, for when the enemy's bugles\nsang the \"Dismount!\" Joan gave the word to trot, and that was a great\nrelief to me. She was always at herself, you see. Before the command\nto dismount had been given, somebody might have wanted the countersign\nsomewhere along that line if we came flying by at speed, but now we\nseemed to be on our way to our allotted camping position, so we were\nallowed to pass unchallenged. The further we went the more formidable\nwas the strength revealed by the hostile force. Perhaps it was only a\nhundred or two, but to me it seemed a thousand. When we passed the\nlast of these people I was thankful, and the deeper we plowed into the\ndarkness beyond them the better I felt. I came nearer and nearer to\nfeeling good, for an hour; then we found the bridge still standing,\nand I felt entirely good. We crossed it and destroyed it, and then I\nfelt\u0097but I cannot describe what I felt. One has to feel it himself in\norder to know what it is like.\n\nWe had expected to hear the rush of a pursuing force behind us, for\nwe thought that the real Captain Raymond would arrive and suggest that\nperhaps the troop that had been mistaken for his belonged to the Virgin\nof Vaucouleurs; but he must have been delayed seriously, for when we\nresumed our march beyond the river there were no sounds behind us except\nthose which the storm was furnishing.\n\nI said that Joan had harvested a good many compliments intended for\nCaptain Raymond, and that he would find nothing of a crop left but a\ndry stubble of reprimands when he got back, and a commander just in the\nhumor to superintend the gathering of it in.\n\nJoan said:\n\n\"It will be as you say, no doubt; for the commander took a troop for\ngranted, in the night and unchallenged, and would have camped without\nsending a force to destroy the bridge if he had been left unadvised,\nand none are so ready to find fault with others as those who do things\nworthy of blame themselves.\"\n\nThe Sieur Bertrand was amused at Joan's naive way of referring to her\nadvice as if it had been a valuable present to a hostile leader who was\nsaved by it from making a censurable blunder of omission, and then he\nwent on to admire how ingeniously she had deceived that man and yet had\nnot told him anything that was not the truth. This troubled Joan, and\nshe said:\n\n\"I thought he was deceiving himself. I forbore to tell him lies, for\nthat would have been wrong; but if my truths deceived him, perhaps that\nmade them lies, and I am to blame. I would God I knew if I have done\nwrong.\"\n\nShe was assured that she had done right, and that in the perils and\nnecessities of war deceptions that help one's own cause and hurt the\nenemy's were always permissible; but she was not quite satisfied with\nthat, and thought that even when a great cause was in danger one ought\nto have the privilege of trying honorable ways first. Jean said:\n\n\"Joan, you told us yourself that you were going to Uncle Laxart's to\nnurse his wife, but you didn't say you were going further, yet you did\ngo on to Vaucouleurs. There!\"\n\n\"I see now,\" said Joan, sorrowfully. \"I told no lie, yet I deceived. I\nhad tried all other ways first, but I could not get away, and I had\nto get away. My mission required it. I did wrong, I think, and am to\nblame.\"\n\nShe was silent a moment, turning the matter over in her mind, then she\nadded, with quiet decision, \"But the thing itself was right, and I would\ndo it again.\"\n\nIt seemed an over-nice distinction, but nobody said anything. If we had\nknown her as well as she knew herself, and as her later history revealed\nher to us, we should have perceived that she had a clear meaning there,\nand that her position was not identical with ours, as we were supposing,\nbut occupied a higher plane. She would sacrifice herself\u0097and her best\nself; that is, her truthfulness\u0097to save her cause; but only that; she\nwould not buy her life at that cost; whereas our war-ethics permitted\nthe purchase of our lives, or any mere military advantage, small or\ngreat, by deception. Her saying seemed a commonplace at the time, the\nessence of its meaning escaping us; but one sees now that it contained a\nprinciple which lifted it above that and made it great and fine.\n\nPresently the wind died down, the sleet stopped falling, and the cold\nwas less severe. The road was become a bog, and the horses labored\nthrough it at a walk\u0097they could do no better. As the heavy time wore\non, exhaustion overcame us, and we slept in our saddles. Not even the\ndangers that threatened us could keep us awake.\n\nThis tenth night seemed longer than any of the others, and of course\nit was the hardest, because we had been accumulating fatigue from the\nbeginning, and had more of it on hand now than at any previous time.\nBut we were not molested again. When the dull dawn came at last we saw\na river before us and we knew it was the Loire; we entered the town of\nGien, and knew we were in a friendly land, with the hostiles all behind\nus. That was a glad morning for us.\n\nWe were a worn and bedraggled and shabby-looking troop; and still, as\nalways, Joan was the freshest of us all, in both body and spirits. We\nhad averaged above thirteen leagues a night, by tortuous and wretched\nroads. It was a remarkable march, and shows what men can do when they\nhave a leader with a determined purpose and a resolution that never\nflags.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 5 We Pierce the Last Ambuscades\n\nWE RESTED and otherwise refreshed ourselves two or three hours at Gien,\nbut by that time the news was abroad that the young girl commissioned\nof God to deliver France was come; wherefore, such a press of people\nflocked to our quarters to get sight of her that it seemed best to seek\na quieter place; so we pushed on and halted at a small village called\nFierbois.\n\nWe were now within six leagues of the King, who was at the Castle of\nChinon. Joan dictated a letter to him at once, and I wrote it. In it she\nsaid she had come a hundred and fifty leagues to bring him good news,\nand begged the privilege of delivering it in person. She added that\nalthough she had never seen him she would know him in any disguise and\nwould point him out.\n\nThe two knights rode away at once with the letter. The troop slept\nall the afternoon, and after supper we felt pretty fresh and fine,\nespecially our little group of young Domremians. We had the comfortable\ntap-room of the village inn to ourselves, and for the first time in ten\nunspeakably long days were exempt from bodings and terrors and hardships\nand fatiguing labors. The Paladin was suddenly become his ancient\nself again, and was swaggering up and down, a very monument of\nself-complacency. Noel Rainguesson said:\n\n\"I think it is wonderful, the way he has brought us through.\"\n\n\"Who?\" asked Jean.\n\n\"Why, the Paladin.\"\n\nThe Paladin seemed not to hear.\n\n\"What had he to do with it?\" asked Pierre d'Arc.\n\n\"Everything. It was nothing but Joan's confidence in his discretion that\nenabled her to keep up her heart. She could depend on us and on herself\nfor valor, but discretion is the winning thing in war, after all;\ndiscretion is the rarest and loftiest of qualities, and he has got more\nof it than any other man in France\u0097more of it, perhaps, than any other\nsixty men in France.\"\n\n\"Now you are getting ready to make a fool of yourself, Noel\nRainguesson,\" said the Paladin, \"and you want to coil some of that long\ntongue of yours around your neck and stick the end of it in your ear,\nthen you'll be the less likely to get into trouble.\"\n\n\"I didn't know he had more discretion than other people,\" said Pierre,\n\"for discretion argues brains, and he hasn't any more brains than the\nrest of us, in my opinion.\"\n\n\"No, you are wrong there. Discretion hasn't anything to do with brains;\nbrains are an obstruction to it, for it does not reason, it feels.\nPerfect discretion means absence of brains. Discretion is a quality\nof the heart\u0097solely a quality of the heart; it acts upon us through\nfeeling. We know this because if it were an intellectual quality it\nwould only perceive a danger, for instance, where a danger exists;\nwhereas\u0097\"\n\n\"Hear him twaddle\u0097the damned idiot!\" muttered the Paladin.\n\n\"\u0097whereas, it being purely a quality of the heart, and proceeding by\nfeeling, not reason, its reach is correspondingly wider and sublimer,\nenabling it to perceive and avoid dangers that haven't any existence at\nall; as, for instance, that night in the fog, when the Paladin took his\nhorse's ears for hostile lances and got off and climbed a tree\u0097\"\n\n\"It's a lie! a lie without shadow of foundation, and I call upon you\nall to beware you give credence to the malicious inventions of this\nramshackle slander-mill that has been doing its best to destroy my\ncharacter for years, and will grind up your own reputations for you\nnext. I got off to tighten my saddle-girth\u0097I wish I may die in my tracks\nif it isn't so\u0097and whoever wants to believe it can, and whoever don't\ncan let it alone.\"\n\n\"There, that is the way with him, you see; he never can discuss a theme\ntemperately, but always flies off the handle and becomes disagreeable.\nAnd you notice his defect of memory. He remembers getting off his horse,\nbut forgets all the rest, even the tree. But that is natural; he would\nremember getting off the horse because he was so used to doing it.\nHe always did it when there was an alarm and the clash of arms at the\nfront.\"\n\n\"Why did he choose that time for it?\" asked Jean.\n\n\"I don't know. To tighten up his girth, he thinks, to climb a tree, I\nthink; I saw him climb nine trees in a single night.\"\n\n\"You saw nothing of the kind! A person that can lie like that deserves\nno one's respect. I ask you all to answer me. Do you believe what this\nreptile has said?\"\n\nAll seemed embarrassed, and only Pierre replied. He said, hesitatingly:\n\n\"I\u0097well, I hardly know what to say. It is a delicate situation. It seems\noffensive to me to refuse to believe a person when he makes so direct a\nstatement, and yet I am obliged to say, rude as it may appear, that I\nam not able to believe the whole of it\u0097no, I am not able to believe that\nyou climbed nine trees.\"\n\n\"There!\" cried the Paladin; \"now what do you think of yourself, Noel\nRainguesson? How many do you believe I climbed, Pierre?\"\n\n\"Only eight.\"\n\nThe laughter that followed inflamed the Paladin's anger to white heat,\nand he said:\n\n\"I bide my time\u0097I bide my time. I will reckon with you all, I promise\nyou that!\"\n\n\"Don't get him started,\" Noel pleaded; \"he is a perfect lion when he\ngets started. I saw enough to teach me that, after the third skirmish.\nAfter it was over I saw him come out of the bushes and attack a dead man\nsingle-handed.\"\n\n\"It is another lie; and I give you fair warning that you are going too\nfar. You will see me attack a live one if you are not careful.\"\n\n\"Meaning me, of course. This wounds me more than any number of injurious\nand unkind speeches could do. In gratitude to one's benefactor\u0097\"\n\n\"Benefactor? What do I owe you, I should like to know?\"\n\n\"You owe me your life. I stood between the trees and the foe, and kept\nhundreds and thousands of the enemy at bay when they were thirsting for\nyour blood. And I did not do it to display my daring. I did it because I\nloved you and could not live without you.\"\n\n\"There\u0097you have said enough! I will not stay here to listen to\nthese infamies. I can endure your lies, but not your love. Keep that\ncorruption for somebody with a stronger stomach than mine. And I want to\nsay this, before I go. That you people's small performances might appear\nthe better and win you the more glory, I hid my own deeds through all\nthe march. I went always to the front, where the fighting was thickest,\nto be remote from you in order that you might not see and be discouraged\nby the things I did to the enemy. It was my purpose to keep this a\nsecret in my own breast, but you force me to reveal it. If you ask for\nmy witnesses, yonder they lie, on the road we have come. I found that\nroad mud, I paved it with corpses. I found that country sterile, I\nfertilized it with blood. Time and again I was urged to go to the rear\nbecause the command could not proceed on account of my dead. And yet\nyou, you miscreant, accuse me of climbing trees! Pah!\"\n\nAnd he strode out, with a lofty air, for the recital of his imaginary\ndeeds had already set him up again and made him feel good.\n\nNext day we mounted and faced toward Chinon. Orleans was at our back\nnow, and close by, lying in the strangling grip of the English; soon,\nplease God, we would face about and go to their relief. From Gien the\nnews had spread to Orleans that the peasant Maid of Vaucouleurs was on\nher way, divinely commissioned to raise the siege. The news made a great\nexcitement and raised a great hope\u0097the first breath of hope those poor\nsouls had breathed in five months. They sent commissioners at once to\nthe King to beg him to consider this matter, and not throw this help\nlightly away. These commissioners were already at Chinon by this time.\n\nWhen we were half-way to Chinon we happened upon yet one more squad\nof enemies. They burst suddenly out of the woods, and in considerable\nforce, too; but we were not the apprentices we were ten or twelve days\nbefore; no, we were seasoned to this kind of adventure now; our hearts\ndid not jump into our throats and our weapons tremble in our hands. We\nhad learned to be always in battle array, always alert, and always ready\nto deal with any emergency that might turn up. We were no more dismayed\nby the sight of those people than our commander was. Before they could\nform, Joan had delivered the order, \"Forward!\" and we were down upon\nthem with a rush. They stood no chance; they turned tail and scattered,\nwe plowing through them as if they had been men of straw. That was our\nlast ambuscade, and it was probably laid for us by that treacherous\nrascal, the King's own minister and favorite, De la Tremouille.\n\nWe housed ourselves in an inn, and soon the town came flocking to get a\nglimpse of the Maid.\n\nAh, the tedious King and his tedious people! Our two good knights\ncame presently, their patience well wearied, and reported. They and we\nreverently stood\u0097as becomes persons who are in the presence of kings and\nthe superiors of kings\u0097until Joan, troubled by this mark of homage and\nrespect, and not content with it nor yet used to it, although we had not\npermitted ourselves to do otherwise since the day she prophesied that\nwretched traitor's death and he was straightway drowned, thus confirming\nmany previous signs that she was indeed an ambassador commissioned of\nGod, commanded us to sit; then the Sieur de Metz said to Joan:\n\n\"The King has got the letter, but they will not let us have speech with\nhim.\"\n\n\"Who is it that forbids?\"\n\n\"None forbids, but there be three or four that are nearest his\nperson\u0097schemers and traitors every one\u0097that put obstructions in the\nway, and seek all ways, by lies and pretexts, to make delay. Chiefest of\nthese are Georges de la Tremouille and that plotting fox, the Archbishop\nof Rheims. While they keep the King idle and in bondage to his sports\nand follies, they are great and their importance grows; whereas if ever\nhe assert himself and rise and strike for crown and country like a man,\ntheir reign is done. So they but thrive, they care not if the crown go\nto destruction and the King with it.\"\n\n\"You have spoken with others besides these?\"\n\n\"Not of the Court, no\u0097the Court are the meek slaves of those reptiles,\nand watch their mouths and their actions, acting as they act, thinking\nas they think, saying as they say; wherefore they are cold to us, and\nturn aside and go another way when we appear. But we have spoken with\nthe commissioners from Orleans. They said with heat: 'It is a marvel\nthat any man in such desperate case as is the King can moon around in\nthis torpid way, and see his all go to ruin without lifting a finger to\nstay the disaster. What a most strange spectacle it is! Here he is,\nshut up in this wee corner of the realm like a rat in a trap; his\nroyal shelter this huge gloomy tomb of a castle, with wormy rags for\nupholstery and crippled furniture for use, a very house of desolation;\nin his treasure forty francs, and not a farthing more, God be witness!\nno army, nor any shadow of one; and by contrast with his hungry poverty\nyou behold this crownless pauper and his shoals of fools and favorites\ntricked out in the gaudiest silks and velvets you shall find in any\nCourt in Christendom. And look you, he knows that when our city falls\u0097as\nfall it surely will except succor come swiftly\u0097France falls; he knows\nthat when that day comes he will be an outlaw and a fugitive, and that\nbehind him the English flag will float unchallenged over every acre of\nhis great heritage; he knows these things, he knows that our faithful\ncity is fighting all solitary and alone against disease, starvation, and\nthe sword to stay this awful calamity, yet he will not strike one blow\nto save her, he will not hear our prayers, he will not even look\nupon our faces.' That is what the commissioners said, and they are in\ndespair.\"\n\nJoan said, gently:\n\n\"It is pity, but they must not despair. The Dauphin will hear them\npresently. Tell them so.\"\n\nShe almost always called the King the Dauphin. To her mind he was not\nKing yet, not being crowned.\n\n\"We will tell them so, and it will content them, for they believe you\ncome from God. The Archbishop and his confederate have for backer that\nveteran soldier Raoul de Gaucourt, Grand Master of the Palace, a worthy\nman, but simply a soldier, with no head for any greater matter. He\ncannot make out to see how a country-girl, ignorant of war, can take a\nsword in her small hand and win victories where the trained generals of\nFrance have looked for defeats only, for fifty years\u0097and always found\nthem. And so he lifts his frosty mustache and scoffs.\"\n\n\"When God fights it is but small matter whether the hand that bears His\nsword is big or little. He will perceive this in time. Is there none in\nthat Castle of Chinon who favors us?\"\n\n\"Yes, the King's mother-in-law, Yolande, Queen of Sicily, who is wise\nand good. She spoke with the Sieur Bertrand.\"\n\n\"She favors us, and she hates those others, the King's beguilers,\" said\nBertrand. \"She was full of interest, and asked a thousand questions, all\nof which I answered according to my ability. Then she sat thinking over\nthese replies until I thought she was lost in a dream and would wake no\nmore. But it was not so. At last she said, slowly, and as if she\nwere talking to herself: 'A child of seventeen\u0097a\ngirl\u0097country-bred\u0097untaught\u0097ignorant of war, the use of arms, and\nthe conduct of battles\u0097modest, gentle, shrinking\u0097yet throws away her\nshepherd's crook and clothes herself in steel, and fights her way\nthrough a hundred and fifty leagues of fear, and comes\u0097she to whom a\nking must be a dread and awful presence\u0097and will stand up before such\nan one and say, Be not afraid, God has sent me to save you! Ah, whence\ncould come a courage and conviction so sublime as this but from very God\nHimself!' She was silent again awhile, thinking and making up her mind;\nthen she said, 'And whether she comes of God or no, there is that in\nher heart that raises her above men\u0097high above all men that breathe in\nFrance to-day\u0097for in her is that mysterious something that puts heart\ninto soldiers, and turns mobs of cowards into armies of fighters that\nforget what fear is when they are in that presence\u0097fighters who go into\nbattle with joy in their eyes and songs on their lips, and sweep over\nthe field like a storm\u0097that is the spirit that can save France, and that\nalone, come it whence it may! It is in her, I do truly believe, for what\nelse could have borne up that child on that great march, and made her\ndespise its dangers and fatigues? The King must see her face to face\u0097and\nshall!' She dismissed me with those good words, and I know her promise\nwill be kept. They will delay her all they can\u0097those animals\u0097but she\nwill not fail in the end.\"\n\n\"Would she were King!\" said the other knight, fervently. \"For there is\nlittle hope that the King himself can be stirred out of his lethargy. He\nis wholly without hope, and is only thinking of throwing away everything\nand flying to some foreign land. The commissioners say there is a\nspell upon him that makes him hopeless\u0097yes, and that it is shut up in a\nmystery which they cannot fathom.\"\n\n\"I know the mystery,\" said Joan, with quiet confidence; \"I know it,\nand he knows it, but no other but God. When I see him I will tell him a\nsecret that will drive away his trouble, then he will hold up his head\nagain.\"\n\nI was miserable with curiosity to know what it was that she would tell\nhim, but she did not say, and I did not expect she would. She was but a\nchild, it is true; but she was not a chatterer to tell great matters and\nmake herself important to little people; no, she was reserved, and kept\nthings to herself, as the truly great always do.\n\nThe next day Queen Yolande got one victory over the King's keepers,\nfor, in spite of their protestations and obstructions, she procured an\naudience for our two knights, and they made the most they could out\nof their opportunity. They told the King what a spotless and beautiful\ncharacter Joan was, and how great and noble a spirit animated her, and\nthey implored him to trust in her, believe in her, and have faith that\nshe was sent to save France. They begged him to consent to see her. He\nwas strongly moved to do this, and promised that he would not drop the\nmatter out of his mind, but would consult with his council about it.\nThis began to look encouraging. Two hours later there was a great\nstir below, and the innkeeper came flying up to say a commission of\nillustrious ecclesiastics was come from the King\u0097from the King his\nvery self, understand!\u0097think of this vast honor to his humble little\nhostelry!\u0097and he was so overcome with the glory of it that he could\nhardly find breath enough in his excited body to put the facts\ninto words. They were come from the King to speak with the Maid of\nVaucouleurs. Then he flew downstairs, and presently appeared again,\nbacking into the room, and bowing to the ground with every step, in\nfront of four imposing and austere bishops and their train of servants.\n\nJoan rose, and we all stood. The bishops took seats, and for a while\nno word was said, for it was their prerogative to speak first, and they\nwere so astonished to see what a child it was that was making such a\nnoise in the world and degrading personages of their dignity to the base\nfunction of ambassadors to her in her plebeian tavern, that they could\nnot find any words to say at first. Then presently their spokesman told\nJoan they were aware that she had a message for the King, wherefore she\nwas now commanded to put it into words, briefly and without waste of\ntime or embroideries of speech.\n\nAs for me, I could hardly contain my joy\u0097our message was to reach the\nKing at last! And there was the same joy and pride and exultation in the\nfaces of our knights, too, and in those of Joan's brothers. And I knew\nthat they were all praying\u0097as I was\u0097that the awe which we felt in the\npresence of these great dignitaries, and which would have tied our\ntongues and locked our jaws, would not affect her in the like degree,\nbut that she would be enabled to word her message well, and with little\nstumbling, and so make a favorable impression here, where it would be so\nvaluable and so important.\n\nAh, dear, how little we were expecting what happened then! We were\naghast to hear her say what she said. She was standing in a reverent\nattitude, with her head down and her hands clasped in front of her; for\nshe was always reverent toward the consecrated servants of God. When\nthe spokesman had finished, she raised her head and set her calm eye on\nthose faces, not any more disturbed by their state and grandeur than a\nprincess would have been, and said, with all her ordinary simplicity and\nmodesty of voice and manner:\n\n\"Ye will forgive me, reverend sirs, but I have no message save for the\nKing's ear alone.\"\n\nThose surprised men were dumb for a moment, and their faces flushed\ndarkly; then the spokesman said:\n\n\"Hark ye, to you fling the King's command in his face and refuse to\ndeliver this message of yours to his servants appointed to receive it?\"\n\n\"God has appointed me to receive it, and another's commandment may not\ntake precedence of that. I pray you let me have speech for his grace the\nDauphin.\"\n\n\"Forbear this folly, and come at your message! Deliver it, and waste no\nmore time about it.\"\n\n\"You err indeed, most reverend fathers in God, and it is not well. I am\nnot come hither to talk, but to deliver Orleans, and lead the Dauphin to\nhis good city of Rheims, and set the crown upon his head.\"\n\n\"Is that the message you send to the King?\"\n\nBut Joan only said, in the simple fashion which was her wont:\n\n\"Ye will pardon me for reminding you again\u0097but I have no message to send\nto any one.\"\n\nThe King's messengers rose in deep anger and swept out of the place\nwithout further words, we and Joan kneeling as they passed.\n\nOur countenances were vacant, our hearts full of a sense of disaster.\nOur precious opportunity was thrown away; we could not understand Joan's\nconduct, she who had been so wise until this fatal hour. At last the\nSieur Bertrand found courage to ask her why she had let this great\nchance to get her message to the King go by.\n\n\"Who sent them here?\" she asked.\n\n\"The King.\"\n\n\"Who moved the King to send them?\" She waited for an answer; none came,\nfor we began to see what was in her mind\u0097so she answered herself: \"The\nDauphin's council moved him to it. Are they enemies to me and to the\nDauphin's weal, or are they friends?\"\n\n\"Enemies,\" answered the Sieur Bertrand.\n\n\"If one would have a message go sound and ungarbled, does one choose\ntraitors and tricksters to send it by?\"\n\nI saw that we had been fools, and she wise. They saw it too, so none\nfound anything to say. Then she went on:\n\n\"They had but small wit that contrived this trap. They thought to get\nmy message and seem to deliver it straight, yet deftly twist it from its\npurpose. You know that one part of my message is but this\u0097to move the\nDauphin by argument and reasonings to give me men-at-arms and send me\nto the siege. If an enemy carried these in the right words, the exact\nwords, and no word missing, yet left out the persuasions of gesture and\nsupplicating tone and beseeching looks that inform the words and make\nthem live, where were the value of that argument\u0097whom could it convince?\nBe patient, the Dauphin will hear me presently; have no fear.\"\n\nThe Sieur de Metz nodded his head several times, and muttered as to\nhimself:\n\n\"She was right and wise, and we are but dull fools, when all is said.\"\n\nIt was just my thought; I could have said it myself; and indeed it was\nthe thought of all there present. A sort of awe crept over us, to think\nhow that untaught girl, taken suddenly and unprepared, was yet able to\npenetrate the cunning devices of a King's trained advisers and defeat\nthem. Marveling over this, and astonished at it, we fell silent and\nspoke no more. We had come to know that she was great in courage,\nfortitude, endurance, patience, conviction, fidelity to all duties\u0097in\nall things, indeed, that make a good and trusty soldier and perfect\nhim for his post; now we were beginning to feel that maybe there\nwere greatnesses in her brain that were even greater than these great\nqualities of the heart. It set us thinking.\n\nWhat Joan did that day bore fruit the very day after. The King was\nobliged to respect the spirit of a young girl who could hold her own and\nstand her ground like that, and he asserted himself sufficiently to put\nhis respect into an act instead of into polite and empty words. He moved\nJoan out of that poor inn, and housed her, with us her servants, in the\nCastle of Courdray, personally confiding her to the care of Madame de\nBellier, wife of old Raoul de Gaucourt, Master of the Palace. Of course,\nthis royal attention had an immediate result: all the great lords\nand ladies of the Court began to flock there to see and listen to the\nwonderful girl-soldier that all the world was talking about, and who had\nanswered the King's mandate with a bland refusal to obey. Joan charmed\nthem every one with her sweetness and simplicity and unconscious\neloquence, and all the best and capablest among them recognized that\nthere was an indefinable something about her that testified that she was\nnot made of common clay, that she was built on a grander plan than the\nmass of mankind, and moved on a loftier plane. These spread her fame.\nShe always made friends and advocates that way; neither the high nor the\nlow could come within the sound of her voice and the sight of her face\nand go out from her presence indifferent.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 6 Joan Convinces the King\n\nWELL, anything to make delay. The King's council advised him against\narriving at a decision in our matter too precipitately. He arrive at a\ndecision too precipitately! So they sent a committee of priests\u0097always\npriests\u0097into Lorraine to inquire into Joan's character and history\u0097a\nmatter which would consume several weeks, of course. You see how\nfastidious they were. It was as if people should come to put out the\nfire when a man's house was burning down, and they waited till they\ncould send into another country to find out if he had always kept the\nSabbath or not, before letting him try.\n\nSo the days poked along; dreary for us young people in some ways, but\nnot in all, for we had one great anticipation in front of us; we had\nnever seen a king, and now some day we should have that prodigious\nspectacle to see and to treasure in our memories all our lives; so we\nwere on the lookout, and always eager and watching for the chance. The\nothers were doomed to wait longer than I, as it turned out. One day\ngreat news came\u0097the Orleans commissioners, with Yolande and our knights,\nhad at last turned the council's position and persuaded the King to see\nJoan.\n\nJoan received the immense news gratefully but without losing her head,\nbut with us others it was otherwise; we could not eat or sleep or do any\nrational thing for the excitement and the glory of it. During two days\nour pair of noble knights were in distress and trepidation on Joan's\naccount, for the audience was to be at night, and they were afraid that\nJoan would be so paralyzed by the glare of light from the long files\nof torches, the solemn pomps and ceremonies, the great concourse of\nrenowned personages, the brilliant costumes, and the other splendors\nof the Court, that she, a simple country-maid, and all unused to such\nthings, would be overcome by these terrors and make a piteous failure.\n\nNo doubt I could have comforted them, but I was not free to speak. Would\nJoan be disturbed by this cheap spectacle, this tinsel show, with its\nsmall King and his butterfly dukelets?\u0097she who had spoken face to face\nwith the princes of heaven, the familiars of God, and seen their retinue\nof angels stretching back into the remoteness of the sky, myriads upon\nmyriads, like a measureless fan of light, a glory like the glory of the\nsun streaming from each of those innumerable heads, the massed radiance\nfilling the deeps of space with a blinding splendor? I thought not.\n\nQueen Yolande wanted Joan to make the best possible impression upon\nthe King and the Court, so she was strenuous to have her clothed in the\nrichest stuffs, wrought upon the princeliest pattern, and set off with\njewels; but in that she had to be disappointed, of course, Joan not\nbeing persuadable to it, but begging to be simply and sincerely dressed,\nas became a servant of God, and one sent upon a mission of a serious\nsort and grave political import. So then the gracious Queen imagined and\ncontrived that simple and witching costume which I have described to\nyou so many times, and which I cannot think of even now in my dull age\nwithout being moved just as rhythmical and exquisite music moves one;\nfor that was music, that dress\u0097that is what it was\u0097music that one saw\nwith the eyes and felt in the heart. Yes, she was a poem, she was a\ndream, she was a spirit when she was clothed in that.\n\nShe kept that raiment always, and wore it several times upon occasions\nof state, and it is preserved to this day in the Treasury of Orleans,\nwith two of her swords, and her banner, and other things now sacred\nbecause they had belonged to her.\n\nAt the appointed time the Count of Vendome, a great lord of the court,\ncame richly clothed, with his train of servants and assistants, to\nconduct Joan to the King, and the two knights and I went with her, being\nentitled to this privilege by reason of our official positions near her\nperson.\n\nWhen we entered the great audience-hall, there it all was just as I have\nalready painted it. Here were ranks of guards in shining armor and with\npolished halberds; two sides of the hall were like flower-gardens for\nvariety of color and the magnificence of the costumes; light streamed\nupon these masses of color from two hundred and fifty flambeaux. There\nwas a wide free space down the middle of the hall, and at the end of it\nwas a throne royally canopied, and upon it sat a crowned and sceptered\nfigure nobly clothed and blazing with jewels.\n\nIt is true that Joan had been hindered and put off a good while, but\nnow that she was admitted to an audience at last, she was received with\nhonors granted to only the greatest personages. At the entrance door\nstood four heralds in a row, in splendid tabards, with long slender\nsilver trumpets at their mouths, with square silken banners depending\nfrom them embroidered with the arms of France. As Joan and the Count\npassed by, these trumpets gave forth in unison one long rich note, and\nas we moved down the hall under the pictured and gilded vaulting, this\nwas repeated at every fifty feet of our progress\u0097six times in all. It\nmade our good knights proud and happy, and they held themselves erect,\nand stiffened their stride, and looked fine and soldierly. They were\nnot expecting this beautiful and honorable tribute to our little\ncountry-maid.\n\nJoan walked two yards behind the Count, we three walked two yards behind\nJoan. Our solemn march ended when we were as yet some eight or ten steps\nfrom the throne. The Count made a deep obeisance, pronounced Joan's\nname, then bowed again and moved to his place among a group of officials\nnear the throne. I was devouring the crowned personage with all my eyes,\nand my heart almost stood still with awe.\n\nThe eyes of all others were fixed upon Joan in a gaze of wonder which\nwas half worship, and which seemed to say, \"How sweet\u0097how lovely\u0097how\ndivine!\" All lips were parted and motionless, which was a sure sign that\nthose people, who seldom forget themselves, had forgotten themselves\nnow, and were not conscious of anything but the one object they were\ngazing upon. They had the look of people who are under the enchantment\nof a vision.\n\nThen they presently began to come to life again, rousing themselves out\nof the spell and shaking it off as one drives away little by little a\nclinging drowsiness or intoxication. Now they fixed their attention\nupon Joan with a strong new interest of another sort; they were full of\ncuriosity to see what she would do\u0097they having a secret and particular\nreason for this curiosity. So they watched. This is what they saw:\n\nShe made no obeisance, nor even any slight inclination of her head, but\nstood looking toward the throne in silence. That was all there was to\nsee at present.\n\nI glanced up at De Metz, and was shocked at the paleness of his face. I\nwhispered and said:\n\n\"What is it, man, what is it?\"\n\nHis answering whisper was so weak I could hardly catch it:\n\n\"They have taken advantage of the hint in her letter to play a trick\nupon her! She will err, and they will laugh at her. That is not the King\nthat sits there.\"\n\nThen I glanced at Joan. She was still gazing steadfastly toward the\nthrone, and I had the curious fancy that even her shoulders and the back\nof her head expressed bewilderment. Now she turned her head slowly, and\nher eye wandered along the lines of standing courtiers till it fell\nupon a young man who was very quietly dressed; then her face lighted\njoyously, and she ran and threw herself at his feet, and clasped his\nknees, exclaiming in that soft melodious voice which was her birthright\nand was now charged with deep and tender feeling:\n\n\"God of his grace give you long life, O dear and gentle Dauphin!\"\n\nIn his astonishment and exultation De Metz cried out:\n\n\"By the shadow of God, it is an amazing thing!\" Then he mashed all the\nbones of my hand in his grateful grip, and added, with a proud shake of\nhis mane, \"Now, what have these painted infidels to say!\"\n\nMeantime the young person in the plain clothes was saying to Joan:\n\n\"Ah, you mistake, my child, I am not the King. There he is,\" and he\npointed to the throne.\n\nThe knight's face clouded, and he muttered in grief and indignation:\n\n\"Ah, it is a shame to use her so. But for this lie she had gone through\nsafe. I will go and proclaim to all the house what\u0097\"\n\n\"Stay where you are!\" whispered I and the Sieur Bertrand in a breath,\nand made him stop in his place.\n\nJoan did not stir from her knees, but still lifted her happy face toward\nthe King, and said:\n\n\"No, gracious liege, you are he, and none other.\"\n\nDe Metz's troubles vanished away, and he said:\n\n\"Verily, she was not guessing, she knew. Now, how could she know? It is\na miracle. I am content, and will meddle no more, for I perceive that\nshe is equal to her occasions, having that in her head that cannot\nprofitably be helped by the vacancy that is in mine.\"\n\nThis interruption of his lost me a remark or two of the other talk;\nhowever, I caught the King's next question:\n\n\"But tell me who you are, and what would you?\"\n\n\"I am called Joan the Maid, and am sent to say that the King of Heaven\nwills that you be crowned and consecrated in your good city of Rheims,\nand be thereafter Lieutenant of the Lord of Heaven, who is King of\nFrance. And He willeth also that you set me at my appointed work and\ngive me men-at-arms.\" After a slight pause she added, her eye lighting\nat the sound of her words, \"For then will I raise the siege of Orleans\nand break the English power!\"\n\nThe young monarch's amused face sobered a little when this martial\nspeech fell upon that sick air like a breath blown from embattled camps\nand fields of war, and this trifling smile presently faded wholly away\nand disappeared. He was grave now, and thoughtful. After a little he\nwaved his hand lightly, and all the people fell away and left those two\nby themselves in a vacant space. The knights and I moved to the opposite\nside of the hall and stood there. We saw Joan rise at a sign, then she\nand the King talked privately together.\n\nAll that host had been consumed with curiosity to see what Joan would\ndo. Well, they had seen, and now they were full of astonishment to see\nthat she had really performed that strange miracle according to the\npromise in her letter; and they were fully as much astonished to find\nthat she was not overcome by the pomps and splendors about her, but was\neven more tranquil and at her ease in holding speech with a monarch than\never they themselves had been, with all their practice and experience.\n\nAs for our two knights, they were inflated beyond measure with pride in\nJoan, but nearly dumb, as to speech, they not being able to think\nout any way to account for her managing to carry herself through this\nimposing ordeal without ever a mistake or an awkwardness of any kind to\nmar the grace and credit of her great performance.\n\nThe talk between Joan and the King was long and earnest, and held in low\nvoices. We could not hear, but we had our eyes and could note effects;\nand presently we and all the house noted one effect which was memorable\nand striking, and has been set down in memoirs and histories and in\ntestimony at the Process of Rehabilitation by some who witnessed it; for\nall knew it was big with meaning, though none knew what that meaning\nwas at that time, of course. For suddenly we saw the King shake off his\nindolent attitude and straighten up like a man, and at the same time\nlook immeasurably astonished. It was as if Joan had told him something\nalmost too wonderful for belief, and yet of a most uplifting and welcome\nnature.\n\nIt was long before we found out the secret of this conversation, but we\nknow it now, and all the world knows it. That part of the talk was like\nthis\u0097as one may read in all histories. The perplexed King asked Joan for\na sign. He wanted to believe in her and her mission, and that her Voices\nwere supernatural and endowed with knowledge hidden from mortals, but\nhow could he do this unless these Voices could prove their claim in some\nabsolutely unassailable way? It was then that Joan said:\n\n\"I will give you a sign, and you shall no more doubt. There is a secret\ntrouble in your heart which you speak of to none\u0097a doubt which wastes\naway your courage, and makes you dream of throwing all away and fleeing\nfrom your realm. Within this little while you have been praying, in your\nown breast, that God of his grace would resolve that doubt, even if the\ndoing of it must show you that no kingly right is lodged in you.\"\n\nIt was that that amazed the King, for it was as she had said: his prayer\nwas the secret of his own breast, and none but God could know about it.\nSo he said:\n\n\"The sign is sufficient. I know now that these Voices are of God. They\nhave said true in this matter; if they have said more, tell it me\u0097I will\nbelieve.\"\n\n\"They have resolved that doubt, and I bring their very words, which are\nthese: Thou art lawful heir to the King thy father, and true heir of\nFrance. God has spoken it. Now lift up thy head, and doubt no more, but\ngive me men-at-arms and let me get about my work.\"\n\nTelling him he was of lawful birth was what straightened him up and\nmade a man of him for a moment, removing his doubts upon that head and\nconvincing him of his royal right; and if any could have hanged his\nhindering and pestiferous council and set him free, he would have\nanswered Joan's prayer and set her in the field. But no, those creatures\nwere only checked, not checkmated; they could invent some more delays.\n\nWe had been made proud by the honors which had so distinguished Joan's\nentrance into that place\u0097honors restricted to personages of very high\nrank and worth\u0097but that pride was as nothing compared with the pride\nwe had in the honor done her upon leaving it. For whereas those first\nhonors were shown only to the great, these last, up to this time, had\nbeen shown only to the royal. The King himself led Joan by the hand down\nthe great hall to the door, the glittering multitude standing and making\nreverence as they passed, and the silver trumpets sounding those rich\nnotes of theirs. Then he dismissed her with gracious words, bending low\nover her hand and kissing it. Always\u0097from all companies, high or low\u0097she\nwent forth richer in honor and esteem than when she came.\n\nAnd the King did another handsome thing by Joan, for he sent us back\nto Courdray Castle torch-lighted and in state, under escort of his own\ntroop\u0097his guard of honor\u0097the only soldiers he had; and finely equipped\nand bedizened they were, too, though they hadn't seen the color of their\nwages since they were children, as a body might say. The wonders which\nJoan had been performing before the King had been carried all around\nby this time, so the road was so packed with people who wanted to get\na sight of her that we could hardly dig through; and as for talking\ntogether, we couldn't, all attempts at talk being drowned in the storm\nof shoutings and huzzas that broke out all along as we passed, and kept\nabreast of us like a wave the whole way.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 7 Our Paladin in His Glory\n\nWE WERE doomed to suffer tedious waits and delays, and we settled\nourselves down to our fate and bore it with a dreary patience, counting\nthe slow hours and the dull days and hoping for a turn when God should\nplease to send it. The Paladin was the only exception\u0097that is to say, he\nwas the only one who was happy and had no heavy times. This was partly\nowing to the satisfaction he got out of his clothes. He bought them at\nsecond hand\u0097a Spanish cavalier's complete suit, wide-brimmed hat with\nflowing plumes, lace collar and cuffs, faded velvet doublet and trunks,\nshort cloak hung from the shoulder, funnel-topped buskins, long rapier,\nand all that\u0097a graceful and picturesque costume, and the Paladin's great\nframe was the right place to hang it for effect. He wore it when off\nduty; and when he swaggered by with one hand resting on the hilt of his\nrapier, and twirling his new mustache with the other, everybody stopped\nto look and admire; and well they might, for he was a fine and stately\ncontrast to the small French gentlemen of the day squeezed into the\ntrivial French costume of the time.\n\nHe was king bee of the little village that snuggled under the shelter\nof the frowning towers and bastions of Courdray Castle, and acknowledged\nlord of the tap-room of the inn. When he opened his mouth there, he got\na hearing. Those simple artisans and peasants listened with deep and\nwondering interest; for he was a traveler and had seen the world\u0097all of\nit that lay between Chinon and Domremy, at any rate\u0097and that was a wide\nstretch more of it than they might ever hope to see; and he had been\nin battle, and knew how to paint its shock and struggle, its perils and\nsurprises, with an art that was all his own. He was cock of that walk,\nhero of that hostelry; he drew custom as honey draws flies; so he was\nthe pet of the innkeeper, and of his wife and daughter, and they were\nhis obliged and willing servants.\n\nMost people who have the narrative gift\u0097that great and rare\nendowment\u0097have with it the defect of telling their choice things over\nthe same way every time, and this injures them and causes them to sound\nstale and wearisome after several repetitions; but it was not so with\nthe Paladin, whose art was of a finer sort; it was more stirring and\ninteresting to hear him tell about a battle the tenth time than it\nwas the first time, because he did not tell it twice the same way, but\nalways made a new battle of it and a better one, with more casualties\non the enemy's side each time, and more general wreck and disaster all\naround, and more widows and orphans and suffering in the neighborhood\nwhere it happened. He could not tell his battles apart himself, except\nby their names; and by the time he had told one of then ten times it had\ngrown so that there wasn't room enough in France for it any more, but\nwas lapping over the edges. But up to that point the audience would not\nallow him to substitute a new battle, knowing that the old ones were\nthe best, and sure to improve as long as France could hold them; and so,\ninstead of saying to him as they would have said to another, \"Give us\nsomething fresh, we are fatigued with that old thing,\" they would say,\nwith one voice and with a strong interest, \"Tell about the surprise at\nBeaulieu again\u0097tell it three or four times!\" That is a compliment which\nfew narrative experts have heard in their lifetime.\n\nAt first when the Paladin heard us tell about the glories of the Royal\nAudience he was broken-hearted because he was not taken with us to it;\nnext, his talk was full of what he would have done if he had been there;\nand within two days he was telling what he did do when he was there. His\nmill was fairly started, now, and could be trusted to take care of its\naffair. Within three nights afterward all his battles were taking a\nrest, for already his worshipers in the tap-room were so infatuated with\nthe great tale of the Royal Audience that they would have nothing else,\nand so besotted with it were they that they would have cried if they\ncould not have gotten it.\n\nNoel Rainguesson hid himself and heard it, and came and told me, and\nafter that we went together to listen, bribing the inn hostess to let us\nhave her little private parlor, where we could stand at the wickets in\nthe door and see and hear.\n\nThe tap-room was large, yet had a snug and cozy look, with its inviting\nlittle tables and chairs scattered irregularly over its red brick floor,\nand its great fire flaming and crackling in the wide chimney. It was a\ncomfortable place to be in on such chilly and blustering March nights\nas these, and a goodly company had taken shelter there, and were sipping\ntheir wine in contentment and gossiping one with another in a neighborly\nway while they waited for the historian. The host, the hostess, and\ntheir pretty daughter were flying here and there and yonder among the\ntables and doing their best to keep up with the orders. The room was\nabout forty feet square, and a space or aisle down the center of it had\nbeen kept vacant and reserved for the Paladin's needs. At the end of\nit was a platform ten or twelve feet wide, with a big chair and a small\ntable on it, and three steps leading up to it.\n\nAmong the wine-sippers were many familiar faces: the cobbler, the\nfarrier, the blacksmith, the wheelwright, the armorer, the maltster, the\nweaver, the baker, the miller's man with his dusty coat, and so on; and\nconscious and important, as a matter of course, was the barber-surgeon,\nfor he is that in all villages. As he has to pull everybody's teeth and\npurge and bleed all the grown people once a month to keep their health\nsound, he knows everybody, and by constant contact with all sorts of\nfolk becomes a master of etiquette and manners and a conversationalist\nof large facility. There were plenty of carriers, drovers, and their\nsort, and journeymen artisans.\n\nWhen the Paladin presently came sauntering indolently in, he was\nreceived with a cheer, and the barber hustled forward and greeted him\nwith several low and most graceful and courtly bows, also taking his\nhand and touching his lips to it. Then he called in a loud voice for a\nstoup of wine for the Paladin, and when the host's daughter brought it\nup on the platform and dropped her courtesy and departed, the barber\ncalled after her, and told her to add the wine to his score. This won\nhim ejaculations of approval, which pleased him very much and made his\nlittle rat-eyes shine; and such applause is right and proper, for when\nwe do a liberal and gallant thing it is but natural that we should wish\nto see notice taken of it.\n\nThe barber called upon the people to rise and drink the Paladin's\nhealth, and they did it with alacrity and affectionate heartiness,\nclashing their metal flagons together with a simultaneous crash, and\nheightening the effect with a resounding cheer. It was a fine thing to\nsee how that young swashbuckler had made himself so popular in a strange\nland in so little a while, and without other helps to his advancement\nthan just his tongue and the talent to use it given him by God\u0097a talent\nwhich was but one talent in the beginning, but was now become ten\nthrough husbandry and the increment and usufruct that do naturally\nfollow that and reward it as by a law.\n\nThe people sat down and began to hammer on the tables with their flagons\nand call for \"the King's Audience!\u0097the King's Audience!\u0097the King's\nAudience!\" The Paladin stood there in one of his best attitudes, with\nhis plumed great hat tipped over to the left, the folds of his short\ncloak drooping from his shoulder, and the one hand resting upon the hilt\nof his rapier and the other lifting his beaker. As the noise died down\nhe made a stately sort of a bow, which he had picked up somewhere, then\nfetched his beaker with a sweep to his lips and tilted his head back and\ndrained it to the bottom. The barber jumped for it and set it upon the\nPaladin's table. Then the Paladin began to walk up and down his platform\nwith a great deal of dignity and quite at his ease; and as he walked he\ntalked, and every little while stopped and stood facing his house and so\nstanding continued his talk.\n\nWe went three nights in succession. It was plain that there was a\ncharm about the performance that was apart from the mere interest which\nattaches to lying. It was presently discoverable that this charm lay in\nthe Paladin's sincerity. He was not lying consciously; he believed what\nhe was saying. To him, his initial statements were facts, and whenever\nhe enlarged a statement, the enlargement became a fact too. He put his\nheart into his extravagant narrative, just as a poet puts his heart into\na heroic fiction, and his earnestness disarmed criticism\u0097disarmed it as\nfar as he himself was concerned. Nobody believed his narrative, but all\nbelieved that he believed it.\n\nHe made his enlargements without flourish, without emphasis, and so\ncasually that often one failed to notice that a change had been made.\nHe spoke of the governor of Vaucouleurs, the first night, simply as the\ngovernor of Vaucouleurs; he spoke of him the second night as his uncle\nthe governor of Vaucouleurs; the third night he was his father. He did\nnot seem to know that he was making these extraordinary changes; they\ndropped from his lips in a quite natural and effortless way. By his\nfirst night's account the governor merely attached him to the Maid's\nmilitary escort in a general and unofficial way; the second night his\nuncle the governor sent him with the Maid as lieutenant of her rear\nguard; the third night his father the governor put the whole command,\nMaid and all, in his special charge. The first night the governor spoke\nof him as a youth without name or ancestry, but \"destined to achieve\nboth\"; the second night his uncle the governor spoke of him as the\nlatest and worthiest lineal descendent of the chiefest and noblest of\nthe Twelve Paladins of Charlemagne; the third night he spoke of him as\nthe lineal descendent of the whole dozen. In three nights he promoted\nthe Count of Vendome from a fresh acquaintance to a schoolmate, and then\nbrother-in-law.\n\nAt the King's Audience everything grew, in the same way. First the four\nsilver trumpets were twelve, then thirty-five, finally ninety-six; and\nby that time he had thrown in so many drums and cymbals that he had to\nlengthen the hall from five hundred feet to nine hundred to accommodate\nthem. Under his hand the people present multiplied in the same large\nway.\n\nThe first two nights he contented himself with merely describing and\nexaggerating the chief dramatic incident of the Audience, but the third\nnight he added illustration to description. He throned the barber in his\nown high chair to represent the sham King; then he told how the Court\nwatched the Maid with intense interest and suppressed merriment,\nexpecting to see her fooled by the deception and get herself swept\npermanently out of credit by the storm of scornful laughter which would\nfollow. He worked this scene up till he got his house in a burning fever\nof excitement and anticipation, then came his climax. Turning to the\nbarber, he said:\n\n\"But mark you what she did. She gazed steadfastly upon that sham's\nvillain face as I now gaze upon yours\u0097this being her noble and simple\nattitude, just as I stand now\u0097then turned she\u0097thus\u0097to me, and stretching\nher arm out\u0097so\u0097and pointing with her finger, she said, in that firm,\ncalm tone which she was used to use in directing the conduct of a\nbattle, 'Pluck me this false knave from the throne!' I, striding forward\nas I do now, took him by the collar and lifted him out and held him\naloft\u0097thus\u0097as if he had been but a child.\" (The house rose, shouting,\nstamping, and banging with their flagons, and went fairly mad over this\nmagnificent exhibition of strength\u0097and there was not the shadow of\na laugh anywhere, though the spectacle of the limp but proud barber\nhanging there in the air like a puppy held by the scruff of its neck was\na thing that had nothing of solemnity about it.) \"Then I set him down\nupon his feet\u0097thus\u0097being minded to get him by a better hold and heave\nhim out of the window, but she bid me forbear, so by that error he\nescaped with his life.\n\n\"Then she turned her about and viewed the throng with those eyes of\nhers, which are the clear-shining windows whence her immortal wisdom\nlooketh out upon the world, resolving its falsities and coming at the\nkernel of truth that is hid within them, and presently they fell upon\na young man modestly clothed, and him she proclaimed for what he\ntruly was, saying, 'I am thy servant\u0097thou art the King!' Then all were\nastonished, and a great shout went up, the whole six thousand joining in\nit, so that the walls rocked with the volume and the tumult of it.\"\n\nHe made a fine and picturesque thing of the march-out from the Audience,\naugmenting the glories of it to the last limit of the impossibilities;\nthen he took from his finger and held up a brass nut from a bolt-head\nwhich the head ostler at the castle had given him that morning, and made\nhis conclusion\u0097thus:\n\n\"Then the King dismissed the Maid most graciously\u0097as indeed was her\ndesert\u0097and, turning to me, said, 'Take this signet-ring, son of the\nPaladins, and command me with it in your day of need; and look you,'\nsaid he, touching my temple, 'preserve this brain, France has use for\nit; and look well to its casket also, for I foresee that it will be\nhooped with a ducal coronet one day.' I took the ring, and knelt and\nkissed his hand, saying, 'Sire, where glory calls, there will I be\nfound; where danger and death are thickest, that is my native air; when\nFrance and the throne need help\u0097well, I say nothing, for I am not of the\ntalking sort\u0097let my deeds speak for me, it is all I ask.'\n\n\"So ended the most fortunate and memorable episode, so big with future\nweal for the crown and the nation, and unto God be the thanks! Rise!\nFill your flagons! Now\u0097to France and the King\u0097drink!\"\n\nThey emptied them to the bottom, then burst into cheers and huzzas, and\nkept it up as much as two minutes, the Paladin standing at stately ease\nthe while and smiling benignantly from his platform.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 8 Joan Persuades Her Inquisitors\n\nWHEN JOAN told the King what that deep secret was that was torturing his\nheart, his doubts were cleared away; he believed she was sent of God,\nand if he had been let alone he would have set her upon her great\nmission at once. But he was not let alone. Tremouille and the holy fox\nof Rheims knew their man. All they needed to say was this\u0097and they said\nit:\n\n\"Your Highness says her Voices have revealed to you, by her mouth, a\nsecret known only to yourself and God. How can you know that her Voices\nare not of Satan, and she his mouthpiece?\u0097for does not Satan know the\nsecrets of men and use his knowledge for the destruction of their\nsouls? It is a dangerous business, and your Highness will do well not to\nproceed in it without probing the matter to the bottom.\"\n\nThat was enough. It shriveled up the King's little soul like a raisin,\nwith terrors and apprehensions, and straightway he privately appointed a\ncommission of bishops to visit and question Joan daily until they should\nfind out whether her supernatural helps hailed from heaven or from hell.\n\nThe King's relative, the Duke of Alencon, three years prisoner of war to\nthe English, was in these days released from captivity through promise\nof a great ransom; and the name and fame of the Maid having reached\nhim\u0097for the same filled all mouths now, and penetrated to all parts\u0097he\ncame to Chinon to see with his own eyes what manner of creature she\nmight be. The King sent for Joan and introduced her to the Duke. She\nsaid, in her simple fashion:\n\n\"You are welcome; the more of the blood of France that is joined to this\ncause, the better for the cause and it.\"\n\nThen the two talked together, and there was just the usual result: when\nthey departed, the Duke was her friend and advocate.\n\nJoan attended the King's mass the next day, and afterward dined with the\nKing and the Duke. The King was learning to prize her company and value\nher conversation; and that might well be, for, like other kings, he\nwas used to getting nothing out of people's talk but guarded phrases,\ncolorless and non-committal, or carefully tinted to tally with the color\nof what he said himself; and so this kind of conversation only vexes and\nbores, and is wearisome; but Joan's talk was fresh and free, sincere and\nhonest, and unmarred by timorous self-watching and constraint. She\nsaid the very thing that was in her mind, and said it in a plain,\nstraightforward way. One can believe that to the King this must have\nbeen like fresh cold water from the mountains to parched lips used to\nthe water of the sun-baked puddles of the plain.\n\nAfter dinner Joan so charmed the Duke with her horsemanship and lance\npractice in the meadows by the Castle of Chinon whither the King\nalso had come to look on, that he made her a present of a great black\nwar-steed.\n\nEvery day the commission of bishops came and questioned Joan about her\nVoices and her mission, and then went to the King with their report.\nThese pryings accomplished but little. She told as much as she\nconsidered advisable, and kept the rest to herself. Both threats and\ntrickeries were wasted upon her. She did not care for the threats, and\nthe traps caught nothing. She was perfectly frank and childlike about\nthese things. She knew the bishops were sent by the King, that their\nquestions were the King's questions, and that by all law and custom a\nKing's questions must be answered; yet she told the King in her naive\nway at his own table one day that she answered only such of those\nquestions as suited her.\n\nThe bishops finally concluded that they couldn't tell whether Joan was\nsent by God or not. They were cautious, you see. There were two\npowerful parties at Court; therefore to make a decision either way would\ninfallibly embroil them with one of those parties; so it seemed to them\nwisest to roost on the fence and shift the burden to other shoulders.\nAnd that is what they did. They made final report that Joan's case was\nbeyond their powers, and recommended that it be put into the hands of\nthe learned and illustrious doctors of the University of Poitiers. Then\nthey retired from the field, leaving behind them this little item of\ntestimony, wrung from them by Joan's wise reticence: they said she was\na \"gentle and simple little shepherdess, very candid, but not given to\ntalking.\"\n\nIt was quite true\u0097in their case. But if they could have looked back\nand seen her with us in the happy pastures of Domremy, they would have\nperceived that she had a tongue that could go fast enough when no harm\ncould come of her words.\n\nSo we traveled to Poitiers, to endure there three weeks of tedious delay\nwhile this poor child was being daily questioned and badgered before a\ngreat bench of\u0097what? Military experts?\u0097since what she had come to apply\nfor was an army and the privilege of leading it to battle against\nthe enemies of France. Oh no; it was a great bench of priests and\nmonks\u0097profoundly leaned and astute casuists\u0097renowned professors of\ntheology! Instead of setting a military commission to find out if this\nvalorous little soldier could win victories, they set a company of holy\nhair-splitters and phrase-mongers to work to find out if the soldier was\nsound in her piety and had no doctrinal leaks. The rats were devouring\nthe house, but instead of examining the cat's teeth and claws, they only\nconcerned themselves to find out if it was a holy cat. If it was a pious\ncat, a moral cat, all right, never mind about the other capacities, they\nwere of no consequence.\n\nJoan was as sweetly self-possessed and tranquil before this grim\ntribunal, with its robed celebrities, its solemn state and imposing\nceremonials, as if she were but a spectator and not herself on trial.\nShe sat there, solitary on her bench, untroubled, and disconcerted the\nscience of the sages with her sublime ignorance\u0097an ignorance which was\na fortress; arts, wiles, the learning drawn from books, and all like\nmissiles rebounded from its unconscious masonry and fell to the ground\nharmless; they could not dislodge the garrison which was within\u0097Joan's\nserene great heart and spirit, the guards and keepers of her mission.\n\nShe answered all questions frankly, and she told all the story of her\nvisions and of her experiences with the angels and what they said to\nher; and the manner of the telling was so unaffected, and so earnest and\nsincere, and made it all seem so lifelike and real, that even that hard\npractical court forgot itself and sat motionless and mute, listening\nwith a charmed and wondering interest to the end. And if you would have\nother testimony than mine, look in the histories and you will find where\nan eyewitness, giving sworn testimony in the Rehabilitation process,\nsays that she told that tale \"with a noble dignity and simplicity,\" and\nas to its effect, says in substance what I have said. Seventeen, she\nwas\u0097seventeen, and all alone on her bench by herself; yet was not\nafraid, but faced that great company of erudite doctors of law and\ntheology, and by the help of no art learned in the schools, but using\nonly the enchantments which were hers by nature, of youth, sincerity, a\nvoice soft and musical, and an eloquence whose source was the heart, not\nthe head, she laid that spell upon them. Now was not that a beautiful\nthing to see? If I could, I would put it before you just as I saw it;\nthen I know what you would say.\n\nAs I have told you, she could not read. \"One day they harried and\npestered her with arguments, reasonings, objections, and other windy and\nwordy trivialities, gathered out of the works of this and that and the\nother great theological authority, until at last her patience vanished,\nand she turned upon them sharply and said:\n\n\"I don't know A from B; but I know this: that I am come by command of\nthe Lord of Heaven to deliver Orleans from the English power and crown\nthe King of Rheims, and the matters ye are puttering over are of no\nconsequence!\"\n\nNecessarily those were trying days for her, and wearing for everybody\nthat took part; but her share was the hardest, for she had no holidays,\nbut must be always on hand and stay the long hours through, whereas\nthis, that, and the other inquisitor could absent himself and rest up\nfrom his fatigues when he got worn out. And yet she showed no wear, no\nweariness, and but seldom let fly her temper. As a rule she put her\nday through calm, alert, patient, fencing with those veteran masters of\nscholarly sword-play and coming out always without a scratch.\n\nOne day a Dominican sprung upon her a question which made everybody cock\nup his ears with interest; as for me, I trembled, and said to myself she\nis done this time, poor Joan, for there is no way of answering this. The\nsly Dominican began in this way\u0097in a sort of indolent fashion, as if the\nthing he was about was a matter of no moment:\n\n\"You assert that God has willed to deliver France from this English\nbondage?\"\n\n\"Yes, He has willed it.\"\n\n\"You wish for men-at-arms, so that you may go to the relief of Orleans,\nI believe?\"\n\n\"Yes\u0097and the sooner the better.\"\n\n\"God is all-powerful, and able to do whatsoever thing He wills to do, is\nit not so?\"\n\n\"Most surely. None doubts it.\"\n\nThe Dominican lifted his head suddenly, and sprung that question I have\nspoken of, with exultation:\n\n\"Then answer me this. If He has willed to deliver France, and is able to\ndo whatsoever He wills, where is the need for men-at-arms?\"\n\nThere was a fine stir and commotion when he said that, and a sudden\nthrusting forward of heads and putting up of hands to ears to catch the\nanswer; and the Dominican wagged his head with satisfaction, and looked\nabout him collecting his applause, for it shone in every face. But Joan\nwas not disturbed. There was no note of disquiet in her voice when she\nanswered:\n\n\"He helps who help themselves. The sons of France will fight the\nbattles, but He will give the victory!\"\n\nYou could see a light of admiration sweep the house from face to face\nlike a ray from the sun. Even the Dominican himself looked pleased, to\nsee his master-stroke so neatly parried, and I heard a venerable bishop\nmutter, in the phrasing common to priest and people in that robust\ntime, \"By God, the child has said true. He willed that Goliath should be\nslain, and He sent a child like this to do it!\"\n\nAnother day, when the inquisition had dragged along until everybody\nlooked drowsy and tired but Joan, Brother Seguin, professor of theology\nat the University of Poitiers, who was a sour and sarcastic man, fell to\nplying Joan with all sorts of nagging questions in his bastard Limousin\nFrench\u0097for he was from Limoges. Finally he said:\n\n\"How is it that you understand those angels? What language did they\nspeak?\"\n\n\"French.\"\n\n\"In-deed! How pleasant to know that our language is so honored! Good\nFrench?\"\n\n\"Yes\u0097perfect.\"\n\n\"Perfect, eh? Well, certainly you ought to know. It was even better than\nyour own, eh?\"\n\n\"As to that, I\u0097I believe I cannot say,\" said she, and was going on, but\nstopped. Then she added, almost as if she were saying it to herself,\n\"Still, it was an improvement on yours!\"\n\nI knew there was a chuckle back of her eyes, for all their innocence.\nEverybody shouted. Brother Seguin was nettled, and asked brusquely:\n\n\"Do you believe in God?\"\n\nJoan answered with an irritating nonchalance:\n\n\"Oh, well, yes\u0097better than you, it is likely.\"\n\nBrother Seguin lost his patience, and heaped sarcasm after sarcasm upon\nher, and finally burst out in angry earnest, exclaiming:\n\n\"Very well, I can tell you this, you whose belief in God is so great:\nGod has not willed that any shall believe in you without a sign. Where\nis your sign?\u0097show it!\"\n\nThis roused Joan, and she was on her feet in a moment, and flung out her\nretort with spirit:\n\n\"I have not come to Poitiers to show signs and do miracles. Send me\nto Orleans and you shall have signs enough. Give me men-at-arms\u0097few or\nmany\u0097and let me go!\"\n\nThe fire was leaping from her eyes\u0097ah, the heroic little figure! can't\nyou see her? There was a great burst of acclamations, and she sat\ndown blushing, for it was not in her delicate nature to like being\nconspicuous.\n\nThis speech and that episode about the French language scored two points\nagainst Brother Seguin, while he scored nothing against Joan; yet, sour\nman as he was, he was a manly man, and honest, as you can see by the\nhistories; for at the Rehabilitation he could have hidden those unlucky\nincidents if he had chosen, but he didn't do it, but spoke them right\nout in his evidence.\n\nOn one of the latter days of that three-weeks session the gowned\nscholars and professors made one grand assault all along the line,\nfairly overwhelming Joan with objections and arguments culled from the\nwritings of every ancient and illustrious authority of the Roman Church.\nShe was well-nigh smothered; but at last she shook herself free and\nstruck back, crying out:\n\n\"Listen! The Book of God is worth more than all these ye cite, and I\nstand upon it. And I tell ye there are things in that Book that not one\namong ye can read, with all your learning!\"\n\nFrom the first she was the guest, by invitation, of the dame De\nRabateau, wife of a councilor of the Parliament of Poitiers; and to that\nhouse the great ladies of the city came nightly to see Joan and talk\nwith her; and not these only, but the old lawyers, councilors and\nscholars of the Parliament and the University. And these grave men,\naccustomed to weigh every strange and questionable thing, and cautiously\nconsider it, and turn it about this way and that and still doubt it,\ncame night after night, and night after night, falling ever deeper and\ndeeper under the influence of that mysterious something, that spell,\nthat elusive and unwordable fascination, which was the supremest\nendowment of Joan of Arc, that winning and persuasive and convincing\nsomething which high and low alike recognized and felt, but which\nneither high nor low could explain or describe, and one by one they all\nsurrendered, saying, \"This child is sent of God.\"\n\nAll day long Joan, in the great court and subject to its rigid rules of\nprocedure, was at a disadvantage; her judges had things their own way;\nbut at night she held court herself, and matters were reversed, she\npresiding, with her tongue free and her same judges there before her.\nThere could not be but one result: all the objections and hindrances\nthey could build around her with their hard labors of the day she would\ncharm away at night. In the end, she carried her judges with her in a\nmass, and got her great verdict without a dissenting voice.\n\nThe court was a sight to see when the president of it read it from his\nthrone, for all the great people of the town were there who could get\nadmission and find room. First there were some solemn ceremonies, proper\nand usual at such times; then, when there was silence again, the reading\nfollowed, penetrating the deep hush so that every word was heard in even\nthe remotest parts of the house:\n\n\"It is found, and is hereby declared, that Joan of Arc, called the Maid,\nis a good Christian and a good Catholic; that there is nothing in her\nperson or her words contrary to the faith; and that the King may and\nought to accept the succor she offers; for to repel it would be to\noffend the Holy Spirit, and render him unworthy of the air of God.\"\n\nThe court rose, and then the storm of plaudits burst forth unrebuked,\ndying down and bursting forth again and again, and I lost sight of\nJoan, for she was swallowed up in a great tide of people who rushed to\ncongratulate her and pour out benedictions upon her and upon the cause\nof France, now solemnly and irrevocably delivered into her little hands.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 9 She Is Made General-in-Chief\n\nIT WAS indeed a great day, and a stirring thing to see.\n\nShe had won! It was a mistake of Tremouille and her other ill-wishers to\nlet her hold court those nights.\n\nThe commission of priests sent to Lorraine ostensibly to inquire into\nJoan's character\u0097in fact to weary her with delays and wear out her\npurpose and make her give it up\u0097arrived back and reported her character\nperfect. Our affairs were in full career now, you see.\n\nThe verdict made a prodigious stir. Dead France woke suddenly to life,\nwherever the great news traveled. Whereas before, the spiritless and\ncowed people hung their heads and slunk away if one mentioned war to\nthem, now they came clamoring to be enlisted under the banner of the\nMaid of Vaucouleurs, and the roaring of war-songs and the thundering of\nthe drums filled all the air. I remembered now what she had said, that\ntime there in our village when I proved by facts and statistics that\nFrance's case was hopeless, and nothing could ever rouse the people from\ntheir lethargy:\n\n\"They will hear the drums\u0097and they will answer, they will march!\"\n\nIt has been said that misfortunes never come one at a time, but in a\nbody. In our case it was the same with good luck. Having got a start, it\ncame flooding in, tide after tide. Our next wave of it was of this sort.\nThere had been grave doubts among the priests as to whether the Church\nought to permit a female soldier to dress like a man. But now came a\nverdict on that head. Two of the greatest scholars and theologians\nof the time\u0097one of whom had been Chancellor of the University of\nParis\u0097rendered it. They decided that since Joan \"must do the work of\na man and a soldier, it is just and legitimate that her apparel should\nconform to the situation.\"\n\nIt was a great point gained, the Church's authority to dress as a man.\nOh, yes, wave on wave the good luck came sweeping in. Never mind about\nthe smaller waves, let us come to the largest one of all, the wave that\nswept us small fry quite off our feet and almost drowned us with joy.\nThe day of the great verdict, couriers had been despatched to the King\nwith it, and the next morning bright and early the clear notes of a\nbugle came floating to us on the crisp air, and we pricked up our\nears and began to count them. One\u0097two\u0097three; pause; one\u0097two; pause;\none\u0097two\u0097three, again\u0097and out we skipped and went flying; for that\nformula was used only when the King's herald-at-arms would deliver a\nproclamation to the people. As we hurried along, people came racing\nout of every street and house and alley, men, women, and children, all\nflushed, excited, and throwing lacking articles of clothing on as they\nran; still those clear notes pealed out, and still the rush of people\nincreased till the whole town was abroad and streaming along the\nprincipal street. At last we reached the square, which was now packed\nwith citizens, and there, high on the pedestal of the great cross, we\nsaw the herald in his brilliant costume, with his servitors about him.\nThe next moment he began his delivery in the powerful voice proper to\nhis office:\n\n\"Know all men, and take heed therefore, that the most high, the most\nillustrious Charles, by the grace of God King of France, hath been\npleased to confer upon his well-beloved servant Joan of Arc, called\nthe Maid, the title, emoluments, authorities, and dignity of\nGeneral-in-Chief of the Armies of France\u0097\"\n\nHere a thousand caps flew in the air, and the multitude burst into a\nhurricane of cheers that raged and raged till it seemed as if it would\nnever come to an end; but at last it did; then the herald went on and\nfinished:\u0097\"and hath appointed to be her lieutenant and chief of staff a\nprince of his royal house, his grace the Duke of Alencon!\"\n\nThat was the end, and the hurricane began again, and was split up into\ninnumerable strips by the blowers of it and wafted through all the lanes\nand streets of the town.\n\nGeneral of the Armies of France, with a prince of the blood for\nsubordinate! Yesterday she was nothing\u0097to-day she was this. Yesterday\nshe was not even a sergeant, not even a corporal, not even a\nprivate\u0097to-day, with one step, she was at the top. Yesterday she was\nless than nobody to the newest recruit\u0097to-day her command was law to\nLa Hire, Saintrailles, the Bastard of Orleans, and all those others,\nveterans of old renown, illustrious masters of the trade of war. These\nwere the thoughts I was thinking; I was trying to realize this strange\nand wonderful thing that had happened, you see.\n\nMy mind went travelling back, and presently lighted upon a picture\u0097a\npicture which was still so new and fresh in my memory that it seemed a\nmatter of only yesterday\u0097and indeed its date was no further back than\nthe first days of January. This is what it was. A peasant-girl in a\nfar-off village, her seventeenth year not yet quite completed, and\nherself and her village as unknown as if they had been on the other\nside of the globe. She had picked up a friendless wanderer somewhere\nand brought it home\u0097a small gray kitten in a forlorn and starving\ncondition\u0097and had fed it and comforted it and got its confidence and\nmade it believe in her, and now it was curled up in her lap asleep, and\nshe was knitting a coarse stocking and thinking\u0097dreaming\u0097about what, one\nmay never know. And now\u0097the kitten had hardly had time to become a cat,\nand yet already the girl is General of the Armies of France, with a\nprince of the blood to give orders to, and out of her village obscurity\nher name has climbed up like the sun and is visible from all corners of\nthe land! It made me dizzy to think of these things, they were so out of\nthe common order, and seemed so impossible.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 10 The Maid's Sword and Banner\n\nJOAN'S first official act was to dictate a letter to the English\ncommanders at Orleans, summoning them to deliver up all strongholds in\ntheir possession and depart out of France. She must have been thinking\nit all out before and arranging it in her mind, it flowed from her\nlips so smoothly, and framed itself into such vivacious and forcible\nlanguage. Still, it might not have been so; she always had a quick mind\nand a capable tongue, and her faculties were constantly developing\nin these latter weeks. This letter was to be forwarded presently from\nBlois. Men, provisions, and money were offering in plenty now, and\nJoan appointed Blois as a recruiting-station and depot of supplies, and\nordered up La Hire from the front to take charge.\n\nThe Great Bastard\u0097him of the ducal house, and governor of Orleans\u0097had\nbeen clamoring for weeks for Joan to be sent to him, and now came\nanother messenger, old D'Aulon, a veteran officer, a trusty man and fine\nand honest. The King kept him, and gave him to Joan to be chief of her\nhousehold, and commanded her to appoint the rest of her people herself,\nmaking their number and dignity accord with the greatness of her office;\nand at the same time he gave order that they should be properly equipped\nwith arms, clothing, and horses.\n\nMeantime the King was having a complete suit of armor made for her at\nTours. It was of the finest steel, heavily plated with silver, richly\nornamented with engraved designs, and polished like a mirror.\n\nJoan's Voices had told her that there was an ancient sword hidden\nsomewhere behind the altar of St. Catherine's at Fierbois, and she sent\nDe Metz to get it. The priests knew of no such sword, but a search was\nmade, and sure enough it was found in that place, buried a little way\nunder the ground. It had no sheath and was very rusty, but the priests\npolished it up and sent it to Tours, whither we were now to come. They\nalso had a sheath of crimson velvet made for it, and the people of Tours\nequipped it with another, made of cloth-of-gold. But Joan meant to carry\nthis sword always in battle; so she laid the showy sheaths away and\ngot one made of leather. It was generally believed that this sword had\nbelonged to Charlemagne, but that was only a matter of opinion. I wanted\nto sharpen that old blade, but she said it was not necessary, as she\nshould never kill anybody, and should carry it only as a symbol of\nauthority.\n\nAt Tours she designed her Standard, and a Scotch painter named James\nPower made it. It was of the most delicate white boucassin, with fringes\nof silk. For device it bore the image of God the Father throned in the\nclouds and holding the world in His hand; two angels knelt at His feet,\npresenting lilies; inscription, JESUS, MARIA; on the reverse the crown\nof France supported by two angels.\n\nShe also caused a smaller standard or pennon to be made, whereon was\nrepresented an angel offering a lily to the Holy Virgin.\n\nEverything was humming there at Tours. Every now and then one heard\nthe bray and crash of military music, every little while one heard the\nmeasured tramp of marching men\u0097squads of recruits leaving for Blois;\nsongs and shoutings and huzzas filled the air night and day, the town\nwas full of strangers, the streets and inns were thronged, the bustle\nof preparation was everywhere, and everybody carried a glad and cheerful\nface. Around Joan's headquarters a crowd of people was always massed,\nhoping for a glimpse of the new General, and when they got it, they went\nwild; but they seldom got it, for she was busy planning her campaign,\nreceiving reports, giving orders, despatching couriers, and giving what\nodd moments she could spare to the companies of great folk waiting in\nthe drawing-rooms. As for us boys, we hardly saw her at all, she was so\noccupied.\n\nWe were in a mixed state of mind\u0097sometimes hopeful, sometimes not;\nmostly not. She had not appointed her household yet\u0097that was our\ntrouble. We knew she was being overrun with applications for places in\nit, and that these applications were backed by great names and weighty\ninfluence, whereas we had nothing of the sort to recommend us. She could\nfill her humblest places with titled folk\u0097folk whose relationships\nwould be a bulwark for her and a valuable support at all times. In these\ncircumstances would policy allow her to consider us? We were not as\ncheerful as the rest of the town, but were inclined to be depressed and\nworried. Sometimes we discussed our slim chances and gave them as good\nan appearance as we could. But the very mention of the subject was\nanguish to the Paladin; for whereas we had some little hope, he had none\nat all. As a rule Noel Rainguesson was quite willing to let the dismal\nmatter alone; but not when the Paladin was present. Once we were talking\nthe thing over, when Noel said:\n\n\"Cheer up, Paladin, I had a dream last night, and you were the only one\namong us that got an appointment. It wasn't a high one, but it was an\nappointment, anyway\u0097some kind of a lackey or body-servant, or something\nof that kind.\"\n\nThe Paladin roused up and looked almost cheerful; for he was a believer\nin dreams, and in anything and everything of a superstitious sort, in\nfact. He said, with a rising hopefulness:\n\n\"I wish it might come true. Do you think it will come true?\"\n\n\"Certainly; I might almost say I know it will, for my dreams hardly ever\nfail.\"\n\n\"Noel, I could hug you if that dream could come true, I could, indeed!\nTo be servant of the first General of France and have all the world hear\nof it, and the news go back to the village and make those gawks stare\nthat always said I wouldn't ever amount to anything\u0097wouldn't it be\ngreat! Do you think it will come true, Noel? Don't you believe it will?\"\n\n\"I do. There's my hand on it.\"\n\n\"Noel, if it comes true I'll never forget you\u0097shake again! I should be\ndressed in a noble livery, and the news would go to the village, and\nthose animals would say, 'Him, lackey to the General-in-Chief, with the\neyes of the whole world on him, admiring\u0097well, he has shot up into the\nsky now, hasn't he!\"\n\nHe began to walk the floor and pile castles in the air so fast and so\nhigh that we could hardly keep up with him. Then all of a sudden all the\njoy went out of his face and misery took its place, and he said:\n\n\"Oh, dear, it is all a mistake, it will never come true. I forgot that\nfoolish business at Toul. I have kept out of her sight as much as I\ncould, all these weeks, hoping she would forget that and forgive it\u0097but\nI know she never will. She can't, of course. And, after all, I wasn't to\nblame. I did say she promised to marry me, but they put me up to it and\npersuaded me. I swear they did!\" The vast creature was almost crying.\nThen he pulled himself together and said, remorsefully, \"It was the only\nlie I've ever told, and\u0097\"\n\nHe was drowned out with a chorus of groans and outraged exclamations;\nand before he could begin again, one of D'Aulon's liveried servants\nappeared and said we were required at headquarters. We rose, and Noel\nsaid:\n\n\"There\u0097what did I tell you? I have a presentiment\u0097the spirit of prophecy\nis upon me. She is going to appoint him, and we are to go there and do\nhim homage. Come along!\"\n\nBut the Paladin was afraid to go, so we left him.\n\nWhen we presently stood in the presence, in front of a crowd of\nglittering officers of the army, Joan greeted us with a winning smile,\nand said she appointed all of us to places in her household, for she\nwanted her old friends by her. It was a beautiful surprise to have\nourselves honored like this when she could have had people of birth and\nconsequence instead, but we couldn't find our tongues to say so, she\nwas become so great and so high above us now. One at a time we stepped\nforward and each received his warrant from the hand of our chief,\nD'Aulon. All of us had honorable places; the two knights stood highest;\nthen Joan's two brothers; I was first page and secretary, a young\ngentleman named Raimond was second page; Noel was her messenger; she\nhad two heralds, and also a chaplain and almoner, whose name was Jean\nPasquerel. She had previously appointed a maitre d'hotel and a number of\ndomestics. Now she looked around and said:\n\n\"But where is the Paladin?\"\n\nThe Sieur Bertrand said:\n\n\"He thought he was not sent for, your Excellency.\"\n\n\"Now that is not well. Let him be called.\"\n\nThe Paladin entered humbly enough. He ventured no farther than just\nwithin the door. He stopped there, looking embarrassed and afraid. Then\nJoan spoke pleasantly, and said:\n\n\"I watched you on the road. You began badly, but improved. Of old you\nwere a fantastic talker, but there is a man in you, and I will bring it\nout.\" It was fine to see the Paladin's face light up when she said that.\n\"Will you follow where I lead?\"\n\n\"Into the fire!\" he said; and I said to myself, \"By the ring of that,\nI think she has turned this braggart into a hero. It is another of her\nmiracles, I make no doubt of it.\"\n\n\"I believe you,\" said Joan. \"Here\u0097take my banner. You will ride with me\nin every field, and when France is saved, you will give it me back.\"\n\nHe took the banner, which is now the most precious of the memorials that\nremain of Joan of Arc, and his voice was unsteady with emotion when he\nsaid:\n\n\"If I ever disgrace this trust, my comrades here will know how to do\na friend's office upon my body, and this charge I lay upon them, as\nknowing they will not fail me.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 11 The War March Is Begun\n\nNOEL and I went back together\u0097silent at first, and impressed.\n\nFinally Noel came up out of his thinkings and said:\n\n\"The first shall be last and the last first\u0097there's authority for this\nsurprise. But at the same time wasn't it a lofty hoist for our big\nbull!\"\n\n\"It truly was; I am not over being stunned yet. It was the greatest\nplace in her gift.\"\n\n\"Yes, it was. There are many generals, and she can create more; but\nthere is only one Standard-Bearer.\"\n\n\"True. It is the most conspicuous place in the army, after her own.\"\n\n\"And the most coveted and honorable. Sons of two dukes tried to get\nit, as we know. And of all people in the world, this majestic windmill\ncarries it off. Well, isn't it a gigantic promotion, when you come to\nlook at it!\"\n\n\"There's no doubt about it. It's a kind of copy of Joan's own in\nminiature.\"\n\n\"I don't know how to account for it\u0097do you?\"\n\n\"Yes\u0097without any trouble at all\u0097that is, I think I do.\"\n\nNoel was surprised at that, and glanced up quickly, as if to see if I\nwas in earnest. He said:\n\n\"I thought you couldn't be in earnest, but I see you are. If you can\nmake me understand this puzzle, do it. Tell me what the explanation is.\"\n\n\"I believe I can. You have noticed that our chief knight says a good\nmany wise things and has a thoughtful head on his shoulders. One day,\nriding along, we were talking about Joan's great talents, and he said,\n'But, greatest of all her gifts, she has the seeing eye.' I said, like\nan unthinking fool, 'The seeing eye?\u0097I shouldn't count on that for\nmuch\u0097I suppose we all have it.' 'No,' he said; 'very few have it.' Then\nhe explained, and made his meaning clear. He said the common eye sees\nonly the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye\npierces through and reads the heart and the soul, finding there\ncapacities which the outside didn't indicate or promise, and which the\nother kind of eye couldn't detect. He said the mightiest military genius\nmust fail and come to nothing if it have not the seeing eye\u0097that is\nto say, if it cannot read men and select its subordinates with an\ninfallible judgment. It sees as by intuition that this man is good for\nstrategy, that one for dash and daredevil assault, the other for patient\nbulldog persistence, and it appoints each to his right place and wins,\nwhile the commander without the seeing eye would give to each the\nother's place and lose. He was right about Joan, and I saw it. When she\nwas a child and the tramp came one night, her father and all of us took\nhim for a rascal, but she saw the honest man through the rags. When I\ndined with the governor of Vaucouleurs so long ago, I saw nothing in our\ntwo knights, though I sat with them and talked with them two hours;\nJoan was there five minutes, and neither spoke with them nor heard them\nspeak, yet she marked them for men of worth and fidelity, and they have\nconfirmed her judgment. Whom has she sent for to take charge of this\nthundering rabble of new recruits at Blois, made up of old disbanded\nArmagnac raiders, unspeakable hellions, every one? Why, she has sent\nfor Satan himself\u0097that is to say, La Hire\u0097that military hurricane,\nthat godless swashbuckler, that lurid conflagration of blasphemy, that\nVesuvius of profanity, forever in eruption. Does he know how to deal\nwith that mob of roaring devils? Better than any man that lives; for\nhe is the head devil of this world his own self, he is the match of the\nwhole of them combined, and probably the father of most of them. She\nplaces him in temporary command until she can get to Blois herself\u0097and\nthen! Why, then she will certainly take them in hand personally, or I\ndon't know her as well as I ought to, after all these years of intimacy.\nThat will be a sight to see\u0097that fair spirit in her white armor,\ndelivering her will to that muck-heap, that rag-pile, that abandoned\nrefuse of perdition.\"\n\n\"La Hire!\" cried Noel, \"our hero of all these years\u0097I do want to see\nthat man!\"\n\n\"I too. His name stirs me just as it did when I was a little boy.\"\n\n\"I want to hear him swear.\"\n\n\"Of course, I would rather hear him swear than another man pray. He is\nthe frankest man there is, and the naivest. Once when he was rebuked\nfor pillaging on his raids, he said it was nothing. Said he, 'If God\nthe Father were a soldier, He would rob.' I judge he is the right man to\ntake temporary charge there at Blois. Joan has cast the seeing eye upon\nhim, you see.\"\n\n\"Which brings us back to where we started. I have an honest affection\nfor the Paladin, and not merely because he is a good fellow, but because\nhe is my child\u0097I made him what he is, the windiest blusterer and most\ncatholic liar in the kingdom. I'm glad of his luck, but I hadn't the\nseeing eye. I shouldn't have chosen him for the most dangerous post in\nthe army. I should have placed him in the rear to kill the wounded and\nviolate the dead.\"\n\n\"Well, we shall see. Joan probably knows what is in him better than\nwe do. And I'll give you another idea. When a person in Joan of Arc's\nposition tells a man he is brave, he believes it; and believing it is\nenough; in fact, to believe yourself brave is to be brave; it is the one\nonly essential thing.\"\n\n\"Now you've hit it!\" cried Noel. \"She's got the creating mouth as well\nas the seeing eye! Ah, yes, that is the thing. France was cowed and a\ncoward; Joan of Arc has spoken, and France is marching, with her head\nup!\"\n\nI was summoned now to write a letter from Joan's dictation. During the\nnext day and night our several uniforms were made by the tailors, and\nour new armor provided. We were beautiful to look upon now, whether\nclothed for peace or war. Clothed for peace, in costly stuffs and rich\ncolors, the Paladin was a tower dyed with the glories of the sunset;\nplumed and sashed and iron-clad for war, he was a still statelier thing\nto look at.\n\nOrders had been issued for the march toward Blois. It was a clear,\nsharp, beautiful morning. As our showy great company trotted out in\ncolumn, riding two and two, Joan and the Duke of Alencon in the lead,\nD'Aulon and the big standard-bearer next, and so on, we made a handsome\nspectacle, as you may well imagine; and as we plowed through the\ncheering crowds, with Joan bowing her plumed head to left and right and\nthe sun glinting from her silver mail, the spectators realized that\nthe curtain was rolling up before their eyes upon the first act of a\nprodigious drama, and their rising hopes were expressed in an enthusiasm\nthat increased with each moment, until at last one seemed to even\nphysically feel the concussion of the huzzas as well as hear them. Far\ndown the street we heard the softened strains of wind-blown music, and\nsaw a cloud of lancers moving, the sun glowing with a subdued light upon\nthe massed armor, but striking bright upon the soaring lance-heads\u0097a\nvaguely luminous nebula, so to speak, with a constellation twinkling\nabove it\u0097and that was our guard of honor. It joined us, the procession\nwas complete, the first war-march of Joan of Arc was begun, the curtain\nwas up.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 12 Joan Puts Heart in Her Army\n\nWE WERE at Blois three days. Oh, that camp, it is one of the treasures\nof my memory! Order? There was no more order among those brigands than\nthere is among the wolves and the hyenas. They went roaring and drinking\nabout, whooping, shouting, swearing, and entertaining themselves with\nall manner of rude and riotous horse-play; and the place was full of\nloud and lewd women, and they were no whit behind the men for romps and\nnoise and fantastics.\n\nIt was in the midst of this wild mob that Noel and I had our first\nglimpse of La Hire. He answered to our dearest dreams. He was of great\nsize and of martial bearing, he was cased in mail from head to heel,\nwith a bushel of swishing plumes on his helmet, and at his side the vast\nsword of the time.\n\nHe was on his way to pay his respects in state to Joan, and as he passed\nthrough the camp he was restoring order, and proclaiming that the Maid\nhad come, and he would have no such spectacle as this exposed to the\nhead of the army. His way of creating order was his own, not borrowed.\nHe did it with his great fists. As he moved along swearing and\nadmonishing, he let drive this way, that way, and the other, and\nwherever his blow landed, a man went down.\n\n\"Damn you!\" he said, \"staggering and cursing around like this, and the\nCommander-in-Chief in the camp! Straighten up!\" and he laid the man\nflat. What his idea of straightening up was, was his own secret.\n\nWe followed the veteran to headquarters, listening, observing,\nadmiring\u0097yes, devouring, you may say, the pet hero of the boys of France\nfrom our cradles up to that happy day, and their idol and ours. I called\nto mind how Joan had once rebuked the Paladin, there in the pastures\nof Domremy, for uttering lightly those mighty names, La Hire and the\nBastard of Orleans, and how she said that if she could but be permitted\nto stand afar off and let her eyes rest once upon those great men, she\nwould hold it a privilege. They were to her and the other girls just\nwhat they were to the boys. Well, here was one of them at last\u0097and what\nwas his errand? It was hard to realize it, and yet it was true; he was\ncoming to uncover his head before her and take her orders.\n\nWhile he was quieting a considerable group of his brigands in his\nsoothing way, near headquarters, we stepped on ahead and got a glimpse\nof Joan's military family, the great chiefs of the army, for they had\nall arrived now. There they were, six officers of wide renown, handsome\nmen in beautiful armor, but the Lord High Admiral of France was the\nhandsomest of them all and had the most gallant bearing.\n\nWhen La Hire entered, one could see the surprise in his face at Joan's\nbeauty and extreme youth, and one could see, too, by Joan's glad smile,\nthat it made her happy to get sight of this hero of her childhood at\nlast. La Hire bowed low, with his helmet in his gauntleted hand, and\nmade a bluff but handsome little speech with hardly an oath in it, and\none could see that those two took to each other on the spot.\n\nThe visit of ceremony was soon over, and the others went away; but La\nHire stayed, and he and Joan sat there, and he sipped her wine, and they\ntalked and laughed together like old friends. And presently she gave him\nsome instructions, in his quality as master of the camp, which made his\nbreath stand still. For, to begin with, she said that all those loose\nwomen must pack out of the place at once, she wouldn't allow one of them\nto remain. Next, the rough carousing must stop, drinking must be brought\nwithin proper and strictly defined limits, and discipline must take the\nplace of disorder. And finally she climaxed the list of surprises with\nthis\u0097which nearly lifted him out of his armor:\n\n\"Every man who joins my standard must confess before the priest and\nabsolve himself from sin; and all accepted recruits must be present at\ndivine service twice a day.\"\n\nLa Hire could not say a word for a good part of a minute, then he said,\nin deep dejection:\n\n\"Oh, sweet child, they were littered in hell, these poor darlings of\nmine! Attend mass? Why, dear heart, they'll see us both damned first!\"\n\nAnd he went on, pouring out a most pathetic stream of arguments and\nblasphemy, which broke Joan all up, and made her laugh as she had not\nlaughed since she played in the Domremy pastures. It was good to hear.\n\nBut she stuck to her point; so the soldier yielded, and said all right,\nif such were the orders he must obey, and would do the best that was in\nhim; then he refreshed himself with a lurid explosion of oaths, and said\nthat if any man in the camp refused to renounce sin and lead a pious\nlife, he would knock his head off. That started Joan off again; she was\nreally having a good time, you see. But she would not consent to that\nform of conversions. She said they must be voluntary.\n\nLa Hire said that that was all right, he wasn't going to kill the\nvoluntary ones, but only the others.\n\nNo matter, none of them must be killed\u0097Joan couldn't have it. She said\nthat to give a man a chance to volunteer, on pain of death if he didn't,\nleft him more or less trammeled, and she wanted him to be entirely free.\n\nSo the soldier sighed and said he would advertise the mass, but said he\ndoubted if there was a man in camp that was any more likely to go to it\nthan he was himself. Then there was another surprise for him, for Joan\nsaid:\n\n\"But, dear man, you are going!\"\n\n\"I? Impossible! Oh, this is lunacy!\"\n\n\"Oh, no, it isn't. You are going to the service\u0097twice a day.\"\n\n\"Oh, am I dreaming? Am I drunk\u0097or is my hearing playing me false? Why, I\nwould rather go to\u0097\"\n\n\"Never mind where. In the morning you are going to begin, and after that\nit will come easy. Now don't look downhearted like that. Soon you won't\nmind it.\"\n\nLa Hire tried to cheer up, but he was not able to do it. He sighed like\na zephyr, and presently said:\n\n\"Well, I'll do it for you, but before I would do it for another, I swear\nI\u0097\"\n\n\"But don't swear. Break it off.\"\n\n\"Break it off? It is impossible! I beg you to\u0097to\u0097Why\u0097oh, my General, it\nis my native speech!\"\n\nHe begged so hard for grace for his impediment, that Joan left him one\nfragment of it; she said he might swear by his baton, the symbol of his\ngeneralship.\n\nHe promised that he would swear only by his baton when in her presence,\nand would try to modify himself elsewhere, but doubted he could manage\nit, now that it was so old and stubborn a habit, and such a solace and\nsupport to his declining years.\n\nThat tough old lion went away from there a good deal tamed and\ncivilized\u0097not to say softened and sweetened, for perhaps those\nexpressions would hardly fit him. Noel and I believed that when he was\naway from Joan's influence his old aversions would come up so strong in\nhim that he could not master them, and so wouldn't go to mass. But we\ngot up early in the morning to see.\n\nSatan was converted, you see. Well, the rest followed. Joan rode up\nand down that camp, and wherever that fair young form appeared in its\nshining armor, with that sweet face to grace the vision and perfect\nit, the rude host seemed to think they saw the god of war in person,\ndescended out of the clouds; and first they wondered, then they\nworshiped. After that, she could do with them what she would.\n\nIn three days it was a clean camp and orderly, and those barbarians were\nherding to divine service twice a day like good children. The women\nwere gone. La Hire was stunned by these marvels; he could not understand\nthem. He went outside the camp when he wanted to swear. He was that sort\nof a man\u0097sinful by nature and habit, but full of superstitious respect\nfor holy places.\n\nThe enthusiasm of the reformed army for Joan, its devotion to her,\nand the hot desire she had aroused in it to be led against the enemy,\nexceeded any manifestations of this sort which La Hire had ever seen\nbefore in his long career. His admiration of it all, and his wonder over\nthe mystery and miracle of it, were beyond his power to put into words.\nHe had held this army cheap before, but his pride and confidence in it\nknew no limits now. He said:\n\n\"Two or three days ago it was afraid of a hen-roost; one could storm the\ngates of hell with it now.\"\n\nJoan and he were inseparable, and a quaint and pleasant contrast they\nmade. He was so big, she so little; he was so gray and so far along in\nhis pilgrimage of life, she so youthful; his face was so bronzed\nand scarred, hers so fair and pink, so fresh and smooth; she was so\ngracious, and he so stern; she was so pure, so innocent, he such a\ncyclopedia of sin. In her eye was stored all charity and compassion,\nin his lightnings; when her glance fell upon you it seemed to bring\nbenediction and the peace of God, but with his it was different,\ngenerally.\n\nThey rode through the camp a dozen times a day, visiting every corner\nof it, observing, inspecting, perfecting; and wherever they appeared\nthe enthusiasm broke forth. They rode side by side, he a great figure of\nbrawn and muscle, she a little masterwork of roundness and grace; he a\nfortress of rusty iron, she a shining statuette of silver; and when the\nreformed raiders and bandits caught sight of them they spoke out, with\naffection and welcome in their voices, and said:\n\n\"There they come\u0097Satan and the Page of Christ!\"\n\nAll the three days that we were in Blois, Joan worked earnestly and\ntirelessly to bring La Hire to God\u0097to rescue him from the bondage of\nsin\u0097to breathe into his stormy heart the serenity and peace of religion.\nShe urged, she begged, she implored him to pray. He stood out, three\ndays of our stay, begging about piteously to be let off\u0097to be let off\nfrom just that one thing, that impossible thing; he would do anything\nelse\u0097anything\u0097command, and he would obey\u0097he would go through the fire\nfor her if she said the word\u0097but spare him this, only this, for he\ncouldn't pray, had never prayed, he was ignorant of how to frame a\nprayer, he had no words to put it in.\n\nAnd yet\u0097can any believe it?\u0097she carried even that point, she won that\nincredible victory. She made La Hire pray. It shows, I think, that\nnothing was impossible to Joan of Arc. Yes, he stood there before her\nand put up his mailed hands and made a prayer. And it was not borrowed,\nbut was his very own; he had none to help him frame it, he made it out\nof his own head\u0097saying:\n\n\"Fair Sir God, I pray you to do by La Hire as he would do by you if you\nwere La Hire and he were God.\" 1\n\nThen he put on his helmet and marched out of Joan's tent as satisfied\nwith himself as any one might be who had arranged a perplexed and\ndifficult business to the content and admiration of all the parties\nconcerned in the matter.\n\nIf I had know that he had been praying, I could have understood why he\nwas feeling so superior, but of course I could not know that.\n\nI was coming to the tent at that moment, and saw him come out, and\nsaw him march away in that large fashion, and indeed it was fine and\nbeautiful to see. But when I got to the tent door I stopped and stepped\nback, grieved and shocked, for I heard Joan crying, as I mistakenly\nthought\u0097crying as if she could not contain nor endure the anguish of\nher soul, crying as if she would die. But it was not so, she was\nlaughing\u0097laughing at La Hire's prayer.\n\nIt was not until six-and-thirty years afterward that I found that out,\nand then\u0097oh, then I only cried when that picture of young care-free\nmirth rose before me out of the blur and mists of that long-vanished\ntime; for there had come a day between, when God's good gift of laughter\nhad gone out from me to come again no more in this life.\n\n\n(1) This prayer has been stolen many times and by many nations in the\npast four hundred and sixty years, but it originated with La Hire, and\nthe fact is of official record in the National Archives of France. We\nhave the authority of Michelet for this.\u0097TRANSLATOR\n\n\n\n\nChapter 13 Checked by the Folly of the Wise\n\nWE MARCHED out in great strength and splendor, and took the road toward\nOrleans. The initial part of Joan's great dream was realizing itself at\nlast. It was the first time that any of us youngsters had ever seen an\narmy, and it was a most stately and imposing spectacle to us. It was\nindeed an inspiring sight, that interminable column, stretching\naway into the fading distances, and curving itself in and out of the\ncrookedness of the road like a mighty serpent. Joan rode at the head of\nit with her personal staff; then came a body of priests singing the Veni\nCreator, the banner of the Cross rising out of their midst; after these\nthe glinting forest of spears. The several divisions were commanded by\nthe great Armagnac generals, La Hire, and Marshal de Boussac, the Sire\nde Retz, Florent d'Illiers, and Poton de Saintrailles.\n\nEach in his degree was tough, and there were three degrees\u0097tough,\ntougher, toughest\u0097and La Hire was the last by a shade, but only a shade.\nThey were just illustrious official brigands, the whole party; and\nby long habits of lawlessness they had lost all acquaintanceship with\nobedience, if they had ever had any.\n\nBut what was the good of saying that? These independent birds knew no\nlaw. They seldom obeyed the King; they never obeyed him when it didn't\nsuit them to do it. Would they obey the Maid? In the first place they\nwouldn't know how to obey her or anybody else, and in the second place\nit was of course not possible for them to take her military character\nseriously\u0097that country-girl of seventeen who had been trained for the\ncomplex and terrible business of war\u0097how? By tending sheep.\n\nThey had no idea of obeying her except in cases where their veteran\nmilitary knowledge and experience showed them that the thing she\nrequired was sound and right when gauged by the regular military\nstandards. Were they to blame for this attitude? I should think not.\nOld war-worn captains are hard-headed, practical men. They do not\neasily believe in the ability of ignorant children to plan campaigns\nand command armies. No general that ever lived could have taken Joan\nseriously (militarily) before she raised the siege of Orleans and\nfollowed it with the great campaign of the Loire.\n\nDid they consider Joan valueless? Far from it. They valued her as the\nfruitful earth values the sun\u0097they fully believed she could produce the\ncrop, but that it was in their line of business, not hers, to take\nit off. They had a deep and superstitious reverence for her as being\nendowed with a mysterious supernatural something that was able to do a\nmighty thing which they were powerless to do\u0097blow the breath of life and\nvalor into the dead corpses of cowed armies and turn them into heroes.\n\nTo their minds they were everything with her, but nothing without her.\nShe could inspire the soldiers and fit them for battle\u0097but fight\nthe battle herself? Oh, nonsense\u0097that was their function. They, the\ngenerals, would fight the battles, Joan would give the victory. That was\ntheir idea\u0097an unconscious paraphrase of Joan's reply to the Dominican.\n\nSo they began by playing a deception upon her. She had a clear idea\nof how she meant to proceed. It was her purpose to march boldly upon\nOrleans by the north bank of the Loire. She gave that order to her\ngenerals. They said to themselves, \"The idea is insane\u0097it is blunder No.\n1; it is what might have been expected of this child who is ignorant of\nwar.\" They privately sent the word to the Bastard of Orleans. He also\nrecognized the insanity of it\u0097at least he thought he did\u0097and privately\nadvised the generals to get around the order in some way.\n\nThey did it by deceiving Joan. She trusted those people, she was not\nexpecting this sort of treatment, and was not on the lookout for it. It\nwas a lesson to her; she saw to it that the game was not played a second\ntime.\n\nWhy was Joan's idea insane, from the generals' point of view, but not\nfrom hers? Because her plan was to raise the siege immediately, by\nfighting, while theirs was to besiege the besiegers and starve them out\nby closing their communications\u0097a plan which would require months in the\nconsummation.\n\nThe English had built a fence of strong fortresses called bastilles\naround Orleans\u0097fortresses which closed all the gates of the city but\none. To the French generals the idea of trying to fight their way past\nthose fortresses and lead the army into Orleans was preposterous; they\nbelieved that the result would be the army's destruction. One may not\ndoubt that their opinion was militarily sound\u0097no, would have been, but\nfor one circumstance which they overlooked. That was this: the English\nsoldiers were in a demoralized condition of superstitious terror; they\nhad become satisfied that the Maid was in league with Satan. By reason\nof this a good deal of their courage had oozed out and vanished. On the\nother hand, the Maid's soldiers were full of courage, enthusiasm, and\nzeal.\n\nJoan could have marched by the English forts. However, it was not to be.\nShe had been cheated out of her first chance to strike a heavy blow for\nher country.\n\nIn camp that night she slept in her armor on the ground. It was a cold\nnight, and she was nearly as stiff as her armor itself when we resumed\nthe march in the morning, for iron is not good material for a blanket.\nHowever, her joy in being now so far on her way to the theater of her\nmission was fire enough to warm her, and it soon did it.\n\nHer enthusiasm and impatience rose higher and higher with every mile\nof progress; but at last we reached Olivet, and down it went, and\nindignation took its place. For she saw the trick that had been played\nupon her\u0097the river lay between us and Orleans.\n\nShe was for attacking one of the three bastilles that were on our\nside of the river and forcing access to the bridge which it guarded (a\nproject which, if successful, would raise the siege instantly), but\nthe long-ingrained fear of the English came upon her generals and they\nimplored her not to make the attempt. The soldiers wanted to attack,\nbut had to suffer disappointment. So we moved on and came to a halt at a\npoint opposite Checy, six miles above Orleans.\n\nDunois, Bastard of Orleans, with a body of knights and citizens, came\nup from the city to welcome Joan. Joan was still burning with resentment\nover the trick that had been put upon her, and was not in the mood for\nsoft speeches, even to revered military idols of her childhood. She\nsaid:\n\n\"Are you the bastard?\"\n\n\"Yes, I am he, and am right glad of your coming.\"\n\n\"And did you advise that I be brought by this side of the river instead\nof straight to Talbot and the English?\"\n\nHer high manner abashed him, and he was not able to answer with anything\nlike a confident promptness, but with many hesitations and partial\nexcuses he managed to get out the confession that for what he and the\ncouncil had regarded as imperative military reasons they so advised.\n\n\"In God's name,\" said Joan, \"my Lord's counsel is safer and wiser than\nyours. You thought to deceive me, but you have deceived yourselves, for\nI bring you the best help that ever knight or city had; for it is God's\nhelp, not sent for love of me, but by God's pleasure. At the prayer of\nSt. Louis and St. Charlemagne He has had pity on Orleans, and will not\nsuffer the enemy to have both the Duke of Orleans and his city. The\nprovisions to save the starving people are here, the boats are below the\ncity, the wind is contrary, they cannot come up hither. Now then, tell\nme, in God's name, you who are so wise, what that council of yours was\nthinking about, to invent this foolish difficulty.\"\n\nDunois and the rest fumbled around the matter a moment, then gave in and\nconceded that a blunder had been made.\n\n\"Yes, a blunder has been made,\" said Joan, \"and except God take your\nproper work upon Himself and change the wind and correct your blunder\nfor you, there is none else that can devise a remedy.\"\n\nSome of these people began to perceive that with all her technical\nignorance she had practical good sense, and that with all her native\nsweetness and charm she was not the right kind of a person to play with.\n\nPresently God did take the blunder in hand, and by His grace the wind\ndid change. So the fleet of boats came up and went away loaded with\nprovisions and cattle, and conveyed that welcome succor to the hungry\ncity, managing the matter successfully under protection of a sortie\nfrom the walls against the bastille of St. Loup. Then Joan began on the\nBastard again:\n\n\"You see here the army?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"It is here on this side by advice of your council?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Now, in God's name, can that wise council explain why it is better to\nhave it here than it would be to have it in the bottom of the sea?\"\n\nDunois made some wandering attempts to explain the inexplicable and\nexcuse the inexcusable, but Joan cut him short and said:\n\n\"Answer me this, good sir\u0097has the army any value on this side of the\nriver?\"\n\nThe Bastard confessed that it hadn't\u0097that is, in view of the plan of\ncampaign which she had devised and decreed.\n\n\"And yet, knowing this, you had the hardihood to disobey my orders.\nSince the army's place is on the other side, will you explain to me how\nit is to get there?\"\n\nThe whole size of the needless muddle was apparent. Evasions were of\nno use; therefore Dunois admitted that there was no way to correct the\nblunder but to send the army all the way back to Blois, and let it begin\nover again and come up on the other side this time, according to Joan's\noriginal plan.\n\nAny other girl, after winning such a triumph as this over a veteran\nsoldier of old renown, might have exulted a little and been excusable\nfor it, but Joan showed no disposition of this sort. She dropped a word\nor two of grief over the precious time that must be lost, then began at\nonce to issue commands for the march back. She sorrowed to see her army\ngo; for she said its heart was great and its enthusiasm high, and that\nwith it at her back she did not fear to face all the might of England.\n\nAll arrangements having been completed for the return of the main body\nof the army, she took the Bastard and La Hire and a thousand men and\nwent down to Orleans, where all the town was in a fever of impatience\nto have sight of her face. It was eight in the evening when she and the\ntroops rode in at the Burgundy gate, with the Paladin preceding her with\nher standard. She was riding a white horse, and she carried in her hand\nthe sacred sword of Fierbois. You should have seen Orleans then. What\na picture it was! Such black seas of people, such a starry firmament of\ntorches, such roaring whirlwinds of welcome, such booming of bells\nand thundering of cannon! It was as if the world was come to an end.\nEverywhere in the glare of the torches one saw rank upon rank of\nupturned white faces, the mouths wide open, shouting, and the unchecked\ntears running down; Joan forged her slow way through the solid masses,\nher mailed form projecting above the pavement of heads like a silver\nstatue. The people about her struggled along, gazing up at her through\ntheir tears with the rapt look of men and women who believe they are\nseeing one who is divine; and always her feet were being kissed by\ngrateful folk, and such as failed of that privilege touched her horse\nand then kissed their fingers.\n\nNothing that Joan did escaped notice; everything she did was commented\nupon and applauded. You could hear the remarks going all the time.\n\n\"There\u0097she's smiling\u0097see!\"\n\n\"Now she's taking her little plumed cap off to somebody\u0097ah, it's fine\nand graceful!\"\n\n\"She's patting that woman on the head with her gauntlet.\"\n\n\"Oh, she was born on a horse\u0097see her turn in her saddle, and kiss the\nhilt of her sword to the ladies in the window that threw the flowers\ndown.\"\n\n\"Now there's a poor woman lifting up a child\u0097she's kissed it\u0097oh, she's\ndivine!\"\n\n\"What a dainty little figure it is, and what a lovely face\u0097and such\ncolor and animation!\"\n\nJoan's slender long banner streaming backward had an accident\u0097the fringe\ncaught fire from a torch. She leaned forward and crushed the flame in\nher hand.\n\n\"She's not afraid of fire nor anything!\" they shouted, and delivered a\nstorm of admiring applause that made everything quake.\n\nShe rode to the cathedral and gave thanks to God, and the people crammed\nthe place and added their devotions to hers; then she took up her march\nagain and picked her slow way through the crowds and the wilderness\nof torches to the house of Jacques Boucher, treasurer of the Duke of\nOrleans, where she was to be the guest of his wife as long as she stayed\nin the city, and have his young daughter for comrade and room-mate. The\ndelirium of the people went on the rest of the night, and with it the\nclamor of the joy-bells and the welcoming cannon.\n\nJoan of Arc had stepped upon her stage at last, and was ready to begin.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 14 What the English Answered\n\nSHE WAS ready, but must sit down and wait until there was an army to\nwork with.\n\nNext morning, Saturday, April 30, 1429, she set about inquiring after\nthe messenger who carried her proclamation to the English from Blois\u0097the\none which she had dictated at Poitiers. Here is a copy of it. It is\na remarkable document, for several reasons: for its matter-of-fact\ndirectness, for its high spirit and forcible diction, and for its naive\nconfidence in her ability to achieve the prodigious task which she had\nlaid upon herself, or which had been laid upon her\u0097which you please. All\nthrough it you seem to see the pomps of war and hear the rumbling of\nthe drums. In it Joan's warrior soul is revealed, and for the moment the\nsoft little shepherdess has disappeared from your view. This untaught\ncountry-damsel, unused to dictating anything at all to anybody,\nmuch less documents of state to kings and generals, poured out this\nprocession of vigorous sentences as fluently as if this sort of work had\nbeen her trade from childhood:\n\nJESUS MARIA King of England and you Duke of Bedford who call yourself\nRegent of France; William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk; and you Thomas\nLord Scales, who style yourselves lieutenants of the said Bedford\u0097do\nright to the King of Heaven. Render to the Maid who is sent by God the\nkeys of all the good towns you have taken and violated in France. She\nis sent hither by God, to restore the blood royal. She is very ready to\nmake peace if you will do her right by giving up France and paying\nfor what you have held. And you archers, companions of war, noble and\notherwise, who are before the good city of Orleans, begone into your own\nland in God's name, or expect news from the Maid who will shortly go to\nsee you to your very great hurt. King of England, if you do not so, I\nam chief of war, and whenever I shall find your people in France, I will\ndrive them out, willing or not willing; and if they do not obey I will\nslay them all, but if they obey, I will have them to mercy. I am come\nhither by God, the King of Heaven, body for body, to put you out of\nFrance, in spite of those who would work treason and mischief against\nthe kingdom. Think not you shall ever hold the kingdom from the King of\nHeaven, the Son of the Blessed Mary; King Charles shall hold it, for God\nwills it so, and has revealed it to him by the Maid. If you believe not\nthe news sent by God through the Maid, wherever we shall meet you we\nwill strike boldly and make such a noise as has not been in France these\nthousand years. Be sure that God can send more strength to the Maid than\nyou can bring to any assault against her and her good men-at-arms; and\nthen we shall see who has the better right, the King of Heaven, or\nyou. Duke of Bedford, the Maid prays you not to bring about your own\ndestruction. If you do her right, you may yet go in her company where\nthe French shall do the finest deed that has been done in Christendom,\nand if you do not, you shall be reminded shortly of your great wrongs.\n\nIn that closing sentence she invites them to go on crusade with her\nto rescue the Holy Sepulcher. No answer had been returned to this\nproclamation, and the messenger himself had not come back.\n\nSo now she sent her two heralds with a new letter warning the English\nto raise the siege and requiring them to restore that missing messenger.\nThe heralds came back without him. All they brought was notice from the\nEnglish to Joan that they would presently catch her and burn her if she\ndid not clear out now while she had a chance, and \"go back to her proper\ntrade of minding cows.\"\n\nShe held her peace, only saying it was a pity that the English would\npersist in inviting present disaster and eventual destruction when she\nwas \"doing all she could to get them out of the country with their lives\nstill in their bodies.\"\n\nPresently she thought of an arrangement that might be acceptable, and\nsaid to the heralds, \"Go back and say to Lord Talbot this, from me:\n'Come out of your bastilles with your host, and I will come with mine;\nif I beat you, go in peace out of France; if you beat me, burn me,\naccording to your desire.'\"\n\nI did not hear this, but Dunois did, and spoke of it. The challenge was\nrefused.\n\nSunday morning her Voices or some instinct gave her a warning, and\nshe sent Dunois to Blois to take command of the army and hurry it to\nOrleans. It was a wise move, for he found Regnault de Chartres and some\nmore of the King's pet rascals there trying their best to disperse the\narmy, and crippling all the efforts of Joan's generals to head it for\nOrleans. They were a fine lot, those miscreants. They turned their\nattention to Dunois now, but he had balked Joan once, with unpleasant\nresults to himself, and was not minded to meddle in that way again. He\nsoon had the army moving.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 15 My Exquisite Poem Goes to Smash\n\nWE OF the personal staff were in fairyland now, during the few days that\nwe waited for the return of the army. We went into society. To our two\nknights this was not a novelty, but to us young villagers it was a new\nand wonderful life. Any position of any sort near the person of the Maid\nof Vaucouleurs conferred high distinction upon the holder and caused\nhis society to be courted; and so the D'Arc brothers, and Noel, and the\nPaladin, humble peasants at home, were gentlemen here, personages\nof weight and influence. It was fine to see how soon their country\ndiffidences and awkwardnesses melted away under this pleasant sun of\ndeference and disappeared, and how lightly and easily they took to their\nnew atmosphere. The Paladin was as happy as it was possible for any one\nin this earth to be. His tongue went all the time, and daily he got new\ndelight out of hearing himself talk. He began to enlarge his ancestry\nand spread it out all around, and ennoble it right and left, and it was\nnot long until it consisted almost entirely of dukes. He worked up his\nold battles and tricked them out with fresh splendors; also with new\nterrors, for he added artillery now. We had seen cannon for the first\ntime at Blois\u0097a few pieces\u0097here there was plenty of it, and now and then\nwe had the impressive spectacle of a huge English bastille hidden from\nsight in a mountain of smoke from its own guns, with lances of red\nflame darting through it; and this grand picture, along with the quaking\nthunders pounding away in the heart of it, inflamed the Paladin's\nimagination and enabled him to dress out those ambuscade-skirmishes of\nours with a sublimity which made it impossible for any to recognize them\nat all except people who had not been there.\n\nYou may suspect that there was a special inspiration for these great\nefforts of the Paladin's, and there was. It was the daughter of the\nhouse, Catherine Boucher, who was eighteen, and gentle and lovely in her\nways, and very beautiful. I think she might have been as beautiful as\nJoan herself, if she had had Joan's eyes. But that could never be. There\nwas never but that one pair, there will never be another. Joan's eyes\nwere deep and rich and wonderful beyond anything merely earthly. They\nspoke all the languages\u0097they had no need of words. They produced all\neffects\u0097and just by a glance, just a single glance; a glance that could\nconvict a liar of his lie and make him confess it; that could bring down\na proud man's pride and make him humble; that could put courage into a\ncoward and strike dead the courage of the bravest; that could appease\nresentments and real hatreds; that could make the doubter believe and\nthe hopeless hope again; that could purify the impure mind; that could\npersuade\u0097ah, there it is\u0097persuasion! that is the word; what or who is\nit that it couldn't persuade? The maniac of Domremy\u0097the fairy-banishing\npriest\u0097the reverend tribunal of Toul\u0097the doubting and superstitious\nLaxart\u0097the obstinate veteran of Vaucouleurs\u0097the characterless heir\nof France\u0097the sages and scholars of the Parliament and University\nof Poitiers\u0097the darling of Satan, La Hire\u0097the masterless Bastard of\nOrleans, accustomed to acknowledge no way as right and rational but his\nown\u0097these were the trophies of that great gift that made her the wonder\nand mystery that she was.\n\nWe mingled companionably with the great folk who flocked to the big\nhouse to make Joan's acquaintance, and they made much of us and we lived\nin the clouds, so to speak. But what we preferred even to this happiness\nwas the quieter occasions, when the formal guests were gone and the\nfamily and a few dozen of its familiar friends were gathered together\nfor a social good time. It was then that we did our best, we five\nyoungsters, with such fascinations as we had, and the chief object of\nthem was Catherine. None of us had ever been in love before, and now we\nhad the misfortune to all fall in love with the same person at the same\ntime\u0097which was the first moment we saw her. She was a merry heart, and\nfull of life, and I still remember tenderly those few evenings that I\nwas permitted to have my share of her dear society and of comradeship\nwith that little company of charming people.\n\nThe Paladin made us all jealous the first night, for when he got fairly\nstarted on those battles of his he had everything to himself, and there\nwas no use in anybody else's trying to get any attention. Those people\nhad been living in the midst of real war for seven months; and to hear\nthis windy giant lay out his imaginary campaigns and fairly swim in\nblood and spatter it all around, entertained them to the verge of the\ngrave. Catherine was like to die, for pure enjoyment. She didn't laugh\nloud\u0097we, of course, wished she would\u0097but kept in the shelter of a fan,\nand shook until there was danger that she would unhitch her ribs from\nher spine. Then when the Paladin had got done with a battle and we began\nto feel thankful and hope for a change, she would speak up in a way that\nwas so sweet and persuasive that it rankled in me, and ask him about\nsome detail or other in the early part of his battle which she said had\ngreatly interested her, and would he be so good as to describe that part\nagain and with a little more particularity?\u0097which of course precipitated\nthe whole battle on us, again, with a hundred lies added that had been\noverlooked before.\n\nI do not know how to make you realize the pain I suffered. I had never\nbeen jealous before, and it seemed intolerable that this creature should\nhave this good fortune which he was so ill entitled to, and I have to\nsit and see myself neglected when I was so longing for the least little\nattention out of the thousand that this beloved girl was lavishing on\nhim. I was near her, and tried two or three times to get started on some\nof the things that I had done in those battles\u0097and I felt ashamed of\nmyself, too, for stooping to such a business\u0097but she cared for nothing\nbut his battles, and could not be got to listen; and presently when\none of my attempts caused her to lose some precious rag or other of\nhis mendacities and she asked him to repeat, thus bringing on a new\nengagement, of course, and increasing the havoc and carnage tenfold, I\nfelt so humiliated by this pitiful miscarriage of mine that I gave up\nand tried no more.\n\nThe others were as outraged by the Paladin's selfish conduct as I\nwas\u0097and by his grand luck, too, of course\u0097perhaps, indeed, that was the\nmain hurt. We talked our trouble over together, which was natural,\nfor rivals become brothers when a common affliction assails them and a\ncommon enemy bears off the victory.\n\nEach of us could do things that would please and get notice if it\nwere not for this person, who occupied all the time and gave others no\nchance. I had made a poem, taking a whole night to it\u0097a poem in which I\nmost happily and delicately celebrated that sweet girl's charms, without\nmentioning her name, but any one could see who was meant; for the bare\ntitle\u0097\"The Rose of Orleans\"\u0097would reveal that, as it seemed to me. It\npictured this pure and dainty white rose as growing up out of the rude\nsoil of war and looking abroad out of its tender eyes upon the horrid\nmachinery of death, and then\u0097note this conceit\u0097it blushes for the sinful\nnature of man, and turns red in a single night. Becomes a red rose, you\nsee\u0097a rose that was white before. The idea was my own, and quite new.\nThen it sent its sweet perfume out over the embattled city, and when the\nbeleaguering forces smelt it they laid down their arms and wept. This\nwas also my own idea, and new. That closed that part of the poem; then\nI put her into the similitude of the firmament\u0097not the whole of it, but\nonly part. That is to say, she was the moon, and all the constellations\nwere following her about, their hearts in flames for love of her, but\nshe would not halt, she would not listen, for 'twas thought she loved\nanother. 'Twas thought she loved a poor unworthy suppliant who was upon\nthe earth, facing danger, death, and possible mutilation in the bloody\nfield, waging relentless war against a heartless foe to save her from\nan all too early grave, and her city from destruction. And when the sad\npursuing constellations came to know and realize the bitter sorrow that\nwas come upon them\u0097note this idea\u0097their hearts broke and their tears\ngushed forth, filling the vault of heaven with a fiery splendor, for\nthose tears were falling stars. It was a rash idea, but beautiful;\nbeautiful and pathetic; wonderfully pathetic, the way I had it, with\nthe rhyme and all to help. At the end of each verse there was a two-line\nrefrain pitying the poor earthly lover separated so far, and perhaps\nforever, from her he loved so well, and growing always paler and weaker\nand thinner in his agony as he neared the cruel grave\u0097the most touching\nthing\u0097even the boys themselves could hardly keep back their tears, the\nway Noel said those lines. There were eight four-line stanzas in the\nfirst end of the poem\u0097the end about the rose, the horticultural end, as\nyou may say, if that is not too large a name for such a little poem\u0097and\neight in the astronomical end\u0097sixteen stanzas altogether, and I could\nhave made it a hundred and fifty if I had wanted to, I was so inspired\nand so all swelled up with beautiful thoughts and fancies; but that\nwould have been too many to sing or recite before a company that way,\nwhereas sixteen was just right, and could be done over again if desired.\nThe boys were amazed that I could make such a poem as that out of my own\nhead, and so was I, of course, it being as much a surprise to me as it\ncould be to anybody, for I did not know that it was in me. If any had\nasked me a single day before if it was in me, I should have told them\nfrankly no, it was not.\n\nThat is the way with us; we may go on half of our life not knowing such\na thing is in us, when in reality it was there all the time, and all we\nneeded was something to turn up that would call for it. Indeed, it was\nalways so without family. My grandfather had a cancer, and they never\nknew what was the matter with him till he died, and he didn't know\nhimself. It is wonderful how gifts and diseases can be concealed in that\nway. All that was necessary in my case was for this lovely and inspiring\ngirl to cross my path, and out came the poem, and no more trouble to me\nto word it and rhyme it and perfect it than it is to stone a dog. No, I\nshould have said it was not in me; but it was.\n\nThe boys couldn't say enough about it, they were so charmed and\nastonished. The thing that pleased them the most was the way it would do\nthe Paladin's business for him. They forgot everything in their anxiety\nto get him shelved and silenced. Noel Rainguesson was clear beside\nhimself with admiration of the poem, and wished he could do such a\nthing, but it was out of his line, and he couldn't, of course. He had it\nby heart in half an hour, and there was never anything so pathetic and\nbeautiful as the way he recited it. For that was just his gift\u0097that and\nmimicry. He could recite anything better than anybody in the world,\nand he could take of La Hire to the very life\u0097or anybody else, for that\nmatter. Now I never could recite worth a farthing; and when I tried with\nthis poem the boys wouldn't let me finish; they would have nobody but\nNoel. So then, as I wanted the poem to make the best possible impression\non Catherine and the company, I told Noel he might do the reciting.\nNever was anybody so delighted. He could hardly believe that I was in\nearnest, but I was. I said that to have them know that I was the author\nof it would be enough for me. The boys were full of exultation, and Noel\nsaid if he could just get one chance at those people it would be all he\nwould ask; he would make them realize that there was something higher\nand finer than war-lies to be had here.\n\nBut how to get the opportunity\u0097that was the difficulty. We invented\nseveral schemes that promised fairly, and at last we hit upon one\nthat was sure. That was, to let the Paladin get a good start in a\nmanufactured battle, and then send in a false call for him, and as\nsoon as he was out of the room, have Noel take his place and finish the\nbattle himself in the Paladin's own style, imitated to a shade. That\nwould get great applause, and win the house's favor and put it in the\nright mood to hear the poem. The two triumphs together with finish the\nStandard-Bearer\u0097modify him, anyway, to a certainty, and give the rest of\nus a chance for the future.\n\nSo the next night I kept out of the way until the Paladin had got his\nstart and was sweeping down upon the enemy like a whirlwind at the head\nof his corps, then I stepped within the door in my official uniform\nand announced that a messenger from General La Hire's quarters desired\nspeech with the Standard-Bearer. He left the room, and Noel took his\nplace and said that the interruption was to be deplored, but that\nfortunately he was personally acquainted with the details of the battle\nhimself, and if permitted would be glad to state them to the company.\nThen without waiting for the permission he turned himself to the\nPaladin\u0097a dwarfed Paladin, of course\u0097with manner, tones, gestures,\nattitudes, everything exact, and went right on with the battle, and it\nwould be impossible to imagine a more perfectly and minutely ridiculous\nimitation than he furnished to those shrieking people. They went into\nspasms, convulsions, frenzies of laughter, and the tears flowed down\ntheir cheeks in rivulets. The more they laughed, the more inspired Noel\ngrew with his theme and the greater marvels he worked, till really the\nlaughter was not properly laughing any more, but screaming. Blessedest\nfeature of all, Catherine Boucher was dying with ecstasies, and\npresently there was little left of her but gasps and suffocations.\nVictory? It was a perfect Agincourt.\n\nThe Paladin was gone only a couple of minutes; he found out at once that\na trick had been played on him, so he came back. When he approached\nthe door he heard Noel ranting in there and recognized the state of\nthe case; so he remained near the door but out of sight, and heard the\nperformance through to the end. The applause Noel got when he finished\nwas wonderful; and they kept it up and kept it up, clapping their hands\nlike mad, and shouting to him to do it over again.\n\nBut Noel was clever. He knew the very best background for a poem of deep\nand refined sentiment and pathetic melancholy was one where great and\nsatisfying merriment had prepared the spirit for the powerful contrast.\n\nSo he paused until all was quiet, then his face grew grave and assumed\nan impressive aspect, and at once all faces sobered in sympathy and took\non a look of wondering and expectant interest. Now he began in a low\nbut distinct voice the opening verses of The Rose. As he breathed the\nrhythmic measures forth, and one gracious line after another fell upon\nthose enchanted ears in that deep hush, one could catch, on every hand,\nhalf-audible ejaculations of \"How lovely\u0097how beautiful\u0097how exquisite!\"\n\nBy this time the Paladin, who had gone away for a moment with the\nopening of the poem, was back again, and had stepped within the door.\nHe stood there now, resting his great frame against the wall and gazing\ntoward the reciter like one entranced. When Noel got to the second part,\nand that heart-breaking refrain began to melt and move all listeners,\nthe Paladin began to wipe away tears with the back of first one hand\nand then the other. The next time the refrain was repeated he got to\nsnuffling, and sort of half sobbing, and went to wiping his eyes with\nthe sleeves of his doublet. He was so conspicuous that he embarrassed\nNoel a little, and also had an ill effect upon the audience. With the\nnext repetition he broke quite down and began to cry like a calf, which\nruined all the effect and started many to the audience to laughing. Then\nhe went on from bad to worse, until I never saw such a spectacle; for\nhe fetched out a towel from under his doublet and began to swab his eyes\nwith it and let go the most infernal bellowings mixed up with sobbings\nand groanings and retchings and barkings and coughings and snortings and\nscreamings and howlings\u0097and he twisted himself about on his heels and\nsquirmed this way and that, still pouring out that brutal clamor and\nflourishing his towel in the air and swabbing again and wringing it out.\nHear? You couldn't hear yourself think. Noel was wholly drowned out\nand silenced, and those people were laughing the very lungs out of\nthemselves. It was the most degrading sight that ever was. Now I heard\nthe clankety-clank that plate-armor makes when the man that is in it\nis running, and then alongside my head there burst out the most inhuman\nexplosion of laughter that ever rent the drum of a person's ear, and I\nlooked, and it was La Hire; and the stood there with his gauntlets on\nhis hips and his head tilted back and his jaws spread to that degree\nto let out his hurricanes and his thunders that it amounted to indecent\nexposure, for you could see everything that was in him. Only one thing\nmore and worse could happen, and it happened: at the other door I\nsaw the flurry and bustle and bowings and scrapings of officials and\nflunkeys which means that some great personage is coming\u0097then Joan\nof Arc stepped in, and the house rose! Yes, and tried to shut its\nindecorous mouth and make itself grave and proper; but when it saw\nthe Maid herself go to laughing, it thanked God for this mercy and the\nearthquake that followed.\n\nSuch things make a life of bitterness, and I do not wish to dwell upon\nthem. The effect of the poem was spoiled.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 16 The Finding of the Dwarf\n\nTHIS EPISODE disagreed with me and I was not able to leave my bed the\nnext day. The others were in the same condition. But for this, one or\nanother of us might have had the good luck that fell to the Paladin's\nshare that day; but it is observable that God in His compassion sends\nthe good luck to such as are ill equipped with gifts, as compensation\nfor their defect, but requires such as are more fortunately endowed to\nget by labor and talent what those others get by chance. It was Noel who\nsaid this, and it seemed to me to be well and justly thought.\n\nThe Paladin, going about the town all the day in order to be followed\nand admired and overhear the people say in an awed voice, \"'Ssh!\u0097look,\nit is the Standard-Bearer of Joan of Arc!\" had speech with all sorts and\nconditions of folk, and he learned from some boatmen that there was a\nstir of some kind going on in the bastilles on the other side of the\nriver; and in the evening, seeking further, he found a deserter from the\nfortress called the \"Augustins,\" who said that the English were going to\nsend me over to strengthen the garrisons on our side during the darkness\nof the night, and were exulting greatly, for they meant to spring upon\nDunois and the army when it was passing the bastilles and destroy it;\na thing quite easy to do, since the \"Witch\" would not be there, and\nwithout her presence the army would do like the French armies of these\nmany years past\u0097drop their weapons and run when they saw an English\nface.\n\nIt was ten at night when the Paladin brought this news and asked leave\nto speak to Joan, and I was up and on duty then. It was a bitter stroke\nto me to see what a chance I had lost. Joan made searching inquiries,\nand satisfied herself that the word was true, then she made this\nannoying remark:\n\n\"You have done well, and you have my thanks. It may be that you have\nprevented a disaster. Your name and service shall receive official\nmention.\"\n\nThen he bowed low, and when he rose he was eleven feet high. As he\nswelled out past me he covertly pulled down the corner of his eye with\nhis finger and muttered part of that defiled refrain, \"Oh, tears, ah,\ntears, oh, sad sweet tears!\u0097name in General Orders\u0097personal mention to\nthe King, you see!\"\n\nI wished Joan could have seen his conduct, but she was busy thinking\nwhat she would do. Then she had me fetch the knight Jean de Metz, and in\na minute he was off for La Hire's quarters with orders for him and the\nLord de Villars and Florent d'Illiers to report to her at five o'clock\nnext morning with five hundred picked men well mounted. The histories\nsay half past four, but it is not true, I heard the order given.\n\nWe were on our way at five to the minute, and encountered the head of\nthe arriving column between six and seven, a couple of leagues from the\ncity. Dunois was pleased, for the army had begun to get restive and show\nuneasiness now that it was getting so near to the dreaded bastilles. But\nthat all disappeared now, as the word ran down the line, with a huzza\nthat swept along the length of it like a wave, that the Maid was come.\nDunois asked her to halt and let the column pass in review, so that the\nmen could be sure that the reports of her presence was not a ruse to\nrevive their courage. So she took position at the side of the road with\nher staff, and the battalions swung by with a martial stride, huzzaing.\nJoan was armed, except her head. She was wearing the cunning little\nvelvet cap with the mass of curved white ostrich plumes tumbling\nover its edges which the city of Orleans had given her the night she\narrived\u0097the one that is in the picture that hangs in the Hotel de Ville\nat Rouen. She was looking about fifteen. The sight of soldiers always\nset her blood to leaping, and lit the fires in her eyes and brought the\nwarm rich color to her cheeks; it was then that you saw that she was\ntoo beautiful to be of the earth, or at any rate that there was a subtle\nsomething somewhere about her beauty that differed it from the human\ntypes of your experience and exalted it above them.\n\nIn the train of wains laden with supplies a man lay on top of the goods.\nHe was stretched out on his back, and his hands were tied together with\nropes, and also his ankles. Joan signed to the officer in charge of that\ndivision of the train to come to her, and he rode up and saluted.\n\n\"What is he that is bound there?\" she asked.\n\n\"A prisoner, General.\"\n\n\"What is his offense?\"\n\n\"He is a deserter.\"\n\n\"What is to be done with him?\"\n\n\"He will be hanged, but it was not convenient on the march, and there\nwas no hurry.\"\n\n\"Tell me about him.\"\n\n\"He is a good soldier, but he asked leave to go and see his wife who was\ndying, he said, but it could not be granted; so he went without leave.\nMeanwhile the march began, and he only overtook us yesterday evening.\"\n\n\"Overtook you? Did he come of his own will?\"\n\n\"Yes, it was of his own will.\"\n\n\"He a deserter! Name of God! Bring him to me.\"\n\nThe officer rode forward and loosed the man's feet and brought him back\nwith his hands still tied. What a figure he was\u0097a good seven feet high,\nand built for business! He had a strong face; he had an unkempt shock of\nblack hair which showed up a striking way when the officer removed his\nmorion for him; for weapon he had a big ax in his broad leathern belt.\nStanding by Joan's horse, he made Joan look littler than ever, for\nhis head was about on a level with her own. His face was profoundly\nmelancholy; all interest in life seemed to be dead in the man. Joan\nsaid:\n\n\"Hold up your hands.\"\n\nThe man's head was down. He lifted it when he heard that soft friendly\nvoice, and there was a wistful something in his face which made one\nthink that there had been music in it for him and that he would like\nto hear it again. When he raised his hands Joan laid her sword to his\nbonds, but the officer said with apprehension:\n\n\"Ah, madam\u0097my General!\"\n\n\"What is it?\" she said.\n\n\"He is under sentence!\"\n\n\"Yes, I know. I am responsible for him\"; and she cut the bonds. They had\nlacerated his wrists, and they were bleeding. \"Ah, pitiful!\" she said;\n\"blood\u0097I do not like it\"; and she shrank from the sight. But only for a\nmoment. \"Give me something, somebody, to bandage his wrists with.\"\n\nThe officer said:\n\n\"Ah, my General! it is not fitting. Let me bring another to do it.\"\n\n\"Another? De par le Dieu! You would seek far to find one that can do it\nbetter than I, for I learned it long ago among both men and beasts. And\nI can tie better than those that did this; if I had tied him the ropes\nhad not cut his flesh.\"\n\nThe man looked on silent, while he was being bandaged, stealing a\nfurtive glance at Joan's face occasionally, such as an animal might\nthat is receiving a kindness form an unexpected quarter and is gropingly\ntrying to reconcile the act with its source. All the staff had forgotten\nthe huzzaing army drifting by in its rolling clouds of dust, to crane\ntheir necks and watch the bandaging as if it was the most interesting\nand absorbing novelty that ever was. I have often seen people do like\nthat\u0097get entirely lost in the simplest trifle, when it is something that\nis out of their line. Now there in Poitiers, once, I saw two bishops and\na dozen of those grave and famous scholars grouped together watching a\nman paint a sign on a shop; they didn't breathe, they were as good as\ndead; and when it began to sprinkle they didn't know it at first; then\nthey noticed it, and each man hove a deep sigh, and glanced up with a\nsurprised look as wondering to see the others there, and how he came to\nbe there himself\u0097but that is the way with people, as I have said. There\nis no way of accounting for people. You have to take them as they are.\n\n\"There,\" said Joan at last, pleased with her success; \"another could\nhave done it no better\u0097not as well, I think. Tell me\u0097what is it you did?\nTell me all.\"\n\nThe giant said:\n\n\"It was this way, my angel. My mother died, then my three little\nchildren, one after the other, all in two years. It was the famine;\nothers fared so\u0097it was God's will. I saw them die; I had that grace;\nand I buried them. Then when my poor wife's fate was come, I begged for\nleave to go to her\u0097she who was so dear to me\u0097she who was all I had;\nI begged on my knees. But they would not let me. Could I let her die,\nfriendless and alone? Could I let her die believing I would not come?\nWould she let me die and she not come\u0097with her feet free to do it if\nshe would, and no cost upon it but only her life? Ah, she would come\u0097she\nwould come through the fire! So I went. I saw her. She died in my arms.\nI buried her. Then the army was gone. I had trouble to overtake it, but\nmy legs are long and there are many hours in a day; I overtook it last\nnight.\"\n\nJoan said, musingly, as if she were thinking aloud:\n\n\"It sounds true. If true, it were no great harm to suspend the law this\none time\u0097any would say that. It may not be true, but if it is true\u0097\" She\nturned suddenly to the man and said, \"I would see your eyes\u0097look up!\"\nThe eyes of the two met, and Joan said to the officer, \"This man is\npardoned. Give you good day; you may go.\" Then she said to the man, \"Did\nyou know it was death to come back to the army?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"I knew it.\"\n\n\"Then why did you do it?\"\n\nThe man said, quite simply:\n\n\"Because it was death. She was all I had. There was nothing left to\nlove.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes, there was\u0097France! The children of France have always their\nmother\u0097they cannot be left with nothing to love. You shall live\u0097and you\nshall serve France\u0097\"\n\n\"I will serve you!\"\u0097\"you shall fight for France\u0097\"\n\n\"I will fight for you!\"\n\n\"You shall be France's soldier\u0097\"\n\n\"I will be your soldier!\"\u0097\"you shall give all your heart to France\u0097\"\n\n\"I will give all my heart to you\u0097and all my soul, if I have one\u0097and all\nmy strength, which is great\u0097for I was dead and am alive again; I had\nnothing to live for, but now I have! You are France for me. You are my\nFrance, and I will have no other.\"\n\nJoan smiled, and was touched and pleased at the man's grave\nenthusiasm\u0097solemn enthusiasm, one may call it, for the manner of it was\ndeeper than mere gravity\u0097and she said:\n\n\"Well, it shall be as you will. What are you called?\"\n\nThe man answered with unsmiling simplicity:\n\n\"They call me the Dwarf, but I think it is more in jest than otherwise.\"\n\nIt made Joan laugh, and she said:\n\n\"It has something of that look truly! What is the office of that vast\nax?\"\n\nThe soldier replied with the same gravity\u0097which must have been born to\nhim, it sat upon him so naturally:\n\n\"It is to persuade persons to respect France.\"\n\nJoan laughed again, and said:\n\n\"Have you given many lessons?\"\n\n\"Ah, indeed, yes\u0097many.\"\n\n\"The pupils behaved to suit you, afterward?\"\n\n\"Yes; it made them quiet\u0097quite pleasant and quiet.\"\n\n\"I should think it would happen so. Would you like to be my\nman-at-arms?\u0097orderly, sentinel, or something like that?\"\n\n\"If I may!\"\n\n\"Then you shall. You shall have proper armor, and shall go on teaching\nyour art. Take one of those led horses there, and follow the staff when\nwe move.\"\n\nThat is how we came by the Dwarf; and a good fellow he was. Joan picked\nhim out on sight, but it wasn't a mistake; no one could be faithfuler\nthan he was, and he was a devil and the son of a devil when he turned\nhimself loose with his ax. He was so big that he made the Paladin look\nlike an ordinary man. He liked to like people, therefore people liked\nhim. He liked us boys from the start; and he liked the knights, and\nliked pretty much everybody he came across; but he thought more of a\nparing of Joan's finger-nail than he did of all the rest of the world\nput together.\n\nYes, that is where we got him\u0097stretched on the wain, going to his death,\npoor chap, and nobody to say a good word for him. He was a good find.\nWhy, the knights treated him almost like an equal\u0097it is the honest\ntruth; that is the sort of a man he was. They called him the Bastille\nsometimes, and sometimes they called him Hellfire, which was on account\nof his warm and sumptuous style in battle, and you know they wouldn't\nhave given him pet names if they hadn't had a good deal of affection for\nhim.\n\nTo the Dwarf, Joan was France, the spirit of France made flesh\u0097he never\ngot away from that idea that he had started with; and God knows it was\nthe true one. That was a humble eye to see so great a truth where some\nothers failed. To me that seems quite remarkable. And yet, after all,\nit was, in a way, just what nations do. When they love a great and noble\nthing, they embody it\u0097they want it so that they can see it with their\neyes; like liberty, for instance. They are not content with the cloudy\nabstract idea, they make a beautiful statue of it, and then their\nbeloved idea is substantial and they can look at it and worship it.\nAnd so it is as I say; to the Dwarf, Joan was our country embodied,\nour country made visible flesh cast in a gracious form. When she stood\nbefore others, they saw Joan of Arc, but he saw France.\n\nSometimes he would speak of her by that name. It shows you how the idea\nwas embedded in his mind, and how real it was to him. The world has\ncalled our kings by it, but I know of none of them who has had so good a\nright as she to that sublime title.\n\nWhen the march past was finished, Joan returned to the front and rode at\nthe head of the column. When we began to file past those grim bastilles\nand could glimpse the men within, standing to their guns and ready to\nempty death into our ranks, such a faintness came over me and such a\nsickness that all things seemed to turn dim and swim before my eyes;\nand the other boys looked droopy, too, I thought\u0097including the Paladin,\nalthough I do not know this for certain, because he was ahead of me\nand I had to keep my eyes out toward the bastille side, because I could\nwince better when I saw what to wince at.\n\nBut Joan was at home\u0097in Paradise, I might say. She sat up straight, and\nI could see that she was feeling different from me. The awfulest thing\nwas the silence; there wasn't a sound but the screaking of the saddles,\nthe measured tramplings, and the sneezing of the horses, afflicted by\nthe smothering dust-clouds which they kicked up. I wanted to sneeze\nmyself, but it seemed to me that I would rather go unsneezed, or suffer\neven a bitterer torture, if there is one, than attract attention to\nmyself.\n\nI was not of a rank to make suggestions, or I would have suggested that\nif we went faster we should get by sooner. It seemed to me that it was\nan ill-judged time to be taking a walk. Just as we were drifting in\nthat suffocating stillness past a great cannon that stood just within a\nraised portcullis, with nothing between me and it but the moat, a most\nuncommon jackass in there split the world with his bray, and I fell out\nof the saddle. Sir Bertrand grabbed me as I went, which was well, for if\nI had gone to the ground in my armor I could not have gotten up again by\nmyself. The English warders on the battlements laughed a coarse laugh,\nforgetting that every one must begin, and that there had been a time\nwhen they themselves would have fared no better when shot by a jackass.\n\nThe English never uttered a challenge nor fired a shot. It was said\nafterward that when their men saw the Maid riding at the front and saw\nhow lovely she was, their eager courage cooled down in many cases and\nvanished in the rest, they feeling certain that the creature was not\nmortal, but the very child of Satan, and so the officers were prudent\nand did not try to make them fight. It was said also that some of the\nofficers were affected by the same superstitious fears. Well, in any\ncase, they never offered to molest us, and we poked by all the grisly\nfortresses in peace. During the march I caught up on my devotions, which\nwere in arrears; so it was not all loss and no profit for me after all.\n\nIt was on this march that the histories say Dunois told Joan that the\nEnglish were expecting reinforcements under the command of Sir John\nFastolfe, and that she turned upon him and said:\n\n\"Bastard, Bastard, in God's name I warn you to let me know of his coming\nas soon as you hear of it; for if he passes without my knowledge you\nshall lose your head!\"\n\nIt may be so; I don't deny it; but I didn't her it. If she really said\nit I think she only meant she would take off his official head\u0097degrade\nhim from his command. It was not like her to threaten a comrade's life.\nShe did have her doubts of her generals, and was entitled to them, for\nshe was all for storm and assault, and they were for holding still and\ntiring the English out. Since they did not believe in her way and were\nexperienced old soldiers, it would be natural for them to prefer their\nown and try to get around carrying hers out.\n\nBut I did hear something that the histories didn't mention and don't\nknow about. I heard Joan say that now that the garrisons on the other\nwide had been weakened to strengthen those on our side, the most\neffective point of operations had shifted to the south shore; so she\nmeant to go over there and storm the forts which held the bridge end,\nand that would open up communication with our own dominions and raise\nthe siege. The generals began to balk, privately, right away, but they\nonly baffled and delayed her, and that for only four days.\n\nAll Orleans met the army at the gate and huzzaed it through the bannered\nstreets to its various quarters, but nobody had to rock it to sleep; it\nslumped down dog-tired, for Dunois had rushed it without mercy, and for\nthe next twenty-four hours it would be quiet, all but the snoring.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 17 Sweet Fruit of Bitter Truth\n\nWHEN WE got home, breakfast for us minor fry was waiting in our\nmess-room and the family honored us by coming in to eat it with us. The\nnice old treasurer, and in fact all three were flatteringly eager to\nhear about our adventures. Nobody asked the Paladin to begin, but he\ndid begin, because now that his specially ordained and peculiar military\nrank set him above everybody on the personal staff but old D'Aulon, who\ndidn't eat with us, he didn't care a farthing for the knights' nobility\nno mine, but took precedence in the talk whenever it suited him, which\nwas all the time, because he was born that way. He said:\n\n\"God be thanked, we found the army in admirable condition I think I have\nnever seen a finer body of animals.\"\n\n\"Animals!\" said Miss Catherine.\n\n\"I will explain to you what he means,\" said Noel. \"He\u0097\"\n\n\"I will trouble you not to trouble yourself to explain anything for me,\"\nsaid the Paladin, loftily. \"I have reason to think\u0097\"\n\n\"That is his way,\" said Noel; \"always when he thinks he has reason to\nthink, he thinks he does think, but this is an error. He didn't see the\narmy. I noticed him, and he didn't see it. He was troubled by his old\ncomplaint.\"\n\n\"What's his old complaint?\" Catherine asked.\n\n\"Prudence,\" I said, seeing my chance to help.\n\nBut it was not a fortunate remark, for the Paladin said:\n\n\"It probably isn't your turn to criticize people's prudence\u0097you who fall\nout of the saddle when a donkey brays.\"\n\nThey all laughed, and I was ashamed of myself for my hasty smartness. I\nsaid:\n\n\"It isn't quite fair for you to say I fell out on account of the\ndonkey's braying. It was emotion, just ordinary emotion.\"\n\n\"Very well, if you want to call it that, I am not objecting. What would\nyou call it, Sir Bertrand?\"\n\n\"Well, it\u0097well, whatever it was, it was excusable, I think. All of you\nhave learned how to behave in hot hand-to-hand engagements, and you\ndon't need to be ashamed of your record in that matter; but to walk\nalong in front of death, with one's hands idle, and no noise, no music,\nand nothing going on, is a very trying situation. If I were you, De\nConte, I would name the emotion; it's nothing to be ashamed of.\"\n\nIt was as straight and sensible a speech as ever I heard, and I was\ngrateful for the opening it gave me; so I came out and said:\n\n\"It was fear\u0097and thank you for the honest idea, too.\"\n\n\"It was the cleanest and best way out,\" said the old treasurer; \"you've\ndone well, my lad.\"\n\nThat made me comfortable, and when Miss Catherine said, \"It's what I\nthink, too,\" I was grateful to myself for getting into that scrape.\n\nSir Jean de Metz said:\n\n\"We were all in a body together when the donkey brayed, and it was\ndismally still at the time. I don't see how any young campaigner could\nescape some little touch of that emotion.\"\n\nHe looked about him with a pleasant expression of inquiry on his good\nface, and as each pair of eyes in turn met his head they were in\nnodded a confession. Even the Paladin delivered his nod. That surprised\neverybody, and saved the Standard-Bearer's credit. It was clever of him;\nnobody believed he could tell the truth that way without practice,\nor would tell that particular sort of a truth either with or without\npractice. I suppose he judged it would favorably impress the family.\nThen the old treasurer said:\n\n\"Passing the forts in that trying way required the same sort of nerve\nthat a person must have when ghosts are about him in the dark, I should\nthink. What does the Standard-Bearer think?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't quite know about that, sir. I've often thought I would\nlike to see a ghost if I\u0097\"\n\n\"Would you?\" exclaimed the young lady. \"We've got one! Would you try\nthat one? Will you?\"\n\nShe was so eager and pretty that the Paladin said straight out that he\nwould; and then as none of the rest had bravery enough to expose the\nfear that was in him, one volunteered after the other with a prompt\nmouth and a sick heart till all were shipped for the voyage; then the\ngirl clapped her hands in glee, and the parents were gratified, too,\nsaying that the ghosts of their house had been a dread and a misery to\nthem and their forebears for generations, and nobody had ever been found\nyet who was willing to confront them and find out what their trouble\nwas, so that the family could heal it and content the poor specters and\nbeguile them to tranquillity and peace.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 18 Joan's First Battle-Field\n\nABOUT NOON I was chatting with Madame Boucher; nothing was going on, all\nwas quiet, when Catherine Boucher suddenly entered in great excitement,\nand said:\n\n\"Fly, sir, fly! The Maid was doing in her chair in my room, when she\nsprang up and cried out, 'French blood is flowing!\u0097my arms, give me my\narms!' Her giant was on guard at the door, and he brought D'Aulon,\nwho began to arm her, and I and the giant have been warning the staff.\nFly!\u0097and stay by her; and if there really is a battle, keep her out of\nit\u0097don't let her risk herself\u0097there is no need\u0097if the men know she is\nnear and looking on, it is all that is necessary. Keep her out of the\nfight\u0097don't fail of this!\"\n\nI started on a run, saying, sarcastically\u0097for I was always fond of\nsarcasm, and it was said that I had a most neat gift that way:\n\n\"Oh, yes, nothing easier than that\u0097I'll attend to it!\"\n\nAt the furthest end of the house I met Joan, fully armed, hurrying\ntoward the door, and she said:\n\n\"Ah, French blood is being spilt, and you did not tell me.\"\n\n\"Indeed I did not know it,\" I said; \"there are no sounds of war;\neverything is quiet, your Excellency.\"\n\n\"You will hear war-sounds enough in a moment,\" she said, and was gone.\n\nIt was true. Before one could count five there broke upon the stillness\nthe swelling rush and tramp of an approaching multitude of men and\nhorses, with hoarse cries of command; and then out of the distance came\nthe muffled deep boom!\u0097boom-boom!\u0097boom! of cannon, and straightway that\nrushing multitude was roaring by the house like a hurricane.\n\nOur knights and all our staff came flying, armed, but with no horses\nready, and we burst out after Joan in a body, the Paladin in the lead\nwith the banner. The surging crowd was made up half of citizens and half\nof soldiers, and had no recognized leader. When Joan was seen a huzza\nwent up, and she shouted:\n\n\"A horse\u0097a horse!\"\n\nA dozen saddles were at her disposal in a moment. She mounted, a hundred\npeople shouting:\n\n\"Way, there\u0097way for the MAID OF ORLEANS!\" The first time that that\nimmortal name was ever uttered\u0097and I, praise God, was there to hear it!\nThe mass divided itself like the waters of the Red Sea, and down\nthis lane Joan went skimming like a bird, crying, \"Forward, French\nhearts\u0097follow me!\" and we came winging in her wake on the rest of the\nborrowed horses, the holy standard streaming above us, and the lane\nclosing together in our rear.\n\nThis was a different thing from the ghastly march past the dismal\nbastilles. No, we felt fine, now, and all awhirl with enthusiasm. The\nexplanation of this sudden uprising was this. The city and the little\ngarrison, so long hopeless and afraid, had gone wild over Joan's coming,\nand could no longer restrain their desire to get at the enemy; so,\nwithout orders from anybody, a few hundred soldiers and citizens had\nplunged out at the Burgundy gate on a sudden impulse and made a charge\non one of Lord Talbot's most formidable fortresses\u0097St. Loup\u0097and were\ngetting the worst of it. The news of this had swept through the city and\nstarted this new crowd that we were with.\n\nAs we poured out at the gate we met a force bringing in the wounded from\nthe front. The sight moved Joan, and she said:\n\n\"Ah, French blood; it makes my hair rise to see it!\"\n\nWe were soon on the field, soon in the midst of the turmoil. Joan was\nseeing her first real battle, and so were we.\n\nIt was a battle in the open field; for the garrison of St. Loup had\nsallied confidently out to meet the attack, being used to victories when\n\"witches\" were not around. The sally had been reinforced by troops from\nthe \"Paris\" bastille, and when we approached the French were getting\nwhipped and were falling back. But when Joan came charging through the\ndisorder with her banner displayed, crying \"Forward, men\u0097follow me!\"\nthere was a change; the French turned about and surged forward like a\nsolid wave of the sea, and swept the English before them, hacking and\nslashing, and being hacked and slashed, in a way that was terrible to\nsee.\n\nIn the field the Dwarf had no assignment; that is to say, he was not\nunder orders to occupy any particular place, therefore he chose his\nplace for himself, and went ahead of Joan and made a road for her.\nIt was horrible to see the iron helmets fly into fragments under his\ndreadful ax. He called it cracking nuts, and it looked like that. He\nmade a good road, and paved it well with flesh and iron. Joan and the\nrest of us followed it so briskly that we outspeeded our forces and had\nthe English behind us as well as before. The knights commanded us to\nface outward around Joan, which we did, and then there was work done\nthat was fine to see. One was obliged to respect the Paladin, now. Being\nright under Joan's exalting and transforming eye, he forgot his native\nprudence, he forgot his diffidence in the presence of danger, he forgot\nwhat fear was, and he never laid about him in his imaginary battles in a\nmore tremendous way that he did in this real one; and wherever he struck\nthere was an enemy the less.\n\nWe were in that close place only a few minutes; then our forces to\nthe rear broke through with a great shout and joined us, and then the\nEnglish fought a retreating fight, but in a fine and gallant way, and we\ndrove them to their fortress foot by foot, they facing us all the time,\nand their reserves on the walls raining showers of arrows, cross-bow\nbolts, and stone cannon-balls upon us.\n\nThe bulk of the enemy got safely within the works and left us outside\nwith piles of French and English dead and wounded for company\u0097a\nsickening sight, an awful sight to us youngsters, for our little\nambush fights in February had been in the night, and the blood and the\nmutilations and the dead faces were mercifully dim, whereas we saw these\nthings now for the first time in all their naked ghastliness.\n\nNow arrived Dunois from the city, and plunged through the battle on\nhis foam-flecked horse and galloped up to Joan, saluting, and uttering\nhandsome compliments as he came. He waved his hand toward the distant\nwalls of the city, where a multitude of flags were flaunting gaily in\nthe wind, and said the populace were up there observing her fortunate\nperformance and rejoicing over it, and added that she and the forces\nwould have a great reception now.\n\n\"Now? Hardly now, Bastard. Not yet!\"\n\n\"Why not yet? Is there more to be done?\"\n\n\"More, Bastard? We have but begun! We will take this fortress.\"\n\n\"Ah, you can't be serious! We can't take this place; let me urge you not\nto make the attempt; it is too desperate. Let me order the forces back.\"\n\nJoan's heart was overflowing with the joys and enthusiasms of war, and\nit made her impatient to hear such talk. She cried out:\n\n\"Bastard, Bastard, will ye play always with these English? Now verily I\ntell you we will not budge until this place is ours. We will carry it by\nstorm. Sound the charge!\"\n\n\"Ah, my General\u0097\"\n\n\"Waste no more time, man\u0097let the bugles sound the assault!\" and we saw\nthat strange deep light in her eye which we named the battle-light, and\nlearned to know so well in later fields.\n\nThe martial notes pealed out, the troops answered with a yell, and down\nthey came against that formidable work, whose outlines were lost in its\nown cannon-smoke, and whose sides were spouting flame and thunder.\n\nWe suffered repulse after repulse, but Joan was here and there and\neverywhere encouraging the men, and she kept them to their work. During\nthree hours the tide ebbed and flowed, flowed and ebbed; but at last\nLa Hire, who was now come, made a final and resistless charge, and the\nbastille St. Loup was ours. We gutted it, taking all its stores and\nartillery, and then destroyed it.\n\nWhen all our host was shouting itself hoarse with rejoicings, and there\nwent up a cry for the General, for they wanted to praise her and glorify\nher and do her homage for her victory, we had trouble to find her; and\nwhen we did find her, she was off by herself, sitting among a ruck of\ncorpses, with her face in her hands, crying\u0097for she was a young girl,\nyou know, and her hero heart was a young girl's heart too, with the\npity and the tenderness that are natural to it. She was thinking of the\nmothers of those dead friends and enemies.\n\nAmong the prisoners were a number of priests, and Joan took these under\nher protection and saved their lives. It was urged that they were most\nprobably combatants in disguise, but she said:\n\n\"As to that, how can any tell? They wear the livery of God, and if even\none of these wears it rightfully, surely it were better that all the\nguilty should escape than that we have upon our hands the blood of that\ninnocent man. I will lodge them where I lodge, and feed them, and sent\nthem away in safety.\"\n\nWe marched back to the city with our crop of cannon and prisoners on\nview and our banners displayed. Here was the first substantial bit of\nwar-work the imprisoned people had seen in the seven months that the\nsiege had endured, the first chance they had had to rejoice over a\nFrench exploit. You may guess that they made good use of it. They and\nthe bells went mad. Joan was their darling now, and the press of people\nstruggling and shouldering each other to get a glimpse of her was so\ngreat that we could hardly push our way through the streets at all. Her\nnew name had gone all about, and was on everybody's lips. The Holy Maid\nof Vaucouleurs was a forgotten title; the city had claimed her for its\nown, and she was the MAID OF ORLEANS now. It is a happiness to me to\nremember that I heard that name the first time it was ever uttered.\nBetween that first utterance and the last time it will be uttered on\nthis earth\u0097ah, think how many moldering ages will lie in that gap!\n\nThe Boucher family welcomed her back as if she had been a child of the\nhouse, and saved from death against all hope or probability. They chided\nher for going into the battle and exposing herself to danger during\nall those hours. They could not realize that she had meant to carry her\nwarriorship so far, and asked her if it had really been her purpose to\ngo right into the turmoil of the fight, or hadn't she got swept into\nit by accident and the rush of the troops? They begged her to be more\ncareful another time. It was good advice, maybe, but it fell upon pretty\nunfruitful soil.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 19 We Burst In Upon Ghosts\n\nBEING WORN out with the long fight, we all slept the rest of the\nafternoon away and two or three hours into the night. Then we got up\nrefreshed, and had supper. As for me, I could have been willing to let\nthe matter of the ghost drop; and the others were of a like mind, no\ndoubt, for they talked diligently of the battle and said nothing of that\nother thing. And indeed it was fine and stirring to hear the Paladin\nrehearse his deeds and see him pile his dead, fifteen here, eighteen\nthere, and thirty-five yonder; but this only postponed the trouble; it\ncould not do more. He could not go on forever; when he had carried the\nbastille by assault and eaten up the garrison there was nothing for it\nbut to stop, unless Catherine Boucher would give him a new start and\nhave it all done over again\u0097as we hoped she would, this time\u0097but she was\notherwise minded. As soon as there was a good opening and a fair chance,\nshe brought up her unwelcome subject, and we faced it the best we could.\n\nWe followed her and her parents to the haunted room at eleven o'clock,\nwith candles, and also with torches to place in the sockets on the\nwalls. It was a big house, with very thick walls, and this room was in\na remote part of it which had been left unoccupied for nobody knew how\nmany years, because of its evil repute.\n\nThis was a large room, like a salon, and had a big table in it of\nenduring oak and well preserved; but the chair were worm-eaten and\nthe tapestry on the walls was rotten and discolored by age. The dusty\ncobwebs under the ceiling had the look of not having had any business\nfor a century.\n\nCatherine said:\n\n\"Tradition says that these ghosts have never been seen\u0097they have merely\nbeen heard. It is plain that this room was once larger than it is now,\nand that the wall at this end was built in some bygone time to make and\nfence off a narrow room there. There is no communication anywhere with\nthat narrow room, and if it exists\u0097and of that there is no reasonable\ndoubt\u0097it has no light and no air, but is an absolute dungeon. Wait where\nyou are, and take note of what happens.\"\n\nThat was all. Then she and her parents left us. When their footfalls\nhad died out in the distance down the empty stone corridors an uncanny\nsilence and solemnity ensued which was dismaler to me than the mute\nmarch past the bastilles. We sat looking vacantly at each other, and it\nwas easy to see that no one there was comfortable. The longer we sat so,\nthe more deadly still that stillness got to be; and when the wind began\nto moan around the house presently, it made me sick and miserable, and\nI wished I had been brave enough to be a coward this time, for indeed\nit is no proper shame to be afraid of ghosts, seeing how helpless the\nliving are in their hands. And then these ghosts were invisible, which\nmade the matter the worse, as it seemed to me. They might be in the\nroom with us at that moment\u0097we could not know. I felt airy touches on my\nshoulders and my hair, and I shrank from them and cringed, and was not\nashamed to show this fear, for I saw the others doing the like, and knew\nthat they were feeling those faint contacts too. As this went on\u0097oh,\neternities it seemed, the time dragged so drearily\u0097all those faces\nbecame as wax, and I seemed sitting with a congress of the dead.\n\nAt last, faint and far and weird and slow, came a \"boom!\u0097boom!\u0097boom!\"\u0097a\ndistant bell tolling midnight. When the last stroke died, that\ndepressing stillness followed again, and as before I was staring at\nthose waxen faces and feeling those airy touches on my hair and my\nshoulders once more.\n\nOne minute\u0097two minutes\u0097three minutes of this, then we heard a long deep\ngroan, and everybody sprang up and stood, with his legs quaking. It\ncame from that little dungeon. There was a pause, then we herd muffled\nsobbings, mixed with pitiful ejaculations. Then there was a second\nvoice, low and not distinct, and the one seemed trying to comfort the\nother; and so the two voices went on, with moanings, and soft sobbings,\nand, ah, the tones were so full of compassion and sorry and despair!\nIndeed, it made one's heart sore to hear it.\n\nBut those sounds were so real and so human and so moving that the idea\nof ghosts passed straight out of our minds, and Sir Jean de Metz spoke\nout and said:\n\n\"Come! we will smash that wall and set those poor captives free. Here,\nwith your ax!\"\n\nThe Dwarf jumped forward, swinging his great ax with both hands, and\nothers sprang for torches and brought them.\n\nBang!\u0097whang!\u0097slam!\u0097smash went the ancient bricks, and there was a hole\nan ox could pass through. We plunged within and held up the torches.\n\nNothing there but vacancy! On the floor lay a rusty sword and a rotten\nfan.\n\nNow you know all that I know. Take the pathetic relics, and weave about\nthem the romance of the dungeon's long-vanished inmates as best you can.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 20 Joan Makes Cowards Brave Victors\n\nTHE NEXT day Joan wanted to go against the enemy again, but it was the\nfeast of the Ascension, and the holy council of bandit generals were\ntoo pious to be willing to profane it with bloodshed. But privately they\nprofaned it with plottings, a sort of industry just in their line. They\ndecided to do the only thing proper to do now in the new circumstances\nof the case\u0097feign an attack on the most important bastille on the\nOrleans side, and then, if the English weakened the far more important\nfortresses on the other side of the river to come to its help, cross in\nforce and capture those works. This would give them the bridge and free\ncommunication with the Sologne, which was French territory. They decided\nto keep this latter part of the program secret from Joan.\n\nJoan intruded and took them by surprise. She asked them what they were\nabout and what they had resolved upon. They said they had resolved to\nattack the most important of the English bastilles on the Orleans side\nnext morning\u0097and there the spokesman stopped. Joan said:\n\n\"Well, go on.\"\n\n\"There is nothing more. That is all.\"\n\n\"Am I to believe this? That is to say, am I to believe that you have\nlost your wits?\" She turned to Dunois, and said, \"Bastard, you have\nsense, answer me this: if this attack is made and the bastille taken,\nhow much better off would we be than we are now?\"\n\nThe Bastard hesitated, and then began some rambling talk not quite\ngermane to the question. Joan interrupted him and said:\n\n\"That will not do, good Bastard, you have answered. Since the Bastard is\nnot able to mention any advantage to be gained by taking that bastille\nand stopping there, it is not likely that any of you could better\nthe matter. You waste much time here in inventing plans that lead\nto nothing, and making delays that are a damage. Are you concealing\nsomething from me? Bastard, this council has a general plan, I take it;\nwithout going into details, what is it?\"\n\n\"It is the same it was in the beginning, seven months ago\u0097to get\nprovisions for a long siege, then sit down and tire the English out.\"\n\n\"In the name of God! As if seven months was not enough, you want\nto provide for a year of it. Now ye shall drop these pusillanimous\ndreams\u0097the English shall go in three days!\"\n\nSeveral exclaimed:\n\n\"Ah, General, General, be prudent!\"\n\n\"Be prudent and starve? Do ye call that war? I tell you this, if you\ndo not already know it: The new circumstances have changed the face of\nmatters. The true point of attack has shifted; it is on the other side\nof the river now. One must take the fortifications that command the\nbridge. The English know that if we are not fools and cowards we will\ntry to do that. They are grateful for your piety in wasting this day.\nThey will reinforce the bridge forts from this side to-night, knowing\nwhat ought to happen to-morrow. You have but lost a day and made our\ntask harder, for we will cross and take the bridge forts. Bastard, tell\nme the truth\u0097does not this council know that there is no other course\nfor us than the one I am speaking of?\"\n\nDunois conceded that the council did know it to be the most desirable,\nbut considered it impracticable; and he excused the council as well as\nhe could by saying that inasmuch as nothing was really and rationally to\nbe hoped for but a long continuance of the siege and wearying out of\nthe English, they were naturally a little afraid of Joan's impetuous\nnotions. He said:\n\n\"You see, we are sure that the waiting game is the best, whereas you\nwould carry everything by storm.\"\n\n\"That I would!\u0097and moreover that I will! You have my orders\u0097here and\nnow. We will move upon the forts of the south bank to-morrow at dawn.\"\n\n\"And carry them by storm?\"\n\n\"Yes, carry them by storm!\"\n\nLa Hire came clanking in, and heard the last remark. He cried out:\n\n\"By my baton, that is the music I love to hear! Yes, that is the right\ntime and the beautiful words, my General\u0097we will carry them by storm!\"\n\nHe saluted in his large way and came up and shook Joan by the hand.\n\nSome member of the council was heard to say:\n\n\"It follows, then, that we must begin with the bastille St. John, and\nthat will give the English time to\u0097\"\n\nJoan turned and said:\n\n\"Give yourselves no uneasiness about the bastille St. John. The English\nwill know enough to retire from it and fall back on the bridge bastilles\nwhen they see us coming.\" She added, with a touch of sarcasm, \"Even a\nwar-council would know enough to do that itself.\"\n\nThen she took her leave. La Hire made this general remark to the\ncouncil:\n\n\"She is a child, and that is all ye seem to see. Keep to that\nsuperstition if you must, but you perceive that this child understands\nthis complex game of war as well as any of you; and if you want my\nopinion without the trouble of asking for it, here you have it without\nruffles or embroidery\u0097by God, I think she can teach the best of you how\nto play it!\"\n\nJoan had spoken truly; the sagacious English saw that the policy of\nthe French had undergone a revolution; that the policy of paltering and\ndawdling was ended; that in place of taking blows, blows were ready to\nbe struck now; therefore they made ready for the new state of things\nby transferring heavy reinforcements to the bastilles of the south bank\nfrom those of the north.\n\nThe city learned the great news that once more in French history, after\nall these humiliating years, France was going to take the offensive;\nthat France, so used to retreating, was going to advance; that France,\nso long accustomed to skulking, was going to face about and strike. The\njoy of the people passed all bounds. The city walls were black with\nthem to see the army march out in the morning in that strange new\nposition\u0097its front, not its tail, toward an English camp. You shall\nimagine for yourselves what the excitement was like and how it expressed\nitself, when Joan rode out at the head of the host with her banner\nfloating above her.\n\nWe crossed the five in strong force, and a tedious long job it was, for\nthe boats were small and not numerous. Our landing on the island of St.\nAignan was not disputed. We threw a bridge of a few boats across the\nnarrow channel thence to the south shore and took up our march in\ngood order and unmolested; for although there was a fortress there\u0097St.\nJohn\u0097the English vacated and destroyed it and fell back on the bridge\nforts below as soon as our first boats were seen to leave the Orleans\nshore; which was what Joan had said would happen, when she was disputing\nwith the council.\n\nWe moved down the shore and Joan planted her standard before the\nbastille of the Augustins, the first of the formidable works that\nprotected the end of the bridge. The trumpets sounded the assault, and\ntwo charges followed in handsome style; but we were too weak, as yet,\nfor our main body was still lagging behind. Before we could gather for a\nthird assault the garrison of St. Prive were seen coming up to reinforce\nthe big bastille. They came on a run, and the Augustins sallied out, and\nboth forces came against us with a rush, and sent our small army flying\nin a panic, and followed us, slashing and slaying, and shouting jeers\nand insults at us.\n\nJoan was doing her best to rally the men, but their wits were gone,\ntheir hearts were dominated for the moment by the old-time dread of\nthe English. Joan's temper flamed up, and she halted and commanded the\ntrumpets to sound the advance. Then she wheeled about and cried out:\n\n\"If there is but a dozen of you that are not cowards, it is\nenough\u0097follow me!\"\n\nAway she went, and after her a few dozen who had heard her words and\nbeen inspired by them. The pursuing force was astonished to see her\nsweeping down upon them with this handful of men, and it was their turn\nnow to experience a grisly fright\u0097surely this is a witch, this is a\nchild of Satan! That was their thought\u0097and without stopping to analyze\nthe matter they turned and fled in a panic.\n\nOur flying squadrons heard the bugle and turned to look; and when they\nsaw the Maid's banner speeding in the other direction and the enemy\nscrambling ahead of it in disorder, their courage returned and they came\nscouring after us.\n\nLa Hire heard it and hurried his force forward and caught up with us\njust as we were planting our banner again before the ramparts of the\nAugustins. We were strong enough now. We had a long and tough piece of\nwork before us, but we carried it through before night, Joan keeping\nus hard at it, and she and La Hire saying we were able to take that big\nbastille, and must. The English fought like\u0097well, they fought like the\nEnglish; when that is said, there is no more to say. We made\nassault after assault, through the smoke and flame and the deafening\ncannon-blasts, and at last as the sun was sinking we carried the place\nwith a rush, and planted our standard on its walls.\n\nThe Augustins was ours. The Tourelles must be ours, too, if we\nwould free the bridge and raise the siege. We had achieved one great\nundertaking, Joan was determined to accomplish the other. We must lie on\nour arms where we were, hold fast to what we had got, and be ready\nfor business in the morning. So Joan was not minded to let the men be\ndemoralized by pillage and riot and carousings; she had the Augustins\nburned, with all its stores in it, excepting the artillery and\nammunition.\n\nEverybody was tired out with this long day's hard work, and of course\nthis was the case with Joan; still, she wanted to stay with the army\nbefore the Tourelles, to be ready for the assault in the morning. The\nchiefs argued with her, and at last persuaded her to go home and prepare\nfor the great work by taking proper rest, and also by having a leech\nlook to a wound which she had received in her foot. So we crossed with\nthem and went home.\n\nJust as usual, we found the town in a fury of joy, all the bells\nclanging, everybody shouting, and several people drunk. We never went\nout or came in without furnishing good and sufficient reasons for one\nof these pleasant tempests, and so the tempest was always on hand. There\nhad been a blank absence of reasons for this sort of upheavals for the\npast seven months, therefore the people too to the upheavals with all\nthe more relish on that account.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 21 She Gently Reproves Her Dear Friend\n\nTO GET away from the usual crowd of visitors and have a rest, Joan\nwent with Catherine straight to the apartment which the two occupied\ntogether, and there they took their supper and there the wound was\ndressed. But then, instead of going to bed, Joan, weary as she was, sent\nthe Dwarf for me, in spite of Catherine's protests and persuasions. She\nsaid she had something on her mind, and must send a courier to Domremy\nwith a letter for our old Pere Fronte to read to her mother. I came,\nand she began to dictate. After some loving words and greetings to her\nmother and family, came this:\n\n\"But the thing which moves me to write now, is to say that when you\npresently hear that I am wounded, you shall give yourself no concern\nabout it, and refuse faith to any that shall try to make you believe it\nis serious.\"\n\nShe was going on, when Catherine spoke up and said:\n\n\"Ah, but it will fright her so to read these words. Strike them out,\nJoan, strike them out, and wait only one day\u0097two days at most\u0097then write\nand say your foot was wounded but is well again\u0097for it surely be well\nthen, or very near it. Don't distress her, Joan; do as I say.\"\n\nA laugh like the laugh of the old days, the impulsive free laugh of an\nuntroubled spirit, a laugh like a chime of bells, was Joan's answer;\nthen she said:\n\n\"My foot? Why should I write about such a scratch as that? I was not\nthinking of it, dear heart.\"\n\n\"Child, have you another wound and a worse, and have not spoken of it?\nWhat have you been dreaming about, that you\u0097\"\n\nShe had jumped up, full of vague fears, to have the leech called back at\nonce, but Joan laid her hand upon her arm and made her sit down again,\nsaying:\n\n\"There, now, be tranquil, there is no other wound, as yet; I am writing\nabout one which I shall get when we storm that bastille tomorrow.\"\n\nCatherine had the look of one who is trying to understand a puzzling\nproposition but cannot quite do it. She said, in a distraught fashion:\n\n\"A wound which you are going to get? But\u0097but why grieve your mother when\nit\u0097when it may not happen?\"\n\n\"May not? Why, it will.\"\n\nThe puzzle was a puzzle still. Catherine said in that same abstracted\nway as before:\n\n\"Will. It is a strong word. I cannot seem to\u0097my mind is not able to take\nhold of this. Oh, Joan, such a presentiment is a dreadful thing\u0097it takes\none's peace and courage all away. Cast it from you!\u0097drive it out! It\nwill make your whole night miserable, and to no good; for we will hope\u0097\"\n\n\"But it isn't a presentiment\u0097it is a fact. And it will not make\nme miserable. It is uncertainties that do that, but this is not an\nuncertainty.\"\n\n\"Joan, do you know it is going to happen?\"\n\n\"Yes, I know it. My Voices told me.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said Catherine, resignedly, \"if they told you\u0097But are you sure it\nwas they?\u0097quite sure?\"\n\n\"Yes, quite. It will happen\u0097there is no doubt.\"\n\n\"It is dreadful! Since when have you know it?\"\n\n\"Since\u0097I think it is several weeks.\" Joan turned to me. \"Louis, you will\nremember. How long is it?\"\n\n\"Your Excellency spoke of it first to the King, in Chinon,\" I answered;\n\"that was as much as seven weeks ago. You spoke of it again the 20th of\nApril, and also the 22d, two weeks ago, as I see by my record here.\"\n\nThese marvels disturbed Catherine profoundly, but I had long ceased\nto be surprised at them. One can get used to anything in this world.\nCatherine said:\n\n\"And it is to happen to-morrow?\u0097always to-morrow? Is it the same date\nalways? There has been no mistake, and no confusion?\"\n\n\"No,\" Joan said, \"the 7th of May is the date\u0097there is no other.\"\n\n\"Then you shall not go a step out of this house till that awful day is\ngone by! You will not dream of it, Joan, will you?\u0097promise that you will\nstay with us.\"\n\nBut Joan was not persuaded. She said:\n\n\"It would not help the matter, dear good friend. The wound is to come,\nand come to-morrow. If I do not seek it, it will seek me. My duty calls\nme to that place to-morrow; I should have to go if my death were waiting\nfor me there; shall I stay away for only a wound? Oh, no, we must try to\ndo better than that.\"\n\n\"Then you are determined to go?\"\n\n\"Of a certainty, yes. There is only one thing that I can do for\nFrance\u0097hearten her soldiers for battle and victory.\" She thought a\nmoment, then added, \"However, one should not be unreasonable, and I\nwould do much to please you, who are so good to me. Do you love France?\"\n\nI wondered what she might be contriving now, but I saw no clue.\nCatherine said, reproachfully:\n\n\"Ah, what have I done to deserve this question?\"\n\n\"Then you do love France. I had not doubted it, dear. Do not be hurt,\nbut answer me\u0097have you ever told a lie?\"\n\n\"In my life I have not wilfully told a lie\u0097fibs, but no lies.\"\n\n\"That is sufficient. You love France and do not tell lies; therefore I\nwill trust you. I will go or I will stay, as you shall decide.\"\n\n\"Oh, I thank you from my heart, Joan! How good and dear it is of you to\ndo this for me! Oh, you shall stay, and not go!\"\n\nIn her delight she flung her arms about Joan's neck and squandered\nendearments upon her the least of which would have made me rich, but, as\nit was, they only made me realize how poor I was\u0097how miserably poor in\nwhat I would most have prized in this world. Joan said:\n\n\"Then you will send word to my headquarters that I am not going?\"\n\n\"Oh, gladly. Leave that to me.\"\n\n\"It is good of you. And how will you word it?\u0097for it must have proper\nofficial form. Shall I word it for you?\"\n\n\"Oh, do\u0097for you know about these solemn procedures and stately\nproprieties, and I have had no experience.\"\n\n\"Then word it like this: 'The chief of staff is commanded to make\nknown to the King's forces in garrison and in the field, that the\nGeneral-in-Chief of the Armies of France will not face the English on\nthe morrow, she being afraid she may get hurt. Signed, JOAN OF ARC, by\nthe hand of CATHERINE BOUCHER, who loves France.'\"\n\nThere was a pause\u0097a silence of the sort that tortures one into stealing\na glance to see how the situation looks, and I did that. There was a\nloving smile on Joan's face, but the color was mounting in crimson waves\ninto Catherine's, and her lips were quivering and the tears gathering;\nthen she said:\n\n\"Oh, I am so ashamed of myself!\u0097and you are so noble and brave and wise,\nand I am so paltry\u0097so paltry and such a fool!\" and she broke down and\nbegan to cry, and I did so want to take her in my arms and comfort her,\nbut Joan did it, and of course I said nothing. Joan did it well, and\nmost sweetly and tenderly, but I could have done it as well, though I\nknew it would be foolish and out of place to suggest such a thing, and\nmight make an awkwardness, too, and be embarrassing to us all, so I did\nnot offer, and I hope I did right and for the best, though I could\nnot know, and was many times tortured with doubts afterward as having\nperhaps let a chance pass which might have changed all my life and made\nit happier and more beautiful than, alas, it turned out to be. For this\nreason I grieve yet, when I think of that scene, and do not like to call\nit up out of the deeps of my memory because of the pangs it brings.\n\nWell, well, a good and wholesome thing is a little harmless fun in this\nworld; it tones a body up and keeps him human and prevents him from\nsouring. To set that little trap for Catherine was as good and effective\na way as any to show her what a grotesque thing she was asking of Joan.\nIt was a funny idea now, wasn't it, when you look at it all around? Even\nCatherine dried up her tears and laughed when she thought of the English\ngetting hold of the French Commander-in-Chief's reason for staying out\nof a battle. She granted that they could have a good time over a thing\nlike that.\n\nWe got to work on the letter again, and of course did not have to strike\nout the passage about the wound. Joan was in fine spirits; but when\nshe got to sending messages to this, that, and the other playmate and\nfriend, it brought our village and the Fairy Tree and the flowery plain\nand the browsing sheep and all the peaceful beauty of our old humble\nhome-place back, and the familiar names began to tremble on her lips;\nand when she got to Haumette and Little Mengette it was no use, her\nvoice broke and she couldn't go on. She waited a moment, then said:\n\n\"Give them my love\u0097my warm love\u0097my deep love\u0097oh, out of my heart of\nhearts! I shall never see our home any more.\"\n\nNow came Pasquerel, Joan's confessor, and introduced a gallant knight,\nthe Sire de Rais, who had been sent with a message. He said he was\ninstructed to say that the council had decided that enough had been done\nfor the present; that it would be safest and best to be content with\nwhat God had already done; that the city was now well victualed and\nable to stand a long siege; that the wise course must necessarily be\nto withdraw the troops from the other side of the river and resume the\ndefensive\u0097therefore they had decided accordingly.\n\n\"The incurable cowards!\" exclaimed Joan. \"So it was to get me away from\nmy men that they pretended so much solicitude about my fatigue. Take\nthis message back, not to the council\u0097I have no speeches for those\ndisguised ladies' maids\u0097but to the Bastard and La Hire, who are men.\nTell them the army is to remain where it is, and I hold them responsible\nif this command miscarries. And say the offensive will be resumed in the\nmorning. You may go, good sir.\"\n\nThen she said to her priest:\n\n\"Rise early, and be by me all the day. There will be much work on my\nhands, and I shall be hurt between my neck and my shoulder.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 22 The Fate of France Decided\n\nWE WERE up at dawn, and after mass we started. In the hall we met\nthe master of the house, who was grieved, good man, to see Joan going\nbreakfastless to such a day's work, and begged her to wait and eat, but\nshe couldn't afford the time\u0097that is to say, she couldn't afford the\npatience, she being in such a blaze of anxiety to get at that last\nremaining bastille which stood between her and the completion of the\nfirst great step in the rescue and redemption of France. Boucher put in\nanother plea:\n\n\"But think\u0097we poor beleaguered citizens who have hardly known the flavor\nof fish for these many months, have spoil of that sort again, and we owe\nit to you. There's a noble shad for breakfast; wait\u0097be persuaded.\"\n\nJoan said:\n\n\"Oh, there's going to be fish in plenty; when this day's work is done\nthe whole river-front will be yours to do as you please with.\"\n\n\"Ah, your Excellency will do well, that I know; but we don't require\nquite that much, even of you; you shall have a month for it in place of\na day. Now be beguiled\u0097wait and eat. There's a saying that he that would\ncross a river twice in the same day in a boat, will do well to eat fish\nfor luck, lest he have an accident.\"\n\n\"That doesn't fit my case, for to-day I cross but once in a boat.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't say that. Aren't you coming back to us?\"\n\n\"Yes, but not in a boat.\"\n\n\"How, then?\"\n\n\"By the bridge.\"\n\n\"Listen to that\u0097by the bridge! Now stop this jesting, dear General, and\ndo as I would have done you. It's a noble fish.\"\n\n\"Be good then, and save me some for supper; and I will bring one of\nthose Englishmen with me and he shall have his share.\"\n\n\"Ah, well, have your way if you must. But he that fasts must attempt but\nlittle and stop early. When shall you be back?\"\n\n\"When we've raised the siege of Orleans. FORWARD!\"\n\nWe were off. The streets were full of citizens and of groups and squads\nof soldiers, but the spectacle was melancholy. There was not a smile\nanywhere, but only universal gloom. It was as if some vast calamity\nhad smitten all hope and cheer dead. We were not used to this, and were\nastonished. But when they saw the Maid, there was an immediate stir, and\nthe eager question flew from mouth to mouth.\n\n\"Where is she going? Whither is she bound?\"\n\nJoan heard it, and called out:\n\n\"Whither would ye suppose? I am going to take the Tourelles.\"\n\nIt would not be possible for any to describe how those few words turned\nthat mourning into joy\u0097into exaltation\u0097into frenzy; and how a storm of\nhuzzas burst out and swept down the streets in every direction and woke\nthose corpse-like multitudes to vivid life and action and turmoil in\na moment. The soldiers broke from the crowd and came flocking to our\nstandard, and many of the citizens ran and got pikes and halberds and\njoined us. As we moved on, our numbers increased steadily, and the\nhurrahing continued\u0097yes, we moved through a solid cloud of noise, as you\nmay say, and all the windows on both sides contributed to it, for they\nwere filled with excited people.\n\nYou see, the council had closed the Burgundy gate and placed a strong\nforce there, under that stout soldier Raoul de Gaucourt, Bailly of\nOrleans, with orders to prevent Joan from getting out and resuming the\nattack on the Tourelles, and this shameful thing had plunged the city\ninto sorrow and despair. But that feeling was gone now. They believed\nthe Maid was a match for the council, and they were right.\n\nWhen we reached the gate, Joan told Gaucourt to open it and let her\npass.\n\nHe said it would be impossible to do this, for his orders were from the\ncouncil and were strict. Joan said:\n\n\"There is no authority above mine but the King's. If you have an order\nfrom the King, produce it.\"\n\n\"I cannot claim to have an order from him, General.\"\n\n\"Then make way, or take the consequences!\"\n\nHe began to argue the case, for he was like the rest of the tribe,\nalways ready to fight with words, not acts; but in the midst of his\ngabble Joan interrupted with the terse order:\n\n\"Charge!\"\n\nWe came with a rush, and brief work we made of that small job. It was\ngood to see the Bailly's surprise. He was not used to this unsentimental\npromptness. He said afterward that he was cut off in the midst of what\nhe was saying\u0097in the midst of an argument by which he could have proved\nthat he could not let Joan pass\u0097an argument which Joan could not have\nanswered.\n\n\"Still, it appears she did answer it,\" said the person he was talking\nto.\n\nWe swung through the gate in great style, with a vast accession of\nnoise, the most of which was laughter, and soon our van was over the\nriver and moving down against the Tourelles.\n\nFirst we must take a supporting work called a boulevard, and which was\notherwise nameless, before we could assault the great bastille. Its rear\ncommunicated with the bastille by a drawbridge, under which ran a\nswift and deep strip of the Loire. The boulevard was strong, and Dunois\ndoubted our ability to take it, but Joan had no such doubt. She pounded\nit with artillery all the forenoon, then about noon she ordered an\nassault and led it herself. We poured into the fosse through the smoke\nand a tempest of missiles, and Joan, shouting encouragements to her men,\nstarted to climb a scaling-ladder, when that misfortune happened which\nwe knew was to happen\u0097the iron bolt from an arbaquest struck between her\nneck and her shoulder, and tore its way down through her armor. When she\nfelt the sharp pain and saw her blood gushing over her breast, she was\nfrightened, poor girl, and as she sank to the ground she began to cry\nbitterly.\n\nThe English sent up a glad shout and came surging down in strong force\nto take her, and then for a few minutes the might of both adversaries\nwas concentrated upon that spot. Over her and above her, English and\nFrench fought with desperation\u0097for she stood for France, indeed she was\nFrance to both sides\u0097whichever won her won France, and could keep it\nforever. Right there in that small spot, and in ten minutes by the\nclock, the fate of France, for all time, was to be decided, and was\ndecided.\n\nIf the English had captured Joan then, Charles VII. would have flown the\ncountry, the Treaty of Troyes would have held good, and France, already\nEnglish property, would have become, without further dispute, an English\nprovince, to so remain until Judgment Day. A nationality and a kingdom\nwere at stake there, and no more time to decide it in than it takes to\nhard-boil an egg. It was the most momentous ten minutes that the clock\nhas ever ticked in France, or ever will. Whenever you read in histories\nabout hours or days or weeks in which the fate of one or another nation\nhung in the balance, do not you fail to remember, nor your French hearts\nto beat the quicker for the remembrance, the ten minutes that France,\ncalled otherwise Joan of Arc, lay bleeding in the fosse that day, with\ntwo nations struggling over her for her possession.\n\nAnd you will not forget the Dwarf. For he stood over her, and did the\nwork of any six of the others. He swung his ax with both hands; whenever\nit came down, he said those two words, \"For France!\" and a splintered\nhelmet flew like eggshells, and the skull that carried it had learned\nits manners and would offend the French no more. He piled a bulwark of\niron-clad dead in front of him and fought from behind it; and at last\nwhen the victory was ours we closed about him, shielding him, and he ran\nup a ladder with Joan as easily as another man would carry a child, and\nbore her out of the battle, a great crowd following and anxious, for she\nwas drenched with blood to her feet, half of it her own and the other\nhalf English, for bodies had fallen across her as she lay and had poured\ntheir red life-streams over her. One couldn't see the white armor now,\nwith that awful dressing over it.\n\nThe iron bolt was still in the wound\u0097some say it projected out behind\nthe shoulder. It may be\u0097I did not wish to see, and did not try to. It\nwas pulled out, and the pain made Joan cry again, poor thing. Some say\nshe pulled it out herself because others refused, saying they could not\nbear to hurt her. As to this I do not know; I only know it was pulled\nout, and that the wound was treated with oil and properly dressed.\n\nJoan lay on the grass, weak and suffering, hour after hour, but still\ninsisting that the fight go on. Which it did, but not to much purpose,\nfor it was only under her eye that men were heroes and not afraid. They\nwere like the Paladin; I think he was afraid of his shadow\u0097I mean in the\nafternoon, when it was very big and long; but when he was under Joan's\neye and the inspiration of her great spirit, what was he afraid of?\nNothing in this world\u0097and that is just the truth.\n\nToward night Dunois gave it up. Joan heard the bugles.\n\n\"What!\" she cried. \"Sounding the retreat!\"\n\nHer wound was forgotten in a moment. She countermanded the order, and\nsent another, to the officer in command of a battery, to stand ready to\nfire five shots in quick succession. This was a signal to the force on\nthe Orleans side of the river under La Hire, who was not, as some of\nthe histories say, with us. It was to be given whenever Joan should feel\nsure the boulevard was about to fall into her hands\u0097then that force must\nmake a counter-attack on the Tourelles by way of the bridge.\n\nJoan mounted her horse now, with her staff about her, and when our\npeople saw us coming they raised a great shout, and were at once eager\nfor another assault on the boulevard. Joan rode straight to the fosse\nwhere she had received her wound, and standing there in the rain of\nbolts and arrows, she ordered the Paladin to let her long standard blow\nfree, and to note when its fringes should touch the fortress. Presently\nhe said:\n\n\"It touches.\"\n\n\"Now, then,\" said Joan to the waiting battalions, \"the place is\nyours\u0097enter in! Bugles, sound the assault! Now, then\u0097all together\u0097go!\"\n\nAnd go it was. You never saw anything like it. We swarmed up the ladders\nand over the battlements like a wave\u0097and the place was our property.\nWhy, one might live a thousand years and never see so gorgeous a thing\nas that again. There, hand to hand, we fought like wild beasts, for\nthere was no give-up to those English\u0097there was no way to convince one\nof those people but to kill him, and even then he doubted. At least so\nit was thought, in those days, and maintained by many.\n\nWe were busy and never heard the five cannon-shots fired, but they were\nfired a moment after Joan had ordered the assault; and so, while we were\nhammering and being hammered in the smaller fortress, the reserve on the\nOrleans side poured across the bridge and attacked the Tourelles from\nthat side. A fire-boat was brought down and moored under the drawbridge\nwhich connected the Tourelles with our boulevard; wherefore, when at\nlast we drove our English ahead of us and they tried to cross that\ndrawbridge and join their friends in the Tourelles, the burning timbers\ngave way under them and emptied them in a mass into the river in their\nheavy armor\u0097and a pitiful sight it was to see brave men die such a death\nas that.\n\n\"Ah, God pity them!\" said Joan, and wept to see that sorrowful\nspectacle. She said those gentle words and wept those compassionate\ntears although one of those perishing men had grossly insulted her with\na coarse name three days before, when she had sent him a message asking\nhim to surrender. That was their leader, Sir Williams Glasdale, a most\nvalorous knight. He was clothed all in steel; so he plunged under water\nlike a lance, and of course came up no more.\n\nWe soon patched a sort of bridge together and threw ourselves against\nthe last stronghold of the English power that barred Orleans from\nfriends and supplies. Before the sun was quite down, Joan's forever\nmemorable day's work was finished, her banner floated from the fortress\nof the Tourelles, her promise was fulfilled, she had raised the siege of\nOrleans!\n\nThe seven months' beleaguerment was ended, the thing which the first\ngenerals of France had called impossible was accomplished; in spite of\nall that the King's ministers and war-councils could do to prevent it,\nthis little country-maid at seventeen had carried her immortal task\nthrough, and had done it in four days!\n\nGood news travels fast, sometimes, as well as bad. By the time we were\nready to start homeward by the bridge the whole city of Orleans was one\nred flame of bonfires, and the heavens blushed with satisfaction to see\nit; and the booming and bellowing of cannon and the banging of bells\nsurpassed by great odds anything that even Orleans had attempted before\nin the way of noise.\n\nWhen we arrived\u0097well, there is no describing that. Why, those acres\nof people that we plowed through shed tears enough to raise the river;\nthere was not a face in the glare of those fires that hadn't tears\nstreaming down it; and if Joan's feet had not been protected by iron\nthey would have kissed them off of her. \"Welcome! welcome to the Maid\nof Orleans!\" That was the cry; I heard it a hundred thousand times.\n\"Welcome to our Maid!\" some of them worded it.\n\nNo other girl in all history has ever reached such a summit of glory as\nJoan of Arc reached that day. And do you think it turned her head, and\nthat she sat up to enjoy that delicious music of homage and applause?\nNo; another girl would have done that, but not this one. That was the\ngreatest heart and the simplest that ever beat. She went straight to bed\nand to sleep, like any tired child; and when the people found she was\nwounded and would rest, they shut off all passage and traffic in that\nregion and stood guard themselves the whole night through, to see that\nhe slumbers were not disturbed. They said, \"She has given us peace, she\nshall have peace herself.\"\n\nAll knew that that region would be empty of English next day, and all\nsaid that neither the present citizens nor their posterity would ever\ncease to hold that day sacred to the memory of Joan of Arc. That word\nhas been true for more than sixty years; it will continue so always.\nOrleans will never forget the 8th of May, nor ever fail to celebrate it.\nIt is Joan of Arc's day\u0097and holy. (1)\n\n\n(1)It is still celebrated every year with civic and military pomps and\nsolemnities.\u0097TRANSLATOR.\n\n\n\n\nChapter 23 Joan Inspires the Tawdry King\n\nIN THE earliest dawn of morning, Talbot and his English forces evacuated\ntheir bastilles and marched away, not stopping to burn, destroy, or\ncarry off anything, but leaving their fortresses just as they were,\nprovisioned, armed, and equipped for a long siege. It was difficult for\nthe people to believe that this great thing had really happened; that\nthey were actually free once more, and might go and come through any\ngate they pleased, with none to molest or forbid; that the terrible\nTalbot, that scourge of the French, that man whose mere name had been\nable to annul the effectiveness of French armies, was gone, vanished,\nretreating\u0097driven away by a girl.\n\nThe city emptied itself. Out of every gate the crowds poured. They\nswarmed about the English bastilles like an invasion of ants, but\nnoisier than those creatures, and carried off the artillery and stores,\nthen turned all those dozen fortresses into monster bonfires, imitation\nvolcanoes whose lofty columns of thick smoke seemed supporting the arch\nof the sky.\n\nThe delight of the children took another form. To some of the younger\nones seven months was a sort of lifetime. They had forgotten what\ngrass was like, and the velvety green meadows seemed paradise to their\nsurprised and happy eyes after the long habit of seeing nothing but\ndirty lanes and streets. It was a wonder to them\u0097those spacious reaches\nof open country to run and dance and tumble and frolic in, after their\ndull and joyless captivity; so they scampered far and wide over the fair\nregions on both sides of the river, and came back at eventide weary,\nbut laden with flowers and flushed with new health drawn from the fresh\ncountry air and the vigorous exercise.\n\nAfter the burnings, the grown folk followed Joan from church to church\nand put in the day in thanksgivings for the city's deliverance, and at\nnight they feted her and her generals and illuminated the town, and high\nand low gave themselves up to festivities and rejoicings. By the time\nthe populace were fairly in bed, toward dawn, we were in the saddle and\naway toward Tours to report to the King.\n\nThat was a march which would have turned any one's head but Joan's. We\nmoved between emotional ranks of grateful country-people all the way.\nThey crowded about Joan to touch her feet, her horse, her armor, and\nthey even knelt in the road and kissed her horse's hoof-prints.\n\nThe land was full of her praises. The most illustrious chiefs of the\nchurch wrote to the King extolling the Maid, comparing her to the\nsaints and heroes of the Bible, and warning him not to let \"unbelief,\ningratitude, or other injustice\" hinder or impair the divine help sent\nthrough her. One might think there was a touch of prophecy in that,\nand we will let it go at that; but to my mind it had its inspiration\nin those great men's accurate knowledge of the King's trivial and\ntreacherous character.\n\nThe King had come to Tours to meet Joan. At the present day this poor\nthing is called Charles the Victorious, on account of victories which\nother people won for him, but in our time we had a private name for\nhim which described him better, and was sanctified to him by personal\ndeserving\u0097Charles the Base. When we entered the presence he sat throned,\nwith his tinseled snobs and dandies around him. He looked like a forked\ncarrot, so tightly did his clothing fit him from his waist down; he wore\nshoes with a rope-like pliant toe a foot long that had to be hitched up\nto the knee to keep it out of the way; he had on a crimson velvet cape\nthat came no lower than his elbows; on his head he had a tall felt thing\nlike a thimble, with a feather it its jeweled band that stuck up like a\npen from an inkhorn, and from under that thimble his bush of stiff hair\nstuck down to his shoulders, curving outward at the bottom, so that\nthe cap and the hair together made the head like a shuttlecock. All the\nmaterials of his dress were rich, and all the colors brilliant. In his\nlap he cuddled a miniature greyhound that snarled, lifting its lip and\nshowing its white teeth whenever any slight movement disturbed it. The\nKing's dandies were dressed in about the same fashion as himself,\nand when I remembered that Joan had called the war-council of Orleans\n\"disguised ladies' maids,\" it reminded me of people who squander all\ntheir money on a trifle and then haven't anything to invest when they\ncome across a better chance; that name ought to have been saved for\nthese creatures.\n\nJoan fell on her knees before the majesty of France, and the other\nfrivolous animal in his lap\u0097a sight which it pained me to see. What\nhad that man done for his country or for anybody in it, that she or any\nother person should kneel to him? But she\u0097she had just done the only\ngreat deed that had been done for France in fifty years, and had\nconsecrated it with the libation of her blood. The positions should have\nbeen reversed.\n\nHowever, to be fair, one must grant that Charles acquitted himself very\nwell for the most part, on that occasion\u0097very much better than he was\nin the habit of doing. He passed his pup to a courtier, and took off his\ncap to Joan as if she had been a queen. Then he stepped from his throne\nand raised her, and showed quite a spirited and manly joy and gratitude\nin welcoming her and thanking her for her extraordinary achievement\nin his service. My prejudices are of a later date than that. If he had\ncontinued as he was at that moment, I should not have acquired them.\n\nHe acted handsomely. He said:\n\n\"You shall not kneel to me, my matchless General; you have wrought\nroyally, and royal courtesies are your due.\" Noticing that she was pale,\nhe said, \"But you must not stand; you have lost blood for France, and\nyour wound is yet green\u0097come.\" He led her to a seat and sat down by her.\n\"Now, then, speak out frankly, as to one who owes you much and freely\nconfesses it before all this courtly assemblage. What shall be your\nreward? Name it.\"\n\nI was ashamed of him. And yet that was not fair, for how could he be\nexpected to know this marvelous child in these few weeks, when we who\nthought we had known her all her life were daily seeing the clouds\nuncover some new altitudes of her character whose existence was not\nsuspected by us before? But we are all that way: when we know a thing we\nhave only scorn for other people who don't happen to know it. And I was\nashamed of these courtiers, too, for the way they licked their chops,\nso to speak, as envying Joan her great chance, they not knowing her any\nbetter than the King did. A blush began to rise in Joan's cheeks at the\nthought that she was working for her country for pay, and she dropped\nher head and tried to hide her face, as girls always do when they find\nthemselves blushing; no one knows why they do, but they do, and the more\nthey blush the more they fail to get reconciled to it, and the more they\ncan't bear to have people look at them when they are doing it. The King\nmade it a great deal worse by calling attention to it, which is the\nunkindest thing a person can do when a girl is blushing; sometimes, when\nthere is a big crowd of strangers, it is even likely to make her cry if\nshe is as young as Joan was. God knows the reason for this, it is hidden\nfrom men. As for me, I would as soon blush as sneeze; in fact, I would\nrather. However, these meditations are not of consequence: I will go\non with what I was saying. The King rallied her for blushing, and this\nbrought up the rest of the blood and turned her face to fire. Then he\nwas sorry, seeing what he had done, and tried to make her comfortable by\nsaying the blush was exceeding becoming to her and not to mind it\u0097which\ncaused even the dog to notice it now, so of course the red in Joan's\nface turned to purple, and the tears overflowed and ran down\u0097I could\nhave told anybody that that would happen. The King was distressed, and\nsaw that the best thing to do would be to get away from this subject,\nso he began to say the finest kind of things about Joan's capture of\nthe Tourelles, and presently when she was more composed he mentioned the\nreward again and pressed her to name it. Everybody listened with anxious\ninterest to hear what her claim was going to be, but when her answer\ncame their faces showed that the thing she asked for was not what they\nhad been expecting.\n\n\"Oh, dear and gracious Dauphin, I have but one desire\u0097only one. If\u0097\"\n\n\"Do not be afraid, my child\u0097name it.\"\n\n\"That you will not delay a day. My army is strong and valiant, and eager\nto finish its work\u0097march with me to Rheims and receive your crown.\" You\ncould see the indolent King shrink, in his butterfly clothes.\n\n\"To Rheims\u0097oh, impossible, my General! We march through the heart of\nEngland's power?\"\n\nCould those be French faces there? Not one of them lighted in response\nto the girl's brave proposition, but all promptly showed satisfaction in\nthe King's objection. Leave this silken idleness for the rude contact of\nwar? None of these butterflies desired that. They passed their jeweled\ncomfit-boxes one to another and whispered their content in the head\nbutterfly's practical prudence. Joan pleaded with the King, saying:\n\n\"Ah, I pray you do not throw away this perfect opportunity. Everything\nis favorable\u0097everything. It is as if the circumstances were specially\nmade for it. The spirits of our army are exalted with victory, those of\nthe English forces depressed by defeat. Delay will change this. Seeing\nus hesitate to follow up our advantage, our men will wonder, doubt, lose\nconfidence, and the English will wonder, gather courage, and be bold\nagain. Now is the time\u0097pritheee let us march!\"\n\nThe King shook his head, and La Tremouille, being asked for an opinion,\neagerly furnished it:\n\n\"Sire, all prudence is against it. Think of the English strongholds\nalong the Loire; think of those that lie between us and Rheims!\"\n\nHe was going on, but Joan cut him short, and said, turning to him:\n\n\"If we wait, they will all be strengthened, reinforced. Will that\nadvantage us?\"\n\n\"Why\u0097no.\"\n\n\"Then what is your suggestion?\u0097what is it that you would propose to do?\"\n\n\"My judgment is to wait.\"\n\n\"Wait for what?\"\n\nThe minister was obliged to hesitate, for he knew of no explanation that\nwould sound well. Moreover, he was not used to being catechized in this\nfashion, with the eyes of a crowd of people on him, so he was irritated,\nand said:\n\n\"Matters of state are not proper matters for public discussion.\"\n\nJoan said placidly:\n\n\"I have to beg your pardon. My trespass came of ignorance. I did not\nknow that matters connected with your department of the government were\nmatters of state.\"\n\nThe minister lifted his brows in amused surprise, and said, with a touch\nof sarcasm:\n\n\"I am the King's chief minister, and yet you had the impression that\nmatters connected with my department are not matters of state? Pray, how\nis that?\"\n\nJoan replied, indifferently:\n\n\"Because there is no state.\"\n\n\"No state!\"\n\n\"No, sir, there is no state, and no use for a minister. France is shrunk\nto a couple of acres of ground; a sheriff's constable could take care of\nit; its affairs are not matters of state. The term is too large.\"\n\nThe King did not blush, but burst into a hearty, careless laugh, and the\ncourt laughed too, but prudently turned its head and did it silently. La\nTremouille was angry, and opened his mouth to speak, but the King put up\nhis hand, and said:\n\n\"There\u0097I take her under the royal protection. She has spoken the truth,\nthe ungilded truth\u0097how seldom I hear it! With all this tinsel on me and\nall this tinsel about me, I am but a sheriff after all\u0097a poor shabby\ntwo-acre sheriff\u0097and you are but a constable,\" and he laughed his\ncordial laugh again. \"Joan, my frank, honest General, will you name your\nreward? I would ennoble you. You shall quarter the crown and the lilies\nof France for blazon, and with them your victorious sword to defend\nthem\u0097speak the word.\"\n\nIt made an eager buzz of surprise and envy in the assemblage, but Joan\nshook her head and said:\n\n\"Ah, I cannot, dear and noble Dauphin. To be allowed to work for France,\nto spend one's self for France, is itself so supreme a reward that\nnothing can add to it\u0097nothing. Give me the one reward I ask, the dearest\nof all rewards, the highest in your gift\u0097march with me to Rheims and\nreceive your crown. I will beg it on my knees.\"\n\nBut the King put his hand on her arm, and there was a really brave\nawakening in his voice and a manly fire in his eye when he said:\n\n\"No, sit. You have conquered me\u0097it shall be as you\u0097\"\n\nBut a warning sign from his minister halted him, and he added, to the\nrelief of the court:\n\n\"Well, well, we will think of it, we will think it over and see. Does\nthat content you, impulsive little soldier?\"\n\nThe first part of the speech sent a glow of delight to Joan's face, but\nthe end of it quenched it and she looked sad, and the tears gathered\nin her eyes. After a moment she spoke out with what seemed a sort of\nterrified impulse, and said:\n\n\"Oh, use me; I beseech you, use me\u0097there is but little time!\"\n\n\"But little time?\"\n\n\"Only a year\u0097I shall last only a year.\"\n\n\"Why, child, there are fifty good years in that compact little body\nyet.\"\n\n\"Oh, you err, indeed you do. In one little year the end will come. Ah,\nthe time is so short, so short; the moments are flying, and so much to\nbe done. Oh, use me, and quickly\u0097it is life or death for France.\"\n\nEven those insects were sobered by her impassioned words. The King\nlooked very grave\u0097grave, and strongly impressed. His eyes lit suddenly\nwith an eloquent fire, and he rose and drew his sword and raised it\naloft; then he brought it slowly down upon Joan's shoulder and said:\n\n\"Ah, thou art so simple, so true, so great, so noble\u0097and by this\naccolade I join thee to the nobility of France, thy fitting place! And\nfor thy sake I do hereby ennoble all thy family and all thy kin; and all\ntheir descendants born in wedlock, not only in the male but also in the\nfemale line. And more!\u0097more! To distinguish thy house and honor it\nabove all others, we add a privilege never accorded to any before in the\nhistory of these dominions: the females of thy line shall have and hold\nthe right to ennoble their husbands when these shall be of inferior\ndegree.\" [Astonishment and envy flared up in every countenance when the\nwords were uttered which conferred this extraordinary grace. The\nKing paused and looked around upon these signs with quite evident\nsatisfaction.] \"Rise, Joan of Arc, now and henceforth surnamed Du Lis,\nin grateful acknowledgment of the good blow which you have struck\nfor the lilies of France; and they, and the royal crown, and your own\nvictorious sword, fit and fair company for each other, shall be grouped\nin you escutcheon and be and remain the symbol of your high nobility\nforever.\"\n\nAs my Lady Du Lis rose, the gilded children of privilege pressed forward\nto welcome her to their sacred ranks and call her by her new name; but\nshe was troubled, and said these honors were not meet for one of her\nlowly birth and station, and by their kind grace she would remain simple\nJoan of Arc, nothing more\u0097and so be called.\n\nNothing more! As if there could be anything more, anything higher,\nanything greater. My Lady Du Lis\u0097why, it was tinsel, petty, perishable.\nBut, JOAN OF ARC! The mere sound of it sets one's pulses leaping.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 24 Tinsel Trappings of Nobility\n\nIT WAS vexatious to see what a to-do the whole town, and next the whole\ncountry, made over the news. Joan of Arc ennobled by the King! People\nwent dizzy with wonder and delight over it. You cannot imagine how she\nwas gaped at, stared at, envied. Why, one would have supposed that some\ngreat and fortunate thing had happened to her. But we did not think any\ngreat things of it. To our minds no mere human hand could add a glory to\nJoan of Arc. To us she was the sun soaring in the heavens, and her new\nnobility a candle atop of it; to us it was swallowed up and lost in her\nown light. And she was as indifferent to it and as unconscious of it as\nthe other sun would have been.\n\nBut it was different with her brothers. They were proud and happy in\ntheir new dignity, which was quite natural. And Joan was glad it had\nbeen conferred, when she saw how pleased they were. It was a clever\nthought in the King to outflank her scruples by marching on them under\nshelter of her love for her family and her kin.\n\nJean and Pierre sported their coats-of-arms right away; and their\nsociety was courted by everybody, the nobles and commons alike. The\nStandard-Bearer said, with some touch of bitterness, that he could\nsee that they just felt good to be alive, they were so soaked with the\ncomfort of their glory; and didn't like to sleep at all, because when\nthey were asleep they didn't know they were noble, and so sleep was a\nclean loss of time. And then he said:\n\n\"They can't take precedence of me in military functions and state\nceremonies, but when it comes to civil ones and society affairs I judge\nthey'll cuddle coolly in behind you and the knights, and Noel and I will\nhave to walk behind them\u0097hey?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"I think you are right.\"\n\n\"I was just afraid of it\u0097just afraid of it,\" said the Standard-Bearer,\nwith a sigh. \"Afraid of it? I'm talking like a fool; of course I knew\nit. Yes, I was talking like a fool.\"\n\nNoel Rainguesson said, musingly:\n\n\"Yes, I noticed something natural about the tone of it.\"\n\nWe others laughed.\n\n\"Oh, you did, did you? You think you are very clever, don't you? I'll\ntake and wring your neck for you one of these days, Noel Rainguesson.\"\n\nThe Sieur de Metz said:\n\n\"Paladin, your fears haven't reached the top notch. They are away\nbelow the grand possibilities. Didn't it occur to you that in civil\nand society functions they will take precedence of all the rest of the\npersonal staff\u0097every one of us?\"\n\n\"Oh, come!\"\n\n\"You'll find it's so. Look at their escutcheon. Its chiefest feature is\nthe lilies of France. It's royal, man, royal\u0097do you understand the size\nof that? The lilies are there by authority of the King\u0097do you understand\nthe size of that? Though not in detail and in entirety, they do\nnevertheless substantially quarter the arms of France in their coat.\nImagine it! consider it! measure the magnitude of it! We walk in front\nof those boys? Bless you, we've done that for the last time. In my\nopinion there isn't a lay lord in this whole region that can walk in\nfront of them, except the Duke d'Alencon, prince of the blood.\"\n\nYou could have knocked the Paladin down with a feather. He seemed to\nactually turn pale. He worked his lips a moment without getting anything\nout; then it came:\n\n\"I didn't know that, nor the half of it; how could I? I've been an\nidiot. I see it now\u0097I've been an idiot. I met them this morning, and\nsung out hello to them just as I would to anybody. I didn't mean to\nbe ill-mannered, but I didn't know the half of this that you've been\ntelling. I've been an ass. Yes, that is all there is to it\u0097I've been an\nass.\"\n\nNoel Rainguesson said, in a kind of weary way:\n\n\"Yes, that is likely enough; but I don't see why you should seem\nsurprised at it.\"\n\n\"You don't, don't you? Well, why don't you?\"\n\n\"Because I don't see any novelty about it. With some people it is a\ncondition which is present all the time. Now you take a condition which\nis present all the time, and the results of that condition will be\nuniform; this uniformity of result will in time become monotonous;\nmonotonousness, by the law of its being, is fatiguing. If you had\nmanifested fatigue upon noticing that you had been an ass, that would\nhave been logical, that would have been rational; whereas it seems to me\nthat to manifest surprise was to be again an ass, because the condition\nof intellect that can enable a person to be surprised and stirred by\ninert monotonousness is a\u0097\"\n\n\"Now that is enough, Noel Rainguesson; stop where you are, before you\nget yourself into trouble. And don't bother me any more for some days or\na week an it please you, for I cannot abide your clack.\"\n\n\"Come, I like that! I didn't want to talk. I tried to get out of\ntalking. If you didn't want to hear my clack, what did you keep\nintruding your conversation on me for?\"\n\n\"I? I never dreamed of such a thing.\"\n\n\"Well, you did it, anyway. And I have a right to feel hurt, and I do\nfeel hurt, to have you treat me so. It seems to me that when a person\ngoads, and crowds, and in a manner forces another person to talk, it is\nneither very fair nor very good-mannered to call what he says clack.\"\n\n\"Oh, snuffle\u0097do! and break your heart, you poor thing. Somebody fetch\nthis sick doll a sugar-rag. Look you, Sir Jean de Metz, do you feel\nabsolutely certain about that thing?\"\n\n\"What thing?\"\n\n\"Why, that Jean and Pierre are going to take precedence of all the lay\nnoblesse hereabouts except the Duke d'Alencon?\"\n\n\"I think there is not a doubt of it.\"\n\nThe Standard-Bearer was deep in thoughts and dreams a few moments, then\nthe silk-and-velvet expanse of his vast breast rose and fell with a\nsigh, and he said:\n\n\"Dear, dear, what a lift it is! It just shows what luck can do. Well, I\ndon't care. I shouldn't care to be a painted accident\u0097I shouldn't value\nit. I am prouder to have climbed up to where I am just by sheer natural\nmerit than I would be to ride the very sun in the zenith and have to\nreflect that I was nothing but a poor little accident, and got shot up\nthere out of somebody else's catapult. To me, merit is everything\u0097in\nfact, the only thing. All else is dross.\"\n\nJust then the bugles blew the assembly, and that cut our talk short.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 25 At Last\u0097Forward!\n\nTHE DAYS began to waste away\u0097and nothing decided, nothing done. The army\nwas full of zeal, but it was also hungry. It got no pay, the treasury\nwas getting empty, it was becoming impossible to feed it; under pressure\nof privation it began to fall apart and disperse\u0097which pleased the\ntrifling court exceedingly. Joan's distress was pitiful to see. She was\nobliged to stand helpless while her victorious army dissolved away until\nhardly the skeleton of it was left.\n\nAt last one day she went to the Castle of Loches, where the King was\nidling. She found him consulting with three of his councilors, Robert le\nMaton, a former Chancellor of France, Christophe d'Harcourt, and Gerard\nMachet. The Bastard of Orleans was present also, and it is through him\nthat we know what happened. Joan threw herself at the King's feet and\nembraced his knees, saying:\n\n\"Noble Dauphin, prithee hold no more of these long and numerous\ncouncils, but come, and come quickly, to Rheims and receive your crown.\"\n\nChristophe d'Harcourt asked:\n\n\"Is it your Voices that command you to say that to the King?\"\n\n\"Yes, and urgently.\"\n\n\"Then will you not tell us in the King's presence in what way the Voices\ncommunicate with you?\"\n\nIt was another sly attempt to trap Joan into indiscreet admissions and\ndangerous pretensions. But nothing came of it. Joan's answer was simple\nand straightforward, and the smooth Bishop was not able to find any\nfault with it. She said that when she met with people who doubted the\ntruth of her mission she went aside and prayed, complaining of the\ndistrust of these, and then the comforting Voices were heard at her\near saying, soft and low, \"Go forward, Daughter of God, and I will help\nthee.\" Then she added, \"When I hear that, the joy in my heart, oh, it is\ninsupportable!\"\n\nThe Bastard said that when she said these words her face lit up as with\na flame, and she was like one in an ecstasy.\n\nJoan pleaded, persuaded, reasoned; gaining ground little by little, but\nopposed step by step by the council. She begged, she implored, leave to\nmarch. When they could answer nothing further, they granted that perhaps\nit had been a mistake to let the army waste away, but how could we help\nit now? how could we march without an army?\n\n\"Raise one!\" said Joan.\n\n\"But it will take six weeks.\"\n\n\"No matter\u0097begin! let us begin!\"\n\n\"It is too late. Without doubt the Duke of Bedford has been gathering\ntroops to push to the succor of his strongholds on the Loire.\"\n\n\"Yes, while we have been disbanding ours\u0097and pity 'tis. But we must\nthrow away no more time; we must bestir ourselves.\"\n\nThe King objected that he could not venture toward Rheims with those\nstrong places on the Loire in his path. But Joan said:\n\n\"We will break them up. Then you can march.\"\n\nWith that plan the King was willing to venture assent. He could sit\naround out of danger while the road was being cleared.\n\nJoan came back in great spirits. Straightway everything was stirring.\nProclamations were issued calling for men, a recruiting-camp was\nestablished at Selles in Berry, and the commons and the nobles began to\nflock to it with enthusiasm.\n\nA deal of the month of May had been wasted; and yet by the 6th of June\nJoan had swept together a new army and was ready to march. She had eight\nthousand men. Think of that. Think of gathering together such a body\nas that in that little region. And these were veteran soldiers, too. In\nfact, most of the men in France were soldiers, when you came to that;\nfor the wars had lasted generations now. Yes, most Frenchmen were\nsoldiers; and admirable runners, too, both by practice and inheritance;\nthey had done next to nothing but run for near a century. But that was\nnot their fault. They had had no fair and proper leadership\u0097at least\nleaders with a fair and proper chance. Away back, King and Court got the\nhabit of being treacherous to the leaders; then the leaders easily\ngot the habit of disobeying the King and going their own way, each for\nhimself and nobody for the lot. Nobody could win victories that way.\nHence, running became the habit of the French troops, and no wonder. Yet\nall that those troops needed in order to be good fighters was a leader\nwho would attend strictly to business\u0097a leader with all authority in his\nhands in place of a tenth of it along with nine other generals equipped\nwith an equal tenth apiece. They had a leader rightly clothed with\nauthority now, and with a head and heart bent on war of the most\nintensely businesslike and earnest sort\u0097and there would be results. No\ndoubt of that. They had Joan of Arc; and under that leadership their\nlegs would lose the art and mystery of running.\n\nYes, Joan was in great spirits. She was here and there and everywhere,\nall over the camp, by day and by night, pushing things. And wherever she\ncame charging down the lines, reviewing the troops, it was good to hear\nthem break out and cheer. And nobody could help cheering, she was such\na vision of young bloom and beauty and grace, and such an incarnation of\npluck and life and go! she was growing more and more ideally beautiful\nevery day, as was plain to be seen\u0097and these were days of development;\nfor she was well past seventeen now\u0097in fact, she was getting close upon\nseventeen and a half\u0097indeed, just a little woman, as you may say.\n\nThe two young Counts de Laval arrived one day\u0097fine young fellows allied\nto the greatest and most illustrious houses of France; and they could\nnot rest till they had seen Joan of Arc. So the King sent for them and\npresented them to her, and you may believe she filled the bill of their\nexpectations. When they heard that rich voice of hers they must have\nthought it was a flute; and when they saw her deep eyes and her face,\nand the soul that looked out of that face, you could see that the sight\nof her stirred them like a poem, like lofty eloquence, like martial\nmusic. One of them wrote home to his people, and in his letter he said,\n\"It seemed something divine to see her and hear her.\" Ah, yes, and it\nwas a true word. Truer word was never spoken.\n\nHe saw her when she was ready to begin her march and open the campaign,\nand this is what he said about it:\n\n\"She was clothed all in white armor save her head, and in her hand she\ncarried a little battle-ax; and when she was ready to mount her great\nblack horse he reared and plunged and would not let her. Then she said,\n'Lead him to the cross.' This cross was in front of the church close by.\nSo they led him there. Then she mounted, and he never budged, any more\nthan if he had been tied. Then she turned toward the door of the church\nand said, in her soft womanly voice, 'You, priests and people of the\nChurch, make processions and pray to God for us!' Then she spurred\naway, under her standard, with her little ax in her hand, crying\n'Forward\u0097march!' One of her brothers, who came eight days ago, departed\nwith her; and he also was clad all in white armor.\"\n\nI was there, and I saw it, too; saw it all, just as he pictures it.\nAnd I see it yet\u0097the little battle-ax, the dainty plumed cap, the\nwhite armor\u0097all in the soft June afternoon; I see it just as if it were\nyesterday. And I rode with the staff\u0097the personal staff\u0097the staff of\nJoan of Arc.\n\nThat young count was dying to go, too, but the King held him back for\nthe present. But Joan had made him a promise. In his letter he said:\n\n\"She told me that when the King starts for Rheims I shall go with him.\nBut God grant I may not have to wait till then, but may have a part in\nthe battles!\"\n\nShe made him that promise when she was taking leave of my lady the\nDuchess d'Alencon. The duchess was exacting a promise, so it seemed a\nproper time for others to do the like. The duchess was troubled for her\nhusband, for she foresaw desperate fighting; and she held Joan to her\nbreast, and stroked her hair lovingly, and said:\n\n\"You must watch over him, dear, and take care of him, and send him\nback to me safe. I require it of you; I will not let you go till you\npromise.\"\n\nJoan said:\n\n\"I give you the promise with all my heart; and it is not just words, it\nis a promise; you shall have him back without a hurt. Do you believe?\nAnd are you satisfied with me now?\"\n\nThe duchess could not speak, but she kissed Joan on the forehead; and so\nthey parted.\n\nWe left on the 6th and stopped over at Romorantin; then on the 9th Joan\nentered Orleans in state, under triumphal arches, with the welcoming\ncannon thundering and seas of welcoming flags fluttering in the breeze.\nThe Grand Staff rode with her, clothed in shining splendors of costume\nand decorations: the Duke d'Alencon; the Bastard of Orleans; the Sire\nde Boussac, Marshal of France; the Lord de Granville, Master of the\nCrossbowmen; the Sire de Culan, Admiral of France; Ambroise de Lor;\nEtienne de Vignoles, called La Hire; Gautier de Brusac, and other\nillustrious captains.\n\nIt was grand times; the usual shoutings and packed multitudes, the usual\ncrush to get sight of Joan; but at last we crowded through to our old\nlodgings, and I saw old Boucher and the wife and that dear Catherine\ngather Joan to their hearts and smother her with kisses\u0097and my heart\nached for her so! for I could have kissed Catherine better than anybody,\nand more and longer; yet was not thought of for that office, and I so\nfamished for it. Ah, she was so beautiful, and oh, so sweet! I had loved\nher the first day I ever saw her, and from that day forth she was sacred\nto me. I have carried her image in my heart for sixty-three years\u0097all\nlonely thee, yes, solitary, for it never has had company\u0097and I am grown\nso old, so old; but it, oh, it is as fresh and young and merry and\nmischievous and lovely and sweet and pure and witching and divine as\nit was when it crept in there, bringing benediction and peace to its\nhabitation so long ago, so long ago\u0097for it has not aged a day!\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 26 The Last Doubts Scattered\n\nTHIS TIME, as before, the King's last command to the generals was this:\n\"See to it that you do nothing without the sanction of the Maid.\" And\nthis time the command was obeyed; and would continue to be obeyed all\nthrough the coming great days of the Loire campaign.\n\nThat was a change! That was new! It broke the traditions. It shows you\nwhat sort of a reputation as a commander-in-chief the child had made for\nherself in ten days in the field. It was a conquering of men's doubts\nand suspicions and a capturing and solidifying of men's belief and\nconfidence such as the grayest veteran on the Grand Staff had not been\nable to achieve in thirty years. Don't you remember that when at sixteen\nJoan conducted her own case in a grim court of law and won it, the old\njudge spoke of her as \"this marvelous child\"? It was the right name, you\nsee.\n\nThese veterans were not going to branch out and do things without the\nsanction of the Maid\u0097that is true; and it was a great gain. But at the\nsame time there were some among them who still trembled at her new and\ndashing war tactics and earnestly desired to modify them. And so, during\nthe 10th, while Joan was slaving away at her plans and issuing order\nafter order with tireless industry, the old-time consultations and\narguings and speechifyings were going on among certain of the generals.\n\nIn the afternoon of that day they came in a body to hold one of these\ncouncils of war; and while they waited for Joan to join them they\ndiscussed the situation. Now this discussion is not set down in the\nhistories; but I was there, and I will speak of it, as knowing you will\ntrust me, I not being given to beguiling you with lies.\n\nGautier de Brusac was spokesman for the timid ones; Joan's side was\nresolutely upheld by d'Alencon, the Bastard, La Hire, the Admiral of\nFrance, the Marshal de Boussac, and all the other really important\nchiefs.\n\nDe Brusac argued that the situation was very grave; that Jargeau,\nthe first point of attack, was formidably strong; its imposing walls\nbristling with artillery; with seven thousand picked English veterans\nbehind them, and at their head the great Earl of Suffolk and his\ntwo redoubtable brothers, the De la Poles. It seemed to him that the\nproposal of Joan of Arc to try to take such a place by storm was a most\nrash and over-daring idea, and she ought to be persuaded to relinquish\nit in favor of the soberer and safer procedure of investment by regular\nsiege. It seemed to him that this fiery and furious new fashion of\nhurling masses of men against impregnable walls of stone, in defiance of\nthe established laws and usages of war, was\u0097\n\nBut he got no further. La Hire gave his plumed helm an impatient toss\nand burst out with:\n\n\"By God, she knows her trade, and none can teach it her!\"\n\nAnd before he could get out anything more, D'Alencon was on his feet,\nand the Bastard of Orleans, and a half a dozen others, all thundering at\nonce, and pouring out their indignant displeasure upon any and all\nthat might hold, secretly or publicly, distrust of the wisdom of the\nCommander-in-Chief. And when they had said their say, La Hire took a\nchance again, and said:\n\n\"There are some that never know how to change. Circumstances may change,\nbut those people are never able to see that they have got to change too,\nto meet those circumstances. All that they know is the one beaten\ntrack that their fathers and grandfathers have followed and that they\nthemselves have followed in their turn. If an earthquake come and rip\nthe land to chaos, and that beaten track now lead over precipices and\ninto morasses, those people can't learn that they must strike out a new\nroad\u0097no; they will march stupidly along and follow the old one, to death\nand perdition. Men, there's a new state of things; and a surpassing\nmilitary genius has perceived it with her clear eye. And a new road is\nrequired, and that same clear eye has noted where it must go, and has\nmarked it out for us. The man does not live, never has lived, never\nwill live, that can improve upon it! The old state of things was defeat,\ndefeat, defeat\u0097and by consequence we had troops with no dash, no heart,\nno hope. Would you assault stone walls with such? No\u0097there was but one\nway with that kind: sit down before a place and wait, wait\u0097starve it\nout, if you could. The new case is the very opposite; it is this: men\nall on fire with pluck and dash and vim and fury and energy\u0097a restrained\nconflagration! What would you do with it? Hold it down and let it\nsmolder and perish and go out? What would Joan of Arc do with it? Turn\nit loose, by the Lord God of heaven and earth, and let it swallow up the\nfoe in the whirlwind of its fires! Nothing shows the splendor and wisdom\nof her military genius like her instant comprehension of the size of the\nchange which has come about, and her instant perception of the right and\nonly right way to take advantage of it. With her is no sitting down and\nstarving out; no dilly-dallying and fooling around; no lazying, loafing,\nand going to sleep; no, it is storm! storm! storm! and still storm!\nstorm! storm! and forever storm! storm! storm! hunt the enemy to his\nhole, then turn her French hurricanes loose and carry him by storm!\nAnd that is my sort! Jargeau? What of Jargeau, with its battlements and\ntowers, its devastating artillery, its seven thousand picked veterans?\nJoan of Arc is to the fore, and by the splendor of God its fate is\nsealed!\"\n\nOh, he carried them. There was not another word said about persuading\nJoan to change her tactics. They sat talking comfortably enough after\nthat.\n\nBy and by Joan entered, and they rose and saluted with their swords, and\nshe asked what their pleasure might be. La Hire said:\n\n\"It is settled, my General. The matter concerned Jargeau. There were\nsome who thought we could not take the place.\"\n\nJoan laughed her pleasant laugh, her merry, carefree laugh; the laugh\nthat rippled so buoyantly from her lips and made old people feel young\nagain to hear it; and she said to the company:\n\n\"Have no fears\u0097indeed, there is no need nor any occasion for them. We\nwill strike the English boldly by assault, and you will see.\" Then a\nfaraway look came into her eyes, and I think that a picture of her home\ndrifted across the vision of her mind; for she said very gently, and as\none who muses, \"But that I know God guides us and will give us success,\nI had liefer keep sheep than endure these perils.\"\n\nWe had a homelike farewell supper that evening\u0097just the personal staff\nand the family. Joan had to miss it; for the city had given a banquet in\nher honor, and she had gone there in state with the Grand Staff, through\na riot of joy-bells and a sparkling Milky Way of illuminations.\n\nAfter supper some lively young folk whom we knew came in, and we\npresently forgot that we were soldiers, and only remembered that we\nwere boys and girls and full of animal spirits and long-pent fun; and so\nthere was dancing, and games, and romps, and screams of laughter\u0097just as\nextravagant and innocent and noisy a good time as ever I had in my life.\nDear, dear, how long ago it was!\u0097and I was young then. And outside, all\nthe while, was the measured tramp of marching battalions, belated odds\nand ends of the French power gathering for the morrow's tragedy on the\ngrim stage of war. Yes, in those days we had those contrasts side by\nside. And as I passed along to bed there was another one: the big Dwarf,\nin brave new armor, sat sentry at Joan's door\u0097the stern Spirit of War\nmade flesh, as it were\u0097and on his ample shoulder was curled a kitten\nasleep.\n\n\n\n\n\nChapter 27 How Joan Took Jargeau\n\nWE MADE a gallant show next day when we filed out through the frowning\ngates of Orleans, with banners flying and Joan and the Grand Staff in\nthe van of the long column. Those two young De Lavals were come now, and\nwere joined to the Grand Staff. Which was well; war being their proper\ntrade, for they were grandsons of that illustrious fighter Bertrand du\nGuesclin, Constable of France in earlier days. Louis de Bourbon, the\nMarshal de Rais, and the Vidame de Chartres were added also. We had a\nright to feel a little uneasy, for we knew that a force of five thousand\nmen was on its way under Sir John Fastolfe to reinforce Jargeau, but I\nthink we were not uneasy, nevertheless. In truth, that force was not yet\nin our neighborhood. Sir John was loitering; for some reason or other he\nwas not hurrying. He was losing precious time\u0097four days at Etampes, and\nfour more at Janville.\n\nWe reached Jargeau and began business at once. Joan sent forward a heavy\nforce which hurled itself against the outworks in handsome style, and\ngained a footing and fought hard to keep it; but it presently began to\nfall back before a sortie from the city. Seeing this, Joan raised her\nbattle-cry and led a new assault herself under a furious artillery fire.\nThe Paladin was struck down at her side wounded, but she snatched her\nstandard from his failing hand and plunged on through the ruck of flying\nmissiles, cheering her men with encouraging cries; and then for a good\ntime one had turmoil, and clash of steel, and collision and confusion\nof struggling multitudes, and the hoarse bellowing of the guns; and\nthen the hiding of it all under a rolling firmament of smoke\u0097a firmament\nthrough which veiled vacancies appeared for a moment now and then,\ngiving fitful dim glimpses of the wild tragedy enacting beyond; and\nalways at these times one caught sight of that slight figure in white\nmail which was the center and soul of our hope and trust, and whenever\nwe saw that, with its back to us and its face to the fight, we knew that\nall was well. At last a great shout went up\u0097a joyous roar of shoutings,\nin fact\u0097and that was sign sufficient that the faubourgs were ours.\n\nYes, they were ours; the enemy had been driven back within the walls. On\nthe ground which Joan had won we camped; for night was coming on.\n\nJoan sent a summons to the English, promising that if they surrendered\nshe would allow them to go in peace and take their horses with them.\nNobody knew that she could take that strong place, but she knew it\u0097knew\nit well; yet she offered that grace\u0097offered it in a time when such a\nthing was unknown in war; in a time when it was custom and usage to\nmassacre the garrison and the inhabitants of captured cities without\npity or compunction\u0097yes, even to the harmless women and children\nsometimes. There are neighbors all about you who well remember the\nunspeakable atrocities which Charles the Bold inflicted upon the men and\nwomen and children of Dinant when he took that place some years ago. It\nwas a unique and kindly grace which Joan offered that garrison; but that\nwas her way, that was her loving and merciful nature\u0097she always did her\nbest to save her enemy's life and his soldierly pride when she had the\nmastery of him.\n\nThe English asked fifteen days' armistice to consider the proposal\nin. And Fastolfe coming with five thousand men! Joan said no. But she\noffered another grace: they might take both their horses and their\nside-arms\u0097but they must go within the hour.\n\nWell, those bronzed English veterans were pretty hard-headed folk. They\ndeclined again. Then Joan gave command that her army be made ready to\nmove to the assault at nine in the morning. Considering the deal of\nmarching and fighting which the men had done that day, D'Alencon thought\nthe hour rather early; but Joan said it was best so, and so must be\nobeyed. Then she burst out with one of those enthusiasms which were\nalways burning in her when battle was imminent, and said:\n\n\"Work! work! and God will work with us!\"\n\nYes, one might say that her motto was \"Work! stick to it; keep on\nworking!\" for in war she never knew what indolence was. And whoever will\ntake that motto and live by it will likely to succeed. There's many a\nway to win in this world, but none of them is worth much without good\nhard work back out of it.\n\nI think we should have lost our big Standard-Bearer that day, if our\nbigger Dwarf had not been at hand to bring him out of the melee when he\nwas wounded. He was unconscious, and would have been trampled to death\nby our own horse, if the Dwarf had not promptly rescued him and haled\nhim to the rear and safety. He recovered, and was himself again after\ntwo or three hours; and then he was happy and proud, and made the most\nof his wound, and went swaggering around in his bandages showing off\nlike an innocent big-child\u0097which was just what he was. He was prouder of\nbeing wounded than a really modest person would be of being killed. But\nthere was no harm in his vanity, and nobody minded it. He said he was\nhit by a stone from a catapult\u0097a stone the size of a man's head. But\nthe stone grew, of course. Before he got through with it he was claiming\nthat the enemy had flung a building at him.\n\n\"Let him alone,\" said Noel Rainguesson. \"Don't interrupt his processes.\nTo-morrow it will be a cathedral.\"\n\nHe said that privately. And, sure enough, to-morrow it was a cathedral.\nI never saw anybody with such an abandoned imagination.\n\nJoan was abroad at the crack of dawn, galloping here and there and\nyonder, examining the situation minutely, and choosing what she\nconsidered the most effective positions for her artillery; and with such\naccurate judgment did she place her guns that her Lieutenant-General's\nadmiration of it still survived in his memory when his testimony was\ntaken at the Rehabilitation, a quarter of a century later.\n\nIn this testimony the Duke d'Alencon said that at Jargeau that morning\nof the 12th of June she made her dispositions not like a novice, but\n\"with the sure and clear judgment of a trained general of twenty or\nthirty years' experience.\"\n\nThe veteran captains of the armies of France said she was great in war\nin all ways, but greatest of all in her genius for posting and handling\nartillery.\n\nWho taught the shepherd-girl to do these marvels\u0097she who could not read,\nand had had no opportunity to study the complex arts of war? I do not\nknow any way to solve such a baffling riddle as that, there being no\nprecedent for it, nothing in history to compare it with and examine\nit by. For in history there is no great general, however gifted, who\narrived at success otherwise than through able teaching and hard study\nand some experience. It is a riddle which will never be guessed. I think\nthese vast powers and capacities were born in her, and that she applied\nthem by an intuition which could not err.\n\nAt eight o'clock all movement ceased, and with it all sounds, all noise.\nA mute expectancy reigned. The stillness was something awful\u0097because it\nmeant so much. There was no air stirring. The flags on the towers and\nramparts hung straight down like tassels. Wherever one saw a person,\nthat person had stopped what he was doing, and was in a waiting\nattitude, a listening attitude. We were on a commanding spot, clustered\naround Joan. Not far from us, on every hand, were the lanes and humble\ndwellings of these outlying suburbs. Many people were visible\u0097all were\nlistening, not one was moving. A man had placed a nail; he was about\nto fasten something with it to the door-post of his shop\u0097but he had\nstopped. There was his hand reaching up holding the nail; and there\nwas his other hand in the act of striking with the hammer; but he had\nforgotten everything\u0097his head was turned aside listening. Even children\nunconsciously stopped in their play; I saw a little boy with his\nhoop-stick pointed slanting toward the ground in the act of steering the\nhoop around the corner; and so he had stopped and was listening\u0097the hoop\nwas rolling away, doing its own steering. I saw a young girl prettily\nframed in an open window, a watering-pot in her hand and window-boxes of\nred flowers under its spout\u0097but the water had ceased to flow; the girl\nwas listening. Everywhere were these impressive petrified forms; and\neverywhere was suspended movement and that awful stillness.\n\nJoan of Arc raised her sword in the air. At the signal, the silence was\ntorn to rags; cannon after cannon vomited flames and smoke and delivered\nits quaking thunders; and we saw answering tongues of fire dart from the\ntowers and walls of the city, accompanied by answering deep thunders,\nand in a minute the walls and the towers disappeared, and in their place\nstood vast banks and pyramids of snowy smoke, motionless in the dead\nair. The startled girl dropped her watering-pot and clasped her hands\ntogether, and at that moment a stone cannon-ball crashed through her\nfair body.\n\nThe great artillery duel went on, each side hammering away with all its\nmight; and it was splendid for smoke and noise, and most exalting to\none's spirits. The poor little town around about us suffered cruelly.\nThe cannon-balls tore through its slight buildings, wrecking them as if\nthey had been built of cards; and every moment or two one would see a\nhuge rock come curving through the upper air above the smoke-clouds and\ngo plunging down through the roofs. Fire broke out, and columns of flame\nand smoke rose toward the sky.\n\nPresently the artillery concussions changed the weather. The sky became\novercast, and a strong wind rose and blew away the smoke that hid the\nEnglish fortresses.\n\nThen the spectacle was fine; turreted gray walls and towers, and\nstreaming bright flags, and jets of red fire and gushes of white smoke\nin long rows, all standing out with sharp vividness against the deep\nleaden background of the sky; and then the whizzing missiles began to\nknock up the dirt all around us, and I felt no more interest in the\nscenery. There was one English gun that was getting our position down\nfiner and finer all the time. Presently Joan pointed to it and said:\n\n\"Fair duke, step out of your tracks, or that machine will kill you.\"\n\nThe Duke d'Alencon did as he was bid; but Monsieur du Lude rashly took\nhis place, and that cannon tore his head off in a moment.\n\nJoan was watching all along for the right time to order the assault. At\nlast, about nine o'clock, she cried out:\n\n\"Now\u0097to the assault!\" and the buglers blew the charge.\n\nInstantly we saw the body of men that had been appointed to this service\nmove forward toward a point where the concentrated fire of our guns had\ncrumbled the upper half of a broad stretch of wall to ruins; we saw this\nforce descend into the ditch and begin to plant the scaling-ladders.\nWe were soon with them. The Lieutenant-General thought the assault\npremature. But Joan said:\n\n\"Ah, gentle duke, are you afraid? Do you not know that I have promised\nto send you home safe?\"\n\nIt was warm work in the ditches. The walls were crowded with men, and\nthey poured avalanches of stones down upon us. There was one gigantic\nEnglishman who did us more hurt than any dozen of his brethren.\nHe always dominated the places easiest of assault, and flung down\nexceedingly troublesome big stones which smashed men and ladders\nboth\u0097then he would near burst himself with laughing over what he had\ndone. But the duke settled accounts with him. He went and found the\nfamous cannoneer, Jean le Lorrain, and said:\n\n\"Train your gun\u0097kill me this demon.\"\n\nHe did it with the first shot. He hit the Englishman fair in the breast\nand knocked him backward into the city.\n\nThe enemy's resistance was so effective and so stubborn that our people\nbegan to show signs of doubt and dismay. Seeing this, Joan raised her\ninspiring battle-cry and descended into the fosse herself, the Dwarf\nhelping her and the Paladin sticking bravely at her side with the\nstandard. She started up a scaling-ladder, but a great stone flung from\nabove came crashing down upon her helmet and stretched her, wounded and\nstunned, upon the ground. But only for a moment. The Dwarf stood her\nupon her feet, and straightway she started up the ladder again, crying:\n\n\"To the assault, friends, to the assault\u0097the English are ours! It is the\nappointed hour!\"\n\nThere was a grand rush, and a fierce roar of war-cries, and we swarmed\nover the ramparts like ants. The garrison fled, we pursued; Jargeau was\nours!\n\nThe Earl of Suffolk was hemmed in and surrounded, and the Duke d'Alencon\nand the Bastard of Orleans demanded that he surrender himself. But he\nwas a proud nobleman and came of a proud race. He refused to yield his\nsword to subordinates, saying:\n\n\"I will die rather. I will surrender to the Maid of Orleans alone, and\nto no other.\"\n\nAnd so he did; and was courteously and honorably used by her.\n\nHis two brothers retreated, fighting step by step, toward the bridge,\nwe pressing their despairing forces and cutting them down by scores.\nArrived on the bridge, the slaughter still continued. Alexander de la\nPole was pushed overboard or fell over, and was drowned. Eleven hundred\nmen had fallen; John de la Pole decided to give up the struggle. But he\nwas nearly as proud and particular as his brother of Suffolk as to whom\nhe would surrender to. The French officer nearest at hand was Guillaume\nRenault, who was pressing him closely. Sir John said to him:\n\n\"Are you a gentleman?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And a knight?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nThen Sir John knighted him himself there on the bridge, giving him the\naccolade with English coolness and tranquillity in the midst of that\nstorm of slaughter and mutilation; and then bowing with high courtesy\ntook the sword by the blade and laid the hilt of it in the man's hand in\ntoken of surrender. Ah, yes, a proud tribe, those De la Poles.\n\nIt was a grand day, a memorable day, a most splendid victory. We had a\ncrowd of prisoners, but Joan would not allow them to be hurt. We took\nthem with us and marched into Orleans next day through the usual tempest\nof welcome and joy.\n\nAnd this time there was a new tribute to our leader. From everywhere in\nthe packed streets the new recruits squeezed their way to her side to\ntouch the sword of Joan of Arc, and draw from it somewhat of that\nmysterious quality which made it invincible.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"2875":"\n\n\n\n Produced by David Reed\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF\n\nJOAN OF ARC\n\n VOLUME 2 (of 2)\n\nby Mark Twain\n\n\n\nPERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC\n\n by The Sieur Louis De Conte\n\n (her page and secretary)\n\nIn Two Volumes Freely translated out of the ancient French into modern\nEnglish from the original unpublished manuscript in the National\nArchives of France\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\nPERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC\n\n\nBOOK II -- IN COURT AND CAMP (Continued)\n\n28 Joan Foretells Her Doom\n\n29 Fierce Talbot Reconsiders\n\n30 The Red Field of Patay\n\n31 France Begins to Live Again\n\n32 The Joyous News Flies Fast\n\n33 Joan's Five Great Deeds\n\n34 The Jests of the Burgundians\n\n35 The Heir of France is Crowned\n\n36 Joan Hears News from Home\n\n37 Again to Arms\n\n38 The King Cries \"Forward!\"\n\n39 We Win, But the King Balks\n\n40 Treachery Conquers Joan\n\n41 The Maid Will March No More\n\n\nBOOK III TRIAL AND MARTYRDOM\n\n1 The Maid in Chains\n\n2 Joan Sold to the English\n\n3 Weaving the Net About Her\n\n4 All Ready to Condemn\n\n5 Fifty Experts Against a Novice\n\n6 The Maid Baffles Her Persecutors\n\n7 Craft That Was in Vain\n\n8 Joan Tells of Her Visions\n\n9 Her Sure Deliverance Foretold\n\n10 The Inquisitors at Their Wits' End\n\n11 The Court Reorganized for Assassination\n\n12 Joan's Master-Stroke Diverted\n\n13 The Third Trial Fails\n\n14 Joan Struggles with Her Twelve Lies\n\n15 Undaunted by Threat of Burning\n\n16 Joan Stands Defiant Before the Rack\n\n17 Supreme in Direst Peril\n\n18 Condemned Yet Unafraid\n\n19 Our Last Hopes of Rescue Fail\n\n20 The Betrayal\n\n21 Respited Only for Torture\n\n22 Joan Gives the Fatal Answer\n\n23 The Time Is at Hand\n\n24 Joan the Martyr\n\n\nCONCLUSION\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK II -- IN COURT AND CAMP (Continued)\n\n\n\n28 Joan Foretells Her Doom\n\nTHE TROOPS must have a rest. Two days would be allowed for this. The\nmorning of the 14th I was writing from Joan's dictation in a small room\nwhich she sometimes used as a private office when she wanted to get away\nfrom officials and their interruptions. Catherine Boucher came in and\nsat down and said:\n\n\"Joan, dear, I want you to talk to me.\"\n\n\"Indeed, I am not sorry for that, but glad. What is in your mind?\"\n\n\"This. I scarcely slept last night, for thinking of the dangers you are\nrunning. The Paladin told me how you made the duke stand out of the way\nwhen the cannon-balls were flying all about, and so saved his life.\"\n\n\"Well, that was right, wasn't it?\"\n\n\"Right? Yes; but you stayed there yourself. Why will you do like that?\nIt seems such a wanton risk.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, it was not so. I was not in any danger.\"\n\n\"How can you say that, Joan, with those deadly things flying all about\nyou?\"\n\nJoan laughed, and tried to turn the subject, but Catherine persisted.\nShe said:\n\n\"It was horribly dangerous, and it could not be necessary to stay\nin such a place. And you led an assault again. Joan, it is tempting\nProvidence. I want you to make me a promise. I want you to promise me\nthat you will let others lead the assaults, if there must be assaults,\nand that you will take better care of yourself in those dreadful\nbattles. Will you?\"\n\nBut Joan fought away from the promise and did not give it. Catherine sat\ntroubled and discontented awhile, then she said:\n\n\"Joan, are you going to be a soldier always? These wars are so long--so\nlong. They last forever and ever and ever.\"\n\nThere was a glad flash in Joan's eye as she cried:\n\n\"This campaign will do all the really hard work that is in front of\nit in the next four days. The rest of it will be gentler--oh, far less\nbloody. Yes, in four days France will gather another trophy like the\nredemption of Orleans and make her second long step toward freedom!\"\n\nCatherine started (and so did I); then she gazed long at Joan like one\nin a trance, murmuring \"four days--four days,\" as if to herself and\nunconsciously. Finally she asked, in a low voice that had something of\nawe in it:\n\n\"Joan, tell me--how is it that you know that? For you do know it, I\nthink.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Joan, dreamily, \"I know--I know. I shall strike--and strike\nagain. And before the fourth day is finished I shall strike yet again.\"\nShe became silent. We sat wondering and still. This was for a whole\nminute, she looking at the floor and her lips moving but uttering\nnothing. Then came these words, but hardly audible: \"And in a thousand\nyears the English power in France will not rise up from that blow.\"\n\nIt made my flesh creep. It was uncanny. She was in a trance again--I\ncould see it--just as she was that day in the pastures of Domremy when\nshe prophesied about us boys in the war and afterward did not know that\nshe had done it. She was not conscious now; but Catherine did not know\nthat, and so she said, in a happy voice:\n\n\"Oh, I believe it, I believe it, and I am so glad! Then you will come\nback and bide with us all your life long, and we will love you so, and\nhonor you!\"\n\nA scarcely perceptible spasm flitted across Joan's face, and the dreamy\nvoice muttered:\n\n\"Before two years are sped I shall die a cruel death!\"\n\nI sprang forward with a warning hand up. That is why Catherine did not\nscream. She was going to do that--I saw it plainly. Then I whispered her\nto slip out of the place, and say nothing of what had happened. I said\nJoan was asleep--asleep and dreaming. Catherine whispered back, and\nsaid:\n\n\"Oh, I am so grateful that it is only a dream! It sounded like\nprophecy.\" And she was gone.\n\nLike prophecy! I knew it was prophecy; and I sat down crying, as knowing\nwe should lose her. Soon she started, shivering slightly, and came to\nherself, and looked around and saw me crying there, and jumped out of\nher chair and ran to me all in a whirl of sympathy and compassion, and\nput her hand on my head, and said:\n\n\"My poor boy! What is it? Look up and tell me.\"\n\nI had to tell her a lie; I grieved to do it, but there was no other way.\nI picked up an old letter from my table, written by Heaven knows who,\nabout some matter Heaven knows what, and told her I had just gotten it\nfrom Pere Fronte, and that in it it said the children's Fairy Tree had\nbeen chopped down by some miscreant or other, and-- I got no further.\nShe snatched the letter from my hand and searched it up and down and\nall over, turning it this way and that, and sobbing great sobs, and the\ntears flowing down her cheeks, and ejaculating all the time, \"Oh, cruel,\ncruel! how could any be so heartless? Ah, poor Arbre Fee de Bourlemont\ngone--and we children loved it so! Show me the place where it says it!\"\n\nAnd I, still lying, showed her the pretended fatal words on the\npretended fatal page, and she gazed at them through her tears, and said\nshe could see herself that they were hateful, ugly words--they \"had the\nvery look of it.\"\n\nThen we heard a strong voice down the corridor announcing:\n\n\"His majesty's messenger--with despatches for her Excellency the\nCommander-in-Chief of the Armies of France!\"\n\n\n\n\n\n29 Fierce Talbot Reconsiders\n\nI KNEW she had seen the wisdom of the Tree. But when? I could not know.\nDoubtless before she had lately told the King to use her, for that she\nhad but one year left to work in. It had not occurred to me at the time,\nbut the conviction came upon me now that at that time she had already\nseen the Tree. It had brought her a welcome message; that was plain,\notherwise she could not have been so joyous and light-hearted as she had\nbeen these latter days. The death-warning had nothing dismal about it\nfor her; no, it was remission of exile, it was leave to come home.\n\nYes, she had seen the Tree. No one had taken the prophecy to heart which\nshe made to the King; and for a good reason, no doubt; no one wanted to\ntake it to heart; all wanted to banish it away and forget it. And all\nhad succeeded, and would go on to the end placid and comfortable. All\nbut me alone. I must carry my awful secret without any to help me. A\nheavy load, a bitter burden; and would cost me a daily heartbreak. She\nwas to die; and so soon. I had never dreamed of that. How could I, and\nshe so strong and fresh and young, and every day earning a new right\nto a peaceful and honored old age? For at that time I thought old age\nvaluable. I do not know why, but I thought so. All young people think\nit, I believe, they being ignorant and full of superstitions. She\nhad seen the Tree. All that miserable night those ancient verses went\nfloating back and forth through my brain:\n\n\n     And when, in exile wand'ring, we\n     Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee,\n     Oh, rise upon our sight!\n\nBut at dawn the bugles and the drums burst through the dreamy hush of\nthe morning, and it was turn out all! mount and ride. For there was red\nwork to be done.\n\nWe marched to Meung without halting. There we carried the bridge by\nassault, and left a force to hold it, the rest of the army marching away\nnext morning toward Beaugency, where the lion Talbot, the terror of\nthe French, was in command. When we arrived at that place, the English\nretired into the castle and we sat down in the abandoned town.\n\nTalbot was not at the moment present in person, for he had gone away to\nwatch for and welcome Fastolfe and his reinforcement of five thousand\nmen.\n\nJoan placed her batteries and bombarded the castle till night. Then some\nnews came: Richemont, Constable of France, this long time in disgrace\nwith the King, largely because of the evil machinations of La Tremouille\nand his party, was approaching with a large body of men to offer his\nservices to Joan--and very much she needed them, now that Fastolfe\nwas so close by. Richemont had wanted to join us before, when we first\nmarched on Orleans; but the foolish King, slave of those paltry advisers\nof his, warned him to keep his distance and refused all reconciliation\nwith him.\n\nI go into these details because they are important. Important because\nthey lead up to the exhibition of a new gift in Joan's extraordinary\nmental make-up--statesmanship. It is a sufficiently strange thing to\nfind that great quality in an ignorant country-girl of seventeen and a\nhalf, but she had it.\n\nJoan was for receiving Richemont cordially, and so was La Hire and\nthe two young Lavals and other chiefs, but the Lieutenant-General,\nd'Alencon, strenuously and stubbornly opposed it. He said he had\nabsolute orders from the King to deny and defy Richemont, and that if\nthey were overridden he would leave the army. This would have been a\nheavy disaster, indeed. But Joan set herself the task of persuading him\nthat the salvation of France took precedence of all minor things--even\nthe commands of a sceptered ass; and she accomplished it. She persuaded\nhim to disobey the King in the interest of the nation, and to be\nreconciled to Count Richemont and welcome him. That was statesmanship;\nand of the highest and soundest sort. Whatever thing men call great,\nlook for it in Joan of Arc, and there you will find it.\n\nIn the early morning, June 17th, the scouts reported the approach of\nTalbot and Fastolfe with Fastolfe's succoring force. Then the drums beat\nto arms; and we set forth to meet the English, leaving Richemont and his\ntroops behind to watch the castle of Beaugency and keep its garrison\nat home. By and by we came in sight of the enemy. Fastolfe had tried to\nconvince Talbot that it would be wisest to retreat and not risk a battle\nwith Joan at this time, but distribute the new levies among the English\nstrongholds of the Loire, thus securing them against capture; then be\npatient and wait--wait for more levies from Paris; let Joan exhaust her\narmy with fruitless daily skirmishing; then at the right time fall upon\nher in resistless mass and annihilate her. He was a wise old experienced\ngeneral, was Fastolfe. But that fierce Talbot would hear of no delay. He\nwas in a rage over the punishment which the Maid had inflicted upon him\nat Orleans and since, and he swore by God and Saint George that he\nwould have it out with her if he had to fight her all alone. So Fastolfe\nyielded, though he said they were now risking the loss of everything\nwhich the English had gained by so many years' work and so many hard\nknocks.\n\nThe enemy had taken up a strong position, and were waiting, in order of\nbattle, with their archers to the front and a stockade before them.\n\nNight was coming on. A messenger came from the English with a rude\ndefiance and an offer of battle. But Joan's dignity was not ruffled, her\nbearing was not discomposed. She said to the herald:\n\n\"Go back and say it is too late to meet to-night; but to-morrow, please\nGod and our Lady, we will come to close quarters.\"\n\nThe night fell dark and rainy. It was that sort of light steady rain\nwhich falls so softly and brings to one's spirit such serenity and\npeace. About ten o'clock D'Alencon, the Bastard of Orleans, La Hire,\nPothon of Saintrailles, and two or three other generals came to our\nheadquarters tent, and sat down to discuss matters with Joan. Some\nthought it was a pity that Joan had declined battle, some thought not.\nThen Pothon asked her why she had declined it. She said:\n\n\"There was more than one reason. These English are ours--they cannot\nget away from us. Wherefore there is no need to take risks, as at other\ntimes. The day was far spent. It is good to have much time and the fair\nlight of day when one's force is in a weakened state--nine hundred of\nus yonder keeping the bridge of Meung under the Marshal de Rais, fifteen\nhundred with the Constable of France keeping the bridge and watching the\ncastle of Beaugency.\"\n\nDunois said:\n\n\"I grieve for this decision, Excellency, but it cannot be helped. And\nthe case will be the same the morrow, as to that.\"\n\nJoan was walking up and down just then. She laughed her affectionate,\ncomrady laugh, and stopping before that old war-tiger she put her small\nhand above his head and touched one of his plumes, saying:\n\n\"Now tell me, wise man, which feather is it that I touch?\"\n\n\"In sooth, Excellency, that I cannot.\"\n\n\"Name of God, Bastard, Bastard! you cannot tell me this small thing, yet\nare bold to name a large one--telling us what is in the stomach of the\nunborn morrow: that we shall not have those men. Now it is my thought\nthat they will be with us.\"\n\nThat made a stir. All wanted to know why she thought that. But La Hire\ntook the word and said:\n\n\"Let be. If she thinks it, that is enough. It will happen.\"\n\nThen Pothon of Santrailles said:\n\n\"There were other reasons for declining battle, according to the saying\nof your Excellency?\"\n\n\"Yes. One was that we being weak and the day far gone, the battle might\nnot be decisive. When it is fought it must be decisive. And it shall\nbe.\"\n\n\"God grant it, and amen. There were still other reasons?\"\n\n\"One other--yes.\" She hesitated a moment, then said: \"This was not the\nday. To-morrow is the day. It is so written.\"\n\nThey were going to assail her with eager questionings, but she put up\nher hand and prevented them. Then she said:\n\n\"It will be the most noble and beneficent victory that God has\nvouchsafed for France at any time. I pray you question me not as to\nwhence or how I know this thing, but be content that it is so.\"\n\nThere was pleasure in every face, and conviction and high confidence.\nA murmur of conversation broke out, but that was interrupted by a\nmessenger from the outposts who brought news--namely, that for an hour\nthere had been stir and movement in the English camp of a sort unusual\nat such a time and with a resting army, he said. Spies had been sent\nunder cover of the rain and darkness to inquire into it. They had just\ncome back and reported that large bodies of men had been dimly made out\nwho were slipping stealthily away in the direction of Meung.\n\nThe generals were very much surprised, as any might tell from their\nfaces.\n\n\"It is a retreat,\" said Joan.\n\n\"It has that look,\" said D'Alencon.\n\n\"It certainly has,\" observed the Bastard and La Hire.\n\n\"It was not to be expected,\" said Louis de Bourbon, \"but one can divine\nthe purpose of it.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" responded Joan. \"Talbot has reflected. His rash brain has cooled.\nHe thinks to take the bridge of Meung and escape to the other side of\nthe river. He knows that this leaves his garrison of Beaugency at the\nmercy of fortune, to escape our hands if it can; but there is no other\ncourse if he would avoid this battle, and that he also knows. But he\nshall not get the bridge. We will see to that.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said D'Alencon, \"we must follow him, and take care of that\nmatter. What of Beaugency?\"\n\n\"Leave Beaugency to me, gentle duke; I will have it in two hours, and at\nno cost of blood.\"\n\n\"It is true, Excellency. You will but need to deliver this news there\nand receive the surrender.\"\n\n\"Yes. And I will be with you at Meung with the dawn, fetching the\nConstable and his fifteen hundred; and when Talbot knows that Beaugency\nhas fallen it will have an effect upon him.\"\n\n\"By the mass, yes!\" cried La Hire. \"He will join his Meung garrison to\nhis army and break for Paris. Then we shall have our bridge force with\nus again, along with our Beaugency watchers, and be stronger for our\ngreat day's work by four-and-twenty hundred able soldiers, as was here\npromised within the hour. Verily this Englishman is doing our errands\nfor us and saving us much blood and trouble. Orders, Excellency--give us\norders!\"\n\n\"They are simple. Let the men rest three hours longer. At one o'clock\nthe advance-guard will march, under our command, with Pothon of\nSaintrailles as second; the second division will follow at two under the\nLieutenant-General. Keep well in the rear of the enemy, and see to it\nthat you avoid an engagement. I will ride under guard to Beaugency and\nmake so quick work there that I and the Constable of France will join\nyou before dawn with his men.\"\n\nShe kept her word. Her guard mounted and we rode off through the\nputtering rain, taking with us a captured English officer to confirm\nJoan's news. We soon covered the journey and summoned the castle.\nRichard Guetin, Talbot's lieutenant, being convinced that he and his\nfive hundred men were left helpless, conceded that it would be useless\nto try to hold out. He could not expect easy terms, yet Joan granted\nthem nevertheless. His garrison could keep their horses and arms, and\ncarry away property to the value of a silver mark per man. They could go\nwhither they pleased, but must not take arms against France again under\nten days.\n\nBefore dawn we were with our army again, and with us the Constable\nand nearly all his men, for we left only a small garrison in Beaugency\ncastle. We heard the dull booming of cannon to the front, and knew that\nTalbot was beginning his attack on the bridge. But some time before it\nwas yet light the sound ceased and we heard it no more.\n\nGuetin had sent a messenger through our lines under a safe-conduct given\nby Joan, to tell Talbot of the surrender. Of course this poursuivant had\narrived ahead of us. Talbot had held it wisdom to turn now and retreat\nupon Paris. When daylight came he had disappeared; and with him Lord\nScales and the garrison of Meung.\n\nWhat a harvest of English strongholds we had reaped in those three\ndays!--strongholds which had defied France with quite cool confidence\nand plenty of it until we came.\n\n\n\n\n\n30 The Red Field of Patay\n\nWHEN THE morning broke at last on that forever memorable 18th of June,\nthere was no enemy discoverable anywhere, as I have said. But that did\nnot trouble me. I knew we should find him, and that we should strike\nhim; strike him the promised blow--the one from which the English power\nin France would not rise up in a thousand years, as Joan had said in her\ntrance.\n\nThe enemy had plunged into the wide plains of La Beauce--a roadless\nwaste covered with bushes, with here and there bodies of forest trees--a\nregion where an army would be hidden from view in a very little while.\nWe found the trail in the soft wet earth and followed it. It indicated\nan orderly march; no confusion, no panic.\n\nBut we had to be cautious. In such a piece of country we could walk into\nan ambush without any trouble. Therefore Joan sent bodies of cavalry\nahead under La Hire, Pothon, and other captains, to feel the way.\nSome of the other officers began to show uneasiness; this sort of\nhide-and-go-seek business troubled them and made their confidence\na little shaky. Joan divined their state of mind and cried out\nimpetuously:\n\n\"Name of God, what would you? We must smite these English, and we will.\nThey shall not escape us. Though they were hung to the clouds we would\nget them!\"\n\nBy and by we were nearing Patay; it was about a league away. Now at this\ntime our reconnaissance, feeling its way in the bush, frightened a deer,\nand it went bounding away and was out of sight in a moment. Then hardly\na minute later a dull great shout went up in the distance toward Patay.\nIt was the English soldiery. They had been shut up in a garrison so long\non moldy food that they could not keep their delight to themselves when\nthis fine fresh meat came springing into their midst. Poor creature, it\nhad wrought damage to a nation which loved it well. For the French knew\nwhere the English were now, whereas the English had no suspicion of\nwhere the French were.\n\nLa Hire halted where he was, and sent back the tidings. Joan was radiant\nwith joy. The Duke d'Alencon said to her:\n\n\"Very well, we have found them; shall we fight them?\"\n\n\"Have you good spurs, prince?\"\n\n\"Why? Will they make us run away?\"\n\n\"Nenni, en nom de Dieu! These English are ours--they are lost. They will\nfly. Who overtakes them will need good spurs. Forward--close up!\"\n\nBy the time we had come up with La Hire the English had discovered\nour presence. Talbot's force was marching in three bodies. First his\nadvance-guard; then his artillery; then his battle-corps a good way in\nthe rear. He was now out of the bush and in a fair open country. He at\nonce posted his artillery, his advance-guard, and five hundred picked\narchers along some hedges where the French would be obliged to pass,\nand hoped to hold this position till his battle-corps could come up.\nSir John Fastolfe urged the battle-corps into a gallop. Joan saw her\nopportunity and ordered La Hire to advance--which La Hire promptly did,\nlaunching his wild riders like a storm-wind, his customary fashion.\n\nThe duke and the Bastard wanted to follow, but Joan said:\n\n\"Not yet--wait.\"\n\nSo they waited--impatiently, and fidgeting in their saddles. But she was\nready--gazing straight before her, measuring, weighing, calculating--by\nshades, minutes, fractions of minutes, seconds--with all her great soul\npresent, in eye, and set of head, and noble pose of body--but patient,\nsteady, master of herself--master of herself and of the situation.\n\nAnd yonder, receding, receding, plumes lifting and falling, lifting and\nfalling, streamed the thundering charge of La Hire's godless crew, La\nHire's great figure dominating it and his sword stretched aloft like a\nflagstaff.\n\n\"Oh, Satan and his Hellions, see them go!\" Somebody muttered it in deep\nadmiration.\n\nAnd now he was closing up--closing up on Fastolfe's rushing corps.\n\nAnd now he struck it--struck it hard, and broke its order. It lifted\nthe duke and the Bastard in their saddles to see it; and they turned,\ntrembling with excitement, to Joan, saying:\n\n\"Now!\"\n\nBut she put up her hand, still gazing, weighing, calculating, and said\nagain:\n\n\"Wait--not yet.\"\n\nFastolfe's hard-driven battle-corps raged on like an avalanche toward\nthe waiting advance-guard. Suddenly these conceived the idea that it was\nflying in panic before Joan; and so in that instant it broke and swarmed\naway in a mad panic itself, with Talbot storming and cursing after it.\n\nNow was the golden time. Joan drove her spurs home and waved the advance\nwith her sword. \"Follow me!\" she cried, and bent her head to her horse's\nneck and sped away like the wind!\n\nWe went down into the confusion of that flying rout, and for three long\nhours we cut and hacked and stabbed. At last the bugles sang \"Halt!\"\n\nThe Battle of Patay was won.\n\nJoan of Arc dismounted, and stood surveying that awful field, lost in\nthought. Presently she said:\n\n\"The praise is to God. He has smitten with a heavy hand this day.\"\nAfter a little she lifted her face, and looking afar off, said, with the\nmanner of one who is thinking aloud, \"In a thousand years--a thousand\nyears--the English power in France will not rise up from this blow.\"\nShe stood again a time thinking, then she turned toward her grouped\ngenerals, and there was a glory in her face and a noble light in her\neye; and she said:\n\n\"Oh, friends, friends, do you know?--do you comprehend? France is on the\nway to be free!\"\n\n\"And had never been, but for Joan of Arc!\" said La Hire, passing before\nher and bowing low, the other following and doing likewise; he muttering\nas he went, \"I will say it though I be damned for it.\" Then battalion\nafter battalion of our victorious army swung by, wildly cheering. And\nthey shouted, \"Live forever, Maid of Orleans, live forever!\" while Joan,\nsmiling, stood at the salute with her sword.\n\nThis was not the last time I saw the Maid of Orleans on the red field\nof Patay. Toward the end of the day I came upon her where the dead and\ndying lay stretched all about in heaps and winrows; our men had mortally\nwounded an English prisoner who was too poor to pay a ransom, and from\na distance she had seen that cruel thing done; and had galloped to the\nplace and sent for a priest, and now she was holding the head of her\ndying enemy in her lap, and easing him to his death with comforting soft\nwords, just as his sister might have done; and the womanly tears running\ndown her face all the time. (1)\n\n(1) Lord Ronald Gower (Joan of Arc, p. 82) says: \"Michelet discovered\nthis story in the deposition of Joan of Arc's page, Louis de Conte, who\nwas probably an eye-witness of the scene.\" This is true. It was a part\nof the testimony of the author of these \"Personal Recollections of\nJoan of Arc,\" given by him in the Rehabilitation proceedings of 1456.\n--TRANSLATOR.\n\n\n\n\n\n31 France Begins to Live Again\n\n JOAN HAD said true: France was on the way to be free.\n\nThe war called the Hundred Years' War was very sick to-day. Sick on its\nEnglish side--for the very first time since its birth, ninety-one years\ngone by.\n\nShall we judge battles by the numbers killed and the ruin wrought? Or\nshall we not rather judge them by the results which flowed from them?\nAny one will say that a battle is only truly great or small according to\nits results. Yes, any one will grant that, for it is the truth.\n\nJudged by results, Patay's place is with the few supremely great and\nimposing battles that have been fought since the peoples of the world\nfirst resorted to arms for the settlement of their quarrels. So\njudged, it is even possible that Patay has no peer among that few just\nmentioned, but stand alone, as the supremest of historic conflicts. For\nwhen it began France lay gasping out the remnant of an exhausted life,\nher case wholly hopeless in the view of all political physicians; when\nit ended, three hours later, she was convalescent. Convalescent, and\nnothing requisite but time and ordinary nursing to bring her back to\nperfect health. The dullest physician of them all could see this, and\nthere was none to deny it.\n\nMany death-sick nations have reached convalescence through a series\nof battles, a procession of battles, a weary tale of wasting conflicts\nstretching over years, but only one has reached it in a single day and\nby a single battle. That nation is France, and that battle Patay.\n\nRemember it and be proud of it; for you are French, and it is the\nstateliest fact in the long annals of your country. There it stands,\nwith its head in the clouds! And when you grow up you will go on\npilgrimage to the field of Patay, and stand uncovered in the presence\nof--what? A monument with its head in the clouds? Yes. For all nations\nin all times have built monuments on their battle-fields to keep green\nthe memory of the perishable deed that was wrought there and of the\nperishable name of him who wrought it; and will France neglect Patay and\nJoan of Arc? Not for long. And will she build a monument scaled to their\nrank as compared with the world's other fields and heroes? Perhaps--if\nthere be room for it under the arch of the sky.\n\nBut let us look back a little, and consider certain strange and\nimpressive facts. The Hundred Years' War began in 1337. It raged on and\non, year after year and year after year; and at last England stretched\nFrance prone with that fearful blow at Crecy. But she rose and struggled\non, year after year, and at last again she went down under another\ndevastating blow--Poitiers. She gathered her crippled strength once\nmore, and the war raged on, and on, and still on, year after year,\ndecade after decade. Children were born, grew up, married, died--the war\nraged on; their children in turn grew up, married, died--the war raged\non; their children, growing, saw France struck down again; this time\nunder the incredible disaster of Agincourt--and still the war raged on,\nyear after year, and in time these children married in their turn.\n\nFrance was a wreck, a ruin, a desolation. The half of it belonged to\nEngland, with none to dispute or deny the truth; the other half belonged\nto nobody--in three months would be flying the English flag; the French\nKing was making ready to throw away his crown and flee beyond the seas.\n\nNow came the ignorant country-maid out of her remote village and\nconfronted this hoary war, this all-consuming conflagration that had\nswept the land for three generations. Then began the briefest and most\namazing campaign that is recorded in history. In seven weeks it was\nfinished. In seven weeks she hopelessly crippled that gigantic war that\nwas ninety-one years old. At Orleans she struck it a staggering blow; on\nthe field of Patay she broke its back.\n\nThink of it. Yes, one can do that; but understand it? Ah, that is\nanother matter; none will ever be able to comprehend that stupefying\nmarvel.\n\nSeven weeks--with her and there a little bloodshed. Perhaps the most of\nit, in any single fight, at Patay, where the English began six thousand\nstrong and left two thousand dead upon the field. It is said\nand believed that in three battles alone--Crecy, Poitiers, and\nAgincourt--near a hundred thousand Frenchmen fell, without counting\nthe thousand other fights of that long war. The dead of that war make a\nmournful long list--an interminable list. Of men slain in the field the\ncount goes by tens of thousands; of innocent women and children slain by\nbitter hardship and hunger it goes by that appalling term, millions.\n\nIt was an ogre, that war; an ogre that went about for near a hundred\nyears, crunching men and dripping blood from its jaws. And with her\nlittle hand that child of seventeen struck him down; and yonder he lies\nstretched on the field of Patay, and will not get up any more while this\nold world lasts.\n\n\n\n\n\n32 The Joyous News Flies Fast\n\nTHE GREAT news of Patay was carried over the whole of France in twenty\nhours, people said. I do not know as to that; but one thing is sure,\nanyway: the moment a man got it he flew shouting and glorifying God and\ntold his neighbor; and that neighbor flew with it to the next homestead;\nand so on and so on without resting the word traveled; and when a man\ngot it in the night, at what hour soever, he jumped out of his bed and\nbore the blessed message along. And the joy that went with it was like\nthe light that flows across the land when an eclipse is receding from\nthe face of the sun; and, indeed, you may say that France had lain in\nan eclipse this long time; yes, buried in a black gloom which these\nbeneficent tidings were sweeping away now before the onrush of their\nwhite splendor.\n\nThe news beat the flying enemy to Yeuville, and the town rose against\nits English masters and shut the gates against their brethren. It flew\nto Mont Pipeau, to Saint Simon, and to this, that, and the other English\nfortress; and straightway the garrison applied the torch and took to\nthe fields and the woods. A detachment of our army occupied Meung and\npillaged it.\n\nWhen we reached Orleans that tow was as much as fifty times insaner with\njoy than we had ever seen it before--which is saying much. Night had\njust fallen, and the illuminations were on so wonderful a scale that\nwe seemed to plow through seas of fire; and as to the noise--the hoarse\ncheering of the multitude, the thundering of cannon, the clash of\nbells--indeed, there was never anything like it. And everywhere rose\na new cry that burst upon us like a storm when the column entered the\ngates, and nevermore ceased: \"Welcome to Joan of Arc--way for the SAVIOR\nOF FRANCE!\" And there was another cry: \"Crecy is avenged! Poitiers is\navenged! Agincourt is avenged!--Patay shall live forever!\"\n\nMad? Why, you never could imagine it in the world. The prisoners were\nin the center of the column. When that came along and the people caught\nsight of their masterful old enemy Talbot, that had made them dance so\nlong to his grim war-music, you may imagine what the uproar was like if\nyou can, for I can not describe it. They were so glad to see him that\npresently they wanted to have him out and hang him; so Joan had him\nbrought up to the front to ride in her protection. They made a striking\npair.\n\n\n\n\n\n33 Joan's Five Great Deeds\n\nYES, ORLEANS was in a delirium of felicity. She invited the King, and\nmade sumptuous preparations to receive him, but--he didn't come. He was\nsimply a serf at that time, and La Tremouille was his master. Master and\nserf were visiting together at the master's castle of Sully-sur-Loire.\n\nAt Beaugency Joan had engaged to bring about a reconciliation\nbetween the Constable Richemont and the King. She took Richemont to\nSully-sur-Loire and made her promise good.\n\nThe great deeds of Joan of Arc are five:\n\n1. The Raising of the Siege.\n\n2. The Victory of Patay.\n\n3. The Reconciliation at Sully-sur-Loire.\n\n4. The Coronation of the King.\n\n5. The Bloodless March.\n\nWe shall come to the Bloodless March presently (and the Coronation).\nIt was the victorious long march which Joan made through the enemy's\ncountry from Gien to Rheims, and thence to the gates of Paris, capturing\nevery English town and fortress that barred the road, from the beginning\nof the journey to the end of it; and this by the mere force of her name,\nand without shedding a drop of blood--perhaps the most extraordinary\ncampaign in this regard in history--this is the most glorious of her\nmilitary exploits.\n\nThe Reconciliation was one of Joan's most important achievements. No\none else could have accomplished it; and, in fact, no one else of\nhigh consequence had any disposition to try. In brains, in scientific\nwarfare, and in statesmanship the Constable Richemont was the ablest\nman in France. His loyalty was sincere; his probity was above\nsuspicion--(and it made him sufficiently conspicuous in that trivial and\nconscienceless Court).\n\nIn restoring Richemont to France, Joan made thoroughly secure the\nsuccessful completion of the great work which she had begun. She had\nnever seen Richemont until he came to her with his little army. Was it\nnot wonderful that at a glance she should know him for the one man who\ncould finish and perfect her work and establish it in perpetuity? How\nwas it that that child was able to do this? It was because she had the\n\"seeing eye,\" as one of our knights had once said. Yes, she had that\ngreat gift--almost the highest and rarest that has been granted to man.\nNothing of an extraordinary sort was still to be done, yet the remaining\nwork could not safely be left to the King's idiots; for it would require\nwise statesmanship and long and patient though desultory hammering of\nthe enemy. Now and then, for a quarter of a century yet, there would be\na little fighting to do, and a handy man could carry that on with small\ndisturbance to the rest of the country; and little by little, and with\nprogressive certainty, the English would disappear from France.\n\nAnd that happened. Under the influence of Richemont the King became at\na later time a man--a man, a king, a brave and capable and determined\nsoldier. Within six years after Patay he was leading storming parties\nhimself; fighting in fortress ditches up to his waist in water, and\nclimbing scaling-ladders under a furious fire with a pluck that would\nhave satisfied even Joan of Arc. In time he and Richemont cleared away\nall the English; even from regions where the people had been under their\nmastership for three hundred years. In such regions wise and careful\nwork was necessary, for the English rule had been fair and kindly; and\nmen who have been ruled in that way are not always anxious for a change.\n\nWhich of Joan's five chief deeds shall we call the chiefest? It is my\nthought that each in its turn was that. This is saying that, taken as a\nwhole, they equalized each other, and neither was then greater than its\nmate.\n\nDo you perceive? Each was a stage in an ascent. To leave out one of them\nwould defeat the journey; to achieve one of them at the wrong time and\nin the wrong place would have the same effect.\n\nConsider the Coronation. As a masterpiece of diplomacy, where can\nyou find its superior in our history? Did the King suspect its\nvast importance? No. Did his ministers? No. Did the astute Bedford,\nrepresentative of the English crown? No. An advantage of incalculable\nimportance was here under the eyes of the King and of Bedford; the King\ncould get it by a bold stroke, Bedford could get it without an effort;\nbut, being ignorant of its value, neither of them put forth his hand.\nOf all the wise people in high office in France, only one knew\nthe priceless worth of this neglected prize--the untaught child of\nseventeen, Joan of Arc--and she had known it from the beginning as an\nessential detail of her mission.\n\nHow did she know it? It was simple: she was a peasant. That tells the\nwhole story. She was of the people and knew the people; those others\nmoved in a loftier sphere and knew nothing much about them. We make\nlittle account of that vague, formless, inert mass, that mighty\nunderlying force which we call \"the people\"--an epithet which carries\ncontempt with it. It is a strange attitude; for at bottom we know that\nthe throne which the people support stands, and that when that support\nis removed nothing in this world can save it.\n\nNow, then, consider this fact, and observe its importance. Whatever the\nparish priest believes his flock believes; they love him, they revere\nhim; he is their unfailing friend, their dauntless protector, their\ncomforter in sorrow, their helper in their day of need; he has their\nwhole confidence; what he tells them to do, that they will do, with a\nblind and affectionate obedience, let it cost what it may. Add these\nfacts thoughtfully together, and what is the sum? This: The parish\npriest governs the nation. What is the King, then, if the parish priest\nwithdraws his support and deny his authority? Merely a shadow and no\nKing; let him resign.\n\nDo you get that idea? Then let us proceed. A priest is consecrated to\nhis office by the awful hand of God, laid upon him by his appointed\nrepresentative on earth. That consecration is final; nothing can undo\nit, nothing can remove it. Neither the Pope nor any other power can\nstrip the priest of his office; God gave it, and it is forever sacred\nand secure. The dull parish knows all this. To priest and parish,\nwhatsoever is anointed of God bears an office whose authority can\nno longer be disputed or assailed. To the parish priest, and to his\nsubjects the nation, an uncrowned king is a similitude of a person who\nhas been named for holy orders but has not been consecrated; he has no\noffice, he has not been ordained, another may be appointed to his place.\nIn a word, an uncrowned king is a doubtful king; but if God appoint him\nand His servant the Bishop anoint him, the doubt is annihilated; the\npriest and the parish are his loyal subjects straightway, and while he\nlives they will recognize no king but him.\n\nTo Joan of Arc, the peasant-girl, Charles VII. was no King until he was\ncrowned; to her he was only the Dauphin; that is to say, the heir. If I\nhave ever made her call him King, it was a mistake; she called him the\nDauphin, and nothing else until after the Coronation. It shows you as in\na mirror--for Joan was a mirror in which the lowly hosts of France were\nclearly reflected--that to all that vast underlying force called \"the\npeople,\" he was no King but only Dauphin before his crowning, and was\nindisputably and irrevocably King after it.\n\nNow you understand what a colossal move on the political chess-board the\nCoronation was. Bedford realized this by and by, and tried to patch up\nhis mistake by crowning his King; but what good could that do? None in\nthe world.\n\nSpeaking of chess, Joan's great acts may be likened to that game. Each\nmove was made in its proper order, and it as great and effective because\nit was made in its proper order and not out of it. Each, at the time\nmade, seemed the greatest move; but the final result made them all\nrecognizable as equally essential and equally important. This is the\ngame, as played:\n\n1. Joan moves to Orleans and Patay--check.\n\n2. Then moves the Reconciliation--but does not proclaim check, it being\na move for position, and to take effect later.\n\n3. Next she moves the Coronation--check.\n\n4. Next, the Bloodless March--check.\n\n5. Final move (after her death), the reconciled Constable Richemont to\nthe French King's elbow--checkmate.\n\n\n\n\n\n34 The Jests of the Burgundians\n\nTHE CAMPAIGN of the Loire had as good as opened the road to Rheims.\nThere was no sufficient reason now why the Coronation should not take\nplace. The Coronation would complete the mission which Joan had received\nfrom heaven, and then she would be forever done with war, and would fly\nhome to her mother and her sheep, and never stir from the hearthstone\nand happiness any more. That was her dream; and she could not rest, she\nwas so impatient to see it fulfilled. She became so possessed with this\nmatter that I began to lose faith in her two prophecies of her early\ndeath--and, of course, when I found that faith wavering I encouraged it\nto waver all the more.\n\nThe King was afraid to start to Rheims, because the road was mile-posted\nwith English fortresses, so to speak. Joan held them in light esteem and\nnot things to be afraid of in the existing modified condition of English\nconfidence.\n\nAnd she was right. As it turned out, the march to Rheims was nothing but\na holiday excursion: Joan did not even take any artillery along, she was\nso sure it would not be necessary. We marched from Gien twelve thousand\nstrong. This was the 29th of June. The Maid rode by the side of the\nKing; on his other side was the Duke d'Alencon. After the duke followed\nthree other princes of the blood. After these followed the Bastard of\nOrleans, the Marshal de Boussac, and the Admiral of France. After these\ncame La Hire, Saintrailles, Tremouille, and a long procession of knights\nand nobles.\n\nWe rested three days before Auxerre. The city provisioned the army, and\na deputation waited upon the King, but we did not enter the place.\n\nSaint-Florentin opened its gates to the King.\n\nOn the 4th of July we reached Saint-Fal, and yonder lay Troyes before\nus--a town which had a burning interest for us boys; for we remembered\nhow seven years before, in the pastures of Domremy, the Sunflower came\nwith his black flag and brought us the shameful news of the Treaty of\nTroyes--that treaty which gave France to England, and a daughter of our\nroyal line in marriage to the Butcher of Agincourt. That poor town was\nnot to blame, of course; yet we flushed hot with that old memory, and\nhoped there would be a misunderstanding here, for we dearly wanted to\nstorm the place and burn it. It was powerfully garrisoned by English and\nBurgundian soldiery, and was expecting reinforcements from Paris. Before\nnight we camped before its gates and made rough work with a sortie which\nmarched out against us.\n\nJoan summoned Troyes to surrender. Its commandant, seeing that she had\nno artillery, scoffed at the idea, and sent her a grossly insulting\nreply. Five days we consulted and negotiated. No result. The King was\nabout to turn back now and give up. He was afraid to go on, leaving this\nstrong place in his rear. Then La Hire put in a word, with a slap in it\nfor some of his Majesty's advisers:\n\n\"The Maid of Orleans undertook this expedition of her own motion; and it\nis my mind that it is her judgment that should be followed here, and not\nthat of any other, let him be of whatsoever breed and standing he may.\"\n\nThere was wisdom and righteousness in that. So the King sent for the\nMaid, and asked her how she thought the prospect looked. She said,\nwithout any tone of doubt or question in her voice:\n\n\"In three days' time the place is ours.\"\n\nThe smug Chancellor put in a word now:\n\n\"If we were sure of it we would wait her six days.\"\n\n\"Six days, forsooth! Name of God, man, we will enter the gates\nto-morrow!\"\n\nThen she mounted, and rode her lines, crying out:\n\n\"Make preparation--to your work, friends, to your work! We assault at\ndawn!\"\n\nShe worked hard that night, slaving away with her own hands like a\ncommon soldier. She ordered fascines and fagots to be prepared and\nthrown into the fosse, thereby to bridge it; and in this rough labor she\ntook a man's share.\n\nAt dawn she took her place at the head of the storming force and the\nbugles blew the assault. At that moment a flag of truce was flung to the\nbreeze from the walls, and Troyes surrendered without firing a shot.\n\nThe next day the King with Joan at his side and the Paladin bearing her\nbanner entered the town in state at the head of the army. And a goodly\narmy it was now, for it had been growing ever bigger and bigger from the\nfirst.\n\nAnd now a curious thing happened. By the terms of the treaty made with\nthe town the garrison of English and Burgundian soldiery were to be\nallowed to carry away their \"goods\" with them. This was well, for\notherwise how would they buy the wherewithal to live? Very well; these\npeople were all to go out by the one gate, and at the time set for them\nto depart we young fellows went to that gate, along with the Dwarf, to\nsee the march-out. Presently here they came in an interminable file, the\nfoot-soldiers in the lead. As they approached one could see that each\nbore a burden of a bulk and weight to sorely tax his strength; and we\nsaid among ourselves, truly these folk are well off for poor common\nsoldiers. When they were come nearer, what do you think? Every rascal\nof them had a French prisoner on his back! They were carrying away their\n\"goods,\" you see--their property--strictly according to the permission\ngranted by the treaty.\n\nNow think how clever that was, how ingenious. What could a body say?\nwhat could a body do? For certainly these people were within their\nright. These prisoners were property; nobody could deny that. My dears,\nif those had been English captives, conceive of the richness of that\nbooty! For English prisoners had been scarce and precious for a hundred\nyears; whereas it was a different matter with French prisoners. They had\nbeen over-abundant for a century. The possessor of a French prisoner\ndid not hold him long for ransom, as a rule, but presently killed him\nto save the cost of his keep. This shows you how small was the value of\nsuch a possession in those times. When we took Troyes a calf was worth\nthirty francs, a sheep sixteen, a French prisoner eight. It was an\nenormous price for those other animals--a price which naturally seems\nincredible to you. It was the war, you see. It worked two ways: it made\nmeat dear and prisoners cheap.\n\nWell, here were these poor Frenchmen being carried off. What could we\ndo? Very little of a permanent sort, but we did what we could. We sent\na messenger flying to Joan, and we and the French guards halted the\nprocession for a parley--to gain time, you see. A big Burgundian lost\nhis temper and swore a great oath that none should stop him; he would\ngo, and would take his prisoner with him. But we blocked him off, and\nhe saw that he was mistaken about going--he couldn't do it. He exploded\ninto the maddest cursings and revilings, then, and, unlashing his\nprisoner from his back, stood him up, all bound and helpless; then drew\nhis knife, and said to us with a light of sarcasting triumph in his eye:\n\n\"I may not carry him away, you say--yet he is mine, none will dispute\nit. Since I may not convey him hence, this property of mine, there is\nanother way. Yes, I can kill him; not even the dullest among you will\nquestion that right. Ah, you had not thought of that--vermin!\"\n\nThat poor starved fellow begged us with his piteous eyes to save him;\nthen spoke, and said he had a wife and little children at home. Think\nhow it wrung our heartstrings. But what could we do? The Burgundian was\nwithin his right. We could only beg and plead for the prisoner. Which we\ndid. And the Burgundian enjoyed it. He stayed his hand to hear more of\nit, and laugh at it. That stung. Then the Dwarf said:\n\n\"Prithee, young sirs, let me beguile him; for when a matter requiring\npermission is to the fore, I have indeed a gift in that sort, as any\nwill tell you that know me well. You smile; and that is punishment for\nmy vanity; and fairly earned, I grant you. Still, if I may toy a little,\njust a little--\" saying which he stepped to the Burgundian and began a\nfair soft speech, all of goodly and gentle tenor; and in the midst he\nmentioned the Maid; and was going on to say how she out of her good\nheart would prize and praise this compassionate deed which he was about\nto-- It was as far as he got. The Burgundian burst into his smooth\noration with an insult leveled at Joan of Arc. We sprang forward, but\nthe Dwarf, his face all livid, brushed us aside and said, in a most\ngrave and earnest way:\n\n\"I crave your patience. Am not I her guard of honor? This is my affair.\"\n\nAnd saying this he suddenly shot his right hand out and gripped the\ngreat Burgundian by the throat, and so held him upright on his feet.\n\"You have insulted the Maid,\" he said; \"and the Maid is France. The\ntongue that does that earns a long furlough.\"\n\nOne heard the muffled cracking of bones. The Burgundian's eyes began to\nprotrude from their sockets and stare with a leaden dullness at vacancy.\nThe color deepened in his face and became an opaque purple. His hands\nhung down limp, his body collapsed with a shiver, every muscle relaxed\nits tension and ceased from its function. The Dwarf took away his hand\nand the column of inert mortality sank mushily to the ground.\n\nWe struck the bonds from the prisoner and told him he was free. His\ncrawling humbleness changed to frantic joy in a moment, and his ghastly\nfear to a childish rage. He flew at that dead corpse and kicked it,\nspat in its face, danced upon it, crammed mud into its mouth, laughing,\njeering, cursing, and volleying forth indecencies and bestialities like\na drunken fiend. It was a thing to be expected; soldiering makes few\nsaints. Many of the onlookers laughed, others were indifferent, none\nwas surprised. But presently in his mad caperings the freed man capered\nwithin reach of the waiting file, and another Burgundian promptly\nslipped a knife through his neck, and down he went with a death-shriek,\nhis brilliant artery blood spurting ten feet as straight and bright as a\nray of light. There was a great burst of jolly laughter all around from\nfriend and foe alike; and thus closed one of the pleasantest incidents\nof my checkered military life.\n\nAnd now came Joan hurrying, and deeply troubled. She considered the\nclaim of the garrison, then said:\n\n\"You have right upon your side. It is plain. It was a careless word to\nput in the treaty, and covers too much. But ye may not take these poor\nmen away. They are French, and I will not have it. The King shall ransom\nthem, every one. Wait till I send you word from him; and hurt no hair of\ntheir heads; for I tell you, I who speak, that that would cost you very\ndear.\"\n\nThat settled it. The prisoners were safe for one while, anyway. Then she\nrode back eagerly and required that thing of the King, and would listen\nto no paltering and no excuses. So the King told her to have her way,\nand she rode straight back and bought the captives free in his name and\nlet them go.\n\n\n\n\n\n35 The Heir of France is Crowned\n\nIT WAS here hat we saw again the Grand Master of the King's Household,\nin whose castle Joan was guest when she tarried at Chinon in those\nfirst days of her coming out of her own country. She made him Bailiff of\nTroyes now by the King's permission.\n\nAnd now we marched again; Chalons surrendered to us; and there by\nChalons in a talk, Joan, being asked if she had no fears for the future,\nsaid yes, one--treachery. Who would believe it? who could dream it? And\nyet in a sense it was prophecy. Truly, man is a pitiful animal.\n\nWe marched, marched, kept on marching; and at last, on the 16th of July,\nwe came in sight of our goal, and saw the great cathedraled towers of\nRheims rise out of the distance! Huzza after huzza swept the army from\nvan to rear; and as for Joan of Arc, there where she sat her horse\ngazing, clothed all in white armor, dreamy, beautiful, and in her face\na deep, deep joy, a joy not of earth, oh, she was not flesh, she was a\nspirit! Her sublime mission was closing--closing in flawless triumph.\nTo-morrow she could say, \"It is finished--let me go free.\"\n\nWe camped, and the hurry and rush and turmoil of the grand preparations\nbegan. The Archbishop and a great deputation arrived; and after these\ncame flock after flock, crowd after crowd, of citizens and country-folk,\nhurrahing, in, with banners and music, and flowed over the camp, one\nrejoicing inundation after another, everybody drunk with happiness. And\nall night long Rheims was hard at work, hammering away, decorating\nthe town, building triumphal arches and clothing the ancient cathedral\nwithin and without in a glory of opulent splendors.\n\nWe moved betimes in the morning; the coronation ceremonies would begin\nat nine and last five hours. We were aware that the garrison of English\nand Burgundian soldiers had given up all thought of resisting the Maid,\nand that we should find the gates standing hospitably open and the whole\ncity ready to welcome us with enthusiasm.\n\nIt was a delicious morning, brilliant with sunshine, but cool and\nfresh and inspiring. The army was in great form, and fine to see, as\nit uncoiled from its lair fold by fold, and stretched away on the final\nmarch of the peaceful Coronation Campaign.\n\nJoan, on her black horse, with the Lieutenant-General and the personal\nstaff grouped about her, took post for a final review and a good-by;\nfor she was not expecting to ever be a soldier again, or ever serve with\nthese or any other soldiers any more after this day. The army knew this,\nand believed it was looking for the last time upon the girlish face of\nits invincible little Chief, its pet, its pride, its darling, whom it\nhad ennobled in its private heart with nobilities of its own creation,\ncall her \"Daughter of God,\" \"Savior of France,\" \"Victory's Sweetheart,\"\n\"The Page of Christ,\" together with still softer titles which were\nsimply naive and frank endearments such as men are used to confer upon\nchildren whom they love. And so one saw a new thing now; a thing bred of\nthe emotion that was present there on both sides. Always before, in the\nmarch-past, the battalions had gone swinging by in a storm of cheers,\nheads up and eyes flashing, the drums rolling, the bands braying paens\nof victory; but now there was nothing of that. But for one impressive\nsound, one could have closed his eyes and imagined himself in a world\nof the dead. That one sound was all that visited the ear in the summer\nstillness--just that one sound--the muffled tread of the marching host.\nAs the serried masses drifted by, the men put their right hands up to\ntheir temples, palms to the front, in military salute, turning their\neyes upon Joan's face in mute God-bless-you and farewell, and keeping\nthem there while they could. They still kept their hands up in reverent\nsalute many steps after they had passed by. Every time Joan put her\nhandkerchief to her eyes you could see a little quiver of emotion\ncrinkle along the faces of the files.\n\nThe march-past after a victory is a thing to drive the heart mad with\njubilation; but this one was a thing to break it.\n\nWe rode now to the King's lodgings, which was the Archbishop's country\npalace; and he was presently ready, and we galloped off and took\nposition at the head of the army. By this time the country-people were\narriving in multitudes from every direction and massing themselves on\nboth sides of the road to get sight of Joan--just as had been done every\nday since our first day's march began. Our march now lay through the\ngrassy plain, and those peasants made a dividing double border for that\nplain. They stretched right down through it, a broad belt of bright\ncolors on each side of the road; for every peasant girl and woman in it\nhad a white jacket on her body and a crimson skirt on the rest of her.\nEndless borders made of poppies and lilies stretching away in front of\nus--that is what it looked like. And that is the kind of lane we had\nbeen marching through all these days. Not a lane between multitudinous\nflowers standing upright on their stems--no, these flowers were always\nkneeling; kneeling, these human flowers, with their hands and faces\nlifted toward Joan of Arc, and the grateful tears streaming down. And\nall along, those closest to the road hugged her feet and kissed them\nand laid their wet cheeks fondly against them. I never, during all those\ndays, saw any of either sex stand while she passed, nor any man keep his\nhead covered. Afterward in the Great Trial these touching scenes were\nused as a weapon against her. She had been made an object of adoration\nby the people, and this was proof that she was a heretic--so claimed\nthat unjust court.\n\nAs we drew near the city the curving long sweep of ramparts and towers\nwas gay with fluttering flags and black with masses of people; and\nall the air was vibrant with the crash of artillery and gloomed with\ndrifting clouds of smoke. We entered the gates in state and moved in\nprocession through the city, with all the guilds and industries in\nholiday costume marching in our rear with their banners; and all the\nroute was hedged with a huzzaing crush of people, and all the windows\nwere full and all the roofs; and from the balconies hung costly stuffs\nof rich colors; and the waving of handkerchiefs, seen in perspective\nthrough a long vista, was like a snowstorm.\n\nJoan's name had been introduced into the prayers of the Church--an honor\ntheretofore restricted to royalty. But she had a dearer honor and an\nhonor more to be proud of, from a humbler source: the common people had\nhad leaden medals struck which bore her effigy and her escutcheon, and\nthese they wore as charms. One saw them everywhere.\n\nFrom the Archbishop's Palace, where we halted, and where the King and\nJoan were to lodge, the King sent to the Abbey Church of St. Remi,\nwhich was over toward the gate by which we had entered the city, for the\nSainte Ampoule, or flask of holy oil. This oil was not earthly oil; it\nwas made in heaven; the flask also. The flask, with the oil in it, was\nbrought down from heaven by a dove. It was sent down to St. Remi just as\nhe was going to baptize King Clovis, who had become a Christian. I know\nthis to be true. I had known it long before; for Pere Fronte told me in\nDomremy. I cannot tell you how strange and awful it made me feel when\nI saw that flask and knew I was looking with my own eyes upon a thing\nwhich had actually been in heaven, a thing which had been seen by\nangels, perhaps; and by God Himself of a certainty, for He sent it. And\nI was looking upon it--I. At one time I could have touched it. But I\nwas afraid; for I could not know but that God had touched it. It is most\nprobable that He had.\n\nFrom this flask Clovis had been anointed; and from it all the kings of\nFrance had been anointed since. Yes, ever since the time of Clovis, and\nthat was nine hundred years. And so, as I have said, that flask of holy\noil was sent for, while we waited. A coronation without that would not\nhave been a coronation at all, in my belief.\n\nNow in order to get the flask, a most ancient ceremonial had to be gone\nthrough with; otherwise the Abby of St. Remi hereditary guardian in\nperpetuity of the oil, would not deliver it. So, in accordance with\ncustom, the King deputed five great nobles to ride in solemn state and\nrichly armed and accoutered, they and their steeds, to the Abbey Church\nas a guard of honor to the Archbishop of Rheims and his canons, who were\nto bear the King's demand for the oil. When the five great lords were\nready to start, they knelt in a row and put up their mailed hands before\ntheir faces, palm joined to palm, and swore upon their lives to conduct\nthe sacred vessel safely, and safely restore it again to the Church\nof St. Remi after the anointing of the King. The Archbishop and his\nsubordinates, thus nobly escorted, took their way to St. Remi. The\nArchbishop was in grand costume, with his miter on his head and his\ncross in his hand. At the door of St. Remi they halted and formed, to\nreceive the holy vial. Soon one heard the deep tones of the organ and of\nchanting men; then one saw a long file of lights approaching through the\ndim church. And so came the Abbot, in his sacerdotal panoply, bearing\nthe vial, with his people following after. He delivered it, with solemn\nceremonies, to the Archbishop; then the march back began, and it was\nmost impressive; for it moved, the whole way, between two multitudes of\nmen and women who lay flat upon their faces and prayed in dumb silence\nand in dread while that awful thing went by that had been in heaven.\n\nThis August company arrived at the great west door of the cathedral;\nand as the Archbishop entered a noble anthem rose and filled the vast\nbuilding. The cathedral was packed with people--people in thousands.\nOnly a wide space down the center had been kept free. Down this space\nwalked the Archbishop and his canons, and after them followed those five\nstately figures in splendid harness, each bearing his feudal banner--and\nriding!\n\nOh, that was a magnificent thing to see. Riding down the cavernous\nvastness of the building through the rich lights streaming in long rays\nfrom the pictured windows--oh, there was never anything so grand!\n\nThey rode clear to the choir--as much as four hundred feet from the\ndoor, it was said. Then the Archbishop dismissed them, and they made\ndeep obeisance till their plumes touched their horses' necks, then made\nthose proud prancing and mincing and dancing creatures go backward all\nthe way to the door--which was pretty to see, and graceful; then they\nstood them on their hind-feet and spun them around and plunged away and\ndisappeared.\n\nFor some minutes there was a deep hush, a waiting pause; a silence so\nprofound that it was as if all those packed thousands there were steeped\nin dreamless slumber--why, you could even notice the faintest sounds,\nlike the drowsy buzzing of insects; then came a mighty flood of rich\nstrains from four hundred silver trumpets, and then, framed in the\npointed archway of the great west door, appeared Joan and the King. They\nadvanced slowly, side by side, through a tempest of welcome--explosion\nafter explosion of cheers and cries, mingled with the deep thunders of\nthe organ and rolling tides of triumphant song from chanting choirs.\nBehind Joan and the King came the Paladin and the Banner displayed; and\na majestic figure he was, and most proud and lofty in his bearing, for\nhe knew that the people were marking him and taking note of the gorgeous\nstate dress which covered his armor.\n\nAt his side was the Sire d'Albret, proxy for the Constable of France,\nbearing the Sword of State.\n\nAfter these, in order of rank, came a body royally attired representing\nthe lay peers of France; it consisted of three princes of the blood, and\nLa Tremouille and the young De Laval brothers.\n\nThese were followed by the representatives of the ecclesiastical\npeers--the Archbishop of Rheims, and the Bishops of Laon, Chalons,\nOrleans, and one other.\n\nBehind these came the Grand Staff, all our great generals and famous\nnames, and everybody was eager to get a sight of them. Through all the\ndin one could hear shouts all along that told you where two of them\nwere: \"Live the Bastard of Orleans!\" \"Satan La Hire forever!\"\n\nThe August procession reached its appointed place in time, and the\nsolemnities of the Coronation began. They were long and imposing--with\nprayers, and anthems, and sermons, and everything that is right for such\noccasions; and Joan was at the King's side all these hours, with her\nStandard in her hand. But at last came the grand act: the King took\nthe oath, he was anointed with the sacred oil; a splendid personage,\nfollowed by train-bearers and other attendants, approached, bearing the\nCrown of France upon a cushion, and kneeling offered it. The King seemed\nto hesitate--in fact, did hesitate; for he put out his hand and then\nstopped with it there in the air over the crown, the fingers in the\nattitude of taking hold of it. But that was for only a moment--though\na moment is a notable something when it stops the heartbeat of twenty\nthousand people and makes them catch their breath. Yes, only a moment;\nthen he caught Joan's eye, and she gave him a look with all the joy of\nher thankful great soul in it; then he smiled, and took the Crown of\nFrance in his hand, and right finely and right royally lifted it up and\nset it upon his head.\n\nThen what a crash there was! All about us cries and cheers, and the\nchanting of the choirs and groaning of the organ; and outside the\nclamoring of the bells and the booming of the cannon. The fantastic\ndream, the incredible dream, the impossible dream of the peasant-child\nstood fulfilled; the English power was broken, the Heir of France was\ncrowned.\n\nShe was like one transfigured, so divine was the joy that shone in her\nface as she sank to her knees at the King's feet and looked up at him\nthrough her tears. Her lips were quivering, and her words came soft and\nlow and broken:\n\n\"Now, O gentle King, is the pleasure of God accomplished according to\nHis command that you should come to Rheims and receive the crown that\nbelongeth of right to you, and unto none other. My work which was given\nme to do is finished; give me your peace, and let me go back to my\nmother, who is poor and old, and has need of me.\"\n\nThe King raised her up, and there before all that host he praised her\ngreat deeds in most noble terms; and there he confirmed her nobility and\ntitles, making her the equal of a count in rank, and also appointed a\nhousehold and officers for her according to her dignity; and then he\nsaid:\n\n\"You have saved the crown. Speak--require--demand; and whatsoever grace\nyou ask it shall be granted, though it make the kingdom poor to meet\nit.\"\n\nNow that was fine, that was royal. Joan was on her knees again\nstraightway, and said:\n\n\"Then, O gentle King, if out of your compassion you will speak the word,\nI pray you give commandment that my village, poor and hard pressed by\nreason of war, may have its taxes remitted.\"\n\n\"It is so commanded. Say on.\"\n\n\"That is all.\"\n\n\"All? Nothing but that?\"\n\n\"It is all. I have no other desire.\"\n\n\"But that is nothing--less than nothing. Ask--do not be afraid.\"\n\n\"Indeed, I cannot, gentle King. Do not press me. I will not have aught\nelse, but only this alone.\"\n\nThe King seemed nonplussed, and stood still a moment, as if trying to\ncomprehend and realize the full stature of this strange unselfishness.\nThen he raised his head and said:\n\n\"Who has won a kingdom and crowned its King; and all she asks and all\nshe will take is this poor grace--and even this is for others, not for\nherself. And it is well; her act being proportioned to the dignity of\none who carries in her head and heart riches which outvalue any that\nany King could add, though he gave his all. She shall have her way. Now,\ntherefore, it is decreed that from this day forth Domremy, natal village\nof Joan of Arc, Deliverer of France, called the Maid of Orleans, is\nfreed from all taxation forever.\" Whereat the silver horns blew a\njubilant blast.\n\nThere, you see, she had had a vision of this very scene the time she was\nin a trance in the pastures of Domremy and we asked her to name to boon\nshe would demand of the King if he should ever chance to tell her she\nmight claim one. But whether she had the vision or not, this act showed\nthat after all the dizzy grandeurs that had come upon her, she was still\nthe same simple, unselfish creature that she was that day.\n\nYes, Charles VII. remitted those taxes \"forever.\" Often the gratitude of\nkings and nations fades and their promises are forgotten or deliberately\nviolated; but you, who are children of France, should remember with\npride that France has kept this one faithfully. Sixty-three years have\ngone by since that day. The taxes of the region wherein Domremy lies\nhave been collected sixty-three times since then, and all the villages\nof that region have paid except that one--Domremy. The tax-gatherer\nnever visits Domremy. Domremy has long ago forgotten what that dread\nsorrow-sowing apparition is like. Sixty-three tax-books have been filed\nmeantime, and they lie yonder with the other public records, and any\nmay see them that desire it. At the top of every page in the sixty-three\nbooks stands the name of a village, and below that name its weary burden\nof taxation is figured out and displayed; in the case of all save one.\nIt is true, just as I tell you. In each of the sixty-three books there\nis a page headed \"Domremi,\" but under that name not a figure appears.\nWhere the figures should be, there are three words written; and the same\nwords have been written every year for all these years; yes, it is a\nblank page, with always those grateful words lettered across the face of\nit--a touching memorial. Thus:\n\n  DOMREMI | | | | RIEN--LA PUCELLE\n\n \"NOTHING--THE MAID OF ORLEANS.\"\n\nHow brief it is; yet how much it says! It is the nation speaking. You\nhave the spectacle of that unsentimental thing, a Government, making\nreverence to that name and saying to its agent, \"Uncover, and pass on;\nit is France that commands.\" Yes, the promise has been kept; it will be\nkept always; \"forever\" was the King's word. (1) At two o'clock in the\nafternoon the ceremonies of the Coronation came at last to an end; then\nthe procession formed once more, with Joan and the King at its head,\nand took up its solemn march through the midst of the church, all\ninstruments and all people making such clamor of rejoicing noises as\nwas, indeed, a marvel to hear. An so ended the third of the great days\nof Joan's life. And how close together they stand--May 8th, June 18th,\nJuly 17th!\n\n(1) IT was faithfully kept during three hundred and sixty years and\nmore; then the over-confident octogenarian's prophecy failed. During the\ntumult of the French Revolution the promise was forgotten and the grace\nwithdrawn. It has remained in disuse ever since. Joan never asked to be\nremembered, but France has remembered her with an inextinguishable love\nand reverence; Joan never asked for a statue, but France has lavished\nthem upon her; Joan never asked for a church for Domremy, but France\nis building one; Joan never asked for saintship, but even that is\nimpending. Everything which Joan of Arc did not ask for has been given\nher, and with a noble profusion; but the one humble little thing which\nshe did ask for and get has been taken away from her. There is something\ninfinitely pathetic about this. France owes Domremy a hundred years of\ntaxes, and could hardly find a citizen within her borders who would vote\nagainst the payment of the debt. -- NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR.\n\n\n\n\n\n36 Joan Hears News from Home\n\nWE MOUNTED and rode, a spectacle to remember, a most noble display of\nrich vestments and nodding plumes, and as we moved between the banked\nmultitudes they sank down all along abreast of us as we advanced, like\ngrain before the reaper, and kneeling hailed with a rousing welcome the\nconsecrated King and his companion the Deliverer of France. But by and\nby when we had paraded about the chief parts of the city and were come\nnear to the end of our course, we being now approaching the Archbishop's\npalace, one saw on the right, hard by the inn that is called the Zebra,\na strange thing--two men not kneeling but standing! Standing in the\nfront rank of the kneelers; unconscious, transfixed, staring. Yes, and\nclothed in the coarse garb of the peasantry, these two. Two halberdiers\nsprang at them in a fury to teach them better manners; but just as they\nseized them Joan cried out \"Forbear!\" and slid from her saddle and\nflung her arms about one of those peasants, calling him by all manner of\nendearing names, and sobbing. For it was her father; and the other was\nher uncle, Laxart.\n\nThe news flew everywhere, and shouts of welcome were raised, and in just\none little moment those two despised and unknown plebeians were become\nfamous and popular and envied, and everybody was in a fever to get sight\nof them and be able to say, all their lives long, that they had seen the\nfather of Joan of Arc and the brother of her mother. How easy it was for\nher to do miracles like to this! She was like the sun; on whatsoever dim\nand humble object her rays fell, that thing was straightway drowned in\nglory.\n\nAll graciously the King said:\n\n\"Bring them to me.\"\n\nAnd she brought them; she radiant with happiness and affection, they\ntrembling and scared, with their caps in their shaking hands; and there\nbefore all the world the King gave them his hand to kiss, while the\npeople gazed in envy and admiration; and he said to old D'Arc:\n\n\"Give God thanks for that you are father to this child, this dispenser\nof immortalities. You who bear a name that will still live in the mouths\nof men when all the race of kings has been forgotten, it is not meet\nthat you bare your head before the fleeting fames and dignities of a\nday--cover yourself!\" And truly he looked right fine and princely when\nhe said that. Then he gave order that the Bailly of Rheims be brought;\nand when he was come, and stood bent low and bare, the King said to him,\n\"These two are guests of France;\" and bade him use them hospitably.\n\nI may as well say now as later, that Papa D'Arc and Laxart were stopping\nin that little Zebra inn, and that there they remained. Finer quarters\nwere offered them by the Bailly, also public distinctions and brave\nentertainment; but they were frightened at these projects, they being\nonly humble and ignorant peasants; so they begged off, and had peace.\nThey could not have enjoyed such things. Poor souls, they did not even\nknow what to do with their hands, and it took all their attention to\nkeep from treading on them. The Bailly did the best he could in the\ncircumstances. He made the innkeeper place a whole floor at their\ndisposal, and told him to provide everything they might desire, and\ncharge all to the city. Also the Bailly gave them a horse apiece and\nfurnishings; which so overwhelmed them with pride and delight and\nastonishment that they couldn't speak a word; for in their lives they\nhad never dreamed of wealth like this, and could not believe, at first,\nthat the horses were real and would not dissolve to a mist and blow\naway. They could not unglue their minds from those grandeurs, and were\nalways wrenching the conversation out of its groove and dragging the\nmatter of animals into it, so that they could say \"my horse\" here, and\n\"my horse\" there and yonder and all around, and taste the words and lick\ntheir chops over them, and spread their legs and hitch their thumbs in\ntheir armpits, and feel as the good God feels when He looks out on His\nfleets of constellations plowing the awful deeps of space and reflects\nwith satisfaction that they are His--all His. Well, they were the\nhappiest old children one ever saw, and the simplest.\n\nThe city gave a grand banquet to the King and Joan in mid-afternoon, and\nto the Court and the Grand Staff; and about the middle of it Pere D'Arc\nand Laxart were sent for, but would not venture until it was promised\nthat they might sit in a gallery and be all by themselves and see all\nthat was to be seen and yet be unmolested. And so they sat there and\nlooked down upon the splendid spectacle, and were moved till the tears\nran down their cheeks to see the unbelievable honors that were paid to\ntheir small darling, and how naively serene and unafraid she sat there\nwith those consuming glories beating upon her.\n\nBut at last her serenity was broken up. Yes, it stood the strain of\nthe King's gracious speech; and of D'Alencon's praiseful words, and the\nBastard's; and even La Hire's thunder-blast, which took the place by\nstorm; but at last, as I have said, they brought a force to bear which\nwas too strong for her. For at the close the King put up his hand to\ncommand silence, and so waited, with his hand up, till every sound was\ndead and it was as if one could almost the stillness, so profound it\nwas. Then out of some remote corner of that vast place there rose\na plaintive voice, and in tones most tender and sweet and rich came\nfloating through that enchanted hush our poor old simple song \"L'Arbre\nFee Bourlemont!\" and then Joan broke down and put her face in her\nhands and cried. Yes, you see, all in a moment the pomps and grandeurs\ndissolved away and she was a little child again herding her sheep with\nthe tranquil pastures stretched about her, and war and wounds and blood\nand death and the mad frenzy and turmoil of battle a dream. Ah, that\nshows you the power of music, that magician of magicians, who lifts his\nwand and says his mysterious word and all things real pass away and the\nphantoms of your mind walk before you clothed in flesh.\n\nThat was the King's invention, that sweet and dear surprise. Indeed,\nhe had fine things hidden away in his nature, though one seldom got a\nglimpse of them, with that scheming Tremouille and those others always\nstanding in the light, and he so indolently content to save himself fuss\nand argument and let them have their way.\n\nAt the fall of night we the Domremy contingent of the personal staff\nwere with the father and uncle at the inn, in their private parlor,\nbrewing generous drinks and breaking ground for a homely talk about\nDomremy and the neighbors, when a large parcel arrived from Joan to be\nkept till she came; and soon she came herself and sent her guard away,\nsaying she would take one of her father's rooms and sleep under his\nroof, and so be at home again. We of the staff rose and stood, as was\nmeet, until she made us sit. Then she turned and saw that the two\nold men had gotten up too, and were standing in an embarrassed and\nunmilitary way; which made her want to laugh, but she kept it in, as\nnot wishing to hurt them; and got them to their seats and snuggled down\nbetween them, and took a hand of each of them upon her knees and nestled\nher own hands in them, and said:\n\n\"Now we will nave no more ceremony, but be kin and playmates as in other\ntimes; for I am done with the great wars now, and you two will take\nme home with you, and I shall see--\" She stopped, and for a moment her\nhappy face sobered, as if a doubt or a presentiment had flitted through\nher mind; then it cleared again, and she said, with a passionate\nyearning, \"Oh, if the day were but come and we could start!\"\n\nThe old father was surprised, and said:\n\n\"Why, child, are you in earnest? Would you leave doing these wonders\nthat make you to be praised by everybody while there is still so much\nglory to be won; and would you go out from this grand comradeship with\nprinces and generals to be a drudging villager again and a nobody? It is\nnot rational.\"\n\n\"No,\" said the uncle, Laxart, \"it is amazing to hear, and indeed not\nunderstandable. It is a stranger thing to hear her say she will stop\nthe soldiering that it was to hear her say she would begin it; and I who\nspeak to you can say in all truth that that was the strangest word that\never I had heard till this day and hour. I would it could be explained.\"\n\n\"It is not difficult,\" said Joan. \"I was not ever fond of wounds and\nsuffering, nor fitted by my nature to inflict them; and quarrelings\ndid always distress me, and noise and tumult were against my liking, my\ndisposition being toward peace and quietness, and love for all things\nthat have life; and being made like this, how could I bear to think of\nwars and blood, and the pain that goes with them, and the sorrow\nand mourning that follow after? But by his angels God laid His great\ncommands upon me, and could I disobey? I did as I was bid. Did He\ncommand me to do many things? No; only two: to raise the siege of\nOrleans, and crown the King at Rheims. The task is finished, and I am\nfree. Has ever a poor soldier fallen in my sight, whether friend or foe,\nand I not felt the pain in my own body, and the grief of his home-mates\nin my own heart? No, not one; and, oh, it is such bliss to know that my\nrelease is won, and that I shall not any more see these cruel things or\nsuffer these tortures of the mind again! Then why should I not go to\nmy village and be as I was before? It is heaven! and ye wonder that I\ndesire it. Ah, ye are men--just men! My mother would understand.\"\n\nThey didn't quite know what to say; so they sat still awhile, looking\npretty vacant. Then old D'Arc said:\n\n\"Yes, your mother--that is true. I never saw such a woman. She worries,\nand worries, and worries; and wakes nights, and lies so, thinking--that\nis, worrying; worrying about you. And when the night storms go raging\nalong, she moans and says, 'Ah, God pity her, she is out in this with\nher poor wet soldiers.' And when the lightning glares and the thunder\ncrashes she wrings her hands and trembles, saying, 'It is like the awful\ncannon and the flash, and yonder somewhere she is riding down upon the\nspouting guns and I not there to protect her.\"\n\n\"Ah, poor mother, it is pity, it is pity!\"\n\n\"Yes, a most strange woman, as I have noticed a many times. When there\nis news of a victory and all the village goes mad with pride and joy,\nshe rushes here and there in a maniacal frenzy till she finds out the\none only thing she cares to know--that you are safe; then down she goes\non her knees in the dirt and praises God as long as there is any breath\nleft in her body; and all on your account, for she never mentions\nthe battle once. And always she says, 'Now it is over--now France is\nsaved--now she will come home'--and always is disappointed and goes\nabout mourning.\"\n\n\"Don't, father! it breaks my heart. I will be so good to her when I get\nhome. I will do her work for her, and be her comfort, and she shall not\nsuffer any more through me.\"\n\nThere was some more talk of this sort, then Uncle Laxart said:\n\n\"You have done the will of God, dear, and are quits; it is true, and\nnone may deny it; but what of the King? You are his best soldier; what\nif he command you to stay?\"\n\nThat was a crusher--and sudden! It took Joan a moment or two to recover\nfrom the shock of it; then she said, quite simply and resignedly:\n\n\"The King is my Lord; I am his servant.\" She was silent and thoughtful\na little while, then she brightened up and said, cheerily, \"But let us\ndrive such thoughts away--this is no time for them. Tell me about home.\"\n\nSo the two old gossips talked and talked; talked about everything and\neverybody in the village; and it was good to hear. Joan out of her\nkindness tried to get us into the conversation, but that failed, of\ncourse. She was the Commander-in-Chief, we were nobodies; her name was\nthe mightiest in France, we were invisible atoms; she was the comrade\nof princes and heroes, we of the humble and obscure; she held rank above\nall Personages and all Puissances whatsoever in the whole earth, by\nright of baring her commission direct from God. To put it in one word,\nshe was JOAN OF ARC--and when that is said, all is said. To us she was\ndivine. Between her and us lay the bridgeless abyss which that word\nimplies. We could not be familiar with her. No, you can see yourselves\nthat that would have been impossible.\n\nAnd yet she was so human, too, and so good and kind and dear and loving\nand cheery and charming and unspoiled and unaffected! Those are all the\nwords I think of now, but they are not enough; no, they are too few and\ncolorless and meager to tell it all, or tell the half. Those simple old\nmen didn't realize her; they couldn't; they had never known any people\nbut human beings, and so they had no other standard to measure her by.\nTo them, after their first little shyness had worn off, she was just a\ngirl--that was all. It was amazing. It made one shiver, sometimes, to\nsee how calm and easy and comfortable they were in her presence, and\nhear them talk to her exactly as they would have talked to any other\ngirl in France.\n\nWhy, that simple old Laxart sat up there and droned out the most tedious\nand empty tale one ever heard, and neither he nor Papa D'Arc ever gave\na thought to the badness of the etiquette of it, or ever suspected that\nthat foolish tale was anything but dignified and valuable history. There\nwas not an atom of value in it; and whilst they thought it distressing\nand pathetic, it was in fact not pathetic at all, but actually\nridiculous. At least it seemed so to me, and it seems so yet. Indeed, I\nknow it was, because it made Joan laugh; and the more sorrowful it got\nthe more it made her laugh; and the Paladin said that he could have\nlaughed himself if she had not been there, and Noel Rainguesson said the\nsame. It was about old Laxart going to a funeral there at Domremy two or\nthree weeks back. He had spots all over his face and hands, and he got\nJoan to rub some healing ointment on them, and while she was doing it,\nand comforting him, and trying to say pitying things to him, he told\nher how it happened. And first he asked her if she remembered that black\nbull calf that she left behind when she came away, and she said indeed\nshe did, and he was a dear, and she loved him so, and was he well?--and\njust drowned him in questions about that creature. And he said it was a\nyoung bull now, and very frisky; and he was to bear a principal hand at\na funeral; and she said, \"The bull?\" and he said, \"No, myself\"; but said\nthe bull did take a hand, but not because of his being invited, for\nhe wasn't; but anyway he was away over beyond the Fairy Tree, and fell\nasleep on the grass with his Sunday funeral clothes on, and a long black\nrag on his hat and hanging down his back; and when he woke he saw by the\nsun how late it was, and not a moment to lose; and jumped up terribly\nworried, and saw the young bull grazing there, and thought maybe he\ncould ride part way on him and gain time; so he tied a rope around the\nbull's body to hold on by, and put a halter on him to steer with,\nand jumped on and started; but it was all new to the bull, and he was\ndiscontented with it, and scurried around and bellowed and reared and\npranced, and Uncle Laxart was satisfied, and wanted to get off and go\nby the next bull or some other way that was quieter, but he didn't\ndare try; and it was getting very warm for him, too, and disturbing and\nwearisome, and not proper for Sunday; but by and by the bull lost all\nhis temper, and went tearing down the slope with his tail in the air and\nblowing in the most awful way; and just in the edge of the village\nhe knocked down some beehives, and the bees turned out and joined the\nexcursion, and soared along in a black cloud that nearly hid those other\ntwo from sight, and prodded them both, and jabbed them and speared them\nand spiked them, and made them bellow and shriek, and shriek and bellow;\nand here they came roaring through the village like a hurricane, and\ntook the funeral procession right in the center, and sent that section\nof it sprawling, and galloped over it, and the rest scattered apart and\nfled screeching in every direction, every person with a layer of bees on\nhim, and not a rag of that funeral left but the corpse; and finally\nthe bull broke for the river and jumped in, and when they fished Uncle\nLaxart out he was nearly drowned, and his face looked like a pudding\nwith raisins in it. And then he turned around, this old simpleton, and\nlooked a long time in a dazed way at Joan where she had her face in a\ncushion, dying, apparently, and says:\n\n\"What do you reckon she is laughing at?\"\n\nAnd old D'Arc stood looking at her the same way, sort of absently\nscratching his head; but had to give it up, and said he didn't\nknow--\"must have been something that happened when we weren't noticing.\"\n\nYes, both of those old people thought that that tale was pathetic;\nwhereas to my mind it was purely ridiculous, and not in any way valuable\nto any one. It seemed so to me then, and it seems so to me yet. And as\nfor history, it does not resemble history; for the office of history is\nto furnish serious and important facts that teach; whereas this strange\nand useless event teaches nothing; nothing that I can see, except not\nto ride a bull to a funeral; and surely no reflecting person needs to be\ntaught that.\n\n\n\n\n\n37 Again to Arms\n\nNOW THESE were nobles, you know, by decree of the King!--these precious\nold infants. But they did not realize it; they could not be called\nconscious of it; it was an abstraction, a phantom; to them it had no\nsubstance; their minds could not take hold of it. No, they did not\nbother about their nobility; they lived in their horses. The horses were\nsolid; they were visible facts, and would make a mighty stir in Domremy.\nPresently something was said about the Coronation, and old D'Arc said\nit was going to be a grand thing to be able to say, when they got home,\nthat they were present in the very town itself when it happened. Joan\nlooked troubled, and said:\n\n\"Ah, that reminds me. You were here and you didn't send me word. In the\ntown, indeed! Why, you could have sat with the other nobles, and been\nwelcome; and could have looked upon the crowning itself, and carried\nthat home to tell. Ah, why did you use me so, and send me no word?\"\n\nThe old father was embarrassed, now, quite visibly embarrassed, and had\nthe air of one who does not quite know what to say. But Joan was looking\nup in his face, her hands upon his shoulders--waiting. He had to speak;\nso presently he drew her to his breast, which was heaving with emotion;\nand he said, getting out his words with difficulty:\n\n\"There, hide your face, child, and let your old father humble himself\nand make his confession. I--I--don't you see, don't you understand?--I\ncould not know that these grandeurs would not turn your young head--it\nwould be only natural. I might shame you before these great per--\"\n\n\"Father!\"\n\n\"And then I was afraid, as remembering that cruel thing I said once in\nmy sinful anger. Oh, appointed of God to be a soldier, and the greatest\nin the land! and in my ignorant anger I said I would drown you with my\nown hands if you unsexed yourself and brought shame to your name and\nfamily. Ah, how could I ever have said it, and you so good and dear\nand innocent! I was afraid; for I was guilty. You understand it now, my\nchild, and you forgive?\"\n\nDo you see? Even that poor groping old land-crab, with his skull full of\npulp, had pride. Isn't it wonderful? And more--he had conscience; he had\na sense of right and wrong, such as it was; he was able to find remorse.\nIt looks impossible, it looks incredible, but it is not. I believe that\nsome day it will be found out that peasants are people. Yes, beings in\na great many respects like ourselves. And I believe that some day they\nwill find this out, too--and then! Well, then I think they will rise up\nand demand to be regarded as part of the race, and that by consequence\nthere will be trouble. Whenever one sees in a book or in a king's\nproclamation those words \"the nation,\" they bring before us the upper\nclasses; only those; we know no other \"nation\"; for us and the kings no\nother \"nation\" exists. But from the day that I saw old D'Arc the peasant\nacting and feeling just as I should have acted and felt myself, I have\ncarried the conviction in my heart that our peasants are not merely\nanimals, beasts of burden put here by the good God to produce food\nand comfort for the \"nation,\" but something more and better. You\nlook incredulous. Well, that is your training; it is the training of\neverybody; but as for me, I thank that incident for giving me a better\nlight, and I have never forgotten it.\n\nLet me see--where was I? One's mind wanders around here and there and\nyonder, when one is old. I think I said Joan comforted him. Certainly,\nthat is what she would do--there was no need to say that. She coaxed him\nand petted him and caressed him, and laid the memory of that old hard\nspeech of his to rest. Laid it to rest until she should be dead. Then\nhe would remember it again--yes, yes! Lord, how those things sting, and\nburn, and gnaw--the things which we did against the innocent dead! And\nwe say in our anguish, \"If they could only come back!\" Which is all very\nwell to say, but, as far as I can see, it doesn't profit anything. In my\nopinion the best way is not to do the thing in the first place. And I am\nnot alone in this; I have heard our two knights say the same thing; and\na man there in Orleans--no, I believe it was at Beaugency, or one\nof those places--it seems more as if it was at Beaugency than the\nothers--this man said the same thing exactly; almost the same words; a\ndark man with a cast in his eye and one leg shorter than the other. His\nname was--was--it is singular that I can't call that man's name; I had\nit in my mind only a moment ago, and I know it begins with--no, I don't\nremember what it begins with; but never mind, let it go; I will think of\nit presently, and then I will tell you.\n\nWell, pretty soon the old father wanted to know how Joan felt when\nshe was in the thick of a battle, with the bright blades hacking and\nflashing all around her, and the blows rapping and slatting on her\nshield, and blood gushing on her from the cloven ghastly face and broken\nteeth of the neighbor at her elbow, and the perilous sudden back surge\nof massed horses upon a person when the front ranks give way before a\nheavy rush of the enemy, and men tumble limp and groaning out of saddles\nall around, and battle-flags falling from dead hands wipe across one's\nface and hide the tossing turmoil a moment, and in the reeling\nand swaying and laboring jumble one's horse's hoofs sink into soft\nsubstances and shrieks of pain respond, and presently--panic! rush!\nswarm! flight! and death and hell following after! And the old fellow\ngot ever so much excited; and strode up and down, his tongue going like\na mill, asking question after question and never waiting for an answer;\nand finally he stood Joan up in the middle of the room and stepped off\nand scanned her critically, and said:\n\n\"No--I don't understand it. You are so little. So little and slender.\nWhen you had your armor on, to-day, it gave one a sort of notion of it;\nbut in these pretty silks and velvets, you are only a dainty page, not\na league-striding war-colossus, moving in clouds and darkness and\nbreathing smoke and thunder. I would God I might see you at it and go\ntell your mother! That would help her sleep, poor thing! Here--teach me\nthe arts of the soldier, that I may explain them to her.\"\n\nAnd she did it. She gave him a pike, and put him through the manual\nof arms; and made him do the steps, too. His marching was incredibly\nawkward and slovenly, and so was his drill with the pike; but he didn't\nknow it, and was wonderfully pleased with himself, and mightily excited\nand charmed with the ringing, crisp words of command. I am obliged\nto say that if looking proud and happy when one is marching were\nsufficient, he would have been the perfect soldier.\n\nAnd he wanted a lesson in sword-play, and got it. But of course that\nwas beyond him; he was too old. It was beautiful to see Joan handle the\nfoils, but the old man was a bad failure. He was afraid of the things,\nand skipped and dodged and scrambled around like a woman who has lost\nher mind on account of the arrival of a bat. He was of no good as\nan exhibition. But if La Hire had only come in, that would have been\nanother matter. Those two fenced often; I saw them many times. True,\nJoan was easily his master, but it made a good show for all that, for\nLa Hire was a grand swordsman. What a swift creature Joan was! You would\nsee her standing erect with her ankle-bones together and her foil arched\nover her head, the hilt in one hand and the button in the other--the old\ngeneral opposite, bent forward, left hand reposing on his back, his\nfoil advanced, slightly wiggling and squirming, his watching eye boring\nstraight into hers--and all of a sudden she would give a spring forward,\nand back again; and there she was, with the foil arched over her head as\nbefore. La Hire had been hit, but all that the spectator saw of it was\na something like a thin flash of light in the air, but nothing distinct,\nnothing definite.\n\nWe kept the drinkables moving, for that would please the Bailly and the\nlandlord; and old Laxart and D'Arc got to feeling quite comfortable, but\nwithout being what you could call tipsy. They got out the presents which\nthey had been buying to carry home--humble things and cheap, but they\nwould be fine there, and welcome. And they gave to Joan a present from\nPere Fronte and one from her mother--the one a little leaden image of\nthe Holy Virgin, the other half a yard of blue silk ribbon; and she\nwas as pleased as a child; and touched, too, as one could see plainly\nenough. Yes, she kissed those poor things over and over again, as if\nthey had been something costly and wonderful; and she pinned the Virgin\non her doublet, and sent for her helmet and tied the ribbon on that;\nfirst one way, then another; then a new way, then another new way; and\nwith each effort perching the helmet on her hand and holding it off\nthis way and that, and canting her head to one side and then the other,\nexamining the effect, as a bird does when it has got a new bug. And she\nsaid she could almost wish she was going to the wars again; for then she\nwould fight with the better courage, as having always with her something\nwhich her mother's touch had blessed.\n\nOld Laxart said he hoped she would go to the wars again, but home first,\nfor that all the people there were cruel anxious to see her--and so he\nwent on:\n\n\"They are proud of you, dear. Yes, prouder than any village ever was of\nanybody before. And indeed it is right and rational; for it is the first\ntime a village has ever had anybody like you to be proud of and call its\nown. And it is strange and beautiful how they try to give your name to\nevery creature that has a sex that is convenient. It is but half a year\nsince you began to be spoken of and left us, and so it is surprising to\nsee how many babies there are already in that region that are named\nfor you. First it was just Joan; then it was Joan-Orleans; then\nJoan-Orleans-Beaugency-Patay; and now the next ones will have a lot\nof towns and the Coronation added, of course. Yes, and the animals the\nsame. They know how you love animals, and so they try to do you honor\nand show their love for you by naming all those creatures after you;\ninsomuch that if a body should step out and call 'Joan of Arc--come!'\nthere would be a landslide of cats and all such things, each supposing\nit was the one wanted, and all willing to take the benefit of the doubt,\nanyway, for the sake of the food that might be on delivery. The kitten\nyou left behind--the last stray you fetched home--bears you name, now,\nand belongs to Pere Fronte, and is the pet and pride of the village;\nand people have come miles to look at it and pet it and stare at it and\nwonder over it because it was Joan of Arc's cat. Everybody will tell you\nthat; and one day when a stranger threw a stone at it, not knowing it\nwas your cat, the village rose against him as one man and hanged him!\nAnd but for Pere Fronte--\"\n\nThere was an interruption. It was a messenger from the King, bearing\na note for Joan, which I read to her, saying he had reflected, and had\nconsulted his other generals, and was obliged to ask her to remain at\nthe head of the army and withdraw her resignation. Also, would she\ncome immediately and attend a council of war? Straightway, at a little\ndistance, military commands and the rumble of drums broke on the still\nnight, and we knew that her guard was approaching.\n\nDeep disappointment clouded her face for just one moment and no\nmore--it passed, and with it the homesick girl, and she was Joan of Arc,\nCommander-in-Chief again, and ready for duty.\n\n\n\n\n\n38 The King Cries \"Forward!\"\n\nIN MY double quality of page and secretary I followed Joan to the\ncouncil. She entered that presence with the bearing of a grieved\ngoddess. What was become of the volatile child that so lately was\nenchanted with a ribbon and suffocated with laughter over the distress\nof a foolish peasant who had stormed a funeral on the back of a\nbee-stung bull? One may not guess. Simply it was gone, and had left no\nsign. She moved straight to the council-table, and stood. Her glance\nswept from face to face there, and where it fell, these lit it as with a\ntorch, those it scorched as with a brand. She knew where to strike. She\nindicated the generals with a nod, and said:\n\n\"My business is not with you. You have not craved a council of war.\"\nThen she turned toward the King's privy council, and continued: \"No; it\nis with you. A council of war! It is amazing. There is but one thing to\ndo, and only one, and lo, ye call a council of war! Councils of war have\nno value but to decide between two or several doubtful courses. But a\ncouncil of war when there is only one course? Conceive of a man in a\nboat and his family in the water, and he goes out among his friends to\nask what he would better do? A council of war, name of God! To determine\nwhat?\"\n\nShe stopped, and turned till her eyes rested upon the face of La\nTremouille; and so she stood, silent, measuring him, the excitement in\nall faces burning steadily higher and higher, and all pulses beating\nfaster and faster; then she said, with deliberation:\n\n\"Every sane man--whose loyalty is to his King and not a show and a\npretense--knows that there is but one rational thing before us--the\nmarch upon Paris!\"\n\nDown came the fist of La Hire with an approving crash upon the table.\nLa Tremouille turned white with anger, but he pulled himself firmly\ntogether and held his peace. The King's lazy blood was stirred and\nhis eye kindled finely, for the spirit of war was away down in him\nsomewhere, and a frank, bold speech always found it and made it tingle\ngladsomely. Joan waited to see if the chief minister might wish to\ndefend his position; but he was experienced and wise, and not a man to\nwaste his forces where the current was against him. He would wait; the\nKing's private ear would be at his disposal by and by.\n\nThat pious fox the Chancellor of France took the word now. He washed his\nsoft hands together, smiling persuasively, and said to Joan:\n\n\"Would it be courteous, your Excellency, to move abruptly from here\nwithout waiting for an answer from the Duke of Burgundy? You may not\nknow that we are negotiating with his Highness, and that there is\nlikely to be a fortnight's truce between us; and on his part a pledge to\ndeliver Paris into our hands without the cost of a blow or the fatigue\nof a march thither.\"\n\nJoan turned to him and said, gravely:\n\n\"This is not a confessional, my lord. You were not obliged to expose\nthat shame here.\"\n\nThe Chancellor's face reddened, and he retorted:\n\n\"Shame? What is there shameful about it?\"\n\nJoan answered in level, passionless tones:\n\n\"One may describe it without hunting far for words. I knew of this poor\ncomedy, my lord, although it was not intended that I should know. It is\nto the credit of the devisers of it that they tried to conceal it--this\ncomedy whose text and impulse are describable in two words.\"\n\nThe Chancellor spoke up with a fine irony in his manner:\n\n\"Indeed? And will your Excellency be good enough to utter them?\"\n\n\"Cowardice and treachery!\"\n\nThe fists of all the generals came down this time, and again the King's\neye sparkled with pleasure. The Chancellor sprang to his feet and\nappealed to his Majesty:\n\n\"Sire, I claim your protection.\"\n\nBut the King waved him to his seat again, saying:\n\n\"Peace. She had a right to be consulted before that thing was\nundertaken, since it concerned war as well as politics. It is but just\nthat she be heard upon it now.\"\n\nThe Chancellor sat down trembling with indignation, and remarked to\nJoan:\n\n\"Out of charity I will consider that you did not know who devised this\nmeasure which you condemn in so candid language.\"\n\n\"Save your charity for another occasion, my lord,\" said Joan, as calmly\nas before. \"Whenever anything is done to injure the interests and\ndegrade the honor of France, all but the dead know how to name the two\nconspirators-in-chief--\"\n\n\"Sir, sire! this insinuation--\"\n\n\"It is not an insinuation, my lord,\" said Joan, placidly, \"it is\na charge. I bring it against the King's chief minister and his\nChancellor.\"\n\nBoth men were on their feet now, insisting that the King modify Joan's\nfrankness; but he was not minded to do it. His ordinary councils were\nstale water--his spirit was drinking wine, now, and the taste of it was\ngood. He said:\n\n\"Sit--and be patient. What is fair for one must in fairness be allowed\nthe other. Consider--and be just. When have you two spared her? What\ndark charges and harsh names have you withheld when you spoke of her?\"\nThen he added, with a veiled twinkle in his eyes, \"If these are offenses\nI see no particular difference between them, except that she says her\nhard things to your faces, whereas you say yours behind her back.\"\n\nHe was pleased with that neat shot and the way it shriveled those two\npeople up, and made La Hire laugh out loud and the other generals softly\nquake and chuckle. Joan tranquilly resumed:\n\n\"From the first, we have been hindered by this policy of shilly-shally;\nthis fashion of counseling and counseling and counseling where no\ncounseling is needed, but only fighting. We took Orleans on the 8th of\nMay, and could have cleared the region round about in three days and\nsaved the slaughter of Patay. We could have been in Rheims six weeks\nago, and in Paris now; and would see the last Englishman pass out of\nFrance in half a year. But we struck no blow after Orleans, but went off\ninto the country--what for? Ostensibly to hold councils; really to give\nBedford time to send reinforcements to Talbot--which he did; and Patay\nhad to be fought. After Patay, more counseling, more waste of precious\ntime. Oh, my King, I would that you would be persuaded!\" She began to\nwarm up, now. \"Once more we have our opportunity. If we rise and strike,\nall is well. Bid me march upon Paris. In twenty days it shall be yours,\nand in six months all France! Here is half a year's work before us; if\nthis chance be wasted, I give you twenty years to do it in. Speak the\nword, O gentle King--speak but the one--\"\n\n\"I cry you mercy!\" interrupted the Chancellor, who saw a dangerous\nenthusiasm rising in the King's face. \"March upon Paris? Does your\nExcellency forget that the way bristles with English strongholds?\"\n\n\"That for your English strongholds!\" and Joan snapped her fingers\nscornfully. \"Whence have we marched in these last days? From Gien. And\nwhither? To Rheims. What bristled between? English strongholds. What are\nthey now? French ones--and they never cost a blow!\" Here applause broke\nout from the group of generals, and Joan had to pause a moment to let it\nsubside. \"Yes, English strongholds bristled before us; now French\nones bristle behind us. What is the argument? A child can read it.\nThe strongholds between us and Paris are garrisoned by no new breed of\nEnglish, but by the same breed as those others--with the same fears, the\nsame questionings, the same weaknesses, the same disposition to see the\nheavy hand of God descending upon them. We have but to march!--on the\ninstant--and they are ours, Paris is ours, France is ours! Give the\nword, O my King, command your servant to--\"\n\n\"Stay!\" cried the Chancellor. \"It would be madness to put our affront\nupon his Highness the Duke of Burgundy. By the treaty which we have\nevery hope to make with him--\"\n\n\"Oh, the treaty which we hope to make with him! He has scorned you for\nyears, and defied you. Is it your subtle persuasions that have softened\nhis manners and beguiled him to listen to proposals? No; it was\nblows!--the blows which we gave him! That is the only teaching that\nthat sturdy rebel can understand. What does he care for wind? The treaty\nwhich we hope to make with him--alack! He deliver Paris! There is no\npauper in the land that is less able to do it. He deliver Paris! Ah, but\nthat would make great Bedford smile! Oh, the pitiful pretext! the blind\ncan see that this thin pour-parler with its fifteen-day truce has no\npurpose but to give Bedford time to hurry forward his forces against us.\nMore treachery--always treachery! We call a council of war--with nothing\nto council about; but Bedford calls no council to teach him what our\ncourse is. He knows what he would do in our place. He would hang his\ntraitors and march upon Paris! O gentle King, rouse! The way is open,\nParis beckons, France implores, Speak and we--\"\n\n\"Sire, it is madness, sheer madness! Your Excellency, we cannot, we must\nnot go back from what we have done; we have proposed to treat, we must\ntreat with the Duke of Burgundy.\"\n\n\"And we will!\" said Joan.\n\n\"Ah? How?\"\n\n\"At the point of the lance!\"\n\nThe house rose, to a man--all that had French hearts--and let go a crack\nof applause--and kept it up; and in the midst of it one heard La Hire\ngrowl out: \"At the point of the lance! By God, that is music!\" The King\nwas up, too, and drew his sword, and took it by the blade and strode to\nJoan and delivered the hilt of it into her hand, saying:\n\n\"There, the King surrenders. Carry it to Paris.\"\n\nAnd so the applause burst out again, and the historical council of war\nthat has bred so many legends was over.\n\n\n\n\n\n39 We Win, But the King Balks\n\nIT WAS away past midnight, and had been a tremendous day in the matter\nof excitement and fatigue, but that was no matter to Joan when there was\nbusiness on hand. She did not think of bed. The generals followed her to\nher official quarters, and she delivered her orders to them as fast as\nshe could talk, and they sent them off to their different commands as\nfast as delivered; wherefore the messengers galloping hither and thither\nraised a world of clatter and racket in the still streets; and soon were\nadded to this the music of distant bugles and the roll of drums--notes\nof preparation; for the vanguard would break camp at dawn.\n\nThe generals were soon dismissed, but I wasn't; nor Joan; for it was my\nturn to work, now. Joan walked the floor and dictated a summons to\nthe Duke of Burgundy to lay down his arms and make peace and exchange\npardons with the King; or, if he must fight, go fight the Saracens.\n\"Pardonnez-vous l'un--l'autre de bon coeligeur, entierement, ainsi que\ndoivent faire loyaux chretiens, et, s'il vous plait de guerroyer,\nallez contre les Sarrasins.\" It was long, but it was good, and had the\nsterling ring to it. It is my opinion that it was as fine and simple and\nstraightforward and eloquent a state paper as she ever uttered.\n\nIt was delivered into the hands of a courier, and he galloped away with\nit. The Joan dismissed me, and told me to go to the inn and stay, and in\nthe morning give to her father the parcel which she had left there. It\ncontained presents for the Domremy relatives and friends and a peasant\ndress which she had bought for herself. She said she would say good-by\nto her father and uncle in the morning if it should still be their\npurpose to go, instead of tarrying awhile to see the city.\n\nI didn't say anything, of course, but I could have said that wild horses\ncouldn't keep those men in that town half a day. They waste the glory of\nbeing the first to carry the great news to Domremy--the taxes remitted\nforever!--and hear the bells clang and clatter, and the people cheer and\nshout? Oh, not they. Patay and Orleans and the Coronation were events\nwhich in a vague way these men understood to be colossal; but they were\ncolossal mists, films, abstractions; this was a gigantic reality!\n\nWhen I got there, do you suppose they were abed! Quite the reverse.\nThey and the rest were as mellow as mellow could be; and the Paladin was\ndoing his battles in great style, and the old peasants were endangering\nthe building with their applause. He was doing Patay now; and was\nbending his big frame forward and laying out the positions and movements\nwith a rake here and a rake there of his formidable sword on the floor,\nand the peasants were stooped over with their hands on their spread\nknees observing with excited eyes and ripping out ejaculations of wonder\nand admiration all along:\n\n\"Yes, here we were, waiting--waiting for the word; our horses fidgeting\nand snorting and dancing to get away, we lying back on the bridles till\nour bodies fairly slanted to the rear; the word rang out at last--'Go!'\nand we went!\n\n\"Went? There was nothing like it ever seen! Where we swept by squads of\nscampering English, the mere wind of our passage laid them flat in\npiles and rows! Then we plunged into the ruck of Fastolfe's frantic\nbattle-corps and tore through it like a hurricane, leaving a causeway of\nthe dead stretching far behind; no tarrying, no slacking rein, but on!\non! on! far yonder in the distance lay our prey--Talbot and his host\nlooming vast and dark like a storm-cloud brooding on the sea! Down we\nswooped upon them, glooming all the air with a quivering pall of dead\nleaves flung up by the whirlwind of our flight. In another moment\nwe should have struck them as world strikes world when disorbited\nconstellations crash into the Milky way, but by misfortune and the\ninscrutable dispensation of God I was recognized! Talbot turned white,\nand shouting, 'Save yourselves, it is the Standard-Bearer of Joan of\nArc!' drove his spurs home till they met in the middle of his horse's\nentrails, and fled the field with his billowing multitudes at his back!\nI could have cursed myself for not putting on a disguise. I saw reproach\nin the eyes of her Excellency, and was bitterly ashamed. I had caused\nwhat seemed an irreparable disaster. Another might have gone aside to\ngrieve, as not seeing any way to mend it; but I thank God I am not of\nthose. Great occasions only summon as with a trumpet-call the slumbering\nreserves of my intellect. I saw my opportunity in an instant--in\nthe next I was away! Through the woods I vanished--fst!--like an\nextinguished light! Away around through the curtaining forest I sped,\nas if on wings, none knowing what was become of me, none suspecting my\ndesign. Minute after minute passed, on and on I flew; on, and still on;\nand at last with a great cheer I flung my Banner to the breeze and burst\nout in front of Talbot! Oh, it was a mighty thought! That weltering\nchaos of distracted men whirled and surged backward like a tidal wave\nwhich has struck a continent, and the day was ours! Poor helpless\ncreatures, they were in a trap; they were surrounded; they could not\nescape to the rear, for there was our army; they could not escape to the\nfront, for there was I. Their hearts shriveled in their bodies, their\nhands fell listless at their sides. They stood still, and at our leisure\nwe slaughtered them to a man; all except Talbot and Fastolfe, whom I\nsaved and brought away, one under each arm.\"\n\nWell, there is no denying it, the Paladin was in great form that night.\nSuch style! such noble grace of gesture, such grandeur of attitude,\nsuch energy when he got going! such steady rise, on such sure wing, such\nnicely graduated expenditures of voice according to the weight of\nthe matter, such skilfully calculated approaches to his surprises and\nexplosions, such belief-compelling sincerity of tone and manner, such a\nclimaxing peal from his brazen lungs, and such a lightning-vivid picture\nof his mailed form and flaunting banner when he burst out before that\ndespairing army! And oh, the gentle art of the last half of his last\nsentence--delivered in the careless and indolent tone of one who has\nfinished his real story, and only adds a colorless and inconsequential\ndetail because it has happened to occur to him in a lazy way.\n\nIt was a marvel to see those innocent peasants. Why, they went all to\npieces with enthusiasm, and roared out applauses fit to raise the roof\nand wake the dead. When they had cooled down at last and there was\nsilence but for the heaving and panting, old Laxart said, admiringly:\n\n\"As it seems to me, you are an army in your single person.\"\n\n\"Yes, that is what he is,\" said Noel Rainguesson, convincingly. \"He is\na terror; and not just in this vicinity. His mere name carries a shudder\nwith it to distant lands--just his mere name; and when he frowns, the\nshadow of it falls as far as Rome, and the chickens go to roost an hour\nbefore schedule time. Yes; and some say--\"\n\n\"Noel Rainguesson, you are preparing yourself for trouble. I will say\njust one word to you, and it will be to your advantage to--\"\n\nI saw that the usual thing had got a start. No man could prophesy when\nit would end. So I delivered Joan's message and went off to bed.\n\nJoan made her good-byes to those old fellows in the morning, with loving\nembraces and many tears, and with a packed multitude for sympathizers,\nand they rode proudly away on their precious horses to carry their\ngreat news home. I had seen better riders, some will say that; for\nhorsemanship was a new art to them.\n\nThe vanguard moved out at dawn and took the road, with bands braying\nand banners flying; the second division followed at eight. Then came the\nBurgundian ambassadors, and lost us the rest of that day and the whole\nof the next. But Joan was on hand, and so they had their journey for\ntheir pains. The rest of us took the road at dawn, next morning, July\n20th. And got how far? Six leagues. Tremouille was getting in his sly\nwork with the vacillating King, you see. The King stopped at St. Marcoul\nand prayed three days. Precious time lost--for us; precious time gained\nfor Bedford. He would know how to use it.\n\nWe could not go on without the King; that would be to leave him in the\nconspirators' camp. Joan argued, reasoned, implored; and at last we got\nunder way again.\n\nJoan's prediction was verified. It was not a campaign, it was only\nanother holiday excursion. English strongholds lined our route; they\nsurrendered without a blow; we garrisoned them with Frenchmen and passed\non. Bedford was on the march against us with his new army by this time,\nand on the 25th of July the hostile forces faced each other and made\npreparation for battle; but Bedford's good judgment prevailed, and he\nturned and retreated toward Paris. Now was our chance. Our men were in\ngreat spirits.\n\nWill you believe it? Our poor stick of a King allowed his worthless\nadvisers to persuade him to start back for Gien, whence he had set out\nwhen we first marched for Rheims and the Coronation! And we actually did\nstart back. The fifteen-day truce had just been concluded with the Duke\nof Burgundy, and we would go and tarry at Gien until he should deliver\nParis to us without a fight.\n\nWe marched to Bray; then the King changed his mind once more, and with\nit his face toward Paris. Joan dictated a letter to the citizens of\nRheims to encourage them to keep heart in spite of the truce, and\npromising to stand by them. She furnished them the news herself that the\nKin had made this truce; and in speaking of it she was her usual frank\nself. She said she was not satisfied with it, and didn't know whether\nshe would keep it or not; that if she kept it, it would be solely out of\ntenderness for the King's honor. All French children know those famous\nwords. How naive they are! \"De cette treve qui a ete faite, je ne suis\npas contente, et je ne sais si je la tiendrai. Si je la tiens, ce sera\nseulement pour garder l'honneur du roi.\" But in any case, she said, she\nwould not allow the blood royal to be abused, and would keep the army in\ngood order and ready for work at the end of the truce.\n\nPoor child, to have to fight England, Burgundy, and a French conspiracy\nall at the same time--it was too bad. She was a match for the others,\nbut a conspiracy--ah, nobody is a match for that, when the victim that\nis to be injured is weak and willing. It grieved her, these troubled\ndays, to be so hindered and delayed and baffled, and at times she was\nsad and the tears lay near the surface. Once, talking with her good old\nfaithful friend and servant, the Bastard of Orleans, she said:\n\n\"Ah, if it might but please God to let me put off this steel raiment\nand go back to my father and my mother, and tend my sheep again with my\nsister and my brothers, who would be so glad to see me!\"\n\nBy the 12th of August we were camped near Dampmartin. Later we had a\nbrush with Bedford's rear-guard, and had hopes of a big battle on the\nmorrow, but Bedford and all his force got away in the night and went on\ntoward Paris.\n\nCharles sent heralds and received the submission of Beauvais. The Bishop\nPierre Cauchon, that faithful friend and slave of the English, was not\nable to prevent it, though he did his best. He was obscure then, but his\nname was to travel round the globe presently, and live forever in the\ncurses of France! Bear with me now, while I spit in fancy upon his\ngrave.\n\nCompiegne surrendered, and hauled down the English flag. On the 14th we\ncamped two leagues from Senlis. Bedford turned and approached, and\ntook up a strong position. We went against him, but all our efforts to\nbeguile him out from his intrenchments failed, though he had promised\nus a duel in the open field. Night shut down. Let him look out for the\nmorning! But in the morning he was gone again.\n\nWe entered Compiegne the 18th of August, turning out the English\ngarrison and hoisting our own flag.\n\nOn the 23d Joan gave command to move upon Paris. The King and the clique\nwere not satisfied with this, and retired sulking to Senlis, which had\njust surrendered. Within a few days many strong places submitted--Creil,\nPont-Saint-Maxence, Choisy, Gournay-sur-Aronde, Remy, Le\nNeufville-en-Hez, Moguay, Chantilly, Saintines. The English power was\ntumbling, crash after crash! And still the King sulked and disapproved,\nand was afraid of our movement against the capital.\n\nOn the 26th of August, 1429, Joan camped at St. Denis; in effect, under\nthe walls of Paris.\n\nAnd still the King hung back and was afraid. If we could but have had\nhim there to back us with his authority! Bedford had lost heart and\ndecided to waive resistance and go an concentrate his strength in the\nbest and loyalest province remaining to him--Normandy. Ah, if we\ncould only have persuaded the King to come and countenance us with his\npresence and approval at this supreme moment!\n\n\n\n\n\n40 Treachery Conquers Joan\n\nCOURIER after courier was despatched to the King, and he promised to\ncome, but didn't. The Duke d'Alencon went to him and got his promise\nagain, which he broke again. Nine days were lost thus; then he came,\narriving at St. Denis September 7th.\n\nMeantime the enemy had begun to take heart: the spiritless conduct of\nthe King could have no other result. Preparations had now been made to\ndefend the city. Joan's chances had been diminished, but she and her\ngenerals considered them plenty good enough yet. Joan ordered the attack\nfor eight o'clock next morning, and at that hour it began.\n\nJoan placed her artillery and began to pound a strong work which\nprotected the gate St. Honor. When it was sufficiently crippled the\nassault was sounded at noon, and it was carried by storm. Then we moved\nforward to storm the gate itself, and hurled ourselves against it again\nand again, Joan in the lead with her standard at her side, the smoke\nenveloping us in choking clouds, and the missiles flying over us and\nthrough us as thick as hail.\n\nIn the midst of our last assault, which would have carried the gate\nsure and given us Paris and in effect France, Joan was struck down by\na crossbow bolt, and our men fell back instantly and almost in a\npanic--for what were they without her? She was the army, herself.\n\nAlthough disabled, she refused to retire, and begged that a new assault\nbe made, saying it must win; and adding, with the battle-light rising in\nher eyes, \"I will take Paris now or die!\" She had to be carried away by\nforce, and this was done by Gaucourt and the Duke d'Alencon.\n\nBut her spirits were at the very top notch, now. She was brimming\nwith enthusiasm. She said she would be carried before the gate in the\nmorning, and in half an hour Paris would be ours without any question.\nShe could have kept her word. About this there was no doubt. But\nshe forgot one factor--the King, shadow of that substance named La\nTremouille. The King forbade the attempt!\n\nYou see, a new Embassy had just come from the Duke of Burgundy, and\nanother sham private trade of some sort was on foot.\n\nYou would know, without my telling you, that Joan's heart was nearly\nbroken. Because of the pain of her wound and the pain at her heart she\nslept little that night. Several times the watchers heard muffled\nsobs from the dark room where she lay at St. Denis, and many times the\ngrieving words, \"It could have been taken!--it could have been taken!\"\nwhich were the only ones she said.\n\nShe dragged herself out of bed a day later with a new hope. D'Alencon\nhad thrown a bridge across the Seine near St. Denis. Might she not cross\nby that and assault Paris at another point? But the King got wind of it\nand broke the bridge down! And more--he declared the campaign ended!\nAnd more still--he had made a new truce and a long one, in which he had\nagreed to leave Paris unthreatened and unmolested, and go back to the\nLoire whence he had come!\n\nJoan of Arc, who had never been defeated by the enemy, was defeated by\nher own King. She had said once that all she feared for her cause was\ntreachery. It had struck its first blow now. She hung up her white\narmor in the royal basilica of St. Denis, and went and asked the King\nto relieve her of her functions and let her go home. As usual, she was\nwise. Grand combinations, far-reaching great military moves were at an\nend, now; for the future, when the truce should end, the war would be\nmerely a war of random and idle skirmishes, apparently; work suitable\nfor subalterns, and not requiring the supervision of a sublime military\ngenius. But the King would not let her go. The truce did not embrace all\nFrance; there were French strongholds to be watched and preserved; he\nwould need her. Really, you see, Tremouille wanted to keep her where he\ncould balk and hinder her.\n\nNow came her Voices again. They said, \"Remain at St. Denis.\" There was\nno explanation. They did not say why. That was the voice of God; it took\nprecedence of the command of the King; Joan resolved to stay. But that\nfilled La Tremouille with dread. She was too tremendous a force to be\nleft to herself; she would surely defeat all his plans. He beguiled the\nKing to use compulsion. Joan had to submit--because she was wounded and\nhelpless. In the Great Trial she said she was carried away against\nher will; and that if she had not been wounded it could not have been\naccomplished. Ah, she had a spirit, that slender girl! a spirit to brave\nall earthly powers and defy them. We shall never know why the Voices\nordered her to stay. We only know this; that if she could have obeyed,\nthe history of France would not be as it now stands written in the\nbooks. Yes, well we know that.\n\nOn the 13th of September the army, sad and spiritless, turned its\nface toward the Loire, and marched--without music! Yes, one noted that\ndetail. It was a funeral march; that is what it was. A long, dreary\nfuneral march, with never a shout or a cheer; friends looking on in\ntears, all the way, enemies laughing. We reached Gien at last--that\nplace whence we had set out on our splendid march toward Rheims\nless than three months before, with flags flying, bands playing, the\nvictory-flush of Patay glowing in our faces, and the massed multitudes\nshouting and praising and giving us godspeed. There was a dull rain\nfalling now, the day was dark, the heavens mourned, the spectators were\nfew, we had no welcome but the welcome of silence, and pity, and tears.\n\nThen the King disbanded that noble army of heroes; it furled its flags,\nit stored its arms: the disgrace of France was complete. La Tremouille\nwore the victor's crown; Joan of Arc, the unconquerable, was conquered.\n\n\n\n\n\n41 The Maid Will March No More\n\nYES, IT was as I have said: Joan had Paris and France in her grip, and\nthe Hundred Years' War under her heel, and the King made her open her\nfist and take away her foot.\n\nNow followed about eight months of drifting about with the King and his\ncouncil, and his gay and showy and dancing and flirting and hawking and\nfrolicking and serenading and dissipating court--drifting from town to\ntown and from castle to castle--a life which was pleasant to us of the\npersonal staff, but not to Joan. However, she only saw it, she didn't\nlive it. The King did his sincerest best to make her happy, and showed a\nmost kind and constant anxiety in this matter.\n\nAll others had to go loaded with the chains of an exacting court\netiquette, but she was free, she was privileged. So that she paid\nher duty to the King once a day and passed the pleasant word, nothing\nfurther was required of her. Naturally, then, she made herself a hermit,\nand grieved the weary days through in her own apartments, with her\nthoughts and devotions for company, and the planning of now forever\nunrealizable military combinations for entertainment. In fancy she moved\nbodies of men from this and that and the other point, so calculating the\ndistances to be covered, the time required for each body, and the nature\nof the country to be traversed, as to have them appear in sight of each\nother on a given day or at a given hour and concentrate for battle.\nIt was her only game, her only relief from her burden of sorrow and\ninaction. She played it hour after hour, as others play chess; and lost\nherself in it, and so got repose for her mind and healing for her heart.\n\nShe never complained, of course. It was not her way. She was the sort\nthat endure in silence.\n\nBut--she was a caged eagle just the same, and pined for the free air and\nthe alpine heights and the fierce joys of the storm.\n\nFrance was full of rovers--disbanded soldiers ready for anything that\nmight turn up. Several times, at intervals, when Joan's dull captivity\ngrew too heavy to bear, she was allowed to gather a troop of cavalry and\nmake a health-restoring dash against the enemy. These things were a bath\nto her spirits.\n\nIt was like old times, there at Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, to see her lead\nassault after assault, be driven back again and again, but always rally\nand charge anew, all in a blaze of eagerness and delight; till at last\nthe tempest of missiles rained so intolerably thick that old D'Aulon,\nwho was wounded, sounded the retreat (for the King had charged him on\nhis head to let no harm come to Joan); and away everybody rushed after\nhim--as he supposed; but when he turned and looked, there were we of\nthe staff still hammering away; wherefore he rode back and urged her to\ncome, saying she was mad to stay there with only a dozen men. Her eye\ndanced merrily, and she turned upon him crying out:\n\n\"A dozen men! name of God, I have fifty-thousand, and will never budge\ntill this place is taken!\n\n\"Sound the charge!\"\n\nWhich he did, and over the walls we went, and the fortress was ours. Old\nD'Aulon thought her mind was wandering; but all she meant was, that\nshe felt the might of fifty thousand men surging in her heart. It was a\nfanciful expression; but, to my thinking, truer word was never said.\n\nThen there was the affair near Lagny, where we charged the intrenched\nBurgundians through the open field four times, the last time\nvictoriously; the best prize of it Franquet d'Arras, the free-booter and\npitiless scourge of the region roundabout.\n\nNow and then other such affairs; and at last, away toward the end of\nMay, 1430, we were in the neighborhood of Compiegne, and Joan resolved\nto go to the help of that place, which was being besieged by the Duke of\nBurgundy.\n\nI had been wounded lately, and was not able to ride without help; but\nthe good Dwarf took me on behind him, and I held on to him and was safe\nenough. We started at midnight, in a sullen downpour of warm rain, and\nwent slowly and softly and in dead silence, for we had to slip through\nthe enemy's lines. We were challenged only once; we made no answer, but\nheld our breath and crept steadily and stealthily along, and got through\nwithout any accident. About three or half past we reached Compiegne,\njust as the gray dawn was breaking in the east.\n\nJoan set to work at once, and concerted a plan with Guillaume de Flavy,\ncaptain of the city--a plan for a sortie toward evening against the\nenemy, who was posted in three bodies on the other side of the Oise, in\nthe level plain. From our side one of the city gates communicated with\na bridge. The end of this bridge was defended on the other side of the\nriver by one of those fortresses called a boulevard; and this boulevard\nalso commanded a raised road, which stretched from its front across the\nplain to the village of Marguy. A force of Burgundians occupied Marguy;\nanother was camped at Clairoix, a couple of miles above the raised road;\nand a body of English was holding Venette, a mile and a half below it. A\nkind of bow-and-arrow arrangement, you see; the causeway the arrow, the\nboulevard at the feather-end of it, Marguy at the barb, Venette at one\nend of the bow, Clairoix at the other.\n\nJoan's plan was to go straight per causeway against Marguy, carry it by\nassault, then turn swiftly upon Clairoix, up to the right, and capture\nthat camp in the same way, then face to the rear and be ready for heavy\nwork, for the Duke of Burgundy lay behind Clairoix with a reserve.\nFlavy's lieutenant, with archers and the artillery of the boulevard,\nwas to keep the English troops from coming up from below and seizing the\ncauseway and cutting off Joan's retreat in case she should have to\nmake one. Also, a fleet of covered boats was to be stationed near\nthe boulevard as an additional help in case a retreat should become\nnecessary.\n\nIt was the 24th of May. At four in the afternoon Joan moved out at the\nhead of six hundred cavalry--on her last march in this life!\n\nIt breaks my heart. I had got myself helped up onto the walls, and from\nthere I saw much that happened, the rest was told me long afterward by\nour two knights and other eye-witnesses. Joan crossed the bridge, and\nsoon left the boulevard behind her and went skimming away over the\nraised road with her horsemen clattering at her heels. She had on a\nbrilliant silver-gilt cape over her armor, and I could see it flap and\nflare and rise and fall like a little patch of white flame.\n\nIt was a bright day, and one could see far and wide over that plain.\nSoon we saw the English force advancing, swiftly and in handsome order,\nthe sunlight flashing from its arms.\n\nJoan crashed into the Burgundians at Marguy and was repulsed. Then she\nsaw the other Burgundians moving down from Clairoix. Joan rallied her\nmen and charged again, and was again rolled back. Two assaults occupy\na good deal of time--and time was precious here. The English were\napproaching the road now from Venette, but the boulevard opened fire on\nthem and they were checked. Joan heartened her men with inspiring words\nand led them to the charge again in great style. This time she carried\nMarguy with a hurrah. Then she turned at once to the right and plunged\ninto the plan and struck the Clairoix force, which was just arriving;\nthen there was heavy work, and plenty of it, the two armies hurling each\nother backward turn about and about, and victory inclining first to the\none, then to the other. Now all of a sudden there was a panic on our\nside. Some say one thing caused it, some another. Some say the cannonade\nmade our front ranks think retreat was being cut off by the English,\nsome say the rear ranks got the idea that Joan was killed. Anyway our\nmen broke, and went flying in a wild rout for the causeway. Joan tried\nto rally them and face them around, crying to them that victory was\nsure, but it did no good, they divided and swept by her like a wave. Old\nD'Aulon begged her to retreat while there was yet a chance for safety,\nbut she refused; so he seized her horse's bridle and bore her along with\nthe wreck and ruin in spite of herself. And so along the causeway they\ncame swarming, that wild confusion of frenzied men and horses--and the\nartillery had to stop firing, of course; consequently the English and\nBurgundians closed in in safety, the former in front, the latter behind\ntheir prey. Clear to the boulevard the French were washed in this\nenveloping inundation; and there, cornered in an angle formed by the\nflank of the boulevard and the slope of the causeway, they bravely\nfought a hopeless fight, and sank down one by one.\n\nFlavy, watching from the city wall, ordered the gate to be closed and\nthe drawbridge raised. This shut Joan out.\n\nThe little personal guard around her thinned swiftly. Both of our good\nknights went down disabled; Joan's two brothers fell wounded; then Noel\nRainguesson--all wounded while loyally sheltering Joan from blows aimed\nat her. When only the Dwarf and the Paladin were left, they would not\ngive up, but stood their ground stoutly, a pair of steel towers streaked\nand splashed with blood; and where the ax of one fell, and the sword of\nthe other, an enemy gasped and died.\n\nAnd so fighting, and loyal to their duty to the last, good simple souls,\nthey came to their honorable end. Peace to their memories! they were\nvery dear to me.\n\nThen there was a cheer and a rush, and Joan, still defiant, still laying\nabout her with her sword, was seized by her cape and dragged from her\nhorse. She was borne away a prisoner to the Duke of Burgundy's camp, and\nafter her followed the victorious army roaring its joy.\n\nThe awful news started instantly on its round; from lip to lip it flew;\nand wherever it came it struck the people as with a sort of paralysis;\nand they murmured over and over again, as if they were talking to\nthemselves, or in their sleep, \"The Maid of Orleans taken!... Joan of\nArc a prisoner!... the savior of France lost to us!\"--and would keep\nsaying that over, as if they couldn't understand how it could be, or how\nGod could permit it, poor creatures!\n\nYou know what a city is like when it is hung from eaves to pavement\nwith rustling black? Then you know what Rouse was like, and some other\ncities. But can any man tell you what the mourning in the hearts of the\npeasantry of France was like? No, nobody can tell you that, and,\npoor dumb things, they could not have told you themselves, but it was\nthere--indeed, yes. Why, it was the spirit of a whole nation hung with\ncrape!\n\nThe 24th of May. We will draw down the curtain now upon the most\nstrange, and pathetic, and wonderful military drama that has been played\nupon the stage of the world. Joan of Arc will march no more.\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK III TRIAL AND MARTYRDOM\n\n\n\n1 The Maid in Chains\n\nI CANNOT bear to dwell at great length upon the shameful history of\nthe summer and winter following the capture. For a while I was not much\ntroubled, for I was expecting every day to hear that Joan had been put\nto ransom, and that the King--no, not the King, but grateful France--had\ncome eagerly forward to pay it. By the laws of war she could not\nbe denied the privilege of ransom. She was not a rebel; she was a\nlegitimately constituted soldier, head of the armies of France by\nher King's appointment, and guilty of no crime known to military law;\ntherefore she could not be detained upon any pretext, if ransom were\nproffered.\n\nBut day after day dragged by and no ransom was offered! It seems\nincredible, but it is true. Was that reptile Tremouille busy at the\nKing's ear? All we know is, that the King was silent, and made no offer\nand no effort in behalf of this poor girl who had done so much for him.\n\nBut, unhappily, there was alacrity enough in another quarter. The news\nof the capture reached Paris the day after it happened, and the glad\nEnglish and Burgundians deafened the world all the day and all the night\nwith the clamor of their joy-bells and the thankful thunder of their\nartillery, and the next day the Vicar-General of the Inquisition sent a\nmessage to the Duke of Burgundy requiring the delivery of the prisoner\ninto the hands of the Church to be tried as an idolater.\n\nThe English had seen their opportunity, and it was the English power\nthat was really acting, not the Church. The Church was being used as a\nblind, a disguise; and for a forcible reason: the Church was not only\nable to take the life of Joan of Arc, but to blight her influence and\nthe valor-breeding inspiration of her name, whereas the English\npower could but kill her body; that would not diminish or destroy the\ninfluence of her name; it would magnify it and make it permanent. Joan\nof Arc was the only power in France that the English did not despise,\nthe only power in France that they considered formidable. If the Church\ncould be brought to take her life, or to proclaim her an idolater, a\nheretic, a witch, sent from Satan, not from heaven, it was believed that\nthe English supremacy could be at once reinstated.\n\nThe Duke of Burgundy listened--but waited. He could not doubt that the\nFrench King or the French people would come forward presently and pay a\nhigher price than the English. He kept Joan a close prisoner in a\nstrong fortress, and continued to wait, week after week. He was a French\nprince, and was at heart ashamed to sell her to the English. Yet with\nall his waiting no offer came to him from the French side.\n\nOne day Joan played a cunning trick on her jailer, and not only slipped\nout of her prison, but locked him up in it. But as she fled away she was\nseen by a sentinel, and was caught and brought back.\n\nThen she was sent to Beaurevoir, a stronger castle. This was early in\nAugust, and she had been in captivity more than two months now. Here she\nwas shut up in the top of a tower which was sixty feet high. She ate her\nheart there for another long stretch--about three months and a half.\nAnd she was aware, all these weary five months of captivity, that the\nEnglish, under cover of the Church, were dickering for her as one would\ndicker for a horse or a slave, and that France was silent, the King\nsilent, all her friends the same. Yes, it was pitiful.\n\nAnd yet when she heard at last that Compiegne was being closely besieged\nand likely to be captured, and that the enemy had declared that no\ninhabitant of it should escape massacre, not even children of seven\nyears of age, she was in a fever at once to fly to our rescue. So she\ntore her bedclothes to strips and tied them together and descended\nthis frail rope in the night, and it broke, and she fell and was badly\nbruised, and remained three days insensible, meantime neither eating nor\ndrinking.\n\nAnd now came relief to us, led by the Count of Vendome, and Compiegne\nwas saved and the siege raised. This was a disaster to the Duke of\nBurgundy. He had to save money now. It was a good time for a new bid to\nbe made for Joan of Arc. The English at once sent a French bishop--that\nforever infamous Pierre Cauchon of Beauvais. He was partly promised\nthe Archbishopric of Rouen, which was vacant, if he should succeed. He\nclaimed the right to preside over Joan's ecclesiastical trial because\nthe battle-ground where she was taken was within his diocese. By the\nmilitary usage of the time the ransom of a royal prince was 10,000\nlivres of gold, which is 61,125 francs--a fixed sum, you see. It must be\naccepted when offered; it could not be refused.\n\nCauchon brought the offer of this very sum from the English--a royal\nprince's ransom for the poor little peasant-girl of Domremy. It shows\nin a striking way the English idea of her formidable importance. It was\naccepted. For that sum Joan of Arc, the Savior of France, was sold; sold\nto her enemies; to the enemies of her country; enemies who had lashed\nand thrashed and thumped and trounced France for a century and made\nholiday sport of it; enemies who had forgotten, years and years ago,\nwhat a Frenchman's face was like, so used were they to seeing nothing\nbut his back; enemies whom she had whipped, whom she had cowed, whom she\nhad taught to respect French valor, new-born in her nation by the breath\nof her spirit; enemies who hungered for her life as being the only\npuissance able to stand between English triumph and French degradation.\nSold to a French priest by a French prince, with the French King and the\nFrench nation standing thankless by and saying nothing.\n\nAnd she--what did she say? Nothing. Not a reproach passed her lips. She\nwas too great for that--she was Joan of Arc; and when that is said, all\nis said.\n\nAs a soldier, her record was spotless. She could not be called to\naccount for anything under that head. A subterfuge must be found, and,\nas we have seen, was found. She must be tried by priests for crimes\nagainst religion. If none could be discovered, some must be invented.\nLet the miscreant Cauchon alone to contrive those.\n\nRouen was chosen as the scene of the trial. It was in the heart of the\nEnglish power; its population had been under English dominion so many\ngenerations that they were hardly French now, save in language. The\nplace was strongly garrisoned. Joan was taken there near the end of\nDecember, 1430, and flung into a dungeon. Yes, and clothed in chains,\nthat free spirit!\n\nStill France made no move. How do I account for this? I think there is\nonly one way. You will remember that whenever Joan was not at the front,\nthe French held back and ventured nothing; that whenever she led, they\nswept everything before them, so long as they could see her white\narmor or her banner; that every time she fell wounded or was reported\nkilled--as at Compiegne--they broke in panic and fled like sheep. I\nargue from this that they had undergone no real transformation as yet;\nthat at bottom they were still under the spell of a timorousness born of\ngenerations of unsuccess, and a lack of confidence in each other and\nin their leaders born of old and bitter experience in the way of\ntreacheries of all sorts--for their kings had been treacherous to their\ngreat vassals and to their generals, and these in turn were treacherous\nto the head of the state and to each other. The soldiery found that\nthey could depend utterly on Joan, and upon her alone. With her gone,\neverything was gone. She was the sun that melted the frozen torrents and\nset them boiling; with that sun removed, they froze again, and the army\nand all France became what they had been before, mere dead corpses--that\nand nothing more; incapable of thought, hope, ambition, or motion.\n\n\n\n\n\n2 Joan Sold to the English\n\nMY WOUND gave me a great deal of trouble clear into the first part of\nOctober; then the fresher weather renewed my life and strength. All this\ntime there were reports drifting about that the King was going to ransom\nJoan. I believed these, for I was young and had not yet found out the\nlittleness and meanness of our poor human race, which brags about itself\nso much, and thinks it is better and higher than the other animals.\n\nIn October I was well enough to go out with two sorties, and in the\nsecond one, on the 23d, I was wounded again. My luck had turned,\nyou see. On the night of the 25th the besiegers decamped, and in the\ndisorder and confusion one of their prisoners escaped and got safe into\nCompiegne, and hobbled into my room as pallid and pathetic an object as\nyou would wish to see.\n\n\"What? Alive? Noel Rainguesson!\"\n\nIt was indeed he. It was a most joyful meeting, that you will easily\nknow; and also as sad as it was joyful. We could not speak Joan's name.\nOne's voice would have broken down. We knew who was meant when she was\nmentioned; we could say \"she\" and \"her,\" but we could not speak the\nname.\n\nWe talked of the personal staff. Old D'Aulon, wounded and a prisoner,\nwas still with Joan and serving her, by permission of the Duke of\nBurgundy. Joan was being treated with respect due to her rank and to her\ncharacter as a prisoner of war taken in honorable conflict. And this was\ncontinued--as we learned later--until she fell into the hands of that\nbastard of Satan, Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais.\n\nNoel was full of noble and affectionate praises and appreciations of our\nold boastful big Standard-Bearer, now gone silent forever, his real and\nimaginary battles all fought, his work done, his life honorably closed\nand completed.\n\n\"And think of his luck!\" burst out Noel, with his eyes full of tears.\n\"Always the pet child of luck!\n\n\"See how it followed him and stayed by him, from his first step all\nthrough, in the field or out of it; always a splendid figure in the\npublic eye, courted and envied everywhere; always having a chance to do\nfine things and always doing them; in the beginning called the Paladin\nin joke, and called it afterward in earnest because he magnificently\nmade the title good; and at last--supremest luck of all--died in the\nfield! died with his harness on; died faithful to his charge, the\nStandard in his hand; died--oh, think of it--with the approving eye of\nJoan of Arc upon him!\n\n\"He drained the cup of glory to the last drop, and went jubilant to his\npeace, blessedly spared all part in the disaster which was to follow.\nWhat luck, what luck! And we? What was our sin that we are still here,\nwe who have also earned our place with the happy dead?\"\n\nAnd presently he said:\n\n\"They tore the sacred Standard from his dead hand and carried it away,\ntheir most precious prize after its captured owner. But they haven't it\nnow. A month ago we put our lives upon the risk--our two good knights,\nmy fellow-prisoners, and I--and stole it, and got it smuggled by\ntrusty hands to Orleans, and there it is now, safe for all time in the\nTreasury.\"\n\nI was glad and grateful to learn that. I have seen it often since, when\nI have gone to Orleans on the 8th of May to be the petted old guest of\nthe city and hold the first place of honor at the banquets and in the\nprocessions--I mean since Joan's brothers passed from this life. It will\nstill be there, sacredly guarded by French love, a thousand years from\nnow--yes, as long as any shred of it hangs together. (1) Two or three\nweeks after this talk came the tremendous news like a thunder-clap, and\nwe were aghast--Joan of Arc sold to the English!\n\nNot for a moment had we ever dreamed of such a thing. We were young, you\nsee, and did not know the human race, as I have said before. We had been\nso proud of our country, so sure of her nobleness, her magnanimity,\nher gratitude. We had expected little of the King, but of France we\nhad expected everything. Everybody knew that in various towns patriot\npriests had been marching in procession urging the people to sacrifice\nmoney, property, everything, and buy the freedom of their heaven-sent\ndeliverer. That the money would be raised we had not thought of\ndoubting.\n\nBut it was all over now, all over. It was a bitter time for us. The\nheavens seemed hung with black; all cheer went out from our hearts.\nWas this comrade here at my bedside really Noel Rainguesson, that\nlight-hearted creature whose whole life was but one long joke, and who\nused up more breath in laughter than in keeping his body alive? No, no;\nthat Noel I was to see no more. This one's heart was broken. He moved\ngrieving about, and absently, like one in a dream; the stream of his\nlaughter was dried at its source.\n\nWell, that was best. It was my own mood. We were company for each other.\nHe nursed me patiently through the dull long weeks, and at last, in\nJanuary, I was strong enough to go about again. Then he said:\n\n\"Shall we go now?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThere was no need to explain. Our hearts were in Rouen; we would carry\nour bodies there. All that we cared for in this life was shut up in that\nfortress. We could not help her, but it would be some solace to us to be\nnear her, to breathe the air that she breathed, and look daily upon the\nstone walls that hid her. What if we should be made prisoners there?\nWell, we could but do our best, and let luck and fate decide what should\nhappen.\n\nAnd so we started. We could not realize the change which had come upon\nthe country. We seemed able to choose our own route and go whenever we\npleased, unchallenged and unmolested. When Joan of Arc was in the field\nthere was a sort of panic of fear everywhere; but now that she was out\nof the way, fear had vanished. Nobody was troubled about you or afraid\nof you, nobody was curious about you or your business, everybody was\nindifferent.\n\nWe presently saw that we could take to the Seine, and not weary\nourselves out with land travel.\n\nSo we did it, and were carried in a boat to within a league of Rouen.\nThen we got ashore; not on the hilly side, but on the other, where it\nis as level as a floor. Nobody could enter or leave the city without\nexplaining himself. It was because they feared attempts at a rescue of\nJoan.\n\nWe had no trouble. We stopped in the plain with a family of peasants and\nstayed a week, helping them with their work for board and lodging, and\nmaking friends of them. We got clothes like theirs, and wore them.\nWhen we had worked our way through their reserves and gotten their\nconfidence, we found that they secretly harbored French hearts in their\nbodies. Then we came out frankly and told them everything, and found\nthem ready to do anything they could to help us.\n\nOur plan was soon made, and was quite simple. It was to help them drive\na flock of sheep to the market of the city. One morning early we made\nthe venture in a melancholy drizzle of rain, and passed through the\nfrowning gates unmolested. Our friends had friends living over a humble\nwine shop in a quaint tall building situated in one of the narrow lanes\nthat run down from the cathedral to the river, and with these they\nbestowed us; and the next day they smuggled our own proper clothing and\nother belongings to us. The family that lodged us--the Pieroons--were\nFrench in sympathy, and we needed to have no secrets from them.\n\n(1) It remained there three hundred and sixty years, and then was\ndestroyed in a public bonfire, together with two swords, a plumed cap,\nseveral suits of state apparel, and other relics of the Maid, by a mob\nin the time of the Revolution. Nothing which the hand of Joan of Arc is\nknown to have touched now remains in existence except a few preciously\nguarded military and state papers which she signed, her pen being guided\nby a clerk or her secretary, Louis de Conte. A boulder exists from which\nshe is known to have mounted her horse when she was once setting out\nupon a campaign. Up to a quarter of a century ago there was a single\nhair from her head still in existence. It was drawn through the wax of\na seal attached to the parchment of a state document. It was\nsurreptitiously snipped out, seal and all, by some vandal relic-hunter,\nand carried off. Doubtless it still exists, but only the thief knows\nwhere. -- TRANSLATOR.\n\n\n\n\n\n3 Weaving the Net About Her\n\nIT WAS necessary for me to have some way to gain bread for Noel and\nmyself; and when the Pierrons found that I knew how to write, the\napplied to their confessor in my behalf, and he got a place for me with\na good priest named Manchon, who was to be the chief recorder in the\nGreat Trial of Joan of Arc now approaching. It was a strange position\nfor me--clerk to the recorder--and dangerous if my sympathies and the\nlate employment should be found out. But there was not much danger.\nManchon was at bottom friendly to Joan and would not betray me; and\nmy name would not, for I had discarded my surname and retained only my\ngiven one, like a person of low degree.\n\nI attended Manchon constantly straight along, out of January and into\nFebruary, and was often in the citadel with him--in the very fortress\nwhere Joan was imprisoned, though not in the dungeon where she was\nconfined, and so did not see her, of course.\n\nManchon told me everything that had been happening before my coming.\nEver since the purchase of Joan, Cauchon had been busy packing his jury\nfor the destruction of the Maid--weeks and weeks he had spent in this\nbad industry. The University of Paris had sent him a number of learned\nand able and trusty ecclesiastics of the stripe he wanted; and he had\nscraped together a clergyman of like stripe and great fame here and\nthere and yonder, until he was able to construct a formidable court\nnumbering half a hundred distinguished names. French names they were,\nbut their interests and sympathies were English.\n\nA great officer of the Inquisition was also sent from Paris for the\naccused must be tried by the forms of the Inquisition; but this was a\nbrave and righteous man, and he said squarely that this court had no\npower to try the case, wherefore he refused to act; and the same honest\ntalk was uttered by two or three others.\n\nThe Inquisitor was right. The case as here resurrected against Joan had\nalready been tried long ago at Poitiers, and decided in her favor. Yes,\nand by a higher tribunal than this one, for at the head of it was an\nArchbishop--he of Rheims--Cauchon's own metropolitan. So here, you see,\na lower court was impudently preparing to try and redecide a cause which\nhad already been decided by its superior, a court of higher authority.\nImagine it! No, the case could not properly be tried again. Cauchon\ncould not properly preside in this new court, for more than one reason:\n\nRouen was not in his diocese; Joan had not been arrested in her\ndomicile, which was still Domremy; and finally this proposed judge was\nthe prisoner's outspoken enemy, and therefore he was incompetent to\ntry her. Yet all these large difficulties were gotten rid of. The\nterritorial Chapter of Rouen finally granted territorial letters to\nCauchon--though only after a struggle and under compulsion. Force was\nalso applied to the Inquisitor, and he was obliged to submit.\n\nSo then, the little English King, by his representative, formally\ndelivered Joan into the hands of the court, but with this reservation:\nif the court failed to condemn her, he was to have her back again! Ah,\ndear, what chance was there for that forsaken and friendless child?\nFriendless, indeed--it is the right word. For she was in a black\ndungeon, with half a dozen brutal common soldiers keeping guard night\nand day in the room where her cage was--for she was in a cage; an iron\ncage, and chained to her bed by neck and hands and feet. Never a person\nnear her whom she had ever seen before; never a woman at all. Yes, this\nwas, indeed, friendlessness.\n\nNow it was a vassal of Jean de Luxembourg who captured Joan and\nCompiegne, and it was Jean who sold her to the Duke of Burgundy. Yet\nthis very De Luxembourg was shameless enough to go and show his face to\nJoan in her cage. He came with two English earls, Warwick and Stafford.\nHe was a poor reptile. He told her he would get her set free if she\nwould promise not to fight the English any more. She had been in that\ncage a long time now, but not long enough to break her spirit. She\nretorted scornfully:\n\n\"Name of God, you but mock me. I know that you have neither the power\nnor the will to do it.\"\n\nHe insisted. Then the pride and dignity of the soldier rose in Joan, and\nshe lifted her chained hands and let them fall with a clash, saying:\n\n\"See these! They know more than you, and can prophesy better. I know\nthat the English are going to kill me, for they think that when I am\ndead they can get the Kingdom of France. It is not so.\n\n\"Though there were a hundred thousand of them they would never get it.\"\n\nThis defiance infuriated Stafford, and he--now think of it--he a free,\nstrong man, she a chained and helpless girl--he drew his dagger and\nflung himself at her to stab her. But Warwick seized him and held him\nback. Warwick was wise. Take her life in that way? Send her to Heaven\nstainless and undisgraced? It would make her the idol of France, and the\nwhole nation would rise and march to victory and emancipation under the\ninspiration of her spirit. No, she must be saved for another fate than\nthat.\n\nWell, the time was approaching for the Great Trial. For more than two\nmonths Cauchon had been raking and scraping everywhere for any odds and\nends of evidence or suspicion or conjecture that might be usable against\nJoan, and carefully suppressing all evidence that came to hand in her\nfavor. He had limitless ways and means and powers at his disposal for\npreparing and strengthening the case for the prosecution, and he used\nthem all.\n\nBut Joan had no one to prepare her case for her, and she was shut up in\nthose stone walls and had no friend to appeal to for help. And as for\nwitnesses, she could not call a single one in her defense; they were\nall far away, under the French flag, and this was an English court; they\nwould have been seized and hanged if they had shown their faces at the\ngates of Rouen. No, the prisoner must be the sole witness--witness for\nthe prosecution, witness for the defense; and with a verdict of death\nresolved upon before the doors were opened for the court's first\nsitting.\n\nWhen she learned that the court was made up of ecclesiastics in the\ninterest of the English, she begged that in fairness an equal number of\npriests of the French party should be added to these.\n\nCauchon scoffed at her message, and would not even deign to answer it.\n\nBy the law of the Church--she being a minor under twenty-one--it was her\nright to have counsel to conduct her case, advise her how to answer\nwhen questioned, and protect her from falling into traps set by cunning\ndevices of the prosecution. She probably did not know that this was her\nright, and that she could demand it and require it, for there was none\nto tell her that; but she begged for this help, at any rate. Cauchon\nrefused it. She urged and implored, pleading her youth and her ignorance\nof the complexities and intricacies of the law and of legal procedure.\nCauchon refused again, and said she must get along with her case as best\nshe might by herself. Ah, his heart was a stone.\n\nCauchon prepared the proces verbal. I will simplify that by calling it\nthe Bill of Particulars. It was a detailed list of the charges against\nher, and formed the basis of the trial. Charges? It was a list of\nsuspicions and public rumors--those were the words used. It was merely\ncharged that she was suspected of having been guilty of heresies,\nwitchcraft, and other such offenses against religion.\n\nNow by the law of the Church, a trial of that sort could not be begun\nuntil a searching inquiry had been made into the history and character\nof the accused, and it was essential that the result of this inquiry be\nadded to the proces verbal and form a part of it. You remember that that\nwas the first thing they did before the trial at Poitiers. They did it\nagain now. An ecclesiastic was sent to Domremy. There and all about\nthe neighborhood he made an exhaustive search into Joan's history\nand character, and came back with his verdict. It was very clear. The\nsearcher reported that he found Joan's character to be in every way what\nhe \"would like his own sister's character to be.\" Just about the\nsame report that was brought back to Poitiers, you see. Joan's was a\ncharacter which could endure the minutest examination.\n\nThis verdict was a strong point for Joan, you will say. Yes, it would\nhave been if it could have seen the light; but Cauchon was awake, and it\ndisappeared from the proces verbal before the trial. People were prudent\nenough not to inquire what became of it.\n\nOne would imagine that Cauchon was ready to begin the trial by this\ntime. But no, he devised one more scheme for poor Joan's destruction,\nand it promised to be a deadly one.\n\nOne of the great personages picked out and sent down by the University\nof Paris was an ecclesiastic named Nicolas Loyseleur. He was tall,\nhandsome, grave, of smooth, soft speech and courteous and winning\nmanners. There was no seeming of treachery or hypocrisy about him,\nyet he was full of both. He was admitted to Joan's prison by night,\ndisguised as a cobbler; he pretended to be from her own country; he\nprofessed to be secretly a patriot; he revealed the fact that he was\na priest. She was filled with gladness to see one from the hills and\nplains that were so dear to her; happier still to look upon a priest and\ndisburden her heart in confession, for the offices of the Church were\nthe bread of life, the breath of her nostrils to her, and she had been\nlong forced to pine for them in vain. She opened her whole innocent\nheart to this creature, and in return he gave her advice concerning her\ntrial which could have destroyed her if her deep native wisdom had not\nprotected her against following it.\n\nYou will ask, what value could this scheme have, since the secrets of\nthe confessional are sacred and cannot be revealed? True--but suppose\nanother person should overhear them? That person is not bound to keep\nthe secret. Well, that is what happened. Cauchon had previously caused\na hole to be bored through the wall; and he stood with his ear to that\nhole and heard all. It is pitiful to think of these things. One wonders\nhow they could treat that poor child so. She had not done them any harm.\n\n\n\n\n\n4 All Ready to Condemn\n\nON TUESDAY, the 20th of February, while I sat at my master's work in the\nevening, he came in, looking sad, and said it had been decided to begin\nthe trial at eight o'clock the next morning, and I must get ready to\nassist him.\n\nOf course I had been expecting such news every day for many days; but no\nmatter, the shock of it almost took my breath away and set me trembling\nlike a leaf. I suppose that without knowing it I had been half imagining\nthat at the last moment something would happen, something that would\nstop this fatal trial; maybe that La Hire would burst in at the gates\nwith his hellions at his back; maybe that God would have pity and\nstretch forth His mighty hand. But now--now there was no hope.\n\nThe trial was to begin in the chapel of the fortress and would be\npublic. So I went sorrowing away and told Noel, so that he might be\nthere early and secure a place. It would give him a chance to look again\nupon the face which we so revered and which was so precious to us.\nAll the way, both going and coming, I plowed through chattering and\nrejoicing multitudes of English soldiery and English-hearted French\ncitizens. There was no talk but of the coming event. Many times I heard\nthe remark, accompanied by a pitiless laugh:\n\n\"The fat Bishop has got things as he wants them at last, and says he\nwill lead the vile witch a merry dance and a short one.\"\n\nBut here and there I glimpsed compassion and distress in a face, and\nit was not always a French one. English soldiers feared Joan, but they\nadmired her for her great deeds and her unconquerable spirit.\n\nIn the morning Manchon and I went early, yet as we approached the\nvast fortress we found crowds of men already there and still others\ngathering. The chapel was already full and the way barred against\nfurther admissions of unofficial persons. We took our appointed places.\nThroned on high sat the president, Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, in\nhis grand robes, and before him in rows sat his robed court--fifty\ndistinguished ecclesiastics, men of high degree in the Church, of\nclear-cut intellectual faces, men of deep learning, veteran adepts in\nstrategy and casuistry, practised setters of traps for ignorant minds\nand unwary feet. When I looked around upon this army of masters of\nlegal fence, gathered here to find just one verdict and no other,\nand remembered that Joan must fight for her good name and her life\nsingle-handed against them, I asked myself what chance an ignorant poor\ncountry-girl of nineteen could have in such an unequal conflict; and\nmy heart sank down low, very low. When I looked again at that obese\npresident, puffing and wheezing there, his great belly distending and\nreceding with each breath, and noted his three chins, fold above fold,\nand his knobby and knotty face, and his purple and splotchy complexion,\nand his repulsive cauliflower nose, and his cold and malignant eyes--a\nbrute, every detail of him--my heart sank lower still. And when I noted\nthat all were afraid of this man, and shrank and fidgeted in their seats\nwhen his eye smote theirs, my last poor ray of hope dissolved away and\nwholly disappeared.\n\nThere was one unoccupied seat in this place, and only one. It was over\nagainst the wall, in view of every one. It was a little wooden bench\nwithout a back, and it stood apart and solitary on a sort of dais. Tall\nmen-at-arms in morion, breastplate, and steel gauntlets stood as stiff\nas their own halberds on each side of this dais, but no other creature\nwas near by it. A pathetic little bench to me it was, for I knew whom it\nwas for; and the sight of it carried my mind back to the great court at\nPoitiers, where Joan sat upon one like it and calmly fought her cunning\nfight with the astonished doctors of the Church and Parliament, and\nrose from it victorious and applauded by all, and went forth to fill the\nworld with the glory of her name.\n\nWhat a dainty little figure she was, and how gentle and innocent, how\nwinning and beautiful in the fresh bloom of her seventeen years! Those\nwere grand days. And so recent--for she was just nineteen now--and how\nmuch she had seen since, and what wonders she had accomplished!\n\nBut now--oh, all was changed now. She had been languishing in dungeons,\naway from light and air and the cheer of friendly faces, for nearly\nthree-quarters of a year--she, born child of the sun, natural comrade of\nthe birds and of all happy free creatures. She would be weary now, and\nworn with this long captivity, her forces impaired; despondent, perhaps,\nas knowing there was no hope. Yes, all was changed.\n\nAll this time there had been a muffled hum of conversation, and rustling\nof robes and scraping of feet on the floor, a combination of dull noises\nwhich filled all the place. Suddenly:\n\n\"Produce the accused!\"\n\nIt made me catch my breath. My heart began to thump like a hammer. But\nthere was silence now--silence absolute. All those noises ceased, and\nit was as if they had never been. Not a sound; the stillness grew\noppressive; it was like a weight upon one. All faces were turned toward\nthe door; and one could properly expect that, for most of the people\nthere suddenly realized, no doubt, that they were about to see, in\nactual flesh and blood, what had been to them before only an embodied\nprodigy, a word, a phrase, a world-girdling Name.\n\nThe stillness continued. Then, far down the stone-paved corridors, one\nheard a vague slow sound approaching: clank... clink... clank--Joan of\nArc, Deliverer of France, in chains!\n\nMy head swam; all things whirled and spun about me. Ah, I was realizing,\ntoo.\n\n\n\n\n\n5 Fifty Experts Against a Novice\n\nI GIVE you my honor now that I am not going to distort or discolor the\nfacts of this miserable trial. No, I will give them to you honestly,\ndetail by detail, just as Manchon and I set them down daily in the\nofficial record of the court, and just as one may read them in the\nprinted histories.\n\nThere will be only this difference: that in talking familiarly with you,\nI shall use my right to comment upon the proceedings and explain them as\nI go along, so that you can understand them better; also, I shall throw\nin trifles which came under our eyes and have a certain interest for you\nand me, but were not important enough to go into the official record.\n(1) To take up my story now where I left off. We heard the clanking of\nJoan's chains down the corridors; she was approaching.\n\nPresently she appeared; a thrill swept the house, and one heard deep\nbreaths drawn. Two guardsmen followed her at a short distance to the\nrear. Her head was bowed a little, and she moved slowly, she being weak\nand her irons heavy. She had on men's attire--all black; a soft woolen\nstuff, intensely black, funereally black, not a speck of relieving color\nin it from her throat to the floor. A wide collar of this same black\nstuff lay in radiating folds upon her shoulders and breast; the sleeves\nof her doublet were full, down to the elbows, and tight thence to her\nmanacled wrists; below the doublet, tight black hose down to the chains\non her ankles.\n\nHalf-way to her bench she stopped, just where a wide shaft of light fell\nslanting from a window, and slowly lifted her face. Another thrill!--it\nwas totally colorless, white as snow; a face of gleaming snow set in\nvivid contrast upon that slender statue of somber unmitigated black. It\nwas smooth and pure and girlish, beautiful beyond belief, infinitely\nsad and sweet. But, dear, dear! when the challenge of those untamed\neyes fell upon that judge, and the droop vanished from her form and\nit straightened up soldierly and noble, my heart leaped for joy; and I\nsaid, all is well, all is well--they have not broken her, they have not\nconquered her, she is Joan of Arc still! Yes, it was plain to me now\nthat there was one spirit there which this dreaded judge could not quell\nnor make afraid.\n\nShe moved to her place and mounted the dais and seated herself upon her\nbench, gathering her chains into her lap and nestling her little white\nhands there. Then she waited in tranquil dignity, the only person there\nwho seemed unmoved and unexcited. A bronzed and brawny English soldier,\nstanding at martial ease in the front rank of the citizen spectators,\ndid now most gallantly and respectfully put up his great hand and give\nher the military salute; and she, smiling friendly, put up hers and\nreturned it; whereat there was a sympathetic little break of applause,\nwhich the judge sternly silence.\n\nNow the memorable inquisition called in history the Great Trial began.\nFifty experts against a novice, and no one to help the novice!\n\nThe judge summarized the circumstances of the case and the public\nreports and suspicions upon which it was based; then he required Joan to\nkneel and make oath that she would answer with exact truthfulness to all\nquestions asked her.\n\nJoan's mind was not asleep. It suspected that dangerous possibilities\nmight lie hidden under this apparently fair and reasonable demand.\nShe answered with the simplicity which so often spoiled the enemy's\nbest-laid plans in the trial at Poitiers, and said:\n\n\"No; for I do not know what you are going to ask me; you might ask of me\nthings which I would not tell you.\"\n\nThis incensed the Court, and brought out a brisk flurry of angry\nexclamations. Joan was not disturbed. Cauchon raised his voice and began\nto speak in the midst of this noise, but he was so angry that he could\nhardly get his words out. He said:\n\n\"With the divine assistance of our Lord we require you to expedite these\nproceedings for the welfare of your conscience. Swear, with your hands\nupon the Gospels, that you will answer true to the questions which shall\nbe asked you!\" and he brought down his fat hand with a crash upon his\nofficial table.\n\nJoan said, with composure:\n\n\"As concerning my father and mother, and the faith, and what things\nI have done since my coming into France, I will gladly answer; but as\nregards the revelations which I have received from God, my Voices have\nforbidden me to confide them to any save my King--\"\n\nHere there was another angry outburst of threats and expletives, and\nmuch movement and confusion; so she had to stop, and wait for the noise\nto subside; then her waxen face flushed a little and she straightened\nup and fixed her eye on the judge, and finished her sentence in a voice\nthat had the old ring to it:\n\n--\"and I will never reveal these things though you cut my head off!\"\n\nWell, maybe you know what a deliberative body of Frenchmen is like. The\njudge and half the court were on their feet in a moment, and all shaking\ntheir fists at the prisoner, and all storming and vituperating at once,\nso that you could hardly hear yourself think. They kept this up several\nminutes; and because Joan sat untroubled and indifferent they grew\nmadder and noisier all the time. Once she said, with a fleeting trace of\nthe old-time mischief in her eye and manner:\n\n\"Prithee, speak one at a time, fair lords, then I will answer all of\nyou.\"\n\nAt the end of three whole hours of furious debating over the oath,\nthe situation had not changed a jot. The Bishop was still requiring an\nunmodified oath, Joan was refusing for the twentieth time to take any\nexcept the one which she had herself proposed. There was a physical\nchange apparent, but it was confined to the court and judge; they\nwere hoarse, droopy, exhausted by their long frenzy, and had a sort of\nhaggard look in their faces, poor men, whereas Joan was still placid and\nreposeful and did not seem noticeably tired.\n\nThe noise quieted down; there was a waiting pause of some moments'\nduration. Then the judge surrendered to the prisoner, and with\nbitterness in his voice told her to take the oath after her own fashion.\nJoan sunk at once to her knees; and as she laid her hands upon the\nGospels, that big English soldier set free his mind:\n\n\"By God, if she were but English, she were not in this place another\nhalf a second!\"\n\nIt was the soldier in him responding to the soldier in her. But what\na stinging rebuke it was, what an arraignment of French character and\nFrench royalty! Would that he could have uttered just that one phrase\nin the hearing of Orleans! I know that that grateful city, that adoring\ncity, would have risen to the last man and the last woman, and marched\nupon Rouen. Some speeches--speeches that shame a man and humble\nhim--burn themselves into the memory and remain there. That one is\nburned into mine.\n\nAfter Joan had made oath, Cauchon asked her her name, and where she was\nborn, and some questions about her family; also what her age was. She\nanswered these. Then he asked her how much education she had.\n\n\"I have learned from my mother the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, and the\nBelief. All that I know was taught me by my mother.\"\n\nQuestions of this unessential sort dribbled on for a considerable time.\nEverybody was tired out by now, except Joan. The tribunal prepared to\nrise. At this point Cauchon forbade Joan to try to escape from prison,\nupon pain of being held guilty of the crime of heresy--singular logic!\nShe answered simply:\n\n\"I am not bound by this proposition. If I could escape I would not\nreproach myself, for I have given no promise, and I shall not.\"\n\nThen she complained of the burden of her chains, and asked that they\nmight be removed, for she was strongly guarded in that dungeon and there\nwas no need of them. But the Bishop refused, and reminded her that she\nhad broken out of prison twice before. Joan of Arc was too proud to\ninsist. She only said, as she rose to go with the guard:\n\n\"It is true, I have wanted to escape, and I do want to escape.\" Then she\nadded, in a way that would touch the pity of anybody, I think, \"It is\nthe right of every prisoner.\"\n\nAnd so she went from the place in the midst of an impressive stillness,\nwhich made the sharper and more distressful to me the clank of those\npathetic chains.\n\nWhat presence of mind she had! One could never surprise her out of it.\nShe saw Noel and me there when she first took her seat on the bench,\nand we flushed to the forehead with excitement and emotion, but her face\nshowed nothing, betrayed nothing. Her eyes sought us fifty times that\nday, but they passed on and there was never any ray of recognition in\nthem. Another would have started upon seeing us, and then--why, then\nthere could have been trouble for us, of course.\n\nWe walked slowly home together, each busy with his own grief and saying\nnot a word.\n\n(1) He kept his word. His account of the Great Trial will be found to\nbe in strict and detailed accordance with the sworn facts of history.\n--TRANSLATOR.\n\n\n\n\n\n6 The Maid Baffles Her Persecutors\n\nTHAT NIGHT Manchon told me that all through the day's proceedings\nCauchon had had some clerks concealed in the embrasure of a window who\nwere to make a special report garbling Joan's answers and twisting them\nfrom their right meaning. Ah, that was surely the cruelest man and the\nmost shameless that has lived in this world. But his scheme failed.\nThose clerks had human hearts in them, and their base work revolted\nthem, and they turned to and boldly made a straight report, whereupon\nCauchon cursed them and ordered them out of his presence with a threat\nof drowning, which was his favorite and most frequent menace. The matter\nhad gotten abroad and was making great and unpleasant talk, and Cauchon\nwould not try to repeat this shabby game right away. It comforted me to\nhear that.\n\nWhen we arrived at the citadel next morning, we found that a change\nhad been made. The chapel had been found too small. The court had now\nremoved to a noble chamber situated at the end of the great hall of the\ncastle. The number of judges was increased to sixty-two--one ignorant\ngirl against such odds, and none to help her.\n\nThe prisoner was brought in. She was as white as ever, but she was\nlooking no whit worse than she looked when she had first appeared the\nday before. Isn't it a strange thing? Yesterday she had sat five hours\non that backless bench with her chains in her lap, baited, badgered,\npersecuted by that unholy crew, without even the refreshment of a cup of\nwater--for she was never offered anything, and if I have made you know\nher by this time you will know without my telling you that she was not a\nperson likely to ask favors of those people. And she had spent the night\ncaged in her wintry dungeon with her chains upon her; yet here she was,\nas I say, collected, unworn, and ready for the conflict; yes, and\nthe only person there who showed no signs of the wear and worry of\nyesterday. And her eyes--ah, you should have seen them and broken your\nhearts. Have you seen that veiled deep glow, that pathetic hurt dignity,\nthat unsubdued and unsubduable spirit that burns and smolders in the eye\nof a caged eagle and makes you feel mean and shabby under the burden of\nits mute reproach? Her eyes were like that. How capable they were, and\nhow wonderful! Yes, at all times and in all circumstances they could\nexpress as by print every shade of the wide range of her moods. In\nthem were hidden floods of gay sunshine, the softest and peacefulest\ntwilights, and devastating storms and lightnings. Not in this world have\nthere been others that were comparable to them. Such is my opinion, and\nnone that had the privilege to see them would say otherwise than this\nwhich I have said concerning them.\n\nThe seance began. And how did it begin, should you think? Exactly as it\nbegan before--with that same tedious thing which had been settled once,\nafter so much wrangling. The Bishop opened thus:\n\n\"You are required now, to take the oath pure and simple, to answer truly\nall questions asked you.\"\n\nJoan replied placidly:\n\n\"I have made oath yesterday, my lord; let that suffice.\"\n\nThe Bishop insisted and insisted, with rising temper; Joan but shook her\nhead and remained silent. At last she said:\n\n\"I made oath yesterday; it is sufficient.\" Then she sighed and said, \"Of\na truth, you do burden me too much.\"\n\nThe Bishop still insisted, still commanded, but he could not move her.\nAt last he gave it up and turned her over for the day's inquest to an\nold hand at tricks and traps and deceptive plausibilities--Beaupere, a\ndoctor of theology. Now notice the form of this sleek strategist's first\nremark--flung out in an easy, offhand way that would have thrown any\nunwatchful person off his guard:\n\n\"Now, Joan, the matter is very simple; just speak up and frankly and\ntruly answer the questions which I am going to ask you, as you have\nsworn to do.\"\n\nIt was a failure. Joan was not asleep. She saw the artifice. She said:\n\n\"No. You could ask me things which I could not tell you--and would not.\"\nThen, reflecting upon how profane and out of character it was for these\nministers of God to be prying into matters which had proceeded from His\nhands under the awful seal of His secrecy, she added, with a warning\nnote in her tone, \"If you were well informed concerning me you would\nwish me out of your hands. I have done nothing but by revelation.\"\n\nBeaupere changed his attack, and began an approach from another quarter.\nHe would slip upon her, you see, under cover of innocent and unimportant\nquestions.\n\n\"Did you learn any trade at home?\"\n\n\"Yes, to sew and to spin.\" Then the invincible soldier, victor of Patay,\nconqueror of the lion Talbot, deliverer of Orleans, restorer of a king's\ncrown, commander-in-chief of a nation's armies, straightened\nherself proudly up, gave her head a little toss, and said with naive\ncomplacency, \"And when it comes to that, I am not afraid to be matched\nagainst any woman in Rouen!\"\n\nThe crowd of spectators broke out with applause--which pleased Joan--and\nthere was many a friendly and petting smile to be seen. But Cauchon\nstormed at the people and warned them to keep still and mind their\nmanners.\n\nBeaupere asked other questions. Then:\n\n\"Had you other occupations at home?\"\n\n\"Yes. I helped my mother in the household work and went to the pastures\nwith the sheep and the cattle.\"\n\nHer voice trembled a little, but one could hardly notice it. As for me,\nit brought those old enchanted days flooding back to me, and I could not\nsee what I was writing for a little while.\n\nBeaupere cautiously edged along up with other questions toward the\nforbidden ground, and finally repeated a question which she had refused\nto answer a little while back--as to whether she had received the\nEucharist in those days at other festivals than that of Easter. Joan\nmerely said:\n\n\"Passez outre.\" Or, as one might say, \"Pass on to matters which you are\nprivileged to pry into.\"\n\nI heard a member of the court say to a neighbor:\n\n\"As a rule, witnesses are but dull creatures, and an easy prey--yes, and\neasily embarrassed, easily frightened--but truly one can neither scare\nthis child nor find her dozing.\"\n\nPresently the house pricked up its ears and began to listen eagerly,\nfor Beaupere began to touch upon Joan's Voices, a matter of consuming\ninterest and curiosity to everybody. His purpose was to trick her into\nheedless sayings that could indicate that the Voices had sometimes given\nher evil advice--hence that they had come from Satan, you see. To have\ndealing with the devil--well, that would send her to the stake in brief\norder, and that was the deliberate end and aim of this trial.\n\n\"When did you first hear these Voices?\"\n\n\"I was thirteen when I first heard a Voice coming from God to help me to\nlive well. I was frightened. It came at midday, in my father's garden in\nthe summer.\"\n\n\"Had you been fasting?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"The day before?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"From what direction did it come?\"\n\n\"From the right--from toward the church.\"\n\n\"Did it come with a bright light?\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed yes. It was brilliant. When I came into France I often heard\nthe Voices very loud.\"\n\n\"What did the Voice sound like?\"\n\n\"It was a noble Voice, and I thought it was sent to me from God. The\nthird time I heard it I recognized it as being an angel's.\"\n\n\"You could understand it?\"\n\n\"Quite easily. It was always clear.\"\n\n\"What advice did it give you as to the salvation of your soul?\"\n\n\"It told me to live rightly, and be regular in attendance upon the\nservices of the Church. And it told me that I must go to France.\"\n\n\"In what species of form did the Voice appear?\"\n\nJoan looked suspiciously at he priest a moment, then said, tranquilly:\n\n\"As to that, I will not tell you.\"\n\n\"Did the Voice seek you often?\"\n\n\"Yes. Twice or three times a week, saying, 'Leave your village and go to\nFrance.'\"\n\n\"Did you father know about your departure?\"\n\n\"No. The Voice said, 'Go to France'; therefore I could not abide at home\nany longer.\"\n\n\"What else did it say?\"\n\n\"That I should raise the siege of Orleans.\"\n\n\"Was that all?\"\n\n\"No, I was to go to Vaucouleurs, and Robert de Baudricourt would give\nme soldiers to go with me to France; and I answered, saying that I was a\npoor girl who did not know how to ride, neither how to fight.\"\n\nThen she told how she was balked and interrupted at Vaucouleurs, but\nfinally got her soldiers, and began her march.\n\n\"How were you dressed?\"\n\nThe court of Poitiers had distinctly decided and decreed that as God had\nappointed her to do a man's work, it was meet and no scandal to religion\nthat she should dress as a man; but no matter, this court was ready to\nuse any and all weapons against Joan, even broken and discredited ones,\nand much was going to be made of this one before this trial should end.\n\n\"I wore a man's dress, also a sword which Robert de Baudricourt gave me,\nbut no other weapon.\"\n\n\"Who was it that advised you to wear the dress of a man?\"\n\nJoan was suspicious again. She would not answer.\n\nThe question was repeated.\n\nShe refused again.\n\n\"Answer. It is a command!\"\n\n\"Passez outre,\" was all she said.\n\nSo Beaupere gave up the matter for the present.\n\n\"What did Baudricourt say to you when you left?\"\n\n\"He made them that were to go with me promise to take charge of me, and\nto me he said, 'Go, and let happen what may!'\" (Advienne que pourra!)\nAfter a good deal of questioning upon other matters she was asked again\nabout her attire. She said it was necessary for her to dress as a man.\n\n\"Did your Voice advise it?\"\n\nJoan merely answered placidly:\n\n\"I believe my Voice gave me good advice.\"\n\nIt was all that could be got out of her, so the questions wandered to\nother matters, and finally to her first meeting with the King at\nChinon. She said she chose out the King, who was unknown to her, by the\nrevelation of her Voices. All that happened at that time was gone over.\nFinally:\n\n\"Do you still hear those Voices?\"\n\n\"They come to me every day.\"\n\n\"What do you ask of them?\"\n\n\"I have never asked of them any recompense but the salvation of my\nsoul.\"\n\n\"Did the Voice always urge you to follow the army?\"\n\nHe is creeping upon her again. She answered:\n\n\"It required me to remain behind at St. Denis. I would have obeyed if I\nhad been free, but I was helpless by my wound, and the knights carried\nme away by force.\"\n\n\"When were you wounded?\"\n\n\"I was wounded in the moat before Paris, in the assault.\"\n\nThe next question reveals what Beaupere had been leading up to:\n\n\"Was it a feast-day?\"\n\nYou see? The suggestion that a voice coming from God would hardly advise\nor permit the violation, by war and bloodshed, of a sacred day.\n\nJoan was troubled a moment, then she answered yes, it was a feast-day.\n\n\"Now, then, tell the this: did you hold it right to make the attack on\nsuch a day?\"\n\nThis was a shot which might make the first breach in a wall which had\nsuffered no damage thus far. There was immediate silence in the court\nand intense expectancy noticeable all about. But Joan disappointed the\nhouse. She merely made a slight little motion with her hand, as when one\nbrushes away a fly, and said with reposeful indifference:\n\n\"Passez outre.\"\n\nSmiles danced for a moment in some of the sternest faces there,\nand several men even laughed outright. The trap had been long and\nlaboriously prepared; it fell, and was empty.\n\nThe court rose. It had sat for hours, and was cruelly fatigued. Most\nof the time had been taken up with apparently idle and purposeless\ninquiries about the Chinon events, the exiled Duke of Orleans, Joan's\nfirst proclamation, and so on, but all this seemingly random stuff\nhad really been sown thick with hidden traps. But Joan had fortunately\nescaped them all, some by the protecting luck which attends upon\nignorance and innocence, some by happy accident, the others by force of\nher best and surest helper, the clear vision and lightning intuitions of\nher extraordinary mind.\n\nNow, then, this daily baiting and badgering of this friendless girl, a\ncaptive in chains, was to continue a long, long time--dignified sport,\na kennel of mastiffs and bloodhounds harassing a kitten!--and I may as\nwell tell you, upon sworn testimony, what it was like from the first\nday to the last. When poor Joan had been in her grave a quarter of\na century, the Pope called together that great court which was to\nre-examine her history, and whose just verdict cleared her illustrious\nname from every spot and stain, and laid upon the verdict and conduct\nof our Rouen tribunal the blight of its everlasting execrations. Manchon\nand several of the judges who had been members of our court were among\nthe witnesses who appeared before that Tribunal of Rehabilitation.\nRecalling these miserable proceedings which I have been telling you\nabout, Manchon testified thus:--here you have it, all in fair print in\nthe unofficial history:\n\nWhen Joan spoke of her apparitions she was interrupted at almost every\nword. They wearied her with long and multiplied interrogatories upon\nall sorts of things. Almost every day the interrogatories of the morning\nlasted three or four hours; then from these morning interrogatories they\nextracted the particularly difficult and subtle points, and these served\nas material for the afternoon interrogatories, which lasted two or three\nhours. Moment by moment they skipped from one subject to another; yet\nin spite of this she always responded with an astonishing wisdom and\nmemory. She often corrected the judges, saying, \"But I have already\nanswered that once before--ask the recorder,\" referring them to me.\n\nAnd here is the testimony of one of Joan's judges. Remember, these\nwitnesses are not talking about two or three days, they are talking\nabout a tedious long procession of days:\n\nThey asked her profound questions, but she extricated herself quite\nwell. Sometimes the questioners changed suddenly and passed on to\nanother subject to see if she would not contradict herself. They\nburdened her with long interrogatories of two or three hours, from which\nthe judges themselves went forth fatigued. From the snares with which\nshe was beset the expertest man in the world could not have extricated\nhimself but with difficulty. She gave her responses with great prudence;\nindeed to such a degree that during three weeks I believed she was\ninspired.\n\nAh, had she a mind such as I have described? You see what these priests\nsay under oath--picked men, men chosen for their places in that terrible\ncourt on account of their learning, their experience, their keen and\npractised intellects, and their strong bias against the prisoner. They\nmake that poor country-girl out the match, and more than the match, of\nthe sixty-two trained adepts. Isn't it so? They from the University of\nParis, she from the sheepfold and the cow-stable!\n\nAh, yes, she was great, she was wonderful. It took six thousand years\nto produce her; her like will not be seen in the earth again in fifty\nthousand. Such is my opinion.\n\n\n\n\n\n7 Craft That Was in Vain\n\nTHE THIRD meeting of the court was in that same spacious chamber, next\nday, 24th of February.\n\nHow did it begin? In just the same old way. When the preparations were\nended, the robed sixty-two massed in their chairs and the guards and\norder-keepers distributed to their stations, Cauchon spoke from his\nthrone and commanded Joan to lay her hands upon the Gospels and swear to\ntell the truth concerning everything asked her!\n\nJoan's eyes kindled, and she rose; rose and stood, fine and noble, and\nfaced toward the Bishop and said:\n\n\"Take care what you do, my lord, you who are my judge, for you take a\nterrible responsibility on yourself and you presume too far.\"\n\nIt made a great stir, and Cauchon burst out upon her with an awful\nthreat--the threat of instant condemnation unless she obeyed. That\nmade the very bones of my body turn cold, and I saw cheeks about me\nblanch--for it meant fire and the stake! But Joan, still standing,\nanswered him back, proud and undismayed:\n\n\"Not all the clergy in Paris and Rouen could condemn me, lacking the\nright!\"\n\nThis made a great tumult, and part of it was applause from the\nspectators. Joan resumed her seat.\n\nThe Bishop still insisted. Joan said:\n\n\"I have already made oath. It is enough.\"\n\nThe Bishop shouted:\n\n\"In refusing to swear, you place yourself under suspicion!\"\n\n\"Let be. I have sworn already. It is enough.\"\n\nThe Bishop continued to insist. Joan answered that \"she would tell what\nshe knew--but not all that she knew.\"\n\nThe Bishop plagued her straight along, till at last she said, in a weary\ntone:\n\n\"I came from God; I have nothing more to do here. Return me to God, from\nwhom I came.\"\n\nIt was piteous to hear; it was the same as saying, \"You only want my\nlife; take it and let me be at peace.\"\n\nThe Bishop stormed out again:\n\n\"Once more I command you to--\"\n\nJoan cut in with a nonchalant \"Passez outre,\" and Cauchon retired from\nthe struggle; but he retired with some credit this time, for he offered\na compromise, and Joan, always clear-headed, saw protection for herself\nin it and promptly and willingly accepted it. She was to swear to tell\nthe truth \"as touching the matters et down in the proces verbal.\" They\ncould not sail her outside of definite limits, now; her course was\nover a charted sea, henceforth. The Bishop had granted more than he had\nintended, and more than he would honestly try to abide by.\n\nBy command, Beaupere resumed his examination of the accused. It being\nLent, there might be a chance to catch her neglecting some detail of\nher religious duties. I could have told him he would fail there. Why,\nreligion was her life!\n\n\"Since when have you eaten or drunk?\"\n\nIf the least thing had passed her lips in the nature of sustenance,\nneither her youth nor the fact that she was being half starved in her\nprison could save her from dangerous suspicion of contempt for the\ncommandments of the Church.\n\n\"I have done neither since yesterday at noon.\"\n\nThe priest shifted to the Voices again.\n\n\"When have you heard your Voice?\"\n\n\"Yesterday and to-day.\"\n\n\"At what time?\"\n\n\"Yesterday it was in the morning.\"\n\n\"What were you doing then?\"\n\n\"I was asleep and it woke me.\"\n\n\"By touching your arm?\"\n\n\"No, without touching me.\"\n\n\"Did you thank it? Did you kneel?\"\n\nHe had Satan in his mind, you see; and was hoping, perhaps, that by and\nby it could be shown that she had rendered homage to the arch enemy of\nGod and man.\n\n\"Yes, I thanked it; and knelt in my bed where I was chained, and joined\nmy hands and begged it to implore God's help for me so that I might have\nlight and instruction as touching the answers I should give here.\"\n\n\"Then what did the Voice say?\"\n\n\"It told me to answer boldly, and God would help me.\" Then she turned\ntoward Cauchon and said, \"You say that you are my judge; now I tell you\nagain, take care what you do, for in truth I am sent of God and you are\nputting yourself in great danger.\"\n\nBeaupere asked her if the Voice's counsels were not fickle and variable.\n\n\"No. It never contradicts itself. This very day it has told me again to\nanswer boldly.\"\n\n\"Has it forbidden you to answer only part of what is asked you?\"\n\n\"I will tell you nothing as to that. I have revelations touching the\nKing my master, and those I will not tell you.\" Then she was stirred by\na great emotion, and the tears sprang to her eyes and she spoke out as\nwith strong conviction, saying:\n\n\"I believe wholly--as wholly as I believe the Christian faith and that\nGod has redeemed us from the fires of hell, that God speaks to me by\nthat Voice!\"\n\nBeing questioned further concerning the Voice, she said she was not at\nliberty to tell all she knew.\n\n\"Do you think God would be displeased at your telling the whole truth?\"\n\n\"The Voice has commanded me to tell the King certain things, and not\nyou--and some very lately--even last night; things which I would he\nknew. He would be more easy at his dinner.\"\n\n\"Why doesn't the Voice speak to the King itself, as it did when you were\nwith him? Would it not if you asked it?\"\n\n\"I do not know if it be the wish of God.\" She was pensive a moment or\ntwo, busy with her thoughts and far away, no doubt; then she added a\nremark in which Beaupere, always watchful, always alert, detected a\npossible opening--a chance to set a trap. Do you think he jumped at\nit instantly, betraying the joy he had in his mind, as a young hand at\ncraft and artifice would do?\n\nNo, oh, no, you could not tell that he had noticed the remark at all. He\nslid indifferently away from it at once, and began to ask idle questions\nabout other things, so as to slip around and spring on it from behind,\nso to speak: tedious and empty questions as to whether the Voice had\ntold her she would escape from this prison; and if it had furnished\nanswers to be used by her in to-day's seance; if it was accompanied with\na glory of light; if it had eyes, etc. That risky remark of Joan's was\nthis:\n\n\"Without the Grace of God I could do nothing.\"\n\nThe court saw the priest's game, and watched his play with a cruel\neagerness. Poor Joan was grown dreamy and absent; possibly she was\ntired. Her life was in imminent danger, and she did not suspect it. The\ntime was ripe now, and Beaupere quietly and stealthily sprang his trap:\n\n\"Are you in a state of Grace?\"\n\nAh, we had two or three honorable brave men in that pack of judges; and\nJean Lefevre was one of them. He sprang to his feet and cried out:\n\n\"It is a terrible question! The accused is not obliged to answer it!\"\n\nCauchon's face flushed black with anger to see this plank flung to the\nperishing child, and he shouted:\n\n\"Silence! and take your seat. The accused will answer the question!\"\n\nThere was no hope, no way out of the dilemma; for whether she said yes\nor whether she said no, it would be all the same--a disastrous answer,\nfor the Scriptures had said one cannot know this thing. Think what hard\nhearts they were to set this fatal snare for that ignorant young girl\nand be proud of such work and happy in it. It was a miserable moment for\nme while we waited; it seemed a year. All the house showed excitement;\nand mainly it was glad excitement. Joan looked out upon these hungering\nfaces with innocent, untroubled eyes, and then humbly and gently she\nbrought out that immortal answer which brushed the formidable snare away\nas it had been but a cobweb:\n\n\"If I be not in a state of Grace, I pray God place me in it; if I be in\nit, I pray God keep me so.\"\n\nAh, you will never see an effect like that; no, not while you live. For\na space there was the silence of the grave. Men looked wondering into\neach other's faces, and some were awed and crossed themselves; and I\nheard Lefevre mutter:\n\n\"It was beyond the wisdom of man to devise that answer. Whence comes\nthis child's amazing inspirations?\"\n\nBeaupere presently took up his work again, but the humiliation of his\ndefeat weighed upon him, and he made but a rambling and dreary business\nof it, he not being able to put any heart in it.\n\nHe asked Joan a thousand questions about her childhood and about the oak\nwood, and the fairies, and the children's games and romps under our dear\nArbre Fee Bourlemont, and this stirring up of old memories broke her\nvoice and made her cry a little, but she bore up as well as she could,\nand answered everything.\n\nThen the priest finished by touching again upon the matter of her\napparel--a matter which was never to be lost sight of in this still-hunt\nfor this innocent creature's life, but kept always hanging over her, a\nmenace charged with mournful possibilities:\n\n\"Would you like a woman's dress?\"\n\n\"Indeed yes, if I may go out from this prison--but here, no.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n8 Joan Tells of Her Visions\n\nTHE COURT met next on Monday the 27th. Would you believe it? The Bishop\nignored the contract limiting the examination to matters set down in\nthe proces verbal and again commanded Joan to take the oath without\nreservations. She said:\n\n\"You should be content I have sworn enough.\"\n\nShe stood her ground, and Cauchon had to yield.\n\nThe examination was resumed, concerning Joan's Voices.\n\n\"You have said that you recognized them as being the voices of angels\nthe third time that you heard them. What angels were they?\"\n\n\"St. Catherine and St. Marguerite.\"\n\n\"How did you know that it was those two saints? How could you tell the\none from the other?\"\n\n\"I know it was they; and I know how to distinguish them.\"\n\n\"By what sign?\"\n\n\"By their manner of saluting me. I have been these seven years under\ntheir direction, and I knew who they were because they told me.\"\n\n\"Whose was the first Voice that came to you when you were thirteen years\nold?\"\n\n\"It was the Voice of St. Michael. I saw him before my eyes; and he was\nnot alone, but attended by a cloud of angels.\"\n\n\"Did you see the archangel and the attendant angels in the body, or in\nthe spirit?\"\n\n\"I saw them with the eyes of my body, just as I see you; and when they\nwent away I cried because they did not take me with them.\"\n\nIt made me see that awful shadow again that fell dazzling white upon her\nthat day under l'Arbre Fee de Bourlemont, and it made me shiver again,\nthough it was so long ago. It was really not very long gone by, but it\nseemed so, because so much had happened since.\n\n\"In what shape and form did St. Michael appear?\"\n\n\"As to that, I have not received permission to speak.\"\n\n\"What did the archangel say to you that first time?\"\n\n\"I cannot answer you to-day.\"\n\nMeaning, I think, that she would have to get permission of her Voices\nfirst.\n\nPresently, after some more questions as to the revelations which had\nbeen conveyed through her to the King, she complained of the unnecessity\nof all this, and said:\n\n\"I will say again, as I have said before many times in these sittings,\nthat I answered all questions of this sort before the court at Poitiers,\nand I would that you wold bring here the record of that court and read\nfrom that. Prithee, send for that book.\"\n\nThere was no answer. It was a subject that had to be got around and put\naside. That book had wisely been gotten out of the way, for it contained\nthings which would be very awkward here.\n\nAmong them was a decision that Joan's mission was from God, whereas it\nwas the intention of this inferior court to show that it was from the\ndevil; also a decision permitting Joan to wear male attire, whereas it\nwas the purpose of this court to make the male attire do hurtful work\nagainst her.\n\n\"How was it that you were moved to come into France--by your own\ndesire?\"\n\n\"Yes, and by command of God. But that it was His will I would not have\ncome. I would sooner have had my body torn in sunder by horses than\ncome, lacking that.\"\n\nBeaupere shifted once more to the matter of the male attire, now, and\nproceeded to make a solemn talk about it. That tried Joan's patience;\nand presently she interrupted and said:\n\n\"It is a trifling thing and of no consequence. And I did not put it on\nby counsel of any man, but by command of God.\"\n\n\"Robert de Baudricourt did not order you to wear it?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Did you think you did well in taking the dress of a man?\"\n\n\"I did well to do whatsoever thing God commanded me to do.\"\n\n\"But in this particular case do you think you did well in taking the\ndress of a man?\"\n\n\"I have done nothing but by command of God.\"\n\nBeaupere made various attempts to lead her into contradictions\nof herself; also to put her words and acts in disaccord with the\nScriptures. But it was lost time. He did not succeed. He returned to her\nvisions, the light which shone about them, her relations with the King,\nand so on.\n\n\"Was there an angel above the King's head the first time you saw him?\"\n\n\"By the Blessed Mary!--\"\n\nShe forced her impatience down, and finished her sentence with\ntranquillity: \"If there was one I did not see it.\"\n\n\"Was there light?\"\n\n\"There were more than three thousand soldiers there, and five hundred\ntorches, without taking account of spiritual light.\"\n\n\"What made the King believe in the revelations which you brought him?\"\n\n\"He had signs; also the counsel of the clergy.\"\n\n\"What revelations were made to the King?\"\n\n\"You will not get that out of me this year.\"\n\nPresently she added: \"During three weeks I was questioned by the clergy\nat Chinon and Poitiers. The King had a sign before he would believe; and\nthe clergy were of opinion that my acts were good and not evil.\"\n\nThe subject was dropped now for a while, and Beaupere took up the matter\nof the miraculous sword of Fierbois to see if he could not find a chance\nthere to fix the crime of sorcery upon Joan.\n\n\"How did you know that there was an ancient sword buried in the ground\nunder the rear of the altar of the church of St. Catherine of Fierbois?\"\n\nJoan had no concealments to make as to this:\n\n\"I knew the sword was there because my Voices told me so; and I sent to\nask that it be given to me to carry in the wars. It seemed to me that it\nwas not very deep in the ground. The clergy of the church caused it to\nbe sought for and dug up; and they polished it, and the rust fell easily\noff from it.\"\n\n\"Were you wearing it when you were taken in battle at Compiegne?\"\n\n\"No. But I wore it constantly until I left St. Denis after the attack\nupon Paris.\"\n\nThis sword, so mysteriously discovered and so long and so constantly\nvictorious, was suspected of being under the protection of enchantment.\n\n\"Was that sword blest? What blessing had been invoked upon it?\"\n\n\"None. I loved it because it was found in the church of St. Catherine,\nfor I loved that church very dearly.\"\n\nShe loved it because it had been built in honor of one of her angels.\n\n\"Didn't you lay it upon the altar, to the end that it might be lucky?\"\n(The altar of St. Denis.) \"No.\"\n\n\"Didn't you pray that it might be made lucky?\"\n\n\"Truly it were no harm to wish that my harness might be fortunate.\"\n\n\"Then it was not that sword which you wore in the field of Compiegne?\nWhat sword did you wear there?\"\n\n\"The sword of the Burgundian Franquet d'Arras, whom I took prisoner in\nthe engagement at Lagny. I kept it because it was a good war-sword--good\nto lay on stout thumps and blows with.\"\n\nShe said that quite simply; and the contrast between her delicate\nlittle self and the grim soldier words which she dropped with such easy\nfamiliarity from her lips made many spectators smile.\n\n\"What is become of the other sword? Where is it now?\"\n\n\"Is that in the proces verbal?\"\n\nBeaupere did not answer.\n\n\"Which do you love best, your banner or your sword?\"\n\nHer eye lighted gladly at the mention of her banner, and she cried out:\n\n\"I love my banner best--oh, forty times more than the sword! Sometimes\nI carried it myself when I charged the enemy, to avoid killing any one.\"\nThen she added, naively, and with again that curious contrast between\nher girlish little personality and her subject, \"I have never killed\nanyone.\"\n\nIt made a great many smile; and no wonder, when you consider what a\ngentle and innocent little thing she looked. One could hardly believe\nshe had ever even seen men slaughtered, she look so little fitted for\nsuch things.\n\n\"In the final assault at Orleans did you tell your soldiers that the\narrows shot by the enemy and the stones discharged from their catapults\nwould not strike any one but you?\"\n\n\"No. And the proof is, that more than a hundred of my men were struck.\nI told them to have no doubts and no fears; that they would raise the\nsiege. I was wounded in the neck by an arrow in the assault upon the\nbastille that commanded the bridge, but St. Catherine comforted me and I\nwas cured in fifteen days without having to quit the saddle and leave my\nwork.\"\n\n\"Did you know that you were going to be wounded?\"\n\n\"Yes; and I had told it to the King beforehand. I had it from my\nVoices.\"\n\n\"When you took Jargeau, why did you not put its commandant to ransom?\"\n\n\"I offered him leave to go out unhurt from the place, with all his\ngarrison; and if he would not I would take it by storm.\"\n\n\"And you did, I believe.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Had your Voices counseled you to take it by storm?\"\n\n\"As to that, I do not remember.\"\n\nThus closed a weary long sitting, without result. Every device that\ncould be contrived to trap Joan into wrong thinking, wrong doing, or\ndisloyalty to the Church, or sinfulness as a little child at home or\nlater, had been tried, and none of them had succeeded. She had come\nunscathed through the ordeal.\n\nWas the court discouraged? No. Naturally it was very much surprised,\nvery much astonished, to find its work baffling and difficult instead\nof simple and easy, but it had powerful allies in the shape of hunger,\ncold, fatigue, persecution, deception, and treachery; and opposed to\nthis array nothing but a defenseless and ignorant girl who must some\ntime or other surrender to bodily and mental exhaustion or get caught in\none of the thousand traps set for her.\n\nAnd had the court made no progress during these seemingly resultless\nsittings? Yes. It had been feeling its way, groping here, groping there,\nand had found one or two vague trails which might freshen by and by and\nlead to something. The male attire, for instance, and the visions and\nVoices. Of course no one doubted that she had seen supernatural beings\nand been spoken to and advised by them. And of course no one doubted\nthat by supernatural help miracles had been done by Joan, such as\nchoosing out the King in a crowd when she had never seen him before, and\nher discovery of the sword buried under the altar. It would have been\nfoolish to doubt these things, for we all know that the air is full of\ndevils and angels that are visible to traffickers in magic on the one\nhand and to the stainlessly holy on the other; but what many and perhaps\nmost did doubt was, that Joan's visions, Voices, and miracles came from\nGod. It was hoped that in time they could be proven to have been of\nsatanic origin. Therefore, as you see, the court's persistent fashion\nof coming back to that subject every little while and spooking around it\nand prying into it was not to pass the time--it had a strictly business\nend in view.\n\n\n\n\n\n9 Her Sure Deliverance Foretold\n\nTHE NEXT sitting opened on Thursday the first of March. Fifty-eight\njudges present--the others resting.\n\nAs usual, Joan was required to take an oath without reservations. She\nshowed no temper this time. She considered herself well buttressed by\nthe proces verbal compromise which Cauchon was so anxious to repudiate\nand creep out of; so she merely refused, distinctly and decidedly; and\nadded, in a spirit of fairness and candor:\n\n\"But as to matters set down in the proces verbal, I will freely tell the\nwhole truth--yes, as freely and fully as if I were before the Pope.\"\n\nHere was a chance! We had two or three Popes, then; only one of them\ncould be the true Pope, of course. Everybody judiciously shirked the\nquestion of which was the true Pope and refrained from naming him, it\nbeing clearly dangerous to go into particulars in this matter. Here was\nan opportunity to trick an unadvised girl into bringing herself into\nperil, and the unfair judge lost no time in taking advantage of it. He\nasked, in a plausibly indolent and absent way:\n\n\"Which one do you consider to be the true Pope?\"\n\nThe house took an attitude of deep attention, and so waited to hear the\nanswer and see the prey walk into the trap. But when the answer came it\ncovered the judge with confusion, and you could see many people covertly\nchuckling. For Joan asked in a voice and manner which almost deceived\neven me, so innocent it seemed:\n\n\"Are there two?\"\n\nOne of the ablest priests in that body and one of the best swearers\nthere, spoke right out so that half the house heard him, and said:\n\n\"By God, it was a master stroke!\"\n\nAs soon as the judge was better of his embarrassment he came back to the\ncharge, but was prudent and passed by Joan's question:\n\n\"Is it true that you received a letter from the Count of Armagnac asking\nyou which of the three Popes he ought to obey?\"\n\n\"Yes, and answered it.\"\n\nCopies of both letters were produced and read. Joan said that hers had\nnot been quite strictly copied. She said she had received the Count's\nletter when she was just mounting her horse; and added:\n\n\"So, in dictating a word or two of reply I said I would try to answer\nhim from Paris or somewhere where I could be at rest.\"\n\nShe was asked again which Pope she had considered the right one.\n\n\"I was not able to instruct the Count of Armagnac as to which one he\nought to obey\"; then she added, with a frank fearlessness which sounded\nfresh and wholesome in that den of trimmers and shufflers, \"but as for\nme, I hold that we are bound to obey our Lord the Pope who is at Rome.\"\n\nThe matter was dropped. They produced and read a copy of Joan's first\neffort at dictating--her proclamation summoning the English to retire\nfrom the siege of Orleans and vacate France--truly a great and fine\nproduction for an unpractised girl of seventeen.\n\n\"Do you acknowledge as your own the document which has just been read?\"\n\n\"Yes, except that there are errors in it--words which make me give\nmyself too much importance.\" I saw what was coming; I was troubled and\nashamed. \"For instance, I did not say 'Deliver up to the Maid' (rendez\nau la Pucelle); I said 'Deliver up to the King' (rendez au Roi); and I\ndid not call myself 'Commander-in-Chief' (chef de guerre). All those are\nwords which my secretary substituted; or mayhap he misheard me or forgot\nwhat I said.\"\n\nShe did not look at me when she said it: she spared me that\nembarrassment. I hadn't misheard her at all, and hadn't forgotten.\nI changed her language purposely, for she was Commander-in-Chief and\nentitled to call herself so, and it was becoming and proper, too; and\nwho was going to surrender anything to the King?--at that time a stick,\na cipher? If any surrendering was done, it would be to the noble Maid of\nVaucouleurs, already famed and formidable though she had not yet struck\na blow.\n\nAh, there would have been a fine and disagreeable episode (for me)\nthere, if that pitiless court had discovered that the very scribbler of\nthat piece of dictation, secretary to Joan of Arc, was present--and\nnot only present, but helping build the record; and not only that, but\ndestined at a far distant day to testify against lies and perversions\nsmuggled into it by Cauchon and deliver them over to eternal infamy!\n\n\"Do you acknowledge that you dictated this proclamation?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"Have you repented of it? Do you retract it?\"\n\nAh, then she was indignant!\n\n\"No! Not even these chains\"--and she shook them--\"not even these chains\ncan chill the hopes that I uttered there. And more!\"--she rose, and\nstood a moment with a divine strange light kindling in her face, then\nher words burst forth as in a flood--\"I warn you now that before seven\nyears a disaster will smite the English, oh, many fold greater than the\nfall of Orleans! and--\"\n\n\"Silence! Sit down!\"\n\n\"--and then, soon after, they will lose all France!\"\n\nNow consider these things. The French armies no longer existed. The\nFrench cause was standing still, our King was standing still, there was\nno hint that by and by the Constable Richemont would come forward and\ntake up the great work of Joan of Arc and finish it. In face of all\nthis, Joan made that prophecy--made it with perfect confidence--and it\ncame true. For within five years Paris fell--1436--and our King marched\ninto it flying the victor's flag. So the first part of the prophecy was\nthen fulfilled--in fact, almost the entire prophecy; for, with Paris in\nour hands, the fulfilment of the rest of it was assured.\n\nTwenty years later all France was ours excepting a single town--Calais.\n\nNow that will remind you of an earlier prophecy of Joan's. At the time\nthat she wanted to take Paris and could have done it with ease if our\nKing had but consented, she said that that was the golden time; that,\nwith Paris ours, all France would be ours in six months. But if this\ngolden opportunity to recover France was wasted, said she, \"I give you\ntwenty years to do it in.\"\n\nShe was right. After Paris fell, in 1436, the rest of the work had to be\ndone city by city, castle by castle, and it took twenty years to finish\nit.\n\nYes, it was the first day of March, 1431, there in the court, that she\nstood in the view of everybody and uttered that strange and incredible\nprediction. Now and then, in this world, somebody's prophecy turns\nup correct, but when you come to look into it there is sure to be\nconsiderable room for suspicion that the prophecy was made after the\nfact. But here the matter is different. There in that court Joan's\nprophecy was set down in the official record at the hour and moment of\nits utterance, years before the fulfilment, and there you may read it to\nthis day.\n\nTwenty-five years after Joan's death the record was produced in the\ngreat Court of the Rehabilitation and verified under oath by Manchon\nand me, and surviving judges of our court confirmed the exactness of the\nrecord in their testimony.\n\nJoan' startling utterance on that now so celebrated first of March\nstirred up a great turmoil, and it was some time before it quieted down\nagain. Naturally, everybody was troubled, for a prophecy is a grisly and\nawful thing, whether one thinks it ascends from hell or comes down from\nheaven.\n\nAll that these people felt sure of was, that the inspiration back of it\nwas genuine and puissant.\n\nThey would have given their right hands to know the source of it.\n\nAt last the questions began again.\n\n\"How do you know that those things are going to happen?\"\n\n\"I know it by revelation. And I know it as surely as I know that you sit\nhere before me.\"\n\nThis sort of answer was not going to allay the spreading uneasiness.\nTherefore, after some further dallying the judge got the subject out of\nthe way and took up one which he could enjoy more.\n\n\"What languages do your Voices speak?\"\n\n\"French.\"\n\n\"St. Marguerite, too?\"\n\n\"Verily; why not? She is on our side, not on the English!\"\n\nSaints and angels who did not condescend to speak English is a grave\naffront. They could not be brought into court and punished for contempt,\nbut the tribunal could take silent note of Joan's remark and remember it\nagainst her; which they did. It might be useful by and by.\n\n\"Do your saints and angels wear jewelry?--crowns, rings, earrings?\"\n\nTo Joan, questions like these were profane frivolities and not worthy of\nserious notice; she answered indifferently. But the question brought to\nher mind another matter, and she turned upon Cauchon and said:\n\n\"I had two rings. They have been taken away from me during my captivity.\nYou have one of them. It is the gift of my brother. Give it back to me.\nIf not to me, then I pray that it be given to the Church.\"\n\nThe judges conceived the idea that maybe these rings were for the\nworking of enchantments.\n\nPerhaps they could be made to do Joan a damage.\n\n\"Where is the other ring?\"\n\n\"The Burgundians have it.\"\n\n\"Where did you get it?\"\n\n\"My father and mother gave it to me.\"\n\n\"Describe it.\"\n\n\"It is plain and simple and has 'Jesus and Mary' engraved upon it.\"\n\nEverybody could see that that was not a valuable equipment to do devil's\nwork with. So that trail was not worth following. Still, to make sure,\none of the judges asked Joan if she had ever cured sick people by\ntouching them with the ring. She said no.\n\n\"Now as concerning the fairies, that were used to abide near by Domremy\nwhereof there are many reports and traditions. It is said that your\ngodmother surprised these creatures on a summer's night dancing under\nthe tree called l'Arbre Fee de Bourlemont. Is it not possible that your\npretended saints and angels are but those fairies?\"\n\n\"Is that in your proces?\"\n\nShe made no other answer.\n\n\"Have you not conversed with St. Marguerite and St. Catherine under that\ntree?\"\n\n\"I do not know.\"\n\n\"Or by the fountain near the tree?\"\n\n\"Yes, sometimes.\"\n\n\"What promises did they make you?\"\n\n\"None but such as they had God's warrant for.\"\n\n\"But what promises did they make?\"\n\n\"That is not in your proces; yet I will say this much: they told me that\nthe King would become master of his kingdom in spite of his enemies.\"\n\n\"And what else?\"\n\nThere was a pause; then she said humbly:\n\n\"They promised to lead me to Paradise.\"\n\nIf faces do really betray what is passing in men's minds, a fear came\nupon many in that house, at this time, that maybe, after all, a chosen\nservant and herald of God was here being hunted to her death. The\ninterest deepened. Movements and whisperings ceased: the stillness\nbecame almost painful.\n\nHave you noticed that almost from the beginning the nature of the\nquestions asked Joan showed that in some way or other the questioner\nvery often already knew his fact before he asked his question? Have you\nnoticed that somehow or other the questioners usually knew just how and\nwere to search for Joan's secrets; that they really knew the bulk of her\nprivacies--a fact not suspected by her--and that they had no task before\nthem but to trick her into exposing those secrets?\n\nDo you remember Loyseleur, the hypocrite, the treacherous priest,\ntool of Cauchon? Do you remember that under the sacred seal of the\nconfessional Joan freely and trustingly revealed to him everything\nconcerning her history save only a few things regarding her supernatural\nrevelations which her Voices had forbidden her to tell to any one--and\nthat the unjust judge, Cauchon, was a hidden listener all the time?\n\nNow you understand how the inquisitors were able to devise that long\narray of minutely prying questions; questions whose subtlety and\ningenuity and penetration are astonishing until we come to remember\nLoyseleur's performance and recognize their source. Ah, Bishop of\nBeauvais, you are now lamenting this cruel iniquity these many years\nin hell! Yes verily, unless one has come to your help. There is but one\namong the redeemed that would do it; and it is futile to hope that that\none has not already done it--Joan of Arc.\n\nWe will return to the questionings.\n\n\"Did they make you still another promise?\"\n\n\"Yes, but that is not in your proces. I will not tell it now, but before\nthree months I will tell it you.\"\n\nThe judge seems to know the matter he is asking about, already; one gets\nthis idea from his next question.\n\n\"Did your Voices tell you that you would be liberated before three\nmonths?\"\n\nJoan often showed a little flash of surprise at the good guessing of the\njudges, and she showed one this time. I was frequently in terror to find\nmy mind (which I could not control) criticizing the Voices and saying,\n\"They counsel her to speak boldly--a thing which she would do without\nany suggestion from them or anybody else--but when it comes to telling\nher any useful thing, such as how these conspirators manage to guess\ntheir way so skilfully into her affairs, they are always off attending\nto some other business.\"\n\nI am reverent by nature; and when such thoughts swept through my head\nthey made me cold with fear, and if there was a storm and thunder at the\ntime, I was so ill that I could but with difficulty abide at my post and\ndo my work.\n\nJoan answered:\n\n\"That is not in your proces. I do not know when I shall be set free, but\nsome who wish me out of this world will go from it before me.\"\n\nIt made some of them shiver.\n\n\"Have your Voices told you that you will be delivered from this prison?\"\n\nWithout a doubt they had, and the judge knew it before he asked the\nquestion.\n\n\"Ask me again in three months and I will tell you.\" She said it with\nsuch a happy look, the tired prisoner! And I? And Noel Rainguesson,\ndrooping yonder?--why, the floods of joy went streaming through us from\ncrown to sole! It was all that we could do to hold still and keep from\nmaking fatal exposure of our feelings.\n\nShe was to be set free in three months. That was what she meant; we\nsaw it. The Voices had told her so, and told her true--true to the very\nday--May 30th. But we know now that they had mercifully hidden from her\nhow she was to be set free, but left her in ignorance. Home again!\n\nThat day was our understanding of it--Noel's and mine; that was our\ndream; and now we would count the days, the hours, the minutes. They\nwould fly lightly along; they would soon be over.\n\nYes, we would carry our idol home; and there, far from the pomps and\ntumults of the world, we would take up our happy life again and live\nit out as we had begun it, in the free air and the sunshine, with the\nfriendly sheep and the friendly people for comrades, and the grace and\ncharm of the meadows, the woods, and the river always before our eyes\nand their deep peace in our hearts. Yes, that was our dream, the dream\nthat carried us bravely through that three months to an exact and awful\nfulfilment, the thought of which would have killed us, I think, if we\nhad foreknown it and been obliged to bear the burden of it upon our\nhearts the half of those weary days.\n\nOur reading of the prophecy was this: We believed the King's soul was\ngoing to be smitten with remorse; and that he would privately plan a\nrescue with Joan's old lieutenants, D'Alencon and the Bastard and La\nHire, and that this rescue would take place at the end of the three\nmonths. So we made up our minds to be ready and take a hand in it.\n\nIn the present and also in later sittings Joan was urged to name the\nexact day of her deliverance; but she could not do that. She had not the\npermission of her Voices. Moreover, the Voices themselves did not name\nthe precise day. Ever since the fulfilment of the prophecy, I have\nbelieved that Joan had the idea that her deliverance was going to come\nin the form of death. But not that death! Divine as she was, dauntless\nas she was in battle, she was human also. She was not solely a saint,\nan angel, she was a clay-made girl also--as human a girl as any in\nthe world, and full of a human girl's sensitiveness and tenderness and\ndelicacies. And so, that death! No, she could not have lived the three\nmonths with that one before her, I think. You remember that the first\ntime she was wounded she was frightened, and cried, just as any other\ngirl of seventeen would have done, although she had known for eighteen\ndays that she was going to be wounded on that very day. No, she was\nnot afraid of any ordinary death, and an ordinary death was what she\nbelieved the prophecy of deliverance meant, I think, for her face showed\nhappiness, not horror, when she uttered it.\n\nNow I will explain why I think as I do. Five weeks before she was\ncaptured in the battle of Compiegne, her Voices told her what was\ncoming. They did not tell her the day or the place, but said she would\nbe taken prisoner and that it would be before the feast of St. John.\nShe begged that death, certain and swift, should be her fate, and the\ncaptivity brief; for she was a free spirit, and dreaded the confinement.\nThe Voices made no promise, but only told her to bear whatever came. Now\nas they did not refuse the swift death, a hopeful young thing like Joan\nwould naturally cherish that fact and make the most of it, allowing it\nto grow and establish itself in her mind. And so now that she was told\nshe was to be \"delivered\" in three months, I think she believed it meant\nthat she would die in her bed in the prison, and that that was why she\nlooked happy and content--the gates of Paradise standing open for her,\nthe time so short, you see, her troubles so soon to be over, her reward\nso close at hand. Yes, that would make her look happy, that would make\nher patient and bold, and able to fight her fight out like a soldier.\nSave herself if she could, of course, and try for the best, for that\nwas the way she was made; but die with her face to the front if die she\nmust.\n\nThen later, when she charged Cauchon with trying to kill her with a\npoisoned fish, her notion that she was to be \"delivered\" by death in the\nprison--if she had it, and I believe she had--would naturally be greatly\nstrengthened, you see.\n\nBut I am wandering from the trial. Joan was asked to definitely name the\ntime that she would be delivered from prison.\n\n\"I have always said that I was not permitted to tell you everything. I\nam to be set free, and I desire to ask leave of my Voices to tell you\nthe day. That is why I wish for delay.\"\n\n\"Do your Voices forbid you to tell the truth?\"\n\n\"Is it that you wish to know matters concerning the King of France? I\ntell you again that he will regain his kingdom, and that I know it as\nwell as I know that you sit here before me in this tribunal.\" She\nsighed and, after a little pause, added: \"I should be dead but for this\nrevelation, which comforts me always.\"\n\nSome trivial questions were asked her about St. Michael's dress and\nappearance. She answered them with dignity, but one saw that they gave\nher pain. After a little she said:\n\n\"I have great joy in seeing him, for when I see him I have the feeling\nthat I am not in mortal sin.\"\n\nShe added, \"Sometimes St. Marguerite and St. Catherine have allowed me\nto confess myself to them.\"\n\nHere was a possible chance to set a successful snare for her innocence.\n\n\"When you confessed were you in mortal sin, do you think?\"\n\nBut her reply did her no hurt. So the inquiry was shifted once more\nto the revelations made to the King--secrets which the court had tried\nagain and again to force out of Joan, but without success.\n\n\"Now as to the sign given to the King--\"\n\n\"I have already told you that I will tell you nothing about it.\"\n\n\"Do you know what the sign was?\"\n\n\"As to that, you will not find out from me.\"\n\nAll this refers to Joan's secret interview with the King--held\napart, though two or three others were present. It was known--through\nLoyseleur, of course--that this sign was a crown and was a pledge of the\nverity of Joan's mission. But that is all a mystery until this day--the\nnature of the crown, I mean--and will remain a mystery to the end of\ntime. We can never know whether a real crown descended upon the King's\nhead, or only a symbol, the mystic fabric of a vision.\n\n\"Did you see a crown upon the King's head when he received the\nrevelation?\"\n\n\"I cannot tell you as to that, without perjury.\"\n\n\"Did the King have that crown at Rheims?\"\n\n\"I think the King put upon his head a crown which he found there; but a\nmuch richer one was brought him afterward.\"\n\n\"Have you seen that one?\"\n\n\"I cannot tell you, without perjury. But whether I have seen it or not,\nI have heard say that it was rich and magnificent.\"\n\nThey went on and pestered her to weariness about that mysterious crown,\nbut they got nothing more out of her. The sitting closed. A long, hard\nday for all of us.\n\n\n\n\n\n10 The Inquisitors at Their Wits' End\n\nTHE COURT rested a day, then took up work again on Saturday, the third\nof March.\n\nThis was one of our stormiest sessions. The whole court was out\nof patience; and with good reason. These threescore distinguished\nchurchmen, illustrious tacticians, veteran legal gladiators, had left\nimportant posts where their supervision was needed, to journey\nhither from various regions and accomplish a most simple and easy\nmatter--condemn and send to death a country-lass of nineteen who could\nneither read nor write, knew nothing of the wiles and perplexities of\nlegal procedure, could not call a single witness in her defense, was\nallowed no advocate or adviser, and must conduct her case by herself\nagainst a hostile judge and a packed jury. In two hours she would be\nhopelessly entangled, routed, defeated, convicted. Nothing could be more\ncertain that this--so they thought. But it was a mistake. The two hours\nhad strung out into days; what promised to be a skirmish had expanded\ninto a siege; the thing which had looked so easy had proven to be\nsurprisingly difficult; the light victim who was to have been puffed\naway like a feather remained planted like a rock; and on top of all\nthis, if anybody had a right to laugh it was the country-lass and not\nthe court.\n\nShe was not doing that, for that was not her spirit; but others were\ndoing it. The whole town was laughing in its sleeve, and the court knew\nit, and its dignity was deeply hurt. The members could not hide their\nannoyance.\n\nAnd so, as I have said, the session was stormy. It was easy to see that\nthese men had made up their minds to force words from Joan to-day which\nshould shorten up her case and bring it to a prompt conclusion. It shows\nthat after all their experience with her they did not know her yet.\n\nThey went into the battle with energy. They did not leave the\nquestioning to a particular member; no, everybody helped. They volleyed\nquestions at Joan from all over the house, and sometimes so many were\ntalking at once that she had to ask them to deliver their fire one at a\ntime and not by platoons. The beginning was as usual:\n\n\"You are once more required to take the oath pure and simple.\"\n\n\"I will answer to what is in the proces verbal. When I do more, I will\nchoose the occasion for myself.\"\n\nThat old ground was debated and fought over inch by inch with great\nbitterness and many threats. But Joan remained steadfast, and the\nquestionings had to shift to other matters. Half an hour was spent over\nJoan's apparitions--their dress, hair, general appearance, and so on--in\nthe hope of fishing something of a damaging sort out of the replies; but\nwith no result.\n\nNext, the male attire was reverted to, of course. After many well-worn\nquestions had been re-asked, one or two new ones were put forward.\n\n\"Did not the King or the Queen sometimes ask you to quit the male\ndress?\"\n\n\"That is not in your proces.\"\n\n\"Do you think you would have sinned if you had taken the dress of your\nsex?\"\n\n\"I have done best to serve and obey my sovereign Lord and Master.\"\n\nAfter a while the matter of Joan's Standard was taken up, in the hope of\nconnecting magic and witchcraft with it.\n\n\"Did not your men copy your banner in their pennons?\"\n\n\"The lancers of my guard did it. It was to distinguish them from the\nrest of the forces. It was their own idea.\"\n\n\"Were they often renewed?\"\n\n\"Yes. When the lances were broken they were renewed.\"\n\nThe purpose of the question unveils itself in the next one.\n\n\"Did you not say to your men that pennons made like your banner would be\nlucky?\"\n\nThe soldier-spirit in Joan was offended at this puerility. She drew\nherself up, and said with dignity and fire: \"What I said to them was,\n'Ride those English down!' and I did it myself.\"\n\nWhenever she flung out a scornful speech like that at these French\nmenials in English livery it lashed them into a rage; and that is what\nhappened this time. There were ten, twenty, sometimes even thirty of\nthem on their feet at a time, storming at the prisoner minute after\nminute, but Joan was not disturbed.\n\nBy and by there was peace, and the inquiry was resumed.\n\nIt was now sought to turn against Joan the thousand loving honors which\nhad been done her when she was raising France out of the dirt and shame\nof a century of slavery and castigation.\n\n\"Did you not cause paintings and images of yourself to be made?\"\n\n\"No. At Arras I saw a painting of myself kneeling in armor before the\nKing and delivering him a letter; but I caused no such things to be\nmade.\"\n\n\"Were not masses and prayers said in your honor?\"\n\n\"If it was done it was not by my command. But if any prayed for me I\nthink it was no harm.\"\n\n\"Did the French people believe you were sent of God?\"\n\n\"As to that, I know not; but whether they believed it or not, I was not\nthe less sent of God.\"\n\n\"If they thought you were sent of God, do you think it was well\nthought?\"\n\n\"If they believed it, their trust was not abused.\"\n\n\"What impulse was it, think you, that moved the people to kiss your\nhands, your feet, and your vestments?\"\n\n\"They were glad to see me, and so they did those things; and I could\nnot have prevented them if I had had the heart. Those poor people came\nlovingly to me because I had not done them any hurt, but had done the\nbest I could for them according to my strength.\"\n\nSee what modest little words she uses to describe that touching\nspectacle, her marches about France walled in on both sides by the\nadoring multitudes: \"They were glad to see me.\" Glad?\n\nWhy they were transported with joy to see her. When they could not kiss\nher hands or her feet, they knelt in the mire and kissed the hoof-prints\nof her horse. They worshiped her; and that is what these priests were\ntrying to prove. It was nothing to them that she was not to blame for\nwhat other people did. No, if she was worshiped, it was enough; she was\nguilty of mortal sin.\n\nCurious logic, one must say.\n\n\"Did you not stand sponsor for some children baptized at Rheims?\"\n\n\"At Troyes I did, and at St. Denis; and I named the boys Charles, in\nhonor of the King, and the girls I named Joan.\"\n\n\"Did not women touch their rings to those which you wore?\"\n\n\"Yes, many did, but I did not know their reason for it.\"\n\n\"At Rheims was your Standard carried into the church? Did you stand at\nthe altar with it in your hand at the Coronation?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"In passing through the country did you confess yourself in the Churches\nand receive the sacrament?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"In the dress of a man?\"\n\n\"Yes. But I do not remember that I was in armor.\"\n\nIt was almost a concession! almost a half-surrender of the permission\ngranted her by the Church at Poitiers to dress as a man. The wily court\nshifted to another matter: to pursue this one at this time might call\nJoan's attention to her small mistake, and by her native cleverness she\nmight recover her lost ground. The tempestuous session had worn her and\ndrowsed her alertness.\n\n\"It is reported that you brought a dead child to life in the church at\nLagny. Was that in answer to your prayers?\"\n\n\"As to that, I have no knowledge. Other young girls were praying for the\nchild, and I joined them and prayed also, doing no more than they.\"\n\n\"Continue.\"\n\n\"While we prayed it came to life, and cried. It had been dead three\ndays, and was as black as my doublet. It was straight way baptized, then\nit passed from life again and was buried in holy ground.\"\n\n\"Why did you jump from the tower of Beaurevoir by night and try to\nescape?\"\n\n\"I would go to the succor of Compiegne.\"\n\nIt was insinuated that this was an attempt to commit the deep crime of\nsuicide to avoid falling into the hands of the English.\n\n\"Did you not say that you would rather die than be delivered into the\npower of the English?\"\n\nJoan answered frankly; without perceiving the trap:\n\n\"Yes; my words were, that I would rather that my soul be returned unto\nGod than that I should fall into the hands of the English.\"\n\nIt was now insinuated that when she came to, after jumping from the\ntower, she was angry and blasphemed the name of God; and that she did it\nagain when she heard of the defection of the Commandant of Soissons. She\nwas hurt and indignant at this, and said:\n\n\"It is not true. I have never cursed. It is not my custom to swear.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n11 The Court Reorganized for Assassination\n\nA HALT was called. It was time. Cauchon was losing ground in the fight,\nJoan was gaining it.\n\nThere were signs that here and there in the court a judge was being\nsoftened toward Joan by her courage, her presence of mind, her\nfortitude, her constancy, her piety, her simplicity and candor, her\nmanifest purity, the nobility of her character, her fine intelligence,\nand the good brave fight she was making, all friendless and alone,\nagainst unfair odds, and there was grave room for fear that this\nsoftening process would spread further and presently bring Cauchon's\nplans in danger.\n\nSomething must be done, and it was done. Cauchon was not distinguished\nfor compassion, but he now gave proof that he had it in his character.\nHe thought it pity to subject so many judges to the prostrating fatigues\nof this trial when it could be conducted plenty well enough by a\nhandful of them. Oh, gentle judge! But he did not remember to modify the\nfatigues for the little captive.\n\nHe would let all the judges but a handful go, but he would select the\nhandful himself, and he did.\n\nHe chose tigers. If a lamb or two got in, it was by oversight, not\nintention; and he knew what to do with lambs when discovered.\n\nHe called a small council now, and during five days they sifted the huge\nbulk of answers thus far gathered from Joan. They winnowed it of all\nchaff, all useless matter--that is, all matter favorable to Joan; they\nsaved up all matter which could be twisted to her hurt, and out of this\nthey constructed a basis for a new trial which should have the semblance\nof a continuation of the old one. Another change. It was plain that the\npublic trial had wrought damage: its proceedings had been discussed\nall over the town and had moved many to pity the abused prisoner. There\nshould be no more of that. The sittings should be secret hereafter, and\nno spectators admitted. So Noel could come no more. I sent this news\nto him. I had not the heart to carry it myself. I would give the pain a\nchance to modify before I should see him in the evening.\n\nOn the 10th of March the secret trial began. A week had passed since I\nhad seen Joan. Her appearance gave me a great shock. She looked tired\nand weak. She was listless and far away, and her answers showed that\nshe was dazed and not able to keep perfect run of all that was done and\nsaid. Another court would not have taken advantage of her state, seeing\nthat her life was at stake here, but would have adjourned and spared\nher. Did this one? No; it worried her for hours, and with a glad and\neager ferocity, making all it could out of this great chance, the first\none it had had.\n\nShe was tortured into confusing herself concerning the \"sign\" which\nhad been given the King, and the next day this was continued hour after\nhour. As a result, she made partial revealments of particulars forbidden\nby her Voices; and seemed to me to state as facts things which were but\nallegories and visions mixed with facts.\n\nThe third day she was brighter, and looked less worn. She was almost\nher normal self again, and did her work well. Many attempts were made\nto beguile her into saying indiscreet things, but she saw the purpose in\nview and answered with tact and wisdom.\n\n\"Do you know if St. Catherine and St. Marguerite hate the English?\"\n\n\"They love whom Our Lord loves, and hate whom He hates.\"\n\n\"Does God hate the English?\"\n\n\"Of the love or the hatred of God toward the English I know nothing.\"\nThen she spoke up with the old martial ring in her voice and the old\naudacity in her words, and added, \"But I know this--that God will send\nvictory to the French, and that all the English will be flung out of\nFrance but the dead ones!\"\n\n\"Was God on the side of the English when they were prosperous in\nFrance?\"\n\n\"I do not know if God hates the French, but I think that He allowed them\nto be chastised for their sins.\"\n\nIt was a sufficiently naive way to account for a chastisement which had\nnow strung out for ninety-six years. But nobody found fault with it.\nThere was nobody there who would not punish a sinner ninety-six years if\nhe could, nor anybody there who would ever dream of such a thing as the\nLord's being any shade less stringent than men.\n\n\"Have you ever embraced St. Marguerite and St. Catherine?\"\n\n\"Yes, both of them.\"\n\nThe evil face of Cauchon betrayed satisfaction when she said that.\n\n\"When you hung garlands upon L'Arbre Fee Bourlemont, did you do it in\nhonor of your apparitions?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nSatisfaction again. No doubt Cauchon would take it for granted that she\nhung them there out of sinful love for the fairies.\n\n\"When the saints appeared to you did you bow, did you make reverence,\ndid you kneel?\"\n\n\"Yes; I did them the most honor and reverence that I could.\"\n\nA good point for Cauchon if he could eventually make it appear that\nthese were no saints to whom she had done reverence, but devils in\ndisguise.\n\nNow there was the matter of Joan's keeping her supernatural commerce a\nsecret from her parents. Much might be made of that. In fact, particular\nemphasis had been given to it in a private remark written in the margin\nof the proces: \"She concealed her visions from her parents and from\nevery one.\" Possibly this disloyalty to her parents might itself be the\nsign of the satanic source of her mission.\n\n\"Do you think it was right to go away to the wars without getting your\nparents' leave? It is written one must honor his father and his mother.\"\n\n\"I have obeyed them in all things but that. And for that I have begged\ntheir forgiveness in a letter and gotten it.\"\n\n\"Ah, you asked their pardon? So you knew you were guilty of sin in going\nwithout their leave!\"\n\nJoan was stirred. Her eyes flashed, and she exclaimed:\n\n\"I was commanded of God, and it was right to go! If I had had a hundred\nfathers and mothers and been a king's daughter to boot I would have\ngone.\"\n\n\"Did you never ask your Voices if you might tell your parents?\"\n\n\"They were willing that I should tell them, but I would not for anything\nhave given my parents that pain.\"\n\nTo the minds of the questioners this headstrong conduct savored of\npride. That sort of pride would move one to see sacrilegious adorations.\n\n\"Did not your Voices call you Daughter of God?\"\n\nJoan answered with simplicity, and unsuspiciously:\n\n\"Yes; before the siege of Orleans and since, they have several times\ncalled me Daughter of God.\"\n\nFurther indications of pride and vanity were sought.\n\n\"What horse were you riding when you were captured? Who gave it you?\"\n\n\"The King.\"\n\n\"You had other things--riches--of the King?\"\n\n\"For myself I had horses and arms, and money to pay the service in my\nhousehold.\"\n\n\"Had you not a treasury?\"\n\n\"Yes. Ten or twelve thousand crowns.\" Then she said with naivete \"It was\nnot a great sum to carry on a war with.\"\n\n\"You have it yet?\"\n\n\"No. It is the King's money. My brothers hold it for him.\"\n\n\"What were the arms which you left as an offering in the church of St.\nDenis?\"\n\n\"My suit of silver mail and a sword.\"\n\n\"Did you put them there in order that they might be adored?\"\n\n\"No. It was but an act of devotion. And it is the custom of men of war\nwho have been wounded to make such offering there. I had been wounded\nbefore Paris.\"\n\nNothing appealed to these stony hearts, those dull imaginations--not\neven this pretty picture, so simply drawn, of the wounded girl-soldier\nhanging her toy harness there in curious companionship with the grim\nand dusty iron mail of the historic defenders of France. No, there\nwas nothing in it for them; nothing, unless evil and injury for that\ninnocent creature could be gotten out of it somehow.\n\n\"Which aided most--you the Standard, or the Standard you?\"\n\n\"Whether it was the Standard or whether it was I, is nothing--the\nvictories came from God.\"\n\n\"But did you base your hopes of victory in yourself or in your\nStandard?\"\n\n\"In neither. In God, and not otherwise.\"\n\n\"Was not your Standard waved around the King's head at the Coronation?\"\n\n\"No. It was not.\"\n\n\"Why was it that your Standard had place at the crowning of the King in\nthe Cathedral of Rheims, rather than those of the other captains?\"\n\nThen, soft and low, came that touching speech which will live as long\nas language lives, and pass into all tongues, and move all gentle hearts\nwheresoever it shall come, down to the latest day:\n\n\"It had borne the burden, it had earned the honor.\" (1) How simple it\nis, and how beautiful. And how it beggars the studies eloquence of the\nmasters of oratory. Eloquence was a native gift of Joan of Arc; it came\nfrom her lips without effort and without preparation. Her words were as\nsublime as her deeds, as sublime as her character; they had their source\nin a great heart and were coined in a great brain.\n\n(1) What she said has been many times translated, but never with\nsuccess. There is a haunting pathos about the original which eludes all\nefforts to convey it into our tongue. It is as subtle as an odor, and\nescapes in the transmission. Her words were these:\n\n\"Il avait, a la peine, c'etait bien raison qu'il fut a l'honneur.\"\n\nMonseigneur Ricard, Honorary Vicar-General to the Archbishop of Aix,\nfinely speaks of it (Jeanne d'Arc la Venerable, page 197) as \"that\nsublime reply, enduring in the history of celebrated sayings like the\ncry of a French and Christian soul wounded unto death in its patriotism\nand its faith.\" -- TRANSLATOR.\n\n\n\n\n\n12 Joan's Master-Stroke Diverted\n\nNOW, as a next move, this small secret court of holy assassins did a\nthing so base that even at this day, in my old age, it is hard to speak\nof it with patience.\n\nIn the beginning of her commerce with her Voices there at Domremy, the\nchild Joan solemnly devoted her life to God, vowing her pure body and\nher pure soul to His service. You will remember that her parents tried\nto stop her from going to the wars by haling her to the court at Toul\nto compel her to make a marriage which she had never promised to make--a\nmarriage with our poor, good, windy, big, hard-fighting, and most dear\nand lamented comrade, the Standard-Bearer, who fell in honorable battle\nand sleeps with God these sixty years, peace to his ashes! And you will\nremember how Joan, sixteen years old, stood up in that venerable court\nand conducted her case all by herself, and tore the poor Paladin's case\nto rags and blew it away with a breath; and how the astonished old judge\non the bench spoke of her as \"this marvelous child.\"\n\nYou remember all that. Then think what I felt, to see these false\npriests, here in the tribunal wherein Joan had fought a fourth lone\nfight in three years, deliberately twist that matter entirely around\nand try to make out that Joan haled the Paladin into court and pretended\nthat he had promised to marry her, and was bent on making him do it.\n\nCertainly there was no baseness that those people were ashamed to stoop\nto in their hunt for that friendless girl's life. What they wanted to\nshow was this--that she had committed the sin of relapsing from her vow\nand trying to violate it.\n\nJoan detailed the true history of the case, but lost her temper as she\nwent along, and finished with some words for Cauchon which he remembers\nyet, whether he is fanning himself in the world he belongs in or has\nswindled his way into the other.\n\nThe rest of this day and part of the next the court labored upon the\nold theme--the male attire. It was shabby work for those grave men to be\nengaged in; for they well knew one of Joan's reasons for clinging to the\nmale dress was, that soldiers of the guard were always present in her\nroom whether she was asleep or awake, and that the male dress was a\nbetter protection for her modesty than the other.\n\nThe court knew that one of Joan's purposes had been the deliverance of\nthe exiled Duke of Orleans, and they were curious to know how she had\nintended to manage it. Her plan was characteristically businesslike, and\nher statement of it as characteristically simple and straightforward:\n\n\"I would have taken English prisoners enough in France for his ransom;\nand failing that, I would have invaded England and brought him out by\nforce.\"\n\nThat was just her way. If a thing was to be done, it was love first, and\nhammer and tongs to follow; but no shilly-shallying between. She added\nwith a little sigh:\n\n\"If I had had my freedom three years, I would have delivered him.\"\n\n\"Have you the permission of your Voices to break out of prison whenever\nyou can?\"\n\n\"I have asked their leave several times, but they have not given it.\"\n\nI think it is as I have said, she expected the deliverance of death, and\nwithin the prison walls, before the three months should expire.\n\n\"Would you escape if you saw the doors open?\"\n\nShe spoke up frankly and said:\n\n\"Yes--for I should see in that the permission of Our Lord. God helps\nwho help themselves, the proverb says. But except I thought I had\npermission, I would not go.\"\n\nNow, then, at this point, something occurred which convinces me, every\ntime I think of it--and it struck me so at the time--that for a moment,\nat least, her hopes wandered to the King, and put into her mind the same\nnotion about her deliverance which Noel and I had settled upon--a rescue\nby her old soldiers. I think the idea of the rescue did occur to her,\nbut only as a passing thought, and that it quickly passed away.\n\nSome remark of the Bishop of Beauvais moved her to remind him once more\nthat he was an unfair judge, and had no right to preside there, and that\nhe was putting himself in great danger.\n\n\"What danger?\" he asked.\n\n\"I do not know. St. Catherine has promised me help, but I do not know\nthe form of it. I do not know whether I am to be delivered from this\nprison or whether when you sent me to the scaffold there will happen a\ntrouble by which I shall be set free. Without much thought as to this\nmatter, I am of the opinion that it may be one or the other.\" After a\npause she added these words, memorable forever--words whose meaning she\nmay have miscaught, misunderstood; as to that we can never know; words\nwhich she may have rightly understood, as to that, also, we can never\nknow; but words whose mystery fell away from them many a year ago and\nrevealed their meaning to all the world:\n\n\"But what my Voices have said clearest is, that I shall be delivered by\na great victory.\" She paused, my heart was beating fast, for to me that\ngreat victory meant the sudden bursting in of our old soldiers with the\nwar-cry and clash of steel at the last moment and the carrying off of\nJoan of Arc in triumph. But, oh, that thought had such a short life! For\nnow she raised her head and finished, with those solemn words which men\nstill so often quote and dwell upon--words which filled me with fear,\nthey sounded so like a prediction. \"And always they say 'Submit to\nwhatever comes; do not grieve for your martyrdom; from it you will\nascend into the Kingdom of Paradise.\"\n\nWas she thinking of fire and the stake? I think not. I thought of it\nmyself, but I believe she was only thinking of this slow and cruel\nmartyrdom of chains and captivity and insult. Surely, martyrdom was the\nright name for it.\n\nIt was Jean de la Fontaine who was asking the questions. He was willing\nto make the most he could out of what she had said:\n\n\"As the Voices have told you you are going to Paradise, you feel certain\nthat that will happen and that you will not be damned in hell. Is that\nso?\"\n\n\"I believe what they told me. I know that I shall be saved.\"\n\n\"It is a weighty answer.\"\n\n\"To me the knowledge that I shall be saved is a great treasure.\"\n\n\"Do you think that after that revelation you could be able to commit\nmortal sin?\"\n\n\"As to that, I do not know. My hope for salvation is in holding fast to\nmy oath to keep by body and my soul pure.\"\n\n\"Since you know you are to be saved, do you think it necessary to go to\nconfession?\"\n\nThe snare was ingeniously devised, but Joan's simple and humble answer\nleft it empty:\n\n\"One cannot keep his conscience too clean.\"\n\nWe were now arriving at the last day of this new trial. Joan had come\nthrough the ordeal well. It had been a long and wearisome struggle for\nall concerned. All ways had been tried to convict the accused, and\nall had failed, thus far. The inquisitors were thoroughly vexed and\ndissatisfied.\n\nHowever, they resolved to make one more effort, put in one more day's\nwork. This was done--March 17th. Early in the sitting a notable trap was\nset for Joan:\n\n\"Will you submit to the determination of the Church all your words and\ndeeds, whether good or bad?\"\n\nThat was well planned. Joan was in imminent peril now. If she should\nheedlessly say yes, it would put her mission itself upon trial, and\none would know how to decide its source and character promptly. If she\nshould say no, she would render herself chargeable with the crime of\nheresy.\n\nBut she was equal to the occasion. She drew a distinct line of\nseparation between the Church's authority over her as a subject member,\nand the matter of her mission. She said she loved the Church and was\nready to support the Christian faith with all her strength; but as to\nthe works done under her mission, those must be judged by God alone, who\nhad commanded them to be done.\n\nThe judge still insisted that she submit them to the decision of the\nChurch. She said:\n\n\"I will submit them to Our Lord who sent me. It would seem to me that\nHe and His Church are one, and that there should be no difficulty about\nthis matter.\" Then she turned upon the judge and said, \"Why do you make\na difficulty when there is no room for any?\"\n\nThen Jean de la Fontaine corrected her notion that there was but one\nChurch. There were two--the Church Triumphant, which is God, the saints,\nthe angels, and the redeemed, and has its seat in heaven; and the Church\nMilitant, which is our Holy Father the Pope, Vicar of God, the prelates,\nthe clergy and all good Christians and Catholics, the which Church has\nits seat in the earth, is governed by the Holy Spirit, and cannot err.\n\"Will you not submit those matters to the Church Militant?\"\n\n\"I am come to the King of France from the Church Triumphant on high by\nits commandant, and to that Church I will submit all those things which\nI have done. For the Church Militant I have no other answer now.\"\n\nThe court took note of this straitly worded refusal, and would hope to\nget profit out of it; but the matter was dropped for the present, and a\nlong chase was then made over the old hunting-ground--the fairies, the\nvisions, the male attire, and all that.\n\nIn the afternoon the satanic Bishop himself took the chair and presided\nover the closing scenes of the trial. Along toward the finish, this\nquestion was asked by one of the judges:\n\n\"You have said to my lord the Bishop that you would answer him as you\nwould answer before our Holy Father the Pope, and yet there are several\nquestions which you continually refuse to answer. Would you not answer\nthe Pope more fully than you have answered before my lord of Beauvais?\nWould you not feel obliged to answer the Pope, who is the Vicar of God,\nmore fully?\"\n\nNow a thunder-clap fell out of a clear sky:\n\n\"Take me to the Pope. I will answer to everything that I ought to.\"\n\nIt made the Bishop's purple face fairly blanch with consternation. If\nJoan had only known, if she had only know! She had lodged a mine under\nthis black conspiracy able to blow the Bishop's schemes to the four\nwinds of heaven, and she didn't know it. She had made that speech by\nmere instinct, not suspecting what tremendous forces were hidden in it,\nand there was none to tell her what she had done. I knew, and Manchon\nknew; and if she had known how to read writing we could have hoped to\nget the knowledge to her somehow; but speech was the only way, and none\nwas allowed to approach her near enough for that. So there she sat,\nonce more Joan of Arc the Victorious, but all unconscious of it. She was\nmiserably worn and tired, by the long day's struggle and by illness, or\nshe must have noticed the effect of that speech and divined the reason\nof it.\n\nShe had made many master-strokes, but this was the master-stroke. It was\nan appeal to Rome. It was her clear right; and if she had persisted\nin it Cauchon's plot would have tumbled about his ears like a house of\ncards, and he would have gone from that place the worst-beaten man of\nthe century. He was daring, but he was not daring enough to stand up\nagainst that demand if Joan had urged it. But no, she was ignorant, poor\nthing, and did not know what a blow she had struck for life and liberty.\n\nFrance was not the Church. Rome had no interest in the destruction of\nthis messenger of God.\n\nRome would have given her a fair trial, and that was all that her cause\nneeded. From that trial she would have gone forth free, and honored, and\nblessed.\n\nBut it was not so fated. Cauchon at once diverted the questions to other\nmatters and hurried the trial quickly to an end.\n\nAs Joan moved feebly away, dragging her chains, I felt stunned and\ndazed, and kept saying to myself, \"Such a little while ago she said the\nsaving word and could have gone free; and now, there she goes to her\ndeath; yes, it is to her death, I know it, I feel it. They will double\nthe guards; they will never let any come near her now between this and\nher condemnation, lest she get a hint and speak that word again. This is\nthe bitterest day that has come to me in all this miserable time.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n13 The Third Trial Fails\n\nSO THE SECOND trial in the prison was over. Over, and no definite\nresult. The character of it I have described to you. It was baser in one\nparticular than the previous one; for this time the charges had not been\ncommunicated to Joan, therefore she had been obliged to fight in the\ndark.\n\nThere was no opportunity to do any thinking beforehand; there was no\nforeseeing what traps might be set, and no way to prepare for them.\nTruly it was a shabby advantage to take of a girl situated as this\none was. One day, during the course of it, an able lawyer of Normandy,\nMaetre Lohier, happened to be in Rouen, and I will give you his opinion\nof that trial, so that you may see that I have been honest with you, and\nthat my partisanship has not made me deceive you as to its unfair\nand illegal character. Cauchon showed Lohier the proces and asked his\nopinion about the trial. Now this was the opinion which he gave to\nCauchon. He said that the whole thing was null and void; for these\nreasons: 1, because the trial was secret, and full freedom of speech and\naction on the part of those present not possible; 2, because the trial\ntouched the honor of the King of France, yet he was not summoned to\ndefend himself, nor any one appointed to represent him; 3, because the\ncharges against the prisoner were not communicated to her; 4, because\nthe accused, although young and simple, had been forced to defend her\ncause without help of counsel, notwithstanding she had so much at stake.\n\nDid that please Bishop Cauchon? It did not. He burst out upon Lohier\nwith the most savage cursings, and swore he would have him drowned.\nLohier escaped from Rouen and got out of France with all speed, and so\nsaved his life.\n\nWell, as I have said, the second trial was over, without definite\nresult. But Cauchon did not give up. He could trump up another. And\nstill another and another, if necessary. He had the half-promise of\nan enormous prize--the Archbishopric of Rouen--if he should succeed in\nburning the body and damning to hell the soul of this young girl who\nhad never done him any harm; and such a prize as that, to a man like the\nBishop of Beauvais, was worth the burning and damning of fifty harmless\ngirls, let alone one.\n\nSo he set to work again straight off next day; and with high confidence,\ntoo, intimating with brutal cheerfulness that he should succeed this\ntime. It took him and the other scavengers nine days to dig matter\nenough out of Joan's testimony and their own inventions to build up\nthe new mass of charges. And it was a formidable mass indeed, for it\nnumbered sixty-six articles.\n\nThis huge document was carried to the castle the next day, March 27th;\nand there, before a dozen carefully selected judges, the new trial was\nbegun.\n\nOpinions were taken, and the tribunal decided that Joan should hear the\narticles read this time.\n\nMaybe that was on account of Lohier's remark upon that head; or maybe it\nwas hoped that the reading would kill the prisoner with fatigue--for, as\nit turned out, this reading occupied several days. It was also decided\nthat Joan should be required to answer squarely to every article, and\nthat if she refused she should be considered convicted. You see, Cauchon\nwas managing to narrow her chances more and more all the time; he was\ndrawing the toils closer and closer.\n\nJoan was brought in, and the Bishop of Beauvais opened with a speech to\nher which ought to have made even himself blush, so laden it was with\nhypocrisy and lies. He said that this court was composed of holy and\npious churchmen whose hearts were full of benevolence and compassion\ntoward her, and that they had no wish to hurt her body, but only a\ndesire to instruct her and lead her into the way of truth and salvation.\n\nWhy, this man was born a devil; now think of his describing himself and\nthose hardened slaves of his in such language as that.\n\nAnd yet, worse was to come. For now having in mind another of Lovier's\nhints, he had the cold effrontery to make to Joan a proposition which,\nI think, will surprise you when you hear it. He said that this court,\nrecognizing her untaught estate and her inability to deal with the\ncomplex and difficult matters which were about to be considered, had\ndetermined, out of their pity and their mercifulness, to allow her to\nchoose one or more persons out of their own number to help her with\ncounsel and advice!\n\nThink of that--a court made up of Loyseleur and his breed of reptiles.\nIt was granting leave to a lamb to ask help of a wolf. Joan looked up to\nsee if he was serious, and perceiving that he was at least pretending to\nbe, she declined, of course.\n\nThe Bishop was not expecting any other reply. He had made a show of\nfairness and could have it entered on the minutes, therefore he was\nsatisfied.\n\nThen he commanded Joan to answer straitly to every accusation; and\nthreatened to cut her off from the Church if she failed to do that or\ndelayed her answers beyond a given length of time.\n\nYes, he was narrowing her chances down, step by step.\n\nThomas de Courcelles began the reading of that interminable document,\narticle by article. Joan answered to each article in its turn; sometimes\nmerely denying its truth, sometimes by saying her answer would be found\nin the records of the previous trials.\n\nWhat a strange document that was, and what an exhibition and exposure of\nthe heart of man, the one creature authorized to boast that he is made\nin the image of God. To know Joan of Arc was to know one who was wholly\nnoble, pure, truthful, brave, compassionate, generous, pious, unselfish,\nmodest, blameless as the very flowers in the fields--a nature fine and\nbeautiful, a character supremely great. To know her from that document\nwould be to know her as the exact reverse of all that. Nothing that she\nwas appears in it, everything that she was not appears there in detail.\n\nConsider some of the things it charges against her, and remember who\nit is it is speaking of. It calls her a sorceress, a false prophet,\nan invoker and companion of evil spirits, a dealer in magic, a person\nignorant of the Catholic faith, a schismatic; she is sacrilegious, an\nidolater, an apostate, a blasphemer of God and His saints, scandalous,\nseditious, a disturber of the peace; she incites men to war, and to the\nspilling of human blood; she discards the decencies and proprieties of\nher sex, irreverently assuming the dress of a man and the vocation of a\nsoldier; she beguiles both princes and people; she usurps divine honors,\nand has caused herself to be adored and venerated, offering her hands\nand her vestments to be kissed.\n\nThere it is--every fact of her life distorted, perverted, reversed. As a\nchild she had loved the fairies, she had spoken a pitying word for them\nwhen they were banished from their home, she had played under their tree\nand around their fountain--hence she was a comrade of evil spirits.\n\nShe had lifted France out of the mud and moved her to strike for\nfreedom, and led her to victory after victory--hence she was a disturber\nof the peace--as indeed she was, and a provoker of war--as indeed she\nwas again! and France will be proud of it and grateful for it for many\na century to come. And she had been adored--as if she could help that,\npoor thing, or was in any way to blame for it. The cowed veteran and the\nwavering recruit had drunk the spirit of war from her eyes and touched\nher sword with theirs and moved forward invincible--hence she was a\nsorceress.\n\nAnd so the document went on, detail by detail, turning these waters\nof life to poison, this gold to dross, these proofs of a noble and\nbeautiful life to evidences of a foul and odious one.\n\nOf course, the sixty-six articles were just a rehash of the things which\nhad come up in the course of the previous trials, so I will touch upon\nthis new trial but lightly. In fact, Joan went but little into detail\nherself, usually merely saying, \"That is not true--passez outre\"; or,\n\"I have answered that before--let the clerk read it in his record,\" or\nsaying some other brief thing.\n\nShe refused to have her mission examined and tried by the earthly\nChurch. The refusal was taken note of.\n\nShe denied the accusation of idolatry and that she had sought men's\nhomage. She said:\n\n\"If any kissed my hands and my vestments it was not by my desire, and I\ndid what I could to prevent it.\"\n\nShe had the pluck to say to that deadly tribunal that she did not know\nthe fairies to be evil beings. She knew it was a perilous thing to say,\nbut it was not in her nature to speak anything but the truth when she\nspoke at all. Danger had no weight with her in such things. Note was\ntaken of her remark.\n\nShe refused, as always before, when asked if she would put off the male\nattire if she were given permission to commune. And she added this:\n\n\"When one receives the sacrament, the manner of his dress is a small\nthing and of no value in the eyes of Our Lord.\"\n\nShe was charge with being so stubborn in clinging to her male dress that\nshe would not lay it off even to get the blessed privilege of hearing\nmass. She spoke out with spirit and said:\n\n\"I would rather die than be untrue to my oath to God.\"\n\nShe was reproached with doing man's work in the wars and thus deserting\nthe industries proper to her sex. She answered, with some little touch\nof soldierly disdain:\n\n\"As to the matter of women's work, there's plenty to do it.\"\n\nIt was always a comfort to me to see the soldier spirit crop up in her.\nWhile that remained in her she would be Joan of Arc, and able to look\ntrouble and fate in the face.\n\n\"It appears that this mission of yours which you claim you had from God,\nwas to make war and pour out human blood.\"\n\nJoan replied quite simply, contenting herself with explaining that war\nwas not her first move, but her second:\n\n\"To begin with, I demanded that peace should be made. If it was refused,\nthen I would fight.\"\n\nThe judge mixed the Burgundians and English together in speaking of the\nenemy which Joan had come to make war upon. But she showed that she\nmade a distinction between them by act and word, the Burgundians being\nFrenchmen and therefore entitled to less brusque treatment than the\nEnglish. She said:\n\n\"As to the Duke of Burgundy, I required of him, both by letters and by\nhis ambassadors, that he make peace with the King. As to the English,\nthe only peace for them was that they leave the country and go home.\"\n\nThen she said that even with the English she had shown a pacific\ndisposition, since she had warned them away by proclamation before\nattacking them.\n\n\"If they had listened to me,\" said she, \"they would have done wisely.\"\nAt this point she uttered her prophecy again, saying with emphasis,\n\"Before seven years they will see it themselves.\"\n\nThen they presently began to pester her again about her male costume,\nand tried to persuade her to voluntarily promise to discard it. I\nwas never deep, so I think it no wonder that I was puzzled by their\npersistency in what seemed a thing of no consequence, and could not make\nout what their reason could be. But we all know now. We all know now\nthat it was another of their treacherous projects. Yes, if they could\nbut succeed in getting her to formally discard it they could play a game\nupon her which would quickly destroy her. So they kept at their evil\nwork until at last she broke out and said:\n\n\"Peace! Without the permission of God I will not lay it off though you\ncut off my head!\"\n\nAt one point she corrected the proces verbal, saying:\n\n\"It makes me say that everything which I have done was done by the\ncounsel of Our Lord. I did not say that, I said 'all which I have well\ndone.'\"\n\nDoubt was cast upon the authenticity of her mission because of the\nignorance and simplicity of the messenger chosen. Joan smiled at that.\nShe could have reminded these people that Our Lord, who is no respecter\nof persons, had chosen the lowly for his high purposes even oftener\nthan he had chosen bishops and cardinals; but she phrased her rebuke in\nsimpler terms:\n\n\"It is the prerogative of Our Lord to choose His instruments where He\nwill.\"\n\nShe was asked what form of prayer she used in invoking counsel from on\nhigh. She said the form was brief and simple; then she lifted her pallid\nface and repeated it, clasping her chained hands:\n\n\"Most dear God, in honor of your holy passion I beseech you, if you love\nme, that you will reveal to me what I am to answer to these churchmen.\nAs concerns my dress, I know by what command I have put it on, but I\nknow not in what manner I am to lay it off. I pray you tell me what to\ndo.\"\n\nShe was charged with having dared, against the precepts of God and His\nsaints, to assume empire over men and make herself Commander-in-Chief.\nThat touched the soldier in her. She had a deep reverence for priests,\nbut the soldier in her had but small reverence for a priest's opinions\nabout war; so, in her answer to this charge she did not condescend to\ngo into any explanations or excuses, but delivered herself with bland\nindifference and military brevity.\n\n\"If I was Commander-in-Chief, it was to thrash the English.\"\n\nDeath was staring her in the face here all the time, but no matter;\nshe dearly loved to make these English-hearted Frenchmen squirm, and\nwhenever they gave her an opening she was prompt to jab her sting into\nit. She got great refreshment out of these little episodes. Her days\nwere a desert; these were the oases in it.\n\nHer being in the wars with men was charged against her as an indelicacy.\nShe said:\n\n\"I had a woman with me when I could--in towns and lodgings. In the field\nI always slept in my armor.\"\n\nThat she and her family had been ennobled by the King was charged\nagainst her as evidence that the source of her deeds were sordid\nself-seeking. She answered that she had not asked this grace of the\nKing; it was his own act.\n\nThis third trial was ended at last. And once again there was no definite\nresult.\n\nPossibly a fourth trial might succeed in defeating this apparently\nunconquerable girl. So the malignant Bishop set himself to work to plan\nit.\n\nHe appointed a commission to reduce the substance of the sixty-six\narticles to twelve compact lies, as a basis for the new attempt. This\nwas done. It took several days.\n\nMeantime Cauchon went to Joan's cell one day, with Manchon and two of\nthe judges, Isambard de la Pierre and Martin Ladvenue, to see if he\ncould not manage somehow to beguile Joan into submitting her mission to\nthe examination and decision of the Church Militant--that is to say, to\nthat part of the Church Militant which was represented by himself and\nhis creatures.\n\nJoan once more positively refused. Isambard de la Pierre had a heart in\nhis body, and he so pitied this persecuted poor girl that he ventured to\ndo a very daring thing; for he asked her if she would be willing to have\nher case go before the Council of Basel, and said it contained as many\npriests of her party as of the English party.\n\nJoan cried out that she would gladly go before so fairly constructed\na tribunal as that; but before Isambard could say another word Cauchon\nturned savagely upon him and exclaimed:\n\n\"Shut up, in the devil's name!\"\n\nThen Manchon ventured to do a brave thing, too, though he did it in\ngreat fear for his life. He asked Cauchon if he should enter Joan's\nsubmission to the Council of Basel upon the minutes.\n\n\"No! It is not necessary.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said poor Joan, reproachfully, \"you set down everything that is\nagainst me, but you will not set down what is for me.\"\n\nIt was piteous. It would have touched the heart of a brute. But Cauchon\nwas more than that.\n\n\n\n\n\n14 Joan Struggles with Her Twelve Lies\n\nWE WERE now in the first days of April. Joan was ill. She had fallen ill\nthe 29th of March, the day after the close of the third trial, and was\ngrowing worse when the scene which I have just described occurred in her\ncell. It was just like Cauchon to go there and try to get some advantage\nout of her weakened state.\n\nLet us note some of the particulars in the new indictment--the Twelve\nLies.\n\nPart of the first one says Joan asserts that she has found her\nsalvation. She never said anything of the kind. It also says she refuses\nto submit herself to the Church. Not true. She was willing to submit all\nher acts to this Rouen tribunal except those done by the command of God\nin fulfilment of her mission. Those she reserved for the judgment of\nGod. She refused to recognize Cauchon and his serfs as the Church, but\nwas willing to go before the Pope or the Council of Basel.\n\nA clause of another of the Twelve says she admits having threatened with\ndeath those who would not obey her. Distinctly false. Another clause\nsays she declares that all she has done has been done by command of God.\nWhat she really said was, all that she had done well--a correction made\nby herself as you have already seen.\n\nAnother of the Twelve says she claims that she has never committed any\nsin. She never made any such claim.\n\nAnother makes the wearing of the male dress a sin. If it was, she had\nhigh Catholic authority for committing it--that of the Archbishop of\nRheims and the tribunal of Poitiers.\n\nThe Tenth Article was resentful against her for \"pretending\" that St.\nCatherine and St.\n\nMarguerite spoke French and not English, and were French in their\npolitics.\n\nThe Twelve were to be submitted first to the learned doctors of theology\nof the University of Paris for approval. They were copied out and ready\nby the night of April 4th. Then Manchon did another bold thing: he wrote\nin the margin that many of the Twelve put statements in Joan's mouth\nwhich were the exact opposite of what she had said. That fact would\nnot be considered important by the University of Paris, and would not\ninfluence its decision or stir its humanity, in case it had any--which\nit hadn't when acting in a political capacity, as at present--but it was\na brave thing for that good Manchon to do, all the same.\n\nThe Twelve were sent to Paris next day, April 5th. That afternoon there\nwas a great tumult in Rouen, and excited crowds were flocking through\nall the chief streets, chattering and seeking for news; for a report had\ngone abroad that Joan of Arc was sick until death. In truth, these\nlong seances had worn her out, and she was ill indeed. The heads of the\nEnglish party were in a state of consternation; for if Joan should die\nuncondemned by the Church and go to the grave unsmirched, the pity and\nthe love of the people would turn her wrongs and sufferings and death\ninto a holy martyrdom, and she would be even a mightier power in France\ndead than she had been when alive.\n\nThe Earl of Warwick and the English Cardinal (Winchester) hurried to\nthe castle and sent messengers flying for physicians. Warwick was a hard\nman, a rude, coarse man, a man without compassion. There lay the sick\ngirl stretched in her chains in her iron cage--not an object to move man\nto ungentle speech, one would think; yet Warwick spoke right out in her\nhearing and said to the physicians:\n\n\"Mind you take good care of her. The King of England has no mind to have\nher die a natural death. She is dear to him, for he bought her dear, and\nhe does not want her to die, save at the stake. Now then, mind you cure\nher.\"\n\nThe doctors asked Joan what had made her ill. She said the Bishop of\nBeauvais had sent her a fish and she thought it was that.\n\nThen Jean d'Estivet burst out on her, and called her names and abused\nher. He understood Joan to be charging the Bishop with poisoning her,\nyou see; and that was not pleasing to him, for he was one of Cauchon's\nmost loving and conscienceless slaves, and it outraged him to have Joan\ninjure his master in the eyes of these great English chiefs, these being\nmen who could ruin Cauchon and would promptly do it if they got\nthe conviction that he was capable of saving Joan from the stake by\npoisoning her and thus cheating the English out of all the real value\ngainable by her purchase from the Duke of Burgundy.\n\nJoan had a high fever, and the doctors proposed to bleed her. Warwick\nsaid:\n\n\"Be careful about that; she is smart and is capable of killing herself.\"\n\nHe meant that to escape the stake she might undo the bandage and let\nherself bleed to death.\n\nBut the doctors bled her anyway, and then she was better.\n\nNot for long, though. Jean d'Estivet could not hold still, he was so\nworried and angry about the suspicion of poisoning which Joan had hinted\nat; so he came back in the evening and stormed at her till he brought\nthe fever all back again.\n\nWhen Warwick heard of this he was in a fine temper, you may be sure,\nfor here was his prey threatening to escape again, and all through\nthe over-zeal of this meddling fool. Warwick gave D'Estivet a quite\nadmirable cursing--admirable as to strength, I mean, for it was said by\npersons of culture that the art of it was not good--and after that the\nmeddler kept still.\n\nJoan remained ill more than two weeks; then she grew better. She was\nstill very weak, but she could bear a little persecution now without\nmuch danger to her life. It seemed to Cauchon a good time to furnish it.\nSo he called together some of his doctors of theology and went to her\ndungeon. Manchon and I went along to keep the record--that is, to set\ndown what might be useful to Cauchon, and leave out the rest.\n\nThe sight of Joan gave me a shock. Why, she was but a shadow! It was\ndifficult for me to realize that this frail little creature with the\nsad face and drooping form was the same Joan of Arc that I had so often\nseen, all fire and enthusiasm, charging through a hail of death and\nthe lightning and thunder of the guns at the head of her battalions. It\nwrung my heart to see her looking like this.\n\nBut Cauchon was not touched. He made another of those conscienceless\nspeeches of his, all dripping with hypocrisy and guile. He told Joan\nthat among her answers had been some which had seemed to endanger\nreligion; and as she was ignorant and without knowledge of the\nScriptures, he had brought some good and wise men to instruct her, if\nshe desired it. Said he, \"We are churchmen, and disposed by our good\nwill as well as by our vocation to procure for you the salvation of your\nsoul and your body, in every way in our power, just as we would do the\nlike for our nearest kin or for ourselves. In this we but follow the\nexample of Holy Church, who never closes the refuge of her bosom against\nany that are willing to return.\"\n\nJoan thanked him for these sayings and said:\n\n\"I seem to be in danger of death from this malady; if it be the pleasure\nof God that I die here, I beg that I may be heard in confession and also\nreceive my Saviour; and that I may be buried in consecrated ground.\"\n\nCauchon thought he saw his opportunity at last; this weakened body\nhad the fear of an unblessed death before it and the pains of hell to\nfollow. This stubborn spirit would surrender now. So he spoke out and\nsaid:\n\n\"Then if you want the Sacraments, you must do as all good Catholics do,\nand submit to the Church.\"\n\nHe was eager for her answer; but when it came there was no surrender\nin it, she still stood to her guns. She turned her head away and said\nwearily:\n\n\"I have nothing more to say.\"\n\nCauchon's temper was stirred, and he raised his voice threateningly\nand said that the more she was in danger of death the more she ought to\namend her life; and again he refused the things she begged for unless\nshe would submit to the Church. Joan said:\n\n\"If I die in this prison I beg you to have me buried in holy ground; if\nyou will not, I cast myself upon my Saviour.\"\n\nThere was some more conversation of the like sort, then Cauchon demanded\nagain, and imperiously, that she submit herself and all her deeds to\nthe Church. His threatening and storming went for nothing. That body\nwas weak, but the spirit in it was the spirit of Joan of Arc; and out\nof that came the steadfast answer which these people were already so\nfamiliar with and detested so sincerely:\n\n\"Let come what may. I will neither do nor say any otherwise than I have\nsaid already in your tribunals.\"\n\nThen the good theologians took turn about and worried her with\nreasonings and arguments and Scriptures; and always they held the lure\nof the Sacraments before her famishing soul, and tried to bribe her with\nthem to surrender her mission to the Church's judgment--that is to their\njudgment--as if they were the Church! But it availed nothing. I could\nhave told them that beforehand, if they had asked me. But they never\nasked me anything; I was too humble a creature for their notice.\n\nThen the interview closed with a threat; a threat of fearful import;\na threat calculated to make a Catholic Christian feel as if the ground\nwere sinking from under him:\n\n\"The Church calls upon you to submit; disobey, and she will abandon you\nas if you were a pagan!\"\n\nThink of being abandoned by the Church!--that August Power in whose\nhands is lodged the fate of the human race; whose scepter stretches\nbeyond the furthest constellation that twinkles in the sky; whose\nauthority is over millions that live and over the billions that wait\ntrembling in purgatory for ransom or doom; whose smile opens the gates\nof heaven to you, whose frown delivers you to the fires of everlasting\nhell; a Power whose dominion overshadows and belittles the pomps and\nshows of a village. To be abandoned by one's King--yes, that is death,\nand death is much; but to be abandoned by Rome, to be abandoned by the\nChurch! Ah, death is nothing to that, for that is consignment to endless\nlife--and such a life!\n\nI could see the red waves tossing in that shoreless lake of fire, I\ncould see the black myriads of the damned rise out of them and struggle\nand sink and rise again; and I knew that Joan was seeing what I saw,\nwhile she paused musing; and I believed that she must yield now, and in\ntruth I hoped she would, for these men were able to make the threat good\nand deliver her over to eternal suffering, and I knew that it was in\ntheir natures to do it.\n\nBut I was foolish to think that thought and hope that hope. Joan of\nArc was not made as others are made. Fidelity to principle, fidelity\nto truth, fidelity to her word, all these were in her bone and in her\nflesh--they were parts of her. She could not change, she could not cast\nthem out. She was the very genius of Fidelity; she was Steadfastness\nincarnated. Where she had taken her stand and planted her foot, there\nshe would abide; hell itself could not move her from that place.\n\nHer Voices had not given her permission to make the sort of submission\nthat was required, therefore she would stand fast. She would wait, in\nperfect obedience, let come what might.\n\nMy heart was like lead in my body when I went out from that dungeon;\nbut she--she was serene, she was not troubled. She had done what she\nbelieved to be her duty, and that was sufficient; the consequences\nwere not her affair. The last thing she said that time was full of this\nserenity, full of contented repose:\n\n\"I am a good Christian born and baptized, and a good Christian I will\ndie.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n15 Undaunted by Threat of Burning\n\nTWO WEEKS went by; the second of May was come, the chill was departed\nout of the air, the wild flowers were springing in the glades and\nglens, the birds were piping in the woods, all nature was brilliant with\nsunshine, all spirits were renewed and refreshed, all hearts glad,\nthe world was alive with hope and cheer, the plain beyond the Seine\nstretched away soft and rich and green, the river was limpid and\nlovely, the leafy islands were dainty to see, and flung still daintier\nreflections of themselves upon the shining water; and from the tall\nbluffs above the bridge Rouen was become again a delight to the eye, the\nmost exquisite and satisfying picture of a town that nestles under the\narch of heaven anywhere.\n\nWhen I say that all hearts were glad and hopeful, I mean it in a general\nsense. There were exceptions--we who were the friends of Joan of Arc,\nalso Joan of Arc herself, that poor girl shut up there in that frowning\nstretch of mighty walls and towers: brooding in darkness, so close to\nthe flooding downpour of sunshine yet so impossibly far away from it;\nso longing for any little glimpse of it, yet so implacably denied it\nby those wolves in the black gowns who were plotting her death and the\nblackening of her good name.\n\nCauchon was ready to go on with his miserable work. He had a new scheme\nto try now. He would see what persuasion could do--argument, eloquence,\npoured out upon the incorrigible captive from the mouth of a trained\nexpert. That was his plan. But the reading of the Twelve Articles to\nher was not a part of it. No, even Cauchon was ashamed to lay that\nmonstrosity before her; even he had a remnant of shame in him, away down\ndeep, a million fathoms deep, and that remnant asserted itself now and\nprevailed.\n\nOn this fair second of May, then, the black company gathered itself\ntogether in the spacious chamber at the end of the great hall of the\ncastle--the Bishop of Beauvais on his throne, and sixty-two minor judges\nmassed before him, with the guards and recorders at their stations and\nthe orator at his desk.\n\nThen we heard the far clank of chains, and presently Joan entered with\nher keepers and took her seat upon her isolated bench. She was looking\nwell now, and most fair and beautiful after her fortnight's rest from\nwordy persecution.\n\nShe glanced about and noted the orator. Doubtless she divined the\nsituation.\n\nThe orator had written his speech all out, and had it in his hand,\nthough he held it back of him out of sight. It was so thick that it\nresembled a book. He began flowing, but in the midst of a flowery period\nhis memory failed him and he had to snatch a furtive glance at his\nmanuscript--which much injured the effect. Again this happened, and then\na third time. The poor man's face was red with embarrassment, the whole\ngreat house was pitying him, which made the matter worse; then Joan\ndropped in a remark which completed the trouble. She said:\n\n\"Read your book--and then I will answer you!\"\n\nWhy, it was almost cruel the way those moldy veterans laughed; and as\nfor the orator, he looked so flustered and helpless that almost anybody\nwould have pitied him, and I had difficulty to keep from doing it\nmyself. Yes, Joan was feeling very well after her rest, and the native\nmischief that was in her lay near the surface. It did not show when she\nmade the remark, but I knew it was close in there back of the words.\n\nWhen the orator had gotten back his composure he did a wise thing; for\nhe followed Joan's advice: he made no more attempts at sham impromptu\noratory, but read his speech straight from his \"book.\" In the speech he\ncompressed the Twelve Articles into six, and made these his text.\n\nEvery now and then he stopped and asked questions, and Joan replied.\nThe nature of the Church Militant was explained, and once more Joan was\nasked to submit herself to it.\n\nShe gave her usual answer.\n\nThen she was asked:\n\n\"Do you believe the Church can err?\"\n\n\"I believe it cannot err; but for those deeds and words of mine which\nwere done and uttered by command of God, I will answer to Him alone.\"\n\n\"Will you say that you have no judge upon earth? Is not our Holy Father\nthe Pope your judge?\"\n\n\"I will say nothing about it. I have a good Master who is our Lord, and\nto Him I will submit all.\"\n\nThen came these terrible words:\n\n\"If you do not submit to the Church you will be pronounced a heretic by\nthese judges here present and burned at the stake!\"\n\nAh, that would have smitten you or me dead with fright, but it only\nroused the lion heart of Joan of Arc, and in her answer rang that\nmartial note which had used to stir her soldiers like a bugle-call:\n\n\"I will not say otherwise than I have said already; and if I saw the\nfire before me I would say it again!\"\n\nIt was uplifting to hear her battle-voice once more and see the\nbattle-light burn in her eye. Many there were stirred; every man that\nwas a man was stirred, whether friend or foe; and Manchon risked his\nlife again, good soul, for he wrote in the margin of the record in good\nplain letters these brave words: \"Superba responsio!\" and there they\nhave remained these sixty years, and there you may read them to this\nday.\n\n\"Superba responsio!\" Yes, it was just that. For this \"superb answer\"\ncame from the lips of a girl of nineteen with death and hell staring her\nin the face.\n\nOf course, the matter of the male attire was gone over again; and as\nusual at wearisome length; also, as usual, the customary bribe was\noffered: if she would discard that dress voluntarily they would let her\nhear mass. But she answered as she had often answered before:\n\n\"I will go in a woman's robe to all services of the Church if I may be\npermitted, but I will resume the other dress when I return to my cell.\"\n\nThey set several traps for her in a tentative form; that is to say,\nthey placed suppositious propositions before her and cunningly tried to\ncommit her to one end of the propositions without committing themselves\nto the other. But she always saw the game and spoiled it. The trap was\nin this form:\n\n\"Would you be willing to do so and so if we should give you leave?\"\n\nHer answer was always in this form or to this effect:\n\n\"When you give me leave, then you will know.\"\n\nYes, Joan was at her best that second of May. She had all her wits about\nher, and they could not catch her anywhere. It was a long, long session,\nand all the old ground was fought over again, foot by foot, and the\norator-expert worked all his persuasions, all his eloquence; but the\nresult was the familiar one--a drawn battle, the sixty-two retiring upon\ntheir base, the solitary enemy holding her original position within her\noriginal lines.\n\n\n\n\n\n16 Joan Stands Defiant Before the Rack\n\nTHE BRILLIANT weather, the heavenly weather, the bewitching weather made\neverybody's heart to sing, as I have told you; yes, Rouen was feeling\nlight-hearted and gay, and most willing and ready to break out and laugh\nupon the least occasion; and so when the news went around that the young\ngirl in the tower had scored another defeat against Bishop Cauchon there\nwas abundant laughter--abundant laughter among the citizens of both\nparties, for they all hated the Bishop. It is true, the English-hearted\nmajority of the people wanted Joan burned, but that did not keep them\nfrom laughing at the man they hated. It would have been perilous for\nanybody to laugh at the English chiefs or at the majority of Cauchon's\nassistant judges, but to laugh at Cauchon or D'Estivet and Loyseleur was\nsafe--nobody would report it.\n\nThe difference between Cauchon and cochon (1) was not noticeable\nin speech, and so there was plenty of opportunity for puns; the\nopportunities were not thrown away.\n\nSome of the jokes got well worn in the course of two or three months,\nfrom repeated use; for every time Cauchon started a new trial the folk\nsaid \"The sow has littered (2) again\"; and every time the trial failed\nthey said it over again, with its other meaning, \"The hog has made a\nmess of it.\"\n\nAnd so, on the third of May, Noel and I, drifting about the town, heard\nmany a wide-mouthed lout let go his joke and his laugh, and then move to\nthe next group, proud of his wit and happy, to work it off again:\n\n\"'Od's blood, the sow has littered five times, and five times has made a\nmess of it!\"\n\nAnd now and then one was bold enough to say--but he said it softly:\n\n\"Sixty-three and the might of England against a girl, and she camps on\nthe field five times!\"\n\nCauchon lived in the great palace of the Archbishop, and it was guarded\nby English soldiery; but no matter, there was never a dark night but the\nwalls showed next morning that the rude joker had been there with his\npaint and brush. Yes, he had been there, and had smeared the sacred\nwalls with pictures of hogs in all attitudes except flattering ones;\nhogs clothed in a Bishop's vestments and wearing a Bishop's miter\nirreverently cocked on the side of their heads.\n\nCauchon raged and cursed over his defeats and his impotence during seven\nsays; then he conceived a new scheme. You shall see what it was; for you\nhave not cruel hearts, and you would never guess it.\n\nOn the ninth of May there was a summons, and Manchon and I got out\nmaterials together and started. But this time we were to go to one of\nthe other towers--not the one which was Joan's prison. It was round and\ngrim and massive, and built of the plainest and thickest and solidest\nmasonry--a dismal and forbidding structure. (3) We entered the circular\nroom on the ground floor, and I saw what turned me sick--the instruments\nof torture and the executioners standing ready! Here you have the black\nheart of Cauchon at the blackest, here you have the proof that in his\nnature there was no such thing as pity. One wonders if he ever knew his\nmother or ever had a sister.\n\nCauchon was there, and the Vice-Inquisitor and the Abbot of St.\nCorneille; also six others, among them that false Loyseleur. The\nguards were in their places, the rack was there, and by it stood the\nexecutioner and his aids in their crimson hose and doublets, meet color\nfor their bloody trade. The picture of Joan rose before me stretched\nupon the rack, her feet tied to one end of it, her wrists to the other,\nand those red giants turning the windlass and pulling her limbs out of\ntheir sockets. It seemed to me that I could hear the bones snap and the\nflesh tear apart, and I did not see how that body of anointed\nservants of the merciful Jesus could sit there and look so placid and\nindifferent.\n\nAfter a little, Joan arrived and was brought in. She saw the rack, she\nsaw the attendants, and the same picture which I had been seeing must\nhave risen in her mind; but do you think she quailed, do you think she\nshuddered? No, there was no sign of that sort. She straightened herself\nup, and there was a slight curl of scorn about her lip; but as for fear,\nshe showed not a vestige of it.\n\nThis was a memorable session, but it was the shortest one of all the\nlist. When Joan had taken her seat a resume of her \"crimes\" was read to\nher. Then Cauchon made a solemn speech. It in he said that in the course\nof her several trials Joan had refused to answer some of the questions\nand had answered others with lies, but that now he was going to have the\ntruth out of her, and the whole of it.\n\nHer manner was full of confidence this time; he was sure he had found a\nway at last to break this child's stubborn spirit and make her beg\nand cry. He would score a victory this time and stop the mouths of the\njokers of Rouen. You see, he was only just a man after all, and couldn't\nstand ridicule any better than other people. He talked high, and his\nsplotchy face lighted itself up with all the shifting tints and signs\nof evil pleasure and promised triumph--purple, yellow, red, green--they\nwere all there, with sometimes the dull and spongy blue of a drowned\nman, the uncanniest of them all. And finally he burst out in a great\npassion and said:\n\n\"There is the rack, and there are its ministers! You will reveal all now\nor be put to the torture.\n\n\"Speak.\"\n\nThen she made that great answer which will live forever; made it without\nfuss or bravado, and yet how fine and noble was the sound of it:\n\n\"I will tell you nothing more than I have told you; no, not even if you\ntear the limbs from my body. And even if in my pain I did say something\notherwise, I would always say afterward that it was the torture that\nspoke and not I.\"\n\nThere was no crushing that spirit. You should have seen Cauchon.\nDefeated again, and he had not dreamed of such a thing. I heard it said\nthe next day, around the town, that he had a full confession all written\nout, in his pocket and all ready for Joan to sign. I do not know that\nthat was true, but it probably was, for her mark signed at the bottom of\na confession would be the kind of evidence (for effect with the public)\nwhich Cauchon and his people were particularly value, you know.\n\nNo, there was no crushing that spirit, and no beclouding that clear\nmind. Consider the depth, the wisdom of that answer, coming from an\nignorant girl. Why, there were not six men in the world who had ever\nreflected that words forced out of a person by horrible tortures\nwere not necessarily words of verity and truth, yet this unlettered\npeasant-girl put her finger upon that flaw with an unerring instinct.\nI had always supposed that torture brought out the truth--everybody\nsupposed it; and when Joan came out with those simple common-sense words\nthey seemed to flood the place with light. It was like a lightning-flash\nat midnight which suddenly reveals a fair valley sprinkled over with\nsilver streams and gleaming villages and farmsteads where was only an\nimpenetrable world of darkness before. Manchon stole a sidewise look at\nme, and his face was full of surprise; and there was the like to be seen\nin other faces there. Consider--they were old, and deeply cultured, yet\nhere was a village maid able to teach them something which they had not\nknown before. I heard one of them mutter:\n\n\"Verily it is a wonderful creature. She has laid her hand upon an\naccepted truth that is as old as the world, and it has crumbled to dust\nand rubbish under her touch. Now whence got she that marvelous insight?\"\n\nThe judges laid their heads together and began to talk now. It was\nplain, from chance words which one caught now and then, that Cauchon and\nLoyseleur were insisting upon the application of the torture, and that\nmost of the others were urgently objecting.\n\nFinally Cauchon broke out with a good deal of asperity in his voice and\nordered Joan back to her dungeon. That was a happy surprise for me. I\nwas not expecting that the Bishop would yield.\n\nWhen Manchon came home that night he said he had found out why the\ntorture was not applied.\n\nThere were two reasons. One was, a fear that Joan might die under the\ntorture, which would not suit the English at all; the other was,\nthat the torture would effect nothing if Joan was going to take back\neverything she said under its pains; and as to putting her mark to a\nconfession, it was believed that not even the rack would ever make her\ndo that.\n\nSo all Rouen laughed again, and kept it up for three days, saying:\n\n\"The sow has littered six times, and made six messes of it.\"\n\nAnd the palace walls got a new decoration--a mitered hog carrying a\ndiscarded rack home on its shoulder, and Loyseleur weeping in its wake.\nMany rewards were offered for the capture of these painters, but nobody\napplied. Even the English guard feigned blindness and would not see the\nartists at work.\n\nThe Bishop's anger was very high now. He could not reconcile himself to\nthe idea of giving up the torture. It was the pleasantest idea he had\ninvented yet, and he would not cast it by. So he called in some of his\nsatellites on the twelfth, and urged the torture again. But it was a\nfailure.\n\nWith some, Joan's speech had wrought an effect; others feared she might\ndie under torture; others did not believe that any amount of suffering\ncould make her put her mark to a lying confession. There were fourteen\nmen present, including the Bishop. Eleven of them voted dead against the\ntorture, and stood their ground in spite of Cauchon's abuse. Two voted\nwith the Bishop and insisted upon the torture. These two were Loyseleur\nand the orator--the man whom Joan had bidden to \"read his book\"--Thomas\nde Courcelles, the renowned pleader and master of eloquence.\n\nAge has taught me charity of speech; but it fails me when I think of\nthose three names--Cauchon, Courcelles, Loyseleur.\n\n(1) Hog, pig.\n\n(2) Cochonner, to litter, to farrow; also, \"to make a mess of\"!\n\n(3) The lower half of it remains to-day just as it was then; the upper\nhalf is of a later date. -- TRANSLATOR.\n\n\n\n\n\n17 Supreme in Direst Peril\n\nANOTHER ten days' wait. The great theologians of that treasury of all\nvaluable knowledge and all wisdom, the University of Paris, were still\nweighing and considering and discussing the Twelve Lies.\n\nI had had but little to do these ten days, so I spent them mainly in\nwalks about the town with Noel. But there was no pleasure in them, our\nspirits being so burdened with cares, and the outlook for Joan\ngrowing steadily darker and darker all the time. And then we naturally\ncontrasted our circumstances with hers: this freedom and sunshine, with\nher darkness and chains; our comradeship, with her lonely estate; our\nalleviations of one sort and another, with her destitution in all.\nShe was used to liberty, but now she had none; she was an out-of-door\ncreature by nature and habit, but now she was shut up day and night in\na steel cage like an animal; she was used to the light, but now she was\nalways in a gloom where all objects about her were dim and spectral; she\nwas used to the thousand various sounds which are the cheer and music\nof a busy life, but now she heard only the monotonous footfall of the\nsentry pacing his watch; she had been fond of talking with her mates,\nbut now there was no one to talk to; she had had an easy laugh, but it\nwas gone dumb now; she had been born for comradeship, and blithe and\nbusy work, and all manner of joyous activities, but here were only\ndreariness, and leaden hours, and weary inaction, and brooding\nstillness, and thoughts that travel by day and night and night and day\nround and round in the same circle, and wear the brain and break the\nheart with weariness. It was death in life; yes, death in life, that is\nwhat it must have been. And there was another hard thing about it all. A\nyoung girl in trouble needs the soothing solace and support and\nsympathy of persons of her own sex, and the delicate offices and gentle\nministries which only these can furnish; yet in all these months of\ngloomy captivity in her dungeon Joan never saw the face of a girl or a\nwoman. Think how her heart would have leaped to see such a face.\n\nConsider. If you would realize how great Joan of Arc was, remember that\nit was out of such a place and such circumstances that she came week\nafter week and month after month and confronted the master intellects\nof France single-handed, and baffled their cunningest schemes, defeated\ntheir ablest plans, detected and avoided their secretest traps and\npitfalls, broke their lines, repelled their assaults, and camped on the\nfield after every engagement; steadfast always, true to her faith and\nher ideals; defying torture, defying the stake, and answering threats\nof eternal death and the pains of hell with a simple \"Let come what may,\nhere I take my stand and will abide.\"\n\nYes, if you would realize how great was the soul, how profound the\nwisdom, and how luminous the intellect of Joan of Arc, you must study\nher there, where she fought out that long fight all alone--and not\nmerely against the subtlest brains and deepest learning of France, but\nagainst the ignoble deceits, the meanest treacheries, and the hardest\nhearts to be found in any land, pagan or Christian.\n\nShe was great in battle--we all know that; great in foresight; great\nin loyalty and patriotism; great in persuading discontented chiefs and\nreconciling conflicting interests and passions; great in the ability to\ndiscover merit and genius wherever it lay hidden; great in picturesque\nand eloquent speech; supremely great in the gift of firing the hearts\nof hopeless men and noble enthusiasms, the gift of turning hares into\nheroes, slaves and skulkers into battalions that march to death with\nsongs on their lips. But all these are exalting activities; they keep\nhand and heart and brain keyed up to their work; there is the joy of\nachievement, the inspiration of stir and movement, the applause which\nhails success; the soul is overflowing with life and energy, the\nfaculties are at white heat; weariness, despondency, inertia--these do\nnot exist.\n\nYes, Joan of Arc was great always, great everywhere, but she was\ngreatest in the Rouen trials.\n\nThere she rose above the limitations and infirmities of our human\nnature, and accomplished under blighting and unnerving and hopeless\nconditions all that her splendid equipment of moral and intellectual\nforces could have accomplished if they had been supplemented by the\nmighty helps of hope and cheer and light, the presence of friendly\nfaces, and a fair and equal fight, with the great world looking on and\nwondering.\n\n\n\n\n\n18 Condemned Yet Unafraid\n\nTOWARD THE END of the ten-day interval the University of Paris rendered\nits decision concerning the Twelve Articles. By this finding, Joan\nwas guilty upon all the counts: she must renounce her errors and make\nsatisfaction, or be abandoned to the secular arm for punishment.\n\nThe University's mind was probably already made up before the Articles\nwere laid before it; yet it took it from the fifth to the eighteenth to\nproduce its verdict. I think the delay may have been caused by temporary\ndifficulties concerning two points:\n\n1. As to who the fiends were who were represented in Joan's Voices; 2.\nAs to whether her saints spoke French only.\n\nYou understand, the University decided emphatically that it was fiends\nwho spoke in those Voices; it would need to prove that, and it did. It\nfound out who those fiends were, and named them in the verdict: Belial,\nSatan, and Behemoth. This has always seemed a doubtful thing to me,\nand not entitled to much credit. I think so for this reason: if the\nUniversity had actually known it was those three, it would for very\nconsistency's sake have told how it knew it, and not stopped with the\nmere assertion, since it had made Joan explain how she knew they were\nnot fiends. Does not that seem reasonable? To my mind the University's\nposition was weak, and I will tell you why. It had claimed that Joan's\nangels were devils in disguise, and we all know that devils do disguise\nthemselves as angels; up to that point the University's position was\nstrong; but you see yourself that it eats its own argument when it turns\naround and pretends that it can tell who such apparitions are, while\ndenying the like ability to a person with as good a head on her\nshoulders as the best one the University could produce.\n\nThe doctors of the University had to see those creatures in order to\nknow; and if Joan was deceived, it is argument that they in their turn\ncould also be deceived, for their insight and judgment were surely not\nclearer than hers.\n\nAs to the other point which I have thought may have proved a difficulty\nand cost the University delay, I will touch but a moment upon that, and\npass on. The University decided that it was blasphemy for Joan to say\nthat her saints spoke French and not English, and were on the French\nside in political sympathies. I think that the thing which troubled the\ndoctors of theology was this: they had decided that the three Voices\nwere Satan and two other devils; but they had also decided that these\nVoices were not on the French side--thereby tacitly asserting that they\nwere on the English side; and if on the English side, then they must be\nangels and not devils. Otherwise, the situation was embarrassing. You\nsee, the University being the wisest and deepest and most erudite body\nin the world, it would like to be logical if it could, for the sake\nof its reputation; therefore it would study and study, days and days,\ntrying to find some good common-sense reason for proving the Voices to\nbe devils in Article No. 1 and proving them to be angels in Article No.\n10. However, they had to give it up. They found no way out; and so, to\nthis day, the University's verdict remains just so--devils in No. 1,\nangels in No. 10; and no way to reconcile the discrepancy.\n\nThe envoys brought the verdict to Rouen, and with it a letter for\nCauchon which was full of fervid praise. The University complimented\nhim on his zeal in hunting down this woman \"whose venom had infected the\nfaithful of the whole West,\" and as recompense it as good as promised\nhim \"a crown of imperishable glory in heaven.\" Only that!--a crown in\nheaven; a promissory note and no indorser; always something away off\nyonder; not a word about the Archbishopric of Rouen, which was the thing\nCauchon was destroying his soul for. A crown in heaven; it must have\nsounded like a sarcasm to him, after all his hard work. What should he\ndo in heaven? he did not know anybody there.\n\nOn the nineteenth of May a court of fifty judges sat in the\narchiepiscopal palace to discuss Joan's fate. A few wanted her delivered\nover to the secular arm at once for punishment, but the rest insisted\nthat she be once more \"charitably admonished\" first.\n\nSo the same court met in the castle on the twenty-third, and Joan was\nbrought to the bar. Pierre Maurice, a canon of Rouen, made a speech\nto Joan in which he admonished her to save her life and her soul by\nrenouncing her errors and surrendering to the Church. He finished with\na stern threat: if she remained obstinate the damnation of her soul was\ncertain, the destruction of her body probable. But Joan was immovable.\nShe said:\n\n\"If I were under sentence, and saw the fire before me, and the\nexecutioner ready to light it--more, if I were in the fire itself, I\nwould say none but the things which I have said in these trials; and I\nwould abide by them till I died.\"\n\nA deep silence followed now, which endured some moments. It lay upon me\nlike a weight. I knew it for an omen. Then Cauchon, grave and solemn,\nturned to Pierre Maurice:\n\n\"Have you anything further to say?\"\n\nThe priest bowed low, and said:\n\n\"Nothing, my lord.\"\n\n\"Prisoner at the bar, have you anything further to say?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"Then the debate is closed. To-morrow, sentence will be pronounced.\nRemove the prisoner.\"\n\nShe seemed to go from the place erect and noble. But I do not know; my\nsight was dim with tears.\n\nTo-morrow--twenty-fourth of May! Exactly a year since I saw her go\nspeeding across the plain at the head of her troops, her silver helmet\nshining, her silvery cape fluttering in the wind, her white plumes\nflowing, her sword held aloft; saw her charge the Burgundian camp three\ntimes, and carry it; saw her wheel to the right and spur for the duke's\nreserves; saw her fling herself against it in the last assault she was\never to make. And now that fatal day was come again--and see what it was\nbringing!\n\n\n\n\n\n19 Our Last Hopes of Rescue Fail\n\nJOAN HAD been adjudged guilty of heresy, sorcery, and all the other\nterrible crimes set forth in the Twelve Articles, and her life was in\nCauchon's hands at last. He could send her to the stake at once. His\nwork was finished now, you think? He was satisfied? Not at all. What\nwould his Archbishopric be worth if the people should get the idea into\ntheir heads that this faction of interested priests, slaving under the\nEnglish lash, had wrongly condemned and burned Joan of Arc, Deliverer\nof France? That would be to make of her a holy martyr. Then her spirit\nwould rise from her body's ashes, a thousandfold reinforced, and sweep\nthe English domination into the sea, and Cauchon along with it. No,\nthe victory was not complete yet. Joan's guilt must be established by\nevidence which would satisfy the people. Where was that evidence to be\nfound? There was only one person in the world who could furnish it--Joan\nof Arc herself. She must condemn herself, and in public--at least she\nmust seem to do it.\n\nBut how was this to be managed? Weeks had been spent already in trying\nto get her to surrender--time wholly wasted; what was to persuade her\nnow? Torture had been threatened, the fire had been threatened; what was\nleft? Illness, deadly fatigue, and the sight of the fire, the presence\nof the fire! That was left.\n\nNow that was a shrewd thought. She was but a girl after all, and, under\nillness and exhaustion, subject to a girl's weaknesses.\n\nYes, it was shrewdly thought. She had tacitly said herself that under\nthe bitter pains of the rack they would be able to extort a false\nconfession from her. It was a hint worth remembering, and it was\nremembered.\n\nShe had furnished another hint at the same time: that as soon as the\npains were gone, she would retract the confession. That hint was also\nremembered.\n\nShe had herself taught them what to do, you see. First, they must wear\nout her strength, then frighten her with the fire. Second, while the\nfright was on her, she must be made to sign a paper.\n\nBut she would demand a reading of the paper. They could not venture\nto refuse this, with the public there to hear. Suppose that during the\nreading her courage should return?--she would refuse to sign then. Very\nwell, even that difficulty could be got over. They could read a short\npaper of no importance, then slip a long and deadly one into its place\nand trick her into signing that.\n\nYet there was still one other difficulty. If they made her seem to\nabjure, that would free her from the death-penalty. They could keep her\nin a prison of the Church, but they could not kill her.\n\nThat would not answer; for only her death would content the English.\nAlive she was a terror, in a prison or out of it. She had escaped from\ntwo prisons already.\n\nBut even that difficulty could be managed. Cauchon would make promises\nto her; in return she would promise to leave off the male dress. He\nwould violate his promises, and that would so situate her that she would\nnot be able to keep hers. Her lapse would condemn her to the stake, and\nthe stake would be ready.\n\nThese were the several moves; there was nothing to do but to make them,\neach in its order, and the game was won. One might almost name the day\nthat the betrayed girl, the most innocent creature in France and the\nnoblest, would go to her pitiful death.\n\nThe world knows now that Cauchon's plan was as I have sketched it to\nyou, but the world did not know it at that time. There are sufficient\nindications that Warwick and all the other English chiefs except the\nhighest one--the Cardinal of Winchester--were not let into the secret,\nalso, that only Loyseleur and Beaupere, on the French side, knew the\nscheme. Sometimes I have doubted if even Loyseleur and Beaupere knew the\nwhole of it at first. However, if any did, it was these two.\n\nIt is usual to let the condemned pass their last night of life in peace,\nbut this grace was denied to poor Joan, if one may credit the rumors of\nthe time. Loyseleur was smuggled into her presence, and in the character\nof priest, friend, and secret partisan of France and hater of England,\nhe spent some hours in beseeching her to do \"the only right an righteous\nthing\"--submit to the Church, as a good Christian should; and that then\nshe would straightway get out of the clutches of the dreaded English and\nbe transferred to the Church's prison, where she would be honorably used\nand have women about her for jailers. He knew where to touch her. He\nknew how odious to her was the presence of her rough and profane English\nguards; he knew that her Voices had vaguely promised something which she\ninterpreted to be escape, rescue, release of some sort, and the chance\nto burst upon France once more and victoriously complete the great work\nwhich she had been commissioned of Heaven to do. Also there was that\nother thing: if her failing body could be further weakened by loss of\nrest and sleep now, her tired mind would be dazed and drowsy on the\nmorrow, and in ill condition to stand out against persuasions, threats,\nand the sight of the stake, and also be purblind to traps and snares\nwhich it would be swift to detect when in its normal estate.\n\nI do not need to tell you that there was no rest for me that night. Nor\nfor Noel. We went to the main gate of the city before nightfall, with a\nhope in our minds, based upon that vague prophecy of Joan's Voices which\nseemed to promise a rescue by force at the last moment. The immense news\nhad flown swiftly far and wide that at last Joan of Arc was condemned,\nand would be sentenced and burned alive on the morrow; and so crowds of\npeople were flowing in at the gate, and other crowds were being refused\nadmission by the soldiery; these being people who brought doubtful\npasses or none at all. We scanned these crowds eagerly, but there was\nnothing about them to indicate that they were our old war-comrades in\ndisguise, and certainly there were no familiar faces among them. And\nso, when the gate was closed at last, we turned away grieved, and more\ndisappointed than we cared to admit, either in speech or thought.\n\nThe streets were surging tides of excited men. It was difficult to\nmake one's way. Toward midnight our aimless tramp brought us to the\nneighborhood of the beautiful church of St. Ouen, and there all was\nbustle and work. The square was a wilderness of torches and people;\nand through a guarded passage dividing the pack, laborers were carrying\nplanks and timbers and disappearing with them through the gate of the\nchurchyard. We asked what was going forward; the answer was:\n\n\"Scaffolds and the stake. Don't you know that the French witch is to be\nburned in the morning?\"\n\nThen we went away. We had no heart for that place.\n\nAt dawn we were at the city gate again; this time with a hope which our\nwearied bodies and fevered minds magnified into a large probability.\nWe had heard a report that the Abbot of Jumieges with all his monks was\ncoming to witness the burning. Our desire, abetted by our imagination,\nturned those nine hundred monks into Joan's old campaigners, and their\nAbbot into La Hire or the Bastard or D'Alencon; and we watched them file\nin, unchallenged, the multitude respectfully dividing and uncovering\nwhile they passed, with our hearts in our throats and our eyes swimming\nwith tears of joy and pride and exultation; and we tried to catch\nglimpses of the faces under the cowls, and were prepared to give signal\nto any recognized face that we were Joan's men and ready and eager to\nkill and be killed in the good cause. How foolish we were!\n\nBut we were young, you know, and youth hopeth all things, believeth all\nthings.\n\n\n\n\n\n20 The Betrayal\n\nIN THE MORNING I was at my official post. It was on a platform raised\nthe height of a man, in the churchyard, under the eaves of St. Ouen. On\nthis same platform was a crowd of priests and important citizens, and\nseveral lawyers. Abreast it, with a small space between, was another and\nlarger platform, handsomely canopied against sun and rain, and richly\ncarpeted; also it was furnished with comfortable chairs, and with two\nwhich were more sumptuous than the others, and raised above the general\nlevel. One of these two was occupied by a prince of the royal blood of\nEngland, his Eminence the Cardinal of Winchester; the other by Cauchon,\nBishop of Beauvais. In the rest of the chairs sat three bishops, the\nVice-Inquisitor, eight abbots, and the sixty-two friars and lawyers who\nhad sat as Joan's judges in her late trials.\n\nTwenty steps in front of the platforms was another--a table-topped\npyramid of stone, built up in retreating courses, thus forming steps.\nOut of this rose that grisly thing, the stake; about the stake bundles\nof fagots and firewood were piled. On the ground at the base of the\npyramid stood three crimson figures, the executioner and his assistants.\nAt their feet lay what had been a goodly heap of brands, but was now\na smokeless nest of ruddy coals; a foot or two from this was\na supplemental supply of wood and fagots compacted into a pile\nshoulder-high and containing as much as six packhorse loads. Think of\nthat. We seem so delicately made, so destructible, so insubstantial; yet\nit is easier to reduce a granite statue to ashes than it is to do that\nwith a man's body.\n\nThe sight of the stake sent physical pains tingling down the nerves of\nmy body; and yet, turn as I would, my eyes would keep coming back t it,\nsuch fascination has the gruesome and the terrible for us.\n\nThe space occupied by the platforms and the stake was kept open by a\nwall of English soldiery, standing elbow to elbow, erect and stalwart\nfigures, fine and sightly in their polished steel; while from behind\nthem on every hand stretched far away a level plain of human heads; and\nthere was no window and no housetop within our view, howsoever distant,\nbut was black with patches and masses of people.\n\nBut there was no noise, no stir; it was as if the world was dead. The\nimpressiveness of this silence and solemnity was deepened by a leaden\ntwilight, for the sky was hidden by a pall of low-hanging storm-clouds;\nand above the remote horizon faint winkings of heat-lightning played,\nand now and then one caught the dull mutterings and complainings of\ndistant thunder.\n\nAt last the stillness was broken. From beyond the square rose an\nindistinct sound, but familiar--court, crisp phrases of command; next I\nsaw the plain of heads dividing, and the steady swing of a marching host\nwas glimpsed between. My heart leaped for a moment. Was it La Hire and\nhis hellions? No--that was not their gait. No, it was the prisoner and\nher escort; it was Joan of Arc, under guard, that was coming; my spirits\nsank as low as they had been before. Weak as she was they made her walk;\nthey would increase her weakness all they could. The distance was not\ngreat--it was but a few hundred yards--but short as it was it was a\nheavy tax upon one who had been lying chained in one spot for months,\nand whose feet had lost their powers from inaction. Yes, and for a\nyear Joan had known only the cool damps of a dungeon, and now she was\ndragging herself through this sultry summer heat, this airless and\nsuffocating void. As she entered the gate, drooping with exhaustion,\nthere was that creature Loyseleur at her side with his head bent to her\near. We knew afterward that he had been with her again this morning in\nthe prison wearying her with his persuasions and enticing her with\nfalse promises, and that he was now still at the same work at the gate,\nimploring her to yield everything that would be required of her, and\nassuring her that if she would do this all would be well with her: she\nwould be rid of the dreaded English and find safety in the powerful\nshelter and protection of the Church. A miserable man, a stony-hearted\nman!\n\nThe moment Joan was seated on the platform she closed her eyes and\nallowed her chin to fall; and so sat, with her hands nestling in her\nlap, indifferent to everything, caring for nothing but rest. And she was\nso white again--white as alabaster.\n\nHow the faces of that packed mass of humanity lighted up with interest,\nand with what intensity all eyes gazed upon this fragile girl! And how\nnatural it was; for these people realized that at last they were looking\nupon that person whom they had so long hungered to see; a person whose\nname and fame filled all Europe, and made all other names and all other\nrenowns insignificant by comparisons; Joan of Arc, the wonder of the\ntime, and destined to be the wonder of all times!\n\nAnd I could read as by print, in their marveling countenances, the\nwords that were drifting through their minds: \"Can it be true, is it\nbelievable, that it is this little creature, this girl, this child with\nthe good face, the sweet face, the beautiful face, the dear and bonny\nface, that has carried fortresses by storm, charged at the head of\nvictorious armies, blown the might of England out of her path with a\nbreath, and fought a long campaign, solitary and alone, against the\nmassed brains and learning of France--and had won it if the fight had\nbeen fair!\"\n\nEvidently Cauchon had grown afraid of Manchon because of his pretty\napparent leanings toward Joan, for another recorder was in the chief\nplace here, which left my master and me nothing to do but sit idle and\nlook on.\n\nWell, I suppose that everything had been done which could be thought of\nto tire Joan's body and mind, but it was a mistake; one more device\nhad been invented. This was to preach a long sermon to her in that\noppressive heat.\n\nWhen the preacher began, she cast up one distressed and disappointed\nlook, then dropped her head again. This preacher was Guillaume Erard, an\noratorical celebrity. He got his text from the Twelve Lies. He emptied\nupon Joan al the calumnies in detail that had been bottled up in that\nmass of venom, and called her all the brutal names that the Twelve were\nlabeled with, working himself into a whirlwind of fury as he went on;\nbut his labors were wasted, she seemed lost in dreams, she made no sign,\nshe did not seem to hear. At last he launched this apostrophe:\n\n\"O France, how hast thou been abused! Thou hast always been the home of\nChristianity; but now, Charles, who calls himself thy King and governor,\nindorses, like the heretic and schismatic that he is, the words and\ndeeds of a worthless and infamous woman!\" Joan raised her head, and her\neyes began to burn and flash. The preacher turned to her: \"It is to you,\nJoan, that I speak, and I tell you that your King is schismatic and a\nheretic!\"\n\nAh, he might abuse her to his heart's content; she could endure that;\nbut to her dying moment she could never hear in patience a word against\nthat ingrate, that treacherous dog our King, whose proper place was\nhere, at this moment, sword in hand, routing these reptiles and saving\nthis most noble servant that ever King had in this world--and he would\nhave been there if he had not been what I have called him. Joan's loyal\nsoul was outraged, and she turned upon the preacher and flung out a few\nwords with a spirit which the crowd recognized as being in accordance\nwith the Joan of Arc traditions:\n\n\"By my faith, sir! I make bold to say and swear, on pain of death, that\nhe is the most noble Christian of all Christians, and the best lover of\nthe faith and the Church!\"\n\nThere was an explosion of applause from the crowd--which angered the\npreacher, for he had been aching long to hear an expression like this,\nand now that it was come at last it had fallen to the wrong person:\nhe had done all the work; the other had carried off all the spoil. He\nstamped his foot and shouted to the sheriff:\n\n\"Make her shut up!\"\n\nThat made the crowd laugh.\n\nA mob has small respect for a grown man who has to call on a sheriff to\nprotect him from a sick girl.\n\nJoan had damaged the preacher's cause more with one sentence than he had\nhelped it with a hundred; so he was much put out, and had trouble to get\na good start again. But he needn't have bothered; there was no occasion.\nIt was mainly an English-feeling mob. It had but obeyed a law of\nour nature--an irresistible law--to enjoy and applaud a spirited and\npromptly delivered retort, no matter who makes it. The mob was with the\npreacher; it had been beguiled for a moment, but only that; it would\nsoon return. It was there to see this girl burnt; so that it got that\nsatisfaction--without too much delay--it would be content.\n\nPresently the preacher formally summoned Joan to submit to the Church.\nHe made the demand with confidence, for he had gotten the idea from\nLoyseleur and Beaupere that she was worn to the bone, exhausted, and\nwould not be able to put forth any more resistance; and, indeed, to look\nat her it seemed that they must be right. Nevertheless, she made one\nmore effort to hold her ground, and said, wearily:\n\n\"As to that matter, I have answered my judges before. I have told them\nto report all that I have said and done to our Holy Father the Pope--to\nwhom, and to God first, I appeal.\"\n\nAgain, out of her native wisdom, she had brought those words of\ntremendous import, but was ignorant of their value. But they could have\navailed her nothing in any case, now, with the stake there and these\nthousands of enemies about her. Yet they made every churchman there\nblench, and the preacher changed the subject with all haste. Well\nmight those criminals blench, for Joan's appeal of her case to the Pope\nstripped Cauchon at once of jurisdiction over it, and annulled all\nthat he and his judges had already done in the matter and all that they\nshould do in it henceforth.\n\nJoan went on presently to reiterate, after some further talk, that she\nhad acted by command of God in her deeds and utterances; then, when an\nattempt was made to implicate the King, and friends of hers and his, she\nstopped that. She said:\n\n\"I charge my deeds and words upon no one, neither upon my King nor any\nother. If there is any fault in them, I am responsible and no other.\"\n\nShe was asked if she would not recant those of her words and deeds which\nhad been pronounced evil by her judges. Here answer made confusion and\ndamage again:\n\n\"I submit them to God and the Pope.\"\n\nThe Pope once more! It was very embarrassing. Here was a person who was\nasked to submit her case to the Church, and who frankly consents--offers\nto submit it to the very head of it. What more could any one require?\nHow was one to answer such a formidably unanswerable answer as that?\n\nThe worried judges put their heads together and whispered and planned\nand discussed. Then they brought forth this sufficiently shambling\nconclusion--but it was the best they could do, in so close a place: they\nsaid the Pope was so far away; and it was not necessary to go to him\nanyway, because the present judges had sufficient power and authority\nto deal with the present case, and were in effect \"the Church\" to that\nextent. At another time they could have smiled at this conceit, but not\nnow; they were not comfortable enough now.\n\nThe mob was getting impatient. It was beginning to put on a threatening\naspect; it was tired of standing, tired of the scorching heat; and the\nthunder was coming nearer, the lightning was flashing brighter. It was\nnecessary to hurry this matter to a close. Erard showed Joan a written\nform, which had been prepared and made all ready beforehand, and asked\nher to abjure.\n\n\"Abjure? What is abjure?\"\n\nShe did not know the word. It was explained to her by Massieu. She tried\nto understand, but she was breaking, under exhaustion, and she could not\ngather the meaning. It was all a jumble and confusion of strange words.\nIn her despair she sent out this beseeching cry:\n\n\"I appeal to the Church universal whether I ought to abjure or not!\"\n\nErard exclaimed:\n\n\"You shall abjure instantly, or instantly be burnt!\"\n\nShe glanced up, at those awful words, and for the first time she saw the\nstake and the mass of red coals--redder and angrier than ever now under\nthe constantly deepening storm-gloom. She gasped and staggered up out\nof her seat muttering and mumbling incoherently, and gazed vacantly upon\nthe people and the scene about her like one who is dazed, or thinks he\ndreams, and does not know where he is.\n\nThe priests crowded about her imploring her to sign the paper, there\nwere many voices beseeching and urging her at once, there was great\nturmoil and shouting and excitement among the populace and everywhere.\n\n\"Sign! sign!\" from the priests; \"sign--sign and be saved!\" And Loyseleur\nwas urging at her ear, \"Do as I told you--do not destroy yourself!\"\n\nJoan said plaintively to these people:\n\n\"Ah, you do not do well to seduce me.\"\n\nThe judges joined their voices to the others. Yes, even the iron in\ntheir hearts melted, and they said:\n\n\"O Joan, we pity you so! Take back what you have said, or we must\ndeliver you up to punishment.\"\n\nAnd now there was another voice--it was from the other platform--pealing\nsolemnly above the din: Cauchon's--reading the sentence of death!\n\nJoan's strength was all spent. She stood looking about her in a\nbewildered way a moment, then slowly she sank to her knees, and bowed\nher head and said:\n\n\"I submit.\"\n\nThey gave her no time to reconsider--they knew the peril of that. The\nmoment the words were out of her mouth Massieu was reading to her the\nabjuration, and she was repeating the words after him mechanically,\nunconsciously--and smiling; for her wandering mind was far away in some\nhappier world.\n\nThen this short paper of six lines was slipped aside and a long one of\nmany pages was smuggled into its place, and she, noting nothing, put her\nmark on it, saying, in pathetic apology, that she did not know how to\nwrite. But a secretary of the King of England was there to take care\nof that defect; he guided her hand with his own, and wrote her\nname--Jehanne.\n\nThe great crime was accomplished. She had signed--what? She did not\nknow--but the others knew. She had signed a paper confessing herself\na sorceress, a dealer with devils, a liar, a blasphemer of God and\nHis angels, a lover of blood, a promoter of sedition, cruel, wicked,\ncommissioned of Satan; and this signature of hers bound her to resume\nthe dress of a woman.\n\nThere were other promises, but that one would answer, without the\nothers; and that one could be made to destroy her.\n\nLoyseleur pressed forward and praised her for having done \"such a good\nday's work.\"\n\nBut she was still dreamy, she hardly heard.\n\nThen Cauchon pronounced the words which dissolved the excommunication\nand restored her to her beloved Church, with all the dear privileges of\nworship. Ah, she heard that! You could see it in the deep gratitude that\nrose in her face and transfigured it with joy.\n\nBut how transient was that happiness! For Cauchon, without a tremor of\npity in his voice, added these crushing words:\n\n\"And that she may repent of her crimes and repeat them no more, she is\nsentenced to perpetual imprisonment, with the bread of affliction and\nthe water of anguish!\"\n\nPerpetual imprisonment! She had never dreamed of that--such a thing had\nnever been hinted to her by Loyseleur or by any other. Loyseleur had\ndistinctly said and promised that \"all would be well with her.\" And the\nvery last words spoken to her by Erard, on that very platform, when he\nwas urging her to abjure, was a straight, unqualified promised--that if\nshe would do it she should go free from captivity.\n\nShe stood stunned and speechless a moment; then she remembered, with\nsuch solacement as the thought could furnish, that by another clear\npromise made by Cauchon himself--she would at least be the Church's\ncaptive, and have women about her in place of a brutal foreign soldiery.\nSo she turned to the body of priests and said, with a sad resignation:\n\n\"Now, you men of the Church, take me to your prison, and leave me no\nlonger in the hands of the English\"; and she gathered up her chains and\nprepared to move.\n\nBut alas! now came these shameful words from Cauchon--and with them a\nmocking laugh:\n\n\"Take her to the prison whence she came!\"\n\nPoor abused girl! She stood dumb, smitten, paralyzed. It was pitiful to\nsee. She had been beguiled, lied to, betrayed; she saw it all now.\n\nThe rumbling of a drum broke upon the stillness, and for just one moment\nshe thought of the glorious deliverance promised by her Voices--I read\nit in the rapture that lit her face; then she saw what it was--her\nprison escort--and that light faded, never to revive again. And now her\nhead began a piteous rocking motion, swaying slowly, this way and that,\nas is the way when one is suffering unwordable pain, or when one's heart\nis broken; then drearily she went from us, with her face in her hands,\nand sobbing bitterly.\n\n\n\n\n\n21 Respited Only for Torture\n\nTHERE IS no certainty that any one in all Rouen was in the secret of the\ndeep game which Cauchon was playing except the Cardinal of Winchester.\nThen you can imagine the astonishment and stupefaction of that vast\nmob gathered there and those crowds of churchmen assembled on the\ntwo platforms, when they saw Joan of Arc moving away, alive and\nwhole--slipping out of their grip at last, after all this tedious\nwaiting, all this tantalizing expectancy.\n\nNobody was able to stir or speak for a while, so paralyzing was the\nuniversal astonishment, so unbelievable the fact that the stake was\nactually standing there unoccupied and its prey gone.\n\nThen suddenly everybody broke into a fury of rage; maledictions and\ncharges of treachery began to fly freely; yes, and even stones: a stone\ncame near killing the Cardinal of Winchester--it just missed his head.\nBut the man who threw it was not to blame, for he was excited, and a\nperson who is excited never can throw straight.\n\nThe tumult was very great, indeed, for a while. In the midst of it\na chaplain of the Cardinal even forgot the proprieties so far as to\nopprobriously assail the August Bishop of Beauvais himself, shaking his\nfist in his face and shouting:\n\n\"By God, you are a traitor!\"\n\n\"You lie!\" responded the Bishop.\n\nHe a traitor! Oh, far from it; he certainly was the last Frenchman that\nany Briton had a right to bring that charge against.\n\nThe Earl of Warwick lost his temper, too. He was a doughty soldier, but\nwhen it came to the intellectuals--when it came to delicate chicane, and\nscheming, and trickery--he couldn't see any further through a millstone\nthan another. So he burst out in his frank warrior fashion, and swore\nthat the King of England was being treacherously used, and that Joan\nof Arc was going to be allowed to cheat the stake. But they whispered\ncomfort into his ear:\n\n\"Give yourself no uneasiness, my lord; we shall soon have her again.\"\n\nPerhaps the like tidings found their way all around, for good news\ntravels fast as well as bad. At any rate, the ragings presently quieted\ndown, and the huge concourse crumbled apart and disappeared. And thus we\nreached the noon of that fearful Thursday.\n\nWe two youths were happy; happier than any words can tell--for we were\nnot in the secret any more than the rest. Joan's life was saved. We\nknew that, and that was enough. France would hear of this day's infamous\nwork--and then! Why, then her gallant sons would flock to her standard\nby thousands and thousands, multitudes upon multitudes, and their wrath\nwould be like the wrath of the ocean when the storm-winds sweep it; and\nthey would hurl themselves against this doomed city and overwhelm it\nlike the resistless tides of that ocean, and Joan of Arc would march\nagain!\n\nIn six days--seven days--one short week--noble France, grateful France,\nindignant France, would be thundering at these gates--let us count the\nhours, let us count the minutes, let us count the seconds! O happy day,\nO day of ecstasy, how our hearts sang in our bosoms!\n\nFor we were young then, yes, we were very young.\n\nDo you think the exhausted prisoner was allowed to rest and sleep after\nshe had spent the small remnant of her strength in dragging her tired\nbody back to the dungeon?\n\nNo, there was no rest for her, with those sleuth-hounds on her track.\nCauchon and some of his people followed her to her lair straightway;\nthey found her dazed and dull, her mental and physical forces in a state\nof prostration. They told her she had abjured; that she had made certain\npromises--among them, to resume the apparel of her sex; and that if she\nrelapsed, the Church would cast her out for good and all. She heard the\nwords, but they had no meaning to her. She was like a person who has\ntaken a narcotic and is dying for sleep, dying for rest from nagging,\ndying to be let alone, and who mechanically does everything the\npersecutor asks, taking but dull note of the things done, and but dully\nrecording them in the memory. And so Joan put on the gown which Cauchon\nand his people had brought; and would come to herself by and by, and\nhave at first but a dim idea as to when and how the change had come\nabout.\n\nCauchon went away happy and content. Joan had resumed woman's dress\nwithout protest; also she had been formally warned against relapsing. He\nhad witnesses to these facts. How could matters be better?\n\nBut suppose she should not relapse?\n\nWhy, then she must be forced to do it.\n\nDid Cauchon hint to the English guards that thenceforth if they chose\nto make their prisoner's captivity crueler and bitterer than ever, no\nofficial notice would be taken of it? Perhaps so; since the guards did\nbegin that policy at once, and no official notice was taken of it.\nYes, from that moment Joan's life in that dungeon was made almost\nunendurable. Do not ask me to enlarge upon it. I will not do it.\n\n\n\n\n\n22 Joan Gives the Fatal Answer\n\nFRIDAY and Saturday were happy days for Noel and me. Our minds were full\nof our splendid dream of France aroused--France shaking her mane--France\non the march--France at the gates--Rouen in ashes, and Joan free! Our\nimagination was on fire; we were delirious with pride and joy. For we\nwere very young, as I have said.\n\nWe knew nothing about what had been happening in the dungeon in the\nyester-afternoon. We supposed that as Joan had abjured and been taken\nback into the forgiving bosom of the Church, she was being gently used\nnow, and her captivity made as pleasant and comfortable for her as the\ncircumstances would allow. So, in high contentment, we planned out our\nshare in the great rescue, and fought our part of the fight over and\nover again during those two happy days--as happy days as ever I have\nknown.\n\nSunday morning came. I was awake, enjoying the balmy, lazy weather, and\nthinking. Thinking of the rescue--what else? I had no other thought now.\nI was absorbed in that, drunk with the happiness of it.\n\nI heard a voice shouting far down the street, and soon it came nearer,\nand I caught the words:\n\n\"Joan of Arc has relapsed! The witch's time has come!\"\n\nIt stopped my heart, it turned my blood to ice. That was more than sixty\nyears ago, but that triumphant note rings as clear in my memory to-day\nas it rang in my ear that long-vanished summer morning. We are so\nstrangely made; the memories that could make us happy pass away; it is\nthe memories that break our hearts that abide.\n\nSoon other voices took up that cry--tens, scores, hundreds of voices;\nall the world seemed filled with the brutal joy of it. And there were\nother clamors--the clatter of rushing feet, merry congratulations,\nbursts of coarse laughter, the rolling of drums, the boom and crash of\ndistant bands profaning the sacred day with the music of victory and\nthanksgiving.\n\nAbout the middle of the afternoon came a summons for Manchon and me to\ngo to Joan's dungeon--a summons from Cauchon. But by that time distrust\nhad already taken possession of the English and their soldiery again,\nand all Rouen was in an angry and threatening mood. We could see plenty\nof evidences of this from our own windows--fist-shaking, black looks,\ntumultuous tides of furious men billowing by along the street.\n\nAnd we learned that up at the castle things were going very badly,\nindeed; that there was a great mob gathered there who considered the\nrelapse a lie and a priestly trick, and among them many half-drunk\nEnglish soldiers. Moreover, these people had gone beyond words. They\nhad laid hands upon a number of churchmen who were trying to enter the\ncastle, and it had been difficult work to rescue them and save their\nlives.\n\nAnd so Manchon refused to go. He said he would not go a step without\na safeguard from Warwick. So next morning Warwick sent an escort of\nsoldiers, and then we went. Matters had not grown peacefuler meantime,\nbut worse. The soldiers protected us from bodily damage, but as we\npassed through the great mob at the castle we were assailed with insults\nand shameful epithets. I bore it well enough, though, and said to\nmyself, with secret satisfaction, \"In three or four short days, my lads,\nyou will be employing your tongues in a different sort from this--and I\nshall be there to hear.\"\n\nTo my mind these were as good as dead men. How many of them would still\nbe alive after the rescue that was coming? Not more than enough to amuse\nthe executioner a short half-hour, certainly.\n\nIt turned out that the report was true. Joan had relapsed. She was\nsitting there in her chains, clothed again in her male attire.\n\nShe accused nobody. That was her way. It was not in her character to\nhold a servant to account for what his master had made him do, and her\nmind had cleared now, and she knew that the advantage which had been\ntaken of her the previous morning had its origin, not in the subordinate\nbut in the master--Cauchon.\n\nHere is what had happened. While Joan slept, in the early morning of\nSunday, one of the guards stole her female apparel and put her male\nattire in its place. When she woke she asked for the other dress, but\nthe guards refused to give it back. She protested, and said she was\nforbidden to wear the male dress. But they continued to refuse. She had\nto have clothing, for modesty's sake; moreover, she saw that she could\nnot save her life if she must fight for it against treacheries like\nthis; so she put on the forbidden garments, knowing what the end would\nbe. She was weary of the struggle, poor thing.\n\nWe had followed in the wake of Cauchon, the Vice-Inquisitor, and the\nothers--six or eight--and when I saw Joan sitting there, despondent,\nforlorn, and still in chains, when I was expecting to find her situation\nso different, I did not know what to make of it. The shock was very\ngreat. I had doubted the relapse perhaps; possibly I had believed in it,\nbut had not realized it.\n\nCauchon's victory was complete. He had had a harassed and irritated\nand disgusted look for a long time, but that was all gone now, and\ncontentment and serenity had taken its place. His purple face was full\nof tranquil and malicious happiness. He went trailing his robes and\nstood grandly in front of Joan, with his legs apart, and remained so\nmore than a minute, gloating over her and enjoying the sight of this\npoor ruined creature, who had won so lofty a place for him in the\nservice of the meek and merciful Jesus, Saviour of the World, Lord\nof the Universe--in case England kept her promise to him, who kept no\npromises himself.\n\nPresently the judges began to question Joan. One of them, named\nMarguerie, who was a man with more insight than prudence, remarked upon\nJoan's change of clothing, and said:\n\n\"There is something suspicious about this. How could it have come about\nwithout connivance on the part of others? Perhaps even something worse?\"\n\n\"Thousand devils!\" screamed Cauchon, in a fury. \"Will you shut your\nmouth?\"\n\n\"Armagnac! Traitor!\" shouted the soldiers on guard, and made a rush for\nMarguerie with their lances leveled. It was with the greatest difficulty\nthat he was saved from being run through the body. He made no more\nattempts to help the inquiry, poor man. The other judges proceeded with\nthe questionings.\n\n\"Why have you resumed this male habit?\"\n\nI did not quite catch her answer, for just then a soldier's halberd\nslipped from his fingers and fell on the stone floor with a crash; but\nI thought I understood Joan to say that she had resumed it of her own\nmotion.\n\n\"But you have promised and sworn that you would not go back to it.\"\n\nI was full of anxiety to hear her answer to that question; and when it\ncame it was just what I was expecting. She said--quiet quietly:\n\n\"I have never intended and never understood myself to swear I would not\nresume it.\"\n\nThere--I had been sure, all along, that she did not know what she was\ndoing and saying on the platform Thursday, and this answer of hers was\nproof that I had not been mistaken. Then she went on to add this:\n\n\"But I had a right to resume it, because the promises made to me have\nnot been kept--promises that I should be allowed to go to mass and\nreceive the communion, and that I should be freed from the bondage of\nthese chains--but they are still upon me, as you see.\"\n\n\"Nevertheless, you have abjured, and have especially promised to return\nno more to the dress of a man.\"\n\nThen Joan held out her fettered hands sorrowfully toward these unfeeling\nmen and said:\n\n\"I would rather die than continue so. But if they may be taken off, and\nif I may hear mass, and be removed to a penitential prison, and have a\nwoman about me, I will be good, and will do what shall seem good to you\nthat I do.\"\n\nCauchon sniffed scoffingly at that. Honor the compact which he and his\nhad made with her?\n\nFulfil its conditions? What need of that? Conditions had been a good\nthing to concede, temporarily, and for advantage; but they have served\ntheir turn--let something of a fresher sort and of more consequence\nbe considered. The resumption of the male dress was sufficient for all\npractical purposes, but perhaps Joan could be led to add something to\nthat fatal crime. So Cauchon asked her if her Voices had spoken to her\nsince Thursday--and he reminded her of her abjuration.\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered; and then it came out that the Voices had talked\nwith her about the abjuration--told her about it, I suppose. She\nguilelessly reasserted the heavenly origin of her mission, and did it\nwith the untroubled mien of one who was not conscious that she had ever\nknowingly repudiated it. So I was convinced once more that she had had\nno notion of what she was doing that Thursday morning on the platform.\nFinally she said, \"My Voices told me I did very wrong to confess\nthat what I had done was not well.\" Then she sighed, and said with\nsimplicity, \"But it was the fear of the fire that made me do so.\"\n\nThat is, fear of the fire had made her sign a paper whose contents she\nhad not understood then, but understood now by revelation of her Voices\nand by testimony of her persecutors.\n\nShe was sane now and not exhausted; her courage had come back, and\nwith it her inborn loyalty to the truth. She was bravely and serenely\nspeaking it again, knowing that it would deliver her body up to that\nvery fire which had such terrors for her.\n\nThat answer of hers was quite long, quite frank, wholly free from\nconcealments or palliations. It made me shudder; I knew she was\npronouncing sentence of death upon herself. So did poor Manchon. And he\nwrote in the margin abreast of it:\n\n\"RESPONSIO MORTIFERA.\" Fatal answer. Yes, all present knew that it was,\nindeed, a fatal answer. Then there fell a silence such as falls in a\nsick-room when the watchers of the dying draw a deep breath and say\nsoftly one to another, \"All is over.\"\n\nHere, likewise, all was over; but after some moments Cauchon, wishing to\nclinch this matter and make it final, put this question:\n\n\"Do you still believe that your Voices are St. Marguerite and St.\nCatherine?\"\n\n\"Yes--and that they come from God.\"\n\n\"Yet you denied them on the scaffold?\"\n\nThen she made direct and clear affirmation that she had never had any\nintention to deny them; and that if--I noted the if--\"if she had made\nsome retractions and revocations on the scaffold it was from fear of the\nfire, and it was a violation of the truth.\"\n\nThere it is again, you see. She certainly never knew what it was she had\ndone on the scaffold until she was told of it afterward by these people\nand by her Voices.\n\nAnd now she closed this most painful scene with these words; and there\nwas a weary note in them that was pathetic:\n\n\"I would rather do my penance all at once; let me die. I cannot endure\ncaptivity any longer.\"\n\nThe spirit born for sunshine and liberty so longed for release that it\nwould take it in any form, even that.\n\nSeveral among the company of judges went from the place troubled and\nsorrowful, the others in another mood. In the court of the castle we\nfound the Earl of Warwick and fifty English waiting, impatient for\nnews. As soon as Cauchon saw them he shouted--laughing--think of a man\ndestroying a friendless poor girl and then having the heart to laugh at\nit:\n\n\"Make yourselves comfortable--it's all over with her!\"\n\n\n\n\n\n23 The Time Is at Hand\n\nTHE YOUNG can sink into abysses of despondency, and it was so with Noel\nand me now; but the hopes of the young are quick to rise again, and it\nwas so with ours. We called back that vague promise of the Voices, and\nsaid the one to the other that the glorious release was to happen at\n\"the last moment\"--\"that other time was not the last moment, but this\nis; it will happen now; the King will come, La Hire will come, and with\nthem our veterans, and behind them all France!\" And so we were full of\nheart again, and could already hear, in fancy, that stirring music the\nclash of steel and the war-cries and the uproar of the onset, and in\nfancy see our prisoner free, her chains gone, her sword in her hand.\n\nBut this dream was to pass also, and come to nothing. Late at night,\nwhen Manchon came in, he said:\n\n\"I am come from the dungeon, and I have a message for you from that poor\nchild.\"\n\nA message to me! If he had been noticing I think he would have\ndiscovered me--discovered that my indifference concerning the prisoner\nwas a pretense; for I was caught off my guard, and was so moved and so\nexalted to be so honored by her that I must have shown my feeling in my\nface and manner.\n\n\"A message for me, your reverence?\"\n\n\"Yes. It is something she wishes done. She said she had noticed the\nyoung man who helps me, and that he had a good face; and did I think he\nwould do a kindness for her? I said I knew you would, and asked her what\nit was, and she said a letter--would you write a letter to her mother?\n\n\"And I said you would. But I said I would do it myself, and gladly; but\nshe said no, that my labors were heavy, and she thought the young man\nwould not mind the doing of this service for one not able to do it for\nherself, she not knowing how to write. Then I would have sent for you,\nand at that the sadness vanished out of her face. Why, it was as if\nshe was going to see a friend, poor friendless thing. But I was not\npermitted. I did my best, but the orders remain as strict as ever,\nthe doors are closed against all but officials; as before, none but\nofficials may speak to her. So I went back and told her, and she sighed,\nand was sad again. Now this is what she begs you to write to her mother.\nIt is partly a strange message, and to me means nothing, but she said\nher mother would understand. You will 'convey her adoring love to her\nfamily and her village friends, and say there will be no rescue, for\nthat this night--and it is the third time in the twelvemonth, and is\nfinal--she has seen the Vision of the Tree.'\"\n\n\"How strange!\"\n\n\"Yes, it is strange, but that is what she said; and said her parents\nwould understand. And for a little time she was lost in dreams and\nthinkings, and her lips moved, and I caught in her muttering these\nlines, which she said over two or three times, and they seemed to bring\npeace and contentment to her. I set them down, thinking they might have\nsome connection with her letter and be useful; but it was not so; they\nwere a mere memory, floating idly in a tired mind, and they have no\nmeaning, at least no relevancy.\"\n\nI took the piece of paper, and found what I knew I should find:\n\nAnd when in exile wand'ring, we Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of\nthee, Oh, rise upon our sight!\n\nThere was no hope any more. I knew it now. I knew that Joan's letter was\na message to Noel and me, as well as to her family, and that its object\nwas to banish vain hopes from our minds and tell us from her own mouth\nof the blow that was going to fall upon us, so that we, being her\nsoldiers, would know it for a command to bear it as became us and her,\nand so submit to the will of God; and in thus obeying, find assuagement\nof our grief. It was like her, for she was always thinking of others,\nnot of herself. Yes, her heart was sore for us; she could find time to\nthink of us, the humblest of her servants, and try to soften our pain,\nlighten the burden of our troubles--she that was drinking of the bitter\nwaters; she that was walking in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.\n\nI wrote the letter. You will know what it cost me, without my telling\nyou. I wrote it with the same wooden stylus which had put upon parchment\nthe first words ever dictated by Joan of Arc--that high summons to\nthe English to vacate France, two years past, when she was a lass of\nseventeen; it had now set down the last ones which she was ever to\ndictate. Then I broke it. For the pen that had served Joan of Arc could\nnot serve any that would come after her in this earth without abasement.\n\nThe next day, May 29th, Cauchon summoned his serfs, and forty-two\nresponded. It is charitable to believe that the other twenty were\nashamed to come. The forty-two pronounced her a relapsed heretic, and\ncondemned her to be delivered over to the secular arm. Cauchon thanked\nthem.\n\nThen he sent orders that Joan of Arc be conveyed the next morning to\nthe place known as the Old Market; and that she be then delivered to the\ncivil judge, and by the civil judge to the executioner. That meant she\nwould be burnt.\n\nAll the afternoon and evening of Tuesday, the 29th, the news was\nflying, and the people of the country-side flocking to Rouen to see the\ntragedy--all, at least, who could prove their English sympathies and\ncount upon admission. The press grew thicker and thicker in the streets,\nthe excitement grew higher and higher. And now a thing was noticeable\nagain which had been noticeable more than once before--that there was\npity for Joan in the hearts of many of these people. Whenever she had\nbeen in great danger it had manifested itself, and now it was apparent\nagain--manifest in a pathetic dumb sorrow which was visible in many\nfaces.\n\nEarly the next morning, Wednesday, Martin Ladvenu and another friar\nwere sent to Joan to prepare her for death; and Manchon and I went\nwith them--a hard service for me. We tramped through the dim corridors,\nwinding this way and that, and piercing ever deeper and deeper into that\nvast heart of stone, and at last we stood before Joan. But she did not\nknow it. She sat with her hands in her lap and her head bowed, thinking,\nand her face was very sad. One might not know what she was thinking of.\nOf her home, and the peaceful pastures, and the friends she was no more\nto see? Of her wrongs, and her forsaken estate, and the cruelties which\nhad been put upon her? Or was it of death--the death which she had\nlonged for, and which was now so close?\n\nOr was it of the kind of death she must suffer? I hoped not; for she\nfeared only one kind, and that one had for her unspeakable terrors. I\nbelieved she so feared that one that with her strong will she would shut\nthe thought of it wholly out of her mind, and hope and believe that\nGod would take pity on her and grant her an easier one; and so it\nmight chance that the awful news which we were bringing might come as a\nsurprise to her at last.\n\nWe stood silent awhile, but she was still unconscious of us, still deep\nin her sad musings and far away. Then Martin Ladvenu said, softly:\n\n\"Joan.\"\n\nShe looked up then, with a little start and a wan smile, and said:\n\n\"Speak. Have you a message for me?\"\n\n\"Yes, my poor child. Try to bear it. Do you think you can bear it?\"\n\n\"Yes\"--very softly, and her head drooped again.\n\n\"I am come to prepare you for death.\"\n\nA faint shiver trembled through her wasted body. There was a pause. In\nthe stillness we could hear our breathings. Then she said, still in that\nlow voice:\n\n\"When will it be?\"\n\nThe muffled notes of a tolling bell floated to our ears out of the\ndistance.\n\n\"Now. The time is at hand.\"\n\nThat slight shiver passed again.\n\n\"It is so soon--ah, it is so soon!\"\n\nThere was a long silence. The distant throbbings of the bell pulsed\nthrough it, and we stood motionless and listening. But it was broken at\nlast:\n\n\"What death is it?\"\n\n\"By fire!\"\n\n\"Oh, I knew it, I knew it!\" She sprang wildly to her feet, and wound her\nhands in her hair, and began to writhe and sob, oh, so piteously, and\nmourn and grieve and lament, and turn to first one and then another of\nus, and search our faces beseechingly, as hoping she might find help and\nfriendliness there, poor thing--she that had never denied these to any\ncreature, even her wounded enemy on the battle-field.\n\n\"Oh, cruel, cruel, to treat me so! And must my body, that has never been\ndefiled, be consumed today and turned to ashes? Ah, sooner would I that\nmy head were cut off seven times than suffer this woeful death. I had\nthe promise of the Church's prison when I submitted, and if I had but\nbeen there, and not left here in the hands of my enemies, this miserable\nfate had not befallen me.\n\n\"Oh, I appeal to God the Great Judge, against the injustice which has\nbeen done me.\"\n\nThere was none there that could endure it. They turned away, with the\ntears running down their faces. In a moment I was on my knees at her\nfeet. At once she thought only of my danger, and bent and whispered in\nmy hear: \"Up!--do not peril yourself, good heart. There--God bless you\nalways!\" and I felt the quick clasp of her hand. Mine was the last hand\nshe touched with hers in life. None saw it; history does not know of it\nor tell of it, yet it is true, just as I have told it. The next moment\nshe saw Cauchon coming, and she went and stood before him and reproached\nhim, saying:\n\n\"Bishop, it is by you that I die!\"\n\nHe was not shamed, not touched; but said, smoothly:\n\n\"Ah, be patient, Joan. You die because you have not kept your promise,\nbut have returned to your sins.\"\n\n\"Alas,\" she said, \"if you had put me in the Church's prison, and given\nme right and proper keepers, as you promised, this would not have\nhappened. And for this I summon you to answer before God!\"\n\nThen Cauchon winced, and looked less placidly content than before, and\nhe turned him about and went away.\n\nJoan stood awhile musing. She grew calmer, but occasionally she wiped\nher eyes, and now and then sobs shook her body; but their violence\nwas modifying now, and the intervals between them were growing longer.\nFinally she looked up and saw Pierre Maurice, who had come in with the\nBishop, and she said to him:\n\n\"Master Peter, where shall I be this night?\"\n\n\"Have you not good hope in God?\"\n\n\"Yes--and by His grace I shall be in Paradise.\"\n\nNow Martin Ladvenu heard her in confession; then she begged for the\nsacrament. But how grant the communion to one who had been publicly cut\noff from the Church, and was now no more entitled to its privileges\nthan an unbaptized pagan? The brother could not do this, but he sent\nto Cauchon to inquire what he must do. All laws, human and divine, were\nalike to that man--he respected none of them. He sent back orders to\ngrant Joan whatever she wished. Her last speech to him had reached his\nfears, perhaps; it could not reach his heart, for he had none.\n\nThe Eucharist was brought now to that poor soul that had yearned for it\nwith such unutterable longing all these desolate months. It was a solemn\nmoment. While we had been in the deeps of the prison, the public courts\nof the castle had been filling up with crowds of the humbler sort of\nmen and women, who had learned what was going on in Joan's cell, and had\ncome with softened hearts to do--they knew not what; to hear--they knew\nnot what. We knew nothing of this, for they were out of our view. And\nthere were other great crowds of the like caste gathered in\nmasses outside the castle gates. And when the lights and the other\naccompaniments of the Sacrament passed by, coming to Joan in the prison,\nall those multitudes kneeled down and began to pray for her, and many\nwept; and when the solemn ceremony of the communion began in Joan's\ncell, out of the distance a moving sound was borne moaning to our\nears--it was those invisible multitudes chanting the litany for a\ndeparting soul.\n\nThe fear of the fiery death was gone from Joan of Arc now, to come\nagain no more, except for one fleeting instant--then it would pass, and\nserenity and courage would take its place and abide till the end.\n\n\n\n\n\n24 Joan the Martyr\n\nAT NINE o'clock the Maid of Orleans, Deliverer of France, went forth in\nthe grace of her innocence and her youth to lay down her life for\nthe country she loved with such devotion, and for the King that had\nabandoned her. She sat in the cart that is used only for felons. In one\nrespect she was treated worse than a felon; for whereas she was on her\nway to be sentenced by the civil arm, she already bore her judgment\ninscribed in advance upon a miter-shaped cap which she wore:\n\nHERETIC, RELAPSED, APOSTATE, IDOLATER In the cart with her sat the friar\nMartin Ladvenu and Maetre Jean Massieu. She looked girlishly fair and\nsweet and saintly in her long white robe, and when a gush of sunlight\nflooded her as she emerged from the gloom of the prison and was yet\nfor a moment still framed in the arch of the somber gate, the massed\nmultitudes of poor folk murmured \"A vision! a vision!\" and sank to their\nknees praying, and many of the women weeping; and the moving invocation\nfor the dying arose again, and was taken up and borne along, a majestic\nwave of sound, which accompanied the doomed, solacing and blessing her,\nall the sorrowful way to the place of death. \"Christ have pity! Saint\nMargaret have pity! Pray for her, all ye saints, archangels, and blessed\nmartyrs, pray for her! Saints and angels intercede for her! From thy\nwrath, good Lord, deliver her! O Lord God, save her! Have mercy on her,\nwe beseech Thee, good Lord!\"\n\nIt is just and true what one of the histories has said: \"The poor and\nthe helpless had nothing but their prayers to give Joan of Arc; but\nthese we may believe were not unavailing. There are few more pathetic\nevents recorded in history than this weeping, helpless, praying crowd,\nholding their lighted candles and kneeling on the pavement beneath the\nprison walls of the old fortress.\"\n\nAnd it was so all the way: thousands upon thousands massed upon their\nknees and stretching far down the distances, thick-sown with the faint\nyellow candle-flames, like a field starred with golden flowers.\n\nBut there were some that did not kneel; these were the English soldiers.\nThey stood elbow to elbow, on each side of Joan's road, and walled it in\nall the way; and behind these living walls knelt the multitudes.\n\nBy and by a frantic man in priest's garb came wailing and lamenting, and\ntore through the crowd and the barriers of soldiers and flung himself\non his knees by Joan's cart and put up his hands in supplication, crying\nout:\n\n\"O forgive, forgive!\"\n\nIt was Loyseleur!\n\nAnd Joan forgave him; forgave him out of a heart that knew nothing\nbut forgiveness, nothing but compassion, nothing but pity for all that\nsuffer, let their offense be what it might. And she had no word of\nreproach for this poor wretch who had wrought day and night with deceits\nand treacheries and hypocrisies to betray her to her death.\n\nThe soldiers would have killed him, but the Earl of Warwick saved his\nlife. What became of him is not known. He hid himself from the world\nsomewhere, to endure his remorse as he might.\n\nIn the square of the Old Market stood the two platforms and the stake\nthat had stood before in the churchyard of St. Ouen. The platforms were\noccupied as before, the one by Joan and her judges, the other by\ngreat dignitaries, the principal being Cauchon and the English\nCardinal--Winchester. The square was packed with people, the windows and\nroofs of the blocks of buildings surrounding it were black with them.\n\nWhen the preparations had been finished, all noise and movement\ngradually ceased, and a waiting stillness followed which was solemn and\nimpressive.\n\nAnd now, by order of Cauchon, an ecclesiastic named Nicholas Midi\npreached a sermon, wherein he explained that when a branch of the\nvine--which is the Church--becomes diseased and corrupt, it must be cut\naway or it will corrupt and destroy the whole vine. He made it appear\nthat Joan, through her wickedness, was a menace and a peril to the\nChurch's purity and holiness, and her death therefore necessary. When he\nwas come to the end of his discourse he turned toward her and paused a\nmoment, then he said:\n\n\"Joan, the Church can no longer protect you. Go in peace!\"\n\nJoan had been placed wholly apart and conspicuous, to signify the\nChurch's abandonment of her, and she sat there in her loneliness,\nwaiting in patience and resignation for the end. Cauchon addressed her\nnow. He had been advised to read the form of her abjuration to her, and\nhad brought it with him; but he changed his mind, fearing that she would\nproclaim the truth--that she had never knowingly abjured--and so bring\nshame upon him and eternal infamy. He contented himself with admonishing\nher to keep in mind her wickednesses, and repent of them, and think of\nher salvation. Then he solemnly pronounced her excommunicate and cut off\nfrom the body of the Church. With a final word he delivered her over to\nthe secular arm for judgment and sentence.\n\nJoan, weeping, knelt and began to pray. For whom? Herself? Oh, no--for\nthe King of France. Her voice rose sweet and clear, and penetrated all\nhearts with its passionate pathos. She never thought of his treacheries\nto her, she never thought of his desertion of her, she never remembered\nthat it was because he was an ingrate that she was here to die a\nmiserable death; she remembered only that he was her King, that she was\nhis loyal and loving subject, and that his enemies had undermined his\ncause with evil reports and false charges, and he not by to defend\nhimself. And so, in the very presence of death, she forgot her own\ntroubles to implore all in her hearing to be just to him; to believe\nthat he was good and noble and sincere, and not in any way to blame\nfor any acts of hers, neither advising them nor urging them, but being\nwholly clear and free of all responsibility for them. Then, closing, she\nbegged in humble and touching words that all here present would pray\nfor her and would pardon her, both her enemies and such as might look\nfriendly upon her and feel pity for her in their hearts.\n\nThere was hardly one heart there that was not touched--even the English,\neven the judges showed it, and there was many a lip that trembled\nand many an eye that was blurred with tears; yes, even the English\nCardinal's--that man with a political heart of stone but a human heart\nof flesh.\n\nThe secular judge who should have delivered judgment and pronounced\nsentence was himself so disturbed that he forgot his duty, and Joan went\nto her death unsentenced--thus completing with an illegality what had\nbegun illegally and had so continued to the end. He only said--to the\nguards:\n\n\"Take her\"; and to the executioner, \"Do your duty.\"\n\nJoan asked for a cross. None was able to furnish one. But an English\nsoldier broke a stick in two and crossed the pieces and tied them\ntogether, and this cross he gave her, moved to it by the good heart that\nwas in him; and she kissed it and put it in her bosom. Then Isambard de\nla Pierre went to the church near by and brought her a consecrated one;\nand this one also she kissed, and pressed it to her bosom with rapture,\nand then kissed it again and again, covering it with tears and pouring\nout her gratitude to God and the saints.\n\nAnd so, weeping, and with her cross to her lips, she climbed up the\ncruel steps to the face of the stake, with the friar Isambard at her\nside. Then she was helped up to the top of the pile of wood that was\nbuilt around the lower third of the stake and stood upon it with her\nback against the stake, and the world gazing up at her breathless. The\nexecutioner ascended to her side and wound chains around her slender\nbody, and so fastened her to the stake. Then he descended to finish his\ndreadful office; and there she remained alone--she that had had so many\nfriends in the days when she was free, and had been so loved and so\ndear.\n\nAll these things I saw, albeit dimly and blurred with tears; but I could\nbear no more. I continued in my place, but what I shall deliver to you\nnow I got by others' eyes and others' mouths. Tragic sounds there were\nthat pierced my ears and wounded my heart as I sat there, but it is as\nI tell you: the latest image recorded by my eyes in that desolating hour\nwas Joan of Arc with the grace of her comely youth still unmarred; and\nthat image, untouched by time or decay, has remained with me all my\ndays. Now I will go on.\n\nIf any thought that now, in that solemn hour when all transgressors\nrepent and confess, she would revoke her revocation and say her great\ndeeds had been evil deeds and Satan and his fiends their source, they\nerred. No such thought was in her blameless mind. She was not thinking\nof herself and her troubles, but of others, and of woes that might\nbefall them. And so, turning her grieving eyes about her, where rose the\ntowers and spires of that fair city, she said:\n\n\"Oh, Rouen, Rouen, must I die here, and must you be my tomb? Ah, Rouen,\nRouen, I have great fear that you will suffer for my death.\"\n\nA whiff of smoke swept upward past her face, and for one moment terror\nseized her and she cried out, \"Water! Give me holy water!\" but the next\nmoment her fears were gone, and they came no more to torture her.\n\nShe heard the flames crackling below her, and immediately distress for\na fellow-creature who was in danger took possession of her. It was the\nfriar Isambard. She had given him her cross and begged him to raise it\ntoward her face and let her eyes rest in hope and consolation upon it\ntill she was entered into the peace of God. She made him go out from the\ndanger of the fire. Then she was satisfied, and said:\n\n\"Now keep it always in my sight until the end.\"\n\nNot even yet could Cauchon, that man without shame, endure to let her\ndie in peace, but went toward her, all black with crimes and sins as he\nwas, and cried out:\n\n\"I am come, Joan, to exhort you for the last time to repent and seek the\npardon of God.\"\n\n\"I die through you,\" she said, and these were the last words she spoke\nto any upon earth.\n\nThen the pitchy smoke, shot through with red flashes of flame, rolled\nup in a thick volume and hid her from sight; and from the heart of\nthis darkness her voice rose strong and eloquent in prayer, and when by\nmoments the wind shredded somewhat of the smoke aside, there were veiled\nglimpses of an upturned face and moving lips. At last a mercifully swift\ntide of flame burst upward, and none saw that face any more nor that\nform, and the voice was still.\n\nYes, she was gone from us: JOAN OF ARC! What little words they are, to\ntell of a rich world made empty and poor!\n\n\n\n\n\nCONCLUSION\n\nJOAN'S BROTHER Jacques died in Domremy during the Great Trial at Rouen.\nThis was according to the prophecy which Joan made that day in the\npastures the time that she said the rest of us would go to the great\nwars.\n\nWhen her poor old father heard of the martyrdom it broke his heart, and\nhe died.\n\nThe mother was granted a pension by the city of Orleans, and upon this\nshe lived out her days, which were many. Twenty-four years after her\nillustrious child's death she traveled all the way to Paris in the\nwinter-time and was present at the opening of the discussion in the\nCathedral of Notre Dame which was the first step in the Rehabilitation.\nParis was crowded with people, from all about France, who came to get\nsight of the venerable dame, and it was a touching spectacle when she\nmoved through these reverent wet-eyed multitudes on her way to the grand\nhonors awaiting her at the cathedral. With her were Jean and Pierre, no\nlonger the light-hearted youths who marched with us from Vaucouleurs,\nbut war-torn veterans with hair beginning to show frost.\n\nAfter the martyrdom Noel and I went back to Domremy, but presently when\nthe Constable Richemont superseded La Tremouille as the King's chief\nadviser and began the completion of Joan's great work, we put on our\nharness and returned to the field and fought for the King all through\nthe wars and skirmishes until France was freed of the English. It was\nwhat Joan would have desired of us; and, dead or alive, her desire was\nlaw for us. All the survivors of the personal staff were faithful to\nher memory and fought for the King to the end. Mainly we were well\nscattered, but when Paris fell we happened to be together. It was a\ngreat day and a joyous; but it was a sad one at the same time, because\nJoan was not there to march into the captured capital with us.\n\nNoel and I remained always together, and I was by his side when death\nclaimed him. It was in the last great battle of the war. In that battle\nfell also Joan's sturdy old enemy Talbot. He was eighty-five years old,\nand had spent his whole life in battle. A fine old lion he was, with his\nflowing white mane and his tameless spirit; yes, and his indestructible\nenergy as well; for he fought as knightly and vigorous a fight that day\nas the best man there.\n\nLa Hire survived the martyrdom thirteen years; and always fighting, of\ncourse, for that was all he enjoyed in life. I did not see him in all\nthat time, for we were far apart, but one was always hearing of him.\n\nThe Bastard of Orleans and D'Alencon and D'Aulon lived to see France\nfree, and to testify with Jean and Pierre d'Arc and Pasquerel and me at\nthe Rehabilitation. But they are all at rest now, these many years.\nI alone am left of those who fought at the side of Joan of Arc in the\ngreat wars.\n\nShe said I would live until those wars were forgotten--a prophecy which\nfailed. If I should live a thousand years it would still fail. For\nwhatsoever had touch with Joan of Arc, that thing is immortal.\n\nMembers of Joan's family married, and they have left descendants. Their\ndescendants are of the nobility, but their family name and blood bring\nthem honors which no other nobles receive or may hope for. You have seen\nhow everybody along the way uncovered when those children came yesterday\nto pay their duty to me. It was not because they are noble, it is\nbecause they are grandchildren of the brothers of Joan of Arc.\n\nNow as to the Rehabilitation. Joan crowned the King at Rheims. For\nreward he allowed her to be hunted to her death without making one\neffort to save her. During the next twenty-three years he remained\nindifferent to her memory; indifferent to the fact that her good name\nwas under a damning blot put there by the priest because of the deeds\nwhich she had done in saving him and his scepter; indifferent to the\nfact that France was ashamed, and longed to have the Deliverer's fair\nfame restored. Indifferent all that time. Then he suddenly changed and\nwas anxious to have justice for poor Joan himself. Why? Had he become\ngrateful at last? Had remorse attacked his hard heart? No, he had a\nbetter reason--a better one for his sort of man. This better reason was\nthat, now that the English had been finally expelled from the country,\nthey were beginning to call attention to the fact that this King had\ngotten his crown by the hands of a person proven by the priests to\nhave been in league with Satan and burned for it by them as a\nsorceress--therefore, of what value or authority was such a Kingship as\nthat? Of no value at all; no nation could afford to allow such a king to\nremain on the throne.\n\nIt was high time to stir now, and the King did it. That is how Charles\nVII. came to be smitten with anxiety to have justice done the memory of\nhis benefactress.\n\nHe appealed to the Pope, and the Pope appointed a great commission of\nchurchmen to examine into the facts of Joan's life and award judgment.\nThe Commission sat at Paris, at Domremy, at Rouen, at Orleans, and at\nseveral other places, and continued its work during several months.\nIt examined the records of Joan's trials, it examined the Bastard\nof Orleans, and the Duke d'Alencon, and D'Aulon, and Pasquerel, and\nCourcelles, and Isambard de la Pierre, and Manchon, and me, and many\nothers whose names I have made familiar to you; also they examined\nmore than a hundred witnesses whose names are less familiar to you--the\nfriends of Joan in Domremy, Vaucouleurs, Orleans, and other places,\nand a number of judges and other people who had assisted at the Rouen\ntrials, the abjuration, and the martyrdom. And out of this exhaustive\nexamination Joan's character and history came spotless and perfect, and\nthis verdict was placed upon record, to remain forever.\n\nI was present upon most of these occasions, and saw again many faces\nwhich I have not seen for a quarter of a century; among them some\nwell-beloved faces--those of our generals and that of Catherine Boucher\n(married, alas!), and also among them certain other faces that filled me\nwith bitterness--those of Beaupere and Courcelles and a number of their\nfellow-fiends. I saw Haumette and Little Mengette--edging along toward\nfifty now, and mothers of many children. I saw Noel's father, and the\nparents of the Paladin and the Sunflower.\n\nIt was beautiful to hear the Duke d'Alencon praise Joan's splendid\ncapacities as a general, and to hear the Bastard indorse these praises\nwith his eloquent tongue and then go on and tell how sweet and good Joan\nwas, and how full of pluck and fire and impetuosity, and mischief, and\nmirthfulness, and tenderness, and compassion, and everything that was\npure and fine and noble and lovely. He made her live again before me,\nand wrung my heart.\n\nI have finished my story of Joan of Arc, that wonderful child, that\nsublime personality, that spirit which in one regard has had no peer\nand will have none--this: its purity from all alloy of self-seeking,\nself-interest, personal ambition. In it no trace of these motives can\nbe found, search as you may, and this cannot be said of any other person\nwhose name appears in profane history.\n\nWith Joan of Arc love of country was more than a sentiment--it was a\npassion. She was the Genius of Patriotism--she was Patriotism embodied,\nconcreted, made flesh, and palpable to the touch and visible to the eye.\n\nLove, Mercy, Charity, Fortitude, War, Peace, Poetry, Music--these may be\nsymbolized as any shall prefer: by figures of either sex and of any age;\nbut a slender girl in her first young bloom, with the martyr's crown\nupon her head, and in her hand the sword that severed her country's\nbonds--shall not this, and no other, stand for PATRIOTISM through all\nthe ages until time shall end?\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"100":"\n\n\n\n\n1609\n\nTHE SONNETS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\n                     1\n  From fairest creatures we desire increase,\n  That thereby beauty's rose might never die,\n  But as the riper should by time decease,\n  His tender heir might bear his memory:\n  But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,\n  Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,\n  Making a famine where abundance lies,\n  Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:\n  Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,\n  And only herald to the gaudy spring,\n  Within thine own bud buriest thy content,\n  And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding:\n    Pity the world, or else this glutton be,\n    To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.\n\n\n                     2\n  When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,\n  And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,\n  Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,\n  Will be a tattered weed of small worth held:\n  Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,\n  Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;\n  To say within thine own deep sunken eyes,\n  Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.\n  How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,\n  If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine\n  Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse'\n  Proving his beauty by succession thine.\n    This were to be new made when thou art old,\n    And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.\n\n\n                     3\n  Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,\n  Now is the time that face should form another,\n  Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,\n  Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.\n  For where is she so fair whose uneared womb\n  Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?\n  Or who is he so fond will be the tomb,\n  Of his self-love to stop posterity?\n  Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee\n  Calls back the lovely April of her prime,\n  So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,\n  Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.\n    But if thou live remembered not to be,\n    Die single and thine image dies with thee.\n\n\n                     4\n  Unthrifty loveliness why dost thou spend,\n  Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?\n  Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,\n  And being frank she lends to those are free:\n  Then beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse,\n  The bounteous largess given thee to give?\n  Profitless usurer why dost thou use\n  So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?\n  For having traffic with thy self alone,\n  Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive,\n  Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,\n  What acceptable audit canst thou leave?\n    Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,\n    Which used lives th' executor to be.\n\n\n                     5\n  Those hours that with gentle work did frame\n  The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell\n  Will play the tyrants to the very same,\n  And that unfair which fairly doth excel:\n  For never-resting time leads summer on\n  To hideous winter and confounds him there,\n  Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,\n  Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:\n  Then were not summer's distillation left\n  A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,\n  Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,\n  Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.\n    But flowers distilled though they with winter meet,\n    Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet.\n\n\n                     6\n  Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,\n  In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled:\n  Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place,\n  With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed:\n  That use is not forbidden usury,\n  Which happies those that pay the willing loan;\n  That's for thy self to breed another thee,\n  Or ten times happier be it ten for one,\n  Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,\n  If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:\n  Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,\n  Leaving thee living in posterity?\n    Be not self-willed for thou art much too fair,\n    To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.\n\n\n                     7\n  Lo in the orient when the gracious light\n  Lifts up his burning head, each under eye\n  Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,\n  Serving with looks his sacred majesty,\n  And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,\n  Resembling strong youth in his middle age,\n  Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,\n  Attending on his golden pilgrimage:\n  But when from highmost pitch with weary car,\n  Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,\n  The eyes (fore duteous) now converted are\n  From his low tract and look another way:\n    So thou, thy self out-going in thy noon:\n    Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.\n\n\n                     8\n  Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?\n  Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:\n  Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,\n  Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?\n  If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,\n  By unions married do offend thine ear,\n  They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds\n  In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear:\n  Mark how one string sweet husband to another,\n  Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;\n  Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,\n  Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:\n    Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,\n    Sings this to thee, 'Thou single wilt prove none'.\n\n\n                     9\n  Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,\n  That thou consum'st thy self in single life?\n  Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,\n  The world will wail thee like a makeless wife,\n  The world will be thy widow and still weep,\n  That thou no form of thee hast left behind,\n  When every private widow well may keep,\n  By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:\n  Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend\n  Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;\n  But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,\n  And kept unused the user so destroys it:\n    No love toward others in that bosom sits\n    That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.\n\n\n                     10\n  For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any\n  Who for thy self art so unprovident.\n  Grant if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,\n  But that thou none lov'st is most evident:\n  For thou art so possessed with murd'rous hate,\n  That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire,\n  Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate\n  Which to repair should be thy chief desire:\n  O change thy thought, that I may change my mind,\n  Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?\n  Be as thy presence is gracious and kind,\n  Or to thy self at least kind-hearted prove,\n    Make thee another self for love of me,\n    That beauty still may live in thine or thee.\n\n\n                     11\n  As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou grow'st,\n  In one of thine, from that which thou departest,\n  And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st,\n  Thou mayst call thine, when thou from youth convertest,\n  Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase,\n  Without this folly, age, and cold decay,\n  If all were minded so, the times should cease,\n  And threescore year would make the world away:\n  Let those whom nature hath not made for store,\n  Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:\n  Look whom she best endowed, she gave thee more;\n  Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:\n    She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby,\n    Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.\n\n\n                     12\n  When I do count the clock that tells the time,\n  And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,\n  When I behold the violet past prime,\n  And sable curls all silvered o'er with white:\n  When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,\n  Which erst from heat did canopy the herd\n  And summer's green all girded up in sheaves\n  Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:\n  Then of thy beauty do I question make\n  That thou among the wastes of time must go,\n  Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,\n  And die as fast as they see others grow,\n    And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence\n    Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.\n\n\n                     13\n  O that you were your self, but love you are\n  No longer yours, than you your self here live,\n  Against this coming end you should prepare,\n  And your sweet semblance to some other give.\n  So should that beauty which you hold in lease\n  Find no determination, then you were\n  Your self again after your self's decease,\n  When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.\n  Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,\n  Which husbandry in honour might uphold,\n  Against the stormy gusts of winter's day\n  And barren rage of death's eternal cold?\n    O none but unthrifts, dear my love you know,\n    You had a father, let your son say so.\n\n\n                     14\n  Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck,\n  And yet methinks I have astronomy,\n  But not to tell of good, or evil luck,\n  Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality,\n  Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell;\n  Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,\n  Or say with princes if it shall go well\n  By oft predict that I in heaven find.\n  But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,\n  And constant stars in them I read such art\n  As truth and beauty shall together thrive\n  If from thy self, to store thou wouldst convert:\n    Or else of thee this I prognosticate,\n    Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.\n\n\n                     15\n  When I consider every thing that grows\n  Holds in perfection but a little moment.\n  That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows\n  Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.\n  When I perceive that men as plants increase,\n  Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky:\n  Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,\n  And wear their brave state out of memory.\n  Then the conceit of this inconstant stay,\n  Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,\n  Where wasteful time debateth with decay\n  To change your day of youth to sullied night,\n    And all in war with Time for love of you,\n    As he takes from you, I engraft you new.\n\n\n                     16\n  But wherefore do not you a mightier way\n  Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time?\n  And fortify your self in your decay\n  With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?\n  Now stand you on the top of happy hours,\n  And many maiden gardens yet unset,\n  With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,\n  Much liker than your painted counterfeit:\n  So should the lines of life that life repair\n  Which this (Time's pencil) or my pupil pen\n  Neither in inward worth nor outward fair\n  Can make you live your self in eyes of men.\n    To give away your self, keeps your self still,\n    And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.\n\n\n                     17\n  Who will believe my verse in time to come\n  If it were filled with your most high deserts?\n  Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb\n  Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts:\n  If I could write the beauty of your eyes,\n  And in fresh numbers number all your graces,\n  The age to come would say this poet lies,\n  Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.\n  So should my papers (yellowed with their age)\n  Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,\n  And your true rights be termed a poet's rage,\n  And stretched metre of an antique song.\n    But were some child of yours alive that time,\n    You should live twice in it, and in my rhyme.\n\n\n                     18\n  Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?\n  Thou art more lovely and more temperate:\n  Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,\n  And summer's lease hath all too short a date:\n  Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,\n  And often is his gold complexion dimmed,\n  And every fair from fair sometime declines,\n  By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:\n  But thy eternal summer shall not fade,\n  Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,\n  Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,\n  When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,\n    So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,\n    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.\n\n\n                     19\n  Devouring Time blunt thou the lion's paws,\n  And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,\n  Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,\n  And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood,\n  Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,\n  And do whate'er thou wilt swift-footed Time\n  To the wide world and all her fading sweets:\n  But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,\n  O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,\n  Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen,\n  Him in thy course untainted do allow,\n  For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.\n    Yet do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,\n    My love shall in my verse ever live young.\n\n\n                     20\n  A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,\n  Hast thou the master mistress of my passion,\n  A woman's gentle heart but not acquainted\n  With shifting change as is false women's fashion,\n  An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling:\n  Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth,\n  A man in hue all hues in his controlling,\n  Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.\n  And for a woman wert thou first created,\n  Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,\n  And by addition me of thee defeated,\n  By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.\n    But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,\n    Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.\n\n\n                     21\n  So is it not with me as with that muse,\n  Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,\n  Who heaven it self for ornament doth use,\n  And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,\n  Making a couplement of proud compare\n  With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems:\n  With April's first-born flowers and all things rare,\n  That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.\n  O let me true in love but truly write,\n  And then believe me, my love is as fair,\n  As any mother's child, though not so bright\n  As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:\n    Let them say more that like of hearsay well,\n    I will not praise that purpose not to sell.\n\n\n                     22\n  My glass shall not persuade me I am old,\n  So long as youth and thou are of one date,\n  But when in thee time's furrows I behold,\n  Then look I death my days should expiate.\n  For all that beauty that doth cover thee,\n  Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,\n  Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me,\n  How can I then be elder than thou art?\n  O therefore love be of thyself so wary,\n  As I not for my self, but for thee will,\n  Bearing thy heart which I will keep so chary\n  As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.\n    Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,\n    Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.\n\n\n                     23\n  As an unperfect actor on the stage,\n  Who with his fear is put beside his part,\n  Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,\n  Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;\n  So I for fear of trust, forget to say,\n  The perfect ceremony of love's rite,\n  And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,\n  O'ercharged with burthen of mine own love's might:\n  O let my looks be then the eloquence,\n  And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,\n  Who plead for love, and look for recompense,\n  More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.\n    O learn to read what silent love hath writ,\n    To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.\n\n\n                     24\n  Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled,\n  Thy beauty's form in table of my heart,\n  My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,\n  And perspective it is best painter's art.\n  For through the painter must you see his skill,\n  To find where your true image pictured lies,\n  Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,\n  That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes:\n  Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done,\n  Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me\n  Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun\n  Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;\n    Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,\n    They draw but what they see, know not the heart.\n\n\n                     25\n  Let those who are in favour with their stars,\n  Of public honour and proud titles boast,\n  Whilst I whom fortune of such triumph bars\n  Unlooked for joy in that I honour most;\n  Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread,\n  But as the marigold at the sun's eye,\n  And in themselves their pride lies buried,\n  For at a frown they in their glory die.\n  The painful warrior famoused for fight,\n  After a thousand victories once foiled,\n  Is from the book of honour razed quite,\n  And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:\n    Then happy I that love and am beloved\n    Where I may not remove nor be removed.\n\n\n                     26\n  Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage\n  Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit;\n  To thee I send this written embassage\n  To witness duty, not to show my wit.\n  Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine\n  May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it;\n  But that I hope some good conceit of thine\n  In thy soul's thought (all naked) will bestow it:\n  Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,\n  Points on me graciously with fair aspect,\n  And puts apparel on my tattered loving,\n  To show me worthy of thy sweet respect,\n    Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee,\n    Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.\n\n\n                     27\n  Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,\n  The dear respose for limbs with travel tired,\n  But then begins a journey in my head\n  To work my mind, when body's work's expired.\n  For then my thoughts (from far where I abide)\n  Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,\n  And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,\n  Looking on darkness which the blind do see.\n  Save that my soul's imaginary sight\n  Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,\n  Which like a jewel (hung in ghastly night)\n  Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.\n    Lo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind,\n    For thee, and for my self, no quiet find.\n\n\n                     28\n  How can I then return in happy plight\n  That am debarred the benefit of rest?\n  When day's oppression is not eased by night,\n  But day by night and night by day oppressed.\n  And each (though enemies to either's reign)\n  Do in consent shake hands to torture me,\n  The one by toil, the other to complain\n  How far I toil, still farther off from thee.\n  I tell the day to please him thou art bright,\n  And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:\n  So flatter I the swart-complexioned night,\n  When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.\n    But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,\n    And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger\n\n\n                     29\n  When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,\n  I all alone beweep my outcast state,\n  And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,\n  And look upon my self and curse my fate,\n  Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,\n  Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,\n  Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,\n  With what I most enjoy contented least,\n  Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,\n  Haply I think on thee, and then my state,\n  (Like to the lark at break of day arising\n  From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,\n    For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,\n    That then I scorn to change my state with kings.\n\n\n                     30\n  When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,\n  I summon up remembrance of things past,\n  I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,\n  And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:\n  Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow)\n  For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,\n  And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,\n  And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight.\n  Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,\n  And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er\n  The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,\n  Which I new pay as if not paid before.\n    But if the while I think on thee (dear friend)\n    All losses are restored, and sorrows end.\n\n\n                     31\n  Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,\n  Which I by lacking have supposed dead,\n  And there reigns love and all love's loving parts,\n  And all those friends which I thought buried.\n  How many a holy and obsequious tear\n  Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,\n  As interest of the dead, which now appear,\n  But things removed that hidden in thee lie.\n  Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,\n  Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,\n  Who all their parts of me to thee did give,\n  That due of many, now is thine alone.\n    Their images I loved, I view in thee,\n    And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.\n\n\n                     32\n  If thou survive my well-contented day,\n  When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover\n  And shalt by fortune once more re-survey\n  These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover:\n  Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,\n  And though they be outstripped by every pen,\n  Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,\n  Exceeded by the height of happier men.\n  O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought,\n  'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,\n  A dearer birth than this his love had brought\n  To march in ranks of better equipage:\n    But since he died and poets better prove,\n    Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.\n\n\n                     33\n  Full many a glorious morning have I seen,\n  Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,\n  Kissing with golden face the meadows green;\n  Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy:\n  Anon permit the basest clouds to ride,\n  With ugly rack on his celestial face,\n  And from the forlorn world his visage hide\n  Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:\n  Even so my sun one early morn did shine,\n  With all triumphant splendour on my brow,\n  But out alack, he was but one hour mine,\n  The region cloud hath masked him from me now.\n    Yet him for this, my love no whit disdaineth,\n    Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.\n\n\n                     34\n  Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,\n  And make me travel forth without my cloak,\n  To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,\n  Hiding thy brav'ry in their rotten smoke?\n  'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,\n  To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,\n  For no man well of such a salve can speak,\n  That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:\n  Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief,\n  Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss,\n  Th' offender's sorrow lends but weak relief\n  To him that bears the strong offence's cross.\n    Ah but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,\n    And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.\n\n\n                     35\n  No more be grieved at that which thou hast done,\n  Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,\n  Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,\n  And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.\n  All men make faults, and even I in this,\n  Authorizing thy trespass with compare,\n  My self corrupting salving thy amiss,\n  Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are:\n  For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,\n  Thy adverse party is thy advocate,\n  And 'gainst my self a lawful plea commence:\n  Such civil war is in my love and hate,\n    That I an accessary needs must be,\n    To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.\n\n\n                     36\n  Let me confess that we two must be twain,\n  Although our undivided loves are one:\n  So shall those blots that do with me remain,\n  Without thy help, by me be borne alone.\n  In our two loves there is but one respect,\n  Though in our lives a separable spite,\n  Which though it alter not love's sole effect,\n  Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.\n  I may not evermore acknowledge thee,\n  Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,\n  Nor thou with public kindness honour me,\n  Unless thou take that honour from thy name:\n    But do not so, I love thee in such sort,\n    As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.\n\n\n                     37\n  As a decrepit father takes delight,\n  To see his active child do deeds of youth,\n  So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite\n  Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.\n  For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,\n  Or any of these all, or all, or more\n  Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,\n  I make my love engrafted to this store:\n  So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,\n  Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give,\n  That I in thy abundance am sufficed,\n  And by a part of all thy glory live:\n    Look what is best, that best I wish in thee,\n    This wish I have, then ten times happy me.\n\n\n                     38\n  How can my muse want subject to invent\n  While thou dost breathe that pour'st into my verse,\n  Thine own sweet argument, too excellent,\n  For every vulgar paper to rehearse?\n  O give thy self the thanks if aught in me,\n  Worthy perusal stand against thy sight,\n  For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,\n  When thou thy self dost give invention light?\n  Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth\n  Than those old nine which rhymers invocate,\n  And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth\n  Eternal numbers to outlive long date.\n    If my slight muse do please these curious days,\n    The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.\n\n\n                     39\n  O how thy worth with manners may I sing,\n  When thou art all the better part of me?\n  What can mine own praise to mine own self bring:\n  And what is't but mine own when I praise thee?\n  Even for this, let us divided live,\n  And our dear love lose name of single one,\n  That by this separation I may give:\n  That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone:\n  O absence what a torment wouldst thou prove,\n  Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,\n  To entertain the time with thoughts of love,\n  Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive.\n    And that thou teachest how to make one twain,\n    By praising him here who doth hence remain.\n\n\n                     40\n  Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all,\n  What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?\n  No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call,\n  All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more:\n  Then if for my love, thou my love receivest,\n  I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest,\n  But yet be blamed, if thou thy self deceivest\n  By wilful taste of what thy self refusest.\n  I do forgive thy robbery gentle thief\n  Although thou steal thee all my poverty:\n  And yet love knows it is a greater grief\n  To bear greater wrong, than hate's known injury.\n    Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,\n    Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.\n\n\n                     41\n  Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,\n  When I am sometime absent from thy heart,\n  Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,\n  For still temptation follows where thou art.\n  Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,\n  Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed.\n  And when a woman woos, what woman's son,\n  Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?\n  Ay me, but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,\n  And chide thy beauty, and thy straying youth,\n  Who lead thee in their riot even there\n  Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:\n    Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,\n    Thine by thy beauty being false to me.\n\n\n                     42\n  That thou hast her it is not all my grief,\n  And yet it may be said I loved her dearly,\n  That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,\n  A loss in love that touches me more nearly.\n  Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye,\n  Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her,\n  And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,\n  Suff'ring my friend for my sake to approve her.\n  If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,\n  And losing her, my friend hath found that loss,\n  Both find each other, and I lose both twain,\n  And both for my sake lay on me this cross,\n    But here's the joy, my friend and I are one,\n    Sweet flattery, then she loves but me alone.\n\n\n                     43\n  When most I wink then do mine eyes best see,\n  For all the day they view things unrespected,\n  But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,\n  And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.\n  Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright\n  How would thy shadow's form, form happy show,\n  To the clear day with thy much clearer light,\n  When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!\n  How would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made,\n  By looking on thee in the living day,\n  When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade,\n  Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!\n    All days are nights to see till I see thee,\n    And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.\n\n\n                     44\n  If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,\n  Injurious distance should not stop my way,\n  For then despite of space I would be brought,\n  From limits far remote, where thou dost stay,\n  No matter then although my foot did stand\n  Upon the farthest earth removed from thee,\n  For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,\n  As soon as think the place where he would be.\n  But ah, thought kills me that I am not thought\n  To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,\n  But that so much of earth and water wrought,\n  I must attend, time's leisure with my moan.\n    Receiving nought by elements so slow,\n    But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.\n\n\n                     45\n  The other two, slight air, and purging fire,\n  Are both with thee, wherever I abide,\n  The first my thought, the other my desire,\n  These present-absent with swift motion slide.\n  For when these quicker elements are gone\n  In tender embassy of love to thee,\n  My life being made of four, with two alone,\n  Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy.\n  Until life's composition be recured,\n  By those swift messengers returned from thee,\n  Who even but now come back again assured,\n  Of thy fair health, recounting it to me.\n    This told, I joy, but then no longer glad,\n    I send them back again and straight grow sad.\n\n\n                     46\n  Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,\n  How to divide the conquest of thy sight,\n  Mine eye, my heart thy picture's sight would bar,\n  My heart, mine eye the freedom of that right,\n  My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,\n  (A closet never pierced with crystal eyes)\n  But the defendant doth that plea deny,\n  And says in him thy fair appearance lies.\n  To side this title is impanelled\n  A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,\n  And by their verdict is determined\n  The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part.\n    As thus, mine eye's due is thy outward part,\n    And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.\n\n\n                     47\n  Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,\n  And each doth good turns now unto the other,\n  When that mine eye is famished for a look,\n  Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother;\n  With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,\n  And to the painted banquet bids my heart:\n  Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,\n  And in his thoughts of love doth share a part.\n  So either by thy picture or my love,\n  Thy self away, art present still with me,\n  For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,\n  And I am still with them, and they with thee.\n    Or if they sleep, thy picture in my sight\n    Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.\n\n\n                     48\n  How careful was I when I took my way,\n  Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,\n  That to my use it might unused stay\n  From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!\n  But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,\n  Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,\n  Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,\n  Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.\n  Thee have I not locked up in any chest,\n  Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,\n  Within the gentle closure of my breast,\n  From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part,\n    And even thence thou wilt be stol'n I fear,\n    For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.\n\n\n                     49\n  Against that time (if ever that time come)\n  When I shall see thee frown on my defects,\n  When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,\n  Called to that audit by advised respects,\n  Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,\n  And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye,\n  When love converted from the thing it was\n  Shall reasons find of settled gravity;\n  Against that time do I ensconce me here\n  Within the knowledge of mine own desert,\n  And this my hand, against my self uprear,\n  To guard the lawful reasons on thy part,\n    To leave poor me, thou hast the strength of laws,\n    Since why to love, I can allege no cause.\n\n\n                     50\n  How heavy do I journey on the way,\n  When what I seek (my weary travel's end)\n  Doth teach that case and that repose to say\n  'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend.'\n  The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,\n  Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,\n  As if by some instinct the wretch did know\n  His rider loved not speed being made from thee:\n  The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,\n  That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,\n  Which heavily he answers with a groan,\n  More sharp to me than spurring to his side,\n    For that same groan doth put this in my mind,\n    My grief lies onward and my joy behind.\n\n\n                     51\n  Thus can my love excuse the slow offence,\n  Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed,\n  From where thou art, why should I haste me thence?\n  Till I return of posting is no need.\n  O what excuse will my poor beast then find,\n  When swift extremity can seem but slow?\n  Then should I spur though mounted on the wind,\n  In winged speed no motion shall I know,\n  Then can no horse with my desire keep pace,\n  Therefore desire (of perfect'st love being made)\n  Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race,\n  But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,\n    Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,\n    Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.\n\n\n                     52\n  So am I as the rich whose blessed key,\n  Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,\n  The which he will not every hour survey,\n  For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.\n  Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,\n  Since seldom coming in that long year set,\n  Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,\n  Or captain jewels in the carcanet.\n  So is the time that keeps you as my chest\n  Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,\n  To make some special instant special-blest,\n  By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.\n    Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,\n    Being had to triumph, being lacked to hope.\n\n\n                     53\n  What is your substance, whereof are you made,\n  That millions of strange shadows on you tend?\n  Since every one, hath every one, one shade,\n  And you but one, can every shadow lend:\n  Describe Adonis and the counterfeit,\n  Is poorly imitated after you,\n  On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,\n  And you in Grecian tires are painted new:\n  Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,\n  The one doth shadow of your beauty show,\n  The other as your bounty doth appear,\n  And you in every blessed shape we know.\n    In all external grace you have some part,\n    But you like none, none you for constant heart.\n\n\n                     54\n  O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,\n  By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!\n  The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem\n  For that sweet odour, which doth in it live:\n  The canker blooms have full as deep a dye,\n  As the perfumed tincture of the roses,\n  Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,\n  When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:\n  But for their virtue only is their show,\n  They live unwooed, and unrespected fade,\n  Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so,\n  Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made:\n    And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,\n    When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.\n\n\n                     55\n  Not marble, nor the gilded monuments\n  Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,\n  But you shall shine more bright in these contents\n  Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.\n  When wasteful war shall statues overturn,\n  And broils root out the work of masonry,\n  Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn:\n  The living record of your memory.\n  'Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity\n  Shall you pace forth, your praise shall still find room,\n  Even in the eyes of all posterity\n  That wear this world out to the ending doom.\n    So till the judgment that your self arise,\n    You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.\n\n\n                     56\n  Sweet love renew thy force, be it not said\n  Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,\n  Which but to-day by feeding is allayed,\n  To-morrow sharpened in his former might.\n  So love be thou, although to-day thou fill\n  Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,\n  To-morrow see again, and do not kill\n  The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness:\n  Let this sad interim like the ocean be\n  Which parts the shore, where two contracted new,\n  Come daily to the banks, that when they see:\n  Return of love, more blest may be the view.\n    Or call it winter, which being full of care,\n    Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.\n\n\n                     57\n  Being your slave what should I do but tend,\n  Upon the hours, and times of your desire?\n  I have no precious time at all to spend;\n  Nor services to do till you require.\n  Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,\n  Whilst I (my sovereign) watch the clock for you,\n  Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,\n  When you have bid your servant once adieu.\n  Nor dare I question with my jealous thought,\n  Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,\n  But like a sad slave stay and think of nought\n  Save where you are, how happy you make those.\n    So true a fool is love, that in your will,\n    (Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.\n\n\n                     58\n  That god forbid, that made me first your slave,\n  I should in thought control your times of pleasure,\n  Or at your hand th' account of hours to crave,\n  Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure.\n  O let me suffer (being at your beck)\n  Th' imprisoned absence of your liberty,\n  And patience tame to sufferance bide each check,\n  Without accusing you of injury.\n  Be where you list, your charter is so strong,\n  That you your self may privilage your time\n  To what you will, to you it doth belong,\n  Your self to pardon of self-doing crime.\n    I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,\n    Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.\n\n\n                     59\n  If there be nothing new, but that which is,\n  Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,\n  Which labouring for invention bear amis\n  The second burthen of a former child!\n  O that record could with a backward look,\n  Even of five hundred courses of the sun,\n  Show me your image in some antique book,\n  Since mind at first in character was done.\n  That I might see what the old world could say,\n  To this composed wonder of your frame,\n  Whether we are mended, or whether better they,\n  Or whether revolution be the same.\n    O sure I am the wits of former days,\n    To subjects worse have given admiring praise.\n\n\n                     60\n  Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,\n  So do our minutes hasten to their end,\n  Each changing place with that which goes before,\n  In sequent toil all forwards do contend.\n  Nativity once in the main of light,\n  Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,\n  Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,\n  And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.\n  Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,\n  And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,\n  Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,\n  And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.\n    And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand\n    Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.\n\n\n                     61\n  Is it thy will, thy image should keep open\n  My heavy eyelids to the weary night?\n  Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,\n  While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?\n  Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee\n  So far from home into my deeds to pry,\n  To find out shames and idle hours in me,\n  The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?\n  O no, thy love though much, is not so great,\n  It is my love that keeps mine eye awake,\n  Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,\n  To play the watchman ever for thy sake.\n    For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,\n    From me far off, with others all too near.\n\n\n                     62\n  Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,\n  And all my soul, and all my every part;\n  And for this sin there is no remedy,\n  It is so grounded inward in my heart.\n  Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,\n  No shape so true, no truth of such account,\n  And for my self mine own worth do define,\n  As I all other in all worths surmount.\n  But when my glass shows me my self indeed\n  beated and chopt with tanned antiquity,\n  Mine own self-love quite contrary I read:\n  Self, so self-loving were iniquity.\n    'Tis thee (my self) that for my self I praise,\n    Painting my age with beauty of thy days.\n\n\n                     63\n  Against my love shall be as I am now\n  With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'erworn,\n  When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow\n  With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn\n  Hath travelled on to age's steepy night,\n  And all those beauties whereof now he's king\n  Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,\n  Stealing away the treasure of his spring:\n  For such a time do I now fortify\n  Against confounding age's cruel knife,\n  That he shall never cut from memory\n  My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life.\n    His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,\n    And they shall live, and he in them still green.\n\n\n                     64\n  When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced\n  The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age,\n  When sometime lofty towers I see down-rased,\n  And brass eternal slave to mortal rage.\n  When I have seen the hungry ocean gain\n  Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,\n  And the firm soil win of the watery main,\n  Increasing store with loss, and loss with store.\n  When I have seen such interchange of State,\n  Or state it self confounded, to decay,\n  Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate\n  That Time will come and take my love away.\n    This thought is as a death which cannot choose\n    But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.\n\n\n                     65\n  Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,\n  But sad mortality o'ersways their power,\n  How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,\n  Whose action is no stronger than a flower?\n  O how shall summer's honey breath hold out,\n  Against the wrackful siege of batt'ring days,\n  When rocks impregnable are not so stout,\n  Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?\n  O fearful meditation, where alack,\n  Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?\n  Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,\n  Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?\n    O none, unless this miracle have might,\n    That in black ink my love may still shine bright.\n\n\n                     66\n  Tired with all these for restful death I cry,\n  As to behold desert a beggar born,\n  And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,\n  And purest faith unhappily forsworn,\n  And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,\n  And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,\n  And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,\n  And strength by limping sway disabled\n  And art made tongue-tied by authority,\n  And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,\n  And simple truth miscalled simplicity,\n  And captive good attending captain ill.\n    Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,\n    Save that to die, I leave my love alone.\n\n\n                     67\n  Ah wherefore with infection should he live,\n  And with his presence grace impiety,\n  That sin by him advantage should achieve,\n  And lace it self with his society?\n  Why should false painting imitate his cheek,\n  And steal dead seeming of his living hue?\n  Why should poor beauty indirectly seek,\n  Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?\n  Why should he live, now nature bankrupt is,\n  Beggared of blood to blush through lively veins,\n  For she hath no exchequer now but his,\n  And proud of many, lives upon his gains?\n    O him she stores, to show what wealth she had,\n    In days long since, before these last so bad.\n\n\n                     68\n  Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,\n  When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,\n  Before these bastard signs of fair were born,\n  Or durst inhabit on a living brow:\n  Before the golden tresses of the dead,\n  The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,\n  To live a second life on second head,\n  Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay:\n  In him those holy antique hours are seen,\n  Without all ornament, it self and true,\n  Making no summer of another's green,\n  Robbing no old to dress his beauty new,\n    And him as for a map doth Nature store,\n    To show false Art what beauty was of yore.\n\n\n                     69\n  Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view,\n  Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend:\n  All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee that due,\n  Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.\n  Thy outward thus with outward praise is crowned,\n  But those same tongues that give thee so thine own,\n  In other accents do this praise confound\n  By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.\n  They look into the beauty of thy mind,\n  And that in guess they measure by thy deeds,\n  Then churls their thoughts (although their eyes were kind)\n  To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:\n    But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,\n    The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.\n\n\n                     70\n  That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,\n  For slander's mark was ever yet the fair,\n  The ornament of beauty is suspect,\n  A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.\n  So thou be good, slander doth but approve,\n  Thy worth the greater being wooed of time,\n  For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,\n  And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.\n  Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days,\n  Either not assailed, or victor being charged,\n  Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,\n  To tie up envy, evermore enlarged,\n    If some suspect of ill masked not thy show,\n    Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.\n\n\n                     71\n  No longer mourn for me when I am dead,\n  Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell\n  Give warning to the world that I am fled\n  From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:\n  Nay if you read this line, remember not,\n  The hand that writ it, for I love you so,\n  That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,\n  If thinking on me then should make you woe.\n  O if (I say) you look upon this verse,\n  When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,\n  Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;\n  But let your love even with my life decay.\n    Lest the wise world should look into your moan,\n    And mock you with me after I am gone.\n\n\n                     72\n  O lest the world should task you to recite,\n  What merit lived in me that you should love\n  After my death (dear love) forget me quite,\n  For you in me can nothing worthy prove.\n  Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,\n  To do more for me than mine own desert,\n  And hang more praise upon deceased I,\n  Than niggard truth would willingly impart:\n  O lest your true love may seem false in this,\n  That you for love speak well of me untrue,\n  My name be buried where my body is,\n  And live no more to shame nor me, nor you.\n    For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,\n    And so should you, to love things nothing worth.\n\n\n                     73\n  That time of year thou mayst in me behold,\n  When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang\n  Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,\n  Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.\n  In me thou seest the twilight of such day,\n  As after sunset fadeth in the west,\n  Which by and by black night doth take away,\n  Death's second self that seals up all in rest.\n  In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,\n  That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,\n  As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,\n  Consumed with that which it was nourished by.\n    This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,\n    To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.\n\n\n                     74\n  But be contented when that fell arrest,\n  Without all bail shall carry me away,\n  My life hath in this line some interest,\n  Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.\n  When thou reviewest this, thou dost review,\n  The very part was consecrate to thee,\n  The earth can have but earth, which is his due,\n  My spirit is thine the better part of me,\n  So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,\n  The prey of worms, my body being dead,\n  The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,\n  Too base of thee to be remembered,\n    The worth of that, is that which it contains,\n    And that is this, and this with thee remains.\n\n\n                     75\n  So are you to my thoughts as food to life,\n  Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;\n  And for the peace of you I hold such strife\n  As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.\n  Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon\n  Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,\n  Now counting best to be with you alone,\n  Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure,\n  Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,\n  And by and by clean starved for a look,\n  Possessing or pursuing no delight\n  Save what is had, or must from you be took.\n    Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,\n    Or gluttoning on all, or all away.\n\n\n                     76\n  Why is my verse so barren of new pride?\n  So far from variation or quick change?\n  Why with the time do I not glance aside\n  To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?\n  Why write I still all one, ever the same,\n  And keep invention in a noted weed,\n  That every word doth almost tell my name,\n  Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?\n  O know sweet love I always write of you,\n  And you and love are still my argument:\n  So all my best is dressing old words new,\n  Spending again what is already spent:\n    For as the sun is daily new and old,\n    So is my love still telling what is told.\n\n\n                     77\n  Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,\n  Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste,\n  These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,\n  And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.\n  The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show,\n  Of mouthed graves will give thee memory,\n  Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know,\n  Time's thievish progress to eternity.\n  Look what thy memory cannot contain,\n  Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find\n  Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,\n  To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.\n    These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,\n    Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.\n\n\n                     78\n  So oft have I invoked thee for my muse,\n  And found such fair assistance in my verse,\n  As every alien pen hath got my use,\n  And under thee their poesy disperse.\n  Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing,\n  And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,\n  Have added feathers to the learned's wing,\n  And given grace a double majesty.\n  Yet be most proud of that which I compile,\n  Whose influence is thine, and born of thee,\n  In others' works thou dost but mend the style,\n  And arts with thy sweet graces graced be.\n    But thou art all my art, and dost advance\n    As high as learning, my rude ignorance.\n\n\n                     79\n  Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,\n  My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,\n  But now my gracious numbers are decayed,\n  And my sick muse doth give an other place.\n  I grant (sweet love) thy lovely argument\n  Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,\n  Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent,\n  He robs thee of, and pays it thee again,\n  He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word,\n  From thy behaviour, beauty doth he give\n  And found it in thy cheek: he can afford\n  No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.\n    Then thank him not for that which he doth say,\n    Since what he owes thee, thou thy self dost pay.\n\n\n                     80\n  O how I faint when I of you do write,\n  Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,\n  And in the praise thereof spends all his might,\n  To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.\n  But since your worth (wide as the ocean is)\n  The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,\n  My saucy bark (inferior far to his)\n  On your broad main doth wilfully appear.\n  Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,\n  Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride,\n  Or (being wrecked) I am a worthless boat,\n  He of tall building, and of goodly pride.\n    Then if he thrive and I be cast away,\n    The worst was this, my love was my decay.\n\n\n                     81\n  Or I shall live your epitaph to make,\n  Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,\n  From hence your memory death cannot take,\n  Although in me each part will be forgotten.\n  Your name from hence immortal life shall have,\n  Though I (once gone) to all the world must die,\n  The earth can yield me but a common grave,\n  When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie,\n  Your monument shall be my gentle verse,\n  Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,\n  And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,\n  When all the breathers of this world are dead,\n    You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen)\n    Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.\n\n\n                     82\n  I grant thou wert not married to my muse,\n  And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook\n  The dedicated words which writers use\n  Of their fair subject, blessing every book.\n  Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,\n  Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,\n  And therefore art enforced to seek anew,\n  Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.\n  And do so love, yet when they have devised,\n  What strained touches rhetoric can lend,\n  Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathized,\n  In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend.\n    And their gross painting might be better used,\n    Where cheeks need blood, in thee it is abused.\n\n\n                     83\n  I never saw that you did painting need,\n  And therefore to your fair no painting set,\n  I found (or thought I found) you did exceed,\n  That barren tender of a poet's debt:\n  And therefore have I slept in your report,\n  That you your self being extant well might show,\n  How far a modern quill doth come too short,\n  Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.\n  This silence for my sin you did impute,\n  Which shall be most my glory being dumb,\n  For I impair not beauty being mute,\n  When others would give life, and bring a tomb.\n    There lives more life in one of your fair eyes,\n    Than both your poets can in praise devise.\n\n\n                     84\n  Who is it that says most, which can say more,\n  Than this rich praise, that you alone, are you?\n  In whose confine immured is the store,\n  Which should example where your equal grew.\n  Lean penury within that pen doth dwell,\n  That to his subject lends not some small glory,\n  But he that writes of you, if he can tell,\n  That you are you, so dignifies his story.\n  Let him but copy what in you is writ,\n  Not making worse what nature made so clear,\n  And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,\n  Making his style admired every where.\n    You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,\n    Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.\n\n\n                     85\n  My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still,\n  While comments of your praise richly compiled,\n  Reserve their character with golden quill,\n  And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.\n  I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words,\n  And like unlettered clerk still cry Amen,\n  To every hymn that able spirit affords,\n  In polished form of well refined pen.\n  Hearing you praised, I say 'tis so, 'tis true,\n  And to the most of praise add something more,\n  But that is in my thought, whose love to you\n  (Though words come hindmost) holds his rank before,\n    Then others, for the breath of words respect,\n    Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.\n\n\n                     86\n  Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,\n  Bound for the prize of (all too precious) you,\n  That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,\n  Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?\n  Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,\n  Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?\n  No, neither he, nor his compeers by night\n  Giving him aid, my verse astonished.\n  He nor that affable familiar ghost\n  Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,\n  As victors of my silence cannot boast,\n  I was not sick of any fear from thence.\n    But when your countenance filled up his line,\n    Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine.\n\n\n                     87\n  Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,\n  And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,\n  The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing:\n  My bonds in thee are all determinate.\n  For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,\n  And for that riches where is my deserving?\n  The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,\n  And so my patent back again is swerving.\n  Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,\n  Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking,\n  So thy great gift upon misprision growing,\n  Comes home again, on better judgement making.\n    Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,\n    In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.\n\n\n                     88\n  When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,\n  And place my merit in the eye of scorn,\n  Upon thy side, against my self I'll fight,\n  And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn:\n  With mine own weakness being best acquainted,\n  Upon thy part I can set down a story\n  Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted:\n  That thou in losing me, shalt win much glory:\n  And I by this will be a gainer too,\n  For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,\n  The injuries that to my self I do,\n  Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.\n    Such is my love, to thee I so belong,\n    That for thy right, my self will bear all wrong.\n\n\n                     89\n  Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,\n  And I will comment upon that offence,\n  Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt:\n  Against thy reasons making no defence.\n  Thou canst not (love) disgrace me half so ill,\n  To set a form upon desired change,\n  As I'll my self disgrace, knowing thy will,\n  I will acquaintance strangle and look strange:\n  Be absent from thy walks and in my tongue,\n  Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,\n  Lest I (too much profane) should do it wronk:\n  And haply of our old acquaintance tell.\n    For thee, against my self I'll vow debate,\n    For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.\n\n\n                     90\n  Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,\n  Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross,\n  join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,\n  And do not drop in for an after-loss:\n  Ah do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow,\n  Come in the rearward of a conquered woe,\n  Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,\n  To linger out a purposed overthrow.\n  If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,\n  When other petty griefs have done their spite,\n  But in the onset come, so shall I taste\n  At first the very worst of fortune's might.\n    And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,\n    Compared with loss of thee, will not seem so.\n\n\n                     91\n  Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,\n  Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,\n  Some in their garments though new-fangled ill:\n  Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse.\n  And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,\n  Wherein it finds a joy above the rest,\n  But these particulars are not my measure,\n  All these I better in one general best.\n  Thy love is better than high birth to me,\n  Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' costs,\n  Of more delight than hawks and horses be:\n  And having thee, of all men's pride I boast.\n    Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take,\n    All this away, and me most wretchcd make.\n\n\n                     92\n  But do thy worst to steal thy self away,\n  For term of life thou art assured mine,\n  And life no longer than thy love will stay,\n  For it depends upon that love of thine.\n  Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,\n  When in the least of them my life hath end,\n  I see, a better state to me belongs\n  Than that, which on thy humour doth depend.\n  Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,\n  Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie,\n  O what a happy title do I find,\n  Happy to have thy love, happy to die!\n    But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot?\n    Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.\n\n\n                     93\n  So shall I live, supposing thou art true,\n  Like a deceived husband, so love's face,\n  May still seem love to me, though altered new:\n  Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place.\n  For there can live no hatred in thine eye,\n  Therefore in that I cannot know thy change,\n  In many's looks, the false heart's history\n  Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange.\n  But heaven in thy creation did decree,\n  That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell,\n  Whate'er thy thoughts, or thy heart's workings be,\n  Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.\n    How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,\n    If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show.\n\n\n                     94\n  They that have power to hurt, and will do none,\n  That do not do the thing, they most do show,\n  Who moving others, are themselves as stone,\n  Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:\n  They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,\n  And husband nature's riches from expense,\n  Tibey are the lords and owners of their faces,\n  Others, but stewards of their excellence:\n  The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,\n  Though to it self, it only live and die,\n  But if that flower with base infection meet,\n  The basest weed outbraves his dignity:\n    For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds,\n    Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.\n\n\n                     95\n  How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame,\n  Which like a canker in the fragrant rose,\n  Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!\n  O in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!\n  That tongue that tells the story of thy days,\n  (Making lascivious comments on thy sport)\n  Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise,\n  Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.\n  O what a mansion have those vices got,\n  Which for their habitation chose out thee,\n  Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot,\n  And all things turns to fair, that eyes can see!\n    Take heed (dear heart) of this large privilege,\n    The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.\n\n\n                     96\n  Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,\n  Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport,\n  Both grace and faults are loved of more and less:\n  Thou mak'st faults graces, that to thee resort:\n  As on the finger of a throned queen,\n  The basest jewel will be well esteemed:\n  So are those errors that in thee are seen,\n  To truths translated, and for true things deemed.\n  How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,\n  If like a lamb he could his looks translate!\n  How many gazers mightst thou lead away,\n  if thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!\n    But do not so, I love thee in such sort,\n    As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.\n\n\n                     97\n  How like a winter hath my absence been\n  From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!\n  What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!\n  What old December's bareness everywhere!\n  And yet this time removed was summer's time,\n  The teeming autumn big with rich increase,\n  Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,\n  Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease:\n  Yet this abundant issue seemed to me\n  But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit,\n  For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,\n  And thou away, the very birds are mute.\n    Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,\n    That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.\n\n\n                     98\n  From you have I been absent in the spring,\n  When proud-pied April (dressed in all his trim)\n  Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing:\n  That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.\n  Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell\n  Of different flowers in odour and in hue,\n  Could make me any summer's story tell:\n  Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:\n  Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,\n  Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose,\n  They were but sweet, but figures of delight:\n  Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.\n    Yet seemed it winter still, and you away,\n    As with your shadow I with these did play.\n\n\n                     99\n  The forward violet thus did I chide,\n  Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,\n  If not from my love's breath? The purple pride\n  Which on thy soft check for complexion dwells,\n  In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.\n  The lily I condemned for thy hand,\n  And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair,\n  The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,\n  One blushing shame, another white despair:\n  A third nor red, nor white, had stol'n of both,\n  And to his robbery had annexed thy breath,\n  But for his theft in pride of all his growth\n  A vengeful canker eat him up to death.\n    More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,\n    But sweet, or colour it had stol'n from thee.\n\n\n                     100\n  Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,\n  To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?\n  Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,\n  Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?\n  Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,\n  In gentle numbers time so idly spent,\n  Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,\n  And gives thy pen both skill and argument.\n  Rise resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,\n  If time have any wrinkle graven there,\n  If any, be a satire to decay,\n  And make time's spoils despised everywhere.\n    Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,\n    So thou prevent'st his scythe, and crooked knife.\n\n\n                     101\n  O truant Muse what shall be thy amends,\n  For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?\n  Both truth and beauty on my love depends:\n  So dost thou too, and therein dignified:\n  Make answer Muse, wilt thou not haply say,\n  'Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed,\n  Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay:\n  But best is best, if never intermixed'?\n  Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?\n  Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee,\n  To make him much outlive a gilded tomb:\n  And to be praised of ages yet to be.\n    Then do thy office Muse, I teach thee how,\n    To make him seem long hence, as he shows now.\n\n\n                     102\n  My love is strengthened though more weak in seeming,\n  I love not less, though less the show appear,\n  That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming,\n  The owner's tongue doth publish every where.\n  Our love was new, and then but in the spring,\n  When I was wont to greet it with my lays,\n  As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,\n  And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:\n  Not that the summer is less pleasant now\n  Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,\n  But that wild music burthens every bough,\n  And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.\n    Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:\n    Because I would not dull you with my song.\n\n\n                     103\n  Alack what poverty my muse brings forth,\n  That having such a scope to show her pride,\n  The argument all bare is of more worth\n  Than when it hath my added praise beside.\n  O blame me not if I no more can write!\n  Look in your glass and there appears a face,\n  That over-goes my blunt invention quite,\n  Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.\n  Were it not sinful then striving to mend,\n  To mar the subject that before was well?\n  For to no other pass my verses tend,\n  Than of your graces and your gifts to tell.\n    And more, much more than in my verse can sit,\n    Your own glass shows you, when you look in it.\n\n\n                     104\n  To me fair friend you never can be old,\n  For as you were when first your eye I eyed,\n  Such seems your beauty still: three winters cold,\n  Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,\n  Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned,\n  In process of the seasons have I seen,\n  Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,\n  Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.\n  Ah yet doth beauty like a dial hand,\n  Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived,\n  So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand\n  Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.\n    For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred,\n    Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.\n\n\n                     105\n  Let not my love be called idolatry,\n  Nor my beloved as an idol show,\n  Since all alike my songs and praises be\n  To one, of one, still such, and ever so.\n  Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,\n  Still constant in a wondrous excellence,\n  Therefore my verse to constancy confined,\n  One thing expressing, leaves out difference.\n  Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,\n  Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words,\n  And in this change is my invention spent,\n  Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.\n    Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone.\n    Which three till now, never kept seat in one.\n\n\n                     106\n  When in the chronicle of wasted time,\n  I see descriptions of the fairest wights,\n  And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,\n  In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights,\n  Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,\n  Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,\n  I see their antique pen would have expressed,\n  Even such a beauty as you master now.\n  So all their praises are but prophecies\n  Of this our time, all you prefiguring,\n  And for they looked but with divining eyes,\n  They had not skill enough your worth to sing:\n    For we which now behold these present days,\n    Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.\n\n\n                     107\n  Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul,\n  Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,\n  Can yet the lease of my true love control,\n  Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.\n  The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,\n  And the sad augurs mock their own presage,\n  Incertainties now crown themselves assured,\n  And peace proclaims olives of endless age.\n  Now with the drops of this most balmy time,\n  My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,\n  Since spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme,\n  While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes.\n    And thou in this shalt find thy monument,\n    When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.\n\n\n                     108\n  What's in the brain that ink may character,\n  Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit,\n  What's new to speak, what now to register,\n  That may express my love, or thy dear merit?\n  Nothing sweet boy, but yet like prayers divine,\n  I must each day say o'er the very same,\n  Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,\n  Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name.\n  So that eternal love in love's fresh case,\n  Weighs not the dust and injury of age,\n  Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,\n  But makes antiquity for aye his page,\n    Finding the first conceit of love there bred,\n    Where time and outward form would show it dead.\n\n\n                     109\n  O never say that I was false of heart,\n  Though absence seemed my flame to qualify,\n  As easy might I from my self depart,\n  As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:\n  That is my home of love, if I have ranged,\n  Like him that travels I return again,\n  Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,\n  So that my self bring water for my stain,\n  Never believe though in my nature reigned,\n  All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,\n  That it could so preposterously be stained,\n  To leave for nothing all thy sum of good:\n    For nothing this wide universe I call,\n    Save thou my rose, in it thou art my all.\n\n\n                     110\n  Alas 'tis true, I have gone here and there,\n  And made my self a motley to the view,\n  Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,\n  Made old offences of affections new.\n  Most true it is, that I have looked on truth\n  Askance and strangely: but by all above,\n  These blenches gave my heart another youth,\n  And worse essays proved thee my best of love.\n  Now all is done, have what shall have no end,\n  Mine appetite I never more will grind\n  On newer proof, to try an older friend,\n  A god in love, to whom I am confined.\n    Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,\n    Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.\n\n\n                     111\n  O for my sake do you with Fortune chide,\n  The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,\n  That did not better for my life provide,\n  Than public means which public manners breeds.\n  Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,\n  And almost thence my nature is subdued\n  To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:\n  Pity me then, and wish I were renewed,\n  Whilst like a willing patient I will drink,\n  Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection,\n  No bitterness that I will bitter think,\n  Nor double penance to correct correction.\n    Pity me then dear friend, and I assure ye,\n    Even that your pity is enough to cure me.\n\n\n                     112\n  Your love and pity doth th' impression fill,\n  Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow,\n  For what care I who calls me well or ill,\n  So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?\n  You are my all the world, and I must strive,\n  To know my shames and praises from your tongue,\n  None else to me, nor I to none alive,\n  That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.\n  In so profound abysm I throw all care\n  Of others' voices, that my adder's sense,\n  To critic and to flatterer stopped are:\n  Mark how with my neglect I do dispense.\n    You are so strongly in my purpose bred,\n    That all the world besides methinks are dead.\n\n\n                     113\n  Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,\n  And that which governs me to go about,\n  Doth part his function, and is partly blind,\n  Seems seeing, but effectually is out:\n  For it no form delivers to the heart\n  Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch,\n  Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,\n  Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:\n  For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,\n  The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,\n  The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night:\n  The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.\n    Incapable of more, replete with you,\n    My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.\n\n\n                     114\n  Or whether doth my mind being crowned with you\n  Drink up the monarch's plague this flattery?\n  Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,\n  And that your love taught it this alchemy?\n  To make of monsters, and things indigest,\n  Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,\n  Creating every bad a perfect best\n  As fast as objects to his beams assemble:\n  O 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,\n  And my great mind most kingly drinks it up,\n  Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,\n  And to his palate doth prepare the cup.\n    If it be poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin,\n    That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.\n\n\n                     115\n  Those lines that I before have writ do lie,\n  Even those that said I could not love you dearer,\n  Yet then my judgment knew no reason why,\n  My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer,\n  But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents\n  Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,\n  Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,\n  Divert strong minds to the course of alt'ring things:\n  Alas why fearing of time's tyranny,\n  Might I not then say 'Now I love you best,'\n  When I was certain o'er incertainty,\n  Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?\n    Love is a babe, then might I not say so\n    To give full growth to that which still doth grow.\n\n\n                     116\n  Let me not to the marriage of true minds\n  Admit impediments, love is not love\n  Which alters when it alteration finds,\n  Or bends with the remover to remove.\n  O no, it is an ever-fixed mark\n  That looks on tempests and is never shaken;\n  It is the star to every wand'ring bark,\n  Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.\n  Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks\n  Within his bending sickle's compass come,\n  Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,\n  But bears it out even to the edge of doom:\n    If this be error and upon me proved,\n    I never writ, nor no man ever loved.\n\n\n                     117\n  Accuse me thus, that I have scanted all,\n  Wherein I should your great deserts repay,\n  Forgot upon your dearest love to call,\n  Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day,\n  That I have frequent been with unknown minds,\n  And given to time your own dear-purchased right,\n  That I have hoisted sail to all the winds\n  Which should transport me farthest from your sight.\n  Book both my wilfulness and errors down,\n  And on just proof surmise, accumulate,\n  Bring me within the level of your frown,\n  But shoot not at me in your wakened hate:\n    Since my appeal says I did strive to prove\n    The constancy and virtue of your love.\n\n\n                     118\n  Like as to make our appetite more keen\n  With eager compounds we our palate urge,\n  As to prevent our maladies unseen,\n  We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.\n  Even so being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,\n  To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;\n  And sick of welfare found a kind of meetness,\n  To be diseased ere that there was true needing.\n  Thus policy in love t' anticipate\n  The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,\n  And brought to medicine a healthful state\n  Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured.\n    But thence I learn and find the lesson true,\n    Drugs poison him that so feil sick of you.\n\n\n                     119\n  What potions have I drunk of Siren tears\n  Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,\n  Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,\n  Still losing when I saw my self to win!\n  What wretched errors hath my heart committed,\n  Whilst it hath thought it self so blessed never!\n  How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted\n  In the distraction of this madding fever!\n  O benefit of ill, now I find true\n  That better is, by evil still made better.\n  And ruined love when it is built anew\n  Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.\n    So I return rebuked to my content,\n    And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.\n\n\n                     120\n  That you were once unkind befriends me now,\n  And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,\n  Needs must I under my transgression bow,\n  Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.\n  For if you were by my unkindness shaken\n  As I by yours, y'have passed a hell of time,\n  And I a tyrant have no leisure taken\n  To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.\n  O that our night of woe might have remembered\n  My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,\n  And soon to you, as you to me then tendered\n  The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!\n    But that your trespass now becomes a fee,\n    Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.\n\n\n                     121\n  'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,\n  When not to be, receives reproach of being,\n  And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed,\n  Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.\n  For why should others' false adulterate eyes\n  Give salutation to my sportive blood?\n  Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,\n  Which in their wills count bad what I think good?\n  No, I am that I am, and they that level\n  At my abuses, reckon up their own,\n  I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;\n  By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown\n    Unless this general evil they maintain,\n    All men are bad and in their badness reign.\n\n\n                     122\n  Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain\n  Full charactered with lasting memory,\n  Which shall above that idle rank remain\n  Beyond all date even to eternity.\n  Or at the least, so long as brain and heart\n  Have faculty by nature to subsist,\n  Till each to razed oblivion yield his part\n  Of thee, thy record never can be missed:\n  That poor retention could not so much hold,\n  Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score,\n  Therefore to give them from me was I bold,\n  To trust those tables that receive thee more:\n    To keep an adjunct to remember thee\n    Were to import forgetfulness in me.\n\n\n                     123\n  No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change,\n  Thy pyramids built up with newer might\n  To me are nothing novel, nothing strange,\n  They are but dressings Of a former sight:\n  Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire,\n  What thou dost foist upon us that is old,\n  And rather make them born to our desire,\n  Than think that we before have heard them told:\n  Thy registers and thee I both defy,\n  Not wond'ring at the present, nor the past,\n  For thy records, and what we see doth lie,\n  Made more or less by thy continual haste:\n    This I do vow and this shall ever be,\n    I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.\n\n\n                     124\n  If my dear love were but the child of state,\n  It might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered,\n  As subject to time's love or to time's hate,\n  Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.\n  No it was builded far from accident,\n  It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls\n  Under the blow of thralled discontent,\n  Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:\n  It fears not policy that heretic,\n  Which works on leases of short-numbered hours,\n  But all alone stands hugely politic,\n  That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.\n    To this I witness call the fools of time,\n    Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.\n\n\n                     125\n  Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,\n  With my extern the outward honouring,\n  Or laid great bases for eternity,\n  Which proves more short than waste or ruining?\n  Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour\n  Lose all, and more by paying too much rent\n  For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,\n  Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent?\n  No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,\n  And take thou my oblation, poor but free,\n  Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,\n  But mutual render, only me for thee.\n    Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul\n    When most impeached, stands least in thy control.\n\n\n                     126\n  O thou my lovely boy who in thy power,\n  Dost hold Time's fickle glass his fickle hour:\n  Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st,\n  Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.\n  If Nature (sovereign mistress over wrack)\n  As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,\n  She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill\n  May time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill.\n  Yet fear her O thou minion of her pleasure,\n  She may detain, but not still keep her treasure!\n    Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,\n    And her quietus is to render thee.\n\n\n                     127\n  In the old age black was not counted fair,\n  Or if it were it bore not beauty's name:\n  But now is black beauty's successive heir,\n  And beauty slandered with a bastard shame,\n  For since each hand hath put on nature's power,\n  Fairing the foul with art's false borrowed face,\n  Sweet beauty hath no name no holy bower,\n  But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.\n  Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,\n  Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem,\n  At such who not born fair no beauty lack,\n  Slandering creation with a false esteem,\n    Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,\n    That every tongue says beauty should look so.\n\n\n                     128\n  How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,\n  Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds\n  With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st\n  The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,\n  Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,\n  To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,\n  Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,\n  At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand.\n  To be so tickled they would change their state\n  And situation with those dancing chips,\n  O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,\n  Making dead wood more blest than living lips,\n    Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,\n    Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.\n\n\n                     129\n  Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame\n  Is lust in action, and till action, lust\n  Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody full of blame,\n  Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,\n  Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight,\n  Past reason hunted, and no sooner had\n  Past reason hated as a swallowed bait,\n  On purpose laid to make the taker mad.\n  Mad in pursuit and in possession so,\n  Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme,\n  A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe,\n  Before a joy proposed behind a dream.\n    All this the world well knows yet none knows well,\n    To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.\n\n\n                     130\n  My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,\n  Coral is far more red, than her lips red,\n  If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun:\n  If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:\n  I have seen roses damasked, red and white,\n  But no such roses see I in her cheeks,\n  And in some perfumes is there more delight,\n  Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.\n  I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,\n  That music hath a far more pleasing sound:\n  I grant I never saw a goddess go,\n  My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.\n    And yet by heaven I think my love as rare,\n    As any she belied with false compare.\n\n\n                     131\n  Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,\n  As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;\n  For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart\n  Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.\n  Yet in good faith some say that thee behold,\n  Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;\n  To say they err, I dare not be so bold,\n  Although I swear it to my self alone.\n  And to be sure that is not false I swear,\n  A thousand groans but thinking on thy face,\n  One on another's neck do witness bear\n  Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.\n    In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,\n    And thence this slander as I think proceeds.\n\n\n                     132\n  Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me,\n  Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,\n  Have put on black, and loving mourners be,\n  Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.\n  And truly not the morning sun of heaven\n  Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,\n  Nor that full star that ushers in the even\n  Doth half that glory to the sober west\n  As those two mourning eyes become thy face:\n  O let it then as well beseem thy heart\n  To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,\n  And suit thy pity like in every part.\n    Then will I swear beauty herself is black,\n    And all they foul that thy complexion lack.\n\n\n                     133\n  Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan\n  For that deep wound it gives my friend and me;\n  Is't not enough to torture me alone,\n  But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?\n  Me from my self thy cruel eye hath taken,\n  And my next self thou harder hast engrossed,\n  Of him, my self, and thee I am forsaken,\n  A torment thrice three-fold thus to be crossed:\n  Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward,\n  But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail,\n  Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard,\n  Thou canst not then use rigour in my gaol.\n    And yet thou wilt, for I being pent in thee,\n    Perforce am thine and all that is in me.\n\n\n                     134\n  So now I have confessed that he is thine,\n  And I my self am mortgaged to thy will,\n  My self I'll forfeit, so that other mine,\n  Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:\n  But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,\n  For thou art covetous, and he is kind,\n  He learned but surety-like to write for me,\n  Under that bond that him as fist doth bind.\n  The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,\n  Thou usurer that put'st forth all to use,\n  And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake,\n  So him I lose through my unkind abuse.\n    Him have I lost, thou hast both him and me,\n    He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.\n\n\n                     135\n  Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will,\n  And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in over-plus,\n  More than enough am I that vex thee still,\n  To thy sweet will making addition thus.\n  Wilt thou whose will is large and spacious,\n  Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?\n  Shall will in others seem right gracious,\n  And in my will no fair acceptance shine?\n  The sea all water, yet receives rain still,\n  And in abundance addeth to his store,\n  So thou being rich in will add to thy will\n  One will of mine to make thy large will more.\n    Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill,\n    Think all but one, and me in that one 'Will.'\n\n\n                     136\n  If thy soul check thee that I come so near,\n  Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will',\n  And will thy soul knows is admitted there,\n  Thus far for love, my love-suit sweet fulfil.\n  'Will', will fulfil the treasure of thy love,\n  Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one,\n  In things of great receipt with case we prove,\n  Among a number one is reckoned none.\n  Then in the number let me pass untold,\n  Though in thy store's account I one must be,\n  For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold,\n  That nothing me, a something sweet to thee.\n    Make but my name thy love, and love that still,\n    And then thou lov'st me for my name is Will.\n\n\n                     137\n  Thou blind fool Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,\n  That they behold and see not what they see?\n  They know what beauty is, see where it lies,\n  Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.\n  If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks,\n  Be anchored in the bay where all men ride,\n  Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,\n  Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?\n  Why should my heart think that a several plot,\n  Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?\n  Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not\n  To put fair truth upon so foul a face?\n    In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,\n    And to this false plague are they now transferred.\n\n\n                     138\n  When my love swears that she is made of truth,\n  I do believe her though I know she lies,\n  That she might think me some untutored youth,\n  Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.\n  Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,\n  Although she knows my days are past the best,\n  Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue,\n  On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:\n  But wherefore says she not she is unjust?\n  And wherefore say not I that I am old?\n  O love's best habit is in seeming trust,\n  And age in love, loves not to have years told.\n    Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,\n    And in our faults by lies we flattered be.\n\n\n                     139\n  O call not me to justify the wrong,\n  That thy unkindness lays upon my heart,\n  Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue,\n  Use power with power, and slay me not by art,\n  Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,\n  Dear heart forbear to glance thine eye aside,\n  What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might\n  Is more than my o'erpressed defence can bide?\n  Let me excuse thee, ah my love well knows,\n  Her pretty looks have been mine enemies,\n  And therefore from my face she turns my foes,\n  That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:\n    Yet do not so, but since I am near slain,\n    Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.\n\n\n                     140\n  Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press\n  My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain:\n  Lest sorrow lend me words and words express,\n  The manner of my pity-wanting pain.\n  If I might teach thee wit better it were,\n  Though not to love, yet love to tell me so,\n  As testy sick men when their deaths be near,\n  No news but health from their physicians know.\n  For if I should despair I should grow mad,\n  And in my madness might speak ill of thee,\n  Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,\n  Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.\n    That I may not be so, nor thou belied,\n    Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.\n\n\n                     141\n  In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,\n  For they in thee a thousand errors note,\n  But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,\n  Who in despite of view is pleased to dote.\n  Nor are mine cars with thy tongue's tune delighted,\n  Nor tender feeling to base touches prone,\n  Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited\n  To any sensual feast with thee alone:\n  But my five wits, nor my five senses can\n  Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,\n  Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,\n  Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:\n    Only my plague thus far I count my gain,\n    That she that makes me sin, awards me pain.\n\n\n                     142\n  Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,\n  Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving,\n  O but with mine, compare thou thine own state,\n  And thou shalt find it merits not reproving,\n  Or if it do, not from those lips of thine,\n  That have profaned their scarlet ornaments,\n  And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine,\n  Robbed others' beds' revenues of their rents.\n  Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov'st those,\n  Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee,\n  Root pity in thy heart that when it grows,\n  Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.\n    If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,\n    By self-example mayst thou be denied.\n\n\n                     143\n  Lo as a careful huswife runs to catch,\n  One of her feathered creatures broke away,\n  Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch\n  In pursuit of the thing she would have stay:\n  Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,\n  Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent,\n  To follow that which flies before her face:\n  Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;\n  So run'st thou after that which flies from thee,\n  Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind,\n  But if thou catch thy hope turn back to me:\n  And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind.\n    So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will,\n    If thou turn back and my loud crying still.\n\n\n                     144\n  Two loves I have of comfort and despair,\n  Which like two spirits do suggest me still,\n  The better angel is a man right fair:\n  The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.\n  To win me soon to hell my female evil,\n  Tempteth my better angel from my side,\n  And would corrupt my saint to be a devil:\n  Wooing his purity with her foul pride.\n  And whether that my angel be turned fiend,\n  Suspect I may, yet not directly tell,\n  But being both from me both to each friend,\n  I guess one angel in another's hell.\n    Yet this shall I ne'er know but live in doubt,\n    Till my bad angel fire my good one out.\n\n\n                     145\n  Those lips that Love's own hand did make,\n  Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate',\n  To me that languished for her sake:\n  But when she saw my woeful state,\n  Straight in her heart did mercy come,\n  Chiding that tongue that ever sweet,\n  Was used in giving gentle doom:\n  And taught it thus anew to greet:\n  'I hate' she altered with an end,\n  That followed it as gentle day,\n  Doth follow night who like a fiend\n  From heaven to hell is flown away.\n    'I hate', from hate away she threw,\n    And saved my life saying 'not you'.\n\n\n                     146\n  Poor soul the centre of my sinful earth,\n  My sinful earth these rebel powers array,\n  Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth\n  Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?\n  Why so large cost having so short a lease,\n  Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?\n  Shall worms inheritors of this excess\n  Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?\n  Then soul live thou upon thy servant's loss,\n  And let that pine to aggravate thy store;\n  Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;\n  Within be fed, without be rich no more,\n    So shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men,\n    And death once dead, there's no more dying then.\n\n\n                     147\n  My love is as a fever longing still,\n  For that which longer nurseth the disease,\n  Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,\n  Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please:\n  My reason the physician to my love,\n  Angry that his prescriptions are not kept\n  Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,\n  Desire is death, which physic did except.\n  Past cure I am, now reason is past care,\n  And frantic-mad with evermore unrest,\n  My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are,\n  At random from the truth vainly expressed.\n    For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,\n    Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.\n\n\n                     148\n  O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,\n  Which have no correspondence with true sight,\n  Or if they have, where is my judgment fled,\n  That censures falsely what they see aright?\n  If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,\n  What means the world to say it is not so?\n  If it be not, then love doth well denote,\n  Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,\n  How can it? O how can love's eye be true,\n  That is so vexed with watching and with tears?\n  No marvel then though I mistake my view,\n  The sun it self sees not, till heaven clears.\n    O cunning love, with tears thou keep'st me blind,\n    Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.\n\n\n                     149\n  Canst thou O cruel, say I love thee not,\n  When I against my self with thee partake?\n  Do I not think on thee when I forgot\n  Am of my self, all-tyrant, for thy sake?\n  Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,\n  On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon,\n  Nay if thou lour'st on me do I not spend\n  Revenge upon my self with present moan?\n  What merit do I in my self respect,\n  That is so proud thy service to despise,\n  When all my best doth worship thy defect,\n  Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?\n    But love hate on for now I know thy mind,\n    Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.\n\n\n                     150\n  O from what power hast thou this powerful might,\n  With insufficiency my heart to sway,\n  To make me give the lie to my true sight,\n  And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?\n  Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,\n  That in the very refuse of thy deeds,\n  There is such strength and warrantise of skill,\n  That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?\n  Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,\n  The more I hear and see just cause of hate?\n  O though I love what others do abhor,\n  With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.\n    If thy unworthiness raised love in me,\n    More worthy I to be beloved of thee.\n\n\n                     151\n  Love is too young to know what conscience is,\n  Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?\n  Then gentle cheater urge not my amiss,\n  Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.\n  For thou betraying me, I do betray\n  My nobler part to my gross body's treason,\n  My soul doth tell my body that he may,\n  Triumph in love, flesh stays no farther reason,\n  But rising at thy name doth point out thee,\n  As his triumphant prize, proud of this pride,\n  He is contented thy poor drudge to be,\n  To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.\n    No want of conscience hold it that I call,\n    Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.\n\n\n                     152\n  In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,\n  But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing,\n  In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,\n  In vowing new hate after new love bearing:\n  But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,\n  When I break twenty? I am perjured most,\n  For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee:\n  And all my honest faith in thee is lost.\n  For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness:\n  Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy,\n  And to enlighten thee gave eyes to blindness,\n  Or made them swear against the thing they see.\n    For I have sworn thee fair: more perjured I,\n    To swear against the truth so foul a be.\n\n\n                     153\n  Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep,\n  A maid of Dian's this advantage found,\n  And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep\n  In a cold valley-fountain of that ground:\n  Which borrowed from this holy fire of Love,\n  A dateless lively heat still to endure,\n  And grew a seeting bath which yet men prove,\n  Against strange maladies a sovereign cure:\n  But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,\n  The boy for trial needs would touch my breast,\n  I sick withal the help of bath desired,\n  And thither hied a sad distempered guest.\n    But found no cure, the bath for my help lies,\n    Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes.\n\n\n                     154\n  The little Love-god lying once asleep,\n  Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,\n  Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep,\n  Came tripping by, but in her maiden hand,\n  The fairest votary took up that fire,\n  Which many legions of true hearts had warmed,\n  And so the general of hot desire,\n  Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarmed.\n  This brand she quenched in a cool well by,\n  Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,\n  Growing a bath and healthful remedy,\n  For men discased, but I my mistress' thrall,\n    Came there for cure and this by that I prove,\n    Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1603\n\nALLS WELL THAT ENDS WELL\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  KING OF FRANCE\n  THE DUKE OF FLORENCE\n  BERTRAM, Count of Rousillon\n  LAFEU, an old lord\n  PAROLLES, a follower of Bertram\n  TWO FRENCH LORDS, serving with Bertram\n\n  STEWARD, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon\n  LAVACHE, a clown and Servant to the Countess of Rousillon\n  A PAGE, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon\n\n  COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, mother to Bertram\n  HELENA, a gentlewoman protected by the Countess\n  A WIDOW OF FLORENCE.\n  DIANA, daughter to the Widow\n\n\n  VIOLENTA, neighbour and friend to the Widow\n  MARIANA, neighbour and friend to the Widow\n\n  Lords, Officers, Soldiers, etc., French and Florentine\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nRousillon; Paris; Florence; Marseilles\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1.\nRousillon. The COUNT'S palace\n\nEnter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, HELENA, and LAFEU, all in black\n\n  COUNTESS. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.\n  BERTRAM. And I in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew;\n    but I must attend his Majesty's command, to whom I am now in\n    ward, evermore in subjection.\n  LAFEU. You shall find of the King a husband, madam; you, sir, a\n    father. He that so generally is at all times good must of\n    necessity hold his virtue to you, whose worthiness would stir it\n    up where it wanted, rather than lack it where there is such\n    abundance.\n  COUNTESS. What hope is there of his Majesty's amendment?\n  LAFEU. He hath abandon'd his physicians, madam; under whose\n    practices he hath persecuted time with hope, and finds no other\n    advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time.\n  COUNTESS. This young gentlewoman had a father- O, that 'had,' how\n    sad a passage 'tis!-whose skill was almost as great as his\n    honesty; had it stretch'd so far, would have made nature\n    immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. Would, for\n    the King's sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of\n    the King's disease.\n  LAFEU. How call'd you the man you speak of, madam?\n  COUNTESS. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his\n    great right to be so- Gerard de Narbon.\n  LAFEU. He was excellent indeed, madam; the King very lately spoke\n    of him admiringly and mourningly; he was skilful enough to have\n    liv'd still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.\n  BERTRAM. What is it, my good lord, the King languishes of?\n  LAFEU. A fistula, my lord.\n  BERTRAM. I heard not of it before.\n  LAFEU. I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman the\n    daughter of Gerard de Narbon?\n  COUNTESS. His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my\n    overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that her education\n    promises; her dispositions she inherits, which makes fair gifts\n    fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities,\n    there commendations go with pity-they are virtues and traitors\n    too. In her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives\n    her honesty, and achieves her goodness.\n  LAFEU. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.\n  COUNTESS. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in.\n    The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart but the\n    tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek. No\n    more of this, Helena; go to, no more, lest it be rather thought\n    you affect a sorrow than to have-\n  HELENA. I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.\n  LAFEU. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead: excessive\n    grief the enemy to the living.\n  COUNTESS. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it\n    soon mortal.\n  BERTRAM. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.\n  LAFEU. How understand we that?\n  COUNTESS. Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father\n    In manners, as in shape! Thy blood and virtue\n    Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness\n    Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,\n    Do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy\n    Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend\n    Under thy own life's key; be check'd for silence,\n    But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,\n    That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,\n    Fall on thy head! Farewell. My lord,\n    'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,\n    Advise him.\n  LAFEU. He cannot want the best\n    That shall attend his love.\n  COUNTESS. Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.            Exit\n  BERTRAM. The best wishes that can be forg'd in your thoughts be\n    servants to you!  [To HELENA]  Be comfortable to my mother, your\n    mistress, and make much of her.\n  LAFEU. Farewell, pretty lady; you must hold the credit of your\n    father.                             Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU\n  HELENA. O, were that all! I think not on my father;\n    And these great tears grace his remembrance more\n    Than those I shed for him. What was he like?\n    I have forgot him; my imagination\n    Carries no favour in't but Bertram's.\n    I am undone; there is no living, none,\n    If Bertram be away. 'Twere all one\n    That I should love a bright particular star\n    And think to wed it, he is so above me.\n    In his bright radiance and collateral light\n    Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.\n    Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itself:\n    The hind that would be mated by the lion\n    Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague,\n    To see him every hour; to sit and draw\n    His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,\n    In our heart's table-heart too capable\n    Of every line and trick of his sweet favour.\n    But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy\n    Must sanctify his relics. Who comes here?\n\n                       Enter PAROLLES\n\n    [Aside]  One that goes with him. I love him for his sake;\n    And yet I know him a notorious liar,\n    Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;\n    Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him\n    That they take place when virtue's steely bones\n    Looks bleak i' th' cold wind; withal, full oft we see\n    Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.\n  PAROLLES. Save you, fair queen!\n  HELENA. And you, monarch!\n  PAROLLES. No.\n  HELENA. And no.\n  PAROLLES. Are you meditating on virginity?\n  HELENA. Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you; let me ask you a\n    question. Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it\n    against him?\n  PAROLLES. Keep him out.\n  HELENA. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the\n    defence, yet is weak. Unfold to us some warlike resistance.\n  PAROLLES. There is none. Man, setting down before you, will\n    undermine you and blow you up.\n  HELENA. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers-up!\n    Is there no military policy how virgins might blow up men?\n  PAROLLES. Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown\n    up; marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves\n     made, you lose your city. It is not politic in the commonwealth\n    of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational\n    increase; and there was never virgin got till virginity was first\n    lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity\n    by being once lost may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it\n    is ever lost. 'Tis too cold a companion; away with't.\n  HELENA. I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a\n    virgin.\n  PAROLLES. There's little can be said in 't; 'tis against the rule\n    of nature. To speak on the part of virginity is to accuse your\n    mothers; which is most infallible disobedience. He that hangs\n    himself is a virgin; virginity murders itself, and should be\n    buried in highways, out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate\n    offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a\n    cheese; consumes itself to the very paring, and so dies with\n    feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud,\n    idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the\n    canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but lose by't. Out with't.\n    Within ten year it will make itself ten, which is a goodly\n    increase; and the principal itself not much the worse. Away\n    with't.\n  HELENA. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?\n  PAROLLES. Let me see. Marry, ill to like him that ne'er it likes.\n    'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with lying; the longer kept,\n    the less worth. Off with't while 'tis vendible; answer the time\n    of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of\n    fashion, richly suited but unsuitable; just like the brooch and\n    the toothpick, which wear not now. Your date is better in your\n    pie and your porridge than in your cheek. And your virginity,\n    your old virginity, is like one of our French wither'd pears: it\n    looks ill, it eats drily; marry, 'tis a wither'd pear; it was\n    formerly better; marry, yet 'tis a wither'd pear. Will you\n    anything with it?\n  HELENA. Not my virginity yet.\n    There shall your master have a thousand loves,\n    A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,\n    A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,\n    A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,\n    A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;\n    His humble ambition, proud humility,\n    His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,\n    His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world\n    Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms\n    That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he-\n    I know not what he shall. God send him well!\n    The court's a learning-place, and he is one-\n  PAROLLES. What one, i' faith?\n  HELENA. That I wish well. 'Tis pity-\n  PAROLLES. What's pity?\n  HELENA. That wishing well had not a body in't\n    Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born,\n    Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,\n    Might with effects of them follow our friends\n    And show what we alone must think, which never\n    Returns us thanks.\n\n                      Enter PAGE\n\n  PAGE. Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.      Exit PAGE\n  PAROLLES. Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee, I will\n    think of thee at court.\n  HELENA. Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.\n  PAROLLES. Under Mars, I.\n  HELENA. I especially think, under Mars.\n  PAROLLES. Why under Man?\n  HELENA. The wars hath so kept you under that you must needs be born\n    under Mars.\n  PAROLLES. When he was predominant.\n  HELENA. When he was retrograde, I think, rather.\n  PAROLLES. Why think you so?\n  HELENA. You go so much backward when you fight.\n  PAROLLES. That's for advantage.\n  HELENA. So is running away, when fear proposes the safety: but the\n    composition that your valour and fear makes in you is a virtue of\n    a good wing, and I like the wear well.\n  PAROLLES. I am so full of business I cannot answer thee acutely. I\n    will return perfect courtier; in the which my instruction shall\n    serve to naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's\n    counsel, and understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else\n    thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes\n    thee away. Farewell. When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers;\n    when thou hast none, remember thy friends. Get thee a good\n    husband and use him as he uses thee. So, farewell.\n Exit\n  HELENA. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,\n    Which we ascribe to heaven. The fated sky\n    Gives us free scope; only doth backward pull\n    Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.\n    What power is it which mounts my love so high,\n    That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?\n    The mightiest space in fortune nature brings\n    To join like likes, and kiss like native things.\n    Impossible be strange attempts to those\n    That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose\n    What hath been cannot be. Who ever strove\n    To show her merit that did miss her love?\n    The King's disease-my project may deceive me,\n    But my intents are fix'd, and will not leave me.        Exit\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 2.\nParis. The KING'S palace\n\nFlourish of cornets. Enter the KING OF FRANCE, with letters,\nand divers ATTENDANTS\n\n  KING. The Florentines and Senoys are by th' ears;\n    Have fought with equal fortune, and continue\n    A braving war.\n  FIRST LORD. So 'tis reported, sir.\n  KING. Nay, 'tis most credible. We here receive it,\n    A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,\n    With caution, that the Florentine will move us\n    For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend\n    Prejudicates the business, and would seem\n    To have us make denial.\n  FIRST LORD. His love and wisdom,\n    Approv'd so to your Majesty, may plead\n    For amplest credence.\n  KING. He hath arm'd our answer,\n    And Florence is denied before he comes;\n    Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see\n    The Tuscan service, freely have they leave\n    To stand on either part.\n  SECOND LORD. It well may serve\n    A nursery to our gentry, who are sick\n    For breathing and exploit.\n  KING. What's he comes here?\n\n              Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES\n\n  FIRST LORD. It is the Count Rousillon, my good lord,\n    Young Bertram.\n  KING. Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face;\n    Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,\n    Hath well compos'd thee. Thy father's moral parts\n    Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.\n  BERTRAM. My thanks and duty are your Majesty's.\n  KING. I would I had that corporal soundness now,\n    As when thy father and myself in friendship\n    First tried our soldiership. He did look far\n    Into the service of the time, and was\n    Discipled of the bravest. He lasted long;\n    But on us both did haggish age steal on,\n    And wore us out of act. It much repairs me\n    To talk of your good father. In his youth\n    He had the wit which I can well observe\n    To-day in our young lords; but they may jest\n    Till their own scorn return to them unnoted\n    Ere they can hide their levity in honour.\n    So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness\n    Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,\n    His equal had awak'd them; and his honour,\n    Clock to itself, knew the true minute when\n    Exception bid him speak, and at this time\n    His tongue obey'd his hand. Who were below him\n    He us'd as creatures of another place;\n    And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,\n    Making them proud of his humility\n    In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man\n    Might be a copy to these younger times;\n    Which, followed well, would demonstrate them now\n    But goers backward.\n  BERTRAM. His good remembrance, sir,\n    Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb;\n    So in approof lives not his epitaph\n    As in your royal speech.\n  KING. Would I were with him! He would always say-\n    Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words\n    He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them\n    To grow there, and to bear- 'Let me not live'-\n    This his good melancholy oft began,\n    On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,\n    When it was out-'Let me not live' quoth he\n    'After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff\n    Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses\n    All but new things disdain; whose judgments are\n    Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies\n    Expire before their fashions.' This he wish'd.\n    I, after him, do after him wish too,\n    Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,\n    I quickly were dissolved from my hive,\n    To give some labourers room.\n  SECOND LORD. You're loved, sir;\n    They that least lend it you shall lack you first.\n  KING. I fill a place, I know't. How long is't, Count,\n    Since the physician at your father's died?\n    He was much fam'd.\n  BERTRAM. Some six months since, my lord.\n  KING. If he were living, I would try him yet-\n    Lend me an arm-the rest have worn me out\n    With several applications. Nature and sickness\n    Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, Count;\n    My son's no dearer.\n  BERTRAM. Thank your Majesty.                 Exeunt [Flourish]\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 3.\nRousillon. The COUNT'S palace\n\nEnter COUNTESS, STEWARD, and CLOWN\n\n  COUNTESS. I will now hear; what say you of this gentlewoman?\n  STEWARD. Madam, the care I have had to even your content I wish\n    might be found in the calendar of my past endeavours; for then we\n    wound our modesty, and make foul the clearness of our deservings,\n    when of ourselves we publish them.\n  COUNTESS. What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah. The\n    complaints I have heard of you I do not all believe; 'tis my\n    slowness that I do not, for I know you lack not folly to commit\n    them and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours.\n  CLOWN. 'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.\n  COUNTESS. Well, sir.\n  CLOWN. No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though many of\n    the rich are damn'd; but if I may have your ladyship's good will\n    to go to the world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may.\n  COUNTESS. Wilt thou needs be a beggar?\n  CLOWN. I do beg your good will in this case.\n  COUNTESS. In what case?\n  CLOWN. In Isbel's case and mine own. Service is no heritage; and I\n    think I shall never have the blessing of God till I have issue o'\n    my body; for they say bames are blessings.\n  COUNTESS. Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.\n  CLOWN. My poor body, madam, requires it. I am driven on by the\n    flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives.\n  COUNTESS. Is this all your worship's reason?\n  CLOWN. Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons, such as they are.\n  COUNTESS. May the world know them?\n  CLOWN. I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh\n    and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry that I may repent.\n  COUNTESS. Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness.\n  CLOWN. I am out o' friends, madam, and I hope to have friends for\n    my wife's sake.\n  COUNTESS. Such friends are thine enemies, knave.\n  CLOWN. Y'are shallow, madam-in great friends; for the knaves come\n    to do that for me which I am aweary of. He that ears my land\n    spares my team, and gives me leave to in the crop. If I be his\n    cuckold, he's my drudge. He that comforts my wife is the\n    cherisher of my flesh and blood; he that cherishes my flesh and\n    blood loves my flesh and blood; he that loves my flesh and blood\n    is my friend; ergo, he that kisses my wife is my friend. If men\n    could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in\n    marriage; for young Charbon the puritan and old Poysam the\n    papist, howsome'er their hearts are sever'd in religion, their\n    heads are both one; they may jowl horns together like any deer\n    i' th' herd.\n  COUNTESS. Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouth'd and calumnious knave?\n  CLOWN. A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way:\n\n              For I the ballad will repeat,\n                Which men full true shall find:\n              Your marriage comes by destiny,\n                Your cuckoo sings by kind.\n\n  COUNTESS. Get you gone, sir; I'll talk with you more anon.\n  STEWARD. May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to you.\n    Of her I am to speak.\n  COUNTESS. Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her; Helen\n    I mean.\n  CLOWN.  [Sings]\n\n               'Was this fair face the cause' quoth she\n                 'Why the Grecians sacked Troy?\n               Fond done, done fond,\n                 Was this King Priam's joy?'\n               With that she sighed as she stood,\n               With that she sighed as she stood,\n                 And gave this sentence then:\n               'Among nine bad if one be good,\n               Among nine bad if one be good,\n                 There's yet one good in ten.'\n\n  COUNTESS. What, one good in ten? You corrupt the song, sirrah.\n  CLOWN. One good woman in ten, madam, which is a purifying o' th'\n    song. Would God would serve the world so all the year! We'd find\n    no fault with the tithe-woman, if I were the parson. One in ten,\n    quoth 'a! An we might have a good woman born before every blazing\n    star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well: a man\n    may draw his heart out ere 'a pluck one.\n  COUNTESS. You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you.\n  CLOWN. That man should be at woman's command, and yet no hurt done!\n    Though honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will\n    wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart.\n    I am going, forsooth. The business is for Helen to come hither.\n Exit\n  COUNTESS. Well, now.\n  STEWARD. I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.\n  COUNTESS. Faith I do. Her father bequeath'd her to me; and she\n    herself, without other advantage, may lawfully make title to as\n    much love as she finds. There is more owing her than is paid; and\n    more shall be paid her than she'll demand.\n  STEWARD. Madam, I was very late more near her than I think she\n    wish'd me. Alone she was, and did communicate to herself her own\n    words to her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for her, they\n    touch'd not any stranger sense. Her matter was, she loved your\n    son. Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put such\n    difference betwixt their two estates; Love no god, that would not\n    extend his might only where qualities were level; Diana no queen\n    of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight surpris'd without\n    rescue in the first assault, or ransom afterward. This she\n    deliver'd in the most bitter touch of sorrow that e'er I heard\n    virgin exclaim in; which I held my duty speedily to acquaint you\n    withal; sithence, in the loss that may happen, it concerns you\n    something to know it.\n  COUNTESS. YOU have discharg'd this honestly; keep it to yourself.\n    Many likelihoods inform'd me of this before, which hung so\n    tott'ring in the balance that I could neither believe nor\n    misdoubt. Pray you leave me. Stall this in your bosom; and I\n    thank you for your honest care. I will speak with you further\n    anon.                                           Exit STEWARD\n\n                            Enter HELENA\n\n    Even so it was with me when I was young.\n    If ever we are nature's, these are ours; this thorn\n    Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong;\n    Our blood to us, this to our blood is born.\n    It is the show and seal of nature's truth,\n    Where love's strong passion is impress'd in youth.\n    By our remembrances of days foregone,\n    Such were our faults, or then we thought them none.\n    Her eye is sick on't; I observe her now.\n  HELENA. What is your pleasure, madam?\n  COUNTESS. You know, Helen,\n    I am a mother to you.\n  HELENA. Mine honourable mistress.\n  COUNTESS. Nay, a mother.\n    Why not a mother? When I said 'a mother,'\n    Methought you saw a serpent. What's in 'mother'\n    That you start at it? I say I am your mother,\n    And put you in the catalogue of those\n    That were enwombed mine. 'Tis often seen\n    Adoption strives with nature, and choice breeds\n    A native slip to us from foreign seeds.\n    You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan,\n    Yet I express to you a mother's care.\n    God's mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood\n    To say I am thy mother? What's the matter,\n    That this distempered messenger of wet,\n    The many-colour'd Iris, rounds thine eye?\n    Why, that you are my daughter?\n  HELENA. That I am not.\n  COUNTESS. I say I am your mother.\n  HELENA. Pardon, madam.\n    The Count Rousillon cannot be my brother:\n    I am from humble, he from honoured name;\n    No note upon my parents, his all noble.\n    My master, my dear lord he is; and I\n    His servant live, and will his vassal die.\n    He must not be my brother.\n  COUNTESS. Nor I your mother?\n  HELENA. You are my mother, madam; would you were-\n    So that my lord your son were not my brother-\n    Indeed my mother! Or were you both our mothers,\n    I care no more for than I do for heaven,\n    So I were not his sister. Can't no other,\n    But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?\n  COUNTESS. Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law.\n    God shield you mean it not! 'daughter' and 'mother'\n    So strive upon your pulse. What! pale again?\n    My fear hath catch'd your fondness. Now I see\n    The myst'ry of your loneliness, and find\n    Your salt tears' head. Now to all sense 'tis gross\n    You love my son; invention is asham'd,\n    Against the proclamation of thy passion,\n    To say thou dost not. Therefore tell me true;\n    But tell me then, 'tis so; for, look, thy cheeks\n    Confess it, th' one to th' other; and thine eyes\n    See it so grossly shown in thy behaviours\n    That in their kind they speak it; only sin\n    And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,\n    That truth should be suspected. Speak, is't so?\n    If it be so, you have wound a goodly clew;\n    If it be not, forswear't; howe'er, I charge thee,\n    As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,\n    To tell me truly.\n  HELENA. Good madam, pardon me.\n  COUNTESS. Do you love my son?\n  HELENA. Your pardon, noble mistress.\n  COUNTESS. Love you my son?\n  HELENA. Do not you love him, madam?\n  COUNTESS. Go not about; my love hath in't a bond\n    Whereof the world takes note. Come, come, disclose\n    The state of your affection; for your passions\n    Have to the full appeach'd.\n  HELENA. Then I confess,\n    Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,\n    That before you, and next unto high heaven,\n    I love your son.\n    My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love.\n    Be not offended, for it hurts not him\n    That he is lov'd of me; I follow him not\n    By any token of presumptuous suit,\n    Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;\n    Yet never know how that desert should be.\n    I know I love in vain, strive against hope;\n    Yet in this captious and intenible sieve\n    I still pour in the waters of my love,\n    And lack not to lose still. Thus, Indian-like,\n    Religious in mine error, I adore\n    The sun that looks upon his worshipper\n    But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,\n    Let not your hate encounter with my love,\n    For loving where you do; but if yourself,\n    Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,\n    Did ever in so true a flame of liking\n    Wish chastely and love dearly that your Dian\n    Was both herself and Love; O, then, give pity\n    To her whose state is such that cannot choose\n    But lend and give where she is sure to lose;\n    That seeks not to find that her search implies,\n    But, riddle-like, lives sweetly where she dies!\n  COUNTESS. Had you not lately an intent-speak truly-\n    To go to Paris?\n  HELENA. Madam, I had.\n  COUNTESS. Wherefore? Tell true.\n  HELENA. I will tell truth; by grace itself I swear.\n    You know my father left me some prescriptions\n    Of rare and prov'd effects, such as his reading\n    And manifest experience had collected\n    For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me\n    In heedfull'st reservation to bestow them,\n    As notes whose faculties inclusive were\n    More than they were in note. Amongst the rest\n    There is a remedy, approv'd, set down,\n    To cure the desperate languishings whereof\n    The King is render'd lost.\n  COUNTESS. This was your motive\n    For Paris, was it? Speak.\n  HELENA. My lord your son made me to think of this,\n    Else Paris, and the medicine, and the King,\n    Had from the conversation of my thoughts\n    Haply been absent then.\n  COUNTESS. But think you, Helen,\n    If you should tender your supposed aid,\n    He would receive it? He and his physicians\n    Are of a mind: he, that they cannot help him;\n    They, that they cannot help. How shall they credit\n    A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,\n    Embowell'd of their doctrine, have let off\n    The danger to itself?\n  HELENA. There's something in't\n    More than my father's skill, which was the great'st\n    Of his profession, that his good receipt\n    Shall for my legacy be sanctified\n    By th' luckiest stars in heaven; and, would your honour\n    But give me leave to try success, I'd venture\n    The well-lost life of mine on his Grace's cure.\n    By such a day and hour.\n  COUNTESS. Dost thou believe't?\n  HELENA. Ay, madam, knowingly.\n  COUNTESS. Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave and love,\n    Means and attendants, and my loving greetings\n    To those of mine in court. I'll stay at home,\n    And pray God's blessing into thy attempt.\n    Be gone to-morrow; and be sure of this,\n    What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1.\nParis. The KING'S palace\n\nFlourish of cornets. Enter the KING with divers young LORDS taking leave\nfor the Florentine war; BERTRAM and PAROLLES; ATTENDANTS\n\n  KING. Farewell, young lords; these war-like principles\n    Do not throw from you. And you, my lords, farewell;\n    Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain all,\n    The gift doth stretch itself as 'tis receiv'd,\n    And is enough for both.\n  FIRST LORD. 'Tis our hope, sir,\n    After well-ent'red soldiers, to return\n    And find your Grace in health.\n  KING. No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart\n    Will not confess he owes the malady\n    That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords;\n    Whether I live or die, be you the sons\n    Of worthy Frenchmen; let higher Italy-\n    Those bated that inherit but the fall\n    Of the last monarchy-see that you come\n    Not to woo honour, but to wed it; when\n    The bravest questant shrinks, find what you seek,\n    That fame may cry you aloud. I say farewell.\n  SECOND LORD. Health, at your bidding, serve your Majesty!\n  KING. Those girls of Italy, take heed of them;\n    They say our French lack language to deny,\n    If they demand; beware of being captives\n    Before you serve.\n    BOTH. Our hearts receive your warnings.\n  KING. Farewell.  [To ATTENDANTS]  Come hither to me.\n                                       The KING retires attended\n  FIRST LORD. O my sweet lord, that you will stay behind us!\n  PAROLLES. 'Tis not his fault, the spark.\n    SECOND LORD. O, 'tis brave wars!\n  PAROLLES. Most admirable! I have seen those wars.\n  BERTRAM. I am commanded here and kept a coil with\n    'Too young' and next year' and \"Tis too early.'\n  PAROLLES. An thy mind stand to 't, boy, steal away bravely.\n  BERTRAM. I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock,\n    Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry,\n    Till honour be bought up, and no sword worn\n    But one to dance with. By heaven, I'll steal away.\n  FIRST LORD. There's honour in the theft.\n  PAROLLES. Commit it, Count.\n  SECOND LORD. I am your accessary; and so farewell.\n  BERTRAM. I grow to you, and our parting is a tortur'd body.\n  FIRST LORD. Farewell, Captain.\n  SECOND LORD. Sweet Monsieur Parolles!\n  PAROLLES. Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin. Good sparks and\n    lustrous, a word, good metals: you shall find in the regiment of\n    the Spinii one Captain Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of\n    war, here on his sinister cheek; it was this very sword\n    entrench'd it. Say to him I live; and observe his reports for me.\n  FIRST LORD. We shall, noble Captain.\n  PAROLLES. Mars dote on you for his novices!       Exeunt LORDS\n    What will ye do?\n\n                            Re-enter the KING\n\n  BERTRAM. Stay; the King!\n  PAROLLES. Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble lords; you have\n    restrain'd yourself within the list of too cold an adieu. Be more\n    expressive to them; for they wear themselves in the cap of the\n    time; there do muster true gait; eat, speak, and move, under the\n    influence of the most receiv'd star; and though the devil lead\n    the measure, such are to be followed. After them, and take a more\n    dilated farewell.\n  BERTRAM. And I will do so.\n  PAROLLES. Worthy fellows; and like to prove most sinewy sword-men.\n                                     Exeunt BERTRAM and PAROLLES\n\n                              Enter LAFEU\n\n  LAFEU.  [Kneeling]  Pardon, my lord, for me and for my tidings.\n  KING. I'll fee thee to stand up.\n  LAFEU. Then here's a man stands that has brought his pardon.\n    I would you had kneel'd, my lord, to ask me mercy;\n    And that at my bidding you could so stand up.\n  KING. I would I had; so I had broke thy pate,\n    And ask'd thee mercy for't.\n  LAFEU. Good faith, across!\n    But, my good lord, 'tis thus: will you be cur'd\n    Of your infirmity?\n  KING. No.\n  LAFEU. O, will you eat\n    No grapes, my royal fox? Yes, but you will\n    My noble grapes, an if my royal fox\n    Could reach them: I have seen a medicine\n    That's able to breathe life into a stone,\n    Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary\n    With spritely fire and motion; whose simple touch\n    Is powerful to araise King Pepin, nay,\n    To give great Charlemain a pen in's hand\n    And write to her a love-line.\n  KING. What her is this?\n  LAFEU. Why, Doctor She! My lord, there's one arriv'd,\n    If you will see her. Now, by my faith and honour,\n    If seriously I may convey my thoughts\n    In this my light deliverance, I have spoke\n    With one that in her sex, her years, profession,\n    Wisdom, and constancy, hath amaz'd me more\n    Than I dare blame my weakness. Will you see her,\n    For that is her demand, and know her business?\n    That done, laugh well at me.\n  KING. Now, good Lafeu,\n    Bring in the admiration, that we with the\n    May spend our wonder too, or take off thine\n    By wond'ring how thou took'st it.\n  LAFEU. Nay, I'll fit you,\n    And not be all day neither.                       Exit LAFEU\n  KING. Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.\n\n                   Re-enter LAFEU with HELENA\n\n  LAFEU. Nay, come your ways.\n  KING. This haste hath wings indeed.\n  LAFEU. Nay, come your ways;\n    This is his Majesty; say your mind to him.\n    A traitor you do look like; but such traitors\n    His Majesty seldom fears. I am Cressid's uncle,\n    That dare leave two together. Fare you well.            Exit\n  KING. Now, fair one, does your business follow us?\n  HELENA. Ay, my good lord.\n    Gerard de Narbon was my father,\n    In what he did profess, well found.\n  KING. I knew him.\n  HELENA. The rather will I spare my praises towards him;\n    Knowing him is enough. On's bed of death\n    Many receipts he gave me; chiefly one,\n    Which, as the dearest issue of his practice,\n    And of his old experience th' only darling,\n    He bade me store up as a triple eye,\n    Safer than mine own two, more dear. I have so:\n    And, hearing your high Majesty is touch'd\n    With that malignant cause wherein the honour\n    Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power,\n    I come to tender it, and my appliance,\n    With all bound humbleness.\n  KING. We thank you, maiden;\n    But may not be so credulous of cure,\n    When our most learned doctors leave us, and\n    The congregated college have concluded\n    That labouring art can never ransom nature\n    From her inaidable estate-I say we must not\n    So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,\n    To prostitute our past-cure malady\n    To empirics; or to dissever so\n    Our great self and our credit to esteem\n    A senseless help, when help past sense we deem.\n  HELENA. My duty then shall pay me for my pains.\n    I will no more enforce mine office on you;\n    Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts\n    A modest one to bear me back again.\n  KING. I cannot give thee less, to be call'd grateful.\n    Thou thought'st to help me; and such thanks I give\n    As one near death to those that wish him live.\n    But what at full I know, thou know'st no part;\n    I knowing all my peril, thou no art.\n  HELENA. What I can do can do no hurt to try,\n    Since you set up your rest 'gainst remedy.\n    He that of greatest works is finisher\n    Oft does them by the weakest minister.\n    So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,\n    When judges have been babes. Great floods have flown\n    From simple sources, and great seas have dried\n    When miracles have by the greatest been denied.\n    Oft expectation fails, and most oft there\n    Where most it promises; and oft it hits\n    Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.\n  KING. I must not hear thee. Fare thee well, kind maid;\n    Thy pains, not us'd, must by thyself be paid;\n    Proffers not took reap thanks for their reward.\n  HELENA. Inspired merit so by breath is barr'd.\n    It is not so with Him that all things knows,\n    As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows;\n    But most it is presumption in us when\n    The help of heaven we count the act of men.\n    Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent;\n    Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.\n    I am not an impostor, that proclaim\n    Myself against the level of mine aim;\n    But know I think, and think I know most sure,\n    My art is not past power nor you past cure.\n  KING. Art thou so confident? Within what space\n    Hop'st thou my cure?\n  HELENA. The greatest Grace lending grace.\n    Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring\n    Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring,\n    Ere twice in murk and occidental damp\n    Moist Hesperus hath quench'd his sleepy lamp,\n    Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass\n    Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass,\n    What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,\n    Health shall live free, and sickness freely die.\n  KING. Upon thy certainty and confidence\n    What dar'st thou venture?\n  HELENA. Tax of impudence,\n    A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame,\n    Traduc'd by odious ballads; my maiden's name\n    Sear'd otherwise; ne worse of worst-extended\n    With vilest torture let my life be ended.\n  KING. Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak\n    His powerful sound within an organ weak;\n    And what impossibility would slay\n    In common sense, sense saves another way.\n    Thy life is dear; for all that life can rate\n    Worth name of life in thee hath estimate:\n    Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all\n    That happiness and prime can happy call.\n    Thou this to hazard needs must intimate\n    Skill infinite or monstrous desperate.\n    Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try,\n    That ministers thine own death if I die.\n  HELENA. If I break time, or flinch in property\n    Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die;\n    And well deserv'd. Not helping, death's my fee;\n    But, if I help, what do you promise me?\n  KING. Make thy demand.\n  HELENA. But will you make it even?\n  KING. Ay, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven.\n  HELENA. Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand\n    What husband in thy power I will command.\n    Exempted be from me the arrogance\n    To choose from forth the royal blood of France,\n    My low and humble name to propagate\n    With any branch or image of thy state;\n    But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know\n    Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.\n  KING. Here is my hand; the premises observ'd,\n    Thy will by my performance shall be serv'd.\n    So make the choice of thy own time, for I,\n    Thy resolv'd patient, on thee still rely.\n    More should I question thee, and more I must,\n    Though more to know could not be more to trust,\n    From whence thou cam'st, how tended on. But rest\n    Unquestion'd welcome and undoubted blest.\n    Give me some help here, ho! If thou proceed\n    As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.\n                                              [Flourish. Exeunt]\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 2.\nRousillon. The COUNT'S palace\n\nEnter COUNTESS and CLOWN\n\n  COUNTESS. Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your\n    breeding.\n  CLOWN. I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught. I know my\n    business is but to the court.\n  COUNTESS. To the court! Why, what place make you special, when you\n    put off that with such contempt? But to the court!\n  CLOWN. Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may\n    easily put it off at court. He that cannot make a leg, put off's\n    cap, kiss his hand, and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip,\n    nor cap; and indeed such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for\n    the court; but for me, I have an answer will serve all men.\n  COUNTESS. Marry, that's a bountiful answer that fits all questions.\n  CLOWN. It is like a barber's chair, that fits all buttocks-the pin\n    buttock, the quatch buttock, the brawn buttock, or any buttock.\n  COUNTESS. Will your answer serve fit to all questions?\n  CLOWN. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your\n    French crown for your taffety punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's\n    forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris for Mayday,\n    as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding\n    quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's\n    mouth; nay, as the pudding to his skin.\n  COUNTESS. Have you, I, say, an answer of such fitness for all\n    questions?\n  CLOWN. From below your duke to beneath your constable, it will fit\n    any question.\n  COUNTESS. It must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit\n    all demands.\n  CLOWN. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned should\n    speak truth of it. Here it is, and all that belongs to't. Ask me\n    if I am a courtier: it shall do you no harm to learn.\n  COUNTESS. To be young again, if we could, I will be a fool in\n    question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, sir,\n    are you a courtier?\n  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-There's a simple putting off. More, more, a\n    hundred of them.\n  COUNTESS. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.\n  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Thick, thick; spare not me.\n  COUNTESS. I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.\n  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Nay, put me to't, I warrant you.\n  COUNTESS. You were lately whipp'd, sir, as I think.\n  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Spare not me.\n  COUNTESS. Do you cry 'O Lord, sir!' at your whipping, and 'spare\n    not me'? Indeed your 'O Lord, sir!' is very sequent to your\n    whipping. You would answer very well to a whipping, if you were\n    but bound to't.\n  CLOWN. I ne'er had worse luck in my life in my 'O Lord, sir!' I see\n    thing's may serve long, but not serve ever.\n  COUNTESS. I play the noble housewife with the time,\n    To entertain it so merrily with a fool.\n  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Why, there't serves well again.\n  COUNTESS. An end, sir! To your business: give Helen this,\n    And urge her to a present answer back;\n    Commend me to my kinsmen and my son. This is not much.\n  CLOWN. Not much commendation to them?\n  COUNTESS. Not much employment for you. You understand me?\n  CLOWN. Most fruitfully; I am there before my legs.\n  COUNTESS. Haste you again.                              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 3.\nParis. The KING'S palace\n\nEnter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES\n\n  LAFEU. They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical\n    persons to make modern and familiar things supernatural and\n    causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors,\n    ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge when we should submit\n    ourselves to an unknown fear.\n  PAROLLES. Why, 'tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot\n    out in our latter times.\n  BERTRAM. And so 'tis.\n  LAFEU. To be relinquish'd of the artists-\n  PAROLLES. So I say-both of Galen and Paracelsus.\n  LAFEU. Of all the learned and authentic fellows-\n  PAROLLES. Right; so I say.\n  LAFEU. That gave him out incurable-\n  PAROLLES. Why, there 'tis; so say I too.\n  LAFEU. Not to be help'd-\n  PAROLLES. Right; as 'twere a man assur'd of a-\n  LAFEU. Uncertain life and sure death.\n  PAROLLES. Just; you say well; so would I have said.\n  LAFEU. I may truly say it is a novelty to the world.\n  PAROLLES. It is indeed. If you will have it in showing, you shall\n    read it in what-do-ye-call't here.\n  LAFEU.  [Reading the ballad title]  'A Showing of a Heavenly\n    Effect in an Earthly Actor.'\n  PAROLLES. That's it; I would have said the very same.\n  LAFEU. Why, your dolphin is not lustier. 'Fore me, I speak in\n    respect-\n  PAROLLES. Nay, 'tis strange, 'tis very strange; that is the brief\n    and the tedious of it; and he's of a most facinerious spirit that\n    will not acknowledge it to be the-\n  LAFEU. Very hand of heaven.\n  PAROLLES. Ay; so I say.\n  LAFEU. In a most weak-\n  PAROLLES. And debile minister, great power, great transcendence;\n    which should, indeed, give us a further use to be made than alone\n    the recov'ry of the King, as to be-\n  LAFEU. Generally thankful.\n\n                 Enter KING, HELENA, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  PAROLLES. I would have said it; you say well. Here comes the King.\n  LAFEU. Lustig, as the Dutchman says. I'll like a maid the better,\n    whilst I have a tooth in my head. Why, he's able to lead her a\n    coranto.\n  PAROLLES. Mort du vinaigre! Is not this Helen?\n  LAFEU. 'Fore God, I think so.\n  KING. Go, call before me all the lords in court.\n                                               Exit an ATTENDANT\n    Sit, my preserver, by thy patient's side;\n    And with this healthful hand, whose banish'd sense\n    Thou has repeal'd, a second time receive\n    The confirmation of my promis'd gift,\n    Which but attends thy naming.\n\n                     Enter three or four LORDS\n\n    Fair maid, send forth thine eye. This youthful parcel\n    Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,\n    O'er whom both sovereign power and father's voice\n    I have to use. Thy frank election make;\n    Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake.\n  HELENA. To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress\n    Fall, when love please. Marry, to each but one!\n  LAFEU. I'd give bay Curtal and his furniture\n    My mouth no more were broken than these boys',\n    And writ as little beard.\n  KING. Peruse them well.\n    Not one of those but had a noble father.\n  HELENA. Gentlemen,\n    Heaven hath through me restor'd the King to health.\n  ALL. We understand it, and thank heaven for you.\n  HELENA. I am a simple maid, and therein wealthiest\n    That I protest I simply am a maid.\n    Please it your Majesty, I have done already.\n    The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me:\n    'We blush that thou shouldst choose; but, be refused,\n    Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever,\n    We'll ne'er come there again.'\n  KING. Make choice and see:\n    Who shuns thy love shuns all his love in me.\n  HELENA. Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly,\n    And to imperial Love, that god most high,\n    Do my sighs stream. Sir, will you hear my suit?\n  FIRST LORD. And grant it.\n  HELENA. Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute.\n  LAFEU. I had rather be in this choice than throw ames-ace for my\n    life.\n  HELENA. The honour, sir, that flames in your fair eyes,\n    Before I speak, too threat'ningly replies.\n    Love make your fortunes twenty times above\n    Her that so wishes, and her humble love!\n  SECOND LORD. No better, if you please.\n  HELENA. My wish receive,\n    Which great Love grant; and so I take my leave.\n  LAFEU. Do all they deny her? An they were sons of mine I'd have\n    them whipt; or I would send them to th' Turk to make eunuchs of.\n  HELENA. Be not afraid that I your hand should take;\n    I'll never do you wrong for your own sake.\n    Blessing upon your vows; and in your bed\n    Find fairer fortune, if you ever wed!\n  LAFEU. These boys are boys of ice; they'll none have her.\n    Sure, they are bastards to the English; the French ne'er got 'em.\n  HELENA. You are too young, too happy, and too good,\n    To make yourself a son out of my blood.\n  FOURTH LORD. Fair one, I think not so.\n  LAFEU. There's one grape yet; I am sure thy father drunk wine-but\n    if thou be'st not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen; I have known\n    thee already.\n  HELENA.  [To BERTRAM]  I dare not say I take you; but I give\n    Me and my service, ever whilst I live,\n    Into your guiding power. This is the man.\n  KING. Why, then, young Bertram, take her; she's thy wife.\n  BERTRAM. My wife, my liege! I shall beseech your Highness,\n    In such a business give me leave to use\n    The help of mine own eyes.\n  KING. Know'st thou not, Bertram,\n    What she has done for me?\n  BERTRAM. Yes, my good lord;\n    But never hope to know why I should marry her.\n  KING. Thou know'st she has rais'd me from my sickly bed.\n  BERTRAM. But follows it, my lord, to bring me down\n    Must answer for your raising? I know her well:\n    She had her breeding at my father's charge.\n    A poor physician's daughter my wife! Disdain\n    Rather corrupt me ever!\n  KING. 'Tis only title thou disdain'st in her, the which\n    I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods,\n    Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together,\n    Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off\n    In differences so mighty. If she be\n    All that is virtuous-save what thou dislik'st,\n    A poor physician's daughter-thou dislik'st\n    Of virtue for the name; but do not so.\n    From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,\n    The place is dignified by the doer's deed;\n    Where great additions swell's, and virtue none,\n    It is a dropsied honour. Good alone\n    Is good without a name. Vileness is so:\n    The property by what it is should go,\n    Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair;\n    In these to nature she's immediate heir;\n    And these breed honour. That is honour's scorn\n    Which challenges itself as honour's born\n    And is not like the sire. Honours thrive\n    When rather from our acts we them derive\n    Than our fore-goers. The mere word's a slave,\n    Debauch'd on every tomb, on every grave\n    A lying trophy; and as oft is dumb\n    Where dust and damn'd oblivion is the tomb\n    Of honour'd bones indeed. What should be said?\n    If thou canst like this creature as a maid,\n    I can create the rest. Virtue and she\n    Is her own dower; honour and wealth from me.\n  BERTRAM. I cannot love her, nor will strive to do 't.\n  KING. Thou wrong'st thyself, if thou shouldst strive to choose.\n  HELENA. That you are well restor'd, my lord, I'm glad.\n    Let the rest go.\n  KING. My honour's at the stake; which to defeat,\n    I must produce my power. Here, take her hand,\n    Proud scornful boy, unworthy this good gift,\n    That dost in vile misprision shackle up\n    My love and her desert; that canst not dream\n    We, poising us in her defective scale,\n    Shall weigh thee to the beam; that wilt not know\n    It is in us to plant thine honour where\n    We please to have it grow. Check thy contempt;\n    Obey our will, which travails in thy good;\n    Believe not thy disdain, but presently\n    Do thine own fortunes that obedient right\n    Which both thy duty owes and our power claims;\n    Or I will throw thee from my care for ever\n    Into the staggers and the careless lapse\n    Of youth and ignorance; both my revenge and hate\n    Loosing upon thee in the name of justice,\n    Without all terms of pity. Speak; thine answer.\n  BERTRAM. Pardon, my gracious lord; for I submit\n    My fancy to your eyes. When I consider\n    What great creation and what dole of honour\n    Flies where you bid it, I find that she which late\n    Was in my nobler thoughts most base is now\n    The praised of the King; who, so ennobled,\n    Is as 'twere born so.\n  KING. Take her by the hand,\n    And tell her she is thine; to whom I promise\n    A counterpoise, if not to thy estate\n    A balance more replete.\n  BERTRAM. I take her hand.\n  KING. Good fortune and the favour of the King\n    Smile upon this contract; whose ceremony\n    Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief,\n    And be perform'd to-night. The solemn feast\n    Shall more attend upon the coming space,\n    Expecting absent friends. As thou lov'st her,\n    Thy love's to me religious; else, does err.\n              Exeunt all but LAFEU and PAROLLES who stay behind,\n                                      commenting of this wedding\n  LAFEU. Do you hear, monsieur? A word with you.\n  PAROLLES. Your pleasure, sir?\n  LAFEU. Your lord and master did well to make his recantation.\n  PAROLLES. Recantation! My Lord! my master!\n  LAFEU. Ay; is it not a language I speak?\n  PAROLLES. A most harsh one, and not to be understood without bloody\n    succeeding. My master!\n  LAFEU. Are you companion to the Count Rousillon?\n  PAROLLES. To any count; to all counts; to what is man.\n  LAFEU. To what is count's man: count's master is of another style.\n  PAROLLES. You are too old, sir; let it satisfy you, you are too\n    old.\n  LAFEU. I must tell thee, sirrah, I write man; to which title age\n    cannot bring thee.\n  PAROLLES. What I dare too well do, I dare not do.\n  LAFEU. I did think thee, for two ordinaries, to be a pretty wise\n    fellow; thou didst make tolerable vent of thy travel; it might\n    pass. Yet the scarfs and the bannerets about thee did manifoldly\n    dissuade me from believing thee a vessel of too great a burden. I\n    have now found thee; when I lose thee again I care not; yet art\n    thou good for nothing but taking up; and that thou'rt scarce\n    worth.\n  PAROLLES. Hadst thou not the privilege of antiquity upon thee-\n  LAFEU. Do not plunge thyself too far in anger, lest thou hasten thy\n    trial; which if-Lord have mercy on thee for a hen! So, my good\n    window of lattice, fare thee well; thy casement I need not open,\n    for I look through thee. Give me thy hand.\n  PAROLLES. My lord, you give me most egregious indignity.\n  LAFEU. Ay, with all my heart; and thou art worthy of it.\n  PAROLLES. I have not, my lord, deserv'd it.\n  LAFEU. Yes, good faith, ev'ry dram of it; and I will not bate thee\n    a scruple.\n  PAROLLES. Well, I shall be wiser.\n  LAFEU. Ev'n as soon as thou canst, for thou hast to pull at a smack\n    o' th' contrary. If ever thou be'st bound in thy scarf and\n    beaten, thou shalt find what it is to be proud of thy bondage. I\n    have a desire to hold my acquaintance with thee, or rather my\n    knowledge, that I may say in the default 'He is a man I know.'\n  PAROLLES. My lord, you do me most insupportable vexation.\n  LAFEU. I would it were hell pains for thy sake, and my poor doing\n    eternal; for doing I am past, as I will by thee, in what motion\n    age will give me leave.                                 Exit\n  PAROLLES. Well, thou hast a son shall take this disgrace off me:\n    scurvy, old, filthy, scurvy lord! Well, I must be patient; there\n    is no fettering of authority. I'll beat him, by my life, if I can\n    meet him with any convenience, an he were double and double a\n    lord. I'll have no more pity of his age than I would have of-\n    I'll beat him, and if I could but meet him again.\n\n                         Re-enter LAFEU\n\n  LAFEU. Sirrah, your lord and master's married; there's news for\n    you; you have a new mistress.\n  PAROLLES. I most unfeignedly beseech your lordship to make some\n    reservation of your wrongs. He is my good lord: whom I serve\n    above is my master.\n  LAFEU. Who? God?\n  PAROLLES. Ay, sir.\n  LAFEU. The devil it is that's thy master. Why dost thou garter up\n    thy arms o' this fashion? Dost make hose of thy sleeves? Do other\n    servants so? Thou wert best set thy lower part where thy nose\n    stands. By mine honour, if I were but two hours younger, I'd beat\n    thee. Methink'st thou art a general offence, and every man should\n    beat thee. I think thou wast created for men to breathe\n    themselves upon thee.\n  PAROLLES. This is hard and undeserved measure, my lord.\n  LAFEU. Go to, sir; you were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel\n    out of a pomegranate; you are a vagabond, and no true traveller;\n    you are more saucy with lords and honourable personages than the\n    commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry. You are\n    not worth another word, else I'd call you knave. I leave you.\n Exit\n\n                           Enter BERTRAM\n\n  PAROLLES. Good, very, good, it is so then. Good, very good; let it\n    be conceal'd awhile.\n  BERTRAM. Undone, and forfeited to cares for ever!\n  PAROLLES. What's the matter, sweetheart?\n  BERTRAM. Although before the solemn priest I have sworn,\n    I will not bed her.\n  PAROLLES. What, what, sweetheart?\n  BERTRAM. O my Parolles, they have married me!\n    I'll to the Tuscan wars, and never bed her.\n  PAROLLES. France is a dog-hole, and it no more merits\n    The tread of a man's foot. To th' wars!\n  BERTRAM. There's letters from my mother; what th' import is I know\n    not yet.\n  PAROLLES. Ay, that would be known. To th' wars, my boy, to th'\n      wars!\n    He wears his honour in a box unseen\n    That hugs his kicky-wicky here at home,\n    Spending his manly marrow in her arms,\n    Which should sustain the bound and high curvet\n    Of Mars's fiery steed. To other regions!\n    France is a stable; we that dwell in't jades;\n    Therefore, to th' war!\n  BERTRAM. It shall be so; I'll send her to my house,\n    Acquaint my mother with my hate to her,\n    And wherefore I am fled; write to the King\n    That which I durst not speak. His present gift\n    Shall furnish me to those Italian fields\n    Where noble fellows strike. War is no strife\n    To the dark house and the detested wife.\n  PAROLLES. Will this capriccio hold in thee, art sure?\n  BERTRAM. Go with me to my chamber and advise me.\n    I'll send her straight away. To-morrow\n    I'll to the wars, she to her single sorrow.\n  PAROLLES. Why, these balls bound; there's noise in it. 'Tis hard:\n    A young man married is a man that's marr'd.\n    Therefore away, and leave her bravely; go.\n    The King has done you wrong; but, hush, 'tis so.      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 4.\nParis. The KING'S palace\n\nEnter HELENA and CLOWN\n\n  HELENA. My mother greets me kindly; is she well?\n  CLOWN. She is not well, but yet she has her health; she's very\n    merry, but yet she is not well. But thanks be given, she's very\n    well, and wants nothing i' th' world; but yet she is not well.\n  HELENA. If she be very well, what does she ail that she's not very\n    well?\n  CLOWN. Truly, she's very well indeed, but for two things.\n  HELENA. What two things?\n  CLOWN. One, that she's not in heaven, whither God send her quickly!\n    The other, that she's in earth, from whence God send her quickly!\n\n                        Enter PAROLLES\n\n  PAROLLES. Bless you, my fortunate lady!\n  HELENA. I hope, sir, I have your good will to have mine own good\n    fortunes.\n  PAROLLES. You had my prayers to lead them on; and to keep them on,\n    have them still. O, my knave, how does my old lady?\n  CLOWN. So that you had her wrinkles and I her money, I would she\n    did as you say.\n  PAROLLES. Why, I say nothing.\n  CLOWN. Marry, you are the wiser man; for many a man's tongue shakes\n    out his master's undoing. To say nothing, to do nothing, to know\n    nothing, and to have nothing, is to be a great part of your\n    title, which is within a very little of nothing.\n  PAROLLES. Away! th'art a knave.\n  CLOWN. You should have said, sir, 'Before a knave th'art a knave';\n    that's 'Before me th'art a knave.' This had been truth, sir.\n  PAROLLES. Go to, thou art a witty fool; I have found thee.\n  CLOWN. Did you find me in yourself, sir, or were you taught to find\n    me? The search, sir, was profitable; and much fool may you find\n    in you, even to the world's pleasure and the increase of\n    laughter.\n  PAROLLES. A good knave, i' faith, and well fed.\n    Madam, my lord will go away to-night:\n    A very serious business calls on him.\n    The great prerogative and rite of love,\n    Which, as your due, time claims, he does acknowledge;\n    But puts it off to a compell'd restraint;\n    Whose want, and whose delay, is strew'd with sweets,\n    Which they distil now in the curbed time,\n    To make the coming hour o'erflow with joy\n    And pleasure drown the brim.\n  HELENA. What's his else?\n  PAROLLES. That you will take your instant leave o' th' King,\n    And make this haste as your own good proceeding,\n    Strength'ned with what apology you think\n    May make it probable need.\n  HELENA. What more commands he?\n  PAROLLES. That, having this obtain'd, you presently\n    Attend his further pleasure.\n  HELENA. In everything I wait upon his will.\n  PAROLLES. I shall report it so.\n  HELENA. I pray you.                              Exit PAROLLES\n    Come, sirrah.                                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 5.\nParis. The KING'S palace\n\nEnter LAFEU and BERTRAM\n\n  LAFEU. But I hope your lordship thinks not him a soldier.\n  BERTRAM. Yes, my lord, and of very valiant approof.\n  LAFEU. You have it from his own deliverance.\n  BERTRAM. And by other warranted testimony.\n  LAFEU. Then my dial goes not true; I took this lark for a bunting.\n  BERTRAM. I do assure you, my lord, he is very great in knowledge,\n    and accordingly valiant.\n  LAFEU. I have then sinn'd against his experience and transgress'd\n    against his valour; and my state that way is dangerous, since I\n    cannot yet find in my heart to repent. Here he comes; I pray you\n    make us friends; I will pursue the amity\n\n                         Enter PAROLLES\n\n  PAROLLES.  [To BERTRAM]  These things shall be done, sir.\n  LAFEU. Pray you, sir, who's his tailor?\n  PAROLLES. Sir!\n  LAFEU. O, I know him well. Ay, sir; he, sir, 's a good workman, a\n    very good tailor.\n  BERTRAM.  [Aside to PAROLLES]  Is she gone to the King?\n  PAROLLES. She is.\n  BERTRAM. Will she away to-night?\n  PAROLLES. As you'll have her.\n  BERTRAM. I have writ my letters, casketed my treasure,\n    Given order for our horses; and to-night,\n    When I should take possession of the bride,\n    End ere I do begin.\n  LAFEU. A good traveller is something at the latter end of a dinner;\n    but one that lies three-thirds and uses a known truth to pass a\n    thousand nothings with, should be once heard and thrice beaten.\n    God save you, Captain.\n  BERTRAM. Is there any unkindness between my lord and you, monsieur?\n  PAROLLES. I know not how I have deserved to run into my lord's\n    displeasure.\n  LAFEU. You have made shift to run into 't, boots and spurs and all,\n    like him that leapt into the custard; and out of it you'll run\n    again, rather than suffer question for your residence.\n  BERTRAM. It may be you have mistaken him, my lord.\n  LAFEU. And shall do so ever, though I took him at's prayers.\n    Fare you well, my lord; and believe this of me: there can be no\n    kernal in this light nut; the soul of this man is his clothes;\n    trust him not in matter of heavy consequence; I have kept of them\n    tame, and know their natures. Farewell, monsieur; I have spoken\n    better of you than you have or will to deserve at my hand; but we\n    must do good against evil.                              Exit\n  PAROLLES. An idle lord, I swear.\n  BERTRAM. I think so.\n  PAROLLES. Why, do you not know him?\n  BERTRAM. Yes, I do know him well; and common speech\n    Gives him a worthy pass. Here comes my clog.\n\n                          Enter HELENA\n\n  HELENA. I have, sir, as I was commanded from you,\n    Spoke with the King, and have procur'd his leave\n    For present parting; only he desires\n    Some private speech with you.\n  BERTRAM. I shall obey his will.\n    You must not marvel, Helen, at my course,\n    Which holds not colour with the time, nor does\n    The ministration and required office\n    On my particular. Prepar'd I was not\n    For such a business; therefore am I found\n    So much unsettled. This drives me to entreat you\n    That presently you take your way for home,\n    And rather muse than ask why I entreat you;\n    For my respects are better than they seem,\n    And my appointments have in them a need\n    Greater than shows itself at the first view\n    To you that know them not. This to my mother.\n                                               [Giving a letter]\n    'Twill be two days ere I shall see you; so\n    I leave you to your wisdom.\n  HELENA. Sir, I can nothing say\n    But that I am your most obedient servant.\n  BERTRAM. Come, come, no more of that.\n  HELENA. And ever shall\n    With true observance seek to eke out that\n    Wherein toward me my homely stars have fail'd\n    To equal my great fortune.\n  BERTRAM. Let that go.\n    My haste is very great. Farewell; hie home.\n  HELENA. Pray, sir, your pardon.\n  BERTRAM. Well, what would you say?\n  HELENA. I am not worthy of the wealth I owe,\n    Nor dare I say 'tis mine, and yet it is;\n    But, like a timorous thief, most fain would steal\n    What law does vouch mine own.\n  BERTRAM. What would you have?\n  HELENA. Something; and scarce so much; nothing, indeed.\n    I would not tell you what I would, my lord.\n    Faith, yes:\n    Strangers and foes do sunder and not kiss.\n  BERTRAM. I pray you, stay not, but in haste to horse.\n  HELENA. I shall not break your bidding, good my lord.\n  BERTRAM. Where are my other men, monsieur?\n    Farewell!                                        Exit HELENA\n    Go thou toward home, where I will never come\n    Whilst I can shake my sword or hear the drum.\n    Away, and for our flight.\n  PAROLLES. Bravely, coragio!                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1.\nFlorence. The DUKE's palace\n\n        Flourish. Enter the DUKE OF FLORENCE, attended; two\n               FRENCH LORDS, with a TROOP OF SOLDIERS\n\n  DUKE. So that, from point to point, now have you hear\n    The fundamental reasons of this war;\n    Whose great decision hath much blood let forth\n    And more thirsts after.\n  FIRST LORD. Holy seems the quarrel\n    Upon your Grace's part; black and fearful\n    On the opposer.\n  DUKE. Therefore we marvel much our cousin France\n    Would in so just a business shut his bosom\n    Against our borrowing prayers.\n  SECOND LORD. Good my lord,\n    The reasons of our state I cannot yield,\n    But like a common and an outward man\n    That the great figure of a council frames\n    By self-unable motion; therefore dare not\n    Say what I think of it, since I have found\n    Myself in my incertain grounds to fail\n    As often as I guess'd.\n  DUKE. Be it his pleasure.\n  FIRST LORD. But I am sure the younger of our nature,\n    That surfeit on their ease, will day by day\n    Come here for physic.\n  DUKE. Welcome shall they be\n    And all the honours that can fly from us\n    Shall on them settle. You know your places well;\n    When better fall, for your avails they fell.\n    To-morrow to th' field. Flourish.                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 2.\nRousillon. The COUNT'S palace\n\nEnter COUNTESS and CLOWN\n\n  COUNTESS. It hath happen'd all as I would have had it, save that he\n    comes not along with her.\n  CLOWN. By my troth, I take my young lord to be a very melancholy\n    man.\n  COUNTESS. By what observance, I pray you?\n  CLOWN. Why, he will look upon his boot and sing; mend the ruff and\n    sing; ask questions and sing; pick his teeth and sing. I know a\n    man that had this trick of melancholy sold a goodly manor for a\n    song.\n  COUNTESS. Let me see what he writes, and when he means to come.\n                                              [Opening a letter]\n  CLOWN. I have no mind to Isbel since I was at court. Our old ling\n    and our Isbels o' th' country are nothing like your old ling and\n    your Isbels o' th' court. The brains of my Cupid's knock'd out;\n    and I begin to love, as an old man loves money, with no stomach.\n  COUNTESS. What have we here?\n  CLOWN. E'en that you have there.                          Exit\n  COUNTESS.  [Reads]  'I have sent you a daughter-in-law; she hath\n    recovered the King and undone me. I have wedded her, not bedded\n    her; and sworn to make the \"not\" eternal. You shall hear I am run\n    away; know it before the report come. If there be breadth enough\n    in the world, I will hold a long distance. My duty to you.\n                                           Your unfortunate son,\n                                                       BERTRAM.'\n    This is not well, rash and unbridled boy,\n    To fly the favours of so good a king,\n    To pluck his indignation on thy head\n    By the misprizing of a maid too virtuous\n    For the contempt of empire.\n\n                           Re-enter CLOWN\n\n  CLOWN. O madam, yonder is heavy news within between two soldiers\n    and my young lady.\n  COUNTESS. What is the -matter?\n  CLOWN. Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some comfort; your\n    son will not be kill'd so soon as I thought he would.\n  COUNTESS. Why should he be kill'd?\n  CLOWN. So say I, madam, if he run away, as I hear he does the\n    danger is in standing to 't; that's the loss of men, though it be\n    the getting of children. Here they come will tell you more. For my\n    part, I only hear your son was run away.                Exit\n\n              Enter HELENA and the two FRENCH GENTLEMEN\n\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Save you, good madam.\n  HELENA. Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Do not say so.\n  COUNTESS. Think upon patience. Pray you, gentlemen-\n    I have felt so many quirks of joy and grief\n    That the first face of neither, on the start,\n    Can woman me unto 't. Where is my son, I pray you?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Madam, he's gone to serve the Duke of Florence.\n    We met him thitherward; for thence we came,\n    And, after some dispatch in hand at court,\n    Thither we bend again.\n  HELENA. Look on this letter, madam; here's my passport.\n    [Reads]  'When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which\n    never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body\n    that I am father to, then call me husband; but in such a \"then\" I\n    write a \"never.\"\n    This is a dreadful sentence.\n  COUNTESS. Brought you this letter, gentlemen?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Ay, madam;\n    And for the contents' sake are sorry for our pains.\n  COUNTESS. I prithee, lady, have a better cheer;\n    If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine,\n    Thou robb'st me of a moiety. He was my son;\n    But I do wash his name out of my blood,\n    And thou art all my child. Towards Florence is he?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Ay, madam.\n  COUNTESS. And to be a soldier?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Such is his noble purpose; and, believe 't,\n    The Duke will lay upon him all the honour\n    That good convenience claims.\n  COUNTESS. Return you thither?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Ay, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed.\n  HELENA.  [Reads]  'Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.'\n    'Tis bitter.\n  COUNTESS. Find you that there?\n  HELENA. Ay, madam.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Tis but the boldness of his hand haply, which\n    his heart was not consenting to.\n  COUNTESS. Nothing in France until he have no wife!\n    There's nothing here that is too good for him\n    But only she; and she deserves a lord\n    That twenty such rude boys might tend upon,\n    And call her hourly mistress. Who was with him?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. A servant only, and a gentleman\n    Which I have sometime known.\n  COUNTESS. Parolles, was it not?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Ay, my good lady, he.\n  COUNTESS. A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness.\n    My son corrupts a well-derived nature\n    With his inducement.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Indeed, good lady,\n    The fellow has a deal of that too much\n    Which holds him much to have.\n  COUNTESS. Y'are welcome, gentlemen.\n    I will entreat you, when you see my son,\n    To tell him that his sword can never win\n    The honour that he loses. More I'll entreat you\n    Written to bear along.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. We serve you, madam,\n    In that and all your worthiest affairs.\n  COUNTESS. Not so, but as we change our courtesies.\n    Will you draw near?            Exeunt COUNTESS and GENTLEMEN\n  HELENA. 'Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.'\n    Nothing in France until he has no wife!\n    Thou shalt have none, Rousillon, none in France\n    Then hast thou all again. Poor lord! is't\n    That chase thee from thy country, and expose\n    Those tender limbs of thine to the event\n    Of the non-sparing war? And is it I\n    That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou\n    Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark\n    Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers,\n    That ride upon the violent speed of fire,\n    Fly with false aim; move the still-piecing air,\n    That sings with piercing; do not touch my lord.\n    Whoever shoots at him, I set him there;\n    Whoever charges on his forward breast,\n    I am the caitiff that do hold him to't;\n    And though I kill him not, I am the cause\n    His death was so effected. Better 'twere\n    I met the ravin lion when he roar'd\n    With sharp constraint of hunger; better 'twere\n    That all the miseries which nature owes\n    Were mine at once. No; come thou home, Rousillon,\n    Whence honour but of danger wins a scar,\n    As oft it loses all. I will be gone.\n    My being here it is that holds thee hence.\n    Shall I stay here to do 't? No, no, although\n    The air of paradise did fan the house,\n    And angels offic'd all. I will be gone,\n    That pitiful rumour may report my flight\n    To consolate thine ear. Come, night; end, day.\n    For with the dark, poor thief, I'll steal away.         Exit\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 3.\nFlorence. Before the DUKE's palace\n\nFlourish. Enter the DUKE OF FLORENCE, BERTRAM, PAROLLES, SOLDIERS,\ndrum and trumpets\n\n  DUKE. The General of our Horse thou art; and we,\n    Great in our hope, lay our best love and credence\n    Upon thy promising fortune.\n  BERTRAM. Sir, it is\n    A charge too heavy for my strength; but yet\n    We'll strive to bear it for your worthy sake\n    To th' extreme edge of hazard.\n  DUKE. Then go thou forth;\n    And Fortune play upon thy prosperous helm,\n    As thy auspicious mistress!\n  BERTRAM. This very day,\n    Great Mars, I put myself into thy file;\n    Make me but like my thoughts, and I shall prove\n    A lover of thy drum, hater of love.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 4.\nRousillon. The COUNT'S palace\n\nEnter COUNTESS and STEWARD\n\n  COUNTESS. Alas! and would you take the letter of her?\n    Might you not know she would do as she has done\n    By sending me a letter? Read it again.\n  STEWARD.  [Reads]  'I am Saint Jaques' pilgrim, thither gone.\n    Ambitious love hath so in me offended\n    That barefoot plod I the cold ground upon,\n    With sainted vow my faults to have amended.\n    Write, write, that from the bloody course of war\n    My dearest master, your dear son, may hie.\n    Bless him at home in peace, whilst I from far\n    His name with zealous fervour sanctify.\n    His taken labours bid him me forgive;\n    I, his despiteful Juno, sent him forth\n    From courtly friends, with camping foes to live,\n    Where death and danger dogs the heels of worth.\n    He is too good and fair for death and me;\n    Whom I myself embrace to set him free.'\n  COUNTESS. Ah, what sharp stings are in her mildest words!\n    Rinaldo, you did never lack advice so much\n    As letting her pass so; had I spoke with her,\n    I could have well diverted her intents,\n    Which thus she hath prevented.\n  STEWARD. Pardon me, madam;\n    If I had given you this at over-night,\n    She might have been o'er ta'en; and yet she writes\n    Pursuit would be but vain.\n  COUNTESS. What angel shall\n    Bless this unworthy husband? He cannot thrive,\n    Unless her prayers, whom heaven delights to hear\n    And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wrath\n    Of greatest justice. Write, write, Rinaldo,\n    To this unworthy husband of his wife;\n    Let every word weigh heavy of her worth\n    That he does weigh too light. My greatest grief,\n    Though little he do feel it, set down sharply.\n    Dispatch the most convenient messenger.\n    When haply he shall hear that she is gone\n    He will return; and hope I may that she,\n    Hearing so much, will speed her foot again,\n    Led hither by pure love. Which of them both\n    Is dearest to me I have no skill in sense\n    To make distinction. Provide this messenger.\n    My heart is heavy, and mine age is weak;\n    Grief would have tears, and sorrow bids me speak.     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 5.\n\nWithout the walls of Florence\nA tucket afar off. Enter an old WIDOW OF FLORENCE, her daughter DIANA,\nVIOLENTA, and MARIANA, with other CITIZENS\n\n  WIDOW. Nay, come; for if they do approach the city we shall lose\n    all the sight.\n  DIANA. They say the French count has done most honourable service.\n  WIDOW. It is reported that he has taken their great'st commander;\n    and that with his own hand he slew the Duke's brother.  [Tucket]\n    We have lost our labour; they are gone a contrary way. Hark! you\n    may know by their trumpets.\n  MARIANA. Come, let's return again, and suffice ourselves with the\n    report of it. Well, Diana, take heed of this French earl; the\n    honour of a maid is her name, and no legacy is so rich as\n    honesty.\n  WIDOW. I have told my neighbour how you have been solicited by a\n    gentleman his companion.\n  MARIANA. I know that knave, hang him! one Parolles; a filthy\n    officer he is in those suggestions for the young earl. Beware of\n    them, Diana: their promises, enticements, oaths, tokens, and all\n    these engines of lust, are not the things they go under; many a\n    maid hath been seduced by them; and the misery is, example, that\n    so terrible shows in the wreck of maidenhood, cannot for all that\n    dissuade succession, but that they are limed with the twigs that\n    threatens them. I hope I need not to advise you further; but I\n    hope your own grace will keep you where you are, though there\n    were no further danger known but the modesty which is so lost.\n  DIANA. You shall not need to fear me.\n\n            Enter HELENA in the dress of a pilgrim\n\n  WIDOW. I hope so. Look, here comes a pilgrim. I know she will lie\n    at my house: thither they send one another. I'll question her.\n    God save you, pilgrim! Whither are bound?\n  HELENA. To Saint Jaques le Grand.\n    Where do the palmers lodge, I do beseech you?\n  WIDOW. At the Saint Francis here, beside the port.\n  HELENA. Is this the way?\n                                                  [A march afar]\n  WIDOW. Ay, marry, is't. Hark you! They come this way.\n    If you will tarry, holy pilgrim,\n    But till the troops come by,\n    I will conduct you where you shall be lodg'd;\n    The rather for I think I know your hostess\n    As ample as myself.\n  HELENA. Is it yourself?\n  WIDOW. If you shall please so, pilgrim.\n  HELENA. I thank you, and will stay upon your leisure.\n  WIDOW. You came, I think, from France?\n  HELENA. I did so.\n  WIDOW. Here you shall see a countryman of yours\n    That has done worthy service.\n  HELENA. His name, I pray you.\n  DIANA. The Count Rousillon. Know you such a one?\n  HELENA. But by the ear, that hears most nobly of him;\n    His face I know not.\n  DIANA. What some'er he is,\n    He's bravely taken here. He stole from France,\n    As 'tis reported, for the King had married him\n    Against his liking. Think you it is so?\n  HELENA. Ay, surely, mere the truth; I know his lady.\n  DIANA. There is a gentleman that serves the Count\n    Reports but coarsely of her.\n  HELENA. What's his name?\n  DIANA. Monsieur Parolles.\n  HELENA. O, I believe with him,\n    In argument of praise, or to the worth\n    Of the great Count himself, she is too mean\n    To have her name repeated; all her deserving\n    Is a reserved honesty, and that\n    I have not heard examin'd.\n  DIANA. Alas, poor lady!\n    'Tis a hard bondage to become the wife\n    Of a detesting lord.\n  WIDOW. I sweet, good creature, wheresoe'er she is\n    Her heart weighs sadly. This young maid might do her\n    A shrewd turn, if she pleas'd.\n  HELENA. How do you mean?\n    May be the amorous Count solicits her\n    In the unlawful purpose.\n  WIDOW. He does, indeed;\n    And brokes with all that can in such a suit\n    Corrupt the tender honour of a maid;\n    But she is arm'd for him, and keeps her guard\n    In honestest defence.\n\n    Enter, with drum and colours, BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and the\n                          whole ARMY\n\n  MARIANA. The gods forbid else!\n  WIDOW. So, now they come.\n    That is Antonio, the Duke's eldest son;\n    That, Escalus.\n  HELENA. Which is the Frenchman?\n  DIANA. He-\n    That with the plume; 'tis a most gallant fellow.\n    I would he lov'd his wife; if he were honester\n    He were much goodlier. Is't not a handsome gentleman?\n  HELENA. I like him well.\n  DIANA. 'Tis pity he is not honest. Yond's that same knave\n    That leads him to these places; were I his lady\n    I would poison that vile rascal.\n  HELENA. Which is he?\n  DIANA. That jack-an-apes with scarfs. Why is he melancholy?\n  HELENA. Perchance he's hurt i' th' battle.\n  PAROLLES. Lose our drum! well.\n  MARIANA. He's shrewdly vex'd at something.\n    Look, he has spied us.\n  WIDOW. Marry, hang you!\n  MARIANA. And your courtesy, for a ring-carrier!\n                              Exeunt BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and ARMY\n  WIDOW. The troop is past. Come, pilgrim, I will bring you\n    Where you shall host. Of enjoin'd penitents\n    There's four or five, to great Saint Jaques bound,\n    Already at my house.\n  HELENA. I humbly thank you.\n    Please it this matron and this gentle maid\n    To eat with us to-night; the charge and thanking\n    Shall be for me, and, to requite you further,\n    I will bestow some precepts of this virgin,\n    Worthy the note.\n    BOTH. We'll take your offer kindly.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 6.\nCamp before Florence\n\nEnter BERTRAM, and the two FRENCH LORDS\n\n  SECOND LORD. Nay, good my lord, put him to't; let him have his way.\n  FIRST LORD. If your lordship find him not a hiding, hold me no more\n    in your respect.\n  SECOND LORD. On my life, my lord, a bubble.\n  BERTRAM. Do you think I am so far deceived in him?\n  SECOND LORD. Believe it, my lord, in mine own direct knowledge,\n    without any malice, but to speak of him as my kinsman, he's a\n    most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly\n    promise-breaker, the owner of no one good quality worthy your\n    lordship's entertainment.\n  FIRST LORD. It were fit you knew him; lest, reposing too far in his\n    virtue, which he hath not, he might at some great and trusty\n    business in a main danger fail you.\n  BERTRAM. I would I knew in what particular action to try him.\n  FIRST LORD. None better than to let him fetch off his drum, which\n    you hear him so confidently undertake to do.\n  SECOND LORD. I with a troop of Florentines will suddenly surprise\n    him; such I will have whom I am sure he knows not from the enemy.\n    We will bind and hoodwink him so that he shall suppose no other\n    but that he is carried into the leaguer of the adversaries when\n    we bring him to our own tents. Be but your lordship present at\n    his examination; if he do not, for the promise of his life and in\n    the highest compulsion of base fear, offer to betray you and\n    deliver all the intelligence in his power against you, and that\n    with the divine forfeit of his soul upon oath, never trust my\n    judgment in anything.\n  FIRST LORD. O, for the love of laughter, let him fetch his drum; he\n    says he has a stratagem for't. When your lordship sees the bottom\n    of his success in't, and to what metal this counterfeit lump of\n    ore will be melted, if you give him not John Drum's\n    entertainment, your inclining cannot be removed. Here he comes.\n\n                      Enter PAROLLES\n\n  SECOND LORD. O, for the love of laughter, hinder not the honour of\n    his design; let him fetch off his drum in any hand.\n  BERTRAM. How now, monsieur! This drum sticks sorely in your\n    disposition.\n  FIRST LORD. A pox on 't; let it go; 'tis but a drum.\n  PAROLLES. But a drum! Is't but a drum? A drum so lost! There was\n    excellent command: to charge in with our horse upon our own\n    wings, and to rend our own soldiers!\n  FIRST LORD. That was not to be blam'd in the command of the\n    service; it was a disaster of war that Caesar himself could not\n    have prevented, if he had been there to command.\n  BERTRAM. Well, we cannot greatly condemn our success.\n    Some dishonour we had in the loss of that drum; but it is not to\n    be recovered.\n  PAROLLES. It might have been recovered.\n  BERTRAM. It might, but it is not now.\n  PAROLLES. It is to be recovered. But that the merit of service is\n    seldom attributed to the true and exact performer, I would have\n    that drum or another, or 'hic jacet.'\n  BERTRAM. Why, if you have a stomach, to't, monsieur. If you think\n    your mystery in stratagem can bring this instrument of honour\n    again into his native quarter, be magnanimous in the enterprise,\n    and go on; I will grace the attempt for a worthy exploit. If you\n    speed well in it, the Duke shall both speak of it and extend to\n    you what further becomes his greatness, even to the utmost\n    syllable of our worthiness.\n  PAROLLES. By the hand of a soldier, I will undertake it.\n  BERTRAM. But you must not now slumber in it.\n  PAROLLES. I'll about it this evening; and I will presently pen\n    down my dilemmas, encourage myself in my certainty, put myself\n    into my mortal preparation; and by midnight look to hear further\n    from me.\n  BERTRAM. May I be bold to acquaint his Grace you are gone about it?\n  PAROLLES. I know not what the success will be, my lord, but the\n    attempt I vow.\n  BERTRAM. I know th' art valiant; and, to the of thy soldiership,\n    will subscribe for thee. Farewell.\n  PAROLLES. I love not many words.                          Exit\n  SECOND LORD. No more than a fish loves water. Is not this a strange\n    fellow, my lord, that so confidently seems to undertake this\n    business, which he knows is not to be done; damns himself to do,\n    and dares better be damn'd than to do 't.\n  FIRST LORD. You do not know him, my lord, as we do. Certain it is\n    that he will steal himself into a man's favour, and for a week\n    escape a great deal of discoveries; but when you find him out,\n    you have him ever after.\n  BERTRAM. Why, do you think he will make no deed at all of this that\n    so seriously he does address himself unto?\n  SECOND LORD. None in the world; but return with an invention, and\n    clap upon you two or three probable lies. But we have almost\n    emboss'd him. You shall see his fall to-night; for indeed he is\n    not for your lordship's respect.\n  FIRST LORD. We'll make you some sport with the fox ere we case him.\n    He was first smok'd by the old Lord Lafeu. When his disguise and\n    he is parted, tell me what a sprat you shall find him; which you\n    shall see this very night.\n  SECOND LORD. I must go look my twigs; he shall be caught.\n  BERTRAM. Your brother, he shall go along with me.\n  SECOND LORD. As't please your lordship. I'll leave you.   Exit\n  BERTRAM. Now will I lead you to the house, and show you\n    The lass I spoke of.\n  FIRST LORD. But you say she's honest.\n  BERTRAM. That's all the fault. I spoke with her but once,\n    And found her wondrous cold; but I sent to her,\n    By this same coxcomb that we have i' th' wind,\n    Tokens and letters which she did re-send;\n    And this is all I have done. She's a fair creature;\n    Will you go see her?\n  FIRST LORD. With all my heart, my lord.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 7.\nFlorence. The WIDOW'S house\n\nEnter HELENA and WIDOW\n\n  HELENA. If you misdoubt me that I am not she,\n    I know not how I shall assure you further\n    But I shall lose the grounds I work upon.\n  WIDOW. Though my estate be fall'n, I was well born,\n    Nothing acquainted with these businesses;\n    And would not put my reputation now\n    In any staining act.\n  HELENA. Nor would I wish you.\n  FIRST give me trust the Count he is my husband,\n    And what to your sworn counsel I have spoken\n    Is so from word to word; and then you cannot,\n    By the good aid that I of you shall borrow,\n    Err in bestowing it.\n  WIDOW. I should believe you;\n    For you have show'd me that which well approves\n    Y'are great in fortune.\n  HELENA. Take this purse of gold,\n    And let me buy your friendly help thus far,\n    Which I will over-pay and pay again\n    When I have found it. The Count he woos your daughter\n    Lays down his wanton siege before her beauty,\n    Resolv'd to carry her. Let her in fine consent,\n    As we'll direct her how 'tis best to bear it.\n    Now his important blood will nought deny\n    That she'll demand. A ring the County wears\n    That downward hath succeeded in his house\n    From son to son some four or five descents\n    Since the first father wore it. This ring he holds\n    In most rich choice; yet, in his idle fire,\n    To buy his will, it would not seem too dear,\n    Howe'er repented after.\n  WIDOW. Now I see\n    The bottom of your purpose.\n  HELENA. You see it lawful then. It is no more\n    But that your daughter, ere she seems as won,\n    Desires this ring; appoints him an encounter;\n    In fine, delivers me to fill the time,\n    Herself most chastely absent. After this,\n    To marry her, I'll add three thousand crowns\n    To what is pass'd already.\n  WIDOW. I have yielded.\n    Instruct my daughter how she shall persever,\n    That time and place with this deceit so lawful\n    May prove coherent. Every night he comes\n    With musics of all sorts, and songs compos'd\n    To her unworthiness. It nothing steads us\n    To chide him from our eaves, for he persists\n    As if his life lay on 't.\n  HELENA. Why then to-night\n    Let us assay our plot; which, if it speed,\n    Is wicked meaning in a lawful deed,\n    And lawful meaning in a lawful act;\n    Where both not sin, and yet a sinful fact.\n    But let's about it.                                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\nWithout the Florentine camp\n\nEnter SECOND FRENCH LORD with five or six other SOLDIERS in ambush\n\n  SECOND LORD. He can come no other way but by this hedge-corner.\n    When you sally upon him, speak what terrible language you will;\n    though you understand it not yourselves, no matter; for we must\n    not seem to understand him, unless some one among us, whom we\n    must produce for an interpreter.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Good captain, let me be th' interpreter.\n  SECOND LORD. Art not acquainted with him? Knows he not thy voice?\n  FIRST SOLDIER. No, sir, I warrant you.\n  SECOND LORD. But what linsey-woolsey has thou to speak to us again?\n  FIRST SOLDIER. E'en such as you speak to me.\n  SECOND LORD. He must think us some band of strangers i' th'\n    adversary's entertainment. Now he hath a smack of all\n    neighbouring languages, therefore we must every one be a man of\n    his own fancy; not to know what we speak one to another, so we\n    seem to know, is to know straight our purpose: choughs' language,\n    gabble enough, and good enough. As for you, interpreter, you must\n    seem very politic. But couch, ho! here he comes; to beguile two\n    hours in a sleep, and then to return and swear the lies he forges.\n\n                         Enter PAROLLES\n\n  PAROLLES. Ten o'clock. Within these three hours 'twill be time\n    enough to go home. What shall I say I have done? It must be a\n    very plausive invention that carries it. They begin to smoke me;\n    and disgraces have of late knock'd to often at my door. I find my\n    tongue is too foolhardy; but my heart hath the fear of Mars\n    before it, and of his creatures, not daring the reports of my\n    tongue.\n  SECOND LORD. This is the first truth that e'er thine own tongue was\n    guilty of.\n  PAROLLES. What the devil should move me to undertake the recovery\n    of this drum, being not ignorant of the impossibility, and\n    knowing I had no such purpose? I must give myself some hurts, and\n    say I got them in exploit. Yet slight ones will not carry it.\n    They will say 'Came you off with so little?' And great ones I\n    dare not give. Wherefore, what's the instance? Tongue, I must put\n    you into a butterwoman's mouth, and buy myself another of\n    Bajazet's mule, if you prattle me into these perils.\n  SECOND LORD. Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that\n    he is?\n  PAROLLES. I would the cutting of my garments would serve the turn,\n    or the breaking of my Spanish sword.\n  SECOND LORD. We cannot afford you so.\n  PAROLLES. Or the baring of my beard; and to say it was in\n    stratagem.\n  SECOND LORD. 'Twould not do.\n  PAROLLES. Or to drown my clothes, and say I was stripp'd.\n  SECOND LORD. Hardly serve.\n  PAROLLES. Though I swore I leap'd from the window of the citadel-\n  SECOND LORD. How deep?\n  PAROLLES. Thirty fathom.\n  SECOND LORD. Three great oaths would scarce make that be believed.\n  PAROLLES. I would I had any drum of the enemy's; I would swear I\n    recover'd it.\n  SECOND LORD. You shall hear one anon.          [Alarum within]\n  PAROLLES. A drum now of the enemy's!\n  SECOND LORD. Throca movousus, cargo, cargo, cargo.\n  ALL. Cargo, cargo, cargo, villianda par corbo, cargo.\n  PAROLLES. O, ransom, ransom! Do not hide mine eyes.\n                                            [They blindfold him]\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Boskos thromuldo boskos.\n  PAROLLES. I know you are the Muskos' regiment,\n    And I shall lose my life for want of language.\n    If there be here German, or Dane, Low Dutch,\n    Italian, or French, let him speak to me;\n    I'll discover that which shall undo the Florentine.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Boskos vauvado. I understand thee, and can speak thy\n    tongue. Kerely-bonto, sir, betake thee to thy faith, for\n    seventeen poniards are at thy bosom.\n  PAROLLES. O!\n  FIRST SOLDIER. O, pray, pray, pray! Manka revania dulche.\n  SECOND LORD. Oscorbidulchos volivorco.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. The General is content to spare thee yet;\n    And, hoodwink'd as thou art, will lead thee on\n    To gather from thee. Haply thou mayst inform\n    Something to save thy life.\n  PAROLLES. O, let me live,\n    And all the secrets of our camp I'll show,\n    Their force, their purposes. Nay, I'll speak that\n    Which you will wonder at.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. But wilt thou faithfully?\n  PAROLLES. If I do not, damn me.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Acordo linta.\n    Come on; thou art granted space.\n                   Exit, PAROLLES guarded. A short alarum within\n  SECOND LORD. Go, tell the Count Rousillon and my brother\n    We have caught the woodcock, and will keep him muffled\n    Till we do hear from them.\n  SECOND SOLDIER. Captain, I will.\n  SECOND LORD. 'A will betray us all unto ourselves-\n    Inform on that.\n  SECOND SOLDIER. So I will, sir.\n  SECOND LORD. Till then I'll keep him dark and safely lock'd.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 2.\nFlorence. The WIDOW'S house\n\nEnter BERTRAM and DIANA\n\n  BERTRAM. They told me that your name was Fontibell.\n  DIANA. No, my good lord, Diana.\n  BERTRAM. Titled goddess;\n    And worth it, with addition! But, fair soul,\n    In your fine frame hath love no quality?\n    If the quick fire of youth light not your mind,\n    You are no maiden, but a monument;\n    When you are dead, you should be such a one\n    As you are now, for you are cold and stern;\n    And now you should be as your mother was\n    When your sweet self was got.\n  DIANA. She then was honest.\n  BERTRAM. So should you be.\n  DIANA. No.\n    My mother did but duty; such, my lord,\n    As you owe to your wife.\n  BERTRAM. No more o'that!\n    I prithee do not strive against my vows.\n    I was compell'd to her; but I love the\n    By love's own sweet constraint, and will for ever\n    Do thee all rights of service.\n  DIANA. Ay, so you serve us\n    Till we serve you; but when you have our roses\n    You barely leave our thorns to prick ourselves,\n    And mock us with our bareness.\n  BERTRAM. How have I sworn!\n  DIANA. 'Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth,\n    But the plain single vow that is vow'd true.\n    What is not holy, that we swear not by,\n    But take the High'st to witness. Then, pray you, tell me:\n    If I should swear by Jove's great attributes\n    I lov'd you dearly, would you believe my oaths\n    When I did love you ill? This has no holding,\n    To swear by him whom I protest to love\n    That I will work against him. Therefore your oaths\n    Are words and poor conditions, but unseal'd-\n    At least in my opinion.\n  BERTRAM. Change it, change it;\n    Be not so holy-cruel. Love is holy;\n    And my integrity ne'er knew the crafts\n    That you do charge men with. Stand no more off,\n    But give thyself unto my sick desires,\n    Who then recovers. Say thou art mine, and ever\n    My love as it begins shall so persever.\n  DIANA. I see that men make ropes in such a scarre\n    That we'll forsake ourselves. Give me that ring.\n  BERTRAM. I'll lend it thee, my dear, but have no power\n    To give it from me.\n  DIANA. Will you not, my lord?\n  BERTRAM. It is an honour 'longing to our house,\n    Bequeathed down from many ancestors;\n    Which were the greatest obloquy i' th' world\n    In me to lose.\n  DIANA. Mine honour's such a ring:\n    My chastity's the jewel of our house,\n    Bequeathed down from many ancestors;\n    Which were the greatest obloquy i' th' world\n    In me to lose. Thus your own proper wisdom\n    Brings in the champion Honour on my part\n    Against your vain assault.\n  BERTRAM. Here, take my ring;\n    My house, mine honour, yea, my life, be thine,\n    And I'll be bid by thee.\n  DIANA. When midnight comes, knock at my chamber window;\n    I'll order take my mother shall not hear.\n    Now will I charge you in the band of truth,\n    When you have conquer'd my yet maiden bed,\n    Remain there but an hour, nor speak to me:\n    My reasons are most strong; and you shall know them\n    When back again this ring shall be deliver'd.\n    And on your finger in the night I'll put\n    Another ring, that what in time proceeds\n    May token to the future our past deeds.\n    Adieu till then; then fail not. You have won\n    A wife of me, though there my hope be done.\n  BERTRAM. A heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee.\n Exit\n  DIANA. For which live long to thank both heaven and me!\n    You may so in the end.\n    My mother told me just how he would woo,\n    As if she sat in's heart; she says all men\n    Have the like oaths. He had sworn to marry me\n    When his wife's dead; therefore I'll lie with him\n    When I am buried. Since Frenchmen are so braid,\n    Marry that will, I live and die a maid.\n    Only, in this disguise, I think't no sin\n    To cozen him that would unjustly win.                   Exit\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 3.\nThe Florentine camp\n\nEnter the two FRENCH LORDS, and two or three SOLDIERS\n\n  SECOND LORD. You have not given him his mother's letter?\n  FIRST LORD. I have deliv'red it an hour since. There is something\n    in't that stings his nature; for on the reading it he chang'd\n    almost into another man.\n  SECOND LORD. He has much worthy blame laid upon him for shaking off\n    so good a wife and so sweet a lady.\n  FIRST LORD. Especially he hath incurred the everlasting displeasure\n    of the King, who had even tun'd his bounty to sing happiness to\n    him. I will tell you a thing, but you shall let it dwell darkly\n    with you.\n  SECOND LORD. When you have spoken it, 'tis dead, and I am the grave\n    of it.\n  FIRST LORD. He hath perverted a young gentlewoman here in Florence,\n    of a most chaste renown; and this night he fleshes his will in\n    the spoil of her honour. He hath given her his monumental ring,\n    and thinks himself made in the unchaste composition.\n  SECOND LORD. Now, God delay our rebellion! As we are ourselves,\n    what things are we!\n  FIRST LORD. Merely our own traitors. And as in the common course of\n    all treasons we still see them reveal themselves till they attain\n    to their abhorr'd ends; so he that in this action contrives\n    against his own nobility, in his proper stream, o'erflows\n    himself.\n  SECOND LORD. Is it not meant damnable in us to be trumpeters of our\n    unlawful intents? We shall not then have his company to-night?\n  FIRST LORD. Not till after midnight; for he is dieted to his hour.\n  SECOND LORD. That approaches apace. I would gladly have him see his\n    company anatomiz'd, that he might take a measure of his own\n    judgments, wherein so curiously he had set this counterfeit.\n  FIRST LORD. We will not meddle with him till he come; for his\n    presence must be the whip of the other.\n  SECOND LORD. In the meantime, what hear you of these wars?\n  FIRST LORD. I hear there is an overture of peace.\n  SECOND LORD. Nay, I assure you, a peace concluded.\n  FIRST LORD. What will Count Rousillon do then? Will he travel\n    higher, or return again into France?\n  SECOND LORD. I perceive, by this demand, you are not altogether\n    of his counsel.\n  FIRST LORD. Let it be forbid, sir! So should I be a great deal\n    of his act.\n  SECOND LORD. Sir, his wife, some two months since, fled from his\n    house. Her pretence is a pilgrimage to Saint Jaques le Grand;\n    which holy undertaking with most austere sanctimony she\n    accomplish'd; and, there residing, the tenderness of her nature\n    became as a prey to her grief; in fine, made a groan of her last\n    breath, and now she sings in heaven.\n  FIRST LORD. How is this justified?\n  SECOND LORD. The stronger part of it by her own letters, which\n    makes her story true even to the point of her death. Her death\n    itself, which could not be her office to say is come, was\n    faithfully confirm'd by the rector of the place.\n  FIRST LORD. Hath the Count all this intelligence?\n  SECOND LORD. Ay, and the particular confirmations, point from\n    point, to the full arming of the verity.\n  FIRST LORD. I am heartily sorry that he'll be glad of this.\n  SECOND LORD. How mightily sometimes we make us comforts of our\n    losses!\n  FIRST LORD. And how mightily some other times we drown our gain in\n    tears! The great dignity that his valour hath here acquir'd for\n    him shall at home be encount'red with a shame as ample.\n  SECOND LORD. The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill\n    together. Our virtues would be proud if our faults whipt them\n    not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherish'd by\n    our virtues.\n\n                      Enter a MESSENGER\n\n    How now? Where's your master?\n  SERVANT. He met the Duke in the street, sir; of whom he hath taken\n    a solemn leave. His lordship will next morning for France. The\n    Duke hath offered him letters of commendations to the King.\n  SECOND LORD. They shall be no more than needful there, if they were\n    more than they can commend.\n  FIRST LORD. They cannot be too sweet for the King's tartness.\n    Here's his lordship now.\n\n                        Enter BERTRAM\n\n    How now, my lord, is't not after midnight?\n  BERTRAM. I have to-night dispatch'd sixteen businesses, a month's\n    length apiece; by an abstract of success: I have congied with the\n    Duke, done my adieu with his nearest; buried a wife, mourn'd for\n    her; writ to my lady mother I am returning; entertain'd my\n    convoy; and between these main parcels of dispatch effected many\n    nicer needs. The last was the greatest, but that I have not ended\n    yet.\n  SECOND LORD. If the business be of any difficulty and this morning\n    your departure hence, it requires haste of your lordship.\n  BERTRAM. I mean the business is not ended, as fearing to hear of it\n    hereafter. But shall we have this dialogue between the Fool and\n    the Soldier? Come, bring forth this counterfeit module has\n    deceiv'd me like a double-meaning prophesier.\n  SECOND LORD. Bring him forth.  [Exeunt SOLDIERS]  Has sat i' th'\n    stocks all night, poor gallant knave.\n  BERTRAM. No matter; his heels have deserv'd it, in usurping his\n    spurs so long. How does he carry himself?\n  SECOND LORD. I have told your lordship already the stocks carry\n    him. But to answer you as you would be understood: he weeps like\n    a wench that had shed her milk; he hath confess'd himself to\n    Morgan, whom he supposes to be a friar, from the time of his\n    remembrance to this very instant disaster of his setting i' th'\n    stocks. And what think you he hath confess'd?\n  BERTRAM. Nothing of me, has 'a?\n  SECOND LORD. His confession is taken, and it shall be read to his\n    face; if your lordship be in't, as I believe you are, you must\n    have the patience to hear it.\n\n                   Enter PAROLLES guarded, and\n                  FIRST SOLDIER as interpreter\n\n  BERTRAM. A plague upon him! muffled! He can say nothing of me.\n  SECOND LORD. Hush, hush! Hoodman comes. Portotartarossa.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. He calls for the tortures. What will you say without\n    'em?\n  PAROLLES. I will confess what I know without constraint; if ye\n    pinch me like a pasty, I can say no more.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Bosko chimurcho.\n  SECOND LORD. Boblibindo chicurmurco.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. YOU are a merciful general. Our General bids you\n    answer to what I shall ask you out of a note.\n  PAROLLES. And truly, as I hope to live.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. 'First demand of him how many horse the Duke is\n    strong.' What say you to that?\n  PAROLLES. Five or six thousand; but very weak and unserviceable.\n    The troops are all scattered, and the commanders very poor\n    rogues, upon my reputation and credit, and as I hope to live.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Shall I set down your answer so?\n  PAROLLES. Do; I'll take the sacrament on 't, how and which way you\n    will.\n  BERTRAM. All's one to him. What a past-saving slave is this!\n  SECOND LORD. Y'are deceiv'd, my lord; this is Monsieur Parolles,\n    the gallant militarist-that was his own phrase-that had the whole\n    theoric of war in the knot of his scarf, and the practice in the\n    chape of his dagger.\n  FIRST LORD. I will never trust a man again for keeping his sword\n    clean; nor believe he can have everything in him by wearing his\n    apparel neatly.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, that's set down.\n  PAROLLES. 'Five or six thousand horse' I said-I will say true- 'or\n    thereabouts' set down, for I'll speak truth.\n  SECOND LORD. He's very near the truth in this.\n  BERTRAM. But I con him no thanks for't in the nature he delivers it.\n  PAROLLES. 'Poor rogues' I pray you say.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, that's set down.\n  PAROLLES. I humbly thank you, sir. A truth's a truth-the rogues are\n    marvellous poor.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. 'Demand of him of what strength they are a-foot.'\n    What say you to that?\n  PAROLLES. By my troth, sir, if I were to live this present hour, I\n    will tell true. Let me see: Spurio, a hundred and fifty;\n    Sebastian, so many; Corambus, so many; Jaques, so many; Guiltian,\n    Cosmo, Lodowick, and Gratii, two hundred fifty each; mine own\n    company, Chitopher, Vaumond, Bentii, two hundred fifty each; so\n    that the muster-file, rotten and sound, upon my life, amounts not\n    to fifteen thousand poll; half of the which dare not shake the\n    snow from off their cassocks lest they shake themselves to\n    pieces.\n  BERTRAM. What shall be done to him?\n  SECOND LORD. Nothing, but let him have thanks. Demand of him my\n    condition, and what credit I have with the Duke.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, that's set down. 'You shall demand of him\n    whether one Captain Dumain be i' th' camp, a Frenchman; what his\n    reputation is with the Duke, what his valour, honesty, expertness\n    in wars; or whether he thinks it were not possible, with\n    well-weighing sums of gold, to corrupt him to a revolt.' What say\n    you to this? What do you know of it?\n  PAROLLES. I beseech you, let me answer to the particular of the\n    inter'gatories. Demand them singly.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Do you know this Captain Dumain?\n  PAROLLES. I know him: 'a was a botcher's prentice in Paris, from\n    whence he was whipt for getting the shrieve's fool with child-a\n    dumb innocent that could not say him nay.\n  BERTRAM. Nay, by your leave, hold your hands; though I know his\n    brains are forfeit to the next tile that falls.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, is this captain in the Duke of Florence's\n    camp?\n  PAROLLES. Upon my knowledge, he is, and lousy.\n  SECOND LORD. Nay, look not so upon me; we shall hear of your\n    lordship anon.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. What is his reputation with the Duke?\n  PAROLLES. The Duke knows him for no other but a poor officer of\n    mine; and writ to me this other day to turn him out o' th' band.\n    I think I have his letter in my pocket.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Marry, we'll search.\n  PAROLLES. In good sadness, I do not know; either it is there or it\n    is upon a file with the Duke's other letters in my tent.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Here 'tis; here's a paper. Shall I read it to you?\n  PAROLLES. I do not know if it be it or no.\n  BERTRAM. Our interpreter does it well.\n  SECOND LORD. Excellently.\n  FIRST SOLDIER.  [Reads]  'Dian, the Count's a fool, and full of\n    gold.'\n  PAROLLES. That is not the Duke's letter, sir; that is an\n    advertisement to a proper maid in Florence, one Diana, to take\n    heed of the allurement of one Count Rousillon, a foolish idle\n    boy, but for all that very ruttish. I pray you, sir, put it up\n    again.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Nay, I'll read it first by your favour.\n  PAROLLES. My meaning in't, I protest, was very honest in the behalf\n    of the maid; for I knew the young Count to be a dangerous and\n    lascivious boy, who is a whale to virginity, and devours up all\n    the fry it finds.\n  BERTRAM. Damnable both-sides rogue!\n  FIRST SOLDIER.                                         [Reads]\n    'When he swears oaths, bid him drop gold, and take it;\n    After he scores, he never pays the score.\n    Half won is match well made; match, and well make it;\n    He ne'er pays after-debts, take it before.\n    And say a soldier, Dian, told thee this:\n    Men are to mell with, boys are not to kiss;\n    For count of this, the Count's a fool, I know it,\n    Who pays before, but not when he does owe it.\n    Thine, as he vow'd to thee in thine ear,\n                                                   PAROLLES.'\n  BERTRAM. He shall be whipt through the army with this rhyme in's\n    forehead.\n  FIRST LORD. This is your devoted friend, sir, the manifold\n    linguist, and the amnipotent soldier.\n  BERTRAM. I could endure anything before but a cat, and now he's a\n    cat to me.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. I perceive, sir, by our General's looks we shall be\n    fain to hang you.\n  PAROLLES. My life, sir, in any case! Not that I am afraid to die,\n    but that, my offences being many, I would repent out the\n    remainder of nature. Let me live, sir, in a dungeon, i' th'\n    stocks, or anywhere, so I may live.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. We'll see what may be done, so you confess freely;\n    therefore, once more to this Captain Dumain: you have answer'd to\n    his reputation with the Duke, and to his valour; what is his\n    honesty?\n  PAROLLES. He will steal, sir, an egg out of a cloister; for rapes\n    and ravishments he parallels Nessus. He professes not keeping of\n    oaths; in breaking 'em he is stronger than Hercules. He will lie,\n    sir, with such volubility that you would think truth were a fool.\n    Drunkenness is his best virtue, for he will be swine-drunk; and\n    in his sleep he does little harm, save to his bedclothes about\n    him; but they know his conditions and lay him in straw. I have\n    but little more to say, sir, of his honesty. He has everything\n    that an honest man should not have; what an honest man should\n    have he has nothing.\n  SECOND LORD. I begin to love him for this.\n  BERTRAM. For this description of thine honesty? A pox upon him! For\n    me, he's more and more a cat.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. What say you to his expertness in war?\n  PAROLLES. Faith, sir, has led the drum before the English\n    tragedians-to belie him I will not-and more of his soldier-ship\n    I know not, except in that country he had the honour to be the\n    officer at a place there called Mile-end to instruct for the\n    doubling of files-I would do the man what honour I can-but of\n    this I am not certain.\n  SECOND LORD. He hath out-villain'd villainy so far that the rarity\n    redeems him.\n  BERTRAM. A pox on him! he's a cat still.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. His qualities being at this poor price, I need not\n    to ask you if gold will corrupt him to revolt.\n  PAROLLES. Sir, for a cardecue he will sell the fee-simple of his\n    salvation, the inheritance of it; and cut th' entail from all\n    remainders and a perpetual succession for it perpetually.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. What's his brother, the other Captain Dumain?\n  FIRST LORD. Why does he ask him of me?\n  FIRST SOLDIER. What's he?\n  PAROLLES. E'en a crow o' th' same nest; not altogether so great as\n    the first in goodness, but greater a great deal in evil. He\n    excels his brother for a coward; yet his brother is reputed one\n    of the best that is. In a retreat he outruns any lackey: marry,\n    in coming on he has the cramp.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. If your life be saved, will you undertake to betray\n    the Florentine?\n  PAROLLES. Ay, and the Captain of his Horse, Count Rousillon.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. I'll whisper with the General, and know his\n    pleasure.\n  PAROLLES.  [Aside]  I'll no more drumming. A plague of all drums!\n    Only to seem to deserve well, and to beguile the supposition of\n    that lascivious young boy the Count, have I run into this danger.\n    Yet who would have suspected an ambush where I was taken?\n  FIRST SOLDIER. There is no remedy, sir, but you must die.\n    The General says you that have so traitorously discover'd the\n    secrets of your army, and made such pestiferous reports of men\n    very nobly held, can serve the world for no honest use; therefore\n    you must die. Come, headsman, of with his head.\n  PAROLLES. O Lord, sir, let me live, or let me see my death!\n  FIRST SOLDIER. That shall you, and take your leave of all your\n    friends.  [Unmuffling him]  So look about you; know you any here?\n  BERTRAM. Good morrow, noble Captain.\n  FIRST LORD. God bless you, Captain Parolles.\n  SECOND LORD. God save you, noble Captain.\n  FIRST LORD. Captain, what greeting will you to my Lord Lafeu? I am\n    for France.\n  SECOND LORD. Good Captain, will you give me a copy of the sonnet\n    you writ to Diana in behalf of the Count Rousillon? An I were not\n    a very coward I'd compel it of you; but fare you well.\n                                        Exeunt BERTRAM and LORDS\n  FIRST SOLDIER. You are undone, Captain, all but your scarf; that\n    has a knot on 't yet.\n  PAROLLES. Who cannot be crush'd with a plot?\n  FIRST SOLDIER. If you could find out a country where but women were\n    that had received so much shame, you might begin an impudent\n    nation. Fare ye well, sir; I am for France too; we shall speak of\n    you there.                                Exit with SOLDIERS\n  PAROLLES. Yet am I thankful. If my heart were great,\n    'Twould burst at this. Captain I'll be no more;\n    But I will eat, and drink, and sleep as soft\n    As captain shall. Simply the thing I am\n    Shall make me live. Who knows himself a braggart,\n    Let him fear this; for it will come to pass\n    That every braggart shall be found an ass.\n    Rust, sword; cool, blushes; and, Parolles, live\n    Safest in shame. Being fool'd, by fool'ry thrive.\n    There's place and means for every man alive.\n    I'll after them.                                        Exit\n\n\n\n\nACT IV SCENE 4.\nThe WIDOW'S house\n\nEnter HELENA, WIDOW, and DIANA\n\n  HELENA. That you may well perceive I have not wrong'd you!\n    One of the greatest in the Christian world\n    Shall be my surety; fore whose throne 'tis needful,\n    Ere I can perfect mine intents, to kneel.\n    Time was I did him a desired office,\n    Dear almost as his life; which gratitude\n    Through flinty Tartar's bosom would peep forth,\n    And answer 'Thanks.' I duly am inform'd\n    His Grace is at Marseilles, to which place\n    We have convenient convoy. You must know\n    I am supposed dead. The army breaking,\n    My husband hies him home; where, heaven aiding,\n    And by the leave of my good lord the King,\n    We'll be before our welcome.\n  WIDOW. Gentle madam,\n    You never had a servant to whose trust\n    Your business was more welcome.\n  HELENA. Nor you, mistress,\n    Ever a friend whose thoughts more truly labour\n    To recompense your love. Doubt not but heaven\n    Hath brought me up to be your daughter's dower,\n    As it hath fated her to be my motive\n    And helper to a husband. But, O strange men!\n    That can such sweet use make of what they hate,\n    When saucy trusting of the cozen'd thoughts\n    Defiles the pitchy night. So lust doth play\n    With what it loathes, for that which is away.\n    But more of this hereafter. You, Diana,\n    Under my poor instructions yet must suffer\n    Something in my behalf.\n  DIANA. Let death and honesty\n    Go with your impositions, I am yours\n    Upon your will to suffer.\n  HELENA. Yet, I pray you:\n    But with the word the time will bring on summer,\n    When briers shall have leaves as well as thorns\n    And be as sweet as sharp. We must away;\n    Our waggon is prepar'd, and time revives us.\n    All's Well that Ends Well. Still the fine's the crown.\n    Whate'er the course, the end is the renown.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV SCENE 5.\nRousillon. The COUNT'S palace\n\nEnter COUNTESS, LAFEU, and CLOWN\n\n  LAFEU. No, no, no, son was misled with a snipt-taffeta fellow\n    there, whose villainous saffron would have made all the unbak'd\n    and doughy youth of a nation in his colour. Your daughter-in-law\n    had been alive at this hour, and your son here at home, more\n    advanc'd by the King than by that red-tail'd humble-bee I speak\n    of.\n  COUNTESS. I would I had not known him. It was the death of the most\n    virtuous gentlewoman that ever nature had praise for creating. If\n    she had partaken of my flesh, and cost me the dearest groans of a\n    mother. I could not have owed her a more rooted love.\n  LAFEU. 'Twas a good lady, 'twas a good lady. We may pick a thousand\n    sallets ere we light on such another herb.\n  CLOWN. Indeed, sir, she was the sweet-marjoram of the sallet, or,\n    rather, the herb of grace.\n  LAFEU. They are not sallet-herbs, you knave; they are nose-herbs.\n  CLOWN. I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir; I have not much skill in\n    grass.\n  LAFEU. Whether dost thou profess thyself-a knave or a fool?\n  CLOWN. A fool, sir, at a woman's service, and a knave at a man's.\n  LAFEU. Your distinction?\n  CLOWN. I would cozen the man of his wife, and do his service.\n  LAFEU. So you were a knave at his service, indeed.\n  CLOWN. And I would give his wife my bauble, sir, to do her service.\n  LAFEU. I will subscribe for thee; thou art both knave and fool.\n  CLOWN. At your service.\n  LAFEU. No, no, no.\n  CLOWN. Why, sir, if I cannot serve you, I can serve as great a\n    prince as you are.\n  LAFEU. Who's that? A Frenchman?\n  CLOWN. Faith, sir, 'a has an English name; but his fisnomy is more\n    hotter in France than there.\n  LAFEU. What prince is that?\n  CLOWN. The Black Prince, sir; alias, the Prince of Darkness; alias,\n    the devil.\n  LAFEU. Hold thee, there's my purse. I give thee not this to suggest\n    thee from thy master thou talk'st of; serve him still.\n  CLOWN. I am a woodland fellow, sir, that always loved a great fire;\n    and the master I speak of ever keeps a good fire. But, sure, he\n    is the prince of the world; let his nobility remain in's court. I\n    am for the house with the narrow gate, which I take to be too\n    little for pomp to enter. Some that humble themselves may; but\n    the many will be too chill and tender: and they'll be for the\n    flow'ry way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire.\n  LAFEU. Go thy ways, I begin to be aweary of thee; and I tell thee\n    so before, because I would not fall out with thee. Go thy ways;\n    let my horses be well look'd to, without any tricks.\n  CLOWN. If I put any tricks upon 'em, sir, they shall be jades'\n    tricks, which are their own right by the law of nature.\n Exit\n  LAFEU. A shrewd knave, and an unhappy.\n  COUNTESS. So 'a is. My lord that's gone made himself much  sport\n    out of him. By his authority he remains here, which he thinks is\n    a patent for his sauciness; and indeed he has no pace, but runs\n    where he will.\n  LAFEU. I like him well; 'tis not amiss. And I was about to tell\n    you, since I heard of the good lady's death, and that my lord\n    your son was upon his return home, I moved the King my master to\n    speak in the behalf of my daughter; which, in the minority of\n    them both, his Majesty out of a self-gracious remembrance did\n    first propose. His Highness hath promis'd me to do it; and, to\n    stop up the displeasure he hath conceived against your son, there\n    is no fitter matter. How does your ladyship like it?\n  COUNTESS. With very much content, my lord; and I wish it happily\n    effected.\n  LAFEU. His Highness comes post from Marseilles, of as able body as\n    when he number'd thirty; 'a will be here to-morrow, or I am\n    deceiv'd by him that in such intelligence hath seldom fail'd.\n  COUNTESS. It rejoices me that I hope I shall see him ere I die.\n    I have letters that my son will be here to-night. I shall beseech\n    your lordship to remain with me tal they meet together.\n  LAFEU. Madam, I was thinking with what manners I might safely be\n    admitted.\n  COUNTESS. You need but plead your honourable privilege.\n  LAFEU. Lady, of that I have made a bold charter; but, I thank my\n    God, it holds yet.\n\n                         Re-enter CLOWN\n\n  CLOWN. O madam, yonder's my lord your son with a patch of velvet\n    on's face; whether there be a scar under 't or no, the velvet\n    knows; but 'tis a goodly patch of velvet. His left cheek is a\n    cheek of two pile and a half, but his right cheek is worn bare.\n  LAFEU. A scar nobly got, or a noble scar, is a good liv'ry of\n    honour; so belike is that.\n  CLOWN. But it is your carbonado'd face.\n  LAFEU. Let us go see your son, I pray you;\n    I long to talk with the young noble soldier.\n  CLOWN. Faith, there's a dozen of 'em, with delicate fine hats, and\n    most courteous feathers, which bow the head and nod at every man.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\nMarseilles. A street\n\nEnter HELENA, WIDOW, and DIANA, with two ATTENDANTS\n\n  HELENA. But this exceeding posting day and night\n    Must wear your spirits low; we cannot help it.\n    But since you have made the days and nights as one,\n    To wear your gentle limbs in my affairs,\n    Be bold you do so grow in my requital\n    As nothing can unroot you.\n\n                      Enter a GENTLEMAN\n\n    In happy time!\n    This man may help me to his Majesty's ear,\n    If he would spend his power. God save you, sir.\n  GENTLEMAN. And you.\n  HELENA. Sir, I have seen you in the court of France.\n  GENTLEMAN. I have been sometimes there.\n  HELENA. I do presume, sir, that you are not fall'n\n    From the report that goes upon your goodness;\n    And therefore, goaded with most sharp occasions,\n    Which lay nice manners by, I put you to\n    The use of your own virtues, for the which\n    I shall continue thankful.\n  GENTLEMAN. What's your will?\n  HELENA. That it will please you\n    To give this poor petition to the King;\n    And aid me with that store of power you have\n    To come into his presence.\n  GENTLEMAN. The King's not here.\n  HELENA. Not here, sir?\n  GENTLEMAN. Not indeed.\n    He hence remov'd last night, and with more haste\n    Than is his use.\n  WIDOW. Lord, how we lose our pains!\n  HELENA. All's Well That Ends Well yet,\n    Though time seem so adverse and means unfit.\n    I do beseech you, whither is he gone?\n  GENTLEMAN. Marry, as I take it, to Rousillon;\n    Whither I am going.\n  HELENA. I do beseech you, sir,\n    Since you are like to see the King before me,\n    Commend the paper to his gracious hand;\n    Which I presume shall render you no blame,\n    But rather make you thank your pains for it.\n    I will come after you with what good speed\n    Our means will make us means.\n  GENTLEMAN. This I'll do for you.\n  HELENA. And you shall find yourself to be well thank'd,\n    Whate'er falls more. We must to horse again;\n    Go, go, provide.                                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V SCENE 2.\nRousillon. The inner court of the COUNT'S palace\n\nEnter CLOWN and PAROLLES\n\n  PAROLLES. Good Monsieur Lavache, give my Lord Lafeu this letter. I\n    have ere now, sir, been better known to you, when I have held\n    familiarity with fresher clothes; but I am now, sir, muddied in\n    Fortune's mood, and smell somewhat strong of her strong\n    displeasure.\n  CLOWN. Truly, Fortune's displeasure is but sluttish, if it smell\n    so strongly as thou speak'st of. I will henceforth eat no fish\n    of Fortune's butt'ring. Prithee, allow the wind.\n  PAROLLES. Nay, you need not to stop your nose, sir; I spake but by\n    a metaphor.\n  CLOWN. Indeed, sir, if your metaphor stink, I will stop my nose; or\n    against any man's metaphor. Prithee, get thee further.\n  PAROLLES. Pray you, sir, deliver me this paper.\n  CLOWN. Foh! prithee stand away. A paper from Fortune's close-stool\n    to give to a nobleman! Look here he comes himself.\n\n                           Enter LAFEU\n\n    Here is a pur of Fortune's, sir, or of Fortune's cat, but not\n    a musk-cat, that has fall'n into the unclean fishpond of her\n    displeasure, and, as he says, is muddied withal. Pray you, sir,\n    use the carp as you may; for he looks like a poor, decayed,\n    ingenious, foolish, rascally knave. I do pity his distress\n    in my similes of comfort, and leave him to your lordship.\n Exit\n  PAROLLES. My lord, I am a man whom Fortune hath cruelly scratch'd.\n  LAFEU. And what would you have me to do? 'Tis too late to pare her\n    nails now. Wherein have you played the knave with Fortune, that\n    she should scratch you, who of herself is a good lady and would\n    not have knaves thrive long under her? There's a cardecue for\n    you. Let the justices make you and Fortune friends; I am for\n    other business.\n  PAROLLES. I beseech your honour to hear me one single word.\n  LAFEU. You beg a single penny more; come, you shall ha't; save your\n    word.\n  PAROLLES. My name, my good lord, is Parolles.\n  LAFEU. You beg more than word then. Cox my passion! give me your\n    hand. How does your drum?\n  PAROLLES. O my good lord, you were the first that found me.\n  LAFEU. Was I, in sooth? And I was the first that lost thee.\n  PAROLLES. It lies in you, my lord, to bring me in some grace, for\n    you did bring me out.\n  LAFEU. Out upon thee, knave! Dost thou put upon me at once both the\n    office of God and the devil? One brings the in grace, and the\n    other brings thee out.    [Trumpets sound]  The King's coming; I\n    know by his trumpets. Sirrah, inquire further after me; I had\n    talk of you last night. Though you are a fool and a knave, you\n    shall eat. Go to; follow.\n  PAROLLES. I praise God for you.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V SCENE 3.\nRousillon. The COUNT'S palace\n\nFlourish. Enter KING, COUNTESS, LAFEU, the two FRENCH LORDS, with ATTENDANTS\n\n  KING. We lost a jewel of her, and our esteem\n    Was made much poorer by it; but your son,\n    As mad in folly, lack'd the sense to know\n    Her estimation home.\n  COUNTESS. 'Tis past, my liege;\n    And I beseech your Majesty to make it\n    Natural rebellion, done i' th' blaze of youth,\n    When oil and fire, too strong for reason's force,\n    O'erbears it and burns on.\n  KING. My honour'd lady,\n    I have forgiven and forgotten all;\n    Though my revenges were high bent upon him\n    And watch'd the time to shoot.\n  LAFEU. This I must say-\n    But first, I beg my pardon: the young lord\n    Did to his Majesty, his mother, and his lady,\n    Offence of mighty note; but to himself\n    The greatest wrong of all. He lost a wife\n    Whose beauty did astonish the survey\n    Of richest eyes; whose words all ears took captive;\n    Whose dear perfection hearts that scorn'd to serve\n    Humbly call'd mistress.\n  KING. Praising what is lost\n    Makes the remembrance dear. Well, call him hither;\n    We are reconcil'd, and the first view shall kill\n    All repetition. Let him not ask our pardon;\n    The nature of his great offence is dead,\n    And deeper than oblivion do we bury\n    Th' incensing relics of it; let him approach,\n    A stranger, no offender; and inform him\n    So 'tis our will he should.\n  GENTLEMAN. I shall, my liege.                 Exit GENTLEMAN\n  KING. What says he to your daughter? Have you spoke?\n  LAFEU. All that he is hath reference to your Highness.\n  KING. Then shall we have a match. I have letters sent me\n    That sets him high in fame.\n\n                          Enter BERTRAM\n\n  LAFEU. He looks well on 't.\n  KING. I am not a day of season,\n    For thou mayst see a sunshine and a hail\n    In me at once. But to the brightest beams\n    Distracted clouds give way; so stand thou forth;\n    The time is fair again.\n  BERTRAM. My high-repented blames,\n    Dear sovereign, pardon to me.\n  KING. All is whole;\n    Not one word more of the consumed time.\n    Let's take the instant by the forward top;\n    For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees\n    Th' inaudible and noiseless foot of Time\n    Steals ere we can effect them. You remember\n    The daughter of this lord?\n  BERTRAM. Admiringly, my liege. At first\n    I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart\n    Durst make too bold herald of my tongue;\n    Where the impression of mine eye infixing,\n    Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me,\n    Which warp'd the line of every other favour,\n    Scorn'd a fair colour or express'd it stol'n,\n    Extended or contracted all proportions\n    To a most hideous object. Thence it came\n    That she whom all men prais'd, and whom myself,\n    Since I have lost, have lov'd, was in mine eye\n    The dust that did offend it.\n  KING. Well excus'd.\n    That thou didst love her, strikes some scores away\n    From the great compt; but love that comes too late,\n    Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried,\n    To the great sender turns a sour offence,\n    Crying 'That's good that's gone.' Our rash faults\n    Make trivial price of serious things we have,\n    Not knowing them until we know their grave.\n    Oft our displeasures, to ourselves unjust,\n    Destroy our friends, and after weep their dust;\n    Our own love waking cries to see what's done,\n    While shameful hate sleeps out the afternoon.\n    Be this sweet Helen's knell. And now forget her.\n    Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin.\n    The main consents are had; and here we'll stay\n    To see our widower's second marriage-day.\n  COUNTESS. Which better than the first, O dear heaven, bless!\n    Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cesse!\n  LAFEU. Come on, my son, in whom my house's name\n    Must be digested; give a favour from you,\n    To sparkle in the spirits of my daughter,\n    That she may quickly come.\n                                          [BERTRAM gives a ring]\n    By my old beard,\n    And ev'ry hair that's on 't, Helen, that's dead,\n    Was a sweet creature; such a ring as this,\n    The last that e'er I took her leave at court,\n    I saw upon her finger.\n  BERTRAM. Hers it was not.\n  KING. Now, pray you, let me see it; for mine eye,\n    While I was speaking, oft was fasten'd to't.\n    This ring was mine; and when I gave it Helen\n    I bade her, if her fortunes ever stood\n    Necessitied to help, that by this token\n    I would relieve her. Had you that craft to reave her\n    Of what should stead her most?\n  BERTRAM. My gracious sovereign,\n    Howe'er it pleases you to take it so,\n    The ring was never hers.\n  COUNTESS. Son, on my life,\n    I have seen her wear it; and she reckon'd it\n    At her life's rate.\n  LAFEU. I am sure I saw her wear it.\n  BERTRAM. You are deceiv'd, my lord; she never saw it.\n    In Florence was it from a casement thrown me,\n    Wrapp'd in a paper, which contain'd the name\n    Of her that threw it. Noble she was, and thought\n    I stood engag'd; but when I had subscrib'd\n    To mine own fortune, and inform'd her fully\n    I could not answer in that course of honour\n    As she had made the overture, she ceas'd,\n    In heavy satisfaction, and would never\n    Receive the ring again.\n  KING. Plutus himself,\n    That knows the tinct and multiplying med'cine,\n    Hath not in nature's mystery more science\n    Than I have in this ring. 'Twas mine, 'twas Helen's,\n    Whoever gave it you. Then, if you know\n    That you are well acquainted with yourself,\n    Confess 'twas hers, and by what rough enforcement\n    You got it from her. She call'd the saints to surety\n    That she would never put it from her finger\n    Unless she gave it to yourself in bed-\n    Where you have never come- or sent it us\n    Upon her great disaster.\n  BERTRAM. She never saw it.\n  KING. Thou speak'st it falsely, as I love mine honour;\n    And mak'st conjectural fears to come into me\n    Which I would fain shut out. If it should prove\n    That thou art so inhuman- 'twill not prove so.\n    And yet I know not- thou didst hate her deadly,\n    And she is dead; which nothing, but to close\n    Her eyes myself, could win me to believe\n    More than to see this ring. Take him away.\n                                          [GUARDS seize BERTRAM]\n    My fore-past proofs, howe'er the matter fall,\n    Shall tax my fears of little vanity,\n    Having vainly fear'd too little. Away with him.\n    We'll sift this matter further.\n  BERTRAM. If you shall prove\n    This ring was ever hers, you shall as easy\n    Prove that I husbanded her bed in Florence,\n    Where she yet never was.                       Exit, guarded\n  KING. I am wrapp'd in dismal thinkings.\n\n                        Enter a GENTLEMAN\n\n  GENTLEMAN. Gracious sovereign,\n    Whether I have been to blame or no, I know not:\n    Here's a petition from a Florentine,\n    Who hath, for four or five removes, come short\n    To tender it herself. I undertook it,\n    Vanquish'd thereto by the fair grace and speech\n    Of the poor suppliant, who by this, I know,\n    Is here attending; her business looks in her\n    With an importing visage; and she told me\n    In a sweet verbal brief it did concern\n    Your Highness with herself.\n  KING.  [Reads the letter]  'Upon his many protestations to marry me\n    when his wife was dead, I blush to say it, he won me. Now is the\n    Count Rousillon a widower; his vows are forfeited to me, and my\n    honour's paid to him. He stole from Florence, taking no leave,\n    and I follow him to his country for justice. Grant it me, O King!\n    in you it best lies; otherwise a seducer flourishes, and a poor\n    maid is undone.\n                                                DIANA CAPILET.'\n  LAFEU. I will buy me a son-in-law in a fair, and toll for this.\n    I'll none of him.\n  KING. The heavens have thought well on thee, Lafeu,\n    To bring forth this discov'ry. Seek these suitors.\n    Go speedily, and bring again the Count.\n                                               Exeunt ATTENDANTS\n    I am afeard the life of Helen, lady,\n    Was foully snatch'd.\n  COUNTESS. Now, justice on the doers!\n\n                       Enter BERTRAM, guarded\n\n  KING. I wonder, sir, sith wives are monsters to you.\n    And that you fly them as you swear them lordship,\n    Yet you desire to marry.\n                                           Enter WIDOW and DIANA\n    What woman's that?\n  DIANA. I am, my lord, a wretched Florentine,\n    Derived from the ancient Capilet.\n    My suit, as I do understand, you know,\n    And therefore know how far I may be pitied.\n  WIDOW. I am her mother, sir, whose age and honour\n    Both suffer under this complaint we bring,\n    And both shall cease, without your remedy.\n  KING. Come hither, Count; do you know these women?\n  BERTRAM. My lord, I neither can nor will deny\n    But that I know them. Do they charge me further?\n  DIANA. Why do you look so strange upon your wife?\n  BERTRAM. She's none of mine, my lord.\n  DIANA. If you shall marry,\n    You give away this hand, and that is mine;\n    You give away heaven's vows, and those are mine;\n    You give away myself, which is known mine;\n    For I by vow am so embodied yours\n    That she which marries you must marry me,\n    Either both or none.\n  LAFEU.  [To BERTRAM]  Your reputation comes too short for\n    my daughter; you are no husband for her.\n  BERTRAM. My lord, this is a fond and desp'rate creature\n    Whom sometime I have laugh'd with. Let your Highness\n    Lay a more noble thought upon mine honour\n    Than for to think that I would sink it here.\n  KING. Sir, for my thoughts, you have them ill to friend\n    Till your deeds gain them. Fairer prove your honour\n    Than in my thought it lies!\n  DIANA. Good my lord,\n    Ask him upon his oath if he does think\n    He had not my virginity.\n  KING. What say'st thou to her?\n  BERTRAM. She's impudent, my lord,\n    And was a common gamester to the camp.\n  DIANA. He does me wrong, my lord; if I were so\n    He might have bought me at a common price.\n    Do not believe him. o, behold this ring,\n    Whose high respect and rich validity\n    Did lack a parallel; yet, for all that,\n    He gave it to a commoner o' th' camp,\n    If I be one.\n  COUNTESS. He blushes, and 'tis it.\n    Of six preceding ancestors, that gem\n    Conferr'd by testament to th' sequent issue,\n    Hath it been ow'd and worn. This is his wife:\n    That ring's a thousand proofs.\n  KING. Methought you said\n    You saw one here in court could witness it.\n  DIANA. I did, my lord, but loath am to produce\n    So bad an instrument; his name's Parolles.\n  LAFEU. I saw the man to-day, if man he be.\n  KING. Find him, and bring him hither.        Exit an ATTENDANT\n  BERTRAM. What of him?\n    He's quoted for a most perfidious slave,\n    With all the spots o' th' world tax'd and debauch'd,\n    Whose nature sickens but to speak a truth.\n    Am I or that or this for what he'll utter\n    That will speak anything?\n  KING. She hath that ring of yours.\n  BERTRAM. I think she has. Certain it is I lik'd her,\n    And boarded her i' th' wanton way of youth.\n    She knew her distance, and did angle for me,\n    Madding my eagerness with her restraint,\n    As all impediments in fancy's course\n    Are motives of more fancy; and, in fine,\n    Her infinite cunning with her modern grace\n    Subdu'd me to her rate. She got the ring;\n    And I had that which any inferior might\n    At market-price have bought.\n  DIANA. I must be patient.\n    You that have turn'd off a first so noble wife\n    May justly diet me. I pray you yet-\n    Since you lack virtue, I will lose a husband-\n    Send for your ring, I will return it home,\n    And give me mine again.\n  BERTRAM. I have it not.\n  KING. What ring was yours, I pray you?\n  DIANA. Sir, much like\n    The same upon your finger.\n  KING. Know you this ring? This ring was his of late.\n  DIANA. And this was it I gave him, being abed.\n  KING. The story, then, goes false you threw it him\n    Out of a casement.\n  DIANA. I have spoke the truth.\n\n                       Enter PAROLLES\n\n  BERTRAM. My lord, I do confess the ring was hers.\n  KING. You boggle shrewdly; every feather starts you.\n    Is this the man you speak of?\n  DIANA. Ay, my lord.\n  KING. Tell me, sirrah-but tell me true I charge you,\n    Not fearing the displeasure of your master,\n    Which, on your just proceeding, I'll keep off-\n    By him and by this woman here what know you?\n  PAROLLES. So please your Majesty, my master hath been an honourable\n    gentleman; tricks he hath had in him, which gentlemen have.\n  KING. Come, come, to th' purpose. Did he love this woman?\n  PAROLLES. Faith, sir, he did love her; but how?\n  KING. How, I pray you?\n  PAROLLES. He did love her, sir, as a gentleman loves a woman.\n  KING. How is that?\n  PAROLLES. He lov'd her, sir, and lov'd her not.\n  KING. As thou art a knave and no knave.\n    What an equivocal companion is this!\n  PAROLLES. I am a poor man, and at your Majesty's command.\n  LAFEU. He's a good drum, my lord, but a naughty orator.\n  DIANA. Do you know he promis'd me marriage?\n  PAROLLES. Faith, I know more than I'll speak.\n  KING. But wilt thou not speak all thou know'st?\n  PAROLLES. Yes, so please your Majesty. I did go between them, as I\n    said; but more than that, he loved her-for indeed he was mad for\n    her, and talk'd of Satan, and of Limbo, and of Furies, and I know\n    not what. Yet I was in that credit with them at that time that I\n    knew of their going to bed; and of other motions, as promising\n    her marriage, and things which would derive me ill will to speak\n    of; therefore I will not speak what I know.\n  KING. Thou hast spoken all already, unless thou canst say they are\n    married; but thou art too fine in thy evidence; therefore stand\n    aside.\n    This ring, you say, was yours?\n  DIANA. Ay, my good lord.\n  KING. Where did you buy it? Or who gave it you?\n  DIANA. It was not given me, nor I did not buy it.\n  KING. Who lent it you?\n  DIANA. It was not lent me neither.\n  KING. Where did you find it then?\n  DIANA. I found it not.\n  KING. If it were yours by none of all these ways,\n    How could you give it him?\n  DIANA. I never gave it him.\n  LAFEU. This woman's an easy glove, my lord; she goes of and on at\n    pleasure.\n  KING. This ring was mine, I gave it his first wife.\n  DIANA. It might be yours or hers, for aught I know.\n  KING. Take her away, I do not like her now;\n    To prison with her. And away with him.\n    Unless thou tell'st me where thou hadst this ring,\n    Thou diest within this hour.\n  DIANA. I'll never tell you.\n  KING. Take her away.\n  DIANA. I'll put in bail, my liege.\n  KING. I think thee now some common customer.\n  DIANA. By Jove, if ever I knew man, 'twas you.\n  KING. Wherefore hast thou accus'd him all this while?\n  DIANA. Because he's guilty, and he is not guilty.\n    He knows I am no maid, and he'll swear to't:\n    I'll swear I am a maid, and he knows not.\n    Great King, I am no strumpet, by my life;\n    I am either maid, or else this old man's wife.\n                                             [Pointing to LAFEU]\n  KING. She does abuse our ears; to prison with her.\n  DIANA. Good mother, fetch my bail. Stay, royal sir;\n                                                      Exit WIDOW\n    The jeweller that owes the ring is sent for,\n    And he shall surety me. But for this lord\n    Who hath abus'd me as he knows himself,\n    Though yet he never harm'd me, here I quit him.\n    He knows himself my bed he hath defil'd;\n    And at that time he got his wife with child.\n    Dead though she be, she feels her young one kick;\n    So there's my riddle: one that's dead is quick-\n    And now behold the meaning.\n\n                     Re-enter WIDOW with HELENA\n\n  KING. Is there no exorcist\n    Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?\n    Is't real that I see?\n  HELENA. No, my good lord;\n    'Tis but the shadow of a wife you see,\n    The name and not the thing.\n  BERTRAM. Both, both; o, pardon!\n  HELENA. O, my good lord, when I was like this maid,\n    I found you wondrous kind. There is your ring,\n    And, look you, here's your letter. This it says:\n    'When from my finger you can get this ring,\n    And are by me with child,' etc. This is done.\n    Will you be mine now you are doubly won?\n  BERTRAM. If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly,\n    I'll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.\n  HELENA. If it appear not plain, and prove untrue,\n    Deadly divorce step between me and you!\n    O my dear mother, do I see you living?\n  LAFEU. Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep anon. [To PAROLLES]\n    Good Tom Drum, lend me a handkercher. So, I\n    thank thee. Wait on me home, I'll make sport with thee;\n    let thy curtsies alone, they are scurvy ones.\n  KING. Let us from point to point this story know,\n    To make the even truth in pleasure flow.\n    [To DIANA]  If thou beest yet a fresh uncropped flower,\n    Choose thou thy husband, and I'll pay thy dower;\n    For I can guess that by thy honest aid\n    Thou kept'st a wife herself, thyself a maid.-\n    Of that and all the progress, more and less,\n    Resolvedly more leisure shall express.\n    All yet seems well; and if it end so meet,\n    The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.       [Flourish]\n\nEPILOGUE\n                             EPILOGUE.\n\n  KING. The King's a beggar, now the play is done.\n    All is well ended if this suit be won,\n    That you express content; which we will pay\n    With strife to please you, day exceeding day.\n    Ours be your patience then, and yours our parts;\n    Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.\n                                                    Exeunt omnes\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1607\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  MARK ANTONY,         Triumvirs\n  OCTAVIUS CAESAR,         \"\n  M. AEMILIUS LEPIDUS,     \"\n  SEXTUS POMPEIUS,         \"\n  DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, friend to Antony\n  VENTIDIUS,             \"    \"   \"\n  EROS,                  \"    \"   \"\n  SCARUS,                \"    \"   \"\n  DERCETAS,              \"    \"   \"\n  DEMETRIUS,             \"    \"   \"\n  PHILO,                 \"    \"   \"\n  MAECENAS,   friend to Caesar\n  AGRIPPA,       \"    \"   \"\n  DOLABELLA,     \"    \"   \"\n  PROCULEIUS,    \"    \"   \"\n  THYREUS,       \"    \"   \"\n  GALLUS,        \"    \"   \"\n  MENAS,      friend to Pompey\n  MENECRATES,    \"    \"    \"\n  VARRIUS,       \"    \"    \"\n  TAURUS, Lieutenant-General to Caesar\n  CANIDIUS, Lieutenant-General to Antony\n  SILIUS, an Officer in Ventidius's army\n  EUPHRONIUS, an Ambassador from Antony to Caesar\n  ALEXAS,   attendant on Cleopatra\n  MARDIAN,      \"     \"      \"\n  SELEUCUS,     \"     \"      \"\n  DIOMEDES,     \"     \"      \"\n  A SOOTHSAYER\n  A CLOWN\n\n  CLEOPATRA, Queen of Egypt\n  OCTAVIA, sister to Caesar and wife to Antony\n  CHARMIAN, lady attending on Cleopatra\n  IRAS,       \"      \"      \"     \"\n\n\n\n  Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nThe Roman Empire\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nAlexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace\n\nEnter DEMETRIUS and PHILO\n\n  PHILO. Nay, but this dotage of our general's\n    O'erflows the measure. Those his goodly eyes,\n    That o'er the files and musters of the war\n    Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn,\n    The office and devotion of their view\n    Upon a tawny front. His captain's heart,\n    Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst\n    The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,\n    And is become the bellows and the fan\n    To cool a gipsy's lust.\n\n     Flourish. Enter ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, her LADIES, the train,\n                    with eunuchs fanning her\n\n    Look where they come!\n    Take but good note, and you shall see in him\n    The triple pillar of the world transform'd\n    Into a strumpet's fool. Behold and see.\n  CLEOPATRA. If it be love indeed, tell me how much.\n  ANTONY. There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.\n  CLEOPATRA. I'll set a bourn how far to be belov'd.\n  ANTONY. Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.\n\n                       Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. News, my good lord, from Rome.\n  ANTONY. Grates me the sum.\n  CLEOPATRA. Nay, hear them, Antony.\n    Fulvia perchance is angry; or who knows\n    If the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent\n    His pow'rful mandate to you: 'Do this or this;\n    Take in that kingdom and enfranchise that;\n    Perform't, or else we damn thee.'\n  ANTONY. How, my love?\n  CLEOPATRA. Perchance? Nay, and most like,\n    You must not stay here longer; your dismission\n    Is come from Caesar; therefore hear it, Antony.\n    Where's Fulvia's process? Caesar's I would say? Both?\n    Call in the messengers. As I am Egypt's Queen,\n    Thou blushest, Antony, and that blood of thine\n    Is Caesar's homager. Else so thy cheek pays shame\n    When shrill-tongu'd Fulvia scolds. The messengers!\n  ANTONY. Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch\n    Of the rang'd empire fall! Here is my space.\n    Kingdoms are clay; our dungy earth alike\n    Feeds beast as man. The nobleness of life\n    Is to do thus [emhracing], when such a mutual pair\n    And such a twain can do't, in which I bind,\n    On pain of punishment, the world to weet\n    We stand up peerless.\n  CLEOPATRA. Excellent falsehood!\n    Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?\n    I'll seem the fool I am not. Antony\n    Will be himself.\n  ANTONY. But stirr'd by Cleopatra.\n    Now for the love of Love and her soft hours,\n    Let's not confound the time with conference harsh;\n    There's not a minute of our lives should stretch\n    Without some pleasure now. What sport to-night?\n  CLEOPATRA. Hear the ambassadors.\n  ANTONY. Fie, wrangling queen!\n    Whom everything becomes- to chide, to laugh,\n    To weep; whose every passion fully strives\n    To make itself in thee fair and admir'd.\n    No messenger but thine, and all alone\n    To-night we'll wander through the streets and note\n    The qualities of people. Come, my queen;\n    Last night you did desire it. Speak not to us.\n                     Exeunt ANTONY and CLEOPATRA, with the train\n  DEMETRIUS. Is Caesar with Antonius priz'd so slight?\n  PHILO. Sir, sometimes when he is not Antony,\n    He comes too short of that great property\n    Which still should go with Antony.\n  DEMETRIUS. I am full sorry\n    That he approves the common liar, who\n    Thus speaks of him at Rome; but I will hope\n    Of better deeds to-morrow. Rest you happy!            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAlexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace\n\nEnter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a SOOTHSAYER\n\n  CHARMIAN. Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most anything Alexas, almost\n    most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer that you prais'd so\n    to th' Queen? O that I knew this husband, which you say must\n    charge his horns with garlands!\n  ALEXAS. Soothsayer!\n  SOOTHSAYER. Your will?\n  CHARMIAN. Is this the man? Is't you, sir, that know things?\n  SOOTHSAYER. In nature's infinite book of secrecy\n    A little I can read.\n  ALEXAS. Show him your hand.\n\n                       Enter ENOBARBUS\n\n  ENOBARBUS. Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough\n    Cleopatra's health to drink.\n  CHARMIAN. Good, sir, give me good fortune.\n  SOOTHSAYER. I make not, but foresee.\n  CHARMIAN. Pray, then, foresee me one.\n  SOOTHSAYER. You shall be yet far fairer than you are.\n  CHARMIAN. He means in flesh.\n  IRAS. No, you shall paint when you are old.\n  CHARMIAN. Wrinkles forbid!\n  ALEXAS. Vex not his prescience; be attentive.\n  CHARMIAN. Hush!\n  SOOTHSAYER. You shall be more beloving than beloved.\n  CHARMIAN. I had rather heat my liver with drinking.\n  ALEXAS. Nay, hear him.\n  CHARMIAN. Good now, some excellent fortune! Let me be married to\n    three kings in a forenoon, and widow them all. Let me have a\n    child at fifty, to whom Herod of Jewry may do homage. Find me to\n    marry me with Octavius Caesar, and companion me with my mistress.\n  SOOTHSAYER. You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.\n  CHARMIAN. O, excellent! I love long life better than figs.\n  SOOTHSAYER. You have seen and prov'd a fairer former fortune\n    Than that which is to approach.\n  CHARMIAN. Then belike my children shall have no names.\n    Prithee, how many boys and wenches must I have?\n  SOOTHSAYER. If every of your wishes had a womb,\n    And fertile every wish, a million.\n  CHARMIAN. Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch.\n  ALEXAS. You think none but your sheets are privy to your wishes.\n  CHARMIAN. Nay, come, tell Iras hers.\n  ALEXAS. We'll know all our fortunes.\n  ENOBARBUS. Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall be-\n    drunk to bed.\n  IRAS. There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else.\n  CHARMIAN. E'en as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine.\n  IRAS. Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay.\n  CHARMIAN. Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful prognostication, I\n    cannot scratch mine ear. Prithee, tell her but worky-day fortune.\n  SOOTHSAYER. Your fortunes are alike.\n  IRAS. But how, but how? Give me particulars.\n  SOOTHSAYER. I have said.\n  IRAS. Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?\n  CHARMIAN. Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I,\n    where would you choose it?\n  IRAS. Not in my husband's nose.\n  CHARMIAN. Our worser thoughts heavens mend! Alexas- come, his\n    fortune, his fortune! O, let him marry a woman that cannot go,\n    sweet Isis, I beseech thee! And let her die too, and give him a\n    worse! And let worse follow worse, till the worst of all follow\n    him laughing to his grave, fiftyfold a cuckold! Good Isis, hear\n    me this prayer, though thou deny me a matter of more weight; good\n    Isis, I beseech thee!\n  IRAS. Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people! For, as\n    it is a heartbreaking to see a handsome man loose-wiv'd, so it is\n    a deadly sorrow to behold a foul knave uncuckolded. Therefore,\n    dear Isis, keep decorum, and fortune him accordingly!\n  CHARMIAN. Amen.\n  ALEXAS. Lo now, if it lay in their hands to make me a cuckold, they\n    would make themselves whores but they'ld do't!\n\n                          Enter CLEOPATRA\n\n  ENOBARBUS. Hush! Here comes Antony.\n  CHARMIAN. Not he; the Queen.\n  CLEOPATRA. Saw you my lord?\n  ENOBARBUS. No, lady.\n  CLEOPATRA. Was he not here?\n  CHARMIAN. No, madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. He was dispos'd to mirth; but on the sudden\n    A Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus!\n  ENOBARBUS. Madam?\n  CLEOPATRA. Seek him, and bring him hither. Where's Alexas?\n  ALEXAS. Here, at your service. My lord approaches.\n\n          Enter ANTONY, with a MESSENGER and attendants\n\n  CLEOPATRA. We will not look upon him. Go with us.\n                       Exeunt CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, and the rest\n  MESSENGER. Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.\n  ANTONY. Against my brother Lucius?\n  MESSENGER. Ay.\n    But soon that war had end, and the time's state\n    Made friends of them, jointing their force 'gainst Caesar,\n    Whose better issue in the war from Italy\n    Upon the first encounter drave them.\n  ANTONY. Well, what worst?\n  MESSENGER. The nature of bad news infects the teller.\n  ANTONY. When it concerns the fool or coward. On!\n    Things that are past are done with me. 'Tis thus:\n    Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death,\n    I hear him as he flatter'd.\n  MESSENGER. Labienus-\n    This is stiff news- hath with his Parthian force\n    Extended Asia from Euphrates,\n    His conquering banner shook from Syria\n    To Lydia and to Ionia,\n    Whilst-\n  ANTONY. Antony, thou wouldst say.\n  MESSENGER. O, my lord!\n  ANTONY. Speak to me home; mince not the general tongue;\n    Name Cleopatra as she is call'd in Rome.\n    Rail thou in Fulvia's phrase, and taunt my faults\n    With such full licence as both truth and malice\n    Have power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds\n    When our quick minds lie still, and our ills told us\n    Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.\n  MESSENGER. At your noble pleasure.                        Exit\n  ANTONY. From Sicyon, ho, the news! Speak there!\n  FIRST ATTENDANT. The man from Sicyon- is there such an one?\n  SECOND ATTENDANT. He stays upon your will.\n  ANTONY. Let him appear.\n    These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,\n    Or lose myself in dotage.\n\n                 Enter another MESSENGER with a letter\n\n    What are you?\n  SECOND MESSENGER. Fulvia thy wife is dead.\n  ANTONY. Where died she?\n  SECOND MESSENGER. In Sicyon.\n    Her length of sickness, with what else more serious\n    Importeth thee to know, this bears.       [Gives the letter]\n  ANTONY. Forbear me.                             Exit MESSENGER\n    There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it.\n    What our contempts doth often hurl from us\n    We wish it ours again; the present pleasure,\n    By revolution low'ring, does become\n    The opposite of itself. She's good, being gone;\n    The hand could pluck her back that shov'd her on.\n    I must from this enchanting queen break off.\n    Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,\n    My idleness doth hatch. How now, Enobarbus!\n\n                    Re-enter ENOBARBUS\n\n  ENOBARBUS. What's your pleasure, sir?\n  ANTONY. I must with haste from hence.\n  ENOBARBUS. Why, then we kill all our women. We see how mortal an\n    unkindness is to them; if they suffer our departure, death's the\n    word.\n  ANTONY. I must be gone.\n  ENOBARBUS. Under a compelling occasion, let women die. It were pity\n    to cast them away for nothing, though between them and a great\n    cause they should be esteemed nothing. Cleopatra, catching but\n    the least noise of this, dies instantly; I have seen her die\n    twenty times upon far poorer moment. I do think there is mettle\n    in death, which commits some loving act upon her, she hath such a\n    celerity in dying.\n  ANTONY. She is cunning past man's thought.\n  ENOBARBUS. Alack, sir, no! Her passions are made of nothing but the\n    finest part of pure love. We cannot call her winds and waters\n    sighs and tears; they are greater storms and tempests than\n    almanacs can report. This cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she\n    makes a show'r of rain as well as Jove.\n  ANTONY. Would I had never seen her!\n  ENOBARBUS. O Sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of\n    work, which not to have been blest withal would have discredited\n    your travel.\n  ANTONY. Fulvia is dead.\n  ENOBARBUS. Sir?\n  ANTONY. Fulvia is dead.\n  ENOBARBUS. Fulvia?\n  ANTONY. Dead.\n  ENOBARBUS. Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When it\n    pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man from him, it\n    shows to man the tailors of the earth; comforting therein that\n    when old robes are worn out there are members to make new. If\n    there were no more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut,\n    and the case to be lamented. This grief is crown'd with\n    consolation: your old smock brings forth a new petticoat; and\n    indeed the tears live in an onion that should water this sorrow.\n  ANTONY. The business she hath broached in the state\n    Cannot endure my absence.\n  ENOBARBUS. And the business you have broach'd here cannot be\n    without you; especially that of Cleopatra's, which wholly depends\n    on your abode.\n  ANTONY. No more light answers. Let our officers\n    Have notice what we purpose. I shall break\n    The cause of our expedience to the Queen,\n    And get her leave to part. For not alone\n    The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,\n    Do strongly speak to us; but the letters to\n    Of many our contriving friends in Rome\n    Petition us at home. Sextus Pompeius\n    Hath given the dare to Caesar, and commands\n    The empire of the sea; our slippery people,\n    Whose love is never link'd to the deserver\n    Till his deserts are past, begin to throw\n    Pompey the Great and all his dignities\n    Upon his son; who, high in name and power,\n    Higher than both in blood and life, stands up\n    For the main soldier; whose quality, going on,\n    The sides o' th' world may danger. Much is breeding\n    Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life\n    And not a serpent's poison. Say our pleasure,\n    To such whose place is under us, requires\n    Our quick remove from hence.\n  ENOBARBUS. I shall do't.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nAlexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace\n\nEnter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS\n\n  CLEOPATRA. Where is he?\n  CHARMIAN. I did not see him since.\n  CLEOPATRA. See where he is, who's with him, what he does.\n    I did not send you. If you find him sad,\n    Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report\n    That I am sudden sick. Quick, and return.        Exit ALEXAS\n  CHARMIAN. Madam, methinks, if you did love him dearly,\n    You do not hold the method to enforce\n    The like from him.\n  CLEOPATRA. What should I do I do not?\n  CHARMIAN. In each thing give him way; cross him in nothing.\n  CLEOPATRA. Thou teachest like a fool- the way to lose him.\n  CHARMIAN. Tempt him not so too far; I wish, forbear;\n    In time we hate that which we often fear.\n\n                            Enter ANTONY\n\n    But here comes Antony.\n  CLEOPATRA. I am sick and sullen.\n  ANTONY. I am sorry to give breathing to my purpose-\n  CLEOPATRA. Help me away, dear Charmian; I shall fall.\n    It cannot be thus long; the sides of nature\n    Will not sustain it.\n  ANTONY. Now, my dearest queen-\n  CLEOPATRA. Pray you, stand farther from me.\n  ANTONY. What's the matter?\n  CLEOPATRA. I know by that same eye there's some good news.\n    What says the married woman? You may go.\n    Would she had never given you leave to come!\n    Let her not say 'tis I that keep you here-\n    I have no power upon you; hers you are.\n  ANTONY. The gods best know-\n  CLEOPATRA. O, never was there queen\n    So mightily betray'd! Yet at the first\n    I saw the treasons planted.\n  ANTONY. Cleopatra-\n  CLEOPATRA. Why should I think you can be mine and true,\n    Though you in swearing shake the throned gods,\n    Who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness,\n    To be entangled with those mouth-made vows,\n    Which break themselves in swearing!\n  ANTONY. Most sweet queen-\n  CLEOPATRA. Nay, pray you seek no colour for your going,\n    But bid farewell, and go. When you sued staying,\n    Then was the time for words. No going then!\n    Eternity was in our lips and eyes,\n    Bliss in our brows' bent, none our parts so poor\n    But was a race of heaven. They are so still,\n    Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world,\n    Art turn'd the greatest liar.\n  ANTONY. How now, lady!\n  CLEOPATRA. I would I had thy inches. Thou shouldst know\n    There were a heart in Egypt.\n  ANTONY. Hear me, queen:\n    The strong necessity of time commands\n    Our services awhile; but my full heart\n    Remains in use with you. Our Italy\n    Shines o'er with civil swords: Sextus Pompeius\n    Makes his approaches to the port of Rome;\n    Equality of two domestic powers\n    Breed scrupulous faction; the hated, grown to strength,\n    Are newly grown to love. The condemn'd Pompey,\n    Rich in his father's honour, creeps apace\n    Into the hearts of such as have not thrived\n    Upon the present state, whose numbers threaten;\n    And quietness, grown sick of rest, would purge\n    By any desperate change. My more particular,\n    And that which most with you should safe my going,\n    Is Fulvia's death.\n  CLEOPATRA. Though age from folly could not give me freedom,\n     It does from childishness. Can Fulvia die?\n  ANTONY. She's dead, my Queen.\n    Look here, and at thy sovereign leisure read\n    The garboils she awak'd. At the last, best.\n    See when and where she died.\n  CLEOPATRA. O most false love!\n    Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill\n    With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see,\n    In Fulvia's death how mine receiv'd shall be.\n  ANTONY. Quarrel no more, but be prepar'd to know\n    The purposes I bear; which are, or cease,\n    As you shall give th' advice. By the fire\n    That quickens Nilus' slime, I go from hence\n    Thy soldier, servant, making peace or war\n    As thou affects.\n  CLEOPATRA. Cut my lace, Charmian, come!\n    But let it be; I am quickly ill and well-\n    So Antony loves.\n  ANTONY. My precious queen, forbear,\n    And give true evidence to his love, which stands\n    An honourable trial.\n  CLEOPATRA. So Fulvia told me.\n    I prithee turn aside and weep for her;\n    Then bid adieu to me, and say the tears\n    Belong to Egypt. Good now, play one scene\n    Of excellent dissembling, and let it look\n    Like perfect honour.\n  ANTONY. You'll heat my blood; no more.\n  CLEOPATRA. You can do better yet; but this is meetly.\n  ANTONY. Now, by my sword-\n  CLEOPATRA. And target. Still he mends;\n    But this is not the best. Look, prithee, Charmian,\n    How this Herculean Roman does become\n    The carriage of his chafe.\n  ANTONY. I'll leave you, lady.\n  CLEOPATRA. Courteous lord, one word.\n    Sir, you and I must part- but that's not it.\n    Sir, you and I have lov'd- but there's not it.\n    That you know well. Something it is I would-\n    O, my oblivion is a very Antony,\n    And I am all forgotten!\n  ANTONY. But that your royalty\n    Holds idleness your subject, I should take you\n    For idleness itself.\n  CLEOPATRA. 'Tis sweating labour\n    To bear such idleness so near the heart\n    As Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive me;\n    Since my becomings kill me when they do not\n    Eye well to you. Your honour calls you hence;\n    Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly,\n    And all the gods go with you! Upon your sword\n    Sit laurel victory, and smooth success\n    Be strew'd before your feet!\n  ANTONY. Let us go. Come.\n    Our separation so abides and flies\n    That thou, residing here, goes yet with me,\n    And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee.\n    Away!                                                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nRome. CAESAR'S house\n\nEnter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, reading a letter; LEPIDUS, and their train\n\n  CAESAR. You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know,\n    It is not Caesar's natural vice to hate\n    Our great competitor. From Alexandria\n    This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes\n    The lamps of night in revel; is not more manlike\n    Than Cleopatra, nor the queen of Ptolemy\n    More womanly than he; hardly gave audience, or\n    Vouchsaf'd to think he had partners. You shall find there\n    A man who is the abstract of all faults\n    That all men follow.\n  LEPIDUS. I must not think there are\n    Evils enow to darken all his goodness.\n    His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaven,\n    More fiery by night's blackness; hereditary\n    Rather than purchas'd; what he cannot change\n    Than what he chooses.\n  CAESAR. You are too indulgent. Let's grant it is not\n    Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy,\n    To give a kingdom for a mirth, to sit\n    And keep the turn of tippling with a slave,\n    To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet\n    With knaves that smell of sweat. Say this becomes him-\n    As his composure must be rare indeed\n    Whom these things cannot blemish- yet must Antony\n    No way excuse his foils when we do bear\n    So great weight in his lightness. If he fill'd\n    His vacancy with his voluptuousness,\n    Full surfeits and the dryness of his bones\n    Call on him for't! But to confound such time\n    That drums him from his sport and speaks as loud\n    As his own state and ours- 'tis to be chid\n    As we rate boys who, being mature in knowledge,\n    Pawn their experience to their present pleasure,\n    And so rebel to judgment.\n\n                   Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  LEPIDUS. Here's more news.\n  MESSENGER. Thy biddings have been done; and every hour,\n    Most noble Caesar, shalt thou have report\n    How 'tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea,\n    And it appears he is belov'd of those\n    That only have fear'd Caesar. To the ports\n    The discontents repair, and men's reports\n    Give him much wrong'd.\n  CAESAR. I should have known no less.\n    It hath been taught us from the primal state\n    That he which is was wish'd until he were;\n    And the ebb'd man, ne'er lov'd till ne'er worth love,\n    Comes dear'd by being lack'd. This common body,\n    Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,\n    Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,\n    To rot itself with motion.\n  MESSENGER. Caesar, I bring thee word\n    Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates,\n    Make the sea serve them, which they ear and wound\n    With keels of every kind. Many hot inroads\n    They make in Italy; the borders maritime\n    Lack blood to think on't, and flush youth revolt.\n    No vessel can peep forth but 'tis as soon\n    Taken as seen; for Pompey's name strikes more\n    Than could his war resisted.\n  CAESAR. Antony,\n    Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once\n    Was beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st\n    Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel\n    Did famine follow; whom thou fought'st against,\n    Though daintily brought up, with patience more\n    Than savages could suffer. Thou didst drink\n    The stale of horses and the gilded puddle\n    Which beasts would cough at. Thy palate then did deign\n    The roughest berry on the rudest hedge;\n    Yea, like the stag when snow the pasture sheets,\n    The barks of trees thou brows'd. On the Alps\n    It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,\n    Which some did die to look on. And all this-\n    It wounds thine honour that I speak it now-\n    Was borne so like a soldier that thy cheek\n    So much as lank'd not.\n  LEPIDUS. 'Tis pity of him.\n  CAESAR. Let his shames quickly\n    Drive him to Rome. 'Tis time we twain\n    Did show ourselves i' th' field; and to that end\n    Assemble we immediate council. Pompey\n    Thrives in our idleness.\n  LEPIDUS. To-morrow, Caesar,\n    I shall be furnish'd to inform you rightly\n    Both what by sea and land I can be able\n    To front this present time.\n  CAESAR. Till which encounter\n    It is my business too. Farewell.\n  LEPIDUS. Farewell, my lord. What you shall know meantime\n    Of stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir,\n    To let me be partaker.\n  CAESAR. Doubt not, sir;\n    I knew it for my bond.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAlexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace\n\nEnter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and MARDIAN\n\n  CLEOPATRA. Charmian!\n  CHARMIAN. Madam?\n  CLEOPATRA. Ha, ha!\n    Give me to drink mandragora.\n  CHARMIAN. Why, madam?\n  CLEOPATRA. That I might sleep out this great gap of time\n    My Antony is away.\n  CHARMIAN. You think of him too much.\n  CLEOPATRA. O, 'tis treason!\n  CHARMIAN. Madam, I trust, not so.\n  CLEOPATRA. Thou, eunuch Mardian!\n  MARDIAN. What's your Highness' pleasure?\n  CLEOPATRA. Not now to hear thee sing; I take no pleasure\n    In aught an eunuch has. 'Tis well for thee\n    That, being unseminar'd, thy freer thoughts\n    May not fly forth of Egypt. Hast thou affections?\n  MARDIAN. Yes, gracious madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. Indeed?\n  MARDIAN. Not in deed, madam; for I can do nothing\n    But what indeed is honest to be done.\n    Yet have I fierce affections, and think\n    What Venus did with Mars.\n  CLEOPATRA. O Charmian,\n    Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he or sits he?\n    Or does he walk? or is he on his horse?\n    O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!\n    Do bravely, horse; for wot'st thou whom thou mov'st?\n    The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm\n    And burgonet of men. He's speaking now,\n    Or murmuring 'Where's my serpent of old Nile?'\n    For so he calls me. Now I feed myself\n    With most delicious poison. Think on me,\n    That am with Phoebus' amorous pinches black,\n    And wrinkled deep in time? Broad-fronted Caesar,\n    When thou wast here above the ground, I was\n    A morsel for a monarch; and great Pompey\n    Would stand and make his eyes grow in my brow;\n    There would he anchor his aspect and die\n    With looking on his life.\n\n                         Enter ALEXAS\n\n  ALEXAS. Sovereign of Egypt, hail!\n  CLEOPATRA. How much unlike art thou Mark Antony!\n    Yet, coming from him, that great med'cine hath\n    With his tinct gilded thee.\n    How goes it with my brave Mark Antony?\n  ALEXAS. Last thing he did, dear Queen,\n    He kiss'd- the last of many doubled kisses-\n    This orient pearl. His speech sticks in my heart.\n  CLEOPATRA. Mine ear must pluck it thence.\n  ALEXAS. 'Good friend,' quoth he\n    'Say the firm Roman to great Egypt sends\n    This treasure of an oyster; at whose foot,\n    To mend the petty present, I will piece\n    Her opulent throne with kingdoms. All the East,\n    Say thou, shall call her mistress.' So he nodded,\n    And soberly did mount an arm-gaunt steed,\n    Who neigh'd so high that what I would have spoke\n    Was beastly dumb'd by him.\n  CLEOPATRA. What, was he sad or merry?\n  ALEXAS. Like to the time o' th' year between the extremes\n    Of hot and cold; he was nor sad nor merry.\n  CLEOPATRA. O well-divided disposition! Note him,\n    Note him, good Charmian; 'tis the man; but note him!\n    He was not sad, for he would shine on those\n    That make their looks by his; he was not merry,\n    Which seem'd to tell them his remembrance lay\n    In Egypt with his joy; but between both.\n    O heavenly mingle! Be'st thou sad or merry,\n    The violence of either thee becomes,\n    So does it no man else. Met'st thou my posts?\n  ALEXAS. Ay, madam, twenty several messengers.\n    Why do you send so thick?\n  CLEOPATRA. Who's born that day\n    When I forget to send to Antony\n    Shall die a beggar. Ink and paper, Charmian.\n    Welcome, my good Alexas. Did I, Charmian,\n    Ever love Caesar so?\n  CHARMIAN. O that brave Caesar!\n  CLEOPATRA. Be chok'd with such another emphasis!\n    Say 'the brave Antony.'\n  CHARMIAN. The valiant Caesar!\n  CLEOPATRA. By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth\n    If thou with Caesar paragon again\n    My man of men.\n  CHARMIAN. By your most gracious pardon,\n    I sing but after you.\n  CLEOPATRA. My salad days,\n    When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,\n    To say as I said then. But come, away!\n    Get me ink and paper.\n    He shall have every day a several greeting,\n    Or I'll unpeople Egypt.                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nMessina. POMPEY'S house\n\nEnter POMPEY, MENECRATES, and MENAS, in warlike manner\n\n  POMPEY. If the great gods be just, they shall assist\n    The deeds of justest men.\n  MENECRATES. Know, worthy Pompey,\n    That what they do delay they not deny.\n  POMPEY. Whiles we are suitors to their throne, decays\n    The thing we sue for.\n  MENECRATES. We, ignorant of ourselves,\n    Beg often our own harms, which the wise pow'rs\n    Deny us for our good; so find we profit\n    By losing of our prayers.\n  POMPEY. I shall do well.\n    The people love me, and the sea is mine;\n    My powers are crescent, and my auguring hope\n    Says it will come to th' full. Mark Antony\n    In Egypt sits at dinner, and will make\n    No wars without doors. Caesar gets money where\n    He loses hearts. Lepidus flatters both,\n    Of both is flatter'd; but he neither loves,\n    Nor either cares for him.\n  MENAS. Caesar and Lepidus\n    Are in the field. A mighty strength they carry.\n  POMPEY. Where have you this? 'Tis false.\n  MENAS. From Silvius, sir.\n  POMPEY. He dreams. I know they are in Rome together,\n    Looking for Antony. But all the charms of love,\n    Salt Cleopatra, soften thy wan'd lip!\n    Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both;\n    Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts,\n    Keep his brain fuming. Epicurean cooks\n    Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite,\n    That sleep and feeding may prorogue his honour\n    Even till a Lethe'd dullness-\n\n                       Enter VARRIUS\n\n    How now, Varrius!\n  VARRIUS. This is most certain that I shall deliver:\n    Mark Antony is every hour in Rome\n    Expected. Since he went from Egypt 'tis\n    A space for farther travel.\n  POMPEY. I could have given less matter\n    A better ear. Menas, I did not think\n    This amorous surfeiter would have donn'd his helm\n    For such a petty war; his soldiership\n    Is twice the other twain. But let us rear\n    The higher our opinion, that our stirring\n    Can from the lap of Egypt's widow pluck\n    The ne'er-lust-wearied Antony.\n  MENAS. I cannot hope\n    Caesar and Antony shall well greet together.\n    His wife that's dead did trespasses to Caesar;\n    His brother warr'd upon him; although, I think,\n    Not mov'd by Antony.\n  POMPEY. I know not, Menas,\n    How lesser enmities may give way to greater.\n    Were't not that we stand up against them all,\n    'Twere pregnant they should square between themselves;\n    For they have entertained cause enough\n    To draw their swords. But how the fear of us\n    May cement their divisions, and bind up\n    The petty difference we yet not know.\n    Be't as our gods will have't! It only stands\n    Our lives upon to use our strongest hands.\n    Come, Menas.                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. The house of LEPIDUS\n\nEnter ENOBARBUS and LEPIDUS\n\n  LEPIDUS. Good Enobarbus, 'tis a worthy deed,\n    And shall become you well, to entreat your captain\n    To soft and gentle speech.\n  ENOBARBUS. I shall entreat him\n    To answer like himself. If Caesar move him,\n    Let Antony look over Caesar's head\n    And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter,\n    Were I the wearer of Antonius' beard,\n    I would not shave't to-day.\n  LEPIDUS. 'Tis not a time\n    For private stomaching.\n  ENOBARBUS. Every time\n    Serves for the matter that is then born in't.\n  LEPIDUS. But small to greater matters must give way.\n  ENOBARBUS. Not if the small come first.\n  LEPIDUS. Your speech is passion;\n    But pray you stir no embers up. Here comes\n    The noble Antony.\n\n                Enter ANTONY and VENTIDIUS\n\n  ENOBARBUS. And yonder, Caesar.\n\n            Enter CAESAR, MAECENAS, and AGRIPPA\n\n  ANTONY. If we compose well here, to Parthia.\n    Hark, Ventidius.\n  CAESAR. I do not know, Maecenas. Ask Agrippa.\n  LEPIDUS. Noble friends,\n    That which combin'd us was most great, and let not\n    A leaner action rend us. What's amiss,\n    May it be gently heard. When we debate\n    Our trivial difference loud, we do commit\n    Murder in healing wounds. Then, noble partners,\n    The rather for I earnestly beseech,\n    Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms,\n    Nor curstness grow to th' matter.\n  ANTONY. 'Tis spoken well.\n    Were we before our arinies, and to fight,\n    I should do thus.                                 [Flourish]\n  CAESAR. Welcome to Rome.\n  ANTONY. Thank you.\n  CAESAR. Sit.\n  ANTONY. Sit, sir.\n  CAESAR. Nay, then.                                  [They sit]\n  ANTONY. I learn you take things ill which are not so,\n    Or being, concern you not.\n  CAESAR. I must be laugh'd at\n    If, or for nothing or a little,\n    Should say myself offended, and with you\n    Chiefly i' the world; more laugh'd at that I should\n    Once name you derogately when to sound your name\n    It not concern'd me.\n  ANTONY. My being in Egypt, Caesar,\n    What was't to you?\n  CAESAR. No more than my residing here at Rome\n    Might be to you in Egypt. Yet, if you there\n    Did practise on my state, your being in Egypt\n    Might be my question.\n  ANTONY. How intend you- practis'd?\n  CAESAR. You may be pleas'd to catch at mine intent\n    By what did here befall me. Your wife and brother\n    Made wars upon me, and their contestation\n    Was theme for you; you were the word of war.\n  ANTONY. You do mistake your business; my brother never\n    Did urge me in his act. I did inquire it,\n    And have my learning from some true reports\n    That drew their swords with you. Did he not rather\n    Discredit my authority with yours,\n    And make the wars alike against my stomach,\n    Having alike your cause? Of this my letters\n    Before did satisfy you. If you'll patch a quarrel,\n    As matter whole you have not to make it with,\n    It must not be with this.\n  CAESAR. You praise yourself\n    By laying defects of judgment to me; but\n    You patch'd up your excuses.\n  ANTONY. Not so, not so;\n    I know you could not lack, I am certain on't,\n    Very necessity of this thought, that I,\n    Your partner in the cause 'gainst which he fought,\n    Could not with graceful eyes attend those wars\n    Which fronted mine own peace. As for my wife,\n    I would you had her spirit in such another!\n    The third o' th' world is yours, which with a snaffle\n    You may pace easy, but not such a wife.\n  ENOBARBUS. Would we had all such wives, that the men might go to\n    wars with the women!\n  ANTONY. So much uncurbable, her garboils, Caesar,\n    Made out of her impatience- which not wanted\n    Shrewdness of policy too- I grieving grant\n    Did you too much disquiet. For that you must\n    But say I could not help it.\n  CAESAR. I wrote to you\n    When rioting in Alexandria; you\n    Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts\n    Did gibe my missive out of audience.\n  ANTONY. Sir,\n    He fell upon me ere admitted. Then\n    Three kings I had newly feasted, and did want\n    Of what I was i' th' morning; but next day\n    I told him of myself, which was as much\n    As to have ask'd him pardon. Let this fellow\n    Be nothing of our strife; if we contend,\n    Out of our question wipe him.\n  CAESAR. You have broken\n    The article of your oath, which you shall never\n    Have tongue to charge me with.\n  LEPIDUS. Soft, Caesar!\n  ANTONY. No;\n    Lepidus, let him speak.\n    The honour is sacred which he talks on now,\n    Supposing that I lack'd it. But on, Caesar:\n    The article of my oath-\n  CAESAR. To lend me arms and aid when I requir'd them,\n    The which you both denied.\n  ANTONY. Neglected, rather;\n    And then when poisoned hours had bound me up\n    From mine own knowledge. As nearly as I may,\n    I'll play the penitent to you; but mine honesty\n    Shall not make poor my greatness, nor my power\n    Work without it. Truth is, that Fulvia,\n    To have me out of Egypt, made wars here;\n    For which myself, the ignorant motive, do\n    So far ask pardon as befits mine honour\n    To stoop in such a case.\n  LEPIDUS. 'Tis noble spoken.\n  MAECENAS. If it might please you to enforce no further\n    The griefs between ye- to forget them quite\n    Were to remember that the present need\n    Speaks to atone you.\n  LEPIDUS. Worthily spoken, Maecenas.\n  ENOBARBUS. Or, if you borrow one another's love for the instant,\n    you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again.\n    You shall have time to wrangle in when you have nothing else to\n    do.\n  ANTONY. Thou art a soldier only. Speak no more.\n  ENOBARBUS. That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.\n  ANTONY. You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more.\n  ENOBARBUS. Go to, then- your considerate stone!\n  CAESAR. I do not much dislike the matter, but\n    The manner of his speech; for't cannot be\n    We shall remain in friendship, our conditions\n    So diff'ring in their acts. Yet if I knew\n    What hoop should hold us stanch, from edge to edge\n    O' th' world, I would pursue it.\n  AGRIPPA. Give me leave, Caesar.\n  CAESAR. Speak, Agrippa.\n  AGRIPPA. Thou hast a sister by the mother's side,\n    Admir'd Octavia. Great Mark Antony\n    Is now a widower.\n  CAESAR. Say not so, Agrippa.\n    If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof\n    Were well deserv'd of rashness.\n  ANTONY. I am not married, Caesar. Let me hear\n    Agrippa further speak.\n  AGRIPPA. To hold you in perpetual amity,\n    To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts\n    With an unslipping knot, take Antony\n    Octavia to his wife; whose beauty claims\n    No worse a husband than the best of men;\n    Whose virtue and whose general graces speak\n    That which none else can utter. By this marriage\n    All little jealousies, which now seem great,\n    And all great fears, which now import their dangers,\n    Would then be nothing. Truths would be tales,\n    Where now half tales be truths. Her love to both\n    Would each to other, and all loves to both,\n    Draw after her. Pardon what I have spoke;\n    For 'tis a studied, not a present thought,\n    By duty ruminated.\n  ANTONY. Will Caesar speak?\n  CAESAR. Not till he hears how Antony is touch'd\n    With what is spoke already.\n  ANTONY. What power is in Agrippa,\n    If I would say 'Agrippa, be it so,'\n    To make this good?\n  CAESAR. The power of Caesar, and\n    His power unto Octavia.\n  ANTONY. May I never\n    To this good purpose, that so fairly shows,\n    Dream of impediment! Let me have thy hand.\n    Further this act of grace; and from this hour\n    The heart of brothers govern in our loves\n    And sway our great designs!\n  CAESAR. There is my hand.\n    A sister I bequeath you, whom no brother\n    Did ever love so dearly. Let her live\n    To join our kingdoms and our hearts; and never\n    Fly off our loves again!\n  LEPIDUS. Happily, amen!\n  ANTONY. I did not think to draw my sword 'gainst Pompey;\n    For he hath laid strange courtesies and great\n    Of late upon me. I must thank him only,\n    Lest my remembrance suffer ill report;\n    At heel of that, defy him.\n  LEPIDUS. Time calls upon's.\n    Of us must Pompey presently be sought,\n    Or else he seeks out us.\n  ANTONY. Where lies he?\n  CAESAR. About the Mount Misenum.\n  ANTONY. What is his strength by land?\n  CAESAR. Great and increasing; but by sea\n    He is an absolute master.\n  ANTONY. So is the fame.\n    Would we had spoke together! Haste we for it.\n    Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we\n    The business we have talk'd of.\n  CAESAR. With most gladness;\n    And do invite you to my sister's view,\n    Whither straight I'll lead you.\n  ANTONY. Let us, Lepidus,\n    Not lack your company.\n  LEPIDUS. Noble Antony,\n    Not sickness should detain me.                    [Flourish]\n                     Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS, AGRIPPA, MAECENAS\n  MAECENAS. Welcome from Egypt, sir.\n  ENOBARBUS. Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Maecenas! My honourable\n    friend, Agrippa!\n  AGRIPPA. Good Enobarbus!\n  MAECENAS. We have cause to be glad that matters are so well\n    digested. You stay'd well by't in Egypt.\n  ENOBARBUS. Ay, sir; we did sleep day out of countenance and made\n    the night light with drinking.\n  MAECENAS. Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and but\n    twelve persons there. Is this true?\n  ENOBARBUS. This was but as a fly by an eagle. We had much more\n    monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting.\n  MAECENAS. She's a most triumphant lady, if report be square to her.\n  ENOBARBUS. When she first met Mark Antony she purs'd up his heart,\n    upon the river of Cydnus.\n  AGRIPPA. There she appear'd indeed! Or my reporter devis'd well for\n    her.\n  ENOBARBUS. I will tell you.\n    The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,\n    Burn'd on the water. The poop was beaten gold;\n    Purple the sails, and so perfumed that\n    The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,\n    Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made\n    The water which they beat to follow faster,\n    As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,\n    It beggar'd all description. She did lie\n    In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold, of tissue,\n    O'erpicturing that Venus where we see\n    The fancy out-work nature. On each side her\n    Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,\n    With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem\n    To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,\n    And what they undid did.\n  AGRIPPA. O, rare for Antony!\n  ENOBARBUS. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,\n    So many mermaids, tended her i' th' eyes,\n    And made their bends adornings. At the helm\n    A seeming mermaid steers. The silken tackle\n    Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands\n    That yarely frame the office. From the barge\n    A strange invisible perfume hits the sense\n    Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast\n    Her people out upon her; and Antony,\n    Enthron'd i' th' market-place, did sit alone,\n    Whistling to th' air; which, but for vacancy,\n    Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,\n    And made a gap in nature.\n  AGRIPPA. Rare Egyptian!\n  ENOBARBUS. Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,\n    Invited her to supper. She replied\n    It should be better he became her guest;\n    Which she entreated. Our courteous Antony,\n    Whom ne'er the word of 'No' woman heard speak,\n    Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast,\n    And for his ordinary pays his heart\n    For what his eyes eat only.\n  AGRIPPA. Royal wench!\n    She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed.\n    He ploughed her, and she cropp'd.\n  ENOBARBUS. I saw her once\n    Hop forty paces through the public street;\n    And, having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted,\n    That she did make defect perfection,\n    And, breathless, pow'r breathe forth.\n  MAECENAS. Now Antony must leave her utterly.\n  ENOBARBUS. Never! He will not.\n    Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale\n    Her infinite variety. Other women cloy\n    The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry\n    Where most she satisfies; for vilest things\n    Become themselves in her, that the holy priests\n    Bless her when she is riggish.\n  MAECENAS. If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle\n    The heart of Antony, Octavia is\n    A blessed lottery to him.\n  AGRIPPA. Let us go.\n    Good Enobarbus, make yourself my guest\n    Whilst you abide here.\n  ENOBARBUS. Humbly, sir, I thank you.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nRome. CAESAR'S house\n\nEnter ANTONY, CAESAR, OCTAVIA between them\n\n  ANTONY. The world and my great office will sometimes\n    Divide me from your bosom.\n  OCTAVIA. All which time\n    Before the gods my knee shall bow my prayers\n    To them for you.\n  ANTONY. Good night, sir. My Octavia,\n    Read not my blemishes in the world's report.\n    I have not kept my square; but that to come\n    Shall all be done by th' rule. Good night, dear lady.\n  OCTAVIA. Good night, sir.\n  CAESAR. Good night.                  Exeunt CAESAR and OCTAVIA\n\n                        Enter SOOTHSAYER\n\n  ANTONY. Now, sirrah, you do wish yourself in Egypt?\n  SOOTHSAYER. Would I had never come from thence, nor you thither!\n  ANTONY. If you can- your reason.\n  SOOTHSAYER. I see it in my motion, have it not in my tongue; but\n    yet hie you to Egypt again.\n  ANTONY. Say to me,\n    Whose fortunes shall rise higher, Caesar's or mine?\n  SOOTHSAYER. Caesar's.\n    Therefore, O Antony, stay not by his side.\n    Thy daemon, that thy spirit which keeps thee, is\n    Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable,\n    Where Caesar's is not; but near him thy angel\n    Becomes a fear, as being o'erpow'r'd. Therefore\n    Make space enough between you.\n  ANTONY. Speak this no more.\n  SOOTHSAYER. To none but thee; no more but when to thee.\n    If thou dost play with him at any game,\n    Thou art sure to lose; and of that natural luck\n    He beats thee 'gainst the odds. Thy lustre thickens\n    When he shines by. I say again, thy spirit\n    Is all afraid to govern thee near him;\n    But, he away, 'tis noble.\n  ANTONY. Get thee gone.\n    Say to Ventidius I would speak with him.\n                                                 Exit SOOTHSAYER\n    He shall to Parthia.- Be it art or hap,\n    He hath spoken true. The very dice obey him;\n    And in our sports my better cunning faints\n    Under his chance. If we draw lots, he speeds;\n    His cocks do win the battle still of mine,\n    When it is all to nought, and his quails ever\n    Beat mine, inhoop'd, at odds. I will to Egypt;\n    And though I make this marriage for my peace,\n    I' th' East my pleasure lies.\n\n                       Enter VENTIDIUS\n\n    O, come, Ventidius,\n    You must to Parthia. Your commission's ready;\n    Follow me and receive't.                              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nRome. A street\n\nEnter LEPIDUS, MAECENAS, and AGRIPPA\n\n  LEPIDUS. Trouble yourselves no further. Pray you hasten\n    Your generals after.\n  AGRIPPA. Sir, Mark Antony\n    Will e'en but kiss Octavia, and we'll follow.\n  LEPIDUS. Till I shall see you in your soldier's dress,\n    Which will become you both, farewell.\n  MAECENAS. We shall,\n    As I conceive the journey, be at th' Mount\n    Before you, Lepidus.\n  LEPIDUS. Your way is shorter;\n    My purposes do draw me much about.\n    You'll win two days upon me.\n  BOTH. Sir, good success!\n  LEPIDUS. Farewell.                                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAlexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace\n\nEnter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS\n\n  CLEOPATRA. Give me some music- music, moody food\n    Of us that trade in love.\n  ALL. The music, ho!\n\n                    Enter MARDIAN the eunuch\n\n  CLEOPATRA. Let it alone! Let's to billiards. Come, Charmian.\n  CHARMIAN. My arm is sore; best play with Mardian.\n  CLEOPATRA. As well a woman with an eunuch play'd\n    As with a woman. Come, you'll play with me, sir?\n  MARDIAN. As well as I can, madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. And when good will is show'd, though't come too short,\n    The actor may plead pardon. I'll none now.\n    Give me mine angle- we'll to th' river. There,\n    My music playing far off, I will betray\n    Tawny-finn'd fishes; my bended hook shall pierce\n    Their slimy jaws; and as I draw them up\n    I'll think them every one an Antony,\n    And say 'Ah ha! Y'are caught.'\n  CHARMIAN. 'Twas merry when\n    You wager'd on your angling; when your diver\n    Did hang a salt fish on his hook, which he\n    With fervency drew up.\n  CLEOPATRA. That time? O times\n    I laughed him out of patience; and that night\n    I laugh'd him into patience; and next morn,\n    Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed,\n    Then put my tires and mantles on him, whilst\n    I wore his sword Philippan.\n\n                    Enter a MESSENGER\n\n    O! from Italy?\n    Ram thou thy fruitful tidings in mine ears,\n    That long time have been barren.\n  MESSENGER. Madam, madam-\n  CLEOPATRA. Antony's dead! If thou say so, villain,\n    Thou kill'st thy mistress; but well and free,\n    If thou so yield him, there is gold, and here\n    My bluest veins to kiss- a hand that kings\n    Have lipp'd, and trembled kissing.\n  MESSENGER. First, madam, he is well.\n  CLEOPATRA. Why, there's more gold.\n    But, sirrah, mark, we use\n    To say the dead are well. Bring it to that,\n    The gold I give thee will I melt and pour\n    Down thy ill-uttering throat.\n  MESSENGER. Good madam, hear me.\n  CLEOPATRA. Well, go to, I will.\n    But there's no goodness in thy face. If Antony\n    Be free and healthful- why so tart a favour\n    To trumpet such good tidings? If not well,\n    Thou shouldst come like a Fury crown'd with snakes,\n    Not like a formal man.\n  MESSENGER. Will't please you hear me?\n  CLEOPATRA. I have a mind to strike thee ere thou speak'st.\n    Yet, if thou say Antony lives, is well,\n    Or friends with Caesar, or not captive to him,\n    I'll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail\n    Rich pearls upon thee.\n  MESSENGER. Madam, he's well.\n  CLEOPATRA. Well said.\n  MESSENGER. And friends with Caesar.\n  CLEOPATRA. Th'art an honest man.\n  MESSENGER. Caesar and he are greater friends than ever.\n  CLEOPATRA. Make thee a fortune from me.\n  MESSENGER. But yet, madam-\n  CLEOPATRA. I do not like 'but yet.' It does allay\n    The good precedence; fie upon 'but yet'!\n    'But yet' is as a gaoler to bring forth\n    Some monstrous malefactor. Prithee, friend,\n    Pour out the pack of matter to mine ear,\n    The good and bad together. He's friends with Caesar;\n    In state of health, thou say'st; and, thou say'st, free.\n  MESSENGER. Free, madam! No; I made no such report.\n    He's bound unto Octavia.\n  CLEOPATRA. For what good turn?\n  MESSENGER. For the best turn i' th' bed.\n  CLEOPATRA. I am pale, Charmian.\n  MESSENGER. Madam, he's married to Octavia.\n  CLEOPATRA. The most infectious pestilence upon thee!\n                                              [Strikes him down]\n  MESSENGER. Good madam, patience.\n  CLEOPATRA. What say you? Hence,                  [Strikes him]\n    Horrible villain! or I'll spurn thine eyes\n    Like balls before me; I'll unhair thy head;\n                                     [She hales him up and down]\n    Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire and stew'd in brine,\n    Smarting in ling'ring pickle.\n  MESSENGER. Gracious madam,\n    I that do bring the news made not the match.\n  CLEOPATRA. Say 'tis not so, a province I will give thee,\n    And make thy fortunes proud. The blow thou hadst\n    Shall make thy peace for moving me to rage;\n    And I will boot thee with what gift beside\n    Thy modesty can beg.\n  MESSENGER. He's married, madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. Rogue, thou hast liv'd too long.    [Draws a knife]\n  MESSENGER. Nay, then I'll run.\n    What mean you, madam? I have made no fault.             Exit\n  CHARMIAN. Good madam, keep yourself within yourself:\n    The man is innocent.\n  CLEOPATRA. Some innocents scape not the thunderbolt.\n    Melt Egypt into Nile! and kindly creatures\n    Turn all to serpents! Call the slave again.\n    Though I am mad, I will not bite him. Call!\n  CHARMIAN. He is afear'd to come.\n  CLEOPATRA. I will not hurt him.\n    These hands do lack nobility, that they strike\n    A meaner than myself; since I myself\n    Have given myself the cause.\n\n                    Enter the MESSENGER again\n\n    Come hither, sir.\n    Though it be honest, it is never good\n    To bring bad news. Give to a gracious message\n    An host of tongues; but let ill tidings tell\n    Themselves when they be felt.\n  MESSENGER. I have done my duty.\n  CLEOPATRA. Is he married?\n    I cannot hate thee worser than I do\n    If thou again say 'Yes.'\n  MESSENGER. He's married, madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. The gods confound thee! Dost thou hold there still?\n  MESSENGER. Should I lie, madam?\n  CLEOPATRA. O, I would thou didst,\n    So half my Egypt were submerg'd and made\n    A cistern for scal'd snakes! Go, get thee hence.\n    Hadst thou Narcissus in thy face, to me\n    Thou wouldst appear most ugly. He is married?\n  MESSENGER. I crave your Highness' pardon.\n  CLEOPATRA. He is married?\n  MESSENGER. Take no offence that I would not offend you;\n    To punish me for what you make me do\n    Seems much unequal. He's married to Octavia.\n  CLEOPATRA. O, that his fault should make a knave of thee\n    That art not what th'art sure of! Get thee hence.\n    The merchandise which thou hast brought from Rome\n    Are all too dear for me. Lie they upon thy hand,\n    And be undone by 'em!                         Exit MESSENGER\n  CHARMIAN. Good your Highness, patience.\n  CLEOPATRA. In praising Antony I have disprais'd Caesar.\n  CHARMIAN. Many times, madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. I am paid for't now. Lead me from hence,\n    I faint. O Iras, Charmian! 'Tis no matter.\n    Go to the fellow, good Alexas; bid him\n    Report the feature of Octavia, her years,\n    Her inclination; let him not leave out\n    The colour of her hair. Bring me word quickly.\n                                                     Exit ALEXAS\n    Let him for ever go- let him not, Charmian-\n    Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon,\n    The other way's a Mars.                         [To MARDIAN]\n    Bid you Alexas\n    Bring me word how tall she is.- Pity me, Charmian,\n    But do not speak to me. Lead me to my chamber.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nNear Misenum\n\nFlourish. Enter POMPEY and MENAS at one door, with drum and trumpet;\nat another, CAESAR, ANTONY, LEPIDUS, ENOBARBUS, MAECENAS, AGRIPPA,\nwith soldiers marching\n\n  POMPEY. Your hostages I have, so have you mine;\n    And we shall talk before we fight.\n  CAESAR. Most meet\n    That first we come to words; and therefore have we\n    Our written purposes before us sent;\n    Which if thou hast considered, let us know\n    If 'twill tie up thy discontented sword\n    And carry back to Sicily much tall youth\n    That else must perish here.\n  POMPEY. To you all three,\n    The senators alone of this great world,\n    Chief factors for the gods: I do not know\n    Wherefore my father should revengers want,\n    Having a son and friends, since Julius Caesar,\n    Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted,\n    There saw you labouring for him. What was't\n    That mov'd pale Cassius to conspire? and what\n    Made the all-honour'd honest Roman, Brutus,\n    With the arm'd rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom,\n    To drench the Capitol, but that they would\n    Have one man but a man? And that is it\n    Hath made me rig my navy, at whose burden\n    The anger'd ocean foams; with which I meant\n    To scourge th' ingratitude that despiteful Rome\n    Cast on my noble father.\n  CAESAR. Take your time.\n  ANTONY. Thou canst not fear us, Pompey, with thy sails;\n    We'll speak with thee at sea; at land thou know'st\n    How much we do o'er-count thee.\n  POMPEY. At land, indeed,\n    Thou dost o'er-count me of my father's house.\n    But since the cuckoo builds not for himself,\n    Remain in't as thou mayst.\n  LEPIDUS. Be pleas'd to tell us-\n    For this is from the present- how you take\n    The offers we have sent you.\n  CAESAR. There's the point.\n  ANTONY. Which do not be entreated to, but weigh\n    What it is worth embrac'd.\n  CAESAR. And what may follow,\n    To try a larger fortune.\n  POMPEY. You have made me offer\n    Of Sicily, Sardinia; and I must\n    Rid all the sea of pirates; then to send\n    Measures of wheat to Rome; this 'greed upon,\n    To part with unhack'd edges and bear back\n    Our targes undinted.\n  ALL. That's our offer.\n  POMPEY. Know, then,\n    I came before you here a man prepar'd\n    To take this offer; but Mark Antony\n    Put me to some impatience. Though I lose\n    The praise of it by telling, you must know,\n    When Caesar and your brother were at blows,\n    Your mother came to Sicily and did find\n    Her welcome friendly.\n  ANTONY. I have heard it, Pompey,\n    And am well studied for a liberal thanks\n    Which I do owe you.\n  POMPEY. Let me have your hand.\n    I did not think, sir, to have met you here.\n  ANTONY. The beds i' th' East are soft; and thanks to you,\n    That call'd me timelier than my purpose hither;\n    For I have gained by't.\n  CAESAR. Since I saw you last\n    There is a change upon you.\n  POMPEY. Well, I know not\n    What counts harsh fortune casts upon my face;\n    But in my bosom shall she never come\n    To make my heart her vassal.\n  LEPIDUS. Well met here.\n  POMPEY. I hope so, Lepidus. Thus we are agreed.\n    I crave our composition may be written,\n    And seal'd between us.\n  CAESAR. That's the next to do.\n  POMPEY. We'll feast each other ere we part, and let's\n    Draw lots who shall begin.\n  ANTONY. That will I, Pompey.\n  POMPEY. No, Antony, take the lot;\n    But, first or last, your fine Egyptian cookery\n    Shall have the fame. I have heard that Julius Caesar\n    Grew fat with feasting there.\n  ANTONY. You have heard much.\n  POMPEY. I have fair meanings, sir.\n  ANTONY. And fair words to them.\n  POMPEY. Then so much have I heard;\n    And I have heard Apollodorus carried-\n  ENOBARBUS. No more of that! He did so.\n  POMPEY. What, I pray you?\n  ENOBARBUS. A certain queen to Caesar in a mattress.\n  POMPEY. I know thee now. How far'st thou, soldier?\n  ENOBARBUS. Well;\n    And well am like to do, for I perceive\n    Four feasts are toward.\n  POMPEY. Let me shake thy hand.\n    I never hated thee; I have seen thee fight,\n    When I have envied thy behaviour.\n  ENOBARBUS. Sir,\n    I never lov'd you much; but I ha' prais'd ye\n    When you have well deserv'd ten times as much\n    As I have said you did.\n  POMPEY. Enjoy thy plainness;\n    It nothing ill becomes thee.\n    Aboard my galley I invite you all.\n    Will you lead, lords?\n  ALL. Show's the way, sir.\n  POMPEY. Come.               Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS and MENAS\n  MENAS. [Aside] Thy father, Pompey, would ne'er have made this\n    treaty.- You and I have known, sir.\n  ENOBARBUS. At sea, I think.\n  MENAS. We have, sir.\n  ENOBARBUS. You have done well by water.\n  MENAS. And you by land.\n  ENOBARBUS. I Will praise any man that will praise me; though it\n    cannot be denied what I have done by land.\n  MENAS. Nor what I have done by water.\n  ENOBARBUS. Yes, something you can deny for your own safety: you\n    have been a great thief by sea.\n  MENAS. And you by land.\n  ENOBARBUS. There I deny my land service. But give me your hand,\n    Menas; if our eyes had authority, here they might take two\n    thieves kissing.\n  MENAS. All men's faces are true, whatsome'er their hands are.\n  ENOBARBUS. But there is never a fair woman has a true face.\n  MENAS. No slander: they steal hearts.\n  ENOBARBUS. We came hither to fight with you.\n  MENAS. For my part, I am sorry it is turn'd to a drinking.\n    Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune.\n  ENOBARBUS. If he do, sure he cannot weep't back again.\n  MENAS. Y'have said, sir. We look'd not for Mark Antony here. Pray\n    you, is he married to Cleopatra?\n  ENOBARBUS. Caesar' sister is call'd Octavia.\n  MENAS. True, sir; she was the wife of Caius Marcellus.\n  ENOBARBUS. But she is now the wife of Marcus Antonius.\n  MENAS. Pray ye, sir?\n  ENOBARBUS. 'Tis true.\n  MENAS. Then is Caesar and he for ever knit together.\n  ENOBARBUS. If I were bound to divine of this unity, I would not\n    prophesy so.\n  MENAS. I think the policy of that purpose made more in the marriage\n    than the love of the parties.\n  ENOBARBUS. I think so too. But you shall find the band that seems\n    to tie their friendship together will be the very strangler of\n    their amity: Octavia is of a holy, cold, and still conversation.\n  MENAS. Who would not have his wife so?\n  ENOBARBUS. Not he that himself is not so; which is Mark Antony. He\n    will to his Egyptian dish again; then shall the sighs of Octavia\n    blow the fire up in Caesar, and, as I said before, that which is\n    the strength of their amity shall prove the immediate author of\n    their variance. Antony will use his affection where it is; he\n    married but his occasion here.\n  MENAS. And thus it may be. Come, sir, will you aboard? I have a\n    health for you.\n  ENOBARBUS. I shall take it, sir. We have us'd our throats in Egypt.\n  MENAS. Come, let's away.                                Exeunt\n\nACT_2|SC_7\n                           SCENE VII.\n             On board POMPEY'S galley, off Misenum\n\n     Music plays. Enter two or three SERVANTS with a banquet\n\n  FIRST SERVANT. Here they'll be, man. Some o' their plants are\n    ill-rooted already; the least wind i' th' world will blow them\n    down.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Lepidus is high-colour'd.\n  FIRST SERVANT. They have made him drink alms-drink.\n  SECOND SERVANT. As they pinch one another by the disposition, he\n    cries out 'No more!'; reconciles them to his entreaty and himself\n    to th' drink.\n  FIRST SERVANT. But it raises the greater war between him and his\n    discretion.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Why, this it is to have a name in great men's\n    fellowship. I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service\n    as a partizan I could not heave.\n  FIRST SERVANT. To be call'd into a huge sphere, and not to be seen\n    to move in't, are the holes where eyes should be, which pitifully\n    disaster the cheeks.\n\n           A sennet sounded. Enter CAESAR, ANTONY, LEPIDUS,\n            POMPEY, AGRIPPA, MAECENAS, ENOBARBUS, MENAS,\n                         with other CAPTAINS\n\n  ANTONY. [To CAESAR] Thus do they, sir: they take the flow o' th'\n      Nile\n    By certain scales i' th' pyramid; they know\n    By th' height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth\n    Or foison follow. The higher Nilus swells\n    The more it promises; as it ebbs, the seedsman\n    Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain,\n    And shortly comes to harvest.\n  LEPIDUS. Y'have strange serpents there.\n  ANTONY. Ay, Lepidus.\n  LEPIDUS. Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the\n    operation of your sun; so is your crocodile.\n  ANTONY. They are so.\n  POMPEY. Sit- and some wine! A health to Lepidus!\n  LEPIDUS. I am not so well as I should be, but I'll ne'er out.\n  ENOBARBUS. Not till you have slept. I fear me you'll be in till\n    then.\n  LEPIDUS. Nay, certainly, I have heard the Ptolemies' pyramises are\n    very goodly things. Without contradiction I have heard that.\n  MENAS. [Aside to POMPEY] Pompey, a word.\n  POMPEY. [Aside to MENAS] Say in mine ear; what is't?\n  MENAS. [Aside to POMPEY] Forsake thy seat, I do beseech thee,\n      Captain,\n    And hear me speak a word.\n  POMPEY. [ Whispers in's ear ] Forbear me till anon-\n    This wine for Lepidus!\n  LEPIDUS. What manner o' thing is your crocodile?\n  ANTONY. It is shap'd, sir, like itself, and it is as broad as it\n    hath breadth; it is just so high as it is, and moves with it own\n    organs. It lives by that which nourisheth it, and the elements\n    once out of it, it transmigrates.\n  LEPIDUS. What colour is it of?\n  ANTONY. Of it own colour too.\n  LEPIDUS. 'Tis a strange serpent.\n  ANTONY. 'Tis so. And the tears of it are wet.\n  CAESAR. Will this description satisfy him?\n  ANTONY. With the health that Pompey gives him, else he is a very\n    epicure.\n  POMPEY. [Aside to MENAS] Go, hang, sir, hang! Tell me of that!\n      Away!\n    Do as I bid you.- Where's this cup I call'd for?\n  MENAS. [Aside to POMPEY] If for the sake of merit thou wilt hear\n      me,\n    Rise from thy stool.\n  POMPEY. [Aside to MENAS] I think th'art mad. [Rises and walks\n    aside] The matter?\n  MENAS. I have ever held my cap off to thy fortunes.\n  POMPEY. Thou hast serv'd me with much faith. What's else to say?-\n    Be jolly, lords.\n  ANTONY. These quicksands, Lepidus,\n    Keep off them, for you sink.\n  MENAS. Wilt thou be lord of all the world?\n  POMPEY. What say'st thou?\n  MENAS. Wilt thou be lord of the whole world? That's twice.\n  POMPEY. How should that be?\n  MENAS. But entertain it,\n    And though you think me poor, I am the man\n    Will give thee all the world.\n  POMPEY. Hast thou drunk well?\n  MENAS. No, Pompey, I have kept me from the cup.\n    Thou art, if thou dar'st be, the earthly Jove;\n    Whate'er the ocean pales or sky inclips\n    Is thine, if thou wilt ha't.\n  POMPEY. Show me which way.\n  MENAS. These three world-sharers, these competitors,\n    Are in thy vessel. Let me cut the cable;\n    And when we are put off, fall to their throats.\n    All there is thine.\n  POMPEY. Ah, this thou shouldst have done,\n    And not have spoke on't. In me 'tis villainy:\n    In thee't had been good service. Thou must know\n    'Tis not my profit that does lead mine honour:\n    Mine honour, it. Repent that e'er thy tongue\n    Hath so betray'd thine act. Being done unknown,\n    I should have found it afterwards well done,\n    But must condemn it now. Desist, and drink.\n  MENAS. [Aside] For this,\n    I'll never follow thy pall'd fortunes more.\n    Who seeks, and will not take when once 'tis offer'd,\n    Shall never find it more.\n  POMPEY. This health to Lepidus!\n  ANTONY. Bear him ashore. I'll pledge it for him, Pompey.\n  ENOBARBUS. Here's to thee, Menas!\n  MENAS. Enobarbus, welcome!\n  POMPEY. Fill till the cup be hid.\n  ENOBARBUS. There's a strong fellow, Menas.\n               [Pointing to the servant who carries off LEPIDUS]\n  MENAS. Why?\n  ENOBARBUS. 'A bears the third part of the world, man; see'st not?\n  MENAS. The third part, then, is drunk. Would it were all,\n    That it might go on wheels!\n  ENOBARBUS. Drink thou; increase the reels.\n  MENAS. Come.\n  POMPEY. This is not yet an Alexandrian feast.\n  ANTONY. It ripens towards it. Strike the vessels, ho!\n    Here's to Caesar!\n  CAESAR. I could well forbear't.\n    It's monstrous labour when I wash my brain\n    And it grows fouler.\n  ANTONY. Be a child o' th' time.\n  CAESAR. Possess it, I'll make answer.\n    But I had rather fast from all four days\n    Than drink so much in one.\n  ENOBARBUS. [To ANTONY] Ha, my brave emperor!\n    Shall we dance now the Egyptian Bacchanals\n    And celebrate our drink?\n  POMPEY. Let's ha't, good soldier.\n  ANTONY. Come, let's all take hands,\n    Till that the conquering wine hath steep'd our sense\n    In soft and delicate Lethe.\n  ENOBARBUS. All take hands.\n    Make battery to our ears with the loud music,\n    The while I'll place you; then the boy shall sing;\n    The holding every man shall bear as loud\n    As his strong sides can volley.\n               [Music plays. ENOBARBUS places them hand in hand]\n\n                        THE SONG\n            Come, thou monarch of the vine,\n            Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne!\n            In thy fats our cares be drown'd,\n            With thy grapes our hairs be crown'd.\n            Cup us till the world go round,\n            Cup us till the world go round!\n\n  CAESAR. What would you more? Pompey, good night. Good brother,\n    Let me request you off; our graver business\n    Frowns at this levity. Gentle lords, let's part;\n    You see we have burnt our cheeks. Strong Enobarb\n    Is weaker than the wine, and mine own tongue\n    Splits what it speaks. The wild disguise hath almost\n    Antick'd us all. What needs more words? Good night.\n    Good Antony, your hand.\n  POMPEY. I'll try you on the shore.\n  ANTONY. And shall, sir. Give's your hand.\n  POMPEY. O Antony,\n    You have my father's house- but what? We are friends.\n    Come, down into the boat.\n  ENOBARBUS. Take heed you fall not.\n                              Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS and MENAS\n    Menas, I'll not on shore.\n  MENAS. No, to my cabin.\n    These drums! these trumpets, flutes! what!\n    Let Neptune hear we bid a loud farewell\n    To these great fellows. Sound and be hang'd, sound out!\n                                  [Sound a flourish, with drums]\n  ENOBARBUS. Hoo! says 'a. There's my cap.\n  MENAS. Hoo! Noble Captain, come.                        Exeunt\nACT_3|SC_1\n                     ACT III. SCENE I.\n                     A plain in Syria\n\n       Enter VENTIDIUS, as it were in triumph, with SILIUS\n      and other Romans, OFFICERS and soldiers; the dead body\n                of PACORUS borne before him\n\n  VENTIDIUS. Now, darting Parthia, art thou struck, and now\n    Pleas'd fortune does of Marcus Crassus' death\n    Make me revenger. Bear the King's son's body\n    Before our army. Thy Pacorus, Orodes,\n    Pays this for Marcus Crassus.\n  SILIUS. Noble Ventidius,\n    Whilst yet with Parthian blood thy sword is warm\n    The fugitive Parthians follow; spur through Media,\n    Mesopotamia, and the shelters whither\n    The routed fly. So thy grand captain, Antony,\n    Shall set thee on triumphant chariots and\n    Put garlands on thy head.\n  VENTIDIUS. O Silius, Silius,\n    I have done enough. A lower place, note well,\n    May make too great an act; for learn this, Silius:\n    Better to leave undone than by our deed\n    Acquire too high a fame when him we serve's away.\n    Caesar and Antony have ever won\n    More in their officer, than person. Sossius,\n    One of my place in Syria, his lieutenant,\n    For quick accumulation of renown,\n    Which he achiev'd by th' minute, lost his favour.\n    Who does i' th' wars more than his captain can\n    Becomes his captain's captain; and ambition,\n    The soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss\n    Than gain which darkens him.\n    I could do more to do Antonius good,\n    But 'twould offend him; and in his offence\n    Should my performance perish.\n  SILIUS. Thou hast, Ventidius, that\n    Without the which a soldier and his sword\n    Grants scarce distinction. Thou wilt write to Antony?\n  VENTIDIUS. I'll humbly signify what in his name,\n    That magical word of war, we have effected;\n    How, with his banners, and his well-paid ranks,\n    The ne'er-yet-beaten horse of Parthia\n    We have jaded out o' th' field.\n  SILIUS. Where is he now?\n  VENTIDIUS. He purposeth to Athens; whither, with what haste\n    The weight we must convey with's will permit,\n    We shall appear before him.- On, there; pass along.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_2\n                            SCENE II. Rome. CAESAR'S house\n\n        Enter AGRIPPA at one door, ENOBARBUS at another\n\n  AGRIPPA. What, are the brothers parted?\n  ENOBARBUS. They have dispatch'd with Pompey; he is gone;\n    The other three are sealing. Octavia weeps\n    To part from Rome; Caesar is sad; and Lepidus,\n    Since Pompey's feast, as Menas says, is troubled\n    With the green sickness.\n  AGRIPPA. 'Tis a noble Lepidus.\n  ENOBARBUS. A very fine one. O, how he loves Caesar!\n  AGRIPPA. Nay, but how dearly he adores Mark Antony!\n  ENOBARBUS. Caesar? Why he's the Jupiter of men.\n  AGRIPPA. What's Antony? The god of Jupiter.\n  ENOBARBUS. Spake you of Caesar? How! the nonpareil!\n  AGRIPPA. O, Antony! O thou Arabian bird!\n  ENOBARBUS. Would you praise Caesar, say 'Caesar'- go no further.\n  AGRIPPA. Indeed, he plied them both with excellent praises.\n  ENOBARBUS. But he loves Caesar best. Yet he loves Antony.\n    Hoo! hearts, tongues, figures, scribes, bards, poets, cannot\n    Think, speak, cast, write, sing, number- hoo!-\n    His love to Antony. But as for Caesar,\n    Kneel down, kneel down, and wonder.\n  AGRIPPA. Both he loves.\n  ENOBARBUS. They are his shards, and he their beetle. [Trumpets\n      within] So-\n    This is to horse. Adieu, noble Agrippa.\n  AGRIPPA. Good fortune, worthy soldier, and farewell.\n\n           Enter CAESAR, ANTONY, LEPIDUS, and OCTAVIA\n\n  ANTONY. No further, sir.\n  CAESAR. You take from me a great part of myself;\n    Use me well in't. Sister, prove such a wife\n    As my thoughts make thee, and as my farthest band\n    Shall pass on thy approof. Most noble Antony,\n    Let not the piece of virtue which is set\n    Betwixt us as the cement of our love\n    To keep it builded be the ram to batter\n    The fortress of it; for better might we\n    Have lov'd without this mean, if on both parts\n    This be not cherish'd.\n  ANTONY. Make me not offended\n    In your distrust.\n  CAESAR. I have said.\n  ANTONY. You shall not find,\n    Though you be therein curious, the least cause\n    For what you seem to fear. So the gods keep you,\n    And make the hearts of Romans serve your ends!\n    We will here part.\n  CAESAR. Farewell, my dearest sister, fare thee well.\n    The elements be kind to thee and make\n    Thy spirits all of comfort! Fare thee well.\n  OCTAVIA. My noble brother!\n  ANTONY. The April's in her eyes. It is love's spring,\n    And these the showers to bring it on. Be cheerful.\n  OCTAVIA. Sir, look well to my husband's house; and-\n  CAESAR. What, Octavia?\n  OCTAVIA. I'll tell you in your ear.\n  ANTONY. Her tongue will not obey her heart, nor can\n    Her heart inform her tongue- the swan's down feather,\n    That stands upon the swell at the full of tide,\n    And neither way inclines.\n  ENOBARBUS. [Aside to AGRIPPA] Will Caesar weep?\n  AGRIPPA. [Aside to ENOBARBUS] He has a cloud in's face.\n  ENOBARBUS. [Aside to AGRIPPA] He were the worse for that, were he a\n      horse;\n    So is he, being a man.\n  AGRIPPA. [Aside to ENOBARBUS] Why, Enobarbus,\n    When Antony found Julius Caesar dead,\n    He cried almost to roaring; and he wept\n    When at Philippi he found Brutus slain.\n  ENOBARBUS. [Aside to AGRIPPA] That year, indeed, he was troubled\n      with a rheum;\n    What willingly he did confound he wail'd,\n    Believe't- till I weep too.\n  CAESAR. No, sweet Octavia,\n    You shall hear from me still; the time shall not\n    Out-go my thinking on you.\n  ANTONY. Come, sir, come;\n    I'll wrestle with you in my strength of love.\n    Look, here I have you; thus I let you go,\n    And give you to the gods.\n  CAESAR. Adieu; be happy!\n  LEPIDUS. Let all the number of the stars give light\n    To thy fair way!\n  CAESAR. Farewell, farewell!                   [Kisses OCTAVIA]\n  ANTONY. Farewell!                       Trumpets sound. Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_3\n                          SCENE III.\n              Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace\n\n         Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS\n\n  CLEOPATRA. Where is the fellow?\n  ALEXAS. Half afeard to come.\n  CLEOPATRA. Go to, go to.\n\n                Enter the MESSENGER as before\n\n    Come hither, sir.\n  ALEXAS. Good Majesty,\n    Herod of Jewry dare not look upon you\n    But when you are well pleas'd.\n  CLEOPATRA. That Herod's head\n    I'll have. But how, when Antony is gone,\n    Through whom I might command it? Come thou near.\n  MESSENGER. Most gracious Majesty!\n  CLEOPATRA. Didst thou behold Octavia?\n  MESSENGER. Ay, dread Queen.\n  CLEOPATRA. Where?\n  MESSENGER. Madam, in Rome\n    I look'd her in the face, and saw her led\n    Between her brother and Mark Antony.\n  CLEOPATRA. Is she as tall as me?\n  MESSENGER. She is not, madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. Didst hear her speak? Is she shrill-tongu'd or low?\n  MESSENGER. Madam, I heard her speak: she is low-voic'd.\n  CLEOPATRA. That's not so good. He cannot like her long.\n  CHARMIAN. Like her? O Isis! 'tis impossible.\n  CLEOPATRA. I think so, Charmian. Dull of tongue and dwarfish!\n    What majesty is in her gait? Remember,\n    If e'er thou look'dst on majesty.\n  MESSENGER. She creeps.\n    Her motion and her station are as one;\n    She shows a body rather than a life,\n    A statue than a breather.\n  CLEOPATRA. Is this certain?\n  MESSENGER. Or I have no observance.\n  CHARMIAN. Three in Egypt\n    Cannot make better note.\n  CLEOPATRA. He's very knowing;\n    I do perceive't. There's nothing in her yet.\n    The fellow has good judgment.\n  CHARMIAN. Excellent.\n  CLEOPATRA. Guess at her years, I prithee.\n  MESSENGER. Madam,\n    She was a widow.\n  CLEOPATRA. Widow? Charmian, hark!\n  MESSENGER. And I do think she's thirty.\n  CLEOPATRA. Bear'st thou her face in mind? Is't long or round?\n  MESSENGER. Round even to faultiness.\n  CLEOPATRA. For the most part, too, they are foolish that are so.\n    Her hair, what colour?\n  MESSENGER. Brown, madam; and her forehead\n    As low as she would wish it.\n  CLEOPATRA. There's gold for thee.\n    Thou must not take my former sharpness ill.\n    I will employ thee back again; I find thee\n    Most fit for business. Go make thee ready;\n    Our letters are prepar'd.                   Exeunt MESSENGER\n  CHARMIAN. A proper man.\n  CLEOPATRA. Indeed, he is so. I repent me much\n    That so I harried him. Why, methinks, by him,\n    This creature's no such thing.\n  CHARMIAN. Nothing, madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. The man hath seen some majesty, and should know.\n  CHARMIAN. Hath he seen majesty? Isis else defend,\n    And serving you so long!\n  CLEOPATRA. I have one thing more to ask him yet, good Charmian.\n    But 'tis no matter; thou shalt bring him to me\n    Where I will write. All may be well enough.\n  CHARMIAN. I warrant you, madam.                         Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_4\n                          SCENE IV.\n                  Athens. ANTONY'S house\n\n                 Enter ANTONY and OCTAVIA\n\n  ANTONY. Nay, nay, Octavia, not only that-\n    That were excusable, that and thousands more\n    Of semblable import- but he hath wag'd\n    New wars 'gainst Pompey; made his will, and read it\n    To public ear;\n    Spoke scandy of me; when perforce he could not\n    But pay me terms of honour, cold and sickly\n    He vented them, most narrow measure lent me;\n    When the best hint was given him, he not took't,\n    Or did it from his teeth.\n  OCTAVIA. O my good lord,\n    Believe not all; or if you must believe,\n    Stomach not all. A more unhappy lady,\n    If this division chance, ne'er stood between,\n    Praying for both parts.\n    The good gods will mock me presently\n    When I shall pray 'O, bless my lord and husband!'\n    Undo that prayer by crying out as loud\n    'O, bless my brother!' Husband win, win brother,\n    Prays, and destroys the prayer; no mid-way\n    'Twixt these extremes at all.\n  ANTONY. Gentle Octavia,\n    Let your best love draw to that point which seeks\n    Best to preserve it. If I lose mine honour,\n    I lose myself; better I were not yours\n    Than yours so branchless. But, as you requested,\n    Yourself shall go between's. The meantime, lady,\n    I'll raise the preparation of a war\n    Shall stain your brother. Make your soonest haste;\n    So your desires are yours.\n  OCTAVIA. Thanks to my lord.\n    The Jove of power make me, most weak, most weak,\n    Your reconciler! Wars 'twixt you twain would be\n    As if the world should cleave, and that slain men\n    Should solder up the rift.\n  ANTONY. When it appears to you where this begins,\n    Turn your displeasure that way, for our faults\n    Can never be so equal that your love\n    Can equally move with them. Provide your going;\n    Choose your own company, and command what cost\n    Your heart has mind to.                               Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_5\n                           SCENE V.\n                   Athens. ANTONY'S house\n\n             Enter ENOBARBUS and EROS, meeting\n\n  ENOBARBUS. How now, friend Eros!\n  EROS. There's strange news come, sir.\n  ENOBARBUS. What, man?\n  EROS. Caesar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey.\n  ENOBARBUS. This is old. What is the success?\n  EROS. Caesar, having made use of him in the wars 'gainst Pompey,\n    presently denied him rivality, would not let him partake in the\n    glory of the action; and not resting here, accuses him of letters\n    he had formerly wrote to Pompey; upon his own appeal, seizes him.\n    So the poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine.\n  ENOBARBUS. Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps- no more;\n    And throw between them all the food thou hast,\n    They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony?\n  EROS. He's walking in the garden- thus, and spurns\n    The rush that lies before him; cries 'Fool Lepidus!'\n    And threats the throat of that his officer\n    That murd'red Pompey.\n  ENOBARBUS. Our great navy's rigg'd.\n  EROS. For Italy and Caesar. More, Domitius:\n    My lord desires you presently; my news\n    I might have told hereafter.\n  ENOBARBUS. 'Twill be naught;\n    But let it be. Bring me to Antony.\n  EROS. Come, sir.                                        Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_6\n                          SCENE VI.\n                   Rome. CAESAR'S house\n\n             Enter CAESAR, AGRIPPA, and MAECENAS\n\n  CAESAR. Contemning Rome, he has done all this and more\n    In Alexandria. Here's the manner of't:\n    I' th' market-place, on a tribunal silver'd,\n    Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold\n    Were publicly enthron'd; at the feet sat\n    Caesarion, whom they call my father's son,\n    And all the unlawful issue that their lust\n    Since then hath made between them. Unto her\n    He gave the stablishment of Egypt; made her\n    Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia,\n    Absolute queen.\n  MAECENAS. This in the public eye?\n  CAESAR. I' th' common show-place, where they exercise.\n    His sons he there proclaim'd the kings of kings:\n    Great Media, Parthia, and Armenia,\n    He gave to Alexander; to Ptolemy he assign'd\n    Syria, Cilicia, and Phoenicia. She\n    In th' habiliments of the goddess Isis\n    That day appear'd; and oft before gave audience,\n    As 'tis reported, so.\n  MAECENAS. Let Rome be thus\n    Inform'd.\n  AGRIPPA. Who, queasy with his insolence\n    Already, will their good thoughts call from him.\n  CAESAR. The people knows it, and have now receiv'd\n    His accusations.\n  AGRIPPA. Who does he accuse?\n  CAESAR. Caesar; and that, having in Sicily\n    Sextus Pompeius spoil'd, we had not rated him\n    His part o' th' isle. Then does he say he lent me\n    Some shipping, unrestor'd. Lastly, he frets\n    That Lepidus of the triumvirate\n    Should be depos'd; and, being, that we detain\n    All his revenue.\n  AGRIPPA. Sir, this should be answer'd.\n  CAESAR. 'Tis done already, and messenger gone.\n    I have told him Lepidus was grown too cruel,\n    That he his high authority abus'd,\n    And did deserve his change. For what I have conquer'd\n    I grant him part; but then, in his Armenia\n    And other of his conquer'd kingdoms,\n    Demand the like.\n  MAECENAS. He'll never yield to that.\n  CAESAR. Nor must not then be yielded to in this.\n\n                Enter OCTAVIA, with her train\n\n  OCTAVIA. Hail, Caesar, and my lord! hail, most dear Caesar!\n  CAESAR. That ever I should call thee cast-away!\n  OCTAVIA. You have not call'd me so, nor have you cause.\n  CAESAR. Why have you stol'n upon us thus? You come not\n    Like Caesar's sister. The wife of Antony\n    Should have an army for an usher, and\n    The neighs of horse to tell of her approach\n    Long ere she did appear. The trees by th' way\n    Should have borne men, and expectation fainted,\n    Longing for what it had not. Nay, the dust\n    Should have ascended to the roof of heaven,\n    Rais'd by your populous troops. But you are come\n    A market-maid to Rome, and have prevented\n    The ostentation of our love, which left unshown\n    Is often left unlov'd. We should have met you\n    By sea and land, supplying every stage\n    With an augmented greeting.\n  OCTAVIA. Good my lord,\n    To come thus was I not constrain'd, but did it\n    On my free will. My lord, Mark Antony,\n    Hearing that you prepar'd for war, acquainted\n    My grieved ear withal; whereon I begg'd\n    His pardon for return.\n  CAESAR. Which soon he granted,\n    Being an obstruct 'tween his lust and him.\n  OCTAVIA. Do not say so, my lord.\n  CAESAR. I have eyes upon him,\n    And his affairs come to me on the wind.\n    Where is he now?\n  OCTAVIA. My lord, in Athens.\n  CAESAR. No, my most wronged sister: Cleopatra\n    Hath nodded him to her. He hath given his empire\n    Up to a whore, who now are levying\n    The kings o' th' earth for war. He hath assembled\n    Bocchus, the king of Libya; Archelaus\n    Of Cappadocia; Philadelphos, king\n    Of Paphlagonia; the Thracian king, Adallas;\n    King Manchus of Arabia; King of Pont;\n    Herod of Jewry; Mithridates, king\n    Of Comagene; Polemon and Amyntas,\n    The kings of Mede and Lycaonia, with\n    More larger list of sceptres.\n  OCTAVIA. Ay me most wretched,\n    That have my heart parted betwixt two friends,\n    That does afflict each other!\n  CAESAR. Welcome hither.\n    Your letters did withhold our breaking forth,\n    Till we perceiv'd both how you were wrong led\n    And we in negligent danger. Cheer your heart;\n    Be you not troubled with the time, which drives\n    O'er your content these strong necessities,\n    But let determin'd things to destiny\n    Hold unbewail'd their way. Welcome to Rome;\n    Nothing more dear to me. You are abus'd\n    Beyond the mark of thought, and the high gods,\n    To do you justice, make their ministers\n    Of us and those that love you. Best of comfort,\n    And ever welcome to us.\n  AGRIPPA. Welcome, lady.\n  MAECENAS. Welcome, dear madam.\n    Each heart in Rome does love and pity you;\n    Only th' adulterous Antony, most large\n    In his abominations, turns you off,\n    And gives his potent regiment to a trull\n    That noises it against us.\n  OCTAVIA. Is it so, sir?\n  CAESAR. Most certain. Sister, welcome. Pray you\n    Be ever known to patience. My dear'st sister!         Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_7\n                          SCENE VII.\n                  ANTONY'S camp near Actium\n\n                Enter CLEOPATRA and ENOBARBUS\n\n  CLEOPATRA. I will be even with thee, doubt it not.\n  ENOBARBUS. But why, why,\n  CLEOPATRA. Thou hast forspoke my being in these wars,\n    And say'st it is not fit.\n  ENOBARBUS. Well, is it, is it?\n  CLEOPATRA. Is't not denounc'd against us? Why should not we\n    Be there in person?\n  ENOBARBUS. [Aside] Well, I could reply:\n    If we should serve with horse and mares together\n    The horse were merely lost; the mares would bear\n    A soldier and his horse.\n  CLEOPATRA. What is't you say?\n  ENOBARBUS. Your presence needs must puzzle Antony;\n    Take from his heart, take from his brain, from's time,\n    What should not then be spar'd. He is already\n    Traduc'd for levity; and 'tis said in Rome\n    That Photinus an eunuch and your maids\n    Manage this war.\n  CLEOPATRA. Sink Rome, and their tongues rot\n    That speak against us! A charge we bear i' th' war,\n    And, as the president of my kingdom, will\n    Appear there for a man. Speak not against it;\n    I will not stay behind.\n\n                   Enter ANTONY and CANIDIUS\n\n  ENOBARBUS. Nay, I have done.\n    Here comes the Emperor.\n  ANTONY. Is it not strange, Canidius,\n    That from Tarentum and Brundusium\n    He could so quickly cut the Ionian sea,\n    And take in Toryne?- You have heard on't, sweet?\n  CLEOPATRA. Celerity is never more admir'd\n    Than by the negligent.\n  ANTONY. A good rebuke,\n    Which might have well becom'd the best of men\n    To taunt at slackness. Canidius, we\n    Will fight with him by sea.\n  CLEOPATRA. By sea! What else?\n  CANIDIUS. Why will my lord do so?\n  ANTONY. For that he dares us to't.\n  ENOBARBUS. So hath my lord dar'd him to single fight.\n  CANIDIUS. Ay, and to wage this battle at Pharsalia,\n    Where Caesar fought with Pompey. But these offers,\n    Which serve not for his vantage, he shakes off;\n    And so should you.\n  ENOBARBUS. Your ships are not well mann'd;\n    Your mariners are muleteers, reapers, people\n    Ingross'd by swift impress. In Caesar's fleet\n    Are those that often have 'gainst Pompey fought;\n    Their ships are yare; yours heavy. No disgrace\n    Shall fall you for refusing him at sea,\n    Being prepar'd for land.\n  ANTONY. By sea, by sea.\n  ENOBARBUS. Most worthy sir, you therein throw away\n    The absolute soldiership you have by land;\n    Distract your army, which doth most consist\n    Of war-mark'd footmen; leave unexecuted\n    Your own renowned knowledge; quite forgo\n    The way which promises assurance; and\n    Give up yourself merely to chance and hazard\n    From firm security.\n  ANTONY. I'll fight at sea.\n  CLEOPATRA. I have sixty sails, Caesar none better.\n  ANTONY. Our overplus of shipping will we burn,\n    And, with the rest full-mann'd, from th' head of Actium\n    Beat th' approaching Caesar. But if we fail,\n    We then can do't at land.\n\n                       Enter a MESSENGER\n\n    Thy business?\n  MESSENGER. The news is true, my lord: he is descried;\n    Caesar has taken Toryne.\n  ANTONY. Can he be there in person? 'Tis impossible-\n    Strange that his power should be. Canidius,\n    Our nineteen legions thou shalt hold by land,\n    And our twelve thousand horse. We'll to our ship.\n    Away, my Thetis!\n\n                       Enter a SOLDIER\n\n    How now, worthy soldier?\n  SOLDIER. O noble Emperor, do not fight by sea;\n    Trust not to rotten planks. Do you misdoubt\n    This sword and these my wounds? Let th' Egyptians\n    And the Phoenicians go a-ducking; we\n    Have us'd to conquer standing on the earth\n    And fighting foot to foot.\n  ANTONY. Well, well- away.\n                         Exeunt ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, and ENOBARBUS\n  SOLDIER. By Hercules, I think I am i' th' right.\n  CANIDIUS. Soldier, thou art; but his whole action grows\n    Not in the power on't. So our leader's led,\n    And we are women's men.\n  SOLDIER. You keep by land\n    The legions and the horse whole, do you not?\n  CANIDIUS. Marcus Octavius, Marcus Justeius,\n    Publicola, and Caelius are for sea;\n    But we keep whole by land. This speed of Caesar's\n    Carries beyond belief.\n  SOLDIER. While he was yet in Rome,\n    His power went out in such distractions as\n    Beguil'd all spies.\n  CANIDIUS. Who's his lieutenant, hear you?\n  SOLDIER. They say one Taurus.\n  CANIDIUS. Well I know the man.\n\n                        Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. The Emperor calls Canidius.\n  CANIDIUS. With news the time's with labour and throes forth\n    Each minute some.                                     Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_8\n                          SCENE VIII.\n                      A plain near Actium\n\n             Enter CAESAR, with his army, marching\n\n  CAESAR. Taurus!\n  TAURUS. My lord?\n  CAESAR. Strike not by land; keep whole; provoke not battle\n    Till we have done at sea. Do not exceed\n    The prescript of this scroll. Our fortune lies\n    Upon this jump.                                       Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_9\n                           SCENE IX.\n                  Another part of the plain\n\n                  Enter ANTONY and ENOBARBUS\n\n  ANTONY. Set we our squadrons on yon side o' th' hill,\n    In eye of Caesar's battle; from which place\n    We may the number of the ships behold,\n    And so proceed accordingly.                           Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_10\n                           SCENE X.\n                 Another part of the plain\n\n        CANIDIUS marcheth with his land army one way\n        over the stage, and TAURUS, the Lieutenant of\n      CAESAR, the other way. After their going in is heard\n                   the noise of a sea-fight\n\n                    Alarum. Enter ENOBARBUS\n\n  ENOBARBUS. Naught, naught, all naught! I can behold no longer.\n    Th' Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral,\n    With all their sixty, fly and turn the rudder.\n    To see't mine eyes are blasted.\n\n                        Enter SCARUS\n\n  SCARUS. Gods and goddesses,\n    All the whole synod of them!\n  ENOBARBUS. What's thy passion?\n  SCARUS. The greater cantle of the world is lost\n    With very ignorance; we have kiss'd away\n    Kingdoms and provinces.\n  ENOBARBUS. How appears the fight?\n  SCARUS. On our side like the token'd pestilence,\n    Where death is sure. Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt-\n    Whom leprosy o'ertake!- i' th' midst o' th' fight,\n    When vantage like a pair of twins appear'd,\n    Both as the same, or rather ours the elder-\n    The breese upon her, like a cow in June-\n    Hoists sails and flies.\n  ENOBARBUS. That I beheld;\n    Mine eyes did sicken at the sight and could not\n    Endure a further view.\n  SCARUS. She once being loof'd,\n    The noble ruin of her magic, Antony,\n    Claps on his sea-wing, and, like a doting mallard,\n    Leaving the fight in height, flies after her.\n    I never saw an action of such shame;\n    Experience, manhood, honour, ne'er before\n    Did violate so itself.\n  ENOBARBUS. Alack, alack!\n\n                       Enter CANIDIUS\n\n  CANIDIUS. Our fortune on the sea is out of breath,\n    And sinks most lamentably. Had our general\n    Been what he knew himself, it had gone well.\n    O, he has given example for our flight\n    Most grossly by his own!\n  ENOBARBUS. Ay, are you thereabouts?\n    Why then, good night indeed.\n  CANIDIUS. Toward Peloponnesus are they fled.\n  SCARUS. 'Tis easy to't; and there I will attend\n    What further comes.\n  CANIDIUS. To Caesar will I render\n    My legions and my horse; six kings already\n    Show me the way of yielding.\n  ENOBARBUS. I'll yet follow\n    The wounded chance of Antony, though my reason\n    Sits in the wind against me.                          Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_11\n                         SCENE XI.\n              Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace\n\n               Enter ANTONY With attendants\n\n  ANTONY. Hark! the land bids me tread no more upon't;\n    It is asham'd to bear me. Friends, come hither.\n    I am so lated in the world that I\n    Have lost my way for ever. I have a ship\n    Laden with gold; take that; divide it. Fly,\n    And make your peace with Caesar.\n  ALL. Fly? Not we!\n  ANTONY. I have fled myself, and have instructed cowards\n    To run and show their shoulders. Friends, be gone;\n    I have myself resolv'd upon a course\n    Which has no need of you; be gone.\n    My treasure's in the harbour, take it. O,\n    I follow'd that I blush to look upon.\n    My very hairs do mutiny; for the white\n    Reprove the brown for rashness, and they them\n    For fear and doting. Friends, be gone; you shall\n    Have letters from me to some friends that will\n    Sweep your way for you. Pray you look not sad,\n    Nor make replies of loathness; take the hint\n    Which my despair proclaims. Let that be left\n    Which leaves itself. To the sea-side straight way.\n    I will possess you of that ship and treasure.\n    Leave me, I pray, a little; pray you now;\n    Nay, do so, for indeed I have lost command;\n    Therefore I pray you. I'll see you by and by.    [Sits down]\n\n            Enter CLEOPATRA, led by CHARMIAN and IRAS,\n                         EROS following\n\n  EROS. Nay, gentle madam, to him! Comfort him.\n  IRAS. Do, most dear Queen.\n  CHARMIAN. Do? Why, what else?\n  CLEOPATRA. Let me sit down. O Juno!\n  ANTONY. No, no, no, no, no.\n  EROS. See you here, sir?\n  ANTONY. O, fie, fie, fie!\n  CHARMIAN. Madam!\n  IRAS. Madam, O good Empress!\n  EROS. Sir, sir!\n  ANTONY. Yes, my lord, yes. He at Philippi kept\n    His sword e'en like a dancer, while I struck\n    The lean and wrinkled Cassius; and 'twas I\n    That the mad Brutus ended; he alone\n    Dealt on lieutenantry, and no practice had\n    In the brave squares of war. Yet now- no matter.\n  CLEOPATRA. Ah, stand by!\n  EROS. The Queen, my lord, the Queen!\n  IRAS. Go to him, madam, speak to him.\n    He is unqualitied with very shame.\n  CLEOPATRA. Well then, sustain me. O!\n EROS. Most noble sir, arise; the Queen approaches.\n    Her head's declin'd, and death will seize her but\n    Your comfort makes the rescue.\n  ANTONY. I have offended reputation-\n    A most unnoble swerving.\n  EROS. Sir, the Queen.\n  ANTONY. O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt? See\n    How I convey my shame out of thine eyes\n    By looking back what I have left behind\n    'Stroy'd in dishonour.\n  CLEOPATRA. O my lord, my lord,\n    Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought\n    You would have followed.\n  ANTONY. Egypt, thou knew'st too well\n    My heart was to thy rudder tied by th' strings,\n    And thou shouldst tow me after. O'er my spirit\n    Thy full supremacy thou knew'st, and that\n    Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods\n    Command me.\n  CLEOPATRA. O, my pardon!\n  ANTONY. Now I must\n    To the young man send humble treaties, dodge\n    And palter in the shifts of lowness, who\n    With half the bulk o' th' world play'd as I pleas'd,\n    Making and marring fortunes. You did know\n    How much you were my conqueror, and that\n    My sword, made weak by my affection, would\n    Obey it on all cause.\n  CLEOPATRA. Pardon, pardon!\n  ANTONY. Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates\n    All that is won and lost. Give me a kiss;\n    Even this repays me.\n    We sent our schoolmaster; is 'a come back?\n    Love, I am full of lead. Some wine,\n    Within there, and our viands! Fortune knows\n    We scorn her most when most she offers blows.         Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_12\n                         SCENE XII.\n                   CAESAR'S camp in Egypt\n\n   Enter CAESAR, AGRIPPA, DOLABELLA, THYREUS, with others\n\n  CAESAR. Let him appear that's come from Antony.\n    Know you him?\n  DOLABELLA. Caesar, 'tis his schoolmaster:\n    An argument that he is pluck'd, when hither\n    He sends so poor a pinion of his wing,\n    Which had superfluous kings for messengers\n    Not many moons gone by.\n\n            Enter EUPHRONIUS, Ambassador from ANTONY\n\n  CAESAR. Approach, and speak.\n  EUPHRONIUS. Such as I am, I come from Antony.\n    I was of late as petty to his ends\n    As is the morn-dew on the myrtle leaf\n    To his grand sea.\n  CAESAR. Be't so. Declare thine office.\n  EUPHRONIUS. Lord of his fortunes he salutes thee, and\n    Requires to live in Egypt; which not granted,\n    He lessens his requests and to thee sues\n    To let him breathe between the heavens and earth,\n    A private man in Athens. This for him.\n    Next, Cleopatra does confess thy greatness,\n    Submits her to thy might, and of thee craves\n    The circle of the Ptolemies for her heirs,\n    Now hazarded to thy grace.\n  CAESAR. For Antony,\n    I have no ears to his request. The Queen\n    Of audience nor desire shall fail, so she\n    From Egypt drive her all-disgraced friend,\n    Or take his life there. This if she perform,\n    She shall not sue unheard. So to them both.\n  EUPHRONIUS. Fortune pursue thee!\n  CAESAR. Bring him through the bands.           Exit EUPHRONIUS\n    [To THYREUS] To try thy eloquence, now 'tis time. Dispatch;\n    From Antony win Cleopatra. Promise,\n    And in our name, what she requires; add more,\n    From thine invention, offers. Women are not\n    In their best fortunes strong; but want will perjure\n    The ne'er-touch'd vestal. Try thy cunning, Thyreus;\n    Make thine own edict for thy pains, which we\n    Will answer as a law.\n  THYREUS. Caesar, I go.\n  CAESAR. Observe how Antony becomes his flaw,\n    And what thou think'st his very action speaks\n    In every power that moves.\n  THYREUS. Caesar, I shall.                               Exeunt\n\nACT_3|SC_13\n                           SCENE XIII.\n               Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace\n\n        Enter CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, CHARMIAN, and IRAS\n\n  CLEOPATRA. What shall we do, Enobarbus?\n  ENOBARBUS. Think, and die.\n  CLEOPATRA. Is Antony or we in fault for this?\n  ENOBARBUS. Antony only, that would make his will\n    Lord of his reason. What though you fled\n    From that great face of war, whose several ranges\n    Frighted each other? Why should he follow?\n    The itch of his affection should not then\n    Have nick'd his captainship, at such a point,\n    When half to half the world oppos'd, he being\n    The mered question. 'Twas a shame no less\n    Than was his loss, to course your flying flags\n    And leave his navy gazing.\n  CLEOPATRA. Prithee, peace.\n\n          Enter EUPHRONIUS, the Ambassador; with ANTONY\n\n  ANTONY. Is that his answer?\n  EUPHRONIUS. Ay, my lord.\n  ANTONY. The Queen shall then have courtesy, so she\n    Will yield us up.\n  EUPHRONIUS. He says so.\n  ANTONY. Let her know't.\n    To the boy Caesar send this grizzled head,\n    And he will fill thy wishes to the brim\n    With principalities.\n  CLEOPATRA. That head, my lord?\n  ANTONY. To him again. Tell him he wears the rose\n    Of youth upon him; from which the world should note\n    Something particular. His coin, ships, legions,\n    May be a coward's whose ministers would prevail\n    Under the service of a child as soon\n    As i' th' command of Caesar. I dare him therefore\n    To lay his gay comparisons apart,\n    And answer me declin'd, sword against sword,\n    Ourselves alone. I'll write it. Follow me.\n                                    Exeunt ANTONY and EUPHRONIUS\n  EUPHRONIUS. [Aside] Yes, like enough high-battled Caesar will\n    Unstate his happiness, and be stag'd to th' show\n    Against a sworder! I see men's judgments are\n    A parcel of their fortunes, and things outward\n    Do draw the inward quality after them,\n    To suffer all alike. That he should dream,\n    Knowing all measures, the full Caesar will\n    Answer his emptiness! Caesar, thou hast subdu'd\n    His judgment too.\n\n                       Enter a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. A messenger from Caesar.\n  CLEOPATRA. What, no more ceremony? See, my women!\n    Against the blown rose may they stop their nose\n    That kneel'd unto the buds. Admit him, sir.     Exit SERVANT\n  ENOBARBUS. [Aside] Mine honesty and I begin to square.\n    The loyalty well held to fools does make\n    Our faith mere folly. Yet he that can endure\n    To follow with allegiance a fall'n lord\n    Does conquer him that did his master conquer,\n    And earns a place i' th' story.\n\n                       Enter THYREUS\n\n  CLEOPATRA. Caesar's will?\n  THYREUS. Hear it apart.\n  CLEOPATRA. None but friends: say boldly.\n  THYREUS. So, haply, are they friends to Antony.\n  ENOBARBUS. He needs as many, sir, as Caesar has,\n    Or needs not us. If Caesar please, our master\n    Will leap to be his friend. For us, you know\n    Whose he is we are, and that is Caesar's.\n  THYREUS. So.\n    Thus then, thou most renown'd: Caesar entreats\n    Not to consider in what case thou stand'st\n    Further than he is Caesar.\n  CLEOPATRA. Go on. Right royal!\n  THYREUS. He knows that you embrace not Antony\n    As you did love, but as you fear'd him.\n  CLEOPATRA. O!\n  THYREUS. The scars upon your honour, therefore, he\n    Does pity, as constrained blemishes,\n    Not as deserv'd.\n  CLEOPATRA. He is a god, and knows\n    What is most right. Mine honour was not yielded,\n    But conquer'd merely.\n  ENOBARBUS. [Aside] To be sure of that,\n    I will ask Antony. Sir, sir, thou art so leaky\n    That we must leave thee to thy sinking, for\n    Thy dearest quit thee.                                  Exit\n  THYREUS. Shall I say to Caesar\n    What you require of him? For he partly begs\n    To be desir'd to give. It much would please him\n    That of his fortunes you should make a staff\n    To lean upon. But it would warm his spirits\n    To hear from me you had left Antony,\n    And put yourself under his shroud,\n    The universal landlord.\n  CLEOPATRA. What's your name?\n  THYREUS. My name is Thyreus.\n  CLEOPATRA. Most kind messenger,\n    Say to great Caesar this: in deputation\n    I kiss his conquring hand. Tell him I am prompt\n    To lay my crown at 's feet, and there to kneel.\n    Tell him from his all-obeying breath I hear\n    The doom of Egypt.\n  THYREUS. 'Tis your noblest course.\n    Wisdom and fortune combating together,\n    If that the former dare but what it can,\n    No chance may shake it. Give me grace to lay\n    My duty on your hand.\n  CLEOPATRA. Your Caesar's father oft,\n    When he hath mus'd of taking kingdoms in,\n    Bestow'd his lips on that unworthy place,\n    As it rain'd kisses.\n\n                Re-enter ANTONY and ENOBARBUS\n\n  ANTONY. Favours, by Jove that thunders!\n    What art thou, fellow?\n  THYREUS. One that but performs\n    The bidding of the fullest man, and worthiest\n    To have command obey'd.\n  ENOBARBUS. [Aside] You will be whipt.\n  ANTONY. Approach there.- Ah, you kite!- Now, gods and devils!\n    Authority melts from me. Of late, when I cried 'Ho!'\n    Like boys unto a muss, kings would start forth\n    And cry 'Your will?' Have you no ears? I am\n    Antony yet.\n\n                       Enter servants\n\n    Take hence this Jack and whip him.\n  ENOBARBUS. 'Tis better playing with a lion's whelp\n    Than with an old one dying.\n  ANTONY. Moon and stars!\n    Whip him. Were't twenty of the greatest tributaries\n    That do acknowledge Caesar, should I find them\n    So saucy with the hand of she here- what's her name\n    Since she was Cleopatra? Whip him, fellows,\n    Till like a boy you see him cringe his face,\n    And whine aloud for mercy. Take him hence.\n  THYMUS. Mark Antony-\n  ANTONY. Tug him away. Being whipt,\n    Bring him again: the Jack of Caesar's shall\n    Bear us an errand to him.       Exeunt servants with THYREUS\n    You were half blasted ere I knew you. Ha!\n    Have I my pillow left unpress'd in Rome,\n    Forborne the getting of a lawful race,\n    And by a gem of women, to be abus'd\n    By one that looks on feeders?\n  CLEOPATRA. Good my lord-\n  ANTONY. You have been a boggler ever.\n    But when we in our viciousness grow hard-\n    O misery on't!- the wise gods seel our eyes,\n    In our own filth drop our clear judgments, make us\n    Adore our errors, laugh at's while we strut\n    To our confusion.\n  CLEOPATRA. O, is't come to this?\n  ANTONY. I found you as a morsel cold upon\n    Dead Caesar's trencher. Nay, you were a fragment\n    Of Cneius Pompey's, besides what hotter hours,\n    Unregist'red in vulgar fame, you have\n    Luxuriously pick'd out; for I am sure,\n    Though you can guess what temperance should be,\n    You know not what it is.\n  CLEOPATRA. Wherefore is this?\n  ANTONY. To let a fellow that will take rewards,\n    And say 'God quit you!' be familiar with\n    My playfellow, your hand, this kingly seal\n    And plighter of high hearts! O that I were\n    Upon the hill of Basan to outroar\n    The horned herd! For I have savage cause,\n    And to proclaim it civilly were like\n    A halter'd neck which does the hangman thank\n    For being yare about him.\n\n              Re-enter a SERVANT with THYREUS\n\n    Is he whipt?\n  SERVANT. Soundly, my lord.\n  ANTONY. Cried he? and begg'd 'a pardon?\n  SERVANT. He did ask favour.\n  ANTONY. If that thy father live, let him repent\n    Thou wast not made his daughter; and be thou sorry\n    To follow Caesar in his triumph, since\n    Thou hast been whipt for following him. Henceforth\n    The white hand of a lady fever thee!\n    Shake thou to look on't. Get thee back to Caesar;\n    Tell him thy entertainment; look thou say\n    He makes me angry with him; for he seems\n    Proud and disdainful, harping on what I am,\n    Not what he knew I was. He makes me angry;\n    And at this time most easy 'tis to do't,\n    When my good stars, that were my former guides,\n    Have empty left their orbs and shot their fires\n    Into th' abysm of hell. If he mislike\n    My speech and what is done, tell him he has\n    Hipparchus, my enfranched bondman, whom\n    He may at pleasure whip or hang or torture,\n    As he shall like, to quit me. Urge it thou.\n    Hence with thy stripes, be gone.                Exit THYREUS\n  CLEOPATRA. Have you done yet?\n  ANTONY. Alack, our terrene moon\n    Is now eclips'd, and it portends alone\n    The fall of Antony.\n  CLEOPATRA. I must stay his time.\n  ANTONY. To flatter Caesar, would you mingle eyes\n    With one that ties his points?\n  CLEOPATRA. Not know me yet?\n  ANTONY. Cold-hearted toward me?\n  CLEOPATRA. Ah, dear, if I be so,\n    From my cold heart let heaven engender hail,\n    And poison it in the source, and the first stone\n    Drop in my neck; as it determines, so\n    Dissolve my life! The next Caesarion smite!\n    Till by degrees the memory of my womb,\n    Together with my brave Egyptians all,\n    By the discandying of this pelleted storm,\n    Lie graveless, till the flies and gnats of Nile\n    Have buried them for prey.\n  ANTONY. I am satisfied.\n    Caesar sits down in Alexandria, where\n    I will oppose his fate. Our force by land\n    Hath nobly held; our sever'd navy to\n    Have knit again, and fleet, threat'ning most sea-like.\n    Where hast thou been, my heart? Dost thou hear, lady?\n    If from the field I shall return once more\n    To kiss these lips, I will appear in blood.\n    I and my sword will earn our chronicle.\n    There's hope in't yet.\n  CLEOPATRA. That's my brave lord!\n  ANTONY. I will be treble-sinew'd, hearted, breath'd,\n    And fight maliciously. For when mine hours\n    Were nice and lucky, men did ransom lives\n    Of me for jests; but now I'll set my teeth,\n    And send to darkness all that stop me. Come,\n    Let's have one other gaudy night. Call to me\n    All my sad captains; fill our bowls once more;\n    Let's mock the midnight bell.\n  CLEOPATRA. It is my birthday.\n    I had thought t'have held it poor; but since my lord\n    Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra.\n  ANTONY. We will yet do well.\n  CLEOPATRA. Call all his noble captains to my lord.\n  ANTONY. Do so, we'll speak to them; and to-night I'll force\n    The wine peep through their scars. Come on, my queen,\n    There's sap in't yet. The next time I do fight\n    I'll make death love me; for I will contend\n    Even with his pestilent scythe.     Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS\n  ENOBARBUS. Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious\n    Is to be frighted out of fear, and in that mood\n    The dove will peck the estridge; and I see still\n    A diminution in our captain's brain\n    Restores his heart. When valour preys on reason,\n    It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek\n    Some way to leave him.                                  Exit\n\nACT_4|SC_1\n                      ACT IV. SCENE I.\n              CAESAR'S camp before Alexandria\n\n      Enter CAESAR, AGRIPPA, and MAECENAS, with his army;\n                 CAESAR reading a letter\n\n  CAESAR. He calls me boy, and chides as he had power\n    To beat me out of Egypt. My messenger\n    He hath whipt with rods; dares me to personal combat,\n    Caesar to Antony. Let the old ruffian know\n    I have many other ways to die, meantime\n    Laugh at his challenge.\n  MAECENAS. Caesar must think\n    When one so great begins to rage, he's hunted\n    Even to falling. Give him no breath, but now\n    Make boot of his distraction. Never anger\n    Made good guard for itself.\n  CAESAR. Let our best heads\n    Know that to-morrow the last of many battles\n    We mean to fight. Within our files there are\n    Of those that serv'd Mark Antony but late\n    Enough to fetch him in. See it done;\n    And feast the army; we have store to do't,\n    And they have earn'd the waste. Poor Antony!          Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_2\n                          SCENE II.\n               Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace\n\n      Enter ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, CHARMIAN, IRAS,\n                     ALEXAS, with others\n\n  ANTONY. He will not fight with me, Domitius?\n  ENOBARBUS. No.\n  ANTONY. Why should he not?\n  ENOBARBUS. He thinks, being twenty times of better fortune,\n    He is twenty men to one.\n  ANTONY. To-morrow, soldier,\n    By sea and land I'll fight. Or I will live,\n    Or bathe my dying honour in the blood\n    Shall make it live again. Woo't thou fight well?\n  ENOBARBUS. I'll strike, and cry 'Take all.'\n  ANTONY. Well said; come on.\n    Call forth my household servants; let's to-night\n    Be bounteous at our meal.\n\n                Enter three or four servitors\n\n    Give me thy hand,\n    Thou has been rightly honest. So hast thou;\n    Thou, and thou, and thou. You have serv'd me well,\n    And kings have been your fellows.\n  CLEOPATRA. [Aside to ENOBARBUS] What means this?\n  ENOBARBUS. [Aside to CLEOPATRA] 'Tis one of those odd tricks which\n      sorrow shoots\n    Out of the mind.\n  ANTONY. And thou art honest too.\n    I wish I could be made so many men,\n    And all of you clapp'd up together in\n    An Antony, that I might do you service\n    So good as you have done.\n  SERVANT. The gods forbid!\n  ANTONY. Well, my good fellows, wait on me to-night.\n    Scant not my cups, and make as much of me\n    As when mine empire was your fellow too,\n    And suffer'd my command.\n  CLEOPATRA. [Aside to ENOBARBUS] What does he mean?\n    ENOBARBUS. [Aside to CLEOPATRA] To make his followers weep.\n  ANTONY. Tend me to-night;\n    May be it is the period of your duty.\n    Haply you shall not see me more; or if,\n    A mangled shadow. Perchance to-morrow\n    You'll serve another master. I look on you\n    As one that takes his leave. Mine honest friends,\n    I turn you not away; but, like a master\n    Married to your good service, stay till death.\n    Tend me to-night two hours, I ask no more,\n    And the gods yield you for't!\n  ENOBARBUS. What mean you, sir,\n    To give them this discomfort? Look, they weep;\n    And I, an ass, am onion-ey'd. For shame!\n    Transform us not to women.\n  ANTONY. Ho, ho, ho!\n    Now the witch take me if I meant it thus!\n    Grace grow where those drops fall! My hearty friends,\n    You take me in too dolorous a sense;\n    For I spake to you for your comfort, did desire you\n    To burn this night with torches. Know, my hearts,\n    I hope well of to-morrow, and will lead you\n    Where rather I'll expect victorious life\n    Than death and honour. Let's to supper, come,\n    And drown consideration.                              Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_3\n                          SCENE III.\n             Alexandria. Before CLEOPATRA's palace\n\n                 Enter a company of soldiers\n\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Brother, good night. To-morrow is the day.\n  SECOND SOLDIER. It will determine one way. Fare you well.\n    Heard you of nothing strange about the streets?\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Nothing. What news?\n  SECOND SOLDIER. Belike 'tis but a rumour. Good night to you.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, sir, good night.\n                                      [They meet other soldiers]\n  SECOND SOLDIER. Soldiers, have careful watch.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. And you. Good night, good night.\n                [The two companies separate and place themselves\n                                   in every corner of the stage]\n  SECOND SOLDIER. Here we. And if to-morrow\n    Our navy thrive, I have an absolute hope\n    Our landmen will stand up.\n  THIRD SOLDIER. 'Tis a brave army,\n    And full of purpose.\n                      [Music of the hautboys is under the stage]\n  SECOND SOLDIER. Peace, what noise?\n  THIRD SOLDIER. List, list!\n  SECOND SOLDIER. Hark!\n  THIRD SOLDIER. Music i' th' air.\n  FOURTH SOLDIER. Under the earth.\n  THIRD SOLDIER. It signs well, does it not?\n  FOURTH SOLDIER. No.\n  THIRD SOLDIER. Peace, I say!\n    What should this mean?\n  SECOND SOLDIER. 'Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony lov'd,\n    Now leaves him.\n  THIRD SOLDIER. Walk; let's see if other watchmen\n    Do hear what we do.\n  SECOND SOLDIER. How now, masters!\n  SOLDIERS. [Speaking together] How now!\n    How now! Do you hear this?\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Ay; is't not strange?\n  THIRD SOLDIER. Do you hear, masters? Do you hear?\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Follow the noise so far as we have quarter;\n    Let's see how it will give off.\n  SOLDIERS. Content. 'Tis strange.                        Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_4\n                           SCENE IV.\n               Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace\n\n         Enter ANTONY and CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS,\n                          with others\n\n  ANTONY. Eros! mine armour, Eros!\n  CLEOPATRA. Sleep a little.\n  ANTONY. No, my chuck. Eros! Come, mine armour, Eros!\n\n                   Enter EROS with armour\n\n    Come, good fellow, put mine iron on.\n    If fortune be not ours to-day, it is\n    Because we brave her. Come.\n  CLEOPATRA. Nay, I'll help too.\n    What's this for?\n  ANTONY. Ah, let be, let be! Thou art\n    The armourer of my heart. False, false; this, this.\n  CLEOPATRA. Sooth, la, I'll help. Thus it must be.\n  ANTONY. Well, well;\n    We shall thrive now. Seest thou, my good fellow?\n    Go put on thy defences.\n  EROS. Briefly, sir.\n  CLEOPATRA. Is not this buckled well?\n  ANTONY. Rarely, rarely!\n    He that unbuckles this, till we do please\n    To daff't for our repose, shall hear a storm.\n    Thou fumblest, Eros, and my queen's a squire\n    More tight at this than thou. Dispatch. O love,\n    That thou couldst see my wars to-day, and knew'st\n    The royal occupation! Thou shouldst see\n    A workman in't.\n\n                   Enter an armed SOLDIER\n\n    Good-morrow to thee. Welcome.\n    Thou look'st like him that knows a warlike charge.\n    To business that we love we rise betime,\n    And go to't with delight.\n  SOLDIER. A thousand, sir,\n    Early though't be, have on their riveted trim,\n    And at the port expect you.\n                            [Shout. Flourish of trumpets within]\n\n                 Enter CAPTAINS and soldiers\n\n  CAPTAIN. The morn is fair. Good morrow, General.\n  ALL. Good morrow, General.\n  ANTONY. 'Tis well blown, lads.\n    This morning, like the spirit of a youth\n    That means to be of note, begins betimes.\n    So, so. Come, give me that. This way. Well said.\n    Fare thee well, dame, whate'er becomes of me.\n    This is a soldier's kiss. Rebukeable,\n    And worthy shameful check it were, to stand\n    On more mechanic compliment; I'll leave thee\n    Now like a man of steel. You that will fight,\n    Follow me close; I'll bring you to't. Adieu.\n                      Exeunt ANTONY, EROS, CAPTAINS and soldiers\n  CHARMIAN. Please you retire to your chamber?\n  CLEOPATRA. Lead me.\n    He goes forth gallantly. That he and Caesar might\n    Determine this great war in single fight!\n    Then, Antony- but now. Well, on.                      Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_5\n                          SCENE V.\n                  Alexandria. ANTONY'S camp\n\n        Trumpets sound. Enter ANTONY and EROS, a SOLDIER\n                       meeting them\n\n  SOLDIER. The gods make this a happy day to Antony!\n  ANTONY. Would thou and those thy scars had once prevail'd\n    To make me fight at land!\n  SOLDIER. Hadst thou done so,\n    The kings that have revolted, and the soldier\n    That has this morning left thee, would have still\n    Followed thy heels.\n  ANTONY. Who's gone this morning?\n  SOLDIER. Who?\n    One ever near thee. Call for Enobarbus,\n    He shall not hear thee; or from Caesar's camp\n    Say 'I am none of thine.'\n  ANTONY. What say'st thou?\n  SOLDIER. Sir,\n    He is with Caesar.\n  EROS. Sir, his chests and treasure\n    He has not with him.\n  ANTONY. Is he gone?\n  SOLDIER. Most certain.\n  ANTONY. Go, Eros, send his treasure after; do it;\n    Detain no jot, I charge thee. Write to him-\n    I will subscribe- gentle adieus and greetings;\n    Say that I wish he never find more cause\n    To change a master. O, my fortunes have\n    Corrupted honest men! Dispatch. Enobarbus!            Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_6\n                         SCENE VI.\n                 Alexandria. CAESAR'S camp\n\n       Flourish. Enter AGRIPPA, CAESAR, With DOLABELLA\n                       and ENOBARBUS\n\n  CAESAR. Go forth, Agrippa, and begin the fight.\n    Our will is Antony be took alive;\n    Make it so known.\n  AGRIPPA. Caesar, I shall.                                 Exit\n  CAESAR. The time of universal peace is near.\n    Prove this a prosp'rous day, the three-nook'd world\n    Shall bear the olive freely.\n\n                     Enter A MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Antony\n    Is come into the field.\n  CAESAR. Go charge Agrippa\n    Plant those that have revolted in the vant,\n    That Antony may seem to spend his fury\n    Upon himself.                       Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS\n  ENOBARBUS. Alexas did revolt and went to Jewry on\n    Affairs of Antony; there did dissuade\n    Great Herod to incline himself to Caesar\n    And leave his master Antony. For this pains\n    Casaer hath hang'd him. Canidius and the rest\n    That fell away have entertainment, but\n    No honourable trust. I have done ill,\n    Of which I do accuse myself so sorely\n    That I will joy no more.\n\n                  Enter a SOLDIER of CAESAR'S\n\n  SOLDIER. Enobarbus, Antony\n    Hath after thee sent all thy treasure, with\n    His bounty overplus. The messenger\n    Came on my guard, and at thy tent is now\n    Unloading of his mules.\n  ENOBARBUS. I give it you.\n  SOLDIER. Mock not, Enobarbus.\n    I tell you true. Best you saf'd the bringer\n    Out of the host. I must attend mine office,\n    Or would have done't myself. Your emperor\n    Continues still a Jove.                                 Exit\n  ENOBARBUS. I am alone the villain of the earth,\n    And feel I am so most. O Antony,\n    Thou mine of bounty, how wouldst thou have paid\n    My better service, when my turpitude\n    Thou dost so crown with gold! This blows my heart.\n    If swift thought break it not, a swifter mean\n    Shall outstrike thought; but thought will do't, I feel.\n    I fight against thee? No! I will go seek\n    Some ditch wherein to die; the foul'st best fits\n    My latter part of life.                                 Exit\n\nACT_4|SC_7\n                          SCENE VII.\n             Field of battle between the camps\n\n         Alarum. Drums and trumpets. Enter AGRIPPA\n                        and others\n\n  AGRIPPA. Retire. We have engag'd ourselves too far.\n    Caesar himself has work, and our oppression\n    Exceeds what we expected.                             Exeunt\n\n          Alarums. Enter ANTONY, and SCARUS wounded\n\n  SCARUS. O my brave Emperor, this is fought indeed!\n    Had we done so at first, we had droven them home\n    With clouts about their heads.\n  ANTONY. Thou bleed'st apace.\n  SCARUS. I had a wound here that was like a T,\n    But now 'tis made an H.\n  ANTONY. They do retire.\n  SCARUS. We'll beat'em into bench-holes. I have yet\n    Room for six scotches more.\n\n                        Enter EROS\n\n  EROS. They are beaten, sir, and our advantage serves\n    For a fair victory.\n  SCARUS. Let us score their backs\n    And snatch 'em up, as we take hares, behind.\n    'Tis sport to maul a runner.\n  ANTONY. I will reward thee\n    Once for thy sprightly comfort, and tenfold\n    For thy good valour. Come thee on.\n    SCARUS. I'll halt after.                              Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_8\n                         SCENE VIII.\n               Under the walls of Alexandria\n\n        Alarum. Enter ANTONY, again in a march; SCARUS\n                        with others\n\n  ANTONY. We have beat him to his camp. Run one before\n    And let the Queen know of our gests. To-morrow,\n    Before the sun shall see's, we'll spill the blood\n    That has to-day escap'd. I thank you all;\n    For doughty-handed are you, and have fought\n    Not as you serv'd the cause, but as't had been\n    Each man's like mine; you have shown all Hectors.\n    Enter the city, clip your wives, your friends,\n    Tell them your feats; whilst they with joyful tears\n    Wash the congealment from your wounds and kiss\n    The honour'd gashes whole.\n\n                 Enter CLEOPATRA, attended\n\n    [To SCARUS] Give me thy hand-\n    To this great fairy I'll commend thy acts,\n    Make her thanks bless thee. O thou day o' th' world,\n    Chain mine arm'd neck. Leap thou, attire and all,\n    Through proof of harness to my heart, and there\n    Ride on the pants triumphing.\n  CLEOPATRA. Lord of lords!\n    O infinite virtue, com'st thou smiling from\n    The world's great snare uncaught?\n  ANTONY. Mine nightingale,\n    We have beat them to their beds. What, girl! though grey\n    Do something mingle with our younger brown, yet ha' we\n    A brain that nourishes our nerves, and can\n    Get goal for goal of youth. Behold this man;\n    Commend unto his lips thy favouring hand-\n    Kiss it, my warrior- he hath fought to-day\n    As if a god in hate of mankind had\n    Destroyed in such a shape.\n  CLEOPATRA. I'll give thee, friend,\n    An armour all of gold; it was a king's.\n  ANTONY. He has deserv'd it, were it carbuncled\n    Like holy Phoebus' car. Give me thy hand.\n    Through Alexandria make a jolly march;\n    Bear our hack'd targets like the men that owe them.\n    Had our great palace the capacity\n    To camp this host, we all would sup together,\n    And drink carouses to the next day's fate,\n    Which promises royal peril. Trumpeters,\n    With brazen din blast you the city's ear;\n    Make mingle with our rattling tabourines,\n    That heaven and earth may strike their sounds together\n    Applauding our approach.                              Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_9\n                         SCENE IX.\n                      CAESAR'S camp\n\n      Enter a CENTURION and his company; ENOBARBUS follows\n\n  CENTURION. If we be not reliev'd within this hour,\n    We must return to th' court of guard. The night\n    Is shiny, and they say we shall embattle\n    By th' second hour i' th' morn.\n  FIRST WATCH. This last day was\n    A shrewd one to's.\n  ENOBARBUS. O, bear me witness, night-\n  SECOND WATCH. What man is this?\n  FIRST WATCH. Stand close and list him.\n  ENOBARBUS. Be witness to me, O thou blessed moon,\n    When men revolted shall upon record\n    Bear hateful memory, poor Enobarbus did\n    Before thy face repent!\n  CENTURION. Enobarbus?\n  SECOND WATCH. Peace!\n    Hark further.\n  ENOBARBUS. O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,\n    The poisonous damp of night disponge upon me,\n    That life, a very rebel to my will,\n    May hang no longer on me. Throw my heart\n    Against the flint and hardness of my fault,\n    Which, being dried with grief, will break to powder,\n    And finish all foul thoughts. O Antony,\n    Nobler than my revolt is infamous,\n    Forgive me in thine own particular,\n    But let the world rank me in register\n    A master-leaver and a fugitive!\n    O Antony! O Antony!                                   [Dies]\n  FIRST WATCH. Let's speak to him.\n  CENTURION. Let's hear him, for the things he speaks\n    May concern Caesar.\n  SECOND WATCH. Let's do so. But he sleeps.\n  CENTURION. Swoons rather; for so bad a prayer as his\n    Was never yet for sleep.\n  FIRST WATCH. Go we to him.\n  SECOND WATCH. Awake, sir, awake; speak to us.\n  FIRST WATCH. Hear you, sir?\n  CENTURION. The hand of death hath raught him.\n    [Drums afar off ] Hark! the drums\n    Demurely wake the sleepers. Let us bear him\n    To th' court of guard; he is of note. Our hour\n    Is fully out.\n  SECOND WATCH. Come on, then;\n    He may recover yet.                     Exeunt with the body\n\nACT_4|SC_10\n                          SCENE X.\n                    Between the two camps\n\n            Enter ANTONY and SCARUS, with their army\n\n  ANTONY. Their preparation is to-day by sea;\n    We please them not by land.\n  SCARUS. For both, my lord.\n  ANTONY. I would they'd fight i' th' fire or i' th' air;\n    We'd fight there too. But this it is, our foot\n    Upon the hills adjoining to the city\n    Shall stay with us- Order for sea is given;\n    They have put forth the haven-\n    Where their appointment we may best discover\n    And look on their endeavour.                          Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_11\n                         SCENE XI.\n                    Between the camps\n\n                Enter CAESAR and his army\n\n  CAESAR. But being charg'd, we will be still by land,\n    Which, as I take't, we shall; for his best force\n    Is forth to man his galleys. To the vales,\n    And hold our best advantage.                          Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_12\n                         SCENE XII.\n                  A hill near Alexandria\n\n                  Enter ANTONY and SCARUS\n\n  ANTONY. Yet they are not join'd. Where yond pine does stand\n    I shall discover all. I'll bring thee word\n    Straight how 'tis like to go.                           Exit\n  SCARUS. Swallows have built\n    In Cleopatra's sails their nests. The augurers\n    Say they know not, they cannot tell; look grimly,\n    And dare not speak their knowledge. Antony\n    Is valiant and dejected; and by starts\n    His fretted fortunes give him hope and fear\n    Of what he has and has not.\n                            [Alarum afar off, as at a sea-fight]\n\n                      Re-enter ANTONY\n\n  ANTONY. All is lost!\n    This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me.\n    My fleet hath yielded to the foe, and yonder\n    They cast their caps up and carouse together\n    Like friends long lost. Triple-turn'd whore! 'tis thou\n    Hast sold me to this novice; and my heart\n    Makes only wars on thee. Bid them all fly;\n    For when I am reveng'd upon my charm,\n    I have done all. Bid them all fly; begone.       Exit SCARUS\n    O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more!\n    Fortune and Antony part here; even here\n    Do we shake hands. All come to this? The hearts\n    That spaniel'd me at heels, to whom I gave\n    Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets\n    On blossoming Caesar; and this pine is bark'd\n    That overtopp'd them all. Betray'd I am.\n    O this false soul of Egypt! this grave charm-\n    Whose eye beck'd forth my wars and call'd them home,\n    Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end-\n    Like a right gypsy hath at fast and loose\n    Beguil'd me to the very heart of loss.\n    What, Eros, Eros!\n\n                      Enter CLEOPATRA\n\n    Ah, thou spell! Avaunt!\n  CLEOPATRA. Why is my lord enrag'd against his love?\n  ANTONY. Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving\n    And blemish Caesar's triumph. Let him take thee\n    And hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians;\n    Follow his chariot, like the greatest spot\n    Of all thy sex; most monster-like, be shown\n    For poor'st diminutives, for doits, and let\n    Patient Octavia plough thy visage up\n    With her prepared nails.                      Exit CLEOPATRA\n    'Tis well th'art gone,\n    If it be well to live; but better 'twere\n    Thou fell'st into my fury, for one death\n    Might have prevented many. Eros, ho!\n    The shirt of Nessus is upon me; teach me,\n    Alcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage;\n    Let me lodge Lichas on the horns o' th' moon,\n    And with those hands that grasp'd the heaviest club\n    Subdue my worthiest self. The witch shall die.\n    To the young Roman boy she hath sold me, and I fall\n    Under this plot. She dies for't. Eros, ho!              Exit\n\nACT_4|SC_13\n                          SCENE XIII.\n               Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace\n\n      Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and MARDIAN\n\n  CLEOPATRA. Help me, my women. O, he is more mad\n    Than Telamon for his shield; the boar of Thessaly\n    Was never so emboss'd.\n  CHARMIAN. To th'monument!\n    There lock yourself, and send him word you are dead.\n    The soul and body rive not more in parting\n    Than greatness going off.\n  CLEOPATRA. To th' monument!\n    Mardian, go tell him I have slain myself;\n    Say that the last I spoke was 'Antony'\n    And word it, prithee, piteously. Hence, Mardian,\n    And bring me how he takes my death. To th' monument!\n                                                          Exeunt\n\nACT_4|SC_14\n                          SCENE XIV.\n                     CLEOPATRA'S palace\n\n                   Enter ANTONY and EROS\n\n  ANTONY. Eros, thou yet behold'st me?\n  EROS. Ay, noble lord.\n  ANTONY. Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish;\n    A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,\n    A tower'd citadel, a pendent rock,\n    A forked mountain, or blue promontory\n    With trees upon't that nod unto the world\n    And mock our eyes with air. Thou hast seen these signs;\n    They are black vesper's pageants.\n  EROS. Ay, my lord.\n  ANTONY. That which is now a horse, even with a thought\n    The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct,\n    As water is in water.\n  EROS. It does, my lord.\n  ANTONY. My good knave Eros, now thy captain is\n    Even such a body. Here I am Antony;\n    Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave.\n    I made these wars for Egypt; and the Queen-\n    Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine,\n    Which, whilst it was mine, had annex'd unto't\n    A million moe, now lost- she, Eros, has\n    Pack'd cards with Caesar, and false-play'd my glory\n    Unto an enemy's triumph.\n    Nay, weep not, gentle Eros; there is left us\n    Ourselves to end ourselves.\n\n                         Enter MARDIAN\n\n    O, thy vile lady!\n    She has robb'd me of my sword.\n  MARDIAN. No, Antony;\n    My mistress lov'd thee, and her fortunes mingled\n    With thine entirely.\n  ANTONY. Hence, saucy eunuch; peace!\n    She hath betray'd me, and shall die the death.\n  MARDIAN. Death of one person can be paid but once,\n    And that she has discharg'd. What thou wouldst do\n    Is done unto thy hand. The last she spake\n    Was 'Antony! most noble Antony!'\n    Then in the midst a tearing groan did break\n    The name of Antony; it was divided\n    Between her heart and lips. She rend'red life,\n    Thy name so buried in her.\n  ANTONY. Dead then?\n  MARDIAN. Dead.\n  ANTONY. Unarm, Eros; the long day's task is done,\n    And we must sleep. That thou depart'st hence safe\n    Does pay thy labour richly. Go.                 Exit MARDIAN\n    Off, pluck off!\n    The sevenfold shield of Ajax cannot keep\n    The battery from my heart. O, cleave, my sides!\n    Heart, once be stronger than thy continent,\n    Crack thy frail case. Apace, Eros, apace.-\n    No more a soldier. Bruised pieces, go;\n    You have been nobly borne.- From me awhile.        Exit EROS\n    I will o'ertake thee, Cleopatra, and\n    Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now\n    All length is torture. Since the torch is out,\n    Lie down, and stray no farther. Now all labour\n    Mars what it does; yea, very force entangles\n    Itself with strength. Seal then, and all is done.\n    Eros!- I come, my queen.- Eros!- Stay for me;\n    Where souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand,\n    And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze.\n    Dido and her Aeneas shall want troops,\n    And all the haunt be ours.- Come, Eros, Eros!\n\n                       Re-enter EROS\n\n  EROS. What would my lord?\n  ANTONY. Since Cleopatra died,\n    I have liv'd in such dishonour that the gods\n    Detest my baseness. I, that with my sword\n    Quarter'd the world, and o'er green Neptune's back\n    With ships made cities, condemn myself to lack\n    The courage of a woman; less noble mind\n    Than she which by her death our Caesar tells\n    'I am conqueror of myself.' Thou art sworn, Eros,\n    That, when the exigent should come- which now\n    Is come indeed- when I should see behind me\n    Th' inevitable prosecution of\n    Disgrace and horror, that, on my command,\n    Thou then wouldst kill me. Do't; the time is come.\n    Thou strik'st not me; 'tis Caesar thou defeat'st.\n    Put colour in thy cheek.\n  EROS. The gods withhold me!\n    Shall I do that which all the Parthian darts,\n    Though enemy, lost aim and could not?\n  ANTONY. Eros,\n    Wouldst thou be window'd in great Rome and see\n    Thy master thus with pleach'd arms, bending down\n    His corrigible neck, his face subdu'd\n    To penetrative shame, whilst the wheel'd seat\n    Of fortunate Caesar, drawn before him, branded\n    His baseness that ensued?\n  EROS. I would not see't.\n  ANTONY. Come, then; for with a wound I must be cur'd.\n    Draw that thy honest sword, which thou hast worn\n    Most useful for thy country.\n  EROS. O, sir, pardon me!\n  ANTONY. When I did make thee free, swor'st thou not then\n    To do this when I bade thee? Do it at once,\n    Or thy precedent services are all\n    But accidents unpurpos'd. Draw, and come.\n  EROS. Turn from me then that noble countenance,\n    Wherein the worship of the whole world lies.\n  ANTONY. Lo thee!                            [Turning from him]\n  EROS. My sword is drawn.\n  ANTONY. Then let it do at once\n    The thing why thou hast drawn it.\n  EROS. My dear master,\n    My captain and my emperor, let me say,\n    Before I strike this bloody stroke, farewell.\n  ANTONY. 'Tis said, man; and farewell.\n  EROS. Farewell, great chief. Shall I strike now?\n  ANTONY. Now, Eros.\n  EROS. Why, there then! Thus do I escape the sorrow\n    Of Antony's death.                            [Kills himself\n  ANTONY. Thrice nobler than myself!\n    Thou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what\n    I should, and thou couldst not. My queen and Eros\n    Have, by their brave instruction, got upon me\n    A nobleness in record. But I will be\n    A bridegroom in my death, and run into't\n    As to a lover's bed. Come, then; and, Eros,\n    Thy master dies thy scholar. To do thus\n                                          [Falling on his sword]\n    I learn'd of thee. How? not dead? not dead?-\n    The guard, ho! O, dispatch me!\n\n                  Enter DERCETAS and a guard\n\n  FIRST GUARD. What's the noise?\n  ANTONY. I have done my work ill, friends. O, make an end\n    Of what I have begun.\n  SECOND GUARD. The star is fall'n.\n  FIRST GUARD. And time is at his period.\n  ALL. Alas, and woe!\n  ANTONY. Let him that loves me, strike me dead.\n  FIRST GUARD. Not I.\n  SECOND GUARD. Nor I.\n  THIRD GUARD. Nor any one.                         Exeunt guard\n  DERCETAS. Thy death and fortunes bid thy followers fly.\n    This sword but shown to Caesar, with this tidings,\n    Shall enter me with him.\n\n                       Enter DIOMEDES\n\n  DIOMEDES. Where's Antony?\n  DERCETAS. There, Diomed, there.\n  DIOMEDES. Lives he?\n    Wilt thou not answer, man?                     Exit DERCETAS\n  ANTONY. Art thou there, Diomed? Draw thy sword and give me\n    Sufficing strokes for death.\n  DIOMEDES. Most absolute lord,\n    My mistress Cleopatra sent me to thee.\n  ANTONY. When did she send thee?\n  DIOMEDES. Now, my lord.\n  ANTONY. Where is she?\n  DIOMEDES. Lock'd in her monument. She had a prophesying fear\n    Of what hath come to pass; for when she saw-\n    Which never shall be found- you did suspect\n    She had dispos'd with Caesar, and that your rage\n    Would not be purg'd, she sent you word she was dead;\n    But fearing since how it might work, hath sent\n    Me to proclaim the truth; and I am come,\n    I dread, too late.\n  ANTONY. Too late, good Diomed. Call my guard, I prithee.\n  DIOMEDES. What, ho! the Emperor's guard! The guard, what ho!\n    Come, your lord calls!\n\n             Enter four or five of the guard of ANTONY\n\n  ANTONY. Bear me, good friends, where Cleopatra bides;\n    'Tis the last service that I shall command you.\n  FIRST GUARD. Woe, woe are we, sir, you may not live to wear\n    All your true followers out.\n  ALL. Most heavy day!\n  ANTONY. Nay, good my fellows, do not please sharp fate\n    To grace it with your sorrows. Bid that welcome\n    Which comes to punish us, and we punish it,\n    Seeming to bear it lightly. Take me up.\n    I have led you oft; carry me now, good friends,\n    And have my thanks for all.           Exeunt, hearing ANTONY\nACT_4|SC_15\n                         SCENE XV.\n                   Alexandria. A monument\n\n      Enter CLEOPATRA and her maids aloft, with CHARMIAN\n                         and IRAS\n\n  CLEOPATRA. O Charmian, I will never go from hence!\n  CHARMIAN. Be comforted, dear madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. No, I will not.\n    All strange and terrible events are welcome,\n    But comforts we despise; our size of sorrow,\n    Proportion'd to our cause, must be as great\n    As that which makes it.\n\n                   Enter DIOMEDES, below\n\n    How now! Is he dead?\n  DIOMEDES. His death's upon him, but not dead.\n    Look out o' th' other side your monument;\n    His guard have brought him thither.\n\n            Enter, below, ANTONY, borne by the guard\n\n  CLEOPATRA. O sun,\n    Burn the great sphere thou mov'st in! Darkling stand\n    The varying shore o' th' world. O Antony,\n    Antony, Antony! Help, Charmian; help, Iras, help;\n    Help, friends below! Let's draw him hither.\n  ANTONY. Peace!\n    Not Caesar's valour hath o'erthrown Antony,\n    But Antony's hath triumph'd on itself.\n  CLEOPATRA. So it should be, that none but Antony\n    Should conquer Antony; but woe 'tis so!\n  ANTONY. I am dying, Egypt, dying; only\n    I here importune death awhile, until\n    Of many thousand kisses the poor last\n    I lay upon thy lips.\n  CLEOPATRA. I dare not, dear.\n    Dear my lord, pardon! I dare not,\n    Lest I be taken. Not th' imperious show\n    Of the full-fortun'd Caesar ever shall\n    Be brooch'd with me. If knife, drugs, serpents, have\n    Edge, sting, or operation, I am safe.\n    Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes\n    And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour\n    Demuring upon me. But come, come, Antony-\n    Help me, my women- we must draw thee up;\n    Assist, good friends.\n  ANTONY. O, quick, or I am gone.\n  CLEOPATRA. Here's sport indeed! How heavy weighs my lord!\n    Our strength is all gone into heaviness;\n    That makes the weight. Had I great Juno's power,\n    The strong-wing'd Mercury should fetch thee up,\n    And set thee by Jove's side. Yet come a little.\n    Wishers were ever fools. O come, come,\n                          [They heave ANTONY aloft to CLEOPATRA]\n    And welcome, welcome! Die where thou hast liv'd.\n    Quicken with kissing. Had my lips that power,\n    Thus would I wear them out.\n  ALL. A heavy sight!\n  ANTONY. I am dying, Egypt, dying.\n    Give me some wine, and let me speak a little.\n  CLEOPATRA. No, let me speak; and let me rail so high\n    That the false huswife Fortune break her wheel,\n    Provok'd by my offence.\n  ANTONY. One word, sweet queen:\n    Of Caesar seek your honour, with your safety. O!\n  CLEOPATRA. They do not go together.\n  ANTONY. Gentle, hear me:\n    None about Caesar trust but Proculeius.\n  CLEOPATRA. My resolution and my hands I'll trust;\n    None about Caesar\n  ANTONY. The miserable change now at my end\n    Lament nor sorrow at; but please your thoughts\n    In feeding them with those my former fortunes\n    Wherein I liv'd the greatest prince o' th' world,\n    The noblest; and do now not basely die,\n    Not cowardly put off my helmet to\n    My countryman- a Roman by a Roman\n    Valiantly vanquish'd. Now my spirit is going\n    I can no more.\n  CLEOPATRA. Noblest of men, woo't die?\n    Hast thou no care of me? Shall I abide\n    In this dull world, which in thy absence is\n    No better than a sty? O, see, my women,        [Antony dies]\n    The crown o' th' earth doth melt. My lord!\n    O, wither'd is the garland of the war,\n    The soldier's pole is fall'n! Young boys and girls\n    Are level now with men. The odds is gone,\n    And there is nothing left remarkable\n    Beneath the visiting moon.                          [Swoons]\n  CHARMIAN. O, quietness, lady!\n  IRAS. She's dead too, our sovereign.\n  CHARMIAN. Lady!\n  IRAS. Madam!\n  CHARMIAN. O madam, madam, madam!\n  IRAS. Royal Egypt, Empress!\n  CHARMIAN. Peace, peace, Iras!\n  CLEOPATRA. No more but e'en a woman, and commanded\n    By such poor passion as the maid that milks\n    And does the meanest chares. It were for me\n    To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods;\n    To tell them that this world did equal theirs\n    Till they had stol'n our jewel. All's but nought;\n    Patience is sottish, and impatience does\n    Become a dog that's mad. Then is it sin\n    To rush into the secret house of death\n    Ere death dare come to us? How do you, women?\n    What, what! good cheer! Why, how now, Charmian!\n    My noble girls! Ah, women, women, look,\n    Our lamp is spent, it's out! Good sirs, take heart.\n    We'll bury him; and then, what's brave, what's noble,\n    Let's do it after the high Roman fashion,\n    And make death proud to take us. Come, away;\n    This case of that huge spirit now is cold.\n    Ah, women, women! Come; we have no friend\n    But resolution and the briefest end.\n                   Exeunt; those above hearing off ANTONY'S body\n\nACT_5|SC_1\n                       ACT V. SCENE I.\n                  Alexandria. CAESAR'S camp\n\n      Enter CAESAR, AGRIPPA, DOLABELLA, MAECENAS, GALLUS,\n          PROCULEIUS, and others, his Council of War\n\n  CAESAR. Go to him, Dolabella, bid him yield;\n    Being so frustrate, tell him he mocks\n    The pauses that he makes.\n  DOLABELLA. Caesar, I shall.                               Exit\n\n             Enter DERCETAS With the sword of ANTONY\n\n  CAESAR. Wherefore is that? And what art thou that dar'st\n    Appear thus to us?\n  DERCETAS. I am call'd Dercetas;\n    Mark Antony I serv'd, who best was worthy\n    Best to be serv'd. Whilst he stood up and spoke,\n    He was my master, and I wore my life\n    To spend upon his haters. If thou please\n    To take me to thee, as I was to him\n    I'll be to Caesar; if thou pleasest not,\n    I yield thee up my life.\n  CAESAR. What is't thou say'st?\n  DERCETAS. I say, O Caesar, Antony is dead.\n  CAESAR. The breaking of so great a thing should make\n    A greater crack. The round world\n    Should have shook lions into civil streets,\n    And citizens to their dens. The death of Antony\n    Is not a single doom; in the name lay\n    A moiety of the world.\n  DERCETAS. He is dead, Caesar,\n    Not by a public minister of justice,\n    Nor by a hired knife; but that self hand\n    Which writ his honour in the acts it did\n    Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it,\n    Splitted the heart. This is his sword;\n    I robb'd his wound of it; behold it stain'd\n    With his most noble blood.\n  CAESAR. Look you sad, friends?\n    The gods rebuke me, but it is tidings\n    To wash the eyes of kings.\n  AGRIPPA. And strange it is\n    That nature must compel us to lament\n    Our most persisted deeds.\n  MAECENAS. His taints and honours\n    Wag'd equal with him.\n  AGRIPPA. A rarer spirit never\n    Did steer humanity. But you gods will give us\n    Some faults to make us men. Caesar is touch'd.\n  MAECENAS. When such a spacious mirror's set before him,\n    He needs must see himself.\n  CAESAR. O Antony,\n    I have follow'd thee to this! But we do lance\n    Diseases in our bodies. I must perforce\n    Have shown to thee such a declining day\n    Or look on thine; we could not stall together\n    In the whole world. But yet let me lament,\n    With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts,\n    That thou, my brother, my competitor\n    In top of all design, my mate in empire,\n    Friend and companion in the front of war,\n    The arm of mine own body, and the heart\n    Where mine his thoughts did kindle- that our stars,\n    Unreconciliable, should divide\n    Our equalness to this. Hear me, good friends-\n\n                    Enter an EGYPTIAN\n\n    But I will tell you at some meeter season.\n    The business of this man looks out of him;\n    We'll hear him what he says. Whence are you?\n  EGYPTIAN. A poor Egyptian, yet the Queen, my mistress,\n    Confin'd in all she has, her monument,\n    Of thy intents desires instruction,\n    That she preparedly may frame herself\n    To th' way she's forc'd to.\n  CAESAR. Bid her have good heart.\n    She soon shall know of us, by some of ours,\n    How honourable and how kindly we\n    Determine for her; for Caesar cannot learn\n    To be ungentle.\n  EGYPTIAN. So the gods preserve thee!                      Exit\n  CAESAR. Come hither, Proculeius. Go and say\n    We purpose her no shame. Give her what comforts\n    The quality of her passion shall require,\n    Lest, in her greatness, by some mortal stroke\n    She do defeat us; for her life in Rome\n    Would be eternal in our triumph. Go,\n    And with your speediest bring us what she says,\n    And how you find her.\n  PROCULEIUS. Caesar, I shall.                              Exit\n  CAESAR. Gallus, go you along.                      Exit GALLUS\n    Where's Dolabella, to second Proculeius?\n  ALL. Dolabella!\n  CAESAR. Let him alone, for I remember now\n    How he's employ'd; he shall in time be ready.\n    Go with me to my tent, where you shall see\n    How hardly I was drawn into this war,\n    How calm and gentle I proceeded still\n    In all my writings. Go with me, and see\n    What I can show in this.                              Exeunt\n\nACT_5|SC_2\n                         SCENE II.\n                Alexandria. The monument\n\n      Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and MARDIAN\n\n  CLEOPATRA. My desolation does begin to make\n    A better life. 'Tis paltry to be Caesar:\n    Not being Fortune, he's but Fortune's knave,\n    A minister of her will; and it is great\n    To do that thing that ends all other deeds,\n    Which shackles accidents and bolts up change,\n    Which sleeps, and never palates more the dug,\n    The beggar's nurse and Caesar's.\n\n       Enter, to the gates of the monument, PROCULEIUS, GALLUS,\n                          and soldiers\n\n  PROCULEIUS. Caesar sends greetings to the Queen of Egypt,\n    And bids thee study on what fair demands\n    Thou mean'st to have him grant thee.\n  CLEOPATRA. What's thy name?\n  PROCULEIUS. My name is Proculeius.\n  CLEOPATRA. Antony\n    Did tell me of you, bade me trust you; but\n    I do not greatly care to be deceiv'd,\n    That have no use for trusting. If your master\n    Would have a queen his beggar, you must tell him\n    That majesty, to keep decorum, must\n    No less beg than a kingdom. If he please\n    To give me conquer'd Egypt for my son,\n    He gives me so much of mine own as I\n    Will kneel to him with thanks.\n  PROCULEIUS. Be of good cheer;\n    Y'are fall'n into a princely hand; fear nothing.\n    Make your full reference freely to my lord,\n    Who is so full of grace that it flows over\n    On all that need. Let me report to him\n    Your sweet dependency, and you shall find\n    A conqueror that will pray in aid for kindness\n    Where he for grace is kneel'd to.\n  CLEOPATRA. Pray you tell him\n    I am his fortune's vassal and I send him\n    The greatness he has got. I hourly learn\n    A doctrine of obedience, and would gladly\n    Look him i' th' face.\n  PROCULEIUS. This I'll report, dear lady.\n    Have comfort, for I know your plight is pitied\n    Of him that caus'd it.\n  GALLUS. You see how easily she may be surpris'd.\n\n      Here PROCULEIUS and two of the guard ascend the\n       monument by a ladder placed against a window,\n       and come behind CLEOPATRA. Some of the guard\n                unbar and open the gates\n\n    Guard her till Caesar come.                             Exit\n  IRAS. Royal Queen!\n  CHARMIAN. O Cleopatra! thou art taken, Queen!\n  CLEOPATRA. Quick, quick, good hands.        [Drawing a dagger]\n  PROCULEIUS. Hold, worthy lady, hold,             [Disarms her]\n    Do not yourself such wrong, who are in this\n    Reliev'd, but not betray'd.\n  CLEOPATRA. What, of death too,\n    That rids our dogs of languish?\n  PROCULEIUS. Cleopatra,\n    Do not abuse my master's bounty by\n    Th' undoing of yourself. Let the world see\n    His nobleness well acted, which your death\n    Will never let come forth.\n  CLEOPATRA. Where art thou, death?\n    Come hither, come! Come, come, and take a queen\n    Worth many babes and beggars!\n  PROCULEIUS. O, temperance, lady!\n  CLEOPATRA. Sir, I will eat no meat; I'll not drink, sir;\n    If idle talk will once be necessary,\n    I'll not sleep neither. This mortal house I'll ruin,\n    Do Caesar what he can. Know, sir, that I\n    Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court,\n    Nor once be chastis'd with the sober eye\n    Of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up,\n    And show me to the shouting varletry\n    Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt\n    Be gentle grave unto me! Rather on Nilus' mud\n    Lay me stark-nak'd, and let the water-flies\n    Blow me into abhorring! Rather make\n    My country's high pyramides my gibbet,\n    And hang me up in chains!\n  PROCULEIUS. You do extend\n    These thoughts of horror further than you shall\n    Find cause in Caesar.\n\n                      Enter DOLABELLA\n\n  DOLABELLA. Proculeius,\n    What thou hast done thy master Caesar knows,\n    And he hath sent for thee. For the Queen,\n    I'll take her to my guard.\n  PROCULEIUS. So, Dolabella,\n    It shall content me best. Be gentle to her.\n    [To CLEOPATRA] To Caesar I will speak what you shall please,\n    If you'll employ me to him.\n  CLEOPATRA. Say I would die.\n                                  Exeunt PROCULEIUS and soldiers\n  DOLABELLA. Most noble Empress, you have heard of me?\n  CLEOPATRA. I cannot tell.\n  DOLABELLA. Assuredly you know me.\n  CLEOPATRA. No matter, sir, what I have heard or known.\n    You laugh when boys or women tell their dreams;\n    Is't not your trick?\n  DOLABELLA. I understand not, madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. I dreamt there was an Emperor Antony-\n    O, such another sleep, that I might see\n    But such another man!\n  DOLABELLA. If it might please ye-\n  CLEOPATRA. His face was as the heav'ns, and therein stuck\n    A sun and moon, which kept their course and lighted\n    The little O, the earth.\n  DOLABELLA. Most sovereign creature-\n  CLEOPATRA. His legs bestrid the ocean; his rear'd arm\n    Crested the world. His voice was propertied\n    As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;\n    But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,\n    He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,\n    There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas\n    That grew the more by reaping. His delights\n    Were dolphin-like: they show'd his back above\n    The element they liv'd in. In his livery\n    Walk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands were\n    As plates dropp'd from his pocket.\n  DOLABELLA. Cleopatra-\n  CLEOPATRA. Think you there was or might be such a man\n    As this I dreamt of?\n  DOLABELLA. Gentle madam, no.\n  CLEOPATRA. You lie, up to the hearing of the gods.\n    But if there be nor ever were one such,\n    It's past the size of drearning. Nature wants stuff\n    To vie strange forms with fancy; yet t' imagine\n    An Antony were nature's piece 'gainst fancy,\n    Condemning shadows quite.\n  DOLABELLA. Hear me, good madam.\n    Your loss is, as yourself, great; and you bear it\n    As answering to the weight. Would I might never\n    O'ertake pursu'd success, but I do feel,\n    By the rebound of yours, a grief that smites\n    My very heart at root.\n  CLEOPATRA. I thank you, sir.\n    Know you what Caesar means to do with me?\n  DOLABELLA. I am loath to tell you what I would you knew.\n  CLEOPATRA. Nay, pray you, sir.\n  DOLABELLA. Though he be honourable-\n  CLEOPATRA. He'll lead me, then, in triumph?\n  DOLABELLA. Madam, he will. I know't.                [Flourish]\n                              [Within: 'Make way there-Caesar!']\n\n       Enter CAESAR; GALLUS, PROCULEIUS, MAECENAS, SELEUCUS,\n                     and others of his train\n\n  CAESAR. Which is the Queen of Egypt?\n  DOLABELLA. It is the Emperor, madam.        [CLEOPATPA kneels]\n  CAESAR. Arise, you shall not kneel.\n    I pray you, rise; rise, Egypt.\n  CLEOPATRA. Sir, the gods\n    Will have it thus; my master and my lord\n    I must obey.\n  CAESAR. Take to you no hard thoughts.\n    The record of what injuries you did us,\n    Though written in our flesh, we shall remember\n    As things but done by chance.\n  CLEOPATRA. Sole sir o' th' world,\n    I cannot project mine own cause so well\n    To make it clear, but do confess I have\n    Been laden with like frailties which before\n    Have often sham'd our sex.\n  CAESAR. Cleopatra, know\n    We will extenuate rather than enforce.\n    If you apply yourself to our intents-\n    Which towards you are most gentle- you shall find\n    A benefit in this change; but if you seek\n    To lay on me a cruelty by taking\n    Antony's course, you shall bereave yourself\n    Of my good purposes, and put your children\n    To that destruction which I'll guard them from,\n    If thereon you rely. I'll take my leave.\n  CLEOPATRA. And may, through all the world. 'Tis yours, and we,\n    Your scutcheons and your signs of conquest, shall\n    Hang in what place you please. Here, my good lord.\n  CAESAR. You shall advise me in all for Cleopatra.\n  CLEOPATRA. This is the brief of money, plate, and jewels,\n    I am possess'd of. 'Tis exactly valued,\n    Not petty things admitted. Where's Seleucus?\n  SELEUCUS. Here, madam.\n  CLEOPATRA. This is my treasurer; let him speak, my lord,\n    Upon his peril, that I have reserv'd\n    To myself nothing. Speak the truth, Seleucus.\n  SELEUCUS. Madam,\n    I had rather seal my lips than to my peril\n    Speak that which is not.\n  CLEOPATRA. What have I kept back?\n  SELEUCUS. Enough to purchase what you have made known.\n  CAESAR. Nay, blush not, Cleopatra; I approve\n    Your wisdom in the deed.\n  CLEOPATRA. See, Caesar! O, behold,\n    How pomp is followed! Mine will now be yours;\n    And, should we shift estates, yours would be mine.\n    The ingratitude of this Seleucus does\n    Even make me wild. O slave, of no more trust\n    Than love that's hir'd! What, goest thou back? Thou shalt\n    Go back, I warrant thee; but I'll catch thine eyes\n    Though they had wings. Slave, soulless villain, dog!\n    O rarely base!\n  CAESAR. Good Queen, let us entreat you.\n  CLEOPATRA. O Caesar, what a wounding shame is this,\n    That thou vouchsafing here to visit me,\n    Doing the honour of thy lordliness\n    To one so meek, that mine own servant should\n    Parcel the sum of my disgraces by\n    Addition of his envy! Say, good Caesar,\n    That I some lady trifles have reserv'd,\n    Immoment toys, things of such dignity\n    As we greet modern friends withal; and say\n    Some nobler token I have kept apart\n    For Livia and Octavia, to induce\n    Their mediation- must I be unfolded\n    With one that I have bred? The gods! It smites me\n    Beneath the fall I have. [To SELEUCUS] Prithee go hence;\n    Or I shall show the cinders of my spirits\n    Through th' ashes of my chance. Wert thou a man,\n    Thou wouldst have mercy on me.\n  CAESAR. Forbear, Seleucus.                       Exit SELEUCUS\n  CLEOPATRA. Be it known that we, the greatest, are misthought\n    For things that others do; and when we fall\n    We answer others' merits in our name,\n    Are therefore to be pitied.\n  CAESAR. Cleopatra,\n    Not what you have reserv'd, nor what acknowledg'd,\n    Put we i' th' roll of conquest. Still be't yours,\n    Bestow it at your pleasure; and believe\n    Caesar's no merchant, to make prize with you\n    Of things that merchants sold. Therefore be cheer'd;\n    Make not your thoughts your prisons. No, dear Queen;\n    For we intend so to dispose you as\n    Yourself shall give us counsel. Feed and sleep.\n    Our care and pity is so much upon you\n    That we remain your friend; and so, adieu.\n  CLEOPATRA. My master and my lord!\n  CAESAR. Not so. Adieu.\n                           Flourish. Exeunt CAESAR and his train\n  CLEOPATRA. He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not\n    Be noble to myself. But hark thee, Charmian!\n                                             [Whispers CHARMIAN]\n  IRAS. Finish, good lady; the bright day is done,\n    And we are for the dark.\n  CLEOPATRA. Hie thee again.\n    I have spoke already, and it is provided;\n    Go put it to the haste.\n  CHARMIAN. Madam, I will.\n\n                      Re-enter DOLABELLA\n\n  DOLABELLA. Where's the Queen?\n  CHARMIAN. Behold, sir.                                    Exit\n  CLEOPATRA. Dolabella!\n  DOLABELLA. Madam, as thereto sworn by your command,\n    Which my love makes religion to obey,\n    I tell you this: Caesar through Syria\n    Intends his journey, and within three days\n    You with your children will he send before.\n    Make your best use of this; I have perform'd\n    Your pleasure and my promise.\n  CLEOPATRA. Dolabella,\n    I shall remain your debtor.\n  DOLABELLA. I your servant.\n    Adieu, good Queen; I must attend on Caesar.\n  CLEOPATRA. Farewell, and thanks.                Exit DOLABELLA\n    Now, Iras, what think'st thou?\n    Thou an Egyptian puppet shall be shown\n    In Rome as well as I. Mechanic slaves,\n    With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers, shall\n    Uplift us to the view; in their thick breaths,\n    Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclouded,\n    And forc'd to drink their vapour.\n  IRAS. The gods forbid!\n  CLEOPATRA. Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras. Saucy lictors\n    Will catch at us like strumpets, and scald rhymers\n    Ballad us out o' tune; the quick comedians\n    Extemporally will stage us, and present\n    Our Alexandrian revels; Antony\n    Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see\n    Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness\n    I' th' posture of a whore.\n  IRAS. O the good gods!\n  CLEOPATRA. Nay, that's certain.\n  IRAS. I'll never see't, for I am sure mine nails\n    Are stronger than mine eyes.\n  CLEOPATRA. Why, that's the way\n    To fool their preparation and to conquer\n    Their most absurd intents.\n\n                      Enter CHARMIAN\n\n    Now, Charmian!\n    Show me, my women, like a queen. Go fetch\n    My best attires. I am again for Cydnus,\n    To meet Mark Antony. Sirrah, Iras, go.\n    Now, noble Charmian, we'll dispatch indeed;\n    And when thou hast done this chare, I'll give thee leave\n    To play till doomsday. Bring our crown and all.\n                                       Exit IRAS. A noise within\n    Wherefore's this noise?\n\n                     Enter a GUARDSMAN\n\n  GUARDSMAN. Here is a rural fellow\n    That will not be denied your Highness' presence.\n    He brings you figs.\n  CLEOPATRA. Let him come in.                     Exit GUARDSMAN\n    What poor an instrument\n    May do a noble deed! He brings me liberty.\n    My resolution's plac'd, and I have nothing\n    Of woman in me. Now from head to foot\n    I am marble-constant; now the fleeting moon\n    No planet is of mine.\n\n          Re-enter GUARDSMAN and CLOWN, with a basket\n\n  GUARDSMAN. This is the man.\n  CLEOPATRA. Avoid, and leave him.                Exit GUARDSMAN\n    Hast thou the pretty worm of Nilus there\n    That kills and pains not?\n  CLOWN. Truly, I have him. But I would not be the party that should\n    desire you to touch him, for his biting is immortal; those that\n    do die of it do seldom or never recover.\n  CLEOPATRA. Remember'st thou any that have died on't?\n  CLOWN. Very many, men and women too. I heard of one of them no\n    longer than yesterday: a very honest woman, but something given\n    to lie, as a woman should not do but in the way of honesty; how\n    she died of the biting of it, what pain she felt- truly she makes\n    a very good report o' th' worm. But he that will believe all that\n    they say shall never be saved by half that they do. But this is\n    most falliable, the worm's an odd worm.\n  CLEOPATRA. Get thee hence; farewell.\n  CLOWN. I wish you all joy of the worm.\n                                          [Sets down the basket]\n  CLEOPATRA. Farewell.\n  CLOWN. You must think this, look you, that the worm will do his\n    kind.\n  CLEOPATRA. Ay, ay; farewell.\n  CLOWN. Look you, the worm is not to be trusted but in the keeping\n    of wise people; for indeed there is no goodness in the worm.\n  CLEOPATRA. Take thou no care; it shall be heeded.\n  CLOWN. Very good. Give it nothing, I pray you, for it is not worth\n    the feeding.\n  CLEOPATRA. Will it eat me?\n  CLOWN. You must not think I am so simple but I know the devil\n    himself will not eat a woman. I know that a woman is a dish for\n    the gods, if the devil dress her not. But truly, these same\n    whoreson devils do the gods great harm in their women, for in\n    every ten that they make the devils mar five.\n  CLEOPATRA. Well, get thee gone; farewell.\n  CLOWN. Yes, forsooth. I wish you joy o' th' worm.         Exit\n\n             Re-enter IRAS, with a robe, crown, &c.\n\n  CLEOPATRA. Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have\n    Immortal longings in me. Now no more\n    The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip.\n    Yare, yare, good Iras; quick. Methinks I hear\n    Antony call. I see him rouse himself\n    To praise my noble act. I hear him mock\n    The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men\n    To excuse their after wrath. Husband, I come.\n    Now to that name my courage prove my title!\n    I am fire and air; my other elements\n    I give to baser life. So, have you done?\n    Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips.\n    Farewell, kind Charmian. Iras, long farewell.\n                              [Kisses them. IRAS falls and dies]\n    Have I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall?\n    If thus thou and nature can so gently part,\n    The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch,\n    Which hurts and is desir'd. Dost thou lie still?\n    If thou vanishest, thou tell'st the world\n    It is not worth leave-taking.\n  CHARMIAN. Dissolve, thick cloud, and rain, that I may say\n    The gods themselves do weep.\n  CLEOPATRA. This proves me base.\n    If she first meet the curled Antony,\n    He'll make demand of her, and spend that kiss\n    Which is my heaven to have. Come, thou mortal wretch,\n                    [To an asp, which she applies to her breast]\n    With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate\n    Of life at once untie. Poor venomous fool,\n    Be angry and dispatch. O couldst thou speak,\n    That I might hear thee call great Caesar ass\n    Unpolicied!\n  CHARMIAN. O Eastern star!\n  CLEOPATRA. Peace, peace!\n    Dost thou not see my baby at my breast\n    That sucks the nurse asleep?\n  CHARMIAN. O, break! O, break!\n  CLEOPATRA. As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle-\n    O Antony! Nay, I will take thee too:\n                               [Applying another asp to her arm]\n    What should I stay-                                   [Dies]\n  CHARMIAN. In this vile world? So, fare thee well.\n    Now boast thee, death, in thy possession lies\n    A lass unparallel'd. Downy windows, close;\n    And golden Phoebus never be beheld\n    Of eyes again so royal! Your crown's awry;\n    I'll mend it and then play-\n\n                  Enter the guard, rushing in\n\n  FIRST GUARD. Where's the Queen?\n  CHARMIAN. Speak softly, wake her not.\n  FIRST GUARD. Caesar hath sent-\n  CHARMIAN. Too slow a messenger.               [Applies an asp]\n    O, come apace, dispatch. I partly feel thee.\n  FIRST GUARD. Approach, ho! All's not well: Caesar's beguil'd.\n  SECOND GUARD. There's Dolabella sent from Caesar; call him.\n  FIRST GUARD. What work is here! Charmian, is this well done?\n  CHARMIAN. It is well done, and fitting for a princes\n    Descended of so many royal kings.\n    Ah, soldier!                                 [CHARMIAN dies]\n\n                      Re-enter DOLABELLA\n\n  DOLABELLA. How goes it here?\n  SECOND GUARD. All dead.\n  DOLABELLA. Caesar, thy thoughts\n    Touch their effects in this. Thyself art coming\n    To see perform'd the dreaded act which thou\n    So sought'st to hinder.\n                      [Within: 'A way there, a way for Caesar!']\n\n              Re-enter CAESAR and all his train\n\n  DOLABELLA. O sir, you are too sure an augurer:\n    That you did fear is done.\n  CAESAR. Bravest at the last,\n    She levell'd at our purposes, and being royal,\n    Took her own way. The manner of their deaths?\n    I do not see them bleed.\n  DOLABELLA. Who was last with them?\n  FIRST GUARD. A simple countryman that brought her figs.\n    This was his basket.\n  CAESAR. Poison'd then.\n  FIRST GUARD. O Caesar,\n    This Charmian liv'd but now; she stood and spake.\n    I found her trimming up the diadem\n    On her dead mistress. Tremblingly she stood,\n    And on the sudden dropp'd.\n  CAESAR. O noble weakness!\n    If they had swallow'd poison 'twould appear\n    By external swelling; but she looks like sleep,\n    As she would catch another Antony\n    In her strong toil of grace.\n  DOLABELLA. Here on her breast\n    There is a vent of blood, and something blown;\n    The like is on her arm.\n  FIRST GUARD. This is an aspic's trail; and these fig-leaves\n    Have slime upon them, such as th' aspic leaves\n    Upon the caves of Nile.\n  CAESAR. Most probable\n    That so she died; for her physician tells me\n    She hath pursu'd conclusions infinite\n    Of easy ways to die. Take up her bed,\n    And bear her women from the monument.\n    She shall be buried by her Antony;\n    No grave upon the earth shall clip in it\n    A pair so famous. High events as these\n    Strike those that make them; and their story is\n    No less in pity than his glory which\n    Brought them to be lamented. Our army shall\n    In solemn show attend this funeral,\n    And then to Rome. Come, Dolabella, see\n    High order in this great solemnity.                   Exeunt\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1601\n\nAS YOU LIKE IT\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE.\n\n  DUKE, living in exile\n  FREDERICK, his brother, and usurper of his dominions\n  AMIENS, lord attending on the banished Duke\n  JAQUES,   \"      \"       \"  \"     \"      \"\n  LE BEAU, a courtier attending upon Frederick\n  CHARLES, wrestler to Frederick\n  OLIVER, son of Sir Rowland de Boys\n  JAQUES,   \"   \"  \"    \"     \"  \"\n  ORLANDO,  \"   \"  \"    \"     \"  \"\n  ADAM,   servant to Oliver\n  DENNIS,     \"     \"   \"\n  TOUCHSTONE, the court jester\n  SIR OLIVER MARTEXT, a vicar\n  CORIN,    shepherd\n  SILVIUS,     \"\n  WILLIAM, a country fellow, in love with Audrey\n  A person representing HYMEN\n\n  ROSALIND, daughter to the banished Duke\n  CELIA, daughter to Frederick\n  PHEBE, a shepherdes\n  AUDREY, a country wench\n\n  Lords, Pages, Foresters, and Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nOLIVER'S house; FREDERICK'S court; and the Forest of Arden\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nOrchard of OLIVER'S house\n\nEnter ORLANDO and ADAM\n\n  ORLANDO. As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed\n    me by will but poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou say'st,\n    charged my brother, on his blessing, to breed me well; and there\n    begins my sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and\n    report speaks goldenly of his profit. For my part, he keeps me\n    rustically at home, or, to speak more properly, stays me here at\n    home unkept; for call you that keeping for a gentleman of my\n    birth that differs not from the stalling of an ox? His horses are\n    bred better; for, besides that they are fair with their feeding,\n    they are taught their manage, and to that end riders dearly\n    hir'd; but I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth; for\n    the which his animals on his dunghills are as much bound to him\n    as I. Besides this nothing that he so plentifully gives me, the\n    something that nature gave me his countenance seems to take from\n    me. He lets me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a\n    brother, and as much as in him lies, mines my gentility with my\n    education. This is it, Adam, that grieves me; and the spirit of\n    my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny against\n    this servitude. I will no longer endure it, though yet I know no\n    wise remedy how to avoid it.\n\n                           Enter OLIVER\n\n  ADAM. Yonder comes my master, your brother.\n  ORLANDO. Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me\n    up.                                           [ADAM retires]\n  OLIVER. Now, sir! what make you here?\n  ORLANDO. Nothing; I am not taught to make any thing.\n  OLIVER. What mar you then, sir?\n  ORLANDO. Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a\n    poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.\n  OLIVER. Marry, sir, be better employed, and be nought awhile.\n  ORLANDO. Shall I keep your hogs, and eat husks with them? What\n    prodigal portion have I spent that I should come to such penury?\n  OLIVER. Know you where you are, sir?\n  ORLANDO. O, sir, very well; here in your orchard.\n  OLIVER. Know you before whom, sir?\n  ORLANDO. Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I know you are\n    my eldest brother; and in the gentle condition of blood, you\n    should so know me. The courtesy of nations allows you my better\n    in that you are the first-born; but the same tradition takes not\n    away my blood, were there twenty brothers betwixt us. I have as\n    much of my father in me as you, albeit I confess your coming\n    before me is nearer to his reverence.\n  OLIVER. What, boy!                               [Strikes him]\n  ORLANDO. Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.\n  OLIVER. Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?\n  ORLANDO. I am no villain; I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de\n    Boys. He was my father; and he is thrice a villain that says such\n    a father begot villains. Wert thou not my brother, I would not\n    take this hand from thy throat till this other had pull'd out thy\n    tongue for saying so. Thou has rail'd on thyself.\n  ADAM. [Coming forward] Sweet masters, be patient; for your father's\n    remembrance, be at accord.\n  OLIVER. Let me go, I say.\n  ORLANDO. I will not, till I please; you shall hear me. My father\n    charg'd you in his will to give me good education: you have\n    train'd me like a peasant, obscuring and hiding from me all\n    gentleman-like qualities. The spirit of my father grows strong in\n    me, and I will no longer endure it; therefore allow me such\n    exercises as may become a gentleman, or give me the poor\n    allottery my father left me by testament; with that I will go buy\n    my fortunes.\n  OLIVER. And what wilt thou do? Beg, when that is spent? Well, sir,\n    get you in. I will not long be troubled with you; you shall have\n    some part of your will. I pray you leave me.\n  ORLANDO. I no further offend you than becomes me for my good.\n  OLIVER. Get you with him, you old dog.\n  ADAM. Is 'old dog' my reward? Most true, I have lost my teeth in\n    your service. God be with my old master! He would not have spoke\n    such a word.\n                                         Exeunt ORLANDO and ADAM\n  OLIVER. Is it even so? Begin you to grow upon me? I will physic\n    your rankness, and yet give no thousand crowns neither. Holla,\n    Dennis!\n\n                          Enter DENNIS\n\n  DENNIS. Calls your worship?\n  OLIVER. not Charles, the Duke's wrestler, here to speak with me?\n  DENNIS. So please you, he is here at the door and importunes access\n    to you.\n  OLIVER. Call him in. [Exit DENNIS] 'Twill be a good way; and\n    to-morrow the wrestling is.\n\n                          Enter CHARLES\n\n  CHARLES. Good morrow to your worship.\n  OLIVER. Good Monsieur Charles! What's the new news at the new\n    court?\n  CHARLES. There's no news at the court, sir, but the old news; that\n    is, the old Duke is banished by his younger brother the new Duke;\n    and three or four loving lords have put themselves into voluntary\n    exile with him, whose lands and revenues enrich the new Duke;\n    therefore he gives them good leave to wander.\n  OLIVER. Can you tell if Rosalind, the Duke's daughter, be banished\n    with her father?\n  CHARLES. O, no; for the Duke's daughter, her cousin, so loves her,\n    being ever from their cradles bred together, that she would have\n    followed her exile, or have died to stay behind her. She is at\n    the court, and no less beloved of her uncle than his own\n    daughter; and never two ladies loved as they do.\n  OLIVER. Where will the old Duke live?\n  CHARLES. They say he is already in the Forest of Arden, and a many\n    merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood\n    of England. They say many young gentlemen flock to him every day,\n    and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.\n  OLIVER. What, you wrestle to-morrow before the new Duke?\n  CHARLES. Marry, do I, sir; and I came to acquaint you with a\n    matter. I am given, sir, secretly to understand that your younger\n    brother, Orlando, hath a disposition to come in disguis'd against\n    me to try a fall. To-morrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit; and he\n    that escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him well.\n    Your brother is but young and tender; and, for your love, I would\n    be loath to foil him, as I must, for my own honour, if he come\n    in; therefore, out of my love to you, I came hither to acquaint\n    you withal, that either you might stay him from his intendment,\n    or brook such disgrace well as he shall run into, in that it is\n    thing of his own search and altogether against my will.\n  OLIVER. Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which thou shalt\n    find I will most kindly requite. I had myself notice of my\n    brother's purpose herein, and have by underhand means laboured to\n    dissuade him from it; but he is resolute. I'll tell thee,\n    Charles, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France; full of\n    ambition, an envious emulator of every man's good parts, a secret\n    and villainous contriver against me his natural brother.\n    Therefore use thy discretion: I had as lief thou didst break his\n    neck as his finger. And thou wert best look to't; for if thou\n    dost him any slight disgrace, or if he do not mightily grace\n    himself on thee, he will practise against thee by poison, entrap\n    thee by some treacherous device, and never leave thee till he\n    hath ta'en thy life by some indirect means or other; for, I\n    assure thee, and almost with tears I speak it, there is not one\n    so young and so villainous this day living. I speak but brotherly\n    of him; but should I anatomize him to thee as he is, I must blush\n    and weep, and thou must look pale and wonder.\n  CHARLES. I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come\n    to-morrow I'll give him his payment. If ever he go alone again,\n    I'll never wrestle for prize more. And so, God keep your worship!\n Exit\n  OLIVER. Farewell, good Charles. Now will I stir this gamester. I\n    hope I shall see an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why,\n    hates nothing more than he. Yet he's gentle; never school'd and\n    yet learned; full of noble device; of all sorts enchantingly\n    beloved; and, indeed, so much in the heart of the world, and\n    especially of my own people, who best know him, that I am\n    altogether misprised. But it shall not be so long; this wrestler\n    shall clear all. Nothing remains but that I kindle the boy\n    thither, which now I'll go about.                       Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA lawn before the DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter ROSALIND and CELIA\n\n  CELIA. I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.\n  ROSALIND. Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of; and\n    would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could teach me to forget\n    a banished father, you must not learn me how to remember any\n    extraordinary pleasure.\n  CELIA. Herein I see thou lov'st me not with the full weight that I\n    love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father, had banished thy\n    uncle, the Duke my father, so thou hadst been still with me, I\n    could have taught my love to take thy father for mine; so wouldst\n    thou, if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously temper'd\n    as mine is to thee.\n  ROSALIND. Well, I will forget the condition of my estate, to\n    rejoice in yours.\n  CELIA. You know my father hath no child but I, nor none is like to\n    have; and, truly, when he dies thou shalt be his heir; for what\n    he hath taken away from thy father perforce, I will render thee\n    again in affection. By mine honour, I will; and when I break that\n    oath, let me turn monster; therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear\n    Rose, be merry.\n  ROSALIND. From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports.\n    Let me see; what think you of falling in love?\n  CELIA. Marry, I prithee, do, to make sport withal; but love no man\n    in good earnest, nor no further in sport neither than with safety\n    of a pure blush thou mayst in honour come off again.\n  ROSALIND. What shall be our sport, then?\n  CELIA. Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her\n    wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.\n  ROSALIND. I would we could do so; for her benefits are mightily\n    misplaced; and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her\n    gifts to women.\n  CELIA. 'Tis true; for those that she makes fair she scarce makes\n    honest; and those that she makes honest she makes very\n    ill-favouredly.\n  ROSALIND. Nay; now thou goest from Fortune's office to Nature's:\n    Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of\n    Nature.\n\n                         Enter TOUCHSTONE\n\n  CELIA. No; when Nature hath made a fair creature, may she not by\n    Fortune fall into the fire? Though Nature hath given us wit to\n    flout at Fortune, hath not Fortune sent in this fool to cut off\n    the argument?\n  ROSALIND. Indeed, there is Fortune too hard for Nature, when\n    Fortune makes Nature's natural the cutter-off of Nature's wit.\n  CELIA. Peradventure this is not Fortune's work neither, but\n    Nature's, who perceiveth our natural wits too dull to reason of\n    such goddesses, and hath sent this natural for our whetstone; for\n    always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. How\n    now, wit! Whither wander you?\n  TOUCHSTONE. Mistress, you must come away to your father.\n  CELIA. Were you made the messenger?\n  TOUCHSTONE. No, by mine honour; but I was bid to come for you.\n  ROSALIND. Where learned you that oath, fool?\n  TOUCHSTONE. Of a certain knight that swore by his honour they were\n    good pancakes, and swore by his honour the mustard was naught.\n    Now I'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught and the mustard\n    was good, and yet was not the knight forsworn.\n  CELIA. How prove you that, in the great heap of your knowledge?\n  ROSALIND. Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and swear\n    by your beards that I am a knave.\n  CELIA. By our beards, if we had them, thou art.\n  TOUCHSTONE. By my knavery, if I had it, then I were. But if you\n    swear by that that not, you are not forsworn; no more was this\n    knight, swearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he\n    had, he had sworn it away before ever he saw those pancackes or\n    that mustard.\n  CELIA. Prithee, who is't that thou mean'st?\n  TOUCHSTONE. One that old Frederick, your father, loves.\n  CELIA. My father's love is enough to honour him. Enough, speak no\n    more of him; you'll be whipt for taxation one of these days.\n  TOUCHSTONE. The more pity that fools may not speak wisely what wise\n    men do foolishly.\n  CELIA. By my troth, thou sayest true; for since the little wit that\n    fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have\n    makes a great show. Here comes Monsieur Le Beau.\n\n                           Enter LE BEAU\n\n  ROSALIND. With his mouth full of news.\n  CELIA. Which he will put on us as pigeons feed their young.\n  ROSALIND. Then shall we be news-cramm'd.\n  CELIA. All the better; we shall be the more marketable. Bon jour,\n    Monsieur Le Beau. What's the news?\n  LE BEAU. Fair Princess, you have lost much good sport.\n  CELIA. Sport! of what colour?\n  LE BEAU. What colour, madam? How shall I answer you?\n  ROSALIND. As wit and fortune will.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Or as the Destinies decrees.\n  CELIA. Well said; that was laid on with a trowel.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Nay, if I keep not my rank-\n  ROSALIND. Thou losest thy old smell.\n  LE BEAU. You amaze me, ladies. I would have told you of good\n    wrestling, which you have lost the sight of.\n  ROSALIND. Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling.\n  LE BEAU. I will tell you the beginning, and, if it please your\n    ladyships, you may see the end; for the best is yet to do; and\n    here, where you are, they are coming to perform it.\n  CELIA. Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried.\n  LE BEAU. There comes an old man and his three sons-\n  CELIA. I could match this beginning with an old tale.\n  LE BEAU. Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence.\n  ROSALIND. With bills on their necks: 'Be it known unto all men by\n    these presents'-\n  LE BEAU. The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the Duke's\n    wrestler; which Charles in a moment threw him, and broke three of\n    his ribs, that there is little hope of life in him. So he serv'd\n    the second, and so the third. Yonder they lie; the poor old man,\n    their father, making such pitiful dole over them that all the\n    beholders take his part with weeping.\n  ROSALIND. Alas!\n  TOUCHSTONE. But what is the sport, monsieur, that the ladies have\n    lost?\n  LE BEAU. Why, this that I speak of.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Thus men may grow wiser every day. It is the first time\n    that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport for ladies.\n  CELIA. Or I, I promise thee.\n  ROSALIND. But is there any else longs to see this broken music in\n    his sides? Is there yet another dotes upon rib-breaking? Shall we\n    see this wrestling, cousin?\n  LE BEAU. You must, if you stay here; for here is the place\n    appointed for the wrestling, and they are ready to perform it.\n  CELIA. Yonder, sure, they are coming. Let us now stay and see it.\n\n           Flourish. Enter DUKE FREDERICK, LORDS, ORLANDO,\n                     CHARLES, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  FREDERICK. Come on; since the youth will not be entreated, his own\n    peril on his forwardness.\n  ROSALIND. Is yonder the man?\n  LE BEAU. Even he, madam.\n  CELIA. Alas, he is too young; yet he looks successfully.\n  FREDERICK. How now, daughter and cousin! Are you crept hither to\n    see the wrestling?\n  ROSALIND. Ay, my liege; so please you give us leave.\n  FREDERICK. You will take little delight in it, I can tell you,\n    there is such odds in the man. In pity of the challenger's youth\n    I would fain dissuade him, but he will not be entreated. Speak to\n    him, ladies; see if you can move him.\n  CELIA. Call him hither, good Monsieur Le Beau.\n  FREDERICK. Do so; I'll not be by.\n                                     [DUKE FREDERICK goes apart]\n  LE BEAU. Monsieur the Challenger, the Princess calls for you.\n  ORLANDO. I attend them with all respect and duty.\n  ROSALIND. Young man, have you challeng'd Charles the wrestler?\n  ORLANDO. No, fair Princess; he is the general challenger. I come\n    but in, as others do, to try with him the strength of my youth.\n  CELIA. Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your years.\n    You have seen cruel proof of this man's strength; if you saw\n    yourself with your eyes, or knew yourself with your judgment, the\n    fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal\n    enterprise. We pray you, for your own sake, to embrace your own\n    safety and give over this attempt.\n  ROSALIND. Do, young sir; your reputation shall not therefore be\n    misprised: we will make it our suit to the Duke that the\n    wrestling might not go forward.\n  ORLANDO. I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts,\n    wherein I confess me much guilty to deny so fair and excellent\n    ladies any thing. But let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go\n    with me to my trial; wherein if I be foil'd there is but one\n    sham'd that was never gracious; if kill'd, but one dead that is\n    willing to be so. I shall do my friends no wrong, for I have none\n    to lament me; the world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only\n    in the world I fill up a place, which may be better supplied when\n    I have made it empty.\n  ROSALIND. The little strength that I have, I would it were with\n    you.\n  CELIA. And mine to eke out hers.\n  ROSALIND. Fare you well. Pray heaven I be deceiv'd in you!\n  CELIA. Your heart's desires be with you!\n  CHARLES. Come, where is this young gallant that is so desirous to\n    lie with his mother earth?\n  ORLANDO. Ready, sir; but his will hath in it a more modest working.\n  FREDERICK. You shall try but one fall.\n  CHARLES. No, I warrant your Grace, you shall not entreat him to a\n    second, that have so mightily persuaded him from a first.\n  ORLANDO. You mean to mock me after; you should not have mock'd me\n    before; but come your ways.\n  ROSALIND. Now, Hercules be thy speed, young man!\n  CELIA. I would I were invisible, to catch the strong fellow by the\n    leg.                                          [They wrestle]\n  ROSALIND. O excellent young man!\n  CELIA. If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who should\n    down.\n                                      [CHARLES is thrown. Shout]\n  FREDERICK. No more, no more.\n  ORLANDO. Yes, I beseech your Grace; I am not yet well breath'd.\n  FREDERICK. How dost thou, Charles?\n  LE BEAU. He cannot speak, my lord.\n  FREDERICK. Bear him away. What is thy name, young man?\n  ORLANDO. Orlando, my liege; the youngest son of Sir Rowland de\n    Boys.\n  FREDERICK. I would thou hadst been son to some man else.\n    The world esteem'd thy father honourable,\n    But I did find him still mine enemy.\n    Thou shouldst have better pleas'd me with this deed,\n    Hadst thou descended from another house.\n    But fare thee well; thou art a gallant youth;\n    I would thou hadst told me of another father.\n                                 Exeunt DUKE, train, and LE BEAU\n  CELIA. Were I my father, coz, would I do this?\n  ORLANDO. I am more proud to be Sir Rowland's son,\n    His youngest son- and would not change that calling\n    To be adopted heir to Frederick.\n  ROSALIND. My father lov'd Sir Rowland as his soul,\n    And all the world was of my father's mind;\n    Had I before known this young man his son,\n    I should have given him tears unto entreaties\n    Ere he should thus have ventur'd.\n  CELIA. Gentle cousin,\n    Let us go thank him, and encourage him;\n    My father's rough and envious disposition\n    Sticks me at heart. Sir, you have well deserv'd;\n    If you do keep your promises in love\n    But justly as you have exceeded all promise,\n    Your mistress shall be happy.\n  ROSALIND. Gentleman,        [Giving him a chain from her neck]\n    Wear this for me; one out of suits with fortune,\n    That could give more, but that her hand lacks means.\n    Shall we go, coz?\n  CELIA. Ay. Fare you well, fair gentleman.\n  ORLANDO. Can I not say 'I thank you'? My better parts\n    Are all thrown down; and that which here stands up\n    Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block.\n  ROSALIND. He calls us back. My pride fell with my fortunes;\n    I'll ask him what he would. Did you call, sir?\n    Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown\n    More than your enemies.\n  CELIA. Will you go, coz?\n  ROSALIND. Have with you. Fare you well.\n                                       Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA\n  ORLANDO. What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue?\n    I cannot speak to her, yet she urg'd conference.\n    O poor Orlando, thou art overthrown!\n    Or Charles or something weaker masters thee.\n\n                      Re-enter LE BEAU\n\n  LE BEAU. Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you\n    To leave this place. Albeit you have deserv'd\n    High commendation, true applause, and love,\n    Yet such is now the Duke's condition\n    That he misconstrues all that you have done.\n    The Duke is humorous; what he is, indeed,\n    More suits you to conceive than I to speak of.\n  ORLANDO. I thank you, sir; and pray you tell me this:\n    Which of the two was daughter of the Duke\n    That here was at the wrestling?\n  LE BEAU. Neither his daughter, if we judge by manners;\n    But yet, indeed, the smaller is his daughter;\n    The other is daughter to the banish'd Duke,\n    And here detain'd by her usurping uncle,\n    To keep his daughter company; whose loves\n    Are dearer than the natural bond of sisters.\n    But I can tell you that of late this Duke\n    Hath ta'en displeasure 'gainst his gentle niece,\n    Grounded upon no other argument\n    But that the people praise her for her virtues\n    And pity her for her good father's sake;\n    And, on my life, his malice 'gainst the lady\n    Will suddenly break forth. Sir, fare you well.\n    Hereafter, in a better world than this,\n    I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.\n  ORLANDO. I rest much bounden to you; fare you well.\n                                                    Exit LE BEAU\n    Thus must I from the smoke into the smother;\n    From tyrant Duke unto a tyrant brother.\n    But heavenly Rosalind!                                  Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe DUKE's palace\n\nEnter CELIA and ROSALIND\n\n  CELIA. Why, cousin! why, Rosalind! Cupid have mercy!\n    Not a word?\n  ROSALIND. Not one to throw at a dog.\n  CELIA. No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs;\n    throw some of them at me; come, lame me with reasons.\n  ROSALIND. Then there were two cousins laid up, when the one should\n    be lam'd with reasons and the other mad without any.\n  CELIA. But is all this for your father?\n  ROSALIND. No, some of it is for my child's father. O, how full of\n    briers is this working-day world!\n  CELIA. They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday\n    foolery; if we walk not in the trodden paths, our very petticoats\n    will catch them.\n  ROSALIND. I could shake them off my coat: these burs are in my\n    heart.\n  CELIA. Hem them away.\n  ROSALIND. I would try, if I could cry 'hem' and have him.\n  CELIA. Come, come, wrestle with thy affections.\n  ROSALIND. O, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself.\n  CELIA. O, a good wish upon you! You will try in time, in despite of\n    a fall. But, turning these jests out of service, let us talk in\n    good earnest. Is it possible, on such a sudden, you should fall\n    into so strong a liking with old Sir Rowland's youngest son?\n  ROSALIND. The Duke my father lov'd his father dearly.\n  CELIA. Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son dearly?\n    By this kind of chase I should hate him, for my father hated his\n    father dearly; yet I hate not Orlando.\n  ROSALIND. No, faith, hate him not, for my sake.\n  CELIA. Why should I not? Doth he not deserve well?\n\n                    Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with LORDS\n\n  ROSALIND. Let me love him for that; and do you love him because I\n    do. Look, here comes the Duke.\n  CELIA. With his eyes full of anger.\n  FREDERICK. Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste,\n    And get you from our court.\n  ROSALIND. Me, uncle?\n  FREDERICK. You, cousin.\n    Within these ten days if that thou beest found\n    So near our public court as twenty miles,\n    Thou diest for it.\n  ROSALIND. I do beseech your Grace,\n    Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me.\n    If with myself I hold intelligence,\n    Or have acquaintance with mine own desires;\n    If that I do not dream, or be not frantic-\n    As I do trust I am not- then, dear uncle,\n    Never so much as in a thought unborn\n    Did I offend your Highness.\n  FREDERICK. Thus do all traitors;\n    If their purgation did consist in words,\n    They are as innocent as grace itself.\n    Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.\n  ROSALIND. Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor.\n    Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.\n  FREDERICK. Thou art thy father's daughter; there's enough.\n  ROSALIND. SO was I when your Highness took his dukedom;\n    So was I when your Highness banish'd him.\n    Treason is not inherited, my lord;\n    Or, if we did derive it from our friends,\n    What's that to me? My father was no traitor.\n    Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much\n    To think my poverty is treacherous.\n  CELIA. Dear sovereign, hear me speak.\n  FREDERICK. Ay, Celia; we stay'd her for your sake,\n    Else had she with her father rang'd along.\n  CELIA. I did not then entreat to have her stay;\n    It was your pleasure, and your own remorse;\n    I was too young that time to value her,\n    But now I know her. If she be a traitor,\n    Why so am I: we still have slept together,\n    Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together;\n    And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans,\n    Still we went coupled and inseparable.\n  FREDERICK. She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness,\n    Her very silence and her patience,\n    Speak to the people, and they pity her.\n    Thou art a fool. She robs thee of thy name;\n    And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous\n    When she is gone. Then open not thy lips.\n    Firm and irrevocable is my doom\n    Which I have pass'd upon her; she is banish'd.\n  CELIA. Pronounce that sentence, then, on me, my liege;\n    I cannot live out of her company.\n  FREDERICK. You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself.\n    If you outstay the time, upon mine honour,\n    And in the greatness of my word, you die.\n                                           Exeunt DUKE and LORDS\n  CELIA. O my poor Rosalind! Whither wilt thou go?\n    Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.\n    I charge thee be not thou more griev'd than I am.\n  ROSALIND. I have more cause.\n  CELIA. Thou hast not, cousin.\n    Prithee be cheerful. Know'st thou not the Duke\n    Hath banish'd me, his daughter?\n  ROSALIND. That he hath not.\n  CELIA. No, hath not? Rosalind lacks, then, the love\n    Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one.\n    Shall we be sund'red? Shall we part, sweet girl?\n    No; let my father seek another heir.\n    Therefore devise with me how we may fly,\n    Whither to go, and what to bear with us;\n    And do not seek to take your charge upon you,\n    To bear your griefs yourself, and leave me out;\n    For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,\n    Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.\n  ROSALIND. Why, whither shall we go?\n  CELIA. To seek my uncle in the Forest of Arden.\n  ROSALIND. Alas, what danger will it be to us,\n    Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!\n    Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.\n  CELIA. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire,\n    And with a kind of umber smirch my face;\n    The like do you; so shall we pass along,\n    And never stir assailants.\n  ROSALIND. Were it not better,\n    Because that I am more than common tall,\n    That I did suit me all points like a man?\n    A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,\n    A boar spear in my hand; and- in my heart\n    Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will-\n    We'll have a swashing and a martial outside,\n    As many other mannish cowards have\n    That do outface it with their semblances.\n  CELIA. What shall I call thee when thou art a man?\n  ROSALIND. I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page,\n    And therefore look you call me Ganymede.\n    But what will you be call'd?\n  CELIA. Something that hath a reference to my state:\n    No longer Celia, but Aliena.\n  ROSALIND. But, cousin, what if we assay'd to steal\n    The clownish fool out of your father's court?\n    Would he not be a comfort to our travel?\n  CELIA. He'll go along o'er the wide world with me;\n    Leave me alone to woo him. Let's away,\n    And get our jewels and our wealth together;\n    Devise the fittest time and safest way\n    To hide us from pursuit that will be made\n    After my flight. Now go we in content\n    To liberty, and not to banishment.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nThe Forest of Arden\n\nEnter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and two or three LORDS, like foresters\n\n  DUKE SENIOR. Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,\n    Hath not old custom made this life more sweet\n    Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods\n    More free from peril than the envious court?\n    Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,\n    The seasons' difference; as the icy fang\n    And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,\n    Which when it bites and blows upon my body,\n    Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say\n    'This is no flattery; these are counsellors\n    That feelingly persuade me what I am.'\n    Sweet are the uses of adversity,\n    Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,\n    Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;\n    And this our life, exempt from public haunt,\n    Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,\n    Sermons in stones, and good in everything.\n    I would not change it.\n  AMIENS. Happy is your Grace,\n    That can translate the stubbornness of fortune\n    Into so quiet and so sweet a style.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Come, shall we go and kill us venison?\n    And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,\n    Being native burghers of this desert city,\n    Should, in their own confines, with forked heads\n    Have their round haunches gor'd.\n  FIRST LORD. Indeed, my lord,\n    The melancholy Jaques grieves at that;\n    And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp\n    Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you.\n    To-day my Lord of Amiens and myself\n    Did steal behind him as he lay along\n    Under an oak whose antique root peeps out\n    Upon the brook that brawls along this wood!\n    To the which place a poor sequest'red stag,\n    That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,\n    Did come to languish; and, indeed, my lord,\n    The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans\n    That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat\n    Almost to bursting; and the big round tears\n    Cours'd one another down his innocent nose\n    In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool,\n    Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,\n    Stood on th' extremest verge of the swift brook,\n    Augmenting it with tears.\n  DUKE SENIOR. But what said Jaques?\n    Did he not moralize this spectacle?\n  FIRST LORD. O, yes, into a thousand similes.\n    First, for his weeping into the needless stream:\n    'Poor deer,' quoth he 'thou mak'st a testament\n    As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more\n    To that which had too much.' Then, being there alone,\n    Left and abandoned of his velvet friends:\n    ''Tis right'; quoth he 'thus misery doth part\n    The flux of company.' Anon, a careless herd,\n    Full of the pasture, jumps along by him\n    And never stays to greet him. 'Ay,' quoth Jaques\n    'Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;\n    'Tis just the fashion. Wherefore do you look\n    Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?'\n    Thus most invectively he pierceth through\n    The body of the country, city, court,\n    Yea, and of this our life; swearing that we\n    Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what's worse,\n    To fright the animals, and to kill them up\n    In their assign'd and native dwelling-place.\n  DUKE SENIOR. And did you leave him in this contemplation?\n  SECOND LORD. We did, my lord, weeping and commenting\n    Upon the sobbing deer.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Show me the place;\n    I love to cope him in these sullen fits,\n    For then he's full of matter.\n  FIRST LORD. I'll bring you to him straight.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter DUKE FREDERICK, with LORDS\n\n  FREDERICK. Can it be possible that no man saw them?\n    It cannot be; some villains of my court\n    Are of consent and sufferance in this.\n  FIRST LORD. I cannot hear of any that did see her.\n    The ladies, her attendants of her chamber,\n    Saw her abed, and in the morning early\n    They found the bed untreasur'd of their mistress.\n  SECOND LORD. My lord, the roynish clown, at whom so oft\n    Your Grace was wont to laugh, is also missing.\n    Hisperia, the Princess' gentlewoman,\n    Confesses that she secretly o'erheard\n    Your daughter and her cousin much commend\n    The parts and graces of the wrestler\n    That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles;\n    And she believes, wherever they are gone,\n    That youth is surely in their company.\n  FREDERICK. Send to his brother; fetch that gallant hither.\n    If he be absent, bring his brother to me;\n    I'll make him find him. Do this suddenly;\n    And let not search and inquisition quail\n    To bring again these foolish runaways.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nBefore OLIVER'S house\n\nEnter ORLANDO and ADAM, meeting\n\n  ORLANDO. Who's there?\n  ADAM. What, my young master? O my gentle master!\n    O my sweet master! O you memory\n    Of old Sir Rowland! Why, what make you here?\n    Why are you virtuous? Why do people love you?\n    And wherefore are you gentle, strong, and valiant?\n    Why would you be so fond to overcome\n    The bonny prizer of the humorous Duke?\n    Your praise is come too swiftly home before you.\n    Know you not, master, to some kind of men\n    Their graces serve them but as enemies?\n    No more do yours. Your virtues, gentle master,\n    Are sanctified and holy traitors to you.\n    O, what a world is this, when what is comely\n    Envenoms him that bears it!\n  ORLANDO. Why, what's the matter?\n  ADAM. O unhappy youth!\n    Come not within these doors; within this roof\n    The enemy of all your graces lives.\n    Your brother- no, no brother; yet the son-\n    Yet not the son; I will not call him son\n    Of him I was about to call his father-\n    Hath heard your praises; and this night he means\n    To burn the lodging where you use to lie,\n    And you within it. If he fail of that,\n    He will have other means to cut you off;\n    I overheard him and his practices.\n    This is no place; this house is but a butchery;\n    Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it.\n  ORLANDO. Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go?\n  ADAM. No matter whither, so you come not here.\n  ORLANDO. What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food,\n    Or with a base and boist'rous sword enforce\n    A thievish living on the common road?\n    This I must do, or know not what to do;\n    Yet this I will not do, do how I can.\n    I rather will subject me to the malice\n    Of a diverted blood and bloody brother.\n  ADAM. But do not so. I have five hundred crowns,\n    The thrifty hire I sav'd under your father,\n    Which I did store to be my foster-nurse,\n    When service should in my old limbs lie lame,\n    And unregarded age in corners thrown.\n    Take that, and He that doth the ravens feed,\n    Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,\n    Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold;\n    All this I give you. Let me be your servant;\n    Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;\n    For in my youth I never did apply\n    Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,\n    Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo\n    The means of weakness and debility;\n    Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,\n    Frosty, but kindly. Let me go with you;\n    I'll do the service of a younger man\n    In all your business and necessities.\n  ORLANDO. O good old man, how well in thee appears\n    The constant service of the antique world,\n    When service sweat for duty, not for meed!\n    Thou art not for the fashion of these times,\n    Where none will sweat but for promotion,\n    And having that do choke their service up\n    Even with the having; it is not so with thee.\n    But, poor old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree\n    That cannot so much as a blossom yield\n    In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry.\n    But come thy ways, we'll go along together,\n    And ere we have thy youthful wages spent\n    We'll light upon some settled low content.\n  ADAM. Master, go on; and I will follow the\n    To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.\n    From seventeen years till now almost four-score\n    Here lived I, but now live here no more.\n    At seventeen years many their fortunes seek,\n    But at fourscore it is too late a week;\n    Yet fortune cannot recompense me better\n    Than to die well and not my master's debtor.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nThe Forest of Arden\n\nEnter ROSALIND for GANYMEDE, CELIA for ALIENA, and CLOWN alias TOUCHSTONE\n\n  ROSALIND. O Jupiter, how weary are my spirits!\n  TOUCHSTONE. I Care not for my spirits, if my legs were not weary.\n  ROSALIND. I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's apparel,\n    and to cry like a woman; but I must comfort the weaker vessel, as\n    doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat;\n    therefore, courage, good Aliena.\n  CELIA. I pray you bear with me; I cannot go no further.\n  TOUCHSTONE. For my part, I had rather bear with you than bear you;\n    yet I should bear no cross if I did bear you; for I think you\n    have no money in your purse.\n  ROSALIND. Well,. this is the Forest of Arden.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I; when I was at\n    home I was in a better place; but travellers must be content.\n\n                        Enter CORIN and SILVIUS\n\n  ROSALIND. Ay, be so, good Touchstone. Look you, who comes here, a\n    young man and an old in solemn talk.\n  CORIN. That is the way to make her scorn you still.\n  SILVIUS. O Corin, that thou knew'st how I do love her!\n  CORIN. I partly guess; for I have lov'd ere now.\n  SILVIUS. No, Corin, being old, thou canst not guess,\n    Though in thy youth thou wast as true a lover\n    As ever sigh'd upon a midnight pillow.\n    But if thy love were ever like to mine,\n    As sure I think did never man love so,\n    How many actions most ridiculous\n    Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy?\n  CORIN. Into a thousand that I have forgotten.\n  SILVIUS. O, thou didst then never love so heartily!\n    If thou rememb'rest not the slightest folly\n    That ever love did make thee run into,\n    Thou hast not lov'd;\n    Or if thou hast not sat as I do now,\n    Wearing thy hearer in thy mistress' praise,\n    Thou hast not lov'd;\n    Or if thou hast not broke from company\n    Abruptly, as my passion now makes me,\n    Thou hast not lov'd.\n    O Phebe, Phebe, Phebe!                          Exit Silvius\n  ROSALIND. Alas, poor shepherd! searching of thy wound,\n    I have by hard adventure found mine own.\n  TOUCHSTONE. And I mine. I remember, when I was in love, I broke my\n    sword upon a stone, and bid him take that for coming a-night to\n    Jane Smile; and I remember the kissing of her batler, and the\n    cow's dugs that her pretty chopt hands had milk'd; and I remember\n    the wooing of  peascod instead of her; from whom I took two cods,\n    and giving her them again, said with weeping tears 'Wear these\n    for my sake.' We that are true lovers run into strange capers;\n    but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal\n    in folly.\n  ROSALIND. Thou speak'st wiser than thou art ware of.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Nay, I shall ne'er be ware of mine own wit till I break\n    my shins against it.\n  ROSALIND. Jove, Jove! this shepherd's passion\n    Is much upon my fashion.\n  TOUCHSTONE. And mine; but it grows something stale with me.\n  CELIA. I pray you, one of you question yond man\n    If he for gold will give us any food;\n    I faint almost to death.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Holla, you clown!\n  ROSALIND. Peace, fool; he's not thy Ensman.\n  CORIN. Who calls?\n  TOUCHSTONE. Your betters, sir.\n  CORIN. Else are they very wretched.\n  ROSALIND. Peace, I say. Good even to you, friend.\n  CORIN. And to you, gentle sir, and to you all.\n  ROSALIND. I prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold\n    Can in this desert place buy entertainment,\n    Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed.\n    Here's a young maid with travel much oppress'd,\n    And faints for succour.\n  CORIN. Fair sir, I pity her,\n    And wish, for her sake more than for mine own,\n    My fortunes were more able to relieve her;\n    But I am shepherd to another man,\n    And do not shear the fleeces that I graze.\n    My master is of churlish disposition,\n    And little recks to find the way to heaven\n    By doing deeds of hospitality.\n    Besides, his cote, his flocks, and bounds of feed,\n    Are now on sale; and at our sheepcote now,\n    By reason of his absence, there is nothing\n    That you will feed on; but what is, come see,\n    And in my voice most welcome shall you be.\n  ROSALIND. What is he that shall buy his flock and pasture?\n  CORIN. That young swain that you saw here but erewhile,\n    That little cares for buying any thing.\n  ROSALIND. I pray thee, if it stand with honesty,\n    Buy thou the cottage, pasture, and the flock,\n    And thou shalt have to pay for it of us.\n  CELIA. And we will mend thy wages. I like this place,\n    And willingly could waste my time in it.\n  CORIN. Assuredly the thing is to be sold.\n    Go with me; if you like upon report\n    The soil, the profit, and this kind of life,\n    I will your very faithful feeder be,\n    And buy it with your gold right suddenly.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAnother part of the forest\n\nEnter AMIENS, JAQUES, and OTHERS\n\n                       SONG\n  AMIENS.    Under the greenwood tree\n               Who loves to lie with me,\n               And turn his merry note\n               Unto the sweet bird's throat,\n             Come hither, come hither, come hither.\n               Here shall he see\n               No enemy\n             But winter and rough weather.\n\n  JAQUES. More, more, I prithee, more.\n  AMIENS. It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques.\n  JAQUES. I thank it. More, I prithee, more. I can suck melancholy\n    out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs. More, I prithee, more.\n  AMIENS. My voice is ragged; I know I cannot please you.\n  JAQUES. I do not desire you to please me; I do desire you to sing.\n    Come, more; another stanzo. Call you 'em stanzos?\n  AMIENS. What you will, Monsieur Jaques.\n  JAQUES. Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me nothing. Will\n    you sing?\n  AMIENS. More at your request than to please myself.\n  JAQUES. Well then, if ever I thank any man, I'll thank you; but\n    that they call compliment is like th' encounter of two dog-apes;\n    and when a man thanks me heartily, methinks have given him a\n    penny, and he renders me the beggarly thanks. Come, sing; and you\n    that will not, hold your tongues.\n  AMIENS. Well, I'll end the song. Sirs, cover the while; the Duke\n    will drink under this tree. He hath been all this day to look\n    you.\n  JAQUES. And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is to\n    disputable for my company. I think of as many matters as he; but\n    I give heaven thanks, and make no boast of them. Come, warble,\n    come.\n\n                       SONG\n              [All together here]\n\n           Who doth ambition shun,\n           And loves to live i' th' sun,\n           Seeking the food he eats,\n           And pleas'd with what he gets,\n         Come hither, come hither, come hither.\n           Here shall he see\n           No enemy\n           But winter and rough weather.\n\n  JAQUES. I'll give you a verse to this note that I made yesterday in\n    despite of my invention.\n  AMIENS. And I'll sing it.\n  JAQUES. Thus it goes:\n\n             If it do come to pass\n             That any man turn ass,\n             Leaving his wealth and ease\n             A stubborn will to please,\n           Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame;\n             Here shall he see\n             Gross fools as he,\n             An if he will come to me.\n\n  AMIENS. What's that 'ducdame'?\n  JAQUES. 'Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a circle. I'll\n    go sleep, if I can; if I cannot, I'll rail against all the\n    first-born of Egypt.\n  AMIENS. And I'll go seek the Duke; his banquet is prepar'd.\n                                                Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nThe forest\n\nEnter ORLANDO and ADAM\n\n  ADAM. Dear master, I can go no further. O, I die for food! Here lie\n    I down, and measure out my grave. Farewell, kind master.\n  ORLANDO. Why, how now, Adam! No greater heart in thee? Live a\n    little; comfort a little; cheer thyself a little. If this uncouth\n    forest yield anything savage, I will either be food for it or\n    bring it for food to thee. Thy conceit is nearer death than thy\n    powers. For my sake be comfortable; hold death awhile at the\n    arm's end. I will here be with the presently; and if I bring thee\n    not something to eat, I will give thee leave to die; but if thou\n    diest before I come, thou art a mocker of my labour. Well said!\n    thou look'st cheerly; and I'll be with thee quickly. Yet thou\n    liest in the bleak air. Come, I will bear thee to some shelter;\n    and thou shalt not die for lack of a dinner, if there live\n    anything in this desert. Cheerly, good Adam!          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nThe forest\n\nA table set out. Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and LORDS, like outlaws\n\n  DUKE SENIOR. I think he be transform'd into a beast;\n    For I can nowhere find him like a man.\n  FIRST LORD. My lord, he is but even now gone hence;\n    Here was he merry, hearing of a song.\n  DUKE SENIOR. If he, compact of jars, grow musical,\n    We shall have shortly discord in the spheres.\n    Go seek him; tell him I would speak with him.\n\n                         Enter JAQUES\n\n  FIRST LORD. He saves my labour by his own approach.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Why, how now, monsieur! what a life is this,\n    That your poor friends must woo your company?\n    What, you look merrily!\n  JAQUES. A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' th' forest,\n    A motley fool. A miserable world!\n    As I do live by food, I met a fool,\n    Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun,\n    And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,\n    In good set terms- and yet a motley fool.\n    'Good morrow, fool,' quoth I; 'No, sir,' quoth he,\n    'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune.'\n    And then he drew a dial from his poke,\n    And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,\n    Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock;\n    Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags;\n    'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine;\n    And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;\n    And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,\n    And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;\n    And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear\n    The motley fool thus moral on the time,\n    My lungs began to crow like chanticleer\n    That fools should be so deep contemplative;\n    And I did laugh sans intermission\n    An hour by his dial. O noble fool!\n    A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear.\n  DUKE SENIOR. What fool is this?\n  JAQUES. O worthy fool! One that hath been a courtier,\n    And says, if ladies be but young and fair,\n    They have the gift to know it; and in his brain,\n    Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit\n    After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd\n    With observation, the which he vents\n    In mangled forms. O that I were a fool!\n    I am ambitious for a motley coat.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Thou shalt have one.\n  JAQUES. It is my only suit,\n    Provided that you weed your better judgments\n    Of all opinion that grows rank in them\n    That I am wise. I must have liberty\n    Withal, as large a charter as the wind,\n    To blow on whom I please, for so fools have;\n    And they that are most galled with my folly,\n    They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they so?\n    The why is plain as way to parish church:\n    He that a fool doth very wisely hit\n    Doth very foolishly, although he smart,\n    Not to seem senseless of the bob; if not,\n    The wise man's folly is anatomiz'd\n    Even by the squand'ring glances of the fool.\n    Invest me in my motley; give me leave\n    To speak my mind, and I will through and through\n    Cleanse the foul body of th' infected world,\n    If they will patiently receive my medicine.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do.\n  JAQUES. What, for a counter, would I do but good?\n  DUKE SENIOR. Most Mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin;\n    For thou thyself hast been a libertine,\n    As sensual as the brutish sting itself;\n    And all th' embossed sores and headed evils\n    That thou with license of free foot hast caught\n    Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world.\n  JAQUES. Why, who cries out on pride\n    That can therein tax any private party?\n    Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea,\n    Till that the wearer's very means do ebb?\n    What woman in the city do I name\n    When that I say the city-woman bears\n    The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders?\n    Who can come in and say that I mean her,\n    When such a one as she such is her neighbour?\n    Or what is he of basest function\n    That says his bravery is not on my cost,\n    Thinking that I mean him, but therein suits\n    His folly to the mettle of my speech?\n    There then! how then? what then? Let me see wherein\n    My tongue hath wrong'd him: if it do him right,\n    Then he hath wrong'd himself; if he be free,\n    Why then my taxing like a wild-goose flies,\n    Unclaim'd of any man. But who comes here?\n\n             Enter ORLANDO with his sword drawn\n\n  ORLANDO. Forbear, and eat no more.\n  JAQUES. Why, I have eat none yet.\n  ORLANDO. Nor shalt not, till necessity be serv'd.\n  JAQUES. Of what kind should this cock come of?\n  DUKE SENIOR. Art thou thus bolden'd, man, by thy distress?\n    Or else a rude despiser of good manners,\n    That in civility thou seem'st so empty?\n  ORLANDO. You touch'd my vein at first: the thorny point\n    Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show\n    Of smooth civility; yet arn I inland bred,\n    And know some nurture. But forbear, I say;\n    He dies that touches any of this fruit\n    Till I and my affairs are answered.\n  JAQUES. An you will not be answer'd with reason, I must die.\n  DUKE SENIOR. What would you have? Your gentleness shall force\n    More than your force move us to gentleness.\n  ORLANDO. I almost die for food, and let me have it.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table.\n  ORLANDO. Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray you;\n    I thought that all things had been savage here,\n    And therefore put I on the countenance\n    Of stern commandment. But whate'er you are\n    That in this desert inaccessible,\n    Under the shade of melancholy boughs,\n    Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time;\n    If ever you have look'd on better days,\n    If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church,\n    If ever sat at any good man's feast,\n    If ever from your eyelids wip'd a tear,\n    And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied,\n    Let gentleness my strong enforcement be;\n    In the which hope I blush, and hide my sword.\n  DUKE SENIOR. True is it that we have seen better days,\n    And have with holy bell been knoll'd to church,\n    And sat at good men's feasts, and wip'd our eyes\n    Of drops that sacred pity hath engend'red;\n    And therefore sit you down in gentleness,\n    And take upon command what help we have\n    That to your wanting may be minist'red.\n  ORLANDO. Then but forbear your food a little while,\n    Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn,\n    And give it food. There is an old poor man\n    Who after me hath many a weary step\n    Limp'd in pure love; till he be first suffic'd,\n    Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger,\n    I will not touch a bit.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Go find him out.\n    And we will nothing waste till you return.\n  ORLANDO. I thank ye; and be blest for your good comfort!\n Exit\n  DUKE SENIOR. Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:\n    This wide and universal theatre\n    Presents more woeful pageants than the scene\n    Wherein we play in.\n  JAQUES. All the world's a stage,\n    And all the men and women merely players;\n    They have their exits and their entrances;\n    And one man in his time plays many parts,\n    His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,\n    Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;\n    Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel\n    And shining morning face, creeping like snail\n    Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,\n    Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad\n    Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,\n    Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,\n    Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,\n    Seeking the bubble reputation\n    Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,\n    In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,\n    With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,\n    Full of wise saws and modern instances;\n    And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts\n    Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,\n    With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,\n    His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide\n    For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,\n    Turning again toward childish treble, pipes\n    And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,\n    That ends this strange eventful history,\n    Is second childishness and mere oblivion;\n    Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.\n\n                  Re-enter ORLANDO with ADAM\n\n  DUKE SENIOR. Welcome. Set down your venerable burden.\n    And let him feed.\n  ORLANDO. I thank you most for him.\n  ADAM. So had you need;\n    I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Welcome; fall to. I will not trouble you\n    As yet to question you about your fortunes.\n    Give us some music; and, good cousin, sing.\n\n                         SONG\n            Blow, blow, thou winter wind,\n            Thou art not so unkind\n              As man's ingratitude;\n            Thy tooth is not so keen,\n            Because thou art not seen,\n              Although thy breath be rude.\n    Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly.\n    Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.\n            Then, heigh-ho, the holly!\n              This life is most jolly.\n\n            Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,\n            That dost not bite so nigh\n              As benefits forgot;\n            Though thou the waters warp,\n            Thy sting is not so sharp\n              As friend rememb'red not.\n    Heigh-ho! sing, &c.\n\n  DUKE SENIOR. If that you were the good Sir Rowland's son,\n    As you have whisper'd faithfully you were,\n    And as mine eye doth his effigies witness\n    Most truly limn'd and living in your face,\n    Be truly welcome hither. I am the Duke\n    That lov'd your father. The residue of your fortune,\n    Go to my cave and tell me. Good old man,\n    Thou art right welcome as thy master is.\n    Support him by the arm. Give me your hand,\n    And let me all your fortunes understand.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nThe palace\n\nEnter DUKE FREDERICK, OLIVER, and LORDS\n\n  FREDERICK. Not see him since! Sir, sir, that cannot be.\n    But were I not the better part made mercy,\n    I should not seek an absent argument\n    Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it:\n    Find out thy brother wheresoe'er he is;\n    Seek him with candle; bring him dead or living\n    Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more\n    To seek a living in our territory.\n    Thy lands and all things that thou dost call thine\n    Worth seizure do we seize into our hands,\n    Till thou canst quit thee by thy brother's mouth\n    Of what we think against thee.\n  OLIVER. O that your Highness knew my heart in this!\n    I never lov'd my brother in my life.\n  FREDERICK. More villain thou. Well, push him out of doors;\n    And let my officers of such a nature\n    Make an extent upon his house and lands.\n    Do this expediently, and turn him going.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe forest\n\nEnter ORLANDO, with a paper\n\n  ORLANDO. Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love;\n    And thou, thrice-crowned Queen of Night, survey\n    With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,\n    Thy huntress' name that my full life doth sway.\n    O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books,\n    And in their barks my thoughts I'll character,\n    That every eye which in this forest looks\n    Shall see thy virtue witness'd every where.\n    Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree,\n    The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.             Exit\n\n                     Enter CORIN and TOUCHSTONE\n\n  CORIN. And how like you this shepherd's life, Master Touchstone?\n  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good\n    life; but in respect that it is a shepherd's life, it is nought.\n    In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in\n    respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now in\n    respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect\n    it is not in the court, it is tedious. As it is a spare life,\n    look you, it fits my humour well; but as there is no more plenty\n    in it, it goes much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in\n    thee, shepherd?\n  CORIN. No more but that I know the more one sickens the worse at\n    ease he is; and that he that wants money, means, and content, is\n    without three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet,\n    and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep; and that a\n    great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath\n    learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding,\n    or comes of a very dull kindred.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in\n    court, shepherd?\n  CORIN. No, truly.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Then thou art damn'd.\n  CORIN. Nay, I hope.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, thou art damn'd, like an ill-roasted egg, all on\n    one side.\n  CORIN. For not being at court? Your reason.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Why, if thou never wast at court thou never saw'st good\n    manners; if thou never saw'st good manners, then thy manners must\n    be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art\n    in a parlous state, shepherd.\n  CORIN. Not a whit, Touchstone. Those that are good manners at the\n    court are as ridiculous in the country as the behaviour of the\n    country is most mockable at the court. You told me you salute not\n    at the court, but you kiss your hands; that courtesy would be\n    uncleanly if courtiers were shepherds.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Instance, briefly; come, instance.\n  CORIN. Why, we are still handling our ewes; and their fells, you\n    know, are greasy.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Why, do not your courtier's hands sweat? And is not the\n    grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of a man? Shallow,\n    shallow. A better instance, I say; come.\n  CORIN. Besides, our hands are hard.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow again. A\n    more sounder instance; come.\n  CORIN. And they are often tarr'd over with the surgery of our\n    sheep; and would you have us kiss tar? The courtier's hands are\n    perfum'd with civet.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Most shallow man! thou worm's meat in respect of a good\n    piece of flesh indeed! Learn of the wise, and perpend: civet is\n    of a baser birth than tar- the very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend\n    the instance, shepherd.\n  CORIN. You have too courtly a wit for me; I'll rest.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Wilt thou rest damn'd? God help thee, shallow man! God\n    make incision in thee! thou art raw.\n  CORIN. Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get that I\n    wear; owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness; glad of other\n    men's good, content with my harm; and the greatest of my pride is\n    to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck.\n  TOUCHSTONE. That is another simple sin in you: to bring the ewes\n    and the rams together, and to offer to get your living by the\n    copulation of cattle; to be bawd to a bell-wether, and to betray\n    a she-lamb of a twelvemonth to crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram,\n    out of all reasonable match. If thou beest not damn'd for this,\n    the devil himself will have no shepherds; I cannot see else how\n    thou shouldst scape.\n  CORIN. Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress's brother.\n\n                  Enter ROSALIND, reading a paper\n\n  ROSALIND.   'From the east to western Inde,\n              No jewel is like Rosalinde.\n              Her worth, being mounted on the wind,\n              Through all the world bears Rosalinde.\n              All the pictures fairest lin'd\n              Are but black to Rosalinde.\n              Let no face be kept in mind\n              But the fair of Rosalinde.'\n  TOUCHSTONE. I'll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners, and\n    suppers, and sleeping hours, excepted. It is the right\n    butter-women's rank to market.\n  ROSALIND. Out, fool!\n  TOUCHSTONE.   For a taste:\n                If a hart do lack a hind,\n                Let him seek out Rosalinde.\n                If the cat will after kind,\n                So be sure will Rosalinde.\n                Winter garments must be lin'd,\n                So must slender Rosalinde.\n                They that reap must sheaf and bind,\n                Then to cart with Rosalinde.\n                Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,\n                Such a nut is Rosalinde.\n                He that sweetest rose will find\n                Must find love's prick and Rosalinde.\n    This is the very false gallop of verses; why do you infect\n    yourself with them?\n  ROSALIND. Peace, you dull fool! I found them on a tree.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.\n  ROSALIND. I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a\n    medlar. Then it will be the earliest fruit i' th' country; for\n    you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the right\n    virtue of the medlar.\n  TOUCHSTONE. You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the forest\n    judge.\n\n                      Enter CELIA, with a writing\n\n  ROSALIND. Peace!\n    Here comes my sister, reading; stand aside.\n  CELIA.   'Why should this a desert be?\n             For it is unpeopled? No;\n           Tongues I'll hang on every tree\n             That shall civil sayings show.\n           Some, how brief the life of man\n             Runs his erring pilgrimage,\n           That the streching of a span\n             Buckles in his sum of age;\n           Some, of violated vows\n             'Twixt the souls of friend and friend;\n           But upon the fairest boughs,\n             Or at every sentence end,\n           Will I Rosalinda write,\n             Teaching all that read to know\n           The quintessence of every sprite\n             Heaven would in little show.\n           Therefore heaven Nature charg'd\n             That one body should be fill'd\n           With all graces wide-enlarg'd.\n             Nature presently distill'd\n           Helen's cheek, but not her heart,\n             Cleopatra's majesty,\n           Atalanta's better part,\n             Sad Lucretia's modesty.\n           Thus Rosalinde of many parts\n             By heavenly synod was devis'd,\n           Of many faces, eyes, and hearts,\n             To have the touches dearest priz'd.\n           Heaven would that she these gifts should have,\n           And I to live and die her slave.'\n  ROSALIND. O most gentle pulpiter! What tedious homily of love have\n    you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cried 'Have\n    patience, good people.'\n  CELIA. How now! Back, friends; shepherd, go off a little; go with\n    him, sirrah.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat;\n    though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.\n                                     Exeunt CORIN and TOUCHSTONE\n  CELIA. Didst thou hear these verses?\n  ROSALIND. O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of them\n    had in them more feet than the verses would bear.\n  CELIA. That's no matter; the feet might bear the verses.\n  ROSALIND. Ay, but the feet were lame, and could not bear themselves\n    without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse.\n  CELIA. But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name should be\n    hang'd and carved upon these trees?\n  ROSALIND. I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder before you\n    came; for look here what I found on a palm-tree. I was never so\n    berhym'd since Pythagoras' time that I was an Irish rat, which I\n    can hardly remember.\n  CELIA. Trow you who hath done this?\n  ROSALIND. Is it a man?\n  CELIA. And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck.\n    Change you colour?\n  ROSALIND. I prithee, who?\n  CELIA. O Lord, Lord! it is a hard matter for friends to meet; but\n    mountains may be remov'd with earthquakes, and so encounter.\n  ROSALIND. Nay, but who is it?\n  CELIA. Is it possible?\n  ROSALIND. Nay, I prithee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell\n    me who it is.\n  CELIA. O wonderful, wonderful, most wonderful wonderful, and yet\n    again wonderful, and after that, out of all whooping!\n  ROSALIND. Good my complexion! dost thou think, though I am\n    caparison'd like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my\n    disposition? One inch of delay more is a South Sea of discovery.\n    I prithee tell me who is it quickly, and speak apace. I would\n    thou could'st stammer, that thou mightst pour this conceal'd man\n    out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of narrow-mouth'd bottle-\n    either too much at once or none at all. I prithee take the cork\n    out of thy mouth that I may drink thy tidings.\n  CELIA. So you may put a man in your belly.\n  ROSALIND. Is he of God's making? What manner of man?\n    Is his head worth a hat or his chin worth a beard?\n  CELIA. Nay, he hath but a little beard.\n  ROSALIND. Why, God will send more if the man will be thankful. Let\n    me stay the growth of his beard, if thou delay me not the\n    knowledge of his chin.\n  CELIA. It is young Orlando, that tripp'd up the wrestler's heels\n    and your heart both in an instant.\n  ROSALIND. Nay, but the devil take mocking! Speak sad brow and true\n    maid.\n  CELIA. I' faith, coz, 'tis he.\n  ROSALIND. Orlando?\n  CELIA. Orlando.\n  ROSALIND. Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet and hose?\n    What did he when thou saw'st him? What said he? How look'd he?\n    Wherein went he? What makes he here? Did he ask for me? Where\n    remains he? How parted he with thee? And when shalt thou see him\n    again? Answer me in one word.\n  CELIA. You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth first; 'tis a word too\n    great for any mouth of this age's size. To say ay and no to these\n    particulars is more than to answer in a catechism.\n  ROSALIND. But doth he know that I am in this forest, and in man's\n    apparel? Looks he as freshly as he did the day he wrestled?\n  CELIA. It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the\n    propositions of a lover; but take a taste of my finding him, and\n    relish it with good observance. I found him under a tree, like a\n    dropp'd acorn.\n  ROSALIND. It may well be call'd Jove's tree, when it drops forth\n    such fruit.\n  CELIA. Give me audience, good madam.\n  ROSALIND. Proceed.\n  CELIA. There lay he, stretch'd along like a wounded knight.\n  ROSALIND. Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well becomes\n    the ground.\n  CELIA. Cry 'Holla' to thy tongue, I prithee; it curvets\n    unseasonably. He was furnish'd like a hunter.\n  ROSALIND. O, ominous! he comes to kill my heart.\n  CELIA. I would sing my song without a burden; thou bring'st me out\n    of tune.\n  ROSALIND. Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak.\n    Sweet, say on.\n  CELIA. You bring me out. Soft! comes he not here?\n\n                   Enter ORLANDO and JAQUES\n\n  ROSALIND. 'Tis he; slink by, and note him.\n  JAQUES. I thank you for your company; but, good faith, I had as\n    lief have been myself alone.\n  ORLANDO. And so had I; but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you too\n    for your society.\n  JAQUES. God buy you; let's meet as little as we can.\n  ORLANDO. I do desire we may be better strangers.\n  JAQUES. I pray you mar no more trees with writing love songs in\n    their barks.\n  ORLANDO. I pray you mar no more of my verses with reading them\n    ill-favouredly.\n  JAQUES. Rosalind is your love's name?\n  ORLANDO. Yes, just.\n  JAQUES. I do not like her name.\n  ORLANDO. There was no thought of pleasing you when she was\n    christen'd.\n  JAQUES. What stature is she of?\n  ORLANDO. Just as high as my heart.\n  JAQUES. You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been\n    acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conn'd them out of rings?\n  ORLANDO. Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth, from whence\n    you have studied your questions.\n  JAQUES. You have a nimble wit; I think 'twas made of Atalanta's\n    heels. Will you sit down with me? and we two will rail against\n    our mistress the world, and all our misery.\n  ORLANDO. I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against\n    whom I know most faults.\n  JAQUES. The worst fault you have is to be in love.\n  ORLANDO. 'Tis a fault I will not change for your best virtue. I am\n    weary of you.\n  JAQUES. By my troth, I was seeking for a fool when I found you.\n  ORLANDO. He is drown'd in the brook; look but in, and you shall see\n    him.\n  JAQUES. There I shall see mine own figure.\n  ORLANDO. Which I take to be either a fool or a cipher.\n  JAQUES. I'll tarry no longer with you; farewell, good Signior Love.\n  ORLANDO. I am glad of your departure; adieu, good Monsieur\n    Melancholy.\n                                                     Exit JAQUES\n  ROSALIND. [Aside to CELIA] I will speak to him like a saucy lackey,\n    and under that habit play the knave with him.- Do you hear,\n    forester?\n  ORLANDO. Very well; what would you?\n  ROSALIND. I pray you, what is't o'clock?\n  ORLANDO. You should ask me what time o' day; there's no clock in\n    the forest.\n  ROSALIND. Then there is no true lover in the forest, else sighing\n    every minute and groaning every hour would detect the lazy foot\n    of Time as well as a clock.\n  ORLANDO. And why not the swift foot of Time? Had not that been as\n    proper?\n  ROSALIND. By no means, sir. Time travels in divers paces with\n    divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time\n    trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still\n    withal.\n  ORLANDO. I prithee, who doth he trot withal?\n  ROSALIND. Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the\n    contract of her marriage and the day it is solemniz'd; if the\n    interim be but a se'nnight, Time's pace is so hard that it seems\n    the length of seven year.\n  ORLANDO. Who ambles Time withal?\n  ROSALIND. With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that hath\n    not the gout; for the one sleeps easily because he cannot study,\n    and the other lives merrily because he feels no pain; the one\n    lacking the burden of lean and wasteful learning, the other\n    knowing no burden of heavy tedious penury. These Time ambles\n    withal.\n  ORLANDO. Who doth he gallop withal?\n  ROSALIND. With a thief to the gallows; for though he go as softly\n    as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there.\n  ORLANDO. Who stays it still withal?\n  ROSALIND. With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term\n    and term, and then they perceive not how Time moves.\n  ORLANDO. Where dwell you, pretty youth?\n  ROSALIND. With this shepherdess, my sister; here in the skirts of\n    the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat.\n  ORLANDO. Are you native of this place?\n  ROSALIND. As the coney that you see dwell where she is kindled.\n  ORLANDO. Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in\n    so removed a dwelling.\n  ROSALIND. I have been told so of many; but indeed an old religious\n    uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland\n    man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love.\n    I have heard him read many lectures against it; and I thank God I\n    am not a woman, to be touch'd with so many giddy offences as he\n    hath generally tax'd their whole sex withal.\n  ORLANDO. Can you remember any of the principal evils that he laid\n    to the charge of women?\n  ROSALIND. There were none principal; they were all like one another\n    as halfpence are; every one fault seeming monstrous till his\n    fellow-fault came to match it.\n  ORLANDO. I prithee recount some of them.\n  ROSALIND. No; I will not cast away my physic but on those that are\n    sick. There is a man haunts the forest that abuses our young\n    plants with carving 'Rosalind' on their barks; hangs odes upon\n    hawthorns and elegies on brambles; all, forsooth, deifying the\n    name of Rosalind. If I could meet that fancy-monger, I would give\n    him some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love\n    upon him.\n  ORLANDO. I am he that is so love-shak'd; I pray you tell me your\n    remedy.\n  ROSALIND. There is none of my uncle's marks upon you; he taught me\n    how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes I am sure you\n    are not prisoner.\n  ORLANDO. What were his marks?\n  ROSALIND. A lean cheek, which you have not; a blue eye and sunken,\n    which you have not; an unquestionable spirit, which you have not;\n    a beard neglected, which you have not; but I pardon you for that,\n    for simply your having in beard is a younger brother's revenue.\n    Then your hose should be ungarter'd, your bonnet unbanded, your\n    sleeve unbutton'd, your shoe untied, and every thing about you\n    demonstrating a careless desolation. But you are no such man; you\n    are rather point-device in your accoutrements, as loving yourself\n    than seeming the lover of any other.\n  ORLANDO. Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.\n  ROSALIND. Me believe it! You may as soon make her that you love\n    believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to do than to confess\n    she does. That is one of the points in the which women still give\n    the lie to their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he that\n    hangs the verses on the trees wherein Rosalind is so admired?\n  ORLANDO. I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I\n    am that he, that unfortunate he.\n  ROSALIND. But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?\n  ORLANDO. Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.\n  ROSALIND. Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as\n    well a dark house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why\n    they are not so punish'd and cured is that the lunacy is so\n    ordinary that the whippers are in love too. Yet I profess curing\n    it by counsel.\n  ORLANDO. Did you ever cure any so?\n  ROSALIND. Yes, one; and in this manner. He was to imagine me his\n    love, his mistress; and I set him every day to woo me; at which\n    time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate,\n    changeable, longing and liking, proud, fantastical, apish,\n    shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles; for every\n    passion something and for no passion truly anything, as boys and\n    women are for the most part cattle of this colour; would now like\n    him, now loathe him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now\n    weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his\n    mad humour of love to a living humour of madness; which was, to\n    forswear the full stream of the world and to live in a nook\n    merely monastic. And thus I cur'd him; and this way will I take\n    upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's heart,\n    that there shall not be one spot of love in 't.\n  ORLANDO. I would not be cured, youth.\n  ROSALIND. I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind, and\n    come every day to my cote and woo me.\n  ORLANDO. Now, by the faith of my love, I will. Tell me where it is.\n  ROSALIND. Go with me to it, and I'll show it you; and, by the way,\n    you shall tell me where in the forest you live. Will you go?\n  ORLANDO. With all my heart, good youth.\n  ROSALIND. Nay, you must call me Rosalind. Come, sister, will you\n    go?                                                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe forest\n\nEnter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY; JAQUES behind\n\n  TOUCHSTONE. Come apace, good Audrey; I will fetch up your goats,\n    Audrey. And how, Audrey, am I the man yet? Doth my simple feature\n    content you?\n  AUDREY. Your features! Lord warrant us! What features?\n  TOUCHSTONE. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most\n    capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.\n  JAQUES. [Aside] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a\n    thatch'd house!\n  TOUCHSTONE. When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's\n    good wit seconded with the forward child understanding, it\n    strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.\n    Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical.\n  AUDREY. I do not know what 'poetical' is. Is it honest in deed and\n    word? Is it a true thing?\n  TOUCHSTONE. No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning,\n    and lovers are given to poetry; and what they swear in poetry may\n    be said as lovers they do feign.\n  AUDREY. Do you wish, then, that the gods had made me poetical?\n  TOUCHSTONE. I do, truly, for thou swear'st to me thou art honest;\n    now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some hope thou didst\n    feign.\n  AUDREY. Would you not have me honest?\n  TOUCHSTONE. No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favour'd; for honesty\n    coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.\n  JAQUES. [Aside] A material fool!\n  AUDREY. Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me\n    honest.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were\n    to put good meat into an unclean dish.\n  AUDREY. I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness;\n    sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will\n    marry thee; and to that end I have been with Sir Oliver Martext,\n    the vicar of the next village, who hath promis'd to meet me in\n    this place of the forest, and to couple us.\n  JAQUES. [Aside] I would fain see this meeting.\n  AUDREY. Well, the gods give us joy!\n  TOUCHSTONE. Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger\n    in this attempt; for here we have no temple but the wood, no\n    assembly but horn-beasts. But what though? Courage! As horns are\n    odious, they are necessary. It is said: 'Many a man knows no end\n    of his goods.' Right! Many a man has good horns and knows no end\n    of them. Well, that is the dowry of his wife; 'tis none of his\n    own getting. Horns? Even so. Poor men alone? No, no; the noblest\n    deer hath them as huge as the rascal. Is the single man therefore\n    blessed? No; as a wall'd town is more worthier than a village, so\n    is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare\n    brow of a bachelor; and by how much defence is better than no\n    skill, by so much is horn more precious than to want. Here comes\n    Sir Oliver.\n\n                       Enter SIR OLIVER MARTEXT\n\n    Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met. Will you dispatch us here\n    under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel?\n  MARTEXT. Is there none here to give the woman?\n  TOUCHSTONE. I will not take her on gift of any man.\n  MARTEXT. Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful.\n  JAQUES. [Discovering himself] Proceed, proceed; I'll give her.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Good even, good Master What-ye-call't; how do you, sir?\n    You are very well met. Goddild you for your last company. I am\n    very glad to see you. Even a toy in hand here, sir. Nay; pray be\n    cover'd.\n  JAQUES. Will you be married, motley?\n  TOUCHSTONE. As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and\n    the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires; and as pigeons\n    bill, so wedlock would be nibbling.\n  JAQUES. And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married\n    under a bush, like a beggar? Get you to church and have a good\n    priest that can tell you what marriage is; this fellow will but\n    join you together as they join wainscot; then one of you will\n    prove a shrunk panel, and like green timber warp, warp.\n  TOUCHSTONE. [Aside] I am not in the mind but I were better to be\n    married of him than of another; for he is not like to marry me\n    well; and not being well married, it will be a good excuse for me\n    hereafter to leave my wife.\n  JAQUES. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Come, sweet Audrey;\n    We must be married or we must live in bawdry.\n    Farewell, good Master Oliver. Not-\n               O sweet Oliver,\n               O brave Oliver,\n           Leave me not behind thee.\n    But-\n                 Wind away,\n               Begone, I say,\n           I will not to wedding with thee.\n                           Exeunt JAQUES, TOUCHSTONE, and AUDREY\n  MARTEXT. 'Tis no matter; ne'er a fantastical knave of them all\n    shall flout me out of my calling.                       Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nThe forest\n\nEnter ROSALIND and CELIA\n\n  ROSALIND. Never talk to me; I will weep.\n  CELIA. Do, I prithee; but yet have the grace to consider that tears\n    do not become a man.\n  ROSALIND. But have I not cause to weep?\n  CELIA. As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep.\n  ROSALIND. His very hair is of the dissembling colour.\n  CELIA. Something browner than Judas's.\n    Marry, his kisses are Judas's own children.\n  ROSALIND. I' faith, his hair is of a good colour.\n  CELIA. An excellent colour: your chestnut was ever the only colour.\n  ROSALIND. And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of\n    holy bread.\n  CELIA. He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana. A nun of\n    winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of\n    chastity is in them.\n  ROSALIND. But why did he swear he would come this morning, and\n    comes not?\n  CELIA. Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him.\n  ROSALIND. Do you think so?\n  CELIA. Yes; I think he is not a pick-purse nor a horse-stealer; but\n    for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as covered\n    goblet or a worm-eaten nut.\n  ROSALIND. Not true in love?\n  CELIA. Yes, when he is in; but I think he is not in.\n  ROSALIND. You have heard him swear downright he was.\n  CELIA. 'Was' is not 'is'; besides, the oath of a lover is no\n    stronger than the word of a tapster; they are both the confirmer\n    of false reckonings. He attends here in the forest on the Duke,\n    your father.\n  ROSALIND. I met the Duke yesterday, and had much question with him.\n    He asked me of what parentage I was; I told him, of as good as\n    he; so he laugh'd and let me go. But what talk we of fathers when\n    there is such a man as Orlando?\n  CELIA. O, that's a brave man! He writes brave verses, speaks brave\n    words, swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely, quite\n    traverse, athwart the heart of his lover; as a puny tilter, that\n    spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble\n    goose. But all's brave that youth mounts and folly guides. Who\n    comes here?\n\n                         Enter CORIN\n\n  CORIN. Mistress and master, you have oft enquired\n    After the shepherd that complain'd of love,\n    Who you saw sitting by me on the turf,\n    Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess\n    That was his mistress.\n  CELIA. Well, and what of him?\n  CORIN. If you will see a pageant truly play'd\n    Between the pale complexion of true love\n    And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain,\n    Go hence a little, and I shall conduct you,\n    If you will mark it.\n  ROSALIND. O, come, let us remove!\n    The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.\n    Bring us to this sight, and you shall say\n    I'll prove a busy actor in their play.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAnother part of the forest\n\nEnter SILVIUS and PHEBE\n\n  SILVIUS. Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phebe.\n    Say that you love me not; but say not so\n    In bitterness. The common executioner,\n    Whose heart th' accustom'd sight of death makes hard,\n    Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck\n    But first begs pardon. Will you sterner be\n    Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?\n\n          Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN, at a distance\n\n  PHEBE. I would not be thy executioner;\n    I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.\n    Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye.\n    'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,\n    That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things,\n    Who shut their coward gates on atomies,\n    Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!\n    Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;\n    And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee.\n    Now counterfeit to swoon; why, now fall down;\n    Or, if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,\n    Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.\n    Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee.\n    Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains\n    Some scar of it; lean upon a rush,\n    The cicatrice and capable impressure\n    Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes,\n    Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not;\n    Nor, I am sure, there is not force in eyes\n    That can do hurt.\n  SILVIUS. O dear Phebe,\n    If ever- as that ever may be near-\n    You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,\n    Then shall you know the wounds invisible\n    That love's keen arrows make.\n  PHEBE. But till that time\n    Come not thou near me; and when that time comes,\n    Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not;\n    As till that time I shall not pity thee.\n  ROSALIND. [Advancing] And why, I pray you? Who might be your\n      mother,\n    That you insult, exult, and all at once,\n    Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty-\n    As, by my faith, I see no more in you\n    Than without candle may go dark to bed-\n    Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?\n    Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?\n    I see no more in you than in the ordinary\n    Of nature's sale-work. 'Od's my little life,\n    I think she means to tangle my eyes too!\n    No faith, proud mistress, hope not after it;\n    'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,\n    Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream,\n    That can entame my spirits to your worship.\n    You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her,\n    Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain?\n    You are a thousand times a properer man\n    Than she a woman. 'Tis such fools as you\n    That makes the world full of ill-favour'd children.\n    'Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her;\n    And out of you she sees herself more proper\n    Than any of her lineaments can show her.\n    But, mistress, know yourself. Down on your knees,\n    And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love;\n    For I must tell you friendly in your ear:\n    Sell when you can; you are not for all markets.\n    Cry the man mercy, love him, take his offer;\n    Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.\n    So take her to thee, shepherd. Fare you well.\n  PHEBE. Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together;\n    I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.\n  ROSALIND. He's fall'n in love with your foulness, and she'll fall\n    in love with my anger. If it be so, as fast as she answers thee\n    with frowning looks, I'll sauce her with bitter words. Why look\n    you so upon me?\n  PHEBE. For no ill will I bear you.\n  ROSALIND. I pray you do not fall in love with me,\n    For I am falser than vows made in wine;\n    Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house,\n    'Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by.\n    Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard.\n    Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better,\n    And be not proud; though all the world could see,\n    None could be so abus'd in sight as he.\n    Come, to our flock.        Exeunt ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN\n  PHEBE. Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might:\n    'Who ever lov'd that lov'd not at first sight?'\n  SILVIUS. Sweet Phebe.\n  PHEBE. Ha! what say'st thou, Silvius?\n  SILVIUS. Sweet Phebe, pity me.\n  PHEBE. Why, I arn sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.\n  SILVIUS. Wherever sorrow is, relief would be.\n    If you do sorrow at my grief in love,\n    By giving love, your sorrow and my grief\n    Were both extermin'd.\n  PHEBE. Thou hast my love; is not that neighbourly?\n  SILVIUS. I would have you.\n  PHEBE. Why, that were covetousness.\n    Silvius, the time was that I hated thee;\n    And yet it is not that I bear thee love;\n    But since that thou canst talk of love so well,\n    Thy company, which erst was irksome to me,\n    I will endure; and I'll employ thee too.\n    But do not look for further recompense\n    Than thine own gladness that thou art employ'd.\n  SILVIUS. So holy and so perfect is my love,\n    And I in such a poverty of grace,\n    That I shall think it a most plenteous crop\n    To glean the broken ears after the man\n    That the main harvest reaps; loose now and then\n    A scatt'red smile, and that I'll live upon.\n  PHEBE. Know'st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile?\n  SILVIUS. Not very well; but I have met him oft;\n    And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds\n    That the old carlot once was master of.\n  PHEBE. Think not I love him, though I ask for him;\n    'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well.\n    But what care I for words? Yet words do well\n    When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.\n    It is a pretty youth- not very pretty;\n    But, sure, he's proud; and yet his pride becomes him.\n    He'll make a proper man. The best thing in him\n    Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue\n    Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.\n    He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall;\n    His leg is but so-so; and yet 'tis well.\n    There was a pretty redness in his lip,\n    A little riper and more lusty red\n    Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the difference\n    Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.\n    There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him\n    In parcels as I did, would have gone near\n    To fall in love with him; but, for my part,\n    I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet\n    I have more cause to hate him than to love him;\n    For what had he to do to chide at me?\n    He said mine eyes were black, and my hair black,\n    And, now I am rememb'red, scorn'd at me.\n    I marvel why I answer'd not again;\n    But that's all one: omittance is no quittance.\n    I'll write to him a very taunting letter,\n    And thou shalt bear it; wilt thou, Silvius?\n  SILVIUS. Phebe, with all my heart.\n  PHEBE. I'll write it straight;\n    The matter's in my head and in my heart;\n    I will be bitter with him and passing short.\n    Go with me, Silvius.                                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nThe forest\n\nEnter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES\n\n  JAQUES. I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with\n    thee.\n  ROSALIND. They say you are a melancholy fellow.\n  JAQUES. I am so; I do love it better than laughing.\n  ROSALIND. Those that are in extremity of either are abominable\n    fellows, and betray themselves to every modern censure worse than\n    drunkards.\n  JAQUES. Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing.\n  ROSALIND. Why then, 'tis good to be a post.\n  JAQUES. I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is\n    emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the\n    courtier's, which is proud; nor the soldier's, which is\n    ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the lady's,\n    which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all these; but it is a\n    melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted\n    from many objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my\n    travels; in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous\n    sadness.\n  ROSALIND. A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be\n    sad. I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men's; then\n    to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and\n    poor hands.\n  JAQUES. Yes, I have gain'd my experience.\n\n                        Enter ORLANDO\n\n  ROSALIND. And your experience makes you sad. I had rather have a\n    fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad- and to\n    travel for it too.\n  ORLANDO. Good day, and happiness, dear Rosalind!\n  JAQUES. Nay, then, God buy you, an you talk in blank verse.\n  ROSALIND. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller; look you lisp and wear\n    strange suits, disable all the benefits of your own country, be\n    out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making\n    you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have\n    swam in a gondola. [Exit JAQUES] Why, how now, Orlando! where\n    have you been all this while? You a lover! An you serve me such\n    another trick, never come in my sight more.\n  ORLANDO. My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.\n  ROSALIND. Break an hour's promise in love! He that will divide a\n    minute into a thousand parts, and break but a part of the\n    thousand part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said\n    of him that Cupid hath clapp'd him o' th' shoulder, but I'll\n    warrant him heart-whole.\n  ORLANDO. Pardon me, dear Rosalind.\n  ROSALIND. Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight. I had\n    as lief be woo'd of a snail.\n  ORLANDO. Of a snail!\n  ROSALIND. Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries\n    his house on his head- a better jointure, I think, than you make\n    a woman; besides, he brings his destiny with him.\n  ORLANDO. What's that?\n  ROSALIND. Why, horns; which such as you are fain to be beholding to\n    your wives for; but he comes armed in his fortune, and prevents\n    the slander of his wife.\n  ORLANDO. Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous.\n  ROSALIND. And I am your Rosalind.\n  CELIA. It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a Rosalind of a\n    better leer than you.\n  ROSALIND. Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour,\n    and like enough to consent. What would you say to me now, an I\n    were your very very Rosalind?\n  ORLANDO. I would kiss before I spoke.\n  ROSALIND. Nay, you were better speak first; and when you were\n    gravell'd for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss.\n    Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for\n    lovers lacking- God warn us!- matter, the cleanliest shift is to\n    kiss.\n  ORLANDO. How if the kiss be denied?\n  ROSALIND. Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new\n    matter.\n  ORLANDO. Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?\n  ROSALIND. Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress; or I\n    should think my honesty ranker than my wit.\n  ORLANDO. What, of my suit?\n  ROSALIND. Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit.\n    Am not I your Rosalind?\n  ORLANDO. I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking\n    of her.\n  ROSALIND. Well, in her person, I say I will not have you.\n  ORLANDO. Then, in mine own person, I die.\n  ROSALIND. No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six\n    thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man\n    died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause. Troilus had\n    his brains dash'd out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he\n    could to die before, and he is one of the patterns of love.\n    Leander, he would have liv'd many a fair year, though Hero had\n    turn'd nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for,\n    good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and,\n    being taken with the cramp, was drown'd; and the foolish\n    chroniclers of that age found it was- Hero of Sestos. But these\n    are all lies: men have died from time to time, and worms have\n    eaten them, but not for love.\n  ORLANDO. I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind; for, I\n    protest, her frown might kill me.\n  ROSALIND. By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now I\n    will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on disposition; and ask me\n    what you will, I will grant it.\n  ORLANDO. Then love me, Rosalind.\n  ROSALIND. Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays, and all.\n  ORLANDO. And wilt thou have me?\n  ROSALIND. Ay, and twenty such.\n  ORLANDO. What sayest thou?\n  ROSALIND. Are you not good?\n  ORLANDO. I hope so.\n  ROSALIND. Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing? Come,\n    sister, you shall be the priest, and marry us. Give me your hand,\n    Orlando. What do you say, sister?\n  ORLANDO. Pray thee, marry us.\n  CELIA. I cannot say the words.\n  ROSALIND. You must begin 'Will you, Orlando'-\n  CELIA. Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?\n  ORLANDO. I will.\n  ROSALIND. Ay, but when?\n  ORLANDO. Why, now; as fast as she can marry us.\n  ROSALIND. Then you must say 'I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.'\n  ORLANDO. I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.\n  ROSALIND. I might ask you for your commission; but- I do take thee,\n    Orlando, for my husband. There's a girl goes before the priest;\n    and, certainly, a woman's thought runs before her actions.\n  ORLANDO. So do all thoughts; they are wing'd.\n  ROSALIND. Now tell me how long you would have her, after you have\n    possess'd her.\n  ORLANDO. For ever and a day.\n  ROSALIND. Say 'a day' without the 'ever.' No, no, Orlando; men are\n    April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when\n    they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will\n    be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen,\n    more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more new-fangled than\n    an ape, more giddy in my desires than a monkey. I will weep for\n    nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you\n    are dispos'd to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when\n    thou are inclin'd to sleep.\n  ORLANDO. But will my Rosalind do so?\n  ROSALIND. By my life, she will do as I do.\n  ORLANDO. O, but she is wise.\n  ROSALIND. Or else she could not have the wit to do this. The wiser,\n    the waywarder. Make the doors upon a woman's wit, and it will out\n    at the casement; shut that, and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop\n    that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.\n  ORLANDO. A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say 'Wit,\n    whither wilt?' ROSALIND. Nay, you might keep that check for it, till you met your\n    wife's wit going to your neighbour's bed.\n  ORLANDO. And what wit could wit have to excuse that?\n  ROSALIND. Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall never\n    take her without her answer, unless you take her without her\n    tongue. O, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband's\n    occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will\n    breed it like a fool!\n  ORLANDO. For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.\n  ROSALIND. Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours!\n  ORLANDO. I must attend the Duke at dinner; by two o'clock I will be\n    with thee again.\n  ROSALIND. Ay, go your ways, go your ways. I knew what you would\n    prove; my friends told me as much, and I thought no less. That\n    flattering tongue of yours won me. 'Tis but one cast away, and\n    so, come death! Two o'clock is your hour?\n  ORLANDO. Ay, sweet Rosalind.\n  ROSALIND. By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend me, and\n    by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous, if you break one jot\n    of your promise, or come one minute behind your hour, I will\n    think you the most pathetical break-promise, and the most hollow\n    lover, and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind, that may\n    be chosen out of the gross band of the unfaithful. Therefore\n    beware my censure, and keep your promise.\n  ORLANDO. With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my\n    Rosalind; so, adieu.\n  ROSALIND. Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such\n    offenders, and let Time try. Adieu.             Exit ORLANDO\n  CELIA. You have simply misus'd our sex in your love-prate. We must\n    have your doublet and hose pluck'd over your head, and show the\n    world what the bird hath done to her own nest.\n  ROSALIND. O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst\n    know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded;\n    my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the Bay of Portugal.\n  CELIA. Or rather, bottomless; that as fast as you pour affection\n    in, it runs out.\n  ROSALIND. No; that same wicked bastard of Venus, that was begot of\n    thought, conceiv'd of spleen, and born of madness; that blind\n    rascally boy, that abuses every one's eyes, because his own are\n    out- let him be judge how deep I am in love. I'll tell thee,\n    Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando. I'll go find a\n    shadow, and sigh till he come.\n  CELIA. And I'll sleep.                                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe forest\n\n        Enter JAQUES and LORDS, in the habit of foresters\n\n  JAQUES. Which is he that killed the deer?\n  LORD. Sir, it was I.\n  JAQUES. Let's present him to the Duke, like a Roman conqueror; and\n    it would do well to set the deer's horns upon his head for a\n    branch of victory. Have you no song, forester, for this purpose?\n  LORD. Yes, sir.\n  JAQUES. Sing it; 'tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise\n    enough.\n\n                    SONG.\n\n      What shall he have that kill'd the deer?\n      His leather skin and horns to wear.\n                              [The rest shall hear this burden:]\n           Then sing him home.\n\n      Take thou no scorn to wear the horn;\n      It was a crest ere thou wast born.\n           Thy father's father wore it;\n           And thy father bore it.\n      The horn, the horn, the lusty horn,\n      Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe forest\n\nEnter ROSALIND and CELIA\n\n  ROSALIND. How say you now? Is it not past two o'clock?\n    And here much Orlando!\n  CELIA. I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he hath\n    ta'en his bow and arrows, and is gone forth- to sleep. Look, who\n    comes here.\n\n                      Enter SILVIUS\n\n  SILVIUS. My errand is to you, fair youth;\n    My gentle Phebe did bid me give you this.\n    I know not the contents; but, as I guess\n    By the stern brow and waspish action\n    Which she did use as she was writing of it,\n    It bears an angry tenour. Pardon me,\n    I am but as a guiltless messenger.\n  ROSALIND. Patience herself would startle at this letter,\n    And play the swaggerer. Bear this, bear all.\n    She says I am not fair, that I lack manners;\n    She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,\n    Were man as rare as Phoenix. 'Od's my will!\n    Her love is not the hare that I do hunt;\n    Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well,\n    This is a letter of your own device.\n  SILVIUS. No, I protest, I know not the contents;\n    Phebe did write it.\n  ROSALIND. Come, come, you are a fool,\n    And turn'd into the extremity of love.\n    I saw her hand; she has a leathern hand,\n    A freestone-colour'd hand; I verily did think\n    That her old gloves were on, but 'twas her hands;\n    She has a huswife's hand- but that's no matter.\n    I say she never did invent this letter:\n    This is a man's invention, and his hand.\n  SILVIUS. Sure, it is hers.\n  ROSALIND. Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel style;\n    A style for challengers. Why, she defies me,\n    Like Turk to Christian. Women's gentle brain\n    Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention,\n    Such Ethiope words, blacker in their effect\n    Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter?\n  SILVIUS. So please you, for I never heard it yet;\n    Yet heard too much of Phebe's cruelty.\n  ROSALIND. She Phebes me: mark how the tyrant writes.\n                                                         [Reads]\n\n            'Art thou god to shepherd turn'd,\n            That a maiden's heart hath burn'd?'\n\n    Can a woman rail thus?\n  SILVIUS. Call you this railing?\n  ROSALIND. 'Why, thy godhead laid apart,\n             Warr'st thou with a woman's heart?'\n\n    Did you ever hear such railing?\n\n            'Whiles the eye of man did woo me,\n            That could do no vengeance to me.'\n\n    Meaning me a beast.\n\n            'If the scorn of your bright eyne\n            Have power to raise such love in mine,\n            Alack, in me what strange effect\n            Would they work in mild aspect!\n            Whiles you chid me, I did love;\n            How then might your prayers move!\n            He that brings this love to the\n            Little knows this love in me;\n            And by him seal up thy mind,\n            Whether that thy youth and kind\n            Will the faithful offer take\n            Of me and all that I can make;\n            Or else by him my love deny,\n            And then I'll study how to die.'\n  SILVIUS. Call you this chiding?\n  CELIA. Alas, poor shepherd!\n  ROSALIND. Do you pity him? No, he deserves no pity. Wilt thou love\n    such a woman? What, to make thee an instrument, and play false\n    strains upon thee! Not to be endur'd! Well, go your way to her,\n    for I see love hath made thee tame snake, and say this to her-\n    that if she love me, I charge her to love thee; if she will not,\n    I will never have her unless thou entreat for her. If you be a\n    true lover, hence, and not a word; for here comes more company.\n                                                    Exit SILVIUS\n\n                         Enter OLIVER\n\n  OLIVER. Good morrow, fair ones; pray you, if you know,\n    Where in the purlieus of this forest stands\n    A sheep-cote fenc'd about with olive trees?\n  CELIA. West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom.\n    The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream\n    Left on your right hand brings you to the place.\n    But at this hour the house doth keep itself;\n    There's none within.\n  OLIVER. If that an eye may profit by a tongue,\n    Then should I know you by description-\n    Such garments, and such years: 'The boy is fair,\n    Of female favour, and bestows himself\n    Like a ripe sister; the woman low,\n    And browner than her brother.' Are not you\n    The owner of the house I did inquire for?\n  CELIA. It is no boast, being ask'd, to say we are.\n  OLIVER. Orlando doth commend him to you both;\n    And to that youth he calls his Rosalind\n    He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he?\n  ROSALIND. I am. What must we understand by this?\n  OLIVER. Some of my shame; if you will know of me\n    What man I am, and how, and why, and where,\n    This handkercher was stain'd.\n  CELIA. I pray you, tell it.\n  OLIVER. When last the young Orlando parted from you,\n    He left a promise to return again\n    Within an hour; and, pacing through the forest,\n    Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,\n    Lo, what befell! He threw his eye aside,\n    And mark what object did present itself.\n    Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age,\n    And high top bald with dry antiquity,\n    A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair,\n    Lay sleeping on his back. About his neck\n    A green and gilded snake had wreath'd itself,\n    Who with her head nimble in threats approach'd\n    The opening of his mouth; but suddenly,\n    Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself,\n    And with indented glides did slip away\n    Into a bush; under which bush's shade\n    A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,\n    Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch,\n    When that the sleeping man should stir; for 'tis\n    The royal disposition of that beast\n    To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead.\n    This seen, Orlando did approach the man,\n    And found it was his brother, his elder brother.\n  CELIA. O, I have heard him speak of that same brother;\n    And he did render him the most unnatural\n    That liv'd amongst men.\n  OLIVER. And well he might so do,\n    For well I know he was unnatural.\n  ROSALIND. But, to Orlando: did he leave him there,\n    Food to the suck'd and hungry lioness?\n  OLIVER. Twice did he turn his back, and purpos'd so;\n    But kindness, nobler ever than revenge,\n    And nature, stronger than his just occasion,\n    Made him give battle to the lioness,\n    Who quickly fell before him; in which hurtling\n    From miserable slumber I awak'd.\n  CELIA. Are you his brother?\n  ROSALIND. Was't you he rescu'd?\n  CELIA. Was't you that did so oft contrive to kill him?\n  OLIVER. 'Twas I; but 'tis not I. I do not shame\n    To tell you what I was, since my conversion\n    So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.\n  ROSALIND. But for the bloody napkin?\n  OLIVER. By and by.\n    When from the first to last, betwixt us two,\n    Tears our recountments had most kindly bath'd,\n    As how I came into that desert place-\n    In brief, he led me to the gentle Duke,\n    Who gave me fresh array and entertainment,\n    Committing me unto my brother's love;\n    Who led me instantly unto his cave,\n    There stripp'd himself, and here upon his arm\n    The lioness had torn some flesh away,\n    Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted,\n    And cried, in fainting, upon Rosalind.\n    Brief, I recover'd him, bound up his wound,\n    And, after some small space, being strong at heart,\n    He sent me hither, stranger as I am,\n    To tell this story, that you might excuse\n    His broken promise, and to give this napkin,\n    Dy'd in his blood, unto the shepherd youth\n    That he in sport doth call his Rosalind.\n                                               [ROSALIND swoons]\n  CELIA. Why, how now, Ganymede! sweet Ganymede!\n  OLIVER. Many will swoon when they do look on blood.\n  CELIA. There is more in it. Cousin Ganymede!\n  OLIVER. Look, he recovers.\n  ROSALIND. I would I were at home.\n  CELIA. We'll lead you thither.\n    I pray you, will you take him by the arm?\n  OLIVER. Be of good cheer, youth. You a man!\n    You lack a man's heart.\n  ROSALIND. I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would think\n    this was well counterfeited. I pray you tell your brother how\n    well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho!\n  OLIVER. This was not counterfeit; there is too great testimony in\n    your complexion that it was a passion of earnest.\n  ROSALIND. Counterfeit, I assure you.\n  OLIVER. Well then, take a good heart and counterfeit to be a man.\n  ROSALIND. So I do; but, i' faith, I should have been a woman by\n    right.\n  CELIA. Come, you look paler and paler; pray you draw homewards.\n    Good sir, go with us.\n  OLIVER. That will I, for I must bear answer back\n    How you excuse my brother, Rosalind.\n  ROSALIND. I shall devise something; but, I pray you, commend my\n    counterfeiting to him. Will you go?                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nThe forest\n\nEnter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY\n\n  TOUCHSTONE. We shall find a time, Audrey; patience, gentle Audrey.\n  AUDREY. Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old\n    gentleman's saying.\n  TOUCHSTONE. A most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile Martext.\n    But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest lays claim to\n    you.\n  AUDREY. Ay, I know who 'tis; he hath no interest in me in the\n    world; here comes the man you mean.\n\n                         Enter WILLIAM\n\n  TOUCHSTONE. It is meat and drink to me to see a clown. By my troth,\n    we that have good wits have much to answer for: we shall be\n    flouting; we cannot hold.\n  WILLIAM. Good ev'n, Audrey.\n  AUDREY. God ye good ev'n, William.\n  WILLIAM. And good ev'n to you, sir.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Good ev'n, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy\n    head; nay, prithee be cover'd. How old are you, friend?\n  WILLIAM. Five and twenty, sir.\n  TOUCHSTONE. A ripe age. Is thy name William?\n  WILLIAM. William, sir.\n  TOUCHSTONE. A fair name. Wast born i' th' forest here?\n  WILLIAM. Ay, sir, I thank God.\n  TOUCHSTONE. 'Thank God.' A good answer.\n    Art rich?\n  WILLIAM. Faith, sir, so so.\n  TOUCHSTONE. 'So so' is good, very good, very excellent good; and\n    yet it is not; it is but so so. Art thou wise?\n  WILLIAM. Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Why, thou say'st well. I do now remember a saying: 'The\n    fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be\n    a fool.' The heathen philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a\n    grape, would open his lips when he put it into his mouth; meaning\n    thereby that grapes were made to eat and lips to open. You do\n    love this maid?\n  WILLIAM. I do, sir.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Give me your hand. Art thou learned?\n  WILLIAM. No, sir.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Then learn this of me: to have is to have; for it is a\n    figure in rhetoric that drink, being pour'd out of cup into a\n    glass, by filling the one doth empty the other; for all your\n    writers do consent that ipse is he; now, you are not ipse, for I\n    am he.\n  WILLIAM. Which he, sir?\n  TOUCHSTONE. He, sir, that must marry this woman. Therefore, you\n    clown, abandon- which is in the vulgar leave- the society- which\n    in the boorish is company- of this female- which in the common is\n    woman- which together is: abandon the society of this female; or,\n    clown, thou perishest; or, to thy better understanding, diest;\n    or, to wit, I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into\n    death, thy liberty into bondage. I will deal in poison with thee,\n    or in bastinado, or in steel; I will bandy with thee in faction;\n    will o'er-run thee with policy; I will kill thee a hundred and\n    fifty ways; therefore tremble and depart.\n  AUDREY. Do, good William.\n  WILLIAM. God rest you merry, sir.                         Exit\n\n                          Enter CORIN\n\n  CORIN. Our master and mistress seeks you; come away, away.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Trip, Audrey, trip, Audrey. I attend, I attend.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe forest\n\nEnter ORLANDO and OLIVER\n\n  ORLANDO. Is't possible that on so little acquaintance you should\n    like her? that but seeing you should love her? and loving woo?\n    and, wooing, she should grant? and will you persever to enjoy\n    her?\n  OLIVER. Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the poverty\n    of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing, nor her sudden\n    consenting; but say with me, I love Aliena; say with her that she\n    loves me; consent with both that we may enjoy each other. It\n    shall be to your good; for my father's house and all the revenue\n    that was old Sir Rowland's will I estate upon you, and here live\n    and die a shepherd.\n  ORLANDO. You have my consent. Let your wedding be to-morrow.\n    Thither will I invite the Duke and all's contented followers. Go\n    you and prepare Aliena; for, look you, here comes my Rosalind.\n\n                        Enter ROSALIND\n\n  ROSALIND. God save you, brother.\n  OLIVER. And you, fair sister.                             Exit\n  ROSALIND. O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee wear\n    thy heart in a scarf!\n  ORLANDO. It is my arm.\n  ROSALIND. I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a\n    lion.\n  ORLANDO. Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady.\n  ROSALIND. Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to swoon\n    when he show'd me your handkercher?\n  ORLANDO. Ay, and greater wonders than that.\n  ROSALIND. O, I know where you are. Nay, 'tis true. There was never\n    any thing so sudden but the fight of two rams and Caesar's\n    thrasonical brag of 'I came, saw, and overcame.' For your brother\n    and my sister no sooner met but they look'd; no sooner look'd but\n    they lov'd; no sooner lov'd but they sigh'd; no sooner sigh'd but\n    they ask'd one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but\n    they sought the remedy- and in these degrees have they made pair\n    of stairs to marriage, which they will climb incontinent, or else\n    be incontinent before marriage. They are in the very wrath of\n    love, and they will together. Clubs cannot part them.\n  ORLANDO. They shall be married to-morrow; and I will bid the Duke\n    to the nuptial. But, O, how bitter a thing it is to look into\n    happiness through another man's eyes! By so much the more shall I\n    to-morrow be at the height of heart-heaviness, by how much I\n    shall think my brother happy in having what he wishes for.\n  ROSALIND. Why, then, to-morrow I cannot serve your turn for\n    Rosalind?\n  ORLANDO. I can live no longer by thinking.\n  ROSALIND. I will weary you, then, no longer with idle talking. Know\n    of me then- for now I speak to some purpose- that I know you are\n    a gentleman of good conceit. I speak not this that you should\n    bear a good opinion of my knowledge, insomuch I say I know you\n    are; neither do I labour for a greater esteem than may in some\n    little measure draw a belief from you, to do yourself good, and\n    not to grace me. Believe then, if you please, that I can do\n    strange things. I have, since I was three year old, convers'd\n    with a magician, most profound in his art and yet not damnable.\n    If you do love Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture cries\n    it out, when your brother marries Aliena shall you marry her. I\n    know into what straits of fortune she is driven; and it is not\n    impossible to me, if it appear not inconvenient to you, to set\n    her before your eyes to-morrow, human as she is, and without any\n    danger.\n  ORLANDO. Speak'st thou in sober meanings?\n  ROSALIND. By my life, I do; which I tender dearly, though I say I\n    am a magician. Therefore put you in your best array, bid your\n    friends; for if you will be married to-morrow, you shall; and to\n    Rosalind, if you will.\n\n                     Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE\n\n    Look, here comes a lover of mine, and a lover of hers.\n  PHEBE. Youth, you have done me much ungentleness\n    To show the letter that I writ to you.\n  ROSALIND. I care not if I have. It is my study\n    To seem despiteful and ungentle to you.\n    You are there follow'd by a faithful shepherd;\n    Look upon him, love him; he worships you.\n  PHEBE. Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love.\n  SILVIUS. It is to be all made of sighs and tears;\n    And so am I for Phebe.\n  PHEBE. And I for Ganymede.\n  ORLANDO. And I for Rosalind.\n  ROSALIND. And I for no woman.\n  SILVIUS. It is to be all made of faith and service;\n    And so am I for Phebe.\n  PHEBE. And I for Ganymede.\n  ORLANDO. And I for Rosalind.\n  ROSALIND. And I for no woman.\n  SILVIUS. It is to be all made of fantasy,\n    All made of passion, and all made of wishes;\n    All adoration, duty, and observance,\n    All humbleness, all patience, and impatience,\n    All purity, all trial, all obedience;\n    And so am I for Phebe.\n  PHEBE. And so am I for Ganymede.\n  ORLANDO. And so am I for Rosalind.\n  ROSALIND. And so am I for no woman.\n  PHEBE. If this be so, why blame you me to love you?\n  SILVIUS. If this be so, why blame you me to love you?\n  ORLANDO. If this be so, why blame you me to love you?\n  ROSALIND. Why do you speak too, 'Why blame you me to love you?'\n  ORLANDO. To her that is not here, nor doth not hear.\n  ROSALIND. Pray you, no more of this; 'tis like the howling of Irish\n    wolves against the moon. [To SILVIUS] I will help you if I can.\n    [To PHEBE] I would love you if I could.- To-morrow meet me all\n    together. [ To PHEBE ] I will marry you if ever I marry woman,\n    and I'll be married to-morrow. [To ORLANDO] I will satisfy you if\n    ever I satisfied man, and you shall be married to-morrow. [To\n    Silvius] I will content you if what pleases you contents you, and\n    you shall be married to-morrow. [To ORLANDO] As you love\n    Rosalind, meet. [To SILVIUS] As you love Phebe, meet;- and as I\n    love no woman, I'll meet. So, fare you well; I have left you\n    commands.\n  SILVIUS. I'll not fail, if I live.\n  PHEBE. Nor I.\n  ORLANDO. Nor I.                                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe forest\n\nEnter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY\n\n  TOUCHSTONE. To-morrow is the joyful day, Audre'y; to-morrow will we\n    be married.\n  AUDREY. I do desire it with all my heart; and I hope it is no\n    dishonest desire to desire to be a woman of the world. Here come\n    two of the banish'd Duke's pages.\n\n                            Enter two PAGES\n\n  FIRST PAGE. Well met, honest gentleman.\n  TOUCHSTONE. By my troth, well met. Come sit, sit, and a song.\n  SECOND PAGE. We are for you; sit i' th' middle.\n  FIRST PAGE. Shall we clap into't roundly, without hawking, or\n    spitting, or saying we are hoarse, which are the only prologues\n    to a bad voice?\n  SECOND PAGE. I'faith, i'faith; and both in a tune, like two gipsies\n    on a horse.\n\n                      SONG.\n        It was a lover and his lass,\n          With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,\n        That o'er the green corn-field did pass\n          In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,\n        When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding.\n        Sweet lovers love the spring.\n\n        Between the acres of the rye,\n          With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,\n        These pretty country folks would lie,\n          In the spring time, &c.\n\n        This carol they began that hour,\n          With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,\n        How that a life was but a flower,\n          In the spring time, &c.\n\n        And therefore take the present time,\n          With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,\n        For love is crowned with the prime,\n          In the spring time, &c.\n\n  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great\n    matter in the ditty, yet the note was very untuneable.\n  FIRST PAGE. YOU are deceiv'd, sir; we kept time, we lost not our\n    time.\n  TOUCHSTONE. By my troth, yes; I count it but time lost to hear such\n    a foolish song. God buy you; and God mend your voices. Come,\n    Audrey.                                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nThe forest\n\nEnter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, JAQUES, ORLANDO, OLIVER, and CELIA\n\n  DUKE SENIOR. Dost thou believe, Orlando, that the boy\n    Can do all this that he hath promised?\n  ORLANDO. I sometimes do believe and sometimes do not:\n    As those that fear they hope, and know they fear.\n\n               Enter ROSALIND, SILVIUS, and PHEBE\n\n  ROSALIND. Patience once more, whiles our compact is urg'd:\n    You say, if I bring in your Rosalind,\n    You will bestow her on Orlando here?\n  DUKE SENIOR. That would I, had I kingdoms to give with her.\n  ROSALIND. And you say you will have her when I bring her?\n  ORLANDO. That would I, were I of all kingdoms king.\n  ROSALIND. You say you'll marry me, if I be willing?\n  PHEBE. That will I, should I die the hour after.\n  ROSALIND. But if you do refuse to marry me,\n    You'll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd?\n  PHEBE. So is the bargain.\n  ROSALIND. You say that you'll have Phebe, if she will?\n  SILVIUS. Though to have her and death were both one thing.\n  ROSALIND. I have promis'd to make all this matter even.\n    Keep you your word, O Duke, to give your daughter;\n    You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter;\n    Keep your word, Phebe, that you'll marry me,\n    Or else, refusing me, to wed this shepherd;\n    Keep your word, Silvius, that you'll marry her\n    If she refuse me; and from hence I go,\n    To make these doubts all even.\n                                       Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA\n  DUKE SENIOR. I do remember in this shepherd boy\n    Some lively touches of my daughter's favour.\n  ORLANDO. My lord, the first time that I ever saw him\n    Methought he was a brother to your daughter.\n    But, my good lord, this boy is forest-born,\n    And hath been tutor'd in the rudiments\n    Of many desperate studies by his uncle,\n    Whom he reports to be a great magician,\n    Obscured in the circle of this forest.\n\n                    Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY\n\n  JAQUES. There is, sure, another flood toward, and these couples are\n    coming to the ark. Here comes a pair of very strange beasts which\n    in all tongues are call'd fools.\n  TOUCHSTONE. Salutation and greeting to you all!\n  JAQUES. Good my lord, bid him welcome. This is the motley-minded\n    gentleman that I have so often met in the forest. He hath been a\n     courtier, he swears.\n  TOUCHSTONE. If any man doubt that, let him put me to my purgation.\n    I have trod a measure; I have flatt'red a lady; I have been\n    politic with my friend, smooth with mine enemy; I have undone\n    three tailors; I have had four quarrels, and like to have fought\n    one.\n  JAQUES. And how was that ta'en up?\n  TOUCHSTONE. Faith, we met, and found the quarrel was upon the\n    seventh cause.\n  JAQUES. How seventh cause? Good my lord, like this fellow.\n  DUKE SENIOR. I like him very well.\n  TOUCHSTONE. God 'ild you, sir; I desire you of the like. I press in\n    here, sir, amongst the rest of the country copulatives, to swear\n    and to forswear, according as marriage binds and blood breaks. A\n    poor virgin, sir, an ill-favour'd thing, sir, but mine own; a\n    poor humour of mine, sir, to take that that man else will. Rich\n    honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house; as your pearl\n    in your foul oyster.\n  DUKE SENIOR. By my faith, he is very swift and sententious.\n  TOUCHSTONE. According to the fool's bolt, sir, and such dulcet\n    diseases.\n  JAQUES. But, for the seventh cause: how did you find the quarrel on\n    the seventh cause?\n  TOUCHSTONE. Upon a lie seven times removed- bear your body more\n    seeming, Audrey- as thus, sir. I did dislike the cut of a certain\n    courtier's beard; he sent me word, if I said his beard was not\n    cut well, he was in the mind it was. This is call'd the Retort\n    Courteous. If I sent him word again it was not well cut, he would\n    send me word he cut it to please himself. This is call'd the Quip\n    Modest. If again it was not well cut, he disabled my judgment.\n    This is call'd the Reply Churlish. If again it was not well cut,\n    he would answer I spake not true. This is call'd the Reproof\n    Valiant. If again it was not well cut, he would say I lie. This\n    is call'd the Countercheck Quarrelsome. And so to the Lie\n    Circumstantial and the Lie Direct.\n  JAQUES. And how oft did you say his beard was not well cut?\n  TOUCHSTONE. I durst go no further than the Lie Circumstantial, nor\n    he durst not give me the Lie Direct; and so we measur'd swords\n    and parted.\n  JAQUES. Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie?\n  TOUCHSTONE. O, sir, we quarrel in print by the book, as you have\n    books for good manners. I will name you the degrees. The first,\n    the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the\n    Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the\n    Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance;\n    the seventh, the Lie Direct. All these you may avoid but the Lie\n    Direct; and you may avoid that too with an If. I knew when seven\n    justices could not take up a quarrel; but when the parties were\n    met themselves, one of them thought but of an If, as: 'If you\n    said so, then I said so.' And they shook hands, and swore\n    brothers. Your If is the only peace-maker; much virtue in If.\n  JAQUES. Is not this a rare fellow, my lord?\n    He's as good at any thing, and yet a fool.\n  DUKE SENIOR. He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the\n    presentation of that he shoots his wit:\n\n          Enter HYMEN, ROSALIND, and CELIA. Still MUSIC\n\n    HYMEN.    Then is there mirth in heaven,\n              When earthly things made even\n                Atone together.\n              Good Duke, receive thy daughter;\n              Hymen from heaven brought her,\n                Yea, brought her hither,\n              That thou mightst join her hand with his,\n              Whose heart within his bosom is.\n  ROSALIND. [To DUKE] To you I give myself, for I am yours.\n    [To ORLANDO] To you I give myself, for I am yours.\n  DUKE SENIOR. If there be truth in sight, you are my daughter.\n  ORLANDO. If there be truth in sight, you are my Rosalind.\n  PHEBE. If sight and shape be true,\n    Why then, my love adieu!\n  ROSALIND. I'll have no father, if you be not he;\n    I'll have no husband, if you be not he;\n    Nor ne'er wed woman, if you be not she.\n  HYMEN.    Peace, ho! I bar confusion;\n            'Tis I must make conclusion\n              Of these most strange events.\n            Here's eight that must take hands\n            To join in Hymen's bands,\n              If truth holds true contents.\n            You and you no cross shall part;\n            You and you are heart in heart;\n            You to his love must accord,\n            Or have a woman to your lord;\n            You and you are sure together,\n            As the winter to foul weather.\n            Whiles a wedlock-hymn we sing,\n            Feed yourselves with questioning,\n            That reason wonder may diminish,\n            How thus we met, and these things finish.\n\n                       SONG\n            Wedding is great Juno's crown;\n              O blessed bond of board and bed!\n            'Tis Hymen peoples every town;\n              High wedlock then be honoured.\n            Honour, high honour, and renown,\n            To Hymen, god of every town!\n\n  DUKE SENIOR. O my dear niece, welcome thou art to me!\n    Even daughter, welcome in no less degree.\n  PHEBE. I will not eat my word, now thou art mine;\n    Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine.\n\n                 Enter JAQUES de BOYS\n\n  JAQUES de BOYS. Let me have audience for a word or two.\n    I am the second son of old Sir Rowland,\n    That bring these tidings to this fair assembly.\n    Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day\n    Men of great worth resorted to this forest,\n    Address'd a mighty power; which were on foot,\n    In his own conduct, purposely to take\n    His brother here, and put him to the sword;\n    And to the skirts of this wild wood he came,\n    Where, meeting with an old religious man,\n    After some question with him, was converted\n    Both from his enterprise and from the world;\n    His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother,\n    And all their lands restor'd to them again\n    That were with him exil'd. This to be true\n    I do engage my life.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Welcome, young man.\n    Thou offer'st fairly to thy brothers' wedding:\n    To one, his lands withheld; and to the other,\n    A land itself at large, a potent dukedom.\n    First, in this forest let us do those ends\n    That here were well begun and well begot;\n    And after, every of this happy number,\n    That have endur'd shrewd days and nights with us,\n    Shall share the good of our returned fortune,\n    According to the measure of their states.\n    Meantime, forget this new-fall'n dignity,\n    And fall into our rustic revelry.\n    Play, music; and you brides and bridegrooms all,\n    With measure heap'd in joy, to th' measures fall.\n  JAQUES. Sir, by your patience. If I heard you rightly,\n    The Duke hath put on a religious life,\n    And thrown into neglect the pompous court.\n  JAQUES DE BOYS. He hath.\n  JAQUES. To him will I. Out of these convertites\n    There is much matter to be heard and learn'd.\n    [To DUKE] You to your former honour I bequeath;\n    Your patience and your virtue well deserves it.\n    [To ORLANDO] You to a love that your true faith doth merit;\n    [To OLIVER] You to your land, and love, and great allies\n    [To SILVIUS] You to a long and well-deserved bed;\n    [To TOUCHSTONE] And you to wrangling; for thy loving voyage\n    Is but for two months victuall'd.- So to your pleasures;\n    I am for other than for dancing measures.\n  DUKE SENIOR. Stay, Jaques, stay.\n  JAQUES. To see no pastime I. What you would have\n    I'll stay to know at your abandon'd cave.               Exit\n  DUKE SENIOR. Proceed, proceed. We will begin these rites,\n    As we do trust they'll end, in true delights.    [A dance] Exeunt\n\nEPILOGUE\n                           EPILOGUE.\n  ROSALIND. It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but\n    it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. If it\n    be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play\n    needs no epilogue. Yet to good wine they do use good bushes; and\n    good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a\n    case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue, nor cannot\n    insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play! I am not\n    furnish'd like a beggar; therefore to beg will not become me. My\n    way is to conjure you; and I'll begin with the women. I charge\n    you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of\n    this play as please you; and I charge you, O men, for the love\n    you bear to women- as I perceive by your simp'ring none of you\n    hates them- that between you and the women the play may please.\n    If I were a woman, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that\n    pleas'd me, complexions that lik'd me, and breaths that I defied\n    not; and, I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces,\n    or sweet breaths, will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy,\n    bid me farewell.\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n1593\n\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\nSOLINUS, Duke of Ephesus\nAEGEON, a merchant of Syracuse\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS twin brothers and sons to\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Aegion and Aemelia\n\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS twin brothers, and attendants on\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE the two Antipholuses\n\nBALTHAZAR, a merchant\nANGELO, a goldsmith\nFIRST MERCHANT, friend to Antipholus of Syracuse\nSECOND MERCHANT, to whom Angelo is a debtor\nPINCH, a schoolmaster\n\nAEMILIA, wife to AEgeon; an abbess at Ephesus\nADRIANA, wife to Antipholus of Ephesus\nLUCIANA, her sister\nLUCE, servant to Adriana\n\nA COURTEZAN\n\nGaoler, Officers, Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEphesus\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\n\nACT I. SCENE 1\n\nA hall in the DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter the DUKE OF EPHESUS, AEGEON, the Merchant\nof Syracuse, GAOLER, OFFICERS, and other ATTENDANTS\n\nAEGEON. Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall,\n  And by the doom of death end woes and all.\nDUKE. Merchant of Syracuse, plead no more;\n  I am not partial to infringe our laws.\n  The enmity and discord which of late\n  Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke\n  To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen,\n  Who, wanting guilders to redeem their lives,\n  Have seal'd his rigorous statutes with their bloods,\n  Excludes all pity from our threat'ning looks.\n  For, since the mortal and intestine jars\n  'Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us,\n  It hath in solemn synods been decreed,\n  Both by the Syracusians and ourselves,\n  To admit no traffic to our adverse towns;\n  Nay, more: if any born at Ephesus\n  Be seen at any Syracusian marts and fairs;\n  Again, if any Syracusian born\n  Come to the bay of Ephesus-he dies,\n  His goods confiscate to the Duke's dispose,\n  Unless a thousand marks be levied,\n  To quit the penalty and to ransom him.\n  Thy substance, valued at the highest rate,\n  Cannot amount unto a hundred marks;\n  Therefore by law thou art condemn'd to die.\nAEGEON. Yet this my comfort: when your words are done,\n  My woes end likewise with the evening sun.\nDUKE. Well, Syracusian, say in brief the cause\n  Why thou departed'st from thy native home,\n  And for what cause thou cam'st to Ephesus.\nAEGEON. A heavier task could not have been impos'd\n  Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable;\n  Yet, that the world may witness that my end\n  Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence,\n  I'll utter what my sorrow gives me leave.\n  In Syracuse was I born, and wed\n  Unto a woman, happy but for me,\n  And by me, had not our hap been bad.\n  With her I liv'd in joy; our wealth increas'd\n  By prosperous voyages I often made\n  To Epidamnum; till my factor's death,\n  And the great care of goods at random left,\n  Drew me from kind embracements of my spouse:\n  From whom my absence was not six months old,\n  Before herself, almost at fainting under\n  The pleasing punishment that women bear,\n  Had made provision for her following me,\n  And soon and safe arrived where I was.\n  There had she not been long but she became\n  A joyful mother of two goodly sons;\n  And, which was strange, the one so like the other\n  As could not be disdnguish'd but by names.\n  That very hour, and in the self-same inn,\n  A mean woman was delivered\n  Of such a burden, male twins, both alike.\n  Those, for their parents were exceeding poor,\n  I bought, and brought up to attend my sons.\n  My wife, not meanly proud of two such boys,\n  Made daily motions for our home return;\n  Unwilling, I agreed. Alas! too soon\n  We came aboard.\n  A league from Epidamnum had we sail'd\n  Before the always-wind-obeying deep\n  Gave any tragic instance of our harm:\n  But longer did we not retain much hope,\n  For what obscured light the heavens did grant\n  Did but convey unto our fearful minds\n  A doubtful warrant of immediate death;\n  Which though myself would gladly have embrac'd,\n  Yet the incessant weepings of my wife,\n  Weeping before for what she saw must come,\n  And piteous plainings of the pretty babes,\n  That mourn'd for fashion, ignorant what to fear,\n  Forc'd me to seek delays for them and me.\n  And this it was, for other means was none:\n  The sailors sought for safety by our boat,\n  And left the ship, then sinking-ripe, to us;\n  My wife, more careful for the latter-born,\n  Had fast'ned him unto a small spare mast,\n  Such as sea-faring men provide for storms;\n  To him one of the other twins was bound,\n  Whilst I had been like heedful of the other.\n  The children thus dispos'd, my wife and I,\n  Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fix'd,\n  Fast'ned ourselves at either end the mast,\n  And, floating straight, obedient to the stream,\n  Was carried towards Corinth, as we thought.\n  At length the sun, gazing upon the earth,\n  Dispers'd those vapours that offended us;\n  And, by the benefit of his wished light,\n  The seas wax'd calm, and we discovered\n  Two ships from far making amain to us-\n  Of Corinth that, of Epidaurus this.\n  But ere they came-O, let me say no more!\n  Gather the sequel by that went before.\nDUKE. Nay, forward, old man, do not break off so;\n  For we may pity, though not pardon thee.\nAEGEON. O, had the gods done so, I had not now\n  Worthily term'd them merciless to us!\n  For, ere the ships could meet by twice five leagues,\n  We were encount'red by a mighty rock,\n  Which being violently borne upon,\n  Our helpful ship was splitted in the midst;\n  So that, in this unjust divorce of us,\n  Fortune had left to both of us alike\n  What to delight in, what to sorrow for.\n  Her part, poor soul, seeming as burdened\n  With lesser weight, but not with lesser woe,\n  Was carried with more speed before the wind;\n  And in our sight they three were taken up\n  By fishermen of Corinth, as we thought.\n  At length another ship had seiz'd on us;\n  And, knowing whom it was their hap to save,\n  Gave healthful welcome to their ship-wreck'd guests,\n  And would have reft the fishers of their prey,\n  Had not their bark been very slow of sail;\n  And therefore homeward did they bend their course.\n  Thus have you heard me sever'd from my bliss,\n  That by misfortunes was my life prolong'd,\n  To tell sad stories of my own mishaps.\nDUKE. And, for the sake of them thou sorrowest for,\n  Do me the favour to dilate at full\n  What have befall'n of them and thee till now.\nAEGEON. My youngest boy, and yet my eldest care,\n  At eighteen years became inquisitive\n  After his brother, and importun'd me\n  That his attendant-so his case was like,\n  Reft of his brother, but retain'd his name-\n  Might bear him company in the quest of him;\n  Whom whilst I laboured of a love to see,\n  I hazarded the loss of whom I lov'd.\n  Five summers have I spent in farthest Greece,\n  Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia,\n  And, coasting homeward, came to Ephesus;\n  Hopeless to find, yet loath to leave unsought\n  Or that or any place that harbours men.\n  But here must end the story of my life;\n  And happy were I in my timely death,\n  Could all my travels warrant me they live.\nDUKE. Hapless, Aegeon, whom the fates have mark'd\n  To bear the extremity of dire mishap!\n  Now, trust me, were it not against our laws,\n  Against my crown, my oath, my dignity,\n  Which princes, would they, may not disannul,\n  My soul should sue as advocate for thee.\n  But though thou art adjudged to the death,\n  And passed sentence may not be recall'd\n  But to our honour's great disparagement,\n  Yet will I favour thee in what I can.\n  Therefore, merchant, I'll limit thee this day\n  To seek thy help by beneficial hap.\n  Try all the friends thou hast in Ephesus;\n  Beg thou, or borrow, to make up the sum,\n  And live; if no, then thou art doom'd to die.\n  Gaoler, take him to thy custody.\nGAOLER. I will, my lord.\nAEGEON. Hopeless and helpless doth Aegeon wend,\n  But to procrastinate his lifeless end.\n<Exeunt\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nThe mart\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, and FIRST MERCHANT\n\nFIRST MERCHANT. Therefore, give out you are of Epidamnum,\n  Lest that your goods too soon be confiscate.\n  This very day a Syracusian merchant\n  Is apprehended for arrival here;\n  And, not being able to buy out his life,\n  According to the statute of the town,\n  Dies ere the weary sun set in the west.\n  There is your money that I had to keep.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Go bear it to the Centaur, where we host.\n  And stay there, Dromio, till I come to thee.\n  Within this hour it will be dinner-time;\n  Till that, I'll view the manners of the town,\n  Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings,\n  And then return and sleep within mine inn;\n  For with long travel I am stiff and weary.\n  Get thee away.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Many a man would take you at your word,\n  And go indeed, having so good a mean.\n<Exit\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. A trusty villain, sir, that very oft,\n  When I am dull with care and melancholy,\n  Lightens my humour with his merry jests.\n  What, will you walk with me about the town,\n  And then go to my inn and dine with me?\nFIRST MERCHANT. I am invited, sir, to certain merchants,\n  Of whom I hope to make much benefit;\n  I crave your pardon. Soon at five o'clock,\n  Please you, I'll meet with you upon the mart,\n  And afterward consort you till bed time.\n  My present business calls me from you now.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Farewell till then. I will go lose myself,\n  And wander up and down to view the city.\nFIRST MERCHANT. Sir, I commend you to your own content.\n<Exit FIRST MERCHANT\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. He that commends me to mine own content\n  Commends me to the thing I cannot get.\n  I to the world am like a drop of water\n  That in the ocean seeks another drop,\n  Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,\n  Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself.\n  So I, to find a mother and a brother,\n  In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF EPHESUS\n\n  Here comes the almanac of my true date.\n  What now? How chance thou art return'd so soon?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Return'd so soon! rather approach'd too late.\n  The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit;\n  The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell-\n  My mistress made it one upon my cheek;\n  She is so hot because the meat is cold,\n  The meat is cold because you come not home,\n  You come not home because you have no stomach,\n  You have no stomach, having broke your fast;\n  But we, that know what 'tis to fast and pray,\n  Are penitent for your default to-day.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Stop in your wind, sir; tell me this, I pray:\n  Where have you left the money that I gave you?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. O-Sixpence that I had a Wednesday last\n  To pay the saddler for my mistress' crupper?\n  The saddler had it, sir; I kept it not.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I am not in a sportive humour now;\n  Tell me, and dally not, where is the money?\n  We being strangers here, how dar'st thou trust\n  So great a charge from thine own custody?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I pray you jest, sir, as you sit at dinner.\n  I from my mistress come to you in post;\n  If I return, I shall be post indeed,\n  For she will score your fault upon my pate.\n  Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock,\n  And strike you home without a messenger.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Come, Dromio, come, these jests are out of season;\n  Reserve them till a merrier hour than this.\n  Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. To me, sir? Why, you gave no gold to me.\n  ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Come on, sir knave, have done your foolishness,\n  And tell me how thou hast dispos'd thy charge.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. My charge was but to fetch you from the mart\n  Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner.\n  My mistress and her sister stays for you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Now, as I am a Christian, answer me\n  In what safe place you have bestow'd my money,\n  Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours,\n  That stands on tricks when I am undispos'd.\n  Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I have some marks of yours upon my pate,\n  Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders,\n  But not a thousand marks between you both.\n  If I should pay your worship those again,\n  Perchance you will not bear them patiently.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thy mistress' marks! What mistress, slave, hast thou?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Your worship's wife, my mistress at the Phoenix;\n  She that doth fast till you come home to dinner,\n  And prays that you will hie you home to dinner.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face,\n  Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave.\n[Beats him]\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. What mean you, sir? For God's sake hold your hands!\n  Nay, an you will not, sir, I'll take my heels.\n<Exit\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Upon my life, by some device or other\n  The villain is o'erraught of all my money.\n  They say this town is full of cozenage;\n  As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,\n  Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,\n  Soul-killing witches that deform the body,\n  Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,\n  And many such-like liberties of sin;\n  If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner.\n  I'll to the Centaur to go seek this slave.\n  I greatly fear my money is not safe.\n<Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT Il. SCENE 1\n\nThe house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\n\nEnter ADRIANA, wife to ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, with LUCIANA, her sister\n\nADRIANA. Neither my husband nor the slave return'd\n  That in such haste I sent to seek his master!\n  Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock.\nLUCIANA. Perhaps some merchant hath invited him,\n  And from the mart he's somewhere gone to dinner;\n  Good sister, let us dine, and never fret.\n  A man is master of his liberty;\n  Time is their master, and when they see time,\n  They'll go or come. If so, be patient, sister.\nADRIANA. Why should their liberty than ours be more?\nLUCIANA. Because their business still lies out o' door.\nADRIANA. Look when I serve him so, he takes it ill.\nLUCIANA. O, know he is the bridle of your will.\nADRIANA. There's none but asses will be bridled so.\nLUCIANA. Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe.\n  There's nothing situate under heaven's eye\n  But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky.\n  The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls,\n  Are their males' subjects, and at their controls.\n  Man, more divine, the master of all these,\n  Lord of the wide world and wild wat'ry seas,\n  Indu'd with intellectual sense and souls,\n  Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls,\n  Are masters to their females, and their lords;\n  Then let your will attend on their accords.\nADRIANA. This servitude makes you to keep unwed.\nLUCIANA. Not this, but troubles of the marriage-bed.\nADRIANA. But, were you wedded, you would bear some sway.\nLUCIANA. Ere I learn love, I'll practise to obey.\nADRIANA. How if your husband start some other where?\nLUCIANA. Till he come home again, I would forbear.\nADRIANA. Patience unmov'd! no marvel though she pause:\n  They can be meek that have no other cause.\n  A wretched soul, bruis'd with adversity,\n  We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;\n  But were we burd'ned with like weight of pain,\n  As much, or more, we should ourselves complain.\n  So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee,\n  With urging helpless patience would relieve me;\n  But if thou live to see like right bereft,\n  This fool-begg'd patience in thee will be left.\nLUCIANA. Well, I will marry one day, but to try.\n  Here comes your man, now is your husband nigh.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF EPHESUS\n\nADRIANA. Say, is your tardy master now at hand?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, he's at two hands with me, and that my two\n  ears can witness.\nADRIANA. Say, didst thou speak with him? Know'st thou his mind?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ay, ay, he told his mind upon mine ear.\n  Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it.\nLUCIANA. Spake he so doubtfully thou could'st not feel his meaning?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, he struck so plainly I could to\n  well feel his blows; and withal so doubtfully that I could\n  scarce understand them.\nADRIANA. But say, I prithee, is he coming home?\n  It seems he hath great care to please his wife.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad.\nADRIANA. Horn-mad, thou villain!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I mean not cuckold-mad;\n  But, sure, he is stark mad.\n  When I desir'd him to come home to dinner,\n  He ask'd me for a thousand marks in gold.\n  \"Tis dinner time' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.\n  'Your meat doth burn' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.\n  'Will you come home?' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.\n  'Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain?'\n  'The pig' quoth I 'is burn'd'; 'My gold!' quoth he.\n  'My mistress, sir,' quoth I; 'Hang up thy mistress;\n  I know not thy mistress; out on thy mistress.'\nLUCIANA. Quoth who?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Quoth my master.\n  'I know' quoth he 'no house, no wife, no mistress.'\n  So that my errand, due unto my tongue,\n  I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders;\n  For, in conclusion, he did beat me there.\nADRIANA. Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Go back again, and be new beaten home?\n  For God's sake, send some other messenger.\nADRIANA. Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. And he will bless that cross with other beating;\n  Between you I shall have a holy head.\nADRIANA. Hence, prating peasant! Fetch thy master home.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Am I so round with you, as you with me,\n  That like a football you do spurn me thus?\n  You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither;\n  If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.\n<Exit\nLUCIANA. Fie, how impatience loureth in your face!\nADRIANA. His company must do his minions grace,\n  Whilst I at home starve for a merry look.\n  Hath homely age th' alluring beauty took\n  From my poor cheek? Then he hath wasted it.\n  Are my discourses dull? Barren my wit?\n  If voluble and sharp discourse be marr'd,\n  Unkindness blunts it more than marble hard.\n  Do their gay vestments his affections bait?\n  That's not my fault; he's master of my state.\n  What ruins are in me that can be found\n  By him not ruin'd? Then is he the ground\n  Of my defeatures. My decayed fair\n  A sunny look of his would soon repair.\n  But, too unruly deer, he breaks the pale,\n  And feeds from home; poor I am but his stale.\nLUCIANA. Self-harming jealousy! fie, beat it hence.\nADRIANA. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense.\n  I know his eye doth homage otherwhere;\n  Or else what lets it but he would be here?\n  Sister, you know he promis'd me a chain;\n  Would that alone a love he would detain,\n  So he would keep fair quarter with his bed!\n  I see the jewel best enamelled\n  Will lose his beauty; yet the gold bides still\n  That others touch and, often touching, will\n  Where gold; and no man that hath a name\n  By falsehood and corruption doth it shame.\n  Since that my beauty cannot please his eye,\n  I'll weep what's left away, and weeping die.\nLUCIANA. How many fond fools serve mad jealousy!\n<Exeunt\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nThe mart\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up\n  Safe at the Centaur, and the heedful slave\n  Is wand'red forth in care to seek me out.\n  By computation and mine host's report\n  I could not speak with Dromio since at first\n  I sent him from the mart. See, here he comes.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE\n\n  How now, sir, is your merry humour alter'd?\n  As you love strokes, so jest with me again.\n  You know no Centaur! You receiv'd no gold!\n  Your mistress sent to have me home to dinner!\n  My house was at the Phoenix! Wast thou mad,\n  That thus so madly thou didst answer me?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. What answer, sir? When spake I such a word?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Even now, even here, not half an hour since.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I did not see you since you sent me hence,\n  Home to the Centaur, with the gold you gave me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Villain, thou didst deny the gold's receipt,\n  And told'st me of a mistress and a dinner;\n  For which, I hope, thou felt'st I was displeas'd.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I am glad to see you in this merry vein.\n  What means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the teeth?\n  Think'st thou I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that.\n[Beating him]\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Hold, sir, for God's sake! Now your jest is earnest.\n  Upon what bargain do you give it me?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Because that I familiarly sometimes\n  Do use you for my fool and chat with you,\n  Your sauciness will jest upon my love,\n  And make a common of my serious hours.\n  When the sun shines let foolish gnats make sport,\n  But creep in crannies when he hides his beams.\n  If you will jest with me, know my aspect,\n  And fashion your demeanour to my looks,\n  Or I will beat this method in your sconce.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Sconce, call you it? So you would\n  leave battering, I had rather have it a head. An you use\n  these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head, and\n  insconce it too; or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders.\n  But I pray, sir, why am I beaten?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Dost thou not know?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Shall I tell you why?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they say\n  every why hath a wherefore.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, first for flouting me; and then wherefore,\n  For urging it the second time to me.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,\n  When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason?\n  Well, sir, I thank you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thank me, sir! for what?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, for this something that you gave\n  me for nothing.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I'll make you amends next, to\n  give you nothing for something. But say, sir, is it dinnertime?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, sir; I think the meat wants that I have.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. In good time, sir, what's that?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Basting.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Well, sir, then 'twill be dry.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. If it be, sir, I pray you eat none of it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Your reason?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Lest it make you choleric, and purchase me\n  another dry basting.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Well, sir, learn to jest in good time;\n  there's a time for all things.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I durst have denied that, before you\n  were so choleric.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. By what rule, sir?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the\n  plain bald pate of Father Time himself.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Let's hear it.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. There's no time for a man to recover\n  his hair that grows bald by nature.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. May he not do it by fine and recovery?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig, and\n  recover the lost hair of another man.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why is Time such a niggard of\n  hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Because it is a blessing that he bestows\n  on beasts, and what he hath scanted men in hair he hath\n  given them in wit.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, but there's many a man\n  hath more hair than wit.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Not a man of those but he hath the\n  wit to lose his hair.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, thou didst conclude hairy\n  men plain dealers without wit.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. The plainer dealer, the sooner lost;\n  yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. For what reason?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. For two; and sound ones too.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Nay, not sound I pray you.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Sure ones, then.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Certain ones, then.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Name them.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. The one, to save the money that he spends in\n  tiring; the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his\n  porridge.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. You would all this time have prov'd there\n  is no time for all things.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, and did, sir; namely, no time to recover\n  hair lost by nature.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. But your reason was not substantial, why\n  there is no time to recover.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald,\n  and therefore to the world's end will have bald followers.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I knew 't'would be a bald conclusion. But,\n  soft, who wafts us yonder?\n\nEnter ADRIANA and LUCIANA\n\nADRIANA. Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown.\n  Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects;\n  I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.\n  The time was once when thou unurg'd wouldst vow\n  That never words were music to thine ear,\n  That never object pleasing in thine eye,\n  That never touch well welcome to thy hand,\n  That never meat sweet-savour'd in thy taste,\n  Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carv'd to thee.\n  How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,\n  That thou art then estranged from thyself?\n  Thyself I call it, being strange to me,\n  That, undividable, incorporate,\n  Am better than thy dear self's better part.\n  Ah, do not tear away thyself from me;\n  For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall\n  A drop of water in the breaking gulf,\n  And take unmingled thence that drop again\n  Without addition or diminishing,\n  As take from me thyself, and not me too.\n  How dearly would it touch thee to the quick,\n  Should'st thou but hear I were licentious,\n  And that this body, consecrate to thee,\n  By ruffian lust should be contaminate!\n  Wouldst thou not spit at me and spurn at me,\n  And hurl the name of husband in my face,\n  And tear the stain'd skin off my harlot-brow,\n  And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring,\n  And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?\n  I know thou canst, and therefore see thou do it.\n  I am possess'd with an adulterate blot;\n  My blood is mingled with the crime of lust;\n  For if we two be one, and thou play false,\n  I do digest the poison of thy flesh,\n  Being strumpeted by thy contagion.\n  Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed;\n  I live dis-stain'd, thou undishonoured.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not:\n  In Ephesus I am but two hours old,\n  As strange unto your town as to your talk,\n  Who, every word by all my wit being scann'd,\n  Wants wit in all one word to understand.\nLUCIANA. Fie, brother, how the world is chang'd with you!\n  When were you wont to use my sister thus?\n  She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. By Dromio?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. By me?\nADRIANA. By thee; and this thou didst return from him-\n  That he did buffet thee, and in his blows\n  Denied my house for his, me for his wife.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman?\n  What is the course and drift of your compact?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I, Sir? I never saw her till this time.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Villain, thou liest; for even her very words\n  Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I never spake with her in all my life.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. How can she thus, then, call us by our names,\n  Unless it be by inspiration?\nADRIANA. How ill agrees it with your gravity\n  To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave,\n  Abetting him to thwart me in my mood!\n  Be it my wrong you are from me exempt,\n  But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.\n  Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine;\n  Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,\n  Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,\n  Makes me with thy strength to communicate.\n  If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,\n  Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss;\n  Who all, for want of pruning, with intrusion\n  Infect thy sap, and live on thy confusion.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme.\n  What, was I married to her in my dream?\n  Or sleep I now, and think I hear all this?\n  What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?\n  Until I know this sure uncertainty,\n  I'll entertain the offer'd fallacy.\nLUCIANA. Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, for my beads! I cross me for sinner.\n  This is the fairy land. O spite of spites!\n  We talk with goblins, owls, and sprites.\n  If we obey them not, this will ensue:\n  They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue.\nLUCIANA. Why prat'st thou to thyself, and answer'st not?\n  Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I am transformed, master, am not I?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I think thou art in mind, and so am I.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nay, master, both in mind and in my shape.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thou hast thine own form.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, I am an ape.\nLUCIANA. If thou art chang'd to aught, 'tis to an ass.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. 'Tis true; she rides me, and I long for grass.\n  'Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be\n  But I should know her as well as she knows me.\nADRIANA. Come, come, no longer will I be a fool,\n  To put the finger in the eye and weep,\n  Whilst man and master laughs my woes to scorn.\n  Come, sir, to dinner. Dromio, keep the gate.\n  Husband, I'll dine above with you to-day,\n  And shrive you of a thousand idle pranks.\n  Sirrah, if any ask you for your master,\n  Say he dines forth, and let no creature enter.\n  Come, sister. Dromio, play the porter well.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?\n  Sleeping or waking, mad or well-advis'd?\n  Known unto these, and to myself disguis'd!\n  I'll say as they say, and persever so,\n  And in this mist at all adventures go.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, shall I be porter at the gate?\nADRIANA. Ay; and let none enter, lest I break your pate.\nLUCIANA. Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late.\n<Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1\n\nBefore the house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, DROMIO OF EPHESUS, ANGELO, and BALTHAZAR\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Good Signior Angelo, you must excuse us all;\n  My wife is shrewish when I keep not hours.\n  Say that I linger'd with you at your shop\n  To see the making of her carcanet,\n  And that to-morrow you will bring it home.\n  But here's a villain that would face me down\n  He met me on the mart, and that I beat him,\n  And charg'd him with a thousand marks in gold,\n  And that I did deny my wife and house.\n  Thou drunkard, thou, what didst thou mean by this?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Say what you will, sir, but I know what I know.\n  That you beat me at the mart I have your hand to show;\n  If the skin were parchment, and the blows you gave were ink,\n  Your own handwriting would tell you what I think.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I think thou art an ass.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Marry, so it doth appear\n  By the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear.\n  I should kick, being kick'd; and being at that pass,\n  You would keep from my heels, and beware of an ass.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Y'are sad, Signior Balthazar; pray God our cheer\n  May answer my good will and your good welcome here.\nBALTHAZAR. I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your welcome dear.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. O, Signior Balthazar, either at flesh or fish,\n  A table full of welcome makes scarce one dainty dish.\nBALTHAZAR. Good meat, sir, is common; that every churl affords.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And welcome more common; for that's nothing\n  but words.\nBALTHAZAR. Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Ay, to a niggardly host and more sparing guest.\n  But though my cates be mean, take them in good part;\n  Better cheer may you have, but not with better heart.\n  But, soft, my door is lock'd; go bid them let us in.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Maud, Bridget, Marian, Cicely, Gillian, Ginn!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. [Within] Mome, malt-horse, capon, coxcomb, idiot, patch!\n  Either get thee from the door, or sit down at the hatch.\n  Dost thou conjure for wenches, that thou call'st for such store,\n  When one is one too many? Go get thee from the door.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. What patch is made our porter?\n  My master stays in the street.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Let him walk from whence he came,\n    lest he catch cold on's feet.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Who talks within there? Ho, open the door!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Right, sir; I'll tell you when,\n    an you'll tell me wherefore.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Wherefore? For my dinner;\n    I have not din'd to-day.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Nor to-day here you must not;\n    come again when you may.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. What art thou that keep'st me out\n    from the house I owe?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  The porter for this time,\n    sir, and my name is Dromio.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. O Villain, thou hast stol'n both mine\n    office and my name!\n  The one ne'er got me credit, the other mickle blame.\n  If thou hadst been Dromio to-day in my place,\n  Thou wouldst have chang'd thy face for a name, or thy name for an ass.\n\nEnter LUCE, within\n\nLUCE.  [Within]  What a coil is there, Dromio? Who are those at the gate?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Let my master in, Luce.\nLUCE.  [Within]  Faith, no, he comes too late;\n  And so tell your master.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. O Lord, I must laugh!\n  Have at you with a proverb: Shall I set in my staff?\nLUCE.  [Within]  Have at you with another: that's-when? can you tell?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  If thy name be called Luce\n    -Luce, thou hast answer'd him well.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Do you hear, you minion? You'll let us in, I hope?\nLUCE.  [Within]  I thought to have ask'd you.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  And you said no.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. SO, Come, help: well struck! there was blow for blow.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou baggage, let me in.\nLUCE.  [Within]  Can you tell for whose sake?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Master, knock the door hard.\nLUCE.  [Within]  Let him knock till it ache.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You'll cry for this, minion, if beat the door down.\nLUCE.  [Within] What needs all that, and a pair of stocks in the town?\n\nEnter ADRIANA, within\n\nADRIANA.  [Within]  Who is that at the door, that keeps all this noise?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  By my troth, your town is\n    troubled with unruly boys.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Are you there, wife? You might\n    have come before.\nADRIANA.  [Within]  Your wife, sir knave! Go get you from the door.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. If YOU went in pain, master, this 'knave' would go sore.\nANGELO. Here is neither cheer, sir, nor welcome; we would fain have either.\nBALTHAZAR. In debating which was best, we shall part with neither.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. They stand at the door, master; bid them welcome hither.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There is something in the wind, that we cannot get in.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. You would say so, master, if your garments were thin.\n  Your cake here is warm within; you stand here in the cold;\n  It would make a man mad as a buck to be so bought and sold.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Go fetch me something; I'll break ope the gate.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Break any breaking here,\n    and I'll break your knave's pate.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. A man may break a word with you,\n    sir; and words are but wind;\n  Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  It seems thou want'st breaking;\n    out upon thee, hind!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Here's too much 'out upon thee!' pray thee let me in.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Ay, when fowls have no\n    feathers and fish have no fin.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Well, I'll break in; go borrow me a crow.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. A crow without feather? Master, mean you so?\n  For a fish without a fin, there's a fowl without a feather;\n  If a crow help us in, sirrah, we'll pluck a crow together.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Go get thee gone; fetch me an iron crow.\nBALTHAZAR. Have patience, sir; O, let it not be so!\n  Herein you war against your reputation,\n  And draw within the compass of suspect\n  Th' unviolated honour of your wife.\n  Once this-your long experience of her wisdom,\n  Her sober virtue, years, and modesty,\n  Plead on her part some cause to you unknown;\n  And doubt not, sir, but she will well excuse\n  Why at this time the doors are made against you.\n  Be rul'd by me: depart in patience,\n  And let us to the Tiger all to dinner;\n  And, about evening, come yourself alone\n  To know the reason of this strange restraint.\n  If by strong hand you offer to break in\n  Now in the stirring passage of the day,\n  A vulgar comment will be made of it,\n  And that supposed by the common rout\n  Against your yet ungalled estimation\n  That may with foul intrusion enter in\n  And dwell upon your grave when you are dead;\n  For slander lives upon succession,\n  For ever hous'd where it gets possession.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You have prevail'd. I will depart in quiet,\n  And in despite of mirth mean to be merry.\n  I know a wench of excellent discourse,\n  Pretty and witty; wild, and yet, too, gentle;\n  There will we dine. This woman that I mean,\n  My wife-but, I protest, without desert-\n  Hath oftentimes upbraided me withal;\n  To her will we to dinner.  [To ANGELO]  Get you home\n  And fetch the chain; by this I know 'tis made.\n  Bring it, I pray you, to the Porpentine;\n  For there's the house. That chain will I bestow-\n  Be it for nothing but to spite my wife-\n  Upon mine hostess there; good sir, make haste.\n  Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me,\n  I'll knock elsewhere, to see if they'll disdain me.\nANGELO. I'll meet you at that place some hour hence.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Do so; this jest shall cost me some expense.\n<Exeunt\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nBefore the house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\n\nEnter LUCIANA with ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE\n\nLUCIANA. And may it be that you have quite forgot\n  A husband's office? Shall, Antipholus,\n  Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?\n  Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous?\n  If you did wed my sister for her wealth,\n  Then for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness;\n  Or, if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth;\n  Muffle your false love with some show of blindness;\n  Let not my sister read it in your eye;\n  Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator;\n  Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty;\n  Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger;\n  Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted;\n  Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint;\n  Be secret-false. What need she be acquainted?\n  What simple thief brags of his own attaint?\n  'Tis double wrong to truant with your bed\n  And let her read it in thy looks at board;\n  Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed;\n  Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word.\n  Alas, poor women! make us but believe,\n  Being compact of credit, that you love us;\n  Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve;\n  We in your motion turn, and you may move us.\n  Then, gentle brother, get you in again;\n  Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife.\n  'Tis holy sport to be a little vain\n  When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Sweet mistress-what your name is else, I know not,\n  Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine-\n  Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not\n  Than our earth's wonder-more than earth, divine.\n  Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak;\n  Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit,\n  Smoth'red in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,\n  The folded meaning of your words' deceit.\n  Against my soul's pure truth why labour you\n  To make it wander in an unknown field?\n  Are you a god? Would you create me new?\n  Transform me, then, and to your pow'r I'll yield.\n  But if that I am I, then well I know\n  Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,\n  Nor to her bed no homage do I owe;\n  Far more, far more, to you do I decline.\n  O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,\n  To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears.\n  Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote;\n  Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,\n  And as a bed I'll take them, and there he;\n  And in that glorious supposition think\n  He gains by death that hath such means to die.\n  Let Love, being light, be drowned if she sink.\nLUCIANA. What, are you mad, that you do reason so?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.\nLUCIANA. It is a fault that springeth from your eye.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.\nLUCIANA. Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.\nLUCIANA. Why call you me love? Call my sister so.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thy sister's sister.\nLUCIANA. That's my sister.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. No;\n  It is thyself, mine own self's better part;\n  Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart,\n  My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope's aim,\n  My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.\nLUCIANA. All this my sister is, or else should be.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am thee;\n  Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life;\n  Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife.\n  Give me thy hand.\nLUCIANA. O, soft, sir, hold you still;\n  I'll fetch my sister to get her good will.\n<Exit LUCIANA\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, how now, Dromio! Where run'st thou\n  so fast?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Do you know me, sir? Am I Dromio?\n  Am I your man? Am I myself?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thou art Dromio, thou art my\n  man, thou art thyself.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I am an ass, I am a woman's man, and besides\n  myself.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What woman's man, and how besides thyself?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due\n  to a woman-one that claims me, one that haunts me, one\n  that will have me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What claim lays she to thee?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, such claim as you would\n  lay to your horse; and she would have me as a beast: not\n  that, I being a beast, she would have me; but that she,\n  being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What is she?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. A very reverent body; ay, such a one\n  as a man may not speak of without he say 'Sir-reverence.'\n  I have but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a\n  wondrous fat marriage.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. How dost thou mean a fat marriage?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, she's the kitchen-wench,\n  and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to but\n  to make a lamp of her and run from her by her own light.\n  I warrant, her rags and the tallow in them will burn\n  Poland winter. If she lives till doomsday, she'll burn\n  week longer than the whole world.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What complexion is she of?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Swart, like my shoe; but her face\n  nothing like so clean kept; for why, she sweats, a man may\n  go over shoes in the grime of it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. That's a fault that water will mend.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood\n  could not do it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What's her name?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nell, sir; but her name and three\n  quarters, that's an ell and three quarters, will not measure\n  her from hip to hip.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Then she bears some breadth?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No longer from head to foot than\n  from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find\n  out countries in her.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. In what part of her body stands Ireland?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, in her buttocks; I found it out by\n  the bogs.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where Scotland?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I found it by the barrenness, hard in\n  the palm of the hand.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where France?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. In her forehead, arm'd and reverted,\n  making war against her heir.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where England?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I look'd for the chalky cliffs, but I\n  could find no whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her\n  chin, by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where Spain?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Faith, I saw it not, but I felt it hot in\n  her breath.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where America, the Indies?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, sir, upon her nose, an o'er embellished with\n  rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the\n  hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of caracks to be\n  ballast at her nose.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, Sir, I did not look so low. To\n  conclude: this drudge or diviner laid claim to me; call'd me\n  Dromio; swore I was assur'd to her; told me what privy\n  marks I had about me, as, the mark of my shoulder, the\n  mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I,\n  amaz'd, ran from her as a witch.\n  And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith,\n    and my heart of steel,\n  She had transform'd me to a curtal dog, and made me turn i' th' wheel.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Go hie thee presently post to the road;\n  An if the wind blow any way from shore,\n  I will not harbour in this town to-night.\n  If any bark put forth, come to the mart,\n  Where I will walk till thou return to me.\n  If every one knows us, and we know none,\n  'Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack and be gone.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. As from a bear a man would run for life,\n  So fly I from her that would be my wife.\n<Exit\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. There's none but witches do inhabit here,\n  And therefore 'tis high time that I were hence.\n  She that doth call me husband, even my soul\n  Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister,\n  Possess'd with such a gentle sovereign grace,\n  Of such enchanting presence and discourse,\n  Hath almost made me traitor to myself;\n  But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong,\n  I'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song.\n\nEnter ANGELO with the chain\n\nANGELO. Master Antipholus!\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Ay, that's my name.\nANGELO. I know it well, sir. Lo, here is the chain.\n  I thought to have ta'en you at the Porpentine;\n  The chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What is your will that I shall do with this?\nANGELO. What please yourself, sir; I have made it for you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Made it for me, sir! I bespoke it not.\nANGELO. Not once nor twice, but twenty times you have.\n  Go home with it, and please your wife withal;\n  And soon at supper-time I'll visit you,\n  And then receive my money for the chain.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I pray you, sir, receive the money now,\n  For fear you ne'er see chain nor money more.\nANGELO. You are a merry man, sir; fare you well.\n<Exit\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What I should think of this cannot tell:\n  But this I think, there's no man is so vain\n  That would refuse so fair an offer'd chain.\n  I see a man here needs not live by shifts,\n  When in the streets he meets such golden gifts.\n  I'll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay;\n  If any ship put out, then straight away.\n<Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1\n\nA public place\n\nEnter SECOND MERCHANT, ANGELO, and an OFFICER\n\nSECOND MERCHANT. You know since Pentecost the sum is due,\n  And since I have not much importun'd you;\n  Nor now I had not, but that I am bound\n  To Persia, and want guilders for my voyage.\n  Therefore make present satisfaction,\n  Or I'll attach you by this officer.\nANGELO. Even just the sum that I do owe to you\n  Is growing to me by Antipholus;\n  And in the instant that I met with you\n  He had of me a chain; at five o'clock\n  I shall receive the money for the same.\n  Pleaseth you walk with me down to his house,\n  I will discharge my bond, and thank you too.\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, and DROMIO OF EPHESUS, from the COURTEZAN'S\n\nOFFICER. That labour may you save; see where he comes.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. While I go to the goldsmith's house, go thou\n  And buy a rope's end; that will I bestow\n  Among my wife and her confederates,\n  For locking me out of my doors by day.\n  But, soft, I see the goldsmith. Get thee gone;\n  Buy thou a rope, and bring it home to me.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I buy a thousand pound a year; I buy a rope.\n<Exit DROMIO\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. A man is well holp up that trusts to you!\n  I promised your presence and the chain;\n  But neither chain nor goldsmith came to me.\n  Belike you thought our love would last too long,\n  If it were chain'd together, and therefore came not.\nANGELO. Saving your merry humour, here's the note\n  How much your chain weighs to the utmost carat,\n  The fineness of the gold, and chargeful fashion,\n  Which doth amount to three odd ducats more\n  Than I stand debted to this gentleman.\n  I pray you see him presently discharg'd,\n  For he is bound to sea, and stays but for it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I am not furnish'd with the present money;\n  Besides, I have some business in the town.\n  Good signior, take the stranger to my house,\n  And with you take the chain, and bid my wife\n  Disburse the sum on the receipt thereof.\n  Perchance I will be there as soon as you.\nANGELO. Then you will bring the chain to her yourself?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. No; bear it with you, lest I come not time enough.\nANGELO. Well, sir, I will. Have you the chain about you?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. An if I have not, sir, I hope you have;\n  Or else you may return without your money.\nANGELO. Nay, come, I pray you, sir, give me the chain;\n  Both wind and tide stays for this gentleman,\n  And I, to blame, have held him here too long.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Good Lord! you use this dalliance to excuse\n  Your breach of promise to the Porpentine;\n  I should have chid you for not bringing it,\n  But, like a shrew, you first begin to brawl.\nSECOND MERCHANT. The hour steals on; I pray you, sir, dispatch.\nANGELO. You hear how he importunes me-the chain!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Why, give it to my wife, and fetch your money.\nANGELO. Come, come, you know I gave it you even now.\n  Either send the chain or send by me some token.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Fie, now you run this humour out of breath!\n  Come, where's the chain? I pray you let me see it.\nSECOND MERCHANT. My business cannot brook this dalliance.\n  Good sir, say whe'r you'll answer me or no;\n  If not, I'll leave him to the officer.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I answer you! What should I answer you?\nANGELO. The money that you owe me for the chain.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I owe you none till I receive the chain.\nANGELO. You know I gave it you half an hour since.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You gave me none; you wrong me much to say so.\nANGELO. You wrong me more, sir, in denying it.\n  Consider how it stands upon my credit.\nSECOND MERCHANT. Well, officer, arrest him at my suit.\nOFFICER. I do; and charge you in the Duke's name to obey me.\nANGELO. This touches me in reputation.\n  Either consent to pay this sum for me,\n  Or I attach you by this officer.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Consent to pay thee that I never had!\n  Arrest me, foolish fellow, if thou dar'st.\nANGELO. Here is thy fee; arrest him, officer.\n  I would not spare my brother in this case,\n  If he should scorn me so apparently.\nOFFICER. I do arrest you, sir; you hear the suit.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I do obey thee till I give thee bail.\n  But, sirrah, you shall buy this sport as dear\n  As all the metal in your shop will answer.\nANGELO. Sir, sir, I shall have law in Ephesus,\n  To your notorious shame, I doubt it not.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, from the bay\n\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, there's a bark of Epidamnum\n  That stays but till her owner comes aboard,\n  And then, sir, she bears away. Our fraughtage, sir,\n  I have convey'd aboard; and I have bought\n  The oil, the balsamum, and aqua-vitx.\n  The ship is in her trim; the merry wind\n  Blows fair from land; they stay for nought at an\n  But for their owner, master, and yourself.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. How now! a madman? Why, thou peevish sheep,\n  What ship of Epidamnum stays for me?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. A ship you sent me to, to hire waftage.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. THOU drunken slave! I sent the for a rope;\n  And told thee to what purpose and what end.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. YOU sent me for a rope's end as soon-\n  You sent me to the bay, sir, for a bark.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I Will debate this matter at more leisure,\n  And teach your ears to list me with more heed.\n  To Adriana, villain, hie thee straight;\n  Give her this key, and tell her in the desk\n  That's cover'd o'er with Turkish tapestry\n  There is a purse of ducats; let her send it.\n  Tell her I am arrested in the street,\n  And that shall bail me; hie thee, slave, be gone.\n  On, officer, to prison till it come.\n<Exeunt all but DROMIO\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. To Adriana! that is where we din'd,\n  Where Dowsabel did claim me for her husband.\n  She is too big, I hope, for me to compass.\n  Thither I must, although against my will,\n  For servants must their masters' minds fulfil.\n<Exit\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nThe house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\n\nEnter ADRIANA and LUCIANA\n\nADRIANA. Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so?\n  Might'st thou perceive austerely in his eye\n  That he did plead in earnest? Yea or no?\n  Look'd he or red or pale, or sad or merrily?\n  What observation mad'st thou in this case\n  Of his heart's meteors tilting in his face?\nLUCIANA. First he denied you had in him no right.\nADRIANA. He meant he did me none-the more my spite.\nLUCIANA. Then swore he that he was a stranger here.\nADRIANA. And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were.\nLUCIANA. Then pleaded I for you.\nADRIANA. And what said he?\nLUCIANA. That love I begg'd for you he begg'd of me.\nADRIANA. With what persuasion did he tempt thy love?\nLUCIANA. With words that in an honest suit might move.\n  First he did praise my beauty, then my speech.\nADRIANA. Didst speak him fair?\nLUCIANA. Have patience, I beseech.\nADRIANA. I cannot, nor I will not hold me still;\n  My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will.\n  He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere,\n  Ill-fac'd, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere;\n  Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind;\n  Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.\nLUCIANA. Who would be jealous then of such a one?\n  No evil lost is wail'd when it is gone.\nADRIANA. Ah, but I think him better than I say,\n  And yet would herein others' eyes were worse.\n  Far from her nest the lapwing cries away;\n  My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.\n\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Here go-the desk, the purse. Sweet\n  now, make haste.\nLUCIANA. How hast thou lost thy breath?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. By running fast.\nADRIANA. Where is thy master, Dromio? Is he well?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell.\n  A devil in an everlasting garment hath him;\n  One whose hard heart is button'd up with steel;\n  A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough;\n  A wolf, nay worse, a fellow all in buff;\n  A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands\n  The passages of alleys, creeks, and narrow lands;\n  A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot well;\n  One that, before the Judgment, carries poor souls to hell.\nADRIANA. Why, man, what is the matter?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I do not know the matter; he is rested on the case.\nADRIANA. What, is he arrested? Tell me, at whose suit?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I know not at whose suit he is arrested well;\n  But he's in a suit of buff which 'rested him, that can I tell.\n  Will you send him, mistress, redemption, the money in his desk?\nADRIANA. Go fetch it, sister.  [Exit LUCIANA]  This I wonder at:\n  Thus he unknown to me should be in debt.\n  Tell me, was he arrested on a band?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. on a band, but on a stronger thing,\n  A chain, a chain. Do you not hear it ring?\nADRIANA. What, the chain?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, no, the bell; 'tis time that I were gone.\n  It was two ere I left him, and now the clock strikes one.\nADRIANA. The hours come back! That did I never hear.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O yes. If any hour meet a sergeant,\n    'a turns back for very fear.\nADRIANA. As if Time were in debt! How fondly dost thou reason!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Time is a very bankrupt, and owes\n    more than he's worth to season.\n  Nay, he's a thief too: have you not heard men say\n  That Time comes stealing on by night and day?\n  If 'a be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way,\n  Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day?\n\nRe-enter LUCIANA with a purse\n\nADRIANA. Go, Dromio, there's the money; bear it straight,\n  And bring thy master home immediately.\n  Come, sister; I am press'd down with conceit-\n  Conceit, my comfort and my injury.\n<Exeunt\n\n\nSCENE 3\n\nThe mart\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. There's not a man I meet but doth salute me\n  As if I were their well-acquainted friend;\n  And every one doth call me by my name.\n  Some tender money to me, some invite me,\n  Some other give me thanks for kindnesses,\n  Some offer me commodities to buy;\n  Even now a tailor call'd me in his shop,\n  And show'd me silks that he had bought for me,\n  And therewithal took measure of my body.\n  Sure, these are but imaginary wiles,\n  And Lapland sorcerers inhabit here.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE\n\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, here's the gold you sent me\n  for. What, have you got the picture of old Adam new-apparell'd?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What gold is this? What Adam dost thou mean?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Not that Adam that kept the Paradise,\n  but that Adam that keeps the prison; he that goes in the\n  calf's skin that was kill'd for the Prodigal; he that came behind\n  you, sir, like an evil angel, and bid you forsake your liberty.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I understand thee not.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No? Why, 'tis a plain case: he that\n  went, like a bass-viol, in a case of leather; the man, sir,\n  that, when gentlemen are tired, gives them a sob, and rest\n  them; he, sir, that takes pity on decayed men, and give\n  them suits of durance; he that sets up his rest to do more\n  exploits with his mace than a morris-pike.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What, thou mean'st an officer?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Ay, sir, the sergeant of the band;\n  that brings any man to answer it that breaks his band; on\n  that thinks a man always going to bed, and says 'God give\n  you good rest!'\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Well, sir, there rest in your foolery. Is\n  there any ship puts forth to-night? May we be gone?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Why, sir, I brought you word an\n  hour since that the bark Expedition put forth to-night; and\n  then were you hind'red by the sergeant, to tarry for the\n  boy Delay. Here are the angels that you sent for to deliver you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. The fellow is distract, and so am I;\n  And here we wander in illusions.\n  Some blessed power deliver us from hence!\n\nEnter a COURTEZAN\n\nCOURTEZAN. Well met, well met, Master Antipholus.\n  I see, sir, you have found the goldsmith now.\n  Is that the chain you promis'd me to-day?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Satan, avoid! I charge thee, tempt me not.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, is this Mistress Satan?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. It is the devil.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nay, she is worse, she is the devil's\n  dam, and here she comes in the habit of a light wench; and\n  thereof comes that the wenches say 'God damn me!' That's\n  as much to say 'God make me a light wench!' It is written\n  they appear to men like angels of light; light is an effect\n  of fire, and fire will burn; ergo, light wenches will burn.\n  Come not near her.\nCOURTEZAN. Your man and you are marvellous merry, sir.\n  Will you go with me? We'll mend our dinner here.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, if you do, expect spoon-meat,\n  or bespeak a long spoon.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, Dromio?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, he must have a long spoon\n  that must eat with the devil.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Avoid then, fiend! What tell'st thou me of supping?\n  Thou art, as you are all, a sorceress;\n  I conjure thee to leave me and be gone.\nCOURTEZAN. Give me the ring of mine you had at dinner,\n  Or, for my diamond, the chain you promis'd,\n  And I'll be gone, sir, and not trouble you.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Some devils ask but the parings of one's nail,\n  A rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin,\n  A nut, a cherry-stone;\n  But she, more covetous, would have a chain.\n  Master, be wise; an if you give it her,\n  The devil will shake her chain, and fright us with it.\nCOURTEZAN. I pray you, sir, my ring, or else the chain;\n  I hope you do not mean to cheat me so.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Avaunt, thou witch! Come, Dromio, let us go.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. 'Fly pride' says the peacock. Mistress, that you know.\n<Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE\nCOURTEZAN. Now, out of doubt, Antipholus is mad,\n  Else would he never so demean himself.\n  A ring he hath of mine worth forty ducats,\n  And for the same he promis'd me a chain;\n  Both one and other he denies me now.\n  The reason that I gather he is mad,\n  Besides this present instance of his rage,\n  Is a mad tale he told to-day at dinner\n  Of his own doors being shut against his entrance.\n  Belike his wife, acquainted with his fits,\n  On purpose shut the doors against his way.\n  My way is now to hie home to his house,\n  And tell his wife that, being lunatic,\n  He rush'd into my house and took perforce\n  My ring away. This course I fittest choose,\n  For forty ducats is too much to lose.\n<Exit\n\n\nSCENE 4\n\nA street\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS with the OFFICER\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Fear me not, man; I will not break away.\n  I'll give thee, ere I leave thee, so much money,\n  To warrant thee, as I am 'rested for.\n  My wife is in a wayward mood to-day,\n  And will not lightly trust the messenger.\n  That I should be attach'd in Ephesus,\n  I tell you 'twill sound harshly in her cars.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF EPHESUS, with a rope's-end\n\n  Here comes my man; I think he brings the money.\n  How now, sir! Have you that I sent you for?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Here's that, I warrant you, will pay them all.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. But where's the money?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Why, sir, I gave the money for the rope.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Five hundred ducats, villain, for rope?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I'll serve you, sir, five hundred at the rate.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. To what end did I bid thee hie thee home?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. To a rope's-end, sir; and to that end am I\n  return'd.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And to that end, sir, I will welcome you.\n[Beating him]\nOFFICER. Good sir, be patient.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, 'tis for me to be patient; I am in\n  adversity.\nOFFICER. Good now, hold thy tongue.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, rather persuade him to hold his hands.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou whoreson, senseless villain!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I would I were senseless, sir, that I\n  might not feel your blows.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou art sensible in nothing but\n  blows, and so is an ass.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I am an ass indeed; you may prove it\n  by my long 'ears. I have served him from the hour of my\n  nativity to this instant, and have nothing at his hands for\n  my service but blows. When I am cold he heats me with\n  beating; when I am warm he cools me with beating. I am\n  wak'd with it when I sleep; rais'd with it when I sit; driven\n  out of doors with it when I go from home; welcom'd home\n  with it when I return; nay, I bear it on my shoulders as\n  beggar wont her brat; and I think, when he hath lam'd me,\n  I shall beg with it from door to door.\n\nEnter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, the COURTEZAN, and a SCHOOLMASTER\ncall'd PINCH\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Come, go along; my wife is coming yonder.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Mistress, 'respice finem,' respect your end; or\n  rather, to prophesy like the parrot, 'Beware the rope's-end.'\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Wilt thou still talk?\n[Beating him]\nCOURTEZAN. How say you now? Is not your husband mad?\nADRIANA. His incivility confirms no less.\n  Good Doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer:\n  Establish him in his true sense again,\n  And I will please you what you will demand.\nLUCIANA. Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks!\nCOURTEZAN. Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy.\nPINCH. Give me your hand, and let me feel your pulse.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There is my hand, and let it feel your ear.\n[Striking him]\nPINCH. I charge thee, Satan, hous'd within this man,\n  To yield possession to my holy prayers,\n  And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight.\n  I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Peace, doting wizard, peace! I am not mad.\nADRIANA. O, that thou wert not, poor distressed soul!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You minion, you, are these your customers?\n  Did this companion with the saffron face\n  Revel and feast it at my house to-day,\n  Whilst upon me the guilty doors were shut,\n  And I denied to enter in my house?\nADRIANA. O husband, God doth know you din'd at home,\n  Where would you had remain'd until this time,\n  Free from these slanders and this open shame!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Din'd at home! Thou villain, what sayest thou?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sir, Sooth to say, you did not dine at home.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Were not my doors lock'd up and I shut out?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Perdie, your doors were lock'd and you shut out.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And did not she herself revile me there?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sans fable, she herself revil'd you there.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Did not her kitchen-maid rail, taunt, and scorn me?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Certes, she did; the kitchen-vestal scorn'd you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And did not I in rage depart from thence?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. In verity, you did. My bones bear witness,\n  That since have felt the vigour of his rage.\nADRIANA. Is't good to soothe him in these contraries?\nPINCH. It is no shame; the fellow finds his vein,\n  And, yielding to him, humours well his frenzy.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou hast suborn'd the goldsmith to arrest me.\nADRIANA. Alas, I sent you money to redeem you,\n  By Dromio here, who came in haste for it.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Money by me! Heart and goodwill you might,\n  But surely, master, not a rag of money.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Went'st not thou to her for purse of ducats?\nADRIANA. He came to me, and I deliver'd it.\nLUCIANA. And I am witness with her that she did.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. God and the rope-maker bear me witness\n  That I was sent for nothing but a rope!\nPINCH. Mistress, both man and master is possess'd;\n  I know it by their pale and deadly looks.\n  They must be bound, and laid in some dark room.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Say, wherefore didst thou lock me forth to-day?\n  And why dost thou deny the bag of gold?\nADRIANA. I did not, gentle husband, lock thee forth.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. And, gentle master, I receiv'd no gold;\n  But I confess, sir, that we were lock'd out.\nADRIANA. Dissembling villain, thou speak'st false in both.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Dissembling harlot, thou art false in all,\n  And art confederate with a damned pack\n  To make a loathsome abject scorn of me;\n  But with these nails I'll pluck out these false eyes\n  That would behold in me this shameful sport.\nADRIANA. O, bind him, bind him; let him not come near me.\nPINCH. More company! The fiend is strong within him.\n\nEnter three or four, and offer to bind him. He strives\n\nLUCIANA. Ay me, poor man, how pale and wan he looks!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. What, will you murder me? Thou gaoler, thou,\n  I am thy prisoner. Wilt thou suffer them\n  To make a rescue?\nOFFICER. Masters, let him go;\n  He is my prisoner, and you shall not have him.\nPINCH. Go bind this man, for he is frantic too.\n[They bind DROMIO]\nADRIANA. What wilt thou do, thou peevish officer?\n  Hast thou delight to see a wretched man\n  Do outrage and displeasure to himself?\nOFFICER. He is my prisoner; if I let him go,\n  The debt he owes will be requir'd of me.\nADRIANA. I will discharge thee ere I go from thee;\n  Bear me forthwith unto his creditor,\n  And, knowing how the debt grows, I will pay it.\n  Good Master Doctor, see him safe convey'd\n  Home to my house. O most unhappy day!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. O most unhappy strumpet!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Master, I am here ent'red in bond for you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Out on thee, villian! Wherefore\n  dost thou mad me?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Will you be bound for nothing?\n  Be mad, good master; cry 'The devil!'\nLUCIANA. God help, poor souls, how idly do they talk!\nADRIANA. Go bear him hence. Sister, go you with me.\n<Exeunt all but ADRIANA, LUCIANA, OFFICERS, and COURTEZAN\n  Say now, whose suit is he arrested at?\nOFFICER. One Angelo, a goldsmith; do you know him?\nADRIANA. I know the man. What is the sum he owes?\nOFFICER. Two hundred ducats.\nADRIANA. Say, how grows it due?\nOFFICER. Due for a chain your husband had of him.\nADRIANA. He did bespeak a chain for me, but had it not.\nCOURTEZAN. When as your husband, all in rage, to-day\n  Came to my house, and took away my ring-\n  The ring I saw upon his finger now-\n  Straight after did I meet him with a chain.\nADRIANA. It may be so, but I did never see it.\n  Come, gaoler, bring me where the goldsmith is;\n  I long to know the truth hereof at large.\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, with his rapier drawn, and\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.\n\nLUCIANA. God, for thy mercy! they are loose again.\nADRIANA. And come with naked swords.\n  Let's call more help to have them bound again.\nOFFICER. Away, they'll kill us!\n<Exeunt all but ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE as fast as may be, frighted\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I see these witches are afraid of swords.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. She that would be your wife now ran from you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Come to the Centaur; fetch our stuff from thence.\n  I long that we were safe and sound aboard.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Faith, stay here this night; they will\n  surely do us no harm; you saw they speak us fair, give us\n  gold; methinks they are such a gentle nation that, but for\n  the mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage of me,\n  could find in my heart to stay here still and turn witch.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I will not stay to-night for all the town;\n  Therefore away, to get our stuff aboard.\n<Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1\n\nA street before a priory\n\nEnter SECOND MERCHANT and ANGELO\n\nANGELO. I am sorry, sir, that I have hind'red you;\n  But I protest he had the chain of me,\n  Though most dishonestly he doth deny it.\nSECOND MERCHANT. How is the man esteem'd here in the city?\nANGELO. Of very reverend reputation, sir,\n  Of credit infinite, highly belov'd,\n  Second to none that lives here in the city;\n  His word might bear my wealth at any time.\nSECOND MERCHANT. Speak softly; yonder, as I think, he walks.\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE\n\nANGELO. 'Tis so; and that self chain about his neck\n  Which he forswore most monstrously to have.\n  Good sir, draw near to me, I'll speak to him.\n  Signior Andpholus, I wonder much\n  That you would put me to this shame and trouble;\n  And, not without some scandal to yourself,\n  With circumstance and oaths so to deny\n  This chain, which now you wear so openly.\n  Beside the charge, the shame, imprisonment,\n  You have done wrong to this my honest friend;\n  Who, but for staying on our controversy,\n  Had hoisted sail and put to sea to-day.\n  This chain you had of me; can you deny it?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I think I had; I never did deny it.\nSECOND MERCHANT. Yes, that you did, sir, and forswore it too.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Who heard me to deny it or forswear it?\nSECOND MERCHANT. These ears of mine, thou know'st, did hear thee.\n  Fie on thee, wretch! 'tis pity that thou liv'st\n  To walk where any honest men resort.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thou art a villain to impeach me thus;\n  I'll prove mine honour and mine honesty\n  Against thee presently, if thou dar'st stand.\nSECOND MERCHANT. I dare, and do defy thee for a villain.\n[They draw]\n\nEnter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, the COURTEZAN, and OTHERS\n\nADRIANA. Hold, hurt him not, for God's sake! He is mad.\n  Some get within him, take his sword away;\n  Bind Dromio too, and bear them to my house.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Run, master, run; for God's sake take a house.\n  This is some priory. In, or we are spoil'd.\n<Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE to the priory\n\nEnter the LADY ABBESS\n\nABBESS. Be quiet, people. Wherefore throng you hither?\nADRIANA. To fetch my poor distracted husband hence.\n  Let us come in, that we may bind him fast,\n  And bear him home for his recovery.\nANGELO. I knew he was not in his perfect wits.\nSECOND MERCHANT. I am sorry now that I did draw on him.\nABBESS. How long hath this possession held the man?\nADRIANA. This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad,\n  And much different from the man he was;\n  But till this afternoon his passion\n  Ne'er brake into extremity of rage.\nABBESS. Hath he not lost much wealth by wreck of sea?\n  Buried some dear friend? Hath not else his eye\n  Stray'd his affection in unlawful love?\n  A sin prevailing much in youthful men\n  Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing.\n  Which of these sorrows is he subject to?\nADRIANA. To none of these, except it be the last;\n  Namely, some love that drew him oft from home.\nABBESS. You should for that have reprehended him.\nADRIANA. Why, so I did.\nABBESS. Ay, but not rough enough.\nADRIANA. As roughly as my modesty would let me.\nABBESS. Haply in private.\nADRIANA. And in assemblies too.\nABBESS. Ay, but not enough.\nADRIANA. It was the copy of our conference.\n  In bed, he slept not for my urging it;\n  At board, he fed not for my urging it;\n  Alone, it was the subject of my theme;\n  In company, I often glanced it;\n  Still did I tell him it was vile and bad.\nABBESS. And thereof came it that the man was mad.\n  The venom clamours of a jealous woman\n  Poisons more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.\n  It seems his sleeps were hind'red by thy railing,\n  And thereof comes it that his head is light.\n  Thou say'st his meat was sauc'd with thy upbraidings:\n  Unquiet meals make ill digestions;\n  Thereof the raging fire of fever bred;\n  And what's a fever but a fit of madness?\n  Thou say'st his sports were hind'red by thy brawls.\n  Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue\n  But moody and dull melancholy,\n  Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair,\n  And at her heels a huge infectious troop\n  Of pale distemperatures and foes to life?\n  In food, in sport, and life-preserving rest,\n  To be disturb'd would mad or man or beast.\n  The consequence is, then, thy jealous fits\n  Hath scar'd thy husband from the use of wits.\nLUCIANA. She never reprehended him but mildly,\n  When he demean'd himself rough, rude, and wildly.\n  Why bear you these rebukes, and answer not?\nADRIANA. She did betray me to my own reproof.\n  Good people, enter, and lay hold on him.\nABBESS. No, not a creature enters in my house.\nADRIANA. Then let your servants bring my husband forth.\nABBESS. Neither; he took this place for sanctuary,\n  And it shall privilege him from your hands\n  Till I have brought him to his wits again,\n  Or lose my labour in assaying it.\nADRIANA. I will attend my husband, be his nurse,\n  Diet his sickness, for it is my office,\n  And will have no attorney but myself;\n  And therefore let me have him home with me.\nABBESS. Be patient; for I will not let him stir\n  Till I have us'd the approved means I have,\n  With wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers,\n  To make of him a formal man again.\n  It is a branch and parcel of mine oath,\n  A charitable duty of my order;\n  Therefore depart, and leave him here with me.\nADRIANA. I will not hence and leave my husband here;\n  And ill it doth beseem your holiness\n  To separate the husband and the wife.\nABBESS. Be quiet, and depart; thou shalt not have him.\n<Exit\nLUCIANA. Complain unto the Duke of this indignity.\nADRIANA. Come, go; I will fall prostrate at his feet,\n  And never rise until my tears and prayers\n  Have won his Grace to come in person hither\n  And take perforce my husband from the Abbess.\nSECOND MERCHANT. By this, I think, the dial points at five;\n  Anon, I'm sure, the Duke himself in person\n  Comes this way to the melancholy vale,\n  The place of death and sorry execution,\n  Behind the ditches of the abbey here.\nANGELO. Upon what cause?\nSECOND MERCHANT. To see a reverend Syracusian merchant,\n  Who put unluckily into this bay\n  Against the laws and statutes of this town,\n  Beheaded publicly for his offence.\nANGELO. See where they come; we will behold his death.\nLUCIANA. Kneel to the Duke before he pass the abbey.\n\nEnter the DUKE, attended; AEGEON, bareheaded;\nwith the HEADSMAN and other OFFICERS\n\nDUKE. Yet once again proclaim it publicly,\n  If any friend will pay the sum for him,\n  He shall not die; so much we tender him.\nADRIANA. Justice, most sacred Duke, against the Abbess!\nDUKE. She is a virtuous and a reverend lady;\n  It cannot be that she hath done thee wrong.\nADRIANA. May it please your Grace, Antipholus, my husband,\n  Who I made lord of me and all I had\n  At your important letters-this ill day\n  A most outrageous fit of madness took him,\n  That desp'rately he hurried through the street,\n  With him his bondman all as mad as he,\n  Doing displeasure to the citizens\n  By rushing in their houses, bearing thence\n  Rings, jewels, anything his rage did like.\n  Once did I get him bound and sent him home,\n  Whilst to take order for the wrongs I went,\n  That here and there his fury had committed.\n  Anon, I wot not by what strong escape,\n  He broke from those that had the guard of him,\n  And with his mad attendant and himself,\n  Each one with ireful passion, with drawn swords,\n  Met us again and, madly bent on us,\n  Chas'd us away; till, raising of more aid,\n  We came again to bind them. Then they fled\n  Into this abbey, whither we pursu'd them;\n  And here the Abbess shuts the gates on us,\n  And will not suffer us to fetch him out,\n  Nor send him forth that we may bear him hence.\n  Therefore, most gracious Duke, with thy command\n  Let him be brought forth and borne hence for help.\nDUKE. Long since thy husband serv'd me in my wars,\n  And I to thee engag'd a prince's word,\n  When thou didst make him master of thy bed,\n  To do him all the grace and good I could.\n  Go, some of you, knock at the abbey gate,\n  And bid the Lady Abbess come to me,\n  I will determine this before I stir.\n\nEnter a MESSENGER\n\nMESSENGER. O mistress, mistress, shift and save yourself!\n  My master and his man are both broke loose,\n  Beaten the maids a-row and bound the doctor,\n  Whose beard they have sing'd off with brands of fire;\n  And ever, as it blaz'd, they threw on him\n  Great pails of puddled mire to quench the hair.\n  My master preaches patience to him, and the while\n  His man with scissors nicks him like a fool;\n  And sure, unless you send some present help,\n  Between them they will kill the conjurer.\nADRIANA. Peace, fool! thy master and his man are here,\n  And that is false thou dost report to us.\nMESSENGER. Mistress, upon my life, I tell you true;\n  I have not breath'd almost since I did see it.\n  He cries for you, and vows, if he can take you,\n  To scorch your face, and to disfigure you.\n[Cry within]\n  Hark, hark, I hear him, mistress; fly, be gone!\nDUKE. Come, stand by me; fear nothing. Guard with halberds.\nADRIANA. Ay me, it is my husband! Witness you\n  That he is borne about invisible.\n  Even now we hous'd him in the abbey here,\n  And now he's there, past thought of human reason.\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS and DROMIO OFEPHESUS\n\nANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS. Justice, most gracious Duke; O, grant me justice!\n  Even for the service that long since I did thee,\n  When I bestrid thee in the wars, and took\n  Deep scars to save thy life; even for the blood\n  That then I lost for thee, now grant me justice.\nAEGEON. Unless the fear of death doth make me dote,\n  I see my son Antipholus, and Dromio.\nANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS. Justice, sweet Prince, against that woman there!\n  She whom thou gav'st to me to be my wife,\n  That hath abused and dishonoured me\n  Even in the strength and height of injury.\n  Beyond imagination is the wrong\n  That she this day hath shameless thrown on me.\nDUKE. Discover how, and thou shalt find me just.\nANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS. This day, great Duke, she shut the doors upon me,\n  While she with harlots feasted in my house.\nDUKE. A grievous fault. Say, woman, didst thou so?\nADRIANA. No, my good lord. Myself, he, and my sister,\n  To-day did dine together. So befall my soul\n  As this is false he burdens me withal!\nLUCIANA. Ne'er may I look on day nor sleep on night\n  But she tells to your Highness simple truth!\nANGELO. O peflur'd woman! They are both forsworn.\n  In this the madman justly chargeth them.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. My liege, I am advised what I say;\n  Neither disturbed with the effect of wine,\n  Nor heady-rash, provok'd with raging ire,\n  Albeit my wrongs might make one wiser mad.\n  This woman lock'd me out this day from dinner;\n  That goldsmith there, were he not pack'd with her,\n  Could witness it, for he was with me then;\n  Who parted with me to go fetch a chain,\n  Promising to bring it to the Porpentine,\n  Where Balthazar and I did dine together.\n  Our dinner done, and he not coming thither,\n  I went to seek him. In the street I met him,\n  And in his company that gentleman.\n  There did this perjur'd goldsmith swear me down\n  That I this day of him receiv'd the chain,\n  Which, God he knows, I saw not; for the which\n  He did arrest me with an officer.\n  I did obey, and sent my peasant home\n  For certain ducats; he with none return'd.\n  Then fairly I bespoke the officer\n  To go in person with me to my house.\n  By th' way we met my wife, her sister, and a rabble more\n  Of vile confederates. Along with them\n  They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-fac'd villain,\n  A mere anatomy, a mountebank,\n  A threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller,\n  A needy, hollow-ey'd, sharp-looking wretch,\n  A living dead man. This pernicious slave,\n  Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer,\n  And gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,\n  And with no face, as 'twere, outfacing me,\n  Cries out I was possess'd. Then all together\n  They fell upon me, bound me, bore me thence,\n  And in a dark and dankish vault at home\n  There left me and my man, both bound together;\n  Till, gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder,\n  I gain'd my freedom, and immediately\n  Ran hither to your Grace; whom I beseech\n  To give me ample satisfaction\n  For these deep shames and great indignities.\nANGELO. My lord, in truth, thus far I witness with him,\n  That he din'd not at home, but was lock'd out.\nDUKE. But had he such a chain of thee, or no?\nANGELO. He had, my lord, and when he ran in here,\n  These people saw the chain about his neck.\nSECOND MERCHANT. Besides, I will be sworn these ears of mine\n  Heard you confess you had the chain of him,\n  After you first forswore it on the mart;\n  And thereupon I drew my sword on you,\n  And then you fled into this abbey here,\n  From whence, I think, you are come by miracle.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I never came within these abbey walls,\n  Nor ever didst thou draw thy sword on me;\n  I never saw the chain, so help me Heaven!\n  And this is false you burden me withal.\nDUKE. Why, what an intricate impeach is this!\n  I think you all have drunk of Circe's cup.\n  If here you hous'd him, here he would have been;\n  If he were mad, he would not plead so coldly.\n  You say he din'd at home: the goldsmith here\n  Denies that saying. Sirrah, what say you?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sir, he din'd with her there, at the Porpentine.\nCOURTEZAN. He did; and from my finger snatch'd that ring.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. 'Tis true, my liege; this ring I had of her.\nDUKE. Saw'st thou him enter at the abbey here?\nCOURTEZAN. As sure, my liege, as I do see your Grace.\nDUKE. Why, this is strange. Go call the Abbess hither.\n  I think you are all mated or stark mad.\n<Exit one to the ABBESS\nAEGEON. Most mighty Duke, vouchsafe me speak a word:\n  Haply I see a friend will save my life\n  And pay the sum that may deliver me.\nDUKE. Speak freely, Syracusian, what thou wilt.\nAEGEON. Is not your name, sir, call'd Antipholus?\n  And is not that your bondman Dromio?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Within this hour I was his bondman, sir,\n  But he, I thank him, gnaw'd in two my cords\n  Now am I Dromio and his man unbound.\nAEGEON. I am sure you both of you remember me.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ourselves we do remember, sir, by you;\n  For lately we were bound as you are now.\n  You are not Pinch's patient, are you, sir?\nAEGEON. Why look you strange on me? You know me well.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I never saw you in my life till now.\nAEGEON. O! grief hath chang'd me since you saw me last;\n  And careful hours with time's deformed hand\n  Have written strange defeatures in my face.\n  But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Neither.\nAEGEON. Dromio, nor thou?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. No, trust me, sir, nor I.\nAEGEON. I am sure thou dost.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ay, sir, but I am sure I do not; and\n  whatsoever a man denies, you are now bound to believe him.\nAEGEON. Not know my voice! O time's extremity,\n  Hast thou so crack'd and splitted my poor tongue\n  In seven short years that here my only son\n  Knows not my feeble key of untun'd cares?\n  Though now this grained face of mine be hid\n  In sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow,\n  And all the conduits of my blood froze up,\n  Yet hath my night of life some memory,\n  My wasting lamps some fading glimmer left,\n  My dull deaf ears a little use to hear;\n  All these old witnesses-I cannot err-\n  Tell me thou art my son Antipholus.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I never saw my father in my life.\nAEGEON. But seven years since, in Syracuse, boy,\n  Thou know'st we parted; but perhaps, my son,\n  Thou sham'st to acknowledge me in misery.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. The Duke and all that know me in\n  the city Can witness with me that it is not so:\n  I ne'er saw Syracuse in my life.\nDUKE. I tell thee, Syracusian, twenty years\n  Have I been patron to Antipholus,\n  During which time he ne'er saw Syracuse.\n  I see thy age and dangers make thee dote.\n\nRe-enter the ABBESS, with ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE\n\nABBESS. Most mighty Duke, behold a man much wrong'd.\n[All gather to see them]\nADRIANA. I see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive me.\nDUKE. One of these men is genius to the other;\n  And so of these. Which is the natural man,\n  And which the spirit? Who deciphers them?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I, sir, am Dromio; command him away.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I, Sir, am Dromio; pray let me stay.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Aegeon, art thou not? or else his\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, my old master! who hath bound\nABBESS. Whoever bound him, I will loose his bonds,\n  And gain a husband by his liberty.\n  Speak, old Aegeon, if thou be'st the man\n  That hadst a wife once call'd Aemilia,\n  That bore thee at a burden two fair sons.\n  O, if thou be'st the same Aegeon, speak,\n  And speak unto the same Aemilia!\nAEGEON. If I dream not, thou art Aemilia.\n  If thou art she, tell me where is that son\n  That floated with thee on the fatal raft?\nABBESS. By men of Epidamnum he and I\n  And the twin Dromio, all were taken up;\n  But by and by rude fishermen of Corinth\n  By force took Dromio and my son from them,\n  And me they left with those of Epidamnum.\n  What then became of them I cannot tell;\n  I to this fortune that you see me in.\nDUKE. Why, here begins his morning story right.\n  These two Antipholus', these two so like,\n  And these two Dromios, one in semblance-\n  Besides her urging of her wreck at sea-\n  These are the parents to these children,\n  Which accidentally are met together.\n  Antipholus, thou cam'st from Corinth first?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. No, sir, not I; I came from Syracuse.\nDUKE. Stay, stand apart; I know not which is which.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I came from Corinth, my most gracious lord.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. And I with him.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Brought to this town by that most famous warrior,\n  Duke Menaphon, your most renowned uncle.\nADRIANA. Which of you two did dine with me to-day?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I, gentle mistress.\nADRIANA. And are not you my husband?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. No; I say nay to that.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. And so do I, yet did she call me so;\n  And this fair gentlewoman, her sister here,\n  Did call me brother.  [To LUCIANA]  What I told you then,\n  I hope I shall have leisure to make good;\n  If this be not a dream I see and hear.\nANGELO. That is the chain, sir, which you had of me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I think it be, sir; I deny it not.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And you, sir, for this chain arrested me.\nANGELO. I think I did, sir; I deny it not.\nADRIANA. I sent you money, sir, to be your bail,\n  By Dromio; but I think he brought it not.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. No, none by me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. This purse of ducats I receiv'd from you,\n  And Dromio my man did bring them me.\n  I see we still did meet each other's man,\n  And I was ta'en for him, and he for me,\n  And thereupon these ERRORS are arose.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. These ducats pawn I for my father here.\nDUKE. It shall not need; thy father hath his life.\nCOURTEZAN. Sir, I must have that diamond from you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There, take it; and much thanks for my\n  good cheer.\nABBESS. Renowned Duke, vouchsafe to take the pains\n  To go with us into the abbey here,\n  And hear at large discoursed all our fortunes;\n  And all that are assembled in this place\n  That by this sympathized one day's error\n  Have suffer'd wrong, go keep us company,\n  And we shall make full satisfaction.\n  Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail\n  Of you, my sons; and till this present hour\n  My heavy burden ne'er delivered.\n  The Duke, my husband, and my children both,\n  And you the calendars of their nativity,\n  Go to a gossips' feast, and go with me;\n  After so long grief, such nativity!\nDUKE. With all my heart, I'll gossip at this feast.\n<Exeunt all but ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, ANTIPHOLUS OF\nEPHESUS, DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, and DROMIO OF EPHESUS\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, shall I fetch your stuff from shipboard?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Dromio, what stuff of mine hast thou embark'd?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Your goods that lay at host, sir, in the Centaur.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. He speaks to me. I am your master, Dromio.\n  Come, go with us; we'll look to that anon.\n  Embrace thy brother there; rejoice with him.\n<Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. There is a fat friend at your master's house,\n  That kitchen'd me for you to-day at dinner;\n  She now shall be my sister, not my wife.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother;\n  I see by you I am a sweet-fac'd youth.\n  Will you walk in to see their gossiping?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Not I, sir; you are my elder.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. That's a question; how shall we try it?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. We'll draw cuts for the senior; till then,\n    lead thou first.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, then, thus:\n  We came into the world like brother and brother,\n  And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another.\n<Exeunt\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1608\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF CORIOLANUS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  CAIUS MARCIUS, afterwards CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS\n\n    Generals against the Volscians\n  TITUS LARTIUS\n  COMINIUS\n\n  MENENIUS AGRIPPA, friend to Coriolanus\n\n    Tribunes of the People\n  SICINIUS VELUTUS\n  JUNIUS BRUTUS\n\n  YOUNG MARCIUS, son to Coriolanus\n  A ROMAN HERALD\n  NICANOR, a Roman\n  TULLUS AUFIDIUS, General of the Volscians\n  LIEUTENANT, to Aufidius\n  CONSPIRATORS, With Aufidius\n  ADRIAN, a Volscian\n  A CITIZEN of Antium\n  TWO VOLSCIAN GUARDS\n\n  VOLUMNIA, mother to Coriolanus\n  VIRGILIA, wife to Coriolanus\n  VALERIA, friend to Virgilia\n  GENTLEWOMAN attending on Virgilia\n\n  Roman and Volscian Senators, Patricians, Aediles, Lictors,\n    Soldiers, Citizens, Messengers, Servants to Aufidius, and other\n    Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nRome and the neighbourhood; Corioli and the neighbourhood; Antium\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nRome. A street\n\nEnter a company of mutinous citizens, with staves, clubs, and other weapons\n\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Before we proceed any further, hear me speak.\n  ALL. Speak, speak.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. YOU are all resolv'd rather to die than to famish?\n  ALL. Resolv'd, resolv'd.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. First, you know Caius Marcius is chief enemy to the\n    people.\n  ALL. We know't, we know't.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Let us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own\n    price. Is't a verdict?\n  ALL. No more talking on't; let it be done. Away, away!\n  SECOND CITIZEN. One word, good citizens.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. We are accounted poor citizens, the patricians good.\n    What authority surfeits on would relieve us; if they would yield\n    us but the superfluity while it were wholesome, we might guess\n    they relieved us humanely; but they think we are too dear. The\n    leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an\n    inventory to particularize their abundance; our sufferance is a\n    gain to them. Let us revenge this with our pikes ere we become\n    rakes; for the gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in\n    thirst for revenge.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Against him first; he's a very dog to the\n    commonalty.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Consider you what services he has done for his\n    country?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Very well, and could be content to give him good\n    report for't but that he pays himself with being proud.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Nay, but speak not maliciously.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. I say unto you, what he hath done famously he did it\n    to that end; though soft-conscienc'd men can be content to say it\n    was for his country, he did it to please his mother and to be\n    partly proud, which he is, even to the altitude of his virtue.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. What he cannot help in his nature you account a\n    vice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations;\n    he hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition.  [Shouts\n    within]  What shouts are these? The other side o' th' city is\n    risen. Why stay we prating here? To th' Capitol!\n  ALL. Come, come.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Soft! who comes here?\n\n                       Enter MENENIUS AGRIPPA\n\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Worthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always lov'd\n    the people.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. He's one honest enough; would all the rest were so!\n  MENENIUS. What work's, my countrymen, in hand? Where go you\n    With bats and clubs? The matter? Speak, I pray you.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Our business is not unknown to th' Senate; they have\n    had inkling this fortnight what we intend to do, which now we'll\n    show 'em in deeds. They say poor suitors have strong breaths;\n    they shall know we have strong arms too.\n  MENENIUS. Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours,\n    Will you undo yourselves?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. We cannot, sir; we are undone already.\n  MENENIUS. I tell you, friends, most charitable care\n    Have the patricians of you. For your wants,\n    Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well\n    Strike at the heaven with your staves as lift them\n    Against the Roman state; whose course will on\n    The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs\n    Of more strong link asunder than can ever\n    Appear in your impediment. For the dearth,\n    The gods, not the patricians, make it, and\n    Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack,\n    You are transported by calamity\n    Thither where more attends you; and you slander\n    The helms o' th' state, who care for you like fathers,\n    When you curse them as enemies.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Care for us! True, indeed! They ne'er car'd for us\n    yet. Suffer us to famish, and their storehouses cramm'd with\n    grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily\n    any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more\n    piercing statutes daily to chain up and restrain the poor. If the\n    wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear\n    us.\n  MENENIUS. Either you must\n    Confess yourselves wondrous malicious,\n    Or be accus'd of folly. I shall tell you\n    A pretty tale. It may be you have heard it;\n    But, since it serves my purpose, I will venture\n    To stale't a little more.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Well, I'll hear it, sir; yet you must not think to\n    fob off our disgrace with a tale. But, an't please you, deliver.\n  MENENIUS. There was a time when all the body's members\n    Rebell'd against the belly; thus accus'd it:\n    That only like a gulf it did remain\n    I' th' midst o' th' body, idle and unactive,\n    Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing\n    Like labour with the rest; where th' other instruments\n    Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,\n    And, mutually participate, did minister\n    Unto the appetite and affection common\n    Of the whole body. The belly answer'd-\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Well, sir, what answer made the belly?\n  MENENIUS. Sir, I shall tell you. With a kind of smile,\n    Which ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus-\n    For look you, I may make the belly smile\n    As well as speak- it tauntingly replied\n    To th' discontented members, the mutinous parts\n    That envied his receipt; even so most fitly\n    As you malign our senators for that\n    They are not such as you.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Your belly's answer- What?\n    The kingly crowned head, the vigilant eye,\n    The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier,\n    Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter,\n    With other muniments and petty helps\n    Is this our fabric, if that they-\n  MENENIUS. What then?\n    Fore me, this fellow speaks! What then? What then?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Should by the cormorant belly be restrain'd,\n    Who is the sink o' th' body-\n  MENENIUS. Well, what then?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. The former agents, if they did complain,\n    What could the belly answer?\n  MENENIUS. I will tell you;\n    If you'll bestow a small- of what you have little-\n    Patience awhile, you'st hear the belly's answer.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Y'are long about it.\n  MENENIUS. Note me this, good friend:\n    Your most grave belly was deliberate,\n    Not rash like his accusers, and thus answered.\n    'True is it, my incorporate friends,' quoth he\n    'That I receive the general food at first\n    Which you do live upon; and fit it is,\n    Because I am the storehouse and the shop\n    Of the whole body. But, if you do remember,\n    I send it through the rivers of your blood,\n    Even to the court, the heart, to th' seat o' th' brain;\n    And, through the cranks and offices of man,\n    The strongest nerves and small inferior veins\n    From me receive that natural competency\n    Whereby they live. And though that all at once\n    You, my good friends'- this says the belly; mark me.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Ay, sir; well, well.\n  MENENIUS. 'Though all at once cannot\n    See what I do deliver out to each,\n    Yet I can make my audit up, that all\n    From me do back receive the flour of all,\n    And leave me but the bran.' What say you to' t?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. It was an answer. How apply you this?\n  MENENIUS. The senators of Rome are this good belly,\n    And you the mutinous members; for, examine\n    Their counsels and their cares, digest things rightly\n    Touching the weal o' th' common, you shall find\n    No public benefit which you receive\n    But it proceeds or comes from them to you,\n    And no way from yourselves. What do you think,\n    You, the great toe of this assembly?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. I the great toe? Why the great toe?\n  MENENIUS. For that, being one o' th' lowest, basest, poorest,\n    Of this most wise rebellion, thou goest foremost.\n    Thou rascal, that art worst in blood to run,\n    Lead'st first to win some vantage.\n    But make you ready your stiff bats and clubs.\n    Rome and her rats are at the point of battle;\n    The one side must have bale.\n\n                      Enter CAIUS MARCIUS\n\n    Hail, noble Marcius!\n  MARCIUS. Thanks. What's the matter, you dissentious rogues\n    That, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,\n    Make yourselves scabs?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. We have ever your good word.\n  MARCIUS. He that will give good words to thee will flatter\n    Beneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs,\n    That like nor peace nor war? The one affrights you,\n    The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you,\n    Where he should find you lions, finds you hares;\n    Where foxes, geese; you are no surer, no,\n    Than is the coal of fire upon the ice\n    Or hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is\n    To make him worthy whose offence subdues him,\n    And curse that justice did it. Who deserves greatness\n    Deserves your hate; and your affections are\n    A sick man's appetite, who desires most that\n    Which would increase his evil. He that depends\n    Upon your favours swims with fins of lead,\n    And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust ye?\n    With every minute you do change a mind\n    And call him noble that was now your hate,\n    Him vile that was your garland. What's the matter\n    That in these several places of the city\n    You cry against the noble Senate, who,\n    Under the gods, keep you in awe, which else\n    Would feed on one another? What's their seeking?\n  MENENIUS. For corn at their own rates, whereof they say\n    The city is well stor'd.\n  MARCIUS. Hang 'em! They say!\n    They'll sit by th' fire and presume to know\n    What's done i' th' Capitol, who's like to rise,\n    Who thrives and who declines; side factions, and give out\n    Conjectural marriages, making parties strong,\n    And feebling such as stand not in their liking\n    Below their cobbled shoes. They say there's grain enough!\n    Would the nobility lay aside their ruth\n    And let me use my sword, I'd make a quarry\n    With thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high\n    As I could pick my lance.\n  MENENIUS. Nay, these are almost thoroughly persuaded;\n    For though abundantly they lack discretion,\n    Yet are they passing cowardly. But, I beseech you,\n    What says the other troop?\n  MARCIUS. They are dissolv'd. Hang 'em!\n    They said they were an-hungry; sigh'd forth proverbs-\n    That hunger broke stone walls, that dogs must eat,\n    That meat was made for mouths, that the gods sent not\n    Corn for the rich men only. With these shreds\n    They vented their complainings; which being answer'd,\n    And a petition granted them- a strange one,\n    To break the heart of generosity\n    And make bold power look pale- they threw their caps\n    As they would hang them on the horns o' th' moon,\n    Shouting their emulation.\n  MENENIUS. What is granted them?\n  MARCIUS. Five tribunes, to defend their vulgar wisdoms,\n    Of their own choice. One's Junius Brutus-\n    Sicinius Velutus, and I know not. 'Sdeath!\n    The rabble should have first unroof'd the city\n    Ere so prevail'd with me; it will in time\n    Win upon power and throw forth greater themes\n    For insurrection's arguing.\n  MENENIUS. This is strange.\n  MARCIUS. Go get you home, you fragments.\n\n                     Enter a MESSENGER, hastily\n\n  MESSENGER. Where's Caius Marcius?\n  MARCIUS. Here. What's the matter?\n  MESSENGER. The news is, sir, the Volsces are in arms.\n  MARCIUS. I am glad on't; then we shall ha' means to vent\n    Our musty superfluity. See, our best elders.\n\n         Enter COMINIUS, TITUS LARTIUS, with other SENATORS;\n                  JUNIUS BRUTUS and SICINIUS VELUTUS\n\n  FIRST SENATOR. Marcius, 'tis true that you have lately told us:\n    The Volsces are in arms.\n  MARCIUS. They have a leader,\n    Tullus Aufidius, that will put you to't.\n    I sin in envying his nobility;\n    And were I anything but what I am,\n    I would wish me only he.\n  COMINIUS. You have fought together?\n  MARCIUS. Were half to half the world by th' ears, and he\n    Upon my party, I'd revolt, to make\n    Only my wars with him. He is a lion\n    That I am proud to hunt.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Then, worthy Marcius,\n    Attend upon Cominius to these wars.\n  COMINIUS. It is your former promise.\n  MARCIUS. Sir, it is;\n    And I am constant. Titus Lartius, thou\n    Shalt see me once more strike at Tullus' face.\n    What, art thou stiff? Stand'st out?\n  LARTIUS. No, Caius Marcius;\n    I'll lean upon one crutch and fight with t'other\n    Ere stay behind this business.\n  MENENIUS. O, true bred!\n  FIRST SENATOR. Your company to th' Capitol; where, I know,\n    Our greatest friends attend us.\n  LARTIUS.  [To COMINIUS]  Lead you on.\n    [To MARCIUS]  Follow Cominius; we must follow you;\n    Right worthy you priority.\n  COMINIUS. Noble Marcius!\n  FIRST SENATOR.  [To the Citizens]  Hence to your homes; be gone.\n  MARCIUS. Nay, let them follow.\n    The Volsces have much corn: take these rats thither\n    To gnaw their garners. Worshipful mutineers,\n    Your valour puts well forth; pray follow.\n         Ciitzens steal away. Exeunt all but SICINIUS and BRUTUS\n  SICINIUS. Was ever man so proud as is this Marcius?\n  BRUTUS. He has no equal.\n  SICINIUS. When we were chosen tribunes for the people-\n  BRUTUS. Mark'd you his lip and eyes?\n  SICINIUS. Nay, but his taunts!\n  BRUTUS. Being mov'd, he will not spare to gird the gods.\n  SICINIUS. Bemock the modest moon.\n  BRUTUS. The present wars devour him! He is grown\n    Too proud to be so valiant.\n  SICINIUS. Such a nature,\n    Tickled with good success, disdains the shadow\n    Which he treads on at noon. But I do wonder\n    His insolence can brook to be commanded\n    Under Cominius.\n  BRUTUS. Fame, at the which he aims-\n    In whom already he is well grac'd- cannot\n    Better be held nor more attain'd than by\n    A place below the first; for what miscarries\n    Shall be the general's fault, though he perform\n    To th' utmost of a man, and giddy censure\n    Will then cry out of Marcius 'O, if he\n    Had borne the business!'\n  SICINIUS. Besides, if things go well,\n    Opinion, that so sticks on Marcius, shall\n    Of his demerits rob Cominius.\n  BRUTUS. Come.\n    Half all Cominius' honours are to Marcius,\n    Though Marcius earn'd them not; and all his faults\n    To Marcius shall be honours, though indeed\n    In aught he merit not.\n  SICINIUS. Let's hence and hear\n    How the dispatch is made, and in what fashion,\n    More than his singularity, he goes\n    Upon this present action.\n  BRUTUS. Let's along.                                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nCorioli. The Senate House.\n\nEnter TULLUS AUFIDIUS with SENATORS of Corioli\n\n  FIRST SENATOR. So, your opinion is, Aufidius,\n    That they of Rome are ent'red in our counsels\n    And know how we proceed.\n  AUFIDIUS. Is it not yours?\n    What ever have been thought on in this state\n    That could be brought to bodily act ere Rome\n    Had circumvention? 'Tis not four days gone\n    Since I heard thence; these are the words- I think\n    I have the letter here;.yes, here it is:\n    [Reads]  'They have press'd a power, but it is not known\n    Whether for east or west. The dearth is great;\n    The people mutinous; and it is rumour'd,\n    Cominius, Marcius your old enemy,\n    Who is of Rome worse hated than of you,\n    And Titus Lartius, a most valiant Roman,\n    These three lead on this preparation\n    Whither 'tis bent. Most likely 'tis for you;\n    Consider of it.'\n  FIRST SENATOR. Our army's in the field;\n    We never yet made doubt but Rome was ready\n    To answer us.\n  AUFIDIUS. Nor did you think it folly\n    To keep your great pretences veil'd till when\n    They needs must show themselves; which in the hatching,\n    It seem'd, appear'd to Rome. By the discovery\n    We shall be short'ned in our aim, which was\n    To take in many towns ere almost Rome\n    Should know we were afoot.\n  SECOND SENATOR. Noble Aufidius,\n    Take your commission; hie you to your bands;\n    Let us alone to guard Corioli.\n    If they set down before's, for the remove\n    Bring up your army; but I think you'll find\n    Th' have not prepar'd for us.\n  AUFIDIUS. O, doubt not that!\n    I speak from certainties. Nay more,\n    Some parcels of their power are forth already,\n    And only hitherward. I leave your honours.\n    If we and Caius Marcius chance to meet,\n    'Tis sworn between us we shall ever strike\n    Till one can do no more.\n  ALL. The gods assist you!\n  AUFIDIUS. And keep your honours safe!\n  FIRST SENATOR. Farewell.\n  SECOND SENATOR. Farewell.\n  ALL. Farewell.                                           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nRome. MARCIUS' house\n\nEnter VOLUMNIA and VIRGILIA, mother and wife to MARCIUS;\nthey set them down on two low stools and sew\n\n  VOLUMNIA. I pray you, daughter, sing, or express yourself in a more\n    comfortable sort. If my son were my husband, I should freelier\n    rejoice in that absence wherein he won honour than in the\n    embracements of his bed where he would show most love. When yet\n    he was but tender-bodied, and the only son of my womb; when youth\n    with comeliness pluck'd all gaze his way; when, for a day of\n    kings' entreaties, a mother should not sell him an hour from her\n    beholding; I, considering how honour would become such a person-\n    that it was no better than picture-like to hang by th' wall, if\n    renown made it not stir- was pleas'd to let him seek danger where\n    he was to find fame. To a cruel war I sent him, from whence he\n    return'd his brows bound with oak. I tell thee, daughter, I\n    sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child than\n    now in first seeing he had proved himself a man.\n  VIRGILIA. But had he died in the business, madam, how then?\n  VOLUMNIA. Then his good report should have been my son; I therein\n    would have found issue. Hear me profess sincerely: had I a dozen\n    sons, each in my love alike, and none less dear than thine and my\n    good Marcius, I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country\n    than one voluptuously surfeit out of action.\n\n                        Enter a GENTLEWOMAN\n\n  GENTLEWOMAN. Madam, the Lady Valeria is come to visit you.\n  VIRGILIA. Beseech you give me leave to retire myself.\n  VOLUMNIA. Indeed you shall not.\n    Methinks I hear hither your husband's drum;\n    See him pluck Aufidius down by th' hair;\n    As children from a bear, the Volsces shunning him.\n    Methinks I see him stamp thus, and call thus:\n    'Come on, you cowards! You were got in fear,\n    Though you were born in Rome.' His bloody brow\n    With his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes,\n    Like to a harvest-man that's task'd to mow\n    Or all or lose his hire.\n  VIRGILIA. His bloody brow? O Jupiter, no blood!\n  VOLUMNIA. Away, you fool! It more becomes a man\n    Than gilt his trophy. The breasts of Hecuba,\n    When she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier\n    Than Hector's forehead when it spit forth blood\n    At Grecian sword, contemning. Tell Valeria\n    We are fit to bid her welcome.              Exit GENTLEWOMAN\n  VIRGILIA. Heavens bless my lord from fell Aufidius!\n  VOLUMNIA. He'll beat Aufidius' head below his knee\n    And tread upon his neck.\n\n         Re-enter GENTLEWOMAN, With VALERIA and an usher\n\n  VALERIA. My ladies both, good day to you.\n  VOLUMNIA. Sweet madam!\n  VIRGILIA. I am glad to see your ladyship.\n  VALERIA. How do you both? You are manifest housekeepers. What are\n    you sewing here? A fine spot, in good faith. How does your little\n    son?\n  VIRGILIA. I thank your ladyship; well, good madam.\n  VOLUMNIA. He had rather see the swords and hear a drum than look\n    upon his schoolmaster.\n  VALERIA. O' my word, the father's son! I'll swear 'tis a very\n    pretty boy. O' my troth, I look'd upon him a Wednesday half an\n    hour together; has such a confirm'd countenance! I saw him run\n    after a gilded butterfly; and when he caught it he let it go\n    again, and after it again, and over and over he comes, and up\n    again, catch'd it again; or whether his fall enrag'd him, or how\n    'twas, he did so set his teeth and tear it. O, I warrant, how he\n    mammock'd it!\n  VOLUMNIA. One on's father's moods.\n  VALERIA. Indeed, la, 'tis a noble child.\n  VIRGILIA. A crack, madam.\n  VALERIA. Come, lay aside your stitchery; I must have you play the\n    idle huswife with me this afternoon.\n  VIRGILIA. No, good madam; I will not out of doors.\n  VALERIA. Not out of doors!\n  VOLUMNIA. She shall, she shall.\n  VIRGILIA. Indeed, no, by your patience; I'll not over the threshold\n    till my lord return from the wars.\n  VALERIA. Fie, you confine yourself most unreasonably; come, you\n    must go visit the good lady that lies in.\n  VIRGILIA. I will wish her speedy strength, and visit her with my\n    prayers; but I cannot go thither.\n  VOLUMNIA. Why, I pray you?\n  VIRGILIA. 'Tis not to save labour, nor that I want love.\n  VALERIA. You would be another Penelope; yet they say all the yarn\n    she spun in Ulysses' absence did but fill Ithaca full of moths.\n    Come, I would your cambric were sensible as your finger, that you\n    might leave pricking it for pity. Come, you shall go with us.\n  VIRGILIA. No, good madam, pardon me; indeed I will not forth.\n  VALERIA. In truth, la, go with me; and I'll tell you excellent news\n    of your husband.\n  VIRGILIA. O, good madam, there can be none yet.\n  VALERIA. Verily, I do not jest with you; there came news from him\n    last night.\n  VIRGILIA. Indeed, madam?\n  VALERIA. In earnest, it's true; I heard a senator speak it. Thus it\n    is: the Volsces have an army forth; against whom Cominius the\n    general is gone, with one part of our Roman power. Your lord and\n    Titus Lartius are set down before their city Corioli; they\n    nothing doubt prevailing and to make it brief wars. This is true,\n    on mine honour; and so, I pray, go with us.\n  VIRGILIA. Give me excuse, good madam; I will obey you in everything\n    hereafter.\n  VOLUMNIA. Let her alone, lady; as she is now, she will but disease\n    our better mirth.\n  VALERIA. In troth, I think she would. Fare you well, then. Come,\n    good sweet lady. Prithee, Virgilia, turn thy solemness out o'\n    door and go along with us.\n  VIRGILIA. No, at a word, madam; indeed I must not. I wish you much\n    mirth.\n  VALERIA. Well then, farewell.                           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nBefore Corioli\n\nEnter MARCIUS, TITUS LARTIUS, with drum and colours,\nwith CAPTAINS and soldiers. To them a MESSENGER\n\n  MARCIUS. Yonder comes news; a wager- they have met.\n  LARTIUS. My horse to yours- no.\n  MARCIUS. 'Tis done.\n  LARTIUS. Agreed.\n  MARCIUS. Say, has our general met the enemy?\n  MESSENGER. They lie in view, but have not spoke as yet.\n  LARTIUS. So, the good horse is mine.\n  MARCIUS. I'll buy him of you.\n  LARTIUS. No, I'll nor sell nor give him; lend you him I will\n    For half a hundred years. Summon the town.\n  MARCIUS. How far off lie these armies?\n  MESSENGER. Within this mile and half.\n  MARCIUS. Then shall we hear their 'larum, and they ours.\n    Now, Mars, I prithee, make us quick in work,\n    That we with smoking swords may march from hence\n    To help our fielded friends! Come, blow thy blast.\n\n          They sound a parley. Enter two SENATORS with others,\n                      on the walls of Corioli\n\n    Tullus Aufidius, is he within your walls?\n  FIRST SENATOR. No, nor a man that fears you less than he:\n    That's lesser than a little.  [Drum afar off]  Hark, our drums\n    Are bringing forth our youth. We'll break our walls\n    Rather than they shall pound us up; our gates,\n    Which yet seem shut, we have but pinn'd with rushes;\n    They'll open of themselves.  [Alarum far off]  Hark you far off!\n    There is Aufidius. List what work he makes\n    Amongst your cloven army.\n  MARCIUS. O, they are at it!\n  LARTIUS. Their noise be our instruction. Ladders, ho!\n\n                   Enter the army of the Volsces\n\n  MARCIUS. They fear us not, but issue forth their city.\n    Now put your shields before your hearts, and fight\n    With hearts more proof than shields. Advance, brave Titus.\n    They do disdain us much beyond our thoughts,\n    Which makes me sweat with wrath. Come on, my fellows.\n    He that retires, I'll take him for a Volsce,\n    And he shall feel mine edge.\n\n          Alarum. The Romans are beat back to their trenches.\n                      Re-enter MARCIUS, cursing\n\n  MARCIUS. All the contagion of the south light on you,\n    You shames of Rome! you herd of- Boils and plagues\n    Plaster you o'er, that you may be abhorr'd\n    Farther than seen, and one infect another\n    Against the wind a mile! You souls of geese\n    That bear the shapes of men, how have you run\n    From slaves that apes would beat! Pluto and hell!\n    All hurt behind! Backs red, and faces pale\n    With flight and agued fear! Mend and charge home,\n    Or, by the fires of heaven, I'll leave the foe\n    And make my wars on you. Look to't. Come on;\n    If you'll stand fast we'll beat them to their wives,\n    As they us to our trenches. Follow me.\n\n         Another alarum. The Volsces fly, and MARCIUS follows\n                          them to the gates\n\n    So, now the gates are ope; now prove good seconds;\n    'Tis for the followers fortune widens them,\n    Not for the fliers. Mark me, and do the like.\n\n                    [MARCIUS enters the gates]\n\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Fool-hardiness; not I.\n  SECOND SOLDIER. Not I.                    [MARCIUS is shut in]\n  FIRST SOLDIER. See, they have shut him in.\n  ALL. To th' pot, I warrant him.             [Alarum continues]\n\n                      Re-enter TITUS LARTIUS\n\n  LARTIUS. What is become of Marcius?\n  ALL. Slain, sir, doubtless.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Following the fliers at the very heels,\n    With them he enters; who, upon the sudden,\n    Clapp'd to their gates. He is himself alone,\n    To answer all the city.\n  LARTIUS. O noble fellow!\n    Who sensibly outdares his senseless sword,\n    And when it bows stand'st up. Thou art left, Marcius;\n    A carbuncle entire, as big as thou art,\n    Were not so rich a jewel. Thou wast a soldier\n    Even to Cato's wish, not fierce and terrible\n    Only in strokes; but with thy grim looks and\n    The thunder-like percussion of thy sounds\n    Thou mad'st thine enemies shake, as if the world\n    Were feverous and did tremble.\n\n          Re-enter MARCIUS, bleeding, assaulted by the enemy\n\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Look, sir.\n  LARTIUS. O, 'tis Marcius!\n    Let's fetch him off, or make remain alike.\n                            [They fight, and all enter the city]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nWithin Corioli. A street\n\nEnter certain Romans, with spoils\n\n  FIRST ROMAN. This will I carry to Rome.\n  SECOND ROMAN. And I this.\n  THIRD ROMAN. A murrain on 't! I took this for silver.\n                               [Alarum continues still afar off]\n\n          Enter MARCIUS and TITUS LARTIUS With a trumpeter\n\n  MARCIUS. See here these movers that do prize their hours\n    At a crack'd drachma! Cushions, leaden spoons,\n    Irons of a doit, doublets that hangmen would\n    Bury with those that wore them, these base slaves,\n    Ere yet the fight be done, pack up. Down with them!\n                                                Exeunt pillagers\n    And hark, what noise the general makes! To him!\n    There is the man of my soul's hate, Aufidius,\n    Piercing our Romans; then, valiant Titus, take\n    Convenient numbers to make good the city;\n    Whilst I, with those that have the spirit, will haste\n    To help Cominius.\n  LARTIUS. Worthy sir, thou bleed'st;\n    Thy exercise hath been too violent\n    For a second course of fight.\n  MARCIUS. Sir, praise me not;\n    My work hath yet not warm'd me. Fare you well;\n    The blood I drop is rather physical\n    Than dangerous to me. To Aufidius thus\n    I will appear, and fight.\n  LARTIUS. Now the fair goddess, Fortune,\n    Fall deep in love with thee, and her great charms\n    Misguide thy opposers' swords! Bold gentleman,\n    Prosperity be thy page!\n  MARCIUS. Thy friend no less\n    Than those she placeth highest! So farewell.\n  LARTIUS. Thou worthiest Marcius!                  Exit MARCIUS\n    Go sound thy trumpet in the market-place;\n    Call thither all the officers o' th' town,\n    Where they shall know our mind. Away!                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nNear the camp of COMINIUS\n\nEnter COMINIUS, as it were in retire, with soldiers\n\n  COMINIUS. Breathe you, my friends. Well fought; we are come off\n    Like Romans, neither foolish in our stands\n    Nor cowardly in retire. Believe me, sirs,\n    We shall be charg'd again. Whiles we have struck,\n    By interims and conveying gusts we have heard\n    The charges of our friends. The Roman gods,\n    Lead their successes as we wish our own,\n    That both our powers, with smiling fronts encount'ring,\n    May give you thankful sacrifice!\n\n                         Enter A MESSENGER\n\n    Thy news?\n  MESSENGER. The citizens of Corioli have issued\n    And given to Lartius and to Marcius battle;\n    I saw our party to their trenches driven,\n    And then I came away.\n  COMINIUS. Though thou speak'st truth,\n    Methinks thou speak'st not well. How long is't since?\n  MESSENGER. Above an hour, my lord.\n  COMINIUS. 'Tis not a mile; briefly we heard their drums.\n    How couldst thou in a mile confound an hour,\n    And bring thy news so late?\n  MESSENGER. Spies of the Volsces\n    Held me in chase, that I was forc'd to wheel\n    Three or four miles about; else had I, sir,\n    Half an hour since brought my report.\n\n                           Enter MARCIUS\n\n  COMINIUS. Who's yonder\n    That does appear as he were flay'd? O gods!\n    He has the stamp of Marcius, and I have\n    Before-time seen him thus.\n  MARCIUS. Come I too late?\n  COMINIUS. The shepherd knows not thunder from a tabor\n    More than I know the sound of Marcius' tongue\n    From every meaner man.\n  MARCIUS. Come I too late?\n  COMINIUS. Ay, if you come not in the blood of others,\n    But mantled in your own.\n  MARCIUS. O! let me clip ye\n    In arms as sound as when I woo'd, in heart\n    As merry as when our nuptial day was done,\n    And tapers burn'd to bedward.\n  COMINIUS. Flower of warriors,\n    How is't with Titus Lartius?\n  MARCIUS. As with a man busied about decrees:\n    Condemning some to death and some to exile;\n    Ransoming him or pitying, threat'ning th' other;\n    Holding Corioli in the name of Rome\n    Even like a fawning greyhound in the leash,\n    To let him slip at will.\n  COMINIUS. Where is that slave\n    Which told me they had beat you to your trenches?\n    Where is he? Call him hither.\n  MARCIUS. Let him alone;\n    He did inform the truth. But for our gentlemen,\n    The common file- a plague! tribunes for them!\n    The mouse ne'er shunn'd the cat as they did budge\n    From rascals worse than they.\n  COMINIUS. But how prevail'd you?\n  MARCIUS. Will the time serve to tell? I do not think.\n    Where is the enemy? Are you lords o' th' field?\n    If not, why cease you till you are so?\n  COMINIUS. Marcius,\n    We have at disadvantage fought, and did\n    Retire to win our purpose.\n  MARCIUS. How lies their battle? Know you on which side\n    They have plac'd their men of trust?\n  COMINIUS. As I guess, Marcius,\n    Their bands i' th' vaward are the Antiates,\n    Of their best trust; o'er them Aufidius,\n    Their very heart of hope.\n  MARCIUS. I do beseech you,\n    By all the battles wherein we have fought,\n    By th' blood we have shed together, by th' vows\n    We have made to endure friends, that you directly\n    Set me against Aufidius and his Antiates;\n    And that you not delay the present, but,\n    Filling the air with swords advanc'd and darts,\n    We prove this very hour.\n  COMINIUS. Though I could wish\n    You were conducted to a gentle bath\n    And balms applied to you, yet dare I never\n    Deny your asking: take your choice of those\n    That best can aid your action.\n  MARCIUS. Those are they\n    That most are willing. If any such be here-\n    As it were sin to doubt- that love this painting\n    Wherein you see me smear'd; if any fear\n    Lesser his person than an ill report;\n    If any think brave death outweighs bad life\n    And that his country's dearer than himself;\n    Let him alone, or so many so minded,\n    Wave thus to express his disposition,\n    And follow Marcius.           [They all shout and wave their\n       swords, take him up in their arms and cast up their caps]\n    O, me alone! Make you a sword of me?\n    If these shows be not outward, which of you\n    But is four Volsces? None of you but is\n    Able to bear against the great Aufidius\n    A shield as hard as his. A certain number,\n    Though thanks to all, must I select from all; the rest\n    Shall bear the business in some other fight,\n    As cause will be obey'd. Please you to march;\n    And four shall quickly draw out my command,\n    Which men are best inclin'd.\n  COMINIUS. March on, my fellows;\n    Make good this ostentation, and you shall\n    Divide in all with us.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nThe gates of Corioli\n\nTITUS LARTIUS, having set a guard upon Corioli, going with drum and trumpet\ntoward COMINIUS and CAIUS MARCIUS, enters with a LIEUTENANT, other soldiers,\nand a scout\n\n  LARTIUS. So, let the ports be guarded; keep your duties\n    As I have set them down. If I do send, dispatch\n    Those centuries to our aid; the rest will serve\n    For a short holding. If we lose the field\n    We cannot keep the town.\n  LIEUTENANT. Fear not our care, sir.\n  LARTIUS. Hence, and shut your gates upon's.\n    Our guider, come; to th' Roman camp conduct us.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\nA field of battle between the Roman and the Volscian camps\n\nAlarum, as in battle. Enter MARCIUS and AUFIDIUS at several doors\n\n  MARCIUS. I'll fight with none but thee, for I do hate thee\n    Worse than a promise-breaker.\n  AUFIDIUS. We hate alike:\n    Not Afric owns a serpent I abhor\n    More than thy fame and envy. Fix thy foot.\n  MARCIUS. Let the first budger die the other's slave,\n    And the gods doom him after!\n  AUFIDIUS. If I fly, Marcius,\n    Halloa me like a hare.\n  MARCIUS. Within these three hours, Tullus,\n    Alone I fought in your Corioli walls,\n    And made what work I pleas'd. 'Tis not my blood\n    Wherein thou seest me mask'd. For thy revenge\n    Wrench up thy power to th' highest.\n  AUFIDIUS. Wert thou the Hector\n    That was the whip of your bragg'd progeny,\n    Thou shouldst not scape me here.\n\n       Here they fight, and certain Volsces come in the aid\n        of AUFIDIUS. MARCIUS fights till they be driven in\n                             breathless\n\n    Officious, and not valiant, you have sham'd me\n    In your condemned seconds.                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IX.\nThe Roman camp\n\nFlourish. Alarum. A retreat is sounded. Enter, at one door,\nCOMINIUS with the Romans; at another door, MARCIUS, with his arm in a scarf\n\n  COMINIUS. If I should tell thee o'er this thy day's work,\n    Thou't not believe thy deeds; but I'll report it\n    Where senators shall mingle tears with smiles;\n    Where great patricians shall attend, and shrug,\n    I' th' end admire; where ladies shall be frighted\n    And, gladly quak'd, hear more; where the dull tribunes,\n    That with the fusty plebeians hate thine honours,\n    Shall say against their hearts 'We thank the gods\n    Our Rome hath such a soldier.'\n    Yet cam'st thou to a morsel of this feast,\n    Having fully din'd before.\n\n         Enter TITUS LARTIUS, with his power, from the pursuit\n\n  LARTIUS. O General,\n    Here is the steed, we the caparison.\n    Hadst thou beheld-\n  MARCIUS. Pray now, no more; my mother,\n    Who has a charter to extol her blood,\n    When she does praise me grieves me. I have done\n    As you have done- that's what I can; induc'd\n    As you have been- that's for my country.\n    He that has but effected his good will\n    Hath overta'en mine act.\n  COMINIUS. You shall not be\n    The grave of your deserving; Rome must know\n    The value of her own. 'Twere a concealment\n    Worse than a theft, no less than a traducement,\n    To hide your doings and to silence that\n    Which, to the spire and top of praises vouch'd,\n    Would seem but modest. Therefore, I beseech you,\n    In sign of what you are, not to reward\n    What you have done, before our army hear me.\n  MARCIUS. I have some wounds upon me, and they smart\n    To hear themselves rememb'red.\n  COMINIUS. Should they not,\n    Well might they fester 'gainst ingratitude\n    And tent themselves with death. Of all the horses-\n    Whereof we have ta'en good, and good store- of all\n    The treasure in this field achiev'd and city,\n    We render you the tenth; to be ta'en forth\n    Before the common distribution at\n    Your only choice.\n  MARCIUS. I thank you, General,\n    But cannot make my heart consent to take\n    A bribe to pay my sword. I do refuse it,\n    And stand upon my common part with those\n    That have beheld the doing.\n\n           A long flourish. They all cry 'Marcius, Marcius!'\n   cast up their caps and lances. COMINIUS and LARTIUS stand bare\n\n    May these same instruments which you profane\n    Never sound more! When drums and trumpets shall\n    I' th' field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be\n    Made all of false-fac'd soothing. When steel grows\n    Soft as the parasite's silk, let him be made\n    An overture for th' wars. No more, I say.\n    For that I have not wash'd my nose that bled,\n    Or foil'd some debile wretch, which without note\n    Here's many else have done, you shout me forth\n    In acclamations hyperbolical,\n    As if I lov'd my little should be dieted\n    In praises sauc'd with lies.\n  COMINIUS. Too modest are you;\n    More cruel to your good report than grateful\n    To us that give you truly. By your patience,\n    If 'gainst yourself you be incens'd, we'll put you-\n    Like one that means his proper harm- in manacles,\n    Then reason safely with you. Therefore be it known,\n    As to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius\n    Wears this war's garland; in token of the which,\n    My noble steed, known to the camp, I give him,\n    With all his trim belonging; and from this time,\n    For what he did before Corioli, can him\n    With all th' applause-and clamour of the host,\n    Caius Marcius Coriolanus.\n    Bear th' addition nobly ever!\n                           [Flourish. Trumpets sound, and drums]\n  ALL. Caius Marcius Coriolanus!\n  CORIOLANUS. I will go wash;\n    And when my face is fair you shall perceive\n    Whether I blush or no. Howbeit, I thank you;\n    I mean to stride your steed, and at all times\n    To undercrest your good addition\n    To th' fairness of my power.\n  COMINIUS. So, to our tent;\n    Where, ere we do repose us, we will write\n    To Rome of our success. You, Titus Lartius,\n    Must to Corioli back. Send us to Rome\n    The best, with whom we may articulate\n    For their own good and ours.\n  LARTIUS. I shall, my lord.\n  CORIOLANUS. The gods begin to mock me. I, that now\n    Refus'd most princely gifts, am bound to beg\n    Of my Lord General.\n  COMINIUS. Take't- 'tis yours; what is't?\n  CORIOLANUS. I sometime lay here in Corioli\n    At a poor man's house; he us'd me kindly.\n    He cried to me; I saw him prisoner;\n    But then Aufidius was within my view,\n    And wrath o'erwhelm'd my pity. I request you\n    To give my poor host freedom.\n  COMINIUS. O, well begg'd!\n    Were he the butcher of my son, he should\n    Be free as is the wind. Deliver him, Titus.\n  LARTIUS. Marcius, his name?\n  CORIOLANUS. By Jupiter, forgot!\n    I am weary; yea, my memory is tir'd.\n    Have we no wine here?\n  COMINIUS. Go we to our tent.\n    The blood upon your visage dries; 'tis time\n    It should be look'd to. Come.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE X.\nThe camp of the Volsces\n\nA flourish. Cornets. Enter TULLUS AUFIDIUS bloody, with two or three soldiers\n\n  AUFIDIUS. The town is ta'en.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. 'Twill be deliver'd back on good condition.\n  AUFIDIUS. Condition!\n    I would I were a Roman; for I cannot,\n    Being a Volsce, be that I am. Condition?\n    What good condition can a treaty find\n    I' th' part that is at mercy? Five times, Marcius,\n    I have fought with thee; so often hast thou beat me;\n    And wouldst do so, I think, should we encounter\n    As often as we eat. By th' elements,\n    If e'er again I meet him beard to beard,\n    He's mine or I am his. Mine emulation\n    Hath not that honour in't it had; for where\n    I thought to crush him in an equal force,\n    True sword to sword, I'll potch at him some way,\n    Or wrath or craft may get him.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. He's the devil.\n  AUFIDIUS. Bolder, though not so subtle. My valour's poison'd\n    With only suff'ring stain by him; for him\n    Shall fly out of itself. Nor sleep nor sanctuary,\n    Being naked, sick, nor fane nor Capitol,\n    The prayers of priests nor times of sacrifice,\n    Embarquements all of fury, shall lift up\n    Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst\n    My hate to Marcius. Where I find him, were it\n    At home, upon my brother's guard, even there,\n    Against the hospitable canon, would I\n    Wash my fierce hand in's heart. Go you to th' city;\n    Learn how 'tis held, and what they are that must\n    Be hostages for Rome.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Will not you go?\n  AUFIDIUS. I am attended at the cypress grove; I pray you-\n    'Tis south the city mills- bring me word thither\n    How the world goes, that to the pace of it\n    I may spur on my journey.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. I shall, sir.                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nRome. A public place\n\nEnter MENENIUS, with the two Tribunes of the people, SICINIUS and BRUTUS\n\n  MENENIUS. The augurer tells me we shall have news tonight.\n  BRUTUS. Good or bad?\n  MENENIUS. Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love\n    not Marcius.\n  SICINIUS. Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.\n  MENENIUS. Pray you, who does the wolf love?\n  SICINIUS. The lamb.\n  MENENIUS. Ay, to devour him, as the hungry plebeians would the\n    noble Marcius.\n  BRUTUS. He's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear.\n  MENENIUS. He's a bear indeed, that lives fike a lamb. You two are\n    old men; tell me one thing that I shall ask you.\n  BOTH TRIBUNES. Well, sir.\n  MENENIUS. In what enormity is Marcius poor in that you two have not\n    in abundance?\n  BRUTUS. He's poor in no one fault, but stor'd with all.\n  SICINIUS. Especially in pride.\n  BRUTUS. And topping all others in boasting.\n  MENENIUS. This is strange now. Do you two know how you are censured\n    here in the city- I mean of us o' th' right-hand file? Do you?\n  BOTH TRIBUNES. Why, how are we censur'd?\n  MENENIUS. Because you talk of pride now- will you not be angry?\n  BOTH TRIBUNES. Well, well, sir, well.\n  MENENIUS. Why, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of\n    occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience. Give your\n    dispositions the reins, and be angry at your pleasures- at the\n    least, if you take it as a pleasure to you in being so. You blame\n    Marcius for being proud?\n  BRUTUS. We do it not alone, sir.\n  MENENIUS. I know you can do very little alone; for your helps are\n    many, or else your actions would grow wondrous single: your\n    abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone. You talk of\n    pride. O that you could turn your eyes toward the napes of your\n    necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves! O\n    that you could!\n  BOTH TRIBUNES. What then, sir?\n  MENENIUS. Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting,\n    proud, violent, testy magistrates-alias fools- as any in Rome.\n  SICINIUS. Menenius, you are known well enough too.\n  MENENIUS. I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves\n    a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in't; said to\n    be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint, hasty\n    and tinder-like upon too trivial motion; one that converses more\n    with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the\n    morning. What I think I utter, and spend my malice in my breath.\n    Meeting two such wealsmen as you are- I cannot call you\n    Lycurguses- if the drink you give me touch my palate adversely, I\n    make a crooked face at it. I cannot say your worships have\n    deliver'd the matter well, when I find the ass in compound with\n    the major part of your syllables; and though I must be content to\n    bear with those that say you are reverend grave men, yet they lie\n    deadly that tell you you have good faces. If you see this in the\n    map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known well enough too?\n    What harm can your bisson conspectuities glean out of this\n    character, if I be known well enough too?\n  BRUTUS. Come, sir, come, we know you well enough.\n  MENENIUS. You know neither me, yourselves, nor any thing. You are\n    ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs; you wear out a good\n    wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and\n    a fosset-seller, and then rejourn the controversy of threepence\n    to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter\n    between party and party, if you chance to be pinch'd with the\n    colic, you make faces like mummers, set up the bloody flag\n    against all patience, and, in roaring for a chamber-pot, dismiss\n    the controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing. All\n    the peace you make in their cause is calling both the parties\n    knaves. You are a pair of strange ones.\n  BRUTUS. Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter giber\n    for the table than a necessary bencher in the Capitol.\n  MENENIUS. Our very priests must become mockers, if they shall\n    encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When you speak\n    best unto the purpose, it is not worth the wagging of your\n    beards; and your beards deserve not so honourable a grave as to\n    stuff a botcher's cushion or to be entomb'd in an ass's\n    pack-saddle. Yet you must be saying Marcius is proud; who, in a\n    cheap estimation, is worth all your predecessors since Deucalion;\n    though peradventure some of the best of 'em were hereditary\n    hangmen. God-den to your worships. More of your conversation\n    would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly\n    plebeians. I will be bold to take my leave of you.\n                                  [BRUTUS and SICINIUS go aside]\n\n               Enter VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, and VALERIA\n\n    How now, my as fair as noble ladies- and the moon, were she\n    earthly, no nobler- whither do you follow your eyes so fast?\n  VOLUMNIA. Honourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches; for the\n    love of Juno, let's go.\n  MENENIUS. Ha! Marcius coming home?\n  VOLUMNIA. Ay, worthy Menenius, and with most prosperous\n    approbation.\n  MENENIUS. Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee. Hoo!\n    Marcius coming home!\n  VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA. Nay, 'tis true.\n  VOLUMNIA. Look, here's a letter from him; the state hath another,\n    his wife another; and I think there's one at home for you.\n  MENENIUS. I will make my very house reel to-night. A letter for me?\n  VIRGILIA. Yes, certain, there's a letter for you; I saw't.\n  MENENIUS. A letter for me! It gives me an estate of seven years'\n    health; in which time I will make a lip at the physician. The\n    most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiricutic and, to\n    this preservative, of no better report than a horse-drench. Is he\n    not wounded? He was wont to come home wounded.\n  VIRGILIA. O, no, no, no.\n  VOLUMNIA. O, he is wounded, I thank the gods for't.\n  MENENIUS. So do I too, if it be not too much. Brings a victory in\n    his pocket? The wounds become him.\n  VOLUMNIA. On's brows, Menenius, he comes the third time home with\n    the oaken garland.\n  MENENIUS. Has he disciplin'd Aufidius soundly?\n  VOLUMNIA. Titus Lartius writes they fought together, but Aufidius\n    got off.\n  MENENIUS. And 'twas time for him too, I'll warrant him that; an he\n    had stay'd by him, I would not have been so fidius'd for all the\n    chests in Corioli and the gold that's in them. Is the Senate\n    possess'd of this?\n  VOLUMNIA. Good ladies, let's go. Yes, yes, yes: the Senate has\n    letters from the general, wherein he gives my son the whole name\n    of the war; he hath in this action outdone his former deeds\n    doubly.\n  VALERIA. In troth, there's wondrous things spoke of him.\n  MENENIUS. Wondrous! Ay, I warrant you, and not without his true\n    purchasing.\n  VIRGILIA. The gods grant them true!\n  VOLUMNIA. True! pow, waw.\n  MENENIUS. True! I'll be sworn they are true. Where is he wounded?\n    [To the TRIBUNES]  God save your good worships! Marcius is coming\n    home; he has more cause to be proud. Where is he wounded?\n  VOLUMNIA. I' th' shoulder and i' th' left arm; there will be large\n    cicatrices to show the people when he shall stand for his place.\n    He received in the repulse of Tarquin seven hurts i' th' body.\n  MENENIUS. One i' th' neck and two i' th' thigh- there's nine that I\n    know.\n  VOLUMNIA. He had before this last expedition twenty-five wounds\n    upon him.\n  MENENIUS. Now it's twenty-seven; every gash was an enemy's grave.\n    [A shout and flourish]  Hark! the trumpets.\n  VOLUMNIA. These are the ushers of Marcius. Before him he carries\n      noise, and behind him he leaves tears;\n    Death, that dark spirit, in's nervy arm doth lie,\n    Which, being advanc'd, declines, and then men die.\n\n            A sennet. Trumpets sound. Enter COMINIUS the\n              GENERAL, and TITUS LARTIUS; between them,\n           CORIOLANUS, crown'd with an oaken garland; with\n                   CAPTAINS and soldiers and a HERALD\n\n  HERALD. Know, Rome, that all alone Marcius did fight\n    Within Corioli gates, where he hath won,\n    With fame, a name to Caius Marcius; these\n    In honour follows Coriolanus.\n    Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!             [Flourish]\n  ALL. Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!\n  CORIOLANUS. No more of this, it does offend my heart.\n    Pray now, no more.\n  COMINIUS. Look, sir, your mother!\n  CORIOLANUS. O,\n    You have, I know, petition'd all the gods\n    For my prosperity!                                  [Kneels]\n  VOLUMNIA. Nay, my good soldier, up;\n    My gentle Marcius, worthy Caius, and\n    By deed-achieving honour newly nam'd-\n    What is it? Coriolanus must I can thee?\n    But, O, thy wife!\n  CORIOLANUS. My gracious silence, hail!\n    Wouldst thou have laugh'd had I come coffin'd home,\n    That weep'st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear,\n    Such eyes the widows in Corioli wear,\n    And mothers that lack sons.\n  MENENIUS. Now the gods crown thee!\n  CORIOLANUS. And live you yet?  [To VALERIA]  O my sweet lady,\n    pardon.\n  VOLUMNIA. I know not where to turn.\n    O, welcome home! And welcome, General.\n    And y'are welcome all.\n  MENENIUS. A hundred thousand welcomes. I could weep\n    And I could laugh; I am light and heavy. Welcome!\n    A curse begin at very root on's heart\n    That is not glad to see thee! You are three\n    That Rome should dote on; yet, by the faith of men,\n    We have some old crab trees here at home that will not\n    Be grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors.\n    We call a nettle but a nettle, and\n    The faults of fools but folly.\n  COMINIUS. Ever right.\n  CORIOLANUS. Menenius ever, ever.\n  HERALD. Give way there, and go on.\n  CORIOLANUS.  [To his wife and mother]  Your hand, and yours.\n    Ere in our own house I do shade my head,\n    The good patricians must be visited;\n    From whom I have receiv'd not only greetings,\n    But with them change of honours.\n  VOLUMNIA. I have lived\n    To see inherited my very wishes,\n    And the buildings of my fancy; only\n    There's one thing wanting, which I doubt not but\n    Our Rome will cast upon thee.\n  CORIOLANUS. Know, good mother,\n    I had rather be their servant in my way\n    Than sway with them in theirs.\n  COMINIUS. On, to the Capitol.\n                 [Flourish. Cornets. Exeunt in state, as before]\n\n                BRUTUS and SICINIUS come forward\n\n  BRUTUS. All tongues speak of him and the bleared sights\n    Are spectacled to see him. Your prattling nurse\n    Into a rapture lets her baby cry\n    While she chats him; the kitchen malkin pins\n    Her richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck,\n    Clamb'ring the walls to eye him; stalls, bulks, windows,\n    Are smother'd up, leads fill'd and ridges hors'd\n    With variable complexions, all agreeing\n    In earnestness to see him. Seld-shown flamens\n    Do press among the popular throngs and puff\n    To win a vulgar station; our veil'd dames\n    Commit the war of white and damask in\n    Their nicely gawded cheeks to th' wanton spoil\n    Of Phoebus' burning kisses. Such a pother,\n    As if that whatsoever god who leads him\n    Were slily crept into his human powers,\n    And gave him graceful posture.\n  SICINIUS. On the sudden\n    I warrant him consul.\n  BRUTUS. Then our office may\n    During his power go sleep.\n  SICINIUS. He cannot temp'rately transport his honours\n    From where he should begin and end, but will\n    Lose those he hath won.\n  BRUTUS. In that there's comfort.\n  SICINIUS. Doubt not\n    The commoners, for whom we stand, but they\n    Upon their ancient malice will forget\n    With the least cause these his new honours; which\n    That he will give them make I as little question\n    As he is proud to do't.\n  BRUTUS. I heard him swear,\n    Were he to stand for consul, never would he\n    Appear i' th' market-place, nor on him put\n    The napless vesture of humility;\n    Nor, showing, as the manner is, his wounds\n    To th' people, beg their stinking breaths.\n  SICINIUS. 'Tis right.\n  BRUTUS. It was his word. O, he would miss it rather\n    Than carry it but by the suit of the gentry to him\n    And the desire of the nobles.\n  SICINIUS. I wish no better\n    Than have him hold that purpose, and to put it\n    In execution.\n  BRUTUS. 'Tis most like he will.\n  SICINIUS. It shall be to him then as our good wills:\n    A sure destruction.\n  BRUTUS. So it must fall out\n    To him or our authorities. For an end,\n    We must suggest the people in what hatred\n    He still hath held them; that to's power he would\n    Have made them mules, silenc'd their pleaders, and\n    Dispropertied their freedoms; holding them\n    In human action and capacity\n    Of no more soul nor fitness for the world\n    Than camels in their war, who have their provand\n    Only for bearing burdens, and sore blows\n    For sinking under them.\n  SICINIUS. This, as you say, suggested\n    At some time when his soaring insolence\n    Shall touch the people- which time shall not want,\n    If he be put upon't, and that's as easy\n    As to set dogs on sheep- will be his fire\n    To kindle their dry stubble; and their blaze\n    Shall darken him for ever.\n\n                           Enter A MESSENGER\n\n  BRUTUS. What's the matter?\n  MESSENGER. You are sent for to the Capitol. 'Tis thought\n    That Marcius shall be consul.\n    I have seen the dumb men throng to see him and\n    The blind to hear him speak; matrons flung gloves,\n    Ladies and maids their scarfs and handkerchers,\n    Upon him as he pass'd; the nobles bended\n    As to Jove's statue, and the commons made\n    A shower and thunder with their caps and shouts.\n    I never saw the like.\n  BRUTUS. Let's to the Capitol,\n    And carry with us ears and eyes for th' time,\n    But hearts for the event.\n  SICINIUS. Have with you.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. The Capitol\n\nEnter two OFFICERS, to lay cushions, as it were in the Capitol\n\n  FIRST OFFICER. Come, come, they are almost here. How many stand for\n    consulships?\n  SECOND OFFICER. Three, they say; but 'tis thought of every one\n    Coriolanus will carry it.\n  FIRST OFFICER. That's a brave fellow; but he's vengeance proud and\n    loves not the common people.\n  SECOND OFFICER. Faith, there have been many great men that have\n    flatter'd the people, who ne'er loved them; and there be many\n    that they have loved, they know not wherefore; so that, if they\n    love they know not why, they hate upon no better a ground.\n    Therefore, for Coriolanus neither to care whether they love or\n    hate him manifests the true knowledge he has in their\n    disposition, and out of his noble carelessness lets them plainly\n    see't.\n  FIRST OFFICER. If he did not care whether he had their love or no,\n    he waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good nor harm;\n    but he seeks their hate with greater devotion than they can\n    render it him, and leaves nothing undone that may fully discover\n    him their opposite. Now to seem to affect the malice and\n    displeasure of the people is as bad as that which he dislikes- to\n    flatter them for their love.\n  SECOND OFFICER. He hath deserved worthily of his country; and his\n    ascent is not by such easy degrees as those who, having been\n    supple and courteous to the people, bonneted, without any further\n    deed to have them at all, into their estimation and report; but\n    he hath so planted his honours in their eyes and his actions in\n    their hearts that for their tongues to be silent and not confess\n    so much were a kind of ingrateful injury; to report otherwise\n    were a malice that, giving itself the lie, would pluck reproof\n    and rebuke from every car that heard it.\n  FIRST OFFICER. No more of him; he's a worthy man. Make way, they\n    are coming.\n\n         A sennet. Enter the PATRICIANS and the TRIBUNES\n         OF THE PEOPLE, LICTORS before them; CORIOLANUS,\n            MENENIUS, COMINIUS the Consul. SICINIUS and\n               BRUTUS take their places by themselves.\n                         CORIOLANUS stands\n\n  MENENIUS. Having determin'd of the Volsces, and\n    To send for Titus Lartius, it remains,\n    As the main point of this our after-meeting,\n    To gratify his noble service that\n    Hath thus stood for his country. Therefore please you,\n    Most reverend and grave elders, to desire\n    The present consul and last general\n    In our well-found successes to report\n    A little of that worthy work perform'd\n    By Caius Marcius Coriolanus; whom\n    We met here both to thank and to remember\n    With honours like himself.                 [CORIOLANUS sits]\n  FIRST SENATOR. Speak, good Cominius.\n    Leave nothing out for length, and make us think\n    Rather our state's defective for requital\n    Than we to stretch it out. Masters o' th' people,\n    We do request your kindest ears; and, after,\n    Your loving motion toward the common body,\n    To yield what passes here.\n  SICINIUS. We are convented\n    Upon a pleasing treaty, and have hearts\n    Inclinable to honour and advance\n    The theme of our assembly.\n  BRUTUS. Which the rather\n    We shall be bless'd to do, if he remember\n    A kinder value of the people than\n    He hath hereto priz'd them at.\n  MENENIUS. That's off, that's off;\n    I would you rather had been silent. Please you\n    To hear Cominius speak?\n  BRUTUS. Most willingly.\n    But yet my caution was more pertinent\n    Than the rebuke you give it.\n  MENENIUS. He loves your people;\n    But tie him not to be their bedfellow.\n    Worthy Cominius, speak.\n                       [CORIOLANUS rises, and offers to go away]\n    Nay, keep your place.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Sit, Coriolanus, never shame to hear\n    What you have nobly done.\n  CORIOLANUS. Your Honours' pardon.\n    I had rather have my wounds to heal again\n    Than hear say how I got them.\n  BRUTUS. Sir, I hope\n    My words disbench'd you not.\n  CORIOLANUS. No, sir; yet oft,\n    When blows have made me stay, I fled from words.\n    You sooth'd not, therefore hurt not. But your people,\n    I love them as they weigh-\n  MENENIUS. Pray now, sit down.\n  CORIOLANUS. I had rather have one scratch my head i' th' sun\n    When the alarum were struck than idly sit\n    To hear my nothings monster'd.                          Exit\n  MENENIUS. Masters of the people,\n    Your multiplying spawn how can he flatter-\n    That's thousand to one good one- when you now see\n    He had rather venture all his limbs for honour\n    Than one on's ears to hear it? Proceed, Cominius.\n  COMINIUS. I shall lack voice; the deeds of Coriolanus\n    Should not be utter'd feebly. It is held\n    That valour is the chiefest virtue and\n    Most dignifies the haver. If it be,\n    The man I speak of cannot in the world\n    Be singly counterpois'd. At sixteen years,\n    When Tarquin made a head for Rome, he fought\n    Beyond the mark of others; our then Dictator,\n    Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight\n    When with his Amazonian chin he drove\n    The bristled lips before him; he bestrid\n    An o'erpress'd Roman and i' th' consul's view\n    Slew three opposers; Tarquin's self he met,\n    And struck him on his knee. In that day's feats,\n    When he might act the woman in the scene,\n    He prov'd best man i' th' field, and for his meed\n    Was brow-bound with the oak. His pupil age\n    Man-ent'red thus, he waxed like a sea,\n    And in the brunt of seventeen battles since\n    He lurch'd all swords of the garland. For this last,\n    Before and in Corioli, let me say\n    I cannot speak him home. He stopp'd the fliers,\n    And by his rare example made the coward\n    Turn terror into sport; as weeds before\n    A vessel under sail, so men obey'd\n    And fell below his stem. His sword, death's stamp,\n    Where it did mark, it took; from face to foot\n    He was a thing of blood, whose every motion\n    Was tim'd with dying cries. Alone he ent'red\n    The mortal gate of th' city, which he painted\n    With shunless destiny; aidless came off,\n    And with a sudden re-enforcement struck\n    Corioli like a planet. Now all's his.\n    When by and by the din of war 'gan pierce\n    His ready sense, then straight his doubled spirit\n    Re-quick'ned what in flesh was fatigate,\n    And to the battle came he; where he did\n    Run reeking o'er the lives of men, as if\n    'Twere a perpetual spoil; and till we call'd\n    Both field and city ours he never stood\n    To ease his breast with panting.\n  MENENIUS. Worthy man!\n  FIRST SENATOR. He cannot but with measure fit the honours\n    Which we devise him.\n  COMINIUS. Our spoils he kick'd at,\n    And look'd upon things precious as they were\n    The common muck of the world. He covets less\n    Than misery itself would give, rewards\n    His deeds with doing them, and is content\n    To spend the time to end it.\n  MENENIUS. He's right noble;\n    Let him be call'd for.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Call Coriolanus.\n    OFFICER. He doth appear.\n\n                            Re-enter CORIOLANUS\n\n  MENENIUS. The Senate, Coriolanus, are well pleas'd\n    To make thee consul.\n  CORIOLANUS. I do owe them still\n    My life and services.\n  MENENIUS. It then remains\n    That you do speak to the people.\n  CORIOLANUS. I do beseech you\n    Let me o'erleap that custom; for I cannot\n    Put on the gown, stand naked, and entreat them\n    For my wounds' sake to give their suffrage. Please you\n    That I may pass this doing.\n  SICINIUS. Sir, the people\n    Must have their voices; neither will they bate\n    One jot of ceremony.\n  MENENIUS. Put them not to't.\n    Pray you go fit you to the custom, and\n    Take to you, as your predecessors have,\n    Your honour with your form.\n  CORIOLANUS. It is a part\n    That I shall blush in acting, and might well\n    Be taken from the people.\n  BRUTUS. Mark you that?\n  CORIOLANUS. To brag unto them 'Thus I did, and thus!'\n    Show them th' unaching scars which I should hide,\n    As if I had receiv'd them for the hire\n    Of their breath only!\n  MENENIUS. Do not stand upon't.\n    We recommend to you, Tribunes of the People,\n    Our purpose to them; and to our noble consul\n    Wish we all joy and honour.\n  SENATORS. To Coriolanus come all joy and honour!\n                             [Flourish. Cornets. Then exeunt all\n                                        but SICINIUS and BRUTUS]\n  BRUTUS. You see how he intends to use the people.\n  SICINIUS. May they perceive's intent! He will require them\n    As if he did contemn what he requested\n    Should be in them to give.\n  BRUTUS. Come, we'll inform them\n    Of our proceedings here. On th' market-place\n    I know they do attend us.                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nRome. The Forum\n\nEnter seven or eight citizens\n\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Once, if he do require our voices, we ought not to\n    deny him.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. We may, sir, if we will.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. We have power in ourselves to do it, but it is a\n    power that we have no power to do; for if he show us his wounds\n    and tell us his deeds, we are to put our tongues into those\n    wounds and speak for them; so, if he tell us his noble deeds, we\n    must also tell him our noble acceptance of them. Ingratitude is\n    monstrous, and for the multitude to be ingrateful were to make a\n    monster of the multitude; of the which we being members should\n    bring ourselves to be monstrous members.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. And to make us no better thought of, a little help\n    will serve; for once we stood up about the corn, he himself stuck\n    not to call us the many-headed multitude.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. We have been call'd so of many; not that our heads\n    are some brown, some black, some abram, some bald, but that our\n    wits are so diversely colour'd; and truly I think if all our wits\n    were to issue out of one skull, they would fly east, west, north,\n    south, and their consent of one direct way should be at once to\n    all the points o' th' compass.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Think you so? Which way do you judge my wit would\n    fly?\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Nay, your wit will not so soon out as another man's\n    will- 'tis strongly wedg'd up in a block-head; but if it were at\n    liberty 'twould sure southward.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Why that way?\n  THIRD CITIZEN. To lose itself in a fog; where being three parts\n   melted away with rotten dews, the fourth would return for\n    conscience' sake, to help to get thee a wife.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. YOU are never without your tricks; you may, you\n    may.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Are you all resolv'd to give your voices? But that's\n    no matter, the greater part carries it. I say, if he would\n    incline to the people, there was never a worthier man.\n\n                Enter CORIOLANUS, in a gown of humility,\n                               with MENENIUS\n\n    Here he comes, and in the gown of humility. Mark his behaviour.\n    We are not to stay all together, but to come by him where he\n    stands, by ones, by twos, and by threes. He's to make his\n    requests by particulars, wherein every one of us has a single\n    honour, in giving him our own voices with our own tongues;\n    therefore follow me, and I'll direct you how you shall go by him.\n  ALL. Content, content.                         Exeunt citizens\n  MENENIUS. O sir, you are not right; have you not known\n    The worthiest men have done't?\n  CORIOLANUS. What must I say?\n    'I pray, sir'- Plague upon't! I cannot bring\n    My tongue to such a pace. 'Look, sir, my wounds\n    I got them in my country's service, when\n    Some certain of your brethren roar'd and ran\n    From th' noise of our own drums.'\n  MENENIUS. O me, the gods!\n    You must not speak of that. You must desire them\n    To think upon you.\n  CORIOLANUS. Think upon me? Hang 'em!\n    I would they would forget me, like the virtues\n    Which our divines lose by 'em.\n  MENENIUS. You'll mar all.\n    I'll leave you. Pray you speak to 'em, I pray you,\n    In wholesome manner.                                    Exit\n\n                       Re-enter three of the citizens\n\n  CORIOLANUS. Bid them wash their faces\n    And keep their teeth clean. So, here comes a brace.\n    You know the cause, sir, of my standing here.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. We do, sir; tell us what hath brought you to't.\n  CORIOLANUS. Mine own desert.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Your own desert?\n  CORIOLANUS. Ay, not mine own desire.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. How, not your own desire?\n  CORIOLANUS. No, sir, 'twas never my desire yet to trouble the poor\n    with begging.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. YOU MUST think, if we give you anything, we hope to\n    gain by you.\n  CORIOLANUS. Well then, I pray, your price o' th' consulship?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. The price is to ask it kindly.\n  CORIOLANUS. Kindly, sir, I pray let me ha't. I have wounds to show\n    you, which shall be yours in private. Your good voice, sir; what\n    say you?\n  SECOND CITIZEN. You shall ha' it, worthy sir.\n  CORIOLANUS. A match, sir. There's in all two worthy voices begg'd.\n    I have your alms. Adieu.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. But this is something odd.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. An 'twere to give again- but 'tis no matter.\n                                       Exeunt the three citizens\n\n                      Re-enter two other citizens\n\n  CORIOLANUS. Pray you now, if it may stand with the tune of your\n    voices that I may be consul, I have here the customary gown.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. You have deserved nobly of your country, and you\n    have not deserved nobly.\n  CORIOLANUS. Your enigma?\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. You have been a scourge to her enemies; you have\n    been a rod to her friends. You have not indeed loved the common\n    people.\n  CORIOLANUS. You should account me the more virtuous, that I have\n    not been common in my love. I will, sir, flatter my sworn\n    brother, the people, to earn a dearer estimation of them; 'tis a\n    condition they account gentle; and since the wisdom of their\n    choice is rather to have my hat than my heart, I will practise\n    the insinuating nod and be off to them most counterfeitly. That\n    is, sir, I will counterfeit the bewitchment of some popular man\n    and give it bountiful to the desirers. Therefore, beseech you I\n    may be consul.\n  FIFTH CITIZEN. We hope to find you our friend; and therefore give\n    you our voices heartily.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. You have received many wounds for your country.\n  CORIOLANUS. I will not seal your knowledge with showing them. I\n    will make much of your voices, and so trouble you no farther.\n  BOTH CITIZENS. The gods give you joy, sir, heartily!\n                                                 Exeunt citizens\n  CORIOLANUS. Most sweet voices!\n    Better it is to die, better to starve,\n    Than crave the hire which first we do deserve.\n    Why in this wolvish toge should I stand here\n    To beg of Hob and Dick that do appear\n    Their needless vouches? Custom calls me to't.\n    What custom wills, in all things should we do't,\n    The dust on antique time would lie unswept,\n    And mountainous error be too highly heap'd\n    For truth to o'erpeer. Rather than fool it so,\n    Let the high office and the honour go\n    To one that would do thus. I am half through:\n    The one part suffered, the other will I do.\n\n                      Re-enter three citizens more\n\n    Here come moe voices.\n    Your voices. For your voices I have fought;\n    Watch'd for your voices; for your voices bear\n    Of wounds two dozen odd; battles thrice six\n    I have seen and heard of; for your voices have\n    Done many things, some less, some more. Your voices?\n    Indeed, I would be consul.\n  SIXTH CITIZEN. He has done nobly, and cannot go without any honest\n    man's voice.\n  SEVENTH CITIZEN. Therefore let him be consul. The gods give him\n    joy, and make him good friend to the people!\n  ALL. Amen, amen. God save thee, noble consul!\n                                                 Exeunt citizens\n  CORIOLANUS. Worthy voices!\n\n             Re-enter MENENIUS with BRUTUS and SICINIUS\n\n  MENENIUS. You have stood your limitation, and the tribunes\n    Endue you with the people's voice. Remains\n    That, in th' official marks invested, you\n    Anon do meet the Senate.\n  CORIOLANUS. Is this done?\n  SICINIUS. The custom of request you have discharg'd.\n    The people do admit you, and are summon'd\n    To meet anon, upon your approbation.\n  CORIOLANUS. Where? At the Senate House?\n  SICINIUS. There, Coriolanus.\n  CORIOLANUS. May I change these garments?\n  SICINIUS. You may, sir.\n  CORIOLANUS. That I'll straight do, and, knowing myself again,\n    Repair to th' Senate House.\n  MENENIUS. I'll keep you company. Will you along?\n  BRUTUS. We stay here for the people.\n  SICINIUS. Fare you well.\n                                  Exeunt CORIOLANUS and MENENIUS\n    He has it now; and by his looks methinks\n    'Tis warm at's heart.\n  BRUTUS. With a proud heart he wore\n    His humble weeds. Will you dismiss the people?\n\n                            Re-enter citizens\n\n  SICINIUS. How now, my masters! Have you chose this man?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. He has our voices, sir.\n  BRUTUS. We pray the gods he may deserve your loves.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Amen, sir. To my poor unworthy notice,\n    He mock'd us when he begg'd our voices.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Certainly;\n    He flouted us downright.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. No, 'tis his kind of speech- he did not mock us.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Not one amongst us, save yourself, but says\n    He us'd us scornfully. He should have show'd us\n    His marks of merit, wounds receiv'd for's country.\n  SICINIUS. Why, so he did, I am sure.\n  ALL. No, no; no man saw 'em.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. He said he had wounds which he could show in\n      private,\n    And with his hat, thus waving it in scorn,\n    'I would be consul,' says he; 'aged custom\n    But by your voices will not so permit me;\n    Your voices therefore.' When we granted that,\n    Here was 'I thank you for your voices. Thank you,\n    Your most sweet voices. Now you have left your voices,\n    I have no further with you.' Was not this mockery?\n  SICINIUS. Why either were you ignorant to see't,\n    Or, seeing it, of such childish friendliness\n    To yield your voices?\n  BRUTUS. Could you not have told him-\n    As you were lesson'd- when he had no power\n    But was a petty servant to the state,\n    He was your enemy; ever spake against\n    Your liberties and the charters that you bear\n    I' th' body of the weal; and now, arriving\n    A place of potency and sway o' th' state,\n    If he should still malignantly remain\n    Fast foe to th' plebeii, your voices might\n    Be curses to yourselves? You should have said\n    That as his worthy deeds did claim no less\n    Than what he stood for, so his gracious nature\n    Would think upon you for your voices, and\n    Translate his malice towards you into love,\n    Standing your friendly lord.\n  SICINIUS. Thus to have said,\n    As you were fore-advis'd, had touch'd his spirit\n    And tried his inclination; from him pluck'd\n    Either his gracious promise, which you might,\n    As cause had call'd you up, have held him to;\n    Or else it would have gall'd his surly nature,\n    Which easily endures not article\n    Tying him to aught. So, putting him to rage,\n    You should have ta'en th' advantage of his choler\n    And pass'd him unelected.\n  BRUTUS. Did you perceive\n    He did solicit you in free contempt\n    When he did need your loves; and do you think\n    That his contempt shall not be bruising to you\n    When he hath power to crush? Why, had your bodies\n    No heart among you? Or had you tongues to cry\n    Against the rectorship of judgment?\n  SICINIUS. Have you\n    Ere now denied the asker, and now again,\n    Of him that did not ask but mock, bestow\n    Your su'd-for tongues?\n  THIRD CITIZEN. He's not confirm'd: we may deny him yet.\n  SECOND CITIZENS. And will deny him;\n    I'll have five hundred voices of that sound.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. I twice five hundred, and their friends to piece\n    'em.\n  BRUTUS. Get you hence instantly, and tell those friends\n    They have chose a consul that will from them take\n    Their liberties, make them of no more voice\n    Than dogs, that are as often beat for barking\n    As therefore kept to do so.\n  SICINIUS. Let them assemble;\n    And, on a safer judgment, all revoke\n    Your ignorant election. Enforce his pride\n    And his old hate unto you; besides, forget not\n    With what contempt he wore the humble weed;\n    How in his suit he scorn'd you; but your loves,\n    Thinking upon his services, took from you\n    Th' apprehension of his present portance,\n    Which, most gibingly, ungravely, he did fashion\n    After the inveterate hate he bears you.\n  BRUTUS. Lay\n    A fault on us, your tribunes, that we labour'd,\n    No impediment between, but that you must\n    Cast your election on him.\n  SICINIUS. Say you chose him\n    More after our commandment than as guided\n    By your own true affections; and that your minds,\n    Pre-occupied with what you rather must do\n    Than what you should, made you against the grain\n    To voice him consul. Lay the fault on us.\n  BRUTUS. Ay, spare us not. Say we read lectures to you,\n    How youngly he began to serve his country,\n    How long continued; and what stock he springs of-\n    The noble house o' th' Marcians; from whence came\n    That Ancus Marcius, Numa's daughter's son,\n    Who, after great Hostilius, here was king;\n    Of the same house Publius and Quintus were,\n    That our best water brought by conduits hither;\n    And Censorinus, nobly named so,\n    Twice being by the people chosen censor,\n    Was his great ancestor.\n  SICINIUS. One thus descended,\n    That hath beside well in his person wrought\n    To be set high in place, we did commend\n    To your remembrances; but you have found,\n    Scaling his present bearing with his past,\n    That he's your fixed enemy, and revoke\n    Your sudden approbation.\n  BRUTUS. Say you ne'er had done't-\n    Harp on that still- but by our putting on;\n    And presently, when you have drawn your number,\n    Repair to th' Capitol.\n  CITIZENS. will will so; almost all\n    Repent in their election.                   Exeunt plebeians\n  BRUTUS. Let them go on;\n    This mutiny were better put in hazard\n    Than stay, past doubt, for greater.\n    If, as his nature is, he fall in rage\n    With their refusal, both observe and answer\n    The vantage of his anger.\n  SICINIUS. To th' Capitol, come.\n    We will be there before the stream o' th' people;\n    And this shall seem, as partly 'tis, their own,\n    Which we have goaded onward.                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nRome. A street\n\nCornets. Enter CORIOLANUS, MENENIUS, all the GENTRY, COMINIUS,\nTITUS LARTIUS, and other SENATORS\n\n  CORIOLANUS. Tullus Aufidius, then, had made new head?\n  LARTIUS. He had, my lord; and that it was which caus'd\n    Our swifter composition.\n  CORIOLANUS. So then the Volsces stand but as at first,\n    Ready, when time shall prompt them, to make road\n    Upon's again.\n  COMINIUS. They are worn, Lord Consul, so\n    That we shall hardly in our ages see\n    Their banners wave again.\n  CORIOLANUS. Saw you Aufidius?\n  LARTIUS. On safeguard he came to me, and did curse\n    Against the Volsces, for they had so vilely\n    Yielded the town. He is retir'd to Antium.\n  CORIOLANUS. Spoke he of me?\n  LARTIUS. He did, my lord.\n  CORIOLANUS. How? What?\n  LARTIUS. How often he had met you, sword to sword;\n    That of all things upon the earth he hated\n    Your person most; that he would pawn his fortunes\n    To hopeless restitution, so he might\n    Be call'd your vanquisher.\n  CORIOLANUS. At Antium lives he?\n  LARTIUS. At Antium.\n  CORIOLANUS. I wish I had a cause to seek him there,\n    To oppose his hatred fully. Welcome home.\n\n                       Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS\n\n    Behold, these are the tribunes of the people,\n    The tongues o' th' common mouth. I do despise them,\n    For they do prank them in authority,\n    Against all noble sufferance.\n  SICINIUS. Pass no further.\n  CORIOLANUS. Ha! What is that?\n  BRUTUS. It will be dangerous to go on- no further.\n  CORIOLANUS. What makes this change?\n  MENENIUS. The matter?\n  COMINIUS. Hath he not pass'd the noble and the common?\n  BRUTUS. Cominius, no.\n  CORIOLANUS. Have I had children's voices?\n  FIRST SENATOR. Tribunes, give way: he shall to th' market-place.\n  BRUTUS. The people are incens'd against him.\n  SICINIUS. Stop,\n    Or all will fall in broil.\n  CORIOLANUS. Are these your herd?\n    Must these have voices, that can yield them now\n    And straight disclaim their tongues? What are your offices?\n    You being their mouths, why rule you not their teeth?\n    Have you not set them on?\n  MENENIUS. Be calm, be calm.\n  CORIOLANUS. It is a purpos'd thing, and grows by plot,\n    To curb the will of the nobility;\n    Suffer't, and live with such as cannot rule\n    Nor ever will be rul'd.\n  BRUTUS. Call't not a plot.\n    The people cry you mock'd them; and of late,\n    When corn was given them gratis, you repin'd;\n    Scandal'd the suppliants for the people, call'd them\n    Time-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness.\n  CORIOLANUS. Why, this was known before.\n  BRUTUS. Not to them all.\n  CORIOLANUS. Have you inform'd them sithence?\n  BRUTUS. How? I inform them!\n  COMINIUS. You are like to do such business.\n  BRUTUS. Not unlike\n    Each way to better yours.\n  CORIOLANUS. Why then should I be consul? By yond clouds,\n    Let me deserve so ill as you, and make me\n    Your fellow tribune.\n  SICINIUS. You show too much of that\n    For which the people stir; if you will pass\n    To where you are bound, you must enquire your way,\n    Which you are out of, with a gentler spirit,\n    Or never be so noble as a consul,\n    Nor yoke with him for tribune.\n  MENENIUS. Let's be calm.\n  COMINIUS. The people are abus'd; set on. This palt'ring\n    Becomes not Rome; nor has Coriolanus\n    Deserved this so dishonour'd rub, laid falsely\n    I' th' plain way of his merit.\n  CORIOLANUS. Tell me of corn!\n    This was my speech, and I will speak't again-\n  MENENIUS. Not now, not now.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Not in this heat, sir, now.\n  CORIOLANUS. Now, as I live, I will.\n    My nobler friends, I crave their pardons.\n    For the mutable, rank-scented meiny, let them\n    Regard me as I do not flatter, and\n    Therein behold themselves. I say again,\n    In soothing them we nourish 'gainst our Senate\n    The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,\n    Which we ourselves have plough'd for, sow'd, and scatter'd,\n    By mingling them with us, the honour'd number,\n    Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that\n    Which they have given to beggars.\n  MENENIUS. Well, no more.\n  FIRST SENATOR. No more words, we beseech you.\n  CORIOLANUS. How? no more!\n    As for my country I have shed my blood,\n    Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs\n    Coin words till their decay against those measles\n    Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought\n    The very way to catch them.\n  BRUTUS. You speak o' th' people\n    As if you were a god, to punish; not\n    A man of their infirmity.\n  SICINIUS. 'Twere well\n    We let the people know't.\n  MENENIUS. What, what? his choler?\n  CORIOLANUS. Choler!\n    Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,\n    By Jove, 'twould be my mind!\n  SICINIUS. It is a mind\n    That shall remain a poison where it is,\n    Not poison any further.\n  CORIOLANUS. Shall remain!\n    Hear you this Triton of the minnows? Mark you\n    His absolute 'shall'?\n  COMINIUS. 'Twas from the canon.\n  CORIOLANUS. 'Shall'!\n    O good but most unwise patricians! Why,\n    You grave but reckless senators, have you thus\n    Given Hydra here to choose an officer\n    That with his peremptory 'shall,' being but\n    The horn and noise o' th' monster's, wants not spirit\n    To say he'll turn your current in a ditch,\n    And make your channel his? If he have power,\n    Then vail your ignorance; if none, awake\n    Your dangerous lenity. If you are learn'd,\n    Be not as common fools; if you are not,\n    Let them have cushions by you. You are plebeians,\n    If they be senators; and they are no less,\n    When, both your voices blended, the great'st taste\n    Most palates theirs. They choose their magistrate;\n    And such a one as he, who puts his 'shall,'\n    His popular 'shall,' against a graver bench\n    Than ever frown'd in Greece. By Jove himself,\n    It makes the consuls base; and my soul aches\n    To know, when two authorities are up,\n    Neither supreme, how soon confusion\n    May enter 'twixt the gap of both and take\n    The one by th' other.\n  COMINIUS. Well, on to th' market-place.\n  CORIOLANUS. Whoever gave that counsel to give forth\n    The corn o' th' storehouse gratis, as 'twas us'd\n    Sometime in Greece-\n  MENENIUS. Well, well, no more of that.\n  CORIOLANUS. Though there the people had more absolute pow'r-\n    I say they nourish'd disobedience, fed\n    The ruin of the state.\n  BRUTUS. Why shall the people give\n    One that speaks thus their voice?\n  CORIOLANUS. I'll give my reasons,\n    More worthier than their voices. They know the corn\n    Was not our recompense, resting well assur'd\n    They ne'er did service for't; being press'd to th' war\n    Even when the navel of the state was touch'd,\n    They would not thread the gates. This kind of service\n    Did not deserve corn gratis. Being i' th' war,\n    Their mutinies and revolts, wherein they show'd\n    Most valour, spoke not for them. Th' accusation\n    Which they have often made against the Senate,\n    All cause unborn, could never be the native\n    Of our so frank donation. Well, what then?\n    How shall this bosom multiplied digest\n    The Senate's courtesy? Let deeds express\n    What's like to be their words: 'We did request it;\n    We are the greater poll, and in true fear\n    They gave us our demands.' Thus we debase\n    The nature of our seats, and make the rabble\n    Call our cares fears; which will in time\n    Break ope the locks o' th' Senate and bring in\n    The crows to peck the eagles.\n  MENENIUS. Come, enough.\n  BRUTUS. Enough, with over measure.\n  CORIOLANUS. No, take more.\n    What may be sworn by, both divine and human,\n    Seal what I end withal! This double worship,\n    Where one part does disdain with cause, the other\n    Insult without all reason; where gentry, title, wisdom,\n    Cannot conclude but by the yea and no\n    Of general ignorance- it must omit\n    Real necessities, and give way the while\n    To unstable slightness. Purpose so barr'd, it follows\n    Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore, beseech you-\n    You that will be less fearful than discreet;\n    That love the fundamental part of state\n    More than you doubt the change on't; that prefer\n    A noble life before a long, and wish\n    To jump a body with a dangerous physic\n    That's sure of death without it- at once pluck out\n    The multitudinous tongue; let them not lick\n    The sweet which is their poison. Your dishonour\n    Mangles true judgment, and bereaves the state\n    Of that integrity which should become't,\n    Not having the power to do the good it would,\n    For th' ill which doth control't.\n  BRUTUS. Has said enough.\n  SICINIUS. Has spoken like a traitor and shall answer\n    As traitors do.\n  CORIOLANUS. Thou wretch, despite o'erwhelm thee!\n    What should the people do with these bald tribunes,\n    On whom depending, their obedience fails\n    To the greater bench? In a rebellion,\n    When what's not meet, but what must be, was law,\n    Then were they chosen; in a better hour\n    Let what is meet be said it must be meet,\n    And throw their power i' th' dust.\n  BRUTUS. Manifest treason!\n  SICINIUS. This a consul? No.\n  BRUTUS. The aediles, ho!\n\n                           Enter an AEDILE\n\n    Let him be apprehended.\n  SICINIUS. Go call the people,  [Exit AEDILE]  in whose name myself\n    Attach thee as a traitorous innovator,\n    A foe to th' public weal. Obey, I charge thee,\n    And follow to thine answer.\n  CORIOLANUS. Hence, old goat!\n  PATRICIANS. We'll surety him.\n  COMINIUS. Ag'd sir, hands off.\n  CORIOLANUS. Hence, rotten thing! or I shall shake thy bones\n    Out of thy garments.\n  SICINIUS. Help, ye citizens!\n\n              Enter a rabble of plebeians, with the AEDILES\n\n  MENENIUS. On both sides more respect.\n  SICINIUS. Here's he that would take from you all your power.\n  BRUTUS. Seize him, aediles.\n    PLEBEIANS. Down with him! down with him!\n  SECOND SENATOR. Weapons, weapons, weapons!\n                              [They all bustle about CORIOLANUS]\n  ALL. Tribunes! patricians! citizens! What, ho! Sicinius!\n    Brutus! Coriolanus! Citizens!\n  PATRICIANS. Peace, peace, peace; stay, hold, peace!\n  MENENIUS. What is about to be? I am out of breath;\n    Confusion's near; I cannot speak. You tribunes\n    To th' people- Coriolanus, patience!\n    Speak, good Sicinius.\n  SICINIUS. Hear me, people; peace!\n  PLEBEIANS. Let's hear our tribune. Peace! Speak, speak, speak.\n  SICINIUS. You are at point to lose your liberties.\n    Marcius would have all from you; Marcius,\n    Whom late you have nam'd for consul.\n  MENENIUS. Fie, fie, fie!\n    This is the way to kindle, not to quench.\n  FIRST SENATOR. To unbuild the city, and to lay all flat.\n  SICINIUS. What is the city but the people?\n  PLEBEIANS. True,\n    The people are the city.\n  BRUTUS. By the consent of all we were establish'd\n    The people's magistrates.\n  PLEBEIANS. You so remain.\n  MENENIUS. And so are like to do.\n  COMINIUS. That is the way to lay the city flat,\n    To bring the roof to the foundation,\n    And bury all which yet distinctly ranges\n    In heaps and piles of ruin.\n  SICINIUS. This deserves death.\n  BRUTUS. Or let us stand to our authority\n    Or let us lose it. We do here pronounce,\n    Upon the part o' th' people, in whose power\n    We were elected theirs: Marcius is worthy\n    Of present death.\n  SICINIUS. Therefore lay hold of him;\n    Bear him to th' rock Tarpeian, and from thence\n    Into destruction cast him.\n  BRUTUS. AEdiles, seize him.\n  PLEBEIANS. Yield, Marcius, yield.\n  MENENIUS. Hear me one word; beseech you, Tribunes,\n    Hear me but a word.\n  AEDILES. Peace, peace!\n  MENENIUS. Be that you seem, truly your country's friend,\n    And temp'rately proceed to what you would\n    Thus violently redress.\n  BRUTUS. Sir, those cold ways,\n    That seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous\n    Where the disease is violent. Lay hands upon him\n    And bear him to the rock.\n                                    [CORIOLANUS draws his sword]\n  CORIOLANUS. No: I'll die here.\n    There's some among you have beheld me fighting;\n    Come, try upon yourselves what you have seen me.\n  MENENIUS. Down with that sword! Tribunes, withdraw awhile.\n  BRUTUS. Lay hands upon him.\n  MENENIUS. Help Marcius, help,\n    You that be noble; help him, young and old.\n  PLEBEIANS. Down with him, down with him!\n                      [In this mutiny the TRIBUNES, the AEDILES,\n                                     and the people are beat in]\n  MENENIUS. Go, get you to your house; be gone, away.\n    All will be nought else.\n  SECOND SENATOR. Get you gone.\n  CORIOLANUS. Stand fast;\n    We have as many friends as enemies.\n  MENENIUS. Shall it be put to that?\n  FIRST SENATOR. The gods forbid!\n    I prithee, noble friend, home to thy house;\n    Leave us to cure this cause.\n  MENENIUS. For 'tis a sore upon us\n    You cannot tent yourself; be gone, beseech you.\n  COMINIUS. Come, sir, along with us.\n  CORIOLANUS. I would they were barbarians, as they are,\n    Though in Rome litter'd; not Romans, as they are not,\n    Though calved i' th' porch o' th' Capitol.\n  MENENIUS. Be gone.\n    Put not your worthy rage into your tongue;\n    One time will owe another.\n  CORIOLANUS. On fair ground\n    I could beat forty of them.\n  MENENIUS. I could myself\n    Take up a brace o' th' best of them; yea, the two tribunes.\n  COMINIUS. But now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic,\n    And manhood is call'd foolery when it stands\n    Against a falling fabric. Will you hence,\n    Before the tag return? whose rage doth rend\n    Like interrupted waters, and o'erbear\n    What they are us'd to bear.\n  MENENIUS. Pray you be gone.\n    I'll try whether my old wit be in request\n    With those that have but little; this must be patch'd\n    With cloth of any colour.\n  COMINIUS. Nay, come away.\n                     Exeunt CORIOLANUS and COMINIUS, with others\n  PATRICIANS. This man has marr'd his fortune.\n  MENENIUS. His nature is too noble for the world:\n    He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,\n    Or Jove for's power to thunder. His heart's his mouth;\n    What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent;\n    And, being angry, does forget that ever\n    He heard the name of death.                 [A noise within]\n    Here's goodly work!\n  PATRICIANS. I would they were a-bed.\n  MENENIUS. I would they were in Tiber.\n    What the vengeance, could he not speak 'em fair?\n\n            Re-enter BRUTUS and SICINIUS, the rabble again\n\n  SICINIUS. Where is this viper\n    That would depopulate the city and\n    Be every man himself?\n  MENENIUS. You worthy Tribunes-\n  SICINIUS. He shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock\n    With rigorous hands; he hath resisted law,\n    And therefore law shall scorn him further trial\n    Than the severity of the public power,\n    Which he so sets at nought.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. He shall well know\n    The noble tribunes are the people's mouths,\n    And we their hands.\n  PLEBEIANS. He shall, sure on't.\n  MENENIUS. Sir, sir-\n  SICINIUS. Peace!\n  MENENIUS. Do not cry havoc, where you should but hunt\n    With modest warrant.\n  SICINIUS. Sir, how comes't that you\n    Have holp to make this rescue?\n  MENENIUS. Hear me speak.\n    As I do know the consul's worthiness,\n    So can I name his faults.\n  SICINIUS. Consul! What consul?\n  MENENIUS. The consul Coriolanus.\n  BRUTUS. He consul!\n  PLEBEIANS. No, no, no, no, no.\n  MENENIUS. If, by the tribunes' leave, and yours, good people,\n    I may be heard, I would crave a word or two;\n    The which shall turn you to no further harm\n    Than so much loss of time.\n  SICINIUS. Speak briefly, then,\n    For we are peremptory to dispatch\n    This viperous traitor; to eject him hence\n    Were but one danger, and to keep him here\n    Our certain death; therefore it is decreed\n    He dies to-night.\n  MENENIUS. Now the good gods forbid\n    That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude\n    Towards her deserved children is enroll'd\n    In Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam\n    Should now eat up her own!\n  SICINIUS. He's a disease that must be cut away.\n  MENENIUS. O, he's a limb that has but a disease-\n    Mortal, to cut it off: to cure it, easy.\n    What has he done to Rome that's worthy death?\n    Killing our enemies, the blood he hath lost-\n    Which I dare vouch is more than that he hath\n    By many an ounce- he dropt it for his country;\n    And what is left, to lose it by his country\n    Were to us all that do't and suffer it\n    A brand to th' end o' th' world.\n  SICINIUS. This is clean kam.\n  BRUTUS. Merely awry. When he did love his country,\n    It honour'd him.\n  SICINIUS. The service of the foot,\n    Being once gangren'd, is not then respected\n    For what before it was.\n  BRUTUS. We'll hear no more.\n    Pursue him to his house and pluck him thence,\n    Lest his infection, being of catching nature,\n    Spread further.\n  MENENIUS. One word more, one word\n    This tiger-footed rage, when it shall find\n    The harm of unscann'd swiftness, will, too late,\n    Tie leaden pounds to's heels. Proceed by process,\n    Lest parties- as he is belov'd- break out,\n    And sack great Rome with Romans.\n  BRUTUS. If it were so-\n  SICINIUS. What do ye talk?\n    Have we not had a taste of his obedience-\n    Our aediles smote, ourselves resisted? Come!\n  MENENIUS. Consider this: he has been bred i' th' wars\n    Since 'a could draw a sword, and is ill school'd\n    In bolted language; meal and bran together\n    He throws without distinction. Give me leave,\n    I'll go to him and undertake to bring him\n    Where he shall answer by a lawful form,\n    In peace, to his utmost peril.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Noble Tribunes,\n    It is the humane way; the other course\n    Will prove too bloody, and the end of it\n    Unknown to the beginning.\n  SICINIUS. Noble Menenius,\n    Be you then as the people's officer.\n    Masters, lay down your weapons.\n  BRUTUS. Go not home.\n  SICINIUS. Meet on the market-place. We'll attend you there;\n    Where, if you bring not Marcius, we'll proceed\n    In our first way.\n  MENENIUS. I'll bring him to you.\n    [To the SENATORS]  Let me desire your company; he must come,\n    Or what is worst will follow.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Pray you let's to him.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. The house of CORIOLANUS\n\nEnter CORIOLANUS with NOBLES\n\n  CORIOLANUS. Let them pull all about mine ears, present me\n    Death on the wheel or at wild horses' heels;\n    Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,\n    That the precipitation might down stretch\n    Below the beam of sight; yet will I still\n    Be thus to them.\n  FIRST PATRICIAN. You do the nobler.\n  CORIOLANUS. I muse my mother\n    Does not approve me further, who was wont\n    To call them woollen vassals, things created\n    To buy and sell with groats; to show bare heads\n    In congregations, to yawn, be still, and wonder,\n    When one but of my ordinance stood up\n    To speak of peace or war.\n\n                          Enter VOLUMNIA\n\n    I talk of you:\n    Why did you wish me milder? Would you have me\n    False to my nature? Rather say I play\n    The man I am.\n  VOLUMNIA. O, sir, sir, sir,\n    I would have had you put your power well on\n    Before you had worn it out.\n  CORIOLANUS. Let go.\n  VOLUMNIA. You might have been enough the man you are\n    With striving less to be so; lesser had been\n    The thwartings of your dispositions, if\n    You had not show'd them how ye were dispos'd,\n    Ere they lack'd power to cross you.\n  CORIOLANUS. Let them hang.\n  VOLUMNIA. Ay, and burn too.\n\n                    Enter MENENIUS with the SENATORS\n\n  MENENIUS. Come, come, you have been too rough, something too rough;\n    You must return and mend it.\n  FIRST SENATOR. There's no remedy,\n    Unless, by not so doing, our good city\n    Cleave in the midst and perish.\n  VOLUMNIA. Pray be counsell'd;\n    I have a heart as little apt as yours,\n    But yet a brain that leads my use of anger\n    To better vantage.\n  MENENIUS. Well said, noble woman!\n    Before he should thus stoop to th' herd, but that\n    The violent fit o' th' time craves it as physic\n    For the whole state, I would put mine armour on,\n    Which I can scarcely bear.\n  CORIOLANUS. What must I do?\n  MENENIUS. Return to th' tribunes.\n  CORIOLANUS. Well, what then, what then?\n  MENENIUS. Repent what you have spoke.\n  CORIOLANUS. For them! I cannot do it to the gods;\n    Must I then do't to them?\n  VOLUMNIA. You are too absolute;\n    Though therein you can never be too noble\n    But when extremities speak. I have heard you say\n    Honour and policy, like unsever'd friends,\n    I' th' war do grow together; grant that, and tell me\n    In peace what each of them by th' other lose\n    That they combine not there.\n  CORIOLANUS. Tush, tush!\n  MENENIUS. A good demand.\n  VOLUMNIA. If it be honour in your wars to seem\n    The same you are not, which for your best ends\n    You adopt your policy, how is it less or worse\n    That it shall hold companionship in peace\n    With honour as in war; since that to both\n    It stands in like request?\n  CORIOLANUS. Why force you this?\n  VOLUMNIA. Because that now it lies you on to speak\n    To th' people, not by your own instruction,\n    Nor by th' matter which your heart prompts you,\n    But with such words that are but roted in\n    Your tongue, though but bastards and syllables\n    Of no allowance to your bosom's truth.\n    Now, this no more dishonours you at all\n    Than to take in a town with gentle words,\n    Which else would put you to your fortune and\n    The hazard of much blood.\n    I would dissemble with my nature where\n    My fortunes and my friends at stake requir'd\n    I should do so in honour. I am in this\n    Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles;\n    And you will rather show our general louts\n    How you can frown, than spend a fawn upon 'em\n    For the inheritance of their loves and safeguard\n    Of what that want might ruin.\n  MENENIUS. Noble lady!\n    Come, go with us, speak fair; you may salve so,\n    Not what is dangerous present, but the los\n    Of what is past.\n  VOLUMNIA. I prithee now, My son,\n    Go to them with this bonnet in thy hand;\n    And thus far having stretch'd it- here be with them-\n    Thy knee bussing the stones- for in such busines\n    Action is eloquence, and the eyes of th' ignorant\n    More learned than the ears- waving thy head,\n    Which often thus correcting thy-stout heart,\n    Now humble as the ripest mulberry\n    That will not hold the handling. Or say to them\n    Thou art their soldier and, being bred in broils,\n    Hast not the soft way which, thou dost confess,\n    Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim,\n    In asking their good loves; but thou wilt frame\n    Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far\n    As thou hast power and person.\n  MENENIUS. This but done\n    Even as she speaks, why, their hearts were yours;\n    For they have pardons, being ask'd, as free\n    As words to little purpose.\n  VOLUMNIA. Prithee now,\n    Go, and be rul'd; although I know thou hadst rather\n    Follow thine enemy in a fiery gulf\n    Than flatter him in a bower.\n\n                           Enter COMINIUS\n\n    Here is Cominius.\n  COMINIUS. I have been i' th' market-place; and, sir, 'tis fit\n    You make strong party, or defend yourself\n    By calmness or by absence; all's in anger.\n  MENENIUS. Only fair speech.\n  COMINIUS. I think 'twill serve, if he\n    Can thereto frame his spirit.\n  VOLUMNIA. He must and will.\n    Prithee now, say you will, and go about it.\n  CORIOLANUS. Must I go show them my unbarb'd sconce? Must I\n    With my base tongue give to my noble heart\n    A lie that it must bear? Well, I will do't;\n    Yet, were there but this single plot to lose,\n    This mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it,\n    And throw't against the wind. To th' market-place!\n    You have put me now to such a part which never\n    I shall discharge to th' life.\n  COMINIUS. Come, come, we'll prompt you.\n  VOLUMNIA. I prithee now, sweet son, as thou hast said\n    My praises made thee first a soldier, so,\n    To have my praise for this, perform a part\n    Thou hast not done before.\n  CORIOLANUS. Well, I must do't.\n    Away, my disposition, and possess me\n    Some harlot's spirit! My throat of war be turn'd,\n    Which quier'd with my drum, into a pipe\n    Small as an eunuch or the virgin voice\n    That babies lulls asleep! The smiles of knaves\n    Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys' tears take up\n    The glasses of my sight! A beggar's tongue\n    Make motion through my lips, and my arm'd knees,\n    Who bow'd but in my stirrup, bend like his\n    That hath receiv'd an alms! I will not do't,\n    Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth,\n    And by my body's action teach my mind\n    A most inherent baseness.\n  VOLUMNIA. At thy choice, then.\n    To beg of thee, it is my more dishonour\n    Than thou of them. Come all to ruin. Let\n    Thy mother rather feel thy pride than fear\n    Thy dangerous stoutness; for I mock at death\n    With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list.\n    Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from me;\n    But owe thy pride thyself.\n  CORIOLANUS. Pray be content.\n    Mother, I am going to the market-place;\n    Chide me no more. I'll mountebank their loves,\n    Cog their hearts from them, and come home belov'd\n    Of all the trades in Rome. Look, I am going.\n    Commend me to my wife. I'll return consul,\n    Or never trust to what my tongue can do\n    I' th' way of flattery further.\n  VOLUMNIA. Do your will.                                   Exit\n  COMINIUS. Away! The tribunes do attend you. Arm yourself\n    To answer mildly; for they are prepar'd\n    With accusations, as I hear, more strong\n    Than are upon you yet.\n  CORIOLANUS. The word is 'mildly.' Pray you let us go.\n    Let them accuse me by invention; I\n    Will answer in mine honour.\n  MENENIUS. Ay, but mildly.\n  CORIOLANUS. Well, mildly be it then- mildly.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nRome. The Forum\n\nEnter SICINIUS and BRUTUS\n\n  BRUTUS. In this point charge him home, that he affects\n    Tyrannical power. If he evade us there,\n    Enforce him with his envy to the people,\n    And that the spoil got on the Antiates\n    Was ne'er distributed.\n\n                           Enter an AEDILE\n\n    What, will he come?\n  AEDILE. He's coming.\n  BRUTUS. How accompanied?\n  AEDILE. With old Menenius, and those senators\n    That always favour'd him.\n  SICINIUS. Have you a catalogue\n    Of all the voices that we have procur'd,\n    Set down by th' poll?\n  AEDILE. I have; 'tis ready.\n  SICINIUS. Have you corrected them by tribes?\n  AEDILE. I have.\n  SICINIUS. Assemble presently the people hither;\n    And when they hear me say 'It shall be so\n    I' th' right and strength o' th' commons' be it either\n    For death, for fine, or banishment, then let them,\n    If I say fine, cry 'Fine!'- if death, cry 'Death!'\n    Insisting on the old prerogative\n    And power i' th' truth o' th' cause.\n  AEDILE. I shall inform them.\n  BRUTUS. And when such time they have begun to cry,\n    Let them not cease, but with a din confus'd\n    Enforce the present execution\n    Of what we chance to sentence.\n  AEDILE. Very well.\n  SICINIUS. Make them be strong, and ready for this hint,\n    When we shall hap to give't them.\n  BRUTUS. Go about it.                               Exit AEDILE\n    Put him to choler straight. He hath been us'd\n    Ever to conquer, and to have his worth\n    Of contradiction; being once chaf'd, he cannot\n    Be rein'd again to temperance; then he speaks\n    What's in his heart, and that is there which looks\n    With us to break his neck.\n\n          Enter CORIOLANUS, MENENIUS and COMINIUS, with others\n\n  SICINIUS. Well, here he comes.\n  MENENIUS. Calmly, I do beseech you.\n  CORIOLANUS. Ay, as an ostler, that for th' poorest piece\n    Will bear the knave by th' volume. Th' honour'd gods\n    Keep Rome in safety, and the chairs of justice\n    Supplied with worthy men! plant love among's!\n    Throng our large temples with the shows of peace,\n    And not our streets with war!\n  FIRST SENATOR. Amen, amen!\n  MENENIUS. A noble wish.\n\n                  Re-enter the.AEDILE,with the plebeians\n\n  SICINIUS. Draw near, ye people.\n  AEDILE. List to your tribunes. Audience! peace, I say!\n  CORIOLANUS. First, hear me speak.\n  BOTH TRIBUNES. Well, say. Peace, ho!\n  CORIOLANUS. Shall I be charg'd no further than this present?\n    Must all determine here?\n  SICINIUS. I do demand,\n    If you submit you to the people's voices,\n    Allow their officers, and are content\n    To suffer lawful censure for such faults\n    As shall be prov'd upon you.\n  CORIOLANUS. I am content.\n  MENENIUS. Lo, citizens, he says he is content.\n    The warlike service he has done, consider; think\n    Upon the wounds his body bears, which show\n    Like graves i' th' holy churchyard.\n  CORIOLANUS. Scratches with briers,\n    Scars to move laughter only.\n  MENENIUS. Consider further,\n    That when he speaks not like a citizen,\n    You find him like a soldier; do not take\n    His rougher accents for malicious sounds,\n    But, as I say, such as become a soldier\n    Rather than envy you.\n  COMINIUS. Well, well! No more.\n  CORIOLANUS. What is the matter,\n    That being pass'd for consul with full voice,\n    I am so dishonour'd that the very hour\n    You take it off again?\n  SICINIUS. Answer to us.\n  CORIOLANUS. Say then; 'tis true, I ought so.\n  SICINIUS. We charge you that you have contriv'd to take\n    From Rome all season'd office, and to wind\n    Yourself into a power tyrannical;\n    For which you are a traitor to the people.\n  CORIOLANUS. How- traitor?\n  MENENIUS. Nay, temperately! Your promise.\n  CORIOLANUS. The fires i' th' lowest hell fold in the people!\n    Call me their traitor! Thou injurious tribune!\n    Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,\n    In thy hands clutch'd as many millions, in\n    Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say\n    'Thou liest' unto thee with a voice as free\n    As I do pray the gods.\n  SICINIUS. Mark you this, people?\n  PLEBEIANS. To th' rock, to th' rock, with him!\n  SICINIUS. Peace!\n    We need not put new matter to his charge.\n    What you have seen him do and heard him speak,\n    Beating your officers, cursing yourselves,\n    Opposing laws with strokes, and here defying\n    Those whose great power must try him- even this,\n    So criminal and in such capital kind,\n    Deserves th' extremest death.\n  BRUTUS. But since he hath\n    Serv'd well for Rome-\n  CORIOLANUS. What do you prate of service?\n  BRUTUS. I talk of that that know it.\n  CORIOLANUS. You!\n  MENENIUS. Is this the promise that you made your mother?\n  COMINIUS. Know, I pray you-\n  CORIOLANUS. I'll know no further.\n    Let them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death,\n    Vagabond exile, flaying, pent to linger\n    But with a grain a day, I would not buy\n    Their mercy at the price of one fair word,\n    Nor check my courage for what they can give,\n    To have't with saying 'Good morrow.'\n  SICINIUS. For that he has-\n    As much as in him lies- from time to time\n    Envied against the people, seeking means\n    To pluck away their power; as now at last\n    Given hostile strokes, and that not in the presence\n    Of dreaded justice, but on the ministers\n    That do distribute it- in the name o' th' people,\n    And in the power of us the tribunes, we,\n    Ev'n from this instant, banish him our city,\n    In peril of precipitation\n    From off the rock Tarpeian, never more\n    To enter our Rome gates. I' th' people's name,\n    I say it shall be so.\n  PLEBEIANS. It shall be so, it shall be so! Let him away!\n    He's banish'd, and it shall be so.\n  COMINIUS. Hear me, my masters and my common friends-\n  SICINIUS. He's sentenc'd; no more hearing.\n  COMINIUS. Let me speak.\n    I have been consul, and can show for Rome\n    Her enemies' marks upon me. I do love\n    My country's good with a respect more tender,\n    More holy and profound, than mine own life,\n    My dear wife's estimate, her womb's increase\n    And treasure of my loins. Then if I would\n    Speak that-\n  SICINIUS. We know your drift. Speak what?\n  BRUTUS. There's no more to be said, but he is banish'd,\n    As enemy to the people and his country.\n    It shall be so.\n  PLEBEIANS. It shall be so, it shall be so.\n  CORIOLANUS. YOU common cry of curs, whose breath I hate\n    As reek o' th' rotten fens, whose loves I prize\n    As the dead carcasses of unburied men\n    That do corrupt my air- I banish you.\n    And here remain with your uncertainty!\n    Let every feeble rumour shake your hearts;\n    Your enemies, with nodding of their plumes,\n    Fan you into despair! Have the power still\n    To banish your defenders, till at length\n    Your ignorance- which finds not till it feels,\n    Making but reservation of yourselves\n    Still your own foes- deliver you\n    As most abated captives to some nation\n    That won you without blows! Despising\n    For you the city, thus I turn my back;\n    There is a world elsewhere.\n                                              Exeunt CORIOLANUS,\n                   COMINIUS, MENENIUS, with the other PATRICIANS\n  AEDILE. The people's enemy is gone, is gone!\n                        [They all shout and throw up their caps]\n  PLEBEIANS. Our enemy is banish'd, he is gone! Hoo-oo!\n  SICINIUS. Go see him out at gates, and follow him,\n    As he hath follow'd you, with all despite;\n    Give him deserv'd vexation. Let a guard\n    Attend us through the city.\n  PLEBEIANS. Come, come, let's see him out at gates; come!\n    The gods preserve our noble tribunes! Come.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nRome. Before a gate of the city\n\nEnter CORIOLANUS, VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, MENENIUS, COMINIUS,\nwith the young NOBILITY of Rome\n\n  CORIOLANUS. Come, leave your tears; a brief farewell. The beast\n    With many heads butts me away. Nay, mother,\n    Where is your ancient courage? You were us'd\n    To say extremities was the trier of spirits;\n    That common chances common men could bear;\n    That when the sea was calm all boats alike\n    Show'd mastership in floating; fortune's blows,\n    When most struck home, being gentle wounded craves\n    A noble cunning. You were us'd to load me\n    With precepts that would make invincible\n    The heart that conn'd them.\n  VIRGILIA. O heavens! O heavens!\n  CORIOLANUS. Nay, I prithee, woman-\n  VOLUMNIA. Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,\n    And occupations perish!\n  CORIOLANUS. What, what, what!\n    I shall be lov'd when I am lack'd. Nay, mother,\n    Resume that spirit when you were wont to say,\n    If you had been the wife of Hercules,\n    Six of his labours you'd have done, and sav'd\n    Your husband so much sweat. Cominius,\n    Droop not; adieu. Farewell, my wife, my mother.\n    I'll do well yet. Thou old and true Menenius,\n    Thy tears are salter than a younger man's\n    And venomous to thine eyes. My sometime General,\n    I have seen thee stern, and thou hast oft beheld\n    Heart-hard'ning spectacles; tell these sad women\n    'Tis fond to wail inevitable strokes,\n    As 'tis to laugh at 'em. My mother, you wot well\n    My hazards still have been your solace; and\n    Believe't not lightly- though I go alone,\n    Like to a lonely dragon, that his fen\n    Makes fear'd and talk'd of more than seen- your son\n    Will or exceed the common or be caught\n    With cautelous baits and practice.\n  VOLUMNIA. My first son,\n    Whither wilt thou go? Take good Cominius\n    With thee awhile; determine on some course\n    More than a wild exposture to each chance\n    That starts i' th' way before thee.\n  VIRGILIA. O the gods!\n  COMINIUS. I'll follow thee a month, devise with the\n    Where thou shalt rest, that thou mayst hear of us,\n    And we of thee; so, if the time thrust forth\n    A cause for thy repeal, we shall not send\n    O'er the vast world to seek a single man,\n    And lose advantage, which doth ever cool\n    I' th' absence of the needer.\n  CORIOLANUS. Fare ye well;\n    Thou hast years upon thee, and thou art too full\n    Of the wars' surfeits to go rove with one\n    That's yet unbruis'd; bring me but out at gate.\n    Come, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and\n    My friends of noble touch; when I am forth,\n    Bid me farewell, and smile. I pray you come.\n    While I remain above the ground you shall\n    Hear from me still, and never of me aught\n    But what is like me formerly.\n  MENENIUS. That's worthily\n    As any ear can hear. Come, let's not weep.\n    If I could shake off but one seven years\n    From these old arms and legs, by the good gods,\n    I'd with thee every foot.\n  CORIOLANUS. Give me thy hand.\n    Come.                                                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. A street near the gate\n\nEnter the two Tribunes, SICINIUS and BRUTUS with the AEDILE\n\n  SICINIUS. Bid them all home; he's gone, and we'll no further.\n    The nobility are vex'd, whom we see have sided\n    In his behalf.\n  BRUTUS. Now we have shown our power,\n    Let us seem humbler after it is done\n    Than when it was a-doing.\n  SICINIUS. Bid them home.\n    Say their great enemy is gone, and they\n    Stand in their ancient strength.\n  BRUTUS. Dismiss them home.                         Exit AEDILE\n    Here comes his mother.\n\n                   Enter VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, and MENENIUS\n\n  SICINIUS. Let's not meet her.\n  BRUTUS. Why?\n  SICINIUS. They say she's mad.\n  BRUTUS. They have ta'en note of us; keep on your way.\n  VOLUMNIA. O, Y'are well met; th' hoarded plague o' th' gods\n    Requite your love!\n  MENENIUS. Peace, peace, be not so loud.\n  VOLUMNIA. If that I could for weeping, you should hear-\n    Nay, and you shall hear some.  [To BRUTUS] Will you be gone?\n  VIRGILIA.  [To SICINIUS]  You shall stay too. I would I had the\n      power\n    To say so to my husband.\n  SICINIUS. Are you mankind?\n  VOLUMNIA. Ay, fool; is that a shame? Note but this, fool:\n    Was not a man my father? Hadst thou foxship\n    To banish him that struck more blows for Rome\n    Than thou hast spoken words?\n  SICINIUS. O blessed heavens!\n  VOLUMNIA. Moe noble blows than ever thou wise words;\n    And for Rome's good. I'll tell thee what- yet go!\n    Nay, but thou shalt stay too. I would my son\n    Were in Arabia, and thy tribe before him,\n    His good sword in his hand.\n  SICINIUS. What then?\n  VIRGILIA. What then!\n    He'd make an end of thy posterity.\n  VOLUMNIA. Bastards and all.\n    Good man, the wounds that he does bear for Rome!\n  MENENIUS. Come, come, peace.\n  SICINIUS. I would he had continued to his country\n    As he began, and not unknit himself\n    The noble knot he made.\n  BRUTUS. I would he had.\n  VOLUMNIA. 'I would he had!' 'Twas you incens'd the rabble-\n    Cats that can judge as fitly of his worth\n    As I can of those mysteries which heaven\n    Will not have earth to know.\n  BRUTUS. Pray, let's go.\n  VOLUMNIA. Now, pray, sir, get you gone;\n    You have done a brave deed. Ere you go, hear this:\n    As far as doth the Capitol exceed\n    The meanest house in Rome, so far my son-\n    This lady's husband here, this, do you see?-\n    Whom you have banish'd does exceed you an.\n  BRUTUS. Well, well, we'll leave you.\n  SICINIUS. Why stay we to be baited\n    With one that wants her wits?                Exeunt TRIBUNES\n  VOLUMNIA. Take my prayers with you.\n    I would the gods had nothing else to do\n    But to confirm my curses. Could I meet 'em\n    But once a day, it would unclog my heart\n    Of what lies heavy to't.\n  MENENIUS. You have told them home,\n    And, by my troth, you have cause. You'll sup with me?\n  VOLUMNIA. Anger's my meat; I sup upon myself,\n    And so shall starve with feeding. Come, let's go.\n    Leave this faint puling and lament as I do,\n    In anger, Juno-like. Come, come, come.\n                                    Exeunt VOLUMNIA and VIRGILIA\n  MENENIUS. Fie, fie, fie!                                  Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA highway between Rome and Antium\n\nEnter a ROMAN and a VOLSCE, meeting\n\n  ROMAN. I know you well, sir, and you know me; your name, I think,\n    is Adrian.\n  VOLSCE. It is so, sir. Truly, I have forgot you.\n  ROMAN. I am a Roman; and my services are, as you are, against 'em.\n    Know you me yet?\n  VOLSCE. Nicanor? No!\n  ROMAN. The same, sir.\n  VOLSCE. YOU had more beard when I last saw you, but your favour is\n    well appear'd by your tongue. What's the news in Rome? I have a\n    note from the Volscian state, to find you out there. You have\n    well saved me a day's journey.\n  ROMAN. There hath been in Rome strange insurrections: the people\n    against the senators, patricians, and nobles.\n  VOLSCE. Hath been! Is it ended, then? Our state thinks not so; they\n    are in a most warlike preparation, and hope to come upon them in\n    the heat of their division.\n  ROMAN. The main blaze of it is past, but a small thing would make\n    it flame again; for the nobles receive so to heart the banishment\n    of that worthy Coriolanus that they are in a ripe aptness to take\n    all power from the people, and to pluck from them their tribunes\n    for ever. This lies glowing, I can tell you, and is almost mature\n    for the violent breaking out.\n  VOLSCE. Coriolanus banish'd!\n  ROMAN. Banish'd, sir.\n  VOLSCE. You will be welcome with this intelligence, Nicanor.\n  ROMAN. The day serves well for them now. I have heard it said the\n    fittest time to corrupt a man's wife is when she's fall'n out\n    with her husband. Your noble Tullus Aufidius will appear well in\n    these wars, his great opposer, Coriolanus, being now in no\n    request of his country.\n  VOLSCE. He cannot choose. I am most fortunate thus accidentally to\n    encounter you; you have ended my business, and I will merrily\n    accompany you home.\n  ROMAN. I shall between this and supper tell you most strange things\n    from Rome, all tending to the good of their adversaries. Have you\n    an army ready, say you?\n  VOLSCE. A most royal one: the centurions and their charges,\n    distinctly billeted, already in th' entertainment, and to be on\n    foot at an hour's warning.\n  ROMAN. I am joyful to hear of their readiness, and am the man, I\n    think, that shall set them in present action. So, sir, heartily\n    well met, and most glad of your company.\n  VOLSCE. You take my part from me, sir. I have the most cause to be\n    glad of yours.\n  ROMAN. Well, let us go together.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAntium. Before AUFIDIUS' house\n\nEnter CORIOLANUS, in mean apparel, disguis'd and muffled\n\n  CORIOLANUS. A goodly city is this Antium. City,\n    'Tis I that made thy widows: many an heir\n    Of these fair edifices fore my wars\n    Have I heard groan and drop. Then know me not.\n    Lest that thy wives with spits and boys with stones,\n    In puny battle slay me.\n\n                           Enter A CITIZEN\n\n    Save you, sir.\n  CITIZEN. And you.\n  CORIOLANUS. Direct me, if it be your will,\n    Where great Aufidius lies. Is he in Antium?\n  CITIZEN. He is, and feasts the nobles of the state\n    At his house this night.\n  CORIOLANUS. Which is his house, beseech you?\n  CITIZEN. This here before you.\n  CORIOLANUS. Thank you, sir; farewell.             Exit CITIZEN\n    O world, thy slippery turns! Friends now fast sworn,\n    Whose double bosoms seems to wear one heart,\n    Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal and exercise\n    Are still together, who twin, as 'twere, in love,\n    Unseparable, shall within this hour,\n    On a dissension of a doit, break out\n    To bitterest enmity; so fellest foes,\n    Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep\n    To take the one the other, by some chance,\n    Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends\n    And interjoin their issues. So with me:\n    My birthplace hate I, and my love's upon\n    This enemy town. I'll enter. If he slay me,\n    He does fair justice: if he give me way,\n    I'll do his country service.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAntium. AUFIDIUS' house\n\nMusic plays. Enter A SERVINGMAN\n\n  FIRST SERVANT. Wine, wine, wine! What service is here! I think our\n    fellows are asleep.                                     Exit\n\n                     Enter another SERVINGMAN\n\n  SECOND SERVANT.Where's Cotus? My master calls for him.\n    Cotus!                                                  Exit\n\n                       Enter CORIOLANUS\n\n  CORIOLANUS. A goodly house. The feast smells well, but I\n    Appear not like a guest.\n\n                 Re-enter the first SERVINGMAN\n\n  FIRST SERVANT. What would you have, friend?\n    Whence are you? Here's no place for you: pray go to the door.\n Exit\n  CORIOLANUS. I have deserv'd no better entertainment\n    In being Coriolanus.\n\n                   Re-enter second SERVINGMAN\n\n  SECOND SERVANT. Whence are you, sir? Has the porter his eyes in his\n    head that he gives entrance to such companions? Pray get you out.\n  CORIOLANUS. Away!\n  SECOND SERVANT. Away? Get you away.\n  CORIOLANUS. Now th' art troublesome.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Are you so brave? I'll have you talk'd with anon.\n\n          Enter a third SERVINGMAN. The first meets him\n\n  THIRD SERVANT. What fellow's this?\n  FIRST SERVANT. A strange one as ever I look'd on. I cannot get him\n    out o' th' house. Prithee call my master to him.\n  THIRD SERVANT. What have you to do here, fellow? Pray you avoid the\n    house.\n  CORIOLANUS. Let me but stand- I will not hurt your hearth.\n  THIRD SERVANT. What are you?\n  CORIOLANUS. A gentleman.\n  THIRD SERVANT. A marv'llous poor one.\n  CORIOLANUS. True, so I am.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Pray you, poor gentleman, take up some other\n    station; here's no place for you. Pray you avoid. Come.\n  CORIOLANUS. Follow your function, go and batten on cold bits.\n                                      [Pushes him away from him]\n  THIRD SERVANT. What, you will not? Prithee tell my master what a\n    strange guest he has here.\n  SECOND SERVANT. And I shall.                              Exit\n  THIRD SERVANT. Where dwell'st thou?\n  CORIOLANUS. Under the canopy.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Under the canopy?\n  CORIOLANUS. Ay.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Where's that?\n  CORIOLANUS. I' th' city of kites and crows.\n  THIRD SERVANT. I' th' city of kites and crows!\n    What an ass it is! Then thou dwell'st with daws too?\n  CORIOLANUS. No, I serve not thy master.\n  THIRD SERVANT. How, sir! Do you meddle with my master?\n  CORIOLANUS. Ay; 'tis an honester service than to meddle with thy\n    mistress. Thou prat'st and prat'st; serve with thy trencher;\n    hence!                                      [Beats him away]\n\n             Enter AUFIDIUS with the second SERVINGMAN\n\n  AUFIDIUS. Where is this fellow?\n  SECOND SERVANT. Here, sir; I'd have beaten him like a dog, but for\n    disturbing the lords within.\n  AUFIDIUS. Whence com'st thou? What wouldst thou? Thy name?\n    Why speak'st not? Speak, man. What's thy name?\n  CORIOLANUS.  [Unmuffling]  If, Tullus,\n    Not yet thou know'st me, and, seeing me, dost not\n    Think me for the man I am, necessity\n    Commands me name myself.\n  AUFIDIUS. What is thy name?\n  CORIOLANUS. A name unmusical to the Volscians' ears,\n    And harsh in sound to thine.\n  AUFIDIUS. Say, what's thy name?\n    Thou has a grim appearance, and thy face\n    Bears a command in't; though thy tackle's torn,\n    Thou show'st a noble vessel. What's thy name?\n  CORIOLANUS. Prepare thy brow to frown- know'st thou me yet?\n  AUFIDIUS. I know thee not. Thy name?\n  CORIOLANUS. My name is Caius Marcius, who hath done\n    To thee particularly, and to all the Volsces,\n    Great hurt and mischief; thereto witness may\n    My surname, Coriolanus. The painful service,\n    The extreme dangers, and the drops of blood\n    Shed for my thankless country, are requited\n    But with that surname- a good memory\n    And witness of the malice and displeasure\n    Which thou shouldst bear me. Only that name remains;\n    The cruelty and envy of the people,\n    Permitted by our dastard nobles, who\n    Have all forsook me, hath devour'd the rest,\n    An suffer'd me by th' voice of slaves to be\n    Whoop'd out of Rome. Now this extremity\n    Hath brought me to thy hearth; not out of hope,\n    Mistake me not, to save my life; for if\n    I had fear'd death, of all the men i' th' world\n    I would have 'voided thee; but in mere spite,\n    To be full quit of those my banishers,\n    Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast\n    A heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge\n    Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims\n    Of shame seen through thy country, speed thee straight\n    And make my misery serve thy turn. So use it\n    That my revengeful services may prove\n    As benefits to thee; for I will fight\n    Against my cank'red country with the spleen\n    Of all the under fiends. But if so be\n    Thou dar'st not this, and that to prove more fortunes\n    Th'art tir'd, then, in a word, I also am\n    Longer to live most weary, and present\n    My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice;\n    Which not to cut would show thee but a fool,\n    Since I have ever followed thee with hate,\n    Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country's breast,\n    And cannot live but to thy shame, unless\n    It be to do thee service.\n  AUFIDIUS. O Marcius, Marcius!\n    Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart\n    A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter\n    Should from yond cloud speak divine things,\n    And say ''Tis true,' I'd not believe them more\n    Than thee, all noble Marcius. Let me twine\n    Mine arms about that body, where against\n    My grained ash an hundred times hath broke\n    And scarr'd the moon with splinters; here I clip\n    The anvil of my sword, and do contest\n    As hotly and as nobly with thy love\n    As ever in ambitious strength I did\n    Contend against thy valour. Know thou first,\n    I lov'd the maid I married; never man\n    Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here,\n    Thou noble thing, more dances my rapt heart\n    Than when I first my wedded mistress saw\n    Bestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars, I tell the\n    We have a power on foot, and I had purpose\n    Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn,\n    Or lose mine arm for't. Thou hast beat me out\n    Twelve several times, and I have nightly since\n    Dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me-\n    We have been down together in my sleep,\n    Unbuckling helms, fisting each other's throat-\n    And wak'd half dead with nothing. Worthy Marcius,\n    Had we no other quarrel else to Rome but that\n    Thou art thence banish'd, we would muster all\n    From twelve to seventy, and, pouring war\n    Into the bowels of ungrateful Rome,\n    Like a bold flood o'erbeat. O, come, go in,\n    And take our friendly senators by th' hands,\n    Who now are here, taking their leaves of me\n    Who am prepar'd against your territories,\n    Though not for Rome itself.\n  CORIOLANUS. You bless me, gods!\n  AUFIDIUS. Therefore, most. absolute sir, if thou wilt have\n    The leading of thine own revenges, take\n    Th' one half of my commission, and set down-\n    As best thou art experienc'd, since thou know'st\n    Thy country's strength and weakness- thine own ways,\n    Whether to knock against the gates of Rome,\n    Or rudely visit them in parts remote\n    To fright them ere destroy. But come in;\n    Let me commend thee first to those that shall\n    Say yea to thy desires. A thousand welcomes!\n    And more a friend than e'er an enemy;\n    Yet, Marcius, that was much. Your hand; most welcome!\n                                  Exeunt CORIOLANUS and AUFIDIUS\n\n                    The two SERVINGMEN come forward\n\n  FIRST SERVANT. Here's a strange alteration!\n  SECOND SERVANT. By my hand, I had thought to have strucken him with\n    a cudgel; and yet my mind gave me his clothes made a false report\n    of him.\n  FIRST SERVANT. What an arm he has! He turn'd me about with his\n    finger and his thumb, as one would set up a top.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Nay, I knew by his face that there was something in\n    him; he had, sir, a kind of face, methought- I cannot tell how to\n    term it.\n  FIRST SERVANT. He had so, looking as it were- Would I were hang'd,\n    but I thought there was more in him than I could think.\n  SECOND SERVANT. So did I, I'll be sworn. He is simply the rarest\n    man i' th' world.\n  FIRST SERVANT. I think he is; but a greater soldier than he you wot\n    on.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Who, my master?\n  FIRST SERVANT. Nay, it's no matter for that.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Worth six on him.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Nay, not so neither; but I take him to be the\n    greater soldier.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Faith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that;\n    for the defence of a town our general is excellent.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Ay, and for an assault too.\n\n                       Re-enter the third SERVINGMAN\n\n  THIRD SERVANT. O slaves, I can tell you news- news, you rascals!\n  BOTH. What, what, what? Let's partake.\n  THIRD SERVANT. I would not be a Roman, of all nations;\n    I had as lief be a condemn'd man.\n  BOTH. Wherefore? wherefore?\n  THIRD SERVANT. Why, here's he that was wont to thwack our general-\n    Caius Marcius.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Why do you say 'thwack our general'?\n  THIRD SERVANT. I do not say 'thwack our general,' but he was always\n    good enough for him.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Come, we are fellows and friends. He was ever too\n    hard for him, I have heard him say so himself.\n  FIRST SERVANT. He was too hard for him directly, to say the troth\n    on't; before Corioli he scotch'd him and notch'd him like a\n    carbonado.\n  SECOND SERVANT. An he had been cannibally given, he might have\n    broil'd and eaten him too.\n  FIRST SERVANT. But more of thy news!\n  THIRD SERVANT. Why, he is so made on here within as if he were son\n    and heir to Mars; set at upper end o' th' table; no question\n    asked him by any of the senators but they stand bald before him.\n    Our general himself makes a mistress of him, sanctifies himself\n    with's hand, and turns up the white o' th' eye to his discourse.\n    But the bottom of the news is, our general is cut i' th' middle\n    and but one half of what he was yesterday, for the other has half\n    by the entreaty and grant of the whole table. He'll go, he says,\n    and sowl the porter of Rome gates by th' ears; he will mow all\n    down before him, and leave his passage poll'd.\n  SECOND SERVANT. And he's as like to do't as any man I can imagine.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Do't! He will do't; for look you, sir, he has as\n    many friends as enemies; which friends, sir, as it were, durst\n    not- look you, sir- show themselves, as we term it, his friends,\n    whilst he's in directitude.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Directitude? What's that?\n  THIRD SERVANT. But when they shall see, sir, his crest up again and\n    the man in blood, they will out of their burrows, like conies\n    after rain, and revel an with him.\n  FIRST SERVANT. But when goes this forward?\n  THIRD SERVANT. To-morrow, to-day, presently. You shall have the\n    drum struck up this afternoon; 'tis as it were parcel of their\n    feast, and to be executed ere they wipe their lips.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Why, then we shall have a stirring world again.\n    This peace is nothing but to rust iron, increase tailors, and\n    breed ballad-makers.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as\n    day does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent.\n    Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mull'd, deaf, sleepy,\n    insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war's a\n    destroyer of men.\n  SECOND SERVANT. 'Tis so; and as war in some sort may be said to be\n    a ravisher, so it cannot be denied but peace is a great maker of\n    cuckolds.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Ay, and it makes men hate one another.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Reason: because they then less need one another. The\n    wars for my money. I hope to see Romans as cheap as Volscians.\n    They are rising, they are rising.\n  BOTH. In, in, in, in!                                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nRome. A public place\n\nEnter the two Tribunes, SICINIUS and BRUTUS\n\n  SICINIUS. We hear not of him, neither need we fear him.\n    His remedies are tame. The present peace\n    And quietness of the people, which before\n    Were in wild hurry, here do make his friends\n    Blush that the world goes well; who rather had,\n    Though they themselves did suffer by't, behold\n    Dissentious numbers pest'ring streets than see\n    Our tradesmen singing in their shops, and going\n    About their functions friendly.\n\n                          Enter MENENIUS\n\n  BRUTUS. We stood to't in good time. Is this Menenius?\n  SICINIUS. 'Tis he, 'tis he. O, he is grown most kind\n    Of late. Hail, sir!\n  MENENIUS. Hail to you both!\n  SICINIUS. Your Coriolanus is not much miss'd\n    But with his friends. The commonwealth doth stand,\n    And so would do, were he more angry at it.\n  MENENIUS. All's well, and might have been much better\n    He could have temporiz'd.\n  SICINIUS. Where is he, hear you?\n  MENENIUS. Nay, I hear nothing; his mother and his wife\n    Hear nothing from him.\n\n                     Enter three or four citizens\n\n  CITIZENS. The gods preserve you both!\n  SICINIUS. God-den, our neighbours.\n  BRUTUS. God-den to you all, god-den to you an.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Ourselves, our wives, and children, on our knees\n    Are bound to pray for you both.\n  SICINIUS. Live and thrive!\n  BRUTUS. Farewell, kind neighbours; we wish'd Coriolanus\n    Had lov'd you as we did.\n  CITIZENS. Now the gods keep you!\n  BOTH TRIBUNES. Farewell, farewell.             Exeunt citizens\n  SICINIUS. This is a happier and more comely time\n    Than when these fellows ran about the streets\n    Crying confusion.\n  BRUTUS. Caius Marcius was\n    A worthy officer i' the war, but insolent,\n    O'ercome with pride, ambitious past all thinking,\n    Self-loving-\n  SICINIUS. And affecting one sole throne,\n    Without assistance.\n  MENENIUS. I think not so.\n  SICINIUS. We should by this, to all our lamentation,\n    If he had gone forth consul, found it so.\n  BRUTUS. The gods have well prevented it, and Rome\n    Sits safe and still without him.\n\n                             Enter an AEDILE\n\n  AEDILE. Worthy tribunes,\n    There is a slave, whom we have put in prison,\n    Reports the Volsces with several powers\n    Are ent'red in the Roman territories,\n    And with the deepest malice of the war\n    Destroy what lies before 'em.\n  MENENIUS. 'Tis Aufidius,\n    Who, hearing of our Marcius' banishment,\n    Thrusts forth his horns again into the world,\n    Which were inshell'd when Marcius stood for Rome,\n    And durst not once peep out.\n  SICINIUS. Come, what talk you of Marcius?\n  BRUTUS. Go see this rumourer whipp'd. It cannot be\n    The Volsces dare break with us.\n  MENENIUS. Cannot be!\n    We have record that very well it can;\n    And three examples of the like hath been\n    Within my age. But reason with the fellow\n    Before you punish him, where he heard this,\n    Lest you shall chance to whip your information\n    And beat the messenger who bids beware\n    Of what is to be dreaded.\n  SICINIUS. Tell not me.\n    I know this cannot be.\n  BRUTUS. Not Possible.\n\n                           Enter A MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. The nobles in great earnestness are going\n    All to the Senate House; some news is come\n    That turns their countenances.\n  SICINIUS. 'Tis this slave-\n    Go whip him fore the people's eyes- his raising,\n    Nothing but his report.\n  MESSENGER. Yes, worthy sir,\n    The slave's report is seconded, and more,\n    More fearful, is deliver'd.\n  SICINIUS. What more fearful?\n  MESSENGER. It is spoke freely out of many mouths-\n    How probable I do not know- that Marcius,\n    Join'd with Aufidius, leads a power 'gainst Rome,\n    And vows revenge as spacious as between\n    The young'st and oldest thing.\n  SICINIUS. This is most likely!\n  BRUTUS. Rais'd only that the weaker sort may wish\n    Good Marcius home again.\n  SICINIUS. The very trick on 't.\n  MENENIUS. This is unlikely.\n    He and Aufidius can no more atone\n    Than violent'st contrariety.\n\n                      Enter a second MESSENGER\n\n  SECOND MESSENGER. You are sent for to the Senate.\n    A fearful army, led by Caius Marcius\n    Associated with Aufidius, rages\n    Upon our territories, and have already\n    O'erborne their way, consum'd with fire and took\n    What lay before them.\n\n                            Enter COMINIUS\n\n  COMINIUS. O, you have made good work!\n  MENENIUS. What news? what news?\n  COMINIUS. You have holp to ravish your own daughters and\n    To melt the city leads upon your pates,\n    To see your wives dishonour'd to your noses-\n  MENENIUS. What's the news? What's the news?\n  COMINIUS. Your temples burned in their cement, and\n    Your franchises, whereon you stood, confin'd\n    Into an auger's bore.\n  MENENIUS. Pray now, your news?\n    You have made fair work, I fear me. Pray, your news.\n    If Marcius should be join'd wi' th' Volscians-\n  COMINIUS. If!\n    He is their god; he leads them like a thing\n    Made by some other deity than Nature,\n    That shapes man better; and they follow him\n    Against us brats with no less confidence\n    Than boys pursuing summer butterflies,\n    Or butchers killing flies.\n  MENENIUS. You have made good work,\n    You and your apron men; you that stood so much\n    Upon the voice of occupation and\n    The breath of garlic-eaters!\n  COMINIUS. He'll shake\n    Your Rome about your ears.\n  MENENIUS. As Hercules\n    Did shake down mellow fruit. You have made fair work!\n  BRUTUS. But is this true, sir?\n  COMINIUS. Ay; and you'll look pale\n    Before you find it other. All the regions\n    Do smilingly revolt, and who resists\n    Are mock'd for valiant ignorance,\n    And perish constant fools. Who is't can blame him?\n    Your enemies and his find something in him.\n  MENENIUS. We are all undone unless\n    The noble man have mercy.\n  COMINIUS. Who shall ask it?\n    The tribunes cannot do't for shame; the people\n    Deserve such pity of him as the wolf\n    Does of the shepherds; for his best friends, if they\n    Should say 'Be good to Rome'- they charg'd him even\n    As those should do that had deserv'd his hate,\n    And therein show'd fike enemies.\n  MENENIUS. 'Tis true;\n    If he were putting to my house the brand\n    That should consume it, I have not the face\n    To say 'Beseech you, cease.' You have made fair hands,\n    You and your crafts! You have crafted fair!\n  COMINIUS. You have brought\n    A trembling upon Rome, such as was never\n    S' incapable of help.\n  BOTH TRIBUNES. Say not we brought it.\n  MENENIUS. How! Was't we? We lov'd him, but, like beasts\n    And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters,\n    Who did hoot him out o' th' city.\n  COMINIUS. But I fear\n    They'll roar him in again. Tullus Aufidius,\n    The second name of men, obeys his points\n    As if he were his officer. Desperation\n    Is all the policy, strength, and defence,\n    That Rome can make against them.\n\n                       Enter a troop of citizens\n\n  MENENIUS. Here comes the clusters.\n    And is Aufidius with him? You are they\n    That made the air unwholesome when you cast\n    Your stinking greasy caps in hooting at\n    Coriolanus' exile. Now he's coming,\n    And not a hair upon a soldier's head\n    Which will not prove a whip; as many coxcombs\n    As you threw caps up will he tumble down,\n    And pay you for your voices. 'Tis no matter;\n    If he could burn us all into one coal\n    We have deserv'd it.\n  PLEBEIANS. Faith, we hear fearful news.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. For mine own part,\n    When I said banish him, I said 'twas pity.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. And so did I.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. And so did I; and, to say the truth, so did very\n    many of us. That we did, we did for the best; and though we\n    willingly consented to his banishment, yet it was against our\n    will.\n  COMINIUS. Y'are goodly things, you voices!\n  MENENIUS. You have made\n    Good work, you and your cry! Shall's to the Capitol?\n  COMINIUS. O, ay, what else?\n                                    Exeunt COMINIUS and MENENIUS\n  SICINIUS. Go, masters, get you be not dismay'd;\n    These are a side that would be glad to have\n    This true which they so seem to fear. Go home,\n    And show no sign of fear.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. The gods be good to us! Come, masters, let's home. I\n    ever said we were i' th' wrong when we banish'd him.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. So did we all. But come, let's home.\n                                                 Exeunt citizens\n  BRUTUS. I do not like this news.\n  SICINIUS. Nor I.\n  BRUTUS. Let's to the Capitol. Would half my wealth\n    Would buy this for a lie!\n  SICINIUS. Pray let's go.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nA camp at a short distance from Rome\n\nEnter AUFIDIUS with his LIEUTENANT\n\n  AUFIDIUS. Do they still fly to th' Roman?\n  LIEUTENANT. I do not know what witchcraft's in him, but\n    Your soldiers use him as the grace fore meat,\n    Their talk at table, and their thanks at end;\n    And you are dark'ned in this action, sir,\n    Even by your own.\n  AUFIDIUS. I cannot help it now,\n    Unless by using means I lame the foot\n    Of our design. He bears himself more proudlier,\n    Even to my person, than I thought he would\n    When first I did embrace him; yet his nature\n    In that's no changeling, and I must excuse\n    What cannot be amended.\n  LIEUTENANT. Yet I wish, sir-\n    I mean, for your particular- you had not\n    Join'd in commission with him, but either\n    Had borne the action of yourself, or else\n    To him had left it solely.\n  AUFIDIUS. I understand thee well; and be thou sure,\n    When he shall come to his account, he knows not\n    What I can urge against him. Although it seems,\n    And so he thinks, and is no less apparent\n    To th' vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly\n    And shows good husbandry for the Volscian state,\n    Fights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon\n    As draw his sword; yet he hath left undone\n    That which shall break his neck or hazard mine\n    Whene'er we come to our account.\n  LIEUTENANT. Sir, I beseech you, think you he'll carry Rome?\n  AUFIDIUS. All places yield to him ere he sits down,\n    And the nobility of Rome are his;\n    The senators and patricians love him too.\n    The tribunes are no soldiers, and their people\n    Will be as rash in the repeal as hasty\n    To expel him thence. I think he'll be to Rome\n    As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it\n    By sovereignty of nature. First he was\n    A noble servant to them, but he could not\n    Carry his honours even. Whether 'twas pride,\n    Which out of daily fortune ever taints\n    The happy man; whether defect of judgment,\n    To fail in the disposing of those chances\n    Which he was lord of; or whether nature,\n    Not to be other than one thing, not moving\n    From th' casque to th' cushion, but commanding peace\n    Even with the same austerity and garb\n    As he controll'd the war; but one of these-\n    As he hath spices of them all- not all,\n    For I dare so far free him- made him fear'd,\n    So hated, and so banish'd. But he has a merit\n    To choke it in the utt'rance. So our virtues\n    Lie in th' interpretation of the time;\n    And power, unto itself most commendable,\n    Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair\n    T' extol what it hath done.\n    One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail;\n    Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail.\n    Come, let's away. When, Caius, Rome is thine,\n    Thou art poor'st of all; then shortly art thou mine.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nRome. A public place\n\nEnter MENENIUS, COMINIUS, SICINIUS and BRUTUS, the two Tribunes, with others\n\n  MENENIUS. No, I'll not go. You hear what he hath said\n    Which was sometime his general, who lov'd him\n    In a most dear particular. He call'd me father;\n    But what o' that? Go, you that banish'd him:\n    A mile before his tent fall down, and knee\n    The way into his mercy. Nay, if he coy'd\n    To hear Cominius speak, I'll keep at home.\n  COMINIUS. He would not seem to know me.\n  MENENIUS. Do you hear?\n  COMINIUS. Yet one time he did call me by my name.\n    I urg'd our old acquaintance, and the drops\n    That we have bled together. 'Coriolanus'\n    He would not answer to; forbid all names;\n    He was a kind of nothing, titleless,\n    Till he had forg'd himself a name i' th' fire\n    Of burning Rome.\n  MENENIUS. Why, so! You have made good work.\n    A pair of tribunes that have wrack'd for Rome\n    To make coals cheap- a noble memory!\n  COMINIUS. I minded him how royal 'twas to pardon\n    When it was less expected; he replied,\n    It was a bare petition of a state\n    To one whom they had punish'd.\n  MENENIUS. Very well.\n    Could he say less?\n  COMINIUS. I offer'd to awaken his regard\n    For's private friends; his answer to me was,\n    He could not stay to pick them in a pile\n    Of noisome musty chaff. He said 'twas folly,\n    For one poor grain or two, to leave unburnt\n    And still to nose th' offence.\n  MENENIUS. For one poor grain or two!\n    I am one of those. His mother, wife, his child,\n    And this brave fellow too- we are the grains:\n    You are the musty chaff, and you are smelt\n    Above the moon. We must be burnt for you.\n  SICINIUS. Nay, pray be patient; if you refuse your aid\n    In this so never-needed help, yet do not\n    Upbraid's with our distress. But sure, if you\n    Would be your country's pleader, your good tongue,\n    More than the instant army we can make,\n    Might stop our countryman.\n  MENENIUS. No; I'll not meddle.\n  SICINIUS. Pray you go to him.\n  MENENIUS. What should I do?\n  BRUTUS. Only make trial what your love can do\n    For Rome, towards Marcius.\n  MENENIUS. Well, and say that Marcius\n    Return me, as Cominius is return'd,\n    Unheard- what then?\n    But as a discontented friend, grief-shot\n    With his unkindness? Say't be so?\n  SICINIUS. Yet your good will\n    Must have that thanks from Rome after the measure\n    As you intended well.\n  MENENIUS. I'll undertake't;\n    I think he'll hear me. Yet to bite his lip\n    And hum at good Cominius much unhearts me.\n    He was not taken well: he had not din'd;\n    The veins unfill'd, our blood is cold, and then\n    We pout upon the morning, are unapt\n    To give or to forgive; but when we have stuff'd\n    These pipes and these conveyances of our blood\n    With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls\n    Than in our priest-like fasts. Therefore I'll watch him\n    Till he be dieted to my request,\n    And then I'll set upon him.\n  BRUTUS. You know the very road into his kindness\n    And cannot lose your way.\n  MENENIUS. Good faith, I'll prove him,\n    Speed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge\n    Of my success.                                          Exit\n  COMINIUS. He'll never hear him.\n  SICINIUS. Not?\n  COMINIUS. I tell you he does sit in gold, his eye\n    Red as 'twould burn Rome, and his injury\n    The gaoler to his pity. I kneel'd before him;\n    'Twas very faintly he said 'Rise'; dismiss'd me\n    Thus with his speechless hand. What he would do,\n    He sent in writing after me; what he would not,\n    Bound with an oath to yield to his conditions;\n    So that all hope is vain,\n    Unless his noble mother and his wife,\n    Who, as I hear, mean to solicit him\n    For mercy to his country. Therefore let's hence,\n    And with our fair entreaties haste them on.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe Volscian camp before Rome\n\nEnter MENENIUS to the WATCH on guard\n\n  FIRST WATCH. Stay. Whence are you?\n  SECOND WATCH. Stand, and go back.\n  MENENIUS. You guard like men, 'tis well; but, by your leave,\n    I am an officer of state and come\n    To speak with Coriolanus.\n  FIRST WATCH. From whence?\n  MENENIUS. From Rome.\n  FIRST WATCH. YOU may not pass; you must return. Our general\n    Will no more hear from thence.\n  SECOND WATCH. You'll see your Rome embrac'd with fire before\n    You'll speak with Coriolanus.\n  MENENIUS. Good my friends,\n    If you have heard your general talk of Rome\n    And of his friends there, it is lots to blanks\n    My name hath touch'd your ears: it is Menenius.\n  FIRST WATCH. Be it so; go back. The virtue of your name\n    Is not here passable.\n  MENENIUS. I tell thee, fellow,\n    Thy general is my lover. I have been\n    The book of his good acts whence men have read\n    His fame unparallel'd haply amplified;\n    For I have ever verified my friends-\n    Of whom he's chief- with all the size that verity\n    Would without lapsing suffer. Nay, sometimes,\n    Like to a bowl upon a subtle ground,\n    I have tumbled past the throw, and in his praise\n    Have almost stamp'd the leasing; therefore, fellow,\n    I must have leave to pass.\n  FIRST WATCH. Faith, sir, if you had told as many lies in his behalf\n    as you have uttered words in your own, you should not pass here;\n    no, though it were as virtuous to lie as to live chastely.\n    Therefore go back.\n  MENENIUS. Prithee, fellow, remember my name is Menenius, always\n    factionary on the party of your general.\n  SECOND WATCH. Howsoever you have been his liar, as you say you\n    have, I am one that, telling true under him, must say you cannot\n    pass. Therefore go back.\n  MENENIUS. Has he din'd, canst thou tell? For I would not speak with\n    him till after dinner.\n  FIRST WATCH. You are a Roman, are you?\n  MENENIUS. I am as thy general is.\n  FIRST WATCH. Then you should hate Rome, as he does. Can you, when\n    you have push'd out your gates the very defender of them, and in\n    a violent popular ignorance given your enemy your shield, think\n    to front his revenges with the easy groans of old women, the\n    virginal palms of your daughters, or with the palsied\n    intercession of such a decay'd dotant as you seem to be? Can you\n    think to blow out the intended fire your city is ready to flame\n    in with such weak breath as this? No, you are deceiv'd; therefore\n    back to Rome and prepare for your execution. You are condemn'd;\n    our general has sworn you out of reprieve and pardon.\n  MENENIUS. Sirrah, if thy captain knew I were here, he would use me\n    with estimation.\n  FIRST WATCH. Come, my captain knows you not.\n  MENENIUS. I mean thy general.\n  FIRST WATCH. My general cares not for you. Back, I say; go, lest I\n    let forth your half pint of blood. Back- that's the utmost of\n    your having. Back.\n  MENENIUS. Nay, but fellow, fellow-\n\n                      Enter CORIOLANUS with AUFIDIUS\n\n  CORIOLANUS. What's the matter?\n  MENENIUS. Now, you companion, I'll say an errand for you; you shall\n    know now that I am in estimation; you shall perceive that a Jack\n    guardant cannot office me from my son Coriolanus. Guess but by my\n    entertainment with him if thou stand'st not i' th' state of\n    hanging, or of some death more long in spectatorship and crueller\n    in suffering; behold now presently, and swoon for what's to come\n    upon thee. The glorious gods sit in hourly synod about thy\n    particular prosperity, and love thee no worse than thy old father\n    Menenius does! O my son! my son! thou art preparing fire for us;\n    look thee, here's water to quench it. I was hardly moved to come\n    to thee; but being assured none but myself could move thee, I\n    have been blown out of your gates with sighs, and conjure thee to\n    pardon Rome and thy petitionary countrymen. The good gods assuage\n    thy wrath, and turn the dregs of it upon this varlet here; this,\n    who, like a block, hath denied my access to thee.\n  CORIOLANUS. Away!\n  MENENIUS. How! away!\n  CORIOLANUS. Wife, mother, child, I know not. My affairs\n    Are servanted to others. Though I owe\n    My revenge properly, my remission lies\n    In Volscian breasts. That we have been familiar,\n    Ingrate forgetfulness shall poison rather\n    Than pity note how much. Therefore be gone.\n    Mine ears against your suits are stronger than\n    Your gates against my force. Yet, for I lov'd thee,\n    Take this along; I writ it for thy sake     [Gives a letter]\n    And would have sent it. Another word, Menenius,\n    I will not hear thee speak. This man, Aufidius,\n    Was my belov'd in Rome; yet thou behold'st.\n  AUFIDIUS. You keep a constant temper.\n                                  Exeunt CORIOLANUS and Aufidius\n  FIRST WATCH. Now, sir, is your name Menenius?\n  SECOND WATCH. 'Tis a spell, you see, of much power! You know the\n    way home again.\n  FIRST WATCH. Do you hear how we are shent for keeping your\n    greatness back?\n  SECOND WATCH. What cause, do you think, I have to swoon?\n  MENENIUS. I neither care for th' world nor your general; for such\n    things as you, I can scarce think there's any, y'are so slight.\n    He that hath a will to die by himself fears it not from another.\n    Let your general do his worst. For you, be that you are, long;\n    and your misery increase with your age! I say to you, as I was\n    said to: Away!                                          Exit\n  FIRST WATCH. A noble fellow, I warrant him.\n  SECOND WATCH. The worthy fellow is our general; he's the rock, the\n    oak not to be wind-shaken.                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe tent of CORIOLANUS\n\nEnter CORIOLANUS, AUFIDIUS, and others\n\n  CORIOLANUS. We will before the walls of Rome to-morrow\n    Set down our host. My partner in this action,\n    You must report to th' Volscian lords how plainly\n    I have borne this business.\n  AUFIDIUS. Only their ends\n    You have respected; stopp'd your ears against\n    The general suit of Rome; never admitted\n    A private whisper- no, not with such friends\n    That thought them sure of you.\n  CORIOLANUS. This last old man,\n    Whom with crack'd heart I have sent to Rome,\n    Lov'd me above the measure of a father;\n    Nay, godded me indeed. Their latest refuge\n    Was to send him; for whose old love I have-\n    Though I show'd sourly to him- once more offer'd\n    The first conditions, which they did refuse\n    And cannot now accept. To grace him only,\n    That thought he could do more, a very little\n    I have yielded to; fresh embassies and suits,\n    Nor from the state nor private friends, hereafter\n    Will I lend ear to.  [Shout within]  Ha! what shout is this?\n    Shall I be tempted to infringe my vow\n    In the same time 'tis made? I will not.\n\n       Enter, in mourning habits, VIRGILIA, VOLUMNIA, VALERIA,\n                   YOUNG MARCIUS, with attendants\n\n    My wife comes foremost, then the honour'd mould\n    Wherein this trunk was fram'd, and in her hand\n    The grandchild to her blood. But out, affection!\n    All bond and privilege of nature, break!\n    Let it be virtuous to be obstinate.\n    What is that curtsy worth? or those doves' eyes,\n    Which can make gods forsworn? I melt, and am not\n    Of stronger earth than others. My mother bows,\n    As if Olympus to a molehill should\n    In supplication nod; and my young boy\n    Hath an aspect of intercession which\n    Great nature cries 'Deny not.' Let the Volsces\n    Plough Rome and harrow Italy; I'll never\n    Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand\n    As if a man were author of himself\n    And knew no other kin.\n  VIRGILIA. My lord and husband!\n  CORIOLANUS. These eyes are not the same I wore in Rome.\n  VIRGILIA. The sorrow that delivers us thus chang'd\n    Makes you think so.\n  CORIOLANUS. Like a dull actor now\n    I have forgot my part and I am out,\n    Even to a full disgrace. Best of my flesh,\n    Forgive my tyranny; but do not say,\n    For that, 'Forgive our Romans.' O, a kiss\n    Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!\n    Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss\n    I carried from thee, dear, and my true lip\n    Hath virgin'd it e'er since. You gods! I prate,\n    And the most noble mother of the world\n    Leave unsaluted. Sink, my knee, i' th' earth;       [Kneels]\n    Of thy deep duty more impression show\n    Than that of common sons.\n  VOLUMNIA. O, stand up blest!\n    Whilst with no softer cushion than the flint\n    I kneel before thee, and unproperly\n    Show duty, as mistaken all this while\n    Between the child and parent.                       [Kneels]\n  CORIOLANUS. What's this?\n    Your knees to me, to your corrected son?\n    Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach\n    Fillip the stars; then let the mutinous winds\n    Strike the proud cedars 'gainst the fiery sun,\n    Murd'ring impossibility, to make\n    What cannot be slight work.\n  VOLUMNIA. Thou art my warrior;\n    I holp to frame thee. Do you know this lady?\n  CORIOLANUS. The noble sister of Publicola,\n    The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle\n    That's curdied by the frost from purest snow,\n    And hangs on Dian's temple- dear Valeria!\n  VOLUMNIA. This is a poor epitome of yours,\n    Which by th' interpretation of full time\n    May show like all yourself.\n  CORIOLANUS. The god of soldiers,\n    With the consent of supreme Jove, inform\n    Thy thoughts with nobleness, that thou mayst prove\n    To shame unvulnerable, and stick i' th' wars\n    Like a great sea-mark, standing every flaw,\n    And saving those that eye thee!\n  VOLUMNIA. Your knee, sirrah.\n  CORIOLANUS. That's my brave boy.\n  VOLUMNIA. Even he, your wife, this lady, and myself,\n    Are suitors to you.\n  CORIOLANUS. I beseech you, peace!\n    Or, if you'd ask, remember this before:\n    The thing I have forsworn to grant may never\n    Be held by you denials. Do not bid me\n    Dismiss my soldiers, or capitulate\n    Again with Rome's mechanics. Tell me not\n    Wherein I seem unnatural; desire not\n    T'allay my rages and revenges with\n    Your colder reasons.\n  VOLUMNIA. O, no more, no more!\n    You have said you will not grant us any thing-\n    For we have nothing else to ask but that\n    Which you deny already; yet we will ask,\n    That, if you fail in our request, the blame\n    May hang upon your hardness; therefore hear us.\n  CORIOLANUS. Aufidius, and you Volsces, mark; for we'll\n    Hear nought from Rome in private. Your request?\n  VOLUMNIA. Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment\n    And state of bodies would bewray what life\n    We have led since thy exile. Think with thyself\n    How more unfortunate than all living women\n    Are we come hither; since that thy sight, which should\n    Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts,\n    Constrains them weep and shake with fear and sorrow,\n    Making the mother, wife, and child, to see\n    The son, the husband, and the father, tearing\n    His country's bowels out. And to poor we\n    Thine enmity's most capital: thou bar'st us\n    Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort\n    That all but we enjoy. For how can we,\n    Alas, how can we for our country pray,\n    Whereto we are bound, together with thy victory,\n    Whereto we are bound? Alack, or we must lose\n    The country, our dear nurse, or else thy person,\n    Our comfort in the country. We must find\n    An evident calamity, though we had\n    Our wish, which side should win; for either thou\n    Must as a foreign recreant be led\n    With manacles through our streets, or else\n    Triumphantly tread on thy country's ruin,\n    And bear the palm for having bravely shed\n    Thy wife and children's blood. For myself, son,\n    I purpose not to wait on fortune till\n    These wars determine; if I can not persuade thee\n    Rather to show a noble grace to both parts\n    Than seek the end of one, thou shalt no sooner\n    March to assault thy country than to tread-\n    Trust to't, thou shalt not- on thy mother's womb\n    That brought thee to this world.\n  VIRGILIA. Ay, and mine,\n    That brought you forth this boy to keep your name\n    Living to time.\n  BOY. 'A shall not tread on me!\n    I'll run away till I am bigger, but then I'll fight.\n  CORIOLANUS. Not of a woman's tenderness to be\n    Requires nor child nor woman's face to see.\n    I have sat too long.                                [Rising]\n  VOLUMNIA. Nay, go not from us thus.\n    If it were so that our request did tend\n    To save the Romans, thereby to destroy\n    The Volsces whom you serve, you might condemn us\n    As poisonous of your honour. No, our suit\n    Is that you reconcile them: while the Volsces\n    May say 'This mercy we have show'd,' the Romans\n    'This we receiv'd,' and each in either side\n    Give the all-hail to thee, and cry 'Be blest\n    For making up this peace!' Thou know'st, great son,\n    The end of war's uncertain; but this certain,\n    That, if thou conquer Rome, the benefit\n    Which thou shalt thereby reap is such a name\n    Whose repetition will be dogg'd with curses;\n    Whose chronicle thus writ: 'The man was noble,\n    But with his last attempt he wip'd it out,\n    Destroy'd his country, and his name remains\n    To th' ensuing age abhorr'd.' Speak to me, son.\n    Thou hast affected the fine strains of honour,\n    To imitate the graces of the gods,\n    To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' th' air,\n    And yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt\n    That should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak?\n    Think'st thou it honourable for a noble man\n    Still to remember wrongs? Daughter, speak you:\n    He cares not for your weeping. Speak thou, boy;\n    Perhaps thy childishness will move him more\n    Than can our reasons. There's no man in the world\n    More bound to's mother, yet here he lets me prate\n    Like one i' th' stocks. Thou hast never in thy life\n    Show'd thy dear mother any courtesy,\n    When she, poor hen, fond of no second brood,\n    Has cluck'd thee to the wars, and safely home\n    Loaden with honour. Say my request's unjust,\n    And spurn me back; but if it he not so,\n    Thou art not honest, and the gods will plague thee,\n    That thou restrain'st from me the duty which\n    To a mother's part belongs. He turns away.\n    Down, ladies; let us shame him with our knees.\n    To his surname Coriolanus 'longs more pride\n    Than pity to our prayers. Down. An end;\n    This is the last. So we will home to Rome,\n    And die among our neighbours. Nay, behold's!\n    This boy, that cannot tell what he would have\n    But kneels and holds up hands for fellowship,\n    Does reason our petition with more strength\n    Than thou hast to deny't. Come, let us go.\n    This fellow had a Volscian to his mother;\n    His wife is in Corioli, and his child\n    Like him by chance. Yet give us our dispatch.\n    I am hush'd until our city be afire,\n    And then I'll speak a little.\n                              [He holds her by the hand, silent]\n  CORIOLANUS. O mother, mother!\n    What have you done? Behold, the heavens do ope,\n    The gods look down, and this unnatural scene\n    They laugh at. O my mother, mother! O!\n    You have won a happy victory to Rome;\n    But for your son- believe it, O, believe it!-\n    Most dangerously you have with him prevail'd,\n    If not most mortal to him. But let it come.\n    Aufidius, though I cannot make true wars,\n    I'll frame convenient peace. Now, good Aufidius,\n    Were you in my stead, would you have heard\n    A mother less, or granted less, Aufidius?\n  AUFIDIUS. I was mov'd withal.\n  CORIOLANUS. I dare be sworn you were!\n    And, sir, it is no little thing to make\n    Mine eyes to sweat compassion. But, good sir,\n    What peace you'fl make, advise me. For my part,\n    I'll not to Rome, I'll back with you; and pray you\n    Stand to me in this cause. O mother! wife!\n  AUFIDIUS.  [Aside]  I am glad thou hast set thy mercy and thy\n      honour\n    At difference in thee. Out of that I'll work\n    Myself a former fortune.\n  CORIOLANUS.  [To the ladies]  Ay, by and by;\n    But we will drink together; and you shall bear\n    A better witness back than words, which we,\n    On like conditions, will have counter-seal'd.\n    Come, enter with us. Ladies, you deserve\n    To have a temple built you. All the swords\n    In Italy, and her confederate arms,\n    Could not have made this peace.                       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nRome. A public place\n\nEnter MENENIUS and SICINIUS\n\n  MENENIUS. See you yond coign o' th' Capitol, yond cornerstone?\n  SICINIUS. Why, what of that?\n  MENENIUS. If it be possible for you to displace it with your little\n    finger, there is some hope the ladies of Rome, especially his\n    mother, may prevail with him. But I say there is no hope in't;\n    our throats are sentenc'd, and stay upon execution.\n  SICINIUS. Is't possible that so short a time can alter the\n    condition of a man?\n  MENENIUS. There is differency between a grub and a butterfly; yet\n    your butterfly was a grub. This Marcius is grown from man to\n    dragon; he has wings, he's more than a creeping thing.\n  SICINIUS. He lov'd his mother dearly.\n  MENENIUS. So did he me; and he no more remembers his mother now\n    than an eight-year-old horse. The tartness of his face sours ripe\n    grapes; when he walks, he moves like an engine and the ground\n    shrinks before his treading. He is able to pierce a corslet with\n    his eye, talks like a knell, and his hum is a battery. He sits in\n    his state as a thing made for Alexander. What he bids be done is\n    finish'd with his bidding. He wants nothing of a god but\n    eternity, and a heaven to throne in.\n  SICINIUS. Yes- mercy, if you report him truly.\n  MENENIUS. I paint him in the character. Mark what mercy his mother\n    shall bring from him. There is no more mercy in him than there is\n    milk in a male tiger; that shall our poor city find. And all this\n    is 'long of you.\n  SICINIUS. The gods be good unto us!\n  MENENIUS. No, in such a case the gods will not be good unto us.\n    When we banish'd him we respected not them; and, he returning to\n    break our necks, they respect not us.\n\n                           Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Sir, if you'd save your life, fly to your house.\n    The plebeians have got your fellow tribune\n    And hale him up and down; all swearing if\n    The Roman ladies bring not comfort home\n    They'll give him death by inches.\n\n                         Enter another MESSENGER\n\n  SICINIUS. What's the news?\n  SECOND MESSENGER. Good news, good news! The ladies have prevail'd,\n    The Volscians are dislodg'd, and Marcius gone.\n    A merrier day did never yet greet Rome,\n    No, not th' expulsion of the Tarquins.\n  SICINIUS. Friend,\n    Art thou certain this is true? Is't most certain?\n  SECOND MESSENGER. As certain as I know the sun is fire.\n    Where have you lurk'd, that you make doubt of it?\n    Ne'er through an arch so hurried the blown tide\n    As the recomforted through th' gates. Why, hark you!\n                  [Trumpets, hautboys, drums beat, all together]\n    The trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries, and fifes,\n    Tabors and cymbals, and the shouting Romans,\n    Make the sun dance. Hark you!               [A shout within]\n  MENENIUS. This is good news.\n    I will go meet the ladies. This Volumnia\n    Is worth of consuls, senators, patricians,\n    A city full; of tribunes such as you,\n    A sea and land full. You have pray'd well to-day:\n    This morning for ten thousand of your throats\n    I'd not have given a doit. Hark, how they joy!\n                                   [Sound still with the shouts]\n  SICINIUS. First, the gods bless you for your tidings; next,\n    Accept my thankfulness.\n  SECOND MESSENGER. Sir, we have all\n    Great cause to give great thanks.\n  SICINIUS. They are near the city?\n  MESSENGER. Almost at point to enter.\n  SICINIUS. We'll meet them,\n    And help the joy.                                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nRome. A street near the gate\n\nEnter two SENATORS With VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, VALERIA, passing over the stage,\n'With other LORDS\n\n  FIRST SENATOR. Behold our patroness, the life of Rome!\n    Call all your tribes together, praise the gods,\n    And make triumphant fires; strew flowers before them.\n    Unshout the noise that banish'd Marcius,\n    Repeal him with the welcome of his mother;\n  ALL. Welcome, ladies, welcome!\n                    [A flourish with drums and trumpets. Exeunt]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nCorioli. A public place\n\nEnter TULLUS AUFIDIUS with attendents\n\n  AUFIDIUS. Go tell the lords o' th' city I am here;\n    Deliver them this paper' having read it,\n    Bid them repair to th' market-place, where I,\n    Even in theirs and in the commons' ears,\n    Will vouch the truth of it. Him I accuse\n    The city ports by this hath enter'd and\n    Intends t' appear before the people, hoping\n    To purge himself with words. Dispatch.\n                                               Exeunt attendants\n\n           Enter three or four CONSPIRATORS of AUFIDIUS' faction\n\n    Most welcome!\n  FIRST CONSPIRATOR. How is it with our general?\n  AUFIDIUS. Even so\n    As with a man by his own alms empoison'd,\n    And with his charity slain.\n  SECOND CONSPIRATOR. Most noble sir,\n    If you do hold the same intent wherein\n    You wish'd us parties, we'll deliver you\n    Of your great danger.\n  AUFIDIUS. Sir, I cannot tell;\n    We must proceed as we do find the people.\n  THIRD CONSPIRATOR. The people will remain uncertain whilst\n    'Twixt you there's difference; but the fall of either\n    Makes the survivor heir of all.\n  AUFIDIUS. I know it;\n    And my pretext to strike at him admits\n    A good construction. I rais'd him, and I pawn'd\n    Mine honour for his truth; who being so heighten'd,\n    He watered his new plants with dews of flattery,\n    Seducing so my friends; and to this end\n    He bow'd his nature, never known before\n    But to be rough, unswayable, and free.\n  THIRD CONSPIRATOR. Sir, his stoutness\n    When he did stand for consul, which he lost\n    By lack of stooping-\n  AUFIDIUS. That I would have spoken of.\n    Being banish'd for't, he came unto my hearth,\n    Presented to my knife his throat. I took him;\n    Made him joint-servant with me; gave him way\n    In all his own desires; nay, let him choose\n    Out of my files, his projects to accomplish,\n    My best and freshest men; serv'd his designments\n    In mine own person; holp to reap the fame\n    Which he did end all his, and took some pride\n    To do myself this wrong. Till, at the last,\n    I seem'd his follower, not partner; and\n    He wag'd me with his countenance as if\n    I had been mercenary.\n  FIRST CONSPIRATOR. So he did, my lord.\n    The army marvell'd at it; and, in the last,\n    When he had carried Rome and that we look'd\n    For no less spoil than glory-\n  AUFIDIUS. There was it;\n    For which my sinews shall be stretch'd upon him.\n    At a few drops of women's rheum, which are\n    As cheap as lies, he sold the blood and labour\n    Of our great action; therefore shall he die,\n    And I'll renew me in his fall. But, hark!\n                                                      [Drums and\n                trumpets sound, with great shouts of the people]\n  FIRST CONSPIRATOR. Your native town you enter'd like a post,\n    And had no welcomes home; but he returns\n    Splitting the air with noise.\n  SECOND CONSPIRATOR. And patient fools,\n    Whose children he hath slain, their base throats tear\n    With giving him glory.\n  THIRD CONSPIRATOR. Therefore, at your vantage,\n    Ere he express himself or move the people\n    With what he would say, let him feel your sword,\n    Which we will second. When he lies along,\n    After your way his tale pronounc'd shall bury\n    His reasons with his body.\n  AUFIDIUS. Say no more:\n    Here come the lords.\n\n                     Enter the LORDS of the city\n\n  LORDS. You are most welcome home.\n  AUFIDIUS. I have not deserv'd it.\n    But, worthy lords, have you with heed perused\n    What I have written to you?\n  LORDS. We have.\n  FIRST LORD. And grieve to hear't.\n    What faults he made before the last, I think\n    Might have found easy fines; but there to end\n    Where he was to begin, and give away\n    The benefit of our levies, answering us\n    With our own charge, making a treaty where\n    There was a yielding- this admits no excuse.\n  AUFIDIUS. He approaches; you shall hear him.\n\n            Enter CORIOLANUS, marching with drum and colours;\n                      the commoners being with him\n\n  CORIOLANUS. Hail, lords! I am return'd your soldier;\n    No more infected with my country's love\n    Than when I parted hence, but still subsisting\n    Under your great command. You are to know\n    That prosperously I have attempted, and\n    With bloody passage led your wars even to\n    The gates of Rome. Our spoils we have brought home\n    Doth more than counterpoise a full third part\n    The charges of the action. We have made peace\n    With no less honour to the Antiates\n    Than shame to th' Romans; and we here deliver,\n    Subscrib'd by th' consuls and patricians,\n    Together with the seal o' th' Senate, what\n    We have compounded on.\n  AUFIDIUS. Read it not, noble lords;\n    But tell the traitor in the highest degree\n    He hath abus'd your powers.\n  CORIOLANUS. Traitor! How now?\n  AUFIDIUS. Ay, traitor, Marcius.\n  CORIOLANUS. Marcius!\n  AUFIDIUS. Ay, Marcius, Caius Marcius! Dost thou think\n    I'll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol'n name\n    Coriolanus, in Corioli?\n    You lords and heads o' th' state, perfidiously\n    He has betray'd your business and given up,\n    For certain drops of salt, your city Rome-\n    I say your city- to his wife and mother;\n    Breaking his oath and resolution like\n    A twist of rotten silk; never admitting\n    Counsel o' th' war; but at his nurse's tears\n    He whin'd and roar'd away your victory,\n    That pages blush'd at him, and men of heart\n    Look'd wond'ring each at others.\n  CORIOLANUS. Hear'st thou, Mars?\n  AUFIDIUS. Name not the god, thou boy of tears-\n  CORIOLANUS. Ha!\n  AUFIDIUS. -no more.\n  CORIOLANUS. Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart\n    Too great for what contains it. 'Boy'! O slave!\n    Pardon me, lords, 'tis the first time that ever\n    I was forc'd to scold. Your judgments, my grave lords,\n    Must give this cur the lie; and his own notion-\n    Who wears my stripes impress'd upon him, that\n    Must bear my beating to his grave- shall join\n    To thrust the lie unto him.\n  FIRST LORD. Peace, both, and hear me speak.\n  CORIOLANUS. Cut me to pieces, Volsces; men and lads,\n    Stain all your edges on me. 'Boy'! False hound!\n    If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there\n    That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I\n    Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioli.\n    Alone I did it. 'Boy'!\n  AUFIDIUS. Why, noble lords,\n    Will you be put in mind of his blind fortune,\n    Which was your shame, by this unholy braggart,\n    Fore your own eyes and ears?\n  CONSPIRATORS. Let him die for't.\n  ALL THE PEOPLE. Tear him to pieces. Do it presently. He kill'd my\n    son. My daughter. He kill'd my cousin Marcus. He kill'd my\n    father.\n  SECOND LORD. Peace, ho! No outrage- peace!\n    The man is noble, and his fame folds in\n    This orb o' th' earth. His last offences to us\n    Shall have judicious hearing. Stand, Aufidius,\n    And trouble not the peace.\n  CORIOLANUS. O that I had him,\n    With six Aufidiuses, or more- his tribe,\n    To use my lawful sword!\n  AUFIDIUS. Insolent villain!\n  CONSPIRATORS. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill him!\n           [The CONSPIRATORS draw and kill CORIOLANUS,who falls.\n                                         AUFIDIUS stands on him]\n  LORDS. Hold, hold, hold, hold!\n  AUFIDIUS. My noble masters, hear me speak.\n  FIRST LORD. O Tullus!\n  SECOND LORD. Thou hast done a deed whereat valour will weep.\n  THIRD LORD. Tread not upon him. Masters all, be quiet;\n    Put up your swords.\n  AUFIDIUS. My lords, when you shall know- as in this rage,\n    Provok'd by him, you cannot- the great danger\n    Which this man's life did owe you, you'll rejoice\n    That he is thus cut off. Please it your honours\n    To call me to your Senate, I'll deliver\n    Myself your loyal servant, or endure\n    Your heaviest censure.\n  FIRST LORD. Bear from hence his body,\n    And mourn you for him. Let him be regarded\n    As the most noble corse that ever herald\n    Did follow to his um.\n  SECOND LORD. His own impatience\n    Takes from Aufidius a great part of blame.\n    Let's make the best of it.\n  AUFIDIUS. My rage is gone,\n    And I am struck with sorrow. Take him up.\n    Help, three o' th' chiefest soldiers; I'll be one.\n    Beat thou the drum, that it speak mournfully;\n    Trail your steel pikes. Though in this city he\n    Hath widowed and unchilded many a one,\n    Which to this hour bewail the injury,\n    Yet he shall have a noble memory.\n    Assist.               Exeunt, bearing the body of CORIOLANUS\n                                          [A dead march sounded]\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1609\n\nCYMBELINE\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  CYMBELINE, King of Britain\n  CLOTEN, son to the Queen by a former husband\n  POSTHUMUS LEONATUS, a gentleman, husband to Imogen\n  BELARIUS, a banished lord, disguised under the name of Morgan\n\n  GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS, sons to Cymbeline, disguised under the\n            names of POLYDORE and CADWAL, supposed sons to Belarius\n  PHILARIO, Italian, friend to Posthumus\n  IACHIMO,  Italian, friend to Philario\n  A FRENCH GENTLEMAN, friend to Philario\n  CAIUS LUCIUS, General of the Roman Forces\n  A ROMAN CAPTAIN\n  TWO BRITISH CAPTAINS\n  PISANIO, servant to Posthumus\n  CORNELIUS, a physician\n  TWO LORDS of Cymbeline's court\n  TWO GENTLEMEN of the same\n  TWO GAOLERS\n\n  QUEEN, wife to Cymbeline\n  IMOGEN, daughter to Cymbeline by a former queen\n  HELEN, a lady attending on Imogen\n\n  APPARITIONS\n\n  Lords, Ladies, Roman Senators, Tribunes, a Soothsayer, a\n    Dutch Gentleman, a Spanish Gentleman, Musicians, Officers,\n    Captains, Soldiers, Messengers, and Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nBritain; Italy\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nBritain. The garden of CYMBELINE'S palace\n\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. You do not meet a man but frowns; our bloods\n    No more obey the heavens than our courtiers\n    Still seem as does the King's.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. But what's the matter?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. His daughter, and the heir of's kingdom, whom\n    He purpos'd to his wife's sole son- a widow\n    That late he married- hath referr'd herself\n    Unto a poor but worthy gentleman. She's wedded;\n    Her husband banish'd; she imprison'd. All\n    Is outward sorrow, though I think the King\n    Be touch'd at very heart.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. None but the King?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. He that hath lost her too. So is the Queen,\n    That most desir'd the match. But not a courtier,\n    Although they wear their faces to the bent\n    Of the King's looks, hath a heart that is not\n    Glad at the thing they scowl at.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. And why so?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. He that hath miss'd the Princess is a thing\n    Too bad for bad report; and he that hath her-\n    I mean that married her, alack, good man!\n    And therefore banish'd- is a creature such\n    As, to seek through the regions of the earth\n    For one his like, there would be something failing\n    In him that should compare. I do not think\n    So fair an outward and such stuff within\n    Endows a man but he.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. You speak him far.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I do extend him, sir, within himself;\n    Crush him together rather than unfold\n    His measure duly.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. What's his name and birth?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I cannot delve him to the root; his father\n    Was call'd Sicilius, who did join his honour\n    Against the Romans with Cassibelan,\n    But had his titles by Tenantius, whom\n    He serv'd with glory and admir'd success,\n    So gain'd the sur-addition Leonatus;\n    And had, besides this gentleman in question,\n    Two other sons, who, in the wars o' th' time,\n    Died with their swords in hand; for which their father,\n    Then old and fond of issue, took such sorrow\n    That he quit being; and his gentle lady,\n    Big of this gentleman, our theme, deceas'd\n    As he was born. The King he takes the babe\n    To his protection, calls him Posthumus Leonatus,\n    Breeds him and makes him of his bed-chamber,\n    Puts to him all the learnings that his time\n    Could make him the receiver of; which he took,\n    As we do air, fast as 'twas minist'red,\n    And in's spring became a harvest, liv'd in court-\n    Which rare it is to do- most prais'd, most lov'd,\n    A sample to the youngest; to th' more mature\n    A glass that feated them; and to the graver\n    A child that guided dotards. To his mistress,\n    For whom he now is banish'd- her own price\n    Proclaims how she esteem'd him and his virtue;\n    By her election may be truly read\n    What kind of man he is.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I honour him\n    Even out of your report. But pray you tell me,\n    Is she sole child to th' King?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. His only child.\n    He had two sons- if this be worth your hearing,\n    Mark it- the eldest of them at three years old,\n    I' th' swathing clothes the other, from their nursery\n    Were stol'n; and to this hour no guess in knowledge\n    Which way they went.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. How long is this ago?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Some twenty years.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. That a king's children should be so convey'd,\n    So slackly guarded, and the search so slow\n    That could not trace them!\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Howsoe'er 'tis strange,\n    Or that the negligence may well be laugh'd at,\n    Yet is it true, sir.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I do well believe you.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. We must forbear; here comes the gentleman,\n    The Queen, and Princess.                              Exeunt\n\n              Enter the QUEEN, POSTHUMUS, and IMOGEN\n\n  QUEEN. No, be assur'd you shall not find me, daughter,\n    After the slander of most stepmothers,\n    Evil-ey'd unto you. You're my prisoner, but\n    Your gaoler shall deliver you the keys\n    That lock up your restraint. For you, Posthumus,\n    So soon as I can win th' offended King,\n    I will be known your advocate. Marry, yet\n    The fire of rage is in him, and 'twere good\n    You lean'd unto his sentence with what patience\n    Your wisdom may inform you.\n  POSTHUMUS. Please your Highness,\n    I will from hence to-day.\n  QUEEN. You know the peril.\n    I'll fetch a turn about the garden, pitying\n    The pangs of barr'd affections, though the King\n    Hath charg'd you should not speak together.             Exit\n  IMOGEN. O dissembling courtesy! How fine this tyrant\n    Can tickle where she wounds! My dearest husband,\n    I something fear my father's wrath, but nothing-\n    Always reserv'd my holy duty- what\n    His rage can do on me. You must be gone;\n    And I shall here abide the hourly shot\n    Of angry eyes, not comforted to live\n    But that there is this jewel in the world\n    That I may see again.\n  POSTHUMUS. My queen! my mistress!\n    O lady, weep no more, lest I give cause\n    To be suspected of more tenderness\n    Than doth become a man. I will remain\n    The loyal'st husband that did e'er plight troth;\n    My residence in Rome at one Philario's,\n    Who to my father was a friend, to me\n    Known but by letter; thither write, my queen,\n    And with mine eyes I'll drink the words you send,\n    Though ink be made of gall.\n\n                     Re-enter QUEEN\n\n  QUEEN. Be brief, I pray you.\n    If the King come, I shall incur I know not\n    How much of his displeasure. [Aside] Yet I'll move him\n    To walk this way. I never do him wrong\n    But he does buy my injuries, to be friends;\n    Pays dear for my offences.                              Exit\n  POSTHUMUS. Should we be taking leave\n    As long a term as yet we have to live,\n    The loathness to depart would grow. Adieu!\n  IMOGEN. Nay, stay a little.\n    Were you but riding forth to air yourself,\n    Such parting were too petty. Look here, love:\n    This diamond was my mother's; take it, heart;\n    But keep it till you woo another wife,\n    When Imogen is dead.\n  POSTHUMUS. How, how? Another?\n    You gentle gods, give me but this I have,\n    And sear up my embracements from a next\n    With bonds of death! Remain, remain thou here\n                                              [Puts on the ring]\n    While sense can keep it on. And, sweetest, fairest,\n    As I my poor self did exchange for you,\n    To your so infinite loss, so in our trifles\n    I still win of you. For my sake wear this;\n    It is a manacle of love; I'll place it\n    Upon this fairest prisoner.     [Puts a bracelet on her arm]\n  IMOGEN. O the gods!\n    When shall we see again?\n\n                  Enter CYMBELINE and LORDS\n\n  POSTHUMUS. Alack, the King!\n  CYMBELINE. Thou basest thing, avoid; hence from my sight\n    If after this command thou fraught the court\n    With thy unworthiness, thou diest. Away!\n    Thou'rt poison to my blood.\n  POSTHUMUS. The gods protect you,\n    And bless the good remainders of the court!\n    I am gone.                                              Exit\n  IMOGEN. There cannot be a pinch in death\n    More sharp than this is.\n  CYMBELINE. O disloyal thing,\n    That shouldst repair my youth, thou heap'st\n    A year's age on me!\n  IMOGEN. I beseech you, sir,\n    Harm not yourself with your vexation.\n    I am senseless of your wrath; a touch more rare\n    Subdues all pangs, all fears.\n  CYMBELINE. Past grace? obedience?\n  IMOGEN. Past hope, and in despair; that way past grace.\n  CYMBELINE. That mightst have had the sole son of my queen!\n  IMOGEN. O blessed that I might not! I chose an eagle,\n    And did avoid a puttock.\n  CYMBELINE. Thou took'st a beggar, wouldst have made my throne\n    A seat for baseness.\n  IMOGEN. No; I rather added\n    A lustre to it.\n  CYMBELINE. O thou vile one!\n  IMOGEN. Sir,\n    It is your fault that I have lov'd Posthumus.\n    You bred him as my playfellow, and he is\n    A man worth any woman; overbuys me\n    Almost the sum he pays.\n  CYMBELINE. What, art thou mad?\n  IMOGEN. Almost, sir. Heaven restore me! Would I were\n    A neat-herd's daughter, and my Leonatus\n    Our neighbour shepherd's son!\n\n                          Re-enter QUEEN\n\n  CYMBELINE. Thou foolish thing!\n    [To the QUEEN] They were again together. You have done\n    Not after our command. Away with her,\n    And pen her up.\n  QUEEN. Beseech your patience.- Peace,\n    Dear lady daughter, peace!- Sweet sovereign,\n    Leave us to ourselves, and make yourself some comfort\n    Out of your best advice.\n  CYMBELINE. Nay, let her languish\n    A drop of blood a day and, being aged,\n    Die of this folly.                          Exit, with LORDS\n\n                          Enter PISANIO\n\n  QUEEN. Fie! you must give way.\n    Here is your servant. How now, sir! What news?\n  PISANIO. My lord your son drew on my master.\n  QUEEN. Ha!\n    No harm, I trust, is done?\n  PISANIO. There might have been,\n    But that my master rather play'd than fought,\n    And had no help of anger; they were parted\n    By gentlemen at hand.\n  QUEEN. I am very glad on't.\n  IMOGEN. Your son's my father's friend; he takes his part\n    To draw upon an exile! O brave sir!\n    I would they were in Afric both together;\n    Myself by with a needle, that I might prick\n    The goer-back. Why came you from your master?\n  PISANIO. On his command. He would not suffer me\n    To bring him to the haven; left these notes\n    Of what commands I should be subject to,\n    When't pleas'd you to employ me.\n  QUEEN. This hath been\n    Your faithful servant. I dare lay mine honour\n    He will remain so.\n  PISANIO. I humbly thank your Highness.\n  QUEEN. Pray walk awhile.\n  IMOGEN. About some half-hour hence,\n    Pray you speak with me. You shall at least\n    Go see my lord aboard. For this time leave me.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBritain. A public place\n\nEnter CLOTEN and two LORDS\n\n  FIRST LORD. Sir, I would advise you to shift a shirt; the violence\n    of action hath made you reek as a sacrifice. Where air comes out,\n    air comes in; there's none abroad so wholesome as that you vent.\n  CLOTEN. If my shirt were bloody, then to shift it. Have I hurt him?\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] No, faith; not so much as his patience.\n  FIRST LORD. Hurt him! His body's a passable carcass if he be not\n    hurt. It is a throughfare for steel if it be not hurt.\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] His steel was in debt; it went o' th' back\n    side the town.\n  CLOTEN. The villain would not stand me.\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] No; but he fled forward still, toward your\n    face.\n  FIRST LORD. Stand you? You have land enough of your own; but he\n    added to your having, gave you some ground.\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] As many inches as you have oceans.\n    Puppies!\n  CLOTEN. I would they had not come between us.\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] So would I, till you had measur'd how long a\n    fool you were upon the ground.\n  CLOTEN. And that she should love this fellow, and refuse me!\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] If it be a sin to make a true election, she is\n    damn'd.\n  FIRST LORD. Sir, as I told you always, her beauty and her brain go\n    not together; she's a good sign, but I have seen small reflection\n    of her wit.\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] She shines not upon fools, lest the reflection\n    should hurt her.\n  CLOTEN. Come, I'll to my chamber. Would there had been some hurt\n    done!\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] I wish not so; unless it had been the fall of\n    an ass, which is no great hurt.\n  CLOTEN. You'll go with us?\n  FIRST LORD. I'll attend your lordship.\n  CLOTEN. Nay, come, let's go together.\n  SECOND LORD. Well, my lord.                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nBritain. CYMBELINE'S palace\n\nEnter IMOGEN and PISANIO\n\n  IMOGEN. I would thou grew'st unto the shores o' th' haven,\n    And questioned'st every sail; if he should write,\n    And I not have it, 'twere a paper lost,\n    As offer'd mercy is. What was the last\n    That he spake to thee?\n  PISANIO. It was: his queen, his queen!\n  IMOGEN. Then wav'd his handkerchief?\n  PISANIO. And kiss'd it, madam.\n  IMOGEN. Senseless linen, happier therein than I!\n    And that was all?\n  PISANIO. No, madam; for so long\n    As he could make me with his eye, or care\n    Distinguish him from others, he did keep\n    The deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief,\n    Still waving, as the fits and stirs of's mind\n    Could best express how slow his soul sail'd on,\n    How swift his ship.\n  IMOGEN. Thou shouldst have made him\n    As little as a crow, or less, ere left\n    To after-eye him.\n  PISANIO. Madam, so I did.\n  IMOGEN. I would have broke mine eyestrings, crack'd them but\n    To look upon him, till the diminution\n    Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle;\n    Nay, followed him till he had melted from\n    The smallness of a gnat to air, and then\n    Have turn'd mine eye and wept. But, good Pisanio,\n    When shall we hear from him?\n  PISANIO. Be assur'd, madam,\n    With his next vantage.\n  IMOGEN. I did not take my leave of him, but had\n    Most pretty things to say. Ere I could tell him\n    How I would think on him at certain hours\n    Such thoughts and such; or I could make him swear\n    The shes of Italy should not betray\n    Mine interest and his honour; or have charg'd him,\n    At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight,\n    T' encounter me with orisons, for then\n    I am in heaven for him; or ere I could\n    Give him that parting kiss which I had set\n    Betwixt two charming words, comes in my father,\n    And like the tyrannous breathing of the north\n    Shakes all our buds from growing.\n\n                        Enter a LADY\n\n  LADY. The Queen, madam,\n    Desires your Highness' company.\n  IMOGEN. Those things I bid you do, get them dispatch'd.\n    I will attend the Queen.\n  PISANIO. Madam, I shall.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nRome. PHILARIO'S house\n\nEnter PHILARIO, IACHIMO, a FRENCHMAN, a DUTCHMAN, and a SPANIARD\n\n  IACHIMO. Believe it, sir, I have seen him in Britain. He was then\n    of a crescent note, expected to prove so worthy as since he hath\n    been allowed the name of. But I could then have look'd on him\n    without the help of admiration, though the catalogue of his\n    endowments had been tabled by his side, and I to peruse him by\n    items.\n  PHILARIO. You speak of him when he was less furnish'd than now he\n    is with that which makes him both without and within.\n  FRENCHMAN. I have seen him in France; we had very many there could\n    behold the sun with as firm eyes as he.\n  IACHIMO. This matter of marrying his king's daughter, wherein he\n    must be weighed rather by her value than his own, words him, I\n    doubt not, a great deal from the matter.\n  FRENCHMAN. And then his banishment.\n  IACHIMO. Ay, and the approbation of those that weep this lamentable\n    divorce under her colours are wonderfully to extend him, be it\n    but to fortify her judgment, which else an easy battery might lay\n    flat, for taking a beggar, without less quality. But how comes it\n    he is to sojourn with you? How creeps acquaintance?\n  PHILARIO. His father and I were soldiers together, to whom I have\n    been often bound for no less than my life.\n\n                       Enter POSTHUMUS\n\n    Here comes the Briton. Let him be so entertained amongst you as\n    suits with gentlemen of your knowing to a stranger of his\n    quality. I beseech you all be better known to this gentleman,\n    whom I commend to you as a noble friend of mine. How worthy he is\n    I will leave to appear hereafter, rather than story him in his\n    own hearing.\n  FRENCHMAN. Sir, we have known together in Orleans.\n  POSTHUMUS. Since when I have been debtor to you for courtesies,\n    which I will be ever to pay and yet pay still.\n  FRENCHMAN. Sir, you o'errate my poor kindness. I was glad I did\n    atone my countryman and you; it had been pity you should have\n    been put together with so mortal a purpose as then each bore,\n    upon importance of so slight and trivial a nature.\n  POSTHUMUS. By your pardon, sir. I was then a young traveller;\n    rather shunn'd to go even with what I heard than in my every\n    action to be guided by others' experiences; but upon my mended\n    judgment- if I offend not to say it is mended- my quarrel was not\n    altogether slight.\n  FRENCHMAN. Faith, yes, to be put to the arbitrement of swords, and\n    by such two that would by all likelihood have confounded one the\n    other or have fall'n both.\n  IACHIMO. Can we, with manners, ask what was the difference?\n  FRENCHMAN. Safely, I think. 'Twas a contention in public, which\n    may, without contradiction, suffer the report. It was much like\n    an argument that fell out last night, where each of us fell in\n    praise of our country mistresses; this gentleman at that time\n    vouching- and upon warrant of bloody affirmation- his to be more\n    fair, virtuous, wise, chaste, constant, qualified, and less\n    attemptable, than any the rarest of our ladies in France.\n  IACHIMO. That lady is not now living, or this gentleman's opinion,\n    by this, worn out.\n  POSTHUMUS. She holds her virtue still, and I my mind.\n  IACHIMO. You must not so far prefer her fore ours of Italy.\n  POSTHUMUS. Being so far provok'd as I was in France, I would abate\n    her nothing, though I profess myself her adorer, not her friend.\n  IACHIMO. As fair and as good- a kind of hand-in-hand comparison-\n    had been something too fair and too good for any lady in Britain.\n    If she went before others I have seen as that diamond of yours\n    outlustres many I have beheld, I could not but believe she\n    excelled many; but I have not seen the most precious diamond that\n    is, nor you the lady.\n  POSTHUMUS. I prais'd her as I rated her. So do I my stone.\n  IACHIMO. What do you esteem it at?\n  POSTHUMUS. More than the world enjoys.\n  IACHIMO. Either your unparagon'd mistress is dead, or she's\n    outpriz'd by a trifle.\n  POSTHUMUS. You are mistaken: the one may be sold or given, if there\n    were wealth enough for the purchase or merit for the gift; the\n    other is not a thing for sale, and only the gift of the gods.\n  IACHIMO. Which the gods have given you?\n  POSTHUMUS. Which by their graces I will keep.\n  IACHIMO. You may wear her in title yours; but you know strange fowl\n    light upon neighbouring ponds. Your ring may be stol'n too. So\n    your brace of unprizable estimations, the one is but frail and\n    the other casual; a cunning thief, or a that-way-accomplish'd\n    courtier, would hazard the winning both of first and last.\n  POSTHUMUS. Your Italy contains none so accomplish'd a courtier to\n    convince the honour of my mistress, if in the holding or loss of\n    that you term her frail. I do nothing doubt you have store of\n    thieves; notwithstanding, I fear not my ring.\n  PHILARIO. Let us leave here, gentlemen.\n  POSTHUMUS. Sir, with all my heart. This worthy signior, I thank\n    him, makes no stranger of me; we are familiar at first.\n  IACHIMO. With five times so much conversation I should get ground\n    of your fair mistress; make her go back even to the yielding, had\n    I admittance and opportunity to friend.\n  POSTHUMUS. No, no.\n  IACHIMO. I dare thereupon pawn the moiety of my estate to your\n    ring, which, in my opinion, o'ervalues it something. But I make\n    my wager rather against your confidence than her reputation; and,\n    to bar your offence herein too, I durst attempt it against any\n    lady in the world.\n  POSTHUMUS. You are a great deal abus'd in too bold a persuasion,\n    and I doubt not you sustain what y'are worthy of by your attempt.\n  IACHIMO. What's that?\n  POSTHUMUS. A repulse; though your attempt, as you call it, deserve\n    more- a punishment too.\n  PHILARIO. Gentlemen, enough of this. It came in too suddenly; let\n    it die as it was born, and I pray you be better acquainted.\n  IACHIMO. Would I had put my estate and my neighbour's on th'\n    approbation of what I have spoke!\n  POSTHUMUS. What lady would you choose to assail?\n  IACHIMO. Yours, whom in constancy you think stands so safe. I will\n    lay you ten thousand ducats to your ring that, commend me to the\n    court where your lady is, with no more advantage than the\n    opportunity of a second conference, and I will bring from thence\n    that honour of hers which you imagine so reserv'd.\n  POSTHUMUS. I will wage against your gold, gold to it. My ring I\n    hold dear as my finger; 'tis part of it.\n  IACHIMO. You are a friend, and therein the wiser. If you buy\n    ladies' flesh at a million a dram, you cannot preserve it from\n    tainting. But I see you have some religion in you, that you fear.\n  POSTHUMUS. This is but a custom in your tongue; you bear a graver\n    purpose, I hope.\n  IACHIMO. I am the master of my speeches, and would undergo what's\n    spoken, I swear.\n  POSTHUMUS. Will you? I Shall but lend my diamond till your return.\n    Let there be covenants drawn between's. My mistress exceeds in\n    goodness the hugeness of your unworthy thinking. I dare you to\n    this match: here's my ring.\n  PHILARIO. I will have it no lay.\n  IACHIMO. By the gods, it is one. If I bring you no sufficient\n    testimony that I have enjoy'd the dearest bodily part of your\n    mistress, my ten thousand ducats are yours; so is your diamond\n    too. If I come off, and leave her in such honour as you have\n    trust in, she your jewel, this your jewel, and my gold are yours-\n    provided I have your commendation for my more free entertainment.\n  POSTHUMUS. I embrace these conditions; let us have articles betwixt\n    us. Only, thus far you shall answer: if you make your voyage upon\n    her, and give me directly to understand you have prevail'd, I am\n    no further your enemy- she is not worth our debate; if she remain\n    unseduc'd, you not making it appear otherwise, for your ill\n    opinion and th' assault you have made to her chastity you shall\n    answer me with your sword.\n  IACHIMO. Your hand- a covenant! We will have these things set down\n    by lawful counsel, and straight away for Britain, lest the\n    bargain should catch cold and starve. I will fetch my gold and\n    have our two wagers recorded.\n  POSTHUMUS. Agreed.                Exeunt POSTHUMUS and IACHIMO\n  FRENCHMAN. Will this hold, think you?\n  PHILARIO. Signior Iachimo will not from it. Pray let us follow 'em.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nBritain. CYMBELINE'S palace\n\nEnter QUEEN, LADIES, and CORNELIUS\n\n  QUEEN. Whiles yet the dew's on ground, gather those flowers;\n    Make haste; who has the note of them?\n  LADY. I, madam.\n  QUEEN. Dispatch.                                 Exeunt LADIES\n    Now, Master Doctor, have you brought those drugs?\n  CORNELIUS. Pleaseth your Highness, ay. Here they are, madam.\n                                              [Presenting a box]\n    But I beseech your Grace, without offence-\n    My conscience bids me ask- wherefore you have\n    Commanded of me these most poisonous compounds\n    Which are the movers of a languishing death,\n    But, though slow, deadly?\n  QUEEN. I wonder, Doctor,\n    Thou ask'st me such a question. Have I not been\n    Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learn'd me how\n    To make perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so\n    That our great king himself doth woo me oft\n    For my confections? Having thus far proceeded-\n    Unless thou think'st me devilish- is't not meet\n    That I did amplify my judgment in\n    Other conclusions? I will try the forces\n    Of these thy compounds on such creatures as\n    We count not worth the hanging- but none human-\n    To try the vigour of them, and apply\n    Allayments to their act, and by them gather\n    Their several virtues and effects.\n  CORNELIUS. Your Highness\n    Shall from this practice but make hard your heart;\n    Besides, the seeing these effects will be\n    Both noisome and infectious.\n  QUEEN. O, content thee.\n\n                        Enter PISANIO\n\n    [Aside] Here comes a flattering rascal; upon him\n    Will I first work. He's for his master,\n    An enemy to my son.- How now, Pisanio!\n    Doctor, your service for this time is ended;\n    Take your own way.\n  CORNELIUS. [Aside] I do suspect you, madam;\n    But you shall do no harm.\n  QUEEN. [To PISANIO] Hark thee, a word.\n  CORNELIUS. [Aside] I do not like her. She doth think she has\n    Strange ling'ring poisons. I do know her spirit,\n    And will not trust one of her malice with\n    A drug of such damn'd nature. Those she has\n    Will stupefy and dull the sense awhile,\n    Which first perchance she'll prove on cats and dogs,\n    Then afterward up higher; but there is\n    No danger in what show of death it makes,\n    More than the locking up the spirits a time,\n    To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool'd\n    With a most false effect; and I the truer\n    So to be false with her.\n  QUEEN. No further service, Doctor,\n    Until I send for thee.\n  CORNELIUS. I humbly take my leave.                        Exit\n  QUEEN. Weeps she still, say'st thou? Dost thou think in time\n    She will not quench, and let instructions enter\n    Where folly now possesses? Do thou work.\n    When thou shalt bring me word she loves my son,\n    I'll tell thee on the instant thou art then\n    As great as is thy master; greater, for\n    His fortunes all lie speechless, and his name\n    Is at last gasp. Return he cannot, nor\n    Continue where he is. To shift his being\n    Is to exchange one misery with another,\n    And every day that comes comes comes to\n    A day's work in him. What shalt thou expect\n    To be depender on a thing that leans,\n    Who cannot be new built, nor has no friends\n    So much as but to prop him?\n                  [The QUEEN drops the box. PISANIO takes it up]\n    Thou tak'st up\n    Thou know'st not what; but take it for thy labour.\n    It is a thing I made, which hath the King\n    Five times redeem'd from death. I do not know\n    What is more cordial. Nay, I prithee take it;\n    It is an earnest of a further good\n    That I mean to thee. Tell thy mistress how\n    The case stands with her; do't as from thyself.\n    Think what a chance thou changest on; but think\n    Thou hast thy mistress still; to boot, my son,\n    Who shall take notice of thee. I'll move the King\n    To any shape of thy preferment, such\n    As thou'lt desire; and then myself, I chiefly,\n    That set thee on to this desert, am bound\n    To load thy merit richly. Call my women.\n    Think on my words.                              Exit PISANIO\n    A sly and constant knave,\n    Not to be shak'd; the agent for his master,\n    And the remembrancer of her to hold\n    The hand-fast to her lord. I have given him that\n    Which, if he take, shall quite unpeople her\n    Of leigers for her sweet; and which she after,\n    Except she bend her humour, shall be assur'd\n    To taste of too.\n\n                   Re-enter PISANIO and LADIES\n\n    So, so. Well done, well done.\n    The violets, cowslips, and the primroses,\n    Bear to my closet. Fare thee well, Pisanio;\n    Think on my words.                   Exeunt QUEEN and LADIES\n  PISANIO. And shall do.\n    But when to my good lord I prove untrue\n    I'll choke myself- there's all I'll do for you.         Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nBritain. The palace\n\nEnter IMOGEN alone\n\n  IMOGEN. A father cruel and a step-dame false;\n    A foolish suitor to a wedded lady\n    That hath her husband banish'd. O, that husband!\n    My supreme crown of grief! and those repeated\n    Vexations of it! Had I been thief-stol'n,\n    As my two brothers, happy! but most miserable\n    Is the desire that's glorious. Blessed be those,\n    How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills,\n    Which seasons comfort. Who may this be? Fie!\n\n                    Enter PISANIO and IACHIMO\n\n  PISANIO. Madam, a noble gentleman of Rome\n    Comes from my lord with letters.\n  IACHIMO. Change you, madam?\n    The worthy Leonatus is in safety,\n    And greets your Highness dearly.         [Presents a letter]\n  IMOGEN. Thanks, good sir.\n    You're kindly welcome.\n  IACHIMO. [Aside] All of her that is out of door most rich!\n    If she be furnish'd with a mind so rare,\n    She is alone th' Arabian bird, and I\n    Have lost the wager. Boldness be my friend!\n    Arm me, audacity, from head to foot!\n    Or, like the Parthian, I shall flying fight;\n    Rather, directly fly.\n  IMOGEN. [Reads] 'He is one of the noblest note, to whose\n    kindnesses I am most infinitely tied. Reflect upon him\n    accordingly, as you value your trust.       LEONATUS.'\n\n    So far I read aloud;\n    But even the very middle of my heart\n    Is warm'd by th' rest and takes it thankfully.\n    You are as welcome, worthy sir, as I\n    Have words to bid you; and shall find it so\n    In all that I can do.\n  IACHIMO. Thanks, fairest lady.\n    What, are men mad? Hath nature given them eyes\n    To see this vaulted arch and the rich crop\n    Of sea and land, which can distinguish 'twixt\n    The fiery orbs above and the twinn'd stones\n    Upon the number'd beach, and can we not\n    Partition make with spectacles so precious\n    'Twixt fair and foul?\n  IMOGEN. What makes your admiration?\n  IACHIMO. It cannot be i' th' eye, for apes and monkeys,\n    'Twixt two such shes, would chatter this way and\n    Contemn with mows the other; nor i' th' judgment,\n    For idiots in this case of favour would\n    Be wisely definite; nor i' th' appetite;\n    Sluttery, to such neat excellence oppos'd,\n    Should make desire vomit emptiness,\n    Not so allur'd to feed.\n  IMOGEN. What is the matter, trow?\n  IACHIMO. The cloyed will-\n    That satiate yet unsatisfied desire, that tub\n    Both fill'd and running- ravening first the lamb,\n    Longs after for the garbage.\n  IMOGEN. What, dear sir,\n    Thus raps you? Are you well?\n  IACHIMO. Thanks, madam; well.- Beseech you, sir,\n    Desire my man's abode where I did leave him.\n    He's strange and peevish.\n  PISANIO. I was going, sir,\n    To give him welcome.                                    Exit\n  IMOGEN. Continues well my lord? His health beseech you?\n  IACHIMO. Well, madam.\n  IMOGEN. Is he dispos'd to mirth? I hope he is.\n  IACHIMO. Exceeding pleasant; none a stranger there\n    So merry and so gamesome. He is call'd\n    The Britain reveller.\n  IMOGEN. When he was here\n    He did incline to sadness, and oft-times\n    Not knowing why.\n  IACHIMO. I never saw him sad.\n    There is a Frenchman his companion, one\n    An eminent monsieur that, it seems, much loves\n    A Gallian girl at home. He furnaces\n    The thick sighs from him; whiles the jolly Briton-\n    Your lord, I mean- laughs from's free lungs, cries 'O,\n    Can my sides hold, to think that man- who knows\n    By history, report, or his own proof,\n    What woman is, yea, what she cannot choose\n    But must be- will's free hours languish for\n    Assured bondage?'\n  IMOGEN. Will my lord say so?\n  IACHIMO. Ay, madam, with his eyes in flood with laughter.\n    It is a recreation to be by\n    And hear him mock the Frenchman. But heavens know\n    Some men are much to blame.\n  IMOGEN. Not he, I hope.\n  IACHIMO. Not he; but yet heaven's bounty towards him might\n    Be us'd more thankfully. In himself, 'tis much;\n    In you, which I account his, beyond all talents.\n    Whilst I am bound to wonder, I am bound\n    To pity too.\n  IMOGEN. What do you pity, sir?\n  IACHIMO. Two creatures heartily.\n  IMOGEN. Am I one, sir?\n    You look on me: what wreck discern you in me\n    Deserves your pity?\n  IACHIMO. Lamentable! What,\n    To hide me from the radiant sun and solace\n    I' th' dungeon by a snuff?\n  IMOGEN. I pray you, sir,\n    Deliver with more openness your answers\n    To my demands. Why do you pity me?\n  IACHIMO. That others do,\n    I was about to say, enjoy your- But\n    It is an office of the gods to venge it,\n    Not mine to speak on't.\n  IMOGEN. You do seem to know\n    Something of me, or what concerns me; pray you-\n    Since doubting things go ill often hurts more\n    Than to be sure they do; for certainties\n    Either are past remedies, or, timely knowing,\n    The remedy then born- discover to me\n    What both you spur and stop.\n  IACHIMO. Had I this cheek\n    To bathe my lips upon; this hand, whose touch,\n    Whose every touch, would force the feeler's soul\n    To th' oath of loyalty; this object, which\n    Takes prisoner the wild motion of mine eye,\n    Fixing it only here; should I, damn'd then,\n    Slaver with lips as common as the stairs\n    That mount the Capitol; join gripes with hands\n    Made hard with hourly falsehood- falsehood as\n    With labour; then by-peeping in an eye\n    Base and illustrious as the smoky light\n    That's fed with stinking tallow- it were fit\n    That all the plagues of hell should at one time\n    Encounter such revolt.\n  IMOGEN. My lord, I fear,\n    Has forgot Britain.\n  IACHIMO. And himself. Not I\n    Inclin'd to this intelligence pronounce\n    The beggary of his change; but 'tis your graces\n    That from my mutest conscience to my tongue\n    Charms this report out.\n  IMOGEN. Let me hear no more.\n  IACHIMO. O dearest soul, your cause doth strike my heart\n    With pity that doth make me sick! A lady\n    So fair, and fasten'd to an empery,\n    Would make the great'st king double, to be partner'd\n    With tomboys hir'd with that self exhibition\n    Which your own coffers yield! with diseas'd ventures\n    That play with all infirmities for gold\n    Which rottenness can lend nature! such boil'd stuff\n    As well might poison poison! Be reveng'd;\n    Or she that bore you was no queen, and you\n    Recoil from your great stock.\n  IMOGEN. Reveng'd?\n    How should I be reveng'd? If this be true-\n    As I have such a heart that both mine ears\n    Must not in haste abuse- if it be true,\n    How should I be reveng'd?\n  IACHIMO. Should he make me\n    Live like Diana's priest betwixt cold sheets,\n    Whiles he is vaulting variable ramps,\n    In your despite, upon your purse? Revenge it.\n    I dedicate myself to your sweet pleasure,\n    More noble than that runagate to your bed,\n    And will continue fast to your affection,\n    Still close as sure.\n  IMOGEN. What ho, Pisanio!\n  IACHIMO. Let me my service tender on your lips.\n  IMOGEN. Away! I do condemn mine ears that have\n    So long attended thee. If thou wert honourable,\n    Thou wouldst have told this tale for virtue, not\n    For such an end thou seek'st, as base as strange.\n    Thou wrong'st a gentleman who is as far\n    From thy report as thou from honour; and\n    Solicits here a lady that disdains\n    Thee and the devil alike.- What ho, Pisanio!-\n    The King my father shall be made acquainted\n    Of thy assault. If he shall think it fit\n    A saucy stranger in his court to mart\n    As in a Romish stew, and to expound\n    His beastly mind to us, he hath a court\n    He little cares for, and a daughter who\n    He not respects at all.- What ho, Pisanio!\n  IACHIMO. O happy Leonatus! I may say\n    The credit that thy lady hath of thee\n    Deserves thy trust, and thy most perfect goodness\n    Her assur'd credit. Blessed live you long,\n    A lady to the worthiest sir that ever\n    Country call'd his! and you his mistress, only\n    For the most worthiest fit! Give me your pardon.\n    I have spoke this to know if your affiance\n    Were deeply rooted, and shall make your lord\n    That which he is new o'er; and he is one\n    The truest manner'd, such a holy witch\n    That he enchants societies into him,\n    Half all men's hearts are his.\n  IMOGEN. You make amends.\n  IACHIMO. He sits 'mongst men like a descended god:\n    He hath a kind of honour sets him of\n    More than a mortal seeming. Be not angry,\n    Most mighty Princess, that I have adventur'd\n    To try your taking of a false report, which hath\n    Honour'd with confirmation your great judgment\n    In the election of a sir so rare,\n    Which you know cannot err. The love I bear him\n    Made me to fan you thus; but the gods made you,\n    Unlike all others, chaffless. Pray your pardon.\n  IMOGEN. All's well, sir; take my pow'r i' th' court for yours.\n  IACHIMO. My humble thanks. I had almost forgot\n    T' entreat your Grace but in a small request,\n    And yet of moment too, for it concerns\n    Your lord; myself and other noble friends\n    Are partners in the business.\n  IMOGEN. Pray what is't?\n  IACHIMO. Some dozen Romans of us, and your lord-\n    The best feather of our wing- have mingled sums\n    To buy a present for the Emperor;\n    Which I, the factor for the rest, have done\n    In France. 'Tis plate of rare device, and jewels\n    Of rich and exquisite form, their values great;\n    And I am something curious, being strange,\n    To have them in safe stowage. May it please you\n    To take them in protection?\n  IMOGEN. Willingly;\n    And pawn mine honour for their safety. Since\n    My lord hath interest in them, I will keep them\n    In my bedchamber.\n  IACHIMO. They are in a trunk,\n    Attended by my men. I will make bold\n    To send them to you only for this night;\n    I must aboard to-morrow.\n  IMOGEN. O, no, no.\n  IACHIMO. Yes, I beseech; or I shall short my word\n    By length'ning my return. From Gallia\n    I cross'd the seas on purpose and on promise\n    To see your Grace.\n  IMOGEN. I thank you for your pains.\n    But not away to-morrow!\n  IACHIMO. O, I must, madam.\n    Therefore I shall beseech you, if you please\n    To greet your lord with writing, do't to-night.\n    I have outstood my time, which is material\n    'To th' tender of our present.\n  IMOGEN. I will write.\n    Send your trunk to me; it shall safe be kept\n    And truly yielded you. You're very welcome.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nBritain. Before CYMBELINE'S palace\n\nEnter CLOTEN and the two LORDS\n\n  CLOTEN. Was there ever man had such luck! When I kiss'd the jack,\n    upon an up-cast to be hit away! I had a hundred pound on't; and\n    then a whoreson jackanapes must take me up for swearing, as if I\n    borrowed mine oaths of him, and might not spend them at my\n    pleasure.\n  FIRST LORD. What got he by that? You have broke his pate with your\n    bowl.\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] If his wit had been like him that broke it, it\n    would have run all out.\n  CLOTEN. When a gentleman is dispos'd to swear, it is not for any\n    standers-by to curtail his oaths. Ha?\n  SECOND LORD. No, my lord; [Aside] nor crop the ears of them.\n  CLOTEN. Whoreson dog! I give him satisfaction? Would he had been\n    one of my rank!\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] To have smell'd like a fool.\n  CLOTEN. I am not vex'd more at anything in th' earth. A pox on't! I\n    had rather not be so noble as I am; they dare not fight with me,\n    because of the Queen my mother. Every jackslave hath his bellyful\n    of fighting, and I must go up and down like a cock that nobody\n    can match.\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] You are cock and capon too; and you crow,\n    cock, with your comb on.\n  CLOTEN. Sayest thou?\n  SECOND LORD. It is not fit your lordship should undertake every\n    companion that you give offence to.\n  CLOTEN. No, I know that; but it is fit I should commit offence to\n    my inferiors.\n  SECOND LORD. Ay, it is fit for your lordship only.\n  CLOTEN. Why, so I say.\n  FIRST LORD. Did you hear of a stranger that's come to court\n    to-night?\n  CLOTEN. A stranger, and I not known on't?\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] He's a strange fellow himself, and knows it\n    not.\n  FIRST LORD. There's an Italian come, and, 'tis thought, one of\n    Leonatus' friends.\n  CLOTEN. Leonatus? A banish'd rascal; and he's another, whatsoever\n    he be. Who told you of this stranger?\n  FIRST LORD. One of your lordship's pages.\n  CLOTEN. Is it fit I went to look upon him? Is there no derogation\n    in't?\n  SECOND LORD. You cannot derogate, my lord.\n  CLOTEN. Not easily, I think.\n  SECOND LORD. [Aside] You are a fool granted; therefore your issues,\n    being foolish, do not derogate.\n  CLOTEN. Come, I'll go see this Italian. What I have lost to-day at\n    bowls I'll win to-night of him. Come, go.\n  SECOND LORD. I'll attend your lordship.\n                                    Exeunt CLOTEN and FIRST LORD\n    That such a crafty devil as is his mother\n    Should yield the world this ass! A woman that\n    Bears all down with her brain; and this her son\n    Cannot take two from twenty, for his heart,\n    And leave eighteen. Alas, poor princess,\n    Thou divine Imogen, what thou endur'st,\n    Betwixt a father by thy step-dame govern'd,\n    A mother hourly coining plots, a wooer\n    More hateful than the foul expulsion is\n    Of thy dear husband, than that horrid act\n    Of the divorce he'd make! The heavens hold firm\n    The walls of thy dear honour, keep unshak'd\n    That temple, thy fair mind, that thou mayst stand\n    T' enjoy thy banish'd lord and this great land!         Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBritain. IMOGEN'S bedchamber in CYMBELINE'S palace; a trunk in one corner\n\nEnter IMOGEN in her bed, and a LADY attending\n\n  IMOGEN. Who's there? My woman? Helen?\n  LADY. Please you, madam.\n  IMOGEN. What hour is it?\n  LADY. Almost midnight, madam.\n  IMOGEN. I have read three hours then. Mine eyes are weak;\n    Fold down the leaf where I have left. To bed.\n    Take not away the taper, leave it burning;\n    And if thou canst awake by four o' th' clock,\n    I prithee call me. Sleep hath seiz'd me wholly.    Exit LADY\n    To your protection I commend me, gods.\n    From fairies and the tempters of the night\n    Guard me, beseech ye!\n                          [Sleeps. IACHIMO comes from the trunk]\n  IACHIMO. The crickets sing, and man's o'er-labour'd sense\n    Repairs itself by rest. Our Tarquin thus\n    Did softly press the rushes ere he waken'd\n    The chastity he wounded. Cytherea,\n    How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! fresh lily,\n    And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch!\n    But kiss; one kiss! Rubies unparagon'd,\n    How dearly they do't! 'Tis her breathing that\n    Perfumes the chamber thus. The flame o' th' taper\n    Bows toward her and would under-peep her lids\n    To see th' enclosed lights, now canopied\n    Under these windows white and azure, lac'd\n    With blue of heaven's own tinct. But my design\n    To note the chamber. I will write all down:\n    Such and such pictures; there the window; such\n    Th' adornment of her bed; the arras, figures-\n    Why, such and such; and the contents o' th' story.\n    Ah, but some natural notes about her body\n    Above ten thousand meaner movables\n    Would testify, t' enrich mine inventory.\n    O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her!\n    And be her sense but as a monument,\n    Thus in a chapel lying! Come off, come off;\n                                       [Taking off her bracelet]\n    As slippery as the Gordian knot was hard!\n    'Tis mine; and this will witness outwardly,\n    As strongly as the conscience does within,\n    To th' madding of her lord. On her left breast\n    A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops\n    I' th' bottom of a cowslip. Here's a voucher\n    Stronger than ever law could make; this secret\n    Will force him think I have pick'd the lock and ta'en\n    The treasure of her honour. No more. To what end?\n    Why should I write this down that's riveted,\n    Screw'd to my memory? She hath been reading late\n    The tale of Tereus; here the leaf's turn'd down\n    Where Philomel gave up. I have enough.\n    To th' trunk again, and shut the spring of it.\n    Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning\n    May bare the raven's eye! I lodge in fear;\n    Though this a heavenly angel, hell is here.  [Clock strikes]\n    One, two, three. Time, time!             Exit into the trunk\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nCYMBELINE'S palace. An ante-chamber adjoining IMOGEN'S apartments\n\nEnter CLOTEN and LORDS\n\n  FIRST LORD. Your lordship is the most patient man in loss, the most\n    coldest that ever turn'd up ace.\n  CLOTEN. It would make any man cold to lose.\n  FIRST LORD. But not every man patient after the noble temper of\n    your lordship. You are most hot and furious when you win.\n  CLOTEN. Winning will put any man into courage. If I could get this\n    foolish Imogen, I should have gold enough. It's almost morning,\n    is't not?\n  FIRST LORD. Day, my lord.\n  CLOTEN. I would this music would come. I am advised to give her\n    music a mornings; they say it will penetrate.\n\n                       Enter musicians\n\n    Come on, tune. If you can penetrate her with your fingering, so.\n    We'll try with tongue too. If none will do, let her remain; but\n    I'll never give o'er. First, a very excellent good-conceited\n    thing; after, a wonderful sweet air, with admirable rich words to\n    it- and then let her consider.\n\n                 SONG\n\n      Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,\n        And Phoebus 'gins arise,\n      His steeds to water at those springs\n        On chalic'd flow'rs that lies;\n      And winking Mary-buds begin\n        To ope their golden eyes.\n      With everything that pretty bin,\n        My lady sweet, arise;\n          Arise, arise!\n\n    So, get you gone. If this penetrate, I will consider your music\n    the better; if it do not, it is a vice in her ears which\n    horsehairs and calves' guts, nor the voice of unpaved eunuch to\n    boot, can never amend.                      Exeunt musicians\n\n                    Enter CYMBELINE and QUEEN\n\n  SECOND LORD. Here comes the King.\n  CLOTEN. I am glad I was up so late, for that's the reason I was up\n    so early. He cannot choose but take this service I have done\n    fatherly.- Good morrow to your Majesty and to my gracious mother.\n  CYMBELINE. Attend you here the door of our stern daughter?\n    Will she not forth?\n  CLOTEN. I have assail'd her with musics, but she vouchsafes no\n    notice.\n  CYMBELINE. The exile of her minion is too new;\n    She hath not yet forgot him; some more time\n    Must wear the print of his remembrance out,\n    And then she's yours.\n  QUEEN. You are most bound to th' King,\n    Who lets go by no vantages that may\n    Prefer you to his daughter. Frame yourself\n    To orderly soliciting, and be friended\n    With aptness of the season; make denials\n    Increase your services; so seem as if\n    You were inspir'd to do those duties which\n    You tender to her; that you in all obey her,\n    Save when command to your dismission tends,\n    And therein you are senseless.\n  CLOTEN. Senseless? Not so.\n\n                    Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. So like you, sir, ambassadors from Rome;\n    The one is Caius Lucius.\n  CYMBELINE. A worthy fellow,\n    Albeit he comes on angry purpose now;\n    But that's no fault of his. We must receive him\n    According to the honour of his sender;\n    And towards himself, his goodness forespent on us,\n    We must extend our notice. Our dear son,\n    When you have given good morning to your mistress,\n    Attend the Queen and us; we shall have need\n    T' employ you towards this Roman. Come, our queen.\n                                           Exeunt all but CLOTEN\n  CLOTEN. If she be up, I'll speak with her; if not,\n    Let her lie still and dream. By your leave, ho!     [Knocks]\n    I know her women are about her; what\n    If I do line one of their hands? 'Tis gold\n    Which buys admittance; oft it doth-yea, and makes\n    Diana's rangers false themselves, yield up\n    Their deer to th' stand o' th' stealer; and 'tis gold\n    Which makes the true man kill'd and saves the thief;\n    Nay, sometime hangs both thief and true man. What\n    Can it not do and undo? I will make\n    One of her women lawyer to me, for\n    I yet not understand the case myself.\n    By your leave.                                      [Knocks]\n\n                            Enter a LADY\n\n  LADY. Who's there that knocks?\n  CLOTEN. A gentleman.\n  LADY. No more?\n  CLOTEN. Yes, and a gentlewoman's son.\n  LADY. That's more\n    Than some whose tailors are as dear as yours\n    Can justly boast of. What's your lordship's pleasure?\n  CLOTEN. Your lady's person; is she ready?\n  LADY. Ay,\n    To keep her chamber.\n  CLOTEN. There is gold for you; sell me your good report.\n  LADY. How? My good name? or to report of you\n    What I shall think is good? The Princess!\n\n                        Enter IMOGEN\n\n  CLOTEN. Good morrow, fairest sister. Your sweet hand.\n                                                       Exit LADY\n  IMOGEN. Good morrow, sir. You lay out too much pains\n    For purchasing but trouble. The thanks I give\n    Is telling you that I am poor of thanks,\n    And scarce can spare them.\n  CLOTEN. Still I swear I love you.\n  IMOGEN. If you but said so, 'twere as deep with me.\n    If you swear still, your recompense is still\n    That I regard it not.\n  CLOTEN. This is no answer.\n  IMOGEN. But that you shall not say I yield, being silent,\n    I would not speak. I pray you spare me. Faith,\n    I shall unfold equal discourtesy\n    To your best kindness; one of your great knowing\n    Should learn, being taught, forbearance.\n  CLOTEN. To leave you in your madness 'twere my sin;\n    I will not.\n  IMOGEN. Fools are not mad folks.\n  CLOTEN. Do you call me fool?\n  IMOGEN. As I am mad, I do;\n    If you'll be patient, I'll no more be mad;\n    That cures us both. I am much sorry, sir,\n    You put me to forget a lady's manners\n    By being so verbal; and learn now, for all,\n    That I, which know my heart, do here pronounce,\n    By th' very truth of it, I care not for you,\n    And am so near the lack of charity\n    To accuse myself I hate you; which I had rather\n    You felt than make't my boast.\n  CLOTEN. You sin against\n    Obedience, which you owe your father. For\n    The contract you pretend with that base wretch,\n    One bred of alms and foster'd with cold dishes,\n    With scraps o' th' court- it is no contract, none.\n    And though it be allowed in meaner parties-\n    Yet who than he more mean?- to knit their souls-\n    On whom there is no more dependency\n    But brats and beggary- in self-figur'd knot,\n    Yet you are curb'd from that enlargement by\n    The consequence o' th' crown, and must not foil\n    The precious note of it with a base slave,\n    A hilding for a livery, a squire's cloth,\n    A pantler- not so eminent!\n  IMOGEN. Profane fellow!\n    Wert thou the son of Jupiter, and no more\n    But what thou art besides, thou wert too base\n    To be his groom. Thou wert dignified enough,\n    Even to the point of envy, if 'twere made\n    Comparative for your virtues to be styl'd\n    The under-hangman of his kingdom, and hated\n    For being preferr'd so well.\n  CLOTEN. The south fog rot him!\n  IMOGEN. He never can meet more mischance than come\n    To be but nam'd of thee. His mean'st garment\n    That ever hath but clipp'd his body is dearer\n    In my respect than all the hairs above thee,\n    Were they all made such men. How now, Pisanio!\n\n                    Enter PISANIO\n\n  CLOTEN. 'His garments'! Now the devil-\n  IMOGEN. To Dorothy my woman hie thee presently.\n  CLOTEN. 'His garment'!\n  IMOGEN. I am sprited with a fool;\n    Frighted, and ang'red worse. Go bid my woman\n    Search for a jewel that too casually\n    Hath left mine arm. It was thy master's; shrew me,\n    If I would lose it for a revenue\n    Of any king's in Europe! I do think\n    I saw't this morning; confident I am\n    Last night 'twas on mine arm; I kiss'd it.\n    I hope it be not gone to tell my lord\n    That I kiss aught but he.\n  PISANIO. 'Twill not be lost.\n  IMOGEN. I hope so. Go and search.                 Exit PISANIO\n  CLOTEN. You have abus'd me.\n    'His meanest garment'!\n  IMOGEN. Ay, I said so, sir.\n    If you will make 't an action, call witness to 't.\n  CLOTEN. I will inform your father.\n  IMOGEN. Your mother too.\n    She's my good lady and will conceive, I hope,\n    But the worst of me. So I leave you, sir,\n    To th' worst of discontent.                             Exit\n  CLOTEN. I'll be reveng'd.\n    'His mean'st garment'! Well.                            Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nRome. PHILARIO'S house\n\nEnter POSTHUMUS and PHILARIO\n\n  POSTHUMUS. Fear it not, sir; I would I were so sure\n    To win the King as I am bold her honour\n    Will remain hers.\n  PHILARIO. What means do you make to him?\n  POSTHUMUS. Not any; but abide the change of time,\n    Quake in the present winter's state, and wish\n    That warmer days would come. In these fear'd hopes\n    I barely gratify your love; they failing,\n    I must die much your debtor.\n  PHILARIO. Your very goodness and your company\n    O'erpays all I can do. By this your king\n    Hath heard of great Augustus. Caius Lucius\n    Will do's commission throughly; and I think\n    He'll grant the tribute, send th' arrearages,\n    Or look upon our Romans, whose remembrance\n    Is yet fresh in their grief.\n  POSTHUMUS. I do believe\n    Statist though I am none, nor like to be,\n    That this will prove a war; and you shall hear\n    The legions now in Gallia sooner landed\n    In our not-fearing Britain than have tidings\n    Of any penny tribute paid. Our countrymen\n    Are men more order'd than when Julius Caesar\n    Smil'd at their lack of skill, but found their courage\n    Worthy his frowning at. Their discipline,\n    Now mingled with their courages, will make known\n    To their approvers they are people such\n    That mend upon the world.\n\n                      Enter IACHIMO\n\n  PHILARIO. See! Iachimo!\n  POSTHUMUS. The swiftest harts have posted you by land,\n    And winds of all the comers kiss'd your sails,\n    To make your vessel nimble.\n  PHILARIO. Welcome, sir.\n  POSTHUMUS. I hope the briefness of your answer made\n    The speediness of your return.\n  IACHIMO. Your lady\n    Is one of the fairest that I have look'd upon.\n  POSTHUMUS. And therewithal the best; or let her beauty\n    Look through a casement to allure false hearts,\n    And be false with them.\n  IACHIMO. Here are letters for you.\n  POSTHUMUS. Their tenour good, I trust.\n  IACHIMO. 'Tis very like.\n  PHILARIO. Was Caius Lucius in the Britain court\n    When you were there?\n  IACHIMO. He was expected then,\n    But not approach'd.\n  POSTHUMUS. All is well yet.\n    Sparkles this stone as it was wont, or is't not\n    Too dull for your good wearing?\n  IACHIMO. If I have lost it,\n    I should have lost the worth of it in gold.\n    I'll make a journey twice as far t' enjoy\n    A second night of such sweet shortness which\n    Was mine in Britain; for the ring is won.\n  POSTHUMUS. The stone's too hard to come by.\n  IACHIMO. Not a whit,\n    Your lady being so easy.\n  POSTHUMUS. Make not, sir,\n    Your loss your sport. I hope you know that we\n    Must not continue friends.\n  IACHIMO. Good sir, we must,\n    If you keep covenant. Had I not brought\n    The knowledge of your mistress home, I grant\n    We were to question farther; but I now\n    Profess myself the winner of her honour,\n    Together with your ring; and not the wronger\n    Of her or you, having proceeded but\n    By both your wills.\n  POSTHUMUS. If you can make't apparent\n    That you have tasted her in bed, my hand\n    And ring is yours. If not, the foul opinion\n    You had of her pure honour gains or loses\n    Your sword or mine, or masterless leaves both\n    To who shall find them.\n  IACHIMO. Sir, my circumstances,\n    Being so near the truth as I will make them,\n    Must first induce you to believe- whose strength\n    I will confirm with oath; which I doubt not\n    You'll give me leave to spare when you shall find\n    You need it not.\n  POSTHUMUS. Proceed.\n  IACHIMO. First, her bedchamber,\n    Where I confess I slept not, but profess\n    Had that was well worth watching-it was hang'd\n    With tapestry of silk and silver; the story,\n    Proud Cleopatra when she met her Roman\n    And Cydnus swell'd above the banks, or for\n    The press of boats or pride. A piece of work\n    So bravely done, so rich, that it did strive\n    In workmanship and value; which I wonder'd\n    Could be so rarely and exactly wrought,\n    Since the true life on't was-\n  POSTHUMUS. This is true;\n    And this you might have heard of here, by me\n    Or by some other.\n  IACHIMO. More particulars\n    Must justify my knowledge.\n  POSTHUMUS. So they must,\n    Or do your honour injury.\n  IACHIMO. The chimney\n    Is south the chamber, and the chimneypiece\n    Chaste Dian bathing. Never saw I figures\n    So likely to report themselves. The cutter\n    Was as another nature, dumb; outwent her,\n    Motion and breath left out.\n  POSTHUMUS. This is a thing\n    Which you might from relation likewise reap,\n    Being, as it is, much spoke of.\n  IACHIMO. The roof o' th' chamber\n    With golden cherubins is fretted; her andirons-\n    I had forgot them- were two winking Cupids\n    Of silver, each on one foot standing, nicely\n    Depending on their brands.\n  POSTHUMUS. This is her honour!\n    Let it be granted you have seen all this, and praise\n    Be given to your remembrance; the description\n    Of what is in her chamber nothing saves\n    The wager you have laid.\n  IACHIMO. Then, if you can,                [Shows the bracelet]\n    Be pale. I beg but leave to air this jewel. See!\n    And now 'tis up again. It must be married\n    To that your diamond; I'll keep them.\n  POSTHUMUS. Jove!\n    Once more let me behold it. Is it that\n    Which I left with her?\n  IACHIMO. Sir- I thank her- that.\n    She stripp'd it from her arm; I see her yet;\n    Her pretty action did outsell her gift,\n    And yet enrich'd it too. She gave it me, and said\n    She priz'd it once.\n  POSTHUMUS. May be she pluck'd it of\n    To send it me.\n  IACHIMO. She writes so to you, doth she?\n  POSTHUMUS. O, no, no, no! 'tis true. Here, take this too;\n                                                [Gives the ring]\n    It is a basilisk unto mine eye,\n    Kills me to look on't. Let there be no honour\n    Where there is beauty; truth where semblance; love\n    Where there's another man. The vows of women\n    Of no more bondage be to where they are made\n    Than they are to their virtues, which is nothing.\n    O, above measure false!\n  PHILARIO. Have patience, sir,\n    And take your ring again; 'tis not yet won.\n    It may be probable she lost it, or\n    Who knows if one her women, being corrupted\n    Hath stol'n it from her?\n  POSTHUMUS. Very true;\n    And so I hope he came by't. Back my ring.\n    Render to me some corporal sign about her,\n    More evident than this; for this was stol'n.\n  IACHIMO. By Jupiter, I had it from her arm!\n  POSTHUMUS. Hark you, he swears; by Jupiter he swears.\n    'Tis true- nay, keep the ring, 'tis true. I am sure\n    She would not lose it. Her attendants are\n    All sworn and honourable- they induc'd to steal it!\n    And by a stranger! No, he hath enjoy'd her.\n    The cognizance of her incontinency\n    Is this: she hath bought the name of whore thus dearly.\n    There, take thy hire; and all the fiends of hell\n    Divide themselves between you!\n  PHILARIO. Sir, be patient;\n    This is not strong enough to be believ'd\n    Of one persuaded well of.\n  POSTHUMUS. Never talk on't;\n    She hath been colted by him.\n  IACHIMO. If you seek\n    For further satisfying, under her breast-\n    Worthy the pressing- lies a mole, right proud\n    Of that most delicate lodging. By my life,\n    I kiss'd it; and it gave me present hunger\n    To feed again, though full. You do remember\n    This stain upon her?\n  POSTHUMUS. Ay, and it doth confirm\n    Another stain, as big as hell can hold,\n    Were there no more but it.\n  IACHIMO. Will you hear more?\n  POSTHUMUS. Spare your arithmetic; never count the turns.\n    Once, and a million!\n  IACHIMO. I'll be sworn-\n  POSTHUMUS. No swearing.\n    If you will swear you have not done't, you lie;\n    And I will kill thee if thou dost deny\n    Thou'st made me cuckold.\n  IACHIMO. I'll deny nothing.\n  POSTHUMUS. O that I had her here to tear her limb-meal!\n    I will go there and do't, i' th' court, before\n    Her father. I'll do something-                          Exit\n  PHILARIO. Quite besides\n    The government of patience! You have won.\n    Let's follow him and pervert the present wrath\n    He hath against himself.\n  IACHIMO. With all my heart.                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nRome. Another room in PHILARIO'S house\n\nEnter POSTHUMUS\n\n  POSTHUMUS. Is there no way for men to be, but women\n    Must be half-workers? We are all bastards,\n    And that most venerable man which I\n    Did call my father was I know not where\n    When I was stamp'd. Some coiner with his tools\n    Made me a counterfeit; yet my mother seem'd\n    The Dian of that time. So doth my wife\n    The nonpareil of this. O, vengeance, vengeance!\n    Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain'd,\n    And pray'd me oft forbearance; did it with\n    A pudency so rosy, the sweet view on't\n    Might well have warm'd old Saturn; that I thought her\n    As chaste as unsunn'd snow. O, all the devils!\n    This yellow Iachimo in an hour- was't not?\n    Or less!- at first? Perchance he spoke not, but,\n    Like a full-acorn'd boar, a German one,\n    Cried 'O!' and mounted; found no opposition\n    But what he look'd for should oppose and she\n    Should from encounter guard. Could I find out\n    The woman's part in me! For there's no motion\n    That tends to vice in man but I affirm\n    It is the woman's part. Be it lying, note it,\n    The woman's; flattering, hers; deceiving, hers;\n    Lust and rank thoughts, hers, hers; revenges, hers;\n    Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain,\n    Nice longing, slanders, mutability,\n    All faults that man may name, nay, that hell knows,\n    Why, hers, in part or all; but rather all;\n    For even to vice\n    They are not constant, but are changing still\n    One vice but of a minute old for one\n    Not half so old as that. I'll write against them,\n    Detest them, curse them. Yet 'tis greater skill\n    In a true hate to pray they have their will:\n    The very devils cannot plague them better.              Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nBritain. A hall in CYMBELINE'S palace\n\nEnter in state, CYMBELINE, QUEEN, CLOTEN, and LORDS at one door,\nand at another CAIUS LUCIUS and attendants\n\n  CYMBELINE. Now say, what would Augustus Caesar with us?\n  LUCIUS. When Julius Caesar- whose remembrance yet\n    Lives in men's eyes, and will to ears and tongues\n    Be theme and hearing ever- was in this Britain,\n    And conquer'd it, Cassibelan, thine uncle,\n    Famous in Caesar's praises no whit less\n    Than in his feats deserving it, for him\n    And his succession granted Rome a tribute,\n    Yearly three thousand pounds, which by thee lately\n    Is left untender'd.\n  QUEEN. And, to kill the marvel,\n    Shall be so ever.\n  CLOTEN. There be many Caesars\n    Ere such another Julius. Britain is\n    A world by itself, and we will nothing pay\n    For wearing our own noses.\n  QUEEN. That opportunity,\n    Which then they had to take from 's, to resume\n    We have again. Remember, sir, my liege,\n    The kings your ancestors, together with\n    The natural bravery of your isle, which stands\n    As Neptune's park, ribb'd and pal'd in\n    With rocks unscalable and roaring waters,\n    With sands that will not bear your enemies' boats\n    But suck them up to th' top-mast. A kind of conquest\n    Caesar made here; but made not here his brag\n    Of 'came, and saw, and overcame.' With shame-\n    The first that ever touch'd him- he was carried\n    From off our coast, twice beaten; and his shipping-\n    Poor ignorant baubles!- on our terrible seas,\n    Like egg-shells mov'd upon their surges, crack'd\n    As easily 'gainst our rocks; for joy whereof\n    The fam'd Cassibelan, who was once at point-\n    O, giglot fortune!- to master Caesar's sword,\n    Made Lud's Town with rejoicing fires bright\n    And Britons strut with courage.\n  CLOTEN. Come, there's no more tribute to be paid. Our kingdom is\n    stronger than it was at that time; and, as I said, there is no\n    moe such Caesars. Other of them may have crook'd noses; but to\n    owe such straight arms, none.\n  CYMBELINE. Son, let your mother end.\n  CLOTEN. We have yet many among us can gripe as hard as Cassibelan.\n    I do not say I am one; but I have a hand. Why tribute? Why should\n    we pay tribute? If Caesar can hide the sun from us with a blanket,\n    or put the moon in his pocket, we will pay him tribute for light;\n    else, sir, no more tribute, pray you now.\n  CYMBELINE. You must know,\n    Till the injurious Romans did extort\n    This tribute from us, we were free. Caesar's ambition-\n    Which swell'd so much that it did almost stretch\n    The sides o' th' world- against all colour here\n    Did put the yoke upon's; which to shake of\n    Becomes a warlike people, whom we reckon\n    Ourselves to be.\n  CLOTEN. We do.\n  CYMBELINE. Say then to Caesar,\n    Our ancestor was that Mulmutius which\n    Ordain'd our laws- whose use the sword of Caesar\n    Hath too much mangled; whose repair and franchise\n    Shall, by the power we hold, be our good deed,\n    Though Rome be therefore angry. Mulmutius made our laws,\n    Who was the first of Britain which did put\n    His brows within a golden crown, and call'd\n    Himself a king.\n  LUCIUS. I am sorry, Cymbeline,\n    That I am to pronounce Augustus Caesar-\n    Caesar, that hath moe kings his servants than\n    Thyself domestic officers- thine enemy.\n    Receive it from me, then: war and confusion\n    In Caesar's name pronounce I 'gainst thee; look\n    For fury not to be resisted. Thus defied,\n    I thank thee for myself.\n  CYMBELINE. Thou art welcome, Caius.\n    Thy Caesar knighted me; my youth I spent\n    Much under him; of him I gather'd honour,\n    Which he to seek of me again, perforce,\n    Behoves me keep at utterance. I am perfect\n    That the Pannonians and Dalmatians for\n    Their liberties are now in arms, a precedent\n    Which not to read would show the Britons cold;\n    So Caesar shall not find them.\n  LUCIUS. Let proof speak.\n  CLOTEN. His majesty bids you welcome. Make pastime with us a day or\n    two, or longer. If you seek us afterwards in other terms, you\n    shall find us in our salt-water girdle. If you beat us out of it,\n    it is yours; if you fall in the adventure, our crows shall fare\n    the better for you; and there's an end.\n  LUCIUS. So, sir.\n  CYMBELINE. I know your master's pleasure, and he mine;\n    All the remain is, welcome.                           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBritain. Another room in CYMBELINE'S palace\n\nEnter PISANIO reading of a letter\n\n  PISANIO. How? of adultery? Wherefore write you not\n    What monsters her accuse? Leonatus!\n    O master, what a strange infection\n    Is fall'n into thy ear! What false Italian-\n    As poisonous-tongu'd as handed- hath prevail'd\n    On thy too ready hearing? Disloyal? No.\n    She's punish'd for her truth, and undergoes,\n    More goddess-like than wife-like, such assaults\n    As would take in some virtue. O my master!\n    Thy mind to her is now as low as were\n    Thy fortunes. How? that I should murder her?\n    Upon the love, and truth, and vows, which I\n    Have made to thy command? I, her? Her blood?\n    If it be so to do good service, never\n    Let me be counted serviceable. How look I\n    That I should seem to lack humanity\n    So much as this fact comes to? [Reads] 'Do't. The letter\n    That I have sent her, by her own command\n    Shall give thee opportunity.' O damn'd paper,\n    Black as the ink that's on thee! Senseless bauble,\n    Art thou a fedary for this act, and look'st\n    So virgin-like without? Lo, here she comes.\n\n                      Enter IMOGEN\n\n    I am ignorant in what I am commanded.\n  IMOGEN. How now, Pisanio!\n  PISANIO. Madam, here is a letter from my lord.\n  IMOGEN. Who? thy lord? That is my lord- Leonatus?\n    O, learn'd indeed were that astronomer\n    That knew the stars as I his characters-\n    He'd lay the future open. You good gods,\n    Let what is here contain'd relish of love,\n    Of my lord's health, of his content; yet not\n    That we two are asunder- let that grieve him!\n    Some griefs are med'cinable; that is one of them,\n    For it doth physic love- of his content,\n    All but in that. Good wax, thy leave. Blest be\n    You bees that make these locks of counsel! Lovers\n    And men in dangerous bonds pray not alike;\n    Though forfeiters you cast in prison, yet\n    You clasp young Cupid's tables. Good news, gods!\n                                                         [Reads]\n    'Justice and your father's wrath, should he take me in his\n    dominion, could not be so cruel to me as you, O the dearest of\n    creatures, would even renew me with your eyes. Take notice that I\n    am in Cambria, at Milford Haven. What your own love will out of\n    this advise you, follow. So he wishes you all happiness that\n    remains loyal to his vow, and your increasing in love\n                                            LEONATUS POSTHUMUS.'\n\n    O for a horse with wings! Hear'st thou, Pisanio?\n    He is at Milford Haven. Read, and tell me\n    How far 'tis thither. If one of mean affairs\n    May plod it in a week, why may not I\n    Glide thither in a day? Then, true Pisanio-\n    Who long'st like me to see thy lord, who long'st-\n    O, let me 'bate!- but not like me, yet long'st,\n    But in a fainter kind- O, not like me,\n    For mine's beyond beyond!-say, and speak thick-\n    Love's counsellor should fill the bores of hearing\n    To th' smothering of the sense- how far it is\n    To this same blessed Milford. And by th' way\n    Tell me how Wales was made so happy as\n    T' inherit such a haven. But first of all,\n    How we may steal from hence; and for the gap\n    That we shall make in time from our hence-going\n    And our return, to excuse. But first, how get hence.\n    Why should excuse be born or ere begot?\n    We'll talk of that hereafter. Prithee speak,\n    How many score of miles may we well ride\n    'Twixt hour and hour?\n  PISANIO. One score 'twixt sun and sun,\n    Madam, 's enough for you, and too much too.\n  IMOGEN. Why, one that rode to's execution, man,\n    Could never go so slow. I have heard of riding wagers\n    Where horses have been nimbler than the sands\n    That run i' th' clock's behalf. But this is fool'ry.\n    Go bid my woman feign a sickness; say\n    She'll home to her father; and provide me presently\n    A riding suit, no costlier than would fit\n    A franklin's huswife.\n  PISANIO. Madam, you're best consider.\n  IMOGEN. I see before me, man. Nor here, nor here,\n    Nor what ensues, but have a fog in them\n    That I cannot look through. Away, I prithee;\n    Do as I bid thee. There's no more to say;\n    Accessible is none but Milford way.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nWales. A mountainous country with a cave\n\nEnter from the cave BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS\n\n  BELARIUS. A goodly day not to keep house with such\n    Whose roof's as low as ours! Stoop, boys; this gate\n    Instructs you how t' adore the heavens, and bows you\n    To a morning's holy office. The gates of monarchs\n    Are arch'd so high that giants may jet through\n    And keep their impious turbans on without\n    Good morrow to the sun. Hail, thou fair heaven!\n    We house i' th' rock, yet use thee not so hardly\n    As prouder livers do.\n  GUIDERIUS. Hail, heaven!\n  ARVIRAGUS. Hail, heaven!\n  BELARIUS. Now for our mountain sport. Up to yond hill,\n    Your legs are young; I'll tread these flats. Consider,\n    When you above perceive me like a crow,\n    That it is place which lessens and sets off;\n    And you may then revolve what tales I have told you\n    Of courts, of princes, of the tricks in war.\n    This service is not service so being done,\n    But being so allow'd. To apprehend thus\n    Draws us a profit from all things we see,\n    And often to our comfort shall we find\n    The sharded beetle in a safer hold\n    Than is the full-wing'd eagle. O, this life\n    Is nobler than attending for a check,\n    Richer than doing nothing for a bribe,\n    Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk:\n    Such gain the cap of him that makes him fine,\n    Yet keeps his book uncross'd. No life to ours!\n  GUIDERIUS. Out of your proof you speak. We, poor unfledg'd,\n    Have never wing'd from view o' th' nest, nor know not\n    What air's from home. Haply this life is best,\n    If quiet life be best; sweeter to you\n    That have a sharper known; well corresponding\n    With your stiff age. But unto us it is\n    A cell of ignorance, travelling abed,\n    A prison for a debtor that not dares\n    To stride a limit.\n  ARVIRAGUS. What should we speak of\n    When we are old as you? When we shall hear\n    The rain and wind beat dark December, how,\n    In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse.\n    The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing;\n    We are beastly: subtle as the fox for prey,\n    Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat.\n    Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage\n    We make a choir, as doth the prison'd bird,\n    And sing our bondage freely.\n  BELARIUS. How you speak!\n    Did you but know the city's usuries,\n    And felt them knowingly- the art o' th' court,\n    As hard to leave as keep, whose top to climb\n    Is certain falling, or so slipp'ry that\n    The fear's as bad as falling; the toil o' th' war,\n    A pain that only seems to seek out danger\n    I' th'name of fame and honour, which dies i' th'search,\n    And hath as oft a sland'rous epitaph\n    As record of fair act; nay, many times,\n    Doth ill deserve by doing well; what's worse-\n    Must curtsy at the censure. O, boys, this story\n    The world may read in me; my body's mark'd\n    With Roman swords, and my report was once\n    first with the best of note. Cymbeline lov'd me;\n    And when a soldier was the theme, my name\n    Was not far off. Then was I as a tree\n    Whose boughs did bend with fruit; but in one night\n    A storm, or robbery, call it what you will,\n    Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves,\n    And left me bare to weather.\n  GUIDERIUS. Uncertain favour!\n  BELARIUS. My fault being nothing- as I have told you oft-\n    But that two villains, whose false oaths prevail'd\n    Before my perfect honour, swore to Cymbeline\n    I was confederate with the Romans. So\n    Follow'd my banishment, and this twenty years\n    This rock and these demesnes have been my world,\n    Where I have liv'd at honest freedom, paid\n    More pious debts to heaven than in all\n    The fore-end of my time. But up to th' mountains!\n    This is not hunters' language. He that strikes\n    The venison first shall be the lord o' th' feast;\n    To him the other two shall minister;\n    And we will fear no poison, which attends\n    In place of greater state. I'll meet you in the valleys.\n                                  Exeunt GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS\n    How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature!\n    These boys know little they are sons to th' King,\n    Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive.\n    They think they are mine; and though train'd up thus meanly\n    I' th' cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit\n    The roofs of palaces, and nature prompts them\n    In simple and low things to prince it much\n    Beyond the trick of others. This Polydore,\n    The heir of Cymbeline and Britain, who\n    The King his father call'd Guiderius- Jove!\n    When on my three-foot stool I sit and tell\n    The warlike feats I have done, his spirits fly out\n    Into my story; say 'Thus mine enemy fell,\n    And thus I set my foot on's neck'; even then\n    The princely blood flows in his cheek, he sweats,\n    Strains his young nerves, and puts himself in posture\n    That acts my words. The younger brother, Cadwal,\n    Once Arviragus, in as like a figure\n    Strikes life into my speech, and shows much more\n    His own conceiving. Hark, the game is rous'd!\n    O Cymbeline, heaven and my conscience knows\n    Thou didst unjustly banish me! Whereon,\n    At three and two years old, I stole these babes,\n    Thinking to bar thee of succession as\n    Thou refts me of my lands. Euriphile,\n    Thou wast their nurse; they took thee for their mother,\n    And every day do honour to her grave.\n    Myself, Belarius, that am Morgan call'd,\n    They take for natural father. The game is up.           Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nWales, near Milford Haven\n\nEnter PISANIO and IMOGEN\n\n  IMOGEN. Thou told'st me, when we came from horse, the place\n    Was near at hand. Ne'er long'd my mother so\n    To see me first as I have now. Pisanio! Man!\n    Where is Posthumus? What is in thy mind\n    That makes thee stare thus? Wherefore breaks that sigh\n    From th' inward of thee? One but painted thus\n    Would be interpreted a thing perplex'd\n    Beyond self-explication. Put thyself\n    Into a haviour of less fear, ere wildness\n    Vanquish my staider senses. What's the matter?\n    Why tender'st thou that paper to me with\n    A look untender! If't be summer news,\n    Smile to't before; if winterly, thou need'st\n    But keep that count'nance still. My husband's hand?\n    That drug-damn'd Italy hath out-craftied him,\n    And he's at some hard point. Speak, man; thy tongue\n    May take off some extremity, which to read\n    Would be even mortal to me.\n  PISANIO. Please you read,\n    And you shall find me, wretched man, a thing\n    The most disdain'd of fortune.\n  IMOGEN. [Reads] 'Thy mistress, Pisanio, hath play'd the strumpet in\n    my bed, the testimonies whereof lie bleeding in me. I speak not\n    out of weak surmises, but from proof as strong as my grief and as\n    certain as I expect my revenge. That part thou, Pisanio, must act\n    for me, if thy faith be not tainted with the breach of hers. Let\n    thine own hands take away her life; I shall give thee opportunity\n    at Milford Haven; she hath my letter for the purpose; where, if\n    thou fear to strike, and to make me certain it is done, thou art\n    the pander to her dishonour, and equally to me disloyal.'\n  PISANIO. What shall I need to draw my sword? The paper\n    Hath cut her throat already. No, 'tis slander,\n    Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue\n    Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath\n    Rides on the posting winds and doth belie\n    All corners of the world. Kings, queens, and states,\n    Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave,\n    This viperous slander enters. What cheer, madam?\n  IMOGEN. False to his bed? What is it to be false?\n    To lie in watch there, and to think on him?\n    To weep twixt clock and clock? If sleep charge nature,\n    To break it with a fearful dream of him,\n    And cry myself awake? That's false to's bed,\n    Is it?\n  PISANIO. Alas, good lady!\n  IMOGEN. I false! Thy conscience witness! Iachimo,\n    Thou didst accuse him of incontinency;\n    Thou then look'dst like a villain; now, methinks,\n    Thy favour's good enough. Some jay of Italy,\n    Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him.\n    Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion,\n    And for I am richer than to hang by th' walls\n    I must be ripp'd. To pieces with me! O,\n    Men's vows are women's traitors! All good seeming,\n    By thy revolt, O husband, shall be thought\n    Put on for villainy; not born where't grows,\n    But worn a bait for ladies.\n  PISANIO. Good madam, hear me.\n  IMOGEN. True honest men being heard, like false Aeneas,\n    Were, in his time, thought false; and Sinon's weeping\n    Did scandal many a holy tear, took pity\n    From most true wretchedness. So thou, Posthumus,\n    Wilt lay the leaven on all proper men:\n    Goodly and gallant shall be false and perjur'd\n    From thy great fail. Come, fellow, be thou honest;\n    Do thou thy master's bidding; when thou seest him,\n    A little witness my obedience. Look!\n    I draw the sword myself; take it, and hit\n    The innocent mansion of my love, my heart.\n    Fear not; 'tis empty of all things but grief;\n    Thy master is not there, who was indeed\n    The riches of it. Do his bidding; strike.\n    Thou mayst be valiant in a better cause,\n    But now thou seem'st a coward.\n  PISANIO. Hence, vile instrument!\n    Thou shalt not damn my hand.\n  IMOGEN. Why, I must die;\n    And if I do not by thy hand, thou art\n    No servant of thy master's. Against self-slaughter\n    There is a prohibition so divine\n    That cravens my weak hand. Come, here's my heart-\n    Something's afore't. Soft, soft! we'll no defence!-\n    Obedient as the scabbard. What is here?\n    The scriptures of the loyal Leonatus\n    All turn'd to heresy? Away, away,\n    Corrupters of my faith! you shall no more\n    Be stomachers to my heart. Thus may poor fools\n    Believe false teachers; though those that are betray'd\n    Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor\n    Stands in worse case of woe. And thou, Posthumus,\n    That didst set up my disobedience 'gainst the King\n    My father, and make me put into contempt the suits\n    Of princely fellows, shalt hereafter find\n    It is no act of common passage but\n    A strain of rareness; and I grieve myself\n    To think, when thou shalt be disedg'd by her\n    That now thou tirest on, how thy memory\n    Will then be pang'd by me. Prithee dispatch.\n    The lamp entreats the butcher. Where's thy knife?\n    Thou art too slow to do thy master's bidding,\n    When I desire it too.\n  PISANIO. O gracious lady,\n    Since I receiv'd command to do this busines\n    I have not slept one wink.\n  IMOGEN. Do't, and to bed then.\n  PISANIO. I'll wake mine eyeballs first.\n  IMOGEN. Wherefore then\n    Didst undertake it? Why hast thou abus'd\n    So many miles with a pretence? This place?\n    Mine action and thine own? our horses' labour?\n    The time inviting thee? the perturb'd court,\n    For my being absent?- whereunto I never\n    Purpose return. Why hast thou gone so far\n    To be unbent when thou hast ta'en thy stand,\n    Th' elected deer before thee?\n  PISANIO. But to win time\n    To lose so bad employment, in the which\n    I have consider'd of a course. Good lady,\n    Hear me with patience.\n  IMOGEN. Talk thy tongue weary- speak.\n    I have heard I am a strumpet, and mine ear,\n    Therein false struck, can take no greater wound,\n    Nor tent to bottom that. But speak.\n  PISANIO. Then, madam,\n    I thought you would not back again.\n  IMOGEN. Most like-\n    Bringing me here to kill me.\n  PISANIO. Not so, neither;\n    But if I were as wise as honest, then\n    My purpose would prove well. It cannot be\n    But that my master is abus'd. Some villain,\n    Ay, and singular in his art, hath done you both\n    This cursed injury.\n  IMOGEN. Some Roman courtezan!\n  PISANIO. No, on my life!\n    I'll give but notice you are dead, and send him\n    Some bloody sign of it, for 'tis commanded\n    I should do so. You shall be miss'd at court,\n    And that will well confirm it.\n  IMOGEN. Why, good fellow,\n    What shall I do the while? where bide? how live?\n    Or in my life what comfort, when I am\n    Dead to my husband?\n  PISANIO. If you'll back to th' court-\n  IMOGEN. No court, no father, nor no more ado\n    With that harsh, noble, simple nothing-\n    That Cloten, whose love-suit hath been to me\n    As fearful as a siege.\n  PISANIO. If not at court,\n    Then not in Britain must you bide.\n  IMOGEN. Where then?\n    Hath Britain all the sun that shines? Day, night,\n    Are they not but in Britain? I' th' world's volume\n    Our Britain seems as of it, but not in't;\n    In a great pool a swan's nest. Prithee think\n    There's livers out of Britain.\n  PISANIO. I am most glad\n    You think of other place. Th' ambassador,\n  LUCIUS the Roman, comes to Milford Haven\n    To-morrow. Now, if you could wear a mind\n    Dark as your fortune is, and but disguise\n    That which t' appear itself must not yet be\n    But by self-danger, you should tread a course\n    Pretty and full of view; yea, happily, near\n    The residence of Posthumus; so nigh, at least,\n    That though his actions were not visible, yet\n    Report should render him hourly to your ear\n    As truly as he moves.\n  IMOGEN. O! for such means,\n    Though peril to my modesty, not death on't,\n    I would adventure.\n  PISANIO. Well then, here's the point:\n    You must forget to be a woman; change\n    Command into obedience; fear and niceness-\n    The handmaids of all women, or, more truly,\n    Woman it pretty self- into a waggish courage;\n    Ready in gibes, quick-answer'd, saucy, and\n    As quarrelous as the weasel. Nay, you must\n    Forget that rarest treasure of your cheek,\n    Exposing it- but, O, the harder heart!\n    Alack, no remedy!- to the greedy touch\n    Of common-kissing Titan, and forget\n    Your laboursome and dainty trims wherein\n    You made great Juno angry.\n  IMOGEN. Nay, be brief;\n    I see into thy end, and am almost\n    A man already.\n  PISANIO. First, make yourself but like one.\n    Fore-thinking this, I have already fit-\n    'Tis in my cloak-bag- doublet, hat, hose, all\n    That answer to them. Would you, in their serving,\n    And with what imitation you can borrow\n    From youth of such a season, fore noble Lucius\n    Present yourself, desire his service, tell him\n    Wherein you're happy- which will make him know\n    If that his head have ear in music; doubtless\n    With joy he will embrace you; for he's honourable,\n    And, doubling that, most holy. Your means abroad-\n    You have me, rich; and I will never fail\n    Beginning nor supplyment.\n  IMOGEN. Thou art all the comfort\n    The gods will diet me with. Prithee away!\n    There's more to be consider'd; but we'll even\n    All that good time will give us. This attempt\n    I am soldier to, and will abide it with\n    A prince's courage. Away, I prithee.\n  PISANIO. Well, madam, we must take a short farewell,\n    Lest, being miss'd, I be suspected of\n    Your carriage from the court. My noble mistress,\n    Here is a box; I had it from the Queen.\n    What's in't is precious. If you are sick at sea\n    Or stomach-qualm'd at land, a dram of this\n    Will drive away distemper. To some shade,\n    And fit you to your manhood. May the gods\n    Direct you to the best!\n  IMOGEN. Amen. I thank thee.                   Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nBritain. CYMBELINE'S palace\n\nEnter CYMBELINE, QUEEN, CLOTEN, LUCIUS, and LORDS\n\n  CYMBELINE. Thus far; and so farewell.\n  LUCIUS. Thanks, royal sir.\n    My emperor hath wrote; I must from hence,\n    And am right sorry that I must report ye\n    My master's enemy.\n  CYMBELINE. Our subjects, sir,\n    Will not endure his yoke; and for ourself\n    To show less sovereignty than they, must needs\n    Appear unkinglike.\n  LUCIUS. So, sir. I desire of you\n    A conduct overland to Milford Haven.\n    Madam, all joy befall your Grace, and you!\n  CYMBELINE. My lords, you are appointed for that office;\n    The due of honour in no point omit.\n    So farewell, noble Lucius.\n  LUCIUS. Your hand, my lord.\n  CLOTEN. Receive it friendly; but from this time forth\n    I wear it as your enemy.\n  LUCIUS. Sir, the event\n    Is yet to name the winner. Fare you well.\n  CYMBELINE. Leave not the worthy Lucius, good my lords,\n    Till he have cross'd the Severn. Happiness!\n                                         Exeunt LUCIUS and LORDS\n  QUEEN. He goes hence frowning; but it honours us\n    That we have given him cause.\n  CLOTEN. 'Tis all the better;\n    Your valiant Britons have their wishes in it.\n  CYMBELINE. Lucius hath wrote already to the Emperor\n    How it goes here. It fits us therefore ripely\n    Our chariots and our horsemen be in readiness.\n    The pow'rs that he already hath in Gallia\n    Will soon be drawn to head, from whence he moves\n    His war for Britain.\n  QUEEN. 'Tis not sleepy business,\n    But must be look'd to speedily and strongly.\n  CYMBELINE. Our expectation that it would be thus\n    Hath made us forward. But, my gentle queen,\n    Where is our daughter? She hath not appear'd\n    Before the Roman, nor to us hath tender'd\n    The duty of the day. She looks us like\n    A thing more made of malice than of duty;\n    We have noted it. Call her before us, for\n    We have been too slight in sufferance.      Exit a MESSENGER\n  QUEEN. Royal sir,\n    Since the exile of Posthumus, most retir'd\n    Hath her life been; the cure whereof, my lord,\n    'Tis time must do. Beseech your Majesty,\n    Forbear sharp speeches to her; she's a lady\n    So tender of rebukes that words are strokes,\n    And strokes death to her.\n\n                 Re-enter MESSENGER\n\n  CYMBELINE. Where is she, sir? How\n    Can her contempt be answer'd?\n  MESSENGER. Please you, sir,\n    Her chambers are all lock'd, and there's no answer\n    That will be given to th' loud of noise we make.\n  QUEEN. My lord, when last I went to visit her,\n    She pray'd me to excuse her keeping close;\n    Whereto constrain'd by her infirmity\n    She should that duty leave unpaid to you\n    Which daily she was bound to proffer. This\n    She wish'd me to make known; but our great court\n    Made me to blame in memory.\n  CYMBELINE. Her doors lock'd?\n    Not seen of late? Grant, heavens, that which I fear\n    Prove false!                                            Exit\n  QUEEN. Son, I say, follow the King.\n  CLOTEN. That man of hers, Pisanio, her old servant,\n    I have not seen these two days.\n  QUEEN. Go, look after.                             Exit CLOTEN\n    Pisanio, thou that stand'st so for Posthumus!\n    He hath a drug of mine. I pray his absence\n    Proceed by swallowing that; for he believes\n    It is a thing most precious. But for her,\n    Where is she gone? Haply despair hath seiz'd her;\n    Or, wing'd with fervour of her love, she's flown\n    To her desir'd Posthumus. Gone she is\n    To death or to dishonour, and my end\n    Can make good use of either. She being down,\n    I have the placing of the British crown.\n\n                   Re-enter CLOTEN\n\n    How now, my son?\n  CLOTEN. 'Tis certain she is fled.\n    Go in and cheer the King. He rages; none\n    Dare come about him.\n  QUEEN. All the better. May\n    This night forestall him of the coming day!             Exit\n  CLOTEN. I love and hate her; for she's fair and royal,\n    And that she hath all courtly parts more exquisite\n    Than lady, ladies, woman. From every one\n    The best she hath, and she, of all compounded,\n    Outsells them all. I love her therefore; but\n    Disdaining me and throwing favours on\n    The low Posthumus slanders so her judgment\n    That what's else rare is chok'd; and in that point\n    I will conclude to hate her, nay, indeed,\n    To be reveng'd upon her. For when fools\n    Shall-\n\n                    Enter PISANIO\n\n    Who is here? What, are you packing, sirrah?\n    Come hither. Ah, you precious pander! Villain,\n    Where is thy lady? In a word, or else\n    Thou art straightway with the fiends.\n  PISANIO. O good my lord!\n  CLOTEN. Where is thy lady? or, by Jupiter-\n    I will not ask again. Close villain,\n    I'll have this secret from thy heart, or rip\n    Thy heart to find it. Is she with Posthumus?\n    From whose so many weights of baseness cannot\n    A dram of worth be drawn.\n  PISANIO. Alas, my lord,\n    How can she be with him? When was she miss'd?\n    He is in Rome.\n  CLOTEN. Where is she, sir? Come nearer.\n    No farther halting! Satisfy me home\n    What is become of her.\n  PISANIO. O my all-worthy lord!\n  CLOTEN. All-worthy villain!\n    Discover where thy mistress is at once,\n    At the next word. No more of 'worthy lord'!\n    Speak, or thy silence on the instant is\n    Thy condemnation and thy death.\n  PISANIO. Then, sir,\n    This paper is the history of my knowledge\n    Touching her flight.                   [Presenting a letter]\n  CLOTEN. Let's see't. I will pursue her\n    Even to Augustus' throne.\n  PISANIO. [Aside] Or this or perish.\n    She's far enough; and what he learns by this\n    May prove his travel, not her danger.\n  CLOTEN. Humh!\n  PISANIO. [Aside] I'll write to my lord she's dead. O Imogen,\n    Safe mayst thou wander, safe return again!\n  CLOTEN. Sirrah, is this letter true?\n  PISANIO. Sir, as I think.\n  CLOTEN. It is Posthumus' hand; I know't. Sirrah, if thou wouldst\n    not be a villain, but do me true service, undergo those\n    employments wherein I should have cause to use thee with a\n    serious industry- that is, what villainy soe'er I bid thee do, to\n    perform it directly and truly- I would think thee an honest man;\n    thou shouldst neither want my means for thy relief nor my voice\n    for thy preferment.\n  PISANIO. Well, my good lord.\n  CLOTEN. Wilt thou serve me? For since patiently and constantly thou\n    hast stuck to the bare fortune of that beggar Posthumus, thou\n    canst not, in the course of gratitude, but be a diligent follower\n    of mine. Wilt thou serve me?\n  PISANIO. Sir, I will.\n  CLOTEN. Give me thy hand; here's my purse. Hast any of thy late\n    master's garments in thy possession?\n  PISANIO. I have, my lord, at my lodging, the same suit he wore when\n    he took leave of my lady and mistress.\n  CLOTEN. The first service thou dost me, fetch that suit hither. Let\n    it be thy first service; go.\n  PISANIO. I shall, my lord.                                Exit\n  CLOTEN. Meet thee at Milford Haven! I forgot to ask him one thing;\n    I'll remember't anon. Even there, thou villain Posthumus, will I\n    kill thee. I would these garments were come. She said upon a\n    time- the bitterness of it I now belch from my heart- that she\n    held the very garment of Posthumus in more respect than my noble\n    and natural person, together with the adornment of my qualities.\n    With that suit upon my back will I ravish her; first kill him,\n    and in her eyes. There shall she see my valour, which will then\n    be a torment to her contempt. He on the ground, my speech of\n    insultment ended on his dead body, and when my lust hath dined-\n    which, as I say, to vex her I will execute in the clothes that\n    she so prais'd- to the court I'll knock her back, foot her home\n    again. She hath despis'd me rejoicingly, and I'll be merry in my\n    revenge.\n\n                Re-enter PISANIO, with the clothes\n\n    Be those the garments?\n  PISANIO. Ay, my noble lord.\n  CLOTEN. How long is't since she went to Milford Haven?\n  PISANIO. She can scarce be there yet.\n  CLOTEN. Bring this apparel to my chamber; that is the second thing\n    that I have commanded thee. The third is that thou wilt be a\n    voluntary mute to my design. Be but duteous and true, preferment\n    shall tender itself to thee. My revenge is now at Milford, would\n    I had wings to follow it! Come, and be true.            Exit\n  PISANIO. Thou bid'st me to my loss; for true to thee\n    Were to prove false, which I will never be,\n    To him that is most true. To Milford go,\n    And find not her whom thou pursuest. Flow, flow,\n    You heavenly blessings, on her! This fool's speed\n    Be cross'd with slowness! Labour be his meed!           Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nWales. Before the cave of BELARIUS\n\nEnter IMOGEN alone, in boy's clothes\n\n  IMOGEN. I see a man's life is a tedious one.\n    I have tir'd myself, and for two nights together\n    Have made the ground my bed. I should be sick\n    But that my resolution helps me. Milford,\n    When from the mountain-top Pisanio show'd thee,\n    Thou wast within a ken. O Jove! I think\n    Foundations fly the wretched; such, I mean,\n    Where they should be reliev'd. Two beggars told me\n    I could not miss my way. Will poor folks lie,\n    That have afflictions on them, knowing 'tis\n    A punishment or trial? Yes; no wonder,\n    When rich ones scarce tell true. To lapse in fulness\n    Is sorer than to lie for need; and falsehood\n    Is worse in kings than beggars. My dear lord!\n    Thou art one o' th' false ones. Now I think on thee\n    My hunger's gone; but even before, I was\n    At point to sink for food. But what is this?\n    Here is a path to't; 'tis some savage hold.\n    I were best not call; I dare not call. Yet famine,\n    Ere clean it o'erthrow nature, makes it valiant.\n    Plenty and peace breeds cowards; hardness ever\n    Of hardiness is mother. Ho! who's here?\n    If anything that's civil, speak; if savage,\n    Take or lend. Ho! No answer? Then I'll enter.\n    Best draw my sword; and if mine enemy\n    But fear the sword, like me, he'll scarcely look on't.\n    Such a foe, good heavens!                 Exit into the cave\n\n            Enter BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS\n\n  BELARIUS. You, Polydore, have prov'd best woodman and\n    Are master of the feast. Cadwal and I\n    Will play the cook and servant; 'tis our match.\n    The sweat of industry would dry and die\n    But for the end it works to. Come, our stomachs\n    Will make what's homely savoury; weariness\n    Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth\n    Finds the down pillow hard. Now, peace be here,\n    Poor house, that keep'st thyself!\n  GUIDERIUS. I am thoroughly weary.\n  ARVIRAGUS. I am weak with toil, yet strong in appetite.\n  GUIDERIUS. There is cold meat i' th' cave; we'll browse on that\n    Whilst what we have kill'd be cook'd.\n  BELARIUS. [Looking into the cave] Stay, come not in.\n    But that it eats our victuals, I should think\n    Here were a fairy.\n  GUIDERIUS. What's the matter, sir?\n  BELARIUS.. By Jupiter, an angel! or, if not,\n    An earthly paragon! Behold divineness\n    No elder than a boy!\n\n                       Re-enter IMOGEN\n\n  IMOGEN. Good masters, harm me not.\n    Before I enter'd here I call'd, and thought\n    To have begg'd or bought what I have took. Good troth,\n    I have stol'n nought; nor would not though I had found\n    Gold strew'd i' th' floor. Here's money for my meat.\n    I would have left it on the board, so soon\n    As I had made my meal, and parted\n    With pray'rs for the provider.\n  GUIDERIUS. Money, youth?\n  ARVIRAGUS. All gold and silver rather turn to dirt,\n    As 'tis no better reckon'd but of those\n    Who worship dirty gods.\n  IMOGEN. I see you're angry.\n    Know, if you kill me for my fault, I should\n    Have died had I not made it.\n  BELARIUS. Whither bound?\n  IMOGEN. To Milford Haven.\n  BELARIUS. What's your name?\n  IMOGEN. Fidele, sir. I have a kinsman who\n    Is bound for Italy; he embark'd at Milford;\n    To whom being going, almost spent with hunger,\n    I am fall'n in this offence.\n  BELARIUS. Prithee, fair youth,\n    Think us no churls, nor measure our good minds\n    By this rude place we live in. Well encounter'd!\n    'Tis almost night; you shall have better cheer\n    Ere you depart, and thanks to stay and eat it.\n    Boys, bid him welcome.\n  GUIDERIUS. Were you a woman, youth,\n    I should woo hard but be your groom. In honesty\n    I bid for you as I'd buy.\n  ARVIRAGUS. I'll make't my comfort\n    He is a man. I'll love him as my brother;\n    And such a welcome as I'd give to him\n    After long absence, such is yours. Most welcome!\n    Be sprightly, for you fall 'mongst friends.\n  IMOGEN. 'Mongst friends,\n    If brothers. [Aside] Would it had been so that they\n    Had been my father's sons! Then had my prize\n    Been less, and so more equal ballasting\n    To thee, Posthumus.\n  BELARIUS. He wrings at some distress.\n  GUIDERIUS. Would I could free't!\n  ARVIRAGUS. Or I, whate'er it be,\n    What pain it cost, what danger! Gods!\n  BELARIUS. [Whispering] Hark, boys.\n  IMOGEN. [Aside] Great men,\n    That had a court no bigger than this cave,\n    That did attend themselves, and had the virtue\n    Which their own conscience seal'd them, laying by\n    That nothing-gift of differing multitudes,\n    Could not out-peer these twain. Pardon me, gods!\n    I'd change my sex to be companion with them,\n    Since Leonatus' false.\n  BELARIUS. It shall be so.\n    Boys, we'll go dress our hunt. Fair youth, come in.\n    Discourse is heavy, fasting; when we have supp'd,\n    We'll mannerly demand thee of thy story,\n    So far as thou wilt speak it.\n  GUIDERIUS. Pray draw near.\n  ARVIRAGUS. The night to th' owl and morn to th' lark less welcome.\n  IMOGEN. Thanks, sir.\n  ARVIRAGUS. I pray draw near.                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nRome. A public place\n\nEnter two ROMAN SENATORS and TRIBUNES\n\n  FIRST SENATOR. This is the tenour of the Emperor's writ:\n    That since the common men are now in action\n    'Gainst the Pannonians and Dalmatians,\n    And that the legions now in Gallia are\n    Full weak to undertake our wars against\n    The fall'n-off Britons, that we do incite\n    The gentry to this business. He creates\n    Lucius proconsul; and to you, the tribunes,\n    For this immediate levy, he commands\n    His absolute commission. Long live Caesar!\n  TRIBUNE. Is Lucius general of the forces?\n  SECOND SENATOR. Ay.\n  TRIBUNE. Remaining now in Gallia?\n  FIRST SENATOR. With those legions\n    Which I have spoke of, whereunto your levy\n    Must be supplyant. The words of your commission\n    Will tie you to the numbers and the time\n    Of their dispatch.\n  TRIBUNE. We will discharge our duty.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nWales. Near the cave of BELARIUS\n\nEnter CLOTEN alone\n\n  CLOTEN. I am near to th' place where they should meet, if Pisanio\n    have mapp'd it truly. How fit his garments serve me! Why should\n    his mistress, who was made by him that made the tailor, not be\n    fit too? The rather- saving reverence of the word- for 'tis said\n    a woman's fitness comes by fits. Therein I must play the workman.\n    I dare speak it to myself, for it is not vain-glory for a man and\n    his glass to confer in his own chamber- I mean, the lines of my\n    body are as well drawn as his; no less young, more strong, not\n    beneath him in fortunes, beyond him in the advantage of the time,\n    above him in birth, alike conversant in general services, and\n    more remarkable in single oppositions. Yet this imperceiverant\n    thing loves him in my despite. What mortality is! Posthumus, thy\n    head, which now is growing upon thy shoulders, shall within this\n    hour be off; thy mistress enforced; thy garments cut to pieces\n    before her face; and all this done, spurn her home to her father,\n    who may, haply, be a little angry for my so rough usage; but my\n    mother, having power of his testiness, shall turn all into my\n    commendations. My horse is tied up safe. Out, sword, and to a\n    sore purpose! Fortune, put them into my hand. This is the very\n    description of their meeting-place; and the fellow dares not\n    deceive me.                                             Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nWales. Before the cave of BELARIUS\n\nEnter, from the cave, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, and IMOGEN\n\n  BELARIUS. [To IMOGEN] You are not well. Remain here in the cave;\n    We'll come to you after hunting.\n  ARVIRAGUS. [To IMOGEN] Brother, stay here.\n    Are we not brothers?\n  IMOGEN. So man and man should be;\n    But clay and clay differs in dignity,\n    Whose dust is both alike. I am very sick.\n  GUIDERIUS. Go you to hunting; I'll abide with him.\n  IMOGEN. So sick I am not, yet I am not well;\n    But not so citizen a wanton as\n    To seem to die ere sick. So please you, leave me;\n    Stick to your journal course. The breach of custom\n    Is breach of all. I am ill, but your being by me\n    Cannot amend me; society is no comfort\n    To one not sociable. I am not very sick,\n    Since I can reason of it. Pray you trust me here.\n    I'll rob none but myself; and let me die,\n    Stealing so poorly.\n  GUIDERIUS. I love thee; I have spoke it.\n    How much the quantity, the weight as much\n    As I do love my father.\n  BELARIUS. What? how? how?\n  ARVIRAGUS. If it be sin to say so, sir, I yoke me\n    In my good brother's fault. I know not why\n    I love this youth, and I have heard you say\n    Love's reason's without reason. The bier at door,\n    And a demand who is't shall die, I'd say\n    'My father, not this youth.'\n  BELARIUS. [Aside] O noble strain!\n    O worthiness of nature! breed of greatness!\n    Cowards father cowards and base things sire base.\n    Nature hath meal and bran, contempt and grace.\n    I'm not their father; yet who this should be\n    Doth miracle itself, lov'd before me.-\n    'Tis the ninth hour o' th' morn.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Brother, farewell.\n  IMOGEN. I wish ye sport.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Your health. [To BELARIUS] So please you, sir.\n  IMOGEN. [Aside] These are kind creatures. Gods, what lies I have\n      heard!\n    Our courtiers say all's savage but at court.\n    Experience, O, thou disprov'st report!\n    Th' imperious seas breed monsters; for the dish,\n    Poor tributary rivers as sweet fish.\n    I am sick still; heart-sick. Pisanio,\n    I'll now taste of thy drug.                  [Swallows some]\n  GUIDERIUS. I could not stir him.\n    He said he was gentle, but unfortunate;\n    Dishonestly afflicted, but yet honest.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Thus did he answer me; yet said hereafter\n    I might know more.\n  BELARIUS. To th' field, to th' field!\n    We'll leave you for this time. Go in and rest.\n  ARVIRAGUS. We'll not be long away.\n  BELARIUS. Pray be not sick,\n    For you must be our huswife.\n  IMOGEN. Well, or ill,\n    I am bound to you.\n  BELARIUS. And shalt be ever.         Exit IMOGEN into the cave\n    This youth, howe'er distress'd, appears he hath had\n    Good ancestors.\n  ARVIRAGUS. How angel-like he sings!\n  GUIDERIUS. But his neat cookery! He cut our roots in characters,\n    And sauc'd our broths as Juno had been sick,\n    And he her dieter.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Nobly he yokes\n    A smiling with a sigh, as if the sigh\n    Was that it was for not being such a smile;\n    The smile mocking the sigh that it would fly\n    From so divine a temple to commix\n    With winds that sailors rail at.\n  GUIDERIUS. I do note\n    That grief and patience, rooted in him both,\n    Mingle their spurs together.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Grow patience!\n    And let the stinking elder, grief, untwine\n    His perishing root with the increasing vine!\n  BELARIUS. It is great morning. Come, away! Who's there?\n\n                      Enter CLOTEN\n\n  CLOTEN. I cannot find those runagates; that villain\n    Hath mock'd me. I am faint.\n  BELARIUS. Those runagates?\n    Means he not us? I partly know him; 'tis\n    Cloten, the son o' th' Queen. I fear some ambush.\n    I saw him not these many years, and yet\n    I know 'tis he. We are held as outlaws. Hence!\n  GUIDERIUS. He is but one; you and my brother search\n    What companies are near. Pray you away;\n    Let me alone with him.         Exeunt BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS\n  CLOTEN. Soft! What are you\n    That fly me thus? Some villain mountaineers?\n    I have heard of such. What slave art thou?\n  GUIDERIUS. A thing\n    More slavish did I ne'er than answering\n    'A slave' without a knock.\n  CLOTEN. Thou art a robber,\n    A law-breaker, a villain. Yield thee, thief.\n  GUIDERIUS. To who? To thee? What art thou? Have not I\n    An arm as big as thine, a heart as big?\n    Thy words, I grant, are bigger, for I wear not\n    My dagger in my mouth. Say what thou art;\n    Why I should yield to thee.\n  CLOTEN. Thou villain base,\n    Know'st me not by my clothes?\n  GUIDERIUS. No, nor thy tailor, rascal,\n    Who is thy grandfather; he made those clothes,\n    Which, as it seems, make thee.\n  CLOTEN. Thou precious varlet,\n    My tailor made them not.\n  GUIDERIUS. Hence, then, and thank\n    The man that gave them thee. Thou art some fool;\n    I am loath to beat thee.\n  CLOTEN. Thou injurious thief,\n    Hear but my name, and tremble.\n  GUIDERIUS. What's thy name?\n  CLOTEN. Cloten, thou villain.\n  GUIDERIUS. Cloten, thou double villain, be thy name,\n    I cannot tremble at it. Were it toad, or adder, spider,\n    'Twould move me sooner.\n  CLOTEN. To thy further fear,\n    Nay, to thy mere confusion, thou shalt know\n    I am son to th' Queen.\n  GUIDERIUS. I'm sorry for't; not seeming\n    So worthy as thy birth.\n  CLOTEN. Art not afeard?\n  GUIDERIUS. Those that I reverence, those I fear- the wise:\n    At fools I laugh, not fear them.\n  CLOTEN. Die the death.\n    When I have slain thee with my proper hand,\n    I'll follow those that even now fled hence,\n    And on the gates of Lud's Town set your heads.\n    Yield, rustic mountaineer.                  Exeunt, fighting\n\n                Re-enter BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS\n\n  BELARIUS. No company's abroad.\n  ARVIRAGUS. None in the world; you did mistake him, sure.\n  BELARIUS. I cannot tell; long is it since I saw him,\n    But time hath nothing blurr'd those lines of favour\n    Which then he wore; the snatches in his voice,\n    And burst of speaking, were as his. I am absolute\n    'Twas very Cloten.\n  ARVIRAGUS. In this place we left them.\n    I wish my brother make good time with him,\n    You say he is so fell.\n  BELARIUS. Being scarce made up,\n    I mean to man, he had not apprehension\n    Or roaring terrors; for defect of judgment\n    Is oft the cease of fear.\n\n              Re-enter GUIDERIUS with CLOTEN'S head\n\n    But, see, thy brother.\n  GUIDERIUS. This Cloten was a fool, an empty purse;\n    There was no money in't. Not Hercules\n    Could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none;\n    Yet I not doing this, the fool had borne\n    My head as I do his.\n  BELARIUS. What hast thou done?\n  GUIDERIUS. I am perfect what: cut off one Cloten's head,\n    Son to the Queen, after his own report;\n    Who call'd me traitor, mountaineer, and swore\n    With his own single hand he'd take us in,\n    Displace our heads where- thank the gods!- they grow,\n    And set them on Lud's Town.\n  BELARIUS. We are all undone.\n  GUIDERIUS. Why, worthy father, what have we to lose\n    But that he swore to take, our lives? The law\n    Protects not us; then why should we be tender\n    To let an arrogant piece of flesh threat us,\n    Play judge and executioner all himself,\n    For we do fear the law? What company\n    Discover you abroad?\n  BELARIUS. No single soul\n    Can we set eye on, but in an safe reason\n    He must have some attendants. Though his humour\n    Was nothing but mutation- ay, and that\n    From one bad thing to worse- not frenzy, not\n    Absolute madness could so far have rav'd,\n    To bring him here alone. Although perhaps\n    It may be heard at court that such as we\n    Cave here, hunt here, are outlaws, and in time\n    May make some stronger head- the which he hearing,\n    As it is like him, might break out and swear\n    He'd fetch us in; yet is't not probable\n    To come alone, either he so undertaking\n    Or they so suffering. Then on good ground we fear,\n    If we do fear this body hath a tail\n    More perilous than the head.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Let ordinance\n    Come as the gods foresay it. Howsoe'er,\n    My brother hath done well.\n  BELARIUS. I had no mind\n    To hunt this day; the boy Fidele's sickness\n    Did make my way long forth.\n  GUIDERIUS. With his own sword,\n    Which he did wave against my throat, I have ta'en\n    His head from him. I'll throw't into the creek\n    Behind our rock, and let it to the sea\n    And tell the fishes he's the Queen's son, Cloten.\n    That's all I reck.                                      Exit\n  BELARIUS. I fear'twill be reveng'd.\n    Would, Polydore, thou hadst not done't! though valour\n    Becomes thee well enough.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Would I had done't,\n    So the revenge alone pursu'd me! Polydore,\n    I love thee brotherly, but envy much\n    Thou hast robb'd me of this deed. I would revenges,\n    That possible strength might meet, would seek us through,\n    And put us to our answer.\n  BELARIUS. Well, 'tis done.\n    We'll hunt no more to-day, nor seek for danger\n    Where there's no profit. I prithee to our rock.\n    You and Fidele play the cooks; I'll stay\n    Till hasty Polydore return, and bring him\n    To dinner presently.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Poor sick Fidele!\n    I'll willingly to him; to gain his colour\n    I'd let a parish of such Cloten's blood,\n    And praise myself for charity.                          Exit\n  BELARIUS. O thou goddess,\n    Thou divine Nature, thou thyself thou blazon'st\n    In these two princely boys! They are as gentle\n    As zephyrs blowing below the violet,\n    Not wagging his sweet head; and yet as rough,\n    Their royal blood enchaf'd, as the rud'st wind\n    That by the top doth take the mountain pine\n    And make him stoop to th' vale. 'Tis wonder\n    That an invisible instinct should frame them\n    To royalty unlearn'd, honour untaught,\n    Civility not seen from other, valour\n    That wildly grows in them, but yields a crop\n    As if it had been sow'd. Yet still it's strange\n    What Cloten's being here to us portends,\n    Or what his death will bring us.\n\n                    Re-enter GUIDERIUS\n\n  GUIDERIUS. Where's my brother?\n    I have sent Cloten's clotpoll down the stream,\n    In embassy to his mother; his body's hostage\n    For his return.                               [Solemn music]\n  BELARIUS. My ingenious instrument!\n    Hark, Polydore, it sounds. But what occasion\n    Hath Cadwal now to give it motion? Hark!\n  GUIDERIUS. Is he at home?\n  BELARIUS. He went hence even now.\n  GUIDERIUS. What does he mean? Since death of my dear'st mother\n    It did not speak before. All solemn things\n    Should answer solemn accidents. The matter?\n    Triumphs for nothing and lamenting toys\n    Is jollity for apes and grief for boys.\n    Is Cadwal mad?\n\n       Re-enter ARVIRAGUS, with IMOGEN as dead, bearing\n                         her in his arms\n\n  BELARIUS. Look, here he comes,\n    And brings the dire occasion in his arms\n    Of what we blame him for!\n  ARVIRAGUS. The bird is dead\n    That we have made so much on. I had rather\n    Have skipp'd from sixteen years of age to sixty,\n    To have turn'd my leaping time into a crutch,\n    Than have seen this.\n  GUIDERIUS. O sweetest, fairest lily!\n    My brother wears thee not the one half so well\n    As when thou grew'st thyself.\n  BELARIUS. O melancholy!\n    Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? find\n    The ooze to show what coast thy sluggish crare\n    Might'st easiliest harbour in? Thou blessed thing!\n    Jove knows what man thou mightst have made; but I,\n    Thou diedst, a most rare boy, of melancholy.\n    How found you him?\n  ARVIRAGUS. Stark, as you see;\n    Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber,\n    Not as death's dart, being laugh'd at; his right cheek\n    Reposing on a cushion.\n  GUIDERIUS. Where?\n  ARVIRAGUS. O' th' floor;\n    His arms thus leagu'd. I thought he slept, and put\n    My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness\n    Answer'd my steps too loud.\n  GUIDERIUS. Why, he but sleeps.\n    If he be gone he'll make his grave a bed;\n    With female fairies will his tomb be haunted,\n    And worms will not come to thee.\n  ARVIRAGUS. With fairest flowers,\n    Whilst summer lasts and I live here, Fidele,\n    I'll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack\n    The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor\n    The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor\n    The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,\n    Out-sweet'ned not thy breath. The ruddock would,\n    With charitable bill- O bill, sore shaming\n    Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie\n    Without a monument!- bring thee all this;\n    Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flow'rs are none,\n    To winter-ground thy corse-\n  GUIDERIUS. Prithee have done,\n    And do not play in wench-like words with that\n    Which is so serious. Let us bury him,\n    And not protract with admiration what\n    Is now due debt. To th' grave.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Say, where shall's lay him?\n  GUIDERIUS. By good Euriphile, our mother.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Be't so;\n    And let us, Polydore, though now our voices\n    Have got the mannish crack, sing him to th' ground,\n    As once to our mother; use like note and words,\n    Save that Euriphile must be Fidele.\n  GUIDERIUS. Cadwal,\n    I cannot sing. I'll weep, and word it with thee;\n    For notes of sorrow out of tune are worse\n    Than priests and fanes that lie.\n  ARVIRAGUS. We'll speak it, then.\n  BELARIUS. Great griefs, I see, med'cine the less, for Cloten\n    Is quite forgot. He was a queen's son, boys;\n    And though he came our enemy, remember\n    He was paid for that. Though mean and mighty rotting\n    Together have one dust, yet reverence-\n    That angel of the world- doth make distinction\n    Of place 'tween high and low. Our foe was princely;\n    And though you took his life, as being our foe,\n    Yet bury him as a prince.\n  GUIDERIUS. Pray you fetch him hither.\n    Thersites' body is as good as Ajax',\n    When neither are alive.\n  ARVIRAGUS. If you'll go fetch him,\n    We'll say our song the whilst. Brother, begin.\n                                                   Exit BELARIUS\n  GUIDERIUS. Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to th' East;\n    My father hath a reason for't.\n  ARVIRAGUS. 'Tis true.\n  GUIDERIUS. Come on, then, and remove him.\n  ARVIRAGUS. So. Begin.\n\n                      SONG\n\n  GUIDERIUS. Fear no more the heat o' th' sun\n               Nor the furious winter's rages;\n             Thou thy worldly task hast done,\n               Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.\n             Golden lads and girls all must,\n             As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.\n\n  ARVIRAGUS. Fear no more the frown o' th' great;\n               Thou art past the tyrant's stroke.\n             Care no more to clothe and eat;\n               To thee the reed is as the oak.\n             The sceptre, learning, physic, must\n             All follow this and come to dust.\n\n  GUIDERIUS. Fear no more the lightning flash,\n  ARVIRAGUS.   Nor th' all-dreaded thunder-stone;\n  GUIDERIUS. Fear not slander, censure rash;\n  ARVIRAGUS.   Thou hast finish'd joy and moan.\n  BOTH.      All lovers young, all lovers must\n             Consign to thee and come to dust.\n\n  GUIDERIUS. No exorciser harm thee!\n  ARVIRAGUS. Nor no witchcraft charm thee!\n  GUIDERIUS. Ghost unlaid forbear thee!\n  ARVIRAGUS. Nothing ill come near thee!\n  BOTH.      Quiet consummation have,\n             And renowned be thy grave!\n\n         Re-enter BELARIUS with the body of CLOTEN\n\n  GUIDERIUS. We have done our obsequies. Come, lay him down.\n  BELARIUS. Here's a few flowers; but 'bout midnight, more.\n    The herbs that have on them cold dew o' th' night\n    Are strewings fit'st for graves. Upon their faces.\n    You were as flow'rs, now wither'd. Even so\n    These herblets shall which we upon you strew.\n    Come on, away. Apart upon our knees.\n    The ground that gave them first has them again.\n    Their pleasures here are past, so is their pain.\n                                           Exeunt all but IMOGEN\n  IMOGEN. [Awaking] Yes, sir, to Milford Haven. Which is the way?\n    I thank you. By yond bush? Pray, how far thither?\n    'Ods pittikins! can it be six mile yet?\n    I have gone all night. Faith, I'll lie down and sleep.\n    But, soft! no bedfellow. O gods and goddesses!\n                                               [Seeing the body]\n    These flow'rs are like the pleasures of the world;\n    This bloody man, the care on't. I hope I dream;\n    For so I thought I was a cave-keeper,\n    And cook to honest creatures. But 'tis not so;\n    'Twas but a bolt of nothing, shot at nothing,\n    Which the brain makes of fumes. Our very eyes\n    Are sometimes, like our judgments, blind. Good faith,\n    I tremble still with fear; but if there be\n    Yet left in heaven as small a drop of pity\n    As a wren's eye, fear'd gods, a part of it!\n    The dream's here still. Even when I wake it is\n    Without me, as within me; not imagin'd, felt.\n    A headless man? The garments of Posthumus?\n    I know the shape of's leg; this is his hand,\n    His foot Mercurial, his Martial thigh,\n    The brawns of Hercules; but his Jovial face-\n    Murder in heaven! How! 'Tis gone. Pisanio,\n    All curses madded Hecuba gave the Greeks,\n    And mine to boot, be darted on thee! Thou,\n    Conspir'd with that irregulous devil, Cloten,\n    Hath here cut off my lord. To write and read\n    Be henceforth treacherous! Damn'd Pisanio\n    Hath with his forged letters- damn'd Pisanio-\n    From this most bravest vessel of the world\n    Struck the main-top. O Posthumus! alas,\n    Where is thy head? Where's that? Ay me! where's that?\n    Pisanio might have kill'd thee at the heart,\n    And left this head on. How should this be? Pisanio?\n    'Tis he and Cloten; malice and lucre in them\n    Have laid this woe here. O, 'tis pregnant, pregnant!\n    The drug he gave me, which he said was precious\n    And cordial to me, have I not found it\n    Murd'rous to th' senses? That confirms it home.\n    This is Pisanio's deed, and Cloten. O!\n    Give colour to my pale cheek with thy blood,\n    That we the horrider may seem to those\n    Which chance to find us. O, my lord, my lord!\n                                    [Falls fainting on the body]\n\n           Enter LUCIUS, CAPTAINS, and a SOOTHSAYER\n\n  CAPTAIN. To them the legions garrison'd in Gallia,\n    After your will, have cross'd the sea, attending\n    You here at Milford Haven; with your ships,\n    They are in readiness.\n  LUCIUS. But what from Rome?\n  CAPTAIN. The Senate hath stirr'd up the confiners\n    And gentlemen of Italy, most willing spirits,\n    That promise noble service; and they come\n    Under the conduct of bold Iachimo,\n    Sienna's brother.\n  LUCIUS. When expect you them?\n  CAPTAIN. With the next benefit o' th' wind.\n  LUCIUS. This forwardness\n    Makes our hopes fair. Command our present numbers\n    Be muster'd; bid the captains look to't. Now, sir,\n    What have you dream'd of late of this war's purpose?\n  SOOTHSAYER. Last night the very gods show'd me a vision-\n    I fast and pray'd for their intelligence- thus:\n    I saw Jove's bird, the Roman eagle, wing'd\n    From the spongy south to this part of the west,\n    There vanish'd in the sunbeams; which portends,\n    Unless my sins abuse my divination,\n    Success to th' Roman host.\n  LUCIUS. Dream often so,\n    And never false. Soft, ho! what trunk is here\n    Without his top? The ruin speaks that sometime\n    It was a worthy building. How? a page?\n    Or dead or sleeping on him? But dead, rather;\n    For nature doth abhor to make his bed\n    With the defunct, or sleep upon the dead.\n    Let's see the boy's face.\n  CAPTAIN. He's alive, my lord.\n  LUCIUS. He'll then instruct us of this body. Young one,\n    Inform us of thy fortunes; for it seems\n    They crave to be demanded. Who is this\n    Thou mak'st thy bloody pillow? Or who was he\n    That, otherwise than noble nature did,\n    Hath alter'd that good picture? What's thy interest\n    In this sad wreck? How came't? Who is't? What art thou?\n  IMOGEN. I am nothing; or if not,\n    Nothing to be were better. This was my master,\n    A very valiant Briton and a good,\n    That here by mountaineers lies slain. Alas!\n    There is no more such masters. I may wander\n    From east to occident; cry out for service;\n    Try many, all good; serve truly; never\n    Find such another master.\n  LUCIUS. 'Lack, good youth!\n    Thou mov'st no less with thy complaining than\n    Thy master in bleeding. Say his name, good friend.\n  IMOGEN. Richard du Champ. [Aside] If I do lie, and do\n    No harm by it, though the gods hear, I hope\n    They'll pardon it.- Say you, sir?\n  LUCIUS. Thy name?\n  IMOGEN. Fidele, sir.\n  LUCIUS. Thou dost approve thyself the very same;\n    Thy name well fits thy faith, thy faith thy name.\n    Wilt take thy chance with me? I will not say\n    Thou shalt be so well master'd; but, be sure,\n    No less belov'd. The Roman Emperor's letters,\n    Sent by a consul to me, should not sooner\n    Than thine own worth prefer thee. Go with me.\n  IMOGEN. I'll follow, sir. But first, an't please the gods,\n    I'll hide my master from the flies, as deep\n    As these poor pickaxes can dig; and when\n    With wild wood-leaves and weeds I ha' strew'd his grave,\n    And on it said a century of prayers,\n    Such as I can, twice o'er, I'll weep and sigh;\n    And leaving so his service, follow you,\n    So please you entertain me.\n  LUCIUS. Ay, good youth;\n    And rather father thee than master thee.\n    My friends,\n    The boy hath taught us manly duties; let us\n    Find out the prettiest daisied plot we can,\n    And make him with our pikes and partisans\n    A grave. Come, arm him. Boy, he is preferr'd\n    By thee to us; and he shall be interr'd\n    As soldiers can. Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes.\n    Some falls are means the happier to arise.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nBritain. CYMBELINE'S palace\n\nEnter CYMBELINE, LORDS, PISANIO, and attendants\n\n  CYMBELINE. Again! and bring me word how 'tis with her.\n                                               Exit an attendant\n    A fever with the absence of her son;\n    A madness, of which her life's in danger. Heavens,\n    How deeply you at once do touch me! Imogen,\n    The great part of my comfort, gone; my queen\n    Upon a desperate bed, and in a time\n    When fearful wars point at me; her son gone,\n    So needful for this present. It strikes me past\n    The hope of comfort. But for thee, fellow,\n    Who needs must know of her departure and\n    Dost seem so ignorant, we'll enforce it from thee\n    By a sharp torture.\n  PISANIO. Sir, my life is yours;\n    I humbly set it at your will; but for my mistress,\n    I nothing know where she remains, why gone,\n    Nor when she purposes return. Beseech your Highness,\n    Hold me your loyal servant.\n  LORD. Good my liege,\n    The day that she was missing he was here.\n    I dare be bound he's true and shall perform\n    All parts of his subjection loyally. For Cloten,\n    There wants no diligence in seeking him,\n    And will no doubt be found.\n  CYMBELINE. The time is troublesome.\n    [To PISANIO] We'll slip you for a season; but our jealousy\n    Does yet depend.\n  LORD. So please your Majesty,\n    The Roman legions, all from Gallia drawn,\n    Are landed on your coast, with a supply\n    Of Roman gentlemen by the Senate sent.\n  CYMBELINE. Now for the counsel of my son and queen!\n    I am amaz'd with matter.\n  LORD. Good my liege,\n    Your preparation can affront no less\n    Than what you hear of. Come more, for more you're ready.\n    The want is but to put those pow'rs in motion\n    That long to move.\n  CYMBELINE. I thank you. Let's withdraw,\n    And meet the time as it seeks us. We fear not\n    What can from Italy annoy us; but\n    We grieve at chances here. Away!      Exeunt all but PISANIO\n  PISANIO. I heard no letter from my master since\n    I wrote him Imogen was slain. 'Tis strange.\n    Nor hear I from my mistress, who did promise\n    To yield me often tidings. Neither know\n    What is betid to Cloten, but remain\n    Perplex'd in all. The heavens still must work.\n    Wherein I am false I am honest; not true, to be true.\n    These present wars shall find I love my country,\n    Even to the note o' th' King, or I'll fall in them.\n    All other doubts, by time let them be clear'd:\n    Fortune brings in some boats that are not steer'd.      Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nWales. Before the cave of BELARIUS\n\nEnter BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS\n\n  GUIDERIUS. The noise is round about us.\n  BELARIUS. Let us from it.\n  ARVIRAGUS. What pleasure, sir, find we in life, to lock it\n    From action and adventure?\n  GUIDERIUS. Nay, what hope\n    Have we in hiding us? This way the Romans\n    Must or for Britons slay us, or receive us\n    For barbarous and unnatural revolts\n    During their use, and slay us after.\n  BELARIUS. Sons,\n    We'll higher to the mountains; there secure us.\n    To the King's party there's no going. Newness\n    Of Cloten's death- we being not known, not muster'd\n    Among the bands-may drive us to a render\n    Where we have liv'd, and so extort from's that\n    Which we have done, whose answer would be death,\n    Drawn on with torture.\n  GUIDERIUS. This is, sir, a doubt\n    In such a time nothing becoming you\n    Nor satisfying us.\n  ARVIRAGUS. It is not likely\n    That when they hear the Roman horses neigh,\n    Behold their quarter'd fires, have both their eyes\n    And ears so cloy'd importantly as now,\n    That they will waste their time upon our note,\n    To know from whence we are.\n  BELARIUS. O, I am known\n    Of many in the army. Many years,\n    Though Cloten then but young, you see, not wore him\n    From my remembrance. And, besides, the King\n    Hath not deserv'd my service nor your loves,\n    Who find in my exile the want of breeding,\n    The certainty of this hard life; aye hopeless\n    To have the courtesy your cradle promis'd,\n    But to be still hot summer's tanlings and\n    The shrinking slaves of winter.\n  GUIDERIUS. Than be so,\n    Better to cease to be. Pray, sir, to th' army.\n    I and my brother are not known; yourself\n    So out of thought, and thereto so o'ergrown,\n    Cannot be questioned.\n  ARVIRAGUS. By this sun that shines,\n    I'll thither. What thing is't that I never\n    Did see man die! scarce ever look'd on blood\n    But that of coward hares, hot goats, and venison!\n    Never bestrid a horse, save one that had\n    A rider like myself, who ne'er wore rowel\n    Nor iron on his heel! I am asham'd\n    To look upon the holy sun, to have\n    The benefit of his blest beams, remaining\n    So long a poor unknown.\n  GUIDERIUS. By heavens, I'll go!\n    If you will bless me, sir, and give me leave,\n    I'll take the better care; but if you will not,\n    The hazard therefore due fall on me by\n    The hands of Romans!\n  ARVIRAGUS. So say I. Amen.\n  BELARIUS. No reason I, since of your lives you set\n    So slight a valuation, should reserve\n    My crack'd one to more care. Have with you, boys!\n    If in your country wars you chance to die,\n    That is my bed too, lads, and there I'll lie.\n    Lead, lead. [Aside] The time seems long; their blood thinks scorn\n    Till it fly out and show them princes born.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nBritain. The Roman camp\n\nEnter POSTHUMUS alone, with a bloody handkerchief\n\n  POSTHUMUS. Yea, bloody cloth, I'll keep thee; for I wish'd\n    Thou shouldst be colour'd thus. You married ones,\n    If each of you should take this course, how many\n    Must murder wives much better than themselves\n    For wrying but a little! O Pisanio!\n    Every good servant does not all commands;\n    No bond but to do just ones. Gods! if you\n    Should have ta'en vengeance on my faults, I never\n    Had liv'd to put on this; so had you saved\n    The noble Imogen to repent, and struck\n    Me, wretch more worth your vengeance. But alack,\n    You snatch some hence for little faults; that's love,\n    To have them fall no more. You some permit\n    To second ills with ills, each elder worse,\n    And make them dread it, to the doer's thrift.\n    But Imogen is your own. Do your best wills,\n    And make me blest to obey. I am brought hither\n    Among th' Italian gentry, and to fight\n    Against my lady's kingdom. 'Tis enough\n    That, Britain, I have kill'd thy mistress; peace!\n    I'll give no wound to thee. Therefore, good heavens,\n    Hear patiently my purpose. I'll disrobe me\n    Of these Italian weeds, and suit myself\n    As does a Britain peasant. So I'll fight\n    Against the part I come with; so I'll die\n    For thee, O Imogen, even for whom my life\n    Is every breath a death. And thus unknown,\n    Pitied nor hated, to the face of peril\n    Myself I'll dedicate. Let me make men know\n    More valour in me than my habits show.\n    Gods, put the strength o' th' Leonati in me!\n    To shame the guise o' th' world, I will begin\n    The fashion- less without and more within.              Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBritain. A field of battle between the British and Roman camps\n\nEnter LUCIUS, IACHIMO, and the Roman army at one door, and the British army\nat another, LEONATUS POSTHUMUS following like a poor soldier.\nThey march over and go out.  Alarums.  Then enter again, in skirmish,\nIACHIMO and POSTHUMUS.  He vanquisheth and disarmeth IACHIMO,\nand then leaves him\n\n  IACHIMO. The heaviness and guilt within my bosom\n    Takes off my manhood. I have belied a lady,\n    The Princess of this country, and the air on't\n    Revengingly enfeebles me; or could this carl,\n    A very drudge of nature's, have subdu'd me\n    In my profession? Knighthoods and honours borne\n    As I wear mine are titles but of scorn.\n    If that thy gentry, Britain, go before\n    This lout as he exceeds our lords, the odds\n    Is that we scarce are men, and you are gods.            Exit\n\n    The battle continues; the BRITONS fly; CYMBELINE is taken.\n    Then enter to his rescue BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS\n\n  BELARIUS. Stand, stand! We have th' advantage of the ground;\n    The lane is guarded; nothing routs us but\n    The villainy of our fears.\n  GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS. Stand, stand, and fight!\n\n    Re-enter POSTHUMUS, and seconds the Britons; they rescue\n    CYMBELINE, and exeunt. Then re-enter LUCIUS and IACHIMO,\n                         with IMOGEN\n\n  LUCIUS. Away, boy, from the troops, and save thyself;\n    For friends kill friends, and the disorder's such\n    As war were hoodwink'd.\n  IACHIMO. 'Tis their fresh supplies.\n  LUCIUS. It is a day turn'd strangely. Or betimes\n    Let's reinforce or fly.                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nAnother part of the field\n\nEnter POSTHUMUS and a Britain LORD\n\n  LORD. Cam'st thou from where they made the stand?\n  POSTHUMUS. I did:\n    Though you, it seems, come from the fliers.\n  LORD. I did.\n  POSTHUMUS. No blame be to you, sir, for all was lost,\n    But that the heavens fought. The King himself\n    Of his wings destitute, the army broken,\n    And but the backs of Britons seen, an flying,\n    Through a strait lane- the enemy, full-hearted,\n    Lolling the tongue with slaught'ring, having work\n    More plentiful than tools to do't, struck down\n    Some mortally, some slightly touch'd, some falling\n    Merely through fear, that the strait pass was damm'd\n    With dead men hurt behind, and cowards living\n    To die with length'ned shame.\n  LORD. Where was this lane?\n  POSTHUMUS. Close by the battle, ditch'd, and wall'd with turf,\n    Which gave advantage to an ancient soldier-\n    An honest one, I warrant, who deserv'd\n    So long a breeding as his white beard came to,\n    In doing this for's country. Athwart the lane\n    He, with two striplings- lads more like to run\n    The country base than to commit such slaughter;\n    With faces fit for masks, or rather fairer\n    Than those for preservation cas'd or shame-\n    Made good the passage, cried to those that fled\n    'Our Britain's harts die flying, not our men.\n    To darkness fleet souls that fly backwards! Stand;\n    Or we are Romans and will give you that,\n    Like beasts, which you shun beastly, and may save\n    But to look back in frown. Stand, stand!' These three,\n    Three thousand confident, in act as many-\n    For three performers are the file when all\n    The rest do nothing- with this word 'Stand, stand!'\n    Accommodated by the place, more charming\n    With their own nobleness, which could have turn'd\n    A distaff to a lance, gilded pale looks,\n    Part shame, part spirit renew'd; that some turn'd coward\n    But by example- O, a sin in war\n    Damn'd in the first beginners!- gan to look\n    The way that they did and to grin like lions\n    Upon the pikes o' th' hunters. Then began\n    A stop i' th' chaser, a retire; anon\n    A rout, confusion thick. Forthwith they fly,\n    Chickens, the way which they stoop'd eagles; slaves,\n    The strides they victors made; and now our cowards,\n    Like fragments in hard voyages, became\n    The life o' th' need. Having found the back-door open\n    Of the unguarded hearts, heavens, how they wound!\n    Some slain before, some dying, some their friends\n    O'erborne i' th' former wave. Ten chas'd by one\n    Are now each one the slaughterman of twenty.\n    Those that would die or ere resist are grown\n    The mortal bugs o' th' field.\n  LORD. This was strange chance:\n    A narrow lane, an old man, and two boys.\n  POSTHUMUS. Nay, do not wonder at it; you are made\n    Rather to wonder at the things you hear\n    Than to work any. Will you rhyme upon't,\n    And vent it for a mock'ry? Here is one:\n    'Two boys, an old man (twice a boy), a lane,\n    Preserv'd the Britons, was the Romans' bane.'\n  LORD. Nay, be not angry, sir.\n  POSTHUMUS. 'Lack, to what end?\n    Who dares not stand his foe I'll be his friend;\n    For if he'll do as he is made to do,\n    I know he'll quickly fly my friendship too.\n    You have put me into rhyme.\n  LORD. Farewell; you're angry.                             Exit\n  POSTHUMUS. Still going? This is a lord! O noble misery,\n    To be i' th' field and ask 'What news?' of me!\n    To-day how many would have given their honours\n    To have sav'd their carcasses! took heel to do't,\n    And yet died too! I, in mine own woe charm'd,\n    Could not find death where I did hear him groan,\n    Nor feel him where he struck. Being an ugly monster,\n    'Tis strange he hides him in fresh cups, soft beds,\n    Sweet words; or hath moe ministers than we\n    That draw his knives i' th' war. Well, I will find him;\n    For being now a favourer to the Briton,\n    No more a Briton, I have resum'd again\n    The part I came in. Fight I will no more,\n    But yield me to the veriest hind that shall\n    Once touch my shoulder. Great the slaughter is\n    Here made by th' Roman; great the answer be\n    Britons must take. For me, my ransom's death;\n    On either side I come to spend my breath,\n    Which neither here I'll keep nor bear again,\n    But end it by some means for Imogen.\n\n            Enter two BRITISH CAPTAINS and soldiers\n\n  FIRST CAPTAIN. Great Jupiter be prais'd! Lucius is taken.\n    'Tis thought the old man and his sons were angels.\n  SECOND CAPTAIN. There was a fourth man, in a silly habit,\n    That gave th' affront with them.\n  FIRST CAPTAIN. So 'tis reported;\n    But none of 'em can be found. Stand! who's there?\n  POSTHUMUS. A Roman,\n    Who had not now been drooping here if seconds\n    Had answer'd him.\n  SECOND CAPTAIN. Lay hands on him; a dog!\n    A leg of Rome shall not return to tell\n    What crows have peck'd them here. He brags his service,\n    As if he were of note. Bring him to th' King.\n\n   Enter CYMBELINE, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, PISANIO, and Roman\n   captives. The CAPTAINS present POSTHUMUS to CYMBELINE, who delivers\n            him over to a gaoler. Exeunt omnes\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nBritain. A prison\n\nEnter POSTHUMUS and two GAOLERS\n\n  FIRST GAOLER. You shall not now be stol'n, you have locks upon you;\n    So graze as you find pasture.\n  SECOND GAOLER. Ay, or a stomach.                Exeunt GAOLERS\n  POSTHUMUS. Most welcome, bondage! for thou art a way,\n    I think, to liberty. Yet am I better\n    Than one that's sick o' th' gout, since he had rather\n    Groan so in perpetuity than be cur'd\n    By th' sure physician death, who is the key\n    T' unbar these locks. My conscience, thou art fetter'd\n    More than my shanks and wrists; you good gods, give me\n    The penitent instrument to pick that bolt,\n    Then, free for ever! Is't enough I am sorry?\n    So children temporal fathers do appease;\n    Gods are more full of mercy. Must I repent,\n    I cannot do it better than in gyves,\n    Desir'd more than constrain'd. To satisfy,\n    If of my freedom 'tis the main part, take\n    No stricter render of me than my all.\n    I know you are more clement than vile men,\n    Who of their broken debtors take a third,\n    A sixth, a tenth, letting them thrive again\n    On their abatement; that's not my desire.\n    For Imogen's dear life take mine; and though\n    'Tis not so dear, yet 'tis a life; you coin'd it.\n    'Tween man and man they weigh not every stamp;\n    Though light, take pieces for the figure's sake;\n    You rather mine, being yours. And so, great pow'rs,\n    If you will take this audit, take this life,\n    And cancel these cold bonds. O Imogen!\n    I'll speak to thee in silence.                      [Sleeps]\n\n        Solemn music. Enter, as in an apparition, SICILIUS\n        LEONATUS, father to POSTHUMUS, an old man attired\n         like a warrior; leading in his hand an ancient\n          matron, his WIFE, and mother to POSTHUMUS, with\n        music before them. Then, after other music, follows\n           the two young LEONATI, brothers to POSTHUMUS,\n              with wounds, as they died in the wars.\n          They circle POSTHUMUS round as he lies sleeping\n\n  SICILIUS. No more, thou thunder-master, show\n              Thy spite on mortal flies.\n            With Mars fall out, with Juno chide,\n              That thy adulteries\n                Rates and revenges.\n            Hath my poor boy done aught but well,\n              Whose face I never saw?\n            I died whilst in the womb he stay'd\n              Attending nature's law;\n            Whose father then, as men report\n              Thou orphans' father art,\n            Thou shouldst have been, and shielded him\n              From this earth-vexing smart.\n\n  MOTHER.   Lucina lent not me her aid,\n              But took me in my throes,\n            That from me was Posthumus ripp'd,\n              Came crying 'mongst his foes,\n                A thing of pity.\n\n  SICILIUS. Great Nature like his ancestry\n              Moulded the stuff so fair\n            That he deserv'd the praise o' th' world\n              As great Sicilius' heir.\n\n  FIRST BROTHER. When once he was mature for man,\n              In Britain where was he\n            That could stand up his parallel,\n              Or fruitful object be\n            In eye of Imogen, that best\n              Could deem his dignity?\n\n  MOTHER.   With marriage wherefore was he mock'd,\n              To be exil'd and thrown\n            From Leonati seat and cast\n            From her his dearest one,\n              Sweet Imogen?\n\n  SICILIUS. Why did you suffer Iachimo,\n              Slight thing of Italy,\n            To taint his nobler heart and brain\n              With needless jealousy,\n            And to become the geck and scorn\n              O' th' other's villainy?\n\n  SECOND BROTHER. For this from stiller seats we came,\n              Our parents and us twain,\n            That, striking in our country's cause,\n              Fell bravely and were slain,\n            Our fealty and Tenantius' right\n              With honour to maintain.\n\n  FIRST BROTHER. Like hardiment Posthumus hath\n              To Cymbeline perform'd.\n            Then, Jupiter, thou king of gods,\n              Why hast thou thus adjourn'd\n            The graces for his merits due,\n              Being all to dolours turn'd?\n\n  SICILIUS. Thy crystal window ope; look out;\n              No longer exercise\n            Upon a valiant race thy harsh\n              And potent injuries.\n\n  MOTHER.   Since, Jupiter, our son is good,\n              Take off his miseries.\n\n  SICILIUS. Peep through thy marble mansion. Help!\n              Or we poor ghosts will cry\n            To th' shining synod of the rest\n              Against thy deity.\n\n  BROTHERS. Help, Jupiter! or we appeal,\n              And from thy justice fly.\n\n       JUPITER descends-in thunder and lightning, sitting\n       upon an eagle. He throws a thunderbolt. The GHOSTS\n                     fall on their knees\n\n  JUPITER. No more, you petty spirits of region low,\n    Offend our hearing; hush! How dare you ghosts\n    Accuse the Thunderer whose bolt, you know,\n    Sky-planted, batters all rebelling coasts?\n    Poor shadows of Elysium, hence and rest\n    Upon your never-withering banks of flow'rs.\n    Be not with mortal accidents opprest:\n    No care of yours it is; you know 'tis ours.\n    Whom best I love I cross; to make my gift,\n    The more delay'd, delighted. Be content;\n    Your low-laid son our godhead will uplift;\n    His comforts thrive, his trials well are spent.\n    Our Jovial star reign'd at his birth, and in\n    Our temple was he married. Rise and fade!\n    He shall be lord of Lady Imogen,\n    And happier much by his affliction made.\n    This tablet lay upon his breast, wherein\n    Our pleasure his full fortune doth confine;\n    And so, away; no farther with your din\n    Express impatience, lest you stir up mine.\n    Mount, eagle, to my palace crystalline.            [Ascends]\n  SICILIUS. He came in thunder; his celestial breath\n    Was sulpherous to smell; the holy eagle\n    Stoop'd as to foot us. His ascension is\n    More sweet than our blest fields. His royal bird\n    Prunes the immortal wing, and cloys his beak,\n    As when his god is pleas'd.\n  ALL. Thanks, Jupiter!\n  SICILIUS. The marble pavement closes, he is enter'd\n    His radiant roof. Away! and, to be blest,\n    Let us with care perform his great behest.   [GHOSTS vanish]\n\n  POSTHUMUS. [Waking] Sleep, thou has been a grandsire and begot\n    A father to me; and thou hast created\n    A mother and two brothers. But, O scorn,\n    Gone! They went hence so soon as they were born.\n    And so I am awake. Poor wretches, that depend\n    On greatness' favour, dream as I have done;\n    Wake and find nothing. But, alas, I swerve;\n    Many dream not to find, neither deserve,\n    And yet are steep'd in favours; so am I,\n    That have this golden chance, and know not why.\n    What fairies haunt this ground? A book? O rare one!\n    Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment\n    Nobler than that it covers. Let thy effects\n    So follow to be most unlike our courtiers,\n    As good as promise.\n\n    [Reads] 'When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself unknown,\n    without seeking find, and be embrac'd by a piece of tender air;\n    and when from a stately cedar shall be lopp'd branches which,\n    being dead many years, shall after revive, be jointed to the old\n    stock, and freshly grow; then shall Posthumus end his miseries,\n    Britain be fortunate and flourish in peace and plenty.'\n\n    'Tis still a dream, or else such stuff as madmen\n    Tongue, and brain not; either both or nothing,\n    Or senseless speaking, or a speaking such\n    As sense cannot untie. Be what it is,\n    The action of my life is like it, which\n    I'll keep, if but for sympathy.\n\n                  Re-enter GAOLER\n\n  GAOLER. Come, sir, are you ready for death?\n  POSTHUMUS. Over-roasted rather; ready long ago.\n  GAOLER. Hanging is the word, sir; if you be ready for that, you are\n    well cook'd.\n  POSTHUMUS. So, if I prove a good repast to the spectators, the dish\n    pays the shot.\n  GAOLER. A heavy reckoning for you, sir. But the comfort is, you\n    shall be called to no more payments, fear no more tavern bills,\n    which are often the sadness of parting, as the procuring of mirth.\n    You come in faint for want of meat, depart reeling with too much\n    drink; sorry that you have paid too much, and sorry that you are\n    paid too much; purse and brain both empty; the brain the heavier\n    for being too light, the purse too light, being drawn of\n    heaviness. O, of this contradiction you shall now be quit. O, the\n    charity of a penny cord! It sums up thousands in a trice. You\n    have no true debitor and creditor but it; of what's past, is, and\n    to come, the discharge. Your neck, sir, is pen, book, and\n    counters; so the acquittance follows.\n  POSTHUMUS. I am merrier to die than thou art to live.\n  GAOLER. Indeed, sir, he that sleeps feels not the toothache. But a\n    man that were to sleep your sleep, and a hangman to help him to\n    bed, I think he would change places with his officer; for look\n    you, sir, you know not which way you shall go.\n  POSTHUMUS. Yes indeed do I, fellow.\n  GAOLER. Your death has eyes in's head, then; I have not seen him so\n    pictur'd. You must either be directed by some that take upon them\n    to know, or to take upon yourself that which I am sure you do not\n    know, or jump the after-inquiry on your own peril. And how you\n    shall speed in your journey's end, I think you'll never return to\n    tell one.\n  POSTHUMUS. I tell thee, fellow, there are none want eyes to direct\n    them the way I am going, but such as wink and will not use them.\n  GAOLER. What an infinite mock is this, that a man should have the\n    best use of eyes to see the way of blindness! I am sure hanging's\n    the way of winking.\n\n                        Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Knock off his manacles; bring your prisoner to the King.\n  POSTHUMUS. Thou bring'st good news: I am call'd to be made free.\n  GAOLER. I'll be hang'd then.\n  POSTHUMUS. Thou shalt be then freer than a gaoler; no bolts for the\n    dead.                         Exeunt POSTHUMUS and MESSENGER\n  GAOLER. Unless a man would marry a gallows and beget young gibbets,\n    I never saw one so prone. Yet, on my conscience, there are verier\n    knaves desire to live, for all he be a Roman; and there be some\n    of them too that die against their wills; so should I, if I were\n    one. I would we were all of one mind, and one mind good. O, there\n    were desolation of gaolers and gallowses! I speak against my\n    present profit, but my wish hath a preferment in't.     Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nBritain. CYMBELINE'S tent\n\nEnter CYMBELINE, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, PISANIO, LORDS,\nOFFICERS, and attendants\n\n  CYMBELINE. Stand by my side, you whom the gods have made\n    Preservers of my throne. Woe is my heart\n    That the poor soldier that so richly fought,\n    Whose rags sham'd gilded arms, whose naked breast\n    Stepp'd before targes of proof, cannot be found.\n    He shall be happy that can find him, if\n    Our grace can make him so.\n  BELARIUS. I never saw\n    Such noble fury in so poor a thing;\n    Such precious deeds in one that promis'd nought\n    But beggary and poor looks.\n  CYMBELINE. No tidings of him?\n  PISANIO. He hath been search'd among the dead and living,\n    But no trace of him.\n  CYMBELINE. To my grief, I am\n    The heir of his reward; [To BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS]\n      which I will add\n    To you, the liver, heart, and brain, of Britain,\n    By whom I grant she lives. 'Tis now the time\n    To ask of whence you are. Report it.\n  BELARIUS. Sir,\n    In Cambria are we born, and gentlemen;\n    Further to boast were neither true nor modest,\n    Unless I add we are honest.\n  CYMBELINE. Bow your knees.\n    Arise my knights o' th' battle; I create you\n    Companions to our person, and will fit you\n    With dignities becoming your estates.\n\n             Enter CORNELIUS and LADIES\n\n    There's business in these faces. Why so sadly\n    Greet you our victory? You look like Romans,\n    And not o' th' court of Britain.\n  CORNELIUS. Hail, great King!\n    To sour your happiness I must report\n    The Queen is dead.\n  CYMBELINE. Who worse than a physician\n    Would this report become? But I consider\n    By med'cine'life may be prolong'd, yet death\n    Will seize the doctor too. How ended she?\n  CORNELIUS. With horror, madly dying, like her life;\n    Which, being cruel to the world, concluded\n    Most cruel to herself. What she confess'd\n    I will report, so please you; these her women\n    Can trip me if I err, who with wet cheeks\n    Were present when she finish'd.\n  CYMBELINE. Prithee say.\n  CORNELIUS. First, she confess'd she never lov'd you; only\n    Affected greatness got by you, not you;\n    Married your royalty, was wife to your place;\n    Abhorr'd your person.\n  CYMBELINE. She alone knew this;\n    And but she spoke it dying, I would not\n    Believe her lips in opening it. Proceed.\n  CORNELIUS. Your daughter, whom she bore in hand to love\n    With such integrity, she did confess\n    Was as a scorpion to her sight; whose life,\n    But that her flight prevented it, she had\n    Ta'en off by poison.\n  CYMBELINE. O most delicate fiend!\n    Who is't can read a woman? Is there more?\n  CORNELIUS. More, sir, and worse. She did confess she had\n    For you a mortal mineral, which, being took,\n    Should by the minute feed on life, and ling'ring,\n    By inches waste you. In which time she purpos'd,\n    By watching, weeping, tendance, kissing, to\n    O'ercome you with her show; and in time,\n    When she had fitted you with her craft, to work\n    Her son into th' adoption of the crown;\n    But failing of her end by his strange absence,\n    Grew shameless-desperate, open'd, in despite\n    Of heaven and men, her purposes, repented\n    The evils she hatch'd were not effected; so,\n    Despairing, died.\n  CYMBELINE. Heard you all this, her women?\n  LADY. We did, so please your Highness.\n  CYMBELINE. Mine eyes\n    Were not in fault, for she was beautiful;\n    Mine ears, that heard her flattery; nor my heart\n    That thought her like her seeming. It had been vicious\n    To have mistrusted her; yet, O my daughter!\n    That it was folly in me thou mayst say,\n    And prove it in thy feeling. Heaven mend all!\n\n         Enter LUCIUS, IACHIMO, the SOOTHSAYER, and other\n      Roman prisoners, guarded; POSTHUMUS behind, and IMOGEN\n\n    Thou com'st not, Caius, now for tribute; that\n    The Britons have raz'd out, though with the loss\n    Of many a bold one, whose kinsmen have made suit\n    That their good souls may be appeas'd with slaughter\n    Of you their captives, which ourself have granted;\n    So think of your estate.\n  LUCIUS. Consider, sir, the chance of war. The day\n    Was yours by accident; had it gone with us,\n    We should not, when the blood was cool, have threaten'd\n    Our prisoners with the sword. But since the gods\n    Will have it thus, that nothing but our lives\n    May be call'd ransom, let it come. Sufficeth\n    A Roman with a Roman's heart can suffer.\n    Augustus lives to think on't; and so much\n    For my peculiar care. This one thing only\n    I will entreat: my boy, a Briton born,\n    Let him be ransom'd. Never master had\n    A page so kind, so duteous, diligent,\n    So tender over his occasions, true,\n    So feat, so nurse-like; let his virtue join\n    With my request, which I'll make bold your Highness\n    Cannot deny; he hath done no Briton harm\n    Though he have serv'd a Roman. Save him, sir,\n    And spare no blood beside.\n  CYMBELINE. I have surely seen him;\n    His favour is familiar to me. Boy,\n    Thou hast look'd thyself into my grace,\n    And art mine own. I know not why, wherefore\n    To say 'Live, boy.' Ne'er thank thy master. Live;\n    And ask of Cymbeline what boon thou wilt,\n    Fitting my bounty and thy state, I'll give it;\n    Yea, though thou do demand a prisoner,\n    The noblest ta'en.\n  IMOGEN. I humbly thank your Highness.\n  LUCIUS. I do not bid thee beg my life, good lad,\n    And yet I know thou wilt.\n  IMOGEN. No, no! Alack,\n    There's other work in hand. I see a thing\n    Bitter to me as death; your life, good master,\n    Must shuffle for itself.\n  LUCIUS. The boy disdains me,\n    He leaves me, scorns me. Briefly die their joys\n    That place them on the truth of girls and boys.\n    Why stands he so perplex'd?\n  CYMBELINE. What wouldst thou, boy?\n    I love thee more and more; think more and more\n    What's best to ask. Know'st him thou look'st on? Speak,\n    Wilt have him live? Is he thy kin? thy friend?\n  IMOGEN. He is a Roman, no more kin to me\n    Than I to your Highness; who, being born your vassal,\n    Am something nearer.\n  CYMBELINE. Wherefore ey'st him so?\n  IMOGEN. I'll tell you, sir, in private, if you please\n    To give me hearing.\n  CYMBELINE. Ay, with all my heart,\n    And lend my best attention. What's thy name?\n  IMOGEN. Fidele, sir.\n  CYMBELINE. Thou'rt my good youth, my page;\n    I'll be thy master. Walk with me; speak freely.\n                           [CYMBELINE and IMOGEN converse apart]\n  BELARIUS. Is not this boy reviv'd from death?\n  ARVIRAGUS. One sand another\n    Not more resembles- that sweet rosy lad\n    Who died and was Fidele. What think you?\n  GUIDERIUS. The same dead thing alive.\n  BELARIUS. Peace, peace! see further. He eyes us not; forbear.\n    Creatures may be alike; were't he, I am sure\n    He would have spoke to us.\n  GUIDERIUS. But we saw him dead.\n  BELARIUS. Be silent; let's see further.\n  PISANIO. [Aside] It is my mistress.\n    Since she is living, let the time run on\n    To good or bad.               [CYMBELINE and IMOGEN advance]\n  CYMBELINE. Come, stand thou by our side;\n    Make thy demand aloud. [To IACHIMO] Sir, step you forth;\n    Give answer to this boy, and do it freely,\n    Or, by our greatness and the grace of it,\n    Which is our honour, bitter torture shall\n    Winnow the truth from falsehood. On, speak to him.\n  IMOGEN. My boon is that this gentleman may render\n    Of whom he had this ring.\n  POSTHUMUS. [Aside] What's that to him?\n  CYMBELINE. That diamond upon your finger, say\n    How came it yours?\n  IACHIMO. Thou'lt torture me to leave unspoken that\n    Which to be spoke would torture thee.\n  CYMBELINE. How? me?\n  IACHIMO. I am glad to be constrain'd to utter that\n    Which torments me to conceal. By villainy\n    I got this ring; 'twas Leonatus' jewel,\n    Whom thou didst banish; and- which more may grieve thee,\n    As it doth me- a nobler sir ne'er liv'd\n    'Twixt sky and ground. Wilt thou hear more, my lord?\n  CYMBELINE. All that belongs to this.\n  IACHIMO. That paragon, thy daughter,\n    For whom my heart drops blood and my false spirits\n    Quail to remember- Give me leave, I faint.\n  CYMBELINE. My daughter? What of her? Renew thy strength;\n    I had rather thou shouldst live while nature will\n    Than die ere I hear more. Strive, man, and speak.\n  IACHIMO. Upon a time- unhappy was the clock\n    That struck the hour!- was in Rome- accurs'd\n    The mansion where!- 'twas at a feast- O, would\n    Our viands had been poison'd, or at least\n    Those which I heav'd to head!- the good Posthumus-\n    What should I say? he was too good to be\n    Where ill men were, and was the best of all\n    Amongst the rar'st of good ones- sitting sadly\n    Hearing us praise our loves of Italy\n    For beauty that made barren the swell'd boast\n    Of him that best could speak; for feature, laming\n    The shrine of Venus or straight-pight Minerva,\n    Postures beyond brief nature; for condition,\n    A shop of all the qualities that man\n    Loves woman for; besides that hook of wiving,\n    Fairness which strikes the eye-\n  CYMBELINE. I stand on fire.\n    Come to the matter.\n  IACHIMO. All too soon I shall,\n    Unless thou wouldst grieve quickly. This Posthumus,\n    Most like a noble lord in love and one\n    That had a royal lover, took his hint;\n    And not dispraising whom we prais'd- therein\n    He was as calm as virtue- he began\n    His mistress' picture; which by his tongue being made,\n    And then a mind put in't, either our brags\n    Were crack'd of kitchen trulls, or his description\n    Prov'd us unspeaking sots.\n  CYMBELINE. Nay, nay, to th' purpose.\n  IACHIMO. Your daughter's chastity- there it begins.\n    He spake of her as Dian had hot dreams\n    And she alone were cold; whereat I, wretch,\n    Made scruple of his praise, and wager'd with him\n    Pieces of gold 'gainst this which then he wore\n    Upon his honour'd finger, to attain\n    In suit the place of's bed, and win this ring\n    By hers and mine adultery. He, true knight,\n    No lesser of her honour confident\n    Than I did truly find her, stakes this ring;\n    And would so, had it been a carbuncle\n    Of Phoebus' wheel; and might so safely, had it\n    Been all the worth of's car. Away to Britain\n    Post I in this design. Well may you, sir,\n    Remember me at court, where I was taught\n    Of your chaste daughter the wide difference\n    'Twixt amorous and villainous. Being thus quench'd\n    Of hope, not longing, mine Italian brain\n    Gan in your duller Britain operate\n    Most vilely; for my vantage, excellent;\n    And, to be brief, my practice so prevail'd\n    That I return'd with simular proof enough\n    To make the noble Leonatus mad,\n    By wounding his belief in her renown\n    With tokens thus and thus; averring notes\n    Of chamber-hanging, pictures, this her bracelet-\n    O cunning, how I got it!- nay, some marks\n    Of secret on her person, that he could not\n    But think her bond of chastity quite crack'd,\n    I having ta'en the forfeit. Whereupon-\n    Methinks I see him now-\n  POSTHUMUS. [Coming forward] Ay, so thou dost,\n    Italian fiend! Ay me, most credulous fool,\n    Egregious murderer, thief, anything\n    That's due to all the villains past, in being,\n    To come! O, give me cord, or knife, or poison,\n    Some upright justicer! Thou, King, send out\n    For torturers ingenious. It is I\n    That all th' abhorred things o' th' earth amend\n    By being worse than they. I am Posthumus,\n    That kill'd thy daughter; villain-like, I lie-\n    That caus'd a lesser villain than myself,\n    A sacrilegious thief, to do't. The temple\n    Of virtue was she; yea, and she herself.\n    Spit, and throw stones, cast mire upon me, set\n    The dogs o' th' street to bay me. Every villain\n    Be call'd Posthumus Leonatus, and\n    Be villainy less than 'twas! O Imogen!\n    My queen, my life, my wife! O Imogen,\n    Imogen, Imogen!\n  IMOGEN. Peace, my lord. Hear, hear!\n  POSTHUMUS. Shall's have a play of this? Thou scornful page,\n    There lies thy part.                [Strikes her. She falls]\n  PISANIO. O gentlemen, help!\n    Mine and your mistress! O, my lord Posthumus!\n    You ne'er kill'd Imogen till now. Help, help!\n    Mine honour'd lady!\n  CYMBELINE. Does the world go round?\n  POSTHUMUS. How comes these staggers on me?\n  PISANIO. Wake, my mistress!\n  CYMBELINE. If this be so, the gods do mean to strike me\n    To death with mortal joy.\n  PISANIO. How fares my mistress?\n  IMOGEN. O, get thee from my sight;\n    Thou gav'st me poison. Dangerous fellow, hence!\n    Breathe not where princes are.\n  CYMBELINE. The tune of Imogen!\n  PISANIO. Lady,\n    The gods throw stones of sulphur on me, if\n    That box I gave you was not thought by me\n    A precious thing! I had it from the Queen.\n  CYMBELINE. New matter still?\n  IMOGEN. It poison'd me.\n  CORNELIUS. O gods!\n    I left out one thing which the Queen confess'd,\n    Which must approve thee honest. 'If Pisanio\n    Have' said she 'given his mistress that confection\n    Which I gave him for cordial, she is serv'd\n    As I would serve a rat.'\n  CYMBELINE. What's this, Cornelius?\n  CORNELIUS. The Queen, sir, very oft importun'd me\n    To temper poisons for her; still pretending\n    The satisfaction of her knowledge only\n    In killing creatures vile, as cats and dogs,\n    Of no esteem. I, dreading that her purpose\n    Was of more danger, did compound for her\n    A certain stuff, which, being ta'en would cease\n    The present pow'r of life, but in short time\n    All offices of nature should again\n    Do their due functions. Have you ta'en of it?\n  IMOGEN. Most like I did, for I was dead.\n  BELARIUS. My boys,\n    There was our error.\n  GUIDERIUS. This is sure Fidele.\n  IMOGEN. Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?\n    Think that you are upon a rock, and now\n    Throw me again.                              [Embracing him]\n  POSTHUMUS. Hang there like fruit, my soul,\n    Till the tree die!\n  CYMBELINE. How now, my flesh? my child?\n    What, mak'st thou me a dullard in this act?\n    Wilt thou not speak to me?\n  IMOGEN. [Kneeling] Your blessing, sir.\n  BELARIUS. [To GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS] Though you did love this\n      youth, I blame ye not;\n    You had a motive for't.\n  CYMBELINE. My tears that fall\n    Prove holy water on thee! Imogen,\n    Thy mother's dead.\n  IMOGEN. I am sorry for't, my lord.\n  CYMBELINE. O, she was naught, and long of her it was\n    That we meet here so strangely; but her son\n    Is gone, we know not how nor where.\n  PISANIO. My lord,\n    Now fear is from me, I'll speak troth. Lord Cloten,\n    Upon my lady's missing, came to me\n    With his sword drawn, foam'd at the mouth, and swore,\n    If I discover'd not which way she was gone,\n    It was my instant death. By accident\n    I had a feigned letter of my master's\n    Then in my pocket, which directed him\n    To seek her on the mountains near to Milford;\n    Where, in a frenzy, in my master's garments,\n    Which he enforc'd from me, away he posts\n    With unchaste purpose, and with oath to violate\n    My lady's honour. What became of him\n    I further know not.\n  GUIDERIUS. Let me end the story:\n    I slew him there.\n  CYMBELINE. Marry, the gods forfend!\n    I would not thy good deeds should from my lips\n    Pluck a hard sentence. Prithee, valiant youth,\n    Deny't again.\n  GUIDERIUS. I have spoke it, and I did it.\n  CYMBELINE. He was a prince.\n  GUIDERIUS. A most incivil one. The wrongs he did me\n    Were nothing prince-like; for he did provoke me\n    With language that would make me spurn the sea,\n    If it could so roar to me. I cut off's head,\n    And am right glad he is not standing here\n    To tell this tale of mine.\n  CYMBELINE. I am sorry for thee.\n    By thine own tongue thou art condemn'd, and must\n    Endure our law. Thou'rt dead.\n  IMOGEN. That headless man\n    I thought had been my lord.\n  CYMBELINE. Bind the offender,\n    And take him from our presence.\n  BELARIUS. Stay, sir King.\n    This man is better than the man he slew,\n    As well descended as thyself, and hath\n    More of thee merited than a band of Clotens\n    Had ever scar for. [To the guard] Let his arms alone;\n    They were not born for bondage.\n  CYMBELINE. Why, old soldier,\n    Wilt thou undo the worth thou art unpaid for\n    By tasting of our wrath? How of descent\n    As good as we?\n  ARVIRAGUS. In that he spake too far.\n  CYMBELINE. And thou shalt die for't.\n  BELARIUS. We will die all three;\n    But I will prove that two on's are as good\n    As I have given out him. My sons, I must\n    For mine own part unfold a dangerous speech,\n    Though haply well for you.\n  ARVIRAGUS. Your danger's ours.\n  GUIDERIUS. And our good his.\n  BELARIUS. Have at it then by leave!\n    Thou hadst, great King, a subject who\n    Was call'd Belarius.\n  CYMBELINE. What of him? He is\n    A banish'd traitor.\n  BELARIUS. He it is that hath\n    Assum'd this age; indeed a banish'd man;\n    I know not how a traitor.\n  CYMBELINE. Take him hence,\n    The whole world shall not save him.\n  BELARIUS. Not too hot.\n    First pay me for the nursing of thy sons,\n    And let it be confiscate all, so soon\n    As I have receiv'd it.\n  CYMBELINE. Nursing of my sons?\n  BELARIUS. I am too blunt and saucy: here's my knee.\n    Ere I arise I will prefer my sons;\n    Then spare not the old father. Mighty sir,\n    These two young gentlemen that call me father,\n    And think they are my sons, are none of mine;\n    They are the issue of your loins, my liege,\n    And blood of your begetting.\n  CYMBELINE. How? my issue?\n  BELARIUS. So sure as you your father's. I, old Morgan,\n    Am that Belarius whom you sometime banish'd.\n    Your pleasure was my mere offence, my punishment\n    Itself, and all my treason; that I suffer'd\n    Was all the harm I did. These gentle princes-\n    For such and so they are- these twenty years\n    Have I train'd up; those arts they have as\n    Could put into them. My breeding was, sir, as\n    Your Highness knows. Their nurse, Euriphile,\n    Whom for the theft I wedded, stole these children\n    Upon my banishment; I mov'd her to't,\n    Having receiv'd the punishment before\n    For that which I did then. Beaten for loyalty\n    Excited me to treason. Their dear loss,\n    The more of you 'twas felt, the more it shap'd\n    Unto my end of stealing them. But, gracious sir,\n    Here are your sons again, and I must lose\n    Two of the sweet'st companions in the world.\n    The benediction of these covering heavens\n    Fall on their heads like dew! for they are worthy\n    To inlay heaven with stars.\n  CYMBELINE. Thou weep'st and speak'st.\n    The service that you three have done is more\n    Unlike than this thou tell'st. I lost my children.\n    If these be they, I know not how to wish\n    A pair of worthier sons.\n  BELARIUS. Be pleas'd awhile.\n    This gentleman, whom I call Polydore,\n    Most worthy prince, as yours, is true Guiderius;\n    This gentleman, my Cadwal, Arviragus,\n    Your younger princely son; he, sir, was lapp'd\n    In a most curious mantle, wrought by th' hand\n    Of his queen mother, which for more probation\n    I can with ease produce.\n  CYMBELINE. Guiderius had\n    Upon his neck a mole, a sanguine star;\n    It was a mark of wonder.\n  BELARIUS. This is he,\n    Who hath upon him still that natural stamp.\n    It was wise nature's end in the donation,\n    To be his evidence now.\n  CYMBELINE. O, what am I?\n    A mother to the birth of three? Ne'er mother\n    Rejoic'd deliverance more. Blest pray you be,\n    That, after this strange starting from your orbs,\n    You may reign in them now! O Imogen,\n    Thou hast lost by this a kingdom.\n  IMOGEN. No, my lord;\n    I have got two worlds by't. O my gentle brothers,\n    Have we thus met? O, never say hereafter\n    But I am truest speaker! You call'd me brother,\n    When I was but your sister: I you brothers,\n    When we were so indeed.\n  CYMBELINE. Did you e'er meet?\n  ARVIRAGUS. Ay, my good lord.\n  GUIDERIUS. And at first meeting lov'd,\n    Continu'd so until we thought he died.\n  CORNELIUS. By the Queen's dram she swallow'd.\n  CYMBELINE. O rare instinct!\n    When shall I hear all through? This fierce abridgment\n    Hath to it circumstantial branches, which\n    Distinction should be rich in. Where? how liv'd you?\n    And when came you to serve our Roman captive?\n    How parted with your brothers? how first met them?\n    Why fled you from the court? and whither? These,\n    And your three motives to the battle, with\n    I know not how much more, should be demanded,\n    And all the other by-dependences,\n    From chance to chance; but nor the time nor place\n    Will serve our long interrogatories. See,\n    Posthumus anchors upon Imogen;\n    And she, like harmless lightning, throws her eye\n    On him, her brothers, me, her master, hitting\n    Each object with a joy; the counterchange\n    Is severally in all. Let's quit this ground,\n    And smoke the temple with our sacrifices.\n    [To BELARIUS] Thou art my brother; so we'll hold thee ever.\n  IMOGEN. You are my father too, and did relieve me\n    To see this gracious season.\n  CYMBELINE. All o'erjoy'd\n    Save these in bonds. Let them be joyful too,\n    For they shall taste our comfort.\n  IMOGEN. My good master,\n    I will yet do you service.\n  LUCIUS. Happy be you!\n  CYMBELINE. The forlorn soldier, that so nobly fought,\n    He would have well becom'd this place and grac'd\n    The thankings of a king.\n  POSTHUMUS. I am, sir,\n    The soldier that did company these three\n    In poor beseeming; 'twas a fitment for\n    The purpose I then follow'd. That I was he,\n    Speak, Iachimo. I had you down, and might\n    Have made you finish.\n  IACHIMO. [Kneeling] I am down again;\n    But now my heavy conscience sinks my knee,\n    As then your force did. Take that life, beseech you,\n    Which I so often owe; but your ring first,\n    And here the bracelet of the truest princess\n    That ever swore her faith.\n  POSTHUMUS. Kneel not to me.\n    The pow'r that I have on you is to spare you;\n    The malice towards you to forgive you. Live,\n    And deal with others better.\n  CYMBELINE. Nobly doom'd!\n    We'll learn our freeness of a son-in-law;\n    Pardon's the word to all.\n  ARVIRAGUS. You holp us, sir,\n    As you did mean indeed to be our brother;\n    Joy'd are we that you are.\n  POSTHUMUS. Your servant, Princes. Good my lord of Rome,\n    Call forth your soothsayer. As I slept, methought\n    Great Jupiter, upon his eagle back'd,\n    Appear'd to me, with other spritely shows\n    Of mine own kindred. When I wak'd, I found\n    This label on my bosom; whose containing\n    Is so from sense in hardness that I can\n    Make no collection of it. Let him show\n    His skill in the construction.\n  LUCIUS. Philarmonus!\n  SOOTHSAYER. Here, my good lord.\n  LUCIUS. Read, and declare the meaning.\n  SOOTHSAYER. [Reads] 'When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself\n    unknown, without seeking find, and be embrac'd by\n    a piece of tender air; and when from a stately cedar shall\n    be lopp'd branches which, being dead many years, shall\n    after revive, be jointed to the old stock, and freshly grow;\n    then shall Posthumus end his miseries, Britain be fortunate\n    and flourish in peace and plenty.'\n    Thou, Leonatus, art the lion's whelp;\n    The fit and apt construction of thy name,\n    Being Leo-natus, doth import so much.\n    [To CYMBELINE] The piece of tender air, thy virtuous daughter,\n    Which we call 'mollis aer,' and 'mollis aer'\n    We term it 'mulier'; which 'mulier' I divine\n    Is this most constant wife, who even now\n    Answering the letter of the oracle,\n    Unknown to you, unsought, were clipp'd about\n    With this most tender air.\n  CYMBELINE. This hath some seeming.\n  SOOTHSAYER. The lofty cedar, royal Cymbeline,\n    Personates thee; and thy lopp'd branches point\n    Thy two sons forth, who, by Belarius stol'n,\n    For many years thought dead, are now reviv'd,\n    To the majestic cedar join'd, whose issue\n    Promises Britain peace and plenty.\n  CYMBELINE. Well,\n    My peace we will begin. And, Caius Lucius,\n    Although the victor, we submit to Caesar\n    And to the Roman empire, promising\n    To pay our wonted tribute, from the which\n    We were dissuaded by our wicked queen,\n    Whom heavens in justice, both on her and hers,\n    Have laid most heavy hand.\n  SOOTHSAYER. The fingers of the pow'rs above do tune\n    The harmony of this peace. The vision\n    Which I made known to Lucius ere the stroke\n    Of yet this scarce-cold battle, at this instant\n    Is full accomplish'd; for the Roman eagle,\n    From south to west on wing soaring aloft,\n    Lessen'd herself and in the beams o' th' sun\n    So vanish'd; which foreshow'd our princely eagle,\n    Th'imperial Caesar, Caesar, should again unite\n    His favour with the radiant Cymbeline,\n    Which shines here in the west.\n  CYMBELINE. Laud we the gods;\n    And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils\n    From our bless'd altars. Publish we this peace\n    To all our subjects. Set we forward; let\n    A Roman and a British ensign wave\n    Friendly together. So through Lud's Town march;\n    And in the temple of great Jupiter\n    Our peace we'll ratify; seal it with feasts.\n    Set on there! Never was a war did cease,\n    Ere bloody hands were wash'd, with such a peace.      Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1604\n\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK\n\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  Claudius, King of Denmark.\n  Marcellus, Officer.\n  Hamlet, son to the former, and nephew to the present king.\n  Polonius, Lord Chamberlain.\n  Horatio, friend to Hamlet.\n  Laertes, son to Polonius.\n  Voltemand, courtier.\n  Cornelius, courtier.\n  Rosencrantz, courtier.\n  Guildenstern, courtier.\n  Osric, courtier.\n  A Gentleman, courtier.\n  A Priest.\n  Marcellus, officer.\n  Bernardo, officer.\n  Francisco, a soldier\n  Reynaldo, servant to Polonius.\n  Players.\n  Two Clowns, gravediggers.\n  Fortinbras, Prince of Norway.\n  A Norwegian Captain.\n  English Ambassadors.\n\n  Getrude, Queen of Denmark, mother to Hamlet.\n  Ophelia, daughter to Polonius.\n\n  Ghost of Hamlet's Father.\n\n  Lords, ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Messengers, Attendants.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE.- Elsinore.\n\n\nACT I. Scene I.\nElsinore. A platform before the Castle.\n\nEnter two Sentinels-[first,] Francisco, [who paces up and down\nat his post; then] Bernardo, [who approaches him].\n\n  Ber. Who's there.?\n  Fran. Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.\n  Ber. Long live the King!\n  Fran. Bernardo?\n  Ber. He.\n  Fran. You come most carefully upon your hour.\n  Ber. 'Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.\n  Fran. For this relief much thanks. 'Tis bitter cold,\n    And I am sick at heart.\n  Ber. Have you had quiet guard?\n  Fran. Not a mouse stirring.\n  Ber. Well, good night.\n    If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,\n    The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.\n\n                    Enter Horatio and Marcellus.\n\n  Fran. I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who is there?\n  Hor. Friends to this ground.\n  Mar. And liegemen to the Dane.\n  Fran. Give you good night.\n  Mar. O, farewell, honest soldier.\n    Who hath reliev'd you?\n  Fran. Bernardo hath my place.\n    Give you good night.                                   Exit.\n  Mar. Holla, Bernardo!\n  Ber. Say-\n    What, is Horatio there ?\n  Hor. A piece of him.\n  Ber. Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.\n  Mar. What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?\n  Ber. I have seen nothing.\n  Mar. Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,\n    And will not let belief take hold of him\n    Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us.\n    Therefore I have entreated him along,\n    With us to watch the minutes of this night,\n    That, if again this apparition come,\n    He may approve our eyes and speak to it.\n  Hor. Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.\n  Ber. Sit down awhile,\n    And let us once again assail your ears,\n    That are so fortified against our story,\n    What we two nights have seen.\n  Hor. Well, sit we down,\n    And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.\n  Ber. Last night of all,\n    When yond same star that's westward from the pole\n    Had made his course t' illume that part of heaven\n    Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,\n    The bell then beating one-\n\n                        Enter Ghost.\n\n  Mar. Peace! break thee off! Look where it comes again!\n  Ber. In the same figure, like the King that's dead.\n  Mar. Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.\n  Ber. Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.\n  Hor. Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.\n  Ber. It would be spoke to.\n  Mar. Question it, Horatio.\n  Hor. What art thou that usurp'st this time of night\n    Together with that fair and warlike form\n    In which the majesty of buried Denmark\n    Did sometimes march? By heaven I charge thee speak!\n  Mar. It is offended.\n  Ber. See, it stalks away!\n  Hor. Stay! Speak, speak! I charge thee speak!\n                                                     Exit Ghost.\n  Mar. 'Tis gone and will not answer.\n  Ber. How now, Horatio? You tremble and look pale.\n    Is not this something more than fantasy?\n    What think you on't?\n  Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe\n    Without the sensible and true avouch\n    Of mine own eyes.\n  Mar. Is it not like the King?\n  Hor. As thou art to thyself.\n    Such was the very armour he had on\n    When he th' ambitious Norway combated.\n    So frown'd he once when, in an angry parle,\n    He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.\n    'Tis strange.\n  Mar. Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,\n    With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.\n  Hor. In what particular thought to work I know not;\n    But, in the gross and scope of my opinion,\n    This bodes some strange eruption to our state.\n  Mar. Good now, sit down, and tell me he that knows,\n    Why this same strict and most observant watch\n    So nightly toils the subject of the land,\n    And why such daily cast of brazen cannon\n    And foreign mart for implements of war;\n    Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task\n    Does not divide the Sunday from the week.\n    What might be toward, that this sweaty haste\n    Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day?\n    Who is't that can inform me?\n  Hor. That can I.\n    At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,\n    Whose image even but now appear'd to us,\n    Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,\n    Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,\n    Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet\n    (For so this side of our known world esteem'd him)\n    Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact,\n    Well ratified by law and heraldry,\n    Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands\n    Which he stood seiz'd of, to the conqueror;\n    Against the which a moiety competent\n    Was gaged by our king; which had return'd\n    To the inheritance of Fortinbras,\n    Had he been vanquisher, as, by the same comart\n    And carriage of the article design'd,\n    His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,\n    Of unimproved mettle hot and full,\n    Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,\n    Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,\n    For food and diet, to some enterprise\n    That hath a stomach in't; which is no other,\n    As it doth well appear unto our state,\n    But to recover of us, by strong hand\n    And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands\n    So by his father lost; and this, I take it,\n    Is the main motive of our preparations,\n    The source of this our watch, and the chief head\n    Of this post-haste and romage in the land.\n  Ber. I think it be no other but e'en so.\n    Well may it sort that this portentous figure\n    Comes armed through our watch, so like the King\n    That was and is the question of these wars.\n  Hor. A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.\n    In the most high and palmy state of Rome,\n    A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,\n    The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead\n    Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;\n    As stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood,\n    Disasters in the sun; and the moist star\n    Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands\n    Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.\n    And even the like precurse of fierce events,\n    As harbingers preceding still the fates\n    And prologue to the omen coming on,\n    Have heaven and earth together demonstrated\n    Unto our climature and countrymen.\n\n                      Enter Ghost again.\n\n    But soft! behold! Lo, where it comes again!\n    I'll cross it, though it blast me.- Stay illusion!\n                                               Spreads his arms.\n    If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,\n    Speak to me.\n    If there be any good thing to be done,\n    That may to thee do ease, and, race to me,\n    Speak to me.\n    If thou art privy to thy country's fate,\n    Which happily foreknowing may avoid,\n    O, speak!\n    Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life\n    Extorted treasure in the womb of earth\n    (For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death),\n                                                 The cock crows.\n    Speak of it! Stay, and speak!- Stop it, Marcellus!\n  Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partisan?\n  Hor. Do, if it will not stand.\n  Ber. 'Tis here!\n  Hor. 'Tis here!\n  Mar. 'Tis gone!\n                                                     Exit Ghost.\n    We do it wrong, being so majestical,\n    To offer it the show of violence;\n    For it is as the air, invulnerable,\n    And our vain blows malicious mockery.\n  Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew.\n  Hor. And then it started, like a guilty thing\n    Upon a fearful summons. I have heard\n    The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,\n    Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat\n    Awake the god of day; and at his warning,\n    Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,\n    Th' extravagant and erring spirit hies\n    To his confine; and of the truth herein\n    This present object made probation.\n  Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock.\n    Some say that ever, 'gainst that season comes\n    Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,\n    The bird of dawning singeth all night long;\n    And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,\n    The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,\n    No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,\n    So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.\n  Hor. So have I heard and do in part believe it.\n    But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,\n    Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill.\n    Break we our watch up; and by my advice\n    Let us impart what we have seen to-night\n    Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,\n    This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.\n    Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,\n    As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?\n    Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know\n    Where we shall find him most conveniently.           Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nElsinore. A room of state in the Castle.\n\nFlourish. [Enter Claudius, King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, Hamlet,\nPolonius, Laertes and his sister Ophelia, [Voltemand, Cornelius,]\nLords Attendant.\n\n  King. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death\n    The memory be green, and that it us befitted\n    To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom\n    To be contracted in one brow of woe,\n    Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature\n    That we with wisest sorrow think on him\n    Together with remembrance of ourselves.\n    Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,\n    Th' imperial jointress to this warlike state,\n    Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,\n    With an auspicious, and a dropping eye,\n    With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,\n    In equal scale weighing delight and dole,\n    Taken to wife; nor have we herein barr'd\n    Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone\n    With this affair along. For all, our thanks.\n    Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,\n    Holding a weak supposal of our worth,\n    Or thinking by our late dear brother's death\n    Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,\n    Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,\n    He hath not fail'd to pester us with message\n    Importing the surrender of those lands\n    Lost by his father, with all bands of law,\n    To our most valiant brother. So much for him.\n    Now for ourself and for this time of meeting.\n    Thus much the business is: we have here writ\n    To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,\n    Who, impotent and bedrid, scarcely hears\n    Of this his nephew's purpose, to suppress\n    His further gait herein, in that the levies,\n    The lists, and full proportions are all made\n    Out of his subject; and we here dispatch\n    You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand,\n    For bearers of this greeting to old Norway,\n    Giving to you no further personal power\n    To business with the King, more than the scope\n    Of these dilated articles allow.            [Gives a paper.]\n    Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.\n  Cor., Volt. In that, and all things, will we show our duty.\n  King. We doubt it nothing. Heartily farewell.\n                                 Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius.\n    And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?\n    You told us of some suit. What is't, Laertes?\n    You cannot speak of reason to the Dane\n    And lose your voice. What wouldst thou beg, Laertes,\n    That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?\n    The head is not more native to the heart,\n    The hand more instrumental to the mouth,\n    Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.\n    What wouldst thou have, Laertes?\n  Laer. My dread lord,\n    Your leave and favour to return to France;\n    From whence though willingly I came to Denmark\n    To show my duty in your coronation,\n    Yet now I must confess, that duty done,\n    My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France\n    And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.\n  King. Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?\n  Pol. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave\n    By laboursome petition, and at last\n    Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent.\n    I do beseech you give him leave to go.\n  King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes. Time be thine,\n    And thy best graces spend it at thy will!\n    But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son-\n  Ham. [aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind!\n  King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you?\n  Ham. Not so, my lord. I am too much i' th' sun.\n  Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,\n    And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.\n    Do not for ever with thy vailed lids\n    Seek for thy noble father in the dust.\n    Thou know'st 'tis common. All that lives must die,\n    Passing through nature to eternity.\n  Ham. Ay, madam, it is common.\n  Queen. If it be,\n    Why seems it so particular with thee?\n  Ham. Seems, madam, Nay, it is. I know not 'seems.'\n    'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,\n    Nor customary suits of solemn black,\n    Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,\n    No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,\n    Nor the dejected havior of the visage,\n    Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,\n    'That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,\n    For they are actions that a man might play;\n    But I have that within which passeth show-\n    These but the trappings and the suits of woe.\n  King. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,\n    To give these mourning duties to your father;\n    But you must know, your father lost a father;\n    That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound\n    In filial obligation for some term\n    To do obsequious sorrow. But to persever\n    In obstinate condolement is a course\n    Of impious stubbornness. 'Tis unmanly grief;\n    It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,\n    A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,\n    An understanding simple and unschool'd;\n    For what we know must be, and is as common\n    As any the most vulgar thing to sense,\n    Why should we in our peevish opposition\n    Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,\n    A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,\n    To reason most absurd, whose common theme\n    Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,\n    From the first corse till he that died to-day,\n    'This must be so.' We pray you throw to earth\n    This unprevailing woe, and think of us\n    As of a father; for let the world take note\n    You are the most immediate to our throne,\n    And with no less nobility of love\n    Than that which dearest father bears his son\n    Do I impart toward you. For your intent\n    In going back to school in Wittenberg,\n    It is most retrograde to our desire;\n    And we beseech you, bend you to remain\n    Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,\n    Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.\n  Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.\n    I pray thee stay with us, go not to Wittenberg.\n  Ham. I shall in all my best obey you, madam.\n  King. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply.\n    Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come.\n    This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet\n    Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,\n    No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day\n    But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,\n    And the King's rouse the heaven shall bruit again,\n    Respeaking earthly thunder. Come away.\n                                Flourish. Exeunt all but Hamlet.\n  Ham. O that this too too solid flesh would melt,\n    Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!\n    Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd\n    His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!\n    How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable\n    Seem to me all the uses of this world!\n    Fie on't! ah, fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden\n    That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature\n    Possess it merely. That it should come to this!\n    But two months dead! Nay, not so much, not two.\n    So excellent a king, that was to this\n    Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother\n    That he might not beteem the winds of heaven\n    Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!\n    Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him\n    As if increase of appetite had grown\n    By what it fed on; and yet, within a month-\n    Let me not think on't! Frailty, thy name is woman!-\n    A little month, or ere those shoes were old\n    With which she followed my poor father's body\n    Like Niobe, all tears- why she, even she\n    (O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason\n    Would have mourn'd longer) married with my uncle;\n    My father's brother, but no more like my father\n    Than I to Hercules. Within a month,\n    Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears\n    Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,\n    She married. O, most wicked speed, to post\n    With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!\n    It is not, nor it cannot come to good.\n    But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue!\n\n          Enter Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo.\n\n  Hor. Hail to your lordship!\n  Ham. I am glad to see you well.\n    Horatio!- or I do forget myself.\n  Hor. The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.\n  Ham. Sir, my good friend- I'll change that name with you.\n    And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?\n    Marcellus?\n  Mar. My good lord!\n  Ham. I am very glad to see you.- [To Bernardo] Good even, sir.-\n    But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?\n  Hor. A truant disposition, good my lord.\n  Ham. I would not hear your enemy say so,\n    Nor shall you do my ear that violence\n    To make it truster of your own report\n    Against yourself. I know you are no truant.\n    But what is your affair in Elsinore?\n    We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.\n  Hor. My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.\n  Ham. I prithee do not mock me, fellow student.\n    I think it was to see my mother's wedding.\n  Hor. Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon.\n  Ham. Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak'd meats\n    Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.\n    Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven\n    Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!\n    My father- methinks I see my father.\n  Hor. O, where, my lord?\n  Ham. In my mind's eye, Horatio.\n  Hor. I saw him once. He was a goodly king.\n  Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all.\n    I shall not look upon his like again.\n  Hor. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.\n  Ham. Saw? who?\n  Hor. My lord, the King your father.\n  Ham. The King my father?\n  Hor. Season your admiration for a while\n    With an attent ear, till I may deliver\n    Upon the witness of these gentlemen,\n    This marvel to you.\n  Ham. For God's love let me hear!\n  Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen\n    (Marcellus and Bernardo) on their watch\n    In the dead vast and middle of the night\n    Been thus encount'red. A figure like your father,\n    Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe,\n    Appears before them and with solemn march\n    Goes slow and stately by them. Thrice he walk'd\n    By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,\n    Within his truncheon's length; whilst they distill'd\n    Almost to jelly with the act of fear,\n    Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me\n    In dreadful secrecy impart they did,\n    And I with them the third night kept the watch;\n    Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,\n    Form of the thing, each word made true and good,\n    The apparition comes. I knew your father.\n    These hands are not more like.\n  Ham. But where was this?\n  Mar. My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd.\n  Ham. Did you not speak to it?\n  Hor. My lord, I did;\n    But answer made it none. Yet once methought\n    It lifted up it head and did address\n    Itself to motion, like as it would speak;\n    But even then the morning cock crew loud,\n    And at the sound it shrunk in haste away\n    And vanish'd from our sight.\n  Ham. 'Tis very strange.\n  Hor. As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;\n    And we did think it writ down in our duty\n    To let you know of it.\n  Ham. Indeed, indeed, sirs. But this troubles me.\n    Hold you the watch to-night?\n  Both [Mar. and Ber.] We do, my lord.\n  Ham. Arm'd, say you?\n  Both. Arm'd, my lord.\n  Ham. From top to toe?\n  Both. My lord, from head to foot.\n  Ham. Then saw you not his face?\n  Hor. O, yes, my lord! He wore his beaver up.\n  Ham. What, look'd he frowningly.\n  Hor. A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.\n  Ham. Pale or red?\n  Hor. Nay, very pale.\n  Ham. And fix'd his eyes upon you?\n  Hor. Most constantly.\n  Ham. I would I had been there.\n  Hor. It would have much amaz'd you.\n  Ham. Very like, very like. Stay'd it long?\n  Hor. While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.\n  Both. Longer, longer.\n  Hor. Not when I saw't.\n  Ham. His beard was grizzled- no?\n  Hor. It was, as I have seen it in his life,\n    A sable silver'd.\n  Ham. I will watch to-night.\n    Perchance 'twill walk again.\n  Hor. I warr'nt it will.\n  Ham. If it assume my noble father's person,\n    I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape\n    And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,\n    If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,\n    Let it be tenable in your silence still;\n    And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,\n    Give it an understanding but no tongue.\n    I will requite your loves. So, fare you well.\n    Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve,\n    I'll visit you.\n  All. Our duty to your honour.\n  Ham. Your loves, as mine to you. Farewell.\n                                        Exeunt [all but Hamlet].\n    My father's spirit- in arms? All is not well.\n    I doubt some foul play. Would the night were come!\n    Till then sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise,\n    Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.\nExit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nElsinore. A room in the house of Polonius.\n\nEnter Laertes and Ophelia.\n\n  Laer. My necessaries are embark'd. Farewell.\n    And, sister, as the winds give benefit\n    And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,\n    But let me hear from you.\n  Oph. Do you doubt that?\n  Laer. For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,\n    Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood;\n    A violet in the youth of primy nature,\n    Forward, not permanent- sweet, not lasting;\n    The perfume and suppliance of a minute;\n    No more.\n  Oph. No more but so?\n  Laer. Think it no more.\n    For nature crescent does not grow alone\n    In thews and bulk; but as this temple waxes,\n    The inward service of the mind and soul\n    Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,\n    And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch\n    The virtue of his will; but you must fear,\n    His greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own;\n    For he himself is subject to his birth.\n    He may not, as unvalued persons do,\n    Carve for himself, for on his choice depends\n    The safety and health of this whole state,\n    And therefore must his choice be circumscrib'd\n    Unto the voice and yielding of that body\n    Whereof he is the head. Then if he says he loves you,\n    It fits your wisdom so far to believe it\n    As he in his particular act and place\n    May give his saying deed; which is no further\n    Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.\n    Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain\n    If with too credent ear you list his songs,\n    Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open\n    To his unmast'red importunity.\n    Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,\n    And keep you in the rear of your affection,\n    Out of the shot and danger of desire.\n    The chariest maid is prodigal enough\n    If she unmask her beauty to the moon.\n    Virtue itself scopes not calumnious strokes.\n    The canker galls the infants of the spring\n    Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd,\n    And in the morn and liquid dew of youth\n    Contagious blastments are most imminent.\n    Be wary then; best safety lies in fear.\n    Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.\n  Oph. I shall th' effect of this good lesson keep\n    As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,\n    Do not as some ungracious pastors do,\n    Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,\n    Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,\n    Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads\n    And recks not his own rede.\n  Laer. O, fear me not!\n\n                       Enter Polonius.\n\n    I stay too long. But here my father comes.\n    A double blessing is a double grace;\n    Occasion smiles upon a second leave.\n  Pol. Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!\n    The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,\n    And you are stay'd for. There- my blessing with thee!\n    And these few precepts in thy memory\n    Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,\n    Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.\n    Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar:\n    Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,\n    Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel;\n    But do not dull thy palm with entertainment\n    Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware\n    Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,\n    Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.\n    Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;\n    Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.\n    Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,\n    But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;\n    For the apparel oft proclaims the man,\n    And they in France of the best rank and station\n    Are most select and generous, chief in that.\n    Neither a borrower nor a lender be;\n    For loan oft loses both itself and friend,\n    And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.\n    This above all- to thine own self be true,\n    And it must follow, as the night the day,\n    Thou canst not then be false to any man.\n    Farewell. My blessing season this in thee!\n  Laer. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.\n  Pol. The time invites you. Go, your servants tend.\n  Laer. Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well\n    What I have said to you.\n  Oph. 'Tis in my memory lock'd,\n    And you yourself shall keep the key of it.\n  Laer. Farewell.                                          Exit.\n  Pol. What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you?\n  Oph. So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.\n  Pol. Marry, well bethought!\n    'Tis told me he hath very oft of late\n    Given private time to you, and you yourself\n    Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.\n    If it be so- as so 'tis put on me,\n    And that in way of caution- I must tell you\n    You do not understand yourself so clearly\n    As it behooves my daughter and your honour.\n    What is between you? Give me up the truth.\n  Oph. He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders\n    Of his affection to me.\n  Pol. Affection? Pooh! You speak like a green girl,\n    Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.\n    Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?\n  Oph. I do not know, my lord, what I should think,\n  Pol. Marry, I will teach you! Think yourself a baby\n    That you have ta'en these tenders for true pay,\n    Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly,\n    Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,\n    Running it thus) you'll tender me a fool.\n  Oph. My lord, he hath importun'd me with love\n    In honourable fashion.\n  Pol. Ay, fashion you may call it. Go to, go to!\n  Oph. And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,\n    With almost all the holy vows of heaven.\n  Pol. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks! I do know,\n    When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul\n    Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter,\n    Giving more light than heat, extinct in both\n    Even in their promise, as it is a-making,\n    You must not take for fire. From this time\n    Be something scanter of your maiden presence.\n    Set your entreatments at a higher rate\n    Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,\n    Believe so much in him, that he is young,\n    And with a larger tether may he walk\n    Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia,\n    Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,\n    Not of that dye which their investments show,\n    But mere implorators of unholy suits,\n    Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,\n    The better to beguile. This is for all:\n    I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth\n    Have you so slander any moment leisure\n    As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.\n    Look to't, I charge you. Come your ways.\n  Oph. I shall obey, my lord.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nElsinore. The platform before the Castle.\n\nEnter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus.\n\n  Ham. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.\n  Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air.\n  Ham. What hour now?\n  Hor. I think it lacks of twelve.\n  Mar. No, it is struck.\n  Hor. Indeed? I heard it not. It then draws near the season\n    Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.\n                   A flourish of trumpets, and two pieces go off.\n    What does this mean, my lord?\n  Ham. The King doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,\n    Keeps wassail, and the swagg'ring upspring reels,\n    And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,\n    The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out\n    The triumph of his pledge.\n  Hor. Is it a custom?\n  Ham. Ay, marry, is't;\n    But to my mind, though I am native here\n    And to the manner born, it is a custom\n    More honour'd in the breach than the observance.\n    This heavy-headed revel east and west\n    Makes us traduc'd and tax'd of other nations;\n    They clip us drunkards and with swinish phrase\n    Soil our addition; and indeed it takes\n    From our achievements, though perform'd at height,\n    The pith and marrow of our attribute.\n    So oft it chances in particular men\n    That, for some vicious mole of nature in them,\n    As in their birth,- wherein they are not guilty,\n    Since nature cannot choose his origin,-\n    By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,\n    Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,\n    Or by some habit that too much o'erleavens\n    The form of plausive manners, that these men\n    Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,\n    Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,\n    Their virtues else- be they as pure as grace,\n    As infinite as man may undergo-\n    Shall in the general censure take corruption\n    From that particular fault. The dram of e'il\n    Doth all the noble substance often dout To his own scandal.\n\n                         Enter Ghost.\n\n  Hor. Look, my lord, it comes!\n  Ham. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!\n    Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,\n    Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,\n    Be thy intents wicked or charitable,\n    Thou com'st in such a questionable shape\n    That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet,\n    King, father, royal Dane. O, answer me?\n    Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell\n    Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,\n    Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre\n    Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,\n    Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws\n    To cast thee up again. What may this mean\n    That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel,\n    Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,\n    Making night hideous, and we fools of nature\n    So horridly to shake our disposition\n    With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?\n    Say, why is this? wherefore? What should we do?\n                                           Ghost beckons Hamlet.\n  Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,\n    As if it some impartment did desire\n    To you alone.\n  Mar. Look with what courteous action\n    It waves you to a more removed ground.\n    But do not go with it!\n  Hor. No, by no means!\n  Ham. It will not speak. Then will I follow it.\n  Hor. Do not, my lord!\n  Ham. Why, what should be the fear?\n    I do not set my life at a pin's fee;\n    And for my soul, what can it do to that,\n    Being a thing immortal as itself?\n    It waves me forth again. I'll follow it.\n  Hor. What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,\n    Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff\n    That beetles o'er his base into the sea,\n    And there assume some other, horrible form\n    Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason\n    And draw you into madness? Think of it.\n    The very place puts toys of desperation,\n    Without more motive, into every brain\n    That looks so many fadoms to the sea\n    And hears it roar beneath.\n  Ham. It waves me still.\n    Go on. I'll follow thee.\n  Mar. You shall not go, my lord.\n  Ham. Hold off your hands!\n  Hor. Be rul'd. You shall not go.\n  Ham. My fate cries out\n    And makes each petty artire in this body\n    As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.\n                                                [Ghost beckons.]\n    Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen.\n    By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!-\n    I say, away!- Go on. I'll follow thee.\n                                        Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet.\n  Hor. He waxes desperate with imagination.\n  Mar. Let's follow. 'Tis not fit thus to obey him.\n  Hor. Have after. To what issue wail this come?\n  Mar. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.\n  Hor. Heaven will direct it.\n  Mar. Nay, let's follow him.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nElsinore. The Castle. Another part of the fortifications.\n\nEnter Ghost and Hamlet.\n\n  Ham. Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak! I'll go no further.\n  Ghost. Mark me.\n  Ham. I will.\n  Ghost. My hour is almost come,\n    When I to sulph'rous and tormenting flames\n    Must render up myself.\n  Ham. Alas, poor ghost!\n  Ghost. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing\n    To what I shall unfold.\n  Ham. Speak. I am bound to hear.\n  Ghost. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.\n  Ham. What?\n  Ghost. I am thy father's spirit,\n    Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,\n    And for the day confin'd to fast in fires,\n    Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature\n    Are burnt and purg'd away. But that I am forbid\n    To tell the secrets of my prison house,\n    I could a tale unfold whose lightest word\n    Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,\n    Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,\n    Thy knotted and combined locks to part,\n    And each particular hair to stand an end\n    Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.\n    But this eternal blazon must not be\n    To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!\n    If thou didst ever thy dear father love-\n  Ham. O God!\n  Ghost. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murther.\n  Ham. Murther?\n  Ghost. Murther most foul, as in the best it is;\n    But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.\n  Ham. Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift\n    As meditation or the thoughts of love,\n    May sweep to my revenge.\n  Ghost. I find thee apt;\n    And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed\n    That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,\n    Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear.\n    'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,\n    A serpent stung me. So the whole ear of Denmark\n    Is by a forged process of my death\n    Rankly abus'd. But know, thou noble youth,\n    The serpent that did sting thy father's life\n    Now wears his crown.\n  Ham. O my prophetic soul!\n    My uncle?\n  Ghost. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,\n    With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts-\n    O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power\n    So to seduce!- won to his shameful lust\n    The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.\n    O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there,\n    From me, whose love was of that dignity\n    That it went hand in hand even with the vow\n    I made to her in marriage, and to decline\n    Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor\n    To those of mine!\n    But virtue, as it never will be mov'd,\n    Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,\n    So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd,\n    Will sate itself in a celestial bed\n    And prey on garbage.\n    But soft! methinks I scent the morning air.\n    Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,\n    My custom always of the afternoon,\n    Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,\n    With juice of cursed hebona in a vial,\n    And in the porches of my ears did pour\n    The leperous distilment; whose effect\n    Holds such an enmity with blood of man\n    That swift as quicksilverr it courses through\n    The natural gates and alleys of the body,\n    And with a sudden vigour it doth posset\n    And curd, like eager droppings into milk,\n    The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine;\n    And a most instant tetter bark'd about,\n    Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust\n    All my smooth body.\n    Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand\n    Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd;\n    Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,\n    Unhous'led, disappointed, unanel'd,\n    No reckoning made, but sent to my account\n    With all my imperfections on my head.\n  Ham. O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!\n  Ghost. If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.\n    Let not the royal bed of Denmark be\n    A couch for luxury and damned incest.\n    But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,\n    Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive\n    Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven,\n    And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge\n    To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once.\n    The glowworm shows the matin to be near\n    And gins to pale his uneffectual fire.\n    Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me.                      Exit.\n  Ham. O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?\n    And shall I couple hell? Hold, hold, my heart!\n    And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,\n    But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee?\n    Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat\n    In this distracted globe. Remember thee?\n    Yea, from the table of my memory\n    I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,\n    All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past\n    That youth and observation copied there,\n    And thy commandment all alone shall live\n    Within the book and volume of my brain,\n    Unmix'd with baser matter. Yes, by heaven!\n    O most pernicious woman!\n    O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!\n    My tables! Meet it is I set it down\n    That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;\n    At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.        [Writes.]\n    So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word:\n    It is 'Adieu, adieu! Remember me.'\n    I have sworn't.\n  Hor. (within) My lord, my lord!\n\n                   Enter Horatio and Marcellus.\n\n  Mar. Lord Hamlet!\n  Hor. Heaven secure him!\n  Ham. So be it!\n  Mar. Illo, ho, ho, my lord!\n  Ham. Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come.\n  Mar. How is't, my noble lord?\n  Hor. What news, my lord?\n  Mar. O, wonderful!\n  Hor. Good my lord, tell it.\n  Ham. No, you will reveal it.\n  Hor. Not I, my lord, by heaven!\n  Mar. Nor I, my lord.\n  Ham. How say you then? Would heart of man once think it?\n    But you'll be secret?\n  Both. Ay, by heaven, my lord.\n  Ham. There's neer a villain dwelling in all Denmark\n    But he's an arrant knave.\n  Hor. There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave\n    To tell us this.\n  Ham. Why, right! You are in the right!\n    And so, without more circumstance at all,\n    I hold it fit that we shake hands and part;\n    You, as your business and desires shall point you,\n    For every man hath business and desire,\n    Such as it is; and for my own poor part,\n    Look you, I'll go pray.\n  Hor. These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.\n  Ham. I am sorry they offend you, heartily;\n    Yes, faith, heartily.\n  Hor. There's no offence, my lord.\n  Ham. Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,\n    And much offence too. Touching this vision here,\n    It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you.\n    For your desire to know what is between us,\n    O'ermaster't as you may. And now, good friends,\n    As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers,\n    Give me one poor request.\n  Hor. What is't, my lord? We will.\n  Ham. Never make known what you have seen to-night.\n  Both. My lord, we will not.\n  Ham. Nay, but swear't.\n  Hor. In faith,\n    My lord, not I.\n  Mar. Nor I, my lord- in faith.\n  Ham. Upon my sword.\n  Mar. We have sworn, my lord, already.\n  Ham. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.\n\n                 Ghost cries under the stage.\n\n  Ghost. Swear.\n  Ham. Aha boy, say'st thou so? Art thou there, truepenny?\n    Come on! You hear this fellow in the cellarage.\n    Consent to swear.\n  Hor. Propose the oath, my lord.\n  Ham. Never to speak of this that you have seen.\n    Swear by my sword.\n  Ghost. [beneath] Swear.\n  Ham. Hic et ubique? Then we'll shift our ground.\n    Come hither, gentlemen,\n    And lay your hands again upon my sword.\n    Never to speak of this that you have heard:\n    Swear by my sword.\n  Ghost. [beneath] Swear by his sword.\n  Ham. Well said, old mole! Canst work i' th' earth so fast?\n    A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friends.\"\n  Hor. O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!\n  Ham. And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.\n    There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,\n    Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.\n    But come!\n    Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,\n    How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself\n    (As I perchance hereafter shall think meet\n    To put an antic disposition on),\n    That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,\n    With arms encumb'red thus, or this head-shake,\n    Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,\n    As 'Well, well, we know,' or 'We could, an if we would,'\n    Or 'If we list to speak,' or 'There be, an if they might,'\n    Or such ambiguous giving out, to note\n    That you know aught of me- this is not to do,\n    So grace and mercy at your most need help you,\n    Swear.\n  Ghost. [beneath] Swear.\n                                                   [They swear.]\n  Ham. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit! So, gentlemen,\n    With all my love I do commend me to you;\n    And what so poor a man as Hamlet is\n    May do t' express his love and friending to you,\n    God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together;\n    And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.\n    The time is out of joint. O cursed spite\n    That ever I was born to set it right!\n    Nay, come, let's go together.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAct II. Scene I.\nElsinore. A room in the house of Polonius.\n\nEnter Polonius and Reynaldo.\n\n  Pol. Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.\n  Rey. I will, my lord.\n  Pol. You shall do marvell's wisely, good Reynaldo,\n    Before You visit him, to make inquire\n    Of his behaviour.\n  Rey. My lord, I did intend it.\n  Pol. Marry, well said, very well said. Look you, sir,\n    Enquire me first what Danskers are in Paris;\n    And how, and who, what means, and where they keep,\n    What company, at what expense; and finding\n    By this encompassment and drift of question\n    That they do know my son, come you more nearer\n    Than your particular demands will touch it.\n    Take you, as 'twere, some distant knowledge of him;\n    As thus, 'I know his father and his friends,\n    And in part him.' Do you mark this, Reynaldo?\n  Rey. Ay, very well, my lord.\n  Pol. 'And in part him, but,' you may say, 'not well.\n    But if't be he I mean, he's very wild\n    Addicted so and so'; and there put on him\n    What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank\n    As may dishonour him- take heed of that;\n    But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips\n    As are companions noted and most known\n    To youth and liberty.\n  Rey. As gaming, my lord.\n  Pol. Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling,\n    Drabbing. You may go so far.\n  Rey. My lord, that would dishonour him.\n  Pol. Faith, no, as you may season it in the charge.\n    You must not put another scandal on him,\n    That he is open to incontinency.\n    That's not my meaning. But breathe his faults so quaintly\n    That they may seem the taints of liberty,\n    The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,\n    A savageness in unreclaimed blood,\n    Of general assault.\n  Rey. But, my good lord-\n  Pol. Wherefore should you do this?\n  Rey. Ay, my lord,\n    I would know that.\n  Pol. Marry, sir, here's my drift,\n    And I believe it is a fetch of warrant.\n    You laying these slight sullies on my son\n    As 'twere a thing a little soil'd i' th' working,\n    Mark you,\n    Your party in converse, him you would sound,\n    Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes\n    The youth you breathe of guilty, be assur'd\n    He closes with you in this consequence:\n    'Good sir,' or so, or 'friend,' or 'gentleman'-\n    According to the phrase or the addition\n    Of man and country-\n  Rey. Very good, my lord.\n  Pol. And then, sir, does 'a this- 'a does- What was I about to say?\n    By the mass, I was about to say something! Where did I leave?\n  Rey. At 'closes in the consequence,' at 'friend or so,' and\n    gentleman.'\n  Pol. At 'closes in the consequence'- Ay, marry!\n    He closes thus: 'I know the gentleman.\n    I saw him yesterday, or t'other day,\n    Or then, or then, with such or such; and, as you say,\n    There was 'a gaming; there o'ertook in's rouse;\n    There falling out at tennis'; or perchance,\n    'I saw him enter such a house of sale,'\n    Videlicet, a brothel, or so forth.\n    See you now-\n    Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth;\n    And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,\n    With windlasses and with assays of bias,\n    By indirections find directions out.\n    So, by my former lecture and advice,\n    Shall you my son. You have me, have you not\n  Rey. My lord, I have.\n  Pol. God b' wi' ye, fare ye well!\n  Rey. Good my lord!                                    [Going.]\n  Pol. Observe his inclination in yourself.\n  Rey. I shall, my lord.\n  Pol. And let him ply his music.\n  Rey. Well, my lord.\n  Pol. Farewell!\n                                                  Exit Reynaldo.\n\n                       Enter Ophelia.\n\n    How now, Ophelia? What's the matter?\n  Oph. O my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted!\n  Pol. With what, i' th' name of God I\n  Oph. My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,\n    Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac'd,\n    No hat upon his head, his stockings foul'd,\n    Ungart'red, and down-gyved to his ankle;\n    Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,\n    And with a look so piteous in purport\n    As if he had been loosed out of hell\n    To speak of horrors- he comes before me.\n  Pol. Mad for thy love?\n  Oph. My lord, I do not know,\n    But truly I do fear it.\n  Pol. What said he?\n  Oph. He took me by the wrist and held me hard;\n    Then goes he to the length of all his arm,\n    And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,\n    He falls to such perusal of my face\n    As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so.\n    At last, a little shaking of mine arm,\n    And thrice his head thus waving up and down,\n    He rais'd a sigh so piteous and profound\n    As it did seem to shatter all his bulk\n    And end his being. That done, he lets me go,\n    And with his head over his shoulder turn'd\n    He seem'd to find his way without his eyes,\n    For out o' doors he went without their help\n    And to the last bended their light on me.\n  Pol. Come, go with me. I will go seek the King.\n    This is the very ecstasy of love,\n    Whose violent property fordoes itself\n    And leads the will to desperate undertakings\n    As oft as any passion under heaven\n    That does afflict our natures. I am sorry.\n    What, have you given him any hard words of late?\n  Oph. No, my good lord; but, as you did command,\n    I did repel his letters and denied\n    His access to me.\n  Pol. That hath made him mad.\n    I am sorry that with better heed and judgment\n    I had not quoted him. I fear'd he did but trifle\n    And meant to wrack thee; but beshrew my jealousy!\n    By heaven, it is as proper to our age\n    To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions\n    As it is common for the younger sort\n    To lack discretion. Come, go we to the King.\n    This must be known; which, being kept close, might move\n    More grief to hide than hate to utter love.\n    Come.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\nScene II.\nElsinore. A room in the Castle.\n\nFlourish. [Enter King and Queen, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, cum aliis.\n\n  King. Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.\n    Moreover that we much did long to see you,\n    The need we have to use you did provoke\n    Our hasty sending. Something have you heard\n    Of Hamlet's transformation. So I call it,\n    Sith nor th' exterior nor the inward man\n    Resembles that it was. What it should be,\n    More than his father's death, that thus hath put him\n    So much from th' understanding of himself,\n    I cannot dream of. I entreat you both\n    That, being of so young clays brought up with him,\n    And since so neighbour'd to his youth and haviour,\n    That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court\n    Some little time; so by your companies\n    To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather\n    So much as from occasion you may glean,\n    Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus\n    That, open'd, lies within our remedy.\n  Queen. Good gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you,\n    And sure I am two men there are not living\n    To whom he more adheres. If it will please you\n    To show us so much gentry and good will\n    As to expend your time with us awhile\n    For the supply and profit of our hope,\n    Your visitation shall receive such thanks\n    As fits a king's remembrance.\n  Ros. Both your Majesties\n    Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,\n    Put your dread pleasures more into command\n    Than to entreaty.\n  Guil. But we both obey,\n    And here give up ourselves, in the full bent,\n    To lay our service freely at your feet,\n    To be commanded.\n  King. Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.\n  Queen. Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.\n    And I beseech you instantly to visit\n    My too much changed son.- Go, some of you,\n    And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.\n  Guil. Heavens make our presence and our practices\n    Pleasant and helpful to him!\n  Queen. Ay, amen!\n                 Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, [with some\n                                                    Attendants].\n\n                         Enter Polonius.\n\n  Pol. Th' ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,\n    Are joyfully return'd.\n  King. Thou still hast been the father of good news.\n  Pol. Have I, my lord? Assure you, my good liege,\n    I hold my duty as I hold my soul,\n    Both to my God and to my gracious king;\n    And I do think- or else this brain of mine\n    Hunts not the trail of policy so sure\n    As it hath us'd to do- that I have found\n    The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.\n  King. O, speak of that! That do I long to hear.\n  Pol. Give first admittance to th' ambassadors.\n    My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.\n  King. Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.\n                                                [Exit Polonius.]\n    He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found\n    The head and source of all your son's distemper.\n  Queen. I doubt it is no other but the main,\n    His father's death and our o'erhasty marriage.\n  King. Well, we shall sift him.\n\n              Enter Polonius, Voltemand, and Cornelius.\n\n    Welcome, my good friends.\n    Say, Voltemand, what from our brother Norway?\n  Volt. Most fair return of greetings and desires.\n    Upon our first, he sent out to suppress\n    His nephew's levies; which to him appear'd\n    To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack,\n    But better look'd into, he truly found\n    It was against your Highness; whereat griev'd,\n    That so his sickness, age, and impotence\n    Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests\n    On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys,\n    Receives rebuke from Norway, and, in fine,\n    Makes vow before his uncle never more\n    To give th' assay of arms against your Majesty.\n    Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,\n    Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee\n    And his commission to employ those soldiers,\n    So levied as before, against the Polack;\n    With an entreaty, herein further shown,\n                                                [Gives a paper.]\n    That it might please you to give quiet pass\n    Through your dominions for this enterprise,\n    On such regards of safety and allowance\n    As therein are set down.\n  King. It likes us well;\n    And at our more consider'd time we'll read,\n    Answer, and think upon this business.\n    Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour.\n    Go to your rest; at night we'll feast together.\n    Most welcome home!                       Exeunt Ambassadors.\n  Pol. This business is well ended.\n    My liege, and madam, to expostulate\n    What majesty should be, what duty is,\n    Why day is day, night is night, and time is time.\n    Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.\n    Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,\n    And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,\n    I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.\n    Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,\n    What is't but to be nothing else but mad?\n    But let that go.\n  Queen. More matter, with less art.\n  Pol. Madam, I swear I use no art at all.\n    That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity;\n    And pity 'tis 'tis true. A foolish figure!\n    But farewell it, for I will use no art.\n    Mad let us grant him then. And now remains\n    That we find out the cause of this effect-\n    Or rather say, the cause of this defect,\n    For this effect defective comes by cause.\n    Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.\n    Perpend.\n    I have a daughter (have while she is mine),\n    Who in her duty and obedience, mark,\n    Hath given me this. Now gather, and surmise.\n                                             [Reads] the letter.\n    'To the celestial, and my soul's idol, the most beautified\n      Ophelia,'-\n\n    That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase; 'beautified' is a vile\n      phrase.\n    But you shall hear. Thus:\n                                                        [Reads.]\n    'In her excellent white bosom, these, &c.'\n  Queen. Came this from Hamlet to her?\n  Pol. Good madam, stay awhile. I will be faithful.     [Reads.]\n\n          'Doubt thou the stars are fire;\n            Doubt that the sun doth move;\n          Doubt truth to be a liar;\n            But never doubt I love.\n      'O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers; I have not art to\n    reckon my groans; but that I love thee best, O most best, believe\n    it. Adieu.\n      'Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him,\n                                                          HAMLET.'\n\n    This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me;\n    And more above, hath his solicitings,\n    As they fell out by time, by means, and place,\n    All given to mine ear.\n  King. But how hath she\n    Receiv'd his love?\n  Pol. What do you think of me?\n  King. As of a man faithful and honourable.\n  Pol. I would fain prove so. But what might you think,\n    When I had seen this hot love on the wing\n    (As I perceiv'd it, I must tell you that,\n    Before my daughter told me), what might you,\n    Or my dear Majesty your queen here, think,\n    If I had play'd the desk or table book,\n    Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,\n    Or look'd upon this love with idle sight?\n    What might you think? No, I went round to work\n    And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:\n    'Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star.\n    This must not be.' And then I prescripts gave her,\n    That she should lock herself from his resort,\n    Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.\n    Which done, she took the fruits of my advice,\n    And he, repulsed, a short tale to make,\n    Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,\n    Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,\n    Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,\n    Into the madness wherein now he raves,\n    And all we mourn for.\n  King. Do you think 'tis this?\n  Queen. it may be, very like.\n  Pol. Hath there been such a time- I would fain know that-\n    That I have Positively said ''Tis so,'\n    When it prov'd otherwise.?\n  King. Not that I know.\n  Pol. [points to his head and shoulder] Take this from this, if this\n      be otherwise.\n    If circumstances lead me, I will find\n    Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed\n    Within the centre.\n  King. How may we try it further?\n  Pol. You know sometimes he walks four hours together\n    Here in the lobby.\n  Queen. So he does indeed.\n  Pol. At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him.\n    Be you and I behind an arras then.\n    Mark the encounter. If he love her not,\n    And he not from his reason fall'n thereon\n    Let me be no assistant for a state,\n    But keep a farm and carters.\n  King. We will try it.\n\n                 Enter Hamlet, reading on a book.\n\n  Queen. But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.\n  Pol. Away, I do beseech you, both away\n    I'll board him presently. O, give me leave.\n                       Exeunt King and Queen, [with Attendants].\n    How does my good Lord Hamlet?\n  Ham. Well, God-a-mercy.\n  Pol. Do you know me, my lord?\n  Ham. Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.\n  Pol. Not I, my lord.\n  Ham. Then I would you were so honest a man.\n  Pol. Honest, my lord?\n  Ham. Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man\n    pick'd out of ten thousand.\n  Pol. That's very true, my lord.\n  Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god\n    kissing carrion- Have you a daughter?\n  Pol. I have, my lord.\n  Ham. Let her not walk i' th' sun. Conception is a blessing, but not\n    as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to't.\n  Pol. [aside] How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter. Yet\n    he knew me not at first. He said I was a fishmonger. He is far\n    gone, far gone! And truly in my youth I suff'red much extremity\n    for love- very near this. I'll speak to him again.- What do you\n    read, my lord?\n  Ham. Words, words, words.\n  Pol. What is the matter, my lord?\n  Ham. Between who?\n  Pol. I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.\n  Ham. Slanders, sir; for the satirical rogue says here that old men\n    have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes\n    purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a\n    plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams. All which,\n    sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it\n    not honesty to have it thus set down; for you yourself, sir,\n    should be old as I am if, like a crab, you could go backward.\n  Pol. [aside] Though this be madness, yet there is a method in't.-\n   Will You walk out of the air, my lord?\n  Ham. Into my grave?\n  Pol. Indeed, that is out o' th' air. [Aside] How pregnant sometimes\n    his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on, which\n    reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I\n    will leave him and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between\n    him and my daughter.- My honourable lord, I will most humbly take\n    my leave of you.\n  Ham. You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more\n    willingly part withal- except my life, except my life, except my\n    life,\n\n                    Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.\n\n  Pol. Fare you well, my lord.\n  Ham. These tedious old fools!\n  Pol. You go to seek the Lord Hamlet. There he is.\n  Ros. [to Polonius] God save you, sir!\n                                                Exit [Polonius].\n  Guil. My honour'd lord!\n  Ros. My most dear lord!\n  Ham. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah,\n    Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?\n  Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth.\n  Guil. Happy in that we are not over-happy.\n    On Fortune's cap we are not the very button.\n  Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe?\n  Ros. Neither, my lord.\n  Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her\n    favours?\n  Guil. Faith, her privates we.\n  Ham. In the secret parts of Fortune? O! most true! she is a\n    strumpet. What news ?\n  Ros. None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.\n  Ham. Then is doomsday near! But your news is not true. Let me\n    question more in particular. What have you, my good friends,\n    deserved at the hands of Fortune that she sends you to prison\n    hither?\n  Guil. Prison, my lord?\n  Ham. Denmark's a prison.\n  Ros. Then is the world one.\n  Ham. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and\n    dungeons, Denmark being one o' th' worst.\n  Ros. We think not so, my lord.\n  Ham. Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good\n    or bad but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.\n  Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one. 'Tis too narrow for your\n    mind.\n  Ham. O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a\n    king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.\n  Guil. Which dreams indeed are ambition; for the very substance of\n    the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.\n  Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow.\n  Ros. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that\n    it is but a shadow's shadow.\n  Ham. Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretch'd\n    heroes the beggars' shadows. Shall we to th' court? for, by my\n    fay, I cannot reason.\n  Both. We'll wait upon you.\n  Ham. No such matter! I will not sort you with the rest of my\n    servants; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most\n    dreadfully attended. But in the beaten way of friendship, what\n    make you at Elsinore?\n  Ros. To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.\n  Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you;\n    and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. Were\n    you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free\n    visitation? Come, deal justly with me. Come, come! Nay, speak.\n  Guil. What should we say, my lord?\n  Ham. Why, anything- but to th' purpose. You were sent for; and\n    there is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties\n    have not craft enough to colour. I know the good King and Queen\n    have sent for you.\n  Ros. To what end, my lord?\n  Ham. That you must teach me. But let me conjure you by the rights\n    of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the\n    obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a\n    better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with\n    me, whether you were sent for or no.\n  Ros. [aside to Guildenstern] What say you?\n  Ham. [aside] Nay then, I have an eye of you.- If you love me, hold\n    not off.\n  Guil. My lord, we were sent for.\n  Ham. I will tell you why. So shall my anticipation prevent your\n    discovery, and your secrecy to the King and Queen moult no\n    feather. I have of late- but wherefore I know not- lost all my\n    mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so\n    heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth,\n    seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the\n    air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical\n    roof fretted with golden fire- why, it appeareth no other thing\n    to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a\n    piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in\n    faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in\n    action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the\n    beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet to me what\n    is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me- no, nor woman\n    neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.\n  Ros. My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.\n  Ham. Why did you laugh then, when I said 'Man delights not me'?\n  Ros. To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten\n    entertainment the players shall receive from you. We coted them\n    on the way, and hither are they coming to offer you service.\n  Ham. He that plays the king shall be welcome- his Majesty shall\n    have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and\n    target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall\n    end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose\n    lungs are tickle o' th' sere; and the lady shall say her mind\n    freely, or the blank verse shall halt fort. What players are\n    they?\n  Ros. Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the\n    tragedians of the city.\n  Ham. How chances it they travel? Their residence, both in\n    reputation and profit, was better both ways.\n  Ros. I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late\n    innovation.\n  Ham. Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the\n    city? Are they so follow'd?\n  Ros. No indeed are they not.\n  Ham. How comes it? Do they grow rusty?\n  Ros. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but there is,\n    sir, an eyrie of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top\n    of question and are most tyrannically clapp'd fort. These are now\n    the fashion, and so berattle the common stages (so they call\n    them) that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequills and\n    dare scarce come thither.\n  Ham. What, are they children? Who maintains 'em? How are they\n    escoted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can\n    sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow\n    themselves to common players (as it is most like, if their means\n    are no better), their writers do them wrong to make them exclaim\n    against their own succession.\n  Ros. Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation\n    holds it no sin to tarre them to controversy. There was, for a\n    while, no money bid for argument unless the poet and the player\n    went to cuffs in the question.\n  Ham. Is't possible?\n  Guil. O, there has been much throwing about of brains.\n  Ham. Do the boys carry it away?\n  Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord- Hercules and his load too.\n  Ham. It is not very strange; for my uncle is King of Denmark, and\n    those that would make mows at him while my father lived give\n    twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture in\n    little. 'Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if\n    philosophy could find it out.\n\n                     Flourish for the Players.\n\n  Guil. There are the players.\n  Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come! Th'\n    appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply\n    with you in this garb, lest my extent to the players (which I\n    tell you must show fairly outwards) should more appear like\n    entertainment than yours. You are welcome. But my uncle-father\n    and aunt-mother are deceiv'd.\n  Guil. In what, my dear lord?\n  Ham. I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly I\n    know a hawk from a handsaw.\n\n                            Enter Polonius.\n\n  Pol. Well be with you, gentlemen!\n  Ham. Hark you, Guildenstern- and you too- at each ear a hearer!\n    That great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling\n    clouts.\n  Ros. Happily he's the second time come to them; for they say an old\n    man is twice a child.\n  Ham. I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players. Mark it.-\n   You say right, sir; a Monday morning; twas so indeed.\n  Pol. My lord, I have news to tell you.\n  Ham. My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an actor in\n    Rome-\n  Pol. The actors are come hither, my lord.\n  Ham. Buzz, buzz!\n  Pol. Upon my honour-\n  Ham. Then came each actor on his ass-\n  Pol. The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy,\n    history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral,\n    tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral; scene\n    individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor\n    Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are\n    the only men.\n  Ham. O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!\n  Pol. What treasure had he, my lord?\n  Ham. Why,\n\n         'One fair daughter, and no more,\n           The which he loved passing well.'\n\n  Pol. [aside] Still on my daughter.\n  Ham. Am I not i' th' right, old Jephthah?\n  Pol. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I\n    love passing well.\n  Ham. Nay, that follows not.\n  Pol. What follows then, my lord?\n  Ham. Why,\n\n           'As by lot, God wot,'\n\n and then, you know,\n\n           'It came to pass, as most like it was.'\n\n    The first row of the pious chanson will show you more; for look\n    where my abridgment comes.\n\n                     Enter four or five Players.\n\n    You are welcome, masters; welcome, all.- I am glad to see thee\n    well.- Welcome, good friends.- O, my old friend? Why, thy face is\n    valanc'd since I saw thee last. Com'st' thou to' beard me in\n    Denmark?- What, my young lady and mistress? By'r Lady, your\n    ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last by the\n    altitude of a chopine. Pray God your voice, like a piece of\n    uncurrent gold, be not crack'd within the ring.- Masters, you are\n    all welcome. We'll e'en to't like French falconers, fly at\n    anything we see. We'll have a speech straight. Come, give us a\n    taste of your quality. Come, a passionate speech.\n  1. Play. What speech, my good lord?\n  Ham. I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted;\n    or if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleas'd\n    not the million, 'twas caviary to the general; but it was (as I\n    receiv'd it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in\n    the top of mine) an excellent play, well digested in the scenes,\n    set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember one said\n    there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury,\n    nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of\n    affectation; but call'd it an honest method, as wholesome as\n    sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in't\n    I chiefly lov'd. 'Twas AEneas' tale to Dido, and thereabout of it\n    especially where he speaks of Priam's slaughter. If it live in\n    your memory, begin at this line- let me see, let me see:\n\n         'The rugged Pyrrhus, like th' Hyrcanian beast-'\n\n    'Tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus:\n\n         'The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,\n         Black as his purpose, did the night resemble\n         When he lay couched in the ominous horse,\n         Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd\n         With heraldry more dismal. Head to foot\n         Now is be total gules, horridly trick'd\n         With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,\n         Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets,\n         That lend a tyrannous and a damned light\n         To their lord's murther. Roasted in wrath and fire,\n         And thus o'ersized with coagulate gore,\n         With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus\n         Old grandsire Priam seeks.'\n\n    So, proceed you.\n  Pol. Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good\n     discretion.\n\n  1. Play. 'Anon he finds him,\n      Striking too short at Greeks. His antique sword,\n      Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,\n      Repugnant to command. Unequal match'd,\n      Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide;\n      But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword\n      Th' unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,\n      Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top\n      Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash\n      Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear. For lo! his sword,\n      Which was declining on the milky head\n      Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' th' air to stick.\n      So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,\n      And, like a neutral to his will and matter,\n      Did nothing.\n      But, as we often see, against some storm,\n      A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,\n      The bold winds speechless, and the orb below\n      As hush as death- anon the dreadful thunder\n      Doth rend the region; so, after Pyrrhus' pause,\n      Aroused vengeance sets him new awork;\n      And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall\n      On Mars's armour, forg'd for proof eterne,\n      With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword\n      Now falls on Priam.\n      Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,\n      In general synod take away her power;\n      Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,\n      And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,\n      As low as to the fiends!\n\n  Pol. This is too long.\n  Ham. It shall to the barber's, with your beard.- Prithee say on.\n    He's for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps. Say on; come to\n    Hecuba.\n\n  1. Play. 'But who, O who, had seen the mobled queen-'\n\n  Ham. 'The mobled queen'?\n  Pol. That's good! 'Mobled queen' is good.\n\n  1. Play. 'Run barefoot up and down, threat'ning the flames\n      With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head\n      Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,\n      About her lank and all o'erteemed loins,\n      A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up-\n      Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd\n      'Gainst Fortune's state would treason have pronounc'd.\n      But if the gods themselves did see her then,\n      When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport\n      In Mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,\n      The instant burst of clamour that she made\n      (Unless things mortal move them not at all)\n      Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven\n      And passion in the gods.'\n\n  Pol. Look, whe'r he has not turn'd his colour, and has tears in's\n    eyes. Prithee no more!\n  Ham. 'Tis well. I'll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.-\n    Good my lord, will you see the players well bestow'd? Do you\n    hear? Let them be well us'd; for they are the abstract and brief\n    chronicles of the time. After your death you were better have a\n    bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.\n  Pol. My lord, I will use them according to their desert.\n  Ham. God's bodykins, man, much better! Use every man after his\n    desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own\n    honour and dignity. The less they deserve, the more merit is in\n    your bounty. Take them in.\n  Pol. Come, sirs.\n  Ham. Follow him, friends. We'll hear a play to-morrow.\n                 Exeunt Polonius and Players [except the First].\n    Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play 'The Murther of\n    Gonzago'?\n  1. Play. Ay, my lord.\n  Ham. We'll ha't to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a\n    speech of some dozen or sixteen lines which I would set down and\n    insert in't, could you not?\n  1. Play. Ay, my lord.\n  Ham. Very well. Follow that lord- and look you mock him not.\n                                            [Exit First Player.]\n    My good friends, I'll leave you till night. You are welcome to\n    Elsinore.\n  Ros. Good my lord!\n  Ham. Ay, so, God b' wi' ye!\n                            [Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern\n    Now I am alone.\n    O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!\n    Is it not monstrous that this player here,\n    But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,\n    Could force his soul so to his own conceit\n    That, from her working, all his visage wann'd,\n    Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,\n    A broken voice, and his whole function suiting\n    With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!\n    For Hecuba!\n    What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,\n    That he should weep for her? What would he do,\n    Had he the motive and the cue for passion\n    That I have? He would drown the stage with tears\n    And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;\n    Make mad the guilty and appal the free,\n    Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed\n    The very faculties of eyes and ears.\n    Yet I,\n    A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak\n    Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,\n    And can say nothing! No, not for a king,\n    Upon whose property and most dear life\n    A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?\n    Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?\n    Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?\n    Tweaks me by th' nose? gives me the lie i' th' throat\n    As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this, ha?\n    'Swounds, I should take it! for it cannot be\n    But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall\n    To make oppression bitter, or ere this\n    I should have fatted all the region kites\n    With this slave's offal. Bloody bawdy villain!\n    Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!\n    O, vengeance!\n    Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,\n    That I, the son of a dear father murther'd,\n    Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,\n    Must (like a whore) unpack my heart with words\n    And fall a-cursing like a very drab,\n    A scullion!\n    Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! Hum, I have heard\n    That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,\n    Have by the very cunning of the scene\n    Been struck so to the soul that presently\n    They have proclaim'd their malefactions;\n    For murther, though it have no tongue, will speak\n    With most miraculous organ, I'll have these Players\n    Play something like the murther of my father\n    Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks;\n    I'll tent him to the quick. If he but blench,\n    I know my course. The spirit that I have seen\n    May be a devil; and the devil hath power\n    T' assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps\n    Out of my weakness and my melancholy,\n    As he is very potent with such spirits,\n    Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds\n    More relative than this. The play's the thing\n    Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.         Exit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. Scene I.\nElsinore. A room in the Castle.\n\nEnter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Lords.\n\n  King. And can you by no drift of circumstance\n    Get from him why he puts on this confusion,\n    Grating so harshly all his days of quiet\n    With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?\n  Ros. He does confess he feels himself distracted,\n    But from what cause he will by no means speak.\n  Guil. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,\n    But with a crafty madness keeps aloof\n    When we would bring him on to some confession\n    Of his true state.\n  Queen. Did he receive you well?\n  Ros. Most like a gentleman.\n  Guil. But with much forcing of his disposition.\n  Ros. Niggard of question, but of our demands\n    Most free in his reply.\n  Queen. Did you assay him\n    To any pastime?\n  Ros. Madam, it so fell out that certain players\n    We o'erraught on the way. Of these we told him,\n    And there did seem in him a kind of joy\n    To hear of it. They are here about the court,\n    And, as I think, they have already order\n    This night to play before him.\n  Pol. 'Tis most true;\n    And he beseech'd me to entreat your Majesties\n    To hear and see the matter.\n  King. With all my heart, and it doth much content me\n    To hear him so inclin'd.\n    Good gentlemen, give him a further edge\n    And drive his purpose on to these delights.\n  Ros. We shall, my lord.\n                            Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.\n  King. Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;\n    For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,\n    That he, as 'twere by accident, may here\n    Affront Ophelia.\n    Her father and myself (lawful espials)\n    Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen,\n    We may of their encounter frankly judge\n    And gather by him, as he is behav'd,\n    If't be th' affliction of his love, or no,\n    That thus he suffers for.\n  Queen. I shall obey you;\n    And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish\n    That your good beauties be the happy cause\n    Of Hamlet's wildness. So shall I hope your virtues\n    Will bring him to his wonted way again,\n    To both your honours.\n  Oph. Madam, I wish it may.\n                                                   [Exit Queen.]\n  Pol. Ophelia, walk you here.- Gracious, so please you,\n    We will bestow ourselves.- [To Ophelia] Read on this book,\n    That show of such an exercise may colour\n    Your loneliness.- We are oft to blame in this,\n    'Tis too much prov'd, that with devotion's visage\n    And pious action we do sugar o'er\n    The Devil himself.\n  King. [aside] O, 'tis too true!\n    How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!\n    The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art,\n    Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it\n    Than is my deed to my most painted word.\n    O heavy burthen!\n  Pol. I hear him coming. Let's withdraw, my lord.\n                                      Exeunt King and Polonius].\n\n                           Enter Hamlet.\n\n  Ham. To be, or not to be- that is the question:\n    Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer\n    The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune\n    Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,\n    And by opposing end them. To die- to sleep-\n    No more; and by a sleep to say we end\n    The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks\n    That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation\n    Devoutly to be wish'd. To die- to sleep.\n    To sleep- perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub!\n    For in that sleep of death what dreams may come\n    When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,\n    Must give us pause. There's the respect\n    That makes calamity of so long life.\n    For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,\n    Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,\n    The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,\n    The insolence of office, and the spurns\n    That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,\n    When he himself might his quietus make\n    With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,\n    To grunt and sweat under a weary life,\n    But that the dread of something after death-\n    The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn\n    No traveller returns- puzzles the will,\n    And makes us rather bear those ills we have\n    Than fly to others that we know not of?\n    Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,\n    And thus the native hue of resolution\n    Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,\n    And enterprises of great pith and moment\n    With this regard their currents turn awry\n    And lose the name of action.- Soft you now!\n    The fair Ophelia!- Nymph, in thy orisons\n    Be all my sins rememb'red.\n  Oph. Good my lord,\n    How does your honour for this many a day?\n  Ham. I humbly thank you; well, well, well.\n  Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours\n    That I have longed long to re-deliver.\n    I pray you, now receive them.\n  Ham. No, not I!\n    I never gave you aught.\n  Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right well you did,\n    And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd\n    As made the things more rich. Their perfume lost,\n    Take these again; for to the noble mind\n    Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.\n    There, my lord.\n  Ham. Ha, ha! Are you honest?\n  Oph. My lord?\n  Ham. Are you fair?\n  Oph. What means your lordship?\n  Ham. That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no\n    discourse to your beauty.\n  Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?\n  Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform\n    honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can\n    translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox,\n    but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.\n  Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.\n  Ham. You should not have believ'd me; for virtue cannot so\n    inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you\n    not.\n  Oph. I was the more deceived.\n  Ham. Get thee to a nunnery! Why wouldst thou be a breeder of\n    sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse\n    me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me.\n    I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my\n    beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give\n    them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I\n    do, crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all;\n    believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your\n    father?\n  Oph. At home, my lord.\n  Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool\n    nowhere but in's own house. Farewell.\n  Oph. O, help him, you sweet heavens!\n  Ham. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry:\n    be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape\n    calumny. Get thee to a nunnery. Go, farewell. Or if thou wilt\n    needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what\n    monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too.\n    Farewell.\n  Oph. O heavenly powers, restore him!\n  Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath\n    given you one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig, you\n    amble, and you lisp; you nickname God's creatures and make your\n    wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't! it hath made\n    me mad. I say, we will have no moe marriages. Those that are\n    married already- all but one- shall live; the rest shall keep as\n    they are. To a nunnery, go.                            Exit.\n  Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!\n    The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's, eye, tongue, sword,\n    Th' expectancy and rose of the fair state,\n    The glass of fashion and the mould of form,\n    Th' observ'd of all observers- quite, quite down!\n    And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,\n    That suck'd the honey of his music vows,\n    Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,\n    Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;\n    That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth\n    Blasted with ecstasy. O, woe is me\n    T' have seen what I have seen, see what I see!\n\n                   Enter King and Polonius.\n\n  King. Love? his affections do not that way tend;\n    Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,\n    Was not like madness. There's something in his soul\n    O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;\n    And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose\n    Will be some danger; which for to prevent,\n    I have in quick determination\n    Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England\n    For the demand of our neglected tribute.\n    Haply the seas, and countries different,\n    With variable objects, shall expel\n    This something-settled matter in his heart,\n    Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus\n    From fashion of himself. What think you on't?\n  Pol. It shall do well. But yet do I believe\n    The origin and commencement of his grief\n    Sprung from neglected love.- How now, Ophelia?\n    You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said.\n    We heard it all.- My lord, do as you please;\n    But if you hold it fit, after the play\n    Let his queen mother all alone entreat him\n    To show his grief. Let her be round with him;\n    And I'll be plac'd so please you, in the ear\n    Of all their conference. If she find him not,\n    To England send him; or confine him where\n    Your wisdom best shall think.\n  King. It shall be so.\n    Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nElsinore. hall in the Castle.\n\nEnter Hamlet and three of the Players.\n\n  Ham. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you,\n    trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our\n    players do, I had as live the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do\n    not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all\n    gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say)\n    whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a\n    temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the\n    soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to\n    tatters, to very rags, to split the cars of the groundlings, who\n    (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb\n    shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipp'd for o'erdoing\n    Termagant. It out-herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.\n  Player. I warrant your honour.\n  Ham. Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your\n    tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with\n    this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of\n    nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing,\n    whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as\n    'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show Virtue her own feature,\n    scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his\n    form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though\n    it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious\n    grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance\n    o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I\n    have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly (not to\n    speak it profanely), that, neither having the accent of\n    Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so\n    strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's\n    journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated\n    humanity so abominably.\n  Player. I hope we have reform'd that indifferently with us, sir.\n  Ham. O, reform it altogether! And let those that play your clowns\n    speak no more than is set down for them. For there be of them\n    that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren\n    spectators to laugh too, though in the mean time some necessary\n    question of the play be then to be considered. That's villanous\n    and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go\n    make you ready.\n                                                 Exeunt Players.\n\n            Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.\n\n    How now, my lord? Will the King hear this piece of work?\n  Pol. And the Queen too, and that presently.\n  Ham. Bid the players make haste, [Exit Polonius.] Will you two\n    help to hasten them?\n  Both. We will, my lord.                       Exeunt they two.\n  Ham. What, ho, Horatio!\n\n                      Enter Horatio.\n\n  Hor. Here, sweet lord, at your service.\n  Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man\n    As e'er my conversation cop'd withal.\n  Hor. O, my dear lord!\n  Ham. Nay, do not think I flatter;\n    For what advancement may I hope from thee,\n    That no revenue hast but thy good spirits\n    To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?\n    No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,\n    And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee\n    Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?\n    Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice\n    And could of men distinguish, her election\n    Hath scald thee for herself. For thou hast been\n    As one, in suff'ring all, that suffers nothing;\n    A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards\n    Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those\n    Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled\n    That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger\n    To sound what stop she please. Give me that man\n    That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him\n    In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,\n    As I do thee. Something too much of this I\n    There is a play to-night before the King.\n    One scene of it comes near the circumstance,\n    Which I have told thee, of my father's death.\n    I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,\n    Even with the very comment of thy soul\n    Observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt\n    Do not itself unkennel in one speech,\n    It is a damned ghost that we have seen,\n    And my imaginations are as foul\n    As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note;\n    For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,\n    And after we will both our judgments join\n    In censure of his seeming.\n  Hor. Well, my lord.\n    If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,\n    And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.\n\n    Sound a flourish. [Enter Trumpets and Kettledrums. Danish\n    march. [Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz,\n      Guildenstern, and other Lords attendant, with the Guard\n                       carrying torches.\n\n  Ham. They are coming to the play. I must be idle.\n    Get you a place.\n  King. How fares our cousin Hamlet?\n  Ham. Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish. I eat the air,\n    promise-cramm'd. You cannot feed capons so.\n  King. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet. These words are not\n    mine.\n  Ham. No, nor mine now. [To Polonius] My lord, you play'd once\n    i' th' university, you say?\n  Pol. That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.\n  Ham. What did you enact?\n  Pol. I did enact Julius Caesar; I was kill'd i' th' Capitol; Brutus\n    kill'd me.\n  Ham. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. Be\n    the players ready.\n  Ros. Ay, my lord. They stay upon your patience.\n  Queen. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.\n  Ham. No, good mother. Here's metal more attractive.\n  Pol. [to the King] O, ho! do you mark that?\n  Ham. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?\n                                  [Sits down at Ophelia's feet.]\n  Oph. No, my lord.\n  Ham. I mean, my head upon your lap?\n  Oph. Ay, my lord.\n  Ham. Do you think I meant country matters?\n  Oph. I think nothing, my lord.\n  Ham. That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.\n  Oph. What is, my lord?\n  Ham. Nothing.\n  Oph. You are merry, my lord.\n  Ham. Who, I?\n  Oph. Ay, my lord.\n  Ham. O God, your only jig-maker! What should a man do but be merry?\n    For look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died\n    within 's two hours.\n  Oph. Nay 'tis twice two months, my lord.\n  Ham. So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a\n    suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten\n    yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life\n    half a year. But, by'r Lady, he must build churches then; or else\n    shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose\n    epitaph is 'For O, for O, the hobby-horse is forgot!'\n\n               Hautboys play. The dumb show enters.\n\n    Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing\n    him and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation\n    unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her\n    neck. He lays him down upon a bank of flowers. She, seeing\n    him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his\n    crown, kisses it, pours poison in the sleeper's ears, and\n    leaves him. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and makes\n    passionate action. The Poisoner with some three or four Mutes,\n    comes in again, seem to condole with her. The dead body is\n    carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts; she\n    seems harsh and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts\n    his love.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n  Oph. What means this, my lord?\n  Ham. Marry, this is miching malhecho; it means mischief.\n  Oph. Belike this show imports the argument of the play.\n\n                      Enter Prologue.\n\n  Ham. We shall know by this fellow. The players cannot keep counsel;\n    they'll tell all.\n  Oph. Will he tell us what this show meant?\n  Ham. Ay, or any show that you'll show him. Be not you asham'd to\n    show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.\n  Oph. You are naught, you are naught! I'll mark the play.\n\n    Pro. For us, and for our tragedy,\n      Here stooping to your clemency,\n      We beg your hearing patiently.                     [Exit.]\n\n  Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?\n  Oph. 'Tis brief, my lord.\n  Ham. As woman's love.\n\n              Enter [two Players as] King and Queen.\n\n    King. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round\n      Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,\n      And thirty dozed moons with borrowed sheen\n      About the world have times twelve thirties been,\n      Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,\n      Unite comutual in most sacred bands.\n    Queen. So many journeys may the sun and moon\n      Make us again count o'er ere love be done!\n      But woe is me! you are so sick of late,\n      So far from cheer and from your former state.\n      That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,\n      Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must;\n      For women's fear and love holds quantity,\n      In neither aught, or in extremity.\n      Now what my love is, proof hath made you know;\n      And as my love is siz'd, my fear is so.\n      Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;\n      Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.\n    King. Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;\n      My operant powers their functions leave to do.\n      And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,\n      Honour'd, belov'd, and haply one as kind\n      For husband shalt thou-\n    Queen. O, confound the rest!\n      Such love must needs be treason in my breast.\n      When second husband let me be accurst!\n      None wed the second but who killed the first.\n\n  Ham. [aside] Wormwood, wormwood!\n\n    Queen. The instances that second marriage move\n      Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.\n      A second time I kill my husband dead\n      When second husband kisses me in bed.\n    King. I do believe you think what now you speak;\n      But what we do determine oft we break.\n      Purpose is but the slave to memory,\n      Of violent birth, but poor validity;\n      Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree,\n      But fill unshaken when they mellow be.\n      Most necessary 'tis that we forget\n      To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt.\n      What to ourselves in passion we propose,\n      The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.\n      The violence of either grief or joy\n      Their own enactures with themselves destroy.\n      Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;\n      Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.\n      This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange\n      That even our loves should with our fortunes change;\n      For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,\n      Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.\n      The great man down, you mark his favourite flies,\n      The poor advanc'd makes friends of enemies;\n      And hitherto doth love on fortune tend,\n      For who not needs shall never lack a friend,\n      And who in want a hollow friend doth try,\n      Directly seasons him his enemy.\n      But, orderly to end where I begun,\n      Our wills and fates do so contrary run\n      That our devices still are overthrown;\n      Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.\n      So think thou wilt no second husband wed;\n      But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.\n    Queen. Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light,\n      Sport and repose lock from me day and night,\n      To desperation turn my trust and hope,\n      An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope,\n      Each opposite that blanks the face of joy\n      Meet what I would have well, and it destroy,\n      Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,\n      If, once a widow, ever I be wife!\n\n  Ham. If she should break it now!\n\n    King. 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile.\n      My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile\n      The tedious day with sleep.\n    Queen. Sleep rock thy brain,\n                                                    [He] sleeps.\n      And never come mischance between us twain!\nExit.\n\n  Ham. Madam, how like you this play?\n  Queen. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.\n  Ham. O, but she'll keep her word.\n  King. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in't?\n  Ham. No, no! They do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i' th'\n    world.\n  King. What do you call the play?\n  Ham. 'The Mousetrap.' Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the\n    image of a murther done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke's name;\n    his wife, Baptista. You shall see anon. 'Tis a knavish piece of\n    work; but what o' that? Your Majesty, and we that have free\n    souls, it touches us not. Let the gall'd jade winch; our withers\n    are unwrung.\n\n                         Enter Lucianus.\n\n    This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.\n  Oph. You are as good as a chorus, my lord.\n  Ham. I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see\n    the puppets dallying.\n  Oph. You are keen, my lord, you are keen.\n  Ham. It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.\n  Oph. Still better, and worse.\n  Ham. So you must take your husbands.- Begin, murtherer. Pox, leave\n    thy damnable faces, and begin! Come, the croaking raven doth\n    bellow for revenge.\n\n    Luc. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;\n      Confederate season, else no creature seeing;\n      Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,\n      With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,\n      Thy natural magic and dire property\n      On wholesome life usurp immediately.\n                                   Pours the poison in his ears.\n\n  Ham. He poisons him i' th' garden for's estate. His name's Gonzago.\n    The story is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You\n    shall see anon how the murtherer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.\n  Oph. The King rises.\n  Ham. What, frighted with false fire?\n  Queen. How fares my lord?\n  Pol. Give o'er the play.\n  King. Give me some light! Away!\n  All. Lights, lights, lights!\n                              Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio.\n  Ham.   Why, let the strucken deer go weep,\n          The hart ungalled play;\n         For some must watch, while some must sleep:\n          Thus runs the world away.\n    Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers- if the rest of my\n    fortunes turn Turk with me-with two Provincial roses on my raz'd\n    shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?\n  Hor. Half a share.\n  Ham.   A whole one I!\n         For thou dost know, O Damon dear,\n           This realm dismantled was\n         Of Jove himself; and now reigns here\n           A very, very- pajock.\n  Hor. You might have rhym'd.\n  Ham. O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand\n    pound! Didst perceive?\n  Hor. Very well, my lord.\n  Ham. Upon the talk of the poisoning?\n  Hor. I did very well note him.\n  Ham.   Aha! Come, some music! Come, the recorders!\n         For if the King like not the comedy,\n         Why then, belike he likes it not, perdy.\n    Come, some music!\n\n                Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.\n\n  Guil. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.\n  Ham. Sir, a whole history.\n  Guil. The King, sir-\n  Ham. Ay, sir, what of him?\n  Guil. Is in his retirement, marvellous distemper'd.\n  Ham. With drink, sir?\n  Guil. No, my lord; rather with choler.\n  Ham. Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to\n    the doctor; for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps\n    plunge him into far more choler.\n  Guil. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start\n    not so wildly from my affair.\n  Ham. I am tame, sir; pronounce.\n  Guil. The Queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit\n    hath sent me to you.\n  Ham. You are welcome.\n  Guil. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed.\n    If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do\n    your mother's commandment; if not, your pardon and my return\n    shall be the end of my business.\n  Ham. Sir, I cannot.\n  Guil. What, my lord?\n  Ham. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseas'd. But, sir, such\n    answer is I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say,\n    my mother. Therefore no more, but to the matter! My mother, you\n    say-\n  Ros. Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into\n    amazement and admiration.\n  Ham. O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother! But is there no\n    sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? Impart.\n  Ros. She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.\n  Ham. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any\n    further trade with us?\n  Ros. My lord, you once did love me.\n  Ham. And do still, by these pickers and stealers!\n  Ros. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do surely\n    bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to\n    your friend.\n  Ham. Sir, I lack advancement.\n  Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself\n    for your succession in Denmark?\n  Ham. Ay, sir, but 'while the grass grows'- the proverb is something\n    musty.\n\n                     Enter the Players with recorders.\n\n    O, the recorders! Let me see one. To withdraw with you- why do\n    you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me\n    into a toil?\n  Guil. O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.\n  Ham. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?\n  Guil. My lord, I cannot.\n  Ham. I pray you.\n  Guil. Believe me, I cannot.\n  Ham. I do beseech you.\n  Guil. I know, no touch of it, my lord.\n  Ham. It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with your\n    fingers and thumbs, give it breath with your mouth, and it will\n    discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.\n  Guil. But these cannot I command to any utt'rance of harmony. I\n    have not the skill.\n  Ham. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You\n    would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would\n    pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my\n    lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music,\n    excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it\n    speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be play'd on than a\n    pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me,\n    you cannot play upon me.\n\n                        Enter Polonius.\n\n    God bless you, sir!\n  Pol. My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.\n  Ham. Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?\n  Pol. By th' mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed.\n  Ham. Methinks it is like a weasel.\n  Pol. It is back'd like a weasel.\n  Ham. Or like a whale.\n  Pol. Very like a whale.\n  Ham. Then will I come to my mother by-and-by.- They fool me to the\n    top of my bent.- I will come by-and-by.\n  Pol. I will say so.                                      Exit.\n  Ham. 'By-and-by' is easily said.- Leave me, friends.\n                                        [Exeunt all but Hamlet.]\n    'Tis now the very witching time of night,\n    When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out\n    Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood\n    And do such bitter business as the day\n    Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother!\n    O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever\n    The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom.\n    Let me be cruel, not unnatural;\n    I will speak daggers to her, but use none.\n    My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites-\n    How in my words somever she be shent,\n    To give them seals never, my soul, consent!             Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nA room in the Castle.\n\nEnter King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.\n\n  King. I like him not, nor stands it safe with us\n    To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you;\n    I your commission will forthwith dispatch,\n    And he to England shall along with you.\n    The terms of our estate may not endure\n    Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow\n    Out of his lunacies.\n  Guil. We will ourselves provide.\n    Most holy and religious fear it is\n    To keep those many many bodies safe\n    That live and feed upon your Majesty.\n  Ros. The single and peculiar life is bound\n    With all the strength and armour of the mind\n    To keep itself from noyance; but much more\n    That spirit upon whose weal depends and rests\n    The lives of many. The cesse of majesty\n    Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw\n    What's near it with it. It is a massy wheel,\n    Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,\n    To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things\n    Are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which when it falls,\n    Each small annexment, petty consequence,\n    Attends the boist'rous ruin. Never alone\n    Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.\n  King. Arm you, I pray you, to th', speedy voyage;\n    For we will fetters put upon this fear,\n    Which now goes too free-footed.\n  Both. We will haste us.\n                                               Exeunt Gentlemen.\n\n                   Enter Polonius.\n\n  Pol. My lord, he's going to his mother's closet.\n    Behind the arras I'll convey myself\n    To hear the process. I'll warrant she'll tax him home;\n    And, as you said, and wisely was it said,\n    'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,\n    Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear\n    The speech, of vantage. Fare you well, my liege.\n    I'll call upon you ere you go to bed\n    And tell you what I know.\n  King. Thanks, dear my lord.\n                                                Exit [Polonius].\n    O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;\n    It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,\n    A brother's murther! Pray can I not,\n    Though inclination be as sharp as will.\n    My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,\n    And, like a man to double business bound,\n    I stand in pause where I shall first begin,\n    And both neglect. What if this cursed hand\n    Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,\n    Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens\n    To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy\n    But to confront the visage of offence?\n    And what's in prayer but this twofold force,\n    To be forestalled ere we come to fall,\n    Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up;\n    My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer\n    Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murther'?\n    That cannot be; since I am still possess'd\n    Of those effects for which I did the murther-\n    My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.\n    May one be pardon'd and retain th' offence?\n    In the corrupted currents of this world\n    Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,\n    And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself\n    Buys out the law; but 'tis not so above.\n    There is no shuffling; there the action lies\n    In his true nature, and we ourselves compell'd,\n    Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,\n    To give in evidence. What then? What rests?\n    Try what repentance can. What can it not?\n    Yet what can it when one cannot repent?\n    O wretched state! O bosom black as death!\n    O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,\n    Art more engag'd! Help, angels! Make assay.\n    Bow, stubborn knees; and heart with strings of steel,\n    Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!\n    All may be well.                                  He kneels.\n\n                         Enter Hamlet.\n\n  Ham. Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;\n    And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven,\n    And so am I reveng'd. That would be scann'd.\n    A villain kills my father; and for that,\n    I, his sole son, do this same villain send\n    To heaven.\n    Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge!\n    He took my father grossly, full of bread,\n    With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;\n    And how his audit stands, who knows save heaven?\n    But in our circumstance and course of thought,\n    'Tis heavy with him; and am I then reveng'd,\n    To take him in the purging of his soul,\n    When he is fit and seasoned for his passage?\n    No.\n    Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent.\n    When he is drunk asleep; or in his rage;\n    Or in th' incestuous pleasure of his bed;\n    At gaming, swearing, or about some act\n    That has no relish of salvation in't-\n    Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,\n    And that his soul may be as damn'd and black\n    As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays.\n    This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.              Exit.\n  King. [rises] My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.\n    Words without thoughts never to heaven go.             Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nThe Queen's closet.\n\nEnter Queen and Polonius.\n\n  Pol. He will come straight. Look you lay home to him.\n    Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,\n    And that your Grace hath screen'd and stood between\n    Much heat and him. I'll silence me even here.\n    Pray you be round with him.\n  Ham. (within) Mother, mother, mother!\n  Queen. I'll warrant you; fear me not. Withdraw; I hear him coming.\n                              [Polonius hides behind the arras.]\n\n                          Enter Hamlet.\n\n  Ham. Now, mother, what's the matter?\n  Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.\n  Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended.\n  Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.\n  Ham. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.\n  Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet?\n  Ham. What's the matter now?\n  Queen. Have you forgot me?\n  Ham. No, by the rood, not so!\n    You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife,\n    And (would it were not so!) you are my mother.\n  Queen. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak.\n  Ham. Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge I\n    You go not till I set you up a glass\n    Where you may see the inmost part of you.\n  Queen. What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murther me?\n    Help, help, ho!\n  Pol. [behind] What, ho! help, help, help!\n  Ham. [draws] How now? a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!\n            [Makes a pass through the arras and] kills Polonius.\n  Pol. [behind] O, I am slain!\n  Queen. O me, what hast thou done?\n  Ham. Nay, I know not. Is it the King?\n  Queen. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!\n  Ham. A bloody deed- almost as bad, good mother,\n    As kill a king, and marry with his brother.\n  Queen. As kill a king?\n  Ham. Ay, lady, it was my word.\n                         [Lifts up the arras and sees Polonius.]\n    Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!\n    I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.\n    Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.\n    Leave wringing of your hinds. Peace! sit you down\n    And let me wring your heart; for so I shall\n    If it be made of penetrable stuff;\n    If damned custom have not braz'd it so\n    That it is proof and bulwark against sense.\n  Queen. What have I done that thou dar'st wag thy tongue\n    In noise so rude against me?\n  Ham. Such an act\n    That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;\n    Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the rose\n    From the fair forehead of an innocent love,\n    And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows\n    As false as dicers' oaths. O, such a deed\n    As from the body of contraction plucks\n    The very soul, and sweet religion makes\n    A rhapsody of words! Heaven's face doth glow;\n    Yea, this solidity and compound mass,\n    With tristful visage, as against the doom,\n    Is thought-sick at the act.\n  Queen. Ay me, what act,\n    That roars so loud and thunders in the index?\n  Ham. Look here upon th's picture, and on this,\n    The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.\n    See what a grace was seated on this brow;\n    Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;\n    An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;\n    A station like the herald Mercury\n    New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill:\n    A combination and a form indeed\n    Where every god did seem to set his seal\n    To give the world assurance of a man.\n    This was your husband. Look you now what follows.\n    Here is your husband, like a mildew'd ear\n    Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?\n    Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,\n    And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes\n    You cannot call it love; for at your age\n    The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble,\n    And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment\n    Would step from this to this? Sense sure you have,\n    Else could you not have motion; but sure that sense\n    Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err,\n    Nor sense to ecstacy was ne'er so thrall'd\n    But it reserv'd some quantity of choice\n    To serve in such a difference. What devil was't\n    That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?\n    Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,\n    Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,\n    Or but a sickly part of one true sense\n    Could not so mope.\n    O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,\n    If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,\n    To flaming youth let virtue be as wax\n    And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame\n    When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,\n    Since frost itself as actively doth burn,\n    And reason panders will.\n  Queen. O Hamlet, speak no more!\n    Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul,\n    And there I see such black and grained spots\n    As will not leave their tinct.\n  Ham. Nay, but to live\n    In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,\n    Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love\n    Over the nasty sty!\n  Queen. O, speak to me no more!\n    These words like daggers enter in mine ears.\n    No more, sweet Hamlet!\n  Ham. A murtherer and a villain!\n    A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe\n    Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;\n    A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,\n    That from a shelf the precious diadem stole\n    And put it in his pocket!\n  Queen. No more!\n\n                Enter the Ghost in his nightgown.\n\n  Ham. A king of shreds and patches!-\n    Save me and hover o'er me with your wings,\n    You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?\n  Queen. Alas, he's mad!\n  Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide,\n    That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by\n    Th' important acting of your dread command?\n    O, say!\n  Ghost. Do not forget. This visitation\n    Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.\n    But look, amazement on thy mother sits.\n    O, step between her and her fighting soul\n    Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.\n    Speak to her, Hamlet.\n  Ham. How is it with you, lady?\n  Queen. Alas, how is't with you,\n    That you do bend your eye on vacancy,\n    And with th' encorporal air do hold discourse?\n    Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;\n    And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm,\n    Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements,\n    Start up and stand an end. O gentle son,\n    Upon the beat and flame of thy distemper\n    Sprinkle cool patience! Whereon do you look?\n  Ham. On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!\n    His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,\n    Would make them capable.- Do not look upon me,\n    Lest with this piteous action you convert\n    My stern effects. Then what I have to do\n    Will want true colour- tears perchance for blood.\n  Queen. To whom do you speak this?\n  Ham. Do you see nothing there?\n  Queen. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.\n  Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?\n  Queen. No, nothing but ourselves.\n  Ham. Why, look you there! Look how it steals away!\n    My father, in his habit as he liv'd!\n    Look where he goes even now out at the portal!\n                                                     Exit Ghost.\n  Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain.\n    This bodiless creation ecstasy\n    Is very cunning in.\n  Ham. Ecstasy?\n    My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time\n    And makes as healthful music. It is not madness\n    That I have utt'red. Bring me to the test,\n    And I the matter will reword; which madness\n    Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,\n    Lay not that flattering unction to your soul\n    That not your trespass but my madness speaks.\n    It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,\n    Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,\n    Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;\n    Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;\n    And do not spread the compost on the weeds\n    To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;\n    For in the fatness of these pursy times\n    Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg-\n    Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.\n  Queen. O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.\n  Ham. O, throw away the worser part of it,\n    And live the purer with the other half,\n    Good night- but go not to my uncle's bed.\n    Assume a virtue, if you have it not.\n    That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat\n    Of habits evil, is angel yet in this,\n    That to the use of actions fair and good\n    He likewise gives a frock or livery,\n    That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,\n    And that shall lend a kind of easiness\n    To the next abstinence; the next more easy;\n    For use almost can change the stamp of nature,\n    And either [master] the devil, or throw him out\n    With wondrous potency. Once more, good night;\n    And when you are desirous to be blest,\n    I'll blessing beg of you.- For this same lord,\n    I do repent; but heaven hath pleas'd it so,\n    To punish me with this, and this with me,\n    That I must be their scourge and minister.\n    I will bestow him, and will answer well\n    The death I gave him. So again, good night.\n    I must be cruel, only to be kind;\n    Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.\n    One word more, good lady.\n  Queen. What shall I do?\n  Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:\n    Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed;\n    Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;\n    And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,\n    Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,\n    Make you to ravel all this matter out,\n    That I essentially am not in madness,\n    But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;\n    For who that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,\n    Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib\n    Such dear concernings hide? Who would do so?\n    No, in despite of sense and secrecy,\n    Unpeg the basket on the house's top,\n    Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape,\n    To try conclusions, in the basket creep\n    And break your own neck down.\n  Queen. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath,\n    And breath of life, I have no life to breathe\n    What thou hast said to me.\n  Ham. I must to England; you know that?\n  Queen. Alack,\n    I had forgot! 'Tis so concluded on.\n  Ham. There's letters seal'd; and my two schoolfellows,\n    Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,\n    They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way\n    And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;\n    For 'tis the sport to have the enginer\n    Hoist with his own petar; and 't shall go hard\n    But I will delve one yard below their mines\n    And blow them at the moon. O, 'tis most sweet\n    When in one line two crafts directly meet.\n    This man shall set me packing.\n    I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.-\n    Mother, good night.- Indeed, this counsellor\n    Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,\n    Who was in life a foolish peating knave.\n    Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.\n    Good night, mother.\n                  [Exit the Queen. Then] Exit Hamlet, tugging in\n                                                       Polonius.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. Scene I.\nElsinore. A room in the Castle.\n\nEnter King and Queen, with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.\n\n  King. There's matter in these sighs. These profound heaves\n    You must translate; 'tis fit we understand them.\n    Where is your son?\n  Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while.\n                          [Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]\n    Ah, mine own lord, what have I seen to-night!\n  King. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?\n  Queen. Mad as the sea and wind when both contend\n    Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit\n    Behind the arras hearing something stir,\n    Whips out his rapier, cries 'A rat, a rat!'\n    And in this brainish apprehension kills\n    The unseen good old man.\n  King. O heavy deed!\n    It had been so with us, had we been there.\n    His liberty is full of threats to all-\n    To you yourself, to us, to every one.\n    Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer'd?\n    It will be laid to us, whose providence\n    Should have kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt\n    This mad young man. But so much was our love\n    We would not understand what was most fit,\n    But, like the owner of a foul disease,\n    To keep it from divulging, let it feed\n    Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?\n  Queen. To draw apart the body he hath kill'd;\n    O'er whom his very madness, like some ore\n    Among a mineral of metals base,\n    Shows itself pure. He weeps for what is done.\n  King. O Gertrude, come away!\n    The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch\n    But we will ship him hence; and this vile deed\n    We must with all our majesty and skill\n    Both countenance and excuse. Ho, Guildenstern!\n\n             Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.\n\n    Friends both, go join you with some further aid.\n    Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,\n    And from his mother's closet hath he dragg'd him.\n    Go seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body\n    Into the chapel. I pray you haste in this.\n                          Exeunt [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern].\n    Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends\n    And let them know both what we mean to do\n    And what's untimely done. [So haply slander-]\n    Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,\n    As level as the cannon to his blank,\n    Transports his poisoned shot- may miss our name\n    And hit the woundless air.- O, come away!\n    My soul is full of discord and dismay.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nElsinore. A passage in the Castle.\n\nEnter Hamlet.\n\n  Ham. Safely stow'd.\n  Gentlemen. (within) Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!\n  Ham. But soft! What noise? Who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come.\n\n               Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.\n\n  Ros. What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?\n  Ham. Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.\n  Ros. Tell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence\n    And bear it to the chapel.\n  Ham. Do not believe it.\n  Ros. Believe what?\n  Ham. That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be\n    demanded of a sponge, what replication should be made by the son\n    of a king?\n  Ros. Take you me for a sponge, my lord?\n  Ham. Ay, sir; that soaks up the King's countenance, his rewards,\n    his authorities. But such officers do the King best service in\n    the end. He keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw;\n    first mouth'd, to be last Swallowed. When he needs what you have\n    glean'd, it is but squeezing you and, sponge, you shall be dry\n    again.\n  Ros. I understand you not, my lord.\n  Ham. I am glad of it. A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.\n  Ros. My lord, you must tell us where the body is and go with us to\n    the King.\n  Ham. The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body.\n    The King is a thing-\n  Guil. A thing, my lord?\n  Ham. Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nElsinore. A room in the Castle.\n\nEnter King.\n\n  King. I have sent to seek him and to find the body.\n    How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!\n    Yet must not we put the strong law on him.\n    He's lov'd of the distracted multitude,\n    Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;\n    And where 'tis so, th' offender's scourge is weigh'd,\n    But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,\n    This sudden sending him away must seem\n    Deliberate pause. Diseases desperate grown\n    By desperate appliance are reliev'd,\n    Or not at all.\n\n                    Enter Rosencrantz.\n\n    How now O What hath befall'n?\n  Ros. Where the dead body is bestow'd, my lord,\n    We cannot get from him.\n  King. But where is he?\n  Ros. Without, my lord; guarded, to know your pleasure.\n  King. Bring him before us.\n  Ros. Ho, Guildenstern! Bring in my lord.\n\n        Enter Hamlet and Guildenstern [with Attendants].\n\n  King. Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?\n  Ham. At supper.\n  King. At supper? Where?\n  Ham. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain\n    convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your\n    only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and\n    we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar\n    is but variable service- two dishes, but to one table. That's the\n    end.\n  King. Alas, alas!\n  Ham. A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat\n    of the fish that hath fed of that worm.\n  King. What dost thou mean by this?\n  Ham. Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through\n    the guts of a beggar.\n  King. Where is Polonius?\n  Ham. In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not\n    there, seek him i' th' other place yourself. But indeed, if you\n    find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up\n    the stair, into the lobby.\n  King. Go seek him there. [To Attendants.]\n  Ham. He will stay till you come.\n                                            [Exeunt Attendants.]\n  King. Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,-\n    Which we do tender as we dearly grieve\n    For that which thou hast done,- must send thee hence\n    With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself.\n    The bark is ready and the wind at help,\n    Th' associates tend, and everything is bent\n    For England.\n  Ham. For England?\n  King. Ay, Hamlet.\n  Ham. Good.\n  King. So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.\n  Ham. I see a cherub that sees them. But come, for England!\n    Farewell, dear mother.\n  King. Thy loving father, Hamlet.\n  Ham. My mother! Father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is\n    one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England!\nExit.\n  King. Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed aboard.\n    Delay it not; I'll have him hence to-night.\n    Away! for everything is seal'd and done\n    That else leans on th' affair. Pray you make haste.\n                            Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]\n    And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught,-\n    As my great power thereof may give thee sense,\n    Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red\n    After the Danish sword, and thy free awe\n    Pays homage to us,- thou mayst not coldly set\n    Our sovereign process, which imports at full,\n    By letters congruing to that effect,\n    The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;\n    For like the hectic in my blood he rages,\n    And thou must cure me. Till I know 'tis done,\n    Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun.             Exit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nNear Elsinore.\n\nEnter Fortinbras with his Army over the stage.\n\n  For. Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king.\n    Tell him that by his license Fortinbras\n    Craves the conveyance of a promis'd march\n    Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.\n    if that his Majesty would aught with us,\n    We shall express our duty in his eye;\n    And let him know so.\n  Capt. I will do't, my lord.\n  For. Go softly on.\n                                   Exeunt [all but the Captain].\n\n       Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, [Guildenstern,] and others.\n\n  Ham. Good sir, whose powers are these?\n  Capt. They are of Norway, sir.\n  Ham. How purpos'd, sir, I pray you?\n  Capt. Against some part of Poland.\n  Ham. Who commands them, sir?\n  Capt. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.\n  Ham. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,\n    Or for some frontier?\n  Capt. Truly to speak, and with no addition,\n    We go to gain a little patch of ground\n    That hath in it no profit but the name.\n    To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;\n    Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole\n    A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.\n  Ham. Why, then the Polack never will defend it.\n  Capt. Yes, it is already garrison'd.\n  Ham. Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats\n    Will not debate the question of this straw.\n    This is th' imposthume of much wealth and peace,\n    That inward breaks, and shows no cause without\n    Why the man dies.- I humbly thank you, sir.\n  Capt. God b' wi' you, sir.                             [Exit.]\n  Ros. Will't please you go, my lord?\n  Ham. I'll be with you straight. Go a little before.\n                                        [Exeunt all but Hamlet.]\n    How all occasions do inform against me\n    And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,\n    If his chief good and market of his time\n    Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.\n    Sure he that made us with such large discourse,\n    Looking before and after, gave us not\n    That capability and godlike reason\n    To fust in us unus'd. Now, whether it be\n    Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple\n    Of thinking too precisely on th' event,-\n    A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom\n    And ever three parts coward,- I do not know\n    Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do,'\n    Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means\n    To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me.\n    Witness this army of such mass and charge,\n    Led by a delicate and tender prince,\n    Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff'd,\n    Makes mouths at the invisible event,\n    Exposing what is mortal and unsure\n    To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,\n    Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great\n    Is not to stir without great argument,\n    But greatly to find quarrel in a straw\n    When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,\n    That have a father klll'd, a mother stain'd,\n    Excitements of my reason and my blood,\n    And let all sleep, while to my shame I see\n    The imminent death of twenty thousand men\n    That for a fantasy and trick of fame\n    Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot\n    Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,\n    Which is not tomb enough and continent\n    To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,\n    My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!            Exit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nElsinore. A room in the Castle.\n\nEnter Horatio, Queen, and a Gentleman.\n\n  Queen. I will not speak with her.\n  Gent. She is importunate, indeed distract.\n    Her mood will needs be pitied.\n  Queen. What would she have?\n  Gent. She speaks much of her father; says she hears\n    There's tricks i' th' world, and hems, and beats her heart;\n    Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,\n    That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,\n    Yet the unshaped use of it doth move\n    The hearers to collection; they aim at it,\n    And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;\n    Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them,\n    Indeed would make one think there might be thought,\n    Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.\n  Hor. 'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew\n    Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.\n  Queen. Let her come in.\n                                               [Exit Gentleman.]\n    [Aside] To my sick soul (as sin's true nature is)\n    Each toy seems Prologue to some great amiss.\n    So full of artless jealousy is guilt\n    It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.\n\n                 Enter Ophelia distracted.\n\n  Oph. Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?\n  Queen. How now, Ophelia?\n  Oph. (sings)\n         How should I your true-love know\n           From another one?\n         By his cockle bat and' staff\n           And his sandal shoon.\n\n  Queen. Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?\n  Oph. Say you? Nay, pray You mark.\n\n    (Sings) He is dead and gone, lady,\n              He is dead and gone;\n            At his head a grass-green turf,\n              At his heels a stone.\n\n    O, ho!\n  Queen. Nay, but Ophelia-\n  Oph. Pray you mark.\n\n    (Sings) White his shroud as the mountain snow-\n\n                    Enter King.\n\n  Queen. Alas, look here, my lord!\n  Oph. (Sings)\n           Larded all with sweet flowers;\n         Which bewept to the grave did not go\n           With true-love showers.\n\n  King. How do you, pretty lady?\n  Oph. Well, God dild you! They say the owl was a baker's daughter.\n    Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at\n    your table!\n  King. Conceit upon her father.\n  Oph. Pray let's have no words of this; but when they ask, you what\n    it means, say you this:\n\n    (Sings) To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,\n              All in the morning bedtime,\n            And I a maid at your window,\n              To be your Valentine.\n\n            Then up he rose and donn'd his clo'es\n              And dupp'd the chamber door,\n            Let in the maid, that out a maid\n              Never departed more.\n\n  King. Pretty Ophelia!\n  Oph. Indeed, la, without an oath, I'll make an end on't!\n\n    [Sings] By Gis and by Saint Charity,\n              Alack, and fie for shame!\n            Young men will do't if they come to't\n              By Cock, they are to blame.\n\n            Quoth she, 'Before you tumbled me,\n              You promis'd me to wed.'\n\n    He answers:\n\n            'So would I 'a' done, by yonder sun,\n              An thou hadst not come to my bed.'\n\n  King. How long hath she been thus?\n  Oph. I hope all will be well. We must be patient; but I cannot\n    choose but weep to think they would lay him i' th' cold ground.\n    My brother shall know of it; and so I thank you for your good\n    counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies. Good night, sweet\n    ladies. Good night, good night.                         Exit\n  King. Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.\n                                                 [Exit Horatio.]\n    O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs\n    All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,\n    When sorrows come, they come not single spies.\n    But in battalions! First, her father slain;\n    Next, Your son gone, and he most violent author\n    Of his own just remove; the people muddied,\n    Thick and and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers\n    For good Polonius' death, and we have done but greenly\n    In hugger-mugger to inter him; Poor Ophelia\n    Divided from herself and her fair-judgment,\n    Without the which we are Pictures or mere beasts;\n    Last, and as such containing as all these,\n    Her brother is in secret come from France;\n    And wants not buzzers to infect his ear\n    Feeds on his wonder, keep, himself in clouds,\n    With pestilent speeches of his father's death,\n    Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,\n    Will nothing stick Our person to arraign\n    In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,\n    Like to a murd'ring piece, in many places\n    Give, me superfluous death.                  A noise within.\n  Queen. Alack, what noise is this?\n  King. Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.\n\n                     Enter a Messenger.\n\n    What is the matter?\n  Mess. Save Yourself, my lord:\n    The ocean, overpeering of his list,\n    Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste\n    Than Young Laertes, in a riotous head,\n    O'erbears Your offices. The rabble call him lord;\n    And, as the world were now but to begin,\n    Antiquity forgot, custom not known,\n    The ratifiers and props of every word,\n    They cry 'Choose we! Laertes shall be king!'\n    Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,\n    'Laertes shall be king! Laertes king!'\n                                                 A noise within.\n  Queen. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!\n    O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!\n  King. The doors are broke.\n\n                    Enter Laertes with others.\n\n  Laer. Where is this king?- Sirs, staid you all without.\n  All. No, let's come in!\n  Laer. I pray you give me leave.\n  All. We will, we will!\n  Laer. I thank you. Keep the door.      [Exeunt his Followers.]\n    O thou vile king,\n    Give me my father!\n  Queen. Calmly, good Laertes.\n  Laer. That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard;\n    Cries cuckold to my father; brands the harlot\n    Even here between the chaste unsmirched brows\n    Of my true mother.\n  King. What is the cause, Laertes,\n    That thy rebellion looks so giantlike?\n    Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person.\n    There's such divinity doth hedge a king\n    That treason can but peep to what it would,\n    Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,\n    Why thou art thus incens'd. Let him go, Gertrude.\n    Speak, man.\n  Laer. Where is my father?\n  King. Dead.\n  Queen. But not by him!\n  King. Let him demand his fill.\n  Laer. How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:\n    To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil\n    Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!\n    I dare damnation. To this point I stand,\n    That both the world, I give to negligence,\n    Let come what comes; only I'll be reveng'd\n    Most throughly for my father.\n  King. Who shall stay you?\n  Laer. My will, not all the world!\n    And for my means, I'll husband them so well\n    They shall go far with little.\n  King. Good Laertes,\n    If you desire to know the certainty\n    Of your dear father's death, is't writ in Your revenge\n    That swoopstake you will draw both friend and foe,\n    Winner and loser?\n  Laer. None but his enemies.\n  King. Will you know them then?\n  Laer. To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms\n    And, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican,\n    Repast them with my blood.\n  King. Why, now You speak\n    Like a good child and a true gentleman.\n    That I am guiltless of your father's death,\n    And am most sensibly in grief for it,\n    It shall as level to your judgment pierce\n    As day does to your eye.\n                              A noise within: 'Let her come in.'\n  Laer. How now? What noise is that?\n\n                      Enter Ophelia.\n\n    O heat, dry up my brains! Tears seven times salt\n    Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!\n    By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight\n    Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!\n    Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!\n    O heavens! is't possible a young maid's wits\n    Should be as mortal as an old man's life?\n    Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine,\n    It sends some precious instance of itself\n    After the thing it loves.\n\n  Oph. (sings)\n         They bore him barefac'd on the bier\n           (Hey non nony, nony, hey nony)\n         And in his grave rain'd many a tear.\n\n    Fare you well, my dove!\n  Laer. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,\n    It could not move thus.\n  Oph. You must sing 'A-down a-down, and you call him a-down-a.' O,\n    how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his\n    master's daughter.\n  Laer. This nothing's more than matter.\n  Oph. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love,\n    remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts.\n  Laer. A document in madness! Thoughts and remembrance fitted.\n  Oph. There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you,\n    and here's some for me. We may call it herb of grace o' Sundays.\n    O, you must wear your rue with a difference! There's a daisy. I\n    would give you some violets, but they wither'd all when my father\n    died. They say he made a good end.\n\n    [Sings] For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.\n\n  Laer. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,\n    She turns to favour and to prettiness.\n  Oph. (sings)\n         And will he not come again?\n         And will he not come again?\n           No, no, he is dead;\n           Go to thy deathbed;\n         He never will come again.\n\n         His beard was as white as snow,\n         All flaxen was his poll.\n           He is gone, he is gone,\n           And we cast away moan.\n         God 'a'mercy on his soul!\n\n    And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God b' wi', you.\nExit.\n  Laer. Do you see this, O God?\n  King. Laertes, I must commune with your grief,\n    Or you deny me right. Go but apart,\n    Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will,\n    And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me.\n    If by direct or by collateral hand\n    They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,\n    Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours,\n    To you in satisfaction; but if not,\n    Be you content to lend your patience to us,\n    And we shall jointly labour with your soul\n    To give it due content.\n  Laer. Let this be so.\n    His means of death, his obscure funeral-\n    No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,\n    No noble rite nor formal ostentation,-\n    Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,\n    That I must call't in question.\n  King. So you shall;\n    And where th' offence is let the great axe fall.\n    I pray you go with me.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nScene VI.\nElsinore. Another room in the Castle.\n\nEnter Horatio with an Attendant.\n\n  Hor. What are they that would speak with me?\n  Servant. Seafaring men, sir. They say they have letters for you.\n  Hor. Let them come in.\n                                               [Exit Attendant.]\n    I do not know from what part of the world\n    I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.\n\n                          Enter Sailors.\n\n  Sailor. God bless you, sir.\n  Hor. Let him bless thee too.\n  Sailor. 'A shall, sir, an't please him. There's a letter for you,\n    sir,- it comes from th' ambassador that was bound for England- if\n    your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is.\n  Hor. (reads the letter) 'Horatio, when thou shalt have overlook'd\n    this, give these fellows some means to the King. They have\n    letters for him. Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of\n    very warlike appointment gave us chase. Finding ourselves too\n    slow of sail, we put on a compelled valour, and in the grapple I\n    boarded them. On the instant they got clear of our ship; so I\n    alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with me like thieves\n    of mercy; but they knew what they did: I am to do a good turn for\n    them. Let the King have the letters I have sent, and repair thou\n    to me with as much speed as thou wouldst fly death. I have words\n    to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb; yet are they much too\n    light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring\n    thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course\n    for England. Of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell.\n                            'He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET.'\n\n    Come, I will give you way for these your letters,\n    And do't the speedier that you may direct me\n    To him from whom you brought them.                   Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nScene VII.\nElsinore. Another room in the Castle.\n\nEnter King and Laertes.\n\n  King. Now must your conscience my acquittance seal,\n    And You must put me in your heart for friend,\n    Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,\n    That he which hath your noble father slain\n    Pursued my life.\n  Laer. It well appears. But tell me\n    Why you proceeded not against these feats\n    So crimeful and so capital in nature,\n    As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,\n    You mainly were stirr'd up.\n  King. O, for two special reasons,\n    Which may to you, perhaps, seein much unsinew'd,\n    But yet to me they are strong. The Queen his mother\n    Lives almost by his looks; and for myself,-\n    My virtue or my plague, be it either which,-\n    She's so conjunctive to my life and soul\n    That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,\n    I could not but by her. The other motive\n    Why to a public count I might not go\n    Is the great love the general gender bear him,\n    Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,\n    Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone,\n    Convert his gives to graces; so that my arrows,\n    Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind,\n    Would have reverted to my bow again,\n    And not where I had aim'd them.\n  Laer. And so have I a noble father lost;\n    A sister driven into desp'rate terms,\n    Whose worth, if praises may go back again,\n    Stood challenger on mount of all the age\n    For her perfections. But my revenge will come.\n  King. Break not your sleeps for that. You must not think\n    That we are made of stuff so flat and dull\n    That we can let our beard be shook with danger,\n    And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more.\n    I lov'd your father, and we love ourself,\n    And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine-\n\n                 Enter a Messenger with letters.\n\n    How now? What news?\n  Mess. Letters, my lord, from Hamlet:\n    This to your Majesty; this to the Queen.\n  King. From Hamlet? Who brought them?\n  Mess. Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not.\n    They were given me by Claudio; he receiv'd them\n    Of him that brought them.\n  King. Laertes, you shall hear them.\n    Leave us.\n                                                 Exit Messenger.\n    [Reads]'High and Mighty,-You shall know I am set naked on your\n    kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes;\n    when I shall (first asking your pardon thereunto) recount the\n    occasion of my sudden and more strange return.\n                                                     'HAMLET.'\n    What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?\n    Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?\n  Laer. Know you the hand?\n  King. 'Tis Hamlet's character. 'Naked!'\n    And in a postscript here, he says 'alone.'\n    Can you advise me?\n  Laer. I am lost in it, my lord. But let him come!\n    It warms the very sickness in my heart\n    That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,\n    'Thus didest thou.'\n  King. If it be so, Laertes\n    (As how should it be so? how otherwise?),\n    Will you be rul'd by me?\n  Laer. Ay my lord,\n    So you will not o'errule me to a peace.\n  King. To thine own peace. If he be now return'd\n    As checking at his voyage, and that he means\n    No more to undertake it, I will work him\n    To exploit now ripe in my device,\n    Under the which he shall not choose but fall;\n    And for his death no wind\n    But even his mother shall uncharge the practice\n    And call it accident.\n  Laer. My lord, I will be rul'd;\n    The rather, if you could devise it so\n    That I might be the organ.\n  King. It falls right.\n    You have been talk'd of since your travel much,\n    And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality\n    Wherein they say you shine, Your sun of parts\n    Did not together pluck such envy from him\n    As did that one; and that, in my regard,\n    Of the unworthiest siege.\n  Laer. What part is that, my lord?\n  King. A very riband in the cap of youth-\n    Yet needfull too; for youth no less becomes\n    The light and careless livery that it wears\n    Thin settled age his sables and his weeds,\n    Importing health and graveness. Two months since\n    Here was a gentleman of Normandy.\n    I have seen myself, and serv'd against, the French,\n    And they can well on horseback; but this gallant\n    Had witchcraft in't. He grew unto his seat,\n    And to such wondrous doing brought his horse\n    As had he been incorps'd and demi-natur'd\n    With the brave beast. So far he topp'd my thought\n    That I, in forgery of shapes and tricks,\n    Come short of what he did.\n  Laer. A Norman was't?\n  King. A Norman.\n  Laer. Upon my life, Lamound.\n  King. The very same.\n  Laer. I know him well. He is the broach indeed\n    And gem of all the nation.\n  King. He made confession of you;\n    And gave you such a masterly report\n    For art and exercise in your defence,\n    And for your rapier most especially,\n    That he cried out 'twould be a sight indeed\n    If one could match you. The scrimers of their nation\n    He swore had neither motion, guard, nor eye,\n    If you oppos'd them. Sir, this report of his\n    Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy\n    That he could nothing do but wish and beg\n    Your sudden coming o'er to play with you.\n    Now, out of this-\n  Laer. What out of this, my lord?\n  King. Laertes, was your father dear to you?\n    Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,\n    A face without a heart,'\n  Laer. Why ask you this?\n  King. Not that I think you did not love your father;\n    But that I know love is begun by time,\n    And that I see, in passages of proof,\n    Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.\n    There lives within the very flame of love\n    A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;\n    And nothing is at a like goodness still;\n    For goodness, growing to a plurisy,\n    Dies in his own too-much. That we would do,\n    We should do when we would; for this 'would' changes,\n    And hath abatements and delays as many\n    As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;\n    And then this 'should' is like a spendthrift sigh,\n    That hurts by easing. But to the quick o' th' ulcer!\n    Hamlet comes back. What would you undertake\n    To show yourself your father's son in deed\n    More than in words?\n  Laer. To cut his throat i' th' church!\n  King. No place indeed should murther sanctuarize;\n    Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,\n    Will you do this? Keep close within your chamber.\n    Will return'd shall know you are come home.\n    We'll put on those shall praise your excellence\n    And set a double varnish on the fame\n    The Frenchman gave you; bring you in fine together\n    And wager on your heads. He, being remiss,\n    Most generous, and free from all contriving,\n    Will not peruse the foils; so that with ease,\n    Or with a little shuffling, you may choose\n    A sword unbated, and, in a pass of practice,\n    Requite him for your father.\n  Laer. I will do't!\n    And for that purpose I'll anoint my sword.\n    I bought an unction of a mountebank,\n    So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,\n    Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,\n    Collected from all simples that have virtue\n    Under the moon, can save the thing from death\n    This is but scratch'd withal. I'll touch my point\n    With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,\n    It may be death.\n  King. Let's further think of this,\n    Weigh what convenience both of time and means\n    May fit us to our shape. If this should fall,\n    And that our drift look through our bad performance.\n    'Twere better not assay'd. Therefore this project\n    Should have a back or second, that might hold\n    If this did blast in proof. Soft! let me see.\n    We'll make a solemn wager on your cunnings-\n    I ha't!\n    When in your motion you are hot and dry-\n    As make your bouts more violent to that end-\n    And that he calls for drink, I'll have prepar'd him\n    A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping,\n    If he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,\n    Our purpose may hold there.- But stay, what noise,\n\n                           Enter Queen.\n\n    How now, sweet queen?\n  Queen. One woe doth tread upon another's heel,\n    So fast they follow. Your sister's drown'd, Laertes.\n  Laer. Drown'd! O, where?\n  Queen. There is a willow grows aslant a brook,\n    That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.\n    There with fantastic garlands did she come\n    Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,\n    That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,\n    But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.\n    There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds\n    Clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,\n    When down her weedy trophies and herself\n    Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide\n    And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up;\n    Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes,\n    As one incapable of her own distress,\n    Or like a creature native and indued\n    Unto that element; but long it could not be\n    Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,\n    Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay\n    To muddy death.\n  Laer. Alas, then she is drown'd?\n  Queen. Drown'd, drown'd.\n  Laer. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,\n    And therefore I forbid my tears; but yet\n    It is our trick; nature her custom holds,\n    Let shame say what it will. When these are gone,\n    The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord.\n    I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze\n    But that this folly douts it.                          Exit.\n  King. Let's follow, Gertrude.\n    How much I had to do to calm his rage I\n    Now fear I this will give it start again;\n    Therefore let's follow.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. Scene I.\nElsinore. A churchyard.\n\nEnter two Clowns, [with spades and pickaxes].\n\n  Clown. Is she to be buried in Christian burial when she wilfully\n    seeks her own salvation?\n  Other. I tell thee she is; therefore make her grave straight.\n    The crowner hath sate on her, and finds it Christian burial.\n  Clown. How can that be, unless she drown'd herself in her own\n    defence?\n  Other. Why, 'tis found so.\n  Clown. It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For here lies\n    the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act; and an\n    act hath three branches-it is to act, to do, and to perform;\n    argal, she drown'd herself wittingly.\n  Other. Nay, but hear you, Goodman Delver!\n  Clown. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good. Here stands the\n    man; good. If the man go to this water and drown himself, it is,\n    will he nill he, he goes- mark you that. But if the water come to\n    him and drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he that is not\n    guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.\n  Other. But is this law?\n  Clown. Ay, marry, is't- crowner's quest law.\n  Other. Will you ha' the truth an't? If this had not been a\n    gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o' Christian burial.\n  Clown. Why, there thou say'st! And the more pity that great folk\n    should have count'nance in this world to drown or hang themselves\n    more than their even-Christen. Come, my spade! There is no\n    ancient gentlemen but gard'ners, ditchers, and grave-makers. They\n    hold up Adam's profession.\n  Other. Was he a gentleman?\n  Clown. 'A was the first that ever bore arms.\n  Other. Why, he had none.\n  Clown. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture?\n    The Scripture says Adam digg'd. Could he dig without arms? I'll\n    put another question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the\n    purpose, confess thyself-\n  Other. Go to!\n  Clown. What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the\n    shipwright, or the carpenter?\n  Other. The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand\n    tenants.\n  Clown. I like thy wit well, in good faith. The gallows does well.\n    But how does it well? It does well to those that do ill. Now,\n    thou dost ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the\n    church. Argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again, come!\n  Other. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a\n    carpenter?\n  Clown. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.\n  Other. Marry, now I can tell!\n  Clown. To't.\n  Other. Mass, I cannot tell.\n\n                 Enter Hamlet and Horatio afar off.\n\n  Clown. Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will\n    not mend his pace with beating; and when you are ask'd this\n    question next, say 'a grave-maker.' The houses he makes lasts\n    till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan; fetch me a stoup of\n    liquor.\n                                            [Exit Second Clown.]\n\n                       [Clown digs and] sings.\n\n       In youth when I did love, did love,\n         Methought it was very sweet;\n       To contract- O- the time for- a- my behove,\n         O, methought there- a- was nothing- a- meet.\n\n  Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at\n    grave-making?\n  Hor. Custom hath made it in him a Property of easiness.\n  Ham. 'Tis e'en so. The hand of little employment hath the daintier\n    sense.\n  Clown. (sings)\n         But age with his stealing steps\n           Hath clawed me in his clutch,\n         And hath shipped me intil the land,\n           As if I had never been such.\n                                            [Throws up a skull.]\n\n  Ham. That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. How the\n    knave jowls it to the ground,as if 'twere Cain's jawbone, that\n    did the first murther! This might be the pate of a Politician,\n    which this ass now o'erreaches; one that would circumvent God,\n    might it not?\n  Hor. It might, my lord.\n  Ham. Or of a courtier, which could say 'Good morrow, sweet lord!\n    How dost thou, good lord?' This might be my Lord Such-a-one, that\n    prais'd my Lord Such-a-one's horse when he meant to beg it- might\n    it not?\n  Hor. Ay, my lord.\n  Ham. Why, e'en so! and now my Lady Worm's, chapless, and knock'd\n    about the mazzard with a sexton's spade. Here's fine revolution,\n    and we had the trick to see't. Did these bones cost no more the\n    breeding but to play at loggets with 'em? Mine ache to think\n    on't.\n  Clown. (Sings)\n         A pickaxe and a spade, a spade,\n           For and a shrouding sheet;\n         O, a Pit of clay for to be made\n           For such a guest is meet.\n                                      Throws up [another skull].\n\n  Ham. There's another. Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer?\n    Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures,\n    and his tricks? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock\n    him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him\n    of his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be in's time a\n    great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his\n    fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries. Is this the fine of\n    his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine\n    pate full of fine dirt? Will his vouchers vouch him no more of\n    his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth\n    of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will\n    scarcely lie in this box; and must th' inheritor himself have no\n    more, ha?\n  Hor. Not a jot more, my lord.\n  Ham. Is not parchment made of sheepskins?\n  Hor. Ay, my lord, And of calveskins too.\n  Ham. They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I\n    will speak to this fellow. Whose grave's this, sirrah?\n  Clown. Mine, sir.\n\n    [Sings] O, a pit of clay for to be made\n              For such a guest is meet.\n\n  Ham. I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in't.\n  Clown. You lie out on't, sir, and therefore 'tis not yours.\n    For my part, I do not lie in't, yet it is mine.\n  Ham. Thou dost lie in't, to be in't and say it is thine. 'Tis for\n    the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.\n  Clown. 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away again from me to you.\n  Ham. What man dost thou dig it for?\n  Clown. For no man, sir.\n  Ham. What woman then?\n  Clown. For none neither.\n  Ham. Who is to be buried in't?\n  Clown. One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.\n  Ham. How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or\n    equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, this three years\n    I have taken note of it, the age is grown so picked that the toe\n    of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier he galls\n    his kibe.- How long hast thou been a grave-maker?\n  Clown. Of all the days i' th' year, I came to't that day that our\n    last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.\n  Ham. How long is that since?\n  Clown. Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. It was the\n    very day that young Hamlet was born- he that is mad, and sent\n    into England.\n  Ham. Ay, marry, why was be sent into England?\n  Clown. Why, because 'a was mad. 'A shall recover his wits there;\n    or, if 'a do not, 'tis no great matter there.\n  Ham. Why?\n  Clown. 'Twill not he seen in him there. There the men are as mad as\n    he.\n  Ham. How came he mad?\n  Clown. Very strangely, they say.\n  Ham. How strangely?\n  Clown. Faith, e'en with losing his wits.\n  Ham. Upon what ground?\n  Clown. Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton here, man and boy\n    thirty years.\n  Ham. How long will a man lie i' th' earth ere he rot?\n  Clown. Faith, if 'a be not rotten before 'a die (as we have many\n    pocky corses now-a-days that will scarce hold the laying in, I\n    will last you some eight year or nine year. A tanner will last\n    you nine year.\n  Ham. Why he more than another?\n  Clown. Why, sir, his hide is so tann'd with his trade that 'a will\n    keep out water a great while; and your water is a sore decayer of\n    your whoreson dead body. Here's a skull now. This skull hath lien\n    you i' th' earth three-and-twenty years.\n  Ham. Whose was it?\n  Clown. A whoreson, mad fellow's it was. Whose do you think it was?\n  Ham. Nay, I know not.\n  Clown. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! 'A pour'd a flagon of\n    Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick's\n    skull, the King's jester.\n  Ham. This?\n  Clown. E'en that.\n  Ham. Let me see. [Takes the skull.] Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him,\n    Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He\n    hath borne me on his back a thousand tunes. And now how abhorred\n    in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those\n    lips that I have kiss'd I know not how oft. Where be your gibes\n    now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment that\n    were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your\n    own grinning? Quite chap- fall'n? Now get you to my lady's\n    chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this\n    favour she must come. Make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio,\n    tell me one thing.\n  Hor. What's that, my lord?\n  Ham. Dost thou think Alexander look'd o' this fashion i' th' earth?\n  Hor. E'en so.\n  Ham. And smelt so? Pah!\n                                          [Puts down the skull.]\n  Hor. E'en so, my lord.\n  Ham. To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not\n    imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it\n    stopping a bunghole?\n  Hor. 'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.\n  Ham. No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty\n    enough, and likelihood to lead it; as thus: Alexander died,\n    Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is\n    earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam (whereto he\n    was converted) might they not stop a beer barrel?\n    Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,\n    Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.\n    O, that that earth which kept the world in awe\n    Should patch a wall t' expel the winter's flaw!\n    But soft! but soft! aside! Here comes the King-\n\n    Enter [priests with] a coffin [in funeral procession], King,\n             Queen, Laertes, with Lords attendant.]\n\n    The Queen, the courtiers. Who is this they follow?\n    And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken\n    The corse they follow did with desp'rate hand\n    Fordo it own life. 'Twas of some estate.\n    Couch we awhile, and mark.\n                                         [Retires with Horatio.]\n  Laer. What ceremony else?\n  Ham. That is Laertes,\n    A very noble youth. Mark.\n  Laer. What ceremony else?\n  Priest. Her obsequies have been as far enlarg'd\n    As we have warranty. Her death was doubtful;\n    And, but that great command o'ersways the order,\n    She should in ground unsanctified have lodg'd\n    Till the last trumpet. For charitable prayers,\n    Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her.\n    Yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants,\n    Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home\n    Of bell and burial.\n  Laer. Must there no more be done?\n  Priest. No more be done.\n    We should profane the service of the dead\n    To sing a requiem and such rest to her\n    As to peace-parted souls.\n  Laer. Lay her i' th' earth;\n    And from her fair and unpolluted flesh\n    May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,\n    A minist'ring angel shall my sister be\n    When thou liest howling.\n  Ham. What, the fair Ophelia?\n  Queen. Sweets to the sweet! Farewell.\n                                             [Scatters flowers.]\n    I hop'd thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife;\n    I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,\n    And not have strew'd thy grave.\n  Laer. O, treble woe\n    Fall ten times treble on that cursed head\n    Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense\n    Depriv'd thee of! Hold off the earth awhile,\n    Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.\n                                             Leaps in the grave.\n    Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead\n    Till of this flat a mountain you have made\n    T' o'ertop old Pelion or the skyish head\n    Of blue Olympus.\n  Ham. [comes forward] What is he whose grief\n    Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow\n    Conjures the wand'ring stars, and makes them stand\n    Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,\n    Hamlet the Dane.                    [Leaps in after Laertes.\n  Laer. The devil take thy soul!\n                                            [Grapples with him].\n  Ham. Thou pray'st not well.\n    I prithee take thy fingers from my throat;\n    For, though I am not splenitive and rash,\n    Yet have I in me something dangerous,\n    Which let thy wisdom fear. Hold off thy hand!\n  King. Pluck thein asunder.\n  Queen. Hamlet, Hamlet!\n  All. Gentlemen!\n  Hor. Good my lord, be quiet.\n             [The Attendants part them, and they come out of the\n                                                         grave.]\n  Ham. Why, I will fight with him upon this theme\n    Until my eyelids will no longer wag.\n  Queen. O my son, what theme?\n  Ham. I lov'd Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers\n    Could not (with all their quantity of love)\n    Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?\n  King. O, he is mad, Laertes.\n  Queen. For love of God, forbear him!\n  Ham. 'Swounds, show me what thou't do.\n    Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?\n    Woo't drink up esill? eat a crocodile?\n    I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?\n    To outface me with leaping in her grave?\n    Be buried quick with her, and so will I.\n    And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw\n    Millions of acres on us, till our ground,\n    Singeing his pate against the burning zone,\n    Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,\n    I'll rant as well as thou.\n  Queen. This is mere madness;\n    And thus a while the fit will work on him.\n    Anon, as patient as the female dove\n    When that her golden couplets are disclos'd,\n    His silence will sit drooping.\n  Ham. Hear you, sir!\n    What is the reason that you use me thus?\n    I lov'd you ever. But it is no matter.\n    Let Hercules himself do what he may,\n    The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.\nExit.\n  King. I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him.\n                                                   Exit Horatio.\n    [To Laertes] Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech.\n    We'll put the matter to the present push.-\n    Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.-\n    This grave shall have a living monument.\n    An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;\n    Till then in patience our proceeding be.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nElsinore. A hall in the Castle.\n\nEnter Hamlet and Horatio.\n\n  Ham. So much for this, sir; now shall you see the other.\n    You do remember all the circumstance?\n  Hor. Remember it, my lord!\n  Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting\n    That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay\n    Worse than the mutinies in the bilboes. Rashly-\n    And prais'd be rashness for it; let us know,\n    Our indiscretion sometime serves us well\n    When our deep plots do pall; and that should learn us\n    There's a divinity that shapes our ends,\n    Rough-hew them how we will-\n  Hor. That is most certain.\n  Ham. Up from my cabin,\n    My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark\n    Grop'd I to find out them; had my desire,\n    Finger'd their packet, and in fine withdrew\n    To mine own room again; making so bold\n    (My fears forgetting manners) to unseal\n    Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio\n    (O royal knavery!), an exact command,\n    Larded with many several sorts of reasons,\n    Importing Denmark's health, and England's too,\n    With, hoo! such bugs and goblins in my life-\n    That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,\n    No, not to stay the finding of the axe,\n    My head should be struck off.\n  Hor. Is't possible?\n  Ham. Here's the commission; read it at more leisure.\n    But wilt thou bear me how I did proceed?\n  Hor. I beseech you.\n  Ham. Being thus benetted round with villanies,\n    Or I could make a prologue to my brains,\n    They had begun the play. I sat me down;\n    Devis'd a new commission; wrote it fair.\n    I once did hold it, as our statists do,\n    A baseness to write fair, and labour'd much\n    How to forget that learning; but, sir, now\n    It did me yeoman's service. Wilt thou know\n    Th' effect of what I wrote?\n  Hor. Ay, good my lord.\n  Ham. An earnest conjuration from the King,\n    As England was his faithful tributary,\n    As love between them like the palm might flourish,\n    As peace should still her wheaten garland wear\n    And stand a comma 'tween their amities,\n    And many such-like as's of great charge,\n    That, on the view and knowing of these contents,\n    Without debatement further, more or less,\n    He should the bearers put to sudden death,\n    Not shriving time allow'd.\n  Hor. How was this seal'd?\n  Ham. Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.\n    I had my father's signet in my purse,\n    which was the model of that Danish seal;\n    Folded the writ up in the form of th' other,\n    Subscrib'd it, gave't th' impression, plac'd it safely,\n    The changeling never known. Now, the next day\n    Was our sea-fight; and what to this was sequent\n    Thou know'st already.\n  Hor. So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't.\n  Ham. Why, man, they did make love to this employment!\n    They are not near my conscience; their defeat\n    Does by their own insinuation grow.\n    'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes\n    Between the pass and fell incensed points\n    Of mighty opposites.\n  Hor. Why, what a king is this!\n  Ham. Does it not, thinks't thee, stand me now upon-\n    He that hath kill'd my king, and whor'd my mother;\n    Popp'd in between th' election and my hopes;\n    Thrown out his angle for my Proper life,\n    And with such coz'nage- is't not perfect conscience\n    To quit him with this arm? And is't not to be damn'd\n    To let this canker of our nature come\n    In further evil?\n  Hor. It must be shortly known to him from England\n    What is the issue of the business there.\n  Ham. It will be short; the interim is mine,\n    And a man's life is no more than to say 'one.'\n    But I am very sorry, good Horatio,\n    That to Laertes I forgot myself,\n    For by the image of my cause I see\n    The portraiture of his. I'll court his favours.\n    But sure the bravery of his grief did put me\n    Into a tow'ring passion.\n  Hor. Peace! Who comes here?\n\n                 Enter young Osric, a courtier.\n\n  Osr. Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.\n  Ham. I humbly thank you, sir. [Aside to Horatio] Dost know this\n    waterfly?\n  Hor. [aside to Hamlet] No, my good lord.\n  Ham. [aside to Horatio] Thy state is the more gracious; for 'tis a\n    vice to know him. He hath much land, and fertile. Let a beast be\n    lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the king's mess. 'Tis\n    a chough; but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.\n  Osr. Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I should impart\n    a thing to you from his Majesty.\n  Ham. I will receive it, sir, with all diligence of spirit. Put your\n    bonnet to his right use. 'Tis for the head.\n  Osr. I thank your lordship, it is very hot.\n  Ham. No, believe me, 'tis very cold; the wind is northerly.\n  Osr. It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.\n  Ham. But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion.\n  Osr. Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry, as 'twere- I cannot\n    tell how. But, my lord, his Majesty bade me signify to you that\n    he has laid a great wager on your head. Sir, this is the matter-\n  Ham. I beseech you remember.\n                           [Hamlet moves him to put on his hat.]\n  Osr. Nay, good my lord; for mine ease, in good faith. Sir, here is\n    newly come to court Laertes; believe me, an absolute gentleman,\n    full of most excellent differences, of very soft society and\n    great showing. Indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card\n    or calendar of gentry; for you shall find in him the continent of\n    what part a gentleman would see.\n  Ham. Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you; though, I\n    know, to divide him inventorially would dozy th' arithmetic of\n    memory, and yet but yaw neither in respect of his quick sail.\n    But, in the verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of great\n    article, and his infusion of such dearth and rareness as, to make\n    true diction of him, his semblable is his mirror, and who else\n    would trace him, his umbrage, nothing more.\n  Osr. Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.\n  Ham. The concernancy, sir? Why do we wrap the gentleman in our more\n    rawer breath\n  Osr. Sir?\n  Hor [aside to Hamlet] Is't not possible to understand in another\n    tongue? You will do't, sir, really.\n  Ham. What imports the nomination of this gentleman\n  Osr. Of Laertes?\n  Hor. [aside] His purse is empty already. All's golden words are\n    spent.\n  Ham. Of him, sir.\n  Osr. I know you are not ignorant-\n  Ham. I would you did, sir; yet, in faith, if you did, it would not\n    much approve me. Well, sir?\n  Osr. You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is-\n  Ham. I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with him in\n    excellence; but to know a man well were to know himself.\n  Osr. I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation laid on him\n    by them, in his meed he's unfellowed.\n  Ham. What's his weapon?\n  Osr. Rapier and dagger.\n  Ham. That's two of his weapons- but well.\n  Osr. The King, sir, hath wager'd with him six Barbary horses;\n    against the which he has impon'd, as I take it, six French\n    rapiers and poniards, with their assigns, as girdle, hangers, and\n    so. Three of the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy,\n    very responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages, and of\n    very liberal conceit.\n  Ham. What call you the carriages?\n  Hor. [aside to Hamlet] I knew you must be edified by the margent\n    ere you had done.\n  Osr. The carriages, sir, are the hangers.\n  Ham. The phrase would be more germane to the matter if we could\n    carry cannon by our sides. I would it might be hangers till then.\n    But on! Six Barbary horses against six French swords, their\n    assigns, and three liberal-conceited carriages: that's the French\n    bet against the Danish. Why is this all impon'd, as you call it?\n  Osr. The King, sir, hath laid that, in a dozen passes between\n    yourself and him, he shall not exceed you three hits; he hath\n    laid on twelve for nine, and it would come to immediate trial\n    if your lordship would vouchsafe the answer.\n  Ham. How if I answer no?\n  Osr. I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.\n  Ham. Sir, I will walk here in the hall. If it please his Majesty,\n    it is the breathing time of day with me. Let the foils be\n    brought, the gentleman willing, and the King hold his purpose,\n    I will win for him if I can; if not, I will gain nothing but my\n    shame and the odd hits.\n  Osr. Shall I redeliver you e'en so?\n  Ham. To this effect, sir, after what flourish your nature will.\n  Osr. I commend my duty to your lordship.\n  Ham. Yours, yours. [Exit Osric.] He does well to commend it\n    himself; there are no tongues else for's turn.\n  Hor. This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.\n  Ham. He did comply with his dug before he suck'd it. Thus has he,\n    and many more of the same bevy that I know the drossy age dotes\n    on, only got the tune of the time and outward habit of encounter-\n    a kind of yesty collection, which carries them through and\n    through the most fann'd and winnowed opinions; and do but blow\n    them to their trial-the bubbles are out,\n\n                            Enter a Lord.\n\n  Lord. My lord, his Majesty commended him to you by young Osric, who\n    brings back to him, that you attend him in the hall. He sends to\n    know if your pleasure hold to play with Laertes, or that you will\n    take longer time.\n  Ham. I am constant to my purposes; they follow the King's pleasure.\n    If his fitness speaks, mine is ready; now or whensoever, provided\n    I be so able as now.\n  Lord. The King and Queen and all are coming down.\n  Ham. In happy time.\n  Lord. The Queen desires you to use some gentle entertainment to\n    Laertes before you fall to play.\n  Ham. She well instructs me.\n                                                    [Exit Lord.]\n  Hor. You will lose this wager, my lord.\n  Ham. I do not think so. Since he went into France I have been in\n    continual practice. I shall win at the odds. But thou wouldst not\n    think how ill all's here about my heart. But it is no matter.\n  Hor. Nay, good my lord -\n  Ham. It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of gaingiving as\n    would perhaps trouble a woman.\n  Hor. If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will forestall their\n    repair hither and say you are not fit.\n  Ham. Not a whit, we defy augury; there's a special providence in\n    the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come', if it be\n    not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come:\n    the readiness is all. Since no man knows aught of what he leaves,\n    what is't to leave betimes? Let be.\n\n    Enter King, Queen, Laertes, Osric, and Lords, with other\n              Attendants with foils and gauntlets.\n               A table and flagons of wine on it.\n\n  King. Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.\n                    [The King puts Laertes' hand into Hamlet's.]\n  Ham. Give me your pardon, sir. I have done you wrong;\n    But pardon't, as you are a gentleman.\n    This presence knows,\n    And you must needs have heard, how I am punish'd\n    With sore distraction. What I have done\n    That might your nature, honour, and exception\n    Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.\n    Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never Hamlet.\n    If Hamlet from himself be taken away,\n    And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,\n    Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.\n    Who does it, then? His madness. If't be so,\n    Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd;\n    His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.\n    Sir, in this audience,\n    Let my disclaiming from a purpos'd evil\n    Free me so far in your most generous thoughts\n    That I have shot my arrow o'er the house\n    And hurt my brother.\n  Laer. I am satisfied in nature,\n    Whose motive in this case should stir me most\n    To my revenge. But in my terms of honour\n    I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement\n    Till by some elder masters of known honour\n    I have a voice and precedent of peace\n    To keep my name ungor'd. But till that time\n    I do receive your offer'd love like love,\n    And will not wrong it.\n  Ham. I embrace it freely,\n    And will this brother's wager frankly play.\n    Give us the foils. Come on.\n  Laer. Come, one for me.\n  Ham. I'll be your foil, Laertes. In mine ignorance\n    Your skill shall, like a star i' th' darkest night,\n    Stick fiery off indeed.\n  Laer. You mock me, sir.\n  Ham. No, by this bad.\n  King. Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,\n    You know the wager?\n  Ham. Very well, my lord.\n    Your Grace has laid the odds o' th' weaker side.\n  King. I do not fear it, I have seen you both;\n    But since he is better'd, we have therefore odds.\n  Laer. This is too heavy; let me see another.\n  Ham. This likes me well. These foils have all a length?\n                                                Prepare to play.\n  Osr. Ay, my good lord.\n  King. Set me the stoups of wine upon that table.\n    If Hamlet give the first or second hit,\n    Or quit in answer of the third exchange,\n    Let all the battlements their ordnance fire;\n    The King shall drink to Hamlet's better breath,\n    And in the cup an union shall he throw\n    Richer than that which four successive kings\n    In Denmark's crown have worn. Give me the cups;\n    And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,\n    The trumpet to the cannoneer without,\n    The cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth,\n    'Now the King drinks to Hamlet.' Come, begin.\n    And you the judges, bear a wary eye.\n  Ham. Come on, sir.\n  Laer. Come, my lord.                                They play.\n  Ham. One.\n  Laer. No.\n  Ham. Judgment!\n  Osr. A hit, a very palpable hit.\n  Laer. Well, again!\n  King. Stay, give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;\n    Here's to thy health.\n               [Drum; trumpets sound; a piece goes off [within].\n    Give him the cup.\n  Ham. I'll play this bout first; set it by awhile.\n    Come. (They play.) Another hit. What say you?\n  Laer. A touch, a touch; I do confess't.\n  King. Our son shall win.\n  Queen. He's fat, and scant of breath.\n    Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows.\n    The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.\n  Ham. Good madam!\n  King. Gertrude, do not drink.\n  Queen. I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me.          Drinks.\n  King. [aside] It is the poison'd cup; it is too late.\n  Ham. I dare not drink yet, madam; by-and-by.\n  Queen. Come, let me wipe thy face.\n  Laer. My lord, I'll hit him now.\n  King. I do not think't.\n  Laer. [aside] And yet it is almost against my conscience.\n  Ham. Come for the third, Laertes! You but dally.\n    pray You Pass with your best violence;\n    I am afeard You make a wanton of me.\n  Laer. Say you so? Come on.                               Play.\n  Osr. Nothing neither way.\n  Laer. Have at you now!\n                [Laertes wounds Hamlet; then] in scuffling, they\n                    change rapiers, [and Hamlet wounds Laertes].\n  King. Part them! They are incens'd.\n  Ham. Nay come! again!                         The Queen falls.\n  Osr. Look to the Queen there, ho!\n  Hor. They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?\n  Osr. How is't, Laertes?\n  Laer. Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric.\n    I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.\n  Ham. How does the Queen?\n  King. She sounds to see them bleed.\n  Queen. No, no! the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet!\n    The drink, the drink! I am poison'd.                 [Dies.]\n  Ham. O villany! Ho! let the door be lock'd.\n    Treachery! Seek it out.\n                                                [Laertes falls.]\n  Laer. It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain;\n    No medicine in the world can do thee good.\n    In thee there is not half an hour of life.\n    The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,\n    Unbated and envenom'd. The foul practice\n    Hath turn'd itself on me. Lo, here I lie,\n    Never to rise again. Thy mother's poison'd.\n    I can no more. The King, the King's to blame.\n  Ham. The point envenom'd too?\n    Then, venom, to thy work.                    Hurts the King.\n  All. Treason! treason!\n  King. O, yet defend me, friends! I am but hurt.\n  Ham. Here, thou incestuous, murd'rous, damned Dane,\n    Drink off this potion! Is thy union here?\n    Follow my mother.                                 King dies.\n  Laer. He is justly serv'd.\n    It is a poison temper'd by himself.\n    Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.\n    Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,\n    Nor thine on me!                                       Dies.\n  Ham. Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.\n    I am dead, Horatio. Wretched queen, adieu!\n    You that look pale and tremble at this chance,\n    That are but mutes or audience to this act,\n    Had I but time (as this fell sergeant, Death,\n    Is strict in his arrest) O, I could tell you-\n    But let it be. Horatio, I am dead;\n    Thou liv'st; report me and my cause aright\n    To the unsatisfied.\n  Hor. Never believe it.\n    I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.\n    Here's yet some liquor left.\n  Ham. As th'art a man,\n    Give me the cup. Let go! By heaven, I'll ha't.\n    O good Horatio, what a wounded name\n    (Things standing thus unknown) shall live behind me!\n    If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,\n    Absent thee from felicity awhile,\n    And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,\n    To tell my story.         [March afar off, and shot within.]\n    What warlike noise is this?\n  Osr. Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,\n    To the ambassadors of England gives\n    This warlike volley.\n  Ham. O, I die, Horatio!\n    The potent poison quite o'ercrows my spirit.\n    I cannot live to hear the news from England,\n    But I do prophesy th' election lights\n    On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice.\n    So tell him, with th' occurrents, more and less,\n    Which have solicited- the rest is silence.             Dies.\n  Hor. Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,\n    And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!\n                                                 [March within.]\n    Why does the drum come hither?\n\n    Enter Fortinbras and English Ambassadors, with Drum,\n                  Colours, and Attendants.\n\n  Fort. Where is this sight?\n  Hor. What is it you will see?\n    If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.\n  Fort. This quarry cries on havoc. O proud Death,\n    What feast is toward in thine eternal cell\n    That thou so many princes at a shot\n    So bloodily hast struck.\n  Ambassador. The sight is dismal;\n    And our affairs from England come too late.\n    The ears are senseless that should give us bearing\n    To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd\n    That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.\n    Where should We have our thanks?\n  Hor. Not from his mouth,\n    Had it th' ability of life to thank you.\n    He never gave commandment for their death.\n    But since, so jump upon this bloody question,\n    You from the Polack wars, and you from England,\n    Are here arriv'd, give order that these bodies\n    High on a stage be placed to the view;\n    And let me speak to the yet unknowing world\n    How these things came about. So shall You hear\n    Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts;\n    Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;\n    Of deaths put on by cunning and forc'd cause;\n    And, in this upshot, purposes mistook\n    Fall'n on th' inventors' heads. All this can I\n    Truly deliver.\n  Fort. Let us haste to hear it,\n    And call the noblest to the audience.\n    For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune.\n    I have some rights of memory in this kingdom\n    Which now, to claim my vantage doth invite me.\n  Hor. Of that I shall have also cause to speak,\n    And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more.\n    But let this same be presently perform'd,\n    Even while men's minds are wild, lest more mischance\n    On plots and errors happen.\n  Fort. Let four captains\n    Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage;\n    For he was likely, had he been put on,\n    To have prov'd most royally; and for his passage\n    The soldiers' music and the rites of war\n    Speak loudly for him.\n    Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this\n    Becomes the field but here shows much amiss.\n    Go, bid the soldiers shoot.\n            Exeunt marching; after the which a peal of ordnance\n                                                   are shot off.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1598\n\nTHE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH\n\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  King Henry the Fourth.\n  Henry, Prince of Wales, son to the King.\n  Prince John of Lancaster, son to the King.\n  Earl of Westmoreland.\n  Sir Walter Blunt.\n  Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester.\n  Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland.\n  Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur, his son.\n  Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March.\n  Richard Scroop, Archbishop of York.\n  Archibald, Earl of Douglas.\n  Owen Glendower.\n  Sir Richard Vernon.\n  Sir John Falstaff.\n  Sir Michael, a friend to the Archbishop of York.\n  Poins.\n  Gadshill\n  Peto.\n  Bardolph.\n\n  Lady Percy, wife to Hotspur, and sister to Mortimer.\n  Lady Mortimer, daughter to Glendower, and wife to Mortimer.\n  Mistress Quickly, hostess of the Boar's Head in Eastcheap.\n\n  Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers, two\n    Carriers, Travellers, and Attendants.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE.--England and Wales.\n\n\nACT I. Scene I.\nLondon. The Palace.\n\nEnter the King, Lord John of Lancaster, Earl of Westmoreland,\n[Sir Walter Blunt,] with others.\n\n  King. So shaken as we are, so wan with care,\n    Find we a time for frighted peace to pant\n    And breathe short-winded accents of new broils\n    To be commenc'd in stronds afar remote.\n    No more the thirsty entrance of this soil\n    Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood.\n    No more shall trenching war channel her fields,\n    Nor Bruise her flow'rets with the armed hoofs\n    Of hostile paces. Those opposed eyes\n    Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,\n    All of one nature, of one substance bred,\n    Did lately meet in the intestine shock\n    And furious close of civil butchery,\n    Shall now in mutual well-beseeming ranks\n    March all one way and be no more oppos'd\n    Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies.\n    The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,\n    No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,\n    As far as to the sepulchre of Christ-\n    Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross\n    We are impressed and engag'd to fight-\n    Forthwith a power of English shall we levy,\n    Whose arms were moulded in their mother's womb\n    To chase these pagans in those holy fields\n    Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet\n    Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd\n    For our advantage on the bitter cross.\n    But this our purpose now is twelvemonth old,\n    And bootless 'tis to tell you we will go.\n    Therefore we meet not now. Then let me hear\n    Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,\n    What yesternight our Council did decree\n    In forwarding this dear expedience.\n  West. My liege, this haste was hot in question\n    And many limits of the charge set down\n    But yesternight; when all athwart there came\n    A post from Wales, loaden with heavy news;\n    Whose worst was that the noble Mortimer,\n    Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight\n    Against the irregular and wild Glendower,\n    Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,\n    A thousand of his people butchered;\n    Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse,\n    Such beastly shameless transformation,\n    By those Welshwomen done as may not be\n    Without much shame retold or spoken of.\n  King. It seems then that the tidings of this broil\n    Brake off our business for the Holy Land.\n  West. This, match'd with other, did, my gracious lord;\n    For more uneven and unwelcome news\n    Came from the North, and thus it did import:\n    On Holy-rood Day the gallant Hotspur there,\n    Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald,\n    That ever-valiant and approved Scot,\n    At Holmedon met,\n    Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour;\n    As by discharge of their artillery\n    And shape of likelihood the news was told;\n    For he that brought them, in the very heat\n    And pride of their contention did take horse,\n    Uncertain of the issue any way.\n  King. Here is a dear, a true-industrious friend,\n    Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,\n    Stain'd with the variation of each soil\n    Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours,\n    And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.\n    The Earl of Douglas is discomfited;\n    Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights,\n    Balk'd in their own blood did Sir Walter see\n    On Holmedon's plains. Of prisoners, Hotspur took\n    Mordake Earl of Fife and eldest son\n    To beaten Douglas, and the Earl of Athol,\n    Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith.\n    And is not this an honourable spoil?\n    A gallant prize? Ha, cousin, is it not?\n  West. In faith,\n    It is a conquest for a prince to boast of.\n  King. Yea, there thou mak'st me sad, and mak'st me sin\n    In envy that my Lord Northumberland\n    Should be the father to so blest a son-\n    A son who is the theme of honour's tongue,\n    Amongst a grove the very straightest plant;\n    Who is sweet Fortune's minion and her pride;\n    Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,\n    See riot and dishonour stain the brow\n    Of my young Harry. O that it could be prov'd\n    That some night-tripping fairy had exchang'd\n    In cradle clothes our children where they lay,\n    And call'd mine Percy, his Plantagenet!\n    Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.\n    But let him from my thoughts. What think you, coz,\n    Of this young Percy's pride? The prisoners\n    Which he in this adventure hath surpris'd\n    To his own use he keeps, and sends me word\n    I shall have none but Mordake Earl of Fife.\n  West. This is his uncle's teaching, this Worcester,\n    Malevolent to you In all aspects,\n    Which makes him prune himself and bristle up\n    The crest of youth against your dignity.\n  King. But I have sent for him to answer this;\n    And for this cause awhile we must neglect\n    Our holy purpose to Jerusalem.\n    Cousin, on Wednesday next our council we\n    Will hold at Windsor. So inform the lords;\n    But come yourself with speed to us again;\n    For more is to be said and to be done\n    Than out of anger can be uttered.\n  West. I will my liege.                                 Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nLondon. An apartment of the Prince's.\n\nEnter Prince of Wales and Sir John Falstaff.\n\n  Fal. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?\n  Prince. Thou art so fat-witted with drinking of old sack, and\n    unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after\n    noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou\n    wouldest truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time\n    of the day, Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons,\n    and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping\n    houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in\n    flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so\n    superfluous to demand the time of the day.\n  Fal. Indeed you come near me now, Hal; for we that take purses go\n    by the moon And the seven stars, and not by Phoebus, he, that\n    wand'ring knight so fair. And I prithee, sweet wag, when thou art\n    king, as, God save thy Grace-Majesty I should say, for grace thou\n    wilt have none-\n  Prince. What, none?\n  Fal. No, by my troth; not so much as will serve to be prologue to\n    an egg and butter.\n  Prince. Well, how then? Come, roundly, roundly.\n  Fal. Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that\n    are squires of the night's body be called thieves of the day's\n    beauty. Let us be Diana's Foresters, Gentlemen of the Shade,\n    Minions of the Moon; and let men say we be men of good\n    government, being governed as the sea is, by our noble and chaste\n    mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.\n  Prince. Thou sayest well, and it holds well too; for the fortune of\n    us that are the moon's men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being\n    governed, as the sea is, by the moon. As, for proof now: a purse\n    of gold most resolutely snatch'd on Monday night and most\n    dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with swearing 'Lay by,'\n    and spent with crying 'Bring in'; now ill as low an ebb as the\n    foot of the ladder, and by-and-by in as high a flow as the ridge\n    of the gallows.\n  Fal. By the Lord, thou say'st true, lad- and is not my hostess of\n    the tavern a most sweet wench?\n  Prince. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle- and is not\n    a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?\n  Fal. How now, how now, mad wag? What, in thy quips and thy\n    quiddities? What a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?\n  Prince. Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern?\n  Fal. Well, thou hast call'd her to a reckoning many a time and oft.\n  Prince. Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?\n  Fal. No; I'll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there.\n  Prince. Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch; and\n    where it would not, I have used my credit.\n  Fal. Yea, and so us'd it that, were it not here apparent that thou\n    art heir apparent- But I prithee, sweet wag, shall there be\n    gallows standing in England when thou art king? and resolution\n    thus fubb'd as it is with the rusty curb of old father antic the\n    law? Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.\n  Prince. No; thou shalt.\n  Fal. Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I'll be a brave judge.\n  Prince. Thou judgest false already. I mean, thou shalt have the\n    hanging of the thieves and so become a rare hangman.\n  Fal. Well, Hal, well; and in some sort it jumps with my humour as\n    well as waiting in the court, I can tell you.\n  Prince. For obtaining of suits?\n  Fal. Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman hath no lean\n    wardrobe. 'Sblood, I am as melancholy as a gib-cat or a lugg'd\n    bear.\n  Prince. Or an old lion, or a lover's lute.\n  Fal. Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.\n  Prince. What sayest thou to a hare, or the melancholy of Moor\n    Ditch?\n  Fal. Thou hast the most unsavoury similes, and art indeed the most\n    comparative, rascalliest, sweet young prince. But, Hal, I prithee\n    trouble me no more with vanity. I would to God thou and I knew\n    where a commodity of good names were to be bought. An old lord of\n    the Council rated me the other day in the street about you, sir,\n    but I mark'd him not; and yet he talked very wisely, but I\n    regarded him not; and yet he talk'd wisely, and in the street\n    too.\n  Prince. Thou didst well; for wisdom cries out in the streets, and\n    no man regards it.\n  Fal. O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to\n    corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon me, Hal- God\n    forgive thee for it! Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing; and\n    now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of\n    the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it over!\n    By the Lord, an I do not, I am a villain! I'll be damn'd for\n    never a king's son in Christendom.\n  Prince. Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack?\n  Fal. Zounds, where thou wilt, lad! I'll make one. An I do not, call\n    me villain and baffle me.\n  Prince. I see a good amendment of life in thee- from praying to\n    purse-taking.\n  Fal. Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation, Hal. 'Tis no sin for a man to\n    labour in his vocation.\n\n                             Enter Poins.\n\n    Poins! Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a match. O, if men\n    were to be saved by merit, what hole in hell were hot enough for\n    him? This is the most omnipotent villain that ever cried 'Stand!'\n    to a true man.\n  Prince. Good morrow, Ned.\n  Poins. Good morrow, sweet Hal. What says Monsieur Remorse? What\n    says Sir John Sack and Sugar? Jack, how agrees the devil and thee\n    about thy soul, that thou soldest him on Good Friday last for a\n    cup of Madeira and a cold capon's leg?\n  Prince. Sir John stands to his word, the devil shall have his\n    bargain; for he was never yet a breaker of proverbs. He will give\n    the devil his due.\n  Poins. Then art thou damn'd for keeping thy word with the devil.\n  Prince. Else he had been damn'd for cozening the devil.\n  Poins. But, my lads, my lads, to-morrow morning, by four o'clock\n    early, at Gadshill! There are pilgrims gong to Canterbury with\n    rich offerings, and traders riding to London with fat purses. I\n    have vizards for you all; you have horses for yourselves.\n    Gadshill lies to-night in Rochester. I have bespoke supper\n    to-morrow night in Eastcheap. We may do it as secure as sleep. If\n    you will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns; if you will\n    not, tarry at home and be hang'd!\n  Fal. Hear ye, Yedward: if I tarry at home and go not, I'll hang you\n    for going.\n  Poins. You will, chops?\n  Fal. Hal, wilt thou make one?\n  Prince. Who, I rob? I a thief? Not I, by my faith.\n  Fal. There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee,\n    nor thou cam'st not of the blood royal if thou darest not stand\n    for ten shillings.\n  Prince. Well then, once in my days I'll be a madcap.\n  Fal. Why, that's well said.\n  Prince. Well, come what will, I'll tarry at home.\n  Fal. By the Lord, I'll be a traitor then, when thou art king.\n  Prince. I care not.\n  Poins. Sir John, I prithee, leave the Prince and me alone. I will\n    lay him down such reasons for this adventure that he shall go.\n  Fal. Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion and him the ears\n    of profiting, that what thou speakest may move and what he hears\n    may be believed, that the true prince may (for recreation sake)\n    prove a false thief; for the poor abuses of the time want\n    countenance. Farewell; you shall find me in Eastcheap.\n  Prince. Farewell, thou latter spring! farewell, All-hallown summer!\n                                                  Exit Falstaff.\n  Poins. Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us to-morrow. I\n    have a jest to execute that I cannot manage alone. Falstaff,\n    Bardolph, Peto, and Gadshill shall rob those men that we have\n    already waylaid; yourself and I will not be there; and when they\n    have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut this head off\n    from my shoulders.\n  Prince. How shall we part with them in setting forth?\n  Poins. Why, we will set forth before or after them and appoint them\n    a place of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure to fail; and\n    then will they adventure upon the exploit themselves; which they\n    shall have no sooner achieved, but we'll set upon them.\n  Prince. Yea, but 'tis like that they will know us by our horses, by\n    our habits, and by every other appointment, to be ourselves.\n  Poins. Tut! our horses they shall not see- I'll tie them in the\n    wood; our wizards we will change after we leave them; and,\n    sirrah, I have cases of buckram for the nonce, to immask our\n    noted outward garments.\n  Prince. Yea, but I doubt they will be too hard for us.\n  Poins. Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true-bred\n    cowards as ever turn'd back; and for the third, if he fight\n    longer than he sees reason, I'll forswear arms. The virtue of\n    this jest will lie the incomprehensible lies that this same fat\n    rogue will tell us when we meet at supper: how thirty, at least,\n    he fought with; what wards, what blows, what extremities he\n    endured; and in the reproof of this lies the jest.\n  Prince. Well, I'll go with thee. Provide us all things necessary\n    and meet me to-night in Eastcheap. There I'll sup. Farewell.\n  Poins. Farewell, my lord.                                Exit.\n  Prince. I know you all, and will awhile uphold\n    The unyok'd humour of your idleness.\n    Yet herein will I imitate the sun,\n    Who doth permit the base contagious clouds\n    To smother up his beauty from the world,\n    That, when he please again to lie himself,\n    Being wanted, he may be more wond'red at\n    By breaking through the foul and ugly mists\n    Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.\n    If all the year were playing holidays,\n    To sport would be as tedious as to work;\n    But when they seldom come, they wish'd-for come,\n    And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.\n    So, when this loose behaviour I throw off\n    And pay the debt I never promised,\n    By how much better than my word I am,\n    By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;\n    And, like bright metal on a sullen ground,\n    My reformation, glitt'ring o'er my fault,\n    Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes\n    Than that which hath no foil to set it off.\n    I'll so offend to make offence a skill,\n    Redeeming time when men think least I will.            Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nLondon. The Palace.\n\nEnter the King, Northumberland, Worcester, Hotspur, Sir Walter Blunt,\nwith others.\n\n  King. My blood hath been too cold and temperate,\n    Unapt to stir at these indignities,\n    And you have found me, for accordingly\n    You tread upon my patience; but be sure\n    I will from henceforth rather be myself,\n    Mighty and to be fear'd, than my condition,\n    Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,\n    And therefore lost that title of respect\n    Which the proud soul ne'er pays but to the proud.\n  Wor. Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves\n    The scourge of greatness to be us'd on it-\n    And that same greatness too which our own hands\n    Have holp to make so portly.\n  North. My lord-\n  King. Worcester, get thee gone; for I do see\n    Danger and disobedience in thine eye.\n    O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,\n    And majesty might never yet endure\n    The moody frontier of a servant brow.\n    Tou have good leave to leave us. When we need\n    'Your use and counsel, we shall send for you.\n                                                 Exit Worcester.\n    You were about to speak.\n  North. Yea, my good lord.\n    Those prisoners in your Highness' name demanded\n    Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,\n    Were, as he says, not with such strength denied\n    As is delivered to your Majesty.\n    Either envy, therefore, or misprision\n    Is guilty of this fault, and not my son.\n  Hot. My liege, I did deny no prisoners.\n    But I remember, when the fight was done,\n    When I was dry with rage and extreme toll,\n    Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,\n    Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dress'd,\n    Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd\n    Show'd like a stubble land at harvest home.\n    He was perfumed like a milliner,\n    And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held\n    A pouncet box, which ever and anon\n    He gave his nose, and took't away again;\n    Who therewith angry, when it next came there,\n    Took it in snuff; and still he smil'd and talk'd;\n    And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,\n    He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,\n    To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse\n    Betwixt the wind and his nobility.\n    With many holiday and lady terms\n    He questioned me, amongst the rest demanded\n    My prisoners in your Majesty's behalf.\n    I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,\n    To be so pest'red with a popingay,\n    Out of my grief and my impatience\n    Answer'd neglectingly, I know not what-\n    He should, or he should not; for he made me mad\n    To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,\n    And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman\n    Of guns and drums and wounds- God save the mark!-\n    And telling me the sovereignest thing on earth\n    Was parmacity for an inward bruise;\n    And that it was great pity, so it was,\n    This villanous saltpetre should be digg'd\n    Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,\n    Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd\n    So cowardly; and but for these vile 'guns,\n    He would himself have been a soldier.\n    This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,\n    I answered indirectly, as I said,\n    And I beseech you, let not his report\n    Come current for an accusation\n    Betwixt my love and your high majesty.\n  Blunt. The circumstance considered, good my lord,\n    Whate'er Lord Harry Percy then had said\n    To such a person, and in such a place,\n    At such a time, with all the rest retold,\n    May reasonably die, and never rise\n    To do him wrong, or any way impeach\n    What then he said, so he unsay it now.\n  King. Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners,\n    But with proviso and exception,\n    That we at our own charge shall ransom straight\n    His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;\n    Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray'd\n    The lives of those that he did lead to fight\n    Against that great magician, damn'd Glendower,\n    Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March\n    Hath lately married. Shall our coffers, then,\n    Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?\n    Shall we buy treason? and indent with fears\n    When they have lost and forfeited themselves?\n    No, on the barren mountains let him starve!\n    For I shall never hold that man my friend\n    Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost\n    To ransom home revolted Mortimer.\n  Hot. Revolted Mortimer?\n    He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,\n    But by the chance of war. To prove that true\n    Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds,\n    Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took\n    When on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank,\n    In single opposition hand to hand,\n    He did confound the best part of an hour\n    In changing hardiment with great Glendower.\n    Three times they breath'd, and three times did they drink,\n    Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood;\n    Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,\n    Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds\n    And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank,\n    Bloodstained with these valiant cohabitants.\n    Never did base and rotten policy\n    Colour her working with such deadly wounds;\n    Nor never could the noble Mortimer\n    Receive so many, and all willingly.\n    Then let not him be slandered with revolt.\n  King. Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him!\n    He never did encounter with Glendower.\n    I tell thee\n    He durst as well have met the devil alone\n    As Owen Glendower for an enemy.\n    Art thou not asham'd? But, sirrah, henceforth\n    Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer.\n    Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,\n    Or you shall hear in such a kind from me\n    As will displease you. My Lord Northumberland,\n    We license your departure with your son.-\n    Send us your prisoners, or you will hear of it.\n                                 Exeunt King, [Blunt, and Train]\n  Hot. An if the devil come and roar for them,\n    I will not send them. I will after straight\n    And tell him so; for I will else my heart,\n    Albeit I make a hazard of my head.\n  North. What, drunk with choler? Stay, and pause awhile.\n    Here comes your uncle.\n\n                          Enter Worcester.\n\n  Hot. Speak of Mortimer?\n    Zounds, I will speak of him, and let my soul\n    Want mercy if I do not join with him!\n    Yea, on his part I'll empty all these veins,\n    And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust,\n    But I will lift the downtrod Mortimer\n    As high in the air as this unthankful king,\n    As this ingrate and cank'red Bolingbroke.\n  North. Brother, the King hath made your nephew mad.\n  Wor. Who struck this heat up after I was gone?\n  Hot. He will (forsooth) have all my prisoners;\n    And when I urg'd the ransom once again\n    Of my wive's brother, then his cheek look'd pale,\n    And on my face he turn'd an eye of death,\n    Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.\n  Wor. I cannot blame him. Was not he proclaim'd\n    By Richard that dead is, the next of blood?\n  North. He was; I heard the proclamation.\n    And then it was when the unhappy King\n    (Whose wrongs in us God pardon!) did set forth\n    Upon his Irish expedition;\n    From whence he intercepted did return\n    To be depos'd, and shortly murdered.\n  Wor. And for whose death we in the world's wide mouth\n    Live scandaliz'd and foully spoken of.\n  Hot. But soft, I pray you. Did King Richard then\n    Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer\n    Heir to the crown?\n  North. He did; myself did hear it.\n  Hot. Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin king,\n    That wish'd him on the barren mountains starve.\n    But shall it be that you, that set the crown\n    Upon the head of this forgetful man,\n    And for his sake wear the detested blot\n    Of murtherous subornation- shall it be\n    That you a world of curses undergo,\n    Being the agents or base second means,\n    The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather?\n    O, pardon me that I descend so low\n    To show the line and the predicament\n    Wherein you range under this subtile king!\n    Shall it for shame be spoken in these days,\n    Or fill up chronicles in time to come,\n    That men of your nobility and power\n    Did gage them both in an unjust behalf\n    (As both of you, God pardon it! have done)\n    To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,\n    And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke?\n    And shall it in more shame be further spoken\n    That you are fool'd, discarded, and shook off\n    By him for whom these shames ye underwent?\n    No! yet time serves wherein you may redeem\n    Your banish'd honours and restore yourselves\n    Into the good thoughts of the world again;\n    Revenge the jeering and disdain'd contempt\n    Of this proud king, who studies day and night\n    To answer all the debt he owes to you\n    Even with the bloody payment of your deaths.\n    Therefore I say-\n  Wor. Peace, cousin, say no more;\n    And now, I will unclasp a secret book,\n    And to your quick-conceiving discontents\n    I'll read you matter deep and dangerous,\n    As full of peril and adventurous spirit\n    As to o'erwalk a current roaring loud\n    On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.\n  Hot. If he fall in, good night, or sink or swim!\n    Send danger from the east unto the west,\n    So honour cross it from the north to south,\n    And let them grapple. O, the blood more stirs\n    To rouse a lion than to start a hare!\n  North. Imagination of some great exploit\n    Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.\n  Hot. By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap\n    To pluck bright honour from the pale-fac'd moon,\n    Or dive into the bottom of the deep,\n    Where fadom line could never touch the ground,\n    And pluck up drowned honour by the locks,\n    So he that doth redeem her thence might wear\n    Without corrival all her dignities;\n    But out upon this half-fac'd fellowship!\n  Wor. He apprehends a world of figures here,\n    But not the form of what he should attend.\n    Good cousin, give me audience for a while.\n  Hot. I cry you mercy.\n  Wor. Those same noble Scots\n    That are your prisoners-\n  Hot. I'll keep them all.\n    By God, he shall not have a Scot of them!\n    No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not.\n    I'll keep them, by this hand!\n  Wor. You start away.\n    And lend no ear unto my purposes.\n    Those prisoners you shall keep.\n  Hot. Nay, I will! That is flat!\n    He said he would not ransom Mortimer,\n    Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer,\n    But I will find him when he lies asleep,\n    And in his ear I'll holloa 'Mortimer.'\n    Nay;\n    I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak\n    Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him\n    To keep his anger still in motion.\n  Wor. Hear you, cousin, a word.\n  Hot. All studies here I solemnly defy\n    Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke;\n    And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales-\n    But that I think his father loves him not\n    And would be glad he met with some mischance,\n    I would have him poisoned with a pot of ale.\n  Wor. Farewell, kinsman. I will talk to you\n    When you are better temper'd to attend.\n  North. Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool\n    Art thou to break into this woman's mood,\n    Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own!\n  Hot. Why, look you, I am whipp'd and scourg'd with rods,\n    Nettled, and stung with pismires when I hear\n    Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke.\n    In Richard's time- what do you call the place-\n    A plague upon it! it is in GIoucestershire-\n    'Twas where the madcap Duke his uncle kept-\n    His uncle York- where I first bow'd my knee\n    Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke-\n    'S blood!\n    When you and he came back from Ravenspurgh-\n  North. At Berkeley Castle.\n  Hot. You say true.\n    Why, what a candy deal of courtesy\n    This fawning greyhound then did proffer me!\n    Look, 'when his infant fortune came to age,'\n    And 'gentle Harry Percy,' and 'kind cousin'-\n    O, the devil take such cozeners!- God forgive me!\n    Good uncle, tell your tale, for I have done.\n  Wor. Nay, if you have not, to it again.\n    We will stay your leisure.\n  Hot. I have done, i' faith.\n  Wor. Then once more to your Scottish prisoners.\n    Deliver them up without their ransom straight,\n    And make the Douglas' son your only mean\n    For powers In Scotland; which, for divers reasons\n    Which I shall send you written, be assur'd\n    Will easily be granted. [To Northumberland] You, my lord,\n    Your son in Scotland being thus employ'd,\n    Shall secretly into the bosom creep\n    Of that same noble prelate well-belov'd,\n    The Archbishop.\n  Hot. Of York, is it not?\n  Wor. True; who bears hard\n    His brother's death at Bristow, the Lord Scroop.\n    I speak not this in estimation,\n    As what I think might be, but what I know\n    Is ruminated, plotted, and set down,\n    And only stays but to behold the face\n    Of that occasion that shall bring it on.\n  Hot. I smell it. Upon my life, it will do well.\n  North. Before the game is afoot thou still let'st slip.\n  Hot. Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot.\n    And then the power of Scotland and of York\n    To join with Mortimer, ha?\n  Wor. And so they shall.\n  Hot. In faith, it is exceedingly well aim'd.\n  Wor. And 'tis no little reason bids us speed,\n    To save our heads by raising of a head;\n    For, bear ourselves as even as we can,\n    The King will always think him in our debt,\n    And think we think ourselves unsatisfied,\n    Till he hath found a time to pay us home.\n    And see already how he doth begin\n    To make us strangers to his looks of love.\n  Hot. He does, he does! We'll be reveng'd on him.\n  Wor. Cousin, farewell. No further go in this\n    Than I by letters shall direct your course.\n    When time is ripe, which will be suddenly,\n    I'll steal to Glendower and Lord Mortimer,\n    Where you and Douglas, and our pow'rs at once,\n    As I will fashion it, shall happily meet,\n    To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms,\n    Which now we hold at much uncertainty.\n  North. Farewell, good brother. We shall thrive, I trust.\n  Hot. Uncle, adieu. O, let the hours be short\n    Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport!    Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. Scene I.\nRochester. An inn yard.\n\nEnter a Carrier with a lantern in his hand.\n\n  1. Car. Heigh-ho! an it be not four by the day, I'll be hang'd.\n    Charles' wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not\n    pack'd.- What, ostler!\n  Ost. [within] Anon, anon.\n  1. Car. I prithee, Tom, beat Cut's saddle, put a few flocks in the\n    point. Poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess.\n\n                        Enter another Carrier.\n\n  2. Car. Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the\n    next way to give poor jades the bots. This house is turned upside\n    down since Robin Ostler died.\n  1. Car. Poor fellow never joyed since the price of oats rose. It\n    was the death of him.\n  2. Car. I think this be the most villanous house in all London road\n    for fleas. I am stung like a tench.\n  1. Car. Like a tench I By the mass, there is ne'er a king christen\n    could be better bit than I have been since the first cock.\n  2. Car. Why, they will allow us ne'er a jordan, and then we leak in\n    your chimney, and your chamber-lye breeds fleas like a loach.\n  1. Car. What, ostler! come away and be hang'd! come away!\n  2. Car. I have a gammon of bacon and two razes of ginger, to be\n    delivered as far as Charing Cross.\n  1. Car. God's body! the turkeys in my pannier are quite starved.\n    What, ostler! A plague on thee! hast thou never an eye in thy\n    head? Canst not hear? An 'twere not as good deed as drink to\n    break the pate on thee, I am a very villain. Come, and be hang'd!\n    Hast no faith in thee?\n\n                           Enter Gadshill.\n\n  Gads. Good morrow, carriers. What's o'clock?\n  1. Car. I think it be two o'clock.\n  Gads. I prithee lend me this lantern to see my gelding in the\n    stable.\n  1. Car. Nay, by God, soft! I know a trick worth two of that,\n    i' faith.\n  Gads. I pray thee lend me thine.\n  2. Car. Ay, when? canst tell? Lend me thy lantern, quoth he? Marry,\n    I'll see thee hang'd first!\n  Gads. Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London?\n  2. Car. Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee.\n    Come, neighbour Mugs, we'll call up the gentlemen. They will\n    along with company, for they have great charge.\n                                              Exeunt [Carriers].\n  Gads. What, ho! chamberlain!\n\n                            Enter Chamberlain.\n\n  Cham. At hand, quoth pickpurse.\n  Gads. That's even as fair as- 'at hand, quoth the chamberlain'; for\n    thou variest no more from picking of purses than giving direction\n    doth from labouring: thou layest the plot how.\n  Cham. Good morrow, Master Gadshill. It holds current that I told\n    you yesternight. There's a franklin in the Wild of Kent hath\n    brought three hundred marks with him in gold. I heard him tell it\n    to one of his company last night at supper- a kind of auditor;\n    one that hath abundance of charge too, God knows what. They are\n    up already and call for eggs and butter. They will away\n    presently.\n  Gads. Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas' clerks, I'll\n    give thee this neck.\n  Cham. No, I'll none of it. I pray thee keep that for the hangman;\n    for I know thou worshippest Saint Nicholas as truly as a man of\n    falsehood may.\n  Gads. What talkest thou to me of the hangman? If I hang, I'll make\n    a fat pair of gallows; for if I hang, old Sir John hangs with me,\n    and thou knowest he is no starveling. Tut! there are other\n    Troyans that thou dream'st not of, the which for sport sake are\n    content to do the profession some grace; that would (if matters\n    should be look'd into) for their own credit sake make all whole.\n    I am joined with no foot land-rakers, no long-staff sixpenny\n    strikers, none of these mad mustachio purple-hued maltworms; but\n    with nobility, and tranquillity, burgomasters and great oneyers,\n    such as can hold in, such as will strike sooner than speak, and\n    speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray; and yet,\n    zounds, I lie; for they pray continually to their saint, the\n    commonwealth, or rather, not pray to her, but prey on her, for\n    they ride up and down on her and make her their boots.\n  Cham. What, the commonwealth their boots? Will she hold out water\n    in foul way?\n  Gads. She will, she will! Justice hath liquor'd her. We steal as in\n    a castle, cocksure. We have the receipt of fernseed, we walk\n    invisible.\n  Cham. Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholding to the night\n    than to fernseed for your walking invisible.\n  Gads. Give me thy hand. Thou shalt have a share in our purchase, as\n    I and a true man.\n  Cham. Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief.\n  Gads. Go to; 'homo' is a common name to all men. Bid the ostler\n    bring my gelding out of the stable. Farewell, you muddy knave.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nThe highway near Gadshill.\n\nEnter Prince and Poins.\n\n  Poins. Come, shelter, shelter! I have remov'd Falstaff's horse, and\n    he frets like a gumm'd velvet.\n  Prince. Stand close.                        [They step aside.]\n\n                             Enter Falstaff.\n\n  Fal. Poins! Poins, and be hang'd! Poins!\n  Prince. I comes forward I Peace, ye fat-kidney'd rascal! What a\n    brawling dost thou keep!\n  Fal. Where's Poins, Hal?\n  Prince. He is walk'd up to the top of the hill. I'll go seek him.\n                                                  [Steps aside.]\n  Fal. I am accurs'd to rob in that thief's company. The rascal hath\n    removed my horse and tied him I know not where. If I travel but\n    four foot by the squire further afoot, I shall break my wind.\n    Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I\n    scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn his company\n    hourly any time this two-and-twenty years, and yet I am bewitch'd\n    with the rogue's company. If the rascal have not given me\n    medicines to make me love him, I'll be hang'd. It could not be\n    else. I have drunk medicines. Poins! Hal! A plague upon you both!\n    Bardolph! Peto! I'll starve ere I'll rob a foot further. An\n    'twere not as good a deed as drink to turn true man and to leave\n    these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a\n    tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles\n    afoot with me, and the stony-hearted villains know it well\n    enough. A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to\n    another! (They whistle.) Whew! A plague upon you all! Give me my\n    horse, you rogues! give me my horse and be hang'd!\n  Prince. [comes forward] Peace, ye fat-guts! Lie down, lay thine ear\n    close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of\n    travellers.\n  Fal. Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down? 'Sblood,\n    I'll not bear mine own flesh so far afoot again for all the coin\n    in thy father's exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt me thus?\n  Prince. Thou liest; thou art not colted, thou art uncolted.\n  Fal. I prithee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, good king's\n    son.\n  Prince. Out, ye rogue! Shall I be your ostler?\n  Fal. Go hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters! If I be\n    ta'en, I'll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you\n    all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison.\n    When a jest is so forward- and afoot too- I hate it.\n\n             Enter Gadshill, [Bardolph and Peto with him].\n\n  Gads. Stand!\n  Fal. So I do, against my will.\n  Poins. [comes fortward] O, 'tis our setter. I know his voice.\n    Bardolph, what news?\n  Bar. Case ye, case ye! On with your vizards! There's money of the\n    King's coming down the hill; 'tis going to the King's exchequer.\n  Fal. You lie, ye rogue! 'Tis going to the King's tavern.\n  Gads. There's enough to make us all.\n  Fal. To be hang'd.\n  Prince. Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane; Ned\n    Poins and I will walk lower. If they scape from your encounter,\n    then they light on us.\n  Peto. How many be there of them?\n  Gads. Some eight or ten.\n  Fal. Zounds, will they not rob us?\n  Prince. What, a coward, Sir John Paunch?\n  Fal. Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather; but yet no\n    coward, Hal.\n  Prince. Well, we leave that to the proof.\n  Poins. Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge. When thou\n    need'st him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell and stand fast.\n  Fal. Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hang'd.\n  Prince. [aside to Poins] Ned, where are our disguises?\n  Poins. [aside to Prince] Here, hard by. Stand close.\n                                      [Exeunt Prince and Poins.]\n  Fal. Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I. Every man to\n    his business.\n\n                         Enter the Travellers.\n\n  Traveller. Come, neighbour.\n    The boy shall lead our horses down the hill;\n    We'll walk afoot awhile and ease our legs.\n  Thieves. Stand!\n  Traveller. Jesus bless us!\n  Fal. Strike! down with them! cut the villains' throats! Ah,\n    whoreson caterpillars! bacon-fed knaves! they hate us youth. Down\n    with them! fleece them!\n  Traveller. O, we are undone, both we and ours for ever!\n  Fal. Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone? No, ye fat chuffs;\n    I would your store were here! On, bacons on! What, ye knaves!\n    young men must live. You are grandjurors, are ye? We'll jure ye,\n    faith!\n                            Here they rob and bind them. Exeunt.\n\n            Enter the Prince and Poins [in buckram suits].\n\n  Prince. The thieves have bound the true men. Now could thou and I\n    rob the thieves and go merrily to London, it would be argument\n    for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever.\n  Poins. Stand close! I hear them coming.\n                                             [They stand aside.]\n\n                       Enter the Thieves again.\n\n  Fal. Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse before day.\n    An the Prince and Poins be not two arrant cowards, there's no\n    equity stirring. There's no more valour in that Poins than in a\n    wild duck.\n\n        [As they are sharing, the Prince and Poins set upon\n        them. THey all run away, and Falstaff, after a blow or\n        two, runs awasy too, leaving the booty behind them.]\n\n  Prince. Your money!\n  Poins. Villains!\n\n  Prince. Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse.\n    The thieves are scattered, and possess'd with fear\n    So strongly that they dare not meet each other.\n    Each takes his fellow for an officer.\n    Away, good Ned. Falstaff sweats to death\n    And lards the lean earth as he walks along.\n    Were't not for laughing, I should pity him.\n  Poins. How the rogue roar'd!                           Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nWarkworth Castle.\n\nEnter Hotspur solus, reading a letter.\n\n  Hot. 'But, for mine own part, my lord, I could be well contented to\n    be there, in respect of the love I bear your house.' He could be\n    contented- why is he not then? In respect of the love he bears\n    our house! He shows in this he loves his own barn better than he\n    loves our house. Let me see some more. 'The purpose you undertake\n    is dangerous'- Why, that's certain! 'Tis dangerous to take a\n    cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of\n    this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. 'The purpose\n    you undertake is dangerous, the friends you have named uncertain,\n    the time itself unsorted, and your whole plot too light for the\n    counterpoise of so great an opposition.' Say you so, say you so?\n    I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and you\n    lie. What a lack-brain is this! By the Lord, our plot is a good\n    plot as ever was laid; our friends true and constant: a good\n    plot, good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot,\n    very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue is this! Why, my\n    Lord of York commends the plot and the general course of the\n    action. Zounds, an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him\n    with his lady's fan. Is there not my father, my uncle, and\n    myself; Lord Edmund Mortimer, my Lord of York, and Owen\n    Glendower? Is there not, besides, the Douglas? Have I not all\n    their letters to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month,\n    and are they not some of them set forward already? What a pagan\n    rascal is this! an infidel! Ha! you shall see now, in very\n    sincerity of fear and cold heart will he to the King and lay open\n    all our proceedings. O, I could divide myself and go to buffets\n    for moving such a dish of skim milk with so honourable an action!\n    Hang him, let him tell the King! we are prepared. I will set\n    forward to-night.\n\n                         Enter his Lady.\n\n    How now, Kate? I must leave you within these two hours.\n  Lady. O my good lord, why are you thus alone?\n    For what offence have I this fortnight been\n    A banish'd woman from my Harry's bed,\n    Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee\n    Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?\n    Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,\n    And start so often when thou sit'st alone?\n    Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks\n    And given my treasures and my rights of thee\n    To thick-ey'd musing and curs'd melancholy?\n    In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch'd,\n    And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars,\n    Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed,\n    Cry 'Courage! to the field!' And thou hast talk'd\n    Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tent,\n    Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,\n    Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,\n    Of prisoners' ransom, and of soldiers slain,\n    And all the currents of a heady fight.\n    Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,\n    And thus hath so bestirr'd thee in thy sleep,\n    That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow\n    Like bubbles ill a late-disturbed stream,\n    And in thy face strange motions have appear'd,\n    Such as we see when men restrain their breath\n    On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these?\n    Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,\n    And I must know it, else he loves me not.\n  Hot. What, ho!\n\n                    [Enter a Servant.]\n\n    Is Gilliams with the packet gone?\n  Serv. He is, my lord, an hour ago.\n  Hot. Hath Butler brought those horses from the sheriff?\n  Serv. One horse, my lord, he brought even now.\n  Hot. What horse? A roan, a crop-ear, is it not?\n  Serv. It is, my lord.\n  Hot. That roan shall be my throne.\n    Well, I will back him straight. O esperance!\n    Bid Butler lead him forth into the park.\n                                                 [Exit Servant.]\n  Lady. But hear you, my lord.\n  Hot. What say'st thou, my lady?\n  Lady. What is it carries you away?\n  Hot. Why, my horse, my love- my horse!\n  Lady. Out, you mad-headed ape!\n    A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen\n    As you are toss'd with. In faith,\n    I'll know your business, Harry; that I will!\n    I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir\n    About his title and hath sent for you\n    To line his enterprise; but if you go-\n  Hot. So far afoot, I shall be weary, love.\n  Lady. Come, come, you paraquito, answer me\n    Directly unto this question that I ask.\n    I'll break thy little finger, Harry,\n    An if thou wilt not tell my all things true.\n  Hot. Away.\n    Away, you trifler! Love? I love thee not;\n    I care not for thee, Kate. This is no world\n    To play with mammets and to tilt with lips.\n    We must have bloody noses and crack'd crowns,\n    And pass them current too. Gods me, my horse!\n    What say'st thou, Kate? What wouldst thou have with me?\n  Lady. Do you not love me? do you not indeed?\n    Well, do not then; for since you love me not,\n    I will not love myself. Do you not love me?\n    Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no.\n  Hot. Come, wilt thou see me ride?\n    And when I am a-horseback, I will swear\n    I love thee infinitely. But hark you. Kate:\n    I must not have you henceforth question me\n    Whither I go, nor reason whereabout.\n    Whither I must, I must; and to conclude,\n    This evening must I leave you, gentle Kate.\n    I know you wise; but yet no farther wise\n    Than Harry Percy's wife; constant you are,\n    But yet a woman; and for secrecy,\n    No lady closer, for I well believe\n    Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know,\n    And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate.\n  Lady. How? so far?\n  Hot. Not an inch further. But hark you, Kate:\n    Whither I go, thither shall you go too;\n    To-day will I set forth, to-morrow you.\n    Will this content you, Kate,?\n  Lady. It must of force.                                Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nEastcheap. The Boar's Head Tavern.\n\nEnter Prince and Poins.\n\n  Prince. Ned, prithee come out of that fat-room and lend me thy hand\n    to laugh a little.\n  Poins. Where hast been, Hal?\n    Prince,. With three or four loggerheads amongst three or\n    fourscore hogsheads. I have sounded the very bass-string of\n    humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers and\n    can call them all by their christen names, as Tom, Dick, and\n    Francis. They take it already upon their salvation that, though\n    I be but Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy; and tell\n    me flatly I am no proud Jack like Falstaff, but a Corinthian, a\n    lad of mettle, a good boy (by the Lord, so they call me!), and\n    when I am King of England I shall command all the good lads\n    Eastcheap. They call drinking deep, dying scarlet; and when\n    you breathe in your watering, they cry 'hem!' and bid you play it\n    off. To conclude, I am so good a proficient in one quarter of an\n    hour that I can drink with any tinker in his own language during\n    my life. I tell thee, Ned, thou hast lost much honour that thou\n    wert not with me in this action. But, sweet Ned- to sweeten which\n    name of Ned, I give thee this pennyworth of sugar, clapp'd even\n    now into my hand by an under-skinker, one that never spake other\n    English in his life than 'Eight shillings and sixpence,' and 'You\n    are welcome,' with this shrill addition, 'Anon, anon, sir! Score\n    a pint of bastard in the Half-moon,' or so- but, Ned, to drive\n    away the time till Falstaff come, I prithee do thou stand in some\n    by-room while I question my puny drawer to what end be gave me\n    the sugar; and do thou never leave calling 'Francis!' that his\n    tale to me may be nothing but 'Anon!' Step aside, and I'll show\n    thee a precedent.\n  Poins. Francis!\n  Prince. Thou art perfect.\n  Poins. Francis!                                  [Exit Poins.]\n\n                    Enter [Francis, a] Drawer.\n\n  Fran. Anon, anon, sir.- Look down into the Pomgarnet, Ralph.\n  Prince. Come hither, Francis.\n  Fran. My lord?\n  Prince. How long hast thou to serve, Francis?\n  Fran. Forsooth, five years, and as much as to-\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Fran. Anon, anon, sir.\n  Prince. Five year! by'r Lady, a long lease for the clinking of\n    Pewter. But, Francis, darest thou be so valiant as to play the\n    coward with thy indenture and show it a fair pair of heels and\n    run from it?\n  Fran. O Lord, sir, I'll be sworn upon all the books in England I\n    could find in my heart-\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Fran. Anon, sir.\n  Prince. How old art thou, Francis?\n  Fran. Let me see. About Michaelmas next I shall be-\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Fran. Anon, sir. Pray stay a little, my lord.\n  Prince. Nay, but hark you, Francis. For the sugar thou gavest me-\n    'twas a pennyworth, wast not?\n  Fran. O Lord! I would it had been two!\n  Prince. I will give thee for it a thousand pound. Ask me when thou\n    wilt, and, thou shalt have it.\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Fran. Anon, anon.\n  Prince. Anon, Francis? No, Francis; but to-morrow, Francis; or,\n    Francis, a Thursday; or indeed, Francis, when thou wilt. But\n    Francis-\n  Fran. My lord?\n  Prince. Wilt thou rob this leathern-jerkin, crystal-button,\n    not-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter,\n    smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch-\n  Fran. O Lord, sir, who do you mean?\n  Prince. Why then, your brown bastard is your only drink; for look\n    you, Francis, your white canvas doublet will sully. In Barbary,\n    sir, it cannot come to so much.\n  Fran. What, sir?\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Prince. Away, you rogue! Dost thou not hear them call?\n              Here they both call him. The Drawer stands amazed,\n                                    not knowing which way to go.\n\n                         Enter Vintner.\n\n  Vint. What, stand'st thou still, and hear'st such a calling? Look\n    to the guests within. [Exit Francis.] My lord, old Sir John, with\n    half-a-dozen more, are at the door. Shall I let them in?\n  Prince. Let them alone awhile, and then open the door.\n                                                  [Exit Vintner.]\n    Poins!\n  Poins. [within] Anon, anon, sir.\n\n                          Enter Poins.\n\n  Prince. Sirrah, Falstaff and the rest of the thieves are at the\n    door. Shall we be merry?\n  Poins. As merry as crickets, my lad. But hark ye; what cunning\n    match have you made with this jest of the drawer? Come, what's\n    the issue?\n  Prince. I am now of all humours that have showed themselves humours\n    since the old days of goodman Adam to the pupil age of this\n    present this twelve o'clock at midnight.\n\n                         [Enter Francis.]\n\n    What's o'clock, Francis?\n  Fran. Anon, anon, sir.                                 [Exit.]\n  Prince. That ever this fellow should have fewer words than a\n    parrot, and yet the son of a woman! His industry is upstairs and\n    downstairs, his eloquence the parcel of a reckoning. I am not yet\n    of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the North; he that kills me some\n    six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and\n    says to his wife, 'Fie upon this quiet life! I want work.' 'O my\n    sweet Harry,' says she, 'how many hast thou  kill'd to-day?'\n    'Give my roan horse a drench,' says he, and answers 'Some\n    fourteen,' an hour after, 'a trifle, a trifle.' I prithee call in\n    Falstaff. I'll play Percy, and that damn'd brawn shall play Dame\n    Mortimer his wife. 'Rivo!' says the drunkard. Call in ribs, call\n    in tallow.\n\n           Enter Falstaff, [Gadshill, Bardolph, and Peto;\n                   Francis follows with wine].\n\n  Poins. Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been?\n  Fal. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too! Marry and\n    amen! Give me a cup of sack, boy. Ere I lead this life long, I'll\n    sew nether-stocks, and mend them and foot them too. A plague of\n    all cowards! Give me a cup of sack, rogue. Is there no virtue\n    extant?\n                                                    He drinketh.\n  Prince. Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter?\n    Pitiful-hearted butter, that melted at the sweet tale of the sun!\n    If thou didst, then behold that compound.\n  Fal. You rogue, here's lime in this sack too! There is nothing but\n    roguery to be found in villanous man. Yet a coward is worse than\n    a cup of sack with lime in it- a villanous coward! Go thy ways,\n    old Jack, die when thou wilt; if manhood, good manhood, be not\n    forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring.\n    There lives not three good men unhang'd in England; and one of\n    them is fat, and grows old. God help the while! A bad world, I\n    say. I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms or anything. A\n    plague of all cowards I say still!\n  Prince. How now, woolsack? What mutter you?\n  Fal. A king's son! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a\n    dagger of lath and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a flock\n    of wild geese, I'll never wear hair on my face more. You Prince\n    of Wales?\n  Prince. Why, you whoreson round man, what's the matter?\n  Fal. Are not you a coward? Answer me to that- and Poins there?\n  Poins. Zounds, ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, by the\n    Lord, I'll stab thee.\n  Fal. I call thee coward? I'll see thee damn'd ere I call thee\n    coward, but I would give a thousand pound I could run as fast as\n    thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders; you care\n    not who sees Your back. Call you that backing of your friends? A\n    plague upon such backing! Give me them that will face me. Give me\n    a cup of sack. I am a rogue if I drunk to-day.\n  Prince. O villain! thy lips are scarce wip'd since thou drunk'st\n    last.\n  Fal. All is one for that. (He drinketh.) A plague of all cowards\n    still say I.\n  Prince. What's the matter?\n  Fal. What's the matter? There be four of us here have ta'en a\n    thousand pound this day morning.\n  Prince. Where is it, Jack? Where is it?\n  Fal. Where is it, Taken from us it is. A hundred upon poor four of\n    us!\n  Prince. What, a hundred, man?\n  Fal. I am a rogue if I were not at half-sword with a dozen of them\n    two hours together. I have scap'd by miracle. I am eight times\n    thrust through the doublet, four through the hose; my buckler cut\n    through and through; my sword hack'd like a handsaw- ecce signum!\n    I never dealt better since I was a man. All would not do. A\n    plague of all cowards! Let them speak, If they speak more or less\n    than truth, they are villains and the sons of darkness.\n  Prince. Speak, sirs. How was it?\n  Gads. We four set upon some dozen-\n  Fal. Sixteen at least, my lord.\n  Gads. And bound them.\n  Peto. No, no, they were not bound.\n  Fal. You rogue, they were bound, every man of them, or I am a Jew\n    else- an Ebrew Jew.\n  Gads. As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men sea upon us-\n  Fal. And unbound the rest, and then come in the other.\n  Prince. What, fought you with them all?\n  Fal. All? I know not what you call all, but if I fought not with\n    fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish! If there were not two or\n    three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then am I no two-legg'd\n    creature.\n  Prince. Pray God you have not murd'red some of them.\n  Fal. Nay, that's past praying for. I have pepper'd two of them. Two\n    I am sure I have paid, two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee\n    what, Hal- if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse.\n    Thou knowest my old ward. Here I lay, and thus I bore my point.\n    Four rogues in buckram let drive at me.\n  Prince. What, four? Thou saidst but two even now.\n  Fal. Four, Hal. I told thee four.\n  Poins. Ay, ay, he said four.\n  Fal. These four came all afront and mainly thrust at me. I made me\n    no more ado but took all their seven points in my target, thus.\n  Prince. Seven? Why, there were but four even now.\n  Fal. In buckram?\n  Poins. Ay, four, in buckram suits.\n  Fal. Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else.\n  Prince. [aside to Poins] Prithee let him alone. We shall have more\n    anon.\n  Fal. Dost thou hear me, Hal?\n  Prince. Ay, and mark thee too, Jack.\n  Fal. Do so, for it is worth the list'ning to. These nine in buckram\n    that I told thee of-\n  Prince. So, two more already.\n  Fal. Their points being broken-\n  Poins. Down fell their hose.\n  Fal. Began to give me ground; but I followed me close, came in,\n    foot and hand, and with a thought seven of the eleven I paid.\n  Prince. O monstrous! Eleven buckram men grown out of two!\n  Fal. But, as the devil would have it, three misbegotten knaves in\n    Kendal green came at my back and let drive at me; for it was so\n    dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy hand.\n  Prince. These lies are like their father that begets them- gross as\n    a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou clay-brain'd guts, thou\n    knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch-\n  Fal. What, art thou mad? art thou mad? Is not the truth the truth?\n  Prince. Why, how couldst thou know these men in Kendal green when\n    it was so dark thou couldst not see thy hand? Come, tell us your\n    reason. What sayest thou to this?\n  Poins. Come, your reason, Jack, your reason.\n  Fal. What, upon compulsion? Zounds, an I were at the strappado or\n    all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion.\n    Give you a reason on compulsion? If reasons were as plentiful as\n    blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.\n  Prince. I'll be no longer guilty, of this sin; this sanguine\n    coward, this bed-presser, this horseback-breaker, this huge hill\n    of flesh-\n  Fal. 'Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried\n    neat's-tongue, you bull's sizzle, you stockfish- O for breath to\n    utter what is like thee!- you tailor's yard, you sheath, you\n    bowcase, you vile standing tuck!\n  Prince. Well, breathe awhile, and then to it again; and when thou\n    hast tired thyself in base comparisons, hear me speak but this.\n  Poins. Mark, Jack.\n  Prince. We two saw you four set on four, and bound them and were\n    masters of their wealth. Mark now how a plain tale shall put you\n    down. Then did we two set on you four and, with a word, outfac'd\n    you from your prize, and have it; yea, and can show it you here\n    in the house. And, Falstaff, you carried your guts away as\n    nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roar'd for mercy, and still\n    run and roar'd, as ever I heard bullcalf. What a slave art thou\n    to hack thy sword as thou hast done, and then say it was in\n    fight! What trick, what device, what starting hole canst thou now\n    find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?\n  Poins. Come, let's hear, Jack. What trick hast thou now?\n  Fal. By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he that made ye. Why, hear\n    you, my masters. Was it for me to kill the heir apparent? Should\n    I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as\n    Hercules; but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the true\n    prince. Instinct is a great matter. I was now a coward on\n    instinct. I shall think the better of myself, and thee, during my\n    life- I for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince. But, by\n    the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the money. Hostess, clap to\n    the doors. Watch to-night, pray to-morrow. Gallants, lads, boys,\n    hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to you!\n    What, shall we be merry? Shall we have a play extempore?\n  Prince. Content- and the argument shall be thy running away.\n  Fal. Ah, no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me!\n\n                             Enter Hostess.\n\n  Host. O Jesu, my lord the Prince!\n  Prince. How now, my lady the hostess? What say'st thou to me?\n  Host. Marry, my lord, there is a nobleman of the court at door\n    would speak with you. He says he comes from your father.\n  Prince. Give him as much as will make him a royal man, and send him\n    back again to my mother.\n  Fal. What manner of man is he?\n  Host. An old man.\n  Fal. What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight? Shall I give him\n    his answer?\n  Prince. Prithee do, Jack.\n  Fal. Faith, and I'll send him packing.\nExit.\n  Prince. Now, sirs. By'r Lady, you fought fair; so did you, Peto; so\n    did you, Bardolph. You are lions too, you ran away upon instinct,\n    you will not touch the true prince; no- fie!\n  Bard. Faith, I ran when I saw others run.\n  Prince. Tell me now in earnest, how came Falstaff's sword so\n    hack'd?\n  Peto. Why, he hack'd it with his dagger, and said he would swear\n    truth out of England but he would make you believe it was done in\n    fight, and persuaded us to do the like.\n  Bard. Yea, and to tickle our noses with speargrass to make them\n    bleed, and then to beslubber our garments with it and swear it\n    was the blood of true men. I did that I did not this seven year\n    before- I blush'd to hear his monstrous devices.\n  Prince. O villain! thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago\n    and wert taken with the manner, and ever since thou hast blush'd\n    extempore. Thou hadst fire and sword on thy side, and yet thou\n    ran'st away. What instinct hadst thou for it?\n  Bard. My lord, do you see these meteors? Do you behold these\n    exhalations?\n  Prince. I do.\n  Bard. What think you they portend?\n  Prince. Hot livers and cold purses.\n  Bard. Choler, my lord, if rightly taken.\n  Prince. No, if rightly taken, halter.\n\n                         Enter Falstaff.\n\n    Here comes lean Jack; here comes bare-bone. How now, my sweet\n    creature of bombast? How long is't ago, Jack, since thou sawest\n    thine own knee?\n  Fal. My own knee? When I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an\n    eagle's talent in the waist; I could have crept into any\n    alderman's thumb-ring. A plague of sighing and grief! It blows a\n    man up like a bladder. There's villanous news abroad. Here was\n    Sir John Bracy from your father. You must to the court in the\n    morning. That same mad fellow of the North, Percy, and he of\n    Wales that gave Amamon the bastinado, and made Lucifer cuckold,\n    and swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh\n    hook- what a plague call you him?\n  Poins. O, Glendower.\n  Fal. Owen, Owen- the same; and his son-in-law Mortimer, and old\n    Northumberland, and that sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that\n    runs a-horseback up a hill perpendicular-\n  Prince. He that rides at high speed and with his pistol kills a\n    sparrow flying.\n  Fal. You have hit it.\n  Prince. So did he never the sparrow.\n  Fal. Well, that rascal hath good metal in him; he will not run.\n  Prince. Why, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him so for\n    running!\n  Fal. A-horseback, ye cuckoo! but afoot he will not budge a foot.\n  Prince. Yes, Jack, upon instinct.\n  Fal. I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one\n    Mordake, and a thousand bluecaps more. Worcester is stol'n away\n    to-night; thy father's beard is turn'd white with the news; you\n    may buy land now as cheap as stinking mack'rel.\n  Prince. Why then, it is like, if there come a hot June, and this\n    civil buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads as they buy\n    hobnails, by the hundreds.\n  Fal. By the mass, lad, thou sayest true; it is like we shall have\n    good trading that way. But tell me, Hal, art not thou horrible\n    afeard? Thou being heir apparent, could the world pick thee out\n    three such enemies again as that fiend Douglas, that spirit\n    Percy, and that devil Glendower? Art thou not horribly afraid?\n    Doth not thy blood thrill at it?\n  Prince. Not a whit, i' faith. I lack some of thy instinct.\n  Fal. Well, thou wilt be horribly chid to-morrow when thou comest to\n    thy father. If thou love me, practise an answer.\n  Prince. Do thou stand for my father and examine me upon the\n    particulars of my life.\n  Fal. Shall I? Content. This chair shall be my state, this dagger my\n    sceptre, and this cushion my, crown.\n  Prince. Thy state is taken for a join'd-stool, thy golden sceptre\n    for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown for a pitiful\n    bald crown.\n  Fal. Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now shalt\n    thou be moved. Give me a cup of sack to make my eyes look red,\n    that it may be thought I have wept; for I must speak in passion,\n    and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein.\n  Prince. Well, here is my leg.\n  Fal. And here is my speech. Stand aside, nobility.\n  Host. O Jesu, this is excellent sport, i' faith!\n  Fal. Weep not, sweet queen, for trickling tears are vain.\n  Host. O, the Father, how he holds his countenance!\n  Fal. For God's sake, lords, convey my tristful queen!\n    For tears do stop the floodgates of her eyes.\n  Host. O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry players as\n    ever I see!\n  Fal. Peace, good pintpot. Peace, good tickle-brain.- Harry, I do\n    not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how thou\n    art accompanied. For though the camomile, the more it is trodden\n    on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the\n    sooner it wears. That thou art my son I have partly thy mother's\n    word, partly my own opinion, but chiefly a villanous trick of\n    thine eye and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip that doth\n    warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point: why,\n    being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed sun of\n    heaven prove a micher and eat blackberries? A question not to be\n    ask'd. Shall the son of England prove a thief and take purses? A\n    question to be ask'd. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast\n    often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name\n    of pitch. This pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile;\n    so doth the company thou keepest. For, Harry, now I do not speak\n    to thee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion;\n    not in words only, but in woes also: and yet there is a virtuous\n    man whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not  his\n    name.\n  Prince. What manner of man, an it like your Majesty?\n  Fal. A goodly portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful\n    look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think,\n    his age some fifty, or, by'r Lady, inclining to threescore; and\n    now I remember me, his name is Falstaff. If that man should be\n    lewdly, given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his\n    looks. If then the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit\n    by the tree, then, peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in\n    that Falstaff. Him keep with, the rest banish. And tell me now,\n    thou naughty varlet, tell me where hast thou been this month?\n  Prince. Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and I'll\n    play my father.\n  Fal. Depose me? If thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically,\n    both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a\n    rabbit-sucker or a poulter's hare.\n  Prince. Well, here I am set.\n  Fal. And here I stand. Judge, my masters.\n  Prince. Now, Harry, whence come you?\n  Fal. My noble lord, from Eastcheap.\n  Prince. The complaints I hear of thee are grievous.\n  Fal. 'Sblood, my lord, they are false! Nay, I'll tickle ye for a\n    young prince, i' faith.\n  Prince. Swearest thou, ungracious boy? Henceforth ne'er look on me.\n    Thou art violently carried away from grace. There is a devil\n    haunts thee in the likeness of an old fat man; a tun of man is\n    thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours,\n    that bolting hutch of beastliness, that swoll'n parcel of\n    dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuff'd cloakbag of\n    guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly,\n    that reverend vice, that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that\n    vanity in years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink\n    it? wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it?\n    wherein cunning, but in craft? wherein crafty, but in villany?\n    wherein villanous, but in all things? wherein worthy, but in\n    nothing?\n  Fal. I would your Grace would take me with you. Whom means your\n    Grace?\n  Prince. That villanous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff,\n    that old white-bearded Satan.\n  Fal. My lord, the man I know.\n  Prince. I know thou dost.\n  Fal. But to say I know more harm in him than in myself were to say\n    more than I know. That he is old (the more the pity) his white\n    hairs do witness it; but that he is (saving your reverence) a\n    whoremaster, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault,\n    God help the wicked! If to be old and merry be a sin, then many\n    an old host that I know is damn'd. If to be fat be to be hated,\n    then Pharaoh's lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord.\n    Banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins; but for sweet Jack\n    Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack\n    Falstaff, and therefore more valiant being, as he is, old Jack\n    Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry's company, banish not him thy\n    Harry's company. Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world!\n  Prince. I do, I will.                      [A knocking heard.]\n                        [Exeunt Hostess, Francis, and Bardolph.]\n\n                     Enter Bardolph, running.\n\n  Bard. O, my lord, my lord! the sheriff with a most monstrous watch\n    is at the door.\n  Fal. Out, ye rogue! Play out the play. I have much to say in the\n    behalf of that Falstaff.\n\n                       Enter the Hostess.\n\n  Host. O Jesu, my lord, my lord!\n  Prince. Heigh, heigh, the devil rides upon a fiddlestick!\n    What's the matter?\n  Host. The sheriff and all the watch are at the door. They are come\n    to search the house. Shall I let them in?\n  Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? Never call a true piece of gold a\n    counterfeit. Thou art essentially mad without seeming so.\n  Prince. And thou a natural coward without instinct.\n  Fal. I deny your major. If you will deny the sheriff, so; if not,\n    let him enter. If I become not a cart as well as another man, a\n    plague on my bringing up! I hope I shall as soon be strangled\n    with a halter as another.\n  Prince. Go hide thee behind the arras. The rest walk, up above.\n    Now, my masters, for a true face and good conscience.\n  Fal. Both which I have had; but their date is out, and therefore\n    I'll hide me.                                          Exit.\n  Prince. Call in the sheriff.\n                            [Exeunt Manent the Prince and Peto.]\n\n                    Enter Sheriff and the Carrier.\n\n    Now, Master Sheriff, what is your will with me?\n  Sher. First, pardon me, my lord. A hue and cry\n    Hath followed certain men unto this house.\n  Prince. What men?\n  Sher. One of them is well known, my gracious lord-\n    A gross fat man.\n  Carrier. As fat as butter.\n  Prince. The man, I do assure you, is not here,\n    For I myself at this time have employ'd him.\n    And, sheriff, I will engage my word to thee\n    That I will by to-morrow dinner time\n    Send him to answer thee, or any man,\n    For anything he shall be charg'd withal;\n    And so let me entreat you leave the house.\n  Sher. I will, my lord. There are two gentlemen\n    Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks.\n  Prince. It may be so. If he have robb'd these men,\n    He shall be answerable; and so farewell.\n  Sher. Good night, my noble lord.\n  Prince. I think it is good morrow, is it not?\n  Sher. Indeed, my lord, I think it be two o'clock.\n                                            Exit [with Carrier].\n  Prince. This oily rascal is known as well as Paul's. Go call him\n    forth.\n  Peto. Falstaff! Fast asleep behind the arras, and snorting like a\n    horse.\n  Prince. Hark how hard he fetches breath. Search his pockets.\n            He searcheth his pockets and findeth certain papers.\n    What hast thou found?\n  Peto. Nothing but papers, my lord.\n  Prince. Let's see whit they be. Read them.\n\n  Peto. [reads] 'Item. A capon. . . . . . . . . . . . .  ii s. ii d.\n                 Item, Sauce. . . . . . . . . . . . . .      iiii d.\n                 Item, Sack two gallons . . . . . . . . v s. viii d.\n                 Item, Anchovies and sack after supper.  ii s. vi d.\n                 Item, Bread. . . . . . . . . . . . . .          ob.'\n\n  Prince. O monstrous! but one halfpennyworth of bread to this\n    intolerable deal of sack! What there is else, keep close; we'll\n    read it at more advantage. There let him sleep till day. I'll to\n    the court in the morning . We must all to the wars. and thy place\n    shall be honourable. I'll procure this fat rogue a charge of\n    foot; and I know, his death will be a march of twelve score. The\n    money shall be paid back again with advantage. Be with me betimes\n    in the morning, and so good morrow, Peto.\n  Peto. Good morrow, good my lord.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. Scene I.\nBangor. The Archdeacon's house.\n\nEnter Hotspur, Worcester, Lord Mortimer, Owen Glendower.\n\n  Mort. These promises are fair, the parties sure,\n    And our induction full of prosperous hope.\n  Hot. Lord Mortimer, and cousin Glendower,\n    Will you sit down?\n    And uncle Worcester. A plague upon it!\n    I have forgot the map.\n  Glend. No, here it is.\n    Sit, cousin Percy; sit, good cousin Hotspur,\n    For by that name as oft as Lancaster\n    Doth speak of you, his cheek looks pale, and with\n    A rising sigh he wisheth you in heaven.\n  Hot. And you in hell, as oft as he hears\n    Owen Glendower spoke of.\n  Glend. I cannot blame him. At my nativity\n    The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes\n    Of burning cressets, and at my birth\n    The frame and huge foundation of the earth\n    Shak'd like a coward.\n  Hot. Why, so it would have done at the same season, if your\n    mother's cat had but kitten'd, though yourself had never been\n    born.\n  Glend. I say the earth did shake when I was born.\n  Hot. And I say the earth was not of my mind,\n    If you suppose as fearing you it shook.\n  Glend. The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble.\n  Hot. O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire,\n    And not in fear of your nativity.\n    Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth\n    In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth\n    Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd\n    By the imprisoning of unruly wind\n    Within her womb, which, for enlargement striving,\n    Shakes the old beldame earth and topples down\n    Steeples and mossgrown towers. At your birth\n    Our grandam earth, having this distemp'rature,\n    In passion shook.\n  Glend. Cousin, of many men\n    I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave\n    To tell you once again that at my birth\n    The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,\n    The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds\n    Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields.\n    These signs have mark'd me extraordinary,\n    And all the courses of my life do show\n    I am not in the roll of common men.\n    Where is he living, clipp'd in with the sea\n    That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales,\n    Which calls me pupil or hath read to me?\n    And bring him out that is but woman's son\n    Can trace me in the tedious ways of art\n    And hold me pace in deep experiments.\n  Hot. I think there's no man speaks better Welsh. I'll to dinner.\n  Mort. Peace, cousin Percy; you will make him mad.\n  Glend. I can call spirits from the vasty deep.\n  Hot. Why, so can I, or so can any man;\n    But will they come when you do call for them?\n  Glend. Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the devil.\n  Hot. And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil-\n    By telling truth. Tell truth and shame the devil.\n    If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither,\n    And I'll be sworn I have power to shame him hence.\n    O, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil!\n  Mort. Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat.\n  Glend. Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head\n    Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye\n    And sandy-bottom'd Severn have I sent him\n    Bootless home and weather-beaten back.\n  Hot. Home without boots, and in foul weather too?\n    How scapes he agues, in the devil's name\n  Glend. Come, here's the map. Shall we divide our right\n    According to our threefold order ta'en?\n  Mort. The Archdeacon hath divided it\n    Into three limits very equally.\n    England, from Trent and Severn hitherto,\n    By south and east is to my part assign'd;\n    All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore,\n    And all the fertile land within that bound,\n    To Owen Glendower; and, dear coz, to you\n    The remnant northward lying off from Trent.\n    And our indentures tripartite are drawn;\n    Which being sealed interchangeably\n    (A business that this night may execute),\n    To-morrow, cousin Percy, you and I\n    And my good Lord of Worcester will set forth\n    To meet your father and the Scottish bower,\n    As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury.\n    My father Glendower is not ready yet,\n    Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days.\n    [To Glend.] Within that space you may have drawn together\n    Your tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentlemen.\n  Glend. A shorter time shall send me to you, lords;\n    And in my conduct shall your ladies come,\n    From whom you now must steal and take no leave,\n    For there will be a world of water shed\n    Upon the parting of your wives and you.\n  Hot. Methinks my moiety, north from Burton here,\n    In quantity equals not one of yours.\n    See how this river comes me cranking in\n    And cuts me from the best of all my land\n    A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out.\n    I'll have the current ill this place damm'd up,\n    And here the smug and sliver Trent shall run\n    In a new channel fair and evenly.\n    It shall not wind with such a deep indent\n    To rob me of so rich a bottom here.\n  Glend. Not wind? It shall, it must! You see it doth.\n  Mort. Yea, but\n    Mark how he bears his course, and runs me up\n    With like advantage on the other side,\n    Gelding the opposed continent as much\n    As on the other side it takes from you.\n  Wor. Yea, but a little charge will trench him here\n    And on this north side win this cape of land;\n    And then he runs straight and even.\n  Hot. I'll have it so. A little charge will do it.\n  Glend. I will not have it alt'red.\n  Hot. Will not you?\n  Glend. No, nor you shall not.\n  Hot. Who shall say me nay?\n  Glend. No, that will I.\n  Hot. Let me not understand you then; speak it in Welsh.\n  Glend. I can speak English, lord, as well as you;\n    For I was train'd up in the English court,\n    Where, being but young, I framed to the harp\n    Many an English ditty lovely well,\n    And gave the tongue a helpful ornament-\n    A virtue that was never seen in you.\n  Hot. Marry,\n    And I am glad of it with all my heart!\n    I had rather be a kitten and cry mew\n    Than one of these same metre ballet-mongers.\n    I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd\n    Or a dry wheel grate on the axletree,\n    And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,\n    Nothing so much as mincing poetry.\n    'Tis like the forc'd gait of a shuffling nag,\n  Glend. Come, you shall have Trent turn'd.\n  Hot. I do not care. I'll give thrice so much land\n    To any well-deserving friend;\n    But in the way of bargain, mark ye me,\n    I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair\n    Are the indentures drawn? Shall we be gone?\n  Glend. The moon shines fair; you may away by night.\n    I'll haste the writer, and withal\n    Break with your wives of your departure hence.\n    I am afraid my daughter will run mad,\n    So much she doteth on her Mortimer.                    Exit.\n  Mort. Fie, cousin Percy! how you cross my father!\n  Hot. I cannot choose. Sometimes he angers me\n    With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant,\n    Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies,\n    And of a dragon and a finless fish,\n    A clip-wing'd griffin and a moulten raven,\n    A couching lion and a ramping cat,\n    And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff\n    As puts me from my faith. I tell you what-\n    He held me last night at least nine hours\n    In reckoning up the several devils' names\n    That were his lackeys. I cried 'hum,' and 'Well, go to!'\n    But mark'd him not a word. O, he is as tedious\n    As a tired horse, a railing wife;\n    Worse than a smoky house. I had rather live\n    With cheese and garlic in a windmill far\n    Than feed on cates and have him talk to me\n    In any summer house in Christendom).\n  Mort. In faith, he is a worthy gentleman,\n    Exceedingly well read, and profited\n    In strange concealments, valiant as a lion,\n    And wondrous affable, and as bountiful\n    As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin?\n    He holds your temper in a high respect\n    And curbs himself even of his natural scope\n    When you come 'cross his humour. Faith, he does.\n    I warrant you that man is not alive\n    Might so have tempted him as you have done\n    Without the taste of danger and reproof.\n    But do not use it oft, let me entreat you.\n  Wor. In faith, my lord, you are too wilful-blame,\n    And since your coming hither have done enough\n    To put him quite besides his patience.\n    You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault.\n    Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood-\n    And that's the dearest grace it renders you-\n    Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage,\n    Defect of manners, want of government,\n    Pride, haughtiness, opinion, and disdain;\n    The least of which haunting a nobleman\n    Loseth men's hearts, and leaves behind a stain\n    Upon the beauty of all parts besides,\n    Beguiling them of commendation.\n  Hot. Well, I am school'd. Good manners be your speed!\n    Here come our wives, and let us take our leave.\n\n            Enter Glendower with the Ladies.\n\n  Mort. This is the deadly spite that angers me-\n    My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh.\n  Glend. My daughter weeps; she will not part with you;\n    She'll be a soldier too, she'll to the wars.\n  Mort. Good father, tell her that she and my aunt Percy\n    Shall follow in your conduct speedily.\n               Glendower speaks to her in Welsh, and she answers\n                                                him in the same.\n  Glend. She is desperate here. A peevish self-will'd harlotry,\n    One that no persuasion can do good upon.\n                                       The Lady speaks in Welsh.\n  Mort. I understand thy looks. That pretty Welsh\n    Which thou pourest down from these swelling heavens\n    I am too perfect in; and, but for shame,\n    In such a Barley should I answer thee.\n                                        The Lady again in Welsh.\n    I understand thy kisses, and thou mine,\n    And that's a feeling disputation.\n    But I will never be a truant, love,\n    Till I have learnt thy language: for thy tongue\n    Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn'd,\n    Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bow'r,\n    With ravishing division, to her lute.\n  Glend. Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad.\n                                 The Lady speaks again in Welsh.\n  Mort. O, I am ignorance itself in this!\n  Glend. She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down\n    And rest your gentle head upon her lap,\n    And she will sing the song that pleaseth you\n    And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep,\n    Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness,\n    Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep\n    As is the difference betwixt day and night\n    The hour before the heavenly-harness'd team\n    Begins his golden progress in the East.\n  Mort. With all my heart I'll sit and hear her sing.\n    By that time will our book, I think, be drawn.\n  Glend. Do so,\n    And those musicians that shall play to you\n    Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence,\n    And straight they shall be here. Sit, and attend.\n  Hot. Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down. Come, quick,\n    quick, that I may lay my head in thy lap.\n  Lady P. Go, ye giddy goose.\n                                                The music plays.\n  Hot. Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh;\n    And 'tis no marvel, be is so humorous.\n    By'r Lady, he is a good musician.\n  Lady P. Then should you be nothing but musical; for you are\n    altogether govern'd by humours. Lie still, ye thief, and hear the\n    lady sing in Welsh.\n  Hot. I had rather hear Lady, my brach, howl in Irish.\n  Lady P. Wouldst thou have thy head broken?\n  Hot. No.\n  Lady P. Then be still.\n  Hot. Neither! 'Tis a woman's fault.\n  Lady P. Now God help thee!\n  Hot. To the Welsh lady's bed.\n  Lady P. What's that?\n  Hot. Peace! she sings.\n                               Here the Lady sings a Welsh song.\n    Come, Kate, I'll have your song too.\n  Lady P. Not mine, in good sooth.\n  Hot. Not yours, in good sooth? Heart! you swear like a\n    comfit-maker's wife. 'Not you, in good sooth!' and 'as true as I\n    live!' and 'as God shall mend me!' and 'as sure as day!'\n    And givest such sarcenet surety for thy oaths\n    As if thou ne'er walk'st further than Finsbury.\n    Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art,\n    A good mouth-filling oath; and leave 'in sooth'\n    And such protest of pepper gingerbread\n    To velvet guards and Sunday citizens. Come, sing.\n  Lady P. I will not sing.\n  Hot. 'Tis the next way to turn tailor or be redbreast-teacher. An\n    the indentures be drawn, I'll away within these two hours; and so\n    come in when ye will.                                  Exit.\n  Glend. Come, come, Lord Mortimer. You are as slow\n    As hot Lord Percy is on fire to go.\n    By this our book is drawn; we'll but seal,\n    And then to horse immediately.\n  Mort. With all my heart.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nLondon. The Palace.\n\nEnter the King, Prince of Wales, and others.\n\n  King. Lords, give us leave. The Prince of Wales and I\n    Must have some private conference; but be near at hand,\n    For we shall presently have need of you.\n                                                   Exeunt Lords.\n    I know not whether God will have it so,\n    For some displeasing service I have done,\n    That, in his secret doom, out of my blood\n    He'll breed revengement and a scourge for me;\n    But thou dost in thy passages of life\n    Make me believe that thou art only mark'd\n    For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven\n    To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else,\n    Could such inordinate and low desires,\n    Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean attempts,\n    Such barren pleasures, rude society,\n    As thou art match'd withal and grafted to,\n    Accompany the greatness of thy blood\n    And hold their level with thy princely heart?\n  Prince. So please your Majesty, I would I could\n    Quit all offences with as clear excuse\n    As well as I am doubtless I can purge\n    Myself of many I am charged withal.\n    Yet such extenuation let me beg\n    As, in reproof of many tales devis'd,\n    Which oft the ear of greatness needs must bear\n    By, smiling pickthanks and base newsmongers,\n    I may, for some things true wherein my youth\n    Hath faulty wand'red and irregular,\n    And pardon on lily true submission.\n  King. God pardon thee! Yet let me wonder, Harry,\n    At thy affections, which do hold a wing,\n    Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors.\n    Thy place in Council thou hast rudely lost,\n    Which by thy younger brother is supplied,\n    And art almost an alien to the hearts\n    Of all the court and princes of my blood.\n    The hope and expectation of thy time\n    Is ruin'd, and the soul of every man\n    Prophetically do forethink thy fall.\n    Had I so lavish of my presence been,\n    So common-hackney'd in the eyes of men,\n    So stale and cheap to vulgar company,\n    Opinion, that did help me to the crown,\n    Had still kept loyal to possession\n    And left me in reputeless banishment,\n    A fellow of no mark nor likelihood.\n    By being seldom seen, I could not stir\n    But, like a comet, I Was wond'red at;\n    That men would tell their children, 'This is he!'\n    Others would say, 'Where? Which is Bolingbroke?'\n    And then I stole all courtesy from heaven,\n    And dress'd myself in such humility\n    That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts,\n    Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths\n    Even in the presence of the crowned King.\n    Thus did I keep my person fresh and new,\n    My presence, like a robe pontifical,\n    Ne'er seen but wond'red at; and so my state,\n    Seldom but sumptuous, show'd like a feast\n    And won by rareness such solemnity.\n    The skipping King, he ambled up and down\n    With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits,\n    Soon kindled and soon burnt; carded his state;\n    Mingled his royalty with cap'ring fools;\n    Had his great name profaned with their scorns\n    And gave his countenance, against his name,\n    To laugh at gibing boys and stand the push\n    Of every beardless vain comparative;\n    Grew a companion to the common streets,\n    Enfeoff'd himself to popularity;\n    That, being dally swallowed by men's eyes,\n    They surfeited with honey and began\n    To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little\n    More than a little is by much too much.\n    So, when he had occasion to be seen,\n    He was but as the cuckoo is in June,\n    Heard, not regarded- seen, but with such eyes\n    As, sick and blunted with community,\n    Afford no extraordinary gaze,\n    Such as is bent on unlike majesty\n    When it shines seldom in admiring eyes;\n    But rather drows'd and hung their eyelids down,\n    Slept in his face, and rend'red such aspect\n    As cloudy men use to their adversaries,\n    Being with his presence glutted, gorg'd, and full.\n    And in that very line, Harry, standest thou;\n    For thou hast lost thy princely privilege\n    With vile participation. Not an eye\n    But is aweary of thy common sight,\n    Save mine, which hath desir'd to see thee more;\n    Which now doth that I would not have it do-\n    Make blind itself with foolish tenderness.\n  Prince. I shall hereafter, my thrice-gracious lord,\n    Be more myself.\n  King. For all the world,\n    As thou art to this hour, was Richard then\n    When I from France set foot at Ravenspurgh;\n    And even as I was then is Percy now.\n    Now, by my sceptre, and my soul to boot,\n    He hath more worthy interest to the state\n    Than thou, the shadow of succession;\n    For of no right, nor colour like to right,\n    He doth fill fields with harness in the realm,\n    Turns head against the lion's armed jaws,\n    And, Being no more in debt to years than thou,\n    Leads ancient lords and reverend Bishops on\n    To bloody battles and to bruising arms.\n    What never-dying honour hath he got\n    Against renowmed Douglas! whose high deeds,\n    Whose hot incursions and great name in arms\n    Holds from all soldiers chief majority\n    And military title capital\n    Through all the kingdoms that acknowledge Christ.\n    Thrice hath this Hotspur, Mars in swathling clothes,\n    This infant warrior, in his enterprises\n    Discomfited great Douglas; ta'en him once,\n    Enlarged him, and made a friend of him,\n    To fill the mouth of deep defiance up\n    And shake the peace and safety of our throne.\n    And what say you to this? Percy, Northumberland,\n    The Archbishop's Grace of York, Douglas, Mortimer\n    Capitulate against us and are up.\n    But wherefore do I tell these news to thee\n    Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes,\n    Which art my nearest and dearest enemy'\n    Thou that art like enough, through vassal fear,\n    Base inclination, and the start of spleen,\n    To fight against me under Percy's pay,\n    To dog his heels and curtsy at his frowns,\n    To show how much thou art degenerate.\n  Prince. Do not think so. You shall not find it so.\n    And God forgive them that so much have sway'd\n    Your Majesty's good thoughts away from me!\n    I will redeem all this on Percy's head\n    And, in the closing of some glorious day,\n    Be bold to tell you that I am your son,\n    When I will wear a garment all of blood,\n    And stain my favours in a bloody mask,\n    Which, wash'd away, shall scour my shame with it.\n    And that shall be the day, whene'er it lights,\n    That this same child of honour and renown,\n    This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight,\n    And your unthought of Harry chance to meet.\n    For every honour sitting on his helm,\n    Would they were multitudes, and on my head\n    My shames redoubled! For the time will come\n    That I shall make this Northern youth exchange\n    His glorious deeds for my indignities.\n    Percy is but my factor, good my lord,\n    To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf;\n    And I will call hall to so strict account\n    That he shall render every glory up,\n    Yea, even the slightest worship of his time,\n    Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart.\n    This in the name of God I promise here;\n    The which if he be pleas'd I shall perform,\n    I do beseech your Majesty may salve\n    The long-grown wounds of my intemperance.\n    If not, the end of life cancels all bands,\n    And I will die a hundred thousand deaths\n    Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.\n  King. A hundred thousand rebels die in this!\n    Thou shalt have charge and sovereign trust herein.\n\n                        Enter Blunt.\n\n    How now, good Blunt? Thy looks are full of speed.\n  Blunt. So hath the business that I come to speak of.\n    Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word\n    That Douglas and the English rebels met\n    The eleventh of this month at Shrewsbury.\n    A mighty and a fearful head they are,\n    If promises be kept oil every hand,\n    As ever off'red foul play in a state.\n  King. The Earl of Westmoreland set forth to-day;\n    With him my son, Lord John of Lancaster;\n    For this advertisement is five days old.\n    On Wednesday next, Harry, you shall set forward;\n    On Thursday we ourselves will march. Our meeting\n    Is Bridgenorth; and, Harry, you shall march\n    Through Gloucestershire; by which account,\n    Our business valued, some twelve days hence\n    Our general forces at Bridgenorth shall meet.\n    Our hands are full of business. Let's away.\n    Advantage feeds him fat while men delay.            Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nEastcheap. The Boar's Head Tavern.\n\nEnter Falstaff and Bardolph.\n\n  Fal. Bardolph, am I not fall'n away vilely since this last action?\n    Do I not bate? Do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like\n    an old lady's loose gown! I am withered like an old apple John.\n    Well, I'll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking.\n    I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no\n    strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside of a\n    church is made of, I am a peppercorn, a brewer's horse. The\n    inside of a church! Company, villanous company, hath been the\n    spoil of me.\n  Bard. Sir John, you are so fretful you cannot live long.\n  Fal. Why, there is it! Come, sing me a bawdy song; make me merry. I\n    was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be, virtuous\n    enough: swore little, dic'd not above seven times a week, went to\n    a bawdy house not above once in a quarter- of an hour, paid money\n    that I borrowed- three or four times, lived well, and in good\n    compass; and now I live out of all order, out of all compass.\n  Bard. Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of\n    all compass- out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.\n  Fal. Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life. Thou art our\n    admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop- but 'tis in the\n    nose of thee. Thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp.\n  Bard. Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.\n  Fal. No, I'll be sworn. I make as good use of it as many a man doth\n    of a death's-head or a memento mori. I never see thy face but I\n    think upon hellfire and Dives that lived in purple; for there he\n    is in his robes, burning, burning. if thou wert any way given to\n    virtue, I would swear by thy face; my oath should be 'By this\n    fire, that's God's angel.' But thou art altogether given over,\n    and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter\n    darkness. When thou ran'st up Gadshill in the night to catch my\n    horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus or a\n    ball of wildfire, there's no purchase in money. O, thou art a\n    perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved\n    me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in\n    the night betwixt tavern and tavern; but the sack that thou hast\n    drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest\n    chandler's in Europe. I have maintained that salamander of yours\n    with fire any time this two-and-thirty years. God reward me for\n    it!\n  Bard. 'Sblood, I would my face were in your belly!\n  Fal. God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heart-burn'd.\n\n                          Enter Hostess.\n\n    How now, Dame Partlet the hen? Have you enquir'd yet who pick'd\n    my pocket?\n  Host. Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? Do you think I\n    keep thieves in my house? I have search'd, I have enquired, so\n    has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant. The\n    tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before.\n  Fal. Ye lie, hostess. Bardolph was shav'd and lost many a hair, and\n    I'll be sworn my pocket was pick'd. Go to, you are a woman, go!\n  Host. Who, I? No; I defy thee! God's light, I was never call'd so\n    in mine own house before!\n  Fal. Go to, I know you well enough.\n  Host. No, Sir John; you do not know me, Sir John. I know you, Sir\n    John. You owe me money, Sir John, and now you pick a quarrel to\n    beguile me of it. I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back.\n  Fal. Dowlas, filthy dowlas! I have given them away to bakers'\n    wives; they have made bolters of them.\n  Host. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell.\n    You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet and\n    by-drinkings, and money lent you, four-and-twenty pound.\n  Fal. He had his part of it; let him pay.\n  Host. He? Alas, he is poor; he hath nothing.\n  Fal. How? Poor? Look upon his face. What call you rich? Let them\n    coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks. I'll not pay a denier.\n    What, will you make a younker of me? Shall I not take mine ease\n    in mine inn but I shall have my pocket pick'd? I have lost a\n    seal-ring of my grandfather's worth forty mark.\n  Host. O Jesu, I have heard the Prince tell him, I know not how oft,\n    that that ring was copper!\n  Fal. How? the Prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup. 'Sblood, an he were\n    here, I would cudgel him like a dog if he would say so.\n\n      Enter the Prince [and Poins], marching; and Falstaff meets\n          them, playing upon his truncheon like a fife.\n\n    How now, lad? Is the wind in that door, i' faith? Must we all\n    march?\n  Bard. Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion.\n  Host. My lord, I pray you hear me.\n  Prince. What say'st thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy husband?\n    I love him well; he is an honest man.\n  Host. Good my lord, hear me.\n  Fal. Prithee let her alone and list to me.\n  Prince. What say'st thou, Jack?\n  Fal. The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras and had my\n    pocket pick'd. This house is turn'd bawdy house; they pick\n    pockets.\n  Prince. What didst thou lose, Jack?\n  Fal. Wilt thou believe me, Hal? Three or four bonds of forty pound\n    apiece and a seal-ring of my grandfather's.\n  Prince. A trifle, some eightpenny matter.\n  Host. So I told him, my lord, and I said I heard your Grace say so;\n    and, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouth'd\n    man as he is, and said he would cudgel you.\n  Prince. What! he did not?\n  Host. There's neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.\n  Fal. There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune, nor no\n    more truth in thee than in a drawn fox; and for woman-hood, Maid\n    Marian may be the deputy's wife of the ward to thee. Go, you\n    thing, go!\n  Host. Say, what thing? what thing?\n  Fal. What thing? Why, a thing to thank God on.\n  Host. I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou shouldst know it!\n    I am an honest man's wife, and, setting thy knight-hood aside,\n    thou art a knave to call me so.\n  Fal. Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say\n    otherwise.\n  Host. Say, what beast, thou knave, thou?\n  Fal. What beast? Why, an otter.\n  Prince. An otter, Sir John? Why an otter?\n  Fal. Why, she's neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to\n    have her.\n  Host. Thou art an unjust man in saying so. Thou or any man knows\n    where to have me, thou knave, thou!\n  Prince. Thou say'st true, hostess, and he slanders thee most\n    grossly.\n  Host. So he doth you, my lord, and said this other day you ought\n    him a thousand pound.\n  Prince. Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?\n  Fal. A thousand pound, Hal? A million! Thy love is worth a million;\n    thou owest me thy love.\n  Host. Nay, my lord, he call'd you Jack and said he would cudgel\n    you.\n  Fal. Did I, Bardolph?\n  Bard. Indeed, Sir John, you said so.\n  Fal. Yea. if he said my ring was copper.\n  Prince. I say, 'tis copper. Darest thou be as good as thy word now?\n  Fal. Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare; but as\n    thou art Prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the lion's\n    whelp.\n  Prince. And why not as the lion?\n  Fal. The King himself is to be feared as the lion. Dost thou think\n    I'll fear thee as I fear thy father? Nay, an I do, I pray God my\n    girdle break.\n  Prince. O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy knees!\n    But, sirrah, there's no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in\n    this bosom of thine. It is all fill'd up with guts and midriff.\n    Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket? Why, thou\n    whoreson, impudent, emboss'd rascal, if there were anything in\n    thy pocket but tavern reckonings, memorandums of bawdy houses,\n    and one poor pennyworth of sugar candy to make thee long-winded-\n    if thy pocket were enrich'd with any other injuries but these, I\n    am a villain. And yet you will stand to it; you will not pocket\n    up wrong. Art thou not ashamed?\n  Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? Thou knowest in the state of innocency\n    Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of\n    villany? Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and\n    therefore more frailty. You confess then, you pick'd my pocket?\n  Prince. It appears so by the story.\n  Fal. Hostess, I forgive thee. Go make ready breakfast. Love thy\n    husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests. Thou shalt\n    find me tractable to any honest reason. Thou seest I am pacified.\n    -Still?- Nay, prithee be gone. [Exit Hostess.] Now, Hal, to the\n    news at court. For the robbery, lad- how is that answered?\n  Prince. O my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee.\n    The money is paid back again.\n  Fal. O, I do not like that paying back! 'Tis a double labour.\n  Prince. I am good friends with my father, and may do anything.\n  Fal. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou doest, and do it\n    with unwash'd hands too.\n  Bard. Do, my lord.\n  Prince. I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot.\n  Fal. I would it had been of horse. Where shall I find one that can\n    steal well? O for a fine thief of the age of two-and-twenty or\n    thereabouts! I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked for\n    these rebels. They offend none but the virtuous. I laud them, I\n    praise them.\n  Prince. Bardolph!\n  Bard. My lord?\n  Prince. Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster,\n    To my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland.\n                                                [Exit Bardolph.]\n    Go, Poins, to horse, to horse; for thou and I\n    Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time.\n                                                   [Exit Poins.]\n    Jack, meet me to-morrow in the Temple Hall\n    At two o'clock in the afternoon.\n    There shalt thou know thy charge. and there receive\n    Money and order for their furniture.\n    The land is burning; Percy stands on high;\n    And either they or we must lower lie.                [Exit.]\n  Fal. Rare words! brave world! Hostess, my breakfast, come.\n    O, I could wish this tavern were my drum!\nExit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. Scene I.\nThe rebel camp near Shrewsbury.\n\nEnter Harry Hotspur, Worcester, and Douglas.\n\n  Hot. Well said, my noble Scot. If speaking truth\n    In this fine age were not thought flattery,\n    Such attribution should the Douglas have\n    As not a soldier of this season's stamp\n    Should go so general current through the world.\n    By God, I cannot flatter, I defy\n    The tongues of soothers! but a braver place\n    In my heart's love hath no man than yourself.\n    Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord.\n  Doug. Thou art the king of honour.\n    No man so potent breathes upon the ground\n    But I will beard him.\n\n                     Enter one with letters.\n\n  Hot. Do so, and 'tis well.-\n    What letters hast thou there?- I can but thank you.\n  Messenger. These letters come from your father.\n  Hot. Letters from him? Why comes he not himself?\n  Mess. He cannot come, my lord; he is grievous sick.\n  Hot. Zounds! how has he the leisure to be sick\n    In such a justling time? Who leads his power?\n    Under whose government come they along?\n  Mess. His letters bears his mind, not I, my lord.\n  Wor. I prithee tell me, doth he keep his bed?\n  Mess. He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth,\n    And at the time of my departure thence\n    He was much fear'd by his physicians.\n  Wor. I would the state of time had first been whole\n    Ere he by sickness had been visited.\n    His health was never better worth than now.\n  Hot. Sick now? droop now? This sickness doth infect\n    The very lifeblood of our enterprise.\n    'Tis catching hither, even to our camp.\n    He writes me here that inward sickness-\n    And that his friends by deputation could not\n    So soon be drawn; no did he think it meet\n    To lay so dangerous and dear a trust\n    On any soul remov'd but on his own.\n    Yet doth he give us bold advertisement,\n    That with our small conjunction we should on,\n    To see how fortune is dispos'd to us;\n    For, as he writes, there is no quailing now,\n    Because the King is certainly possess'd\n    Of all our purposes. What say you to it?\n  Wor. Your father's sickness is a maim to us.\n  Hot. A perilous gash, a very limb lopp'd off.\n    And yet, in faith, it is not! His present want\n    Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good\n    To set the exact wealth of all our states\n    All at one cast? to set so rich a man\n    On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour?\n    It were not good; for therein should we read\n    The very bottom and the soul of hope,\n    The very list, the very utmost bound\n    Of all our fortunes.\n  Doug. Faith, and so we should;\n    Where now remains a sweet reversion.\n    We may boldly spend upon the hope of what\n    Is to come in.\n    A comfort of retirement lives in this.\n  Hot. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto,\n    If that the devil and mischance look big\n    Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.\n  Wor. But yet I would your father had been here.\n    The quality and hair of our attempt\n    Brooks no division. It will be thought\n    By some that know not why he is away,\n    That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike\n    Of our proceedings kept the Earl from hence.\n    And think how such an apprehension\n    May turn the tide of fearful faction\n    And breed a kind of question in our cause.\n    For well you know we of the off'ring side\n    Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement,\n    And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence\n    The eye of reason may pry in upon us.\n    This absence of your father's draws a curtain\n    That shows the ignorant a kind of fear\n    Before not dreamt of.\n  Hot. You strain too far.\n    I rather of his absence make this use:\n    It lends a lustre and more great opinion,\n    A larger dare to our great enterprise,\n    Than if the Earl were here; for men must think,\n    If we, without his help, can make a head\n    To push against a kingdom, with his help\n    We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down.\n    Yet all goes well; yet all our joints are whole.\n  Doug. As heart can think. There is not such a word\n    Spoke of in Scotland as this term of fear.\n\n                 Enter Sir Richard Vernon.\n\n  Hot. My cousin Vernon! welcome, by my soul.\n  Ver. Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord.\n    The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong,\n    Is marching hitherwards; with him Prince John.\n  Hot. No harm. What more?\n  Ver. And further, I have learn'd\n    The King himself in person is set forth,\n    Or hitherwards intended speedily,\n    With strong and mighty preparation.\n  Hot. He shall be welcome too. Where is his son,\n    The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales,\n    And his comrades, that daff'd the world aside\n    And bid it pass?\n  Ver. All furnish'd, all in arms;\n    All plum'd like estridges that with the wind\n    Bated like eagles having lately bath'd;\n    Glittering in golden coats like images;\n    As full of spirit as the month of May\n    And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;\n    Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.\n    I saw young Harry with his beaver on\n    His cushes on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,\n    Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury,\n    And vaulted with such ease into his seat\n    As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds\n    To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus\n    And witch the world with noble horsemanship.\n  Hot. No more, no more! Worse than the sun in March,\n    This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come.\n    They come like sacrifices in their trim,\n    And to the fire-ey'd maid of smoky war\n    All hot and bleeding Will we offer them.\n    The mailed Mars Shall on his altar sit\n    Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire\n    To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,\n    And yet not ours. Come, let me taste my horse,\n    Who is to bear me like a thunderbolt\n    Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales.\n    Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse,\n    Meet, and ne'er part till one drop down a corse.\n    that Glendower were come!\n  Ver. There is more news.\n    I learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along,\n    He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.\n  Doug. That's the worst tidings that I hear of yet.\n  Wor. Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.\n  Hot. What may the King's whole battle reach unto?\n  Ver. To thirty thousand.\n  Hot. Forty let it be.\n    My father and Glendower being both away,\n    The powers of us may serve so great a day.\n    Come, let us take a muster speedily.\n    Doomsday is near. Die all, die merrily.\n  Doug. Talk not of dying. I am out of fear\n    Of death or death's hand for this one half-year.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nA public road near Coventry.\n\nEnter Falstaff and Bardolph.\n\n  Fal. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of\n    sack. Our soldiers shall march through. We'll to Sutton Co'fil'\n    to-night.\n  Bard. Will you give me money, Captain?\n  Fal. Lay out, lay out.\n  Bald. This bottle makes an angel.\n  Fal. An if it do, take it for thy labour; an if it make twenty,\n    take them all; I'll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Peto\n    meet me at town's end.\n  Bard. I Will, Captain. Farewell.                         Exit.\n  Fal. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a sous'd gurnet. I\n    have misused the King's press damnably. I have got in exchange of\n    a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I\n    press me none but good householders, yeomen's sons; inquire me\n    out contracted bachelors, such as had been ask'd twice on the\n    banes- such a commodity of warm slaves as had as lieve hear the\n    devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a caliver worse than\n    a struck fowl or a hurt wild duck. I press'd me none but such\n    toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than\n    pins' heads, and they have bought out their services; and now my\n    whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants,\n    gentlemen of companies- slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the\n    painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores; and\n    such as indeed were never soldiers, but discarded unjust\n    serving-men, younger sons to Younger brothers, revolted tapsters,\n    and ostlers trade-fall'n; the cankers of a calm world and a long\n    peace; ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old fac'd\n    ancient; and such have I to fill up the rooms of them that have\n    bought out their services that you would think that I had a\n    hundred and fifty tattered Prodigals lately come from\n    swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me\n    on the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and\n    press'd the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll\n    not march through Coventry with them, that's flat. Nay, and the\n    villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on;\n    for indeed I had the most of them out of prison. There's but a\n    shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is two\n    napkins tack'd together and thrown over the shoulders like a\n    herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth,\n    stol'n from my host at Saint Alban's, or the red-nose innkeeper\n    of Daventry. But that's all one; they'll find linen enough on\n    every hedge.\n\n              Enter the Prince and the Lord of Westmoreland.\n\n  Prince. How now, blown Jack? How now, quilt?\n  Fal. What, Hal? How now, mad wag? What a devil dost thou in\n    Warwickshire? My good Lord of Westmoreland, I cry you mercy. I\n    thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury.\n  West. Faith, Sir John, 'tis more than time that I were there, and\n    you too; but my powers are there already. The King, I can tell\n    you, looks for us all. We must away all, to-night.\n  Fal. Tut, never fear me. I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.\n  Prince. I think, to steal cream indeed, for thy theft hath already\n    made thee butter. But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these that\n    come after?\n  Fal. Mine, Hal, mine.\n  Prince. I did never see such pitiful rascals.\n  Fal. Tut, tut! good enough to toss; food for powder, food for\n    powder. They'll fill a pit as well as better. Tush, man, mortal\n    men, mortal men.\n  West. Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare-\n    too beggarly.\n  Fal. Faith, for their poverty, I know, not where they had that; and\n    for their bareness, I am surd they never learn'd that of me.\n  Prince. No, I'll be sworn, unless you call three fingers on the\n    ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste. Percy 's already in the\n    field.\nExit.\n  Fal. What, is the King encamp'd?\n  West. He is, Sir John. I fear we shall stay too long.\n                                                         [Exit.]\n  Fal. Well,\n    To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast\n    Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.                  Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nThe rebel camp near Shrewsbury.\n\nEnter Hotspur, Worcester, Douglas, Vernon.\n\n  Hot. We'll fight with him to-night.\n  Wor. It may not be.\n  Doug. You give him then advantage.\n  Ver. Not a whit.\n  Hot. Why say you so? Looks he no for supply?\n  Ver. So do we.\n  Hot. His is certain, ours 's doubtful.\n  Wor. Good cousin, be advis'd; stir not to-night.\n  Ver. Do not, my lord.\n  Doug. You do not counsel well.\n    You speak it out of fear and cold heart.\n  Ver. Do me no slander, Douglas. By my life-\n    And I dare well maintain it with my life-\n    If well-respected honour bid me on\n    I hold as little counsel with weak fear\n    As you, my lord, or any Scot that this day lives.\n    Let it be seen to-morrow in the battle\n    Which of us fears.\n  Doug. Yea, or to-night.\n  Ver. Content.\n  Hot. To-night, say I.\n    Come, come, it may not be. I wonder much,\n    Being men of such great leading as you are,\n    That you foresee not what impediments\n    Drag back our expedition. Certain horse\n    Of my cousin Vernon's are not yet come up.\n    Your uncle Worcester's horse came but to-day;\n    And now their pride and mettle is asleep,\n    Their courage with hard labour tame and dull,\n    That not a horse is half the half of himself.\n  Hot. So are the horses of the enemy,\n    In general journey-bated and brought low.\n    The better part of ours are full of rest.\n  Wor. The number of the King exceedeth ours.\n    For God's sake, cousin, stay till all come in.\n\n              The trumpet sounds a parley.\n\n                 Enter Sir Walter Blunt.\n\n  Blunt. I come with gracious offers from the King,\n    If you vouchsafe me hearing and respect.\n  Hot. Welcome, Sir Walter Blunt, and would to God\n    You were of our determination!\n    Some of us love you well; and even those some\n    Envy your great deservings and good name,\n    Because you are not of our quality,\n    But stand against us like an enemy.\n  Blunt. And God defend but still I should stand so,\n    So long as out of limit and true rule\n    You stand against anointed majesty!\n    But to my charge. The King hath sent to know\n    The nature of your griefs; and whereupon\n    You conjure from the breast of civil peace\n    Such bold hostility, teaching his duteous land\n    Audacious cruelty. If that the King\n    Have any way your good deserts forgot,\n    Which he confesseth to be manifold,\n    He bids you name your griefs, and with all speed\n    You shall have your desires with interest,\n    And pardon absolute for yourself and these\n    Herein misled by your suggestion.\n  Hot. The King is kind; and well we know the King\n    Knows at what time to promise, when to pay.\n    My father and my uncle and myself\n    Did give him that same royalty he wears;\n    And when he was not six-and-twenty strong,\n    Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low,\n    A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home,\n    My father gave him welcome to the shore;\n    And when he heard him swear and vow to God\n    He came but to be Duke of Lancaster,\n    To sue his livery and beg his peace,\n    With tears of innocency and terms of zeal,\n    My father, in kind heart and pity mov'd,\n    Swore him assistance, and performed it too.\n    Now, when the lords and barons of the realm\n    Perceiv'd Northumberland did lean to him,\n    The more and less came in with cap and knee;\n    Met him on boroughs, cities, villages,\n    Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes,\n    Laid gifts before him, proffer'd him their oaths,\n    Give him their heirs as pages, followed him\n    Even at the heels in golden multitudes.\n    He presently, as greatness knows itself,\n    Steps me a little higher than his vow\n    Made to my father, while his blood was poor,\n    Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurgh;\n    And now, forsooth, takes on him to reform\n    Some certain edicts and some strait decrees\n    That lie too heavy on the commonwealth;\n    Cries out upon abuses, seems to weep\n    Over his country's wrongs; and by this face,\n    This seeming brow of justice, did he win\n    The hearts of all that he did angle for;\n    Proceeded further- cut me off the heads\n    Of all the favourites that the absent King\n    In deputation left behind him here\n    When he was personal in the Irish war.\n    But. Tut! I came not to hear this.\n  Hot. Then to the point.\n    In short time after lie depos'd the King;\n    Soon after that depriv'd him of his life;\n    And in the neck of that task'd the whole state;\n    To make that worse, suff'red his kinsman March\n    (Who is, if every owner were well placid,\n    Indeed his king) to be engag'd in Wales,\n    There without ransom to lie forfeited;\n    Disgrac'd me in my happy victories,\n    Sought to entrap me by intelligence;\n    Rated mine uncle from the Council board;\n    In rage dismiss'd my father from the court;\n    Broke an oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong;\n    And in conclusion drove us to seek out\n    This head of safety, and withal to pry\n    Into his title, the which we find\n    Too indirect for long continuance.\n  Blunt. Shall I return this answer to the King?\n  Hot. Not so, Sir Walter. We'll withdraw awhile.\n    Go to the King; and let there be impawn'd\n    Some surety for a safe return again,\n    And In the morning early shall mine uncle\n    Bring him our purposes; and so farewell.\n  Blunt. I would you would accept of grace and love.\n  Hot. And may be so we shall.\n  Blunt. Pray God you do.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nYork. The Archbishop's Palace.\n\nEnter the Archbishop of York and Sir Michael.\n\n  Arch. Hie, good Sir Michael; bear this sealed brief\n    With winged haste to the Lord Marshal;\n    This to my cousin Scroop; and all the rest\n    To whom they are directed. If you knew\n    How much they do import, you would make haste.\n  Sir M. My good lord,\n    I guess their tenour.\n  Arch. Like enough you do.\n    To-morrow, good Sir Michael, is a day\n    Wherein the fortune of ten thousand men\n    Must bide the touch; for, sir, at Shrewsbury,\n    As I am truly given to understand,\n    The King with mighty and quick-raised power\n    Meets with Lord Harry; and I fear, Sir Michael,\n    What with the sickness of Northumberland,\n    Whose power was in the first proportion,\n    And what with Owen Glendower's absence thence,\n    Who with them was a rated sinew too\n    And comes not in, overrul'd by prophecies-\n    I fear the power of Percy is too weak\n    To wage an instant trial with the King.\n  Sir M. Why, my good lord, you need not fear;\n    There is Douglas and Lord Mortimer.\n  Arch. No, Mortimer is not there.\n  Sir M. But there is Mordake, Vernon, Lord Harry Percy,\n    And there is my Lord of Worcester, and a head\n    Of gallant warriors, noble gentlemen.\n  Arch. And so there is; but yet the King hath drawn\n    The special head of all the land together-\n    The Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster,\n    The noble Westmoreland and warlike Blunt,\n    And many moe corrivals and dear men\n    Of estimation and command in arms.\n  Sir M. Doubt not, my lord, they shall be well oppos'd.\n  Arch. I hope no less, yet needful 'tis to fear;\n    And, to prevent the worst, Sir Michael, speed.\n    For if Lord Percy thrive not, ere the King\n    Dismiss his power, he means to visit us,\n    For he hath heard of our confederacy,\n    And 'tis but wisdom to make strong against him.\n    Therefore make haste. I must go write again\n    To other friends; and so farewell, Sir Michael.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. Scene I.\nThe King's camp near Shrewsbury.\n\nEnter the King, Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster, Sir Walter Blunt,\nFalstaff.\n\n  King. How bloodily the sun begins to peer\n    Above yon busky hill! The day looks pale\n    At his distemp'rature.\n  Prince. The southern wind\n    Doth play the trumpet to his purposes\n    And by his hollow whistling in the leaves\n    Foretells a tempest and a blust'ring day.\n  King. Theft with the losers let it sympathize,\n    For nothing can seem foul to those that win.\n\n     The trumpet sounds. Enter Worcester [and Vernon].\n\n    How, now, my Lord of Worcester? 'Tis not well\n    That you and I should meet upon such terms\n    As now we meet. You have deceiv'd our trust\n    And made us doff our easy robes of peace\n    To crush our old limbs in ungentle steel.\n    This is not well, my lord; this is not well.\n    What say you to it? Will you again unknit\n    This churlish knot of all-abhorred war,\n    And move in that obedient orb again\n    Where you did give a fair and natural light,\n    And be no more an exhal'd meteor,\n    A prodigy of fear, and a portent\n    Of broached mischief to the unborn times?\n  Wor. Hear me, my liege.\n    For mine own part, I could be well content\n    To entertain the lag-end of my life\n    With quiet hours; for I do protest\n    I have not sought the day of this dislike.\n  King. You have not sought it! How comes it then,\n  Fal. Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it.\n  Prince. Peace, chewet, peace!\n  Wor. It pleas'd your Majesty to turn your looks\n    Of favour from myself and all our house;\n    And yet I must remember you, my lord,\n    We were the first and dearest of your friends.\n    For you my staff of office did I break\n    In Richard's time, and posted day and night\n    To meet you on the way and kiss your hand\n    When yet you were in place and in account\n    Nothing so strong and fortunate as I.\n    It was myself, my brother, and his son\n    That brought you home and boldly did outdare\n    The dangers of the time. You swore to us,\n    And you did swear that oath at Doncaster,\n    That you did nothing purpose 'gainst the state,\n    Nor claim no further than your new-fall'n right,\n    The seat of Gaunt, dukedom of Lancaster.\n    To this we swore our aid. But in short space\n    It it rain'd down fortune show'ring on your head,\n    And such a flood of greatness fell on you-\n    What with our help, what with the absent King,\n    What with the injuries of a wanton time,\n    The seeming sufferances that you had borne,\n    And the contrarious winds that held the King\n    So long in his unlucky Irish wars\n    That all in England did repute him dead-\n    And from this swarm of fair advantages\n    You took occasion to be quickly woo'd\n    To gripe the general sway into your hand;\n    Forgot your oath to us at Doncaster;\n    And, being fed by us, you us'd us so\n    As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo's bird,\n    Useth the sparrow- did oppress our nest;\n    Grew, by our feeding to so great a bulk\n    That even our love thirst not come near your sight\n    For fear of swallowing; but with nimble wing\n    We were enforc'd for safety sake to fly\n    Out of your sight and raise this present head;\n    Whereby we stand opposed by such means\n    As you yourself have forg'd against yourself\n    By unkind usage, dangerous countenance,\n    And violation of all faith and troth\n    Sworn to tis in your younger enterprise.\n  King. These things, indeed, you have articulate,\n    Proclaim'd at market crosses, read in churches,\n    To face the garment of rebellion\n    With some fine colour that may please the eye\n    Of fickle changelings and poor discontents,\n    Which gape and rub the elbow at the news\n    Of hurlyburly innovation.\n    And never yet did insurrection want\n    Such water colours to impaint his cause,\n    Nor moody beggars, starving for a time\n    Of pell-mell havoc and confusion.\n  Prince. In both our armies there is many a soul\n    Shall pay full dearly for this encounter,\n    If once they join in trial. Tell your nephew\n    The Prince of Wales doth join with all the world\n    In praise of Henry Percy. By my hopes,\n    This present enterprise set off his head,\n    I do not think a braver gentleman,\n    More active-valiant or more valiant-young,\n    More daring or more bold, is now alive\n    To grace this latter age with noble deeds.\n    For my part, I may speak it to my shame,\n    I have a truant been to chivalry;\n    And so I hear he doth account me too.\n    Yet this before my father's Majesty-\n    I am content that he shall take the odds\n    Of his great name and estimation,\n    And will to save the blood on either side,\n    Try fortune with him in a single fight.\n  King. And, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture thee,\n    Albeit considerations infinite\n    Do make against it. No, good Worcester, no!\n    We love our people well; even those we love\n    That are misled upon your cousin's part;\n    And, will they take the offer of our grace,\n    Both he, and they, and you, yea, every man\n    Shall be my friend again, and I'll be his.\n    So tell your cousin, and bring me word\n    What he will do. But if he will not yield,\n    Rebuke and dread correction wait on us,\n    And they shall do their office. So be gone.\n    We will not now be troubled with reply.\n    We offer fair; take it advisedly.\n                                    Exit Worcester [with Vernon]\n  Prince. It will not be accepted, on my life.\n    The Douglas and the Hotspur both together\n    Are confident against the world in arms.\n  King. Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge;\n    For, on their answer, will we set on them,\n    And God befriend us as our cause is just!\n                                Exeunt. Manent Prince, Falstaff.\n  Fal. Hal, if thou see me down in the battle and bestride me, so!\n    'Tis a point of friendship.\n  Prince. Nothing but a Colossus can do thee that friendship.\n    Say thy prayers, and farewell.\n  Fal. I would 'twere bedtime, Hal, and all well.\n  Prince. Why, thou owest God a death.\nExit.\n  Fal. 'Tis not due yet. I would be loath to pay him before his day.\n    What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well,\n    'tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick\n    me off when I come on? How then? Can honor set to a leg? No. Or\n    an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no\n    skill in surgery then? No. What is honour? A word. What is that\n    word honour? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died a\n    Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth be bear it? No. 'Tis\n    insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the\n    living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll\n    none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon- and so ends my catechism.\nExit.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nThe rebel camp.\n\nEnter Worcester and Sir Richard Vernon.\n\n  Wor. O no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard,\n    The liberal and kind offer of the King.\n  Ver. 'Twere best he did.\n  Wor. Then are we all undone.\n    It is not possible, it cannot be\n    The King should keep his word in loving us.\n    He will suspect us still and find a time\n    To punish this offence in other faults.\n    Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes;\n    For treason is but trusted like the fox\n    Who, ne'er so tame, so cherish'd and lock'd up,\n    Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.\n    Look how we can, or sad or merrily,\n    Interpretation will misquote our looks,\n    And we shall feed like oxen at a stall,\n    The better cherish'd, still the nearer death.\n    My nephew's trespass may be well forgot;\n    It hath the excuse of youth and heat of blood,\n    And an adopted name of privilege-\n    A hare-brained Hotspur govern'd by a spleen.\n    All his offences live upon my head\n    And on his father's. We did train him on;\n    And, his corruption being taken from us,\n    We, as the spring of all, shall pay for all.\n    Therefore, good cousin, let not Harry know,\n    In any case, the offer of the King.\n\n               Enter Hotspur [and Douglas].\n\n  Ver. Deliver what you will, I'll say 'tis so.\n    Here comes your cousin.\n  Hot. My uncle is return'd.\n    Deliver up my Lord of Westmoreland.\n    Uncle, what news?\n  Wor. The King will bid you battle presently.\n  Doug. Defy him by the Lord Of Westmoreland.\n  Hot. Lord Douglas, go you and tell him so.\n  Doug. Marry, and shall, and very willingly.\nExit.\n  Wor. There is no seeming mercy in the King.\n  Hot. Did you beg any, God forbid!\n  Wor. I told him gently of our grievances,\n    Of his oath-breaking; which he mended thus,\n    By now forswearing that he is forsworn.\n    He calls us rebels, traitors, aid will scourge\n    With haughty arms this hateful name in us.\n\n                       Enter Douglas.\n\n  Doug. Arm, gentlemen! to arms! for I have thrown\n    A brave defiance in King Henry's teeth,\n    And Westmoreland, that was engag'd, did bear it;\n    Which cannot choose but bring him quickly on.\n  Wor. The Prince of Wales stepp'd forth before the King\n    And, nephew, challeng'd you to single fight.\n  Hot. O, would the quarrel lay upon our heads,\n    And that no man might draw short breath to-day\n    But I and Harry Monmouth! Tell me, tell me,\n    How show'd his tasking? Seem'd it in contempt?\n    No, by my soul. I never in my life\n    Did hear a challenge urg'd more modestly,\n    Unless a brother should a brother dare\n    To gentle exercise and proof of arms.\n    He gave you all the duties of a man;\n    Trimm'd up your praises with a princely tongue;\n    Spoke your deservings like a chronicle;\n    Making you ever better than his praise\n    By still dispraising praise valued with you;\n    And, which became him like a prince indeed,\n    He made a blushing cital of himself,\n    And chid his truant youth with such a grace\n    As if lie mast'red there a double spirit\n    Of teaching and of learning instantly.\n    There did he pause; but let me tell the world,\n    If he outlive the envy of this day,\n    England did never owe so sweet a hope,\n    So much misconstrued in his wantonness.\n  Hot. Cousin, I think thou art enamoured\n    Upon his follies. Never did I hear\n    Of any prince so wild a libertine.\n    But be he as he will, yet once ere night\n    I will embrace him with a soldier's arm,\n    That he shall shrink under my courtesy.\n    Arm, arm with speed! and, fellows, soldiers, friends,\n    Better consider what you have to do\n    Than I, that have not well the gift of tongue,\n    Can lift your blood up with persuasion.\n\n                       Enter a Messenger.\n\n  Mess. My lord, here are letters for you.\n  Hot. I cannot read them now.-\n    O gentlemen, the time of life is short!\n    To spend that shortness basely were too long\n    If life did ride upon a dial's point,\n    Still ending at the arrival of an hour.\n    An if we live, we live to tread on kings;\n    If die, brave death, when princes die with us!\n    Now for our consciences, the arms are fair,\n    When the intent of bearing them is just.\n\n                  Enter another Messenger.\n\n  Mess. My lord, prepare. The King comes on apace.\n  Hot. I thank him that he cuts me from my tale,\n    For I profess not talking. Only this-\n    Let each man do his best; and here draw I\n    A sword whose temper I intend to stain\n    With the best blood that I can meet withal\n    In the adventure of this perilous day.\n    Now, Esperance! Percy! and set on.\n    Sound all the lofty instruments of war,\n    And by that music let us all embrace;\n    For, heaven to earth, some of us never shall\n    A second time do such a courtesy.\n                          Here they embrace. The trumpets sound.\n                                                       [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nPlain between the camps.\n\nThe King enters with his Power.  Alarum to the battle.  Then enter Douglas\nand Sir Walter Blunt.\n\n  Blunt. What is thy name, that in the battle thus\n    Thou crossest me? What honour dost thou seek\n    Upon my head?\n  Doug. Know then my name is Douglas,\n    And I do haunt thee in the battle thus\n    Because some tell me that thou art a king.\n  Blunt. They tell thee true.\n  Doug. The Lord of Stafford dear to-day hath bought\n    Thy likeness; for instead of thee, King Harry,\n    This sword hath ended him. So shall it thee,\n    Unless thou yield thee as my prisoner.\n  Blunt. I was not born a yielder, thou proud Scot;\n    And thou shalt find a king that will revenge\n    Lord Stafford's death.\n\n    They fight. Douglas kills Blunt. Then enter Hotspur.\n\n  Hot. O Douglas, hadst thou fought at Holmedon thus,\n    I never had triumph'd upon a Scot.\n  Doug. All's done, all's won. Here breathless lies the King.\n  Hot. Where?\n  Doug. Here.\n  Hot. This, Douglas? No. I know this face full well.\n    A gallant knight he was, his name was Blunt;\n    Semblably furnish'd like the King himself.\n  Doug. A fool go with thy soul, whither it goes!\n    A borrowed title hast thou bought too dear:\n    Why didst thou tell me that thou wert a king?\n  Hot. The King hath many marching in his coats.\n  Doug. Now, by my sword, I will kill all his coats;\n    I'll murder all his wardrop, piece by piece,\n    Until I meet the King.\n  Hot. Up and away!\n    Our soldiers stand full fairly for the day.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n                 Alarum. Enter Falstaff solus.\n\n  Fal. Though I could scape shot-free at London, I fear the shot\n    here. Here's no scoring but upon the pate. Soft! who are you?\n    Sir Walter Blunt. There's honour for you! Here's no vanity! I am\n    as hot as molten lead, and as heavy too. God keep lead out of me!\n    I need no more weight than mine own bowels. I have led my\n    rag-of-muffins where they are pepper'd. There's not three of my\n    hundred and fifty left alive; and they are for the town's end, to\n    beg during life. But who comes here?\n\n                         Enter the Prince.\n\n  Prince. What, stand'st thou idle here? Lend me thy sword.\n    Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff\n    Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies,\n    Whose deaths are yet unreveng'd. I prithee\n    Rend me thy sword.\n  Fal. O Hal, I prithee give me leave to breathe awhile. Turk Gregory\n    never did such deeds in arms as I have done this day. I have paid\n    Percy; I have made him sure.\n  Prince. He is indeed, and living to kill thee.\n    I prithee lend me thy sword.\n  Fal. Nay, before God, Hal, if Percy be alive, thou get'st not my\n    sword; but take my pistol, if thou wilt.\n  Prince. Give it me. What, is it in the case?\n  Fal. Ay, Hal. 'Tis hot, 'tis hot. There's that will sack a city.\n\n    The Prince draws it out and finds it to he a bottle of sack.\n\n    What, is it a time to jest and dally now?\n                              He throws the bottle at him. Exit.\n  Fal. Well, if Percy be alive, I'll pierce him. If he do come in my\n    way, so; if he do not, if I come in his willingly, let him make a\n    carbonado of me. I like not such grinning honour as Sir Walter\n    hath. Give me life; which if I can save, so; if not, honour comes\n    unlook'd for, and there's an end.                      Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nAnother part of the field.\n\nAlarum. Excursions. Enter the King, the Prince, Lord John of Lancaster,\nEarl of Westmoreland\n\n  King. I prithee,\n    Harry, withdraw thyself; thou bleedest too much.\n    Lord John of Lancaster, go you unto him.\n  John. Not I, my lord, unless I did bleed too.\n  Prince. I do beseech your Majesty make up,\n    Lest Your retirement do amaze your friends.\n  King. I will do so.\n    My Lord of Westmoreland, lead him to his tent.\n  West. Come, my lord, I'll lead you to your tent.\n  Prince. Lead me, my lord, I do not need your help;\n    And God forbid a shallow scratch should drive\n    The Prince of Wales from such a field as this,\n    Where stain'd nobility lies trodden on,\n    And rebels' arms triumph in massacres!\n  John. We breathe too long. Come, cousin Westmoreland,\n    Our duty this way lies. For God's sake, come.\n                          [Exeunt Prince John and Westmoreland.]\n  Prince. By God, thou hast deceiv'd me, Lancaster!\n    I did not think thee lord of such a spirit.\n    Before, I lov'd thee as a brother, John;\n    But now, I do respect thee as my soul.\n  King. I saw him hold Lord Percy at the point\n    With lustier maintenance than I did look for\n    Of such an ungrown warrior.\n  Prince. O, this boy\n    Lends mettle to us all!                                Exit.\n\n                         Enter Douglas.\n\n  Doug. Another king? They grow like Hydra's heads.\n    I am the Douglas, fatal to all those\n    That wear those colours on them. What art thou\n    That counterfeit'st the person of a king?\n  King. The King himself, who, Douglas, grieves at heart\n    So many of his shadows thou hast met,\n    And not the very King. I have two boys\n    Seek Percy and thyself about the field;\n    But, seeing thou fall'st on me so luckily,\n    I will assay thee. So defend thyself.\n  Doug. I fear thou art another counterfeit;\n    And yet, in faith, thou bearest thee like a king.\n    But mine I am sure thou art, whoe'er thou be,\n    And thus I win thee.\n\n   They fight. The King being in danger, enter Prince of Wales.\n\n  Prince. Hold up thy head, vile Scot, or thou art like\n    Never to hold it up again! The spirits\n    Of valiant Shirley, Stafford, Blunt are in my arms.\n    It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee,\n    Who never promiseth but he means to pay.\n                                     They fight. Douglas flieth.\n    Cheerly, my lord. How fares your Grace?\n    Sir Nicholas Gawsey hath for succour sent,\n    And so hath Clifton. I'll to Clifton straight.\n  King. Stay and breathe awhile.\n    Thou hast redeem'd thy lost opinion,\n    And show'd thou mak'st some tender of my life,\n    In this fair rescue thou hast brought to me.\n  Prince. O God! they did me too much injury\n    That ever said I heark'ned for your death.\n    If it were so, I might have let alone\n    The insulting hand of Douglas over you,\n    Which would have been as speedy in your end\n    As all the poisonous potions in the world,\n    And sav'd the treacherous labour of your son.\n  King. Make up to Clifton; I'll to Sir Nicholas Gawsey.\nExit.\n\n                      Enter Hotspur.\n\n  Hot. If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth.\n  Prince. Thou speak'st as if I would deny my name.\n  Hot. My name is Harry Percy.\n  Prince. Why, then I see\n    A very valiant rebel of the name.\n    I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy,\n    To share with me in glory any more.\n    Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere,\n    Nor can one England brook a double reign\n    Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.\n  Hot. Nor shall it, Harry; for the hour is come\n    To end the one of us and would to God\n    Thy name in arms were now as great as mine!\n  Prince. I'll make it greater ere I part from thee,\n    And all the budding honours on thy crest\n    I'll crop to make a garland for my head.\n  Hot. I can no longer brook thy vanities.\n                                                     They fight.\n\n                      Enter Falstaff.\n\n  Fal. Well said, Hal! to it, Hal! Nay, you shall find no boy's play\n    here, I can tell you.\n\n   Enter Douglas. He fighteth with Falstaff, who falls down as if\n      he were dead. [Exit Douglas.] The Prince killeth Percy.\n\n  Hot. O Harry, thou hast robb'd me of my youth!\n    I better brook the loss of brittle life\n    Than those proud titles thou hast won of me.\n    They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh.\n    But thoughts the slave, of life, and life time's fool,\n    And time, that takes survey of all the world,\n    Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy,\n    But that the earthy and cold hand of death\n    Lies on my tongue. No, Percy, thou art dust,\n    And food for-                                        [Dies.]\n  Prince. For worms, brave Percy. Fare thee well, great heart!\n    Ill-weav'd ambition, how much art thou shrunk!\n    When that this body did contain a spirit,\n    A kingdom for it was too small a bound;\n    But now two paces of the vilest earth\n    Is room enough. This earth that bears thee dead\n    Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.\n    If thou wert sensible of courtesy,\n    I should not make so dear a show of zeal.\n    But let my favours hide thy mangled face;\n    And, even in thy behalf, I'll thank myself\n    For doing these fair rites of tenderness.\n    Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven!\n    Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave,\n    But not rememb'red in thy epitaph!\n                               He spieth Falstaff on the ground.\n    What, old acquaintance? Could not all this flesh\n    Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell!\n    I could have better spar'd a better man.\n    O, I should have a heavy miss of thee\n    If I were much in love with vanity!\n    Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day,\n    Though many dearer, in this bloody fray.\n    Embowell'd will I see thee by-and-by;\n    Till then in blood by noble Percy lie.                 Exit.\n\n                     Falstaff riseth up.\n\n  Fal. Embowell'd? If thou embowel me to-day, I'll give you leave to\n    powder me and eat me too to-morrow. 'Sblood, 'twas time to\n    counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot\n    too. Counterfeit? I lie; I am no counterfeit. To die is to be a\n    counterfeit; for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not\n    the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying when a man thereby\n    liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image\n    of life indeed. The better part of valour is discretion; in the\n    which better part I have saved my life. Zounds, I am afraid of\n    this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead. How if he should\n    counterfeit too, and rise? By my faith, I am afraid he would\n    prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I'll make him sure; yea,\n    and I'll swear I kill'd him. Why may not he rise as well as I?\n    Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore,\n    sirrah [stabs him], with a new wound in your thigh, come you\n    along with me.\n\n   He takes up Hotspur on his hack. [Enter Prince, and John of\n                            Lancaster.\n\n  Prince. Come, brother John; full bravely hast thou flesh'd\n    Thy maiden sword.\n  John. But, soft! whom have we here?\n    Did you not tell me this fat man was dead?\n  Prince. I did; I saw him dead,\n    Breathless and bleeding on the ground. Art thou alive,\n    Or is it fantasy that plays upon our eyesight?\n    I prithee speak. We will not trust our eyes\n    Without our ears. Thou art not what thou seem'st.\n  Fal. No, that's certain! I am not a double man; but if I be not\n    Jack Falstaff, then am I a Jack. There 's Percy. If your father\n    will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next Percy\n    himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you.\n  Prince. Why, Percy I kill'd myself, and saw thee dead!\n  Fal. Didst thou? Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I\n    grant you I was down, and out of breath, and so was he; but we\n    rose both at an instant and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury\n    clock. If I may be believ'd, so; if not, let them that should\n    reward valour bear the sin upon their own heads. I'll take it\n    upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh. If the man\n    were alive and would deny it, zounds! I would make him eat a\n    piece of my sword.\n  John. This is the strangest tale that ever I beard.\n  Prince. This is the strangest fellow, brother John.\n    Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back.\n    For my part, if a lie may do thee grace,\n    I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have.\n                                           A retreat is sounded.\n    The trumpet sounds retreat; the day is ours.\n    Come, brother, let's to the highest of the field,\n    To see what friends are living, who are dead.\n                          Exeunt [Prince Henry and Prince John].\n  Fal. I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God\n    reward him! If I do grow great, I'll grow less; for I'll purge,\n    and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.\n                                    Exit [bearing off the body].\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nAnother part of the field.\n\nThe trumpets sound. [Enter the King, Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster,\nEarl of Westmoreland, with Worcester and Vernon prisoners.\n\n  King. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.\n    Ill-spirited Worcester! did not we send grace,\n    Pardon, and terms of love to all of you?\n    And wouldst thou turn our offers contrary?\n    Misuse the tenour of thy kinsman's trust?\n    Three knights upon our party slain to-day,\n    A noble earl, and many a creature else\n    Had been alive this hour,\n    If like a Christian thou hadst truly borne\n    Betwixt our armies true intelligence.\n  Wor. What I have done my safety urg'd me to;\n    And I embrace this fortune patiently,\n    Since not to be avoided it fails on me.\n  King. Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too;\n    Other offenders we will pause upon.\n                         Exeunt Worcester and Vernon, [guarded].\n    How goes the field?\n  Prince. The noble Scot, Lord Douglas, when he saw\n    The fortune of the day quite turn'd from him,\n    The Noble Percy slain and all his men\n    Upon the foot of fear, fled with the rest;\n    And falling from a hill,he was so bruis'd\n    That the pursuers took him. At my tent\n    The Douglas is, and I beseech Your Grace\n    I may dispose of him.\n  King. With all my heart.\n  Prince. Then brother John of Lancaster, to you\n    This honourable bounty shall belong.\n    Go to the Douglas and deliver him\n    Up to his pleasure, ransomless and free.\n    His valour shown upon our crests today\n    Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds,\n    Even in the bosom of our adversaries.\n  John. I thank your Grace for this high courtesy,\n    Which I shall give away immediately.\n  King. Then this remains, that we divide our power.\n    You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland,\n    Towards York shall bend you with your dearest speed\n    To meet Northumberland and the prelate Scroop,\n    Who, as we hear, are busily in arms.\n    Myself and you, son Harry, will towards Wales\n    To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March.\n    Rebellion in this laud shall lose his sway,\n    Meeting the check of such another day;\n    And since this business so fair is done,\n    Let us not leave till all our own be won.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1598\n\n\nSECOND PART OF KING HENRY IV\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  RUMOUR, the Presenter\n  KING HENRY THE FOURTH\n\n  HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES, afterwards HENRY\n  PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER\n  THOMAS, DUKE OF CLARENCE\n    Sons of Henry IV\n\n  EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND\n  SCROOP, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK\n  LORD MOWBRAY\n  LORD HASTINGS\n  LORD BARDOLPH\n  SIR JOHN COLVILLE\n  TRAVERS and MORTON, retainers of Northumberland\n    Opposites against King Henry IV\n\n  EARL OF WARWICK\n  EARL OF WESTMORELAND\n  EARL OF SURREY\n  EARL OF KENT\n  GOWER\n  HARCOURT\n  BLUNT\n    Of the King's party\n\n  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE\n  SERVANT, to Lord Chief Justice\n\n  SIR JOHN FALSTAFF\n  EDWARD POINS\n  BARDOLPH\n  PISTOL\n  PETO\n    Irregular humourists\n\n  PAGE, to Falstaff\n\n  ROBERT SHALLOW and SILENCE, country Justices\n  DAVY, servant to Shallow\n\n  FANG and SNARE, Sheriff's officers\n\n  RALPH MOULDY\n  SIMON SHADOW\n  THOMAS WART\n  FRANCIS FEEBLE\n  PETER BULLCALF\n    Country soldiers\n\n  FRANCIS, a drawer\n\n  LADY NORTHUMBERLAND\n  LADY PERCY, Percy's widow\n  HOSTESS QUICKLY, of the Boar's Head, Eastcheap\n  DOLL TEARSHEET\n\n  LORDS, Attendants, Porter, Drawers, Beadles, Grooms, Servants,\n    Speaker of the Epilogue\n\n                       SCENE: England\n\nINDUCTION\n                         INDUCTION.\n           Warkworth. Before NORTHUMBERLAND'S Castle\n\n            Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues\n\n  RUMOUR. Open your ears; for which of you will stop\n    The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?\n    I, from the orient to the drooping west,\n    Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold\n    The acts commenced on this ball of earth.\n    Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,\n    The which in every language I pronounce,\n    Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.\n    I speak of peace while covert emnity,\n    Under the smile of safety, wounds the world;\n    And who but Rumour, who but only I,\n    Make fearful musters and prepar'd defence,\n    Whiles the big year, swoln with some other grief,\n    Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,\n    And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe\n    Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,\n    And of so easy and so plain a stop\n    That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,\n    The still-discordant wav'ring multitude,\n    Can play upon it. But what need I thus\n    My well-known body to anatomize\n    Among my household? Why is Rumour here?\n    I run before King Harry's victory,\n    Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury,\n    Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,\n    Quenching the flame of bold rebellion\n    Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I\n    To speak so true at first? My office is\n    To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell\n    Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword,\n    And that the King before the Douglas' rage\n    Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.\n    This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns\n    Between that royal field of Shrewsbury\n    And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,\n    Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,\n    Lies crafty-sick. The posts come tiring on,\n    And not a man of them brings other news\n    Than they have learnt of me. From Rumour's tongues\n    They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nWarkworth. Before NORTHUMBERLAND'S Castle\n\nEnter LORD BARDOLPH\n\n  LORD BARDOLPH. Who keeps the gate here, ho?\n\n                   The PORTER opens the gate\n\n    Where is the Earl?\n  PORTER. What shall I say you are?\n  LORD BARDOLPH. Tell thou the Earl\n    That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.\n  PORTER. His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard.\n    Please it your honour knock but at the gate,\n    And he himself will answer.\n\n                      Enter NORTHUMBERLAND\n\n  LORD BARDOLPH. Here comes the Earl.                Exit PORTER\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. What news, Lord Bardolph? Every minute now\n    Should be the father of some stratagem.\n    The times are wild; contention, like a horse\n    Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose\n    And bears down all before him.\n  LORD BARDOLPH. Noble Earl,\n    I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Good, an God will!\n  LORD BARDOLPH. As good as heart can wish.\n    The King is almost wounded to the death;\n    And, in the fortune of my lord your son,\n    Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts\n    Kill'd by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John,\n    And Westmoreland, and Stafford, fled the field;\n    And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk Sir John,\n    Is prisoner to your son. O, such a day,\n    So fought, so followed, and so fairly won,\n    Came not till now to dignify the times,\n    Since Cxsar's fortunes!\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. How is this deriv'd?\n    Saw you the field? Came you from Shrewsbury?\n  LORD BARDOLPH. I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence;\n    A gentleman well bred and of good name,\n    That freely rend'red me these news for true.\n\n                         Enter TRAVERS\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent\n    On Tuesday last to listen after news.\n  LORD BARDOLPH. My lord, I over-rode him on the way;\n    And he is furnish'd with no certainties\n    More than he haply may retail from me.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you?\n  TRAVERS. My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back\n    With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd,\n    Out-rode me. After him came spurring hard\n    A gentleman, almost forspent with speed,\n    That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse.\n    He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him\n    I did demand what news from Shrewsbury.\n    He told me that rebellion had bad luck,\n    And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold.\n    With that he gave his able horse the head\n    And, bending forward, struck his armed heels\n    Against the panting sides of his poor jade\n    Up to the rowel-head; and starting so,\n    He seem'd in running to devour the way,\n    Staying no longer question.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Ha! Again:\n    Said he young Harry Percy's spur was cold?\n    Of Hotspur, Coldspur? that rebellion\n    Had met ill luck?\n  LORD BARDOLPH. My lord, I'll tell you what:\n    If my young lord your son have not the day,\n    Upon mine honour, for a silken point\n    I'll give my barony. Never talk of it.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers\n    Give then such instances of loss?\n  LORD BARDOLPH. Who- he?\n    He was some hilding fellow that had stol'n\n    The horse he rode on and, upon my life,\n    Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.\n\n                        Enter Morton\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,\n    Foretells the nature of a tragic volume.\n    So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood\n    Hath left a witness'd usurpation.\n    Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?\n  MORTON. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;\n    Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask\n    To fright our party.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. How doth my son and brother?\n    Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek\n    Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.\n    Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,\n    So dull, so dread in look, so woe-begone,\n    Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night\n    And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;\n    But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue,\n    And I my Percy's death ere thou report'st it.\n    This thou wouldst say: 'Your son did thus and thus;\n    Your brother thus; so fought the noble Douglas'-\n    Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds;\n    But in the end, to stop my ear indeed,\n    Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,\n    Ending with 'Brother, son, and all, are dead.'\n  MORTON. Douglas is living, and your brother, yet;\n    But for my lord your son-\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Why, he is dead.\n    See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!\n    He that but fears the thing he would not know\n    Hath by instinct knowledge from others' eyes\n    That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton;\n    Tell thou an earl his divination lies,\n    And I will take it as a sweet disgrace\n    And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.\n  MORTON. You are too great to be by me gainsaid;\n    Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead.\n    I see a strange confession in thine eye;\n    Thou shak'st thy head, and hold'st it fear or sin\n    To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so:\n    The tongue offends not that reports his death;\n    And he doth sin that doth belie the dead,\n    Not he which says the dead is not alive.\n    Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news\n    Hath but a losing office, and his tongue\n    Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,\n    Rememb'red tolling a departing friend.\n  LORD BARDOLPH. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.\n  MORTON. I am sorry I should force you to believe\n    That which I would to God I had not seen;\n    But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,\n    Rend'ring faint quittance, wearied and out-breath'd,\n    To Harry Monmouth, whose swift wrath beat down\n    The never-daunted Percy to the earth,\n    From whence with life he never more sprung up.\n    In few, his death- whose spirit lent a fire\n    Even to the dullest peasant in his camp-\n    Being bruited once, took fire and heat away\n    From the best-temper'd courage in his troops;\n    For from his metal was his party steeled;\n    Which once in him abated, an the rest\n    Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.\n    And as the thing that's heavy in itself\n    Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed,\n    So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,\n    Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear\n    That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim\n    Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,\n    Fly from the field. Then was that noble Worcester\n    Too soon ta'en prisoner; and that furious Scot,\n    The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword\n    Had three times slain th' appearance of the King,\n    Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shame\n    Of those that turn'd their backs, and in his flight,\n    Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all\n    Is that the King hath won, and hath sent out\n    A speedy power to encounter you, my lord,\n    Under the conduct of young Lancaster\n    And Westmoreland. This is the news at full.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. For this I shall have time enough to mourn.\n    In poison there is physic; and these news,\n    Having been well, that would have made me sick,\n    Being sick, have in some measure made me well;\n    And as the wretch whose fever-weak'ned joints,\n    Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,\n    Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire\n    Out of his keeper's arms, even so my limbs,\n    Weak'ned with grief, being now enrag'd with grief,\n    Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!\n    A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel\n    Must glove this hand; and hence, thou sickly coif!\n    Thou art a guard too wanton for the head\n    Which princes, flesh'd with conquest, aim to hit.\n    Now bind my brows with iron; and approach\n    The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring\n    To frown upon th' enrag'd Northumberland!\n    Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not Nature's hand\n    Keep the wild flood confin'd! Let order die!\n    And let this world no longer be a stage\n    To feed contention in a ling'ring act;\n    But let one spirit of the first-born Cain\n    Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set\n    On bloody courses, the rude scene may end\n    And darkness be the burier of the dead!\n  LORD BARDOLPH. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.\n  MORTON. Sweet Earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.\n    The lives of all your loving complices\n    Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er\n    To stormy passion, must perforce decay.\n    You cast th' event of war, my noble lord,\n    And summ'd the account of chance before you said\n    'Let us make head.' It was your pre-surmise\n    That in the dole of blows your son might drop.\n    You knew he walk'd o'er perils on an edge,\n    More likely to fall in than to get o'er;\n    You were advis'd his flesh was capable\n    Of wounds and scars, and that his forward spirit\n    Would lift him where most trade of danger rang'd;\n    Yet did you say 'Go forth'; and none of this,\n    Though strongly apprehended, could restrain\n    The stiff-borne action. What hath then befall'n,\n    Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth\n    More than that being which was like to be?\n  LORD BARDOLPH. We all that are engaged to this loss\n    Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas\n    That if we wrought out life 'twas ten to one;\n    And yet we ventur'd, for the gain propos'd\n    Chok'd the respect of likely peril fear'd;\n    And since we are o'erset, venture again.\n    Come, we will put forth, body and goods.\n  MORTON. 'Tis more than time. And, my most noble lord,\n    I hear for certain, and dare speak the truth:\n    The gentle Archbishop of York is up\n    With well-appointed pow'rs. He is a man\n    Who with a double surety binds his followers.\n    My lord your son had only but the corpse,\n    But shadows and the shows of men, to fight;\n    For that same word 'rebellion' did divide\n    The action of their bodies from their souls;\n    And they did fight with queasiness, constrain'd,\n    As men drink potions; that their weapons only\n    Seem'd on our side, but for their spirits and souls\n    This word 'rebellion'- it had froze them up,\n    As fish are in a pond. But now the Bishop\n    Turns insurrection to religion.\n    Suppos'd sincere and holy in his thoughts,\n    He's follow'd both with body and with mind;\n    And doth enlarge his rising with the blood\n    Of fair King Richard, scrap'd from Pomfret stones;\n    Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause;\n    Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land,\n    Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;\n    And more and less do flock to follow him.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,\n    This present grief had wip'd it from my mind.\n    Go in with me; and counsel every man\n    The aptest way for safety and revenge.\n    Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed-\n    Never so few, and never yet more need.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, with his PAGE bearing his sword and buckler\n\n  FALSTAFF. Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?\n  PAGE. He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water; but\n    for the party that owed it, he might have moe diseases than he\n    knew for.\n  FALSTAFF. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me. The brain of\n    this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent anything\n    that intends to laughter, more than I invent or is invented on\n    me. I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in\n    other men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath\n    overwhelm'd all her litter but one. If the Prince put thee into\n    my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I\n    have no judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be\n    worn in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never mann'd with\n    an agate till now; but I will inset you neither in gold nor\n    silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your\n    master, for a jewel- the juvenal, the Prince your master, whose\n    chin is not yet fledge. I will sooner have a beard grow in the\n    palm of my hand than he shall get one off his cheek; and yet he\n    will not stick to say his face is a face-royal. God may finish it\n    when he will, 'tis not a hair amiss yet. He may keep it still at\n    a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it;\n    and yet he'll be crowing as if he had writ man ever since his\n    father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he's almost\n    out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dommelton about\n    the satin for my short cloak and my slops?\n  PAGE. He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than\n    Bardolph. He would not take his band and yours; he liked not the\n    security.\n  FALSTAFF. Let him be damn'd, like the Glutton; pray God his tongue\n    be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! A rascal-yea-forsooth knave, to\n    bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security! The\n    whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and\n    bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is through with\n    them in honest taking-up, then they must stand upon security. I\n    had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop\n    it with security. I look'd 'a should have sent me two and twenty\n    yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me security.\n    Well, he may sleep in security; for he hath the horn of\n    abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it; and\n    yet cannot he see, though he have his own lanthorn to light him.\n    Where's Bardolph?\n  PAGE. He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship horse.\n  FALSTAFF. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in\n    Smithfield. An I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were\n    mann'd, hors'd, and wiv'd.\n\n              Enter the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE and SERVANT\n\n  PAGE. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the\n    Prince for striking him about Bardolph.\n  FALSTAFF. Wait close; I will not see him.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. What's he that goes there?\n  SERVANT. Falstaff, an't please your lordship.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. He that was in question for the robb'ry?\n  SERVANT. He, my lord; but he hath since done good service at\n    Shrewsbury, and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the\n    Lord John of Lancaster.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. What, to York? Call him back again.\n  SERVANT. Sir John Falstaff!\n  FALSTAFF. Boy, tell him I am deaf.\n  PAGE. You must speak louder; my master is deaf.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I am sure he is, to the hearing of anything good.\n    Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.\n  SERVANT. Sir John!\n  FALSTAFF. What! a young knave, and begging! Is there not wars? Is\n    there not employment? Doth not the King lack subjects? Do not the\n    rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but\n    one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were\n    it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.\n  SERVANT. You mistake me, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? Setting my\n    knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I\n    had said so.\n  SERVANT. I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your\n    soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you you in your\n    throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man.\n  FALSTAFF. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which\n    grows to me! If thou get'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou\n    tak'st leave, thou wert better be hang'd. You hunt counter.\n    Hence! Avaunt!\n  SERVANT. Sir, my lord would speak with you.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.\n  FALSTAFF. My good lord! God give your lordship good time of day. I\n    am glad to see your lordship abroad. I heard say your lordship\n    was sick; I hope your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your\n    lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack\n    of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most\n    humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverend care of your\n    health.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to\n    Shrewsbury.\n  FALSTAFF. An't please your lordship, I hear his Majesty is return'd\n    with some discomfort from Wales.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I talk not of his Majesty. You would not come when I\n    sent for you.\n  FALSTAFF. And I hear, moreover, his Highness is fall'n into this\n    same whoreson apoplexy.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Well God mend him! I pray you let me speak with you.\n  FALSTAFF. This apoplexy, as I take it, is a kind of lethargy, an't\n    please your lordship, a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson\n    tingling.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. What tell you me of it? Be it as it is.\n  FALSTAFF. It hath it original from much grief, from study, and\n    perturbation of the brain. I have read the cause of his effects\n    in Galen; it is a kind of deafness.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I think you are fall'n into the disease, for you\n    hear not what I say to you.\n  FALSTAFF. Very well, my lord, very well. Rather an't please you, it\n    is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that\n    I am troubled withal.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. To punish you by the heels would amend the attention\n    of your ears; and I care not if I do become your physician.\n  FALSTAFF. I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient. Your\n    lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me in respect\n    of poverty; but how I should be your patient to follow your\n    prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or\n    indeed a scruple itself.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I sent for you, when there were matters against you\n    for your life, to come speak with me.\n  FALSTAFF. As I was then advis'd by my learned counsel in the laws\n    of this land-service, I did not come.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great\n    infamy.\n  FALSTAFF. He that buckles himself in my belt cannot live in less.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Your means are very slender, and your waste is\n    great.\n  FALSTAFF. I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater\n    and my waist slenderer.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. You have misled the youthful Prince.\n  FALSTAFF. The young Prince hath misled me. I am the fellow with the\n    great belly, and he my dog.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, I am loath to gall a new-heal'd wound. Your\n    day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your\n    night's exploit on Gadshill. You may thank th' unquiet time for\n    your quiet o'erposting that action.\n  FALSTAFF. My lord-\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a\n    sleeping wolf.\n  FALSTAFF. To wake a wolf is as bad as smell a fox.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt\n    out.\n  FALSTAFF. A wassail candle, my lord- all tallow; if I did say of\n    wax, my growth would approve the truth.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. There is not a white hair in your face but should\n    have his effect of gravity.\n  FALSTAFF. His effect of gravy, gravy,\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. You follow the young Prince up and down, like his\n    ill angel.\n  FALSTAFF. Not so, my lord. Your ill angel is light; but  hope he\n    that looks upon me will take me without weighing. And yet in some\n    respects, I grant, I cannot go- I cannot tell. Virtue is of so\n    little regard in these costermongers' times that true valour is\n    turn'd berod; pregnancy is made a tapster, and his quick wit\n    wasted in giving reckonings; all the other gifts appertinent to\n    man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a\n    gooseberry. You that are old consider not the capacities of us\n    that are young; you do measure the heat of our livers with the\n    bitterness of your galls; and we that are in the vaward of our\n    youth, must confess, are wags too.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth,\n    that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have\n    you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a\n    decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken,\n    your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every\n    part about you blasted with antiquity? And will you yet call\n    yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!\n  FALSTAFF. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the\n    afternoon, with a white head and something a round belly. For my\n    voice- I have lost it with hallooing and singing of anthems. To\n    approve my youth further, I will not. The truth is, I am only old\n    in judgment and understanding; and he that will caper with me for\n    a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him. For\n    the box of the ear that the Prince gave you- he gave it like a\n    rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have check'd\n    him for it; and the young lion repents- marry, not in ashes and\n    sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, God send the Prince a better companion!\n  FALSTAFF. God send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my\n    hands of him.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, the King hath sever'd you. I hear you are\n    going with Lord John of Lancaster against the Archbishop and the\n    Earl of Northumberland.\n  FALSTAFF. Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you\n    pray, all you that kiss my Lady Peace at home, that our armies\n    join not in a hot day; for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts\n    out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily. If it be a\n    hot day, and I brandish anything but a bottle, I would I might\n    never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep\n    out his head but I am thrust upon it. Well, I cannot last ever;\n    but it was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if they\n    have a good thing, to make it too common. If ye will needs say I\n    am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God my name\n    were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be\n    eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with\n    perpetual motion.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your\n    expedition!\n  FALSTAFF. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to furnish me\n    forth?\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to\n    bear crosses. Fare you well. Commend me to my cousin\n    Westmoreland.\n                                Exeunt CHIEF JUSTICE and SERVANT\n  FALSTAFF. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man can no\n    more separate age and covetousness than 'a can part young limbs\n    and lechery; but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the\n    other; and so both the degrees prevent my curses. Boy!\n  PAGE. Sir?\n  FALSTAFF. What money is in my purse?\n  PAGE. Seven groats and two pence.\n  FALSTAFF. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the\n    purse; borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease\n    is incurable. Go bear this letter to my Lord of Lancaster; this\n    to the Prince; this to the Earl of Westmoreland; and this to old\n    Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I\n    perceiv'd the first white hair of my chin. About it; you know\n    where to find me.  [Exit PAGE]  A pox of this gout! or, a gout of\n    this pox! for the one or the other plays the rogue with my great\n    toe. 'Tis no matter if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour,\n    and my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit will\n    make use of anything. I will turn diseases to commodity.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nYork. The ARCHBISHOP'S palace\n\nEnter the ARCHBISHOP, THOMAS MOWBRAY the EARL MARSHAL, LORD HASTINGS,\nand LORD BARDOLPH\n\n  ARCHBISHOP. Thus have you heard our cause and known our means;\n    And, my most noble friends, I pray you all\n    Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes-\n    And first, Lord Marshal, what say you to it?\n  MOWBRAY. I well allow the occasion of our amis;\n    But gladly would be better satisfied\n    How, in our means, we should advance ourselves\n    To look with forehead bold and big enough\n    Upon the power and puissance of the King.\n  HASTINGS. Our present musters grow upon the file\n    To five and twenty thousand men of choice;\n    And our supplies live largely in the hope\n    Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns\n    With an incensed fire of injuries.\n  LORD BARDOLPH. The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus:\n    Whether our present five and twenty thousand\n    May hold up head without Northumberland?\n  HASTINGS. With him, we may.\n  LORD BARDOLPH. Yea, marry, there's the point;\n    But if without him we be thought too feeble,\n    My judgment is we should not step too far\n    Till we had his assistance by the hand;\n    For, in a theme so bloody-fac'd as this,\n    Conjecture, expectation, and surmise\n    Of aids incertain, should not be admitted.\n  ARCHBISHOP. 'Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed\n    It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.\n  LORD BARDOLPH. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself with hope,\n    Eating the air and promise of supply,\n    Flatt'ring himself in project of a power\n    Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts;\n    And so, with great imagination\n    Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,\n    And, winking, leapt into destruction.\n  HASTINGS. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt\n    To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.\n  LORD BARDOLPH. Yes, if this present quality of war-\n    Indeed the instant action, a cause on foot-\n    Lives so in hope, as in an early spring\n    We see th' appearing buds; which to prove fruit\n    Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair\n    That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,\n    We first survey the plot, then draw the model;\n    And when we see the figure of the house,\n    Then we must rate the cost of the erection;\n    Which if we find outweighs ability,\n    What do we then but draw anew the model\n    In fewer offices, or at least desist\n    To build at all? Much more, in this great work-\n    Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down\n    And set another up- should we survey\n    The plot of situation and the model,\n    Consent upon a sure foundation,\n    Question surveyors, know our own estate\n    How able such a work to undergo-\n    To weigh against his opposite; or else\n    We fortify in paper and in figures,\n    Using the names of men instead of men;\n    Like one that draws the model of a house\n    Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,\n    Gives o'er and leaves his part-created cost\n    A naked subject to the weeping clouds\n    And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.\n  HASTINGS. Grant that our hopes- yet likely of fair birth-\n    Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd\n    The utmost man of expectation,\n    I think we are so a body strong enough,\n    Even as we are, to equal with the King.\n  LORD BARDOLPH. What, is the King but five and twenty thousand?\n  HASTINGS. To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph;\n    For his divisions, as the times do brawl,\n    Are in three heads: one power against the French,\n    And one against Glendower; perforce a third\n    Must take up us. So is the unfirm King\n    In three divided; and his coffers sound\n    With hollow poverty and emptiness.\n  ARCHBISHOP. That he should draw his several strengths together\n    And come against us in full puissance\n    Need not be dreaded.\n  HASTINGS. If he should do so,\n    He leaves his back unarm'd, the French and Welsh\n    Baying at his heels. Never fear that.\n  LORD BARDOLPH. Who is it like should lead his forces hither?\n  HASTINGS. The Duke of Lancaster and Westmoreland;\n    Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth;\n    But who is substituted against the French\n    I have no certain notice.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Let us on,\n    And publish the occasion of our arms.\n    The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;\n    Their over-greedy love hath surfeited.\n    An habitation giddy and unsure\n    Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.\n    O thou fond many, with what loud applause\n    Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke\n    Before he was what thou wouldst have him be!\n    And being now trimm'd in thine own desires,\n    Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him\n    That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up.\n    So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge\n    Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;\n    And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up,\n    And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these times?\n    They that, when Richard liv'd, would have him die\n    Are now become enamour'd on his grave.\n    Thou that threw'st dust upon his goodly head,\n    When through proud London he came sighing on\n    After th' admired heels of Bolingbroke,\n    Criest now 'O earth, yield us that king again,\n    And take thou this!' O thoughts of men accurs'd!\n    Past and to come seems best; things present, worst.\n  MOWBRAY. Shall we go draw our numbers, and set on?\n  HASTINGS. We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter HOSTESS with two officers, FANG and SNARE\n\n  HOSTESS. Master Fang, have you ent'red the action?\n  FANG. It is ent'red.\n  HOSTESS. Where's your yeoman? Is't a lusty yeoman? Will 'a stand\n    to't?\n  FANG. Sirrah, where's Snare?\n  HOSTESS. O Lord, ay! good Master Snare.\n  SNARE. Here, here.\n  FANG. Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.\n  HOSTESS. Yea, good Master Snare; I have ent'red him and all.\n  SNARE. It may chance cost some of our lives, for he will stab.\n  HOSTESS. Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabb'd me in mine own\n    house, and that most beastly. In good faith, 'a cares not what\n    mischief he does, if his weapon be out; he will foin like any\n    devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child.\n  FANG. If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust.\n  HOSTESS. No, nor I neither; I'll be at your elbow.\n  FANG. An I but fist him once; an 'a come but within my vice!\n  HOSTESS. I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he's an\n    infinitive thing upon my score. Good Master Fang, hold him sure.\n    Good Master Snare, let him not scape. 'A comes continuantly to\n    Pie-corner- saving your manhoods- to buy a saddle; and he is\n    indited to dinner to the Lubber's Head in Lumbert Street, to\n    Master Smooth's the silkman. I pray you, since my exion is\n    ent'red, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be\n    brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long one for a poor\n    lone woman to bear; and I have borne, and borne, and borne; and\n    have been fubb'd off, and fubb'd off, and fubb'd off, from this\n    day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no\n    honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass and\n    a beast, to bear every knave's wrong.\n\n            Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, PAGE, and BARDOLPH\n\n    Yonder he comes; and that arrant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph,\n    with him. Do your offices, do your offices, Master Fang and\n    Master Snare; do me, do me, do me your offices.\n  FALSTAFF. How now! whose mare's dead? What's the matter?\n  FANG. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.\n  FALSTAFF. Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph. Cut me off the villian's\n    head. Throw the quean in the channel.\n  HOSTESS. Throw me in the channel! I'll throw thee in the channel.\n    Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue! Murder, murder! Ah,\n    thou honeysuckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers and the\n    King's? Ah, thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a honey-seed; a\n    man-queller and a woman-queller.\n  FALSTAFF. Keep them off, Bardolph.\n  FANG. A rescue! a rescue!\n  HOSTESS. Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wot, wot thou!\n    thou wot, wot ta? Do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed!\n  PAGE. Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian!\n    I'll tickle your catastrophe.\n\n              Enter the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE and his men\n\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. What is the matter? Keep the peace here, ho!\n  HOSTESS. Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you, stand to me.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. How now, Sir John! what, are you brawling here?\n    Doth this become your place, your time, and business?\n    You should have been well on your way to York.\n    Stand from him, fellow; wherefore hang'st thou upon him?\n  HOSTESS. O My most worshipful lord, an't please your Grace, I am a\n    poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. For what sum?\n  HOSTESS. It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all- all I\n    have. He hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my\n    substance into that fat belly of his. But I will have some of it\n    out again, or I will ride thee a nights like a mare.\n  FALSTAFF. I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any\n    vantage of ground to get up.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. How comes this, Sir John? Fie! What man of good\n    temper would endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not\n    ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come by\n    her own?\n  FALSTAFF. What is the gross sum that I owe thee?\n  HOSTESS. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money\n    too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in\n    my Dolphin chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon\n    Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the Prince broke thy head for\n    liking his father to singing-man of Windsor- thou didst swear to\n    me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my\n    lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the\n    butcher's wife, come in then and call me gossip Quickly? Coming\n    in to borrow a mess of vinegar, telling us she had a good dish of\n    prawns, whereby thou didst desire to eat some, whereby I told\n    thee they were ill for green wound? And didst thou not, when she\n    was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with\n    such poor people, saying that ere long they should call me madam?\n    And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch the thirty\n    shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath. Deny it, if thou\n    canst.\n  FALSTAFF. My lord, this is a poor mad soul, and she says up and\n    down the town that her eldest son is like you. She hath been in\n    good case, and, the truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But\n    for these foolish officers, I beseech you I may have redress\n    against them.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your\n    manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a\n    confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more\n    than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level\n    consideration. You have, as it appears to me, practis'd upon the\n    easy yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses\n    both in purse and in person.\n  HOSTESS. Yea, in truth, my lord.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Pray thee, peace. Pay her the debt you owe her, and\n    unpay the villainy you have done with her; the one you may do\n    with sterling money, and the other with current repentance.\n  FALSTAFF. My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without reply. You\n    call honourable boldness impudent sauciness; if a man will make\n    curtsy and say nothing, he is virtuous. No, my lord, my humble\n    duty rememb'red, I will not be your suitor. I say to you I do\n    desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty\n    employment in the King's affairs.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. You speak as having power to do wrong; but answer in\n    th' effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman.\n  FALSTAFF. Come hither, hostess.\n\n                               Enter GOWER\n\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Now, Master Gower, what news?\n  GOWER. The King, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales\n    Are near at hand. The rest the paper tells. [Gives a letter]\n  FALSTAFF. As I am a gentleman!\n  HOSTESS. Faith, you said so before.\n  FALSTAFF. As I am a gentleman! Come, no more words of it.\n  HOSTESS. By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn\n    both my plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.\n  FALSTAFF. Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking; and for thy\n    walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or\n    the German hunting, in water-work, is worth a thousand of these\n    bed-hangers and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound,\n    if thou canst. Come, and 'twere not for thy humours, there's not\n    a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face, and draw the\n    action. Come, thou must not be in this humour with me; dost not\n    know me? Come, come, I know thou wast set on to this.\n  HOSTESS. Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles;\n    i' faith, I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me, la!\n  FALSTAFF. Let it alone; I'll make other shift. You'll be a fool\n    still.\n  HOSTESS. Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown.\n    I hope you'll come to supper. you'll pay me all together?\n  FALSTAFF. Will I live?  [To BARDOLPH]  Go, with her, with her; hook\n    on, hook on.\n  HOSTESS. Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?\n  FALSTAFF. No more words; let's have her.\n                          Exeunt HOSTESS, BARDOLPH, and OFFICERS\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I have heard better news.\n  FALSTAFF. What's the news, my lord?\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Where lay the King to-night?\n  GOWER. At Basingstoke, my lord.\n  FALSTAFF. I hope, my lord, all's well. What is the news, my lord?\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Come all his forces back?\n  GOWER. No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,\n    Are march'd up to my Lord of Lancaster,\n    Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.\n  FALSTAFF. Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord?\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. You shall have letters of me presently.\n    Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.\n  FALSTAFF. My lord!\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. What's the matter?\n  FALSTAFF. Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner?\n  GOWER. I must wait upon my good lord here, I thank you, good Sir\n    John.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to\n    take soldiers up in counties as you go.\n  FALSTAFF. Will you sup with me, Master Gower?\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir\n    John?\n  FALSTAFF. Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that\n    taught them me. This is the right fencing grace, my lord; tap for\n    tap, and so part fair.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Now, the Lord lighten thee! Thou art a great fool.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nLondon. Another street\n\nEnter PRINCE HENRY and POINS\n\n  PRINCE. Before God, I am exceeding weary.\n  POINS. Is't come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have\n    attach'd one of so high blood.\n  PRINCE. Faith, it does me; though it discolours the complexion of\n    my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it not show vilely in me to\n    desire small beer?\n  POINS. Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as to\n    remember so weak a composition.\n  PRINCE. Belike then my appetite was not-princely got; for, by my\n    troth, I do now remember the poor creature, small beer. But\n    indeed these humble considerations make me out of love with my\n    greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to remember thy name, or\n    to know thy face to-morrow, or to take note how many pair of silk\n    stockings thou hast- viz., these, and those that were thy\n    peach-colour'd ones- or to bear the inventory of thy shirts- as,\n    one for superfluity, and another for use! But that the\n    tennis-court-keeper knows better than I; for it is a low ebb of\n    linen with thee when thou keepest not racket there; as thou hast\n    not done a great while, because the rest of thy low countries\n    have made a shift to eat up thy holland. And God knows whether\n    those that bawl out of the ruins of thy linen shall inherit his\n    kingdom; but the midwives say the children are not in the fault;\n    whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are mightily\n    strengthened.\n  POINS. How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard, you\n    should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good young princes would\n    do so, their fathers being so sick as yours at this time is?\n  PRINCE. Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?\n  POINS. Yes, faith; and let it be an excellent good thing.\n  PRINCE. It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.\n  POINS. Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you will\n    tell.\n  PRINCE. Marry, I tell thee it is not meet that I should be sad, now\n    my father is sick; albeit I could tell to thee- as to one it\n    pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend- I could be\n    sad and sad indeed too.\n  POINS. Very hardly upon such a subject.\n  PRINCE. By this hand, thou thinkest me as far in the devil's book\n    as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and persistency: let the end\n    try the man. But I tell thee my heart bleeds inwardly that my\n    father is so sick; and keeping such vile company as thou art hath\n    in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.\n  POINS. The reason?\n  PRINCE. What wouldst thou think of me if I should weep?\n  POINS. I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.\n  PRINCE. It would be every man's thought; and thou art a blessed\n    fellow to think as every man thinks. Never a man's thought in the\n    world keeps the road-way better than thine. Every man would think\n    me an hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful\n    thought to think so?\n  POINS. Why, because you have been so lewd and so much engraffed to\n    Falstaff.\n  PRINCE. And to thee.\n  POINS. By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it with mine\n    own ears. The worst that they can say of me is that I am a second\n    brother and that I am a proper fellow of my hands; and those two\n    things, I confess, I cannot help. By the mass, here comes\n    Bardolph.\n\n                         Enter BARDOLPH and PAGE\n\n  PRINCE. And the boy that I gave Falstaff. 'A had him from me\n    Christian; and look if the fat villain have not transform'd him\n    ape.\n  BARDOLPH. God save your Grace!\n  PRINCE. And yours, most noble Bardolph!\n  POINS. Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful fool, must you be\n    blushing? Wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man-at-arms\n    are you become! Is't such a matter to get a pottle-pot's\n    maidenhead?\n  PAGE. 'A calls me e'en now, my lord, through a red lattice, and I\n    could discern no part of his face from the window. At last I\n    spied his eyes; and methought he had made two holes in the\n    alewife's new petticoat, and so peep'd through.\n  PRINCE. Has not the boy profited?\n  BARDOLPH. Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!\n  PAGE. Away, you rascally Althaea's dream, away!\n  PRINCE. Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy?\n  PAGE. Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamt she was delivered of a\n    firebrand; and therefore I call him her dream.\n  PRINCE. A crown's worth of good interpretation. There 'tis, boy.\n                                                [Giving a crown]\n  POINS. O that this blossom could be kept from cankers!\n    Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.\n  BARDOLPH. An you do not make him be hang'd among you, the gallows\n    shall have wrong.\n  PRINCE. And how doth thy master, Bardolph?\n  BARDOLPH. Well, my lord. He heard of your Grace's coming to town.\n    There's a letter for you.\n  POINS. Deliver'd with good respect. And how doth the martlemas,\n    your master?\n  BARDOLPH. In bodily health, sir.\n  POINS. Marry, the immortal part needs a physician; but that moves\n    not him. Though that be sick, it dies not.\n  PRINCE. I do allow this well to be as familiar with me as my dog;\n    and he holds his place, for look you how he writes.\n  POINS.  [Reads]  'John Falstaff, knight'- Every man must know that\n    as oft as he has occasion to name himself, even like those that\n    are kin to the King; for they never prick their finger but they\n    say 'There's some of the King's blood spilt.' 'How comes that?'\n    says he that takes upon him not to conceive. The answer is as\n    ready as a borrower's cap: 'I am the King's poor cousin, sir.'\n  PRINCE. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from\n    Japhet. But the letter:  [Reads]  'Sir John Falstaff, knight, to\n    the son of the King nearest his father, Harry Prince of Wales,\n    greeting.'\n  POINS. Why, this is a certificate.\n  PRINCE. Peace!  [Reads]  'I will imitate the honourable Romans in\n    brevity.'-\n  POINS. He sure means brevity in breath, short-winded.\n  PRINCE.  [Reads]  'I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I\n    leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins; for he misuses thy\n    favours so much that he swears thou art to marry his sister Nell.\n    Repent at idle times as thou mayst, and so farewell.\n      Thine, by yea and no- which is as much as to say as\n        thou usest him- JACK FALSTAFF with my familiars,\n        JOHN with my brothers and sisters, and SIR JOHN with\n        all Europe.'\n  POINS. My lord, I'll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it.\n  PRINCE. That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do you use\n    me thus, Ned? Must I marry your sister?\n  POINS. God send the wench no worse fortune! But I never said so.\n  PRINCE. Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits\n    of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. Is your master here in\n    London?\n  BARDOLPH. Yea, my lord.\n  PRINCE. Where sups he? Doth the old boar feed in the old frank?\n  BARDOLPH. At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.\n  PRINCE. What company?\n  PAGE. Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.\n  PRINCE. Sup any women with him?\n  PAGE. None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mistress Doll\n    Tearsheet.\n  PRINCE. What pagan may that be?\n  PAGE. A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master's.\n  PRINCE. Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town bull.\n    Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?\n  POINS. I am your shadow, my lord; I'll follow you.\n  PRINCE. Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your master that\n    I am yet come to town. There's for your silence.\n  BARDOLPH. I have no tongue, sir.\n  PAGE. And for mine, sir, I will govern it.\n  PRINCE. Fare you well; go.            Exeunt BARDOLPH and PAGE\n    This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.\n  POINS. I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint Albans and\n    London.\n  PRINCE. How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night in his\n    true colours, and not ourselves be seen?\n  POINS. Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait upon him at\n    his table as drawers.\n  PRINCE. From a god to a bull? A heavy descension! It was Jove's\n    case. From a prince to a prentice? A low transformation! That\n    shall be mine; for in everything the purpose must weigh with the\n    folly. Follow me, Ned.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nWarkworth. Before the castle\n\nEnter NORTHUMBERLAND, LADY NORTHUMBERLAND, and LADY PERCY\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daughter,\n    Give even way unto my rough affairs;\n    Put not you on the visage of the times\n    And be, like them, to Percy troublesome.\n  LADY NORTHUMBERLAND. I have given over, I will speak no more.\n    Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Alas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn;\n    And but my going nothing can redeem it.\n  LADY PERCY. O, yet, for God's sake, go not to these wars!\n    The time was, father, that you broke your word,\n    When you were more endear'd to it than now;\n    When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry,\n    Threw many a northward look to see his father\n    Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.\n    Who then persuaded you to stay at home?\n    There were two honours lost, yours and your son's.\n    For yours, the God of heaven brighten it!\n    For his, it stuck upon him as the sun\n    In the grey vault of heaven; and by his light\n    Did all the chivalry of England move\n    To do brave acts. He was indeed the glass\n    Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.\n    He had no legs that practis'd not his gait;\n    And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,\n    Became the accents of the valiant;\n    For those who could speak low and tardily\n    Would turn their own perfection to abuse\n    To seem like him: so that in speech, in gait,\n    In diet, in affections of delight,\n    In military rules, humours of blood,\n    He was the mark and glass, copy and book,\n    That fashion'd others. And him- O wondrous him!\n    O miracle of men!- him did you leave-\n    Second to none, unseconded by you-\n    To look upon the hideous god of war\n    In disadvantage, to abide a field\n    Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur's name\n    Did seem defensible. So you left him.\n    Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong\n    To hold your honour more precise and nice\n    With others than with him! Let them alone.\n    The Marshal and the Archbishop are strong.\n    Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,\n    To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck,\n    Have talk'd of Monmouth's grave.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Beshrew your heart,\n    Fair daughter, you do draw my spirits from me\n    With new lamenting ancient oversights.\n    But I must go and meet with danger there,\n    Or it will seek me in another place,\n    And find me worse provided.\n  LADY NORTHUMBERLAND. O, fly to Scotland\n    Till that the nobles and the armed commons\n    Have of their puissance made a little taste.\n  LADY PERCY. If they get ground and vantage of the King,\n    Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,\n    To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves,\n    First let them try themselves. So did your son;\n    He was so suff'red; so came I a widow;\n    And never shall have length of life enough\n    To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes,\n    That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven,\n    For recordation to my noble husband.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Come, come, go in with me. 'Tis with my mind\n    As with the tide swell'd up unto his height,\n    That makes a still-stand, running neither way.\n    Fain would I go to meet the Archbishop,\n    But many thousand reasons hold me back.\n    I will resolve for Scotland. There am I,\n    Till time and vantage crave my company.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. The Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap\n\nEnter FRANCIS and another DRAWER\n\n  FRANCIS. What the devil hast thou brought there-apple-johns? Thou\n    knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.\n  SECOND DRAWER. Mass, thou say'st true. The Prince once set a dish\n    of apple-johns before him, and told him there were five more Sir\n    Johns; and, putting off his hat, said 'I will now take my leave\n    of these six dry, round, old, withered knights.' It ang'red him\n    to the heart; but he hath forgot that.\n  FRANCIS. Why, then, cover and set them down; and see if thou canst\n    find out Sneak's noise; Mistress Tearsheet would fain hear some\n    music.\n\n                        Enter third DRAWER\n\n  THIRD DRAWER. Dispatch! The room where they supp'd is too hot;\n    they'll come in straight.\n  FRANCIS. Sirrah, here will be the Prince and Master Poins anon; and\n    they will put on two of our jerkins and aprons; and Sir John must\n    not know of it. Bardolph hath brought word.\n  THIRD DRAWER. By the mass, here will be old uds; it will be an\n    excellent stratagem.\n  SECOND DRAWER. I'll see if I can find out Sneak.\n                                 Exeunt second and third DRAWERS\n\n                Enter HOSTESS and DOLL TEARSHEET\n\n  HOSTESS. I' faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an excellent\n    good temperality. Your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart\n    would desire; and your colour, I warrant you, is as red as any\n    rose, in good truth, la! But, i' faith, you have drunk too much\n    canaries; and that's a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes\n    the blood ere one can say 'What's this?' How do you now?\n  DOLL. Better than I was- hem.\n  HOSTESS. Why, that's well said; a good heart's worth gold.\n    Lo, here comes Sir John.\n\n                          Enter FALSTAFF\n\n  FALSTAFF.  [Singing]  'When Arthur first in court'- Empty the\n    jordan.  [Exit FRANCIS]- [Singing]  'And was a worthy king'- How\n    now, Mistress Doll!\n  HOSTESS. Sick of a calm; yea, good faith.\n  FALSTAFF. So is all her sect; and they be once in a calm, they are\n    sick.\n  DOLL. A pox damn you, you muddy rascal! Is that all the comfort you\n    give me?\n  FALSTAFF. You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.\n  DOLL. I make them! Gluttony and diseases make them: I make them\n    not.\n  FALSTAFF. If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to make\n    the diseases, Doll. We catch of you, Doll, we catch of you; grant\n    that, my poor virtue, grant that.\n  DOLL. Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.\n  FALSTAFF. 'Your brooches, pearls, and ouches.' For to serve bravely\n    is to come halting off; you know, to come off the breach with his\n    pike bent bravely, and to surgery bravely; to venture upon the\n    charg'd chambers bravely-\n  DOLL. Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!\n  HOSTESS. By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never meet\n    but you fall to some discord. You are both, i' good truth, as\n    rheumatic as two dry toasts; you cannot one bear with another's\n    confirmities. What the good-year! one must bear, and that must be\n    you. You are the weaker vessel, as as they say, the emptier\n    vessel.\n  DOLL. Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full hogs-head?\n    There's a whole merchant's venture of Bourdeaux stuff in him; you\n    have not seen a hulk better stuff'd in the hold. Come, I'll be\n    friends with thee, Jack. Thou art going to the wars; and whether\n    I shall ever see thee again or no, there is nobody cares.\n\n                            Re-enter FRANCIS\n\n  FRANCIS. Sir, Ancient Pistol's below and would speak with you.\n  DOLL. Hang him, swaggering rascal! Let him not come hither; it is\n    the foul-mouth'dst rogue in England.\n  HOSTESS. If he swagger, let him not come here. No, by my faith! I\n    must live among my neighbours; I'll no swaggerers. I am in good\n    name and fame with the very best. Shut the door. There comes no\n    swaggerers here; I have not liv'd all this while to have\n    swaggering now. Shut the door, I pray you.\n  FALSTAFF. Dost thou hear, hostess?\n  HOSTESS. Pray ye, pacify yourself, Sir John; there comes no\n    swaggerers here.\n  FALSTAFF. Dost thou hear? It is mine ancient.\n  HOSTESS. Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne'er tell me; and your ancient\n    swagg'rer comes not in my doors. I was before Master Tisick, the\n    debuty, t' other day; and, as he said to me- 'twas no longer ago\n    than Wednesday last, i' good faith!- 'Neighbour Quickly,' says\n    he- Master Dumbe, our minister, was by then- 'Neighbour Quickly,'\n    says he 'receive those that are civil, for' said he 'you are in\n    an ill name.' Now 'a said so, I can tell whereupon. 'For' says he\n    'you are an honest woman and well thought on, therefore take heed\n    what guests you receive. Receive' says he 'no swaggering\n    companions.' There comes none here. You would bless you to hear\n    what he said. No, I'll no swagg'rers.\n  FALSTAFF. He's no swagg'rer, hostess; a tame cheater, i' faith; you\n    may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound. He'll not swagger\n    with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in any show of\n    resistance. Call him up, drawer.\n                                                    Exit FRANCIS\n  HOSTESS. Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my house,\n    nor no cheater; but I do not love swaggering, by my troth. I am\n    the worse when one says 'swagger.' Feel, masters, how I shake;\n    look you, I warrant you.\n  DOLL. So you do, hostess.\n  HOSTESS. Do I? Yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen leaf. I\n    cannot abide swagg'rers.\n\n                   Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and PAGE\n\n  PISTOL. God save you, Sir John!\n  FALSTAFF. Welcome, Ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge you with\n    a cup of sack; do you discharge upon mine hostess.\n  PISTOL. I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets.\n  FALSTAFF. She is pistol-proof, sir; you shall not hardly offend\n    her.\n  HOSTESS. Come, I'll drink no proofs nor no bullets. I'll drink no\n    more than will do me good, for no man's pleasure, I.\n  PISTOL. Then to you, Mistress Dorothy; I will charge you.\n  DOLL. Charge me! I scorn you, scurvy companion. What! you poor,\n    base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate! Away, you mouldy\n    rogue, away! I am meat for your master.\n  PISTOL. I know you, Mistress Dorothy.\n  DOLL. Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away! By this\n    wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the\n    saucy cuttle with me. Away, you bottle-ale rascal! you\n    basket-hilt stale juggler, you! Since when, I pray you, sir?\n    God's light, with two points on your shoulder? Much!\n  PISTOL. God let me not live but I will murder your ruff for this.\n  FALSTAFF. No more, Pistol; I would not have you go off here.\n    Discharge yourself of our company, Pistol.\n  HOSTESS. No, good Captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain.\n  DOLL. Captain! Thou abominable damn'd cheater, art thou not ashamed\n    to be called captain? An captains were of my mind, they would\n    truncheon you out, for taking their names upon you before you\n    have earn'd them. You a captain! you slave, for what? For tearing\n    a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy-house? He a captain! hang him,\n    rogue! He lives upon mouldy stew'd prunes and dried cakes. A\n    captain! God's light, these villains will make the word as odious\n    as the word 'occupy'; which was an excellent good word before it\n    was ill sorted. Therefore captains had need look to't.\n  BARDOLPH. Pray thee go down, good ancient.\n  FALSTAFF. Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.\n  PISTOL. Not I! I tell thee what, Corporal Bardolph, I could tear\n    her; I'll be reveng'd of her.\n  PAGE. Pray thee go down.\n  PISTOL. I'll see her damn'd first; to Pluto's damn'd lake, by this\n    hand, to th' infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also.\n    Hold hook and line, say I. Down, down, dogs! down, faitors! Have\n    we not Hiren here?\n  HOSTESS. Good Captain Peesel, be quiet; 'tis very late, i' faith; I\n    beseek you now, aggravate your choler.\n  PISTOL. These be good humours, indeed! Shall packhorses,\n    And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia,\n    Which cannot go but thirty mile a day,\n    Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals,\n    And Troiant Greeks? Nay, rather damn them with\n    King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar.\n    Shall we fall foul for toys?\n  HOSTESS. By my troth, Captain, these are very bitter words.\n  BARDOLPH. Be gone, good ancient; this will grow to a brawl anon.\n  PISTOL. Die men like dogs! Give crowns like pins! Have we not Hiren\n    here?\n  HOSTESS. O' my word, Captain, there's none such here. What the\n    good-year! do you think I would deny her? For God's sake, be\n    quiet.\n  PISTOL. Then feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis.\n    Come, give's some sack.\n    'Si fortune me tormente sperato me contento.'\n    Fear we broadsides? No, let the fiend give fire.\n    Give me some sack; and, sweetheart, lie thou there.\n                                         [Laying down his sword]\n    Come we to full points here, and are etceteras nothings?\n  FALSTAFF. Pistol, I would be quiet.\n  PISTOL. Sweet knight, I kiss thy neaf. What! we have seen the seven\n    stars.\n  DOLL. For God's sake thrust him down stairs; I cannot endure such a\n    fustian rascal.\n  PISTOL. Thrust him down stairs! Know we not Galloway nags?\n  FALSTAFF. Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling.\n    Nay, an 'a do nothing but speak nothing, 'a shall be nothing\n    here.\n  BARDOLPH. Come, get you down stairs.\n  PISTOL. What! shall we have incision? Shall we imbrue?\n                                        [Snatching up his sword]\n    Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!\n    Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds\n    Untwine the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!\n  HOSTESS. Here's goodly stuff toward!\n  FALSTAFF. Give me my rapier, boy.\n  DOLL. I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.\n  FALSTAFF. Get you down stairs.\n                                [Drawing and driving PISTOL out]\n  HOSTESS. Here's a goodly tumult! I'll forswear keeping house afore\n    I'll be in these tirrits and frights. So; murder, I warrant now.\n    Alas, alas! put up your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.\n                                      Exeunt PISTOL and BARDOLPH\n  DOLL. I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal's gone. Ah, you\n    whoreson little valiant villain, you!\n  HOSTESS. Are you not hurt i' th' groin? Methought 'a made a shrewd\n    thrust at your belly.\n\n                        Re-enter BARDOLPH\n\n  FALSTAFF. Have you turn'd him out a doors?\n  BARDOLPH. Yea, sir. The rascal's drunk. You have hurt him, sir, i'\n    th' shoulder.\n  FALSTAFF. A rascal! to brave me!\n  DOLL. Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, poor ape, how thou\n    sweat'st! Come, let me wipe thy face. Come on, you whoreson\n    chops. Ah, rogue! i' faith, I love thee. Thou art as valorous as\n    Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better\n    than the Nine Worthies. Ah, villain!\n  FALSTAFF. A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.\n  DOLL. Do, an thou dar'st for thy heart. An thou dost, I'll canvass\n    thee between a pair of sheets.\n\n                          Enter musicians\n\n  PAGE. The music is come, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Don. A rascal\n    bragging slave! The rogue fled from me like quick-silver.\n  DOLL. I' faith, and thou follow'dst him like a church. Thou\n    whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt thou leave\n    fighting a days and foining a nights, and begin to patch up thine\n    old body for heaven?\n\n       Enter, behind, PRINCE HENRY and POINS disguised as drawers\n\n  FALSTAFF. Peace, good Doll! Do not speak like a death's-head; do\n    not bid me remember mine end.\n  DOLL. Sirrah, what humour's the Prince of?\n  FALSTAFF. A good shallow young fellow. 'A would have made a good\n    pantler; 'a would ha' chipp'd bread well.\n  DOLL. They say Poins has a good wit.\n  FALSTAFF. He a good wit! hang him, baboon! His wit's as thick as\n    Tewksbury mustard; there's no more conceit in him than is in a\n    mallet.\n  DOLL. Why does the Prince love him so, then?\n  FALSTAFF. Because their legs are both of a bigness, and 'a plays at\n    quoits well, and eats conger and fennel, and drinks off candles'\n    ends for flap-dragons, and rides the wild mare with the boys, and\n    jumps upon join'd-stools, and swears with a good grace, and wears\n    his boots very smooth, like unto the sign of the Leg, and breeds\n    no bate with telling of discreet stories; and such other gambol\n    faculties 'a has, that show a weak mind and an able body, for the\n    which the Prince admits him. For the Prince himself is such\n    another; the weight of a hair will turn the scales between their\n    avoirdupois.\n  PRINCE. Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?\n  POINS. Let's beat him before his whore.\n  PRINCE. Look whe'er the wither'd elder hath not his poll claw'd\n    like a parrot.\n  POINS. Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive\n    performance?\n  FALSTAFF. Kiss me, Doll.\n  PRINCE. Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! What says th'\n    almanac to that?\n  POINS. And look whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not lisping\n    to his master's old tables, his note-book, his counsel-keeper.\n  FALSTAFF. Thou dost give me flattering busses.\n  DOLL. By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.\n  FALSTAFF. I am old, I am old.\n  DOLL. I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young boy of\n    them all.\n  FALSTAFF. What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive money a\n    Thursday. Shalt have a cap to-morrow. A merry song, come. 'A\n    grows late; we'll to bed. Thou't forget me when I am gone.\n  DOLL. By my troth, thou't set me a-weeping, an thou say'st so.\n    Prove that ever I dress myself handsome till thy return. Well,\n    hearken a' th' end.\n  FALSTAFF. Some sack, Francis.\n  PRINCE & POINS. Anon, anon, sir.                   [Advancing]\n  FALSTAFF. Ha! a bastard son of the King's? And art thou not Poins\n    his brother?\n  PRINCE. Why, thou globe of sinful continents, what a life dost thou\n    lead!\n  FALSTAFF. A better than thou. I am a gentleman: thou art a drawer.\n  PRINCE. Very true, sir, and I come to draw you out by the ears.\n  HOSTESS. O, the Lord preserve thy Grace! By my troth, welcome to\n    London. Now the Lord bless that sweet face of thine. O Jesu, are\n    you come from Wales?\n  FALSTAFF. Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light\n    flesh and corrupt blood, thou art welcome.\n                                    [Leaning his band upon DOLL]\n  DOLL. How, you fat fool! I scorn you.\n  POINS. My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge and turn all\n    to a merriment, if you take not the heat.\n  PRINCE. YOU whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely did you speak of\n    me even now before this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman!\n  HOSTESS. God's blessing of your good heart! and so she is, by my\n    troth.\n  FALSTAFF. Didst thou hear me?\n  PRINCE. Yea; and you knew me, as you did when you ran away by\n    Gadshill. You knew I was at your back, and spoke it on purpose to\n    try my patience.\n  FALSTAFF. No, no, no; not so; I did not think thou wast within\n    hearing.\n  PRINCE. I shall drive you then to confess the wilful abuse, and\n    then I know how to handle you.\n  FALSTAFF. No abuse, Hal, o' mine honour; no abuse.\n  PRINCE. Not- to dispraise me, and call me pander, and\n    bread-chipper, and I know not what!\n  FALSTAFF. No abuse, Hal.\n  POINS. No abuse!\n  FALSTAFF. No abuse, Ned, i' th' world; honest Ned, none. I\n    disprais'd him before the wicked- that the wicked might not fall\n    in love with thee; in which doing, I have done the part of a\n    careful friend and a true subject; and thy father is to give me\n    thanks for it. No abuse, Hal; none, Ned, none; no, faith, boys,\n    none.\n  PRINCE. See now, whether pure fear and entire cowardice doth not\n    make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman to close with us? Is\n    she of the wicked? Is thine hostess here of the wicked? Or is thy\n    boy of the wicked? Or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his\n    nose, of the wicked?\n  POINS. Answer, thou dead elm, answer.\n  FALSTAFF. The fiend hath prick'd down Bardolph irrecoverable; and\n    his face is Lucifer's privy-kitchen, where he doth nothing but\n    roast malt-worms. For the boy- there is a good angel about him;\n    but the devil outbids him too.\n  PRINCE. For the women?\n  FALSTAFF. For one of them- she's in hell already, and burns poor\n    souls. For th' other- I owe her money; and whether she be damn'd\n    for that, I know not.\n  HOSTESS. No, I warrant you.\n  FALSTAFF. No, I think thou art not; I think thou art quit for that.\n    Marry, there is another indictment upon thee for suffering flesh\n    to be eaten in thy house, contrary to the law; for the which I\n    think thou wilt howl.\n  HOSTESS. All vict'lers do so. What's a joint of mutton or two in a\n    whole Lent?\n  PRINCE. You, gentlewoman-\n  DOLL. What says your Grace?\n  FALSTAFF. His Grace says that which his flesh rebels against.\n                                               [Knocking within]\n  HOSTESS. Who knocks so loud at door? Look to th' door there,\n    Francis.\n\n                              Enter PETO\n\n  PRINCE. Peto, how now! What news?\n  PETO. The King your father is at Westminster;\n    And there are twenty weak and wearied posts\n    Come from the north; and as I came along\n    I met and overtook a dozen captains,\n    Bare-headed, sweating, knocking at the taverns,\n    And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff.\n  PRINCE. By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame\n    So idly to profane the precious time,\n    When tempest of commotion, like the south,\n    Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt\n    And drop upon our bare unarmed heads.\n    Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good night.\n\n                        Exeunt PRINCE, POINS, PETO, and BARDOLPH\n\n  FALSTAFF. Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and we\n    must hence, and leave it unpick'd.  [Knocking within]  More\n    knocking at the door!\n\n                      Re-enter BARDOLPH\n\n    How now! What's the matter?\n  BARDOLPH. You must away to court, sir, presently;\n    A dozen captains stay at door for you.\n  FALSTAFF.  [To the PAGE]. Pay the musicians, sirrah.- Farewell,\n    hostess; farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches, how men of\n    merit are sought after; the undeserver may sleep, when the man of\n    action is call'd on. Farewell, good wenches. If I be not sent\n    away post, I will see you again ere I go.\n  DOLL. I cannot speak. If my heart be not ready to burst!\n    Well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.\n  FALSTAFF. Farewell, farewell.\n                                    Exeunt FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH\n  HOSTESS. Well, fare thee well. I have known thee these twenty-nine\n    years, come peascod-time; but an honester and truer-hearted man\n    -well fare thee well.\n  BARDOLPH.  [ Within]  Mistress Tearsheet!\n  HOSTESS. What's the matter?\n  BARDOLPH.  [ Within]  Bid Mistress Tearsheet come to my master.\n  HOSTESS. O, run Doll, run, run, good Come.  [To BARDOLPH]  She\n    comes blubber'd.- Yea, will you come, Doll?           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nWestminster. The palace\n\nEnter the KING in his nightgown, with a page\n\n  KING. Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick;\n    But, ere they come, bid them o'er-read these letters\n    And well consider of them. Make good speed.        Exit page\n    How many thousands of my poorest subjects\n    Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,\n    Nature's soft nurse, how have I frightened thee,\n    That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down,\n    And steep my senses in forgetfulness?\n    Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,\n    Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,\n    And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,\n    Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,\n    Under the canopies of costly state,\n    And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody?\n    O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile\n    In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch\n    A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell?\n    Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast\n    Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains\n    In cradle of the rude imperious surge,\n    And in the visitation of the winds,\n    Who take the ruffian billows by the top,\n    Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them\n    With deafing clamour in the slippery clouds,\n    That with the hurly death itself awakes?\n    Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose\n    To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;\n    And in the calmest and most stillest night,\n    With all appliances and means to boot,\n    Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!\n    Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.\n\n                    Enter WARWICK and Surrey\n\n  WARWICK. Many good morrows to your Majesty!\n  KING. Is it good morrow, lords?\n  WARWICK. 'Tis one o'clock, and past.\n  KING. Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords.\n    Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you?\n  WARWICK. We have, my liege.\n  KING. Then you perceive the body of our kingdom\n    How foul it is; what rank diseases grow,\n    And with what danger, near the heart of it.\n  WARWICK. It is but as a body yet distempered;\n    Which to his former strength may be restored\n    With good advice and little medicine.\n    My Lord Northumberland will soon be cool'd.\n  KING. O God! that one might read the book of fate,\n    And see the revolution of the times\n    Make mountains level, and the continent,\n    Weary of solid firmness, melt itself\n    Into the sea; and other times to see\n    The beachy girdle of the ocean\n    Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,\n    And changes fill the cup of alteration\n    With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,\n    The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,\n    What perils past, what crosses to ensue,\n    Would shut the book and sit him down and die.\n    'Tis not ten years gone\n    Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,\n    Did feast together, and in two years after\n    Were they at wars. It is but eight years since\n    This Percy was the man nearest my soul;\n    Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs\n    And laid his love and life under my foot;\n    Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard\n    Gave him defiance. But which of you was by-\n    [To WARWICK]  You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember-\n    When Richard, with his eye brim full of tears,\n    Then check'd and rated by Northumberland,\n    Did speak these words, now prov'd a prophecy?\n    'Northumberland, thou ladder by the which\n    My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne'-\n    Though then, God knows, I had no such intent\n    But that necessity so bow'd the state\n    That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss-\n    'The time shall come'- thus did he follow it-\n    'The time will come that foul sin, gathering head,\n    Shall break into corruption' so went on,\n    Foretelling this same time's condition\n    And the division of our amity.\n  WARWICK. There is a history in all men's lives,\n    Figuring the natures of the times deceas'd;\n    The which observ'd, a man may prophesy,\n    With a near aim, of the main chance of things\n    As yet not come to life, who in their seeds\n    And weak beginning lie intreasured.\n    Such things become the hatch and brood of time;\n    And, by the necessary form of this,\n    King Richard might create a perfect guess\n    That great Northumberland, then false to him,\n    Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness;\n    Which should not find a ground to root upon\n    Unless on you.\n  KING. Are these things then necessities?\n    Then let us meet them like necessities;\n    And that same word even now cries out on us.\n    They say the Bishop and Northumberland\n    Are fifty thousand strong.\n  WARWICK. It cannot be, my lord.\n    Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,\n    The numbers of the feared. Please it your Grace\n    To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord,\n    The powers that you already have sent forth\n    Shall bring this prize in very easily.\n    To comfort you the more, I have receiv'd\n    A certain instance that Glendower is dead.\n    Your Majesty hath been this fortnight ill;\n    And these unseasoned hours perforce must ad\n    Unto your sickness.\n  KING. I will take your counsel.\n    And, were these inward wars once out of hand,\n    We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nGloucestershire. Before Justice, SHALLOW'S house\n\nEnter SHALLOW and SILENCE, meeting; MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, BULLCALF,\nand servants behind\n\n  SHALLOW. Come on, come on, come on; give me your hand, sir; give me\n    your hand, sir. An early stirrer, by the rood! And how doth my\n    good cousin Silence?\n  SILENCE. Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.\n  SHALLOW. And how doth my cousin, your bed-fellow? and your fairest\n    daughter and mine, my god-daughter Ellen?\n  SILENCE. Alas, a black ousel, cousin Shallow!\n  SHALLOW. By yea and no, sir. I dare say my cousin William is become\n    a good scholar; he is at Oxford still, is he not?\n  SILENCE. Indeed, sir, to my cost.\n  SHALLOW. 'A must, then, to the Inns o' Court shortly. I was once of\n    Clement's Inn; where I think they will talk of mad Shallow yet.\n  SILENCE. You were call'd 'lusty Shallow' then, cousin.\n  SHALLOW. By the mass, I was call'd anything; and I would have done\n    anything indeed too, and roundly too. There was I, and little\n    John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Barnes, and Francis\n    Pickbone, and Will Squele a Cotsole man- you had not four such\n    swinge-bucklers in all the Inns of Court again. And I may say to\n    you we knew where the bona-robas were, and had the best of them\n    all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, boy,\n    and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.\n  SILENCE. This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about\n    soldiers?\n  SHALLOW. The same Sir John, the very same. I see him break\n    Scoggin's head at the court gate, when 'a was a crack not thus\n    high; and the very same day did I fight with one Sampson\n    Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the mad\n    days that I have spent! and to see how many of my old\n    acquaintance are dead!\n  SILENCE. We shall all follow, cousin.\n  SHALLOW. Certain, 'tis certain; very sure, very sure. Death, as the\n    Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall die. How a good yoke\n    of bullocks at Stamford fair?\n  SILENCE. By my troth, I was not there.\n  SHALLOW. Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living yet?\n  SILENCE. Dead, sir.\n  SHALLOW. Jesu, Jesu, dead! drew a good bow; and dead! 'A shot a\n    fine shoot. John a Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on\n    his head. Dead! 'A would have clapp'd i' th' clout at twelve\n    score, and carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen\n    and a half, that it would have done a man's heart good to see.\n    How a score of ewes now?\n  SILENCE. Thereafter as they be- a score of good ewes may be worth\n    ten pounds.\n  SHALLOW. And is old Double dead?\n\n                    Enter BARDOLPH, and one with him\n\n  SILENCE. Here come two of Sir John Falstaffs men, as I think.\n  SHALLOW. Good morrow, honest gentlemen.\n  BARDOLPH. I beseech you, which is Justice Shallow?\n  SHALLOW. I am Robert Shallow, sir, a poor esquire of this county,\n    and one of the King's justices of the peace. What is your good\n    pleasure with me?\n  BARDOLPH. My captain, sir, commends him to you; my captain, Sir\n    John Falstaff- a tall gentleman, by heaven, and a most gallant\n    leader.\n  SHALLOW. He greets me well, sir; I knew him a good back-sword man.\n    How doth the good knight? May I ask how my lady his wife doth?\n  BARDOLPH. Sir, pardon; a soldier is better accommodated than with a\n    wife.\n  SHALLOW. It is well said, in faith, sir; and it is well said indeed\n    too. 'Better accommodated!' It is good; yea, indeed, is it. Good\n    phrases are surely, and ever were, very commendable.\n    'Accommodated!' It comes of accommodo. Very good; a good phrase.\n  BARDOLPH. Pardon, sir; I have heard the word. 'Phrase' call you it?\n    By this day, I know not the phrase; but I will maintain the word\n    with my sword to be a soldier-like word, and a word of exceeding\n    good command, by heaven. Accommodated: that is, when a man is, as\n    they say, accommodated; or, when a man is being-whereby 'a may be\n    thought to be accommodated; which is an excellent thing.\n\n                              Enter FALSTAFF\n\n  SHALLOW. It is very just. Look, here comes good Sir John. Give me\n    your good hand, give me your worship's good hand. By my troth,\n    you like well and bear your years very well. Welcome, good Sir\n    John.\n  FALSTAFF. I am glad to see you well, good Master Robert Shallow.\n    Master Surecard, as I think?\n  SHALLOW. No, Sir John; it is my cousin Silence, in commission with\n   me.\n  FALSTAFF. Good Master Silence, it well befits you should be of the\n    peace.\n  SILENCE. Your good worship is welcome.\n  FALSTAFF. Fie! this is hot weather. Gentlemen, have you provided me\n    here half a dozen sufficient men?\n  SHALLOW. Marry, have we, sir. Will you sit?\n  FALSTAFF. Let me see them, I beseech you.\n  SHALLOW. Where's the roll? Where's the roll? Where's the roll? Let\n    me see, let me see, let me see. So, so, so, so,- so, so- yea,\n    marry, sir. Rafe Mouldy! Let them appear as I call; let them do\n    so, let them do so. Let me see; where is Mouldy?\n  MOULDY. Here, an't please you.\n  SHALLOW. What think you, Sir John? A good-limb'd fellow; young,\n    strong, and of good friends.\n  FALSTAFF. Is thy name Mouldy?\n  MOULDY. Yea, an't please you.\n  FALSTAFF. 'Tis the more time thou wert us'd.\n  SHALLOW. Ha, ha, ha! most excellent, i' faith! Things that are\n    mouldy lack use. Very singular good! In faith, well said, Sir\n    John; very well said.\n  FALSTAFF. Prick him.\n  MOULDY. I was prick'd well enough before, an you could have let me\n    alone. My old dame will be undone now for one to do her husbandry\n    and her drudgery. You need not to have prick'd me; there are\n    other men fitter to go out than I.\n  FALSTAFF. Go to; peace, Mouldy; you shall go. Mouldy, it is time\n    you were spent.\n  MOULDY. Spent!\n  SHALLOW. Peace, fellow, peace; stand aside; know you where you are?\n    For th' other, Sir John- let me see. Simon Shadow!\n  FALSTAFF. Yea, marry, let me have him to sit under. He's like to be\n    a cold soldier.\n  SHALLOW. Where's Shadow?\n  SHADOW. Here, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Shadow, whose son art thou?\n  SHADOW. My mother's son, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Thy mother's son! Like enough; and thy father's shadow.\n    So the son of the female is the shadow of the male. It is often\n    so indeed; but much of the father's substance!\n  SHALLOW. Do you like him, Sir John?\n  FALSTAFF. Shadow will serve for summer. Prick him; for we have a\n    number of shadows fill up the muster-book.\n  SHALLOW. Thomas Wart!\n  FALSTAFF. Where's he?\n  WART. Here, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Is thy name Wart?\n  WART. Yea, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Thou art a very ragged wart.\n  SHALLOW. Shall I prick him, Sir John?\n  FALSTAFF. It were superfluous; for his apparel is built upon his\n    back, and the whole frame stands upon pins. Prick him no more.\n  SHALLOW. Ha, ha, ha! You can do it, sir; you can do it. I commend\n    you well. Francis Feeble!\n  FEEBLE. Here, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. What trade art thou, Feeble?\n  FEEBLE. A woman's tailor, sir.\n  SHALLOW. Shall I prick him, sir?\n  FALSTAFF. You may; but if he had been a man's tailor, he'd ha'\n    prick'd you. Wilt thou make as many holes in an enemy's battle as\n    thou hast done in a woman's petticoat?\n  FEEBLE. I will do my good will, sir; you can have no more.\n  FALSTAFF. Well said, good woman's tailor! well said, courageous\n    Feeble! Thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove or most\n    magnanimous mouse. Prick the woman's tailor- well, Master\n    Shallow, deep, Master Shallow.\n  FEEBLE. I would Wart might have gone, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. I would thou wert a man's tailor, that thou mightst mend\n    him and make him fit to go. I cannot put him to a private\n    soldier, that is the leader of so many thousands. Let that\n    suffice, most forcible Feeble.\n  FEEBLE. It shall suffice, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble. Who is next?\n  SHALLOW. Peter Bullcalf o' th' green!\n  FALSTAFF. Yea, marry, let's see Bullcalf.\n  BULLCALF. Here, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Fore God, a likely fellow! Come, prick me Bullcalf till\n    he roar again.\n  BULLCALF. O Lord! good my lord captain-\n  FALSTAFF. What, dost thou roar before thou art prick'd?\n  BULLCALF. O Lord, sir! I am a diseased man.\n  FALSTAFF. What disease hast thou?\n  BULLCALF. A whoreson cold, sir, a cough, sir, which I caught with\n    ringing in the King's affairs upon his coronation day, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown. We will have\n    away thy cold; and I will take such order that thy friends shall\n    ring for thee. Is here all?\n  SHALLOW. Here is two more call'd than your number. You must have\n    but four here, sir; and so, I pray you, go in with me to dinner.\n  FALSTAFF. Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry\n    dinner. I am glad to see you, by my troth, Master Shallow.\n  SHALLOW. O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the\n    windmill in Saint George's Field?\n  FALSTAFF. No more of that, Master Shallow, no more of that.\n  SHALLOW. Ha, 'twas a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive?\n  FALSTAFF. She lives, Master Shallow.\n  SHALLOW. She never could away with me.\n  FALSTAFF. Never, never; she would always say she could not abide\n    Master Shallow.\n  SHALLOW. By the mass, I could anger her to th' heart. She was then\n    a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well?\n  FALSTAFF. Old, old, Master Shallow.\n  SHALLOW. Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old;\n    certain she's old; and had Robin Nightwork, by old Nightwork,\n    before I came to Clement's Inn.\n  SILENCE. That's fifty-five year ago.\n  SHALLOW. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this\n    knight and I have seen! Ha, Sir John, said I well?\n  FALSTAFF. We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.\n  SHALLOW. That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith, Sir\n    John, we have. Our watchword was 'Hem, boys!' Come, let's to\n    dinner; come, let's to dinner. Jesus, the days that we have seen!\n    Come, come.\n                                Exeunt FALSTAFF and the JUSTICES\n  BULLCALF. Good Master Corporate Bardolph, stand my friend; and\n    here's four Harry ten shillings in French crowns for you. In very\n    truth, sir, I had as lief be hang'd, sir, as go. And yet, for\n    mine own part, sir, I do not care; but rather because I am\n    unwilling and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my\n    friends; else, sir, I did not care for mine own part so much.\n  BARDOLPH. Go to; stand aside.\n  MOULDY. And, good Master Corporal Captain, for my old dame's sake,\n    stand my friend. She has nobody to do anything about her when I\n    am gone; and she is old, and cannot help herself. You shall have\n    forty, sir.\n  BARDOLPH. Go to; stand aside.\n  FEEBLE. By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God\n    a death. I'll ne'er bear a base mind. An't be my destiny, so;\n    an't be not, so. No man's too good to serve 's Prince; and, let\n    it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the\n    next.\n  BARDOLPH. Well said; th'art a good fellow.\n  FEEBLE. Faith, I'll bear no base mind.\n\n                    Re-enter FALSTAFF and the JUSTICES\n\n  FALSTAFF. Come, sir, which men shall I have?\n  SHALLOW. Four of which you please.\n  BARDOLPH. Sir, a word with you. I have three pound to free Mouldy\n    and Bullcalf.\n  FALSTAFF. Go to; well.\n  SHALLOW. Come, Sir John, which four will you have?\n  FALSTAFF. Do you choose for me.\n  SHALLOW. Marry, then- Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble, and Shadow.\n  FALSTAFF. Mouldy and Bullcalf: for you, Mouldy, stay at home till\n    you are past service; and for your part, Bullcalf, grow you come\n    unto it. I will none of you.\n  SHALLOW. Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong. They are your\n    likeliest men, and I would have you serv'd with the best.\n  FALSTAFF. Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a man?\n    Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and big\n    assemblance of a man! Give me the spirit, Master Shallow. Here's\n    Wart; you see what a ragged appearance it is. 'A shall charge you\n    and discharge you with the motion of a pewterer's hammer, come\n    off and on swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer's bucket.\n    And this same half-fac'd fellow, Shadow- give me this man. He\n    presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim\n    level at the edge of a penknife. And, for a retreat- how swiftly\n    will this Feeble, the woman's tailor, run off! O, give me the\n    spare men, and spare me the great ones. Put me a caliver into\n    Wart's hand, Bardolph.\n  BARDOLPH. Hold, Wart. Traverse- thus, thus, thus.\n  FALSTAFF. Come, manage me your caliver. So- very well. Go to; very\n    good; exceeding good. O, give me always a little, lean, old,\n    chopt, bald shot. Well said, i' faith, Wart; th'art a good scab.\n    Hold, there's a tester for thee.\n  SHALLOW. He is not his craft's master, he doth not do it right. I\n    remember at Mile-end Green, when I lay at Clement's Inn- I was\n    then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show- there was a little quiver\n    fellow, and 'a would manage you his piece thus; and 'a would\n    about and about, and come you in and come you in. 'Rah, tah,\n    tah!' would 'a say; 'Bounce!' would 'a say; and away again would\n    'a go, and again would 'a come. I shall ne'er see such a fellow.\n  FALSTAFF. These fellows will do well. Master Shallow, God keep you!\n    Master Silence, I will not use many words with you: Fare you\n    well! Gentlemen both, I thank you. I must a dozen mile to-night.\n    Bardolph, give the soldiers coats.\n  SHALLOW. Sir John, the Lord bless you; God prosper your affairs;\n    God send us peace! At your return, visit our house; let our old\n    acquaintance be renewed. Peradventure I will with ye to the\n    court.\n  FALSTAFF. Fore God, would you would.\n  SHALLOW. Go to; I have spoke at a word. God keep you.\n  FALSTAFF. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen.  [Exeunt JUSTICES]  On,\n    Bardolph; lead the men away.  [Exeunt all but FALSTAFF]  As I\n    return, I will fetch off these justices. I do see the bottom of\n    justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this\n    vice of lying! This same starv'd justice hath done nothing but\n    prate to me of the wildness of his youth and the feats he hath\n    done about Turnbull Street; and every third word a lie, duer paid\n    to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at\n    Clement's Inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring.\n    When 'a was naked, he was for all the world like a fork'd radish,\n    with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife. 'A was so\n    forlorn that his dimensions to any thick sight were invisible. 'A\n    was the very genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the\n    whores call'd him mandrake. 'A came ever in the rearward of the\n    fashion, and sung those tunes to the overscutch'd huswifes that\n    he heard the carmen whistle, and sware they were his fancies or\n    his good-nights. And now is this Vice's dagger become a squire,\n    and talks as familiarly of John a Gaunt as if he had been sworn\n    brother to him; and I'll be sworn 'a ne'er saw him but once in\n    the Tiltyard; and then he burst his head for crowding among the\n    marshal's men. I saw it, and told John a Gaunt he beat his own\n    name; for you might have thrust him and all his apparel into an\n    eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a\n    court- and now has he land and beeves. Well, I'll be acquainted\n    with him if I return; and 't shall go hard but I'll make him a\n    philosopher's two stones to me. If the young dace be a bait for\n    the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap\n    at him. Let time shape, and there an end.               Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nYorkshire. Within the Forest of Gaultree\n\nEnter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, MOWBRAY, HASTINGS, and others\n\n  ARCHBISHOP. What is this forest call'd\n  HASTINGS. 'Tis Gaultree Forest, an't shall please your Grace.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Here stand, my lords, and send discoverers forth\n    To know the numbers of our enemies.\n  HASTINGS. We have sent forth already.\n  ARCHBISHOP. 'Tis well done.\n    My friends and brethren in these great affairs,\n    I must acquaint you that I have receiv'd\n    New-dated letters from Northumberland;\n    Their cold intent, tenour, and substance, thus:\n    Here doth he wish his person, with such powers\n    As might hold sortance with his quality,\n    The which he could not levy; whereupon\n    He is retir'd, to ripe his growing fortunes,\n    To Scotland; and concludes in hearty prayers\n    That your attempts may overlive the hazard\n    And fearful meeting of their opposite.\n  MOWBRAY. Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground\n    And dash themselves to pieces.\n\n                          Enter A MESSENGER\n\n  HASTINGS. Now, what news?\n  MESSENGER. West of this forest, scarcely off a mile,\n    In goodly form comes on the enemy;\n    And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number\n    Upon or near the rate of thirty thousand.\n  MOWBRAY. The just proportion that we gave them out.\n    Let us sway on and face them in the field.\n\n                        Enter WESTMORELAND\n\n  ARCHBISHOP. What well-appointed leader fronts us here?\n  MOWBRAY. I think it is my Lord of Westmoreland.\n  WESTMORELAND. Health and fair greeting from our general,\n    The Prince, Lord John and Duke of Lancaster.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Say on, my Lord of Westmoreland, in peace,\n    What doth concern your coming.\n  WESTMORELAND. Then, my lord,\n    Unto your Grace do I in chief address\n    The substance of my speech. If that rebellion\n    Came like itself, in base and abject routs,\n    Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rags,\n    And countenanc'd by boys and beggary-\n    I say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd\n    In his true, native, and most proper shape,\n    You, reverend father, and these noble lords,\n    Had not been here to dress the ugly form\n    Of base and bloody insurrection\n    With your fair honours. You, Lord Archbishop,\n    Whose see is by a civil peace maintain'd,\n    Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd,\n    Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd,\n    Whose white investments figure innocence,\n    The dove, and very blessed spirit of peace-\n    Wherefore you do so ill translate yourself\n    Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace,\n    Into the harsh and boist'rous tongue of war;\n    Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,\n    Your pens to lances, and your tongue divine\n    To a loud trumpet and a point of war?\n  ARCHBISHOP. Wherefore do I this? So the question stands.\n    Briefly to this end: we are all diseas'd\n    And with our surfeiting and wanton hours\n    Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,\n    And we must bleed for it; of which disease\n    Our late King, Richard, being infected, died.\n    But, my most noble Lord of Westmoreland,\n    I take not on me here as a physician;\n    Nor do I as an enemy to peace\n    Troop in the throngs of military men;\n    But rather show awhile like fearful war\n    To diet rank minds sick of happiness,\n    And purge th' obstructions which begin to stop\n    Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.\n    I have in equal balance justly weigh'd\n    What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,\n    And find our griefs heavier than our offences.\n    We see which way the stream of time doth run\n    And are enforc'd from our most quiet there\n    By the rough torrent of occasion;\n    And have the summary of all our griefs,\n    When time shall serve, to show in articles;\n    Which long ere this we offer'd to the King,\n    And might by no suit gain our audience:\n    When we are wrong'd, and would unfold our griefs,\n    We are denied access unto his person,\n    Even by those men that most have done us wrong.\n    The dangers of the days but newly gone,\n    Whose memory is written on the earth\n    With yet appearing blood, and the examples\n    Of every minute's instance, present now,\n    Hath put us in these ill-beseeming arms;\n    Not to break peace, or any branch of it,\n    But to establish here a peace indeed,\n    Concurring both in name and quality.\n  WESTMORELAND. When ever yet was your appeal denied;\n    Wherein have you been galled by the King;\n    What peer hath been suborn'd to grate on you\n    That you should seal this lawless bloody book\n    Of forg'd rebellion with a seal divine,\n    And consecrate commotion's bitter edge?\n  ARCHBISHOP. My brother general, the commonwealth,\n    To brother horn an household cruelty,\n    I make my quarrel in particular.\n  WESTMORELAND. There is no need of any such redress;\n    Or if there were, it not belongs to you.\n  MOWBRAY. Why not to him in part, and to us all\n    That feel the bruises of the days before,\n    And suffer the condition of these times\n    To lay a heavy and unequal hand\n    Upon our honours?\n  WESTMORELAND. O my good Lord Mowbray,\n    Construe the times to their necessities,\n    And you shall say, indeed, it is the time,\n    And not the King, that doth you injuries.\n    Yet, for your part, it not appears to me,\n    Either from the King or in the present time,\n    That you should have an inch of any ground\n    To build a grief on. Were you not restor'd\n    To all the Duke of Norfolk's signiories,\n    Your noble and right well-rememb'red father's?\n  MOWBRAY. What thing, in honour, had my father lost\n    That need to be reviv'd and breath'd in me?\n    The King that lov'd him, as the state stood then,\n    Was force perforce compell'd to banish him,\n    And then that Henry Bolingbroke and he,\n    Being mounted and both roused in their seats,\n    Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,\n    Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down,\n    Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of steel,\n    And the loud trumpet blowing them together-\n    Then, then, when there was nothing could have stay'd\n    My father from the breast of Bolingbroke,\n    O, when the King did throw his warder down-\n    His own life hung upon the staff he threw-\n    Then threw he down himself, and all their lives\n    That by indictment and by dint of sword\n    Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.\n  WESTMORELAND. You speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not what.\n    The Earl of Hereford was reputed then\n    In England the most valiant gentleman.\n    Who knows on whom fortune would then have smil'd?\n    But if your father had been victor there,\n    He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry;\n    For all the country, in a general voice,\n    Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers and love\n    Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on,\n    And bless'd and grac'd indeed more than the King.\n    But this is mere digression from my purpose.\n    Here come I from our princely general\n    To know your griefs; to tell you from his Grace\n    That he will give you audience; and wherein\n    It shall appear that your demands are just,\n    You shall enjoy them, everything set off\n    That might so much as think you enemies.\n  MOWBRAY. But he hath forc'd us to compel this offer;\n    And it proceeds from policy, not love.\n  WESTMORELAND. Mowbray. you overween to take it so.\n    This offer comes from mercy, not from fear;\n    For, lo! within a ken our army lies-\n    Upon mine honour, all too confident\n    To give admittance to a thought of fear.\n    Our battle is more full of names than yours,\n    Our men more perfect in the use of arms,\n    Our armour all as strong, our cause the best;\n    Then reason will our hearts should be as good.\n    Say you not, then, our offer is compell'd.\n  MOWBRAY. Well, by my will we shall admit no parley.\n  WESTMORELAND. That argues but the shame of your offence:\n    A rotten case abides no handling.\n  HASTINGS. Hath the Prince John a full commission,\n    In very ample virtue of his father,\n    To hear and absolutely to determine\n    Of what conditions we shall stand upon?\n  WESTMORELAND. That is intended in the general's name.\n    I muse you make so slight a question.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Then take, my Lord of Westmoreland, this schedule,\n    For this contains our general grievances.\n    Each several article herein redress'd,\n    All members of our cause, both here and hence,\n    That are insinewed to this action,\n    Acquitted by a true substantial form,\n    And present execution of our wills\n    To us and to our purposes confin'd-\n    We come within our awful banks again,\n    And knit our powers to the arm of peace.\n  WESTMORELAND. This will I show the general. Please you, lords,\n    In sight of both our battles we may meet;\n    And either end in peace- which God so frame!-\n    Or to the place of diff'rence call the swords\n    Which must decide it.\n  ARCHBISHOP. My lord, we will do so.          Exit WESTMORELAND\n  MOWBRAY. There is a thing within my bosom tells me\n    That no conditions of our peace can stand.\n  HASTINGS. Fear you not that: if we can make our peace\n    Upon such large terms and so absolute\n    As our conditions shall consist upon,\n    Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.\n  MOWBRAY. Yea, but our valuation shall be such\n    That every slight and false-derived cause,\n    Yea, every idle, nice, and wanton reason,\n    Shall to the King taste of this action;\n    That, were our royal faiths martyrs in love,\n    We shall be winnow'd with so rough a wind\n    That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff,\n    And good from bad find no partition.\n  ARCHBISHOP. No, no, my lord. Note this: the King is weary\n    Of dainty and such picking grievances;\n    For he hath found to end one doubt by death\n    Revives two greater in the heirs of life;\n    And therefore will he wipe his tables clean,\n    And keep no tell-tale to his memory\n    That may repeat and history his los\n    To new remembrance. For full well he knows\n    He cannot so precisely weed this land\n    As his misdoubts present occasion:\n    His foes are so enrooted with his friends\n    That, plucking to unfix an enemy,\n    He doth unfasten so and shake a friend.\n    So that this land, like an offensive wife\n    That hath enrag'd him on to offer strokes,\n    As he is striking, holds his infant up,\n    And hangs resolv'd correction in the arm\n    That was uprear'd to execution.\n  HASTINGS. Besides, the King hath wasted all his rods\n    On late offenders, that he now doth lack\n    The very instruments of chastisement;\n    So that his power, like to a fangless lion,\n    May offer, but not hold.\n  ARCHBISHOP. 'Tis very true;\n    And therefore be assur'd, my good Lord Marshal,\n    If we do now make our atonement well,\n    Our peace will, like a broken limb united,\n    Grow stronger for the breaking.\n  MOWBRAY. Be it so.\n    Here is return'd my Lord of Westmoreland.\n\n                       Re-enter WESTMORELAND\n\n  WESTMORELAND. The Prince is here at hand. Pleaseth your lordship\n    To meet his Grace just distance 'tween our armies?\n  MOWBRAY. Your Grace of York, in God's name then, set forward.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Before, and greet his Grace. My lord, we come.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAnother part of the forest\n\nEnter, from one side, MOWBRAY, attended; afterwards, the ARCHBISHOP,\nHASTINGS, and others; from the other side, PRINCE JOHN of LANCASTER,\nWESTMORELAND, OFFICERS, and others\n\n  PRINCE JOHN. You are well encount'red here, my cousin Mowbray.\n    Good day to you, gentle Lord Archbishop;\n    And so to you, Lord Hastings, and to all.\n    My Lord of York, it better show'd with you\n    When that your flock, assembled by the bell,\n    Encircled you to hear with reverence\n    Your exposition on the holy text\n    Than now to see you here an iron man,\n    Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum,\n    Turning the word to sword, and life to death.\n    That man that sits within a monarch's heart\n    And ripens in the sunshine of his favour,\n    Would he abuse the countenance of the king,\n    Alack, what mischiefs might he set abroach\n    In shadow of such greatness! With you, Lord Bishop,\n    It is even so. Who hath not heard it spoken\n    How deep you were within the books of God?\n    To us the speaker in His parliament,\n    To us th' imagin'd voice of God himself,\n    The very opener and intelligencer\n    Between the grace, the sanctities of heaven,\n    And our dull workings. O, who shall believe\n    But you misuse the reverence of your place,\n    Employ the countenance and grace of heav'n\n    As a false favourite doth his prince's name,\n    In deeds dishonourable? You have ta'en up,\n    Under the counterfeited zeal of God,\n    The subjects of His substitute, my father,\n    And both against the peace of heaven and him\n    Have here up-swarm'd them.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Good my Lord of Lancaster,\n    I am not here against your father's peace;\n    But, as I told my Lord of Westmoreland,\n    The time misord'red doth, in common sense,\n    Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous form\n    To hold our safety up. I sent your Grace\n    The parcels and particulars of our grief,\n    The which hath been with scorn shov'd from the court,\n    Whereon this hydra son of war is born;\n    Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm'd asleep\n    With grant of our most just and right desires;\n    And true obedience, of this madness cur'd,\n    Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty.\n  MOWBRAY. If not, we ready are to try our fortunes\n    To the last man.\n  HASTINGS. And though we here fall down,\n    We have supplies to second our attempt.\n    If they miscarry, theirs shall second them;\n    And so success of mischief shall be born,\n    And heir from heir shall hold this quarrel up\n    Whiles England shall have generation.\n  PRINCE JOHN. YOU are too shallow, Hastings, much to shallow,\n    To sound the bottom of the after-times.\n  WESTMORELAND. Pleaseth your Grace to answer them directly\n    How far forth you do like their articles.\n  PRINCE JOHN. I like them all and do allow them well;\n    And swear here, by the honour of my blood,\n    My father's purposes have been mistook;\n    And some about him have too lavishly\n    Wrested his meaning and authority.\n    My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redress'd;\n    Upon my soul, they shall. If this may please you,\n    Discharge your powers unto their several counties,\n    As we will ours; and here, between the armies,\n    Let's drink together friendly and embrace,\n    That all their eyes may bear those tokens home\n    Of our restored love and amity.\n  ARCHBISHOP. I take your princely word for these redresses.\n  PRINCE JOHN. I give it you, and will maintain my word;\n    And thereupon I drink unto your Grace.\n  HASTINGS. Go, Captain, and deliver to the army\n    This news of peace. Let them have pay, and part.\n    I know it will please them. Hie thee, Captain.\n                                                    Exit Officer\n  ARCHBISHOP. To you, my noble Lord of Westmoreland.\n  WESTMORELAND. I pledge your Grace; and if you knew what pains\n    I have bestow'd to breed this present peace,\n    You would drink freely; but my love to ye\n    Shall show itself more openly hereafter.\n  ARCHBISHOP. I do not doubt you.\n  WESTMORELAND. I am glad of it.\n    Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray.\n  MOWBRAY. You wish me health in very happy season,\n    For I am on the sudden something ill.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Against ill chances men are ever merry;\n    But heaviness foreruns the good event.\n  WESTMORELAND. Therefore be merry, coz; since sudden sorrow\n    Serves to say thus, 'Some good thing comes to-morrow.'\n  ARCHBISHOP. Believe me, I am passing light in spirit.\n  MOWBRAY. So much the worse, if your own rule be true.\n                                                 [Shouts within]\n  PRINCE JOHN. The word of peace is rend'red. Hark, how they shout!\n  MOWBRAY. This had been cheerful after victory.\n  ARCHBISHOP. A peace is of the nature of a conquest;\n    For then both parties nobly are subdu'd,\n    And neither party loser.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Go, my lord,\n    And let our army be discharged too.\n                                               Exit WESTMORELAND\n    And, good my lord, so please you let our trains\n    March by us, that we may peruse the men\n    We should have cop'd withal.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Go, good Lord Hastings,\n    And, ere they be dismiss'd, let them march by.\n                                                   Exit HASTINGS\n  PRINCE JOHN. I trust, lords, we shall lie to-night together.\n\n                      Re-enter WESTMORELAND\n\n    Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still?\n  WESTMORELAND. The leaders, having charge from you to stand,\n    Will not go off until they hear you speak.\n  PRINCE JOHN. They know their duties.\n\n                        Re-enter HASTINGS\n\n  HASTINGS. My lord, our army is dispers'd already.\n    Like youthful steers unyok'd, they take their courses\n    East, west, north, south; or like a school broke up,\n    Each hurries toward his home and sporting-place.\n  WESTMORELAND. Good tidings, my Lord Hastings; for the which\n    I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason;\n    And you, Lord Archbishop, and you, Lord Mowbray,\n    Of capital treason I attach you both.\n  MOWBRAY. Is this proceeding just and honourable?\n  WESTMORELAND. Is your assembly so?\n  ARCHBISHOP. Will you thus break your faith?\n  PRINCE JOHN. I pawn'd thee none:\n    I promis'd you redress of these same grievances\n    Whereof you did complain; which, by mine honour,\n    I will perform with a most Christian care.\n    But for you, rebels- look to taste the due\n    Meet for rebellion and such acts as yours.\n    Most shallowly did you these arms commence,\n    Fondly brought here, and foolishly sent hence.\n    Strike up our drums, pursue the scatt'red stray.\n    God, and not we, hath safely fought to-day.\n    Some guard these traitors to the block of death,\n    Treason's true bed and yielder-up of breath.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nAnother part of the forest\n\nAlarum; excursions. Enter FALSTAFF and COLVILLE, meeting\n\n  FALSTAFF. What's your name, sir? Of what condition are you, and of\n    what place, I pray?\n  COLVILLE. I am a knight sir; and my name is Colville of the Dale.\n  FALSTAFF. Well then, Colville is your name, a knight is your\n    degree, and your place the Dale. Colville shall still be your\n    name, a traitor your degree, and the dungeon your place- a place\n    deep enough; so shall you be still Colville of the Dale.\n  COLVILLE. Are not you Sir John Falstaff?\n  FALSTAFF. As good a man as he, sir, whoe'er I am. Do you yield,\n    sir, or shall I sweat for you? If I do sweat, they are the drops\n    of thy lovers, and they weep for thy death; therefore rouse up\n    fear and trembling, and do observance to my mercy.\n  COLVILLE. I think you are Sir John Falstaff, and in that thought\n    yield me.\n  FALSTAFF. I have a whole school of tongues in this belly of mine;\n    and not a tongue of them all speaks any other word but my name.\n    An I had but a belly of any indifferency, I were simply the most\n    active fellow in Europe. My womb, my womb, my womb undoes me.\n    Here comes our general.\n\n            Enter PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER, WESTMORELAND,\n                            BLUNT, and others\n\n  PRINCE JOHN. The heat is past; follow no further now.\n    Call in the powers, good cousin Westmoreland.\n                                               Exit WESTMORELAND\n    Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while?\n    When everything is ended, then you come.\n    These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life,\n    One time or other break some gallows' back.\n  FALSTAFF. I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus: I never\n    knew yet but rebuke and check was the reward of valour. Do you\n    think me a swallow, an arrow, or a bullet? Have I, in my poor and\n    old motion, the expedition of thought? I have speeded hither with\n    the very extremest inch of possibility; I have found'red nine\n    score and odd posts; and here, travel tainted as I am, have, in\n    my pure and immaculate valour, taken Sir John Colville of the\n    Dale,a most furious knight and valorous enemy. But what of that?\n    He saw me, and yielded; that I may justly say with the hook-nos'd\n    fellow of Rome-I came, saw, and overcame.\n  PRINCE JOHN. It was more of his courtesy than your deserving.\n  FALSTAFF. I know not. Here he is, and here I yield him; and I\n    beseech your Grace, let it be book'd with the rest of this day's\n    deeds; or, by the Lord, I will have it in a particular ballad\n    else, with mine own picture on the top on't, Colville kissing my\n    foot; to the which course if I be enforc'd, if you do not all\n    show like gilt twopences to me, and I, in the clear sky of fame,\n    o'ershine you as much as the full moon doth the cinders of the\n    element, which show like pins' heads to her, believe not the word\n    of the noble. Therefore let me have right, and let desert mount.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Thine's too heavy to mount.\n  FALSTAFF. Let it shine, then.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Thine's too thick to shine.\n  FALSTAFF. Let it do something, my good lord, that may do me good,\n    and call it what you will.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Is thy name Colville?\n  COLVILLE. It is, my lord.\n  PRINCE JOHN. A famous rebel art thou, Colville.\n  FALSTAFF. And a famous true subject took him.\n  COLVILLE. I am, my lord, but as my betters are\n    That led me hither. Had they been rul'd by me,\n    You should have won them dearer than you have.\n  FALSTAFF. I know not how they sold themselves; but thou, like a\n    kind fellow, gavest thyself away gratis; and I thank thee for\n    thee.\n\n                       Re-enter WESTMORELAND\n\n  PRINCE JOHN. Now, have you left pursuit?\n  WESTMORELAND. Retreat is made, and execution stay'd.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Send Colville, with his confederates,\n    To York, to present execution.\n    Blunt, lead him hence; and see you guard him sure.\n                                         Exeunt BLUNT and others\n    And now dispatch we toward the court, my lords.\n    I hear the King my father is sore sick.\n    Our news shall go before us to his Majesty,\n    Which, cousin, you shall bear to comfort him\n    And we with sober speed will follow you.\n  FALSTAFF. My lord, I beseech you, give me leave to go through\n    Gloucestershire; and, when you come to court, stand my good lord,\n    pray, in your good report.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Fare you well, Falstaff. I, in my condition,\n    Shall better speak of you than you deserve.\n                                         Exeunt all but FALSTAFF\n  FALSTAFF. I would you had but the wit; 'twere better than your\n    dukedom. Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not\n    love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh- but that's no marvel;\n    he drinks no wine. There's never none of these demure boys come\n    to any proof; for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood, and\n    making many fish-meals, that they fall into a kind of male\n    green-sickness; and then, when they marry, they get wenches. They\n    are generally fools and cowards-which some of us should be too,\n    but for inflammation. A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold\n    operation in it. It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all\n    the foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it\n    apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and\n    delectable shapes; which delivered o'er to the voice, the tongue,\n    which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of\n    your excellent sherris is the warming of the blood; which before,\n    cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the\n    badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the sherris warms it,\n    and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extremes. It\n    illumineth the face, which, as a beacon, gives warning to all the\n    rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital\n    commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their\n    captain, the heart, who, great and puff'd up with this retinue,\n    doth any deed of courage- and this valour comes of sherris. So\n    that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets\n    it a-work; and learning, a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil\n    till sack commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes\n    it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did\n    naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile, and\n    bare land, manured, husbanded, and till'd, with excellent\n    endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris,\n    that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons,\n    the first humane principle I would teach them should be to\n    forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.\n\n                           Enter BARDOLPH\n\n    How now, Bardolph!\n  BARDOLPH. The army is discharged all and gone.\n  FALSTAFF. Let them go. I'll through Gloucestershire, and there will\n    I visit Master Robert Shallow, Esquire. I have him already\n    temp'ring between my finger and my thumb, and shortly will I seal\n    with him. Come away.                                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nWestminster. The Jerusalem Chamber\n\nEnter the KING, PRINCE THOMAS OF CLARENCE, PRINCE HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER,\nWARWICK, and others\n\n  KING. Now, lords, if God doth give successful end\n    To this debate that bleedeth at our doors,\n    We will our youth lead on to higher fields,\n    And draw no swords but what are sanctified.\n    Our navy is address'd, our power connected,\n    Our substitutes in absence well invested,\n    And everything lies level to our wish.\n    Only we want a little personal strength;\n    And pause us till these rebels, now afoot,\n    Come underneath the yoke of government.\n  WARWICK. Both which we doubt not but your Majesty\n    Shall soon enjoy.\n  KING. Humphrey, my son of Gloucester,\n    Where is the Prince your brother?\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. I think he's gone to hunt, my lord, at Windsor.\n  KING. And how accompanied?\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. I do not know, my lord.\n  KING. Is not his brother, Thomas of Clarence, with him?\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. No, my good lord, he is in presence here.\n  CLARENCE. What would my lord and father?\n  KING. Nothing but well to thee, Thomas of Clarence.\n    How chance thou art not with the Prince thy brother?\n    He loves thee, and thou dost neglect him, Thomas.\n    Thou hast a better place in his affection\n    Than all thy brothers; cherish it, my boy,\n    And noble offices thou mayst effect\n    Of mediation, after I am dead,\n    Between his greatness and thy other brethren.\n    Therefore omit him not; blunt not his love,\n    Nor lose the good advantage of his grace\n    By seeming cold or careless of his will;\n    For he is gracious if he be observ'd.\n    He hath a tear for pity and a hand\n    Open as day for melting charity;\n    Yet notwithstanding, being incens'd, he is flint;\n    As humorous as winter, and as sudden\n    As flaws congealed in the spring of day.\n    His temper, therefore, must be well observ'd.\n    Chide him for faults, and do it reverently,\n    When you perceive his blood inclin'd to mirth;\n    But, being moody, give him line and scope\n    Till that his passions, like a whale on ground,\n    Confound themselves with working. Learn this, Thomas,\n    And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends,\n    A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in,\n    That the united vessel of their blood,\n    Mingled with venom of suggestion-\n    As, force perforce, the age will pour it in-\n    Shall never leak, though it do work as strong\n    As aconitum or rash gunpowder.\n  CLARENCE. I shall observe him with all care and love.\n  KING. Why art thou not at Windsor with him, Thomas?\n  CLARENCE. He is not there to-day; he dines in London.\n  KING. And how accompanied? Canst thou tell that?\n  CLARENCE. With Poins, and other his continual followers.\n  KING. Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds;\n    And he, the noble image of my youth,\n    Is overspread with them; therefore my grief\n    Stretches itself beyond the hour of death.\n    The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape,\n    In forms imaginary, th'unguided days\n    And rotten times that you shall look upon\n    When I am sleeping with my ancestors.\n    For when his headstrong riot hath no curb,\n    When rage and hot blood are his counsellors\n    When means and lavish manners meet together,\n    O, with what wings shall his affections fly\n    Towards fronting peril and oppos'd decay!\n  WARWICK. My gracious lord, you look beyond him quite.\n    The Prince but studies his companions\n    Like a strange tongue, wherein, to gain the language,\n    'Tis needful that the most immodest word\n    Be look'd upon and learnt; which once attain'd,\n    Your Highness knows, comes to no further use\n    But to be known and hated. So, like gross terms,\n    The Prince will, in the perfectness of time,\n    Cast off his followers; and their memory\n    Shall as a pattern or a measure live\n    By which his Grace must mete the lives of other,\n    Turning past evils to advantages.\n  KING. 'Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb\n    In the dead carrion.\n\n                      Enter WESTMORELAND\n\n    Who's here? Westmoreland?\n  WESTMORELAND. Health to my sovereign, and new happiness\n    Added to that that am to deliver!\n    Prince John, your son, doth kiss your Grace's hand.\n    Mowbray, the Bishop Scroop, Hastings, and all,\n    Are brought to the correction of your law.\n    There is not now a rebel's sword unsheath'd,\n    But Peace puts forth her olive everywhere.\n    The manner how this action hath been borne\n    Here at more leisure may your Highness read,\n    With every course in his particular.\n  KING. O Westmoreland, thou art a summer bird,\n    Which ever in the haunch of winter sings\n    The lifting up of day.\n\n                        Enter HARCOURT\n\n    Look here's more news.\n  HARCOURT. From enemies heaven keep your Majesty;\n    And, when they stand against you, may they fall\n    As those that I am come to tell you of!\n    The Earl Northumberland and the Lord Bardolph,\n    With a great power of English and of Scots,\n    Are by the shrieve of Yorkshire overthrown.\n    The manner and true order of the fight\n    This packet, please it you, contains at large.\n  KING. And wherefore should these good news make me sick?\n    Will Fortune never come with both hands full,\n    But write her fair words still in foulest letters?\n    She either gives a stomach and no food-\n    Such are the poor, in health- or else a feast,\n    And takes away the stomach- such are the rich\n    That have abundance and enjoy it not.\n    I should rejoice now at this happy news;\n    And now my sight fails, and my brain is giddy.\n    O me! come near me now I am much ill.\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. Comfort, your Majesty!\n  CLARENCE. O my royal father!\n  WESTMORELAND. My sovereign lord, cheer up yourself, look up.\n  WARWICK. Be patient, Princes; you do know these fits\n    Are with his Highness very ordinary.\n    Stand from him, give him air; he'll straight be well.\n  CLARENCE. No, no; he cannot long hold out these pangs.\n    Th' incessant care and labour of his mind\n    Hath wrought the mure that should confine it in\n    So thin that life looks through, and will break out.\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. The people fear me; for they do observe\n    Unfather'd heirs and loathly births of nature.\n    The seasons change their manners, as the year\n    Had found some months asleep, and leapt them over.\n  CLARENCE. The river hath thrice flow'd, no ebb between;\n    And the old folk, Time's doting chronicles,\n    Say it did so a little time before\n    That our great grandsire, Edward, sick'd and died.\n  WARWICK. Speak lower, Princes, for the King recovers.\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. This apoplexy will certain be his end.\n  KING. I pray you take me up, and bear me hence\n    Into some other chamber. Softly, pray.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nWestminster. Another chamber\n\nThe KING lying on a bed; CLARENCE, GLOUCESTER, WARWICK,\nand others in attendance\n\n  KING. Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends;\n    Unless some dull and favourable hand\n    Will whisper music to my weary spirit.\n  WARWICK. Call for the music in the other room.\n  KING. Set me the crown upon my pillow here.\n  CLARENCE. His eye is hollow, and he changes much.\n  WARWICK. Less noise! less noise!\n\n                        Enter PRINCE HENRY\n\n  PRINCE. Who saw the Duke of Clarence?\n  CLARENCE. I am here, brother, full of heaviness.\n  PRINCE. How now! Rain within doors, and none abroad!\n    How doth the King?\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. Exceeding ill.\n  PRINCE. Heard he the good news yet? Tell it him.\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. He alt'red much upon the hearing it.\n  PRINCE. If he be sick with joy, he'll recover without physic.\n  WARWICK. Not so much noise, my lords. Sweet Prince, speak low;\n    The King your father is dispos'd to sleep.\n  CLARENCE. Let us withdraw into the other room.\n  WARWICK. Will't please your Grace to go along with us?\n  PRINCE. No; I will sit and watch here by the King.\n                                       Exeunt all but the PRINCE\n    Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,\n    Being so troublesome a bedfellow?\n    O polish'd perturbation! golden care!\n    That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide\n    To many a watchful night! Sleep with it now!\n    Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet\n    As he whose brow with homely biggen bound\n    Snores out the watch of night. O majesty!\n    When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit\n    Like a rich armour worn in heat of day\n    That scald'st with safety. By his gates of breath\n    There lies a downy feather which stirs not.\n    Did he suspire, that light and weightless down\n    Perforce must move. My gracious lord! my father!\n    This sleep is sound indeed; this is a sleep\n    That from this golden rigol hath divorc'd\n    So many English kings. Thy due from me\n    Is tears and heavy sorrows of the blood\n    Which nature, love, and filial tenderness,\n    Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously.\n    My due from thee is this imperial crown,\n    Which, as immediate from thy place and blood,\n    Derives itself to me.  [Putting on the crown]  Lo where it sits-\n    Which God shall guard; and put the world's whole strength\n    Into one giant arm, it shall not force\n    This lineal honour from me. This from thee\n    Will I to mine leave as 'tis left to me.                Exit\n  KING. Warwick! Gloucester! Clarence!\n\n           Re-enter WARWICK, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE\n\n  CLARENCE. Doth the King call?\n  WARWICK. What would your Majesty? How fares your Grace?\n  KING. Why did you leave me here alone, my lords?\n  CLARENCE. We left the Prince my brother here, my liege,\n    Who undertook to sit and watch by you.\n  KING. The Prince of Wales! Where is he? Let me see him.\n    He is not here.\n  WARWICK. This door is open; he is gone this way.\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. He came not through the chamber where we stay'd.\n  KING. Where is the crown? Who took it from my pillow?\n  WARWICK. When we withdrew, my liege, we left it here.\n  KING. The Prince hath ta'en it hence. Go, seek him out.\n    Is he so hasty that he doth suppose\n    My sleep my death?\n    Find him, my lord of Warwick; chide him hither.\n                                                    Exit WARWICK\n    This part of his conjoins with my disease\n    And helps to end me. See, sons, what things you are!\n    How quickly nature falls into revolt\n    When gold becomes her object!\n    For this the foolish over-careful fathers\n    Have broke their sleep with thoughts,\n    Their brains with care, their bones with industry;\n    For this they have engrossed and pil'd up\n    The cank'red heaps of strange-achieved gold;\n    For this they have been thoughtful to invest\n    Their sons with arts and martial exercises;\n    When, like the bee, tolling from every flower\n    The virtuous sweets,\n    Our thighs with wax, our mouths with honey pack'd,\n    We bring it to the hive, and, like the bees,\n    Are murd'red for our pains. This bitter taste\n    Yields his engrossments to the ending father.\n\n                         Re-enter WARWICK\n\n    Now where is he that will not stay so long\n    Till his friend sickness hath determin'd me?\n  WARWICK. My lord, I found the Prince in the next room,\n    Washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks,\n    With such a deep demeanour in great sorrow,\n    That tyranny, which never quaff'd but blood,\n    Would, by beholding him, have wash'd his knife\n    With gentle eye-drops. He is coming hither.\n  KING. But wherefore did he take away the crown?\n\n                        Re-enter PRINCE HENRY\n\n    Lo where he comes. Come hither to me, Harry.\n    Depart the chamber, leave us here alone.\n                          Exeunt all but the KING and the PRINCE\n  PRINCE. I never thought to hear you speak again.\n  KING. Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.\n    I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.\n    Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair\n    That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honours\n    Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth!\n    Thou seek'st the greatness that will overwhelm thee.\n    Stay but a little, for my cloud of dignity\n    Is held from falling with so weak a wind\n    That it will quickly drop; my day is dim.\n    Thou hast stol'n that which, after some few hours,\n    Were thine without offense; and at my death\n    Thou hast seal'd up my expectation.\n    Thy life did manifest thou lov'dst me not,\n    And thou wilt have me die assur'd of it.\n    Thou hid'st a thousand daggers in thy thoughts,\n    Which thou hast whetted on thy stony heart,\n    To stab at half an hour of my life.\n    What, canst thou not forbear me half an hour?\n    Then get thee gone, and dig my grave thyself;\n    And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear\n    That thou art crowned, not that I am dead.\n    Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse\n    Be drops of balm to sanctify thy head;\n    Only compound me with forgotten dust;\n    Give that which gave thee life unto the worms.\n    Pluck down my officers, break my decrees;\n    For now a time is come to mock at form-\n    Harry the Fifth is crown'd. Up, vanity:\n    Down, royal state. All you sage counsellors, hence.\n    And to the English court assemble now,\n    From every region, apes of idleness.\n    Now, neighbour confines, purge you of your scum.\n    Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance,\n    Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit\n    The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?\n    Be happy, he will trouble you no more.\n    England shall double gild his treble guilt;\n    England shall give him office, honour, might;\n    For the fifth Harry from curb'd license plucks\n    The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog\n    Shall flesh his tooth on every innocent.\n    O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!\n    When that my care could not withhold thy riots,\n    What wilt thou do when riot is thy care?\n    O, thou wilt be a wilderness again.\n    Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants!\n  PRINCE. O, pardon me, my liege! But for my tears,\n    The moist impediments unto my speech,\n    I had forestall'd this dear and deep rebuke\n    Ere you with grief had spoke and I had heard\n    The course of it so far. There is your crown,\n    And he that wears the crown immortally\n    Long guard it yours!  [Kneeling]  If I affect it more\n    Than as your honour and as your renown,\n    Let me no more from this obedience rise,\n    Which my most inward true and duteous spirit\n    Teacheth this prostrate and exterior bending!\n    God witness with me, when I here came in\n    And found no course of breath within your Majesty,\n    How cold it struck my heart! If I do feign,\n    O, let me in my present wildness die,\n    And never live to show th' incredulous world\n    The noble change that I have purposed!\n    Coming to look on you, thinking you dead-\n    And dead almost, my liege, to think you were-\n    I spake unto this crown as having sense,\n    And thus upbraided it: 'The care on thee depending\n    Hath fed upon the body of my father;\n    Therefore thou best of gold art worst of gold.\n    Other, less fine in carat, is more precious,\n    Preserving life in med'cine potable;\n    But thou, most fine, most honour'd, most renown'd,\n    Hast eat thy bearer up.' Thus, my most royal liege,\n    Accusing it, I put it on my head,\n    To try with it- as with an enemy\n    That had before my face murd'red my father-\n    The quarrel of a true inheritor.\n    But if it did infect my blood with joy,\n    Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride;\n    If any rebel or vain spirit of mine\n    Did with the least affection of a welcome\n    Give entertainment to the might of it,\n    Let God for ever keep it from my head,\n    And make me as the poorest vassal is,\n    That doth with awe and terror kneel to it!\n  KING. O my son,\n    God put it in thy mind to take it hence,\n    That thou mightst win the more thy father's love,\n    Pleading so wisely in excuse of it!\n    Come hither, Harry; sit thou by my bed,\n    And hear, I think, the very latest counsel\n    That ever I shall breathe. God knows, my son,\n    By what by-paths and indirect crook'd ways\n    I met this crown; and I myself know well\n    How troublesome it sat upon my head:\n    To thee it shall descend with better quiet,\n    Better opinion, better confirmation;\n    For all the soil of the achievement goes\n    With me into the earth. It seem'd in me\n    But as an honour snatch'd with boist'rous hand;\n    And I had many living to upbraid\n    My gain of it by their assistances;\n    Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed,\n    Wounding supposed peace. All these bold fears\n    Thou seest with peril I have answered;\n    For all my reign hath been but as a scene\n    Acting that argument. And now my death\n    Changes the mood; for what in me was purchas'd\n    Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort;\n    So thou the garland wear'st successively.\n    Yet, though thou stand'st more sure than I could do,\n    Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green;\n    And all my friends, which thou must make thy friends,\n    Have but their stings and teeth newly ta'en out;\n    By whose fell working I was first advanc'd,\n    And by whose power I well might lodge a fear\n    To be again displac'd; which to avoid,\n    I cut them off; and had a purpose now\n    To lead out many to the Holy Land,\n    Lest rest and lying still might make them look\n    Too near unto my state. Therefore, my Harry,\n    Be it thy course to busy giddy minds\n    With foreign quarrels, that action, hence borne out,\n    May waste the memory of the former days.\n    More would I, but my lungs are wasted so\n    That strength of speech is utterly denied me.\n    How I came by the crown, O God, forgive;\n    And grant it may with thee in true peace live!\n  PRINCE. My gracious liege,\n    You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me;\n    Then plain and right must my possession be;\n    Which I with more than with a common pain\n    'Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain.\n\n       Enter PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER, WARWICK, LORDS, and others\n\n  KING. Look, look, here comes my John of Lancaster.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Health, peace, and happiness, to my royal father!\n  KING. Thou bring'st me happiness and peace, son John;\n    But health, alack, with youthful wings is flown\n    From this bare wither'd trunk. Upon thy sight\n    My worldly business makes a period.\n    Where is my Lord of Warwick?\n  PRINCE. My Lord of Warwick!\n  KING. Doth any name particular belong\n    Unto the lodging where I first did swoon?\n  WARWICK. 'Tis call'd Jerusalem, my noble lord.\n  KING. Laud be to God! Even there my life must end.\n    It hath been prophesied to me many years,\n    I should not die but in Jerusalem;\n    Which vainly I suppos'd the Holy Land.\n    But bear me to that chamber; there I'll lie;\n    In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nGloucestershire. SHALLOW'S house\n\nEnter SHALLOW, FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, and PAGE\n\n  SHALLOW. By cock and pie, sir, you shall not away to-night.\n    What, Davy, I say!\n  FALSTAFF. You must excuse me, Master Robert Shallow.\n  SHALLOW. I will not excuse you; you shall not be excus'd; excuses\n    shall not be admitted; there is no excuse shall serve; you shall\n    not be excus'd. Why, Davy!\n\n                            Enter DAVY\n\n  DAVY. Here, sir.\n  SHALLOW. Davy, Davy, Davy, Davy; let me see, Davy; let me see,\n    Davy; let me see- yea, marry, William cook, bid him come hither.\n    Sir John, you shall not be excus'd.\n  DAVY. Marry, sir, thus: those precepts cannot be served; and,\n    again, sir- shall we sow the headland with wheat?\n  SHALLOW. With red wheat, Davy. But for William cook- are there no\n    young pigeons?\n  DAVY. Yes, sir. Here is now the smith's note for shoeing and\n    plough-irons.\n  SHALLOW. Let it be cast, and paid. Sir John, you shall not be\n    excused.\n  DAVY. Now, sir, a new link to the bucket must needs be had; and,\n    sir, do you mean to stop any of William's wages about the sack he\n    lost the other day at Hinckley fair?\n  SHALLOW. 'A shall answer it. Some pigeons, Davy, a couple of\n    short-legg'd hens, a joint of mutton, and any pretty little tiny\n    kickshaws, tell William cook.\n  DAVY. Doth the man of war stay all night, sir?\n  SHALLOW. Yea, Davy; I will use him well. A friend i' th' court is\n    better than a penny in purse. Use his men well, Davy; for they\n    are arrant knaves and will backbite.\n  DAVY. No worse than they are backbitten, sir; for they have\n    marvellous foul linen.\n  SHALLOW. Well conceited, Davy- about thy business, Davy.\n  DAVY. I beseech you, sir, to countenance William Visor of Woncot\n    against Clement Perkes o' th' hill.\n  SHALLOW. There, is many complaints, Davy, against that Visor. That\n    Visor is an arrant knave, on my knowledge.\n  DAVY. I grant your worship that he is a knave, sir; but yet God\n    forbid, sir, but a knave should have some countenance at his\n    friend's request. An honest man, sir, is able to speak for\n    himself, when a knave is not. I have serv'd your worship truly,\n    sir, this eight years; an I cannot once or twice in a quarter\n    bear out a knave against an honest man, I have but a very little\n    credit with your worship. The knave is mine honest friend, sir;\n    therefore, I beseech you, let him be countenanc'd.\n  SHALLOW. Go to; I say he shall have no wrong. Look about,\n  DAVY.  [Exit DAVY]  Where are you, Sir John? Come, come, come, off\n    with your boots. Give me your hand, Master Bardolph.\n  BARDOLPH. I am glad to see your worship.\n  SHALLOW. I thank thee with all my heart, kind Master Bardolph.\n    [To the PAGE]  And welcome, my tall fellow. Come, Sir John.\n  FALSTAFF. I'll follow you, good Master Robert Shallow.\n    [Exit SHALLOW]  Bardolph, look to our horses.  [Exeunt BARDOLPH\n    and PAGE]  If I were sawed into quantities, I should make four\n    dozen of such bearded hermits' staves as Master Shallow. It is a\n    wonderful thing to see the semblable coherence of his men's\n    spirits and his. They, by observing of him, do bear themselves\n    like foolish justices: he, by conversing with them, is turned\n    into a justice-like serving-man. Their spirits are so married in\n    conjunction with the participation of society that they flock\n    together in consent, like so many wild geese. If I had a suit to\n    Master Shallow, I would humour his men with the imputation of\n    being near their master; if to his men, I would curry with Master\n    Shallow that no man could better command his servants. It is\n    certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught,\n    as men take diseases, one of another; therefore let men take heed\n    of their company. I will devise matter enough out of this Shallow\n    to keep Prince Harry in continual laughter the wearing out of six\n    fashions, which is four terms, or two actions; and 'a shall laugh\n    without intervallums. O, it is much that a lie with a slight\n    oath, and a jest with a sad brow will do with a fellow that never\n    had the ache in his shoulders! O, you shall see him laugh till\n    his face be like a wet cloak ill laid up!\n  SHALLOW.  [Within]  Sir John!\n  FALSTAFF. I come, Master Shallow; I come, Master Shallow.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nWestminster. The palace\n\nEnter, severally, WARWICK, and the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE\n\n  WARWICK. How now, my Lord Chief Justice; whither away?\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. How doth the King?\n  WARWICK. Exceeding well; his cares are now all ended.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I hope, not dead.\n  WARWICK. He's walk'd the way of nature;\n    And to our purposes he lives no more.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I would his Majesty had call'd me with him.\n    The service that I truly did his life\n    Hath left me open to all injuries.\n  WARWICK. Indeed, I think the young king loves you not.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I know he doth not, and do arm myself\n    To welcome the condition of the time,\n    Which cannot look more hideously upon me\n    Than I have drawn it in my fantasy.\n\n              Enter LANCASTER, CLARENCE, GLOUCESTER,\n                     WESTMORELAND, and others\n\n  WARWICK. Here comes the heavy issue of dead Harry.\n    O that the living Harry had the temper\n    Of he, the worst of these three gentlemen!\n    How many nobles then should hold their places\n    That must strike sail to spirits of vile sort!\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. O God, I fear all will be overturn'd.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Good morrow, cousin Warwick, good morrow.\n  GLOUCESTER & CLARENCE. Good morrow, cousin.\n  PRINCE JOHN. We meet like men that had forgot to speak.\n  WARWICK. We do remember; but our argument\n    Is all too heavy to admit much talk.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Well, peace be with him that hath made us heavy!\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Peace be with us, lest we be heavier!\n  PRINCE HUMPHREY. O, good my lord, you have lost a friend indeed;\n    And I dare swear you borrow not that face\n    Of seeming sorrow- it is sure your own.\n  PRINCE JOHN. Though no man be assur'd what grace to find,\n    You stand in coldest expectation.\n    I am the sorrier; would 'twere otherwise.\n  CLARENCE. Well, you must now speak Sir John Falstaff fair;\n    Which swims against your stream of quality.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Sweet Princes, what I did, I did in honour,\n    Led by th' impartial conduct of my soul;\n    And never shall you see that I will beg\n    A ragged and forestall'd remission.\n    If truth and upright innocency fail me,\n    I'll to the King my master that is dead,\n    And tell him who hath sent me after him.\n  WARWICK. Here comes the Prince.\n\n            Enter KING HENRY THE FIFTH, attended\n\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Good morrow, and God save your Majesty!\n  KING. This new and gorgeous garment, majesty,\n    Sits not so easy on me as you think.\n    Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear.\n    This is the English, not the Turkish court;\n    Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,\n    But Harry Harry. Yet be sad, good brothers,\n    For, by my faith, it very well becomes you.\n    Sorrow so royally in you appears\n    That I will deeply put the fashion on,\n    And wear it in my heart. Why, then, be sad;\n    But entertain no more of it, good brothers,\n    Than a joint burden laid upon us all.\n    For me, by heaven, I bid you be assur'd,\n    I'll be your father and your brother too;\n    Let me but bear your love, I'll bear your cares.\n    Yet weep that Harry's dead, and so will I;\n    But Harry lives that shall convert those tears\n    By number into hours of happiness.\n  BROTHERS. We hope no otherwise from your Majesty.\n  KING. You all look strangely on me; and you most.\n    You are, I think, assur'd I love you not.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I am assur'd, if I be measur'd rightly,\n    Your Majesty hath no just cause to hate me.\n  KING. No?\n    How might a prince of my great hopes forget\n    So great indignities you laid upon me?\n    What, rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison,\n    Th' immediate heir of England! Was this easy?\n    May this be wash'd in Lethe and forgotten?\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I then did use the person of your father;\n    The image of his power lay then in me;\n    And in th' administration of his law,\n    Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth,\n    Your Highness pleased to forget my place,\n    The majesty and power of law and justice,\n    The image of the King whom I presented,\n    And struck me in my very seat of judgment;\n    Whereon, as an offender to your father,\n    I gave bold way to my authority\n    And did commit you. If the deed were ill,\n    Be you contented, wearing now the garland,\n    To have a son set your decrees at nought,\n    To pluck down justice from your awful bench,\n    To trip the course of law, and blunt the sword\n    That guards the peace and safety of your person;\n    Nay, more, to spurn at your most royal image,\n    And mock your workings in a second body.\n    Question your royal thoughts, make the case yours;\n    Be now the father, and propose a son;\n    Hear your own dignity so much profan'd,\n    See your most dreadful laws so loosely slighted,\n    Behold yourself so by a son disdain'd;\n    And then imagine me taking your part\n    And, in your power, soft silencing your son.\n    After this cold considerance, sentence me;\n    And, as you are a king, speak in your state\n    What I have done that misbecame my place,\n    My person, or my liege's sovereignty.\n  KING. You are right, Justice, and you weigh this well;\n    Therefore still bear the balance and the sword;\n    And I do wish your honours may increase\n    Till you do live to see a son of mine\n    Offend you, and obey you, as I did.\n    So shall I live to speak my father's words:\n    'Happy am I that have a man so bold\n    That dares do justice on my proper son;\n    And not less happy, having such a son\n    That would deliver up his greatness so\n    Into the hands of justice.' You did commit me;\n    For which I do commit into your hand\n    Th' unstained sword that you have us'd to bear;\n    With this remembrance- that you use the same\n    With the like bold, just, and impartial spirit\n    As you have done 'gainst me. There is my hand.\n    You shall be as a father to my youth;\n    My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear;\n    And I will stoop and humble my intents\n    To your well-practis'd wise directions.\n    And, Princes all, believe me, I beseech you,\n    My father is gone wild into his grave,\n    For in his tomb lie my affections;\n    And with his spirits sadly I survive,\n    To mock the expectation of the world,\n    To frustrate prophecies, and to raze out\n    Rotten opinion, who hath writ me down\n    After my seeming. The tide of blood in me\n    Hath proudly flow'd in vanity till now.\n    Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea,\n    Where it shall mingle with the state of floods,\n    And flow henceforth in formal majesty.\n    Now call we our high court of parliament;\n    And let us choose such limbs of noble counsel,\n    That the great body of our state may go\n    In equal rank with the best govern'd nation;\n    That war, or peace, or both at once, may be\n    As things acquainted and familiar to us;\n    In which you, father, shall have foremost hand.\n    Our coronation done, we will accite,\n    As I before rememb'red, all our state;\n    And- God consigning to my good intents-\n    No prince nor peer shall have just cause to say,\n    God shorten Harry's happy life one day.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nGloucestershire. SHALLOW'S orchard\n\nEnter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, SILENCE, BARDOLPH, the PAGE, and DAVY\n\n  SHALLOW. Nay, you shall see my orchard, where, in an arbour, we\n    will eat a last year's pippin of mine own graffing, with a dish\n    of caraways, and so forth. Come, cousin Silence. And then to bed.\n  FALSTAFF. Fore God, you have here a goodly dwelling and rich.\n  SHALLOW. Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all, Sir John\n    -marry, good air. Spread, Davy, spread, Davy; well said, Davy.\n  FALSTAFF. This Davy serves you for good uses; he is your\n    serving-man and your husband.\n  SHALLOW. A good varlet, a good varlet, a very good varlet, Sir\n    John. By the mass, I have drunk too much sack at supper. A good\n    varlet. Now sit down, now sit down; come, cousin.\n  SILENCE. Ah, sirrah! quoth-a- we shall               [Singing]\n\n              Do nothing but eat and make good cheer,\n              And praise God for the merry year;\n              When flesh is cheap and females dear,\n              And lusty lads roam here and there,\n                  So merrily,\n                And ever among so merrily.\n\n  FALSTAFF. There's a merry heart! Good Master Silence, I'll give you\n    a health for that anon.\n  SHALLOW. Give Master Bardolph some wine, Davy.\n  DAVY. Sweet sir, sit; I'll be with you anon; most sweet sir, sit.\n    Master Page, good Master Page, sit. Proface! What you want in\n    meat, we'll have in drink. But you must bear; the heart's all.\n Exit\n  SHALLOW. Be merry, Master Bardolph; and, my little soldier there,\n    be merry.\n  SILENCE.  [Singing]\n\n         Be merry, be merry, my wife has all;\n         For women are shrews, both short and tall;\n         'Tis merry in hall when beards wag an;\n           And welcome merry Shrove-tide.\n         Be merry, be merry.\n\n  FALSTAFF. I did not think Master Silence had been a man of this\n    mettle.\n  SILENCE. Who, I? I have been merry twice and once ere now.\n\n                          Re-enter DAVY\n\n  DAVY.  [To BARDOLPH]  There's a dish of leather-coats for you.\n  SHALLOW. Davy!\n  DAVY. Your worship! I'll be with you straight.  [To BARDOLPH]\n    A cup of wine, sir?\n  SILENCE.  [Singing]\n\n         A cup of wine that's brisk and fine,\n         And drink unto the leman mine;\n           And a merry heart lives long-a.\n\n  FALSTAFF. Well said, Master Silence.\n  SILENCE. An we shall be merry, now comes in the sweet o' th' night.\n  FALSTAFF. Health and long life to you, Master Silence!\n  SILENCE.  [Singing]\n\n         Fill the cup, and let it come,\n         I'll pledge you a mile to th' bottom.\n\n  SHALLOW. Honest Bardolph, welcome; if thou want'st anything and\n    wilt not call, beshrew thy heart. Welcome, my little tiny thief\n    and welcome indeed too. I'll drink to Master Bardolph, and to all\n    the cabileros about London.\n  DAVY. I hope to see London once ere I die.\n  BARDOLPH. An I might see you there, Davy!\n  SHALLOW. By the mass, you'R crack a quart together- ha! will you\n    not, Master Bardolph?\n  BARDOLPH. Yea, sir, in a pottle-pot.\n  SHALLOW. By God's liggens, I thank thee. The knave will stick by\n    thee, I can assure thee that. 'A will not out, 'a; 'tis true\n    bred.\n  BARDOLPH. And I'll stick by him, sir.\n  SHALLOW. Why, there spoke a king. Lack nothing; be merry.\n    [One knocks at door]  Look who's at door there, ho! Who knocks?\n                                                       Exit DAVY\n  FALSTAFF.  [To SILENCE, who has drunk a bumper]  Why, now you have\n    done me right.\n  SILENCE.  [Singing]\n\n         Do me right,\n         And dub me knight.\n           Samingo.\n\n    Is't not so?\n  FALSTAFF. 'Tis so.\n  SILENCE. Is't so? Why then, say an old man can do somewhat.\n\n                        Re-enter DAVY\n\n  DAVY. An't please your worship, there's one Pistol come from the\n    court with news.\n  FALSTAFF. From the court? Let him come in.\n\n                        Enter PISTOL\n\n    How now, Pistol?\n  PISTOL. Sir John, God save you!\n  FALSTAFF. What wind blew you hither, Pistol?\n  PISTOL. Not the ill wind which blows no man to good. Sweet knight,\n    thou art now one of the greatest men in this realm.\n  SILENCE. By'r lady, I think 'a be, but goodman Puff of Barson.\n  PISTOL. Puff!\n    Puff in thy teeth, most recreant coward base!\n    Sir John, I am thy Pistol and thy friend,\n    And helter-skelter have I rode to thee;\n    And tidings do I bring, and lucky joys,\n    And golden times, and happy news of price.\n  FALSTAFF. I pray thee now, deliver them like a man of this world.\n  PISTOL. A foutra for the world and worldlings base!\n    I speak of Africa and golden joys.\n  FALSTAFF. O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news?\n    Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof.\n  SILENCE.  [Singing]  And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John.\n  PISTOL. Shall dunghill curs confront the Helicons?\n    And shall good news be baffled?\n    Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies' lap.\n  SHALLOW. Honest gentleman, I know not your breeding.\n  PISTOL. Why, then, lament therefore.\n  SHALLOW. Give me pardon, sir. If, sir, you come with news from the\n    court, I take it there's but two ways- either to utter them or\n    conceal them. I am, sir, under the King, in some authority.\n  PISTOL. Under which king, Bezonian? Speak, or die.\n  SHALLOW. Under King Harry.\n  PISTOL. Harry the Fourth- or Fifth?\n  SHALLOW. Harry the Fourth.\n  PISTOL. A foutra for thine office!\n    Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is King;\n    Harry the Fifth's the man. I speak the truth.\n    When Pistol lies, do this; and fig me, like\n    The bragging Spaniard.\n  FALSTAFF. What, is the old king dead?\n  PISTOL. As nail in door. The things I speak are just.\n  FALSTAFF. Away, Bardolph! saddle my horse. Master Robert Shallow,\n    choose what office thou wilt in the land, 'tis thine. Pistol, I\n    will double-charge thee with dignities.\n  BARDOLPH. O joyful day!\n    I would not take a knighthood for my fortune.\n  PISTOL. What, I do bring good news?\n  FALSTAFF. Carry Master Silence to bed. Master Shallow, my Lord\n    Shallow, be what thou wilt- I am Fortune's steward. Get on thy\n    boots; we'll ride all night. O sweet Pistol! Away, Bardolph!\n    [Exit BARDOLPH]  Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and withal\n    devise something to do thyself good. Boot, boot, Master Shallow!\n    I know the young King is sick for me. Let us take any man's\n    horses: the laws of England are at my commandment. Blessed are\n    they that have been my friends; and woe to my Lord Chief Justice!\n  PISTOL. Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also!\n    'Where is the life that late I led?' say they.\n    Why, here it is; welcome these pleasant days!         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter BEADLES, dragging in HOSTESS QUICKLY and DOLL TEARSHEET\n\n  HOSTESS. No, thou arrant knave; I would to God that I might die,\n    that I might have thee hang'd. Thou hast drawn my shoulder out of\n    joint.\n  FIRST BEADLE. The constables have delivered her over to me; and she\n    shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant her. There hath been\n    a man or two lately kill'd about her.\n  DOLL. Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie. Come on; I'll tell thee what,\n    thou damn'd tripe-visag'd rascal, an the child I now go with do\n    miscarry, thou wert better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou\n    paper-fac'd villain.\n  HOSTESS. O the Lord, that Sir John were come! He would make this a\n    bloody day to somebody. But I pray God the fruit of her womb\n    miscarry!\n  FIRST BEADLE. If it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions again;\n    you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you both go with me; for\n    the man is dead that you and Pistol beat amongst you.\n  DOLL. I'll tell you what, you thin man in a censer, I will have you\n    as soundly swing'd for this- you blue-bottle rogue, you filthy\n    famish'd correctioner, if you be not swing'd, I'll forswear\n    half-kirtles.\n  FIRST BEADLE. Come, come, you she knight-errant, come.\n  HOSTESS. O God, that right should thus overcome might!\n    Well, of sufferance comes ease.\n  DOLL. Come, you rogue, come; bring me to a justice.\n  HOSTESS. Ay, come, you starv'd bloodhound.\n  DOLL. Goodman death, goodman bones!\n  HOSTESS. Thou atomy, thou!\n  DOLL. Come, you thin thing! come, you rascal!\n  FIRST BEADLE. Very well.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nWestminster. Near the Abbey\n\nEnter GROOMS, strewing rushes\n\n  FIRST GROOM. More rushes, more rushes!\n  SECOND GROOM. The trumpets have sounded twice.\n  THIRD GROOM. 'Twill be two o'clock ere they come from the\n    coronation. Dispatch, dispatch.                       Exeunt\n\n        Trumpets sound, and the KING and his train pass\n       over the stage. After them enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW,\n                  PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and page\n\n  FALSTAFF. Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow; I will make the\n    King do you grace. I will leer upon him, as 'a comes by; and do\n    but mark the countenance that he will give me.\n  PISTOL. God bless thy lungs, good knight!\n  FALSTAFF. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me.  [To SHALLOW]  O, if\n    I had had to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the\n    thousand pound I borrowed of you. But 'tis no matter; this poor\n    show doth better; this doth infer the zeal I had to see him.\n  SHALLOW. It doth so.\n  FALSTAFF. It shows my earnestness of affection-\n  SHALLOW. It doth so.\n  FALSTAFF. My devotion-\n  SHALLOW. It doth, it doth, it doth.\n  FALSTAFF. As it were, to ride day and night; and not to deliberate,\n    not to remember, not to have patience to shift me-\n  SHALLOW. It is best, certain.\n  FALSTAFF. But to stand stained with travel, and sweating with\n    desire to see him; thinking of nothing else, putting all affairs\n    else in oblivion, as if there were nothing else to be done but to\n    see him.\n  PISTOL. 'Tis 'semper idem' for 'obsque hoc nihil est.' 'Tis all in\n    every part.\n  SHALLOW. 'Tis so, indeed.\n  PISTOL. My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver\n    And make thee rage.\n    Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts,\n    Is in base durance and contagious prison;\n    Hal'd thither\n    By most mechanical and dirty hand.\n    Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto's snake,\n    For Doll is in. Pistol speaks nought but truth.\n  FALSTAFF. I will deliver her.\n                         [Shouts,within, and the trumpets sound]\n  PISTOL. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.\n\n        Enter the KING and his train, the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE\n                               among them\n\n  FALSTAFF. God save thy Grace, King Hal; my royal Hal!\n  PISTOL. The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!\n  FALSTAFF. God save thee, my sweet boy!\n  KING. My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain man.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Have you your wits? Know you what 'tis you speak?\n  FALSTAFF. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!\n  KING. I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers.\n    How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!\n    I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,\n    So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane;\n    But being awak'd, I do despise my dream.\n    Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;\n    Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape\n    For thee thrice wider than for other men-\n    Reply not to me with a fool-born jest;\n    Presume not that I am the thing I was,\n    For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,\n    That I have turn'd away my former self;\n    So will I those that kept me company.\n    When thou dost hear I am as I have been,\n    Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,\n    The tutor and the feeder of my riots.\n    Till then I banish thee, on pain of death,\n    As I have done the rest of my misleaders,\n    Not to come near our person by ten mile.\n    For competence of life I will allow you,\n    That lack of means enforce you not to evils;\n    And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,\n    We will, according to your strengths and qualities,\n    Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,\n    To see perform'd the tenour of our word.\n    Set on.                        Exeunt the KING and his train\n  FALSTAFF. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pounds.\n  SHALLOW. Yea, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me have\n    home with me.\n  FALSTAFF. That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you grieve at\n    this; I shall be sent for in private to him. Look you, he must\n    seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancements; I will be the\n    man yet that shall make you great.\n  SHALLOW. I cannot perceive how, unless you give me your doublet,\n    and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good Sir John, let me\n    have five hundred of my thousand.\n  FALSTAFF. Sir, I will be as good as my word. This that you heard\n    was but a colour.\n  SHALLOW. A colour that I fear you will die in, Sir John.\n  FALSTAFF. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come, Lieutenant\n    Pistol; come, Bardolph. I shall be sent for soon at night.\n\n            Re-enter PRINCE JOHN, the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE,\n                            with officers\n\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet;\n    Take all his company along with him.\n  FALSTAFF. My lord, my lord-\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. I cannot now speak. I will hear you soon.\n    Take them away.\n  PISTOL. Si fortuna me tormenta, spero me contenta.\n           Exeunt all but PRINCE JOHN and the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE\n  PRINCE JOHN. I like this fair proceeding of the King's.\n    He hath intent his wonted followers\n    Shall all be very well provided for;\n    But all are banish'd till their conversations\n    Appear more wise and modest to the world.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. And so they are.\n  PRINCE JOHN. The King hath call'd his parliament, my lord.\n  CHIEF JUSTICE. He hath.\n  PRINCE JOHN. I will lay odds that, ere this year expire,\n    We bear our civil swords and native fire\n    As far as France. I heard a bird so sing,\n    Whose music, to my thinking, pleas'd the King.\n    Come, will you hence?                                 Exeunt\n\nEPILOGUE\n                           EPILOGUE.\n\n  First my fear, then my curtsy, last my speech. My fear, is your\ndispleasure; my curtsy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons.\nIf you look for a good speech now, you undo me; for what I have to say\nis of mine own making; and what, indeed, I should say will, I doubt,\nprove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture.\nBe it known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here in the end\nof a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it and to promise you\na better. I meant, indeed, to pay you with this; which if like an\nill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle\ncreditors, lose. Here I promis'd you I would be, and here I commit\nmy body to your mercies. Bate me some, and I will pay you some, and,\nas most debtors do, promise you infinitely; and so I kneel down before\nyou- but, indeed, to pray for the Queen.\n  If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to\nuse my legs? And yet that were but light payment-to dance out of\nyour debt. But a good conscience will make any possible\nsatisfaction, and so would I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven\nme. If the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with\nthe gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly.\n  One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloy'd with fat\nmeat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in\nit, and make you merry with fair Katherine of France; where, for\nanything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already 'a be\nkilled with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr and this\nis not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid\nyou good night.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1599\n\nTHE LIFE OF KING HENRY THE FIFTH\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  CHORUS\n  KING HENRY THE FIFTH\n  DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, brother to the King\n  DUKE OF BEDFORD,       \"     \"  \"    \"\n  DUKE OF EXETER, Uncle to the King\n  DUKE OF YORK, cousin to the King\n  EARL OF SALISBURY\n  EARL OF WESTMORELAND\n  EARL OF WARWICK\n  ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY\n  BISHOP OF ELY\n\n  EARL OF CAMBRIDGE, conspirator against the King\n  LORD SCROOP,            \"         \"     \"    \"\n  SIR THOMAS GREY,        \"         \"     \"    \"\n  SIR THOMAS ERPINGHAM, officer in the King's army\n  GOWER,                  \"      \"  \"    \"     \"\n  FLUELLEN,               \"      \"  \"    \"     \"\n  MACMORRIS,              \"      \"  \"    \"     \"\n  JAMY,                   \"      \"  \"    \"     \"\n\n  BATES,    soldier in the King's army\n  COURT,       \"    \"   \"    \"     \"\n  WILLIAMS,    \"    \"   \"    \"     \"\n  NYM,         \"    \"   \"    \"     \"\n  BARDOLPH,    \"    \"   \"    \"     \"\n  PISTOL,      \"    \"   \"    \"     \"\n\n  BOY                               A HERALD\n\n  CHARLES THE SIXTH, King of France\n  LEWIS, the Dauphin                DUKE OF BURGUNDY\n  DUKE OF ORLEANS                   DUKE OF BRITAINE\n  DUKE OF BOURBON                   THE CONSTABLE OF FRANCE\n  RAMBURES, French Lord\n  GRANDPRE,    \"    \"\n  GOVERNOR OF HARFLEUR              MONTJOY, a French herald\n  AMBASSADORS to the King of England\n\n  ISABEL, Queen of France\n  KATHERINE, daughter to Charles and Isabel\n  ALICE, a lady attending her\n  HOSTESS of the Boar's Head, Eastcheap; formerly Mrs. Quickly, now\n    married to Pistol\n\n  Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, Attendants\n\n\n                              SCENE:\n                        England and France\n\nPROLOGUE\n                            PROLOGUE.\n\n                          Enter CHORUS\n\n CHORUS. O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend\n   The brightest heaven of invention,\n   A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,\n   And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!\n   Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,\n   Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,\n   Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire,\n   Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,\n   The flat unraised spirits that hath dar'd\n   On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth\n   So great an object. Can this cockpit hold\n   The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram\n   Within this wooden O the very casques\n   That did affright the air at Agincourt?\n   O, pardon! since a crooked figure may\n   Attest in little place a million;\n   And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,\n   On your imaginary forces work.\n   Suppose within the girdle of these walls\n   Are now confin'd two mighty monarchies,\n   Whose high upreared and abutting fronts\n   The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder.\n   Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts:\n   Into a thousand parts divide one man,\n   And make imaginary puissance;\n   Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them\n   Printing their proud hoofs i' th' receiving earth;\n   For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,\n   Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times,\n   Turning th' accomplishment of many years\n   Into an hour-glass; for the which supply,\n   Admit me Chorus to this history;\n   Who prologue-like, your humble patience pray\n   Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.               Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nLondon. An ante-chamber in the KING'S palace\n\nEnter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY and the BISHOP OF ELY\n\n CANTERBURY. My lord, I'll tell you: that self bill is urg'd\n   Which in th' eleventh year of the last king's reign\n   Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd\n   But that the scambling and unquiet time\n   Did push it out of farther question.\n ELY. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?\n CANTERBURY. It must be thought on. If it pass against us,\n   We lose the better half of our possession;\n   For all the temporal lands which men devout\n   By testament have given to the church\n   Would they strip from us; being valu'd thus-\n   As much as would maintain, to the King's honour,\n   Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,\n   Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;\n   And, to relief of lazars and weak age,\n   Of indigent faint souls, past corporal toil,\n   A hundred alms-houses right well supplied;\n   And to the coffers of the King, beside,\n   A thousand pounds by th' year: thus runs the bill.\n ELY. This would drink deep.\n CANTERBURY. 'T would drink the cup and all.\n ELY. But what prevention?\n CANTERBURY. The King is full of grace and fair regard.\n ELY. And a true lover of the holy Church.\n CANTERBURY. The courses of his youth promis'd it not.\n   The breath no sooner left his father's body\n   But that his wildness, mortified in him,\n   Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment,\n   Consideration like an angel came\n   And whipp'd th' offending Adam out of him,\n   Leaving his body as a paradise\n   T'envelop and contain celestial spirits.\n   Never was such a sudden scholar made;\n   Never came reformation in a flood,\n   With such a heady currance, scouring faults;\n   Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulnes\n   So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,\n   As in this king.\n ELY. We are blessed in the change.\n CANTERBURY. Hear him but reason in divinity,\n   And, all-admiring, with an inward wish\n   You would desire the King were made a prelate;\n   Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,\n   You would say it hath been all in all his study;\n   List his discourse of war, and you shall hear\n   A fearful battle rend'red you in music.\n   Turn him to any cause of policy,\n   The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,\n   Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,\n   The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,\n   And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears\n   To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences;\n   So that the art and practic part of life\n   Must be the mistress to this theoric;\n   Which is a wonder how his Grace should glean it,\n   Since his addiction was to courses vain,\n   His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow,\n   His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;\n   And never noted in him any study,\n   Any retirement, any sequestration\n   From open haunts and popularity.\n ELY. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,\n   And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best\n   Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality;\n   And so the Prince obscur'd his contemplation\n   Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,\n   Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,\n   Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.\n CANTERBURY. It must be so; for miracles are ceas'd;\n   And therefore we must needs admit the means\n   How things are perfected.\n ELY. But, my good lord,\n   How now for mitigation of this bill\n   Urg'd by the Commons? Doth his Majesty\n   Incline to it, or no?\n CANTERBURY. He seems indifferent\n   Or rather swaying more upon our part\n   Than cherishing th' exhibiters against us;\n   For I have made an offer to his Majesty-\n   Upon our spiritual convocation\n   And in regard of causes now in hand,\n   Which I have open'd to his Grace at large,\n   As touching France- to give a greater sum\n   Than ever at one time the clergy yet\n   Did to his predecessors part withal.\n ELY. How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord?\n CANTERBURY. With good acceptance of his Majesty;\n   Save that there was not time enough to hear,\n   As I perceiv'd his Grace would fain have done,\n   The severals and unhidden passages\n   Of his true tides to some certain dukedoms,\n   And generally to the crown and seat of France,\n   Deriv'd from Edward, his great-grandfather.\n ELY. What was th' impediment that broke this off?\n CANTERBURY. The French ambassador upon that instant\n   Crav'd audience; and the hour, I think, is come\n   To give him hearing: is it four o'clock?\n ELY. It is.\n CANTERBURY. Then go we in, to know his embassy;\n   Which I could with a ready guess declare,\n   Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.\n ELY. I'll wait upon you, and I long to hear it.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nLondon. The Presence Chamber in the KING'S palace\n\nEnter the KING, GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND,\nand attendants\n\n  KING HENRY. Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?\n  EXETER. Not here in presence.\n  KING HENRY. Send for him, good uncle.\n  WESTMORELAND. Shall we call in th' ambassador, my liege?\n  KING HENRY. Not yet, my cousin; we would be resolv'd,\n    Before we hear him, of some things of weight\n    That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.\n\n              Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY and\n                       the BISHOP OF ELY\n\n  CANTERBURY. God and his angels guard your sacred throne,\n    And make you long become it!\n  KING HENRY. Sure, we thank you.\n    My learned lord, we pray you to proceed,\n    And justly and religiously unfold\n    Why the law Salique, that they have in France,\n    Or should or should not bar us in our claim;\n    And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,\n    That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,\n    Or nicely charge your understanding soul\n    With opening titles miscreate whose right\n    Suits not in native colours with the truth;\n    For God doth know how many, now in health,\n    Shall drop their blood in approbation\n    Of what your reverence shall incite us to.\n    Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,\n    How you awake our sleeping sword of war-\n    We charge you, in the name of God, take heed;\n    For never two such kingdoms did contend\n    Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops\n    Are every one a woe, a sore complaint,\n    'Gainst him whose wrongs gives edge unto the swords\n    That makes such waste in brief mortality.\n    Under this conjuration speak, my lord;\n    For we will hear, note, and believe in heart,\n    That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd\n    As pure as sin with baptism.\n  CANTERBURY. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,\n    That owe yourselves, your lives, and services,\n    To this imperial throne. There is no bar\n    To make against your Highness' claim to France\n    But this, which they produce from Pharamond:\n    'In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant'-\n    'No woman shall succeed in Salique land';\n    Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze\n    To be the realm of France, and Pharamond\n    The founder of this law and female bar.\n    Yet their own authors faithfully affirm\n    That the land Salique is in Germany,\n    Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe;\n    Where Charles the Great, having subdu'd the Saxons,\n    There left behind and settled certain French;\n    Who, holding in disdain the German women\n    For some dishonest manners of their life,\n    Establish'd then this law: to wit, no female\n    Should be inheritrix in Salique land;\n    Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,\n    Is at this day in Germany call'd Meisen.\n    Then doth it well appear the Salique law\n    Was not devised for the realm of France;\n    Nor did the French possess the Salique land\n    Until four hundred one and twenty years\n    After defunction of King Pharamond,\n    Idly suppos'd the founder of this law;\n    Who died within the year of our redemption\n    Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great\n    Subdu'd the Saxons, and did seat the French\n    Beyond the river Sala, in the year\n    Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,\n    King Pepin, which deposed Childeric,\n    Did, as heir general, being descended\n    Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair,\n    Make claim and title to the crown of France.\n    Hugh Capet also, who usurp'd the crown\n    Of Charles the Duke of Lorraine, sole heir male\n    Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great,\n    To find his title with some shows of truth-\n    Though in pure truth it was corrupt and naught-\n    Convey'd himself as th' heir to th' Lady Lingare,\n    Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son\n    To Lewis the Emperor, and Lewis the son\n    Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the Tenth,\n    Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,\n    Could not keep quiet in his conscience,\n    Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied\n    That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,\n    Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare,\n    Daughter to Charles the foresaid Duke of Lorraine;\n    By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great\n    Was re-united to the Crown of France.\n    So that, as clear as is the summer's sun,\n    King Pepin's title, and Hugh Capet's claim,\n    King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear\n    To hold in right and tide of the female;\n    So do the kings of France unto this day,\n    Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law\n    To bar your Highness claiming from the female;\n    And rather choose to hide them in a net\n    Than amply to imbar their crooked tides\n    Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.\n  KING HENRY. May I with right and conscience make this claim?\n  CANTERBURY. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!\n    For in the book of Numbers is it writ,\n    When the man dies, let the inheritance\n    Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,\n    Stand for your own, unwind your bloody flag,\n    Look back into your mighty ancestors.\n    Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire's tomb,\n    From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit,\n    And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince,\n    Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,\n    Making defeat on the fun power of France,\n    Whiles his most mighty father on a hill\n    Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp\n    Forage in blood of French nobility.\n    O noble English, that could entertain\n    With half their forces the full pride of France,\n    And let another half stand laughing by,\n    All out of work and cold for action!\n  ELY. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead,\n    And with your puissant arm renew their feats.\n    You are their heir; you sit upon their throne;\n    The blood and courage that renowned them\n    Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege\n    Is in the very May-morn of his youth,\n    Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.\n  EXETER. Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth\n    Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,\n    As did the former lions of your blood.\n  WESTMORELAND. They know your Grace hath cause and means and might-\n    So hath your Highness; never King of England\n    Had nobles richer and more loyal subjects,\n    Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England\n    And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.\n  CANTERBURY. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,\n    With blood and sword and fire to win your right!\n    In aid whereof we of the spiritualty\n    Will raise your Highness such a mighty sum\n    As never did the clergy at one time\n    Bring in to any of your ancestors.\n  KING HENRY. We must not only arm t' invade the French,\n    But lay down our proportions to defend\n    Against the Scot, who will make road upon us\n    With all advantages.\n  CANTERBURY. They of those marches, gracious sovereign,\n    Shall be a wall sufficient to defend\n    Our inland from the pilfering borderers.\n  KING HENRY. We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,\n    But fear the main intendment of the Scot,\n    Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;\n    For you shall read that my great-grandfather\n    Never went with his forces into France\n    But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom\n    Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,\n    With ample and brim fulness of his force,\n    Galling the gleaned land with hot assays,\n    Girdling with grievous siege castles and towns;\n    That England, being empty of defence,\n    Hath shook and trembled at th' ill neighbourhood.\n  CANTERBURY. She hath been then more fear'd than harm'd, my liege;\n    For hear her but exampled by herself:\n    When all her chivalry hath been in France,\n    And she a mourning widow of her nobles,\n    She hath herself not only well defended\n    But taken and impounded as a stray\n    The King of Scots; whom she did send to France,\n    To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings,\n    And make her chronicle as rich with praise\n    As is the ooze and bottom of the sea\n    With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.\n  WESTMORELAND. But there's a saying, very old and true:\n\n          'If that you will France win,\n          Then with Scotland first begin.'\n\n    For once the eagle England being in prey,\n    To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot\n    Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs,\n    Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,\n    To tear and havoc more than she can eat.\n  EXETER. It follows, then, the cat must stay at home;\n    Yet that is but a crush'd necessity,\n    Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries\n    And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.\n    While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,\n    Th' advised head defends itself at home;\n    For government, though high, and low, and lower,\n    Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,\n    Congreeing in a full and natural close,\n    Like music.\n  CANTERBURY. Therefore doth heaven divide\n    The state of man in divers functions,\n    Setting endeavour in continual motion;\n    To which is fixed as an aim or but\n    Obedience; for so work the honey bees,\n    Creatures that by a rule in nature teach\n    The act of order to a peopled kingdom.\n    They have a king, and officers of sorts,\n    Where some like magistrates correct at home;\n    Others like merchants venture trade abroad;\n    Others like soldiers, armed in their stings,\n    Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,\n    Which pillage they with merry march bring home\n    To the tent-royal of their emperor;\n    Who, busied in his majesty, surveys\n    The singing masons building roofs of gold,\n    The civil citizens kneading up the honey,\n    The poor mechanic porters crowding in\n    Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,\n    The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum,\n    Delivering o'er to executors pale\n    The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,\n    That many things, having full reference\n    To one consent, may work contrariously;\n    As many arrows loosed several ways\n    Come to one mark, as many ways meet in one town,\n    As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea,\n    As many lines close in the dial's centre;\n    So many a thousand actions, once afoot,\n    End in one purpose, and be all well home\n    Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.\n    Divide your happy England into four;\n    Whereof take you one quarter into France,\n    And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.\n    If we, with thrice such powers left at home,\n    Cannot defend our own doors from the dog,\n    Let us be worried, and our nation lose\n    The name of hardiness and policy.\n  KING HENRY. Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.\n                                          Exeunt some attendants\n    Now are we well resolv'd; and, by God's help\n    And yours, the noble sinews of our power,\n    France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,\n    Or break it all to pieces; or there we'll sit,\n    Ruling in large and ample empery\n    O'er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,\n    Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,\n    Tombless, with no remembrance over them.\n    Either our history shall with full mouth\n    Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave,\n    Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,\n    Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph.\n\n                  Enter AMBASSADORS of France\n\n    Now are we well prepar'd to know the pleasure\n    Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for we hear\n    Your greeting is from him, not from the King.\n  AMBASSADOR. May't please your Majesty to give us leave\n    Freely to render what we have in charge;\n    Or shall we sparingly show you far of\n    The Dauphin's meaning and our embassy?\n  KING HENRY. We are no tyrant, but a Christian king,\n    Unto whose grace our passion is as subject\n    As are our wretches fett'red in our prisons;\n    Therefore with frank and with uncurbed plainness\n    Tell us the Dauphin's mind.\n  AMBASSADOR. Thus then, in few.\n    Your Highness, lately sending into France,\n    Did claim some certain dukedoms in the right\n    Of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third.\n    In answer of which claim, the Prince our master\n    Says that you savour too much of your youth,\n    And bids you be advis'd there's nought in France\n    That can be with a nimble galliard won;\n    You cannot revel into dukedoms there.\n    He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,\n    This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,\n    Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim\n    Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.\n  KING HENRY. What treasure, uncle?\n  EXETER. Tennis-balls, my liege.\n  KING HENRY. We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;\n    His present and your pains we thank you for.\n    When we have match'd our rackets to these balls,\n    We will in France, by God's grace, play a set\n    Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.\n    Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler\n    That all the courts of France will be disturb'd\n    With chaces. And we understand him well,\n    How he comes o'er us with our wilder days,\n    Not measuring what use we made of them.\n    We never valu'd this poor seat of England;\n    And therefore, living hence, did give ourself\n    To barbarous licence; as 'tis ever common\n    That men are merriest when they are from home.\n    But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state,\n    Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness,\n    When I do rouse me in my throne of France;\n    For that I have laid by my majesty\n    And plodded like a man for working-days;\n    But I will rise there with so full a glory\n    That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,\n    Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.\n    And tell the pleasant Prince this mock of his\n    Hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones, and his soul\n    Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance\n    That shall fly with them; for many a thousand widows\n    Shall this his mock mock of their dear husbands;\n    Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;\n    And some are yet ungotten and unborn\n    That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn.\n    But this lies all within the will of God,\n    To whom I do appeal; and in whose name,\n    Tell you the Dauphin, I am coming on,\n    To venge me as I may and to put forth\n    My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause.\n    So get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin\n    His jest will savour but of shallow wit,\n    When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.\n    Convey them with safe conduct. Fare you well.\n                                              Exeunt AMBASSADORS\n  EXETER. This was a merry message.\n  KING HENRY. We hope to make the sender blush at it.\n    Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour\n    That may give furth'rance to our expedition;\n    For we have now no thought in us but France,\n    Save those to God, that run before our business.\n    Therefore let our proportions for these wars\n    Be soon collected, and all things thought upon\n    That may with reasonable swiftness ad\n    More feathers to our wings; for, God before,\n    We'll chide this Dauphin at his father's door.\n    Therefore let every man now task his thought\n    That this fair action may on foot be brought.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. PROLOGUE.\n\nFlourish. Enter CHORUS\n\n  CHORUS. Now all the youth of England are on fire,\n    And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies;\n    Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought\n    Reigns solely in the breast of every man;\n    They sell the pasture now to buy the horse,\n    Following the mirror of all Christian kings\n    With winged heels, as English Mercuries.\n    For now sits Expectation in the air,\n    And hides a sword from hilts unto the point\n    With crowns imperial, crowns, and coronets,\n    Promis'd to Harry and his followers.\n    The French, advis'd by good intelligence\n    Of this most dreadful preparation,\n    Shake in their fear and with pale policy\n    Seek to divert the English purposes.\n    O England! model to thy inward greatness,\n    Like little body with a mighty heart,\n    What mightst thou do that honour would thee do,\n    Were all thy children kind and natural!\n    But see thy fault! France hath in thee found out\n    A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills\n    With treacherous crowns; and three corrupted men-\n    One, Richard Earl of Cambridge, and the second,\n    Henry Lord Scroop of Masham, and the third,\n    Sir Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland,\n    Have, for the gilt of France- O guilt indeed!-\n    Confirm'd conspiracy with fearful France;\n    And by their hands this grace of kings must die-\n    If hell and treason hold their promises,\n    Ere he take ship for France- and in Southampton.\n    Linger your patience on, and we'll digest\n    Th' abuse of distance, force a play.\n    The sum is paid, the traitors are agreed,\n    The King is set from London, and the scene\n    Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton;\n    There is the play-house now, there must you sit,\n    And thence to France shall we convey you safe\n    And bring you back, charming the narrow seas\n    To give you gentle pass; for, if we may,\n    We'll not offend one stomach with our play.\n    But, till the King come forth, and not till then,\n    Unto Southampton do we shift our scene.                 Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE I.\nLondon. Before the Boar's Head Tavern, Eastcheap\n\nEnter CORPORAL NYM and LIEUTENANT BARDOLPH\n\n  BARDOLPH. Well met, Corporal Nym.\n  NYM. Good morrow, Lieutenant Bardolph.\n  BARDOLPH. What, are Ancient Pistol and you friends yet?\n  NYM. For my part, I care not; I say little, but when time shall\n    serve, there shall be smiles- but that shall be as it may. I dare\n    not fight; but I will wink and hold out mine iron. It is a simple\n    one; but what though? It will toast cheese, and it will endure\n    cold as another man's sword will; and there's an end.\n  BARDOLPH. I will bestow a breakfast to make you friends; and we'll\n    be all three sworn brothers to France. Let't be so, good Corporal\n    Nym.\n  NYM. Faith, I will live so long as I may, that's the certain of it;\n    and when I cannot live any longer, I will do as I may. That is my\n    rest, that is the rendezvous of it.\n  BARDOLPH. It is certain, Corporal, that he is married to Nell\n    Quickly; and certainly she did you wrong, for you were\n    troth-plight to her.\n  NYM. I cannot tell; things must be as they may. Men may sleep, and\n    they may have their throats about them at that time; and some say\n    knives have edges. It must be as it may; though patience be a\n    tired mare, yet she will plod. There must be conclusions. Well, I\n    cannot tell.\n\n                     Enter PISTOL and HOSTESS\n\n  BARDOLPH. Here comes Ancient Pistol and his wife. Good Corporal, be\n    patient here.\n  NYM. How now, mine host Pistol!\n  PISTOL. Base tike, call'st thou me host?\n    Now by this hand, I swear I scorn the term;\n    Nor shall my Nell keep lodgers.\n  HOSTESS. No, by my troth, not long; for we cannot lodge and board a\n    dozen or fourteen gentlewomen that live honestly by the prick of\n    their needles, but it will be thought we keep a bawdy-house\n    straight. [Nym draws] O well-a-day, Lady, if he be not drawn! Now\n    we shall see wilful adultery and murder committed.\n  BARDOLPH. Good Lieutenant, good Corporal, offer nothing here.\n  NYM. Pish!\n  PISTOL. Pish for thee, Iceland dog! thou prick-ear'd cur of\n    Iceland!\n  HOSTESS. Good Corporal Nym, show thy valour, and put up your sword.\n  NYM. Will you shog off? I would have you solus.\n  PISTOL. 'Solus,' egregious dog? O viper vile!\n    The 'solus' in thy most mervailous face;\n    The 'solus' in thy teeth, and in thy throat,\n    And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy;\n    And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth!\n    I do retort the 'solus' in thy bowels;\n    For I can take, and Pistol's cock is up,\n    And flashing fire will follow.\n  NYM. I am not Barbason: you cannot conjure me. I have an humour to\n    knock you indifferently well. If you grow foul with me, Pistol, I\n    will scour you with my rapier, as I may, in fair terms; if you\n    would walk off I would prick your guts a little, in good terms,\n    as I may, and thaes the humour of it.\n  PISTOL. O braggart vile and damned furious wight!\n    The grave doth gape and doting death is near;\n    Therefore exhale.                             [PISTOL draws]\n  BARDOLPH. Hear me, hear me what I say: he that strikes the first\n    stroke I'll run him up to the hilts, as I am a soldier.\n                                                         [Draws]\n  PISTOL. An oath of mickle might; and fury shall abate.\n                           [PISTOL and Nym sheathe their swords]\n    Give me thy fist, thy fore-foot to me give;\n    Thy spirits are most tall.\n  NYM. I will cut thy throat one time or other, in fair terms; that\n    is the humour of it.\n  PISTOL. 'Couple a gorge!'\n    That is the word. I thee defy again.\n    O hound of Crete, think'st thou my spouse to get?\n    No; to the spital go,\n    And from the powd'ring tub of infamy\n    Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid's kind,\n    Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse.\n    I have, and I will hold, the quondam Quickly\n    For the only she; and- pauca, there's enough.\n    Go to.\n\n                        Enter the Boy\n\n  BOY. Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master; and your\n    hostess- he is very sick, and would to bed. Good Bardolph, put\n    thy face between his sheets, and do the office of a warming-pan.\n    Faith, he's very ill.\n  BARDOLPH. Away, you rogue.\n  HOSTESS. By my troth, he'll yield the crow a pudding one of these\n    days: the King has kill'd his heart. Good husband, come home\n    presently.                            Exeunt HOSTESS and BOY\n  BARDOLPH. Come, shall I make you two friends? We must to France\n    together; why the devil should we keep knives to cut one\n    another's throats?\n  PISTOL. Let floods o'erswell, and fiends for food howl on!\n  NYM. You'll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting?\n  PISTOL. Base is the slave that pays.\n  NYM. That now I will have; that's the humour of it.\n  PISTOL. As manhood shall compound: push home.\n                                           [PISTOL and Nym draw]\n  BARDOLPH. By this sword, he that makes the first thrust I'll kill\n    him; by this sword, I will.\n  PISTOL. Sword is an oath, and oaths must have their course.\n                                            [Sheathes his sword]\n  BARDOLPH. Corporal Nym, an thou wilt be friends, be friends; an\n    thou wilt not, why then be enemies with me too. Prithee put up.\n  NYM. I shall have my eight shillings I won of you at betting?\n  PISTOL. A noble shalt thou have, and present pay;\n    And liquor likewise will I give to thee,\n    And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood.\n    I'll live by Nym and Nym shall live by me.\n    Is not this just? For I shall sutler be\n    Unto the camp, and profits will accrue.\n    Give me thy hand.\n  NYM. [Sheathing his sword] I shall have my noble?\n  PISTOL. In cash most justly paid.\n  NYM. [Shaking hands] Well, then, that's the humour of't.\n\n                       Re-enter HOSTESS\n\n  HOSTESS. As ever you come of women, come in quickly to Sir John.\n    Ah, poor heart! he is so shak'd of a burning quotidian tertian\n    that it is most lamentable to behold. Sweet men, come to him.\n  NYM. The King hath run bad humours on the knight; that's the even\n    of it.\n  PISTOL. Nym, thou hast spoke the right;\n    His heart is fracted and corroborate.\n  NYM. The King is a good king, but it must be as it may; he passes\n    some humours and careers.\n  PISTOL. Let us condole the knight; for, lambkins, we will live.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nSouthampton. A council-chamber\n\nEnter EXETER, BEDFORD, and WESTMORELAND\n\n  BEDFORD. Fore God, his Grace is bold, to trust these traitors.\n  EXETER. They shall be apprehended by and by.\n  WESTMORELAND. How smooth and even they do bear themselves,\n    As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,\n    Crowned with faith and constant loyalty!\n  BEDFORD. The King hath note of all that they intend,\n    By interception which they dream not of.\n  EXETER. Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,\n    Whom he hath dull'd and cloy'd with gracious favours-\n    That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell\n    His sovereign's life to death and treachery!\n\n               Trumpets sound. Enter the KING, SCROOP,\n                  CAMBRIDGE, GREY, and attendants\n\n  KING HENRY. Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.\n    My Lord of Cambridge, and my kind Lord of Masham,\n    And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts.\n    Think you not that the pow'rs we bear with us\n    Will cut their passage through the force of France,\n    Doing the execution and the act\n    For which we have in head assembled them?\n  SCROOP. No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.\n  KING HENRY. I doubt not that, since we are well persuaded\n    We carry not a heart with us from hence\n    That grows not in a fair consent with ours;\n    Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish\n    Success and conquest to attend on us.\n  CAMBRIDGE. Never was monarch better fear'd and lov'd\n    Than is your Majesty. There's not, I think, a subject\n    That sits in heart-grief and uneasines\n    Under the sweet shade of your government.\n  GREY. True: those that were your father's enemies\n    Have steep'd their galls in honey, and do serve you\n    With hearts create of duty and of zeal.\n  KING HENRY. We therefore have great cause of thankfulness,\n    And shall forget the office of our hand\n    Sooner than quittance of desert and merit\n    According to the weight and worthiness.\n  SCROOP. So service shall with steeled sinews toil,\n    And labour shall refresh itself with hope,\n    To do your Grace incessant services.\n  KING HENRY. We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter,\n    Enlarge the man committed yesterday\n    That rail'd against our person. We consider\n    It was excess of wine that set him on;\n    And on his more advice we pardon him.\n  SCROOP. That's mercy, but too much security.\n    Let him be punish'd, sovereign, lest example\n    Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.\n  KING HENRY. O, let us yet be merciful!\n  CAMBRIDGE. So may your Highness, and yet punish too.\n  GREY. Sir,\n    You show great mercy if you give him life,\n    After the taste of much correction.\n  KING HENRY. Alas, your too much love and care of me\n    Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch!\n    If little faults proceeding on distemper\n    Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye\n    When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, and digested,\n    Appear before us? We'll yet enlarge that man,\n    Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their dear care\n    And tender preservation of our person,\n    Would have him punish'd. And now to our French causes:\n    Who are the late commissioners?\n  CAMBRIDGE. I one, my lord.\n    Your Highness bade me ask for it to-day.\n  SCROOP. So did you me, my liege.\n  GREY. And I, my royal sovereign.\n  KING HENRY. Then, Richard Earl of Cambridge, there is yours;\n    There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham; and, Sir Knight,\n    Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours.\n    Read them, and know I know your worthiness.\n    My Lord of Westmoreland, and uncle Exeter,\n    We will aboard to-night. Why, how now, gentlemen?\n    What see you in those papers, that you lose\n    So much complexion? Look ye how they change!\n    Their cheeks are paper. Why, what read you there\n    That have so cowarded and chas'd your blood\n    Out of appearance?\n  CAMBRIDGE. I do confess my fault,\n    And do submit me to your Highness' mercy.\n  GREY, SCROOP. To which we all appeal.\n  KING HENRY. The mercy that was quick in us but late\n   By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd.\n    You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;\n    For your own reasons turn into your bosoms\n    As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.\n    See you, my princes and my noble peers,\n    These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge here-\n    You know how apt our love was to accord\n    To furnish him with an appertinents\n    Belonging to his honour; and this man\n    Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspir'd,\n    And sworn unto the practices of France\n    To kill us here in Hampton; to the which\n    This knight, no less for bounty bound to us\n    Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. But, O,\n    What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop, thou cruel,\n    Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature?\n    Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,\n    That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,\n    That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold,\n    Wouldst thou have practis'd on me for thy use-\n    May it be possible that foreign hire\n    Could out of thee extract one spark of evil\n    That might annoy my finger? 'Tis so strange\n    That, though the truth of it stands off as gross\n    As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.\n    Treason and murder ever kept together,\n    As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,\n    Working so grossly in a natural cause\n    That admiration did not whoop at them;\n    But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in\n    Wonder to wait on treason and on murder;\n    And whatsoever cunning fiend it was\n    That wrought upon thee so preposterously\n    Hath got the voice in hell for excellence;\n    And other devils that suggest by treasons\n    Do botch and bungle up damnation\n    With patches, colours, and with forms, being fetch'd\n    From glist'ring semblances of piety;\n    But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up,\n    Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,\n    Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.\n    If that same demon that hath gull'd thee thus\n    Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,\n    He might return to vasty Tartar back,\n    And tell the legions 'I can never win\n    A soul so easy as that Englishman's.'\n    O, how hast thou with jealousy infected\n    The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?\n    Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and learned?\n    Why, so didst thou. Come they of noble family?\n    Why, so didst thou. Seem they religious?\n    Why, so didst thou. Or are they spare in diet,\n    Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,\n    Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,\n    Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement,\n    Not working with the eye without the ear,\n    And but in purged judgment trusting neither?\n    Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem;\n    And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot\n    To mark the full-fraught man and best indued\n    With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;\n    For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like\n    Another fall of man. Their faults are open.\n    Arrest them to the answer of the law;\n    And God acquit them of their practices!\n  EXETER. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard Earl\n      of Cambridge.\n    I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry Lord Scroop\n      of Masham.\n    I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey,\n      knight, of Northumberland.\n  SCROOP. Our purposes God justly hath discover'd,\n    And I repent my fault more than my death;\n    Which I beseech your Highness to forgive,\n    Although my body pay the price of it.\n  CAMBRIDGE. For me, the gold of France did not seduce,\n    Although I did admit it as a motive\n    The sooner to effect what I intended;\n    But God be thanked for prevention,\n    Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,\n    Beseeching God and you to pardon me.\n  GREY. Never did faithful subject more rejoice\n    At the discovery of most dangerous treason\n    Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself,\n    Prevented from a damned enterprise.\n    My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.\n  KING HENRY. God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.\n    You have conspir'd against our royal person,\n    Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd, and from his coffers\n    Receiv'd the golden earnest of our death;\n    Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,\n    His princes and his peers to servitude,\n    His subjects to oppression and contempt,\n    And his whole kingdom into desolation.\n    Touching our person seek we no revenge;\n    But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,\n    Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws\n    We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,\n    Poor miserable wretches, to your death;\n    The taste whereof God of his mercy give\n    You patience to endure, and true repentance\n    Of all your dear offences. Bear them hence.\n                     Exeunt CAMBRIDGE, SCROOP, and GREY, guarded\n    Now, lords, for France; the enterprise whereof\n    Shall be to you as us like glorious.\n    We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,\n    Since God so graciously hath brought to light\n    This dangerous treason, lurking in our way\n    To hinder our beginnings; we doubt not now\n    But every rub is smoothed on our way.\n    Then, forth, dear countrymen; let us deliver\n    Our puissance into the hand of God,\n    Putting it straight in expedition.\n    Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance;\n    No king of England, if not king of France!\n                                                Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nEastcheap. Before the Boar's Head tavern\n\nEnter PISTOL, HOSTESS, NYM, BARDOLPH, and Boy\n\n  HOSTESS. Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to\n     Staines.\n  PISTOL. No; for my manly heart doth earn.\n    Bardolph, be blithe; Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins;\n    Boy, bristle thy courage up. For Falstaff he is dead,\n    And we must earn therefore.\n  BARDOLPH. Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in\n    heaven or in hell!\n  HOSTESS. Nay, sure, he's not in hell: he's in Arthur's bosom, if\n    ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end, and went\n    away an it had been any christom child; 'a parted ev'n just\n    between twelve and one, ev'n at the turning o' th' tide; for\n    after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers,\n    and smile upon his fingers' end, I knew there was but one way;\n    for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbl'd of green\n    fields. 'How now, Sir John!' quoth I 'What, man, be o' good\n    cheer.' So 'a cried out 'God, God, God!' three or four times. Now\n    I, to comfort him, bid him 'a should not think of God; I hop'd\n    there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet.\n    So 'a bade me lay more clothes on his feet; I put my hand into\n    the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I\n    felt to his knees, and so upward and upward, and all was as cold\n    as any stone.\n  NYM. They say he cried out of sack.\n  HOSTESS. Ay, that 'a did.\n  BARDOLPH. And of women.\n  HOSTESS. Nay, that 'a did not.\n  BOY. Yes, that 'a did, and said they were devils incarnate.\n  HOSTESS. 'A could never abide carnation; 'twas a colour he never\n    liked.\n  BOY. 'A said once the devil would have him about women.\n  HOSTESS. 'A did in some sort, indeed, handle women; but then he was\n    rheumatic, and talk'd of the Whore of Babylon.\n  BOY. Do you not remember 'a saw a flea stick upon Bardolph's nose,\n    and 'a said it was a black soul burning in hell?\n  BARDOLPH. Well, the fuel is gone that maintain'd that fire: that's\n    all the riches I got in his service.\n  NYM. Shall we shog? The King will be gone from Southampton.\n  PISTOL. Come, let's away. My love, give me thy lips.\n    Look to my chattles and my moveables;\n    Let senses rule. The word is 'Pitch and Pay.'\n    Trust none;\n    For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes,\n    And Holdfast is the only dog, my duck.\n    Therefore, Caveto be thy counsellor.\n    Go, clear thy crystals. Yoke-fellows in arms,\n    Let us to France, like horse-leeches, my boys,\n    To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck.\n  BOY. And that's but unwholesome food, they say.\n  PISTOL. Touch her soft mouth and march.\n  BARDOLPH. Farewell, hostess.                     [Kissing her]\n  NYM. I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it; but adieu.\n  PISTOL. Let housewifery appear; keep close, I thee command.\n  HOSTESS. Farewell; adieu.                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nFrance. The KING'S palace\n\nFlourish. Enter the FRENCH KING, the DAUPHIN, the DUKES OF BERRI\nand BRITAINE, the CONSTABLE, and others\n\n  FRENCH KING. Thus comes the English with full power upon us;\n    And more than carefully it us concerns\n    To answer royally in our defences.\n    Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Britaine,\n    Of Brabant and of Orleans, shall make forth,\n    And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch,\n    To line and new repair our towns of war\n    With men of courage and with means defendant;\n    For England his approaches makes as fierce\n    As waters to the sucking of a gulf.\n    It fits us, then, to be as provident\n    As fear may teach us, out of late examples\n    Left by the fatal and neglected English\n    Upon our fields.\n  DAUPHIN. My most redoubted father,\n    It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe;\n    For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom,\n    Though war nor no known quarrel were in question,\n    But that defences, musters, preparations,\n    Should be maintain'd, assembled, and collected,\n    As were a war in expectation.\n    Therefore, I say, 'tis meet we all go forth\n    To view the sick and feeble parts of France;\n    And let us do it with no show of fear-\n    No, with no more than if we heard that England\n    Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance;\n    For, my good liege, she is so idly king'd,\n    Her sceptre so fantastically borne\n    By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,\n    That fear attends her not.\n  CONSTABLE. O peace, Prince Dauphin!\n    You are too much mistaken in this king.\n    Question your Grace the late ambassadors\n    With what great state he heard their embassy,\n    How well supplied with noble counsellors,\n    How modest in exception, and withal\n    How terrible in constant resolution,\n    And you shall find his vanities forespent\n    Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,\n    Covering discretion with a coat of folly;\n    As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots\n    That shall first spring and be most delicate.\n  DAUPHIN. Well, 'tis not so, my Lord High Constable;\n    But though we think it so, it is no matter.\n    In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh\n    The enemy more mighty than he seems;\n    So the proportions of defence are fill'd;\n    Which of a weak and niggardly projection\n    Doth like a miser spoil his coat with scanting\n    A little cloth.\n  FRENCH KING. Think we King Harry strong;\n    And, Princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.\n    The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us;\n    And he is bred out of that bloody strain\n    That haunted us in our familiar paths.\n    Witness our too much memorable shame\n    When Cressy battle fatally was struck,\n    And all our princes capdv'd by the hand\n    Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales;\n    Whiles that his mountain sire- on mountain standing,\n    Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun-\n    Saw his heroical seed, and smil'd to see him,\n    Mangle the work of nature, and deface\n    The patterns that by God and by French fathers\n    Had twenty years been made. This is a stern\n    Of that victorious stock; and let us fear\n    The native mightiness and fate of him.\n\n                      Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Ambassadors from Harry King of England\n    Do crave admittance to your Majesty.\n  FRENCH KING. We'll give them present audience. Go and bring them.\n                              Exeunt MESSENGER and certain LORDS\n    You see this chase is hotly followed, friends.\n  DAUPHIN. Turn head and stop pursuit; for coward dogs\n    Most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten\n    Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,\n    Take up the English short, and let them know\n    Of what a monarchy you are the head.\n    Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin\n    As self-neglecting.\n\n               Re-enter LORDS, with EXETER and train\n\n  FRENCH KING. From our brother of England?\n  EXETER. From him, and thus he greets your Majesty:\n    He wills you, in the name of God Almighty,\n    That you divest yourself, and lay apart\n    The borrowed glories that by gift of heaven,\n    By law of nature and of nations, 'longs\n    To him and to his heirs- namely, the crown,\n    And all wide-stretched honours that pertain,\n    By custom and the ordinance of times,\n    Unto the crown of France. That you may know\n    'Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim,\n    Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanish'd days,\n    Nor from the dust of old oblivion rak'd,\n    He sends you this most memorable line,       [Gives a paper]\n    In every branch truly demonstrative;\n    Willing you overlook this pedigree.\n    And when you find him evenly deriv'd\n    From his most fam'd of famous ancestors,\n    Edward the Third, he bids you then resign\n    Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held\n    From him, the native and true challenger.\n  FRENCH KING. Or else what follows?\n  EXETER. Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown\n    Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it.\n    Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,\n    In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,\n    That if requiring fail, he will compel;\n    And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,\n    Deliver up the crown; and to take mercy\n    On the poor souls for whom this hungry war\n    Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head\n    Turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries,\n    The dead men's blood, the privy maidens' groans,\n    For husbands, fathers, and betrothed lovers,\n    That shall be swallowed in this controversy.\n    This is his claim, his threat'ning, and my message;\n    Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,\n    To whom expressly I bring greeting too.\n  FRENCH KING. For us, we will consider of this further;\n    To-morrow shall you bear our full intent\n    Back to our brother of England.\n  DAUPHIN. For the Dauphin:\n    I stand here for him. What to him from England?\n  EXETER. Scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt,\n    And anything that may not misbecome\n    The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.\n    Thus says my king: an if your father's Highness\n    Do not, in grant of all demands at large,\n    Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his Majesty,\n    He'll call you to so hot an answer of it\n    That caves and womby vaultages of France\n    Shall chide your trespass and return your mock\n    In second accent of his ordinance.\n  DAUPHIN. Say, if my father render fair return,\n    It is against my will; for I desire\n    Nothing but odds with England. To that end,\n    As matching to his youth and vanity,\n    I did present him with the Paris balls.\n  EXETER. He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,\n    Were it the mistress court of mighty Europe;\n    And be assur'd you'll find a difference,\n    As we his subjects have in wonder found,\n    Between the promise of his greener days\n    And these he masters now. Now he weighs time\n    Even to the utmost grain; that you shall read\n    In your own losses, if he stay in France.\n  FRENCH KING. To-morrow shall you know our mind at full.\n  EXETER. Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our king\n    Come here himself to question our delay;\n    For he is footed in this land already.\n  FRENCH KING. You shall be soon dispatch'd with fair conditions.\n    A night is but small breath and little pause\n    To answer matters of this consequence.      Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. PROLOGUE.\n\nFlourish. Enter CHORUS\n\n  CHORUS. Thus with imagin'd wing our swift scene flies,\n    In motion of no less celerity\n    Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen\n    The well-appointed King at Hampton pier\n    Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet\n    With silken streamers the young Phorbus fanning.\n    Play with your fancies; and in them behold\n    Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;\n    Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give\n    To sounds confus'd; behold the threaden sails,\n    Borne with th' invisible and creeping wind,\n    Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea,\n    Breasting the lofty surge. O, do but think\n    You stand upon the rivage and behold\n    A city on th' inconstant billows dancing;\n    For so appears this fleet majestical,\n    Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow!\n    Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy\n    And leave your England as dead midnight still,\n    Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women,\n    Either past or not arriv'd to pith and puissance;\n    For who is he whose chin is but enrich'd\n    With one appearing hair that will not follow\n    These cull'd and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?\n    Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege;\n    Behold the ordnance on their carriages,\n    With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.\n    Suppose th' ambassador from the French comes back;\n    Tells Harry that the King doth offer him\n    Katherine his daughter, and with her to dowry\n    Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms.\n    The offer likes not; and the nimble gunner\n    With linstock now the devilish cannon touches,\n                                   [Alarum, and chambers go off]\n    And down goes all before them. Still be kind,\n    And eke out our performance with your mind.             Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE I.\nFrance. Before Harfleur\n\nAlarum. Enter the KING, EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER,\nand soldiers with scaling-ladders\n\n  KING. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;\n    Or close the wall up with our English dead.\n    In peace there's nothing so becomes a man\n    As modest stillness and humility;\n    But when the blast of war blows in our ears,\n    Then imitate the action of the tiger:\n    Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,\n    Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;\n    Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;\n    Let it pry through the portage of the head\n    Like the brass cannon: let the brow o'erwhelm it\n    As fearfully as doth a galled rock\n    O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,\n    Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.\n    Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide;\n    Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit\n    To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,\n    Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof-\n    Fathers that like so many Alexanders\n    Have in these parts from morn till even fought,\n    And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument.\n    Dishonour not your mothers; now attest\n    That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.\n    Be copy now to men of grosser blood,\n    And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen,\n    Whose limbs were made in England, show us here\n    The mettle of your pasture; let us swear\n    That you are worth your breeding- which I doubt not;\n    For there is none of you so mean and base\n    That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.\n    I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,\n    Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:\n    Follow your spirit; and upon this charge\n    Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'\n                           [Exeunt. Alarum, and chambers go off]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBefore Harfleur\n\nEnter NYM, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, and BOY\n\n  BARDOLPH. On, on, on, on, on! to the breach, to the breach!\n  NYM. Pray thee, Corporal, stay; the knocks are too hot, and for\n    mine own part I have not a case of lives. The humour of it is too\n    hot; that is the very plain-song of it.\n  PISTOL. The plain-song is most just; for humours do abound:\n\n        Knocks go and come; God's vassals drop and die;\n                    And sword and shield\n                    In bloody field\n                 Doth win immortal fame.\n\n  BOY. Would I were in an alehouse in London! I wouid give all my\n    fame for a pot of ale and safety.\n  PISTOL. And I:\n\n               If wishes would prevail with me,\n               My purpose should not fail with me,\n                   But thither would I hie.\n\n  BOY.             As duly, but not as truly,\n                   As bird doth sing on bough.\n\n                         Enter FLUELLEN\n\n  FLUELLEN. Up to the breach, you dogs!\n    Avaunt, you cullions!                 [Driving them forward]\n  PISTOL. Be merciful, great duke, to men of mould.\n    Abate thy rage, abate thy manly rage;\n    Abate thy rage, great duke.\n    Good bawcock, bate thy rage. Use lenity, sweet chuck.\n  NYM. These be good humours. Your honour wins bad humours.\n                                              Exeunt all but BOY\n  BOY. As young as I am, I have observ'd these three swashers. I am\n    boy to them all three; but all they three, though they would\n    serve me, could not be man to me; for indeed three such antics do\n    not amount to a man. For Bardolph, he is white-liver'd and\n    red-fac'd; by the means whereof 'a faces it out, but fights not.\n    For Pistol, he hath a killing tongue and a quiet sword; by the\n    means whereof 'a breaks words and keeps whole weapons. For Nym,\n    he hath heard that men of few words are the best men, and\n    therefore he scorns to say his prayers lest 'a should be thought\n    a coward; but his few bad words are match'd with as few good\n    deeds; for 'a never broke any man's head but his own, and that\n    was against a post when he was drunk. They will steal anything,\n    and call it purchase. Bardolph stole a lute-case, bore it twelve\n    leagues, and sold it for three halfpence. Nym and Bardolph are\n    sworn brothers in filching, and in Calais they stole a\n    fire-shovel; I knew by that piece of service the men would carry\n    coals. They would have me as familiar with men's pockets as their\n    gloves or their handkerchers; which makes much against my\n    manhood, if I should take from another's pocket to put into mine;\n    for it is plain pocketing up of wrongs. I must leave them and\n    seek some better service; their villainy goes against my weak\n    stomach, and therefore I must cast it up.               Exit\n\n                 Re-enter FLUELLEN, GOWER following\n\n  GOWER. Captain Fluellen, you must come presently to the mines; the\n    Duke of Gloucester would speak with you.\n  FLUELLEN. To the mines! Tell you the Duke it is not so good to come\n    to the mines; for, look you, the mines is not according to the\n    disciplines of the war; the concavities of it is not sufficient.\n    For, look you, th' athversary- you may discuss unto the Duke,\n    look you- is digt himself four yard under the countermines; by\n    Cheshu, I think 'a will plow up all, if there is not better\n    directions.\n  GOWER. The Duke of Gloucester, to whom the order of the siege is\n    given, is altogether directed by an Irishman- a very vallant\n    gentleman, i' faith.\n  FLUELLEN. It is Captain Macmorris, is it not?\n  GOWER. I think it be.\n  FLUELLEN. By Cheshu, he is an ass, as in the world: I will verify\n    as much in his beard; he has no more directions in the true\n    disciplines of the wars, look you, of the Roman disciplines, than\n    is a puppy-dog.\n\n                 Enter MACMORRIS and CAPTAIN JAMY\n\n  GOWER. Here 'a comes; and the Scots captain, Captain Jamy, with\n    him.\n  FLUELLEN. Captain Jamy is a marvellous falorous gentleman, that is\n    certain, and of great expedition and knowledge in th' aunchient\n    wars, upon my particular knowledge of his directions. By Cheshu,\n    he will maintain his argument as well as any military man in the\n    world, in the disciplines of the pristine wars of the Romans.\n  JAMY. I say gud day, Captain Fluellen.\n  FLUELLEN. God-den to your worship, good Captain James.\n  GOWER. How now, Captain Macmorris! Have you quit the mines? Have\n    the pioneers given o'er?\n  MACMORRIS. By Chrish, la, tish ill done! The work ish give over,\n    the trompet sound the retreat. By my hand, I swear, and my\n    father's soul, the work ish ill done; it ish give over; I would\n    have blowed up the town, so Chrish save me, la, in an hour. O,\n    tish ill done, tish ill done; by my hand, tish ill done!\n  FLUELLEN. Captain Macmorris, I beseech you now, will you voutsafe\n    me, look you, a few disputations with you, as partly touching or\n    concerning the disciplines of the war, the Roman wars, in the way\n    of argument, look you, and friendly communication; partly to\n    satisfy my opinion, and partly for the satisfaction, look you, of\n    my mind, as touching the direction of the military discipline,\n    that is the point.\n  JAMY. It sall be vary gud, gud feith, gud captains bath; and I sall\n    quit you with gud leve, as I may pick occasion; that sall I,\n    marry.\n  MACMORRIS. It is no time to discourse, so Chrish save me. The day\n    is hot, and the weather, and the wars, and the King, and the\n    Dukes; it is no time to discourse. The town is beseech'd, and the\n    trumpet call us to the breach; and we talk and, be Chrish, do\n    nothing. 'Tis shame for us all, so God sa' me, 'tis shame to\n    stand still; it is shame, by my hand; and there is throats to be\n    cut, and works to be done; and there ish nothing done, so Chrish\n    sa' me, la.\n  JAMY. By the mess, ere theise eyes of mine take themselves to\n    slomber, ay'll de gud service, or I'll lig i' th' grund for it;\n    ay, or go to death. And I'll pay't as valorously as I may, that\n    sall I suerly do, that is the breff and the long. Marry, I wad\n    full fain heard some question 'tween you tway.\n  FLUELLEN. Captain Macmorris, I think, look you, under your\n    correction, there is not many of your nation-\n  MACMORRIS. Of my nation? What ish my nation? Ish a villain, and a\n    bastard, and a knave, and a rascal. What ish my nation? Who talks\n    of my nation?\n  FLUELLEN. Look you, if you take the matter otherwise than is meant,\n    Captain Macmorris, peradventure I shall think you do not use me\n    with that affability as in discretion you ought to use me, look\n    you; being as good a man as yourself, both in the disciplines of\n    war and in the derivation of my birth, and in other\n    particularities.\n  MACMORRIS. I do not know you so good a man as myself; so\n    Chrish save me, I will cut off your head.\n  GOWER. Gentlemen both, you will mistake each other.\n  JAMY. Ah! that's a foul fault.              [A parley sounded]\n  GOWER. The town sounds a parley.\n  FLUELLEN. Captain Macmorris, when there is more better opportunity\n    to be required, look you, I will be so bold as to tell you I know\n    the disciplines of war; and there is an end.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nBefore the gates of Harfleur\n\nEnter the GOVERNOR and some citizens on the walls.  Enter the KING\nand all his train before the gates\n\n  KING HENRY. How yet resolves the Governor of the town?\n    This is the latest parle we will admit;\n    Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves\n    Or, like to men proud of destruction,\n    Defy us to our worst; for, as I am a soldier,\n    A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,\n    If I begin the batt'ry once again,\n    I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur\n    Till in her ashes she lie buried.\n    The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,\n    And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart,\n    In liberty of bloody hand shall range\n    With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass\n    Your fresh fair virgins and your flow'ring infants.\n    What is it then to me if impious war,\n    Array'd in flames, like to the prince of fiends,\n    Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats\n    Enlink'd to waste and desolation?\n    What is't to me when you yourselves are cause,\n    If your pure maidens fall into the hand\n    Of hot and forcing violation?\n    What rein can hold licentious wickednes\n    When down the hill he holds his fierce career?\n    We may as bootless spend our vain command\n    Upon th' enraged soldiers in their spoil,\n    As send precepts to the Leviathan\n    To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,\n    Take pity of your town and of your people\n    Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;\n    Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace\n    O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds\n    Of heady murder, spoil, and villainy.\n    If not- why, in a moment look to see\n    The blind and bloody with foul hand\n    Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;\n    Your fathers taken by the silver beards,\n    And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls;\n    Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,\n    Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confus'd\n    Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry\n    At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.\n    What say you? Will you yield, and this avoid?\n    Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?\n  GOVERNOR. Our expectation hath this day an end:\n    The Dauphin, whom of succours we entreated,\n    Returns us that his powers are yet not ready\n    To raise so great a siege. Therefore, great King,\n    We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy.\n    Enter our gates; dispose of us and ours;\n    For we no longer are defensible.\n  KING HENRY. Open your gates. [Exit GOVERNOR] Come, uncle Exeter,\n    Go you and enter Harfleur; there remain,\n    And fortify it strongly 'gainst the French;\n    Use mercy to them all. For us, dear uncle,\n    The winter coming on, and sickness growing\n    Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais.\n    To-night in Harfleur will we be your guest;\n    To-morrow for the march are we addrest.\n               [Flourish. The KING and his train enter the town]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nRouen. The FRENCH KING'S palace\n\nEnter KATHERINE and ALICE\n\n  KATHERINE. Alice, tu as ete en Angleterre, et tu parles bien le\n    langage.\n  ALICE. Un peu, madame.\n  KATHERINE. Je te prie, m'enseignez; il faut que j'apprenne a\n    parler. Comment appelez-vous la main en Anglais?\n  ALICE. La main? Elle est appelee de hand.\n  KATHERINE. De hand. Et les doigts?\n  ALICE. Les doigts? Ma foi, j'oublie les doigts; mais je me\n    souviendrai. Les doigts? Je pense qu'ils sont appeles de fingres;\n    oui, de fingres.\n  KATHERINE. La main, de hand; les doigts, de fingres. Je pense que\n    je suis le bon ecolier; j'ai gagne deux mots d'Anglais vitement.\n    Comment appelez-vous les ongles?\n  ALICE. Les ongles? Nous les appelons de nails.\n  KATHERINE. De nails. Ecoutez; dites-moi si je parle bien: de hand,\n    de fingres, et de nails.\n  ALICE. C'est bien dit, madame; il est fort bon Anglais.\n  KATHERINE. Dites-moi l'Anglais pour le bras.\n  ALICE. De arm, madame.\n  KATHERINE. Et le coude?\n  ALICE. D'elbow.\n  KATHERINE. D'elbow. Je m'en fais la repetition de tous les mots que\n    vous m'avez appris des a present.\n  ALICE. Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense.\n  KATHERINE. Excusez-moi, Alice; ecoutez: d'hand, de fingre, de\n    nails, d'arma, de bilbow.\n  ALICE. D'elbow, madame.\n  KATHERINE. O Seigneur Dieu, je m'en oublie! D'elbow.\n    Comment appelez-vous le col?\n  ALICE. De nick, madame.\n  KATHERINE. De nick. Et le menton?\n  ALICE. De chin.\n  KATHERINE. De sin. Le col, de nick; le menton, de sin.\n  ALICE. Oui. Sauf votre honneur, en verite, vous prononcez les mots\n    aussi droit que les natifs d'Angleterre.\n  KATHERINE. Je ne doute point d'apprendre, par la grace de Dieu, et\n    en peu de temps.\n  ALICE. N'avez-vous pas deja oublie ce que je vous ai enseigne?\n  KATHERINE. Non, je reciterai a vous promptement: d'hand, de fingre,\n    de mails-\n  ALICE. De nails, madame.\n  KATHERINE. De nails, de arm, de ilbow.\n  ALICE. Sauf votre honneur, d'elbow.\n  KATHERINE. Ainsi dis-je; d'elbow, de nick, et de sin. Comment\n    appelez-vous le pied et la robe?\n  ALICE. Le foot, madame; et le count.\n  KATHERINE. Le foot et le count. O Seigneur Dieu! ils sont mots de\n    son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et non pour les\n    dames d'honneur d'user: je ne voudrais prononcer ces mots devant\n    les seigneurs de France pour tout le monde. Foh! le foot et le\n    count! Neanmoins, je reciterai une autre fois ma lecon ensemble:\n    d'hand, de fingre, de nails, d'arm, d'elbow, de nick, de sin, de\n    foot, le count.\n  ALICE. Excellent, madame!\n  KATHERINE. C'est assez pour une fois: allons-nous a diner.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nThe FRENCH KING'S palace\n\nEnter the KING OF FRANCE, the DAUPHIN, DUKE OF BRITAINE,\nthe CONSTABLE OF FRANCE, and others\n\n  FRENCH KING. 'Tis certain he hath pass'd the river Somme.\n  CONSTABLE. And if he be not fought withal, my lord,\n    Let us not live in France; let us quit an,\n    And give our vineyards to a barbarous people.\n  DAUPHIN. O Dieu vivant! Shall a few sprays of us,\n    The emptying of our fathers' luxury,\n    Our scions, put in wild and savage stock,\n    Spirt up so suddenly into the clouds,\n    And overlook their grafters?\n  BRITAINE. Normans, but bastard Normans, Norman bastards!\n    Mort Dieu, ma vie! if they march along\n    Unfought withal, but I will sell my dukedom\n    To buy a slobb'ry and a dirty farm\n    In that nook-shotten isle of Albion.\n  CONSTABLE. Dieu de batailles! where have they this mettle?\n    Is not their climate foggy, raw, and dull;\n    On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale,\n    Killing their fruit with frowns? Can sodden water,\n    A drench for sur-rein'd jades, their barley-broth,\n    Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?\n    And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine,\n    Seem frosty? O, for honour of our land,\n    Let us not hang like roping icicles\n    Upon our houses' thatch, whiles a more frosty people\n    Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields-\n    Poor we call them in their native lords!\n  DAUPHIN. By faith and honour,\n    Our madams mock at us and plainly say\n    Our mettle is bred out, and they will give\n    Their bodies to the lust of English youth\n    To new-store France with bastard warriors.\n  BRITAINE. They bid us to the English dancing-schools\n    And teach lavoltas high and swift corantos,\n    Saying our grace is only in our heels\n    And that we are most lofty runaways.\n  FRENCH KING. Where is Montjoy the herald? Speed him hence;\n    Let him greet England with our sharp defiance.\n    Up, Princes, and, with spirit of honour edged\n    More sharper than your swords, hie to the field:\n    Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France;\n    You Dukes of Orleans, Bourbon, and of Berri,\n    Alengon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy;\n    Jaques Chatillon, Rambures, Vaudemont,\n    Beaumont, Grandpre, Roussi, and Fauconbridge,\n    Foix, Lestrake, Bouciqualt, and Charolois;\n    High dukes, great princes, barons, lords, and knights,\n    For your great seats now quit you of great shames.\n    Bar Harry England, that sweeps through our land\n    With pennons painted in the blood of Harfleur.\n    Rush on his host as doth the melted snow\n    Upon the valleys, whose low vassal seat\n    The Alps doth spit and void his rheum upon;\n    Go down upon him, you have power enough,\n    And in a captive chariot into Rouen\n    Bring him our prisoner.\n  CONSTABLE. This becomes the great.\n    Sorry am I his numbers are so few,\n    His soldiers sick and famish'd in their march;\n    For I am sure, when he shall see our army,\n    He'll drop his heart into the sink of fear,\n    And for achievement offer us his ransom.\n  FRENCH KING. Therefore, Lord Constable, haste on Montjoy,\n    And let him say to England that we send\n    To know what willing ransom he will give.\n    Prince Dauphin, you shall stay with us in Rouen.\n  DAUPHIN. Not so, I do beseech your Majesty.\n  FRENCH KING. Be patient, for you shall remain with us.\n    Now forth, Lord Constable and Princes all,\n    And quickly bring us word of England's fall.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nThe English camp in Picardy\n\nEnter CAPTAINS, English and Welsh, GOWER and FLUELLEN\n\n  GOWER. How now, Captain Fluellen! Come you from the bridge?\n  FLUELLEN. I assure you there is very excellent services committed\n    at the bridge.\n  GOWER. Is the Duke of Exeter safe?\n  FLUELLEN. The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as Agamemnon; and a\n    man that I love and honour with my soul, and my heart, and my\n    duty, and my live, and my living, and my uttermost power. He is\n    not- God be praised and blessed!- any hurt in the world, but\n    keeps the bridge most valiantly, with excellent discipline. There\n    is an aunchient Lieutenant there at the bridge- I think in my\n    very conscience he is as valiant a man as Mark Antony; and he is\n    man of no estimation in the world; but I did see him do as\n    gallant service.\n  GOWER. What do you call him?\n  FLUELLEN. He is call'd Aunchient Pistol.\n  GOWER. I know him not.\n\n                            Enter PISTOL\n\n  FLUELLEN. Here is the man.\n  PISTOL. Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours.\n    The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.\n  FLUELLEN. Ay, I praise God; and I have merited some love at his\n    hands.\n  PISTOL. Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart,\n    And of buxom valour, hath by cruel fate\n    And giddy Fortune's furious fickle wheel,\n    That goddess blind,\n    That stands upon the rolling restless stone-\n  FLUELLEN. By your patience, Aunchient Pistol. Fortune is painted\n    blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that\n    Fortune is blind; and she is painted also with a wheel, to\n    signify to you, which is the moral of it, that she is turning,\n    and inconstant, and mutability, and variation; and her foot, look\n    you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and\n    rolls. In good truth, the poet makes a most excellent description\n    of it: Fortune is an excellent moral.\n  PISTOL. Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him;\n    For he hath stol'n a pax, and hanged must 'a be-\n    A damned death!\n    Let gallows gape for dog; let man go free,\n    And let not hemp his windpipe suffocate.\n    But Exeter hath given the doom of death\n    For pax of little price.\n    Therefore, go speak- the Duke will hear thy voice;\n    And let not Bardolph's vital thread be cut\n    With edge of penny cord and vile reproach.\n    Speak, Captain, for his life, and I will thee requite.\n  FLUELLEN. Aunchient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.\n  PISTOL. Why then, rejoice therefore.\n  FLUELLEN. Certainly, Aunchient, it is not a thing to rejoice at;\n    for if, look you, he were my brother, I would desire the Duke to\n    use his good pleasure, and put him to execution; for discipline\n    ought to be used.\n  PISTOL. Die and be damn'd! and figo for thy friendship!\n  FLUELLEN. It is well.\n  PISTOL. The fig of Spain!                                 Exit\n  FLUELLEN. Very good.\n  GOWER. Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal; I remember him\n    now- a bawd, a cutpurse.\n  FLUELLEN. I'll assure you, 'a utt'red as prave words at the pridge\n    as you shall see in a summer's day. But it is very well; what he\n    has spoke to me, that is well, I warrant you, when time is serve.\n  GOWER. Why, 'tis a gull a fool a rogue, that now and then goes to\n    the wars to grace himself, at his return into London, under the\n    form of a soldier. And such fellows are perfect in the great\n    commanders' names; and they will learn you by rote where services\n    were done- at such and such a sconce, at such a breach, at such a\n    convoy; who came off bravely, who was shot, who disgrac'd, what\n    terms the enemy stood on; and this they con perfectly in the\n    phrase of war, which they trick up with new-tuned oaths; and what\n    a beard of the General's cut and a horrid suit of the camp will\n    do among foaming bottles and ale-wash'd wits is wonderful to be\n    thought on. But you must learn to know such slanders of the age,\n    or else you may be marvellously mistook.\n  FLUELLEN. I tell you what, Captain Gower, I do perceive he is not\n    the man that he would gladly make show to the world he is; if I\n    find a hole in his coat I will tell him my mind. [Drum within]\n    Hark you, the King is coming; and I must speak with him from the\n    pridge.\n\n         Drum and colours. Enter the KING and his poor soldiers,\n                          and GLOUCESTER\n\n    God pless your Majesty!\n  KING HENRY. How now, Fluellen! Cam'st thou from the bridge?\n  FLUELLEN. Ay, so please your Majesty. The Duke of Exeter has very\n    gallantly maintain'd the pridge; the French is gone off, look\n    you, and there is gallant and most prave passages. Marry, th'\n    athversary was have possession of the pridge; but he is enforced\n    to retire, and the Duke of Exeter is master of the pridge; I can\n    tell your Majesty the Duke is a prave man.\n  KING HENRY. What men have you lost, Fluellen!\n  FLUELLEN. The perdition of th' athversary hath been very great,\n    reasonable great; marry, for my part, I think the Duke hath lost\n    never a man, but one that is like to be executed for robbing a\n    church- one Bardolph, if your Majesty know the man; his face is\n    all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames o' fire; and his\n    lips blows at his nose, and it is like a coal of fire, sometimes\n    plue and sometimes red; but his nose is executed and his fire's\n    out.\n  KING HENRY. We would have all such offenders so cut off. And we\n    give express charge that in our marches through the country there\n    be nothing compell'd from the villages, nothing taken but paid\n    for, none of the French upbraided or abused in disdainful\n    language; for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom the\n    gentler gamester is the soonest winner.\n\n                        Tucket. Enter MONTJOY\n\n  MONTJOY. You know me by my habit.\n  KING HENRY. Well then, I know thee; what shall I know of thee?\n  MONTJOY. My master's mind.\n  KING HENRY. Unfold it.\n  MONTJOY. Thus says my king. Say thou to Harry of England: Though we\n    seem'd dead we did but sleep; advantage is a better soldier than\n    rashness. Tell him we could have rebuk'd him at Harfleur, but\n    that we thought not good to bruise an injury till it were full\n    ripe. Now we speak upon our cue, and our voice is imperial:\n    England shall repent his folly, see his weakness, and admire our\n    sufferance. Bid him therefore consider of his ransom, which must\n    proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we have lost,\n    the disgrace we have digested; which, in weight to re-answer, his\n    pettiness would bow under. For our losses his exchequer is too\n    poor; for th' effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom\n    too faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own person kneeling\n    at our feet but a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this add\n    defiance; and tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his\n    followers, whose condemnation is pronounc'd. So far my king and\n    master; so much my office.\n  KING HENRY. What is thy name? I know thy quality.\n  MONTJOY. Montjoy.\n  KING HENRY. Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back,\n    And tell thy king I do not seek him now,\n    But could be willing to march on to Calais\n    Without impeachment; for, to say the sooth-\n    Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much\n    Unto an enemy of craft and vantage-\n    My people are with sickness much enfeebled;\n    My numbers lessen'd; and those few I have\n    Almost no better than so many French;\n    Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,\n    I thought upon one pair of English legs\n    Did march three Frenchmen. Yet forgive me, God,\n    That I do brag thus; this your air of France\n    Hath blown that vice in me; I must repent.\n    Go, therefore, tell thy master here I am;\n    My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk;\n    My army but a weak and sickly guard;\n    Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,\n    Though France himself and such another neighbour\n    Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Montjoy.\n    Go, bid thy master well advise himself.\n    If we may pass, we will; if we be hind'red,\n    We shall your tawny ground with your red blood\n    Discolour; and so, Montjoy, fare you well.\n    The sum of all our answer is but this:\n    We would not seek a battle as we are;\n    Nor as we are, we say, we will not shun it.\n    So tell your master.\n  MONTJOY. I shall deliver so. Thanks to your Highness.     Exit\n  GLOUCESTER. I hope they will not come upon us now.\n  KING HENRY. We are in God's hand, brother, not in theirs.\n    March to the bridge, it now draws toward night;\n    Beyond the river we'll encamp ourselves,\n    And on to-morrow bid them march away.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nThe French camp near Agincourt\n\nEnter the CONSTABLE OF FRANCE, the LORD RAMBURES, the DUKE OF ORLEANS,\nthe DAUPHIN, with others\n\n  CONSTABLE. Tut! I have the best armour of the world.\n    Would it were day!\n  ORLEANS. You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his\n    due.\n  CONSTABLE. It is the best horse of Europe.\n  ORLEANS. Will it never be morning?\n  DAUPHIN. My Lord of Orleans and my Lord High Constable, you talk of\n    horse and armour?\n  ORLEANS. You are as well provided of both as any prince in the\n    world.\n  DAUPHIN. What a long night is this! I will not change my horse with\n    any that treads but on four pasterns. Ca, ha! he bounds from the\n    earth as if his entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the\n    Pegasus, chez les narines de feu! When I bestride him I soar, I\n    am a hawk. He trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it;\n    the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of\n    Hermes.\n  ORLEANS. He's of the colour of the nutmeg.\n  DAUPHIN. And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus:\n    he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water\n    never appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his\n    rider mounts him; he is indeed a horse, and all other jades you\n    may call beasts.\n  CONSTABLE. Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent\n    horse.\n  DAUPHIN. It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the\n    bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage.\n  ORLEANS. No more, cousin.\n  DAUPHIN. Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the rising of\n    the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved praise on my\n    palfrey. It is a theme as fluent as the sea: turn the sands into\n    eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument for them all: 'tis a\n    subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for a sovereign's\n    sovereign to ride on; and for the world- familiar to us and\n    unknown- to lay apart their particular functions and wonder at\n    him. I once writ a sonnet in his praise and began thus: 'Wonder\n    of nature'-\n  ORLEANS. I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress.\n  DAUPHIN. Then did they imitate that which I compos'd to my courser;\n    for my horse is my mistress.\n  ORLEANS. Your mistress bears well.\n  DAUPHIN. Me well; which is the prescript praise and perfection of a\n    good and particular mistress.\n  CONSTABLE. Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly\n    shook your back.\n  DAUPHIN. So perhaps did yours.\n  CONSTABLE. Mine was not bridled.\n  DAUPHIN. O, then belike she was old and gentle; and you rode like a\n    kern of Ireland, your French hose off and in your strait\n    strossers.\n  CONSTABLE. You have good judgment in horsemanship.\n  DAUPHIN. Be warn'd by me, then: they that ride so, and ride not\n    warily, fall into foul bogs. I had rather have my horse to my\n    mistress.\n  CONSTABLE. I had as lief have my mistress a jade.\n  DAUPHIN. I tell thee, Constable, my mistress wears his own hair.\n  CONSTABLE. I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to\n    my mistress.\n  DAUPHIN. 'Le chien est retourne a son propre vomissement, et la\n    truie lavee au bourbier.' Thou mak'st use of anything.\n  CONSTABLE. Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any such\n    proverb so little kin to the purpose.\n  RAMBURES. My Lord Constable, the armour that I saw in your tent\n    to-night- are those stars or suns upon it?\n  CONSTABLE. Stars, my lord.\n  DAUPHIN. Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope.\n  CONSTABLE. And yet my sky shall not want.\n  DAUPHIN. That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and 'twere\n    more honour some were away.\n  CONSTABLE. Ev'n as your horse bears your praises, who would trot as\n    well were some of your brags dismounted.\n  DAUPHIN. Would I were able to load him with his desert! Will it\n    never be day? I will trot to-morrow a mile, and my way shall be\n    paved with English faces.\n  CONSTABLE. I will not say so, for fear I should be fac'd out of my\n    way; but I would it were morning, for I would fain be about the\n    ears of the English.\n  RAMBURES. Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?\n  CONSTABLE. You must first go yourself to hazard ere you have them.\n  DAUPHIN. 'Tis midnight; I'll go arm myself.               Exit\n  ORLEANS. The Dauphin longs for morning.\n  RAMBURES. He longs to eat the English.\n  CONSTABLE. I think he will eat all he kills.\n  ORLEANS. By the white hand of my lady, he's a gallant prince.\n  CONSTABLE. Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath.\n  ORLEANS. He is simply the most active gentleman of France.\n  CONSTABLE. Doing is activity, and he will still be doing.\n  ORLEANS. He never did harm that I heard of.\n  CONSTABLE. Nor will do none to-morrow: he will keep that good name\n    still.\n  ORLEANS. I know him to be valiant.\n  CONSTABLE. I was told that by one that knows him better than you.\n  ORLEANS. What's he?\n  CONSTABLE. Marry, he told me so himself; and he said he car'd not\n    who knew it.\n  ORLEANS. He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him.\n  CONSTABLE. By my faith, sir, but it is; never anybody saw it but\n      his lackey.\n    'Tis a hooded valour, and when it appears it will bate.\n  ORLEANS. Ill-wind never said well.\n  CONSTABLE. I will cap that proverb with 'There is flattery in\n    friendship.'\n  ORLEANS. And I will take up that with 'Give the devil his due.'\n  CONSTABLE. Well plac'd! There stands your friend for the devil;\n    have at the very eye of that proverb with 'A pox of the devil!'\n  ORLEANS. You are the better at proverbs by how much 'A fool's bolt\n    is soon shot.'\n  CONSTABLE. You have shot over.\n  ORLEANS. 'Tis not the first time you were overshot.\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My Lord High Constable, the English lie within fifteen\n    hundred paces of your tents.\n  CONSTABLE. Who hath measur'd the ground?\n  MESSENGER. The Lord Grandpre.\n  CONSTABLE. A valiant and most expert gentleman. Would it were day!\n    Alas, poor Harry of England! he longs not for the dawning as we\n    do.\n  ORLEANS. What a wretched and peevish fellow is this King of\n    England, to mope with his fat-brain'd followers so far out of his\n    knowledge!\n  CONSTABLE. If the English had any apprehension, they would run\n    away.\n  ORLEANS. That they lack; for if their heads had any intellectual\n    armour, they could never wear such heavy head-pieces.\n  RAMBURES. That island of England breeds very valiant creatures;\n    their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.\n  ORLEANS. Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a Russian\n    bear, and have their heads crush'd like rotten apples! You may as\n    well say that's a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the\n    lip of a lion.\n  CONSTABLE. Just, just! and the men do sympathise with the mastiffs\n    in robustious and rough coming on, leaving their wits with their\n    wives; and then give them great meals of beef and iron and steel;\n    they will eat like wolves and fight like devils.\n  ORLEANS. Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.\n  CONSTABLE. Then shall we find to-morrow they have only stomachs to\n    eat, and none to fight. Now is it time to arm. Come, shall we\n    about it?\n  ORLEANS. It is now two o'clock; but let me see- by ten\n    We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. PROLOGUE.\n\nEnter CHORUS\n\n  CHORUS. Now entertain conjecture of a time\n    When creeping murmur and the poring dark\n    Fills the wide vessel of the universe.\n    From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night,\n    The hum of either army stilly sounds,\n    That the fix'd sentinels almost receive\n    The secret whispers of each other's watch.\n    Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames\n    Each battle sees the other's umber'd face;\n    Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs\n    Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the tents\n    The armourers accomplishing the knights,\n    With busy hammers closing rivets up,\n    Give dreadful note of preparation.\n    The country cocks do crow, the clocks do ton,\n    And the third hour of drowsy morning name.\n    Proud of their numbers and secure in soul,\n    The confident and over-lusty French\n    Do the low-rated English play at dice;\n    And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night\n    Who like a foul and ugly witch doth limp\n    So tediously away. The poor condemned English,\n    Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires\n    Sit patiently and inly ruminate\n    The morning's danger; and their gesture sad\n    Investing lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats\n    Presenteth them unto the gazing moon\n    So many horrid ghosts. O, now, who will behold\n    The royal captain of this ruin'd band\n    Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,\n    Let him cry 'Praise and glory on his head!'\n    For forth he goes and visits all his host;\n    Bids them good morrow with a modest smile,\n    And calls them brothers, friends, and countrymen.\n    Upon his royal face there is no note\n    How dread an army hath enrounded him;\n    Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour\n    Unto the weary and all-watched night;\n    But freshly looks, and over-bears attaint\n    With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty;\n    That every wretch, pining and pale before,\n    Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks;\n    A largess universal, like the sun,\n    His liberal eye doth give to every one,\n    Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all\n    Behold, as may unworthiness define,\n    A little touch of Harry in the night.\n    And so our scene must to the battle fly;\n    Where- O for pity!- we shall much disgrace\n    With four or five most vile and ragged foils,\n    Right ill-dispos'd in brawl ridiculous,\n    The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see,\n    Minding true things by what their mock'ries be.         Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE I.\nFrance. The English camp at Agincourt\n\nEnter the KING, BEDFORD, and GLOUCESTER\n\n  KING HENRY. Gloucester, 'tis true that we are in great danger;\n    The greater therefore should our courage be.\n    Good morrow, brother Bedford. God Almighty!\n    There is some soul of goodness in things evil,\n    Would men observingly distil it out;\n    For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers,\n    Which is both healthful and good husbandry.\n    Besides, they are our outward consciences\n    And preachers to us all, admonishing\n    That we should dress us fairly for our end.\n    Thus may we gather honey from the weed,\n    And make a moral of the devil himself.\n\n                        Enter ERPINGHAM\n\n    Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham:\n    A good soft pillow for that good white head\n    Were better than a churlish turf of France.\n  ERPINGHAM. Not so, my liege; this lodging likes me better,\n    Since I may say 'Now lie I like a king.'\n  KING HENRY. 'Tis good for men to love their present pains\n    Upon example; so the spirit is eased;\n    And when the mind is quick'ned, out of doubt\n    The organs, though defunct and dead before,\n    Break up their drowsy grave and newly move\n    With casted slough and fresh legerity.\n    Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas. Brothers both,\n    Commend me to the princes in our camp;\n    Do my good morrow to them, and anon\n    Desire them all to my pavilion.\n  GLOUCESTER. We shall, my liege.\n  ERPINGHAM. Shall I attend your Grace?\n  KING HENRY. No, my good knight:\n    Go with my brothers to my lords of England;\n    I and my bosom must debate awhile,\n    And then I would no other company.\n  ERPINGHAM. The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry!\n                                         Exeunt all but the KING\n  KING HENRY. God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speak'st cheerfully.\n\n                          Enter PISTOL\n\n  PISTOL. Qui va la?\n  KING HENRY. A friend.\n  PISTOL. Discuss unto me: art thou officer,\n    Or art thou base, common, and popular?\n  KING HENRY. I am a gentleman of a company.\n  PISTOL. Trail'st thou the puissant pike?\n  KING HENRY. Even so. What are you?\n  PISTOL. As good a gentleman as the Emperor.\n  KING HENRY. Then you are a better than the King.\n  PISTOL. The King's a bawcock and a heart of gold,\n    A lad of life, an imp of fame;\n    Of parents good, of fist most valiant.\n    I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heart-string\n    I love the lovely bully. What is thy name?\n  KING HENRY. Harry le Roy.\n  PISTOL. Le Roy! a Cornish name; art thou of Cornish crew?\n  KING HENRY. No, I am a Welshman.\n  PISTOL. Know'st thou Fluellen?\n  KING HENRY. Yes.\n  PISTOL. Tell him I'll knock his leek about his pate\n    Upon Saint Davy's day.\n  KING HENRY. Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day, lest\n    he knock that about yours.\n  PISTOL. Art thou his friend?\n  KING HENRY. And his kinsman too.\n  PISTOL. The figo for thee, then!\n  KING HENRY. I thank you; God be with you!\n  PISTOL. My name is Pistol call'd.                         Exit\n  KING HENRY. It sorts well with your fierceness.\n\n                    Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER\n\n  GOWER. Captain Fluellen!\n  FLUELLEN. So! in the name of Jesu Christ, speak fewer. It is the\n    greatest admiration in the universal world, when the true and\n    aunchient prerogatifes and laws of the wars is not kept: if you\n    would take the pains but to examine the wars of Pompey the Great,\n    you shall find, I warrant you, that there is no tiddle-taddle nor\n    pibble-pabble in Pompey's camp; I warrant you, you shall find the\n    ceremonies of the wars, and the cares of it, and the forms of it,\n    and the sobriety of it, and the modesty of it, to be otherwise.\n  GOWER. Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night.\n  FLUELLEN. If the enemy is an ass, and a fool, and a prating\n    coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also, look you, be\n    an ass, and a fool, and a prating coxcomb? In your own\n    conscience, now?\n  GOWER. I will speak lower.\n  FLUELLEN. I pray you and beseech you that you will.\n                                       Exeunt GOWER and FLUELLEN\n  KING HENRY. Though it appear a little out of fashion,\n    There is much care and valour in this Welshman.\n\n          Enter three soldiers: JOHN BATES, ALEXANDER COURT,\n                       and MICHAEL WILLIAMS\n\n  COURT. Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which breaks\n    yonder?\n  BATES. I think it be; but we have no great cause to desire the\n    approach of day.\n  WILLIAMS. We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we\n    shall never see the end of it. Who goes there?\n  KING HENRY. A friend.\n  WILLIAMS. Under what captain serve you?\n  KING HENRY. Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.\n  WILLIAMS. A good old commander and a most kind gentleman. I pray\n    you, what thinks he of our estate?\n  KING HENRY. Even as men wreck'd upon a sand, that look to be wash'd\n    off the next tide.\n  BATES. He hath not told his thought to the King?\n  KING HENRY. No; nor it is not meet he should. For though I speak it\n    to you, I think the King is but a man as I am: the violet smells\n    to him as it doth to me; the element shows to him as it doth to\n    me; all his senses have but human conditions; his ceremonies laid\n    by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his\n    affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop,\n    they stoop with the like wing. Therefore, when he sees reason of\n    fears, as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish\n    as ours are; yet, in reason, no man should possess him with any\n    appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, should dishearten his\n    army.\n  BATES. He may show what outward courage he will; but I believe, as\n    cold a night as 'tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to the\n    neck; and so I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so\n    we were quit here.\n  KING HENRY. By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the King: I\n    think he would not wish himself anywhere but where he is.\n  BATES. Then I would he were here alone; so should he be sure to be\n    ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved.\n  KING HENRY. I dare say you love him not so ill to wish him here\n    alone, howsoever you speak this, to feel other men's minds;\n    methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in the King's\n    company, his cause being just and his quarrel honourable.\n  WILLIAMS. That's more than we know.\n  BATES. Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough if\n    we know we are the King's subjects. If his cause be wrong, our\n    obedience to the King wipes the crime of it out of us.\n  WILLIAMS. But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a\n    heavy reckoning to make when all those legs and arms and heads,\n    chopp'd off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day\n    and cry all 'We died at such a place'- some swearing, some crying\n    for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some\n    upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I\n    am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how\n    can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their\n    argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black\n    matter for the King that led them to it; who to disobey were\n    against all proportion of subjection.\n  KING HENRY. So, if a son that is by his father sent about\n    merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of\n    his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his father\n    that sent him; or if a servant, under his master's command\n    transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in\n    many irreconcil'd iniquities, you may call the business of the\n    master the author of the servant's damnation. But this is not so:\n    the King is not bound to answer the particular endings of his\n    soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant;\n    for they purpose not their death when they purpose their\n    services. Besides, there is no king, be his cause never so\n    spotless, if it come to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out\n    with all unspotted soldiers: some peradventure have on them the\n    guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; some, of beguiling\n    virgins with the broken seals of perjury; some, making the wars\n    their bulwark, that have before gored the gentle bosom of peace\n    with pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have defeated the law\n    and outrun native punishment, though they can outstrip men they\n    have no wings to fly from God: war is His beadle, war is His\n    vengeance; so that here men are punish'd for before-breach of the\n    King's laws in now the King's quarrel. Where they feared the\n    death they have borne life away; and where they would be safe\n    they perish. Then if they die unprovided, no more is the King\n    guilty of their damnation than he was before guilty of those\n    impieties for the which they are now visited. Every subject's\n    duty is the King's; but every subject's soul is his own.\n    Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man\n    in his bed- wash every mote out of his conscience; and dying so,\n    death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly\n    lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him that escapes\n    it were not sin to think that, making God so free an offer, He\n    let him outlive that day to see His greatness, and to teach\n    others how they should prepare.\n  WILLIAMS. 'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his\n    own head- the King is not to answer for it.\n  BATES. I do not desire he should answer for me, and yet I determine\n    to fight lustily for him.\n  KING HENRY. I myself heard the King say he would not be ransom'd.\n  WILLIAMS. Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully; but when our\n    throats are cut he may be ransom'd, and we ne'er the wiser.\n  KING HENRY. If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.\n  WILLIAMS. You pay him then! That's a perilous shot out of an\n    elder-gun, that a poor and a private displeasure can do against a\n    monarch! You may as well go about to turn the sun to ice with\n    fanning in his face with a peacock's feather. You'll never trust\n    his word after! Come, 'tis a foolish saying.\n  KING HENRY. Your reproof is something too round; I should be angry\n    with you, if the time were convenient.\n  WILLIAMS. Let it be a quarrel between us if you live.\n  KING HENRY. I embrace it.\n  WILLIAMS. How shall I know thee again?\n  KING HENRY. Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my\n    bonnet; then if ever thou dar'st acknowledge it, I will make it\n    my quarrel.\n  WILLIAMS. Here's my glove; give me another of thine.\n  KING HENRY. There.\n  WILLIAMS. This will I also wear in my cap; if ever thou come to me\n    and say, after to-morrow, 'This is my glove,' by this hand I will\n    take thee a box on the ear.\n  KING HENRY. If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.\n  WILLIAMS. Thou dar'st as well be hang'd.\n  KING HENRY. Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the King's\n    company.\n  WILLIAMS. Keep thy word. Fare thee well.\n  BATES. Be friends, you English fools, be friends; we have\n    French quarrels enow, if you could tell how to reckon.\n  KING HENRY. Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns to one\n    they will beat us, for they bear them on their shoulders; but it\n    is no English treason to cut French crowns, and to-morrow the\n    King himself will be a clipper.\n                                                 Exeunt soldiers\n    Upon the King! Let us our lives, our souls,\n    Our debts, our careful wives,\n    Our children, and our sins, lay on the King!\n    We must bear all. O hard condition,\n    Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath\n    Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel\n    But his own wringing! What infinite heart's ease\n    Must kings neglect that private men enjoy!\n    And what have kings that privates have not too,\n    Save ceremony- save general ceremony?\n    And what art thou, thou idol Ceremony?\n    What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more\n    Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?\n    What are thy rents? What are thy comings-in?\n    O Ceremony, show me but thy worth!\n    What is thy soul of adoration?\n    Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,\n    Creating awe and fear in other men?\n    Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd\n    Than they in fearing.\n    What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,\n    But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,\n    And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!\n    Thinks thou the fiery fever will go out\n    With titles blown from adulation?\n    Will it give place to flexure and low bending?\n    Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee,\n    Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,\n    That play'st so subtly with a king's repose.\n    I am a king that find thee; and I know\n    'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,\n    The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,\n    The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,\n    The farced tide running fore the king,\n    The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp\n    That beats upon the high shore of this world-\n    No, not all these, thrice gorgeous ceremony,\n    Not all these, laid in bed majestical,\n    Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave\n    Who, with a body fill'd and vacant mind,\n    Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread;\n    Never sees horrid night, the child of hell;\n    But, like a lackey, from the rise to set\n    Sweats in the eye of Pheebus, and all night\n    Sleeps in Elysium; next day, after dawn,\n    Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse;\n    And follows so the ever-running year\n    With profitable labour, to his grave.\n    And but for ceremony, such a wretch,\n    Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,\n    Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.\n    The slave, a member of the country's peace,\n    Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots\n    What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace\n    Whose hours the peasant best advantages.\n\n                       Enter ERPINGHAM\n\n  ERPINGHAM. My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,\n    Seek through your camp to find you.\n  KING. Good old knight,\n    Collect them all together at my tent:\n    I'll be before thee.\n  ERPINGHAM. I shall do't, my lord.                         Exit\n  KING. O God of battles, steel my soldiers' hearts,\n    Possess them not with fear! Take from them now\n    The sense of reck'ning, if th' opposed numbers\n    Pluck their hearts from them! Not to-day, O Lord,\n    O, not to-day, think not upon the fault\n    My father made in compassing the crown!\n    I Richard's body have interred new,\n    And on it have bestowed more contrite tears\n    Than from it issued forced drops of blood;\n    Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,\n    Who twice a day their wither'd hands hold up\n    Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built\n    Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests\n    Sing still for Richard's soul. More will I do;\n    Though all that I can do is nothing worth,\n    Since that my penitence comes after all,\n    Imploring pardon.\n\n                         Enter GLOUCESTER\n\n  GLOUCESTER. My liege!\n  KING HENRY. My brother Gloucester's voice? Ay;\n    I know thy errand, I will go with thee;\n    The day, my friends, and all things, stay for me.     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe French camp\n\nEnter the DAUPHIN, ORLEANS, RAMBURES, and others\n\n  ORLEANS. The sun doth gild our armour; up, my lords!\n  DAUPHIN. Montez a cheval! My horse! Varlet, laquais! Ha!\n  ORLEANS. O brave spirit!\n  DAUPHIN. Via! Les eaux et la terre-\n  ORLEANS. Rien puis? L'air et le feu.\n  DAUPHIN. Ciel! cousin Orleans.\n\n                        Enter CONSTABLE\n\n    Now, my Lord Constable!\n  CONSTABLE. Hark how our steeds for present service neigh!\n  DAUPHIN. Mount them, and make incision in their hides,\n    That their hot blood may spin in English eyes,\n    And dout them with superfluous courage, ha!\n  RAMBURES. What, will you have them weep our horses' blood?\n    How shall we then behold their natural tears?\n\n                        Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. The English are embattl'd, you French peers.\n  CONSTABLE. To horse, you gallant Princes! straight to horse!\n    Do but behold yon poor and starved band,\n    And your fair show shall suck away their souls,\n    Leaving them but the shales and husks of men.\n    There is not work enough for all our hands;\n    Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins\n    To give each naked curtle-axe a stain\n    That our French gallants shall to-day draw out,\n    And sheathe for lack of sport. Let us but blow on them,\n    The vapour of our valour will o'erturn them.\n    'Tis positive 'gainst all exceptions, lords,\n    That our superfluous lackeys and our peasants-\n    Who in unnecessary action swarm\n    About our squares of battle- were enow\n    To purge this field of, such a hilding foe;\n    Though we upon this mountain's basis by\n    Took stand for idle speculation-\n    But that our honours must not. What's to say?\n    A very little little let us do,\n    And all is done. Then let the trumpets sound\n    The tucket sonance and the note to mount;\n    For our approach shall so much dare the field\n    That England shall couch down in fear and yield.\n\n                        Enter GRANDPRE\n\n  GRANDPRE. Why do you stay so long, my lords of France?\n    Yond island carrions, desperate of their bones,\n    Ill-favouredly become the morning field;\n    Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,\n    And our air shakes them passing scornfully;\n    Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar'd host,\n    And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps.\n    The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks\n    With torch-staves in their hand; and their poor jades\n    Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips,\n    The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes,\n    And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal'd bit\n    Lies foul with chaw'd grass, still and motionless;\n    And their executors, the knavish crows,\n    Fly o'er them, all impatient for their hour.\n    Description cannot suit itself in words\n    To demonstrate the life of such a battle\n    In life so lifeless as it shows itself.\n  CONSTABLE. They have said their prayers and they stay for death.\n  DAUPHIN. Shall we go send them dinners and fresh suits,\n    And give their fasting horses provender,\n    And after fight with them?\n  CONSTABLE. I stay but for my guidon. To the field!\n    I will the banner from a trumpet take,\n    And use it for my haste. Come, come, away!\n    The sun is high, and we outwear the day.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe English camp\n\nEnter GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, ERPINGHAM, with all his host;\nSALISBURY and WESTMORELAND\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Where is the King?\n  BEDFORD. The King himself is rode to view their battle.\n  WESTMORELAND. Of fighting men they have full three-score thousand.\n  EXETER. There's five to one; besides, they all are fresh.\n  SALISBURY. God's arm strike with us! 'tis a fearful odds.\n    God bye you, Princes all; I'll to my charge.\n    If we no more meet till we meet in heaven,\n    Then joyfully, my noble Lord of Bedford,\n    My dear Lord Gloucester, and my good Lord Exeter,\n    And my kind kinsman- warriors all, adieu!\n  BEDFORD. Farewell, good Salisbury; and good luck go with thee!\n  EXETER. Farewell, kind lord. Fight valiantly to-day;\n    And yet I do thee wrong to mind thee of it,\n    For thou art fram'd of the firm truth of valour.\n                                                  Exit SALISBURY\n  BEDFORD. He is as full of valour as of kindness;\n    Princely in both.\n\n                            Enter the KING\n\n  WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here\n    But one ten thousand of those men in England\n    That do no work to-day!\n  KING. What's he that wishes so?\n    My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;\n    If we are mark'd to die, we are enow\n    To do our country loss; and if to live,\n    The fewer men, the greater share of honour.\n    God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.\n    By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,\n    Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;\n    It yearns me not if men my garments wear;\n    Such outward things dwell not in my desires.\n    But if it be a sin to covet honour,\n    I am the most offending soul alive.\n    No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.\n    God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour\n    As one man more methinks would share from me\n    For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!\n    Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,\n    That he which hath no stomach to this fight,\n    Let him depart; his passport shall be made,\n    And crowns for convoy put into his purse;\n    We would not die in that man's company\n    That fears his fellowship to die with us.\n    This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.\n    He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,\n    Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,\n    And rouse him at the name of Crispian.\n    He that shall live this day, and see old age,\n    Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,\n    And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'\n    Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,\n    And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'\n    Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,\n    But he'll remember, with advantages,\n    What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,\n    Familiar in his mouth as household words-\n    Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,\n    Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-\n    Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.\n    This story shall the good man teach his son;\n    And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,\n    From this day to the ending of the world,\n    But we in it shall be remembered-\n    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;\n    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me\n    Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,\n    This day shall gentle his condition;\n    And gentlemen in England now-a-bed\n    Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,\n    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks\n    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.\n\n                      Re-enter SALISBURY\n\n  SALISBURY. My sovereign lord, bestow yourself with speed:\n    The French are bravely in their battles set,\n    And will with all expedience charge on us.\n  KING HENRY. All things are ready, if our minds be so.\n  WESTMORELAND. Perish the man whose mind is backward now!\n  KING HENRY. Thou dost not wish more help from England, coz?\n  WESTMORELAND. God's will, my liege! would you and I alone,\n    Without more help, could fight this royal battle!\n  KING HENRY. Why, now thou hast unwish'd five thousand men;\n    Which likes me better than to wish us one.\n    You know your places. God be with you all!\n\n                     Tucket. Enter MONTJOY\n\n  MONTJOY. Once more I come to know of thee, King Harry,\n    If for thy ransom thou wilt now compound,\n    Before thy most assured overthrow;\n    For certainly thou art so near the gulf\n    Thou needs must be englutted. Besides, in mercy,\n    The constable desires thee thou wilt mind\n    Thy followers of repentance, that their souls\n    May make a peaceful and a sweet retire\n    From off these fields, where, wretches, their poor bodies\n    Must lie and fester.\n  KING HENRY. Who hath sent thee now?\n  MONTJOY. The Constable of France.\n  KING HENRY. I pray thee bear my former answer back:\n    Bid them achieve me, and then sell my bones.\n    Good God! why should they mock poor fellows thus?\n    The man that once did sell the lion's skin\n    While the beast liv'd was kill'd with hunting him.\n    A many of our bodies shall no doubt\n    Find native graves; upon the which, I trust,\n    Shall witness live in brass of this day's work.\n    And those that leave their valiant bones in France,\n    Dying like men, though buried in your dunghills,\n    They shall be fam'd; for there the sun shall greet them\n    And draw their honours reeking up to heaven,\n    Leaving their earthly parts to choke your clime,\n    The smell whereof shall breed a plague in France.\n    Mark then abounding valour in our English,\n    That, being dead, like to the bullet's grazing\n    Break out into a second course of mischief,\n    Killing in relapse of mortality.\n    Let me speak proudly: tell the Constable\n    We are but warriors for the working-day;\n    Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch'd\n    With rainy marching in the painful field;\n    There's not a piece of feather in our host-\n    Good argument, I hope, we will not fly-\n    And time hath worn us into slovenry.\n    But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim;\n    And my poor soldiers tell me yet ere night\n    They'll be in fresher robes, or they will pluck\n    The gay new coats o'er the French soldiers' heads\n    And turn them out of service. If they do this-\n    As, if God please, they shall- my ransom then\n    Will soon be levied. Herald, save thou thy labour;\n    Come thou no more for ransom, gentle herald;\n    They shall have none, I swear, but these my joints;\n    Which if they have, as I will leave 'em them,\n    Shall yield them little, tell the Constable.\n  MONTJOY. I shall, King Harry. And so fare thee well:\n    Thou never shalt hear herald any more.                  Exit\n  KING HENRY. I fear thou wilt once more come again for a ransom.\n\n                    Enter the DUKE OF YORK\n\n  YORK. My lord, most humbly on my knee I beg\n    The leading of the vaward.\n  KING HENRY. Take it, brave York. Now, soldiers, march away;\n    And how thou pleasest, God, dispose the day!          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nThe field of battle\n\nAlarum.  Excursions.  Enter FRENCH SOLDIER, PISTOL, and BOY\n\n  PISTOL. Yield, cur!\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. Je pense que vous etes le gentilhomme de bonne\n    qualite.\n  PISTOL. Cality! Calen o custure me! Art thou a gentleman?\n    What is thy name? Discuss.\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. O Seigneur Dieu!\n  PISTOL. O, Signieur Dew should be a gentleman.\n    Perpend my words, O Signieur Dew, and mark:\n    O Signieur Dew, thou diest on point of fox,\n    Except, O Signieur, thou do give to me\n    Egregious ransom.\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. O, prenez misericorde; ayez pitie de moi!\n  PISTOL. Moy shall not serve; I will have forty moys;\n    Or I will fetch thy rim out at thy throat\n    In drops of crimson blood.\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. Est-il impossible d'echapper la force de ton bras?\n  PISTOL. Brass, cur?\n    Thou damned and luxurious mountain-goat,\n    Offer'st me brass?\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. O, pardonnez-moi!\n  PISTOL. Say'st thou me so? Is that a ton of moys?\n    Come hither, boy; ask me this slave in French\n    What is his name.\n  BOY. Ecoutez: comment etes-vous appele?\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. Monsieur le Fer.\n  BOY. He says his name is Master Fer.\n  PISTOL. Master Fer! I'll fer him, and firk him, and ferret him-\n   discuss the same in French unto him.\n  BOY. I do not know the French for fer, and ferret, and firk.\n  PISTOL. Bid him prepare; for I will cut his throat.\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. Que dit-il, monsieur?\n  BOY. Il me commande a vous dire que vous faites vous pret; car ce\n    soldat ici est dispose tout a cette heure de couper votre gorge.\n  PISTOL. Owy, cuppele gorge, permafoy!\n    Peasant, unless thou give me crowns, brave crowns;\n    Or mangled shalt thou be by this my sword.\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. O, je vous supplie, pour l'amour de Dieu, me\n    pardonner! Je suis gentilhomme de bonne maison. Gardez ma vie, et\n    je vous donnerai deux cents ecus.\n  PISTOL. What are his words?\n  BOY. He prays you to save his life; he is a gentleman of a good\n    house, and for his ransom he will give you two hundred crowns.\n  PISTOL. Tell him my fury shall abate, and I\n    The crowns will take.\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. Petit monsieur, que dit-il?\n  BOY. Encore qu'il est contre son jurement de pardonner aucun\n    prisonnier, neamnoins, pour les ecus que vous l'avez promis, il\n    est content a vous donner la liberte, le franchisement.\n  FRENCH SOLDIER. Sur mes genoux je vous donne mille remercimens; et\n    je m'estime heureux que je suis tombe entre les mains d'un\n    chevalier, je pense, le plus brave, vaillant, et tres distingue\n    seigneur d'Angleterre.\n  PISTOL. Expound unto me, boy.\n  BOY. He gives you, upon his knees, a thousand thanks; and he\n    esteems himself happy that he hath fall'n into the hands of one-\n    as he thinks- the most brave, valorous, and thrice-worthy\n    signieur of England.\n  PISTOL. As I suck blood, I will some mercy show.\n    Follow me.                                              Exit\n  BOY. Suivez-vous le grand capitaine.       Exit FRENCH SOLDIER\n    I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart; but\n    the saying is true- the empty vessel makes the greatest sound.\n    Bardolph and Nym had ten times more valour than this roaring\n    devil i' th' old play, that every one may pare his nails with a\n    wooden dagger; and they are both hang'd; and so would this be, if\n    he durst steal anything adventurously. I must stay with the\n    lackeys, with the luggage of our camp. The French might have a\n    good prey of us, if he knew of it; for there is none to guard it\n    but boys.                                               Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAnother part of the field of battle\n\nEnter CONSTABLE, ORLEANS, BOURBON, DAUPHIN, and RAMBURES\n\n  CONSTABLE. O diable!\n  ORLEANS. O Seigneur! le jour est perdu, tout est perdu!\n  DAUPHIN. Mort Dieu, ma vie! all is confounded, all!\n    Reproach and everlasting shame\n    Sits mocking in our plumes.                 [A short alarum]\n    O mechante fortune! Do not run away.\n  CONSTABLE. Why, an our ranks are broke.\n  DAUPHIN. O perdurable shame! Let's stab ourselves.\n    Be these the wretches that we play'd at dice for?\n  ORLEANS. Is this the king we sent to for his ransom?\n  BOURBON. Shame, and eternal shame, nothing but shame!\n    Let us die in honour: once more back again;\n    And he that will not follow Bourbon now,\n    Let him go hence and, with his cap in hand\n    Like a base pander, hold the chamber-door\n    Whilst by a slave, no gender than my dog,\n    His fairest daughter is contaminated.\n  CONSTABLE. Disorder, that hath spoil'd us, friend us now!\n    Let us on heaps go offer up our lives.\n  ORLEANS. We are enow yet living in the field\n    To smother up the English in our throngs,\n    If any order might be thought upon.\n  BOURBON. The devil take order now! I'll to the throng.\n    Let life be short, else shame will be too long.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nAnother part of the field\n\nAlarum. Enter the KING and his train, with prisoners; EXETER, and others\n\n  KING HENRY. Well have we done, thrice-valiant countrymen;\n    But all's not done- yet keep the French the field.\n  EXETER. The Duke of York commends him to your Majesty.\n  KING HENRY. Lives he, good uncle? Thrice within this hour\n    I saw him down; thrice up again, and fighting;\n    From helmet to the spur all blood he was.\n  EXETER. In which array, brave soldier, doth he lie\n    Larding the plain; and by his bloody side,\n    Yoke-fellow to his honour-owing wounds,\n    The noble Earl of Suffolk also lies.\n    Suffolk first died; and York, all haggled over,\n    Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteeped,\n    And takes him by the beard, kisses the gashes\n    That bloodily did yawn upon his face,\n    He cries aloud 'Tarry, my cousin Suffolk.\n    My soul shall thine keep company to heaven;\n    Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast;\n    As in this glorious and well-foughten field\n    We kept together in our chivalry.'\n    Upon these words I came and cheer'd him up;\n    He smil'd me in the face, raught me his hand,\n    And, with a feeble grip, says 'Dear my lord,\n    Commend my service to my sovereign.'\n    So did he turn, and over Suffolk's neck\n    He threw his wounded arm and kiss'd his lips;\n    And so, espous'd to death, with blood he seal'd\n    A testament of noble-ending love.\n    The pretty and sweet manner of it forc'd\n    Those waters from me which I would have stopp'd;\n    But I had not so much of man in me,\n    And all my mother came into mine eyes\n    And gave me up to tears.\n  KING HENRY. I blame you not;\n    For, hearing this, I must perforce compound\n    With mistful eyes, or they will issue too.          [Alarum]\n    But hark! what new alarum is this same?\n    The French have reinforc'd their scatter'd men.\n    Then every soldier kill his prisoners;\n    Give the word through.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nAnother part of the field\n\nEnter FLUELLEN and GOWER\n\n  FLUELLEN. Kill the poys and the luggage! 'Tis expressly against the\n    law of arms; 'tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as\n    can be offert; in your conscience, now, is it not?\n  GOWER. 'Tis certain there's not a boy left alive; and the cowardly\n    rascals that ran from the battle ha' done this slaughter;\n    besides, they have burned and carried away all that was in the\n    King's tent; wherefore the King most worthily hath caus'd every\n    soldier to cut his prisoner's throat. O, 'tis a gallant King!\n  FLUELLEN. Ay, he was porn at Monmouth, Captain Gower. What call you\n    the town's name where Alexander the Pig was born?\n  GOWER. Alexander the Great.\n  FLUELLEN. Why, I pray you, is not 'pig' great? The pig, or great,\n    or the mighty, or the huge, or the magnanimous, are all one\n    reckonings, save the phrase is a little variations.\n  GOWER. I think Alexander the Great was born in Macedon; his father\n    was called Philip of Macedon, as I take it.\n  FLUELLEN. I think it is in Macedon where Alexander is porn. I tell\n    you, Captain, if you look in the maps of the 'orld, I warrant you\n    sall find, in the comparisons between Macedon and Monmouth, that\n    the situations, look you, is both alike. There is a river in\n    Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth; it is\n    call'd Wye at Monmouth, but it is out of my prains what is the\n    name of the other river; but 'tis all one, 'tis alike as my\n    fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both. If you\n    mark Alexander's life well, Harry of Monmouth's life is come\n    after it indifferent well; for there is figures in all things.\n    Alexander- God knows, and you know- in his rages, and his furies,\n    and his wraths, and his cholers, and his moods, and his\n    displeasures, and his indignations, and also being a little\n    intoxicates in his prains, did, in his ales and his angers, look\n    you, kill his best friend, Cleitus.\n  GOWER. Our king is not like him in that: he never kill'd any of his\n    friends.\n  FLUELLEN. It is not well done, mark you now, to take the tales out\n    of my mouth ere it is made and finished. I speak but in the\n    figures and comparisons of it; as Alexander kill'd his friend\n    Cleitus, being in his ales and his cups, so also Harry Monmouth,\n    being in his right wits and his good judgments, turn'd away the\n    fat knight with the great belly doublet; he was full of jests,\n    and gipes, and knaveries, and mocks; I have forgot his name.\n  GOWER. Sir John Falstaff.\n  FLUELLEN. That is he. I'll tell you there is good men porn at\n    Monmouth.\n  GOWER. Here comes his Majesty.\n\n            Alarum. Enter the KING, WARWICK, GLOUCESTER,\n            EXETER, and others, with prisoners. Flourish\n\n  KING HENRY. I was not angry since I came to France\n    Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald,\n    Ride thou unto the horsemen on yond hill;\n    If they will fight with us, bid them come down\n    Or void the field; they do offend our sight.\n    If they'll do neither, we will come to them\n    And make them skirr away as swift as stones\n    Enforced from the old Assyrian slings;\n    Besides, we'll cut the throats of those we have,\n    And not a man of them that we shall take\n    Shall taste our mercy. Go and tell them so.\n\n                      Enter MONTJOY\n\n  EXETER. Here comes the herald of the French, my liege.\n  GLOUCESTER. His eyes are humbler than they us'd to be.\n  KING HENRY. How now! What means this, herald? know'st thou not\n    That I have fin'd these bones of mine for ransom?\n    Com'st thou again for ransom?\n  MONTJOY. No, great King;\n    I come to thee for charitable licence,\n    That we may wander o'er this bloody field\n    To book our dead, and then to bury them;\n    To sort our nobles from our common men;\n    For many of our princes- woe the while!-\n    Lie drown'd and soak'd in mercenary blood;\n    So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs\n    In blood of princes; and their wounded steeds\n    Fret fetlock deep in gore, and with wild rage\n    Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters,\n    Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great King,\n    To view the field in safety, and dispose\n    Of their dead bodies!\n  KING HENRY. I tell thee truly, herald,\n    I know not if the day be ours or no;\n    For yet a many of your horsemen peer\n    And gallop o'er the field.\n  MONTJOY. The day is yours.\n  KING HENRY. Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!\n    What is this castle call'd that stands hard by?\n  MONTJOY. They call it Agincourt.\n  KING HENRY. Then call we this the field of Agincourt,\n    Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.\n  FLUELLEN. Your grandfather of famous memory, an't please your\n    Majesty, and your great-uncle Edward the Plack Prince of Wales,\n    as I have read in the chronicles, fought a most prave pattle here\n    in France.\n  KING HENRY. They did, Fluellen.\n  FLUELLEN. Your Majesty says very true; if your Majesties is\n    rememb'red of it, the Welshmen did good service in garden where\n    leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; which your\n    Majesty know to this hour is an honourable badge of the service;\n    and I do believe your Majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek\n    upon Saint Tavy's day.\n  KING HENRY. I wear it for a memorable honour;\n    For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.\n  FLUELLEN. All the water in Wye cannot wash your Majesty's Welsh\n    plood out of your pody, I can tell you that. Got pless it and\n    preserve it as long as it pleases his Grace and his Majesty too!\n  KING HENRY. Thanks, good my countryman.\n  FLUELLEN. By Jeshu, I am your Majesty's countryman, care not who\n    know it; I will confess it to all the 'orld: I need not be\n    asham'd of your Majesty, praised be Got, so long as your Majesty\n    is an honest man.\n\n                       Enter WILLIAMS\n\n  KING HENRY. God keep me so! Our heralds go with him:\n    Bring me just notice of the numbers dead\n    On both our parts. Call yonder fellow hither.\n                                     Exeunt heralds with MONTJOY\n  EXETER. Soldier, you must come to the King.\n  KING HENRY. Soldier, why wear'st thou that glove in thy cap?\n  WILLIAMS. An't please your Majesty, 'tis the gage of one that I\n    should fight withal, if he be alive.\n  KING HENRY. An Englishman?\n  WILLIAMS. An't please your Majesty, a rascal that swagger'd with me\n    last night; who, if 'a live and ever dare to challenge this\n    glove, I have sworn to take him a box o' th' ear; or if I can see\n    my glove in his cap- which he swore, as he was a soldier, he\n    would wear if alive- I will strike it out soundly.\n  KING HENRY. What think you, Captain Fluellen, is it fit this\n    soldier keep his oath?\n  FLUELLEN. He is a craven and a villain else, an't please your\n    Majesty, in my conscience.\n  KING HENRY. It may be his enemy is a gentlemen of great sort, quite\n    from the answer of his degree.\n  FLUELLEN. Though he be as good a gentleman as the Devil is, as\n    Lucifier and Belzebub himself, it is necessary, look your Grace,\n    that he keep his vow and his oath; if he be perjur'd, see you\n    now, his reputation is as arrant a villain and a Jacksauce as\n    ever his black shoe trod upon God's ground and his earth, in my\n    conscience, la.\n  KING HENRY. Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meet'st the\n    fellow.\n  WILLIAMS. So I Will, my liege, as I live.\n  KING HENRY. Who serv'st thou under?\n  WILLIAMS. Under Captain Gower, my liege.\n  FLUELLEN. Gower is a good captain, and is good knowledge and\n    literatured in the wars.\n  KING HENRY. Call him hither to me, soldier.\n  WILLIAMS. I will, my liege.                               Exit\n  KING HENRY. Here, Fluellen; wear thou this favour for me, and stick\n    it in thy cap; when Alencon and myself were down together, I\n    pluck'd this glove from his helm. If any man challenge this, he\n    is a friend to Alencon and an enemy to our person; if thou\n    encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou dost me love.\n  FLUELLEN. Your Grace does me as great honours as can be desir'd in\n    the hearts of his subjects. I would fain see the man that has but\n    two legs that shall find himself aggrief'd at this glove, that is\n    all; but I would fain see it once, an please God of his grace\n    that I might see.\n  KING HENRY. Know'st thou Gower?\n  FLUELLEN. He is my dear friend, an please you.\n  KING HENRY. Pray thee, go seek him, and bring him to my tent.\n  FLUELLEN. I will fetch him.                               Exit\n  KING HENRY. My Lord of Warwick and my brother Gloucester,\n    Follow Fluellen closely at the heels;\n    The glove which I have given him for a favour\n    May haply purchase him a box o' th' ear.\n    It is the soldier's: I, by bargain, should\n    Wear it myself. Follow, good cousin Warwick;\n    If that the soldier strike him, as I judge\n    By his blunt bearing he will keep his word,\n    Some sudden mischief may arise of it;\n    For I do know Fluellen valiant,\n    And touch'd with choler, hot as gunpowder,\n    And quickly will return an injury;\n    Follow, and see there be no harm between them.\n    Go you with me, uncle of Exeter.                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\nBefore KING HENRY'S PAVILION\n\nEnter GOWER and WILLIAMS\n\n  WILLIAMS. I warrant it is to knight you, Captain.\n\n                         Enter FLUELLEN\n\n  FLUELLEN. God's will and his pleasure, Captain, I beseech you now,\n    come apace to the King: there is more good toward you\n    peradventure than is in your knowledge to dream of.\n  WILLIAMS. Sir, know you this glove?\n  FLUELLEN. Know the glove? I know the glove is a glove.\n  WILLIAMS. I know this; and thus I challenge it.  [Strikes him]\n  FLUELLEN. 'Sblood, an arrant traitor as any's in the universal\n    world, or in France, or in England!\n  GOWER. How now, sir! you villain!\n  WILLIAMS. Do you think I'll be forsworn?\n  FLUELLEN. Stand away, Captain Gower; I will give treason his\n    payment into plows, I warrant you.\n  WILLIAMS. I am no traitor.\n  FLUELLEN. That's a lie in thy throat. I charge you in his Majesty's\n    name, apprehend him: he's a friend of the Duke Alencon's.\n\n                  Enter WARWICK and GLOUCESTER\n\n  WARWICK. How now! how now! what's the matter?\n  FLUELLEN. My Lord of Warwick, here is- praised be God for it!- a\n    most contagious treason come to light, look you, as you shall\n    desire in a summer's day. Here is his Majesty.\n\n                  Enter the KING and EXETER\n\n  KING HENRY. How now! what's the matter?\n  FLUELLEN. My liege, here is a villain and a traitor, that, look\n    your Grace, has struck the glove which your Majesty is take out\n    of the helmet of Alencon.\n  WILLIAMS. My liege, this was my glove: here is the fellow of it;\n    and he that I gave it to in change promis'd to wear it in his\n    cap; I promis'd to strike him if he did; I met this man with my\n    glove in his cap, and I have been as good as my word.\n  FLUELLEN. Your Majesty hear now, saving your Majesty's manhood,\n    what an arrant, rascally, beggarly, lousy knave it is; I hope\n    your Majesty is pear me testimony and witness, and will\n    avouchment, that this is the glove of Alencon that your Majesty\n    is give me; in your conscience, now.\n  KING HENRY. Give me thy glove, soldier; look, here is the fellow of\n      it.\n    'Twas I, indeed, thou promised'st to strike,\n    And thou hast given me most bitter terms.\n  FLUELLEN. An please your Majesty, let his neck answer for it, if\n    there is any martial law in the world.\n  KING HENRY. How canst thou make me satisfaction?\n  WILLIAMS. All offences, my lord, come from the heart; never came\n    any from mine that might offend your Majesty.\n  KING HENRY. It was ourself thou didst abuse.\n  WILLIAMS. Your Majesty came not like yourself: you appear'd to me\n    but as a common man; witness the night, your garments, your\n    lowliness; and what your Highness suffer'd under that shape I\n    beseech you take it for your own fault, and not mine; for had you\n    been as I took you for, I made no offence; therefore, I beseech\n    your Highness pardon me.\n  KING HENRY. Here, uncle Exeter, fill this glove with crowns,\n    And give it to this fellow. Keep it, fellow;\n    And wear it for an honour in thy cap\n    Till I do challenge it. Give him the crowns;\n    And, Captain, you must needs be friends with him.\n  FLUELLEN. By this day and this light, the fellow has mettle enough\n    in his belly: hold, there is twelve pence for you; and I pray you\n    to serve God, and keep you out of prawls, and prabbles, and\n    quarrels, and dissensions, and, I warrant you, it is the better\n    for you.\n  WILLIAMS. I will none of your money.\n  FLUELLEN. It is with a good will; I can tell you it will serve you\n    to mend your shoes. Come, wherefore should you be so pashful?\n    Your shoes is not so good. 'Tis a good silling, I warrant you, or\n    I will change it.\n\n                      Enter an ENGLISH HERALD\n\n  KING HENRY. Now, herald, are the dead numb'red?\n  HERALD. Here is the number of the slaught'red French.\n                                                 [Gives a paper]\n  KING HENRY. What prisoners of good sort are taken, uncle?\n  EXETER. Charles Duke of Orleans, nephew to the King;\n    John Duke of Bourbon, and Lord Bouciqualt;\n    Of other lords and barons, knights and squires,\n    Full fifteen hundred, besides common men.\n  KING HENRY. This note doth tell me of ten thousand French\n    That in the field lie slain; of princes in this number,\n    And nobles bearing banners, there lie dead\n    One hundred twenty-six; added to these,\n    Of knights, esquires, and gallant gentlemen,\n    Eight thousand and four hundred; of the which\n    Five hundred were but yesterday dubb'd knights.\n    So that, in these ten thousand they have lost,\n    There are but sixteen hundred mercenaries;\n    The rest are princes, barons, lords, knights, squires,\n    And gentlemen of blood and quality.\n    The names of those their nobles that lie dead:\n    Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France;\n    Jaques of Chatillon, Admiral of France;\n    The master of the cross-bows, Lord Rambures;\n    Great Master of France, the brave Sir Guichard Dolphin;\n    John Duke of Alencon; Antony Duke of Brabant,\n    The brother to the Duke of Burgundy;\n    And Edward Duke of Bar. Of lusty earls,\n    Grandpre and Roussi, Fauconbridge and Foix,\n    Beaumont and Marle, Vaudemont and Lestrake.\n    Here was a royal fellowship of death!\n    Where is the number of our English dead?\n                                 [HERALD presents another paper]\n    Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,\n    Sir Richard Kikely, Davy Gam, Esquire;\n    None else of name; and of all other men\n    But five and twenty. O God, thy arm was here!\n    And not to us, but to thy arm alone,\n    Ascribe we all. When, without stratagem,\n    But in plain shock and even play of battle,\n    Was ever known so great and little los\n    On one part and on th' other? Take it, God,\n    For it is none but thine.\n  EXETER. 'Tis wonderful!\n  KING HENRY. Come, go we in procession to the village;\n    And be it death proclaimed through our host\n    To boast of this or take that praise from God\n    Which is his only.\n  FLUELLEN. Is it not lawful, an please your Majesty, to tell how\n    many is kill'd?\n  KING HENRY. Yes, Captain; but with this acknowledgment,\n    That God fought for us.\n  FLUELLEN. Yes, my conscience, he did us great good.\n  KING HENRY. Do we all holy rites:\n    Let there be sung 'Non nobis' and 'Te Deum';\n    The dead with charity enclos'd in clay-\n    And then to Calais; and to England then;\n    Where ne'er from France arriv'd more happy men.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. PROLOGUE.\n\nEnter CHORUS\n\n  CHORUS. Vouchsafe to those that have not read the story\n    That I may prompt them; and of such as have,\n    I humbly pray them to admit th' excuse\n    Of time, of numbers, and due course of things,\n    Which cannot in their huge and proper life\n    Be here presented. Now we bear the King\n    Toward Calais. Grant him there. There seen,\n    Heave him away upon your winged thoughts\n    Athwart the sea. Behold, the English beach\n    Pales in the flood with men, with wives, and boys,\n    Whose shouts and claps out-voice the deep-mouth'd sea,\n    Which, like a mighty whiffler, fore the King\n    Seems to prepare his way. So let him land,\n    And solemnly see him set on to London.\n    So swift a pace hath thought that even now\n    You may imagine him upon Blackheath;\n    Where that his lords desire him to have borne\n    His bruised helmet and his bended sword\n    Before him through the city. He forbids it,\n    Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride;\n    Giving full trophy, signal, and ostent,\n    Quite from himself to God. But now behold\n    In the quick forge and working-house of thought,\n    How London doth pour out her citizens!\n    The mayor and all his brethren in best sort-\n    Like to the senators of th' antique Rome,\n    With the plebeians swarming at their heels-\n    Go forth and fetch their conqu'ring Caesar in;\n    As, by a lower but loving likelihood,\n    Were now the General of our gracious Empress-\n    As in good time he may- from Ireland coming,\n    Bringing rebellion broached on his sword,\n    How many would the peaceful city quit\n    To welcome him! Much more, and much more cause,\n    Did they this Harry. Now in London place him-\n    As yet the lamentation of the French\n    Invites the King of England's stay at home;\n    The Emperor's coming in behalf of France\n    To order peace between them; and omit\n    All the occurrences, whatever chanc'd,\n    Till Harry's back-return again to France.\n    There must we bring him; and myself have play'd\n    The interim, by rememb'ring you 'tis past.\n    Then brook abridgment; and your eyes advance,\n    After your thoughts, straight back again to France.     Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE I.\nFrance.  The English camp\n\nEnter FLUELLEN and GOWER\n\n  GOWER. Nay, that's right; but why wear you your leek to-day? Saint\n    Davy's day is past.\n  FLUELLEN. There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all\n    things. I will tell you, ass my friend, Captain Gower: the\n    rascally, scald, beggarly, lousy, pragging knave, Pistol- which\n    you and yourself and all the world know to be no petter than a\n    fellow, look you now, of no merits- he is come to me, and prings\n    me pread and salt yesterday, look you, and bid me eat my leek; it\n    was in a place where I could not breed no contendon with him; but\n    I will be so bold as to wear it in my cap till I see him once\n    again, and then I will tell him a little piece of my desires.\n\n                          Enter PISTOL\n\n  GOWER. Why, here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.\n  FLUELLEN. 'Tis no matter for his swellings nor his turkey-cocks.\n    God pless you, Aunchient Pistol! you scurvy, lousy knave, God\n    pless you!\n  PISTOL. Ha! art thou bedlam? Dost thou thirst, base Troyan,\n    To have me fold up Parca's fatal web?\n    Hence! I am qualmish at the smell of leek.\n  FLUELLEN. I peseech you heartily, scurvy, lousy knave, at my\n    desires, and my requests, and my petitions, to eat, look you,\n    this leek; because, look you, you do not love it, nor your\n    affections, and your appetites, and your digestions, does not\n    agree with it, I would desire you to eat it.\n  PISTOL. Not for Cadwallader and all his goats.\n  FLUELLEN. There is one goat for you.  [Strikes him]  Will you be so\n    good, scald knave, as eat it?\n  PISTOL. Base Troyan, thou shalt die.\n  FLUELLEN. You say very true, scald knave- when God's will is. I\n    will desire you to live in the meantime, and eat your victuals;\n    come, there is sauce for it.  [Striking him again]  You call'd me\n    yesterday mountain-squire; but I will make you to-day a squire of\n    low degree. I pray you fall to; if you can mock a leek, you can\n    eat a leek.\n  GOWER. Enough, Captain, you have astonish'd him.\n  FLUELLEN. I say I will make him eat some part of my leek, or I will\n    peat his pate four days. Bite, I pray you, it is good for your\n    green wound and your ploody coxcomb.\n  PISTOL. Must I bite?\n  FLUELLEN. Yes, certainly, and out of doubt, and out of question\n    too, and ambiguides.\n  PISTOL. By this leek, I will most horribly revenge- I eat and eat,\n    I swear-\n  FLUELLEN. Eat, I pray you; will you have some more sauce to your\n    leek? There is not enough leek to swear by.\n  PISTOL. Quiet thy cudgel: thou dost see I eat.\n  FLUELLEN. Much good do you, scald knave, heartily. Nay, pray you\n    throw none away; the skin is good for your broken coxcomb. When\n    you take occasions to see leeks hereafter, I pray you mock at\n    'em; that is all.\n  PISTOL. Good.\n  FLUELLEN. Ay, leeks is good. Hold you, there is a groat to heal\n    your pate.\n  PISTOL. Me a groat!\n  FLUELLEN. Yes, verily and in truth, you shall take it; or I have\n    another leek in my pocket which you shall eat.\n  PISTOL. I take thy groat in earnest of revenge.\n  FLUELLEN. If I owe you anything I will pay you in cudgels; you\n    shall be a woodmonger, and buy nothing of me but cudgels. God bye\n    you, and keep you, and heal your pate.\n Exit\n  PISTOL. All hell shall stir for this.\n  GOWER. Go, go: you are a couterfeit cowardly knave. Will you mock\n    at an ancient tradition, begun upon an honourable respect, and\n    worn as a memorable trophy of predeceased valour, and dare not\n    avouch in your deeds any of your words? I have seen you gleeking\n    and galling at this gentleman twice or thrice. You thought,\n    because he could not speak English in the native garb, he could\n    not therefore handle an English cudgel; you find it otherwise,\n    and henceforth let a Welsh correction teach you a good English\n    condition. Fare ye well.                                Exit\n  PISTOL. Doth Fortune play the huswife with me now?\n    News have I that my Nell is dead i' th' spital\n    Of malady of France;\n    And there my rendezvous is quite cut off.\n    Old I do wax; and from my weary limbs\n    Honour is cudgell'd. Well, bawd I'll turn,\n    And something lean to cutpurse of quick hand.\n    To England will I steal, and there I'll steal;\n    And patches will I get unto these cudgell'd scars,\n    And swear I got them in the Gallia wars.                Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nFrance. The FRENCH KING'S palace\n\nEnter at one door, KING HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER, WARWICK,\nWESTMORELAND, and other LORDS; at another, the FRENCH KING, QUEEN ISABEL,\nthe PRINCESS KATHERINE, ALICE, and other LADIES; the DUKE OF BURGUNDY,\nand his train\n\n  KING HENRY. Peace to this meeting, wherefore we are met!\n    Unto our brother France, and to our sister,\n    Health and fair time of day; joy and good wishes\n    To our most fair and princely cousin Katherine.\n    And, as a branch and member of this royalty,\n    By whom this great assembly is contriv'd,\n    We do salute you, Duke of Burgundy.\n    And, princes French, and peers, health to you all!\n  FRENCH KING. Right joyous are we to behold your face,\n    Most worthy brother England; fairly met!\n    So are you, princes English, every one.\n  QUEEN ISABEL. So happy be the issue, brother England,\n    Of this good day and of this gracious meeting\n    As we are now glad to behold your eyes-\n    Your eyes, which hitherto have home in them,\n    Against the French that met them in their bent,\n    The fatal balls of murdering basilisks;\n    The venom of such looks, we fairly hope,\n    Have lost their quality; and that this day\n    Shall change all griefs and quarrels into love.\n  KING HENRY. To cry amen to that, thus we appear.\n  QUEEN ISABEL. You English princes an, I do salute you.\n  BURGUNDY. My duty to you both, on equal love,\n    Great Kings of France and England! That I have labour'd\n    With all my wits, my pains, and strong endeavours,\n    To bring your most imperial Majesties\n    Unto this bar and royal interview,\n    Your mightiness on both parts best can witness.\n    Since then my office hath so far prevail'd\n    That face to face and royal eye to eye\n    You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me\n    If I demand, before this royal view,\n    What rub or what impediment there is\n    Why that the naked, poor, and mangled Peace,\n    Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births,\n    Should not in this best garden of the world,\n    Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage?\n    Alas, she hath from France too long been chas'd!\n    And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps,\n    Corrupting in it own fertility.\n    Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,\n    Unpruned dies; her hedges even-pleach'd,\n    Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,\n    Put forth disorder'd twigs; her fallow leas\n    The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory,\n    Doth root upon, while that the coulter rusts\n    That should deracinate such savagery;\n    The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth\n    The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover,\n    Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,\n    Conceives by idleness, and nothing teems\n    But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,\n    Losing both beauty and utility.\n    And as our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges,\n    Defective in their natures, grow to wildness;\n    Even so our houses and ourselves and children\n    Have lost, or do not learn for want of time,\n    The sciences that should become our country;\n    But grow, like savages- as soldiers will,\n    That nothing do but meditate on blood-\n    To swearing and stern looks, diffus'd attire,\n    And everything that seems unnatural.\n    Which to reduce into our former favout\n    You are assembled; and my speech entreats\n    That I may know the let why gentle Peace\n    Should not expel these inconveniences\n    And bless us with her former qualities.\n  KING HENRY. If, Duke of Burgundy, you would the peace\n    Whose want gives growth to th' imperfections\n    Which you have cited, you must buy that peace\n    With full accord to all our just demands;\n    Whose tenours and particular effects\n    You have, enschedul'd briefly, in your hands.\n  BURGUNDY. The King hath heard them; to the which as yet\n    There is no answer made.\n  KING HENRY. Well then, the peace,\n    Which you before so urg'd, lies in his answer.\n  FRENCH KING. I have but with a cursorary eye\n    O'erglanced the articles; pleaseth your Grace\n    To appoint some of your council presently\n    To sit with us once more, with better heed\n    To re-survey them, we will suddenly\n    Pass our accept and peremptory answer.\n  KING HENRY. Brother, we shall. Go, uncle Exeter,\n    And brother Clarence, and you, brother Gloucester,\n    Warwick, and Huntington, go with the King;\n    And take with you free power to ratify,\n    Augment, or alter, as your wisdoms best\n    Shall see advantageable for our dignity,\n    Any thing in or out of our demands;\n    And we'll consign thereto. Will you, fair sister,\n    Go with the princes or stay here with us?\n  QUEEN ISABEL. Our gracious brother, I will go with them;\n    Haply a woman's voice may do some good,\n    When articles too nicely urg'd be stood on.\n  KING HENRY. Yet leave our cousin Katherine here with us;\n    She is our capital demand, compris'd\n    Within the fore-rank of our articles.\n  QUEEN ISABEL. She hath good leave.\n                   Exeunt all but the KING, KATHERINE, and ALICE\n  KING HENRY. Fair Katherine, and most fair,\n    Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms\n    Such as will enter at a lady's ear,\n    And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?\n  KATHERINE. Your Majesty shall mock me; I cannot speak your England.\n  KING HENRY. O fair Katherine, if you will love me soundly with your\n    French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with\n    your English tongue. Do you like me, Kate?\n  KATHERINE. Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell vat is like me.\n  KING HENRY. An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel.\n  KATHERINE. Que dit-il? que je suis semblable a les anges?\n  ALICE. Oui, vraiment, sauf votre grace, ainsi dit-il.\n  KING HENRY. I said so, dear Katherine, and I must not blush to\n    affirm it.\n  KATHERINE. O bon Dieu! les langues des hommes sont pleines de\n    tromperies.\n  KING HENRY. What says she, fair one? that the tongues of men are\n    full of deceits?\n  ALICE. Oui, dat de tongues of de mans is be full of deceits- dat is\n    de Princess.\n  KING HENRY. The Princess is the better English-woman. I' faith,\n    Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding: I am glad thou\n    canst speak no better English; for if thou couldst, thou wouldst\n    find me such a plain king that thou wouldst think I had sold my\n    farm to buy my crown. I know no ways to mince it in love, but\n    directly to say 'I love you.' Then, if you urge me farther than\n    to say 'Do you in faith?' I wear out my suit. Give me your\n    answer; i' faith, do; and so clap hands and a bargain. How say\n    you, lady?\n  KATHERINE. Sauf votre honneur, me understand well.\n  KING HENRY. Marry, if you would put me to verses or to dance for\n    your sake, Kate, why you undid me; for the one I have neither\n    words nor measure, and for the other I have no strength in\n    measure, yet a reasonable measure in strength. If I could win a\n    lady at leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with my armour\n    on my back, under the correction of bragging be it spoken, I\n    should quickly leap into wife. Or if I might buffet for my love,\n    or bound my horse for her favours, I could lay on like a butcher,\n    and sit like a jack-an-apes, never off. But, before God, Kate, I\n    cannot look greenly, nor gasp out my cloquence, nor I have no\n    cunning in protestation; only downright oaths, which I never use\n    till urg'd, nor never break for urging. If thou canst love a\n    fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth sunburning,\n    that never looks in his glass for love of anything he sees there,\n    let thine eye be thy cook. I speak to thee plain soldier. If thou\n    canst love me for this, take me; if not, to say to thee that I\n    shall die is true- but for thy love, by the Lord, no; yet I love\n    thee too. And while thou liv'st, dear Kate, take a fellow of\n    plain and uncoined constancy; for he perforce must do thee right,\n    because he hath not the gift to woo in other places; for these\n    fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into\n    ladies' favours, they do always reason themselves out again.\n    What! a speaker is but a prater: a rhyme is but a ballad. A good\n    leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will\n    turn white; a curl'd pate will grow bald; a fair face will\n    wither; a full eye will wax hollow. But a good heart, Kate, is\n    the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon- for\n    it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly.\n    If thou would have such a one, take me; and take me, take a\n    soldier; take a soldier, take a king. And what say'st thou, then,\n    to my love? Speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.\n  KATHERINE. Is it possible dat I sould love de enemy of France?\n  KING HENRY. No, it is not possible you should love the enemy of\n    France, Kate, but in loving me you should love the friend of\n    France; for I love France so well that I will not part with a\n    village of it; I will have it all mine. And, Kate, when France is\n    mine and I am yours, then yours is France and you are mine.\n  KATHERINE. I cannot tell vat is dat.\n  KING HENRY. No, Kate? I will tell thee in French, which I am sure\n    will hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife about her\n    husband's neck, hardly to be shook off. Je quand sur le\n    possession de France, et quand vous avez le possession de moi-\n    let me see, what then? Saint Denis be my speed!- donc votre est\n    France et vous etes mienne. It is as easy for me, Kate, to\n    conquer the kingdom as to speak so much more French: I shall\n    never move thee in French, unless it be to laugh at me.\n  KATHERINE. Sauf votre honneur, le Francais que vous parlez, il est\n    meilleur que l'Anglais lequel je parle.\n  KING HENRY. No, faith, is't not, Kate; but thy speaking of my\n    tongue, and I thine, most truly falsely, must needs be granted to\n    be much at one. But, Kate, dost thou understand thus much\n    English- Canst thou love me?\n  KATHERINE. I cannot tell.\n  KING HENRY. Can any of your neighbours tell, Kate? I'll ask them.\n    Come, I know thou lovest me; and at night, when you come into\n    your closet, you'll question this gentlewoman about me; and I\n    know, Kate, you will to her dispraise those parts in me that you\n    love with your heart. But, good Kate, mock me mercifully; the\n    rather, gentle Princess, because I love thee cruelly. If ever\n    thou beest mine, Kate, as I have a saving faith within me tells\n    me thou shalt, I get thee with scambling, and thou must therefore\n    needs prove a good soldier-breeder. Shall not thou and I, between\n    Saint Denis and Saint George, compound a boy, half French, half\n    English, that shall go to Constantinople and take the Turk by the\n    beard? Shall we not? What say'st thou, my fair flower-de-luce?\n  KATHERINE. I do not know dat.\n  KING HENRY. No: 'tis hereafter to know, but now to promise; do but\n    now promise, Kate, you will endeavour for your French part of\n    such a boy; and for my English moiety take the word of a king and\n    a bachelor. How answer you, la plus belle Katherine du monde, mon\n   tres cher et divin deesse?\n  KATHERINE. Your Majestee ave fausse French enough to deceive de\n    most sage damoiselle dat is en France.\n  KING HENRY. Now, fie upon my false French! By mine honour, in true\n    English, I love thee, Kate; by which honour I dare not swear thou\n    lovest me; yet my blood begins to flatter me that thou dost,\n    notwithstanding the poor and untempering effect of my visage. Now\n    beshrew my father's ambition! He was thinking of civil wars when\n    he got me; therefore was I created with a stubborn outside, with\n    an aspect of iron, that when I come to woo ladies I fright them.\n    But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear:\n    my comfort is, that old age, that in layer-up of beauty, can do\n    no more spoil upon my face; thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the\n    worst; and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and\n    better. And therefore tell me, most fair Katherine, will you have\n    me? Put off your maiden blushes; avouch the thoughts of your\n    heart with the looks of an empress; take me by the hand and say\n    'Harry of England, I am thine.' Which word thou shalt no sooner\n    bless mine ear withal but I will tell thee aloud 'England is\n    thine, Ireland is thine, France is thine, and Henry Plantagenet\n    is thine'; who, though I speak it before his face, if he be not\n    fellow with the best king, thou shalt find the best king of good\n    fellows. Come, your answer in broken music- for thy voice is\n    music and thy English broken; therefore, Queen of all, Katherine,\n    break thy mind to me in broken English, wilt thou have me?\n  KATHERINE. Dat is as it shall please de roi mon pere.\n  KING HENRY. Nay, it will please him well, Kate- it shall please\n    him, Kate.\n  KATHERINE. Den it sall also content me.\n  KING HENRY. Upon that I kiss your hand, and I can you my queen.\n  KATHERINE. Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez! Ma foi, je ne\n    veux point que vous abaissiez votre grandeur en baisant la main\n    d'une, notre seigneur, indigne serviteur; excusez-moi, je vous\n    supplie, mon tres puissant seigneur.\n  KING HENRY. Then I will kiss your lips, Kate.\n  KATHERINE. Les dames et demoiselles pour etre baisees devant leur\n    noces, il n'est pas la coutume de France.\n  KING HENRY. Madame my interpreter, what says she?\n  ALICE. Dat it is not be de fashion pour le ladies of France- I\n    cannot tell vat is baiser en Anglish.\n  KING HENRY. To kiss.\n  ALICE. Your Majestee entendre bettre que moi.\n  KING HENRY. It is not a fashion for the maids in France to kiss\n    before they are married, would she say?\n  ALICE. Oui, vraiment.\n  KING HENRY. O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings. Dear Kate,\n    you and I cannot be confin'd within the weak list of a country's\n    fashion; we are the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that\n    follows our places stops the mouth of all find-faults- as I will\n    do yours for upholding the nice fashion of your country in\n    denying me a kiss; therefore, patiently and yielding.  [Kissing\n    her]  You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more\n    eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the\n    French council; and they should sooner persuade Henry of England\n    than a general petition of monarchs. Here comes your father.\n\n             Enter the FRENCH POWER and the ENGLISH LORDS\n\n  BURGUNDY. God save your Majesty! My royal cousin,\n    Teach you our princess English?\n  KING HENRY. I would have her learn, my fair cousin, how perfectly I\n    love her; and that is good English.\n  BURGUNDY. Is she not apt?\n  KING HENRY. Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not\n    smooth; so that, having neither the voice nor the heart of\n    flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up the spirit of love in\n    her that he will appear in his true likeness.\n  BURGUNDY. Pardon the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you for\n    that. If you would conjure in her, you must make a circle; if\n    conjure up love in her in his true likeness, he must appear naked\n    and blind. Can you blame her, then, being a maid yet ros'd over\n    with the virgin crimson of modesty, if she deny the appearance of\n    a naked blind boy in her naked seeing self? It were, my lord, a\n    hard condition for a maid to consign to.\n  KING HENRY. Yet they do wink and yield, as love is blind and\n    enforces.\n  BURGUNDY. They are then excus'd, my lord, when they see not what\n    they do.\n  KING HENRY. Then, good my lord, teach your cousin to consent\n    winking.\n  BURGUNDY. I will wink on her to consent, my lord, if you will teach\n    her to know my meaning; for maids well summer'd and warm kept are\n    like flies at Bartholomew-tide, blind, though they have their\n    eyes; and then they will endure handling, which before would not\n    abide looking on.\n  KING HENRY. This moral ties me over to time and a hot summer; and\n    so I shall catch the fly, your cousin, in the latter end, and she\n    must be blind too.\n  BURGUNDY. As love is, my lord, before it loves.\n  KING HENRY. It is so; and you may, some of you, thank love for my\n    blindness, who cannot see many a fair French city for one fair\n    French maid that stands in my way.\n  FRENCH KING. Yes, my lord, you see them perspectively, the cities\n    turned into a maid; for they are all girdled with maiden walls\n    that war hath never ent'red.\n  KING HENRY. Shall Kate be my wife?\n  FRENCH KING. So please you.\n  KING HENRY. I am content, so the maiden cities you talk of may wait\n    on her; so the maid that stood in the way for my wish shall show\n    me the way to my will.\n  FRENCH KING. We have consented to all terms of reason.\n  KING HENRY. Is't so, my lords of England?\n  WESTMORELAND. The king hath granted every article:\n    His daughter first; and then in sequel, all,\n    According to their firm proposed natures.\n  EXETER. Only he hath not yet subscribed this:\n      Where your Majesty demands that the King of France, having any\n    occasion to write for matter of grant, shall name your Highness\n    in this form and with this addition, in French, Notre tres cher\n    fils Henri, Roi d'Angleterre, Heritier de France; and thus in\n    Latin, Praeclarissimus filius noster Henricus, Rex Angliae et\n    Haeres Franciae.\n  FRENCH KING. Nor this I have not, brother, so denied\n    But our request shall make me let it pass.\n  KING HENRY. I pray you, then, in love and dear alliance,\n    Let that one article rank with the rest;\n    And thereupon give me your daughter.\n  FRENCH KING. Take her, fair son, and from her blood raise up\n    Issue to me; that the contending kingdoms\n    Of France and England, whose very shores look pale\n    With envy of each other's happiness,\n    May cease their hatred; and this dear conjunction\n    Plant neighbourhood and Christian-like accord\n    In their sweet bosoms, that never war advance\n    His bleeding sword 'twixt England and fair France.\n  LORDS. Amen!\n  KING HENRY. Now, welcome, Kate; and bear me witness all,\n    That here I kiss her as my sovereign queen.       [Floulish]\n  QUEEN ISABEL. God, the best maker of all marriages,\n    Combine your hearts in one, your realms in one!\n    As man and wife, being two, are one in love,\n    So be there 'twixt your kingdoms such a spousal\n    That never may ill office or fell jealousy,\n    Which troubles oft the bed of blessed marriage,\n    Thrust in between the paction of these kingdoms,\n    To make divorce of their incorporate league;\n    That English may as French, French Englishmen,\n    Receive each other. God speak this Amen!\n  ALL. Amen!\n  KING HENRY. Prepare we for our marriage; on which day,\n    My Lord of Burgundy, we'll take your oath,\n    And all the peers', for surety of our leagues.\n    Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me,\n    And may our oaths well kept and prosp'rous be!\n                                                  Sennet. Exeunt\n\nEPILOGUE\n                           EPILOGUE.\n\n                          Enter CHORUS\n\n  CHORUS. Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,\n    Our bending author hath pursu'd the story,\n    In little room confining mighty men,\n    Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.\n    Small time, but, in that small, most greatly lived\n    This star of England. Fortune made his sword;\n    By which the world's best garden he achieved,\n    And of it left his son imperial lord.\n    Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd king\n    Of France and England, did this king succeed;\n    Whose state so many had the managing\n    That they lost France and made his England bleed;\n    Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake,\n    In your fair minds let this acceptance take.            Exit\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1592\n\nTHE FIRST PART OF HENRY THE SIXTH\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n  DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, uncle to the King, and Protector\n  DUKE OF BEDFORD, uncle to the King, and Regent of France\n  THOMAS BEAUFORT, DUKE OF EXETER, great-uncle to the king\n  HENRY BEAUFORT, great-uncle to the King, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER,\n     and afterwards CARDINAL\n  JOHN BEAUFORT, EARL OF SOMERSET, afterwards Duke\n  RICHARD PLANTAGENET, son of Richard late Earl of Cambridge,\n    afterwards DUKE OF YORK\n  EARL OF WARWICK\n  EARL OF SALISBURY\n  EARL OF SUFFOLK\n  LORD TALBOT, afterwards EARL OF SHREWSBURY\n  JOHN TALBOT, his son\n  EDMUND MORTIMER, EARL OF MARCH\n  SIR JOHN FASTOLFE\n  SIR WILLIAM LUCY\n  SIR WILLIAM GLANSDALE\n  SIR THOMAS GARGRAVE\n  MAYOR of LONDON\n  WOODVILLE, Lieutenant of the Tower\n  VERNON, of the White Rose or York faction\n  BASSET, of the Red Rose or Lancaster faction\n  A LAWYER\n  GAOLERS, to Mortimer\n  CHARLES, Dauphin, and afterwards King of France\n  REIGNIER, DUKE OF ANJOU, and titular King of Naples\n  DUKE OF BURGUNDY\n  DUKE OF ALENCON\n  BASTARD OF ORLEANS\n  GOVERNOR OF PARIS\n  MASTER-GUNNER OF ORLEANS, and his SON\n  GENERAL OF THE FRENCH FORCES in Bordeaux\n  A FRENCH SERGEANT\n  A PORTER\n  AN OLD SHEPHERD, father to Joan la Pucelle\n  MARGARET, daughter to Reignier, afterwards married to\n    King Henry\n  COUNTESS OF AUVERGNE\n  JOAN LA PUCELLE, Commonly called JOAN OF ARC\n\n  Lords, Warders of the Tower, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers,\n  Messengers, English and French Attendants. Fiends appearing\n    to La Pucelle\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland and France\n\n\n\n\nThe First Part of King Henry the Sixth\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1.\n\nWestminster Abbey\n\nDead March. Enter the funeral of KING HENRY THE FIFTH,\nattended on by the DUKE OF BEDFORD, Regent of France,\nthe DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, Protector, the DUKE OF EXETER,\nthe EARL OF WARWICK, the BISHOP OF WINCHESTER\n\n  BEDFORD. Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to\n    night! Comets, importing change of times and states,\n    Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky\n    And with them scourge the bad revolting stars\n    That have consented unto Henry's death!\n    King Henry the Fifth, too famous to live long!\n    England ne'er lost a king of so much worth.\n  GLOUCESTER. England ne'er had a king until his time.\n    Virtue he had, deserving to command;\n    His brandish'd sword did blind men with his beams;\n    His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings;\n    His sparkling eyes, replete with wrathful fire,\n    More dazzled and drove back his enemies\n    Than mid-day sun fierce bent against their faces.\n    What should I say? His deeds exceed all speech:\n    He ne'er lift up his hand but conquered.\n  EXETER. We mourn in black; why mourn we not in blood?\n    Henry is dead and never shall revive.\n    Upon a wooden coffin we attend;\n    And death's dishonourable victory\n    We with our stately presence glorify,\n    Like captives bound to a triumphant car.\n    What! shall we curse the planets of mishap\n    That plotted thus our glory's overthrow?\n    Or shall we think the subtle-witted French\n    Conjurers and sorcerers, that, afraid of him,\n    By magic verses have contriv'd his end?\n  WINCHESTER. He was a king bless'd of the King of kings;\n    Unto the French the dreadful judgment-day\n    So dreadful will not be as was his sight.\n    The battles of the Lord of Hosts he fought;\n    The Church's prayers made him so prosperous.\n  GLOUCESTER. The Church! Where is it? Had not churchmen\n    pray'd,\n    His thread of life had not so soon decay'd.\n    None do you like but an effeminate prince,\n    Whom like a school-boy you may overawe.\n  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, whate'er we like, thou art\n    Protector\n    And lookest to command the Prince and realm.\n    Thy wife is proud; she holdeth thee in awe\n    More than God or religious churchmen may.\n  GLOUCESTER. Name not religion, for thou lov'st the flesh;\n    And ne'er throughout the year to church thou go'st,\n    Except it be to pray against thy foes.\n  BEDFORD. Cease, cease these jars and rest your minds in peace;\n    Let's to the altar. Heralds, wait on us.\n    Instead of gold, we'll offer up our arms,\n    Since arms avail not, now that Henry's dead.\n    Posterity, await for wretched years,\n    When at their mothers' moist'ned eyes babes shall suck,\n    Our isle be made a nourish of salt tears,\n    And none but women left to wail the dead.\n  HENRY the Fifth, thy ghost I invocate:\n    Prosper this realm, keep it from civil broils,\n    Combat with adverse planets in the heavens.\n    A far more glorious star thy soul will make\n    Than Julius Caesar or bright\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My honourable lords, health to you all!\n    Sad tidings bring I to you out of France,\n    Of loss, of slaughter, and discomfiture:\n    Guienne, Champagne, Rheims, Orleans,\n    Paris, Guysors, Poictiers, are all quite lost.\n  BEDFORD. What say'st thou, man, before dead Henry's corse?\n    Speak softly, or the loss of those great towns\n    Will make him burst his lead and rise from death.\n  GLOUCESTER. Is Paris lost? Is Rouen yielded up?\n    If Henry were recall'd to life again,\n    These news would cause him once more yield the ghost.\n  EXETER. How were they lost? What treachery was us'd?\n  MESSENGER. No treachery, but want of men and money.\n    Amongst the soldiers this is muttered\n    That here you maintain several factions;\n    And whilst a field should be dispatch'd and fought,\n    You are disputing of your generals:\n    One would have ling'ring wars, with little cost;\n    Another would fly swift, but wanteth wings;\n    A third thinks, without expense at all,\n    By guileful fair words peace may be obtain'd.\n    Awake, awake, English nobility!\n    Let not sloth dim your honours, new-begot.\n    Cropp'd are the flower-de-luces in your arms;\n    Of England's coat one half is cut away.\n  EXETER. Were our tears wanting to this funeral,\n    These tidings would call forth their flowing tides.\n  BEDFORD. Me they concern; Regent I am of France.\n    Give me my steeled coat; I'll fight for France.\n    Away with these disgraceful wailing robes!\n    Wounds will I lend the French instead of eyes,\n    To weep their intermissive miseries.\n\n                   Enter a second MESSENGER\n\n  SECOND MESSENGER. Lords, view these letters full of bad\n    mischance.\n    France is revolted from the English quite,\n    Except some petty towns of no import.\n    The Dauphin Charles is crowned king in Rheims;\n    The Bastard of Orleans with him is join'd;\n    Reignier, Duke of Anjou, doth take his part;\n    The Duke of Alencon flieth to his side.\n  EXETER. The Dauphin crowned king! all fly to him!\n    O, whither shall we fly from this reproach?\n  GLOUCESTER. We will not fly but to our enemies' throats.\n    Bedford, if thou be slack I'll fight it out.\n  BEDFORD. Gloucester, why doubt'st thou of my forwardness?\n    An army have I muster'd in my thoughts,\n    Wherewith already France is overrun.\n\n                   Enter a third MESSENGER\n\n  THIRD MESSENGER. My gracious lords, to add to your\n    laments,\n    Wherewith you now bedew King Henry's hearse,\n    I must inform you of a dismal fight\n    Betwixt the stout Lord Talbot and the French.\n  WINCHESTER. What! Wherein Talbot overcame? Is't so?\n  THIRD MESSENGER. O, no; wherein Lord Talbot was\n    o'erthrown.\n    The circumstance I'll tell you more at large.\n    The tenth of August last this dreadful lord,\n    Retiring from the siege of Orleans,\n    Having full scarce six thousand in his troop,\n    By three and twenty thousand of the French\n    Was round encompassed and set upon.\n    No leisure had he to enrank his men;\n    He wanted pikes to set before his archers;\n    Instead whereof sharp stakes pluck'd out of hedges\n    They pitched in the ground confusedly\n    To keep the horsemen off from breaking in.\n    More than three hours the fight continued;\n    Where valiant Talbot, above human thought,\n    Enacted wonders with his sword and lance:\n    Hundreds he sent to hell, and none durst stand him;\n    Here, there, and everywhere, enrag'd he slew\n    The French exclaim'd the devil was in arms;\n    All the whole army stood agaz'd on him.\n    His soldiers, spying his undaunted spirit,\n    'A Talbot! a Talbot!' cried out amain,\n    And rush'd into the bowels of the battle.\n    Here had the conquest fully been seal'd up\n    If Sir John Fastolfe had not play'd the coward.\n    He, being in the vaward plac'd behind\n    With purpose to relieve and follow them-\n    Cowardly fled, not having struck one stroke;\n    Hence grew the general wreck and massacre.\n    Enclosed were they with their enemies.\n    A base Walloon, to win the Dauphin's grace,\n    Thrust Talbot with a spear into the back;\n    Whom all France, with their chief assembled strength,\n    Durst not presume to look once in the face.\n  BEDFORD. Is Talbot slain? Then I will slay myself,\n    For living idly here in pomp and ease,\n    Whilst such a worthy leader, wanting aid,\n    Unto his dastard foemen is betray'd.\n  THIRD MESSENGER. O no, he lives, but is took prisoner,\n    And Lord Scales with him, and Lord Hungerford;\n    Most of the rest slaughter'd or took likewise.\n  BEDFORD. His ransom there is none but I shall pay.\n    I'll hale the Dauphin headlong from his throne;\n    His crown shall be the ransom of my friend;\n    Four of their lords I'll change for one of ours.\n    Farewell, my masters; to my task will I;\n    Bonfires in France forthwith I am to make\n    To keep our great Saint George's feast withal.\n    Ten thousand soldiers with me I will take,\n    Whose bloody deeds shall make an Europe quake.\n  THIRD MESSENGER. So you had need; for Orleans is besieg'd;\n    The English army is grown weak and faint;\n    The Earl of Salisbury craveth supply\n    And hardly keeps his men from mutiny,\n    Since they, so few, watch such a multitude.\n  EXETER. Remember, lords, your oaths to Henry sworn,\n    Either to quell the Dauphin utterly,\n    Or bring him in obedience to your yoke.\n  BEDFORD. I do remember it, and here take my leave\n    To go about my preparation.                             Exit\n  GLOUCESTER. I'll to the Tower with all the haste I can\n    To view th' artillery and munition;\n    And then I will proclaim young Henry king.              Exit\n  EXETER. To Eltham will I, where the young King is,\n    Being ordain'd his special governor;\n    And for his safety there I'll best devise.              Exit\n  WINCHESTER.  [Aside]  Each hath his place and function to\n    attend:\n    I am left out; for me nothing remains.\n    But long I will not be Jack out of office.\n    The King from Eltham I intend to steal,\n    And sit at chiefest stern of public weal.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE 2.\n\n                  France. Before Orleans\n\n      Sound a flourish. Enter CHARLES THE DAUPHIN, ALENCON,\n           and REIGNIER, marching with drum and soldiers\n\n  CHARLES. Mars his true moving, even as in the heavens\n    So in the earth, to this day is not known.\n    Late did he shine upon the English side;\n    Now we are victors, upon us he smiles.\n    What towns of any moment but we have?\n    At pleasure here we lie near Orleans;\n    Otherwhiles the famish'd English, like pale ghosts,\n    Faintly besiege us one hour in a month.\n  ALENCON. They want their porridge and their fat bull\n    beeves.\n    Either they must be dieted like mules\n    And have their provender tied to their mouths,\n    Or piteous they will look, like drowned mice.\n  REIGNIER. Let's raise the siege. Why live we idly here?\n    Talbot is taken, whom we wont to fear;\n    Remaineth none but mad-brain'd Salisbury,\n    And he may well in fretting spend his gall\n    Nor men nor money hath he to make war.\n  CHARLES. Sound, sound alarum; we will rush on them.\n    Now for the honour of the forlorn French!\n    Him I forgive my death that killeth me,\n    When he sees me go back one foot or flee.             Exeunt\n\n       Here alarum. They are beaten hack by the English, with\n         great loss. Re-enter CHARLES, ALENCON, and REIGNIER\n\n  CHARLES. Who ever saw the like? What men have I!\n    Dogs! cowards! dastards! I would ne'er have fled\n    But that they left me midst my enemies.\n  REIGNIER. Salisbury is a desperate homicide;\n    He fighteth as one weary of his life.\n    The other lords, like lions wanting food,\n    Do rush upon us as their hungry prey.\n  ALENCON. Froissart, a countryman of ours, records\n    England all Olivers and Rowlands bred\n    During the time Edward the Third did reign.\n    More truly now may this be verified;\n    For none but Samsons and Goliases\n    It sendeth forth to skirmish. One to ten!\n    Lean raw-bon'd rascals! Who would e'er suppose\n    They had such courage and audacity?\n  CHARLES. Let's leave this town; for they are hare-brain'd\n    slaves,\n    And hunger will enforce them to be more eager.\n    Of old I know them; rather with their teeth\n    The walls they'll tear down than forsake the siege.\n  REIGNIER. I think by some odd gimmers or device\n    Their arms are set, like clocks, still to strike on;\n    Else ne'er could they hold out so as they do.\n    By my consent, we'll even let them alone.\n  ALENCON. Be it so.\n\n                   Enter the BASTARD OF ORLEANS\n\n  BASTARD. Where's the Prince Dauphin? I have news for him.\n  CHARLES. Bastard of Orleans, thrice welcome to us.\n  BASTARD. Methinks your looks are sad, your cheer appall'd.\n    Hath the late overthrow wrought this offence?\n    Be not dismay'd, for succour is at hand.\n    A holy maid hither with me I bring,\n    Which, by a vision sent to her from heaven,\n    Ordained is to raise this tedious siege\n    And drive the English forth the bounds of France.\n    The spirit of deep prophecy she hath,\n    Exceeding the nine sibyls of old Rome:\n    What's past and what's to come she can descry.\n    Speak, shall I call her in? Believe my words,\n    For they are certain and unfallible.\n  CHARLES. Go, call her in.                       [Exit BASTARD]\n    But first, to try her skill,\n    Reignier, stand thou as Dauphin in my place;\n    Question her proudly; let thy looks be stern;\n    By this means shall we sound what skill she hath.\n\n                  Re-enter the BASTARD OF ORLEANS with\n                          JOAN LA PUCELLE\n\n  REIGNIER. Fair maid, is 't thou wilt do these wondrous feats?\n  PUCELLE. Reignier, is 't thou that thinkest to beguile me?\n    Where is the Dauphin? Come, come from behind;\n    I know thee well, though never seen before.\n    Be not amaz'd, there's nothing hid from me.\n    In private will I talk with thee apart.\n    Stand back, you lords, and give us leave awhile.\n  REIGNIER. She takes upon her bravely at first dash.\n  PUCELLE. Dauphin, I am by birth a shepherd's daughter,\n    My wit untrain'd in any kind of art.\n    Heaven and our Lady gracious hath it pleas'd\n    To shine on my contemptible estate.\n    Lo, whilst I waited on my tender lambs\n    And to sun's parching heat display'd my cheeks,\n    God's Mother deigned to appear to me,\n    And in a vision full of majesty\n    Will'd me to leave my base vocation\n    And free my country from calamity\n    Her aid she promis'd and assur'd success.\n    In complete glory she reveal'd herself;\n    And whereas I was black and swart before,\n    With those clear rays which she infus'd on me\n    That beauty am I bless'd with which you may see.\n    Ask me what question thou canst possible,\n    And I will answer unpremeditated.\n    My courage try by combat if thou dar'st,\n    And thou shalt find that I exceed my sex.\n    Resolve on this: thou shalt be fortunate\n    If thou receive me for thy warlike mate.\n  CHARLES. Thou hast astonish'd me with thy high terms.\n    Only this proof I'll of thy valour make\n    In single combat thou shalt buckle with me;\n    And if thou vanquishest, thy words are true;\n    Otherwise I renounce all confidence.\n  PUCELLE. I am prepar'd; here is my keen-edg'd sword,\n    Deck'd with five flower-de-luces on each side,\n    The which at Touraine, in Saint Katherine's churchyard,\n    Out of a great deal of old iron I chose forth.\n  CHARLES. Then come, o' God's name; I fear no woman.\n  PUCELLE. And while I live I'll ne'er fly from a man.\n                 [Here they fight and JOAN LA PUCELLE overcomes]\n  CHARLES. Stay, stay thy hands; thou art an Amazon,\n    And fightest with the sword of Deborah.\n  PUCELLE. Christ's Mother helps me, else I were too weak.\n  CHARLES. Whoe'er helps thee, 'tis thou that must help me.\n    Impatiently I burn with thy desire;\n    My heart and hands thou hast at once subdu'd.\n    Excellent Pucelle, if thy name be so,\n    Let me thy servant and not sovereign be.\n    'Tis the French Dauphin sueth to thee thus.\n  PUCELLE. I must not yield to any rites of love,\n    For my profession's sacred from above.\n    When I have chased all thy foes from hence,\n    Then will I think upon a recompense.\n  CHARLES. Meantime look gracious on thy prostrate thrall.\n  REIGNIER. My lord, methinks, is very long in talk.\n  ALENCON. Doubtless he shrives this woman to her smock;\n    Else ne'er could he so long protract his speech.\n  REIGNIER. Shall we disturb him, since he keeps no mean?\n  ALENCON. He may mean more than we poor men do know;\n    These women are shrewd tempters with their tongues.\n  REIGNIER. My lord, where are you? What devise you on?\n    Shall we give o'er Orleans, or no?\n  PUCELLE. Why, no, I say; distrustful recreants!\n    Fight till the last gasp; I will be your guard.\n  CHARLES. What she says I'll confirm; we'll fight it out.\n  PUCELLE. Assign'd am I to be the English scourge.\n    This night the siege assuredly I'll raise.\n    Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon days,\n    Since I have entered into these wars.\n    Glory is like a circle in the water,\n    Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself\n    Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.\n    With Henry's death the English circle ends;\n    Dispersed are the glories it included.\n    Now am I like that proud insulting ship\n    Which Caesar and his fortune bare at once.\n  CHARLES. Was Mahomet inspired with a dove?\n    Thou with an eagle art inspired then.\n    Helen, the mother of great Constantine,\n    Nor yet Saint Philip's daughters were like thee.\n    Bright star of Venus, fall'n down on the earth,\n    How may I reverently worship thee enough?\n  ALENCON. Leave off delays, and let us raise the siege.\n  REIGNIER. Woman, do what thou canst to save our honours;\n    Drive them from Orleans, and be immortaliz'd.\n  CHARLES. Presently we'll try. Come, let's away about it.\n    No prophet will I trust if she prove false.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE 3.\n\n                London. Before the Tower gates\n\n       Enter the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, with his serving-men\n                       in blue coats\n\n  GLOUCESTER. I am come to survey the Tower this day;\n    Since Henry's death, I fear, there is conveyance.\n    Where be these warders that they wait not here?\n    Open the gates; 'tis Gloucester that calls.\n  FIRST WARDER.  [Within]  Who's there that knocks so\n    imperiously?\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. It is the noble Duke of Gloucester.\n  SECOND WARDER.  [Within]  Whoe'er he be, you may not be\n    let in.\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Villains, answer you so the Lord\n    Protector?\n  FIRST WARDER.  [Within]  The Lord protect him! so we\n    answer him.\n    We do no otherwise than we are will'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Who willed you, or whose will stands but\n    mine?\n    There's none Protector of the realm but I.\n    Break up the gates, I'll be your warrantize.\n    Shall I be flouted thus by dunghill grooms?\n                  [GLOUCESTER'S men rush at the Tower gates, and\n                         WOODVILLE the Lieutenant speaks within]\n  WOODVILLE.  [Within]  What noise is this? What traitors\n    have we here?\n  GLOUCESTER. Lieutenant, is it you whose voice I hear?\n    Open the gates; here's Gloucester that would enter.\n  WOODVILLE.  [Within]  Have patience, noble Duke, I may\n    not open;\n    The Cardinal of Winchester forbids.\n    From him I have express commandment\n    That thou nor none of thine shall be let in.\n  GLOUCESTER. Faint-hearted Woodville, prizest him fore me?\n    Arrogant Winchester, that haughty prelate\n    Whom Henry, our late sovereign, ne'er could brook!\n    Thou art no friend to God or to the King.\n    Open the gates, or I'll shut thee out shortly.\n  SERVING-MEN. Open the gates unto the Lord Protector,\n    Or we'll burst them open, if that you come not quickly.\n\n       Enter to the PROTECTOR at the Tower gates WINCHESTER\n                   and his men in tawny coats\n\n  WINCHESTER. How now, ambitious Humphry! What means\n    this?\n  GLOUCESTER. Peel'd priest, dost thou command me to be\n    shut out?\n  WINCHESTER. I do, thou most usurping proditor,\n    And not Protector of the King or realm.\n  GLOUCESTER. Stand back, thou manifest conspirator,\n    Thou that contrived'st to murder our dead lord;\n    Thou that giv'st whores indulgences to sin.\n    I'll canvass thee in thy broad cardinal's hat,\n    If thou proceed in this thy insolence.\n  WINCHESTER. Nay, stand thou back; I will not budge a foot.\n    This be Damascus; be thou cursed Cain,\n    To slay thy brother Abel, if thou wilt.\n  GLOUCESTER. I will not slay thee, but I'll drive thee back.\n    Thy scarlet robes as a child's bearing-cloth\n    I'll use to carry thee out of this place.\n  WINCHESTER. Do what thou dar'st; I beard thee to thy face.\n  GLOUCESTER. What! am I dar'd and bearded to my face?\n    Draw, men, for all this privileged place\n    Blue-coats to tawny-coats. Priest, beware your beard;\n    I mean to tug it, and to cuff you soundly;\n    Under my feet I stamp thy cardinal's hat;\n    In spite of Pope or dignities of church,\n    Here by the cheeks I'll drag thee up and down.\n  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, thou wilt answer this before the\n    Pope.\n  GLOUCESTER. Winchester goose! I cry 'A rope, a rope!'\n    Now beat them hence; why do you let them stay?\n    Thee I'll chase hence, thou wolf in sheep's array.\n    Out, tawny-coats! Out, scarlet hypocrite!\n\n         Here GLOUCESTER'S men beat out the CARDINAL'S\n        men; and enter in the hurly burly the MAYOR OF\n                  LONDON and his OFFICERS\n\n  MAYOR. Fie, lords! that you, being supreme magistrates,\n    Thus contumeliously should break the peace!\n  GLOUCESTER. Peace, Mayor! thou know'st little of my wrongs:\n    Here's Beaufort, that regards nor God nor King,\n    Hath here distrain'd the Tower to his use.\n  WINCHESTER. Here's Gloucester, a foe to citizens;\n    One that still motions war and never peace,\n    O'ercharging your free purses with large fines;\n    That seeks to overthrow religion,\n    Because he is Protector of the realm,\n    And would have armour here out of the Tower,\n    To crown himself King and suppress the Prince.\n  GLOUCESTER. I Will not answer thee with words, but blows.\n                                      [Here they skirmish again]\n  MAYOR. Nought rests for me in this tumultuous strife\n    But to make open proclamation.\n    Come, officer, as loud as e'er thou canst,\n    Cry.\n  OFFICER.  [Cries]  All manner of men assembled here in arms\n    this day against God's peace and the King's, we charge\n    and command you, in his Highness' name, to repair to\n    your several dwelling-places; and not to wear, handle, or\n    use, any sword, weapon, or dagger, henceforward, upon\n    pain of death.\n  GLOUCESTER. Cardinal, I'll be no breaker of the law;\n    But we shall meet and break our minds at large.\n  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, we'll meet to thy cost, be sure;\n    Thy heart-blood I will have for this day's work.\n  MAYOR. I'll call for clubs if you will not away.\n    This Cardinal's more haughty than the devil.\n  GLOUCESTER. Mayor, farewell; thou dost but what thou\n    mayst.\n  WINCHESTER. Abominable Gloucester, guard thy head,\n    For I intend to have it ere long.\n                    Exeunt, severally, GLOUCESTER and WINCHESTER\n                                             with their servants\n  MAYOR. See the coast clear'd, and then we will depart.\n    Good God, these nobles should such stomachs bear!\n    I myself fight not once in forty year.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                               SCENE 4.\n\n                        France. Before Orleans\n\n               Enter, on the walls, the MASTER-GUNNER\n                       OF ORLEANS and his BOY\n\n  MASTER-GUNNER. Sirrah, thou know'st how Orleans is\n    besieg'd,\n    And how the English have the suburbs won.\n  BOY. Father, I know; and oft have shot at them,\n    Howe'er unfortunate I miss'd my aim.\n  MASTER-GUNNER. But now thou shalt not. Be thou rul'd\n    by me.\n    Chief master-gunner am I of this town;\n    Something I must do to procure me grace.\n    The Prince's espials have informed me\n    How the English, in the suburbs close intrench'd,\n    Wont, through a secret grate of iron bars\n    In yonder tower, to overpeer the city,\n    And thence discover how with most advantage\n    They may vex us with shot or with assault.\n    To intercept this inconvenience,\n    A piece of ordnance 'gainst it I have plac'd;\n    And even these three days have I watch'd\n    If I could see them. Now do thou watch,\n    For I can stay no longer.\n    If thou spy'st any, run and bring me word;\n    And thou shalt find me at the Governor's.               Exit\n  BOY. Father, I warrant you; take you no care;\n    I'll never trouble you, if I may spy them.              Exit\n\n          Enter SALISBURY and TALBOT on the turrets, with\n            SIR WILLIAM GLANSDALE, SIR THOMAS GARGRAVE,\n                            and others\n\n  SALISBURY. Talbot, my life, my joy, again return'd!\n    How wert thou handled being prisoner?\n    Or by what means got'st thou to be releas'd?\n    Discourse, I prithee, on this turret's top.\n  TALBOT. The Earl of Bedford had a prisoner\n    Call'd the brave Lord Ponton de Santrailles;\n    For him was I exchang'd and ransomed.\n    But with a baser man of arms by far\n    Once, in contempt, they would have barter'd me;\n    Which I disdaining scorn'd, and craved death\n    Rather than I would be so vile esteem'd.\n    In fine, redeem'd I was as I desir'd.\n    But, O! the treacherous Fastolfe wounds my heart\n    Whom with my bare fists I would execute,\n    If I now had him brought into my power.\n  SALISBURY. Yet tell'st thou not how thou wert entertain'd.\n  TALBOT. With scoffs, and scorns, and contumelious taunts,\n    In open market-place produc'd they me\n    To be a public spectacle to all;\n    Here, said they, is the terror of the French,\n    The scarecrow that affrights our children so.\n    Then broke I from the officers that led me,\n    And with my nails digg'd stones out of the ground\n    To hurl at the beholders of my shame;\n    My grisly countenance made others fly;\n    None durst come near for fear of sudden death.\n    In iron walls they deem'd me not secure;\n    So great fear of my name 'mongst them was spread\n    That they suppos'd I could rend bars of steel\n    And spurn in pieces posts of adamant;\n    Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had\n    That walk'd about me every minute-while;\n    And if I did but stir out of my bed,\n    Ready they were to shoot me to the heart.\n\n                Enter the BOY with a linstock\n\n  SALISBURY. I grieve to hear what torments you endur'd;\n    But we will be reveng'd sufficiently.\n    Now it is supper-time in Orleans:\n    Here, through this grate, I count each one\n    And view the Frenchmen how they fortify.\n    Let us look in; the sight will much delight thee.\n    Sir Thomas Gargrave and Sir William Glansdale,\n    Let me have your express opinions\n    Where is best place to make our batt'ry next.\n  GARGRAVE. I think at the North Gate; for there stand lords.\n  GLANSDALE. And I here, at the bulwark of the bridge.\n  TALBOT. For aught I see, this city must be famish'd,\n    Or with light skirmishes enfeebled.\n                     [Here they shoot and SALISBURY and GARGRAVE\n                                                      fall down]\n  SALISBURY. O Lord, have mercy on us, wretched sinners!\n  GARGRAVE. O Lord, have mercy on me, woeful man!\n  TALBOT. What chance is this that suddenly hath cross'd us?\n    Speak, Salisbury; at least, if thou canst speak.\n    How far'st thou, mirror of all martial men?\n    One of thy eyes and thy cheek's side struck off!\n    Accursed tower! accursed fatal hand\n    That hath contriv'd this woeful tragedy!\n    In thirteen battles Salisbury o'ercame;\n    Henry the Fifth he first train'd to the wars;\n    Whilst any trump did sound or drum struck up,\n    His sword did ne'er leave striking in the field.\n    Yet liv'st thou, Salisbury? Though thy speech doth fail,\n    One eye thou hast to look to heaven for grace;\n    The sun with one eye vieweth all the world.\n    Heaven, be thou gracious to none alive\n    If Salisbury wants mercy at thy hands!\n    Bear hence his body; I will help to bury it.\n    Sir Thomas Gargrave, hast thou any life?\n    Speak unto Talbot; nay, look up to him.\n    Salisbury, cheer thy spirit with this comfort,\n    Thou shalt not die whiles\n    He beckons with his hand and smiles on me,\n    As who should say 'When I am dead and gone,\n    Remember to avenge me on the French.'\n    Plantagenet, I will; and like thee, Nero,\n    Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn.\n    Wretched shall France be only in my name.\n                  [Here an alarum, and it thunders and lightens]\n    What stir is this? What tumult's in the heavens?\n    Whence cometh this alarum and the noise?\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My lord, my lord, the French have gather'd\n    head\n    The Dauphin, with one Joan la Pucelle join'd,\n    A holy prophetess new risen up,\n    Is come with a great power to raise the siege.\n                  [Here SALISBURY lifteth himself up and groans]\n  TALBOT. Hear, hear how dying Salisbury doth groan.\n    It irks his heart he cannot be reveng'd.\n    Frenchmen, I'll be a Salisbury to you.\n    Pucelle or puzzel, dolphin or dogfish,\n    Your hearts I'll stamp out with my horse's heels\n    And make a quagmire of your mingled brains.\n    Convey me Salisbury into his tent,\n    And then we'll try what these dastard Frenchmen dare.\n                                                  Alarum. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 5.\n\n                          Before Orleans\n\n         Here an alarum again, and TALBOT pursueth the\n      DAUPHIN and driveth him. Then enter JOAN LA PUCELLE\n       driving Englishmen before her. Then enter TALBOT\n\n  TALBOT. Where is my strength, my valour, and my force?\n    Our English troops retire, I cannot stay them;\n    A woman clad in armour chaseth them.\n\n                          Enter LA PUCELLE\n\n    Here, here she comes. I'll have a bout with thee.\n    Devil or devil's dam, I'll conjure thee;\n    Blood will I draw on thee-thou art a witch\n    And straightway give thy soul to him thou serv'st.\n  PUCELLE. Come, come, 'tis only I that must disgrace thee.\n                                               [Here they fight]\n  TALBOT. Heavens, can you suffer hell so to prevail?\n    My breast I'll burst with straining of my courage.\n    And from my shoulders crack my arms asunder,\n    But I will chastise this high minded strumpet.\n                                              [They fight again]\n  PUCELLE. Talbot, farewell; thy hour is not yet come.\n    I must go victual Orleans forthwith.\n             [A short alarum; then enter the town with soldiers]\n    O'ertake me if thou canst; I scorn thy strength.\n    Go, go, cheer up thy hungry starved men;\n    Help Salisbury to make his testament.\n    This day is ours, as many more shall be.                Exit\n  TALBOT. My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel;\n    I know not where I am nor what I do.\n    A witch by fear, not force, like Hannibal,\n    Drives back our troops and conquers as she lists.\n    So bees with smoke and doves with noisome stench\n    Are from their hives and houses driven away.\n    They call'd us, for our fierceness, English dogs;\n    Now like to whelps we crying run away.\n                                                [A short alarum]\n    Hark, countrymen! Either renew the fight\n    Or tear the lions out of England's coat;\n    Renounce your soil, give sheep in lions' stead:\n    Sheep run not half so treacherous from the wolf,\n    Or horse or oxen from the leopard,\n    As you fly from your oft subdued slaves.\n                                 [Alarum. Here another skirmish]\n    It will not be-retire into your trenches.\n    You all consented unto Salisbury's death,\n    For none would strike a stroke in his revenge.\n    Pucelle is ent'red into Orleans\n    In spite of us or aught that we could do.\n    O, would I were to die with Salisbury!\n    The shame hereof will make me hide my head.\n                                    Exit TALBOT. Alarum; retreat\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 6.\n\n                              ORLEANS\n\n        Flourish. Enter on the walls, LA PUCELLE, CHARLES,\n                REIGNIER, ALENCON, and soldiers\n\n  PUCELLE. Advance our waving colours on the walls;\n    Rescu'd is Orleans from the English.\n    Thus Joan la Pucelle hath perform'd her word.\n  CHARLES. Divinest creature, Astraea's daughter,\n    How shall I honour thee for this success?\n    Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens,\n    That one day bloom'd and fruitful were the next.\n    France, triumph in thy glorious prophetess.\n    Recover'd is the town of Orleans.\n    More blessed hap did ne'er befall our state.\n  REIGNIER. Why ring not out the bells aloud throughout the\n    town?\n    Dauphin, command the citizens make bonfires\n    And feast and banquet in the open streets\n    To celebrate the joy that God hath given us.\n  ALENCON. All France will be replete with mirth and joy\n    When they shall hear how we have play'd the men.\n  CHARLES. 'Tis Joan, not we, by whom the day is won;\n    For which I will divide my crown with her;\n    And all the priests and friars in my realm\n    Shall in procession sing her endless praise.\n    A statelier pyramis to her I'll rear\n    Than Rhodope's of Memphis ever was.\n    In memory of her, when she is dead,\n    Her ashes, in an urn more precious\n    Than the rich jewel'd coffer of Darius,\n    Transported shall be at high festivals\n    Before the kings and queens of France.\n    No longer on Saint Denis will we cry,\n    But Joan la Pucelle shall be France's saint.\n    Come in, and let us banquet royally\n    After this golden day of victory. Flourish.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1.\n\nBefore Orleans\n\nEnter a FRENCH SERGEANT and two SENTINELS\n\n  SERGEANT. Sirs, take your places and be vigilant.\n    If any noise or soldier you perceive\n    Near to the walls, by some apparent sign\n    Let us have knowledge at the court of guard.\n  FIRST SENTINEL. Sergeant, you shall.           [Exit SERGEANT]\n    Thus are poor servitors,\n    When others sleep upon their quiet beds,\n    Constrain'd to watch in darkness, rain, and cold.\n\n             Enter TALBOT, BEDFORD, BURGUNDY, and forces,\n          with scaling-ladders; their drums beating a dead\n                              march\n\n  TALBOT. Lord Regent, and redoubted Burgundy,\n    By whose approach the regions of Artois,\n    Wallon, and Picardy, are friends to us,\n    This happy night the Frenchmen are secure,\n    Having all day carous'd and banqueted;\n    Embrace we then this opportunity,\n    As fitting best to quittance their deceit,\n    Contriv'd by art and baleful sorcery.\n  BEDFORD. Coward of France, how much he wrongs his fame,\n    Despairing of his own arm's fortitude,\n    To join with witches and the help of hell!\n  BURGUNDY. Traitors have never other company.\n    But what's that Pucelle whom they term so pure?\n  TALBOT. A maid, they say.\n  BEDFORD. A maid! and be so martial!\n  BURGUNDY. Pray God she prove not masculine ere long,\n    If underneath the standard of the French\n    She carry armour as she hath begun.\n  TALBOT. Well, let them practise and converse with spirits:\n    God is our fortress, in whose conquering name\n    Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks.\n  BEDFORD. Ascend, brave Talbot; we will follow thee.\n  TALBOT. Not all together; better far, I guess,\n    That we do make our entrance several ways;\n    That if it chance the one of us do fail\n    The other yet may rise against their force.\n  BEDFORD. Agreed; I'll to yond corner.\n  BURGUNDY. And I to this.\n  TALBOT. And here will Talbot mount or make his grave.\n    Now, Salisbury, for thee, and for the right\n    Of English Henry, shall this night appear\n    How much in duty I am bound to both.\n             [The English scale the walls and cry 'Saint George!\n                                                     a Talbot!']\n    SENTINEL. Arm! arm! The enemy doth make assault.\n\n           The French leap o'er the walls in their shirts.\n           Enter, several ways, BASTARD, ALENCON, REIGNIER,\n                     half ready and half unready\n\n  ALENCON. How now, my lords? What, all unready so?\n  BASTARD. Unready! Ay, and glad we 'scap'd so well.\n  REIGNIER. 'Twas time, I trow, to wake and leave our beds,\n    Hearing alarums at our chamber doors.\n  ALENCON. Of all exploits since first I follow'd arms\n    Ne'er heard I of a warlike enterprise\n    More venturous or desperate than this.\n  BASTARD. I think this Talbot be a fiend of hell.\n  REIGNIER. If not of hell, the heavens, sure, favour him\n  ALENCON. Here cometh Charles; I marvel how he sped.\n\n                    Enter CHARLES and LA PUCELLE\n\n  BASTARD. Tut! holy Joan was his defensive guard.\n  CHARLES. Is this thy cunning, thou deceitful dame?\n    Didst thou at first, to flatter us withal,\n    Make us partakers of a little gain\n    That now our loss might be ten times so much?\n  PUCELLE. Wherefore is Charles impatient with his friend?\n    At all times will you have my power alike?\n    Sleeping or waking, must I still prevail\n    Or will you blame and lay the fault on me?\n    Improvident soldiers! Had your watch been good\n    This sudden mischief never could have fall'n.\n  CHARLES. Duke of Alencon, this was your default\n    That, being captain of the watch to-night,\n    Did look no better to that weighty charge.\n  ALENCON. Had all your quarters been as safely kept\n    As that whereof I had the government,\n    We had not been thus shamefully surpris'd.\n  BASTARD. Mine was secure.\n  REIGNIER. And so was mine, my lord.\n  CHARLES. And, for myself, most part of all this night,\n    Within her quarter and mine own precinct\n    I was employ'd in passing to and fro\n    About relieving of the sentinels.\n    Then how or which way should they first break in?\n  PUCELLE. Question, my lords, no further of the case,\n    How or which way; 'tis sure they found some place\n    But weakly guarded, where the breach was made.\n    And now there rests no other shift but this\n    To gather our soldiers, scatter'd and dispers'd,\n    And lay new platforms to endamage them.\n\n               Alarum. Enter an ENGLISH SOLDIER, crying\n            'A Talbot! A Talbot!' They fly, leaving their\n                           clothes behind\n\n  SOLDIER. I'll be so bold to take what they have left.\n    The cry of Talbot serves me for a sword;\n    For I have loaden me with many spoils,\n    Using no other weapon but his name.                     Exit\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 2.\n\n                      ORLEANS. Within the town\n\n            Enter TALBOT, BEDFORD, BURGUNDY, a CAPTAIN,\n                           and others\n\n  BEDFORD. The day begins to break, and night is fled\n    Whose pitchy mantle over-veil'd the earth.\n    Here sound retreat and cease our hot pursuit.\n                                               [Retreat sounded]\n  TALBOT. Bring forth the body of old Salisbury\n    And here advance it in the market-place,\n    The middle centre of this cursed town.\n    Now have I paid my vow unto his soul;\n    For every drop of blood was drawn from him\n    There hath at least five Frenchmen died to-night.\n    And that hereafter ages may behold\n    What ruin happened in revenge of him,\n    Within their chiefest temple I'll erect\n    A tomb, wherein his corpse shall be interr'd;\n    Upon the which, that every one may read,\n    Shall be engrav'd the sack of Orleans,\n    The treacherous manner of his mournful death,\n    And what a terror he had been to France.\n    But, lords, in all our bloody massacre,\n    I muse we met not with the Dauphin's grace,\n    His new-come champion, virtuous Joan of Arc,\n    Nor any of his false confederates.\n  BEDFORD. 'Tis thought, Lord Talbot, when the fight began,\n    Rous'd on the sudden from their drowsy beds,\n    They did amongst the troops of armed men\n    Leap o'er the walls for refuge in the field.\n  BURGUNDY. Myself, as far as I could well discern\n    For smoke and dusky vapours of the night,\n    Am sure I scar'd the Dauphin and his trull,\n    When arm in arm they both came swiftly running,\n    Like to a pair of loving turtle-doves\n    That could not live asunder day or night.\n    After that things are set in order here,\n    We'll follow them with all the power we have.\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. All hail, my lords! Which of this princely train\n    Call ye the warlike Talbot, for his acts\n    So much applauded through the realm of France?\n  TALBOT. Here is the Talbot; who would speak with him?\n  MESSENGER. The virtuous lady, Countess of Auvergne,\n    With modesty admiring thy renown,\n    By me entreats, great lord, thou wouldst vouchsafe\n    To visit her poor castle where she lies,\n    That she may boast she hath beheld the man\n    Whose glory fills the world with loud report.\n  BURGUNDY. Is it even so? Nay, then I see our wars\n    Will turn into a peaceful comic sport,\n    When ladies crave to be encount'red with.\n    You may not, my lord, despise her gentle suit.\n  TALBOT. Ne'er trust me then; for when a world of men\n    Could not prevail with all their oratory,\n    Yet hath a woman's kindness overrul'd;\n    And therefore tell her I return great thanks\n    And in submission will attend on her.\n    Will not your honours bear me company?\n  BEDFORD. No, truly; 'tis more than manners will;\n    And I have heard it said unbidden guests\n    Are often welcomest when they are gone.\n  TALBOT. Well then, alone, since there's no remedy,\n    I mean to prove this lady's courtesy.\n    Come hither, Captain.  [Whispers]   You perceive my mind?\n  CAPTAIN. I do, my lord, and mean accordingly.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 3.\n\n                      AUVERGNE. The Castle\n\n               Enter the COUNTESS and her PORTER\n\n  COUNTESS. Porter, remember what I gave in charge;\n    And when you have done so, bring the keys to me.\n  PORTER. Madam, I will.\n  COUNTESS. The plot is laid; if all things fall out right,\n    I shall as famous be by this exploit.\n    As Scythian Tomyris by Cyrus' death.\n    Great is the rumour of this dreadful knight,\n    And his achievements of no less account.\n    Fain would mine eyes be witness with mine ears\n    To give their censure of these rare reports.\n\n    Enter MESSENGER and TALBOT.\n\n  MESSENGER. Madam, according as your ladyship desir'd,\n    By message crav'd, so is Lord Talbot come.\n  COUNTESS. And he is welcome. What! is this the man?\n  MESSENGER. Madam, it is.\n  COUNTESS. Is this the scourge of France?\n    Is this Talbot, so much fear'd abroad\n    That with his name the mothers still their babes?\n    I see report is fabulous and false.\n    I thought I should have seen some Hercules,\n    A second Hector, for his grim aspect\n    And large proportion of his strong-knit limbs.\n    Alas, this is a child, a silly dwarf!\n    It cannot be this weak and writhled shrimp\n    Should strike such terror to his enemies.\n  TALBOT. Madam, I have been bold to trouble you;\n    But since your ladyship is not at leisure,\n    I'll sort some other time to visit you.              [Going]\n  COUNTESS. What means he now? Go ask him whither he\n    goes.\n  MESSENGER. Stay, my Lord Talbot; for my lady craves\n    To know the cause of your abrupt departure.\n  TALBOT. Marry, for that she's in a wrong belief,\n    I go to certify her Talbot's here.\n\n                      Re-enter PORTER With keys\n\n  COUNTESS. If thou be he, then art thou prisoner.\n  TALBOT. Prisoner! To whom?\n  COUNTESS. To me, blood-thirsty lord\n    And for that cause I train'd thee to my house.\n    Long time thy shadow hath been thrall to me,\n    For in my gallery thy picture hangs;\n    But now the substance shall endure the like\n    And I will chain these legs and arms of thine\n    That hast by tyranny these many years\n    Wasted our country, slain our citizens,\n    And sent our sons and husbands captivate.\n  TALBOT. Ha, ha, ha!\n  COUNTESS. Laughest thou, wretch? Thy mirth shall turn to\n    moan.\n  TALBOT. I laugh to see your ladyship so fond\n    To think that you have aught but Talbot's shadow\n    Whereon to practise your severity.\n  COUNTESS. Why, art not thou the man?\n  TALBOT. I am indeed.\n  COUNTESS. Then have I substance too.\n  TALBOT. No, no, I am but shadow of myself.\n    You are deceiv'd, my substance is not here;\n    For what you see is but the smallest part\n    And least proportion of humanity.\n    I tell you, madam, were the whole frame here,\n    It is of such a spacious lofty pitch\n    Your roof were not sufficient to contain 't.\n  COUNTESS. This is a riddling merchant for the nonce;\n    He will be here, and yet he is not here.\n    How can these contrarieties agree?\n  TALBOT. That will I show you presently.\n\n                   Winds his horn; drums strike up;\n                  a peal of ordnance. Enter soldiers\n\n    How say you, madam? Are you now persuaded\n    That Talbot is but shadow of himself?\n    These are his substance, sinews, arms, and strength,\n    With which he yoketh your rebellious necks,\n    Razeth your cities, and subverts your towns,\n    And in a moment makes them desolate.\n  COUNTESS. Victorious Talbot! pardon my abuse.\n    I find thou art no less than fame hath bruited,\n    And more than may be gathered by thy shape.\n    Let my presumption not provoke thy wrath,\n    For I am sorry that with reverence\n    I did not entertain thee as thou art.\n  TALBOT. Be not dismay'd, fair lady; nor misconster\n    The mind of Talbot as you did mistake\n    The outward composition of his body.\n    What you have done hath not offended me.\n    Nor other satisfaction do I crave\n    But only, with your patience, that we may\n    Taste of your wine and see what cates you have,\n    For soldiers' stomachs always serve them well.\n  COUNTESS. With all my heart, and think me honoured\n    To feast so great a warrior in my house.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                            SCENE 4.\n\n                   London. The Temple garden\n\n         Enter the EARLS OF SOMERSET, SUFFOLK, and WARWICK;\n           RICHARD PLANTAGENET, VERNON, and another LAWYER\n\n  PLANTAGENET. Great lords and gentlemen, what means this\n    silence?\n    Dare no man answer in a case of truth?\n  SUFFOLK. Within the Temple Hall we were too loud;\n    The garden here is more convenient.\n  PLANTAGENET. Then say at once if I maintain'd the truth;\n    Or else was wrangling Somerset in th' error?\n  SUFFOLK. Faith, I have been a truant in the law\n    And never yet could frame my will to it;\n    And therefore frame the law unto my will.\n  SOMERSET. Judge you, my Lord of Warwick, then, between us.\n  WARWICK. Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch;\n    Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth;\n    Between two blades, which bears the better temper;\n    Between two horses, which doth bear him best;\n    Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye\n    I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgment;\n    But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,\n    Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.\n  PLANTAGENET. Tut, tut, here is a mannerly forbearance:\n    The truth appears so naked on my side\n    That any purblind eye may find it out.\n  SOMERSET. And on my side it is so well apparell'd,\n    So clear, so shining, and so evident,\n    That it will glimmer through a blind man's eye.\n  PLANTAGENET. Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak,\n    In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts.\n    Let him that is a true-born gentleman\n    And stands upon the honour of his birth,\n    If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,\n    From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.\n  SOMERSET. Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer,\n    But dare maintain the party of the truth,\n    Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.\n  WARWICK. I love no colours; and, without all colour\n    Of base insinuating flattery,\n    I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet.\n  SUFFOLK. I pluck this red rose with young Somerset,\n    And say withal I think he held the right.\n  VERNON. Stay, lords and gentlemen, and pluck no more\n    Till you conclude that he upon whose side\n    The fewest roses are cropp'd from the tree\n    Shall yield the other in the right opinion.\n  SOMERSET. Good Master Vernon, it is well objected;\n    If I have fewest, I subscribe in silence.\n  PLANTAGENET. And I.\n  VERNON. Then, for the truth and plainness of the case,\n    I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here,\n    Giving my verdict on the white rose side.\n  SOMERSET. Prick not your finger as you pluck it off,\n    Lest, bleeding, you do paint the white rose red,\n    And fall on my side so, against your will.\n  VERNON. If I, my lord, for my opinion bleed,\n    Opinion shall be surgeon to my hurt\n    And keep me on the side where still I am.\n  SOMERSET. Well, well, come on; who else?\n  LAWYER.  [To Somerset]  Unless my study and my books be\n    false,\n    The argument you held was wrong in you;\n    In sign whereof I pluck a white rose too.\n  PLANTAGENET. Now, Somerset, where is your argument?\n  SOMERSET. Here in my scabbard, meditating that\n    Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red.\n  PLANTAGENET. Meantime your cheeks do counterfeit our\n    roses;\n    For pale they look with fear, as witnessing\n    The truth on our side.\n  SOMERSET. No, Plantagenet,\n    'Tis not for fear but anger that thy cheeks\n    Blush for pure shame to counterfeit our roses,\n    And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error.\n  PLANTAGENET. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset?\n  SOMERSET. Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet?\n  PLANTAGENET. Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his truth;\n    Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.\n  SOMERSET. Well, I'll find friends to wear my bleeding roses,\n    That shall maintain what I have said is true,\n    Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen.\n  PLANTAGENET. Now, by this maiden blossom in my hand,\n    I scorn thee and thy fashion, peevish boy.\n  SUFFOLK. Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet.\n  PLANTAGENET. Proud Pole, I will, and scorn both him and\n    thee.\n  SUFFOLK. I'll turn my part thereof into thy throat.\n  SOMERSET. Away, away, good William de la Pole!\n    We grace the yeoman by conversing with him.\n  WARWICK. Now, by God's will, thou wrong'st him, Somerset;\n    His grandfather was Lionel Duke of Clarence,\n    Third son to the third Edward, King of England.\n    Spring crestless yeomen from so deep a root?\n  PLANTAGENET. He bears him on the place's privilege,\n    Or durst not for his craven heart say thus.\n  SOMERSET. By Him that made me, I'll maintain my words\n    On any plot of ground in Christendom.\n    Was not thy father, Richard Earl of Cambridge,\n    For treason executed in our late king's days?\n    And by his treason stand'st not thou attainted,\n    Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry?\n    His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood;\n    And till thou be restor'd thou art a yeoman.\n  PLANTAGENET. My father was attached, not attainted;\n    Condemn'd to die for treason, but no traitor;\n    And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset,\n    Were growing time once ripened to my will.\n    For your partaker Pole, and you yourself,\n    I'll note you in my book of memory\n    To scourge you for this apprehension.\n    Look to it well, and say you are well warn'd.\n  SOMERSET. Ay, thou shalt find us ready for thee still;\n    And know us by these colours for thy foes\n    For these my friends in spite of thee shall wear.\n  PLANTAGENET. And, by my soul, this pale and angry rose,\n    As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate,\n    Will I for ever, and my faction, wear,\n    Until it wither with me to my grave,\n    Or flourish to the height of my degree.\n  SUFFOLK. Go forward, and be chok'd with thy ambition!\n    And so farewell until I meet thee next.                 Exit\n  SOMERSET. Have with thee, Pole. Farewell, ambitious\n    Richard.                                                Exit\n  PLANTAGENET. How I am brav'd, and must perforce endure\n    it!\n  WARWICK. This blot that they object against your house\n    Shall be wip'd out in the next Parliament,\n    Call'd for the truce of Winchester and Gloucester;\n    And if thou be not then created York,\n    I will not live to be accounted Warwick.\n    Meantime, in signal of my love to thee,\n    Against proud Somerset and William Pole,\n    Will I upon thy party wear this rose;\n    And here I prophesy: this brawl to-day,\n    Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,\n    Shall send between the Red Rose and the White\n    A thousand souls to death and deadly night.\n  PLANTAGENET. Good Master Vernon, I am bound to you\n    That you on my behalf would pluck a flower.\n  VERNON. In your behalf still will I wear the same.\n  LAWYER. And so will I.\n  PLANTAGENET. Thanks, gentle sir.\n    Come, let us four to dinner. I dare say\n    This quarrel will drink blood another day.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 5.\n\n                       The Tower of London\n\n         Enter MORTIMER, brought in a chair, and GAOLERS\n\n  MORTIMER. Kind keepers of my weak decaying age,\n    Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.\n    Even like a man new haled from the rack,\n    So fare my limbs with long imprisonment;\n    And these grey locks, the pursuivants of death,\n    Nestor-like aged in an age of care,\n    Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer.\n    These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent,\n    Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent;\n    Weak shoulders, overborne with burdening grief,\n    And pithless arms, like to a withered vine\n    That droops his sapless branches to the ground.\n    Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is numb,\n    Unable to support this lump of clay,\n    Swift-winged with desire to get a grave,\n    As witting I no other comfort have.\n    But tell me, keeper, will my nephew come?\n  FIRST KEEPER. Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will come.\n    We sent unto the Temple, unto his chamber;\n    And answer was return'd that he will come.\n  MORTIMER. Enough; my soul shall then be satisfied.\n    Poor gentleman! his wrong doth equal mine.\n    Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign,\n    Before whose glory I was great in arms,\n    This loathsome sequestration have I had;\n    And even since then hath Richard been obscur'd,\n    Depriv'd of honour and inheritance.\n    But now the arbitrator of despairs,\n    Just Death, kind umpire of men's miseries,\n    With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence.\n    I would his troubles likewise were expir'd,\n    That so he might recover what was lost.\n\n                     Enter RICHARD PLANTAGENET\n\n  FIRST KEEPER. My lord, your loving nephew now is come.\n  MORTIMER. Richard Plantagenet, my friend, is he come?\n  PLANTAGENET. Ay, noble uncle, thus ignobly us'd,\n    Your nephew, late despised Richard, comes.\n  MORTIMER. Direct mine arms I may embrace his neck\n    And in his bosom spend my latter gasp.\n    O, tell me when my lips do touch his cheeks,\n    That I may kindly give one fainting kiss.\n    And now declare, sweet stem from York's great stock,\n    Why didst thou say of late thou wert despis'd?\n  PLANTAGENET. First, lean thine aged back against mine arm;\n    And, in that ease, I'll tell thee my disease.\n    This day, in argument upon a case,\n    Some words there grew 'twixt Somerset and me;\n    Among which terms he us'd his lavish tongue\n    And did upbraid me with my father's death;\n    Which obloquy set bars before my tongue,\n    Else with the like I had requited him.\n    Therefore, good uncle, for my father's sake,\n    In honour of a true Plantagenet,\n    And for alliance sake, declare the cause\n    My father, Earl of Cambridge, lost his head.\n  MORTIMER. That cause, fair nephew, that imprison'd me\n    And hath detain'd me all my flow'ring youth\n    Within a loathsome dungeon, there to pine,\n    Was cursed instrument of his decease.\n  PLANTAGENET. Discover more at large what cause that was,\n    For I am ignorant and cannot guess.\n  MORTIMER. I will, if that my fading breath permit\n    And death approach not ere my tale be done.\n    Henry the Fourth, grandfather to this king,\n    Depos'd his nephew Richard, Edward's son,\n    The first-begotten and the lawful heir\n    Of Edward king, the third of that descent;\n    During whose reign the Percies of the north,\n    Finding his usurpation most unjust,\n    Endeavour'd my advancement to the throne.\n    The reason mov'd these warlike lords to this\n    Was, for that-young Richard thus remov'd,\n    Leaving no heir begotten of his body-\n    I was the next by birth and parentage;\n    For by my mother I derived am\n    From Lionel Duke of Clarence, third son\n    To King Edward the Third; whereas he\n    From John of Gaunt doth bring his pedigree,\n    Being but fourth of that heroic line.\n    But mark: as in this haughty great attempt\n    They laboured to plant the rightful heir,\n    I lost my liberty, and they their lives.\n    Long after this, when Henry the Fifth,\n    Succeeding his father Bolingbroke, did reign,\n    Thy father, Earl of Cambridge, then deriv'd\n    From famous Edmund Langley, Duke of York,\n    Marrying my sister, that thy mother was,\n    Again, in pity of my hard distress,\n    Levied an army, weening to redeem\n    And have install'd me in the diadem;\n    But, as the rest, so fell that noble earl,\n    And was beheaded. Thus the Mortimers,\n    In whom the title rested, were suppress'd.\n  PLANTAGENET. Of Which, my lord, your honour is the last.\n  MORTIMER. True; and thou seest that I no issue have,\n    And that my fainting words do warrant death.\n    Thou art my heir; the rest I wish thee gather;\n    But yet be wary in thy studious care.\n  PLANTAGENET. Thy grave admonishments prevail with me.\n    But yet methinks my father's execution\n    Was nothing less than bloody tyranny.\n  MORTIMER. With silence, nephew, be thou politic;\n    Strong fixed is the house of Lancaster\n    And like a mountain not to be remov'd.\n    But now thy uncle is removing hence,\n    As princes do their courts when they are cloy'd\n    With long continuance in a settled place.\n  PLANTAGENET. O uncle, would some part of my young years\n    Might but redeem the passage of your age!\n  MORTIMER. Thou dost then wrong me, as that slaughterer\n    doth\n    Which giveth many wounds when one will kill.\n    Mourn not, except thou sorrow for my good;\n    Only give order for my funeral.\n    And so, farewell; and fair be all thy hopes,\n    And prosperous be thy life in peace and war!          [Dies]\n  PLANTAGENET. And peace, no war, befall thy parting soul!\n    In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage,\n    And like a hermit overpass'd thy days.\n    Well, I will lock his counsel in my breast;\n    And what I do imagine, let that rest.\n    Keepers, convey him hence; and I myself\n    Will see his burial better than his life.\n                Exeunt GAOLERS, hearing out the body of MORTIMER\n    Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer,\n    Chok'd with ambition of the meaner sort;\n    And for those wrongs, those bitter injuries,\n    Which Somerset hath offer'd to my house,\n    I doubt not but with honour to redress;\n    And therefore haste I to the Parliament,\n    Either to be restored to my blood,\n    Or make my ill th' advantage of my good.                Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. The Parliament House\n\nFlourish. Enter the KING, EXETER, GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, SOMERSET, and SUFFOLK;\nthe BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, RICHARD PLANTAGENET, and others.\nGLOUCESTER offers to put up a bill; WINCHESTER snatches it, and tears it\n\n  WINCHESTER. Com'st thou with deep premeditated lines,\n    With written pamphlets studiously devis'd?\n    Humphrey of Gloucester, if thou canst accuse\n    Or aught intend'st to lay unto my charge,\n    Do it without invention, suddenly;\n    I with sudden and extemporal speech\n    Purpose to answer what thou canst object.\n  GLOUCESTER. Presumptuous priest, this place commands my\n    patience,\n    Or thou shouldst find thou hast dishonour'd me.\n    Think not, although in writing I preferr'd\n    The manner of thy vile outrageous crimes,\n    That therefore I have forg'd, or am not able\n    Verbatim to rehearse the method of my pen.\n    No, prelate; such is thy audacious wickedness,\n    Thy lewd, pestiferous, and dissentious pranks,\n    As very infants prattle of thy pride.\n    Thou art a most pernicious usurer;\n    Froward by nature, enemy to peace;\n    Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems\n    A man of thy profession and degree;\n    And for thy treachery, what's more manifest\n    In that thou laid'st a trap to take my life,\n    As well at London Bridge as at the Tower?\n    Beside, I fear me, if thy thoughts were sifted,\n    The King, thy sovereign, is not quite exempt\n    From envious malice of thy swelling heart.\n  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, I do defy thee. Lords, vouchsafe\n    To give me hearing what I shall reply.\n    If I were covetous, ambitious, or perverse,\n    As he will have me, how am I so poor?\n    Or how haps it I seek not to advance\n    Or raise myself, but keep my wonted calling?\n    And for dissension, who preferreth peace\n    More than I do, except I be provok'd?\n    No, my good lords, it is not that offends;\n    It is not that that incens'd hath incens'd the Duke:\n    It is because no one should sway but he;\n    No one but he should be about the King;\n    And that engenders thunder in his breast\n    And makes him roar these accusations forth.\n    But he shall know I am as good\n  GLOUCESTER. As good!\n    Thou bastard of my grandfather!\n  WINCHESTER. Ay, lordly sir; for what are you, I pray,\n    But one imperious in another's throne?\n  GLOUCESTER. Am I not Protector, saucy priest?\n  WINCHESTER. And am not I a prelate of the church?\n  GLOUCESTER. Yes, as an outlaw in a castle keeps,\n    And useth it to patronage his theft.\n  WINCHESTER. Unreverent Gloucester!\n  GLOUCESTER. Thou art reverend\n    Touching thy spiritual function, not thy life.\n  WINCHESTER. Rome shall remedy this.\n  WARWICK. Roam thither then.\n  SOMERSET. My lord, it were your duty to forbear.\n  WARWICK. Ay, see the bishop be not overborne.\n  SOMERSET. Methinks my lord should be religious,\n    And know the office that belongs to such.\n  WARWICK. Methinks his lordship should be humbler;\n    It fitteth not a prelate so to plead.\n  SOMERSET. Yes, when his holy state is touch'd so near.\n  WARWICK. State holy or unhallow'd, what of that?\n    Is not his Grace Protector to the King?\n  PLANTAGENET.  [Aside]  Plantagenet, I see, must hold his\n    tongue,\n    Lest it be said 'Speak, sirrah, when you should;\n    Must your bold verdict enter talk with lords?'\n    Else would I have a fling at Winchester.\n  KING HENRY. Uncles of Gloucester and of Winchester,\n    The special watchmen of our English weal,\n    I would prevail, if prayers might prevail\n    To join your hearts in love and amity.\n    O, what a scandal is it to our crown\n    That two such noble peers as ye should jar!\n    Believe me, lords, my tender years can tell\n    Civil dissension is a viperous worm\n    That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth.\n                  [A noise within: 'Down with the tawny coats!']\n    What tumult's this?\n  WARWICK. An uproar, I dare warrant,\n    Begun through malice of the Bishop's men.\n                              [A noise again: 'Stones! Stones!']\n\n                Enter the MAYOR OF LONDON, attended\n\n  MAYOR. O, my good lords, and virtuous Henry,\n    Pity the city of London, pity us!\n    The Bishop and the Duke of Gloucester's men,\n    Forbidden late to carry any weapon,\n    Have fill'd their pockets full of pebble stones\n    And, banding themselves in contrary parts,\n    Do pelt so fast at one another's pate\n    That many have their giddy brains knock'd out.\n    Our windows are broke down in every street,\n    And we for fear compell'd to shut our shops.\n\n        Enter in skirmish, the retainers of GLOUCESTER and\n               WINCHESTER, with bloody pates\n\n  KING HENRY. We charge you, on allegiance to ourself,\n    To hold your slaught'ring hands and keep the peace.\n    Pray, uncle Gloucester, mitigate this strife.\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Nay, if we be forbidden stones, we'll\n    fall to it with our teeth.\n  SECOND SERVING-MAN. Do what ye dare, we are as resolute.\n                                                [Skirmish again]\n  GLOUCESTER. You of my household, leave this peevish broil,\n    And set this unaccustom'd fight aside.\n  THIRD SERVING-MAN. My lord, we know your Grace to be a\n    man\n    Just and upright, and for your royal birth\n    Inferior to none but to his Majesty;\n    And ere that we will suffer such a prince,\n    So kind a father of the commonweal,\n    To be disgraced by an inkhorn mate,\n    We and our wives and children all will fight\n    And have our bodies slaught'red by thy foes.\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Ay, and the very parings of our nails\n    Shall pitch a field when we are dead.          [Begin again]\n  GLOUCESTER. Stay, stay, I say!\n    And if you love me, as you say you do,\n    Let me persuade you to forbear awhile.\n  KING HENRY. O, how this discord doth afflict my soul!\n    Can you, my Lord of Winchester, behold\n    My sighs and tears and will not once relent?\n    Who should be pitiful, if you be not?\n    Or who should study to prefer a peace,\n    If holy churchmen take delight in broils?\n  WARWICK. Yield, my Lord Protector; yield, Winchester;\n    Except you mean with obstinate repulse\n    To slay your sovereign and destroy the realm.\n    You see what mischief, and what murder too,\n    Hath been enacted through your enmity;\n    Then be at peace, except ye thirst for blood.\n  WINCHESTER. He shall submit, or I will never yield.\n  GLOUCESTER. Compassion on the King commands me stoop,\n    Or I would see his heart out ere the priest\n    Should ever get that privilege of me.\n  WARWICK. Behold, my Lord of Winchester, the Duke\n    Hath banish'd moody discontented fury,\n    As by his smoothed brows it doth appear;\n    Why look you still so stem and tragical?\n  GLOUCESTER. Here, Winchester, I offer thee my hand.\n  KING HENRY. Fie, uncle Beaufort! I have heard you preach\n    That malice was a great and grievous sin;\n    And will not you maintain the thing you teach,\n    But prove a chief offender in the same?\n  WARWICK. Sweet King! The Bishop hath a kindly gird.\n    For shame, my Lord of Winchester, relent;\n    What, shall a child instruct you what to do?\n  WINCHESTER. Well, Duke of Gloucester, I will yield to thee;\n    Love for thy love and hand for hand I give.\n  GLOUCESTER  [Aside]  Ay, but, I fear me, with a hollow\n    heart.\n    See here, my friends and loving countrymen:\n    This token serveth for a flag of truce\n    Betwixt ourselves and all our followers.\n    So help me God, as I dissemble not!\n  WINCHESTER  [Aside]  So help me God, as I intend it not!\n  KING HENRY. O loving uncle, kind Duke of Gloucester,\n    How joyful am I made by this contract!\n    Away, my masters! trouble us no more;\n    But join in friendship, as your lords have done.\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Content: I'll to the surgeon's.\n  SECOND SERVING-MAN. And so will I.\n  THIRD SERVING-MAN. And I will see what physic the tavern\n    affords.                         Exeunt servants, MAYOR, &C.\n  WARWICK. Accept this scroll, most gracious sovereign;\n    Which in the right of Richard Plantagenet\n    We do exhibit to your Majesty.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well urg'd, my Lord of Warwick; for, sweet\n    prince,\n    An if your Grace mark every circumstance,\n    You have great reason to do Richard right;\n    Especially for those occasions\n    At Eltham Place I told your Majesty.\n  KING HENRY. And those occasions, uncle, were of force;\n    Therefore, my loving lords, our pleasure is\n    That Richard be restored to his blood.\n  WARWICK. Let Richard be restored to his blood;\n    So shall his father's wrongs be recompens'd.\n  WINCHESTER. As will the rest, so willeth Winchester.\n  KING HENRY. If Richard will be true, not that alone\n    But all the whole inheritance I give\n    That doth belong unto the house of York,\n    From whence you spring by lineal descent.\n  PLANTAGENET. Thy humble servant vows obedience\n    And humble service till the point of death.\n  KING HENRY. Stoop then and set your knee against my foot;\n    And in reguerdon of that duty done\n    I girt thee with the valiant sword of York.\n    Rise, Richard, like a true Plantagenet,\n    And rise created princely Duke of York.\n  PLANTAGENET. And so thrive Richard as thy foes may fall!\n    And as my duty springs, so perish they\n    That grudge one thought against your Majesty!\n  ALL. Welcome, high Prince, the mighty Duke of York!\n  SOMERSET.  [Aside]  Perish, base Prince, ignoble Duke of\n    York!\n  GLOUCESTER. Now will it best avail your Majesty\n    To cross the seas and to be crown'd in France:\n    The presence of a king engenders love\n    Amongst his subjects and his loyal friends,\n    As it disanimates his enemies.\n  KING HENRY. When Gloucester says the word, King Henry\n    goes;\n    For friendly counsel cuts off many foes.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your ships already are in readiness.\n                         Sennet. Flourish. Exeunt all but EXETER\n  EXETER. Ay, we may march in England or in France,\n    Not seeing what is likely to ensue.\n    This late dissension grown betwixt the peers\n    Burns under feigned ashes of forg'd love\n    And will at last break out into a flame;\n    As fest'red members rot but by degree\n    Till bones and flesh and sinews fall away,\n    So will this base and envious discord breed.\n    And now I fear that fatal prophecy.\n    Which in the time of Henry nam'd the Fifth\n    Was in the mouth of every sucking babe:\n    That Henry born at Monmouth should win all,\n    And Henry born at Windsor should lose all.\n    Which is so plain that Exeter doth wish\n    His days may finish ere that hapless time.              Exit\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 2.\n\n                      France. Before Rouen\n\n       Enter LA PUCELLE disguis'd, with four soldiers dressed\n            like countrymen, with sacks upon their backs\n\n  PUCELLE. These are the city gates, the gates of Rouen,\n    Through which our policy must make a breach.\n    Take heed, be wary how you place your words;\n    Talk like the vulgar sort of market-men\n    That come to gather money for their corn.\n    If we have entrance, as I hope we shall,\n    And that we find the slothful watch but weak,\n    I'll by a sign give notice to our friends,\n    That Charles the Dauphin may encounter them.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Our sacks shall be a mean to sack the city,\n    And we be lords and rulers over Rouen;\n    Therefore we'll knock.                              [Knocks]\n  WATCH.  [Within]  Qui est la?\n  PUCELLE. Paysans, pauvres gens de France\n    Poor market-folks that come to sell their corn.\n  WATCH. Enter, go in; the market-bell is rung.\n  PUCELLE. Now, Rouen, I'll shake thy bulwarks to the\n    ground.\n\n                               [LA PUCELLE, &c., enter the town]\n\n        Enter CHARLES, BASTARD, ALENCON, REIGNIER, and forces\n\n  CHARLES. Saint Denis bless this happy stratagem!\n    And once again we'll sleep secure in Rouen.\n  BASTARD. Here ent'red Pucelle and her practisants;\n    Now she is there, how will she specify\n    Here is the best and safest passage in?\n  ALENCON. By thrusting out a torch from yonder tower;\n    Which once discern'd shows that her meaning is\n    No way to that, for weakness, which she ent'red.\n\n             Enter LA PUCELLE, on the top, thrusting out\n                         a torch burning\n\n  PUCELLE. Behold, this is the happy wedding torch\n    That joineth Rouen unto her countrymen,\n    But burning fatal to the Talbotites.                    Exit\n  BASTARD. See, noble Charles, the beacon of our friend;\n    The burning torch in yonder turret stands.\n  CHARLES. Now shine it like a comet of revenge,\n    A prophet to the fall of all our foes!\n  ALENCON. Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends;\n    Enter, and cry 'The Dauphin!' presently,\n    And then do execution on the watch. Alarum.           Exeunt\n\n              An alarum. Enter TALBOT in an excursion\n\n  TALBOT. France, thou shalt rue this treason with thy tears,\n    If Talbot but survive thy treachery.\n  PUCELLE, that witch, that damned sorceress,\n    Hath wrought this hellish mischief unawares,\n    That hardly we escap'd the pride of France.             Exit\n\n        An alarum; excursions. BEDFORD brought in sick in\n          a chair. Enter TALBOT and BURGUNDY without;\n         within, LA PUCELLE, CHARLES, BASTARD, ALENCON,\n                 and REIGNIER, on the walls\n\n  PUCELLE. Good morrow, gallants! Want ye corn for bread?\n    I think the Duke of Burgundy will fast\n    Before he'll buy again at such a rate.\n    'Twas full of darnel-do you like the taste?\n  BURGUNDY. Scoff on, vile fiend and shameless courtezan.\n    I trust ere long to choke thee with thine own,\n    And make thee curse the harvest of that corn.\n  CHARLES. Your Grace may starve, perhaps, before that time.\n  BEDFORD. O, let no words, but deeds, revenge this treason!\n  PUCELLE. What you do, good grey beard? Break a\n    lance,\n    And run a tilt at death within a chair?\n  TALBOT. Foul fiend of France and hag of all despite,\n    Encompass'd with thy lustful paramours,\n    Becomes it thee to taunt his valiant age\n    And twit with cowardice a man half dead?\n    Damsel, I'll have a bout with you again,\n    Or else let Talbot perish with this shame.\n  PUCELLE. Are ye so hot, sir? Yet, Pucelle, hold thy peace;\n    If Talbot do but thunder, rain will follow.\n                 [The English party whisper together in council]\n    God speed the parliament! Who shall be the Speaker?\n  TALBOT. Dare ye come forth and meet us in the field?\n  PUCELLE. Belike your lordship takes us then for fools,\n    To try if that our own be ours or no.\n  TALBOT. I speak not to that railing Hecate,\n    But unto thee, Alencon, and the rest.\n    Will ye, like soldiers, come and fight it out?\n  ALENCON. Signior, no.\n  TALBOT. Signior, hang! Base muleteers of France!\n    Like peasant foot-boys do they keep the walls,\n    And dare not take up arms like gentlemen.\n  PUCELLE. Away, captains! Let's get us from the walls;\n    For Talbot means no goodness by his looks.\n    God b'uy, my lord; we came but to tell you\n    That we are here.                      Exeunt from the walls\n  TALBOT. And there will we be too, ere it be long,\n    Or else reproach be Talbot's greatest fame!\n    Vow, Burgundy, by honour of thy house,\n    Prick'd on by public wrongs sustain'd in France,\n    Either to get the town again or die;\n    And I, as sure as English Henry lives\n    And as his father here was conqueror,\n    As sure as in this late betrayed town\n    Great Coeur-de-lion's heart was buried\n    So sure I swear to get the town or die.\n  BURGUNDY. My vows are equal partners with thy vows.\n  TALBOT. But ere we go, regard this dying prince,\n    The valiant Duke of Bedford. Come, my lord,\n    We will bestow you in some better place,\n    Fitter for sickness and for crazy age.\n  BEDFORD. Lord Talbot, do not so dishonour me;\n    Here will I sit before the walls of Rouen,\n    And will be partner of your weal or woe.\n  BURGUNDY. Courageous Bedford, let us now persuade you.\n  BEDFORD. Not to be gone from hence; for once I read\n    That stout Pendragon in his litter sick\n    Came to the field, and vanquished his foes.\n    Methinks I should revive the soldiers' hearts,\n    Because I ever found them as myself.\n  TALBOT. Undaunted spirit in a dying breast!\n    Then be it so. Heavens keep old Bedford safe!\n    And now no more ado, brave Burgundy,\n    But gather we our forces out of hand\n    And set upon our boasting enemy.\n          Exeunt against the town all but BEDFORD and attendants\n\n           An alarum; excursions. Enter SIR JOHN FASTOLFE,\n                           and a CAPTAIN\n\n  CAPTAIN. Whither away, Sir John Fastolfe, in such haste?\n  FASTOLFE. Whither away? To save myself by flight:\n    We are like to have the overthrow again.\n  CAPTAIN. What! Will you and leave Lord Talbot?\n  FASTOLFE. Ay,\n    All the Talbots in the world, to save my life.          Exit\n  CAPTAIN. Cowardly knight! ill fortune follow thee!\n                                              Exit into the town\n\n         Retreat; excursions. LA PUCELLE, ALENCON,\n                      and CHARLES fly\n\n  BEDFORD. Now, quiet soul, depart when heaven please,\n    For I have seen our enemies' overthrow.\n    What is the trust or strength of foolish man?\n    They that of late were daring with their scoffs\n    Are glad and fain by flight to save themselves.\n            [BEDFORD dies and is carried in by two in his chair]\n\n          An alarum. Re-enter TALBOT, BURGUNDY, and the rest\n\n  TALBOT. Lost and recovered in a day again!\n    This is a double honour, Burgundy.\n    Yet heavens have glory for this victory!\n  BURGUNDY. Warlike and martial Talbot, Burgundy\n    Enshrines thee in his heart, and there erects\n    Thy noble deeds as valour's monuments.\n  TALBOT. Thanks, gentle Duke. But where is Pucelle now?\n    I think her old familiar is asleep.\n    Now where's the Bastard's braves, and Charles his gleeks?\n    What, all amort? Rouen hangs her head for grief\n    That such a valiant company are fled.\n    Now will we take some order in the town,\n    Placing therein some expert officers;\n    And then depart to Paris to the King,\n    For there young Henry with his nobles lie.\n  BURGUNDY. What Lord Talbot pleaseth Burgundy.\n  TALBOT. But yet, before we go, let's not forget\n    The noble Duke of Bedford, late deceas'd,\n    But see his exequies fulfill'd in Rouen.\n    A braver soldier never couched lance,\n    A gentler heart did never sway in court;\n    But kings and mightiest potentates must die,\n    For that's the end of human misery.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 3.\n\n                      The plains near Rouen\n\n        Enter CHARLES, the BASTARD, ALENCON, LA PUCELLE,\n                          and forces\n\n  PUCELLE. Dismay not, Princes, at this accident,\n    Nor grieve that Rouen is so recovered.\n    Care is no cure, but rather corrosive,\n    For things that are not to be remedied.\n    Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while\n    And like a peacock sweep along his tail;\n    We'll pull his plumes and take away his train,\n    If Dauphin and the rest will be but rul'd.\n  CHARLES. We have guided by thee hitherto,\n    And of thy cunning had no diffidence;\n    One sudden foil shall never breed distrust\n  BASTARD. Search out thy wit for secret policies,\n    And we will make thee famous through the world.\n    ALENCON. We'll set thy statue in some holy place,\n    And have thee reverenc'd like a blessed saint.\n    Employ thee, then, sweet virgin, for our good.\n  PUCELLE. Then thus it must be; this doth Joan devise:\n    By fair persuasions, mix'd with sug'red words,\n    We will entice the Duke of Burgundy\n    To leave the Talbot and to follow us.\n  CHARLES. Ay, marry, sweeting, if we could do that,\n    France were no place for Henry's warriors;\n    Nor should that nation boast it so with us,\n    But be extirped from our provinces.\n  ALENCON. For ever should they be expuls'd from France,\n    And not have tide of an earldom here.\n  PUCELLE. Your honours shall perceive how I will work\n    To bring this matter to the wished end.\n                                          [Drum sounds afar off]\n    Hark! by the sound of drum you may perceive\n    Their powers are marching unto Paris-ward.\n\n          Here sound an English march. Enter, and pass over\n                at a distance, TALBOT and his forces\n\n    There goes the Talbot, with his colours spread,\n    And all the troops of English after him.\n\n            French march. Enter the DUKE OF BURGUNDY and\n                         his forces\n\n    Now in the rearward comes the Duke and his.\n    Fortune in favour makes him lag behind.\n    Summon a parley; we will talk with him.\n                                       [Trumpets sound a parley]\n  CHARLES. A parley with the Duke of Burgundy!\n  BURGUNDY. Who craves a parley with the Burgundy?\n  PUCELLE. The princely Charles of France, thy countryman.\n  BURGUNDY. What say'st thou, Charles? for I am marching\n    hence.\n  CHARLES. Speak, Pucelle, and enchant him with thy words.\n  PUCELLE. Brave Burgundy, undoubted hope of France!\n    Stay, let thy humble handmaid speak to thee.\n  BURGUNDY. Speak on; but be not over-tedious.\n  PUCELLE. Look on thy country, look on fertile France,\n    And see the cities and the towns defac'd\n    By wasting ruin of the cruel foe;\n    As looks the mother on her lowly babe\n    When death doth close his tender dying eyes,\n    See, see the pining malady of France;\n    Behold the wounds, the most unnatural wounds,\n    Which thou thyself hast given her woeful breast.\n    O, turn thy edged sword another way;\n    Strike those that hurt, and hurt not those that help!\n    One drop of blood drawn from thy country's bosom\n    Should grieve thee more than streams of foreign gore.\n    Return thee therefore with a flood of tears,\n    And wash away thy country's stained spots.\n  BURGUNDY. Either she hath bewitch'd me with her words,\n    Or nature makes me suddenly relent.\n  PUCELLE. Besides, all French and France exclaims on thee,\n    Doubting thy birth and lawful progeny.\n    Who join'st thou with but with a lordly nation\n    That will not trust thee but for profit's sake?\n    When Talbot hath set footing once in France,\n    And fashion'd thee that instrument of ill,\n    Who then but English Henry will be lord,\n    And thou be thrust out like a fugitive?\n    Call we to mind-and mark but this for proof:\n    Was not the Duke of Orleans thy foe?\n    And was he not in England prisoner?\n    But when they heard he was thine enemy\n    They set him free without his ransom paid,\n    In spite of Burgundy and all his friends.\n    See then, thou fight'st against thy countrymen,\n    And join'st with them will be thy slaughtermen.\n    Come, come, return; return, thou wandering lord;\n    Charles and the rest will take thee in their arms.\n  BURGUNDY. I am vanquished; these haughty words of hers\n    Have batt'red me like roaring cannon-shot\n    And made me almost yield upon my knees.\n    Forgive me, country, and sweet countrymen\n    And, lords, accept this hearty kind embrace.\n    My forces and my power of men are yours;\n    So, farewell, Talbot; I'll no longer trust thee.\n  PUCELLE. Done like a Frenchman-  [Aside]  turn and turn\n    again.\n  CHARLES. Welcome, brave Duke! Thy friendship makes us\n    fresh.\n  BASTARD. And doth beget new courage in our breasts.\n  ALENCON. Pucelle hath bravely play'd her part in this,\n    And doth deserve a coronet of gold.\n  CHARLES. Now let us on, my lords, and join our powers,\n    And seek how we may prejudice the foe.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE 4.\n\n                     Paris. The palace\n\n         Enter the KING, GLOUCESTER, WINCHESTER, YORK,\n             SUFFOLK, SOMERSET, WARWICK, EXETER,\n           VERNON, BASSET, and others. To them, with\n                     his soldiers, TALBOT\n\n  TALBOT. My gracious Prince, and honourable peers,\n    Hearing of your arrival in this realm,\n    I have awhile given truce unto my wars\n    To do my duty to my sovereign;\n    In sign whereof, this arm that hath reclaim'd\n    To your obedience fifty fortresses,\n    Twelve cities, and seven walled towns of strength,\n    Beside five hundred prisoners of esteem,\n    Lets fall his sword before your Highness' feet,\n    And with submissive loyalty of heart\n    Ascribes the glory of his conquest got\n    First to my God and next unto your Grace.           [Kneels]\n  KING HENRY. Is this the Lord Talbot, uncle Gloucester,\n    That hath so long been resident in France?\n  GLOUCESTER. Yes, if it please your Majesty, my liege.\n  KING HENRY. Welcome, brave captain and victorious lord!\n    When I was young, as yet I am not old,\n    I do remember how my father said\n    A stouter champion never handled sword.\n    Long since we were resolved of your truth,\n    Your faithful service, and your toil in war;\n    Yet never have you tasted our reward,\n    Or been reguerdon'd with so much as thanks,\n    Because till now we never saw your face.\n    Therefore stand up; and for these good deserts\n    We here create you Earl of Shrewsbury;\n    And in our coronation take your place.\n              Sennet. Flourish. Exeunt all but VERNON and BASSET\n  VERNON. Now, sir, to you, that were so hot at sea,\n    Disgracing of these colours that I wear\n    In honour of my noble Lord of York\n    Dar'st thou maintain the former words thou spak'st?\n  BASSET. Yes, sir; as well as you dare patronage\n    The envious barking of your saucy tongue\n    Against my lord the Duke of Somerset.\n  VERNON. Sirrah, thy lord I honour as he is.\n  BASSET. Why, what is he? As good a man as York!\n  VERNON. Hark ye: not so. In witness, take ye that.\n                                                   [Strikes him]\n  BASSET. Villain, thou knowest the law of arms is such\n    That whoso draws a sword 'tis present death,\n    Or else this blow should broach thy dearest blood.\n    But I'll unto his Majesty and crave\n    I may have liberty to venge this wrong;\n    When thou shalt see I'll meet thee to thy cost.\n  VERNON. Well, miscreant, I'll be there as soon as you;\n    And, after, meet you sooner than you would.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\n\nPark. The palace\n\nEnter the KING, GLOUCESTER, WINCHESTER, YORK, SUFFOLK, SOMERSET, WARWICK,\nTALBOT, EXETER, the GOVERNOR OF PARIS, and others\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Lord Bishop, set the crown upon his head.\n  WINCHESTER. God save King Henry, of that name the Sixth!\n  GLOUCESTER. Now, Governor of Paris, take your oath\n                                               [GOVERNOR kneels]\n    That you elect no other king but him,\n    Esteem none friends but such as are his friends,\n    And none your foes but such as shall pretend\n    Malicious practices against his state.\n    This shall ye do, so help you righteous God!\n                                   Exeunt GOVERNOR and his train\n\n                    Enter SIR JOHN FASTOLFE\n\n  FASTOLFE. My gracious sovereign, as I rode from Calais,\n    To haste unto your coronation,\n    A letter was deliver'd to my hands,\n    Writ to your Grace from th' Duke of Burgundy.\n  TALBOT. Shame to the Duke of Burgundy and thee!\n    I vow'd, base knight, when I did meet thee next\n    To tear the Garter from thy craven's leg,  [Plucking it off]\n    Which I have done, because unworthily\n    Thou wast installed in that high degree.\n    Pardon me, princely Henry, and the rest:\n    This dastard, at the battle of Patay,\n    When but in all I was six thousand strong,\n    And that the French were almost ten to one,\n    Before we met or that a stroke was given,\n    Like to a trusty squire did run away;\n    In which assault we lost twelve hundred men;\n    Myself and divers gentlemen beside\n    Were there surpris'd and taken prisoners.\n    Then judge, great lords, if I have done amiss,\n    Or whether that such cowards ought to wear\n    This ornament of knighthood-yea or no.\n  GLOUCESTER. To say the truth, this fact was infamous\n    And ill beseeming any common man,\n    Much more a knight, a captain, and a leader.\n  TALBOT. When first this order was ordain'd, my lords,\n    Knights of the Garter were of noble birth,\n    Valiant and virtuous, full of haughty courage,\n    Such as were grown to credit by the wars;\n    Not fearing death nor shrinking for distress,\n    But always resolute in most extremes.\n    He then that is not furnish'd in this sort\n    Doth but usurp the sacred name of knight,\n    Profaning this most honourable order,\n    And should, if I were worthy to be judge,\n    Be quite degraded, like a hedge-born swain\n    That doth presume to boast of gentle blood.\n  KING HENRY. Stain to thy countrymen, thou hear'st thy\n    doom.\n    Be packing, therefore, thou that wast a knight;\n    Henceforth we banish thee on pain of death.\n                                                   Exit FASTOLFE\n    And now, my Lord Protector, view the letter\n    Sent from our uncle Duke of Burgundy.\n  GLOUCESTER.  [Viewing the superscription]  What means his\n    Grace, that he hath chang'd his style?\n    No more but plain and bluntly 'To the King!'\n    Hath he forgot he is his sovereign?\n    Or doth this churlish superscription\n    Pretend some alteration in good-will?\n    What's here?  [Reads]  'I have, upon especial cause,\n    Mov'd with compassion of my country's wreck,\n    Together with the pitiful complaints\n    Of such as your oppression feeds upon,\n    Forsaken your pernicious faction,\n    And join'd with Charles, the rightful King of France.'\n    O monstrous treachery! Can this be so\n    That in alliance, amity, and oaths,\n    There should be found such false dissembling guile?\n  KING HENRY. What! Doth my uncle Burgundy revolt?\n  GLOUCESTER. He doth, my lord, and is become your foe.\n  KING HENRY. Is that the worst this letter doth contain?\n  GLOUCESTER. It is the worst, and all, my lord, he writes.\n  KING HENRY. Why then Lord Talbot there shall talk with\n    him\n    And give him chastisement for this abuse.\n    How say you, my lord, are you not content?\n  TALBOT. Content, my liege! Yes; but that I am prevented,\n    I should have begg'd I might have been employ'd.\n  KING HENRY. Then gather strength and march unto him\n    straight;\n    Let him perceive how ill we brook his treason.\n    And what offence it is to flout his friends.\n  TALBOT. I go, my lord, in heart desiring still\n    You may behold confusion of your foes.                  Exit\n\n                       Enter VERNON and BASSET\n\n  VERNON. Grant me the combat, gracious sovereign.\n  BASSET. And me, my lord, grant me the combat too.\n  YORK. This is my servant: hear him, noble Prince.\n  SOMERSET. And this is mine: sweet Henry, favour him.\n  KING HENRY. Be patient, lords, and give them leave to speak.\n    Say, gentlemen, what makes you thus exclaim,\n    And wherefore crave you combat, or with whom?\n  VERNON. With him, my lord; for he hath done me wrong.\n  BASSET. And I with him; for he hath done me wrong.\n  KING HENRY. What is that wrong whereof you both\n    complain? First let me know, and then I'll answer you.\n  BASSET. Crossing the sea from England into France,\n    This fellow here, with envious carping tongue,\n    Upbraided me about the rose I wear,\n    Saying the sanguine colour of the leaves\n    Did represent my master's blushing cheeks\n    When stubbornly he did repugn the truth\n    About a certain question in the law\n    Argu'd betwixt the Duke of York and him;\n    With other vile and ignominious terms\n    In confutation of which rude reproach\n    And in defence of my lord's worthiness,\n    I crave the benefit of law of arms.\n  VERNON. And that is my petition, noble lord;\n    For though he seem with forged quaint conceit\n    To set a gloss upon his bold intent,\n    Yet know, my lord, I was provok'd by him,\n    And he first took exceptions at this badge,\n    Pronouncing that the paleness of this flower\n    Bewray'd the faintness of my master's heart.\n  YORK. Will not this malice, Somerset, be left?\n  SOMERSET. Your private grudge, my Lord of York, will out,\n    Though ne'er so cunningly you smother it.\n  KING HENRY. Good Lord, what madness rules in brainsick\n    men, When for so slight and frivolous a cause\n    Such factious emulations shall arise!\n    Good cousins both, of York and Somerset,\n    Quiet yourselves, I pray, and be at peace.\n  YORK. Let this dissension first be tried by fight,\n    And then your Highness shall command a peace.\n  SOMERSET. The quarrel toucheth none but us alone;\n    Betwixt ourselves let us decide it then.\n  YORK. There is my pledge; accept it, Somerset.\n  VERNON. Nay, let it rest where it began at first.\n  BASSET. Confirm it so, mine honourable lord.\n  GLOUCESTER. Confirm it so? Confounded be your strife;\n    And perish ye, with your audacious prate!\n    Presumptuous vassals, are you not asham'd\n    With this immodest clamorous outrage\n    To trouble and disturb the King and us?\n    And you, my lords- methinks you do not well\n    To bear with their perverse objections,\n    Much less to take occasion from their mouths\n    To raise a mutiny betwixt yourselves.\n    Let me persuade you take a better course.\n  EXETER. It grieves his Highness. Good my lords, be friends.\n  KING HENRY. Come hither, you that would be combatants:\n    Henceforth I charge you, as you love our favour,\n    Quite to forget this quarrel and the cause.\n    And you, my lords, remember where we are:\n    In France, amongst a fickle wavering nation;\n    If they perceive dissension in our looks\n    And that within ourselves we disagree,\n    How will their grudging stomachs be provok'd\n    To wilful disobedience, and rebel!\n    Beside, what infamy will there arise\n    When foreign princes shall be certified\n    That for a toy, a thing of no regard,\n    King Henry's peers and chief nobility\n    Destroy'd themselves and lost the realm of France!\n    O, think upon the conquest of my father,\n    My tender years; and let us not forgo\n    That for a trifle that was bought with blood!\n    Let me be umpire in this doubtful strife.\n    I see no reason, if I wear this rose,\n                                         [Putting on a red rose]\n    That any one should therefore be suspicious\n    I more incline to Somerset than York:\n    Both are my kinsmen, and I love them both.\n    As well they may upbraid me with my crown,\n    Because, forsooth, the King of Scots is crown'd.\n    But your discretions better can persuade\n    Than I am able to instruct or teach;\n    And, therefore, as we hither came in peace,\n    So let us still continue peace and love.\n    Cousin of York, we institute your Grace\n    To be our Regent in these parts of France.\n    And, good my Lord of Somerset, unite\n    Your troops of horsemen with his bands of foot;\n    And like true subjects, sons of your progenitors,\n    Go cheerfully together and digest\n    Your angry choler on your enemies.\n    Ourself, my Lord Protector, and the rest,\n    After some respite will return to Calais;\n    From thence to England, where I hope ere long\n    To be presented by your victories\n    With Charles, Alencon, and that traitorous rout.\n                         Flourish. Exeunt all but YORK, WARWICK,\n                                                  EXETER, VERNON\n  WARWICK. My Lord of York, I promise you, the King\n    Prettily, methought, did play the orator.\n  YORK. And so he did; but yet I like it not,\n    In that he wears the badge of Somerset.\n  WARWICK. Tush, that was but his fancy; blame him not;\n    I dare presume, sweet prince, he thought no harm.\n  YORK. An if I wist he did-but let it rest;\n    Other affairs must now be managed.\n                                           Exeunt all but EXETER\n  EXETER. Well didst thou, Richard, to suppress thy voice;\n    For had the passions of thy heart burst out,\n    I fear we should have seen decipher'd there\n    More rancorous spite, more furious raging broils,\n    Than yet can be imagin'd or suppos'd.\n    But howsoe'er, no simple man that sees\n    This jarring discord of nobility,\n    This shouldering of each other in the court,\n    This factious bandying of their favourites,\n    But that it doth presage some ill event.\n    'Tis much when sceptres are in children's hands;\n    But more when envy breeds unkind division:\n    There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.           Exit\n\n\n\n\n                               SCENE 2.\n\n                        France. Before Bordeaux\n\n                   Enter TALBOT, with trump and drum\n\n  TALBOT. Go to the gates of Bordeaux, trumpeter;\n    Summon their general unto the wall.\n\n             Trumpet sounds a parley. Enter, aloft, the\n                 GENERAL OF THE FRENCH, and others\n\n    English John Talbot, Captains, calls you forth,\n    Servant in arms to Harry King of England;\n    And thus he would open your city gates,\n    Be humble to us, call my sovereignvours\n    And do him homage as obedient subjects,\n    And I'll withdraw me and my bloody power;\n    But if you frown upon this proffer'd peace,\n    You tempt the fury of my three attendants,\n    Lean famine, quartering steel, and climbing fire;\n    Who in a moment even with the earth\n    Shall lay your stately and air braving towers,\n    If you forsake the offer of their love.\n  GENERAL OF THE FRENCH. Thou ominous and fearful owl of\n    death,\n    Our nation's terror and their bloody scourge!\n    The period of thy tyranny approacheth.\n    On us thou canst not enter but by death;\n    For, I protest, we are well fortified,\n    And strong enough to issue out and fight.\n    If thou retire, the Dauphin, well appointed,\n    Stands with the snares of war to tangle thee.\n    On either hand thee there are squadrons pitch'd\n    To wall thee from the liberty of flight,\n    And no way canst thou turn thee for redress\n    But death doth front thee with apparent spoil\n    And pale destruction meets thee in the face.\n    Ten thousand French have ta'en the sacrament\n    To rive their dangerous artillery\n    Upon no Christian soul but English Talbot.\n    Lo, there thou stand'st, a breathing valiant man,\n    Of an invincible unconquer'd spirit!\n    This is the latest glory of thy praise\n    That I, thy enemy, due thee withal;\n    For ere the glass that now begins to run\n    Finish the process of his sandy hour,\n    These eyes that see thee now well coloured\n    Shall see thee withered, bloody, pale, and dead.\n                                                 [Drum afar off]\n    Hark! hark! The Dauphin's drum, a warning bell,\n    Sings heavy music to thy timorous soul;\n    And mine shall ring thy dire departure out.             Exit\n  TALBOT. He fables not; I hear the enemy.\n    Out, some light horsemen, and peruse their wings.\n    O, negligent and heedless discipline!\n    How are we park'd and bounded in a pale\n    A little herd of England's timorous deer,\n    Maz'd with a yelping kennel of French curs!\n    If we be English deer, be then in blood;\n    Not rascal-like to fall down with a pinch,\n    But rather, moody-mad and desperate stags,\n    Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel\n    And make the cowards stand aloof at bay.\n    Sell every man his life as dear as mine,\n    And they shall find dear deer of us, my friends.\n    God and Saint George, Talbot and England's right,\n    Prosper our colours in this dangerous fight!          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE 3.\n\n                      Plains in Gascony\n\n        Enter YORK, with trumpet and many soldiers. A\n                   MESSENGER meets him\n\n  YORK. Are not the speedy scouts return'd again\n    That dogg'd the mighty army of the Dauphin?\n  MESSENGER. They are return'd, my lord, and give it out\n    That he is march'd to Bordeaux with his power\n    To fight with Talbot; as he march'd along,\n    By your espials were discovered\n    Two mightier troops than that the Dauphin led,\n    Which join'd with him and made their march for\n    Bordeaux.\n  YORK. A plague upon that villain Somerset\n    That thus delays my promised supply\n    Of horsemen that were levied for this siege!\n    Renowned Talbot doth expect my aid,\n    And I am louted by a traitor villain\n    And cannot help the noble chevalier.\n    God comfort him in this necessity!\n    If he miscarry, farewell wars in France.\n\n                      Enter SIR WILLIAM LUCY\n\n  LUCY. Thou princely leader of our English strength,\n    Never so needful on the earth of France,\n    Spur to the rescue of the noble Talbot,\n    Who now is girdled with a waist of iron\n    And hemm'd about with grim destruction.\n    To Bordeaux, warlike Duke! to Bordeaux, York!\n    Else, farewell Talbot, France, and England's honour.\n  YORK. O God, that Somerset, who in proud heart\n    Doth stop my cornets, were in Talbot's place!\n    So should we save a valiant gentleman\n    By forfeiting a traitor and a coward.\n    Mad ire and wrathful fury makes me weep\n    That thus we die while remiss traitors sleep.\n  LUCY. O, send some succour to the distress'd lord!\n  YORK. He dies; we lose; I break my warlike word.\n    We mourn: France smiles. We lose: they daily get-\n    All long of this vile traitor Somerset.\n  LUCY. Then God take mercy on brave Talbot's soul,\n    And on his son, young John, who two hours since\n    I met in travel toward his warlike father.\n    This seven years did not Talbot see his son;\n    And now they meet where both their lives are done.\n  YORK. Alas, what joy shall noble Talbot have\n    To bid his young son welcome to his grave?\n    Away! vexation almost stops my breath,\n    That sund'red friends greet in the hour of death.\n    Lucy, farewell; no more my fortune can\n    But curse the cause I cannot aid the man.\n    Maine, Blois, Poictiers, and Tours, are won away\n    Long all of Somerset and his delay.         Exit with forces\n  LUCY. Thus, while the vulture of sedition\n    Feeds in the bosom of such great commanders,\n    Sleeping neglection doth betray to loss\n    The conquest of our scarce cold conqueror,\n    That ever-living man of memory,\n    Henry the Fifth. Whiles they each other cross,\n    Lives, honours, lands, and all, hurry to loss.          Exit\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 4.\n\n                     Other plains of Gascony\n\n        Enter SOMERSET, With his forces; an OFFICER of\n                     TALBOT'S with him\n\n  SOMERSET. It is too late; I cannot send them now.\n    This expedition was by York and Talbot\n    Too rashly plotted; all our general force\n    Might with a sally of the very town\n    Be buckled with. The over daring Talbot\n    Hath sullied all his gloss of former honour\n    By this unheedful, desperate, wild adventure.\n    York set him on to fight and die in shame.\n    That, Talbot dead, great York might bear the name.\n  OFFICER. Here is Sir William Lucy, who with me\n    Set from our o'er-match'd forces forth for aid.\n\n                       Enter SIR WILLIAM LUCY\n\n  SOMERSET. How now, Sir William! Whither were you sent?\n  LUCY. Whither, my lord! From bought and sold Lord\n    Talbot,\n    Who, ring'd about with bold adversity,\n    Cries out for noble York and Somerset\n    To beat assailing death from his weak legions;\n    And whiles the honourable captain there\n    Drops bloody sweat from his war-wearied limbs\n    And, in advantage ling'ring, looks for rescue,\n    You, his false hopes, the trust of England's honour,\n    Keep off aloof with worthless emulation.\n    Let not your private discord keep away\n    The levied succours that should lend him aid,\n    While he, renowned noble gentleman,\n    Yield up his life unto a world of odds.\n    Orleans the Bastard, Charles, Burgundy,\n    Alencon, Reignier, compass him about,\n    And Talbot perisheth by your default.\n  SOMERSET. York set him on; York should have sent him aid.\n  LUCY. And York as fast upon your Grace exclaims,\n    Swearing that you withhold his levied host,\n    Collected for this expedition.\n  SOMERSET. York lies; he might have sent and had the horse.\n    I owe him little duty and less love,\n    And take foul scorn to fawn on him by sending.\n  LUCY. The fraud of England, not the force of France,\n    Hath now entrapp'd the noble minded Talbot.\n    Never to England shall he bear his life,\n    But dies betray'd to fortune by your strife.\n  SOMERSET. Come, go; I will dispatch the horsemen straight;\n    Within six hours they will be at his aid.\n  LUCY. Too late comes rescue; he is ta'en or slain,\n    For fly he could not if he would have fled;\n    And fly would Talbot never, though he might.\n  SOMERSET. If he be dead, brave Talbot, then, adieu!\n  LUCY. His fame lives in the world, his shame in you.       Exeunt\n\n\n                               SCENE 5.\n\n                   The English camp near Bordeaux\n\n                    Enter TALBOT and JOHN his son\n\n  TALBOT. O young John Talbot! I did send for thee\n    To tutor thee in stratagems of war,\n    That Talbot's name might be in thee reviv'd\n    When sapless age and weak unable limbs\n    Should bring thy father to his drooping chair.\n    But, O malignant and ill-boding stars!\n    Now thou art come unto a feast of death,\n    A terrible and unavoided danger;\n    Therefore, dear boy, mount on my swiftest horse,\n    And I'll direct thee how thou shalt escape\n    By sudden flight. Come, dally not, be gone.\n  JOHN. Is my name Talbot, and am I your son?\n    And shall I fly? O, if you love my mother,\n    Dishonour not her honourable name,\n    To make a bastard and a slave of me!\n    The world will say he is not Talbot's blood\n    That basely fled when noble Talbot stood.\n  TALBOT. Fly to revenge my death, if I be slain.\n  JOHN. He that flies so will ne'er return again.\n  TALBOT. If we both stay, we both are sure to die.\n  JOHN. Then let me stay; and, father, do you fly.\n    Your loss is great, so your regard should be;\n    My worth unknown, no loss is known in me;\n    Upon my death the French can little boast;\n    In yours they will, in you all hopes are lost.\n    Flight cannot stain the honour you have won;\n    But mine it will, that no exploit have done;\n    You fled for vantage, every one will swear;\n    But if I bow, they'll say it was for fear.\n    There is no hope that ever I will stay\n    If the first hour I shrink and run away.\n    Here, on my knee, I beg mortality,\n    Rather than life preserv'd with infamy.\n  TALBOT. Shall all thy mother's hopes lie in one tomb?\n  JOHN. Ay, rather than I'll shame my mother's womb.\n  TALBOT. Upon my blessing I command thee go.\n  JOHN. To fight I will, but not to fly the foe.\n  TALBOT. Part of thy father may be sav'd in thee.\n  JOHN. No part of him but will be shame in me.\n  TALBOT. Thou never hadst renown, nor canst not lose it.\n  JOHN. Yes, your renowned name; shall flight abuse it?\n  TALBOT. Thy father's charge shall clear thee from that stain.\n  JOHN. You cannot witness for me, being slain.\n    If death be so apparent, then both fly.\n  TALBOT. And leave my followers here to fight and die?\n    My age was never tainted with such shame.\n  JOHN. And shall my youth be guilty of such blame?\n    No more can I be severed from your side\n    Than can yourself yourself yourself in twain divide.\n    Stay, go, do what you will, the like do I;\n    For live I will not if my father die.\n  TALBOT. Then here I take my leave of thee, fair son,\n    Born to eclipse thy life this afternoon.\n    Come, side by side together live and die;\n    And soul with soul from France to heaven fly.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 6.\n\n                         A field of battle\n\n         Alarum: excursions wherein JOHN TALBOT is hemm'd\n                  about, and TALBOT rescues him\n\n  TALBOT. Saint George and victory! Fight, soldiers, fight.\n    The Regent hath with Talbot broke his word\n    And left us to the rage of France his sword.\n    Where is John Talbot? Pause and take thy breath;\n    I gave thee life and rescu'd thee from death.\n  JOHN. O, twice my father, twice am I thy son!\n    The life thou gav'st me first was lost and done\n    Till with thy warlike sword, despite of fate,\n    To my determin'd time thou gav'st new date.\n  TALBOT. When from the Dauphin's crest thy sword struck\n    fire,\n    It warm'd thy father's heart with proud desire\n    Of bold-fac'd victory. Then leaden age,\n    Quicken'd with youthful spleen and warlike rage,\n    Beat down Alencon, Orleans, Burgundy,\n    And from the pride of Gallia rescued thee.\n    The ireful bastard Orleans, that drew blood\n    From thee, my boy, and had the maidenhood\n    Of thy first fight, I soon encountered\n    And, interchanging blows, I quickly shed\n    Some of his bastard blood; and in disgrace\n    Bespoke him thus: 'Contaminated, base,\n    And misbegotten blood I spill of thine,\n    Mean and right poor, for that pure blood of mine\n    Which thou didst force from Talbot, my brave boy.'\n    Here purposing the Bastard to destroy,\n    Came in strong rescue. Speak, thy father's care;\n    Art thou not weary, John? How dost thou fare?\n    Wilt thou yet leave the battle, boy, and fly,\n    Now thou art seal'd the son of chivalry?\n    Fly, to revenge my death when I am dead:\n    The help of one stands me in little stead.\n    O, too much folly is it, well I wot,\n    To hazard all our lives in one small boat!\n    If I to-day die not with Frenchmen's rage,\n    To-morrow I shall die with mickle age.\n    By me they nothing gain an if I stay:\n    'Tis but the short'ning of my life one day.\n    In thee thy mother dies, our household's name,\n    My death's revenge, thy youth, and England's fame.\n    All these and more we hazard by thy stay;\n    All these are sav'd if thou wilt fly away.\n  JOHN. The sword of Orleans hath not made me smart;\n    These words of yours draw life-blood from my heart.\n    On that advantage, bought with such a shame,\n    To save a paltry life and slay bright fame,\n    Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly,\n    The coward horse that bears me fall and die!\n    And like me to the peasant boys of France,\n    To be shame's scorn and subject of mischance!\n    Surely, by all the glory you have won,\n    An if I fly, I am not Talbot's son;\n    Then talk no more of flight, it is no boot;\n    If son to Talbot, die at Talbot's foot.\n  TALBOT. Then follow thou thy desp'rate sire of Crete,\n    Thou Icarus; thy life to me is sweet.\n    If thou wilt fight, fight by thy father's side;\n    And, commendable prov'd, let's die in pride.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                               SCENE 7.\n\n                      Another part of the field\n\n       Alarum; excursions. Enter old TALBOT led by a SERVANT\n\n  TALBOT. Where is my other life? Mine own is gone.\n    O, where's young Talbot? Where is valiant John?\n    Triumphant death, smear'd with captivity,\n    Young Talbot's valour makes me smile at thee.\n    When he perceiv'd me shrink and on my knee,\n    His bloody sword he brandish'd over me,\n    And like a hungry lion did commence\n    Rough deeds of rage and stern impatience;\n    But when my angry guardant stood alone,\n    Tend'ring my ruin and assail'd of none,\n    Dizzy-ey'd fury and great rage of heart\n    Suddenly made him from my side to start\n    Into the clust'ring battle of the French;\n    And in that sea of blood my boy did drench\n    His overmounting spirit; and there died,\n    My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride.\n\n         Enter soldiers, bearing the body of JOHN TALBOT\n\n  SERVANT. O my dear lord, lo where your son is borne!\n  TALBOT. Thou antic Death, which laugh'st us here to scorn,\n    Anon, from thy insulting tyranny,\n    Coupled in bonds of perpetuity,\n    Two Talbots, winged through the lither sky,\n    In thy despite shall scape mortality.\n    O thou whose wounds become hard-favoured Death,\n    Speak to thy father ere thou yield thy breath!\n    Brave Death by speaking, whether he will or no;\n    Imagine him a Frenchman and thy foe.\n    Poor boy! he smiles, methinks, as who should say,\n    Had Death been French, then Death had died to-day.\n    Come, come, and lay him in his father's arms.\n    My spirit can no longer bear these harms.\n    Soldiers, adieu! I have what I would have,\n    Now my old arms are young John Talbot's grave.        [Dies]\n\n            Enter CHARLES, ALENCON, BURGUNDY, BASTARD,\n                     LA PUCELLE, and forces\n\n  CHARLES. Had York and Somerset brought rescue in,\n    We should have found a bloody day of this.\n  BASTARD. How the young whelp of Talbot's, raging wood,\n    Did flesh his puny sword in Frenchmen's blood!\n  PUCELLE. Once I encount'red him, and thus I said:\n    'Thou maiden youth, be vanquish'd by a maid.'\n    But with a proud majestical high scorn\n    He answer'd thus: 'Young Talbot was not born\n    To be the pillage of a giglot wench.'\n    So, rushing in the bowels of the French,\n    He left me proudly, as unworthy fight.\n  BURGUNDY. Doubtless he would have made a noble knight.\n    See where he lies inhearsed in the arms\n    Of the most bloody nurser of his harms!\n  BASTARD. Hew them to pieces, hack their bones asunder,\n    Whose life was England's glory, Gallia's wonder.\n  CHARLES. O, no; forbear! For that which we have fled\n    During the life, let us not wrong it dead.\n\n            Enter SIR WILLIAM Lucy, attended; a FRENCH\n                         HERALD preceding\n\n  LUCY. Herald, conduct me to the Dauphin's tent,\n    To know who hath obtain'd the glory of the day.\n  CHARLES. On what submissive message art thou sent?\n  LUCY. Submission, Dauphin! 'Tis a mere French word:\n    We English warriors wot not what it means.\n    I come to know what prisoners thou hast ta'en,\n    And to survey the bodies of the dead.\n  CHARLES. For prisoners ask'st thou? Hell our prison is.\n    But tell me whom thou seek'st.\n  LUCY. But where's the great Alcides of the field,\n    Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury,\n    Created for his rare success in arms\n    Great Earl of Washford, Waterford, and Valence,\n    Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield,\n    Lord Strange of Blackmere, Lord Verdun of Alton,\n    Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, Lord Furnival of Sheffield,\n    The thrice victorious Lord of Falconbridge,\n    Knight of the noble order of Saint George,\n    Worthy Saint Michael, and the Golden Fleece,\n    Great Marshal to Henry the Sixth\n    Of all his wars within the realm of France?\n  PUCELLE. Here's a silly-stately style indeed!\n    The Turk, that two and fifty kingdoms hath,\n    Writes not so tedious a style as this.\n    Him that thou magnifi'st with all these tides,\n    Stinking and fly-blown lies here at our feet.\n  LUCY. Is Talbot slain-the Frenchmen's only scourge,\n    Your kingdom's terror and black Nemesis?\n    O, were mine eye-bans into bullets turn'd,\n    That I in rage might shoot them at your faces!\n    O that I could but can these dead to life!\n    It were enough to fright the realm of France.\n    Were but his picture left amongst you here,\n    It would amaze the proudest of you all.\n    Give me their bodies, that I may bear them hence\n    And give them burial as beseems their worth.\n  PUCELLE. I think this upstart is old Talbot's ghost,\n    He speaks with such a proud commanding spirit.\n    For God's sake, let him have them; to keep them here,\n    They would but stink, and putrefy the air.\n  CHARLES. Go, take their bodies hence.\n  LUCY. I'll bear them hence; but from their ashes shall be\n    rear'd\n    A phoenix that shall make all France afeard.\n  CHARLES. So we be rid of them, do with them what thou\n    wilt.\n    And now to Paris in this conquering vein!\n    All will be ours, now bloody Talbot's slain.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nSennet. Enter the KING, GLOUCESTER, and EXETER\n\n  KING HENRY. Have you perus'd the letters from the Pope,\n    The Emperor, and the Earl of Armagnac?\n  GLOUCESTER. I have, my lord; and their intent is this:\n    They humbly sue unto your Excellence\n    To have a godly peace concluded of\n    Between the realms of England and of France.\n  KING HENRY. How doth your Grace affect their motion?\n  GLOUCESTER. Well, my good lord, and as the only means\n    To stop effusion of our Christian blood\n    And stablish quietness on every side.\n  KING HENRY. Ay, marry, uncle; for I always thought\n    It was both impious and unnatural\n    That such immanity and bloody strife\n    Should reign among professors of one faith.\n  GLOUCESTER. Beside, my lord, the sooner to effect\n    And surer bind this knot of amity,\n    The Earl of Armagnac, near knit to Charles,\n    A man of great authority in France,\n    Proffers his only daughter to your Grace\n    In marriage, with a large and sumptuous dowry.\n  KING HENRY. Marriage, uncle! Alas, my years are young\n    And fitter is my study and my books\n    Than wanton dalliance with a paramour.\n    Yet call th' ambassadors, and, as you please,\n    So let them have their answers every one.\n    I shall be well content with any choice\n    Tends to God's glory and my country's weal.\n\n                   Enter in Cardinal's habit\n        BEAUFORT, the PAPAL LEGATE, and two AMBASSADORS\n\n  EXETER. What! Is my Lord of Winchester install'd\n    And call'd unto a cardinal's degree?\n    Then I perceive that will be verified\n    Henry the Fifth did sometime prophesy:\n    'If once he come to be a cardinal,\n    He'll make his cap co-equal with the crown.'\n  KING HENRY. My Lords Ambassadors, your several suits\n    Have been consider'd and debated on.\n    Your purpose is both good and reasonable,\n    And therefore are we certainly resolv'd\n    To draw conditions of a friendly peace,\n    Which by my Lord of Winchester we mean\n    Shall be transported presently to France.\n  GLOUCESTER. And for the proffer of my lord your master,\n    I have inform'd his Highness so at large,\n    As, liking of the lady's virtuous gifts,\n    Her beauty, and the value of her dower,\n    He doth intend she shall be England's Queen.\n  KING HENRY.  [To AMBASSADOR]  In argument and proof of\n    which contract,\n    Bear her this jewel, pledge of my affection.\n    And so, my Lord Protector, see them guarded\n    And safely brought to Dover; where inshipp'd,\n    Commit them to the fortune of the sea.\n\n                        Exeunt all but WINCHESTER and the LEGATE\n  WINCHESTER. Stay, my Lord Legate; you shall first receive\n    The sum of money which I promised\n    Should be delivered to his Holiness\n    For clothing me in these grave ornaments.\n  LEGATE. I will attend upon your lordship's leisure.\n  WINCHESTER.  [Aside]  Now Winchester will not submit, I\n    trow,\n    Or be inferior to the proudest peer.\n    Humphrey of Gloucester, thou shalt well perceive\n    That neither in birth or for authority\n    The Bishop will be overborne by thee.\n    I'll either make thee stoop and bend thy knee,\n    Or sack this country with a mutiny.                   Exeunt\n\n\n                              SCENE 2.\n\n                       France. Plains in Anjou\n\n              Enter CHARLES, BURGUNDY, ALENCON, BASTARD,\n                   REIGNIER, LA PUCELLE, and forces\n\n  CHARLES. These news, my lords, may cheer our drooping\n    spirits:\n    'Tis said the stout Parisians do revolt\n    And turn again unto the warlike French.\n  ALENCON. Then march to Paris, royal Charles of France,\n    And keep not back your powers in dalliance.\n  PUCELLE. Peace be amongst them, if they turn to us;\n    Else ruin combat with their palaces!\n\n                            Enter a SCOUT\n\n  SCOUT. Success unto our valiant general,\n    And happiness to his accomplices!\n  CHARLES. What tidings send our scouts? I prithee speak.\n  SCOUT. The English army, that divided was\n    Into two parties, is now conjoin'd in one,\n    And means to give you battle presently.\n  CHARLES. Somewhat too sudden, sirs, the warning is;\n    But we will presently provide for them.\n  BURGUNDY. I trust the ghost of Talbot is not there.\n    Now he is gone, my lord, you need not fear.\n  PUCELLE. Of all base passions fear is most accurs'd.\n    Command the conquest, Charles, it shall be thine,\n    Let Henry fret and all the world repine.\n  CHARLES. Then on, my lords; and France be fortunate!\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                            SCENE 3.\n\n                         Before Angiers\n\n              Alarum, excursions. Enter LA PUCELLE\n\n  PUCELLE. The Regent conquers and the Frenchmen fly.\n    Now help, ye charming spells and periapts;\n    And ye choice spirits that admonish me\n    And give me signs of future accidents;             [Thunder]\n    You speedy helpers that are substitutes\n    Under the lordly monarch of the north,\n    Appear and aid me in this enterprise!\n\n                          Enter FIENDS\n\n    This speedy and quick appearance argues proof\n    Of your accustom'd diligence to me.\n    Now, ye familiar spirits that are cull'd\n    Out of the powerful regions under earth,\n    Help me this once, that France may get the field.\n                                       [They walk and speak not]\n    O, hold me not with silence over-long!\n    Where I was wont to feed you with my blood,\n    I'll lop a member off and give it you\n    In earnest of a further benefit,\n    So you do condescend to help me now.\n                                         [They hang their heads]\n    No hope to have redress? My body shall\n    Pay recompense, if you will grant my suit.\n                                        [They shake their heads]\n    Cannot my body nor blood sacrifice\n    Entreat you to your wonted furtherance?\n    Then take my soul-my body, soul, and all,\n    Before that England give the French the foil.\n                                                   [They depart]\n    See! they forsake me. Now the time is come\n    That France must vail her lofty-plumed crest\n    And let her head fall into England's lap.\n    My ancient incantations are too weak,\n    And hell too strong for me to buckle with.\n    Now, France, thy glory droopeth to the dust.            Exit\n\n          Excursions. Enter French and English, fighting.\n         LA PUCELLE and YORK fight hand to hand; LA PUCELLE\n                    is taken. The French fly\n\n  YORK. Damsel of France, I think I have you fast.\n    Unchain your spirits now with spelling charms,\n    And try if they can gain your liberty.\n    A goodly prize, fit for the devil's grace!\n    See how the ugly witch doth bend her brows\n    As if, with Circe, she would change my shape!\n  PUCELLE. Chang'd to a worser shape thou canst not be.\n  YORK. O, Charles the Dauphin is a proper man:\n    No shape but his can please your dainty eye.\n  PUCELLE. A plaguing mischief fight on Charles and thee!\n    And may ye both be suddenly surpris'd\n    By bloody hands, in sleeping on your beds!\n  YORK. Fell banning hag; enchantress, hold thy tongue.\n  PUCELLE. I prithee give me leave to curse awhile.\n  YORK. Curse, miscreant, when thou comest to the stake.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n          Alarum. Enter SUFFOLK, with MARGARET in his hand\n\n  SUFFOLK. Be what thou wilt, thou art my prisoner.\n                                                  [Gazes on her]\n    O fairest beauty, do not fear nor fly!\n    For I will touch thee but with reverent hands;\n    I kiss these fingers for eternal peace,\n    And lay them gently on thy tender side.\n    Who art thou? Say, that I may honour thee.\n  MARGARET. Margaret my name, and daughter to a king,\n    The King of Naples-whosoe'er thou art.\n  SUFFOLK. An earl I am, and Suffolk am I call'd.\n    Be not offended, nature's miracle,\n    Thou art allotted to be ta'en by me.\n    So doth the swan her downy cygnets save,\n    Keeping them prisoner underneath her wings.\n    Yet, if this servile usage once offend,\n    Go and be free again as Suffolk's friend.     [She is going]\n    O, stay!  [Aside]  I have no power to let her pass;\n    My hand would free her, but my heart says no.\n    As plays the sun upon the glassy streams,\n    Twinkling another counterfeited beam,\n    So seems this gorgeous beauty to mine eyes.\n    Fain would I woo her, yet I dare not speak.\n    I'll call for pen and ink, and write my mind.\n    Fie, de la Pole! disable not thyself;\n    Hast not a tongue? Is she not here thy prisoner?\n    Wilt thou be daunted at a woman's sight?\n    Ay, beauty's princely majesty is such\n    Confounds the tongue and makes the senses rough.\n  MARGARET. Say, Earl of Suffolk, if thy name be so,\n    What ransom must I pay before I pass?\n    For I perceive I am thy prisoner.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  How canst thou tell she will deny thy\n    suit,\n    Before thou make a trial of her love?\n  MARGARET. Why speak'st thou not? What ransom must I\n    pay?\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd;\n    She is a woman, therefore to be won.\n  MARGARET. Wilt thou accept of ransom-yea or no?\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  Fond man, remember that thou hast a\n    wife;\n    Then how can Margaret be thy paramour?\n  MARGARET. I were best leave him, for he will not hear.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  There all is marr'd; there lies a cooling\n    card.\n  MARGARET. He talks at random; sure, the man is mad.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  And yet a dispensation may be had.\n  MARGARET. And yet I would that you would answer me.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  I'll win this Lady Margaret. For whom?\n    Why, for my King! Tush, that's a wooden thing!\n  MARGARET. He talks of wood. It is some carpenter.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  Yet so my fancy may be satisfied,\n    And peace established between these realms.\n    But there remains a scruple in that too;\n    For though her father be the King of Naples,\n    Duke of Anjou and Maine, yet is he poor,\n    And our nobility will scorn the match.\n  MARGARET. Hear ye, Captain-are you not at leisure?\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  It shall be so, disdain they ne'er so much.\n    Henry is youthful, and will quickly yield.\n    Madam, I have a secret to reveal.\n  MARGARET.  [Aside]  What though I be enthrall'd? He seems\n    a knight,\n    And will not any way dishonour me.\n  SUFFOLK. Lady, vouchsafe to listen what I say.\n  MARGARET.  [Aside]  Perhaps I shall be rescu'd by the French;\n    And then I need not crave his courtesy.\n  SUFFOLK. Sweet madam, give me hearing in a cause\n  MARGARET.  [Aside]  Tush! women have been captivate ere\n    now.\n  SUFFOLK. Lady, wherefore talk you so?\n  MARGARET. I cry you mercy, 'tis but quid for quo.\n  SUFFOLK. Say, gentle Princess, would you not suppose\n    Your bondage happy, to be made a queen?\n  MARGARET. To be a queen in bondage is more vile\n    Than is a slave in base servility;\n    For princes should be free.\n  SUFFOLK. And so shall you,\n    If happy England's royal king be free.\n  MARGARET. Why, what concerns his freedom unto me?\n  SUFFOLK. I'll undertake to make thee Henry's queen,\n    To put a golden sceptre in thy hand\n    And set a precious crown upon thy head,\n    If thou wilt condescend to be my-\n  MARGARET. What?\n  SUFFOLK. His love.\n  MARGARET. I am unworthy to be Henry's wife.\n  SUFFOLK. No, gentle madam; I unworthy am\n    To woo so fair a dame to be his wife\n    And have no portion in the choice myself.\n    How say you, madam? Are ye so content?\n  MARGARET. An if my father please, I am content.\n  SUFFOLK. Then call our captains and our colours forth!\n    And, madam, at your father's castle walls\n    We'll crave a parley to confer with him.\n\n           Sound a parley. Enter REIGNIER on the walls\n\n    See, Reignier, see, thy daughter prisoner!\n  REIGNIER. To whom?\n  SUFFOLK. To me.\n  REIGNIER. Suffolk, what remedy?\n    I am a soldier and unapt to weep\n    Or to exclaim on fortune's fickleness.\n  SUFFOLK. Yes, there is remedy enough, my lord.\n    Consent, and for thy honour give consent,\n    Thy daughter shall be wedded to my king,\n    Whom I with pain have woo'd and won thereto;\n    And this her easy-held imprisonment\n    Hath gain'd thy daughter princely liberty.\n  REIGNIER. Speaks Suffolk as he thinks?\n  SUFFOLK. Fair Margaret knows\n    That Suffolk doth not flatter, face, or feign.\n  REIGNIER. Upon thy princely warrant I descend\n    To give thee answer of thy just demand.\n                                    Exit REIGNIER from the walls\n  SUFFOLK. And here I will expect thy coming.\n\n                Trumpets sound. Enter REIGNIER below\n\n  REIGNIER. Welcome, brave Earl, into our territories;\n    Command in Anjou what your Honour pleases.\n  SUFFOLK. Thanks, Reignier, happy for so sweet a child,\n    Fit to be made companion with a king.\n    What answer makes your Grace unto my suit?\n  REIGNIER. Since thou dost deign to woo her little worth\n    To be the princely bride of such a lord,\n    Upon condition I may quietly\n    Enjoy mine own, the country Maine and Anjou,\n    Free from oppression or the stroke of war,\n    My daughter shall be Henry's, if he please.\n  SUFFOLK. That is her ransom; I deliver her.\n    And those two counties I will undertake\n    Your Grace shall well and quietly enjoy.\n  REIGNIER. And I again, in Henry's royal name,\n    As deputy unto that gracious king,\n    Give thee her hand for sign of plighted faith.\n  SUFFOLK. Reignier of France, I give thee kingly thanks,\n    Because this is in traffic of a king.\n    [Aside]  And yet, methinks, I could be well content\n    To be mine own attorney in this case.\n    I'll over then to England with this news,\n    And make this marriage to be solemniz'd.\n    So, farewell, Reignier. Set this diamond safe\n    In golden palaces, as it becomes.\n  REIGNIER. I do embrace thee as I would embrace\n    The Christian prince, King Henry, were he here.\n  MARGARET. Farewell, my lord. Good wishes, praise, and\n    prayers,\n    Shall Suffolk ever have of Margaret.          [She is going]\n  SUFFOLK. Farewell, sweet madam. But hark you, Margaret\n    No princely commendations to my king?\n  MARGARET. Such commendations as becomes a maid,\n    A virgin, and his servant, say to him.\n  SUFFOLK. Words sweetly plac'd and modestly directed.\n    But, madam, I must trouble you again\n    No loving token to his Majesty?\n  MARGARET. Yes, my good lord: a pure unspotted heart,\n    Never yet taint with love, I send the King.\n  SUFFOLK. And this withal.                         [Kisses her]\n  MARGARET. That for thyself, I will not so presume\n    To send such peevish tokens to a king.\n                                    Exeunt REIGNIER and MARGARET\n  SUFFOLK. O, wert thou for myself! But, Suffolk, stay;\n    Thou mayst not wander in that labyrinth:\n    There Minotaurs and ugly treasons lurk.\n    Solicit Henry with her wondrous praise.\n    Bethink thee on her virtues that surmount,\n    And natural graces that extinguish art;\n    Repeat their semblance often on the seas,\n    That, when thou com'st to kneel at Henry's feet,\n    Thou mayst bereave him of his wits with wonder.         Exit\n\n\n\n\n                               SCENE 4.\n\n                  Camp of the DUKE OF YORK in Anjou\n\n                   Enter YORK, WARWICK, and others\n  YORK. Bring forth that sorceress, condemn'd to burn.\n\n              Enter LA PUCELLE, guarded, and a SHEPHERD\n\n  SHEPHERD. Ah, Joan, this kills thy father's heart outright!\n    Have I sought every country far and near,\n    And, now it is my chance to find thee out,\n    Must I behold thy timeless cruel death?\n    Ah, Joan, sweet daughter Joan, I'll die with thee!\n  PUCELLE. Decrepit miser! base ignoble wretch!\n    I am descended of a gentler blood;\n    Thou art no father nor no friend of mine.\n  SHEPHERD. Out, out! My lords, an please you, 'tis not so;\n    I did beget her, all the parish knows.\n    Her mother liveth yet, can testify\n    She was the first fruit of my bach'lorship.\n  WARWICK. Graceless, wilt thou deny thy parentage?\n  YORK. This argues what her kind of life hath been-\n    Wicked and vile; and so her death concludes.\n  SHEPHERD. Fie, Joan, that thou wilt be so obstacle!\n    God knows thou art a collop of my flesh;\n    And for thy sake have I shed many a tear.\n    Deny me not, I prithee, gentle Joan.\n  PUCELLE. Peasant, avaunt! You have suborn'd this man\n    Of purpose to obscure my noble birth.\n  SHEPHERD. 'Tis true, I gave a noble to the priest\n    The morn that I was wedded to her mother.\n    Kneel down and take my blessing, good my girl.\n    Wilt thou not stoop? Now cursed be the time\n    Of thy nativity. I would the milk\n    Thy mother gave thee when thou suck'dst her breast\n    Had been a little ratsbane for thy sake.\n    Or else, when thou didst keep my lambs afield,\n    I wish some ravenous wolf had eaten thee.\n    Dost thou deny thy father, cursed drab?\n    O, burn her, burn her! Hanging is too good.             Exit\n  YORK. Take her away; for she hath liv'd too long,\n    To fill the world with vicious qualities.\n  PUCELLE. First let me tell you whom you have condemn'd:\n    Not me begotten of a shepherd swain,\n    But issued from the progeny of kings;\n    Virtuous and holy, chosen from above\n    By inspiration of celestial grace,\n    To work exceeding miracles on earth.\n    I never had to do with wicked spirits.\n    But you, that are polluted with your lusts,\n    Stain'd with the guiltless blood of innocents,\n    Corrupt and tainted with a thousand vices,\n    Because you want the grace that others have,\n    You judge it straight a thing impossible\n    To compass wonders but by help of devils.\n    No, misconceived! Joan of Arc hath been\n    A virgin from her tender infancy,\n    Chaste and immaculate in very thought;\n    Whose maiden blood, thus rigorously effus'd,\n    Will cry for vengeance at the gates of heaven.\n  YORK. Ay, ay. Away with her to execution!\n  WARWICK. And hark ye, sirs; because she is a maid,\n    Spare for no fagots, let there be enow.\n    Place barrels of pitch upon the fatal stake,\n    That so her torture may be shortened.\n  PUCELLE. Will nothing turn your unrelenting hearts?\n    Then, Joan, discover thine infirmity\n    That warranteth by law to be thy privilege:\n    I am with child, ye bloody homicides;\n    Murder not then the fruit within my womb,\n    Although ye hale me to a violent death.\n  YORK. Now heaven forfend! The holy maid with child!\n  WARWICK. The greatest miracle that e'er ye wrought:\n    Is all your strict preciseness come to this?\n  YORK. She and the Dauphin have been juggling.\n    I did imagine what would be her refuge.\n  WARWICK. Well, go to; we'll have no bastards live;\n    Especially since Charles must father it.\n  PUCELLE. You are deceiv'd; my child is none of his:\n    It was Alencon that enjoy'd my love.\n  YORK. Alencon, that notorious Machiavel!\n    It dies, an if it had a thousand lives.\n  PUCELLE. O, give me leave, I have deluded you.\n    'Twas neither Charles nor yet the Duke I nam'd,\n    But Reignier, King of Naples, that prevail'd.\n  WARWICK. A married man! That's most intolerable.\n  YORK. Why, here's a girl! I think she knows not well\n    There were so many-whom she may accuse.\n  WARWICK. It's sign she hath been liberal and free.\n  YORK. And yet, forsooth, she is a virgin pure.\n    Strumpet, thy words condemn thy brat and thee.\n    Use no entreaty, for it is in vain.\n  PUCELLE. Then lead me hence-with whom I leave my\n    curse:\n    May never glorious sun reflex his beams\n    Upon the country where you make abode;\n    But darkness and the gloomy shade of death\n    Environ you, till mischief and despair\n    Drive you to break your necks or hang yourselves!\n                                                   Exit, guarded\n  YORK. Break thou in pieces and consume to ashes,\n    Thou foul accursed minister of hell!\n\n               Enter CARDINAL BEAUFORT, attended\n\n  CARDINAL. Lord Regent, I do greet your Excellence\n    With letters of commission from the King.\n    For know, my lords, the states of Christendom,\n    Mov'd with remorse of these outrageous broils,\n    Have earnestly implor'd a general peace\n    Betwixt our nation and the aspiring French;\n    And here at hand the Dauphin and his train\n    Approacheth, to confer about some matter.\n  YORK. Is all our travail turn'd to this effect?\n    After the slaughter of so many peers,\n    So many captains, gentlemen, and soldiers,\n    That in this quarrel have been overthrown\n    And sold their bodies for their country's benefit,\n    Shall we at last conclude effeminate peace?\n    Have we not lost most part of all the towns,\n    By treason, falsehood, and by treachery,\n    Our great progenitors had conquered?\n    O Warwick, Warwick! I foresee with grief\n    The utter loss of all the realm of France.\n  WARWICK. Be patient, York. If we conclude a peace,\n    It shall be with such strict and severe covenants\n    As little shall the Frenchmen gain thereby.\n\n        Enter CHARLES, ALENCON, BASTARD, REIGNIER, and others\n\n  CHARLES. Since, lords of England, it is thus agreed\n    That peaceful truce shall be proclaim'd in France,\n    We come to be informed by yourselves\n    What the conditions of that league must be.\n  YORK. Speak, Winchester; for boiling choler chokes\n    The hollow passage of my poison'd voice,\n    By sight of these our baleful enemies.\n  CARDINAL. Charles, and the rest, it is enacted thus:\n    That, in regard King Henry gives consent,\n    Of mere compassion and of lenity,\n    To ease your country of distressful war,\n    An suffer you to breathe in fruitful peace,\n    You shall become true liegemen to his crown;\n    And, Charles, upon condition thou wilt swear\n    To pay him tribute and submit thyself,\n    Thou shalt be plac'd as viceroy under him,\n    And still enjoy thy regal dignity.\n  ALENCON. Must he be then as shadow of himself?\n    Adorn his temples with a coronet\n    And yet, in substance and authority,\n    Retain but privilege of a private man?\n    This proffer is absurd and reasonless.\n  CHARLES. 'Tis known already that I am possess'd\n    With more than half the Gallian territories,\n    And therein reverenc'd for their lawful king.\n    Shall I, for lucre of the rest unvanquish'd,\n    Detract so much from that prerogative\n    As to be call'd but viceroy of the whole?\n    No, Lord Ambassador; I'll rather keep\n    That which I have than, coveting for more,\n    Be cast from possibility of all.\n  YORK. Insulting Charles! Hast thou by secret means\n    Us'd intercession to obtain a league,\n    And now the matter grows to compromise\n    Stand'st thou aloof upon comparison?\n    Either accept the title thou usurp'st,\n    Of benefit proceeding from our king\n    And not of any challenge of desert,\n    Or we will plague thee with incessant wars.\n  REIGNIER.  [To CHARLES]  My lord, you do not well in\n    obstinacy\n    To cavil in the course of this contract.\n    If once it be neglected, ten to one\n    We shall not find like opportunity.\n  ALENCON.  [To CHARLES]  To say the truth, it is your policy\n    To save your subjects from such massacre\n    And ruthless slaughters as are daily seen\n    By our proceeding in hostility;\n    And therefore take this compact of a truce,\n    Although you break it when your pleasure serves.\n  WARWICK. How say'st thou, Charles? Shall our condition\n    stand?\n  CHARLES. It shall;\n    Only reserv'd, you claim no interest\n    In any of our towns of garrison.\n  YORK. Then swear allegiance to his Majesty:\n    As thou art knight, never to disobey\n    Nor be rebellious to the crown of England\n    Thou, nor thy nobles, to the crown of England.\n                    [CHARLES and the rest give tokens of fealty]\n    So, now dismiss your army when ye please;\n    Hang up your ensigns, let your drums be still,\n    For here we entertain a solemn peace.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                              SCENE 5.\n\n                         London. The palace\n\n            Enter SUFFOLK, in conference with the KING,\n                     GLOUCESTER and EXETER\n\n  KING HENRY. Your wondrous rare description, noble Earl,\n    Of beauteous Margaret hath astonish'd me.\n    Her virtues, graced with external gifts,\n    Do breed love's settled passions in my heart;\n    And like as rigour of tempestuous gusts\n    Provokes the mightiest hulk against the tide,\n    So am I driven by breath of her renown\n    Either to suffer shipwreck or arrive\n    Where I may have fruition of her love.\n  SUFFOLK. Tush, my good lord! This superficial tale\n    Is but a preface of her worthy praise.\n    The chief perfections of that lovely dame,\n    Had I sufficient skill to utter them,\n    Would make a volume of enticing lines,\n    Able to ravish any dull conceit;\n    And, which is more, she is not so divine,\n    So full-replete with choice of all delights,\n    But with as humble lowliness of mind\n    She is content to be at your command\n    Command, I mean, of virtuous intents,\n    To love and honour Henry as her lord.\n  KING HENRY. And otherwise will Henry ne'er presume.\n    Therefore, my Lord Protector, give consent\n    That Margaret may be England's royal Queen.\n  GLOUCESTER. So should I give consent to flatter sin.\n    You know, my lord, your Highness is betroth'd\n    Unto another lady of esteem.\n    How shall we then dispense with that contract,\n    And not deface your honour with reproach?\n  SUFFOLK. As doth a ruler with unlawful oaths;\n    Or one that at a triumph, having vow'd\n    To try his strength, forsaketh yet the lists\n    By reason of his adversary's odds:\n    A poor earl's daughter is unequal odds,\n    And therefore may be broke without offence.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, what, I pray, is Margaret more than\n    that?\n    Her father is no better than an earl,\n    Although in glorious titles he excel.\n  SUFFOLK. Yes, my lord, her father is a king,\n    The King of Naples and Jerusalem;\n    And of such great authority in France\n    As his alliance will confirm our peace,\n    And keep the Frenchmen in allegiance.\n  GLOUCESTER. And so the Earl of Armagnac may do,\n    Because he is near kinsman unto Charles.\n  EXETER. Beside, his wealth doth warrant a liberal dower;\n    Where Reignier sooner will receive than give.\n  SUFFOLK. A dow'r, my lords! Disgrace not so your king,\n    That he should be so abject, base, and poor,\n    To choose for wealth and not for perfect love.\n    Henry is able to enrich his queen,\n    And not to seek a queen to make him rich.\n    So worthless peasants bargain for their wives,\n    As market-men for oxen, sheep, or horse.\n    Marriage is a matter of more worth\n    Than to be dealt in by attorneyship;\n    Not whom we will, but whom his Grace affects,\n    Must be companion of his nuptial bed.\n    And therefore, lords, since he affects her most,\n    It most of all these reasons bindeth us\n    In our opinions she should be preferr'd;\n    For what is wedlock forced but a hell,\n    An age of discord and continual strife?\n    Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss,\n    And is a pattern of celestial peace.\n    Whom should we match with Henry, being a king,\n    But Margaret, that is daughter to a king?\n    Her peerless feature, joined with her birth,\n    Approves her fit for none but for a king;\n    Her valiant courage and undaunted spirit,\n    More than in women commonly is seen,\n    Will answer our hope in issue of a king;\n    For Henry, son unto a conqueror,\n    Is likely to beget more conquerors,\n    If with a lady of so high resolve\n    As is fair Margaret he be link'd in love.\n    Then yield, my lords; and here conclude with me\n    That Margaret shall be Queen, and none but she.\n  KING HENRY. Whether it be through force of your report,\n    My noble Lord of Suffolk, or for that\n    My tender youth was never yet attaint\n    With any passion of inflaming love,\n    I cannot tell; but this I am assur'd,\n    I feel such sharp dissension in my breast,\n    Such fierce alarums both of hope and fear,\n    As I am sick with working of my thoughts.\n    Take therefore shipping; post, my lord, to France;\n    Agree to any covenants; and procure\n    That Lady Margaret do vouchsafe to come\n    To cross the seas to England, and be crown'd\n    King Henry's faithful and anointed queen.\n    For your expenses and sufficient charge,\n    Among the people gather up a tenth.\n    Be gone, I say; for till you do return\n    I rest perplexed with a thousand cares.\n    And you, good uncle, banish all offence:\n    If you do censure me by what you were,\n    Not what you are, I know it will excuse\n    This sudden execution of my will.\n    And so conduct me where, from company,\n    I may revolve and ruminate my grief.                    Exit\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, grief, I fear me, both at first and last.\n                                    Exeunt GLOUCESTER and EXETER\n  SUFFOLK. Thus Suffolk hath prevail'd; and thus he goes,\n    As did the youthful Paris once to Greece,\n    With hope to find the like event in love\n    But prosper better than the Troyan did.\n    Margaret shall now be Queen, and rule the King;\n    But I will rule both her, the King, and realm.          Exit\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1591\n\nTHE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n  HUMPHREY, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, his uncle\n  CARDINAL BEAUFORT, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, great-uncle to the King\n  RICHARD PLANTAGENET, DUKE OF YORK\n  EDWARD and RICHARD, his sons\n  DUKE OF SOMERSET\n  DUKE OF SUFFOLK\n  DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM\n  LORD CLIFFORD\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD, his son\n  EARL OF SALISBURY\n  EARL OF WARWICK\n  LORD SCALES\n  LORD SAY\n  SIR HUMPHREY STAFFORD\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD, his brother\n  SIR JOHN STANLEY\n  VAUX\n  MATTHEW GOFFE\n  A LIEUTENANT, a SHIPMASTER, a MASTER'S MATE, and WALTER WHITMORE\n  TWO GENTLEMEN, prisoners with Suffolk\n  JOHN HUME and JOHN SOUTHWELL, two priests\n  ROGER BOLINGBROKE, a conjurer\n  A SPIRIT raised by him\n  THOMAS HORNER, an armourer\n  PETER, his man\n  CLERK OF CHATHAM\n  MAYOR OF SAINT ALBANS\n  SAUNDER SIMPCOX, an impostor\n  ALEXANDER IDEN, a Kentish gentleman\n  JACK CADE, a rebel\n  GEORGE BEVIS, JOHN HOLLAND, DICK THE BUTCHER, SMITH THE WEAVER,\n    MICHAEL, &c., followers of Cade\n  TWO MURDERERS\n\n  MARGARET, Queen to King Henry\n  ELEANOR, Duchess of Gloucester\n  MARGERY JOURDAIN, a witch\n  WIFE to SIMPCOX\n\n  Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Petitioners, Aldermen, a Herald,\n    a Beadle, a Sheriff, Officers, Citizens, Prentices, Falconers,\n    Guards, Soldiers, Messengers, &c.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nLondon. The palace\n\nFlourish of trumpets; then hautboys. Enter the KING, DUKE HUMPHREY\nOF GLOUCESTER, SALISBURY, WARWICK, and CARDINAL BEAUFORT, on the one side;\nthe QUEEN, SUFFOLK, YORK, SOMERSET, and BUCKINGHAM, on the other\n\n  SUFFOLK. As by your high imperial Majesty\n    I had in charge at my depart for France,\n    As procurator to your Excellence,\n    To marry Princess Margaret for your Grace;\n    So, in the famous ancient city Tours,\n    In presence of the Kings of France and Sicil,\n    The Dukes of Orleans, Calaber, Bretagne, and Alencon,\n    Seven earls, twelve barons, and twenty reverend bishops,\n    I have perform'd my task, and was espous'd;\n    And humbly now upon my bended knee,\n    In sight of England and her lordly peers,\n    Deliver up my title in the Queen\n    To your most gracious hands, that are the substance\n    Of that great shadow I did represent:\n    The happiest gift that ever marquis gave,\n    The fairest queen that ever king receiv'd.\n  KING HENRY. Suffolk, arise. Welcome, Queen Margaret:\n    I can express no kinder sign of love\n    Than this kind kiss. O Lord, that lends me life,\n    Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!\n    For thou hast given me in this beauteous face\n    A world of earthly blessings to my soul,\n    If sympathy of love unite our thoughts.\n  QUEEN. Great King of England, and my gracious lord,\n    The mutual conference that my mind hath had,\n    By day, by night, waking and in my dreams,\n    In courtly company or at my beads,\n    With you, mine alder-liefest sovereign,\n    Makes me the bolder to salute my king\n    With ruder terms, such as my wit affords\n    And over-joy of heart doth minister.\n  KING HENRY. Her sight did ravish, but her grace in speech,\n    Her words y-clad with wisdom's majesty,\n    Makes me from wond'ring fall to weeping joys,\n    Such is the fulness of my heart's content.\n    Lords, with one cheerful voice welcome my love.\n  ALL. [Kneeling] Long live Queen Margaret, England's happiness!\n  QUEEN. We thank you all.                            [Flourish]\n  SUFFOLK. My Lord Protector, so it please your Grace,\n    Here are the articles of contracted peace\n    Between our sovereign and the French King Charles,\n    For eighteen months concluded by consent.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Reads] 'Imprimis: It is agreed between the French King\n    Charles and William de la Pole, Marquess of Suffolk, ambassador\n    for Henry King of England, that the said Henry shall espouse the\n    Lady Margaret, daughter unto Reignier King of Naples, Sicilia,\n    and Jerusalem, and crown her Queen of England ere the thirtieth\n    of May next ensuing.\n      Item: That the duchy of Anjou and the county of Maine shall be\n    released and delivered to the King her father'-\n                                           [Lets the paper fall]\n  KING HENRY. Uncle, how now!\n  GLOUCESTER. Pardon me, gracious lord;\n    Some sudden qualm hath struck me at the heart,\n    And dimm'd mine eyes, that I can read no further.\n  KING HENRY. Uncle of Winchester, I pray read on.\n  CARDINAL. [Reads] 'Item: It is further agreed between them that the\n    duchies of Anjou and Maine shall be released and delivered over\n    to the King her father, and she sent over of the King of\n    England's own proper cost and charges, without having any dowry.'\n  KING HENRY. They please us well. Lord Marquess, kneel down.\n    We here create thee the first Duke of Suffolk,\n    And girt thee with the sword. Cousin of York,\n    We here discharge your Grace from being Regent\n    I' th' parts of France, till term of eighteen months\n    Be full expir'd. Thanks, uncle Winchester,\n    Gloucester, York, Buckingham, Somerset,\n    Salisbury, and Warwick;\n    We thank you all for this great favour done\n    In entertainment to my princely queen.\n    Come, let us in, and with all speed provide\n    To see her coronation be perform'd.\n                                 Exeunt KING, QUEEN, and SUFFOLK\n  GLOUCESTER. Brave peers of England, pillars of the state,\n    To you Duke Humphrey must unload his grief\n    Your grief, the common grief of all the land.\n    What! did my brother Henry spend his youth,\n    His valour, coin, and people, in the wars?\n    Did he so often lodge in open field,\n    In winter's cold and summer's parching heat,\n    To conquer France, his true inheritance?\n    And did my brother Bedford toil his wits\n    To keep by policy what Henry got?\n    Have you yourselves, Somerset, Buckingham,\n    Brave York, Salisbury, and victorious Warwick,\n    Receiv'd deep scars in France and Normandy?\n    Or hath mine uncle Beaufort and myself,\n    With all the learned Council of the realm,\n    Studied so long, sat in the Council House\n    Early and late, debating to and fro\n    How France and Frenchmen might be kept in awe?\n    And had his Highness in his infancy\n    Crowned in Paris, in despite of foes?\n    And shall these labours and these honours die?\n    Shall Henry's conquest, Bedford's vigilance,\n    Your deeds of war, and all our counsel die?\n    O peers of England, shameful is this league!\n    Fatal this marriage, cancelling your fame,\n    Blotting your names from books of memory,\n    Razing the characters of your renown,\n    Defacing monuments of conquer'd France,\n    Undoing all, as all had never been!\n  CARDINAL. Nephew, what means this passionate discourse,\n    This peroration with such circumstance?\n    For France, 'tis ours; and we will keep it still.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, uncle, we will keep it if we can;\n    But now it is impossible we should.\n    Suffolk, the new-made duke that rules the roast,\n    Hath given the duchy of Anjou and Maine\n    Unto the poor King Reignier, whose large style\n    Agrees not with the leanness of his purse.\n  SALISBURY. Now, by the death of Him that died for all,\n    These counties were the keys of Normandy!\n    But wherefore weeps Warwick, my valiant son?\n  WARWICK. For grief that they are past recovery;\n    For were there hope to conquer them again\n    My sword should shed hot blood, mine eyes no tears.\n    Anjou and Maine! myself did win them both;\n    Those provinces these arms of mine did conquer;\n    And are the cities that I got with wounds\n    Deliver'd up again with peaceful words?\n    Mort Dieu!\n  YORK. For Suffolk's duke, may he be suffocate,\n    That dims the honour of this warlike isle!\n    France should have torn and rent my very heart\n    Before I would have yielded to this league.\n    I never read but England's kings have had\n    Large sums of gold and dowries with their wives;\n    And our King Henry gives away his own\n    To match with her that brings no vantages.\n  GLOUCESTER. A proper jest, and never heard before,\n    That Suffolk should demand a whole fifteenth\n    For costs and charges in transporting her!\n    She should have stay'd in France, and starv'd in France,\n    Before-\n  CARDINAL. My Lord of Gloucester, now ye grow too hot:\n    It was the pleasure of my lord the King.\n  GLOUCESTER. My Lord of Winchester, I know your mind;\n    'Tis not my speeches that you do mislike,\n    But 'tis my presence that doth trouble ye.\n    Rancour will out: proud prelate, in thy face\n    I see thy fury; if I longer stay\n    We shall begin our ancient bickerings.\n    Lordings, farewell; and say, when I am gone,\n    I prophesied France will be lost ere long.              Exit\n  CARDINAL. So, there goes our Protector in a rage.\n    'Tis known to you he is mine enemy;\n    Nay, more, an enemy unto you all,\n    And no great friend, I fear me, to the King.\n    Consider, lords, he is the next of blood\n    And heir apparent to the English crown.\n    Had Henry got an empire by his marriage\n    And all the wealthy kingdoms of the west,\n    There's reason he should be displeas'd at it.\n    Look to it, lords; let not his smoothing words\n    Bewitch your hearts; be wise and circumspect.\n    What though the common people favour him,\n    Calling him 'Humphrey, the good Duke of Gloucester,'\n    Clapping their hands, and crying with loud voice\n    'Jesu maintain your royal excellence!'\n    With 'God preserve the good Duke Humphrey!'\n    I fear me, lords, for all this flattering gloss,\n    He will be found a dangerous Protector.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why should he then protect our sovereign,\n    He being of age to govern of himself?\n    Cousin of Somerset, join you with me,\n    And all together, with the Duke of Suffolk,\n    We'll quickly hoise Duke Humphrey from his seat.\n  CARDINAL. This weighty business will not brook delay;\n    I'll to the Duke of Suffolk presently.                  Exit\n  SOMERSET. Cousin of Buckingham, though Humphrey's pride\n    And greatness of his place be grief to us,\n    Yet let us watch the haughty cardinal;\n    His insolence is more intolerable\n    Than all the princes in the land beside;\n    If Gloucester be displac'd, he'll be Protector.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Or thou or I, Somerset, will be Protector,\n    Despite Duke Humphrey or the Cardinal.\n                                  Exeunt BUCKINGHAM and SOMERSET\n  SALISBURY. Pride went before, ambition follows him.\n    While these do labour for their own preferment,\n    Behoves it us to labour for the realm.\n    I never saw but Humphrey Duke of Gloucester\n    Did bear him like a noble gentleman.\n    Oft have I seen the haughty Cardinal-\n    More like a soldier than a man o' th' church,\n    As stout and proud as he were lord of all-\n    Swear like a ruffian and demean himself\n    Unlike the ruler of a commonweal.\n    Warwick my son, the comfort of my age,\n    Thy deeds, thy plainness, and thy housekeeping,\n    Hath won the greatest favour of the commons,\n    Excepting none but good Duke Humphrey.\n    And, brother York, thy acts in Ireland,\n    In bringing them to civil discipline,\n    Thy late exploits done in the heart of France\n    When thou wert Regent for our sovereign,\n    Have made thee fear'd and honour'd of the people:\n    Join we together for the public good,\n    In what we can, to bridle and suppress\n    The pride of Suffolk and the Cardinal,\n    With Somerset's and Buckingham's ambition;\n    And, as we may, cherish Duke Humphrey's deeds\n    While they do tend the profit of the land.\n  WARWICK. So God help Warwick, as he loves the land\n    And common profit of his country!\n  YORK. And so says York- [Aside] for he hath greatest cause.\n  SALISBURY. Then let's make haste away and look unto the main.\n  WARWICK. Unto the main! O father, Maine is lost-\n    That Maine which by main force Warwick did win,\n    And would have kept so long as breath did last.\n    Main chance, father, you meant; but I meant Maine,\n    Which I will win from France, or else be slain.\n                                    Exeunt WARWICK and SALISBURY\n  YORK. Anjou and Maine are given to the French;\n    Paris is lost; the state of Normandy\n    Stands on a tickle point now they are gone.\n    Suffolk concluded on the articles;\n    The peers agreed; and Henry was well pleas'd\n    To changes two dukedoms for a duke's fair daughter.\n    I cannot blame them all: what is't to them?\n    'Tis thine they give away, and not their own.\n    Pirates may make cheap pennyworths of their pillage,\n    And purchase friends, and give to courtezans,\n    Still revelling like lords till all be gone;\n    While as the silly owner of the goods\n    Weeps over them and wrings his hapless hands\n    And shakes his head and trembling stands aloof,\n    While all is shar'd and all is borne away,\n    Ready to starve and dare not touch his own.\n    So York must sit and fret and bite his tongue,\n    While his own lands are bargain'd for and sold.\n    Methinks the realms of England, France, and Ireland,\n    Bear that proportion to my flesh and blood\n    As did the fatal brand Althaea burnt\n    Unto the prince's heart of Calydon.\n    Anjou and Maine both given unto the French!\n    Cold news for me, for I had hope of France,\n    Even as I have of fertile England's soil.\n    A day will come when York shall claim his own;\n    And therefore I will take the Nevils' parts,\n    And make a show of love to proud Duke Humphrey,\n    And when I spy advantage, claim the crown,\n    For that's the golden mark I seek to hit.\n    Nor shall proud Lancaster usurp my right,\n    Nor hold the sceptre in his childish fist,\n    Nor wear the diadem upon his head,\n    Whose church-like humours fits not for a crown.\n    Then, York, be still awhile, till time do serve;\n    Watch thou and wake, when others be asleep,\n    To pry into the secrets of the state;\n    Till Henry, surfeiting in joys of love\n    With his new bride and England's dear-bought queen,\n    And Humphrey with the peers be fall'n at jars;\n    Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose,\n    With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfum'd,\n    And in my standard bear the arms of York,\n    To grapple with the house of Lancaster;\n    And force perforce I'll make him yield the crown,\n    Whose bookish rule hath pull'd fair England down.       Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe DUKE OF GLOUCESTER'S house\n\nEnter DUKE and his wife ELEANOR\n\n  DUCHESS. Why droops my lord, like over-ripen'd corn\n    Hanging the head at Ceres' plenteous load?\n    Why doth the great Duke Humphrey knit his brows,\n    As frowning at the favours of the world?\n    Why are thine eyes fix'd to the sullen earth,\n    Gazing on that which seems to dim thy sight?\n    What see'st thou there? King Henry's diadem,\n    Enchas'd with all the honours of the world?\n    If so, gaze on, and grovel on thy face\n    Until thy head be circled with the same.\n    Put forth thy hand, reach at the glorious gold.\n    What, is't too short? I'll lengthen it with mine;\n    And having both together heav'd it up,\n    We'll both together lift our heads to heaven,\n    And never more abase our sight so low\n    As to vouchsafe one glance unto the ground.\n  GLOUCESTER. O Nell, sweet Nell, if thou dost love thy lord,\n    Banish the canker of ambitious thoughts!\n    And may that thought, when I imagine ill\n    Against my king and nephew, virtuous Henry,\n    Be my last breathing in this mortal world!\n    My troublous dreams this night doth make me sad.\n  DUCHESS. What dream'd my lord? Tell me, and I'll requite it\n    With sweet rehearsal of my morning's dream.\n  GLOUCESTER. Methought this staff, mine office-badge in court,\n    Was broke in twain; by whom I have forgot,\n    But, as I think, it was by th' Cardinal;\n    And on the pieces of the broken wand\n    Were plac'd the heads of Edmund Duke of Somerset\n    And William de la Pole, first Duke of Suffolk.\n    This was my dream; what it doth bode God knows.\n  DUCHESS. Tut, this was nothing but an argument\n    That he that breaks a stick of Gloucester's grove\n    Shall lose his head for his presumption.\n    But list to me, my Humphrey, my sweet Duke:\n    Methought I sat in seat of majesty\n    In the cathedral church of Westminster,\n    And in that chair where kings and queens were crown'd;\n    Where Henry and Dame Margaret kneel'd to me,\n    And on my head did set the diadem.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nay, Eleanor, then must I chide outright.\n    Presumptuous dame, ill-nurtur'd Eleanor!\n    Art thou not second woman in the realm,\n    And the Protector's wife, belov'd of him?\n    Hast thou not worldly pleasure at command\n    Above the reach or compass of thy thought?\n    And wilt thou still be hammering treachery\n    To tumble down thy husband and thyself\n    From top of honour to disgrace's feet?\n    Away from me, and let me hear no more!\n  DUCHESS. What, what, my lord! Are you so choleric\n    With Eleanor for telling but her dream?\n    Next time I'll keep my dreams unto myself\n    And not be check'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nay, be not angry; I am pleas'd again.\n\n                       Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My Lord Protector, 'tis his Highness' pleasure\n    You do prepare to ride unto Saint Albans,\n    Where as the King and Queen do mean to hawk.\n  GLOUCESTER. I go. Come, Nell, thou wilt ride with us?\n  DUCHESS. Yes, my good lord, I'll follow presently.\n                                 Exeunt GLOUCESTER and MESSENGER\n    Follow I must; I cannot go before,\n    While Gloucester bears this base and humble mind.\n    Were I a man, a duke, and next of blood,\n    I would remove these tedious stumbling-blocks\n    And smooth my way upon their headless necks;\n    And, being a woman, I will not be slack\n    To play my part in Fortune's pageant.\n    Where are you there, Sir John? Nay, fear not, man,\n    We are alone; here's none but thee and I.\n\n                           Enter HUME\n\n  HUME. Jesus preserve your royal Majesty!\n  DUCHESS. What say'st thou? Majesty! I am but Grace.\n  HUME. But, by the grace of God and Hume's advice,\n    Your Grace's title shall be multiplied.\n  DUCHESS. What say'st thou, man? Hast thou as yet conferr'd\n    With Margery Jourdain, the cunning witch of Eie,\n    With Roger Bolingbroke, the conjurer?\n    And will they undertake to do me good?\n  HUME. This they have promised, to show your Highness\n    A spirit rais'd from depth of underground\n    That shall make answer to such questions\n    As by your Grace shall be propounded him\n  DUCHESS. It is enough; I'll think upon the questions;\n    When from Saint Albans we do make return\n    We'll see these things effected to the full.\n    Here, Hume, take this reward; make merry, man,\n    With thy confederates in this weighty cause.            Exit\n  HUME. Hume must make merry with the Duchess' gold;\n    Marry, and shall. But, how now, Sir John Hume!\n    Seal up your lips and give no words but mum:\n    The business asketh silent secrecy.\n    Dame Eleanor gives gold to bring the witch:\n    Gold cannot come amiss were she a devil.\n    Yet have I gold flies from another coast-\n    I dare not say from the rich Cardinal,\n    And from the great and new-made Duke of Suffolk;\n    Yet I do find it so; for, to be plain,\n    They, knowing Dame Eleanor's aspiring humour,\n    Have hired me to undermine the Duchess,\n    And buzz these conjurations in her brain.\n    They say 'A crafty knave does need no broker';\n    Yet am I Suffolk and the Cardinal's broker.\n    Hume, if you take not heed, you shall go near\n    To call them both a pair of crafty knaves.\n    Well, so its stands; and thus, I fear, at last\n    Hume's knavery will be the Duchess' wreck,\n    And her attainture will be Humphrey's fall\n    Sort how it will, I shall have gold for all.            Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter three or four PETITIONERS, PETER, the Armourer's man, being one\n\n  FIRST PETITIONER. My masters, let's stand close; my Lord Protector\n    will come this way by and by, and then we may deliver our\n    supplications in the quill.\n  SECOND PETITIONER. Marry, the Lord protect him, for he's a good\n    man, Jesu bless him!\n\n                       Enter SUFFOLK and QUEEN\n\n  FIRST PETITIONER. Here 'a comes, methinks, and the Queen with him.\n    I'll be the first, sure.\n  SECOND PETITIONER. Come back, fool; this is the Duke of Suffolk and\n    not my Lord Protector.\n  SUFFOLK. How now, fellow! Wouldst anything with me?\n  FIRST PETITIONER. I pray, my lord, pardon me; I took ye for my Lord\n    Protector.\n  QUEEN. [Reads] 'To my Lord Protector!' Are your supplications to\n    his lordship? Let me see them. What is thine?\n  FIRST PETITIONER. Mine is, an't please your Grace, against John\n    Goodman, my Lord Cardinal's man, for keeping my house and lands,\n    and wife and all, from me.\n  SUFFOLK. Thy wife too! That's some wrong indeed. What's yours?\n    What's here! [Reads] 'Against the Duke of Suffolk, for enclosing\n    the commons of Melford.' How now, sir knave!\n  SECOND PETITIONER. Alas, sir, I am but a poor petitioner of our\n    whole township.\n  PETER. [Presenting his petition] Against my master, Thomas Horner,\n    for saying that the Duke of York was rightful heir to the crown.\n  QUEEN. What say'st thou? Did the Duke of York say he was rightful\n    heir to the crown?\n  PETER. That my master was? No, forsooth. My master said that he\n    was, and that the King was an usurper.\n  SUFFOLK. Who is there? [Enter servant] Take this fellow in, and\n    send for his master with a pursuivant presently. We'll hear more\n    of your matter before the King.\n                                         Exit servant with PETER\n  QUEEN. And as for you, that love to be protected\n    Under the wings of our Protector's grace,\n    Begin your suits anew, and sue to him.\n                                       [Tears the supplications]\n    Away, base cullions! Suffolk, let them go.\n  ALL. Come, let's be gone.                               Exeunt\n  QUEEN. My Lord of Suffolk, say, is this the guise,\n    Is this the fashions in the court of England?\n    Is this the government of Britain's isle,\n    And this the royalty of Albion's king?\n    What, shall King Henry be a pupil still,\n    Under the surly Gloucester's governance?\n    Am I a queen in title and in style,\n    And must be made a subject to a duke?\n    I tell thee, Pole, when in the city Tours\n    Thou ran'st a tilt in honour of my love\n    And stol'st away the ladies' hearts of France,\n    I thought King Henry had resembled thee\n    In courage, courtship, and proportion;\n    But all his mind is bent to holiness,\n    To number Ave-Maries on his beads;\n    His champions are the prophets and apostles;\n    His weapons, holy saws of sacred writ;\n    His study is his tilt-yard, and his loves\n    Are brazen images of canonized saints.\n    I would the college of the Cardinals\n    Would choose him Pope, and carry him to Rome,\n    And set the triple crown upon his head;\n    That were a state fit for his holiness.\n  SUFFOLK. Madam, be patient. As I was cause\n    Your Highness came to England, so will I\n    In England work your Grace's full content.\n  QUEEN. Beside the haughty Protector, have we Beaufort\n    The imperious churchman; Somerset, Buckingham,\n    And grumbling York; and not the least of these\n    But can do more in England than the King.\n  SUFFOLK. And he of these that can do most of all\n    Cannot do more in England than the Nevils;\n    Salisbury and Warwick are no simple peers.\n  QUEEN. Not all these lords do vex me half so much\n    As that proud dame, the Lord Protector's wife.\n    She sweeps it through the court with troops of ladies,\n    More like an empress than Duke Humphrey's wife.\n    Strangers in court do take her for the Queen.\n    She bears a duke's revenues on her back,\n    And in her heart she scorns our poverty;\n    Shall I not live to be aveng'd on her?\n    Contemptuous base-born callet as she is,\n    She vaunted 'mongst her minions t' other day\n    The very train of her worst wearing gown\n    Was better worth than all my father's lands,\n    Till Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter.\n  SUFFOLK. Madam, myself have lim'd a bush for her,\n    And plac'd a quire of such enticing birds\n    That she will light to listen to the lays,\n    And never mount to trouble you again.\n    So, let her rest. And, madam, list to me,\n    For I am bold to counsel you in this:\n    Although we fancy not the Cardinal,\n    Yet must we join with him and with the lords,\n    Till we have brought Duke Humphrey in disgrace.\n    As for the Duke of York, this late complaint\n    Will make but little for his benefit.\n    So one by one we'll weed them all at last,\n    And you yourself shall steer the happy helm.\n\n          Sound a sennet. Enter the KING, DUKE HUMPHREY,\n     CARDINAL BEAUFORT, BUCKINGHAM, YORK, SOMERSET, SALISBURY,\n              WARWICK, and the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER\n\n  KING HENRY. For my part, noble lords, I care not which:\n    Or Somerset or York, all's one to me.\n  YORK. If York have ill demean'd himself in France,\n    Then let him be denay'd the regentship.\n  SOMERSET. If Somerset be unworthy of the place,\n    Let York be Regent; I will yield to him.\n  WARWICK. Whether your Grace be worthy, yea or no,\n    Dispute not that; York is the worthier.\n  CARDINAL. Ambitious Warwick, let thy betters speak.\n  WARWICK. The Cardinal's not my better in the field.\n  BUCKINGHAM. All in this presence are thy betters, Warwick.\n  WARWICK. Warwick may live to be the best of all.\n  SALISBURY. Peace, son! And show some reason, Buckingham,\n    Why Somerset should be preferr'd in this.\n  QUEEN. Because the King, forsooth, will have it so.\n  GLOUCESTER. Madam, the King is old enough himself\n    To give his censure. These are no women's matters.\n  QUEEN. If he be old enough, what needs your Grace\n    To be Protector of his Excellence?\n  GLOUCESTER. Madam, I am Protector of the realm;\n    And at his pleasure will resign my place.\n  SUFFOLK. Resign it then, and leave thine insolence.\n    Since thou wert king- as who is king but thou?-\n    The commonwealth hath daily run to wrack,\n    The Dauphin hath prevail'd beyond the seas,\n    And all the peers and nobles of the realm\n    Have been as bondmen to thy sovereignty.\n  CARDINAL. The commons hast thou rack'd; the clergy's bags\n    Are lank and lean with thy extortions.\n  SOMERSET. Thy sumptuous buildings and thy wife's attire\n    Have cost a mass of public treasury.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Thy cruelty in execution\n    Upon offenders hath exceeded law,\n    And left thee to the mercy of the law.\n  QUEEN. Thy sale of offices and towns in France,\n    If they were known, as the suspect is great,\n    Would make thee quickly hop without thy head.\n                  Exit GLOUCESTER. The QUEEN drops QUEEN her fan\n    Give me my fan. What, minion, can ye not?\n                        [She gives the DUCHESS a box on the ear]\n    I cry your mercy, madam; was it you?\n  DUCHESS. Was't I? Yea, I it was, proud Frenchwoman.\n    Could I come near your beauty with my nails,\n    I could set my ten commandments in your face.\n  KING HENRY. Sweet aunt, be quiet; 'twas against her will.\n  DUCHESS. Against her will, good King? Look to 't in time;\n    She'll hamper thee and dandle thee like a baby.\n    Though in this place most master wear no breeches,\n    She shall not strike Dame Eleanor unreveng'd.           Exit\n  BUCKINGHAM. Lord Cardinal, I will follow Eleanor,\n    And listen after Humphrey, how he proceeds.\n    She's tickled now; her fume needs no spurs,\n    She'll gallop far enough to her destruction.            Exit\n\n                      Re-enter GLOUCESTER\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Now, lords, my choler being overblown\n    With walking once about the quadrangle,\n    I come to talk of commonwealth affairs.\n    As for your spiteful false objections,\n    Prove them, and I lie open to the law;\n    But God in mercy so deal with my soul\n    As I in duty love my king and country!\n    But to the matter that we have in hand:\n    I say, my sovereign, York is meetest man\n    To be your Regent in the realm of France.\n  SUFFOLK. Before we make election, give me leave\n    To show some reason, of no little force,\n    That York is most unmeet of any man.\n  YORK. I'll tell thee, Suffolk, why I am unmeet:\n    First, for I cannot flatter thee in pride;\n    Next, if I be appointed for the place,\n    My Lord of Somerset will keep me here\n    Without discharge, money, or furniture,\n    Till France be won into the Dauphin's hands.\n    Last time I danc'd attendance on his will\n    Till Paris was besieg'd, famish'd, and lost.\n  WARWICK. That can I witness; and a fouler fact\n    Did never traitor in the land commit.\n  SUFFOLK. Peace, headstrong Warwick!\n  WARWICK. Image of pride, why should I hold my peace?\n\n        Enter HORNER, the Armourer, and his man PETER, guarded\n\n  SUFFOLK. Because here is a man accus'd of treason:\n    Pray God the Duke of York excuse himself!\n  YORK. Doth any one accuse York for a traitor?\n  KING HENRY. What mean'st thou, Suffolk? Tell me, what are these?\n  SUFFOLK. Please it your Majesty, this is the man\n    That doth accuse his master of high treason;\n    His words were these: that Richard Duke of York\n    Was rightful heir unto the English crown,\n    And that your Majesty was an usurper.\n  KING HENRY. Say, man, were these thy words?\n  HORNER. An't shall please your Majesty, I never said nor thought\n    any such matter. God is my witness, I am falsely accus'd by the\n    villain.\n  PETER. [Holding up his hands] By these ten bones, my lords, he did\n    speak them to me in the garret one night, as we were scouring my\n    Lord of York's armour.\n  YORK. Base dunghill villain and mechanical,\n    I'll have thy head for this thy traitor's speech.\n    I do beseech your royal Majesty,\n    Let him have all the rigour of the law.\n  HORNER`. Alas, my lord, hang me if ever I spake the words. My\n    accuser is my prentice; and when I did correct him for his fault\n    the other day, he did vow upon his knees he would be even with\n    me. I have good witness of this; therefore I beseech your\n    Majesty, do not cast away an honest man for a villain's\n    accusation.\n  KING HENRY. Uncle, what shall we say to this in law?\n  GLOUCESTER. This doom, my lord, if I may judge:\n    Let Somerset be Regent o'er the French,\n    Because in York this breeds suspicion;\n    And let these have a day appointed them\n    For single combat in convenient place,\n    For he hath witness of his servant's malice.\n    This is the law, and this Duke Humphrey's doom.\n  SOMERSET. I humbly thank your royal Majesty.\n  HORNER. And I accept the combat willingly.\n  PETER. Alas, my lord, I cannot fight; for God's sake, pity my case!\n    The spite of man prevaileth against me. O Lord, have mercy upon\n    me, I shall never be able to fight a blow! O Lord, my heart!\n  GLOUCESTER. Sirrah, or you must fight or else be hang'd.\n  KING HENRY. Away with them to prison; and the day of combat shall\n    be the last of the next month.\n    Come, Somerset, we'll see thee sent away.   Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. The DUKE OF GLOUCESTER'S garden\n\nEnter MARGERY JOURDAIN, the witch; the two priests, HUME and SOUTHWELL;\nand BOLINGBROKE\n\n  HUME. Come, my masters; the Duchess, I tell you, expects\n    performance of your promises.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Master Hume, we are therefore provided; will her\n    ladyship behold and hear our exorcisms?\n  HUME. Ay, what else? Fear you not her courage.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I have heard her reported to be a woman of an\n    invincible spirit; but it shall be convenient, Master Hume, that\n    you be by her aloft while we be busy below; and so I pray you go,\n    in God's name, and leave us. [Exit HUME] Mother Jourdain, be you\n    prostrate and grovel on the earth; John Southwell, read you; and\n    let us to our work.\n\n                 Enter DUCHESS aloft, followed by HUME\n\n  DUCHESS. Well said, my masters; and welcome all. To this gear, the\n    sooner the better.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Patience, good lady; wizards know their times:\n    Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,\n    The time of night when Troy was set on fire;\n    The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl,\n    And spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves-\n    That time best fits the work we have in hand.\n    Madam, sit you, and fear not: whom we raise\n    We will make fast within a hallow'd verge.\n\n     [Here they do the ceremonies belonging, and make the circle;\n          BOLINGBROKE or SOUTHWELL reads: 'Conjuro te,' &c.\n     It thunders and lightens terribly; then the SPIRIT riseth]\n\n  SPIRIT. Adsum.\n  MARGERY JOURDAIN. Asmath,\n    By the eternal God, whose name and power\n    Thou tremblest at, answer that I shall ask;\n    For till thou speak thou shalt not pass from hence.\n  SPIRIT. Ask what thou wilt; that I had said and done.\n  BOLINGBROKE. [Reads] 'First of the king: what shall of him become?'\n  SPIRIT. The Duke yet lives that Henry shall depose;\n    But him outlive, and die a violent death.\n             [As the SPIRIT speaks, SOUTHWELL writes the answer]\n  BOLINGBROKE. 'What fates await the Duke of Suffolk?'\n  SPIRIT. By water shall he die and take his end.\n  BOLINGBROKE. 'What shall befall the Duke of Somerset?'\n  SPIRIT. Let him shun castles:\n    Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains\n    Than where castles mounted stand.\n    Have done, for more I hardly can endure.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Descend to darkness and the burning lake;\n    False fiend, avoid!       Thunder and lightning. Exit SPIRIT\n\n               Enter the DUKE OF YORK and the DUKE OF\n                 BUCKINGHAM with guard, and break in\n\n  YORK. Lay hands upon these traitors and their trash.\n    Beldam, I think we watch'd you at an inch.\n    What, madam, are you there? The King and commonweal\n    Are deeply indebted for this piece of pains;\n    My Lord Protector will, I doubt it not,\n    See you well guerdon'd for these good deserts.\n  DUCHESS. Not half so bad as thine to England's king,\n    Injurious Duke, that threatest where's no cause.\n  BUCKINGHAM. True, madam, none at all. What can you this?\n    Away with them! let them be clapp'd up close,\n    And kept asunder. You, madam, shall with us.\n    Stafford, take her to thee.\n    We'll see your trinkets here all forthcoming.\n    All, away!\n                Exeunt, above, DUCHESS and HUME, guarded; below,\n                       WITCH, SOUTHWELL and BOLINGBROKE, guarded\n  YORK. Lord Buckingham, methinks you watch'd her well.\n    A pretty plot, well chosen to build upon!\n    Now, pray, my lord, let's see the devil's writ.\n    What have we here?                                   [Reads]\n    'The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose;\n    But him outlive, and die a violent death.'\n    Why, this is just\n    'Aio te, Aeacida, Romanos vincere posse.'\n    Well, to the rest:\n    'Tell me what fate awaits the Duke of Suffolk?'\n    'By water shall he die and take his end.'\n    'What shall betide the Duke of Somerset?'\n    'Let him shun castles;\n    Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains\n    Than where castles mounted stand.'\n    Come, come, my lords;\n    These oracles are hardly attain'd,\n    And hardly understood.\n    The King is now in progress towards Saint Albans,\n    With him the husband of this lovely lady;\n    Thither go these news as fast as horse can carry them-\n    A sorry breakfast for my Lord Protector.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Your Grace shall give me leave, my Lord of York,\n    To be the post, in hope of his reward.\n  YORK. At your pleasure, my good lord.\n    Who's within there, ho?\n\n                       Enter a serving-man\n\n    Invite my Lords of Salisbury and Warwick\n    To sup with me to-morrow night. Away!                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nSaint Albans\n\nEnter the KING, QUEEN, GLOUCESTER, CARDINAL, and SUFFOLK,\nwith Falconers halloing\n\n  QUEEN. Believe me, lords, for flying at the brook,\n    I saw not better sport these seven years' day;\n    Yet, by your leave, the wind was very high,\n    And ten to one old Joan had not gone out.\n  KING HENRY. But what a point, my lord, your falcon made,\n    And what a pitch she flew above the rest!\n    To see how God in all His creatures works!\n    Yea, man and birds are fain of climbing high.\n  SUFFOLK. No marvel, an it like your Majesty,\n    My Lord Protector's hawks do tow'r so well;\n    They know their master loves to be aloft,\n    And bears his thoughts above his falcon's pitch.\n  GLOUCESTER. My lord, 'tis but a base ignoble mind\n    That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.\n  CARDINAL. I thought as much; he would be above the clouds.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, my lord Cardinal, how think you by that?\n    Were it not good your Grace could fly to heaven?\n  KING HENRY. The treasury of everlasting joy!\n  CARDINAL. Thy heaven is on earth; thine eyes and thoughts\n    Beat on a crown, the treasure of thy heart;\n    Pernicious Protector, dangerous peer,\n    That smooth'st it so with King and commonweal.\n  GLOUCESTER. What, Cardinal, is your priesthood grown peremptory?\n    Tantaene animis coelestibus irae?\n    Churchmen so hot? Good uncle, hide such malice;\n    With such holiness can you do it?\n  SUFFOLK. No malice, sir; no more than well becomes\n    So good a quarrel and so bad a peer.\n  GLOUCESTER. As who, my lord?\n  SUFFOLK. Why, as you, my lord,\n    An't like your lordly Lord's Protectorship.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, Suffolk, England knows thine insolence.\n  QUEEN. And thy ambition, Gloucester.\n  KING HENRY. I prithee, peace,\n    Good Queen, and whet not on these furious peers;\n    For blessed are the peacemakers on earth.\n  CARDINAL. Let me be blessed for the peace I make\n    Against this proud Protector with my sword!\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CARDINAL] Faith, holy uncle, would 'twere\n    come to that!\n  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Marry, when thou dar'st.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CARDINAL] Make up no factious numbers for the\n      matter;\n    In thine own person answer thy abuse.\n  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Ay, where thou dar'st not peep; an\n      if thou dar'st,\n    This evening on the east side of the grove.\n  KING HENRY. How now, my lords!\n  CARDINAL. Believe me, cousin Gloucester,\n    Had not your man put up the fowl so suddenly,\n    We had had more sport. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Come with thy\n      two-hand sword.\n  GLOUCESTER. True, uncle.\n  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Are ye advis'd? The east side of\n    the grove?\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CARDINAL] Cardinal, I am with you.\n  KING HENRY. Why, how now, uncle Gloucester!\n  GLOUCESTER. Talking of hawking; nothing else, my lord.\n    [Aside to CARDINAL] Now, by God's Mother, priest,\n    I'll shave your crown for this,\n    Or all my fence shall fail.\n  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Medice, teipsum;\n    Protector, see to't well; protect yourself.\n  KING HENRY. The winds grow high; so do your stomachs, lords.\n    How irksome is this music to my heart!\n    When such strings jar, what hope of harmony?\n    I pray, my lords, let me compound this strife.\n\n         Enter a TOWNSMAN of Saint Albans, crying 'A miracle!'\n\n  GLOUCESTER. What means this noise?\n    Fellow, what miracle dost thou proclaim?\n  TOWNSMAN. A miracle! A miracle!\n  SUFFOLK. Come to the King, and tell him what miracle.\n  TOWNSMAN. Forsooth, a blind man at Saint Albans shrine\n    Within this half hour hath receiv'd his sight;\n    A man that ne'er saw in his life before.\n  KING HENRY. Now God be prais'd that to believing souls\n    Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair!\n\n           Enter the MAYOR OF SAINT ALBANS and his brethren,\n               bearing Simpcox between two in a chair;\n                 his WIFE and a multitude following\n\n  CARDINAL. Here comes the townsmen on procession\n    To present your Highness with the man.\n  KING HENRY. Great is his comfort in this earthly vale,\n    Although by his sight his sin be multiplied.\n  GLOUCESTER. Stand by, my masters; bring him near the King;\n    His Highness' pleasure is to talk with him.\n  KING HENRY. Good fellow, tell us here the circumstance,\n    That we for thee may glorify the Lord.\n    What, hast thou been long blind and now restor'd?\n  SIMPCOX. Born blind, an't please your Grace.\n  WIFE. Ay indeed was he.\n  SUFFOLK. What woman is this?\n  WIFE. His wife, an't like your worship.\n  GLOUCESTER. Hadst thou been his mother, thou couldst have better\n    told.\n  KING HENRY. Where wert thou born?\n  SIMPCOX. At Berwick in the north, an't like your Grace.\n  KING HENRY. Poor soul, God's goodness hath been great to thee.\n    Let never day nor night unhallowed pass,\n    But still remember what the Lord hath done.\n  QUEEN. Tell me, good fellow, cam'st thou here by chance,\n    Or of devotion, to this holy shrine?\n  SIMPCOX. God knows, of pure devotion; being call'd\n    A hundred times and oft'ner, in my sleep,\n    By good Saint Alban, who said 'Simpcox, come,\n    Come, offer at my shrine, and I will help thee.'\n  WIFE. Most true, forsooth; and many time and oft\n    Myself have heard a voice to call him so.\n  CARDINAL. What, art thou lame?\n  SIMPCOX. Ay, God Almighty help me!\n  SUFFOLK. How cam'st thou so?\n  SIMPCOX. A fall off of a tree.\n  WIFE. A plum tree, master.\n  GLOUCESTER. How long hast thou been blind?\n  SIMPCOX. O, born so, master!\n  GLOUCESTER. What, and wouldst climb a tree?\n  SIMPCOX. But that in all my life, when I was a youth.\n  WIFE. Too true; and bought his climbing very dear.\n  GLOUCESTER. Mass, thou lov'dst plums well, that wouldst venture so.\n  SIMPCOX. Alas, good master, my wife desir'd some damsons\n    And made me climb, With danger of my life.\n  GLOUCESTER. A subtle knave! But yet it shall not serve:\n    Let me see thine eyes; wink now; now open them;\n    In my opinion yet thou seest not well.\n  SIMPCOX. Yes, master, clear as day, I thank God and Saint Alban.\n  GLOUCESTER. Say'st thou me so? What colour is this cloak of?\n  SIMPCOX. Red, master; red as blood.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, that's well said. What colour is my gown of?\n  SIMPCOX. Black, forsooth; coal-black as jet.\n  KING HENRY. Why, then, thou know'st what colour jet is of?\n  SUFFOLK. And yet, I think, jet did he never see.\n  GLOUCESTER. But cloaks and gowns before this day a many.\n  WIFE. Never before this day in all his life.\n  GLOUCESTER. Tell me, sirrah, what's my name?\n  SIMPCOX. Alas, master, I know not.\n  GLOUCESTER. What's his name?\n  SIMPCOX. I know not.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nor his?\n  SIMPCOX. No, indeed, master.\n  GLOUCESTER. What's thine own name?\n  SIMPCOX. Saunder Simpcox, an if it please you, master.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then, Saunder, sit there, the lying'st knave in\n    Christendom. If thou hadst been born blind, thou mightst as well\n    have known all our names as thus to name the several colours we\n    do wear. Sight may distinguish of colours; but suddenly to\n    nominate them all, it is impossible. My lords, Saint Alban here\n    hath done a miracle; and would ye not think his cunning to be\n    great that could restore this cripple to his legs again?\n  SIMPCOX. O master, that you could!\n  GLOUCESTER. My masters of Saint Albans, have you not beadles in\n    your town, and things call'd whips?\n  MAYOR. Yes, my lord, if it please your Grace.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then send for one presently.\n  MAYOR. Sirrah, go fetch the beadle hither straight.\n                                               Exit an attendant\n  GLOUCESTER. Now fetch me a stool hither by and by. [A stool\n    brought] Now, sirrah, if you mean to save yourself from whipping,\n    leap me over this stool and run away.\n  SIMPCOX. Alas, master, I am not able to stand alone!\n    You go about to torture me in vain.\n\n                         Enter a BEADLE with whips\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Well, sir, we must have you find your legs.\n    Sirrah beadle, whip him till he leap over that same stool.\n  BEADLE. I will, my lord. Come on, sirrah; off with your doublet\n    quickly.\n  SIMPCOX. Alas, master, what shall I do? I am not able to stand.\n\n           After the BEADLE hath hit him once, he leaps over\n           the stool and runs away; and they follow and cry\n                             'A miracle!'\n\n  KING HENRY. O God, seest Thou this, and bearest so long?\n  QUEEN. It made me laugh to see the villain run.\n  GLOUCESTER. Follow the knave, and take this drab away.\n  WIFE. Alas, sir, we did it for pure need!\n  GLOUCESTER. Let them be whipp'd through every market town till they\n    come to Berwick, from whence they came.\n                                 Exeunt MAYOR, BEADLE, WIFE, &c.\n  CARDINAL. Duke Humphrey has done a miracle to-day.\n  SUFFOLK. True; made the lame to leap and fly away.\n  GLOUCESTER. But you have done more miracles than I:\n    You made in a day, my lord, whole towns to fly.\n\n                         Enter BUCKINGHAM\n\n  KING HENRY. What tidings with our cousin Buckingham?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Such as my heart doth tremble to unfold:\n    A sort of naughty persons, lewdly bent,\n    Under the countenance and confederacy\n    Of Lady Eleanor, the Protector's wife,\n    The ringleader and head of all this rout,\n    Have practis'd dangerously against your state,\n    Dealing with witches and with conjurers,\n    Whom we have apprehended in the fact,\n    Raising up wicked spirits from under ground,\n    Demanding of King Henry's life and death\n    And other of your Highness' Privy Council,\n    As more at large your Grace shall understand.\n  CARDINAL. And so, my Lord Protector, by this means\n    Your lady is forthcoming yet at London.\n    This news, I think, hath turn'd your weapon's edge;\n    'Tis like, my lord, you will not keep your hour.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ambitious churchman, leave to afflict my heart.\n    Sorrow and grief have vanquish'd all my powers;\n    And, vanquish'd as I am, I yield to the\n    Or to the meanest groom.\n  KING HENRY. O God, what mischiefs work the wicked ones,\n    Heaping confusion on their own heads thereby!\n  QUEEN. Gloucester, see here the tainture of thy nest;\n    And look thyself be faultless, thou wert best.\n  GLOUCESTER. Madam, for myself, to heaven I do appeal\n    How I have lov'd my King and commonweal;\n    And for my wife I know not how it stands.\n    Sorry I am to hear what I have heard.\n    Noble she is; but if she have forgot\n    Honour and virtue, and convers'd with such\n    As, like to pitch, defile nobility,\n    I banish her my bed and company\n    And give her as a prey to law and shame,\n    That hath dishonoured Gloucester's honest name.\n  KING HENRY. Well, for this night we will repose us here.\n    To-morrow toward London back again\n    To look into this business thoroughly\n    And call these foul offenders to their answers,\n    And poise the cause in justice' equal scales,\n    Whose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause prevails.\n                                                Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nLondon. The DUKE OF YORK'S garden\n\nEnter YORK, SALISBURY, and WARWICK\n\n  YORK. Now, my good Lords of Salisbury and Warwick,\n    Our simple supper ended, give me leave\n    In this close walk to satisfy myself\n    In craving your opinion of my tide,\n    Which is infallible, to England's crown.\n  SALISBURY. My lord, I long to hear it at full.\n  WARWICK. Sweet York, begin; and if thy claim be good,\n    The Nevils are thy subjects to command.\n  YORK. Then thus:\n    Edward the Third, my lords, had seven sons;\n    The first, Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales;\n    The second, William of Hatfield; and the third,\n    Lionel Duke of Clarence; next to whom\n    Was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster;\n    The fifth was Edmund Langley, Duke of York;\n    The sixth was Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester;\n    William of Windsor was the seventh and last.\n    Edward the Black Prince died before his father\n    And left behind him Richard, his only son,\n    Who, after Edward the Third's death, reign'd as king\n    Till Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster,\n    The eldest son and heir of John of Gaunt,\n    Crown'd by the name of Henry the Fourth,\n    Seiz'd on the realm, depos'd the rightful king,\n    Sent his poor queen to France, from whence she came.\n    And him to Pomfret, where, as all you know,\n    Harmless Richard was murdered traitorously.\n  WARWICK. Father, the Duke hath told the truth;\n    Thus got the house of Lancaster the crown.\n  YORK. Which now they hold by force, and not by right;\n    For Richard, the first son's heir, being dead,\n    The issue of the next son should have reign'd.\n  SALISBURY. But William of Hatfield died without an heir.\n  YORK. The third son, Duke of Clarence, from whose line\n    I claim the crown, had issue Philippe, a daughter,\n    Who married Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March;\n    Edmund had issue, Roger Earl of March;\n    Roger had issue, Edmund, Anne, and Eleanor.\n  SALISBURY. This Edmund, in the reign of Bolingbroke,\n    As I have read, laid claim unto the crown;\n    And, but for Owen Glendower, had been king,\n    Who kept him in captivity till he died.\n    But, to the rest.\n  YORK. His eldest sister, Anne,\n    My mother, being heir unto the crown,\n    Married Richard Earl of Cambridge, who was\n    To Edmund Langley, Edward the Third's fifth son, son.\n    By her I claim the kingdom: she was heir\n    To Roger Earl of March, who was the son\n    Of Edmund Mortimer, who married Philippe,\n    Sole daughter unto Lionel Duke of Clarence;\n    So, if the issue of the elder son\n    Succeed before the younger, I am King.\n  WARWICK. What plain proceedings is more plain than this?\n    Henry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt,\n    The fourth son: York claims it from the third.\n    Till Lionel's issue fails, his should not reign.\n    It fails not yet, but flourishes in thee\n    And in thy sons, fair slips of such a stock.\n    Then, father Salisbury, kneel we together,\n    And in this private plot be we the first\n    That shall salute our rightful sovereign\n    With honour of his birthright to the crown.\n  BOTH. Long live our sovereign Richard, England's King!\n  YORK. We thank you, lords. But I am not your king\n    Till I be crown'd, and that my sword be stain'd\n    With heart-blood of the house of Lancaster;\n    And that's not suddenly to be perform'd,\n    But with advice and silent secrecy.\n    Do you as I do in these dangerous days:\n    Wink at the Duke of Suffolk's insolence,\n    At Beaufort's pride, at Somerset's ambition,\n    At Buckingham, and all the crew of them,\n    Till they have snar'd the shepherd of the flock,\n    That virtuous prince, the good Duke Humphrey;\n    'Tis that they seek; and they, in seeking that,\n    Shall find their deaths, if York can prophesy.\n  SALISBURY. My lord, break we off; we know your mind at full.\n  WARWICK. My heart assures me that the Earl of Warwick\n    Shall one day make the Duke of York a king.\n  YORK. And, Nevil, this I do assure myself,\n    Richard shall live to make the Earl of Warwick\n    The greatest man in England but the King.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nLondon. A hall of justice\n\nSound trumpets. Enter the KING and State: the QUEEN, GLOUCESTER, YORK,\nSUFFOLK, and SALISBURY, with guard, to banish the DUCHESS. Enter, guarded,\nthe DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER, MARGERY JOURDAIN, HUME, SOUTHWELL, and BOLINGBROKE\n\n  KING HENRY. Stand forth, Dame Eleanor Cobham, Gloucester's wife:\n    In sight of God and us, your guilt is great;\n    Receive the sentence of the law for sins\n    Such as by God's book are adjudg'd to death.\n    You four, from hence to prison back again;\n    From thence unto the place of execution:\n    The witch in Smithfield shall be burnt to ashes,\n    And you three shall be strangled on the gallows.\n    You, madam, for you are more nobly born,\n    Despoiled of your honour in your life,\n    Shall, after three days' open penance done,\n    Live in your country here in banishment\n    With Sir John Stanley in the Isle of Man.\n  DUCHESS. Welcome is banishment; welcome were my death.\n  GLOUCESTER. Eleanor, the law, thou seest, hath judged thee.\n    I cannot justify whom the law condemns.\n             Exeunt the DUCHESS and the other prisoners, guarded\n    Mine eyes are full of tears, my heart of grief.\n    Ah, Humphrey, this dishonour in thine age\n    Will bring thy head with sorrow to the ground!\n    I beseech your Majesty give me leave to go;\n    Sorrow would solace, and mine age would ease.\n  KING HENRY. Stay, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester; ere thou go,\n    Give up thy staff; Henry will to himself\n    Protector be; and God shall be my hope,\n    My stay, my guide, and lantern to my feet.\n    And go in peace, Humphrey, no less belov'd\n    Than when thou wert Protector to thy King.\n  QUEEN. I see no reason why a king of years\n    Should be to be protected like a child.\n    God and King Henry govern England's realm!\n    Give up your staff, sir, and the King his realm.\n  GLOUCESTER. My staff! Here, noble Henry, is my staff.\n    As willingly do I the same resign\n    As ere thy father Henry made it mine;\n    And even as willingly at thy feet I leave it\n    As others would ambitiously receive it.\n    Farewell, good King; when I am dead and gone,\n    May honourable peace attend thy throne!                 Exit\n  QUEEN. Why, now is Henry King, and Margaret Queen,\n    And Humphrey Duke of Gloucester scarce himself,\n    That bears so shrewd a maim: two pulls at once-\n    His lady banish'd and a limb lopp'd off.\n    This staff of honour raught, there let it stand\n    Where it best fits to be, in Henry's hand.\n  SUFFOLK. Thus droops this lofty pine and hangs his sprays;\n    Thus Eleanor's pride dies in her youngest days.\n  YORK. Lords, let him go. Please it your Majesty,\n    This is the day appointed for the combat;\n    And ready are the appellant and defendant,\n    The armourer and his man, to enter the lists,\n    So please your Highness to behold the fight.\n  QUEEN. Ay, good my lord; for purposely therefore\n    Left I the court, to see this quarrel tried.\n  KING HENRY. A God's name, see the lists and all things fit;\n    Here let them end it, and God defend the right!\n  YORK. I never saw a fellow worse bested,\n    Or more afraid to fight, than is the appellant,\n    The servant of his armourer, my lords.\n\n        Enter at one door, HORNER, the Armourer, and his\n         NEIGHBOURS, drinking to him so much that he is\n        drunk; and he enters with a drum before him and\n       his staff with a sand-bag fastened to it; and at the\n        other door PETER, his man, with a drum and sandbag,\n                  and PRENTICES drinking to him\n\n  FIRST NEIGHBOUR. Here, neighbour Horner, I drink to you in a cup of\n    sack; and fear not, neighbour, you shall do well enough.\n  SECOND NEIGHBOUR. And here, neighbour, here's a cup of charneco.\n  THIRD NEIGHBOUR. And here's a pot of good double beer, neighbour;\n    drink, and fear not your man.\n  HORNER. Let it come, i' faith, and I'll pledge you all; and a fig\n    for Peter!\n  FIRST PRENTICE. Here, Peter, I drink to thee; and be not afraid.\n  SECOND PRENTICE. Be merry, Peter, and fear not thy master: fight\n    for credit of the prentices.\n  PETER. I thank you all. Drink, and pray for me, I pray you; for I\n    think I have taken my last draught in this world. Here, Robin, an\n    if I die, I give thee my apron; and, Will, thou shalt have my\n    hammer; and here, Tom, take all the money that I have. O Lord\n    bless me, I pray God! for I am never able to deal with my master,\n    he hath learnt so much fence already.\n  SALISBURY. Come, leave your drinking and fall to blows.\n    Sirrah, what's thy name?\n  PETER. Peter, forsooth.\n  SALISBURY. Peter? What more?\n  PETER. Thump.\n  SALISBURY. Thump? Then see thou thump thy master well.\n  HORNER. Masters, I am come hither, as it were, upon my man's\n    instigation, to prove him a knave and myself an honest man; and\n    touching the Duke of York, I will take my death I never meant him\n    any ill, nor the King, nor the Queen; and therefore, Peter, have\n    at thee with a down right blow!\n  YORK. Dispatch- this knave's tongue begins to double.\n    Sound, trumpets, alarum to the combatants!\n                 [Alarum. They fight and PETER strikes him down]\n  HORNER. Hold, Peter, hold! I confess, I confess treason.\n                                                          [Dies]\n  YORK. Take away his weapon. Fellow, thank God, and the good wine in\n    thy master's way.\n  PETER. O God, have I overcome mine enemies in this presence? O\n    Peter, thou hast prevail'd in right!\n  KING HENRY. Go, take hence that traitor from our sight,\n    For by his death we do perceive his guilt;\n    And God in justice hath reveal'd to us\n    The truth and innocence of this poor fellow,\n    Which he had thought to have murder'd wrongfully.\n    Come, fellow, follow us for thy reward.\n                                        Sound a flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter DUKE HUMPHREY and his men, in mourning cloaks\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Thus sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud,\n    And after summer evermore succeeds\n    Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold;\n    So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.\n    Sirs, what's o'clock?\n  SERVING-MAN. Ten, my lord.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ten is the hour that was appointed me\n    To watch the coming of my punish'd duchess.\n    Uneath may she endure the flinty streets\n    To tread them with her tender-feeling feet.\n    Sweet Nell, ill can thy noble mind abrook\n    The abject people gazing on thy face,\n    With envious looks, laughing at thy shame,\n    That erst did follow thy proud chariot wheels\n    When thou didst ride in triumph through the streets.\n    But, soft! I think she comes, and I'll prepare\n    My tear-stain'd eyes to see her miseries.\n\n          Enter the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER in a white sheet,\n            and a taper burning in her hand, with SIR JOHN\n               STANLEY, the SHERIFF, and OFFICERS\n\n  SERVING-MAN. So please your Grace, we'll take her from the sheriff.\n  GLOUCESTER. No, stir not for your lives; let her pass by.\n  DUCHESS. Come you, my lord, to see my open shame?\n    Now thou dost penance too. Look how they gaze!\n    See how the giddy multitude do point\n    And nod their heads and throw their eyes on thee;\n    Ah, Gloucester, hide thee from their hateful looks,\n    And, in thy closet pent up, rue my shame\n    And ban thine enemies, both mine and thine!\n  GLOUCESTER. Be patient, gentle Nell; forget this grief.\n  DUCHESS. Ah, Gloucester, teach me to forget myself!\n    For whilst I think I am thy married wife\n    And thou a prince, Protector of this land,\n    Methinks I should not thus be led along,\n    Mail'd up in shame, with papers on my back,\n    And follow'd with a rabble that rejoice\n    To see my tears and hear my deep-fet groans.\n    The ruthless flint doth cut my tender feet,\n    And when I start, the envious people laugh\n    And bid me be advised how I tread.\n    Ah, Humphrey, can I bear this shameful yoke?\n    Trowest thou that e'er I'll look upon the world\n    Or count them happy that enjoy the sun?\n    No; dark shall be my light and night my day;\n    To think upon my pomp shall be my hell.\n    Sometimes I'll say I am Duke Humphrey's wife,\n    And he a prince, and ruler of the land;\n    Yet so he rul'd, and such a prince he was,\n    As he stood by whilst I, his forlorn duchess,\n    Was made a wonder and a pointing-stock\n    To every idle rascal follower.\n    But be thou mild, and blush not at my shame,\n    Nor stir at nothing till the axe of death\n    Hang over thee, as sure it shortly will.\n    For Suffolk- he that can do all in all\n    With her that hateth thee and hates us all-\n    And York, and impious Beaufort, that false priest,\n    Have all lim'd bushes to betray thy wings,\n    And, fly thou how thou canst, they'll tangle thee.\n    But fear not thou until thy foot be snar'd,\n    Nor never seek prevention of thy foes.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ah, Nell, forbear! Thou aimest all awry.\n    I must offend before I be attainted;\n    And had I twenty times so many foes,\n    And each of them had twenty times their power,\n    All these could not procure me any scathe\n    So long as I am loyal, true, and crimeless.\n    Wouldst have me rescue thee from this reproach?\n    Why, yet thy scandal were not wip'd away,\n    But I in danger for the breach of law.\n    Thy greatest help is quiet, gentle Nell.\n    I pray thee sort thy heart to patience;\n    These few days' wonder will be quickly worn.\n\n                          Enter a HERALD\n\n  HERALD. I summon your Grace to his Majesty's Parliament,\n    Holden at Bury the first of this next month.\n  GLOUCESTER. And my consent ne'er ask'd herein before!\n    This is close dealing. Well, I will be there.    Exit HERALD\n    My Nell, I take my leave- and, master sheriff,\n    Let not her penance exceed the King's commission.\n  SHERIFF. An't please your Grace, here my commission stays;\n    And Sir John Stanley is appointed now\n    To take her with him to the Isle of Man.\n  GLOUCESTER. Must you, Sir John, protect my lady here?\n  STANLEY. So am I given in charge, may't please your Grace.\n  GLOUCESTER. Entreat her not the worse in that I pray\n    You use her well; the world may laugh again,\n    And I may live to do you kindness if\n    You do it her. And so, Sir John, farewell.\n  DUCHESS. What, gone, my lord, and bid me not farewell!\n  GLOUCESTER. Witness my tears, I cannot stay to speak.\n                                  Exeunt GLOUCESTER and servants\n  DUCHESS. Art thou gone too? All comfort go with thee!\n    For none abides with me. My joy is death-\n    Death, at whose name I oft have been afeard,\n    Because I wish'd this world's eternity.\n    Stanley, I prithee go, and take me hence;\n    I care not whither, for I beg no favour,\n    Only convey me where thou art commanded.\n  STANLEY. Why, madam, that is to the Isle of Man,\n    There to be us'd according to your state.\n  DUCHESS. That's bad enough, for I am but reproach-\n    And shall I then be us'd reproachfully?\n  STANLEY. Like to a duchess and Duke Humphrey's lady;\n    According to that state you shall be us'd.\n  DUCHESS. Sheriff, farewell, and better than I fare,\n    Although thou hast been conduct of my shame.\n  SHERIFF. It is my office; and, madam, pardon me.\n  DUCHESS. Ay, ay, farewell; thy office is discharg'd.\n    Come, Stanley, shall we go?\n  STANLEY. Madam, your penance done, throw off this sheet,\n    And go we to attire you for our journey.\n  DUCHESS. My shame will not be shifted with my sheet.\n    No, it will hang upon my richest robes\n    And show itself, attire me how I can.\n    Go, lead the way; I long to see my prison.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nThe Abbey at Bury St. Edmunds\n\nSound a sennet. Enter the KING, the QUEEN, CARDINAL, SUFFOLK, YORK,\nBUCKINGHAM, SALISBURY, and WARWICK, to the Parliament\n\n  KING HENRY. I muse my Lord of Gloucester is not come.\n    'Tis not his wont to be the hindmost man,\n    Whate'er occasion keeps him from us now.\n  QUEEN. Can you not see, or will ye not observe\n    The strangeness of his alter'd countenance?\n    With what a majesty he bears himself;\n    How insolent of late he is become,\n    How proud, how peremptory, and unlike himself?\n    We know the time since he was mild and affable,\n    And if we did but glance a far-off look\n    Immediately he was upon his knee,\n    That all the court admir'd him for submission.\n    But meet him now and be it in the morn,\n    When every one will give the time of day,\n    He knits his brow and shows an angry eye\n    And passeth by with stiff unbowed knee,\n    Disdaining duty that to us belongs.\n    Small curs are not regarded when they grin,\n    But great men tremble when the lion roars,\n    And Humphrey is no little man in England.\n    First note that he is near you in descent,\n    And should you fall he is the next will mount;\n    Me seemeth, then, it is no policy-\n    Respecting what a rancorous mind he bears,\n    And his advantage following your decease-\n    That he should come about your royal person\n    Or be admitted to your Highness' Council.\n    By flattery hath he won the commons' hearts;\n    And when he please to make commotion,\n    'Tis to be fear'd they all will follow him.\n    Now 'tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted;\n    Suffer them now, and they'll o'ergrow the garden\n    And choke the herbs for want of husbandry.\n    The reverent care I bear unto my lord\n    Made me collect these dangers in the Duke.\n    If it be fond, can it a woman's fear;\n    Which fear if better reasons can supplant,\n    I will subscribe, and say I wrong'd the Duke.\n    My Lord of Suffolk, Buckingham, and York,\n    Reprove my allegation if you can,\n    Or else conclude my words effectual.\n  SUFFOLK. Well hath your Highness seen into this duke;\n    And had I first been put to speak my mind,\n    I think I should have told your Grace's tale.\n    The Duchess, by his subornation,\n    Upon my life, began her devilish practices;\n    Or if he were not privy to those faults,\n    Yet by reputing of his high descent-\n    As next the King he was successive heir-\n    And such high vaunts of his nobility,\n    Did instigate the bedlam brainsick Duchess\n    By wicked means to frame our sovereign's fall.\n    Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep,\n    And in his simple show he harbours treason.\n    The fox barks not when he would steal the lamb.\n    No, no, my sovereign, Gloucester is a man\n    Unsounded yet, and full of deep deceit.\n  CARDINAL. Did he not, contrary to form of law,\n    Devise strange deaths for small offences done?\n  YORK. And did he not, in his protectorship,\n    Levy great sums of money through the realm\n    For soldiers' pay in France, and never sent it?\n    By means whereof the towns each day revolted.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Tut, these are petty faults to faults unknown\n    Which time will bring to light in smooth Duke Humphrey.\n  KING HENRY. My lords, at once: the care you have of us,\n    To mow down thorns that would annoy our foot,\n    Is worthy praise; but shall I speak my conscience?\n    Our kinsman Gloucester is as innocent\n    From meaning treason to our royal person\n    As is the sucking lamb or harmless dove:\n    The Duke is virtuous, mild, and too well given\n    To dream on evil or to work my downfall.\n  QUEEN. Ah, what's more dangerous than this fond affiance?\n    Seems he a dove? His feathers are but borrow'd,\n    For he's disposed as the hateful raven.\n    Is he a lamb? His skin is surely lent him,\n    For he's inclin'd as is the ravenous wolf.\n    Who cannot steal a shape that means deceit?\n    Take heed, my lord; the welfare of us all\n    Hangs on the cutting short that fraudful man.\n\n                          Enter SOMERSET\n\n  SOMERSET. All health unto my gracious sovereign!\n  KING HENRY. Welcome, Lord Somerset. What news from France?\n  SOMERSET. That all your interest in those territories\n    Is utterly bereft you; all is lost.\n  KING HENRY. Cold news, Lord Somerset; but God's will be done!\n  YORK. [Aside] Cold news for me; for I had hope of France\n    As firmly as I hope for fertile England.\n    Thus are my blossoms blasted in the bud,\n    And caterpillars eat my leaves away;\n    But I will remedy this gear ere long,\n    Or sell my title for a glorious grave.\n\n                         Enter GLOUCESTER\n\n  GLOUCESTER. All happiness unto my lord the King!\n    Pardon, my liege, that I have stay'd so long.\n  SUFFOLK. Nay, Gloucester, know that thou art come too soon,\n    Unless thou wert more loyal than thou art.\n    I do arrest thee of high treason here.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well, Suffolk, thou shalt not see me blush\n    Nor change my countenance for this arrest:\n    A heart unspotted is not easily daunted.\n    The purest spring is not so free from mud\n    As I am clear from treason to my sovereign.\n    Who can accuse me? Wherein am I guilty?\n  YORK. 'Tis thought, my lord, that you took bribes of France\n    And, being Protector, stay'd the soldiers' pay;\n    By means whereof his Highness hath lost France.\n  GLOUCESTER. Is it but thought so? What are they that think it?\n    I never robb'd the soldiers of their pay\n    Nor ever had one penny bribe from France.\n    So help me God, as I have watch'd the night-\n    Ay, night by night- in studying good for England!\n    That doit that e'er I wrested from the King,\n    Or any groat I hoarded to my use,\n    Be brought against me at my trial-day!\n    No; many a pound of mine own proper store,\n    Because I would not tax the needy commons,\n    Have I dispursed to the garrisons,\n    And never ask'd for restitution.\n  CARDINAL. It serves you well, my lord, to say so much.\n  GLOUCESTER. I say no more than truth, so help me God!\n  YORK. In your protectorship you did devise\n    Strange tortures for offenders, never heard of,\n    That England was defam'd by tyranny.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, 'tis well known that whiles I was Protector\n    Pity was all the fault that was in me;\n    For I should melt at an offender's tears,\n    And lowly words were ransom for their fault.\n    Unless it were a bloody murderer,\n    Or foul felonious thief that fleec'd poor passengers,\n    I never gave them condign punishment.\n    Murder indeed, that bloody sin, I tortur'd\n    Above the felon or what trespass else.\n  SUFFOLK. My lord, these faults are easy, quickly answer'd;\n    But mightier crimes are laid unto your charge,\n    Whereof you cannot easily purge yourself.\n    I do arrest you in His Highness' name,\n    And here commit you to my Lord Cardinal\n    To keep until your further time of trial.\n  KING HENRY. My Lord of Gloucester, 'tis my special hope\n    That you will clear yourself from all suspense.\n    My conscience tells me you are innocent.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ah, gracious lord, these days are dangerous!\n    Virtue is chok'd with foul ambition,\n    And charity chas'd hence by rancour's hand;\n    Foul subornation is predominant,\n    And equity exil'd your Highness' land.\n    I know their complot is to have my life;\n    And if my death might make this island happy\n    And prove the period of their tyranny,\n    I would expend it with all willingness.\n    But mine is made the prologue to their play;\n    For thousands more that yet suspect no peril\n    Will not conclude their plotted tragedy.\n    Beaufort's red sparkling eyes blab his heart's malice,\n    And Suffolk's cloudy brow his stormy hate;\n    Sharp Buckingham unburdens with his tongue\n    The envious load that lies upon his heart;\n    And dogged York, that reaches at the moon,\n    Whose overweening arm I have pluck'd back,\n    By false accuse doth level at my life.\n    And you, my sovereign lady, with the rest,\n    Causeless have laid disgraces on my head,\n    And with your best endeavour have stirr'd up\n    My liefest liege to be mine enemy;\n    Ay, all of you have laid your heads together-\n    Myself had notice of your conventicles-\n    And all to make away my guiltless life.\n    I shall not want false witness to condemn me\n    Nor store of treasons to augment my guilt.\n    The ancient proverb will be well effected:\n    'A staff is quickly found to beat a dog.'\n  CARDINAL. My liege, his railing is intolerable.\n    If those that care to keep your royal person\n    From treason's secret knife and traitor's rage\n    Be thus upbraided, chid, and rated at,\n    And the offender granted scope of speech,\n    'Twill make them cool in zeal unto your Grace.\n  SUFFOLK. Hath he not twit our sovereign lady here\n    With ignominious words, though clerkly couch'd,\n    As if she had suborned some to swear\n    False allegations to o'erthrow his state?\n  QUEEN. But I can give the loser leave to chide.\n  GLOUCESTER. Far truer spoke than meant: I lose indeed.\n    Beshrew the winners, for they play'd me false!\n    And well such losers may have leave to speak.\n  BUCKINGHAM. He'll wrest the sense, and hold us here all day.\n    Lord Cardinal, he is your prisoner.\n  CARDINAL. Sirs, take away the Duke, and guard him sure.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ah, thus King Henry throws away his crutch\n    Before his legs be firm to bear his body!\n    Thus is the shepherd beaten from thy side,\n    And wolves are gnarling who shall gnaw thee first.\n    Ah, that my fear were false! ah, that it were!\n    For, good King Henry, thy decay I fear.        Exit, guarded\n  KING HENRY. My lords, what to your wisdoms seemeth best\n    Do or undo, as if ourself were here.\n  QUEEN. What, will your Highness leave the Parliament?\n  KING HENRY. Ay, Margaret; my heart is drown'd with grief,\n    Whose flood begins to flow within mine eyes;\n    My body round engirt with misery-\n    For what's more miserable than discontent?\n    Ah, uncle Humphrey, in thy face I see\n    The map of honour, truth, and loyalty!\n    And yet, good Humphrey, is the hour to come\n    That e'er I prov'd thee false or fear'd thy faith.\n    What louring star now envies thy estate\n    That these great lords, and Margaret our Queen,\n    Do seek subversion of thy harmless life?\n    Thou never didst them wrong, nor no man wrong;\n    And as the butcher takes away the calf,\n    And binds the wretch, and beats it when it strays,\n    Bearing it to the bloody slaughter-house,\n    Even so, remorseless, have they borne him hence;\n    And as the dam runs lowing up and down,\n    Looking the way her harmless young one went,\n    And can do nought but wail her darling's loss,\n    Even so myself bewails good Gloucester's case\n    With sad unhelpful tears, and with dimm'd eyes\n    Look after him, and cannot do him good,\n    So mighty are his vowed enemies.\n    His fortunes I will weep, and 'twixt each groan\n    Say 'Who's a traitor? Gloucester he is none.'           Exit\n  QUEEN. Free lords, cold snow melts with the sun's hot beams:\n    Henry my lord is cold in great affairs,\n    Too full of foolish pity; and Gloucester's show\n    Beguiles him as the mournful crocodile\n    With sorrow snares relenting passengers;\n    Or as the snake, roll'd in a flow'ring bank,\n    With shining checker'd slough, doth sting a child\n    That for the beauty thinks it excellent.\n    Believe me, lords, were none more wise than I-\n    And yet herein I judge mine own wit good-\n    This Gloucester should be quickly rid the world\n    To rid us from the fear we have of him.\n  CARDINAL. That he should die is worthy policy;\n    But yet we want a colour for his death.\n    'Tis meet he be condemn'd by course of law.\n  SUFFOLK. But, in my mind, that were no policy:\n    The King will labour still to save his life;\n    The commons haply rise to save his life;\n    And yet we have but trivial argument,\n    More than mistrust, that shows him worthy death.\n  YORK. So that, by this, you would not have him die.\n  SUFFOLK. Ah, York, no man alive so fain as I!\n  YORK. 'Tis York that hath more reason for his death.\n    But, my Lord Cardinal, and you, my Lord of Suffolk,\n    Say as you think, and speak it from your souls:\n    Were't not all one an empty eagle were set\n    To guard the chicken from a hungry kite\n    As place Duke Humphrey for the King's Protector?\n  QUEEN. So the poor chicken should be sure of death.\n  SUFFOLK. Madam, 'tis true; and were't not madness then\n    To make the fox surveyor of the fold?\n    Who being accus'd a crafty murderer,\n    His guilt should be but idly posted over,\n    Because his purpose is not executed.\n    No; let him die, in that he is a fox,\n    By nature prov'd an enemy to the flock,\n    Before his chaps be stain'd with crimson blood,\n    As Humphrey, prov'd by reasons, to my liege.\n    And do not stand on quillets how to slay him;\n    Be it by gins, by snares, by subtlety,\n    Sleeping or waking, 'tis no matter how,\n    So he be dead; for that is good deceit\n    Which mates him first that first intends deceit.\n  QUEEN. Thrice-noble Suffolk, 'tis resolutely spoke.\n  SUFFOLK. Not resolute, except so much were done,\n    For things are often spoke and seldom meant;\n    But that my heart accordeth with my tongue,\n    Seeing the deed is meritorious,\n    And to preserve my sovereign from his foe,\n    Say but the word, and I will be his priest.\n  CARDINAL. But I would have him dead, my Lord of Suffolk,\n    Ere you can take due orders for a priest;\n    Say you consent and censure well the deed,\n    And I'll provide his executioner-\n    I tender so the safety of my liege.\n  SUFFOLK. Here is my hand the deed is worthy doing.\n  QUEEN. And so say I.\n  YORK. And I. And now we three have spoke it,\n    It skills not greatly who impugns our doom.\n\n                          Enter a POST\n\n  POST. Great lords, from Ireland am I come amain\n    To signify that rebels there are up\n    And put the Englishmen unto the sword.\n    Send succours, lords, and stop the rage betime,\n    Before the wound do grow uncurable;\n    For, being green, there is great hope of help.\n  CARDINAL. A breach that craves a quick expedient stop!\n    What counsel give you in this weighty cause?\n  YORK. That Somerset be sent as Regent thither;\n    'Tis meet that lucky ruler be employ'd,\n    Witness the fortune he hath had in France.\n  SOMERSET. If York, with all his far-fet policy,\n    Had been the Regent there instead of me,\n    He never would have stay'd in France so long.\n  YORK. No, not to lose it all as thou hast done.\n    I rather would have lost my life betimes\n    Than bring a burden of dishonour home\n    By staying there so long till all were lost.\n    Show me one scar character'd on thy skin:\n    Men's flesh preserv'd so whole do seldom win.\n  QUEEN. Nay then, this spark will prove a raging fire,\n    If wind and fuel be brought to feed it with;\n    No more, good York; sweet Somerset, be still.\n    Thy fortune, York, hadst thou been Regent there,\n    Might happily have prov'd far worse than his.\n  YORK. What, worse than nought? Nay, then a shame take all!\n  SOMERSET. And in the number, thee that wishest shame!\n  CARDINAL. My Lord of York, try what your fortune is.\n    Th' uncivil kerns of Ireland are in arms\n    And temper clay with blood of Englishmen;\n    To Ireland will you lead a band of men,\n    Collected choicely, from each county some,\n    And try your hap against the Irishmen?\n  YORK. I will, my lord, so please his Majesty.\n  SUFFOLK. Why, our authority is his consent,\n    And what we do establish he confirms;\n    Then, noble York, take thou this task in hand.\n  YORK. I am content; provide me soldiers, lords,\n    Whiles I take order for mine own affairs.\n  SUFFOLK. A charge, Lord York, that I will see perform'd.\n    But now return we to the false Duke Humphrey.\n  CARDINAL. No more of him; for I will deal with him\n    That henceforth he shall trouble us no more.\n    And so break off; the day is almost spent.\n    Lord Suffolk, you and I must talk of that event.\n  YORK. My Lord of Suffolk, within fourteen days\n    At Bristol I expect my soldiers;\n    For there I'll ship them all for Ireland.\n  SUFFOLK. I'll see it truly done, my Lord of York.\n                                             Exeunt all but YORK\n  YORK. Now, York, or never, steel thy fearful thoughts\n    And change misdoubt to resolution;\n    Be that thou hop'st to be; or what thou art\n    Resign to death- it is not worth th' enjoying.\n    Let pale-fac'd fear keep with the mean-born man\n    And find no harbour in a royal heart.\n    Faster than spring-time show'rs comes thought on thought,\n    And not a thought but thinks on dignity.\n    My brain, more busy than the labouring spider,\n    Weaves tedious snares to trap mine enemies.\n    Well, nobles, well, 'tis politicly done\n    To send me packing with an host of men.\n    I fear me you but warm the starved snake,\n    Who, cherish'd in your breasts, will sting your hearts.\n    'Twas men I lack'd, and you will give them me;\n    I take it kindly. Yet be well assur'd\n    You put sharp weapons in a madman's hands.\n    Whiles I in Ireland nourish a mighty band,\n    I will stir up in England some black storm\n    Shall blow ten thousand souls to heaven or hell;\n    And this fell tempest shall not cease to rage\n    Until the golden circuit on my head,\n    Like to the glorious sun's transparent beams,\n    Do calm the fury of this mad-bred flaw.\n    And for a minister of my intent\n    I have seduc'd a headstrong Kentishman,\n    John Cade of Ashford,\n    To make commotion, as full well he can,\n    Under the tide of John Mortimer.\n    In Ireland have I seen this stubborn Cade\n    Oppose himself against a troop of kerns,\n    And fought so long tiff that his thighs with darts\n    Were almost like a sharp-quill'd porpentine;\n    And in the end being rescu'd, I have seen\n    Him caper upright like a wild Morisco,\n    Shaking the bloody darts as he his bells.\n    Full often, like a shag-hair'd crafty kern,\n    Hath he conversed with the enemy,\n    And undiscover'd come to me again\n    And given me notice of their villainies.\n    This devil here shall be my substitute;\n    For that John Mortimer, which now is dead,\n    In face, in gait, in speech, he doth resemble.\n    By this I shall perceive the commons' mind,\n    How they affect the house and claim of York.\n    Say he be taken, rack'd, and tortured;\n    I know no pain they can inflict upon him\n    Will make him say I mov'd him to those arms.\n    Say that he thrive, as 'tis great like he will,\n    Why, then from Ireland come I with my strength,\n    And reap the harvest which that rascal sow'd;\n    For Humphrey being dead, as he shall be,\n    And Henry put apart, the next for me.                   Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBury St. Edmunds. A room of state\n\nEnter two or three MURDERERS running over the stage,\nfrom the murder of DUKE HUMPHREY\n\n  FIRST MURDERER. Run to my Lord of Suffolk; let him know\n    We have dispatch'd the Duke, as he commanded.\n  SECOND MURDERER. O that it were to do! What have we done?\n    Didst ever hear a man so penitent?\n\n                           Enter SUFFOLK\n\n  FIRST MURDERER. Here comes my lord.\n  SUFFOLK. Now, sirs, have you dispatch'd this thing?\n  FIRST MURDERER. Ay, my good lord, he's dead.\n  SUFFOLK. Why, that's well said. Go, get you to my house;\n    I will reward you for this venturous deed.\n    The King and all the peers are here at hand.\n    Have you laid fair the bed? Is all things well,\n    According as I gave directions?\n  FIRST MURDERER. 'Tis, my good lord.\n  SUFFOLK. Away! be gone.                       Exeunt MURDERERS\n\n             Sound trumpets. Enter the KING, the QUEEN,\n                CARDINAL, SOMERSET, with attendants\n\n  KING HENRY. Go call our uncle to our presence straight;\n    Say we intend to try his Grace to-day,\n    If he be guilty, as 'tis published.\n  SUFFOLK. I'll call him presently, my noble lord.          Exit\n  KING HENRY. Lords, take your places; and, I pray you all,\n    Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloucester\n    Than from true evidence, of good esteem,\n    He be approv'd in practice culpable.\n  QUEEN. God forbid any malice should prevail\n    That faultless may condemn a nobleman!\n    Pray God he may acquit him of suspicion!\n  KING HENRY. I thank thee, Meg; these words content me much.\n\n                           Re-enter SUFFOLK\n\n    How now! Why look'st thou pale? Why tremblest thou?\n    Where is our uncle? What's the matter, Suffolk?\n  SUFFOLK. Dead in his bed, my lord; Gloucester is dead.\n  QUEEN. Marry, God forfend!\n  CARDINAL. God's secret judgment! I did dream to-night\n    The Duke was dumb and could not speak a word.\n                                               [The KING swoons]\n  QUEEN. How fares my lord? Help, lords! The King is dead.\n  SOMERSET. Rear up his body; wring him by the nose.\n  QUEEN. Run, go, help, help! O Henry, ope thine eyes!\n  SUFFOLK. He doth revive again; madam, be patient.\n  KING. O heavenly God!\n  QUEEN. How fares my gracious lord?\n  SUFFOLK. Comfort, my sovereign! Gracious Henry, comfort!\n  KING HENRY. What, doth my Lord of Suffolk comfort me?\n    Came he right now to sing a raven's note,\n    Whose dismal tune bereft my vital pow'rs;\n    And thinks he that the chirping of a wren,\n    By crying comfort from a hollow breast,\n    Can chase away the first conceived sound?\n    Hide not thy poison with such sug'red words;\n    Lay not thy hands on me; forbear, I say,\n    Their touch affrights me as a serpent's sting.\n    Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight!\n    Upon thy eye-balls murderous tyranny\n    Sits in grim majesty to fright the world.\n    Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding;\n    Yet do not go away; come, basilisk,\n    And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight;\n    For in the shade of death I shall find joy-\n    In life but double death,'now Gloucester's dead.\n  QUEEN. Why do you rate my Lord of Suffolk thus?\n    Although the Duke was enemy to him,\n    Yet he most Christian-like laments his death;\n    And for myself- foe as he was to me-\n    Might liquid tears, or heart-offending groans,\n    Or blood-consuming sighs, recall his life,\n    I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,\n    Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs,\n    And all to have the noble Duke alive.\n    What know I how the world may deem of me?\n    For it is known we were but hollow friends:\n    It may be judg'd I made the Duke away;\n    So shall my name with slander's tongue be wounded,\n    And princes' courts be fill'd with my reproach.\n    This get I by his death. Ay me, unhappy!\n    To be a queen and crown'd with infamy!\n  KING HENRY. Ah, woe is me for Gloucester, wretched man!\n  QUEEN. Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.\n    What, dost thou turn away, and hide thy face?\n    I am no loathsome leper- look on me.\n    What, art thou like the adder waxen deaf?\n    Be poisonous too, and kill thy forlorn Queen.\n    Is all thy comfort shut in Gloucester's tomb?\n    Why, then Dame Margaret was ne'er thy joy.\n    Erect his statue and worship it,\n    And make my image but an alehouse sign.\n    Was I for this nigh wreck'd upon the sea,\n    And twice by awkward wind from England's bank\n    Drove back again unto my native clime?\n    What boded this but well-forewarning wind\n    Did seem to say 'Seek not a scorpion's nest,\n    Nor set no footing on this unkind shore'?\n    What did I then but curs'd the gentle gusts,\n    And he that loos'd them forth their brazen caves;\n    And bid them blow towards England's blessed shore,\n    Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock?\n    Yet Aeolus would not be a murderer,\n    But left that hateful office unto thee.\n    The pretty-vaulting sea refus'd to drown me,\n    Knowing that thou wouldst have me drown'd on shore\n    With tears as salt as sea through thy unkindness;\n    The splitting rocks cow'r'd in the sinking sands\n    And would not dash me with their ragged sides,\n    Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they,\n    Might in thy palace perish Margaret.\n    As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs,\n    When from thy shore the tempest beat us back,\n    I stood upon the hatches in the storm;\n    And when the dusky sky began to rob\n    My earnest-gaping sight of thy land's view,\n    I took a costly jewel from my neck-\n    A heart it was, bound in with diamonds-\n    And threw it towards thy land. The sea receiv'd it;\n    And so I wish'd thy body might my heart.\n    And even with this I lost fair England's view,\n    And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart,\n    And call'd them blind and dusky spectacles\n    For losing ken of Albion's wished coast.\n    How often have I tempted Suffolk's tongue-\n    The agent of thy foul inconstancy-\n    To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did\n    When he to madding Dido would unfold\n    His father's acts commenc'd in burning Troy!\n    Am I not witch'd like her? Or thou not false like him?\n    Ay me, I can no more! Die, Margaret,\n    For Henry weeps that thou dost live so long.\n\n               Noise within. Enter WARWICK, SALISBURY,\n                          and many commons\n\n  WARWICK. It is reported, mighty sovereign,\n    That good Duke Humphrey traitorously is murd'red\n    By Suffolk and the Cardinal Beaufort's means.\n    The commons, like an angry hive of bees\n    That want their leader, scatter up and down\n    And care not who they sting in his revenge.\n    Myself have calm'd their spleenful mutiny\n    Until they hear the order of his death.\n  KING HENRY. That he is dead, good Warwick, 'tis too true;\n    But how he died God knows, not Henry.\n    Enter his chamber, view his breathless corpse,\n    And comment then upon his sudden death.\n  WARWICK. That shall I do, my liege. Stay, Salisbury,\n    With the rude multitude till I return.                  Exit\n                                   Exit SALISBURY with the commons\n  KING HENRY. O Thou that judgest all things, stay my thoughts-\n    My thoughts that labour to persuade my soul\n    Some violent hands were laid on Humphrey's life!\n    If my suspect be false, forgive me, God;\n    For judgment only doth belong to Thee.\n    Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips\n    With twenty thousand kisses and to drain\n    Upon his face an ocean of salt tears\n    To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk;\n    And with my fingers feel his hand un-feeling;\n    But all in vain are these mean obsequies;\n    And to survey his dead and earthy image,\n    What were it but to make my sorrow greater?\n\n               Bed put forth with the body. Enter WARWICK\n\n  WARWICK. Come hither, gracious sovereign, view this body.\n  KING HENRY. That is to see how deep my grave is made;\n    For with his soul fled all my worldly solace,\n    For, seeing him, I see my life in death.\n  WARWICK. As surely as my soul intends to live\n    With that dread King that took our state upon Him\n    To free us from his Father's wrathful curse,\n    I do believe that violent hands were laid\n    Upon the life of this thrice-famed Duke.\n  SUFFOLK. A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue!\n    What instance gives Lord Warwick for his vow?\n  WARWICK. See how the blood is settled in his face.\n    Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,\n    Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless,\n    Being all descended to the labouring heart,\n    Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,\n    Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy,\n    Which with the heart there cools, and ne'er returneth\n    To blush and beautify the cheek again.\n    But see, his face is black and full of blood;\n    His eye-balls further out than when he liv'd,\n    Staring full ghastly like a strangled man;\n    His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with struggling;\n    His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd\n    And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdu'd.\n    Look, on the sheets his hair, you see, is sticking;\n    His well-proportion'd beard made rough and rugged,\n    Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodged.\n    It cannot be but he was murd'red here:\n    The least of all these signs were probable.\n  SUFFOLK. Why, Warwick, who should do the Duke to death?\n    Myself and Beaufort had him in protection;\n    And we, I hope, sir, are no murderers.\n  WARWICK. But both of you were vow'd Duke Humphrey's foes;\n    And you, forsooth, had the good Duke to keep.\n    'Tis like you would not feast him like a friend;\n    And 'tis well seen he found an enemy.\n  QUEEN. Then you, belike, suspect these noblemen\n    As guilty of Duke Humphrey's timeless death.\n  WARWICK. Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh,\n    And sees fast by a butcher with an axe,\n    But will suspect 'twas he that made the slaughter?\n    Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest\n    But may imagine how the bird was dead,\n    Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?\n    Even so suspicious is this tragedy.\n  QUEEN. Are you the butcher, Suffolk? Where's your knife?\n    Is Beaufort term'd a kite? Where are his talons?\n  SUFFOLK. I wear no knife to slaughter sleeping men;\n    But here's a vengeful sword, rusted with ease,\n    That shall be scoured in his rancorous heart\n    That slanders me with murder's crimson badge.\n    Say if thou dar'st, proud Lord of Warwickshire,\n    That I am faulty in Duke Humphrey's death.\n                           Exeunt CARDINAL, SOMERSET, and others\n  WARWICK. What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him?\n  QUEEN. He dares not calm his contumelious spirit,\n    Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,\n    Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.\n  WARWICK. Madam, be still- with reverence may I say;\n    For every word you speak in his behalf\n    Is slander to your royal dignity.\n  SUFFOLK. Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanour,\n    If ever lady wrong'd her lord so much,\n    Thy mother took into her blameful bed\n    Some stern untutor'd churl, and noble stock\n    Was graft with crab-tree slip, whose fruit thou art,\n    And never of the Nevils' noble race.\n  WARWICK. But that the guilt of murder bucklers thee,\n    And I should rob the deathsman of his fee,\n    Quitting thee thereby of ten thousand shames,\n    And that my sovereign's presence makes me mild,\n    I would, false murd'rous coward, on thy knee\n    Make thee beg pardon for thy passed speech\n    And say it was thy mother that thou meant'st,\n    That thou thyself was born in bastardy;\n    And, after all this fearful homage done,\n    Give thee thy hire and send thy soul to hell,\n    Pernicious blood-sucker of sleeping men.\n  SUFFOLK. Thou shalt be waking while I shed thy blood,\n    If from this presence thou dar'st go with me.\n  WARWICK. Away even now, or I will drag thee hence.\n    Unworthy though thou art, I'll cope with thee,\n    And do some service to Duke Humphrey's ghost.\n                                      Exeunt SUFFOLK and WARWICK\n  KING HENRY. What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?\n    Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just;\n    And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,\n    Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.\n                                                [A noise within]\n  QUEEN. What noise is this?\n\n       Re-enter SUFFOLK and WARWICK, with their weapons drawn\n\n  KING. Why, how now, lords, your wrathful weapons drawn\n    Here in our presence! Dare you be so bold?\n    Why, what tumultuous clamour have we here?\n  SUFFOLK. The trait'rous Warwick, with the men of Bury,\n    Set all upon me, mighty sovereign.\n\n                        Re-enter SALISBURY\n\n  SALISBURY. [To the Commons within] Sirs, stand apart, the King\n      shall know your mind.\n    Dread lord, the commons send you word by me\n    Unless Lord Suffolk straight be done to death,\n    Or banished fair England's territories,\n    They will by violence tear him from your palace\n    And torture him with grievous ling'ring death.\n    They say by him the good Duke Humphrey died;\n    They say in him they fear your Highness' death;\n    And mere instinct of love and loyalty,\n    Free from a stubborn opposite intent,\n    As being thought to contradict your liking,\n    Makes them thus forward in his banishment.\n    They say, in care of your most royal person,\n    That if your Highness should intend to sleep\n    And charge that no man should disturb your rest,\n    In pain of your dislike or pain of death,\n    Yet, notwithstanding such a strait edict,\n    Were there a serpent seen with forked tongue\n    That slily glided towards your Majesty,\n    It were but necessary you were wak'd,\n    Lest, being suffer'd in that harmful slumber,\n    The mortal worm might make the sleep eternal.\n    And therefore do they cry, though you forbid,\n    That they will guard you, whe'er you will or no,\n    From such fell serpents as false Suffolk is;\n    With whose envenomed and fatal sting\n    Your loving uncle, twenty times his worth,\n    They say, is shamefully bereft of life.\n  COMMONS. [Within] An answer from the King, my Lord of Salisbury!\n  SUFFOLK. 'Tis like the commons, rude unpolish'd hinds,\n    Could send such message to their sovereign;\n    But you, my lord, were glad to be employ'd,\n    To show how quaint an orator you are.\n    But all the honour Salisbury hath won\n    Is that he was the lord ambassador\n    Sent from a sort of tinkers to the King.\n  COMMONS. [Within] An answer from the King, or we will all break in!\n  KING HENRY. Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from me\n    I thank them for their tender loving care;\n    And had I not been cited so by them,\n    Yet did I purpose as they do entreat;\n    For sure my thoughts do hourly prophesy\n    Mischance unto my state by Suffolk's means.\n    And therefore by His Majesty I swear,\n    Whose far unworthy deputy I am,\n    He shall not breathe infection in this air\n    But three days longer, on the pain of death.\n                                                  Exit SALISBURY\n  QUEEN. O Henry, let me plead for gentle Suffolk!\n  KING HENRY. Ungentle Queen, to call him gentle Suffolk!\n    No more, I say; if thou dost plead for him,\n    Thou wilt but add increase unto my wrath.\n    Had I but said, I would have kept my word;\n    But when I swear, it is irrevocable.\n    If after three days' space thou here be'st found\n    On any ground that I am ruler of,\n    The world shall not be ransom for thy life.\n    Come, Warwick, come, good Warwick, go with me;\n    I have great matters to impart to thee.\n                                Exeunt all but QUEEN and SUFFOLK\n  QUEEN. Mischance and sorrow go along with you!\n    Heart's discontent and sour affliction\n    Be playfellows to keep you company!\n    There's two of you; the devil make a third,\n    And threefold vengeance tend upon your steps!\n  SUFFOLK. Cease, gentle Queen, these execrations,\n    And let thy Suffolk take his heavy leave.\n  QUEEN. Fie, coward woman and soft-hearted wretch,\n    Has thou not spirit to curse thine enemy?\n  SUFFOLK. A plague upon them! Wherefore should I curse them?\n    Would curses kill as doth the mandrake's groan,\n    I would invent as bitter searching terms,\n    As curst, as harsh, and horrible to hear,\n    Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth,\n    With full as many signs of deadly hate,\n    As lean-fac'd Envy in her loathsome cave.\n    My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words,\n    Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint,\n    Mine hair be fix'd an end, as one distract;\n    Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban;\n    And even now my burden'd heart would break,\n    Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink!\n    Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste!\n    Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees!\n    Their chiefest prospect murd'ring basilisks!\n    Their softest touch as smart as lizards' stings!\n    Their music frightful as the serpent's hiss,\n    And boding screech-owls make the consort full!\n    all the foul terrors in dark-seated hell-\n  QUEEN. Enough, sweet Suffolk, thou torment'st thyself;\n    And these dread curses, like the sun 'gainst glass,\n    Or like an overcharged gun, recoil,\n    And turns the force of them upon thyself.\n  SUFFOLK. You bade me ban, and will you bid me leave?\n    Now, by the ground that I am banish'd from,\n    Well could I curse away a winter's night,\n    Though standing naked on a mountain top\n    Where biting cold would never let grass grow,\n    And think it but a minute spent in sport.\n  QUEEN. O, let me entreat thee cease! Give me thy hand,\n    That I may dew it with my mournful tears;\n    Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place\n    To wash away my woeful monuments.\n    O, could this kiss be printed in thy hand,\n    That thou might'st think upon these by the seal,\n    Through whom a thousand sighs are breath'd for thee!\n    So, get thee gone, that I may know my grief;\n    'Tis but surmis'd whiles thou art standing by,\n    As one that surfeits thinking on a want.\n    I will repeal thee or, be well assur'd,\n    Adventure to be banished myself;\n    And banished I am, if but from thee.\n    Go, speak not to me; even now be gone.\n    O, go not yet! Even thus two friends condemn'd\n    Embrace, and kiss, and take ten thousand leaves,\n    Loather a hundred times to part than die.\n    Yet now, farewell; and farewell life with thee!\n  SUFFOLK. Thus is poor Suffolk ten times banished,\n    Once by the King and three times thrice by thee,\n    'Tis not the land I care for, wert thou thence;\n    A wilderness is populous enough,\n    So Suffolk had thy heavenly company;\n    For where thou art, there is the world itself,\n    With every several pleasure in the world;\n    And where thou art not, desolation.\n    I can no more: Live thou to joy thy life;\n    Myself no joy in nought but that thou liv'st.\n\n                           Enter VAUX\n\n  QUEEN. Whither goes Vaux so fast? What news, I prithee?\n  VAUX. To signify unto his Majesty\n    That Cardinal Beaufort is at point of death;\n    For suddenly a grievous sickness took him\n    That makes him gasp, and stare, and catch the air,\n    Blaspheming God, and cursing men on earth.\n    Sometime he talks as if Duke Humphrey's ghost\n    Were by his side; sometime he calls the King\n    And whispers to his pillow, as to him,\n    The secrets of his overcharged soul;\n    And I am sent to tell his Majesty\n    That even now he cries aloud for him.\n  QUEEN. Go tell this heavy message to the King.       Exit VAUX\n    Ay me! What is this world! What news are these!\n    But wherefore grieve I at an hour's poor loss,\n    Omitting Suffolk's exile, my soul's treasure?\n    Why only, Suffolk, mourn I not for thee,\n    And with the southern clouds contend in tears-\n    Theirs for the earth's increase, mine for my sorrows?\n    Now get thee hence: the King, thou know'st, is coming;\n    If thou be found by me; thou art but dead.\n  SUFFOLK. If I depart from thee I cannot live;\n    And in thy sight to die, what were it else\n    But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap?\n    Here could I breathe my soul into the air,\n    As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe\n    Dying with mother's dug between its lips;\n    Where, from thy sight, I should be raging mad\n    And cry out for thee to close up mine eyes,\n    To have thee with thy lips to stop my mouth;\n    So shouldst thou either turn my flying soul,\n    Or I should breathe it so into thy body,\n    And then it liv'd in sweet Elysium.\n    To die by thee were but to die in jest:\n    From thee to die were torture more than death.\n    O, let me stay, befall what may befall!\n  QUEEN. Away! Though parting be a fretful corrosive,\n    It is applied to a deathful wound.\n    To France, sweet Suffolk. Let me hear from thee;\n    For whereso'er thou art in this world's globe\n    I'll have an Iris that shall find thee out.\n  SUFFOLK. I go.\n  QUEEN. And take my heart with thee.           [She kisses him]\n  SUFFOLK. A jewel, lock'd into the woefull'st cask\n    That ever did contain a thing of worth.\n    Even as a splitted bark, so sunder we:\n    This way fall I to death.\n  QUEEN. This way for me.                       Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nLondon. CARDINAL BEAUFORT'S bedchamber\n\nEnter the KING, SALISBURY, and WARWICK, to the CARDINAL in bed\n\n  KING HENRY. How fares my lord? Speak, Beaufort, to thy sovereign.\n  CARDINAL. If thou be'st Death I'll give thee England's treasure,\n    Enough to purchase such another island,\n    So thou wilt let me live and feel no pain.\n  KING HENRY. Ah, what a sign it is of evil life\n    Where death's approach is seen so terrible!\n  WARWICK. Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to thee.\n  CARDINAL. Bring me unto my trial when you will.\n    Died he not in his bed? Where should he die?\n    Can I make men live, whe'er they will or no?\n    O, torture me no more! I will confess.\n    Alive again? Then show me where he is;\n    I'll give a thousand pound to look upon him.\n    He hath no eyes, the dust hath blinded them.\n    Comb down his hair; look, look! it stands upright,\n    Like lime-twigs set to catch my winged soul!\n    Give me some drink; and bid the apothecary\n    Bring the strong poison that I bought of him.\n  KING HENRY. O Thou eternal Mover of the heavens,\n    Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch!\n    O, beat away the busy meddling fiend\n    That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul,\n    And from his bosom purge this black despair!\n  WARWICK. See how the pangs of death do make him grin\n  SALISBURY. Disturb him not, let him pass peaceably.\n  KING HENRY. Peace to his soul, if God's good pleasure be!\n    Lord Card'nal, if thou think'st on heaven's bliss,\n    Hold up thy hand, make signal of thy hope.\n    He dies, and makes no sign: O God, forgive him!\n  WARWICK. So bad a death argues a monstrous life.\n  KING HENRY. Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.\n    Close up his eyes, and draw the curtain close;\n    And let us all to meditation.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nThe coast of Kent\n\nAlarum.  Fight at sea.  Ordnance goes off.  Enter a LIEUTENANT,\na SHIPMASTER and his MATE, and WALTER WHITMORE, with sailors;\nSUFFOLK and other GENTLEMEN, as prisoners\n\n  LIEUTENANT. The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day\n    Is crept into the bosom of the sea;\n    And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades\n    That drag the tragic melancholy night;\n    Who with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings\n    Clip dead men's graves, and from their misty jaws\n    Breathe foul contagious darkness in the air.\n    Therefore bring forth the soldiers of our prize;\n    For, whilst our pinnace anchors in the Downs,\n    Here shall they make their ransom on the sand,\n    Or with their blood stain this discoloured shore.\n    Master, this prisoner freely give I thee;\n    And thou that art his mate make boot of this;\n    The other, Walter Whitmore, is thy share.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. What is my ransom, master, let me know?\n  MASTER. A thousand crowns, or else lay down your head.\n  MATE. And so much shall you give, or off goes yours.\n  LIEUTENANT. What, think you much to pay two thousand crowns,\n    And bear the name and port of gentlemen?\n    Cut both the villains' throats- for die you shall;\n    The lives of those which we have lost in fight\n    Be counterpois'd with such a petty sum!\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I'll give it, sir: and therefore spare my life.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. And so will I, and write home for it straight.\n  WHITMORE. I lost mine eye in laying the prize aboard,\n    [To SUFFOLK] And therefore, to revenge it, shalt thou die;\n    And so should these, if I might have my will.\n  LIEUTENANT. Be not so rash; take ransom, let him live.\n  SUFFOLK. Look on my George, I am a gentleman:\n    Rate me at what thou wilt, thou shalt be paid.\n  WHITMORE. And so am I: my name is Walter Whitmore.\n    How now! Why start'st thou? What, doth death affright?\n  SUFFOLK. Thy name affrights me, in whose sound is death.\n    A cunning man did calculate my birth\n    And told me that by water I should die;\n    Yet let not this make thee be bloody-minded;\n    Thy name is Gualtier, being rightly sounded.\n  WHITMORE. Gualtier or Walter, which it is I care not:\n    Never yet did base dishonour blur our name\n    But with our sword we wip'd away the blot;\n    Therefore, when merchant-like I sell revenge,\n    Broke be my sword, my arms torn and defac'd,\n    And I proclaim'd a coward through the world.\n  SUFFOLK. Stay, Whitmore, for thy prisoner is a prince,\n    The Duke of Suffolk, William de la Pole.\n  WHITMORE. The Duke of Suffolk muffled up in rags?\n  SUFFOLK. Ay, but these rags are no part of the Duke:\n    Jove sometime went disguis'd, and why not I?\n  LIEUTENANT. But Jove was never slain, as thou shalt be.\n  SUFFOLK. Obscure and lowly swain, King Henry's blood,\n    The honourable blood of Lancaster,\n    Must not be shed by such a jaded groom.\n    Hast thou not kiss'd thy hand and held my stirrup,\n    Bareheaded plodded by my foot-cloth mule,\n    And thought thee happy when I shook my head?\n    How often hast thou waited at my cup,\n    Fed from my trencher, kneel'd down at the board,\n    When I have feasted with Queen Margaret?\n    Remember it, and let it make thee crestfall'n,\n    Ay, and allay thus thy abortive pride,\n    How in our voiding-lobby hast thou stood\n    And duly waited for my coming forth.\n    This hand of mine hath writ in thy behalf,\n    And therefore shall it charm thy riotous tongue.\n  WHITMORE. Speak, Captain, shall I stab the forlorn swain?\n  LIEUTENANT. First let my words stab him, as he hath me.\n  SUFFOLK. Base slave, thy words are blunt, and so art thou.\n  LIEUTENANT. Convey him hence, and on our longboat's side\n    Strike off his head.\n  SUFFOLK. Thou dar'st not, for thy own.\n  LIEUTENANT. Poole!\n  SUFFOLK. Poole?\n  LIEUTENANT. Ay, kennel, puddle, sink, whose filth and dirt\n    Troubles the silver spring where England drinks;\n    Now will I dam up this thy yawning mouth\n    For swallowing the treasure of the realm.\n    Thy lips, that kiss'd the Queen, shall sweep the ground;\n    And thou that smil'dst at good Duke Humphrey's death\n    Against the senseless winds shalt grin in vain,\n    Who in contempt shall hiss at thee again;\n    And wedded be thou to the hags of hell\n    For daring to affy a mighty lord\n    Unto the daughter of a worthless king,\n    Having neither subject, wealth, nor diadem.\n    By devilish policy art thou grown great,\n    And, like ambitious Sylla, overgorg'd\n    With gobbets of thy mother's bleeding heart.\n    By thee Anjou and Maine were sold to France;\n    The false revolting Normans thorough thee\n    Disdain to call us lord; and Picardy\n    Hath slain their governors, surpris'd our forts,\n    And sent the ragged soldiers wounded home.\n    The princely Warwick, and the Nevils all,\n    Whose dreadful swords were never drawn in vain,\n    As hating thee, are rising up in arms;\n    And now the house of York- thrust from the crown\n    By shameful murder of a guiltless king\n    And lofty proud encroaching tyranny-\n    Burns with revenging fire, whose hopeful colours\n    Advance our half-fac'd sun, striving to shine,\n    Under the which is writ 'Invitis nubibus.'\n    The commons here in Kent are up in arms;\n    And to conclude, reproach and beggary\n    Is crept into the palace of our King,\n    And all by thee. Away! convey him hence.\n  SUFFOLK. O that I were a god, to shoot forth thunder\n    Upon these paltry, servile, abject drudges!\n    Small things make base men proud: this villain here,\n    Being captain of a pinnace, threatens more\n    Than Bargulus, the strong Illyrian pirate.\n    Drones suck not eagles' blood but rob beehives.\n    It is impossible that I should die\n    By such a lowly vassal as thyself.\n    Thy words move rage and not remorse in me.\n    I go of message from the Queen to France:\n    I charge thee waft me safely cross the Channel.\n  LIEUTENANT. Walter-\n  WHITMORE. Come, Suffolk, I must waft thee to thy death.\n  SUFFOLK. Gelidus timor occupat artus: it is thee I fear.\n  WHITMORE. Thou shalt have cause to fear before I leave thee.\n    What, are ye daunted now? Now will ye stoop?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. My gracious lord, entreat him, speak him fair.\n  SUFFOLK. Suffolk's imperial tongue is stem and rough,\n    Us'd to command, untaught to plead for favour.\n    Far be it we should honour such as these\n    With humble suit: no, rather let my head\n    Stoop to the block than these knees bow to any\n    Save to the God of heaven and to my king;\n    And sooner dance upon a bloody pole\n    Than stand uncover'd to the vulgar groom.\n    True nobility is exempt from fear:\n    More can I bear than you dare execute.\n  LIEUTENANT. Hale him away, and let him talk no more.\n  SUFFOLK. Come, soldiers, show what cruelty ye can,\n    That this my death may never be forgot-\n    Great men oft die by vile bezonians:\n    A Roman sworder and banditto slave\n    Murder'd sweet Tully; Brutus' bastard hand\n    Stabb'd Julius Caesar; savage islanders\n    Pompey the Great; and Suffolk dies by pirates.\n                                        Exit WALTER with SUFFOLK\n  LIEUTENANT. And as for these, whose ransom we have set,\n    It is our pleasure one of them depart;\n    Therefore come you with us, and let him go.\n                              Exeunt all but the FIRST GENTLEMAN\n\n                Re-enter WHITMORE with SUFFOLK'S body\n\n  WHITMORE. There let his head and lifeless body lie,\n    Until the Queen his mistress bury it.                   Exit\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. O barbarous and bloody spectacle!\n    His body will I bear unto the King.\n    If he revenge it not, yet will his friends;\n    So will the Queen, that living held him dear.\n                                              Exit with the body\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBlackheath\n\nEnter GEORGE BEVIS and JOHN HOLLAND\n\n  GEORGE. Come and get thee a sword, though made of a lath; they have\n    been up these two days.\n  JOHN. They have the more need to sleep now, then.\n  GEORGE. I tell thee Jack Cade the clothier means to dress the\n    commonwealth, and turn it, and set a new nap upon it.\n  JOHN. So he had need, for 'tis threadbare. Well, I say it was never\n    merry world in England since gentlemen came up.\n  GEORGE. O miserable age! Virtue is not regarded in handicraftsmen.\n  JOHN. The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons.\n  GEORGE. Nay, more, the King's Council are no good workmen.\n  JOHN. True; and yet it is said 'Labour in thy vocation'; which is\n    as much to say as 'Let the magistrates be labouring men'; and\n    therefore should we be magistrates.\n  GEORGE. Thou hast hit it; for there's no better sign of a brave\n    mind than a hard hand.\n  JOHN. I see them! I see them! There's Best's son, the tanner of\n    Wingham-\n  GEORGE. He shall have the skins of our enemies to make dog's\n    leather of.\n  JOHN. And Dick the butcher-\n  GEORGE. Then is sin struck down, like an ox, and iniquity's throat\n    cut like a calf.\n  JOHN. And Smith the weaver-\n  GEORGE. Argo, their thread of life is spun.\n  JOHN. Come, come, let's fall in with them.\n\n                Drum. Enter CADE, DICK THE BUTCHER, SMITH\n             THE WEAVER, and a SAWYER, with infinite numbers\n\n  CADE. We John Cade, so term'd of our supposed father-\n  DICK. [Aside] Or rather, of stealing a cade of herrings.\n  CADE. For our enemies shall fall before us, inspired with the\n    spirit of putting down kings and princes- command silence.\n  DICK. Silence!\n  CADE. My father was a Mortimer-\n  DICK. [Aside] He was an honest man and a good bricklayer.\n  CADE. My mother a Plantagenet-\n  DICK. [Aside] I knew her well; she was a midwife.\n  CADE. My wife descended of the Lacies-\n  DICK. [Aside] She was, indeed, a pedlar's daughter, and sold many\n    laces.\n  SMITH. [Aside] But now of late, not able to travel with her furr'd\n    pack, she washes bucks here at home.\n  CADE. Therefore am I of an honourable house.\n  DICK. [Aside] Ay, by my faith, the field is honourable, and there\n    was he born, under a hedge, for his father had never a house but\n    the cage.\n  CADE. Valiant I am.\n  SMITH. [Aside] 'A must needs; for beggary is valiant.\n  CADE. I am able to endure much.\n  DICK. [Aside] No question of that; for I have seen him whipt three\n    market days together.\n  CADE. I fear neither sword nor fire.\n  SMITH. [Aside] He need not fear the sword, for his coat is of\n    proof.\n  DICK. [Aside] But methinks he should stand in fear of fire, being\n    burnt i' th' hand for stealing of sheep.\n  CADE. Be brave, then, for your captain is brave, and vows\n    reformation. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves\n    sold for a penny; the three-hoop'd pot shall have ten hoops; and\n    I will make it felony to drink small beer. All the realm shall be\n    in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass. And\n    when I am king- as king I will be\n  ALL. God save your Majesty!\n  CADE. I thank you, good people- there shall be no money; all shall\n    eat and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one\n    livery, that they may agree like brothers and worship me their\n    lord.\n  DICK. The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.\n  CADE. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that\n    of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? That\n    parchment, being scribbl'd o'er, should undo a man? Some say the\n    bee stings; but I say 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal once\n    to a thing, and I was never mine own man since. How now! Who's\n    there?\n\n              Enter some, bringing in the CLERK OF CHATHAM\n\n  SMITH. The clerk of Chatham. He can write and read and cast\n    accompt.\n  CADE. O monstrous!\n  SMITH. We took him setting of boys' copies.\n  CADE. Here's a villain!\n  SMITH. Has a book in his pocket with red letters in't.\n  CADE. Nay, then he is a conjurer.\n  DICK. Nay, he can make obligations and write court-hand.\n  CADE. I am sorry for't; the man is a proper man, of mine honour;\n    unless I find him guilty, he shall not die. Come hither, sirrah,\n    I must examine thee. What is thy name?\n  CLERK. Emmanuel.\n  DICK. They use to write it on the top of letters; 'twill go hard\n    with you.\n  CADE. Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name, or hast thou a\n    mark to thyself, like a honest plain-dealing man?\n  CLERK. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can\n    write my name.\n  ALL. He hath confess'd. Away with him! He's a villain and a\n    traitor.\n  CADE. Away with him, I say! Hang him with his pen and inkhorn about\n    his neck.                            Exit one with the CLERK\n\n                           Enter MICHAEL\n\n  MICHAEL. Where's our General?\n  CADE. Here I am, thou particular fellow.\n  MICHAEL. Fly, fly, fly! Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother are\n    hard by, with the King's forces.\n  CADE. Stand, villain, stand, or I'll fell thee down. He shall be\n    encount'red with a man as good as himself. He is but a knight,\n    is 'a?\n  MICHAEL. No.\n  CADE. To equal him, I will make myself a knight presently.\n    [Kneels] Rise up, Sir John Mortimer. [Rises] Now have at him!\n\n                Enter SIR HUMPHREY STAFFORD and WILLIAM\n                  his brother, with drum and soldiers\n\n  STAFFORD. Rebellious hinds, the filth and scum of Kent,\n    Mark'd for the gallows, lay your weapons down;\n    Home to your cottages, forsake this groom;\n    The King is merciful if you revolt.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. But angry, wrathful, and inclin'd to blood,\n    If you go forward; therefore yield or die.\n  CADE. As for these silken-coated slaves, I pass not;\n    It is to you, good people, that I speak,\n    O'er whom, in time to come, I hope to reign;\n    For I am rightful heir unto the crown.\n  STAFFORD. Villain, thy father was a plasterer;\n    And thou thyself a shearman, art thou not?\n  CADE. And Adam was a gardener.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. And what of that?\n  CADE. Marry, this: Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March,\n    Married the Duke of Clarence' daughter, did he not?\n  STAFFORD. Ay, sir.\n  CADE. By her he had two children at one birth.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. That's false.\n  CADE. Ay, there's the question; but I say 'tis true.\n    The elder of them being put to nurse,\n    Was by a beggar-woman stol'n away,\n    And, ignorant of his birth and parentage,\n    Became a bricklayer when he came to age.\n    His son am I; deny it if you can.\n  DICK. Nay, 'tis too true; therefore he shall be king.\n  SMITH. Sir, he made a chimney in my father's house, and the bricks\n    are alive at this day to testify it; therefore deny it not.\n  STAFFORD. And will you credit this base drudge's words\n    That speaks he knows not what?\n  ALL. Ay, marry, will we; therefore get ye gone.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. Jack Cade, the Duke of York hath taught you this.\n  CADE. [Aside] He lies, for I invented it myself- Go to, sirrah,\n    tell the King from me that for his father's sake, Henry the\n    Fifth, in whose time boys went to span-counter for French crowns,\n    I am content he shall reign; but I'll be Protector over him.\n  DICK. And furthermore, we'll have the Lord Say's head for selling\n    the dukedom of Maine.\n  CADE. And good reason; for thereby is England main'd and fain to go\n    with a staff, but that my puissance holds it up. Fellow kings, I\n    tell you that that Lord Say hath gelded the commonwealth and made\n    it an eunuch; and more than that, he can speak French, and\n    therefore he is a traitor.\n  STAFFORD. O gross and miserable ignorance!\n  CADE. Nay, answer if you can; the Frenchmen are our enemies. Go to,\n    then, I ask but this: can he that speaks with the tongue of an\n    enemy be a good counsellor, or no?\n  ALL. No, no; and therefore we'll have his head.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. Well, seeing gentle words will not prevail,\n    Assail them with the army of the King.\n  STAFFORD. Herald, away; and throughout every town\n    Proclaim them traitors that are up with Cade;\n    That those which fly before the battle ends\n    May, even in their wives'and children's sight,\n    Be hang'd up for example at their doors.\n    And you that be the King's friends, follow me.\n                           Exeunt the TWO STAFFORDS and soldiers\n  CADE. And you that love the commons follow me.\n    Now show yourselves men; 'tis for liberty.\n    We will not leave one lord, one gentleman;\n    Spare none but such as go in clouted shoon,\n    For they are thrifty honest men and such\n    As would- but that they dare not- take our parts.\n  DICK. They are all in order, and march toward us.\n  CADE. But then are we in order when we are most out of order. Come,\n    march forward.                                        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nAnother part of Blackheath\n\nAlarums to the fight, wherein both the STAFFORDS are slain.\nEnter CADE and the rest\n\n  CADE. Where's Dick, the butcher of Ashford?\n  DICK. Here, sir.\n  CADE. They fell before thee like sheep and oxen, and thou behavedst\n    thyself as if thou hadst been in thine own slaughter-house;\n    therefore thus will I reward thee- the Lent shall be as long\n    again as it is, and thou shalt have a licence to kill for a\n    hundred lacking one.\n  DICK. I desire no more.\n  CADE. And, to speak truth, thou deserv'st no less. [Putting on SIR\n    HUMPHREY'S brigandine] This monument of the victory will I bear,\n    and the bodies shall be dragged at my horse heels till I do come\n    to London, where we will have the mayor's sword borne before us.\n  DICK. If we mean to thrive and do good, break open the gaols and\n    let out the prisoners.\n  CADE. Fear not that, I warrant thee. Come, let's march towards\n    London.                                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the KING with a supplication, and the QUEEN with SUFFOLK'S head;\nthe DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, and the LORD SAY\n\n  QUEEN. Oft have I heard that grief softens the mind\n    And makes it fearful and degenerate;\n    Think therefore on revenge and cease to weep.\n    But who can cease to weep, and look on this?\n    Here may his head lie on my throbbing breast;\n    But where's the body that I should embrace?\n  BUCKINGHAM. What answer makes your Grace to the rebels'\n    supplication?\n  KING HENRY. I'll send some holy bishop to entreat;\n    For God forbid so many simple souls\n    Should perish by the sword! And I myself,\n    Rather than bloody war shall cut them short,\n    Will parley with Jack Cade their general.\n    But stay, I'll read it over once again.\n  QUEEN. Ah, barbarous villains! Hath this lovely face\n    Rul'd like a wandering planet over me,\n    And could it not enforce them to relent\n    That were unworthy to behold the same?\n  KING HENRY. Lord Say, Jack Cade hath sworn to have thy head.\n  SAY. Ay, but I hope your Highness shall have his.\n  KING HENRY. How now, madam!\n    Still lamenting and mourning for Suffolk's death?\n    I fear me, love, if that I had been dead,\n    Thou wouldst not have mourn'd so much for me.\n  QUEEN. No, my love, I should not mourn, but die for thee.\n\n                        Enter A MESSENGER\n\n  KING HENRY. How now! What news? Why com'st thou in such haste?\n  MESSENGER. The rebels are in Southwark; fly, my lord!\n    Jack Cade proclaims himself Lord Mortimer,\n    Descended from the Duke of Clarence' house,\n    And calls your Grace usurper, openly,\n    And vows to crown himself in Westminster.\n    His army is a ragged multitude\n    Of hinds and peasants, rude and merciless;\n    Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother's death\n    Hath given them heart and courage to proceed.\n    All scholars, lawyers, courtiers, gentlemen,\n    They call false caterpillars and intend their death.\n  KING HENRY. O graceless men! they know not what they do.\n  BUCKINGHAM. My gracious lord, retire to Killingworth\n    Until a power be rais'd to put them down.\n  QUEEN. Ah, were the Duke of Suffolk now alive,\n    These Kentish rebels would be soon appeas'd!\n  KING HENRY. Lord Say, the traitors hate thee;\n    Therefore away with us to Killingworth.\n  SAY. So might your Grace's person be in danger.\n    The sight of me is odious in their eyes;\n    And therefore in this city will I stay\n    And live alone as secret as I may.\n\n                      Enter another MESSENGER\n\n  SECOND MESSENGER. Jack Cade hath gotten London Bridge.\n    The citizens fly and forsake their houses;\n    The rascal people, thirsting after prey,\n    Join with the traitor; and they jointly swear\n    To spoil the city and your royal court.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Then linger not, my lord; away, take horse.\n  KING HENRY. Come Margaret; God, our hope, will succour us.\n  QUEEN. My hope is gone, now Suffolk is deceas'd.\n  KING HENRY. [To LORD SAY] Farewell, my lord, trust not the Kentish\n    rebels.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Trust nobody, for fear you be betray'd.\n  SAY. The trust I have is in mine innocence,\n    And therefore am I bold and resolute.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nLondon. The Tower\n\nEnter LORD SCALES Upon the Tower, walking. Then enter two or three CITIZENS,\nbelow\n\n  SCALES. How now! Is Jack Cade slain?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. No, my lord, nor likely to be slain; for they have\n    won the bridge, killing all those that withstand them.\n    The Lord Mayor craves aid of your honour from the\n    Tower, to defend the city from the rebels.\n  SCALES. Such aid as I can spare you shall command,\n    But I am troubled here with them myself;\n    The rebels have assay'd to win the Tower.\n    But get you to Smithfield, and gather head,\n    And thither I will send you Matthew Goffe;\n    Fight for your King, your country, and your lives;\n    And so, farewell, for I must hence again.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nLondon. Cannon street\n\nEnter JACK CADE and the rest, and strikes his staff on London Stone\n\n  CADE. Now is Mortimer lord of this city. And here, sitting upon\n    London Stone, I charge and command that, of the city's cost, the\n    pissing conduit run nothing but claret wine this first year of\n    our reign. And now henceforward it shall be treason for any that\n    calls me other than Lord Mortimer.\n\n                    Enter a SOLDIER, running\n\n  SOLDIER. Jack Cade! Jack Cade!\n  CADE. Knock him down there.                    [They kill him]\n  SMITH. If this fellow be wise, he'll never call ye Jack Cade more;\n    I think he hath a very fair warning.\n  DICK. My lord, there's an army gathered together in Smithfield.\n  CADE. Come then, let's go fight with them. But first go and set\n    London Bridge on fire; and, if you can, burn down the Tower too.\n    Come, let's away.                                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nLondon. Smithfield\n\nAlarums. MATTHEW GOFFE is slain, and all the rest.  Then enter JACK CADE,\nwith his company\n\n  CADE. So, sirs. Now go some and pull down the Savoy; others to th'\n    Inns of Court; down with them all.\n  DICK. I have a suit unto your lordship.\n  CADE. Be it a lordship, thou shalt have it for that word.\n  DICK. Only that the laws of England may come out of your mouth.\n  JOHN. [Aside] Mass, 'twill be sore law then; for he was thrust in\n    the mouth with a spear, and 'tis not whole yet.\n  SMITH. [Aside] Nay, John, it will be stinking law; for his breath\n    stinks with eating toasted cheese.\n  CADE. I have thought upon it; it shall be so. Away, burn all the\n    records of the realm. My mouth shall be the Parliament of\n    England.\n  JOHN. [Aside] Then we are like to have biting statutes, unless his\n    teeth be pull'd out.\n  CADE. And henceforward all things shall be in common.\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My lord, a prize, a prize! Here's the Lord Say, which\n    sold the towns in France; he that made us pay one and twenty\n    fifteens, and one shining to the pound, the last subsidy.\n\n                Enter GEORGE BEVIS, with the LORD SAY\n\n  CADE. Well, he shall be beheaded for it ten times. Ah, thou say,\n    thou serge, nay, thou buckram lord! Now art thou within point\n    blank of our jurisdiction regal. What canst thou answer to my\n    Majesty for giving up of Normandy unto Mounsieur Basimecu the\n    Dauphin of France? Be it known unto thee by these presence, even\n    the presence of Lord Mortimer, that I am the besom that must\n    sweep the court clean of such filth as thou art. Thou hast most\n    traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a\n    grammar school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other\n    books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to\n    be us'd, and, contrary to the King, his crown, and dignity, thou\n    hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face that thou\n    hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb, and\n    such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear.\n    Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor men before\n    them about matters they were not able to answer. Moreover, thou\n    hast put them in prison, and because they could not read, thou\n    hast hang'd them, when, indeed, only for that cause they have\n    been most worthy to live. Thou dost ride in a foot-cloth, dost\n    thou not?\n  SAY. What of that?\n  CADE. Marry, thou ought'st not to let thy horse wear a cloak, when\n    honester men than thou go in their hose and doublets.\n  DICK. And work in their shirt too, as myself, for example, that am\n    a butcher.\n  SAY. You men of Kent-\n  DICK. What say you of Kent?\n  SAY. Nothing but this: 'tis 'bona terra, mala gens.'\n  CADE. Away with him, away with him! He speaks Latin.\n  SAY. Hear me but speak, and bear me where you will.\n    Kent, in the Commentaries Caesar writ,\n    Is term'd the civil'st place of all this isle.\n    Sweet is the country, because full of riches;\n    The people liberal valiant, active, wealthy;\n    Which makes me hope you are not void of pity.\n    I sold not Maine, I lost not Normandy;\n    Yet, to recover them, would lose my life.\n    Justice with favour have I always done;\n    Pray'rs and tears have mov'd me, gifts could never.\n    When have I aught exacted at your hands,\n    But to maintain the King, the realm, and you?\n    Large gifts have I bestow'd on learned clerks,\n    Because my book preferr'd me to the King,\n    And seeing ignorance is the curse of God,\n    Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven,\n    Unless you be possess'd with devilish spirits\n    You cannot but forbear to murder me.\n    This tongue hath parley'd unto foreign kings\n    For your behoof.\n  CADE. Tut, when struck'st thou one blow in the field?\n  SAY. Great men have reaching hands. Oft have I struck\n    Those that I never saw, and struck them dead.\n  GEORGE. O monstrous coward! What, to come behind folks?\n  SAY. These cheeks are pale for watching for your good.\n  CADE. Give him a box o' th' ear, and that will make 'em red again.\n  SAY. Long sitting to determine poor men's causes\n    Hath made me full of sickness and diseases.\n  CADE. Ye shall have a hempen caudle then, and the help of hatchet.\n  DICK. Why dost thou quiver, man?\n  SAY. The palsy, and not fear, provokes me.\n  CADE. Nay, he nods at us, as who should say 'I'll be even with\n    you'; I'll see if his head will stand steadier on a pole, or no.\n    Take him away, and behead him.\n  SAY. Tell me: wherein have I offended most?\n    Have I affected wealth or honour? Speak.\n    Are my chests fill'd up with extorted gold?\n    Is my apparel sumptuous to behold?\n    Whom have I injur'd, that ye seek my death?\n    These hands are free from guiltless bloodshedding,\n    This breast from harbouring foul deceitful thoughts.\n    O, let me live!\n  CADE. [Aside] I feel remorse in myself with his words; but I'll\n    bridle it. He shall die, an it be but for pleading so well for\n    his life.- Away with him! He has a familiar under his tongue; he\n    speaks not o' God's name. Go, take him away, I say, and strike\n    off his head presently, and then break into his son-in-law's\n    house, Sir James Cromer, and strike off his head, and bring them\n    both upon two poles hither.\n  ALL. It shall be done.\n  SAY. Ah, countrymen! if when you make your pray'rs,\n    God should be so obdurate as yourselves,\n    How would it fare with your departed souls?\n    And therefore yet relent and save my life.\n  CADE. Away with him, and do as I command ye.  [Exeunt some with\n    LORD SAY]  The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a head\n    on his shoulders, unless he pay me tribute; there shall not a\n    maid be married, but she shall pay to me her maidenhead ere they\n    have it. Men shall hold of me in capite; and we charge and\n    command that their wives be as free as heart can wish or tongue\n    can tell.\n  DICK. My lord, when shall we go to Cheapside, and take up\n    commodities upon our bills?\n  CADE. Marry, presently.\n  ALL. O, brave!\n\n                      Re-enter one with the heads\n\n  CADE. But is not this braver? Let them kiss one another, for they\n    lov'd well when they were alive. Now part them again, lest they\n    consult about the giving up of some more towns in France.\n    Soldiers, defer the spoil of the city until night; for with these\n    borne before us instead of maces will we ride through the\n    streets, and at every corner have them kiss. Away!     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\nSouthwark\n\nAlarum and retreat. Enter again CADE and all his rabblement\n\n  CADE. Up Fish Street! down Saint Magnus' Corner! Kill and knock\n    down! Throw them into Thames!               [Sound a parley]\n    What noise is this I hear? Dare any be so bold to sound retreat\n    or parley when I command them kill?\n\n            Enter BUCKINGHAM and old CLIFFORD, attended\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Ay, here they be that dare and will disturb thee.\n    And therefore yet relent, and save my life.\n    Know, Cade, we come ambassadors from the King\n    Unto the commons whom thou hast misled;\n    And here pronounce free pardon to them all\n    That will forsake thee and go home in peace.\n  CLIFFORD. What say ye, countrymen? Will ye relent\n    And yield to mercy whilst 'tis offer'd you,\n    Or let a rebel lead you to your deaths?\n    Who loves the King, and will embrace his pardon,\n    Fling up his cap and say 'God save his Majesty!'\n    Who hateth him and honours not his father,\n    Henry the Fifth, that made all France to quake,\n    Shake he his weapon at us and pass by.\n  ALL. God save the King! God save the King!\n  CADE. What, Buckingham and Clifford, are ye so brave?\n    And you, base peasants, do ye believe him? Will you needs be\n    hang'd with your about your necks? Hath my sword therefore broke\n    through London gates, that you should leave me at the White Hart\n    in Southwark? I thought ye would never have given out these arms\n    till you had recovered your ancient freedom. But you are all\n    recreants and dastards, and delight to live in slavery to the\n    nobility. Let them break your backs with burdens, take your\n    houses over your heads, ravish your wives and daughters before\n    your faces. For me, I will make shift for one; and so God's curse\n    light upon you all!\n  ALL. We'll follow Cade, we'll follow Cade!\n  CLIFFORD. Is Cade the son of Henry the Fifth,\n    That thus you do exclaim you'll go with him?\n    Will he conduct you through the heart of France,\n    And make the meanest of you earls and dukes?\n    Alas, he hath no home, no place to fly to;\n    Nor knows he how to live but by the spoil,\n    Unless by robbing of your friends and us.\n    Were't not a shame that whilst you live at jar\n    The fearful French, whom you late vanquished,\n    Should make a start o'er seas and vanquish you?\n    Methinks already in this civil broil\n    I see them lording it in London streets,\n    Crying 'Villiago!' unto all they meet.\n    Better ten thousand base-born Cades miscarry\n    Than you should stoop unto a Frenchman's mercy.\n    To France, to France, and get what you have lost;\n    Spare England, for it is your native coast.\n    Henry hath money; you are strong and manly.\n    God on our side, doubt not of victory.\n  ALL. A Clifford! a Clifford! We'll follow the King and Clifford.\n  CADE. Was ever feather so lightly blown to and fro as this\n    multitude? The name of Henry the Fifth hales them to an hundred\n    mischiefs, and makes them leave me desolate. I see them lay their\n    heads together to surprise me. My sword make way for me for here\n    is no staying. In despite of the devils and hell, have through\n    the very middest of you! and heavens and honour be witness that\n    no want of resolution in me, but only my followers' base and\n    ignominious treasons, makes me betake me to my heels.\n Exit\n  BUCKINGHAM. What, is he fled? Go some, and follow him;\n    And he that brings his head unto the King\n    Shall have a thousand crowns for his reward.\n                                             Exeunt some of them\n    Follow me, soldiers; we'll devise a mean\n    To reconcile you all unto the King.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IX.\nKilling, worth Castle\n\nSound trumpets. Enter KING, QUEEN, and SOMERSET, on the terrace\n\n  KING HENRY. Was ever king that joy'd an earthly throne\n    And could command no more content than I?\n    No sooner was I crept out of my cradle\n    But I was made a king, at nine months old.\n    Was never subject long'd to be a King\n    As I do long and wish to be a subject.\n\n               Enter BUCKINGHAM and old CLIFFORD\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Health and glad tidings to your Majesty!\n  KING HENRY. Why, Buckingham, is the traitor Cade surpris'd?\n    Or is he but retir'd to make him strong?\n\n     Enter, below, multitudes, with halters about their necks\n\n  CLIFFORD. He is fled, my lord, and all his powers do yield,\n    And humbly thus, with halters on their necks,\n    Expect your Highness' doom of life or death.\n  KING HENRY. Then, heaven, set ope thy everlasting gates,\n    To entertain my vows of thanks and praise!\n    Soldiers, this day have you redeem'd your lives,\n    And show'd how well you love your Prince and country.\n    Continue still in this so good a mind,\n    And Henry, though he be infortunate,\n    Assure yourselves, will never be unkind.\n    And so, with thanks and pardon to you all,\n    I do dismiss you to your several countries.\n  ALL. God save the King! God save the King!\n\n                     Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Please it your Grace to be advertised\n    The Duke of York is newly come from Ireland\n    And with a puissant and a mighty power\n    Of gallowglasses and stout kerns\n    Is marching hitherward in proud array,\n    And still proclaimeth, as he comes along,\n    His arms are only to remove from thee\n    The Duke of Somerset, whom he terms a traitor.\n  KING HENRY. Thus stands my state, 'twixt Cade and York distress'd;\n    Like to a ship that, having scap'd a tempest,\n    Is straightway calm'd, and boarded with a pirate;\n    But now is Cade driven back, his men dispers'd,\n    And now is York in arms to second him.\n    I pray thee, Buckingham, go and meet him\n    And ask him what's the reason of these arms.\n    Tell him I'll send Duke Edmund to the Tower-\n    And Somerset, we will commit thee thither\n    Until his army be dismiss'd from him.\n  SOMERSET. My lord,\n    I'll yield myself to prison willingly,\n    Or unto death, to do my country good.\n  KING HENRY. In any case be not too rough in terms,\n    For he is fierce and cannot brook hard language.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I will, my lord, and doubt not so to deal\n    As all things shall redound unto your good.\n  KING HENRY. Come, wife, let's in, and learn to govern better;\n    For yet may England curse my wretched reign.\n                                                Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE X.\nKent. Iden's garden\n\nEnter CADE\n\n  CADE. Fie on ambitions! Fie on myself, that have a sword and yet am\n    ready to famish! These five days have I hid me in these woods and\n    durst not peep out, for all the country is laid for me; but now\n    am I so hungry that, if I might have a lease of my life for a\n    thousand years, I could stay no longer. Wherefore, on a brick\n    wall have I climb'd into this garden, to see if I can eat grass\n    or pick a sallet another while, which is not amiss to cool a\n    man's stomach this hot weather. And I think this word 'sallet'\n    was born to do me good; for many a time, but for a sallet, my\n    brain-pain had been cleft with a brown bill; and many a time,\n    when I have been dry, and bravely marching, it hath serv'd me\n    instead of a quart-pot to drink in; and now the word 'sallet'\n    must serve me to feed on.\n\n                             Enter IDEN\n\n  IDEN. Lord, who would live turmoiled in the court\n    And may enjoy such quiet walks as these?\n    This small inheritance my father left me\n    Contenteth me, and worth a monarchy.\n    I seek not to wax great by others' waning\n    Or gather wealth I care not with what envy;\n    Sufficeth that I have maintains my state,\n    And sends the poor well pleased from my gate.\n  CADE. Here's the lord of the soil come to seize me for a stray, for\n    entering his fee-simple without leave. Ah, villain, thou wilt\n    betray me, and get a thousand crowns of the King by carrying my\n    head to him; but I'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich and\n    swallow my sword like a great pin ere thou and I part.\n  IDEN. Why, rude companion, whatsoe'er thou be,\n    I know thee not; why then should I betray thee?\n    Is't not enough to break into my garden\n    And like a thief to come to rob my grounds,\n    Climbing my walls in spite of me the owner,\n    But thou wilt brave me with these saucy terms?\n  CADE. Brave thee? Ay, by the best blood that ever was broach'd, and\n    beard thee too. Look on me well: I have eat no meat these five\n    days, yet come thou and thy five men and if I do not leave you\n    all as dead as a door-nail, I pray God I may never eat grass\n    more.\n  IDEN. Nay, it shall ne'er be said, while England stands,\n    That Alexander Iden, an esquire of Kent,\n    Took odds to combat a poor famish'd man.\n    Oppose thy steadfast-gazing eyes to mine;\n    See if thou canst outface me with thy looks;\n    Set limb to limb, and thou art far the lesser;\n    Thy hand is but a finger to my fist,\n    Thy leg a stick compared with this truncheon;\n    My foot shall fight with all the strength thou hast,\n    And if mine arm be heaved in the air,\n    Thy grave is digg'd already in the earth.\n    As for words, whose greatness answers words,\n    Let this my sword report what speech forbears.\n  CADE. By my valour, the most complete champion that ever I heard!\n    Steel, if thou turn the edge, or cut not out the burly bon'd\n    clown in chines of beef ere thou sleep in thy sheath, I beseech\n    God on my knees thou mayst be turn'd to hobnails. [Here they\n    fight; CADE falls] O, I am slain! famine and no other hath slain\n    me. Let ten thousand devils come against me, and give me but the\n    ten meals I have lost, and I'd defy them all. Wither, garden, and\n    be henceforth a burying place to all that do dwell in this house,\n    because the unconquered soul of Cade is fled.\n  IDEN. Is't Cade that I have slain, that monstrous traitor?\n    Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed\n    And hang thee o'er my tomb when I am dead.\n    Ne'er shall this blood be wiped from thy point,\n    But thou shalt wear it as a herald's coat\n    To emblaze the honour that thy master got.\n  CADE. Iden, farewell; and be proud of thy victory. Tell Kent from\n    me she hath lost her best man, and exhort all the world to be\n    cowards; for I, that never feared any, am vanquished by famine,\n    not by valour.                                        [Dies]\n  IDEN. How much thou wrong'st me, heaven be my judge.\n    Die, damned wretch, the curse of her that bare thee!\n    And as I thrust thy body in with my sword,\n    So wish I, I might thrust thy soul to hell.\n    Hence will I drag thee headlong by the heels\n    Unto a dunghill, which shall be thy grave,\n    And there cut off thy most ungracious head,\n    Which I will bear in triumph to the King,\n    Leaving thy trunk for crows to feed upon.               Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nFields between Dartford and Blackheath\n\nEnter YORK, and his army of Irish, with drum and colours\n\n  YORK. From Ireland thus comes York to claim his right\n    And pluck the crown from feeble Henry's head:\n    Ring bells aloud, burn bonfires clear and bright,\n    To entertain great England's lawful king.\n    Ah, sancta majestas! who would not buy thee dear?\n    Let them obey that knows not how to rule;\n    This hand was made to handle nought but gold.\n    I cannot give due action to my words\n    Except a sword or sceptre balance it.\n    A sceptre shall it have, have I a soul\n    On which I'll toss the flower-de-luce of France.\n\n                         Enter BUCKINGHAM\n\n    [Aside] Whom have we here? Buckingham, to disturb me?\n    The King hath sent him, sure: I must dissemble.\n  BUCKINGHAM. York, if thou meanest well I greet thee well.\n  YORK. Humphrey of Buckingham, I accept thy greeting.\n    Art thou a messenger, or come of pleasure?\n  BUCKINGHAM. A messenger from Henry, our dread liege,\n    To know the reason of these arms in peace;\n    Or why thou, being a subject as I am,\n    Against thy oath and true allegiance sworn,\n    Should raise so great a power without his leave,\n    Or dare to bring thy force so near the court.\n  YORK. [Aside] Scarce can I speak, my choler is so great.\n    O, I could hew up rocks and fight with flint,\n    I am so angry at these abject terms;\n    And now, like Ajax Telamonius,\n    On sheep or oxen could I spend my fury.\n    I am far better born than is the King,\n    More like a king, more kingly in my thoughts;\n    But I must make fair weather yet awhile,\n    Till Henry be more weak and I more strong.-\n    Buckingham, I prithee, pardon me\n    That I have given no answer all this while;\n    My mind was troubled with deep melancholy.\n    The cause why I have brought this army hither\n    Is to remove proud Somerset from the King,\n    Seditious to his Grace and to the state.\n  BUCKINGHAM. That is too much presumption on thy part;\n    But if thy arms be to no other end,\n    The King hath yielded unto thy demand:\n    The Duke of Somerset is in the Tower.\n  YORK. Upon thine honour, is he prisoner?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Upon mine honour, he is prisoner.\n  YORK. Then, Buckingham, I do dismiss my pow'rs.\n    Soldiers, I thank you all; disperse yourselves;\n    Meet me to-morrow in Saint George's field,\n    You shall have pay and everything you wish.\n    And let my sovereign, virtuous Henry,\n    Command my eldest son, nay, all my sons,\n    As pledges of my fealty and love.\n    I'll send them all as willing as I live:\n    Lands, goods, horse, armour, anything I have,\n    Is his to use, so Somerset may die.\n  BUCKINGHAM. York, I commend this kind submission.\n    We twain will go into his Highness' tent.\n\n                  Enter the KING, and attendants\n\n  KING HENRY. Buckingham, doth York intend no harm to us,\n    That thus he marcheth with thee arm in arm?\n  YORK. In all submission and humility\n    York doth present himself unto your Highness.\n  KING HENRY. Then what intends these forces thou dost bring?\n  YORK. To heave the traitor Somerset from hence,\n    And fight against that monstrous rebel Cade,\n    Who since I heard to be discomfited.\n\n                    Enter IDEN, with CADE's head\n\n  IDEN. If one so rude and of so mean condition\n    May pass into the presence of a king,\n    Lo, I present your Grace a traitor's head,\n    The head of Cade, whom I in combat slew.\n  KING HENRY. The head of Cade! Great God, how just art Thou!\n    O, let me view his visage, being dead,\n    That living wrought me such exceeding trouble.\n    Tell me, my friend, art thou the man that slew him?\n  IDEN. I was, an't like your Majesty.\n  KING HENRY. How art thou call'd? And what is thy degree?\n  IDEN. Alexander Iden, that's my name;\n    A poor esquire of Kent that loves his king.\n  BUCKINGHAM. So please it you, my lord, 'twere not amiss\n    He were created knight for his good service.\n  KING HENRY. Iden, kneel down. [He kneels] Rise up a knight.\n    We give thee for reward a thousand marks,\n    And will that thou thenceforth attend on us.\n  IDEN. May Iden live to merit such a bounty,\n    And never live but true unto his liege!\n\n                    Enter the QUEEN and SOMERSET\n\n  KING HENRY. See, Buckingham! Somerset comes with th' Queen:\n    Go, bid her hide him quickly from the Duke.\n  QUEEN. For thousand Yorks he shall not hide his head,\n    But boldly stand and front him to his face.\n  YORK. How now! Is Somerset at liberty?\n    Then, York, unloose thy long-imprisoned thoughts\n    And let thy tongue be equal with thy heart.\n    Shall I endure the sight of Somerset?\n    False king, why hast thou broken faith with me,\n    Knowing how hardly I can brook abuse?\n    King did I call thee? No, thou art not king;\n    Not fit to govern and rule multitudes,\n    Which dar'st not, no, nor canst not rule a traitor.\n    That head of thine doth not become a crown;\n    Thy hand is made to grasp a palmer's staff,\n    And not to grace an awful princely sceptre.\n    That gold must round engirt these brows of mine,\n    Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles' spear,\n    Is able with the change to kill and cure.\n    Here is a hand to hold a sceptre up,\n    And with the same to act controlling laws.\n    Give place. By heaven, thou shalt rule no more\n    O'er him whom heaven created for thy ruler.\n  SOMERSET. O monstrous traitor! I arrest thee, York,\n    Of capital treason 'gainst the King and crown.\n    Obey, audacious traitor; kneel for grace.\n  YORK. Wouldst have me kneel? First let me ask of these,\n    If they can brook I bow a knee to man.\n    Sirrah, call in my sons to be my bail:        Exit attendant\n    I know, ere thy will have me go to ward,\n    They'll pawn their swords for my enfranchisement.\n  QUEEN. Call hither Clifford; bid him come amain,\n    To say if that the bastard boys of York\n    Shall be the surety for their traitor father.\n                                                 Exit BUCKINGHAM\n  YORK. O blood-bespotted Neapolitan,\n    Outcast of Naples, England's bloody scourge!\n    The sons of York, thy betters in their birth,\n    Shall be their father's bail; and bane to those\n    That for my surety will refuse the boys!\n\n               Enter EDWARD and RICHARD PLANTAGENET\n\n    See where they come: I'll warrant they'll make it good.\n\n                     Enter CLIFFORD and his SON\n\n  QUEEN. And here comes Clifford to deny their bail.\n  CLIFFORD. Health and all happiness to my lord the King!\n                                                        [Kneels]\n  YORK. I thank thee, Clifford. Say, what news with thee?\n    Nay, do not fright us with an angry look.\n    We are thy sovereign, Clifford, kneel again;\n    For thy mistaking so, we pardon thee.\n  CLIFFORD. This is my King, York, I do not mistake;\n    But thou mistakes me much to think I do.\n    To Bedlam with him! Is the man grown mad?\n  KING HENRY. Ay, Clifford; a bedlam and ambitious humour\n    Makes him oppose himself against his king.\n  CLIFFORD. He is a traitor; let him to the Tower,\n    And chop away that factious pate of his.\n  QUEEN. He is arrested, but will not obey;\n    His sons, he says, shall give their words for him.\n  YORK. Will you not, sons?\n  EDWARD. Ay, noble father, if our words will serve.\n  RICHARD. And if words will not, then our weapons shall.\n  CLIFFORD. Why, what a brood of traitors have we here!\n  YORK. Look in a glass, and call thy image so:\n    I am thy king, and thou a false-heart traitor.\n    Call hither to the stake my two brave bears,\n    That with the very shaking of their chains\n    They may astonish these fell-lurking curs.\n    Bid Salisbury and Warwick come to me.\n\n               Enter the EARLS OF WARWICK and SALISBURY\n\n  CLIFFORD. Are these thy bears? We'll bait thy bears to death,\n    And manacle the berard in their chains,\n    If thou dar'st bring them to the baiting-place.\n  RICHARD. Oft have I seen a hot o'er weening cur\n    Run back and bite, because he was withheld;\n    Who, being suffer'd, with the bear's fell paw,\n    Hath clapp'd his tail between his legs and cried;\n    And such a piece of service will you do,\n    If you oppose yourselves to match Lord Warwick.\n  CLIFFORD. Hence, heap of wrath, foul indigested lump,\n    As crooked in thy manners as thy shape!\n  YORK. Nay, we shall heat you thoroughly anon.\n  CLIFFORD. Take heed, lest by your heat you burn yourselves.\n  KING HENRY. Why, Warwick, hath thy knee forgot to bow?\n    Old Salisbury, shame to thy silver hair,\n    Thou mad misleader of thy brainsick son!\n    What, wilt thou on thy death-bed play the ruffian\n    And seek for sorrow with thy spectacles?\n    O, where is faith? O, where is loyalty?\n    If it be banish'd from the frosty head,\n    Where shall it find a harbour in the earth?\n    Wilt thou go dig a grave to find out war\n    And shame thine honourable age with blood?\n    Why art thou old, and want'st experience?\n    Or wherefore dost abuse it, if thou hast it?\n    For shame! In duty bend thy knee to me,\n    That bows unto the grave with mickle age.\n  SALISBURY. My lord, I have considered with myself\n    The tide of this most renowned duke,\n    And in my conscience do repute his Grace\n    The rightful heir to England's royal seat.\n  KING HENRY. Hast thou not sworn allegiance unto me?\n  SALISBURY. I have.\n  KING HENRY. Canst thou dispense with heaven for such an oath?\n  SALISBURY. It is great sin to swear unto a sin;\n    But greater sin to keep a sinful oath.\n    Who can be bound by any solemn vow\n    To do a murd'rous deed, to rob a man,\n    To force a spotless virgin's chastity,\n    To reave the orphan of his patrimony,\n    To wring the widow from her custom'd right,\n    And have no other reason for this wrong\n    But that he was bound by a solemn oath?\n  QUEEN. A subtle traitor needs no sophister.\n  KING HENRY. Call Buckingham, and bid him arm himself.\n  YORK. Call Buckingham, and all the friends thou hast,\n    I am resolv'd for death or dignity.\n  CLIFFORD. The first I warrant thee, if dreams prove true.\n  WARWICK. You were best to go to bed and dream again\n    To keep thee from the tempest of the field.\n  CLIFFORD. I am resolv'd to bear a greater storm\n    Than any thou canst conjure up to-day;\n    And that I'll write upon thy burgonet,\n    Might I but know thee by thy household badge.\n  WARWICK. Now, by my father's badge, old Nevil's crest,\n    The rampant bear chain'd to the ragged staff,\n    This day I'll wear aloft my burgonet,\n    As on a mountain-top the cedar shows,\n    That keeps his leaves in spite of any storm,\n    Even to affright thee with the view thereof.\n  CLIFFORD. And from thy burgonet I'll rend thy bear\n    And tread it under foot with all contempt,\n    Despite the berard that protects the bear.\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD. And so to arms, victorious father,\n    To quell the rebels and their complices.\n  RICHARD. Fie! charity, for shame! Speak not in spite,\n    For you shall sup with Jesu Christ to-night.\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD. Foul stigmatic, that's more than thou canst tell.\n  RICHARD. If not in heaven, you'll surely sup in hell.\n                                                Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nSaint Albans\n\nAlarums to the battle. Enter WARWICK\n\n  WARWICK. Clifford of Cumberland, 'tis Warwick calls;\n    And if thou dost not hide thee from the bear,\n    Now, when the angry trumpet sounds alarum\n    And dead men's cries do fill the empty air,\n    Clifford, I say, come forth and fight with me.\n    Proud northern lord, Clifford of Cumberland,\n  WARWICK is hoarse with calling thee to arms.\n\n                          Enter YORK\n\n    How now, my noble lord! what, all a-foot?\n  YORK. The deadly-handed Clifford slew my steed;\n    But match to match I have encount'red him,\n    And made a prey for carrion kites and crows\n    Even of the bonny beast he lov'd so well.\n\n                      Enter OLD CLIFFORD\n\n  WARWICK. Of one or both of us the time is come.\n  YORK. Hold, Warwick, seek thee out some other chase,\n    For I myself must hunt this deer to death.\n  WARWICK. Then, nobly, York; 'tis for a crown thou fight'st.\n    As I intend, Clifford, to thrive to-day,\n    It grieves my soul to leave thee unassail'd.            Exit\n  CLIFFORD. What seest thou in me, York? Why dost thou pause?\n  YORK. With thy brave bearing should I be in love\n    But that thou art so fast mine enemy.\n  CLIFFORD. Nor should thy prowess want praise and esteem\n    But that 'tis shown ignobly and in treason.\n  YORK. So let it help me now against thy sword,\n    As I in justice and true right express it!\n  CLIFFORD. My soul and body on the action both!\n  YORK. A dreadful lay! Address thee instantly.\n                                 [They fight and CLIFFORD falls]\n  CLIFFORD. La fin couronne les oeuvres.                  [Dies]\n  YORK. Thus war hath given thee peace, for thou art still.\n    Peace with his soul, heaven, if it be thy will!         Exit\n\n                     Enter YOUNG CLIFFORD\n\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD. Shame and confusion! All is on the rout;\n    Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds\n    Where it should guard. O war, thou son of hell,\n    Whom angry heavens do make their minister,\n    Throw in the frozen bosoms of our part\n    Hot coals of vengeance! Let no soldier fly.\n    He that is truly dedicate to war\n    Hath no self-love; nor he that loves himself\n    Hath not essentially, but by circumstance,\n    The name of valour.                 [Sees his father's body]\n    O, let the vile world end\n    And the premised flames of the last day\n    Knit earth and heaven together!\n    Now let the general trumpet blow his blast,\n    Particularities and petty sounds\n    To cease! Wast thou ordain'd, dear father,\n    To lose thy youth in peace and to achieve\n    The silver livery of advised age,\n    And in thy reverence and thy chair-days thus\n    To die in ruffian battle? Even at this sight\n    My heart is turn'd to stone; and while 'tis mine\n    It shall be stony. York not our old men spares;\n    No more will I their babes. Tears virginal\n    Shall be to me even as the dew to fire;\n    And beauty, that the tyrant oft reclaims,\n    Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax.\n    Henceforth I will not have to do with pity:\n    Meet I an infant of the house of York,\n    Into as many gobbets will I cut it\n    As wild Medea young Absyrtus did;\n    In cruelty will I seek out my fame.\n    Come, thou new ruin of old Clifford's house;\n    As did Aeneas old Anchises bear,\n    So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders;\n    But then Aeneas bare a living load,\n    Nothing so heavy as these woes of mine.\n                                              Exit with the body\n\n       Enter RICHARD and SOMERSET to fight. SOMERSET is killed\n\n  RICHARD. So, lie thou there;\n    For underneath an alehouse' paltry sign,\n    The Castle in Saint Albans, Somerset\n    Hath made the wizard famous in his death.\n    Sword, hold thy temper; heart, be wrathful still:\n    Priests pray for enemies, but princes kill.             Exit\n\n        Fight. Excursions. Enter KING, QUEEN, and others\n\n  QUEEN. Away, my lord! You are slow; for shame, away!\n  KING HENRY. Can we outrun the heavens? Good Margaret, stay.\n  QUEEN. What are you made of? You'll nor fight nor fly.\n    Now is it manhood, wisdom, and defence,\n    To give the enemy way, and to secure us\n    By what we can, which can no more but fly.\n                                               [Alarum afar off]\n    If you be ta'en, we then should see the bottom\n    Of all our fortunes; but if we haply scape-\n    As well we may, if not through your neglect-\n    We shall to London get, where you are lov'd,\n    And where this breach now in our fortunes made\n    May readily be stopp'd.\n\n                     Re-enter YOUNG CLIFFORD\n\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD. But that my heart's on future mischief set,\n    I would speak blasphemy ere bid you fly;\n    But fly you must; uncurable discomfit\n    Reigns in the hearts of all our present parts.\n    Away, for your relief! and we will live\n    To see their day and them our fortune give.\n    Away, my lord, away!                                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nFields near Saint Albans\n\nAlarum. Retreat. Enter YORK, RICHARD, WARWICK, and soldiers,\nwith drum and colours\n\n  YORK. Of Salisbury, who can report of him,\n    That winter lion, who in rage forgets\n    Aged contusions and all brush of time\n    And, like a gallant in the brow of youth,\n    Repairs him with occasion? This happy day\n    Is not itself, nor have we won one foot,\n    If Salisbury be lost.\n  RICHARD. My noble father,\n    Three times to-day I holp him to his horse,\n    Three times bestrid him, thrice I led him off,\n    Persuaded him from any further act;\n    But still where danger was, still there I met him;\n    And like rich hangings in a homely house,\n    So was his will in his old feeble body.\n    But, noble as he is, look where he comes.\n\n                         Enter SALISBURY\n\n  SALISBURY. Now, by my sword, well hast thou fought to-day!\n    By th' mass, so did we all. I thank you, Richard:\n    God knows how long it is I have to live,\n    And it hath pleas'd Him that three times to-day\n    You have defended me from imminent death.\n    Well, lords, we have not got that which we have;\n    'Tis not enough our foes are this time fled,\n    Being opposites of such repairing nature.\n  YORK. I know our safety is to follow them;\n    For, as I hear, the King is fled to London\n    To call a present court of Parliament.\n    Let us pursue him ere the writs go forth.\n    What says Lord Warwick? Shall we after them?\n  WARWICK. After them? Nay, before them, if we can.\n    Now, by my faith, lords, 'twas a glorious day:\n    Saint Albans' battle, won by famous York,\n    Shall be eterniz'd in all age to come.\n    Sound drum and trumpets and to London all;\n    And more such days as these to us befall!             Exeunt\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1591\n\nTHE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n  EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, his son\n  LEWIS XI, King of France           DUKE OF SOMERSET\n  DUKE OF EXETER                     EARL OF OXFORD\n  EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND             EARL OF WESTMORELAND\n  LORD CLIFFORD\n  RICHARD PLANTAGENET, DUKE OF YORK\n  EDWARD, EARL OF MARCH, afterwards KING EDWARD IV, his son\n  EDMUND, EARL OF RUTLAND, his son\n  GEORGE, afterwards DUKE OF CLARENCE, his son\n  RICHARD, afterwards DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, his son\n  DUKE OF NORFOLK                    MARQUIS OF MONTAGUE\n  EARL OF WARWICK                    EARL OF PEMBROKE\n  LORD HASTINGS                      LORD STAFFORD\n  SIR JOHN MORTIMER, uncle to the Duke of York\n  SIR HUGH MORTIMER, uncle to the Duke of York\n  HENRY, EARL OF RICHMOND, a youth\n  LORD RIVERS, brother to Lady Grey\n  SIR WILLIAM STANLEY                SIR JOHN MONTGOMERY\n  SIR JOHN SOMERVILLE                TUTOR, to Rutland\n  MAYOR OF YORK                      LIEUTENANT OF THE TOWER\n  A NOBLEMAN                         TWO KEEPERS\n  A HUNTSMAN\n  A SON that has killed his father\n  A FATHER that has killed his son\n\n  QUEEN MARGARET\n  LADY GREY, afterwards QUEEN to Edward IV\n  BONA, sister to the French Queen\n\n  Soldiers, Attendants, Messengers, Watchmen, etc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland and France\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nLondon. The Parliament House\n\nAlarum. Enter DUKE OF YORK, EDWARD, RICHARD, NORFOLK, MONTAGUE, WARWICK,\nand soldiers, with white roses in their hats\n\n  WARWICK. I wonder how the King escap'd our hands.\n  YORK. While we pursu'd the horsemen of the north,\n    He slily stole away and left his men;\n    Whereat the great Lord of Northumberland,\n    Whose warlike ears could never brook retreat,\n    Cheer'd up the drooping army, and himself,\n    Lord Clifford, and Lord Stafford, all abreast,\n    Charg'd our main battle's front, and, breaking in,\n    Were by the swords of common soldiers slain.\n  EDWARD. Lord Stafford's father, Duke of Buckingham,\n    Is either slain or wounded dangerous;\n    I cleft his beaver with a downright blow.\n    That this is true, father, behold his blood.\n  MONTAGUE. And, brother, here's the Earl of Wiltshire's blood,\n    Whom I encount'red as the battles join'd.\n  RICHARD. Speak thou for me, and tell them what I did.\n                                 [Throwing down SOMERSET'S head]\n  YORK. Richard hath best deserv'd of all my sons.\n    But is your Grace dead, my Lord of Somerset?\n  NORFOLK. Such hope have all the line of John of Gaunt!\n  RICHARD. Thus do I hope to shake King Henry's head.\n  WARWICK. And so do I. Victorious Prince of York,\n    Before I see thee seated in that throne\n    Which now the house of Lancaster usurps,\n    I vow by heaven these eyes shall never close.\n    This is the palace of the fearful King,\n    And this the regal seat. Possess it, York;\n    For this is thine, and not King Henry's heirs'.\n  YORK. Assist me then, sweet Warwick, and I will;\n    For hither we have broken in by force.\n  NORFOLK. We'll all assist you; he that flies shall die.\n  YORK. Thanks, gentle Norfolk. Stay by me, my lords;\n    And, soldiers, stay and lodge by me this night.\n                                                    [They go up]\n  WARWICK. And when the King comes, offer him no violence.\n    Unless he seek to thrust you out perforce.\n  YORK. The Queen this day here holds her parliament,\n    But little thinks we shall be of her council.\n    By words or blows here let us win our right.\n  RICHARD. Arm'd as we are, let's stay within this house.\n  WARWICK. The bloody parliament shall this be call'd,\n    Unless Plantagenet, Duke of York, be King,\n    And bashful Henry depos'd, whose cowardice\n    Hath made us by-words to our enemies.\n  YORK. Then leave me not, my lords; be resolute:\n    I mean to take possession of my right.\n  WARWICK. Neither the King, nor he that loves him best,\n    The proudest he that holds up Lancaster,\n    Dares stir a wing if Warwick shake his bells.\n    I'll plant Plantagenet, root him up who dares.\n    Resolve thee, Richard; claim the English crown.\n                                      [YORK occupies the throne]\n\n       Flourish. Enter KING HENRY, CLIFFORD, NORTHUMBERLAND,\n        WESTMORELAND, EXETER, and others, with red roses in\n                            their hats\n\n  KING HENRY. My lords, look where the sturdy rebel sits,\n    Even in the chair of state! Belike he means,\n    Back'd by the power of Warwick, that false peer,\n    To aspire unto the crown and reign as king.\n    Earl of Northumberland, he slew thy father;\n    And thine, Lord Clifford; and you both have vow'd revenge\n    On him, his sons, his favourites, and his friends.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. If I be not, heavens be reveng'd on me!\n  CLIFFORD. The hope thereof makes Clifford mourn in steel.\n  WESTMORELAND. What, shall we suffer this? Let's pluck him down;\n    My heart for anger burns; I cannot brook it.\n  KING HENRY. Be patient, gentle Earl of Westmoreland.\n  CLIFFORD. Patience is for poltroons such as he;\n    He durst not sit there had your father liv'd.\n    My gracious lord, here in the parliament\n    Let us assail the family of York.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Well hast thou spoken, cousin; be it so.\n  KING HENRY. Ah, know you not the city favours them,\n    And they have troops of soldiers at their beck?\n  EXETER. But when the Duke is slain they'll quickly fly.\n  KING HENRY. Far be the thought of this from Henry's heart,\n    To make a shambles of the parliament house!\n    Cousin of Exeter, frowns, words, and threats,\n    Shall be the war that Henry means to use.\n    Thou factious Duke of York, descend my throne\n    And kneel for grace and mercy at my feet;\n    I am thy sovereign.\n  YORK. I am thine.\n  EXETER. For shame, come down; he made thee Duke of York.\n  YORK. 'Twas my inheritance, as the earldom was.\n  EXETER. Thy father was a traitor to the crown.\n  WARWICK. Exeter, thou art a traitor to the crown\n    In following this usurping Henry.\n  CLIFFORD. Whom should he follow but his natural king?\n  WARWICK. True, Clifford; and that's Richard Duke of York.\n  KING HENRY. And shall I stand, and thou sit in my throne?\n  YORK. It must and shall be so; content thyself.\n  WARWICK. Be Duke of Lancaster; let him be King.\n  WESTMORELAND. He is both King and Duke of Lancaster;\n    And that the Lord of Westmoreland shall maintain.\n  WARWICK. And Warwick shall disprove it. You forget\n    That we are those which chas'd you from the field,\n    And slew your fathers, and with colours spread\n    March'd through the city to the palace gates.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Yes, Warwick, I remember it to my grief;\n    And, by his soul, thou and thy house shall rue it.\n  WESTMORELAND. Plantagenet, of thee, and these thy sons,\n    Thy kinsmen, and thy friends, I'll have more lives\n    Than drops of blood were in my father's veins.\n  CLIFFORD. Urge it no more; lest that instead of words\n    I send thee, Warwick, such a messenger\n    As shall revenge his death before I stir.\n  WARWICK. Poor Clifford, how I scorn his worthless threats!\n  YORK. Will you we show our title to the crown?\n    If not, our swords shall plead it in the field.\n  KING HENRY. What title hast thou, traitor, to the crown?\n    Thy father was, as thou art, Duke of York;\n    Thy grandfather, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March:\n    I am the son of Henry the Fifth,\n    Who made the Dauphin and the French to stoop,\n    And seiz'd upon their towns and provinces.\n  WARWICK. Talk not of France, sith thou hast lost it all.\n  KING HENRY. The Lord Protector lost it, and not I:\n    When I was crown'd, I was but nine months old.\n  RICHARD. You are old enough now, and yet methinks you lose.\n    Father, tear the crown from the usurper's head.\n  EDWARD. Sweet father, do so; set it on your head.\n  MONTAGUE. Good brother, as thou lov'st and honourest arms,\n    Let's fight it out and not stand cavilling thus.\n  RICHARD. Sound drums and trumpets, and the King will fly.\n  YORK. Sons, peace!\n  KING HENRY. Peace thou! and give King Henry leave to speak.\n  WARWICK. Plantagenet shall speak first. Hear him, lords;\n    And be you silent and attentive too,\n    For he that interrupts him shall not live.\n  KING HENRY. Think'st thou that I will leave my kingly throne,\n    Wherein my grandsire and my father sat?\n    No; first shall war unpeople this my realm;\n    Ay, and their colours, often borne in France,\n    And now in England to our heart's great sorrow,\n    Shall be my winding-sheet. Why faint you, lords?\n    My title's good, and better far than his.\n  WARWICK. Prove it, Henry, and thou shalt be King.\n  KING HENRY. Henry the Fourth by conquest got the crown.\n  YORK. 'Twas by rebellion against his king.\n  KING HENRY. [Aside] I know not what to say; my title's weak.-\n    Tell me, may not a king adopt an heir?\n  YORK. What then?\n  KING HENRY. An if he may, then am I lawful King;\n    For Richard, in the view of many lords,\n    Resign'd the crown to Henry the Fourth,\n    Whose heir my father was, and I am his.\n  YORK. He rose against him, being his sovereign,\n    And made him to resign his crown perforce.\n  WARWICK. Suppose, my lords, he did it unconstrain'd,\n    Think you 'twere prejudicial to his crown?\n  EXETER. No; for he could not so resign his crown\n    But that the next heir should succeed and reign.\n  KING HENRY. Art thou against us, Duke of Exeter?\n  EXETER. His is the right, and therefore pardon me.\n  YORK. Why whisper you, my lords, and answer not?\n  EXETER. My conscience tells me he is lawful King.\n  KING HENRY. [Aside] All will revolt from me, and turn to him.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Plantagenet, for all the claim thou lay'st,\n    Think not that Henry shall be so depos'd.\n  WARWICK. Depos'd he shall be, in despite of all.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Thou art deceiv'd. 'Tis not thy southern power\n    Of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, nor of Kent,\n    Which makes thee thus presumptuous and proud,\n    Can set the Duke up in despite of me.\n  CLIFFORD. King Henry, be thy title right or wrong,\n    Lord Clifford vows to fight in thy defence.\n    May that ground gape, and swallow me alive,\n    Where I shall kneel to him that slew my father!\n  KING HENRY. O Clifford, how thy words revive my heart!\n  YORK. Henry of Lancaster, resign thy crown.\n    What mutter you, or what conspire you, lords?\n  WARWICK. Do right unto this princely Duke of York;\n    Or I will fill the house with armed men,\n    And over the chair of state, where now he sits,\n    Write up his title with usurping blood.\n                                [He stamps with his foot and the\n                                       soldiers show themselves]\n  KING HENRY. My Lord of Warwick, hear but one word:\n    Let me for this my life-time reign as king.\n  YORK. Confirm the crown to me and to mine heirs,\n    And thou shalt reign in quiet while thou liv'st.\n  KING HENRY. I am content. Richard Plantagenet,\n    Enjoy the kingdom after my decease.\n  CLIFFORD. What wrong is this unto the Prince your son!\n  WARWICK. What good is this to England and himself!\n  WESTMORELAND. Base, fearful, and despairing Henry!\n  CLIFFORD. How hast thou injur'd both thyself and or us!\n  WESTMORELAND. I cannot stay to hear these articles.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Nor I.\n  CLIFFORD. Come, cousin, let us tell the Queen these news.\n  WESTMORELAND. Farewell, faint-hearted and degenerate king,\n    In whose cold blood no spark of honour bides.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Be thou a prey unto the house of York\n    And die in bands for this unmanly deed!\n  CLIFFORD. In dreadful war mayst thou be overcome,\n    Or live in peace abandon'd and despis'd!\n                                Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, CLIFFORD,\n                                                and WESTMORELAND\n  WARWICK. Turn this way, Henry, and regard them not.\n  EXETER. They seek revenge, and therefore will not yield.\n  KING HENRY. Ah, Exeter!\n  WARWICK. Why should you sigh, my lord?\n  KING HENRY. Not for myself, Lord Warwick, but my son,\n    Whom I unnaturally shall disinherit.\n    But be it as it may. [To YORK] I here entail\n    The crown to thee and to thine heirs for ever;\n    Conditionally, that here thou take an oath\n    To cease this civil war, and, whilst I live,\n    To honour me as thy king and sovereign,\n    And neither by treason nor hostility\n    To seek to put me down and reign thyself.\n  YORK. This oath I willingly take, and will perform.\n                                        [Coming from the throne]\n  WARWICK. Long live King Henry! Plantagenet, embrace him.\n  KING HENRY. And long live thou, and these thy forward sons!\n  YORK. Now York and Lancaster are reconcil'd.\n  EXETER. Accurs'd be he that seeks to make them foes!\n                                   [Sennet. Here they come down]\n  YORK. Farewell, my gracious lord; I'll to my castle.\n  WARWICK. And I'll keep London with my soldiers.\n  NORFOLK. And I to Norfolk with my followers.\n  MONTAGUE. And I unto the sea, from whence I came.\n                                             Exeunt the YORKISTS\n  KING HENRY. And I, with grief and sorrow, to the court.\n\n            Enter QUEEN MARGARET and the PRINCE OF WALES\n\n  EXETER. Here comes the Queen, whose looks bewray her anger.\n    I'll steal away.\n  KING HENRY. Exeter, so will I.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Nay, go not from me; I will follow thee.\n  KING HENRY. Be patient, gentle queen, and I will stay.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Who can be patient in such extremes?\n    Ah, wretched man! Would I had died a maid,\n    And never seen thee, never borne thee son,\n    Seeing thou hast prov'd so unnatural a father!\n    Hath he deserv'd to lose his birthright thus?\n    Hadst thou but lov'd him half so well as I,\n    Or felt that pain which I did for him once,\n    Or nourish'd him as I did with my blood,\n    Thou wouldst have left thy dearest heart-blood there\n    Rather than have made that savage duke thine heir,\n    And disinherited thine only son.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Father, you cannot disinherit me.\n    If you be King, why should not I succeed?\n  KING HENRY. Pardon me, Margaret; pardon me, sweet son.\n    The Earl of Warwick and the Duke enforc'd me.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Enforc'd thee! Art thou King and wilt be\n      forc'd?\n    I shame to hear thee speak. Ah, timorous wretch!\n    Thou hast undone thyself, thy son, and me;\n    And giv'n unto the house of York such head\n    As thou shalt reign but by their sufferance.\n    To entail him and his heirs unto the crown,\n    What is it but to make thy sepulchre\n    And creep into it far before thy time?\n    Warwick is Chancellor and the lord of Calais;\n    Stern Falconbridge commands the narrow seas;\n    The Duke is made Protector of the realm;\n    And yet shalt thou be safe? Such safety finds\n    The trembling lamb environed with wolves.\n    Had I been there, which am a silly woman,\n    The soldiers should have toss'd me on their pikes\n    Before I would have granted to that act.\n    But thou prefer'st thy life before thine honour;\n    And seeing thou dost, I here divorce myself,\n    Both from thy table, Henry, and thy bed,\n    Until that act of parliament be repeal'd\n    Whereby my son is disinherited.\n    The northern lords that have forsworn thy colours\n    Will follow mine, if once they see them spread;\n    And spread they shall be, to thy foul disgrace\n    And utter ruin of the house of York.\n    Thus do I leave thee. Come, son, let's away;\n    Our army is ready; come, we'll after them.\n  KING HENRY. Stay, gentle Margaret, and hear me speak.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Thou hast spoke too much already; get thee gone.\n  KING HENRY. Gentle son Edward, thou wilt stay with me?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, to be murder'd by his enemies.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. When I return with victory from the field\n    I'll see your Grace; till then I'll follow her.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Come, son, away; we may not linger thus.\n                            Exeunt QUEEN MARGARET and the PRINCE\n  KING HENRY. Poor queen! How love to me and to her son\n    Hath made her break out into terms of rage!\n    Reveng'd may she be on that hateful Duke,\n    Whose haughty spirit, winged with desire,\n    Will cost my crown, and like an empty eagle\n    Tire on the flesh of me and of my son!\n    The loss of those three lords torments my heart.\n    I'll write unto them, and entreat them fair;\n    Come, cousin, you shall be the messenger.\n  EXETER. And I, I hope, shall reconcile them all.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nSandal Castle, near Wakefield, in Yorkshire\n\nFlourish. Enter EDWARD, RICHARD, and MONTAGUE\n\n  RICHARD. Brother, though I be youngest, give me leave.\n  EDWARD. No, I can better play the orator.\n  MONTAGUE. But I have reasons strong and forcible.\n\n                     Enter the DUKE OF YORK\n\n  YORK. Why, how now, sons and brother! at a strife?\n    What is your quarrel? How began it first?\n  EDWARD. No quarrel, but a slight contention.\n  YORK. About what?\n  RICHARD. About that which concerns your Grace and us-\n    The crown of England, father, which is yours.\n  YORK. Mine, boy? Not till King Henry be dead.\n  RICHARD. Your right depends not on his life or death.\n  EDWARD. Now you are heir, therefore enjoy it now.\n    By giving the house of Lancaster leave to breathe,\n    It will outrun you, father, in the end.\n  YORK. I took an oath that he should quietly reign.\n  EDWARD. But for a kingdom any oath may be broken:\n    I would break a thousand oaths to reign one year.\n  RICHARD. No; God forbid your Grace should be forsworn.\n  YORK. I shall be, if I claim by open war.\n  RICHARD. I'll prove the contrary, if you'll hear me speak.\n  YORK. Thou canst not, son; it is impossible.\n  RICHARD. An oath is of no moment, being not took\n    Before a true and lawful magistrate\n    That hath authority over him that swears.\n    Henry had none, but did usurp the place;\n    Then, seeing 'twas he that made you to depose,\n    Your oath, my lord, is vain and frivolous.\n    Therefore, to arms. And, father, do but think\n    How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown,\n    Within whose circuit is Elysium\n    And all that poets feign of bliss and joy.\n    Why do we linger thus? I cannot rest\n    Until the white rose that I wear be dy'd\n    Even in the lukewarm blood of Henry's heart.\n  YORK. Richard, enough; I will be King, or die.\n    Brother, thou shalt to London presently\n    And whet on Warwick to this enterprise.\n    Thou, Richard, shalt to the Duke of Norfolk\n    And tell him privily of our intent.\n    You, Edward, shall unto my Lord Cobham,\n    With whom the Kentishmen will willingly rise;\n    In them I trust, for they are soldiers,\n    Witty, courteous, liberal, full of spirit.\n    While you are thus employ'd, what resteth more\n    But that I seek occasion how to rise,\n    And yet the King not privy to my drift,\n    Nor any of the house of Lancaster?\n\n                      Enter a MESSENGER\n\n    But, stay. What news? Why com'st thou in such post?\n  MESSENGER. The Queen with all the northern earls and lords\n    Intend here to besiege you in your castle.\n    She is hard by with twenty thousand men;\n    And therefore fortify your hold, my lord.\n  YORK. Ay, with my sword. What! think'st thou that we fear them?\n    Edward and Richard, you shall stay with me;\n    My brother Montague shall post to London.\n    Let noble Warwick, Cobham, and the rest,\n    Whom we have left protectors of the King,\n    With pow'rful policy strengthen themselves\n    And trust not simple Henry nor his oaths.\n  MONTAGUE. Brother, I go; I'll win them, fear it not.\n    And thus most humbly I do take my leave.                Exit\n\n              Enter SIR JOHN and SIR HUGH MORTIMER\n\n  YORK. Sir john and Sir Hugh Mortimer, mine uncles!\n    You are come to Sandal in a happy hour;\n    The army of the Queen mean to besiege us.\n  SIR JOHN. She shall not need; we'll meet her in the field.\n  YORK. What, with five thousand men?\n  RICHARD. Ay, with five hundred, father, for a need.\n    A woman's general; what should we fear?\n                                              [A march afar off]\n  EDWARD. I hear their drums. Let's set our men in order,\n    And issue forth and bid them battle straight.\n  YORK. Five men to twenty! Though the odds be great,\n    I doubt not, uncle, of our victory.\n    Many a battle have I won in France,\n    When as the enemy hath been ten to one;\n    Why should I not now have the like success?           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nField of battle between Sandal Castle and Wakefield\n\nAlarum. Enter RUTLAND and his TUTOR\n\n  RUTLAND. Ah, whither shall I fly to scape their hands?\n    Ah, tutor, look where bloody Clifford comes!\n\n                  Enter CLIFFORD and soldiers\n\n  CLIFFORD. Chaplain, away! Thy priesthood saves thy life.\n    As for the brat of this accursed duke,\n    Whose father slew my father, he shall die.\n  TUTOR. And I, my lord, will bear him company.\n  CLIFFORD. Soldiers, away with him!\n  TUTOR. Ah, Clifford, murder not this innocent child,\n    Lest thou be hated both of God and man.\n                                    Exit, forced off by soldiers\n  CLIFFORD. How now, is he dead already? Or is it fear\n    That makes him close his eyes? I'll open them.\n  RUTLAND. So looks the pent-up lion o'er the wretch\n    That trembles under his devouring paws;\n    And so he walks, insulting o'er his prey,\n    And so he comes, to rend his limbs asunder.\n    Ah, gentle Clifford, kill me with thy sword,\n    And not with such a cruel threat'ning look!\n    Sweet Clifford, hear me speak before I die.\n    I am too mean a subject for thy wrath;\n    Be thou reveng'd on men, and let me live.\n  CLIFFORD. In vain thou speak'st, poor boy; my father's blood\n    Hath stopp'd the passage where thy words should enter.\n  RUTLAND. Then let my father's blood open it again:\n    He is a man, and, Clifford, cope with him.\n  CLIFFORD. Had I thy brethren here, their lives and thine\n    Were not revenge sufficient for me;\n    No, if I digg'd up thy forefathers' graves\n    And hung their rotten coffins up in chains,\n    It could not slake mine ire nor ease my heart.\n    The sight of any of the house of York\n    Is as a fury to torment my soul;\n    And till I root out their accursed line\n    And leave not one alive, I live in hell.\n    Therefore-\n  RUTLAND. O, let me pray before I take my death!\n    To thee I pray: sweet Clifford, pity me.\n  CLIFFORD. Such pity as my rapier's point affords.\n  RUTLAND. I never did thee harm; why wilt thou slay me?\n  CLIFFORD. Thy father hath.\n  RUTLAND. But 'twas ere I was born.\n    Thou hast one son; for his sake pity me,\n    Lest in revenge thereof, sith God is just,\n    He be as miserably slain as I.\n    Ah, let me live in prison all my days;\n    And when I give occasion of offence\n    Then let me die, for now thou hast no cause.\n  CLIFFORD. No cause!\n    Thy father slew my father; therefore, die.       [Stabs him]\n  RUTLAND. Di faciant laudis summa sit ista tuae!         [Dies]\n  CLIFFORD. Plantagenet, I come, Plantagenet;\n    And this thy son's blood cleaving to my blade\n    Shall rust upon my weapon, till thy blood,\n    Congeal'd with this, do make me wipe off both.          Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the field\n\nAlarum. Enter the DUKE OF YORK\n\n  YORK. The army of the Queen hath got the field.\n    My uncles both are slain in rescuing me;\n    And all my followers to the eager foe\n    Turn back and fly, like ships before the wind,\n    Or lambs pursu'd by hunger-starved wolves.\n    My sons- God knows what hath bechanced them;\n    But this I know- they have demean'd themselves\n    Like men born to renown by life or death.\n    Three times did Richard make a lane to me,\n    And thrice cried 'Courage, father! fight it out.'\n    And full as oft came Edward to my side\n    With purple falchion, painted to the hilt\n    In blood of those that had encount'red him.\n    And when the hardiest warriors did retire,\n    Richard cried 'Charge, and give no foot of ground!'\n    And cried 'A crown, or else a glorious tomb!\n    A sceptre, or an earthly sepulchre!'\n    With this we charg'd again; but out alas!\n    We bodg'd again; as I have seen a swan\n    With bootless labour swim against the tide\n    And spend her strength with over-matching waves.\n                                         [A short alarum within]\n    Ah, hark! The fatal followers do pursue,\n    And I am faint and cannot fly their fury;\n    And were I strong, I would not shun their fury.\n    The sands are numb'red that make up my life;\n    Here must I stay, and here my life must end.\n\n         Enter QUEEN MARGARET, CLIFFORD, NORTHUMBERLAND,\n               the PRINCE OF WALES, and soldiers\n\n    Come, bloody Clifford, rough Northumberland,\n    I dare your quenchless fury to more rage;\n    I am your butt, and I abide your shot.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Yield to our mercy, proud Plantagenet.\n  CLIFFORD. Ay, to such mercy as his ruthless arm\n    With downright payment show'd unto my father.\n    Now Phaethon hath tumbled from his car,\n    And made an evening at the noontide prick.\n  YORK. My ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth\n    A bird that will revenge upon you all;\n    And in that hope I throw mine eyes to heaven,\n    Scorning whate'er you can afflict me with.\n    Why come you not? What! multitudes, and fear?\n  CLIFFORD. So cowards fight when they can fly no further;\n    So doves do peck the falcon's piercing talons;\n    So desperate thieves, all hopeless of their lives,\n    Breathe out invectives 'gainst the officers.\n  YORK. O Clifford, but bethink thee once again,\n    And in thy thought o'errun my former time;\n    And, if thou canst for blushing, view this face,\n    And bite thy tongue that slanders him with cowardice\n    Whose frown hath made thee faint and fly ere this!\n  CLIFFORD. I will not bandy with thee word for word,\n    But buckler with thee blows, twice two for one.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Hold, valiant Clifford; for a thousand causes\n    I would prolong awhile the traitor's life.\n    Wrath makes him deaf; speak thou, Northumberland.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Hold, Clifford! do not honour him so much\n    To prick thy finger, though to wound his heart.\n    What valour were it, when a cur doth grin,\n    For one to thrust his hand between his teeth,\n    When he might spurn him with his foot away?\n    It is war's prize to take all vantages;\n    And ten to one is no impeach of valour.\n                         [They lay hands on YORK, who struggles]\n  CLIFFORD. Ay, ay, so strives the woodcock with the gin.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. So doth the cony struggle in the net.\n  YORK. So triumph thieves upon their conquer'd booty;\n    So true men yield, with robbers so o'er-match'd.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. What would your Grace have done unto him now?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Brave warriors, Clifford and Northumberland,\n    Come, make him stand upon this molehill here\n    That raught at mountains with outstretched arms,\n    Yet parted but the shadow with his hand.\n    What, was it you that would be England's king?\n    Was't you that revell'd in our parliament\n    And made a preachment of your high descent?\n    Where are your mess of sons to back you now?\n    The wanton Edward and the lusty George?\n    And where's that valiant crook-back prodigy,\n    Dicky your boy, that with his grumbling voice\n    Was wont to cheer his dad in mutinies?\n    Or, with the rest, where is your darling Rutland?\n    Look, York: I stain'd this napkin with the blood\n    That valiant Clifford with his rapier's point\n    Made issue from the bosom of the boy;\n    And if thine eyes can water for his death,\n    I give thee this to dry thy cheeks withal.\n    Alas, poor York! but that I hate thee deadly,\n    I should lament thy miserable state.\n    I prithee grieve to make me merry, York.\n    What, hath thy fiery heart so parch'd thine entrails\n    That not a tear can fall for Rutland's death?\n    Why art thou patient, man? Thou shouldst be mad;\n    And I to make thee mad do mock thee thus.\n    Stamp, rave, and fret, that I may sing and dance.\n    Thou wouldst be fee'd, I see, to make me sport;\n    York cannot speak unless he wear a crown.\n    A crown for York!-and, lords, bow low to him.\n    Hold you his hands whilst I do set it on.\n                             [Putting a paper crown on his head]\n    Ay, marry, sir, now looks he like a king!\n    Ay, this is he that took King Henry's chair,\n    And this is he was his adopted heir.\n    But how is it that great Plantagenet\n    Is crown'd so soon and broke his solemn oath?\n    As I bethink me, you should not be King\n    Till our King Henry had shook hands with death.\n    And will you pale your head in Henry's glory,\n    And rob his temples of the diadem,\n    Now in his life, against your holy oath?\n    O, 'tis a fault too too\n    Off with the crown and with the crown his head;\n    And, whilst we breathe, take time to do him dead.\n  CLIFFORD. That is my office, for my father's sake.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Nay, stay; let's hear the orisons he makes.\n  YORK. She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France,\n    Whose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth!\n    How ill-beseeming is it in thy sex\n    To triumph like an Amazonian trull\n    Upon their woes whom fortune captivates!\n    But that thy face is visard-like, unchanging,\n    Made impudent with use of evil deeds,\n    I would assay, proud queen, to make thee blush.\n    To tell thee whence thou cam'st, of whom deriv'd,\n    Were shame enough to shame thee, wert thou not shameless.\n    Thy father bears the type of King of Naples,\n    Of both the Sicils and Jerusalem,\n    Yet not so wealthy as an English yeoman.\n    Hath that poor monarch taught thee to insult?\n    It needs not, nor it boots thee not, proud queen;\n    Unless the adage must be verified,\n    That beggars mounted run their horse to death.\n    'Tis beauty that doth oft make women proud;\n    But, God He knows, thy share thereof is small.\n    'Tis virtue that doth make them most admir'd;\n    The contrary doth make thee wond'red at.\n    'Tis government that makes them seem divine;\n    The want thereof makes thee abominable.\n    Thou art as opposite to every good\n    As the Antipodes are unto us,\n    Or as the south to the septentrion.\n    O tiger's heart wrapp'd in a woman's hide!\n    How couldst thou drain the life-blood of the child,\n    To bid the father wipe his eyes withal,\n    And yet be seen to bear a woman's face?\n    Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible:\n    Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless.\n    Bid'st thou me rage? Why, now thou hast thy wish;\n    Wouldst have me weep? Why, now thou hast thy will;\n    For raging wind blows up incessant showers,\n    And when the rage allays, the rain begins.\n    These tears are my sweet Rutland's obsequies;\n    And every drop cries vengeance for his death\n    'Gainst thee, fell Clifford, and thee, false Frenchwoman.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Beshrew me, but his passions move me so\n    That hardly can I check my eyes from tears.\n  YORK. That face of his the hungry cannibals\n    Would not have touch'd, would not have stain'd with blood;\n    But you are more inhuman, more inexorable-\n    O, ten times more- than tigers of Hyrcania.\n    See, ruthless queen, a hapless father's tears.\n    This cloth thou dipp'dst in blood of my sweet boy,\n    And I with tears do wash the blood away.\n    Keep thou the napkin, and go boast of this;\n    And if thou tell'st the heavy story right,\n    Upon my soul, the hearers will shed tears;\n    Yea, even my foes will shed fast-falling tears\n    And say 'Alas, it was a piteous deed!'\n    There, take the crown, and with the crown my curse;\n    And in thy need such comfort come to thee\n    As now I reap at thy too cruel hand!\n    Hard-hearted Clifford, take me from the world;\n    My soul to heaven, my blood upon your heads!\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Had he been slaughter-man to all my kin,\n    I should not for my life but weep with him,\n    To see how inly sorrow gripes his soul.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. What, weeping-ripe, my Lord Northumberland?\n    Think but upon the wrong he did us all,\n    And that will quickly dry thy melting tears.\n  CLIFFORD. Here's for my oath, here's for my father's death.\n                                                  [Stabbing him]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. And here's to right our gentle-hearted king.\n                                                  [Stabbing him]\n  YORK. Open Thy gate of mercy, gracious God!\n    My soul flies through these wounds to seek out Thee.\n                                                          [Dies]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Off with his head, and set it on York gates;\n    So York may overlook the town of York.\n                                                Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nA plain near Mortimer's Cross in Herefordshire\n\nA march. Enter EDWARD, RICHARD, and their power\n\n  EDWARD. I wonder how our princely father scap'd,\n    Or whether he be scap'd away or no\n    From Clifford's and Northumberland's pursuit.\n    Had he been ta'en, we should have heard the news;\n    Had he been slain, we should have heard the news;\n    Or had he scap'd, methinks we should have heard\n    The happy tidings of his good escape.\n    How fares my brother? Why is he so sad?\n  RICHARD. I cannot joy until I be resolv'd\n    Where our right valiant father is become.\n    I saw him in the battle range about,\n    And watch'd him how he singled Clifford forth.\n    Methought he bore him in the thickest troop\n    As doth a lion in a herd of neat;\n    Or as a bear, encompass'd round with dogs,\n    Who having pinch'd a few and made them cry,\n    The rest stand all aloof and bark at him.\n    So far'd our father with his enemies;\n    So fled his enemies my warlike father.\n    Methinks 'tis prize enough to be his son.\n    See how the morning opes her golden gates\n    And takes her farewell of the glorious sun.\n    How well resembles it the prime of youth,\n    Trimm'd like a younker prancing to his love!\n  EDWARD. Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?\n  RICHARD. Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;\n    Not separated with the racking clouds,\n    But sever'd in a pale clear-shining sky.\n    See, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,\n    As if they vow'd some league inviolable.\n    Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.\n    In this the heaven figures some event.\n  EDWARD. 'Tis wondrous strange, the like yet never heard of.\n    I think it cites us, brother, to the field,\n    That we, the sons of brave Plantagenet,\n    Each one already blazing by our meeds,\n    Should notwithstanding join our lights together\n    And overshine the earth, as this the world.\n    Whate'er it bodes, henceforward will I bear\n    Upon my target three fair shining suns.\n  RICHARD. Nay, bear three daughters- by your leave I speak it,\n    You love the breeder better than the male.\n\n                 Enter a MESSENGER, blowing\n\n    But what art thou, whose heavy looks foretell\n    Some dreadful story hanging on thy tongue?\n  MESSENGER. Ah, one that was a woeful looker-on\n    When as the noble Duke of York was slain,\n    Your princely father and my loving lord!\n  EDWARD. O, speak no more! for I have heard too much.\n  RICHARD. Say how he died, for I will hear it all.\n  MESSENGER. Environed he was with many foes,\n    And stood against them as the hope of Troy\n    Against the Greeks that would have ent'red Troy.\n    But Hercules himself must yield to odds;\n    And many strokes, though with a little axe,\n    Hews down and fells the hardest-timber'd oak.\n    By many hands your father was subdu'd;\n    But only slaught'red by the ireful arm\n    Of unrelenting Clifford and the Queen,\n    Who crown'd the gracious Duke in high despite,\n    Laugh'd in his face; and when with grief he wept,\n    The ruthless Queen gave him to dry his cheeks\n    A napkin steeped in the harmless blood\n    Of sweet young Rutland, by rough Clifford slain;\n    And after many scorns, many foul taunts,\n    They took his head, and on the gates of York\n    They set the same; and there it doth remain,\n    The saddest spectacle that e'er I view'd.\n  EDWARD. Sweet Duke of York, our prop to lean upon,\n    Now thou art gone, we have no staff, no stay.\n    O Clifford, boist'rous Clifford, thou hast slain\n    The flow'r of Europe for his chivalry;\n    And treacherously hast thou vanquish'd him,\n    For hand to hand he would have vanquish'd thee.\n    Now my soul's palace is become a prison.\n    Ah, would she break from hence, that this my body\n    Might in the ground be closed up in rest!\n    For never henceforth shall I joy again;\n    Never, O never, shall I see more joy.\n  RICHARD. I cannot weep, for all my body's moisture\n    Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart;\n    Nor can my tongue unload my heart's great burden,\n    For self-same wind that I should speak withal\n    Is kindling coals that fires all my breast,\n    And burns me up with flames that tears would quench.\n    To weep is to make less the depth of grief.\n    Tears then for babes; blows and revenge for me!\n    Richard, I bear thy name; I'll venge thy death,\n    Or die renowned by attempting it.\n  EDWARD. His name that valiant duke hath left with thee;\n    His dukedom and his chair with me is left.\n  RICHARD. Nay, if thou be that princely eagle's bird,\n    Show thy descent by gazing 'gainst the sun;\n    For chair and dukedom, throne and kingdom, say:\n    Either that is thine, or else thou wert not his.\n\n         March. Enter WARWICK, MONTAGUE, and their army\n\n  WARWICK. How now, fair lords! What fare? What news abroad?\n  RICHARD. Great Lord of Warwick, if we should recount\n    Our baleful news and at each word's deliverance\n    Stab poinards in our flesh till all were told,\n    The words would add more anguish than the wounds.\n    O valiant lord, the Duke of York is slain!\n  EDWARD. O Warwick, Warwick! that Plantagenet\n    Which held thee dearly as his soul's redemption\n    Is by the stern Lord Clifford done to death.\n  WARWICK. Ten days ago I drown'd these news in tears;\n    And now, to add more measure to your woes,\n    I come to tell you things sith then befall'n.\n    After the bloody fray at Wakefield fought,\n    Where your brave father breath'd his latest gasp,\n    Tidings, as swiftly as the posts could run,\n    Were brought me of your loss and his depart.\n    I, then in London, keeper of the King,\n    Muster'd my soldiers, gathered flocks of friends,\n    And very well appointed, as I thought,\n    March'd toward Saint Albans to intercept the Queen,\n    Bearing the King in my behalf along;\n    For by my scouts I was advertised\n    That she was coming with a full intent\n    To dash our late decree in parliament\n    Touching King Henry's oath and your succession.\n    Short tale to make- we at Saint Albans met,\n    Our battles join'd, and both sides fiercely fought;\n    But whether 'twas the coldness of the King,\n    Who look'd full gently on his warlike queen,\n    That robb'd my soldiers of their heated spleen,\n    Or whether 'twas report of her success,\n    Or more than common fear of Clifford's rigour,\n    Who thunders to his captives blood and death,\n    I cannot judge; but, to conclude with truth,\n    Their weapons like to lightning came and went:\n    Our soldiers', like the night-owl's lazy flight\n    Or like an idle thresher with a flail,\n    Fell gently down, as if they struck their friends.\n    I cheer'd them up with justice of our cause,\n    With promise of high pay and great rewards,\n    But all in vain; they had no heart to fight,\n    And we in them no hope to win the day;\n    So that we fled: the King unto the Queen;\n    Lord George your brother, Norfolk, and myself,\n    In haste post-haste are come to join with you;\n    For in the marches here we heard you were\n    Making another head to fight again.\n  EDWARD. Where is the Duke of Norfolk, gentle Warwick?\n    And when came George from Burgundy to England?\n  WARWICK. Some six miles off the Duke is with the soldiers;\n    And for your brother, he was lately sent\n    From your kind aunt, Duchess of Burgundy,\n    With aid of soldiers to this needful war.\n  RICHARD. 'Twas odds, belike, when valiant Warwick fled.\n    Oft have I heard his praises in pursuit,\n    But ne'er till now his scandal of retire.\n  WARWICK. Nor now my scandal, Richard, dost thou hear;\n    For thou shalt know this strong right hand of mine\n    Can pluck the diadem from faint Henry's head\n    And wring the awful sceptre from his fist,\n    Were he as famous and as bold in war\n    As he is fam'd for mildness, peace, and prayer.\n  RICHARD. I know it well, Lord Warwick; blame me not.\n    'Tis love I bear thy glories makes me speak.\n    But in this troublous time what's to be done?\n    Shall we go throw away our coats of steel\n    And wrap our bodies in black mourning-gowns,\n    Numbering our Ave-Maries with our beads?\n    Or shall we on the helmets of our foes\n    Tell our devotion with revengeful arms?\n    If for the last, say 'Ay,' and to it, lords.\n  WARWICK. Why, therefore Warwick came to seek you out;\n    And therefore comes my brother Montague.\n    Attend me, lords. The proud insulting Queen,\n    With Clifford and the haught Northumberland,\n    And of their feather many moe proud birds,\n    Have wrought the easy-melting King like wax.\n    He swore consent to your succession,\n    His oath enrolled in the parliament;\n    And now to London all the crew are gone\n    To frustrate both his oath and what beside\n    May make against the house of Lancaster.\n    Their power, I think, is thirty thousand strong.\n    Now if the help of Norfolk and myself,\n    With all the friends that thou, brave Earl of March,\n    Amongst the loving Welshmen canst procure,\n    Will but amount to five and twenty thousand,\n    Why, Via! to London will we march amain,\n    And once again bestride our foaming steeds,\n    And once again cry 'Charge upon our foes!'\n    But never once again turn back and fly.\n  RICHARD. Ay, now methinks I hear great Warwick speak.\n    Ne'er may he live to see a sunshine day\n    That cries 'Retire!' if Warwick bid him stay.\n  EDWARD. Lord Warwick, on thy shoulder will I lean;\n    And when thou fail'st- as God forbid the hour!-\n    Must Edward fall, which peril heaven forfend.\n  WARWICK. No longer Earl of March, but Duke of York;\n    The next degree is England's royal throne,\n    For King of England shalt thou be proclaim'd\n    In every borough as we pass along;\n    And he that throws not up his cap for joy\n    Shall for the fault make forfeit of his head.\n    King Edward, valiant Richard, Montague,\n    Stay we no longer, dreaming of renown,\n    But sound the trumpets and about our task.\n  RICHARD. Then, Clifford, were thy heart as hard as steel,\n    As thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds,\n    I come to pierce it or to give thee mine.\n  EDWARD. Then strike up drums. God and Saint George for us!\n\n                       Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  WARWICK. How now! what news?\n  MESSENGER. The Duke of Norfolk sends you word by me\n    The Queen is coming with a puissant host,\n    And craves your company for speedy counsel.\n  WARWICK. Why, then it sorts; brave warriors, let's away.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBefore York\n\nFlourish. Enter KING HENRY, QUEEN MARGARET, the PRINCE OF WALES, CLIFFORD,\nNORTHUMBERLAND, with drum and trumpets\n\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Welcome, my lord, to this brave town of York.\n    Yonder's the head of that arch-enemy\n    That sought to be encompass'd with your crown.\n    Doth not the object cheer your heart, my lord?\n  KING HENRY. Ay, as the rocks cheer them that fear their wreck-\n    To see this sight, it irks my very soul.\n    Withhold revenge, dear God; 'tis not my fault,\n    Nor wittingly have I infring'd my vow.\n  CLIFFORD. My gracious liege, this too much lenity\n    And harmful pity must be laid aside.\n    To whom do lions cast their gentle looks?\n    Not to the beast that would usurp their den.\n    Whose hand is that the forest bear doth lick?\n    Not his that spoils her young before her face.\n    Who scapes the lurking serpent's mortal sting?\n    Not he that sets his foot upon her back,\n    The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on,\n    And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.\n    Ambitious York did level at thy crown,\n    Thou smiling while he knit his angry brows.\n    He, but a Duke, would have his son a king,\n    And raise his issue like a loving sire:\n    Thou, being a king, bless'd with a goodly son,\n    Didst yield consent to disinherit him,\n    Which argued thee a most unloving father.\n    Unreasonable creatures feed their young;\n    And though man's face be fearful to their eyes,\n    Yet, in protection of their tender ones,\n    Who hath not seen them- even with those wings\n    Which sometime they have us'd with fearful flight-\n    Make war with him that climb'd unto their nest,\n    Offering their own lives in their young's defence\n    For shame, my liege, make them your precedent!\n    Were it not pity that this goodly boy\n    Should lose his birthright by his father's fault,\n    And long hereafter say unto his child\n    'What my great-grandfather and grandsire got\n    My careless father fondly gave away'?\n    Ah, what a shame were this! Look on the boy;\n    And let his manly face, which promiseth\n    Successful fortune, steel thy melting heart\n    To hold thine own and leave thine own with him.\n  KING HENRY. Full well hath Clifford play'd the orator,\n    Inferring arguments of mighty force.\n    But, Clifford, tell me, didst thou never hear\n    That things ill got had ever bad success?\n    And happy always was it for that son\n    Whose father for his hoarding went to hell?\n    I'll leave my son my virtuous deeds behind;\n    And would my father had left me no more!\n    For all the rest is held at such a rate\n    As brings a thousand-fold more care to keep\n    Than in possession any jot of pleasure.\n    Ah, cousin York! would thy best friends did know\n    How it doth grieve me that thy head is here!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. My lord, cheer up your spirits; our foes are nigh,\n    And this soft courage makes your followers faint.\n    You promis'd knighthood to our forward son:\n    Unsheathe your sword and dub him presently.\n    Edward, kneel down.\n  KING HENRY. Edward Plantagenet, arise a knight;\n    And learn this lesson: Draw thy sword in right.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. My gracious father, by your kingly leave,\n    I'll draw it as apparent to the crown,\n    And in that quarrel use it to the death.\n  CLIFFORD. Why, that is spoken like a toward prince.\n\n                      Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Royal commanders, be in readiness;\n    For with a band of thirty thousand men\n    Comes Warwick, backing of the Duke of York,\n    And in the towns, as they do march along,\n    Proclaims him king, and many fly to him.\n    Darraign your battle, for they are at hand.\n  CLIFFORD. I would your Highness would depart the field:\n    The Queen hath best success when you are absent.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, good my lord, and leave us to our fortune.\n  KING HENRY. Why, that's my fortune too; therefore I'll stay.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Be it with resolution, then, to fight.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. My royal father, cheer these noble lords,\n    And hearten those that fight in your defence.\n    Unsheathe your sword, good father; cry 'Saint George!'\n\n         March. Enter EDWARD, GEORGE, RICHARD, WARWICK,\n                NORFOLK, MONTAGUE, and soldiers\n\n  EDWARD. Now, perjur'd Henry, wilt thou kneel for grace\n    And set thy diadem upon my head,\n    Or bide the mortal fortune of the field?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Go rate thy minions, proud insulting boy.\n    Becomes it thee to be thus bold in terms\n    Before thy sovereign and thy lawful king?\n  EDWARD. I am his king, and he should bow his knee.\n    I was adopted heir by his consent:\n    Since when, his oath is broke; for, as I hear,\n    You that are King, though he do wear the crown,\n    Have caus'd him by new act of parliament\n    To blot out me and put his own son in.\n  CLIFFORD. And reason too:\n    Who should succeed the father but the son?\n  RICHARD. Are you there, butcher? O, I cannot speak!\n  CLIFFORD. Ay, crook-back, here I stand to answer thee,\n    Or any he, the proudest of thy sort.\n  RICHARD. 'Twas you that kill'd young Rutland, was it not?\n  CLIFFORD. Ay, and old York, and yet not satisfied.\n  RICHARD. For God's sake, lords, give signal to the fight.\n  WARWICK. What say'st thou, Henry? Wilt thou yield the crown?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Why, how now, long-tongu'd Warwick! Dare you speak?\n    When you and I met at Saint Albans last\n    Your legs did better service than your hands.\n  WARWICK. Then 'twas my turn to fly, and now 'tis thine.\n  CLIFFORD. You said so much before, and yet you fled.\n  WARWICK. 'Twas not your valour, Clifford, drove me thence.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. No, nor your manhood that durst make you stay.\n  RICHARD. Northumberland, I hold thee reverently.\n    Break off the parley; for scarce I can refrain\n    The execution of my big-swol'n heart\n    Upon that Clifford, that cruel child-killer.\n  CLIFFORD. I slew thy father; call'st thou him a child?\n  RICHARD. Ay, like a dastard and a treacherous coward,\n    As thou didst kill our tender brother Rutland;\n    But ere sunset I'll make thee curse the deed.\n  KING HENRY. Have done with words, my lords, and hear me speak.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Defy them then, or else hold close thy lips.\n  KING HENRY. I prithee give no limits to my tongue:\n    I am a king, and privileg'd to speak.\n  CLIFFORD. My liege, the wound that bred this meeting here\n    Cannot be cur'd by words; therefore be still.\n  RICHARD. Then, executioner, unsheathe thy sword.\n    By Him that made us all, I am resolv'd\n    That Clifford's manhood lies upon his tongue.\n  EDWARD. Say, Henry, shall I have my right, or no?\n    A thousand men have broke their fasts to-day\n    That ne'er shall dine unless thou yield the crown.\n  WARWICK. If thou deny, their blood upon thy head;\n    For York in justice puts his armour on.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. If that be right which Warwick says is right,\n    There is no wrong, but every thing is right.\n  RICHARD. Whoever got thee, there thy mother stands;\n    For well I wot thou hast thy mother's tongue.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. But thou art neither like thy sire nor dam;\n    But like a foul misshapen stigmatic,\n    Mark'd by the destinies to be avoided,\n    As venom toads or lizards' dreadful stings.\n  RICHARD. Iron of Naples hid with English gilt,\n    Whose father bears the title of a king-\n    As if a channel should be call'd the sea-\n    Sham'st thou not, knowing whence thou art extraught,\n    To let thy tongue detect thy base-born heart?\n  EDWARD. A wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns\n    To make this shameless callet know herself.\n    Helen of Greece was fairer far than thou,\n    Although thy husband may be Menelaus;\n    And ne'er was Agamemmon's brother wrong'd\n    By that false woman as this king by thee.\n    His father revell'd in the heart of France,\n    And tam'd the King, and made the Dauphin stoop;\n    And had he match'd according to his state,\n    He might have kept that glory to this day;\n    But when he took a beggar to his bed\n    And grac'd thy poor sire with his bridal day,\n    Even then that sunshine brew'd a show'r for him\n    That wash'd his father's fortunes forth of France\n    And heap'd sedition on his crown at home.\n    For what hath broach'd this tumult but thy pride?\n    Hadst thou been meek, our title still had slept;\n    And we, in pity of the gentle King,\n    Had slipp'd our claim until another age.\n  GEORGE. But when we saw our sunshine made thy spring,\n    And that thy summer bred us no increase,\n    We set the axe to thy usurping root;\n    And though the edge hath something hit ourselves,\n    Yet know thou, since we have begun to strike,\n    We'll never leave till we have hewn thee down,\n    Or bath'd thy growing with our heated bloods.\n  EDWARD. And in this resolution I defy thee;\n    Not willing any longer conference,\n    Since thou deniest the gentle King to speak.\n    Sound trumpets; let our bloody colours wave,\n    And either victory or else a grave!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Stay, Edward.\n  EDWARD. No, wrangling woman, we'll no longer stay;\n    These words will cost ten thousand lives this day.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA field of battle between Towton and Saxton, in Yorkshire\n\nAlarum; excursions. Enter WARWICK\n\n  WARWICK. Forspent with toil, as runners with a race,\n    I lay me down a little while to breathe;\n    For strokes receiv'd and many blows repaid\n    Have robb'd my strong-knit sinews of their strength,\n    And spite of spite needs must I rest awhile.\n\n                     Enter EDWARD, running\n\n  EDWARD. Smile, gentle heaven, or strike, ungentle death;\n    For this world frowns, and Edward's sun is clouded.\n  WARWICK. How now, my lord. What hap? What hope of good?\n\n                         Enter GEORGE\n\n  GEORGE. Our hap is lost, our hope but sad despair;\n    Our ranks are broke, and ruin follows us.\n    What counsel give you? Whither shall we fly?\n  EDWARD. Bootless is flight: they follow us with wings;\n    And weak we are, and cannot shun pursuit.\n\n                         Enter RICHARD\n\n  RICHARD. Ah, Warwick, why hast thou withdrawn thyself?\n    Thy brother's blood the thirsty earth hath drunk,\n    Broach'd with the steely point of Clifford's lance;\n    And in the very pangs of death he cried,\n    Like to a dismal clangor heard from far,\n    'Warwick, revenge! Brother, revenge my death.'\n    So, underneath the belly of their steeds,\n    That stain'd their fetlocks in his smoking blood,\n    The noble gentleman gave up the ghost.\n  WARWICK. Then let the earth be drunken with our blood.\n    I'll kill my horse, because I will not fly.\n    Why stand we like soft-hearted women here,\n    Wailing our losses, whiles the foe doth rage,\n    And look upon, as if the tragedy\n    Were play'd in jest by counterfeiting actors?\n    Here on my knee I vow to God above\n    I'll never pause again, never stand still,\n    Till either death hath clos'd these eyes of mine\n    Or fortune given me measure of revenge.\n  EDWARD. O Warwick, I do bend my knee with thine,\n    And in this vow do chain my soul to thine!\n    And ere my knee rise from the earth's cold face\n    I throw my hands, mine eyes, my heart to Thee,\n    Thou setter-up and plucker-down of kings,\n    Beseeching Thee, if with Thy will it stands\n    That to my foes this body must be prey,\n    Yet that Thy brazen gates of heaven may ope\n    And give sweet passage to my sinful soul.\n    Now, lords, take leave until we meet again,\n    Where'er it be, in heaven or in earth.\n  RICHARD. Brother, give me thy hand; and, gentle Warwick,\n    Let me embrace thee in my weary arms.\n    I that did never weep now melt with woe\n    That winter should cut off our spring-time so.\n  WARWICK. Away, away! Once more, sweet lords, farewell.\n  GEORGE. Yet let us all together to our troops,\n    And give them leave to fly that will not stay,\n    And call them pillars that will stand to us;\n    And if we thrive, promise them such rewards\n    As victors wear at the Olympian games.\n    This may plant courage in their quailing breasts,\n    For yet is hope of life and victory.\n    Forslow no longer; make we hence amain.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the field\n\nExcursions. Enter RICHARD and CLIFFORD\n\n  RICHARD. Now, Clifford, I have singled thee alone.\n    Suppose this arm is for the Duke of York,\n    And this for Rutland; both bound to revenge,\n    Wert thou environ'd with a brazen wall.\n  CLIFFORD. Now, Richard, I am with thee here alone.\n    This is the hand that stabbed thy father York;\n    And this the hand that slew thy brother Rutland;\n    And here's the heart that triumphs in their death\n    And cheers these hands that slew thy sire and brother\n    To execute the like upon thyself;\n    And so, have at thee!                           [They fight]\n\n                 Enter WARWICK; CLIFFORD flies\n\n  RICHARD. Nay, Warwick, single out some other chase;\n    For I myself will hunt this wolf to death.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAnother part of the field\n\nAlarum. Enter KING HENRY alone\n\n  KING HENRY. This battle fares like to the morning's war,\n    When dying clouds contend with growing light,\n    What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,\n    Can neither call it perfect day nor night.\n    Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea\n    Forc'd by the tide to combat with the wind;\n    Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea\n    Forc'd to retire by fury of the wind.\n    Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;\n    Now one the better, then another best;\n    Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,\n    Yet neither conqueror nor conquered.\n    So is the equal poise of this fell war.\n    Here on this molehill will I sit me down.\n    To whom God will, there be the victory!\n    For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,\n    Have chid me from the battle, swearing both\n    They prosper best of all when I am thence.\n    Would I were dead, if God's good will were so!\n    For what is in this world but grief and woe?\n    O God! methinks it were a happy life\n    To be no better than a homely swain;\n    To sit upon a hill, as I do now,\n    To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,\n    Thereby to see the minutes how they run-\n    How many makes the hour full complete,\n    How many hours brings about the day,\n    How many days will finish up the year,\n    How many years a mortal man may live.\n    When this is known, then to divide the times-\n    So many hours must I tend my flock;\n    So many hours must I take my rest;\n    So many hours must I contemplate;\n    So many hours must I sport myself;\n    So many days my ewes have been with young;\n    So many weeks ere the poor fools will can;\n    So many years ere I shall shear the fleece:\n    So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,\n    Pass'd over to the end they were created,\n    Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.\n    Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!\n    Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade\n    To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,\n    Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy\n    To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?\n    O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.\n    And to conclude: the shepherd's homely curds,\n    His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,\n    His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,\n    All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,\n    Is far beyond a prince's delicates-\n    His viands sparkling in a golden cup,\n    His body couched in a curious bed,\n    When care, mistrust, and treason waits on him.\n\n       Alarum. Enter a son that hath kill'd his Father, at\n       one door; and a FATHER that hath kill'd his Son, at\n                         another door\n\n  SON. Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.\n    This man whom hand to hand I slew in fight\n    May be possessed with some store of crowns;\n    And I, that haply take them from him now,\n    May yet ere night yield both my life and them\n    To some man else, as this dead man doth me.\n    Who's this? O God! It is my father's face,\n    Whom in this conflict I unwares have kill'd.\n    O heavy times, begetting such events!\n    From London by the King was I press'd forth;\n    My father, being the Earl of Warwick's man,\n    Came on the part of York, press'd by his master;\n    And I, who at his hands receiv'd my life,\n    Have by my hands of life bereaved him.\n    Pardon me, God, I knew not what I did.\n    And pardon, father, for I knew not thee.\n    My tears shall wipe away these bloody marks;\n    And no more words till they have flow'd their fill.\n  KING HENRY. O piteous spectacle! O bloody times!\n    Whiles lions war and battle for their dens,\n    Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity.\n    Weep, wretched man; I'll aid thee tear for tear;\n    And let our hearts and eyes, like civil war,\n    Be blind with tears and break o'ercharg'd with grief.\n\n               Enter FATHER, bearing of his SON\n\n  FATHER. Thou that so stoutly hath resisted me,\n    Give me thy gold, if thou hast any gold;\n    For I have bought it with an hundred blows.\n    But let me see. Is this our foeman's face?\n    Ah, no, no, no, no, it is mine only son!\n    Ah, boy, if any life be left in thee,\n    Throw up thine eye! See, see what show'rs arise,\n    Blown with the windy tempest of my heart\n    Upon thy wounds, that kills mine eye and heart!\n    O, pity, God, this miserable age!\n    What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly,\n    Erroneous, mutinous, and unnatural,\n    This deadly quarrel daily doth beget!\n    O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon,\n    And hath bereft thee of thy life too late!\n  KING HENRY. Woe above woe! grief more than common grief!\n    O that my death would stay these ruthful deeds!\n    O pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity!\n    The red rose and the white are on his face,\n    The fatal colours of our striving houses:\n    The one his purple blood right well resembles;\n    The other his pale cheeks, methinks, presenteth.\n    Wither one rose, and let the other flourish!\n    If you contend, a thousand lives must perish.\n  SON. How will my mother for a father's death\n    Take on with me, and ne'er be satisfied!\n  FATHER. How will my wife for slaughter of my son\n    Shed seas of tears, and ne'er be satisfied!\n  KING HENRY. How will the country for these woeful chances\n    Misthink the King, and not be satisfied!\n  SON. Was ever son so rued a father's death?\n  FATHER. Was ever father so bemoan'd his son?\n  KING HENRY. Was ever king so griev'd for subjects' woe?\n    Much is your sorrow; mine ten times so much.\n  SON. I'll bear thee hence, where I may weep my fill.\n                                              Exit with the body\n  FATHER. These arms of mine shall be thy winding-sheet;\n    My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre,\n    For from my heart thine image ne'er shall go;\n    My sighing breast shall be thy funeral bell;\n    And so obsequious will thy father be,\n    Even for the loss of thee, having no more,\n    As Priam was for all his valiant sons.\n    I'll bear thee hence; and let them fight that will,\n    For I have murdered where I should not kill.\n                                              Exit with the body\n  KING HENRY. Sad-hearted men, much overgone with care,\n    Here sits a king more woeful than you are.\n\n           Alarums, excursions. Enter QUEEN MARGARET,\n                  PRINCE OF WALES, and EXETER\n\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Fly, father, fly; for all your friends are fled,\n    And Warwick rages like a chafed bull.\n    Away! for death doth hold us in pursuit.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Mount you, my lord; towards Berwick post amain.\n    Edward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds\n    Having the fearful flying hare in sight,\n    With fiery eyes sparkling for very wrath,\n    And bloody steel grasp'd in their ireful hands,\n    Are at our backs; and therefore hence amain.\n  EXETER. Away! for vengeance comes along with them.\n    Nay, stay not to expostulate; make speed;\n    Or else come after. I'll away before.\n  KING HENRY. Nay, take me with thee, good sweet Exeter.\n    Not that I fear to stay, but love to go\n    Whither the Queen intends. Forward; away!             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nAnother part of the field\n\nA loud alarum. Enter CLIFFORD, wounded\n\n  CLIFFORD. Here burns my candle out; ay, here it dies,\n    Which, whiles it lasted, gave King Henry light.\n    O Lancaster, I fear thy overthrow\n    More than my body's parting with my soul!\n    My love and fear glu'd many friends to thee;\n    And, now I fall, thy tough commixture melts,\n    Impairing Henry, strength'ning misproud York.\n    The common people swarm like summer flies;\n    And whither fly the gnats but to the sun?\n    And who shines now but Henry's enemies?\n    O Phoebus, hadst thou never given consent\n    That Phaethon should check thy fiery steeds,\n    Thy burning car never had scorch'd the earth!\n    And, Henry, hadst thou sway'd as kings should do,\n    Or as thy father and his father did,\n    Giving no ground unto the house of York,\n    They never then had sprung like summer flies;\n    I and ten thousand in this luckless realm\n    Had left no mourning widows for our death;\n    And thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace.\n    For what doth cherish weeds but gentle air?\n    And what makes robbers bold but too much lenity?\n    Bootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds.\n    No way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight.\n    The foe is merciless and will not pity;\n    For at their hands I have deserv'd no pity.\n    The air hath got into my deadly wounds,\n    And much effuse of blood doth make me faint.\n    Come, York and Richard, Warwick and the rest;\n    I stabb'd your fathers' bosoms: split my breast.\n                                                     [He faints]\n\n       Alarum and retreat. Enter EDWARD, GEORGE, RICHARD\n               MONTAGUE, WARWICK, and soldiers\n\n  EDWARD. Now breathe we, lords. Good fortune bids us pause\n    And smooth the frowns of war with peaceful looks.\n    Some troops pursue the bloody-minded Queen\n    That led calm Henry, though he were a king,\n    As doth a sail, fill'd with a fretting gust,\n    Command an argosy to stern the waves.\n    But think you, lords, that Clifford fled with them?\n  WARWICK. No, 'tis impossible he should escape;\n    For, though before his face I speak the words,\n    Your brother Richard mark'd him for the grave;\n    And, whereso'er he is, he's surely dead.\n                                     [CLIFFORD groans, and dies]\n  RICHARD. Whose soul is that which takes her heavy leave?\n    A deadly groan, like life and death's departing.\n    See who it is.\n  EDWARD. And now the battle's ended,\n    If friend or foe, let him be gently used.\n  RICHARD. Revoke that doom of mercy, for 'tis Clifford;\n    Who not contented that he lopp'd the branch\n    In hewing Rutland when his leaves put forth,\n    But set his murd'ring knife unto the root\n    From whence that tender spray did sweetly spring-\n    I mean our princely father, Duke of York.\n  WARWICK. From off the gates of York fetch down the head,\n    Your father's head, which Clifford placed there;\n    Instead whereof let this supply the room.\n    Measure for measure must be answered.\n  EDWARD. Bring forth that fatal screech-owl to our house,\n    That nothing sung but death to us and ours.\n    Now death shall stop his dismal threat'ning sound,\n    And his ill-boding tongue no more shall speak.\n  WARWICK. I think his understanding is bereft.\n    Speak, Clifford, dost thou know who speaks to thee?\n    Dark cloudy death o'ershades his beams of life,\n    And he nor sees nor hears us what we say.\n  RICHARD. O, would he did! and so, perhaps, he doth.\n    'Tis but his policy to counterfeit,\n    Because he would avoid such bitter taunts\n    Which in the time of death he gave our father.\n  GEORGE. If so thou think'st, vex him with eager words.\n  RICHARD. Clifford, ask mercy and obtain no grace.\n  EDWARD. Clifford, repent in bootless penitence.\n  WARWICK. Clifford, devise excuses for thy faults.\n  GEORGE. While we devise fell tortures for thy faults.\n  RICHARD. Thou didst love York, and I am son to York.\n  EDWARD. Thou pitied'st Rutland, I will pity thee.\n  GEORGE. Where's Captain Margaret, to fence you now?\n  WARWICK. They mock thee, Clifford; swear as thou wast wont.\n  RICHARD. What, not an oath? Nay, then the world goes hard\n    When Clifford cannot spare his friends an oath.\n    I know by that he's dead; and by my soul,\n    If this right hand would buy two hours' life,\n    That I in all despite might rail at him,\n    This hand should chop it off, and with the issuing blood\n    Stifle the villain whose unstanched thirst\n    York and young Rutland could not satisfy.\n  WARWICK. Ay, but he's dead. Off with the traitor's head,\n    And rear it in the place your father's stands.\n    And now to London with triumphant march,\n    There to be crowned England's royal King;\n    From whence shall Warwick cut the sea to France,\n    And ask the Lady Bona for thy queen.\n    So shalt thou sinew both these lands together;\n    And, having France thy friend, thou shalt not dread\n    The scatt'red foe that hopes to rise again;\n    For though they cannot greatly sting to hurt,\n    Yet look to have them buzz to offend thine ears.\n    First will I see the coronation;\n    And then to Brittany I'll cross the sea\n    To effect this marriage, so it please my lord.\n  EDWARD. Even as thou wilt, sweet Warwick, let it be;\n    For in thy shoulder do I build my seat,\n    And never will I undertake the thing\n    Wherein thy counsel and consent is wanting.\n    Richard, I will create thee Duke of Gloucester;\n    And George, of Clarence; Warwick, as ourself,\n    Shall do and undo as him pleaseth best.\n  RICHARD. Let me be Duke of Clarence, George of Gloucester;\n    For Gloucester's dukedom is too ominous.\n  WARWICK. Tut, that's a foolish observation.\n    Richard, be Duke of Gloucester. Now to London\n    To see these honours in possession.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nA chase in the north of England\n\nEnter two KEEPERS, with cross-bows in their hands\n\n  FIRST KEEPER. Under this thick-grown brake we'll shroud ourselves,\n    For through this laund anon the deer will come;\n    And in this covert will we make our stand,\n    Culling the principal of all the deer.\n  SECOND KEEPER. I'll stay above the hill, so both may shoot.\n  FIRST KEEPER. That cannot be; the noise of thy cross-bow\n    Will scare the herd, and so my shoot is lost.\n    Here stand we both, and aim we at the best;\n    And, for the time shall not seem tedious,\n    I'll tell thee what befell me on a day\n    In this self-place where now we mean to stand.\n  SECOND KEEPER. Here comes a man; let's stay till he be past.\n\n        Enter KING HENRY, disguised, with a prayer-book\n\n  KING HENRY. From Scotland am I stol'n, even of pure love,\n    To greet mine own land with my wishful sight.\n    No, Harry, Harry, 'tis no land of thine;\n    Thy place is fill'd, thy sceptre wrung from thee,\n    Thy balm wash'd off wherewith thou wast anointed.\n    No bending knee will call thee Caesar now,\n    No humble suitors press to speak for right,\n    No, not a man comes for redress of thee;\n    For how can I help them and not myself?\n  FIRST KEEPER. Ay, here's a deer whose skin's a keeper's fee.\n    This is the quondam King; let's seize upon him.\n  KING HENRY. Let me embrace thee, sour adversity,\n    For wise men say it is the wisest course.\n  SECOND KEEPER. Why linger we? let us lay hands upon him.\n  FIRST KEEPER. Forbear awhile; we'll hear a little more.\n  KING HENRY. My Queen and son are gone to France for aid;\n    And, as I hear, the great commanding Warwick\n    Is thither gone to crave the French King's sister\n    To wife for Edward. If this news be true,\n    Poor queen and son, your labour is but lost;\n    For Warwick is a subtle orator,\n    And Lewis a prince soon won with moving words.\n    By this account, then, Margaret may win him;\n    For she's a woman to be pitied much.\n    Her sighs will make a batt'ry in his breast;\n    Her tears will pierce into a marble heart;\n    The tiger will be mild whiles she doth mourn;\n    And Nero will be tainted with remorse\n    To hear and see her plaints, her brinish tears.\n    Ay, but she's come to beg: Warwick, to give.\n    She, on his left side, craving aid for Henry:\n    He, on his right, asking a wife for Edward.\n    She weeps, and says her Henry is depos'd:\n    He smiles, and says his Edward is install'd;\n    That she, poor wretch, for grief can speak no more;\n    Whiles Warwick tells his title, smooths the wrong,\n    Inferreth arguments of mighty strength,\n    And in conclusion wins the King from her\n    With promise of his sister, and what else,\n    To strengthen and support King Edward's place.\n    O Margaret, thus 'twill be; and thou, poor soul,\n    Art then forsaken, as thou went'st forlorn!\n  SECOND KEEPER. Say, what art thou that talk'st of kings and queens?\n  KING HENRY. More than I seem, and less than I was born to:\n    A man at least, for less I should not be;\n    And men may talk of kings, and why not I?\n  SECOND KEEPER. Ay, but thou talk'st as if thou wert a king.\n  KING HENRY. Why, so I am- in mind; and that's enough.\n  SECOND KEEPER. But, if thou be a king, where is thy crown?\n  KING HENRY. My crown is in my heart, not on my head;\n    Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones,\n    Not to be seen. My crown is call'd content;\n    A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.\n  SECOND KEEPER. Well, if you be a king crown'd with content,\n    Your crown content and you must be contented\n    To go along with us; for as we think,\n    You are the king King Edward hath depos'd;\n    And we his subjects, sworn in all allegiance,\n    Will apprehend you as his enemy.\n  KING HENRY. But did you never swear, and break an oath?\n  SECOND KEEPER. No, never such an oath; nor will not now.\n  KING HENRY. Where did you dwell when I was King of England?\n  SECOND KEEPER. Here in this country, where we now remain.\n  KING HENRY. I was anointed king at nine months old;\n    My father and my grandfather were kings;\n    And you were sworn true subjects unto me;\n    And tell me, then, have you not broke your oaths?\n  FIRST KEEPER. No;\n    For we were subjects but while you were king.\n  KING HENRY. Why, am I dead? Do I not breathe a man?\n    Ah, simple men, you know not what you swear!\n    Look, as I blow this feather from my face,\n    And as the air blows it to me again,\n    Obeying with my wind when I do blow,\n    And yielding to another when it blows,\n    Commanded always by the greater gust,\n    Such is the lightness of you common men.\n    But do not break your oaths; for of that sin\n    My mild entreaty shall not make you guilty.\n    Go where you will, the King shall be commanded;\n    And be you kings: command, and I'll obey.\n  FIRST KEEPER. We are true subjects to the King, King Edward.\n  KING HENRY. So would you be again to Henry,\n    If he were seated as King Edward is.\n  FIRST KEEPER. We charge you, in God's name and the King's,\n    To go with us unto the officers.\n  KING HENRY. In God's name, lead; your King's name be obey'd;\n    And what God will, that let your King perform;\n    And what he will, I humbly yield unto.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and LADY GREY\n\n  KING EDWARD. Brother of Gloucester, at Saint Albans' field\n    This lady's husband, Sir Richard Grey, was slain,\n    His land then seiz'd on by the conqueror.\n    Her suit is now to repossess those lands;\n    Which we in justice cannot well deny,\n    Because in quarrel of the house of York\n    The worthy gentleman did lose his life.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your Highness shall do well to grant her suit;\n    It were dishonour to deny it her.\n  KING EDWARD. It were no less; but yet I'll make a pause.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] Yea, is it so?\n    I see the lady hath a thing to grant,\n    Before the King will grant her humble suit.\n  CLARENCE. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] He knows the game; how true he\n    keeps the wind!\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] Silence!\n  KING EDWARD. Widow, we will consider of your suit;\n    And come some other time to know our mind.\n  LADY GREY. Right gracious lord, I cannot brook delay.\n    May it please your Highness to resolve me now;\n    And what your pleasure is shall satisfy me.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] Ay, widow? Then I'll warrant you all your\n      lands,\n    An if what pleases him shall pleasure you.\n    Fight closer or, good faith, you'll catch a blow.\n  CLARENCE. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] I fear her not, unless she chance\n    to fall.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] God forbid that, for he'll take\n    vantages.\n  KING EDWARD. How many children hast thou, widow, tell me.\n  CLARENCE. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] I think he means to beg a child of\n    her.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] Nay, then whip me; he'll rather\n    give her two.\n  LADY GREY. Three, my most gracious lord.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] You shall have four if you'll be rul'd by him.\n  KING EDWARD. 'Twere pity they should lose their father's lands.\n  LADY GREY. Be pitiful, dread lord, and grant it, then.\n  KING EDWARD. Lords, give us leave; I'll try this widow's wit.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] Ay, good leave have you; for you will have\n      leave\n    Till youth take leave and leave you to the crutch.\n                              [GLOUCESTER and CLARENCE withdraw]\n  KING EDWARD. Now tell me, madam, do you love your children?\n  LADY GREY. Ay, full as dearly as I love myself.\n  KING EDWARD. And would you not do much to do them good?\n  LADY GREY. To do them good I would sustain some harm.\n  KING EDWARD. Then get your husband's lands, to do them good.\n  LADY GREY. Therefore I came unto your Majesty.\n  KING EDWARD. I'll tell you how these lands are to be got.\n  LADY GREY. So shall you bind me to your Highness' service.\n  KING EDWARD. What service wilt thou do me if I give them?\n  LADY GREY. What you command that rests in me to do.\n  KING EDWARD. But you will take exceptions to my boon.\n  LADY GREY. No, gracious lord, except I cannot do it.\n  KING EDWARD. Ay, but thou canst do what I mean to ask.\n  LADY GREY. Why, then I will do what your Grace commands.\n  GLOUCESTER. He plies her hard; and much rain wears the marble.\n  CLARENCE. As red as fire! Nay, then her wax must melt.\n  LADY GREY. Why stops my lord? Shall I not hear my task?\n  KING EDWARD. An easy task; 'tis but to love a king.\n  LADY GREY. That's soon perform'd, because I am a subject.\n  KING EDWARD. Why, then, thy husband's lands I freely give thee.\n  LADY GREY. I take my leave with many thousand thanks.\n  GLOUCESTER. The match is made; she seals it with a curtsy.\n  KING EDWARD. But stay thee- 'tis the fruits of love I mean.\n  LADY GREY. The fruits of love I mean, my loving liege.\n  KING EDWARD. Ay, but, I fear me, in another sense.\n    What love, thinkst thou, I sue so much to get?\n  LADY GREY. My love till death, my humble thanks, my prayers;\n    That love which virtue begs and virtue grants.\n  KING EDWARD. No, by my troth, I did not mean such love.\n  LADY GREY. Why, then you mean not as I thought you did.\n  KING EDWARD. But now you partly may perceive my mind.\n  LADY GREY. My mind will never grant what I perceive\n    Your Highness aims at, if I aim aright.\n  KING EDWARD. To tell thee plain, I aim to lie with thee.\n  LADY GREY. To tell you plain, I had rather lie in prison.\n  KING EDWARD. Why, then thou shalt not have thy husband's lands.\n  LADY GREY. Why, then mine honesty shall be my dower;\n    For by that loss I will not purchase them.\n  KING EDWARD. Therein thou wrong'st thy children mightily.\n  LADY GREY. Herein your Highness wrongs both them and me.\n    But, mighty lord, this merry inclination\n    Accords not with the sadness of my suit.\n    Please you dismiss me, either with ay or no.\n  KING EDWARD. Ay, if thou wilt say ay to my request;\n    No, if thou dost say no to my demand.\n  LADY GREY. Then, no, my lord. My suit is at an end.\n  GLOUCESTER. The widow likes him not; she knits her brows.\n  CLARENCE. He is the bluntest wooer in Christendom.\n  KING EDWARD. [Aside] Her looks doth argue her replete with modesty;\n    Her words doth show her wit incomparable;\n    All her perfections challenge sovereignty.\n    One way or other, she is for a king;\n    And she shall be my love, or else my queen.\n    Say that King Edward take thee for his queen?\n  LADY GREY. 'Tis better said than done, my gracious lord.\n    I am a subject fit to jest withal,\n    But far unfit to be a sovereign.\n  KING EDWARD. Sweet widow, by my state I swear to thee\n    I speak no more than what my soul intends;\n    And that is to enjoy thee for my love.\n  LADY GREY. And that is more than I will yield unto.\n    I know I am too mean to be your queen,\n    And yet too good to be your concubine.\n  KING EDWARD. You cavil, widow; I did mean my queen.\n  LADY GREY. 'Twill grieve your Grace my sons should call you father.\n  KING EDWARD.No more than when my daughters call thee mother.\n    Thou art a widow, and thou hast some children;\n    And, by God's Mother, I, being but a bachelor,\n    Have other some. Why, 'tis a happy thing\n    To be the father unto many sons.\n    Answer no more, for thou shalt be my queen.\n  GLOUCESTER. The ghostly father now hath done his shrift.\n  CLARENCE. When he was made a shriver, 'twas for shrift.\n  KING EDWARD. Brothers, you muse what chat we two have had.\n  GLOUCESTER. The widow likes it not, for she looks very sad.\n  KING EDWARD. You'd think it strange if I should marry her.\n  CLARENCE. To who, my lord?\n  KING EDWARD. Why, Clarence, to myself.\n  GLOUCESTER. That would be ten days' wonder at the least.\n  CLARENCE. That's a day longer than a wonder lasts.\n  GLOUCESTER. By so much is the wonder in extremes.\n  KING EDWARD. Well, jest on, brothers; I can tell you both\n    Her suit is granted for her husband's lands.\n\n                       Enter a NOBLEMAN\n\n  NOBLEMAN. My gracious lord, Henry your foe is taken\n    And brought your prisoner to your palace gate.\n  KING EDWARD. See that he be convey'd unto the Tower.\n    And go we, brothers, to the man that took him\n    To question of his apprehension.\n    Widow, go you along. Lords, use her honourably.\n                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, Edward will use women honourably.\n    Would he were wasted, marrow, bones, and all,\n    That from his loins no hopeful branch may spring\n    To cross me from the golden time I look for!\n    And yet, between my soul's desire and me-\n    The lustful Edward's title buried-\n    Is Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward,\n    And all the unlook'd for issue of their bodies,\n    To take their rooms ere I can place myself.\n    A cold premeditation for my purpose!\n    Why, then I do but dream on sovereignty;\n    Like one that stands upon a promontory\n    And spies a far-off shore where he would tread,\n    Wishing his foot were equal with his eye;\n    And chides the sea that sunders him from thence,\n    Saying he'll lade it dry to have his way-\n    So do I wish the crown, being so far off;\n    And so I chide the means that keeps me from it;\n    And so I say I'll cut the causes off,\n    Flattering me with impossibilities.\n    My eye's too quick, my heart o'erweens too much,\n    Unless my hand and strength could equal them.\n    Well, say there is no kingdom then for Richard;\n    What other pleasure can the world afford?\n    I'll make my heaven in a lady's lap,\n    And deck my body in gay ornaments,\n    And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.\n    O miserable thought! and more unlikely\n    Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns.\n    Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb;\n    And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,\n    She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe\n    To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub\n    To make an envious mountain on my back,\n    Where sits deformity to mock my body;\n    To shape my legs of an unequal size;\n    To disproportion me in every part,\n    Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp\n    That carries no impression like the dam.\n    And am I, then, a man to be belov'd?\n    O monstrous fault to harbour such a thought!\n    Then, since this earth affords no joy to me\n    But to command, to check, to o'erbear such\n    As are of better person than myself,\n    I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,\n    And whiles I live t' account this world but hell,\n    Until my misshap'd trunk that bear this head\n    Be round impaled with a glorious crown.\n    And yet I know not how to get the crown,\n    For many lives stand between me and home;\n    And I- like one lost in a thorny wood\n    That rents the thorns and is rent with the thorns,\n    Seeking a way and straying from the way\n    Not knowing how to find the open air,\n    But toiling desperately to find it out-\n    Torment myself to catch the English crown;\n    And from that torment I will free myself\n    Or hew my way out with a bloody axe.\n    Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,\n    And cry 'Content!' to that which grieves my heart,\n    And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,\n    And frame my face to all occasions.\n    I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;\n    I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;\n    I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,\n    Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,\n    And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.\n    I can add colours to the chameleon,\n    Change shapes with Protheus for advantages,\n    And set the murderous Machiavel to school.\n    Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?\n    Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.           Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nFrance.  The KING'S palace\n\nFlourish.  Enter LEWIS the French King, his sister BONA,\nhis Admiral call'd BOURBON; PRINCE EDWARD, QUEEN MARGARET,\nand the EARL of OXFORD.  LEWIS sits, and riseth up again\n\n  LEWIS. Fair Queen of England, worthy Margaret,\n    Sit down with us. It ill befits thy state\n    And birth that thou shouldst stand while Lewis doth sit.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. No, mighty King of France. Now Margaret\n    Must strike her sail and learn a while to serve\n    Where kings command. I was, I must confess,\n    Great Albion's Queen in former golden days;\n    But now mischance hath trod my title down\n    And with dishonour laid me on the ground,\n    Where I must take like seat unto my fortune,\n    And to my humble seat conform myself.\n  LEWIS. Why, say, fair Queen, whence springs this deep despair?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. From such a cause as fills mine eyes with tears\n    And stops my tongue, while heart is drown'd in cares.\n  LEWIS. Whate'er it be, be thou still like thyself,\n    And sit thee by our side. [Seats her by him] Yield not thy neck\n    To fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind\n    Still ride in triumph over all mischance.\n    Be plain, Queen Margaret, and tell thy grief;\n    It shall be eas'd, if France can yield relief.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Those gracious words revive my drooping thoughts\n    And give my tongue-tied sorrows leave to speak.\n    Now therefore be it known to noble Lewis\n    That Henry, sole possessor of my love,\n    Is, of a king, become a banish'd man,\n    And forc'd to live in Scotland a forlorn;\n    While proud ambitious Edward Duke of York\n    Usurps the regal title and the seat\n    Of England's true-anointed lawful King.\n    This is the cause that I, poor Margaret,\n    With this my son, Prince Edward, Henry's heir,\n    Am come to crave thy just and lawful aid;\n    And if thou fail us, all our hope is done.\n    Scotland hath will to help, but cannot help;\n    Our people and our peers are both misled,\n    Our treasure seiz'd, our soldiers put to flight,\n    And, as thou seest, ourselves in heavy plight.\n  LEWIS. Renowned Queen, with patience calm the storm,\n    While we bethink a means to break it off.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. The more we stay, the stronger grows our foe.\n  LEWIS. The more I stay, the more I'll succour thee.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. O, but impatience waiteth on true sorrow.\n    And see where comes the breeder of my sorrow!\n\n                        Enter WARWICK\n\n  LEWIS. What's he approacheth boldly to our presence?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Our Earl of Warwick, Edward's greatest friend.\n  LEWIS. Welcome, brave Warwick! What brings thee to France?\n                                      [He descends. She ariseth]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, now begins a second storm to rise;\n    For this is he that moves both wind and tide.\n  WARWICK. From worthy Edward, King of Albion,\n    My lord and sovereign, and thy vowed friend,\n    I come, in kindness and unfeigned love,\n    First to do greetings to thy royal person,\n    And then to crave a league of amity,\n    And lastly to confirm that amity\n    With nuptial knot, if thou vouchsafe to grant\n    That virtuous Lady Bona, thy fair sister,\n    To England's King in lawful marriage.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. [Aside] If that go forward, Henry's hope is done.\n  WARWICK. [To BONA] And, gracious madam, in our king's behalf,\n    I am commanded, with your leave and favour,\n    Humbly to kiss your hand, and with my tongue\n    To tell the passion of my sovereign's heart;\n    Where fame, late ent'ring at his heedful ears,\n    Hath plac'd thy beauty's image and thy virtue.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. King Lewis and Lady Bona, hear me speak\n    Before you answer Warwick. His demand\n    Springs not from Edward's well-meant honest love,\n    But from deceit bred by necessity;\n    For how can tyrants safely govern home\n    Unless abroad they purchase great alliance?\n    To prove him tyrant this reason may suffice,\n    That Henry liveth still; but were he dead,\n    Yet here Prince Edward stands, King Henry's son.\n    Look therefore, Lewis, that by this league and marriage\n    Thou draw not on thy danger and dishonour;\n    For though usurpers sway the rule a while\n    Yet heav'ns are just, and time suppresseth wrongs.\n  WARWICK. Injurious Margaret!\n  PRINCE OF WALES. And why not Queen?\n  WARWICK. Because thy father Henry did usurp;\n    And thou no more art prince than she is queen.\n  OXFORD. Then Warwick disannuls great John of Gaunt,\n    Which did subdue the greatest part of Spain;\n    And, after John of Gaunt, Henry the Fourth,\n    Whose wisdom was a mirror to the wisest;\n    And, after that wise prince, Henry the Fifth,\n    Who by his prowess conquered all France.\n    From these our Henry lineally descends.\n  WARWICK. Oxford, how haps it in this smooth discourse\n    You told not how Henry the Sixth hath lost\n    All that which Henry the Fifth had gotten?\n    Methinks these peers of France should smile at that.\n    But for the rest: you tell a pedigree\n    Of threescore and two years- a silly time\n    To make prescription for a kingdom's worth.\n  OXFORD. Why, Warwick, canst thou speak against thy liege,\n    Whom thou obeyed'st thirty and six years,\n    And not betray thy treason with a blush?\n  WARWICK. Can Oxford that did ever fence the right\n    Now buckler falsehood with a pedigree?\n    For shame! Leave Henry, and call Edward king.\n  OXFORD. Call him my king by whose injurious doom\n    My elder brother, the Lord Aubrey Vere,\n    Was done to death; and more than so, my father,\n    Even in the downfall of his mellow'd years,\n    When nature brought him to the door of death?\n    No, Warwick, no; while life upholds this arm,\n    This arm upholds the house of Lancaster.\n  WARWICK. And I the house of York.\n  LEWIS. Queen Margaret, Prince Edward, and Oxford,\n    Vouchsafe at our request to stand aside\n    While I use further conference with Warwick.\n                                              [They stand aloof]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Heavens grant that Warwick's words bewitch him not!\n  LEWIS. Now, Warwick, tell me, even upon thy conscience,\n    Is Edward your true king? for I were loath\n    To link with him that were not lawful chosen.\n  WARWICK. Thereon I pawn my credit and mine honour.\n  LEWIS. But is he gracious in the people's eye?\n  WARWICK. The more that Henry was unfortunate.\n  LEWIS. Then further: all dissembling set aside,\n    Tell me for truth the measure of his love\n    Unto our sister Bona.\n  WARWICK. Such it seems\n    As may beseem a monarch like himself.\n    Myself have often heard him say and swear\n    That this his love was an eternal plant\n    Whereof the root was fix'd in virtue's ground,\n    The leaves and fruit maintain'd with beauty's sun,\n    Exempt from envy, but not from disdain,\n    Unless the Lady Bona quit his pain.\n  LEWIS. Now, sister, let us hear your firm resolve.\n  BONA. Your grant or your denial shall be mine.\n    [To WARWICK] Yet I confess that often ere this day,\n    When I have heard your king's desert recounted,\n    Mine ear hath tempted judgment to desire.\n  LEWIS. Then, Warwick, thus: our sister shall be Edward's.\n    And now forthwith shall articles be drawn\n    Touching the jointure that your king must make,\n    Which with her dowry shall be counterpois'd.\n    Draw near, Queen Margaret, and be a witness\n    That Bona shall be wife to the English king.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. To Edward, but not to the English king.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Deceitful Warwick, it was thy device\n    By this alliance to make void my suit.\n    Before thy coming, Lewis was Henry's friend.\n  LEWIS. And still is friend to him and Margaret.\n    But if your title to the crown be weak,\n    As may appear by Edward's good success,\n    Then 'tis but reason that I be releas'd\n    From giving aid which late I promised.\n    Yet shall you have all kindness at my hand\n    That your estate requires and mine can yield.\n  WARWICK. Henry now lives in Scotland at his case,\n    Where having nothing, nothing can he lose.\n    And as for you yourself, our quondam queen,\n    You have a father able to maintain you,\n    And better 'twere you troubled him than France.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Peace, impudent and shameless Warwick,\n    Proud setter up and puller down of kings!\n    I will not hence till with my talk and tears,\n    Both full of truth, I make King Lewis behold\n    Thy sly conveyance and thy lord's false love;\n    For both of you are birds of self-same feather.\n                                    [POST blowing a horn within]\n  LEWIS. Warwick, this is some post to us or thee.\n\n                       Enter the POST\n\n  POST. My lord ambassador, these letters are for you,\n    Sent from your brother, Marquis Montague.\n    These from our King unto your Majesty.\n    And, madam, these for you; from whom I know not.\n                                   [They all read their letters]\n  OXFORD. I like it well that our fair Queen and mistress\n    Smiles at her news, while Warwick frowns at his.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Nay, mark how Lewis stamps as he were nettled.\n    I hope all's for the best.\n  LEWIS. Warwick, what are thy news? And yours, fair Queen?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Mine such as fill my heart with unhop'd joys.\n  WARWICK. Mine, full of sorrow and heart's discontent.\n  LEWIS. What, has your king married the Lady Grey?\n    And now, to soothe your forgery and his,\n    Sends me a paper to persuade me patience?\n    Is this th' alliance that he seeks with France?\n    Dare he presume to scorn us in this manner?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I told your Majesty as much before.\n    This proveth Edward's love and Warwick's honesty.\n  WARWICK. King Lewis, I here protest in sight of heaven,\n    And by the hope I have of heavenly bliss,\n    That I am clear from this misdeed of Edward's-\n    No more my king, for he dishonours me,\n    But most himself, if he could see his shame.\n    Did I forget that by the house of York\n    My father came untimely to his death?\n    Did I let pass th' abuse done to my niece?\n    Did I impale him with the regal crown?\n    Did I put Henry from his native right?\n    And am I guerdon'd at the last with shame?\n    Shame on himself! for my desert is honour;\n    And to repair my honour lost for him\n    I here renounce him and return to Henry.\n    My noble Queen, let former grudges pass,\n    And henceforth I am thy true servitor.\n    I will revenge his wrong to Lady Bona,\n    And replant Henry in his former state.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Warwick, these words have turn'd my hate to love;\n    And I forgive and quite forget old faults,\n    And joy that thou becom'st King Henry's friend.\n  WARWICK. So much his friend, ay, his unfeigned friend,\n    That if King Lewis vouchsafe to furnish us\n    With some few bands of chosen soldiers,\n    I'll undertake to land them on our coast\n    And force the tyrant from his seat by war.\n    'Tis not his new-made bride shall succour him;\n    And as for Clarence, as my letters tell me,\n    He's very likely now to fall from him\n    For matching more for wanton lust than honour\n    Or than for strength and safety of our country.\n  BONA. Dear brother, how shall Bona be reveng'd\n    But by thy help to this distressed queen?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Renowned Prince, how shall poor Henry live\n    Unless thou rescue him from foul despair?\n  BONA. My quarrel and this English queen's are one.\n  WARWICK. And mine, fair Lady Bona, joins with yours.\n  LEWIS. And mine with hers, and thine, and Margaret's.\n    Therefore, at last, I firmly am resolv'd\n    You shall have aid.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Let me give humble thanks for all at once.\n  LEWIS. Then, England's messenger, return in post\n    And tell false Edward, thy supposed king,\n    That Lewis of France is sending over masquers\n    To revel it with him and his new bride.\n    Thou seest what's past; go fear thy king withal.\n  BONA. Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,\n    I'll wear the willow-garland for his sake.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Tell him my mourning weeds are laid aside,\n    And I am ready to put armour on.\n  WARWICK. Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong,\n    And therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long.\n    There's thy reward; be gone.                       Exit POST\n  LEWIS. But, Warwick,\n    Thou and Oxford, with five thousand men,\n    Shall cross the seas and bid false Edward battle:\n    And, as occasion serves, this noble Queen\n    And Prince shall follow with a fresh supply.\n    Yet, ere thou go, but answer me one doubt:\n    What pledge have we of thy firm loyalty?\n  WARWICK. This shall assure my constant loyalty:\n    That if our Queen and this young Prince agree,\n    I'll join mine eldest daughter and my joy\n    To him forthwith in holy wedlock bands.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Yes, I agree, and thank you for your motion.\n    Son Edward, she is fair and virtuous,\n    Therefore delay not- give thy hand to Warwick;\n    And with thy hand thy faith irrevocable\n    That only Warwick's daughter shall be thine.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Yes, I accept her, for she well deserves it;\n    And here, to pledge my vow, I give my hand.\n                                  [He gives his hand to WARWICK]\n  LEWIS. stay we now? These soldiers shall be levied;\n    And thou, Lord Bourbon, our High Admiral,\n    Shall waft them over with our royal fleet.\n    I long till Edward fall by war's mischance\n    For mocking marriage with a dame of France.\n                                          Exeunt all but WARWICK\n  WARWICK. I came from Edward as ambassador,\n    But I return his sworn and mortal foe.\n    Matter of marriage was the charge he gave me,\n    But dreadful war shall answer his demand.\n    Had he none else to make a stale but me?\n    Then none but I shall turn his jest to sorrow.\n    I was the chief that rais'd him to the crown,\n    And I'll be chief to bring him down again;\n    Not that I pity Henry's misery,\n    But seek revenge on Edward's mockery.                   Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, SOMERSET, and MONTAGUE\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Now tell me, brother Clarence, what think you\n    Of this new marriage with the Lady Grey?\n    Hath not our brother made a worthy choice?\n  CLARENCE. Alas, you know 'tis far from hence to France!\n    How could he stay till Warwick made return?\n  SOMERSET. My lords, forbear this talk; here comes the King.\n\n           Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD, attended; LADY\n          GREY, as Queen; PEMBROKE, STAFFORD, HASTINGS,\n      and others. Four stand on one side, and four on the other\n\n  GLOUCESTER. And his well-chosen bride.\n  CLARENCE. I mind to tell him plainly what I think.\n  KING EDWARD. Now, brother of Clarence, how like you our choice\n    That you stand pensive as half malcontent?\n  CLARENCE. As well as Lewis of France or the Earl of Warwick,\n    Which are so weak of courage and in judgment\n    That they'll take no offence at our abuse.\n  KING EDWARD. Suppose they take offence without a cause;\n    They are but Lewis and Warwick: I am Edward,\n    Your King and Warwick's and must have my will.\n  GLOUCESTER. And shall have your will, because our King.\n    Yet hasty marriage seldom proveth well.\n  KING EDWARD. Yea, brother Richard, are you offended too?\n  GLOUCESTER. Not I.\n    No, God forbid that I should wish them sever'd\n    Whom God hath join'd together; ay, and 'twere pity\n    To sunder them that yoke so well together.\n  KING EDWARD. Setting your scorns and your mislike aside,\n    Tell me some reason why the Lady Grey\n    Should not become my wife and England's Queen.\n    And you too, Somerset and Montague,\n    Speak freely what you think.\n  CLARENCE. Then this is mine opinion: that King Lewis\n    Becomes your enemy for mocking him\n    About the marriage of the Lady Bona.\n  GLOUCESTER. And Warwick, doing what you gave in charge,\n    Is now dishonoured by this new marriage.\n  KING EDWARD. What if both Lewis and Warwick be appeas'd\n    By such invention as I can devise?\n  MONTAGUE. Yet to have join'd with France in such alliance\n    Would more have strength'ned this our commonwealth\n    'Gainst foreign storms than any home-bred marriage.\n  HASTINGS. Why, knows not Montague that of itself\n    England is safe, if true within itself?\n  MONTAGUE. But the safer when 'tis back'd with France.\n  HASTINGS. 'Tis better using France than trusting France.\n    Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas\n    Which He hath giv'n for fence impregnable,\n    And with their helps only defend ourselves.\n    In them and in ourselves our safety lies.\n  CLARENCE. For this one speech Lord Hastings well deserves\n    To have the heir of the Lord Hungerford.\n  KING EDWARD. Ay, what of that? it was my will and grant;\n    And for this once my will shall stand for law.\n  GLOUCESTER. And yet methinks your Grace hath not done well\n    To give the heir and daughter of Lord Scales\n    Unto the brother of your loving bride.\n    She better would have fitted me or Clarence;\n    But in your bride you bury brotherhood.\n  CLARENCE. Or else you would not have bestow'd the heir\n    Of the Lord Bonville on your new wife's son,\n    And leave your brothers to go speed elsewhere.\n  KING EDWARD. Alas, poor Clarence! Is it for a wife\n    That thou art malcontent? I will provide thee.\n  CLARENCE. In choosing for yourself you show'd your judgment,\n    Which being shallow, you shall give me leave\n    To play the broker in mine own behalf;\n    And to that end I shortly mind to leave you.\n  KING EDWARD. Leave me or tarry, Edward will be King,\n    And not be tied unto his brother's will.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My lords, before it pleas'd his Majesty\n    To raise my state to title of a queen,\n    Do me but right, and you must all confess\n    That I was not ignoble of descent:\n    And meaner than myself have had like fortune.\n    But as this title honours me and mine,\n    So your dislikes, to whom I would be pleasing,\n    Doth cloud my joys with danger and with sorrow.\n  KING EDWARD. My love, forbear to fawn upon their frowns.\n    What danger or what sorrow can befall thee,\n    So long as Edward is thy constant friend\n    And their true sovereign whom they must obey?\n    Nay, whom they shall obey, and love thee too,\n    Unless they seek for hatred at my hands;\n    Which if they do, yet will I keep thee safe,\n    And they shall feel the vengeance of my wrath.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] I hear, yet say not much, but think the more.\n\n                          Enter a POST\n\n  KING EDWARD. Now, messenger, what letters or what news\n    From France?\n  MESSENGER. My sovereign liege, no letters, and few words,\n    But such as I, without your special pardon,\n    Dare not relate.\n  KING EDWARD. Go to, we pardon thee; therefore, in brief,\n    Tell me their words as near as thou canst guess them.\n    What answer makes King Lewis unto our letters?\n  MESSENGER. At my depart, these were his very words:\n    'Go tell false Edward, the supposed king,\n    That Lewis of France is sending over masquers\n    To revel it with him and his new bride.'\n  KING EDWARD. IS Lewis so brave? Belike he thinks me Henry.\n    But what said Lady Bona to my marriage?\n  MESSENGER. These were her words, utt'red with mild disdain:\n    'Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,\n    I'll wear the willow-garland for his sake.'\n  KING EDWARD. I blame not her: she could say little less;\n    She had the wrong. But what said Henry's queen?\n    For I have heard that she was there in place.\n  MESSENGER. 'Tell him' quoth she 'my mourning weeds are done,\n    And I am ready to put armour on.'\n  KING EDWARD. Belike she minds to play the Amazon.\n    But what said Warwick to these injuries?\n  MESSENGER. He, more incens'd against your Majesty\n    Than all the rest, discharg'd me with these words:\n    'Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong;\n    And therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long.'\n  KING EDWARD. Ha! durst the traitor breathe out so proud words?\n    Well, I will arm me, being thus forewarn'd.\n    They shall have wars and pay for their presumption.\n    But say, is Warwick friends with Margaret?\n  MESSENGER. Ay, gracious sovereign; they are so link'd in friendship\n    That young Prince Edward marries Warwick's daughter.\n  CLARENCE. Belike the elder; Clarence will have the younger.\n    Now, brother king, farewell, and sit you fast,\n    For I will hence to Warwick's other daughter;\n    That, though I want a kingdom, yet in marriage\n    I may not prove inferior to yourself.\n    You that love me and Warwick, follow me.\n                                      Exit, and SOMERSET follows\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] Not I.\n    My thoughts aim at a further matter; I\n    Stay not for the love of Edward but the crown.\n  KING EDWARD. Clarence and Somerset both gone to Warwick!\n    Yet am I arm'd against the worst can happen;\n    And haste is needful in this desp'rate case.\n    Pembroke and Stafford, you in our behalf\n    Go levy men and make prepare for war;\n    They are already, or quickly will be landed.\n    Myself in person will straight follow you.\n                                    Exeunt PEMBROKE and STAFFORD\n    But ere I go, Hastings and Montague,\n    Resolve my doubt. You twain, of all the rest,\n    Are near to Warwick by blood and by alliance.\n    Tell me if you love Warwick more than me?\n    If it be so, then both depart to him:\n    I rather wish you foes than hollow friends.\n    But if you mind to hold your true obedience,\n    Give me assurance with some friendly vow,\n    That I may never have you in suspect.\n  MONTAGUE. So God help Montague as he proves true!\n  HASTINGS. And Hastings as he favours Edward's cause!\n  KING EDWARD. Now, brother Richard, will you stand by us?\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, in despite of all that shall withstand you.\n  KING EDWARD. Why, so! then am I sure of victory.\n    Now therefore let us hence, and lose no hour\n    Till we meet Warwick with his foreign pow'r.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA plain in Warwickshire\n\nEnter WARWICK and OXFORD, with French soldiers\n\n  WARWICK. Trust me, my lord, all hitherto goes well;\n    The common people by numbers swarm to us.\n\n                 Enter CLARENCE and SOMERSET\n\n    But see where Somerset and Clarence comes.\n    Speak suddenly, my lords- are we all friends?\n  CLARENCE. Fear not that, my lord.\n  WARWICK. Then, gentle Clarence, welcome unto Warwick;\n    And welcome, Somerset. I hold it cowardice\n    To rest mistrustful where a noble heart\n    Hath pawn'd an open hand in sign of love;\n    Else might I think that Clarence, Edward's brother,\n    Were but a feigned friend to our proceedings.\n    But welcome, sweet Clarence; my daughter shall be thine.\n    And now what rests but, in night's coverture,\n    Thy brother being carelessly encamp'd,\n    His soldiers lurking in the towns about,\n    And but attended by a simple guard,\n    We may surprise and take him at our pleasure?\n    Our scouts have found the adventure very easy;\n    That as Ulysses and stout Diomede\n    With sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus' tents,\n    And brought from thence the Thracian fatal steeds,\n    So we, well cover'd with the night's black mantle,\n    At unawares may beat down Edward's guard\n    And seize himself- I say not 'slaughter him,'\n    For I intend but only to surprise him.\n    You that will follow me to this attempt,\n    Applaud the name of Henry with your leader.\n                                         [They all cry 'Henry!']\n    Why then, let's on our way in silent sort.\n    For Warwick and his friends, God and Saint George!    Exeunt\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nEdward's camp, near Warwick\n\nEnter three WATCHMEN, to guard the KING'S tent\n\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. Come on, my masters, each man take his stand;\n    The King by this is set him down to sleep.\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. What, will he not to bed?\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. Why, no; for he hath made a solemn vow\n    Never to lie and take his natural rest\n    Till Warwick or himself be quite suppress'd.\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. To-morrow then, belike, shall be the day,\n    If Warwick be so near as men report.\n  THIRD WATCHMAN. But say, I pray, what nobleman is that\n    That with the King here resteth in his tent?\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. 'Tis the Lord Hastings, the King's chiefest friend.\n  THIRD WATCHMAN. O, is it So? But why commands the King\n    That his chief followers lodge in towns about him,\n    While he himself keeps in the cold field?\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. 'Tis the more honour, because more dangerous.\n  THIRD WATCHMAN. Ay, but give me worship and quietness;\n    I like it better than dangerous honour.\n    If Warwick knew in what estate he stands,\n    'Tis to be doubted he would waken him.\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. Unless our halberds did shut up his passage.\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. Ay, wherefore else guard we his royal tent\n    But to defend his person from night-foes?\n\n             Enter WARWICK, CLARENCE, OXFORD, SOMERSET,\n                   and French soldiers, silent all\n\n  WARWICK. This is his tent; and see where stand his guard.\n    Courage, my masters! Honour now or never!\n    But follow me, and Edward shall be ours.\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. Who goes there?\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. Stay, or thou diest.\n\n       WARWICK and the rest cry all 'Warwick! Warwick!' and\n      set upon the guard, who fly, crying 'Arm! Arm!' WARWICK\n                   and the rest following them\n\n      The drum playing and trumpet sounding, re-enter WARWICK\n         and the rest, bringing the KING out in his gown,\n   sitting in a chair. GLOUCESTER and HASTINGS fly over the stage\n\n  SOMERSET. What are they that fly there?\n  WARWICK. Richard and Hastings. Let them go; here is the Duke.\n  KING EDWARD. The Duke! Why, Warwick, when we parted,\n    Thou call'dst me King?\n  WARWICK. Ay, but the case is alter'd.\n    When you disgrac'd me in my embassade,\n    Then I degraded you from being King,\n    And come now to create you Duke of York.\n    Alas, how should you govern any kingdom\n    That know not how to use ambassadors,\n    Nor how to be contented with one wife,\n    Nor how to use your brothers brotherly,\n    Nor how to study for the people's welfare,\n    Nor how to shroud yourself from enemies?\n  KING EDWARD. Yea, brother of Clarence, art thou here too?\n    Nay, then I see that Edward needs must down.\n    Yet, Warwick, in despite of all mischance,\n    Of thee thyself and all thy complices,\n    Edward will always bear himself as King.\n    Though fortune's malice overthrow my state,\n    My mind exceeds the compass of her wheel.\n  WARWICK. Then, for his mind, be Edward England's king;\n                                           [Takes off his crown]\n    But Henry now shall wear the English crown\n    And be true King indeed; thou but the shadow.\n    My Lord of Somerset, at my request,\n    See that forthwith Duke Edward be convey'd\n    Unto my brother, Archbishop of York.\n    When I have fought with Pembroke and his fellows,\n    I'll follow you and tell what answer\n    Lewis and the Lady Bona send to him.\n    Now for a while farewell, good Duke of York.\n  KING EDWARD. What fates impose, that men must needs abide;\n    It boots not to resist both wind and tide.\n                                    [They lead him out forcibly]\n  OXFORD. What now remains, my lords, for us to do\n    But march to London with our soldiers?\n  WARWICK. Ay, that's the first thing that we have to do;\n    To free King Henry from imprisonment,\n    And see him seated in the regal throne.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter QUEEN ELIZABETH and RIVERS\n\n  RIVERS. Madam, what makes you in this sudden change?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Why, brother Rivers, are you yet to learn\n    What late misfortune is befall'n King Edward?\n  RIVERS. What, loss of some pitch'd battle against Warwick?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. No, but the loss of his own royal person.\n  RIVERS. Then is my sovereign slain?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ay, almost slain, for he is taken prisoner;\n    Either betray'd by falsehood of his guard\n    Or by his foe surpris'd at unawares;\n    And, as I further have to understand,\n    Is new committed to the Bishop of York,\n    Fell Warwick's brother, and by that our foe.\n  RIVERS. These news, I must confess, are full of grief;\n    Yet, gracious madam, bear it as you may:\n    Warwick may lose that now hath won the day.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Till then, fair hope must hinder life's decay.\n    And I the rather wean me from despair\n    For love of Edward's offspring in my womb.\n    This is it that makes me bridle passion\n    And bear with mildness my misfortune's cross;\n    Ay, ay, for this I draw in many a tear\n    And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs,\n    Lest with my sighs or tears I blast or drown\n    King Edward's fruit, true heir to th' English crown.\n  RIVERS. But, madam, where is Warwick then become?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I am inform'd that he comes towards London\n    To set the crown once more on Henry's head.\n    Guess thou the rest: King Edward's friends must down.\n    But to prevent the tyrant's violence-\n    For trust not him that hath once broken faith-\n    I'll hence forthwith unto the sanctuary\n    To save at least the heir of Edward's right.\n    There shall I rest secure from force and fraud.\n    Come, therefore, let us fly while we may fly:\n    If Warwick take us, we are sure to die.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nA park near Middleham Castle in Yorkshire\n\nEnter GLOUCESTER, LORD HASTINGS, SIR WILLIAM STANLEY, and others\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Now, my Lord Hastings and Sir William Stanley,\n    Leave off to wonder why I drew you hither\n    Into this chiefest thicket of the park.\n    Thus stands the case: you know our King, my brother,\n    Is prisoner to the Bishop here, at whose hands\n    He hath good usage and great liberty;\n    And often but attended with weak guard\n    Comes hunting this way to disport himself.\n    I have advertis'd him by secret means\n    That if about this hour he make this way,\n    Under the colour of his usual game,\n    He shall here find his friends, with horse and men,\n    To set him free from his captivity.\n\n             Enter KING EDWARD and a HUNTSMAN with him\n\n  HUNTSMAN. This way, my lord; for this way lies the game.\n  KING EDWARD. Nay, this way, man. See where the huntsmen stand.\n    Now, brother of Gloucester, Lord Hastings, and the rest,\n    Stand you thus close to steal the Bishop's deer?\n  GLOUCESTER. Brother, the time and case requireth haste;\n    Your horse stands ready at the park corner.\n  KING EDWARD. But whither shall we then?\n  HASTINGS. To Lynn, my lord; and shipt from thence to Flanders.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well guess'd, believe me; for that was my meaning.\n  KING EDWARD. Stanley, I will requite thy forwardness.\n  GLOUCESTER. But wherefore stay we? 'Tis no time to talk.\n  KING EDWARD. Huntsman, what say'st thou? Wilt thou go along?\n  HUNTSMAN. Better do so than tarry and be hang'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Come then, away; let's ha' no more ado.\n  KING EDWARD. Bishop, farewell. Shield thee from Warwick's frown,\n    And pray that I may repossess the crown.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nLondon. The Tower\n\nFlourish. Enter KING HENRY, CLARENCE, WARWICK, SOMERSET, young HENRY,\nEARL OF RICHMOND, OXFORD, MONTAGUE, LIEUTENANT OF THE TOWER, and attendants\n\n  KING HENRY. Master Lieutenant, now that God and friends\n    Have shaken Edward from the regal seat\n    And turn'd my captive state to liberty,\n    My fear to hope, my sorrows unto joys,\n    At our enlargement what are thy due fees?\n  LIEUTENANT. Subjects may challenge nothing of their sov'reigns;\n    But if an humble prayer may prevail,\n    I then crave pardon of your Majesty.\n  KING HENRY. For what, Lieutenant? For well using me?\n    Nay, be thou sure I'll well requite thy kindness,\n    For that it made my imprisonment a pleasure;\n    Ay, such a pleasure as incaged birds\n    Conceive when, after many moody thoughts,\n    At last by notes of household harmony\n    They quite forget their loss of liberty.\n    But, Warwick, after God, thou set'st me free,\n    And chiefly therefore I thank God and thee;\n    He was the author, thou the instrument.\n    Therefore, that I may conquer fortune's spite\n    By living low where fortune cannot hurt me,\n    And that the people of this blessed land\n    May not be punish'd with my thwarting stars,\n    Warwick, although my head still wear the crown,\n    I here resign my government to thee,\n    For thou art fortunate in all thy deeds.\n  WARWICK. Your Grace hath still been fam'd for virtuous,\n    And now may seem as wise as virtuous\n    By spying and avoiding fortune's malice,\n    For few men rightly temper with the stars;\n    Yet in this one thing let me blame your Grace,\n    For choosing me when Clarence is in place.\n  CLARENCE. No, Warwick, thou art worthy of the sway,\n    To whom the heav'ns in thy nativity\n    Adjudg'd an olive branch and laurel crown,\n    As likely to be blest in peace and war;\n    And therefore I yield thee my free consent.\n  WARWICK. And I choose Clarence only for Protector.\n  KING HENRY. Warwick and Clarence, give me both your hands.\n    Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts,\n    That no dissension hinder government.\n    I make you both Protectors of this land,\n    While I myself will lead a private life\n    And in devotion spend my latter days,\n    To sin's rebuke and my Creator's praise.\n  WARWICK. What answers Clarence to his sovereign's will?\n  CLARENCE. That he consents, if Warwick yield consent,\n    For on thy fortune I repose myself.\n  WARWICK. Why, then, though loath, yet must I be content.\n    We'll yoke together, like a double shadow\n    To Henry's body, and supply his place;\n    I mean, in bearing weight of government,\n    While he enjoys the honour and his ease.\n    And, Clarence, now then it is more than needful\n    Forthwith that Edward be pronounc'd a traitor,\n    And all his lands and goods confiscated.\n  CLARENCE. What else? And that succession be determin'd.\n  WARWICK. Ay, therein Clarence shall not want his part.\n  KING HENRY. But, with the first of all your chief affairs,\n    Let me entreat- for I command no more-\n    That Margaret your Queen and my son Edward\n    Be sent for to return from France with speed;\n    For till I see them here, by doubtful fear\n    My joy of liberty is half eclips'd.\n  CLARENCE. It shall be done, my sovereign, with all speed.\n  KING HENRY. My Lord of Somerset, what youth is that,\n    Of whom you seem to have so tender care?\n  SOMERSET. My liege, it is young Henry, Earl of Richmond.\n  KING HENRY. Come hither, England's hope.\n                                     [Lays his hand on his head]\n    If secret powers\n    Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts,\n    This pretty lad will prove our country's bliss.\n    His looks are full of peaceful majesty;\n    His head by nature fram'd to wear a crown,\n    His hand to wield a sceptre; and himself\n    Likely in time to bless a regal throne.\n    Make much of him, my lords; for this is he\n    Must help you more than you are hurt by me.\n\n                          Enter a POST\n\n  WARWICK. What news, my friend?\n  POST. That Edward is escaped from your brother\n    And fled, as he hears since, to Burgundy.\n  WARWICK. Unsavoury news! But how made he escape?\n  POST. He was convey'd by Richard Duke of Gloucester\n    And the Lord Hastings, who attended him\n    In secret ambush on the forest side\n    And from the Bishop's huntsmen rescu'd him;\n    For hunting was his daily exercise.\n  WARWICK. My brother was too careless of his charge.\n    But let us hence, my sovereign, to provide\n    A salve for any sore that may betide.\n                   Exeunt all but SOMERSET, RICHMOND, and OXFORD\n  SOMERSET. My lord, I like not of this flight of Edward's;\n    For doubtless Burgundy will yield him help,\n    And we shall have more wars befor't be long.\n    As Henry's late presaging prophecy\n    Did glad my heart with hope of this young Richmond,\n    So doth my heart misgive me, in these conflicts,\n    What may befall him to his harm and ours.\n    Therefore, Lord Oxford, to prevent the worst,\n    Forthwith we'll send him hence to Brittany,\n    Till storms be past of civil enmity.\n  OXFORD. Ay, for if Edward repossess the crown,\n    'Tis like that Richmond with the rest shall down.\n  SOMERSET. It shall be so; he shall to Brittany.\n    Come therefore, let's about it speedily.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nBefore York\n\nFlourish. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, HASTINGS, and soldiers\n\n  KING EDWARD. Now, brother Richard, Lord Hastings, and the rest,\n    Yet thus far fortune maketh us amends,\n    And says that once more I shall interchange\n    My waned state for Henry's regal crown.\n    Well have we pass'd and now repass'd the seas,\n    And brought desired help from Burgundy;\n    What then remains, we being thus arriv'd\n    From Ravenspurgh haven before the gates of York,\n    But that we enter, as into our dukedom?\n  GLOUCESTER. The gates made fast! Brother, I like not this;\n    For many men that stumble at the threshold\n    Are well foretold that danger lurks within.\n  KING EDWARD. Tush, man, abodements must not now affright us.\n    By fair or foul means we must enter in,\n    For hither will our friends repair to us.\n  HASTINGS. My liege, I'll knock once more to summon them.\n\n         Enter, on the walls, the MAYOR OF YORK and\n                       his BRETHREN\n\n  MAYOR. My lords, we were forewarned of your coming\n    And shut the gates for safety of ourselves,\n    For now we owe allegiance unto Henry.\n  KING EDWARD. But, Master Mayor, if Henry be your King,\n    Yet Edward at the least is Duke of York.\n  MAYOR. True, my good lord; I know you for no less.\n  KING EDWARD. Why, and I challenge nothing but my dukedom,\n    As being well content with that alone.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] But when the fox hath once got in his nose,\n    He'll soon find means to make the body follow.\n  HASTINGS. Why, Master Mayor, why stand you in a doubt?\n    Open the gates; we are King Henry's friends.\n  MAYOR. Ay, say you so? The gates shall then be open'd.\n                                                   [He descends]\n  GLOUCESTER. A wise stout captain, and soon persuaded!\n  HASTINGS. The good old man would fain that all were well,\n    So 'twere not long of him; but being ent'red,\n    I doubt not, I, but we shall soon persuade\n    Both him and all his brothers unto reason.\n\n             Enter, below, the MAYOR and two ALDERMEN\n\n  KING EDWARD. So, Master Mayor. These gates must not be shut\n    But in the night or in the time of war.\n    What! fear not, man, but yield me up the keys;\n                                                [Takes his keys]\n    For Edward will defend the town and thee,\n    And all those friends that deign to follow me.\n\n           March. Enter MONTGOMERY with drum and soldiers\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Brother, this is Sir John Montgomery,\n    Our trusty friend, unless I be deceiv'd.\n  KING EDWARD. Welcome, Sir john! But why come you in arms?\n  MONTGOMERY. To help King Edward in his time of storm,\n    As every loyal subject ought to do.\n  KING EDWARD. Thanks, good Montgomery; but we now forget\n    Our title to the crown, and only claim\n    Our dukedom till God please to send the rest.\n  MONTGOMERY. Then fare you well, for I will hence again.\n    I came to serve a king and not a duke.\n    Drummer, strike up, and let us march away.\n                                      [The drum begins to march]\n  KING EDWARD. Nay, stay, Sir John, a while, and we'll debate\n    By what safe means the crown may be recover'd.\n  MONTGOMERY. What talk you of debating? In few words:\n    If you'll not here proclaim yourself our King,\n    I'll leave you to your fortune and be gone\n    To keep them back that come to succour you.\n    Why shall we fight, if you pretend no title?\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, brother, wherefore stand you on nice points?\n  KING EDWARD. When we grow stronger, then we'll make our claim;\n    Till then 'tis wisdom to conceal our meaning.\n  HASTINGS. Away with scrupulous wit! Now arms must rule.\n  GLOUCESTER. And fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns.\n    Brother, we will proclaim you out of hand;\n    The bruit thereof will bring you many friends.\n  KING EDWARD. Then be it as you will; for 'tis my right,\n    And Henry but usurps the diadem.\n  MONTGOMERY. Ay, now my sovereign speaketh like himself;\n    And now will I be Edward's champion.\n  HASTINGS. Sound trumpet; Edward shall be here proclaim'd.\n    Come, fellow soldier, make thou proclamation.\n                                   [Gives him a paper. Flourish]\n  SOLDIER. [Reads] 'Edward the Fourth, by the grace of God,\n    King of England and France, and Lord of Ireland, &c.'\n  MONTGOMERY. And whoso'er gainsays King Edward's right,\n    By this I challenge him to single fight.\n                                          [Throws down gauntlet]\n  ALL. Long live Edward the Fourth!\n  KING EDWARD. Thanks, brave Montgomery, and thanks unto you all;\n    If fortune serve me, I'll requite this kindness.\n    Now for this night let's harbour here in York;\n    And when the morning sun shall raise his car\n    Above the border of this horizon,\n    We'll forward towards Warwick and his mates;\n    For well I wot that Henry is no soldier.\n    Ah, froward Clarence, how evil it beseems the\n    To flatter Henry and forsake thy brother!\n    Yet, as we may, we'll meet both thee and Warwick.\n    Come on, brave soldiers; doubt not of the day,\n    And, that once gotten, doubt not of large pay.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\nLondon. The palace\n\nFlourish. Enter KING HENRY, WARWICK, MONTAGUE, CLARENCE, OXFORD, and EXETER\n\n  WARWICK. What counsel, lords? Edward from Belgia,\n    With hasty Germans and blunt Hollanders,\n    Hath pass'd in safety through the narrow seas\n    And with his troops doth march amain to London;\n    And many giddy people flock to him.\n  KING HENRY. Let's levy men and beat him back again.\n  CLARENCE. A little fire is quickly trodden out,\n    Which, being suffer'd, rivers cannot quench.\n  WARWICK. In Warwickshire I have true-hearted friends,\n    Not mutinous in peace, yet bold in war;\n    Those will I muster up, and thou, son Clarence,\n    Shalt stir up in Suffolk, Norfolk, and in Kent,\n    The knights and gentlemen to come with thee.\n    Thou, brother Montague, in Buckingham,\n    Northampton, and in Leicestershire, shalt find\n    Men well inclin'd to hear what thou command'st.\n    And thou, brave Oxford, wondrous well belov'd,\n    In Oxfordshire shalt muster up thy friends.\n    My sovereign, with the loving citizens,\n    Like to his island girt in with the ocean\n    Or modest Dian circled with her nymphs,\n    Shall rest in London till we come to him.\n    Fair lords, take leave and stand not to reply.\n    Farewell, my sovereign.\n  KING HENRY. Farewell, my Hector and my Troy's true hope.\n  CLARENCE. In sign of truth, I kiss your Highness' hand.\n  KING HENRY. Well-minded Clarence, be thou fortunate!\n  MONTAGUE. Comfort, my lord; and so I take my leave.\n  OXFORD. [Kissing the KING'S band] And thus I seal my truth and bid\n    adieu.\n  KING HENRY. Sweet Oxford, and my loving Montague,\n    And all at once, once more a happy farewell.\n  WARWICK. Farewell, sweet lords; let's meet at Coventry.\n                              Exeunt all but the KING and EXETER\n  KING HENRY. Here at the palace will I rest a while.\n    Cousin of Exeter, what thinks your lordship?\n    Methinks the power that Edward hath in field\n    Should not be able to encounter mine.\n  EXETER. The doubt is that he will seduce the rest.\n  KING HENRY. That's not my fear; my meed hath got me fame:\n    I have not stopp'd mine ears to their demands,\n    Nor posted off their suits with slow delays;\n    My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,\n    My mildness hath allay'd their swelling griefs,\n    My mercy dried their water-flowing tears;\n    I have not been desirous of their wealth,\n    Nor much oppress'd them with great subsidies,\n    Nor forward of revenge, though they much err'd.\n    Then why should they love Edward more than me?\n    No, Exeter, these graces challenge grace;\n    And, when the lion fawns upon the lamb,\n    The lamb will never cease to follow him.\n                      [Shout within 'A Lancaster! A Lancaster!']\n  EXETER. Hark, hark, my lord! What shouts are these?\n\n            Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, and soldiers\n\n  KING EDWARD. Seize on the shame-fac'd Henry, bear him hence;\n    And once again proclaim us King of England.\n    You are the fount that makes small brooks to flow.\n    Now stops thy spring; my sea shall suck them dry,\n    And swell so much the higher by their ebb.\n    Hence with him to the Tower: let him not speak.\n                                     Exeunt some with KING HENRY\n    And, lords, towards Coventry bend we our course,\n    Where peremptory Warwick now remains.\n    The sun shines hot; and, if we use delay,\n    Cold biting winter mars our hop'd-for hay.\n  GLOUCESTER. Away betimes, before his forces join,\n    And take the great-grown traitor unawares.\n    Brave warriors, march amain towards Coventry.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nCoventry\n\nEnter WARWICK, the MAYOR OF COVENTRY, two MESSENGERS,\nand others upon the walls\n\n  WARWICK. Where is the post that came from valiant Oxford?\n    How far hence is thy lord, mine honest fellow?\n  FIRST MESSENGER. By this at Dunsmore, marching hitherward.\n  WARWICK. How far off is our brother Montague?\n    Where is the post that came from Montague?\n  SECOND MESSENGER. By this at Daintry, with a puissant troop.\n\n                   Enter SIR JOHN SOMERVILLE\n\n  WARWICK. Say, Somerville, what says my loving son?\n    And by thy guess how nigh is Clarence now?\n  SOMERVILLE. At Southam I did leave him with his forces,\n    And do expect him here some two hours hence.\n                                                    [Drum heard]\n  WARWICK. Then Clarence is at hand; I hear his drum.\n  SOMERVILLE. It is not his, my lord; here Southam lies.\n    The drum your Honour hears marcheth from Warwick.\n  WARWICK. Who should that be? Belike unlook'd for friends.\n  SOMERVILLE. They are at hand, and you shall quickly know.\n\n        March. Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER,\n                         and soldiers\n\n  KING EDWARD. Go, trumpet, to the walls, and sound a parle.\n  GLOUCESTER. See how the surly Warwick mans the wall.\n  WARWICK. O unbid spite! Is sportful Edward come?\n    Where slept our scouts or how are they seduc'd\n    That we could hear no news of his repair?\n  KING EDWARD. Now, Warwick, wilt thou ope the city gates,\n    Speak gentle words, and humbly bend thy knee,\n    Call Edward King, and at his hands beg mercy?\n    And he shall pardon thee these outrages.\n  WARWICK. Nay, rather, wilt thou draw thy forces hence,\n    Confess who set thee up and pluck'd thee down,\n    Call Warwick patron, and be penitent?\n    And thou shalt still remain the Duke of York.\n  GLOUCESTER. I thought, at least, he would have said the King;\n    Or did he make the jest against his will?\n  WARWICK. Is not a dukedom, sir, a goodly gift?\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, by my faith, for a poor earl to give.\n    I'll do thee service for so good a gift.\n  WARWICK. 'Twas I that gave the kingdom to thy brother.\n  KING EDWARD. Why then 'tis mine, if but by Warwick's gift.\n  WARWICK. Thou art no Atlas for so great a weight;\n    And, weakling, Warwick takes his gift again;\n    And Henry is my King, Warwick his subject.\n  KING EDWARD. But Warwick's king is Edward's prisoner.\n    And, gallant Warwick, do but answer this:\n    What is the body when the head is off?\n  GLOUCESTER. Alas, that Warwick had no more forecast,\n    But, whiles he thought to steal the single ten,\n    The king was slily finger'd from the deck!\n    You left poor Henry at the Bishop's palace,\n    And ten to one you'll meet him in the Tower.\n  KING EDWARD. 'Tis even so; yet you are Warwick still.\n  GLOUCESTER. Come, Warwick, take the time; kneel down, kneel down.\n    Nay, when? Strike now, or else the iron cools.\n  WARWICK. I had rather chop this hand off at a blow,\n    And with the other fling it at thy face,\n    Than bear so low a sail to strike to thee.\n  KING EDWARD. Sail how thou canst, have wind and tide thy friend,\n    This hand, fast wound about thy coal-black hair,\n    Shall, whiles thy head is warm and new cut off,\n    Write in the dust this sentence with thy blood:\n    'Wind-changing Warwick now can change no more.'\n\n               Enter OXFORD, with drum and colours\n\n  WARWICK. O cheerful colours! See where Oxford comes.\n  OXFORD. Oxford, Oxford, for Lancaster!\n                              [He and his forces enter the city]\n  GLOUCESTER. The gates are open, let us enter too.\n  KING EDWARD. So other foes may set upon our backs.\n    Stand we in good array, for they no doubt\n    Will issue out again and bid us battle;\n    If not, the city being but of small defence,\n    We'll quietly rouse the traitors in the same.\n  WARWICK. O, welcome, Oxford! for we want thy help.\n\n             Enter MONTAGUE, with drum and colours\n\n  MONTAGUE. Montague, Montague, for Lancaster!\n                              [He and his forces enter the city]\n  GLOUCESTER. Thou and thy brother both shall buy this treason\n    Even with the dearest blood your bodies bear.\n  KING EDWARD. The harder match'd, the greater victory.\n    My mind presageth happy gain and conquest.\n\n             Enter SOMERSET, with drum and colours\n\n  SOMERSET. Somerset, Somerset, for Lancaster!\n                              [He and his forces enter the city]\n  GLOUCESTER. Two of thy name, both Dukes of Somerset,\n    Have sold their lives unto the house of York;\n    And thou shalt be the third, if this sword hold.\n\n             Enter CLARENCE, with drum and colours\n\n  WARWICK. And lo where George of Clarence sweeps along,\n    Of force enough to bid his brother battle;\n    With whom an upright zeal to right prevails\n    More than the nature of a brother's love.\n  CLARENCE. Clarence, Clarence, for Lancaster!\n  KING EDWARD. Et tu Brute- wilt thou stab Caesar too?\n    A parley, sirrah, to George of Clarence.\n                  [Sound a parley. RICHARD and CLARENCE whisper]\n  WARWICK. Come, Clarence, come. Thou wilt if Warwick call.\n  CLARENCE. [Taking the red rose from his hat and throwing\n      it at WARWICK]\n    Father of Warwick, know you what this means?\n    Look here, I throw my infamy at thee.\n    I will not ruinate my father's house,\n    Who gave his blood to lime the stones together,\n    And set up Lancaster. Why, trowest thou, Warwick,\n    That Clarence is so harsh, so blunt, unnatural,\n    To bend the fatal instruments of war\n    Against his brother and his lawful King?\n    Perhaps thou wilt object my holy oath.\n    To keep that oath were more impiety\n    Than Jephtha when he sacrific'd his daughter.\n    I am so sorry for my trespass made\n    That, to deserve well at my brother's hands,\n    I here proclaim myself thy mortal foe;\n    With resolution whereso'er I meet thee-\n    As I will meet thee, if thou stir abroad-\n    To plague thee for thy foul misleading me.\n    And so, proud-hearted Warwick, I defy thee,\n    And to my brother turn my blushing cheeks.\n    Pardon me, Edward, I will make amends;\n    And, Richard, do not frown upon my faults,\n    For I will henceforth be no more unconstant.\n  KING EDWARD. Now welcome more, and ten times more belov'd,\n    Than if thou never hadst deserv'd our hate.\n  GLOUCESTER. Welcome, good Clarence; this is brother-like.\n  WARWICK. O passing traitor, perjur'd and unjust!\n  KING EDWARD. What, Warwick, wilt thou leave die town and fight?\n    Or shall we beat the stones about thine ears?\n  WARWICK. Alas, I am not coop'd here for defence!\n    I will away towards Barnet presently\n    And bid thee battle, Edward, if thou dar'st.\n  KING EDWARD. Yes, Warwick, Edward dares and leads the way.\n    Lords, to the field; Saint George and victory!\n                                                 Exeunt YORKISTS\n                         [March. WARWICK and his company follow]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA field of battle near Barnet\n\nAlarum and excursions. Enter KING EDWARD, bringing forth WARWICK, wounded\n\n  KING EDWARD. So, lie thou there. Die thou, and die our fear;\n    For Warwick was a bug that fear'd us all.\n    Now, Montague, sit fast; I seek for thee,\n    That Warwick's bones may keep thine company.            Exit\n  WARWICK. Ah, who is nigh? Come to me, friend or foe,\n    And tell me who is victor, York or Warwick?\n    Why ask I that? My mangled body shows,\n    My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows,\n    That I must yield my body to the earth\n    And, by my fall, the conquest to my foe.\n    Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,\n    Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,\n    Under whose shade the ramping lion slept,\n    Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree\n    And kept low shrubs from winter's pow'rful wind.\n    These eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's black veil,\n    Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun\n    To search the secret treasons of the world;\n    The wrinkles in my brows, now fill'd with blood,\n    Were lik'ned oft to kingly sepulchres;\n    For who liv'd King, but I could dig his grave?\n    And who durst smile when Warwick bent his brow?\n    Lo now my glory smear'd in dust and blood!\n    My parks, my walks, my manors, that I had,\n    Even now forsake me; and of all my lands\n    Is nothing left me but my body's length.\n    what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?\n    And live we how we can, yet die we must.\n\n                  Enter OXFORD and SOMERSET\n\n  SOMERSET. Ah, Warwick, Warwick! wert thou as we are,\n    We might recover all our loss again.\n    The Queen from France hath brought a puissant power;\n    Even now we heard the news. Ah, couldst thou fly!\n  WARWICK. Why then, I would not fly. Ah, Montague,\n    If thou be there, sweet brother, take my hand,\n    And with thy lips keep in my soul a while!\n    Thou lov'st me not; for, brother, if thou didst,\n    Thy tears would wash this cold congealed blood\n    That glues my lips and will not let me speak.\n    Come quickly, Montague, or I am dead.\n  SOMERSET. Ah, Warwick! Montague hath breath'd his last;\n    And to the latest gasp cried out for Warwick,\n    And said 'Commend me to my valiant brother.'\n    And more he would have said; and more he spoke,\n    Which sounded like a clamour in a vault,\n    That mought not be distinguish'd; but at last,\n    I well might hear, delivered with a groan,\n    'O farewell, Warwick!'\n  WARWICK. Sweet rest his soul! Fly, lords, and save yourselves:\n    For Warwick bids you all farewell, to meet in heaven.\n                                                          [Dies]\n  OXFORD. Away, away, to meet the Queen's great power!\n                                  [Here they bear away his body]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nAnother part of the field\n\nFlourish. Enter KING in triumph; with GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and the rest\n\n  KING EDWARD. Thus far our fortune keeps an upward course,\n    And we are grac'd with wreaths of victory.\n    But in the midst of this bright-shining day\n    I spy a black, suspicious, threat'ning cloud\n    That will encounter with our glorious sun\n    Ere he attain his easeful western bed-\n    I mean, my lords, those powers that the Queen\n    Hath rais'd in Gallia have arriv'd our coast\n    And, as we hear, march on to fight with us.\n  CLARENCE. A little gale will soon disperse that cloud\n    And blow it to the source from whence it came;\n    Thy very beams will dry those vapours up,\n    For every cloud engenders not a storm.\n  GLOUCESTER. The Queen is valued thirty thousand strong,\n    And Somerset, with Oxford, fled to her.\n    If she have time to breathe, be well assur'd\n    Her faction will be full as strong as ours.\n  KING EDWARD. are advertis'd by our loving friends\n    That they do hold their course toward Tewksbury;\n    We, having now the best at Barnet field,\n    Will thither straight, for willingness rids way;\n    And as we march our strength will be augmented\n    In every county as we go along.\n    Strike up the drum; cry 'Courage!' and away.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nPlains wear Tewksbury\n\nFlourish. March. Enter QUEEN MARGARET, PRINCE EDWARD, SOMERSET, OXFORD,\nand SOLDIERS\n\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Great lords, wise men ne'er sit and wail their\n      loss,\n    But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.\n    What though the mast be now blown overboard,\n    The cable broke, the holding-anchor lost,\n    And half our sailors swallow'd in the flood;\n    Yet lives our pilot still. Is't meet that he\n    Should leave the helm and, like a fearful lad,\n    With tearful eyes add water to the sea\n    And give more strength to that which hath too much;\n    Whiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock,\n    Which industry and courage might have sav'd?\n    Ah, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this!\n    Say Warwick was our anchor; what of that?\n    And Montague our top-mast; what of him?\n    Our slaught'red friends the tackles; what of these?\n    Why, is not Oxford here another anchor?\n    And Somerset another goodly mast?\n    The friends of France our shrouds and tacklings?\n    And, though unskilful, why not Ned and I\n    For once allow'd the skilful pilot's charge?\n    We will not from the helm to sit and weep,\n    But keep our course, though the rough wind say no,\n    From shelves and rocks that threaten us with wreck,\n    As good to chide the waves as speak them fair.\n    And what is Edward but a ruthless sea?\n    What Clarence but a quicksand of deceit?\n    And Richard but a ragged fatal rock?\n    All these the enemies to our poor bark.\n    Say you can swim; alas, 'tis but a while!\n    Tread on the sand; why, there you quickly sink.\n    Bestride the rock; the tide will wash you off,\n    Or else you famish- that's a threefold death.\n    This speak I, lords, to let you understand,\n    If case some one of you would fly from us,\n    That there's no hop'd-for mercy with the brothers\n    More than with ruthless waves, with sands, and rocks.\n    Why, courage then! What cannot be avoided\n    'Twere childish weakness to lament or fear.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Methinks a woman of this valiant spirit\n    Should, if a coward hear her speak these words,\n    Infuse his breast with magnanimity\n    And make him naked foil a man-at-arms.\n    I speak not this as doubting any here;\n    For did I but suspect a fearful man,\n    He should have leave to go away betimes,\n    Lest in our need he might infect another\n    And make him of the like spirit to himself.\n    If any such be here- as God forbid!-\n    Let him depart before we need his help.\n  OXFORD. Women and children of so high a courage,\n    And warriors faint! Why, 'twere perpetual shame.\n    O brave young Prince! thy famous grandfather\n    Doth live again in thee. Long mayst thou Eve\n    To bear his image and renew his glories!\n  SOMERSET. And he that will not fight for such a hope,\n    Go home to bed and, like the owl by day,\n    If he arise, be mock'd and wond'red at.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Thanks, gentle Somerset; sweet Oxford, thanks.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. And take his thanks that yet hath nothing else.\n\n                        Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Prepare you, lords, for Edward is at hand\n    Ready to fight; therefore be resolute.\n  OXFORD. I thought no less. It is his policy\n    To haste thus fast, to find us unprovided.\n  SOMERSET. But he's deceiv'd; we are in readiness.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. This cheers my heart, to see your forwardness.\n  OXFORD. Here pitch our battle; hence we will not budge.\n\n      Flourish and march. Enter, at a distance, KING EDWARD,\n               GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and soldiers\n\n  KING EDWARD. Brave followers, yonder stands the thorny wood\n    Which, by the heavens' assistance and your strength,\n    Must by the roots be hewn up yet ere night.\n    I need not add more fuel to your fire,\n    For well I wot ye blaze to burn them out.\n    Give signal to the fight, and to it, lords.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Lords, knights, and gentlemen, what I should say\n    My tears gainsay; for every word I speak,\n    Ye see, I drink the water of my eye.\n    Therefore, no more but this: Henry, your sovereign,\n    Is prisoner to the foe; his state usurp'd,\n    His realm a slaughter-house, his subjects slain,\n    His statutes cancell'd, and his treasure spent;\n    And yonder is the wolf that makes this spoil.\n    You fight in justice. Then, in God's name, lords,\n    Be valiant, and give signal to the fight.\n                             Alarum, retreat, excursions. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAnother part of the field\n\nFlourish. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and forces,\nWith QUEEN MARGARET, OXFORD, and SOMERSET, prisoners\n\n  KING EDWARD. Now here a period of tumultuous broils.\n    Away with Oxford to Hames Castle straight;\n    For Somerset, off with his guilty head.\n    Go, bear them hence; I will not hear them speak.\n  OXFORD. For my part, I'll not trouble thee with words.\n  SOMERSET. Nor I, but stoop with patience to my fortune.\n                             Exeunt OXFORD and SOMERSET, guarded\n  QUEEN MARGARET. So part we sadly in this troublous world,\n    To meet with joy in sweet Jerusalem.\n  KING EDWARD. Is proclamation made that who finds Edward\n    Shall have a high reward, and he his life?\n  GLOUCESTER. It is; and lo where youthful Edward comes.\n\n                Enter soldiers, with PRINCE EDWARD\n\n  KING EDWARD. Bring forth the gallant; let us hear him speak.\n    What, can so young a man begin to prick?\n    Edward, what satisfaction canst thou make\n    For bearing arms, for stirring up my subjects,\n    And all the trouble thou hast turn'd me to?\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Speak like a subject, proud ambitious York.\n    Suppose that I am now my father's mouth;\n    Resign thy chair, and where I stand kneel thou,\n    Whilst I propose the self-same words to the\n    Which, traitor, thou wouldst have me answer to.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ah, that thy father had been so resolv'd!\n  GLOUCESTER. That you might still have worn the petticoat\n    And ne'er have stol'n the breech from Lancaster.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Let Aesop fable in a winter's night;\n    His currish riddle sorts not with this place.\n  GLOUCESTER. By heaven, brat, I'll plague ye for that word.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, thou wast born to be a plague to men.\n  GLOUCESTER. For God's sake, take away this captive scold.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Nay, take away this scolding crookback rather.\n  KING EDWARD. Peace, wilful boy, or I will charm your tongue.\n  CLARENCE. Untutor'd lad, thou art too malapert.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. I know my duty; you are all undutiful.\n    Lascivious Edward, and thou perjur'd George,\n    And thou misshapen Dick, I tell ye all\n    I am your better, traitors as ye are;\n    And thou usurp'st my father's right and mine.\n  KING EDWARD. Take that, the likeness of this railer here.\n                                                     [Stabs him]\n  GLOUCESTER. Sprawl'st thou? Take that, to end thy agony.\n                                                     [Stabs him]\n  CLARENCE. And there's for twitting me with perjury.\n                                                     [Stabs him]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. O, kill me too!\n  GLOUCESTER. Marry, and shall.             [Offers to kill her]\n  KING EDWARD. Hold, Richard, hold; for we have done to much.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why should she live to fill the world with words?\n  KING EDWARD. What, doth she swoon? Use means for her recovery.\n  GLOUCESTER. Clarence, excuse me to the King my brother.\n    I'll hence to London on a serious matter;\n    Ere ye come there, be sure to hear some news.\n  CLARENCE. What? what?\n  GLOUCESTER. The Tower! the Tower!                         Exit\n  QUEEN MARGARET. O Ned, sweet Ned, speak to thy mother, boy!\n    Canst thou not speak? O traitors! murderers!\n    They that stabb'd Caesar shed no blood at all,\n    Did not offend, nor were not worthy blame,\n    If this foul deed were by to equal it.\n    He was a man: this, in respect, a child;\n    And men ne'er spend their fury on a child.\n    What's worse than murderer, that I may name it?\n    No, no, my heart will burst, an if I speak-\n    And I will speak, that so my heart may burst.\n    Butchers and villains! bloody cannibals!\n    How sweet a plant have you untimely cropp'd!\n    You have no children, butchers, if you had,\n    The thought of them would have stirr'd up remorse.\n    But if you ever chance to have a child,\n    Look in his youth to have him so cut off\n    As, deathsmen, you have rid this sweet young prince!\n  KING EDWARD. Away with her; go, bear her hence perforce.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Nay, never bear me hence; dispatch me here.\n    Here sheathe thy sword; I'll pardon thee my death.\n    What, wilt thou not? Then, Clarence, do it thou.\n  CLARENCE. By heaven, I will not do thee so much ease.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Good Clarence, do; sweet Clarence, do thou do it.\n  CLARENCE. Didst thou not hear me swear I would not do it?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, but thou usest to forswear thyself.\n    'Twas sin before, but now 'tis charity.\n    What! wilt thou not? Where is that devil's butcher,\n    Hard-favour'd Richard? Richard, where art thou?\n    Thou art not here. Murder is thy alms-deed;\n    Petitioners for blood thou ne'er put'st back.\n  KING EDWARD. Away, I say; I charge ye bear her hence.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. So come to you and yours as to this prince.\n                                          Exit, led out forcibly\n  KING EDWARD. Where's Richard gone?\n  CLARENCE. To London, all in post; and, as I guess,\n    To make a bloody supper in the Tower.\n  KING EDWARD. He's sudden, if a thing comes in his head.\n    Now march we hence. Discharge the common sort\n    With pay and thanks; and let's away to London\n    And see our gentle queen how well she fares.\n    By this, I hope, she hath a son for me.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nLondon. The Tower\n\nEnter KING HENRY and GLOUCESTER with the LIEUTENANT, on the walls\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Good day, my lord. What, at your book so hard?\n  KING HENRY. Ay, my good lord- my lord, I should say rather.\n    'Tis sin to flatter; 'good' was little better.\n    'Good Gloucester' and 'good devil' were alike,\n    And both preposterous; therefore, not 'good lord.'\n  GLOUCESTER. Sirrah, leave us to ourselves; we must confer.\n                                                 Exit LIEUTENANT\n  KING HENRY. So flies the reckless shepherd from the wolf;\n    So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece,\n    And next his throat unto the butcher's knife.\n    What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?\n  GLOUCESTER. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind:\n    The thief doth fear each bush an officer.\n  KING HENRY. The bird that hath been limed in a bush\n    With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush;\n    And I, the hapless male to one sweet bird,\n    Have now the fatal object in my eye\n    Where my poor young was lim'd, was caught, and kill'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, what a peevish fool was that of Crete\n    That taught his son the office of a fowl!\n    And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd.\n  KING HENRY. I, Daedalus; my poor boy, Icarus;\n    Thy father, Minos, that denied our course;\n    The sun that sear'd the wings of my sweet boy,\n    Thy brother Edward; and thyself, the sea\n    Whose envious gulf did swallow up his life.\n    Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!\n    My breast can better brook thy dagger's point\n    Than can my ears that tragic history.\n    But wherefore dost thou come? Is't for my life?\n  GLOUCESTER. Think'st thou I am an executioner?\n  KING HENRY. A persecutor I am sure thou art.\n    If murdering innocents be executing,\n    Why, then thou are an executioner.\n  GLOUCESTER. Thy son I kill'd for his presumption.\n  KING HENRY. Hadst thou been kill'd when first thou didst presume,\n    Thou hadst not liv'd to kill a son of mine.\n    And thus I prophesy, that many a thousand\n    Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear,\n    And many an old man's sigh, and many a widow's,\n    And many an orphan's water-standing eye-\n    Men for their sons, wives for their husbands,\n    Orphans for their parents' timeless death-\n    Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.\n    The owl shriek'd at thy birth- an evil sign;\n    The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;\n    Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempest shook down trees;\n    The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top,\n    And chatt'ring pies in dismal discords sung;\n    Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain,\n    And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope,\n    To wit, an indigest deformed lump,\n    Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.\n    Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born,\n    To signify thou cam'st to bite the world;\n    And if the rest be true which I have heard,\n    Thou cam'st-\n  GLOUCESTER. I'll hear no more. Die, prophet, in thy speech.\n                                                     [Stabs him]\n    For this, amongst the rest, was I ordain'd.\n  KING HENRY. Ay, and for much more slaughter after this.\n    O, God forgive my sins and pardon thee!               [Dies]\n  GLOUCESTER. What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster\n    Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.\n    See how my sword weeps for the poor King's death.\n    O, may such purple tears be always shed\n    From those that wish the downfall of our house!\n    If any spark of life be yet remaining,\n    Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither-\n                                               [Stabs him again]\n    I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.\n    Indeed, 'tis true that Henry told me of;\n    For I have often heard my mother say\n    I came into the world with my legs forward.\n    Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste\n    And seek their ruin that usurp'd our right?\n    The midwife wonder'd; and the women cried\n    'O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!'\n    And so I was, which plainly signified\n    That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.\n    Then, since the heavens have shap'd my body so,\n    Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.\n    I have no brother, I am like no brother;\n    And this word 'love,' which greybeards call divine,\n    Be resident in men like one another,\n    And not in me! I am myself alone.\n    Clarence, beware; thou keep'st me from the light,\n    But I will sort a pitchy day for thee;\n    For I will buzz abroad such prophecies\n    That Edward shall be fearful of his life;\n    And then to purge his fear, I'll be thy death.\n    King Henry and the Prince his son are gone.\n    Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest;\n    Counting myself but bad till I be best.\n    I'll throw thy body in another room,\n    And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom.\n                                              Exit with the body\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nLondon. The palace\n\nFlourish. Enter KING EDWARD, QUEEN ELIZABETH, CLARENCE, GLOUCESTER,\nHASTINGS, NURSE, with the Young PRINCE, and attendants\n\n  KING EDWARD. Once more we sit in England's royal throne,\n    Repurchas'd with the blood of enemies.\n    What valiant foemen, like to autumn's corn,\n    Have we mow'd down in tops of all their pride!\n    Three Dukes of Somerset, threefold renown'd\n    For hardy and undoubted champions;\n    Two Cliffords, as the father and the son;\n    And two Northumberlands- two braver men\n    Ne'er spurr'd their coursers at the trumpet's sound;\n    With them the two brave bears, Warwick and Montague,\n    That in their chains fetter'd the kingly lion\n    And made the forest tremble when they roar'd.\n    Thus have we swept suspicion from our seat\n    And made our footstool of security.\n    Come hither, Bess, and let me kiss my boy.\n    Young Ned, for thee thine uncles and myself\n    Have in our armours watch'd the winter's night,\n    Went all afoot in summer's scalding heat,\n    That thou might'st repossess the crown in peace;\n    And of our labours thou shalt reap the gain.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] I'll blast his harvest if your head were laid;\n    For yet I am not look'd on in the world.\n    This shoulder was ordain'd so thick to heave;\n    And heave it shall some weight or break my back.\n    Work thou the way- and that shall execute.\n  KING EDWARD. Clarence and Gloucester, love my lovely queen;\n    And kiss your princely nephew, brothers both.\n  CLARENCE. The duty that I owe unto your Majesty\n    I seal upon the lips of this sweet babe.\n  KING EDWARD. Thanks, noble Clarence; worthy brother, thanks.\n  GLOUCESTER. And that I love the tree from whence thou sprang'st,\n    Witness the loving kiss I give the fruit.\n    [Aside] To say the truth, so Judas kiss'd his master\n    And cried 'All hail!' when as he meant all harm.\n  KING EDWARD. Now am I seated as my soul delights,\n    Having my country's peace and brothers' loves.\n  CLARENCE. What will your Grace have done with Margaret?\n    Reignier, her father, to the King of France\n    Hath pawn'd the Sicils and Jerusalem,\n    And hither have they sent it for her ransom.\n  KING EDWARD. Away with her, and waft her hence to France.\n    And now what rests but that we spend the time\n    With stately triumphs, mirthful comic shows,\n    Such as befits the pleasure of the court?\n    Sound drums and trumpets. Farewell, sour annoy!\n    For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.             Exeunt\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1611\n\nKING HENRY THE EIGHTH\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  KING HENRY THE EIGHTH\n  CARDINAL WOLSEY               CARDINAL CAMPEIUS\n  CAPUCIUS, Ambassador from the Emperor Charles V\n  CRANMER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY\n  DUKE OF NORFOLK               DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM\n  DUKE OF SUFFOLK               EARL OF SURREY\n  LORD CHAMBERLAIN              LORD CHANCELLOR\n  GARDINER, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER\n  BISHOP OF LINCOLN             LORD ABERGAVENNY\n  LORD SANDYS                   SIR HENRY GUILDFORD\n  SIR THOMAS LOVELL             SIR ANTHONY DENNY\n  SIR NICHOLAS VAUX             SECRETARIES to Wolsey\n  CROMWELL, servant to Wolsey\n  GRIFFITH, gentleman-usher to Queen Katharine\n  THREE GENTLEMEN\n  DOCTOR BUTTS, physician to the King\n  GARTER KING-AT-ARMS\n  SURVEYOR to the Duke of Buckingham\n  BRANDON, and a SERGEANT-AT-ARMS\n  DOORKEEPER Of the Council chamber\n  PORTER, and his MAN           PAGE to Gardiner\n  A CRIER\n\n  QUEEN KATHARINE, wife to King Henry, afterwards divorced\n  ANNE BULLEN, her Maid of Honour, afterwards Queen\n  AN OLD LADY, friend to Anne Bullen\n  PATIENCE, woman to Queen Katharine\n\n  Lord Mayor, Aldermen, Lords and Ladies in the Dumb\n       Shows; Women attending upon the Queen; Scribes,\n       Officers, Guards, and other Attendants; Spirits\n\n                          SCENE:\n\n              London; Westminster; Kimbolton\n\n\n\n                 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH\n\n                     THE PROLOGUE.\n\n    I come no more to make you laugh; things now\n    That bear a weighty and a serious brow,\n    Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe,\n    Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow,\n    We now present. Those that can pity here\n    May, if they think it well, let fall a tear:\n    The subject will deserve it. Such as give\n    Their money out of hope they may believe\n    May here find truth too. Those that come to see\n    Only a show or two, and so agree\n    The play may pass, if they be still and willing,\n    I'll undertake may see away their shilling\n    Richly in two short hours. Only they\n    That come to hear a merry bawdy play,\n    A noise of targets, or to see a fellow\n    In a long motley coat guarded with yellow,\n    Will be deceiv'd; for, gentle hearers, know,\n    To rank our chosen truth with such a show\n    As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting\n    Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring\n    To make that only true we now intend,\n    Will leave us never an understanding friend.\n    Therefore, for goodness sake, and as you are known\n    The first and happiest hearers of the town,\n    Be sad, as we would make ye. Think ye see\n    The very persons of our noble story\n    As they were living; think you see them great,\n    And follow'd with the general throng and sweat\n    Of thousand friends; then, in a moment, see\n    How soon this mightiness meets misery.\n    And if you can be merry then, I'll say\n    A man may weep upon his wedding-day.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the DUKE OF NORFOLK at one door; at the other,\nthe DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM and the LORD ABERGAVENNY\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Good morrow, and well met. How have ye done\n    Since last we saw in France?\n  NORFOLK. I thank your Grace,\n    Healthful; and ever since a fresh admirer\n    Of what I saw there.\n  BUCKINGHAM. An untimely ague\n    Stay'd me a prisoner in my chamber when\n    Those suns of glory, those two lights of men,\n    Met in the vale of Andren.\n  NORFOLK. 'Twixt Guynes and Arde-\n    I was then present, saw them salute on horseback;\n    Beheld them, when they lighted, how they clung\n    In their embracement, as they grew together;\n    Which had they, what four thron'd ones could have weigh'd\n    Such a compounded one?\n  BUCKINGHAM. All the whole time\n    I was my chamber's prisoner.\n  NORFOLK. Then you lost\n    The view of earthly glory; men might say,\n    Till this time pomp was single, but now married\n    To one above itself. Each following day\n    Became the next day's master, till the last\n    Made former wonders its. To-day the French,\n    All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods,\n    Shone down the English; and to-morrow they\n    Made Britain India: every man that stood\n    Show'd like a mine. Their dwarfish pages were\n    As cherubins, an gilt; the madams too,\n    Not us'd to toil, did almost sweat to bear\n    The pride upon them, that their very labour\n    Was to them as a painting. Now this masque\n    Was cried incomparable; and th' ensuing night\n    Made it a fool and beggar. The two kings,\n    Equal in lustre, were now best, now worst,\n    As presence did present them: him in eye\n    still him in praise; and being present both,\n    'Twas said they saw but one, and no discerner\n    Durst wag his tongue in censure. When these suns-\n    For so they phrase 'em-by their heralds challeng'd\n    The noble spirits to arms, they did perform\n    Beyond thought's compass, that former fabulous story,\n    Being now seen possible enough, got credit,\n    That Bevis was believ'd.\n  BUCKINGHAM. O, you go far!\n  NORFOLK. As I belong to worship, and affect\n    In honour honesty, the tract of ev'rything\n    Would by a good discourser lose some life\n    Which action's self was tongue to. All was royal:\n    To the disposing of it nought rebell'd;\n    Order gave each thing view. The office did\n    Distinctly his full function.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Who did guide-\n    I mean, who set the body and the limbs\n    Of this great sport together, as you guess?\n  NORFOLK. One, certes, that promises no element\n    In such a business.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I pray you, who, my lord?\n  NORFOLK. All this was ord'red by the good discretion\n    Of the right reverend Cardinal of York.\n  BUCKINGHAM. The devil speed him! No man's pie is freed\n    From his ambitious finger. What had he\n    To do in these fierce vanities? I wonder\n    That such a keech can with his very bulk\n    Take up the rays o' th' beneficial sun,\n    And keep it from the earth.\n  NORFOLK. Surely, sir,\n    There's in him stuff that puts him to these ends;\n    For, being not propp'd by ancestry, whose grace\n    Chalks successors their way, nor call'd upon\n    For high feats done to th' crown, neither allied\n    To eminent assistants, but spider-like,\n    Out of his self-drawing web, 'a gives us note\n    The force of his own merit makes his way-\n    A gift that heaven gives for him, which buys\n    A place next to the King.\n  ABERGAVENNY. I cannot tell\n    What heaven hath given him-let some graver eye\n    Pierce into that; but I can see his pride\n    Peep through each part of him. Whence has he that?\n    If not from hell, the devil is a niggard\n    Or has given all before, and he begins\n    A new hell in himself.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why the devil,\n    Upon this French going out, took he upon him-\n    Without the privity o' th' King-t' appoint\n    Who should attend on him? He makes up the file\n    Of all the gentry; for the most part such\n    To whom as great a charge as little honour\n    He meant to lay upon; and his own letter,\n    The honourable board of council out,\n    Must fetch him in he papers.\n  ABERGAVENNY. I do know\n    Kinsmen of mine, three at the least, that have\n    By this so sicken'd their estates that never\n    They shall abound as formerly.\n  BUCKINGHAM. O, many\n    Have broke their backs with laying manors on 'em\n    For this great journey. What did this vanity\n    But minister communication of\n    A most poor issue?\n  NORFOLK. Grievingly I think\n    The peace between the French and us not values\n    The cost that did conclude it.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Every man,\n    After the hideous storm that follow'd, was\n    A thing inspir'd, and, not consulting, broke\n    Into a general prophecy-that this tempest,\n    Dashing the garment of this peace, aboded\n    The sudden breach on't.\n  NORFOLK. Which is budded out;\n    For France hath flaw'd the league, and hath attach'd\n    Our merchants' goods at Bordeaux.\n  ABERGAVENNY. Is it therefore\n    Th' ambassador is silenc'd?\n  NORFOLK. Marry, is't.\n  ABERGAVENNY. A proper tide of a peace, and purchas'd\n    At a superfluous rate!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why, all this business\n    Our reverend Cardinal carried.\n  NORFOLK. Like it your Grace,\n    The state takes notice of the private difference\n    Betwixt you and the Cardinal. I advise you-\n    And take it from a heart that wishes towards you\n    Honour and plenteous safety-that you read\n    The Cardinal's malice and his potency\n    Together; to consider further, that\n    What his high hatred would effect wants not\n    A minister in his power. You know his nature,\n    That he's revengeful; and I know his sword\n    Hath a sharp edge-it's long and't may be said\n    It reaches far, and where 'twill not extend,\n    Thither he darts it. Bosom up my counsel\n    You'll find it wholesome. Lo, where comes that rock\n    That I advise your shunning.\n\n      Enter CARDINAL WOLSEY, the purse borne before\n      him, certain of the guard, and two SECRETARIES\n      with papers. The CARDINAL in his passage fixeth his\n      eye on BUCKINGHAM, and BUCKINGHAM on him,\n      both full of disdain\n\n  WOLSEY. The Duke of Buckingham's surveyor? Ha!\n    Where's his examination?\n  SECRETARY. Here, so please you.\n  WOLSEY. Is he in person ready?\n  SECRETARY. Ay, please your Grace.\n  WOLSEY. Well, we shall then know more, and Buckingham\n    shall lessen this big look.\n                                          Exeunt WOLSEY and his train\n  BUCKINGHAM. This butcher's cur is venom-mouth'd, and I\n    Have not the power to muzzle him; therefore best\n    Not wake him in his slumber. A beggar's book\n    Outworths a noble's blood.\n  NORFOLK. What, are you chaf'd?\n    Ask God for temp'rance; that's th' appliance only\n    Which your disease requires.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I read in's looks\n    Matter against me, and his eye revil'd\n    Me as his abject object. At this instant\n    He bores me with some trick. He's gone to th' King;\n    I'll follow, and outstare him.\n  NORFOLK. Stay, my lord,\n    And let your reason with your choler question\n    What 'tis you go about. To climb steep hills\n    Requires slow pace at first. Anger is like\n    A full hot horse, who being allow'd his way,\n    Self-mettle tires him. Not a man in England\n    Can advise me like you; be to yourself\n    As you would to your friend.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I'll to the King,\n    And from a mouth of honour quite cry down\n    This Ipswich fellow's insolence; or proclaim\n    There's difference in no persons.\n  NORFOLK. Be advis'd:\n    Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot\n    That it do singe yourself. We may outrun\n    By violent swiftness that which we run at,\n    And lose by over-running. Know you not\n    The fire that mounts the liquor till't run o'er\n    In seeming to augment it wastes it? Be advis'd.\n    I say again there is no English soul\n    More stronger to direct you than yourself,\n    If with the sap of reason you would quench\n    Or but allay the fire of passion.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Sir,\n    I am thankful to you, and I'll go along\n    By your prescription; but this top-proud fellow-\n    Whom from the flow of gan I name not, but\n    From sincere motions, by intelligence,\n    And proofs as clear as founts in July when\n    We see each grain of gravel-I do know\n    To be corrupt and treasonous.\n  NORFOLK. Say not treasonous.\n  BUCKINGHAM. To th' King I'll say't, and make my vouch as strong\n    As shore of rock. Attend: this holy fox,\n    Or wolf, or both-for he is equal rav'nous\n    As he is subtle, and as prone to mischief\n    As able to perform't, his mind and place\n    Infecting one another, yea, reciprocally-\n    Only to show his pomp as well in France\n    As here at home, suggests the King our master\n    To this last costly treaty, th' interview\n    That swallowed so much treasure and like a glass\n    Did break i' th' wrenching.\n  NORFOLK. Faith, and so it did.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Pray, give me favour, sir; this cunning cardinal\n    The articles o' th' combination drew\n    As himself pleas'd; and they were ratified\n    As he cried 'Thus let be' to as much end\n    As give a crutch to th' dead. But our Count-Cardinal\n    Has done this, and 'tis well; for worthy Wolsey,\n    Who cannot err, he did it. Now this follows,\n    Which, as I take it, is a kind of puppy\n    To th' old dam treason: Charles the Emperor,\n    Under pretence to see the Queen his aunt-\n    For 'twas indeed his colour, but he came\n    To whisper Wolsey-here makes visitation-\n    His fears were that the interview betwixt\n    England and France might through their amity\n    Breed him some prejudice; for from this league\n    Peep'd harms that menac'd him-privily\n    Deals with our Cardinal; and, as I trow-\n    Which I do well, for I am sure the Emperor\n    Paid ere he promis'd; whereby his suit was granted\n    Ere it was ask'd-but when the way was made,\n    And pav'd with gold, the Emperor thus desir'd,\n    That he would please to alter the King's course,\n    And break the foresaid peace. Let the King know,\n    As soon he shall by me, that thus the Cardinal\n    Does buy and sell his honour as he pleases,\n    And for his own advantage.\n  NORFOLK. I am sorry\n    To hear this of him, and could wish he were\n    Something mistaken in't.\n  BUCKINGHAM. No, not a syllable:\n    I do pronounce him in that very shape\n    He shall appear in proof.\n\n       Enter BRANDON, a SERGEANT-AT-ARMS before him,\n              and two or three of the guard\n\n  BRANDON. Your office, sergeant: execute it.\n  SERGEANT. Sir,\n    My lord the Duke of Buckingham, and Earl\n    Of Hereford, Stafford, and Northampton, I\n    Arrest thee of high treason, in the name\n    Of our most sovereign King.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Lo you, my lord,\n    The net has fall'n upon me! I shall perish\n    Under device and practice.\n  BRANDON. I am sorry\n    To see you ta'en from liberty, to look on\n    The business present; 'tis his Highness' pleasure\n    You shall to th' Tower.\n  BUCKINGHAM. It will help nothing\n    To plead mine innocence; for that dye is on me\n    Which makes my whit'st part black. The will of heav'n\n    Be done in this and all things! I obey.\n    O my Lord Aberga'ny, fare you well!\n  BRANDON. Nay, he must bear you company.\n    [To ABERGAVENNY]  The King\n    Is pleas'd you shall to th' Tower, till you know\n    How he determines further.\n  ABERGAVENNY. As the Duke said,\n    The will of heaven be done, and the King's pleasure\n    By me obey'd.\n  BRANDON. Here is warrant from\n    The King t' attach Lord Montacute and the bodies\n    Of the Duke's confessor, John de la Car,\n    One Gilbert Peck, his chancellor-\n  BUCKINGHAM. So, so!\n    These are the limbs o' th' plot; no more, I hope.\n  BRANDON. A monk o' th' Chartreux.\n  BUCKINGHAM. O, Nicholas Hopkins?\n  BRANDON. He.\n  BUCKINGHAM. My surveyor is false. The o'er-great Cardinal\n    Hath show'd him gold; my life is spann'd already.\n    I am the shadow of poor Buckingham,\n    Whose figure even this instant cloud puts on\n    By dark'ning my clear sun. My lord, farewell.\n    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 2.\n\nLondon. The Council Chamber\n\nCornets. Enter KING HENRY, leaning on the CARDINAL'S shoulder, the NOBLES,\nand SIR THOMAS LOVELL, with others. The CARDINAL places himself\nunder the KING'S feet on his right side\n\n  KING. My life itself, and the best heart of it,\n    Thanks you for this great care; I stood i' th' level\n    Of a full-charg'd confederacy, and give thanks\n    To you that chok'd it. Let be call'd before us\n    That gentleman of Buckingham's. In person\n    I'll hear his confessions justify;\n    And point by point the treasons of his master\n    He shall again relate.\n\n      A noise within, crying 'Room for the Queen!'\n      Enter the QUEEN, usher'd by the DUKES OF NORFOLK\n      and SUFFOLK; she kneels. The KING riseth\n      from his state, takes her up, kisses and placeth her\n      by him\n\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Nay, we must longer kneel: I am suitor.\n  KING. Arise, and take place by us. Half your suit\n    Never name to us: you have half our power.\n    The other moiety ere you ask is given;\n    Repeat your will, and take it.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Thank your Majesty.\n    That you would love yourself, and in that love\n    Not unconsidered leave your honour nor\n    The dignity of your office, is the point\n    Of my petition.\n  KING. Lady mine, proceed.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. I am solicited, not by a few,\n    And those of true condition, that your subjects\n    Are in great grievance: there have been commissions\n    Sent down among 'em which hath flaw'd the heart\n    Of all their loyalties; wherein, although,\n    My good Lord Cardinal, they vent reproaches\n    Most bitterly on you as putter-on\n    Of these exactions, yet the King our master-\n    Whose honour Heaven shield from soil!-even he escapes not\n    Language unmannerly; yea, such which breaks\n    The sides of loyalty, and almost appears\n    In loud rebellion.\n  NORFOLK. Not almost appears-\n    It doth appear; for, upon these taxations,\n    The clothiers all, not able to maintain\n    The many to them 'longing, have put of\n    The spinsters, carders, fullers, weavers, who\n    Unfit for other life, compell'd by hunger\n    And lack of other means, in desperate manner\n    Daring th' event to th' teeth, are all in uproar,\n    And danger serves among them.\n  KING. Taxation!\n    Wherein? and what taxation? My Lord Cardinal,\n    You that are blam'd for it alike with us,\n    Know you of this taxation?\n  WOLSEY. Please you, sir,\n    I know but of a single part in aught\n    Pertains to th' state, and front but in that file\n    Where others tell steps with me.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. No, my lord!\n    You know no more than others! But you frame\n    Things that are known alike, which are not wholesome\n    To those which would not know them, and yet must\n    Perforce be their acquaintance. These exactions,\n    Whereof my sovereign would have note, they are\n    Most pestilent to th' hearing; and to bear 'em\n    The back is sacrifice to th' load. They say\n    They are devis'd by you, or else you suffer\n    Too hard an exclamation.\n  KING. Still exaction!\n    The nature of it? In what kind, let's know,\n    Is this exaction?\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. I am much too venturous\n    In tempting of your patience, but am bold'ned\n    Under your promis'd pardon. The subjects' grief\n    Comes through commissions, which compels from each\n    The sixth part of his substance, to be levied\n    Without delay; and the pretence for this\n    Is nam'd your wars in France. This makes bold mouths;\n    Tongues spit their duties out, and cold hearts freeze\n    Allegiance in them; their curses now\n    Live where their prayers did; and it's come to pass\n    This tractable obedience is a slave\n    To each incensed will. I would your Highness\n    Would give it quick consideration, for\n    There is no primer business.\n  KING. By my life,\n    This is against our pleasure.\n  WOLSEY. And for me,\n    I have no further gone in this than by\n    A single voice; and that not pass'd me but\n    By learned approbation of the judges. If I am\n    Traduc'd by ignorant tongues, which neither know\n    My faculties nor person, yet will be\n    The chronicles of my doing, let me say\n    'Tis but the fate of place, and the rough brake\n    That virtue must go through. We must not stint\n    Our necessary actions in the fear\n    To cope malicious censurers, which ever\n    As rav'nous fishes do a vessel follow\n    That is new-trimm'd, but benefit no further\n    Than vainly longing. What we oft do best,\n    By sick interpreters, once weak ones, is\n    Not ours, or not allow'd; what worst, as oft\n    Hitting a grosser quality, is cried up\n    For our best act. If we shall stand still,\n    In fear our motion will be mock'd or carp'd at,\n    We should take root here where we sit, or sit\n    State-statues only.\n  KING. Things done well\n    And with a care exempt themselves from fear:\n    Things done without example, in their issue\n    Are to be fear'd. Have you a precedent\n    Of this commission? I believe, not any.\n    We must not rend our subjects from our laws,\n    And stick them in our will. Sixth part of each?\n    A trembling contribution! Why, we take\n    From every tree lop, bark, and part o' th' timber;\n    And though we leave it with a root, thus hack'd,\n    The air will drink the sap. To every county\n    Where this is question'd send our letters with\n    Free pardon to each man that has denied\n    The force of this commission. Pray, look tot;\n    I put it to your care.\n  WOLSEY. [Aside to the SECRETARY]  A word with you.\n    Let there be letters writ to every shire\n    Of the King's grace and pardon. The grieved commons\n    Hardly conceive of me-let it be nois'd\n    That through our intercession this revokement\n    And pardon comes. I shall anon advise you\n    Further in the proceeding.                         Exit SECRETARY\n\n                    Enter SURVEYOR\n\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. I am sorry that the Duke of Buckingham\n    Is run in your displeasure.\n  KING. It grieves many.\n    The gentleman is learn'd and a most rare speaker;\n    To nature none more bound; his training such\n    That he may furnish and instruct great teachers\n    And never seek for aid out of himself. Yet see,\n    When these so noble benefits shall prove\n    Not well dispos'd, the mind growing once corrupt,\n    They turn to vicious forms, ten times more ugly\n    Than ever they were fair. This man so complete,\n    Who was enroll'd 'mongst wonders, and when we,\n    Almost with ravish'd list'ning, could not find\n    His hour of speech a minute-he, my lady,\n    Hath into monstrous habits put the graces\n    That once were his, and is become as black\n    As if besmear'd in hell. Sit by us; you shall hear-\n    This was his gentleman in trust-of him\n    Things to strike honour sad. Bid him recount\n    The fore-recited practices, whereof\n    We cannot feel too little, hear too much.\n  WOLSEY. Stand forth, and with bold spirit relate what you,\n    Most like a careful subject, have collected\n    Out of the Duke of Buckingham.\n  KING. Speak freely.\n  SURVEYOR. First, it was usual with him-every day\n    It would infect his speech-that if the King\n    Should without issue die, he'll carry it so\n    To make the sceptre his. These very words\n    I've heard him utter to his son-in-law,\n    Lord Aberga'ny, to whom by oath he menac'd\n    Revenge upon the Cardinal.\n  WOLSEY. Please your Highness, note\n    This dangerous conception in this point:\n    Not friended by his wish, to your high person\n    His will is most malignant, and it stretches\n    Beyond you to your friends.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. My learn'd Lord Cardinal,\n    Deliver all with charity.\n  KING. Speak on.\n    How grounded he his title to the crown\n    Upon our fail? To this point hast thou heard him\n    At any time speak aught?\n  SURVEYOR. He was brought to this\n    By a vain prophecy of Nicholas Henton.\n  KING. What was that Henton?\n  SURVEYOR. Sir, a Chartreux friar,\n    His confessor, who fed him every minute\n    With words of sovereignty.\n  KING. How know'st thou this?\n  SURVEYOR. Not long before your Highness sped to France,\n    The Duke being at the Rose, within the parish\n    Saint Lawrence Poultney, did of me demand\n    What was the speech among the Londoners\n    Concerning the French journey. I replied\n    Men fear'd the French would prove perfidious,\n    To the King's danger. Presently the Duke\n    Said 'twas the fear indeed and that he doubted\n    'Twould prove the verity of certain words\n    Spoke by a holy monk 'that oft' says he\n    'Hath sent to me, wishing me to permit\n    John de la Car, my chaplain, a choice hour\n    To hear from him a matter of some moment;\n    Whom after under the confession's seal\n    He solemnly had sworn that what he spoke\n    My chaplain to no creature living but\n    To me should utter, with demure confidence\n    This pausingly ensu'd: \"Neither the King nor's heirs,\n    Tell you the Duke, shall prosper; bid him strive\n    To gain the love o' th' commonalty; the Duke\n    Shall govern England.\"'\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. If I know you well,\n    You were the Duke's surveyor, and lost your office\n    On the complaint o' th' tenants. Take good heed\n    You charge not in your spleen a noble person\n    And spoil your nobler soul. I say, take heed;\n    Yes, heartily beseech you.\n  KING. Let him on.\n    Go forward.\n  SURVEYOR. On my soul, I'll speak but truth.\n    I told my lord the Duke, by th' devil's illusions\n    The monk might be deceiv'd, and that 'twas dangerous\n      for him\n    To ruminate on this so far, until\n    It forg'd him some design, which, being believ'd,\n    It was much like to do. He answer'd 'Tush,\n    It can do me no damage'; adding further\n    That, had the King in his last sickness fail'd,\n    The Cardinal's and Sir Thomas Lovell's heads\n    Should have gone off.\n  KING. Ha! what, so rank? Ah ha!\n    There's mischief in this man. Canst thou say further?\n  SURVEYOR. I can, my liege.\n  KING. Proceed.\n  SURVEYOR. Being at Greenwich,\n    After your Highness had reprov'd the Duke\n    About Sir William Bulmer-\n  KING. I remember\n    Of such a time: being my sworn servant,\n    The Duke retain'd him his. But on: what hence?\n  SURVEYOR. 'If' quoth he 'I for this had been committed-\n    As to the Tower I thought-I would have play'd\n    The part my father meant to act upon\n    Th' usurper Richard; who, being at Salisbury,\n    Made suit to come in's presence, which if granted,\n    As he made semblance of his duty, would\n    Have put his knife into him.'\n  KING. A giant traitor!\n  WOLSEY. Now, madam, may his Highness live in freedom,\n    And this man out of prison?\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. God mend all!\n  KING. There's something more would out of thee: what say'st?\n  SURVEYOR. After 'the Duke his father' with the 'knife,'\n    He stretch'd him, and, with one hand on his dagger,\n    Another spread on's breast, mounting his eyes,\n    He did discharge a horrible oath, whose tenour\n    Was, were he evil us'd, he would outgo\n    His father by as much as a performance\n    Does an irresolute purpose.\n  KING. There's his period,\n    To sheath his knife in us. He is attach'd;\n    Call him to present trial. If he may\n    Find mercy in the law, 'tis his; if none,\n    Let him not seek't of us. By day and night!\n    He's traitor to th' height.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 3.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the LORD CHAMBERLAIN and LORD SANDYS\n\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Is't possible the spells of France should juggle\n    Men into such strange mysteries?\n  SANDYS. New customs,\n    Though they be never so ridiculous,\n    Nay, let 'em be unmanly, yet are follow'd.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. As far as I see, all the good our English\n    Have got by the late voyage is but merely\n    A fit or two o' th' face; but they are shrewd ones;\n    For when they hold 'em, you would swear directly\n    Their very noses had been counsellors\n    To Pepin or Clotharius, they keep state so.\n  SANDYS. They have all new legs, and lame ones. One would take it,\n    That never saw 'em pace before, the spavin\n    Or springhalt reign'd among 'em.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Death! my lord,\n    Their clothes are after such a pagan cut to't,\n    That sure th' have worn out Christendom.\n\n           Enter SIR THOMAS LOVELL\n\n    How now?\n    What news, Sir Thomas Lovell?\n  LOVELL. Faith, my lord,\n    I hear of none but the new proclamation\n    That's clapp'd upon the court gate.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. What is't for?\n  LOVELL. The reformation of our travell'd gallants,\n    That fill the court with quarrels, talk, and tailors.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. I am glad 'tis there. Now I would pray our monsieurs\n    To think an English courtier may be wise,\n    And never see the Louvre.\n  LOVELL. They must either,\n    For so run the conditions, leave those remnants\n    Of fool and feather that they got in France,\n    With all their honourable points of ignorance\n    Pertaining thereunto-as fights and fireworks;\n    Abusing better men than they can be,\n    Out of a foreign wisdom-renouncing clean\n    The faith they have in tennis, and tall stockings,\n    Short blist'red breeches, and those types of travel\n    And understand again like honest men,\n    Or pack to their old playfellows. There, I take it,\n    They may, cum privilegio, wear away\n    The lag end of their lewdness and be laugh'd at.\n  SANDYS. 'Tis time to give 'em physic, their diseases\n    Are grown so catching.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. What a loss our ladies\n    Will have of these trim vanities!\n  LOVELL. Ay, marry,\n    There will be woe indeed, lords: the sly whoresons\n    Have got a speeding trick to lay down ladies.\n    A French song and a fiddle has no fellow.\n  SANDYS. The devil fiddle 'em! I am glad they are going,\n    For sure there's no converting 'em. Now\n    An honest country lord, as I am, beaten\n    A long time out of play, may bring his plainsong\n    And have an hour of hearing; and, by'r Lady,\n    Held current music too.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Well said, Lord Sandys;\n    Your colt's tooth is not cast yet.\n  SANDYS. No, my lord,\n    Nor shall not while I have a stamp.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Sir Thomas,\n    Whither were you a-going?\n  LOVELL. To the Cardinal's;\n    Your lordship is a guest too.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. O, 'tis true;\n    This night he makes a supper, and a great one,\n    To many lords and ladies; there will be\n    The beauty of this kingdom, I'll assure you.\n  LOVELL. That churchman bears a bounteous mind indeed,\n    A hand as fruitful as the land that feeds us;\n    His dews fall everywhere.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. No doubt he's noble;\n    He had a black mouth that said other of him.\n  SANDYS. He may, my lord; has wherewithal. In him\n    Sparing would show a worse sin than ill doctrine:\n    Men of his way should be most liberal,\n    They are set here for examples.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. True, they are so;\n    But few now give so great ones. My barge stays;\n    Your lordship shall along. Come, good Sir Thomas,\n    We shall be late else; which I would not be,\n    For I was spoke to, with Sir Henry Guildford,\n    This night to be comptrollers.\n  SANDYS. I am your lordship's.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 4.\n\nLondon. The Presence Chamber in York Place\n\nHautboys. A small table under a state for the Cardinal,\na longer table for the guests. Then enter ANNE BULLEN,\nand divers other LADIES and GENTLEMEN, as guests, at one door;\nat another door enter SIR HENRY GUILDFORD\n\n  GUILDFORD. Ladies, a general welcome from his Grace\n    Salutes ye all; this night he dedicates\n    To fair content and you. None here, he hopes,\n    In all this noble bevy, has brought with her\n    One care abroad; he would have all as merry\n    As, first, good company, good wine, good welcome,\n    Can make good people.\n\n       Enter LORD CHAMBERLAIN, LORD SANDYS, and SIR\n                  THOMAS LOVELL\n\n    O, my lord, y'are tardy,\n    The very thought of this fair company\n    Clapp'd wings to me.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. You are young, Sir Harry Guildford.\n  SANDYS. Sir Thomas Lovell, had the Cardinal\n    But half my lay thoughts in him, some of these\n    Should find a running banquet ere they rested\n    I think would better please 'em. By my life,\n    They are a sweet society of fair ones.\n  LOVELL. O that your lordship were but now confessor\n    To one or two of these!\n  SANDYS. I would I were;\n    They should find easy penance.\n  LOVELL. Faith, how easy?\n  SANDYS. As easy as a down bed would afford it.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Sweet ladies, will it please you sit? Sir Harry,\n    Place you that side; I'll take the charge of this.\n    His Grace is ent'ring. Nay, you must not freeze:\n    Two women plac'd together makes cold weather.\n    My Lord Sandys, you are one will keep 'em waking:\n    Pray sit between these ladies.\n  SANDYS. By my faith,\n    And thank your lordship. By your leave, sweet ladies.\n                 [Seats himself between ANNE BULLEN and another lady]\n    If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me;\n    I had it from my father.\n  ANNE. Was he mad, sir?\n  SANDYS. O, very mad, exceeding mad, in love too.\n    But he would bite none; just as I do now,\n    He would kiss you twenty with a breath.              [Kisses her]\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Well said, my lord.\n    So, now y'are fairly seated. Gentlemen,\n    The penance lies on you if these fair ladies\n    Pass away frowning.\n  SANDYS. For my little cure,\n    Let me alone.\n\n         Hautboys. Enter CARDINAL WOLSEY, attended; and\n                         takes his state\n\n  WOLSEY. Y'are welcome, my fair guests. That noble lady\n    Or gentleman that is not freely merry\n    Is not my friend. This, to confirm my welcome-\n    And to you all, good health!                             [Drinks]\n  SANDYS. Your Grace is noble.\n    Let me have such a bowl may hold my thanks\n    And save me so much talking.\n  WOLSEY. My Lord Sandys,\n    I am beholding to you. Cheer your neighbours.\n    Ladies, you are not merry. Gentlemen,\n    Whose fault is this?\n  SANDYS. The red wine first must rise\n    In their fair cheeks, my lord; then we shall have 'em\n    Talk us to silence.\n  ANNE. You are a merry gamester,\n    My Lord Sandys.\n  SANDYS. Yes, if I make my play.\n    Here's to your ladyship; and pledge it, madam,\n    For 'tis to such a thing-\n  ANNE. You cannot show me.\n  SANDYS. I told your Grace they would talk anon.\n                             [Drum and trumpet. Chambers discharg'd]\n  WOLSEY. What's that?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Look out there, some of ye.             Exit a SERVANT\n  WOLSEY. What warlike voice,\n    And to what end, is this? Nay, ladies, fear not:\n    By all the laws of war y'are privileg'd.\n\n            Re-enter SERVANT\n\n  CHAMBERLAIN. How now! what is't?\n  SERVANT. A noble troop of strangers-\n    For so they seem. Th' have left their barge and landed,\n    And hither make, as great ambassadors\n    From foreign princes.\n  WOLSEY. Good Lord Chamberlain,\n    Go, give 'em welcome; you can speak the French tongue;\n    And pray receive 'em nobly and conduct 'em\n    Into our presence, where this heaven of beauty\n    Shall shine at full upon them. Some attend him.\n              Exit CHAMBERLAIN attended. All rise, and tables remov'd\n    You have now a broken banquet, but we'll mend it.\n    A good digestion to you all; and once more\n    I show'r a welcome on ye; welcome all.\n\n      Hautboys. Enter the KING, and others, as maskers,\n      habited like shepherds, usher'd by the LORD CHAMBERLAIN.\n      They pass directly before the CARDINAL,\n      and gracefully salute him\n\n    A noble company! What are their pleasures?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Because they speak no English, thus they pray'd\n    To tell your Grace, that, having heard by fame\n    Of this so noble and so fair assembly\n    This night to meet here, they could do no less,\n    Out of the great respect they bear to beauty,\n    But leave their flocks and, under your fair conduct,\n    Crave leave to view these ladies and entreat\n    An hour of revels with 'em.\n  WOLSEY. Say, Lord Chamberlain,\n    They have done my poor house grace; for which I pay 'em\n    A thousand thanks, and pray 'em take their pleasures.\n                   [They choose ladies. The KING chooses ANNE BULLEN]\n  KING. The fairest hand I ever touch'd! O beauty,\n    Till now I never knew thee!                        [Music. Dance]\n  WOLSEY. My lord!\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Your Grace?\n  WOLSEY. Pray tell 'em thus much from me:\n    There should be one amongst 'em, by his person,\n    More worthy this place than myself; to whom,\n    If I but knew him, with my love and duty\n    I would surrender it.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. I will, my lord.\n                                         [He whispers to the maskers]\n  WOLSEY. What say they?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Such a one, they all confess,\n    There is indeed; which they would have your Grace\n    Find out, and he will take it.\n  WOLSEY. Let me see, then.                    [Comes from his state]\n    By all your good leaves, gentlemen, here I'll make\n    My royal choice.\n  KING.  [Unmasking]  Ye have found him, Cardinal.\n    You hold a fair assembly; you do well, lord.\n    You are a churchman, or, I'll tell you, Cardinal,\n    I should judge now unhappily.\n  WOLSEY. I am glad\n    Your Grace is grown so pleasant.\n  KING. My Lord Chamberlain,\n    Prithee come hither: what fair lady's that?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. An't please your Grace, Sir Thomas Bullen's\n      daughter-\n    The Viscount Rochford-one of her Highness' women.\n  KING. By heaven, she is a dainty one. Sweet heart,\n    I were unmannerly to take you out\n    And not to kiss you. A health, gentlemen!\n    Let it go round.\n  WOLSEY. Sir Thomas Lovell, is the banquet ready\n    I' th' privy chamber?\n  LOVELL. Yes, my lord.\n  WOLSEY. Your Grace,\n    I fear, with dancing is a little heated.\n  KING. I fear, too much.\n  WOLSEY. There's fresher air, my lord,\n    In the next chamber.\n  KING. Lead in your ladies, ev'ry one. Sweet partner,\n    I must not yet forsake you. Let's be merry:\n    Good my Lord Cardinal, I have half a dozen healths\n    To drink to these fair ladies, and a measure\n    To lead 'em once again; and then let's dream\n    Who's best in favour. Let the music knock it.\n                                                Exeunt, with trumpets\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1.\n\nWestminster. A street\n\nEnter two GENTLEMEN, at several doors\n\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Whither away so fast?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. O, God save ye!\n    Ev'n to the Hall, to hear what shall become\n    Of the great Duke of Buckingham.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I'll save you\n    That labour, sir. All's now done but the ceremony\n    Of bringing back the prisoner.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Were you there?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes, indeed, was I.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Pray, speak what has happen'd.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. You may guess quickly what.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Is he found guilty?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes, truly is he, and condemn'd upon't.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I am sorry for't.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. So are a number more.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. But, pray, how pass'd it?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I'll tell you in a little. The great Duke.\n    Came to the bar; where to his accusations\n    He pleaded still not guilty, and alleged\n    Many sharp reasons to defeat the law.\n    The King's attorney, on the contrary,\n    Urg'd on the examinations, proofs, confessions,\n    Of divers witnesses; which the Duke desir'd\n    To have brought, viva voce, to his face;\n    At which appear'd against him his surveyor,\n    Sir Gilbert Peck his chancellor, and John Car,\n    Confessor to him, with that devil-monk,\n    Hopkins, that made this mischief.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. That was he\n    That fed him with his prophecies?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. The same.\n    All these accus'd him strongly, which he fain\n    Would have flung from him; but indeed he could not;\n    And so his peers, upon this evidence,\n    Have found him guilty of high treason. Much\n    He spoke, and learnedly, for life; but all\n    Was either pitied in him or forgotten.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. After all this, how did he bear him-self\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. When he was brought again to th' bar to hear\n    His knell rung out, his judgment, he was stirr'd\n    With such an agony he sweat extremely,\n    And something spoke in choler, ill and hasty;\n    But he fell to himself again, and sweetly\n    In all the rest show'd a most noble patience.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I do not think he fears death.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Sure, he does not;\n    He never was so womanish; the cause\n    He may a little grieve at.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Certainly\n    The Cardinal is the end of this.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis likely,\n    By all conjectures: first, Kildare's attainder,\n    Then deputy of Ireland, who remov'd,\n    Earl Surrey was sent thither, and in haste too,\n    Lest he should help his father.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. That trick of state\n    Was a deep envious one.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. At his return\n    No doubt he will requite it. This is noted,\n    And generally: whoever the King favours\n    The Cardinal instantly will find employment,\n    And far enough from court too.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. All the commons\n    Hate him perniciously, and, o' my conscience,\n    Wish him ten fathom deep: this Duke as much\n    They love and dote on; call him bounteous Buckingham,\n    The mirror of all courtesy-\n\n      Enter BUCKINGHAM from his arraignment, tip-staves\n      before him; the axe with the edge towards him; halberds\n      on each side; accompanied with SIR THOMAS\n      LOVELL, SIR NICHOLAS VAUX, SIR WILLIAM SANDYS,\n      and common people, etc.\n\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Stay there, sir,\n    And see the noble ruin'd man you speak of.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Let's stand close, and behold him.\n  BUCKINGHAM. All good people,\n    You that thus far have come to pity me,\n    Hear what I say, and then go home and lose me.\n    I have this day receiv'd a traitor's judgment,\n    And by that name must die; yet, heaven bear witness,\n    And if I have a conscience, let it sink me\n    Even as the axe falls, if I be not faithful!\n    The law I bear no malice for my death:\n    'T has done, upon the premises, but justice.\n    But those that sought it I could wish more Christians.\n    Be what they will, I heartily forgive 'em;\n    Yet let 'em look they glory not in mischief\n    Nor build their evils on the graves of great men,\n    For then my guiltless blood must cry against 'em.\n    For further life in this world I ne'er hope\n    Nor will I sue, although the King have mercies\n    More than I dare make faults. You few that lov'd me\n    And dare be bold to weep for Buckingham,\n    His noble friends and fellows, whom to leave\n    Is only bitter to him, only dying,\n    Go with me like good angels to my end;\n    And as the long divorce of steel falls on me\n    Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice,\n    And lift my soul to heaven. Lead on, a God's name.\n  LOVELL. I do beseech your Grace, for charity,\n    If ever any malice in your heart\n    Were hid against me, now to forgive me frankly.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Sir Thomas Lovell, I as free forgive you\n    As I would be forgiven. I forgive all.\n    There cannot be those numberless offences\n    'Gainst me that I cannot take peace with. No black envy\n    Shall mark my grave. Commend me to his Grace;\n    And if he speak of Buckingham, pray tell him\n    You met him half in heaven. My vows and prayers\n    Yet are the King's, and, till my soul forsake,\n    Shall cry for blessings on him. May he live\n    Longer than I have time to tell his years;\n    Ever belov'd and loving may his rule be;\n    And when old time Shall lead him to his end,\n    Goodness and he fill up one monument!\n  LOVELL. To th' water side I must conduct your Grace;\n    Then give my charge up to Sir Nicholas Vaux,\n    Who undertakes you to your end.\n  VAUX. Prepare there;\n    The Duke is coming; see the barge be ready;\n    And fit it with such furniture as suits\n    The greatness of his person.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Nay, Sir Nicholas,\n    Let it alone; my state now will but mock me.\n    When I came hither I was Lord High Constable\n    And Duke of Buckingham; now, poor Edward Bohun.\n    Yet I am richer than my base accusers\n    That never knew what truth meant; I now seal it;\n    And with that blood will make 'em one day groan fort.\n    My noble father, Henry of Buckingham,\n    Who first rais'd head against usurping Richard,\n    Flying for succour to his servant Banister,\n    Being distress'd, was by that wretch betray'd\n    And without trial fell; God's peace be with him!\n    Henry the Seventh succeeding, truly pitying\n    My father's loss, like a most royal prince,\n    Restor'd me to my honours, and out of ruins\n    Made my name once more noble. Now his son,\n    Henry the Eighth, life, honour, name, and all\n    That made me happy, at one stroke has taken\n    For ever from the world. I had my trial,\n    And must needs say a noble one; which makes me\n    A little happier than my wretched father;\n    Yet thus far we are one in fortunes: both\n    Fell by our servants, by those men we lov'd most-\n    A most unnatural and faithless service.\n    Heaven has an end in all. Yet, you that hear me,\n    This from a dying man receive as certain:\n    Where you are liberal of your loves and counsels,\n    Be sure you be not loose; for those you make friends\n    And give your hearts to, when they once perceive\n    The least rub in your fortunes, fall away\n    Like water from ye, never found again\n    But where they mean to sink ye. All good people,\n    Pray for me! I must now forsake ye; the last hour\n    Of my long weary life is come upon me.\n    Farewell;\n    And when you would say something that is sad,\n    Speak how I fell. I have done; and God forgive me!\n                                          Exeunt BUCKINGHAM and train\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. O, this is full of pity! Sir, it calls,\n    I fear, too many curses on their heads\n    That were the authors.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. If the Duke be guiltless,\n    'Tis full of woe; yet I can give you inkling\n    Of an ensuing evil, if it fall,\n    Greater than this.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Good angels keep it from us!\n    What may it be? You do not doubt my faith, sir?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. This secret is so weighty, 'twill require\n    A strong faith to conceal it.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Let me have it;\n    I do not talk much.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I am confident.\n    You shall, sir. Did you not of late days hear\n    A buzzing of a separation\n    Between the King and Katharine?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes, but it held not;\n    For when the King once heard it, out of anger\n    He sent command to the Lord Mayor straight\n    To stop the rumour and allay those tongues\n    That durst disperse it.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. But that slander, sir,\n    Is found a truth now; for it grows again\n    Fresher than e'er it was, and held for certain\n    The King will venture at it. Either the Cardinal\n    Or some about him near have, out of malice\n    To the good Queen, possess'd him with a scruple\n    That will undo her. To confirm this too,\n    Cardinal Campeius is arriv'd and lately;\n    As all think, for this business.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis the Cardinal;\n    And merely to revenge him on the Emperor\n    For not bestowing on him at his asking\n    The archbishopric of Toledo, this is purpos'd.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I think you have hit the mark; but is't\n        not cruel\n    That she should feel the smart of this? The Cardinal\n    Will have his will, and she must fall.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis woeful.\n    We are too open here to argue this;\n    Let's think in private more.                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 2.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the LORD CHAMBERLAIN reading this letter\n\n  CHAMBERLAIN. 'My lord,\n    'The horses your lordship sent for, with all the care\n    had, I saw well chosen, ridden, and furnish'd. They were\n    young and handsome, and of the best breed in the north.\n    When they were ready to set out for London, a man of\n    my Lord Cardinal's, by commission, and main power, took\n    'em from me, with this reason: his master would be serv'd\n    before a subject, if not before the King; which stopp'd\n    our mouths, sir.'\n\n    I fear he will indeed. Well, let him have them.\n    He will have all, I think.\n\n    Enter to the LORD CHAMBERLAIN the DUKES OF NORFOLK and SUFFOLK\n\n  NORFOLK. Well met, my Lord Chamberlain.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Good day to both your Graces.\n  SUFFOLK. How is the King employ'd?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. I left him private,\n    Full of sad thoughts and troubles.\n  NORFOLK. What's the cause?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. It seems the marriage with his brother's wife\n    Has crept too near his conscience.\n  SUFFOLK. No, his conscience\n    Has crept too near another lady.\n  NORFOLK. 'Tis so;\n    This is the Cardinal's doing; the King-Cardinal,\n    That blind priest, like the eldest son of fortune,\n    Turns what he list. The King will know him one day.\n  SUFFOLK. Pray God he do! He'll never know himself else.\n  NORFOLK. How holily he works in all his business!\n    And with what zeal! For, now he has crack'd the league\n    Between us and the Emperor, the Queen's great nephew,\n    He dives into the King's soul and there scatters\n    Dangers, doubts, wringing of the conscience,\n    Fears, and despairs-and all these for his marriage;\n    And out of all these to restore the King,\n    He counsels a divorce, a loss of her\n    That like a jewel has hung twenty years\n    About his neck, yet never lost her lustre;\n    Of her that loves him with that excellence\n    That angels love good men with; even of her\n    That, when the greatest stroke of fortune falls,\n    Will bless the King-and is not this course pious?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Heaven keep me from such counsel! 'Tis most true\n    These news are everywhere; every tongue speaks 'em,\n    And every true heart weeps for 't. All that dare\n    Look into these affairs see this main end-\n    The French King's sister. Heaven will one day open\n    The King's eyes, that so long have slept upon\n    This bold bad man.\n  SUFFOLK. And free us from his slavery.\n  NORFOLK. We had need pray, and heartily, for our deliverance;\n    Or this imperious man will work us an\n    From princes into pages. All men's honours\n    Lie like one lump before him, to be fashion'd\n    Into what pitch he please.\n  SUFFOLK. For me, my lords,\n    I love him not, nor fear him-there's my creed;\n    As I am made without him, so I'll stand,\n    If the King please; his curses and his blessings\n    Touch me alike; th' are breath I not believe in.\n    I knew him, and I know him; so I leave him\n    To him that made him proud-the Pope.\n  NORFOLK. Let's in;\n    And with some other business put the King\n    From these sad thoughts that work too much upon him.\n    My lord, you'll bear us company?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Excuse me,\n    The King has sent me otherwhere; besides,\n    You'll find a most unfit time to disturb him.\n    Health to your lordships!\n  NORFOLK. Thanks, my good Lord Chamberlain.\n                            Exit LORD CHAMBERLAIN; and the KING draws\n                               the curtain and sits reading pensively\n  SUFFOLK. How sad he looks; sure, he is much afflicted.\n  KING. Who's there, ha?\n  NORFOLK. Pray God he be not angry.\n  KING HENRY. Who's there, I say? How dare you thrust yourselves\n    Into my private meditations?\n    Who am I, ha?\n  NORFOLK. A gracious king that pardons all offences\n    Malice ne'er meant. Our breach of duty this way\n    Is business of estate, in which we come\n    To know your royal pleasure.\n  KING. Ye are too bold.\n    Go to; I'll make ye know your times of business.\n    Is this an hour for temporal affairs, ha?\n\n      Enter WOLSEY and CAMPEIUS with a commission\n\n    Who's there? My good Lord Cardinal? O my Wolsey,\n    The quiet of my wounded conscience,\n    Thou art a cure fit for a King.  [To CAMPEIUS]  You're\n      welcome,\n    Most learned reverend sir, into our kingdom.\n    Use us and it.  [To WOLSEY]  My good lord, have great care\n    I be not found a talker.\n  WOLSEY. Sir, you cannot.\n    I would your Grace would give us but an hour\n    Of private conference.\n  KING.  [To NORFOLK and SUFFOLK]  We are busy; go.\n  NORFOLK.  [Aside to SUFFOLK]  This priest has no pride in him!\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside to NORFOLK]  Not to speak of!\n    I would not be so sick though for his place.\n    But this cannot continue.\n  NORFOLK.  [Aside to SUFFOLK]  If it do,\n    I'll venture one have-at-him.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside to NORFOLK]  I another.\n                                           Exeunt NORFOLK and SUFFOLK\n  WOLSEY. Your Grace has given a precedent of wisdom\n    Above all princes, in committing freely\n    Your scruple to the voice of Christendom.\n    Who can be angry now? What envy reach you?\n    The Spaniard, tied by blood and favour to her,\n    Must now confess, if they have any goodness,\n    The trial just and noble. All the clerks,\n    I mean the learned ones, in Christian kingdoms\n    Have their free voices. Rome the nurse of judgment,\n    Invited by your noble self, hath sent\n    One general tongue unto us, this good man,\n    This just and learned priest, Cardinal Campeius,\n    Whom once more I present unto your Highness.\n  KING. And once more in mine arms I bid him welcome,\n    And thank the holy conclave for their loves.\n    They have sent me such a man I would have wish'd for.\n  CAMPEIUS. Your Grace must needs deserve an strangers' loves,\n    You are so noble. To your Highness' hand\n    I tender my commission; by whose virtue-\n    The court of Rome commanding-you, my Lord\n    Cardinal of York, are join'd with me their servant\n    In the unpartial judging of this business.\n  KING. Two equal men. The Queen shall be acquainted\n    Forthwith for what you come. Where's Gardiner?\n  WOLSEY. I know your Majesty has always lov'd her\n    So dear in heart not to deny her that\n    A woman of less place might ask by law-\n    Scholars allow'd freely to argue for her.\n  KING. Ay, and the best she shall have; and my favour\n    To him that does best. God forbid else. Cardinal,\n    Prithee call Gardiner to me, my new secretary;\n    I find him a fit fellow.                              Exit WOLSEY\n\n          Re-enter WOLSEY with GARDINER\n\n  WOLSEY.  [Aside to GARDINER]  Give me your hand: much\n      joy and favour to you;\n    You are the King's now.\n  GARDINER.  [Aside to WOLSEY]  But to be commanded\n    For ever by your Grace, whose hand has rais'd me.\n  KING. Come hither, Gardiner.                   [Walks and whispers]\n  CAMPEIUS. My Lord of York, was not one Doctor Pace\n    In this man's place before him?\n  WOLSEY. Yes, he was.\n  CAMPEIUS. Was he not held a learned man?\n  WOLSEY. Yes, surely.\n  CAMPEIUS. Believe me, there's an ill opinion spread then,\n    Even of yourself, Lord Cardinal.\n  WOLSEY. How! Of me?\n  CAMPEIUS. They will not stick to say you envied him\n    And, fearing he would rise, he was so virtuous,\n    Kept him a foreign man still; which so griev'd him\n    That he ran mad and died.\n  WOLSEY. Heav'n's peace be with him!\n    That's Christian care enough. For living murmurers\n    There's places of rebuke. He was a fool,\n    For he would needs be virtuous: that good fellow,\n    If I command him, follows my appointment.\n    I will have none so near else. Learn this, brother,\n    We live not to be grip'd by meaner persons.\n  KING. Deliver this with modesty to th' Queen.\n                                                        Exit GARDINER\n    The most convenient place that I can think of\n    For such receipt of learning is Blackfriars;\n    There ye shall meet about this weighty business-\n    My Wolsey, see it furnish'd. O, my lord,\n    Would it not grieve an able man to leave\n    So sweet a bedfellow? But, conscience, conscience!\n    O, 'tis a tender place! and I must leave her.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 3.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter ANNE BULLEN and an OLD LADY\n\n  ANNE. Not for that neither. Here's the pang that pinches:\n    His Highness having liv'd so long with her, and she\n    So good a lady that no tongue could ever\n    Pronounce dishonour of her-by my life,\n    She never knew harm-doing-O, now, after\n    So many courses of the sun enthroned,\n    Still growing in a majesty and pomp, the which\n    To leave a thousand-fold more bitter than\n    'Tis sweet at first t' acquire-after this process,\n    To give her the avaunt, it is a pity\n    Would move a monster.\n  OLD LADY. Hearts of most hard temper\n    Melt and lament for her.\n  ANNE. O, God's will! much better\n    She ne'er had known pomp; though't be temporal,\n    Yet, if that quarrel, fortune, do divorce\n    It from the bearer, 'tis a sufferance panging\n    As soul and body's severing.\n  OLD LADY. Alas, poor lady!\n    She's a stranger now again.\n  ANNE. So much the more\n    Must pity drop upon her. Verily,\n    I swear 'tis better to be lowly born\n    And range with humble livers in content\n    Than to be perk'd up in a glist'ring grief\n    And wear a golden sorrow.\n  OLD LADY. Our content\n    Is our best having.\n  ANNE. By my troth and maidenhead,\n    I would not be a queen.\n  OLD LADY. Beshrew me, I would,\n    And venture maidenhead for 't; and so would you,\n    For all this spice of your hypocrisy.\n    You that have so fair parts of woman on you\n    Have too a woman's heart, which ever yet\n    Affected eminence, wealth, sovereignty;\n    Which, to say sooth, are blessings; and which gifts,\n    Saving your mincing, the capacity\n    Of your soft cheveril conscience would receive\n    If you might please to stretch it.\n  ANNE. Nay, good troth.\n  OLD LADY. Yes, troth and troth. You would not be a queen!\n  ANNE. No, not for all the riches under heaven.\n  OLD LADY. 'Tis strange: a threepence bow'd would hire me,\n    Old as I am, to queen it. But, I pray you,\n    What think you of a duchess? Have you limbs\n    To bear that load of title?\n  ANNE. No, in truth.\n  OLD LADY. Then you are weakly made. Pluck off a little;\n    I would not be a young count in your way\n    For more than blushing comes to. If your back\n    Cannot vouchsafe this burden, 'tis too weak\n    Ever to get a boy.\n  ANNE. How you do talk!\n    I swear again I would not be a queen\n    For all the world.\n  OLD LADY. In faith, for little England\n    You'd venture an emballing. I myself\n    Would for Carnarvonshire, although there long'd\n    No more to th' crown but that. Lo, who comes here?\n\n         Enter the LORD CHAMBERLAIN\n\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Good morrow, ladies. What were't worth to know\n    The secret of your conference?\n  ANNE. My good lord,\n    Not your demand; it values not your asking.\n    Our mistress' sorrows we were pitying.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. It was a gentle business and becoming\n    The action of good women; there is hope\n    All will be well.\n  ANNE. Now, I pray God, amen!\n  CHAMBERLAIN. You bear a gentle mind, and heav'nly blessings\n    Follow such creatures. That you may, fair lady,\n    Perceive I speak sincerely and high notes\n    Ta'en of your many virtues, the King's Majesty\n    Commends his good opinion of you to you, and\n    Does purpose honour to you no less flowing\n    Than Marchioness of Pembroke; to which tide\n    A thousand pound a year, annual support,\n    Out of his grace he adds.\n  ANNE. I do not know\n    What kind of my obedience I should tender;\n    More than my all is nothing, nor my prayers\n    Are not words duly hallowed, nor my wishes\n    More worth than empty vanities; yet prayers and wishes\n    Are all I can return. Beseech your lordship,\n    Vouchsafe to speak my thanks and my obedience,\n    As from a blushing handmaid, to his Highness;\n    Whose health and royalty I pray for.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Lady,\n    I shall not fail t' approve the fair conceit\n    The King hath of you.  [Aside]  I have perus'd her well:\n    Beauty and honour in her are so mingled\n    That they have caught the King; and who knows yet\n    But from this lady may proceed a gem\n    To lighten all this isle?-I'll to the King\n    And say I spoke with you.\n  ANNE. My honour'd lord!                       Exit LORD CHAMBERLAIN\n  OLD LADY. Why, this it is: see, see!\n    I have been begging sixteen years in court-\n    Am yet a courtier beggarly-nor could\n    Come pat betwixt too early and too late\n    For any suit of pounds; and you, O fate!\n    A very fresh-fish here-fie, fie, fie upon\n    This compell'd fortune!-have your mouth fill'd up\n    Before you open it.\n  ANNE. This is strange to me.\n  OLD LADY. How tastes it? Is it bitter? Forty pence, no.\n    There was a lady once-'tis an old story-\n    That would not be a queen, that would she not,\n    For all the mud in Egypt. Have you heard it?\n  ANNE. Come, you are pleasant.\n  OLD LADY. With your theme I could\n    O'ermount the lark. The Marchioness of Pembroke!\n    A thousand pounds a year for pure respect!\n    No other obligation! By my life,\n    That promises moe thousands: honour's train\n    Is longer than his foreskirt. By this time\n    I know your back will bear a duchess. Say,\n    Are you not stronger than you were?\n  ANNE. Good lady,\n    Make yourself mirth with your particular fancy,\n    And leave me out on't. Would I had no being,\n    If this salute my blood a jot; it faints me\n    To think what follows.\n    The Queen is comfortless, and we forgetful\n    In our long absence. Pray, do not deliver\n    What here y' have heard to her.\n  OLD LADY. What do you think me?                              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 4.\n\nLondon. A hall in Blackfriars\n\nTrumpets, sennet, and cornets. Enter two VERGERS, with short silver wands;\nnext them, two SCRIBES, in the habit of doctors; after them,\nthe ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY alone; after him, the BISHOPS OF LINCOLN, ELY,\nROCHESTER, and SAINT ASAPH; next them, with some small distance,\nfollows a GENTLEMAN bearing the purse, with the great seal,\nand a Cardinal's hat; then two PRIESTS, bearing each silver cross;\nthen a GENTLEMAN USHER bareheaded, accompanied with a SERGEANT-AT-ARMS\nbearing a silver mace; then two GENTLEMEN bearing two great silver pillars;\nafter them, side by side, the two CARDINALS, WOLSEY and CAMPEIUS;\ntwo NOBLEMEN with the sword and mace. Then enter the KING and QUEEN\nand their trains. The KING takes place under the cloth of state;\nthe two CARDINALS sit under him as judges. The QUEEN takes place\nsome distance from the KING. The BISHOPS place themselves on each side\nof the court, in manner of consistory; below them the SCRIBES.\nThe LORDS sit next the BISHOPS. The rest of the attendants stand\nin convenient order about the stage\n\n  WOLSEY. Whilst our commission from Rome is read,\n    Let silence be commanded.\n  KING. What's the need?\n    It hath already publicly been read,\n    And on all sides th' authority allow'd;\n    You may then spare that time.\n  WOLSEY. Be't so; proceed.\n  SCRIBE. Say 'Henry King of England, come into the court.'\n  CRIER. Henry King of England, &c.\n  KING. Here.\n  SCRIBE. Say 'Katharine Queen of England, come into the court.'\n  CRIER. Katharine Queen of England, &c.\n\n     The QUEEN makes no answer, rises out of her chair,\n     goes about the court, comes to the KING, and kneels\n     at his feet; then speaks\n\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Sir, I desire you do me right and justice,\n    And to bestow your pity on me; for\n    I am a most poor woman and a stranger,\n    Born out of your dominions, having here\n    No judge indifferent, nor no more assurance\n    Of equal friendship and proceeding. Alas, sir,\n    In what have I offended you? What cause\n    Hath my behaviour given to your displeasure\n    That thus you should proceed to put me of\n    And take your good grace from me? Heaven witness,\n    I have been to you a true and humble wife,\n    At all times to your will conformable,\n    Ever in fear to kindle your dislike,\n    Yea, subject to your countenance-glad or sorry\n    As I saw it inclin'd. When was the hour\n    I ever contradicted your desire\n    Or made it not mine too? Or which of your friends\n    Have I not strove to love, although I knew\n    He were mine enemy? What friend of mine\n    That had to him deriv'd your anger did\n    Continue in my liking? Nay, gave notice\n    He was from thence discharg'd? Sir, call to mind\n    That I have been your wife in this obedience\n    Upward of twenty years, and have been blest\n    With many children by you. If, in the course\n    And process of this time, you can report,\n    And prove it too against mine honour, aught,\n    My bond to wedlock or my love and duty,\n    Against your sacred person, in God's name,\n    Turn me away and let the foul'st contempt\n    Shut door upon me, and so give me up\n    To the sharp'st kind of justice. Please you, sir,\n    The King, your father, was reputed for\n    A prince most prudent, of an excellent\n    And unmatch'd wit and judgment; Ferdinand,\n    My father, King of Spain, was reckon'd one\n    The wisest prince that there had reign'd by many\n    A year before. It is not to be question'd\n    That they had gather'd a wise council to them\n    Of every realm, that did debate this business,\n    Who deem'd our marriage lawful. Wherefore I humbly\n    Beseech you, sir, to spare me till I may\n    Be by my friends in Spain advis'd, whose counsel\n    I will implore. If not, i' th' name of God,\n    Your pleasure be fulfill'd!\n  WOLSEY. You have here, lady,\n    And of your choice, these reverend fathers-men\n    Of singular integrity and learning,\n    Yea, the elect o' th' land, who are assembled\n    To plead your cause. It shall be therefore bootless\n    That longer you desire the court, as well\n    For your own quiet as to rectify\n    What is unsettled in the King.\n  CAMPEIUS. His Grace\n    Hath spoken well and justly; therefore, madam,\n    It's fit this royal session do proceed\n    And that, without delay, their arguments\n    Be now produc'd and heard.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Lord Cardinal,\n    To you I speak.\n  WOLSEY. Your pleasure, madam?\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Sir,\n    I am about to weep; but, thinking that\n    We are a queen, or long have dream'd so, certain\n    The daughter of a king, my drops of tears\n    I'll turn to sparks of fire.\n  WOLSEY. Be patient yet.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. I Will, when you are humble; nay, before\n    Or God will punish me. I do believe,\n    Induc'd by potent circumstances, that\n    You are mine enemy, and make my challenge\n    You shall not be my judge; for it is you\n    Have blown this coal betwixt my lord and me-\n    Which God's dew quench! Therefore I say again,\n    I utterly abhor, yea, from my soul\n    Refuse you for my judge, whom yet once more\n    I hold my most malicious foe and think not\n    At all a friend to truth.\n  WOLSEY. I do profess\n    You speak not like yourself, who ever yet\n    Have stood to charity and display'd th' effects\n    Of disposition gentle and of wisdom\n    O'ertopping woman's pow'r. Madam, you do me wrong:\n    I have no spleen against you, nor injustice\n    For you or any; how far I have proceeded,\n    Or how far further shall, is warranted\n    By a commission from the Consistory,\n    Yea, the whole Consistory of Rome. You charge me\n    That I have blown this coal: I do deny it.\n    The King is present; if it be known to him\n    That I gainsay my deed, how may he wound,\n    And worthily, my falsehood! Yea, as much\n    As you have done my truth. If he know\n    That I am free of your report, he knows\n    I am not of your wrong. Therefore in him\n    It lies to cure me, and the cure is to\n    Remove these thoughts from you; the which before\n    His Highness shall speak in, I do beseech\n    You, gracious madam, to unthink your speaking\n    And to say so no more.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. My lord, my lord,\n    I am a simple woman, much too weak\n    T' oppose your cunning. Y'are meek and humble-mouth'd;\n    You sign your place and calling, in full seeming,\n    With meekness and humility; but your heart\n    Is cramm'd with arrogancy, spleen, and pride.\n    You have, by fortune and his Highness' favours,\n    Gone slightly o'er low steps, and now are mounted\n    Where pow'rs are your retainers, and your words,\n    Domestics to you, serve your will as't please\n    Yourself pronounce their office. I must tell you\n    You tender more your person's honour than\n    Your high profession spiritual; that again\n    I do refuse you for my judge and here,\n    Before you all, appeal unto the Pope,\n    To bring my whole cause 'fore his Holiness\n    And to be judg'd by him.\n                     [She curtsies to the KING, and offers to depart]\n  CAMPEIUS. The Queen is obstinate,\n    Stubborn to justice, apt to accuse it, and\n    Disdainful to be tried by't; 'tis not well.\n    She's going away.\n  KING. Call her again.\n  CRIER. Katharine Queen of England, come into the court.\n  GENTLEMAN USHER. Madam, you are call'd back.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. What need you note it? Pray you keep your way;\n    When you are call'd, return. Now the Lord help!\n    They vex me past my patience. Pray you pass on.\n    I will not tarry; no, nor ever more\n    Upon this business my appearance make\n    In any of their courts.           Exeunt QUEEN and her attendants\n  KING. Go thy ways, Kate.\n    That man i' th' world who shall report he has\n    A better wife, let him in nought be trusted\n    For speaking false in that. Thou art, alone-\n    If thy rare qualities, sweet gentleness,\n    Thy meekness saint-like, wife-like government,\n    Obeying in commanding, and thy parts\n    Sovereign and pious else, could speak thee out-\n    The queen of earthly queens. She's noble born;\n    And like her true nobility she has\n    Carried herself towards me.\n  WOLSEY. Most gracious sir,\n    In humblest manner I require your Highness\n    That it shall please you to declare in hearing\n    Of all these ears-for where I am robb'd and bound,\n    There must I be unloos'd, although not there\n    At once and fully satisfied-whether ever I\n    Did broach this business to your Highness, or\n    Laid any scruple in your way which might\n    Induce you to the question on't, or ever\n    Have to you, but with thanks to God for such\n    A royal lady, spake one the least word that might\n    Be to the prejudice of her present state,\n    Or touch of her good person?\n  KING. My Lord Cardinal,\n    I do excuse you; yea, upon mine honour,\n    I free you from't. You are not to be taught\n    That you have many enemies that know not\n    Why they are so, but, like to village curs,\n    Bark when their fellows do. By some of these\n    The Queen is put in anger. Y'are excus'd.\n    But will you be more justified? You ever\n    Have wish'd the sleeping of this business; never desir'd\n    It to be stirr'd; but oft have hind'red, oft,\n    The passages made toward it. On my honour,\n    I speak my good Lord Cardinal to this point,\n    And thus far clear him. Now, what mov'd me to't,\n    I will be bold with time and your attention.\n    Then mark th' inducement. Thus it came-give heed to't:\n    My conscience first receiv'd a tenderness,\n    Scruple, and prick, on certain speeches utter'd\n    By th' Bishop of Bayonne, then French ambassador,\n    Who had been hither sent on the debating\n    A marriage 'twixt the Duke of Orleans and\n    Our daughter Mary. I' th' progress of this business,\n    Ere a determinate resolution, he-\n    I mean the Bishop-did require a respite\n    Wherein he might the King his lord advertise\n    Whether our daughter were legitimate,\n    Respecting this our marriage with the dowager,\n    Sometimes our brother's wife. This respite shook\n    The bosom of my conscience, enter'd me,\n    Yea, with a splitting power, and made to tremble\n    The region of my breast, which forc'd such way\n    That many maz'd considerings did throng\n    And press'd in with this caution. First, methought\n    I stood not in the smile of heaven, who had\n    Commanded nature that my lady's womb,\n    If it conceiv'd a male child by me, should\n    Do no more offices of life to't than\n    The grave does to the dead; for her male issue\n    Or died where they were made, or shortly after\n    This world had air'd them. Hence I took a thought\n    This was a judgment on me, that my kingdom,\n    Well worthy the best heir o' th' world, should not\n    Be gladded in't by me. Then follows that\n    I weigh'd the danger which my realms stood in\n    By this my issue's fail, and that gave to me\n    Many a groaning throe. Thus hulling in\n    The wild sea of my conscience, I did steer\n    Toward this remedy, whereupon we are\n    Now present here together; that's to say\n    I meant to rectify my conscience, which\n    I then did feel full sick, and yet not well,\n    By all the reverend fathers of the land\n    And doctors learn'd. First, I began in private\n    With you, my Lord of Lincoln; you remember\n    How under my oppression I did reek,\n    When I first mov'd you.\n  LINCOLN. Very well, my liege.\n  KING. I have spoke long; be pleas'd yourself to say\n    How far you satisfied me.\n  LINCOLN. So please your Highness,\n    The question did at first so stagger me-\n    Bearing a state of mighty moment in't\n    And consequence of dread-that I committed\n    The daring'st counsel which I had to doubt,\n    And did entreat your Highness to this course\n    Which you are running here.\n  KING. I then mov'd you,\n    My Lord of Canterbury, and got your leave\n    To make this present summons. Unsolicited\n    I left no reverend person in this court,\n    But by particular consent proceeded\n    Under your hands and seals; therefore, go on,\n    For no dislike i' th' world against the person\n    Of the good Queen, but the sharp thorny points\n    Of my alleged reasons, drives this forward.\n    Prove but our marriage lawful, by my life\n    And kingly dignity, we are contented\n    To wear our moral state to come with her,\n    Katharine our queen, before the primest creature\n    That's paragon'd o' th' world.\n  CAMPEIUS. So please your Highness,\n    The Queen being absent, 'tis a needful fitness\n    That we adjourn this court till further day;\n    Meanwhile must be an earnest motion\n    Made to the Queen to call back her appeal\n    She intends unto his Holiness.\n  KING.  [Aside]  I may perceive\n    These cardinals trifle with me. I abhor\n    This dilatory sloth and tricks of Rome.\n    My learn'd and well-beloved servant, Cranmer,\n    Prithee return. With thy approach I know\n    My comfort comes along. -Break up the court;\n    I say, set on.                   Exuent in manner as they entered\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. The QUEEN'S apartments\n\nEnter the QUEEN and her women, as at work\n\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Take thy lute, wench. My soul grows\n      sad with troubles;\n    Sing and disperse 'em, if thou canst. Leave working.\n\n                    SONG\n\n        Orpheus with his lute made trees,\n        And the mountain tops that freeze,\n          Bow themselves when he did sing;\n        To his music plants and flowers\n        Ever sprung, as sun and showers\n          There had made a lasting spring.\n\n        Every thing that heard him play,\n        Even the billows of the sea,\n          Hung their heads and then lay by.\n        In sweet music is such art,\n        Killing care and grief of heart\n          Fall asleep or hearing die.\n\n              Enter a GENTLEMAN\n\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. How now?\n  GENTLEMAN. An't please your Grace, the two great Cardinals\n    Wait in the presence.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Would they speak with me?\n  GENTLEMAN. They will'd me say so, madam.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Pray their Graces\n    To come near. [Exit GENTLEMAN] What can be their business\n    With me, a poor weak woman, fall'n from favour?\n    I do not like their coming. Now I think on't,\n    They should be good men, their affairs as righteous;\n    But all hoods make not monks.\n\n         Enter the two CARDINALS, WOLSEY and CAMPEIUS\n\n  WOLSEY. Peace to your Highness!\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Your Graces find me here part of housewife;\n    I would be all, against the worst may happen.\n    What are your pleasures with me, reverend lords?\n  WOLSEY. May it please you, noble madam, to withdraw\n    Into your private chamber, we shall give you\n    The full cause of our coming.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Speak it here;\n    There's nothing I have done yet, o' my conscience,\n    Deserves a corner. Would all other women\n    Could speak this with as free a soul as I do!\n    My lords, I care not-so much I am happy\n    Above a number-if my actions\n    Were tried by ev'ry tongue, ev'ry eye saw 'em,\n    Envy and base opinion set against 'em,\n    I know my life so even. If your business\n    Seek me out, and that way I am wife in,\n    Out with it boldly; truth loves open dealing.\n  WOLSEY. Tanta est erga te mentis integritas, regina serenis-sima-\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. O, good my lord, no Latin!\n    I am not such a truant since my coming,\n    As not to know the language I have liv'd in;\n    A strange tongue makes my cause more strange, suspicious;\n    Pray speak in English. Here are some will thank you,\n    If you speak truth, for their poor mistress' sake:\n    Believe me, she has had much wrong. Lord Cardinal,\n    The willing'st sin I ever yet committed\n    May be absolv'd in English.\n  WOLSEY. Noble lady,\n    I am sorry my integrity should breed,\n    And service to his Majesty and you,\n    So deep suspicion, where all faith was meant\n    We come not by the way of accusation\n    To taint that honour every good tongue blesses,\n    Nor to betray you any way to sorrow-\n    You have too much, good lady; but to know\n    How you stand minded in the weighty difference\n    Between the King and you, and to deliver,\n    Like free and honest men, our just opinions\n    And comforts to your cause.\n  CAMPEIUS. Most honour'd madam,\n    My Lord of York, out of his noble nature,\n    Zeal and obedience he still bore your Grace,\n    Forgetting, like a good man, your late censure\n    Both of his truth and him-which was too far-\n    Offers, as I do, in a sign of peace,\n    His service and his counsel.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE.  [Aside]  To betray me.-\n    My lords, I thank you both for your good wins;\n    Ye speak like honest men-pray God ye prove so!\n    But how to make ye suddenly an answer,\n    In such a point of weight, so near mine honour,\n    More near my life, I fear, with my weak wit,\n    And to such men of gravity and learning,\n    In truth I know not. I was set at work\n    Among my maids, full little, God knows, looking\n    Either for such men or such business.\n    For her sake that I have been-for I feel\n    The last fit of my greatness-good your Graces,\n    Let me have time and counsel for my cause.\n    Alas, I am a woman, friendless, hopeless!\n  WOLSEY. Madam, you wrong the King's love with these fears;\n    Your hopes and friends are infinite.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. In England\n    But little for my profit; can you think, lords,\n    That any Englishman dare give me counsel?\n    Or be a known friend, 'gainst his Highness' pleasure-\n    Though he be grown so desperate to be honest-\n    And live a subject? Nay, forsooth, my friends,\n    They that must weigh out my afflictions,\n    They that my trust must grow to, live not here;\n    They are, as all my other comforts, far hence,\n    In mine own country, lords.\n  CAMPEIUS. I would your Grace\n    Would leave your griefs, and take my counsel.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. How, sir?\n  CAMPEIUS. Put your main cause into the King's protection;\n    He's loving and most gracious. 'Twill be much\n    Both for your honour better and your cause;\n    For if the trial of the law o'ertake ye\n    You'll part away disgrac'd.\n  WOLSEY. He tells you rightly.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Ye tell me what ye wish for both-my ruin.\n    Is this your Christian counsel? Out upon ye!\n    Heaven is above all yet: there sits a Judge\n    That no king can corrupt.\n  CAMPEIUS. Your rage mistakes us.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. The more shame for ye; holy men I thought ye,\n    Upon my soul, two reverend cardinal virtues;\n    But cardinal sins and hollow hearts I fear ye.\n    Mend 'em, for shame, my lords. Is this your comfort?\n    The cordial that ye bring a wretched lady-\n    A woman lost among ye, laugh'd at, scorn'd?\n    I will not wish ye half my miseries:\n    I have more charity; but say I warned ye.\n    Take heed, for heaven's sake take heed, lest at once\n    The burden of my sorrows fall upon ye.\n  WOLSEY. Madam, this is a mere distraction;\n    You turn the good we offer into envy.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Ye turn me into nothing. Woe upon ye,\n    And all such false professors! Would you have me-\n    If you have any justice, any pity,\n    If ye be any thing but churchmen's habits-\n    Put my sick cause into his hands that hates me?\n    Alas! has banish'd me his bed already,\n    His love too long ago! I am old, my lords,\n    And all the fellowship I hold now with him\n    Is only my obedience. What can happen\n    To me above this wretchedness? All your studies\n    Make me a curse like this.\n  CAMPEIUS. Your fears are worse.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Have I liv'd thus long-let me speak myself,\n    Since virtue finds no friends-a wife, a true one?\n    A woman, I dare say without vain-glory,\n    Never yet branded with suspicion?\n    Have I with all my full affections\n    Still met the King, lov'd him next heav'n, obey'd him,\n    Been, out of fondness, superstitious to him,\n    Almost forgot my prayers to content him,\n    And am I thus rewarded? 'Tis not well, lords.\n    Bring me a constant woman to her husband,\n    One that ne'er dream'd a joy beyond his pleasure,\n    And to that woman, when she has done most,\n    Yet will I add an honour-a great patience.\n  WOLSEY. Madam, you wander from the good we aim at.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. My lord, I dare not make myself so guilty,\n    To give up willingly that noble title\n    Your master wed me to: nothing but death\n    Shall e'er divorce my dignities.\n  WOLSEY. Pray hear me.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Would I had never trod this English earth,\n    Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it!\n    Ye have angels' faces, but heaven knows your hearts.\n    What will become of me now, wretched lady?\n    I am the most unhappy woman living.\n    [To her WOMEN]  Alas, poor wenches, where are now\n      your fortunes?\n    Shipwreck'd upon a kingdom, where no pity,\n    No friends, no hope; no kindred weep for me;\n    Almost no grave allow'd me. Like the My,\n    That once was mistress of the field, and flourish'd,\n    I'll hang my head and perish.\n  WOLSEY. If your Grace\n    Could but be brought to know our ends are honest,\n    You'd feel more comfort. Why should we, good lady,\n    Upon what cause, wrong you? Alas, our places,\n    The way of our profession is against it;\n    We are to cure such sorrows, not to sow 'em.\n    For goodness' sake, consider what you do;\n    How you may hurt yourself, ay, utterly\n    Grow from the King's acquaintance, by this carriage.\n    The hearts of princes kiss obedience,\n    So much they love it; but to stubborn spirits\n    They swell and grow as terrible as storms.\n    I know you have a gentle, noble temper,\n    A soul as even as a calm. Pray think us\n    Those we profess, peace-makers, friends, and servants.\n  CAMPEIUS. Madam, you'll find it so. You wrong your virtues\n    With these weak women's fears. A noble spirit,\n    As yours was put into you, ever casts\n    Such doubts as false coin from it. The King loves you;\n    Beware you lose it not. For us, if you please\n    To trust us in your business, we are ready\n    To use our utmost studies in your service.\n  QUEEN KATHARINE. Do what ye will my lords; and pray\n      forgive me\n    If I have us'd myself unmannerly;\n    You know I am a woman, lacking wit\n    To make a seemly answer to such persons.\n    Pray do my service to his Majesty;\n    He has my heart yet, and shall have my prayers\n    While I shall have my life. Come, reverend fathers,\n    Bestow your counsels on me; she now begs\n    That little thought, when she set footing here,\n    She should have bought her dignities so dear.              Exeunt\n\n\n\nACT III.SCENE 2.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the DUKE OF NORFOLK, the DUKE OF SUFFOLK, the EARL OF SURREY,\nand the LORD CHAMBERLAIN\n\n  NORFOLK. If you will now unite in your complaints\n    And force them with a constancy, the Cardinal\n    Cannot stand under them: if you omit\n    The offer of this time, I cannot promise\n    But that you shall sustain moe new disgraces\n    With these you bear already.\n  SURREY. I am joyful\n    To meet the least occasion that may give me\n    Remembrance of my father-in-law, the Duke,\n    To be reveng'd on him.\n  SUFFOLK. Which of the peers\n    Have uncontemn'd gone by him, or at least\n    Strangely neglected? When did he regard\n    The stamp of nobleness in any person\n    Out of himself?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. My lords, you speak your pleasures.\n    What he deserves of you and me I know;\n    What we can do to him-though now the time\n    Gives way to us-I much fear. If you cannot\n    Bar his access to th' King, never attempt\n    Anything on him; for he hath a witchcraft\n    Over the King in's tongue.\n  NORFOLK. O, fear him not!\n    His spell in that is out; the King hath found\n    Matter against him that for ever mars\n    The honey of his language. No, he's settled,\n    Not to come off, in his displeasure.\n  SURREY. Sir,\n    I should be glad to hear such news as this\n    Once every hour.\n  NORFOLK. Believe it, this is true:\n    In the divorce his contrary proceedings\n    Are all unfolded; wherein he appears\n    As I would wish mine enemy.\n  SURREY. How came\n    His practices to light?\n  SUFFOLK. Most Strangely.\n  SURREY. O, how, how?\n  SUFFOLK. The Cardinal's letters to the Pope miscarried,\n    And came to th' eye o' th' King; wherein was read\n    How that the Cardinal did entreat his Holiness\n    To stay the judgment o' th' divorce; for if\n    It did take place, 'I do' quoth he 'perceive\n    My king is tangled in affection to\n    A creature of the Queen's, Lady Anne Bullen.'\n  SURREY. Has the King this?\n  SUFFOLK. Believe it.\n  SURREY. Will this work?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. The King in this perceives him how he coasts\n    And hedges his own way. But in this point\n    All his tricks founder, and he brings his physic\n    After his patient's death: the King already\n    Hath married the fair lady.\n  SURREY. Would he had!\n  SUFFOLK. May you be happy in your wish, my lord!\n    For, I profess, you have it.\n  SURREY. Now, all my joy\n    Trace the conjunction!\n  SUFFOLK. My amen to't!\n  NORFOLK. An men's!\n  SUFFOLK. There's order given for her coronation;\n    Marry, this is yet but young, and may be left\n    To some ears unrecounted. But, my lords,\n    She is a gallant creature, and complete\n    In mind and feature. I persuade me from her\n    Will fall some blessing to this land, which shall\n    In it be memoriz'd.\n  SURREY. But will the King\n    Digest this letter of the Cardinal's?\n    The Lord forbid!\n  NORFOLK. Marry, amen!\n  SUFFOLK. No, no;\n    There be moe wasps that buzz about his nose\n    Will make this sting the sooner. Cardinal Campeius\n    Is stol'n away to Rome; hath ta'en no leave;\n    Has left the cause o' th' King unhandled, and\n    Is posted, as the agent of our Cardinal,\n    To second all his plot. I do assure you\n    The King cried 'Ha!' at this.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Now, God incense him,\n    And let him cry 'Ha!' louder!\n  NORFOLK. But, my lord,\n    When returns Cranmer?\n  SUFFOLK. He is return'd in his opinions; which\n    Have satisfied the King for his divorce,\n    Together with all famous colleges\n    Almost in Christendom. Shortly, I believe,\n    His second marriage shall be publish'd, and\n    Her coronation. Katharine no more\n    Shall be call'd queen, but princess dowager\n    And widow to Prince Arthur.\n  NORFOLK. This same Cranmer's\n    A worthy fellow, and hath ta'en much pain\n    In the King's business.\n  SUFFOLK. He has; and we shall see him\n    For it an archbishop.\n  NORFOLK. So I hear.\n  SUFFOLK. 'Tis so.\n\n        Enter WOLSEY and CROMWELL\n\n    The Cardinal!\n  NORFOLK. Observe, observe, he's moody.\n  WOLSEY. The packet, Cromwell,\n    Gave't you the King?\n  CROMWELL. To his own hand, in's bedchamber.\n  WOLSEY. Look'd he o' th' inside of the paper?\n  CROMWELL. Presently\n    He did unseal them; and the first he view'd,\n    He did it with a serious mind; a heed\n    Was in his countenance. You he bade\n    Attend him here this morning.\n  WOLSEY. Is he ready\n    To come abroad?\n  CROMWELL. I think by this he is.\n  WOLSEY. Leave me awhile.                              Exit CROMWELL\n    [Aside]  It shall be to the Duchess of Alencon,\n    The French King's sister; he shall marry her.\n    Anne Bullen! No, I'll no Anne Bullens for him;\n    There's more in't than fair visage. Bullen!\n    No, we'll no Bullens. Speedily I wish\n    To hear from Rome. The Marchioness of Pembroke!\n  NORFOLK. He's discontented.\n  SUFFOLK. May be he hears the King\n    Does whet his anger to him.\n  SURREY. Sharp enough,\n    Lord, for thy justice!\n  WOLSEY.  [Aside]  The late Queen's gentlewoman, a knight's\n      daughter,\n    To be her mistress' mistress! The Queen's queen!\n    This candle burns not clear. 'Tis I must snuff it;\n    Then out it goes. What though I know her virtuous\n    And well deserving? Yet I know her for\n    A spleeny Lutheran; and not wholesome to\n    Our cause that she should lie i' th' bosom of\n    Our hard-rul'd King. Again, there is sprung up\n    An heretic, an arch one, Cranmer; one\n    Hath crawl'd into the favour of the King,\n    And is his oracle.\n  NORFOLK. He is vex'd at something.\n\n        Enter the KING, reading of a schedule, and LOVELL\n\n  SURREY. I would 'twere something that would fret the string,\n    The master-cord on's heart!\n  SUFFOLK. The King, the King!\n  KING. What piles of wealth hath he accumulated\n    To his own portion! And what expense by th' hour\n    Seems to flow from him! How, i' th' name of thrift,\n    Does he rake this together?-Now, my lords,\n    Saw you the Cardinal?\n  NORFOLK. My lord, we have\n    Stood here observing him. Some strange commotion\n    Is in his brain: he bites his lip and starts,\n    Stops on a sudden, looks upon the ground,\n    Then lays his finger on his temple; straight\n    Springs out into fast gait; then stops again,\n    Strikes his breast hard; and anon he casts\n    His eye against the moon. In most strange postures\n    We have seen him set himself.\n  KING. It may well be\n    There is a mutiny in's mind. This morning\n    Papers of state he sent me to peruse,\n    As I requir'd; and wot you what I found\n    There-on my conscience, put unwittingly?\n    Forsooth, an inventory, thus importing\n    The several parcels of his plate, his treasure,\n    Rich stuffs, and ornaments of household; which\n    I find at such proud rate that it outspeaks\n    Possession of a subject.\n  NORFOLK. It's heaven's will;\n    Some spirit put this paper in the packet\n    To bless your eye withal.\n  KING. If we did think\n    His contemplation were above the earth\n    And fix'd on spiritual object, he should still\n    dwell in his musings; but I am afraid\n    His thinkings are below the moon, not worth\n    His serious considering.\n                        [The KING takes his seat and whispers LOVELL,\n                                           who goes to the CARDINAL]\n  WOLSEY. Heaven forgive me!\n    Ever God bless your Highness!\n  KING. Good, my lord,\n    You are full of heavenly stuff, and bear the inventory\n    Of your best graces in your mind; the which\n    You were now running o'er. You have scarce time\n    To steal from spiritual leisure a brief span\n    To keep your earthly audit; sure, in that\n    I deem you an ill husband, and am glad\n    To have you therein my companion.\n  WOLSEY. Sir,\n    For holy offices I have a time; a time\n    To think upon the part of business which\n    I bear i' th' state; and nature does require\n    Her times of preservation, which perforce\n    I, her frail son, amongst my brethren mortal,\n    Must give my tendance to.\n  KING. You have said well.\n  WOLSEY. And ever may your Highness yoke together,\n    As I will lend you cause, my doing well\n    With my well saying!\n  KING. 'Tis well said again;\n    And 'tis a kind of good deed to say well;\n    And yet words are no deeds. My father lov'd you:\n    He said he did; and with his deed did crown\n    His word upon you. Since I had my office\n    I have kept you next my heart; have not alone\n    Employ'd you where high profits might come home,\n    But par'd my present havings to bestow\n    My bounties upon you.\n  WOLSEY.  [Aside]  What should this mean?\n  SURREY.  [Aside]  The Lord increase this business!\n  KING. Have I not made you\n    The prime man of the state? I pray you tell me\n    If what I now pronounce you have found true;\n    And, if you may confess it, say withal\n    If you are bound to us or no. What say you?\n  WOLSEY. My sovereign, I confess your royal graces,\n    Show'r'd on me daily, have been more than could\n    My studied purposes requite; which went\n    Beyond all man's endeavours. My endeavours,\n    Have ever come too short of my desires,\n    Yet fil'd with my abilities; mine own ends\n    Have been mine so that evermore they pointed\n    To th' good of your most sacred person and\n    The profit of the state. For your great graces\n    Heap'd upon me, poor undeserver, I\n    Can nothing render but allegiant thanks;\n    My pray'rs to heaven for you; my loyalty,\n    Which ever has and ever shall be growing,\n    Till death, that winter, kill it.\n  KING. Fairly answer'd!\n    A loyal and obedient subject is\n    Therein illustrated; the honour of it\n    Does pay the act of it, as, i' th' contrary,\n    The foulness is the punishment. I presume\n    That, as my hand has open'd bounty to you,\n    My heart dropp'd love, my pow'r rain'd honour, more\n    On you than any, so your hand and heart,\n    Your brain, and every function of your power,\n    Should, notwithstanding that your bond of duty,\n    As 'twere in love's particular, be more\n    To me, your friend, than any.\n  WOLSEY. I do profess\n    That for your Highness' good I ever labour'd\n    More than mine own; that am, have, and will be-\n    Though all the world should crack their duty to you,\n    And throw it from their soul; though perils did\n    Abound as thick as thought could make 'em, and\n    Appear in forms more horrid-yet my duty,\n    As doth a rock against the chiding flood,\n    Should the approach of this wild river break,\n    And stand unshaken yours.\n  KING. 'Tis nobly spoken.\n    Take notice, lords, he has a loyal breast,\n    For you have seen him open 't. Read o'er this;\n                                                  [Giving him papers]\n    And after, this; and then to breakfast with\n    What appetite you have.\n                Exit the KING, frowning upon the CARDINAL; the NOBLES\n                             throng after him, smiling and whispering\n  WOLSEY. What should this mean?\n    What sudden anger's this? How have I reap'd it?\n    He parted frowning from me, as if ruin\n    Leap'd from his eyes; so looks the chafed lion\n    Upon the daring huntsman that has gall'd him-\n    Then makes him nothing. I must read this paper;\n    I fear, the story of his anger. 'Tis so;\n    This paper has undone me. 'Tis th' account\n    Of all that world of wealth I have drawn together\n    For mine own ends; indeed to gain the popedom,\n    And fee my friends in Rome. O negligence,\n    Fit for a fool to fall by! What cross devil\n    Made me put this main secret in the packet\n    I sent the King? Is there no way to cure this?\n    No new device to beat this from his brains?\n    I know 'twill stir him strongly; yet I know\n    A way, if it take right, in spite of fortune,\n    Will bring me off again. What's this? 'To th' Pope.'\n    The letter, as I live, with all the business\n    I writ to's Holiness. Nay then, farewell!\n    I have touch'd the highest point of all my greatness,\n    And from that full meridian of my glory\n    I haste now to my setting. I shall fall\n    Like a bright exhalation in the evening,\n    And no man see me more.\n\n        Re-enter to WOLSEY the DUKES OF NORFOLK and\n        SUFFOLK, the EARL OF SURREY, and the LORD\n        CHAMBERLAIN\n\n  NORFOLK. Hear the King's pleasure, Cardinal, who commands you\n    To render up the great seal presently\n    Into our hands, and to confine yourself\n    To Asher House, my Lord of Winchester's,\n    Till you hear further from his Highness.\n  WOLSEY. Stay:\n    Where's your commission, lords? Words cannot carry\n    Authority so weighty.\n  SUFFOLK. Who dares cross 'em,\n    Bearing the King's will from his mouth expressly?\n  WOLSEY. Till I find more than will or words to do it-\n    I mean your malice-know, officious lords,\n    I dare and must deny it. Now I feel\n    Of what coarse metal ye are moulded-envy;\n    How eagerly ye follow my disgraces,\n    As if it fed ye; and how sleek and wanton\n    Ye appear in every thing may bring my ruin!\n    Follow your envious courses, men of malice;\n    You have Christian warrant for 'em, and no doubt\n    In time will find their fit rewards. That seal\n    You ask with such a violence, the King-\n    Mine and your master-with his own hand gave me;\n    Bade me enjoy it, with the place and honours,\n    During my life; and, to confirm his goodness,\n    Tied it by letters-patents. Now, who'll take it?\n  SURREY. The King, that gave it.\n  WOLSEY. It must be himself then.\n  SURREY. Thou art a proud traitor, priest.\n  WOLSEY. Proud lord, thou liest.\n    Within these forty hours Surrey durst better\n    Have burnt that tongue than said so.\n  SURREY. Thy ambition,\n    Thou scarlet sin, robb'd this bewailing land\n    Of noble Buckingham, my father-in-law.\n    The heads of all thy brother cardinals,\n    With thee and all thy best parts bound together,\n    Weigh'd not a hair of his. Plague of your policy!\n    You sent me deputy for Ireland;\n    Far from his succour, from the King, from all\n    That might have mercy on the fault thou gav'st him;\n    Whilst your great goodness, out of holy pity,\n    Absolv'd him with an axe.\n  WOLSEY. This, and all else\n    This talking lord can lay upon my credit,\n    I answer is most false. The Duke by law\n    Found his deserts; how innocent I was\n    From any private malice in his end,\n    His noble jury and foul cause can witness.\n    If I lov'd many words, lord, I should tell you\n    You have as little honesty as honour,\n    That in the way of loyalty and truth\n    Toward the King, my ever royal master,\n    Dare mate a sounder man than Surrey can be\n    And an that love his follies.\n  SURREY. By my soul,\n    Your long coat, priest, protects you; thou shouldst feel\n    My sword i' the life-blood of thee else. My lords\n    Can ye endure to hear this arrogance?\n    And from this fellow? If we live thus tamely,\n    To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet,\n    Farewell nobility! Let his Grace go forward\n    And dare us with his cap like larks.\n  WOLSEY. All goodness\n    Is poison to thy stomach.\n  SURREY. Yes, that goodness\n    Of gleaning all the land's wealth into one,\n    Into your own hands, Cardinal, by extortion;\n    The goodness of your intercepted packets\n    You writ to th' Pope against the King; your goodness,\n    Since you provoke me, shall be most notorious.\n    My Lord of Norfolk, as you are truly noble,\n    As you respect the common good, the state\n    Of our despis'd nobility, our issues,\n    Whom, if he live, will scarce be gentlemen-\n    Produce the grand sum of his sins, the articles\n    Collected from his life. I'll startle you\n    Worse than the sacring bell, when the brown wench\n    Lay kissing in your arms, Lord Cardinal.\n  WOLSEY. How much, methinks, I could despise this man,\n    But that I am bound in charity against it!\n  NORFOLK. Those articles, my lord, are in the King's hand;\n    But, thus much, they are foul ones.\n  WOLSEY. So much fairer\n    And spotless shall mine innocence arise,\n    When the King knows my truth.\n  SURREY. This cannot save you.\n    I thank my memory I yet remember\n    Some of these articles; and out they shall.\n    Now, if you can blush and cry guilty, Cardinal,\n    You'll show a little honesty.\n  WOLSEY. Speak on, sir;\n    I dare your worst objections. If I blush,\n    It is to see a nobleman want manners.\n  SURREY. I had rather want those than my head. Have at you!\n    First, that without the King's assent or knowledge\n    You wrought to be a legate; by which power\n    You maim'd the jurisdiction of all bishops.\n  NORFOLK. Then, that in all you writ to Rome, or else\n    To foreign princes, 'Ego et Rex meus'\n    Was still inscrib'd; in which you brought the King\n    To be your servant.\n  SUFFOLK. Then, that without the knowledge\n    Either of King or Council, when you went\n    Ambassador to the Emperor, you made bold\n    To carry into Flanders the great seal.\n  SURREY. Item, you sent a large commission\n    To Gregory de Cassado, to conclude,\n    Without the King's will or the state's allowance,\n    A league between his Highness and Ferrara.\n  SUFFOLK. That out of mere ambition you have caus'd\n    Your holy hat to be stamp'd on the King's coin.\n  SURREY. Then, that you have sent innumerable substance,\n    By what means got I leave to your own conscience,\n    To furnish Rome and to prepare the ways\n    You have for dignities, to the mere undoing\n    Of all the kingdom. Many more there are,\n    Which, since they are of you, and odious,\n    I will not taint my mouth with.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. O my lord,\n    Press not a falling man too far! 'Tis virtue.\n    His faults lie open to the laws; let them,\n    Not you, correct him. My heart weeps to see him\n    So little of his great self.\n  SURREY. I forgive him.\n  SUFFOLK. Lord Cardinal, the King's further pleasure is-\n    Because all those things you have done of late,\n    By your power legatine within this kingdom,\n    Fall into th' compass of a praemunire-\n    That therefore such a writ be sued against you:\n    To forfeit all your goods, lands, tenements,\n    Chattels, and whatsoever, and to be\n    Out of the King's protection. This is my charge.\n  NORFOLK. And so we'll leave you to your meditations\n    How to live better. For your stubborn answer\n    About the giving back the great seal to us,\n    The King shall know it, and, no doubt, shall thank you.\n    So fare you well, my little good Lord Cardinal.\n                                                Exeunt all but WOLSEY\n  WOLSEY. So farewell to the little good you bear me.\n    Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness!\n    This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth\n    The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms\n    And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;\n    The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,\n    And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely\n    His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,\n    And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur'd,\n    Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,\n    This many summers in a sea of glory;\n    But far beyond my depth. My high-blown pride\n    At length broke under me, and now has left me,\n    Weary and old with service, to the mercy\n    Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me.\n    Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye;\n    I feel my heart new open'd. O, how wretched\n    Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours!\n    There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to,\n    That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin\n    More pangs and fears than wars or women have;\n    And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,\n    Never to hope again.\n\n         Enter CROMWELL, standing amazed\n\n    Why, how now, Cromwell!\n  CROMWELL. I have no power to speak, sir.\n  WOLSEY. What, amaz'd\n    At my misfortunes? Can thy spirit wonder\n    A great man should decline? Nay, an you weep,\n    I am fall'n indeed.\n  CROMWELL. How does your Grace?\n  WOLSEY. Why, well;\n    Never so truly happy, my good Cromwell.\n    I know myself now, and I feel within me\n    A peace above all earthly dignities,\n    A still and quiet conscience. The King has cur'd me,\n    I humbly thank his Grace; and from these shoulders,\n    These ruin'd pillars, out of pity, taken\n    A load would sink a navy-too much honour.\n    O, 'tis a burden, Cromwell, 'tis a burden\n    Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven!\n  CROMWELL. I am glad your Grace has made that right use of it.\n  WOLSEY. I hope I have. I am able now, methinks,\n    Out of a fortitude of soul I feel,\n    To endure more miseries and greater far\n    Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer.\n    What news abroad?\n  CROMWELL. The heaviest and the worst\n    Is your displeasure with the King.\n  WOLSEY. God bless him!\n  CROMWELL. The next is that Sir Thomas More is chosen\n    Lord Chancellor in your place.\n  WOLSEY. That's somewhat sudden.\n    But he's a learned man. May he continue\n    Long in his Highness' favour, and do justice\n    For truth's sake and his conscience; that his bones\n    When he has run his course and sleeps in blessings,\n    May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on him!\n    What more?\n  CROMWELL. That Cranmer is return'd with welcome,\n    Install'd Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.\n  WOLSEY. That's news indeed.\n  CROMWELL. Last, that the Lady Anne,\n    Whom the King hath in secrecy long married,\n    This day was view'd in open as his queen,\n    Going to chapel; and the voice is now\n    Only about her coronation.\n  WOLSEY. There was the weight that pull'd me down.\n      O Cromwell,\n    The King has gone beyond me. All my glories\n    In that one woman I have lost for ever.\n    No sun shall ever usher forth mine honours,\n    Or gild again the noble troops that waited\n    Upon my smiles. Go get thee from me, Cromwell;\n    I am a poor fall'n man, unworthy now\n    To be thy lord and master. Seek the King;\n    That sun, I pray, may never set! I have told him\n    What and how true thou art. He will advance thee;\n    Some little memory of me will stir him-\n    I know his noble nature-not to let\n    Thy hopeful service perish too. Good Cromwell,\n    Neglect him not; make use now, and provide\n    For thine own future safety.\n  CROMWELL. O my lord,\n    Must I then leave you? Must I needs forgo\n    So good, so noble, and so true a master?\n    Bear witness, all that have not hearts of iron,\n    With what a sorrow Cromwell leaves his lord.\n    The King shall have my service; but my prayers\n    For ever and for ever shall be yours.\n  WOLSEY. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear\n    In all my miseries; but thou hast forc'd me,\n    Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman.\n    Let's dry our eyes; and thus far hear me, Cromwell,\n    And when I am forgotten, as I shall be,\n    And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention\n    Of me more must be heard of, say I taught thee-\n    Say Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory,\n    And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,\n    Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in-\n    A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it.\n    Mark but my fall and that that ruin'd me.\n    Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition:\n    By that sin fell the angels. How can man then,\n    The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?\n    Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee;\n    Corruption wins not more than honesty.\n    Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace\n    To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not;\n    Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,\n    Thy God's, and truth's; then, if thou fall'st, O Cromwell,\n    Thou fall'st a blessed martyr!\n    Serve the King, and-prithee lead me in.\n    There take an inventory of all I have\n    To the last penny; 'tis the King's. My robe,\n    And my integrity to heaven, is all\n    I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell!\n    Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal\n    I serv'd my King, he would not in mine age\n    Have left me naked to mine enemies.\n  CROMWELL. Good sir, have patience.\n  WOLSEY. So I have. Farewell\n    The hopes of court! My hopes in heaven do dwell.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\n\nA street in Westminster\n\nEnter two GENTLEMEN, meeting one another\n\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Y'are well met once again.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. So are you.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. You come to take your stand here, and\n      behold\n    The Lady Anne pass from her coronation?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Tis all my business. At our last encounter\n    The Duke of Buckingham came from his trial.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis very true. But that time offer'd\n      sorrow;\n    This, general joy.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Tis well. The citizens,\n    I am sure, have shown at full their royal minds-\n    As, let 'em have their rights, they are ever forward-\n    In celebration of this day with shows,\n    Pageants, and sights of honour.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Never greater,\n    Nor, I'll assure you, better taken, sir.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. May I be bold to ask what that contains,\n    That paper in your hand?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes; 'tis the list\n    Of those that claim their offices this day,\n    By custom of the coronation.\n    The Duke of Suffolk is the first, and claims\n    To be High Steward; next, the Duke of Norfolk,\n    He to be Earl Marshal. You may read the rest.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I thank you, sir; had I not known\n      those customs,\n    I should have been beholding to your paper.\n    But, I beseech you, what's become of Katharine,\n    The Princess Dowager? How goes her business?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. That I can tell you too. The Archbishop\n    Of Canterbury, accompanied with other\n    Learned and reverend fathers of his order,\n    Held a late court at Dunstable, six miles of\n    From Ampthill, where the Princess lay; to which\n    She was often cited by them, but appear'd not.\n    And, to be short, for not appearance and\n    The King's late scruple, by the main assent\n    Of all these learned men, she was divorc'd,\n    And the late marriage made of none effect;\n    Since which she was removed to Kimbolton,\n    Where she remains now sick.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Alas, good lady!                       [Trumpets]\n    The trumpets sound. Stand close, the Queen is coming.\n[Hautboys]\n\n              THE ORDER OF THE CORONATION.\n\n    1. A lively flourish of trumpets.\n    2. Then two JUDGES.\n    3. LORD CHANCELLOR, with purse and mace before him.\n    4. CHORISTERS singing.                                    [Music]\n    5. MAYOR OF LONDON, bearing the mace. Then GARTER, in\n       his coat of arms, and on his head he wore a gilt copper\n       crown.\n    6. MARQUIS DORSET, bearing a sceptre of gold, on his head a\n       demi-coronal of gold. With him, the EARL OF SURREY,\n       bearing the rod of silver with the dove, crowned with an\n       earl's coronet. Collars of Esses.\n    7. DUKE OF SUFFOLK, in his robe of estate, his coronet on\n       his head, bearing a long white wand, as High Steward.\n       With him, the DUKE OF NORFOLK, with the rod of\n       marshalship, a coronet on his head. Collars of Esses.\n    8. A canopy borne by four of the CINQUE-PORTS; under it\n       the QUEEN in her robe; in her hair richly adorned with\n       pearl, crowned. On each side her, the BISHOPS OF LONDON\n       and WINCHESTER.\n    9. The old DUCHESS OF NORFOLK, in a coronal of gold\n       wrought with flowers, bearing the QUEEN'S train.\n   10. Certain LADIES or COUNTESSES, with plain circlets of gold\n       without flowers.\n\n             Exeunt, first passing over the stage in order and state,\n                                and then a great flourish of trumpets\n\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. A royal train, believe me. These know.\n    Who's that that bears the sceptre?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Marquis Dorset;\n    And that the Earl of Surrey, with the rod.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. A bold brave gentleman. That should be\n    The Duke of Suffolk?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis the same-High Steward.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. And that my Lord of Norfolk?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN.  [Looking on the QUEEN]  Heaven\n      bless thee!\n    Thou hast the sweetest face I ever look'd on.\n    Sir, as I have a soul, she is an angel;\n    Our king has all the Indies in his arms,\n    And more and richer, when he strains that lady;\n    I cannot blame his conscience.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. They that bear\n    The cloth of honour over her are four barons\n    Of the Cinque-ports.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Those men are happy; and so are all\n      are near her.\n    I take it she that carries up the train\n    Is that old noble lady, Duchess of Norfolk.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. It is; and all the rest are countesses.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Their coronets say so. These are stars indeed,\n    And sometimes falling ones.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. No more of that.\n                   Exit Procession, with a great flourish of trumpets\n\n               Enter a third GENTLEMAN\n\n    God save you, sir! Where have you been broiling?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Among the crowds i' th' Abbey, where a finger\n    Could not be wedg'd in more; I am stifled\n    With the mere rankness of their joy.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. You saw\n    The ceremony?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. That I did.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. How was it?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Well worth the seeing.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Good sir, speak it to us.\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. As well as I am able. The rich stream\n    Of lords and ladies, having brought the Queen\n    To a prepar'd place in the choir, fell of\n    A distance from her, while her Grace sat down\n    To rest awhile, some half an hour or so,\n    In a rich chair of state, opposing freely\n    The beauty of her person to the people.\n    Believe me, sir, she is the goodliest woman\n    That ever lay by man; which when the people\n    Had the full view of, such a noise arose\n    As the shrouds make at sea in a stiff tempest,\n    As loud, and to as many tunes; hats, cloaks-\n    Doublets, I think-flew up, and had their faces\n    Been loose, this day they had been lost. Such joy\n    I never saw before. Great-bellied women,\n    That had not half a week to go, like rams\n    In the old time of war, would shake the press,\n    And make 'em reel before 'em. No man living\n    Could say 'This is my wife' there, all were woven\n    So strangely in one piece.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. But what follow'd?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. At length her Grace rose, and with\n      modest paces\n    Came to the altar, where she kneel'd, and saintlike\n    Cast her fair eyes to heaven, and pray'd devoutly.\n    Then rose again, and bow'd her to the people;\n    When by the Archbishop of Canterbury\n    She had all the royal makings of a queen:\n    As holy oil, Edward Confessor's crown,\n    The rod, and bird of peace, and all such emblems\n    Laid nobly on her; which perform'd, the choir,\n    With all the choicest music of the kingdom,\n    Together sung 'Te Deum.' So she parted,\n    And with the same full state pac'd back again\n    To York Place, where the feast is held.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Sir,\n    You must no more call it York Place: that's past:\n    For since the Cardinal fell that title's lost.\n    'Tis now the King's, and called Whitehall.\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. I know it;\n    But 'tis so lately alter'd that the old name\n    Is fresh about me.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. What two reverend bishops\n    Were those that went on each side of the Queen?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Stokesly and Gardiner: the one of Winchester,\n    Newly preferr'd from the King's secretary;\n    The other, London.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. He of Winchester\n    Is held no great good lover of the Archbishop's,\n    The virtuous Cranmer.\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. All the land knows that;\n    However, yet there is no great breach. When it comes,\n    Cranmer will find a friend will not shrink from him.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Who may that be, I pray you?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Thomas Cromwell,\n    A man in much esteem with th' King, and truly\n    A worthy friend. The King has made him Master\n    O' th' jewel House,\n    And one, already, of the Privy Council.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. He will deserve more.\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Yes, without all doubt.\n    Come, gentlemen, ye shall go my way, which\n    Is to th' court, and there ye shall be my guests:\n    Something I can command. As I walk thither,\n    I'll tell ye more.\n  BOTH. You may command us, sir.                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 2.\n\nKimbolton\n\nEnter KATHARINE, Dowager, sick; led between GRIFFITH, her Gentleman Usher,\nand PATIENCE, her woman\n\n  GRIFFITH. How does your Grace?\n  KATHARINE. O Griffith, sick to death!\n    My legs like loaden branches bow to th' earth,\n    Willing to leave their burden. Reach a chair.\n    So-now, methinks, I feel a little ease.\n    Didst thou not tell me, Griffith, as thou led'st me,\n    That the great child of honour, Cardinal Wolsey,\n    Was dead?\n  GRIFFITH. Yes, madam; but I think your Grace,\n    Out of the pain you suffer'd, gave no ear to't.\n  KATHARINE. Prithee, good Griffith, tell me how he died.\n    If well, he stepp'd before me, happily,\n    For my example.\n  GRIFFITH. Well, the voice goes, madam;\n    For after the stout Earl Northumberland\n    Arrested him at York and brought him forward,\n    As a man sorely tainted, to his answer,\n    He fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill\n    He could not sit his mule.\n  KATHARINE. Alas, poor man!\n  GRIFFITH. At last, with easy roads, he came to Leicester,\n    Lodg'd in the abbey; where the reverend abbot,\n    With all his covent, honourably receiv'd him;\n    To whom he gave these words: 'O father Abbot,\n    An old man, broken with the storms of state,\n    Is come to lay his weary bones among ye;\n    Give him a little earth for charity!'\n    So went to bed; where eagerly his sickness\n    Pursu'd him still And three nights after this,\n    About the hour of eight-which he himself\n    Foretold should be his last-full of repentance,\n    Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows,\n    He gave his honours to the world again,\n    His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.\n  KATHARINE. So may he rest; his faults lie gently on him!\n    Yet thus far, Griffith, give me leave to speak him,\n    And yet with charity. He was a man\n    Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking\n    Himself with princes; one that, by suggestion,\n    Tied all the kingdom. Simony was fair play;\n    His own opinion was his law. I' th' presence\n    He would say untruths, and be ever double\n    Both in his words and meaning. He was never,\n    But where he meant to ruin, pitiful.\n    His promises were, as he then was, mighty;\n    But his performance, as he is now, nothing.\n    Of his own body he was ill, and gave\n    The clergy ill example.\n  GRIFFITH. Noble madam,\n    Men's evil manners live in brass: their virtues\n    We write in water. May it please your Highness\n    To hear me speak his good now?\n  KATHARINE. Yes, good Griffith;\n    I were malicious else.\n  GRIFFITH. This Cardinal,\n    Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly\n    Was fashion'd to much honour from his cradle.\n    He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one;\n    Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading;\n    Lofty and sour to them that lov'd him not,\n    But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.\n    And though he were unsatisfied in getting-\n    Which was a sin-yet in bestowing, madam,\n    He was most princely: ever witness for him\n    Those twins of learning that he rais'd in you,\n    Ipswich and Oxford! One of which fell with him,\n    Unwilling to outlive the good that did it;\n    The other, though unfinish'd, yet so famous,\n    So excellent in art, and still so rising,\n    That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.\n    His overthrow heap'd happiness upon him;\n    For then, and not till then, he felt himself,\n    And found the blessedness of being little.\n    And, to add greater honours to his age\n    Than man could give him, he died fearing God.\n  KATHARINE. After my death I wish no other herald,\n    No other speaker of my living actions,\n    To keep mine honour from corruption,\n    But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.\n    Whom I most hated living, thou hast made me,\n    With thy religious truth and modesty,\n    Now in his ashes honour. Peace be with him!\n    patience, be near me still, and set me lower:\n    I have not long to trouble thee. Good Griffith,\n    Cause the musicians play me that sad note\n    I nam'd my knell, whilst I sit meditating\n    On that celestial harmony I go to.\n                                              [Sad and solemn music]\n  GRIFFITH. She is asleep. Good wench, let's sit down quiet,\n    For fear we wake her. Softly, gentle Patience.\n\n                 THE VISION.\n\n      Enter, solemnly tripping one after another, six\n      PERSONAGES clad in white robes, wearing on their\n      heads garlands of bays, and golden vizards on their\n      faces; branches of bays or palm in their hands. They\n      first congee unto her, then dance; and, at certain\n      changes, the first two hold a spare garland over her\n      head, at which the other four make reverent curtsies.\n      Then the two that held the garland deliver the\n      same to the other next two, who observe the same\n      order in their changes, and holding the garland over\n      her head; which done, they deliver the same garland\n      to the last two, who likewise observe the same order;\n      at which, as it were by inspiration, she makes\n      in her sleep signs of rejoicing, and holdeth up her\n      hands to heaven. And so in their dancing vanish,\n      carrying the garland with them. The music continues\n\n  KATHARINE. Spirits of peace, where are ye? Are ye all gone?\n    And leave me here in wretchedness behind ye?\n  GRIFFITH. Madam, we are here.\n  KATHARINE. It is not you I call for.\n    Saw ye none enter since I slept?\n  GRIFFITH. None, madam.\n  KATHARINE. No? Saw you not, even now, a blessed troop\n    Invite me to a banquet; whose bright faces\n    Cast thousand beams upon me, like the sun?\n    They promis'd me eternal happiness,\n    And brought me garlands, Griffith, which I feel\n    I am not worthy yet to wear. I shall, assuredly.\n  GRIFFITH. I am most joyful, madam, such good dreams\n    Possess your fancy.\n  KATHARINE. Bid the music leave,\n    They are harsh and heavy to me.                    [Music ceases]\n  PATIENCE. Do you note\n    How much her Grace is alter'd on the sudden?\n    How long her face is drawn! How pale she looks,\n    And of an earthly cold! Mark her eyes.\n  GRIFFITH. She is going, wench. Pray, pray.\n  PATIENCE. Heaven comfort her!\n\n             Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. An't like your Grace-\n  KATHARINE. You are a saucy fellow.\n    Deserve we no more reverence?\n  GRIFFITH. You are to blame,\n    Knowing she will not lose her wonted greatness,\n    To use so rude behaviour. Go to, kneel.\n  MESSENGER. I humbly do entreat your Highness' pardon;\n    My haste made me unmannerly. There is staying\n    A gentleman, sent from the King, to see you.\n  KATHARINE. Admit him entrance, Griffith; but this fellow\n    Let me ne'er see again.                            Exit MESSENGER\n\n              Enter LORD CAPUCIUS\n\n    If my sight fail not,\n    You should be Lord Ambassador from the Emperor,\n    My royal nephew, and your name Capucius.\n  CAPUCIUS. Madam, the same-your servant.\n  KATHARINE. O, my Lord,\n    The times and titles now are alter'd strangely\n    With me since first you knew me. But, I pray you,\n    What is your pleasure with me?\n  CAPUCIUS. Noble lady,\n    First, mine own service to your Grace; the next,\n    The King's request that I would visit you,\n    Who grieves much for your weakness, and by me\n    Sends you his princely commendations\n    And heartily entreats you take good comfort.\n  KATHARINE. O my good lord, that comfort comes too late,\n    'Tis like a pardon after execution:\n    That gentle physic, given in time, had cur'd me;\n    But now I am past all comforts here, but prayers.\n    How does his Highness?\n  CAPUCIUS. Madam, in good health.\n  KATHARINE. So may he ever do! and ever flourish\n    When I shall dwell with worms, and my poor name\n    Banish'd the kingdom! Patience, is that letter\n    I caus'd you write yet sent away?\n  PATIENCE. No, madam.                       [Giving it to KATHARINE]\n  KATHARINE. Sir, I most humbly pray you to deliver\n    This to my lord the King.\n  CAPUCIUS. Most willing, madam.\n  KATHARINE. In which I have commended to his goodness\n    The model of our chaste loves, his young daughter-\n    The dews of heaven fall thick in blessings on her!-\n    Beseeching him to give her virtuous breeding-\n    She is young, and of a noble modest nature;\n    I hope she will deserve well-and a little\n    To love her for her mother's sake, that lov'd him,\n    Heaven knows how dearly. My next poor petition\n    Is that his noble Grace would have some pity\n    Upon my wretched women that so long\n    Have follow'd both my fortunes faithfully;\n    Of which there is not one, I dare avow-\n    And now I should not lie-but will deserve,\n    For virtue and true beauty of the soul,\n    For honesty and decent carriage,\n    A right good husband, let him be a noble;\n    And sure those men are happy that shall have 'em.\n    The last is for my men-they are the poorest,\n    But poverty could never draw 'em from me-\n    That they may have their wages duly paid 'em,\n    And something over to remember me by.\n    If heaven had pleas'd to have given me longer life\n    And able means, we had not parted thus.\n    These are the whole contents; and, good my lord,\n    By that you love the dearest in this world,\n    As you wish Christian peace to souls departed,\n    Stand these poor people's friend, and urge the King\n    To do me this last right.\n  CAPUCIUS. By heaven, I will,\n    Or let me lose the fashion of a man!\n  KATHARINE. I thank you, honest lord. Remember me\n    In all humility unto his Highness;\n    Say his long trouble now is passing\n    Out of this world. Tell him in death I bless'd him,\n    For so I will. Mine eyes grow dim. Farewell,\n    My lord. Griffith, farewell. Nay, Patience,\n    You must not leave me yet. I must to bed;\n    Call in more women. When I am dead, good wench,\n    Let me be us'd with honour; strew me over\n    With maiden flowers, that all the world may know\n    I was a chaste wife to my grave. Embalm me,\n    Then lay me forth; although unqueen'd, yet like\n    A queen, and daughter to a king, inter me.\n    I can no more.                          Exeunt, leading KATHARINE\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. A gallery in the palace\n\nEnter GARDINER, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, a PAGE with a torch before him,\nmet by SIR THOMAS LOVELL\n\n  GARDINER. It's one o'clock, boy, is't not?\n  BOY. It hath struck.\n  GARDINER. These should be hours for necessities,\n    Not for delights; times to repair our nature\n    With comforting repose, and not for us\n    To waste these times. Good hour of night, Sir Thomas!\n    Whither so late?\n  LOVELL. Came you from the King, my lord?\n  GARDINER. I did, Sir Thomas, and left him at primero\n    With the Duke of Suffolk.\n  LOVELL. I must to him too,\n    Before he go to bed. I'll take my leave.\n  GARDINER. Not yet, Sir Thomas Lovell. What's the matter?\n    It seems you are in haste. An if there be\n    No great offence belongs to't, give your friend\n    Some touch of your late business. Affairs that walk-\n    As they say spirits do-at midnight, have\n    In them a wilder nature than the business\n    That seeks despatch by day.\n  LOVELL. My lord, I love you;\n    And durst commend a secret to your ear\n    Much weightier than this work. The Queen's in labour,\n    They say in great extremity, and fear'd\n    She'll with the labour end.\n  GARDINER. The fruit she goes with\n    I pray for heartily, that it may find\n    Good time, and live; but for the stock, Sir Thomas,\n    I wish it grubb'd up now.\n  LOVELL. Methinks I could\n    Cry thee amen; and yet my conscience says\n    She's a good creature, and, sweet lady, does\n    Deserve our better wishes.\n  GARDINER. But, sir, sir-\n    Hear me, Sir Thomas. Y'are a gentleman\n    Of mine own way; I know you wise, religious;\n    And, let me tell you, it will ne'er be well-\n    'Twill not, Sir Thomas Lovell, take't of me-\n    Till Cranmer, Cromwell, her two hands, and she,\n    Sleep in their graves.\n  LOVELL. Now, sir, you speak of two\n    The most remark'd i' th' kingdom. As for Cromwell,\n    Beside that of the Jewel House, is made Master\n    O' th' Rolls, and the King's secretary; further, sir,\n    Stands in the gap and trade of moe preferments,\n    With which the time will load him. Th' Archbishop\n    Is the King's hand and tongue, and who dare speak\n    One syllable against him?\n  GARDINER. Yes, yes, Sir Thomas,\n    There are that dare; and I myself have ventur'd\n    To speak my mind of him; and indeed this day,\n    Sir-I may tell it you-I think I have\n    Incens'd the lords o' th' Council, that he is-\n    For so I know he is, they know he is-\n    A most arch heretic, a pestilence\n    That does infect the land; with which they moved\n    Have broken with the King, who hath so far\n    Given ear to our complaint-of his great grace\n    And princely care, foreseeing those fell mischiefs\n    Our reasons laid before him-hath commanded\n    To-morrow morning to the Council board\n    He be convented. He's a rank weed, Sir Thomas,\n    And we must root him out. From your affairs\n    I hinder you too long-good night, Sir Thomas.\n  LOVELL. Many good nights, my lord; I rest your servant.\n                                             Exeunt GARDINER and PAGE\n\n         Enter the KING and the DUKE OF SUFFOLK\n\n  KING. Charles, I will play no more to-night;\n    My mind's not on't; you are too hard for me.\n  SUFFOLK. Sir, I did never win of you before.\n  KING. But little, Charles;\n    Nor shall not, when my fancy's on my play.\n    Now, Lovell, from the Queen what is the news?\n  LOVELL. I could not personally deliver to her\n    What you commanded me, but by her woman\n    I sent your message; who return'd her thanks\n    In the great'st humbleness, and desir'd your Highness\n    Most heartily to pray for her.\n  KING. What say'st thou, ha?\n    To pray for her? What, is she crying out?\n  LOVELL. So said her woman; and that her suff'rance made\n    Almost each pang a death.\n  KING. Alas, good lady!\n  SUFFOLK. God safely quit her of her burden, and\n    With gentle travail, to the gladding of\n    Your Highness with an heir!\n  KING. 'Tis midnight, Charles;\n    Prithee to bed; and in thy pray'rs remember\n    Th' estate of my poor queen. Leave me alone,\n    For I must think of that which company\n    Will not be friendly to.\n  SUFFOLK. I wish your Highness\n    A quiet night, and my good mistress will\n    Remember in my prayers.\n  KING. Charles, good night.                             Exit SUFFOLK\n\n         Enter SIR ANTHONY DENNY\n\n    Well, sir, what follows?\n  DENNY. Sir, I have brought my lord the Archbishop,\n    As you commanded me.\n  KING. Ha! Canterbury?\n  DENNY. Ay, my good lord.\n  KING. 'Tis true. Where is he, Denny?\n  DENNY. He attends your Highness' pleasure.\n  KING. Bring him to us.                                   Exit DENNY\n  LOVELL.  [Aside]  This is about that which the bishop spake.\n    I am happily come hither.\n\n         Re-enter DENNY, With CRANMER\n\n  KING. Avoid the gallery.                     [LOVELL seems to stay]\n    Ha! I have said. Be gone.\n    What!                                     Exeunt LOVELL and DENNY\n  CRANMER.  [Aside]  I am fearful-wherefore frowns he thus?\n    'Tis his aspect of terror. All's not well.\n  KING. How now, my lord? You do desire to know\n    Wherefore I sent for you.\n  CRANMER.  [Kneeling]  It is my duty\n    T'attend your Highness' pleasure.\n  KING. Pray you, arise,\n    My good and gracious Lord of Canterbury.\n    Come, you and I must walk a turn together;\n    I have news to tell you; come, come, me your hand.\n    Ah, my good lord, I grieve at what I speak,\n    And am right sorry to repeat what follows.\n    I have, and most unwillingly, of late\n    Heard many grievous-I do say, my lord,\n    Grievous-complaints of you; which, being consider'd,\n    Have mov'd us and our Council that you shall\n    This morning come before us; where I know\n    You cannot with such freedom purge yourself\n    But that, till further trial in those charges\n    Which will require your answer, you must take\n    Your patience to you and be well contented\n    To make your house our Tow'r. You a brother of us,\n    It fits we thus proceed, or else no witness\n    Would come against you.\n  CRANMER. I humbly thank your Highness\n    And am right glad to catch this good occasion\n    Most throughly to be winnowed where my chaff\n    And corn shall fly asunder; for I know\n    There's none stands under more calumnious tongues\n    Than I myself, poor man.\n  KING. Stand up, good Canterbury;\n    Thy truth and thy integrity is rooted\n    In us, thy friend. Give me thy hand, stand up;\n    Prithee let's walk. Now, by my holidame,\n    What manner of man are you? My lord, I look'd\n    You would have given me your petition that\n    I should have ta'en some pains to bring together\n    Yourself and your accusers, and to have heard you\n    Without indurance further.\n  CRANMER. Most dread liege,\n    The good I stand on is my truth and honesty;\n    If they shall fail, I with mine enemies\n    Will triumph o'er my person; which I weigh not,\n    Being of those virtues vacant. I fear nothing\n    What can be said against me.\n  KING. Know you not\n    How your state stands i' th' world, with the whole world?\n    Your enemies are many, and not small; their practices\n    Must bear the same proportion; and not ever\n    The justice and the truth o' th' question carries\n    The due o' th' verdict with it; at what ease\n    Might corrupt minds procure knaves as corrupt\n    To swear against you? Such things have been done.\n    You are potently oppos'd, and with a malice\n    Of as great size. Ween you of better luck,\n    I mean in perjur'd witness, than your Master,\n    Whose minister you are, whiles here He liv'd\n    Upon this naughty earth? Go to, go to;\n    You take a precipice for no leap of danger,\n    And woo your own destruction.\n  CRANMER. God and your Majesty\n    Protect mine innocence, or I fall into\n    The trap is laid for me!\n  KING. Be of good cheer;\n    They shall no more prevail than we give way to.\n    Keep comfort to you, and this morning see\n    You do appear before them; if they shall chance,\n    In charging you with matters, to commit you,\n    The best persuasions to the contrary\n    Fail not to use, and with what vehemency\n    Th' occasion shall instruct you. If entreaties\n    Will render you no remedy, this ring\n    Deliver them, and your appeal to us\n    There make before them. Look, the good man weeps!\n    He's honest, on mine honour. God's blest Mother!\n    I swear he is true-hearted, and a soul\n    None better in my kingdom. Get you gone,\n    And do as I have bid you.\n                                                         Exit CRANMER\n    He has strangled his language in his tears.\n\n           Enter OLD LADY\n\n  GENTLEMAN.  [Within]  Come back; what mean you?\n  OLD LADY. I'll not come back; the tidings that I bring\n    Will make my boldness manners. Now, good angels\n    Fly o'er thy royal head, and shade thy person\n    Under their blessed wings!\n  KING. Now, by thy looks\n    I guess thy message. Is the Queen deliver'd?\n    Say ay, and of a boy.\n  OLD LADY. Ay, ay, my liege;\n    And of a lovely boy. The God of Heaven\n    Both now and ever bless her! 'Tis a girl,\n    Promises boys hereafter. Sir, your queen\n    Desires your visitation, and to be\n    Acquainted with this stranger; 'tis as like you\n    As cherry is to cherry.\n  KING. Lovell!\n\n           Enter LOVELL\n\n  LOVELL. Sir?\n  KING. Give her an hundred marks. I'll to the Queen.            Exit\n  OLD LADY. An hundred marks? By this light, I'll ha' more!\n    An ordinary groom is for such payment.\n    I will have more, or scold it out of him.\n    Said I for this the girl was like to him! I'll\n    Have more, or else unsay't; and now, while 'tis hot,\n    I'll put it to the issue.                                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 2.\n\nLobby before the Council Chamber\n\nEnter CRANMER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY\n\n  CRANMER. I hope I am not too late; and yet the gentleman\n    That was sent to me from the Council pray'd me\n    To make great haste. All fast? What means this? Ho!\n    Who waits there? Sure you know me?\n\n           Enter KEEPER\n\n  KEEPER. Yes, my lord;\n    But yet I cannot help you.\n  CRANMER. Why?\n  KEEPER. Your Grace must wait till you be call'd for.\n\n           Enter DOCTOR BUTTS\n\n  CRANMER. So.\n  BUTTS.  [Aside]  This is a piece of malice. I am glad\n    I came this way so happily; the King\n    Shall understand it presently.                               Exit\n  CRANMER.  [Aside]  'Tis Butts,\n    The King's physician; as he pass'd along,\n    How earnestly he cast his eyes upon me!\n    Pray heaven he sound not my disgrace! For certain,\n    This is of purpose laid by some that hate me-\n    God turn their hearts! I never sought their malice-\n    To quench mine honour; they would shame to make me\n    Wait else at door, a fellow councillor,\n    'Mong boys, grooms, and lackeys. But their pleasures\n    Must be fulfill'd, and I attend with patience.\n\n         Enter the KING and BUTTS at window above\n\n  BUTTS. I'll show your Grace the strangest sight-\n  KING. What's that, Butts?\n  BUTTS. I think your Highness saw this many a day.\n  KING. Body a me, where is it?\n  BUTTS. There my lord:\n    The high promotion of his Grace of Canterbury;\n    Who holds his state at door, 'mongst pursuivants,\n    Pages, and footboys.\n  KING. Ha, 'tis he indeed.\n    Is this the honour they do one another?\n    'Tis well there's one above 'em yet. I had thought\n    They had parted so much honesty among 'em-\n    At least good manners-as not thus to suffer\n    A man of his place, and so near our favour,\n    To dance attendance on their lordships' pleasures,\n    And at the door too, like a post with packets.\n    By holy Mary, Butts, there's knavery!\n    Let 'em alone, and draw the curtain close;\n    We shall hear more anon.                                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 3.\n\nThe Council Chamber\n\nA Council table brought in, with chairs and stools, and placed\nunder the state. Enter LORD CHANCELLOR, places himself at the upper end\nof the table on the left band, a seat being left void above him,\nas for Canterbury's seat. DUKE OF SUFFOLK, DUKE OF NORFOLK, SURREY,\nLORD CHAMBERLAIN, GARDINER, seat themselves in order on each side;\nCROMWELL at lower end, as secretary. KEEPER at the door\n\n  CHANCELLOR. Speak to the business, master secretary;\n    Why are we met in council?\n  CROMWELL. Please your honours,\n    The chief cause concerns his Grace of Canterbury.\n  GARDINER. Has he had knowledge of it?\n  CROMWELL. Yes.\n  NORFOLK. Who waits there?\n  KEEPER. Without, my noble lords?\n  GARDINER. Yes.\n  KEEPER. My Lord Archbishop;\n    And has done half an hour, to know your pleasures.\n  CHANCELLOR. Let him come in.\n  KEEPER. Your Grace may enter now.\n\n      CRANMER approaches the Council table\n\n  CHANCELLOR. My good Lord Archbishop, I am very sorry\n    To sit here at this present, and behold\n    That chair stand empty; but we all are men,\n    In our own natures frail and capable\n    Of our flesh; few are angels; out of which frailty\n    And want of wisdom, you, that best should teach us,\n    Have misdemean'd yourself, and not a little,\n    Toward the King first, then his laws, in filling\n    The whole realm by your teaching and your chaplains-\n    For so we are inform'd-with new opinions,\n    Divers and dangerous; which are heresies,\n    And, not reform'd, may prove pernicious.\n  GARDINER. Which reformation must be sudden too,\n    My noble lords; for those that tame wild horses\n    Pace 'em not in their hands to make 'em gentle,\n    But stop their mouth with stubborn bits and spur 'em\n    Till they obey the manage. If we suffer,\n    Out of our easiness and childish pity\n    To one man's honour, this contagious sickness,\n    Farewell all physic; and what follows then?\n    Commotions, uproars, with a general taint\n    Of the whole state; as of late days our neighbours,\n    The upper Germany, can dearly witness,\n    Yet freshly pitied in our memories.\n  CRANMER. My good lords, hitherto in all the progress\n    Both of my life and office, I have labour'd,\n    And with no little study, that my teaching\n    And the strong course of my authority\n    Might go one way, and safely; and the end\n    Was ever to do well. Nor is there living-\n    I speak it with a single heart, my lords-\n    A man that more detests, more stirs against,\n    Both in his private conscience and his place,\n    Defacers of a public peace than I do.\n    Pray heaven the King may never find a heart\n    With less allegiance in it! Men that make\n    Envy and crooked malice nourishment\n    Dare bite the best. I do beseech your lordships\n    That, in this case of justice, my accusers,\n    Be what they will, may stand forth face to face\n    And freely urge against me.\n  SUFFOLK. Nay, my lord,\n    That cannot be; you are a councillor,\n    And by that virtue no man dare accuse you.\n  GARDINER. My lord, because we have business of more moment,\n    We will be short with you. 'Tis his Highness' pleasure\n    And our consent, for better trial of you,\n    From hence you be committed to the Tower;\n    Where, being but a private man again,\n    You shall know many dare accuse you boldly,\n    More than, I fear, you are provided for.\n  CRANMER. Ah, my good Lord of Winchester, I thank you;\n    You are always my good friend; if your will pass,\n    I shall both find your lordship judge and juror,\n    You are so merciful. I see your end-\n    'Tis my undoing. Love and meekness, lord,\n    Become a churchman better than ambition;\n    Win straying souls with modesty again,\n    Cast none away. That I shall clear myself,\n    Lay all the weight ye can upon my patience,\n    I make as little doubt as you do conscience\n    In doing daily wrongs. I could say more,\n    But reverence to your calling makes me modest.\n  GARDINER. My lord, my lord, you are a sectary;\n    That's the plain truth. Your painted gloss discovers,\n    To men that understand you, words and weakness.\n  CROMWELL. My Lord of Winchester, y'are a little,\n    By your good favour, too sharp; men so noble,\n    However faulty, yet should find respect\n    For what they have been; 'tis a cruelty\n    To load a falling man.\n  GARDINER. Good Master Secretary,\n    I cry your honour mercy; you may, worst\n    Of all this table, say so.\n  CROMWELL. Why, my lord?\n  GARDINER. Do not I know you for a favourer\n    Of this new sect? Ye are not sound.\n  CROMWELL. Not sound?\n  GARDINER. Not sound, I say.\n  CROMWELL. Would you were half so honest!\n    Men's prayers then would seek you, not their fears.\n  GARDINER. I shall remember this bold language.\n  CROMWELL. Do.\n    Remember your bold life too.\n  CHANCELLOR. This is too much;\n    Forbear, for shame, my lords.\n  GARDINER. I have done.\n  CROMWELL. And I.\n  CHANCELLOR. Then thus for you, my lord: it stands agreed,\n    I take it, by all voices, that forthwith\n    You be convey'd to th' Tower a prisoner;\n    There to remain till the King's further pleasure\n    Be known unto us. Are you all agreed, lords?\n  ALL. We are.\n  CRANMER. Is there no other way of mercy,\n    But I must needs to th' Tower, my lords?\n  GARDINER. What other\n    Would you expect? You are strangely troublesome.\n    Let some o' th' guard be ready there.\n\n           Enter the guard\n\n  CRANMER. For me?\n    Must I go like a traitor thither?\n  GARDINER. Receive him,\n    And see him safe i' th' Tower.\n  CRANMER. Stay, good my lords,\n    I have a little yet to say. Look there, my lords;\n    By virtue of that ring I take my cause\n    Out of the gripes of cruel men and give it\n    To a most noble judge, the King my master.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. This is the King's ring.\n  SURREY. 'Tis no counterfeit.\n  SUFFOLK. 'Tis the right ring, by heav'n. I told ye all,\n    When we first put this dangerous stone a-rolling,\n    'Twould fall upon ourselves.\n  NORFOLK. Do you think, my lords,\n    The King will suffer but the little finger\n    Of this man to be vex'd?\n  CHAMBERLAIN. 'Tis now too certain;\n    How much more is his life in value with him!\n    Would I were fairly out on't!\n  CROMWELL. My mind gave me,\n    In seeking tales and informations\n    Against this man-whose honesty the devil\n    And his disciples only envy at-\n    Ye blew the fire that burns ye. Now have at ye!\n\n      Enter the KING frowning on them; he takes his seat\n\n  GARDINER. Dread sovereign, how much are we bound to heaven\n    In daily thanks, that gave us such a prince;\n    Not only good and wise but most religious;\n    One that in all obedience makes the church\n    The chief aim of his honour and, to strengthen\n    That holy duty, out of dear respect,\n    His royal self in judgment comes to hear\n    The cause betwixt her and this great offender.\n  KING. You were ever good at sudden commendations,\n    Bishop of Winchester. But know I come not\n    To hear such flattery now, and in my presence\n    They are too thin and bare to hide offences.\n    To me you cannot reach you play the spaniel,\n    And think with wagging of your tongue to win me;\n    But whatsoe'er thou tak'st me for, I'm sure\n    Thou hast a cruel nature and a bloody.\n    [To CRANMER]  Good man, sit down. Now let me see the proudest\n    He that dares most but wag his finger at thee.\n    By all that's holy, he had better starve\n    Than but once think this place becomes thee not.\n  SURREY. May it please your Grace-\n  KING. No, sir, it does not please me.\n    I had thought I had had men of some understanding\n    And wisdom of my Council; but I find none.\n    Was it discretion, lords, to let this man,\n    This good man-few of you deserve that title-\n    This honest man, wait like a lousy footboy\n    At chamber door? and one as great as you are?\n    Why, what a shame was this! Did my commission\n    Bid ye so far forget yourselves? I gave ye\n    Power as he was a councillor to try him,\n    Not as a groom. There's some of ye, I see,\n    More out of malice than integrity,\n    Would try him to the utmost, had ye mean;\n    Which ye shall never have while I live.\n  CHANCELLOR. Thus far,\n    My most dread sovereign, may it like your Grace\n    To let my tongue excuse all. What was purpos'd\n    concerning his imprisonment was rather-\n    If there be faith in men-meant for his trial\n    And fair purgation to the world, than malice,\n    I'm sure, in me.\n  KING. Well, well, my lords, respect him;\n    Take him, and use him well, he's worthy of it.\n    I will say thus much for him: if a prince\n    May be beholding to a subject,\n    Am for his love and service so to him.\n    Make me no more ado, but all embrace him;\n    Be friends, for shame, my lords! My Lord of Canterbury,\n    I have a suit which you must not deny me:\n    That is, a fair young maid that yet wants baptism;\n    You must be godfather, and answer for her.\n  CRANMER. The greatest monarch now alive may glory\n    In such an honour; how may I deserve it,\n    That am a poor and humble subject to you?\n  KING. Come, come, my lord, you'd spare your spoons. You\n      shall have\n    Two noble partners with you: the old Duchess of Norfolk\n    And Lady Marquis Dorset. Will these please you?\n    Once more, my Lord of Winchester, I charge you,\n    Embrace and love this man.\n  GARDINER. With a true heart\n    And brother-love I do it.\n  CRANMER. And let heaven\n    Witness how dear I hold this confirmation.\n  KING. Good man, those joyful tears show thy true heart.\n    The common voice, I see, is verified\n    Of thee, which says thus: 'Do my Lord of Canterbury\n    A shrewd turn and he's your friend for ever.'\n    Come, lords, we trifle time away; I long\n    To have this young one made a Christian.\n    As I have made ye one, lords, one remain;\n    So I grow stronger, you more honour gain.                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 4.\n\nThe palace yard\n\nNoise and tumult within. Enter PORTER and his MAN\n\n  PORTER. You'll leave your noise anon, ye rascals. Do you\n    take the court for Paris garden? Ye rude slaves, leave your\n    gaping.\n    [Within: Good master porter, I belong to th' larder.]\n  PORTER. Belong to th' gallows, and be hang'd, ye rogue! Is\n    this a place to roar in? Fetch me a dozen crab-tree staves,\n    and strong ones; these are but switches to 'em. I'll scratch\n    your heads. You must be seeing christenings? Do you look\n    for ale and cakes here, you rude rascals?\n  MAN. Pray, sir, be patient; 'tis as much impossible,\n    Unless we sweep 'em from the door with cannons,\n    To scatter 'em as 'tis to make 'em sleep\n    On May-day morning; which will never be.\n    We may as well push against Paul's as stir 'em.\n  PORTER. How got they in, and be hang'd?\n  MAN. Alas, I know not: how gets the tide in?\n    As much as one sound cudgel of four foot-\n    You see the poor remainder-could distribute,\n    I made no spare, sir.\n  PORTER. You did nothing, sir.\n  MAN. I am not Samson, nor Sir Guy, nor Colbrand,\n    To mow 'em down before me; but if I spar'd any\n    That had a head to hit, either young or old,\n    He or she, cuckold or cuckold-maker,\n    Let me ne'er hope to see a chine again;\n    And that I would not for a cow, God save her!\n    [ Within: Do you hear, master porter?]\n  PORTER. I shall be with you presently, good master puppy.\n    Keep the door close, sirrah.\n  MAN. What would you have me do?\n  PORTER. What should you do, but knock 'em down by th'\n    dozens? Is this Moorfields to muster in? Or have we some\n    strange Indian with the great tool come to court, the\n    women so besiege us? Bless me, what a fry of fornication\n    is at door! On my Christian conscience, this one christening\n    will beget a thousand: here will be father, godfather,\n    and all together.\n  MAN. The spoons will be the bigger, sir. There is a fellow\n    somewhat near the door, he should be a brazier by his\n    face, for, o' my conscience, twenty of the dog-days now\n    reign in's nose; all that stand about him are under the line,\n    they need no other penance. That fire-drake did I hit three\n    times on the head, and three times was his nose discharged\n    against me; he stands there like a mortar-piece, to blow us.\n    There was a haberdasher's wife of small wit near him, that\n    rail'd upon me till her pink'd porringer fell off her head,\n    for kindling such a combustion in the state. I miss'd the\n    meteor once, and hit that woman, who cried out 'Clubs!'\n    when I might see from far some forty truncheoners draw\n    to her succour, which were the hope o' th' Strand, where\n    she was quartered. They fell on; I made good my place.\n    At length they came to th' broomstaff to me; I defied 'em\n    still; when suddenly a file of boys behind 'em, loose shot,\n    deliver'd such a show'r of pebbles that I was fain to draw\n    mine honour in and let 'em win the work: the devil was\n    amongst 'em, I think surely.\n  PORTER. These are the youths that thunder at a playhouse\n    and fight for bitten apples; that no audience but the tribulation\n    of Tower-hill or the limbs of Limehouse, their dear\n    brothers, are able to endure. I have some of 'em in Limbo\n    Patrum, and there they are like to dance these three days;\n    besides the running banquet of two beadles that is to come.\n\n          Enter the LORD CHAMBERLAIN\n\n  CHAMBERLAIN. Mercy o' me, what a multitude are here!\n    They grow still too; from all parts they are coming,\n    As if we kept a fair here! Where are these porters,\n    These lazy knaves? Y'have made a fine hand, fellows.\n    There's a trim rabble let in: are all these\n    Your faithful friends o' th' suburbs? We shall have\n    Great store of room, no doubt, left for the ladies,\n    When they pass back from the christening.\n  PORTER. An't please your honour,\n    We are but men; and what so many may do,\n    Not being torn a pieces, we have done.\n    An army cannot rule 'em.\n  CHAMBERLAIN. As I live,\n    If the King blame me for't, I'll lay ye an\n    By th' heels, and suddenly; and on your heads\n    Clap round fines for neglect. Y'are lazy knaves;\n    And here ye lie baiting of bombards, when\n    Ye should do service. Hark! the trumpets sound;\n    Th' are come already from the christening.\n    Go break among the press and find a way out\n    To let the troops pass fairly, or I'll find\n    A Marshalsea shall hold ye play these two months.\n  PORTER. Make way there for the Princess.\n  MAN. You great fellow,\n    Stand close up, or I'll make your head ache.\n  PORTER. You i' th' camlet, get up o' th' rail;\n    I'll peck you o'er the pales else.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 5.\n\nThe palace\n\nEnter TRUMPETS, sounding; then two ALDERMEN, LORD MAYOR, GARTER, CRANMER,\nDUKE OF NORFOLK, with his marshal's staff, DUKE OF SUFFOLK,\ntwo Noblemen bearing great standing-bowls for the christening gifts;\nthen four Noblemen bearing a canopy, under which the DUCHESS OF NORFOLK,\ngodmother, bearing the CHILD richly habited in a mantle, etc.,\ntrain borne by a LADY; then follows the MARCHIONESS DORSET,\nthe other godmother, and LADIES. The troop pass once about the stage,\nand GARTER speaks\n\n  GARTER. Heaven, from thy endless goodness, send prosperous\n    life, long and ever-happy, to the high and mighty\n    Princess of England, Elizabeth!\n\n           Flourish. Enter KING and guard\n\n  CRANMER.  [Kneeling]  And to your royal Grace and the\n      good Queen!\n    My noble partners and myself thus pray:\n    All comfort, joy, in this most gracious lady,\n    Heaven ever laid up to make parents happy,\n    May hourly fall upon ye!\n  KING. Thank you, good Lord Archbishop.\n    What is her name?\n  CRANMER. Elizabeth.\n  KING. Stand up, lord.                   [The KING kisses the child]\n    With this kiss take my blessing: God protect thee!\n    Into whose hand I give thy life.\n  CRANMER. Amen.\n  KING. My noble gossips, y'have been too prodigal;\n    I thank ye heartily. So shall this lady,\n    When she has so much English.\n  CRANMER. Let me speak, sir,\n    For heaven now bids me; and the words I utter\n    Let none think flattery, for they'll find 'em truth.\n    This royal infant-heaven still move about her!-\n    Though in her cradle, yet now promises\n    Upon this land a thousand blessings,\n    Which time shall bring to ripeness. She shall be-\n    But few now living can behold that goodness-\n    A pattern to all princes living with her,\n    And all that shall succeed. Saba was never\n    More covetous of wisdom and fair virtue\n    Than this pure soul shall be. All princely graces\n    That mould up such a mighty piece as this is,\n    With all the virtues that attend the good,\n    Shall still be doubled on her. Truth shall nurse her,\n    Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her;\n    She shall be lov'd and fear'd. Her own shall bless her:\n    Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn,\n    And hang their heads with sorrow. Good grows with her;\n    In her days every man shall eat in safety\n    Under his own vine what he plants, and sing\n    The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours.\n    God shall be truly known; and those about her\n    From her shall read the perfect ways of honour,\n    And by those claim their greatness, not by blood.\n    Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when\n    The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix\n    Her ashes new create another heir\n    As great in admiration as herself,\n    So shall she leave her blessedness to one-\n    When heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness-\n    Who from the sacred ashes of her honour\n    Shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was,\n    And so stand fix'd. Peace, plenty, love, truth, terror,\n    That were the servants to this chosen infant,\n    Shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him;\n    Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine,\n    His honour and the greatness of his name\n    Shall be, and make new nations; he shall flourish,\n    And like a mountain cedar reach his branches\n    To all the plains about him; our children's children\n    Shall see this and bless heaven.\n  KING. Thou speakest wonders.\n  CRANMER. She shall be, to the happiness of England,\n    An aged princess; many days shall see her,\n    And yet no day without a deed to crown it.\n    Would I had known no more! But she must die-\n    She must, the saints must have her-yet a virgin;\n    A most unspotted lily shall she pass\n    To th' ground, and all the world shall mourn her.\n  KING. O Lord Archbishop,\n    Thou hast made me now a man; never before\n    This happy child did I get anything.\n    This oracle of comfort has so pleas'd me\n    That when I am in heaven I shall desire\n    To see what this child does, and praise my Maker.\n    I thank ye all. To you, my good Lord Mayor,\n    And you, good brethren, I am much beholding;\n    I have receiv'd much honour by your presence,\n    And ye shall find me thankful. Lead the way, lords;\n    Ye must all see the Queen, and she must thank ye,\n    She will be sick else. This day, no man think\n    Has business at his house; for all shall stay.\n    This little one shall make it holiday.                     Exeunt\n\nKING_HENRY_VIII|EPILOGUE\n              THE EPILOGUE.\n\n    'Tis ten to one this play can never please\n    All that are here. Some come to take their ease\n    And sleep an act or two; but those, we fear,\n    W'have frighted with our trumpets; so, 'tis clear,\n    They'll say 'tis nought; others to hear the city\n    Abus'd extremely, and to cry 'That's witty!'\n    Which we have not done neither; that, I fear,\n    All the expected good w'are like to hear\n    For this play at this time is only in\n    The merciful construction of good women;\n    For such a one we show'd 'em. If they smile\n    And say 'twill do, I know within a while\n    All the best men are ours; for 'tis ill hap\n    If they hold when their ladies bid 'em clap.\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1597\n\nKING JOHN\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n    KING JOHN\n    PRINCE HENRY, his son\n    ARTHUR, DUKE OF BRITAINE, son of Geffrey, late Duke of\n      Britaine, the elder brother of King John\n    EARL OF PEMBROKE\n    EARL OF ESSEX\n    EARL OF SALISBURY\n    LORD BIGOT\n    HUBERT DE BURGH\n    ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, son to Sir Robert Faulconbridge\n    PHILIP THE BASTARD, his half-brother\n    JAMES GURNEY, servant to Lady Faulconbridge\n    PETER OF POMFRET, a prophet\n\n    KING PHILIP OF FRANCE\n    LEWIS, the Dauphin\n    LYMOGES, Duke of Austria\n    CARDINAL PANDULPH, the Pope's legate\n    MELUN, a French lord\n    CHATILLON, ambassador from France to King John\n\n    QUEEN ELINOR, widow of King Henry II and mother to\n      King John\n    CONSTANCE, Mother to Arthur\n    BLANCH OF SPAIN, daughter to the King of Castile\n      and niece to King John\n    LADY FAULCONBRIDGE, widow of Sir Robert Faulconbridge\n\n    Lords, Citizens of Angiers, Sheriff, Heralds, Officers,\n      Soldiers, Executioners, Messengers, Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland and France\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1\n\nKING JOHN's palace\n\nEnter KING JOHN, QUEEN ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and others,\nwith CHATILLON\n\n  KING JOHN. Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?\n  CHATILLON. Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France\n    In my behaviour to the majesty,\n    The borrowed majesty, of England here.\n  ELINOR. A strange beginning- 'borrowed majesty'!\n  KING JOHN. Silence, good mother; hear the embassy.\n  CHATILLON. Philip of France, in right and true behalf\n    Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son,\n    Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim\n    To this fair island and the territories,\n    To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,\n    Desiring thee to lay aside the sword\n    Which sways usurpingly these several titles,\n    And put the same into young Arthur's hand,\n    Thy nephew and right royal sovereign.\n  KING JOHN. What follows if we disallow of this?\n  CHATILLON. The proud control of fierce and bloody war,\n    To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.\n  KING JOHN. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood,\n    Controlment for controlment- so answer France.\n  CHATILLON. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth-\n    The farthest limit of my embassy.\n  KING JOHN. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace;\n    Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;\n    For ere thou canst report I will be there,\n    The thunder of my cannon shall be heard.\n    So hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath\n    And sullen presage of your own decay.\n    An honourable conduct let him have-\n    Pembroke, look to 't. Farewell, Chatillon.\n                                        Exeunt CHATILLON and PEMBROKE\n  ELINOR. What now, my son! Have I not ever said\n    How that ambitious Constance would not cease\n    Till she had kindled France and all the world\n    Upon the right and party of her son?\n    This might have been prevented and made whole\n    With very easy arguments of love,\n    Which now the manage of two kingdoms must\n    With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.\n  KING JOHN. Our strong possession and our right for us!\n  ELINOR. Your strong possession much more than your right,\n    Or else it must go wrong with you and me;\n    So much my conscience whispers in your ear,\n    Which none but heaven and you and I shall hear.\n\n                  Enter a SHERIFF\n\n  ESSEX. My liege, here is the strangest controversy\n    Come from the country to be judg'd by you\n    That e'er I heard. Shall I produce the men?\n  KING JOHN. Let them approach.                          Exit SHERIFF\n    Our abbeys and our priories shall pay\n    This expedition's charge.\n\n     Enter ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE and PHILIP, his bastard\n                     brother\n\n    What men are you?\n  BASTARD. Your faithful subject I, a gentleman\n    Born in Northamptonshire, and eldest son,\n    As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge-\n    A soldier by the honour-giving hand\n    Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field.\n  KING JOHN. What art thou?\n  ROBERT. The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge.\n  KING JOHN. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?\n    You came not of one mother then, it seems.\n  BASTARD. Most certain of one mother, mighty king-\n    That is well known- and, as I think, one father;\n    But for the certain knowledge of that truth\n    I put you o'er to heaven and to my mother.\n    Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.\n  ELINOR. Out on thee, rude man! Thou dost shame thy mother,\n    And wound her honour with this diffidence.\n  BASTARD. I, madam? No, I have no reason for it-\n    That is my brother's plea, and none of mine;\n    The which if he can prove, 'a pops me out\n    At least from fair five hundred pound a year.\n    Heaven guard my mother's honour and my land!\n  KING JOHN. A good blunt fellow. Why, being younger born,\n    Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?\n  BASTARD. I know not why, except to get the land.\n    But once he slander'd me with bastardy;\n    But whe'er I be as true begot or no,\n    That still I lay upon my mother's head;\n    But that I am as well begot, my liege-\n    Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!-\n    Compare our faces and be judge yourself.\n    If old Sir Robert did beget us both\n    And were our father, and this son like him-\n    O old Sir Robert, father, on my knee\n    I give heaven thanks I was not like to thee!\n  KING JOHN. Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here!\n  ELINOR. He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face;\n    The accent of his tongue affecteth him.\n    Do you not read some tokens of my son\n    In the large composition of this man?\n  KING JOHN. Mine eye hath well examined his parts\n    And finds them perfect Richard. Sirrah, speak,\n    What doth move you to claim your brother's land?\n  BASTARD. Because he hath a half-face, like my father.\n    With half that face would he have all my land:\n    A half-fac'd groat five hundred pound a year!\n  ROBERT. My gracious liege, when that my father liv'd,\n    Your brother did employ my father much-\n  BASTARD. Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land:\n    Your tale must be how he employ'd my mother.\n  ROBERT. And once dispatch'd him in an embassy\n    To Germany, there with the Emperor\n    To treat of high affairs touching that time.\n    Th' advantage of his absence took the King,\n    And in the meantime sojourn'd at my father's;\n    Where how he did prevail I shame to speak-\n    But truth is truth: large lengths of seas and shores\n    Between my father and my mother lay,\n    As I have heard my father speak himself,\n    When this same lusty gentleman was got.\n    Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd\n    His lands to me, and took it on his death\n    That this my mother's son was none of his;\n    And if he were, he came into the world\n    Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.\n    Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,\n    My father's land, as was my father's will.\n  KING JOHN. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate:\n    Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him,\n    And if she did play false, the fault was hers;\n    Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands\n    That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother,\n    Who, as you say, took pains to get this son,\n    Had of your father claim'd this son for his?\n    In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept\n    This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world;\n    In sooth, he might; then, if he were my brother's,\n    My brother might not claim him; nor your father,\n    Being none of his, refuse him. This concludes:\n    My mother's son did get your father's heir;\n    Your father's heir must have your father's land.\n  ROBERT. Shall then my father's will be of no force\n    To dispossess that child which is not his?\n  BASTARD. Of no more force to dispossess me, sir,\n    Than was his will to get me, as I think.\n  ELINOR. Whether hadst thou rather be a Faulconbridge,\n    And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land,\n    Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-lion,\n    Lord of thy presence and no land beside?\n  BASTARD. Madam, an if my brother had my shape\n    And I had his, Sir Robert's his, like him;\n    And if my legs were two such riding-rods,\n    My arms such eel-skins stuff'd, my face so thin\n    That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose\n    Lest men should say 'Look where three-farthings goes!'\n    And, to his shape, were heir to all this land-\n    Would I might never stir from off this place,\n    I would give it every foot to have this face!\n    I would not be Sir Nob in any case.\n  ELINOR. I like thee well. Wilt thou forsake thy fortune,\n    Bequeath thy land to him and follow me?\n    I am a soldier and now bound to France.\n  BASTARD. Brother, take you my land, I'll take my chance.\n    Your face hath got five hundred pound a year,\n    Yet sell your face for fivepence and 'tis dear.\n    Madam, I'll follow you unto the death.\n  ELINOR. Nay, I would have you go before me thither.\n  BASTARD. Our country manners give our betters way.\n  KING JOHN. What is thy name?\n  BASTARD. Philip, my liege, so is my name begun:\n    Philip, good old Sir Robert's wife's eldest son.\n  KING JOHN. From henceforth bear his name whose form thou bearest:\n    Kneel thou down Philip, but rise more great-\n    Arise Sir Richard and Plantagenet.\n  BASTARD. Brother by th' mother's side, give me your hand;\n    My father gave me honour, yours gave land.\n    Now blessed be the hour, by night or day,\n    When I was got, Sir Robert was away!\n  ELINOR. The very spirit of Plantagenet!\n    I am thy grandam, Richard: call me so.\n  BASTARD. Madam, by chance, but not by truth; what though?\n    Something about, a little from the right,\n    In at the window, or else o'er the hatch;\n    Who dares not stir by day must walk by night;\n    And have is have, however men do catch.\n    Near or far off, well won is still well shot;\n    And I am I, howe'er I was begot.\n  KING JOHN. Go, Faulconbridge; now hast thou thy desire:\n    A landless knight makes thee a landed squire.\n    Come, madam, and come, Richard, we must speed\n    For France, for France, for it is more than need.\n  BASTARD. Brother, adieu. Good fortune come to thee!\n    For thou wast got i' th' way of honesty.\n                                           Exeunt all but the BASTARD\n    A foot of honour better than I was;\n    But many a many foot of land the worse.\n    Well, now can I make any Joan a lady.\n    'Good den, Sir Richard!'-'God-a-mercy, fellow!'\n    And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter;\n    For new-made honour doth forget men's names:\n    'Tis too respective and too sociable\n    For your conversion. Now your traveller,\n    He and his toothpick at my worship's mess-\n    And when my knightly stomach is suffic'd,\n    Why then I suck my teeth and catechize\n    My picked man of countries: 'My dear sir,'\n    Thus leaning on mine elbow I begin\n    'I shall beseech you'-That is question now;\n    And then comes answer like an Absey book:\n    'O sir,' says answer 'at your best command,\n    At your employment, at your service, sir!'\n    'No, sir,' says question 'I, sweet sir, at yours.'\n    And so, ere answer knows what question would,\n    Saving in dialogue of compliment,\n    And talking of the Alps and Apennines,\n    The Pyrenean and the river Po-\n    It draws toward supper in conclusion so.\n    But this is worshipful society,\n    And fits the mounting spirit like myself;\n    For he is but a bastard to the time\n    That doth not smack of observation-\n    And so am I, whether I smack or no;\n    And not alone in habit and device,\n    Exterior form, outward accoutrement,\n    But from the inward motion to deliver\n    Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth;\n    Which, though I will not practise to deceive,\n    Yet, to avoid deceit, I mean to learn;\n    For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.\n    But who comes in such haste in riding-robes?\n    What woman-post is this? Hath she no husband\n    That will take pains to blow a horn before her?\n\n      Enter LADY FAULCONBRIDGE, and JAMES GURNEY\n\n    O me, 'tis my mother! How now, good lady!\n    What brings you here to court so hastily?\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Where is that slave, thy brother?\n      Where is he\n    That holds in chase mine honour up and down?\n  BASTARD. My brother Robert, old Sir Robert's son?\n    Colbrand the giant, that same mighty man?\n    Is it Sir Robert's son that you seek so?\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Sir Robert's son! Ay, thou unreverend boy,\n    Sir Robert's son! Why scorn'st thou at Sir Robert?\n    He is Sir Robert's son, and so art thou.\n  BASTARD. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave awhile?\n  GURNEY. Good leave, good Philip.\n  BASTARD. Philip-Sparrow! James,\n    There's toys abroad-anon I'll tell thee more.\n                                                          Exit GURNEY\n    Madam, I was not old Sir Robert's son;\n    Sir Robert might have eat his part in me\n    Upon Good Friday, and ne'er broke his fast.\n    Sir Robert could do: well-marry, to confess-\n    Could he get me? Sir Robert could not do it:\n    We know his handiwork. Therefore, good mother,\n    To whom am I beholding for these limbs?\n    Sir Robert never holp to make this leg.\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Hast thou conspired with thy brother too,\n    That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honour?\n    What means this scorn, thou most untoward knave?\n  BASTARD. Knight, knight, good mother, Basilisco-like.\n    What! I am dubb'd; I have it on my shoulder.\n    But, mother, I am not Sir Robert's son:\n    I have disclaim'd Sir Robert and my land;\n    Legitimation, name, and all is gone.\n    Then, good my mother, let me know my father-\n    Some proper man, I hope. Who was it, mother?\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Hast thou denied thyself a Faulconbridge?\n  BASTARD. As faithfully as I deny the devil.\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. King Richard Coeur-de-lion was thy father.\n    By long and vehement suit I was seduc'd\n    To make room for him in my husband's bed.\n    Heaven lay not my transgression to my charge!\n    Thou art the issue of my dear offence,\n    Which was so strongly urg'd past my defence.\n  BASTARD. Now, by this light, were I to get again,\n    Madam, I would not wish a better father.\n    Some sins do bear their privilege on earth,\n    And so doth yours: your fault was not your folly;\n    Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose,\n    Subjected tribute to commanding love,\n    Against whose fury and unmatched force\n    The aweless lion could not wage the fight\n    Nor keep his princely heart from Richard's hand.\n    He that perforce robs lions of their hearts\n    May easily win a woman's. Ay, my mother,\n    With all my heart I thank thee for my father!\n    Who lives and dares but say thou didst not well\n    When I was got, I'll send his soul to hell.\n    Come, lady, I will show thee to my kin;\n    And they shall say when Richard me begot,\n    If thou hadst said him nay, it had been sin.\n    Who says it was, he lies; I say 'twas not.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1\n\nFrance. Before Angiers\n\nEnter, on one side, AUSTRIA and forces; on the other, KING PHILIP OF FRANCE,\nLEWIS the Dauphin, CONSTANCE, ARTHUR, and forces\n\n  KING PHILIP. Before Angiers well met, brave Austria.\n    Arthur, that great forerunner of thy blood,\n    Richard, that robb'd the lion of his heart\n    And fought the holy wars in Palestine,\n    By this brave duke came early to his grave;\n    And for amends to his posterity,\n    At our importance hither is he come\n    To spread his colours, boy, in thy behalf;\n    And to rebuke the usurpation\n    Of thy unnatural uncle, English John.\n    Embrace him, love him, give him welcome hither.\n  ARTHUR. God shall forgive you Coeur-de-lion's death\n    The rather that you give his offspring life,\n    Shadowing their right under your wings of war.\n    I give you welcome with a powerless hand,\n    But with a heart full of unstained love;\n    Welcome before the gates of Angiers, Duke.\n  KING PHILIP. A noble boy! Who would not do thee right?\n  AUSTRIA. Upon thy cheek lay I this zealous kiss\n    As seal to this indenture of my love:\n    That to my home I will no more return\n    Till Angiers and the right thou hast in France,\n    Together with that pale, that white-fac'd shore,\n    Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides\n    And coops from other lands her islanders-\n    Even till that England, hedg'd in with the main,\n    That water-walled bulwark, still secure\n    And confident from foreign purposes-\n    Even till that utmost corner of the west\n    Salute thee for her king. Till then, fair boy,\n    Will I not think of home, but follow arms.\n  CONSTANCE. O, take his mother's thanks, a widow's thanks,\n    Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength\n    To make a more requital to your love!\n  AUSTRIA. The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords\n    In such a just and charitable war.\n  KING PHILIP. Well then, to work! Our cannon shall be bent\n    Against the brows of this resisting town;\n    Call for our chiefest men of discipline,\n    To cull the plots of best advantages.\n    We'll lay before this town our royal bones,\n    Wade to the market-place in Frenchmen's blood,\n    But we will make it subject to this boy.\n  CONSTANCE. Stay for an answer to your embassy,\n    Lest unadvis'd you stain your swords with blood;\n    My Lord Chatillon may from England bring\n    That right in peace which here we urge in war,\n    And then we shall repent each drop of blood\n    That hot rash haste so indirectly shed.\n\n                  Enter CHATILLON\n\n  KING PHILIP. A wonder, lady! Lo, upon thy wish,\n    Our messenger Chatillon is arriv'd.\n    What England says, say briefly, gentle lord;\n    We coldly pause for thee. Chatillon, speak.\n  CHATILLON. Then turn your forces from this paltry siege\n    And stir them up against a mightier task.\n    England, impatient of your just demands,\n    Hath put himself in arms. The adverse winds,\n    Whose leisure I have stay'd, have given him time\n    To land his legions all as soon as I;\n    His marches are expedient to this town,\n    His forces strong, his soldiers confident.\n    With him along is come the mother-queen,\n    An Ate, stirring him to blood and strife;\n    With her the Lady Blanch of Spain;\n    With them a bastard of the king's deceas'd;\n    And all th' unsettled humours of the land-\n    Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries,\n    With ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens-\n    Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,\n    Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,\n    To make a hazard of new fortunes here.\n    In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits\n    Than now the English bottoms have waft o'er\n    Did never float upon the swelling tide\n    To do offence and scathe in Christendom.             [Drum beats]\n    The interruption of their churlish drums\n    Cuts off more circumstance: they are at hand;\n    To parley or to fight, therefore prepare.\n  KING PHILIP. How much unlook'd for is this expedition!\n  AUSTRIA. By how much unexpected, by so much\n    We must awake endeavour for defence,\n    For courage mounteth with occasion.\n    Let them be welcome then; we are prepar'd.\n\n       Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, BLANCH, the BASTARD,\n                 PEMBROKE, and others\n\n  KING JOHN. Peace be to France, if France in peace permit\n    Our just and lineal entrance to our own!\n    If not, bleed France, and peace ascend to heaven,\n    Whiles we, God's wrathful agent, do correct\n    Their proud contempt that beats His peace to heaven!\n  KING PHILIP. Peace be to England, if that war return\n    From France to England, there to live in peace!\n    England we love, and for that England's sake\n    With burden of our armour here we sweat.\n    This toil of ours should be a work of thine;\n    But thou from loving England art so far\n    That thou hast under-wrought his lawful king,\n    Cut off the sequence of posterity,\n    Outfaced infant state, and done a rape\n    Upon the maiden virtue of the crown.\n    Look here upon thy brother Geffrey's face:\n    These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his;\n    This little abstract doth contain that large\n    Which died in Geffrey, and the hand of time\n    Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume.\n    That Geffrey was thy elder brother born,\n    And this his son; England was Geffrey's right,\n    And this is Geffrey's. In the name of God,\n    How comes it then that thou art call'd a king,\n    When living blood doth in these temples beat\n    Which owe the crown that thou o'er-masterest?\n  KING JOHN. From whom hast thou this great commission, France,\n    To draw my answer from thy articles?\n  KING PHILIP. From that supernal judge that stirs good thoughts\n    In any breast of strong authority\n    To look into the blots and stains of right.\n    That judge hath made me guardian to this boy,\n    Under whose warrant I impeach thy wrong,\n    And by whose help I mean to chastise it.\n  KING JOHN. Alack, thou dost usurp authority.\n  KING PHILIP. Excuse it is to beat usurping down.\n  ELINOR. Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?\n  CONSTANCE. Let me make answer: thy usurping son.\n  ELINOR. Out, insolent! Thy bastard shall be king,\n    That thou mayst be a queen and check the world!\n  CONSTANCE. My bed was ever to thy son as true\n    As thine was to thy husband; and this boy\n    Liker in feature to his father Geffrey\n    Than thou and John in manners-being as Eke\n    As rain to water, or devil to his dam.\n    My boy a bastard! By my soul, I think\n    His father never was so true begot;\n    It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother.\n  ELINOR. There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father.\n  CONSTANCE. There's a good grandam, boy, that would blot thee.\n  AUSTRIA. Peace!\n  BASTARD. Hear the crier.\n  AUSTRIA. What the devil art thou?\n  BASTARD. One that will play the devil, sir, with you,\n    An 'a may catch your hide and you alone.\n    You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,\n    Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard;\n    I'll smoke your skin-coat an I catch you right;\n    Sirrah, look to 't; i' faith I will, i' faith.\n  BLANCH. O, well did he become that lion's robe\n    That did disrobe the lion of that robe!\n  BASTARD. It lies as sightly on the back of him\n    As great Alcides' shows upon an ass;\n    But, ass, I'll take that burden from your back,\n    Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack.\n  AUSTRIA. What cracker is this same that deafs our ears\n    With this abundance of superfluous breath?\n    King Philip, determine what we shall do straight.\n  KING PHILIP. Women and fools, break off your conference.\n    King John, this is the very sum of all:\n    England and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,\n    In right of Arthur, do I claim of thee;\n    Wilt thou resign them and lay down thy arms?\n  KING JOHN. My life as soon. I do defy thee, France.\n    Arthur of Britaine, yield thee to my hand,\n    And out of my dear love I'll give thee more\n    Than e'er the coward hand of France can win.\n    Submit thee, boy.\n  ELINOR. Come to thy grandam, child.\n  CONSTANCE. Do, child, go to it grandam, child;\n    Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will\n    Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig.\n    There's a good grandam!\n  ARTHUR. Good my mother, peace!\n    I would that I were low laid in my grave:\n    I am not worth this coil that's made for me.\n  ELINOR. His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.\n  CONSTANCE. Now shame upon you, whe'er she does or no!\n    His grandam's wrongs, and not his mother's shames,\n    Draws those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes,\n    Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee;\n    Ay, with these crystal beads heaven shall be brib'd\n    To do him justice and revenge on you.\n  ELINOR. Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth!\n  CONSTANCE. Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth,\n    Call not me slanderer! Thou and thine usurp\n    The dominations, royalties, and rights,\n    Of this oppressed boy; this is thy eldest son's son,\n    Infortunate in nothing but in thee.\n    Thy sins are visited in this poor child;\n    The canon of the law is laid on him,\n    Being but the second generation\n    Removed from thy sin-conceiving womb.\n  KING JOHN. Bedlam, have done.\n  CONSTANCE. I have but this to say-\n    That he is not only plagued for her sin,\n    But God hath made her sin and her the plague\n    On this removed issue, plagued for her\n    And with her plague; her sin his injury,\n    Her injury the beadle to her sin;\n    All punish'd in the person of this child,\n    And all for her-a plague upon her!\n  ELINOR. Thou unadvised scold, I can produce\n    A will that bars the title of thy son.\n  CONSTANCE. Ay, who doubts that? A will, a wicked will;\n    A woman's will; a cank'red grandam's will!\n  KING PHILIP. Peace, lady! pause, or be more temperate.\n    It ill beseems this presence to cry aim\n    To these ill-tuned repetitions.\n    Some trumpet summon hither to the walls\n    These men of Angiers; let us hear them speak\n    Whose title they admit, Arthur's or John's.\n\n      Trumpet sounds. Enter citizens upon the walls\n\n  CITIZEN. Who is it that hath warn'd us to the walls?\n  KING PHILIP. 'Tis France, for England.\n  KING JOHN. England for itself.\n    You men of Angiers, and my loving subjects-\n  KING PHILIP. You loving men of Angiers, Arthur's subjects,\n    Our trumpet call'd you to this gentle parle-\n  KING JOHN. For our advantage; therefore hear us first.\n    These flags of France, that are advanced here\n    Before the eye and prospect of your town,\n    Have hither march'd to your endamagement;\n    The cannons have their bowels full of wrath,\n    And ready mounted are they to spit forth\n    Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls;\n    All preparation for a bloody siege\n    And merciless proceeding by these French\n    Confront your city's eyes, your winking gates;\n    And but for our approach those sleeping stones\n    That as a waist doth girdle you about\n    By the compulsion of their ordinance\n    By this time from their fixed beds of lime\n    Had been dishabited, and wide havoc made\n    For bloody power to rush upon your peace.\n    But on the sight of us your lawful king,\n    Who painfully with much expedient march\n    Have brought a countercheck before your gates,\n    To save unscratch'd your city's threat'ned cheeks-\n    Behold, the French amaz'd vouchsafe a parle;\n    And now, instead of bullets wrapp'd in fire,\n    To make a shaking fever in your walls,\n    They shoot but calm words folded up in smoke,\n    To make a faithless error in your cars;\n    Which trust accordingly, kind citizens,\n    And let us in-your King, whose labour'd spirits,\n    Forwearied in this action of swift speed,\n    Craves harbourage within your city walls.\n  KING PHILIP. When I have said, make answer to us both.\n    Lo, in this right hand, whose protection\n    Is most divinely vow'd upon the right\n    Of him it holds, stands young Plantagenet,\n    Son to the elder brother of this man,\n    And king o'er him and all that he enjoys;\n    For this down-trodden equity we tread\n    In warlike march these greens before your town,\n    Being no further enemy to you\n    Than the constraint of hospitable zeal\n    In the relief of this oppressed child\n    Religiously provokes. Be pleased then\n    To pay that duty which you truly owe\n    To him that owes it, namely, this young prince;\n    And then our arms, like to a muzzled bear,\n    Save in aspect, hath all offence seal'd up;\n    Our cannons' malice vainly shall be spent\n    Against th' invulnerable clouds of heaven;\n    And with a blessed and unvex'd retire,\n    With unhack'd swords and helmets all unbruis'd,\n    We will bear home that lusty blood again\n    Which here we came to spout against your town,\n    And leave your children, wives, and you, in peace.\n    But if you fondly pass our proffer'd offer,\n    'Tis not the roundure of your old-fac'd walls\n    Can hide you from our messengers of war,\n    Though all these English and their discipline\n    Were harbour'd in their rude circumference.\n    Then tell us, shall your city call us lord\n    In that behalf which we have challeng'd it;\n    Or shall we give the signal to our rage,\n    And stalk in blood to our possession?\n  CITIZEN. In brief: we are the King of England's subjects;\n    For him, and in his right, we hold this town.\n  KING JOHN. Acknowledge then the King, and let me in.\n  CITIZEN. That can we not; but he that proves the King,\n    To him will we prove loyal. Till that time\n    Have we ramm'd up our gates against the world.\n  KING JOHN. Doth not the crown of England prove the King?\n    And if not that, I bring you witnesses:\n    Twice fifteen thousand hearts of England's breed-\n  BASTARD. Bastards and else.\n  KING JOHN. To verify our title with their lives.\n  KING PHILIP. As many and as well-born bloods as those-\n  BASTARD. Some bastards too.\n  KING PHILIP. Stand in his face to contradict his claim.\n  CITIZEN. Till you compound whose right is worthiest,\n    We for the worthiest hold the right from both.\n  KING JOHN. Then God forgive the sin of all those souls\n    That to their everlasting residence,\n    Before the dew of evening fall shall fleet\n    In dreadful trial of our kingdom's king!\n  KING PHILIP. Amen, Amen! Mount, chevaliers; to arms!\n  BASTARD. Saint George, that swing'd the dragon, and e'er since\n    Sits on's horse back at mine hostess' door,\n    Teach us some fence!  [To AUSTRIA]  Sirrah, were I at home,\n    At your den, sirrah, with your lioness,\n    I would set an ox-head to your lion's hide,\n    And make a monster of you.\n  AUSTRIA. Peace! no more.\n  BASTARD. O, tremble, for you hear the lion roar!\n  KING JOHN. Up higher to the plain, where we'll set forth\n    In best appointment all our regiments.\n  BASTARD. Speed then to take advantage of the field.\n  KING PHILIP. It shall be so; and at the other hill\n    Command the rest to stand. God and our right!              Exeunt\n\n    Here, after excursions, enter the HERALD OF FRANCE,\n              with trumpets, to the gates\n\n  FRENCH HERALD. You men of Angiers, open wide your gates\n    And let young Arthur, Duke of Britaine, in,\n    Who by the hand of France this day hath made\n    Much work for tears in many an English mother,\n    Whose sons lie scattered on the bleeding ground;\n    Many a widow's husband grovelling lies,\n    Coldly embracing the discoloured earth;\n    And victory with little loss doth play\n    Upon the dancing banners of the French,\n    Who are at hand, triumphantly displayed,\n    To enter conquerors, and to proclaim\n    Arthur of Britaine England's King and yours.\n\n         Enter ENGLISH HERALD, with trumpet\n\n  ENGLISH HERALD. Rejoice, you men of Angiers, ring your bells:\n    King John, your king and England's, doth approach,\n    Commander of this hot malicious day.\n    Their armours that march'd hence so silver-bright\n    Hither return all gilt with Frenchmen's blood.\n    There stuck no plume in any English crest\n    That is removed by a staff of France;\n    Our colours do return in those same hands\n    That did display them when we first march'd forth;\n    And like a jolly troop of huntsmen come\n    Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,\n    Dy'd in the dying slaughter of their foes.\n    Open your gates and give the victors way.\n  CITIZEN. Heralds, from off our tow'rs we might behold\n    From first to last the onset and retire\n    Of both your armies, whose equality\n    By our best eyes cannot be censured.\n    Blood hath bought blood, and blows have answer'd blows;\n    Strength match'd with strength, and power confronted power;\n    Both are alike, and both alike we like.\n    One must prove greatest. While they weigh so even,\n    We hold our town for neither, yet for both.\n\n    Enter the two KINGS, with their powers, at several doors\n\n  KING JOHN. France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away?\n    Say, shall the current of our right run on?\n    Whose passage, vex'd with thy impediment,\n    Shall leave his native channel and o'erswell\n    With course disturb'd even thy confining shores,\n    Unless thou let his silver water keep\n    A peaceful progress to the ocean.\n  KING PHILIP. England, thou hast not sav'd one drop of blood\n    In this hot trial more than we of France;\n    Rather, lost more. And by this hand I swear,\n    That sways the earth this climate overlooks,\n    Before we will lay down our just-borne arms,\n    We'll put thee down, 'gainst whom these arms we bear,\n    Or add a royal number to the dead,\n    Gracing the scroll that tells of this war's loss\n    With slaughter coupled to the name of kings.\n  BASTARD. Ha, majesty! how high thy glory tow'rs\n    When the rich blood of kings is set on fire!\n    O, now doth Death line his dead chaps with steel;\n    The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs;\n    And now he feasts, mousing the flesh of men,\n    In undetermin'd differences of kings.\n    Why stand these royal fronts amazed thus?\n    Cry 'havoc!' kings; back to the stained field,\n    You equal potents, fiery kindled spirits!\n    Then let confusion of one part confirm\n    The other's peace. Till then, blows, blood, and death!\n  KING JOHN. Whose party do the townsmen yet admit?\n  KING PHILIP. Speak, citizens, for England; who's your king?\n  CITIZEN. The King of England, when we know the King.\n  KING PHILIP. Know him in us that here hold up his right.\n  KING JOHN. In us that are our own great deputy\n    And bear possession of our person here,\n    Lord of our presence, Angiers, and of you.\n  CITIZEN. A greater pow'r than we denies all this;\n    And till it be undoubted, we do lock\n    Our former scruple in our strong-barr'd gates;\n    King'd of our fears, until our fears, resolv'd,\n    Be by some certain king purg'd and depos'd.\n  BASTARD. By heaven, these scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings,\n    And stand securely on their battlements\n    As in a theatre, whence they gape and point\n    At your industrious scenes and acts of death.\n    Your royal presences be rul'd by me:\n    Do like the mutines of Jerusalem,\n    Be friends awhile, and both conjointly bend\n    Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town.\n    By east and west let France and England mount\n    Their battering cannon, charged to the mouths,\n    Till their soul-fearing clamours have brawl'd down\n    The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city.\n    I'd play incessantly upon these jades,\n    Even till unfenced desolation\n    Leave them as naked as the vulgar air.\n    That done, dissever your united strengths\n    And part your mingled colours once again,\n    Turn face to face and bloody point to point;\n    Then in a moment Fortune shall cull forth\n    Out of one side her happy minion,\n    To whom in favour she shall give the day,\n    And kiss him with a glorious victory.\n    How like you this wild counsel, mighty states?\n    Smacks it not something of the policy?\n  KING JOHN. Now, by the sky that hangs above our heads,\n    I like it well. France, shall we knit our pow'rs\n    And lay this Angiers even with the ground;\n    Then after fight who shall be king of it?\n  BASTARD. An if thou hast the mettle of a king,\n    Being wrong'd as we are by this peevish town,\n    Turn thou the mouth of thy artillery,\n    As we will ours, against these saucy walls;\n    And when that we have dash'd them to the ground,\n    Why then defy each other, and pell-mell\n    Make work upon ourselves, for heaven or hell.\n  KING PHILIP. Let it be so. Say, where will you assault?\n  KING JOHN. We from the west will send destruction\n    Into this city's bosom.\n  AUSTRIA. I from the north.\n  KING PHILIP. Our thunder from the south\n    Shall rain their drift of bullets on this town.\n  BASTARD.  [Aside]  O prudent discipline! From north to south,\n    Austria and France shoot in each other's mouth.\n    I'll stir them to it.-Come, away, away!\n  CITIZEN. Hear us, great kings: vouchsafe awhile to stay,\n    And I shall show you peace and fair-fac'd league;\n    Win you this city without stroke or wound;\n    Rescue those breathing lives to die in beds\n    That here come sacrifices for the field.\n    Persever not, but hear me, mighty kings.\n  KING JOHN. Speak on with favour; we are bent to hear.\n  CITIZEN. That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch,\n    Is niece to England; look upon the years\n    Of Lewis the Dauphin and that lovely maid.\n    If lusty love should go in quest of beauty,\n    Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch?\n    If zealous love should go in search of virtue,\n    Where should he find it purer than in Blanch?\n    If love ambitious sought a match of birth,\n    Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanch?\n    Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth,\n    Is the young Dauphin every way complete-\n    If not complete of, say he is not she;\n    And she again wants nothing, to name want,\n    If want it be not that she is not he.\n    He is the half part of a blessed man,\n    Left to be finished by such as she;\n    And she a fair divided excellence,\n    Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.\n    O, two such silver currents, when they join,\n    Do glorify the banks that bound them in;\n    And two such shores to two such streams made one,\n    Two such controlling bounds, shall you be, Kings,\n    To these two princes, if you marry them.\n    This union shall do more than battery can\n    To our fast-closed gates; for at this match\n    With swifter spleen than powder can enforce,\n    The mouth of passage shall we fling wide ope\n    And give you entrance; but without this match,\n    The sea enraged is not half so deaf,\n    Lions more confident, mountains and rocks\n    More free from motion-no, not Death himself\n    In mortal fury half so peremptory\n    As we to keep this city.\n  BASTARD. Here's a stay\n    That shakes the rotten carcass of old Death\n    Out of his rags! Here's a large mouth, indeed,\n    That spits forth death and mountains, rocks and seas;\n    Talks as familiarly of roaring lions\n    As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs!\n    What cannoneer begot this lusty blood?\n    He speaks plain cannon-fire, and smoke and bounce;\n    He gives the bastinado with his tongue;\n    Our ears are cudgell'd; not a word of his\n    But buffets better than a fist of France.\n    Zounds! I was never so bethump'd with words\n    Since I first call'd my brother's father dad.\n  ELINOR. Son, list to this conjunction, make this match;\n    Give with our niece a dowry large enough;\n    For by this knot thou shalt so surely tie\n    Thy now unsur'd assurance to the crown\n    That yon green boy shall have no sun to ripe\n    The bloom that promiseth a mighty fruit.\n    I see a yielding in the looks of France;\n    Mark how they whisper. Urge them while their souls\n    Are capable of this ambition,\n    Lest zeal, now melted by the windy breath\n    Of soft petitions, pity, and remorse,\n    Cool and congeal again to what it was.\n  CITIZEN. Why answer not the double majesties\n    This friendly treaty of our threat'ned town?\n  KING PHILIP. Speak England first, that hath been forward first\n    To speak unto this city: what say you?\n  KING JOHN. If that the Dauphin there, thy princely son,\n    Can in this book of beauty read 'I love,'\n    Her dowry shall weigh equal with a queen;\n    For Anjou, and fair Touraine, Maine, Poictiers,\n    And all that we upon this side the sea-\n    Except this city now by us besieg'd-\n    Find liable to our crown and dignity,\n    Shall gild her bridal bed, and make her rich\n    In titles, honours, and promotions,\n    As she in beauty, education, blood,\n    Holds hand with any princess of the world.\n  KING PHILIP. What say'st thou, boy? Look in the lady's face.\n  LEWIS. I do, my lord, and in her eye I find\n    A wonder, or a wondrous miracle,\n    The shadow of myself form'd in her eye;\n    Which, being but the shadow of your son,\n    Becomes a sun, and makes your son a shadow.\n    I do protest I never lov'd myself\n    Till now infixed I beheld myself\n    Drawn in the flattering table of her eye.\n                                               [Whispers with BLANCH]\n  BASTARD.  [Aside]  Drawn in the flattering table of her eye,\n    Hang'd in the frowning wrinkle of her brow,\n    And quarter'd in her heart-he doth espy\n    Himself love's traitor. This is pity now,\n    That hang'd and drawn and quarter'd there should be\n    In such a love so vile a lout as he.\n  BLANCH. My uncle's will in this respect is mine.\n    If he see aught in you that makes him like,\n    That anything he sees which moves his liking\n    I can with ease translate it to my will;\n    Or if you will, to speak more properly,\n    I will enforce it eas'ly to my love.\n    Further I will not flatter you, my lord,\n    That all I see in you is worthy love,\n    Than this: that nothing do I see in you-\n    Though churlish thoughts themselves should be your judge-\n    That I can find should merit any hate.\n  KING JOHN. What say these young ones? What say you, my niece?\n  BLANCH. That she is bound in honour still to do\n    What you in wisdom still vouchsafe to say.\n  KING JOHN. Speak then, Prince Dauphin; can you love this lady?\n  LEWIS. Nay, ask me if I can refrain from love;\n    For I do love her most unfeignedly.\n  KING JOHN. Then do I give Volquessen, Touraine, Maine,\n    Poictiers, and Anjou, these five provinces,\n    With her to thee; and this addition more,\n    Full thirty thousand marks of English coin.\n    Philip of France, if thou be pleas'd withal,\n    Command thy son and daughter to join hands.\n  KING PHILIP. It likes us well; young princes, close your hands.\n  AUSTRIA. And your lips too; for I am well assur'd\n    That I did so when I was first assur'd.\n  KING PHILIP. Now, citizens of Angiers, ope your gates,\n    Let in that amity which you have made;\n    For at Saint Mary's chapel presently\n    The rites of marriage shall be solemniz'd.\n    Is not the Lady Constance in this troop?\n    I know she is not; for this match made up\n    Her presence would have interrupted much.\n    Where is she and her son? Tell me, who knows.\n  LEWIS. She is sad and passionate at your Highness' tent.\n  KING PHILIP. And, by my faith, this league that we have made\n    Will give her sadness very little cure.\n    Brother of England, how may we content\n    This widow lady? In her right we came;\n    Which we, God knows, have turn'd another way,\n    To our own vantage.\n  KING JOHN. We will heal up all,\n    For we'll create young Arthur Duke of Britaine,\n    And Earl of Richmond; and this rich fair town\n    We make him lord of. Call the Lady Constance;\n    Some speedy messenger bid her repair\n    To our solemnity. I trust we shall,\n    If not fill up the measure of her will,\n    Yet in some measure satisfy her so\n    That we shall stop her exclamation.\n    Go we as well as haste will suffer us\n    To this unlook'd-for, unprepared pomp.\n                                           Exeunt all but the BASTARD\n  BASTARD. Mad world! mad kings! mad composition!\n    John, to stop Arthur's tide in the whole,\n    Hath willingly departed with a part;\n    And France, whose armour conscience buckled on,\n    Whom zeal and charity brought to the field\n    As God's own soldier, rounded in the ear\n    With that same purpose-changer, that sly devil,\n    That broker that still breaks the pate of faith,\n    That daily break-vow, he that wins of all,\n    Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids,\n    Who having no external thing to lose\n    But the word 'maid,' cheats the poor maid of that;\n    That smooth-fac'd gentleman, tickling commodity,\n    Commodity, the bias of the world-\n    The world, who of itself is peised well,\n    Made to run even upon even ground,\n    Till this advantage, this vile-drawing bias,\n    This sway of motion, this commodity,\n    Makes it take head from all indifferency,\n    From all direction, purpose, course, intent-\n    And this same bias, this commodity,\n    This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word,\n    Clapp'd on the outward eye of fickle France,\n    Hath drawn him from his own determin'd aid,\n    From a resolv'd and honourable war,\n    To a most base and vile-concluded peace.\n    And why rail I on this commodity?\n    But for because he hath not woo'd me yet;\n    Not that I have the power to clutch my hand\n    When his fair angels would salute my palm,\n    But for my hand, as unattempted yet,\n    Like a poor beggar raileth on the rich.\n    Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail\n    And say there is no sin but to be rich;\n    And being rich, my virtue then shall be\n    To say there is no vice but beggary.\n    Since kings break faith upon commodity,\n    Gain, be my lord, for I will worship thee.                   Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1.\n\nFrance. The FRENCH KING'S camp\n\nEnter CONSTANCE, ARTHUR, and SALISBURY\n\n  CONSTANCE. Gone to be married! Gone to swear a peace!\n    False blood to false blood join'd! Gone to be friends!\n    Shall Lewis have Blanch, and Blanch those provinces?\n    It is not so; thou hast misspoke, misheard;\n    Be well advis'd, tell o'er thy tale again.\n    It cannot be; thou dost but say 'tis so;\n    I trust I may not trust thee, for thy word\n    Is but the vain breath of a common man:\n    Believe me I do not believe thee, man;\n    I have a king's oath to the contrary.\n    Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me,\n    For I am sick and capable of fears,\n    Oppress'd with wrongs, and therefore full of fears;\n    A widow, husbandless, subject to fears;\n    A woman, naturally born to fears;\n    And though thou now confess thou didst but jest,\n    With my vex'd spirits I cannot take a truce,\n    But they will quake and tremble all this day.\n    What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head?\n    Why dost thou look so sadly on my son?\n    What means that hand upon that breast of thine?\n    Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum,\n    Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds?\n    Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words?\n    Then speak again-not all thy former tale,\n    But this one word, whether thy tale be true.\n  SALISBURY. As true as I believe you think them false\n    That give you cause to prove my saying true.\n  CONSTANCE. O, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow,\n    Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die;\n    And let belief and life encounter so\n    As doth the fury of two desperate men\n    Which in the very meeting fall and die!\n    Lewis marry Blanch! O boy, then where art thou?\n    France friend with England; what becomes of me?\n    Fellow, be gone: I cannot brook thy sight;\n    This news hath made thee a most ugly man.\n  SALISBURY. What other harm have I, good lady, done\n    But spoke the harm that is by others done?\n  CONSTANCE. Which harm within itself so heinous is\n    As it makes harmful all that speak of it.\n  ARTHUR. I do beseech you, madam, be content.\n  CONSTANCE. If thou that bid'st me be content wert grim,\n    Ugly, and sland'rous to thy mother's womb,\n    Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains,\n    Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,\n    Patch'd with foul moles and eye-offending marks,\n    I would not care, I then would be content;\n    For then I should not love thee; no, nor thou\n    Become thy great birth, nor deserve a crown.\n    But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy,\n    Nature and Fortune join'd to make thee great:\n    Of Nature's gifts thou mayst with lilies boast,\n    And with the half-blown rose; but Fortune, O!\n    She is corrupted, chang'd, and won from thee;\n    Sh' adulterates hourly with thine uncle John,\n    And with her golden hand hath pluck'd on France\n    To tread down fair respect of sovereignty,\n    And made his majesty the bawd to theirs.\n    France is a bawd to Fortune and King John-\n    That strumpet Fortune, that usurping John!\n    Tell me, thou fellow, is not France forsworn?\n    Envenom him with words, or get thee gone\n    And leave those woes alone which I alone\n    Am bound to under-bear.\n  SALISBURY. Pardon me, madam,\n    I may not go without you to the kings.\n  CONSTANCE. Thou mayst, thou shalt; I will not go with thee;\n    I will instruct my sorrows to be proud,\n    For grief is proud, and makes his owner stoop.\n    To me, and to the state of my great grief,\n    Let kings assemble; for my grief's so great\n    That no supporter but the huge firm earth\n    Can hold it up.                     [Seats herself on the ground]\n    Here I and sorrows sit;\n    Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.\n\n       Enter KING JOHN, KING PHILIP, LEWIS, BLANCH,\n       ELINOR, the BASTARD, AUSTRIA, and attendants\n\n  KING PHILIP. 'Tis true, fair daughter, and this blessed day\n    Ever in France shall be kept festival.\n    To solemnize this day the glorious sun\n    Stays in his course and plays the alchemist,\n    Turning with splendour of his precious eye\n    The meagre cloddy earth to glittering gold.\n    The yearly course that brings this day about\n    Shall never see it but a holiday.\n  CONSTANCE.  [Rising]  A wicked day, and not a holy day!\n    What hath this day deserv'd? what hath it done\n    That it in golden letters should be set\n    Among the high tides in the calendar?\n    Nay, rather turn this day out of the week,\n    This day of shame, oppression, perjury;\n    Or, if it must stand still, let wives with child\n    Pray that their burdens may not fall this day,\n    Lest that their hopes prodigiously be cross'd;\n    But on this day let seamen fear no wreck;\n    No bargains break that are not this day made;\n    This day, all things begun come to ill end,\n    Yea, faith itself to hollow falsehood change!\n  KING PHILIP. By heaven, lady, you shall have no cause\n    To curse the fair proceedings of this day.\n    Have I not pawn'd to you my majesty?\n  CONSTANCE. You have beguil'd me with a counterfeit\n    Resembling majesty, which, being touch'd and tried,\n    Proves valueless; you are forsworn, forsworn;\n    You came in arms to spill mine enemies' blood,\n    But now in arms you strengthen it with yours.\n    The grappling vigour and rough frown of war\n    Is cold in amity and painted peace,\n    And our oppression hath made up this league.\n    Arm, arm, you heavens, against these perjur'd kings!\n    A widow cries: Be husband to me, heavens!\n    Let not the hours of this ungodly day\n    Wear out the day in peace; but, ere sunset,\n    Set armed discord 'twixt these perjur'd kings!\n    Hear me, O, hear me!\n  AUSTRIA. Lady Constance, peace!\n  CONSTANCE. War! war! no peace! Peace is to me a war.\n    O Lymoges! O Austria! thou dost shame\n    That bloody spoil. Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward!\n    Thou little valiant, great in villainy!\n    Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!\n    Thou Fortune's champion that dost never fight\n    But when her humorous ladyship is by\n    To teach thee safety! Thou art perjur'd too,\n    And sooth'st up greatness. What a fool art thou,\n    A ramping fool, to brag and stamp and swear\n    Upon my party! Thou cold-blooded slave,\n    Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side,\n    Been sworn my soldier, bidding me depend\n    Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength,\n    And dost thou now fall over to my foes?\n    Thou wear a lion's hide! Doff it for shame,\n    And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.\n  AUSTRIA. O that a man should speak those words to me!\n  BASTARD. And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.\n  AUSTRIA. Thou dar'st not say so, villain, for thy life.\n  BASTARD. And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.\n  KING JOHN. We like not this: thou dost forget thyself.\n\n                  Enter PANDULPH\n\n  KING PHILIP. Here comes the holy legate of the Pope.\n  PANDULPH. Hail, you anointed deputies of heaven!\n    To thee, King John, my holy errand is.\n    I Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal,\n    And from Pope Innocent the legate here,\n    Do in his name religiously demand\n    Why thou against the Church, our holy mother,\n    So wilfully dost spurn; and force perforce\n    Keep Stephen Langton, chosen Archbishop\n    Of Canterbury, from that holy see?\n    This, in our foresaid holy father's name,\n    Pope Innocent, I do demand of thee.\n  KING JOHN. What earthly name to interrogatories\n    Can task the free breath of a sacred king?\n    Thou canst not, Cardinal, devise a name\n    So slight, unworthy, and ridiculous,\n    To charge me to an answer, as the Pope.\n    Tell him this tale, and from the mouth of England\n    Add thus much more, that no Italian priest\n    Shall tithe or toll in our dominions;\n    But as we under heaven are supreme head,\n    So, under Him that great supremacy,\n    Where we do reign we will alone uphold,\n    Without th' assistance of a mortal hand.\n    So tell the Pope, all reverence set apart\n    To him and his usurp'd authority.\n  KING PHILIP. Brother of England, you blaspheme in this.\n  KING JOHN. Though you and all the kings of Christendom\n    Are led so grossly by this meddling priest,\n    Dreading the curse that money may buy out,\n    And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust,\n    Purchase corrupted pardon of a man,\n    Who in that sale sells pardon from himself-\n    Though you and all the rest, so grossly led,\n    This juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish;\n    Yet I alone, alone do me oppose\n    Against the Pope, and count his friends my foes.\n  PANDULPH. Then by the lawful power that I have\n    Thou shalt stand curs'd and excommunicate;\n    And blessed shall he be that doth revolt\n    From his allegiance to an heretic;\n    And meritorious shall that hand be call'd,\n    Canonized, and worshipp'd as a saint,\n    That takes away by any secret course\n    Thy hateful life.\n  CONSTANCE. O, lawful let it be\n    That I have room with Rome to curse awhile!\n    Good father Cardinal, cry thou 'amen'\n    To my keen curses; for without my wrong\n    There is no tongue hath power to curse him right.\n  PANDULPH. There's law and warrant, lady, for my curse.\n  CONSTANCE. And for mine too; when law can do no right,\n    Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong;\n    Law cannot give my child his kingdom here,\n    For he that holds his kingdom holds the law;\n    Therefore, since law itself is perfect wrong,\n    How can the law forbid my tongue to curse?\n  PANDULPH. Philip of France, on peril of a curse,\n    Let go the hand of that arch-heretic,\n    And raise the power of France upon his head,\n    Unless he do submit himself to Rome.\n  ELINOR. Look'st thou pale, France? Do not let go thy hand.\n  CONSTANCE. Look to that, devil, lest that France repent\n    And by disjoining hands hell lose a soul.\n  AUSTRIA. King Philip, listen to the Cardinal.\n  BASTARD. And hang a calf's-skin on his recreant limbs.\n  AUSTRIA. Well, ruffian, I must pocket up these wrongs,\n    Because-\n  BASTARD. Your breeches best may carry them.\n  KING JOHN. Philip, what say'st thou to the Cardinal?\n  CONSTANCE. What should he say, but as the Cardinal?\n  LEWIS. Bethink you, father; for the difference\n    Is purchase of a heavy curse from Rome\n    Or the light loss of England for a friend.\n    Forgo the easier.\n  BLANCH. That's the curse of Rome.\n  CONSTANCE. O Lewis, stand fast! The devil tempts thee here\n    In likeness of a new untrimmed bride.\n  BLANCH. The Lady Constance speaks not from her faith,\n    But from her need.\n  CONSTANCE. O, if thou grant my need,\n    Which only lives but by the death of faith,\n    That need must needs infer this principle-\n    That faith would live again by death of need.\n    O then, tread down my need, and faith mounts up:\n    Keep my need up, and faith is trodden down!\n  KING JOHN. The King is mov'd, and answers not to this.\n  CONSTANCE. O be remov'd from him, and answer well!\n  AUSTRIA. Do so, King Philip; hang no more in doubt.\n  BASTARD. Hang nothing but a calf's-skin, most sweet lout.\n  KING PHILIP. I am perplex'd and know not what to say.\n  PANDULPH. What canst thou say but will perplex thee more,\n    If thou stand excommunicate and curs'd?\n  KING PHILIP. Good reverend father, make my person yours,\n    And tell me how you would bestow yourself.\n    This royal hand and mine are newly knit,\n    And the conjunction of our inward souls\n    Married in league, coupled and link'd together\n    With all religious strength of sacred vows;\n    The latest breath that gave the sound of words\n    Was deep-sworn faith, peace, amity, true love,\n    Between our kingdoms and our royal selves;\n    And even before this truce, but new before,\n    No longer than we well could wash our hands,\n    To clap this royal bargain up of peace,\n    Heaven knows, they were besmear'd and overstain'd\n    With slaughter's pencil, where revenge did paint\n    The fearful difference of incensed kings.\n    And shall these hands, so lately purg'd of blood,\n    So newly join'd in love, so strong in both,\n    Unyoke this seizure and this kind regreet?\n    Play fast and loose with faith? so jest with heaven,\n    Make such unconstant children of ourselves,\n    As now again to snatch our palm from palm,\n    Unswear faith sworn, and on the marriage-bed\n    Of smiling peace to march a bloody host,\n    And make a riot on the gentle brow\n    Of true sincerity? O, holy sir,\n    My reverend father, let it not be so!\n    Out of your grace, devise, ordain, impose,\n    Some gentle order; and then we shall be blest\n    To do your pleasure, and continue friends.\n  PANDULPH. All form is formless, order orderless,\n    Save what is opposite to England's love.\n    Therefore, to arms! be champion of our church,\n    Or let the church, our mother, breathe her curse-\n    A mother's curse-on her revolting son.\n    France, thou mayst hold a serpent by the tongue,\n    A chafed lion by the mortal paw,\n    A fasting tiger safer by the tooth,\n    Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost hold.\n  KING PHILIP. I may disjoin my hand, but not my faith.\n  PANDULPH. So mak'st thou faith an enemy to faith;\n    And like. a civil war set'st oath to oath.\n    Thy tongue against thy tongue. O, let thy vow\n    First made to heaven, first be to heaven perform'd,\n    That is, to be the champion of our Church.\n    What since thou swor'st is sworn against thyself\n    And may not be performed by thyself,\n    For that which thou hast sworn to do amiss\n    Is not amiss when it is truly done;\n    And being not done, where doing tends to ill,\n    The truth is then most done not doing it;\n    The better act of purposes mistook\n    Is to mistake again; though indirect,\n    Yet indirection thereby grows direct,\n    And falsehood cures, as fire cools fire\n    Within the scorched veins of one new-burn'd.\n    It is religion that doth make vows kept;\n    But thou hast sworn against religion\n    By what thou swear'st against the thing thou swear'st,\n    And mak'st an oath the surety for thy truth\n    Against an oath; the truth thou art unsure\n    To swear swears only not to be forsworn;\n    Else what a mockery should it be to swear!\n    But thou dost swear only to be forsworn;\n    And most forsworn to keep what thou dost swear.\n    Therefore thy later vows against thy first\n    Is in thyself rebellion to thyself;\n    And better conquest never canst thou make\n    Than arm thy constant and thy nobler parts\n    Against these giddy loose suggestions;\n    Upon which better part our pray'rs come in,\n    If thou vouchsafe them. But if not, then know\n    The peril of our curses fight on thee\n    So heavy as thou shalt not shake them off,\n    But in despair die under the black weight.\n  AUSTRIA. Rebellion, flat rebellion!\n  BASTARD. Will't not be?\n    Will not a calf's-skin stop that mouth of thine?\n  LEWIS. Father, to arms!\n  BLANCH. Upon thy wedding-day?\n    Against the blood that thou hast married?\n    What, shall our feast be kept with slaughtered men?\n    Shall braying trumpets and loud churlish drums,\n    Clamours of hell, be measures to our pomp?\n    O husband, hear me! ay, alack, how new\n    Is 'husband' in my mouth! even for that name,\n    Which till this time my tongue did ne'er pronounce,\n    Upon my knee I beg, go not to arms\n    Against mine uncle.\n  CONSTANCE. O, upon my knee,\n    Made hard with kneeling, I do pray to thee,\n    Thou virtuous Dauphin, alter not the doom\n    Forethought by heaven!\n  BLANCH. Now shall I see thy love. What motive may\n    Be stronger with thee than the name of wife?\n  CONSTANCE. That which upholdeth him that thee upholds,\n    His honour. O, thine honour, Lewis, thine honour!\n  LEWIS. I muse your Majesty doth seem so cold,\n    When such profound respects do pull you on.\n  PANDULPH. I will denounce a curse upon his head.\n  KING PHILIP. Thou shalt not need. England, I will fall from thee.\n  CONSTANCE. O fair return of banish'd majesty!\n  ELINOR. O foul revolt of French inconstancy!\n  KING JOHN. France, thou shalt rue this hour within this hour.\n  BASTARD. Old Time the clock-setter, that bald sexton Time,\n    Is it as he will? Well then, France shall rue.\n  BLANCH. The sun's o'ercast with blood. Fair day, adieu!\n    Which is the side that I must go withal?\n    I am with both: each army hath a hand;\n    And in their rage, I having hold of both,\n    They whirl asunder and dismember me.\n    Husband, I cannot pray that thou mayst win;\n    Uncle, I needs must pray that thou mayst lose;\n    Father, I may not wish the fortune thine;\n    Grandam, I will not wish thy wishes thrive.\n    Whoever wins, on that side shall I lose:\n    Assured loss before the match be play'd.\n  LEWIS. Lady, with me, with me thy fortune lies.\n  BLANCH. There where my fortune lives, there my life dies.\n  KING JOHN. Cousin, go draw our puissance together.\n                                                         Exit BASTARD\n    France, I am burn'd up with inflaming wrath,\n    A rage whose heat hath this condition\n    That nothing can allay, nothing but blood,\n    The blood, and dearest-valu'd blood, of France.\n  KING PHILIP. Thy rage shall burn thee up, and thou shalt turn\n    To ashes, ere our blood shall quench that fire.\n    Look to thyself, thou art in jeopardy.\n  KING JOHN. No more than he that threats. To arms let's hie!\n                                                     Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nFrance. Plains near Angiers\n\nAlarums, excursions. Enter the BASTARD with AUSTRIA'S head\n\n  BASTARD. Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot;\n    Some airy devil hovers in the sky\n    And pours down mischief. Austria's head lie there,\n    While Philip breathes.\n\n          Enter KING JOHN, ARTHUR, and HUBERT\n\n  KING JOHN. Hubert, keep this boy. Philip, make up:\n    My mother is assailed in our tent,\n    And ta'en, I fear.\n  BASTARD. My lord, I rescued her;\n    Her Highness is in safety, fear you not;\n    But on, my liege, for very little pains\n    Will bring this labour to an happy end.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nFrance. Plains near Angiers\n\nAlarums, excursions, retreat. Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, ARTHUR,\nthe BASTARD, HUBERT, and LORDS\n\n  KING JOHN.  [To ELINOR]  So shall it be; your Grace shall stay\n      behind,\n    So strongly guarded.  [To ARTHUR]  Cousin, look not sad;\n    Thy grandam loves thee, and thy uncle will\n    As dear be to thee as thy father was.\n  ARTHUR. O, this will make my mother die with grief!\n  KING JOHN.  [To the BASTARD]  Cousin, away for England! haste\n      before,\n    And, ere our coming, see thou shake the bags\n    Of hoarding abbots; imprisoned angels\n    Set at liberty; the fat ribs of peace\n    Must by the hungry now be fed upon.\n    Use our commission in his utmost force.\n  BASTARD. Bell, book, and candle, shall not drive me back,\n    When gold and silver becks me to come on.\n    I leave your Highness. Grandam, I will pray,\n    If ever I remember to be holy,\n    For your fair safety. So, I kiss your hand.\n  ELINOR. Farewell, gentle cousin.\n  KING JOHN. Coz, farewell.\n                                                         Exit BASTARD\n  ELINOR. Come hither, little kinsman; hark, a word.\n  KING JOHN. Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert,\n    We owe thee much! Within this wall of flesh\n    There is a soul counts thee her creditor,\n    And with advantage means to pay thy love;\n    And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath\n    Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished.\n    Give me thy hand. I had a thing to say-\n    But I will fit it with some better time.\n    By heaven, Hubert, I am almost asham'd\n    To say what good respect I have of thee.\n  HUBERT. I am much bounden to your Majesty.\n  KING JOHN. Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet,\n    But thou shalt have; and creep time ne'er so slow,\n    Yet it shall come for me to do thee good.\n    I had a thing to say-but let it go:\n    The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day,\n    Attended with the pleasures of the world,\n    Is all too wanton and too full of gawds\n    To give me audience. If the midnight bell\n    Did with his iron tongue and brazen mouth\n    Sound on into the drowsy race of night;\n    If this same were a churchyard where we stand,\n    And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs;\n    Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,\n    Had bak'd thy blood and made it heavy-thick,\n    Which else runs tickling up and down the veins,\n    Making that idiot, laughter, keep men's eyes\n    And strain their cheeks to idle merriment,\n    A passion hateful to my purposes;\n    Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes,\n    Hear me without thine cars, and make reply\n    Without a tongue, using conceit alone,\n    Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words-\n    Then, in despite of brooded watchful day,\n    I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts.\n    But, ah, I will not! Yet I love thee well;\n    And, by my troth, I think thou lov'st me well.\n  HUBERT. So well that what you bid me undertake,\n    Though that my death were adjunct to my act,\n    By heaven, I would do it.\n  KING JOHN. Do not I know thou wouldst?\n    Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye\n    On yon young boy. I'll tell thee what, my friend,\n    He is a very serpent in my way;\n    And wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,\n    He lies before me. Dost thou understand me?\n    Thou art his keeper.\n  HUBERT. And I'll keep him so\n    That he shall not offend your Majesty.\n  KING JOHN. Death.\n  HUBERT. My lord?\n  KING JOHN. A grave.\n  HUBERT. He shall not live.\n  KING JOHN. Enough!\n    I could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee.\n    Well, I'll not say what I intend for thee.\n    Remember. Madam, fare you well;\n    I'll send those powers o'er to your Majesty.\n  ELINOR. My blessing go with thee!\n  KING JOHN.  [To ARTHUR]  For England, cousin, go;\n    Hubert shall be your man, attend on you\n    With all true duty. On toward Calais, ho!                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nFrance. The FRENCH KING's camp\n\nEnter KING PHILIP, LEWIS, PANDULPH, and attendants\n\n  KING PHILIP. So by a roaring tempest on the flood\n    A whole armado of convicted sail\n    Is scattered and disjoin'd from fellowship.\n  PANDULPH. Courage and comfort! All shall yet go well.\n  KING PHILIP. What can go well, when we have run so ill.\n    Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost?\n    Arthur ta'en prisoner? Divers dear friends slain?\n    And bloody England into England gone,\n    O'erbearing interruption, spite of France?\n  LEWIS. he hath won, that hath he fortified;\n    So hot a speed with such advice dispos'd,\n    Such temperate order in so fierce a cause,\n    Doth want example; who hath read or heard\n    Of any kindred action like to this?\n  KING PHILIP. Well could I bear that England had this praise,\n    So we could find some pattern of our shame.\n\n                   Enter CONSTANCE\n\n    Look who comes here! a grave unto a soul;\n    Holding th' eternal spirit, against her will,\n    In the vile prison of afflicted breath.\n    I prithee, lady, go away with me.\n  CONSTANCE. Lo now! now see the issue of your peace!\n  KING PHILIP. Patience, good lady! Comfort, gentle Constance!\n  CONSTANCE. No, I defy all counsel, all redress,\n    But that which ends all counsel, true redress-\n    Death, death; O amiable lovely death!\n    Thou odoriferous stench! sound rottenness!\n    Arise forth from the couch of lasting night,\n    Thou hate and terror to prosperity,\n    And I will kiss thy detestable bones,\n    And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows,\n    And ring these fingers with thy household worms,\n    And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust,\n    And be a carrion monster like thyself.\n    Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smil'st,\n    And buss thee as thy wife. Misery's love,\n    O, come to me!\n  KING PHILIP. O fair affliction, peace!\n  CONSTANCE. No, no, I will not, having breath to cry.\n    O that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth!\n    Then with a passion would I shake the world,\n    And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy\n    Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice,\n    Which scorns a modern invocation.\n  PANDULPH. Lady, you utter madness and not sorrow.\n  CONSTANCE. Thou art not holy to belie me so.\n    I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine;\n    My name is Constance; I was Geffrey's wife;\n    Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost.\n    I am not mad-I would to heaven I were!\n    For then 'tis like I should forget myself.\n    O, if I could, what grief should I forget!\n    Preach some philosophy to make me mad,\n    And thou shalt be canoniz'd, Cardinal;\n    For, being not mad, but sensible of grief,\n    My reasonable part produces reason\n    How I may be deliver'd of these woes,\n    And teaches me to kill or hang myself.\n    If I were mad I should forget my son,\n    Or madly think a babe of clouts were he.\n    I am not mad; too well, too well I feel\n    The different plague of each calamity.\n  KING PHILIP. Bind up those tresses. O, what love I note\n    In the fair multitude of those her hairs!\n    Where but by a chance a silver drop hath fall'n,\n    Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends\n    Do glue themselves in sociable grief,\n    Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,\n    Sticking together in calamity.\n  CONSTANCE. To England, if you will.\n  KING PHILIP. Bind up your hairs.\n  CONSTANCE. Yes, that I will; and wherefore will I do it?\n    I tore them from their bonds, and cried aloud\n    'O that these hands could so redeem my son,\n    As they have given these hairs their liberty!'\n    But now I envy at their liberty,\n    And will again commit them to their bonds,\n    Because my poor child is a prisoner.\n    And, father Cardinal, I have heard you say\n    That we shall see and know our friends in heaven;\n    If that be true, I shall see my boy again;\n    For since the birth of Cain, the first male child,\n    To him that did but yesterday suspire,\n    There was not such a gracious creature born.\n    But now will canker sorrow eat my bud\n    And chase the native beauty from his cheek,\n    And he will look as hollow as a ghost,\n    As dim and meagre as an ague's fit;\n    And so he'll die; and, rising so again,\n    When I shall meet him in the court of heaven\n    I shall not know him. Therefore never, never\n    Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.\n  PANDULPH. You hold too heinous a respect of grief.\n  CONSTANCE. He talks to me that never had a son.\n  KING PHILIP. You are as fond of grief as of your child.\n  CONSTANCE. Grief fills the room up of my absent child,\n    Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,\n    Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,\n    Remembers me of all his gracious parts,\n    Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;\n    Then have I reason to be fond of grief.\n    Fare you well; had you such a loss as I,\n    I could give better comfort than you do.\n    I will not keep this form upon my head,\n                                                   [Tearing her hair]\n    When there is such disorder in my wit.\n    O Lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!\n    My life, my joy, my food, my ail the world!\n    My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure!                      Exit\n  KING PHILIP. I fear some outrage, and I'll follow her.         Exit\n  LEWIS. There's nothing in this world can make me joy.\n    Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale\n    Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man;\n    And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste,\n    That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.\n  PANDULPH. Before the curing of a strong disease,\n    Even in the instant of repair and health,\n    The fit is strongest; evils that take leave\n    On their departure most of all show evil;\n    What have you lost by losing of this day?\n  LEWIS. All days of glory, joy, and happiness.\n  PANDULPH. If you had won it, certainly you had.\n    No, no; when Fortune means to men most good,\n    She looks upon them with a threat'ning eye.\n    'Tis strange to think how much King John hath lost\n    In this which he accounts so clearly won.\n    Are not you griev'd that Arthur is his prisoner?\n  LEWIS. As heartily as he is glad he hath him.\n  PANDULPH. Your mind is all as youthful as your blood.\n    Now hear me speak with a prophetic spirit;\n    For even the breath of what I mean to speak\n    Shall blow each dust, each straw, each little rub,\n    Out of the path which shall directly lead\n    Thy foot to England's throne. And therefore mark:\n    John hath seiz'd Arthur; and it cannot be\n    That, whiles warm life plays in that infant's veins,\n    The misplac'd John should entertain an hour,\n    One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest.\n    A sceptre snatch'd with an unruly hand\n    Must be boisterously maintain'd as gain'd,\n    And he that stands upon a slipp'ry place\n    Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up;\n    That John may stand then, Arthur needs must fall;\n    So be it, for it cannot be but so.\n  LEWIS. But what shall I gain by young Arthur's fall?\n  PANDULPH. You, in the right of Lady Blanch your wife,\n    May then make all the claim that Arthur did.\n  LEWIS. And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did.\n  PANDULPH. How green you are and fresh in this old world!\n    John lays you plots; the times conspire with you;\n    For he that steeps his safety in true blood\n    Shall find but bloody safety and untrue.\n    This act, so evilly borne, shall cool the hearts\n    Of all his people and freeze up their zeal,\n    That none so small advantage shall step forth\n    To check his reign but they will cherish it;\n    No natural exhalation in the sky,\n    No scope of nature, no distemper'd day,\n    No common wind, no customed event,\n    But they will pluck away his natural cause\n    And call them meteors, prodigies, and signs,\n    Abortives, presages, and tongues of heaven,\n    Plainly denouncing vengeance upon John.\n  LEWIS. May be he will not touch young Arthur's life,\n    But hold himself safe in his prisonment.\n  PANDULPH. O, Sir, when he shall hear of your approach,\n    If that young Arthur be not gone already,\n    Even at that news he dies; and then the hearts\n    Of all his people shall revolt from him,\n    And kiss the lips of unacquainted change,\n    And pick strong matter of revolt and wrath\n    Out of the bloody fingers' ends of john.\n    Methinks I see this hurly all on foot;\n    And, O, what better matter breeds for you\n    Than I have nam'd! The bastard Faulconbridge\n    Is now in England ransacking the Church,\n    Offending charity; if but a dozen French\n    Were there in arms, they would be as a can\n    To train ten thousand English to their side;\n    Or as a little snow, tumbled about,\n    Anon becomes a mountain. O noble Dauphin,\n    Go with me to the King. 'Tis wonderful\n    What may be wrought out of their discontent,\n    Now that their souls are topful of offence.\n    For England go; I will whet on the King.\n  LEWIS. Strong reasons makes strong actions. Let us go;\n    If you say ay, the King will not say no.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\n\nEngland. A castle\n\nEnter HUBERT and EXECUTIONERS\n\n  HUBERT. Heat me these irons hot; and look thou stand\n    Within the arras. When I strike my foot\n    Upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth\n    And bind the boy which you shall find with me\n    Fast to the chair. Be heedful; hence, and watch.\n  EXECUTIONER. I hope your warrant will bear out the deed.\n  HUBERT. Uncleanly scruples! Fear not you. Look to't.\n                                                  Exeunt EXECUTIONERS\n    Young lad, come forth; I have to say with you.\n\n                    Enter ARTHUR\n\n  ARTHUR. Good morrow, Hubert.\n  HUBERT. Good morrow, little Prince.\n  ARTHUR. As little prince, having so great a tide\n    To be more prince, as may be. You are sad.\n  HUBERT. Indeed I have been merrier.\n  ARTHUR. Mercy on me!\n    Methinks no body should be sad but I;\n    Yet, I remember, when I was in France,\n    Young gentlemen would be as sad as night,\n    Only for wantonness. By my christendom,\n    So I were out of prison and kept sheep,\n    I should be as merry as the day is long;\n    And so I would be here but that I doubt\n    My uncle practises more harm to me;\n    He is afraid of me, and I of him.\n    Is it my fault that I was Geffrey's son?\n    No, indeed, ist not; and I would to heaven\n    I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert.\n  HUBERT.  [Aside]  If I talk to him, with his innocent prate\n    He will awake my mercy, which lies dead;\n    Therefore I will be sudden and dispatch.\n  ARTHUR. Are you sick, Hubert? You look pale to-day;\n    In sooth, I would you were a little sick,\n    That I might sit all night and watch with you.\n    I warrant I love you more than you do me.\n  HUBERT.  [Aside]  His words do take possession of my bosom.-\n    Read here, young Arthur.                        [Showing a paper]\n      [Aside]  How now, foolish rheum!\n    Turning dispiteous torture out of door!\n    I must be brief, lest resolution drop\n    Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears.-\n    Can you not read it? Is it not fair writ?\n  ARTHUR. Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect.\n    Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes?\n  HUBERT. Young boy, I must.\n  ARTHUR. And will you?\n  HUBERT. And I will.\n  ARTHUR. Have you the heart? When your head did but ache,\n    I knit my handkerchief about your brows-\n    The best I had, a princess wrought it me-\n    And I did never ask it you again;\n    And with my hand at midnight held your head;\n    And, like the watchful minutes to the hour,\n    Still and anon cheer'd up the heavy time,\n    Saying 'What lack you?' and 'Where lies your grief?'\n    Or 'What good love may I perform for you?'\n    Many a poor man's son would have lyen still,\n    And ne'er have spoke a loving word to you;\n    But you at your sick service had a prince.\n    Nay, you may think my love was crafty love,\n    And call it cunning. Do, an if you will.\n    If heaven be pleas'd that you must use me ill,\n    Why, then you must. Will you put out mine eyes,\n    These eyes that never did nor never shall\n    So much as frown on you?\n  HUBERT. I have sworn to do it;\n    And with hot irons must I burn them out.\n  ARTHUR. Ah, none but in this iron age would do it!\n    The iron of itself, though heat red-hot,\n    Approaching near these eyes would drink my tears,\n    And quench his fiery indignation\n    Even in the matter of mine innocence;\n    Nay, after that, consume away in rust\n    But for containing fire to harm mine eye.\n    Are you more stubborn-hard than hammer'd iron?\n    An if an angel should have come to me\n    And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes,\n    I would not have believ'd him-no tongue but Hubert's.\n  HUBERT.  [Stamps]  Come forth.\n\n     Re-enter EXECUTIONERS, With cord, irons, etc.\n\n    Do as I bid you do.\n  ARTHUR. O, save me, Hubert, save me! My eyes are out\n    Even with the fierce looks of these bloody men.\n  HUBERT. Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here.\n  ARTHUR. Alas, what need you be so boist'rous rough?\n    I will not struggle, I will stand stone-still.\n    For heaven sake, Hubert, let me not be bound!\n    Nay, hear me, Hubert! Drive these men away,\n    And I will sit as quiet as a lamb;\n    I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word,\n    Nor look upon the iron angrily;\n    Thrust but these men away, and I'll forgive you,\n    Whatever torment you do put me to.\n  HUBERT. Go, stand within; let me alone with him.\n  EXECUTIONER. I am best pleas'd to be from such a deed.\n                                                  Exeunt EXECUTIONERS\n  ARTHUR. Alas, I then have chid away my friend!\n    He hath a stern look but a gentle heart.\n    Let him come back, that his compassion may\n    Give life to yours.\n  HUBERT. Come, boy, prepare yourself.\n  ARTHUR. Is there no remedy?\n  HUBERT. None, but to lose your eyes.\n  ARTHUR. O heaven, that there were but a mote in yours,\n    A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair,\n    Any annoyance in that precious sense!\n    Then, feeling what small things are boisterous there,\n    Your vile intent must needs seem horrible.\n  HUBERT. Is this your promise? Go to, hold your tongue.\n  ARTHUR. Hubert, the utterance of a brace of tongues\n    Must needs want pleading for a pair of eyes.\n    Let me not hold my tongue, let me not, Hubert;\n    Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue,\n    So I may keep mine eyes. O, spare mine eyes,\n    Though to no use but still to look on you!\n    Lo, by my troth, the instrument is cold\n    And would not harm me.\n  HUBERT. I can heat it, boy.\n  ARTHUR. No, in good sooth; the fire is dead with grief,\n    Being create for comfort, to be us'd\n    In undeserved extremes. See else yourself:\n    There is no malice in this burning coal;\n    The breath of heaven hath blown his spirit out,\n    And strew'd repentant ashes on his head.\n  HUBERT. But with my breath I can revive it, boy.\n  ARTHUR. An if you do, you will but make it blush\n    And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert.\n    Nay, it perchance will sparkle in your eyes,\n    And, like a dog that is compell'd to fight,\n    Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on.\n    All things that you should use to do me wrong\n    Deny their office; only you do lack\n    That mercy which fierce fire and iron extends,\n    Creatures of note for mercy-lacking uses.\n  HUBERT. Well, see to live; I will not touch thine eye\n    For all the treasure that thine uncle owes.\n    Yet I am sworn, and I did purpose, boy,\n    With this same very iron to burn them out.\n  ARTHUR. O, now you look like Hubert! All this while\n    You were disguis'd.\n  HUBERT. Peace; no more. Adieu.\n    Your uncle must not know but you are dead:\n    I'll fill these dogged spies with false reports;\n    And, pretty child, sleep doubtless and secure\n    That Hubert, for the wealth of all the world,\n    Will not offend thee.\n  ARTHUR. O heaven! I thank you, Hubert.\n  HUBERT. Silence; no more. Go closely in with me.\n    Much danger do I undergo for thee.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nEngland. KING JOHN'S palace\n\nEnter KING JOHN, PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and other LORDS\n\n  KING JOHN. Here once again we sit, once again crown'd,\n    And look'd upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.\n  PEMBROKE. This once again, but that your Highness pleas'd,\n    Was once superfluous: you were crown'd before,\n    And that high royalty was ne'er pluck'd off,\n    The faiths of men ne'er stained with revolt;\n    Fresh expectation troubled not the land\n    With any long'd-for change or better state.\n  SALISBURY. Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp,\n    To guard a title that was rich before,\n    To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,\n    To throw a perfume on the violet,\n    To smooth the ice, or add another hue\n    Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light\n    To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,\n    Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.\n  PEMBROKE. But that your royal pleasure must be done,\n    This act is as an ancient tale new told\n    And, in the last repeating, troublesome,\n    Being urged at a time unseasonable.\n  SALISBURY. In this the antique and well-noted face\n    Of plain old form is much disfigured;\n    And like a shifted wind unto a sail\n    It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about,\n    Startles and frights consideration,\n    Makes sound opinion sick, and truth suspected,\n    For putting on so new a fashion'd robe.\n  PEMBROKE. When workmen strive to do better than well,\n    They do confound their skill in covetousness;\n    And oftentimes excusing of a fault\n    Doth make the fault the worse by th' excuse,\n    As patches set upon a little breach\n    Discredit more in hiding of the fault\n    Than did the fault before it was so patch'd.\n  SALISBURY. To this effect, before you were new-crown'd,\n    We breath'd our counsel; but it pleas'd your Highness\n    To overbear it; and we are all well pleas'd,\n    Since all and every part of what we would\n    Doth make a stand at what your Highness will.\n  KING JOHN. Some reasons of this double coronation\n    I have possess'd you with, and think them strong;\n    And more, more strong, when lesser is my fear,\n    I shall indue you with. Meantime but ask\n    What you would have reform'd that is not well,\n    And well shall you perceive how willingly\n    I will both hear and grant you your requests.\n  PEMBROKE. Then I, as one that am the tongue of these,\n    To sound the purposes of all their hearts,\n    Both for myself and them- but, chief of all,\n    Your safety, for the which myself and them\n    Bend their best studies, heartily request\n    Th' enfranchisement of Arthur, whose restraint\n    Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent\n    To break into this dangerous argument:\n    If what in rest you have in right you hold,\n    Why then your fears-which, as they say, attend\n    The steps of wrong-should move you to mew up\n    Your tender kinsman, and to choke his days\n    With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth\n    The rich advantage of good exercise?\n    That the time's enemies may not have this\n    To grace occasions, let it be our suit\n    That you have bid us ask his liberty;\n    Which for our goods we do no further ask\n    Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,\n    Counts it your weal he have his liberty.\n  KING JOHN. Let it be so. I do commit his youth\n    To your direction.\n\n                     Enter HUBERT\n\n    [Aside]  Hubert, what news with you?\n  PEMBROKE. This is the man should do the bloody deed:\n    He show'd his warrant to a friend of mine;\n    The image of a wicked heinous fault\n    Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his\n    Doth show the mood of a much troubled breast,\n    And I do fearfully believe 'tis done\n    What we so fear'd he had a charge to do.\n  SALISBURY. The colour of the King doth come and go\n    Between his purpose and his conscience,\n    Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set.\n    His passion is so ripe it needs must break.\n  PEMBROKE. And when it breaks, I fear will issue thence\n    The foul corruption of a sweet child's death.\n  KING JOHN. We cannot hold mortality's strong hand.\n    Good lords, although my will to give is living,\n    The suit which you demand is gone and dead:\n    He tells us Arthur is deceas'd to-night.\n  SALISBURY. Indeed, we fear'd his sickness was past cure.\n  PEMBROKE. Indeed, we heard how near his death he was,\n    Before the child himself felt he was sick.\n    This must be answer'd either here or hence.\n  KING JOHN. Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?\n    Think you I bear the shears of destiny?\n    Have I commandment on the pulse of life?\n  SALISBURY. It is apparent foul-play; and 'tis shame\n    That greatness should so grossly offer it.\n    So thrive it in your game! and so, farewell.\n  PEMBROKE. Stay yet, Lord Salisbury, I'll go with thee\n    And find th' inheritance of this poor child,\n    His little kingdom of a forced grave.\n    That blood which ow'd the breadth of all this isle\n    Three foot of it doth hold-bad world the while!\n    This must not be thus borne: this will break out\n    To all our sorrows, and ere long I doubt.            Exeunt LORDS\n  KING JOHN. They burn in indignation. I repent.\n    There is no sure foundation set on blood,\n    No certain life achiev'd by others' death.\n\n                 Enter a MESSENGER\n\n    A fearful eye thou hast; where is that blood\n    That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks?\n    So foul a sky clears not without a storm.\n    Pour down thy weather-how goes all in France?\n  MESSENGER. From France to England. Never such a pow'r\n    For any foreign preparation\n    Was levied in the body of a land.\n    The copy of your speed is learn'd by them,\n    For when you should be told they do prepare,\n    The tidings comes that they are all arriv'd.\n  KING JOHN. O, where hath our intelligence been drunk?\n    Where hath it slept? Where is my mother's care,\n    That such an army could be drawn in France,\n    And she not hear of it?\n  MESSENGER. My liege, her ear\n    Is stopp'd with dust: the first of April died\n    Your noble mother; and as I hear, my lord,\n    The Lady Constance in a frenzy died\n    Three days before; but this from rumour's tongue\n    I idly heard-if true or false I know not.\n  KING JOHN. Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion!\n    O, make a league with me, till I have pleas'd\n    My discontented peers! What! mother dead!\n    How wildly then walks my estate in France!\n    Under whose conduct came those pow'rs of France\n    That thou for truth giv'st out are landed here?\n  MESSENGER. Under the Dauphin.\n  KING JOHN. Thou hast made me giddy\n    With these in tidings.\n\n         Enter the BASTARD and PETER OF POMFRET\n\n    Now! What says the world\n    To your proceedings? Do not seek to stuff\n    My head with more ill news, for it is fun.\n  BASTARD. But if you be afear'd to hear the worst,\n    Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head.\n  KING JOHN. Bear with me, cousin, for I was amaz'd\n    Under the tide; but now I breathe again\n    Aloft the flood, and can give audience\n    To any tongue, speak it of what it will.\n  BASTARD. How I have sped among the clergymen\n    The sums I have collected shall express.\n    But as I travell'd hither through the land,\n    I find the people strangely fantasied;\n    Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams.\n    Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear;\n    And here's a prophet that I brought with me\n    From forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found\n    With many hundreds treading on his heels;\n    To whom he sung, in rude harsh-sounding rhymes,\n    That, ere the next Ascension-day at noon,\n    Your Highness should deliver up your crown.\n  KING JOHN. Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so?\n  PETER. Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so.\n  KING JOHN. Hubert, away with him; imprison him;\n    And on that day at noon whereon he says\n    I shall yield up my crown let him be hang'd.\n    Deliver him to safety; and return,\n    For I must use thee.\n                                               Exit HUBERT with PETER\n    O my gentle cousin,\n    Hear'st thou the news abroad, who are arriv'd?\n  BASTARD. The French, my lord; men's mouths are full of it;\n    Besides, I met Lord Bigot and Lord Salisbury,\n    With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire,\n    And others more, going to seek the grave\n    Of Arthur, whom they say is kill'd to-night\n    On your suggestion.\n  KING JOHN. Gentle kinsman, go\n    And thrust thyself into their companies.\n    I have a way to will their loves again;\n    Bring them before me.\n  BASTARD. I Will seek them out.\n  KING JOHN. Nay, but make haste; the better foot before.\n    O, let me have no subject enemies\n    When adverse foreigners affright my towns\n    With dreadful pomp of stout invasion!\n    Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels,\n    And fly like thought from them to me again.\n  BASTARD. The spirit of the time shall teach me speed.\n  KING JOHN. Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman.\n                                                         Exit BASTARD\n    Go after him; for he perhaps shall need\n    Some messenger betwixt me and the peers;\n    And be thou he.\n  MESSENGER. With all my heart, my liege.                        Exit\n  KING JOHN. My mother dead!\n\n                   Re-enter HUBERT\n\n  HUBERT. My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night;\n    Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about\n    The other four in wondrous motion.\n  KING JOHN. Five moons!\n  HUBERT. Old men and beldams in the streets\n    Do prophesy upon it dangerously;\n    Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths;\n    And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,\n    And whisper one another in the ear;\n    And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist,\n    Whilst he that hears makes fearful action\n    With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.\n    I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,\n    The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,\n    With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;\n    Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,\n    Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste\n    Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet,\n    Told of a many thousand warlike French\n    That were embattailed and rank'd in Kent.\n    Another lean unwash'd artificer\n    Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.\n  KING JOHN. Why seek'st thou to possess me with these fears?\n    Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur's death?\n    Thy hand hath murd'red him. I had a mighty cause\n    To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.\n  HUBERT. No had, my lord! Why, did you not provoke me?\n  KING JOHN. It is the curse of kings to be attended\n    By slaves that take their humours for a warrant\n    To break within the bloody house of life,\n    And on the winking of authority\n    To understand a law; to know the meaning\n    Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns\n    More upon humour than advis'd respect.\n  HUBERT. Here is your hand and seal for what I did.\n  KING JOHN. O, when the last account 'twixt heaven and earth\n    Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal\n    Witness against us to damnation!\n    How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds\n    Make deeds ill done! Hadst not thou been by,\n    A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,\n    Quoted and sign'd to do a deed of shame,\n    This murder had not come into my mind;\n    But, taking note of thy abhorr'd aspect,\n    Finding thee fit for bloody villainy,\n    Apt, liable to be employ'd in danger,\n    I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death;\n    And thou, to be endeared to a king,\n    Made it no conscience to destroy a prince.\n  HUBERT. My lord-\n  KING JOHN. Hadst thou but shook thy head or made pause,\n    When I spake darkly what I purposed,\n    Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face,\n    As bid me tell my tale in express words,\n    Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off,\n    And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me.\n    But thou didst understand me by my signs,\n    And didst in signs again parley with sin;\n    Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent,\n    And consequently thy rude hand to act\n    The deed which both our tongues held vile to name.\n    Out of my sight, and never see me more!\n    My nobles leave me; and my state is braved,\n    Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign pow'rs;\n    Nay, in the body of the fleshly land,\n    This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,\n    Hostility and civil tumult reigns\n    Between my conscience and my cousin's death.\n  HUBERT. Arm you against your other enemies,\n    I'll make a peace between your soul and you.\n    Young Arthur is alive. This hand of mine\n    Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,\n    Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.\n    Within this bosom never ent'red yet\n    The dreadful motion of a murderous thought\n    And you have slander'd nature in my form,\n    Which, howsoever rude exteriorly,\n    Is yet the cover of a fairer mind\n    Than to be butcher of an innocent child.\n  KING JOHN. Doth Arthur live? O, haste thee to the peers,\n    Throw this report on their incensed rage\n    And make them tame to their obedience!\n    Forgive the comment that my passion made\n    Upon thy feature; for my rage was blind,\n    And foul imaginary eyes of blood\n    Presented thee more hideous than thou art.\n    O, answer not; but to my closet bring\n    The angry lords with all expedient haste.\n    I conjure thee but slowly; run more fast.                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nEngland. Before the castle\n\nEnter ARTHUR, on the walls\n\n  ARTHUR. The wall is high, and yet will I leap down.\n    Good ground, be pitiful and hurt me not!\n    There's few or none do know me; if they did,\n    This ship-boy's semblance hath disguis'd me quite.\n    I am afraid; and yet I'll venture it.\n    If I get down and do not break my limbs,\n    I'll find a thousand shifts to get away.\n    As good to die and go, as die and stay.              [Leaps down]\n    O me! my uncle's spirit is in these stones.\n    Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones!\n    [Dies]\n\n          Enter PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and BIGOT\n\n  SALISBURY. Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmundsbury;\n    It is our safety, and we must embrace\n    This gentle offer of the perilous time.\n  PEMBROKE. Who brought that letter from the Cardinal?\n  SALISBURY. The Count Melun, a noble lord of France,\n    Whose private with me of the Dauphin's love\n    Is much more general than these lines import.\n  BIGOT. To-morrow morning let us meet him then.\n  SALISBURY. Or rather then set forward; for 'twill be\n    Two long days' journey, lords, or ere we meet.\n\n                 Enter the BASTARD\n\n  BASTARD. Once more to-day well met, distemper'd lords!\n    The King by me requests your presence straight.\n  SALISBURY. The King hath dispossess'd himself of us.\n    We will not line his thin bestained cloak\n    With our pure honours, nor attend the foot\n    That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks.\n    Return and tell him so. We know the worst.\n  BASTARD. Whate'er you think, good words, I think, were best.\n  SALISBURY. Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now.\n  BASTARD. But there is little reason in your grief;\n    Therefore 'twere reason you had manners now.\n  PEMBROKE. Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege.\n  BASTARD. 'Tis true-to hurt his master, no man else.\n  SALISBURY. This is the prison. What is he lies here?\n  PEMBROKE. O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!\n    The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.\n  SALISBURY. Murder, as hating what himself hath done,\n    Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.\n  BIGOT. Or, when he doom'd this beauty to a grave,\n    Found it too precious-princely for a grave.\n  SALISBURY. Sir Richard, what think you? Have you beheld,\n    Or have you read or heard, or could you think?\n    Or do you almost think, although you see,\n    That you do see? Could thought, without this object,\n    Form such another? This is the very top,\n    The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest,\n    Of murder's arms; this is the bloodiest shame,\n    The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke,\n    That ever wall-ey'd wrath or staring rage\n    Presented to the tears of soft remorse.\n  PEMBROKE. All murders past do stand excus'd in this;\n    And this, so sole and so unmatchable,\n    Shall give a holiness, a purity,\n    To the yet unbegotten sin of times,\n    And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest,\n    Exampled by this heinous spectacle.\n  BASTARD. It is a damned and a bloody work;\n    The graceless action of a heavy hand,\n    If that it be the work of any hand.\n  SALISBURY. If that it be the work of any hand!\n    We had a kind of light what would ensue.\n    It is the shameful work of Hubert's hand;\n    The practice and the purpose of the King;\n    From whose obedience I forbid my soul\n    Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life,\n    And breathing to his breathless excellence\n    The incense of a vow, a holy vow,\n    Never to taste the pleasures of the world,\n    Never to be infected with delight,\n    Nor conversant with ease and idleness,\n    Till I have set a glory to this hand\n    By giving it the worship of revenge.\n  PEMBROKE. and BIGOT. Our souls religiously confirm thy words.\n\n                     Enter HUBERT\n\n  HUBERT. Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you.\n    Arthur doth live; the King hath sent for you.\n  SALISBURY. O, he is bold, and blushes not at death!\n    Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone!\n  HUBERT. I am no villain.\n  SALISBURY. Must I rob the law?                  [Drawing his sword]\n  BASTARD. Your sword is bright, sir; put it up again.\n  SALISBURY. Not till I sheathe it in a murderer's skin.\n  HUBERT. Stand back, Lord Salisbury, stand back, I say;\n    By heaven, I think my sword's as sharp as yours.\n    I would not have you, lord, forget yourself,\n    Nor tempt the danger of my true defence;\n    Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget\n    Your worth, your greatness and nobility.\n  BIGOT. Out, dunghill! Dar'st thou brave a nobleman?\n  HUBERT. Not for my life; but yet I dare defend\n    My innocent life against an emperor.\n  SALISBURY. Thou art a murderer.\n  HUBERT. Do not prove me so.\n    Yet I am none. Whose tongue soe'er speaks false,\n    Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies.\n  PEMBROKE. Cut him to pieces.\n  BASTARD. Keep the peace, I say.\n  SALISBURY. Stand by, or I shall gall you, Faulconbridge.\n  BASTARD. Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury.\n    If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot,\n    Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame,\n    I'll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime;\n    Or I'll so maul you and your toasting-iron\n    That you shall think the devil is come from hell.\n  BIGOT. What wilt thou do, renowned Faulconbridge?\n    Second a villain and a murderer?\n  HUBERT. Lord Bigot, I am none.\n  BIGOT. Who kill'd this prince?\n  HUBERT. 'Tis not an hour since I left him well.\n    I honour'd him, I lov'd him, and will weep\n    My date of life out for his sweet life's loss.\n  SALISBURY. Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,\n    For villainy is not without such rheum;\n    And he, long traded in it, makes it seem\n    Like rivers of remorse and innocency.\n    Away with me, all you whose souls abhor\n    Th' uncleanly savours of a slaughter-house;\n    For I am stifled with this smell of sin.\n  BIGOT. Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there!\n  PEMBROKE. There tell the King he may inquire us out.\n                                                         Exeunt LORDS\n  BASTARD. Here's a good world! Knew you of this fair work?\n    Beyond the infinite and boundless reach\n    Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,\n    Art thou damn'd, Hubert.\n  HUBERT. Do but hear me, sir.\n  BASTARD. Ha! I'll tell thee what:\n    Thou'rt damn'd as black-nay, nothing is so black-\n    Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer;\n    There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell\n    As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.\n  HUBERT. Upon my soul-\n  BASTARD. If thou didst but consent\n    To this most cruel act, do but despair;\n    And if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread\n    That ever spider twisted from her womb\n    Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be a beam\n    To hang thee on; or wouldst thou drown thyself,\n    Put but a little water in a spoon\n    And it shall be as all the ocean,\n    Enough to stifle such a villain up\n    I do suspect thee very grievously.\n  HUBERT. If I in act, consent, or sin of thought,\n    Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath\n    Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,\n    Let hell want pains enough to torture me!\n    I left him well.\n  BASTARD. Go, bear him in thine arms.\n    I am amaz'd, methinks, and lose my way\n    Among the thorns and dangers of this world.\n    How easy dost thou take all England up!\n    From forth this morsel of dead royalty\n    The life, the right, and truth of all this realm\n    Is fled to heaven; and England now is left\n    To tug and scamble, and to part by th' teeth\n    The unowed interest of proud-swelling state.\n    Now for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty\n    Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest\n    And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace;\n    Now powers from home and discontents at home\n    Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits,\n    As doth a raven on a sick-fall'n beast,\n    The imminent decay of wrested pomp.\n    Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can\n    Hold out this tempest. Bear away that child,\n    And follow me with speed. I'll to the King;\n    A thousand businesses are brief in hand,\n    And heaven itself doth frown upon the land.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\nEngland. KING JOHN'S palace\n\nEnter KING JOHN, PANDULPH, and attendants\n\n  KING JOHN. Thus have I yielded up into your hand\n    The circle of my glory.\n  PANDULPH.  [Gives back the crown]  Take again\n    From this my hand, as holding of the Pope,\n    Your sovereign greatness and authority.\n  KING JOHN. Now keep your holy word; go meet the French;\n    And from his Holiness use all your power\n    To stop their marches fore we are inflam'd.\n    Our discontented counties do revolt;\n    Our people quarrel with obedience,\n    Swearing allegiance and the love of soul\n    To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.\n    This inundation of mistemp'red humour\n    Rests by you only to be qualified.\n    Then pause not; for the present time's so sick\n    That present med'cine must be minist'red\n    Or overthrow incurable ensues.\n  PANDULPH. It was my breath that blew this tempest up,\n    Upon your stubborn usage of the Pope;\n    But since you are a gentle convertite,\n    My tongue shall hush again this storm of war\n    And make fair weather in your blust'ring land.\n    On this Ascension-day, remember well,\n    Upon your oath of service to the Pope,\n    Go I to make the French lay down their arms.                 Exit\n  KING JOHN. Is this Ascension-day? Did not the prophet\n    Say that before Ascension-day at noon\n    My crown I should give off? Even so I have.\n    I did suppose it should be on constraint;\n    But, heaven be thank'd, it is but voluntary.\n\n                 Enter the BASTARD\n\n  BASTARD. All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out\n    But Dover Castle. London hath receiv'd,\n    Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers.\n    Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone\n    To offer service to your enemy;\n    And wild amazement hurries up and down\n    The little number of your doubtful friends.\n  KING JOHN. Would not my lords return to me again\n    After they heard young Arthur was alive?\n    BASTARD. They found him dead, and cast into the streets,\n    An empty casket, where the jewel of life\n    By some damn'd hand was robbed and ta'en away.\n  KING JOHN. That villain Hubert told me he did live.\n  BASTARD. So, on my soul, he did, for aught he knew.\n    But wherefore do you droop? Why look you sad?\n    Be great in act, as you have been in thought;\n    Let not the world see fear and sad distrust\n    Govern the motion of a kingly eye.\n    Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;\n    Threaten the threat'ner, and outface the brow\n    Of bragging horror; so shall inferior eyes,\n    That borrow their behaviours from the great,\n    Grow great by your example and put on\n    The dauntless spirit of resolution.\n    Away, and glister like the god of war\n    When he intendeth to become the field;\n    Show boldness and aspiring confidence.\n    What, shall they seek the lion in his den,\n    And fright him there, and make him tremble there?\n    O, let it not be said! Forage, and run\n    To meet displeasure farther from the doors\n    And grapple with him ere he come so nigh.\n  KING JOHN. The legate of the Pope hath been with me,\n    And I have made a happy peace with him;\n    And he hath promis'd to dismiss the powers\n    Led by the Dauphin.\n  BASTARD. O inglorious league!\n    Shall we, upon the footing of our land,\n    Send fair-play orders, and make compromise,\n    Insinuation, parley, and base truce,\n    To arms invasive? Shall a beardless boy,\n    A cock'red silken wanton, brave our fields\n    And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,\n    Mocking the air with colours idly spread,\n    And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms.\n    Perchance the Cardinal cannot make your peace;\n    Or, if he do, let it at least be said\n    They saw we had a purpose of defence.\n  KING JOHN. Have thou the ordering of this present time.\n  BASTARD. Away, then, with good courage!\n    Yet, I know\n    Our party may well meet a prouder foe.                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nEngland. The DAUPHIN'S camp at Saint Edmundsbury\n\nEnter, in arms, LEWIS, SALISBURY, MELUN, PEMBROKE, BIGOT, and soldiers\n\n  LEWIS. My Lord Melun, let this be copied out\n    And keep it safe for our remembrance;\n    Return the precedent to these lords again,\n    That, having our fair order written down,\n    Both they and we, perusing o'er these notes,\n    May know wherefore we took the sacrament,\n    And keep our faiths firm and inviolable.\n  SALISBURY. Upon our sides it never shall be broken.\n    And, noble Dauphin, albeit we swear\n    A voluntary zeal and an unurg'd faith\n    To your proceedings; yet, believe me, Prince,\n    I am not glad that such a sore of time\n    Should seek a plaster by contemn'd revolt,\n    And heal the inveterate canker of one wound\n    By making many. O, it grieves my soul\n    That I must draw this metal from my side\n    To be a widow-maker! O, and there\n    Where honourable rescue and defence\n    Cries out upon the name of Salisbury!\n    But such is the infection of the time\n    That, for the health and physic of our right,\n    We cannot deal but with the very hand\n    Of stern injustice and confused wrong.\n    And is't not pity, O my grieved friends!\n    That we, the sons and children of this isle,\n    Were born to see so sad an hour as this;\n    Wherein we step after a stranger-march\n    Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up\n    Her enemies' ranks-I must withdraw and weep\n    Upon the spot of this enforced cause-\n    To grace the gentry of a land remote\n    And follow unacquainted colours here?\n    What, here? O nation, that thou couldst remove!\n    That Neptune's arms, who clippeth thee about,\n    Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself\n    And grapple thee unto a pagan shore,\n    Where these two Christian armies might combine\n    The blood of malice in a vein of league,\n    And not to spend it so unneighbourly!\n  LEWIS. A noble temper dost thou show in this;\n    And great affections wrestling in thy bosom\n    Doth make an earthquake of nobility.\n    O, what a noble combat hast thou fought\n    Between compulsion and a brave respect!\n    Let me wipe off this honourable dew\n    That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks.\n    My heart hath melted at a lady's tears,\n    Being an ordinary inundation;\n    But this effusion of such manly drops,\n    This show'r, blown up by tempest of the soul,\n    Startles mine eyes and makes me more amaz'd\n    Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven\n    Figur'd quite o'er with burning meteors.\n    Lift up thy brow, renowned Salisbury,\n    And with a great heart heave away this storm;\n    Commend these waters to those baby eyes\n    That never saw the giant world enrag'd,\n    Nor met with fortune other than at feasts,\n    Full of warm blood, of mirth, of gossiping.\n    Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deep\n    Into the purse of rich prosperity\n    As Lewis himself. So, nobles, shall you all,\n    That knit your sinews to the strength of mine.\n\n                Enter PANDULPH\n\n    And even there, methinks, an angel spake:\n    Look where the holy legate comes apace,\n    To give us warrant from the hand of heaven\n    And on our actions set the name of right\n    With holy breath.\n  PANDULPH. Hail, noble prince of France!\n    The next is this: King John hath reconcil'd\n    Himself to Rome; his spirit is come in,\n    That so stood out against the holy Church,\n    The great metropolis and see of Rome.\n    Therefore thy threat'ning colours now wind up\n    And tame the savage spirit of wild war,\n    That, like a lion fostered up at hand,\n    It may lie gently at the foot of peace\n    And be no further harmful than in show.\n  LEWIS. Your Grace shall pardon me, I will not back:\n    I am too high-born to be propertied,\n    To be a secondary at control,\n    Or useful serving-man and instrument\n    To any sovereign state throughout the world.\n    Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars\n    Between this chastis'd kingdom and myself\n    And brought in matter that should feed this fire;\n    And now 'tis far too huge to be blown out\n    With that same weak wind which enkindled it.\n    You taught me how to know the face of right,\n    Acquainted me with interest to this land,\n    Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart;\n    And come ye now to tell me John hath made\n    His peace with Rome? What is that peace to me?\n    I, by the honour of my marriage-bed,\n    After young Arthur, claim this land for mine;\n    And, now it is half-conquer'd, must I back\n    Because that John hath made his peace with Rome?\n    Am I Rome's slave? What penny hath Rome borne,\n    What men provided, what munition sent,\n    To underprop this action? Is 't not I\n    That undergo this charge? Who else but I,\n    And such as to my claim are liable,\n    Sweat in this business and maintain this war?\n    Have I not heard these islanders shout out\n    'Vive le roi!' as I have bank'd their towns?\n    Have I not here the best cards for the game\n    To will this easy match, play'd for a crown?\n    And shall I now give o'er the yielded set?\n    No, no, on my soul, it never shall be said.\n  PANDULPH. You look but on the outside of this work.\n  LEWIS. Outside or inside, I will not return\n    Till my attempt so much be glorified\n    As to my ample hope was promised\n    Before I drew this gallant head of war,\n    And cull'd these fiery spirits from the world\n    To outlook conquest, and to will renown\n    Even in the jaws of danger and of death.\n                                                     [Trumpet sounds]\n    What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?\n\n             Enter the BASTARD, attended\n\n  BASTARD. According to the fair play of the world,\n    Let me have audience: I am sent to speak.\n    My holy lord of Milan, from the King\n    I come, to learn how you have dealt for him;\n    And, as you answer, I do know the scope\n    And warrant limited unto my tongue.\n  PANDULPH. The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite,\n    And will not temporize with my entreaties;\n    He flatly says he'll not lay down his arms.\n  BASTARD. By all the blood that ever fury breath'd,\n    The youth says well. Now hear our English King;\n    For thus his royalty doth speak in me.\n    He is prepar'd, and reason too he should.\n    This apish and unmannerly approach,\n    This harness'd masque and unadvised revel\n    This unhair'd sauciness and boyish troops,\n    The King doth smile at; and is well prepar'd\n    To whip this dwarfish war, these pigmy arms,\n    From out the circle of his territories.\n    That hand which had the strength, even at your door.\n    To cudgel you and make you take the hatch,\n    To dive like buckets in concealed wells,\n    To crouch in litter of your stable planks,\n    To lie like pawns lock'd up in chests and trunks,\n    To hug with swine, to seek sweet safety out\n    In vaults and prisons, and to thrill and shake\n    Even at the crying of your nation's crow,\n    Thinking this voice an armed Englishman-\n    Shall that victorious hand be feebled here\n    That in your chambers gave you chastisement?\n    No. Know the gallant monarch is in arms\n    And like an eagle o'er his aery tow'rs\n    To souse annoyance that comes near his nest.\n    And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts,\n    You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb\n    Of your dear mother England, blush for shame;\n    For your own ladies and pale-visag'd maids,\n    Like Amazons, come tripping after drums,\n    Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change,\n    Their needles to lances, and their gentle hearts\n    To fierce and bloody inclination.\n  LEWIS. There end thy brave, and turn thy face in peace;\n    We grant thou canst outscold us. Fare thee well;\n    We hold our time too precious to be spent\n    With such a brabbler.\n  PANDULPH. Give me leave to speak.\n  BASTARD. No, I will speak.\n  LEWIS. We will attend to neither.\n    Strike up the drums; and let the tongue of war,\n    Plead for our interest and our being here.\n  BASTARD. Indeed, your drums, being beaten, will cry out;\n    And so shall you, being beaten. Do but start\n    And echo with the clamour of thy drum,\n    And even at hand a drum is ready brac'd\n    That shall reverberate all as loud as thine:\n    Sound but another, and another shall,\n    As loud as thine, rattle the welkin's ear\n    And mock the deep-mouth'd thunder; for at hand-\n    Not trusting to this halting legate here,\n    Whom he hath us'd rather for sport than need-\n    Is warlike John; and in his forehead sits\n    A bare-ribb'd death, whose office is this day\n    To feast upon whole thousands of the French.\n  LEWIS. Strike up our drums to find this danger out.\n  BASTARD. And thou shalt find it, Dauphin, do not doubt.\n    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nEngland. The field of battle\n\nAlarums. Enter KING JOHN and HUBERT\n\n  KING JOHN. How goes the day with us? O, tell me, Hubert.\n  HUBERT. Badly, I fear. How fares your Majesty?\n  KING JOHN. This fever that hath troubled me so long\n    Lies heavy on me. O, my heart is sick!\n\n                  Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My lord, your valiant kinsman, Faulconbridge,\n    Desires your Majesty to leave the field\n    And send him word by me which way you go.\n  KING JOHN. Tell him, toward Swinstead, to the abbey there.\n  MESSENGER. Be of good comfort; for the great supply\n    That was expected by the Dauphin here\n    Are wreck'd three nights ago on Goodwin Sands;\n    This news was brought to Richard but even now.\n    The French fight coldly, and retire themselves.\n  KING JOHN. Ay me, this tyrant fever burns me up\n    And will not let me welcome this good news.\n    Set on toward Swinstead; to my litter straight;\n    Weakness possesseth me, and I am faint.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nEngland. Another part of the battlefield\n\nEnter SALISBURY, PEMBROKE, and BIGOT\n\n  SALISBURY. I did not think the King so stor'd with friends.\n  PEMBROKE. Up once again; put spirit in the French;\n    If they miscarry, we miscarry too.\n  SALISBURY. That misbegotten devil, Faulconbridge,\n    In spite of spite, alone upholds the day.\n  PEMBROKE. They say King John, sore sick, hath left the field.\n\n                 Enter MELUN, wounded\n\n  MELUN. Lead me to the revolts of England here.\n  SALISBURY. When we were happy we had other names.\n  PEMBROKE. It is the Count Melun.\n  SALISBURY. Wounded to death.\n  MELUN. Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold;\n    Unthread the rude eye of rebellion,\n    And welcome home again discarded faith.\n    Seek out King John, and fall before his feet;\n    For if the French be lords of this loud day,\n    He means to recompense the pains you take\n    By cutting off your heads. Thus hath he sworn,\n    And I with him, and many moe with me,\n    Upon the altar at Saint Edmundsbury;\n    Even on that altar where we swore to you\n    Dear amity and everlasting love.\n  SALISBURY. May this be possible? May this be true?\n  MELUN. Have I not hideous death within my view,\n    Retaining but a quantity of life,\n    Which bleeds away even as a form of wax\n    Resolveth from his figure 'gainst the fire?\n    What in the world should make me now deceive,\n    Since I must lose the use of all deceit?\n    Why should I then be false, since it is true\n    That I must die here, and live hence by truth?\n    I say again, if Lewis do will the day,\n    He is forsworn if e'er those eyes of yours\n    Behold another day break in the east;\n    But even this night, whose black contagious breath\n    Already smokes about the burning crest\n    Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun,\n    Even this ill night, your breathing shall expire,\n    Paying the fine of rated treachery\n    Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives.\n    If Lewis by your assistance win the day.\n    Commend me to one Hubert, with your King;\n    The love of him-and this respect besides,\n    For that my grandsire was an Englishman-\n    Awakes my conscience to confess all this.\n    In lieu whereof, I pray you, bear me hence\n    From forth the noise and rumour of the field,\n    Where I may think the remnant of my thoughts\n    In peace, and part this body and my soul\n    With contemplation and devout desires.\n  SALISBURY. We do believe thee; and beshrew my soul\n    But I do love the favour and the form\n    Of this most fair occasion, by the which\n    We will untread the steps of damned flight,\n    And like a bated and retired flood,\n    Leaving our rankness and irregular course,\n    Stoop low within those bounds we have o'erlook'd,\n    And calmly run on in obedience\n    Even to our ocean, to great King John.\n    My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence;\n    For I do see the cruel pangs of death\n    Right in thine eye. Away, my friends! New flight,\n    And happy newness, that intends old right.\n                                            Exeunt, leading off MELUN\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nEngland. The French camp\n\nEnter LEWIS and his train\n\n  LEWIS. The sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set,\n    But stay'd and made the western welkin blush,\n    When English measure backward their own ground\n    In faint retire. O, bravely came we off,\n    When with a volley of our needless shot,\n    After such bloody toil, we bid good night;\n    And wound our tott'ring colours clearly up,\n    Last in the field and almost lords of it!\n\n                 Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Where is my prince, the Dauphin?\n  LEWIS. Here; what news?\n  MESSENGER. The Count Melun is slain; the English lords\n    By his persuasion are again fall'n off,\n    And your supply, which you have wish'd so long,\n    Are cast away and sunk on Goodwin Sands.\n  LEWIS. Ah, foul shrewd news! Beshrew thy very heart!\n    I did not think to be so sad to-night\n    As this hath made me. Who was he that said\n    King John did fly an hour or two before\n    The stumbling night did part our weary pow'rs?\n  MESSENGER. Whoever spoke it, it is true, my lord.\n  LEWIS. keep good quarter and good care to-night;\n    The day shall not be up so soon as I\n    To try the fair adventure of to-morrow.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 6.\n\nAn open place wear Swinstead Abbey\n\nEnter the BASTARD and HUBERT, severally\n\n  HUBERT. Who's there? Speak, ho! speak quickly, or I shoot.\n  BASTARD. A friend. What art thou?\n  HUBERT. Of the part of England.\n  BASTARD. Whither dost thou go?\n  HUBERT. What's that to thee? Why may I not demand\n    Of thine affairs as well as thou of mine?\n  BASTARD. Hubert, I think.\n  HUBERT. Thou hast a perfect thought.\n    I will upon all hazards well believe\n    Thou art my friend that know'st my tongue so well.\n    Who art thou?\n  BASTARD. Who thou wilt. And if thou please,\n    Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think\n    I come one way of the Plantagenets.\n  HUBERT. Unkind remembrance! thou and eyeless night\n    Have done me shame. Brave soldier, pardon me\n    That any accent breaking from thy tongue\n    Should scape the true acquaintance of mine ear.\n  BASTARD. Come, come; sans compliment, what news abroad?\n  HUBERT. Why, here walk I in the black brow of night\n    To find you out.\n  BASTARD. Brief, then; and what's the news?\n  HUBERT. O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night,\n    Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible.\n  BASTARD. Show me the very wound of this ill news;\n    I am no woman, I'll not swoon at it.\n  HUBERT. The King, I fear, is poison'd by a monk;\n    I left him almost speechless and broke out\n    To acquaint you with this evil, that you might\n    The better arm you to the sudden time\n    Than if you had at leisure known of this.\n  BASTARD. How did he take it; who did taste to him?\n  HUBERT. A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain,\n    Whose bowels suddenly burst out. The King\n    Yet speaks, and peradventure may recover.\n  BASTARD. Who didst thou leave to tend his Majesty?\n  HUBERT. Why, know you not? The lords are all come back,\n    And brought Prince Henry in their company;\n    At whose request the King hath pardon'd them,\n    And they are all about his Majesty.\n  BASTARD. Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven,\n    And tempt us not to bear above our power!\n    I'll tell thee, Hubert, half my power this night,\n    Passing these flats, are taken by the tide-\n    These Lincoln Washes have devoured them;\n    Myself, well-mounted, hardly have escap'd.\n    Away, before! conduct me to the King;\n    I doubt he will be dead or ere I come.                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 7.\n\nThe orchard at Swinstead Abbey\n\nEnter PRINCE HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGOT\n\n  PRINCE HENRY. It is too late; the life of all his blood\n    Is touch'd corruptibly, and his pure brain.\n    Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house,\n    Doth by the idle comments that it makes\n    Foretell the ending of mortality.\n\n                   Enter PEMBROKE\n\n  PEMBROKE. His Highness yet doth speak, and holds belief\n    That, being brought into the open air,\n    It would allay the burning quality\n    Of that fell poison which assaileth him.\n  PRINCE HENRY. Let him be brought into the orchard here.\n    Doth he still rage?                                    Exit BIGOT\n  PEMBROKE. He is more patient\n    Than when you left him; even now he sung.\n  PRINCE HENRY. O vanity of sickness! Fierce extremes\n    In their continuance will not feel themselves.\n    Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts,\n    Leaves them invisible, and his siege is now\n    Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds\n    With many legions of strange fantasies,\n    Which, in their throng and press to that last hold,\n    Confound themselves. 'Tis strange that death should sing.\n    I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan\n    Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,\n    And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings\n    His soul and body to their lasting rest.\n  SALISBURY. Be of good comfort, Prince; for you are born\n    To set a form upon that indigest\n    Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.\n\n       Re-enter BIGOT and attendants, who bring in\n                KING JOHN in a chair\n\n  KING JOHN. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room;\n    It would not out at windows nor at doors.\n    There is so hot a summer in my bosom\n    That all my bowels crumble up to dust.\n    I am a scribbled form drawn with a pen\n    Upon a parchment, and against this fire\n    Do I shrink up.\n  PRINCE HENRY. How fares your Majesty?\n  KING JOHN. Poison'd-ill-fare! Dead, forsook, cast off;\n    And none of you will bid the winter come\n    To thrust his icy fingers in my maw,\n    Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course\n    Through my burn'd bosom, nor entreat the north\n    To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips\n    And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much;\n    I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait\n    And so ingrateful you deny me that.\n  PRINCE HENRY. O that there were some virtue in my tears,\n    That might relieve you!\n  KING JOHN. The salt in them is hot.\n    Within me is a hell; and there the poison\n    Is as a fiend confin'd to tyrannize\n    On unreprievable condemned blood.\n\n                 Enter the BASTARD\n\n  BASTARD. O, I am scalded with my violent motion\n    And spleen of speed to see your Majesty!\n  KING JOHN. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye!\n    The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burnt,\n    And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail\n    Are turned to one thread, one little hair;\n    My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,\n    Which holds but till thy news be uttered;\n    And then all this thou seest is but a clod\n    And module of confounded royalty.\n  BASTARD. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward,\n    Where God He knows how we shall answer him;\n    For in a night the best part of my pow'r,\n    As I upon advantage did remove,\n    Were in the Washes all unwarily\n    Devoured by the unexpected flood.                 [The KING dies]\n  SALISBURY. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.\n    My liege! my lord! But now a king-now thus.\n  PRINCE HENRY. Even so must I run on, and even so stop.\n    What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,\n    When this was now a king, and now is clay?\n  BASTARD. Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind\n    To do the office for thee of revenge,\n    And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven,\n    As it on earth hath been thy servant still.\n    Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres,\n    Where be your pow'rs? Show now your mended faiths,\n    And instantly return with me again\n    To push destruction and perpetual shame\n    Out of the weak door of our fainting land.\n    Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought;\n    The Dauphin rages at our very heels.\n  SALISBURY. It seems you know not, then, so much as we:\n    The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,\n    Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin,\n    And brings from him such offers of our peace\n    As we with honour and respect may take,\n    With purpose presently to leave this war.\n  BASTARD. He will the rather do it when he sees\n    Ourselves well sinewed to our defence.\n  SALISBURY. Nay, 'tis in a manner done already;\n    For many carriages he hath dispatch'd\n    To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel\n    To the disposing of the Cardinal;\n    With whom yourself, myself, and other lords,\n    If you think meet, this afternoon will post\n    To consummate this business happily.\n  BASTARD. Let it be so. And you, my noble Prince,\n    With other princes that may best be spar'd,\n    Shall wait upon your father's funeral.\n  PRINCE HENRY. At Worcester must his body be interr'd;\n    For so he will'd it.\n  BASTARD. Thither shall it, then;\n    And happily may your sweet self put on\n    The lineal state and glory of the land!\n    To whom, with all submission, on my knee\n    I do bequeath my faithful services\n    And true subjection everlastingly.\n  SALISBURY. And the like tender of our love we make,\n    To rest without a spot for evermore.\n  PRINCE HENRY. I have a kind soul that would give you thanks,\n    And knows not how to do it but with tears.\n  BASTARD. O, let us pay the time but needful woe,\n    Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.\n    This England never did, nor never shall,\n    Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,\n    But when it first did help to wound itself.\n    Now these her princes are come home again,\n    Come the three corners of the world in arms,\n    And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,\n    If England to itself do rest but true.                     Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1599\n\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESAR\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  JULIUS CAESAR, Roman statesman and general\n  OCTAVIUS, Triumvir after Caesar's death, later Augustus Caesar,\n    first emperor of Rome\n  MARK ANTONY, general and friend of Caesar, a Triumvir after his death\n  LEPIDUS, third member of the Triumvirate\n  MARCUS BRUTUS, leader of the conspiracy against Caesar\n  CASSIUS, instigator of the conspiracy\n  CASCA,          conspirator against Caesar\n  TREBONIUS,           \"          \"     \"\n  CAIUS LIGARIUS,      \"          \"     \"\n  DECIUS BRUTUS,       \"          \"     \"\n  METELLUS CIMBER,     \"          \"     \"\n  CINNA,               \"          \"     \"\n  CALPURNIA, wife of Caesar\n  PORTIA, wife of Brutus\n  CICERO,     senator\n  POPILIUS,      \"\n  POPILIUS LENA, \"\n  FLAVIUS, tribune\n  MARULLUS, tribune\n  CATO,     supportor of Brutus\n  LUCILIUS,     \"     \"    \"\n  TITINIUS,     \"     \"    \"\n  MESSALA,      \"     \"    \"\n  VOLUMNIUS,    \"     \"    \"\n  ARTEMIDORUS, a teacher of rhetoric\n  CINNA, a poet\n  VARRO,     servant to Brutus\n  CLITUS,       \"    \"     \"\n  CLAUDIO,      \"    \"     \"\n  STRATO,       \"    \"     \"\n  LUCIUS,       \"    \"     \"\n  DARDANIUS,    \"    \"     \"\n  PINDARUS, servant to Cassius\n  The Ghost of Caesar\n  A Soothsayer\n  A Poet\n  Senators, Citizens, Soldiers, Commoners, Messengers, and Servants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE: Rome, the conspirators' camp near Sardis,  and the plains of Philippi.\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nRome. A street.\n\nEnter Flavius, Marullus, and certain Commoners.\n\n  FLAVIUS. Hence, home, you idle creatures, get you home.\n    Is this a holiday? What, know you not,\n    Being mechanical, you ought not walk\n    Upon a laboring day without the sign\n    Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou?\n  FIRST COMMONER. Why, sir, a carpenter.\n  MARULLUS. Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?\n    What dost thou with thy best apparel on?\n    You, sir, what trade are you?\n  SECOND COMMONER. Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am\n    but, as you would say, a cobbler.\n  MARULLUS. But what trade art thou? Answer me directly.\n  SECOND COMMONER. A trade, sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safe\n    conscience, which is indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles.\n  MARULLUS. What trade, thou knave? Thou naughty knave, what trade?\n  SECOND COMMONER. Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me; yet,\n    if you be out, sir, I can mend you.\n  MARULLUS. What mean'st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow!\n  SECOND COMMONER. Why, sir, cobble you.\n  FLAVIUS. Thou art a cobbler, art thou?\n  SECOND COMMONER. Truly, Sir, all that I live by is with the awl; I\n    meddle with no tradesman's matters, nor women's matters, but with\n    awl. I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes; when they are in\n    great danger, I recover them. As proper men as ever trod upon\n    neat's leather have gone upon my handiwork.\n  FLAVIUS. But wherefore art not in thy shop today?\n    Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?\n  SECOND COMMONER. Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes to get myself\n    into more work. But indeed, sir, we make holiday to see Caesar\n    and to rejoice in his triumph.\n  MARULLUS. Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?\n    What tributaries follow him to Rome\n    To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?\n    You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!\n    O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,\n    Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft\n    Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements,\n    To towers and windows, yea, to chimney tops,\n    Your infants in your arms, and there have sat\n    The livelong day with patient expectation\n    To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome.\n    And when you saw his chariot but appear,\n    Have you not made an universal shout\n    That Tiber trembled underneath her banks\n    To hear the replication of your sounds\n    Made in her concave shores?\n    And do you now put on your best attire?\n    And do you now cull out a holiday?\n    And do you now strew flowers in his way\n    That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?\n    Be gone!\n    Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,\n    Pray to the gods to intermit the plague\n    That needs must light on this ingratitude.\n  FLAVIUS. Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault,\n    Assemble all the poor men of your sort,\n    Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears\n    Into the channel, till the lowest stream\n    Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.\n                                           Exeunt all Commoners.\n    See whether their basest metal be not moved;\n    They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.\n    Go you down that way towards the Capitol;\n    This way will I. Disrobe the images\n    If you do find them deck'd with ceremonies.\n  MARULLUS. May we do so?\n    You know it is the feast of Lupercal.\n  FLAVIUS. It is no matter; let no images\n    Be hung with Caesar's trophies. I'll about\n    And drive away the vulgar from the streets;\n    So do you too, where you perceive them thick.\n    These growing feathers pluck'd from Caesar's wing\n    Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,\n    Who else would soar above the view of men\n    And keep us all in servile fearfulness.              Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA public place.\n\nFlourish. Enter Caesar; Antony, for the course; Calpurnia, Portia,\nDecius, Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, and Casca; a great crowd follows,\namong them a Soothsayer.\n\n  CAESAR. Calpurnia!\n  CASCA. Peace, ho! Caesar speaks.\n                                                   Music ceases.\n  CAESAR. Calpurnia!\n  CALPURNIA. Here, my lord.\n  CAESAR. Stand you directly in Antonio's way,\n    When he doth run his course. Antonio!\n  ANTONY. Caesar, my lord?\n  CAESAR. Forget not in your speed, Antonio,\n    To touch Calpurnia, for our elders say\n    The barren, touched in this holy chase,\n    Shake off their sterile curse.\n  ANTONY. I shall remember.\n    When Caesar says \"Do this,\" it is perform'd.\n  CAESAR. Set on, and leave no ceremony out.           Flourish.\n  SOOTHSAYER. Caesar!\n  CAESAR. Ha! Who calls?\n  CASCA. Bid every noise be still. Peace yet again!\n  CAESAR. Who is it in the press that calls on me?\n    I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music,\n    Cry \"Caesar.\" Speak, Caesar is turn'd to hear.\n  SOOTHSAYER. Beware the ides of March.\n  CAESAR. What man is that?\n  BRUTUS. A soothsayer you beware the ides of March.\n  CAESAR. Set him before me let me see his face.\n  CASSIUS. Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.\n  CAESAR. What say'st thou to me now? Speak once again.\n  SOOTHSAYER. Beware the ides of March.\n  CAESAR. He is a dreamer; let us leave him. Pass.\n                      Sennet. Exeunt all but Brutus and Cassius.\n  CASSIUS. Will you go see the order of the course?\n  BRUTUS. Not I.\n  CASSIUS. I pray you, do.\n  BRUTUS. I am not gamesome; I do lack some part\n    Of that quick spirit that is in Antony.\n    Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires;\n    I'll leave you.\n  CASSIUS. Brutus, I do observe you now of late;\n    I have not from your eyes that gentleness\n    And show of love as I was wont to have;\n    You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand\n    Over your friend that loves you.\n  BRUTUS. Cassius,\n    Be not deceived; if I have veil'd my look,\n    I turn the trouble of my countenance\n    Merely upon myself. Vexed I am\n    Of late with passions of some difference,\n    Conceptions only proper to myself,\n    Which give some soil perhaps to my behaviors;\n    But let not therefore my good friends be grieved-\n    Among which number, Cassius, be you one-\n    Nor construe any further my neglect\n    Than that poor Brutus with himself at war\n    Forgets the shows of love to other men.\n  CASSIUS. Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion,\n    By means whereof this breast of mine hath buried\n    Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations.\n    Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?\n  BRUTUS. No, Cassius, for the eye sees not itself\n    But by reflection, by some other things.\n  CASSIUS. 'Tis just,\n    And it is very much lamented, Brutus,\n    That you have no such mirrors as will turn\n    Your hidden worthiness into your eye\n    That you might see your shadow. I have heard\n    Where many of the best respect in Rome,\n    Except immortal Caesar, speaking of Brutus\n    And groaning underneath this age's yoke,\n    Have wish'd that noble Brutus had his eyes.\n  BRUTUS. Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius,\n    That you would have me seek into myself\n    For that which is not in me?\n  CASSIUS. Therefore, good Brutus, be prepared to hear,\n    And since you know you cannot see yourself\n    So well as by reflection, I your glass\n    Will modestly discover to yourself\n    That of yourself which you yet know not of.\n    And be not jealous on me, gentle Brutus;\n    Were I a common laugher, or did use\n    To stale with ordinary oaths my love\n    To every new protester, if you know\n    That I do fawn on men and hug them hard\n    And after scandal them, or if you know\n    That I profess myself in banqueting\n    To all the rout, then hold me dangerous.\n                                             Flourish and shout.\n  BRUTUS. What means this shouting? I do fear the people\n    Choose Caesar for their king.\n  CASSIUS. Ay, do you fear it?\n    Then must I think you would not have it so.\n  BRUTUS. I would not, Cassius, yet I love him well.\n    But wherefore do you hold me here so long?\n    What is it that you would impart to me?\n    If it be aught toward the general good,\n    Set honor in one eye and death i' the other\n    And I will look on both indifferently.\n    For let the gods so speed me as I love\n    The name of honor more than I fear death.\n  CASSIUS. I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,\n    As well as I do know your outward favor.\n    Well, honor is the subject of my story.\n    I cannot tell what you and other men\n    Think of this life, but, for my single self,\n    I had as lief not be as live to be\n    In awe of such a thing as I myself.\n    I was born free as Caesar, so were you;\n    We both have fed as well, and we can both\n    Endure the winter's cold as well as he.\n    For once, upon a raw and gusty day,\n    The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,\n    Caesar said to me, \"Darest thou, Cassius, now\n    Leap in with me into this angry flood\n    And swim to yonder point?\" Upon the word,\n    Accoutred as I was, I plunged in\n    And bade him follow. So indeed he did.\n    The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it\n    With lusty sinews, throwing it aside\n    And stemming it with hearts of controversy.\n    But ere we could arrive the point proposed,\n    Caesar cried, \"Help me, Cassius, or I sink!\n    I, as Aeneas our great ancestor\n    Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder\n    The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber\n    Did I the tired Caesar. And this man\n    Is now become a god, and Cassius is\n    A wretched creature and must bend his body\n    If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.\n    He had a fever when he was in Spain,\n    And when the fit was on him I did mark\n    How he did shake. 'Tis true, this god did shake;\n    His coward lips did from their color fly,\n    And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world\n    Did lose his luster. I did hear him groan.\n    Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans\n    Mark him and write his speeches in their books,\n    Alas, it cried, \"Give me some drink, Titinius,\"\n    As a sick girl. Ye gods! It doth amaze me\n    A man of such a feeble temper should\n    So get the start of the majestic world\n    And bear the palm alone. Shout.                    Flourish.\n  BRUTUS. Another general shout!\n    I do believe that these applauses are\n    For some new honors that are heap'd on Caesar.\n  CASSIUS. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world\n    Like a Colossus, and we petty men\n    Walk under his huge legs and peep about\n    To find ourselves dishonorable graves.\n    Men at some time are masters of their fates:\n    The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,\n    But in ourselves that we are underlings.\n    Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that \"Caesar\"?\n    Why should that name be sounded more than yours?\n    Write them together, yours is as fair a name;\n    Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;\n    Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with 'em,\n    \"Brutus\" will start a spirit as soon as \"Caesar.\"\n    Now, in the names of all the gods at once,\n    Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed\n    That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed!\n    Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!\n    When went there by an age since the great flood\n    But it was famed with more than with one man?\n    When could they say till now that talk'd of Rome\n    That her wide walls encompass'd but one man?\n    Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough,\n    When there is in it but one only man.\n    O, you and I have heard our fathers say\n    There was a Brutus once that would have brook'd\n    The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome\n    As easily as a king.\n  BRUTUS. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous;\n    What you would work me to, I have some aim.\n    How I have thought of this and of these times,\n    I shall recount hereafter; for this present,\n    I would not, so with love I might entreat you,\n    Be any further moved. What you have said\n    I will consider; what you have to say\n    I will with patience hear, and find a time\n    Both meet to hear and answer such high things.\n    Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this:\n    Brutus had rather be a villager\n    Than to repute himself a son of Rome\n    Under these hard conditions as this time\n    Is like to lay upon us.\n  CASSIUS. I am glad that my weak words\n    Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus.\n\n            Re-enter Caesar and his Train.\n\n  BRUTUS. The games are done, and Caesar is returning.\n  CASSIUS. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve,\n    And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you\n    What hath proceeded worthy note today.\n  BRUTUS. I will do so. But, look you, Cassius,\n    The angry spot doth glow on Caesar's brow,\n    And all the rest look like a chidden train:\n    Calpurnia's cheek is pale, and Cicero\n    Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes\n    As we have seen him in the Capitol,\n    Being cross'd in conference by some senators.\n  CASSIUS. Casca will tell us what the matter is.\n  CAESAR. Antonio!\n  ANTONY. Caesar?\n  CAESAR. Let me have men about me that are fat,\n    Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights:\n    Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;\n    He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.\n  ANTONY. Fear him not, Caesar; he's not dangerous;\n    He is a noble Roman and well given.\n  CAESAR. Would he were fatter! But I fear him not,\n    Yet if my name were liable to fear,\n    I do not know the man I should avoid\n    So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much,\n    He is a great observer, and he looks\n    Quite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays,\n    As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;\n    Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort\n    As if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spirit\n    That could be moved to smile at anything.\n    Such men as he be never at heart's ease\n    Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,\n    And therefore are they very dangerous.\n    I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd\n    Than what I fear, for always I am Caesar.\n    Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf,\n    And tell me truly what thou think'st of him.\n              Sennet. Exeunt Caesar and all his Train but Casca.\n  CASCA. You pull'd me by the cloak; would you speak with me?\n  BRUTUS. Ay, Casca, tell us what hath chanced today\n    That Caesar looks so sad.\n  CASCA. Why, you were with him, were you not?\n  BRUTUS. I should not then ask Casca what had chanced.\n  CASCA. Why, there was a crown offered him, and being offered him,\n     he put it by with the back of his hand, thus, and then the\n     people fell ashouting.\n  BRUTUS. What was the second noise for?\n  CASCA. Why, for that too.\n  CASSIUS. They shouted thrice. What was the last cry for?\n  CASCA. Why, for that too.\n  BRUTUS. Was the crown offered him thrice?\n  CASCA. Ay, marry, wast, and he put it by thrice, every time gentler\n    than other, and at every putting by mine honest neighbors\n    shouted.\n  CASSIUS. Who offered him the crown?\n  CASCA. Why, Antony.\n  BRUTUS. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca.\n  CASCA. I can as well be hang'd as tell the manner of it. It was\n    mere foolery; I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a\n    crown (yet 'twas not a crown neither, 'twas one of these\n    coronets) and, as I told you, he put it by once. But for all\n    that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered\n    it to him again; then he put it by again. But, to my thinking, he\n    was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it\n    the third time; he put it the third time by; and still as he\n    refused it, the rabblement hooted and clapped their chopped hands\n    and threw up their sweaty nightcaps and uttered such a deal of\n    stinking breath because Caesar refused the crown that it had\n    almost choked Caesar, for he swounded and fell down at it. And\n    for mine own part, I durst not laugh for fear of opening my lips\n    and receiving the bad air.\n  CASSIUS. But, soft, I pray you, what, did Caesars wound?\n  CASCA. He fell down in the marketplace and foamed at mouth and was\n    speechless.\n  BRUTUS. 'Tis very like. He hath the falling sickness.\n  CASSIUS. No, Caesar hath it not, but you, and I,\n    And honest Casca, we have the falling sickness.\n  CASCA. I know not what you mean by that, but I am sure Caesar fell\n    down. If the tagrag people did not clap him and hiss him\n    according as he pleased and displeased them, as they use to do\n    the players in the theatre, I am no true man.\n  BRUTUS. What said he when he came unto himself?\n  CASCA. Marry, before he fell down, when he perceived the common\n    herd was glad he refused the crown, he plucked me ope his doublet\n    and offered them his throat to cut. An had been a man of any\n    occupation, if I would not have taken him at a word, I would I\n    might go to hell among the rogues. And so he fell. When he came\n    to himself again, he said, if he had done or said anything amiss,\n    he desired their worships to think it was his infirmity. Three or\n    four wenches where I stood cried, \"Alas, good soul!\" and forgave\n    him with all their hearts. But there's no heed to be taken of\n    them; if Caesar had stabbed their mothers, they would have done\n    no less.\n  BRUTUS. And after that he came, thus sad, away?\n  CASCA. Ay.\n  CASSIUS. Did Cicero say anything?\n  CASCA. Ay, he spoke Greek.\n  CASSIUS. To what effect?\n  CASCA. Nay, an I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you i' the face\n    again; but those that understood him smiled at one another and\n    shook their heads; but for mine own part, it was Greek to me. I\n    could tell you more news too: Marullus and Flavius, for pulling\n    scarfs off Caesar's images, are put to silence. Fare you well.\n    There was more foolery yet, if could remember it.\n  CASSIUS. Will you sup with me tonight, Casca?\n  CASCA. No, I am promised forth.\n  CASSIUS. Will you dine with me tomorrow?\n  CASCA. Ay, if I be alive, and your mind hold, and your dinner worth\n    the eating.\n  CASSIUS. Good, I will expect you.\n  CASCA. Do so, farewell, both.                            Exit.\n  BRUTUS. What a blunt fellow is this grown to be!\n    He was quick mettle when he went to school.\n  CASSIUS. So is he now in execution\n    Of any bold or noble enterprise,\n    However he puts on this tardy form.\n    This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit,\n    Which gives men stomach to digest his words\n    With better appetite.\n  BRUTUS. And so it is. For this time I will leave you.\n    Tomorrow, if you please to speak with me,\n    I will come home to you, or, if you will,\n    Come home to me and I will wait for you.\n  CASSIUS. I will do so. Till then, think of the world.\n                                                    Exit Brutus.\n    Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet, I see\n    Thy honorable mettle may be wrought\n    From that it is disposed; therefore it is meet\n    That noble minds keep ever with their likes;\n    For who so firm that cannot be seduced?\n    Caesar doth bear me hard, but he loves Brutus.\n    If I were Brutus now and he were Cassius,\n    He should not humor me. I will this night,\n    In several hands, in at his windows throw,\n    As if they came from several citizens,\n    Writings, all tending to the great opinion\n    That Rome holds of his name, wherein obscurely\n    Caesar's ambition shall be glanced at.\n    And after this let Caesar seat him sure;\n    For we will shake him, or worse days endure.           Exit.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA street. Thunder and lightning.\n\nEnter, from opposite sides, Casca, with his sword drawn, and Cicero.\n\n  CICERO. Good even, Casca. Brought you Caesar home?\n    Why are you breathless, and why stare you so?\n  CASCA. Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth\n    Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,\n    I have seen tempests when the scolding winds\n    Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen\n    The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam\n    To be exalted with the threatening clouds,\n    But never till tonight, never till now,\n    Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.\n    Either there is a civil strife in heaven,\n    Or else the world too saucy with the gods\n    Incenses them to send destruction.\n  CICERO. Why, saw you anything more wonderful?\n  CASCA. A common slave- you know him well by sight-\n    Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn\n    Like twenty torches join'd, and yet his hand\n    Not sensible of fire remain'd unscorch'd.\n    Besides- I ha' not since put up my sword-\n    Against the Capitol I met a lion,\n    Who glaz'd upon me and went surly by\n    Without annoying me. And there were drawn\n    Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women\n    Transformed with their fear, who swore they saw\n    Men all in fire walk up and down the streets.\n    And yesterday the bird of night did sit\n    Even at noonday upon the marketplace,\n    Howling and shrieking. When these prodigies\n    Do so conjointly meet, let not men say\n    \"These are their reasons; they are natural\":\n    For I believe they are portentous things\n    Unto the climate that they point upon.\n  CICERO. Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time.\n    But men may construe things after their fashion,\n    Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.\n    Comes Caesar to the Capitol tomorrow?\n  CASCA. He doth, for he did bid Antonio\n    Send word to you he would be there tomorrow.\n  CICERO. Good then, Casca. This disturbed sky\n    Is not to walk in.\n  CASCA. Farewell, Cicero.                          Exit Cicero.\n\n                        Enter Cassius.\n\n  CASSIUS. Who's there?\n  CASCA. A Roman.\n  CASSIUS. Casca, by your voice.\n  CASCA. Your ear is good. Cassius, what night is this!\n  CASSIUS. A very pleasing night to honest men.\n  CASCA. Who ever knew the heavens menace so?\n  CASSIUS. Those that have known the earth so full of faults.\n    For my part, I have walk'd about the streets,\n    Submitting me unto the perilous night,\n    And thus unbraced, Casca, as you see,\n    Have bared my bosom to the thunderstone;\n    And when the cross blue lightning seem'd to open\n    The breast of heaven, I did present myself\n    Even in the aim and very flash of it.\n  CASCA. But wherefore did you so much tempt the heavens?\n    It is the part of men to fear and tremble\n    When the most mighty gods by tokens send\n    Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.\n  CASSIUS. You are dull, Casca, and those sparks of life\n    That should be in a Roman you do want,\n    Or else you use not. You look pale and gaze\n    And put on fear and cast yourself in wonder\n    To see the strange impatience of the heavens.\n    But if you would consider the true cause\n    Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts,\n    Why birds and beasts from quality and kind,\n    Why old men, fools, and children calculate,\n    Why all these things change from their ordinance,\n    Their natures, and preformed faculties\n    To monstrous quality, why, you shall find\n    That heaven hath infused them with these spirits\n    To make them instruments of fear and warning\n    Unto some monstrous state.\n    Now could I, Casca, name to thee a man\n    Most like this dreadful night,\n    That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars\n    As doth the lion in the Capitol,\n    A man no mightier than thyself or me\n    In personal action, yet prodigious grown\n    And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.\n  CASCA. 'Tis Caesar that you mean, is it not, Cassius?\n  CASSIUS. Let it be who it is, for Romans now\n    Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors.\n    But, woe the while! Our fathers' minds are dead,\n    And we are govern'd with our mothers' spirits;\n    Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.\n  CASCA. Indeed they say the senators tomorrow\n    Mean to establish Caesar as a king,\n    And he shall wear his crown by sea and land\n    In every place save here in Italy.\n  CASSIUS. I know where I will wear this dagger then:\n    Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius.\n    Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong;\n    Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat.\n    Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,\n    Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron\n    Can be retentive to the strength of spirit;\n    But life, being weary of these worldly bars,\n    Never lacks power to dismiss itself.\n    If I know this, know all the world besides,\n    That part of tyranny that I do bear\n    I can shake off at pleasure.                  Thunder still.\n  CASCA. So can I.\n    So every bondman in his own hand bears\n    The power to cancel his captivity.\n  CASSIUS. And why should Caesar be a tyrant then?\n    Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf\n    But that he sees the Romans are but sheep.\n    He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.\n    Those that with haste will make a mighty fire\n    Begin it with weak straws. What trash is Rome,\n    What rubbish, and what offal, when it serves\n    For the base matter to illuminate\n    So vile a thing as Caesar? But, O grief,\n    Where hast thou led me? I perhaps speak this\n    Before a willing bondman; then I know\n    My answer must be made. But I am arm'd,\n    And dangers are to me indifferent.\n  CASCA. You speak to Casca, and to such a man\n    That is no fleering tell-tale. Hold, my hand.\n    Be factious for redress of all these griefs,\n    And I will set this foot of mine as far\n    As who goes farthest.\n  CASSIUS. There's a bargain made.\n    Now know you, Casca, I have moved already\n    Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans\n    To undergo with me an enterprise\n    Of honorable-dangerous consequence;\n    And I do know by this, they stay for me\n    In Pompey's Porch. For now, this fearful night,\n    There is no stir or walking in the streets,\n    And the complexion of the element\n    In favor's like the work we have in hand,\n    Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible.\n\n                       Enter Cinna.\n\n  CASCA. Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste.\n  CASSIUS. 'Tis Cinna, I do know him by his gait;\n    He is a friend. Cinna, where haste you so?\n  CINNA. To find out you. Who's that? Metellus Cimber?\n  CASSIUS. No, it is Casca, one incorporate\n    To our attempts. Am I not stay'd for, Cinna?\n  CINNA. I am glad on't. What a fearful night is this!\n    There's two or three of us have seen strange sights.\n  CASSIUS. Am I not stay'd for? Tell me.\n  CINNA. Yes, you are.\n    O Cassius, if you could\n    But win the noble Brutus to our party-\n  CASSIUS. Be you content. Good Cinna, take this paper,\n    And look you lay it in the praetor's chair,\n    Where Brutus may but find it; and throw this\n    In at his window; set this up with wax\n    Upon old Brutus' statue. All this done,\n    Repair to Pompey's Porch, where you shall find us.\n    Is Decius Brutus and Trebonius there?\n  CINNA. All but Metellus Cimber, and he's gone\n    To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie\n    And so bestow these papers as you bade me.\n  CASSIUS. That done, repair to Pompey's Theatre.\n                                                     Exit Cinna.\n    Come, Casca, you and I will yet ere day\n    See Brutus at his house. Three parts of him\n    Is ours already, and the man entire\n    Upon the next encounter yields him ours.\n  CASCA. O, he sits high in all the people's hearts,\n    And that which would appear offense in us,\n    His countenance, like richest alchemy,\n    Will change to virtue and to worthiness.\n  CASSIUS. Him and his worth and our great need of him\n    You have right well conceited. Let us go,\n    For it is after midnight, and ere day\n    We will awake him and be sure of him.                Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\n\nEnter Brutus in his orchard.\n\n  BRUTUS. What, Lucius, ho!\n    I cannot, by the progress of the stars,\n    Give guess how near to day. Lucius, I say!\n    I would it were my fault to sleep so soundly.\n    When, Lucius, when? Awake, I say! What, Lucius!\n\n                            Enter Lucius.\n\n  LUCIUS. Call'd you, my lord?\n  BRUTUS. Get me a taper in my study, Lucius.\n    When it is lighted, come and call me here.\n  LUCIUS. I will, my lord.                                 Exit.\n  BRUTUS. It must be by his death, and, for my part,\n    I know no personal cause to spurn at him,\n    But for the general. He would be crown'd:\n    How that might change his nature, there's the question.\n    It is the bright day that brings forth the adder\n    And that craves wary walking. Crown him that,\n    And then, I grant, we put a sting in him\n    That at his will he may do danger with.\n    The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins\n    Remorse from power, and, to speak truth of Caesar,\n    I have not known when his affections sway'd\n    More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof\n    That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,\n    Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;\n    But when he once attains the upmost round,\n    He then unto the ladder turns his back,\n    Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees\n    By which he did ascend. So Caesar may;\n    Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel\n    Will bear no color for the thing he is,\n    Fashion it thus, that what he is, augmented,\n    Would run to these and these extremities;\n    And therefore think him as a serpent's egg\n    Which hatch'd would as his kind grow mischievous,\n    And kill him in the shell.\n\n                        Re-enter Lucius.\n\n  LUCIUS. The taper burneth in your closet, sir.\n    Searching the window for a flint I found\n    This paper thus seal'd up, and I am sure\n    It did not lie there when I went to bed.\n                                           Gives him the letter.\n  BRUTUS. Get you to bed again, it is not day.\n    Is not tomorrow, boy, the ides of March?\n  LUCIUS. I know not, sir.\n  BRUTUS. Look in the calendar and bring me word.\n  LUCIUS. I will, sir.                                     Exit.\n  BRUTUS. The exhalations whizzing in the air\n    Give so much light that I may read by them.\n                                     Opens the letter and reads.\n    \"Brutus, thou sleep'st: awake and see thyself!\n    Shall Rome, etc. Speak, strike, redress!\"\n\n    \"Brutus, thou sleep'st: awake!\"\n    Such instigations have been often dropp'd\n    Where I have took them up.\n    \"Shall Rome, etc.\" Thus must I piece it out.\n    Shall Rome stand under one man's awe? What, Rome?\n    My ancestors did from the streets of Rome\n    The Tarquin drive, when he was call'd a king.\n    \"Speak, strike, redress!\" Am I entreated\n    To speak and strike? O Rome, I make thee promise,\n    If the redress will follow, thou receivest\n    Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus!\n\n                        Re-enter Lucius.\n\n  LUCIUS. Sir, March is wasted fifteen days.\n                                                Knocking within.\n  BRUTUS. 'Tis good. Go to the gate, somebody knocks.\n                                                    Exit Lucius.\n    Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar\n    I have not slept.\n    Between the acting of a dreadful thing\n    And the first motion, all the interim is\n    Like a phantasma or a hideous dream;\n    The genius and the mortal instruments\n    Are then in council, and the state of man,\n    Like to a little kingdom, suffers then\n    The nature of an insurrection.\n\n                         Re-enter Lucius.\n\n  LUCIUS. Sir, 'tis your brother Cassius at the door,\n    Who doth desire to see you.\n  BRUTUS. Is he alone?\n  LUCIUS. No, sir, there are more with him.\n  BRUTUS. Do you know them?\n  LUCIUS. No, sir, their hats are pluck'd about their ears,\n    And half their faces buried in their cloaks,\n    That by no means I may discover them\n    By any mark of favor.\n  BRUTUS. Let 'em enter.                            Exit Lucius.\n    They are the faction. O Conspiracy,\n    Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by night,\n    When evils are most free? O, then, by day\n    Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough\n    To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, Conspiracy;\n    Hide it in smiles and affability;\n    For if thou path, thy native semblance on,\n    Not Erebus itself were dim enough\n    To hide thee from prevention.\n\n    Enter the conspirators, Cassius, Casca, Decius, Cinna,\n                Metellus Cimber, and Trebonius.\n\n  CASSIUS. I think we are too bold upon your rest.\n    Good morrow, Brutus, do we trouble you?\n  BRUTUS. I have been up this hour, awake all night.\n    Know I these men that come along with you?\n  CASSIUS. Yes, every man of them, and no man here\n    But honors you, and every one doth wish\n    You had but that opinion of yourself\n    Which every noble Roman bears of you.\n    This is Trebonius.\n  BRUTUS. He is welcome hither.\n  CASSIUS. This, Decius Brutus.\n  BRUTUS. He is welcome too.\nCASSIUS. This, Casca; this, Cinna; and this, Metellus Cimber.\n  BRUTUS. They are all welcome.\n    What watchful cares do interpose themselves\n    Betwixt your eyes and night?\n  CASSIUS. Shall I entreat a word?                 They whisper.\n  DECIUS. Here lies the east. Doth not the day break here?\n  CASCA. No.\n  CINNA. O, pardon, sir, it doth, and yongrey lines\n    That fret the clouds are messengers of day.\n  CASCA. You shall confess that you are both deceived.\n    Here, as I point my sword, the sun arises,\n    Which is a great way growing on the south,\n    Weighing the youthful season of the year.\n    Some two months hence up higher toward the north\n    He first presents his fire, and the high east\n    Stands as the Capitol, directly here.\n  BRUTUS. Give me your hands all over, one by one.\n  CASSIUS. And let us swear our resolution.\n  BRUTUS. No, not an oath. If not the face of men,\n    The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse-\n    If these be motives weak, break off betimes,\n    And every man hence to his idle bed;\n    So let high-sighted tyranny range on\n    Till each man drop by lottery. But if these,\n    As I am sure they do, bear fire enough\n    To kindle cowards and to steel with valor\n    The melting spirits of women, then, countrymen,\n    What need we any spur but our own cause\n    To prick us to redress? What other bond\n    Than secret Romans that have spoke the word\n    And will not palter? And what other oath\n    Than honesty to honesty engaged\n    That this shall be or we will fall for it?\n    Swear priests and cowards and men cautelous,\n    Old feeble carrions and such suffering souls\n    That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear\n    Such creatures as men doubt; but do not stain\n    The even virtue of our enterprise,\n    Nor the insuppressive mettle of our spirits,\n    To think that or our cause or our performance\n    Did need an oath; when every drop of blood\n    That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,\n    Is guilty of a several bastardy\n    If he do break the smallest particle\n    Of any promise that hath pass'd from him.\n  CASSIUS. But what of Cicero? Shall we sound him?\n    I think he will stand very strong with us.\n  CASCA. Let us not leave him out.\n  CINNA. No, by no means.\n  METELLUS. O, let us have him, for his silver hairs\n    Will purchase us a good opinion,\n    And buy men's voices to commend our deeds.\n    It shall be said his judgement ruled our hands;\n    Our youths and wildness shall no whit appear,\n    But all be buried in his gravity.\n  BRUTUS. O, name him not; let us not break with him,\n    For he will never follow anything\n    That other men begin.\n  CASSIUS. Then leave him out.\n  CASCA. Indeed he is not fit.\n  DECIUS. Shall no man else be touch'd but only Caesar?\n  CASSIUS. Decius, well urged. I think it is not meet\n    Mark Antony, so well beloved of Caesar,\n    Should outlive Caesar. We shall find of him\n    A shrewd contriver; and you know his means,\n    If he improve them, may well stretch so far\n    As to annoy us all, which to prevent,\n    Let Antony and Caesar fall together.\n  BRUTUS. Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius,\n    To cut the head off and then hack the limbs\n    Like wrath in death and envy afterwards;\n    For Antony is but a limb of Caesar.\n    Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.\n    We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar,\n    And in the spirit of men there is no blood.\n    O, that we then could come by Caesar's spirit,\n    And not dismember Caesar! But, alas,\n    Caesar must bleed for it! And, gentle friends,\n    Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;\n    Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,\n    Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds;\n    And let our hearts, as subtle masters do,\n    Stir up their servants to an act of rage\n    And after seem to chide 'em. This shall make\n    Our purpose necessary and not envious,\n    Which so appearing to the common eyes,\n    We shall be call'd purgers, not murderers.\n    And for Mark Antony, think not of him,\n    For he can do no more than Caesar's arm\n    When Caesar's head is off.\n  CASSIUS. Yet I fear him,\n    For in the ingrated love he bears to Caesar-\n  BRUTUS. Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him.\n    If he love Caesar, all that he can do\n    Is to himself, take thought and die for Caesar.\n    And that were much he should, for he is given\n    To sports, to wildness, and much company.\n  TREBONIUS. There is no fear in him-let him not die,\n    For he will live and laugh at this hereafter.\n                                                  Clock strikes.\n  BRUTUS. Peace, count the clock.\n  CASSIUS. The clock hath stricken three.\n  TREBONIUS. 'Tis time to part.\n  CASSIUS. But it is doubtful yet\n    Whether Caesar will come forth today or no,\n    For he is superstitious grown of late,\n    Quite from the main opinion he held once\n    Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies.\n    It may be these apparent prodigies,\n    The unaccustom'd terror of this night,\n    And the persuasion of his augurers\n    May hold him from the Capitol today.\n  DECIUS. Never fear that. If he be so resolved,\n    I can o'ersway him, for he loves to hear\n    That unicorns may be betray'd with trees,\n    And bears with glasses, elephants with holes,\n    Lions with toils, and men with flatterers;\n    But when I tell him he hates flatterers,\n    He says he does, being then most flattered.\n    Let me work;\n    For I can give his humor the true bent,\n    And I will bring him to the Capitol.\n  CASSIUS. Nay, we will all of us be there to fetch him.\n  BRUTUS. By the eighth hour. Is that the utter most?\n  CINNA. Be that the uttermost, and fail not then.\n  METELLUS. Caius Ligarius doth bear Caesar hard,\n    Who rated him for speaking well of Pompey.\n    I wonder none of you have thought of him.\n  BRUTUS. Now, good Metellus, go along by him.\n    He loves me well, and I have given him reasons;\n    Send him but hither, and I'll fashion him.\n  CASSIUS. The morning comes upon 's. We'll leave you, Brutus,\n    And, friends, disperse yourselves, but all remember\n    What you have said and show yourselves true Romans.\n  BRUTUS. Good gentlemen, look fresh and merrily;\n    Let not our looks put on our purposes,\n    But bear it as our Roman actors do,\n    With untired spirits and formal constancy.\n    And so, good morrow to you every one.\n                                          Exeunt all but Brutus.\n    Boy! Lucius! Fast asleep? It is no matter.\n    Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber;\n    Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies,\n    Which busy care draws in the brains of men;\n    Therefore thou sleep'st so sound.\n\n                           Enter Portia.\n\n  PORTIA. Brutus, my lord!\n  BRUTUS. Portia, what mean you? Wherefore rise you now?\n    It is not for your health thus to commit\n    Your weak condition to the raw cold morning.\n  PORTIA. Nor for yours neither. have ungently, Brutus,\n    Stole from my bed; and yesternight at supper\n    You suddenly arose and walk'd about,\n    Musing and sighing, with your arms across;\n    And when I ask'd you what the matter was,\n    You stared upon me with ungentle looks.\n    I urged you further; then you scratch'd your head,\n    And too impatiently stamp'd with your foot.\n    Yet I insisted, yet you answer'd not,\n    But with an angry waiter of your hand\n    Gave sign for me to leave you. So I did,\n    Fearing to strengthen that impatience\n    Which seem'd too much enkindled, and withal\n    Hoping it was but an effect of humor,\n    Which sometime hath his hour with every man.\n    It will not let you eat, nor talk, nor sleep,\n    And, could it work so much upon your shape\n    As it hath much prevail'd on your condition,\n    I should not know you, Brutus. Dear my lord,\n    Make me acquainted with your cause of grief.\n  BRUTUS. I am not well in health, and that is all.\n  PORTIA. Brutus is wise, and, were he not in health,\n    He would embrace the means to come by it.\n  BRUTUS. Why, so I do. Good Portia, go to bed.\n  PORTIA. Is Brutus sick, and is it physical\n    To walk unbraced and suck up the humors\n    Of the dank morning? What, is Brutus sick,\n    And will he steal out of his wholesome bed\n    To dare the vile contagion of the night\n    And tempt the rheumy and unpurged air\n    To add unto his sickness? No, my Brutus,\n    You have some sick offense within your mind,\n    Which by the right and virtue of my place\n    I ought to know of; and, upon my knees,\n    I charm you, by my once commended beauty,\n    By all your vows of love and that great vow\n    Which did incorporate and make us one,\n    That you unfold to me, yourself, your half,\n    Why you are heavy and what men tonight\n    Have had resort to you; for here have been\n    Some six or seven, who did hide their faces\n    Even from darkness.\n  BRUTUS. Kneel not, gentle Portia.\n  PORTIA. I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus.\n    Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus,\n    Is it excepted I should know no secrets\n    That appertain to you? Am I yourself\n    But, as it were, in sort or limitation,\n    To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed,\n    And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs\n    Of your good pleasure? If it be no more,\n    Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife.\n  BRUTUS. You are my true and honorable wife,\n    As dear to me as are the ruddy drops\n    That visit my sad heart.\n  PORTIA. If this were true, then should I know this secret.\n    I grant I am a woman, but withal\n    A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife.\n    I grant I am a woman, but withal\n    A woman well reputed, Cato's daughter.\n    Think you I am no stronger than my sex,\n    Being so father'd and so husbanded?\n    Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose 'em.\n    I have made strong proof of my constancy,\n    Giving myself a voluntary wound\n    Here in the thigh. Can I bear that with patience\n    And not my husband's secrets?\n  BRUTUS. O ye gods,\n    Render me worthy of this noble wife! Knocking within.\n    Hark, hark, one knocks. Portia, go in awhile,\n    And by and by thy bosom shall partake\n    The secrets of my heart.\n    All my engagements I will construe to thee,\n    All the charactery of my sad brows.\n    Leave me with haste. [Exit Portia.] Lucius, who's that knocks?\n\n                  Re-enter Lucius with Ligarius.\n\n  LUCIUS. Here is a sick man that would speak with you.\n  BRUTUS. Caius Ligarius, that Metellus spake of.\n    Boy, stand aside. Caius Ligarius, how?\n  LIGARIUS. Vouchsafe good morrow from a feeble tongue.\n  BRUTUS. O, what a time have you chose out, brave Caius,\n    To wear a kerchief! Would you were not sick!\n  LIGARIUS. I am not sick, if Brutus have in hand\n    Any exploit worthy the name of honor.\n  BRUTUS. Such an exploit have I in hand, Ligarius,\n    Had you a healthful ear to hear of it.\n  LIGARIUS. By all the gods that Romans bow before,\n    I here discard my sickness! Soul of Rome!\n    Brave son, derived from honorable loins!\n    Thou, like an exorcist, hast conjured up\n    My mortified spirit. Now bid me run,\n    And I will strive with things impossible,\n    Yea, get the better of them. What's to do?\n  BRUTUS. A piece of work that will make sick men whole.\n  LIGARIUS. But are not some whole that we must make sick?\n  BRUTUS. That must we also. What it is, my Caius,\n    I shall unfold to thee, as we are going\n    To whom it must be done.\n  LIGARIUS. Set on your foot,\n    And with a heart new-fired I follow you,\n    To do I know not what; but it sufficeth\n    That Brutus leads me on.\n  BRUTUS. Follow me then.                                Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nCaesar's house. Thunder and lightning.\n\nEnter Caesar, in his nightgown.\n\n  CAESAR. Nor heaven nor earth have been at peace tonight.\n    Thrice hath Calpurnia in her sleep cried out,\n    \"Help, ho! They murther Caesar!\" Who's within?\n\n                         Enter a Servant.\n\n  SERVANT. My lord?\n  CAESAR. Go bid the priests do present sacrifice,\n    And bring me their opinions of success.\n  SERVANT. I will, my lord.                                Exit.\n\n                         Enter Calpurnia.\n\n  CALPURNIA. What mean you, Caesar? Think you to walk forth?\n    You shall not stir out of your house today.\n  CAESAR. Caesar shall forth: the things that threaten'd me\n    Ne'er look'd but on my back; when they shall see\n    The face of Caesar, they are vanished.\n  CALPURNIA. Caesar, I I stood on ceremonies,\n    Yet now they fright me. There is one within,\n    Besides the things that we have heard and seen,\n    Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.\n    A lioness hath whelped in the streets;\n    And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead;\n    Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,\n    In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,\n    Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol;\n    The noise of battle hurtled in the air,\n    Horses did neigh and dying men did groan,\n    And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.\n    O Caesar! These things are beyond all use,\n    And I do fear them.\n  CAESAR. What can be avoided\n    Whose end is purposed by the mighty gods?\n    Yet Caesar shall go forth, for these predictions\n    Are to the world in general as to Caesar.\n  CALPURNIA. When beggars die, there are no comets seen;\n    The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.\n  CAESAR. Cowards die many times before their deaths;\n    The valiant never taste of death but once.\n    Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,\n    It seems to me most strange that men should fear\n    Seeing that death, a necessary end,\n    Will come when it will come.\n\n                      Re-enter Servant.\n\n    What say the augurers?\n  SERVANT. They would not have you to stir forth today.\n    Plucking the entrails of an offering forth,\n    They could not find a heart within the beast.\n  CAESAR. The gods do this in shame of cowardice.\n    Caesar should be a beast without a heart\n    If he should stay at home today for fear.\n    No, Caesar shall not. Danger knows full well\n    That Caesar is more dangerous than he.\n    We are two lions litter'd in one day,\n    And I the elder and more terrible.\n    And Caesar shall go forth.\n  CALPURNIA. Alas, my lord,\n    Your wisdom is consumed in confidence.\n    Do not go forth today. Call it my fear\n    That keeps you in the house and not your own.\n    We'll send Mark Antony to the Senate House,\n    And he shall say you are not well today.\n    Let me, upon my knee, prevail in this.\n  CAESAR. Mark Antony shall say I am not well,\n    And, for thy humor, I will stay at home.\n\n                        Enter Decius.\n\n    Here's Decius Brutus, he shall tell them so.\n  DECIUS. Caesar, all hail! Good morrow, worthy Caesar!\n    I come to fetch you to the Senate House.\n  CAESAR. And you are come in very happy time\n    To bear my greeting to the senators\n    And tell them that I will not come today.\n    Cannot, is false, and that I dare not, falser:\n    I will not come today. Tell them so, Decius.\n  CALPURNIA. Say he is sick.\n  CAESAR. Shall Caesar send a lie?\n    Have I in conquest stretch'd mine arm so far\n    To be afeard to tell greybeards the truth?\n    Decius, go tell them Caesar will not come.\n  DECIUS. Most mighty Caesar, let me know some cause,\n    Lest I be laugh'd at when I tell them so.\n  CAESAR. The cause is in my will: I will not come,\n    That is enough to satisfy the Senate.\n    But, for your private satisfaction,\n    Because I love you, I will let you know.\n    Calpurnia here, my wife, stays me at home;\n    She dreamt tonight she saw my statue,\n    Which, like a fountain with an hundred spouts,\n    Did run pure blood, and many lusty Romans\n    Came smiling and did bathe their hands in it.\n    And these does she apply for warnings and portents\n    And evils imminent, and on her knee\n    Hath begg'd that I will stay at home today.\n  DECIUS. This dream is all amiss interpreted;\n    It was a vision fair and fortunate.\n    Your statue spouting blood in many pipes,\n    In which so many smiling Romans bathed,\n    Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck\n    Reviving blood, and that great men shall press\n    For tinctures, stains, relics, and cognizance.\n    This by Calpurnia's dream is signified.\n  CAESAR. And this way have you well expounded it.\n  DECIUS. I have, when you have heard what I can say.\n    And know it now, the Senate have concluded\n    To give this day a crown to mighty Caesar.\n    If you shall send them word you will not come,\n    Their minds may change. Besides, it were a mock\n    Apt to be render'd, for someone to say\n    \"Break up the Senate till another time,\n    When Caesar's wife shall meet with better dreams.\"\n    If Caesar hide himself, shall they not whisper\n    \"Lo, Caesar is afraid\"?\n    Pardon me, Caesar, for my dear dear love\n    To your proceeding bids me tell you this,\n    And reason to my love is liable.\n  CAESAR. How foolish do your fears seem now, Calpurnia!\n    I am ashamed I did yield to them.\n    Give me my robe, for I will go.\n\n         Enter Publius, Brutus, Ligarius, Metellus, Casca,\n                     Trebonius, and Cinna.\n\n    And look where Publius is come to fetch me.\n  PUBLIUS. Good morrow,Caesar.\n  CAESAR. Welcome, Publius.\n    What, Brutus, are you stirr'd so early too?\n    Good morrow, Casca. Caius Ligarius,\n    Caesar was ne'er so much your enemy\n    As that same ague which hath made you lean.\n    What is't o'clock?\n  BRUTUS. Caesar, 'tis strucken eight.\n  CAESAR. I thank you for your pains and courtesy.\n\n                           Enter Antony.\n\n    See, Antony, that revels long o' nights,\n    Is notwithstanding up. Good morrow, Antony.\n  ANTONY. So to most noble Caesar.\n  CAESAR. Bid them prepare within.\n    I am to blame to be thus waited for.\n    Now, Cinna; now, Metellus; what, Trebonius,\n    I have an hour's talk in store for you;\n    Remember that you call on me today;\n    Be near me, that I may remember you.\n  TREBONIUS. Caesar, I will. [Aside.] And so near will I be\n    That your best friends shall wish I had been further.\n  CAESAR. Good friends, go in and taste some wine with me,\n    And we like friends will straightway go together.\n  BRUTUS. [Aside.] That every like is not the same, O Caesar,\n    The heart of Brutus yearns to think upon!            Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA street near the Capitol.\n\nEnter Artemidorus, reading paper.\n\n  ARTEMIDORUS. \"Caesar, beware of Brutus; take heed of Cassius; come\n    not near Casca; have an eye to Cinna; trust not Trebonius; mark\n    well Metellus Cimber; Decius Brutus loves thee not; thou hast\n    wronged Caius Ligarius. There is but one mind in all these men,\n    and it is bent against Caesar. If thou beest not immortal, look\n    about you. Security gives way to conspiracy. The mighty gods\n    defend thee!\n                                        Thy lover, Artemidorus.\"\n    Here will I stand till Caesar pass along,\n    And as a suitor will I give him this.\n    My heart laments that virtue cannot live\n    Out of the teeth of emulation.\n    If thou read this, O Caesar, thou mayest live;\n    If not, the Fates with traitors do contrive.           Exit.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the same street, before the house of Brutus.\n\nEnter Portia and Lucius.\n\n  PORTIA. I prithee, boy, run to the Senate House;\n    Stay not to answer me, but get thee gone.\n    Why dost thou stay?\n  LUCIUS. To know my errand, madam.\n  PORTIA. I would have had thee there, and here again,\n    Ere I can tell thee what thou shouldst do there.\n    O constancy, be strong upon my side!\n    Set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and tongue!\n    I have a man's mind, but a woman's might.\n    How hard it is for women to keep counsel!\n    Art thou here yet?\n  LUCIUS. Madam, what should I do?\n    Run to the Capitol, and nothing else?\n    And so return to you, and nothing else?\n  PORTIA. Yes, bring me word, boy, if thy lord look well,\n    For he went sickly forth; and take good note\n    What Caesar doth, what suitors press to him.\n    Hark, boy, what noise is that?\n  LUCIUS. I hear none, madam.\n  PORTIA. Prithee, listen well.\n    I heard a bustling rumor like a fray,\n    And the wind brings it from the Capitol.\n  LUCIUS. Sooth, madam, I hear nothing.\n\n                     Enter the Soothsayer.\n\n  PORTIA. Come hither, fellow;\n    Which way hast thou been?\n  SOOTHSAYER. At mine own house, good lady.\n  PORTIA. What is't o'clock?\n  SOOTHSAYER. About the ninth hour, lady.\n  PORTIA. Is Caesar yet gone to the Capitol?\n  SOOTHSAYER. Madam, not yet. I go to take my stand\n    To see him pass on to the Capitol.\n  PORTIA. Thou hast some suit to Caesar, hast thou not?\n  SOOTHSAYER. That I have, lady. If it will please Caesar\n    To be so good to Caesar as to hear me,\n    I shall beseech him to befriend himself.\n  PORTIA. Why, know'st thou any harm's intended towards him?\n  SOOTHSAYER. None that I know will be, much that I fear may chance.\n    Good morrow to you. Here the street is narrow,\n    The throng that follows Caesar at the heels,\n    Of senators, of praetors, common suitors,\n    Will crowd a feeble man almost to death.\n    I'll get me to a place more void and there\n    Speak to great Caesar as he comes along.               Exit.\n  PORTIA. I must go in. Ay me, how weak a thing\n    The heart of woman is! O Brutus,\n    The heavens speed thee in thine enterprise!\n    Sure, the boy heard me. Brutus hath a suit\n    That Caesar will not grant. O, I grow faint.\n    Run, Lucius, and commend me to my lord;\n    Say I am merry. Come to me again,\n    And bring me word what he doth say to thee.\n                                               Exeunt severally.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nRome. Before the Capitol; the Senate sitting above.\nA crowd of people, among them Artemidorus and the Soothsayer.\n\nFlourish. Enter Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Casca, Decius, Metellus,\nTrebonius, Cinna, Antony, Lepidus, Popilius, Publius, and others.\n\n  CAESAR. The ides of March are come.\n  SOOTHSAYER. Ay, Caesar, but not gone.\n  A Hail, Caesar! Read this schedule.\n  DECIUS. Trebonius doth desire you to o'er read,\n    At your best leisure, this his humble suit.\n  ARTEMIDORUS. O Caesar, read mine first, for mine's a suit\n    That touches Caesar nearer. Read it, great Caesar.\n  CAESAR. What touches us ourself shall be last served.\n  ARTEMIDORUS. Delay not, Caesar; read it instantly.\n  CAESAR. What, is the fellow mad?\n  PUBLIUS. Sirrah, give place.\n  CASSIUS. What, urge you your petitions in the street?\n    Come to the Capitol.\n\n      Caesar goes up to the Senate House, the rest follow.\n\n  POPILIUS. I wish your enterprise today may thrive.\n  CASSIUS. What enterprise, Popilius?\n  POPILIUS. Fare you well.\n                                             Advances to Caesar.\n  BRUTUS. What said Popilius Lena?\n  CASSIUS. He wish'd today our enterprise might thrive.\n    I fear our purpose is discovered.\n  BRUTUS. Look, how he makes to Caesar. Mark him.\n  CASSIUS. Casca,\n    Be sudden, for we fear prevention.\n    Brutus, what shall be done? If this be known,\n    Cassius or Caesar never shall turn back,\n    For I will slay myself.\n  BRUTUS. Cassius, be constant.\n    Popilius Lena speaks not of our purposes;\n    For, look, he smiles, and Caesar doth not change.\n  CASSIUS. Trebonius knows his time, for, look you, Brutus,\n    He draws Mark Antony out of the way.\n                                    Exeunt Antony and Trebonius.\n  DECIUS. Where is Metellus Cimber? Let him\n    And presently prefer his suit to Caesar.\n  BRUTUS. He is address'd; press near and second him.\n  CINNA. Casca, you are the first that rears your hand.\n  CAESAR. Are we all ready? What is now amiss\n    That Caesar and his Senate must redress?\n  METELLUS. Most high, most mighty, and most puissant Caesar,\n    Metellus Cimber throws before thy seat\n    An humble heart.                                     Kneels.\n  CAESAR. I must prevent thee, Cimber.\n    These couchings and these lowly courtesies\n    Might fire the blood of ordinary men\n    And turn preordinance and first decree\n    Into the law of children. Be not fond\n    To think that Caesar bears such rebel blood\n    That will be thaw'd from the true quality\n    With that which melteth fools- I mean sweet words,\n    Low-crooked court'sies, and base spaniel-fawning.\n    Thy brother by decree is banished.\n    If thou dost bend and pray and fawn for him,\n    I spurn thee like a cur out of my way.\n    Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause\n    Will he be satisfied.\n  METELLUS. Is there no voice more worthy than my own,\n    To sound more sweetly in great Caesar's ear\n    For the repealing of my banish'd brother?\n  BRUTUS. I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Caesar,\n    Desiring thee that Publius Cimber may\n    Have an immediate freedom of repeal.\n  CAESAR. What, Brutus?\n  CASSIUS. Pardon, Caesar! Caesar, pardon!\n    As low as to thy foot doth Cassius fall\n    To beg enfranchisement for Publius Cimber.\n  CAESAR. I could be well moved, if I were as you;\n    If I could pray to move, prayers would move me;\n    But I am constant as the northern star,\n    Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality\n    There is no fellow in the firmament.\n    The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks;\n    They are all fire and every one doth shine;\n    But there's but one in all doth hold his place.\n    So in the world, 'tis furnish'd well with men,\n    And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive;\n    Yet in the number I do know but one\n    That unassailable holds on his rank,\n    Unshaked of motion; and that I am he,\n    Let me a little show it, even in this;\n    That I was constant Cimber should be banish'd,\n    And constant do remain to keep him so.\n  CINNA. O Caesar-\n  CAESAR. Hence! Wilt thou lift up Olympus?\n  DECIUS. Great Caesar-\n  CAESAR. Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?\n  CASCA. Speak, hands, for me!\n                        Casca first, then the other Conspirators\n                                  and Marcus Brutus stab Caesar.\n  CAESAR. Et tu, Brute?- Then fall, Caesar! Dies.\n  CINNA. Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!\n    Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.\n  CASSIUS. Some to the common pulpits and cry out\n    \"Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!\"\n  BRUTUS. People and senators, be not affrighted,\n    Fly not, stand still; ambition's debt is paid.\n  CASCA. Go to the pulpit, Brutus.\n  DECIUS. And Cassius too.\n  BRUTUS. Where's Publius?\n  CINNA. Here, quite confounded with this mutiny.\n  METELLUS. Stand fast together, lest some friend of Caesar's\n    Should chance-\n  BRUTUS. Talk not of standing. Publius, good cheer,\n    There is no harm intended to your person,\n    Nor to no Roman else. So tell them, Publius.\n  CASSIUS. And leave us, Publius, lest that the people\n    Rushing on us should do your age some mischief.\n  BRUTUS. Do so, and let no man abide this deed\n    But we the doers.\n\n                        Re-enter Trebonius.\n\n  CASSIUS. Where is Antony?\n  TREBONIUS. Fled to his house amazed.\n    Men, wives, and children stare, cry out, and run\n    As it were doomsday.\n  BRUTUS. Fates, we will know your pleasures.\n    That we shall die, we know; 'tis but the time\n    And drawing days out that men stand upon.\n  CASSIUS. Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life\n    Cuts off so many years of fearing death.\n  BRUTUS. Grant that, and then is death a benefit;\n    So are we Caesar's friends that have abridged\n    His time of fearing death. Stoop, Romans, stoop,\n    And let us bathe our hands in Caesar's blood\n    Up to the elbows, and besmear our swords;\n    Then walk we forth, even to the marketplace,\n    And waving our red weapons o'er our heads,\n    Let's all cry, \"Peace, freedom, and liberty!\"\n  CASSIUS. Stoop then, and wash. How many ages hence\n    Shall this our lofty scene be acted over\n    In states unborn and accents yet unknown!\n  BRUTUS. How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport,\n    That now on Pompey's basis lies along\n    No worthier than the dust!\n  CASSIUS. So oft as that shall be,\n    So often shall the knot of us be call'd\n    The men that gave their country liberty.\n  DECIUS. What, shall we forth?\n  CASSIUS. Ay, every man away.\n    Brutus shall lead, and we will grace his heels\n    With the most boldest and best hearts of Rome.\n\n                        Enter a Servant.\n\n  BRUTUS. Soft, who comes here? A friend of Antony's.\n  SERVANT. Thus, Brutus, did my master bid me kneel,\n    Thus did Mark Antony bid me fall down,\n    And, being prostrate, thus he bade me say:\n    Brutus is noble, wise, valiant, and honest;\n    Caesar was mighty, bold, royal, and loving.\n    Say I love Brutus and I honor him;\n    Say I fear'd Caesar, honor'd him, and loved him.\n    If Brutus will vouchsafe that Antony\n    May safely come to him and be resolved\n    How Caesar hath deserved to lie in death,\n    Mark Antony shall not love Caesar dead\n    So well as Brutus living, but will follow\n    The fortunes and affairs of noble Brutus\n    Thorough the hazards of this untrod state\n    With all true faith. So says my master Antony.\n  BRUTUS. Thy master is a wise and valiant Roman;\n    I never thought him worse.\n    Tell him, so please him come unto this place,\n    He shall be satisfied and, by my honor,\n    Depart untouch'd.\n  SERVANT. I'll fetch him presently.                       Exit.\n  BRUTUS. I know that we shall have him well to friend.\n  CASSIUS. I wish we may, but yet have I a mind\n    That fears him much, and my misgiving still\n    Falls shrewdly to the purpose.\n\n                          Re-enter Antony.\n\n  BRUTUS. But here comes Antony. Welcome, Mark Antony.\n  ANTONY. O mighty Caesar! Dost thou lie so low?\n    Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,\n    Shrunk to this little measure? Fare thee well.\n    I know not, gentlemen, what you intend,\n    Who else must be let blood, who else is rank.\n    If I myself, there is no hour so fit\n    As Caesar's death's hour, nor no instrument\n    Of half that worth as those your swords, made rich\n    With the most noble blood of all this world.\n    I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard,\n    Now, whilst your purpled hands do reek and smoke,\n    Fulfill your pleasure. Live a thousand years,\n    I shall not find myself so apt to die;\n    No place will please me so, no means of death,\n    As here by Caesar, and by you cut off,\n    The choice and master spirits of this age.\n  BRUTUS. O Antony, beg not your death of us!\n    Though now we must appear bloody and cruel,\n    As, by our hands and this our present act\n    You see we do, yet see you but our hands\n    And this the bleeding business they have done.\n    Our hearts you see not; they are pitiful;\n    And pity to the general wrong of Rome-\n    As fire drives out fire, so pity pity-\n    Hath done this deed on Caesar. For your part,\n    To you our swords have leaden points, Mark Antony;\n    Our arms in strength of malice, and our hearts\n    Of brothers' temper, do receive you in\n    With all kind love, good thoughts, and reverence.\n  CASSIUS. Your voice shall be as strong as any man's\n    In the disposing of new dignities.\n  BRUTUS. Only be patient till we have appeased\n    The multitude, beside themselves with fear,\n    And then we will deliver you the cause\n    Why I, that did love Caesar when I struck him,\n    Have thus proceeded.\n  ANTONY. I doubt not of your wisdom.\n    Let each man render me his bloody hand.\n    First, Marcus Brutus, will I shake with you;\n    Next, Caius Cassius, do I take your hand;\n    Now, Decius Brutus, yours; now yours, Metellus;\n    Yours, Cinna; and, my valiant Casca, yours;\n    Though last, not least in love, yours, good Trebonius.\n    Gentlemen all- alas, what shall I say?\n    My credit now stands on such slippery ground,\n    That one of two bad ways you must conceit me,\n    Either a coward or a flatterer.\n    That I did love thee, Caesar, O, 'tis true!\n    If then thy spirit look upon us now,\n    Shall it not grieve thee dearer than thy death\n    To see thy Antony making his peace,\n    Shaking the bloody fingers of thy foes,\n    Most noble! In the presence of thy corse?\n    Had I as many eyes as thou hast wounds,\n    Weeping as fast as they stream forth thy blood,\n    It would become me better than to close\n    In terms of friendship with thine enemies.\n    Pardon me, Julius! Here wast thou bay'd, brave hart,\n    Here didst thou fall, and here thy hunters stand,\n    Sign'd in thy spoil, and crimson'd in thy Lethe.\n    O world, thou wast the forest to this hart,\n    And this, indeed, O world, the heart of thee.\n    How like a deer strucken by many princes\n    Dost thou here lie!\n  CASSIUS. Mark Antony-\n  ANTONY. Pardon me, Caius Cassius.\n    The enemies of Caesar shall say this:\n    Then, in a friend, it is cold modesty.\n  CASSIUS. I blame you not for praising Caesar so;\n    But what compact mean you to have with us?\n    Will you be prick'd in number of our friends,\n    Or shall we on, and not depend on you?\n  ANTONY. Therefore I took your hands, but was indeed\n    Sway'd from the point by looking down on Caesar.\n    Friends am I with you all and love you all,\n    Upon this hope that you shall give me reasons\n    Why and wherein Caesar was dangerous.\n  BRUTUS. Or else were this a savage spectacle.\n    Our reasons are so full of good regard\n    That were you, Antony, the son of Caesar,\n    You should be satisfied.\n  ANTONY. That's all I seek;\n    And am moreover suitor that I may\n    Produce his body to the marketplace,\n    And in the pulpit, as becomes a friend,\n    Speak in the order of his funeral.\n  BRUTUS. You shall, Mark Antony.\n  CASSIUS. Brutus, a word with you.\n    [Aside to Brutus.] You know not what you do. Do not consent\n    That Antony speak in his funeral.\n    Know you how much the people may be moved\n    By that which he will utter?\n  BRUTUS. By your pardon,\n    I will myself into the pulpit first,\n    And show the reason of our Caesar's death.\n    What Antony shall speak, I will protest\n    He speaks by leave and by permission,\n    And that we are contented Caesar shall\n    Have all true rites and lawful ceremonies.\n    It shall advantage more than do us wrong.\n  CASSIUS. I know not what may fall; I like it not.\n  BRUTUS. Mark Antony, here, take you Caesar's body.\n    You shall not in your funeral speech blame us,\n    But speak all good you can devise of Caesar,\n    And say you do't by our permission,\n    Else shall you not have any hand at all\n    About his funeral. And you shall speak\n    In the same pulpit whereto I am going,\n    After my speech is ended.\n  ANTONY. Be it so,\n    I do desire no more.\n  BRUTUS. Prepare the body then, and follow us.\n                                          Exeunt all but Antony.\n  ANTONY. O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,\n    That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!\n    Thou art the ruins of the noblest man\n    That ever lived in the tide of times.\n    Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!\n    Over thy wounds now do I prophesy\n    (Which like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips\n    To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue)\n    A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;\n    Domestic fury and fierce civil strife\n    Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;\n    Blood and destruction shall be so in use,\n    And dreadful objects so familiar,\n    That mothers shall but smile when they behold\n    Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;\n    All pity choked with custom of fell deeds,\n    And Caesar's spirit ranging for revenge,\n    With Ate by his side come hot from hell,\n    Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice\n    Cry \"Havoc!\" and let slip the dogs of war,\n    That this foul deed shall smell above the earth\n    With carrion men, groaning for burial.\n\n                        Enter a Servant.\n\n    You serve Octavius Caesar, do you not?\n  SERVANT. I do, Mark Antony.\n  ANTONY. Caesar did write for him to come to Rome.\n  SERVANT. He did receive his letters, and is coming,\n    And bid me say to you by word of mouth-\n    O Caesar!                                     Sees the body.\n  ANTONY. Thy heart is big; get thee apart and weep.\n    Passion, I see, is catching, for mine eyes,\n    Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine,\n    Began to water. Is thy master coming?\n  SERVANT. He lies tonight within seven leagues of Rome.\n  ANTONY. Post back with speed and tell him what hath chanced.\n    Here is a mourning Rome, a dangerous Rome,\n    No Rome of safety for Octavius yet;\n    Hie hence, and tell him so. Yet stay awhile,\n    Thou shalt not back till I have borne this corse\n    Into the marketplace. There shall I try,\n    In my oration, how the people take\n    The cruel issue of these bloody men,\n    According to the which thou shalt discourse\n    To young Octavius of the state of things.\n    Lend me your hand.                Exeunt with Caesar's body.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe Forum.\n\nEnter Brutus and Cassius, and a throng of Citizens.\n\n  CITIZENS. We will be satisfied! Let us be satisfied!\n  BRUTUS. Then follow me and give me audience, friends.\n    Cassius, go you into the other street\n    And part the numbers.\n    Those that will hear me speak, let 'em stay here;\n    Those that will follow Cassius, go with him;\n    And public reasons shall be rendered\n    Of Caesar's death.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. I will hear Brutus speak.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. I will hear Cassius and compare their reasons,\n    When severally we hear them rendered.\n                               Exit Cassius, with some Citizens.\n                                    Brutus goes into the pulpit.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. The noble Brutus is ascended. Silence!\n  BRUTUS. Be patient till the last.\n    Romans, countrymen, and lovers! Hear me for my cause, and be\n    silent, that you may hear. Believe me for mine honor, and have\n    respect to mine honor, that you may believe. Censure me in your\n    wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If\n    there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to\n    him I say that Brutus' love to Caesar was no less than his. If\n    then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is\n    my answer: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome\n    more. Had you rather Caesar were living and die all slaves, than\n    that Caesar were dead to live all freemen? As Caesar loved me, I\n    weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was\n    valiant, I honor him; but as he was ambitious, I slew him. There\n    is tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honor for his valor,\n    and death for his ambition. Who is here so base that would be a\n    bondman? If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who is here so\n    rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak, for him have I\n    offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If\n    any, speak, for him have I offended. I pause for a reply.\n  ALL. None, Brutus, none.\n  BRUTUS. Then none have I offended. I have done no more to Caesar\n    than you shall do to Brutus. The question of his death is\n    enrolled in the Capitol, his glory not extenuated, wherein he was\n    worthy, nor his offenses enforced, for which he suffered death.\n\n              Enter Antony and others, with Caesar's body.\n\n    Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony, who, though he had\n    no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a\n    place in the commonwealth, as which of you shall not? With this I\n    depart- that, as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I\n    have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country\n    to need my death.\n  ALL. Live, Brutus, live, live!\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Bring him with triumph home unto his house.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Give him a statue with his ancestors.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Let him be Caesar.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. Caesar's better parts\n    Shall be crown'd in Brutus.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. We'll bring him to his house with shouts and\n    clamors.\n  BRUTUS. My countrymen-\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Peace! Silence! Brutus speaks.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Peace, ho!\n  BRUTUS. Good countrymen, let me depart alone,\n    And, for my sake, stay here with Antony.\n    Do grace to Caesar's corse, and grace his speech\n    Tending to Caesar's glories, which Mark Antony,\n    By our permission, is allow'd to make.\n    I do entreat you, not a man depart,\n    Save I alone, till Antony have spoke.                  Exit.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Stay, ho, and let us hear Mark Antony.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Let him go up into the public chair;\n    We'll hear him. Noble Antony, go up.\n  ANTONY. For Brutus' sake, I am beholding to you.\n                                           Goes into the pulpit.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. What does he say of Brutus?\n  THIRD CITIZEN. He says, for Brutus' sake,\n    He finds himself beholding to us all.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. 'Twere best he speak no harm of Brutus here.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. This Caesar was a tyrant.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Nay, that's certain.\n    We are blest that Rome is rid of him.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Peace! Let us hear what Antony can say.\n  ANTONY. You gentle Romans-\n  ALL. Peace, ho! Let us hear him.\n  ANTONY. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!\n    I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.\n    The evil that men do lives after them,\n    The good is oft interred with their bones;\n    So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus\n    Hath told you Caesar was ambitious;\n    If it were so, it was a grievous fault,\n    And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.\n    Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest-\n    For Brutus is an honorable man;\n    So are they all, all honorable men-\n    Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.\n    He was my friend, faithful and just to me;\n    But Brutus says he was ambitious,\n    And Brutus is an honorable man.\n    He hath brought many captives home to Rome,\n    Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.\n    Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?\n    When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;\n    Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:\n    Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,\n    And Brutus is an honorable man.\n    You all did see that on the Lupercal\n    I thrice presented him a kingly crown,\n    Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?\n    Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,\n    And sure he is an honorable man.\n    I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,\n    But here I am to speak what I do know.\n    You all did love him once, not without cause;\n    What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?\n    O judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts,\n    And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;\n    My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,\n    And I must pause till it come back to me.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Methinks there is much reason in his sayings.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. If thou consider rightly of the matter,\n    Caesar has had great wrong.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Has he, masters?\n    I fear there will a worse come in his place.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. Mark'd ye his words? He would not take the crown;\n    Therefore 'tis certain he was not ambitious.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. If it be found so, some will dear abide it.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Poor soul, his eyes are red as fire with weeping.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. There's not a nobler man in Rome than Antony.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. Now mark him, he begins again to speak.\n  ANTONY. But yesterday the word of Caesar might\n    Have stood against the world. Now lies he there,\n    And none so poor to do him reverence.\n    O masters! If I were disposed to stir\n    Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,\n    I should do Brutus wrong and Cassius wrong,\n    Who, you all know, are honorable men.\n    I will not do them wrong; I rather choose\n    To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,\n    Than I will wrong such honorable men.\n    But here's a parchment with the seal of Caesar;\n    I found it in his closet, 'tis his will.\n    Let but the commons hear this testament-\n    Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read-\n    And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds\n    And dip their napkins in his sacred blood,\n    Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,\n    And, dying, mention it within their wills,\n    Bequeathing it as a rich legacy\n    Unto their issue.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. We'll hear the will. Read it, Mark Antony.\n  ALL. The will, the will! We will hear Caesar's will.\n  ANTONY. Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it;\n    It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you.\n    You are not wood, you are not stones, but men;\n    And, being men, hearing the will of Caesar,\n    It will inflame you, it will make you mad.\n    'Tis good you know not that you are his heirs,\n    For if you should, O, what would come of it!\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. Read the will; we'll hear it, Antony.\n    You shall read us the will, Caesar's will.\n  ANTONY. Will you be patient? Will you stay awhile?\n    I have o'ershot myself to tell you of it.\n    I fear I wrong the honorable men\n    Whose daggers have stabb'd Caesar; I do fear it.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. They were traitors. Honorable men!\n  ALL. The will! The testament!\n  SECOND CITIZEN. They were villains, murtherers. The will!\n    Read the will!\n  ANTONY. You will compel me then to read the will?\n    Then make a ring about the corse of Caesar,\n    And let me show you him that made the will.\n    Shall I descend? And will you give me leave?\n  ALL. Come down.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Descend.\n                                  He comes down from the pulpit.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. You shall have leave.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. A ring, stand round.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Stand from the hearse, stand from the body.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Room for Antony, most noble Antony.\n  ANTONY. Nay, press not so upon me, stand far off.\n  ALL. Stand back; room, bear back!\n  ANTONY. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.\n    You all do know this mantle. I remember\n    The first time ever Caesar put it on;\n    'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent,\n    That day he overcame the Nervii.\n    Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through;\n    See what a rent the envious Casca made;\n    Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd;\n    And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away,\n    Mark how the blood of Caesar follow'd it,\n    As rushing out of doors, to be resolved\n    If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no;\n    For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel.\n    Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!\n    This was the most unkindest cut of all;\n    For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,\n    Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,\n    Quite vanquish'd him. Then burst his mighty heart,\n    And, in his mantle muffling up his face,\n    Even at the base of Pompey's statue,\n    Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell.\n    O, what a fall was there, my countrymen!\n    Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,\n    Whilst bloody treason flourish'd over us.\n    O, now you weep, and I perceive you feel\n    The dint of pity. These are gracious drops.\n    Kind souls, what weep you when you but behold\n    Our Caesar's vesture wounded? Look you here,\n    Here is himself, marr'd, as you see, with traitors.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. O piteous spectacle!\n  SECOND CITIZEN. O noble Caesar!\n  THIRD CITIZEN. O woeful day!\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. O traitors villains!\n  FIRST CITIZEN. O most bloody sight!\n  SECOND CITIZEN. We will be revenged.\n  ALL. Revenge! About! Seek! Burn! Fire! Kill!\n    Slay! Let not a traitor live!\n  ANTONY. Stay, countrymen.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Peace there! Hear the noble Antony.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. We'll hear him, we'll follow him, we'll die with\n    him.\n  ANTONY. Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up\n    To such a sudden flood of mutiny.\n    They that have done this deed are honorable.\n    What private griefs they have, alas, I know not,\n    That made them do it. They are wise and honorable,\n    And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.\n    I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts.\n    I am no orator, as Brutus is;\n    But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man,\n    That love my friend, and that they know full well\n    That gave me public leave to speak of him.\n    For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,\n    Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,\n    To stir men's blood. I only speak right on;\n    I tell you that which you yourselves do know;\n    Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor dumb mouths,\n    And bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus,\n    And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony\n    Would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue\n    In every wound of Caesar that should move\n    The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.\n  ALL. We'll mutiny.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. We'll burn the house of Brutus.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Away, then! Come, seek the conspirators.\n  ANTONY. Yet hear me, countrymen; yet hear me speak.\n  ALL. Peace, ho! Hear Antony, most noble Antony!\n  ANTONY. Why, friends, you go to do you know not what.\n    Wherein hath Caesar thus deserved your loves?\n    Alas, you know not; I must tell you then.\n    You have forgot the will I told you of.\n  ALL. Most true, the will! Let's stay and hear the will.\n  ANTONY. Here is the will, and under Caesar's seal.\n    To every Roman citizen he gives,\n    To every several man, seventy-five drachmas.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Most noble Caesar! We'll revenge his death.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. O royal Caesar!\n  ANTONY. Hear me with patience.\n  ALL. Peace, ho!\n  ANTONY. Moreover, he hath left you all his walks,\n    His private arbors, and new-planted orchards,\n    On this side Tiber; he hath left them you,\n    And to your heirs forever- common pleasures,\n    To walk abroad and recreate yourselves.\n    Here was a Caesar! When comes such another?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Never, never. Come, away, away!\n    We'll burn his body in the holy place\n    And with the brands fire the traitors' houses.\n    Take up the body.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Go fetch fire.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Pluck down benches.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. Pluck down forms, windows, anything.\n                                  Exeunt Citizens with the body.\n  ANTONY. Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot,\n    Take thou what course thou wilt.\n\n                        Enter a Servant.\n\n    How now, fellow?\n  SERVANT. Sir, Octavius is already come to Rome.\n  ANTONY. Where is he?\n  SERVANT. He and Lepidus are at Caesar's house.\n  ANTONY. And thither will I straight to visit him.\n    He comes upon a wish. Fortune is merry,\n    And in this mood will give us anything.\n  SERVANT. I heard him say Brutus and Cassius\n    Are rid like madmen through the gates of Rome.\n  ANTONY. Be like they had some notice of the people,\n    How I had moved them. Bring me to Octavius.          Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA street.\n\nEnter Cinna the poet.\n\n  CINNA. I dreamt tonight that I did feast with Caesar,\n    And things unluckily charge my fantasy.\n    I have no will to wander forth of doors,\n    Yet something leads me forth.\n\n                        Enter Citizens.\n\n  FIRST CITIZEN. What is your name?\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Whither are you going?\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Where do you dwell?\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. Are you a married man or a bachelor?\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Answer every man directly.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Ay, and briefly.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. Ay, and wisely.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Ay, and truly, you were best.\n  CINNA. What is my name? Whither am I going? Where do I dwell? Am I\n    a married man or a bachelor? Then, to answer every man directly\n    and briefly, wisely and truly: wisely I say, I am a bachelor.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. That's as much as to say they are fools that marry.\n    You'll bear me a bang for that, I fear. Proceed directly.\n  CINNA. Directly, I am going to Caesar's funeral.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. As a friend or an enemy?\n  CINNA. As a friend.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. That matter is answered directly.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. For your dwelling, briefly.\n  CINNA. Briefly, I dwell by the Capitol.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Your name, sir, truly.\n  CINNA. Truly, my name is Cinna.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Tear him to pieces, he's a conspirator.\n  CINNA. I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad\n    verses.\n  CINNA. I am not Cinna the conspirator.\n  FOURTH CITIZEN. It is no matter, his name's Cinna. Pluck but his\n    name out of his heart, and turn him going.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Tear him, tear him! Come, brands, ho, firebrands. To\n    Brutus', to Cassius'; burn all. Some to Decius' house, and some\n    to Casca's, some to Ligarius'. Away, go!             Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nA house in Rome. Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus, seated at a table.\n\n  ANTONY. These many then shall die, their names are prick'd.\n  OCTAVIUS. Your brother too must die; consent you, Lepidus?\n  LEPIDUS. I do consent-\n  OCTAVIUS. Prick him down, Antony.\n  LEPIDUS. Upon condition Publius shall not live,\n    Who is your sister's son, Mark Antony.\n  ANTONY. He shall not live; look, with a spot I damn him.\n    But, Lepidus, go you to Caesar's house,\n    Fetch the will hither, and we shall determine\n    How to cut off some charge in legacies.\n  LEPIDUS. What, shall I find you here?\n  OCTAVIUS. Or here, or at the Capitol.            Exit Lepidus.\n  ANTONY. This is a slight unmeritable man,\n    Meet to be sent on errands. Is it fit,\n    The three-fold world divided, he should stand\n    One of the three to share it?\n  OCTAVIUS. So you thought him,\n    And took his voice who should be prick'd to die\n    In our black sentence and proscription.\n  ANTONY. Octavius, I have seen more days than you,\n    And though we lay these honors on this man\n    To ease ourselves of divers slanderous loads,\n    He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold,\n    To groan and sweat under the business,\n    Either led or driven, as we point the way;\n    And having brought our treasure where we will,\n    Then take we down his load and turn him off,\n    Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears\n    And graze in commons.\n  OCTAVIUS. You may do your will,\n    But he's a tried and valiant soldier.\n  ANTONY. So is my horse, Octavius, and for that\n    I do appoint him store of provender.\n    It is a creature that I teach to fight,\n    To wind, to stop, to run directly on,\n    His corporal motion govern'd by my spirit.\n    And, in some taste, is Lepidus but so:\n    He must be taught, and train'd, and bid go forth;\n    A barren-spirited fellow, one that feeds\n    On objects, arts, and imitations,\n    Which, out of use and staled by other men,\n    Begin his fashion. Do not talk of him\n    But as a property. And now, Octavius,\n    Listen great things. Brutus and Cassius\n    Are levying powers; we must straight make head;\n    Therefore let our alliance be combined,\n    Our best friends made, our means stretch'd;\n    And let us presently go sit in council,\n    How covert matters may be best disclosed,\n    And open perils surest answered.\n  OCTAVIUS. Let us do so, for we are at the stake,\n    And bay'd about with many enemies;\n    And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear,\n    Millions of mischiefs.                               Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nCamp near Sardis. Before Brutus' tent. Drum.\n\nEnter Brutus, Lucilius, Lucius, and Soldiers; Titinius and Pindarus meet them.\n\n  BRUTUS. Stand, ho!\n  LUCILIUS. Give the word, ho, and stand.\n  BRUTUS. What now, Lucilius, is Cassius near?\n  LUCILIUS. He is at hand, and Pindarus is come\n    To do you salutation from his master.\n  BRUTUS. He greets me well. Your master, Pindarus,\n    In his own change, or by ill officers,\n    Hath given me some worthy cause to wish\n    Things done undone; but if he be at hand,\n    I shall be satisfied.\n  PINDARUS. I do not doubt\n    But that my noble master will appear\n    Such as he is, full of regard and honor.\n  BRUTUS. He is not doubted. A word, Lucilius,\n    How he received you. Let me be resolved.\n  LUCILIUS. With courtesy and with respect enough,\n    But not with such familiar instances,\n    Nor with such free and friendly conference,\n    As he hath used of old.\n  BRUTUS. Thou hast described\n    A hot friend cooling. Ever note, Lucilius,\n    When love begins to sicken and decay\n    It useth an enforced ceremony.\n    There are no tricks in plain and simple faith;\n    But hollow men, like horses hot at hand,\n    Make gallant show and promise of their mettle;\n    But when they should endure the bloody spur,\n    They fall their crests and like deceitful jades\n    Sink in the trial. Comes his army on?\n  LUCILIUS. They meant his night in Sard is to be quarter'd;\n    The greater part, the horse in general,\n    Are come with Cassius.                     Low march within.\n  BRUTUS. Hark, he is arrived.\n    March gently on to meet him.\n\n                  Enter Cassius and his Powers.\n\n  CASSIUS. Stand, ho!\n  BRUTUS. Stand, ho! Speak the word along.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Stand!\n  SECOND SOLDIER. Stand!\n  THIRD SOLDIER. Stand!\n  CASSIUS. Most noble brother, you have done me wrong.\n  BRUTUS. Judge me, you gods! Wrong I mine enemies?\n    And, if not so, how should I wrong a brother?\n  CASSIUS. Brutus, this sober form of yours hides wrongs,\n    And when you do them-\n  BRUTUS. Cassius, be content,\n    Speak your griefs softly, I do know you well.\n    Before the eyes of both our armies here,\n    Which should perceive nothing but love from us,\n    Let us not wrangle. Bid them move away;\n    Then in my tent, Cassius, enlarge your griefs,\n    And I will give you audience.\n  CASSIUS. Pindarus,\n    Bid our commanders lead their charges off\n    A little from this ground.\n  BRUTUS. Lucilius, do you the like, and let no man\n    Come to our tent till we have done our conference.\n    Let Lucius and Titinius guard our door.             Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nBrutus' tent.\n\nEnter Brutus and Cassius.\n\n  CASSIUS. That you have wrong'd me doth appear in this:\n    You have condemn'd and noted Lucius Pella\n    For taking bribes here of the Sardians,\n    Wherein my letters, praying on his side,\n    Because I knew the man, were slighted off.\n  BRUTUS. You wrong'd yourself to write in such a case.\n  CASSIUS. In such a time as this it is not meet\n    That every nice offense should bear his comment.\n  BRUTUS. Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself\n    Are much condemn'd to have an itching palm,\n    To sell and mart your offices for gold\n    To undeservers.\n  CASSIUS. I an itching palm?\n    You know that you are Brutus that speaks this,\n    Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last.\n  BRUTUS. The name of Cassius honors this corruption,\n    And chastisement doth therefore hide his head.\n  CASSIUS. Chastisement?\n  BRUTUS. Remember March, the ides of March remember.\n    Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake?\n    What villain touch'd his body, that did stab,\n    And not for justice? What, shall one of us,\n    That struck the foremost man of all this world\n    But for supporting robbers, shall we now\n    Contaminate our fingers with base bribes\n    And sell the mighty space of our large honors\n    For so much trash as may be grasped thus?\n    I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,\n    Than such a Roman.\n  CASSIUS. Brutus, bait not me,\n    I'll not endure it. You forget yourself\n    To hedge me in. I am a soldier, I,\n    Older in practice, abler than yourself\n    To make conditions.\n  BRUTUS. Go to, you are not, Cassius.\n  CASSIUS. I am.\n  BRUTUS. I say you are not.\n  CASSIUS. Urge me no more, I shall forget myself;\n    Have mind upon your health, tempt me no farther.\n  BRUTUS. Away, slight man!\n  CASSIUS. Is't possible?\n  BRUTUS. Hear me, for I will speak.\n    Must I give way and room to your rash choler?\n    Shall I be frighted when a madman stares?\n  CASSIUS. O gods, ye gods! Must I endure all this?\n  BRUTUS. All this? Ay, more. Fret till your proud heart break.\n    Go show your slaves how choleric you are,\n    And make your bondmen tremble. Must I bouge?\n    Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch\n    Under your testy humor? By the gods,\n    You shall digest the venom of your spleen,\n    Though it do split you, for, from this day forth,\n    I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter,\n    When you are waspish.\n  CASSIUS. Is it come to this?\n  BRUTUS. You say you are a better soldier:\n    Let it appear so, make your vaunting true,\n    And it shall please me well. For mine own part,\n    I shall be glad to learn of noble men.\n  CASSIUS. You wrong me every way, you wrong me, Brutus.\n    I said, an elder soldier, not a better.\n    Did I say \"better\"?\n  BRUTUS. If you did, I care not.\n  CASSIUS. When Caesar lived, he durst not thus have moved me.\n  BRUTUS. Peace, peace! You durst not so have tempted him.\n  CASSIUS. I durst not?\n  BRUTUS. No.\n  CASSIUS. What, durst not tempt him?\n  BRUTUS. For your life you durst not.\n  CASSIUS. Do not presume too much upon my love;\n    I may do that I shall be sorry for.\n  BRUTUS. You have done that you should be sorry for.\n    There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats,\n    For I am arm'd so strong in honesty,\n    That they pass by me as the idle wind\n    Which I respect not. I did send to you\n    For certain sums of gold, which you denied me,\n    For I can raise no money by vile means.\n    By heaven, I had rather coin my heart\n    And drop my blood for drachmas than to wring\n    From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash\n    By any indirection. I did send\n    To you for gold to pay my legions,\n    Which you denied me. Was that done like Cassius?\n    Should I have answer'd Caius Cassius so?\n    When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous\n    To lock such rascal counters from his friends,\n    Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts,\n    Dash him to pieces!\n  CASSIUS. I denied you not.\n  BRUTUS. You did.\n  CASSIUS. I did not. He was but a fool\n    That brought my answer back. Brutus hath rived my heart.\n    A friend should bear his friend's infirmities,\n    But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.\n  BRUTUS. I do not, till you practise them on me.\n  CASSIUS. You love me not.\n  BRUTUS. I do not like your faults.\n  CASSIUS. A friendly eye could never see such faults.\n  BRUTUS. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear\n    As huge as high Olympus.\n  CASSIUS. Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come,\n    Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius,\n    For Cassius is aweary of the world:\n    Hated by one he loves; braved by his brother;\n    Check'd like a bondman; all his faults observed,\n    Set in a notebook, learn'd and conn'd by rote,\n    To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep\n    My spirit from mine eyes! There is my dagger,\n    And here my naked breast; within, a heart\n    Dearer than Pluto's mine, richer than gold.\n    If that thou best a Roman, take it forth;\n    I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart.\n    Strike, as thou didst at Caesar, for I know,\n    When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him better\n    Than ever thou lovedst Cassius.\n  BRUTUS. Sheathe your dagger.\n    Be angry when you will, it shall have scope;\n    Do what you will, dishonor shall be humor.\n    O Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb,\n    That carries anger as the flint bears fire,\n    Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark\n    And straight is cold again.\n  CASSIUS. Hath Cassius lived\n    To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus,\n    When grief and blood ill-temper'd vexeth him?\n  BRUTUS. When I spoke that, I was ill-temper'd too.\n  CASSIUS. Do you confess so much? Give me your hand.\n  BRUTUS. And my heart too.\n  CASSIUS. O Brutus!\n  BRUTUS. What's the matter?\n  CASSIUS. Have not you love enough to bear with me\n    When that rash humor which my mother gave me\n    Makes me forgetful?\n  BRUTUS. Yes, Cassius, and from henceforth,\n    When you are overearnest with your Brutus,\n    He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so.\n  POET. [Within.] Let me go in to see the generals.\n    There is some grudge between 'em, 'tis not meet\n    They be alone.\n  LUCILIUS. [Within.] You shall not come to them.\n  POET. [Within.] Nothing but death shall stay me.\n\n      Enter Poet, followed by Lucilius, Titinius, and Lucius.\n\n  CASSIUS. How now, what's the matter?\n  POET. For shame, you generals! What do you mean?\n    Love, and be friends, as two such men should be;\n    For I have seen more years, I'm sure, than ye.\n  CASSIUS. Ha, ha! How vilely doth this cynic rhyme!\n  BRUTUS. Get you hence, sirrah; saucy fellow, hence!\n  CASSIUS. Bear with him, Brutus; 'tis his fashion.\n  BRUTUS. I'll know his humor when he knows his time.\n    What should the wars do with these jigging fools?\n    Companion, hence!\n  CASSIUS. Away, away, be gone!                       Exit Poet.\n  BRUTUS. Lucilius and Titinius, bid the commanders\n    Prepare to lodge their companies tonight.\n  CASSIUS. And come yourselves and bring Messala with you\n    Immediately to us.             Exeunt Lucilius and Titinius.\n  BRUTUS. Lucius, a bowl of wine!                   Exit Lucius.\n  CASSIUS. I did not think you could have been so angry.\n  BRUTUS. O Cassius, I am sick of many griefs.\n  CASSIUS. Of your philosophy you make no use,\n    If you give place to accidental evils.\n  BRUTUS. No man bears sorrow better. Portia is dead.\n  CASSIUS. Ha? Portia?\n  BRUTUS. She is dead.\n  CASSIUS. How 'scaped killing when I cross'd you so?\n    O insupportable and touching loss!\n    Upon what sickness?\n  BRUTUS. Impatient of my absence,\n    And grief that young Octavius with Mark Antony\n    Have made themselves so strong- for with her death\n    That tidings came- with this she fell distract,\n    And (her attendants absent) swallow'd fire.\n  CASSIUS. And died so?\n  BRUTUS. Even so.\n  CASSIUS. O ye immortal gods!\n\n               Re-enter Lucius, with wine and taper.\n\n  BRUTUS. Speak no more of her. Give me a bowl of wine.\n    In this I bury all unkindness, Cassius.              Drinks.\n  CASSIUS. My heart is thirsty for that noble pledge.\n  Fill, Lucius, till the wine o'erswell the cup;\n  I cannot drink too much of Brutus' love.               Drinks.\n  BRUTUS. Come in, Titinius!                        Exit Lucius.\n\n                 Re-enter Titinius, with Messala.\n\n    Welcome, good Messala.\n    Now sit we close about this taper here,\n    And call in question our necessities.\n  CASSIUS. Portia, art thou gone?\n  BRUTUS. No more, I pray you.\n    Messala, I have here received letters\n    That young Octavius and Mark Antony\n    Come down upon us with a mighty power,\n    Bending their expedition toward Philippi.\n  MESSALA. Myself have letters of the selfsame tenure.\n  BRUTUS. With what addition?\n  MESSALA. That by proscription and bills of outlawry\n    Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus\n    Have put to death an hundred senators.\n  BRUTUS. There in our letters do not well agree;\n    Mine speak of seventy senators that died\n    By their proscriptions, Cicero being one.\n  CASSIUS. Cicero one!\n  MESSALA. Cicero is dead,\n    And by that order of proscription.\n    Had you your letters from your wife, my lord?\n  BRUTUS. No, Messala.\n  MESSALA. Nor nothing in your letters writ of her?\n  BRUTUS. Nothing, Messala.\n  MESSALA. That, methinks, is strange.\n  BRUTUS. Why ask you? Hear you aught of her in yours?\n  MESSALA. No, my lord.\n  BRUTUS. Now, as you are a Roman, tell me true.\n  MESSALA. Then like a Roman bear the truth I tell:\n    For certain she is dead, and by strange manner.\n  BRUTUS. Why, farewell, Portia. We must die, Messala.\n    With meditating that she must die once\n    I have the patience to endure it now.\n  MESSALA. Even so great men great losses should endure.\n  CASSIUS. I have as much of this in art as you,\n    But yet my nature could not bear it so.\n  BRUTUS. Well, to our work alive. What do you think\n    Of marching to Philippi presently?\n  CASSIUS. I do not think it good.\n  BRUTUS. Your reason?\n  CASSIUS. This it is:\n    'Tis better that the enemy seek us;\n    So shall he waste his means, weary his soldiers,\n    Doing himself offense, whilst we lying still\n    Are full of rest, defense, and nimbleness.\n  BRUTUS. Good reasons must of force give place to better.\n    The people 'twixt Philippi and this ground\n    Do stand but in a forced affection,\n    For they have grudged us contribution.\n    The enemy, marching along by them,\n    By them shall make a fuller number up,\n    Come on refresh'd, new-added, and encouraged;\n    From which advantage shall we cut him off\n    If at Philippi we do face him there,\n    These people at our back.\n  CASSIUS. Hear me, good brother.\n  BRUTUS. Under your pardon. You must note beside\n    That we have tried the utmost of our friends,\n    Our legions are brim-full, our cause is ripe:\n    The enemy increaseth every day;\n    We, at the height, are ready to decline.\n    There is a tide in the affairs of men\n    Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune;\n    Omitted, all the voyage of their life\n    Is bound in shallows and in miseries.\n    On such a full sea are we now afloat,\n    And we must take the current when it serves,\n    Or lose our ventures.\n  CASSIUS. Then, with your will, go on;\n    We'll along ourselves and meet them at Philippi.\n  BRUTUS. The deep of night is crept upon our talk,\n    And nature must obey necessity,\n    Which we will niggard with a little rest.\n    There is no more to say?\n  CASSIUS. No more. Good night.\n    Early tomorrow will we rise and hence.\n  BRUTUS. Lucius!\n\n                       Re-enter Lucius.\n\n    My gown.                                        Exit Lucius.\n    Farewell, good Messala;\n    Good night, Titinius; noble, noble Cassius,\n    Good night and good repose.\n  CASSIUS. O my dear brother!\n    This was an ill beginning of the night.\n    Never come such division 'tween our souls!\n    Let it not, Brutus.\n  BRUTUS. Everything is well.\n  CASSIUS. Good night, my lord.\n  BRUTUS. Good night, good brother.\n  TITINIUS. MESSALA. Good night, Lord Brutus.\n  BRUTUS. Farewell, everyone.\n                                          Exeunt all but Brutus.\n\n               Re-enter Lucius, with the gown.\n\n    Give me the gown. Where is thy instrument?\n  LUCIUS. Here in the tent.\n  BRUTUS. What, thou speak'st drowsily?\n    Poor knave, I blame thee not, thou art o'erwatch'd.\n    Call Claudio and some other of my men,\n    I'll have them sleep on cushions in my tent.\n  LUCIUS. Varro and Claudio!\n\n                   Enter Varro and Claudio.\n\n  VARRO. Calls my lord?\n  BRUTUS. I pray you, sirs, lie in my tent and sleep;\n    It may be I shall raise you by and by\n    On business to my brother Cassius.\n  VARRO. So please you, we will stand and watch your pleasure.\n  BRUTUS. I would not have it so. Lie down, good sirs.\n    It may be I shall otherwise bethink me.\n    Look Lucius, here's the book I sought for so;\n    I put it in the pocket of my gown.\n                                     Varro and Claudio lie down.\n  LUCIUS. I was sure your lordship did not give it me.\n  BRUTUS. Bear with me, good boy, I am much forgetful.\n    Canst thou hold up thy heavy eyes awhile,\n    And touch thy instrument a strain or two?\n  LUCIUS. Ay, my lord, an't please you.\n  BRUTUS. It does, my boy.\n    I trouble thee too much, but thou art willing.\n  LUCIUS. It is my duty, sir.\n  BRUTUS. I should not urge thy duty past thy might;\n    I know young bloods look for a time of rest.\n  LUCIUS. I have slept, my lord, already.\n  BRUTUS. It was well done, and thou shalt sleep again;\n    I will not hold thee long. If I do live,\n    I will be good to thee.                   Music, and a song.\n    This is a sleepy tune. O murtherous slumber,\n    Layest thou thy leaden mace upon my boy\n    That plays thee music? Gentle knave, good night.\n    I will not do thee so much wrong to wake thee.\n    If thou dost nod, thou break'st thy instrument;\n    I'll take it from thee; and, good boy, good night.\n    Let me see, let me see; is not the leaf turn'd down\n    Where I left reading? Here it is, I think.        Sits down.\n\n                 Enter the Ghost of Caesar.\n\n    How ill this taper burns! Ha, who comes here?\n    I think it is the weakness of mine eyes\n    That shapes this monstrous apparition.\n    It comes upon me. Art thou anything?\n    Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil\n    That makest my blood cold and my hair to stare?\n    Speak to me what thou art.\n  GHOST. Thy evil spirit, Brutus.\n  BRUTUS. Why comest thou?\n  GHOST. To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi.\n  BRUTUS. Well, then I shall see thee again?\n  GHOST. Ay, at Philippi.\n  BRUTUS. Why, I will see thee at Philippi then.     Exit Ghost.\n    Now I have taken heart thou vanishest.\n    Ill spirit, I would hold more talk with thee.\n    Boy! Lucius! Varro! Claudio! Sirs, awake!\n    Claudio!\n  LUCIUS. The strings, my lord, are false.\n  BRUTUS. He thinks he still is at his instrument.\n    Lucius, awake!\n  LUCIUS. My lord?\n  BRUTUS. Didst thou dream, Lucius, that thou so criedst out?\n  LUCIUS. My lord, I do not know that I did cry.\n  BRUTUS. Yes, that thou didst. Didst thou see anything?\n  LUCIUS. Nothing, my lord.\n  BRUTUS. Sleep again, Lucius. Sirrah Claudio!\n    [To Varro.] Fellow thou, awake!\n  VARRO. My lord?\n  CLAUDIO. My lord?\n  BRUTUS. Why did you so cry out, sirs, in your sleep?\n  VARRO. CLAUDIO. Did we, my lord?\n  BRUTUS. Ay, saw you anything?\n  VARRO. No, my lord, I saw nothing.\n  CLAUDIO. Nor I, my lord.\n  BRUTUS. Go and commend me to my brother Cassius;\n    Bid him set on his powers betimes before,\n    And we will follow.\n  VARRO. CLAUDIO. It shall be done, my lord.             Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nThe plains of Philippi.\n\nEnter Octavius, Antony, and their Army.\n\n  OCTAVIUS. Now, Antony, our hopes are answered.\n    You said the enemy would not come down,\n    But keep the hills and upper regions.\n    It proves not so. Their battles are at hand;\n    They mean to warn us at Philippi here,\n    Answering before we do demand of them.\n  ANTONY. Tut, I am in their bosoms, and I know\n    Wherefore they do it. They could be content\n    To visit other places, and come down\n    With fearful bravery, thinking by this face\n    To fasten in our thoughts that they have courage;\n    But 'tis not so.\n\n                    Enter a Messenger.\n\n  MESSENGER. Prepare you, generals.\n    The enemy comes on in gallant show;\n    Their bloody sign of battle is hung out,\n    And something to be done immediately.\n  ANTONY. Octavius, lead your battle softly on,\n    Upon the left hand of the even field.\n  OCTAVIUS. Upon the right hand I, keep thou the left.\n  ANTONY. Why do you cross me in this exigent?\n  OCTAVIUS. I do not cross you, but I will do so.\n\n      March. Drum. Enter Brutus, Cassius, and their Army;\n           Lucilius, Titinius, Messala, and others.\n\n  BRUTUS. They stand, and would have parley.\n  CASSIUS. Stand fast, Titinius; we must out and talk.\n  OCTAVIUS. Mark Antony, shall we give sign of battle?\n  ANTONY. No, Caesar, we will answer on their charge.\n    Make forth, the generals would have some words.\n  OCTAVIUS. Stir not until the signal not until the signal.\n  BRUTUS. Words before blows. Is it so, countrymen?\n  OCTAVIUS. Not that we love words better, as you do.\n  BRUTUS. Good words are better than bad strokes, Octavius.\n  ANTONY. In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good words.\n    Witness the hole you made in Caesar's heart,\n    Crying \"Long live! Hail, Caesar!\"\n  CASSIUS. Antony,\n    The posture of your blows are yet unknown;\n    But for your words, they rob the Hybla bees,\n    And leave them honeyless.\n  ANTONY. Not stingless too.\n  BRUTUS. O, yes, and soundless too,\n    For you have stol'n their buzzing, Antony,\n    And very wisely threat before you sting.\n  ANTONY. Villains! You did not so when your vile daggers\n    Hack'd one another in the sides of Caesar.\n    You show'd your teeth like apes, and fawn'd like hounds,\n    And bow'd like bondmen, kissing Caesar's feet;\n    Whilst damned Casca, like a cur, behind\n    Strooke Caesar on the neck. O you flatterers!\n  CASSIUS. Flatterers? Now, Brutus, thank yourself.\n    This tongue had not offended so today,\n    If Cassius might have ruled.\n  OCTAVIUS. Come, come, the cause. If arguing make us sweat,\n    The proof of it will turn to redder drops.\n    Look,\n    I draw a sword against conspirators;\n    When think you that the sword goes up again?\n    Never, till Caesar's three and thirty wounds\n    Be well avenged, or till another Caesar\n    Have added slaughter to the sword of traitors.\n  BRUTUS. Caesar, thou canst not die by traitors' hands,\n    Unless thou bring'st them with thee.\n  OCTAVIUS. So I hope,\n    I was not born to die on Brutus' sword.\n  BRUTUS. O, if thou wert the noblest of thy strain,\n    Young man, thou couldst not die more honorable.\n  CASSIUS. A peevish school boy, worthless of such honor,\n    Join'd with a masker and a reveler!\n  ANTONY. Old Cassius still!\n  OCTAVIUS. Come, Antony, away!\n    Defiance, traitors, hurl we in your teeth.\n    If you dare fight today, come to the field;\n    If not, when you have stomachs.\n                        Exeunt Octavius, Antony, and their Army.\n  CASSIUS. Why, now, blow and, swell billow, and swim bark!\n    The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.\n  BRUTUS. Ho, Lucilius! Hark, a word with you.\n  LUCILIUS. [Stands forth.] My lord?\n                             Brutus and Lucilius converse apart.\n  CASSIUS. Messala!\n  MESSALA. [Stands forth.] What says my general?\n  CASSIUS. Messala,\n    This is my birthday, as this very day\n    Was Cassius born. Give me thy hand, Messala.\n    Be thou my witness that, against my will,\n    As Pompey was, am I compell'd to set\n    Upon one battle all our liberties.\n    You know that I held Epicurus strong,\n    And his opinion. Now I change my mind,\n    And partly credit things that do presage.\n    Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign\n    Two mighty eagles fell, and there they perch'd,\n    Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands,\n    Who to Philippi here consorted us.\n    This morning are they fled away and gone,\n    And in their steads do ravens, crows, and kites\n    Fly o'er our heads and downward look on us,\n    As we were sickly prey. Their shadows seem\n    A canopy most fatal, under which\n    Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost.\n  MESSALA. Believe not so.\n  CASSIUS. I but believe it partly,\n    For I am fresh of spirit and resolved\n    To meet all perils very constantly.\n  BRUTUS. Even so, Lucilius.\n  CASSIUS. Now, most noble Brutus,\n    The gods today stand friendly that we may,\n    Lovers in peace, lead on our days to age!\n    But, since the affairs of men rest still incertain,\n    Let's reason with the worst that may befall.\n    If we do lose this battle, then is this\n    The very last time we shall speak together.\n    What are you then determined to do?\n  BRUTUS. Even by the rule of that philosophy\n    By which I did blame Cato for the death\n    Which he did give himself- I know not how,\n    But I do find it cowardly and vile,\n    For fear of what might fall, so to prevent\n    The time of life- arming myself with patience\n    To stay the providence of some high powers\n    That govern us below.\n  CASSIUS. Then, if we lose this battle,\n    You are contented to be led in triumph\n    Thorough the streets of Rome?\n  BRUTUS. No, Cassius, no. Think not, thou noble Roman,\n    That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome;\n    He bears too great a mind. But this same day\n    Must end that work the ides of March begun.\n    And whether we shall meet again I know not.\n    Therefore our everlasting farewell take.\n    Forever, and forever, farewell, Cassius!\n    If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;\n    If not, why then this parting was well made.\n  CASSIUS. Forever and forever farewell, Brutus!\n    If we do meet again, we'll smile indeed;\n    If not, 'tis true this parting was well made.\n  BRUTUS. Why then, lead on. O, that a man might know\n    The end of this day's business ere it come!\n    But it sufficeth that the day will end,\n    And then the end is known. Come, ho! Away!           Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe field of battle.\n\nAlarum. Enter Brutus and Messala.\n\n  BRUTUS. Ride, ride, Messala, ride, and give these bills\n    Unto the legions on the other side.             Loud alarum.\n    Let them set on at once, for I perceive\n    But cold demeanor in Octavia's wing,\n    And sudden push gives them the overthrow.\n    Ride, ride, Messala. Let them all come down.         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nAnother part of the field.\n\nAlarums. Enter Cassius and Titinius.\n\n  CASSIUS. O, look, Titinius, look, the villains fly!\n    Myself have to mine own turn'd enemy.\n    This ensign here of mine was turning back;\n    I slew the coward, and did take it from him.\n  TITINIUS. O Cassius, Brutus gave the word too early,\n    Who, having some advantage on Octavius,\n    Took it too eagerly. His soldiers fell to spoil,\n    Whilst we by Antony are all enclosed.\n\n                       Enter Pindarus.\n\n  PINDARUS. Fly further off, my lord, fly further off;\n    Mark Antony is in your tents, my lord;\n    Fly, therefore, noble Cassius, fly far off.\n  CASSIUS. This hill is far enough. Look, look, Titinius:\n    Are those my tents where I perceive the fire?\n  TITINIUS. They are, my lord.\n  CASSIUS. Titinius, if thou lovest me,\n    Mount thou my horse and hide thy spurs in him,\n    Till he have brought thee up to yonder troops\n    And here again, that I may rest assured\n    Whether yond troops are friend or enemy.\n  TITINIUS. I will be here again, even with a thought.     Exit.\n  CASSIUS. Go, Pindarus, get higher on that hill;\n    My sight was ever thick; regard Titinius,\n    And tell me what thou notest about the field.\n                                      Pindarus ascends the hill.\n    This day I breathed first: time is come round,\n    And where I did begin, there shall I end;\n    My life is run his compass. Sirrah, what news?\n  PINDARUS. [Above.] O my lord!\n  CASSIUS. What news?\n  PINDARUS. [Above.] Titinius is enclosed round about\n    With horsemen, that make to him on the spur;\n    Yet he spurs on. Now they are almost on him.\n    Now, Titinius! Now some light. O, he lights too.\n    He's ta'en [Shout.] And, hark! They shout for joy.\n  CASSIUS. Come down; behold no more.\n    O, coward that I am, to live so long,\n    To see my best friend ta'en before my face!\n                                              Pindarus descends.\n    Come hither, sirrah.\n    In Parthia did I take thee prisoner,\n    And then I swore thee, saving of thy life,\n    That whatsoever I did bid thee do,\n    Thou shouldst attempt it. Come now, keep thine oath;\n    Now be a freeman, and with this good sword,\n    That ran through Caesar's bowels, search this bosom.\n    Stand not to answer: here, take thou the hilts;\n    And when my face is cover'd, as 'tis now,\n    Guide thou the sword. [Pindarus stabs him.] Caesar, thou art\n      revenged,\n    Even with the sword that kill'd thee.                  Dies.\n  PINDARUS. So, I am free, yet would not so have been,\n    Durst I have done my will. O Cassius!\n    Far from this country Pindarus shall run,\n    Where never Roman shall take note of him.              Exit.\n\n                Re-enter Titinius with Messala.\n\n  MESSALA. It is but change, Titinius, for Octavius\n    Is overthrown by noble Brutus' power,\n    As Cassius' legions are by Antony.\n  TITINIUS. These tidings would well comfort Cassius.\n  MESSALA. Where did you leave him?\n  TITINIUS. All disconsolate,\n    With Pindarus his bondman, on this hill.\n  MESSALA. Is not that he that lies upon the ground?\n  TITINIUS. He lies not like the living. O my heart!\n  MESSALA. Is not that he?\n  TITINIUS. No, this was he, Messala,\n    But Cassius is no more. O setting sun,\n    As in thy red rays thou dost sink to night,\n    So in his red blood Cassius' day is set,\n    The sun of Rome is set! Our day is gone;\n    Clouds, dews, and dangers come; our deeds are done!\n    Mistrust of my success hath done this deed.\n  MESSALA. Mistrust of good success hath done this deed.\n    O hateful error, melancholy's child,\n    Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men\n    The things that are not? O error, soon conceived,\n    Thou never comest unto a happy birth,\n    But kill'st the mother that engender'd thee!\n  TITINIUS. What, Pindarus! Where art thou, Pindarus?\n  MESSALA. Seek him, Titinius, whilst I go to meet\n    The noble Brutus, thrusting this report\n    Into his ears. I may say \"thrusting\" it,\n    For piercing steel and darts envenomed\n    Shall be as welcome to the ears of Brutus\n    As tidings of this sight.\n  TITINIUS. Hie you, Messala,\n    And I will seek for Pindarus the while.        Exit Messala.\n    Why didst thou send me forth, brave Cassius?\n    Did I not meet thy friends? And did not they\n    Put on my brows this wreath of victory,\n    And bid me give it thee? Didst thou not hear their shouts?\n    Alas, thou hast misconstrued everything!\n    But, hold thee, take this garland on thy brow;\n    Thy Brutus bid me give it thee, and I\n    Will do his bidding. Brutus, come apace,\n    And see how I regarded Caius Cassius.\n    By your leave, gods, this is a Roman's part.\n    Come, Cassius' sword, and find Titinius' heart.\n                                                  Kills himself.\n\n       Alarum. Re-enter Messala, with Brutus, young Cato,\n                         and others.\n\n  BRUTUS. Where, where, Messala, doth his body lie?\n  MESSALA. Lo, yonder, and Titinius mourning it.\n  BRUTUS. Titinius' face is upward.\n  CATO. He is slain.\n  BRUTUS. O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet!\n    Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords\n    In our own proper entrails.                     Low alarums.\n  CATO. Brave Titinius!\n    Look whe'er he have not crown'd dead Cassius!\n  BRUTUS. Are yet two Romans living such as these?\n    The last of all the Romans, fare thee well!\n    It is impossible that ever Rome\n    Should breed thy fellow. Friends, I owe moe tears\n    To this dead man than you shall see me pay.\n    I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time.\n    Come therefore, and to Thasos send his body;\n    His funerals shall not be in our camp,\n    Lest it discomfort us. Lucilius, come,\n    And come, young Cato; let us to the field.\n    Labio and Flavio, set our battles on.\n    'Tis three o'clock, and Romans, yet ere night\n    We shall try fortune in a second fight.              Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the field.\n\nAlarum. Enter, fighting, Soldiers of both armies; then Brutus, young Cato,\nLucilius, and others.\n\n  BRUTUS. Yet, countrymen, O, yet hold up your heads!\n  CATO. What bastard doth not? Who will go with me?\n    I will proclaim my name about the field.\n    I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho!\n    A foe to tyrants, and my country's friend.\n    I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho!\n  BRUTUS. And I am Brutus, Marcus Brutus, I;\n    Brutus, my country's friend; know me for Brutus!       Exit.\n  LUCILIUS. O young and noble Cato, art thou down?\n    Why, now thou diest as bravely as Titinius,\n    And mayst be honor'd, being Cato's son.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Yield, or thou diest.\n  LUCILIUS. Only I yield to die.\n    [Offers money.] There is so much that thou wilt kill me straight:\n    Kill Brutus, and be honor'd in his death.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. We must not. A noble prisoner!\n  SECOND SOLDIER. Room, ho! Tell Antony, Brutus is ta'en.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. I'll tell the news. Here comes the general.\n\n                         Enter Antony.\n\n    Brutus is ta'en, Brutus is ta'en, my lord.\n  ANTONY. Where is he?\n  LUCILIUS. Safe, Antony, Brutus is safe enough.\n    I dare assure thee that no enemy\n    Shall ever take alive the noble Brutus;\n    The gods defend him from so great a shame!\n    When you do find him, or alive or dead,\n    He will be found like Brutus, like himself.\n  ANTONY. This is not Brutus, friend, but, I assure you,\n    A prize no less in worth. Keep this man safe,\n    Give him all kindness; I had rather have\n    Such men my friends than enemies. Go on,\n    And see wheer Brutus be alive or dead,\n    And bring us word unto Octavius' tent\n    How everything is chanced.                           Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAnother part of the field.\n\nEnter Brutus, Dardanius, Clitus, Strato, and Volumnius.\n\n  BRUTUS. Come, poor remains of friends, rest on this rock.\n  CLITUS. Statilius show'd the torchlight, but, my lord,\n    He came not back. He is or ta'en or slain.\n  BRUTUS. Sit thee down, Clitus. Slaying is the word:\n    It is a deed in fashion. Hark thee, Clitus.        Whispers.\n  CLITUS. What, I, my lord? No, not for all the world.\n  BRUTUS. Peace then, no words.\n  CLITUS. I'll rather kill myself.\n  BRUTUS. Hark thee, Dardanius.                        Whispers.\n  DARDANIUS. Shall I do such a deed?\n  CLITUS. O Dardanius!\n  DARDANIUS. O Clitus!\n  CLITUS. What ill request did Brutus make to thee?\n  DARDANIUS. To kill him, Clitus. Look, he meditates.\n  CLITUS. Now is that noble vessel full of grief,\n    That it runs over even at his eyes.\n  BRUTUS. Come hither, good Volumnius, list a word.\n  VOLUMNIUS. What says my lord?\n  BRUTUS. Why, this, Volumnius:\n    The ghost of Caesar hath appear'd to me\n    Two several times by night; at Sardis once,\n    And this last night here in Philippi fields.\n    I know my hour is come.\n  VOLUMNIUS. Not so, my lord.\n  BRUTUS. Nay I am sure it is, Volumnius.\n    Thou seest the world, Volumnius, how it goes;\n    Our enemies have beat us to the pit;            Low alarums.\n    It is more worthy to leap in ourselves\n    Than tarry till they push us. Good Volumnius,\n    Thou know'st that we two went to school together;\n    Even for that our love of old, I prithee,\n    Hold thou my sword-hilts, whilst I run on it.\n  VOLUMNIUS. That's not an office for a friend, my lord.\n                                                   Alarum still.\n  CLITUS. Fly, fly, my lord, there is no tarrying here.\n  BRUTUS. Farewell to you, and you, and you, Volumnius.\n    Strato, thou hast been all this while asleep;\n    Farewell to thee too, Strato. Countrymen,\n    My heart doth joy that yet in all my life\n    I found no man but he was true to me.\n    I shall have glory by this losing day,\n    More than Octavius and Mark Antony\n    By this vile conquest shall attain unto.\n    So, fare you well at once, for Brutus' tongue\n    Hath almost ended his life's history.\n    Night hangs upon mine eyes, my bones would rest\n    That have but labor'd to attain this hour.\n                            Alarum. Cry within, \"Fly, fly, fly!\"\n  CLITUS. Fly, my lord, fly.\n  BRUTUS. Hence! I will follow.\n                        Exeunt Clitus, Dardanius, and Volumnius.\n    I prithee, Strato, stay thou by thy lord.\n    Thou art a fellow of a good respect;\n    Thy life hath had some smatch of honor in it.\n    Hold then my sword, and turn away thy face,\n    While I do run upon it. Wilt thou, Strato?\n  STRATO. Give me your hand first. Fare you well, my lord.\n  BRUTUS. Farewell, good Strato.              Runs on his sword.\n    Caesar, now be still;\n    I kill'd not thee with half so good a will.            Dies.\n\n     Alarum. Retreat. Enter Octavius, Antony, Messala,\n                 Lucilius, and the Army.\n\n  OCTAVIUS. What man is that?\n  MESSALA. My master's man. Strato, where is thy master?\n  STRATO. Free from the bondage you are in, Messala:\n    The conquerors can but make a fire of him;\n    For Brutus only overcame himself,\n    And no man else hath honor by his death.\n  LUCILIUS. So Brutus should be found. I thank thee, Brutus,\n    That thou hast proved Lucilius' saying true.\n  OCTAVIUS. All that served Brutus, I will entertain them.\n    Fellow, wilt thou bestow thy time with me?\n  STRATO. Ay, if Messala will prefer me to you.\n  OCTAVIUS. Do so, good Messala.\n  MESSALA. How died my master, Strato?\n  STRATO. I held the sword, and he did run on it.\n  MESSALA. Octavius, then take him to follow thee\n    That did the latest service to my master.\n  ANTONY. This was the noblest Roman of them all.\n    All the conspirators, save only he,\n    Did that they did in envy of great Caesar;\n    He only, in a general honest thought\n    And common good to all, made one of them.\n    His life was gentle, and the elements\n    So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up\n    And say to all the world, \"This was a man!\"\n  OCTAVIUS. According to his virtue let us use him\n    With all respect and rites of burial.\n    Within my tent his bones tonight shall lie,\n    Most like a soldier, ordered honorably.\n    So call the field to rest, and let's away,\n    To part the glories of this happy day.              Exeunt.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1606\n\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF KING LEAR\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n      Lear, King of Britain.\n      King of France.\n      Duke of Burgundy.\n      Duke of Cornwall.\n      Duke of Albany.\n      Earl of Kent.\n      Earl of Gloucester.\n      Edgar, son of Gloucester.\n      Edmund, bastard son to Gloucester.\n      Curan, a courtier.\n      Old Man, tenant to Gloucester.\n      Doctor.\n      Lear's Fool.\n      Oswald, steward to Goneril.\n      A Captain under Edmund's command.\n      Gentlemen.\n      A Herald.\n      Servants to Cornwall.\n\n      Goneril, daughter to Lear.\n      Regan, daughter to Lear.\n      Cordelia, daughter to Lear.\n\n      Knights attending on Lear, Officers, Messengers, Soldiers,\n        Attendants.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nScene: - Britain.\n\n\nACT I. Scene I.\n[King Lear's Palace.]\n\nEnter Kent, Gloucester, and Edmund. [Kent and Glouceste converse.\nEdmund stands back.]\n\n  Kent. I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than\n     Cornwall.\n  Glou. It did always seem so to us; but now, in the division of the\n     kingdom, it appears not which of the Dukes he values most, for\n     equalities are so weigh'd that curiosity in neither can make\n     choice of either's moiety.\n  Kent. Is not this your son, my lord?\n  Glou. His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge. I have so often\n     blush'd to acknowledge him that now I am braz'd to't.\n  Kent. I cannot conceive you.\n  Glou. Sir, this young fellow's mother could; whereupon she grew\n     round-womb'd, and had indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she\n     had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault?\n  Kent. I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so\n     proper.\n  Glou. But I have, sir, a son by order of law, some year elder than\n     this, who yet is no dearer in my account. Though this knave came\n     something saucily into the world before he was sent for, yet was\n     his mother fair, there was good sport at his making, and the\n     whoreson must be acknowledged.- Do you know this noble gentleman,\n     Edmund?\n  Edm. [comes forward] No, my lord.\n  Glou. My Lord of Kent. Remember him hereafter as my honourable\n     friend.\n  Edm. My services to your lordship.\n  Kent. I must love you, and sue to know you better.\n  Edm. Sir, I shall study deserving.\n  Glou. He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again.\n                                                 Sound a sennet.\n     The King is coming.\n\n      Enter one bearing a coronet; then Lear; then the Dukes of\n      Albany and Cornwall; next, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, with\n                              Followers.\n\n  Lear. Attend the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester.\n  Glou. I shall, my liege.\n                                 Exeunt [Gloucester and Edmund].\n  Lear. Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.\n     Give me the map there. Know we have divided\n     In three our kingdom; and 'tis our fast intent\n     To shake all cares and business from our age,\n     Conferring them on younger strengths while we\n     Unburthen'd crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall,\n     And you, our no less loving son of Albany,\n     We have this hour a constant will to publish\n     Our daughters' several dowers, that future strife\n     May be prevented now. The princes, France and Burgundy,\n     Great rivals in our youngest daughter's love,\n     Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn,\n     And here are to be answer'd. Tell me, my daughters\n     (Since now we will divest us both of rule,\n     Interest of territory, cares of state),\n     Which of you shall we say doth love us most?\n     That we our largest bounty may extend\n     Where nature doth with merit challenge. Goneril,\n     Our eldest-born, speak first.\n  Gon. Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter;\n     Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty;\n     Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;\n     No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;\n     As much as child e'er lov'd, or father found;\n     A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable.\n     Beyond all manner of so much I love you.\n  Cor. [aside] What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.\n  Lear. Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,\n     With shadowy forests and with champains rich'd,\n     With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,\n     We make thee lady. To thine and Albany's issue\n     Be this perpetual.- What says our second daughter,\n     Our dearest Regan, wife to Cornwall? Speak.\n  Reg. Sir, I am made\n     Of the selfsame metal that my sister is,\n     And prize me at her worth. In my true heart\n     I find she names my very deed of love;\n     Only she comes too short, that I profess\n     Myself an enemy to all other joys\n     Which the most precious square of sense possesses,\n     And find I am alone felicitate\n     In your dear Highness' love.\n  Cor. [aside] Then poor Cordelia!\n     And yet not so; since I am sure my love's\n     More richer than my tongue.\n  Lear. To thee and thine hereditary ever\n     Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom,\n     No less in space, validity, and pleasure\n     Than that conferr'd on Goneril.- Now, our joy,\n     Although the last, not least; to whose young love\n     The vines of France and milk of Burgundy\n     Strive to be interest; what can you say to draw\n     A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.\n  Cor. Nothing, my lord.\n  Lear. Nothing?\n  Cor. Nothing.\n  Lear. Nothing can come of nothing. Speak again.\n  Cor. Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave\n     My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty\n     According to my bond; no more nor less.\n  Lear. How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little,\n     Lest it may mar your fortunes.\n  Cor. Good my lord,\n     You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me; I\n     Return those duties back as are right fit,\n     Obey you, love you, and most honour you.\n     Why have my sisters husbands, if they say\n     They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,\n     That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry\n     Half my love with him, half my care and duty.\n     Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,\n     To love my father all.\n  Lear. But goes thy heart with this?\n  Cor. Ay, good my lord.\n  Lear. So young, and so untender?\n  Cor. So young, my lord, and true.\n  Lear. Let it be so! thy truth then be thy dower!\n     For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,\n     The mysteries of Hecate and the night;\n     By all the operation of the orbs\n     From whom we do exist and cease to be;\n     Here I disclaim all my paternal care,\n     Propinquity and property of blood,\n     And as a stranger to my heart and me\n     Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian,\n     Or he that makes his generation messes\n     To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom\n     Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and reliev'd,\n     As thou my sometime daughter.\n  Kent. Good my liege-\n  Lear. Peace, Kent!\n     Come not between the dragon and his wrath.\n     I lov'd her most, and thought to set my rest\n     On her kind nursery.- Hence and avoid my sight!-\n     So be my grave my peace as here I give\n     Her father's heart from her! Call France! Who stirs?\n     Call Burgundy! Cornwall and Albany,\n     With my two daughters' dowers digest this third;\n     Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.\n     I do invest you jointly in my power,\n     Preeminence, and all the large effects\n     That troop with majesty. Ourself, by monthly course,\n     With reservation of an hundred knights,\n     By you to be sustain'd, shall our abode\n     Make with you by due turns. Only we still retain\n     The name, and all th' additions to a king. The sway,\n     Revenue, execution of the rest,\n     Beloved sons, be yours; which to confirm,\n     This coronet part betwixt you.\n  Kent. Royal Lear,\n     Whom I have ever honour'd as my king,\n     Lov'd as my father, as my master follow'd,\n     As my great patron thought on in my prayers-\n  Lear. The bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft.\n  Kent. Let it fall rather, though the fork invade\n     The region of my heart! Be Kent unmannerly\n     When Lear is mad. What wouldst thou do, old man?\n     Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak\n     When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour's bound\n     When majesty falls to folly. Reverse thy doom;\n     And in thy best consideration check\n     This hideous rashness. Answer my life my judgment,\n     Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least,\n     Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound\n     Reverbs no hollowness.\n  Lear. Kent, on thy life, no more!\n  Kent. My life I never held but as a pawn\n     To wage against thine enemies; nor fear to lose it,\n     Thy safety being the motive.\n  Lear. Out of my sight!\n  Kent. See better, Lear, and let me still remain\n     The true blank of thine eye.\n  Lear. Now by Apollo-\n  Kent. Now by Apollo, King,\n     Thou swear'st thy gods in vain.\n  Lear. O vassal! miscreant!\n                                   [Lays his hand on his sword.]\n  Alb., Corn. Dear sir, forbear!\n  Kent. Do!\n     Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow\n     Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift,\n     Or, whilst I can vent clamour from my throat,\n     I'll tell thee thou dost evil.\n  Lear. Hear me, recreant!\n     On thine allegiance, hear me!\n     Since thou hast sought to make us break our vow-\n     Which we durst never yet- and with strain'd pride\n     To come between our sentence and our power,-\n     Which nor our nature nor our place can bear,-\n     Our potency made good, take thy reward.\n     Five days we do allot thee for provision\n     To shield thee from diseases of the world,\n     And on the sixth to turn thy hated back\n     Upon our kingdom. If, on the tenth day following,\n     Thy banish'd trunk be found in our dominions,\n     The moment is thy death. Away! By Jupiter,\n     This shall not be revok'd.\n  Kent. Fare thee well, King. Since thus thou wilt appear,\n     Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here.\n     [To Cordelia] The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid,\n     That justly think'st and hast most rightly said!\n     [To Regan and Goneril] And your large speeches may your deeds\n        approve,\n     That good effects may spring from words of love.\n     Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu;\n     He'll shape his old course in a country new.\nExit.\n\n  Flourish. Enter Gloucester, with France and Burgundy; Attendants.\n\n  Glou. Here's France and Burgundy, my noble lord.\n  Lear. My Lord of Burgundy,\n     We first address toward you, who with this king\n     Hath rivall'd for our daughter. What in the least\n     Will you require in present dower with her,\n     Or cease your quest of love?\n  Bur. Most royal Majesty,\n     I crave no more than hath your Highness offer'd,\n     Nor will you tender less.\n  Lear. Right noble Burgundy,\n     When she was dear to us, we did hold her so;\n     But now her price is fall'n. Sir, there she stands.\n     If aught within that little seeming substance,\n     Or all of it, with our displeasure piec'd,\n     And nothing more, may fitly like your Grace,\n     She's there, and she is yours.\n  Bur. I know no answer.\n  Lear. Will you, with those infirmities she owes,\n     Unfriended, new adopted to our hate,\n     Dow'r'd with our curse, and stranger'd with our oath,\n     Take her, or leave her?\n  Bur. Pardon me, royal sir.\n     Election makes not up on such conditions.\n  Lear. Then leave her, sir; for, by the pow'r that made me,\n     I tell you all her wealth. [To France] For you, great King,\n     I would not from your love make such a stray\n     To match you where I hate; therefore beseech you\n     T' avert your liking a more worthier way\n     Than on a wretch whom nature is asham'd\n     Almost t' acknowledge hers.\n  France. This is most strange,\n     That she that even but now was your best object,\n     The argument of your praise, balm of your age,\n     Most best, most dearest, should in this trice of time\n     Commit a thing so monstrous to dismantle\n     So many folds of favour. Sure her offence\n     Must be of such unnatural degree\n     That monsters it, or your fore-vouch'd affection\n     Fall'n into taint; which to believe of her\n     Must be a faith that reason without miracle\n     Should never plant in me.\n  Cor. I yet beseech your Majesty,\n     If for I want that glib and oily art\n     To speak and purpose not, since what I well intend,\n     I'll do't before I speak- that you make known\n     It is no vicious blot, murther, or foulness,\n     No unchaste action or dishonoured step,\n     That hath depriv'd me of your grace and favour;\n     But even for want of that for which I am richer-\n     A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue\n     As I am glad I have not, though not to have it\n     Hath lost me in your liking.\n  Lear. Better thou\n     Hadst not been born than not t' have pleas'd me better.\n  France. Is it but this- a tardiness in nature\n     Which often leaves the history unspoke\n     That it intends to do? My Lord of Burgundy,\n     What say you to the lady? Love's not love\n     When it is mingled with regards that stands\n     Aloof from th' entire point. Will you have her?\n     She is herself a dowry.\n  Bur. Royal Lear,\n     Give but that portion which yourself propos'd,\n     And here I take Cordelia by the hand,\n     Duchess of Burgundy.\n  Lear. Nothing! I have sworn; I am firm.\n  Bur. I am sorry then you have so lost a father\n     That you must lose a husband.\n  Cor. Peace be with Burgundy!\n     Since that respects of fortune are his love,\n     I shall not be his wife.\n  France. Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor;\n     Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis'd!\n     Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon.\n     Be it lawful I take up what's cast away.\n     Gods, gods! 'tis strange that from their cold'st neglect\n     My love should kindle to inflam'd respect.\n     Thy dow'rless daughter, King, thrown to my chance,\n     Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France.\n     Not all the dukes in wat'rish Burgundy\n     Can buy this unpriz'd precious maid of me.\n     Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind.\n     Thou losest here, a better where to find.\n  Lear. Thou hast her, France; let her be thine; for we\n     Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see\n     That face of hers again. Therefore be gone\n     Without our grace, our love, our benison.\n     Come, noble Burgundy.\n             Flourish. Exeunt Lear, Burgundy, [Cornwall, Albany,\n                                    Gloucester, and Attendants].\n  France. Bid farewell to your sisters.\n  Cor. The jewels of our father, with wash'd eyes\n     Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are;\n     And, like a sister, am most loath to call\n     Your faults as they are nam'd. Use well our father.\n     To your professed bosoms I commit him;\n     But yet, alas, stood I within his grace,\n     I would prefer him to a better place!\n     So farewell to you both.\n  Gon. Prescribe not us our duties.\n  Reg. Let your study\n     Be to content your lord, who hath receiv'd you\n     At fortune's alms. You have obedience scanted,\n     And well are worth the want that you have wanted.\n  Cor. Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides.\n     Who cover faults, at last shame them derides.\n     Well may you prosper!\n  France. Come, my fair Cordelia.\n                                     Exeunt France and Cordelia.\n  Gon. Sister, it is not little I have to say of what most nearly\n     appertains to us both. I think our father will hence to-night.\n  Reg. That's most certain, and with you; next month with us.\n  Gon. You see how full of changes his age is. The observation we\n     have made of it hath not been little. He always lov'd our\n     sister most, and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her\n     off appears too grossly.\n  Reg. 'Tis the infirmity of his age; yet he hath ever but slenderly\n     known himself.\n  Gon. The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then\n     must we look to receive from his age, not alone the\n     imperfections of long-ingraffed condition, but therewithal\n     the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with\n     them.\n  Reg. Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him as this\n     of Kent's banishment.\n  Gon. There is further compliment of leave-taking between France and\n     him. Pray you let's hit together. If our father carry authority\n     with such dispositions as he bears, this last surrender of his\n     will but offend us.\n  Reg. We shall further think on't.\n  Gon. We must do something, and i' th' heat.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nThe Earl of Gloucester's Castle.\n\nEnter [Edmund the] Bastard solus, [with a letter].\n\n  Edm. Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law\n     My services are bound. Wherefore should I\n     Stand in the plague of custom, and permit\n     The curiosity of nations to deprive me,\n     For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines\n     Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?\n     When my dimensions are as well compact,\n     My mind as generous, and my shape as true,\n     As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us\n     With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?\n     Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take\n     More composition and fierce quality\n     Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,\n     Go to th' creating a whole tribe of fops\n     Got 'tween asleep and wake? Well then,\n     Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.\n     Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund\n     As to th' legitimate. Fine word- 'legitimate'!\n     Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,\n     And my invention thrive, Edmund the base\n     Shall top th' legitimate. I grow; I prosper.\n     Now, gods, stand up for bastards!\n\n                          Enter Gloucester.\n\n  Glou. Kent banish'd thus? and France in choler parted?\n     And the King gone to-night? subscrib'd his pow'r?\n     Confin'd to exhibition? All this done\n     Upon the gad? Edmund, how now? What news?\n  Edm. So please your lordship, none.\n                                           [Puts up the letter.]\n  Glou. Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?\n  Edm. I know no news, my lord.\n  Glou. What paper were you reading?\n  Edm. Nothing, my lord.\n  Glou. No? What needed then that terrible dispatch of it into your\n     pocket? The quality of nothing hath not such need to hide\n     itself. Let's see. Come, if it be nothing, I shall not need\n     spectacles.\n  Edm. I beseech you, sir, pardon me. It is a letter from my brother\n     that I have not all o'er-read; and for so much as I have\n     perus'd, I find it not fit for your o'erlooking.\n  Glou. Give me the letter, sir.\n  Edm. I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The contents, as\n     in part I understand them, are to blame.\n  Glou. Let's see, let's see!\n  Edm. I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as\n     an essay or taste of my virtue.\n\n  Glou. (reads) 'This policy and reverence of age makes the world\n     bitter to the best of our times; keeps our fortunes from us\n     till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle\n     and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny, who sways,\n     not as it hath power, but as it is suffer'd. Come to me, that\n     of this I may speak more. If our father would sleep till I\n     wak'd him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live\n     the beloved of your brother,\n                                                        'EDGAR.'\n\n     Hum! Conspiracy? 'Sleep till I wak'd him, you should enjoy half\n     his revenue.' My son Edgar! Had he a hand to write this? a heart\n     and brain to breed it in? When came this to you? Who brought it?\n  Edm. It was not brought me, my lord: there's the cunning of it. I\n     found it thrown in at the casement of my closet.\n  Glou. You know the character to be your brother's?\n  Edm. If the matter were good, my lord, I durst swear it were his;\n     but in respect of that, I would fain think it were not.\n  Glou. It is his.\n  Edm. It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is not in the\n     contents.\n  Glou. Hath he never before sounded you in this business?\n  Edm. Never, my lord. But I have heard him oft maintain it to be fit\n     that, sons at perfect age, and fathers declining, the father\n     should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue.\n  Glou. O villain, villain! His very opinion in the letter! Abhorred\n     villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! worse than\n     brutish! Go, sirrah, seek him. I'll apprehend him. Abominable\n     villain! Where is he?\n  Edm. I do not well know, my lord. If it shall please you to suspend\n     your indignation against my brother till you can derive from him\n     better testimony of his intent, you should run a certain course;\n     where, if you violently proceed against him, mistaking his\n     purpose, it would make a great gap in your own honour and shake\n     in pieces the heart of his obedience. I dare pawn down my life\n     for him that he hath writ this to feel my affection to your\n     honour, and to no other pretence of danger.\n  Glou. Think you so?\n  Edm. If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you shall\n     hear us confer of this and by an auricular assurance have your\n     satisfaction, and that without any further delay than this very\n     evening.\n  Glou. He cannot be such a monster.\n  Edm. Nor is not, sure.\n  Glou. To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him.\n     Heaven and earth! Edmund, seek him out; wind me into him, I pray\n     you; frame the business after your own wisdom. I would unstate\n     myself to be in a due resolution.\n  Edm. I will seek him, sir, presently; convey the business as I\n     shall find means, and acquaint you withal.\n  Glou. These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to\n     us. Though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet\n     nature finds itself scourg'd by the sequent effects. Love cools,\n     friendship falls off, brothers divide. In cities, mutinies; in\n     countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond crack'd\n     'twixt son and father. This villain of mine comes under the\n     prediction; there's son against father: the King falls from bias\n     of nature; there's father against child. We have seen the best\n     of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all\n     ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves. Find out\n     this villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing; do it\n     carefully. And the noble and true-hearted Kent banish'd! his\n     offence, honesty! 'Tis strange.                       Exit.\n  Edm. This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are\n     sick in fortune, often the surfeit of our own behaviour, we make\n     guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if\n     we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion;\n     knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical pre-dominance;\n     drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforc'd obedience of\n     planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine\n     thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whore-master man, to lay\n     his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father\n     compounded with my mother under the Dragon's Tail, and my\n     nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and\n     lecherous. Fut! I should have been that I am, had the\n     maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.\n     Edgar-\n\n                             Enter Edgar.\n\n     and pat! he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy. My\n     cue is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o' Bedlam.\n     O, these eclipses do portend these divisions! Fa, sol, la, mi.\n  Edg. How now, brother Edmund? What serious contemplation are you\n     in?\n  Edm. I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day,\n     what should follow these eclipses.\n  Edg. Do you busy yourself with that?\n  Edm. I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed unhappily: as\n     of unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death,\n     dearth, dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions in state,\n     menaces and maledictions against king and nobles; needless\n     diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts,\n     nuptial breaches, and I know not what.\n  Edg. How long have you been a sectary astronomical?\n  Edm. Come, come! When saw you my father last?\n  Edg. The night gone by.\n  Edm. Spake you with him?\n  Edg. Ay, two hours together.\n  Edm. Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him by\n     word or countenance\n  Edg. None at all.\n  Edm. Bethink yourself wherein you may have offended him; and at my\n     entreaty forbear his presence until some little time hath\n     qualified the heat of his displeasure, which at this instant so\n     rageth in him that with the mischief of your person it would\n     scarcely allay.\n  Edg. Some villain hath done me wrong.\n  Edm. That's my fear. I pray you have a continent forbearance till\n     the speed of his rage goes slower; and, as I say, retire with me\n     to my lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my\n     lord speak. Pray ye, go! There's my key. If you do stir abroad,\n     go arm'd.\n  Edg. Arm'd, brother?\n  Edm. Brother, I advise you to the best. Go arm'd. I am no honest man\n     if there be any good meaning toward you. I have told you what I\n     have seen and heard; but faintly, nothing like the image and\n     horror of it. Pray you, away!\n  Edg. Shall I hear from you anon?\n  Edm. I do serve you in this business.\n                                                     Exit Edgar.\n     A credulous father! and a brother noble,\n     Whose nature is so far from doing harms\n     That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty\n     My practices ride easy! I see the business.\n     Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit;\n     All with me's meet that I can fashion fit.\nExit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nThe Duke of Albany's Palace.\n\nEnter Goneril and [her] Steward [Oswald].\n\n  Gon. Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool?\n  Osw. Ay, madam.\n  Gon. By day and night, he wrongs me! Every hour\n     He flashes into one gross crime or other\n     That sets us all at odds. I'll not endure it.\n     His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us\n     On every trifle. When he returns from hunting,\n     I will not speak with him. Say I am sick.\n     If you come slack of former services,\n     You shall do well; the fault of it I'll answer.\n                                                 [Horns within.]\n  Osw. He's coming, madam; I hear him.\n  Gon. Put on what weary negligence you please,\n     You and your fellows. I'd have it come to question.\n     If he distaste it, let him to our sister,\n     Whose mind and mine I know in that are one,\n     Not to be overrul'd. Idle old man,\n     That still would manage those authorities\n     That he hath given away! Now, by my life,\n     Old fools are babes again, and must be us'd\n     With checks as flatteries, when they are seen abus'd.\n     Remember what I have said.\n  Osw. Very well, madam.\n  Gon. And let his knights have colder looks among you.\n     What grows of it, no matter. Advise your fellows so.\n     I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall,\n     That I may speak. I'll write straight to my sister\n     To hold my very course. Prepare for dinner.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nThe Duke of Albany's Palace.\n\nEnter Kent, [disguised].\n\n  Kent. If but as well I other accents borrow,\n     That can my speech defuse, my good intent\n     May carry through itself to that full issue\n     For which I raz'd my likeness. Now, banish'd Kent,\n     If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemn'd,\n     So may it come, thy master, whom thou lov'st,\n     Shall find thee full of labours.\n\n         Horns within. Enter Lear, [Knights,] and Attendants.\n\n  Lear. Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go get it ready. [Exit\n     an Attendant.] How now? What art thou?\n  Kent. A man, sir.\n  Lear. What dost thou profess? What wouldst thou with us?\n  Kent. I do profess to be no less than I seem, to serve him truly\n     that will put me in trust, to love him that is honest, to\n     converse with him that is wise and says little, to fear\n     judgment, to fight when I cannot choose, and to eat no fish.\n  Lear. What art thou?\n  Kent. A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the King.\n  Lear. If thou be'st as poor for a subject as he's for a king, thou\n     art poor enough. What wouldst thou?\n  Kent. Service.\n  Lear. Who wouldst thou serve?\n  Kent. You.\n  Lear. Dost thou know me, fellow?\n  Kent. No, sir; but you have that in your countenance which I would\n     fain call master.\n  Lear. What's that?\n  Kent. Authority.\n  Lear. What services canst thou do?\n  Kent. I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in\n     telling it and deliver a plain message bluntly. That which\n     ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in, and the best of me\n     is diligence.\n  Lear. How old art thou?\n  Kent. Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing, nor so old to\n     dote on her for anything. I have years on my back forty-eight.\n  Lear. Follow me; thou shalt serve me. If I like thee no worse after\n     dinner, I will not part from thee yet. Dinner, ho, dinner!\n     Where's my knave? my fool? Go you and call my fool hither.\n\n                                            [Exit an attendant.]\n\n                     Enter [Oswald the] Steward.\n\n     You, you, sirrah, where's my daughter?\n  Osw. So please you-                                      Exit.\n  Lear. What says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll back.\n     [Exit a Knight.] Where's my fool, ho? I think the world's\n     asleep.\n\n                            [Enter Knight]\n\n     How now? Where's that mongrel?\n  Knight. He says, my lord, your daughter is not well.\n  Lear. Why came not the slave back to me when I call'd him?\n  Knight. Sir, he answered me in the roundest manner, he would not.\n  Lear. He would not?\n  Knight. My lord, I know not what the matter is; but to my judgment\n     your Highness is not entertain'd with that ceremonious affection\n     as you were wont. There's a great abatement of kindness appears\n     as well in the general dependants as in the Duke himself also\n     and your daughter.\n  Lear. Ha! say'st thou so?\n  Knight. I beseech you pardon me, my lord, if I be mistaken; for\n     my duty cannot be silent when I think your Highness wrong'd.\n  Lear. Thou but rememb'rest me of mine own conception. I have\n     perceived a most faint neglect of late, which I have rather\n     blamed as mine own jealous curiosity than as a very pretence\n     and purpose of unkindness. I will look further into't. But\n     where's my fool? I have not seen him this two days.\n  Knight. Since my young lady's going into France, sir, the fool\n     hath much pined away.\n  Lear. No more of that; I have noted it well. Go you and tell my\n     daughter I would speak with her. [Exit Knight.] Go you, call\n     hither my fool.\n                                            [Exit an Attendant.]\n\n                     Enter [Oswald the] Steward.\n\n     O, you, sir, you! Come you hither, sir. Who am I, sir?\n  Osw. My lady's father.\n  Lear. 'My lady's father'? My lord's knave! You whoreson dog! you\n     slave! you cur!\n  Osw. I am none of these, my lord; I beseech your pardon.\n  Lear. Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?\n                                                  [Strikes him.]\n  Osw. I'll not be strucken, my lord.\n  Kent. Nor tripp'd neither, you base football player?\n                                            [Trips up his heels.\n  Lear. I thank thee, fellow. Thou serv'st me, and I'll love thee.\n  Kent. Come, sir, arise, away! I'll teach you differences. Away,\n     away! If you will measure your lubber's length again, tarry; but\n     away! Go to! Have you wisdom? So.\n                                               [Pushes him out.]\n  Lear. Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee. There's earnest of thy\n     service.                                     [Gives money.]\n\n                             Enter Fool.\n\n  Fool. Let me hire him too. Here's my coxcomb.\n                                          [Offers Kent his cap.]\n  Lear. How now, my pretty knave? How dost thou?\n  Fool. Sirrah, you were best take my coxcomb.\n  Kent. Why, fool?\n  Fool. Why? For taking one's part that's out of favour. Nay, an thou\n     canst not smile as the wind sits, thou'lt catch cold shortly.\n     There, take my coxcomb! Why, this fellow hath banish'd two on's\n     daughters, and did the third a blessing against his will. If\n     thou follow him, thou must needs wear my coxcomb.- How now,\n     nuncle? Would I had two coxcombs and two daughters!\n  Lear. Why, my boy?\n  Fool. If I gave them all my living, I'ld keep my coxcombs myself.\n     There's mine! beg another of thy daughters.\n  Lear. Take heed, sirrah- the whip.\n  Fool. Truth's a dog must to kennel; he must be whipp'd out, when\n     Lady the brach may stand by th' fire and stink.\n  Lear. A pestilent gall to me!\n  Fool. Sirrah, I'll teach thee a speech.\n  Lear. Do.\n  Fool. Mark it, nuncle.\n          Have more than thou showest,\n          Speak less than thou knowest,\n          Lend less than thou owest,\n          Ride more than thou goest,\n          Learn more than thou trowest,\n          Set less than thou throwest;\n          Leave thy drink and thy whore,\n          And keep in-a-door,\n          And thou shalt have more\n          Than two tens to a score.\n  Kent. This is nothing, fool.\n  Fool. Then 'tis like the breath of an unfeed lawyer- you gave me\n     nothing for't. Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle?\n  Lear. Why, no, boy. Nothing can be made out of nothing.\n  Fool. [to Kent] Prithee tell him, so much the rent of his land\n     comes to. He will not believe a fool.\n  Lear. A bitter fool!\n  Fool. Dost thou know the difference, my boy, between a bitter\n     fool and a sweet fool?\n  Lear. No, lad; teach me.\n  Fool.   That lord that counsell'd thee\n            To give away thy land,\n          Come place him here by me-\n            Do thou for him stand.\n          The sweet and bitter fool\n            Will presently appear;\n          The one in motley here,\n            The other found out there.\n  Lear. Dost thou call me fool, boy?\n  Fool. All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast\n     born with.\n  Kent. This is not altogether fool, my lord.\n  Fool. No, faith; lords and great men will not let me. If I had a\n     monopoly out, they would have part on't. And ladies too, they\n     will not let me have all the fool to myself; they'll be\n     snatching. Give me an egg, nuncle, and I'll give thee two\n     crowns.\n  Lear. What two crowns shall they be?\n  Fool. Why, after I have cut the egg i' th' middle and eat up the\n     meat, the two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i'\n     th' middle and gav'st away both parts, thou bor'st thine ass on\n     thy back o'er the dirt. Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown\n     when thou gav'st thy golden one away. If I speak like myself in\n     this, let him be whipp'd that first finds it so.\n\n     [Sings]    Fools had ne'er less grace in a year,\n                  For wise men are grown foppish;\n                They know not how their wits to wear,\n                  Their manners are so apish.\n\n  Lear. When were you wont to be so full of songs, sirrah?\n  Fool. I have us'd it, nuncle, ever since thou mad'st thy daughters\n     thy mother; for when thou gav'st them the rod, and put'st down\n     thine own breeches,\n\n     [Sings]    Then they for sudden joy did weep,\n                  And I for sorrow sung,\n                That such a king should play bo-peep\n                  And go the fools among.\n\n     Prithee, nuncle, keep a schoolmaster that can teach thy fool to\n     lie. I would fain learn to lie.\n  Lear. An you lie, sirrah, we'll have you whipp'd.\n  Fool. I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are. They'll have me\n     whipp'd for speaking true; thou'lt have me whipp'd for lying;\n     and sometimes I am whipp'd for holding my peace. I had rather be\n     any kind o' thing than a fool! And yet I would not be thee,\n     nuncle. Thou hast pared thy wit o' both sides and left nothing\n     i' th' middle. Here comes one o' the parings.\n\n                            Enter Goneril.\n\n  Lear. How now, daughter? What makes that frontlet on? Methinks you\n     are too much o' late i' th' frown.\n  Fool. Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no need to care for\n     her frowning. Now thou art an O without a figure. I am better\n     than thou art now: I am a fool, thou art nothing.\n     [To Goneril] Yes, forsooth, I will hold my tongue. So your face\n     bids me, though you say nothing. Mum, mum!\n\n            He that keeps nor crust nor crum,\n            Weary of all, shall want some.-\n\n     [Points at Lear] That's a sheal'd peascod.\n  Gon. Not only, sir, this your all-licens'd fool,\n     But other of your insolent retinue\n     Do hourly carp and quarrel, breaking forth\n     In rank and not-to-be-endured riots. Sir,\n     I had thought, by making this well known unto you,\n     To have found a safe redress, but now grow fearful,\n     By what yourself, too, late have spoke and done,\n     That you protect this course, and put it on\n     By your allowance; which if you should, the fault\n     Would not scape censure, nor the redresses sleep,\n     Which, in the tender of a wholesome weal,\n     Might in their working do you that offence\n     Which else were shame, that then necessity\n     Must call discreet proceeding.\n  Fool. For you know, nuncle,\n\n          The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long\n          That it had it head bit off by it young.\n\n     So out went the candle, and we were left darkling.\n  Lear. Are you our daughter?\n  Gon. Come, sir,\n     I would you would make use of that good wisdom\n     Whereof I know you are fraught, and put away\n     These dispositions that of late transform you\n     From what you rightly are.\n  Fool. May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse?\n     Whoop, Jug, I love thee!\n  Lear. Doth any here know me? This is not Lear.\n     Doth Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes?\n     Either his notion weakens, his discernings\n     Are lethargied- Ha! waking? 'Tis not so!\n     Who is it that can tell me who I am?\n  Fool. Lear's shadow.\n  Lear. I would learn that; for, by the marks of sovereignty,\n     Knowledge, and reason, I should be false persuaded\n     I had daughters.\n  Fool. Which they will make an obedient father.\n  Lear. Your name, fair gentlewoman?\n  Gon. This admiration, sir, is much o' th' savour\n     Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you\n     To understand my purposes aright.\n     As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.\n     Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;\n     Men so disorder'd, so debosh'd, and bold\n     That this our court, infected with their manners,\n     Shows like a riotous inn. Epicurism and lust\n     Make it more like a tavern or a brothel\n     Than a grac'd palace. The shame itself doth speak\n     For instant remedy. Be then desir'd\n     By her that else will take the thing she begs\n     A little to disquantity your train,\n     And the remainder that shall still depend\n     To be such men as may besort your age,\n     Which know themselves, and you.\n  Lear. Darkness and devils!\n     Saddle my horses! Call my train together!\n     Degenerate bastard, I'll not trouble thee;\n     Yet have I left a daughter.\n  Gon. You strike my people, and your disorder'd rabble\n     Make servants of their betters.\n\n                            Enter Albany.\n\n  Lear. Woe that too late repents!- O, sir, are you come?\n     Is it your will? Speak, sir!- Prepare my horses.\n     Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,\n     More hideous when thou show'st thee in a child\n     Than the sea-monster!\n  Alb. Pray, sir, be patient.\n  Lear. [to Goneril] Detested kite, thou liest!\n     My train are men of choice and rarest parts,\n     That all particulars of duty know\n     And in the most exact regard support\n     The worships of their name.- O most small fault,\n     How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show!\n     Which, like an engine, wrench'd my frame of nature\n     From the fix'd place; drew from my heart all love\n     And added to the gall. O Lear, Lear, Lear!\n     Beat at this gate that let thy folly in  [Strikes his head.]\n     And thy dear judgment out! Go, go, my people.\n  Alb. My lord, I am guiltless, as I am ignorant\n     Of what hath mov'd you.\n  Lear. It may be so, my lord.\n     Hear, Nature, hear! dear goddess, hear!\n     Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend\n     To make this creature fruitful.\n     Into her womb convey sterility;\n     Dry up in her the organs of increase;\n     And from her derogate body never spring\n     A babe to honour her! If she must teem,\n     Create her child of spleen, that it may live\n     And be a thwart disnatur'd torment to her.\n     Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,\n     With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks,\n     Turn all her mother's pains and benefits\n     To laughter and contempt, that she may feel\n     How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is\n     To have a thankless child! Away, away!                Exit.\n  Alb. Now, gods that we adore, whereof comes this?\n  Gon. Never afflict yourself to know the cause;\n     But let his disposition have that scope\n     That dotage gives it.\n\n                             Enter Lear.\n\n  Lear. What, fifty of my followers at a clap?\n     Within a fortnight?\n  Alb. What's the matter, sir?\n  Lear. I'll tell thee. [To Goneril] Life and death! I am asham'd\n     That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus;\n     That these hot tears, which break from me perforce,\n     Should make thee worth them. Blasts and fogs upon thee!\n     Th' untented woundings of a father's curse\n     Pierce every sense about thee!- Old fond eyes,\n     Beweep this cause again, I'll pluck ye out,\n     And cast you, with the waters that you lose,\n     To temper clay. Yea, is it come to this?\n     Let it be so. Yet have I left a daughter,\n     Who I am sure is kind and comfortable.\n     When she shall hear this of thee, with her nails\n     She'll flay thy wolvish visage. Thou shalt find\n     That I'll resume the shape which thou dost think\n     I have cast off for ever; thou shalt, I warrant thee.\n                            Exeunt [Lear, Kent, and Attendants].\n  Gon. Do you mark that, my lord?\n  Alb. I cannot be so partial, Goneril,\n     To the great love I bear you -\n  Gon. Pray you, content.- What, Oswald, ho!\n     [To the Fool] You, sir, more knave than fool, after your master!\n  Fool. Nuncle Lear, nuncle Lear, tarry! Take the fool with thee.\n\n          A fox when one has caught her,\n          And such a daughter,\n          Should sure to the slaughter,\n          If my cap would buy a halter.\n          So the fool follows after.                       Exit.\n  Gon. This man hath had good counsel! A hundred knights?\n     'Tis politic and safe to let him keep\n     At point a hundred knights; yes, that on every dream,\n     Each buzz, each fancy, each complaint, dislike,\n     He may enguard his dotage with their pow'rs\n     And hold our lives in mercy.- Oswald, I say!\n  Alb. Well, you may fear too far.\n  Gon. Safer than trust too far.\n     Let me still take away the harms I fear,\n     Not fear still to be taken. I know his heart.\n     What he hath utter'd I have writ my sister.\n     If she sustain him and his hundred knights,\n     When I have show'd th' unfitness-\n\n                     Enter [Oswald the] Steward.\n\n     How now, Oswald?\n     What, have you writ that letter to my sister?\n  Osw. Yes, madam.\n  Gon. Take you some company, and away to horse!\n     Inform her full of my particular fear,\n     And thereto add such reasons of your own\n     As may compact it more. Get you gone,\n     And hasten your return. [Exit Oswald.] No, no, my lord!\n     This milky gentleness and course of yours,\n     Though I condemn it not, yet, under pardon,\n     You are much more at task for want of wisdom\n     Than prais'd for harmful mildness.\n  Alb. How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell.\n     Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.\n  Gon. Nay then-\n  Alb. Well, well; th' event.                            Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nCourt before the Duke of Albany's Palace.\n\nEnter Lear, Kent, and Fool.\n\n  Lear. Go you before to Gloucester with these letters. Acquaint my\n     daughter no further with anything you know than comes from her\n     demand out of the letter. If your diligence be not speedy, I\n     shall be there afore you.\n  Kent. I will not sleep, my lord, till I have delivered your letter.\nExit.\n  Fool. If a man's brains were in's heels, were't not in danger of\n     kibes?\n  Lear. Ay, boy.\n  Fool. Then I prithee be merry. Thy wit shall ne'er go slip-shod.\n  Lear. Ha, ha, ha!\n  Fool. Shalt see thy other daughter will use thee kindly; for though\n     she's as like this as a crab's like an apple, yet I can tell\n     what I can tell.\n  Lear. What canst tell, boy?\n  Fool. She'll taste as like this as a crab does to a crab. Thou\n     canst tell why one's nose stands i' th' middle on's face?\n  Lear. No.\n  Fool. Why, to keep one's eyes of either side's nose, that what a\n     man cannot smell out, 'a may spy into.\n  Lear. I did her wrong.\n  Fool. Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell?\n  Lear. No.\n  Fool. Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house.\n  Lear. Why?\n  Fool. Why, to put's head in; not to give it away to his daughters,\n     and leave his horns without a case.\n  Lear. I will forget my nature. So kind a father!- Be my horses\n     ready?\n  Fool. Thy asses are gone about 'em. The reason why the seven stars\n     are no moe than seven is a pretty reason.\n  Lear. Because they are not eight?\n  Fool. Yes indeed. Thou wouldst make a good fool.\n  Lear. To tak't again perforce! Monster ingratitude!\n  Fool. If thou wert my fool, nuncle, I'ld have thee beaten for being\n     old before thy time.\n  Lear. How's that?\n  Fool. Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.\n  Lear. O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!\n     Keep me in temper; I would not be mad!\n\n                         [Enter a Gentleman.]\n\n     How now? Are the horses ready?\n  Gent. Ready, my lord.\n  Lear. Come, boy.\n  Fool. She that's a maid now, and laughs at my departure,\n     Shall not be a maid long, unless things be cut shorter\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. Scene I.\nA court within the Castle of the Earl of Gloucester.\n\nEnter [Edmund the] Bastard and Curan, meeting.\n\n  Edm. Save thee, Curan.\n  Cur. And you, sir. I have been with your father, and given him\n     notice that the Duke of Cornwall and Regan his Duchess will be\n     here with him this night.\n  Edm. How comes that?\n  Cur. Nay, I know not. You have heard of the news abroad- I mean the\n     whisper'd ones, for they are yet but ear-kissing arguments?\n  Edm. Not I. Pray you, what are they?\n  Cur. Have you heard of no likely wars toward 'twixt the two Dukes\n     of Cornwall and Albany?\n  Edm. Not a word.\n  Cur. You may do, then, in time. Fare you well, sir.      Exit.\n  Edm. The Duke be here to-night? The better! best!\n     This weaves itself perforce into my business.\n     My father hath set guard to take my brother;\n     And I have one thing, of a queasy question,\n     Which I must act. Briefness and fortune, work!\n     Brother, a word! Descend! Brother, I say!\n\n                             Enter Edgar.\n\n     My father watches. O sir, fly this place!\n     Intelligence is given where you are hid.\n     You have now the good advantage of the night.\n     Have you not spoken 'gainst the Duke of Cornwall?\n     He's coming hither; now, i' th' night, i' th' haste,\n     And Regan with him. Have you nothing said\n     Upon his party 'gainst the Duke of Albany?\n     Advise yourself.\n  Edg. I am sure on't, not a word.\n  Edm. I hear my father coming. Pardon me!\n     In cunning I must draw my sword upon you.\n     Draw, seem to defend yourself; now quit you well.-\n     Yield! Come before my father. Light, ho, here!\n     Fly, brother.- Torches, torches!- So farewell.\n                                                     Exit Edgar.\n     Some blood drawn on me would beget opinion\n     Of my more fierce endeavour. [Stabs his arm.] I have seen\n        drunkards\n     Do more than this in sport.- Father, father!-\n     Stop, stop! No help?\n\n             Enter Gloucester, and Servants with torches.\n\n  Glou. Now, Edmund, where's the villain?\n  Edm. Here stood he in the dark, his sharp sword out,\n     Mumbling of wicked charms, conjuring the moon\n     To stand 's auspicious mistress.\n  Glou. But where is he?\n  Edm. Look, sir, I bleed.\n  Glou. Where is the villain, Edmund?\n  Edm. Fled this way, sir. When by no means he could-\n  Glou. Pursue him, ho! Go after.        [Exeunt some Servants].\n     By no means what?\n  Edm. Persuade me to the murther of your lordship;\n     But that I told him the revenging gods\n     'Gainst parricides did all their thunders bend;\n     Spoke with how manifold and strong a bond\n     The child was bound to th' father- sir, in fine,\n     Seeing how loathly opposite I stood\n     To his unnatural purpose, in fell motion\n     With his prepared sword he charges home\n     My unprovided body, lanch'd mine arm;\n     But when he saw my best alarum'd spirits,\n     Bold in the quarrel's right, rous'd to th' encounter,\n     Or whether gasted by the noise I made,\n     Full suddenly he fled.\n  Glou. Let him fly far.\n     Not in this land shall he remain uncaught;\n     And found- dispatch. The noble Duke my master,\n     My worthy arch and patron, comes to-night.\n     By his authority I will proclaim it\n     That he which find, him shall deserve our thanks,\n     Bringing the murderous caitiff to the stake;\n     He that conceals him, death.\n  Edm. When I dissuaded him from his intent\n     And found him pight to do it, with curst speech\n     I threaten'd to discover him. He replied,\n     'Thou unpossessing bastard, dost thou think,\n     If I would stand against thee, would the reposal\n     Of any trust, virtue, or worth in thee\n     Make thy words faith'd? No. What I should deny\n     (As this I would; ay, though thou didst produce\n     My very character), I'ld turn it all\n     To thy suggestion, plot, and damned practice;\n     And thou must make a dullard of the world,\n     If they not thought the profits of my death\n     Were very pregnant and potential spurs\n     To make thee seek it.'\n  Glou. Strong and fast'ned villain!\n     Would he deny his letter? I never got him.\n                                                  Tucket within.\n     Hark, the Duke's trumpets! I know not why he comes.\n     All ports I'll bar; the villain shall not scape;\n     The Duke must grant me that. Besides, his picture\n     I will send far and near, that all the kingdom\n     May have due note of him, and of my land,\n     Loyal and natural boy, I'll work the means\n     To make thee capable.\n\n                Enter Cornwall, Regan, and Attendants.\n\n  Corn. How now, my noble friend? Since I came hither\n     (Which I can call but now) I have heard strange news.\n  Reg. If it be true, all vengeance comes too short\n     Which can pursue th' offender. How dost, my lord?\n  Glou. O madam, my old heart is crack'd, it's crack'd!\n  Reg. What, did my father's godson seek your life?\n     He whom my father nam'd? Your Edgar?\n  Glou. O lady, lady, shame would have it hid!\n  Reg. Was he not companion with the riotous knights\n     That tend upon my father?\n  Glou. I know not, madam. 'Tis too bad, too bad!\n  Edm. Yes, madam, he was of that consort.\n  Reg. No marvel then though he were ill affected.\n     'Tis they have put him on the old man's death,\n     To have th' expense and waste of his revenues.\n     I have this present evening from my sister\n     Been well inform'd of them, and with such cautions\n     That, if they come to sojourn at my house,\n     I'll not be there.\n  Corn. Nor I, assure thee, Regan.\n     Edmund, I hear that you have shown your father\n     A childlike office.\n  Edm. 'Twas my duty, sir.\n  Glou. He did bewray his practice, and receiv'd\n     This hurt you see, striving to apprehend him.\n  Corn. Is he pursued?\n  Glou. Ay, my good lord.\n  Corn. If he be taken, he shall never more\n     Be fear'd of doing harm. Make your own purpose,\n     How in my strength you please. For you, Edmund,\n     Whose virtue and obedience doth this instant\n     So much commend itself, you shall be ours.\n     Natures of such deep trust we shall much need;\n     You we first seize on.\n  Edm. I shall serve you, sir,\n     Truly, however else.\n  Glou. For him I thank your Grace.\n  Corn. You know not why we came to visit you-\n  Reg. Thus out of season, threading dark-ey'd night.\n     Occasions, noble Gloucester, of some poise,\n     Wherein we must have use of your advice.\n     Our father he hath writ, so hath our sister,\n     Of differences, which I best thought it fit\n     To answer from our home. The several messengers\n     From hence attend dispatch. Our good old friend,\n     Lay comforts to your bosom, and bestow\n     Your needful counsel to our business,\n     Which craves the instant use.\n  Glou. I serve you, madam.\n     Your Graces are right welcome.\n                                               Exeunt. Flourish.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nBefore Gloucester's Castle.\n\nEnter Kent and [Oswald the] Steward, severally.\n\n  Osw. Good dawning to thee, friend. Art of this house?\n  Kent. Ay.\n  Osw. Where may we set our horses?\n  Kent. I' th' mire.\n  Osw. Prithee, if thou lov'st me, tell me.\n  Kent. I love thee not.\n  Osw. Why then, I care not for thee.\n  Kent. If I had thee in Lipsbury Pinfold, I would make thee care for\n     me.\n  Osw. Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not.\n  Kent. Fellow, I know thee.\n  Osw. What dost thou know me for?\n  Kent. A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud,\n     shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy,\n     worsted-stocking knave; a lily-liver'd, action-taking, whoreson,\n     glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue;\n     one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of\n     good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave,\n     beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch;\n     one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deny the\n     least syllable of thy addition.\n  Osw. Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one\n     that's neither known of thee nor knows thee!\n  Kent. What a brazen-fac'd varlet art thou, to deny thou knowest me!\n     Is it two days ago since I beat thee and tripp'd up thy heels\n     before the King? [Draws his sword.] Draw, you rogue! for, though\n     it be night, yet the moon shines. I'll make a sop o' th'\n     moonshine o' you. Draw, you whoreson cullionly barbermonger!\n     draw!\n  Osw. Away! I have nothing to do with thee.\n  Kent. Draw, you rascal! You come with letters against the King, and\n     take Vanity the puppet's part against the royalty of her father.\n     Draw, you rogue, or I'll so carbonado your shanks! Draw, you\n     rascal! Come your ways!\n  Osw. Help, ho! murther! help!\n  Kent. Strike, you slave! Stand, rogue! Stand, you neat slave!\n     Strike!                                        [Beats him.]\n  Osw. Help, ho! murther! murther!\n\n      Enter Edmund, with his rapier drawn, Gloucester, Cornwall,\n                           Regan, Servants.\n\n  Edm. How now? What's the matter?                 Parts [them].\n  Kent. With you, goodman boy, an you please! Come, I'll flesh ye!\n     Come on, young master!\n  Glou. Weapons? arms? What's the matter here?\n  Corn. Keep peace, upon your lives!\n     He dies that strikes again. What is the matter?\n  Reg. The messengers from our sister and the King\n  Corn. What is your difference? Speak.\n  Osw. I am scarce in breath, my lord.\n  Kent. No marvel, you have so bestirr'd your valour. You cowardly\n     rascal, nature disclaims in thee; a tailor made thee.\n  Corn. Thou art a strange fellow. A tailor make a man?\n  Kent. Ay, a tailor, sir. A stonecutter or a painter could not have\n     made him so ill, though he had been but two hours at the trade.\n  Corn. Speak yet, how grew your quarrel?\n  Osw. This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spar'd\n     At suit of his grey beard-\n  Kent. Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter! My lord, if\n     you'll give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into\n     mortar and daub the walls of a jakes with him. 'Spare my grey\n     beard,' you wagtail?\n  Corn. Peace, sirrah!\n     You beastly knave, know you no reverence?\n  Kent. Yes, sir, but anger hath a privilege.\n  Corn. Why art thou angry?\n  Kent. That such a slave as this should wear a sword,\n     Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these,\n     Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwain\n     Which are too intrinse t' unloose; smooth every passion\n     That in the natures of their lords rebel,\n     Bring oil to fire, snow to their colder moods;\n     Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks\n     With every gale and vary of their masters,\n     Knowing naught (like dogs) but following.\n     A plague upon your epileptic visage!\n     Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool?\n     Goose, an I had you upon Sarum Plain,\n     I'ld drive ye cackling home to Camelot.\n  Corn. What, art thou mad, old fellow?\n  Glou. How fell you out? Say that.\n  Kent. No contraries hold more antipathy\n     Than I and such a knave.\n  Corn. Why dost thou call him knave? What is his fault?\n  Kent. His countenance likes me not.\n  Corn. No more perchance does mine, or his, or hers.\n  Kent. Sir, 'tis my occupation to be plain.\n     I have seen better faces in my time\n     Than stands on any shoulder that I see\n     Before me at this instant.\n  Corn. This is some fellow\n     Who, having been prais'd for bluntness, doth affect\n     A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb\n     Quite from his nature. He cannot flatter, he!\n     An honest mind and plain- he must speak truth!\n     An they will take it, so; if not, he's plain.\n     These kind of knaves I know which in this plainness\n     Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends\n     Than twenty silly-ducking observants\n     That stretch their duties nicely.\n  Kent. Sir, in good faith, in sincere verity,\n     Under th' allowance of your great aspect,\n     Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire\n     On flickering Phoebus' front-\n  Corn. What mean'st by this?\n  Kent. To go out of my dialect, which you discommend so much. I\n     know, sir, I am no flatterer. He that beguil'd you in a plain\n     accent was a plain knave, which, for my part, I will not be,\n     though I should win your displeasure to entreat me to't.\n  Corn. What was th' offence you gave him?\n  Osw. I never gave him any.\n     It pleas'd the King his master very late\n     To strike at me, upon his misconstruction;\n     When he, conjunct, and flattering his displeasure,\n     Tripp'd me behind; being down, insulted, rail'd\n     And put upon him such a deal of man\n     That worthied him, got praises of the King\n     For him attempting who was self-subdu'd;\n     And, in the fleshment of this dread exploit,\n     Drew on me here again.\n  Kent. None of these rogues and cowards\n     But Ajax is their fool.\n  Corn. Fetch forth the stocks!\n     You stubborn ancient knave, you reverent braggart,\n     We'll teach you-\n  Kent. Sir, I am too old to learn.\n     Call not your stocks for me. I serve the King;\n     On whose employment I was sent to you.\n     You shall do small respect, show too bold malice\n     Against the grace and person of my master,\n     Stocking his messenger.\n  Corn. Fetch forth the stocks! As I have life and honour,\n     There shall he sit till noon.\n  Reg. Till noon? Till night, my lord, and all night too!\n  Kent. Why, madam, if I were your father's dog,\n     You should not use me so.\n  Reg. Sir, being his knave, I will.\n  Corn. This is a fellow of the selfsame colour\n     Our sister speaks of. Come, bring away the stocks!\n                                             Stocks brought out.\n  Glou. Let me beseech your Grace not to do so.\n     His fault is much, and the good King his master\n     Will check him for't. Your purpos'd low correction\n     Is such as basest and contemn'dest wretches\n     For pilf'rings and most common trespasses\n     Are punish'd with. The King must take it ill\n     That he, so slightly valued in his messenger,\n     Should have him thus restrain'd.\n  Corn. I'll answer that.\n  Reg. My sister may receive it much more worse,\n     To have her gentleman abus'd, assaulted,\n     For following her affairs. Put in his legs.-\n                                    [Kent is put in the stocks.]\n     Come, my good lord, away.\n                           Exeunt [all but Gloucester and Kent].\n  Glou. I am sorry for thee, friend. 'Tis the Duke's pleasure,\n     Whose disposition, all the world well knows,\n     Will not be rubb'd nor stopp'd. I'll entreat for thee.\n  Kent. Pray do not, sir. I have watch'd and travell'd hard.\n     Some time I shall sleep out, the rest I'll whistle.\n     A good man's fortune may grow out at heels.\n     Give you good morrow!\n  Glou. The Duke 's to blame in this; 'twill be ill taken.\nExit.\n  Kent. Good King, that must approve the common saw,\n     Thou out of heaven's benediction com'st\n     To the warm sun!\n     Approach, thou beacon to this under globe,\n     That by thy comfortable beams I may\n     Peruse this letter. Nothing almost sees miracles\n     But misery. I know 'tis from Cordelia,\n     Who hath most fortunately been inform'd\n     Of my obscured course- and [reads] 'shall find time\n     From this enormous state, seeking to give\n     Losses their remedies'- All weary and o'erwatch'd,\n     Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold\n     This shameful lodging.\n     Fortune, good night; smile once more, turn thy wheel.\n                                                         Sleeps.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nThe open country.\n\nEnter Edgar.\n\n  Edg. I heard myself proclaim'd,\n     And by the happy hollow of a tree\n     Escap'd the hunt. No port is free, no place\n     That guard and most unusual vigilance\n     Does not attend my taking. Whiles I may scape,\n     I will preserve myself; and am bethought\n     To take the basest and most poorest shape\n     That ever penury, in contempt of man,\n     Brought near to beast. My face I'll grime with filth,\n     Blanket my loins, elf all my hair in knots,\n     And with presented nakedness outface\n     The winds and persecutions of the sky.\n     The country gives me proof and precedent\n     Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,\n     Strike in their numb'd and mortified bare arms\n     Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;\n     And with this horrible object, from low farms,\n     Poor pelting villages, sheepcotes, and mills,\n     Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,\n     Enforce their charity. 'Poor Turlygod! poor Tom!'\n     That's something yet! Edgar I nothing am.             Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nBefore Gloucester's Castle; Kent in the stocks.\n\nEnter Lear, Fool, and Gentleman.\n\n  Lear. 'Tis strange that they should so depart from home,\n     And not send back my messenger.\n  Gent. As I learn'd,\n     The night before there was no purpose in them\n     Of this remove.\n  Kent. Hail to thee, noble master!\n  Lear. Ha!\n     Mak'st thou this shame thy pastime?\n  Kent. No, my lord.\n  Fool. Ha, ha! look! he wears cruel garters. Horses are tied by the\n     head, dogs and bears by th' neck, monkeys by th' loins, and men\n     by th' legs. When a man's over-lusty at legs, then he wears\n     wooden nether-stocks.\n  Lear. What's he that hath so much thy place mistook\n     To set thee here?\n  Kent. It is both he and she-\n     Your son and daughter.\n  Lear. No.\n  Kent. Yes.\n  Lear. No, I say.\n  Kent. I say yea.\n  Lear. No, no, they would not!\n  Kent. Yes, they have.\n  Lear. By Jupiter, I swear no!\n  Kent. By Juno, I swear ay!\n  Lear. They durst not do't;\n     They would not, could not do't. 'Tis worse than murther\n     To do upon respect such violent outrage.\n     Resolve me with all modest haste which way\n     Thou mightst deserve or they impose this usage,\n     Coming from us.\n  Kent. My lord, when at their home\n     I did commend your Highness' letters to them,\n     Ere I was risen from the place that show'd\n     My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post,\n     Stew'd in his haste, half breathless, panting forth\n     From Goneril his mistress salutations;\n     Deliver'd letters, spite of intermission,\n     Which presently they read; on whose contents,\n     They summon'd up their meiny, straight took horse,\n     Commanded me to follow and attend\n     The leisure of their answer, gave me cold looks,\n     And meeting here the other messenger,\n     Whose welcome I perceiv'd had poison'd mine-\n     Being the very fellow which of late\n     Display'd so saucily against your Highness-\n     Having more man than wit about me, drew.\n     He rais'd the house with loud and coward cries.\n     Your son and daughter found this trespass worth\n     The shame which here it suffers.\n  Fool. Winter's not gone yet, if the wild geese fly that way.\n\n          Fathers that wear rags\n            Do make their children blind;\n          But fathers that bear bags\n            Shall see their children kind.\n          Fortune, that arrant whore,\n          Ne'er turns the key to th' poor.\n\n     But for all this, thou shalt have as many dolours for thy\n     daughters as thou canst tell in a year.\n  Lear. O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!\n     Hysterica passio! Down, thou climbing sorrow!\n     Thy element's below! Where is this daughter?\n  Kent. With the Earl, sir, here within.\n  Lear. Follow me not;\n     Stay here.                                            Exit.\n  Gent. Made you no more offence but what you speak of?\n  Kent. None.\n     How chance the King comes with so small a number?\n  Fool. An thou hadst been set i' th' stocks for that question,\n     thou'dst well deserv'd it.\n  Kent. Why, fool?\n  Fool. We'll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there's no\n     labouring i' th' winter. All that follow their noses are led by\n     their eyes but blind men, and there's not a nose among twenty\n     but can smell him that's stinking. Let go thy hold when a great\n     wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following\n     it; but the great one that goes upward, let him draw thee after.\n     When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again. I\n     would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.\n          That sir which serves and seeks for gain,\n            And follows but for form,\n          Will pack when it begins to rain\n            And leave thee in the storm.\n          But I will tarry; the fool will stay,\n            And let the wise man fly.\n          The knave turns fool that runs away;\n            The fool no knave, perdy.\n  Kent. Where learn'd you this, fool?\n  Fool. Not i' th' stocks, fool.\n\n                      Enter Lear and Gloucester\n\n  Lear. Deny to speak with me? They are sick? they are weary?\n     They have travell'd all the night? Mere fetches-\n     The images of revolt and flying off!\n     Fetch me a better answer.\n  Glou. My dear lord,\n     You know the fiery quality of the Duke,\n     How unremovable and fix'd he is\n     In his own course.\n  Lear. Vengeance! plague! death! confusion!\n     Fiery? What quality? Why, Gloucester, Gloucester,\n     I'ld speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.\n  Glou. Well, my good lord, I have inform'd them so.\n  Lear. Inform'd them? Dost thou understand me, man?\n  Glou. Ay, my good lord.\n  Lear. The King would speak with Cornwall; the dear father\n     Would with his daughter speak, commands her service.\n     Are they inform'd of this? My breath and blood!\n     Fiery? the fiery Duke? Tell the hot Duke that-\n     No, but not yet! May be he is not well.\n     Infirmity doth still neglect all office\n     Whereto our health is bound. We are not ourselves\n     When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind\n     To suffer with the body. I'll forbear;\n     And am fallen out with my more headier will,\n     To take the indispos'd and sickly fit\n     For the sound man.- Death on my state! Wherefore\n     Should be sit here? This act persuades me\n     That this remotion of the Duke and her\n     Is practice only. Give me my servant forth.\n     Go tell the Duke and 's wife I'ld speak with them-\n     Now, presently. Bid them come forth and hear me,\n     Or at their chamber door I'll beat the drum\n     Till it cry sleep to death.\n  Glou. I would have all well betwixt you.                 Exit.\n  Lear. O me, my heart, my rising heart! But down!\n  Fool. Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels when she\n     put 'em i' th' paste alive. She knapp'd 'em o' th' coxcombs with\n     a stick and cried 'Down, wantons, down!' 'Twas her brother that,\n     in pure kindness to his horse, buttered his hay.\n\n             Enter Cornwall, Regan, Gloucester, Servants.\n\n  Lear. Good morrow to you both.\n  Corn. Hail to your Grace!\n                                       Kent here set at liberty.\n  Reg. I am glad to see your Highness.\n  Lear. Regan, I think you are; I know what reason\n     I have to think so. If thou shouldst not be glad,\n     I would divorce me from thy mother's tomb,\n     Sepulchring an adultress. [To Kent] O, are you free?\n     Some other time for that.- Beloved Regan,\n     Thy sister's naught. O Regan, she hath tied\n     Sharp-tooth'd unkindness, like a vulture, here!\n                                   [Lays his hand on his heart.]\n     I can scarce speak to thee. Thou'lt not believe\n     With how deprav'd a quality- O Regan!\n  Reg. I pray you, sir, take patience. I have hope\n     You less know how to value her desert\n     Than she to scant her duty.\n  Lear. Say, how is that?\n  Reg. I cannot think my sister in the least\n     Would fail her obligation. If, sir, perchance\n     She have restrain'd the riots of your followers,\n     'Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end,\n     As clears her from all blame.\n  Lear. My curses on her!\n  Reg. O, sir, you are old!\n     Nature in you stands on the very verge\n     Of her confine. You should be rul'd, and led\n     By some discretion that discerns your state\n     Better than you yourself. Therefore I pray you\n     That to our sister you do make return;\n     Say you have wrong'd her, sir.\n  Lear. Ask her forgiveness?\n     Do you but mark how this becomes the house:\n     'Dear daughter, I confess that I am old.          [Kneels.]\n     Age is unnecessary. On my knees I beg\n     That you'll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food.'\n  Reg. Good sir, no more! These are unsightly tricks.\n     Return you to my sister.\n  Lear. [rises] Never, Regan!\n     She hath abated me of half my train;\n     Look'd black upon me; struck me with her tongue,\n     Most serpent-like, upon the very heart.\n     All the stor'd vengeances of heaven fall\n     On her ingrateful top! Strike her young bones,\n     You taking airs, with lameness!\n  Corn. Fie, sir, fie!\n  Lear. You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames\n     Into her scornful eyes! Infect her beauty,\n     You fen-suck'd fogs, drawn by the pow'rful sun,\n     To fall and blast her pride!\n  Reg. O the blest gods! so will you wish on me\n     When the rash mood is on.\n  Lear. No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse.\n     Thy tender-hefted nature shall not give\n     Thee o'er to harshness. Her eyes are fierce; but thine\n     Do comfort, and not burn. 'Tis not in thee\n     To grudge my pleasures, to cut off my train,\n     To bandy hasty words, to scant my sizes,\n     And, in conclusion, to oppose the bolt\n     Against my coming in. Thou better know'st\n     The offices of nature, bond of childhood,\n     Effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude.\n     Thy half o' th' kingdom hast thou not forgot,\n     Wherein I thee endow'd.\n  Reg. Good sir, to th' purpose.\n                                                  Tucket within.\n  Lear. Who put my man i' th' stocks?\n  Corn. What trumpet's that?\n  Reg. I know't- my sister's. This approves her letter,\n     That she would soon be here.\n\n                     Enter [Oswald the] Steward.\n\n     Is your lady come?\n  Lear. This is a slave, whose easy-borrowed pride\n     Dwells in the fickle grace of her he follows.\n     Out, varlet, from my sight!\n  Corn. What means your Grace?\n\n                            Enter Goneril.\n\n  Lear. Who stock'd my servant? Regan, I have good hope\n     Thou didst not know on't.- Who comes here? O heavens!\n     If you do love old men, if your sweet sway\n     Allow obedience- if yourselves are old,\n     Make it your cause! Send down, and take my part!\n     [To Goneril] Art not asham'd to look upon this beard?-\n     O Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand?\n  Gon. Why not by th' hand, sir? How have I offended?\n     All's not offence that indiscretion finds\n     And dotage terms so.\n  Lear. O sides, you are too tough!\n     Will you yet hold? How came my man i' th' stocks?\n  Corn. I set him there, sir; but his own disorders\n     Deserv'd much less advancement.\n  Lear. You? Did you?\n  Reg. I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.\n     If, till the expiration of your month,\n     You will return and sojourn with my sister,\n     Dismissing half your train, come then to me.\n     I am now from home, and out of that provision\n     Which shall be needful for your entertainment.\n  Lear. Return to her, and fifty men dismiss'd?\n     No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose\n     To wage against the enmity o' th' air,\n     To be a comrade with the wolf and owl-\n     Necessity's sharp pinch! Return with her?\n     Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless took\n     Our youngest born, I could as well be brought\n     To knee his throne, and, squire-like, pension beg\n     To keep base life afoot. Return with her?\n     Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter\n     To this detested groom.                 [Points at Oswald.]\n  Gon. At your choice, sir.\n  Lear. I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad.\n     I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell.\n     We'll no more meet, no more see one another.\n     But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter;\n     Or rather a disease that's in my flesh,\n     Which I must needs call mine. Thou art a boil,\n     A plague sore, an embossed carbuncle\n     In my corrupted blood. But I'll not chide thee.\n     Let shame come when it will, I do not call it.\n     I do not bid the Thunder-bearer shoot\n     Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove.\n     Mend when thou canst; be better at thy leisure;\n     I can be patient, I can stay with Regan,\n     I and my hundred knights.\n  Reg. Not altogether so.\n     I look'd not for you yet, nor am provided\n     For your fit welcome. Give ear, sir, to my sister;\n     For those that mingle reason with your passion\n     Must be content to think you old, and so-\n     But she knows what she does.\n  Lear. Is this well spoken?\n  Reg. I dare avouch it, sir. What, fifty followers?\n     Is it not well? What should you need of more?\n     Yea, or so many, sith that both charge and danger\n     Speak 'gainst so great a number? How in one house\n     Should many people, under two commands,\n     Hold amity? 'Tis hard; almost impossible.\n  Gon. Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance\n     From those that she calls servants, or from mine?\n  Reg. Why not, my lord? If then they chanc'd to slack ye,\n     We could control them. If you will come to me\n     (For now I spy a danger), I entreat you\n     To bring but five-and-twenty. To no more\n     Will I give place or notice.\n  Lear. I gave you all-\n  Reg. And in good time you gave it!\n  Lear. Made you my guardians, my depositaries;\n     But kept a reservation to be followed\n     With such a number. What, must I come to you\n     With five-and-twenty, Regan? Said you so?\n  Reg. And speak't again my lord. No more with me.\n  Lear. Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favour'd\n     When others are more wicked; not being the worst\n     Stands in some rank of praise. [To Goneril] I'll go with thee.\n     Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty,\n     And thou art twice her love.\n  Gon. Hear, me, my lord.\n     What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five,\n     To follow in a house where twice so many\n     Have a command to tend you?\n  Reg. What need one?\n  Lear. O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars\n     Are in the poorest thing superfluous.\n     Allow not nature more than nature needs,\n     Man's life is cheap as beast's. Thou art a lady:\n     If only to go warm were gorgeous,\n     Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st\n     Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need-\n     You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!\n     You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,\n     As full of grief as age; wretched in both.\n     If it be you that stirs these daughters' hearts\n     Against their father, fool me not so much\n     To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,\n     And let not women's weapons, water drops,\n     Stain my man's cheeks! No, you unnatural hags!\n     I will have such revenges on you both\n     That all the world shall- I will do such things-\n     What they are yet, I know not; but they shall be\n     The terrors of the earth! You think I'll weep.\n     No, I'll not weep.\n     I have full cause of weeping, but this heart\n     Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws\n     Or ere I'll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!\n              Exeunt Lear, Gloucester, Kent, and Fool. Storm and\n                                                        tempest.\n  Corn. Let us withdraw; 'twill be a storm.\n  Reg. This house is little; the old man and 's people\n     Cannot be well bestow'd.\n  Gon. 'Tis his own blame; hath put himself from rest\n     And must needs taste his folly.\n  Reg. For his particular, I'll receive him gladly,\n     But not one follower.\n  Gon. So am I purpos'd.\n     Where is my Lord of Gloucester?\n  Corn. Followed the old man forth.\n\n                          Enter Gloucester.\n\n     He is return'd.\n  Glou. The King is in high rage.\n  Corn. Whither is he going?\n  Glou. He calls to horse, but will I know not whither.\n  Corn. 'Tis best to give him way; he leads himself.\n  Gon. My lord, entreat him by no means to stay.\n  Glou. Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak winds\n     Do sorely ruffle. For many miles about\n     There's scarce a bush.\n  Reg. O, sir, to wilful men\n     The injuries that they themselves procure\n     Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors.\n     He is attended with a desperate train,\n     And what they may incense him to, being apt\n     To have his ear abus'd, wisdom bids fear.\n  Corn. Shut up your doors, my lord: 'tis a wild night.\n     My Regan counsels well. Come out o' th' storm.        [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. Scene I.\nA heath.\n\nStorm still. Enter Kent and a Gentleman at several doors.\n\n  Kent. Who's there, besides foul weather?\n  Gent. One minded like the weather, most unquietly.\n  Kent. I know you. Where's the King?\n  Gent. Contending with the fretful elements;\n     Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea,\n     Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main,\n     That things might change or cease; tears his white hair,\n     Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage,\n     Catch in their fury and make nothing of;\n     Strives in his little world of man to outscorn\n     The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain.\n     This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,\n     The lion and the belly-pinched wolf\n     Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,\n     And bids what will take all.\n  Kent. But who is with him?\n  Gent. None but the fool, who labours to outjest\n     His heart-struck injuries.\n  Kent. Sir, I do know you,\n     And dare upon the warrant of my note\n     Commend a dear thing to you. There is division\n     (Although as yet the face of it be cover'd\n     With mutual cunning) 'twixt Albany and Cornwall;\n     Who have (as who have not, that their great stars\n     Thron'd and set high?) servants, who seem no less,\n     Which are to France the spies and speculations\n     Intelligent of our state. What hath been seen,\n     Either in snuffs and packings of the Dukes,\n     Or the hard rein which both of them have borne\n     Against the old kind King, or something deeper,\n     Whereof, perchance, these are but furnishings-\n     But, true it is, from France there comes a power\n     Into this scattered kingdom, who already,\n     Wise in our negligence, have secret feet\n     In some of our best ports and are at point\n     To show their open banner. Now to you:\n     If on my credit you dare build so far\n     To make your speed to Dover, you shall find\n     Some that will thank you, making just report\n     Of how unnatural and bemadding sorrow\n     The King hath cause to plain.\n     I am a gentleman of blood and breeding,\n     And from some knowledge and assurance offer\n     This office to you.\n  Gent. I will talk further with you.\n  Kent. No, do not.\n     For confirmation that I am much more\n     Than my out-wall, open this purse and take\n     What it contains. If you shall see Cordelia\n     (As fear not but you shall), show her this ring,\n     And she will tell you who your fellow is\n     That yet you do not know. Fie on this storm!\n     I will go seek the King.\n  Gent. Give me your hand. Have you no more to say?\n  Kent. Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet:\n     That, when we have found the King (in which your pain\n     That way, I'll this), he that first lights on him\n     Holla the other.\n                                             Exeunt [severally].\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nAnother part of the heath.\n\nStorm still. Enter Lear and Fool.\n\n  Lear. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!\n     You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout\n     Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!\n     You sulph'rous and thought-executing fires,\n     Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,\n     Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,\n     Strike flat the thick rotundity o' th' world,\n     Crack Nature's moulds, all germains spill at once,\n     That makes ingrateful man!\n  Fool. O nuncle, court holy water in a dry house is better than this\n     rain water out o' door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters\n     blessing! Here's a night pities nether wise men nor fools.\n  Lear. Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!\n     Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters.\n     I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.\n     I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children,\n     You owe me no subscription. Then let fall\n     Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand your slave,\n     A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man.\n     But yet I call you servile ministers,\n     That will with two pernicious daughters join\n     Your high-engender'd battles 'gainst a head\n     So old and white as this! O! O! 'tis foul!\n  Fool. He that has a house to put 's head in has a good head-piece.\n          The codpiece that will house\n            Before the head has any,\n          The head and he shall louse:\n            So beggars marry many.\n          The man that makes his toe\n            What he his heart should make\n          Shall of a corn cry woe,\n            And turn his sleep to wake.\n     For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a\n     glass.\n\n                             Enter Kent.\n\n  Lear. No, I will be the pattern of all patience;\n     I will say nothing.\n  Kent. Who's there?\n  Fool. Marry, here's grace and a codpiece; that's a wise man and a\n     fool.\n  Kent. Alas, sir, are you here? Things that love night\n     Love not such nights as these. The wrathful skies\n     Gallow the very wanderers of the dark\n     And make them keep their caves. Since I was man,\n     Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,\n     Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never\n     Remember to have heard. Man's nature cannot carry\n     Th' affliction nor the fear.\n  Lear. Let the great gods,\n     That keep this dreadful pudder o'er our heads,\n     Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,\n     That hast within thee undivulged crimes\n     Unwhipp'd of justice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand;\n     Thou perjur'd, and thou simular man of virtue\n     That art incestuous. Caitiff, in pieces shake\n     That under covert and convenient seeming\n     Hast practis'd on man's life. Close pent-up guilts,\n     Rive your concealing continents, and cry\n     These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man\n     More sinn'd against than sinning.\n  Kent. Alack, bareheaded?\n     Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel;\n     Some friendship will it lend you 'gainst the tempest.\n     Repose you there, whilst I to this hard house\n     (More harder than the stones whereof 'tis rais'd,\n     Which even but now, demanding after you,\n     Denied me to come in) return, and force\n     Their scanted courtesy.\n  Lear. My wits begin to turn.\n     Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy? Art cold?\n     I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow?\n     The art of our necessities is strange,\n     That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.\n     Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart\n     That's sorry yet for thee.\n  Fool. [sings]\n\n          He that has and a little tiny wit-\n            With hey, ho, the wind and the rain-\n          Must make content with his fortunes fit,\n             For the rain it raineth every day.\n\n  Lear. True, my good boy. Come, bring us to this hovel.\n                                         Exeunt [Lear and Kent].\n  Fool. This is a brave night to cool a courtesan. I'll speak a\n     prophecy ere I go:\n          When priests are more in word than matter;\n          When brewers mar their malt with water;\n          When nobles are their tailors' tutors,\n          No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors;\n          When every case in law is right,\n          No squire in debt nor no poor knight;\n          When slanders do not live in tongues,\n          Nor cutpurses come not to throngs;\n          When usurers tell their gold i' th' field,\n          And bawds and whores do churches build:\n          Then shall the realm of Albion\n          Come to great confusion.\n          Then comes the time, who lives to see't,\n          That going shall be us'd with feet.\n     This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before his time.\nExit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nGloucester's Castle.\n\nEnter Gloucester and Edmund.\n\n  Glou. Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing! When\n     I desir'd their leave that I might pity him, they took from me\n     the use of mine own house, charg'd me on pain of perpetual\n     displeasure neither to speak of him, entreat for him, nor any\n     way sustain him.\n  Edm. Most savage and unnatural!\n  Glou. Go to; say you nothing. There is division betwixt the Dukes,\n     and a worse matter than that. I have received a letter this\n     night- 'tis dangerous to be spoken- I have lock'd the letter in\n     my closet. These injuries the King now bears will be revenged\n     home; there's part of a power already footed; we must incline to\n     the King. I will seek him and privily relieve him. Go you and\n     maintain talk with the Duke, that my charity be not of him\n     perceived. If he ask for me, I am ill and gone to bed. Though I\n     die for't, as no less is threat'ned me, the King my old master\n     must be relieved. There is some strange thing toward, Edmund.\n     Pray you be careful.                                  Exit.\n  Edm. This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the Duke\n     Instantly know, and of that letter too.\n     This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me\n     That which my father loses- no less than all.\n     The younger rises when the old doth fall.             Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nThe heath. Before a hovel.\n\nStorm still. Enter Lear, Kent, and Fool.\n\n  Kent. Here is the place, my lord. Good my lord, enter.\n     The tyranny of the open night 's too rough\n     For nature to endure.\n  Lear. Let me alone.\n  Kent. Good my lord, enter here.\n  Lear. Wilt break my heart?\n  Kent. I had rather break mine own. Good my lord, enter.\n  Lear. Thou think'st 'tis much that this contentious storm\n     Invades us to the skin. So 'tis to thee;\n     But where the greater malady is fix'd,\n     The lesser is scarce felt. Thou'dst shun a bear;\n     But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea,\n     Thou'dst meet the bear i' th' mouth. When the mind's free,\n     The body's delicate. The tempest in my mind\n     Doth from my senses take all feeling else\n     Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude!\n     Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand\n     For lifting food to't? But I will punish home!\n     No, I will weep no more. In such a night\n     'To shut me out! Pour on; I will endure.\n     In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!\n     Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all!\n     O, that way madness lies; let me shun that!\n     No more of that.\n  Kent. Good my lord, enter here.\n  Lear. Prithee go in thyself; seek thine own ease.\n     This tempest will not give me leave to ponder\n     On things would hurt me more. But I'll go in.\n     [To the Fool] In, boy; go first.- You houseless poverty-\n     Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep.\n                                                    Exit [Fool].\n     Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,\n     That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,\n     How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,\n     Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you\n     From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en\n     Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;\n     Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,\n     That thou mayst shake the superflux to them\n     And show the heavens more just.\n  Edg. [within] Fathom and half, fathom and half! Poor Tom!\n\n                     Enter Fool [from the hovel].\n\n  Fool. Come not in here, nuncle, here's a spirit. Help me, help me!\n  Kent. Give me thy hand. Who's there?\n  Fool. A spirit, a spirit! He says his name's poor Tom.\n  Kent. What art thou that dost grumble there i' th' straw?\n     Come forth.\n\n                 Enter Edgar [disguised as a madman].\n\n  Edg. Away! the foul fiend follows me! Through the sharp hawthorn\n     blows the cold wind. Humh! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.\n  Lear. Hast thou given all to thy two daughters, and art thou come\n     to this?\n  Edg. Who gives anything to poor Tom? whom the foul fiend hath led\n     through fire and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, o'er\n     bog and quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow and\n     halters in his pew, set ratsbane by his porridge, made him proud\n     of heart, to ride on a bay trotting horse over four-inch'd\n     bridges, to course his own shadow for a traitor. Bless thy five\n     wits! Tom 's acold. O, do de, do de, do de. Bless thee from\n     whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking! Do poor Tom some charity,\n     whom the foul fiend vexes. There could I have him now- and there-\n     and there again- and there!\n                                                    Storm still.\n  Lear. What, have his daughters brought him to this pass?\n     Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give 'em all?\n  Fool. Nay, he reserv'd a blanket, else we had been all sham'd.\n  Lear. Now all the plagues that in the pendulous air\n     Hang fated o'er men's faults light on thy daughters!\n  Kent. He hath no daughters, sir.\n  Lear. Death, traitor! nothing could have subdu'd nature\n     To such a lowness but his unkind daughters.\n     Is it the fashion that discarded fathers\n     Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?\n     Judicious punishment! 'Twas this flesh begot\n     Those pelican daughters.\n  Edg. Pillicock sat on Pillicock's Hill. 'Allow, 'allow, loo, loo!\n  Fool. This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.\n  Edg. Take heed o' th' foul fiend; obey thy parents: keep thy word\n     justly; swear not; commit not with man's sworn spouse; set not\n     thy sweet heart on proud array. Tom 's acold.\n  Lear. What hast thou been?\n  Edg. A servingman, proud in heart and mind; that curl'd my hair,\n     wore gloves in my cap; serv'd the lust of my mistress' heart and\n     did the act of darkness with her; swore as many oaths as I spake\n     words, and broke them in the sweet face of heaven; one that\n     slept in the contriving of lust, and wak'd to do it. Wine lov'd\n     I deeply, dice dearly; and in woman out-paramour'd the Turk.\n     False of heart, light of ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox\n     in stealth, wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey.\n     Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustling of silks betray\n     thy poor heart to woman. Keep thy foot out of brothel, thy hand\n     out of placket, thy pen from lender's book, and defy the foul\n     fiend. Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind; says\n     suum, mun, hey, no, nonny. Dolphin my boy, my boy, sessa! let\n     him trot by.\n                                                    Storm still.\n  Lear. Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy\n     uncover'd body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than\n     this? Consider him well. Thou ow'st the worm no silk, the beast\n     no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! Here's three\n     on's are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself;\n     unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked\n     animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! Come, unbutton\n     here.\n                                         [Tears at his clothes.]\n  Fool. Prithee, nuncle, be contented! 'Tis a naughty night to swim\n     in. Now a little fire in a wild field were like an old lecher's\n     heart- a small spark, all the rest on's body cold. Look, here\n     comes a walking fire.\n\n                    Enter Gloucester with a torch.\n\n  Edg. This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet. He begins at curfew,\n     and walks till the first cock. He gives the web and the pin,\n     squints the eye, and makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat,\n     and hurts the poor creature of earth.\n\n           Saint Withold footed thrice the 'old;\n           He met the nightmare, and her nine fold;\n              Bid her alight\n              And her troth plight,\n           And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!\n\n  Kent. How fares your Grace?\n  Lear. What's he?\n  Kent. Who's there? What is't you seek?\n  Glou. What are you there? Your names?\n  Edg. Poor Tom, that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the todpole,\n     the wall-newt and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when\n     the foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets, swallows the\n     old rat and the ditch-dog, drinks the green mantle of the\n     standing pool; who is whipp'd from tithing to tithing, and\n     stock-punish'd and imprison'd; who hath had three suits to his\n     back, six shirts to his body, horse to ride, and weapons to\n     wear;\n\n          But mice and rats, and such small deer,\n          Have been Tom's food for seven long year.\n\n     Beware my follower. Peace, Smulkin! peace, thou fiend!\n  Glou. What, hath your Grace no better company?\n  Edg. The prince of darkness is a gentleman!\n     Modo he's call'd, and Mahu.\n  Glou. Our flesh and blood is grown so vile, my lord,\n     That it doth hate what gets it.\n  Edg. Poor Tom 's acold.\n  Glou. Go in with me. My duty cannot suffer\n     T' obey in all your daughters' hard commands.\n     Though their injunction be to bar my doors\n     And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you,\n     Yet have I ventur'd to come seek you out\n     And bring you where both fire and food is ready.\n  Lear. First let me talk with this philosopher.\n     What is the cause of thunder?\n  Kent. Good my lord, take his offer; go into th' house.\n  Lear. I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban.\n     What is your study?\n  Edg. How to prevent the fiend and to kill vermin.\n  Lear. Let me ask you one word in private.\n  Kent. Importune him once more to go, my lord.\n     His wits begin t' unsettle.\n  Glou. Canst thou blame him?\n                                                    Storm still.\n     His daughters seek his death. Ah, that good Kent!\n     He said it would be thus- poor banish'd man!\n     Thou say'st the King grows mad: I'll tell thee, friend,\n     I am almost mad myself. I had a son,\n     Now outlaw'd from my blood. He sought my life\n     But lately, very late. I lov'd him, friend-\n     No father his son dearer. True to tell thee,\n     The grief hath craz'd my wits. What a night 's this!\n     I do beseech your Grace-\n  Lear. O, cry you mercy, sir.\n     Noble philosopher, your company.\n  Edg. Tom's acold.\n  Glou. In, fellow, there, into th' hovel; keep thee warm.\n  Lear. Come, let's in all.\n  Kent. This way, my lord.\n  Lear. With him!\n     I will keep still with my philosopher.\n  Kent. Good my lord, soothe him; let him take the fellow.\n  Glou. Take him you on.\n  Kent. Sirrah, come on; go along with us.\n  Lear. Come, good Athenian.\n  Glou. No words, no words! hush.\n  Edg. Child Rowland to the dark tower came;\n     His word was still\n\n          Fie, foh, and fum!\n          I smell the blood of a British man.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\nScene V.\nGloucester's Castle.\n\nEnter Cornwall and Edmund.\n\n  Corn. I will have my revenge ere I depart his house.\n  Edm. How, my lord, I may be censured, that nature thus gives way to\n     loyalty, something fears me to think of.\n  Corn. I now perceive it was not altogether your brother's evil\n     disposition made him seek his death; but a provoking merit, set\n     awork by a reproveable badness in himself.\n  Edm. How malicious is my fortune that I must repent to be just!\n     This is the letter he spoke of, which approves him an\n     intelligent party to the advantages of France. O heavens! that\n     this treason were not- or not I the detector!\n  Corn. Go with me to the Duchess.\n  Edm. If the matter of this paper be certain, you have mighty\n     business in hand.\n  Corn. True or false, it hath made thee Earl of Gloucester.\n     Seek out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our\n     apprehension.\n  Edm. [aside] If I find him comforting the King, it will stuff his\n     suspicion more fully.- I will persever in my course of loyalty,\n     though the conflict be sore between that and my blood.\n  Corn. I will lay trust upon thee, and thou shalt find a dearer\n     father in my love.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene VI.\nA farmhouse near Gloucester's Castle.\n\nEnter Gloucester, Lear, Kent, Fool, and Edgar.\n\n  Glou. Here is better than the open air; take it thankfully. I will\n     piece out the comfort with what addition I can. I will not be\n     long from you.\n  Kent. All the power of his wits have given way to his impatience.\n     The gods reward your kindness!\n                                              Exit [Gloucester].\n  Edg. Frateretto calls me, and tells me Nero is an angler in the\n     lake of darkness. Pray, innocent, and beware the foul fiend.\n  Fool. Prithee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a gentleman or a\n     yeoman.\n  Lear. A king, a king!\n  Fool. No, he's a yeoman that has a gentleman to his son; for he's a\n     mad yeoman that sees his son a gentleman before him.\n  Lear. To have a thousand with red burning spits\n     Come hizzing in upon 'em-\n  Edg. The foul fiend bites my back.\n  Fool. He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's\n     health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath.\n  Lear. It shall be done; I will arraign them straight.\n     [To Edgar] Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer.\n     [To the Fool] Thou, sapient sir, sit here. Now, you she-foxes!\n  Edg. Look, where he stands and glares! Want'st thou eyes at trial,\n     madam?\n\n             Come o'er the bourn, Bessy, to me.\n\n  Fool.      Her boat hath a leak,\n             And she must not speak\n           Why she dares not come over to thee.\n\n  Edg. The foul fiend haunts poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale.\n     Hoppedance cries in Tom's belly for two white herring. Croak\n     not, black angel; I have no food for thee.\n  Kent. How do you, sir? Stand you not so amaz'd.\n     Will you lie down and rest upon the cushions?\n  Lear. I'll see their trial first. Bring in their evidence.\n     [To Edgar] Thou, robed man of justice, take thy place.\n     [To the Fool] And thou, his yokefellow of equity,\n     Bench by his side. [To Kent] You are o' th' commission,\n     Sit you too.\n  Edg. Let us deal justly.\n\n          Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd?\n            Thy sheep be in the corn;\n          And for one blast of thy minikin mouth\n            Thy sheep shall take no harm.\n\n     Purr! the cat is gray.\n  Lear. Arraign her first. 'Tis Goneril. I here take my oath before\n     this honourable assembly, she kicked the poor King her father.\n  Fool. Come hither, mistress. Is your name Goneril?\n  Lear. She cannot deny it.\n  Fool. Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint-stool.\n  Lear. And here's another, whose warp'd looks proclaim\n     What store her heart is made on. Stop her there!\n     Arms, arms! sword! fire! Corruption in the place!\n     False justicer, why hast thou let her scape?\n  Edg. Bless thy five wits!\n  Kent. O pity! Sir, where is the patience now\n     That you so oft have boasted to retain?\n  Edg. [aside] My tears begin to take his part so much\n     They'll mar my counterfeiting.\n  Lear. The little dogs and all,\n     Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me.\n  Edg. Tom will throw his head at them. Avaunt, you curs!\n           Be thy mouth or black or white,\n           Tooth that poisons if it bite;\n           Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim,\n           Hound or spaniel, brach or lym,\n           Bobtail tyke or trundle-tall-\n           Tom will make them weep and wail;\n           For, with throwing thus my head,\n           Dogs leap the hatch, and all are fled.\n     Do de, de, de. Sessa! Come, march to wakes and fairs and market\n     towns. Poor Tom, thy horn is dry.\n  Lear. Then let them anatomize Regan. See what breeds about her\n     heart. Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard\n     hearts? [To Edgar] You, sir- I entertain you for one of my\n     hundred; only I do not like the fashion of your garments. You'll\n     say they are Persian attire; but let them be chang'd.\n  Kent. Now, good my lord, lie here and rest awhile.\n  Lear. Make no noise, make no noise; draw the curtains.\n     So, so, so. We'll go to supper i' th' morning. So, so, so.\n  Fool. And I'll go to bed at noon.\n\n                          Enter Gloucester.\n\n  Glou. Come hither, friend. Where is the King my master?\n  Kent. Here, sir; but trouble him not; his wits are gone.\n  Glou. Good friend, I prithee take him in thy arms.\n     I have o'erheard a plot of death upon him.\n     There is a litter ready; lay him in't\n     And drive towards Dover, friend, where thou shalt meet\n     Both welcome and protection. Take up thy master.\n     If thou shouldst dally half an hour, his life,\n     With thine, and all that offer to defend him,\n     Stand in assured loss. Take up, take up!\n     And follow me, that will to some provision\n     Give thee quick conduct.\n  Kent. Oppressed nature sleeps.\n     This rest might yet have balm'd thy broken senses,\n     Which, if convenience will not allow,\n     Stand in hard cure. [To the Fool] Come, help to bear thy master.\n     Thou must not stay behind.\n  Glou. Come, come, away!\n                                         Exeunt [all but Edgar].\n  Edg. When we our betters see bearing our woes,\n     We scarcely think our miseries our foes.\n     Who alone suffers suffers most i' th' mind,\n     Leaving free things and happy shows behind;\n     But then the mind much sufferance doth o'erskip\n     When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.\n     How light and portable my pain seems now,\n     When that which makes me bend makes the King bow,\n     He childed as I fathered! Tom, away!\n     Mark the high noises, and thyself bewray\n     When false opinion, whose wrong thought defiles thee,\n     In thy just proof repeals and reconciles thee.\n     What will hap more to-night, safe scape the King!\n     Lurk, lurk.                                         [Exit.]\n\n\n\n\nScene VII.\nGloucester's Castle.\n\nEnter Cornwall, Regan, Goneril, [Edmund the] Bastard, and Servants.\n\n  Corn. [to Goneril] Post speedily to my lord your husband, show him\n     this letter. The army of France is landed.- Seek out the traitor\n     Gloucester.\n                                  [Exeunt some of the Servants.]\n  Reg. Hang him instantly.\n  Gon. Pluck out his eyes.\n  Corn. Leave him to my displeasure. Edmund, keep you our sister\n     company. The revenges we are bound to take upon your traitorous\n     father are not fit for your beholding. Advise the Duke where you\n     are going, to a most festinate preparation. We are bound to the\n     like. Our posts shall be swift and intelligent betwixt us.\n     Farewell, dear sister; farewell, my Lord of Gloucester.\n\n                     Enter [Oswald the] Steward.\n\n     How now? Where's the King?\n  Osw. My Lord of Gloucester hath convey'd him hence.\n     Some five or six and thirty of his knights,\n     Hot questrists after him, met him at gate;\n     Who, with some other of the lord's dependants,\n     Are gone with him towards Dover, where they boast\n     To have well-armed friends.\n  Corn. Get horses for your mistress.\n  Gon. Farewell, sweet lord, and sister.\n  Corn. Edmund, farewell.\n                           Exeunt Goneril, [Edmund, and Oswald].\n     Go seek the traitor Gloucester,\n     Pinion him like a thief, bring him before us.\n                                        [Exeunt other Servants.]\n     Though well we may not pass upon his life\n     Without the form of justice, yet our power\n     Shall do a court'sy to our wrath, which men\n     May blame, but not control.\n\n            Enter Gloucester, brought in by two or three.\n\n     Who's there? the traitor?\n  Reg. Ingrateful fox! 'tis he.\n  Corn. Bind fast his corky arms.\n  Glou. What mean, your Graces? Good my friends, consider\n     You are my guests. Do me no foul play, friends.\n  Corn. Bind him, I say.\n                                            [Servants bind him.]\n  Reg. Hard, hard. O filthy traitor!\n  Glou. Unmerciful lady as you are, I am none.\n  Corn. To this chair bind him. Villain, thou shalt find-\n                                       [Regan plucks his beard.]\n  Glou. By the kind gods, 'tis most ignobly done\n     To pluck me by the beard.\n  Reg. So white, and such a traitor!\n  Glou. Naughty lady,\n     These hairs which thou dost ravish from my chin\n     Will quicken, and accuse thee. I am your host.\n     With robber's hands my hospitable favours\n     You should not ruffle thus. What will you do?\n  Corn. Come, sir, what letters had you late from France?\n  Reg. Be simple-answer'd, for we know the truth.\n  Corn. And what confederacy have you with the traitors\n     Late footed in the kingdom?\n  Reg. To whose hands have you sent the lunatic King?\n     Speak.\n  Glou. I have a letter guessingly set down,\n     Which came from one that's of a neutral heart,\n     And not from one oppos'd.\n  Corn. Cunning.\n  Reg. And false.\n  Corn. Where hast thou sent the King?\n  Glou. To Dover.\n  Reg. Wherefore to Dover? Wast thou not charg'd at peril-\n  Corn. Wherefore to Dover? Let him first answer that.\n  Glou. I am tied to th' stake, and I must stand the course.\n  Reg. Wherefore to Dover, sir?\n  Glou. Because I would not see thy cruel nails\n     Pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce sister\n     In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs.\n     The sea, with such a storm as his bare head\n     In hell-black night endur'd, would have buoy'd up\n     And quench'd the steeled fires.\n     Yet, poor old heart, he holp the heavens to rain.\n     If wolves had at thy gate howl'd that stern time,\n     Thou shouldst have said, 'Good porter, turn the key.'\n     All cruels else subscrib'd. But I shall see\n     The winged vengeance overtake such children.\n  Corn. See't shalt thou never. Fellows, hold the chair.\n     Upon these eyes of thine I'll set my foot.\n  Glou. He that will think to live till he be old,\n     Give me some help!- O cruel! O ye gods!\n  Reg. One side will mock another. Th' other too!\n  Corn. If you see vengeance-\n  1. Serv. Hold your hand, my lord!\n     I have serv'd you ever since I was a child;\n     But better service have I never done you\n     Than now to bid you hold.\n  Reg. How now, you dog?\n  1. Serv. If you did wear a beard upon your chin,\n     I'ld shake it on this quarrel.\n  Reg. What do you mean?\n  Corn. My villain!                               Draw and fight.\n  1. Serv. Nay, then, come on, and take the chance of anger.\n  Reg. Give me thy sword. A peasant stand up thus?\n                        She takes a sword and runs at him behind.\n  1. Serv. O, I am slain! My lord, you have one eye left\n     To see some mischief on him. O!                     He dies.\n  Corn. Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly!\n     Where is thy lustre now?\n  Glou. All dark and comfortless! Where's my son Edmund?\n     Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature\n     To quit this horrid act.\n  Reg. Out, treacherous villain!\n     Thou call'st on him that hates thee. It was he\n     That made the overture of thy treasons to us;\n     Who is too good to pity thee.\n  Glou. O my follies! Then Edgar was abus'd.\n     Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him!\n  Reg. Go thrust him out at gates, and let him smell\n     His way to Dover.\n                                     Exit [one] with Gloucester.\n     How is't, my lord? How look you?\n  Corn. I have receiv'd a hurt. Follow me, lady.\n     Turn out that eyeless villain. Throw this slave\n     Upon the dunghill. Regan, I bleed apace.\n     Untimely comes this hurt. Give me your arm.\n                                  Exit [Cornwall, led by Regan].\n  2. Serv. I'll never care what wickedness I do,\n     If this man come to good.\n  3. Serv. If she live long,\n     And in the end meet the old course of death,\n     Women will all turn monsters.\n  2. Serv. Let's follow the old Earl, and get the bedlam\n     To lead him where he would. His roguish madness\n     Allows itself to anything.\n  3. Serv. Go thou. I'll fetch some flax and whites of eggs\n     To apply to his bleeding face. Now heaven help him!\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. Scene I.\nThe heath.\n\nEnter Edgar.\n\n  Edg. Yet better thus, and known to be contemn'd,\n     Than still contemn'd and flatter'd. To be worst,\n     The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune,\n     Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear.\n     The lamentable change is from the best;\n     The worst returns to laughter. Welcome then,\n     Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace!\n     The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst\n     Owes nothing to thy blasts.\n\n                 Enter Gloucester, led by an Old Man.\n\n     But who comes here?\n     My father, poorly led? World, world, O world!\n     But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,\n     Life would not yield to age.\n  Old Man. O my good lord,\n     I have been your tenant, and your father's tenant,\n     These fourscore years.\n  Glou. Away, get thee away! Good friend, be gone.\n     Thy comforts can do me no good at all;\n     Thee they may hurt.\n  Old Man. You cannot see your way.\n  Glou. I have no way, and therefore want no eyes;\n     I stumbled when I saw. Full oft 'tis seen\n     Our means secure us, and our mere defects\n     Prove our commodities. Ah dear son Edgar,\n     The food of thy abused father's wrath!\n     Might I but live to see thee in my touch,\n     I'ld say I had eyes again!\n  Old Man. How now? Who's there?\n  Edg. [aside] O gods! Who is't can say 'I am at the worst'?\n     I am worse than e'er I was.\n  Old Man. 'Tis poor mad Tom.\n  Edg. [aside] And worse I may be yet. The worst is not\n     So long as we can say 'This is the worst.'\n  Old Man. Fellow, where goest?\n  Glou. Is it a beggarman?\n  Old Man. Madman and beggar too.\n  Glou. He has some reason, else he could not beg.\n     I' th' last night's storm I such a fellow saw,\n     Which made me think a man a worm. My son\n     Came then into my mind, and yet my mind\n     Was then scarce friends with him. I have heard more since.\n     As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods.\n     They kill us for their sport.\n  Edg. [aside] How should this be?\n     Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow,\n     Ang'ring itself and others.- Bless thee, master!\n  Glou. Is that the naked fellow?\n  Old Man. Ay, my lord.\n  Glou. Then prithee get thee gone. If for my sake\n     Thou wilt o'ertake us hence a mile or twain\n     I' th' way toward Dover, do it for ancient love;\n     And bring some covering for this naked soul,\n     Who I'll entreat to lead me.\n  Old Man. Alack, sir, he is mad!\n  Glou. 'Tis the time's plague when madmen lead the blind.\n     Do as I bid thee, or rather do thy pleasure.\n     Above the rest, be gone.\n  Old Man. I'll bring him the best 'parel that I have,\n     Come on't what will.                                  Exit.\n  Glou. Sirrah naked fellow-\n  Edg. Poor Tom's acold. [Aside] I cannot daub it further.\n  Glou. Come hither, fellow.\n  Edg. [aside] And yet I must.- Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.\n  Glou. Know'st thou the way to Dover?\n  Edg. Both stile and gate, horseway and footpath. Poor Tom hath been\n     scar'd out of his good wits. Bless thee, good man's son, from\n     the foul fiend! Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once: of\n     lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididence, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of\n     stealing; Modo, of murder; Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and\n     mowing, who since possesses chambermaids and waiting women. So,\n     bless thee, master!\n  Glou. Here, take this Purse, thou whom the heavens' plagues\n     Have humbled to all strokes. That I am wretched\n     Makes thee the happier. Heavens, deal so still!\n     Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,\n     That slaves your ordinance, that will not see\n     Because he does not feel, feel your pow'r quickly;\n     So distribution should undo excess,\n     And each man have enough. Dost thou know Dover?\n  Edg. Ay, master.\n  Glou. There is a cliff, whose high and bending head\n     Looks fearfully in the confined deep.\n     Bring me but to the very brim of it,\n     And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear\n     With something rich about me. From that place\n     I shall no leading need.\n  Edg. Give me thy arm.\n     Poor Tom shall lead thee.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nBefore the Duke of Albany's Palace.\n\nEnter Goneril and [Edmund the] Bastard.\n\n  Gon. Welcome, my lord. I marvel our mild husband\n     Not met us on the way.\n\n                     Enter [Oswald the] Steward.\n\n     Now, where's your master?\n  Osw. Madam, within, but never man so chang'd.\n     I told him of the army that was landed:\n     He smil'd at it. I told him you were coming:\n     His answer was, 'The worse.' Of Gloucester's treachery\n     And of the loyal service of his son\n     When I inform'd him, then he call'd me sot\n     And told me I had turn'd the wrong side out.\n     What most he should dislike seems pleasant to him;\n     What like, offensive.\n  Gon. [to Edmund] Then shall you go no further.\n     It is the cowish terror of his spirit,\n     That dares not undertake. He'll not feel wrongs\n     Which tie him to an answer. Our wishes on the way\n     May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother.\n     Hasten his musters and conduct his pow'rs.\n     I must change arms at home and give the distaff\n     Into my husband's hands. This trusty servant\n     Shall pass between us. Ere long you are like to hear\n     (If you dare venture in your own behalf)\n     A mistress's command. Wear this.          [Gives a favour.]\n     Spare speech.\n     Decline your head. This kiss, if it durst speak,\n     Would stretch thy spirits up into the air.\n     Conceive, and fare thee well.\n  Edm. Yours in the ranks of death!                        Exit.\n  Gon. My most dear Gloucester!\n     O, the difference of man and man!\n     To thee a woman's services are due;\n     My fool usurps my body.\n  Osw. Madam, here comes my lord.                          Exit.\n\n                            Enter Albany.\n\n  Gon. I have been worth the whistle.\n  Alb. O Goneril,\n     You are not worth the dust which the rude wind\n     Blows in your face! I fear your disposition.\n     That nature which contemns it origin\n     Cannot be bordered certain in itself.\n     She that herself will sliver and disbranch\n     From her material sap, perforce must wither\n     And come to deadly use.\n  Gon. No more! The text is foolish.\n  Alb. Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile;\n     Filths savour but themselves. What have you done?\n     Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform'd?\n     A father, and a gracious aged man,\n     Whose reverence even the head-lugg'd bear would lick,\n     Most barbarous, most degenerate, have you madded.\n     Could my good brother suffer you to do it?\n     A man, a prince, by him so benefited!\n     If that the heavens do not their visible spirits\n     Send quickly down to tame these vile offences,\n     It will come,\n     Humanity must perforce prey on itself,\n     Like monsters of the deep.\n  Gon. Milk-liver'd man!\n     That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;\n     Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning\n     Thine honour from thy suffering; that not know'st\n     Fools do those villains pity who are punish'd\n     Ere they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum?\n     France spreads his banners in our noiseless land,\n     With plumed helm thy state begins to threat,\n     Whiles thou, a moral fool, sit'st still, and criest\n     'Alack, why does he so?'\n  Alb. See thyself, devil!\n     Proper deformity seems not in the fiend\n     So horrid as in woman.\n  Gon. O vain fool!\n  Alb. Thou changed and self-cover'd thing, for shame!\n     Bemonster not thy feature! Were't my fitness\n     To let these hands obey my blood,\n     They are apt enough to dislocate and tear\n     Thy flesh and bones. Howe'er thou art a fiend,\n     A woman's shape doth shield thee.\n  Gon. Marry, your manhood mew!\n\n                          Enter a Gentleman.\n\n  Alb. What news?\n  Gent. O, my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall 's dead,\n     Slain by his servant, going to put out\n     The other eye of Gloucester.\n  Alb. Gloucester's eyes?\n  Gent. A servant that he bred, thrill'd with remorse,\n     Oppos'd against the act, bending his sword\n     To his great master; who, thereat enrag'd,\n     Flew on him, and amongst them fell'd him dead;\n     But not without that harmful stroke which since\n     Hath pluck'd him after.\n  Alb. This shows you are above,\n     You justicers, that these our nether crimes\n     So speedily can venge! But O poor Gloucester!\n     Lose he his other eye?\n  Gent. Both, both, my lord.\n     This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer.\n     'Tis from your sister.\n  Gon. [aside] One way I like this well;\n     But being widow, and my Gloucester with her,\n     May all the building in my fancy pluck\n     Upon my hateful life. Another way\n     The news is not so tart.- I'll read, and answer.\nExit.\n  Alb. Where was his son when they did take his eyes?\n  Gent. Come with my lady hither.\n  Alb. He is not here.\n  Gent. No, my good lord; I met him back again.\n  Alb. Knows he the wickedness?\n  Gent. Ay, my good lord. 'Twas he inform'd against him,\n     And quit the house on purpose, that their punishment\n     Might have the freer course.\n  Alb. Gloucester, I live\n     To thank thee for the love thou show'dst the King,\n     And to revenge thine eyes. Come hither, friend.\n     Tell me what more thou know'st.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nThe French camp near Dover.\n\nEnter Kent and a Gentleman.\n\n  Kent. Why the King of France is so suddenly gone back know you the\n     reason?\n  Gent. Something he left imperfect in the state, which since his\n     coming forth is thought of, which imports to the kingdom so much\n     fear and danger that his personal return was most required and\n     necessary.\n  Kent. Who hath he left behind him general?\n  Gent. The Marshal of France, Monsieur La Far.\n  Kent. Did your letters pierce the Queen to any demonstration of\n     grief?\n  Gent. Ay, sir. She took them, read them in my presence,\n     And now and then an ample tear trill'd down\n     Her delicate cheek. It seem'd she was a queen\n     Over her passion, who, most rebel-like,\n     Sought to be king o'er her.\n  Kent. O, then it mov'd her?\n  Gent. Not to a rage. Patience and sorrow strove\n     Who should express her goodliest. You have seen\n     Sunshine and rain at once: her smiles and tears\n     Were like, a better way. Those happy smilets\n     That play'd on her ripe lip seem'd not to know\n     What guests were in her eyes, which parted thence\n     As pearls from diamonds dropp'd. In brief,\n     Sorrow would be a rarity most belov'd,\n     If all could so become it.\n  Kent. Made she no verbal question?\n  Gent. Faith, once or twice she heav'd the name of father\n     Pantingly forth, as if it press'd her heart;\n     Cried 'Sisters, sisters! Shame of ladies! Sisters!\n     Kent! father! sisters! What, i' th' storm? i' th' night?\n     Let pity not be believ'd!' There she shook\n     The holy water from her heavenly eyes,\n     And clamour moisten'd. Then away she started\n     To deal with grief alone.\n  Kent. It is the stars,\n     The stars above us, govern our conditions;\n     Else one self mate and mate could not beget\n     Such different issues. You spoke not with her since?\n  Gent. No.\n  Kent. Was this before the King return'd?\n  Gent. No, since.\n  Kent. Well, sir, the poor distressed Lear's i' th' town;\n     Who sometime, in his better tune, remembers\n     What we are come about, and by no means\n     Will yield to see his daughter.\n  Gent. Why, good sir?\n  Kent. A sovereign shame so elbows him; his own unkindness,\n     That stripp'd her from his benediction, turn'd her\n     To foreign casualties, gave her dear rights\n     To his dog-hearted daughters- these things sting\n     His mind so venomously that burning shame\n     Detains him from Cordelia.\n  Gent. Alack, poor gentleman!\n  Kent. Of Albany's and Cornwall's powers you heard not?\n  Gent. 'Tis so; they are afoot.\n  Kent. Well, sir, I'll bring you to our master Lear\n     And leave you to attend him. Some dear cause\n     Will in concealment wrap me up awhile.\n     When I am known aright, you shall not grieve\n     Lending me this acquaintance. I pray you go\n     Along with me.                                      Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nThe French camp.\n\nEnter, with Drum and Colours, Cordelia, Doctor, and Soldiers.\n\n  Cor. Alack, 'tis he! Why, he was met even now\n     As mad as the vex'd sea, singing aloud,\n     Crown'd with rank fumiter and furrow weeds,\n     With hardocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo flow'rs,\n     Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow\n     In our sustaining corn. A century send forth.\n     Search every acre in the high-grown field\n     And bring him to our eye. [Exit an Officer.] What can man's\n        wisdom\n     In the restoring his bereaved sense?\n     He that helps him take all my outward worth.\n  Doct. There is means, madam.\n     Our foster nurse of nature is repose,\n     The which he lacks. That to provoke in him\n     Are many simples operative, whose power\n     Will close the eye of anguish.\n  Cor. All blest secrets,\n     All you unpublish'd virtues of the earth,\n     Spring with my tears! be aidant and remediate\n     In the good man's distress! Seek, seek for him!\n     Lest his ungovern'd rage dissolve the life\n     That wants the means to lead it.\n\n                           Enter Messenger.\n\n  Mess. News, madam.\n     The British pow'rs are marching hitherward.\n  Cor. 'Tis known before. Our preparation stands\n     In expectation of them. O dear father,\n     It is thy business that I go about.\n     Therefore great France\n     My mourning and important tears hath pitied.\n     No blown ambition doth our arms incite,\n     But love, dear love, and our ag'd father's right.\n     Soon may I hear and see him!\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nGloucester's Castle.\n\nEnter Regan and [Oswald the] Steward.\n\n  Reg. But are my brother's pow'rs set forth?\n  Osw. Ay, madam.\n  Reg. Himself in person there?\n  Osw. Madam, with much ado.\n     Your sister is the better soldier.\n  Reg. Lord Edmund spake not with your lord at home?\n  Osw. No, madam.\n  Reg. What might import my sister's letter to him?\n  Osw. I know not, lady.\n  Reg. Faith, he is posted hence on serious matter.\n     It was great ignorance, Gloucester's eyes being out,\n     To let him live. Where he arrives he moves\n     All hearts against us. Edmund, I think, is gone,\n     In pity of his misery, to dispatch\n     His nighted life; moreover, to descry\n     The strength o' th' enemy.\n  Osw. I must needs after him, madam, with my letter.\n  Reg. Our troops set forth to-morrow. Stay with us.\n     The ways are dangerous.\n  Osw. I may not, madam.\n     My lady charg'd my duty in this business.\n  Reg. Why should she write to Edmund? Might not you\n     Transport her purposes by word? Belike,\n     Something- I know not what- I'll love thee much-\n     Let me unseal the letter.\n  Osw. Madam, I had rather-\n  Reg. I know your lady does not love her husband;\n     I am sure of that; and at her late being here\n     She gave strange eliads and most speaking looks\n     To noble Edmund. I know you are of her bosom.\n  Osw. I, madam?\n  Reg. I speak in understanding. Y'are! I know't.\n     Therefore I do advise you take this note.\n     My lord is dead; Edmund and I have talk'd,\n     And more convenient is he for my hand\n     Than for your lady's. You may gather more.\n     If you do find him, pray you give him this;\n     And when your mistress hears thus much from you,\n     I pray desire her call her wisdom to her.\n     So farewell.\n     If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor,\n     Preferment falls on him that cuts him off.\n  Osw. Would I could meet him, madam! I should show\n     What party I do follow.\n  Reg. Fare thee well.                                   Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene VI.\nThe country near Dover.\n\nEnter Gloucester, and Edgar [like a Peasant].\n\n  Glou. When shall I come to th' top of that same hill?\n  Edg. You do climb up it now. Look how we labour.\n  Glou. Methinks the ground is even.\n  Edg. Horrible steep.\n     Hark, do you hear the sea?\n  Glou. No, truly.\n  Edg. Why, then, your other senses grow imperfect\n     By your eyes' anguish.\n  Glou. So may it be indeed.\n     Methinks thy voice is alter'd, and thou speak'st\n     In better phrase and matter than thou didst.\n  Edg. Y'are much deceiv'd. In nothing am I chang'd\n     But in my garments.\n  Glou. Methinks y'are better spoken.\n  Edg. Come on, sir; here's the place. Stand still. How fearful\n     And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!\n     The crows and choughs that wing the midway air\n     Show scarce so gross as beetles. Halfway down\n     Hangs one that gathers sampire- dreadful trade!\n     Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.\n     The fishermen that walk upon the beach\n     Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark,\n     Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy\n     Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge\n     That on th' unnumb'red idle pebble chafes\n     Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more,\n     Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight\n     Topple down headlong.\n  Glou. Set me where you stand.\n  Edg. Give me your hand. You are now within a foot\n     Of th' extreme verge. For all beneath the moon\n     Would I not leap upright.\n  Glou. Let go my hand.\n     Here, friend, is another purse; in it a jewel\n     Well worth a poor man's taking. Fairies and gods\n     Prosper it with thee! Go thou further off;\n     Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.\n  Edg. Now fare ye well, good sir.\n  Glou. With all my heart.\n  Edg. [aside]. Why I do trifle thus with his despair\n     Is done to cure it.\n  Glou. O you mighty gods!                            He kneels.\n     This world I do renounce, and, in your sights,\n     Shake patiently my great affliction off.\n     If I could bear it longer and not fall\n     To quarrel with your great opposeless wills,\n     My snuff and loathed part of nature should\n     Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O, bless him!\n     Now, fellow, fare thee well.\n                                  He falls [forward and swoons].\n  Edg. Gone, sir, farewell.-\n     And yet I know not how conceit may rob\n     The treasury of life when life itself\n     Yields to the theft. Had he been where he thought,\n     By this had thought been past.- Alive or dead?\n     Ho you, sir! friend! Hear you, sir? Speak!-\n     Thus might he pass indeed. Yet he revives.\n     What are you, sir?\n  Glou. Away, and let me die.\n  Edg. Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,\n     So many fadom down precipitating,\n     Thou'dst shiver'd like an egg; but thou dost breathe;\n     Hast heavy substance; bleed'st not; speak'st; art sound.\n     Ten masts at each make not the altitude\n     Which thou hast perpendicularly fell.\n     Thy life is a miracle. Speak yet again.\n  Glou. But have I fall'n, or no?\n  Edg. From the dread summit of this chalky bourn.\n     Look up a-height. The shrill-gorg'd lark so far\n     Cannot be seen or heard. Do but look up.\n  Glou. Alack, I have no eyes!\n     Is wretchedness depriv'd that benefit\n     To end itself by death? 'Twas yet some comfort\n     When misery could beguile the tyrant's rage\n     And frustrate his proud will.\n  Edg. Give me your arm.\n     Up- so. How is't? Feel you your legs? You stand.\n  Glou. Too well, too well.\n  Edg. This is above all strangeness.\n     Upon the crown o' th' cliff what thing was that\n     Which parted from you?\n  Glou. A poor unfortunate beggar.\n  Edg. As I stood here below, methought his eyes\n     Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses,\n     Horns whelk'd and wav'd like the enridged sea.\n     It was some fiend. Therefore, thou happy father,\n     Think that the clearest gods, who make them honours\n     Of men's impossibility, have preserv'd thee.\n  Glou. I do remember now. Henceforth I'll bear\n     Affliction till it do cry out itself\n     'Enough, enough,' and die. That thing you speak of,\n     I took it for a man. Often 'twould say\n     'The fiend, the fiend'- he led me to that place.\n  Edg. Bear free and patient thoughts.\n\n         Enter Lear, mad, [fantastically dressed with weeds].\n\n     But who comes here?\n     The safer sense will ne'er accommodate\n     His master thus.\n  Lear. No, they cannot touch me for coming;\n     I am the King himself.\n  Edg. O thou side-piercing sight!\n  Lear. Nature 's above art in that respect. There's your press\n     money. That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper. Draw me\n     a clothier's yard. Look, look, a mouse! Peace, peace; this piece\n     of toasted cheese will do't. There's my gauntlet; I'll prove it\n     on a giant. Bring up the brown bills. O, well flown, bird! i'\n     th' clout, i' th' clout! Hewgh! Give the word.\n  Edg. Sweet marjoram.\n  Lear. Pass.\n  Glou. I know that voice.\n  Lear. Ha! Goneril with a white beard? They flatter'd me like a dog,\n     and told me I had white hairs in my beard ere the black ones\n     were there. To say 'ay' and 'no' to everything I said! 'Ay' and\n     'no' too was no good divinity. When the rain came to wet me\n     once, and the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would\n     not peace at my bidding; there I found 'em, there I smelt 'em\n     out. Go to, they are not men o' their words! They told me I was\n     everything. 'Tis a lie- I am not ague-proof.\n  Glou. The trick of that voice I do well remember.\n     Is't not the King?\n  Lear. Ay, every inch a king!\n     When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.\n     I pardon that man's life. What was thy cause?\n     Adultery?\n     Thou shalt not die. Die for adultery? No.\n     The wren goes to't, and the small gilded fly\n     Does lecher in my sight.\n     Let copulation thrive; for Gloucester's bastard son\n     Was kinder to his father than my daughters\n     Got 'tween the lawful sheets.\n     To't, luxury, pell-mell! for I lack soldiers.\n     Behold yond simp'ring dame,\n     Whose face between her forks presageth snow,\n     That minces virtue, and does shake the head\n     To hear of pleasure's name.\n     The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to't\n     With a more riotous appetite.\n     Down from the waist they are Centaurs,\n     Though women all above.\n     But to the girdle do the gods inherit,\n     Beneath is all the fiend's.\n     There's hell, there's darkness, there's the sulphurous pit;\n     burning, scalding, stench, consumption. Fie, fie, fie! pah, pah!\n     Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my\n     imagination. There's money for thee.\n  Glou. O, let me kiss that hand!\n  Lear. Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality.\n  Glou. O ruin'd piece of nature! This great world\n     Shall so wear out to naught. Dost thou know me?\n  Lear. I remember thine eyes well enough. Dost thou squiny at me?\n     No, do thy worst, blind Cupid! I'll not love. Read thou this\n     challenge; mark but the penning of it.\n  Glou. Were all the letters suns, I could not see one.\n  Edg. [aside] I would not take this from report. It is,\n     And my heart breaks at it.\n  Lear. Read.\n  Glou. What, with the case of eyes?\n  Lear. O, ho, are you there with me? No eyes in your head, nor no\n     money in your purse? Your eyes are in a heavy case, your purse\n     in a light. Yet you see how this world goes.\n  Glou. I see it feelingly.\n  Lear. What, art mad? A man may see how the world goes with no eyes.\n     Look with thine ears. See how yond justice rails upon yond\n     simple thief. Hark in thine ear. Change places and, handy-dandy,\n     which is the justice, which is the thief? Thou hast seen a\n     farmer's dog bark at a beggar?\n  Glou. Ay, sir.\n  Lear. And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold\n     the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office.\n     Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!\n     Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back.\n     Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind\n     For which thou whip'st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.\n     Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;\n     Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,\n     And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;\n     Arm it in rags, a pygmy's straw does pierce it.\n     None does offend, none- I say none! I'll able 'em.\n     Take that of me, my friend, who have the power\n     To seal th' accuser's lips. Get thee glass eyes\n     And, like a scurvy politician, seem\n     To see the things thou dost not. Now, now, now, now!\n     Pull off my boots. Harder, harder! So.\n  Edg. O, matter and impertinency mix'd!\n     Reason, in madness!\n  Lear. If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes.\n     I know thee well enough; thy name is Gloucester.\n     Thou must be patient. We came crying hither;\n     Thou know'st, the first time that we smell the air\n     We wawl and cry. I will preach to thee. Mark.\n  Glou. Alack, alack the day!\n  Lear. When we are born, we cry that we are come\n     To this great stage of fools. This' a good block.\n     It were a delicate stratagem to shoe\n     A troop of horse with felt. I'll put't in proof,\n     And when I have stol'n upon these sons-in-law,\n     Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!\n\n                 Enter a Gentleman [with Attendants].\n\n  Gent. O, here he is! Lay hand upon him.- Sir,\n     Your most dear daughter-\n  Lear. No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am even\n     The natural fool of fortune. Use me well;\n     You shall have ransom. Let me have a surgeon;\n     I am cut to th' brains.\n  Gent. You shall have anything.\n  Lear. No seconds? All myself?\n     Why, this would make a man a man of salt,\n     To use his eyes for garden waterpots,\n     Ay, and laying autumn's dust.\n  Gent. Good sir-\n  Lear. I will die bravely, like a smug bridegroom. What!\n     I will be jovial. Come, come, I am a king;\n     My masters, know you that?\n  Gent. You are a royal one, and we obey you.\n  Lear. Then there's life in't. Nay, an you get it, you shall get it\n     by running. Sa, sa, sa, sa!\n                              Exit running. [Attendants follow.]\n  Gent. A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch,\n     Past speaking of in a king! Thou hast one daughter\n     Who redeems nature from the general curse\n     Which twain have brought her to.\n  Edg. Hail, gentle sir.\n  Gent. Sir, speed you. What's your will?\n  Edg. Do you hear aught, sir, of a battle toward?\n  Gent. Most sure and vulgar. Every one hears that\n     Which can distinguish sound.\n  Edg. But, by your favour,\n     How near's the other army?\n  Gent. Near and on speedy foot. The main descry\n     Stands on the hourly thought.\n  Edg. I thank you sir. That's all.\n  Gent. Though that the Queen on special cause is here,\n     Her army is mov'd on.\n  Edg. I thank you, sir\n                                               Exit [Gentleman].\n  Glou. You ever-gentle gods, take my breath from me;\n     Let not my worser spirit tempt me again\n     To die before you please!\n  Edg. Well pray you, father.\n  Glou. Now, good sir, what are you?\n  Edg. A most poor man, made tame to fortune's blows,\n     Who, by the art of known and feeling sorrows,\n     Am pregnant to good pity. Give me your hand;\n     I'll lead you to some biding.\n  Glou. Hearty thanks.\n     The bounty and the benison of heaven\n     To boot, and boot!\n\n                     Enter [Oswald the] Steward.\n\n  Osw. A proclaim'd prize! Most happy!\n     That eyeless head of thine was first fram'd flesh\n     To raise my fortunes. Thou old unhappy traitor,\n     Briefly thyself remember. The sword is out\n     That must destroy thee.\n  Glou. Now let thy friendly hand\n     Put strength enough to't.\n                                             [Edgar interposes.]\n  Osw. Wherefore, bold peasant,\n     Dar'st thou support a publish'd traitor? Hence!\n     Lest that th' infection of his fortune take\n     Like hold on thee. Let go his arm.\n  Edg. Chill not let go, zir, without vurther 'cagion.\n  Osw. Let go, slave, or thou diest!\n  Edg. Good gentleman, go your gait, and let poor voke pass. An chud\n     ha' bin zwagger'd out of my life, 'twould not ha' bin zo long as\n     'tis by a vortnight. Nay, come not near th' old man. Keep out,\n     che vore ye, or Ise try whether your costard or my ballow be the\n     harder. Chill be plain with you.\n  Osw. Out, dunghill!\n                                                     They fight.\n  Edg. Chill pick your teeth, zir. Come! No matter vor your foins.\n                                                 [Oswald falls.]\n  Osw. Slave, thou hast slain me. Villain, take my purse.\n     If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body,\n     And give the letters which thou find'st about me\n     To Edmund Earl of Gloucester. Seek him out\n     Upon the British party. O, untimely death! Death!\n                                                        He dies.\n  Edg. I know thee well. A serviceable villain,\n     As duteous to the vices of thy mistress\n     As badness would desire.\n  Glou. What, is he dead?\n  Edg. Sit you down, father; rest you.\n     Let's see his pockets; these letters that he speaks of\n     May be my friends. He's dead. I am only sorry\n     He had no other deathsman. Let us see.\n     Leave, gentle wax; and, manners, blame us not.\n     To know our enemies' minds, we'ld rip their hearts;\n     Their papers, is more lawful.             Reads the letter.\n\n       'Let our reciprocal vows be rememb'red. You have many\n     opportunities to cut him off. If your will want not, time and\n     place will be fruitfully offer'd. There is nothing done, if he\n     return the conqueror. Then am I the prisoner, and his bed my\n     jail; from the loathed warmth whereof deliver me, and supply the\n     place for your labour.\n           'Your (wife, so I would say) affectionate servant,\n                                                          'Goneril.'\n\n     O indistinguish'd space of woman's will!\n     A plot upon her virtuous husband's life,\n     And the exchange my brother! Here in the sands\n     Thee I'll rake up, the post unsanctified\n     Of murtherous lechers; and in the mature time\n     With this ungracious paper strike the sight\n     Of the death-practis'd Duke, For him 'tis well\n     That of thy death and business I can tell.\n  Glou. The King is mad. How stiff is my vile sense,\n     That I stand up, and have ingenious feeling\n     Of my huge sorrows! Better I were distract.\n     So should my thoughts be sever'd from my griefs,\n     And woes by wrong imaginations lose\n     The knowledge of themselves.\n                                                A drum afar off.\n  Edg. Give me your hand.\n     Far off methinks I hear the beaten drum.\n     Come, father, I'll bestow you with a friend.        Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene VII.\nA tent in the French camp.\n\nEnter Cordelia, Kent, Doctor, and Gentleman.\n\n  Cor. O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work\n     To match thy goodness? My life will be too short\n     And every measure fail me.\n  Kent. To be acknowledg'd, madam, is o'erpaid.\n     All my reports go with the modest truth;\n     Nor more nor clipp'd, but so.\n  Cor. Be better suited.\n     These weeds are memories of those worser hours.\n     I prithee put them off.\n  Kent. Pardon, dear madam.\n     Yet to be known shortens my made intent.\n     My boon I make it that you know me not\n     Till time and I think meet.\n  Cor. Then be't so, my good lord. [To the Doctor] How, does the King?\n  Doct. Madam, sleeps still.\n  Cor. O you kind gods,\n     Cure this great breach in his abused nature!\n     Th' untun'd and jarring senses, O, wind up\n     Of this child-changed father!\n  Doct. So please your Majesty\n     That we may wake the King? He hath slept long.\n  Cor. Be govern'd by your knowledge, and proceed\n     I' th' sway of your own will. Is he array'd?\n\n              Enter Lear in a chair carried by Servants.\n\n  Gent. Ay, madam. In the heaviness of sleep\n     We put fresh garments on him.\n  Doct. Be by, good madam, when we do awake him.\n     I doubt not of his temperance.\n  Cor. Very well.\n                                                          Music.\n  Doct. Please you draw near. Louder the music there!\n  Cor. O my dear father, restoration hang\n     Thy medicine on my lips, and let this kiss\n     Repair those violent harms that my two sisters\n     Have in thy reverence made!\n  Kent. Kind and dear princess!\n  Cor. Had you not been their father, these white flakes\n     Had challeng'd pity of them. Was this a face\n     To be oppos'd against the warring winds?\n     To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder?\n     In the most terrible and nimble stroke\n     Of quick cross lightning? to watch- poor perdu!-\n     With this thin helm? Mine enemy's dog,\n     Though he had bit me, should have stood that night\n     Against my fire; and wast thou fain, poor father,\n     To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn,\n     In short and musty straw? Alack, alack!\n     'Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once\n     Had not concluded all.- He wakes. Speak to him.\n  Doct. Madam, do you; 'tis fittest.\n  Cor. How does my royal lord? How fares your Majesty?\n  Lear. You do me wrong to take me out o' th' grave.\n     Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound\n     Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears\n     Do scald like molten lead.\n  Cor. Sir, do you know me?\n  Lear. You are a spirit, I know. When did you die?\n  Cor. Still, still, far wide!\n  Doct. He's scarce awake. Let him alone awhile.\n  Lear. Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight,\n     I am mightily abus'd. I should e'en die with pity,\n     To see another thus. I know not what to say.\n     I will not swear these are my hands. Let's see.\n     I feel this pin prick. Would I were assur'd\n     Of my condition!\n  Cor. O, look upon me, sir,\n     And hold your hands in benediction o'er me.\n     No, sir, you must not kneel.\n  Lear. Pray, do not mock me.\n     I am a very foolish fond old man,\n     Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;\n     And, to deal plainly,\n     I fear I am not in my perfect mind.\n     Methinks I should know you, and know this man;\n     Yet I am doubtful; for I am mainly ignorant\n     What place this is; and all the skill I have\n     Remembers not these garments; nor I know not\n     Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me;\n     For (as I am a man) I think this lady\n     To be my child Cordelia.\n  Cor. And so I am! I am!\n  Lear. Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray weep not.\n     If you have poison for me, I will drink it.\n     I know you do not love me; for your sisters\n     Have, as I do remember, done me wrong.\n     You have some cause, they have not.\n  Cor. No cause, no cause.\n  Lear. Am I in France?\n  Kent. In your own kingdom, sir.\n  Lear. Do not abuse me.\n  Doct. Be comforted, good madam. The great rage\n     You see is kill'd in him; and yet it is danger\n     To make him even o'er the time he has lost.\n     Desire him to go in. Trouble him no more\n     Till further settling.\n  Cor. Will't please your Highness walk?\n  Lear. You must bear with me.\n     Pray you now, forget and forgive. I am old and foolish.\n                              Exeunt. Manent Kent and Gentleman.\n  Gent. Holds it true, sir, that the Duke of Cornwall was so slain?\n  Kent. Most certain, sir.\n  Gent. Who is conductor of his people?\n  Kent. As 'tis said, the bastard son of Gloucester.\n  Gent. They say Edgar, his banish'd son, is with the Earl of Kent\n     in Germany.\n  Kent. Report is changeable. 'Tis time to look about; the powers of\n     the kingdom approach apace.\n  Gent. The arbitrement is like to be bloody.\n     Fare you well, sir.                                 [Exit.]\n  Kent. My point and period will be throughly wrought,\n     Or well or ill, as this day's battle's fought.        Exit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. Scene I.\nThe British camp near Dover.\n\nEnter, with Drum and Colours, Edmund, Regan, Gentleman, and Soldiers.\n\n  Edm. Know of the Duke if his last purpose hold,\n     Or whether since he is advis'd by aught\n     To change the course. He's full of alteration\n     And self-reproving. Bring his constant pleasure.\n                                              [Exit an Officer.]\n  Reg. Our sister's man is certainly miscarried.\n  Edm. Tis to be doubted, madam.\n  Reg. Now, sweet lord,\n     You know the goodness I intend upon you.\n     Tell me- but truly- but then speak the truth-\n     Do you not love my sister?\n  Edm. In honour'd love.\n  Reg. But have you never found my brother's way\n     To the forfended place?\n  Edm. That thought abuses you.\n  Reg. I am doubtful that you have been conjunct\n     And bosom'd with her, as far as we call hers.\n  Edm. No, by mine honour, madam.\n  Reg. I never shall endure her. Dear my lord,\n     Be not familiar with her.\n  Edm. Fear me not.\n     She and the Duke her husband!\n\n       Enter, with Drum and Colours, Albany, Goneril, Soldiers.\n\n  Gon. [aside] I had rather lose the battle than that sister\n     Should loosen him and me.\n  Alb. Our very loving sister, well bemet.\n     Sir, this I hear: the King is come to his daughter,\n     With others whom the rigour of our state\n     Forc'd to cry out. Where I could not be honest,\n     I never yet was valiant. For this business,\n     It toucheth us as France invades our land,\n     Not bolds the King, with others whom, I fear,\n     Most just and heavy causes make oppose.\n  Edm. Sir, you speak nobly.\n  Reg. Why is this reason'd?\n  Gon. Combine together 'gainst the enemy;\n     For these domestic and particular broils\n     Are not the question here.\n  Alb. Let's then determine\n     With th' ancient of war on our proceeding.\n  Edm. I shall attend you presently at your tent.\n  Reg. Sister, you'll go with us?\n  Gon. No.\n  Reg. 'Tis most convenient. Pray you go with us.\n  Gon. [aside] O, ho, I know the riddle.- I will go.\n\n          [As they are going out,] enter Edgar [disguised].\n\n  Edg. If e'er your Grace had speech with man so poor,\n     Hear me one word.\n  Alb. I'll overtake you.- Speak.\n                              Exeunt [all but Albany and Edgar].\n  Edg. Before you fight the battle, ope this letter.\n     If you have victory, let the trumpet sound\n     For him that brought it. Wretched though I seem,\n     I can produce a champion that will prove\n     What is avouched there. If you miscarry,\n     Your business of the world hath so an end,\n     And machination ceases. Fortune love you!\n  Alb. Stay till I have read the letter.\n  Edg. I was forbid it.\n     When time shall serve, let but the herald cry,\n     And I'll appear again.\n  Alb. Why, fare thee well. I will o'erlook thy paper.\n                                                   Exit [Edgar].\n\n                            Enter Edmund.\n\n  Edm. The enemy 's in view; draw up your powers.\n     Here is the guess of their true strength and forces\n     By diligent discovery; but your haste\n     Is now urg'd on you.\n  Alb. We will greet the time.                             Exit.\n  Edm. To both these sisters have I sworn my love;\n     Each jealous of the other, as the stung\n     Are of the adder. Which of them shall I take?\n     Both? one? or neither? Neither can be enjoy'd,\n     If both remain alive. To take the widow\n     Exasperates, makes mad her sister Goneril;\n     And hardly shall I carry out my side,\n     Her husband being alive. Now then, we'll use\n     His countenance for the battle, which being done,\n     Let her who would be rid of him devise\n     His speedy taking off. As for the mercy\n     Which he intends to Lear and to Cordelia-\n     The battle done, and they within our power,\n     Shall never see his pardon; for my state\n     Stands on me to defend, not to debate.                Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nA field between the two camps.\n\nAlarum within. Enter, with Drum and Colours, the Powers of France\nover the stage, Cordelia with her Father in her hand, and exeunt.\n\nEnter Edgar and Gloucester.\n\n  Edg. Here, father, take the shadow of this tree\n     For your good host. Pray that the right may thrive.\n     If ever I return to you again,\n     I'll bring you comfort.\n  Glou. Grace go with you, sir!\n                                                   Exit [Edgar].\n\n               Alarum and retreat within. Enter Edgar,\n\n  Edg. Away, old man! give me thy hand! away!\n     King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta'en.\n     Give me thy hand! come on!\n  Glou. No further, sir. A man may rot even here.\n  Edg. What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure\n     Their going hence, even as their coming hither;\n     Ripeness is all. Come on.\n  Glou. And that's true too.                             Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nThe British camp, near Dover.\n\nEnter, in conquest, with Drum and Colours, Edmund; Lear and Cordelia\nas prisoners; Soldiers, Captain.\n\n  Edm. Some officers take them away. Good guard\n     Until their greater pleasures first be known\n     That are to censure them.\n  Cor. We are not the first\n     Who with best meaning have incurr'd the worst.\n     For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down;\n     Myself could else outfrown false Fortune's frown.\n     Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?\n  Lear. No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison.\n     We two alone will sing like birds i' th' cage.\n     When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down\n     And ask of thee forgiveness. So we'll live,\n     And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh\n     At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues\n     Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too-\n     Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out-\n     And take upon 's the mystery of things,\n     As if we were God's spies; and we'll wear out,\n     In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones\n     That ebb and flow by th' moon.\n  Edm. Take them away.\n  Lear. Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,\n     The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee?\n     He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven\n     And fire us hence like foxes. Wipe thine eyes.\n     The goodyears shall devour 'em, flesh and fell,\n     Ere they shall make us weep! We'll see 'em starv'd first.\n     Come.                  Exeunt [Lear and Cordelia, guarded].\n  Edm. Come hither, Captain; hark.\n     Take thou this note [gives a paper]. Go follow them to prison.\n     One step I have advanc'd thee. If thou dost\n     As this instructs thee, thou dost make thy way\n     To noble fortunes. Know thou this, that men\n     Are as the time is. To be tender-minded\n     Does not become a sword. Thy great employment\n     Will not bear question. Either say thou'lt do't,\n     Or thrive by other means.\n  Capt. I'll do't, my lord.\n  Edm. About it! and write happy when th' hast done.\n     Mark- I say, instantly; and carry it so\n     As I have set it down.\n  Capt. I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats;\n     If it be man's work, I'll do't.                       Exit.\n\n          Flourish. Enter Albany, Goneril, Regan, Soldiers.\n\n  Alb. Sir, you have show'd to-day your valiant strain,\n     And fortune led you well. You have the captives\n     Who were the opposites of this day's strife.\n     We do require them of you, so to use them\n     As we shall find their merits and our safety\n     May equally determine.\n  Edm. Sir, I thought it fit\n     To send the old and miserable King\n     To some retention and appointed guard;\n     Whose age has charms in it, whose title more,\n     To pluck the common bosom on his side\n     And turn our impress'd lances in our eyes\n     Which do command them. With him I sent the Queen,\n     My reason all the same; and they are ready\n     To-morrow, or at further space, t' appear\n     Where you shall hold your session. At this time\n     We sweat and bleed: the friend hath lost his friend;\n     And the best quarrels, in the heat, are curs'd\n     By those that feel their sharpness.\n     The question of Cordelia and her father\n     Requires a fitter place.\n  Alb. Sir, by your patience,\n     I hold you but a subject of this war,\n     Not as a brother.\n  Reg. That's as we list to grace him.\n     Methinks our pleasure might have been demanded\n     Ere you had spoke so far. He led our powers,\n     Bore the commission of my place and person,\n     The which immediacy may well stand up\n     And call itself your brother.\n  Gon. Not so hot!\n     In his own grace he doth exalt himself\n     More than in your addition.\n  Reg. In my rights\n     By me invested, he compeers the best.\n  Gon. That were the most if he should husband you.\n  Reg. Jesters do oft prove prophets.\n  Gon. Holla, holla!\n     That eye that told you so look'd but asquint.\n  Reg. Lady, I am not well; else I should answer\n     From a full-flowing stomach. General,\n     Take thou my soldiers, prisoners, patrimony;\n     Dispose of them, of me; the walls are thine.\n     Witness the world that I create thee here\n     My lord and master.\n  Gon. Mean you to enjoy him?\n  Alb. The let-alone lies not in your good will.\n  Edm. Nor in thine, lord.\n  Alb. Half-blooded fellow, yes.\n  Reg. [to Edmund] Let the drum strike, and prove my title thine.\n  Alb. Stay yet; hear reason. Edmund, I arrest thee\n     On capital treason; and, in thine attaint,\n     This gilded serpent [points to Goneril]. For your claim, fair\n        sister,\n     I bar it in the interest of my wife.\n     'Tis she is subcontracted to this lord,\n     And I, her husband, contradict your banes.\n     If you will marry, make your loves to me;\n     My lady is bespoke.\n  Gon. An interlude!\n  Alb. Thou art arm'd, Gloucester. Let the trumpet sound.\n     If none appear to prove upon thy person\n     Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,\n     There is my pledge [throws down a glove]! I'll prove it on thy\n        heart,\n     Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less\n     Than I have here proclaim'd thee.\n  Reg. Sick, O, sick!\n  Gon. [aside] If not, I'll ne'er trust medicine.\n  Edm. There's my exchange [throws down a glove]. What in the world\n        he is\n     That names me traitor, villain-like he lies.\n     Call by thy trumpet. He that dares approach,\n     On him, on you, who not? I will maintain\n     My truth and honour firmly.\n  Alb. A herald, ho!\n  Edm. A herald, ho, a herald!\n  Alb. Trust to thy single virtue; for thy soldiers,\n     All levied in my name, have in my name\n     Took their discharge.\n  Reg. My sickness grows upon me.\n  Alb. She is not well. Convey her to my tent.\n                                              [Exit Regan, led.]\n\n                           Enter a Herald.\n\n     Come hither, herald. Let the trumpet sound,\n     And read out this.\n  Capt. Sound, trumpet!                        A trumpet sounds.\n\n  Her. (reads) 'If any man of quality or degree within the lists of\n     the army will maintain upon Edmund, supposed Earl of Gloucester,\n     that he is a manifold traitor, let him appear by the third sound\n     of the trumpet. He is bold in his defence.'\n\n  Edm. Sound!                                     First trumpet.\n  Her. Again!                                    Second trumpet.\n  Her. Again!                                     Third trumpet.\n                                         Trumpet answers within.\n\n    Enter Edgar, armed, at the third sound, a Trumpet before him.\n\n  Alb. Ask him his purposes, why he appears\n     Upon this call o' th' trumpet.\n  Her. What are you?\n     Your name, your quality? and why you answer\n     This present summons?\n  Edg. Know my name is lost;\n     By treason's tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit.\n     Yet am I noble as the adversary\n     I come to cope.\n  Alb. Which is that adversary?\n  Edg. What's he that speaks for Edmund Earl of Gloucester?\n  Edm. Himself. What say'st thou to him?\n  Edg. Draw thy sword,\n     That, if my speech offend a noble heart,\n     Thy arm may do thee justice. Here is mine.\n     Behold, it is the privilege of mine honours,\n     My oath, and my profession. I protest-\n     Maugre thy strength, youth, place, and eminence,\n     Despite thy victor sword and fire-new fortune,\n     Thy valour and thy heart- thou art a traitor;\n     False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father;\n     Conspirant 'gainst this high illustrious prince;\n     And from th' extremest upward of thy head\n     To the descent and dust beneath thy foot,\n     A most toad-spotted traitor. Say thou 'no,'\n     This sword, this arm, and my best spirits are bent\n     To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak,\n     Thou liest.\n  Edm. In wisdom I should ask thy name;\n     But since thy outside looks so fair and warlike,\n     And that thy tongue some say of breeding breathes,\n     What safe and nicely I might well delay\n     By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn.\n     Back do I toss those treasons to thy head;\n     With the hell-hated lie o'erwhelm thy heart;\n     Which- for they yet glance by and scarcely bruise-\n     This sword of mine shall give them instant way\n     Where they shall rest for ever. Trumpets, speak!\n                                 Alarums. Fight. [Edmund falls.]\n  Alb. Save him, save him!\n  Gon. This is mere practice, Gloucester.\n     By th' law of arms thou wast not bound to answer\n     An unknown opposite. Thou art not vanquish'd,\n     But cozen'd and beguil'd.\n  Alb. Shut your mouth, dame,\n     Or with this paper shall I stop it. [Shows her her letter to\n     Edmund.]- [To Edmund]. Hold, sir.\n     [To Goneril] Thou worse than any name, read thine own evil.\n     No tearing, lady! I perceive you know it.\n  Gon. Say if I do- the laws are mine, not thine.\n     Who can arraign me for't?\n  Alb. Most monstrous!\n     Know'st thou this paper?\n  Gon. Ask me not what I know.                             Exit.\n  Alb. Go after her. She's desperate; govern her.\n                                              [Exit an Officer.]\n  Edm. What, you have charg'd me with, that have I done,\n     And more, much more. The time will bring it out.\n     'Tis past, and so am I.- But what art thou\n     That hast this fortune on me? If thou'rt noble,\n     I do forgive thee.\n  Edg. Let's exchange charity.\n     I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund;\n     If more, the more th' hast wrong'd me.\n     My name is Edgar and thy father's son.\n     The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices\n     Make instruments to scourge us.\n     The dark and vicious place where thee he got\n     Cost him his eyes.\n  Edm. Th' hast spoken right; 'tis true.\n     The wheel is come full circle; I am here.\n  Alb. Methought thy very gait did prophesy\n     A royal nobleness. I must embrace thee.\n     Let sorrow split my heart if ever I\n     Did hate thee, or thy father!\n  Edg. Worthy prince, I know't.\n  Alb. Where have you hid yourself?\n     How have you known the miseries of your father?\n  Edg. By nursing them, my lord. List a brief tale;\n     And when 'tis told, O that my heart would burst!\n     The bloody proclamation to escape\n     That follow'd me so near (O, our lives' sweetness!\n     That with the pain of death would hourly die\n     Rather than die at once!) taught me to shift\n     Into a madman's rags, t' assume a semblance\n     That very dogs disdain'd; and in this habit\n     Met I my father with his bleeding rings,\n     Their precious stones new lost; became his guide,\n     Led him, begg'd for him, sav'd him from despair;\n     Never (O fault!) reveal'd myself unto him\n     Until some half hour past, when I was arm'd,\n     Not sure, though hoping of this good success,\n     I ask'd his blessing, and from first to last\n     Told him my pilgrimage. But his flaw'd heart\n     (Alack, too weak the conflict to support!)\n     'Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,\n     Burst smilingly.\n  Edm. This speech of yours hath mov'd me,\n     And shall perchance do good; but speak you on;\n     You look as you had something more to say.\n  Alb. If there be more, more woful, hold it in;\n     For I am almost ready to dissolve,\n     Hearing of this.\n  Edg. This would have seem'd a period\n     To such as love not sorrow; but another,\n     To amplify too much, would make much more,\n     And top extremity.\n     Whilst I was big in clamour, came there a man,\n     Who, having seen me in my worst estate,\n     Shunn'd my abhorr'd society; but then, finding\n     Who 'twas that so endur'd, with his strong arms\n     He fastened on my neck, and bellowed out\n     As he'd burst heaven; threw him on my father;\n     Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him\n     That ever ear receiv'd; which in recounting\n     His grief grew puissant, and the strings of life\n     Began to crack. Twice then the trumpets sounded,\n     And there I left him tranc'd.\n  Alb. But who was this?\n  Edg. Kent, sir, the banish'd Kent; who in disguise\n     Followed his enemy king and did him service\n     Improper for a slave.\n\n                Enter a Gentleman with a bloody knife.\n\n  Gent. Help, help! O, help!\n  Edg. What kind of help?\n  Alb. Speak, man.\n  Edg. What means that bloody knife?\n  Gent. 'Tis hot, it smokes.\n     It came even from the heart of- O! she's dead!\n  Alb. Who dead? Speak, man.\n  Gent. Your lady, sir, your lady! and her sister\n     By her is poisoned; she hath confess'd it.\n  Edm. I was contracted to them both. All three\n     Now marry in an instant.\n\n                             Enter Kent.\n\n  Edg. Here comes Kent.\n  Alb. Produce their bodies, be they alive or dead.\n                                               [Exit Gentleman.]\n     This judgement of the heavens, that makes us tremble\n     Touches us not with pity. O, is this he?\n     The time will not allow the compliment\n     That very manners urges.\n  Kent. I am come\n     To bid my king and master aye good night.\n     Is he not here?\n  Alb. Great thing of us forgot!\n     Speak, Edmund, where's the King? and where's Cordelia?\n                 The bodies of Goneril and Regan are brought in.\n     Seest thou this object, Kent?\n  Kent. Alack, why thus?\n  Edm. Yet Edmund was belov'd.\n     The one the other poisoned for my sake,\n     And after slew herself.\n  Alb. Even so. Cover their faces.\n  Edm. I pant for life. Some good I mean to do,\n     Despite of mine own nature. Quickly send\n     (Be brief in't) to the castle; for my writ\n     Is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia.\n     Nay, send in time.\n  Alb. Run, run, O, run!\n  Edg. To who, my lord? Who has the office? Send\n     Thy token of reprieve.\n  Edm. Well thought on. Take my sword;\n     Give it the Captain.\n  Alb. Haste thee for thy life.                    [Exit Edgar.]\n  Edm. He hath commission from thy wife and me\n     To hang Cordelia in the prison and\n     To lay the blame upon her own despair\n     That she fordid herself.\n  Alb. The gods defend her! Bear him hence awhile.\n                                          [Edmund is borne off.]\n\n    Enter Lear, with Cordelia [dead] in his arms, [Edgar, Captain,\n                        and others following].\n\n  Lear. Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stone.\n     Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so\n     That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone for ever!\n     I know when one is dead, and when one lives.\n     She's dead as earth. Lend me a looking glass.\n     If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,\n     Why, then she lives.\n  Kent. Is this the promis'd end?\n  Edg. Or image of that horror?\n  Alb. Fall and cease!\n  Lear. This feather stirs; she lives! If it be so,\n     It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows\n     That ever I have felt.\n  Kent. O my good master!\n  Lear. Prithee away!\n  Edg. 'Tis noble Kent, your friend.\n  Lear. A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!\n     I might have sav'd her; now she's gone for ever!\n     Cordelia, Cordelia! stay a little. Ha!\n     What is't thou say'st, Her voice was ever soft,\n     Gentle, and low- an excellent thing in woman.\n     I kill'd the slave that was a-hanging thee.\n  Capt. 'Tis true, my lords, he did.\n  Lear. Did I not, fellow?\n     I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion\n     I would have made them skip. I am old now,\n     And these same crosses spoil me. Who are you?\n     Mine eyes are not o' th' best. I'll tell you straight.\n  Kent. If fortune brag of two she lov'd and hated,\n     One of them we behold.\n  Lear. This' a dull sight. Are you not Kent?\n  Kent. The same-\n     Your servant Kent. Where is your servant Caius?\n  Lear. He's a good fellow, I can tell you that.\n     He'll strike, and quickly too. He's dead and rotten.\n  Kent. No, my good lord; I am the very man-\n  Lear. I'll see that straight.\n  Kent. That from your first of difference and decay\n     Have followed your sad steps.\n  Lear. You're welcome hither.\n  Kent. Nor no man else! All's cheerless, dark, and deadly.\n     Your eldest daughters have fordone themselves,\n     And desperately are dead.\n  Lear. Ay, so I think.\n  Alb. He knows not what he says; and vain is it\n     That we present us to him.\n  Edg. Very bootless.\n\n                           Enter a Captain.\n\n  Capt. Edmund is dead, my lord.\n  Alb. That's but a trifle here.\n     You lords and noble friends, know our intent.\n     What comfort to this great decay may come\n     Shall be applied. For us, we will resign,\n     During the life of this old Majesty,\n     To him our absolute power; [to Edgar and Kent] you to your\n        rights;\n     With boot, and Such addition as your honours\n     Have more than merited.- All friends shall taste\n     The wages of their virtue, and all foes\n     The cup of their deservings.- O, see, see!\n  Lear. And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life!\n     Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,\n     And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,\n     Never, never, never, never, never!\n     Pray you undo this button. Thank you, sir.\n     Do you see this? Look on her! look! her lips!\n     Look there, look there!                            He dies.\n  Edg. He faints! My lord, my lord!\n  Kent. Break, heart; I prithee break!\n  Edg. Look up, my lord.\n  Kent. Vex not his ghost. O, let him pass! He hates him\n     That would upon the rack of this tough world\n     Stretch him out longer.\n  Edg. He is gone indeed.\n  Kent. The wonder is, he hath endur'd so long.\n     He but usurp'd his life.\n  Alb. Bear them from hence. Our present business\n     Is general woe. [To Kent and Edgar] Friends of my soul, you\n        twain\n     Rule in this realm, and the gor'd state sustain.\n  Kent. I have a journey, sir, shortly to go.\n     My master calls me; I must not say no.\n  Alb. The weight of this sad time we must obey,\n     Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.\n     The oldest have borne most; we that are young\n     Shall never see so much, nor live so long.\n                                       Exeunt with a dead march.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1595\n\nLOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae.\n\n  FERDINAND, King of Navarre\n  BEROWNE,    lord attending on the King\n  LONGAVILLE,  \"      \"      \"   \"   \"\n  DUMAIN,      \"      \"      \"   \"   \"\n  BOYET,   lord attending on the Princess of France\n  MARCADE,   \"     \"       \"  \"     \"      \"    \"\n  DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, fantastical Spaniard\n  SIR NATHANIEL, a curate\n  HOLOFERNES, a schoolmaster\n  DULL, a constable\n  COSTARD, a clown\n  MOTH, page to Armado\n  A FORESTER\n\n  THE PRINCESS OF FRANCE\n  ROSALINE, lady attending on the Princess\n  MARIA,      \"     \"       \"  \"     \"\n  KATHARINE, lady attending on the Princess\n  JAQUENETTA, a country wench\n\n  Lords, Attendants, etc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nNavarre\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nNavarre. The King's park\n\nEnter the King, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN\n\n  KING. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,\n    Live regist'red upon our brazen tombs,\n    And then grace us in the disgrace of death;\n    When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,\n    Th' endeavour of this present breath may buy\n    That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge,\n    And make us heirs of all eternity.\n    Therefore, brave conquerors- for so you are\n    That war against your own affections\n    And the huge army of the world's desires-\n    Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:\n    Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;\n    Our court shall be a little Academe,\n    Still and contemplative in living art.\n    You three, Berowne, Dumain, and Longaville,\n    Have sworn for three years' term to live with me\n    My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes\n    That are recorded in this schedule here.\n    Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,\n    That his own hand may strike his honour down\n    That violates the smallest branch herein.\n    If you are arm'd to do as sworn to do,\n    Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.\n  LONGAVILLE. I am resolv'd; 'tis but a three years' fast.\n    The mind shall banquet, though the body pine.\n    Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits\n    Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.\n  DUMAIN. My loving lord, Dumain is mortified.\n    The grosser manner of these world's delights\n    He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves;\n    To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die,\n    With all these living in philosophy.\n  BEROWNE. I can but say their protestation over;\n    So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,\n    That is, to live and study here three years.\n    But there are other strict observances,\n    As: not to see a woman in that term,\n    Which I hope well is not enrolled there;\n    And one day in a week to touch no food,\n    And but one meal on every day beside,\n    The which I hope is not enrolled there;\n    And then to sleep but three hours in the night\n    And not be seen to wink of all the day-\n    When I was wont to think no harm all night,\n    And make a dark night too of half the day-\n    Which I hope well is not enrolled there.\n    O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,\n    Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep!\n  KING. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.\n  BEROWNE. Let me say no, my liege, an if you please:\n    I only swore to study with your Grace,\n    And stay here in your court for three years' space.\n  LONGAVILLE. You swore to that, Berowne, and to the rest.\n  BEROWNE. By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.\n    What is the end of study, let me know.\n  KING. Why, that to know which else we should not know.\n  BEROWNE. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense?\n  KING. Ay, that is study's god-like recompense.\n  BEROWNE. Come on, then; I will swear to study so,\n    To know the thing I am forbid to know,\n    As thus: to study where I well may dine,\n    When I to feast expressly am forbid;\n    Or study where to meet some mistress fine,\n    When mistresses from common sense are hid;\n    Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,\n    Study to break it, and not break my troth.\n    If study's gain be thus, and this be so,\n    Study knows that which yet it doth not know.\n    Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no.\n  KING. These be the stops that hinder study quite,\n    And train our intellects to vain delight.\n  BEROWNE. Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain\n    Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain,\n    As painfully to pore upon a book\n    To seek the light of truth; while truth the while\n    Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.\n    Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile;\n    So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,\n    Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.\n    Study me how to please the eye indeed,\n    By fixing it upon a fairer eye;\n    Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,\n    And give him light that it was blinded by.\n    Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,\n    That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks;\n    Small have continual plodders ever won,\n    Save base authority from others' books.\n    These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights\n    That give a name to every fixed star\n    Have no more profit of their shining nights\n    Than those that walk and wot not what they are.\n    Too much to know is to know nought but fame;\n    And every godfather can give a name.\n  KING. How well he's read, to reason against reading!\n  DUMAIN. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!\n  LONGAVILLE. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.\n  BEROWNE. The spring is near, when green geese are a-breeding.\n  DUMAIN. How follows that?\n  BEROWNE. Fit in his place and time.\n  DUMAIN. In reason nothing.\n  BEROWNE. Something then in rhyme.\n  LONGAVILLE. Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost\n    That bites the first-born infants of the spring.\n  BEROWNE. Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast\n    Before the birds have any cause to sing?\n    Why should I joy in any abortive birth?\n    At Christmas I no more desire a rose\n    Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows;\n    But like of each thing that in season grows;\n    So you, to study now it is too late,\n    Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.\n  KING. Well, sit out; go home, Berowne; adieu.\n  BEROWNE. No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you;\n    And though I have for barbarism spoke more\n    Than for that angel knowledge you can say,\n    Yet confident I'll keep what I have swore,\n    And bide the penance of each three years' day.\n    Give me the paper; let me read the same;\n    And to the strictest decrees I'll write my name.\n  KING. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!\n  BEROWNE. [Reads] 'Item. That no woman shall come within a mile of\n    my court'- Hath this been proclaimed?\n  LONGAVILLE. Four days ago.\n  BEROWNE. Let's see the penalty. [Reads] '-on pain of losing her\n    tongue.' Who devis'd this penalty?\n  LONGAVILLE. Marry, that did I.\n  BEROWNE. Sweet lord, and why?\n  LONGAVILLE. To fright them hence with that dread penalty.\n  BEROWNE. A dangerous law against gentility.\n    [Reads] 'Item. If any man be seen to talk with a woman within\n    the term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as the\n    rest of the court can possibly devise.'\n    This article, my liege, yourself must break;\n    For well you know here comes in embassy\n    The French king's daughter, with yourself to speak-\n    A mild of grace and complete majesty-\n    About surrender up of Aquitaine\n    To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father;\n    Therefore this article is made in vain,\n    Or vainly comes th' admired princess hither.\n  KING. What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.\n  BEROWNE. So study evermore is over-shot.\n    While it doth study to have what it would,\n    It doth forget to do the thing it should;\n    And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,\n    'Tis won as towns with fire- so won, so lost.\n  KING. We must of force dispense with this decree;\n    She must lie here on mere necessity.\n  BEROWNE. Necessity will make us all forsworn\n    Three thousand times within this three years' space;\n    For every man with his affects is born,\n    Not by might mast'red, but by special grace.\n    If I break faith, this word shall speak for me:\n    I am forsworn on mere necessity.\n    So to the laws at large I write my name;        [Subscribes]\n    And he that breaks them in the least degree\n    Stands in attainder of eternal shame.\n    Suggestions are to other as to me;\n    But I believe, although I seem so loath,\n    I am the last that will last keep his oath.\n    But is there no quick recreation granted?\n  KING. Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted\n    With a refined traveller of Spain,\n    A man in all the world's new fashion planted,\n    That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;\n    One who the music of his own vain tongue\n    Doth ravish like enchanting harmony;\n    A man of complements, whom right and wrong\n    Have chose as umpire of their mutiny.\n    This child of fancy, that Armado hight,\n    For interim to our studies shall relate,\n    In high-born words, the worth of many a knight\n    From tawny Spain lost in the world's debate.\n    How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;\n    But I protest I love to hear him lie,\n    And I will use him for my minstrelsy.\n  BEROWNE. Armado is a most illustrious wight,\n    A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight.\n  LONGAVILLE. Costard the swain and he shall be our sport;\n    And so to study three years is but short.\n\n      Enter DULL, a constable, with a letter, and COSTARD\n\n  DULL. Which is the Duke's own person?\n  BEROWNE. This, fellow. What wouldst?\n  DULL. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his Grace's\n    farborough; but I would see his own person in flesh and blood.\n  BEROWNE. This is he.\n  DULL. Signior Arme- Arme- commends you. There's villainy abroad;\n    this letter will tell you more.\n  COSTARD. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.\n  KING. A letter from the magnificent Armado.\n  BEROWNE. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.\n  LONGAVILLE. A high hope for a low heaven. God grant us patience!\n  BEROWNE. To hear, or forbear hearing?\n  LONGAVILLE. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or, to\n    forbear both.\n  BEROWNE. Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb\n    in the merriness.\n  COSTARD. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta.\n    The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.\n  BEROWNE. In what manner?\n  COSTARD. In manner and form following, sir; all those three: I was\n    seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with her upon the form,\n    and taken following her into the park; which, put together, is in\n    manner and form following. Now, sir, for the manner- it is the\n    manner of a man to speak to a woman. For the form- in some form.\n  BEROWNE. For the following, sir?\n  COSTARD. As it shall follow in my correction; and God defend the\n    right!\n  KING. Will you hear this letter with attention?\n  BEROWNE. As we would hear an oracle.\n  COSTARD. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.\n  KING. [Reads] 'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and sole\n    dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god and body's fost'ring\n    patron'-\n  COSTARD. Not a word of Costard yet.\n  KING. [Reads] 'So it is'-\n  COSTARD. It may be so; but if he say it is so, he is, in telling\n    true, but so.\n  KING. Peace!\n  COSTARD. Be to me, and every man that dares not fight!\n  KING. No words!\n  COSTARD. Of other men's secrets, I beseech you.\n  KING. [Reads] 'So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I\n    did commend the black oppressing humour to the most wholesome\n    physic of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook\n    myself to walk. The time When? About the sixth hour; when beasts\n    most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment\n    which is called supper. So much for the time When. Now for the\n    ground Which? which, I mean, I upon; it is ycleped thy park. Then\n    for the place Where? where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene\n    and most prepost'rous event that draweth from my snow-white pen\n    the ebon-coloured ink which here thou viewest, beholdest,\n    surveyest, or seest. But to the place Where? It standeth\n    north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy\n    curious-knotted garden. There did I see that low-spirited swain,\n    that base minnow of thy mirth,'\n  COSTARD. Me?\n  KING. 'that unlettered small-knowing soul,'\n  COSTARD. Me?\n  KING. 'that shallow vassal,'\n  COSTARD. Still me?\n  KING. 'which, as I remember, hight Costard,'\n  COSTARD. O, me!\n  KING. 'sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established proclaimed\n    edict and continent canon; which, with, O, with- but with this I\n    passion to say wherewith-'\n  COSTARD. With a wench.\n    King. 'with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy\n    more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I, as my ever-esteemed\n    duty pricks me on, have sent to thee, to receive the meed of\n    punishment, by thy sweet Grace's officer, Antony Dull, a man of\n    good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.'\n  DULL. Me, an't shall please you; I am Antony Dull.\n  KING. 'For Jaquenetta- so is the weaker vessel called, which I\n    apprehended with the aforesaid swain- I keep her as a vessel of\n    thy law's fury; and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice,\n    bring her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted and\n    heart-burning heat of duty,\n                                         DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.'\n\n  BEROWNE. This is not so well as I look'd for, but the best that\n    ever I heard.\n  KING. Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say you to\n    this?\n  COSTARD. Sir, I confess the wench.\n  KING. Did you hear the proclamation?\n  COSTARD. I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of the\n    marking of it.\n  KING. It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment to be taken with a\n    wench.\n  COSTARD. I was taken with none, sir; I was taken with a damsel.\n  KING. Well, it was proclaimed damsel.\n  COSTARD. This was no damsel neither, sir; she was a virgin.\n  KING. It is so varied too, for it was proclaimed virgin.\n  COSTARD. If it were, I deny her virginity; I was taken with a maid.\n  KING. This 'maid' not serve your turn, sir.\n  COSTARD. This maid will serve my turn, sir.\n  KING. Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast a week\n    with bran and water.\n  COSTARD. I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.\n  KING. And Don Armado shall be your keeper.\n    My Lord Berowne, see him delivered o'er;\n    And go we, lords, to put in practice that\n    Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.\n                             Exeunt KING, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN\n  BEROWNE. I'll lay my head to any good man's hat\n    These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.\n    Sirrah, come on.\n  COSTARD. I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is I was taken\n    with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl; and therefore\n    welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day smile\n    again; and till then, sit thee down, sorrow.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe park\n\nEnter ARMADO and MOTH, his page\n\n  ARMADO. Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit grows\n    melancholy?\n  MOTH. A great sign, sir, that he will look sad.\n  ARMADO. Why, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp.\n  MOTH. No, no; O Lord, sir, no!\n  ARMADO. How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender\n    juvenal?\n  MOTH. By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough signior.\n  ARMADO. Why tough signior? Why tough signior?\n  MOTH. Why tender juvenal? Why tender juvenal?\n  ARMADO. I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton\n    appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate tender.\n  MOTH. And I, tough signior, as an appertinent title to your old\n    time, which we may name tough.\n  ARMADO. Pretty and apt.\n  MOTH. How mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? or I apt, and\n    my saying pretty?\n  ARMADO. Thou pretty, because little.\n  MOTH. Little pretty, because little. Wherefore apt?\n  ARMADO. And therefore apt, because quick.\n  MOTH. Speak you this in my praise, master?\n  ARMADO. In thy condign praise.\n  MOTH. I will praise an eel with the same praise.\n  ARMADO. that an eel is ingenious?\n  MOTH. That an eel is quick.\n  ARMADO. I do say thou art quick in answers; thou heat'st my blood.\n  MOTH. I am answer'd, sir.\n  ARMADO. I love not to be cross'd.\n  MOTH. [Aside] He speaks the mere contrary: crosses love not him.\n  ARMADO. I have promised to study three years with the Duke.\n  MOTH. You may do it in an hour, sir.\n  ARMADO. Impossible.\n  MOTH. How many is one thrice told?\n  ARMADO. I am ill at reck'ning; it fitteth the spirit of a tapster.\n  MOTH. You are a gentleman and a gamester, sir.\n  ARMADO. I confess both; they are both the varnish of a complete\n    man.\n  MOTH. Then I am sure you know how much the gross sum of deuce-ace\n    amounts to.\n  ARMADO. It doth amount to one more than two.\n  MOTH. Which the base vulgar do call three.\n  ARMADO. True.\n  MOTH. Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here is three\n    studied ere ye'll thrice wink; and how easy it is to put 'years'\n    to the word 'three,' and study three years in two words, the\n    dancing horse will tell you.\n  ARMADO. A most fine figure!\n  MOTH. [Aside] To prove you a cipher.\n  ARMADO. I will hereupon confess I am in love. And as it is base for\n    a soldier to love, so am I in love with a base wench. If drawing\n    my sword against the humour of affection would deliver me from\n    the reprobate thought of it, I would take Desire prisoner, and\n    ransom him to any French courtier for a new-devis'd curtsy. I\n    think scorn to sigh; methinks I should out-swear Cupid. Comfort\n    me, boy; what great men have been in love?\n  MOTH. Hercules, master.\n  ARMADO. Most sweet Hercules! More authority, dear boy, name more;\n    and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage.\n  MOTH. Samson, master; he was a man of good carriage, great\n    carriage, for he carried the town gates on his back like a\n    porter; and he was in love.\n  ARMADO. O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do excel thee\n    in my rapier as much as thou didst me in carrying gates. I am in\n    love too. Who was Samson's love, my dear Moth?\n  MOTH. A woman, master.\n  ARMADO. Of what complexion?\n  MOTH. Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the\n    four.\n  ARMADO. Tell me precisely of what complexion.\n  MOTH. Of the sea-water green, sir.\n  ARMADO. Is that one of the four complexions?\n  MOTH. As I have read, sir; and the best of them too.\n  ARMADO. Green, indeed, is the colour of lovers; but to have a love\n    of that colour, methinks Samson had small reason for it. He\n    surely affected her for her wit.\n  MOTH. It was so, sir; for she had a green wit.\n  ARMADO. My love is most immaculate white and red.\n  MOTH. Most maculate thoughts, master, are mask'd under such\n    colours.\n  ARMADO. Define, define, well-educated infant.\n  MOTH. My father's wit my mother's tongue assist me!\n  ARMADO. Sweet invocation of a child; most pretty, and pathetical!\n  MOTH.      If she be made of white and red,\n               Her faults will ne'er be known;\n             For blushing cheeks by faults are bred,\n               And fears by pale white shown.\n             Then if she fear, or be to blame,\n               By this you shall not know;\n             For still her cheeks possess the same\n               Which native she doth owe.\n    A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of white and red.\n  ARMADO. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar?\n  MOTH. The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages\n    since; but I think now 'tis not to be found; or if it were, it\n    would neither serve for the writing nor the tune.\n  ARMADO. I will have that subject newly writ o'er, that I may\n    example my digression by some mighty precedent. Boy, I do love\n    that country girl that I took in the park with the rational hind\n    Costard; she deserves well.\n  MOTH. [Aside] To be whipt; and yet a better love than my master.\n  ARMADO. Sing, boy; my spirit grows heavy in love.\n  MOTH. And that's great marvel, loving a light wench.\n  ARMADO. I say, sing.\n  MOTH. Forbear till this company be past.\n\n                Enter DULL, COSTARD, and JAQUENETTA\n\n  DULL. Sir, the Duke's pleasure is that you keep Costard safe; and\n    you must suffer him to take no delight nor no penance; but 'a\n    must fast three days a week. For this damsel, I must keep her at\n    the park; she is allow'd for the day-woman. Fare you well.\n  ARMADO. I do betray myself with blushing. Maid!\n  JAQUENETTA. Man!\n  ARMADO. I will visit thee at the lodge.\n  JAQUENETTA. That's hereby.\n  ARMADO. I know where it is situate.\n  JAQUENETTA. Lord, how wise you are!\n  ARMADO. I will tell thee wonders.\n  JAQUENETTA. With that face?\n  ARMADO. I love thee.\n  JAQUENETTA. So I heard you say.\n  ARMADO. And so, farewell.\n  JAQUENETTA. Fair weather after you!\n  DULL. Come, Jaquenetta, away.             Exit with JAQUENETTA\n  ARMADO. Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences ere thou be\n    pardoned.\n  COSTARD. Well, sir, I hope when I do it I shall do it on a full\n    stomach.\n  ARMADO. Thou shalt be heavily punished.\n  COSTARD. I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they are but\n    lightly rewarded.\n  ARMADO. Take away this villain; shut him up.\n  MOTH. Come, you transgressing slave, away.\n  COSTARD. Let me not be pent up, sir; I will fast, being loose.\n  MOTH. No, sir; that were fast, and loose. Thou shalt to prison.\n  COSTARD. Well, if ever I do see the merry days of desolation that I\n    have seen, some shall see.\n  MOTH. What shall some see?\n  COSTARD. Nay, nothing, Master Moth, but what they look upon. It is\n    not for prisoners to be too silent in their words, and therefore\n    I will say nothing. I thank God I have as little patience as\n    another man, and therefore I can be quiet.\n                                         Exeunt MOTH and COSTARD\n  ARMADO. I do affect the very ground, which is base, where her shoe,\n    which is baser, guided by her foot, which is basest, doth tread.\n    I shall be forsworn- which is a great argument of falsehood- if I\n    love. And how can that be true love which is falsely attempted?\n    Love is a familiar; Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but\n    Love. Yet was Samson so tempted, and he had an excellent\n    strength; yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit.\n    Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club, and therefore\n    too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier. The first and second cause\n    will not serve my turn; the passado he respects not, the duello\n    he regards not; his disgrace is to be called boy, but his glory\n    is to subdue men. Adieu, valour; rust, rapier; be still, drum;\n    for your manager is in love; yea, he loveth. Assist me, some\n    extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet.\n    Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE II.\nThe park\n\nEnter the PRINCESS OF FRANCE, with three attending ladies,\nROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, and two other LORDS\n\n  BOYET. Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits.\n    Consider who the King your father sends,\n    To whom he sends, and what's his embassy:\n    Yourself, held precious in the world's esteem,\n    To parley with the sole inheritor\n    Of all perfections that a man may owe,\n    Matchless Navarre; the plea of no less weight\n    Than Aquitaine, a dowry for a queen.\n    Be now as prodigal of all dear grace\n    As Nature was in making graces dear,\n    When she did starve the general world beside\n    And prodigally gave them all to you.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,\n    Needs not the painted flourish of your praise.\n    Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,\n    Not utt'red by base sale of chapmen's tongues;\n    I am less proud to hear you tell my worth\n    Than you much willing to be counted wise\n    In spending your wit in the praise of mine.\n    But now to task the tasker: good Boyet,\n    You are not ignorant all-telling fame\n    Doth noise abroad Navarre hath made a vow,\n    Till painful study shall outwear three years,\n    No woman may approach his silent court.\n    Therefore to's seemeth it a needful course,\n    Before we enter his forbidden gates,\n    To know his pleasure; and in that behalf,\n    Bold of your worthiness, we single you\n    As our best-moving fair solicitor.\n    Tell him the daughter of the King of France,\n    On serious business, craving quick dispatch,\n    Importunes personal conference with his Grace.\n    Haste, signify so much; while we attend,\n    Like humble-visag'd suitors, his high will.\n  BOYET. Proud of employment, willingly I go.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. All pride is willing pride, and yours is so.\n                                                      Exit BOYET\n    Who are the votaries, my loving lords,\n    That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?\n  FIRST LORD. Lord Longaville is one.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Know you the man?\n  MARIA. I know him, madam; at a marriage feast,\n    Between Lord Perigort and the beauteous heir\n    Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnized\n    In Normandy, saw I this Longaville.\n    A man of sovereign parts, peerless esteem'd,\n    Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms;\n    Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.\n    The only soil of his fair virtue's gloss,\n    If virtue's gloss will stain with any soil,\n    Is a sharp wit match'd with too blunt a will,\n    Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills\n    It should none spare that come within his power.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Some merry mocking lord, belike; is't so?\n  MARIA. They say so most that most his humours know.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Such short-liv'd wits do wither as they grow.\n    Who are the rest?\n  KATHARINE. The young Dumain, a well-accomplish'd youth,\n    Of all that virtue love for virtue loved;\n    Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill,\n    For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,\n    And shape to win grace though he had no wit.\n    I saw him at the Duke Alencon's once;\n    And much too little of that good I saw\n    Is my report to his great worthiness.\n  ROSALINE. Another of these students at that time\n    Was there with him, if I have heard a truth.\n    Berowne they call him; but a merrier man,\n    Within the limit of becoming mirth,\n    I never spent an hour's talk withal.\n    His eye begets occasion for his wit,\n    For every object that the one doth catch\n    The other turns to a mirth-moving jest,\n    Which his fair tongue, conceit's expositor,\n    Delivers in such apt and gracious words\n    That aged ears play truant at his tales,\n    And younger hearings are quite ravished;\n    So sweet and voluble is his discourse.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. God bless my ladies! Are they all in love,\n    That every one her own hath garnished\n    With such bedecking ornaments of praise?\n  FIRST LORD. Here comes Boyet.\n\n                       Re-enter BOYET\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Now, what admittance, lord?\n  BOYET. Navarre had notice of your fair approach,\n    And he and his competitors in oath\n    Were all address'd to meet you, gentle lady,\n    Before I came. Marry, thus much I have learnt:\n    He rather means to lodge you in the field,\n    Like one that comes here to besiege his court,\n    Than seek a dispensation for his oath,\n    To let you enter his unpeopled house.\n                                    [The LADIES-IN-WAITING mask]\n\n             Enter KING, LONGAVILLE, DUMAIN, BEROWNE,\n                         and ATTENDANTS\n\n    Here comes Navarre.\n  KING. Fair Princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'Fair' I give you back again; and 'welcome' I\n    have not yet. The roof of this court is too high to be yours, and\n    welcome to the wide fields too base to be mine.\n  KING. You shall be welcome, madam, to my court.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I will be welcome then; conduct me thither.\n  KING. Hear me, dear lady: I have sworn an oath-\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Our Lady help my lord! He'll be forsworn.\n  KING. Not for the world, fair madam, by my will.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Why, will shall break it; will, and nothing\n    else.\n  KING. Your ladyship is ignorant what it is.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Were my lord so, his ignorance were wise,\n    Where now his knowledge must prove ignorance.\n    I hear your Grace hath sworn out house-keeping.\n    'Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord,\n    And sin to break it.\n    But pardon me, I am too sudden bold;\n    To teach a teacher ill beseemeth me.\n    Vouchsafe to read the purpose of my coming,\n    And suddenly resolve me in my suit.         [Giving a paper]\n  KING. Madam, I will, if suddenly I may.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. YOU Will the sooner that I were away,\n    For you'll prove perjur'd if you make me stay.\n  BEROWNE. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?\n  KATHARINE. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?\n  BEROWNE. I know you did.\n  KATHARINE. How needless was it then to ask the question!\n  BEROWNE. You must not be so quick.\n  KATHARINE. 'Tis long of you, that spur me with such questions.\n  BEROWNE. Your wit 's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire.\n  KATHARINE. Not till it leave the rider in the mire.\n  BEROWNE. What time o' day?\n  KATHARINE. The hour that fools should ask.\n  BEROWNE. Now fair befall your mask!\n  KATHARINE. Fair fall the face it covers!\n  BEROWNE. And send you many lovers!\n  KATHARINE. Amen, so you be none.\n  BEROWNE. Nay, then will I be gone.\n  KING. Madam, your father here doth intimate\n    The payment of a hundred thousand crowns;\n    Being but the one half of an entire sum\n    Disbursed by my father in his wars.\n    But say that he or we, as neither have,\n    Receiv'd that sum, yet there remains unpaid\n    A hundred thousand more, in surety of the which,\n    One part of Aquitaine is bound to us,\n    Although not valued to the money's worth.\n    If then the King your father will restore\n    But that one half which is unsatisfied,\n    We will give up our right in Aquitaine,\n    And hold fair friendship with his Majesty.\n    But that, it seems, he little purposeth,\n    For here he doth demand to have repaid\n    A hundred thousand crowns; and not demands,\n    On payment of a hundred thousand crowns,\n    To have his title live in Aquitaine;\n    Which we much rather had depart withal,\n    And have the money by our father lent,\n    Than Aquitaine so gelded as it is.\n    Dear Princess, were not his requests so far\n    From reason's yielding, your fair self should make\n    A yielding 'gainst some reason in my breast,\n    And go well satisfied to France again.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. You do the King my father too much wrong,\n    And wrong the reputation of your name,\n    In so unseeming to confess receipt\n    Of that which hath so faithfully been paid.\n  KING. I do protest I never heard of it;\n    And, if you prove it, I'll repay it back\n    Or yield up Aquitaine.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We arrest your word.\n    Boyet, you can produce acquittances\n    For such a sum from special officers\n    Of Charles his father.\n  KING. Satisfy me so.\n  BOYET. So please your Grace, the packet is not come,\n    Where that and other specialties are bound;\n    To-morrow you shall have a sight of them.\n  KING. It shall suffice me; at which interview\n    All liberal reason I will yield unto.\n    Meantime receive such welcome at my hand\n    As honour, without breach of honour, may\n    Make tender of to thy true worthiness.\n    You may not come, fair Princess, within my gates;\n    But here without you shall be so receiv'd\n    As you shall deem yourself lodg'd in my heart,\n    Though so denied fair harbour in my house.\n    Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell.\n    To-morrow shall we visit you again.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Sweet health and fair desires consort your\n    Grace!\n  KING. Thy own wish wish I thee in every place.\n                                            Exit with attendants\n  BEROWNE. Lady, I will commend you to mine own heart.\n  ROSALINE. Pray you, do my commendations;\n    I would be glad to see it.\n  BEROWNE. I would you heard it groan.\n  ROSALINE. Is the fool sick?\n  BEROWNE. Sick at the heart.\n  ROSALINE. Alack, let it blood.\n  BEROWNE. Would that do it good?\n  ROSALINE. My physic says 'ay.'\n  BEROWNE. Will YOU prick't with your eye?\n  ROSALINE. No point, with my knife.\n  BEROWNE. Now, God save thy life!\n  ROSALINE. And yours from long living!\n  BEROWNE. I cannot stay thanksgiving.                [Retiring]\n  DUMAIN. Sir, I pray you, a word: what lady is that same?\n  BOYET. The heir of Alencon, Katharine her name.\n  DUMAIN. A gallant lady! Monsieur, fare you well.          Exit\n  LONGAVILLE. I beseech you a word: what is she in the white?\n  BOYET. A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.\n  LONGAVILLE. Perchance light in the light. I desire her name.\n  BOYET. She hath but one for herself; to desire that were a shame.\n  LONGAVILLE. Pray you, sir, whose daughter?\n  BOYET. Her mother's, I have heard.\n  LONGAVILLE. God's blessing on your beard!\n  BOYET. Good sir, be not offended;\n    She is an heir of Falconbridge.\n  LONGAVILLE. Nay, my choler is ended.\n    She is a most sweet lady.\n  BOYET. Not unlike, sir; that may be.           Exit LONGAVILLE\n  BEROWNE. What's her name in the cap?\n  BOYET. Rosaline, by good hap.\n  BEROWNE. Is she wedded or no?\n  BOYET. To her will, sir, or so.\n  BEROWNE. You are welcome, sir; adieu!\n  BOYET. Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.\n                                     Exit BEROWNE. LADIES Unmask\n  MARIA. That last is Berowne, the merry mad-cap lord;\n    Not a word with him but a jest.\n  BOYET. And every jest but a word.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. It was well done of you to take him at his\n    word.\n  BOYET. I was as willing to grapple as he was to board.\n  KATHARINE. Two hot sheeps, marry!\n  BOYET. And wherefore not ships?\n    No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.\n  KATHARINE. You sheep and I pasture- shall that finish the jest?\n  BOYET. So you grant pasture for me.     [Offering to kiss her]\n  KATHARINE. Not so, gentle beast;\n    My lips are no common, though several they be.\n  BOYET. Belonging to whom?\n  KATHARINE. To my fortunes and me.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles,\n      agree;\n    This civil war of wits were much better used\n    On Navarre and his book-men, for here 'tis abused.\n  BOYET. If my observation, which very seldom lies,\n    By the heart's still rhetoric disclosed with eyes,\n    Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. With what?\n  BOYET. With that which we lovers entitle 'affected.'\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Your reason?\n  BOYET. Why, all his behaviours did make their retire\n    To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire.\n    His heart, like an agate, with your print impressed,\n    Proud with his form, in his eye pride expressed;\n    His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,\n    Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be;\n    All senses to that sense did make their repair,\n    To feel only looking on fairest of fair.\n    Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eye,\n    As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy;\n    Who, tend'ring their own worth from where they were glass'd,\n    Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd.\n    His face's own margent did quote such amazes\n    That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes.\n    I'll give you Aquitaine and all that is his,\n    An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Come, to our pavilion. Boyet is dispos'd.\n  BOYET. But to speak that in words which his eye hath disclos'd;\n    I only have made a mouth of his eye,\n    By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.\n  MARIA. Thou art an old love-monger, and speakest skilfully.\n  KATHARINE. He is Cupid's grandfather, and learns news of him.\n  ROSALINE. Then was Venus like her mother; for her father is but\n    grim.\n  BOYET. Do you hear, my mad wenches?\n  MARIA. No.\n  BOYET. What, then; do you see?\n  MARIA. Ay, our way to be gone.\n  BOYET. You are too hard for me.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nThe park\n\nEnter ARMADO and MOTH\n\n  ARMADO. Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.\n                                         [MOTH sings Concolinel]\n  ARMADO. Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years, take this key, give\n    enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately hither; I must\n    employ him in a letter to my love.\n  MOTH. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?\n  ARMADO. How meanest thou? Brawling in French?\n  MOTH. No, my complete master; but to jig off a tune at the tongue's\n    end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your\n    eyelids, sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the\n    throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love, sometime\n    through the nose, as if you snuff'd up love by smelling love,\n    with your hat penthouse-like o'er the shop of your eyes, with\n    your arms cross'd on your thin-belly doublet, like a rabbit on a\n    spit, or your hands in your pocket, like a man after the old\n    painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away.\n    These are complements, these are humours; these betray nice\n    wenches, that would be betrayed without these; and make them men\n    of note- do you note me?- that most are affected to these.\n  ARMADO. How hast thou purchased this experience?\n  MOTH. By my penny of observation.\n  ARMADO. But O- but O-\n  MOTH. The hobby-horse is forgot.\n  ARMADO. Call'st thou my love 'hobby-horse'?\n  MOTH. No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love\n    perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your love?\n  ARMADO. Almost I had.\n  MOTH. Negligent student! learn her by heart.\n  ARMADO. By heart and in heart, boy.\n  MOTH. And out of heart, master; all those three I will prove.\n  ARMADO. What wilt thou prove?\n  MOTH. A man, if I live; and this, by, in, and without, upon the\n    instant. By heart you love her, because your heart cannot come by\n    her; in heart you love her, because your heart is in love with\n    her; and out of heart you love her, being out of heart that you\n    cannot enjoy her.\n  ARMADO. I am all these three.\n  MOTH. And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.\n  ARMADO. Fetch hither the swain; he must carry me a letter.\n  MOTH. A message well sympathiz'd- a horse to be ambassador for an\n    ass.\n  ARMADO. Ha, ha, what sayest thou?\n  MOTH. Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is\n    very slow-gaited. But I go.\n  ARMADO. The way is but short; away.\n  MOTH. As swift as lead, sir.\n  ARMADO. The meaning, pretty ingenious?\n    Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?\n  MOTH. Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no.\n  ARMADO. I say lead is slow.\n  MOTH. You are too swift, sir, to say so:\n    Is that lead slow which is fir'd from a gun?\n  ARMADO. Sweet smoke of rhetoric!\n    He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he;\n    I shoot thee at the swain.\n  MOTH. Thump, then, and I flee.                            Exit\n  ARMADO. A most acute juvenal; volable and free of grace!\n    By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face;\n    Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place.\n    My herald is return'd.\n\n                       Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD\n\n  MOTH. A wonder, master! here's a costard broken in a shin.\n  ARMADO. Some enigma, some riddle; come, thy l'envoy; begin.\n  COSTARD. No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in the mail, sir.\n    O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain; no l'envoy, no l'envoy; no\n    salve, sir, but a plantain!\n  ARMADO. By virtue thou enforcest laughter; thy silly thought, my\n    spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous\n    smiling. O, pardon me, my stars! Doth the inconsiderate take\n    salve for l'envoy, and the word 'l'envoy' for a salve?\n  MOTH. Do the wise think them other? Is not l'envoy a salve?\n  ARMADO. No, page; it is an epilogue or discourse to make plain\n    Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.\n    I will example it:\n           The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,\n           Were still at odds, being but three.\n    There's the moral. Now the l'envoy.\n  MOTH. I will add the l'envoy. Say the moral again.\n  ARMADO.  The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,\n           Were still at odds, being but three.\n  MOTH.    Until the goose came out of door,\n           And stay'd the odds by adding four.\n    Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my l'envoy.\n           The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,\n           Were still at odds, being but three.\n  ARMADO.  Until the goose came out of door,\n           Staying the odds by adding four.\n  MOTH. A good l'envoy, ending in the goose; would you desire more?\n  COSTARD. The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat.\n    Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat.\n    To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose;\n    Let me see: a fat l'envoy; ay, that's a fat goose.\n  ARMADO. Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?\n  MOTH. By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.\n    Then call'd you for the l'envoy.\n  COSTARD. True, and I for a plantain. Thus came your argument in;\n    Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought;\n    And he ended the market.\n  ARMADO. But tell me: how was there a costard broken in a shin?\n  MOTH. I will tell you sensibly.\n  COSTARD. Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth; I will speak that\n      l'envoy.\n    I, Costard, running out, that was safely within,\n    Fell over the threshold and broke my shin.\n  ARMADO. We will talk no more of this matter.\n  COSTARD. Till there be more matter in the shin.\n  ARMADO. Sirrah Costard. I will enfranchise thee.\n  COSTARD. O, Marry me to one Frances! I smell some l'envoy, some\n    goose, in this.\n  ARMADO. By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty,\n    enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immured, restrained,\n    captivated, bound.\n  COSTARD. True, true; and now you will be my purgation, and let me\n    loose.\n  ARMADO. I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance; and, in\n    lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this: bear this\n    significant [giving a letter] to the country maid Jaquenetta;\n    there is remuneration, for the best ward of mine honour is\n    rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow.                  Exit\n  MOTH. Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.\n  COSTARD. My sweet ounce of man's flesh, my incony Jew!\n                                                       Exit MOTH\n    Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration! O, that's the\n    Latin word for three farthings. Three farthings- remuneration.\n    'What's the price of this inkle?'- 'One penny.'- 'No, I'll give\n    you a remuneration.' Why, it carries it. Remuneration! Why, it is\n    a fairer name than French crown. I will never buy and sell out of\n    this word.\n\n                          Enter BEROWNE\n\n  BEROWNE. My good knave Costard, exceedingly well met!\n  COSTARD. Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for\n    a remuneration?\n  BEROWNE. What is a remuneration?\n  COSTARD. Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.\n  BEROWNE. Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk.\n  COSTARD. I thank your worship. God be wi' you!\n  BEROWNE. Stay, slave; I must employ thee.\n    As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,\n    Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.\n  COSTARD. When would you have it done, sir?\n  BEROWNE. This afternoon.\n  COSTARD. Well, I will do it, sir; fare you well.\n  BEROWNE. Thou knowest not what it is.\n  COSTARD. I shall know, sir, when I have done it.\n  BEROWNE. Why, villain, thou must know first.\n  COSTARD. I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.\n  BEROWNE. It must be done this afternoon.\n    Hark, slave, it is but this:\n    The Princess comes to hunt here in the park,\n    And in her train there is a gentle lady;\n    When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name,\n    And Rosaline they call her. Ask for her,\n    And to her white hand see thou do commend\n    This seal'd-up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go.\n                                         [Giving him a shilling]\n  COSTARD. Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration; a\n    'leven-pence farthing better; most sweet gardon! I will do it,\n    sir, in print. Gardon- remuneration!                    Exit\n  BEROWNE. And I, forsooth, in love; I, that have been love's whip;\n    A very beadle to a humorous sigh;\n    A critic, nay, a night-watch constable;\n    A domineering pedant o'er the boy,\n    Than whom no mortal so magnificent!\n    This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy,\n    This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;\n    Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,\n    Th' anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,\n    Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,\n    Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,\n    Sole imperator, and great general\n    Of trotting paritors. O my little heart!\n    And I to be a corporal of his field,\n    And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!\n    What! I love, I sue, I seek a wife-\n    A woman, that is like a German clock,\n    Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,\n    And never going aright, being a watch,\n    But being watch'd that it may still go right!\n    Nay, to be perjur'd, which is worst of all;\n    And, among three, to love the worst of all,\n    A whitely wanton with a velvet brow,\n    With two pitch balls stuck in her face for eyes;\n    Ay, and, by heaven, one that will do the deed,\n    Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard.\n    And I to sigh for her! to watch for her!\n    To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague\n    That Cupid will impose for my neglect\n    Of his almighty dreadful little might.\n    Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, and groan:\n    Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.              Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nThe park\n\nEnter the PRINCESS, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, LORDS, ATTENDANTS,\nand a FORESTER\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Was that the King that spurr'd his horse so\n      hard\n    Against the steep uprising of the hill?\n  BOYET. I know not; but I think it was not he.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Whoe'er 'a was, 'a show'd a mounting mind.\n    Well, lords, to-day we shall have our dispatch;\n    On Saturday we will return to France.\n    Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush\n    That we must stand and play the murderer in?\n  FORESTER. Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice;\n    A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I thank my beauty I am fair that shoot,\n    And thereupon thou speak'st the fairest shoot.\n  FORESTER. Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. What, what? First praise me, and again say no?\n    O short-liv'd pride! Not fair? Alack for woe!\n  FORESTER. Yes, madam, fair.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nay, never paint me now;\n    Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.\n    Here, good my glass, take this for telling true:\n                                             [ Giving him money]\n    Fair payment for foul words is more than due.\n  FORESTER. Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. See, see, my beauty will be sav'd by merit.\n    O heresy in fair, fit for these days!\n    A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.\n    But come, the bow. Now mercy goes to kill,\n    And shooting well is then accounted ill;\n    Thus will I save my credit in the shoot:\n    Not wounding, pity would not let me do't;\n    If wounding, then it was to show my skill,\n    That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.\n    And, out of question, so it is sometimes:\n    Glory grows guilty of detested crimes,\n    When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part,\n    We bend to that the working of the heart;\n    As I for praise alone now seek to spill\n    The poor deer's blood that my heart means no ill.\n  BOYET. Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty\n    Only for praise sake, when they strive to be\n    Lords o'er their lords?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Only for praise; and praise we may afford\n    To any lady that subdues a lord.\n\n                       Enter COSTARD\n\n  BOYET. Here comes a member of the commonwealth.\n  COSTARD. God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that\n    have no heads.\n  COSTARD. Which is the greatest lady, the highest?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The thickest and the tallest.\n  COSTARD. The thickest and the tallest! It is so; truth is truth.\n    An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,\n    One o' these maids' girdles for your waist should be fit.\n    Are not you the chief woman? You are the thickest here.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. What's your will, sir? What's your will?\n  COSTARD. I have a letter from Monsieur Berowne to one\n    Lady Rosaline.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. O, thy letter, thy letter! He's a good friend\n      of mine.\n    Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve.\n    Break up this capon.\n  BOYET. I am bound to serve.\n    This letter is mistook; it importeth none here.\n    It is writ to Jaquenetta.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We will read it, I swear.\n    Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear.\n  BOYET. [Reads] 'By heaven, that thou art fair is most infallible;\n    true that thou art beauteous; truth itself that thou art lovely.\n    More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth\n    itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal. The\n    magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the\n    pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was that\n    might rightly say, 'Veni, vidi, vici'; which to annothanize in\n    the vulgar,- O base and obscure vulgar!- videlicet, He came, saw,\n    and overcame. He came, one; saw, two; overcame, three. Who came?-\n    the king. Why did he come?- to see. Why did he see?-to overcome.\n    To whom came he?- to the beggar. What saw he?- the beggar. Who\n    overcame he?- the beggar. The conclusion is victory; on whose\n    side?- the king's. The captive is enrich'd; on whose side?- the\n    beggar's. The catastrophe is a nuptial; on whose side?- the\n    king's. No, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king, for so\n    stands the comparison; thou the beggar, for so witnesseth thy\n    lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may. Shall I enforce thy\n    love? I could. Shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou\n    exchange for rags?- robes, for tittles?- titles, for thyself?\n    -me. Thus expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my\n    eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part.\n                  Thine in the dearest design of industry,\n                                           DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.\n\n    'Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar\n    'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey;\n    Submissive fall his princely feet before,\n    And he from forage will incline to play.\n    But if thou strive, poor soul, what are thou then?\n    Food for his rage, repasture for his den.'\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. What plume of feathers is he that indited this\n      letter?\n    What vane? What weathercock? Did you ever hear better?\n  BOYET. I am much deceived but I remember the style.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Else your memory is bad, going o'er it\n    erewhile.\n  BOYET. This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in court;\n    A phantasime, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport\n    To the Prince and his book-mates.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thou fellow, a word.\n    Who gave thee this letter?\n  COSTARD. I told you: my lord.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. To whom shouldst thou give it?\n  COSTARD. From my lord to my lady.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. From which lord to which lady?\n  COSTARD. From my Lord Berowne, a good master of mine,\n    To a lady of France that he call'd Rosaline.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords,\n      away.\n    [To ROSALINE] Here, sweet, put up this; 'twill be thine another\n      day.                             Exeunt PRINCESS and TRAIN\n  BOYET. Who is the shooter? who is the shooter?\n  ROSALINE. Shall I teach you to know?\n  BOYET. Ay, my continent of beauty.\n  ROSALINE. Why, she that bears the bow.\n    Finely put off!\n  BOYET. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry,\n    Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry.\n    Finely put on!\n  ROSALINE. Well then, I am the shooter.\n  BOYET. And who is your deer?\n  ROSALINE. If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near.\n    Finely put on indeed!\n  MARIA. You Still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the\n    brow.\n  BOYET. But she herself is hit lower. Have I hit her now?\n  ROSALINE. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man\n    when King Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit\n    it?\n  BOYET. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when\n    Queen Guinever of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit\n    it.\n  ROSALINE. [Singing]\n            Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,\n            Thou canst not hit it, my good man.\n  BOYET.    An I cannot, cannot, cannot,\n            An I cannot, another can.\n                                   Exeunt ROSALINE and KATHARINE\n  COSTARD. By my troth, most pleasant! How both did fit it!\n  MARIA. A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did hit it.\n  BOYET. A mark! O, mark but that mark! A mark, says my lady!\n    Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be.\n  MARIA. Wide o' the bow-hand! I' faith, your hand is out.\n  COSTARD. Indeed, 'a must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the\n    clout.\n  BOYET. An if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.\n  COSTARD. Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.\n  MARIA. Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul.\n  COSTARD. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to\n    bowl.\n  BOYET. I fear too much rubbing; good-night, my good owl.\n                                          Exeunt BOYET and MARIA\n  COSTARD. By my soul, a swain, a most simple clown!\n    Lord, Lord! how the ladies and I have put him down!\n    O' my troth, most sweet jests, most incony vulgar wit!\n    When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit.\n    Armado a th' t'one side- O, a most dainty man!\n    To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!\n    To see him kiss his hand, and how most sweetly 'a will swear!\n    And his page a t' other side, that handful of wit!\n    Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!\n    Sola, sola!                                     Exit COSTARD\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe park\n\nFrom the shooting within, enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL\n\n  NATHANIEL. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the testimony of\n    a good conscience.\n  HOLOFERNES. The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripe as\n    the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of caelo,\n    the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab on\n    the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth.\n  NATHANIEL. Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly\n    varied, like a scholar at the least; but, sir, I assure ye it was\n    a buck of the first head.\n  HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.\n  DULL. 'Twas not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.\n  HOLOFERNES. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation,\n    as it were, in via, in way, of explication; facere, as it were,\n    replication, or rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his\n    inclination, after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated,\n    unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or ratherest\n    unconfirmed fashion, to insert again my haud credo for a deer.\n  DULL. I Said the deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.\n  HOLOFERNES. Twice-sod simplicity, bis coctus!\n    O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!\n  NATHANIEL. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in\n      a book;\n    He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his\n    intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible\n    in the duller parts;\n    And such barren plants are set before us that we thankful should\n      be-\n    Which we of taste and feeling are- for those parts that do\n      fructify in us more than he.\n    For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool,\n    So, were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school.\n    But, omne bene, say I, being of an old father's mind:\n    Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.\n  DULL. You two are book-men: can you tell me by your wit\n    What was a month old at Cain's birth that's not five weeks old as\n      yet?\n  HOLOFERNES. Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull.\n  DULL. What is Dictynna?\n  NATHANIEL. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.\n  HOLOFERNES. The moon was a month old when Adam was no more,\n    And raught not to five weeks when he came to five-score.\n    Th' allusion holds in the exchange.\n  DULL. 'Tis true, indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.\n  HOLOFERNES. God comfort thy capacity! I say th' allusion holds in\n    the exchange.\n  DULL. And I say the polusion holds in the exchange; for the moon is\n    never but a month old; and I say, beside, that 'twas a pricket\n    that the Princess kill'd.\n  HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on\n    the death of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, call the deer\n    the Princess kill'd a pricket.\n  NATHANIEL. Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge, so it shall please\n    you to abrogate scurrility.\n  HOLOFERNES. I Will something affect the letter, for it argues\n    facility.\n\n    The preyful Princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing\n      pricket.\n    Some say a sore; but not a sore till now made sore with shooting.\n    The dogs did yell; put el to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket-\n    Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting.\n    If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores o' sorel.\n    Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L.\n\n  NATHANIEL. A rare talent!\n  DULL. [Aside] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a\n    talent.\n  HOLOFERNES. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish\n    extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects,\n    ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions. These are begot in\n    the ventricle of memory, nourish'd in the womb of pia mater, and\n    delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is good in\n    those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.\n  NATHANIEL. Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my\n    parishioners; for their sons are well tutor'd by you, and their\n    daughters profit very greatly under you. You are a good member of\n    the commonwealth.\n  HOLOFERNES. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, they shall want\n    no instruction; if their daughters be capable, I will put it to\n    them; but, vir sapit qui pauca loquitur. A soul feminine saluteth\n    us.\n\n                    Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD\n\n  JAQUENETTA. God give you good morrow, Master Person.\n  HOLOFERNES. Master Person, quasi pers-one. And if one should be\n    pierc'd which is the one?\n  COSTARD. Marry, Master Schoolmaster, he that is likest to a\n    hogshead.\n  HOLOFERNES. Piercing a hogshead! A good lustre of conceit in a turf\n    of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine; 'tis\n    pretty; it is well.\n  JAQUENETTA. Good Master Parson, be so good as read me this letter;\n    it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado. I\n    beseech you read it.\n  HOLOFERNES. Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra\n    Ruminat-\n    and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as\n    the traveller doth of Venice:\n                   Venetia, Venetia,\n                   Chi non ti vede, non ti pretia.\n    Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not,\n    loves thee not-\n                      Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.\n    Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or rather as\n    Horace says in his- What, my soul, verses?\n  NATHANIEL. Ay, sir, and very learned.\n  HOLOFERNES. Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine.\n  NATHANIEL. [Reads] 'If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to\n      love?\n    Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed!\n    Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove;\n    Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed.\n    Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes,\n    Where all those pleasures live that art would comprehend.\n    If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;\n    Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend;\n    All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder;\n    Which is to me some praise that I thy parts admire.\n    Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,\n    Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.\n    Celestial as thou art, O, pardon love this wrong,\n    That singes heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue.'\n  HOLOFERNES. You find not the apostrophas, and so miss the accent:\n    let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified;\n    but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy,\n    caret. Ovidius Naso was the man. And why, indeed, 'Naso' but for\n    smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of\n    invention? Imitari is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the\n    ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But, damosella virgin,\n    was this directed to you?\n  JAQUENETTA. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Berowne, one of the strange\n    queen's lords.\n  HOLOFERNES. I will overglance the superscript: 'To the snow-white\n    hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline.' I will look again on\n    the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party\n    writing to the person written unto: 'Your Ladyship's in all\n    desired employment, Berowne.' Sir Nathaniel, this Berowne is one\n    of the votaries with the King; and here he hath framed a letter\n    to a sequent of the stranger queen's which accidentally, or by\n    the way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet;\n    deliver this paper into the royal hand of the King; it may\n    concern much. Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty. Adieu.\n  JAQUENETTA. Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life!\n  COSTARD. Have with thee, my girl.\n                                   Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA\n  NATHANIEL. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very\n    religiously; and, as a certain father saith-\n  HOLOFERNES. Sir, tell not me of the father; I do fear colourable\n    colours. But to return to the verses: did they please you, Sir\n    Nathaniel?\n  NATHANIEL. Marvellous well for the pen.\n  HOLOFERNES. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil of\n    mine; where, if, before repast, it shall please you to gratify\n    the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the\n    parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben\n    venuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned,\n    neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech your\n    society.\n  NATHANIEL. And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is the\n    happiness of life.\n  HOLOFERNES. And certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.\n    [To DULL] Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not say me nay:\n    pauca verba. Away; the gentles are at their game, and we will to\n    our recreation.                                       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe park\n\nEnter BEROWNE, with a paper his band, alone\n\n  BEROWNE. The King he is hunting the deer: I am coursing myself.\n    They have pitch'd a toil: I am tolling in a pitch- pitch that\n    defiles. Defile! a foul word. Well, 'set thee down, sorrow!' for\n    so they say the fool said, and so say I, and I am the fool. Well\n    proved, wit. By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills\n    sheep; it kills me- I a sheep. Well proved again o' my side. I\n    will not love; if I do, hang me. I' faith, I will not. O, but her\n    eye! By this light, but for her eye, I would not love her- yes,\n    for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie, and\n    lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love; and it hath taught me to\n    rhyme, and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and\n    here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already; the\n    clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet\n    clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not\n    care a pin if the other three were in. Here comes one with a\n    paper; God give him grace to groan!\n                                            [Climbs into a tree]\n\n                      Enter the KING, with a paper\n\n  KING. Ay me!\n  BEROWNE. Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thump'd\n    him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets!\n  KING. [Reads]\n      'So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not\n      To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,\n      As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote\n      The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows;\n      Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright\n      Through the transparent bosom of the deep,\n      As doth thy face through tears of mine give light.\n      Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep;\n      No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;\n      So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.\n      Do but behold the tears that swell in me,\n      And they thy glory through my grief will show.\n      But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep\n      My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.\n      O queen of queens! how far dost thou excel\n      No thought can think nor tongue of mortal tell.'\n    How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper-\n    Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?\n                                                   [Steps aside]\n\n                  Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper\n\n    What, Longaville, and reading! Listen, car.\n  BEROWNE. Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!\n  LONGAVILLE. Ay me, I am forsworn!\n  BEROWNE. Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.\n  KING. In love, I hope; sweet fellowship in shame!\n  BEROWNE. One drunkard loves another of the name.\n  LONGAVILLE. Am I the first that have been perjur'd so?\n  BEROWNE. I could put thee in comfort: not by two that I know;\n    Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society,\n    The shape of Love's Tyburn that hangs up simplicity.\n  LONGAVILLE. I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move.\n    O sweet Maria, empress of my love!\n    These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.\n  BEROWNE. O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose:\n    Disfigure not his slop.\n  LONGAVILLE. This same shall go.          [He reads the sonnet]\n      'Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,\n      'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,\n      Persuade my heart to this false perjury?\n      Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.\n      A woman I forswore; but I will prove,\n      Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:\n      My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;\n      Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me.\n      Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is;\n      Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,\n      Exhal'st this vapour-vow; in thee it is.\n      If broken, then it is no fault of mine;\n      If by me broke, what fool is not so wise\n      To lose an oath to win a paradise?'\n  BEROWNE. This is the liver-vein, which makes flesh a deity,\n    A green goose a goddess- pure, pure idolatry.\n    God amend us, God amend! We are much out o' th' way.\n\n                      Enter DUMAIN, with a paper\n\n  LONGAVILLE. By whom shall I send this?- Company! Stay.\n                                                   [Steps aside]\n  BEROWNE. 'All hid, all hid'- an old infant play.\n    Like a demigod here sit I in the sky,\n    And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye.\n    More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish!\n    Dumain transformed! Four woodcocks in a dish!\n  DUMAIN. O most divine Kate!\n  BEROWNE. O most profane coxcomb!\n  DUMAIN. By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!\n  BEROWNE. By earth, she is not, corporal: there you lie.\n  DUMAIN. Her amber hairs for foul hath amber quoted.\n  BEROWNE. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted.\n  DUMAIN. As upright as the cedar.\n  BEROWNE. Stoop, I say;\n    Her shoulder is with child.\n  DUMAIN. As fair as day.\n  BEROWNE. Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.\n  DUMAIN. O that I had my wish!\n  LONGAVILLE. And I had mine!\n  KING. And I mine too,.good Lord!\n  BEROWNE. Amen, so I had mine! Is not that a good word?\n  DUMAIN. I would forget her; but a fever she\n    Reigns in my blood, and will rememb'red be.\n  BEROWNE. A fever in your blood? Why, then incision\n    Would let her out in saucers. Sweet misprision!\n  DUMAIN. Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ.\n  BEROWNE. Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit.\n  DUMAIN. [Reads]\n        'On a day-alack the day!-\n        Love, whose month is ever May,\n        Spied a blossom passing fair\n        Playing in the wanton air.\n        Through the velvet leaves the wind,\n        All unseen, can passage find;\n        That the lover, sick to death,\n        Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.\n        \"Air,\" quoth he \"thy cheeks may blow;\n        Air, would I might triumph so!\n        But, alack, my hand is sworn\n        Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn;\n        Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,\n        Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.\n        Do not call it sin in me\n        That I am forsworn for thee;\n        Thou for whom Jove would swear\n        Juno but an Ethiope were;\n        And deny himself for Jove,\n        Turning mortal for thy love.\"'\n    This will I send; and something else more plain\n    That shall express my true love's fasting pain.\n    O, would the King, Berowne and Longaville,\n    Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,\n    Would from my forehead wipe a perjur'd note;\n    For none offend where all alike do dote.\n  LONGAVILLE. [Advancing] Dumain, thy love is far from charity,\n    That in love's grief desir'st society;\n    You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,\n    To be o'erheard and taken napping so.\n  KING. [Advancing] Come, sir, you blush; as his, your case is such.\n    You chide at him, offending twice as much:\n    You do not love Maria! Longaville\n    Did never sonnet for her sake compile;\n    Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart\n    His loving bosom, to keep down his heart.\n    I have been closely shrouded in this bush,\n    And mark'd you both, and for you both did blush.\n    I heard your guilty rhymes, observ'd your fashion,\n    Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion.\n    'Ay me!' says one. 'O Jove!' the other cries.\n    One, her hairs were gold; crystal the other's eyes.\n    [To LONGAVILLE] You would for paradise break faith and troth;\n    [To Dumain] And Jove for your love would infringe an oath.\n    What will Berowne say when that he shall hear\n    Faith infringed which such zeal did swear?\n    How will he scorn, how will he spend his wit!\n    How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it!\n    For all the wealth that ever I did see,\n    I would not have him know so much by me.\n  BEROWNE. [Descending] Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy,\n    Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me.\n    Good heart, what grace hast thou thus to reprove\n    These worms for loving, that art most in love?\n    Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears\n    There is no certain princess that appears;\n    You'll not be perjur'd; 'tis a hateful thing;\n    Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting.\n    But are you not ashamed? Nay, are you not,\n    All three of you, to be thus much o'ershot?\n    You found his mote; the King your mote did see;\n    But I a beam do find in each of three.\n    O, what a scene of fool'ry have I seen,\n    Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!\n    O, me, with what strict patience have I sat,\n    To see a king transformed to a gnat!\n    To see great Hercules whipping a gig,\n    And profound Solomon to tune a jig,\n    And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,\n    And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!\n    Where lies thy grief, O, tell me, good Dumain?\n    And, gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?\n    And where my liege's? All about the breast.\n    A caudle, ho!\n  KING. Too bitter is thy jest.\n    Are we betrayed thus to thy over-view?\n  BEROWNE. Not you by me, but I betrayed to you.\n    I that am honest, I that hold it sin\n    To break the vow I am engaged in;\n    I am betrayed by keeping company\n    With men like you, men of inconstancy.\n    When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?\n    Or groan for Joan? or spend a minute's time\n    In pruning me? When shall you hear that I\n    Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,\n    A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist,\n    A leg, a limb-\n  KING. Soft! whither away so fast?\n    A true man or a thief that gallops so?\n  BEROWNE. I post from love; good lover, let me go.\n\n                 Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD\n\n  JAQUENETTA. God bless the King!\n  KING. What present hast thou there?\n  COSTARD. Some certain treason.\n  KING. What makes treason here?\n  COSTARD. Nay, it makes nothing, sir.\n  KING. If it mar nothing neither,\n    The treason and you go in peace away together.\n  JAQUENETTA. I beseech your Grace, let this letter be read;\n    Our person misdoubts it: 'twas treason, he said.\n  KING. Berowne, read it over.        [BEROWNE reads the letter]\n    Where hadst thou it?\n  JAQUENETTA. Of Costard.\n  KING. Where hadst thou it?\n  COSTARD. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.\n                                      [BEROWNE tears the letter]\n  KING. How now! What is in you? Why dost thou tear it?\n  BEROWNE. A toy, my liege, a toy! Your Grace needs not fear it.\n  LONGAVILLE. It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear\n     it.\n  DUMAIN. It is Berowne's writing, and here is his name.\n                                       [Gathering up the pieces]\n  BEROWNE. [ To COSTARD] Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you were born\n      to do me shame.\n    Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess.\n  KING. What?\n  BEROWNE. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess;\n    He, he, and you- and you, my liege!- and I\n    Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.\n    O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.\n    DUMAIN. Now the number is even.\n  BEROWNE. True, true, we are four.\n    Will these turtles be gone?\n  KING. Hence, sirs, away.\n  COSTARD. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.\n                                   Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA\n  BEROWNE. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O, let us embrace!\n    As true we are as flesh and blood can be.\n    The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;\n    Young blood doth not obey an old decree.\n    We cannot cross the cause why we were born,\n    Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn.\n  KING. What, did these rent lines show some love of thine?\n  BEROWNE. 'Did they?' quoth you. Who sees the heavenly Rosaline\n    That, like a rude and savage man of Inde\n    At the first op'ning of the gorgeous east,\n    Bows not his vassal head and, strucken blind,\n    Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?\n    What peremptory eagle-sighted eye\n    Dares look upon the heaven of her brow\n    That is not blinded by her majesty?\n  KING. What zeal, what fury hath inspir'd thee now?\n    My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon;\n    She, an attending star, scarce seen a light.\n  BEROWNE. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Berowne.\n    O, but for my love, day would turn to night!\n    Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty\n    Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek,\n    Where several worthies make one dignity,\n    Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek.\n    Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues-\n    Fie, painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not!\n    To things of sale a seller's praise belongs:\n    She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot.\n    A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn,\n    Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye.\n    Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born,\n    And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy.\n    O, 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine!\n  KING. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.\n  BEROWNE. Is ebony like her? O wood divine!\n    A wife of such wood were felicity.\n    O, who can give an oath? Where is a book?\n    That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack,\n    If that she learn not of her eye to look.\n    No face is fair that is not full so black.\n  KING. O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,\n    The hue of dungeons, and the school of night;\n    And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well.\n  BEROWNE. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.\n    O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt,\n    It mourns that painting and usurping hair\n    Should ravish doters with a false aspect;\n    And therefore is she born to make black fair.\n    Her favour turns the fashion of the days;\n    For native blood is counted painting now;\n    And therefore red that would avoid dispraise\n    Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.\n  DUMAIN. To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.\n  LONGAVILLE. And since her time are colliers counted bright.\n  KING. And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.\n  DUMAIN. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.\n  BEROWNE. Your mistresses dare never come in rain\n    For fear their colours should be wash'd away.\n  KING. 'Twere good yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,\n    I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day.\n  BEROWNE. I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.\n  KING. No devil will fright thee then so much as she.\n  DUMAIN. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.\n  LONGAVILLE. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see.\n                                              [Showing his shoe]\n  BEROWNE. O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,\n    Her feet were much too dainty for such tread!\n  DUMAIN. O vile! Then, as she goes, what upward lies\n    The street should see as she walk'd overhead.\n  KING. But what of this? Are we not all in love?\n  BEROWNE. Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn.\n  KING. Then leave this chat; and, good Berowne, now prove\n    Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.\n  DUMAIN. Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.\n  LONGAVILLE. O, some authority how to proceed;\n    Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil!\n  DUMAIN. Some salve for perjury.\n  BEROWNE. 'Tis more than need.\n    Have at you, then, affection's men-at-arms.\n    Consider what you first did swear unto:\n    To fast, to study, and to see no woman-\n    Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.\n    Say, can you fast? Your stomachs are too young,\n    And abstinence engenders maladies.\n    And, where that you you have vow'd to study, lords,\n    In that each of you have forsworn his book,\n    Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look?\n    For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,\n    Have found the ground of study's excellence\n    Without the beauty of a woman's face?\n    From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:\n    They are the ground, the books, the academes,\n    From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.\n    Why, universal plodding poisons up\n    The nimble spirits in the arteries,\n    As motion and long-during action tires\n    The sinewy vigour of the traveller.\n    Now, for not looking on a woman's face,\n    You have in that forsworn the use of eyes,\n    And study too, the causer of your vow;\n    For where is author in the world\n    Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?\n    Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,\n    And where we are our learning likewise is;\n    Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,\n    With ourselves.\n    Do we not likewise see our learning there?\n    O, we have made a vow to study, lords,\n    And in that vow we have forsworn our books.\n    For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,\n    In leaden contemplation have found out\n    Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes\n    Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with?\n    Other slow arts entirely keep the brain;\n    And therefore, finding barren practisers,\n    Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil;\n    But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,\n    Lives not alone immured in the brain,\n    But with the motion of all elements\n    Courses as swift as thought in every power,\n    And gives to every power a double power,\n    Above their functions and their offices.\n    It adds a precious seeing to the eye:\n    A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind.\n    A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,\n    When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd.\n    Love's feeling is more soft and sensible\n    Than are the tender horns of cockled snails:\n    Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste.\n    For valour, is not Love a Hercules,\n    Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?\n    Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical\n    As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair.\n    And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods\n    Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.\n    Never durst poet touch a pen to write\n    Until his ink were temp'red with Love's sighs;\n    O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,\n    And plant in tyrants mild humility.\n    From women's eyes this doctrine I derive.\n    They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;\n    They are the books, the arts, the academes,\n    That show, contain, and nourish, all the world,\n    Else none at all in aught proves excellent.\n    Then fools you were these women to forswear;\n    Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.\n    For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love;\n    Or for Love's sake, a word that loves all men;\n    Or for men's sake, the authors of these women;\n    Or women's sake, by whom we men are men-\n    Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,\n    Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.\n    It is religion to be thus forsworn;\n    For charity itself fulfils the law,\n    And who can sever love from charity?\n  KING. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!\n  BEROWNE. Advance your standards, and upon them, lords;\n    Pell-mell, down with them! be first advis'd,\n    In conflict, that you get the sun of them.\n  LONGAVILLE. Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by.\n    Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?\n  KING. And win them too; therefore let us devise\n    Some entertainment for them in their tents.\n  BEROWNE. First, from the park let us conduct them thither;\n    Then homeward every man attach the hand\n    Of his fair mistress. In the afternoon\n    We will with some strange pastime solace them,\n    Such as the shortness of the time can shape;\n    For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,\n    Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.\n  KING. Away, away! No time shall be omitted\n    That will betime, and may by us be fitted.\n  BEROWNE. Allons! allons! Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn,\n    And justice always whirls in equal measure.\n    Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn;\n    If so, our copper buys no better treasure.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nThe park\n\nEnter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL\n\n  HOLOFERNES. Satis quod sufficit.\n  NATHANIEL. I praise God for you, sir. Your reasons at dinner have\n    been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty\n    without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without\n    opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam\n    day with a companion of the King's who is intituled, nominated,\n    or called, Don Adriano de Armado.\n  HOLOFERNES. Novi hominem tanquam te. His humour is lofty, his\n    discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his\n    gait majestical and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and\n    thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd,\n    as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.\n  NATHANIEL. A most singular and choice epithet.\n                                      [Draws out his table-book]\n  HOLOFERNES. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than\n    the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasimes,\n    such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of\n    orthography, as to speak 'dout' fine, when he should say 'doubt';\n    'det' when he should pronounce 'debt'- d, e, b, t, not d, e, t.\n    He clepeth a calf 'cauf,' half 'hauf'; neighbour vocatur\n    'nebour'; 'neigh' abbreviated 'ne.' This is abhominable- which he\n    would call 'abbominable.' It insinuateth me of insanie: ne\n    intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.\n  NATHANIEL. Laus Deo, bone intelligo.\n  HOLOFERNES. 'Bone'?- 'bone' for 'bene.' Priscian a little\n    scratch'd; 'twill serve.\n\n                 Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD\n\n  NATHANIEL. Videsne quis venit?\n  HOLOFERNES. Video, et gaudeo.\n  ARMADO. [To MOTH] Chirrah!\n  HOLOFERNES. Quare 'chirrah,' not 'sirrah'?\n  ARMADO. Men of peace, well encount'red.\n  HOLOFERNES. Most military sir, salutation.\n  MOTH. [Aside to COSTARD] They have been at a great feast of\n    languages and stol'n the scraps.\n  COSTARD. O, they have liv'd long on the alms-basket of words. I\n    marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word, for thou are\n    not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus; thou art\n    easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.\n  MOTH. Peace! the peal begins.\n  ARMADO. [To HOLOFERNES] Monsieur, are you not lett'red?\n  MOTH. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook. What is a, b, spelt\n    backward with the horn on his head?\n  HOLOFERNES. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.\n  MOTH. Ba, most silly sheep with a horn. You hear his learning.\n  HOLOFERNES. Quis, quis, thou consonant?\n  MOTH. The third of the five vowels, if You repeat them; or the\n    fifth, if I.\n  HOLOFERNES. I will repeat them: a, e, I-\n  MOTH. The sheep; the other two concludes it: o, U.\n  ARMADO. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch,\n    a quick venue of wit- snip, snap, quick and home. It rejoiceth my\n    intellect. True wit!\n  MOTH. Offer'd by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.\n  HOLOFERNES. What is the figure? What is the figure?\n  MOTH. Horns.\n  HOLOFERNES. Thou disputes like an infant; go whip thy gig.\n  MOTH. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your\n    infamy circum circa- a gig of a cuckold's horn.\n  COSTARD. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it\n    to buy ginger-bread. Hold, there is the very remuneration I had\n    of thy master, thou halfpenny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of\n    discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased that thou wert but\n    my bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to;\n    thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say.\n  HOLOFERNES. O, I smell false Latin; 'dunghill' for unguem.\n  ARMADO. Arts-man, preambulate; we will be singuled from the\n    barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house on the\n    top of the mountain?\n  HOLOFERNES. Or mons, the hill.\n  ARMADO. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.\n  HOLOFERNES. I do, sans question.\n  ARMADO. Sir, it is the King's most sweet pleasure and affection to\n    congratulate the Princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of\n    this day; which the rude multitude call the afternoon.\n  HOLOFERNES. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable,\n    congruent, and measurable, for the afternoon. The word is well\n    cull'd, chose, sweet, and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure.\n  ARMADO. Sir, the King is a noble gentleman, and my familiar, I do\n    assure ye, very good friend. For what is inward between us, let\n    it pass. I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy. I beseech\n    thee, apparel thy head. And among other importunate and most\n    serious designs, and of great import indeed, too- but let that\n    pass; for I must tell thee it will please his Grace, by the\n    world, sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder, and with his royal\n    finger thus dally with my excrement, with my mustachio; but,\n    sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable:\n    some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart\n    to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world;\n    but let that pass. The very all of all is- but, sweet heart, I do\n    implore secrecy- that the King would have me present the\n    Princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show,\n    or pageant, or antic, or firework. Now, understanding that the\n    curate and your sweet self are good at such eruptions and sudden\n    breaking-out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal,\n    to the end to crave your assistance.\n  HOLOFERNES. Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies.\n    Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some\n    show in the posterior of this day, to be rend'red by our\n    assistance, the King's command, and this most gallant,\n    illustrate, and learned gentleman, before the Princess- I say\n    none so fit as to present the Nine Worthies.\n  NATHANIEL. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?\n  HOLOFERNES. Joshua, yourself; myself, Alexander; this gallant\n    gentleman, Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great\n    limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the page, Hercules.\n  ARMADO. Pardon, sir; error: he is not quantity enough for that\n    Worthy's thumb; he is not so big as the end of his club.\n  HOLOFERNES. Shall I have audience? He shall present Hercules in\n    minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I\n    will have an apology for that purpose.\n  MOTH. An excellent device! So, if any of the audience hiss, you may\n    cry 'Well done, Hercules; now thou crushest the snake!' That is\n    the way to make an offence gracious, though few have the grace to\n    do it.\n  ARMADO. For the rest of the Worthies?\n  HOLOFERNES. I will play three myself.\n  MOTH. Thrice-worthy gentleman!\n  ARMADO. Shall I tell you a thing?\n  HOLOFERNES. We attend.\n  ARMADO. We will have, if this fadge not, an antic. I beseech you,\n    follow.\n  HOLOFERNES. Via, goodman Dull! Thou has spoken no word all this\n    while.\n  DULL. Nor understood none neither, sir.\n  HOLOFERNES. Allons! we will employ thee.\n  DULL. I'll make one in a dance, or so, or I will play\n    On the tabor to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.\n  HOLOFERNES. Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe park\n\nEnter the PRINCESS, MARIA, KATHARINE, and ROSALINE\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart,\n    If fairings come thus plentifully in.\n    A lady wall'd about with diamonds!\n    Look you what I have from the loving King.\n  ROSALINE. Madam, came nothing else along with that?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nothing but this! Yes, as much love in rhyme\n    As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper\n    Writ o' both sides the leaf, margent and all,\n    That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.\n  ROSALINE. That was the way to make his godhead wax;\n    For he hath been five thousand year a boy.\n  KATHARINE. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.\n  ROSALINE. You'll ne'er be friends with him: 'a kill'd your sister.\n  KATHARINE. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy;\n    And so she died. Had she been light, like you,\n    Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,\n    She might 'a been a grandam ere she died.\n    And so may you; for a light heart lives long.\n  ROSALINE. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?\n  KATHARINE. A light condition in a beauty dark.\n  ROSALINE. We need more light to find your meaning out.\n  KATHARINE. You'll mar the light by taking it in snuff;\n    Therefore I'll darkly end the argument.\n  ROSALINE. Look what you do, you do it still i' th' dark.\n  KATHARINE. So do not you; for you are a light wench.\n  ROSALINE. Indeed, I weigh not you; and therefore light.\n  KATHARINE. You weigh me not? O, that's you care not for me.\n  ROSALINE. Great reason; for 'past cure is still past care.'\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Well bandied both; a set of wit well play'd.\n    But, Rosaline, you have a favour too?\n    Who sent it? and what is it?\n  ROSALINE. I would you knew.\n    An if my face were but as fair as yours,\n    My favour were as great: be witness this.\n    Nay, I have verses too, I thank Berowne;\n    The numbers true, and, were the numb'ring too,\n    I were the fairest goddess on the ground.\n    I am compar'd to twenty thousand fairs.\n    O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Anything like?\n  ROSALINE. Much in the letters; nothing in the praise.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Beauteous as ink- a good conclusion.\n  KATHARINE. Fair as a text B in a copy-book.\n  ROSALINE. Ware pencils, ho! Let me not die your debtor,\n    My red dominical, my golden letter:\n    O that your face were not so full of O's!\n  KATHARINE. A pox of that jest! and I beshrew all shrows!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. But, Katharine, what was sent to you from fair\n    Dumain?\n  KATHARINE. Madam, this glove.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Did he not send you twain?\n  KATHARINE. Yes, madam; and, moreover,\n    Some thousand verses of a faithful lover;\n    A huge translation of hypocrisy,\n    Vilely compil'd, profound simplicity.\n  MARIA. This, and these pearl, to me sent Longaville;\n    The letter is too long by half a mile.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I think no less. Dost thou not wish in heart\n    The chain were longer and the letter short?\n  MARIA. Ay, or I would these hands might never part.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.\n  ROSALINE. They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.\n    That same Berowne I'll torture ere I go.\n    O that I knew he were but in by th' week!\n    How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek,\n    And wait the season, and observe the times,\n    And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes,\n    And shape his service wholly to my hests,\n    And make him proud to make me proud that jests!\n    So pertaunt-like would I o'ersway his state\n    That he should be my fool, and I his fate.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. None are so surely caught, when they are\n      catch'd,\n    As wit turn'd fool; folly, in wisdom hatch'd,\n    Hath wisdom's warrant and the help of school,\n    And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.\n  ROSALINE. The blood of youth burns not with such excess\n    As gravity's revolt to wantonness.\n  MARIA. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note\n    As fool'ry in the wise when wit doth dote,\n    Since all the power thereof it doth apply\n    To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.\n\n                          Enter BOYET\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face.\n  BOYET. O, I am stabb'd with laughter! Where's her Grace?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thy news, Boyet?\n  BOYET. Prepare, madam, prepare!\n    Arm, wenches, arm! Encounters mounted are\n    Against your peace. Love doth approach disguis'd,\n    Armed in arguments; you'll be surpris'd.\n    Muster your wits; stand in your own defence;\n    Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Saint Dennis to Saint Cupid! What are they\n    That charge their breath against us? Say, scout, say.\n  BOYET. Under the cool shade of a sycamore\n    I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour;\n    When, lo, to interrupt my purpos'd rest,\n    Toward that shade I might behold addrest\n    The King and his companions; warily\n    I stole into a neighbour thicket by,\n    And overheard what you shall overhear-\n    That, by and by, disguis'd they will be here.\n    Their herald is a pretty knavish page,\n    That well by heart hath conn'd his embassage.\n    Action and accent did they teach him there:\n    'Thus must thou speak' and 'thus thy body bear,'\n    And ever and anon they made a doubt\n    Presence majestical would put him out;\n    'For' quoth the King 'an angel shalt thou see;\n    Yet fear not thou, but speak audaciously.'\n    The boy replied 'An angel is not evil;\n    I should have fear'd her had she been a devil.'\n    With that all laugh'd, and clapp'd him on the shoulder,\n    Making the bold wag by their praises bolder.\n    One rubb'd his elbow, thus, and fleer'd, and swore\n    A better speech was never spoke before.\n    Another with his finger and his thumb\n    Cried 'Via! we will do't, come what will come.'\n    The third he caper'd, and cried 'All goes well.'\n    The fourth turn'd on the toe, and down he fell.\n    With that they all did tumble on the ground,\n    With such a zealous laughter, so profound,\n    That in this spleen ridiculous appears,\n    To check their folly, passion's solemn tears.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. But what, but what, come they to visit us?\n  BOYET. They do, they do, and are apparell'd thus,\n    Like Muscovites or Russians, as I guess.\n    Their purpose is to parley, court, and dance;\n    And every one his love-feat will advance\n    Unto his several mistress; which they'll know\n    By favours several which they did bestow.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. And will they so? The gallants shall be task'd,\n    For, ladies, we will every one be mask'd;\n    And not a man of them shall have the grace,\n    Despite of suit, to see a lady's face.\n    Hold, Rosaline, this favour thou shalt wear,\n    And then the King will court thee for his dear;\n    Hold, take thou this, my sweet, and give me thine,\n    So shall Berowne take me for Rosaline.\n    And change you favours too; so shall your loves\n    Woo contrary, deceiv'd by these removes.\n  ROSALINE. Come on, then, wear the favours most in sight.\n  KATHARINE. But, in this changing, what is your intent?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The effect of my intent is to cross theirs.\n    They do it but in mocking merriment,\n    And mock for mock is only my intent.\n    Their several counsels they unbosom shall\n    To loves mistook, and so be mock'd withal\n    Upon the next occasion that we meet\n    With visages display'd to talk and greet.\n  ROSALINE. But shall we dance, if they desire us to't?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. No, to the death, we will not move a foot,\n    Nor to their penn'd speech render we no grace;\n    But while 'tis spoke each turn away her face.\n  BOYET. Why, that contempt will kill the speaker's heart,\n    And quite divorce his memory from his part.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Therefore I do it; and I make no doubt\n    The rest will ne'er come in, if he be out.\n    There's no such sport as sport by sport o'erthrown,\n    To make theirs ours, and ours none but our own;\n    So shall we stay, mocking intended game,\n    And they well mock'd depart away with shame.\n                                         [Trumpet sounds within]\n  BOYET. The trumpet sounds; be mask'd; the maskers come.\n                                               [The LADIES mask]\n\n          Enter BLACKAMOORS music, MOTH as Prologue, the\n     KING and his LORDS as maskers, in the guise of Russians\n\n  MOTH. All hail, the richest heauties on the earth!\n  BOYET. Beauties no richer than rich taffeta.\n  MOTH. A holy parcel of the fairest dames\n                            [The LADIES turn their backs to him]\n    That ever turn'd their- backs- to mortal views!\n  BEROWNE. Their eyes, villain, their eyes.\n  MOTH. That ever turn'd their eyes to mortal views!\n    Out-\n  BOYET. True; out indeed.\n  MOTH. Out of your favours, heavenly spirits, vouchsafe\n    Not to behold-\n  BEROWNE. Once to behold, rogue.\n  MOTH. Once to behold with your sun-beamed eyes- with your\n    sun-beamed eyes-\n  BOYET. They will not answer to that epithet;\n    You were best call it 'daughter-beamed eyes.'\n  MOTH. They do not mark me, and that brings me out.\n  BEROWNE. Is this your perfectness? Be gone, you rogue.\n                                                       Exit MOTH\n  ROSALINE. What would these strangers? Know their minds, Boyet.\n    If they do speak our language, 'tis our will\n    That some plain man recount their purposes.\n    Know what they would.\n  BOYET. What would you with the Princess?\n  BEROWNE. Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.\n  ROSALINE. What would they, say they?\n  BOYET. Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.\n  ROSALINE. Why, that they have; and bid them so be gone.\n  BOYET. She says you have it, and you may be gone.\n  KING. Say to her we have measur'd many miles\n    To tread a measure with her on this grass.\n  BOYET. They say that they have measur'd many a mile\n    To tread a measure with you on this grass.\n  ROSALINE. It is not so. Ask them how many inches\n    Is in one mile? If they have measured many,\n    The measure, then, of one is eas'ly told.\n  BOYET. If to come hither you have measur'd miles,\n    And many miles, the Princess bids you tell\n    How many inches doth fill up one mile.\n  BEROWNE. Tell her we measure them by weary steps.\n  BOYET. She hears herself.\n  ROSALINE. How many weary steps\n    Of many weary miles you have o'ergone\n    Are numb'red in the travel of one mile?\n  BEROWNE. We number nothing that we spend for you;\n    Our duty is so rich, so infinite,\n    That we may do it still without accompt.\n    Vouchsafe to show the sunshine of your face,\n    That we, like savages, may worship it.\n  ROSALINE. My face is but a moon, and clouded too.\n  KING. Blessed are clouds, to do as such clouds do.\n    Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine,\n    Those clouds removed, upon our watery eyne.\n  ROSALINE. O vain petitioner! beg a greater matter;\n    Thou now requests but moonshine in the water.\n  KING. Then in our measure do but vouchsafe one change.\n    Thou bid'st me beg; this begging is not strange.\n  ROSALINE. Play, music, then. Nay, you must do it soon.\n    Not yet? No dance! Thus change I like the moon.\n  KING. Will you not dance? How come you thus estranged?\n  ROSALINE. You took the moon at full; but now she's changed.\n  KING. Yet still she is the Moon, and I the Man.\n    The music plays; vouchsafe some motion to it.\n  ROSALINE. Our ears vouchsafe it.\n  KING. But your legs should do it.\n  ROSALINE. Since you are strangers, and come here by chance,\n    We'll not be nice; take hands. We will not dance.\n  KING. Why take we hands then?\n  ROSALINE. Only to part friends.\n    Curtsy, sweet hearts; and so the measure ends.\n  KING. More measure of this measure; be not nice.\n  ROSALINE. We can afford no more at such a price.\n  KING. Price you yourselves. What buys your company?\n  ROSALINE. Your absence only.\n  KING. That can never be.\n  ROSALINE. Then cannot we be bought; and so adieu-\n    Twice to your visor and half once to you.\n  KING. If you deny to dance, let's hold more chat.\n  ROSALINE. In private then.\n  KING. I am best pleas'd with that.       [They converse apart]\n  BEROWNE. White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Honey, and milk, and sugar; there is three.\n  BEROWNE. Nay, then, two treys, an if you grow so nice,\n    Metheglin, wort, and malmsey; well run dice!\n    There's half a dozen sweets.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Seventh sweet, adieu!\n    Since you can cog, I'll play no more with you.\n  BEROWNE. One word in secret.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Let it not be sweet.\n  BEROWNE. Thou grievest my gall.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Gall! bitter.\n  BEROWNE. Therefore meet.                 [They converse apart]\n  DUMAIN. Will you vouchsafe with me to change a word?\n  MARIA. Name it.\n  DUMAIN. Fair lady-\n  MARIA. Say you so? Fair lord-\n    Take that for your fair lady.\n  DUMAIN. Please it you,\n    As much in private, and I'll bid adieu.\n                                           [They converse apart]\n  KATHARINE. What, was your vizard made without a tongue?\n  LONGAVILLE. I know the reason, lady, why you ask.\n  KATHARINE. O for your reason! Quickly, sir; I long.\n  LONGAVILLE. You have a double tongue within your mask,\n    And would afford my speechless vizard half.\n  KATHARINE. 'Veal' quoth the Dutchman. Is not 'veal' a calf?\n  LONGAVILLE. A calf, fair lady!\n  KATHARINE. No, a fair lord calf.\n  LONGAVILLE. Let's part the word.\n  KATHARINE. No, I'll not be your half.\n    Take all and wean it; it may prove an ox.\n  LONGAVILLE. Look how you butt yourself in these sharp mocks!\n    Will you give horns, chaste lady? Do not so.\n  KATHARINE. Then die a calf, before your horns do grow.\n  LONGAVILLE. One word in private with you ere I die.\n  KATHARINE. Bleat softly, then; the butcher hears you cry.\n                                           [They converse apart]\n  BOYET. The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen\n    As is the razor's edge invisible,\n    Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen,\n    Above the sense of sense; so sensible\n    Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings,\n    Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.\n  ROSALINE. Not one word more, my maids; break off, break off.\n  BEROWNE. By heaven, all dry-beaten with pure scoff!\n  KING. Farewell, mad wenches; you have simple wits.\n                             Exeunt KING, LORDS, and BLACKAMOORS\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovits.\n    Are these the breed of wits so wondered at?\n  BOYET. Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puff'd out.\n  ROSALINE. Well-liking wits they have; gross, gross; fat, fat.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. O poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout!\n    Will they not, think you, hang themselves to-night?\n    Or ever but in vizards show their faces?\n    This pert Berowne was out of count'nance quite.\n  ROSALINE. They were all in lamentable cases!\n    The King was weeping-ripe for a good word.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Berowne did swear himself out of all suit.\n  MARIA. Dumain was at my service, and his sword.\n    'No point' quoth I; my servant straight was mute.\n  KATHARINE. Lord Longaville said I came o'er his heart;\n    And trow you what he call'd me?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Qualm, perhaps.\n  KATHARINE. Yes, in good faith.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Go, sickness as thou art!\n  ROSALINE. Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps.\n    But will you hear? The King is my love sworn.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. And quick Berowne hath plighted faith to me.\n  KATHARINE. And Longaville was for my service born.\n  MARIA. Dumain is mine, as sure as bark on tree.\n  BOYET. Madam, and pretty mistresses, give ear:\n    Immediately they will again be here\n    In their own shapes; for it can never be\n    They will digest this harsh indignity.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Will they return?\n  BOYET. They will, they will, God knows,\n    And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows;\n    Therefore, change favours; and, when they repair,\n    Blow like sweet roses in this summer air.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. How blow? how blow? Speak to be understood.\n  BOYET. Fair ladies mask'd are roses in their bud:\n    Dismask'd, their damask sweet commixture shown,\n    Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Avaunt, perplexity! What shall we do\n    If they return in their own shapes to woo?\n  ROSALINE. Good madam, if by me you'll be advis'd,\n    Let's mock them still, as well known as disguis'd.\n    Let us complain to them what fools were here,\n    Disguis'd like Muscovites, in shapeless gear;\n    And wonder what they were, and to what end\n    Their shallow shows and prologue vilely penn'd,\n    And their rough carriage so ridiculous,\n    Should be presented at our tent to us.\n  BOYET. Ladies, withdraw; the gallants are at hand.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Whip to our tents, as roes run o'er land.\n                 Exeunt PRINCESS, ROSALINE, KATHARINE, and MARIA\n\n         Re-enter the KING, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN,\n                        in their proper habits\n\n  KING. Fair sir, God save you! Where's the Princess?\n  BOYET. Gone to her tent. Please it your Majesty\n    Command me any service to her thither?\n  KING. That she vouchsafe me audience for one word.\n  BOYET. I will; and so will she, I know, my lord.          Exit\n  BEROWNE. This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease,\n    And utters it again when God doth please.\n    He is wit's pedlar, and retails his wares\n    At wakes, and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs;\n    And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know,\n    Have not the grace to grace it with such show.\n    This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve;\n    Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve.\n    'A can carve too, and lisp; why this is he\n    That kiss'd his hand away in courtesy;\n    This is the ape of form, Monsieur the Nice,\n    That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice\n    In honourable terms; nay, he can sing\n    A mean most meanly; and in ushering,\n    Mend him who can. The ladies call him sweet;\n    The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet.\n    This is the flow'r that smiles on every one,\n    To show his teeth as white as whales-bone;\n    And consciences that will not die in debt\n    Pay him the due of 'honey-tongued Boyet.'\n  KING. A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart,\n    That put Armado's page out of his part!\n\n        Re-enter the PRINCESS, ushered by BOYET; ROSALINE,\n                      MARIA, and KATHARINE\n\n  BEROWNE. See where it comes! Behaviour, what wert thou\n    Till this man show'd thee? And what art thou now?\n  KING. All hail, sweet madam, and fair time of day!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'Fair' in 'all hail' is foul, as I conceive.\n  KING. Construe my speeches better, if you may.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Then wish me better; I will give you leave.\n  KING. We came to visit you, and purpose now\n    To lead you to our court; vouchsafe it then.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. This field shall hold me, and so hold your vow:\n    Nor God, nor I, delights in perjur'd men.\n  KING. Rebuke me not for that which you provoke.\n    The virtue of your eye must break my oath.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. You nickname virtue: vice you should have\n      spoke;\n    For virtue's office never breaks men's troth.\n    Now by my maiden honour, yet as pure\n    As the unsullied lily, I protest,\n    A world of torments though I should endure,\n    I would not yield to be your house's guest;\n    So much I hate a breaking cause to be\n    Of heavenly oaths, vowed with integrity.\n  KING. O, you have liv'd in desolation here,\n    Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Not so, my lord; it is not so, I swear;\n    We have had pastimes here, and pleasant game;\n    A mess of Russians left us but of late.\n  KING. How, madam! Russians!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Ay, in truth, my lord;\n    Trim gallants, full of courtship and of state.\n  ROSALINE. Madam, speak true. It is not so, my lord.\n    My lady, to the manner of the days,\n    In courtesy gives undeserving praise.\n    We four indeed confronted were with four\n    In Russian habit; here they stayed an hour\n    And talk'd apace; and in that hour, my lord,\n    They did not bless us with one happy word.\n    I dare not call them fools; but this I think,\n    When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.\n  BEROWNE. This jest is dry to me. Fair gentle sweet,\n    Your wit makes wise things foolish; when we greet,\n    With eyes best seeing, heaven's fiery eye,\n    By light we lose light; your capacity\n    Is of that nature that to your huge store\n    Wise things seem foolish and rich things but poor.\n  ROSALINE. This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye-\n  BEROWNE. I am a fool, and full of poverty.\n  ROSALINE. But that you take what doth to you belong,\n    It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.\n  BEROWNE. O, I am yours, and all that I possess.\n  ROSALINE. All the fool mine?\n  BEROWNE. I cannot give you less.\n  ROSALINE. Which of the vizards was it that you wore?\n  BEROWNE. Where? when? what vizard? Why demand you this?\n  ROSALINE. There, then, that vizard; that superfluous case\n    That hid the worse and show'd the better face.\n  KING. We were descried; they'll mock us now downright.\n  DUMAIN. Let us confess, and turn it to a jest.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Amaz'd, my lord? Why looks your Highness sad?\n  ROSALINE. Help, hold his brows! he'll swoon! Why look you pale?\n    Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy.\n  BEROWNE. Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury.\n    Can any face of brass hold longer out?\n    Here stand I, lady- dart thy skill at me,\n    Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout,\n    Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance,\n    Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit;\n    And I will wish thee never more to dance,\n    Nor never more in Russian habit wait.\n    O, never will I trust to speeches penn'd,\n    Nor to the motion of a school-boy's tongue,\n    Nor never come in vizard to my friend,\n    Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper's song.\n    Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,\n    Three-pil'd hyperboles, spruce affectation,\n    Figures pedantical- these summer-flies\n    Have blown me full of maggot ostentation.\n    I do forswear them; and I here protest,\n    By this white glove- how white the hand, God knows!-\n    Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd\n    In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes.\n    And, to begin, wench- so God help me, law!-\n    My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.\n  ROSALINE. Sans 'sans,' I pray you.\n  BEROWNE. Yet I have a trick\n    Of the old rage; bear with me, I am sick;\n    I'll leave it by degrees. Soft, let us see-\n    Write 'Lord have mercy on us' on those three;\n    They are infected; in their hearts it lies;\n    They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes.\n    These lords are visited; you are not free,\n    For the Lord's tokens on you do I see.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. No, they are free that gave these tokens to us.\n  BEROWNE. Our states are forfeit; seek not to undo us.\n  ROSALINE. It is not so; for how can this be true,\n    That you stand forfeit, being those that sue?\n  BEROWNE. Peace; for I will not have to do with you.\n  ROSALINE. Nor shall not, if I do as I intend.\n  BEROWNE. Speak for yourselves; my wit is at an end.\n  KING. Teach us, sweet madam, for our rude transgression\n    Some fair excuse.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The fairest is confession.\n    Were not you here but even now, disguis'd?\n  KING. Madam, I was.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. And were you well advis'd?\n  KING. I was, fair madam.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. When you then were here,\n    What did you whisper in your lady's ear?\n  KING. That more than all the world I did respect her.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. When she shall challenge this, you will reject\n    her.\n  KING. Upon mine honour, no.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Peace, peace, forbear;\n    Your oath once broke, you force not to forswear.\n  KING. Despise me when I break this oath of mine.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I will; and therefore keep it. Rosaline,\n    What did the Russian whisper in your ear?\n  ROSALINE. Madam, he swore that he did hold me dear\n    As precious eyesight, and did value me\n    Above this world; adding thereto, moreover,\n    That he would wed me, or else die my lover.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. God give thee joy of him! The noble lord\n     Most honourably doth uphold his word.\n  KING. What mean you, madam? By my life, my troth,\n    I never swore this lady such an oath.\n  ROSALINE. By heaven, you did; and, to confirm it plain,\n    You gave me this; but take it, sir, again.\n  KING. My faith and this the Princess I did give;\n    I knew her by this jewel on her sleeve.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Pardon me, sir, this jewel did she wear;\n    And Lord Berowne, I thank him, is my dear.\n    What, will you have me, or your pearl again?\n BEROWNE. Neither of either; I remit both twain.\n    I see the trick on't: here was a consent,\n    Knowing aforehand of our merriment,\n    To dash it like a Christmas comedy.\n    Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany,\n    Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick,\n    That smiles his cheek in years and knows the trick\n    To make my lady laugh when she's dispos'd,\n    Told our intents before; which once disclos'd,\n    The ladies did change favours; and then we,\n    Following the signs, woo'd but the sign of she.\n    Now, to our perjury to add more terror,\n    We are again forsworn in will and error.\n    Much upon this it is; [To BOYET] and might not you\n    Forestall our sport, to make us thus untrue?\n    Do not you know my lady's foot by th' squier,\n    And laugh upon the apple of her eye?\n    And stand between her back, sir, and the fire,\n    Holding a trencher, jesting merrily?\n    You put our page out. Go, you are allow'd;\n    Die when you will, a smock shall be your shroud.\n    You leer upon me, do you? There's an eye\n    Wounds like a leaden sword.\n  BOYET. Full merrily\n    Hath this brave manage, this career, been run.\n  BEROWNE. Lo, he is tilting straight! Peace; I have done.\n\n                          Enter COSTARD\n\n    Welcome, pure wit! Thou part'st a fair fray.\n  COSTARD. O Lord, sir, they would know\n     Whether the three Worthies shall come in or no?\n  BEROWNE. What, are there but three?\n  COSTARD. No, sir; but it is vara fine,\n    For every one pursents three.\n  BEROWNE. And three times thrice is nine.\n  COSTARD. Not so, sir; under correction, sir,\n    I hope it is not so.\n    You cannot beg us, sir, I can assure you, sir; we know what we\n      know;\n    I hope, sir, three times thrice, sir-\n  BEROWNE. Is not nine.\n  COSTARD. Under correction, sir, we know whereuntil it doth amount.\n  BEROWNE. By Jove, I always took three threes for nine.\n  COSTARD. O Lord, sir, it were pity you should get your living by\n    reck'ning, sir.\n  BEROWNE. How much is it?\n  COSTARD. O Lord, sir, the parties themselves, the actors, sir, will\n    show whereuntil it doth amount. For mine own part, I am, as they\n    say, but to parfect one man in one poor man, Pompion the Great,\n    sir.\n  BEROWNE. Art thou one of the Worthies?\n  COSTARD. It pleased them to think me worthy of Pompey the Great;\n    for mine own part, I know not the degree of the Worthy; but I am\n    to stand for him.\n  BEROWNE. Go, bid them prepare.\n  COSTARD. We will turn it finely off, sir; we will take some care.\n                                                    Exit COSTARD\n  KING. Berowne, they will shame us; let them not approach.\n  BEROWNE. We are shame-proof, my lord, and 'tis some policy\n    To have one show worse than the King's and his company.\n  KING. I say they shall not come.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nay, my good lord, let me o'errule you now.\n    That sport best pleases that doth least know how;\n    Where zeal strives to content, and the contents\n    Dies in the zeal of that which it presents.\n    Their form confounded makes most form in mirth,\n    When great things labouring perish in their birth.\n  BEROWNE. A right description of our sport, my lord.\n\n                        Enter ARMADO\n\n  ARMADO. Anointed, I implore so much expense of thy royal sweet\n    breath as will utter a brace of words.\n           [Converses apart with the KING, and delivers a paper]\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Doth this man serve God?\n  BEROWNE. Why ask you?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'A speaks not like a man of God his making.\n  ARMADO. That is all one, my fair, sweet, honey monarch; for, I\n    protest, the schoolmaster is exceeding fantastical; too too vain,\n    too too vain; but we will put it, as they say, to fortuna de la\n    guerra. I wish you the peace of mind, most royal couplement!\n                                                     Exit ARMADO\n  KING. Here is like to be a good presence of Worthies. He presents\n    Hector of Troy; the swain, Pompey the Great; the parish curate,\n    Alexander; Arinado's page, Hercules; the pedant, Judas\n    Maccabaeus.\n    And if these four Worthies in their first show thrive,\n    These four will change habits and present the other five.\n  BEROWNE. There is five in the first show.\n  KING. You are deceived, 'tis not so.\n  BEROWNE. The pedant, the braggart, the hedge-priest, the fool, and\n    the boy:\n    Abate throw at novum, and the whole world again\n    Cannot pick out five such, take each one in his vein.\n  KING. The ship is under sail, and here she comes amain.\n\n                   Enter COSTARD, armed for POMPEY\n\n  COSTARD. I Pompey am-\n  BEROWNE. You lie, you are not he.\n  COSTARD. I Pompey am-\n  BOYET. With libbard's head on knee.\n  BEROWNE. Well said, old mocker; I must needs be friends with thee.\n  COSTARD. I Pompey am, Pompey surnam'd the Big-\n   DUMAIN. The Great.\n  COSTARD. It is Great, sir.\n    Pompey surnam'd the Great,\n    That oft in field, with targe and shield, did make my foe to\n      sweat;\n    And travelling along this coast, I bere am come by chance,\n    And lay my arms before the legs of this sweet lass of France.\n\n    If your ladyship would say 'Thanks, Pompey,' I had done.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Great thanks, great Pompey.\n  COSTARD. 'Tis not so much worth; but I hope I was perfect.\n    I made a little fault in Great.\n  BEROWNE. My hat to a halfpenny, Pompey proves the best Worthy.\n\n                 Enter SIR NATHANIEL, for ALEXANDER\n\n  NATHANIEL. When in the world I liv'd, I was the world's commander;\n    By east, west, north, and south, I spread my conquering might.\n    My scutcheon plain declares that I am Alisander-\n  BOYET. Your nose says, no, you are not; for it stands to right.\n  BEROWNE. Your nose smells 'no' in this, most tender-smelling\n    knight.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The conqueror is dismay'd. Proceed, good\n    Alexander.\n  NATHANIEL. When in the world I liv'd, I was the world's commander-\n  BOYET. Most true, 'tis right, you were so, Alisander.\n  BEROWNE. Pompey the Great!\n  COSTARD. Your servant, and Costard.\n  BEROWNE. Take away the conqueror, take away Alisander.\n  COSTARD. [To Sir Nathaniel] O, Sir, you have overthrown Alisander\n    the conqueror! You will be scrap'd out of the painted cloth for\n    this. Your lion, that holds his poleaxe sitting on a close-stool,\n    will be given to Ajax. He will be the ninth Worthy. A conqueror\n    and afeard to speak! Run away for shame, Alisander.\n    [Sir Nathaniel retires] There, an't shall please you, a foolish\n    mild man; an honest man, look you, and soon dash'd. He is a\n    marvellous good neighbour, faith, and a very good bowler; but for\n    Alisander- alas! you see how 'tis- a little o'erparted. But there\n    are Worthies a-coming will speak their mind in some other sort.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Stand aside, good Pompey.\n\n         Enter HOLOFERNES, for JUDAS; and MOTH, for HERCULES\n\n  HOLOFERNES. Great Hercules is presented by this imp,\n    Whose club kill'd Cerberus, that three-headed canus;\n    And when be was a babe, a child, a shrimp,\n    Thus did he strangle serpents in his manus.\n    Quoniam he seemeth in minority,\n    Ergo I come with this apology.\n    Keep some state in thy exit, and vanish.      [MOTH retires]\n    Judas I am-\n  DUMAIN. A Judas!\n  HOLOFERNES. Not Iscariot, sir.\n    Judas I am, ycliped Maccabaeus.\n  DUMAIN. Judas Maccabaeus clipt is plain Judas.\n  BEROWNE. A kissing traitor. How art thou prov'd Judas?\n  HOLOFERNES. Judas I am-\n  DUMAIN. The more shame for you, Judas!\n  HOLOFERNES. What mean you, sir?\n  BOYET. To make Judas hang himself.\n  HOLOFERNES. Begin, sir; you are my elder.\n  BEROWNE. Well followed: Judas was hanged on an elder.\n  HOLOFERNES. I will not be put out of countenance.\n  BEROWNE. Because thou hast no face.\n  HOLOFERNES. What is this?\n  BOYET. A cittern-head.\n  DUMAIN. The head of a bodkin.\n  BEROWNE. A death's face in a ring.\n  LONGAVILLE. The face of an old Roman coin, scarce seen.\n  BOYET. The pommel of Coesar's falchion.\n  DUMAIN. The carv'd-bone face on a flask.\n  BEROWNE. Saint George's half-cheek in a brooch.\n  DUMAIN. Ay, and in a brooch of lead.\n  BEROWNE. Ay, and worn in the cap of a tooth-drawer. And now,\n    forward; for we have put thee in countenance.\n  HOLOFERNES. You have put me out of countenance.\n  BEROWNE. False: we have given thee faces.\n  HOLOFERNES. But you have outfac'd them all.\n  BEROWNE. An thou wert a lion we would do so.\n  BOYET. Therefore, as he is an ass, let him go.\n    And so adieu, sweet Jude! Nay, why dost thou stay?\n  DUMAIN. For the latter end of his name.\n  BEROWNE. For the ass to the Jude; give it him- Jud-as, away.\n  HOLOFERNES. This is not generous, not gentle, not humble.\n  BOYET. A light for Monsieur Judas! It grows dark, he may stumble.\n                                            [HOLOFERNES retires]\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Alas, poor Maccabaeus, how hath he been baited!\n\n                   Enter ARMADO, for HECTOR\n\n  BEROWNE. Hide thy head, Achilles; here comes Hector in arms.\n  DUMAIN. Though my mocks come home by me, I will now be merry.\n  KING. Hector was but a Troyan in respect of this.\n  BOYET. But is this Hector?\n  DUMAIN. I think Hector was not so clean-timber'd.\n  LONGAVILLE. His leg is too big for Hector's.\n  DUMAIN. More calf, certain.\n  BOYET. No; he is best indued in the small.\n  BEROWNE. This cannot be Hector.\n  DUMAIN. He's a god or a painter, for he makes faces.\n  ARMADO. The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,\n    Gave Hector a gift-\n  DUMAIN. A gilt nutmeg.\n  BEROWNE. A lemon.\n  LONGAVILLE. Stuck with cloves.\n  DUMAIN. No, cloven.\n  ARMADO. Peace!\n    The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,\n    Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion;\n    A man so breathed that certain he would fight ye,\n    From morn till night out of his pavilion.\n    I am that flower-\n  DUMAIN. That mint.\n  LONGAVILLE. That columbine.\n  ARMADO. Sweet Lord Longaville, rein thy tongue.\n  LONGAVILLE. I must rather give it the rein, for it runs against\n    Hector.\n  DUMAIN. Ay, and Hector's a greyhound.\n  ARMADO. The sweet war-man is dead and rotten; sweet chucks, beat\n    not the bones of the buried; when he breathed, he was a man. But\n    I will forward with my device. [To the PRINCESS] Sweet royalty,\n    bestow on me the sense of hearing.\n\n          [BEROWNE steps forth, and speaks to COSTARD]\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Speak, brave Hector; we are much delighted.\n  ARMADO. I do adore thy sweet Grace's slipper.\n  BOYET. [Aside to DUMAIN] Loves her by the foot.\n  DUMAIN. [Aside to BOYET] He may not by the yard.\n  ARMADO. This Hector far surmounted Hannibal-\n  COSTARD. The party is gone, fellow Hector, she is gone; she is two\n    months on her way.\n  ARMADO. What meanest thou?\n  COSTARD. Faith, unless you play the honest Troyan, the poor wench\n    is cast away. She's quick; the child brags in her belly already;\n    'tis yours.\n  ARMADO. Dost thou infamonize me among potentates? Thou shalt die.\n  COSTARD. Then shall Hector be whipt for Jaquenetta that is quick by\n    him, and hang'd for Pompey that is dead by him.\n  DUMAIN. Most rare Pompey!\n  BOYET. Renowned Pompey!\n  BEROWNE. Greater than Great! Great, great, great Pompey! Pompey the\n    Huge!\n  DUMAIN. Hector trembles.\n  BEROWNE. Pompey is moved. More Ates, more Ates! Stir them on! stir\n    them on!\n  DUMAIN. Hector will challenge him.\n  BEROWNE. Ay, if 'a have no more man's blood in his belly than will\n    sup a flea.\n  ARMADO. By the North Pole, I do challenge thee.\n  COSTARD. I will not fight with a pole, like a Northern man; I'll\n    slash; I'll do it by the sword. I bepray you, let me borrow my\n    arms again.\n  DUMAIN. Room for the incensed Worthies!\n  COSTARD. I'll do it in my shirt.\n  DUMAIN. Most resolute Pompey!\n  MOTH. Master, let me take you a buttonhole lower. Do you not see\n    Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? You will lose\n    your reputation.\n  ARMADO. Gentlemen and soldiers, pardon me; I will not combat in my\n    shirt.\n  DUMAIN. You may not deny it: Pompey hath made the challenge.\n  ARMADO. Sweet bloods, I both may and will.\n  BEROWNE. What reason have you for 't?\n  ARMADO. The naked truth of it is: I have no shirt; I go woolward\n    for penance.\n  BOYET. True, and it was enjoined him in Rome for want of linen;\n    since when, I'll be sworn, he wore none but a dishclout of\n    Jaquenetta's, and that 'a wears next his heart for a favour.\n\n                 Enter as messenger, MONSIEUR MARCADE\n\n  MARCADE. God save you, madam!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Welcome, Marcade;\n    But that thou interruptest our merriment.\n  MARCADE. I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring\n    Is heavy in my tongue. The King your father-\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Dead, for my life!\n  MARCADE. Even so; my tale is told.\n  BEROWNE. WOrthies away; the scene begins to cloud.\n  ARMADO. For mine own part, I breathe free breath. I have seen the\n    day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I will\n    right myself like a soldier.                 Exeunt WORTHIES\n  KING. How fares your Majesty?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Boyet, prepare; I will away to-night.\n  KING. Madam, not so; I do beseech you stay.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Prepare, I say. I thank you, gracious lords,\n    For all your fair endeavours, and entreat,\n    Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe\n    In your rich wisdom to excuse or hide\n    The liberal opposition of our spirits,\n    If over-boldly we have borne ourselves\n    In the converse of breath- your gentleness\n    Was guilty of it. Farewell, worthy lord.\n    A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue.\n    Excuse me so, coming too short of thanks\n    For my great suit so easily obtain'd.\n  KING. The extreme parts of time extremely forms\n    All causes to the purpose of his speed;\n    And often at his very loose decides\n    That which long process could not arbitrate.\n    And though the mourning brow of progeny\n    Forbid the smiling courtesy of love\n    The holy suit which fain it would convince,\n    Yet, since love's argument was first on foot,\n    Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it\n    From what it purpos'd; since to wail friends lost\n    Is not by much so wholesome-profitable\n    As to rejoice at friends but newly found.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I understand you not; my griefs are double.\n  BEROWNE. Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;\n    And by these badges understand the King.\n    For your fair sakes have we neglected time,\n    Play'd foul play with our oaths; your beauty, ladies,\n    Hath much deformed us, fashioning our humours\n    Even to the opposed end of our intents;\n    And what in us hath seem'd ridiculous,\n    As love is full of unbefitting strains,\n    All wanton as a child, skipping and vain;\n    Form'd by the eye and therefore, like the eye,\n    Full of strange shapes, of habits, and of forms,\n    Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll\n    To every varied object in his glance;\n    Which parti-coated presence of loose love\n    Put on by us, if in your heavenly eyes\n    Have misbecom'd our oaths and gravities,\n    Those heavenly eyes that look into these faults\n    Suggested us to make. Therefore, ladies,\n    Our love being yours, the error that love makes\n    Is likewise yours. We to ourselves prove false,\n    By being once false for ever to be true\n    To those that make us both- fair ladies, you;\n    And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,\n    Thus purifies itself and turns to grace.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We have receiv'd your letters, full of love;\n    Your favours, the ambassadors of love;\n    And, in our maiden council, rated them\n    At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy,\n    As bombast and as lining to the time;\n    But more devout than this in our respects\n    Have we not been; and therefore met your loves\n    In their own fashion, like a merriment.\n  DUMAIN. Our letters, madam, show'd much more than jest.\n  LONGAVILLE. So did our looks.\n  ROSALINE. We did not quote them so.\n  KING. Now, at the latest minute of the hour,\n    Grant us your loves.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. A time, methinks, too short\n    To make a world-without-end bargain in.\n    No, no, my lord, your Grace is perjur'd much,\n    Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this,\n    If for my love, as there is no such cause,\n    You will do aught- this shall you do for me:\n    Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed\n    To some forlorn and naked hermitage,\n    Remote from all the pleasures of the world;\n    There stay until the twelve celestial signs\n    Have brought about the annual reckoning.\n    If this austere insociable life\n    Change not your offer made in heat of blood,\n    If frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds,\n    Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,\n    But that it bear this trial, and last love,\n    Then, at the expiration of the year,\n    Come, challenge me, challenge me by these deserts;\n    And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine,\n    I will be thine; and, till that instant, shut\n    My woeful self up in a mournful house,\n    Raining the tears of lamentation\n    For the remembrance of my father's death.\n    If this thou do deny, let our hands part,\n    Neither intitled in the other's heart.\n  KING. If this, or more than this, I would deny,\n    To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,\n    The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!\n    Hence hermit then, my heart is in thy breast.\n  BEROWNE. And what to me, my love? and what to me?\n  ROSALINE. You must he purged too, your sins are rack'd;\n    You are attaint with faults and perjury;\n    Therefore, if you my favour mean to get,\n    A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,\n    But seek the weary beds of people sick.\n  DUMAIN. But what to me, my love? but what to me?\n    A wife?\n  KATHARINE. A beard, fair health, and honesty;\n    With threefold love I wish you all these three.\n  DUMAIN. O, shall I say I thank you, gentle wife?\n  KATHARINE. No so, my lord; a twelvemonth and a day\n    I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers say.\n    Come when the King doth to my lady come;\n    Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some.\n  DUMAIN. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then.\n  KATHARINE. Yet swear not, lest ye be forsworn again.\n  LONGAVILLE. What says Maria?\n  MARIA. At the twelvemonth's end\n    I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.\n  LONGAVILLE. I'll stay with patience; but the time is long.\n  MARIA. The liker you; few taller are so young.\n  BEROWNE. Studies my lady? Mistress, look on me;\n    Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,\n    What humble suit attends thy answer there.\n    Impose some service on me for thy love.\n  ROSALINE. Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Berowne,\n    Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue\n    Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks,\n    Full of comparisons and wounding flouts,\n    Which you on all estates will execute\n    That lie within the mercy of your wit.\n    To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,\n    And therewithal to win me, if you please,\n    Without the which I am not to be won,\n    You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day\n    Visit the speechless sick, and still converse\n    With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,\n    With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,\n    To enforce the pained impotent to smile.\n  BEROWNE. To move wild laughter in the throat of death?\n    It cannot be; it is impossible;\n    Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.\n  ROSALINE. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,\n    Whose influence is begot of that loose grace\n    Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.\n    A jest's prosperity lies in the ear\n    Of him that hears it, never in the tongue\n    Of him that makes it; then, if sickly ears,\n    Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,\n    Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,\n    And I will have you and that fault withal.\n    But if they will not, throw away that spirit,\n    And I shall find you empty of that fault,\n    Right joyful of your reformation.\n  BEROWNE. A twelvemonth? Well, befall what will befall,\n    I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. [ To the King] Ay, sweet my lord, and so I take\n    my leave.\n  KING. No, madam; we will bring you on your way.\n  BEROWNE. Our wooing doth not end like an old play:\n    Jack hath not Jill. These ladies' courtesy\n    Might well have made our sport a comedy.\n  KING. Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth an' a day,\n    And then 'twill end.\n  BEROWNE. That's too long for a play.\n\n                          Re-enter ARMADO\n\n  ARMADO. Sweet Majesty, vouchsafe me-\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Was not that not Hector?\n  DUMAIN. The worthy knight of Troy.\n  ARMADO. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave. I am a\n    votary: I have vow'd to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her\n    sweet love three year. But, most esteemed greatness, will you\n    hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled in\n    praise of the Owl and the Cuckoo? It should have followed in the\n    end of our show.\n  KING. Call them forth quickly; we will do so.\n  ARMADO. Holla! approach.\n\n                            Enter All\n\n    This side is Hiems, Winter; this Ver, the Spring- the one\n    maintained by the Owl, th' other by the Cuckoo. Ver, begin.\n\n                      SPRING\n         When daisies pied and violets blue\n         And lady-smocks all silver-white\n         And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue\n         Do paint the meadows with delight,\n         The cuckoo then on every tree\n         Mocks married men, for thus sings he:\n              'Cuckoo;\n         Cuckoo, cuckoo'- O word of fear,\n         Unpleasing to a married ear!\n\n         When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,\n         And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks;\n         When turtles tread, and rooks and daws,\n         And maidens bleach their summer smocks;\n         The cuckoo then on every tree\n         Mocks married men, for thus sings he:\n              'Cuckoo;\n         Cuckoo, cuckoo'- O word of fear,\n         Unpleasing to a married ear!\n\n\n                    WINTER\n\n         When icicles hang by the wall,\n         And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,\n         And Tom bears logs into the hall,\n         And milk comes frozen home in pail,\n         When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,\n         Then nightly sings the staring owl:\n              'Tu-who;\n         Tu-whit, Tu-who'- A merry note,\n         While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.\n\n         When all aloud the wind doth blow,\n         And coughing drowns the parson's saw,\n         And birds sit brooding in the snow,\n         And Marian's nose looks red and raw,\n         When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,\n         Then nightly sings the staring owl:\n              'Tu-who;\n         Tu-whit, To-who'- A merry note,\n         While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.\n\n  ARMADO. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.\n    You that way: we this way.                            Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1606\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH\n\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  DUNCAN, King of Scotland\n  MACBETH, Thane of Glamis and Cawdor, a general in the King's army\n  LADY MACBETH, his wife\n  MACDUFF, Thane of Fife, a nobleman of Scotland\n  LADY MACDUFF, his wife\n  MALCOLM, elder son of Duncan\n  DONALBAIN, younger son of Duncan\n  BANQUO, Thane of Lochaber, a general in the King's army\n  FLEANCE, his son\n  LENNOX, nobleman of Scotland\n  ROSS, nobleman of Scotland\n  MENTEITH nobleman of Scotland\n  ANGUS, nobleman of Scotland\n  CAITHNESS, nobleman of Scotland\n  SIWARD, Earl of Northumberland, general of the English forces\n  YOUNG SIWARD, his son\n  SEYTON, attendant to Macbeth\n  HECATE, Queen of the Witches\n  The Three Witches\n  Boy, Son of Macduff\n  Gentlewoman attending on Lady Macbeth\n  An English Doctor\n  A Scottish Doctor\n  A Sergeant\n  A Porter\n  An Old Man\n  The Ghost of Banquo and other Apparitions\n  Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldiers, Murtherers, Attendants,\n     and Messengers\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE: Scotland and England\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nA desert place. Thunder and lightning.\n\nEnter three Witches.\n\n  FIRST WITCH. When shall we three meet again?\n    In thunder, lightning, or in rain?\n  SECOND WITCH. When the hurlyburly's done,\n    When the battle's lost and won.\n  THIRD WITCH. That will be ere the set of sun.\n  FIRST WITCH. Where the place?\n  SECOND WITCH. Upon the heath.\n  THIRD WITCH. There to meet with Macbeth.\n  FIRST WITCH. I come, Graymalkin.\n  ALL. Paddock calls. Anon!\n    Fair is foul, and foul is fair.\n    Hover through the fog and filthy air.                Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA camp near Forres. Alarum within.\n\nEnter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, with Attendants,\nmeeting a bleeding Sergeant.\n\n  DUNCAN. What bloody man is that? He can report,\n    As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt\n    The newest state.\n  MALCOLM. This is the sergeant\n    Who like a good and hardy soldier fought\n    'Gainst my captivity. Hail, brave friend!\n    Say to the King the knowledge of the broil\n    As thou didst leave it.\n  SERGEANT. Doubtful it stood,\n    As two spent swimmers that do cling together\n    And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald-\n    Worthy to be a rebel, for to that\n    The multiplying villainies of nature\n    Do swarm upon him -from the Western Isles\n    Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;\n    And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,\n    Show'd like a rebel's whore. But all's too weak;\n    For brave Macbeth -well he deserves that name-\n    Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish'd steel,\n    Which smoked with bloody execution,\n    Like Valor's minion carved out his passage\n    Till he faced the slave,\n    Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,\n    Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,\n    And fix'd his head upon our battlements.\n  DUNCAN. O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman!\n  SERGEANT. As whence the sun 'gins his reflection\n    Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break,\n    So from that spring whence comfort seem'd to come\n    Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark.\n    No sooner justice had, with valor arm'd,\n    Compell'd these skipping kerns to trust their heels,\n    But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,\n    With furbish'd arms and new supplies of men,\n    Began a fresh assault.\n  DUNCAN. Dismay'd not this\n    Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo.?\n  SERGEANT. Yes,\n    As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.\n    If I say sooth, I must report they were\n    As cannons overcharged with double cracks,\n    So they\n    Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe.\n    Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,\n    Or memorize another Golgotha,\n    I cannot tell-\n    But I am faint; my gashes cry for help.\n  DUNCAN. So well thy words become thee as thy wounds;\n    They smack of honor both. Go get him surgeons.\n                                        Exit Sergeant, attended.\n    Who comes here?\n\n                       Enter Ross.\n\n  MALCOLM The worthy Thane of Ross.\n  LENNOX. What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look\n    That seems to speak things strange.\n  ROSS. God save the King!\n  DUNCAN. Whence camest thou, worthy Thane?\n  ROSS. From Fife, great King,\n    Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky\n    And fan our people cold.\n    Norway himself, with terrible numbers,\n    Assisted by that most disloyal traitor\n    The Thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict,\n    Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof,\n    Confronted him with self-comparisons,\n    Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm,\n    Curbing his lavish spirit; and, to conclude,\n    The victory fell on us.\n  DUNCAN. Great happiness!\n  ROSS. That now\n    Sweno, the Norways' king, craves composition;\n    Nor would we deign him burial of his men\n    Till he disbursed, at Saint Colme's Inch,\n    Ten thousand dollars to our general use.\n  DUNCAN. No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive\n    Our bosom interest. Go pronounce his present death,\n    And with his former title greet Macbeth.\n  ROSS. I'll see it done.\n  DUNCAN. What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA heath. Thunder.\n\nEnter the three Witches.\n\n  FIRST WITCH. Where hast thou been, sister?\n  SECOND WITCH. Killing swine.\n  THIRD WITCH. Sister, where thou?\n  FIRST WITCH. A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,\n    And mounch'd, and mounch'd, and mounch'd. \"Give me,\" quoth I.\n    \"Aroint thee, witch!\" the rump-fed ronyon cries.\n    Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master the Tiger;\n    But in a sieve I'll thither sail,\n    And, like a rat without a tail,\n    I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.\n  SECOND WITCH. I'll give thee a wind.\n  FIRST WITCH. Thou'rt kind.\n  THIRD WITCH. And I another.\n  FIRST WITCH. I myself have all the other,\n    And the very ports they blow,\n    All the quarters that they know\n    I' the shipman's card.\n    I will drain him dry as hay:\n    Sleep shall neither night nor day\n    Hang upon his penthouse lid;\n    He shall live a man forbid.\n    Weary se'nnights nine times nine\n    Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine;\n    Though his bark cannot be lost,\n    Yet it shall be tempest-toss'd.\n    Look what I have.\n  SECOND WITCH. Show me, show me.\n  FIRST WITCH. Here I have a pilot's thumb,\n    Wreck'd as homeward he did come.                Drum within.\n  THIRD WITCH. A drum, a drum!\n    Macbeth doth come.\n  ALL. The weird sisters, hand in hand,\n    Posters of the sea and land,\n    Thus do go about, about,\n    Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,\n    And thrice again, to make up nine.\n    Peace! The charm's wound up.\n\n                 Enter Macbeth and Banquo.\n\n  MACBETH. So foul and fair a day I have not seen.\n  BANQUO. How far is't call'd to Forres? What are these\n    So wither'd and so wild in their attire,\n    That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,\n    And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught\n    That man may question? You seem to understand me,\n    By each at once her choppy finger laying\n    Upon her skinny lips. You should be women,\n    And yet your beards forbid me to interpret\n    That you are so.\n  MACBETH. Speak, if you can. What are you?\n  FIRST WITCH. All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!\n  SECOND WITCH. All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!\n  THIRD WITCH. All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter!\n  BANQUO. Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear\n    Things that do sound so fair? I' the name of truth,\n    Are ye fantastical or that indeed\n    Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner\n    You greet with present grace and great prediction\n    Of noble having and of royal hope,\n    That he seems rapt withal. To me you speak not.\n    If you can look into the seeds of time,\n    And say which grain will grow and which will not,\n    Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear\n    Your favors nor your hate.\n  FIRST WITCH. Hail!\n  SECOND WITCH. Hail!\n  THIRD WITCH. Hail!\n  FIRST WITCH. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.\n  SECOND WITCH. Not so happy, yet much happier.\n  THIRD WITCH. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.\n    So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!\n  FIRST WITCH. Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!\n  MACBETH. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more.\n    By Sinel's death I know I am Thane of Glamis;\n    But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives,\n    A prosperous gentleman; and to be King\n    Stands not within the prospect of belief,\n    No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence\n    You owe this strange intelligence, or why\n    Upon this blasted heath you stop our way\n    With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.\n                                                 Witches vanish.\n  BANQUO. The earth hath bubbles as the water has,\n    And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd?\n  MACBETH. Into the air, and what seem'd corporal melted\n    As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd!\n  BANQUO. Were such things here as we do speak about?\n    Or have we eaten on the insane root\n    That takes the reason prisoner?\n  MACBETH. Your children shall be kings.\n  BANQUO. You shall be King.\n  MACBETH. And Thane of Cawdor too. Went it not so?\n  BANQUO. To the selfsame tune and words. Who's here?\n\n                Enter Ross and Angus.\n\n  ROSS. The King hath happily received, Macbeth,\n    The news of thy success; and when he reads\n    Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight,\n    His wonders and his praises do contend\n    Which should be thine or his. Silenced with that,\n    In viewing o'er the rest o' the selfsame day,\n    He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,\n    Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,\n    Strange images of death. As thick as hail\n    Came post with post, and every one did bear\n    Thy praises in his kingdom's great defense,\n    And pour'd them down before him.\n  ANGUS. We are sent\n    To give thee, from our royal master, thanks;\n    Only to herald thee into his sight,\n    Not pay thee.\n  ROSS. And for an earnest of a greater honor,\n    He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor.\n    In which addition, hail, most worthy Thane,\n    For it is thine.\n  BANQUO. What, can the devil speak true?\n  MACBETH. The Thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me\n    In borrow'd robes?\n  ANGUS. Who was the Thane lives yet,\n    But under heavy judgement bears that life\n    Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined\n    With those of Norway, or did line the rebel\n    With hidden help and vantage, or that with both\n    He labor'd in his country's wreck, I know not;\n    But treasons capital, confess'd and proved,\n    Have overthrown him.\n  MACBETH. [Aside.] Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor!\n    The greatest is behind. [To Ross and Angus] Thanks for your\n      pains.\n    [Aside to Banquo] Do you not hope your children shall be kings,\n    When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me\n    Promised no less to them?\n  BANQUO. [Aside to Macbeth.] That, trusted home,\n    Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,\n    Besides the Thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange;\n    And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,\n    The instruments of darkness tell us truths,\n    Win us with honest trifles, to betray's\n    In deepest consequence-\n    Cousins, a word, I pray you.\n  MACBETH. [Aside.] Two truths are told,\n    As happy prologues to the swelling act\n    Of the imperial theme-I thank you, gentlemen.\n    [Aside.] This supernatural soliciting\n    Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill,\n    Why hath it given me earnest of success,\n    Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.\n    If good, why do I yield to that suggestion\n    Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair\n    And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,\n    Against the use of nature? Present fears\n    Are less than horrible imaginings:\n    My thought, whose murther yet is but fantastical,\n    Shakes so my single state of man that function\n    Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is\n    But what is not.\n  BANQUO. Look, how our partner's rapt.\n  MACBETH. [Aside.] If chance will have me King, why, chance may\n      crown me\n    Without my stir.\n  BANQUO. New honors come upon him,\n    Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould\n    But with the aid of use.\n  MACBETH. [Aside.] Come what come may,\n    Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.\n  BANQUO. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.\n  MACBETH. Give me your favor; my dull brain was wrought\n    With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains\n    Are register'd where every day I turn\n    The leaf to read them. Let us toward the King.\n    Think upon what hath chanced, and at more time,\n    The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak\n    Our free hearts each to other.\n  BANQUO. Very gladly.\n  MACBETH. Till then, enough. Come, friends.             Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nForres. The palace.\n\nFlourish. Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, and Attendants.\n\n  DUNCAN. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not\n    Those in commission yet return'd?\n  MALCOLM. My liege,\n    They are not yet come back. But I have spoke\n    With one that saw him die, who did report\n    That very frankly he confess'd his treasons,\n    Implored your Highness' pardon, and set forth\n    A deep repentance. Nothing in his life\n    Became him like the leaving it; he died\n    As one that had been studied in his death,\n    To throw away the dearest thing he owed\n    As 'twere a careless trifle.\n  DUNCAN. There's no art\n    To find the mind's construction in the face:\n    He was a gentleman on whom I built\n    An absolute trust.\n\n             Enter Macbeth, Banquo, Ross, and Angus.\n\n    O worthiest cousin!\n    The sin of my ingratitude even now\n    Was heavy on me. Thou art so far before,\n    That swiftest wing of recompense is slow\n    To overtake thee. Would thou hadst less deserved,\n    That the proportion both of thanks and payment\n    Might have been mine! Only I have left to say,\n    More is thy due than more than all can pay.\n  MACBETH. The service and the loyalty lowe,\n    In doing it, pays itself. Your Highness' part\n    Is to receive our duties, and our duties\n    Are to your throne and state, children and servants,\n    Which do but what they should, by doing everything\n    Safe toward your love and honor.\n  DUNCAN. Welcome hither.\n    I have begun to plant thee, and will labor\n    To make thee full of growing. Noble Banquo,\n    That hast no less deserved, nor must be known\n    No less to have done so; let me infold thee\n    And hold thee to my heart.\n  BANQUO. There if I grow,\n    The harvest is your own.\n  DUNCAN. My plenteous joys,\n    Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves\n    In drops of sorrow. Sons, kinsmen, thanes,\n    And you whose places are the nearest, know\n    We will establish our estate upon\n    Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter\n    The Prince of Cumberland; which honor must\n    Not unaccompanied invest him only,\n    But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine\n    On all deservers. From hence to Inverness,\n    And bind us further to you.\n  MACBETH. The rest is labor, which is not used for you.\n    I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful\n    The hearing of my wife with your approach;\n    So humbly take my leave.\n  DUNCAN. My worthy Cawdor!\n  MACBETH. [Aside.] The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step\n    On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,\n    For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;\n    Let not light see my black and deep desires.\n    The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be\n    Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.          Exit.\n  DUNCAN. True, worthy Banquo! He is full so valiant,\n    And in his commendations I am fed;\n    It is a banquet to me. Let's after him,\n    Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome.\n    It is a peerless kinsman.                  Flourish. Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nInverness. Macbeth's castle.\n\nEnter Lady Macbeth, reading a letter.\n\n  LADY MACBETH. \"They met me in the day of success, and I have\n    learned by the perfectest report they have more in them than\n    mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them\n    further, they made themselves air, into which they vanished.\n    Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from the\n    King, who all-hailed me 'Thane of Cawdor'; by which title,\n    before, these weird sisters saluted me and referred me to the\n    coming on of time with 'Hail, King that shalt be!' This have I\n    thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness,\n    that thou mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being\n    ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart,\n    and farewell.\"\n\n    Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be\n    What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature.\n    It is too full o' the milk of human kindness\n    To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great;\n    Art not without ambition, but without\n    The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly,\n    That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,\n    And yet wouldst wrongly win. Thou'ldst have, great Glamis,\n    That which cries, \"Thus thou must do, if thou have it;\n    And that which rather thou dost fear to do\n    Than wishest should be undone.\" Hie thee hither,\n    That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,\n    And chastise with the valor of my tongue\n    All that impedes thee from the golden round,\n    Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem\n    To have thee crown'd withal.\n\n                     Enter a Messenger.\n\n    What is your tidings?\n  MESSENGER. The King comes here tonight.\n  LADY MACBETH. Thou'rt mad to say it!\n    Is not thy master with him? who, were't so,\n    Would have inform'd for preparation.\n  MESSENGER. So please you, it is true; our Thane is coming.\n    One of my fellows had the speed of him,\n    Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more\n    Than would make up his message.\n  LADY MACBETH. Give him tending;\n    He brings great news.                        Exit Messenger.\n    The raven himself is hoarse\n    That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan\n    Under my battlements. Come, you spirits\n    That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here\n    And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full\n    Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,\n    Stop up the access and passage to remorse,\n    That no compunctious visitings of nature\n    Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between\n    The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,\n    And take my milk for gall, your murthering ministers,\n    Wherever in your sightless substances\n    You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,\n    And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell\n    That my keen knife see not the wound it makes\n    Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark\n    To cry, \"Hold, hold!\"\n\n                    Enter Macbeth.\n\n    Great Glamis! Worthy Cawdor!\n    Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!\n    Thy letters have transported me beyond\n    This ignorant present, and I feel now\n    The future in the instant.\n  MACBETH. My dearest love,\n    Duncan comes here tonight.\n  LADY MACBETH. And when goes hence?\n  MACBETH. Tomorrow, as he purposes.\n  LADY MACBETH. O, never\n    Shall sun that morrow see!\n    Your face, my Thane, is as a book where men\n    May read strange matters. To beguile the time,\n    Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,\n    Your hand, your tongue; look like the innocent flower,\n    But be the serpent under it. He that's coming\n    Must be provided for; and you shall put\n    This night's great business into my dispatch,\n    Which shall to all our nights and days to come\n    Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.\n  MACBETH. We will speak further.\n  LADY MACBETH. Only look up clear;\n    To alter favor ever is to fear.\n    Leave all the rest to me.                            Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nBefore Macbeth's castle.  Hautboys and torches.\n\nEnter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Banquo, Lennox, Macduff, Ross, Angus,\nand Attendants.\n\n  DUNCAN. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air\n    Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself\n    Unto our gentle senses.\n  BANQUO. This guest of summer,\n    The temple-haunting martlet, does approve\n    By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath\n    Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze,\n    Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird\n    Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle;\n    Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed\n    The air is delicate.\n\n                     Enter Lady Macbeth.\n\n  DUNCAN. See, see, our honor'd hostess!\n    The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,\n    Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you\n    How you shall bid God 'ield us for your pains,\n    And thank us for your trouble.\n  LADY MACBETH. All our service\n    In every point twice done, and then done double,\n    Were poor and single business to contend\n    Against those honors deep and broad wherewith\n    Your Majesty loads our house. For those of old,\n    And the late dignities heap'd up to them,\n    We rest your hermits.\n  DUNCAN. Where's the Thane of Cawdor?\n    We coursed him at the heels and had a purpose\n    To be his purveyor; but he rides well,\n    And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp him\n    To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,\n    We are your guest tonight.\n  LADY MACBETH. Your servants ever\n    Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt,\n    To make their audit at your Highness' pleasure,\n    Still to return your own.\n  DUNCAN. Give me your hand;\n    Conduct me to mine host. We love him highly,\n    And shall continue our graces towards him.\n    By your leave, hostess.                              Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII\nMacbeth's castle.  Hautboys and torches.\n\nEnter a Sewer and divers Servants with dishes and service, who pass over\nthe stage.  Then enter Macbeth.\n\n  MACBETH. If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well\n    It were done quickly. If the assassination\n    Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,\n    With his surcease, success; that but this blow\n    Might be the be-all and the end-all -here,\n    But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,\n    We'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases\n    We still have judgement here, that we but teach\n    Bloody instructions, which being taught return\n    To plague the inventor. This even-handed justice\n    Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice\n    To our own lips. He's here in double trust:\n    First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,\n    Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,\n    Who should against his murtherer shut the door,\n    Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan\n    Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been\n    So clear in his great office, that his virtues\n    Will plead like angels trumpet-tongued against\n    The deep damnation of his taking-off,\n    And pity, like a naked new-born babe\n    Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin horsed\n    Upon the sightless couriers of the air,\n    Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,\n    That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur\n    To prick the sides of my intent, but only\n    Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself\n    And falls on the other.\n\n                 Enter Lady Macbeth.\n\n    How now, what news?\n  LADY MACBETH. He has almost supp'd. Why have you left the chamber?\n  MACBETH. Hath he ask'd for me?\n  LADY MACBETH. Know you not he has?\n  MACBETH. We will proceed no further in this business:\n    He hath honor'd me of late, and I have bought\n    Golden opinions from all sorts of people,\n    Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,\n    Not cast aside so soon.\n  LADY MACBETH. Was the hope drunk\n    Wherein you dress'd yourself? Hath it slept since?\n    And wakes it now, to look so green and pale\n    At what it did so freely? From this time\n    Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard\n    To be the same in thine own act and valor\n    As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that\n    Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life\n    And live a coward in thine own esteem,\n    Letting \"I dare not\" wait upon \"I would\"\n    Like the poor cat i' the adage?\n  MACBETH. Prithee, peace!\n    I dare do all that may become a man;\n    Who dares do more is none.\n  LADY MACBETH. What beast wast then\n    That made you break this enterprise to me?\n    When you durst do it, then you were a man,\n    And, to be more than what you were, you would\n    Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place\n    Did then adhere, and yet you would make both.\n    They have made themselves, and that their fitness now\n    Does unmake you. I have given suck and know\n    How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me-\n    I would, while it was smiling in my face,\n    Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums\n    And dash'd the brains out had I so sworn as you\n    Have done to this.\n  MACBETH. If we should fail?\n  LADY MACBETH. We fail?\n    But screw your courage to the sticking-place\n    And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep-\n    Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey\n    Soundly invite him- his two chamberlains\n    Will I with wine and wassail so convince\n    That memory, the warder of the brain,\n    Shall be a fume and the receipt of reason\n    A limbeck only. When in swinish sleep\n    Their drenched natures lie as in a death,\n    What cannot you and I perform upon\n    The unguarded Duncan? What not put upon\n    His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt\n    Of our great quell?\n  MACBETH. Bring forth men-children only,\n    For thy undaunted mettle should compose\n    Nothing but males. Will it not be received,\n    When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two\n    Of his own chamber and used their very daggers,\n    That they have done't?\n  LADY MACBETH. Who dares receive it other,\n    As we shall make our griefs and clamor roar\n    Upon his death?\n  MACBETH. I am settled and bend up\n    Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.\n    Away, and mock the time with fairest show:\n    False face must hide what the false heart doth know.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nInverness. Court of Macbeth's castle.\n\nEnter Banquo and Fleance, bearing a torch before him.\n\n  BANQUO. How goes the night, boy?\n  FLEANCE. The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.\n  BANQUO. And she goes down at twelve.\n  FLEANCE. I take't 'tis later, sir.\n  BANQUO. Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry in heaven,\n    Their candles are all out. Take thee that too.\n    A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,\n    And yet I would not sleep. Merciful powers,\n    Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature\n    Gives way to in repose!\n\n           Enter Macbeth and a Servant with a torch.\n\n    Give me my sword.\n    Who's there?\n  MACBETH. A friend.\n  BANQUO. What, sir, not yet at rest? The King's abed.\n    He hath been in unusual pleasure and\n    Sent forth great largess to your offices.\n    This diamond he greets your wife withal,\n    By the name of most kind hostess, and shut up\n    In measureless content.\n  MACBETH. Being unprepared,\n    Our will became the servant to defect,\n    Which else should free have wrought.\n  BANQUO. All's well.\n    I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters:\n    To you they have show'd some truth.\n  MACBETH. I think not of them;\n    Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve,\n    We would spend it in some words upon that business,\n    If you would grant the time.\n  BANQUO. At your kind'st leisure.\n  MACBETH. If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis,\n    It shall make honor for you.\n  BANQUO. So I lose none\n    In seeking to augment it, but still keep\n    My bosom franchised and allegiance clear,\n    I shall be counsel'd.\n  MACBETH. Good repose the while.\n  BANQUO. Thanks, sir, the like to you.\n                                     Exeunt Banquo. and Fleance.\n  MACBETH. Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,\n    She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.     Exit Servant.\n    Is this a dagger which I see before me,\n    The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.\n    I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.\n    Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible\n    To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but\n    A dagger of the mind, a false creation,\n    Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?\n    I see thee yet, in form as palpable\n    As this which now I draw.\n    Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going,\n    And such an instrument I was to use.\n    Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,\n    Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still,\n    And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,\n    Which was not so before. There's no such thing:\n    It is the bloody business which informs\n    Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one half-world\n    Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse\n    The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates\n    Pale Hecate's offerings; and wither'd Murther,\n    Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,\n    Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,\n    With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design\n    Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,\n    Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear\n    Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,\n    And take the present horror from the time,\n    Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives;\n    Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.\n                                                   A bell rings.\n    I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.\n    Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell\n    That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.               Exit.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe same.\n\nEnter Lady Macbeth.\n\n  LADY MACBETH. That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold;\n    What hath quench'd them hath given me fire. Hark! Peace!\n    It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,\n    Which gives the stern'st good night. He is about it:\n    The doors are open, and the surfeited grooms\n    Do mock their charge with snores. I have drugg'd their possets\n    That death and nature do contend about them,\n    Whether they live or die.\n  MACBETH. [Within.] Who's there' what, ho!\n  LADY MACBETH. Alack, I am afraid they have awaked\n    And 'tis not done. The attempt and not the deed\n    Confounds us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready;\n    He could not miss 'em. Had he not resembled\n    My father as he slept, I had done't.\n\n                      Enter Macbeth,\n\n    My husband!\n  MACBETH. I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?\n  LADY MACBETH. I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.\n    Did not you speak?\n  MACBETH. When?\n  LADY MACBETH. Now.\n  MACBETH. As I descended?\n  LADY MACBETH. Ay.\n  MACBETH. Hark!\n    Who lies i' the second chamber?\n  LADY MACBETH. Donalbain.\n  MACBETH. This is a sorry sight.           [Looks on his hands.\n  LADY MACBETH. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.\n  MACBETH. There's one did laugh in 's sleep, and one cried,\n      \"Murther!\"\n    That they did wake each other. I stood and heard them,\n    But they did say their prayers and address'd them\n    Again to sleep.\n  LADY MACBETH. There are two lodged together.\n  MACBETH. One cried, \"God bless us!\" and \"Amen\" the other,\n    As they had seen me with these hangman's hands.\n    Listening their fear, I could not say \"Amen,\"\n    When they did say, \"God bless us!\"\n  LADY MACBETH. Consider it not so deeply.\n  MACBETH. But wherefore could not I pronounce \"Amen\"?\n    I had most need of blessing, and \"Amen\"\n    Stuck in my throat.\n  LADY MACBETH. These deeds must not be thought\n    After these ways; so, it will make us mad.\n  MACBETH. I heard a voice cry, \"Sleep no more!\n    Macbeth does murther sleep\" -the innocent sleep,\n    Sleep that knits up the ravel'd sleave of care,\n    The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,\n    Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,\n    Chief nourisher in life's feast-\n  LADY MACBETH. What do you mean?\n  MACBETH. Still it cried, \"Sleep no more!\" to all the house;\n    \"Glamis hath murther'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor\n    Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more.\"\n  LADY MACBETH. Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy Thane,\n    You do unbend your noble strength, to think\n    So brainsickly of things. Go, get some water\n    And wash this filthy witness from your hand.\n    Why did you bring these daggers from the place?\n    They must lie there. Go carry them, and smear\n    The sleepy grooms with blood.\n  MACBETH. I'll go no more.\n    I am afraid to think what I have done;\n    Look on't again I dare not.\n  LADY MACBETH. Infirm of purpose!\n    Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead\n    Are but as pictures; 'tis the eye of childhood\n    That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,\n    I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal,\n    For it must seem their guilt.         Exit. Knocking within.\n  MACBETH. Whence is that knocking?\n    How is't with me, when every noise appals me?\n    What hands are here? Ha, they pluck out mine eyes!\n    Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood\n    Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather\n    The multitudinous seas incarnadine,\n    Making the green one red.\n\n                   Re-enter Lady Macbeth.\n\n  LADY MACBETH. My hands are of your color, but I shame\n    To wear a heart so white. [Knocking within.] I hear knocking\n    At the south entry. Retire we to our chamber.\n    A little water clears us of this deed.\n    How easy is it then! Your constancy\n    Hath left you unattended. [Knocking within.] Hark, more knocking.\n    Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us\n    And show us to be watchers. Be not lost\n    So poorly in your thoughts.\n  MACBETH. To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself.\n                                                Knocking within.\n    Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe same.\n\nEnter a Porter. Knocking within.\n\n  PORTER. Here's a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of Hell\n    Gate, he should have old turning the key. [Knocking within.]\n    Knock, knock, knock! Who's there, i' the name of Belzebub? Here's\n    a farmer that hanged himself on th' expectation of plenty. Come\n    in time! Have napkins enow about you; here you'll sweat fort.\n    [Knocking within.] Knock, knock! Who's there, in th' other\n    devil's name? Faith, here's an equivocator that could swear in\n    both the scales against either scale, who committed treason\n    enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven. O,\n    come in, equivocator. [Knocking within.] Knock, knock, knock!\n    Who's there? Faith, here's an English tailor come hither, for\n    stealing out of a French hose. Come in, tailor; here you may\n    roast your goose. [Knocking within.] Knock, knock! Never at\n    quiet! What are you? But this place is too cold for hell. I'll\n    devil-porter it no further. I had thought to have let in some of\n    all professions, that go the primrose way to the everlasting\n    bonfire. [Knocking within.] Anon, anon! I pray you, remember the\n    porter.\n                                                 Opens the gate.\n\n                       Enter Macduff and Lennox.\n\n  MACDUFF. Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,\n    That you do lie so late?\n  PORTER. Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock; and\n    drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.\n  MACDUFF. What three things does drink especially provoke?\n  PORTER. Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir,\n    it provokes and unprovokes: it provokes the desire, but it takes\n    away the performance. Therefore much drink may be said to be an\n    equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets\n    him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him and disheartens\n    him; makes him stand to and not stand to; in conclusion,\n    equivocates him in a sleep, and giving him the lie, leaves him.\n  MACDUFF. I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.\n  PORTER. That it did, sir, i' the very throat on me; but requited\n    him for his lie, and, I think, being too strong for him, though\n    he took up my legs sometime, yet I made shift to cast him.\n  MACDUFF. Is thy master stirring?\n\n                             Enter Macbeth.\n\n    Our knocking has awaked him; here he comes.\n  LENNOX. Good morrow, noble sir.\n  MACBETH. morrow, both.\n  MACDUFF. Is the King stirring, worthy Thane?\n  MACBETH. Not yet.\n  MACDUFF. He did command me to call timely on him;\n    I have almost slipp'd the hour.\n  MACBETH. I'll bring you to him.\n  MACDUFF. I know this is a joyful trouble to you,\n    But yet 'tis one.\n  MACBETH. The labor we delight in physics pain.\n    This is the door.\n  MACDUFF I'll make so bold to call,\n    For 'tis my limited service.                           Exit.\n  LENNOX. Goes the King hence today?\n  MACBETH. He does; he did appoint so.\n  LENNOX. The night has been unruly. Where we lay,\n    Our chimneys were blown down, and, as they say,\n    Lamentings heard i' the air, strange screams of death,\n    And prophesying with accents terrible\n    Of dire combustion and confused events\n    New hatch'd to the woeful time. The obscure bird\n    Clamor'd the livelong night. Some say the earth\n    Was feverous and did shake.\n  MACBETH. 'Twas a rough fight.\n  LENNOX. My young remembrance cannot parallel\n    A fellow to it.\n\n                      Re-enter Macduff.\n\n  MACDUFF. O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart\n    Cannot conceive nor name thee.\n  MACBETH. LENNOX. What's the matter?\n  MACDUFF. Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.\n    Most sacrilegious murther hath broke ope\n    The Lord's anointed temple and stole thence\n    The life o' the building.\n  MACBETH. What is't you say? the life?\n  LENNOX. Mean you his Majesty?\n  MACDUFF. Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight\n    With a new Gorgon. Do not bid me speak;\n    See, and then speak yourselves.\n                                      Exeunt Macbeth and Lennox.\n    Awake, awake!\n    Ring the alarum bell. Murther and treason!\n    Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm, awake!\n    Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,\n    And look on death itself! Up, up, and see\n    The great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo!\n    As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites\n    To countenance this horror! Ring the bell.       Bell rings.\n\n                     Enter Lady Macbeth.\n\n  LADY MACBETH. What's the business,\n    That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley\n    The sleepers of the house? Speak, speak!\n  MACDUFF. O gentle lady,\n    'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:\n    The repetition in a woman's ear\n    Would murther as it fell.\n\n                     Enter Banquo.\n\n    O Banquo, Banquo!\n    Our royal master's murther'd.\n  LADY MACBETH. Woe, alas!\n    What, in our house?\n  BANQUO. Too cruel anywhere.\n    Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself,\n    And say it is not so.\n\n          Re-enter Macbeth and Lennox, with Ross.\n\n  MACBETH. Had I but died an hour before this chance,\n    I had lived a blessed time, for from this instant\n    There's nothing serious in mortality.\n    All is but toys; renown and grace is dead,\n    The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees\n    Is left this vault to brag of.\n\n                Enter Malcolm and Donalbain.\n\n  DONALBAIN. What is amiss?\n  MACBETH. You are, and do not know't.\n    The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood\n    Is stopped, the very source of it is stopp'd.\n  MACDUFF. Your royal father's murther'd.\n   MALCOLM. O, by whom?\n  LENNOX. Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done't.\n    Their hands and faces were all badged with blood;\n    So were their daggers, which unwiped we found\n    Upon their pillows.\n    They stared, and were distracted; no man's life\n    Was to be trusted with them.\n  MACBETH. O, yet I do repent me of my fury,\n    That I did kill them.\n  MACDUFF. Wherefore did you so?\n  MACBETH. Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,\n    Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.\n    The expedition of my violent love\n    Outrun the pauser reason. Here lay Duncan,\n    His silver skin laced with his golden blood,\n    And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature\n    For ruin's wasteful entrance; there, the murtherers,\n    Steep'd in the colors of their trade, their daggers\n    Unmannerly breech'd with gore. Who could refrain,\n    That had a heart to love, and in that heart\n    Courage to make 's love known?\n  LADY MACBETH. Help me hence, ho!\n  MACDUFF. Look to the lady.\n  MALCOLM. [Aside to Donalbain.] Why do we hold our tongues,\n    That most may claim this argument for ours?\n  DONALBAIN. [Aside to Malcolm.] What should be spoken here, where\n      our fate,\n    Hid in an auger hole, may rush and seize us?\n    Let's away,\n    Our tears are not yet brew'd.\n  MALCOLM. [Aside to Donalbain.] Nor our strong sorrow\n    Upon the foot of motion.\n  BANQUO. Look to the lady.\n                                    Lady Macbeth is carried out.\n    And when we have our naked frailties hid,\n    That suffer in exposure, let us meet\n    And question this most bloody piece of work\n    To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us.\n    In the great hand of God I stand, and thence\n    Against the undivulged pretense I fight\n    Of treasonous malice.\n  MACDUFF. And so do I.\n  ALL. So all.\n  MACBETH. Let's briefly put on manly readiness\n    And meet i' the hall together.\n  ALL. Well contented.\n                           Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain.\n  MALCOLM. What will you do? Let's not consort with them.\n    To show an unfelt sorrow is an office\n    Which the false man does easy. I'll to England.\n  DONALBAIN. To Ireland, I; our separated fortune\n    Shall keep us both the safer. Where we are\n    There's daggers in men's smiles; the near in blood,\n    The nearer bloody.\n  MALCOLM. This murtherous shaft that's shot\n    Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way\n    Is to avoid the aim. Therefore to horse;\n    And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,\n    But shift away. There's warrant in that theft\n    Which steals itself when there's no mercy left.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nOutside Macbeth's castle.\n\nEnter Ross with an Old Man.\n\n  OLD MAN. Threescore and ten I can remember well,\n    Within the volume of which time I have seen\n    Hours dreadful and things strange, but this sore night\n    Hath trifled former knowings.\n  ROSS. Ah, good father,\n    Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man's act,\n    Threaten his bloody stage. By the clock 'tis day,\n    And yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp.\n    Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame,\n    That darkness does the face of earth entomb,\n    When living light should kiss it?\n  OLD MAN. 'Tis unnatural,\n    Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last\n    A falcon towering in her pride of place\n    Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.\n  ROSS. And Duncan's horses-a thing most strange and certain-\n    Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,\n    Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,\n    Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make\n    War with mankind.\n  OLD MAN. 'Tis said they eat each other.\n  ROSS. They did so, to the amazement of mine eyes\n    That look'd upon't.\n\n                     Enter Macduff.\n\n    Here comes the good Macduff.\n    How goes the world, sir, now?\n  MACDUFF. Why, see you not?\n  ROSS. Is't known who did this more than bloody deed?\n  MACDUFF. Those that Macbeth hath slain.\n  ROSS. Alas, the day!\n    What good could they pretend?\n  MACDUFF. They were suborn'd:\n    Malcolm and Donalbain, the King's two sons,\n    Are stol'n away and fled, which puts upon them\n    Suspicion of the deed.\n  ROSS. 'Gainst nature still!\n    Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up\n    Thine own life's means! Then 'tis most like\n    The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.\n  MACDUFF. He is already named, and gone to Scone\n    To be invested.\n  ROSS. Where is Duncan's body?\n  MACDUFF. Carried to Colmekill,\n    The sacred storehouse of his predecessors\n    And guardian of their bones.\n  ROSS. Will you to Scone?\n  MACDUFF. No, cousin, I'll to Fife.\n  ROSS. Well, I will thither.\n  MACDUFF. Well, may you see things well done there.\n    Adieu,\n    Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!\n  ROSS. Farewell, father.\n  OLD MAN. God's benison go with you and with those\n    That would make good of bad and friends of foes!\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nForres. The palace.\n\nEnter Banquo.\n\n  BANQUO. Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, Glamis, all,\n    As the weird women promised, and I fear\n    Thou play'dst most foully for't; yet it was said\n    It should not stand in thy posterity,\n    But that myself should be the root and father\n    Of many kings. If there come truth from them\n    (As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine)\n    Why, by the verities on thee made good,\n    May they not be my oracles as well\n    And set me up in hope? But hush, no more.\n\n      Sennet sounds. Enter Macbeth as King, Lady Macbeth\n    as Queen, Lennox, Ross, Lords, Ladies, and Attendants.\n\n  MACBETH. Here's our chief guest.\n  LADY MACBETH. If he had been forgotten,\n    It had been as a gap in our great feast\n    And all thing unbecoming.\n  MACBETH. Tonight we hold a solemn supper, sir,\n    And I'll request your presence.\n  BANQUO. Let your Highness\n    Command upon me, to the which my duties\n    Are with a most indissoluble tie\n    Forever knit.\n  MACBETH. Ride you this afternoon?\n  BANQUO. Ay, my good lord.\n  MACBETH. We should have else desired your good advice,\n    Which still hath been both grave and prosperous\n    In this day's council; but we'll take tomorrow.\n    Is't far you ride'!\n  BANQUO. As far, my lord, as will fill up the time\n    'Twixt this and supper. Go not my horse the better,\n    I must become a borrower of the night\n    For a dark hour or twain.\n  MACBETH. Fail not our feast.\n  BANQUO. My lord, I will not.\n  MACBETH. We hear our bloody cousins are bestow'd\n    In England and in Ireland, not confessing\n    Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers\n    With strange invention. But of that tomorrow,\n    When therewithal we shall have cause of state\n    Craving us jointly. Hie you to horse; adieu,\n    Till you return at night. Goes Fleance with you?\n  BANQUO. Ay, my good lord. Our time does call upon 's.\n  MACBETH. I wish your horses swift and sure of foot,\n    And so I do commend you to their backs.\n    Farewell.                                       Exit Banquo.\n    Let every man be master of his time\n    Till seven at night; to make society\n    The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself\n    Till supper time alone. While then, God be with you!\n                        Exeunt all but Macbeth and an Attendant.\n    Sirrah, a word with you. Attend those men\n    Our pleasure?\n  ATTENDANT. They are, my lord, without the palace gate.\n  MACBETH. Bring them before us.                 Exit Attendant.\n    To be thus is nothing,\n    But to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo.\n    Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature\n    Reigns that which would be fear'd. 'Tis much he dares,\n    And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,\n    He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valor\n    To act in safety. There is none but he\n    Whose being I do fear; and under him\n    My genius is rebuked, as it is said\n    Mark Antony's was by Caesar. He chid the sisters\n    When first they put the name of King upon me\n    And bade them speak to him; then prophet-like\n    They hail'd him father to a line of kings.\n    Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown\n    And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,\n    Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,\n    No son of mine succeeding. If't be so,\n    For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind,\n    For them the gracious Duncan have I murther'd,\n    Put rancors in the vessel of my peace\n    Only for them, and mine eternal jewel\n    Given to the common enemy of man,\n    To make them kings -the seed of Banquo kings!\n    Rather than so, come, Fate, into the list,\n    And champion me to the utterance! Who's there?\n\n        Re-enter Attendant, with two Murtherers.\n\n    Now go to the door, and stay there till we call.\n                                                 Exit Attendant.\n    Was it not yesterday we spoke together?\n  FIRST MURTHERER. It was, so please your Highness.\n  MACBETH. Well then, now\n    Have you consider'd of my speeches? Know\n    That it was he in the times past which held you\n    So under fortune, which you thought had been\n    Our innocent self? This I made good to you\n    In our last conference, pass'd in probation with you:\n    How you were borne in hand, how cross'd, the instruments,\n    Who wrought with them, and all things else that might\n    To half a soul and to a notion crazed\n    Say, \"Thus did Banquo.\"\n  FIRST MURTHERER. You made it known to us.\n  MACBETH. I did so, and went further, which is now\n    Our point of second meeting. Do you find\n    Your patience so predominant in your nature,\n    That you can let this go? Are you so gospel'd,\n    To pray for this good man and for his issue,\n    Whose heavy hand hath bow'd you to the grave\n    And beggar'd yours forever?\n  FIRST MURTHERER. We are men, my liege.\n  MACBETH. Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men,\n    As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,\n    Shoughs, waterrugs, and demi-wolves are clept\n    All by the name of dogs. The valued file\n    Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,\n    The housekeeper, the hunter, every one\n    According to the gift which bounteous nature\n    Hath in him closed, whereby he does receive\n    Particular addition, from the bill\n    That writes them all alike; and so of men.\n    Now if you have a station in the file,\n    Not i' the worst rank of manhood, say it,\n    And I will put that business in your bosoms\n    Whose execution takes your enemy off,\n    Grapples you to the heart and love of us,\n    Who wear our health but sickly in his life,\n    Which in his death were perfect.\n  SECOND MURTHERER. I am one, my liege,\n    Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world\n    Have so incensed that I am reckless what\n    I do to spite the world.\n  FIRST MURTHERER. And I another\n    So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune,\n    That I would set my life on any chance,\n    To mend it or be rid on't.\n  MACBETH. Both of you\n    Know Banquo was your enemy.\n  BOTH MURTHERERS. True, my lord.\n  MACBETH. So is he mine, and in such bloody distance\n    That every minute of his being thrusts\n    Against my near'st of life; and though I could\n    With barefaced power sweep him from my sight\n    And bid my will avouch it, yet I must not,\n    For certain friends that are both his and mine,\n    Whose loves I may not drop, but wail his fall\n    Who I myself struck down. And thence it is\n    That I to your assistance do make love,\n    Masking the business from the common eye\n    For sundry weighty reasons.\n  SECOND MURTHERER. We shall, my lord,\n    Perform what you command us.\n  FIRST MURTHERER. Though our lives-\n  MACBETH. Your spirits shine through you. Within this hour at most\n    I will advise you where to plant yourselves,\n    Acquaint you with the perfect spy o' the time,\n    The moment on't; fort must be done tonight\n    And something from the palace (always thought\n    That I require a clearness); and with him-\n    To leave no rubs nor botches in the work-\n    Fleance his son, that keeps him company,\n    Whose absence is no less material to me\n    Than is his father's, must embrace the fate\n    Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart;\n    I'll come to you anon.\n  BOTH MURTHERERS. We are resolved, my lord.\n  MACBETH. I'll call upon you straight. Abide within.\n                                              Exeunt Murtherers.\n    It is concluded: Banquo, thy soul's flight,\n    If it find heaven, must find it out tonight.           Exit.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe palace.\n\nEnter Lady Macbeth and a Servant.\n\n  LADY MACBETH. Is Banquo gone from court?\n  SERVANT. Ay, madam, but returns again tonight.\n  LADY MACBETH. Say to the King I would attend his leisure\n    For a few words.\n  SERVANT. Madam, I will.                                  Exit.\n  LADY MACBETH. Nought's had, all's spent,\n    Where our desire is got without content.\n    'Tis safer to be that which we destroy\n    Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.\n\n                    Enter Macbeth.\n\n    How now, my lord? Why do you keep alone,\n    Of sorriest fancies your companions making,\n    Using those thoughts which should indeed have died\n    With them they think on? Things without all remedy\n    Should be without regard. What's done is done.\n  MACBETH. We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it.\n    She'll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice\n    Remains in danger of her former tooth.\n    But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,\n    Ere we will eat our meal in fear and sleep\n    In the affliction of these terrible dreams\n    That shake us nightly. Better be with the dead,\n    Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,\n    Than on the torture of the mind to lie\n    In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;\n    After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.\n    Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,\n    Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,\n    Can touch him further.\n  LADY MACBETH. Come on,\n    Gentle my lord, sleek o'er your rugged looks;\n    Be bright and jovial among your guests tonight.\n  MACBETH. So shall I, love, and so, I pray, be you.\n    Let your remembrance apply to Banquo;\n    Present him eminence, both with eye and tongue:\n    Unsafe the while, that we\n    Must lave our honors in these flattering streams,\n    And make our faces vizards to our hearts,\n    Disguising what they are.\n  LADY MACBETH. You must leave this.\n  MACBETH. O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!\n    Thou know'st that Banquo and his Fleance lives.\n  LADY MACBETH. But in them nature's copy's not eterne.\n  MACBETH. There's comfort yet; they are assailable.\n    Then be thou jocund. Ere the bat hath flown\n    His cloister'd flight, ere to black Hecate's summons\n    The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums\n    Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done\n    A deed of dreadful note.\n  LADY MACBETH. What's to be done?\n  MACBETH. Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,\n    Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night,\n    Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day,\n    And with thy bloody and invisible hand\n    Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond\n    Which keeps me pale! Light thickens, and the crow\n    Makes wing to the rooky wood;\n    Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,\n    Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse.\n    Thou marvel'st at my words, but hold thee still:\n    Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.\n    So, prithee, go with me.                             Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA park near the palace.\n\nEnter three Murtherers.\n\n  FIRST MURTHERER. But who did bid thee join with us?\n  THIRD MURTHERER. Macbeth.\n  SECOND MURTHERER. He needs not our mistrust, since he delivers\n    Our offices and what we have to do\n    To the direction just.\n  FIRST MURTHERER. Then stand with us.\n    The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day;\n    Now spurs the lated traveler apace\n    To gain the timely inn, and near approaches\n    The subject of our watch.\n  THIRD MURTHERER. Hark! I hear horses.\n  BANQUO. [Within.] Give us a light there, ho!\n  SECOND MURTHERER. Then 'tis he; the rest\n    That are within the note of expectation\n    Already are i' the court.\n  FIRST MURTHERER. His horses go about.\n  THIRD MURTHERER. Almost a mile, but he does usually-\n    So all men do -from hence to the palace gate\n    Make it their walk.\n  SECOND MURTHERER. A light, a light!\n\n              Enter Banquo, and Fleance with a torch.\n\n  THIRD MURTHERER. 'Tis he.\n  FIRST MURTHERER. Stand to't.\n  BANQUO. It will be rain tonight.\n  FIRST MURTHERER. Let it come down.\n                                           They set upon Banquo.\n  BANQUO. O, treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!\n    Thou mayst revenge. O slave!          Dies. Fleance escapes.\n  THIRD MURTHERER. Who did strike out the light?\n  FIRST MURTHERER. Wast not the way?\n  THIRD MURTHERER. There's but one down; the son is fled.\n  SECOND MURTHERER. We have lost\n    Best half of our affair.\n  FIRST MURTHERER. Well, let's away and say how much is done.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nA Hall in the palace. A banquet prepared.\n\nEnter Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Ross, Lennox, Lords, and Attendants.\n\n  MACBETH. You know your own degrees; sit down. At first\n    And last the hearty welcome.\n  LORDS. Thanks to your Majesty.\n  MACBETH. Ourself will mingle with society\n    And play the humble host.\n    Our hostess keeps her state, but in best time\n    We will require her welcome.\n  LADY MACBETH. Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends,\n    For my heart speaks they are welcome.\n\n                Enter first Murtherer to the door.\n\n  MACBETH. See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks.\n    Both sides are even; here I'll sit i' the midst.\n    Be large in mirth; anon we'll drink a measure\n    The table round. [Approaches the door.] There's blood upon thy\n      face.\n  MURTHERER. 'Tis Banquo's then.\n  MACBETH. 'Tis better thee without than he within.\n    Is he dispatch'd?\n  MURTHERER. My lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him.\n  MACBETH. Thou art the best o' the cut-throats! Yet he's good\n    That did the like for Fleance. If thou didst it,\n    Thou art the nonpareil.\n  MURTHERER. Most royal sir,\n    Fleance is 'scaped.\n  MACBETH. [Aside.] Then comes my fit again. I had else been perfect,\n    Whole as the marble, founded as the rock,\n    As broad and general as the casing air;\n    But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd, bound in\n    To saucy doubts and fears -But Banquo's safe?\n  MURTHERER. Ay, my good lord. Safe in a ditch he bides,\n    With twenty trenched gashes on his head,\n    The least a death to nature.\n  MACBETH. Thanks for that.\n    There the grown serpent lies; the worm that's fled\n    Hath nature that in time will venom breed,\n    No teeth for the present. Get thee gone. Tomorrow\n    We'll hear ourselves again.\n                                                 Exit Murtherer.\n  LADY MACBETH. My royal lord,\n    You do not give the cheer. The feast is sold\n    That is not often vouch'd, while 'tis amaking,\n    'Tis given with welcome. To feed were best at home;\n    From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony;\n    Meeting were bare without it.\n  MACBETH. Sweet remembrancer!\n    Now good digestion wait on appetite,\n    And health on both!\n  LENNOX. May't please your Highness sit.\n\n      The Ghost of Banquo enters and sits in Macbeth's place.\n\n  MACBETH. Here had we now our country's honor roof'd,\n    Were the graced person of our Banquo present,\n    Who may I rather challenge for unkindness\n    Than pity for mischance!\n  ROSS. His absence, sir,\n    Lays blame upon his promise. Please't your Highness\n    To grace us with your royal company?\n  MACBETH. The table's full.\n  LENNOX. Here is a place reserved, sir.\n  MACBETH. Where?\n  LENNOX. Here, my good lord. What is't that moves your Highness?\n  MACBETH. Which of you have done this?\n  LORDS. What, my good lord?\n  MACBETH. Thou canst not say I did it; never shake\n    Thy gory locks at me.\n  ROSS. Gentlemen, rise; his Highness is well.\n  LADY MACBETH. Sit, worthy friends; my lord is often thus,\n    And hath been from his youth. Pray you, keep seat.\n    The fit is momentary; upon a thought\n    He will again be well. If much you note him,\n    You shall offend him and extend his passion.\n    Feed, and regard him not-Are you a man?\n  MACBETH. Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that\n    Which might appal the devil.\n  LADY MACBETH. O proper stuff!\n    This is the very painting of your fear;\n    This is the air-drawn dagger which you said\n    Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,\n    Impostors to true fear, would well become\n    A woman's story at a winter's fire,\n    Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!\n    Why do you make such faces? When all's done,\n    You look but on a stool.\n  MACBETH. Prithee, see there! Behold! Look! Lo! How say you?\n    Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.\n    If charnel houses and our graves must send\n    Those that we bury back, our monuments\n    Shall be the maws of kites.                      Exit Ghost.\n  LADY MACBETH. What, quite unmann'd in folly?\n  MACBETH. If I stand here, I saw him.\n  LADY MACBETH. Fie, for shame!\n  MACBETH. Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time,\n    Ere humane statute purged the gentle weal;\n    Ay, and since too, murthers have been perform'd\n    Too terrible for the ear. The time has been,\n    That, when the brains were out, the man would die,\n    And there an end; but now they rise again,\n    With twenty mortal murthers on their crowns,\n    And push us from our stools. This is more strange\n    Than such a murther is.\n  LADY MACBETH. My worthy lord,\n    Your noble friends do lack you.\n  MACBETH. I do forget.\n    Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends.\n    I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing\n    To those that know me. Come, love and health to all;\n    Then I'll sit down. Give me some wine, fill full.\n    I drink to the general joy o' the whole table,\n    And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss.\n    Would he were here! To all and him we thirst,\n    And all to all.\n  LORDS. Our duties and the pledge.\n\n                     Re-enter Ghost.\n\n  MACBETH. Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee!\n    Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;\n    Thou hast no speculation in those eyes\n    Which thou dost glare with.\n  LADY MACBETH. Think of this, good peers,\n    But as a thing of custom. 'Tis no other,\n    Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.\n  MACBETH. What man dare, I dare.\n    Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,\n    The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;\n    Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves\n    Shall never tremble. Or be alive again,\n    And dare me to the desert with thy sword.\n    If trembling I inhabit then, protest me\n    The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!\n    Unreal mockery, hence!                           Exit Ghost.\n    Why, so, being gone,\n    I am a man again. Pray you sit still.\n  LADY MACBETH. You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting,\n    With most admired disorder.\n  MACBETH. Can such things be,\n    And overcome us like a summer's cloud,\n    Without our special wonder? You make me strange\n    Even to the disposition that I owe\n    When now I think you can behold such sights\n    And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks\n    When mine is blanch'd with fear.\n  ROSS. What sights, my lord?\n  LADY MACBETH. I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse;\n    Question enrages him. At once, good night.\n    Stand not upon the order of your going,\n    But go at once.\n  LENNOX. Good night, and better health\n    Attend his Majesty!\n  LADY MACBETH. A kind good night to all!\n                        Exeunt all but Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.\n  MACBETH. will have blood; they say blood will have blood.\n    Stones have been known to move and trees to speak;\n    Augures and understood relations have\n    By maggot pies and choughs and rooks brought forth\n    The secret'st man of blood. What is the night?\n  LADY MACBETH. Almost at odds with morning, which is which.\n  MACBETH. How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person\n    At our great bidding?\n  LADY MACBETH. Did you send to him, sir?\n  MACBETH. I hear it by the way, but I will send.\n    There's not a one of them but in his house\n    I keep a servant feed. I will tomorrow,\n    And betimes I will, to the weird sisters.\n    More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,\n    By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good\n    All causes shall give way. I am in blood\n    Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,\n    Returning were as tedious as go o'er.\n    Strange things I have in head that will to hand,\n    Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd.\n  LADY MACBETH. You lack the season of all natures, sleep.\n  MACBETH. Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse\n    Is the initiate fear that wants hard use.\n    We are yet but young in deed.                       Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nA heath. Thunder.\n\nEnter the three Witches, meeting Hecate.\n\n  FIRST WITCH. Why, how now, Hecate? You look angerly.\n  HECATE. Have I not reason, beldams as you are,\n    Saucy and overbold? How did you dare\n    To trade and traffic with Macbeth\n    In riddles and affairs of death,\n    And I, the mistress of your charms,\n    The close contriver of all harms,\n    Was never call'd to bear my part,\n    Or show the glory of our art?\n    And, which is worse, all you have done\n    Hath been but for a wayward son,\n    Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,\n    Loves for his own ends, not for you.\n    But make amends now. Get you gone,\n    And at the pit of Acheron\n    Meet me i' the morning. Thither he\n    Will come to know his destiny.\n    Your vessels and your spells provide,\n    Your charms and everything beside.\n    I am for the air; this night I'll spend\n    Unto a dismal and a fatal end.\n    Great business must be wrought ere noon:\n    Upon the corner of the moon\n    There hangs a vaporous drop profound;\n    I'll catch it ere it come to ground.\n    And that distill'd by magic sleights\n    Shall raise such artificial sprites\n    As by the strength of their illusion\n    Shall draw him on to his confusion.\n    He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear\n    His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace, and fear.\n    And you all know security\n    Is mortals' chiefest enemy.\n                                        Music and a song within,\n                                         \"Come away, come away.\"\n    Hark! I am call'd; my little spirit, see,\n    Sits in a foggy cloud and stays for me.                Exit.\n  FIRST WITCH. Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be back again.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nForres. The palace.\n\nEnter Lennox and another Lord.\n\n  LENNOX. My former speeches have but hit your thoughts,\n    Which can interpret farther; only I say\n    Thing's have been strangely borne. The gracious Duncan\n    Was pitied of Macbeth; marry, he was dead.\n    And the right valiant Banquo walk'd too late,\n    Whom, you may say, if't please you, Fleance kill'd,\n    For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late.\n    Who cannot want the thought, how monstrous\n    It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain\n    To kill their gracious father? Damned fact!\n    How it did grieve Macbeth! Did he not straight,\n    In pious rage, the two delinquents tear\n    That were the slaves of drink and thralls of sleep?\n    Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely too,\n    For 'twould have anger'd any heart alive\n    To hear the men deny't. So that, I say,\n    He has borne all things well; and I do think\n    That, had he Duncan's sons under his key-\n    As, an't please heaven, he shall not -they should find\n    What 'twere to kill a father; so should Fleance.\n    But, peace! For from broad words, and 'cause he fail'd\n    His presence at the tyrant's feast, I hear,\n    Macduff lives in disgrace. Sir, can you tell\n    Where he bestows himself?\n  LORD. The son of Duncan,\n    From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth,\n    Lives in the English court and is received\n    Of the most pious Edward with such grace\n    That the malevolence of fortune nothing\n    Takes from his high respect. Thither Macduff\n    Is gone to pray the holy King, upon his aid\n    To wake Northumberland and warlike Siward;\n    That by the help of these, with Him above\n    To ratify the work, we may again\n    Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights,\n    Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives,\n    Do faithful homage, and receive free honors-\n    All which we pine for now. And this report\n    Hath so exasperate the King that he\n    Prepares for some attempt of war.\n  LENNOX. Sent he to Macduff?\n  LORD. He did, and with an absolute \"Sir, not I,\"\n    The cloudy messenger turns me his back,\n    And hums, as who should say, \"You'll rue the time\n    That clogs me with this answer.\"\n  LENNOX. And that well might\n    Advise him to a caution, to hold what distance\n    His wisdom can provide. Some holy angel\n    Fly to the court of England and unfold\n    His message ere he come, that a swift blessing\n    May soon return to this our suffering country\n    Under a hand accursed!\n  LORD. I'll send my prayers with him.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nA cavern. In the middle, a boiling cauldron. Thunder.\n\nEnter the three Witches.\n  FIRST WITCH. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.\n  SECOND WITCH. Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.\n  THIRD WITCH. Harpier cries, \"'Tis time, 'tis time.\"\n  FIRST WITCH. Round about the cauldron go;\n    In the poison'd entrails throw.\n    Toad, that under cold stone\n    Days and nights has thirty-one\n    Swelter'd venom sleeping got,\n    Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.\n  ALL. Double, double, toil and trouble;\n    Fire burn and cauldron bubble.\n  SECOND WITCH. Fillet of a fenny snake,\n    In the cauldron boil and bake;\n    Eye of newt and toe of frog,\n    Wool of bat and tongue of dog,\n    Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,\n    Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,\n    For a charm of powerful trouble,\n    Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.\n  ALL. Double, double, toil and trouble;\n    Fire burn and cauldron bubble.\n  THIRD WITCH. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,\n    Witch's mummy, maw and gulf\n    Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,\n    Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,\n    Liver of blaspheming Jew,\n    Gall of goat and slips of yew\n    Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse,\n    Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,\n    Finger of birth-strangled babe\n    Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,\n    Make the gruel thick and slab.\n    Add thereto a tiger's chawdron,\n    For the ingredients of our cawdron.\n  ALL. Double, double, toil and trouble;\n    Fire burn and cauldron bubble.\n  SECOND WITCH. Cool it with a baboon's blood,\n    Then the charm is firm and good.\n\n            Enter Hecate to the other three Witches.\n\n  HECATE. O, well done! I commend your pains,\n    And everyone shall share i' the gains.\n    And now about the cauldron sing,\n    Like elves and fairies in a ring,\n    Enchanting all that you put in.\n                              Music and a song, \"Black spirits.\"\n                                                 Hecate retires.\n  SECOND WITCH. By the pricking of my thumbs,\n    Something wicked this way comes.\n    Open, locks,\n    Whoever knocks!\n\n                      Enter Macbeth.\n\n  MACBETH. How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags?\n    What is't you do?\n  ALL. A deed without a name.\n  MACBETH. I conjure you, by that which you profess\n    (Howeer you come to know it) answer me:\n    Though you untie the winds and let them fight\n    Against the churches, though the yesty waves\n    Confound and swallow navigation up,\n    Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down,\n    Though castles topple on their warders' heads,\n    Though palaces and pyramids do slope\n    Their heads to their foundations, though the treasure\n    Of nature's germaines tumble all together\n    Even till destruction sicken, answer me\n    To what I ask you.\n  FIRST WITCH. Speak.\n  SECOND WITCH. Demand.\n  THIRD WITCH. We'll answer.\n  FIRST WITCH. Say, if thou'dst rather hear it from our mouths,\n    Or from our masters'?\n  MACBETH. Call 'em, let me see 'em.\n  FIRST WITCH. Pour in sow's blood that hath eaten\n    Her nine farrow; grease that's sweaten\n    From the murtherer's gibbet throw\n    Into the flame.\n  ALL. Come, high or low;\n    Thyself and office deftly show!\n\n            Thunder. First Apparition: an armed Head.\n\n  MACBETH. Tell me, thou unknown power-\n  FIRST WITCH. He knows thy thought:\n    Hear his speech, but say thou nought.\n  FIRST APPARITION. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff,\n    Beware the Thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough.\n                                                       Descends.\n  MACBETH. Whate'er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks;\n    Thou hast harp'd my fear aright. But one word more-\n  FIRST WITCH. He will not be commanded. Here's another,\n    More potent than the first.\n\n          Thunder. Second Apparition: a bloody Child.\n\n  SECOND APPARITION. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!\n  MACBETH. Had I three ears, I'd hear thee.\n  SECOND APPARITION. Be bloody, bold, and resolute: laugh to scorn\n    The power of man, for none of woman born\n    Shall harm Macbeth.                                Descends.\n  MACBETH. Then live, Macduff. What need I fear of thee?\n    But yet I'll make assurance double sure,\n    And take a bond of fate: thou shalt not live,\n    That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies,\n    And sleep in spite of thunder.\n\n       Thunder. Third Apparition: a Child crowned,\n               with a tree in his hand.\n\n    What is this,\n    That rises like the issue of a king,\n    And wears upon his baby brow the round\n    And top of sovereignty?\n  ALL. Listen, but speak not to't.\n  THIRD APPARITION. Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care\n    Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are.\n    Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until\n    Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill\n    Shall come against him.                            Descends.\n  MACBETH. That will never be.\n    Who can impress the forest, bid the tree\n    Unfix his earth-bound root? Sweet bodements, good!\n    Rebellion's head, rise never till the Wood\n    Of Birnam rise, and our high-placed Macbeth\n    Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath\n    To time and mortal custom. Yet my heart\n    Throbs to know one thing: tell me, if your art\n    Can tell so much, shall Banquo's issue ever\n    Reign in this kingdom?\n  ALL. Seek to know no more.\n  MACBETH. I will be satisfied! Deny me this,\n    And an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know.\n    Why sinks that cauldron, and what noise is this?\n                                                       Hautboys.\n  FIRST WITCH. Show!\n  SECOND WITCH. Show!\n  THIRD. WITCH. Show!\n  ALL. Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;\n    Come like shadows, so depart!\n\n    A show of eight Kings, the last with a glass in his hand;\n                   Banquo's Ghost following.\n\n  MACBETH. Thou are too like the spirit of Banquo Down!\n    Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs. And thy hair,\n    Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first.\n    A third is like the former. Filthy hags!\n    Why do you show me this? A fourth! Start, eyes!\n    What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?\n    Another yet! A seventh! I'll see no more!\n    And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass\n    Which shows me many more; and some I see\n    That twofold balls and treble sceptres carry.\n    Horrible sight! Now I see 'tis true;\n    For the blood-bolter'd Banquo smiles upon me,\n    And points at them for his. What, is this so?\n  FIRST WITCH. Ay, sir, all this is so. But why\n    Stands Macbeth thus amazedly?\n    Come,sisters, cheer we up his sprites,\n    And show the best of our delights.\n    I'll charm the air to give a sound,\n    While you perform your antic round,\n    That this great King may kindly say\n    Our duties did his welcome pay.\n                                    Music. The Witches dance and\n                                        then vanish with Hecate.\n  MACBETH. are they? Gone? Let this pernicious hour\n    Stand ay accursed in the calendar!\n    Come in, without there!\n\n                    Enter Lennox.\n\n  LENNOX. What's your Grace's will?\n  MACBETH. Saw you the weird sisters?\n  LENNOX. No, my lord.\n  MACBETH. Came they not by you?\n  LENNOX. No indeed, my lord.\n  MACBETH. Infected be the 'air whereon they ride,\n    And damn'd all those that trust them! I did hear\n    The galloping of horse. Who wast came by?\n  LENNOX. 'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word\n    Macduff is fled to England.\n  MACBETH. Fled to England?\n  LENNOX. Ay, my good lord.\n  MACBETH. [Aside.] Time, thou anticipatest my dread exploits.\n    The flighty purpose never is o'ertook\n    Unless the deed go with it. From this moment\n    The very firstlings of my heart shall be\n    The firstlings of my hand. And even now,\n    To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done:\n    The castle of Macduff I will surprise,\n    Seize upon Fife, give to the edge o' the sword\n    His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls\n    That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool;\n    This deed I'll do before this purpose cool.\n    But no more sights! -Where are these gentlemen?\n    Come, bring me where they are.                       Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nFife. Macduff's castle.\n\nEnter Lady Macduff, her Son, and Ross.\n\n  LADY MACDUFF. What had he done, to make him fly the land?\n  ROSS. You must have patience, madam.\n  LADY MACDUFF. He had none;\n    His flight was madness. When our actions do not,\n    Our fears do make us traitors.\n  ROSS. You know not\n    Whether it was his wisdom or his fear.\n  LADY MACDUFF. Wisdom? To leave his wife, to leave his babes,\n    His mansion, and his titles, in a place\n    From whence himself does fly? He loves us not;\n    He wants the natural touch; for the poor wren,\n    The most diminutive of birds, will fight,\n    Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.\n    All is the fear and nothing is the love;\n    As little is the wisdom, where the flight\n    So runs against all reason.\n  ROSS. My dearest coz,\n    I pray you, school yourself. But for your husband,\n    He is noble, wise, Judicious, and best knows\n    The fits o' the season. I dare not speak much further;\n    But cruel are the times when we are traitors\n    And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumor\n    From what we fear, yet know not what we fear,\n    But float upon a wild and violent sea\n    Each way and move. I take my leave of you;\n    Shall not be long but I'll be here again.\n    Things at the worst will cease or else climb upward\n    To what they were before. My pretty cousin,\n    Blessing upon you!\n  LADY MACDUFF. Father'd he is, and yet he's fatherless.\n  ROSS. I am so much a fool, should I stay longer,\n    It would be my disgrace and your discomfort.\n    I take my leave at once.                               Exit.\n  LADY MACDUFF. Sirrah, your father's dead.\n    And what will you do now? How will you live?\n  SON. As birds do, Mother.\n  LADY MACDUFF. What, with worms and flies?\n  SON. With what I get, I mean; and so do they.\n  LADY MACDUFF. Poor bird! Thou'ldst never fear the net nor lime,\n    The pitfall nor the gin.\n  SON. Why should I, Mother? Poor birds they are not set for.\n    My father is not dead, for all your saying.\n  LADY MACDUFF. Yes, he is dead. How wilt thou do for father?\n  SON. Nay, how will you do for a husband?\n  LADY MACDUFF. Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.\n  SON. Then you'll buy 'em to sell again.\n  LADY MACDUFF. Thou speak'st with all thy wit, and yet, i' faith,\n    With wit enough for thee.\n  SON. Was my father a traitor, Mother?\n  LADY MACDUFF. Ay, that he was.\n  SON. What is a traitor?\n  LADY MACDUFF. Why one that swears and lies.\n  SON. And be all traitors that do so?\n  LADY MACDUFF. Everyone that does so is a traitor and must be\n     hanged.\n  SON. And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?\n  LADY MACDUFF. Everyone.\n  SON. Who must hang them?\n  LADY MACDUFF. Why, the honest men.\n  SON. Then the liars and swearers are fools, for there are liars and\n    swearers enow to beat the honest men and hang up them.\n  LADY MACDUFF. Now, God help thee, poor monkey! But how wilt thou do\n    for a father?\n  SON. If he were dead, you'ld weep for him; if you would not, it\n    were a good sign that I should quickly have a new father.\n  LADY MACDUFF. Poor prattler, how thou talk'st!\n\n                    Enter a Messenger.\n\n  MESSENGER. Bless you, fair dame! I am not to you known,\n    Though in your state of honor I am perfect.\n    I doubt some danger does approach you nearly.\n    If you will take a homely man's advice,\n    Be not found here; hence, with your little ones.\n    To fright you thus, methinks I am too savage;\n    To do worse to you were fell cruelty,\n    Which is too nigh your person. Heaven preserve you!\n    I dare abide no longer.                                Exit.\n  LADY MACDUFF. Whither should I fly?\n    I have done no harm. But I remember now\n    I am in this earthly world, where to do harm\n    Is often laudable, to do good sometime\n    Accounted dangerous folly. Why then, alas,\n    Do I put up that womanly defense,\n    To say I have done no harm -What are these faces?\n\n                      Enter Murtherers.\n\n  FIRST MURTHERER. Where is your husband?\n  LADY MACDUFF. I hope, in no place so unsanctified\n    Where such as thou mayst find him.\n  FIRST MURTHERER. He's a traitor.\n  SON. Thou liest, thou shag-ear'd villain!\n  FIRST MURTHERER. What, you egg!\n                                                      Stabs him.\n    Young fry of treachery!\n  SON. He has kill'd me, Mother.\n    Run away, I pray you!                                  Dies.\n                            Exit Lady Macduff, crying \"Murther!\"\n                               Exeunt Murtherers, following her.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nEngland. Before the King's palace.\n\nEnter Malcolm and Macduff.\n\n  MALCOLM. Let us seek out some desolate shade and there\n    Weep our sad bosoms empty.\n  MACDUFF. Let us rather\n    Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men\n    Bestride our downfall'n birthdom. Each new morn\n    New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows\n    Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds\n    As if it felt with Scotland and yell'd out\n    Like syllable of dolor.\n  MALCOLM. What I believe, I'll wall;\n    What know, believe; and what I can redress,\n    As I shall find the time to friend, I will.\n    What you have spoke, it may be so perchance.\n    This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,\n    Was once thought honest. You have loved him well;\n    He hath not touch'd you yet. I am young, but something\n    You may deserve of him through me, and wisdom\n    To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb\n    To appease an angry god.\n  MACDUFF. I am not treacherous.\n  MALCOLM. But Macbeth is.\n    A good and virtuous nature may recoil\n    In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your pardon;\n    That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose.\n    Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.\n    Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,\n    Yet grace must still look so.\n  MACDUFF. I have lost my hopes.\n  MALCOLM. Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.\n    Why in that rawness left you wife and child,\n    Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,\n    Without leave-taking? I pray you,\n    Let not my jealousies be your dishonors,\n    But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just,\n    Whatever I shall think.\n  MACDUFF. Bleed, bleed, poor country!\n    Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,\n    For goodness dare not check thee. Wear thou thy wrongs;\n    The title is affeer'd. Fare thee well, lord.\n    I would not be the villain that thou think'st\n    For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp\n    And the rich East to boot.\n  MALCOLM. Be not offended;\n    I speak not as in absolute fear of you.\n    I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;\n    It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash\n    Is added to her wounds. I think withal\n    There would be hands uplifted in my right;\n    And here from gracious England have I offer\n    Of goodly thousands. But for all this,\n    When I shall tread upon the tyrant's head,\n    Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country\n    Shall have more vices than it had before,\n    More suffer and more sundry ways than ever,\n    By him that shall succeed.\n  MACDUFF. What should he be?\n  MALCOLM. It is myself I mean, in whom I know\n    All the particulars of vice so grafted\n    That, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth\n    Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state\n    Esteem him as a lamb, being compared\n    With my confineless harms.\n  MACDUFF. Not in the legions\n    Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn'd\n    In evils to top Macbeth.\n  MALCOLM. I grant him bloody,\n    Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,\n    Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin\n    That has a name. But there's no bottom, none,\n    In my voluptuousness. Your wives, your daughters,\n    Your matrons, and your maids could not fill up\n    The cestern of my lust, and my desire\n    All continent impediments would o'erbear\n    That did oppose my will. Better Macbeth\n    Than such an one to reign.\n  MACDUFF. Boundless intemperance\n    In nature is a tyranny; it hath been\n    The untimely emptying of the happy throne,\n    And fall of many kings. But fear not yet\n    To take upon you what is yours. You may\n    Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty\n    And yet seem cold, the time you may so hoodwink.\n    We have willing dames enough; there cannot be\n    That vulture in you to devour so many\n    As will to greatness dedicate themselves,\n    Finding it so inclined.\n  MALCOLM. With this there grows\n    In my most ill-composed affection such\n    A stanchless avarice that, were I King,\n    I should cut off the nobles for their lands,\n    Desire his jewels and this other's house,\n    And my more-having would be as a sauce\n    To make me hunger more, that I should forge\n    Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal,\n    Destroying them for wealth.\n  MACDUFF. This avarice\n    Sticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root\n    Than summer-seeming lust, and it hath been\n    The sword of our slain kings. Yet do not fear;\n    Scotland hath foisons to fill up your will\n    Of your mere own. All these are portable,\n    With other graces weigh'd.\n  MALCOLM. But I have none. The king-becoming graces,\n    As justice, verity, temperance, stableness,\n    Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,\n    Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,\n    I have no relish of them, but abound\n    In the division of each several crime,\n    Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power, I should\n    Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,\n    Uproar the universal peace, confound\n    All unity on earth.\n  MACDUFF. O Scotland, Scotland!\n  MALCOLM. If such a one be fit to govern, speak.\n    I am as I have spoken.\n  MACDUFF. Fit to govern?\n    No, not to live. O nation miserable!\n    With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd,\n    When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again,\n    Since that the truest issue of thy throne\n    By his own interdiction stands accursed\n    And does blaspheme his breed? Thy royal father\n    Was a most sainted king; the queen that bore thee,\n    Oftener upon her knees than on her feet,\n    Died every day she lived. Fare thee well!\n    These evils thou repeat'st upon thyself\n    Have banish'd me from Scotland. O my breast,\n    Thy hope ends here!\n  MALCOLM. Macduff, this noble passion,\n    Child of integrity, hath from my soul\n    Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts\n    To thy good truth and honor. Devilish Macbeth\n    By many of these trains hath sought to win me\n    Into his power, and modest wisdom plucks me\n    From over-credulous haste. But God above\n    Deal between thee and me! For even now\n    I put myself to thy direction and\n    Unspeak mine own detraction; here abjure\n    The taints and blames I laid upon myself,\n    For strangers to my nature. I am yet\n    Unknown to woman, never was forsworn,\n    Scarcely have coveted what was mine own,\n    At no time broke my faith, would not betray\n    The devil to his fellow, and delight\n    No less in truth than life. My first false speaking\n    Was this upon myself. What I am truly\n    Is thine and my poor country's to command.\n    Whither indeed, before thy here-approach,\n    Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men\n    Already at a point, was setting forth.\n    Now we'll together, and the chance of goodness\n    Be like our warranted quarrel! Why are you silent?\n  MACDUFF. Such welcome and unwelcome things at once\n    'Tis hard to reconcile.\n\n                     Enter a Doctor.\n\n  MALCOLM. Well, more anon. Comes the King forth, I pray you?\n  DOCTOR. Ay, sir, there are a crew of wretched souls\n    That stay his cure. Their malady convinces\n    The great assay of art, but at his touch,\n    Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,\n    They presently amend.\n  MALCOLM. I thank you, Doctor.                     Exit Doctor.\n  MACDUFF. What's the disease he means?\n  MALCOLM. 'Tis call'd the evil:\n    A most miraculous work in this good King,\n    Which often, since my here-remain in England,\n    I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,\n    Himself best knows; but strangely-visited people,\n    All swol'n and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,\n    The mere despair of surgery, he cures,\n    Hanging a golden stamp about their necks\n    Put on with holy prayers; and 'tis spoken,\n    To the succeeding royalty he leaves\n    The healing benediction. With this strange virtue\n    He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,\n    And sundry blessings hang about his throne\n    That speak him full of grace.\n\n                    Enter Ross.\n\n  MACDUFF. See, who comes here?\n  MALCOLM. My countryman, but yet I know him not.\n  MACDUFF. My ever gentle cousin, welcome hither.\n  MALCOLM. I know him now. Good God, betimes remove\n    The means that makes us strangers!\n  ROSS. Sir, amen.\n  MACDUFF. Stands Scotland where it did?\n  ROSS. Alas, poor country,\n    Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot\n    Be call'd our mother, but our grave. Where nothing,\n    But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;\n    Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air,\n    Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems\n    A modern ecstasy. The dead man's knell\n    Is there scarce ask'd for who, and good men's lives\n    Expire before the flowers in their caps,\n    Dying or ere they sicken.\n  MACDUFF. O, relation\n    Too nice, and yet too true!\n  MALCOLM. What's the newest grief?\n  ROSS. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker;\n    Each minute teems a new one.\n  MACDUFF. How does my wife?\n  ROSS. Why, well.\n  MACDUFF. And all my children?\n  ROSS. Well too.\n  MACDUFF. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?\n  ROSS. No, they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.\n  MACDUFF. Be not a niggard of your speech. How goest?\n  ROSS. When I came hither to transport the tidings,\n    Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumor\n    Of many worthy fellows that were out,\n    Which was to my belief witness'd the rather,\n    For that I saw the tyrant's power afoot.\n    Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland\n    Would create soldiers, make our women fight,\n    To doff their dire distresses.\n  MALCOLM. Be't their comfort\n    We are coming thither. Gracious England hath\n    Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men;\n    An older and a better soldier none\n    That Christendom gives out.\n  ROSS. Would I could answer\n    This comfort with the like! But I have words\n    That would be howl'd out in the desert air,\n    Where hearing should not latch them.\n  MACDUFF. What concern they?\n    The general cause? Or is it a fee-grief\n    Due to some single breast?\n  ROSS. No mind that's honest\n    But in it shares some woe, though the main part\n    Pertains to you alone.\n  MACDUFF. If it be mine,\n    Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.\n  ROSS. Let not your ears despise my tongue forever,\n    Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound\n    That ever yet they heard.\n  MACDUFF. Humh! I guess at it.\n  ROSS. Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes\n    Savagely slaughter'd. To relate the manner\n    Were, on the quarry of these murther'd deer,\n    To add the death of you.\n  MALCOLM. Merciful heaven!\n    What, man! Neer pull your hat upon your brows;\n    Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak\n    Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break.\n  MACDUFF. My children too?\n  ROSS. Wife, children, servants, all\n    That could be found.\n  MACDUFF. And I must be from thence!\n    My wife kill'd too?\n  ROSS. I have said.\n  MALCOLM. Be comforted.\n    Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,\n    To cure this deadly grief.\n  MACDUFF. He has no children. All my pretty ones?\n    Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?\n    What, all my pretty chickens and their dam\n    At one fell swoop?\n  MALCOLM. Dispute it like a man.\n  MACDUFF. I shall do so,\n    But I must also feel it as a man.\n    I cannot but remember such things were\n    That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,\n    And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,\n    They were all struck for thee! Naught that I am,\n    Not for their own demerits, but for mine,\n    Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!\n  MALCOLM. Be this the whetstone of your sword. Let grief\n    Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.\n  MACDUFF. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes\n    And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,\n    Cut short all intermission; front to front\n    Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;\n    Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,\n    Heaven forgive him too!\n  MALCOLM. This tune goes manly.\n    Come, go we to the King; our power is ready,\n    Our lack is nothing but our leave. Macbeth\n    Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above\n    Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may,\n    The night is long that never finds the day.          Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nDunsinane. Anteroom in the castle.\n\nEnter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting Gentlewoman.\n\n  DOCTOR. I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no\n    truth in your report. When was it she last walked?\n  GENTLEWOMAN. Since his Majesty went into the field, have seen her\n    rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her\n    closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon't, read it,\n    afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while\n    in a most fast sleep.\n  DOCTOR. A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the\n    benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching! In this slumbery\n    agitation, besides her walking and other actual performances,\n    what, at any time, have you heard her say?\n  GENTLEWOMAN. That, sir, which I will not report after her.\n  DOCTOR. You may to me, and 'tis most meet you should.\n  GENTLEWOMAN. Neither to you nor anyone, having no witness to\n    confirm my speech.\n\n                Enter Lady Macbeth with a taper.\n\n    Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise, and, upon my\n    life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.\n  DOCTOR. How came she by that light?\n  GENTLEWOMAN. Why, it stood by her. She has light by her\n     continually; 'tis her command.\n  DOCTOR. You see, her eyes are open.\n  GENTLEWOMAN. Ay, but their sense is shut.\n  DOCTOR. What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands.\n  GENTLEWOMAN. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus\n    washing her hands. I have known her continue in this a quarter of\n    an hour.\n  LADY MACBETH. Yet here's a spot.\n  DOCTOR. Hark, she speaks! I will set down what comes from her, to\n    satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.\n  LADY MACBETH. Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One- two -why then 'tis\n    time to do't. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and\n    afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our\n    power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have\n    had so much blood in him?\n  DOCTOR. Do you mark that?\n  LADY MACBETH. The Thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now? What,\n    will these hands neer be clean? No more o' that, my lord, no more\n    o' that. You mar all with this starting.\n  DOCTOR. Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.\n  GENTLEWOMAN. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that.\n    Heaven knows what she has known.\n  LADY MACBETH. Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes\n    of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!\n  DOCTOR. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.\n  GENTLEWOMAN. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the\n    dignity of the whole body.\n  DOCTOR. Well, well, well-\n  GENTLEWOMAN. Pray God it be, sir.\n  DOCTOR. This disease is beyond my practice. Yet I have known those\n    which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their\n    beds.\n  LADY MACBETH. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown, look not so\n    pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out\n    on's grave.\n  DOCTOR. Even so?\n  LADY MACBETH. To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate. Come,\n    come, come, come, give me your hand.What's done cannot be undone.\n    To bed, to bed, to bed.\nExit.\n  DOCTOR. Will she go now to bed?\n  GENTLEWOMAN. Directly.\n  DOCTOR. Foul whisperings are abroad. Unnatural deeds\n    Do breed unnatural troubles; infected minds\n    To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.\n    More needs she the divine than the physician.\n    God, God, forgive us all! Look after her;\n    Remove from her the means of all annoyance,\n    And still keep eyes upon her. So good night.\n    My mind she has mated and amazed my sight.\n    I think, but dare not speak.\n  GENTLEWOMAN. Good night, good doctor.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe country near Dunsinane. Drum and colors.\n\nEnter Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, and Soldiers.\n\n  MENTEITH. The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,\n    His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff.\n    Revenges burn in them, for their dear causes\n    Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm\n    Excite the mortified man.\n  ANGUS. Near Birnam Wood\n    Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming.\n  CAITHNESS. Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?\n  LENNOX. For certain, sir, he is not; I have a file\n    Of all the gentry. There is Seward's son\n    And many unrough youths that even now\n    Protest their first of manhood.\n  MENTEITH. What does the tyrant?\n  CAITHNESS. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies.\n    Some say he's mad; others, that lesser hate him,\n    Do call it valiant fury; but, for certain,\n    He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause\n    Within the belt of rule.\n  ANGUS. Now does he feel\n    His secret murthers sticking on his hands,\n    Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;\n    Those he commands move only in command,\n    Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title\n    Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe\n    Upon a dwarfish thief.\n  MENTEITH. Who then shall blame\n    His pester'd senses to recoil and start,\n    When all that is within him does condemn\n    Itself for being there?\n  CAITHNESS. Well, march we on\n    To give obedience where 'tis truly owed.\n    Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal,\n    And with him pour we, in our country's purge,\n    Each drop of us.\n  LENNOX. Or so much as it needs\n    To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds.\n    Make we our march towards Birnam.           Exeunt marching.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nDunsinane. A room in the castle.\n\nEnter Macbeth, Doctor, and Attendants.\n\n  MACBETH. Bring me no more reports; let them fly all!\n    Till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane\n    I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?\n    Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know\n    All mortal consequences have pronounced me thus:\n    \"Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman\n    Shall e'er have power upon thee.\" Then fly, false Thanes,\n    And mingle with the English epicures!\n    The mind I sway by and the heart I bear\n    Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.\n\n                       Enter a Servant.\n\n    The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!\n    Where got'st thou that goose look?\n  SERVANT. There is ten thousand-\n  MACBETH. Geese, villain?\n  SERVANT. Soldiers, sir.\n  MACBETH. Go prick thy face and over-red thy fear,\n    Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch?\n    Death of thy soul! Those linen cheeks of thine\n    Are counselors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?\n  SERVANT. The English force, so please you.\n  MACBETH. Take thy face hence.                    Exit Servant.\n    Seyton-I am sick at heart,\n    When I behold- Seyton, I say!- This push\n    Will cheer me ever or disseat me now.\n    I have lived long enough. My way of life\n    Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf,\n    And that which should accompany old age,\n    As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,\n    I must not look to have; but in their stead,\n    Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath,\n    Which the poor heart would fain deny and dare not.\n    Seyton!\n\n                       Enter Seyton.\n\n  SEYTON. What's your gracious pleasure?\n  MACBETH. What news more?\n  SEYTON. All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported.\n  MACBETH. I'll fight, 'til from my bones my flesh be hack'd.\n    Give me my armor.\n  SEYTON. 'Tis not needed yet.\n  MACBETH. I'll put it on.\n    Send out more horses, skirr the country round,\n    Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armor.\n    How does your patient, doctor?\n  DOCTOR. Not so sick, my lord,\n    As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,\n    That keep her from her rest.\n  MACBETH. Cure her of that.\n    Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,\n    Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,\n    Raze out the written troubles of the brain,\n    And with some sweet oblivious antidote\n    Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff\n    Which weighs upon the heart?\n  DOCTOR. Therein the patient\n    Must minister to himself.\n  MACBETH. Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it.\n    Come, put mine armor on; give me my staff.\n    Seyton, send out. Doctor, the Thanes fly from me.\n    Come, sir, dispatch. If thou couldst, doctor, cast\n    The water of my land, find her disease\n    And purge it to a sound and pristine health,\n    I would applaud thee to the very echo,\n    That should applaud again. Pull't off, I say.\n    What rhubarb, cyme, or what purgative drug\n    Would scour these English hence? Hearst thou of them?\n  DOCTOR. Ay, my good lord, your royal preparation\n    Makes us hear something.\n  MACBETH. Bring it after me.\n    I will not be afraid of death and bane\n    Till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane.\n  DOCTOR. [Aside.] Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,\n    Profit again should hardly draw me here.             Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nCountry near Birnam Wood. Drum and colors.\n\nEnter Malcolm, old Seward and his Son, Macduff, Menteith, Caithness,\nAngus, Lennox, Ross, and Soldiers, marching.\n\n  MALCOLM. Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand\n    That chambers will be safe.\n  MENTEITH. We doubt it nothing.\n  SIWARD. What wood is this before us?\n  MENTEITH. The Wood of Birnam.\n  MALCOLM. Let every soldier hew him down a bough,\n    And bear't before him; thereby shall we shadow\n    The numbers of our host, and make discovery\n    Err in report of us.\n  SOLDIERS. It shall be done.\n  SIWARD. We learn no other but the confident tyrant\n    Keeps still in Dunsinane and will endure\n    Our setting down before't.\n  MALCOLM. 'Tis his main hope;\n    For where there is advantage to be given,\n    Both more and less have given him the revolt,\n    And none serve with him but constrained things\n    Whose hearts are absent too.\n  MACDUFF. Let our just censures\n    Attend the true event, and put we on\n    Industrious soldiership.\n  SIWARD. The time approaches\n    That will with due decision make us know\n    What we shall say we have and what we owe.\n    Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,\n    But certain issue strokes must arbitrate.\n    Towards which advance the war.\n                                                Exeunt Marching.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nDunsinane. Within the castle.\n\nEnter Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers, with drum and colors.\n\n  MACBETH. Hang out our banners on the outward walls;\n    The cry is still, \"They come!\" Our castle's strength\n    Will laugh a siege to scorn. Here let them lie\n    Till famine and the ague eat them up.\n    Were they not forced with those that should be ours,\n    We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,\n    And beat them backward home.\n                                          A cry of women within.\n    What is that noise?\n  SEYTON. It is the cry of women, my good lord.            Exit.\n  MACBETH. I have almost forgot the taste of fears:\n    The time has been, my senses would have cool'd\n    To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair\n    Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir\n    As life were in't. I have supp'd full with horrors;\n    Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,\n    Cannot once start me.\n\n                  Re-enter Seyton.\n     Wherefore was that cry?\n  SEYTON. The Queen, my lord, is dead.\n  MACBETH. She should have died hereafter;\n    There would have been a time for such a word.\n    Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow\n    Creeps in this petty pace from day to day\n    To the last syllable of recorded time;\n    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools\n    The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!\n    Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player\n    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage\n    And then is heard no more. It is a tale\n    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,\n    Signifying nothing.\n\n                 Enter a Messenger.\n\n    Thou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.\n  MESSENGER. Gracious my lord,\n    I should report that which I say I saw,\n    But know not how to do it.\n  MACBETH. Well, say, sir.\n  MESSENGER. As I did stand my watch upon the hill,\n    I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,\n    The Wood began to move.\n  MACBETH. Liar and slave!\n  MESSENGER. Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so.\n    Within this three mile may you see it coming;\n    I say, a moving grove.\n  MACBETH. If thou speak'st false,\n    Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,\n    Till famine cling thee; if thy speech be sooth,\n    I care not if thou dost for me as much.\n    I pull in resolution and begin\n    To doubt the equivocation of the fiend\n    That lies like truth. \"Fear not, till Birnam Wood\n    Do come to Dunsinane,\" and now a wood\n    Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!\n    If this which he avouches does appear,\n    There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.\n    I 'gin to be aweary of the sun\n    And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.\n    Ring the alarum bell! Blow, wind! Come, wrack!\n    At least we'll die with harness on our back.         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nDunsinane.  Before the castle.\n\nEnter Malcolm, old Siward, Macduff, and their Army, with boughs.\nDrum and colors.\n\n  MALCOLM. Now near enough; your leavy screens throw down,\n    And show like those you are. You, worthy uncle,\n    Shall with my cousin, your right noble son,\n    Lead our first battle. Worthy Macduff and we\n    Shall take upon 's what else remains to do,\n    According to our order.\n  SIWARD. Fare you well.\n    Do we but find the tyrant's power tonight,\n    Let us be beaten if we cannot fight.\n  MACDUFF. Make all our trumpets speak, give them all breath,\n    Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nDunsinane.  Before the castle.  Alarums.\n\nEnter Macbeth.\n\n  MACBETH. They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,\n    But bear-like I must fight the course. What's he\n    That was not born of woman? Such a one\n    Am I to fear, or none.\n\n                     Enter young Siward.\n\n  YOUNG SIWARD. What is thy name?\n  MACBETH. Thou'lt be afraid to hear it.\n  YOUNG SIWARD. No, though thou call'st thyself a hotter name\n    Than any is in hell.\n  MACBETH. My name's Macbeth.\n  YOUNG SIWARD. The devil himself could not pronounce a title\n    More hateful to mine ear.\n  MACBETH. No, nor more fearful.\n  YOUNG SIWARD O Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword\n    I'll prove the lie thou speak'st.\n                          They fight, and young Seward is slain.\n  MACBETH. Thou wast born of woman.\n    But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,\n    Brandish'd by man that's of a woman born.              Exit.\n\n                Alarums. Enter Macduff.\n\n  MACDUFF. That way the noise is. Tyrant, show thy face!\n    If thou best slain and with no stroke of mine,\n    My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still.\n    I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms\n    Are hired to bear their staves. Either thou, Macbeth,\n    Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge,\n    I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be;\n    By this great clatter, one of greatest note\n    Seems bruited. Let me find him, Fortune!\n    And more I beg not.                           Exit. Alarums.\n\n                Enter Malcolm and old Siward.\n\n  SIWARD. This way, my lord; the castle's gently render'd.\n    The tyrant's people on both sides do fight,\n    The noble Thanes do bravely in the war,\n    The day almost itself professes yours,\n    And little is to do.\n  MALCOLM. We have met with foes\n    That strike beside us.\n  SIWARD. Enter, sir, the castle.\n                                                 Exeunt. Alarum.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\nAnother part of the field.\n\nEnter Macbeth.\n\n  MACBETH. Why should I play the Roman fool and die\n    On mine own sword? Whiles I see lives, the gashes\n    Do better upon them.\n\n                      Enter Macduff.\n\n  MACDUFF. Turn, hell hound, turn!\n  MACBETH. Of all men else I have avoided thee.\n    But get thee back, my soul is too much charged\n    With blood of thine already.\n  MACDUFF. I have no words.\n    My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier villain\n    Than terms can give thee out!                    They fight.\n  MACBETH. Thou losest labor.\n    As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air\n    With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed.\n    Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;\n    I bear a charmed life, which must not yield\n    To one of woman born.\n  MACDUFF. Despair thy charm,\n    And let the angel whom thou still hast served\n    Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb\n    Untimely ripp'd.\n  MACBETH. Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,\n    For it hath cow'd my better part of man!\n    And be these juggling fiends no more believed\n    That patter with us in a double sense,\n    That keep the word of promise to our ear\n    And break it to our hope. I'll not fight with thee.\n  MACDUFF. Then yield thee, coward,\n    And live to be the show and gaze o' the time.\n    We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,\n    Painted upon a pole, and underwrit,\n    \"Here may you see the tyrant.\"\n  MACBETH. I will not yield,\n    To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,\n    And to be baited with the rabble's curse.\n    Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane,\n    And thou opposed, being of no woman born,\n    Yet I will try the last. Before my body\n    I throw my warlike shield! Lay on, Macduff,\n    And damn'd be him that first cries, \"Hold, enough!\"\n                                       Exeunt fighting. Alarums.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IX.\n\nRetreat. Flourish. Enter, with drum and colors, Malcolm, old Siward, Ross,\nthe other Thanes, and Soldiers.\n\n  MALCOLM. I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.\n  SIWARD. Some must go off, and yet, by these I see,\n    So great a day as this is cheaply bought.\n  MALCOLM. Macduff is missing, and your noble son.\n  ROSS. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt.\n    He only lived but till he was a man,\n    The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd\n    In the unshrinking station where he fought,\n    But like a man he died.\n  SIWARD. Then he is dead?\n  ROSS. Ay, and brought off the field. Your cause of sorrow\n    Must not be measured by his worth, for then\n    It hath no end.\n  SIWARD. Had he his hurts before?\n  ROSS. Ay, on the front.\n  SIWARD. Why then, God's soldier be he!\n    Had I as many sons as I have hairs,\n    I would not wish them to a fairer death.\n    And so his knell is knoll'd.\n  MALCOLM. He's worth more sorrow,\n    And that I'll spend for him.\n  SIWARD. He's worth no more:\n    They say he parted well and paid his score,\n    And so God be with him! Here comes newer comfort.\n\n             Re-enter Macduff, with Macbeth's head.\n\n  MACDUFF. Hail, King, for so thou art. Behold where stands\n    The usurper's cursed head. The time is free.\n    I see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl\n    That speak my salutation in their minds,\n    Whose voices I desire aloud with mine-\n    Hail, King of Scotland!\n  ALL. Hail, King of Scotland!                         Flourish.\n  MALCOLM. We shall not spend a large expense of time\n    Before we reckon with your several loves\n    And make us even with you. My Thanes and kinsmen,\n    Henceforth be Earls, the first that ever Scotland\n    In such an honor named. What's more to do,\n    Which would be planted newly with the time,\n    As calling home our exiled friends abroad\n    That fled the snares of watchful tyranny,\n    Producing forth the cruel ministers\n    Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen,\n    Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands\n    Took off her life; this, and what needful else\n    That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace\n    We will perform in measure, time, and place.\n    So thanks to all at once and to each one,\n    Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.\n                                               Flourish. Exeunt.\n                 -THE END-\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1605\n\n\nMEASURE FOR MEASURE\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  VINCENTIO, the Duke\n  ANGELO, the Deputy\n  ESCALUS, an ancient Lord\n  CLAUDIO, a young gentleman\n  LUCIO, a fantastic\n  Two other like Gentlemen\n  VARRIUS, a gentleman, servant to the Duke\n  PROVOST\n  THOMAS, friar\n  PETER, friar\n  A JUSTICE\n  ELBOW, a simple constable\n  FROTH, a foolish gentleman\n  POMPEY, a clown and servant to Mistress Overdone\n  ABHORSON, an executioner\n  BARNARDINE, a dissolute prisoner\n\n  ISABELLA, sister to Claudio\n  MARIANA, betrothed to Angelo\n  JULIET, beloved of Claudio\n  FRANCISCA, a nun\n  MISTRESS OVERDONE, a bawd\n\n  Lords, Officers, Citizens, Boy, and Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nVienna\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nThe DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter DUKE, ESCALUS, LORDS, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  DUKE. Escalus!\n  ESCALUS. My lord.\n  DUKE. Of government the properties to unfold\n    Would seem in me t' affect speech and discourse,\n    Since I am put to know that your own science\n    Exceeds, in that, the lists of all advice\n    My strength can give you; then no more remains\n    But that to your sufficiency- as your worth is able-\n    And let them work. The nature of our people,\n    Our city's institutions, and the terms\n    For common justice, y'are as pregnant in\n    As art and practice hath enriched any\n    That we remember. There is our commission,\n    From which we would not have you warp. Call hither,\n    I say, bid come before us, Angelo.         Exit an ATTENDANT\n    What figure of us think you he will bear?\n    For you must know we have with special soul\n    Elected him our absence to supply;\n    Lent him our terror, dress'd him with our love,\n    And given his deputation all the organs\n    Of our own power. What think you of it?\n  ESCALUS. If any in Vienna be of worth\n    To undergo such ample grace and honour,\n    It is Lord Angelo.\n\n                          Enter ANGELO\n\n  DUKE. Look where he comes.\n  ANGELO. Always obedient to your Grace's will,\n    I come to know your pleasure.\n  DUKE. Angelo,\n    There is a kind of character in thy life\n    That to th' observer doth thy history\n    Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings\n    Are not thine own so proper as to waste\n    Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.\n    Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,\n    Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues\n    Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike\n    As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd\n    But to fine issues; nor Nature never lends\n    The smallest scruple of her excellence\n    But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines\n    Herself the glory of a creditor,\n    Both thanks and use. But I do bend my speech\n    To one that can my part in him advertise.\n    Hold, therefore, Angelo-\n    In our remove be thou at full ourself;\n    Mortality and mercy in Vienna\n    Live in thy tongue and heart. Old Escalus,\n    Though first in question, is thy secondary.\n    Take thy commission.\n  ANGELO. Now, good my lord,\n    Let there be some more test made of my metal,\n    Before so noble and so great a figure\n    Be stamp'd upon it.\n  DUKE. No more evasion!\n    We have with a leaven'd and prepared choice\n    Proceeded to you; therefore take your honours.\n    Our haste from hence is of so quick condition\n    That it prefers itself, and leaves unquestion'd\n    Matters of needful value. We shall write to you,\n    As time and our concernings shall importune,\n    How it goes with us, and do look to know\n    What doth befall you here. So, fare you well.\n    To th' hopeful execution do I leave you\n    Of your commissions.\n  ANGELO. Yet give leave, my lord,\n    That we may bring you something on the way.\n  DUKE. My haste may not admit it;\n    Nor need you, on mine honour, have to do\n    With any scruple: your scope is as mine own,\n    So to enforce or qualify the laws\n    As to your soul seems good. Give me your hand;\n    I'll privily away. I love the people,\n    But do not like to stage me to their eyes;\n    Though it do well, I do not relish well\n    Their loud applause and Aves vehement;\n    Nor do I think the man of safe discretion\n    That does affect it. Once more, fare you well.\n  ANGELO. The heavens give safety to your purposes!\n  ESCALUS. Lead forth and bring you back in happiness!\n  DUKE. I thank you. Fare you well.                         Exit\n  ESCALUS. I shall desire you, sir, to give me leave\n    To have free speech with you; and it concerns me\n    To look into the bottom of my place:\n    A pow'r I have, but of what strength and nature\n    I am not yet instructed.\n  ANGELO. 'Tis so with me. Let us withdraw together,\n    And we may soon our satisfaction have\n    Touching that point.\n  ESCALUS. I'll wait upon your honour.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA street\n\nEnter Lucio and two other GENTLEMEN\n\n  LUCIO. If the Duke, with the other dukes, come not to composition\n    with the King of Hungary, why then all the dukes fall upon the\n    King.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Heaven grant us its peace, but not the King of\n    Hungary's!\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Amen.\n  LUCIO. Thou conclud'st like the sanctimonious pirate that went to\n    sea with the Ten Commandments, but scrap'd one out of the table.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Thou shalt not steal'?\n  LUCIO. Ay, that he raz'd.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Why, 'twas a commandment to command the captain\n    and all the rest from their functions: they put forth to steal.\n    There's not a soldier of us all that, in the thanksgiving before\n    meat, do relish the petition well that prays for peace.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I never heard any soldier dislike it.\n  LUCIO. I believe thee; for I think thou never wast where grace was\n    said.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. No? A dozen times at least.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. What, in metre?\n  LUCIO. In any proportion or in any language.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I think, or in any religion.\n  LUCIO. Ay, why not? Grace is grace, despite of all controversy; as,\n    for example, thou thyself art a wicked villain, despite of all\n    grace.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Well, there went but a pair of shears between us.\n  LUCIO. I grant; as there may between the lists and the velvet.\n    Thou art the list.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. And thou the velvet; thou art good velvet; thou'rt\n    a three-pil'd piece, I warrant thee. I had as lief be a list of\n    an English kersey as be pil'd, as thou art pil'd, for a French\n    velvet. Do I speak feelingly now?\n  LUCIO. I think thou dost; and, indeed, with most painful feeling of\n    thy speech. I will, out of thine own confession, learn to begin\n    thy health; but, whilst I live, forget to drink after thee.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I think I have done myself wrong, have I not?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Yes, that thou hast, whether thou art tainted or\n    free.\n\n                        Enter MISTRESS OVERDONE\n\n  LUCIO. Behold, behold, where Madam Mitigation comes! I have\n    purchas'd as many diseases under her roof as come to-\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. To what, I pray?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Judge.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. To three thousand dolours a year.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Ay, and more.\n  LUCIO. A French crown more.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Thou art always figuring diseases in me, but thou\n    art full of error; I am sound.\n  LUCIO. Nay, not, as one would say, healthy; but so sound as things\n    that are hollow: thy bones are hollow; impiety has made a feast\n    of thee.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. How now! which of your hips has the most profound\n    sciatica?\n  MRS. OVERDONE. Well, well! there's one yonder arrested and carried\n    to prison was worth five thousand of you all.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Who's that, I pray thee?\n  MRS. OVERDONE. Marry, sir, that's Claudio, Signior Claudio.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Claudio to prison? 'Tis not so.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. Nay, but I know 'tis so: I saw him arrested; saw him\n    carried away; and, which is more, within these three days his\n    head to be chopp'd off.\n  LUCIO. But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so. Art\n    thou sure of this?\n  MRS. OVERDONE. I am too sure of it; and it is for getting Madam\n    Julietta with child.\n  LUCIO. Believe me, this may be; he promis'd to meet me two hours\n    since, and he was ever precise in promise-keeping.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Besides, you know, it draws something near to the\n    speech we had to such a purpose.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. But most of all agreeing with the proclamation.\n  LUCIO. Away; let's go learn the truth of it.\n                                      Exeunt Lucio and GENTLEMEN\n  MRS. OVERDONE. Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what\n    with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk.\n\n                               Enter POMPEY\n\n    How now! what's the news with you?\n  POMPEY. Yonder man is carried to prison.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. Well, what has he done?\n  POMPEY. A woman.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. But what's his offence?\n  POMPEY. Groping for trouts in a peculiar river.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. What! is there a maid with child by him?\n  POMPEY. No; but there's a woman with maid by him. You have not\n   heard of the proclamation, have you?\n  MRS. OVERDONE. What proclamation, man?\n  POMPEY. All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be pluck'd down.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. And what shall become of those in the city?\n  POMPEY. They shall stand for seed; they had gone down too, but that\n    a wise burgher put in for them.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be\n    pull'd down?\n  POMPEY. To the ground, mistress.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. Why, here's a change indeed in the commonwealth!\n    What shall become of me?\n  POMPEY. Come, fear not you: good counsellors lack no clients.\n    Though you change your place you need not change your trade; I'll\n    be your tapster still. Courage, there will be pity taken on you;\n    you that have worn your eyes almost out in the service, you will\n    be considered.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. What's to do here, Thomas Tapster? Let's withdraw.\n  POMPEY. Here comes Signior Claudio, led by the provost to prison;\n    and there's Madam Juliet.                             Exeunt\n\n            Enter PROVOST, CLAUDIO, JULIET, and OFFICERS;\n                            LUCIO following\n\n  CLAUDIO. Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to th' world?\n    Bear me to prison, where I am committed.\n  PROVOST. I do it not in evil disposition,\n    But from Lord Angelo by special charge.\n  CLAUDIO. Thus can the demigod Authority\n    Make us pay down for our offence by weight\n    The words of heaven: on whom it will, it will;\n    On whom it will not, so; yet still 'tis just.\n  LUCIO. Why, how now, Claudio, whence comes this restraint?\n  CLAUDIO. From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty;\n    As surfeit is the father of much fast,\n    So every scope by the immoderate use\n    Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,\n    Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,\n    A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die.\n  LUCIO. If I could speak so wisely under an arrest, I would send for\n    certain of my creditors; and yet, to say the truth, I had as lief\n    have the foppery of freedom as the morality of imprisonment.\n    What's thy offence, Claudio?\n  CLAUDIO. What but to speak of would offend again.\n  LUCIO. What, is't murder?\n  CLAUDIO. No.\n  LUCIO. Lechery?\n  CLAUDIO. Call it so.\n  PROVOST. Away, sir; you must go.\n  CLAUDIO. One word, good friend. Lucio, a word with you.\n  LUCIO. A hundred, if they'll do you any good. Is lechery so look'd\n    after?\n  CLAUDIO. Thus stands it with me: upon a true contract\n    I got possession of Julietta's bed.\n    You know the lady; she is fast my wife,\n    Save that we do the denunciation lack\n    Of outward order; this we came not to,\n    Only for propagation of a dow'r\n    Remaining in the coffer of her friends.\n    From whom we thought it meet to hide our love\n    Till time had made them for us. But it chances\n    The stealth of our most mutual entertainment,\n    With character too gross, is writ on Juliet.\n  LUCIO. With child, perhaps?\n  CLAUDIO. Unhappily, even so.\n    And the new deputy now for the Duke-\n    Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness,\n    Or whether that the body public be\n    A horse whereon the governor doth ride,\n    Who, newly in the seat, that it may know\n    He can command, lets it straight feel the spur;\n    Whether the tyranny be in his place,\n    Or in his eminence that fills it up,\n    I stagger in. But this new governor\n    Awakes me all the enrolled penalties\n    Which have, like unscour'd armour, hung by th' wall\n    So long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round\n    And none of them been worn; and, for a name,\n    Now puts the drowsy and neglected act\n    Freshly on me. 'Tis surely for a name.\n  LUCIO. I warrant it is; and thy head stands so tickle on thy\n    shoulders that a milkmaid, if she be in love, may sigh it off.\n    Send after the Duke, and appeal to him.\n  CLAUDIO. I have done so, but he's not to be found.\n    I prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service:\n    This day my sister should the cloister enter,\n    And there receive her approbation;\n    Acquaint her with the danger of my state;\n    Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends\n    To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him.\n    I have great hope in that; for in her youth\n    There is a prone and speechless dialect\n    Such as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art\n    When she will play with reason and discourse,\n    And well she can persuade.\n  LUCIO. I pray she may; as well for the encouragement of the like,\n    which else would stand under grievous imposition, as for the\n    enjoying of thy life, who I would be sorry should be thus\n    foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack. I'll to her.\n  CLAUDIO. I thank you, good friend Lucio.\n  LUCIO. Within two hours.\n  CLAUDIO. Come, officer, away.                           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA monastery\n\nEnter DUKE and FRIAR THOMAS\n\n  DUKE. No, holy father; throw away that thought;\n    Believe not that the dribbling dart of love\n    Can pierce a complete bosom. Why I desire thee\n    To give me secret harbour hath a purpose\n    More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends\n    Of burning youth.\n  FRIAR. May your Grace speak of it?\n  DUKE. My holy sir, none better knows than you\n    How I have ever lov'd the life removed,\n    And held in idle price to haunt assemblies\n    Where youth, and cost, a witless bravery keeps.\n    I have deliver'd to Lord Angelo,\n    A man of stricture and firm abstinence,\n    My absolute power and place here in Vienna,\n    And he supposes me travell'd to Poland;\n    For so I have strew'd it in the common ear,\n    And so it is received. Now, pious sir,\n    You will demand of me why I do this.\n  FRIAR. Gladly, my lord.\n  DUKE. We have strict statutes and most biting laws,\n    The needful bits and curbs to headstrong steeds,\n    Which for this fourteen years we have let slip;\n    Even like an o'ergrown lion in a cave,\n    That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers,\n    Having bound up the threat'ning twigs of birch,\n    Only to stick it in their children's sight\n    For terror, not to use, in time the rod\n    Becomes more mock'd than fear'd; so our decrees,\n    Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead;\n    And liberty plucks justice by the nose;\n    The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart\n    Goes all decorum.\n  FRIAR. It rested in your Grace\n    To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleas'd;\n    And it in you more dreadful would have seem'd\n    Than in Lord Angelo.\n  DUKE. I do fear, too dreadful.\n    Sith 'twas my fault to give the people scope,\n    'Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them\n    For what I bid them do; for we bid this be done,\n    When evil deeds have their permissive pass\n    And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my father,\n    I have on Angelo impos'd the office;\n    Who may, in th' ambush of my name, strike home,\n    And yet my nature never in the fight\n    To do in slander. And to behold his sway,\n    I will, as 'twere a brother of your order,\n    Visit both prince and people. Therefore, I prithee,\n    Supply me with the habit, and instruct me\n    How I may formally in person bear me\n    Like a true friar. Moe reasons for this action\n    At our more leisure shall I render you.\n    Only, this one: Lord Angelo is precise;\n    Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses\n    That his blood flows, or that his appetite\n    Is more to bread than stone. Hence shall we see,\n    If power change purpose, what our seemers be.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nA nunnery\n\nEnter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA\n\n  ISABELLA. And have you nuns no farther privileges?\n  FRANCISCA. Are not these large enough?\n  ISABELLA. Yes, truly; I speak not as desiring more,\n    But rather wishing a more strict restraint\n    Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.\n  LUCIO. [ Within] Ho! Peace be in this place!\n  ISABELLA. Who's that which calls?\n  FRANCISCA. It is a man's voice. Gentle Isabella,\n    Turn you the key, and know his business of him:\n    You may, I may not; you are yet unsworn;\n    When you have vow'd, you must not speak with men\n    But in the presence of the prioress;\n    Then, if you speak, you must not show your face,\n    Or, if you show your face, you must not speak.\n    He calls again; I pray you answer him.        Exit FRANCISCA\n  ISABELLA. Peace and prosperity! Who is't that calls?\n\n                           Enter LUCIO\n\n  LUCIO. Hail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses\n    Proclaim you are no less. Can you so stead me\n    As bring me to the sight of Isabella,\n    A novice of this place, and the fair sister\n    To her unhappy brother Claudio?\n  ISABELLA. Why her 'unhappy brother'? Let me ask\n    The rather, for I now must make you know\n    I am that Isabella, and his sister.\n  LUCIO. Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you.\n    Not to be weary with you, he's in prison.\n  ISABELLA. Woe me! For what?\n  LUCIO. For that which, if myself might be his judge,\n    He should receive his punishment in thanks:\n    He hath got his friend with child.\n  ISABELLA. Sir, make me not your story.\n  LUCIO. It is true.\n    I would not- though 'tis my familiar sin\n    With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,\n    Tongue far from heart- play with all virgins so:\n    I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted,\n    By your renouncement an immortal spirit,\n    And to be talk'd with in sincerity,\n    As with a saint.\n  ISABELLA. You do blaspheme the good in mocking me.\n  LUCIO. Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, 'tis thus:\n    Your brother and his lover have embrac'd.\n    As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time\n    That from the seedness the bare fallow brings\n    To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb\n    Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.\n  ISABELLA. Some one with child by him? My cousin Juliet?\n  LUCIO. Is she your cousin?\n  ISABELLA. Adoptedly, as school-maids change their names\n    By vain though apt affection.\n  LUCIO. She it is.\n  ISABELLA. O, let him marry her!\n  LUCIO. This is the point.\n    The Duke is very strangely gone from hence;\n    Bore many gentlemen, myself being one,\n    In hand, and hope of action; but we do learn,\n    By those that know the very nerves of state,\n    His givings-out were of an infinite distance\n    From his true-meant design. Upon his place,\n    And with full line of his authority,\n    Governs Lord Angelo, a man whose blood\n    Is very snow-broth, one who never feels\n    The wanton stings and motions of the sense,\n    But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge\n    With profits of the mind, study and fast.\n    He- to give fear to use and liberty,\n    Which have for long run by the hideous law,\n    As mice by lions- hath pick'd out an act\n    Under whose heavy sense your brother's life\n    Falls into forfeit; he arrests him on it,\n    And follows close the rigour of the statute\n    To make him an example. All hope is gone,\n    Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer\n    To soften Angelo. And that's my pith of business\n    'Twixt you and your poor brother.\n  ISABELLA. Doth he so seek his life?\n  LUCIO. Has censur'd him\n    Already, and, as I hear, the Provost hath\n    A warrant for his execution.\n  ISABELLA. Alas! what poor ability's in me\n    To do him good?\n  LUCIO. Assay the pow'r you have.\n  ISABELLA. My power, alas, I doubt!\n  LUCIO. Our doubts are traitors,\n    And make us lose the good we oft might win\n    By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo,\n    And let him learn to know, when maidens sue,\n    Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,\n    All their petitions are as freely theirs\n    As they themselves would owe them.\n  ISABELLA. I'll see what I can do.\n  LUCIO. But speedily.\n  ISABELLA. I will about it straight;\n    No longer staying but to give the Mother\n    Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you.\n    Commend me to my brother; soon at night\n    I'll send him certain word of my success.\n  LUCIO. I take my leave of you.\n  ISABELLA. Good sir, adieu.                              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. Scene I.\nA hall in ANGELO'S house\n\nEnter ANGELO, ESCALUS, a JUSTICE, PROVOST, OFFICERS, and other ATTENDANTS\n\n  ANGELO. We must not make a scarecrow of the law,\n    Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,\n    And let it keep one shape till custom make it\n    Their perch, and not their terror.\n  ESCALUS. Ay, but yet\n    Let us be keen, and rather cut a little\n    Than fall and bruise to death. Alas! this gentleman,\n    Whom I would save, had a most noble father.\n    Let but your honour know,\n    Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue,\n    That, in the working of your own affections,\n    Had time coher'd with place, or place with wishing,\n    Or that the resolute acting of our blood\n    Could have attain'd th' effect of your own purpose\n    Whether you had not sometime in your life\n    Err'd in this point which now you censure him,\n    And pull'd the law upon you.\n  ANGELO. 'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,\n    Another thing to fall. I not deny\n    The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,\n    May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two\n    Guiltier than him they try. What's open made to justice,\n    That justice seizes. What knows the laws\n    That thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant,\n    The jewel that we find, we stoop and take't,\n    Because we see it; but what we do not see\n    We tread upon, and never think of it.\n    You may not so extenuate his offence\n    For I have had such faults; but rather tell me,\n    When I, that censure him, do so offend,\n    Let mine own judgment pattern out my death,\n    And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.\n  ESCALUS. Be it as your wisdom will.\n  ANGELO. Where is the Provost?\n  PROVOST. Here, if it like your honour.\n  ANGELO. See that Claudio\n    Be executed by nine to-morrow morning;\n    Bring him his confessor; let him be prepar'd;\n    For that's the utmost of his pilgrimage.        Exit PROVOST\n  ESCALUS. [Aside] Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all!\n    Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall;\n    Some run from breaks of ice, and answer none,\n    And some condemned for a fault alone.\n\n         Enter ELBOW and OFFICERS with FROTH and POMPEY\n\n  ELBOW. Come, bring them away; if these be good people in a\n    commonweal that do nothing but use their abuses in common houses,\n    I know no law; bring them away.\n  ANGELO. How now, sir! What's your name, and what's the matter?\n  ELBOW. If it please your honour, I am the poor Duke's constable,\n    and my name is Elbow; I do lean upon justice, sir, and do bring\n    in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors.\n  ANGELO. Benefactors! Well- what benefactors are they? Are they not\n    malefactors?\n  ELBOW. If it please your honour, I know not well what they are; but\n    precise villains they are, that I am sure of, and void of all\n    profanation in the world that good Christians ought to have.\n  ESCALUS. This comes off well; here's a wise officer.\n  ANGELO. Go to; what quality are they of? Elbow is your name? Why\n    dost thou not speak, Elbow?\n  POMPEY. He cannot, sir; he's out at elbow.\n  ANGELO. What are you, sir?\n  ELBOW. He, sir? A tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that serves a bad\n    woman; whose house, sir, was, as they say, pluck'd down in the\n    suburbs; and now she professes a hot-house, which, I think, is a\n    very ill house too.\n  ESCALUS. How know you that?\n  ELBOW. My Wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour-\n  ESCALUS. How! thy wife!\n  ELBOW. Ay, sir; whom I thank heaven, is an honest woman-\n  ESCALUS. Dost thou detest her therefore?\n  ELBOW. I say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as she, that\n    this house, if it be not a bawd's house, it is pity of her life,\n    for it is a naughty house.\n  ESCALUS. How dost thou know that, constable?\n  ELBOW. Marry, sir, by my wife; who, if she had been a woman\n    cardinally given, might have been accus'd in fornication,\n    adultery, and all uncleanliness there.\n  ESCALUS. By the woman's means?\n  ELBOW. Ay, sir, by Mistress Overdone's means; but as she spit in\n    his face, so she defied him.\n  POMPEY. Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so.\n  ELBOW. Prove it before these varlets here, thou honourable man,\n    prove it.\n  ESCALUS. Do you hear how he misplaces?\n  POMPEY. Sir, she came in great with child; and longing, saving your\n    honour's reverence, for stew'd prunes. Sir, we had but two in the\n    house, which at that very distant time stood, as it were, in a\n    fruit dish, a dish of some three pence; your honours have seen\n    such dishes; they are not China dishes, but very good dishes.\n  ESCALUS. Go to, go to; no matter for the dish, sir.\n  POMPEY. No, indeed, sir, not of a pin; you are therein in the\n    right; but to the point. As I say, this Mistress Elbow, being, as\n    I say, with child, and being great-bellied, and longing, as I\n    said, for prunes; and having but two in the dish, as I said,\n    Master Froth here, this very man, having eaten the rest, as I\n    said, and, as I say, paying for them very honestly; for, as you\n    know, Master Froth, I could not give you three pence again-\n  FROTH. No, indeed.\n  POMPEY. Very well; you being then, if you be rememb'red, cracking\n    the stones of the foresaid prunes-\n  FROTH. Ay, so I did indeed.\n  POMPEY. Why, very well; I telling you then, if you be rememb'red,\n    that such a one and such a one were past cure of the thing you\n    wot of, unless they kept very good diet, as I told you-\n  FROTH. All this is true.\n  POMPEY. Why, very well then-\n  ESCALUS. Come, you are a tedious fool. To the purpose: what was\n    done to Elbow's wife that he hath cause to complain of? Come me\n    to what was done to her.\n  POMPEY. Sir, your honour cannot come to that yet.\n  ESCALUS. No, sir, nor I mean it not.\n  POMPEY. Sir, but you shall come to it, by your honour's leave. And,\n    I beseech you, look into Master Froth here, sir, a man of\n    fourscore pound a year; whose father died at Hallowmas- was't not\n    at Hallowmas, Master Froth?\n  FROTH. All-hallond eve.\n  POMPEY. Why, very well; I hope here be truths. He, sir, sitting, as\n    I say, in a lower chair, sir; 'twas in the Bunch of Grapes,\n    where, indeed, you have a delight to sit, have you not?\n  FROTH. I have so; because it is an open room, and good for winter.\n  POMPEY. Why, very well then; I hope here be truths.\n  ANGELO. This will last out a night in Russia,\n    When nights are longest there; I'll take my leave,\n    And leave you to the hearing of the cause,\n    Hoping you'll find good cause to whip them all.\n  ESCALUS. I think no less. Good morrow to your lordship.\n    [Exit ANGELO] Now, sir, come on; what was done to Elbow's wife,\n    once more?\n  POMPEY. Once?- sir. There was nothing done to her once.\n  ELBOW. I beseech you, sir, ask him what this man did to my wife.\n  POMPEY. I beseech your honour, ask me.\n  ESCALUS. Well, sir, what did this gentleman to her?\n  POMPEY. I beseech you, sir, look in this gentleman's face. Good\n    Master Froth, look upon his honour; 'tis for a good purpose. Doth\n    your honour mark his face?\n  ESCALUS. Ay, sir, very well.\n  POMPEY. Nay, I beseech you, mark it well.\n  ESCALUS. Well, I do so.\n  POMPEY. Doth your honour see any harm in his face?\n  ESCALUS. Why, no.\n  POMPEY. I'll be suppos'd upon a book his face is the worst thing\n    about him. Good then; if his face be the worst thing about him,\n    how could Master Froth do the constable's wife any harm? I would\n    know that of your honour.\n  ESCALUS. He's in the right, constable; what say you to it?\n  ELBOW. First, an it like you, the house is a respected house; next,\n    this is a respected fellow; and his mistress is a respected\n    woman.\n  POMPEY. By this hand, sir, his wife is a more respected person than\n    any of us all.\n  ELBOW. Varlet, thou liest; thou liest, wicket varlet; the time is\n    yet to come that she was ever respected with man, woman, or\n    child.\n  POMPEY. Sir, she was respected with him before he married with her.\n  ESCALUS. Which is the wiser here, Justice or Iniquity? Is this\n    true?\n  ELBOW. O thou caitiff! O thou varlet! O thou wicked Hannibal! I\n    respected with her before I was married to her! If ever I was\n    respected with her, or she with me, let not your worship think me\n    the poor Duke's officer. Prove this, thou wicked Hannibal, or\n    I'll have mine action of batt'ry on thee.\n  ESCALUS. If he took you a box o' th' ear, you might have your\n    action of slander too.\n  ELBOW. Marry, I thank your good worship for it. What is't your\n    worship's pleasure I shall do with this wicked caitiff?\n  ESCALUS. Truly, officer, because he hath some offences in him that\n    thou wouldst discover if thou couldst, let him continue in his\n    courses till thou know'st what they are.\n  ELBOW. Marry, I thank your worship for it. Thou seest, thou wicked\n    varlet, now, what's come upon thee: thou art to continue now,\n    thou varlet; thou art to continue.\n  ESCALUS. Where were you born, friend?\n  FROTH. Here in Vienna, sir.\n  ESCALUS. Are you of fourscore pounds a year?\n  FROTH. Yes, an't please you, sir.\n  ESCALUS. So. What trade are you of, sir?\n  POMPEY. A tapster, a poor widow's tapster.\n  ESCALUS. Your mistress' name?\n  POMPEY. Mistress Overdone.\n  ESCALUS. Hath she had any more than one husband?\n  POMPEY. Nine, sir; Overdone by the last.\n  ESCALUS. Nine! Come hither to me, Master Froth. Master Froth, I\n    would not have you acquainted with tapsters: they will draw you,\n    Master Froth, and you will hang them. Get you gone, and let me\n    hear no more of you.\n  FROTH. I thank your worship. For mine own part, I never come into\n    any room in a taphouse but I am drawn in.\n  ESCALUS. Well, no more of it, Master Froth; farewell. [Exit FROTH]\n    Come you hither to me, Master Tapster; what's your name, Master\n    Tapster?\n  POMPEY. Pompey.\n  ESCALUS. What else?\n  POMPEY. Bum, sir.\n  ESCALUS. Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you; so\n    that, in the beastliest sense, you are Pompey the Great. Pompey,\n    you are partly a bawd, Pompey, howsoever you colour it in being a\n    tapster. Are you not? Come, tell me true; it shall be the better\n    for you.\n  POMPEY. Truly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would live.\n  ESCALUS. How would you live, Pompey- by being a bawd? What do you\n    think of the trade, Pompey? Is it a lawful trade?\n  POMPEY. If the law would allow it, sir.\n  ESCALUS. But the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it shall not be\n    allowed in Vienna.\n  POMPEY. Does your worship mean to geld and splay all the youth of\n    the city?\n  ESCALUS. No, Pompey.\n  POMPEY. Truly, sir, in my poor opinion, they will to't then. If\n    your worship will take order for the drabs and the knaves, you\n    need not to fear the bawds.\n  ESCALUS. There is pretty orders beginning, I can tell you: but it\n    is but heading and hanging.\n  POMPEY. If you head and hang all that offend that way but for ten\n    year together, you'll be glad to give out a commission for more\n    heads; if this law hold in Vienna ten year, I'll rent the fairest\n    house in it, after threepence a bay. If you live to see this come\n    to pass, say Pompey told you so.\n  ESCALUS. Thank you, good Pompey; and, in requital of your prophecy,\n    hark you: I advise you, let me not find you before me again upon\n    any complaint whatsoever- no, not for dwelling where you do; if I\n    do, Pompey, I shall beat you to your tent, and prove a shrewd\n    Caesar to you; in plain dealing, Pompey, I shall have you whipt.\n    So for this time, Pompey, fare you well.\n  POMPEY. I thank your worship for your good counsel; [Aside] but I\n    shall follow it as the flesh and fortune shall better determine.\n    Whip me? No, no; let carman whip his jade;\n    The valiant heart's not whipt out of his trade.         Exit\n  ESCALUS. Come hither to me, Master Elbow; come hither, Master\n    Constable. How long have you been in this place of constable?\n  ELBOW. Seven year and a half, sir.\n  ESCALUS. I thought, by the readiness in the office, you had\n    continued in it some time. You say seven years together?\n  ELBOW. And a half, sir.\n  ESCALUS. Alas, it hath been great pains to you! They do you wrong\n    to put you so oft upon't. Are there not men in your ward\n    sufficient to serve it?\n  ELBOW. Faith, sir, few of any wit in such matters; as they are\n    chosen, they are glad to choose me for them; I do it for some\n    piece of money, and go through with all.\n  ESCALUS. Look you, bring me in the names of some six or seven, the\n    most sufficient of your parish.\n  ELBOW. To your worship's house, sir?\n  ESCALUS. To my house. Fare you well.              [Exit ELBOW]\n    What's o'clock, think you?\n  JUSTICE. Eleven, sir.\n  ESCALUS. I pray you home to dinner with me.\n  JUSTICE. I humbly thank you.\n  ESCALUS. It grieves me for the death of Claudio;\n    But there's no remedy.\n  JUSTICE. Lord Angelo is severe.\n  ESCALUS. It is but needful:\n    Mercy is not itself that oft looks so;\n    Pardon is still the nurse of second woe.\n    But yet, poor Claudio! There is no remedy.\n    Come, sir.                                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAnother room in ANGELO'S house\n\nEnter PROVOST and a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. He's hearing of a cause; he will come straight.\n    I'll tell him of you.\n  PROVOST. Pray you do. [Exit SERVANT] I'll know\n    His pleasure; may be he will relent. Alas,\n    He hath but as offended in a dream!\n    All sects, all ages, smack of this vice; and he\n    To die for 't!\n\n                            Enter ANGELO\n\n  ANGELO. Now, what's the matter, Provost?\n  PROVOST. Is it your will Claudio shall die to-morrow?\n  ANGELO. Did not I tell thee yea? Hadst thou not order?\n    Why dost thou ask again?\n  PROVOST. Lest I might be too rash;\n    Under your good correction, I have seen\n    When, after execution, judgment hath\n    Repented o'er his doom.\n  ANGELO. Go to; let that be mine.\n    Do you your office, or give up your place,\n    And you shall well be spar'd.\n  PROVOST. I crave your honour's pardon.\n    What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet?\n    She's very near her hour.\n  ANGELO. Dispose of her\n    To some more fitter place, and that with speed.\n\n                           Re-enter SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. Here is the sister of the man condemn'd\n    Desires access to you.\n  ANGELO. Hath he a sister?\n  PROVOST. Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid,\n    And to be shortly of a sisterhood,\n    If not already.\n  ANGELO. Well, let her be admitted.                Exit SERVANT\n    See you the fornicatress be remov'd;\n    Let her have needful but not lavish means;\n    There shall be order for't.\n\n                         Enter Lucio and ISABELLA\n\n  PROVOST. [Going] Save your honour!\n  ANGELO. Stay a little while. [To ISABELLA] Y'are welcome; what's\n    your will?\n  ISABELLA. I am a woeful suitor to your honour,\n    Please but your honour hear me.\n  ANGELO. Well; what's your suit?\n  ISABELLA. There is a vice that most I do abhor,\n    And most desire should meet the blow of justice;\n    For which I would not plead, but that I must;\n    For which I must not plead, but that I am\n    At war 'twixt will and will not.\n  ANGELO. Well; the matter?\n  ISABELLA. I have a brother is condemn'd to die;\n    I do beseech you, let it be his fault,\n    And not my brother.\n  PROVOST. [Aside] Heaven give thee moving graces.\n  ANGELO. Condemn the fault and not the actor of it!\n    Why, every fault's condemn'd ere it be done;\n    Mine were the very cipher of a function,\n    To fine the faults whose fine stands in record,\n    And let go by the actor.\n  ISABELLA. O just but severe law!\n    I had a brother, then. Heaven keep your honour!\n  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Give't not o'er so; to him again, entreat him,\n    Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown;\n    You are too cold: if you should need a pin,\n    You could not with more tame a tongue desire it.\n    To him, I say.\n  ISABELLA. Must he needs die?\n  ANGELO. Maiden, no remedy.\n  ISABELLA. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him.\n    And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.\n  ANGELO. I will not do't.\n  ISABELLA. But can you, if you would?\n  ANGELO. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do.\n  ISABELLA. But might you do't, and do the world no wrong,\n    If so your heart were touch'd with that remorse\n    As mine is to him?\n  ANGELO. He's sentenc'd; 'tis too late.\n  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] You are too cold.\n  ISABELLA. Too late? Why, no; I, that do speak a word,\n    May call it back again. Well, believe this:\n    No ceremony that to great ones longs,\n    Not the king's crown nor the deputed sword,\n    The marshal's truncheon nor the judge's robe,\n    Become them with one half so good a grace\n    As mercy does.\n    If he had been as you, and you as he,\n    You would have slipp'd like him; but he, like you,\n    Would not have been so stern.\n  ANGELO. Pray you be gone.\n  ISABELLA. I would to heaven I had your potency,\n    And you were Isabel! Should it then be thus?\n    No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge\n    And what a prisoner.\n  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Ay, touch him; there's the vein.\n  ANGELO. Your brother is a forfeit of the law,\n    And you but waste your words.\n  ISABELLA. Alas! Alas!\n    Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once;\n    And He that might the vantage best have took\n    Found out the remedy. How would you be\n    If He, which is the top of judgment, should\n    But judge you as you are? O, think on that;\n    And mercy then will breathe within your lips,\n    Like man new made.\n  ANGELO. Be you content, fair maid.\n    It is the law, not I condemn your brother.\n    Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,\n    It should be thus with him. He must die to-morrow.\n  ISABELLA. To-morrow! O, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him.\n    He's not prepar'd for death. Even for our kitchens\n    We kill the fowl of season; shall we serve heaven\n    With less respect than we do minister\n    To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you.\n    Who is it that hath died for this offence?\n    There's many have committed it.\n  LUCIO. [Aside] Ay, well said.\n  ANGELO. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.\n    Those many had not dar'd to do that evil\n    If the first that did th' edict infringe\n    Had answer'd for his deed. Now 'tis awake,\n    Takes note of what is done, and, like a prophet,\n    Looks in a glass that shows what future evils-\n    Either now or by remissness new conceiv'd,\n    And so in progress to be hatch'd and born-\n    Are now to have no successive degrees,\n    But here they live to end.\n  ISABELLA. Yet show some pity.\n  ANGELO. I show it most of all when I show justice;\n    For then I pity those I do not know,\n    Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall,\n    And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,\n    Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;\n    Your brother dies to-morrow; be content.\n  ISABELLA. So you must be the first that gives this sentence,\n    And he that suffers. O, it is excellent\n    To have a giant's strength! But it is tyrannous\n    To use it like a giant.\n  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] That's well said.\n  ISABELLA. Could great men thunder\n    As Jove himself does, Jove would never be quiet,\n    For every pelting petty officer\n    Would use his heaven for thunder,\n    Nothing but thunder. Merciful Heaven,\n    Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,\n    Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak\n    Than the soft myrtle. But man, proud man,\n    Dress'd in a little brief authority,\n    Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,\n    His glassy essence, like an angry ape,\n    Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven\n    As makes the angels weep; who, with our speens,\n    Would all themselves laugh mortal.\n  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] O, to him, to him, wench! He will relent;\n    He's coming; I perceive 't.\n  PROVOST. [Aside] Pray heaven she win him.\n  ISABELLA. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself.\n    Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them;\n    But in the less foul profanation.\n  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Thou'rt i' th' right, girl; more o' that.\n  ISABELLA. That in the captain's but a choleric word\n    Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.\n  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Art avis'd o' that? More on't.\n  ANGELO. Why do you put these sayings upon me?\n  ISABELLA. Because authority, though it err like others,\n    Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself\n    That skins the vice o' th' top. Go to your bosom,\n    Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know\n    That's like my brother's fault. If it confess\n    A natural guiltiness such as is his,\n    Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue\n    Against my brother's life.\n  ANGELO. [Aside] She speaks, and 'tis\n    Such sense that my sense breeds with it.- Fare you well.\n  ISABELLA. Gentle my lord, turn back.\n  ANGELO. I will bethink me. Come again to-morrow.\n  ISABELLA. Hark how I'll bribe you; good my lord, turn back.\n  ANGELO. How, bribe me?\n  ISABELLA. Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.\n  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA) You had marr'd all else.\n  ISABELLA. Not with fond sicles of the tested gold,\n    Or stones, whose rate are either rich or poor\n    As fancy values them; but with true prayers\n    That shall be up at heaven and enter there\n    Ere sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls,\n    From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate\n    To nothing temporal.\n  ANGELO. Well; come to me to-morrow.\n  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Go to; 'tis well; away.\n  ISABELLA. Heaven keep your honour safe!\n  ANGELO. [Aside] Amen; for I\n    Am that way going to temptation\n    Where prayers cross.\n  ISABELLA. At what hour to-morrow\n    Shall I attend your lordship?\n  ANGELO. At any time 'fore noon.\n  ISABELLA. Save your honour!              Exeunt all but ANGELO\n  ANGELO. From thee; even from thy virtue!\n    What's this, what's this? Is this her fault or mine?\n    The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?\n    Ha!\n    Not she; nor doth she tempt; but it is I\n    That, lying by the violet in the sun,\n    Do as the carrion does, not as the flow'r,\n    Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be\n    That modesty may more betray our sense\n    Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,\n    Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,\n    And pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie!\n    What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?\n    Dost thou desire her foully for those things\n    That make her good? O, let her brother live!\n    Thieves for their robbery have authority\n    When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,\n    That I desire to hear her speak again,\n    And feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on?\n    O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,\n    With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous\n    Is that temptation that doth goad us on\n    To sin in loving virtue. Never could the strumpet,\n    With all her double vigour, art and nature,\n    Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid\n    Subdues me quite. Ever till now,\n    When men were fond, I smil'd and wond'red how.          Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA prison\n\nEnter, severally, DUKE, disguised as a FRIAR, and PROVOST\n\n  DUKE. Hail to you, Provost! so I think you are.\n  PROVOST. I am the Provost. What's your will, good friar?\n  DUKE. Bound by my charity and my blest order,\n    I come to visit the afflicted spirits\n    Here in the prison. Do me the common right\n    To let me see them, and to make me know\n    The nature of their crimes, that I may minister\n    To them accordingly.\n  PROVOST. I would do more than that, if more were needful.\n\n                          Enter JULIET\n\n    Look, here comes one; a gentlewoman of mine,\n    Who, falling in the flaws of her own youth,\n    Hath blister'd her report. She is with child;\n    And he that got it, sentenc'd- a young man\n    More fit to do another such offence\n    Than die for this.\n  DUKE. When must he die?\n  PROVOST. As I do think, to-morrow.\n    [To JULIET] I have provided for you; stay awhile\n    And you shall be conducted.\n  DUKE. Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?\n  JULIET. I do; and bear the shame most patiently.\n  DUKE. I'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,\n    And try your penitence, if it be sound\n    Or hollowly put on.\n  JULIET. I'll gladly learn.\n  DUKE. Love you the man that wrong'd you?\n  JULIET. Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him.\n  DUKE. So then, it seems, your most offenceful act\n    Was mutually committed.\n  JULIET. Mutually.\n  DUKE. Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.\n  JULIET. I do confess it, and repent it, father.\n  DUKE. 'Tis meet so, daughter; but lest you do repent\n    As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,\n    Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not heaven,\n    Showing we would not spare heaven as we love it,\n    But as we stand in fear-\n  JULIET. I do repent me as it is an evil,\n    And take the shame with joy.\n  DUKE. There rest.\n    Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,\n    And I am going with instruction to him.\n    Grace go with you! Benedicite!                          Exit\n  JULIET. Must die to-morrow! O, injurious law,\n    That respites me a life whose very comfort\n    Is still a dying horror!\n  PROVOST. 'Tis pity of him.                              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nANGELO'S house\n\nEnter ANGELO\n\n  ANGELO. When I would pray and think, I think and pray\n    To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words,\n    Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,\n    Anchors on Isabel. Heaven in my mouth,\n    As if I did but only chew his name,\n    And in my heart the strong and swelling evil\n    Of my conception. The state whereon I studied\n    Is, like a good thing being often read,\n    Grown sere and tedious; yea, my gravity,\n    Wherein- let no man hear me- I take pride,\n    Could I with boot change for an idle plume\n    Which the air beats for vain. O place, O form,\n    How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,\n    Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls\n    To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood.\n    Let's write 'good angel' on the devil's horn;\n    'Tis not the devil's crest.\n\n                           Enter SERVANT\n\n    How now, who's there?\n  SERVANT. One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.\n  ANGELO. Teach her the way. [Exit SERVANT] O heavens!\n    Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,\n    Making both it unable for itself\n    And dispossessing all my other parts\n    Of necessary fitness?\n    So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;\n    Come all to help him, and so stop the air\n    By which he should revive; and even so\n    The general subject to a well-wish'd king\n    Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness\n    Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love\n    Must needs appear offence.\n\n                            Enter ISABELLA\n\n    How now, fair maid?\n  ISABELLA. I am come to know your pleasure.\n  ANGELO. That you might know it would much better please me\n    Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live.\n  ISABELLA. Even so! Heaven keep your honour!\n  ANGELO. Yet may he live awhile, and, it may be,\n    As long as you or I; yet he must die.\n  ISABELLA. Under your sentence?\n  ANGELO. Yea.\n  ISABELLA. When? I beseech you; that in his reprieve,\n    Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted\n    That his soul sicken not.\n  ANGELO. Ha! Fie, these filthy vices! It were as good\n    To pardon him that hath from nature stol'n\n    A man already made, as to remit\n    Their saucy sweetness that do coin heaven's image\n    In stamps that are forbid; 'tis all as easy\n    Falsely to take away a life true made\n    As to put metal in restrained means\n    To make a false one.\n  ISABELLA. 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.\n  ANGELO. Say you so? Then I shall pose you quickly.\n    Which had you rather- that the most just law\n    Now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him,\n    Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness\n    As she that he hath stain'd?\n  ISABELLA. Sir, believe this:\n    I had rather give my body than my soul.\n  ANGELO. I talk not of your soul; our compell'd sins\n    Stand more for number than for accompt.\n  ISABELLA. How say you?\n  ANGELO. Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak\n    Against the thing I say. Answer to this:\n    I, now the voice of the recorded law,\n    Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life;\n    Might there not be a charity in sin\n    To save this brother's life?\n  ISABELLA. Please you to do't,\n    I'll take it as a peril to my soul\n    It is no sin at all, but charity.\n  ANGELO. Pleas'd you to do't at peril of your soul,\n    Were equal poise of sin and charity.\n  ISABELLA. That I do beg his life, if it be sin,\n    Heaven let me bear it! You granting of my suit,\n    If that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer\n    To have it added to the faults of mine,\n    And nothing of your answer.\n  ANGELO. Nay, but hear me;\n    Your sense pursues not mine; either you are ignorant\n    Or seem so, craftily; and that's not good.\n  ISABELLA. Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good\n    But graciously to know I am no better.\n  ANGELO. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright\n    When it doth tax itself; as these black masks\n    Proclaim an enshielded beauty ten times louder\n    Than beauty could, display'd. But mark me:\n    To be received plain, I'll speak more gross-\n    Your brother is to die.\n  ISABELLA. So.\n  ANGELO. And his offence is so, as it appears,\n    Accountant to the law upon that pain.\n  ISABELLA. True.\n  ANGELO. Admit no other way to save his life,\n    As I subscribe not that, nor any other,\n    But, in the loss of question, that you, his sister,\n    Finding yourself desir'd of such a person\n    Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,\n    Could fetch your brother from the manacles\n    Of the all-binding law; and that there were\n    No earthly mean to save him but that either\n    You must lay down the treasures of your body\n    To this supposed, or else to let him suffer-\n    What would you do?\n  ISABELLA. As much for my poor brother as myself;\n    That is, were I under the terms of death,\n    Th' impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,\n    And strip myself to death as to a bed\n    That longing have been sick for, ere I'd yield\n    My body up to shame.\n  ANGELO. Then must your brother die.\n  ISABELLA. And 'twere the cheaper way:\n    Better it were a brother died at once\n    Than that a sister, by redeeming him,\n    Should die for ever.\n  ANGELO. Were not you, then, as cruel as the sentence\n    That you have slander'd so?\n  ISABELLA. Ignominy in ransom and free pardon\n    Are of two houses: lawful mercy\n    Is nothing kin to foul redemption.\n  ANGELO. You seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant;\n    And rather prov'd the sliding of your brother\n    A merriment than a vice.\n  ISABELLA. O, pardon me, my lord! It oft falls out,\n    To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean:\n    I something do excuse the thing I hate\n    For his advantage that I dearly love.\n  ANGELO. We are all frail.\n  ISABELLA. Else let my brother die,\n    If not a fedary but only he\n    Owe and succeed thy weakness.\n  ANGELO. Nay, women are frail too.\n  ISABELLA. Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves,\n    Which are as easy broke as they make forms.\n    Women, help heaven! Men their creation mar\n    In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail;\n    For we are soft as our complexions are,\n    And credulous to false prints.\n  ANGELO. I think it well;\n    And from this testimony of your own sex,\n    Since I suppose we are made to be no stronger\n    Than faults may shake our frames, let me be bold.\n    I do arrest your words. Be that you are,\n    That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none;\n    If you be one, as you are well express'd\n    By all external warrants, show it now\n    By putting on the destin'd livery.\n  ISABELLA. I have no tongue but one; gentle, my lord,\n    Let me intreat you speak the former language.\n  ANGELO. Plainly conceive, I love you.\n  ISABELLA. My brother did love Juliet,\n    And you tell me that he shall die for't.\n  ANGELO. He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.\n  ISABELLA. I know your virtue hath a license in't,\n    Which seems a little fouler than it is,\n    To pluck on others.\n  ANGELO. Believe me, on mine honour,\n    My words express my purpose.\n  ISABELLA. Ha! little honour to be much believ'd,\n    And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!\n    I will proclaim thee, Angelo, look for't.\n    Sign me a present pardon for my brother\n    Or, with an outstretch'd throat, I'll tell the world aloud\n    What man thou art.\n  ANGELO. Who will believe thee, Isabel?\n    My unsoil'd name, th' austereness of my life,\n    My vouch against you, and my place i' th' state,\n    Will so your accusation overweigh\n    That you shall stifle in your own report,\n    And smell of calumny. I have begun,\n    And now I give my sensual race the rein:\n    Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;\n    Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes\n    That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother\n    By yielding up thy body to my will;\n    Or else he must not only die the death,\n    But thy unkindness shall his death draw out\n    To ling'ring sufferance. Answer me to-morrow,\n    Or, by the affection that now guides me most,\n    I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,\n    Say what you can: my false o'erweighs your true.        Exit\n  ISABELLA. To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,\n    Who would believe me? O perilous mouths\n    That bear in them one and the self-same tongue\n    Either of condemnation or approof,\n    Bidding the law make curtsy to their will;\n    Hooking both right and wrong to th' appetite,\n    To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother.\n    Though he hath fall'n by prompture of the blood,\n    Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour\n    That, had he twenty heads to tender down\n    On twenty bloody blocks, he'd yield them up\n    Before his sister should her body stoop\n    To such abhorr'd pollution.\n    Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:\n    More than our brother is our chastity.\n    I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,\n    And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest.         Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nThe prison\n\nEnter DUKE, disguised as before, CLAUDIO, and PROVOST\n\n  DUKE. So, then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?\n  CLAUDIO. The miserable have no other medicine\n    But only hope:\n    I have hope to Eve, and am prepar'd to die.\n  DUKE. Be absolute for death; either death or life\n    Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life.\n    If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing\n    That none but fools would keep. A breath thou art,\n    Servile to all the skyey influences,\n    That dost this habitation where thou keep'st\n    Hourly afflict. Merely, thou art Death's fool;\n    For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun\n    And yet run'st toward him still. Thou art not noble;\n    For all th' accommodations that thou bear'st\n    Are nurs'd by baseness. Thou 'rt by no means valiant;\n    For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork\n    Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,\n    And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st\n    Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;\n    For thou exists on many a thousand grains\n    That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;\n    For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get,\n    And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain;\n    For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,\n    After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;\n    For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,\n    Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,\n    And Death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;\n    For thine own bowels which do call thee sire,\n    The mere effusion of thy proper loins,\n    Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,\n    For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age,\n    But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,\n    Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth\n    Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms\n    Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,\n    Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,\n    To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this\n    That bears the name of life? Yet in this life\n    Lie hid moe thousand deaths; yet death we fear,\n    That makes these odds all even.\n  CLAUDIO. I humbly thank you.\n    To sue to live, I find I seek to die;\n    And, seeking death, find life. Let it come on.\n  ISABELLA. [Within] What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company!\n  PROVOST. Who's there? Come in; the wish deserves a welcome.\n  DUKE. Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again.\n  CLAUDIO. Most holy sir, I thank you.\n\n                        Enter ISABELLA\n\n  ISABELLA. My business is a word or two with Claudio.\n  PROVOST. And very welcome. Look, signior, here's your sister.\n  DUKE. Provost, a word with you.\n  PROVOST. As many as you please.\n  DUKE. Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be conceal'd.\n                                         Exeunt DUKE and PROVOST\n  CLAUDIO. Now, sister, what's the comfort?\n  ISABELLA. Why,\n    As all comforts are; most good, most good, indeed.\n    Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,\n    Intends you for his swift ambassador,\n    Where you shall be an everlasting leiger.\n    Therefore, your best appointment make with speed;\n    To-morrow you set on.\n  CLAUDIO. Is there no remedy?\n  ISABELLA. None, but such remedy as, to save a head,\n    To cleave a heart in twain.\n  CLAUDIO. But is there any?\n  ISABELLA. Yes, brother, you may live:\n    There is a devilish mercy in the judge,\n    If you'll implore it, that will free your life,\n    But fetter you till death.\n  CLAUDIO. Perpetual durance?\n  ISABELLA. Ay, just; perpetual durance, a restraint,\n    Though all the world's vastidity you had,\n    To a determin'd scope.\n  CLAUDIO. But in what nature?\n  ISABELLA. In such a one as, you consenting to't,\n    Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear,\n    And leave you naked.\n  CLAUDIO. Let me know the point.\n  ISABELLA. O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,\n    Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,\n    And six or seven winters more respect\n    Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die?\n    The sense of death is most in apprehension;\n    And the poor beetle that we tread upon\n    In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great\n    As when a giant dies.\n  CLAUDIO. Why give you me this shame?\n    Think you I can a resolution fetch\n    From flow'ry tenderness? If I must die,\n    I will encounter darkness as a bride\n    And hug it in mine arms.\n  ISABELLA. There spake my brother; there my father's grave\n    Did utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die:\n    Thou art too noble to conserve a life\n    In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,\n    Whose settled visage and deliberate word\n    Nips youth i' th' head, and follies doth enew\n    As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil;\n    His filth within being cast, he would appear\n    A pond as deep as hell.\n  CLAUDIO. The precise Angelo!\n  ISABELLA. O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell\n    The damned'st body to invest and cover\n    In precise guards! Dost thou think, Claudio,\n    If I would yield him my virginity\n    Thou mightst be freed?\n  CLAUDIO. O heavens! it cannot be.\n  ISABELLA. Yes, he would give't thee, from this rank offence,\n    So to offend him still. This night's the time\n    That I should do what I abhor to name,\n    Or else thou diest to-morrow.\n  CLAUDIO. Thou shalt not do't.\n  ISABELLA. O, were it but my life!\n    I'd throw it down for your deliverance\n    As frankly as a pin.\n  CLAUDIO. Thanks, dear Isabel.\n  ISABELLA. Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow.\n  CLAUDIO. Yes. Has he affections in him\n    That thus can make him bite the law by th' nose\n    When he would force it? Sure it is no sin;\n    Or of the deadly seven it is the least.\n  ISABELLA. Which is the least?\n  CLAUDIO. If it were damnable, he being so wise,\n    Why would he for the momentary trick\n    Be perdurably fin'd?- O Isabel!\n  ISABELLA. What says my brother?\n  CLAUDIO. Death is a fearful thing.\n  ISABELLA. And shamed life a hateful.\n  CLAUDIO. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;\n    To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;\n    This sensible warm motion to become\n    A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit\n    To bathe in fiery floods or to reside\n    In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;\n    To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,\n    And blown with restless violence round about\n    The pendent world; or to be worse than worst\n    Of those that lawless and incertain thought\n    Imagine howling- 'tis too horrible.\n    The weariest and most loathed worldly life\n    That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment,\n    Can lay on nature is a paradise\n    To what we fear of death.\n  ISABELLA. Alas, alas!\n  CLAUDIO. Sweet sister, let me live.\n    What sin you do to save a brother's life,\n    Nature dispenses with the deed so far\n    That it becomes a virtue.\n  ISABELLA. O you beast!\n    O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!\n    Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?\n    Is't not a kind of incest to take life\n    From thine own sister's shame? What should I think?\n    Heaven shield my mother play'd my father fair!\n    For such a warped slip of wilderness\n    Ne'er issu'd from his blood. Take my defiance;\n    Die; perish. Might but my bending down\n    Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed.\n    I'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,\n    No word to save thee.\n  CLAUDIO. Nay, hear me, Isabel.\n  ISABELLA. O fie, fie, fie!\n    Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade.\n    Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd;\n    'Tis best that thou diest quickly.\n  CLAUDIO. O, hear me, Isabella.\n\n                            Re-enter DUKE\n\n  DUKE. Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.\n  ISABELLA. What is your will?\n  DUKE. Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and by have\n    some speech with you; the satisfaction I would require is\n    likewise your own benefit.\n  ISABELLA. I have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be stolen out\n    of other affairs; but I will attend you awhile.\n                                                   [Walks apart]\n  DUKE. Son, I have overheard what hath pass'd between you and your\n    sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her; only he hath\n    made an assay of her virtue to practise his judgment with the\n    disposition of natures. She, having the truth of honour in her,\n    hath made him that gracious denial which he is most glad to\n    receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I know this to be true;\n    therefore prepare yourself to death. Do not satisfy your\n    resolution with hopes that are fallible; to-morrow you must die;\n    go to your knees and make ready.\n  CLAUDIO. Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love with life\n    that I will sue to be rid of it.\n  DUKE. Hold you there. Farewell. [Exit CLAUDIO] Provost, a word with\n    you.\n\n                          Re-enter PROVOST\n\n  PROVOST. What's your will, father?\n  DUKE. That, now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me a while\n    with the maid; my mind promises with my habit no loss shall touch\n    her by my company.\n  PROVOST. In good time.                            Exit PROVOST\n  DUKE. The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good; the\n    goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness;\n    but grace, being the soul of your complexion, shall keep the body\n    of it ever fair. The assault that Angelo hath made to you,\n    fortune hath convey'd to my understanding; and, but that frailty\n    hath examples for his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How\n    will you do to content this substitute, and to save your brother?\n  ISABELLA. I am now going to resolve him; I had rather my brother\n    die by the law than my son should be unlawfully born. But, O, how\n    much is the good Duke deceiv'd in Angelo! If ever he return, and\n    I can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or discover his\n    government.\n  DUKE. That shall not be much amiss; yet, as the matter now stands,\n    he will avoid your accusation: he made trial of you only.\n    Therefore fasten your ear on my advisings; to the love I have in\n    doing good a remedy presents itself. I do make myself believe\n    that you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged lady a merited\n    benefit; redeem your brother from the angry law; do no stain to\n    your own gracious person; and much please the absent Duke, if\n    peradventure he shall ever return to have hearing of this\n    business.\n  ISABELLA. Let me hear you speak farther; I have spirit to do\n    anything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.\n  DUKE. Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have you not\n    heard speak of Mariana, the sister of Frederick, the great\n    soldier who miscarried at sea?\n  ISABELLA. I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her\n    name.\n  DUKE. She should this Angelo have married; was affianced to her by\n    oath, and the nuptial appointed; between which time of the\n    contract and limit of the solemnity her brother Frederick was\n    wreck'd at sea, having in that perished vessel the dowry of his\n    sister. But mark how heavily this befell to the poor gentlewoman:\n    there she lost a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward\n    her ever most kind and natural; with him the portion and sinew of\n    her fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her combinate\n    husband, this well-seeming Angelo.\n  ISABELLA. Can this be so? Did Angelo so leave her?\n  DUKE. Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them with his\n    comfort; swallowed his vows whole, pretending in her discoveries\n    of dishonour; in few, bestow'd her on her own lamentation, which\n    she yet wears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears, is\n    washed with them, but relents not.\n  ISABELLA. What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from\n    the world! What corruption in this life that it will let this man\n    live! But how out of this can she avail?\n  DUKE. It is a rupture that you may easily heal; and the cure of it\n    not only saves your brother, but keeps you from dishonour in\n    doing it.\n  ISABELLA. Show me how, good father.\n  DUKE. This forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance of her\n    first affection; his unjust unkindness, that in all reason should\n    have quenched her love, hath, like an impediment in the current,\n    made it more violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his\n    requiring with a plausible obedience; agree with his demands to\n    the point; only refer yourself to this advantage: first, that\n    your stay with him may not be long; that the time may have all\n    shadow and silence in it; and the place answer to convenience.\n    This being granted in course- and now follows all: we shall\n    advise this wronged maid to stead up your appointment, go in your\n    place. If the encounter acknowledge itself hereafter, it may\n    compel him to her recompense; and here, by this, is your brother\n    saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and\n    the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid will I frame and make fit for\n    his attempt. If you think well to carry this as you may, the\n    doubleness of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof. What\n    think you of it?\n  ISABELLA. The image of it gives me content already; and I trust it\n    will grow to a most prosperous perfection.\n  DUKE. It lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily to\n    Angelo; if for this night he entreat you to his bed, give him\n    promise of satisfaction. I will presently to Saint Luke's; there,\n    at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana. At that\n    place call upon me; and dispatch with Angelo, that it may be\n    quickly.\n  ISABELLA. I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father.\n                                                Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nThe street before the prison\n\nEnter, on one side, DUKE disguised as before; on the other, ELBOW,\nand OFFICERS with POMPEY\n\n  ELBOW. Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will needs\n    buy and sell men and women like beasts, we shall have all the\n    world drink brown and white bastard.\n  DUKE. O heavens! what stuff is here?\n  POMPEY. 'Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the merriest\n    was put down, and the worser allow'd by order of law a furr'd\n    gown to keep him warm; and furr'd with fox on lamb-skins too, to\n    signify that craft, being richer than innocency, stands for the\n    facing.\n  ELBOW. Come your way, sir. Bless you, good father friar.\n  DUKE. And you, good brother father. What offence hath this man made\n    you, sir?\n  ELBOW. Marry, sir, he hath offended the law; and, sir, we take him\n    to be a thief too, sir, for we have found upon him, sir, a\n    strange picklock, which we have sent to the deputy.\n  DUKE. Fie, sirrah, a bawd, a wicked bawd!\n    The evil that thou causest to be done,\n    That is thy means to live. Do thou but think\n    What 'tis to cram a maw or clothe a back\n    From such a filthy vice; say to thyself\n    'From their abominable and beastly touches\n    I drink, I eat, array myself, and live.'\n    Canst thou believe thy living is a life,\n    So stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend.\n  POMPEY. Indeed, it does stink in some sort, sir; but yet, sir,\n    I would prove-\n  DUKE. Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin,\n    Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer;\n    Correction and instruction must both work\n    Ere this rude beast will profit.\n  ELBOW. He must before the deputy, sir; he has given him warning.\n    The deputy cannot abide a whoremaster; if he be a whoremonger,\n    and comes before him, he were as good go a mile on his errand.\n  DUKE. That we were all, as some would seem to be,\n    From our faults, as his faults from seeming, free.\n  ELBOW. His neck will come to your waist- a cord, sir.\n\n                          Enter LUCIO\n\n  POMPEY. I spy comfort; I cry bail. Here's a gentleman, and a friend\n    of mine.\n  LUCIO. How now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels of Caesar? Art\n    thou led in triumph? What, is there none of Pygmalion's images,\n    newly made woman, to be had now for putting the hand in the\n    pocket and extracting it clutch'd? What reply, ha? What say'st\n    thou to this tune, matter, and method? Is't not drown'd i' th'\n    last rain, ha? What say'st thou, trot? Is the world as it was,\n    man? Which is the way? Is it sad, and few words? or how? The\n    trick of it?\n  DUKE. Still thus, and thus; still worse!\n  LUCIO. How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? Procures she still,\n    ha?\n  POMPEY. Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she is\n    herself in the tub.\n  LUCIO. Why, 'tis good; it is the right of it; it must be so; ever\n    your fresh whore and your powder'd bawd- an unshunn'd\n    consequence; it must be so. Art going to prison, Pompey?\n  POMPEY. Yes, faith, sir.\n  LUCIO. Why, 'tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell; go, say I sent thee\n    thither. For debt, Pompey- or how?\n  ELBOW. For being a bawd, for being a bawd.\n  LUCIO. Well, then, imprison him. If imprisonment be the due of a\n    bawd, why, 'tis his right. Bawd is he doubtless, and of\n    antiquity, too; bawd-born. Farewell, good Pompey. Commend me to\n    the prison, Pompey. You will turn good husband now, Pompey; you\n    will keep the house.\n  POMPEY. I hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail.\n  LUCIO. No, indeed, will I not, Pompey; it is not the wear. I will\n    pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage. If you take it not\n    patiently, why, your mettle is the more. Adieu trusty Pompey.\n    Bless you, friar.\n  DUKE. And you.\n  LUCIO. Does Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha?\n  ELBOW. Come your ways, sir; come.\n  POMPEY. You will not bail me then, sir?\n  LUCIO. Then, Pompey, nor now. What news abroad, friar? what news?\n  ELBOW. Come your ways, sir; come.\n  LUCIO. Go to kennel, Pompey, go.\n\n                               Exeunt ELBOW, POMPEY and OFFICERS\n\n    What news, friar, of the Duke?\n  DUKE. I know none. Can you tell me of any?\n  LUCIO. Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other some, he is\n    in Rome; but where is he, think you?\n  DUKE. I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.\n  LUCIO. It was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from the\n    state and usurp the beggary he was never born to. Lord Angelo\n    dukes it well in his absence; he puts transgression to't.\n  DUKE. He does well in't.\n  LUCIO. A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in him;\n    something too crabbed that way, friar.\n  DUKE. It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it.\n  LUCIO. Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred; it is\n    well allied; but it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till\n    eating and drinking be put down. They say this Angelo was not\n    made by man and woman after this downright way of creation. Is it\n    true, think you?\n  DUKE. How should he be made, then?\n  LUCIO. Some report a sea-maid spawn'd him; some, that he was begot\n    between two stock-fishes. But it is certain that when he makes\n    water his urine is congeal'd ice; that I know to be true. And he\n    is a motion generative; that's infallible.\n  DUKE. You are pleasant, sir, and speak apace.\n  LUCIO. Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the rebellion\n    of a codpiece to take away the life of a man! Would the Duke that\n    is absent have done this? Ere he would have hang'd a man for the\n    getting a hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing a\n    thousand. He had some feeling of the sport; he knew the service,\n    and that instructed him to mercy.\n  DUKE. I never heard the absent Duke much detected for women; he was\n    not inclin'd that way.\n  LUCIO. O, sir, you are deceiv'd.\n  DUKE. 'Tis not possible.\n  LUCIO. Who- not the Duke? Yes, your beggar of fifty; and his use\n    was to put a ducat in her clack-dish. The Duke had crotchets in\n    him. He would be drunk too; that let me inform you.\n  DUKE. You do him wrong, surely.\n  LUCIO. Sir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the Duke; and\n    I believe I know the cause of his withdrawing.\n  DUKE. What, I prithee, might be the cause?\n  LUCIO. No, pardon; 'tis a secret must be lock'd within the teeth\n    and the lips; but this I can let you understand: the greater file\n    of the subject held the Duke to be wise.\n  DUKE. Wise? Why, no question but he was.\n  LUCIO. A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.\n  DUKE. Either this is envy in you, folly, or mistaking; the very\n    stream of his life, and the business he hath helmed, must, upon a\n    warranted need, give him a better proclamation. Let him be but\n    testimonied in his own bringings-forth, and he shall appear to\n    the envious a scholar, a statesman, and a soldier. Therefore you\n    speak unskilfully; or, if your knowledge be more, it is much\n    dark'ned in your malice.\n  LUCIO. Sir, I know him, and I love him.\n  DUKE. Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer\n    love.\n  LUCIO. Come, sir, I know what I know.\n  DUKE. I can hardly believe that, since you know not what you speak.\n    But, if ever the Duke return, as our prayers are he may, let me\n    desire you to make your answer before him. If it be honest you\n    have spoke, you have courage to maintain it; I am bound to call\n    upon you; and I pray you your name?\n  LUCIO. Sir, my name is Lucio, well known to the Duke.\n  DUKE. He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to report you.\n  LUCIO. I fear you not.\n  DUKE. O, you hope the Duke will return no more; or you imagine me\n    too unhurtful an opposite. But, indeed, I can do you little harm:\n    you'll forswear this again.\n  LUCIO. I'll be hang'd first. Thou art deceiv'd in me, friar. But no\n    more of this. Canst thou tell if Claudio die to-morrow or no?\n  DUKE. Why should he die, sir?\n  LUCIO. Why? For filling a bottle with a tun-dish. I would the Duke\n    we talk of were return'd again. This ungenitur'd agent will\n    unpeople the province with continency; sparrows must not build in\n    his house-eaves because they are lecherous. The Duke yet would\n    have dark deeds darkly answered; he would never bring them to\n    light. Would he were return'd! Marry, this Claudio is condemned\n    for untrussing. Farewell, good friar; I prithee pray for me. The\n    Duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on Fridays. He's not\n    past it yet; and, I say to thee, he would mouth with a beggar\n    though she smelt brown bread and garlic. Say that I said so.\n    Farewell.                                               Exit\n  DUKE. No might nor greatness in mortality\n    Can censure scape; back-wounding calumny\n    The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong\n    Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?\n    But who comes here?\n\n             Enter ESCALUS, PROVOST, and OFFICERS with\n                           MISTRESS OVERDONE\n\n  ESCALUS. Go, away with her to prison.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. Good my lord, be good to me; your honour is\n    accounted a merciful man; good my lord.\n  ESCALUS. Double and treble admonition, and still forfeit in the\n    same kind! This would make mercy swear and play the tyrant.\n  PROVOST. A bawd of eleven years' continuance, may it please your\n    honour.\n  MRS. OVERDONE. My lord, this is one Lucio's information against me.\n    Mistress Kate Keepdown was with child by him in the Duke's time;\n    he promis'd her marriage. His child is a year and a quarter old\n    come Philip and Jacob; I have kept it myself; and see how he goes\n    about to abuse me.\n  ESCALUS. That fellow is a fellow of much license. Let him be call'd\n    before us. Away with her to prison. Go to; no more words. [Exeunt\n    OFFICERS with MISTRESS OVERDONE]  Provost, my brother Angelo will\n    not be alter'd: Claudio must die to-morrow. Let him be furnish'd\n    with divines, and have all charitable preparation. If my brother\n    wrought by my pity, it should not be so with him.\n  PROVOST. So please you, this friar hath been with him, and advis'd\n    him for th' entertainment of death.\n  ESCALUS. Good even, good father.\n  DUKE. Bliss and goodness on you!\n  ESCALUS. Of whence are you?\n  DUKE. Not of this country, though my chance is now\n    To use it for my time. I am a brother\n    Of gracious order, late come from the See\n    In special business from his Holiness.\n  ESCALUS. What news abroad i' th' world?\n  DUKE. None, but that there is so great a fever on goodness that the\n    dissolution of it must cure it. Novelty is only in request; and,\n    as it is, as dangerous to be aged in any kind of course as it is\n    virtuous to be constant in any undertakeing. There is scarce\n    truth enough alive to make societies secure; but security enough\n    to make fellowships accurst. Much upon this riddle runs the\n    wisdom of the world. This news is old enough, yet it is every\n    day's news. I pray you, sir, of what disposition was the Duke?\n  ESCALUS. One that, above all other strifes, contended especially to\n    know himself.\n  DUKE. What pleasure was he given to?\n  ESCALUS. Rather rejoicing to see another merry than merry at\n    anything which profess'd to make him rejoice; a gentleman of all\n    temperance. But leave we him to his events, with a prayer they\n    may prove prosperous; and let me desire to know how you find\n    Claudio prepar'd. I am made to understand that you have lent him\n    visitation.\n  DUKE. He professes to have received no sinister measure from his\n    judge, but most willingly humbles himself to the determination of\n    justice. Yet had he framed to himself, by the instruction of his\n    frailty, many deceiving promises of life; which I, by my good\n    leisure, have discredited to him, and now he is resolv'd to die.\n  ESCALUS. You have paid the heavens your function, and the prisoner\n    the very debt of your calling. I have labour'd for the poor\n    gentleman to the extremest shore of my modesty; but my brother\n    justice have I found so severe that he hath forc'd me to tell him\n    he is indeed Justice.\n  DUKE. If his own life answer the straitness of his proceeding, it\n    shall become him well; wherein if he chance to fail, he hath\n    sentenc'd himself.\n  ESCALUS. I am going to visit the prisoner. Fare you well.\n  DUKE. Peace be with you!            Exeunt ESCALUS and PROVOST\n\n         He who the sword of heaven will bear\n         Should be as holy as severe;\n         Pattern in himself to know,\n         Grace to stand, and virtue go;\n         More nor less to others paying\n         Than by self-offences weighing.\n         Shame to him whose cruel striking\n         Kills for faults of his own liking!\n         Twice treble shame on Angelo,\n         To weed my vice and let his grow!\n         O, what may man within him hide,\n         Though angel on the outward side!\n         How may likeness, made in crimes,\n         Make a practice on the times,\n         To draw with idle spiders' strings\n         Most ponderous and substantial things!\n         Craft against vice I must apply.\n         With Angelo to-night shall lie\n         His old betrothed but despised;\n         So disguise shall, by th' disguised,\n         Pay with falsehood false exacting,\n         And perform an old contracting.                    Exit\n\n\n\n\nAct IV. Scene I.\nThe moated grange at Saint Duke's\n\nEnter MARIANA; and BOY singing\n\n                             SONG\n\n           Take, O, take those lips away,\n             That so sweetly were forsworn;\n           And those eyes, the break of day,\n             Lights that do mislead the morn;\n           But my kisses bring again, bring again;\n           Seals of love, but seal'd in vain, seal'd in vain.\n\n                  Enter DUKE, disguised as before\n\n  MARIANA. Break off thy song, and haste thee quick away;\n    Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice\n    Hath often still'd my brawling discontent.          Exit BOY\n    I cry you mercy, sir, and well could wish\n    You had not found me here so musical.\n    Let me excuse me, and believe me so,\n    My mirth it much displeas'd, but pleas'd my woe.\n  DUKE. 'Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm\n    To make bad good and good provoke to harm.\n    I pray you tell me hath anybody inquir'd for me here to-day. Much\n    upon this time have I promis'd here to meet.\n  MARIANA. You have not been inquir'd after; I have sat here all day.\n\n                         Enter ISABELLA\n\n  DUKE. I do constantly believe you. The time is come even now. I\n    shall crave your forbearance a little. May be I will call upon\n    you anon, for some advantage to yourself.\n  MARIANA. I am always bound to you.                        Exit\n  DUKE. Very well met, and well come.\n    What is the news from this good deputy?\n  ISABELLA. He hath a garden circummur'd with brick,\n    Whose western side is with a vineyard back'd;\n    And to that vineyard is a planched gate\n    That makes his opening with this bigger key;\n    This other doth command a little door\n    Which from the vineyard to the garden leads.\n    There have I made my promise\n    Upon the heavy middle of the night\n    To call upon him.\n  DUKE. But shall you on your knowledge find this way?\n  ISABELLA. I have ta'en a due and wary note upon't;\n    With whispering and most guilty diligence,\n    In action all of precept, he did show me\n    The way twice o'er.\n  DUKE. Are there no other tokens\n    Between you 'greed concerning her observance?\n  ISABELLA. No, none, but only a repair i' th' dark;\n    And that I have possess'd him my most stay\n    Can be but brief; for I have made him know\n    I have a servant comes with me along,\n    That stays upon me; whose persuasion is\n    I come about my brother.\n  DUKE. 'Tis well borne up.\n    I have not yet made known to Mariana\n    A word of this. What ho, within! come forth.\n\n                       Re-enter MARIANA\n\n    I pray you be acquainted with this maid;\n    She comes to do you good.\n  ISABELLA. I do desire the like.\n  DUKE. Do you persuade yourself that I respect you?\n  MARIANA. Good friar, I know you do, and have found it.\n  DUKE. Take, then, this your companion by the hand,\n    Who hath a story ready for your ear.\n    I shall attend your leisure; but make haste;\n    The vaporous night approaches.\n  MARIANA. Will't please you walk aside?\n                                     Exeunt MARIANA and ISABELLA\n  DUKE. O place and greatness! Millions of false eyes\n    Are stuck upon thee. Volumes of report\n    Run with these false, and most contrarious quest\n    Upon thy doings. Thousand escapes of wit\n    Make thee the father of their idle dream,\n    And rack thee in their fancies.\n\n                 Re-enter MARIANA and ISABELLA\n\n    Welcome, how agreed?\n  ISABELLA. She'll take the enterprise upon her, father,\n    If you advise it.\n  DUKE. It is not my consent,\n    But my entreaty too.\n  ISABELLA. Little have you to say,\n    When you depart from him, but, soft and low,\n    'Remember now my brother.'\n  MARIANA. Fear me not.\n  DUKE. Nor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all.\n    He is your husband on a pre-contract.\n    To bring you thus together 'tis no sin,\n    Sith that the justice of your title to him\n    Doth flourish the deceit. Come, let us go;\n    Our corn's to reap, for yet our tithe's to sow.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe prison\n\nEnter PROVOST and POMPEY\n\n  PROVOST. Come hither, sirrah. Can you cut off a man's head?\n  POMPEY. If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can; but if he be a\n    married man, he's his wife's head, and I can never cut of a\n    woman's head.\n  PROVOST. Come, sir, leave me your snatches and yield me a direct\n    answer. To-morrow morning are to die Claudio and Barnardine. Here\n    is in our prison a common executioner, who in his office lacks a\n    helper; if you will take it on you to assist him, it shall redeem\n    you from your gyves; if not, you shall have your full time of\n    imprisonment, and your deliverance with an unpitied whipping, for\n    you have been a notorious bawd.\n  POMPEY. Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd time out of mind; but yet\n    I will be content to be a lawful hangman. I would be glad to\n    receive some instructions from my fellow partner.\n  PROVOST. What ho, Abhorson! Where's Abhorson there?\n\n                          Enter ABHORSON\n\n  ABHORSON. Do you call, sir?\n  PROVOST. Sirrah, here's a fellow will help you to-morrow in your\n    execution. If you think it meet, compound with him by the year,\n    and let him abide here with you; if not, use him for the present,\n    and dismiss him. He cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath\n    been a bawd.\n  ABHORSON. A bawd, sir? Fie upon him! He will discredit our mystery.\n  PROVOST. Go to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn the\n    scale.                                                  Exit\n  POMPEY. Pray, sir, by your good favour- for surely, sir, a good\n    favour you have but that you have a hanging look- do you call,\n    sir, your occupation a mystery?\n  ABHORSON. Ay, sir; a mystery.\n  POMPEY. Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and your\n    whores, sir, being members of my occupation, using painting, do\n    prove my occupation a mystery; but what mystery there should be\n    in hanging, if I should be hang'd, I cannot imagine.\n  ABHORSON. Sir, it is a mystery.\n  POMPEY. Proof?\n  ABHORSON. Every true man's apparel fits your thief: if it be too\n    little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough; if it\n    be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little enough; so\n    every true man's apparel fits your thief.\n\n                          Re-enter PROVOST\n\n  PROVOST. Are you agreed?\n  POMPEY. Sir, I will serve him; for I do find your hangman is a more\n    penitent trade than your bawd; he doth oftener ask forgiveness.\n  PROVOST. You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe to-morrow\n    four o'clock.\n  ABHORSON. Come on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow.\n  POMPEY. I do desire to learn, sir; and I hope, if you have occasion\n    to use me for your own turn, you shall find me yare; for truly,\n    sir, for your kindness I owe you a good turn.\n  PROVOST. Call hither Barnardine and Claudio.\n                                      Exeunt ABHORSON and POMPEY\n    Th' one has my pity; not a jot the other,\n    Being a murderer, though he were my brother.\n\n                           Enter CLAUDIO\n\n    Look, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death;\n    'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow\n    Thou must be made immortal. Where's Barnardine?\n  CLAUDIO. As fast lock'd up in sleep as guiltless labour\n    When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones.\n    He will not wake.\n  PROVOST. Who can do good on him?\n    Well, go, prepare yourself. [Knocking within] But hark, what\n      noise?\n    Heaven give your spirits comfort!               Exit CLAUDIO\n    [Knocking continues] By and by.\n    I hope it is some pardon or reprieve\n    For the most gentle Claudio.\n\n                 Enter DUKE, disguised as before\n\n    Welcome, father.\n  DUKE. The best and wholesom'st spirits of the night\n    Envelop you, good Provost! Who call'd here of late?\n  PROVOST. None, since the curfew rung.\n  DUKE. Not Isabel?\n  PROVOST. No.\n  DUKE. They will then, ere't be long.\n  PROVOST. What comfort is for Claudio?\n  DUKE. There's some in hope.\n  PROVOST. It is a bitter deputy.\n  DUKE. Not so, not so; his life is parallel'd\n    Even with the stroke and line of his great justice;\n    He doth with holy abstinence subdue\n    That in himself which he spurs on his pow'r\n    To qualify in others. Were he meal'd with that\n    Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;\n    But this being so, he's just. [Knocking within] Now are they\n      come.                                         Exit PROVOST\n    This is a gentle provost; seldom when\n    The steeled gaoler is the friend of men. [Knocking within]\n    How now, what noise! That spirit's possess'd with haste\n    That wounds th' unsisting postern with these strokes.\n\n                        Re-enter PROVOST\n\n  PROVOST. There he must stay until the officer\n    Arise to let him in; he is call'd up.\n  DUKE. Have you no countermand for Claudio yet\n    But he must die to-morrow?\n  PROVOST. None, sir, none.\n  DUKE. As near the dawning, Provost, as it is,\n    You shall hear more ere morning.\n  PROVOST. Happily\n    You something know; yet I believe there comes\n    No countermand; no such example have we.\n    Besides, upon the very siege of justice,\n    Lord Angelo hath to the public ear\n    Profess'd the contrary.\n\n                         Enter a MESSENGER\n    This is his lordship's man.\n  DUKE. And here comes Claudio's pardon.\n  MESSENGER. My lord hath sent you this note; and by me this further\n    charge, that you swerve not from the smallest article of it,\n    neither in time, matter, or other circumstance. Good morrow; for\n    as I take it, it is almost day.\n  PROVOST. I shall obey him.                      Exit MESSENGER\n  DUKE. [Aside] This is his pardon, purchas'd by such sin\n    For which the pardoner himself is in;\n    Hence hath offence his quick celerity,\n    When it is borne in high authority.\n    When vice makes mercy, mercy's so extended\n    That for the fault's love is th' offender friended.\n    Now, sir, what news?\n  PROVOST. I told you: Lord Angelo, belike thinking me remiss in mine\n    office, awakens me with this unwonted putting-on; methinks\n    strangely, for he hath not us'd it before.\n  DUKE. Pray you, let's hear.\n  PROVOST. [Reads] 'Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let\n    Claudio be executed by four of the clock, and, in the afternoon,\n    Barnardine. For my better satisfaction, let me have Claudio's\n    head sent me by five. Let this be duly performed, with a thought\n    that more depends on it than we must yet deliver. Thus fail not\n    to do your office, as you will answer it at your peril.'\n    What say you to this, sir?\n  DUKE. What is that Barnardine who is to be executed in th'\n    afternoon?\n  PROVOST. A Bohemian born; but here nurs'd up and bred.\n    One that is a prisoner nine years old.\n  DUKE. How came it that the absent Duke had not either deliver'd him\n    to his liberty or executed him? I have heard it was ever his\n    manner to do so.\n  PROVOST. His friends still wrought reprieves for him; and, indeed,\n    his fact, till now in the government of Lord Angelo, came not to\n    an undoubted proof.\n  DUKE. It is now apparent?\n  PROVOST. Most manifest, and not denied by himself.\n  DUKE. Hath he borne himself penitently in prison? How seems he to\n    be touch'd?\n  PROVOST. A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a\n    drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless, of what's past,\n    present, or to come; insensible of mortality and desperately\n    mortal.\n  DUKE. He wants advice.\n  PROVOST. He will hear none. He hath evermore had the liberty of the\n    prison; give him leave to escape hence, he would not; drunk many\n    times a day, if not many days entirely drunk. We have very oft\n    awak'd him, as if to carry him to execution, and show'd him a\n    seeming warrant for it; it hath not moved him at all.\n  DUKE. More of him anon. There is written in your brow, Provost,\n    honesty and constancy. If I read it not truly, my ancient skill\n    beguiles me; but in the boldness of my cunning I will lay myself\n    in hazard. Claudio, whom here you have warrant to execute, is no\n    greater forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath sentenc'd him. To\n    make you understand this in a manifested effect, I crave but four\n    days' respite; for the which you are to do me both a present and\n    a dangerous courtesy.\n  PROVOST. Pray, sir, in what?\n  DUKE. In the delaying death.\n  PROVOST. Alack! How may I do it, having the hour limited, and an\n    express command, under penalty, to deliver his head in the view\n    of Angelo? I may make my case as Claudio's, to cross this in the\n    smallest.\n  DUKE. By the vow of mine order, I warrant you, if my instructions\n    may be your guide. Let this Barnardine be this morning executed,\n    and his head borne to Angelo.\n  PROVOST. Angelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favour.\n  DUKE. O, death's a great disguiser; and you may add to it. Shave\n    the head and tie the beard; and say it was the desire of the\n    penitent to be so bar'd before his death. You know the course is\n    common. If anything fall to you upon this more than thanks and\n    good fortune, by the saint whom I profess, I will plead against\n    it with my life.\n  PROVOST. Pardon me, good father; it is against my oath.\n  DUKE. Were you sworn to the Duke, or to the deputy?\n  PROVOST. To him and to his substitutes.\n  DUKE. You will think you have made no offence if the Duke avouch\n    the justice of your dealing?\n  PROVOST. But what likelihood is in that?\n  DUKE. Not a resemblance, but a certainty. Yet since I see you\n    fearful, that neither my coat, integrity, nor persuasion, can\n    with ease attempt you, I will go further than I meant, to pluck\n    all fears out of you. Look you, sir, here is the hand and seal of\n    the Duke. You know the character, I doubt not; and the signet is\n    not strange to you.\n  PROVOST. I know them both.\n  DUKE. The contents of this is the return of the Duke; you shall\n    anon over-read it at your pleasure, where you shall find within\n    these two days he will be here. This is a thing that Angelo knows\n    not; for he this very day receives letters of strange tenour,\n    perchance of the Duke's death, perchance entering into some\n    monastery; but, by chance, nothing of what is writ. Look, th'\n    unfolding star calls up the shepherd. Put not yourself into\n    amazement how these things should be: all difficulties are but\n    easy when they are known. Call your executioner, and off with\n    Barnardine's head. I will give him a present shrift, and advise\n    him for a better place. Yet you are amaz'd, but this shall\n    absolutely resolve you. Come away; it is almost clear dawn.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe prison\n\nEnter POMPEY\n\n  POMPEY. I am as well acquainted here as I was in our house of\n    profession; one would think it were Mistress Overdone's own\n    house, for here be many of her old customers. First, here's young\n    Master Rash; he's in for a commodity of brown paper and old\n    ginger, nine score and seventeen pounds, of which he made five\n    marks ready money. Marry, then ginger was not much in request,\n    for the old women were all dead. Then is there here one Master\n    Caper, at the suit of Master Threepile the mercer, for some four\n    suits of peach-colour'd satin, which now peaches him a beggar.\n    Then have we here young Dizy, and young Master Deepvow, and\n    Master Copperspur, and Master Starvelackey, the rapier and dagger\n    man, and young Dropheir that kill'd lusty Pudding, and Master\n    Forthlight the tilter, and brave Master Shootie the great\n    traveller, and wild Halfcan that stabb'd Pots, and, I think,\n    forty more- all great doers in our trade, and are now 'for the\n    Lord's sake.'\n\n                            Enter ABHORSON\n\n  ABHORSON. Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither.\n  POMPEY. Master Barnardine! You must rise and be hang'd, Master\n    Barnardine!\n  ABHORSON. What ho, Barnardine!\n  BARNARDINE. [Within] A pox o' your throats! Who makes that noise\n    there? What are you?\n  POMPEY. Your friends, sir; the hangman. You must be so good, sir,\n    to rise and be put to death.\n  BARNARDINE. [ Within ] Away, you rogue, away; I am sleepy.\n  ABHORSON. Tell him he must awake, and that quickly too.\n  POMPEY. Pray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are executed, and\n    sleep afterwards.\n  ABHORSON. Go in to him, and fetch him out.\n  POMPEY. He is coming, sir, he is coming; I hear his straw rustle.\n\n                             Enter BARNARDINE\n\n  ABHORSON. Is the axe upon the block, sirrah?\n  POMPEY. Very ready, sir.\n  BARNARDINE. How now, Abhorson, what's the news with you?\n  ABHORSON. Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your prayers;\n    for, look you, the warrant's come.\n  BARNARDINE. You rogue, I have been drinking all night; I am not\n    fitted for't.\n  POMPEY. O, the better, sir! For he that drinks all night and is\n    hanged betimes in the morning may sleep the sounder all the next\n    day.\n\n                  Enter DUKE, disguised as before\n\n  ABHORSON. Look you, sir, here comes your ghostly father.\n    Do we jest now, think you?\n  DUKE. Sir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily you are\n    to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort you, and pray with\n    you.\n  BARNARDINE. Friar, not I; I have been drinking hard all night, and\n    I will have more time to prepare me, or they shall beat out my\n    brains with billets. I will not consent to die this day, that's\n    certain.\n  DUKE. O, Sir, you must; and therefore I beseech you\n    Look forward on the journey you shall go.\n  BARNARDINE. I swear I will not die to-day for any man's persuasion.\n  DUKE. But hear you-\n  BARNARDINE. Not a word; if you have anything to say to me, come to\n    my ward; for thence will not I to-day.                  Exit\n  DUKE. Unfit to live or die. O gravel heart!\n    After him, fellows; bring him to the block.\n                                      Exeunt ABHORSON and POMPEY\n\n                            Enter PROVOST\n\n  PROVOST. Now, sir, how do you find the prisoner?\n  DUKE. A creature unprepar'd, unmeet for death;\n    And to transport him in the mind he is\n    Were damnable.\n  PROVOST. Here in the prison, father,\n    There died this morning of a cruel fever\n    One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate,\n    A man of Claudio's years; his beard and head\n    Just of his colour. What if we do omit\n    This reprobate till he were well inclin'd,\n    And satisfy the deputy with the visage\n    Of Ragozine, more like to Claudio?\n  DUKE. O, 'tis an accident that heaven provides!\n    Dispatch it presently; the hour draws on\n    Prefix'd by Angelo. See this be done,\n    And sent according to command; whiles I\n    Persuade this rude wretch willingly to die.\n  PROVOST. This shall be done, good father, presently.\n    But Barnardine must die this afternoon;\n    And how shall we continue Claudio,\n    To save me from the danger that might come\n    If he were known alive?\n  DUKE. Let this be done:\n    Put them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio.\n    Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting\n    To the under generation, you shall find\n    Your safety manifested.\n  PROVOST. I am your free dependant.\n  DUKE. Quick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo.\n                                                    Exit PROVOST\n    Now will I write letters to Angelo-\n    The Provost, he shall bear them- whose contents\n    Shall witness to him I am near at home,\n    And that, by great injunctions, I am bound\n    To enter publicly. Him I'll desire\n    To meet me at the consecrated fount,\n    A league below the city; and from thence,\n    By cold gradation and well-balanc'd form.\n    We shall proceed with Angelo.\n\n                         Re-enter PROVOST\n\n  PROVOST. Here is the head; I'll carry it myself.\n  DUKE. Convenient is it. Make a swift return;\n    For I would commune with you of such things\n    That want no ear but yours.\n  PROVOST. I'll make all speed.                             Exit\n  ISABELLA. [ Within ] Peace, ho, be here!\n  DUKE. The tongue of Isabel. She's come to know\n    If yet her brother's pardon be come hither;\n    But I will keep her ignorant of her good,\n    To make her heavenly comforts of despair\n    When it is least expected.\n\n                           Enter ISABELLA\n\n  ISABELLA. Ho, by your leave!\n  DUKE. Good morning to you, fair and gracious daughter.\n  ISABELLA. The better, given me by so holy a man.\n    Hath yet the deputy sent my brother's pardon?\n  DUKE. He hath releas'd him, Isabel, from the world.\n    His head is off and sent to Angelo.\n  ISABELLA. Nay, but it is not so.\n  DUKE. It is no other.\n    Show your wisdom, daughter, in your close patience,\n  ISABELLA. O, I will to him and pluck out his eyes!\n  DUKE. You shall not be admitted to his sight.\n  ISABELLA. Unhappy Claudio! Wretched Isabel!\n    Injurious world! Most damned Angelo!\n  DUKE. This nor hurts him nor profits you a jot;\n    Forbear it, therefore; give your cause to heaven.\n    Mark what I say, which you shall find\n    By every syllable a faithful verity.\n    The Duke comes home to-morrow. Nay, dry your eyes.\n    One of our covent, and his confessor,\n    Gives me this instance. Already he hath carried\n    Notice to Escalus and Angelo,\n    Who do prepare to meet him at the gates,\n    There to give up their pow'r. If you can, pace your wisdom\n    In that good path that I would wish it go,\n    And you shall have your bosom on this wretch,\n    Grace of the Duke, revenges to your heart,\n    And general honour.\n  ISABELLA. I am directed by you.\n  DUKE. This letter, then, to Friar Peter give;\n    'Tis that he sent me of the Duke's return.\n    Say, by this token, I desire his company\n    At Mariana's house to-night. Her cause and yours\n    I'll perfect him withal; and he shall bring you\n    Before the Duke; and to the head of Angelo\n    Accuse him home and home. For my poor self,\n    I am combined by a sacred vow,\n    And shall be absent. Wend you with this letter.\n    Command these fretting waters from your eyes\n    With a light heart; trust not my holy order,\n    If I pervert your course. Who's here?\n\n                           Enter LUCIO\n\n  LUCIO. Good even. Friar, where's the Provost?\n  DUKE. Not within, sir.\n  LUCIO. O pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see thine eyes\n    so red. Thou must be patient. I am fain to dine and sup with\n    water and bran; I dare not for my head fill my belly; one\n    fruitful meal would set me to't. But they say the Duke will be\n    here to-morrow. By my troth, Isabel, I lov'd thy brother. If the\n    old fantastical Duke of dark corners had been at home, he had\n    lived.                                         Exit ISABELLA\n  DUKE. Sir, the Duke is marvellous little beholding to your reports;\n    but the best is, he lives not in them.\n  LUCIO. Friar, thou knowest not the Duke so well as I do; he's a\n    better woodman than thou tak'st him for.\n  DUKE. Well, you'll answer this one day. Fare ye well.\n  LUCIO. Nay, tarry; I'll go along with thee; I can tell thee pretty\n    tales of the Duke.\n  DUKE. You have told me too many of him already, sir, if they be\n    true; if not true, none were enough.\n  LUCIO. I was once before him for getting a wench with child.\n  DUKE. Did you such a thing?\n  LUCIO. Yes, marry, did I; but I was fain to forswear it: they would\n    else have married me to the rotten medlar.\n  DUKE. Sir, your company is fairer than honest. Rest you well.\n  LUCIO. By my troth, I'll go with thee to the lane's end. If bawdy\n    talk offend you, we'll have very little of it. Nay, friar, I am a\n    kind of burr; I shall stick.                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nANGELO'S house\n\nEnter ANGELO and ESCALUS\n\n  ESCALUS. Every letter he hath writ hath disvouch'd other.\n  ANGELO. In most uneven and distracted manner. His actions show much\n    like to madness; pray heaven his wisdom be not tainted! And why\n    meet him at the gates, and redeliver our authorities there?\n  ESCALUS. I guess not.\n  ANGELO. And why should we proclaim it in an hour before his\n    ent'ring that, if any crave redress of injustice, they should\n    exhibit their petitions in the street?\n  ESCALUS. He shows his reason for that: to have a dispatch of\n     complaints; and to deliver us from devices hereafter, which\n    shall then have no power to stand against us.\n  ANGELO. Well, I beseech you, let it be proclaim'd;\n    Betimes i' th' morn I'll call you at your house;\n    Give notice to such men of sort and suit\n    As are to meet him.\n  ESCALUS. I shall, sir; fare you well.\n  ANGELO. Good night.                               Exit ESCALUS\n    This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant\n    And dull to all proceedings. A deflow'red maid!\n    And by an eminent body that enforc'd\n    The law against it! But that her tender shame\n    Will not proclaim against her maiden loss,\n    How might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no;\n    For my authority bears a so credent bulk\n    That no particular scandal once can touch\n    But it confounds the breather. He should have liv'd,\n    Save that his riotous youth, with dangerous sense,\n    Might in the times to come have ta'en revenge,\n    By so receiving a dishonour'd life\n    With ransom of such shame. Would yet he had liv'd!\n    Alack, when once our grace we have forgot,\n    Nothing goes right; we would, and we would not.         Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nFields without the town\n\nEnter DUKE in his own habit, and Friar PETER\n\n  DUKE. These letters at fit time deliver me.   [Giving letters]\n    The Provost knows our purpose and our plot.\n    The matter being afoot, keep your instruction\n    And hold you ever to our special drift;\n    Though sometimes you do blench from this to that\n    As cause doth minister. Go, call at Flavius' house,\n    And tell him where I stay; give the like notice\n    To Valentinus, Rowland, and to Crassus,\n    And bid them bring the trumpets to the gate;\n    But send me Flavius first.\n    PETER. It shall be speeded well.                  Exit FRIAR\n\n                             Enter VARRIUS\n\n  DUKE. I thank thee, Varrius; thou hast made good haste.\n    Come, we will walk. There's other of our friends\n    Will greet us here anon. My gentle Varrius!           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nA street near the city gate\n\nEnter ISABELLA and MARIANA\n\n  ISABELLA. To speak so indirectly I am loath;\n    I would say the truth; but to accuse him so,\n    That is your part. Yet I am advis'd to do it;\n    He says, to veil full purpose.\n  MARIANA. Be rul'd by him.\n  ISABELLA. Besides, he tells me that, if peradventure\n    He speak against me on the adverse side,\n    I should not think it strange; for 'tis a physic\n    That's bitter to sweet end.\n  MARIANA. I would Friar Peter-\n\n                         Enter FRIAR PETER\n\n  ISABELLA. O, peace! the friar is come.\n  PETER. Come, I have found you out a stand most fit,\n    Where you may have such vantage on the Duke\n    He shall not pass you. Twice have the trumpets sounded;\n    The generous and gravest citizens\n    Have hent the gates, and very near upon\n    The Duke is ent'ring; therefore, hence, away.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nThe city gate\n\nEnter at several doors DUKE, VARRIUS, LORDS; ANGELO, ESCALUS, Lucio,\nPROVOST, OFFICERS, and CITIZENS\n\n  DUKE. My very worthy cousin, fairly met!\n    Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you.\n  ANGELO, ESCALUS. Happy return be to your royal Grace!\n  DUKE. Many and hearty thankings to you both.\n    We have made inquiry of you, and we hear\n    Such goodness of your justice that our soul\n    Cannot but yield you forth to public thanks,\n    Forerunning more requital.\n  ANGELO. You make my bonds still greater.\n  DUKE. O, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it\n    To lock it in the wards of covert bosom,\n    When it deserves, with characters of brass,\n    A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time\n    And razure of oblivion. Give me your hand.\n    And let the subject see, to make them know\n    That outward courtesies would fain proclaim\n    Favours that keep within. Come, Escalus,\n    You must walk by us on our other hand,\n    And good supporters are you.\n\n                 Enter FRIAR PETER and ISABELLA\n\n  PETER. Now is your time; speak loud, and kneel before him.\n  ISABELLA. Justice, O royal Duke! Vail your regard\n    Upon a wrong'd- I would fain have said a maid!\n    O worthy Prince, dishonour not your eye\n    By throwing it on any other object\n    Till you have heard me in my true complaint,\n    And given me justice, justice, justice, justice.\n  DUKE. Relate your wrongs. In what? By whom? Be brief.\n    Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice;\n    Reveal yourself to him.\n  ISABELLA. O worthy Duke,\n    You bid me seek redemption of the devil!\n    Hear me yourself; for that which I must speak\n    Must either punish me, not being believ'd,\n    Or wring redress from you. Hear me, O, hear me, here!\n  ANGELO. My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm;\n    She hath been a suitor to me for her brother,\n    Cut off by course of justice-\n  ISABELLA. By course of justice!\n  ANGELO. And she will speak most bitterly and strange.\n  ISABELLA. Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak.\n    That Angelo's forsworn, is it not strange?\n    That Angelo's a murderer, is't not strange?\n    That Angelo is an adulterous thief,\n    An hypocrite, a virgin-violator,\n    Is it not strange and strange?\n  DUKE. Nay, it is ten times strange.\n  ISABELLA. It is not truer he is Angelo\n    Than this is all as true as it is strange;\n    Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth\n    To th' end of reck'ning.\n  DUKE. Away with her. Poor soul,\n    She speaks this in th' infirmity of sense.\n  ISABELLA. O Prince! I conjure thee, as thou believ'st\n    There is another comfort than this world,\n    That thou neglect me not with that opinion\n    That I am touch'd with madness. Make not impossible\n    That which but seems unlike: 'tis not impossible\n    But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground,\n    May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute,\n    As Angelo; even so may Angelo,\n    In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms,\n    Be an arch-villain. Believe it, royal Prince,\n    If he be less, he's nothing; but he's more,\n    Had I more name for badness.\n  DUKE. By mine honesty,\n    If she be mad, as I believe no other,\n    Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense,\n    Such a dependency of thing on thing,\n    As e'er I heard in madness.\n  ISABELLA. O gracious Duke,\n    Harp not on that; nor do not banish reason\n    For inequality; but let your reason serve\n    To make the truth appear where it seems hid,\n    And hide the false seems true.\n  DUKE. Many that are not mad\n    Have, sure, more lack of reason. What would you say?\n  ISABELLA. I am the sister of one Claudio,\n    Condemn'd upon the act of fornication\n    To lose his head; condemn'd by Angelo.\n    I, in probation of a sisterhood,\n    Was sent to by my brother; one Lucio\n    As then the messenger-\n  LUCIO. That's I, an't like your Grace.\n    I came to her from Claudio, and desir'd her\n    To try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo\n    For her poor brother's pardon.\n  ISABELLA. That's he, indeed.\n  DUKE. You were not bid to speak.\n  LUCIO. No, my good lord;\n    Nor wish'd to hold my peace.\n  DUKE. I wish you now, then;\n    Pray you take note of it; and when you have\n    A business for yourself, pray heaven you then\n    Be perfect.\n  LUCIO. I warrant your honour.\n  DUKE. The warrant's for yourself; take heed to't.\n  ISABELLA. This gentleman told somewhat of my tale.\n  LUCIO. Right.\n  DUKE. It may be right; but you are i' the wrong\n    To speak before your time. Proceed.\n  ISABELLA. I went\n    To this pernicious caitiff deputy.\n  DUKE. That's somewhat madly spoken.\n  ISABELLA. Pardon it;\n    The phrase is to the matter.\n  DUKE. Mended again. The matter- proceed.\n  ISABELLA. In brief- to set the needless process by,\n    How I persuaded, how I pray'd, and kneel'd,\n    How he refell'd me, and how I replied,\n    For this was of much length- the vile conclusion\n    I now begin with grief and shame to utter:\n    He would not, but by gift of my chaste body\n    To his concupiscible intemperate lust,\n    Release my brother; and, after much debatement,\n    My sisterly remorse confutes mine honour,\n    And I did yield to him. But the next morn betimes,\n    His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant\n    For my poor brother's head.\n  DUKE. This is most likely!\n  ISABELLA. O that it were as like as it is true!\n  DUKE. By heaven, fond wretch, thou know'st not what thou speak'st,\n    Or else thou art suborn'd against his honour\n    In hateful practice. First, his integrity\n    Stands without blemish; next, it imports no reason\n    That with such vehemency he should pursue\n    Faults proper to himself. If he had so offended,\n    He would have weigh'd thy brother by himself,\n    And not have cut him off. Some one hath set you on;\n    Confess the truth, and say by whose advice\n    Thou cam'st here to complain.\n  ISABELLA. And is this all?\n    Then, O you blessed ministers above,\n    Keep me in patience; and, with ripened time,\n    Unfold the evil which is here wrapt up\n    In countenance! Heaven shield your Grace from woe,\n    As I, thus wrong'd, hence unbelieved go!\n  DUKE. I know you'd fain be gone. An officer!\n    To prison with her! Shall we thus permit\n    A blasting and a scandalous breath to fall\n    On him so near us? This needs must be a practice.\n    Who knew of your intent and coming hither?\n  ISABELLA. One that I would were here, Friar Lodowick.\n  DUKE. A ghostly father, belike. Who knows that Lodowick?\n  LUCIO. My lord, I know him; 'tis a meddling friar.\n    I do not like the man; had he been lay, my lord,\n    For certain words he spake against your Grace\n    In your retirement, I had swing'd him soundly.\n  DUKE. Words against me? This's a good friar, belike!\n    And to set on this wretched woman here\n    Against our substitute! Let this friar be found.\n  LUCIO. But yesternight, my lord, she and that friar,\n    I saw them at the prison; a saucy friar,\n    A very scurvy fellow.\n  PETER. Blessed be your royal Grace!\n    I have stood by, my lord, and I have heard\n    Your royal ear abus'd. First, hath this woman\n    Most wrongfully accus'd your substitute;\n    Who is as free from touch or soil with her\n    As she from one ungot.\n  DUKE. We did believe no less.\n    Know you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?\n  PETER. I know him for a man divine and holy;\n    Not scurvy, nor a temporary meddler,\n    As he's reported by this gentleman;\n    And, on my trust, a man that never yet\n    Did, as he vouches, misreport your Grace.\n  LUCIO. My lord, most villainously; believe it.\n  PETER. Well, he in time may come to clear himself;\n    But at this instant he is sick, my lord,\n    Of a strange fever. Upon his mere request-\n    Being come to knowledge that there was complaint\n    Intended 'gainst Lord Angelo- came I hither\n    To speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know\n    Is true and false; and what he, with his oath\n    And all probation, will make up full clear,\n    Whensoever he's convented. First, for this woman-\n    To justify this worthy nobleman,\n    So vulgarly and personally accus'd-\n    Her shall you hear disproved to her eyes,\n    Till she herself confess it.\n  DUKE. Good friar, let's hear it.         Exit ISABELLA guarded\n    Do you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?\n    O heaven, the vanity of wretched fools!\n    Give us some seats. Come, cousin Angelo;\n    In this I'll be impartial; be you judge\n    Of your own cause.\n\n                     Enter MARIANA veiled\n\n    Is this the witness, friar?\n  FIRST let her show her face, and after speak.\n  MARIANA. Pardon, my lord; I will not show my face\n    Until my husband bid me.\n  DUKE. What, are you married?\n  MARIANA. No, my lord.\n  DUKE. Are you a maid?\n  MARIANA. No, my lord.\n  DUKE. A widow, then?\n  MARIANA. Neither, my lord.\n  DUKE. Why, you are nothing then; neither maid, widow, nor wife.\n  LUCIO. My lord, she may be a punk; for many of them are neither\n    maid, widow, nor wife.\n  DUKE. Silence that fellow. I would he had some cause\n    To prattle for himself.\n  LUCIO. Well, my lord.\n  MARIANA. My lord, I do confess I ne'er was married,\n    And I confess, besides, I am no maid.\n    I have known my husband; yet my husband\n    Knows not that ever he knew me.\n  LUCIO. He was drunk, then, my lord; it can be no better.\n  DUKE. For the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too!\n  LUCIO. Well, my lord.\n  DUKE. This is no witness for Lord Angelo.\n  MARIANA. Now I come to't, my lord:\n    She that accuses him of fornication,\n    In self-same manner doth accuse my husband;\n    And charges him, my lord, with such a time\n    When I'll depose I had him in mine arms,\n    With all th' effect of love.\n  ANGELO. Charges she moe than me?\n  MARIANA. Not that I know.\n  DUKE. No? You say your husband.\n  MARIANA. Why, just, my lord, and that is Angelo,\n    Who thinks he knows that he ne'er knew my body,\n    But knows he thinks that he knows Isabel's.\n  ANGELO. This is a strange abuse. Let's see thy face.\n  MARIANA. My husband bids me; now I will unmask.\n                                                     [Unveiling]\n    This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,\n    Which once thou swor'st was worth the looking on;\n    This is the hand which, with a vow'd contract,\n    Was fast belock'd in thine; this is the body\n    That took away the match from Isabel,\n    And did supply thee at thy garden-house\n    In her imagin'd person.\n  DUKE. Know you this woman?\n  LUCIO. Carnally, she says.\n  DUKE. Sirrah, no more.\n  LUCIO. Enough, my lord.\n  ANGELO. My lord, I must confess I know this woman;\n    And five years since there was some speech of marriage\n    Betwixt myself and her; which was broke off,\n    Partly for that her promised proportions\n    Came short of composition; but in chief\n    For that her reputation was disvalued\n    In levity. Since which time of five years\n    I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her,\n    Upon my faith and honour.\n  MARIANA. Noble Prince,\n    As there comes light from heaven and words from breath,\n    As there is sense in truth and truth in virtue,\n    I am affianc'd this man's wife as strongly\n    As words could make up vows. And, my good lord,\n    But Tuesday night last gone, in's garden-house,\n    He knew me as a wife. As this is true,\n    Let me in safety raise me from my knees,\n    Or else for ever be confixed here,\n    A marble monument!\n  ANGELO. I did but smile till now.\n    Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice;\n    My patience here is touch'd. I do perceive\n    These poor informal women are no more\n    But instruments of some more mightier member\n    That sets them on. Let me have way, my lord,\n    To find this practice out.\n  DUKE. Ay, with my heart;\n    And punish them to your height of pleasure.\n    Thou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman,\n    Compact with her that's gone, think'st thou thy oaths,\n    Though they would swear down each particular saint,\n    Were testimonies against his worth and credit,\n    That's seal'd in approbation? You, Lord Escalus,\n    Sit with my cousin; lend him your kind pains\n    To find out this abuse, whence 'tis deriv'd.\n    There is another friar that set them on;\n    Let him be sent for.\n  PETER. Would lie were here, my lord! For he indeed\n    Hath set the women on to this complaint.\n    Your provost knows the place where he abides,\n    And he may fetch him.\n  DUKE. Go, do it instantly.                        Exit PROVOST\n    And you, my noble and well-warranted cousin,\n    Whom it concerns to hear this matter forth,\n    Do with your injuries as seems you best\n    In any chastisement. I for a while will leave you;\n    But stir not you till you have well determin'd\n    Upon these slanderers.\n  ESCALUS. My lord, we'll do it throughly.             Exit DUKE\n    Signior Lucio, did not you say you knew that Friar Lodowick to be\n    a dishonest person?\n  LUCIO. 'Cucullus non facit monachum': honest in nothing but in his\n    clothes; and one that hath spoke most villainous speeches of the\n    Duke.\n  ESCALUS. We shall entreat you to abide here till he come and\n    enforce them against him. We shall find this friar a notable\n    fellow.\n  LUCIO. As any in Vienna, on my word.\n  ESCALUS. Call that same Isabel here once again; I would speak with\n    her. [Exit an ATTENDANT] Pray you, my lord, give me leave to\n    question; you shall see how I'll handle her.\n  LUCIO. Not better than he, by her own report.\n  ESCALUS. Say you?\n  LUCIO. Marry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately, she would\n    sooner confess; perchance, publicly, she'll be asham'd.\n\n       Re-enter OFFICERS with ISABELLA; and PROVOST with the\n                    DUKE in his friar's habit\n\n  ESCALUS. I will go darkly to work with her.\n  LUCIO. That's the way; for women are light at midnight.\n  ESCALUS. Come on, mistress; here's a gentlewoman denies all that\n    you have said.\n  LUCIO. My lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of, here with the\n    Provost.\n  ESCALUS. In very good time. Speak not you to him till we call upon\n    you.\n  LUCIO. Mum.\n  ESCALUS. Come, sir; did you set these women on to slander Lord\n    Angelo? They have confess'd you did.\n  DUKE. 'Tis false.\n  ESCALUS. How! Know you where you are?\n  DUKE. Respect to your great place! and let the devil\n    Be sometime honour'd for his burning throne!\n    Where is the Duke? 'Tis he should hear me speak.\n  ESCALUS. The Duke's in us; and we will hear you speak;\n    Look you speak justly.\n  DUKE. Boldly, at least. But, O, poor souls,\n    Come you to seek the lamb here of the fox,\n    Good night to your redress! Is the Duke gone?\n    Then is your cause gone too. The Duke's unjust\n    Thus to retort your manifest appeal,\n    And put your trial in the villain's mouth\n    Which here you come to accuse.\n  LUCIO. This is the rascal; this is he I spoke of.\n  ESCALUS. Why, thou unreverend and unhallowed friar,\n    Is't not enough thou hast suborn'd these women\n    To accuse this worthy man, but, in foul mouth,\n    And in the witness of his proper ear,\n    To call him villain; and then to glance from him\n    To th' Duke himself, to tax him with injustice?\n    Take him hence; to th' rack with him! We'll touze you\n    Joint by joint, but we will know his purpose.\n    What, 'unjust'!\n  DUKE. Be not so hot; the Duke\n    Dare no more stretch this finger of mine than he\n    Dare rack his own; his subject am I not,\n    Nor here provincial. My business in this state\n    Made me a looker-on here in Vienna,\n    Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble\n    Till it o'errun the stew: laws for all faults,\n    But faults so countenanc'd that the strong statutes\n    Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop,\n    As much in mock as mark.\n  ESCALUS. Slander to th' state! Away with him to prison!\n  ANGELO. What can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio?\n    Is this the man that you did tell us of?\n  LUCIO. 'Tis he, my lord. Come hither, good-man bald-pate.\n    Do you know me?\n  DUKE. I remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice. I met you at\n    the prison, in the absence of the Duke.\n  LUCIO. O did you so? And do you remember what you said of the Duke?\n  DUKE. Most notedly, sir.\n  LUCIO. Do you so, sir? And was the Duke a fleshmonger, a fool, and\n    a coward, as you then reported him to be?\n  DUKE. You must, sir, change persons with me ere you make that my\n    report; you, indeed, spoke so of him; and much more, much worse.\n  LUCIO. O thou damnable fellow! Did not I pluck thee by the nose for\n    thy speeches?\n  DUKE. I protest I love the Duke as I love myself.\n  ANGELO. Hark how the villain would close now, after his treasonable\n    abuses!\n  ESCALUS. Such a fellow is not to be talk'd withal. Away with him to\n    prison! Where is the Provost? Away with him to prison! Lay bolts\n    enough upon him; let him speak no more. Away with those giglets\n    too, and with the other confederate companion!\n                            [The PROVOST lays bands on the DUKE]\n  DUKE. Stay, sir; stay awhile.\n  ANGELO. What, resists he? Help him, Lucio.\n  LUCIO. Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you\n    bald-pated lying rascal, you must be hooded, must you? Show your\n    knave's visage, with a pox to you! Show your sheep-biting face,\n    and be hang'd an hour! Will't not off?\n             [Pulls off the FRIAR'S bood and discovers the DUKE]\n  DUKE. Thou art the first knave that e'er mad'st a duke.\n    First, Provost, let me bail these gentle three.\n    [To Lucio] Sneak not away, sir, for the friar and you\n    Must have a word anon. Lay hold on him.\n  LUCIO. This may prove worse than hanging.\n  DUKE. [To ESCALUS] What you have spoke I pardon; sit you down.\n    We'll borrow place of him. [To ANGELO] Sir, by your leave.\n    Hast thou or word, or wit, or impudence,\n    That yet can do thee office? If thou hast,\n    Rely upon it till my tale be heard,\n    And hold no longer out.\n  ANGELO. O my dread lord,\n    I should be guiltier than my guiltiness,\n    To think I can be undiscernible,\n    When I perceive your Grace, like pow'r divine,\n    Hath look'd upon my passes. Then, good Prince,\n    No longer session hold upon my shame,\n    But let my trial be mine own confession;\n    Immediate sentence then, and sequent death,\n    Is all the grace I beg.\n  DUKE. Come hither, Mariana.\n    Say, wast thou e'er contracted to this woman?\n  ANGELO. I was, my lord.\n  DUKE. Go, take her hence and marry her instantly.\n    Do you the office, friar; which consummate,\n    Return him here again. Go with him, Provost.\n                Exeunt ANGELO, MARIANA, FRIAR PETER, and PROVOST\n  ESCALUS. My lord, I am more amaz'd at his dishonour\n    Than at the strangeness of it.\n  DUKE. Come hither, Isabel.\n    Your friar is now your prince. As I was then\n    Advertising and holy to your business,\n    Not changing heart with habit, I am still\n    Attorney'd at your service.\n  ISABELLA. O, give me pardon,\n    That I, your vassal have employ'd and pain'd\n    Your unknown sovereignty.\n  DUKE. You are pardon'd, Isabel.\n    And now, dear maid, be you as free to us.\n    Your brother's death, I know, sits at your heart;\n    And you may marvel why I obscur'd myself,\n    Labouring to save his life, and would not rather\n    Make rash remonstrance of my hidden pow'r\n    Than let him so be lost. O most kind maid,\n    It was the swift celerity of his death,\n    Which I did think with slower foot came on,\n    That brain'd my purpose. But peace be with him!\n    That life is better life, past fearing death,\n    Than that which lives to fear. Make it your comfort,\n    So happy is your brother.\n  ISABELLA. I do, my lord.\n\n       Re-enter ANGELO, MARIANA, FRIAR PETER, and PROVOST\n\n  DUKE. For this new-married man approaching here,\n    Whose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd\n    Your well-defended honour, you must pardon\n    For Mariana's sake; but as he adjudg'd your brother-\n    Being criminal in double violation\n    Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach,\n    Thereon dependent, for your brother's life-\n    The very mercy of the law cries out\n    Most audible, even from his proper tongue,\n    'An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!'\n    Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;\n    Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure.\n    Then, Angelo, thy fault's thus manifested,\n    Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.\n    We do condemn thee to the very block\n    Where Claudio stoop'd to death, and with like haste.\n    Away with him!\n  MARIANA. O my most gracious lord,\n    I hope you will not mock me with a husband.\n  DUKE. It is your husband mock'd you with a husband.\n    Consenting to the safeguard of your honour,\n    I thought your marriage fit; else imputation,\n    For that he knew you, might reproach your life,\n    And choke your good to come. For his possessions,\n    Although by confiscation they are ours,\n    We do instate and widow you withal\n    To buy you a better husband.\n  MARIANA. O my dear lord,\n    I crave no other, nor no better man.\n  DUKE. Never crave him; we are definitive.\n  MARIANA. Gentle my liege-                           [Kneeling]\n  DUKE. You do but lose your labour.\n    Away with him to death! [To LUCIO] Now, sir, to you.\n  MARIANA. O my good lord! Sweet Isabel, take my part;\n    Lend me your knees, and all my life to come\n    I'll lend you all my life to do you service.\n  DUKE. Against all sense you do importune her.\n    Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact,\n    Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break,\n    And take her hence in horror.\n  MARIANA. Isabel,\n    Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me;\n    Hold up your hands, say nothing; I'll speak all.\n    They say best men moulded out of faults;\n    And, for the most, become much more the better\n    For being a little bad; so may my husband.\n    O Isabel, will you not lend a knee?\n  DUKE. He dies for Claudio's death.\n  ISABELLA. [Kneeling] Most bounteous sir,\n    Look, if it please you, on this man condemn'd,\n    As if my brother liv'd. I partly think\n    A due sincerity govern'd his deeds\n    Till he did look on me; since it is so,\n    Let him not die. My brother had but justice,\n    In that he did the thing for which he died;\n    For Angelo,\n    His act did not o'ertake his bad intent,\n    And must be buried but as an intent\n    That perish'd by the way. Thoughts are no subjects;\n    Intents but merely thoughts.\n  MARIANA. Merely, my lord.\n  DUKE. Your suit's unprofitable; stand up, I say.\n    I have bethought me of another fault.\n    Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded\n    At an unusual hour?\n  PROVOST. It was commanded so.\n  DUKE. Had you a special warrant for the deed?\n  PROVOST. No, my good lord; it was by private message.\n  DUKE. For which I do discharge you of your office;\n    Give up your keys.\n  PROVOST. Pardon me, noble lord;\n    I thought it was a fault, but knew it not;\n    Yet did repent me, after more advice;\n    For testimony whereof, one in the prison,\n    That should by private order else have died,\n    I have reserv'd alive.\n  DUKE. What's he?\n  PROVOST. His name is Barnardine.\n  DUKE. I would thou hadst done so by Claudio.\n    Go fetch him hither; let me look upon him.      Exit PROVOST\n  ESCALUS. I am sorry one so learned and so wise\n    As you, Lord Angelo, have still appear'd,\n    Should slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood\n    And lack of temper'd judgment afterward.\n  ANGELO. I am sorry that such sorrow I procure;\n    And so deep sticks it in my penitent heart\n    That I crave death more willingly than mercy;\n    'Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it.\n\n       Re-enter PROVOST, with BARNARDINE, CLAUDIO (muffled)\n                            and JULIET\n\n  DUKE. Which is that Barnardine?\n  PROVOST. This, my lord.\n  DUKE. There was a friar told me of this man.\n    Sirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul,\n    That apprehends no further than this world,\n    And squar'st thy life according. Thou'rt condemn'd;\n    But, for those earthly faults, I quit them all,\n    And pray thee take this mercy to provide\n    For better times to come. Friar, advise him;\n    I leave him to your hand. What muffl'd fellow's that?\n  PROVOST. This is another prisoner that I sav'd,\n    Who should have died when Claudio lost his head;\n    As like almost to Claudio as himself.    [Unmuffles CLAUDIO]\n  DUKE. [To ISABELLA] If he be like your brother, for his sake\n    Is he pardon'd; and for your lovely sake,\n    Give me your hand and say you will be mine,\n    He is my brother too. But fitter time for that.\n    By this Lord Angelo perceives he's safe;\n    Methinks I see a quick'ning in his eye.\n    Well, Angelo, your evil quits you well.\n    Look that you love your wife; her worth worth yours.\n    I find an apt remission in myself;\n    And yet here's one in place I cannot pardon.\n    To Lucio] You, sirrah, that knew me for a fool, a coward,\n    One all of luxury, an ass, a madman!\n    Wherein have I so deserv'd of you\n    That you extol me thus?\n  LUCIO. Faith, my lord, I spoke it but according to the trick.\n    If you will hang me for it, you may; but I had rather it would\n    please you I might be whipt.\n  DUKE. Whipt first, sir, and hang'd after.\n    Proclaim it, Provost, round about the city,\n    If any woman wrong'd by this lewd fellow-\n    As I have heard him swear himself there's one\n    Whom he begot with child, let her appear,\n    And he shall marry her. The nuptial finish'd,\n    Let him be whipt and hang'd.\n  LUCIO. I beseech your Highness, do not marry me to a whore. Your\n    Highness said even now I made you a duke; good my lord, do not\n    recompense me in making me a cuckold.\n  DUKE. Upon mine honour, thou shalt marry her.\n    Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal\n    Remit thy other forfeits. Take him to prison;\n    And see our pleasure herein executed.\n  LUCIO. Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping,\n    and hanging.\n  DUKE. Slandering a prince deserves it.\n                                      Exeunt OFFICERS with LUCIO\n    She, Claudio, that you wrong'd, look you restore.\n    Joy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo;\n    I have confess'd her, and I know her virtue.\n    Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness;\n    There's more behind that is more gratulate.\n    Thanks, Provost, for thy care and secrecy;\n    We shall employ thee in a worthier place.\n    Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home\n    The head of Ragozine for Claudio's:\n    Th' offence pardons itself. Dear Isabel,\n    I have a motion much imports your good;\n    Whereto if you'll a willing ear incline,\n    What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.\n    So, bring us to our palace, where we'll show\n    What's yet behind that's meet you all should know.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1597\n\nTHE MERCHANT OF VENICE\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  THE DUKE OF VENICE\n  THE PRINCE OF MOROCCO, suitor to Portia\n  THE PRINCE OF ARRAGON,    \"    \"    \"\n  ANTONIO, a merchant of Venice\n  BASSANIO, his friend, suitor to Portia\n  SOLANIO,   friend to Antonio and Bassanio\n  SALERIO,      \"    \"    \"     \"     \"\n  GRATIANO,     \"    \"    \"     \"     \"\n  LORENZO, in love with Jessica\n  SHYLOCK, a rich Jew\n  TUBAL, a Jew, his friend\n  LAUNCELOT GOBBO, a clown, servant to Shylock\n  OLD GOBBO, father to Launcelot\n  LEONARDO, servant to Bassanio\n  BALTHASAR, servant to Portia\n  STEPHANO,     \"     \"    \"\n\n  PORTIA, a rich heiress\n  NERISSA, her waiting-maid\n  JESSICA, daughter to Shylock\n\n  Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice,\n    Gaoler, Servants, and other Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nVenice, and PORTIA'S house at Belmont\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter ANTONIO, SALERIO, and SOLANIO\n\n  ANTONIO. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.\n    It wearies me; you say it wearies you;\n    But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,\n    What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,\n    I am to learn;\n    And such a want-wit sadness makes of me\n    That I have much ado to know myself.\n  SALERIO. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;\n    There where your argosies, with portly sail-\n    Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,\n    Or as it were the pageants of the sea-\n    Do overpeer the petty traffickers,\n    That curtsy to them, do them reverence,\n    As they fly by them with their woven wings.\n  SOLANIO. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,\n    The better part of my affections would\n    Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still\n    Plucking the grass to know where sits the wind,\n    Peering in maps for ports, and piers, and roads;\n    And every object that might make me fear\n    Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt,\n    Would make me sad.\n  SALERIO. My wind, cooling my broth,\n    Would blow me to an ague when I thought\n    What harm a wind too great might do at sea.\n    I should not see the sandy hour-glass run\n    But I should think of shallows and of flats,\n    And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,\n    Vailing her high top lower than her ribs\n    To kiss her burial. Should I go to church\n    And see the holy edifice of stone,\n    And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,\n    Which, touching but my gentle vessel's side,\n    Would scatter all her spices on the stream,\n    Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks,\n    And, in a word, but even now worth this,\n    And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought\n    To think on this, and shall I lack the thought\n    That such a thing bechanc'd would make me sad?\n    But tell not me; I know Antonio\n    Is sad to think upon his merchandise.\n  ANTONIO. Believe me, no; I thank my fortune for it,\n    My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,\n    Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate\n    Upon the fortune of this present year;\n    Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.\n  SOLANIO. Why then you are in love.\n  ANTONIO. Fie, fie!\n  SOLANIO. Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad\n    Because you are not merry; and 'twere as easy\n    For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry,\n    Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,\n    Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time:\n    Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,\n    And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper;\n    And other of such vinegar aspect\n    That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile\n    Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.\n\n               Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO\n\n    Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,\n    Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well;\n    We leave you now with better company.\n  SALERIO. I would have stay'd till I had made you merry,\n    If worthier friends had not prevented me.\n  ANTONIO. Your worth is very dear in my regard.\n    I take it your own business calls on you,\n    And you embrace th' occasion to depart.\n  SALERIO. Good morrow, my good lords.\n  BASSANIO. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? Say when.\n    You grow exceeding strange; must it be so?\n  SALERIO. We'll make our leisures to attend on yours.\n                                      Exeunt SALERIO and SOLANIO\n  LORENZO. My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,\n    We two will leave you; but at dinner-time,\n    I pray you, have in mind where we must meet.\n  BASSANIO. I will not fail you.\n  GRATIANO. You look not well, Signior Antonio;\n    You have too much respect upon the world;\n    They lose it that do buy it with much care.\n    Believe me, you are marvellously chang'd.\n  ANTONIO. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano-\n    A stage, where every man must play a part,\n    And mine a sad one.\n  GRATIANO. Let me play the fool.\n    With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;\n    And let my liver rather heat with wine\n    Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.\n    Why should a man whose blood is warm within\n    Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster,\n    Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice\n    By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio-\n    I love thee, and 'tis my love that speaks-\n    There are a sort of men whose visages\n    Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,\n    And do a wilful stillness entertain,\n    With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion\n    Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;\n    As who should say 'I am Sir Oracle,\n    And when I ope my lips let no dog bark.'\n    O my Antonio, I do know of these\n    That therefore only are reputed wise\n    For saying nothing; when, I am very sure,\n    If they should speak, would almost damn those ears\n    Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.\n    I'll tell thee more of this another time.\n    But fish not with this melancholy bait\n    For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.\n    Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well awhile;\n    I'll end my exhortation after dinner.\n  LORENZO. Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time.\n    I must be one of these same dumb wise men,\n    For Gratiano never lets me speak.\n  GRATIANO. Well, keep me company but two years moe,\n    Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.\n  ANTONIO. Fare you well; I'll grow a talker for this gear.\n  GRATIANO. Thanks, i' faith, for silence is only commendable\n    In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible.\n                                     Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO\n  ANTONIO. Is that anything now?\n  BASSANIO. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than\n    any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid\n    in, two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find\n    them, and when you have them they are not worth the search.\n  ANTONIO. Well; tell me now what lady is the same\n    To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,\n    That you to-day promis'd to tell me of?\n  BASSANIO. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,\n    How much I have disabled mine estate\n    By something showing a more swelling port\n    Than my faint means would grant continuance;\n    Nor do I now make moan to be abridg'd\n    From such a noble rate; but my chief care\n    Is to come fairly off from the great debts\n    Wherein my time, something too prodigal,\n    Hath left me gag'd. To you, Antonio,\n    I owe the most, in money and in love;\n    And from your love I have a warranty\n    To unburden all my plots and purposes\n    How to get clear of all the debts I owe.\n  ANTONIO. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;\n    And if it stand, as you yourself still do,\n    Within the eye of honour, be assur'd\n    My purse, my person, my extremest means,\n    Lie all unlock'd to your occasions.\n  BASSANIO. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,\n    I shot his fellow of the self-same flight\n    The self-same way, with more advised watch,\n    To find the other forth; and by adventuring both\n    I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof,\n    Because what follows is pure innocence.\n    I owe you much; and, like a wilful youth,\n    That which I owe is lost; but if you please\n    To shoot another arrow that self way\n    Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,\n    As I will watch the aim, or to find both,\n    Or bring your latter hazard back again\n    And thankfully rest debtor for the first.\n  ANTONIO. You know me well, and herein spend but time\n    To wind about my love with circumstance;\n    And out of doubt you do me now more wrong\n    In making question of my uttermost\n    Than if you had made waste of all I have.\n    Then do but say to me what I should do\n    That in your knowledge may by me be done,\n    And I am prest unto it; therefore, speak.\n  BASSANIO. In Belmont is a lady richly left,\n    And she is fair and, fairer than that word,\n    Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes from her eyes\n    I did receive fair speechless messages.\n    Her name is Portia- nothing undervalu'd\n    To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia.\n    Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth;\n    For the four winds blow in from every coast\n    Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks\n    Hang on her temples like a golden fleece,\n    Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strond,\n    And many Jasons come in quest of her.\n    O my Antonio, had I but the means\n    To hold a rival place with one of them,\n    I have a mind presages me such thrift\n    That I should questionless be fortunate.\n  ANTONIO. Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea;\n    Neither have I money nor commodity\n    To raise a present sum; therefore go forth,\n    Try what my credit can in Venice do;\n    That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost,\n    To furnish thee to Belmont to fair Portia.\n    Go presently inquire, and so will I,\n    Where money is; and I no question make\n    To have it of my trust or for my sake.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter PORTIA with her waiting-woman, NERISSA\n\n  PORTIA. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this\n    great world.\n  NERISSA. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the\n    same abundance as your good fortunes are; and yet, for aught I\n    see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that\n    starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be\n    seated in the mean: superfluity come sooner by white hairs, but\n    competency lives longer.\n  PORTIA. Good sentences, and well pronounc'd.\n  NERISSA. They would be better, if well followed.\n  PORTIA. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do,\n    chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes'\n    palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions; I\n    can easier teach twenty what were good to be done than to be one\n    of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise\n    laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree;\n    such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good\n    counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to\n    choose me a husband. O me, the word 'choose'! I may neither\n    choose who I would nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a\n    living daughter curb'd by the will of a dead father. Is it not\n    hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none?\n  NERISSA. Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death\n    have good inspirations; therefore the lott'ry that he hath\n    devised in these three chests, of gold, silver, and lead- whereof\n    who chooses his meaning chooses you- will no doubt never be\n    chosen by any rightly but one who you shall rightly love. But\n    what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these\n    princely suitors that are already come?\n  PORTIA. I pray thee over-name them; and as thou namest them, I will\n    describe them; and according to my description, level at my\n    affection.\n  NERISSA. First, there is the Neapolitan prince.\n  PORTIA. Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of\n    his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good\n    parts that he can shoe him himself; I am much afear'd my lady his\n    mother play'd false with a smith.\n  NERISSA. Then is there the County Palatine.\n  PORTIA. He doth nothing but frown, as who should say 'An you will\n    not have me, choose.' He hears merry tales and smiles not. I fear\n    he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so\n    full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married\n    to a death's-head with a bone in his mouth than to either of\n    these. God defend me from these two!\n  NERISSA. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon?\n  PORTIA. God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In\n    truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but he- why, he hath a\n    horse better than the Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of\n    frowning than the Count Palatine; he is every man in no man. If a\n    throstle sing he falls straight a-cap'ring; he will fence with\n    his own shadow; if I should marry him, I should marry twenty\n    husbands. If he would despise me, I would forgive him; for if he\n    love me to madness, I shall never requite him.\n  NERISSA. What say you then to Falconbridge, the young baron of\n    England?\n  PORTIA. You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not me,\n    nor I him: he hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian, and you\n    will come into the court and swear that I have a poor pennyworth\n    in the English. He is a proper man's picture; but alas, who can\n    converse with a dumb-show? How oddly he is suited! I think he\n    bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet\n    in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.\n  NERISSA. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour?\n  PORTIA. That he hath a neighbourly charity in him, for he borrowed\n    a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him\n    again when he was able; I think the Frenchman became his surety,\n    and seal'd under for another.\n  NERISSA. How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's\n    nephew?\n  PORTIA. Very vilely in the morning when he is sober; and most\n    vilely in the afternoon when he is drunk. When he is best, he is\n    a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little\n    better than a beast. An the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I\n    shall make shift to go without him.\n  NERISSA. If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket,\n    you should refuse to perform your father's will, if you should\n    refuse to accept him.\n  PORTIA. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a deep\n    glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket; for if the devil be\n    within and that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I\n    will do anything, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge.\n  NERISSA. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords;\n    they have acquainted me with their determinations, which is\n    indeed to return to their home, and to trouble you with no more\n    suit, unless you may be won by some other sort than your father's\n    imposition, depending on the caskets.\n  PORTIA. If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as\n    Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will. I\n    am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable; for there is not\n    one among them but I dote on his very absence, and I pray God\n    grant them a fair departure.\n  NERISSA. Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a\n    Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither in company of\n    the Marquis of Montferrat?\n  PORTIA. Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, so was he call'd.\n  NERISSA. True, madam; he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes\n    look'd upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.\n  PORTIA. I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy\n    praise.\n\n                         Enter a SERVINGMAN\n\n    How now! what news?\n  SERVINGMAN. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their\n    leave; and there is a forerunner come from a fifth, the Prince of\n    Morocco, who brings word the Prince his master will be here\n    to-night.\n  PORTIA. If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart as I\n    can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his\n    approach; if he have the condition of a saint and the complexion\n    of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me.\n    Come, Nerissa. Sirrah, go before.\n    Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the\n      door.                                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVenice. A public place\n\nEnter BASSANIO With SHYLOCK the Jew\n\n  SHYLOCK. Three thousand ducats- well.\n  BASSANIO. Ay, sir, for three months.\n  SHYLOCK. For three months- well.\n  BASSANIO. For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall be bound.\n  SHYLOCK. Antonio shall become bound- well.\n  BASSANIO. May you stead me? Will you pleasure me? Shall I know your\n    answer?\n  SHYLOCK. Three thousand ducats for three months, and Antonio bound.\n  BASSANIO. Your answer to that.\n  SHYLOCK. Antonio is a good man.\n  BASSANIO. Have you heard any imputation to the contrary?\n  SHYLOCK. Ho, no, no, no, no; my meaning in saying he is a good man\n    is to have you understand me that he is sufficient; yet his means\n    are in supposition: he hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another\n    to the Indies; I understand, moreover, upon the Rialto, he hath a\n    third at Mexico, a fourth for England- and other ventures he\n    hath, squand'red abroad. But ships are but boards, sailors but\n    men; there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and\n    land-thieves- I mean pirates; and then there is the peril of\n    waters, winds, and rocks. The man is, notwithstanding,\n    sufficient. Three thousand ducats- I think I may take his bond.\n  BASSANIO. Be assur'd you may.\n  SHYLOCK. I will be assur'd I may; and, that I may be assured, I\n    will bethink me. May I speak with Antonio?\n  BASSANIO. If it please you to dine with us.\n  SHYLOCK. Yes, to smell pork, to eat of the habitation which your\n    prophet, the Nazarite, conjured the devil into! I will buy with\n    you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so\n    following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray\n    with you. What news on the Rialto? Who is he comes here?\n\n                            Enter ANTONIO\n\n  BASSANIO. This is Signior Antonio.\n  SHYLOCK.  [Aside]  How like a fawning publican he looks!\n    I hate him for he is a Christian;\n    But more for that in low simplicity\n    He lends out money gratis, and brings down\n    The rate of usance here with us in Venice.\n    If I can catch him once upon the hip,\n    I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.\n    He hates our sacred nation; and he rails,\n    Even there where merchants most do congregate,\n    On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,\n    Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe\n    If I forgive him!\n  BASSANIO. Shylock, do you hear?\n  SHYLOCK. I am debating of my present store,\n    And, by the near guess of my memory,\n    I cannot instantly raise up the gross\n    Of full three thousand ducats. What of that?\n    Tubal, a wealthy Hebrew of my tribe,\n    Will furnish me. But soft! how many months\n    Do you desire?  [To ANTONIO]  Rest you fair, good signior;\n    Your worship was the last man in our mouths.\n  ANTONIO. Shylock, albeit I neither lend nor borrow\n    By taking nor by giving of excess,\n    Yet, to supply the ripe wants of my friend,\n    I'll break a custom.  [To BASSANIO]  Is he yet possess'd\n    How much ye would?\n  SHYLOCK. Ay, ay, three thousand ducats.\n  ANTONIO. And for three months.\n  SHYLOCK. I had forgot- three months; you told me so.\n    Well then, your bond; and, let me see- but hear you,\n    Methoughts you said you neither lend nor borrow\n    Upon advantage.\n  ANTONIO. I do never use it.\n  SHYLOCK. When Jacob graz'd his uncle Laban's sheep-\n    This Jacob from our holy Abram was,\n    As his wise mother wrought in his behalf,\n    The third possessor; ay, he was the third-\n  ANTONIO. And what of him? Did he take interest?\n  SHYLOCK. No, not take interest; not, as you would say,\n    Directly int'rest; mark what Jacob did:\n    When Laban and himself were compromis'd\n    That all the eanlings which were streak'd and pied\n    Should fall as Jacob's hire, the ewes, being rank,\n    In end of autumn turned to the rams;\n    And when the work of generation was\n    Between these woolly breeders in the act,\n    The skilful shepherd pill'd me certain wands,\n    And, in the doing of the deed of kind,\n    He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes,\n    Who, then conceiving, did in eaning time\n    Fall parti-colour'd lambs, and those were Jacob's.\n    This was a way to thrive, and he was blest;\n    And thrift is blessing, if men steal it not.\n  ANTONIO. This was a venture, sir, that Jacob serv'd for;\n    A thing not in his power to bring to pass,\n    But sway'd and fashion'd by the hand of heaven.\n    Was this inserted to make interest good?\n    Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams?\n  SHYLOCK. I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast.\n    But note me, signior.\n  ANTONIO.  [Aside]  Mark you this, Bassanio,\n    The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.\n    An evil soul producing holy witness\n    Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,\n    A goodly apple rotten at the heart.\n    O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!\n  SHYLOCK. Three thousand ducats- 'tis a good round sum.\n    Three months from twelve; then let me see, the rate-\n  ANTONIO. Well, Shylock, shall we be beholding to you?\n  SHYLOCK. Signior Antonio, many a time and oft\n    In the Rialto you have rated me\n    About my moneys and my usances;\n    Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,\n    For suff'rance is the badge of all our tribe;\n    You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,\n    And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,\n    And all for use of that which is mine own.\n    Well then, it now appears you need my help;\n    Go to, then; you come to me, and you say\n    'Shylock, we would have moneys.' You say so-\n    You that did void your rheum upon my beard\n    And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur\n    Over your threshold; moneys is your suit.\n    What should I say to you? Should I not say\n    'Hath a dog money? Is it possible\n    A cur can lend three thousand ducats?' Or\n    Shall I bend low and, in a bondman's key,\n    With bated breath and whisp'ring humbleness,\n    Say this:\n    'Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last,\n    You spurn'd me such a day; another time\n    You call'd me dog; and for these courtesies\n    I'll lend you thus much moneys'?\n  ANTONIO. I am as like to call thee so again,\n    To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too.\n    If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not\n    As to thy friends- for when did friendship take\n    A breed for barren metal of his friend?-\n    But lend it rather to thine enemy,\n    Who if he break thou mayst with better face\n    Exact the penalty.\n  SHYLOCK. Why, look you, how you storm!\n    I would be friends with you, and have your love,\n    Forget the shames that you have stain'd me with,\n    Supply your present wants, and take no doit\n    Of usance for my moneys, and you'll not hear me.\n    This is kind I offer.\n  BASSANIO. This were kindness.\n  SHYLOCK. This kindness will I show.\n    Go with me to a notary, seal me there\n    Your single bond, and, in a merry sport,\n    If you repay me not on such a day,\n    In such a place, such sum or sums as are\n    Express'd in the condition, let the forfeit\n    Be nominated for an equal pound\n    Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken\n    In what part of your body pleaseth me.\n  ANTONIO. Content, in faith; I'll seal to such a bond,\n    And say there is much kindness in the Jew.\n  BASSANIO. You shall not seal to such a bond for me;\n    I'll rather dwell in my necessity.\n  ANTONIO. Why, fear not, man; I will not forfeit it;\n    Within these two months- that's a month before\n    This bond expires- I do expect return\n    Of thrice three times the value of this bond.\n  SHYLOCK. O father Abram, what these Christians are,\n    Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect\n    The thoughts of others! Pray you, tell me this:\n    If he should break his day, what should I gain\n    By the exaction of the forfeiture?\n    A pound of man's flesh taken from a man\n    Is not so estimable, profitable neither,\n    As flesh of muttons, beefs, or goats. I say,\n    To buy his favour, I extend this friendship;\n    If he will take it, so; if not, adieu;\n    And, for my love, I pray you wrong me not.\n  ANTONIO. Yes, Shylock, I will seal unto this bond.\n  SHYLOCK. Then meet me forthwith at the notary's;\n    Give him direction for this merry bond,\n    And I will go and purse the ducats straight,\n    See to my house, left in the fearful guard\n    Of an unthrifty knave, and presently\n    I'll be with you.\n  ANTONIO. Hie thee, gentle Jew.                    Exit SHYLOCK\n    The Hebrew will turn Christian: he grows kind.\n  BASSANIO. I like not fair terms and a villain's mind.\n  ANTONIO. Come on; in this there can be no dismay;\n    My ships come home a month before the day.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nFlourish of cornets. Enter the PRINCE of MOROCCO, a tawny Moor all in white,\nand three or four FOLLOWERS accordingly, with PORTIA, NERISSA, and train\n\n  PRINCE OF Morocco. Mislike me not for my complexion,\n    The shadowed livery of the burnish'd sun,\n    To whom I am a neighbour, and near bred.\n    Bring me the fairest creature northward born,\n    Where Phoebus' fire scarce thaws the icicles,\n    And let us make incision for your love\n    To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.\n    I tell thee, lady, this aspect of mine\n    Hath fear'd the valiant; by my love, I swear\n    The best-regarded virgins of our clime\n    Have lov'd it too. I would not change this hue,\n    Except to steal your thoughts, my gentle queen.\n  PORTIA. In terms of choice I am not solely led\n    By nice direction of a maiden's eyes;\n    Besides, the lott'ry of my destiny\n    Bars me the right of voluntary choosing.\n    But, if my father had not scanted me,\n    And hedg'd me by his wit to yield myself\n    His wife who wins me by that means I told you,\n    Yourself, renowned Prince, then stood as fair\n    As any comer I have look'd on yet\n    For my affection.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Even for that I thank you.\n    Therefore, I pray you, lead me to the caskets\n    To try my fortune. By this scimitar,\n    That slew the Sophy and a Persian prince,\n    That won three fields of Sultan Solyman,\n    I would o'erstare the sternest eyes that look,\n    Outbrave the heart most daring on the earth,\n    Pluck the young sucking cubs from the she-bear,\n    Yea, mock the lion when 'a roars for prey,\n    To win thee, lady. But, alas the while!\n    If Hercules and Lichas play at dice\n    Which is the better man, the greater throw\n    May turn by fortune from the weaker band.\n    So is Alcides beaten by his page;\n    And so may I, blind Fortune leading me,\n    Miss that which one unworthier may attain,\n    And die with grieving.\n  PORTIA. You must take your chance,\n    And either not attempt to choose at all,\n    Or swear before you choose, if you choose wrong,\n    Never to speak to lady afterward\n    In way of marriage; therefore be advis'd.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Nor will not; come, bring me unto my chance.\n  PORTIA. First, forward to the temple. After dinner\n    Your hazard shall be made.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Good fortune then,\n    To make me blest or cursed'st among men!\n                                           [Cornets, and exeunt]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter LAUNCELOT GOBBO\n\n  LAUNCELOT. Certainly my conscience will serve me to run from this\n    Jew my master. The fiend is at mine elbow and tempts me, saying\n    to me 'Gobbo, Launcelot Gobbo, good Launcelot' or 'good Gobbo' or\n    'good Launcelot Gobbo, use your legs, take the start, run away.'\n    My conscience says 'No; take heed, honest Launcelot, take heed,\n    honest Gobbo' or, as aforesaid, 'honest Launcelot Gobbo, do not\n    run; scorn running with thy heels.' Well, the most courageous\n    fiend bids me pack. 'Via!' says the fiend; 'away!' says the\n    fiend. 'For the heavens, rouse up a brave mind' says the fiend\n    'and run.' Well, my conscience, hanging about the neck of my\n    heart, says very wisely to me 'My honest friend Launcelot, being\n    an honest man's son' or rather 'an honest woman's son'; for\n    indeed my father did something smack, something grow to, he had a\n    kind of taste- well, my conscience says 'Launcelot, budge not.'\n    'Budge,' says the fiend. 'Budge not,' says my conscience.\n    'Conscience,' say I, (you counsel well.' 'Fiend,' say I, 'you\n    counsel well.' To be rul'd by my conscience, I should stay with\n    the Jew my master, who- God bless the mark!- is a kind of devil;\n    and, to run away from the Jew, I should be ruled by the fiend,\n    who- saving your reverence!- is the devil himself. Certainly the\n    Jew is the very devil incarnation; and, in my conscience, my\n    conscience is but a kind of hard conscience to offer to counsel\n    me to stay with the Jew. The fiend gives the more friendly\n    counsel. I will run, fiend; my heels are at your commandment; I\n    will run.\n\n                     Enter OLD GOBBO, with a basket\n\n  GOBBO. Master young man, you, I pray you, which is the way to\n    master Jew's?\n  LAUNCELOT.  [Aside]  O heavens! This is my true-begotten father,\n    who, being more than sand-blind, high-gravel blind, knows me not.\n    I will try confusions with him.\n  GOBBO. Master young gentleman, I pray you, which is the way to\n    master Jew's?\n  LAUNCELOT. Turn up on your right hand at the next turning, but, at\n    the next turning of all, on your left; marry, at the very next\n    turning, turn of no hand, but turn down indirectly to the Jew's\n    house.\n  GOBBO. Be God's sonties, 'twill be a hard way to hit! Can you tell\n    me whether one Launcelot, that dwells with him, dwell with him or\n    no?\n  LAUNCELOT. Talk you of young Master Launcelot?  [Aside]  Mark me\n    now; now will I raise the waters.- Talk you of young Master\n    Launcelot?\n  GOBBO. No master, sir, but a poor man's son; his father, though I\n    say't, is an honest exceeding poor man, and, God be thanked, well\n    to live.\n  LAUNCELOT. Well, let his father be what 'a will, we talk of young\n    Master Launcelot.\n  GOBBO. Your worship's friend, and Launcelot, sir.\n  LAUNCELOT. But I pray you, ergo, old man, ergo, I beseech you, talk\n    you of young Master Launcelot?\n  GOBBO. Of Launcelot, an't please your mastership.\n  LAUNCELOT. Ergo, Master Launcelot. Talk not of Master Launcelot,\n    father; for the young gentleman, according to Fates and Destinies\n    and such odd sayings, the Sisters Three and such branches of\n    learning, is indeed deceased; or, as you would say in plain\n    terms, gone to heaven.\n  GOBBO. Marry, God forbid! The boy was the very staff of my age, my\n    very prop.\n  LAUNCELOT. Do I look like a cudgel or a hovel-post, a staff or a\n    prop? Do you know me, father?\n  GOBBO. Alack the day, I know you not, young gentleman; but I pray\n    you tell me, is my boy- God rest his soul!- alive or dead?\n  LAUNCELOT. Do you not know me, father?\n  GOBBO. Alack, sir, I am sand-blind; I know you not.\n  LAUNCELOT. Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of the\n    knowing me: it is a wise father that knows his own child. Well,\n    old man, I will tell you news of your son. Give me your blessing;\n    truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man's son\n    may, but in the end truth will out.\n  GOBBO. Pray you, sir, stand up; I am sure you are not Launcelot my\n    boy.\n  LAUNCELOT. Pray you, let's have no more fooling about it, but give\n    me your blessing; I am Launcelot, your boy that was, your son\n    that is, your child that shall be.\n  GOBBO. I cannot think you are my son.\n  LAUNCELOT. I know not what I shall think of that; but I am\n    Launcelot, the Jew's man, and I am sure Margery your wife is my\n    mother.\n  GOBBO. Her name is Margery, indeed. I'll be sworn, if thou be\n    Launcelot, thou art mine own flesh and blood. Lord worshipp'd\n    might he be, what a beard hast thou got! Thou hast got more hair\n    on thy chin than Dobbin my fill-horse has on his tail.\n  LAUNCELOT. It should seem, then, that Dobbin's tail grows backward;\n    I am sure he had more hair of his tail than I have of my face\n    when I last saw him.\n  GOBBO. Lord, how art thou chang'd! How dost thou and thy master\n    agree? I have brought him a present. How 'gree you now?\n  LAUNCELOT. Well, well; but, for mine own part, as I have set up my\n    rest to run away, so I will not rest till I have run some ground.\n    My master's a very Jew. Give him a present! Give him a halter. I\n    am famish'd in his service; you may tell every finger I have with\n    my ribs. Father, I am glad you are come; give me your present to\n    one Master Bassanio, who indeed gives rare new liveries; if I\n    serve not him, I will run as far as God has any ground. O rare\n    fortune! Here comes the man. To him, father, for I am a Jew, if I\n    serve the Jew any longer.\n\n         Enter BASSANIO, with LEONARDO, with a FOLLOWER or two\n\n  BASSANIO. You may do so; but let it be so hasted that supper be\n    ready at the farthest by five of the clock. See these letters\n    delivered, put the liveries to making, and desire Gratiano to\n    come anon to my lodging.                      Exit a SERVANT\n  LAUNCELOT. To him, father.\n  GOBBO. God bless your worship!\n  BASSANIO. Gramercy; wouldst thou aught with me?\n  GOBBO. Here's my son, sir, a poor boy-\n  LAUNCELOT. Not a poor boy, sir, but the rich Jew's man, that would,\n    sir, as my father shall specify-\n  GOBBO. He hath a great infection, sir, as one would say, to serve-\n  LAUNCELOT. Indeed the short and the long is, I serve the Jew, and\n    have a desire, as my father shall specify-\n  GOBBO. His master and he, saving your worship's reverence, are\n    scarce cater-cousins-\n  LAUNCELOT. To be brief, the very truth is that the Jew, having done\n    me wrong, doth cause me, as my father, being I hope an old man,\n    shall frutify unto you-\n  GOBBO. I have here a dish of doves that I would bestow upon your\n    worship; and my suit is-\n  LAUNCELOT. In very brief, the suit is impertinent to myself, as\n    your worship shall know by this honest old man; and, though I say\n    it, though old man, yet poor man, my father.\n  BASSANIO. One speak for both. What would you?\n  LAUNCELOT. Serve you, sir.\n  GOBBO. That is the very defect of the matter, sir.\n  BASSANIO. I know thee well; thou hast obtain'd thy suit.\n    Shylock thy master spoke with me this day,\n    And hath preferr'd thee, if it be preferment\n    To leave a rich Jew's service to become\n    The follower of so poor a gentleman.\n  LAUNCELOT. The old proverb is very well parted between my master\n    Shylock and you, sir: you have the grace of God, sir, and he hath\n    enough.\n  BASSANIO. Thou speak'st it well. Go, father, with thy son.\n    Take leave of thy old master, and inquire\n    My lodging out.  [To a SERVANT]  Give him a livery\n    More guarded than his fellows'; see it done.\n  LAUNCELOT. Father, in. I cannot get a service, no! I have ne'er a\n    tongue in my head!  [Looking on his palm]  Well; if any man in\n    Italy have a fairer table which doth offer to swear upon a book- I\n    shall have good fortune. Go to, here's a simple line of life;\n    here's a small trifle of wives; alas, fifteen wives is nothing;\n    a'leven widows and nine maids is a simple coming-in for one man.\n    And then to scape drowning thrice, and to be in peril of my life\n    with the edge of a feather-bed-here are simple scapes. Well, if\n    Fortune be a woman, she's a good wench for this gear. Father,\n    come; I'll take my leave of the Jew in the twinkling.\n                                  Exeunt LAUNCELOT and OLD GOBBO\n  BASSANIO. I pray thee, good Leonardo, think on this.\n    These things being bought and orderly bestowed,\n    Return in haste, for I do feast to-night\n    My best esteem'd acquaintance; hie thee, go.\n  LEONARDO. My best endeavours shall be done herein.\n\n                          Enter GRATIANO\n\n  GRATIANO. Where's your master?\n  LEONARDO. Yonder, sir, he walks.                          Exit\n  GRATIANO. Signior Bassanio!\n  BASSANIO. Gratiano!\n  GRATIANO. I have suit to you.\n  BASSANIO. You have obtain'd it.\n  GRATIANO. You must not deny me: I must go with you to Belmont.\n  BASSANIO. Why, then you must. But hear thee, Gratiano:\n    Thou art too wild, too rude, and bold of voice-\n    Parts that become thee happily enough,\n    And in such eyes as ours appear not faults;\n    But where thou art not known, why there they show\n    Something too liberal. Pray thee, take pain\n    To allay with some cold drops of modesty\n    Thy skipping spirit; lest through thy wild behaviour\n    I be misconst'red in the place I go to\n    And lose my hopes.\n  GRATIANO. Signior Bassanio, hear me:\n    If I do not put on a sober habit,\n    Talk with respect, and swear but now and then,\n    Wear prayer-books in my pocket, look demurely,\n    Nay more, while grace is saying hood mine eyes\n    Thus with my hat, and sigh, and say amen,\n    Use all the observance of civility\n    Like one well studied in a sad ostent\n    To please his grandam, never trust me more.\n  BASSANIO. Well, we shall see your bearing.\n  GRATIANO. Nay, but I bar to-night; you shall not gauge me\n    By what we do to-night.\n  BASSANIO. No, that were pity;\n    I would entreat you rather to put on\n    Your boldest suit of mirth, for we have friends\n    That purpose merriment. But fare you well;\n    I have some business.\n  GRATIANO. And I must to Lorenzo and the rest;\n    But we will visit you at supper-time.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVenice. SHYLOCK'S house\n\nEnter JESSICA and LAUNCELOT\n\n  JESSICA. I am sorry thou wilt leave my father so.\n    Our house is hell; and thou, a merry devil,\n    Didst rob it of some taste of tediousness.\n    But fare thee well; there is a ducat for thee;\n    And, Launcelot, soon at supper shalt thou see\n    Lorenzo, who is thy new master's guest.\n    Give him this letter; do it secretly.\n    And so farewell. I would not have my father\n    See me in talk with thee.\n  LAUNCELOT. Adieu! tears exhibit my tongue. Most beautiful pagan,\n    most sweet Jew! If a Christian do not play the knave and get\n    thee, I am much deceived. But, adieu! these foolish drops do\n    something drown my manly spirit; adieu!\n  JESSICA. Farewell, good Launcelot.              Exit LAUNCELOT\n    Alack, what heinous sin is it in me\n    To be asham'd to be my father's child!\n    But though I am a daughter to his blood,\n    I am not to his manners. O Lorenzo,\n    If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife,\n    Become a Christian and thy loving wife.                 Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter GRATIANO, LORENZO, SALERIO, and SOLANIO\n\n  LORENZO. Nay, we will slink away in suppertime,\n    Disguise us at my lodging, and return\n    All in an hour.\n  GRATIANO. We have not made good preparation.\n  SALERIO. We have not spoke us yet of torch-bearers.\n  SOLANIO. 'Tis vile, unless it may be quaintly ordered;\n    And better in my mind not undertook.\n  LORENZO. 'Tis now but four o'clock; we have two hours\n    To furnish us.\n\n                 Enter LAUNCELOT, With a letter\n\n    Friend Launcelot, what's the news?\n  LAUNCELOT. An it shall please you to break up this, it shall seem\n    to signify.\n  LORENZO. I know the hand; in faith, 'tis a fair hand,\n    And whiter than the paper it writ on\n    Is the fair hand that writ.\n  GRATIANO. Love-news, in faith!\n  LAUNCELOT. By your leave, sir.\n  LORENZO. Whither goest thou?\n  LAUNCELOT. Marry, sir, to bid my old master, the Jew, to sup\n    to-night with my new master, the Christian.\n  LORENZO. Hold, here, take this. Tell gentle Jessica\n    I will not fail her; speak it privately.\n    Go, gentlemen,                                Exit LAUNCELOT\n    Will you prepare you for this masque to-night?\n    I am provided of a torch-bearer.\n  SALERIO. Ay, marry, I'll be gone about it straight.\n  SOLANIO. And so will I.\n  LORENZO. Meet me and Gratiano\n    At Gratiano's lodging some hour hence.\n  SALERIO. 'Tis good we do so.        Exeunt SALERIO and SOLANIO\n  GRATIANO. Was not that letter from fair Jessica?\n  LORENZO. I must needs tell thee all. She hath directed\n    How I shall take her from her father's house;\n    What gold and jewels she is furnish'd with;\n    What page's suit she hath in readiness.\n    If e'er the Jew her father come to heaven,\n    It will be for his gentle daughter's sake;\n    And never dare misfortune cross her foot,\n    Unless she do it under this excuse,\n    That she is issue to a faithless Jew.\n    Come, go with me, peruse this as thou goest;\n    Fair Jessica shall be my torch-bearer.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nVenice. Before SHYLOCK'S house\n\nEnter SHYLOCK and LAUNCELOT\n\n  SHYLOCK. Well, thou shalt see; thy eyes shall be thy judge,\n    The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio.-\n    What, Jessica!- Thou shalt not gormandize\n    As thou hast done with me- What, Jessica!-\n    And sleep and snore, and rend apparel out-\n    Why, Jessica, I say!\n  LAUNCELOT. Why, Jessica!\n  SHYLOCK. Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call.\n  LAUNCELOT. Your worship was wont to tell me I could do nothing\n    without bidding.\n\n                          Enter JESSICA\n\n  JESSICA. Call you? What is your will?\n  SHYLOCK. I am bid forth to supper, Jessica;\n    There are my keys. But wherefore should I go?\n    I am not bid for love; they flatter me;\n    But yet I'll go in hate, to feed upon\n    The prodigal Christian. Jessica, my girl,\n    Look to my house. I am right loath to go;\n    There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,\n    For I did dream of money-bags to-night.\n  LAUNCELOT. I beseech you, sir, go; my young master doth expect your\n    reproach.\n  SHYLOCK. So do I his.\n  LAUNCELOT. And they have conspired together; I will not say you\n    shall see a masque, but if you do, then it was not for nothing\n    that my nose fell a-bleeding on Black Monday last at six o'clock\n    i' th' morning, falling out that year on Ash Wednesday was four\n    year, in th' afternoon.\n  SHYLOCK. What, are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica:\n    Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum,\n    And the vile squealing of the wry-neck'd fife,\n    Clamber not you up to the casements then,\n    Nor thrust your head into the public street\n    To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces;\n    But stop my house's ears- I mean my casements;\n    Let not the sound of shallow fopp'ry enter\n    My sober house. By Jacob's staff, I swear\n    I have no mind of feasting forth to-night;\n    But I will go. Go you before me, sirrah;\n    Say I will come.\n  LAUNCELOT. I will go before, sir. Mistress, look out at window for\n    all this.\n        There will come a Christian by\n        Will be worth a Jewess' eye.                        Exit\n  SHYLOCK. What says that fool of Hagar's offspring, ha?\n  JESSICA. His words were 'Farewell, mistress'; nothing else.\n  SHYLOCK. The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder,\n    Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day\n    More than the wild-cat; drones hive not with me,\n    Therefore I part with him; and part with him\n    To one that I would have him help to waste\n    His borrowed purse. Well, Jessica, go in;\n    Perhaps I will return immediately.\n    Do as I bid you, shut doors after you.\n    Fast bind, fast find-\n    A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.                  Exit\n  JESSICA. Farewell; and if my fortune be not crost,\n    I have a father, you a daughter, lost.                  Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nVenice. Before SHYLOCK'S house\n\nEnter the maskers, GRATIANO and SALERIO\n\n  GRATIANO. This is the pent-house under which Lorenzo\n    Desired us to make stand.\n  SALERIO. His hour is almost past.\n  GRATIANO. And it is marvel he out-dwells his hour,\n    For lovers ever run before the clock.\n  SALERIO. O, ten times faster Venus' pigeons fly\n    To seal love's bonds new made than they are wont\n    To keep obliged faith unforfeited!\n  GRATIANO. That ever holds: who riseth from a feast\n    With that keen appetite that he sits down?\n    Where is the horse that doth untread again\n    His tedious measures with the unbated fire\n    That he did pace them first? All things that are\n    Are with more spirit chased than enjoyed.\n    How like a younker or a prodigal\n    The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,\n    Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind;\n    How like the prodigal doth she return,\n    With over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails,\n    Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet wind!\n\n                       Enter LORENZO\n\n  SALERIO. Here comes Lorenzo; more of this hereafter.\n  LORENZO. Sweet friends, your patience for my long abode!\n    Not I, but my affairs, have made you wait.\n    When you shall please to play the thieves for wives,\n    I'll watch as long for you then. Approach;\n    Here dwells my father Jew. Ho! who's within?\n\n           Enter JESSICA, above, in boy's clothes\n\n  JESSICA. Who are you? Tell me, for more certainty,\n    Albeit I'll swear that I do know your tongue.\n  LORENZO. Lorenzo, and thy love.\n  JESSICA. Lorenzo, certain; and my love indeed;\n    For who love I so much? And now who knows\n    But you, Lorenzo, whether I am yours?\n  LORENZO. Heaven and thy thoughts are witness that thou art.\n  JESSICA. Here, catch this casket; it is worth the pains.\n    I am glad 'tis night, you do not look on me,\n    For I am much asham'd of my exchange;\n    But love is blind, and lovers cannot see\n    The pretty follies that themselves commit,\n    For, if they could, Cupid himself would blush\n    To see me thus transformed to a boy.\n  LORENZO. Descend, for you must be my torch-bearer.\n  JESSICA. What! must I hold a candle to my shames?\n    They in themselves, good sooth, are too too light.\n    Why, 'tis an office of discovery, love,\n    And I should be obscur'd.\n  LORENZO. So are you, sweet,\n    Even in the lovely garnish of a boy.\n    But come at once,\n    For the close night doth play the runaway,\n    And we are stay'd for at Bassanio's feast.\n  JESSICA. I will make fast the doors, and gild myself\n    With some moe ducats, and be with you straight.\n                                                      Exit above\n\n  GRATIANO. Now, by my hood, a gentle, and no Jew.\n  LORENZO. Beshrew me, but I love her heartily,\n    For she is wise, if I can judge of her,\n    And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true,\n    And true she is, as she hath prov'd herself;\n    And therefore, like herself, wise, fair, and true,\n    Shall she be placed in my constant soul.\n\n                     Enter JESSICA, below\n\n    What, art thou come? On, gentlemen, away;\n    Our masquing mates by this time for us stay.\n                                   Exit with JESSICA and SALERIO\n\n                        Enter ANTONIO\n\n  ANTONIO. Who's there?\n  GRATIANO. Signior Antonio?\n  ANTONIO. Fie, fie, Gratiano, where are all the rest?\n    'Tis nine o'clock; our friends all stay for you;\n    No masque to-night; the wind is come about;\n    Bassanio presently will go aboard;\n    I have sent twenty out to seek for you.\n  GRATIANO. I am glad on't; I desire no more delight\n    Than to be under sail and gone to-night.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nBelmont. PORTIA's house\n\nFlourish of cornets. Enter PORTIA, with the PRINCE OF MOROCCO,\nand their trains\n\n  PORTIA. Go draw aside the curtains and discover\n    The several caskets to this noble Prince.\n    Now make your choice.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. The first, of gold, who this inscription bears:\n    'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'\n    The second, silver, which this promise carries:\n    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'\n    This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt:\n    'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'\n    How shall I know if I do choose the right?\n  PORTIA. The one of them contains my picture, Prince;\n    If you choose that, then I am yours withal.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Some god direct my judgment! Let me see;\n    I will survey th' inscriptions back again.\n    What says this leaden casket?\n    'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'\n    Must give- for what? For lead? Hazard for lead!\n    This casket threatens; men that hazard all\n    Do it in hope of fair advantages.\n    A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross;\n    I'll then nor give nor hazard aught for lead.\n    What says the silver with her virgin hue?\n    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'\n    As much as he deserves! Pause there, Morocco,\n    And weigh thy value with an even hand.\n    If thou beest rated by thy estimation,\n    Thou dost deserve enough, and yet enough\n    May not extend so far as to the lady;\n    And yet to be afeard of my deserving\n    Were but a weak disabling of myself.\n    As much as I deserve? Why, that's the lady!\n    I do in birth deserve her, and in fortunes,\n    In graces, and in qualities of breeding;\n    But more than these, in love I do deserve.\n    What if I stray'd no farther, but chose here?\n    Let's see once more this saying grav'd in gold:\n    'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'\n    Why, that's the lady! All the world desires her;\n    From the four corners of the earth they come\n    To kiss this shrine, this mortal-breathing saint.\n    The Hyrcanian deserts and the vasty wilds\n    Of wide Arabia are as throughfares now\n    For princes to come view fair Portia.\n    The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head\n    Spits in the face of heaven, is no bar\n    To stop the foreign spirits, but they come\n    As o'er a brook to see fair Portia.\n    One of these three contains her heavenly picture.\n    Is't like that lead contains her? 'Twere damnation\n    To think so base a thought; it were too gross\n    To rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave.\n    Or shall I think in silver she's immur'd,\n    Being ten times undervalued to tried gold?\n    O sinful thought! Never so rich a gem\n    Was set in worse than gold. They have in England\n    A coin that bears the figure of an angel\n    Stamp'd in gold; but that's insculp'd upon.\n    But here an angel in a golden bed\n    Lies all within. Deliver me the key;\n    Here do I choose, and thrive I as I may!\n  PORTIA. There, take it, Prince, and if my form lie there,\n    Then I am yours.                [He opens the golden casket]\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. O hell! what have we here?\n    A carrion Death, within whose empty eye\n    There is a written scroll! I'll read the writing.\n         'All that glisters is not gold,\n         Often have you heard that told;\n         Many a man his life hath sold\n         But my outside to behold.\n         Gilded tombs do worms infold.\n         Had you been as wise as bold,\n         Young in limbs, in judgment old,\n         Your answer had not been inscroll'd.\n         Fare you well, your suit is cold.'\n      Cold indeed, and labour lost,\n      Then farewell, heat, and welcome, frost.\n    Portia, adieu! I have too griev'd a heart\n    To take a tedious leave; thus losers part.\n                        Exit with his train. Flourish of cornets\n  PORTIA. A gentle riddance. Draw the curtains, go.\n    Let all of his complexion choose me so.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter SALERIO and SOLANIO\n\n  SALERIO. Why, man, I saw Bassanio under sail;\n    With him is Gratiano gone along;\n    And in their ship I am sure Lorenzo is not.\n  SOLANIO. The villain Jew with outcries rais'd the Duke,\n    Who went with him to search Bassanio's ship.\n  SALERIO. He came too late, the ship was under sail;\n    But there the Duke was given to understand\n    That in a gondola were seen together\n    Lorenzo and his amorous Jessica;\n    Besides, Antonio certified the Duke\n    They were not with Bassanio in his ship.\n  SOLANIO. I never heard a passion so confus'd,\n    So strange, outrageous, and so variable,\n    As the dog Jew did utter in the streets.\n    'My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!\n    Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats!\n    Justice! the law! My ducats and my daughter!\n    A sealed bag, two sealed bags of ducats,\n    Of double ducats, stol'n from me by my daughter!\n    And jewels- two stones, two rich and precious stones,\n    Stol'n by my daughter! Justice! Find the girl;\n    She hath the stones upon her and the ducats.'\n  SALERIO. Why, all the boys in Venice follow him,\n    Crying, his stones, his daughter, and his ducats.\n  SOLANIO. Let good Antonio look he keep his day,\n    Or he shall pay for this.\n  SALERIO. Marry, well rememb'red;\n    I reason'd with a Frenchman yesterday,\n    Who told me, in the narrow seas that part\n    The French and English, there miscarried\n    A vessel of our country richly fraught.\n    I thought upon Antonio when he told me,\n    And wish'd in silence that it were not his.\n  SOLANIO. You were best to tell Antonio what you hear;\n    Yet do not suddenly, for it may grieve him.\n  SALERIO. A kinder gentleman treads not the earth.\n    I saw Bassanio and Antonio part.\n    Bassanio told him he would make some speed\n    Of his return. He answered 'Do not so;\n    Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio,\n    But stay the very riping of the time;\n    And for the Jew's bond which he hath of me,\n    Let it not enter in your mind of love;\n    Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts\n    To courtship, and such fair ostents of love\n    As shall conveniently become you there.'\n    And even there, his eye being big with tears,\n    Turning his face, he put his hand behind him,\n    And with affection wondrous sensible\n    He wrung Bassanio's hand; and so they parted.\n  SOLANIO. I think he only loves the world for him.\n    I pray thee, let us go and find him out,\n    And quicken his embraced heaviness\n    With some delight or other.\n  SALERIO. Do we so.                                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IX.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter NERISSA, and a SERVITOR\n\n  NERISSA. Quick, quick, I pray thee, draw the curtain straight;\n    The Prince of Arragon hath ta'en his oath,\n    And comes to his election presently.\n\n       Flourish of cornets. Enter the PRINCE OF ARRAGON,\n                    PORTIA, and their trains\n\n  PORTIA. Behold, there stand the caskets, noble Prince.\n    If you choose that wherein I am contain'd,\n    Straight shall our nuptial rites be solemniz'd;\n    But if you fail, without more speech, my lord,\n    You must be gone from hence immediately.\n  ARRAGON. I am enjoin'd by oath to observe three things:\n    First, never to unfold to any one\n    Which casket 'twas I chose; next, if I fail\n    Of the right casket, never in my life\n    To woo a maid in way of marriage;\n    Lastly,\n    If I do fail in fortune of my choice,\n    Immediately to leave you and be gone.\n  PORTIA. To these injunctions every one doth swear\n    That comes to hazard for my worthless self.\n  ARRAGON. And so have I address'd me. Fortune now\n    To my heart's hope! Gold, silver, and base lead.\n    'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'\n    You shall look fairer ere I give or hazard.\n    What says the golden chest? Ha! let me see:\n    'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'\n    What many men desire- that 'many' may be meant\n    By the fool multitude, that choose by show,\n    Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach;\n    Which pries not to th' interior, but, like the martlet,\n    Builds in the weather on the outward wall,\n    Even in the force and road of casualty.\n    I will not choose what many men desire,\n    Because I will not jump with common spirits\n    And rank me with the barbarous multitudes.\n    Why, then to thee, thou silver treasure-house!\n    Tell me once more what title thou dost bear.\n    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'\n    And well said too; for who shall go about\n    To cozen fortune, and be honourable\n    Without the stamp of merit? Let none presume\n    To wear an undeserved dignity.\n    O that estates, degrees, and offices,\n    Were not deriv'd corruptly, and that clear honour\n    Were purchas'd by the merit of the wearer!\n    How many then should cover that stand bare!\n    How many be commanded that command!\n    How much low peasantry would then be gleaned\n    From the true seed of honour! and how much honour\n    Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times,\n    To be new varnish'd! Well, but to my choice.\n    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'\n    I will assume desert. Give me a key for this,\n    And instantly unlock my fortunes here.\n                                    [He opens the silver casket]\n  PORTIA.  [Aside]  Too long a pause for that which you find there.\n  ARRAGON. What's here? The portrait of a blinking idiot\n    Presenting me a schedule! I will read it.\n    How much unlike art thou to Portia!\n    How much unlike my hopes and my deservings!\n    'Who chooseth me shall have as much as he deserves.'\n    Did I deserve no more than a fool's head?\n    Is that my prize? Are my deserts no better?\n  PORTIA. To offend and judge are distinct offices\n    And of opposed natures.\n  ARRAGON. What is here?  [Reads]\n\n         'The fire seven times tried this;\n         Seven times tried that judgment is\n         That did never choose amiss.\n         Some there be that shadows kiss,\n         Such have but a shadow's bliss.\n         There be fools alive iwis\n         Silver'd o'er, and so was this.\n         Take what wife you will to bed,\n         I will ever be your head.\n         So be gone; you are sped.'\n\n         Still more fool I shall appear\n         By the time I linger here.\n         With one fool's head I came to woo,\n         But I go away with two.\n         Sweet, adieu! I'll keep my oath,\n         Patiently to bear my wroth.         Exit with his train\n\n  PORTIA. Thus hath the candle sing'd the moth.\n    O, these deliberate fools! When they do choose,\n    They have the wisdom by their wit to lose.\n  NERISSA. The ancient saying is no heresy:\n    Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.\n  PORTIA. Come, draw the curtain, Nerissa.\n\n                       Enter a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. Where is my lady?\n  PORTIA. Here; what would my lord?\n  SERVANT. Madam, there is alighted at your gate\n    A young Venetian, one that comes before\n    To signify th' approaching of his lord,\n    From whom he bringeth sensible regreets;\n    To wit, besides commends and courteous breath,\n    Gifts of rich value. Yet I have not seen\n    So likely an ambassador of love.\n    A day in April never came so sweet\n    To show how costly summer was at hand\n    As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.\n  PORTIA. No more, I pray thee; I am half afeard\n    Thou wilt say anon he is some kin to thee,\n    Thou spend'st such high-day wit in praising him.\n    Come, come, Nerissa, for I long to see\n    Quick Cupid's post that comes so mannerly.\n  NERISSA. Bassanio, Lord Love, if thy will it be!        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter SOLANIO and SALERIO\n\n  SOLANIO. Now, what news on the Rialto?\n  SALERIO. Why, yet it lives there uncheck'd that Antonio hath a ship\n    of rich lading wreck'd on the narrow seas; the Goodwins I think\n    they call the place, a very dangerous flat and fatal, where the\n    carcases of many a tall ship lie buried, as they say, if my\n    gossip Report be an honest woman of her word.\n  SOLANIO. I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapp'd\n    ginger or made her neighbours believe she wept for the death of a\n    third husband. But it is true, without any slips of prolixity or\n    crossing the plain highway of talk, that the good Antonio, the\n    honest Antonio- O that I had a title good enough to keep his name\n    company!-\n  SALERIO. Come, the full stop.\n  SOLANIO. Ha! What sayest thou? Why, the end is, he hath lost a\n    ship.\n  SALERIO. I would it might prove the end of his losses.\n  SOLANIO. Let me say amen betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer,\n    for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew.\n\n                             Enter SHYLOCK\n\n    How now, Shylock? What news among the merchants?\n  SHYLOCK. You knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my\n    daughter's flight.\n  SALERIO. That's certain; I, for my part, knew the tailor that made\n    the wings she flew withal.\n  SOLANIO. And Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was flidge;\n    and then it is the complexion of them all to leave the dam.\n  SHYLOCK. She is damn'd for it.\n  SALERIO. That's certain, if the devil may be her judge.\n  SHYLOCK. My own flesh and blood to rebel!\n  SOLANIO. Out upon it, old carrion! Rebels it at these years?\n  SHYLOCK. I say my daughter is my flesh and my blood.\n  SALERIO. There is more difference between thy flesh and hers than\n    between jet and ivory; more between your bloods than there is\n    between red wine and Rhenish. But tell us, do you hear whether\n    Antonio have had any loss at sea or no?\n  SHYLOCK. There I have another bad match: a bankrupt, a prodigal,\n    who dare scarce show his head on the Rialto; a beggar, that was\n    us'd to come so smug upon the mart. Let him look to his bond. He\n    was wont to call me usurer; let him look to his bond. He was wont\n    to lend money for a Christian courtesy; let him look to his bond.\n  SALERIO. Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his\n    flesh. What's that good for?\n  SHYLOCK. To bait fish withal. If it will feed nothing else, it will\n    feed my revenge. He hath disgrac'd me and hind'red me half a\n    million; laugh'd at my losses, mock'd at my gains, scorned my\n    nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine\n    enemies. And what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?\n    Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections,\n    passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,\n    subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed\n    and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If\n    you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh?\n    If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we\n    not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you\n    in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility?\n    Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance\n    be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me\n    I will execute; and itshall go hard but I will better the\n    instruction.\n\n                    Enter a MAN from ANTONIO\n\n  MAN. Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house, and desires to\n    speak with you both.\n  SALERIO. We have been up and down to seek him.\n\n                          Enter TUBAL\n\n  SOLANIO. Here comes another of the tribe; a third cannot be\n    match'd, unless the devil himself turn Jew.\n                                Exeunt SOLANIO, SALERIO, and MAN\n  SHYLOCK. How now, Tubal, what news from Genoa? Hast thou found my\n    daughter?\n  TUBAL. I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her.\n  SHYLOCK. Why there, there, there, there! A diamond gone, cost me\n    two thousand ducats in Frankfort! The curse never fell upon our\n    nation till now; I never felt it till now. Two thousand ducats in\n    that, and other precious, precious jewels. I would my daughter\n    were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear; would she were\n    hears'd at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin! No news of\n    them? Why, so- and I know not what's spent in the search. Why,\n    thou- loss upon loss! The thief gone with so much, and so much to\n    find the thief; and no satisfaction, no revenge; nor no ill luck\n    stirring but what lights o' my shoulders; no sighs but o' my\n    breathing; no tears but o' my shedding!\n  TUBAL. Yes, other men have ill luck too: Antonio, as I heard in\n    Genoa-\n  SHYLOCK. What, what, what? Ill luck, ill luck?\n  TUBAL. Hath an argosy cast away coming from Tripolis.\n  SHYLOCK. I thank God, I thank God. Is it true, is it true?\n  TUBAL. I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck.\n  SHYLOCK. I thank thee, good Tubal. Good news, good news- ha, ha!-\n    heard in Genoa.\n  TUBAL. Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one night,\n    fourscore ducats.\n  SHYLOCK. Thou stick'st a dagger in me- I shall never see my gold\n    again. Fourscore ducats at a sitting! Fourscore ducats!\n  TUBAL. There came divers of Antonio's creditors in my company to\n    Venice that swear he cannot choose but break.\n  SHYLOCK. I am very glad of it; I'll plague him, I'll torture him; I\n    am glad of it.\n  TUBAL. One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter\n    for a monkey.\n  SHYLOCK. Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my\n    turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor; I would not\n    have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.\n  TUBAL. But Antonio is certainly undone.\n  SHYLOCK. Nay, that's true; that's very true. Go, Tubal, fee me an\n    officer; bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of\n    him, if he forfeit; for, were he out of Venice, I can make what\n    merchandise I will. Go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go,\n    good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal.                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter BASSANIO, PORTIA, GRATIANO, NERISSA, and all their trains\n\n  PORTIA. I pray you tarry; pause a day or two\n    Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong,\n    I lose your company; therefore forbear a while.\n    There's something tells me- but it is not love-\n    I would not lose you; and you know yourself\n    Hate counsels not in such a quality.\n    But lest you should not understand me well-\n    And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought-\n    I would detain you here some month or two\n    Before you venture for me. I could teach you\n    How to choose right, but then I am forsworn;\n    So will I never be; so may you miss me;\n    But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin,\n    That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes!\n    They have o'erlook'd me and divided me;\n    One half of me is yours, the other half yours-\n    Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,\n    And so all yours. O! these naughty times\n    Puts bars between the owners and their rights;\n    And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so,\n    Let fortune go to hell for it, not I.\n    I speak too long, but 'tis to peize the time,\n    To eke it, and to draw it out in length,\n    To stay you from election.\n  BASSANIO. Let me choose;\n    For as I am, I live upon the rack.\n  PORTIA. Upon the rack, Bassanio? Then confess\n    What treason there is mingled with your love.\n  BASSANIO. None but that ugly treason of mistrust\n    Which makes me fear th' enjoying of my love;\n    There may as well be amity and life\n    'Tween snow and fire as treason and my love.\n  PORTIA. Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,\n    Where men enforced do speak anything.\n  BASSANIO. Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth.\n  PORTIA. Well then, confess and live.\n  BASSANIO. 'Confess' and 'love'\n    Had been the very sum of my confession.\n    O happy torment, when my torturer\n    Doth teach me answers for deliverance!\n    But let me to my fortune and the caskets.\n  PORTIA. Away, then; I am lock'd in one of them.\n    If you do love me, you will find me out.\n    Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof;\n    Let music sound while he doth make his choice;\n    Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,\n    Fading in music. That the comparison\n    May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream\n    And wat'ry death-bed for him. He may win;\n    And what is music then? Then music is\n    Even as the flourish when true subjects bow\n    To a new-crowned monarch; such it is\n    As are those dulcet sounds in break of day\n    That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear\n    And summon him to marriage. Now he goes,\n    With no less presence, but with much more love,\n    Than young Alcides when he did redeem\n    The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy\n    To the sea-monster. I stand for sacrifice;\n    The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,\n    With bleared visages come forth to view\n    The issue of th' exploit. Go, Hercules!\n    Live thou, I live. With much much more dismay\n    I view the fight than thou that mak'st the fray.\n\n                            A SONG\n\n      the whilst BASSANIO comments on the caskets to himself\n\n                 Tell me where is fancy bred,\n                 Or in the heart or in the head,\n                 How begot, how nourished?\n                   Reply, reply.\n                 It is engend'red in the eyes,\n                 With gazing fed; and fancy dies\n                 In the cradle where it lies.\n                   Let us all ring fancy's knell:\n                   I'll begin it- Ding, dong, bell.\n  ALL.           Ding, dong, bell.\n\n  BASSANIO. So may the outward shows be least themselves;\n    The world is still deceiv'd with ornament.\n    In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt\n    But, being season'd with a gracious voice,\n    Obscures the show of evil? In religion,\n    What damned error but some sober brow\n    Will bless it, and approve it with a text,\n    Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?\n    There is no vice so simple but assumes\n    Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.\n    How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false\n    As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins\n    The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars;\n    Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk!\n    And these assume but valour's excrement\n    To render them redoubted. Look on beauty\n    And you shall see 'tis purchas'd by the weight,\n    Which therein works a miracle in nature,\n    Making them lightest that wear most of it;\n    So are those crisped snaky golden locks\n    Which make such wanton gambols with the wind\n    Upon supposed fairness often known\n    To be the dowry of a second head-\n    The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.\n    Thus ornament is but the guiled shore\n    To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf\n    Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,\n    The seeming truth which cunning times put on\n    To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold,\n    Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee;\n    Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge\n    'Tween man and man; but thou, thou meagre lead,\n    Which rather threaten'st than dost promise aught,\n    Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence,\n    And here choose I. Joy be the consequence!\n  PORTIA.  [Aside]  How all the other passions fleet to air,\n    As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac'd despair,\n    And shudd'ring fear, and green-ey'd jealousy!\n    O love, be moderate, allay thy ecstasy,\n    In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess!\n    I feel too much thy blessing. Make it less,\n    For fear I surfeit.\n  BASSANIO.  [Opening the leaden casket]  What find I here?\n    Fair Portia's counterfeit! What demi-god\n    Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?\n    Or whether riding on the balls of mine\n    Seem they in motion? Here are sever'd lips,\n    Parted with sugar breath; so sweet a bar\n    Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs\n    The painter plays the spider, and hath woven\n    A golden mesh t' entrap the hearts of men\n    Faster than gnats in cobwebs. But her eyes-\n    How could he see to do them? Having made one,\n    Methinks it should have power to steal both his,\n    And leave itself unfurnish'd. Yet look how far\n    The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow\n    In underprizing it, so far this shadow\n    Doth limp behind the substance. Here's the scroll,\n    The continent and summary of my fortune.\n         'You that choose not by the view,\n         Chance as fair and choose as true!\n         Since this fortune falls to you,\n         Be content and seek no new.\n         If you be well pleas'd with this,\n         And hold your fortune for your bliss,\n         Turn to where your lady is\n         And claim her with a loving kiss.'\n    A gentle scroll. Fair lady, by your leave;\n    I come by note, to give and to receive.\n    Like one of two contending in a prize,\n    That thinks he hath done well in people's eyes,\n    Hearing applause and universal shout,\n    Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt\n    Whether those peals of praise be his or no;\n    So, thrice-fair lady, stand I even so,\n    As doubtful whether what I see be true,\n    Until confirm'd, sign'd, ratified by you.\n  PORTIA. You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,\n    Such as I am. Though for myself alone\n    I would not be ambitious in my wish\n    To wish myself much better, yet for you\n    I would be trebled twenty times myself,\n    A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich,\n    That only to stand high in your account\n    I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,\n    Exceed account. But the full sum of me\n    Is sum of something which, to term in gross,\n    Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd;\n    Happy in this, she is not yet so old\n    But she may learn; happier than this,\n    She is not bred so dull but she can learn;\n    Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit\n    Commits itself to yours to be directed,\n    As from her lord, her governor, her king.\n    Myself and what is mine to you and yours\n    Is now converted. But now I was the lord\n    Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,\n    Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now,\n    This house, these servants, and this same myself,\n    Are yours- my lord's. I give them with this ring,\n    Which when you part from, lose, or give away,\n    Let it presage the ruin of your love,\n    And be my vantage to exclaim on you.\n  BASSANIO. Madam, you have bereft me of all words;\n    Only my blood speaks to you in my veins;\n    And there is such confusion in my powers\n    As, after some oration fairly spoke\n    By a beloved prince, there doth appear\n    Among the buzzing pleased multitude,\n    Where every something, being blent together,\n    Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy\n    Express'd and not express'd. But when this ring\n    Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence;\n    O, then be bold to say Bassanio's dead!\n  NERISSA. My lord and lady, it is now our time\n    That have stood by and seen our wishes prosper\n    To cry 'Good joy.' Good joy, my lord and lady!\n  GRATIANO. My Lord Bassanio, and my gentle lady,\n    I wish you all the joy that you can wish,\n    For I am sure you can wish none from me;\n    And, when your honours mean to solemnize\n    The bargain of your faith, I do beseech you\n    Even at that time I may be married too.\n  BASSANIO. With all my heart, so thou canst get a wife.\n  GRATIANO. I thank your lordship, you have got me one.\n    My eyes, my lord, can look as swift as yours:\n    You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid;\n    You lov'd, I lov'd; for intermission\n    No more pertains to me, my lord, than you.\n    Your fortune stood upon the caskets there,\n    And so did mine too, as the matter falls;\n    For wooing here until I sweat again,\n    And swearing till my very roof was dry\n    With oaths of love, at last- if promise last-\n    I got a promise of this fair one here\n    To have her love, provided that your fortune\n    Achiev'd her mistress.\n  PORTIA. Is this true, Nerissa?\n  NERISSA. Madam, it is, so you stand pleas'd withal.\n  BASSANIO. And do you, Gratiano, mean good faith?\n  GRATIANO. Yes, faith, my lord.\n  BASSANIO. Our feast shall be much honoured in your marriage.\n  GRATIANO. We'll play with them: the first boy for a thousand\n    ducats.\n  NERISSA. What, and stake down?\n  GRATIANO. No; we shall ne'er win at that sport, and stake down-\n    But who comes here? Lorenzo and his infidel?\n    What, and my old Venetian friend, Salerio!\n\n          Enter LORENZO, JESSICA, and SALERIO, a messenger\n                           from Venice\n\n  BASSANIO. Lorenzo and Salerio, welcome hither,\n    If that the youth of my new int'rest here\n    Have power to bid you welcome. By your leave,\n    I bid my very friends and countrymen,\n    Sweet Portia, welcome.\n  PORTIA. So do I, my lord;\n    They are entirely welcome.\n  LORENZO. I thank your honour. For my part, my lord,\n    My purpose was not to have seen you here;\n    But meeting with Salerio by the way,\n    He did entreat me, past all saying nay,\n    To come with him along.\n  SALERIO. I did, my lord,\n    And I have reason for it. Signior Antonio\n    Commends him to you.               [Gives BASSANIO a letter]\n  BASSANIO. Ere I ope his letter,\n    I pray you tell me how my good friend doth.\n  SALERIO. Not sick, my lord, unless it be in mind;\n    Nor well, unless in mind; his letter there\n    Will show you his estate.        [BASSANIO opens the letter]\n  GRATIANO. Nerissa, cheer yond stranger; bid her welcome.\n    Your hand, Salerio. What's the news from Venice?\n    How doth that royal merchant, good Antonio?\n    I know he will be glad of our success:\n    We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.\n  SALERIO. I would you had won the fleece that he hath lost.\n  PORTIA. There are some shrewd contents in yond same paper\n    That steals the colour from Bassanio's cheek:\n    Some dear friend dead, else nothing in the world\n    Could turn so much the constitution\n    Of any constant man. What, worse and worse!\n    With leave, Bassanio: I am half yourself,\n    And I must freely have the half of anything\n    That this same paper brings you.\n  BASSANIO. O sweet Portia,\n    Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words\n    That ever blotted paper! Gentle lady,\n    When I did first impart my love to you,\n    I freely told you all the wealth I had\n    Ran in my veins- I was a gentleman;\n    And then I told you true. And yet, dear lady,\n    Rating myself at nothing, you shall see\n    How much I was a braggart. When I told you\n    My state was nothing, I should then have told you\n    That I was worse than nothing; for indeed\n    I have engag'd myself to a dear friend,\n    Engag'd my friend to his mere enemy,\n    To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady,\n    The paper as the body of my friend,\n    And every word in it a gaping wound\n    Issuing life-blood. But is it true, Salerio?\n    Hath all his ventures fail'd? What, not one hit?\n    From Tripolis, from Mexico, and England,\n    From Lisbon, Barbary, and India,\n    And not one vessel scape the dreadful touch\n    Of merchant-marring rocks?\n  SALERIO. Not one, my lord.\n    Besides, it should appear that, if he had\n    The present money to discharge the Jew,\n    He would not take it. Never did I know\n    A creature that did bear the shape of man\n    So keen and greedy to confound a man.\n    He plies the Duke at morning and at night,\n    And doth impeach the freedom of the state,\n    If they deny him justice. Twenty merchants,\n    The Duke himself, and the magnificoes\n    Of greatest port, have all persuaded with him;\n    But none can drive him from the envious plea\n    Of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond.\n  JESSICA. When I was with him, I have heard him swear\n    To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen,\n    That he would rather have Antonio's flesh\n    Than twenty times the value of the sum\n    That he did owe him; and I know, my lord,\n    If law, authority, and power, deny not,\n    It will go hard with poor Antonio.\n  PORTIA. Is it your dear friend that is thus in trouble?\n  BASSANIO. The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,\n    The best condition'd and unwearied spirit\n    In doing courtesies; and one in whom\n    The ancient Roman honour more appears\n    Than any that draws breath in Italy.\n  PORTIA. What sum owes he the Jew?\n  BASSANIO. For me, three thousand ducats.\n  PORTIA. What! no more?\n    Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond;\n    Double six thousand, and then treble that,\n    Before a friend of this description\n    Shall lose a hair through Bassanio's fault.\n    First go with me to church and call me wife,\n    And then away to Venice to your friend;\n    For never shall you lie by Portia's side\n    With an unquiet soul. You shall have gold\n    To pay the petty debt twenty times over.\n    When it is paid, bring your true friend along.\n    My maid Nerissa and myself meantime\n    Will live as maids and widows. Come, away;\n    For you shall hence upon your wedding day.\n    Bid your friends welcome, show a merry cheer;\n    Since you are dear bought, I will love you dear.\n    But let me hear the letter of your friend.\n  BASSANIO.  [Reads]  'Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all miscarried,\n    my creditors grow cruel, my estate is very low, my bond to the\n    Jew is forfeit; and since, in paying it, it is impossible I\n    should live, all debts are clear'd between you and I, if I might\n    but see you at my death. Notwithstanding, use your pleasure; if\n    your love do not persuade you to come, let not my letter.'\n  PORTIA. O love, dispatch all business and be gone!\n  BASSANIO. Since I have your good leave to go away,\n    I will make haste; but, till I come again,\n    No bed shall e'er be guilty of my stay,\n    Nor rest be interposer 'twixt us twain.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter SHYLOCK, SOLANIO, ANTONIO, and GAOLER\n\n  SHYLOCK. Gaoler, look to him. Tell not me of mercy-\n    This is the fool that lent out money gratis.\n    Gaoler, look to him.\n  ANTONIO. Hear me yet, good Shylock.\n  SHYLOCK. I'll have my bond; speak not against my bond.\n    I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond.\n    Thou call'dst me dog before thou hadst a cause,\n    But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs;\n    The Duke shall grant me justice. I do wonder,\n    Thou naughty gaoler, that thou art so fond\n    To come abroad with him at his request.\n  ANTONIO. I pray thee hear me speak.\n  SHYLOCK. I'll have my bond. I will not hear thee speak;\n    I'll have my bond; and therefore speak no more.\n    I'll not be made a soft and dull-ey'd fool,\n    To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield,\n    To Christian intercessors. Follow not;\n    I'll have no speaking; I will have my bond.             Exit\n  SOLANIO. It is the most impenetrable cur\n    That ever kept with men.\n  ANTONIO. Let him alone;\n    I'll follow him no more with bootless prayers.\n    He seeks my life; his reason well I know:\n    I oft deliver'd from his forfeitures\n    Many that have at times made moan to me;\n    Therefore he hates me.\n  SOLANIO. I am sure the Duke\n    Will never grant this forfeiture to hold.\n  ANTONIO. The Duke cannot deny the course of law;\n    For the commodity that strangers have\n    With us in Venice, if it be denied,\n    Will much impeach the justice of the state,\n    Since that the trade and profit of the city\n    Consisteth of all nations. Therefore, go;\n    These griefs and losses have so bated me\n    That I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh\n    To-morrow to my bloody creditor.\n    Well, gaoler, on; pray God Bassanio come\n    To see me pay his debt, and then I care not.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter PORTIA, NERISSA, LORENZO, JESSICA, and BALTHASAR\n\n  LORENZO. Madam, although I speak it in your presence,\n    You have a noble and a true conceit\n    Of godlike amity, which appears most strongly\n    In bearing thus the absence of your lord.\n    But if you knew to whom you show this honour,\n    How true a gentleman you send relief,\n    How dear a lover of my lord your husband,\n    I know you would be prouder of the work\n    Than customary bounty can enforce you.\n  PORTIA. I never did repent for doing good,\n    Nor shall not now; for in companions\n    That do converse and waste the time together,\n    Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,\n    There must be needs a like proportion\n    Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit,\n    Which makes me think that this Antonio,\n    Being the bosom lover of my lord,\n    Must needs be like my lord. If it be so,\n    How little is the cost I have bestowed\n    In purchasing the semblance of my soul\n    From out the state of hellish cruelty!\n    This comes too near the praising of myself;\n    Therefore, no more of it; hear other things.\n    Lorenzo, I commit into your hands\n    The husbandry and manage of my house\n    Until my lord's return; for mine own part,\n    I have toward heaven breath'd a secret vow\n    To live in prayer and contemplation,\n    Only attended by Nerissa here,\n    Until her husband and my lord's return.\n    There is a monastery two miles off,\n    And there we will abide. I do desire you\n    Not to deny this imposition,\n    The which my love and some necessity\n    Now lays upon you.\n  LORENZO. Madam, with all my heart\n    I shall obey you in an fair commands.\n  PORTIA. My people do already know my mind,\n    And will acknowledge you and Jessica\n    In place of Lord Bassanio and myself.\n    So fare you well till we shall meet again.\n  LORENZO. Fair thoughts and happy hours attend on you!\n  JESSICA. I wish your ladyship all heart's content.\n  PORTIA. I thank you for your wish, and am well pleas'd\n    To wish it back on you. Fare you well, Jessica.\n                                      Exeunt JESSICA and LORENZO\n    Now, Balthasar,\n    As I have ever found thee honest-true,\n    So let me find thee still. Take this same letter,\n    And use thou all th' endeavour of a man\n    In speed to Padua; see thou render this\n    Into my cousin's hands, Doctor Bellario;\n    And look what notes and garments he doth give thee,\n    Bring them, I pray thee, with imagin'd speed\n    Unto the traject, to the common ferry\n    Which trades to Venice. Waste no time in words,\n    But get thee gone; I shall be there before thee.\n  BALTHASAR. Madam, I go with all convenient speed.         Exit\n  PORTIA. Come on, Nerissa, I have work in hand\n    That you yet know not of; we'll see our husbands\n    Before they think of us.\n  NERISSA. Shall they see us?\n  PORTIA. They shall, Nerissa; but in such a habit\n    That they shall think we are accomplished\n    With that we lack. I'll hold thee any wager,\n    When we are both accoutred like young men,\n    I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two,\n    And wear my dagger with the braver grace,\n    And speak between the change of man and boy\n    With a reed voice; and turn two mincing steps\n    Into a manly stride; and speak of frays\n    Like a fine bragging youth; and tell quaint lies,\n    How honourable ladies sought my love,\n    Which I denying, they fell sick and died-\n    I could not do withal. Then I'll repent,\n    And wish for all that, that I had not kill'd them.\n    And twenty of these puny lies I'll tell,\n    That men shall swear I have discontinued school\n    About a twelvemonth. I have within my mind\n    A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks,\n    Which I will practise.\n  NERISSA. Why, shall we turn to men?\n  PORTIA. Fie, what a question's that,\n    If thou wert near a lewd interpreter!\n    But come, I'll tell thee all my whole device\n    When I am in my coach, which stays for us\n    At the park gate; and therefore haste away,\n    For we must measure twenty miles to-day.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nBelmont. The garden\n\nEnter LAUNCELOT and JESSICA\n\n  LAUNCELOT. Yes, truly; for, look you, the sins of the father are to\n    be laid upon the children; therefore, I promise you, I fear you.\n    I was always plain with you, and so now I speak my agitation of\n    the matter; therefore be o' good cheer, for truly I think you are\n    damn'd. There is but one hope in it that can do you any good, and\n    that is but a kind of bastard hope, neither.\n  JESSICA. And what hope is that, I pray thee?\n  LAUNCELOT. Marry, you may partly hope that your father got you not-\n   that you are not the Jew's daughter.\n  JESSICA. That were a kind of bastard hope indeed; so the sins of my\n    mother should be visited upon me.\n  LAUNCELOT. Truly then I fear you are damn'd both by father and\n    mother; thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into\n    Charybdis, your mother; well, you are gone both ways.\n  JESSICA. I shall be sav'd by my husband; he hath made me a\n    Christian.\n  LAUNCELOT. Truly, the more to blame he; we were Christians enow\n    before, e'en as many as could well live one by another. This\n    making of Christians will raise the price of hogs; if we grow all\n    to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on the\n    coals for money.\n\n                             Enter LORENZO\n\n  JESSICA. I'll tell my husband, Launcelot, what you say; here he\n    comes.\n  LORENZO. I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Launcelot, if you\n    thus get my wife into corners.\n  JESSICA. Nay, you need nor fear us, Lorenzo; Launcelot and I are\n    out; he tells me flatly there's no mercy for me in heaven,\n    because I am a Jew's daughter; and he says you are no good member\n    of the commonwealth, for in converting Jews to Christians you\n    raise the price of pork.\n  LORENZO. I shall answer that better to the commonwealth than you\n    can the getting up of the negro's belly; the Moor is with child\n    by you, Launcelot.\n  LAUNCELOT. It is much that the Moor should be more than reason; but\n    if she be less than an honest woman, she is indeed more than I\n    took her for.\n  LORENZO. How every fool can play upon the word! I think the best\n    grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow\n    commendable in none only but parrots. Go in, sirrah; bid them\n    prepare for dinner.\n  LAUNCELOT. That is done, sir; they have all stomachs.\n  LORENZO. Goodly Lord, what a wit-snapper are you! Then bid them\n    prepare dinner.\n  LAUNCELOT. That is done too, sir, only 'cover' is the word.\n  LORENZO. Will you cover, then, sir?\n  LAUNCELOT. Not so, sir, neither; I know my duty.\n  LORENZO. Yet more quarrelling with occasion! Wilt thou show the\n    whole wealth of thy wit in an instant? I pray thee understand a\n    plain man in his plain meaning: go to thy fellows, bid them cover\n    the table, serve in the meat, and we will come in to dinner.\n  LAUNCELOT. For the table, sir, it shall be serv'd in; for the meat,\n    sir, it shall be cover'd; for your coming in to dinner, sir, why,\n    let it be as humours and conceits shall govern.\n Exit\n  LORENZO. O dear discretion, how his words are suited!\n    The fool hath planted in his memory\n    An army of good words; and I do know\n    A many fools that stand in better place,\n    Garnish'd like him, that for a tricksy word\n    Defy the matter. How cheer'st thou, Jessica?\n    And now, good sweet, say thy opinion,\n    How dost thou like the Lord Bassanio's wife?\n  JESSICA. Past all expressing. It is very meet\n    The Lord Bassanio live an upright life,\n    For, having such a blessing in his lady,\n    He finds the joys of heaven here on earth;\n    And if on earth he do not merit it,\n    In reason he should never come to heaven.\n    Why, if two gods should play some heavenly match,\n    And on the wager lay two earthly women,\n    And Portia one, there must be something else\n    Pawn'd with the other; for the poor rude world\n    Hath not her fellow.\n  LORENZO. Even such a husband\n    Hast thou of me as she is for a wife.\n  JESSICA. Nay, but ask my opinion too of that.\n  LORENZO. I will anon; first let us go to dinner.\n  JESSICA. Nay, let me praise you while I have a stomach.\n  LORENZO. No, pray thee, let it serve for table-talk;\n    Then howsome'er thou speak'st, 'mong other things\n    I shall digest it.\n  JESSICA. Well, I'll set you forth.                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nVenice. The court of justice\n\nEnter the DUKE, the MAGNIFICOES, ANTONIO, BASSANIO, GRATIANO, SALERIO,\nand OTHERS\n\n  DUKE OF VENICE. What, is Antonio here?\n  ANTONIO. Ready, so please your Grace.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. I am sorry for thee; thou art come to answer\n    A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch,\n    Uncapable of pity, void and empty\n    From any dram of mercy.\n  ANTONIO. I have heard\n    Your Grace hath ta'en great pains to qualify\n    His rigorous course; but since he stands obdurate,\n    And that no lawful means can carry me\n    Out of his envy's reach, I do oppose\n    My patience to his fury, and am arm'd\n    To suffer with a quietness of spirit\n    The very tyranny and rage of his.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Go one, and call the Jew into the court.\n  SALERIO. He is ready at the door; he comes, my lord.\n\n                          Enter SHYLOCK\n\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Make room, and let him stand before our face.\n    Shylock, the world thinks, and I think so too,\n    That thou but leadest this fashion of thy malice\n    To the last hour of act; and then, 'tis thought,\n    Thou'lt show thy mercy and remorse, more strange\n    Than is thy strange apparent cruelty;\n    And where thou now exacts the penalty,\n    Which is a pound of this poor merchant's flesh,\n    Thou wilt not only loose the forfeiture,\n    But, touch'd with human gentleness and love,\n    Forgive a moiety of the principal,\n    Glancing an eye of pity on his losses,\n    That have of late so huddled on his back-\n    Enow to press a royal merchant down,\n    And pluck commiseration of his state\n    From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint,\n    From stubborn Turks and Tartars, never train'd\n    To offices of tender courtesy.\n    We all expect a gentle answer, Jew.\n  SHYLOCK. I have possess'd your Grace of what I purpose,\n    And by our holy Sabbath have I sworn\n    To have the due and forfeit of my bond.\n    If you deny it, let the danger light\n    Upon your charter and your city's freedom.\n    You'll ask me why I rather choose to have\n    A weight of carrion flesh than to receive\n    Three thousand ducats. I'll not answer that,\n    But say it is my humour- is it answer'd?\n    What if my house be troubled with a rat,\n    And I be pleas'd to give ten thousand ducats\n    To have it ban'd? What, are you answer'd yet?\n    Some men there are love not a gaping pig;\n    Some that are mad if they behold a cat;\n    And others, when the bagpipe sings i' th' nose,\n    Cannot contain their urine; for affection,\n    Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood\n    Of what it likes or loathes. Now, for your answer:\n    As there is no firm reason to be rend'red\n    Why he cannot abide a gaping pig;\n    Why he, a harmless necessary cat;\n    Why he, a woollen bagpipe, but of force\n    Must yield to such inevitable shame\n    As to offend, himself being offended;\n    So can I give no reason, nor I will not,\n    More than a lodg'd hate and a certain loathing\n    I bear Antonio, that I follow thus\n    A losing suit against him. Are you answered?\n  BASSANIO. This is no answer, thou unfeeling man,\n    To excuse the current of thy cruelty.\n  SHYLOCK. I am not bound to please thee with my answers.\n  BASSANIO. Do all men kill the things they do not love?\n  SHYLOCK. Hates any man the thing he would not kill?\n  BASSANIO. Every offence is not a hate at first.\n  SHYLOCK. What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?\n  ANTONIO. I pray you, think you question with the Jew.\n    You may as well go stand upon the beach\n    And bid the main flood bate his usual height;\n    You may as well use question with the wolf,\n    Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb;\n    You may as well forbid the mountain pines\n    To wag their high tops and to make no noise\n    When they are fretten with the gusts of heaven;\n    You may as well do anything most hard\n    As seek to soften that- than which what's harder?-\n    His jewish heart. Therefore, I do beseech you,\n    Make no moe offers, use no farther means,\n    But with all brief and plain conveniency\n    Let me have judgment, and the Jew his will.\n  BASSANIO. For thy three thousand ducats here is six.\n  SHYLOCK. If every ducat in six thousand ducats\n    Were in six parts, and every part a ducat,\n    I would not draw them; I would have my bond.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. How shalt thou hope for mercy, rend'ring none?\n  SHYLOCK. What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?\n    You have among you many a purchas'd slave,\n    Which, fike your asses and your dogs and mules,\n    You use in abject and in slavish parts,\n    Because you bought them; shall I say to you\n    'Let them be free, marry them to your heirs-\n    Why sweat they under burdens?- let their beds\n    Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates\n    Be season'd with such viands'? You will answer\n    'The slaves are ours.' So do I answer you:\n    The pound of flesh which I demand of him\n    Is dearly bought, 'tis mine, and I will have it.\n    If you deny me, fie upon your law!\n    There is no force in the decrees of Venice.\n    I stand for judgment; answer; shall I have it?\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Upon my power I may dismiss this court,\n    Unless Bellario, a learned doctor,\n    Whom I have sent for to determine this,\n    Come here to-day.\n  SALERIO. My lord, here stays without\n    A messenger with letters from the doctor,\n    New come from Padua.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Bring us the letters; call the messenger.\n  BASSANIO. Good cheer, Antonio! What, man, courage yet!\n    The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones, and all,\n    Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood.\n  ANTONIO. I am a tainted wether of the flock,\n    Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit\n    Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me.\n    You cannot better be employ'd, Bassanio,\n    Than to live still, and write mine epitaph.\n\n           Enter NERISSA dressed like a lawyer's clerk\n\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Came you from Padua, from Bellario?\n  NERISSA. From both, my lord. Bellario greets your Grace.\n                                             [Presents a letter]\n  BASSANIO. Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?\n  SHYLOCK. To cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt there.\n  GRATIANO. Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew,\n    Thou mak'st thy knife keen; but no metal can,\n    No, not the hangman's axe, bear half the keenness\n    Of thy sharp envy. Can no prayers pierce thee?\n  SHYLOCK. No, none that thou hast wit enough to make.\n  GRATIANO. O, be thou damn'd, inexecrable dog!\n    And for thy life let justice be accus'd.\n    Thou almost mak'st me waver in my faith,\n    To hold opinion with Pythagoras\n    That souls of animals infuse themselves\n    Into the trunks of men. Thy currish spirit\n    Govern'd a wolf who, hang'd for human slaughter,\n    Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,\n    And, whilst thou layest in thy unhallowed dam,\n    Infus'd itself in thee; for thy desires\n    Are wolfish, bloody, starv'd and ravenous.\n  SHYLOCK. Till thou canst rail the seal from off my bond,\n    Thou but offend'st thy lungs to speak so loud;\n    Repair thy wit, good youth, or it will fall\n    To cureless ruin. I stand here for law.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. This letter from Bellario doth commend\n    A young and learned doctor to our court.\n    Where is he?\n  NERISSA. He attendeth here hard by\n    To know your answer, whether you'll admit him.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. With all my heart. Some three or four of you\n    Go give him courteous conduct to this place.\n    Meantime, the court shall hear Bellario's letter.\n  CLERK.  [Reads]  'Your Grace shall understand that at the receipt\n    of your letter I am very sick; but in the instant that your\n    messenger came, in loving visitation was with me a young doctor\n    of Rome- his name is Balthazar. I acquainted him with the cause\n    in controversy between the Jew and Antonio the merchant; we\n    turn'd o'er many books together; he is furnished with my opinion\n    which, bettered with his own learning-the greatness whereof I\n    cannot enough commend- comes with him at my importunity to fill\n    up your Grace's request in my stead. I beseech you let his lack\n    of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend estimation,\n    for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I leave him\n    to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish his\n    commendation.'\n\n      Enter PORTIA for BALTHAZAR, dressed like a Doctor of Laws\n\n  DUKE OF VENICE. YOU hear the learn'd Bellario, what he writes;\n    And here, I take it, is the doctor come.\n    Give me your hand; come you from old Bellario?\n  PORTIA. I did, my lord.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. You are welcome; take your place.\n    Are you acquainted with the difference\n    That holds this present question in the court?\n  PORTIA. I am informed throughly of the cause.\n    Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Antonio and old Shylock, both stand forth.\n  PORTIA. Is your name Shylock?\n  SHYLOCK. Shylock is my name.\n  PORTIA. Of a strange nature is the suit you follow;\n    Yet in such rule that the Venetian law\n    Cannot impugn you as you do proceed.\n    You stand within his danger, do you not?\n  ANTONIO. Ay, so he says.\n  PORTIA. Do you confess the bond?\n  ANTONIO. I do.\n  PORTIA. Then must the Jew be merciful.\n  SHYLOCK. On what compulsion must I? Tell me that.\n  PORTIA. The quality of mercy is not strain'd;\n    It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven\n    Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:\n    It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.\n    'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes\n    The throned monarch better than his crown;\n    His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,\n    The attribute to awe and majesty,\n    Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;\n    But mercy is above this sceptred sway,\n    It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,\n    It is an attribute to God himself;\n    And earthly power doth then show likest God's\n    When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,\n    Though justice be thy plea, consider this-\n    That in the course of justice none of us\n    Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy,\n    And that same prayer doth teach us all to render\n    The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much\n    To mitigate the justice of thy plea,\n    Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice\n    Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.\n  SHYLOCK. My deeds upon my head! I crave the law,\n    The penalty and forfeit of my bond.\n  BASSANIO. Yes; here I tender it for him in the court;\n    Yea, twice the sum; if that will not suffice,\n    I will be bound to pay it ten times o'er\n    On forfeit of my hands, my head, my heart;\n    If this will not suffice, it must appear\n    That malice bears down truth. And, I beseech you,\n    Wrest once the law to your authority;\n    To do a great right do a little wrong,\n    And curb this cruel devil of his will.\n  PORTIA. It must not be; there is no power in Venice\n    Can alter a decree established;\n    'Twill be recorded for a precedent,\n    And many an error, by the same example,\n    Will rush into the state; it cannot be.\n  SHYLOCK. A Daniel come to judgment! Yea, a Daniel!\n    O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!\n  PORTIA. I pray you, let me look upon the bond.\n  SHYLOCK. Here 'tis, most reverend Doctor; here it is.\n  PORTIA. Shylock, there's thrice thy money off'red thee.\n  SHYLOCK. An oath, an oath! I have an oath in heaven.\n    Shall I lay perjury upon my soul?\n    No, not for Venice.\n  PORTIA. Why, this bond is forfeit;\n    And lawfully by this the Jew may claim\n    A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off\n    Nearest the merchant's heart. Be merciful.\n    Take thrice thy money; bid me tear the bond.\n  SHYLOCK. When it is paid according to the tenour.\n    It doth appear you are a worthy judge;\n    You know the law; your exposition\n    Hath been most sound; I charge you by the law,\n    Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar,\n    Proceed to judgment. By my soul I swear\n    There is no power in the tongue of man\n    To alter me. I stay here on my bond.\n  ANTONIO. Most heartily I do beseech the court\n    To give the judgment.\n  PORTIA. Why then, thus it is:\n    You must prepare your bosom for his knife.\n  SHYLOCK. O noble judge! O excellent young man!\n  PORTIA. For the intent and purpose of the law\n    Hath full relation to the penalty,\n    Which here appeareth due upon the bond.\n  SHYLOCK. 'Tis very true. O wise and upright judge,\n    How much more elder art thou than thy looks!\n  PORTIA. Therefore, lay bare your bosom.\n  SHYLOCK. Ay, his breast-\n    So says the bond; doth it not, noble judge?\n    'Nearest his heart,' those are the very words.\n  PORTIA. It is so. Are there balance here to weigh\n    The flesh?\n  SHYLOCK. I have them ready.\n  PORTIA. Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge,\n    To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death.\n  SHYLOCK. Is it so nominated in the bond?\n  PORTIA. It is not so express'd, but what of that?\n    'Twere good you do so much for charity.\n  SHYLOCK. I cannot find it; 'tis not in the bond.\n  PORTIA. You, merchant, have you anything to say?\n  ANTONIO. But little: I am arm'd and well prepar'd.\n    Give me your hand, Bassanio; fare you well.\n    Grieve not that I am fall'n to this for you,\n    For herein Fortune shows herself more kind\n    Than is her custom. It is still her use\n    To let the wretched man outlive his wealth,\n    To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow\n    An age of poverty; from which ling'ring penance\n    Of such misery doth she cut me off.\n    Commend me to your honourable wife;\n    Tell her the process of Antonio's end;\n    Say how I lov'd you; speak me fair in death;\n    And, when the tale is told, bid her be judge\n    Whether Bassanio had not once a love.\n    Repent but you that you shall lose your friend,\n    And he repents not that he pays your debt;\n    For if the Jew do cut but deep enough,\n    I'll pay it instantly with all my heart.\n  BASSANIO. Antonio, I am married to a wife\n    Which is as dear to me as life itself;\n    But life itself, my wife, and all the world,\n    Are not with me esteem'd above thy life;\n    I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all\n    Here to this devil, to deliver you.\n  PORTIA. Your wife would give you little thanks for that,\n    If she were by to hear you make the offer.\n  GRATIANO. I have a wife who I protest I love;\n    I would she were in heaven, so she could\n    Entreat some power to change this currish Jew.\n  NERISSA. 'Tis well you offer it behind her back;\n    The wish would make else an unquiet house.\n  SHYLOCK.  [Aside]  These be the Christian husbands! I have a\n    daughter-\n    Would any of the stock of Barrabas\n    Had been her husband, rather than a Christian!-\n    We trifle time; I pray thee pursue sentence.\n  PORTIA. A pound of that same merchant's flesh is thine.\n    The court awards it and the law doth give it.\n  SHYLOCK. Most rightful judge!\n  PORTIA. And you must cut this flesh from off his breast.\n    The law allows it and the court awards it.\n  SHYLOCK. Most learned judge! A sentence! Come, prepare.\n  PORTIA. Tarry a little; there is something else.\n    This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood:\n    The words expressly are 'a pound of flesh.'\n    Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;\n    But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed\n    One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods\n    Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate\n    Unto the state of Venice.\n  GRATIANO. O upright judge! Mark, Jew. O learned judge!\n  SHYLOCK. Is that the law?\n  PORTIA. Thyself shalt see the act;\n    For, as thou urgest justice, be assur'd\n    Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desir'st.\n  GRATIANO. O learned judge! Mark, Jew. A learned judge!\n  SHYLOCK. I take this offer then: pay the bond thrice,\n    And let the Christian go.\n  BASSANIO. Here is the money.\n  PORTIA. Soft!\n    The Jew shall have all justice. Soft! No haste.\n    He shall have nothing but the penalty.\n  GRATIANO. O Jew! an upright judge, a learned judge!\n  PORTIA. Therefore, prepare thee to cut off the flesh.\n    Shed thou no blood, nor cut thou less nor more\n    But just a pound of flesh; if thou tak'st more\n    Or less than a just pound- be it but so much\n    As makes it light or heavy in the substance,\n    Or the division of the twentieth part\n    Of one poor scruple; nay, if the scale do turn\n    But in the estimation of a hair-\n    Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate.\n  GRATIANO. A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew!\n    Now, infidel, I have you on the hip.\n  PORTIA. Why doth the Jew pause? Take thy forfeiture.\n  SHYLOCK. Give me my principal, and let me go.\n  BASSANIO. I have it ready for thee; here it is.\n  PORTIA. He hath refus'd it in the open court;\n    He shall have merely justice, and his bond.\n  GRATIANO. A Daniel still say I, a second Daniel!\n    I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.\n  SHYLOCK. Shall I not have barely my principal?\n  PORTIA. Thou shalt have nothing but the forfeiture\n    To be so taken at thy peril, Jew.\n  SHYLOCK. Why, then the devil give him good of it!\n    I'll stay no longer question.\n  PORTIA. Tarry, Jew.\n    The law hath yet another hold on you.\n    It is enacted in the laws of Venice,\n    If it be proved against an alien\n    That by direct or indirect attempts\n    He seek the life of any citizen,\n    The party 'gainst the which he doth contrive\n    Shall seize one half his goods; the other half\n    Comes to the privy coffer of the state;\n    And the offender's life lies in the mercy\n    Of the Duke only, 'gainst all other voice.\n    In which predicament, I say, thou stand'st;\n    For it appears by manifest proceeding\n    That indirectly, and directly too,\n    Thou hast contrived against the very life\n    Of the defendant; and thou hast incurr'd\n    The danger formerly by me rehears'd.\n    Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the Duke.\n  GRATIANO. Beg that thou mayst have leave to hang thyself;\n    And yet, thy wealth being forfeit to the state,\n    Thou hast not left the value of a cord;\n    Therefore thou must be hang'd at the state's charge.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. That thou shalt see the difference of our spirit,\n    I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it.\n    For half thy wealth, it is Antonio's;\n    The other half comes to the general state,\n    Which humbleness may drive unto a fine.\n  PORTIA. Ay, for the state; not for Antonio.\n  SHYLOCK. Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that.\n    You take my house when you do take the prop\n    That doth sustain my house; you take my life\n    When you do take the means whereby I live.\n  PORTIA. What mercy can you render him, Antonio?\n  GRATIANO. A halter gratis; nothing else, for God's sake!\n  ANTONIO. So please my lord the Duke and all the court\n    To quit the fine for one half of his goods;\n    I am content, so he will let me have\n    The other half in use, to render it\n    Upon his death unto the gentleman\n    That lately stole his daughter-\n    Two things provided more; that, for this favour,\n    He presently become a Christian;\n    The other, that he do record a gift,\n    Here in the court, of all he dies possess'd\n    Unto his son Lorenzo and his daughter.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. He shall do this, or else I do recant\n    The pardon that I late pronounced here.\n  PORTIA. Art thou contented, Jew? What dost thou say?\n  SHYLOCK. I am content.\n  PORTIA. Clerk, draw a deed of gift.\n  SHYLOCK. I pray you, give me leave to go from hence;\n    I am not well; send the deed after me\n    And I will sign it.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Get thee gone, but do it.\n  GRATIANO. In christ'ning shalt thou have two god-fathers;\n    Had I been judge, thou shouldst have had ten more,\n    To bring thee to the gallows, not to the font.\n                                                    Exit SHYLOCK\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Sir, I entreat you home with me to dinner.\n  PORTIA. I humbly do desire your Grace of pardon;\n    I must away this night toward Padua,\n    And it is meet I presently set forth.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. I am sorry that your leisure serves you not.\n    Antonio, gratify this gentleman,\n    For in my mind you are much bound to him.\n                             Exeunt DUKE, MAGNIFICOES, and train\n  BASSANIO. Most worthy gentleman, I and my friend\n    Have by your wisdom been this day acquitted\n    Of grievous penalties; in lieu whereof\n    Three thousand ducats, due unto the Jew,\n    We freely cope your courteous pains withal.\n  ANTONIO. And stand indebted, over and above,\n    In love and service to you evermore.\n  PORTIA. He is well paid that is well satisfied,\n    And I, delivering you, am satisfied,\n    And therein do account myself well paid.\n    My mind was never yet more mercenary.\n    I pray you, know me when we meet again;\n    I wish you well, and so I take my leave.\n  BASSANIO. Dear sir, of force I must attempt you further;\n    Take some remembrance of us, as a tribute,\n    Not as fee. Grant me two things, I pray you,\n    Not to deny me, and to pardon me.\n  PORTIA. You press me far, and therefore I will yield.\n    [To ANTONIO]  Give me your gloves, I'll wear them for your sake.\n    [To BASSANIO]  And, for your love, I'll take this ring from you.\n    Do not draw back your hand; I'll take no more,\n    And you in love shall not deny me this.\n  BASSANIO. This ring, good sir- alas, it is a trifle;\n    I will not shame myself to give you this.\n  PORTIA. I will have nothing else but only this;\n    And now, methinks, I have a mind to it.\n  BASSANIO.. There's more depends on this than on the value.\n    The dearest ring in Venice will I give you,\n    And find it out by proclamation;\n    Only for this, I pray you, pardon me.\n  PORTIA. I see, sir, you are liberal in offers;\n    You taught me first to beg, and now, methinks,\n    You teach me how a beggar should be answer'd.\n  BASSANIO. Good sir, this ring was given me by my wife;\n    And, when she put it on, she made me vow\n    That I should neither sell, nor give, nor lose it.\n  PORTIA. That 'scuse serves many men to save their gifts.\n    And if your wife be not a mad woman,\n    And know how well I have deserv'd this ring,\n    She would not hold out enemy for ever\n    For giving it to me. Well, peace be with you!\n                                       Exeunt PORTIA and NERISSA\n  ANTONIO. My Lord Bassanio, let him have the ring.\n    Let his deservings, and my love withal,\n    Be valued 'gainst your wife's commandment.\n  BASSANIO. Go, Gratiano, run and overtake him;\n    Give him the ring, and bring him, if thou canst,\n    Unto Antonio's house. Away, make haste.        Exit GRATIANO\n    Come, you and I will thither presently;\n    And in the morning early will we both\n    Fly toward Belmont. Come, Antonio.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter PORTIA and NERISSA\n\n  PORTIA. Inquire the Jew's house out, give him this deed,\n    And let him sign it; we'll away tonight,\n    And be a day before our husbands home.\n    This deed will be well welcome to Lorenzo.\n\n                          Enter GRATIANO\n\n  GRATIANO. Fair sir, you are well o'erta'en.\n    My Lord Bassanio, upon more advice,\n    Hath sent you here this ring, and doth entreat\n    Your company at dinner.\n  PORTIA. That cannot be.\n    His ring I do accept most thankfully,\n    And so, I pray you, tell him. Furthermore,\n    I pray you show my youth old Shylock's house.\n  GRATIANO. That will I do.\n  NERISSA. Sir, I would speak with you.\n    [Aside to PORTIA]  I'll See if I can get my husband's ring,\n    Which I did make him swear to keep for ever.\n  PORTIA.  [To NERISSA]  Thou Mayst, I warrant. We shall have old\n      swearing\n    That they did give the rings away to men;\n    But we'll outface them, and outswear them too.\n    [Aloud]  Away, make haste, thou know'st where I will tarry.\n  NERISSA. Come, good sir, will you show me to this house?\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nBelmont. The garden before PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter LORENZO and JESSICA\n\n  LORENZO. The moon shines bright. In such a night as this,\n    When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,\n    And they did make no noise- in such a night,\n    Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls,\n    And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents,\n    Where Cressid lay that night.\n  JESSICA. In such a night\n    Did Thisby fearfully o'ertrip the dew,\n    And saw the lion's shadow ere himself,\n    And ran dismayed away.\n  LORENZO. In such a night\n    Stood Dido with a willow in her hand\n    Upon the wild sea-banks, and waft her love\n    To come again to Carthage.\n  JESSICA. In such a night\n    Medea gathered the enchanted herbs\n    That did renew old AEson.\n LORENZO. In such a night\n    Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew,\n    And with an unthrift love did run from Venice\n    As far as Belmont.\n  JESSICA. In such a night\n    Did young Lorenzo swear he lov'd her well,\n    Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,\n    And ne'er a true one.\n  LORENZO. In such a night\n    Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew,\n    Slander her love, and he forgave it her.\n  JESSICA. I would out-night you, did no body come;\n    But, hark, I hear the footing of a man.\n\n                       Enter STEPHANO\n\n  LORENZO. Who comes so fast in silence of the night?\n  STEPHANO. A friend.\n  LORENZO. A friend! What friend? Your name, I pray you, friend?\n  STEPHANO. Stephano is my name, and I bring word\n    My mistress will before the break of day\n    Be here at Belmont; she doth stray about\n    By holy crosses, where she kneels and prays\n    For happy wedlock hours.\n  LORENZO. Who comes with her?\n  STEPHANO. None but a holy hermit and her maid.\n    I pray you, is my master yet return'd?\n  LORENZO. He is not, nor we have not heard from him.\n    But go we in, I pray thee, Jessica,\n    And ceremoniously let us prepare\n    Some welcome for the mistress of the house.\n\n                         Enter LAUNCELOT\n\n  LAUNCELOT. Sola, sola! wo ha, ho! sola, sola!\n  LORENZO. Who calls?\n  LAUNCELOT. Sola! Did you see Master Lorenzo? Master Lorenzo! Sola,\n    sola!\n  LORENZO. Leave holloaing, man. Here!\n  LAUNCELOT. Sola! Where, where?\n  LORENZO. Here!\n  LAUNCELOT. Tell him there's a post come from my master with his\n    horn full of good news; my master will be here ere morning.\n Exit\n  LORENZO. Sweet soul, let's in, and there expect their coming.\n    And yet no matter- why should we go in?\n    My friend Stephano, signify, I pray you,\n    Within the house, your mistress is at hand;\n    And bring your music forth into the air.       Exit STEPHANO\n    How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!\n    Here will we sit and let the sounds of music\n    Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night\n    Become the touches of sweet harmony.\n    Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven\n    Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;\n    There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st\n    But in his motion like an angel sings,\n    Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubins;\n    Such harmony is in immortal souls,\n    But whilst this muddy vesture of decay\n    Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.\n\n                          Enter MUSICIANS\n\n    Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn;\n    With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear.\n    And draw her home with music.                        [Music]\n  JESSICA. I am never merry when I hear sweet music.\n  LORENZO. The reason is your spirits are attentive;\n    For do but note a wild and wanton herd,\n    Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,\n    Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,\n    Which is the hot condition of their blood-\n    If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,\n    Or any air of music touch their ears,\n    You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,\n    Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze\n    By the sweet power of music. Therefore the poet\n    Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;\n    Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,\n    But music for the time doth change his nature.\n    The man that hath no music in himself,\n    Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,\n    Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;\n    The motions of his spirit are dull:as night,\n    And his affections dark as Erebus.\n    Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.\n\n                    Enter PORTIA and NERISSA\n\n  PORTIA. That light we see is burning in my hall.\n    How far that little candle throws his beams!\n    So shines a good deed in a naughty world.\n  NERISSA. When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.\n  PORTIA. So doth the greater glory dim the less:\n    A substitute shines brightly as a king\n    Until a king be by, and then his state\n    Empties itself, as doth an inland brook\n    Into the main of waters. Music! hark!\n  NERISSA. It is your music, madam, of the house.\n  PORTIA. Nothing is good, I see, without respect;\n    Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.\n  NERISSA. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.\n  PORTIA. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark\n    When neither is attended; and I think\n    ne nightingale, if she should sing by day,\n    When every goose is cackling, would be thought\n    No better a musician than the wren.\n    How many things by season season'd are\n    To their right praise and true perfection!\n    Peace, ho! The moon sleeps with Endymion,\n    And would not be awak'd.                      [Music ceases]\n  LORENZO. That is the voice,\n    Or I am much deceiv'd, of Portia.\n  PORTIA. He knows me as the blind man knows the cuckoo,\n    By the bad voice.\n  LORENZO. Dear lady, welcome home.\n  PORTIA. We have been praying for our husbands' welfare,\n    Which speed, we hope, the better for our words.\n    Are they return'd?\n  LORENZO. Madam, they are not yet;\n    But there is come a messenger before,\n    To signify their coming.\n  PORTIA.. Go in, Nerissa;\n    Give order to my servants that they take\n    No note at all of our being absent hence;\n    Nor you, Lorenzo; Jessica, nor you.        [A tucket sounds]\n  LORENZO. Your husband is at hand; I hear his trumpet.\n    We are no tell-tales, madam, fear you not.\n  PORTIA. This night methinks is but the daylight sick;\n    It looks a little paler; 'tis a day\n    Such as the day is when the sun is hid.\n\n       Enter BASSANIO, ANTONIO, GRATIANO, and their followers\n\n  BASSANIO. We should hold day with the Antipodes,\n    If you would walk in absence of the sun.\n  PORTIA. Let me give light, but let me not be light,\n    For a light wife doth make a heavy husband,\n    And never be Bassanio so for me;\n    But God sort all! You are welcome home, my lord.\n  BASSANIO. I thank you, madam; give welcome to my friend.\n    This is the man, this is Antonio,\n    To whom I am so infinitely bound.\n  PORTIA. You should in all sense be much bound to him,\n    For, as I hear, he was much bound for you.\n  ANTONIO. No more than I am well acquitted of.\n  PORTIA. Sir, you are very welcome to our house.\n    It must appear in other ways than words,\n    Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy.\n  GRATIANO.  [To NERISSA]  By yonder moon I swear you do me wrong;\n    In faith, I gave it to the judge's clerk.\n    Would he were gelt that had it, for my part,\n    Since you do take it, love, so much at heart.\n  PORTIA. A quarrel, ho, already! What's the matter?\n  GRATIANO. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring\n    That she did give me, whose posy was\n    For all the world like cutler's poetry\n    Upon a knife, 'Love me, and leave me not.'\n  NERISSA. What talk you of the posy or the value?\n    You swore to me, when I did give it you,\n    That you would wear it till your hour of death,\n    And that it should lie with you in your grave;\n    Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths,\n    You should have been respective and have kept it.\n    Gave it a judge's clerk! No, God's my judge,\n    The clerk will ne'er wear hair on's face that had it.\n  GRATIANO. He will, an if he live to be a man.\n  NERISSA. Ay, if a woman live to be a man.\n  GRATIANO. Now by this hand I gave it to a youth,\n    A kind of boy, a little scrubbed boy\n    No higher than thyself, the judge's clerk;\n    A prating boy that begg'd it as a fee;\n    I could not for my heart deny it him.\n  PORTIA. You were to blame, I must be plain with you,\n    To part so slightly with your wife's first gift,\n    A thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger\n    And so riveted with faith unto your flesh.\n    I gave my love a ring, and made him swear\n    Never to part with it, and here he stands;\n    I dare be sworn for him he would not leave it\n    Nor pluck it from his finger for the wealth\n    That the world masters. Now, in faith, Gratiano,\n    You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief;\n    An 'twere to me, I should be mad at it.\n  BASSANIO.  [Aside]  Why, I were best to cut my left hand off,\n    And swear I lost the ring defending it.\n  GRATIANO. My Lord Bassanio gave his ring away\n    Unto the judge that begg'd it, and indeed\n    Deserv'd it too; and then the boy, his clerk,\n    That took some pains in writing, he begg'd mine;\n    And neither man nor master would take aught\n    But the two rings.\n  PORTIA. What ring gave you, my lord?\n    Not that, I hope, which you receiv'd of me.\n  BASSANIO. If I could add a lie unto a fault,\n    I would deny it; but you see my finger\n    Hath not the ring upon it; it is gone.\n  PORTIA. Even so void is your false heart of truth;\n    By heaven, I will ne'er come in your bed\n    Until I see the ring.\n  NERISSA. Nor I in yours\n    Till I again see mine.\n  BASSANIO. Sweet Portia,\n    If you did know to whom I gave the ring,\n    If you did know for whom I gave the ring,\n    And would conceive for what I gave the ring,\n    And how unwillingly I left the ring,\n    When nought would be accepted but the ring,\n    You would abate the strength of your displeasure.\n  PORTIA. If you had known the virtue of the ring,\n    Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,\n    Or your own honour to contain the ring,\n    You would not then have parted with the ring.\n    What man is there so much unreasonable,\n    If you had pleas'd to have defended it\n    With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty\n    To urge the thing held as a ceremony?\n    Nerissa teaches me what to believe:\n    I'll die for't but some woman had the ring.\n  BASSANIO. No, by my honour, madam, by my soul,\n    No woman had it, but a civil doctor,\n    Which did refuse three thousand ducats of me,\n    And begg'd the ring; the which I did deny him,\n    And suffer'd him to go displeas'd away-\n    Even he that had held up the very life\n    Of my dear friend. What should I say, sweet lady?\n    I was enforc'd to send it after him;\n    I was beset with shame and courtesy;\n    My honour would not let ingratitude\n    So much besmear it. Pardon me, good lady;\n    For by these blessed candles of the night,\n    Had you been there, I think you would have begg'd\n    The ring of me to give the worthy doctor.\n  PORTIA. Let not that doctor e'er come near my house;\n    Since he hath got the jewel that I loved,\n    And that which you did swear to keep for me,\n    I will become as liberal as you;\n    I'll not deny him anything I have,\n    No, not my body, nor my husband's bed.\n    Know him I shall, I am well sure of it.\n    Lie not a night from home; watch me like Argus;\n    If you do not, if I be left alone,\n    Now, by mine honour which is yet mine own,\n    I'll have that doctor for mine bedfellow.\n  NERISSA. And I his clerk; therefore be well advis'd\n    How you do leave me to mine own protection.\n  GRATIANO. Well, do you so, let not me take him then;\n    For, if I do, I'll mar the young clerk's pen.\n  ANTONIO. I am th' unhappy subject of these quarrels.\n  PORTIA. Sir, grieve not you; you are welcome not withstanding.\n  BASSANIO. Portia, forgive me this enforced wrong;\n    And in the hearing of these many friends\n    I swear to thee, even by thine own fair eyes,\n    Wherein I see myself-\n  PORTIA. Mark you but that!\n    In both my eyes he doubly sees himself,\n    In each eye one; swear by your double self,\n    And there's an oath of credit.\n  BASSANIO. Nay, but hear me.\n    Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear\n    I never more will break an oath with thee.\n  ANTONIO. I once did lend my body for his wealth,\n    Which, but for him that had your husband's ring,\n    Had quite miscarried; I dare be bound again,\n    My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord\n    Will never more break faith advisedly.\n  PORTIA. Then you shall be his surety. Give him this,\n    And bid him keep it better than the other.\n  ANTONIO. Here, Lord Bassanio, swear to keep this ring.\n  BASSANIO. By heaven, it is the same I gave the doctor!\n  PORTIA. I had it of him. Pardon me, Bassanio,\n    For, by this ring, the doctor lay with me.\n  NERISSA. And pardon me, my gentle Gratiano,\n    For that same scrubbed boy, the doctor's clerk,\n    In lieu of this, last night did lie with me.\n  GRATIANO. Why, this is like the mending of highways\n    In summer, where the ways are fair enough.\n    What, are we cuckolds ere we have deserv'd it?\n  PORTIA. Speak not so grossly. You are all amaz'd.\n    Here is a letter; read it at your leisure;\n    It comes from Padua, from Bellario;\n    There you shall find that Portia was the doctor,\n    Nerissa there her clerk. Lorenzo here\n    Shall witness I set forth as soon as you,\n    And even but now return'd; I have not yet\n    Enter'd my house. Antonio, you are welcome;\n    And I have better news in store for you\n    Than you expect. Unseal this letter soon;\n    There you shall find three of your argosies\n    Are richly come to harbour suddenly.\n    You shall not know by what strange accident\n    I chanced on this letter.\n  ANTONIO. I am dumb.\n  BASSANIO. Were you the doctor, and I knew you not?\n  GRATIANO. Were you the clerk that is to make me cuckold?\n  NERISSA. Ay, but the clerk that never means to do it,\n    Unless he live until he be a man.\n  BASSANIO. Sweet doctor, you shall be my bedfellow;\n    When I am absent, then lie with my wife.\n  ANTONIO. Sweet lady, you have given me life and living;\n    For here I read for certain that my ships\n    Are safely come to road.\n  PORTIA. How now, Lorenzo!\n    My clerk hath some good comforts too for you.\n  NERISSA. Ay, and I'll give them him without a fee.\n    There do I give to you and Jessica,\n    From the rich Jew, a special deed of gift,\n    After his death, of all he dies possess'd of.\n  LORENZO. Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way\n    Of starved people.\n  PORTIA. It is almost morning,\n    And yet I am sure you are not satisfied\n    Of these events at full. Let us go in,\n    And charge us there upon inter'gatories,\n    And we will answer all things faithfully.\n  GRATIANO. Let it be so. The first inter'gatory\n    That my Nerissa shall be sworn on is,\n    Whether till the next night she had rather stay,\n    Or go to bed now, being two hours to day.\n    But were the day come, I should wish it dark,\n    Till I were couching with the doctor's clerk.\n    Well, while I live, I'll fear no other thing\n    So sore as keeping safe Nerissa's ring.               Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1601\n\nTHE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  SIR JOHN FALSTAFF\n  FENTON, a young gentleman\n  SHALLOW, a country justice\n  SLENDER, cousin to Shallow\n\n    Gentlemen of Windsor\n  FORD\n  PAGE\n  WILLIAM PAGE, a boy, son to Page\n  SIR HUGH EVANS, a Welsh parson\n  DOCTOR CAIUS, a French physician\n  HOST of the Garter Inn\n\n    Followers of Falstaff\n  BARDOLPH\n  PISTOL\n  NYM\n  ROBIN, page to Falstaff\n  SIMPLE, servant to Slender\n  RUGBY, servant to Doctor Caius\n\n  MISTRESS FORD\n  MISTRESS PAGE\n  MISTRESS ANNE PAGE, her daughter\n  MISTRESS QUICKLY, servant to Doctor Caius\n  SERVANTS to Page, Ford, etc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nWindsor, and the neighbourhood\n\n\nThe Merry Wives of Windsor\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1.\n\nWindsor. Before PAGE'S house\n\nEnter JUSTICE SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS\n\n  SHALLOW. Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star\n    Chamber matter of it; if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs,\n    he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire.\n  SLENDER. In the county of Gloucester, Justice of Peace, and\n    Coram.\n  SHALLOW. Ay, cousin Slender, and Custalorum.\n  SLENDER. Ay, and Ratolorum too; and a gentleman born,\n    Master Parson, who writes himself 'Armigero' in any bill,\n    warrant, quittance, or obligation-'Armigero.'\n  SHALLOW. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three\n    hundred years.\n  SLENDER. All his successors, gone before him, hath done't;\n    and all his ancestors, that come after him, may: they may\n    give the dozen white luces in their coat.\n  SHALLOW. It is an old coat.\n  EVANS. The dozen white louses do become an old coat well;\n    it agrees well, passant; it is a familiar beast to man, and\n    signifies love.\n  SHALLOW. The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old\n    coat.\n  SLENDER. I may quarter, coz.\n  SHALLOW. You may, by marrying.\n  EVANS. It is marring indeed, if he quarter it.\n  SHALLOW. Not a whit.\n  EVANS. Yes, py'r lady! If he has a quarter of your coat, there\n    is but three skirts for yourself, in my simple conjectures;\n    but that is all one. If Sir John Falstaff have committed\n    disparagements unto you, I am of the church, and will be\n    glad to do my benevolence, to make atonements and\n    compremises between you.\n  SHALLOW. The Council shall hear it; it is a riot.\n  EVANS. It is not meet the Council hear a riot; there is no\n    fear of Got in a riot; the Council, look you, shall desire\n    to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot; take your\n    vizaments in that.\n  SHALLOW. Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword\n    should end it.\n  EVANS. It is petter that friends is the sword and end it;\n    and there is also another device in my prain, which\n    peradventure prings goot discretions with it. There is Anne\n    Page, which is daughter to Master George Page, which is\n    pretty virginity.\n  SLENDER. Mistress Anne Page? She has brown hair, and\n    speaks small like a woman.\n  EVANS. It is that fery person for all the orld, as just as you\n    will desire; and seven hundred pounds of moneys, and\n    gold, and silver, is her grandsire upon his death's-bed-Got\n    deliver to a joyful resurrections!-give, when she is able to\n    overtake seventeen years old. It were a goot motion if we\n    leave our pribbles and prabbles, and desire a marriage\n    between Master Abraham and Mistress Anne Page.\n  SHALLOW. Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound?\n  EVANS. Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny.\n  SHALLOW. I know the young gentlewoman; she has good\n    gifts.\n  EVANS. Seven hundred pounds, and possibilities, is goot gifts.\n  SHALLOW. Well, let us see honest Master Page. Is Falstaff\n    there?\n  EVANS. Shall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar as I do\n    despise one that is false; or as I despise one that is not\n    true. The knight Sir John is there; and, I beseech you, be\n    ruled by your well-willers. I will peat the door for Master\n    Page.\n    [Knocks]  What, hoa! Got pless your house here!\n  PAGE.  [Within]  Who's there?\n\n                            Enter PAGE\n\n  EVANS. Here is Got's plessing, and your friend, and Justice\n  Shallow; and here young Master Slender, that peradventures\n    shall tell you another tale, if matters grow to your\n    likings.\n  PAGE. I am glad to see your worships well. I thank you for\n    my venison, Master Shallow.\n  SHALLOW. Master Page, I am glad to see you; much good do\n    it your good heart! I wish'd your venison better; it was ill\n    kill'd. How doth good Mistress Page?-and I thank you\n    always with my heart, la! with my heart.\n  PAGE. Sir, I thank you.\n  SHALLOW. Sir, I thank you; by yea and no, I do.\n  PAGE. I am glad to see you, good Master Slender.\n  SLENDER. How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say\n    he was outrun on Cotsall.\n  PAGE. It could not be judg'd, sir.\n  SLENDER. You'll not confess, you'll not confess.\n  SHALLOW. That he will not. 'Tis your fault; 'tis your fault;\n    'tis a good dog.\n  PAGE. A cur, sir.\n  SHALLOW. Sir, he's a good dog, and a fair dog. Can there be\n    more said? He is good, and fair. Is Sir John Falstaff here?\n  PAGE. Sir, he is within; and I would I could do a good office\n    between you.\n  EVANS. It is spoke as a Christians ought to speak.\n  SHALLOW. He hath wrong'd me, Master Page.\n  PAGE. Sir, he doth in some sort confess it.\n  SHALLOW. If it be confessed, it is not redressed; is not that\n    so, Master Page? He hath wrong'd me; indeed he hath; at a\n    word, he hath, believe me; Robert Shallow, esquire, saith\n    he is wronged.\n  PAGE. Here comes Sir John.\n\n      Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, NYM, and PISTOL\n\n  FALSTAFF. Now, Master Shallow, you'll complain of me to\n    the King?\n  SHALLOW. Knight, you have beaten my men, kill'd my deer,\n    and broke open my lodge.\n  FALSTAFF. But not kiss'd your keeper's daughter.\n  SHALLOW. Tut, a pin! this shall be answer'd.\n  FALSTAFF. I will answer it straight: I have done all this.\n    That is now answer'd.\n  SHALLOW. The Council shall know this.\n  FALSTAFF. 'Twere better for you if it were known in counsel:\n    you'll be laugh'd at.\n  EVANS. Pauca verba, Sir John; goot worts.\n  FALSTAFF. Good worts! good cabbage! Slender, I broke your\n    head; what matter have you against me?\n  SLENDER. Marry, sir, I have matter in my head against you;\n    and against your cony-catching rascals, Bardolph, Nym,\n    and Pistol. They carried me to the tavern, and made me\n    drunk, and afterwards pick'd my pocket.\n  BARDOLPH. You Banbury cheese!\n  SLENDER. Ay, it is no matter.\n  PISTOL. How now, Mephostophilus!\n  SLENDER. Ay, it is no matter.\n  NYM. Slice, I say! pauca, pauca; slice! That's my humour.\n  SLENDER. Where's Simple, my man? Can you tell, cousin?\n  EVANS. Peace, I pray you. Now let us understand. There is\n    three umpires in this matter, as I understand: that is,\n    Master Page, fidelicet Master Page; and there is myself,\n    fidelicet myself; and the three party is, lastly and\n    finally, mine host of the Garter.\n  PAGE. We three to hear it and end it between them.\n  EVANS. Fery goot. I will make a prief of it in my note-book;\n    and we will afterwards ork upon the cause with as great\n    discreetly as we can.\n  FALSTAFF. Pistol!\n  PISTOL. He hears with ears.\n  EVANS. The tevil and his tam! What phrase is this, 'He hears\n    with ear'? Why, it is affectations.\n  FALSTAFF. Pistol, did you pick Master Slender's purse?\n  SLENDER. Ay, by these gloves, did he-or I would I might\n    never come in mine own great chamber again else!-of\n    seven groats in mill-sixpences, and two Edward\n    shovel-boards that cost me two shilling and two pence apiece\n    of Yead Miller, by these gloves.\n  FALSTAFF. Is this true, Pistol?\n  EVANS. No, it is false, if it is a pick-purse.\n  PISTOL. Ha, thou mountain-foreigner! Sir John and master\n    mine,\n    I combat challenge of this latten bilbo.\n    Word of denial in thy labras here!\n    Word of denial! Froth and scum, thou liest.\n  SLENDER. By these gloves, then, 'twas he.\n  NYM. Be avis'd, sir, and pass good humours; I will say\n    'marry trap' with you, if you run the nuthook's humour on\n    me; that is the very note of it.\n  SLENDER. By this hat, then, he in the red face had it; for\n    though I cannot remember what I did when you made me\n    drunk, yet I am not altogether an ass.\n  FALSTAFF. What say you, Scarlet and John?\n  BARDOLPH. Why, sir, for my part, I say the gentleman had\n    drunk himself out of his five sentences.\n  EVANS. It is his five senses; fie, what the ignorance is!\n  BARDOLPH. And being fap, sir, was, as they say, cashier'd;\n    and so conclusions pass'd the careers.\n  SLENDER. Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 'tis no matter;\n    I'll ne'er be drunk whilst I live again, but in honest,\n    civil, godly company, for this trick. If I be drunk, I'll be\n    drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with\n    drunken knaves.\n  EVANS. So Got udge me, that is a virtuous mind.\n  FALSTAFF. You hear all these matters deni'd, gentlemen; you\n    hear it.\n\n          Enter MISTRESS ANNE PAGE with wine; MISTRESS\n               FORD and MISTRESS PAGE, following\n\n  PAGE. Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll drink within.\n                                                  Exit ANNE PAGE\n  SLENDER. O heaven! this is Mistress Anne Page.\n  PAGE. How now, Mistress Ford!\n  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well\n    met; by your leave, good mistress.              [Kisses her]\n  PAGE. Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome. Come, we have a\n    hot venison pasty to dinner; come, gentlemen, I hope we\n    shall drink down all unkindness.\n                      Exeunt all but SHALLOW, SLENDER, and EVANS\n  SLENDER. I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of\n    Songs and Sonnets here.\n\n                          Enter SIMPLE\n\n    How, Simple! Where have you been? I must wait on\n    myself, must I? You have not the Book of Riddles about you,\n    have you?\n  SIMPLE. Book of Riddles! Why, did you not lend it to Alice\n    Shortcake upon Allhallowmas last, a fortnight afore\n    Michaelmas?\n  SHALLOW. Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word\n    with you, coz; marry, this, coz: there is, as 'twere, a\n    tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by Sir Hugh here. Do\n    you understand me?\n  SLENDER. Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so, I\n    shall do that that is reason.\n  SHALLOW. Nay, but understand me.\n  SLENDER. So I do, sir.\n  EVANS. Give ear to his motions: Master Slender, I will\n    description the matter to you, if you be capacity of it.\n  SLENDER. Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says; I pray\n    you pardon me; he's a justice of peace in his country,\n    simple though I stand here.\n  EVANS. But that is not the question. The question is\n    concerning your marriage.\n  SHALLOW. Ay, there's the point, sir.\n  EVANS. Marry is it; the very point of it; to Mistress Anne\n    Page.\n  SLENDER. Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any\n    reasonable demands.\n  EVANS. But can you affection the oman? Let us command to\n    know that of your mouth or of your lips; for divers philosophers\n    hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth. Therefore,\n    precisely, can you carry your good will to the maid?\n  SHALLOW. Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?\n  SLENDER. I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that\n    would do reason.\n  EVANS. Nay, Got's lords and his ladies! you must speak possitable,\n    if you can carry her your desires towards her.\n  SHALLOW. That you must. Will you, upon good dowry,\n    marry her?\n  SLENDER. I will do a greater thing than that upon your request,\n    cousin, in any reason.\n  SHALLOW. Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz; what\n    I do is to pleasure you, coz. Can you love the maid?\n  SLENDER. I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there\n    be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease\n    it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and\n    have more occasion to know one another. I hope upon\n    familiarity will grow more contempt. But if you say\n    'marry her,' I will marry her; that I am freely dissolved,\n    and dissolutely.\n  EVANS. It is a fery discretion answer, save the fall is in the\n    ord 'dissolutely': the ort is, according to our meaning,\n    'resolutely'; his meaning is good.\n  SHALLOW. Ay, I think my cousin meant well.\n  SLENDER. Ay, or else I would I might be hang'd, la!\n\n                       Re-enter ANNE PAGE\n\n  SHALLOW. Here comes fair Mistress Anne. Would I were\n    young for your sake, Mistress Anne!\n  ANNE. The dinner is on the table; my father desires your\n    worships' company.\n  SHALLOW. I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne!\n  EVANS. Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace.\n                                        Exeunt SHALLOW and EVANS\n  ANNE. Will't please your worship to come in, sir?\n  SLENDER. No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very\n    well.\n  ANNE. The dinner attends you, sir.\n  SLENDER. I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go,\n    sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my cousin\n  Shallow.  [Exit SIMPLE]  A justice of peace sometime may\n    be beholding to his friend for a man. I keep but three men\n    and a boy yet, till my mother be dead. But what though?\n    Yet I live like a poor gentleman born.\n  ANNE. I may not go in without your worship; they will not\n    sit till you come.\n  SLENDER. I' faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as\n    though I did.\n  ANNE. I pray you, sir, walk in.\n  SLENDER. I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruis'd my\n    shin th' other day with playing at sword and dagger with\n    a master of fence-three veneys for a dish of stew'd prunes\n    -and, I with my ward defending my head, he hot my shin,\n    and, by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat\n    since. Why do your dogs bark so? Be there bears i' th'\n    town?\n  ANNE. I think there are, sir; I heard them talk'd of.\n  SLENDER. I love the sport well; but I shall as soon quarrel at\n    it as any man in England. You are afraid, if you see the\n    bear loose, are you not?\n  ANNE. Ay, indeed, sir.\n  SLENDER. That's meat and drink to me now. I have seen\n    Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by the\n    chain; but I warrant you, the women have so cried and\n    shriek'd at it that it pass'd; but women, indeed, cannot\n    abide 'em; they are very ill-favour'd rough things.\n\n                         Re-enter PAGE\n\n  PAGE. Come, gentle Master Slender, come; we stay for you.\n  SLENDER. I'll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.\n  PAGE. By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir! Come,\n    come.\n  SLENDER. Nay, pray you lead the way.\n  PAGE. Come on, sir.\n  SLENDER. Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.\n  ANNE. Not I, sir; pray you keep on.\n  SLENDER. Truly, I will not go first; truly, la! I will not do\n    you that wrong.\n  ANNE. I pray you, sir.\n  SLENDER. I'll rather be unmannerly than troublesome. You\n    do yourself wrong indeed, la!                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nBefore PAGE'S house\n\nEnter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE\n\n  EVANS. Go your ways, and ask of Doctor Caius' house which\n    is the way; and there dwells one Mistress Quickly, which\n    is in the manner of his nurse, or his dry nurse, or his cook,\n    or his laundry, his washer, and his wringer.\n  SIMPLE. Well, sir.\n  EVANS. Nay, it is petter yet. Give her this letter; for it is a\n    oman that altogether's acquaintance with Mistress Anne\n    Page; and the letter is to desire and require her to solicit\n    your master's desires to Mistress Anne Page. I pray you\n    be gone. I will make an end of my dinner; there's pippins\n    and cheese to come.                                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nThe Garter Inn\n\nEnter FALSTAFF, HOST, BARDOLPH, NYM, PISTOL, and ROBIN\n\n  FALSTAFF. Mine host of the Garter!\n  HOST. What says my bully rook? Speak scholarly and\n    wisely.\n  FALSTAFF. Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my\n    followers.\n  HOST. Discard, bully Hercules; cashier; let them wag; trot,\n    trot.\n  FALSTAFF. I sit at ten pounds a week.\n  HOST. Thou'rt an emperor-Caesar, Keiser, and Pheazar. I\n    will entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall tap; said I\n    well, bully Hector?\n  FALSTAFF. Do so, good mine host.\n  HOST. I have spoke; let him follow.  [To BARDOLPH]  Let me\n    see thee froth and lime. I am at a word; follow.   Exit HOST\n  FALSTAFF. Bardolph, follow him. A tapster is a good trade;\n    an old cloak makes a new jerkin; a wither'd serving-man a\n    fresh tapster. Go; adieu.\n  BARDOLPH. It is a life that I have desir'd; I will thrive.\n  PISTOL. O base Hungarian wight! Wilt thou the spigot\n    wield?                                         Exit BARDOLPH\n  NYM. He was gotten in drink. Is not the humour conceited?\n  FALSTAFF. I am glad I am so acquit of this tinder-box: his\n    thefts were too open; his filching was like an unskilful\n    singer-he kept not time.\n  NYM. The good humour is to steal at a minute's rest.\n  PISTOL. 'Convey' the wise it call. 'Steal' foh! A fico for the\n    phrase!\n  FALSTAFF. Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.\n  PISTOL. Why, then, let kibes ensue.\n  FALSTAFF. There is no remedy; I must cony-catch; I must\n    shift.\n  PISTOL. Young ravens must have food.\n  FALSTAFF. Which of you know Ford of this town?\n  PISTOL. I ken the wight; he is of substance good.\n  FALSTAFF. My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.\n  PISTOL. Two yards, and more.\n  FALSTAFF. No quips now, Pistol. Indeed, I am in the waist\n    two yards about; but I am now about no waste; I am about\n    thrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford's wife; I\n    spy entertainment in her; she discourses, she carves, she\n    gives the leer of invitation; I can construe the action of her\n    familiar style; and the hardest voice of her behaviour, to be\n    English'd rightly, is 'I am Sir John Falstaff's.'\n    PISTOL. He hath studied her well, and translated her will out\n    of honesty into English.\n  NYM. The anchor is deep; will that humour pass?\n  FALSTAFF. Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her\n    husband's purse; he hath a legion of angels.\n  PISTOL. As many devils entertain; and 'To her, boy,' say I.\n  NYM. The humour rises; it is good; humour me the angels.\n  FALSTAFF. I have writ me here a letter to her; and here\n    another to Page's wife, who even now gave me good eyes\n    too, examin'd my parts with most judicious oeillades;\n    sometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot, sometimes my\n    portly belly.\n  PISTOL. Then did the sun on dunghill shine.\n  NYM. I thank thee for that humour.\n  FALSTAFF. O, she did so course o'er my exteriors with such\n    a greedy intention that the appetite of her eye did seem to\n    scorch me up like a burning-glass! Here's another letter to\n    her. She bears the purse too; she is a region in Guiana, all\n    gold and bounty. I will be cheaters to them both, and they\n    shall be exchequers to me; they shall be my East and West\n    Indies, and I will trade to them both. Go, bear thou this\n    letter to Mistress Page; and thou this to Mistress Ford. We\n    will thrive, lads, we will thrive.\n  PISTOL. Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become,\n    And by my side wear steel? Then Lucifer take all!\n  NYM. I will run no base humour. Here, take the\n    humour-letter; I will keep the haviour of reputation.\n  FALSTAFF.  [To ROBIN]  Hold, sirrah; bear you these letters\n    tightly;\n    Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores.\n    Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go;\n    Trudge, plod away i' th' hoof; seek shelter, pack!\n    Falstaff will learn the humour of the age;\n    French thrift, you rogues; myself, and skirted page.\n                                       Exeunt FALSTAFF and ROBIN\n  PISTOL. Let vultures gripe thy guts! for gourd and fullam\n    holds,\n    And high and low beguiles the rich and poor;\n    Tester I'll have in pouch when thou shalt lack,\n    Base Phrygian Turk!\n  NYM. I have operations in my head which be humours of\n    revenge.\n  PISTOL. Wilt thou revenge?\n  NYM. By welkin and her star!\n  PISTOL. With wit or steel?\n  NYM. With both the humours, I.\n    I will discuss the humour of this love to Page.\n  PISTOL. And I to Ford shall eke unfold\n    How Falstaff, varlet vile,\n    His dove will prove, his gold will hold,\n    And his soft couch defile.\n  NYM. My humour shall not cool; I will incense Page to deal\n    with poison; I will possess him with yellowness; for the\n    revolt of mine is dangerous. That is my true humour.\n  PISTOL. Thou art the Mars of malcontents; I second thee;\n    troop on.                                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nDOCTOR CAIUS'S house\n\nEnter MISTRESS QUICKLY, SIMPLE, and RUGBY\n\n  QUICKLY. What, John Rugby! I pray thee go to the casement\n    and see if you can see my master, Master Doctor\n    Caius, coming. If he do, i' faith, and find anybody in the\n    house, here will be an old abusing of God's patience and\n    the King's English.\n  RUGBY. I'll go watch.\n  QUICKLY. Go; and we'll have a posset for't soon at night, in\n    faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire.  [Exit RUGBY]  An\n    honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant shall come in\n    house withal; and, I warrant you, no tell-tale nor no\n    breed-bate; his worst fault is that he is given to prayer; he is\n    something peevish that way; but nobody but has his fault;\n    but let that pass. Peter Simple you say your name is?\n  SIMPLE. Ay, for fault of a better.\n  QUICKLY. And Master Slender's your master?\n  SIMPLE. Ay, forsooth.\n  QUICKLY. Does he not wear a great round beard, like a\n    glover's paring-knife?\n  SIMPLE. No, forsooth; he hath but a little whey face, with a\n    little yellow beard, a Cain-colour'd beard.\n  QUICKLY. A softly-sprighted man, is he not?\n  SIMPLE. Ay, forsooth; but he is as tall a man of his hands as\n    any is between this and his head; he hath fought with a\n    warrener.\n  QUICKLY. How say you? O, I should remember him. Does\n    he not hold up his head, as it were, and strut in his gait?\n  SIMPLE. Yes, indeed, does he.\n  QUICKLY. Well, heaven send Anne Page no worse fortune!\n    Tell Master Parson Evans I will do what I can for your\n    master. Anne is a good girl, and I wish-\n\n                         Re-enter RUGBY\n\n  RUGBY. Out, alas! here comes my master.\n  QUICKLY. We shall all be shent. Run in here, good young\n    man; go into this closet.  [Shuts SIMPLE in the closet]  He\n    will not stay long. What, John Rugby! John! what, John,\n    I say! Go, John, go inquire for my master; I doubt he be\n    not well that he comes not home.  [Singing]\n    And down, down, adown-a, etc.\n\n                       Enter DOCTOR CAIUS\n\n  CAIUS. Vat is you sing? I do not like des toys. Pray you, go\n    and vetch me in my closet un boitier vert-a box, a green-a\n    box. Do intend vat I speak? A green-a box.\n  QUICKLY. Ay, forsooth, I'll fetch it you.  [Aside]  I am glad\n    he went not in himself; if he had found the young man,\n    he would have been horn-mad.\n  CAIUS. Fe, fe, fe fe! ma foi, il fait fort chaud. Je m'en vais a\n    la cour-la grande affaire.\n  QUICKLY. Is it this, sir?\n  CAIUS. Oui; mette le au mon pocket: depeche, quickly. Vere\n    is dat knave, Rugby?\n  QUICKLY. What, John Rugby? John!\n  RUGBY. Here, sir.\n  CAIUS. You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby.\n    Come, take-a your rapier, and come after my heel to the\n    court.\n  RUGBY. 'Tis ready, sir, here in the porch.\n    CAIUS. By my trot, I tarry too long. Od's me! Qu'ai j'oublie?\n    Dere is some simples in my closet dat I vill not for the\n    varld I shall leave behind.\n  QUICKLY. Ay me, he'll find the young man there, and be\n    mad!\n  CAIUS. O diable, diable! vat is in my closet? Villainy! larron!\n    [Pulling SIMPLE out]  Rugby, my rapier!\n  QUICKLY. Good master, be content.\n  CAIUS. Wherefore shall I be content-a?\n  QUICKLY. The young man is an honest man.\n  CAIUS. What shall de honest man do in my closet? Dere is\n    no honest man dat shall come in my closet.\n  QUICKLY. I beseech you, be not so phlegmatic; hear the\n    truth of it. He came of an errand to me from Parson Hugh.\n  CAIUS. Vell?\n  SIMPLE. Ay, forsooth, to desire her to-\n  QUICKLY. Peace, I pray you.\n  CAIUS. Peace-a your tongue. Speak-a your tale.\n  SIMPLE. To desire this honest gentlewoman, your maid, to\n    speak a good word to Mistress Anne Page for my master,\n    in the way of marriage.\n  QUICKLY. This is all, indeed, la! but I'll ne'er put my finger\n    in the fire, and need not.\n  CAIUS. Sir Hugh send-a you? Rugby, baillez me some paper.\n    Tarry you a little-a-while.                        [Writes]\n  QUICKLY.  [Aside to SIMPLE]  I am glad he is so quiet; if he\n    had been throughly moved, you should have heard him\n    so loud and so melancholy. But notwithstanding, man, I'll\n    do you your master what good I can; and the very yea and\n    the no is, the French doctor, my master-I may call him\n    my master, look you, for I keep his house; and I wash,\n    wring, brew, bake, scour, dress meat and drink, make the\n    beds, and do all myself-\n  SIMPLE.  [Aside to QUICKLY]  'Tis a great charge to come\n    under one body's hand.\n  QUICKLY.  [Aside to SIMPLE]  Are you avis'd o' that? You\n    shall find it a great charge; and to be up early and down\n    late; but notwithstanding-to tell you in your ear, I would\n    have no words of it-my master himself is in love with\n    Mistress Anne Page; but notwithstanding that, I know\n    Anne's mind-that's neither here nor there.\n  CAIUS. You jack'nape; give-a this letter to Sir Hugh; by gar,\n    it is a shallenge; I will cut his troat in de park; and I will\n    teach a scurvy jack-a-nape priest to meddle or make. You\n    may be gone; it is not good you tarry here. By gar, I will\n    cut all his two stones; by gar, he shall not have a stone\n    to throw at his dog.                             Exit SIMPLE\n  QUICKLY. Alas, he speaks but for his friend.\n  CAIUS. It is no matter-a ver dat. Do not you tell-a me dat I\n    shall have Anne Page for myself? By gar, I vill kill de Jack\n    priest; and I have appointed mine host of de Jarteer to\n    measure our weapon. By gar, I will myself have Anne\n    Page.\n  QUICKLY. Sir, the maid loves you, and all shall be well. We\n    must give folks leave to prate. What the good-year!\n  CAIUS. Rugby, come to the court with me. By gar, if I have\n    not Anne Page, I shall turn your head out of my door.\n    Follow my heels, Rugby.               Exeunt CAIUS and RUGBY\n  QUICKLY. You shall have-An fool's-head of your own. No,\n    I know Anne's mind for that; never a woman in Windsor\n    knows more of Anne's mind than I do; nor can do more\n    than I do with her, I thank heaven.\n  FENTON.  [Within]  Who's within there? ho!\n  QUICKLY. Who's there, I trow? Come near the house, I pray\n    you.\n\n                          Enter FENTON\n\n  FENTON. How now, good woman, how dost thou?\n  QUICKLY. The better that it pleases your good worship to\n    ask.\n  FENTON. What news? How does pretty Mistress Anne?\n  QUICKLY. In truth, sir, and she is pretty, and honest, and\n    gentle; and one that is your friend, I can tell you that by\n    the way; I praise heaven for it.\n  FENTON. Shall I do any good, think'st thou? Shall I not lose\n    my suit?\n  QUICKLY. Troth, sir, all is in His hands above; but\n    notwithstanding, Master Fenton, I'll be sworn on a book\n    she loves you. Have not your worship a wart above your eye?\n  FENTON. Yes, marry, have I; what of that?\n  QUICKLY. Well, thereby hangs a tale; good faith, it is such\n    another Nan; but, I detest, an honest maid as ever broke\n    bread. We had an hour's talk of that wart; I shall never\n    laugh but in that maid's company! But, indeed, she is\n    given too much to allicholy and musing; but for you-well,\n    go to.\n  FENTON. Well, I shall see her to-day. Hold, there's money\n    for thee; let me have thy voice in my behalf. If thou seest\n    her before me, commend me.\n  QUICKLY. Will I? I' faith, that we will; and I will tell your\n    worship more of the wart the next time we have confidence;\n    and of other wooers.\n  FENTON. Well, farewell; I am in great haste now.\n  QUICKLY. Farewell to your worship.  [Exit FENTON]  Truly,\n    an honest gentleman; but Anne loves him not; for I know\n    Anne's mind as well as another does. Out upon 't, what\n    have I forgot?                                          Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1.\n\nBefore PAGE'S house\n\nEnter MISTRESS PAGE, with a letter\n\n  MRS. PAGE. What! have I scap'd love-letters in the holiday-time\n    of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them? Let\n    me see.                                              [Reads]\n    'Ask me no reason why I love you; for though Love use\n    Reason for his precisian, he admits him not for his counsellor.\n    You are not young, no more am I; go to, then, there's\n    sympathy. You are merry, so am I; ha! ha! then there's\n    more sympathy. You love sack, and so do I; would you\n    desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page\n    at the least, if the love of soldier can suffice-that I love\n    thee. I will not say, Pity me: 'tis not a soldier-like phrase;\n    but I say, Love me. By me,\n    Thine own true knight,\n    By day or night,\n    Or any kind of light,\n    With all his might,\n    For thee to fight,\n    JOHN FALSTAFF.'\n    What a Herod of Jewry is this! O wicked, wicked world!\n    One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with age to show\n    himself a young gallant! What an unweighed behaviour\n    hath this Flemish drunkard pick'd-with the devil's name!\n    -out of my conversation, that he dares in this manner\n    assay me? Why, he hath not been thrice in my company!\n    What should I say to him? I was then frugal of my mirth.\n    Heaven forgive me! Why, I'll exhibit a bill in the parliament\n    for the putting down of men. How shall I be\n    reveng'd on him? for reveng'd I will be, as sure as his guts\n    are made of puddings.\n\n                       Enter MISTRESS FORD\n\n  MRS. FORD. Mistress Page! trust me, I was going to your\n    house.\n  MRS. PAGE. And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look\n    very ill.\n  MRS. FORD. Nay, I'll ne'er believe that; I have to show to\n    the contrary.\n  MRS. PAGE. Faith, but you do, in my mind.\n  MRS. FORD. Well, I do, then; yet, I say, I could show you to\n    the contrary. O Mistress Page, give me some counsel.\n  MRS. PAGE. What's the matter, woman?\n  MRS. FORD. O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect,\n    I could come to such honour!\n  MRS. PAGE. Hang the trifle, woman; take the honour. What\n    is it? Dispense with trifles; what is it?\n  MRS. FORD. If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment\n    or so, I could be knighted.\n  MRS. PAGE. What? Thou liest. Sir Alice Ford! These knights\n    will hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy\n    gentry.\n  MRS. FORD. We burn daylight. Here, read, read; perceive\n    how I might be knighted. I shall think the worse of fat\n    men as long as I have an eye to make difference of men's\n    liking. And yet he would not swear; prais'd women's\n    modesty, and gave such orderly and well-behaved reproof\n    to all uncomeliness that I would have sworn his disposition\n    would have gone to the truth of his words; but they do no\n    more adhere and keep place together than the Hundredth\n    Psalm to the tune of 'Greensleeves.' What tempest, I trow,\n    threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his belly,\n    ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged on him? I\n    think the best way were to entertain him with hope, till\n    the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease.\n    Did you ever hear the like?\n  MRS. PAGE. Letter for letter, but that the name of Page and\n    Ford differs. To thy great comfort in this mystery of ill\n    opinions, here's the twin-brother of thy letter; but let thine\n    inherit first, for, I protest, mine never shall. I warrant he\n    hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for\n    different names-sure, more!-and these are of the second\n    edition. He will print them, out of doubt; for he cares not\n    what he puts into the press when he would put us two. I\n    had rather be a giantess and lie under Mount Pelion. Well,\n    I will find you twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste\n    man.\n  MRS. FORD. Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the\n    very words. What doth he think of us?\n  MRS. PAGE. Nay, I know not; it makes me almost ready to\n    wrangle with mine own honesty. I'll entertain myself like\n    one that I am not acquainted withal; for, sure, unless he\n    know some strain in me that I know not myself, he would\n    never have boarded me in this fury.\n  MRS. FORD. 'Boarding' call you it? I'll be sure to keep him\n    above deck.\n  MRS. PAGE. So will I; if he come under my hatches, I'll never\n    to sea again. Let's be reveng'd on him; let's appoint him a\n    meeting, give him a show of comfort in his suit, and lead\n    him on with a fine-baited delay, till he hath pawn'd his\n    horses to mine host of the Garter.\n  MRS. FORD. Nay, I will consent to act any villainy against\n    him that may not sully the chariness of our honesty. O\n    that my husband saw this letter! It would give eternal food\n    to his jealousy.\n  MRS. PAGE. Why, look where he comes; and my good man\n    too; he's as far from jealousy as I am from giving him\n    cause; and that, I hope, is an unmeasurable distance.\n  MRS. FORD. You are the happier woman.\n  MRS. PAGE. Let's consult together against this greasy knight.\n    Come hither.                                   [They retire]\n\n           Enter FORD with PISTOL, and PAGE with Nym\n\n  FORD. Well, I hope it be not so.\n  PISTOL. Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs.\n    Sir John affects thy wife.\n  FORD. Why, sir, my wife is not young.\n  PISTOL. He woos both high and low, both rich and poor,\n    Both young and old, one with another, Ford;\n    He loves the gallimaufry. Ford, perpend.\n  FORD. Love my wife!\n  PISTOL. With liver burning hot. Prevent, or go thou,\n    Like Sir Actaeon he, with Ringwood at thy heels.\n    O, odious is the name!\n  FORD. What name, sir?\n  PISTOL. The horn, I say. Farewell.\n    Take heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot by night;\n    Take heed, ere summer comes, or cuckoo birds do sing.\n    Away, Sir Corporal Nym.\n    Believe it, Page; he speaks sense.               Exit PISTOL\n  FORD.  [Aside]  I will be patient; I will find out this.\n  NYM.  [To PAGE]  And this is true; I like not the humour of\n    lying. He hath wronged me in some humours; I should\n    have borne the humour'd letter to her; but I have a sword,\n    and it shall bite upon my necessity. He loves your wife;\n    there's the short and the long.\n    My name is Corporal Nym; I speak, and I avouch;\n    'Tis true. My name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your wife.\n    Adieu! I love not the humour of bread and cheese; and\n    there's the humour of it. Adieu.                    Exit Nym\n  PAGE. 'The humour of it,' quoth 'a! Here's a fellow frights\n    English out of his wits.\n  FORD. I will seek out Falstaff.\n  PAGE. I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.\n  FORD. If I do find it-well.\n  PAGE. I will not believe such a Cataian though the priest o'\n    th' town commended him for a true man.\n  FORD. 'Twas a good sensible fellow. Well.\n\n             MISTRESS PAGE and MISTRESS FORD come forward\n\n  PAGE. How now, Meg!\n  MRS. PAGE. Whither go you, George? Hark you.\n  MRS. FORD. How now, sweet Frank, why art thou melancholy?\n  FORD. I melancholy! I am not melancholy. Get you home;\n    go.\n  MRS. FORD. Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now.\n    Will you go, Mistress Page?\n\n                     Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY\n\n  MRS. PAGE. Have with you. You'll come to dinner, George?\n    [Aside to MRS. FORD]  Look who comes yonder; she shall\n    be our messenger to this paltry knight.\n  MRS. FORD.  [Aside to MRS. PAGE]  Trust me, I thought on\n    her; she'll fit it.\n  MRS. PAGE. You are come to see my daughter Anne?\n  QUICKLY. Ay, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?\n  MRS. PAGE. Go in with us and see; we have an hour's talk\n    with you.           Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and\n                                                MISTRESS QUICKLY\n  PAGE. How now, Master Ford!\n  FORD. You heard what this knave told me, did you not?\n  PAGE. Yes; and you heard what the other told me?\n  FORD. Do you think there is truth in them?\n  PAGE. Hang 'em, slaves! I do not think the knight would offer it;\n    but these that accuse him in his intent towards our\n    wives are a yoke of his discarded men; very rogues, now\n    they be out of service.\n  FORD. Were they his men?\n  PAGE. Marry, were they.\n  FORD. I like it never the better for that. Does he lie at the\n    Garter?\n  PAGE. Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage\n    toward my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and what\n    he gets more of her than sharp words, let it lie on my head.\n  FORD. I do not misdoubt my wife; but I would be loath to\n    turn them together. A man may be too confident. I would\n    have nothing lie on my head. I cannot be thus satisfied.\n\n                           Enter HOST\n\n  PAGE. Look where my ranting host of the Garter comes.\n    There is either liquor in his pate or money in his purse\n    when he looks so merrily. How now, mine host!\n  HOST. How now, bully rook! Thou'rt a gentleman.  [To\n    SHALLOW following]  Cavaleiro Justice, I say.\n\n                         Enter SHALLOW\n\n  SHALLOW. I follow, mine host, I follow. Good even and\n    twenty, good Master Page! Master Page, will you go with\n    us? We have sport in hand.\n  HOST. Tell him, Cavaleiro Justice; tell him, bully rook.\n  SHALLOW. Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh\n    the Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor.\n  FORD. Good mine host o' th' Garter, a word with you.\n  HOST. What say'st thou, my bully rook?         [They go aside]\n  SHALLOW.  [To PAGE] Will you go with us to behold it? My\n    merry host hath had the measuring of their weapons; and,\n    I think, hath appointed them contrary places; for, believe\n    me, I hear the parson is no jester. Hark, I will tell you\n    what our sport shall be.               [They converse apart]\n  HOST. Hast thou no suit against my knight, my guest-cavaleiro.\n  FORD. None, I protest; but I'll give you a pottle of burnt\n    sack to give me recourse to him, and tell him my name is\n    Brook-only for a jest.\n  HOST. My hand, bully; thou shalt have egress and regress-\n    said I well?-and thy name shall be Brook. It is a merry\n    knight. Will you go, Mynheers?\n  SHALLOW. Have with you, mine host.\n  PAGE. I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in his\n    rapier.\n  SHALLOW. Tut, sir, I could have told you more. In these\n    times you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and\n    I know not what. 'Tis the heart, Master Page; 'tis here,\n    'tis here. I have seen the time with my long sword I would\n    have made you four tall fellows skip like rats.\n  HOST. Here, boys, here, here! Shall we wag?\n  PAGE. Have with you. I had rather hear them scold than\n    fight.                                   Exeunt all but FORD\n  FORD. Though Page be a secure fool, and stands so firmly on\n    his wife's frailty, yet I cannot put off my opinion so\n    easily. She was in his company at Page's house, and what\n    they made there I know not. Well, I will look further into\n    't, and I have a disguise to sound Falstaff. If I find her\n    honest, I lose not my labour; if she be otherwise, 'tis labour\n    well bestowed.                                          Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nA room in the Garter Inn\n\nEnter FALSTAFF and PISTOL\n\n  FALSTAFF. I will not lend thee a penny.\n  PISTOL. I will retort the sum in equipage.\n  FALSTAFF. Not a penny.\n  PISTOL. Why, then the world's mine oyster. Which I with\n    sword will open.\n  FALSTAFF. Not a penny. I have been content, sir, you should\n    lay my countenance to pawn. I have grated upon my good\n    friends for three reprieves for you and your coach-fellow,\n    Nym; or else you had look'd through the grate, like a\n    geminy of baboons. I am damn'd in hell for swearing to\n    gentlemen my friends you were good soldiers and tall fellows;\n    and when Mistress Bridget lost the handle of her fan,\n    I took 't upon mine honour thou hadst it not.\n  PISTOL. Didst not thou share? Hadst thou not fifteen pence?\n  FALSTAFF. Reason, you rogue, reason. Think'st thou I'll\n    endanger my soul gratis? At a word, hang no more about me,\n    I am no gibbet for you. Go-a short knife and a throng!-\n    to your manor of Pickt-hatch; go. You'll not bear a letter\n    for me, you rogue! You stand upon your honour! Why,\n    thou unconfinable baseness, it is as much as I can do to\n    keep the terms of my honour precise. I, I, I myself\n    sometimes, leaving the fear of God on the left hand, and hiding\n    mine honour in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge,\n    and to lurch; and yet you, rogue, will ensconce your rags,\n    your cat-a-mountain looks, your red-lattice phrases, and\n    your bold-beating oaths, under the shelter of your honour!\n    You will not do it, you!\n  PISTOL. I do relent; what would thou more of man?\n\n                          Enter ROBIN\n\n  ROBIN. Sir, here's a woman would speak with you.\n  FALSTAFF. Let her approach.\n\n                     Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY\n\n  QUICKLY. Give your worship good morrow.\n  FALSTAFF. Good morrow, good wife.\n  QUICKLY. Not so, an't please your worship.\n  FALSTAFF. Good maid, then.\n  QUICKLY. I'll be sworn;\n    As my mother was, the first hour I was born.\n  FALSTAFF. I do believe the swearer. What with me?\n  QUICKLY. Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?\n  FALSTAFF. Two thousand, fair woman; and I'll vouchsafe\n    thee the hearing.\n  QUICKLY. There is one Mistress Ford, sir-I pray, come a little\n    nearer this ways. I myself dwell with Master Doctor\n    Caius.\n  FALSTAFF. Well, on: Mistress Ford, you say-\n  QUICKLY. Your worship says very true. I pray your worship\n    come a little nearer this ways.\n  FALSTAFF. I warrant thee nobody hears-mine own people,\n    mine own people.\n  QUICKLY. Are they so? God bless them, and make them his\n    servants!\n  FALSTAFF. Well; Mistress Ford, what of her?\n  QUICKLY. Why, sir, she's a good creature. Lord, Lord, your\n    worship's a wanton! Well, heaven forgive you, and all of\n    us, I pray.\n  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford; come, Mistress Ford-\n  QUICKLY. Marry, this is the short and the long of it: you\n    have brought her into such a canaries as 'tis wonderful.\n    The best courtier of them all, when the court lay at Windsor,\n    could never have brought her to such a canary. Yet\n    there has been knights, and lords, and gentlemen, with\n    their coaches; I warrant you, coach after coach, letter after\n    letter, gift after gift; smelling so sweetly, all musk, and so\n    rushling, I warrant you, in silk and gold; and in such alligant\n    terms; and in such wine and sugar of the best and the\n    fairest, that would have won any woman's heart; and I\n    warrant you, they could never get an eye-wink of her.\n    I had myself twenty angels given me this morning; but I\n    defy all angels, in any such sort, as they say, but in the\n    way of honesty; and, I warrant you, they could never get\n    her so much as sip on a cup with the proudest of them all;\n    and yet there has been earls, nay, which is more,\n    pensioners; but, I warrant you, all is one with her.\n  FALSTAFF. But what says she to me? Be brief, my good she-\n    Mercury.\n  QUICKLY. Marry, she hath receiv'd your letter; for the\n    which she thanks you a thousand times; and she gives you\n    to notify that her husband will be absence from his house\n    between ten and eleven.\n  FALSTAFF. Ten and eleven?\n  QUICKLY. Ay, forsooth; and then you may come and see\n    the picture, she says, that you wot of. Master Ford, her\n    husband, will be from home. Alas, the sweet woman leads\n    an ill life with him! He's a very jealousy man; she leads a\n    very frampold life with him, good heart.\n  FALSTAFF. Ten and eleven. Woman, commend me to her; I\n    will not fail her.\n  QUICKLY. Why, you say well. But I have another messenger\n    to your worship. Mistress Page hath her hearty commendations\n    to you too; and let me tell you in your ear, she's as\n    fartuous a civil modest wife, and one, I tell you, that will\n    not miss you morning nor evening prayer, as any is in\n    Windsor, whoe'er be the other; and she bade me tell your\n    worship that her husband is seldom from home, but she\n    hopes there will come a time. I never knew a woman so\n    dote upon a man: surely I think you have charms, la! Yes,\n    in truth.\n  FALSTAFF. Not I, I assure thee; setting the attraction of my\n    good parts aside, I have no other charms.\n  QUICKLY. Blessing on your heart for 't!\n  FALSTAFF. But, I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford's wife and\n    Page's wife acquainted each other how they love me?\n  QUICKLY. That were a jest indeed! They have not so little\n    grace, I hope-that were a trick indeed! But Mistress Page\n    would desire you to send her your little page of all loves.\n    Her husband has a marvellous infection to the little page;\n    and truly Master Page is an honest man. Never a wife in\n    Windsor leads a better life than she does; do what she will,\n    say what she will, take all, pay all, go to bed when she\n    list, rise when she list, all is as she will; and truly she\n    deserves it; for if there be a kind woman in Windsor, she\n    is one. You must send her your page; no remedy.\n  FALSTAFF. Why, I will.\n  QUICKLY. Nay, but do so then; and, look you, he may come\n    and go between you both; and in any case have a\n    nay-word, that you may know one another's mind, and the boy\n    never need to understand any thing; for 'tis not good that\n    children should know any wickedness. Old folks, you\n    know, have discretion, as they say, and know the world.\n  FALSTAFF. Fare thee well; commend me to them both.\n    There's my purse; I am yet thy debtor. Boy, go along with\n    this woman.  [Exeunt QUICKLY and ROBIN]  This news\n    distracts me.\n  PISTOL.  [Aside]  This punk is one of Cupid's carriers;\n    Clap on more sails; pursue; up with your fights;\n    Give fire; she is my prize, or ocean whelm them all!    Exit\n  FALSTAFF. Say'st thou so, old Jack; go thy ways; I'll make\n    more of thy old body than I have done. Will they yet look\n    after thee? Wilt thou, after the expense of so much money,\n    be now a gainer? Good body, I thank thee. Let them say\n    'tis grossly done; so it be fairly done, no matter.\n\n                         Enter BARDOLPH\n\n  BARDOLPH. Sir John, there's one Master Brook below would\n    fain speak with you, and be acquainted with you; and hath\n    sent your worship a moming's draught of sack.\n  FALSTAFF. Brook is his name?\n  BARDOLPH. Ay, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Call him in.  [Exit BARDOLPH]  Such Brooks are\n    welcome to me, that o'erflows such liquor. Ah, ha! Mistress\n    Ford and Mistress Page, have I encompass'd you? Go to;\n    via!\n\n              Re-enter BARDOLPH, with FORD disguised\n\n  FORD. Bless you, sir!\n  FALSTAFF. And you, sir! Would you speak with me?\n  FORD. I make bold to press with so little preparation upon\n    you.\n  FALSTAFF. You're welcome. What's your will? Give us leave,\n    drawer.                                        Exit BARDOLPH\n  FORD. Sir, I am a gentleman that have spent much; my name\n    is Brook.\n  FALSTAFF. Good Master Brook, I desire more acquaintance\n    of you.\n  FORD. Good Sir John, I sue for yours-not to charge you; for I\n    must let you understand I think myself in better plight for\n    a lender than you are; the which hath something\n    embold'ned me to this unseason'd intrusion; for they say, if\n    money go before, all ways do lie open.\n  FALSTAFF. Money is a good soldier, sir, and will on.\n  FORD. Troth, and I have a bag of money here troubles me; if\n    you will help to bear it, Sir John, take all, or half, for easing\n    me of the carriage.\n  FALSTAFF. Sir, I know not how I may deserve to be your\n    porter.\n  FORD. I will tell you, sir, if you will give me the hearing.\n  FALSTAFF. Speak, good Master Brook; I shall be glad to be\n    your servant.\n  FORD. Sir, I hear you are a scholar-I will be brief with you\n    -and you have been a man long known to me, though I\n    had never so good means as desire to make myself acquainted\n    with you. I shall discover a thing to you, wherein\n    I must very much lay open mine own imperfection; but,\n    good Sir John, as you have one eye upon my follies, as you\n    hear them unfolded, turn another into the register of your\n    own, that I may pass with a reproof the easier, sith you\n    yourself know how easy is it to be such an offender.\n  FALSTAFF. Very well, sir; proceed.\n  FORD. There is a gentlewoman in this town, her husband's\n    name is Ford.\n  FALSTAFF. Well, sir.\n  FORD. I have long lov'd her, and, I protest to you, bestowed\n    much on her; followed her with a doting observance;\n    engross'd opportunities to meet her; fee'd every slight occasion\n    that could but niggardly give me sight of her; not\n    only bought many presents to give her, but have given\n    largely to many to know what she would have given;\n    briefly, I have pursu'd her as love hath pursued me; which\n    hath been on the wing of all occasions. But whatsoever I\n    have merited, either in my mind or in my means, meed, I\n    am sure, I have received none, unless experience be a jewel;\n    that I have purchased at an infinite rate, and that hath\n    taught me to say this:\n    'Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues;\n    Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.'\n  FALSTAFF. Have you receiv'd no promise of satisfaction at\n    her hands?\n  FORD. Never.\n  FALSTAFF. Have you importun'd her to such a purpose?\n  FORD. Never.\n    FALSTAFF. Of what quality was your love, then?\n  FORD. Like a fair house built on another man's ground; so\n    that I have lost my edifice by mistaking the place where\n    erected it.\n  FALSTAFF. To what purpose have you unfolded this to me?\n  FORD. When I have told you that, I have told you all. Some\n    say that though she appear honest to me, yet in other\n    places she enlargeth her mirth so far that there is shrewd\n    construction made of her. Now, Sir John, here is the heart\n    of my purpose: you are a gentleman of excellent\n    breeding, admirable discourse, of great admittance, authentic in\n    your place and person, generally allow'd for your many\n    war-like, courtlike, and learned preparations.\n  FALSTAFF. O, sir!\n  FORD. Believe it, for you know it. There is money; spend it,\n    spend it; spend more; spend all I have; only give me so\n    much of your time in exchange of it as to lay an amiable\n    siege to the honesty of this Ford's wife; use your art of\n    wooing, win her to consent to you; if any man may, you\n    may as soon as any.\n    FALSTAFF. Would it apply well to the vehemency of your\n    affection, that I should win what you would enjoy?\n    Methinks you prescribe to yourself very preposterously.\n  FORD. O, understand my drift. She dwells so securely on the\n    excellency of her honour that the folly of my soul dares\n    not present itself; she is too bright to be look'd against.\n    Now, could I come to her with any detection in my hand,\n    my desires had instance and argument to commend themselves;\n    I could drive her then from the ward of her purity,\n    her reputation, her marriage vow, and a thousand other her\n    defences, which now are too too strongly embattl'd against\n    me. What say you to't, Sir John?\n  FALSTAFF. Master Brook, I will first make bold with your\n    money; next, give me your hand; and last, as I am a gentleman,\n    you shall, if you will, enjoy Ford's wife.\n  FORD. O good sir!\n  FALSTAFF. I say you shall.\n  FORD. Want no money, Sir John; you shall want none.\n  FALSTAFF. Want no Mistress Ford, Master Brook; you shall\n    want none. I shall be with her, I may tell you, by her own\n    appointment; even as you came in to me her assistant, or\n    go-between, parted from me; I say I shall be with her between\n    ten and eleven; for at that time the jealous rascally\n    knave, her husband, will be forth. Come you to me at\n    night; you shall know how I speed.\n  FORD. I am blest in your acquaintance. Do you know Ford,\n    Sir?\n  FALSTAFF. Hang him, poor cuckoldly knave! I know him\n    not; yet I wrong him to call him poor; they say the\n    jealous wittolly knave hath masses of money; for the which\n    his wife seems to me well-favour'd. I will use her as the\n    key of the cuckoldly rogue's coffer; and there's my harvest-home.\n  FORD. I would you knew Ford, sir, that you might avoid him\n    if you saw him.\n  FALSTAFF. Hang him, mechanical salt-butter rogue! I will\n    stare him out of his wits; I will awe him with my cudgel;\n    it shall hang like a meteor o'er the cuckold's horns. Master\n    Brook, thou shalt know I will predominate over the\n    peasant, and thou shalt lie with his wife. Come to me soon at\n    night. Ford's a knave, and I will aggravate his style; thou,\n    Master Brook, shalt know him for knave and cuckold.\n    Come to me soon at night.                               Exit\n  FORD. What a damn'd Epicurean rascal is this! My heart is\n    ready to crack with impatience. Who says this is improvident\n    jealousy? My wife hath sent to him; the hour is fix'd;\n    the match is made. Would any man have thought this? See\n    the hell of having a false woman! My bed shall be abus'd,\n    my coffers ransack'd, my reputation gnawn at; and I shall\n    not only receive this villainous wrong, but stand under the\n    adoption of abominable terms, and by him that does me\n    this wrong. Terms! names! Amaimon sounds well; Lucifer,\n    well; Barbason, well; yet they are devils' additions, the names\n    of fiends. But cuckold! Wittol! Cuckold! the devil himself\n    hath not such a name. Page is an ass, a secure ass; he will trust\n    his wife; he will not be jealous; I will rather trust a Fleming\n    with my butter, Parson Hugh the Welshman with my\n    cheese, an Irishman with my aqua-vitae bottle, or a thief to\n    walk my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself. Then\n    she plots, then she ruminates, then she devises; and what\n    they think in their hearts they may effect, they will break\n    their hearts but they will effect. God be prais'd for my\n    jealousy! Eleven o'clock the hour. I will prevent this, detect\n    my wife, be reveng'd on Falstaff, and laugh at Page.\n    I will about it; better three hours too soon than a minute\n    too late. Fie, fie, fie! cuckold! cuckold! cuckold!     Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nA field near Windsor\n\nEnter CAIUS and RUGBY\n\n  CAIUS. Jack Rugby!\n  RUGBY. Sir?\n  CAIUS. Vat is de clock, Jack?\n  RUGBY. 'Tis past the hour, sir, that Sir Hugh promis'd to\n    meet.\n  CAIUS. By gar, he has save his soul dat he is no come; he has\n    pray his Pible well dat he is no come; by gar, Jack Rugby,\n    he is dead already, if he be come.\n  RUGBY. He is wise, sir; he knew your worship would kill\n    him if he came.\n  CAIUS. By gar, de herring is no dead so as I vill kill him. Take\n    your rapier, Jack; I vill tell you how I vill kill him.\n  RUGBY. Alas, sir, I cannot fence!\n  CAIUS. Villainy, take your rapier.\n  RUGBY. Forbear; here's company.\n\n            Enter HOST, SHALLOW, SLENDER, and PAGE\n\n  HOST. Bless thee, bully doctor!\n  SHALLOW. Save you, Master Doctor Caius!\n  PAGE. Now, good Master Doctor!\n  SLENDER. Give you good morrow, sir.\n  CAIUS. Vat be all you, one, two, tree, four, come for?\n  HOST. To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see thee traverse;\n    to see thee here, to see thee there; to see thee pass thy\n    punto, thy stock, thy reverse, thy distance, thy montant.\n    Is he dead, my Ethiopian? Is he dead, my Francisco? Ha,\n    bully! What says my Aesculapius? my Galen? my heart\n    of elder? Ha! is he dead, bully stale? Is he dead?\n  CAIUS. By gar, he is de coward Jack priest of de world; he is\n    not show his face.\n  HOST. Thou art a Castalion-King-Urinal. Hector of Greece,\n    my boy!\n  CAIUS. I pray you, bear witness that me have stay six or\n    seven, two tree hours for him, and he is no come.\n  SHALLOW. He is the wiser man, Master Doctor: he is a curer\n    of souls, and you a curer of bodies; if you should fight,\n    you go against the hair of your professions. Is it not true,\n    Master Page?\n  PAGE. Master Shallow, you have yourself been a great fighter,\n    though now a man of peace.\n  SHALLOW. Bodykins, Master Page, though I now be old, and\n    of the peace, if I see a sword out, my finger itches to make\n    one. Though we are justices, and doctors, and churchmen,\n    Master Page, we have some salt of our youth in us; we are\n    the sons of women, Master Page.\n  PAGE. 'Tis true, Master Shallow.\n  SHALLOW. It will be found so, Master Page. Master Doctor\n  CAIUS, I come to fetch you home. I am sworn of the peace;\n    you have show'd yourself a wise physician, and Sir Hugh\n    hath shown himself a wise and patient churchman. You\n    must go with me, Master Doctor.\n  HOST. Pardon, Guest Justice. A word, Mounseur Mockwater.\n  CAIUS. Mock-vater! Vat is dat?\n  HOST. Mockwater, in our English tongue, is valour, bully.\n  CAIUS. By gar, then I have as much mockvater as de Englishman.\n    Scurvy jack-dog priest! By gar, me vill cut his ears.\n  HOST. He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully.\n  CAIUS. Clapper-de-claw! Vat is dat?\n  HOST. That is, he will make thee amends.\n  CAIUS. By gar, me do look he shall clapper-de-claw me; for,\n    by gar, me vill have it.\n  HOST. And I will provoke him to't, or let him wag.\n  CAIUS. Me tank you for dat.\n  HOST. And, moreover, bully-but first:  [Aside to the others]\n    Master Guest, and Master Page, and eke Cavaleiro Slender,\n    go you through the town to Frogmore.\n  PAGE.  [Aside]  Sir Hugh is there, is he?\n  HOST.  [Aside]  He is there. See what humour he is in; and\n    I will bring the doctor about by the fields. Will it do well?\n  SHALLOW.  [Aside]  We will do it.\n  PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER. Adieu, good Master Doctor.\n                               Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER\n  CAIUS. By gar, me vill kill de priest; for he speak for a jack-\n    an-ape to Anne Page.\n  HOST. Let him die. Sheathe thy impatience; throw cold water\n    on thy choler; go about the fields with me through Frogmore;\n    I will bring thee where Mistress Anne Page is, at a a\n    farm-house, a-feasting; and thou shalt woo her. Cried\n    game! Said I well?\n  CAIUS. By gar, me dank you vor dat; by gar, I love you; and\n    I shall procure-a you de good guest, de earl, de knight, de\n    lords, de gentlemen, my patients.\n  HOST. For the which I will be thy adversary toward Anne\n    Page. Said I well?\n  CAIUS. By gar, 'tis good; vell said.\n  HOST. Let us wag, then.\n  CAIUS. Come at my heels, Jack Rugby.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III SCENE 1.\n\nA field near Frogmore\n\nEnter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE\n\n  EVANS. I pray you now, good Master Slender's serving-man,\n    and friend Simple by your name, which way have you\n    look'd for Master Caius, that calls himself Doctor of\n    Physic?\n  SIMPLE. Marry, sir, the pittie-ward, the park-ward; every\n    way; old Windsor way, and every way but the town way.\n  EVANS. I most fehemently desire you you will also look that\n    way.\n  SIMPLE. I will, Sir.                                      Exit\n  EVANS. Pless my soul, how full of chollors I am, and trempling\n    of mind! I shall be glad if he have deceived me. How\n    melancholies I am! I will knog his urinals about his knave's\n    costard when I have goot opportunities for the ork. Pless\n    my soul!                                             [Sings]\n    To shallow rivers, to whose falls\n    Melodious birds sings madrigals;\n    There will we make our peds of roses,\n    And a thousand fragrant posies.\n    To shallow-\n    Mercy on me! I have a great dispositions to cry.     [Sings]\n    Melodious birds sing madrigals-\n    Whenas I sat in Pabylon-\n    And a thousand vagram posies.\n    To shallow, etc.\n\n                       Re-enter SIMPLE\n\n  SIMPLE. Yonder he is, coming this way, Sir Hugh.\n  EVANS. He's welcome.                                   [Sings]\n    To shallow rivers, to whose falls-\n    Heaven prosper the right! What weapons is he?\n  SIMPLE. No weapons, sir. There comes my master, Master\n    Shallow, and another gentleman, from Frogmore, over the\n    stile, this way.\n  EVANS. Pray you give me my gown; or else keep it in your\n    arms.                                     [Takes out a book]\n\n               Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER\n\n  SHALLOW. How now, Master Parson! Good morrow, good\n    Sir Hugh. Keep a gamester from the dice, and a good student\n     from his book, and it is wonderful.\n  SLENDER.  [Aside]  Ah, sweet Anne Page!\n  PAGE. Save you, good Sir Hugh!\n  EVANS. Pless you from his mercy sake, all of you!\n  SHALLOW. What, the sword and the word! Do you study\n    them both, Master Parson?\n  PAGE. And youthful still, in your doublet and hose, this raw\n    rheumatic day!\n  EVANS. There is reasons and causes for it.\n  PAGE. We are come to you to do a good office, Master\n    Parson.\n  EVANS. Fery well; what is it?\n  PAGE. Yonder is a most reverend gentleman, who, belike having\n    received wrong by some person, is at most odds with\n    his own gravity and patience that ever you saw.\n  SHALLOW. I have lived fourscore years and upward; I never\n    heard a man of his place, gravity, and learning, so wide of\n    his own respect.\n  EVANS. What is he?\n  PAGE. I think you know him: Master Doctor Caius, the\n    renowned French physician.\n  EVANS. Got's will and his passion of my heart! I had as lief\n    you would tell me of a mess of porridge.\n  PAGE. Why?\n  EVANS. He has no more knowledge in Hibocrates and\n    Galen, and he is a knave besides-a cowardly knave as you\n    would desires to be acquainted withal.\n  PAGE. I warrant you, he's the man should fight with him.\n  SLENDER.  [Aside]  O sweet Anne Page!\n  SHALLOW. It appears so, by his weapons. Keep them asunder;\n    here comes Doctor Caius.\n\n                 Enter HOST, CAIUS, and RUGBY\n\n  PAGE. Nay, good Master Parson, keep in your weapon.\n  SHALLOW. So do you, good Master Doctor.\n  HOST. Disarm them, and let them question; let them keep\n    their limbs whole and hack our English.\n  CAIUS. I pray you, let-a me speak a word with your ear.\n    Verefore will you not meet-a me?\n  EVANS.  [Aside to CAIUS]  Pray you use your patience; in\n    good time.\n  CAIUS. By gar, you are de coward, de Jack dog, John ape.\n  EVANS.  [Aside to CAIUS]  Pray you, let us not be\n    laughing-stocks to other men's humours; I desire you in\n    friendship, and I will one way or other make you amends.\n    [Aloud]  I will knog your urinals about your knave's cogscomb\n    for missing your meetings and appointments.\n  CAIUS. Diable! Jack Rugby-mine Host de Jarteer-have I\n    not stay for him to kill him? Have I not, at de place I did\n    appoint?\n  EVANS. As I am a Christians soul, now, look you, this is the\n    place appointed. I'll be judgment by mine host of the\n    Garter.\n  HOST. Peace, I say, Gallia and Gaul, French and Welsh,\n    soul-curer and body-curer.\n  CAIUS. Ay, dat is very good! excellent!\n  HOST. Peace, I say. Hear mine host of the Garter. Am I\n    politic? am I subtle? am I a Machiavel? Shall I lose my\n    doctor? No; he gives me the potions and the motions. Shall I\n    lose my parson, my priest, my Sir Hugh? No; he gives me\n    the proverbs and the noverbs. Give me thy hand, terrestrial;\n    so. Give me thy hand, celestial; so. Boys of art, I have\n    deceiv'd you both; I have directed you to wrong places;\n    your hearts are mighty, your skins are whole, and let burnt\n    sack be the issue. Come, lay their swords to pawn. Follow\n    me, lads of peace; follow, follow, follow.\n  SHALLOW. Trust me, a mad host. Follow, gentlemen, follow.\n  SLENDER.  [Aside]  O sweet Anne Page!\n                                  Exeunt all but CAIUS and EVANS\n  CAIUS. Ha, do I perceive dat? Have you make-a de sot of us,\n    ha, ha?\n  EVANS. This is well; he has made us his vlouting-stog. I\n    desire you that we may be friends; and let us knog our prains\n    together to be revenge on this same scall, scurvy, cogging\n    companion, the host of the Garter.\n  CAIUS. By gar, with all my heart. He promise to bring me\n    where is Anne Page; by gar, he deceive me too.\n  EVANS. Well, I will smite his noddles. Pray you follow.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nThe street in Windsor\n\nEnter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN\n\n  MRS. PAGE. Nay, keep your way, little gallant; you were\n    wont to be a follower, but now you are a leader. Whether\n    had you rather lead mine eyes, or eye your master's heels?\n  ROBIN. I had rather, forsooth, go before you like a man than\n    follow him like a dwarf.\n  MRS. PAGE. O, you are a flattering boy; now I see you'll be a\n    courtier.\n\n                          Enter FORD\n\n  FORD. Well met, Mistress Page. Whither go you?\n  MRS. PAGE. Truly, sir, to see your wife. Is she at home?\n  FORD. Ay; and as idle as she may hang together, for want of\n    company. I think, if your husbands were dead, you two\n    would marry.\n  MRS. PAGE. Be sure of that-two other husbands.\n  FORD. Where had you this pretty weathercock?\n  MRS. PAGE. I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my\n    husband had him of. What do you call your knight's\n    name, sirrah?\n  ROBIN. Sir John Falstaff.\n  FORD. Sir John Falstaff!\n  MRS. PAGE. He, he; I can never hit on's name. There is such\n    a league between my good man and he! Is your wife at\n    home indeed?\n  FORD. Indeed she is.\n  MRS. PAGE. By your leave, sir. I am sick till I see her.\n                                      Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ROBIN\n  FORD. Has Page any brains? Hath he any eyes? Hath he any\n    thinking? Sure, they sleep; he hath no use of them. Why,\n    this boy will carry a letter twenty mile as easy as a cannon\n    will shoot pointblank twelve score. He pieces out his wife's\n    inclination; he gives her folly motion and advantage; and\n    now she's going to my wife, and Falstaff's boy with her. A\n    man may hear this show'r sing in the wind. And Falstaff's\n    boy with her! Good plots! They are laid; and our revolted\n    wives share damnation together. Well; I will take him,\n    then torture my wife, pluck the borrowed veil of modesty\n    from the so seeming Mistress Page, divulge Page himself\n    for a secure and wilful Actaeon; and to these violent proceedings\n    all my neighbours shall cry aim.  [Clock strikes]\n    The clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me\n    search; there I shall find Falstaff. I shall be rather prais'd\n    for this than mock'd; for it is as positive as the earth is firm\n    that Falstaff is there. I will go.\n\n     Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, SLENDER, HOST, SIR HUGH EVANS,\n                              CAIUS, and RUGBY\n\n  SHALLOW, PAGE, &C. Well met, Master Ford.\n  FORD. Trust me, a good knot; I have good cheer at home,\n    and I pray you all go with me.\n  SHALLOW. I must excuse myself, Master Ford.\n  SLENDER. And so must I, sir; we have appointed to dine with\n    Mistress Anne, and I would not break with her for more\n    money than I'll speak of.\n  SHALLOW. We have linger'd about a match between Anne\n    Page and my cousin Slender, and this day we shall have\n    our answer.\n  SLENDER. I hope I have your good will, father Page.\n  PAGE. You have, Master Slender; I stand wholly for you. But\n    my wife, Master Doctor, is for you altogether.\n  CAIUS. Ay, be-gar; and de maid is love-a me; my nursh-a\n    Quickly tell me so mush.\n  HOST. What say you to young Master Fenton? He capers,\n    he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks\n    holiday, he smells April and May; he will carry 't, he will\n    carry 't; 'tis in his buttons; he will carry 't.\n  PAGE. Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is\n    of no having: he kept company with the wild Prince and\n    Poins; he is of too high a region, he knows too much. No,\n    he shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the finger of\n    my substance; if he take her, let him take her simply; the\n    wealth I have waits on my consent, and my consent goes\n    not that way.\n  FORD. I beseech you, heartily, some of you go home with me\n    to dinner: besides your cheer, you shall have sport; I will\n    show you a monster. Master Doctor, you shall go; so shall\n    you, Master Page; and you, Sir Hugh.\n  SHALLOW. Well, fare you well; we shall have the freer\n    wooing at Master Page's.          Exeunt SHALLOW and SLENDER\n  CAIUS. Go home, John Rugby; I come anon.            Exit RUGBY\n  HOST. Farewell, my hearts; I will to my honest knight\n    Falstaff, and drink canary with him.               Exit HOST\n  FORD.  [Aside]  I think I shall drink in pipe-wine first with\n    him. I'll make him dance. Will you go, gentles?\n  ALL. Have with you to see this monster.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nFORD'S house\n\nEnter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE\n\n  MRS. FORD. What, John! what, Robert!\n  MRS. PAGE. Quickly, quickly! Is the buck-basket-\n  MRS. FORD. I warrant. What, Robin, I say!\n\n                 Enter SERVANTS with a basket\n\n  MRS. PAGE. Come, come, come.\n  MRS. FORD. Here, set it down.\n  MRS. PAGE. Give your men the charge; we must be brief.\n  MRS. FORD. Marry, as I told you before, John and Robert, be\n    ready here hard by in the brew-house; and when I suddenly\n    call you, come forth, and, without any pause or\n    staggering, take this basket on your shoulders. That done,\n    trudge with it in all haste, and carry it among the whitsters\n    in Datchet Mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch\n    close by the Thames side.\n  Mrs. PAGE. You will do it?\n  MRS. FORD. I ha' told them over and over; they lack no\n    direction. Be gone, and come when you are call'd.\n                                               Exeunt SERVANTS\n  MRS. PAGE. Here comes little Robin.\n\n                         Enter ROBIN\n\n  MRS. FORD. How now, my eyas-musket, what news with\n    you?\n  ROBIN. My Master Sir John is come in at your back-door,\n    Mistress Ford, and requests your company.\n  MRS. PAGE. You little Jack-a-Lent, have you been true to us?\n  ROBIN. Ay, I'll be sworn. My master knows not of your\n    being here, and hath threat'ned to put me into everlasting\n    liberty, if I tell you of it; for he swears he'll turn me away.\n  MRS. PAGE. Thou 'rt a good boy; this secrecy of thine shall\n    be a tailor to thee, and shall make thee a new doublet and\n    hose. I'll go hide me.\n  MRS. FORD. Do so. Go tell thy master I am alone.  [Exit\n  ROBIN]  Mistress Page, remember you your cue.\n  MRS. PAGE. I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me.\n                                                Exit MRS. PAGE\n  MRS. FORD. Go to, then; we'll use this unwholesome\n    humidity, this gross wat'ry pumpion; we'll teach him to\n    know turtles from jays.\n\n                      Enter FALSTAFF\n\n  FALSTAFF. Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel?\n    Why, now let me die, for I have liv'd long enough; this is\n    the period of my ambition. O this blessed hour!\n  MRS. FORD. O sweet Sir John!\n  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate,\n    Mistress Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish; I would thy\n    husband were dead; I'll speak it before the best lord, I\n    would make thee my lady.\n  MRS. FORD. I your lady, Sir John? Alas, I should be a pitiful\n    lady.\n  FALSTAFF. Let the court of France show me such another. I\n    see how thine eye would emulate the diamond; thou hast\n    the right arched beauty of the brow that becomes the\n    ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance.\n  MRS. FORD. A plain kerchief, Sir John; my brows become\n    nothing else, nor that well neither.\n  FALSTAFF. By the Lord, thou art a tyrant to say so; thou\n    wouldst make an absolute courtier, and the firm fixture of\n    thy foot would give an excellent motion to thy gait in a\n    semi-circled farthingale. I see what thou wert, if Fortune\n    thy foe were, not Nature, thy friend. Come, thou canst not\n    hide it.\n  MRS. FORD. Believe me, there's no such thing in me.\n  FALSTAFF. What made me love thee? Let that persuade thee\n    there's something extra-ordinary in thee. Come, I cannot\n    cog, and say thou art this and that, like a many of these\n    lisping hawthorn-buds that come like women in men's\n    apparel, and smell like Bucklersbury in simple time; I\n    cannot; but I love thee, none but thee; and thou deserv'st it.\n  MRS. FORD. Do not betray me, sir; I fear you love Mistress\n    Page.\n  FALSTAFF. Thou mightst as well say I love to walk by the\n    Counter-gate, which is as hateful to me as the reek of a\n    lime-kiln.\n  MRS. FORD. Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you\n    shall one day find it.\n  FALSTAFF. Keep in that mind; I'll deserve it.\n  MRS. FORD. Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or else I could\n    not be in that mind.\n  ROBIN.  [Within]  Mistress Ford, Mistress Ford! here's\n    Mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing and looking\n    wildly, and would needs speak with you presently.\n  FALSTAFF. She shall not see me; I will ensconce me behind\n    the arras.\n  MRS. FORD. Pray you, do so; she's a very tattling woman.\n                                      [FALSTAFF hides himself]\n\n               Re-enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN\n\n    What's the matter? How now!\n  MRS. PAGE. O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You're\n    sham'd, y'are overthrown, y'are undone for ever.\n  MRS. FORD. What's the matter, good Mistress Page?\n  MRS. PAGE. O well-a-day, Mistress Ford, having an honest\n    man to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion!\n  MRS. FORD. What cause of suspicion?\n  MRS. PAGE. What cause of suspicion? Out upon you, how\n    am I mistook in you!\n  MRS. FORD. Why, alas, what's the matter?\n  MRS. PAGE. Your husband's coming hither, woman, with all\n    the officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that he\n    says is here now in the house, by your consent, to take an\n    ill advantage of his absence. You are undone.\n  MRS. FORD. 'Tis not so, I hope.\n  MRS. PAGE. Pray heaven it be not so that you have such a\n    man here; but 'tis most certain your husband's coming,\n    with half Windsor at his heels, to search for such a one. I\n    come before to tell you. If you know yourself clear, why,\n    I am glad of it; but if you have a friend here, convey,\n    convey him out. Be not amaz'd; call all your senses to you;\n    defend your reputation, or bid farewell to your good life\n    for ever.\n  MRS. FORD. What shall I do? There is a gentleman, my dear\n    friend; and I fear not mine own shame as much as his peril.\n    I had rather than a thousand pound he were out of the\n    house.\n  MRS. PAGE. For shame, never stand 'you had rather' and 'you\n    had rather'! Your husband's here at hand; bethink you of\n    some conveyance; in the house you cannot hide him. O,\n    how have you deceiv'd me! Look, here is a basket; if he be\n    of any reasonable stature, he may creep in here; and throw\n    foul linen upon him, as if it were going to bucking, or-it is\n    whiting-time-send him by your two men to Datchet\n    Mead.\n  MRS. FORD. He's too big to go in there. What shall I do?\n  FALSTAFF.  [Coming forward]  Let me see 't, let me see 't. O,\n    let me see 't! I'll in, I'll in; follow your friend's counsel;\n    I'll in.\n  MRS. PAGE. What, Sir John Falstaff!      [Aside to FALSTAFF]\n    Are these your letters, knight?\n  FALSTAFF.  [Aside to MRS. PAGE]  I love thee and none but\n    thee; help me away.-Let me creep in here; I'll never-\n    [Gets into the basket; they cover him with foul linen]\n  MRS. PAGE. Help to cover your master, boy. Call your men,\n    Mistress Ford. You dissembling knight!\n  MRS. FORD. What, John! Robert! John!                Exit ROBIN\n\n                 Re-enter SERVANTS\n\n    Go, take up these clothes here, quickly; where's the\n    cowl-staff? Look how you drumble. Carry them to the laundress\n    in Datchet Mead; quickly, come.\n\n         Enter FORD, PAGE, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS\n\n  FORD. Pray you come near. If I suspect without cause, why\n    then make sport at me, then let me be your jest; I deserve\n    it. How now, whither bear you this?\n  SERVANT. To the laundress, forsooth.\n  MRS. FORD. Why, what have you to do whither they bear it?\n    You were best meddle with buck-washing.\n  FORD. Buck? I would I could wash myself of the buck!\n    Buck, buck, buck! ay, buck! I warrant you, buck; and of\n    the season too, it shall appear.  [Exeunt SERVANTS with\n    basket]  Gentlemen, I have dream'd to-night; I'll tell you my\n    dream. Here, here, here be my keys; ascend my chambers,\n    search, seek, find out. I'll warrant we'll unkennel the fox.\n    Let me stop this way first.  [Locking the door]  So, now\n    uncape.\n  PAGE. Good Master Ford, be contented; you wrong yourself\n    too much.\n  FORD. True, Master Page. Up, gentlemen, you shall see sport\n    anon; follow me, gentlemen.                             Exit\n  EVANS. This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.\n  CAIUS. By gar, 'tis no the fashion of France; it is not jealous\n    in France.\n  PAGE. Nay, follow him, gentlemen; see the issue of his\n    search.                        Exeunt EVANS, PAGE, and CAIUS\n  MRS. PAGE. Is there not a double excellency in this?\n  MRS. FORD. I know not which pleases me better, that my\n    husband is deceived, or Sir John.\n  MRS. PAGE. What a taking was he in when your husband\n    ask'd who was in the basket!\n  MRS. FORD. I am half afraid he will have need of washing; so\n    throwing him into the water will do him a benefit.\n  MRS. PAGE. Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the\n    same strain were in the same distress.\n  MRS. FORD. I think my husband hath some special suspicion\n    of Falstaff's being here, for I never saw him so gross in his\n    jealousy till now.\n  MRS. PAGE. I Will lay a plot to try that, and we will yet have\n    more tricks with Falstaff. His dissolute disease will scarce\n    obey this medicine.\n  MRS. FORD. Shall we send that foolish carrion, Mistress\n    Quickly, to him, and excuse his throwing into the water,\n    and give him another hope, to betray him to another\n    punishment?\n  MRS. PAGE. We will do it; let him be sent for to-morrow\n    eight o'clock, to have amends.\n\n       Re-enter FORD, PAGE, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS\n\n  FORD. I cannot find him; may be the knave bragg'd of that\n    he could not compass.\n  MRS. PAGE.  [Aside to MRS. FORD]  Heard you that?\n  MRS. FORD. You use me well, Master Ford, do you?\n  FORD. Ay, I do so.\n  MRS. FORD. Heaven make you better than your thoughts!\n  FORD. Amen.\n  MRS. PAGE. You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.\n  FORD. Ay, ay; I must bear it.\n  EVANS. If there be any pody in the house, and in the\n    chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses, heaven forgive\n    my sins at the day of judgment!\n  CAIUS. Be gar, nor I too; there is no bodies.\n  PAGE. Fie, fie, Master Ford, are you not asham'd? What\n    spirit, what devil suggests this imagination? I would not ha'\n    your distemper in this kind for the wealth of Windsor\n    Castle.\n  FORD. 'Tis my fault, Master Page; I suffer for it.\n  EVANS. You suffer for a pad conscience. Your wife is as\n    honest a omans as I will desires among five thousand, and five\n    hundred too.\n  CAIUS. By gar, I see 'tis an honest woman.\n  FORD. Well, I promis'd you a dinner. Come, come, walk in\n    the Park. I pray you pardon me; I will hereafter make\n    known to you why I have done this. Come, wife, come,\n    Mistress Page; I pray you pardon me; pray heartly,\n    pardon me.\n  PAGE. Let's go in, gentlemen; but, trust me, we'll mock him.\n    I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house to breakfast;\n    after, we'll a-birding together; I have a fine hawk for\n    the bush. Shall it be so?\n  FORD. Any thing.\n  EVANS. If there is one, I shall make two in the company.\n  CAIUS. If there be one or two, I shall make-a the turd.\n  FORD. Pray you go, Master Page.\n  EVANS. I pray you now, remembrance to-morrow on the\n    lousy knave, mine host.\n  CAIUS. Dat is good; by gar, with all my heart.\n  EVANS. A lousy knave, to have his gibes and his mockeries!\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nBefore PAGE'S house\n\nEnter FENTON and ANNE PAGE\n\n  FENTON. I see I cannot get thy father's love;\n    Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.\n  ANNE. Alas, how then?\n  FENTON. Why, thou must be thyself.\n    He doth object I am too great of birth;\n    And that, my state being gall'd with my expense,\n    I seek to heal it only by his wealth.\n    Besides these, other bars he lays before me,\n    My riots past, my wild societies;\n    And tells me 'tis a thing impossible\n    I should love thee but as a property.\n  ANNE.. May be he tells you true.\n  FENTON. No, heaven so speed me in my time to come!\n    Albeit I will confess thy father's wealth\n    Was the first motive that I woo'd thee, Anne;\n    Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value\n    Than stamps in gold, or sums in sealed bags;\n    And 'tis the very riches of thyself\n    That now I aim at.\n  ANNE. Gentle Master Fenton,\n    Yet seek my father's love; still seek it, sir.\n    If opportunity and humblest suit\n    Cannot attain it, why then-hark you hither.\n                                           [They converse apart]\n\n        Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and MISTRESS QUICKLY\n\n  SHALLOW. Break their talk, Mistress Quickly; my kinsman\n    shall speak for himself.\n  SLENDER. I'll make a shaft or a bolt on 't; 'slid, 'tis but\n    venturing.\n  SHALLOW. Be not dismay'd.\n  SLENDER. No, she shall not dismay me. I care not for that,\n    but that I am afeard.\n  QUICKLY. Hark ye, Master Slender would speak a word\n    with you.\n  ANNE. I come to him.  [Aside]  This is my father's choice.\n    O, what a world of vile ill-favour'd faults\n    Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!\n  QUICKLY. And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a\n    word with you.\n  SHALLOW. She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a\n    father!\n  SLENDER. I had a father, Mistress Anne; my uncle can tell\n    you good jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress Anne\n    the jest how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good\n    uncle.\n  SHALLOW. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.\n  SLENDER. Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in\n    Gloucestershire.\n  SHALLOW. He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.\n  SLENDER. Ay, that I will come cut and longtail, under the\n    degree of a squire.\n  SHALLOW. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds\n    jointure.\n  ANNE. Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.\n  SHALLOW. Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that\n    good comfort. She calls you, coz; I'll leave you.\n  ANNE. Now, Master Slender-\n  SLENDER. Now, good Mistress Anne-\n  ANNE. What is your will?\n  SLENDER. My Will! 'Od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest\n    indeed! I ne'er made my will yet, I thank heaven; I am not\n    such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise.\n  ANNE. I mean, Master Slender, what would you with me?\n  SLENDER. Truly, for mine own part I would little or nothing\n    with you. Your father and my uncle hath made motions;\n    if it be my luck, so; if not, happy man be his dole! They\n    can tell you how things go better than I can. You may ask\n    your father; here he comes.\n\n            Enter PAGE and MISTRESS PAGE\n\n  PAGE. Now, Master Slender! Love him, daughter Anne-\n    Why, how now, what does Master Fenton here?\n    You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house.\n    I told you, sir, my daughter is dispos'd of.\n  FENTON. Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.\n  MRS. PAGE. Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.\n  PAGE. She is no match for you.\n  FENTON. Sir, will you hear me?\n  PAGE. No, good Master Fenton.\n    Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender; in.\n    Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.\n                               Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER\n  QUICKLY. Speak to Mistress Page.\n  FENTON. Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter\n    In such a righteous fashion as I do,\n    Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners,\n    I must advance the colours of my love,\n    And not retire. Let me have your good will.\n  ANNE. Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.\n  MRS. PAGE. I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.\n  QUICKLY. That's my master, Master Doctor.\n  ANNE. Alas, I had rather be set quick i' th' earth.\n    And bowl'd to death with turnips.\n  MRS. PAGE. Come, trouble not yourself. Good Master\n    Fenton,\n    I will not be your friend, nor enemy;\n    My daughter will I question how she loves you,\n    And as I find her, so am I affected;\n    Till then, farewell, sir; she must needs go in;\n    Her father will be angry.\n  FENTON. Farewell, gentle mistress; farewell, Nan.\n                                       Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ANNE\n  QUICKLY. This is my doing now: 'Nay,' said I 'will you cast\n    away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on\n    Master Fenton.' This is my doing.\n  FENTON. I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night\n    Give my sweet Nan this ring. There's for thy pains.\n  QUICKLY. Now Heaven send thee good fortune!  [Exit\n    FENTON]  A kind heart he hath; a woman would run through\n    fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet I would my\n    master had Mistress Anne; or I would Master Slender had\n    her; or, in sooth, I would Master Fenton had her; I will\n    do what I can for them all three, for so I have promis'd,\n    and I'll be as good as my word; but speciously for Master\n    Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to Sir John Falstaff\n    from my two mistresses. What a beast am I to slack it!\n Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nThe Garter Inn\n\nEnter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH\n\n  FALSTAFF. Bardolph, I say!\n  BARDOLPH. Here, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in 't.\n                                                   Exit BARDOLPH\n    Have I liv'd to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of\n    butcher's offal, and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, if\n    I be serv'd such another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out\n    and butter'd, and give them to a dog for a new-year's gift.\n    The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse\n    as they would have drown'd a blind bitch's puppies, fifteen\n    i' th' litter; and you may know by my size that I have\n    a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as\n    hell I should down. I had been drown'd but that the shore\n    was shelvy and shallow-a death that I abhor; for the water\n    swells a man; and what a thing should I have been when\n    had been swell'd! I should have been a mountain of\n    mummy.\n\n                  Re-enter BARDOLPH, with sack\n\n  BARDOLPH. Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you\n  FALSTAFF. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames\n    water; for my belly's as cold as if I had swallow'd\n    snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.\n  BARDOLPH. Come in, woman.\n\n                     Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY\n\n  QUICKLY. By your leave; I cry you mercy. Give your\n    worship good morrow.\n  FALSTAFF. Take away these chalices. Go, brew me a pottle\n    of sack finely.\n  BARDOLPH. With eggs, sir?\n  FALSTAFF. Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my\n    brewage.  [Exit BARDOLPH]  How now!\n  QUICKLY. Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress\n    Ford.\n  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was\n    thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.\n  QUICKLY. Alas the day, good heart, that was not her fault!\n    She does so take on with her men; they mistook their\n    erection.\n  FALSTAFF. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's\n    promise.\n  QUICKLY. Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn\n    your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning\n    a-birding; she desires you once more to come to her between\n    eight and nine; I must carry her word quickly. She'll make\n    you amends, I warrant you.\n  FALSTAFF. Well, I Will visit her. Tell her so; and bid her\n    think what a man is. Let her consider his frailty, and then\n    judge of my merit.\n  QUICKLY. I will tell her.\n  FALSTAFF. Do so. Between nine and ten, say'st thou?\n  QUICKLY. Eight and nine, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Well, be gone; I will not miss her.\n  QUICKLY. Peace be with you, sir.                          Exit\n  FALSTAFF. I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me\n    word to stay within. I like his money well. O, here he\n    comes.\n\n                       Enter FORD disguised\n\n  FORD. Bless you, sir!\n  FALSTAFF. Now, Master Brook, you come to know what\n    hath pass'd between me and Ford's wife?\n  FORD. That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.\n  FALSTAFF. Master Brook, I will not lie to you; I was at her\n    house the hour she appointed me.\n  FORD. And sped you, sir?\n  FALSTAFF. Very ill-favouredly, Master Brook.\n  FORD. How so, sir; did she change her determination?\n  FALSTAFF. No. Master Brook; but the peaking cornuto her\n    husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual 'larum of\n    jealousy, comes me in the instant of our, encounter, after\n    we had embrac'd, kiss'd, protested, and, as it were, spoke\n    the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his\n    companions, thither provoked and instigated by his\n    distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife's\n    love.\n  FORD. What, while you were there?\n  FALSTAFF. While I was there.\n  FORD. And did he search for you, and could not find you?\n  FALSTAFF. You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes\n    in one Mistress Page, gives intelligence of Ford's approach;\n    and, in her invention and Ford's wife's distraction, they\n    convey'd me into a buck-basket.\n  FORD. A buck-basket!\n  FALSTAFF. By the Lord, a buck-basket! Ramm'd me in with\n    foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy\n    napkins, that, Master Brook, there was the rankest compound\n    of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.\n  FORD. And how long lay you there?\n  FALSTAFF. Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have\n    suffer'd to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being\n    thus cramm'd in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his\n    hinds, were call'd forth by their mistress to carry me in\n    the name of foul clothes to Datchet Lane; they took me on\n    their shoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the\n    door; who ask'd them once or twice what they had in their\n    basket. I quak'd for fear lest the lunatic knave would have\n    search'd it; but Fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold,\n    held his hand. Well, on went he for a search, and away\n    went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, Master\n    Brook-I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first,\n    an intolerable fright to be detected with a jealous rotten\n    bell-wether; next, to be compass'd like a good bilbo in the\n    circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and\n    then, to be stopp'd in, like a strong distillation, with\n    stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease. Think of that\n    -a man of my kidney. Think of that-that am as subject to\n    heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw. It\n    was a miracle to scape suffocation. And in the height of\n    this bath, when I was more than half-stew'd in grease, like\n    a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cool'd,\n    glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that\n    -hissing hot. Think of that, Master Brook.\n  FORD. In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you\n    have suffer'd all this. My suit, then, is desperate;\n    you'll undertake her no more.\n  FALSTAFF. Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I\n    have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her\n    husband is this morning gone a-birding; I have received from\n    her another embassy of meeting; 'twixt eight and nine is\n    the hour, Master Brook.\n  FORD. 'Tis past eight already, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Is it? I Will then address me to my appointment.\n    Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall\n    know how I speed; and the conclusion shall be crowned\n    with your enjoying her. Adieu. You shall have her, Master\n    Brook; Master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford.            Exit\n  FORD. Hum! ha! Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I sleep?\n    Master Ford, awake; awake, Master Ford. There's a hole\n    made in your best coat, Master Ford. This 'tis to be\n    married; this 'tis to have linen and buck-baskets! Well, I will\n    proclaim myself what I am; I will now take the lecher; he\n    is at my house. He cannot scape me; 'tis impossible he\n    should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse nor into\n    a pepper box. But, lest the devil that guides him should aid\n    him, I will search impossible places. Though what I am I\n    cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not shall not make\n    me tame. If I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb\n    go with me-I'll be horn mad.                            Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\n\nWindsor. A street\n\nEnter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS QUICKLY, and WILLIAM\n\n  MRS. PAGE. Is he at Master Ford's already, think'st thou?\n  QUICKLY. Sure he is by this; or will be presently; but truly\n    he is very courageous mad about his throwing into the\n    water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly.\n  MRS. PAGE. I'll be with her by and by; I'll but bring my\n    young man here to school. Look where his master comes;\n    'tis a playing day, I see.\n\n                     Enter SIR HUGH EVANS\n\n    How now, Sir Hugh, no school to-day?\n  EVANS. No; Master Slender is let the boys leave to play.\n  QUICKLY. Blessing of his heart!\n  MRS. PAGE. Sir Hugh, my husband says my son profits\n    nothing in the world at his book; I pray you ask him some\n    questions in his accidence.\n  EVANS. Come hither, William; hold up your head; come.\n  MRS. PAGE. Come on, sirrah; hold up your head; answer your\n    master; be not afraid.\n  EVANS. William, how many numbers is in nouns?\n  WILLIAM. Two.\n  QUICKLY. Truly, I thought there had been one number\n    more, because they say 'Od's nouns.'\n  EVANS. Peace your tattlings. What is 'fair,' William?\n  WILLIAM. Pulcher.\n  QUICKLY. Polecats! There are fairer things than polecats,\n    sure.\n  EVANS. You are a very simplicity oman; I pray you, peace.\n    What is 'lapis,' William?\n  WILLIAM. A stone.\n  EVANS. And what is 'a stone,' William?\n  WILLIAM. A pebble.\n  EVANS. No, it is 'lapis'; I pray you remember in your prain.\n  WILLIAM. Lapis.\n  EVANS. That is a good William. What is he, William, that\n    does lend articles?\n  WILLIAM. Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be\n    thus declined: Singulariter, nominativo; hic, haec, hoc.\n  EVANS. Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark: genitivo,\n    hujus. Well, what is your accusative case?\n  WILLIAM. Accusativo, hinc.\n  EVANS. I pray you, have your remembrance, child.\n    Accusativo, hung, hang, hog.\n  QUICKLY. 'Hang-hog' is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.\n  EVANS. Leave your prabbles, oman. What is the focative\n    case, William?\n  WILLIAM. O-vocativo, O.\n  EVANS. Remember, William: focative is caret.\n  QUICKLY. And that's a good root.\n  EVANS. Oman, forbear.\n  MRS. PAGE. Peace.\n  EVANS. What is your genitive case plural, William?\n  WILLIAM. Genitive case?\n  EVANS. Ay.\n  WILLIAM. Genitive: horum, harum, horum.\n  QUICKLY. Vengeance of Jenny's case; fie on her! Never\n    name her, child, if she be a whore.\n  EVANS. For shame, oman.\n  QUICKLY. YOU do ill to teach the child such words. He\n    teaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do fast\n    enough of themselves; and to call 'horum'; fie upon you!\n  EVANS. Oman, art thou lunatics? Hast thou no understandings\n    for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Thou\n    art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires.\n  MRS. PAGE. Prithee hold thy peace.\n  EVANS. Show me now, William, some declensions of your\n    pronouns.\n  WILLIAM. Forsooth, I have forgot.\n  EVANS. It is qui, quae, quod; if you forget your qui's, your\n    quae's, and your quod's, you must be preeches. Go your\n    ways and play; go.\n  MRS. PAGE. He is a better scholar than I thought he was.\n  EVANS. He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.\n  MRS. PAGE. Adieu, good Sir Hugh.                 Exit SIR HUGH\n    Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nFORD'S house\n\nEnter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS FORD\n\n  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my\n    sufferance. I see you are obsequious in your love, and I\n    profess requital to a hair's breadth; not only, Mistress Ford, in\n    the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement,\n    complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your\n    husband now?\n  MRS. FORD. He's a-birding, sweet Sir John.\n  MRS. PAGE.  [Within]  What hoa, gossip Ford, what hoa!\n  MRS. FORD. Step into th' chamber, Sir John.      Exit FALSTAFF\n\n                      Enter MISTRESS PAGE\n\n  MRS. PAGE. How now, sweetheart, who's at home besides\n    yourself?\n  MRS. FORD. Why, none but mine own people.\n  MRS. PAGE. Indeed?\n  MRS. FORD. No, certainly.  [Aside to her]  Speak louder.\n  MRS. PAGE. Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.\n  MRS. FORD. Why?\n  MRS. PAGE. Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes\n    again. He so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails\n    against all married mankind; so curses an Eve's daughters,\n    of what complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the\n    forehead, crying 'Peer-out, peer-out!' that any madness I\n    ever yet beheld seem'd but tameness, civility, and patience,\n    to this his distemper he is in now. I am glad the fat knight\n    is not here.\n  MRS. FORD. Why, does he talk of him?\n  MRS. PAGE. Of none but him; and swears he was carried out,\n    the last time he search'd for him, in a basket; protests to\n    my husband he is now here; and hath drawn him and the\n    rest of their company from their sport, to make another\n    experiment of his suspicion. But I am glad the knight is not\n    here; now he shall see his own foolery.\n  MRS. FORD. How near is he, Mistress Page?\n  MRS. PAGE. Hard by, at street end; he will be here anon.\n  MRS. FORD. I am undone: the knight is here.\n  MRS. PAGE. Why, then, you are utterly sham'd, and he's but\n    a dead man. What a woman are you! Away with him,\n    away with him; better shame than murder.\n  MRS. FORD. Which way should he go? How should I bestow\n    him? Shall I put him into the basket again?\n\n                  Re-enter FALSTAFF\n\n  FALSTAFF. No, I'll come no more i' th' basket. May I not go\n    out ere he come?\n  MRS. PAGE. Alas, three of Master Ford's brothers watch the\n    door with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you\n    might slip away ere he came. But what make you here?\n  FALSTAFF. What shall I do? I'll creep up into the chimney.\n  MRS. FORD. There they always use to discharge their\n    birding-pieces.\n  MRS. PAGE. Creep into the kiln-hole.\n  FALSTAFF. Where is it?\n  MRS. FORD. He will seek there, on my word. Neither press,\n    coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for\n    the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his\n    note. There is no hiding you in the house.\n  FALSTAFF. I'll go out then.\n  MRS. PAGE. If you go out in your own semblance, you die,\n    Sir John. Unless you go out disguis'd.\n  MRS. FORD. How might we disguise him?\n  MRS. PAGE. Alas the day, I know not! There is no woman's\n    gown big enough for him; otherwise he might put on a\n    hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape.\n  FALSTAFF. Good hearts, devise something; any extremity\n    rather than a mischief.\n  MRS. FORD. My Maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brainford, has\n    a gown above.\n  MRS. PAGE. On my word, it will serve him; she's as big as he\n    is; and there's her thrumm'd hat, and her muffler too. Run\n    up, Sir John.\n  MRS. FORD. Go, go, sweet Sir John. Mistress Page and I will\n    look some linen for your head.\n  MRS. PAGE. Quick, quick; we'll come dress you straight. Put\n    on the gown the while.                         Exit FALSTAFF\n  MRS. FORD. I would my husband would meet him in this\n    shape; he cannot abide the old woman of Brainford; he\n    swears she's a witch, forbade her my house, and hath\n    threat'ned to beat her.\n  MRS. PAGE. Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel; and\n    the devil guide his cudgel afterwards!\n  MRS. FORD. But is my husband coming?\n  MRS. PAGE. Ay, in good sadness is he; and talks of the basket\n    too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.\n  MRS. FORD. We'll try that; for I'll appoint my men to carry\n    the basket again, to meet him at the door with it as they\n    did last time.\n  MRS. PAGE. Nay, but he'll be here presently; let's go dress\n    him like the witch of Brainford.\n  MRS. FORD. I'll first direct my men what they shall do with\n    the basket. Go up; I'll bring linen for him straight.   Exit\n  MRS. PAGE. Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse\n    him enough.\n    We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do,\n    Wives may be merry and yet honest too.\n    We do not act that often jest and laugh;\n    'Tis old but true: Still swine eats all the draff.      Exit\n\n            Re-enter MISTRESS FORD, with two SERVANTS\n\n  MRS. FORD. Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders;\n    your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it down, obey\n    him; quickly, dispatch.                                 Exit\n  FIRST SERVANT. Come, come, take it up.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.\n  FIRST SERVANT. I hope not; I had lief as bear so much lead.\n\n    Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS\n\n  FORD. Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any\n    way then to unfool me again? Set down the basket, villain!\n    Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket! O you panderly\n    rascals, there's a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy\n    against me. Now shall the devil be sham'd. What, wife, I\n    say! Come, come forth; behold what honest clothes you\n    send forth to bleaching.\n  PAGE. Why, this passes, Master Ford; you are not to go loose\n    any longer; you must be pinion'd.\n  EVANS. Why, this is lunatics. This is mad as a mad dog.\n  SHALLOW. Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.\n  FORD. So say I too, sir.\n\n                     Re-enter MISTRESS FORD\n\n    Come hither, Mistress Ford; Mistress Ford, the honest\n    woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath\n    the jealous fool to her husband! I suspect without cause,\n    Mistress, do I?\n  MRS. FORD. Heaven be my witness, you do, if you suspect\n    me in any dishonesty.\n  FORD. Well said, brazen-face; hold it out. Come forth, sirrah.\n                           [Pulling clothes out of the basket]\n  PAGE. This passes!\n  MRS. FORD. Are you not asham'd? Let the clothes alone.\n  FORD. I shall find you anon.\n  EVANS. 'Tis unreasonable. Will you take up your wife's\n    clothes? Come away.\n  FORD. Empty the basket, I say.\n  MRS. FORD. Why, man, why?\n  FORD. Master Page, as I am a man, there was one convey'd\n    out of my house yesterday in this basket. Why may not\n    he be there again? In my house I am sure he is; my\n    intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable.\n    Pluck me out all the linen.\n  MRS. FORD. If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's\n    death.\n  PAGE. Here's no man.\n  SHALLOW. By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this\n    wrongs you.\n  EVANS. Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the\n    imaginations of your own heart; this is jealousies.\n  FORD. Well, he's not here I seek for.\n  PAGE. No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.\n  FORD. Help to search my house this one time. If I find not\n    what I seek, show no colour for my extremity; let me for\n    ever be your table sport; let them say of me 'As jealous as\n    Ford, that search'd a hollow walnut for his wife's leman.'\n    Satisfy me once more; once more search with me.\n  MRS. FORD. What, hoa, Mistress Page! Come you and the old\n    woman down; my husband will come into the chamber.\n  FORD. Old woman? what old woman's that?\n  MRS. FORD. Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brainford.\n  FORD. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not\n    forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We\n    are simple men; we do not know what's brought to pass\n    under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by\n    charms, by spells, by th' figure, and such daub'ry as this\n    is, beyond our element. We know nothing. Come down, you\n    witch, you hag you; come down, I say.\n  MRS. FORD. Nay, good sweet husband! Good gentlemen, let\n    him not strike the old woman.\n\n   Re-enter FALSTAFF in woman's clothes, and MISTRESS PAGE\n\n  MRS. PAGE. Come, Mother Prat; come. give me your hand.\n  FORD. I'll prat her.  [Beating him]  Out of my door, you\n    witch, you hag, you. baggage, you polecat, you ronyon!\n    Out, out! I'll conjure you, I'll fortune-tell you.\n                                                   Exit FALSTAFF\n  MRS. PAGE. Are you not asham'd? I think you have kill'd the\n    poor woman.\n  MRS. FORD. Nay, he will do it. 'Tis a goodly credit for you.\n  FORD. Hang her, witch!\n  EVANS. By yea and no, I think the oman is a witch indeed; I\n    like not when a oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard\n    under his muffler.\n  FORD. Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you follow;\n    see but the issue of my jealousy; if I cry out thus upon no\n    trail, never trust me when I open again.\n  PAGE. Let's obey his humour a little further. Come,\n    gentlemen.            Exeunt all but MRS. FORD and MRS. PAGE\n  MRS. PAGE. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.\n  MRS. FORD. Nay, by th' mass, that he did not; he beat him\n    most unpitifully methought.\n  MRS. PAGE. I'll have the cudgel hallow'd and hung o'er the\n    altar; it hath done meritorious service.\n  MRS. FORD. What think you? May we, with the warrant of\n    womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue\n    him with any further revenge?\n  MRS. PAGE. The spirit of wantonness is sure scar'd out of\n    him; if the devil have him not in fee-simple, with fine and\n    recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste,\n    attempt us again.\n  MRS. FORD. Shall we tell our husbands how we have serv'd\n    him?\n  MRS. PAGE. Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the\n    figures out of your husband's brains. If they can find in their\n    hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any further\n    afflicted, we two will still be the ministers.\n  MRS. FORD. I'll warrant they'll have him publicly sham'd;\n    and methinks there would be no period to the jest, should\n    he not be publicly sham'd.\n  MRS. PAGE. Come, to the forge with it then; shape it. I\n    would not have things cool.                           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nThe Garter Inn\n\nEnter HOST and BARDOLPH\n\n  BARDOLPH. Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your\n    horses; the Duke himself will be to-morrow at court, and\n    they are going to meet him.\n  HOST. What duke should that be comes so secretly? I hear\n    not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen;\n    they speak English?\n  BARDOLPH. Ay, sir; I'll call them to you.\n  HOST. They shall have my horses, but I'll make them pay;\n    I'll sauce them; they have had my house a week at\n    command; I have turn'd away my other guests. They must\n    come off; I'll sauce them. Come.                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4\n\nFORD'S house\n\nEnter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS\n\n  EVANS. 'Tis one of the best discretions of a oman as ever\n    did look upon.\n  PAGE. And did he send you both these letters at an instant?\n  MRS. PAGE. Within a quarter of an hour.\n  FORD. Pardon me, wife. Henceforth, do what thou wilt;\n    I rather will suspect the sun with cold\n    Than thee with wantonness. Now doth thy honour stand,\n    In him that was of late an heretic,\n    As firm as faith.\n  PAGE. 'Tis well, 'tis well; no more.\n    Be not as extreme in submission as in offence;\n    But let our plot go forward. Let our wives\n    Yet once again, to make us public sport,\n    Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,\n    Where we may take him and disgrace him for it.\n  FORD. There is no better way than that they spoke of.\n  PAGE. How? To send him word they'll meet him in the Park\n    at midnight? Fie, fie! he'll never come!\n  EVANS. You say he has been thrown in the rivers; and has\n    been grievously peaten as an old oman; methinks there\n    should be terrors in him, that he should not come;\n    methinks his flesh is punish'd; he shall have no desires.\n  PAGE. So think I too.\n  MRS. FORD. Devise but how you'll use him when he comes,\n    And let us two devise to bring him thither.\n  MRS. PAGE. There is an old tale goes that Heme the Hunter,\n    Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,\n    Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,\n    Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;\n    And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,\n    And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain\n    In a most hideous and dreadful manner.\n    You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know\n    The superstitious idle-headed eld\n    Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age,\n    This tale of Heme the Hunter for a truth.\n  PAGE. Why yet there want not many that do fear\n    In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak.\n    But what of this?\n  MRS. FORD. Marry, this is our device-\n    That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us,\n    Disguis'd, like Heme, with huge horns on his head.\n  PAGE. Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come,\n    And in this shape. When you have brought him thither,\n    What shall be done with him? What is your plot?\n  MRS. PAGE. That likewise have we thought upon, and\n    thus:\n    Nan Page my daughter, and my little son,\n    And three or four more of their growth, we'll dress\n    Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies, green and white,\n    With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,\n    And rattles in their hands; upon a sudden,\n    As Falstaff, she, and I, are newly met,\n    Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once\n    With some diffused song; upon their sight\n    We two in great amazedness will fly.\n    Then let them all encircle him about,\n    And fairy-like, to pinch the unclean knight;\n    And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,\n    In their so sacred paths he dares to tread\n    In shape profane.\n  MRS. FORD. And till he tell the truth,\n    Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound,\n    And burn him with their tapers.\n  MRS. PAGE. The truth being known,\n    We'll all present ourselves; dis-horn the spirit,\n    And mock him home to Windsor.\n  FORD. The children must\n    Be practis'd well to this or they'll nev'r do 't.\n  EVANS. I will teach the children their behaviours; and I will\n    be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my\n    taber.\n  FORD. That will be excellent. I'll go buy them vizards.\n  MRS. PAGE. My Nan shall be the Queen of all the Fairies,\n    Finely attired in a robe of white.\n  PAGE. That silk will I go buy.  [Aside]  And in that time\n    Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away,\n    And marry her at Eton.-Go, send to Falstaff straight.\n  FORD. Nay, I'll to him again, in name of Brook;\n    He'll tell me all his purpose. Sure, he'll come.\n  MRS. PAGE. Fear not you that. Go get us properties\n    And tricking for our fairies.\n  EVANS. Let us about it. It is admirable pleasures, and fery\n    honest knaveries.               Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and EVANS\n  MRS. PAGE. Go, Mistress Ford.\n    Send Quickly to Sir John to know his mind.\n                                                  Exit MRS. FORD\n    I'll to the Doctor; he hath my good will,\n    And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.\n    That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot;\n    And he my husband best of all affects.\n    The Doctor is well money'd, and his friends\n    Potent at court; he, none but he, shall have her,\n    Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.      Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nThe Garter Inn\n\nEnter HOST and SIMPLE\n\n  HOST. What wouldst thou have, boor? What, thick-skin?\n    Speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.\n  SIMPLE. Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff\n    from Master Slender.\n  HOST. There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his\n    standing-bed and truckle-bed; 'tis painted about with the\n    story of the Prodigal, fresh and new. Go, knock and can; he'll\n    speak like an Anthropophaginian unto thee. Knock, I say.\n  SIMPLE. There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into\n    his chamber; I'll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come down;\n    I come to speak with her, indeed.\n  HOST. Ha! a fat woman? The knight may be robb'd. I'll call.\n    Bully knight! Bully Sir John! Speak from thy lungs\n    military. Art thou there? It is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls.\n  FALSTAFF.  [Above]  How now, mine host?\n  HOST. Here's a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming down of\n    thy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her descend;\n    my chambers are honourible. Fie, privacy, fie!\n\n                    Enter FALSTAFF\n\n  FALSTAFF. There was, mine host, an old fat woman even\n    now with, me; but she's gone.\n  SIMPLE. Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of\n    Brainford?\n  FALSTAFF. Ay, marry was it, mussel-shell. What would you\n    with her?\n  SIMPLE. My master, sir, my Master Slender, sent to her,\n    seeing her go thorough the streets, to know, sir, whether one\n    Nym, sir, that beguil'd him of a chain, had the chain or no.\n  FALSTAFF. I spake with the old woman about it.\n  SIMPLE. And what says she, I pray, sir?\n  FALSTAFF Marry, she says that the very same man that\n    beguil'd Master Slender of his chain cozen'd him of it.\n  SIMPLE. I would I could have spoken with the woman\n    herself; I had other things to have spoken with her too,\n    from him.\n  FALSTAFF. What are they? Let us know.\n  HOST. Ay, come; quick.\n  SIMPLE. I may not conceal them, sir.\n  FALSTAFF. Conceal them, or thou diest.\n    SIMPLE.. Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress\n    Anne Page: to know if it were my master's fortune to\n    have her or no.\n  FALSTAFF. 'Tis, 'tis his fortune.\n  SIMPLE. What sir?\n  FALSTAFF. To have her, or no. Go; say the woman told me\n    so.\n  SIMPLE. May I be bold to say so, sir?\n  FALSTAFF. Ay, sir, like who more bold?\n  SIMPLE., I thank your worship; I shall make my master glad\n    with these tidings.                              Exit SIMPLE\n  HOST. Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was\n    there a wise woman with thee?\n  FALSTAFF. Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath\n    taught me more wit than ever I learn'd before in my life;\n    and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for my\n    learning.\n\n                    Enter BARDOLPH\n\n  BARDOLPH. Out, alas, sir, cozenage, mere cozenage!\n  HOST. Where be my horses? Speak well of them, varletto.\n  BARDOLPH. Run away with the cozeners; for so soon as I\n    came beyond Eton, they threw me off from behind one of\n    them, in a slough of mire; and set spurs and away, like\n    three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.\n  HOST. They are gone but to meet the Duke, villain; do not\n    say they be fled. Germans are honest men.\n\n                 Enter SIR HUGH EVANS\n\n  EVANS. Where is mine host?\n  HOST. What is the matter, sir?\n  EVANS. Have a care of your entertainments. There is a friend\n    of mine come to town tells me there is three\n    cozen-germans that has cozen'd all the hosts of Readins,\n    of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and money. I tell you for\n    good will, look you; you are wise, and full of gibes and\n    vlouting-stogs, and 'tis not convenient you should be\n    cozened. Fare you well.                                 Exit\n\n                  Enter DOCTOR CAIUS\n\n  CAIUS. Vere is mine host de Jarteer?\n  HOST. Here, Master Doctor, in perplexity and doubtful\n    dilemma.\n  CAIUS. I cannot tell vat is dat; but it is tell-a me dat you\n    make grand preparation for a Duke de Jamany. By my\n    trot, dere is no duke that the court is know to come; I\n    tell you for good will. Adieu.                          Exit\n  HOST. Hue and cry, villain, go! Assist me, knight; I am\n    undone. Fly, run, hue and cry, villain; I am undone.\n                                        Exeunt HOST and BARDOLPH\n  FALSTAFF. I would all the world might be cozen'd, for I have\n    been cozen'd and beaten too. If it should come to the car\n    of the court how I have been transformed, and how my\n    transformation hath been wash'd and cudgell'd, they\n    would melt me out of my fat, drop by drop, and liquor\n    fishermen's boots with me; I warrant they would whip me\n    with their fine wits till I were as crestfall'n as a dried pear.\n    I never prosper'd since I forswore myself at primero. Well,\n    if my wind were but long enough to say my prayers,\n    would repent.\n\n                Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY\n\n    Now! whence come you?\n  QUICKLY. From the two parties, forsooth.\n  FALSTAFF. The devil take one party and his dam the other!\n    And so they shall be both bestowed. I have suffer'd more\n    for their sakes, more than the villainous inconstancy of\n    man's disposition is able to bear.\n  QUICKLY. And have not they suffer'd? Yes, I warrant;\n    speciously one of them; Mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten\n    black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her.\n  FALSTAFF. What tell'st thou me of black and blue? I was\n    beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow; and\n    was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brainford. But\n    that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the\n    action of an old woman, deliver'd me, the knave constable\n    had set me i' th' stocks, i' th' common stocks, for a witch.\n  QUICKLY. Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber; you\n    shall hear how things go, and, I warrant, to your content.\n    Here is a letter will say somewhat. Good hearts, what ado\n    here is to bring you together! Sure, one of you does not\n    serve heaven well, that you are so cross'd.\n  FALSTAFF. Come up into my chamber.                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 6.\n\nThe Garter Inn\n\nEnter FENTON and HOST\n\n  HOST. Master Fenton, talk not to me; my mind is heavy; I\n    will give over all.\n  FENTON. Yet hear me speak. Assist me in my purpose,\n    And, as I am a gentleman, I'll give the\n    A hundred pound in gold more than your loss.\n  HOST. I will hear you, Master Fenton; and I will, at the least,\n    keep your counsel.\n  FENTON. From time to time I have acquainted you\n    With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page;\n    Who, mutually, hath answer'd my affection,\n    So far forth as herself might be her chooser,\n    Even to my wish. I have a letter from her\n    Of such contents as you will wonder at;\n    The mirth whereof so larded with my matter\n    That neither, singly, can be manifested\n    Without the show of both. Fat Falstaff\n    Hath a great scene. The image of the jest\n    I'll show you here at large. Hark, good mine host:\n    To-night at Heme's oak, just 'twixt twelve and one,\n    Must my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen-\n    The purpose why is here-in which disguise,\n    While other jests are something rank on foot,\n    Her father hath commanded her to slip\n    Away with Slender, and with him at Eton\n    Immediately to marry; she hath consented.\n    Now, sir,\n    Her mother, even strong against that match\n    And firm for Doctor Caius, hath appointed\n    That he shall likewise shuffle her away\n    While other sports are tasking of their minds,\n    And at the dean'ry, where a priest attends,\n    Straight marry her. To this her mother's plot\n    She seemingly obedient likewise hath\n    Made promise to the doctor. Now thus it rests:\n    Her father means she shall be all in white;\n    And in that habit, when Slender sees his time\n    To take her by the hand and bid her go,\n    She shall go with him; her mother hath intended\n    The better to denote her to the doctor-\n    For they must all be mask'd and vizarded-\n    That quaint in green she shall be loose enrob'd,\n    With ribands pendent, flaring 'bout her head;\n    And when the doctor spies his vantage ripe,\n    To pinch her by the hand, and, on that token,\n    The maid hath given consent to go with him.\n  HOST. Which means she to deceive, father or mother?\n  FENTON. Both, my good host, to go along with me.\n    And here it rests-that you'll procure the vicar\n    To stay for me at church, 'twixt twelve and one,\n    And in the lawful name of marrying,\n    To give our hearts united ceremony.\n  HOST. Well, husband your device; I'll to the vicar.\n    Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest.\n  FENTON. So shall I evermore be bound to thee;\n    Besides, I'll make a present recompense.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\n\nThe Garter Inn\n\nEnter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS QUICKLY\n\n  FALSTAFF. Prithee, no more prattling; go. I'll, hold. This is\n    the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers.\n    Away, go; they say there is divinity in odd numbers, either\n    in nativity, chance, or death. Away.\n  QUICKLY. I'll provide you a chain, and I'll do what I can to\n    get you a pair of horns.\n  FALSTAFF. Away, I say; time wears; hold up your head, and\n    mince.                                     Exit MRS. QUICKLY\n\n                 Enter FORD disguised\n\n    How now, Master Brook. Master Brook, the matter will\n    be known tonight or never. Be you in the Park about\n    midnight, at Herne's oak, and you shall see wonders.\n  FORD. Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me\n    you had appointed?\n  FALSTAFF. I went to her, Master Brook, as you see, like a\n    poor old man; but I came from her, Master Brook, like a\n    poor old woman. That same knave Ford, her husband, hath\n    the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Brook, that\n    ever govern'd frenzy. I will tell you-he beat me grievously\n    in the shape of a woman; for in the shape of man, Master\n    Brook, I fear not Goliath with a weaver's beam; because\n    I know also life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along with\n    me; I'll. tell you all, Master Brook. Since I pluck'd geese,\n    play'd truant, and whipp'd top, I knew not what 'twas to\n    be beaten till lately. Follow me. I'll tell you strange things\n    of this knave-Ford, on whom to-night I will be revenged,\n    and I will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow. Strange\n    things in hand, Master Brook! Follow.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nWindsor Park\n\nEnter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER\n\n  PAGE. Come, come; we'll couch i' th' Castle ditch till we\n    see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender, my daughter.\n  SLENDER. Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her, and we have\n    a nay-word how to know one another. I come to her in\n    white and cry 'mum'; she cries 'budget,' and by that we\n    know one another.\n  SHALLOW. That's good too; but what needs either your mum\n    or her budget? The white will decipher her well enough.\n    It hath struck ten o'clock.\n  PAGE. The night is dark; light and spirits will become it well.\n    Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil but the\n    devil, and we shall know him by his horns. Let's away;\n    follow me.                                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nA street leading to the Park\n\nEnter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and DOCTOR CAIUS\n\n  MRS. PAGE. Master Doctor, my daughter is in green; when\n    you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to\n    the deanery, and dispatch it quickly. Go before into the\n    Park; we two must go together.\n  CAIUS. I know vat I have to do; adieu.\n  MRS. PAGE. Fare you well, sir.  [Exit CAIUS]  My husband\n    will not rejoice so much at the abuse of Falstaff as he will\n    chafe at the doctor's marrying my daughter; but 'tis no\n    matter; better a little chiding than a great deal of\n    heartbreak.\n  MRS. FORD. Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies, and\n    the Welsh devil, Hugh?\n  MRS. PAGE. They are all couch'd in a pit hard by Heme's\n    oak, with obscur'd lights; which, at the very instant of\n    Falstaff's and our meeting, they will at once display to the\n    night.\n  MRS. FORD. That cannot choose but amaze him.\n  MRS. PAGE. If he be not amaz'd, he will be mock'd; if he be\n    amaz'd, he will every way be mock'd.\n  MRS. FORD. We'll betray him finely.\n  MRS. PAGE. Against such lewdsters and their lechery,\n    Those that betray them do no treachery.\n  MRS. FORD. The hour draws on. To the oak, to the oak!\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nWindsor Park\n\nEnter SIR HUGH EVANS like a satyr, with OTHERS as fairies\n\n  EVANS. Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts.\n    Be pold, I pray you; follow me into the pit; and when I\n    give the watch-ords, do as I pid you. Come, come; trib,\n    trib.                                                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nAnother part of the Park\n\nEnter FALSTAFF disguised as HERNE\n\n  FALSTAFF. The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute\n    draws on. Now the hot-blooded gods assist me!\n    Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love set on thy\n    horns. O powerful love! that in some respects makes a\n    beast a man; in some other a man a beast. You were also,\n    Jupiter, a swan, for the love of Leda. O omnipotent love!\n    how near the god drew to the complexion of a goose! A\n    fault done first in the form of a beast-O Jove, a beastly\n    fault!-and then another fault in the semblance of a fowl-\n    think on't, Jove, a foul fault! When gods have hot backs\n    what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a Windsor\n    stag; and the fattest, I think, i' th' forest. Send me a cool\n    rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow?\n    Who comes here? my doe?\n\n        Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE\n\n  MRS. FORD. Sir John! Art thou there, my deer, my male deer.\n  FALSTAFF. My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain\n    potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Greensleeves, hail\n    kissing-comfits, and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest\n    of provocation, I will shelter me here.      [Embracing her]\n  MRS. FORD. Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.\n  FALSTAFF. Divide me like a brib'd buck, each a haunch; I\n    will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow\n    of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am\n    I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Heme the Hunter? Why,\n    now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes restitution.\n    As I am a true spirit, welcome!           [A noise of horns]\n  MRS. PAGE. Alas, what noise?\n  MRS. FORD. Heaven forgive our sins!\n  FALSTAFF. What should this be?\n  MRS. FORD. } Away, away.\n  MRS. PAGE. } Away, away.                        [They run off]\n  FALSTAFF. I think the devil will not have me damn'd, lest the\n    oil that's in me should set hell on fire; he would never else\n    cross me thus.\n\n        Enter SIR HUGH EVANS like a satyr, ANNE PAGE as\n      a fairy, and OTHERS as the Fairy Queen, fairies, and\n               Hobgoblin; all with tapers\n\n  FAIRY QUEEN. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,\n    You moonshine revellers, and shades of night,\n    You orphan heirs of fixed destiny,\n    Attend your office and your quality.\n    Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.\n  PUCK. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys.\n    Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap;\n    Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept,\n    There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry;\n    Our radiant Queen hates sluts and sluttery.\n  FALSTAFF. They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die.\n    I'll wink and couch; no man their works must eye.\n                                       [Lies down upon his face]\n  EVANS. Where's Pede? Go you, and where you find a maid\n    That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,\n    Raise up the organs of her fantasy\n    Sleep she as sound as careless infancy;\n    But those as sleep and think not on their sins,\n    Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins.\n  FAIRY QUEEN. About, about;\n    Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out;\n    Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room,\n    That it may stand till the perpetual doom\n    In state as wholesome as in state 'tis fit,\n    Worthy the owner and the owner it.\n    The several chairs of order look you scour\n    With juice of balm and every precious flower;\n    Each fair instalment, coat, and sev'ral crest,\n    With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!\n    And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,\n    Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring;\n    Th' expressure that it bears, green let it be,\n    More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;\n    And 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' write\n    In em'rald tufts, flow'rs purple, blue and white;\n    Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,\n    Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee.\n    Fairies use flow'rs for their charactery.\n    Away, disperse; but till 'tis one o'clock,\n    Our dance of custom round about the oak\n    Of Herne the Hunter let us not forget.\n  EVANS. Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set;\n    And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,\n    To guide our measure round about the tree.\n    But, stay. I smell a man of middle earth.\n  FALSTAFF. Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he\n    transform me to a piece of cheese!\n  PUCK. Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth.\n  FAIRY QUEEN. With trial-fire touch me his finger-end;\n    If he be chaste, the flame will back descend,\n    And turn him to no pain; but if he start,\n    It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.\n  PUCK. A trial, come.\n  EVANS. Come, will this wood take fire?\n             [They put the tapers to his fingers, and he starts]\n  FALSTAFF. Oh, oh, oh!\n  FAIRY QUEEN. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!\n    About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;\n    And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.\n  THE SONG.\n    Fie on sinful fantasy!\n    Fie on lust and luxury!\n    Lust is but a bloody fire,\n    Kindled with unchaste desire,\n    Fed in heart, whose flames aspire,\n    As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.\n    Pinch him, fairies, mutually;\n    Pinch him for his villainy;\n    Pinch him and burn him and turn him about,\n    Till candles and star-light and moonshine be out.\n\n        During this song they pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR\n        CAIUS comes one way, and steals away a fairy in\n        green; SLENDER another way, and takes off a fairy in\n        white; and FENTON steals away ANNE PAGE. A noise\n        of hunting is heard within. All the fairies run away.\n        FALSTAFF pulls off his buck's head, and rises\n\n       Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and\n                        SIR HUGH EVANS\n\n  PAGE. Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd you now.\n    Will none but Heme the Hunter serve your turn?\n  MRS. PAGE. I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher.\n    Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?\n    See you these, husband? Do not these fair yokes\n    Become the forest better than the town?\n  FORD. Now, sir, who's a cuckold now? Master Brook,\n    Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns,\n    Master Brook; and, Master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of\n    Ford's but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds\n    of money, which must be paid to Master Brook; his horses\n    are arrested for it, Master Brook.\n  MRS. FORD. Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never\n    meet. I will never take you for my love again; but I will\n    always count you my deer.\n  FALSTAFF. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.\n  FORD. Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant.\n  FALSTAFF. And these are not fairies? I was three or four\n    times in the thought they were not fairies; and yet the\n    guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers,\n    drove the grossness of the foppery into a receiv'd belief,\n    in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they\n    were fairies. See now how wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent\n    when 'tis upon ill employment.\n  EVANS. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires,\n    and fairies will not pinse you.\n  FORD. Well said, fairy Hugh.\n  EVANS. And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you.\n  FORD. I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able\n    to woo her in good English.\n  FALSTAFF. Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that\n    it wants matter to prevent so gross, o'er-reaching as this?\n    Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a cox-comb\n    of frieze? 'Tis time I were chok'd with a piece of\n    toasted cheese.\n  EVANS. Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all\n    putter.\n  FALSTAFF. 'Seese' and 'putter'! Have I liv'd to stand at the\n    taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough\n    to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm.\n  MRS. PAGE. Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would\n    have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and\n    shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to hell,\n    that ever the devil could have made you our delight?\n  FORD. What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?\n  MRS. PAGE. A puff'd man?\n  PAGE. Old, cold, wither'd, and of intolerable entrails?\n  FORD. And one that is as slanderous as Satan?\n  PAGE. And as poor as Job?\n  FORD. And as wicked as his wife?\n  EVANS. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack,\n    and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings,\n    and starings, pribbles and prabbles?\n  FALSTAFF. Well, I am your theme; you have the start of me;\n    I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel;\n    ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me; use me as you will.\n  FORD. Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one Master\n    Brook, that you have cozen'd of money, to whom you\n    should have been a pander. Over and above that you have\n    suffer'd, I think to repay that money will be a biting\n    affliction.\n  PAGE. Yet be cheerful, knight; thou shalt eat a posset\n    tonight at my house, where I will desire thee to laugh at my\n    wife, that now laughs at thee. Tell her Master Slender hath\n    married her daughter.\n  MRS. PAGE.  [Aside]  Doctors doubt that; if Anne Page be\n    my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife.\n\n                        Enter SLENDER\n\n  SLENDER. Whoa, ho, ho, father Page!\n  PAGE. Son, how now! how now, son! Have you dispatch'd'?\n  SLENDER. Dispatch'd! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire\n    know on't; would I were hang'd, la, else!\n  PAGE. Of what, son?\n  SLENDER. I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne\n    Page, and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i'\n    th' church, I would have swing'd him, or he should have\n    swing'd me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page,\n    would I might never stir!-and 'tis a postmaster's boy.\n  PAGE. Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.\n  SLENDER. What need you tell me that? I think so, when I\n    took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for all\n    he was in woman's apparel, I would not have had him.\n  PAGE. Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how\n    you should know my daughter by her garments?\n  SLENDER. I went to her in white and cried 'mum' and she\n    cried 'budget' as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was\n    not Anne, but a postmaster's boy.\n  MRS. PAGE. Good George, be not angry. I knew of your\n    purpose; turn'd my daughter into green; and, indeed, she\n    is now with the Doctor at the dean'ry, and there married.\n\n                         Enter CAIUS\n\n  CAIUS. Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened; I ha'\n    married un garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy; it is\n    not Anne Page; by gar, I am cozened.\n  MRS. PAGE. Why, did you take her in green?\n  CAIUS. Ay, be gar, and 'tis a boy; be gar, I'll raise all\n    Windsor.                                          Exit CAIUS\n  FORD. This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?\n  PAGE. My heart misgives me; here comes Master Fenton.\n\n                  Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE\n\n    How now, Master Fenton!\n  ANNE. Pardon, good father. Good my mother, pardon.\n  PAGE. Now, Mistress, how chance you went not with Master\n    Slender?\n  MRS. PAGE. Why went you not with Master Doctor, maid?\n  FENTON. You do amaze her. Hear the truth of it.\n    You would have married her most shamefully,\n    Where there was no proportion held in love.\n    The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,\n    Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.\n    Th' offence is holy that she hath committed;\n    And this deceit loses the name of craft,\n    Of disobedience, or unduteous title,\n    Since therein she doth evitate and shun\n    A thousand irreligious cursed hours,\n    Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.\n  FORD. Stand not amaz'd; here is no remedy.\n    In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state;\n    Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.\n  FALSTAFF. I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand\n    to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanc'd.\n  PAGE. Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!\n    What cannot be eschew'd must be embrac'd.\n  FALSTAFF. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chas'd.\n  MRS. PAGE. Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,\n    Heaven give you many, many merry days!\n    Good husband, let us every one go home,\n    And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire;\n    Sir John and all.\n  FORD. Let it be so. Sir John,\n    To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word;\n    For he, to-night, shall lie with Mistress Ford.       Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1596\n\nA MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  THESEUS, Duke of Athens\n  EGEUS, father to Hermia\n  LYSANDER, in love with Hermia\n  DEMETRIUS, in love with Hermia\n  PHILOSTRATE, Master of the Revels to Theseus\n  QUINCE, a carpenter\n  SNUG, a joiner\n  BOTTOM, a weaver\n  FLUTE, a bellows-mender\n  SNOUT, a tinker\n  STARVELING, a tailor\n\n  HIPPOLYTA, Queen of the Amazons, bethrothed to Theseus\n  HERMIA, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander\n  HELENA, in love with Demetrius\n\n  OBERON, King of the Fairies\n  TITANIA, Queen of the Fairies\n  PUCK, or ROBIN GOODFELLOW\n  PEASEBLOSSOM, fairy\n  COBWEB, fairy\n  MOTH, fairy\n  MUSTARDSEED, fairy\n\n  PROLOGUE, PYRAMUS, THISBY, WALL, MOONSHINE, LION are presented by:\n    QUINCE, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, STARVELING, AND SNUG\n\n  Other Fairies attending their King and Queen\n  Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nAthens and a wood near it\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nAthens. The palace of THESEUS\n\nEnter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  THESEUS. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour\n    Draws on apace; four happy days bring in\n    Another moon; but, O, methinks, how slow\n    This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires,\n    Like to a step-dame or a dowager,\n    Long withering out a young man's revenue.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;\n    Four nights will quickly dream away the time;\n    And then the moon, like to a silver bow\n    New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night\n    Of our solemnities.\n  THESEUS. Go, Philostrate,\n    Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;\n    Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;\n    Turn melancholy forth to funerals;\n    The pale companion is not for our pomp.     Exit PHILOSTRATE\n    Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,\n    And won thy love doing thee injuries;\n    But I will wed thee in another key,\n    With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.\n\n          Enter EGEUS, and his daughter HERMIA, LYSANDER,\n                           and DEMETRIUS\n\n  EGEUS. Happy be Theseus, our renowned Duke!\n  THESEUS. Thanks, good Egeus; what's the news with thee?\n  EGEUS. Full of vexation come I, with complaint\n    Against my child, my daughter Hermia.\n    Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,\n    This man hath my consent to marry her.\n    Stand forth, Lysander. And, my gracious Duke,\n    This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child.\n    Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,\n    And interchang'd love-tokens with my child;\n    Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,\n    With feigning voice, verses of feigning love,\n    And stol'n the impression of her fantasy\n    With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,\n    Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats- messengers\n    Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth;\n    With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart;\n    Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,\n    To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke,\n    Be it so she will not here before your Grace\n    Consent to marry with Demetrius,\n    I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:\n    As she is mine I may dispose of her;\n    Which shall be either to this gentleman\n    Or to her death, according to our law\n    Immediately provided in that case.\n  THESEUS. What say you, Hermia? Be advis'd, fair maid.\n    To you your father should be as a god;\n    One that compos'd your beauties; yea, and one\n    To whom you are but as a form in wax,\n    By him imprinted, and within his power\n    To leave the figure, or disfigure it.\n    Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.\n  HERMIA. So is Lysander.\n  THESEUS. In himself he is;\n    But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice,\n    The other must be held the worthier.\n  HERMIA. I would my father look'd but with my eyes.\n  THESEUS. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.\n  HERMIA. I do entreat your Grace to pardon me.\n    I know not by what power I am made bold,\n    Nor how it may concern my modesty\n    In such a presence here to plead my thoughts;\n    But I beseech your Grace that I may know\n    The worst that may befall me in this case,\n    If I refuse to wed Demetrius.\n  THESEUS. Either to die the death, or to abjure\n    For ever the society of men.\n    Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,\n    Know of your youth, examine well your blood,\n    Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,\n    You can endure the livery of a nun,\n    For aye to be shady cloister mew'd,\n    To live a barren sister all your life,\n    Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.\n    Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood\n    To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;\n    But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd\n    Than that which withering on the virgin thorn\n    Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.\n  HERMIA. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,\n    Ere I will yield my virgin patent up\n    Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke\n    My soul consents not to give sovereignty.\n  THESEUS. Take time to pause; and by the next new moon-\n    The sealing-day betwixt my love and me\n    For everlasting bond of fellowship-\n    Upon that day either prepare to die\n    For disobedience to your father's will,\n    Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would,\n    Or on Diana's altar to protest\n    For aye austerity and single life.\n  DEMETRIUS. Relent, sweet Hermia; and, Lysander, yield\n    Thy crazed title to my certain right.\n  LYSANDER. You have her father's love, Demetrius;\n    Let me have Hermia's; do you marry him.\n  EGEUS. Scornful Lysander, true, he hath my love;\n    And what is mine my love shall render him;\n    And she is mine; and all my right of her\n    I do estate unto Demetrius.\n  LYSANDER. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he,\n    As well possess'd; my love is more than his;\n    My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,\n    If not with vantage, as Demetrius';\n    And, which is more than all these boasts can be,\n    I am belov'd of beauteous Hermia.\n    Why should not I then prosecute my right?\n    Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,\n    Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,\n    And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,\n    Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,\n    Upon this spotted and inconstant man.\n  THESEUS. I must confess that I have heard so much,\n    And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;\n    But, being over-full of self-affairs,\n    My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;\n    And come, Egeus; you shall go with me;\n    I have some private schooling for you both.\n    For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself\n    To fit your fancies to your father's will,\n    Or else the law of Athens yields you up-\n    Which by no means we may extenuate-\n    To death, or to a vow of single life.\n    Come, my Hippolyta; what cheer, my love?\n    Demetrius, and Egeus, go along;\n    I must employ you in some business\n    Against our nuptial, and confer with you\n    Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.\n  EGEUS. With duty and desire we follow you.\n                              Exeunt all but LYSANDER and HERMIA\n  LYSANDER. How now, my love! Why is your cheek so pale?\n    How chance the roses there do fade so fast?\n  HERMIA. Belike for want of rain, which I could well\n    Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.\n  LYSANDER. Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,\n    Could ever hear by tale or history,\n    The course of true love never did run smooth;\n    But either it was different in blood-\n  HERMIA. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low.\n  LYSANDER. Or else misgraffed in respect of years-\n  HERMIA. O spite! too old to be engag'd to young.\n  LYSANDER. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends-\n  HERMIA. O hell! to choose love by another's eyes.\n  LYSANDER. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,\n    War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it,\n    Making it momentary as a sound,\n    Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,\n    Brief as the lightning in the collied night\n    That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,\n    And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'\n    The jaws of darkness do devour it up;\n    So quick bright things come to confusion.\n  HERMIA. If then true lovers have ever cross'd,\n    It stands as an edict in destiny.\n    Then let us teach our trial patience,\n    Because it is a customary cross,\n    As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,\n    Wishes and tears, poor Fancy's followers.\n  LYSANDER. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia.\n    I have a widow aunt, a dowager\n    Of great revenue, and she hath no child-\n    From Athens is her house remote seven leagues-\n    And she respects me as her only son.\n    There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;\n    And to that place the sharp Athenian law\n    Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,\n    Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;\n    And in the wood, a league without the town,\n    Where I did meet thee once with Helena\n    To do observance to a morn of May,\n    There will I stay for thee.\n  HERMIA. My good Lysander!\n    I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow,\n    By his best arrow, with the golden head,\n    By the simplicity of Venus' doves,\n    By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,\n    And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage Queen,\n    When the false Troyan under sail was seen,\n    By all the vows that ever men have broke,\n    In number more than ever women spoke,\n    In that same place thou hast appointed me,\n    To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.\n  LYSANDER. Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.\n\n                         Enter HELENA\n\n  HERMIA. God speed fair Helena! Whither away?\n  HELENA. Call you me fair? That fair again unsay.\n    Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!\n    Your eyes are lode-stars and your tongue's sweet air\n    More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,\n    When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.\n    Sickness is catching; O, were favour so,\n    Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go!\n    My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,\n    My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.\n    Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,\n    The rest I'd give to be to you translated.\n    O, teach me how you look, and with what art\n    You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart!\n  HERMIA. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.\n  HELENA. O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!\n  HERMIA. I give him curses, yet he gives me love.\n  HELENA. O that my prayers could such affection move!\n  HERMIA. The more I hate, the more he follows me.\n  HELENA. The more I love, the more he hateth me.\n  HERMIA. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.\n  HELENA. None, but your beauty; would that fault were mine!\n  HERMIA. Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;\n    Lysander and myself will fly this place.\n    Before the time I did Lysander see,\n    Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me.\n    O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,\n    That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!\n  LYSANDER. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:\n    To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold\n    Her silver visage in the wat'ry glass,\n    Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,\n    A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,\n    Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.\n  HERMIA. And in the wood where often you and I\n    Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,\n    Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,\n    There my Lysander and myself shall meet;\n    And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,\n    To seek new friends and stranger companies.\n    Farewell, sweet playfellow; pray thou for us,\n    And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!\n    Keep word, Lysander; we must starve our sight\n    From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.\n  LYSANDER. I will, my Hermia. [Exit HERMIA] Helena, adieu;\n    As you on him, Demetrius dote on you.                   Exit\n  HELENA. How happy some o'er other some can be!\n    Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.\n    But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;\n    He will not know what all but he do know.\n    And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,\n    So I, admiring of his qualities.\n    Things base and vile, holding no quantity,\n    Love can transpose to form and dignity.\n    Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;\n    And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.\n    Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;\n    Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste;\n    And therefore is Love said to be a child,\n    Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.\n    As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,\n    So the boy Love is perjur'd everywhere;\n    For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,\n    He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;\n    And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,\n    So he dissolv'd, and show'rs of oaths did melt.\n    I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight;\n    Then to the wood will he to-morrow night\n    Pursue her; and for this intelligence\n    If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.\n    But herein mean I to enrich my pain,\n    To have his sight thither and back again.               Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAthens. QUINCE'S house\n\nEnter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING\n\n  QUINCE. Is all our company here?\n  BOTTOM. You were best to call them generally, man by man, according\n    to the scrip.\n  QUINCE. Here is the scroll of every man's name which is thought\n    fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the Duke\n    and the Duchess on his wedding-day at night.\n  BOTTOM. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then\n    read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.\n  QUINCE. Marry, our play is 'The most Lamentable Comedy and most\n    Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisby.'\n  BOTTOM. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now,\n    good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters,\n    spread yourselves.\n  QUINCE. Answer, as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.\n  BOTTOM. Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.\n  QUINCE. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.\n  BOTTOM. What is Pyramus? A lover, or a tyrant?\n  QUINCE. A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.\n  BOTTOM. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I\n    do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms; I\n    will condole in some measure. To the rest- yet my chief humour is\n    for a tyrant. I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat\n    in, to make all split.\n\n                 'The raging rocks\n                 And shivering shocks\n                 Shall break the locks\n                   Of prison gates;\n\n                 And Phibbus' car\n                 Shall shine from far,\n                 And make and mar\n                   The foolish Fates.'\n\n    This was lofty. Now name the rest of the players. This is\n    Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein: a lover is more condoling.\n  QUINCE. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.\n  FLUTE. Here, Peter Quince.\n  QUINCE. Flute, you must take Thisby on you.\n  FLUTE. What is Thisby? A wand'ring knight?\n  QUINCE. It is the lady that Pyramus must love.\n  FLUTE. Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming.\n  QUINCE. That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may\n    speak as small as you will.\n  BOTTOM. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too.\n    I'll speak in a monstrous little voice: 'Thisne, Thisne!'\n    [Then speaking small] 'Ah Pyramus, my lover dear! Thy\n    Thisby dear, and lady dear!'\n  QUINCE. No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you Thisby.\n  BOTTOM. Well, proceed.\n  QUINCE. Robin Starveling, the tailor.\n  STARVELING. Here, Peter Quince.\n  QUINCE. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.\n    Tom Snout, the tinker.\n  SNOUT. Here, Peter Quince.\n  QUINCE. You, Pyramus' father; myself, Thisby's father; Snug, the\n    joiner, you, the lion's part. And, I hope, here is a play fitted.\n  SNUG. Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be, give it\n    me, for I am slow of study.\n  QUINCE. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.\n  BOTTOM. Let me play the lion too. I will roar that I will do any\n    man's heart good to hear me; I will roar that I will make the\n    Duke say 'Let him roar again, let him roar again.'\n  QUINCE. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the\n    Duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were\n    enough to hang us all.\n  ALL. That would hang us, every mother's son.\n  BOTTOM. I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies out\n    of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us;\n    but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently\n    as any sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale.\n  QUINCE. You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a\n    sweet-fac'd man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's\n    day; a most lovely gentleman-like man; therefore you must needs\n    play Pyramus.\n  BOTTOM. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play\n    it in?\n  QUINCE. Why, what you will.\n  BOTTOM. I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your\n    orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your\n    French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.\n  QUINCE. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then\n    you will play bare-fac'd. But, masters, here are your parts; and\n    I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by\n    to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without\n    the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse; for if we meet in\n    the city, we shall be dogg'd with company, and our devices known.\n    In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, such as our\n    play wants. I pray you, fail me not.\n  BOTTOM. We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely and\n    courageously. Take pains; be perfect; adieu.\n  QUINCE. At the Duke's oak we meet.\n  BOTTOM. Enough; hold, or cut bow-strings.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nA wood near Athens\n\nEnter a FAIRY at One door, and PUCK at another\n\n  PUCK. How now, spirit! whither wander you?\n  FAIRY.      Over hill, over dale,\n                Thorough bush, thorough brier,\n              Over park, over pale,\n                Thorough flood, thorough fire,\n              I do wander every where,\n              Swifter than the moon's sphere;\n              And I serve the Fairy Queen,\n              To dew her orbs upon the green.\n              The cowslips tall her pensioners be;\n              In their gold coats spots you see;\n              Those be rubies, fairy favours,\n              In those freckles live their savours.\n\n    I must go seek some dewdrops here,\n    And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.\n    Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone.\n    Our Queen and all her elves come here anon.\n  PUCK. The King doth keep his revels here to-night;\n    Take heed the Queen come not within his sight;\n    For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,\n    Because that she as her attendant hath\n    A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king.\n    She never had so sweet a changeling;\n    And jealous Oberon would have the child\n    Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;\n    But she perforce withholds the loved boy,\n    Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy.\n    And now they never meet in grove or green,\n    By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,\n    But they do square, that all their elves for fear\n    Creep into acorn cups and hide them there.\n  FAIRY. Either I mistake your shape and making quite,\n    Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite\n    Call'd Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he\n    That frights the maidens of the villagery,\n    Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern,\n    And bootless make the breathless housewife churn,\n    And sometime make the drink to bear no barm,\n    Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?\n    Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,\n    You do their work, and they shall have good luck.\n    Are not you he?\n  PUCK. Thou speakest aright:\n    I am that merry wanderer of the night.\n    I jest to Oberon, and make him smile\n    When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,\n    Neighing in likeness of a filly foal;\n    And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl\n    In very likeness of a roasted crab,\n    And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,\n    And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.\n    The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,\n    Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;\n    Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,\n    And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;\n    And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,\n    And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear\n    A merrier hour was never wasted there.\n    But room, fairy, here comes Oberon.\n  FAIRY. And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!\n\n       Enter OBERON at one door, with his TRAIN, and TITANIA,\n                        at another, with hers\n\n  OBERON. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.\n  TITANIA. What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence;\n    I have forsworn his bed and company.\n  OBERON. Tarry, rash wanton; am not I thy lord?\n  TITANIA. Then I must be thy lady; but I know\n    When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,\n    And in the shape of Corin sat all day,\n    Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love\n    To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,\n    Come from the farthest steep of India,\n    But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,\n    Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,\n    To Theseus must be wedded, and you come\n    To give their bed joy and prosperity?\n  OBERON. How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,\n    Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,\n    Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?\n    Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night\n    From Perigouna, whom he ravished?\n    And make him with fair Aegles break his faith,\n    With Ariadne and Antiopa?\n  TITANIA. These are the forgeries of jealousy;\n    And never, since the middle summer's spring,\n    Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,\n    By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,\n    Or in the beached margent of the sea,\n    To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,\n    But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.\n    Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,\n    As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea\n    Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land,\n    Hath every pelting river made so proud\n    That they have overborne their continents.\n    The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,\n    The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn\n    Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;\n    The fold stands empty in the drowned field,\n    And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;\n    The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,\n    And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,\n    For lack of tread, are undistinguishable.\n    The human mortals want their winter here;\n    No night is now with hymn or carol blest;\n    Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,\n    Pale in her anger, washes all the air,\n    That rheumatic diseases do abound.\n    And thorough this distemperature we see\n    The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts\n    Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;\n    And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown\n    An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds\n    Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,\n    The childing autumn, angry winter, change\n    Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world,\n    By their increase, now knows not which is which.\n    And this same progeny of evils comes\n    From our debate, from our dissension;\n    We are their parents and original.\n  OBERON. Do you amend it, then; it lies in you.\n    Why should Titania cross her Oberon?\n    I do but beg a little changeling boy\n    To be my henchman.\n  TITANIA. Set your heart at rest;\n    The fairy land buys not the child of me.\n    His mother was a vot'ress of my order;\n    And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,\n    Full often hath she gossip'd by my side;\n    And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,\n    Marking th' embarked traders on the flood;\n    When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive,\n    And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;\n    Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait\n    Following- her womb then rich with my young squire-\n    Would imitate, and sail upon the land,\n    To fetch me trifles, and return again,\n    As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.\n    But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;\n    And for her sake do I rear up her boy;\n    And for her sake I will not part with him.\n  OBERON. How long within this wood intend you stay?\n  TITANIA. Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.\n    If you will patiently dance in our round,\n    And see our moonlight revels, go with us;\n    If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.\n  OBERON. Give me that boy and I will go with thee.\n  TITANIA. Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away.\n    We shall chide downright if I longer stay.\n                                     Exit TITANIA with her train\n  OBERON. Well, go thy way; thou shalt not from this grove\n    Till I torment thee for this injury.\n    My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememb'rest\n    Since once I sat upon a promontory,\n    And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back\n    Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath\n    That the rude sea grew civil at her song,\n    And certain stars shot madly from their spheres\n    To hear the sea-maid's music.\n  PUCK. I remember.\n  OBERON. That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,\n    Flying between the cold moon and the earth\n    Cupid, all arm'd; a certain aim he took\n    At a fair vestal, throned by the west,\n    And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,\n    As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;\n    But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft\n    Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon;\n    And the imperial vot'ress passed on,\n    In maiden meditation, fancy-free.\n    Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell.\n    It fell upon a little western flower,\n    Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,\n    And maidens call it Love-in-idleness.\n    Fetch me that flow'r, the herb I showed thee once.\n    The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid\n    Will make or man or woman madly dote\n    Upon the next live creature that it sees.\n    Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again\n    Ere the leviathan can swim a league.\n  PUCK. I'll put a girdle round about the earth\n    In forty minutes.                                  Exit PUCK\n  OBERON. Having once this juice,\n    I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,\n    And drop the liquor of it in her eyes;\n    The next thing then she waking looks upon,\n    Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,\n    On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,\n    She shall pursue it with the soul of love.\n    And ere I take this charm from off her sight,\n    As I can take it with another herb,\n    I'll make her render up her page to me.\n    But who comes here? I am invisible;\n    And I will overhear their conference.\n\n               Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him\n\n  DEMETRIUS. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.\n    Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?\n    The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.\n    Thou told'st me they were stol'n unto this wood,\n    And here am I, and wood within this wood,\n    Because I cannot meet my Hermia.\n    Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.\n  HELENA. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;\n    But yet you draw not iron, for my heart\n    Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,\n    And I shall have no power to follow you.\n  DEMETRIUS. Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?\n    Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth\n    Tell you I do not nor I cannot love you?\n  HELENA. And even for that do I love you the more.\n    I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,\n    The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.\n    Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,\n    Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,\n    Unworthy as I am, to follow you.\n    What worser place can I beg in your love,\n    And yet a place of high respect with me,\n    Than to be used as you use your dog?\n  DEMETRIUS. Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;\n    For I am sick when I do look on thee.\n  HELENA. And I am sick when I look not on you.\n  DEMETRIUS. You do impeach your modesty too much\n    To leave the city and commit yourself\n    Into the hands of one that loves you not;\n    To trust the opportunity of night,\n    And the ill counsel of a desert place,\n    With the rich worth of your virginity.\n  HELENA. Your virtue is my privilege for that:\n    It is not night when I do see your face,\n    Therefore I think I am not in the night;\n    Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,\n    For you, in my respect, are all the world.\n    Then how can it be said I am alone\n    When all the world is here to look on me?\n  DEMETRIUS. I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,\n    And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.\n  HELENA. The wildest hath not such a heart as you.\n    Run when you will; the story shall be chang'd:\n    Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;\n    The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind\n    Makes speed to catch the tiger- bootless speed,\n    When cowardice pursues and valour flies.\n  DEMETRIUS. I will not stay thy questions; let me go;\n    Or, if thou follow me, do not believe\n    But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.\n  HELENA. Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,\n    You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!\n    Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex.\n    We cannot fight for love as men may do;\n    We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo.\n                                                  Exit DEMETRIUS\n    I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,\n    To die upon the hand I love so well.             Exit HELENA\n  OBERON. Fare thee well, nymph; ere he do leave this grove,\n    Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.\n\n                            Re-enter PUCK\n\n    Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.\n  PUCK. Ay, there it is.\n  OBERON. I pray thee give it me.\n    I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,\n    Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,\n    Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,\n    With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine;\n    There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,\n    Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;\n    And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,\n    Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in;\n    And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,\n    And make her full of hateful fantasies.\n    Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:\n    A sweet Athenian lady is in love\n    With a disdainful youth; anoint his eyes;\n    But do it when the next thing he espies\n    May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man\n    By the Athenian garments he hath on.\n    Effect it with some care, that he may prove\n    More fond on her than she upon her love.\n    And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.\n  PUCK. Fear not, my lord; your servant shall do so.      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAnother part of the wood\n\nEnter TITANIA, with her train\n\n  TITANIA. Come now, a roundel and a fairy song;\n    Then, for the third part of a minute, hence:\n    Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds;\n    Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,\n    To make my small elves coats; and some keep back\n    The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders\n    At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;\n    Then to your offices, and let me rest.\n\n                          The FAIRIES Sing\n\n  FIRST FAIRY. You spotted snakes with double tongue,\n               Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;\n               Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,\n               Come not near our fairy Queen.\n  CHORUS.      Philomel with melody\n               Sing in our sweet lullaby.\n               Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby.\n               Never harm\n               Nor spell nor charm\n               Come our lovely lady nigh.\n               So good night, with lullaby.\n  SECOND FAIRY.  Weaving spiders, come not here;\n                 Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence.\n                 Beetles black, approach not near;\n                 Worm nor snail do no offence.\n  CHORUS.      Philomel with melody, etc.       [TITANIA Sleeps]\n  FIRST FAIRY. Hence away; now all is well.\n               One aloof stand sentinel.          Exeunt FAIRIES\n\n      Enter OBERON and squeezes the flower on TITANIA'S eyelids\n\n  OBERON. What thou seest when thou dost wake,\n    Do it for thy true-love take;\n    Love and languish for his sake.\n    Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,\n    Pard, or boar with bristled hair,\n    In thy eye that shall appear\n    When thou wak'st, it is thy dear.\n    Wake when some vile thing is near.                      Exit\n\n                     Enter LYSANDER and HERMIA\n\n  LYSANDER. Fair love, you faint with wand'ring in the wood;\n    And, to speak troth, I have forgot our way;\n    We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,\n    And tarry for the comfort of the day.\n  HERMIA. Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed,\n    For I upon this bank will rest my head.\n  LYSANDER. One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;\n    One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.\n  HERMIA. Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,\n    Lie further off yet; do not lie so near.\n  LYSANDER. O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!\n    Love takes the meaning in love's conference.\n    I mean that my heart unto yours is knit,\n    So that but one heart we can make of it;\n    Two bosoms interchained with an oath,\n    So then two bosoms and a single troth.\n    Then by your side no bed-room me deny,\n    For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.\n  HERMIA. Lysander riddles very prettily.\n    Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,\n    If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied!\n    But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy\n    Lie further off, in human modesty;\n    Such separation as may well be said\n    Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,\n    So far be distant; and good night, sweet friend.\n    Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!\n  LYSANDER. Amen, amen, to that fair prayer say I;\n    And then end life when I end loyalty!\n    Here is my bed; sleep give thee all his rest!\n  HERMIA. With half that wish the wisher's eyes be press'd!\n                                                    [They sleep]\n\n                          Enter PUCK\n\n  PUCK.      Through the forest have I gone,\n             But Athenian found I none\n             On whose eyes I might approve\n             This flower's force in stirring love.\n             Night and silence- Who is here?\n             Weeds of Athens he doth wear:\n             This is he, my master said,\n             Despised the Athenian maid;\n             And here the maiden, sleeping sound,\n             On the dank and dirty ground.\n             Pretty soul! she durst not lie\n             Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.\n             Churl, upon thy eyes I throw\n             All the power this charm doth owe:\n             When thou wak'st let love forbid\n             Sleep his seat on thy eyelid.\n             So awake when I am gone;\n             For I must now to Oberon.                      Exit\n\n               Enter DEMETRIUS and HELENA, running\n\n  HELENA. Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.\n  DEMETRIUS. I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.\n  HELENA. O, wilt thou darkling leave me? Do not so.\n  DEMETRIUS. Stay on thy peril; I alone will go.            Exit\n  HELENA. O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!\n    The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.\n    Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies,\n    For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.\n    How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears;\n    If so, my eyes are oft'ner wash'd than hers.\n    No, no, I am as ugly as a bear,\n    For beasts that meet me run away for fear;\n    Therefore no marvel though Demetrius\n    Do, as a monster, fly my presence thus.\n    What wicked and dissembling glass of mine\n    Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?\n    But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!\n    Dead, or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.\n    Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.\n  LYSANDER. [Waking] And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.\n    Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,\n    That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.\n    Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word\n    Is that vile name to perish on my sword!\n  HELENA. Do not say so, Lysander; say not so.\n    What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?\n    Yet Hermia still loves you; then be content.\n  LYSANDER. Content with Hermia! No: I do repent\n    The tedious minutes I with her have spent.\n    Not Hermia but Helena I love:\n    Who will not change a raven for a dove?\n    The will of man is by his reason sway'd,\n    And reason says you are the worthier maid.\n    Things growing are not ripe until their season;\n    So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;\n    And touching now the point of human skill,\n    Reason becomes the marshal to my will,\n    And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook\n    Love's stories, written in Love's richest book.\n  HELENA. Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?\n    When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?\n    Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man,\n    That I did never, no, nor never can,\n    Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye,\n    But you must flout my insufficiency?\n    Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,\n    In such disdainful manner me to woo.\n    But fare you well; perforce I must confess\n    I thought you lord of more true gentleness.\n    O, that a lady of one man refus'd\n    Should of another therefore be abus'd!                  Exit\n  LYSANDER. She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there;\n    And never mayst thou come Lysander near!\n    For, as a surfeit of the sweetest things\n    The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,\n    Or as the heresies that men do leave\n    Are hated most of those they did deceive,\n    So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,\n    Of all be hated, but the most of me!\n    And, all my powers, address your love and might\n    To honour Helen, and to be her knight!                  Exit\n  HERMIA. [Starting] Help me, Lysander, help me; do thy best\n    To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast.\n    Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here!\n    Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.\n    Methought a serpent eat my heart away,\n    And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.\n    Lysander! What, remov'd? Lysander! lord!\n    What, out of hearing gone? No sound, no word?\n    Alack, where are you? Speak, an if you hear;\n    Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.\n    No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh.\n    Either death or you I'll find immediately.              Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nThe wood. TITANIA lying asleep\n\nEnter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING\n\n  BOTTOM. Are we all met?\n  QUINCE. Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place for our\n    rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn\n    brake our tiring-house; and we will do it in action, as we will\n    do it before the Duke.\n  BOTTOM. Peter Quince!\n  QUINCE. What sayest thou, bully Bottom?\n  BOTTOM. There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that\n    will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill\n    himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?\n  SNOUT. By'r lakin, a parlous fear.\n  STARVELING. I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is\n    done.\n  BOTTOM. Not a whit; I have a device to make all well. Write me a\n    prologue; and let the prologue seem to say we will do no harm\n    with our swords, and that Pyramus is not kill'd indeed; and for\n    the more better assurance, tell them that I Pyramus am not\n    Pyramus but Bottom the weaver. This will put them out of fear.\n  QUINCE. Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be written\n    in eight and six.\n  BOTTOM. No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.\n  SNOUT. Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?\n  STARVELING. I fear it, I promise you.\n  BOTTOM. Masters, you ought to consider with yourself to bring in-\n    God shield us!- a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing; for\n    there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living; and\n    we ought to look to't.\n  SNOUT. Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.\n  BOTTOM. Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen\n    through the lion's neck; and he himself must speak through,\n    saying thus, or to the same defect: 'Ladies,' or 'Fair ladies, I\n    would wish you' or 'I would request you' or 'I would entreat you\n    not to fear, not to tremble. My life for yours! If you think I\n    come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life. No, I am no such\n    thing; I am a man as other men are.' And there, indeed, let him\n    name his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.\n  QUINCE. Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things- that\n    is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber; for, you know, Pyramus\n    and Thisby meet by moonlight.\n  SNOUT. Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?\n  BOTTOM. A calendar, a calendar! Look in the almanack; find out\n    moonshine, find out moonshine.\n  QUINCE. Yes, it doth shine that night.\n  BOTTOM. Why, then may you leave a casement of the great chamber\n    window, where we play, open; and the moon may shine in at the\n    casement.\n  QUINCE. Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a\n    lantern, and say he comes to disfigure or to present the person\n    of Moonshine. Then there is another thing: we must have a wall in\n    the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby, says the story, did\n    talk through the chink of a wall.\n  SNOUT. You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?\n  BOTTOM. Some man or other must present Wall; and let him have some\n    plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to signify\n    wall; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny\n    shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.\n  QUINCE. If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every\n    mother's son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin; when\n    you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake; and so every\n    one according to his cue.\n\n                          Enter PUCK behind\n\n  PUCK. What hempen homespuns have we swagg'ring here,\n    So near the cradle of the Fairy Queen?\n    What, a play toward! I'll be an auditor;\n    An actor too perhaps, if I see cause.\n  QUINCE. Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.\n  BOTTOM. Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet-\n  QUINCE. 'Odious'- odorous!\n  BOTTOM. -odours savours sweet;\n    So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.\n    But hark, a voice! Stay thou but here awhile,\n    And by and by I will to thee appear.                    Exit\n  PUCK. A stranger Pyramus than e'er played here!           Exit\n  FLUTE. Must I speak now?\n  QUINCE. Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he goes but to\n    see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.\n  FLUTE. Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,\n    Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,\n    Most brisky juvenal, and eke most lovely Jew,\n    As true as truest horse, that would never tire,\n    I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.\n  QUINCE. 'Ninus' tomb,' man! Why, you must not speak that yet; that\n    you answer to Pyramus. You speak all your part at once, cues, and\n    all. Pyramus enter: your cue is past; it is 'never tire.'\n  FLUTE. O- As true as truest horse, that y et would never tire.\n\n            Re-enter PUCK, and BOTTOM with an ass's head\n\n  BOTTOM. If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine.\n  QUINCE. O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Pray, masters! fly,\n    masters! Help!\n                                  Exeunt all but BOTTOM and PUCK\n  PUCK. I'll follow you; I'll lead you about a round,\n    Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier;\n    Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,\n    A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;\n    And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,\n    Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.\nExit\n  BOTTOM. Why do they run away? This is a knavery of them to make me\n    afeard.\n\n                          Re-enter SNOUT\n\n  SNOUT. O Bottom, thou art chang'd! What do I see on thee?\n  BOTTOM. What do you see? You see an ass-head of your own, do you?\n                                                      Exit SNOUT\n\n                          Re-enter QUINCE\n\n  QUINCE. Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee! Thou art translated.\n Exit\n  BOTTOM. I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me; to\n    fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from this place, do\n    what they can; I will walk up and down here, and will sing, that\n    they shall hear I am not afraid.                     [Sings]\n\n          The ousel cock, so black of hue,\n            With orange-tawny bill,\n          The throstle with his note so true,\n            The wren with little quill.\n\n  TITANIA. What angel wakes me from my flow'ry bed?\n  BOTTOM. [Sings]\n          The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,\n            The plain-song cuckoo grey,\n          Whose note full many a man doth mark,\n            And dares not answer nay-\n    for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird?\n    Who would give a bird the he, though he cry 'cuckoo' never so?\n  TITANIA. I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again.\n    Mine ear is much enamoured of thy note;\n    So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;\n    And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me,\n    On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee.\n  BOTTOM. Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that.\n    And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company\n    together now-a-days. The more the pity that some honest\n    neighbours will not make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon\n    occasion.\n  TITANIA. Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.\n  BOTTOM. Not so, neither; but if I had wit enough to get out of this\n    wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.\n  TITANIA. Out of this wood do not desire to go;\n    Thou shalt remain here whether thou wilt or no.\n    I am a spirit of no common rate;\n    The summer still doth tend upon my state;\n    And I do love thee; therefore, go with me.\n    I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee;\n    And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,\n    And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep;\n    And I will purge thy mortal grossness so\n    That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.\n    Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed!\n\n       Enter PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, and MUSTARDSEED\n\n  PEASEBLOSSOM. Ready.\n  COBWEB. And I.\n  MOTH. And I.\n  MUSTARDSEED. And I.\n  ALL. Where shall we go?\n  TITANIA. Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;\n    Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;\n    Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,\n    With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;\n    The honey bags steal from the humble-bees,\n    And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs,\n    And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,\n    To have my love to bed and to arise;\n    And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,\n    To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.\n    Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.\n  PEASEBLOSSOM. Hail, mortal!\n  COBWEB. Hail!\n  MOTH. Hail!\n  MUSTARDSEED. Hail!\n  BOTTOM. I cry your worships mercy, heartily; I beseech your\n    worship's name.\n  COBWEB. Cobweb.\n  BOTTOM. I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master\n    Cobweb. If I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you. Your\n    name, honest gentleman?\n  PEASEBLOSSOM. Peaseblossom.\n  BOTTOM. I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash, your mother, and\n    to Master Peascod, your father. Good Master Peaseblossom, I shall\n    desire you of more acquaintance too. Your name, I beseech you,\n    sir?\n  MUSTARDSEED. Mustardseed.\n  BOTTOM. Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience well. That\n    same cowardly giant-like ox-beef hath devour'd many a gentleman\n    of your house. I promise you your kindred hath made my eyes water\n    ere now. I desire you of more acquaintance, good Master\n    Mustardseed.\n  TITANIA. Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.\n    The moon, methinks, looks with a wat'ry eye;\n    And when she weeps, weeps every little flower;\n    Lamenting some enforced chastity.\n    Tie up my love's tongue, bring him silently.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAnother part of the wood\n\nEnter OBERON\n\n  OBERON. I wonder if Titania be awak'd;\n    Then, what it was that next came in her eye,\n    Which she must dote on in extremity.\n\n                          Enter PUCK\n\n    Here comes my messenger. How now, mad spirit!\n    What night-rule now about this haunted grove?\n  PUCK. My mistress with a monster is in love.\n    Near to her close and consecrated bower,\n    While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,\n    A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,\n    That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,\n    Were met together to rehearse a play\n    Intended for great Theseus' nuptial day.\n    The shallowest thickskin of that barren sort,\n    Who Pyramus presented, in their sport\n    Forsook his scene and ent'red in a brake;\n    When I did him at this advantage take,\n    An ass's nole I fixed on his head.\n    Anon his Thisby must be answered,\n    And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,\n    As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,\n    Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,\n    Rising and cawing at the gun's report,\n    Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky,\n    So at his sight away his fellows fly;\n    And at our stamp here, o'er and o'er one falls;\n    He murder cries, and help from Athens calls.\n    Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears thus strong,\n    Made senseless things begin to do them wrong,\n    For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;\n    Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders all things catch.\n    I led them on in this distracted fear,\n    And left sweet Pyramus translated there;\n    When in that moment, so it came to pass,\n    Titania wak'd, and straightway lov'd an ass.\n  OBERON. This falls out better than I could devise.\n    But hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes\n    With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do?\n  PUCK. I took him sleeping- that is finish'd too-\n    And the Athenian woman by his side;\n    That, when he wak'd, of force she must be ey'd.\n\n                 Enter DEMETRIUS and HERMIA\n\n  OBERON. Stand close; this is the same Athenian.\n  PUCK. This is the woman, but not this the man.\n  DEMETRIUS. O, why rebuke you him that loves you so?\n    Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.\n  HERMIA. Now I but chide, but I should use thee worse,\n    For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse.\n    If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,\n    Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep,\n    And kill me too.\n    The sun was not so true unto the day\n    As he to me. Would he have stolen away\n    From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon\n    This whole earth may be bor'd, and that the moon\n    May through the centre creep and so displease\n    Her brother's noontide with th' Antipodes.\n    It cannot be but thou hast murd'red him;\n    So should a murderer look- so dead, so grim.\n  DEMETRIUS. So should the murdered look; and so should I,\n    Pierc'd through the heart with your stern cruelty;\n    Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,\n    As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.\n  HERMIA. What's this to my Lysander? Where is he?\n    Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?\n  DEMETRIUS. I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.\n  HERMIA. Out, dog! out, cur! Thou driv'st me past the bounds\n    Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him, then?\n    Henceforth be never numb'red among men!\n    O, once tell true; tell true, even for my sake!\n    Durst thou have look'd upon him being awake,\n    And hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O brave touch!\n    Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?\n    An adder did it; for with doubler tongue\n    Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.\n  DEMETRIUS. You spend your passion on a mispris'd mood:\n    I am not guilty of Lysander's blood;\n    Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.\n  HERMIA. I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.\n  DEMETRIUS. An if I could, what should I get therefore?\n  HERMIA. A privilege never to see me more.\n    And from thy hated presence part I so;\n    See me no more whether he be dead or no.                Exit\n  DEMETRIUS. There is no following her in this fierce vein;\n    Here, therefore, for a while I will remain.\n    So sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow\n    For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe;\n    Which now in some slight measure it will pay,\n    If for his tender here I make some stay.         [Lies down]\n  OBERON. What hast thou done? Thou hast mistaken quite,\n    And laid the love-juice on some true-love's sight.\n    Of thy misprision must perforce ensue\n    Some true love turn'd, and not a false turn'd true.\n  PUCK. Then fate o'er-rules, that, one man holding troth,\n    A million fail, confounding oath on oath.\n  OBERON. About the wood go swifter than the wind,\n    And Helena of Athens look thou find;\n    All fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer,\n    With sighs of love that costs the fresh blood dear.\n    By some illusion see thou bring her here;\n    I'll charm his eyes against she do appear.\n  PUCK. I go, I go; look how I go,\n    Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow.               Exit\n  OBERON.       Flower of this purple dye,\n                Hit with Cupid's archery,\n                Sink in apple of his eye.\n                When his love he doth espy,\n                Let her shine as gloriously\n                As the Venus of the sky.\n                When thou wak'st, if she be by,\n                Beg of her for remedy.\n\n                       Re-enter PUCK\n\n  PUCK.         Captain of our fairy band,\n                Helena is here at hand,\n                And the youth mistook by me\n                Pleading for a lover's fee;\n                Shall we their fond pageant see?\n                Lord, what fools these mortals be!\n  OBERON.       Stand aside. The noise they make\n                Will cause Demetrius to awake.\n  PUCK.         Then will two at once woo one.\n                That must needs be sport alone;\n                And those things do best please me\n                That befall prepost'rously.\n\n                   Enter LYSANDER and HELENA\n\n  LYSANDER. Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?\n    Scorn and derision never come in tears.\n    Look when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,\n    In their nativity all truth appears.\n    How can these things in me seem scorn to you,\n    Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?\n  HELENA. You do advance your cunning more and more.\n    When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray!\n    These vows are Hermia's. Will you give her o'er?\n    Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh:\n    Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,\n    Will even weigh; and both as light as tales.\n  LYSANDER. I hod no judgment when to her I swore.\n  HELENA. Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er.\n  LYSANDER. Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.\n  DEMETRIUS. [Awaking] O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!\n    To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?\n    Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show\n    Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!\n    That pure congealed white, high Taurus' snow,\n    Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow\n    When thou hold'st up thy hand. O, let me kiss\n    This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!\n  HELENA. O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent\n    To set against me for your merriment.\n    If you were civil and knew courtesy,\n    You would not do me thus much injury.\n    Can you not hate me, as I know you do,\n    But you must join in souls to mock me too?\n    If you were men, as men you are in show,\n    You would not use a gentle lady so:\n    To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,\n    When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.\n    You both are rivals, and love Hermia;\n    And now both rivals, to mock Helena.\n    A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,\n    To conjure tears up in a poor maid's eyes\n    With your derision! None of noble sort\n    Would so offend a virgin, and extort\n    A poor soul's patience, all to make you sport.\n  LYSANDER. You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so;\n    For you love Hermia. This you know I know;\n    And here, with all good will, with all my heart,\n    In Hermia's love I yield you up my part;\n    And yours of Helena to me bequeath,\n    Whom I do love and will do till my death.\n  HELENA. Never did mockers waste more idle breath.\n  DEMETRIUS. Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none.\n    If e'er I lov'd her, all that love is gone.\n    My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn'd,\n    And now to Helen is it home return'd,\n    There to remain.\n  LYSANDER. Helen, it is not so.\n  DEMETRIUS. Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,\n    Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear.\n    Look where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear.\n\n                       Enter HERMIA\n\n  HERMIA. Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,\n    The ear more quick of apprehension makes;\n    Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,\n    It pays the hearing double recompense.\n    Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;\n    Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound.\n    But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?\n  LYSANDER. Why should he stay whom love doth press to go?\n  HERMIA. What love could press Lysander from my side?\n  LYSANDER. Lysander's love, that would not let him bide-\n    Fair Helena, who more engilds the night\n    Than all yon fiery oes and eyes of light.\n    Why seek'st thou me? Could not this make thee know\n    The hate I bare thee made me leave thee so?\n  HERMIA. You speak not as you think; it cannot be.\n  HELENA. Lo, she is one of this confederacy!\n    Now I perceive they have conjoin'd all three\n    To fashion this false sport in spite of me.\n    Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid!\n    Have you conspir'd, have you with these contriv'd,\n    To bait me with this foul derision?\n    Is all the counsel that we two have shar'd,\n    The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,\n    When we have chid the hasty-footed time\n    For parting us- O, is all forgot?\n    All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?\n    We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,\n    Have with our needles created both one flower,\n    Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,\n    Both warbling of one song, both in one key;\n    As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,\n    Had been incorporate. So we grew together,\n    Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,\n    But yet an union in partition,\n    Two lovely berries moulded on one stern;\n    So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;\n    Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,\n    Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.\n    And will you rent our ancient love asunder,\n    To join with men in scorning your poor friend?\n    It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly;\n    Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,\n    Though I alone do feel the injury.\n  HERMIA. I am amazed at your passionate words;\n    I scorn you not; it seems that you scorn me.\n  HELENA. Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,\n    To follow me and praise my eyes and face?\n    And made your other love, Demetrius,\n    Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,\n    To call me goddess, nymph, divine, and rare,\n    Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this\n    To her he hates? And wherefore doth Lysander\n    Deny your love, so rich within his soul,\n    And tender me, forsooth, affection,\n    But by your setting on, by your consent?\n    What though I be not so in grace as you,\n    So hung upon with love, so fortunate,\n    But miserable most, to love unlov'd?\n    This you should pity rather than despise.\n  HERMIA. I understand not what you mean by this.\n  HELENA. Ay, do- persever, counterfeit sad looks,\n    Make mouths upon me when I turn my back,\n    Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up;\n    This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.\n    If you have any pity, grace, or manners,\n    You would not make me such an argument.\n    But fare ye well; 'tis partly my own fault,\n    Which death, or absence, soon shall remedy.\n  LYSANDER. Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse;\n    My love, my life, my soul, fair Helena!\n  HELENA. O excellent!\n  HERMIA. Sweet, do not scorn her so.\n  DEMETRIUS. If she cannot entreat, I can compel.\n  LYSANDER. Thou canst compel no more than she entreat;\n    Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers\n    Helen, I love thee, by my life I do;\n    I swear by that which I will lose for thee\n    To prove him false that says I love thee not.\n  DEMETRIUS. I say I love thee more than he can do.\n  LYSANDER. If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too.\n  DEMETRIUS. Quick, come.\n  HERMIA. Lysander, whereto tends all this?\n  LYSANDER. Away, you Ethiope!\n  DEMETRIUS. No, no, he will\n    Seem to break loose- take on as you would follow,\n    But yet come not. You are a tame man; go!\n  LYSANDER. Hang off, thou cat, thou burr; vile thing, let loose,\n    Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent.\n  HERMIA. Why are you grown so rude? What change is this,\n    Sweet love?\n  LYSANDER. Thy love! Out, tawny Tartar, out!\n    Out, loathed med'cine! O hated potion, hence!\n  HERMIA. Do you not jest?\n  HELENA. Yes, sooth; and so do you.\n  LYSANDER. Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.\n  DEMETRIUS. I would I had your bond; for I perceive\n    A weak bond holds you; I'll not trust your word.\n  LYSANDER. What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?\n    Although I hate her, I'll not harm her so.\n  HERMIA. What! Can you do me greater harm than hate?\n    Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love?\n    Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?\n    I am as fair now as I was erewhile.\n    Since night you lov'd me; yet since night you left me.\n    Why then, you left me- O, the gods forbid!-\n    In earnest, shall I say?\n  LYSANDER. Ay, by my life!\n    And never did desire to see thee more.\n    Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt;\n    Be certain, nothing truer; 'tis no jest\n    That I do hate thee and love Helena.\n  HERMIA. O me! you juggler! you cankerblossom!\n    You thief of love! What! Have you come by night,\n    And stol'n my love's heart from him?\n  HELENA. Fine, i' faith!\n    Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,\n    No touch of bashfulness? What! Will you tear\n    Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?\n    Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet you!\n  HERMIA. 'Puppet!' why so? Ay, that way goes the game.\n    Now I perceive that she hath made compare\n    Between our statures; she hath urg'd her height;\n    And with her personage, her tall personage,\n    Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.\n    And are you grown so high in his esteem\n    Because I am so dwarfish and so low?\n    How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak.\n    How low am I? I am not yet so low\n    But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.\n  HELENA. I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,\n    Let her not hurt me. I was never curst;\n    I have no gift at all in shrewishness;\n    I am a right maid for my cowardice;\n    Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,\n    Because she is something lower than myself,\n    That I can match her.\n  HERMIA. 'Lower' hark, again.\n  HELENA. Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.\n    I evermore did love you, Hermia,\n    Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you;\n    Save that, in love unto Demetrius,\n    I told him of your stealth unto this wood.\n    He followed you; for love I followed him;\n    But he hath chid me hence, and threat'ned me\n    To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too;\n    And now, so you will let me quiet go,\n    To Athens will I bear my folly back,\n    And follow you no further. Let me go.\n    You see how simple and how fond I am.\n  HERMIA. Why, get you gone! Who is't that hinders you?\n  HELENA. A foolish heart that I leave here behind.\n  HERMIA. What! with Lysander?\n  HELENA. With Demetrius.\n  LYSANDER. Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena.\n  DEMETRIUS. No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.\n  HELENA. O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd;\n    She was a vixen when she went to school;\n    And, though she be but little, she is fierce.\n  HERMIA. 'Little' again! Nothing but 'low' and 'little'!\n    Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?\n    Let me come to her.\n  LYSANDER. Get you gone, you dwarf;\n    You minimus, of hind'ring knot-grass made;\n    You bead, you acorn.\n  DEMETRIUS. You are too officious\n    In her behalf that scorns your services.\n    Let her alone; speak not of Helena;\n    Take not her part; for if thou dost intend\n    Never so little show of love to her,\n    Thou shalt aby it.\n  LYSANDER. Now she holds me not.\n    Now follow, if thou dar'st, to try whose right,\n    Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.\n  DEMETRIUS. Follow! Nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jowl.\n                                   Exeunt LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS\n  HERMIA. You, mistress, all this coil is long of you.\n    Nay, go not back.\n  HELENA. I will not trust you, I;\n    Nor longer stay in your curst company.\n    Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray;\n    My legs are longer though, to run away.                 Exit\n  HERMIA. I am amaz'd, and know not what to say.            Exit\n  OBERON. This is thy negligence. Still thou mistak'st,\n    Or else committ'st thy knaveries wilfully.\n  PUCK. Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.\n    Did not you tell me I should know the man\n    By the Athenian garments he had on?\n    And so far blameless proves my enterprise\n    That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes;\n    And so far am I glad it so did sort,\n    As this their jangling I esteem a sport.\n  OBERON. Thou seest these lovers seek a place to fight.\n    Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;\n    The starry welkin cover thou anon\n    With drooping fog as black as Acheron,\n    And lead these testy rivals so astray\n    As one come not within another's way.\n    Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,\n    Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;\n    And sometime rail thou like Demetrius;\n    And from each other look thou lead them thus,\n    Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep\n    With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.\n    Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;\n    Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,\n    To take from thence all error with his might\n    And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.\n    When they next wake, all this derision\n    Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision;\n    And back to Athens shall the lovers wend\n    With league whose date till death shall never end.\n    Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,\n    I'll to my queen, and beg her Indian boy;\n    And then I will her charmed eye release\n    From monster's view, and all things shall be peace.\n  PUCK. My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,\n    For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast;\n    And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger,\n    At whose approach ghosts, wand'ring here and there,\n    Troop home to churchyards. Damned spirits all\n    That in cross-ways and floods have burial,\n    Already to their wormy beds are gone,\n    For fear lest day should look their shames upon;\n    They wilfully themselves exil'd from light,\n    And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night.\n  OBERON. But we are spirits of another sort:\n    I with the Morning's love have oft made sport;\n    And, like a forester, the groves may tread\n    Even till the eastern gate, all fiery red,\n    Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,\n    Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams.\n    But, notwithstanding, haste, make no delay;\n    We may effect this business yet ere day.         Exit OBERON\n  PUCK.      Up and down, up and down,\n             I will lead them up and down.\n             I am fear'd in field and town.\n             Goblin, lead them up and down.\n    Here comes one.\n\n                      Enter LYSANDER\n\n  LYSANDER. Where art thou, proud Demetrius? Speak thou now.\n  PUCK. Here, villain, drawn and ready. Where art thou?\n  LYSANDER. I will be with thee straight.\n  PUCK. Follow me, then,\n    To plainer ground.      Exit LYSANDER as following the voice\n\n                      Enter DEMETRIUS\n\n  DEMETRIUS. Lysander, speak again.\n    Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?\n    Speak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head?\n  PUCK. Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,\n    Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars,\n    And wilt not come? Come, recreant, come, thou child;\n    I'll whip thee with a rod. He is defil'd\n    That draws a sword on thee.\n  DEMETRIUS. Yea, art thou there?\n  PUCK. Follow my voice; we'll try no manhood here.       Exeunt\n\n                      Re-enter LYSANDER\n\n  LYSANDER. He goes before me, and still dares me on;\n    When I come where he calls, then he is gone.\n    The villain is much lighter heel'd than I.\n    I followed fast, but faster he did fly,\n    That fallen am I in dark uneven way,\n    And here will rest me. [Lies down] Come, thou gentle day.\n    For if but once thou show me thy grey light,\n    I'll find Demetrius, and revenge this spite.        [Sleeps]\n\n                 Re-enter PUCK and DEMETRIUS\n\n  PUCK. Ho, ho, ho! Coward, why com'st thou not?\n  DEMETRIUS. Abide me, if thou dar'st; for well I wot\n    Thou run'st before me, shifting every place,\n    And dar'st not stand, nor look me in the face.\n    Where art thou now?\n  PUCK. Come hither; I am here.\n  DEMETRIUS. Nay, then, thou mock'st me. Thou shalt buy this dear,\n    If ever I thy face by daylight see;\n    Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me\n    To measure out my length on this cold bed.\n    By day's approach look to be visited.\n                                          [Lies down and sleeps]\n\n                       Enter HELENA\n\n  HELENA. O weary night, O long and tedious night,\n    Abate thy hours! Shine comforts from the east,\n    That I may back to Athens by daylight,\n    From these that my poor company detest.\n    And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye,\n    Steal me awhile from mine own company.              [Sleeps]\n  PUCK.       Yet but three? Come one more;\n              Two of both kinds makes up four.\n              Here she comes, curst and sad.\n              Cupid is a knavish lad,\n              Thus to make poor females mad.\n\n                     Enter HERMIA\n\n  HERMIA. Never so weary, never so in woe,\n    Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briers,\n    I can no further crawl, no further go;\n    My legs can keep no pace with my desires.\n    Here will I rest me till the break of day.\n    Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray!\n                                          [Lies down and sleeps]\n  PUCK.          On the ground\n                 Sleep sound;\n                 I'll apply\n                 To your eye,\n          Gentle lover, remedy.\n                        [Squeezing the juice on LYSANDER'S eyes]\n                 When thou wak'st,\n                 Thou tak'st\n                 True delight\n                 In the sight\n          Of thy former lady's eye;\n          And the country proverb known,\n          That every man should take his own,\n          In your waking shall be shown:\n                 Jack shall have Jill;\n                 Nought shall go ill;\n    The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nThe wood. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA, lying asleep\n\nEnter TITANIA and Bottom; PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, MUSTARDSEED,\nand other FAIRIES attending;\n                      OBERON behind, unseen\n\n  TITANIA. Come, sit thee down upon this flow'ry bed,\n    While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,\n    And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,\n    And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.\n  BOTTOM. Where's Peaseblossom?\n  PEASEBLOSSOM. Ready.\n  BOTTOM. Scratch my head, Peaseblossom.\n    Where's Mounsieur Cobweb?\n  COBWEB. Ready.\n  BOTTOM. Mounsieur Cobweb; good mounsieur, get you your weapons in\n    your hand and kill me a red-hipp'd humble-bee on the top of a\n    thistle; and, good mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret\n    yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and, good mounsieur,\n    have a care the honey-bag break not; I would be loath to have you\n    overflown with a honey-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur\n    Mustardseed?\n  MUSTARDSEED. Ready.\n  BOTTOM. Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray you, leave\n    your curtsy, good mounsieur.\n  MUSTARDSEED. What's your will?\n  BOTTOM. Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb to\n    scratch. I must to the barber's, mounsieur; for methinks I am\n    marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a tender ass, if\n    my hair do but tickle me I must scratch.\n  TITANIA. What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?\n  BOTTOM. I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have the tongs\n    and the bones.\n  TITANIA. Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.\n  BOTTOM. Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry\n    oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay. Good\n    hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.\n  TITANIA. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek\n    The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.\n  BOTTOM. I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, I\n    pray you, let none of your people stir me; I have an exposition\n    of sleep come upon me.\n  TITANIA. Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.\n    Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away.       Exeunt FAIRIES\n    So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle\n    Gently entwist; the female ivy so\n    Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.\n    O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!         [They sleep]\n\n                         Enter PUCK\n\n  OBERON. [Advancing] Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet\n      sight?\n    Her dotage now I do begin to pity;\n    For, meeting her of late behind the wood,\n    Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool,\n    I did upbraid her and fall out with her.\n    For she his hairy temples then had rounded\n    With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;\n    And that same dew which sometime on the buds\n    Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls\n    Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes,\n    Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.\n    When I had at my pleasure taunted her,\n    And she in mild terms begg'd my patience,\n    I then did ask of her her changeling child;\n    Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent\n    To bear him to my bower in fairy land.\n    And now I have the boy, I will undo\n    This hateful imperfection of her eyes.\n    And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp\n    From off the head of this Athenian swain,\n    That he awaking when the other do\n    May all to Athens back again repair,\n    And think no more of this night's accidents\n    But as the fierce vexation of a dream.\n    But first I will release the Fairy Queen.\n                                             [Touching her eyes]\n           Be as thou wast wont to be;\n           See as thou was wont to see.\n           Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower\n           Hath such force and blessed power.\n    Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.\n  TITANIA. My Oberon! What visions have I seen!\n    Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.\n  OBERON. There lies your love.\n  TITANIA. How came these things to pass?\n    O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!\n  OBERON. Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.\n    Titania, music call; and strike more dead\n    Than common sleep of all these five the sense.\n  TITANIA. Music, ho, music, such as charmeth sleep!\n  PUCK. Now when thou wak'st with thine own fool's eyes peep.\n  OBERON. Sound, music. Come, my Queen, take hands with me,\n                                                         [Music]\n    And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.\n    Now thou and I are new in amity,\n    And will to-morrow midnight solemnly\n    Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,\n    And bless it to all fair prosperity.\n    There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be\n    Wedded, with Theseus, an in jollity.\n  PUCK.       Fairy King, attend and mark;\n              I do hear the morning lark.\n  OBERON.     Then, my Queen, in silence sad,\n              Trip we after night's shade.\n              We the globe can compass soon,\n              Swifter than the wand'ring moon.\n  TITANIA.    Come, my lord; and in our flight,\n              Tell me how it came this night\n              That I sleeping here was found\n              With these mortals on the ground.           Exeunt\n\n        To the winding of horns, enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA,\n                      EGEUS, and train\n\n  THESEUS. Go, one of you, find out the forester;\n    For now our observation is perform'd,\n    And since we have the vaward of the day,\n    My love shall hear the music of my hounds.\n    Uncouple in the western valley; let them go.\n    Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.    Exit an ATTENDANT\n    We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain's top,\n    And mark the musical confusion\n    Of hounds and echo in conjunction.\n  HIPPOLYTA. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once\n    When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear\n    With hounds of Sparta; never did I hear\n    Such gallant chiding, for, besides the groves,\n    The skies, the fountains, every region near\n    Seem'd all one mutual cry. I never heard\n    So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.\n  THESEUS. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,\n    So flew'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung\n    With ears that sweep away the morning dew;\n    Crook-knee'd and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;\n    Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,\n    Each under each. A cry more tuneable\n    Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,\n    In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.\n    Judge when you hear. But, soft, what nymphs are these?\n  EGEUS. My lord, this is my daughter here asleep,\n    And this Lysander, this Demetrius is,\n    This Helena, old Nedar's Helena.\n    I wonder of their being here together.\n  THESEUS. No doubt they rose up early to observe\n    The rite of May; and, hearing our intent,\n    Came here in grace of our solemnity.\n    But speak, Egeus; is not this the day\n    That Hermia should give answer of her choice?\n  EGEUS. It is, my lord.\n  THESEUS. Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.\n                           [Horns and shout within. The sleepers\n                                     awake and kneel to THESEUS]\n    Good-morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past;\n    Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?\n  LYSANDER. Pardon, my lord.\n  THESEUS. I pray you all, stand up.\n    I know you two are rival enemies;\n    How comes this gentle concord in the world\n    That hatred is so far from jealousy\n    To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?\n  LYSANDER. My lord, I shall reply amazedly,\n    Half sleep, half waking; but as yet, I swear,\n    I cannot truly say how I came here,\n    But, as I think- for truly would I speak,\n    And now I do bethink me, so it is-\n    I came with Hermia hither. Our intent\n    Was to be gone from Athens, where we might,\n    Without the peril of the Athenian law-\n  EGEUS. Enough, enough, my Lord; you have enough;\n    I beg the law, the law upon his head.\n    They would have stol'n away, they would, Demetrius,\n    Thereby to have defeated you and me:\n    You of your wife, and me of my consent,\n    Of my consent that she should be your wife.\n  DEMETRIUS. My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,\n    Of this their purpose hither to this wood;\n    And I in fury hither followed them,\n    Fair Helena in fancy following me.\n    But, my good lord, I wot not by what power-\n    But by some power it is- my love to Hermia,\n    Melted as the snow, seems to me now\n    As the remembrance of an idle gaud\n    Which in my childhood I did dote upon;\n    And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,\n    The object and the pleasure of mine eye,\n    Is only Helena. To her, my lord,\n    Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia.\n    But, like a sickness, did I loathe this food;\n    But, as in health, come to my natural taste,\n    Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,\n    And will for evermore be true to it.\n  THESEUS. Fair lovers, you are fortunately met;\n    Of this discourse we more will hear anon.\n    Egeus, I will overbear your will;\n    For in the temple, by and by, with us\n    These couples shall eternally be knit.\n    And, for the morning now is something worn,\n    Our purpos'd hunting shall be set aside.\n    Away with us to Athens, three and three;\n    We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.\n    Come, Hippolyta.\n                     Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train\n  DEMETRIUS. These things seem small and undistinguishable,\n    Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.\n  HERMIA. Methinks I see these things with parted eye,\n    When every thing seems double.\n  HELENA. So methinks;\n    And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,\n    Mine own, and not mine own.\n  DEMETRIUS. Are you sure\n    That we are awake? It seems to me\n    That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think\n    The Duke was here, and bid us follow him?\n  HERMIA. Yea, and my father.\n  HELENA. And Hippolyta.\n  LYSANDER. And he did bid us follow to the temple.\n  DEMETRIUS. Why, then, we are awake; let's follow him;\n    And by the way let us recount our dreams.             Exeunt\n  BOTTOM. [Awaking] When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My\n    next is 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho! Peter Quince! Flute, the\n    bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God's my life,\n    stol'n hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare vision.\n    I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.\n    Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. Methought\n    I was- there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and\n    methought I had, but man is but a patch'd fool, if he will offer\n    to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the\n    ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his\n    tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I\n    will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It shall\n    be call'd 'Bottom's Dream,' because it hath no bottom; and I will\n    sing it in the latter end of a play, before the Duke.\n    Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at\n    her death.                                              Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAthens. QUINCE'S house\n\nEnter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING\n\n  QUINCE. Have you sent to Bottom's house? Is he come home yet?\n  STARVELING. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is transported.\n  FLUTE. If he come not, then the play is marr'd; it goes not\n    forward, doth it?\n  QUINCE. It is not possible. You have not a man in all Athens able\n    to discharge Pyramus but he.\n  FLUTE. No; he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in\n    Athens.\n  QUINCE. Yea, and the best person too; and he is a very paramour for\n    a sweet voice.\n  FLUTE. You must say 'paragon.' A paramour is- God bless us!- A\n    thing of naught.\n\n                           Enter SNUG\n\n  SNUG. Masters, the Duke is coming from the temple; and there is two\n    or three lords and ladies more married. If our sport had gone\n    forward, we had all been made men.\n  FLUTE. O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day\n    during his life; he could not have scaped sixpence a day. An the\n    Duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I'll\n    be hanged. He would have deserved it: sixpence a day in Pyramus,\n    or nothing.\n\n                           Enter BOTTOM\n\n  BOTTOM. Where are these lads? Where are these hearts?\n  QUINCE. Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!\n  BOTTOM. Masters, I am to discourse wonders; but ask me not what;\n    for if I tell you, I am not true Athenian. I will tell you\n    everything, right as it fell out.\n  QUINCE. Let us hear, sweet Bottom.\n  BOTTOM. Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the\n    Duke hath dined. Get your apparel together; good strings to your\n    beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the palace;\n    every man look o'er his part; for the short and the long is, our\n    play is preferr'd. In any case, let Thisby have clean linen; and\n    let not him that plays the lion pare his nails, for they shall\n    hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no\n    onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not\n    doubt but to hear them say it is a sweet comedy. No more words.\n    Away, go, away!                                       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nAthens. The palace of THESEUS\n\nEnter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, LORDS, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  HIPPOLYTA. 'Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.\n  THESEUS. More strange than true. I never may believe\n    These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.\n    Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,\n    Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend\n    More than cool reason ever comprehends.\n    The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,\n    Are of imagination all compact.\n    One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;\n    That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,\n    Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.\n    The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,\n    Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;\n    And as imagination bodies forth\n    The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen\n    Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing\n    A local habitation and a name.\n    Such tricks hath strong imagination\n    That, if it would but apprehend some joy,\n    It comprehends some bringer of that joy;\n    Or in the night, imagining some fear,\n    How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear?\n  HIPPOLYTA. But all the story of the night told over,\n    And all their minds transfigur'd so together,\n    More witnesseth than fancy's images,\n    And grows to something of great constancy,\n    But howsoever strange and admirable.\n\n          Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA\n\n  THESEUS. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.\n    Joy, gentle friends, joy and fresh days of love\n    Accompany your hearts!\n  LYSANDER. More than to us\n    Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!\n  THESEUS. Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,\n    To wear away this long age of three hours\n    Between our after-supper and bed-time?\n    Where is our usual manager of mirth?\n    What revels are in hand? Is there no play\n    To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?\n    Call Philostrate.\n  PHILOSTRATE. Here, mighty Theseus.\n  THESEUS. Say, what abridgment have you for this evening?\n    What masque? what music? How shall we beguile\n    The lazy time, if not with some delight?\n  PHILOSTRATE. There is a brief how many sports are ripe;\n    Make choice of which your Highness will see first.\n                                                [Giving a paper]\n  THESEUS. 'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung\n    By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.'\n    We'll none of that: that have I told my love,\n    In glory of my kinsman Hercules.\n    'The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,\n    Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.'\n    That is an old device, and it was play'd\n    When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.\n    'The thrice three Muses mourning for the death\n    Of Learning, late deceas'd in beggary.'\n    That is some satire, keen and critical,\n    Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.\n    'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus\n    And his love Thisby; very tragical mirth.'\n    Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!\n    That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow.\n    How shall we find the concord of this discord?\n  PHILOSTRATE. A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,\n    Which is as brief as I have known a play;\n    But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,\n    Which makes it tedious; for in all the play\n    There is not one word apt, one player fitted.\n    And tragical, my noble lord, it is;\n    For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.\n    Which when I saw rehears'd, I must confess,\n    Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears\n    The passion of loud laughter never shed.\n  THESEUS. What are they that do play it?\n  PHILOSTRATE. Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,\n    Which never labour'd in their minds till now;\n    And now have toil'd their unbreathed memories\n    With this same play against your nuptial.\n  THESEUS. And we will hear it.\n  PHILOSTRATE. No, my noble lord,\n    It is not for you. I have heard it over,\n    And it is nothing, nothing in the world;\n    Unless you can find sport in their intents,\n    Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain,\n    To do you service.\n  THESEUS. I will hear that play;\n    For never anything can be amiss\n    When simpleness and duty tender it.\n    Go, bring them in; and take your places, ladies.\n                                                Exit PHILOSTRATE\n  HIPPOLYTA. I love not to see wretchedness o'er-charged,\n    And duty in his service perishing.\n  THESEUS. Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.\n  HIPPOLYTA. He says they can do nothing in this kind.\n  THESEUS. The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.\n    Our sport shall be to take what they mistake;\n    And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect\n    Takes it in might, not merit.\n    Where I have come, great clerks have purposed\n    To greet me with premeditated welcomes;\n    Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,\n    Make periods in the midst of sentences,\n    Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears,\n    And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off,\n    Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,\n    Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome;\n    And in the modesty of fearful duty\n    I read as much as from the rattling tongue\n    Of saucy and audacious eloquence.\n    Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity\n    In least speak most to my capacity.\n\n                       Re-enter PHILOSTRATE\n\n  PHILOSTRATE. SO please your Grace, the Prologue is address'd.\n  THESEUS. Let him approach.              [Flourish of trumpets]\n\n                 Enter QUINCE as the PROLOGUE\n\n  PROLOGUE. If we offend, it is with our good will.\n    That you should think, we come not to offend,\n    But with good will. To show our simple skill,\n    That is the true beginning of our end.\n    Consider then, we come but in despite.\n    We do not come, as minding to content you,\n    Our true intent is. All for your delight\n    We are not here. That you should here repent you,\n    The actors are at band; and, by their show,\n    You shall know all, that you are like to know,\n  THESEUS. This fellow doth not stand upon points.\n  LYSANDER. He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows not\n    the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not enough to speak, but\n    to speak true.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Indeed he hath play'd on this prologue like a child on a\n    recorder- a sound, but not in government.\n  THESEUS. His speech was like a tangled chain; nothing im paired,\n    but all disordered. Who is next?\n\n          Enter, with a trumpet before them, as in dumb show,\n            PYRAMUS and THISBY, WALL, MOONSHINE, and LION\n\n  PROLOGUE. Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;\n    But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.\n    This man is Pyramus, if you would know;\n    This beauteous lady Thisby is certain.\n    This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present\n    Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder;\n    And through Walls chink, poor souls, they are content\n    To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.\n    This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn,\n    Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know,\n    By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn\n    To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo.\n    This grisly beast, which Lion hight by name,\n    The trusty Thisby, coming first by night,\n    Did scare away, or rather did affright;\n    And as she fled, her mantle she did fall;\n    Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.\n    Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,\n    And finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain;\n    Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade,\n    He bravely broach'd his boiling bloody breast;\n    And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,\n    His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,\n    Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain,\n    At large discourse while here they do remain.\n                               Exeunt PROLOGUE, PYRAMUS, THISBY,\n                                             LION, and MOONSHINE\n  THESEUS. I wonder if the lion be to speak.\n  DEMETRIUS. No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do.\n  WALL. In this same interlude it doth befall\n    That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;\n    And such a wall as I would have you think\n    That had in it a crannied hole or chink,\n    Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby,\n    Did whisper often very secretly.\n    This loam, this rough-cast, and this stone, doth show\n    That I am that same wall; the truth is so;\n    And this the cranny is, right and sinister,\n    Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.\n  THESEUS. Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?\n  DEMETRIUS. It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard\n    discourse, my lord.\n\n                       Enter PYRAMUS\n\n  THESEUS. Pyramus draws near the wall; silence.\n  PYRAMUS. O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black!\n    O night, which ever art when day is not!\n    O night, O night, alack, alack, alack,\n    I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot!\n    And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,\n    That stand'st between her father's ground and mine;\n    Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,\n    Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne.\n                                     [WALL holds up his fingers]\n    Thanks, courteous wall. Jove shield thee well for this!\n    But what see what see I? No Thisby do I see.\n    O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss,\n    Curs'd he thy stones for thus deceiving me!\n  THESEUS. The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.\n  PYRAMUS. No, in truth, sir, he should not. Deceiving me is Thisby's\n    cue. She is to enter now, and I am to spy her through the wall.\n    You shall see it will fall pat as I told you; yonder she comes.\n\n                          Enter THISBY\n\n  THISBY. O wall, full often hast thou beard my moans,\n    For parting my fair Pyramus and me!\n    My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones,\n    Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.\n  PYRAMUS. I see a voice; now will I to the chink,\n    To spy an I can hear my Thisby's face.\n    Thisby!\n  THISBY. My love! thou art my love, I think.\n  PYRAMUS. Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace;\n    And like Limander am I trusty still.\n  THISBY. And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.\n  PYRAMUS. Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.\n  THISBY. As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.\n  PYRAMUS. O, kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.\n  THISBY. I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.\n  PYRAMUS. Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?\n  THISBY. Tide life, tide death, I come without delay.\n                                       Exeunt PYRAMUS and THISBY\n  WALL. Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;\n    And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.           Exit WALL\n  THESEUS. Now is the moon used between the two neighbours.\n  DEMETRIUS. No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear\n    without warning.\n  HIPPOLYTA. This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.\n  THESEUS. The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are\n    no worse, if imagination amend them.\n  HIPPOLYTA. It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.\n  THESEUS. If we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves,\n    they may pass for excellent men. Here come two noble beasts in, a\n    man and a lion.\n\n                   Enter LION and MOONSHINE\n\n  LION. You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear\n    The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,\n    May now, perchance, both quake and tremble here,\n    When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.\n    Then know that I as Snug the joiner am\n    A lion fell, nor else no lion's dam;\n    For, if I should as lion come in strife\n    Into this place, 'twere pity on my life.\n  THESEUS. A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.\n  DEMETRIUS. The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw.\n  LYSANDER. This lion is a very fox for his valour.\n  THESEUS. True; and a goose for his discretion.\n  DEMETRIUS. Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his\n    discretion, and the fox carries the goose.\n  THESEUS. His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour; for\n    the goose carries not the fox. It is well. Leave it to his\n    discretion, and let us listen to the Moon.\n  MOONSHINE. This lanthorn doth the horned moon present-\n  DEMETRIUS. He should have worn the horns on his head.\n  THESEUS. He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible within the\n    circumference.\n  MOONSHINE. This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;\n    Myself the Man i' th' Moon do seem to be.\n  THESEUS. This is the greatest error of all the rest; the man should\n    be put into the lantern. How is it else the man i' th' moon?\n  DEMETRIUS. He dares not come there for the candle; for, you see, it\n    is already in snuff.\n  HIPPOLYTA. I am aweary of this moon. Would he would change!\n  THESEUS. It appears, by his small light of discretion, that he is\n    in the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we must stay\n    the time.\n  LYSANDER. Proceed, Moon.\n  MOON. All that I have to say is to tell you that the lanthorn is\n    the moon; I, the Man i' th' Moon; this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush;\n    and this dog, my dog.\n  DEMETRIUS. Why, all these should be in the lantern; for all these\n    are in the moon. But silence; here comes Thisby.\n\n                        Re-enter THISBY\n\n  THISBY. This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love?\n  LION. [Roaring] O-                           [THISBY runs off]\n  DEMETRIUS. Well roar'd, Lion.\n  THESEUS. Well run, Thisby.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a good\n    grace.            [The LION tears THISBY'S Mantle, and exit]\n  THESEUS. Well mous'd, Lion.\n\n                        Re-enter PYRAMUS\n\n  DEMETRIUS. And then came Pyramus.\n  LYSANDER. And so the lion vanish'd.\n  PYRAMUS. Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;\n    I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;\n    For, by thy gracious golden, glittering gleams,\n    I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.\n             But stay, O spite!\n             But mark, poor knight,\n           What dreadful dole is here!\n             Eyes, do you see?\n             How can it he?\n           O dainty duck! O dear!\n             Thy mantle good,\n             What! stain'd with blood?\n           Approach, ye Furies fell.\n             O Fates! come, come;\n             Cut thread and thrum;\n           Quail, crush, conclude, and quell.\n  THESEUS. This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go\n    near to make a man look sad.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.\n  PYRAMUS. O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?\n    Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear;\n    Which is- no, no- which was the fairest dame\n    That liv'd, that lov'd, that lik'd, that look'd with cheer.\n             Come, tears, confound;\n             Out, sword, and wound\n           The pap of Pyramus;\n             Ay, that left pap,\n             Where heart doth hop.               [Stabs himself]\n           Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.\n             Now am I dead,\n             Now am I fled;\n           My soul is in the sky.\n             Tongue, lose thy light;\n             Moon, take thy flight.             [Exit MOONSHINE]\n           Now die, die, die, die, die.                   [Dies]\n  DEMETRIUS. No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one.\n  LYSANDER. Less than an ace, man; for he is dead; he is nothing.\n  THESEUS. With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover and yet\n    prove an ass.\n  HIPPOLYTA. How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisby comes back\n    and finds her lover?\n\n                       Re-enter THISBY\n\n  THESEUS. She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; and her\n    passion ends the play.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Methinks she should not use a long one for such a\n    Pyramus; I hope she will be brief.\n  DEMETRIUS. A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which\n    Thisby, is the better- he for a man, God warrant us: She for a\n    woman, God bless us!\n  LYSANDER. She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.\n  DEMETRIUS. And thus she moans, videlicet:-\n  THISBY.      Asleep, my love?\n               What, dead, my dove?\n             O Pyramus, arise,\n               Speak, speak. Quite dumb?\n               Dead, dead? A tomb\n             Must cover thy sweet eyes.\n               These lily lips,\n               This cherry nose,\n             These yellow cowslip cheeks,\n               Are gone, are gone;\n               Lovers, make moan;\n             His eyes were green as leeks.\n               O Sisters Three,\n               Come, come to me,\n             With hands as pale as milk;\n               Lay them in gore,\n               Since you have shore\n             With shears his thread of silk.\n               Tongue, not a word.\n               Come, trusty sword;\n             Come, blade, my breast imbrue.      [Stabs herself]\n               And farewell, friends;\n               Thus Thisby ends;\n             Adieu, adieu, adieu.                         [Dies]\n  THESEUS. Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.\n  DEMETRIUS. Ay, and Wall too.\n  BOTTOM. [Starting up] No, I assure you; the wall is down that\n    parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the Epilogue, or\n    to hear a Bergomask dance between two of our company?\n  THESEUS. No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excuse.\n    Never excuse; for when the players are all dead there need none\n    to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it had played Pyramus, and\n    hang'd himself in Thisby's garter, it would have been a fine\n    tragedy. And so it is, truly; and very notably discharg'd. But\n    come, your Bergomask; let your epilogue alone.     [A dance]\n    The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.\n    Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.\n    I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn,\n    As much as we this night have overwatch'd.\n    This palpable-gross play hath well beguil'd\n    The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed.\n    A fortnight hold we this solemnity,\n    In nightly revels and new jollity.                    Exeunt\n\n                     Enter PUCK with a broom\n\n  PUCK.      Now the hungry lion roars,\n             And the wolf behowls the moon;\n             Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,\n             All with weary task fordone.\n             Now the wasted brands do glow,\n             Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,\n             Puts the wretch that lies in woe\n             In remembrance of a shroud.\n             Now it is the time of night\n             That the graves, all gaping wide,\n             Every one lets forth his sprite,\n             In the church-way paths to glide.\n             And we fairies, that do run\n             By the triple Hecate's team\n             From the presence of the sun,\n             Following darkness like a dream,\n             Now are frolic. Not a mouse\n             Shall disturb this hallowed house.\n             I am sent with broom before,\n             To sweep the dust behind the door.\n\n         Enter OBERON and TITANIA, with all their train\n\n  OBERON.    Through the house give glimmering light,\n             By the dead and drowsy fire;\n             Every elf and fairy sprite\n             Hop as light as bird from brier;\n             And this ditty, after me,\n             Sing and dance it trippingly.\n  TITANIA.      First, rehearse your song by rote,\n                To each word a warbling note;\n                Hand in hand, with fairy grace,\n                Will we sing, and bless this place.\n\n           [OBERON leading, the FAIRIES sing and dance]\n\n  OBERON.    Now, until the break of day,\n             Through this house each fairy stray.\n             To the best bride-bed will we,\n             Which by us shall blessed be;\n             And the issue there create\n             Ever shall be fortunate.\n             So shall all the couples three\n             Ever true in loving be;\n             And the blots of Nature's hand\n             Shall not in their issue stand;\n             Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,\n             Nor mark prodigious, such as are\n             Despised in nativity,\n             Shall upon their children be.\n             With this field-dew consecrate,\n             Every fairy take his gait,\n             And each several chamber bless,\n             Through this palace, with sweet peace;\n             And the owner of it blest\n             Ever shall in safety rest.\n             Trip away; make no stay;\n             Meet me all by break of day.    Exeunt all but PUCK\n  PUCK.      If we shadows have offended,\n             Think but this, and all is mended,\n             That you have but slumb'red here\n             While these visions did appear.\n             And this weak and idle theme,\n             No more yielding but a dream,\n             Gentles, do not reprehend.\n             If you pardon, we will mend.\n             And, as I am an honest Puck,\n             If we have unearned luck\n             Now to scape the serpent's tongue,\n             We will make amends ere long;\n             Else the Puck a liar call.\n             So, good night unto you all.\n             Give me your hands, if we be friends,\n             And Robin shall restore amends.                Exit\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1599\n\n\nMUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING\n\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  Don Pedro, Prince of Arragon.\n  Don John, his bastard brother.\n  Claudio, a young lord of Florence.\n  Benedick, a Young lord of Padua.\n  Leonato, Governor of Messina.\n  Antonio, an old man, his brother.\n  Balthasar, attendant on Don Pedro.\n  Borachio, follower of Don John.\n  Conrade, follower of Don John.\n  Friar Francis.\n  Dogberry, a Constable.\n  Verges, a Headborough.\n  A Sexton.\n  A Boy.\n\n  Hero, daughter to Leonato.\n  Beatrice, niece to Leonato.\n  Margaret, waiting gentlewoman attending on Hero.\n  Ursula, waiting gentlewoman attending on Hero.\n\n  Messengers, Watch, Attendants, etc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE.--Messina.\n\n\nACT I. Scene I.\nAn orchard before Leonato's house.\n\nEnter Leonato (Governor of Messina), Hero (his Daughter),\nand Beatrice (his Niece), with a Messenger.\n\n  Leon. I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Arragon comes this\n    night to Messina.\n  Mess. He is very near by this. He was not three leagues off when I\n    left him.\n  Leon. How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?\n  Mess. But few of any sort, and none of name.\n  Leon. A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full\n    numbers. I find here that Don Pedro hath bestowed much honour on\n    a young Florentine called Claudio.\n  Mess. Much deserv'd on his part, and equally rememb'red by Don\n    Pedro. He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing\n    in the figure of a lamb the feats of a lion. He hath indeed\n    better bett'red expectation than you must expect of me to tell\n    you how.\n  Leon. He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it.\n  Mess. I have already delivered him letters, and there appears much\n    joy in him; even so much that joy could not show itself modest\n    enough without a badge of bitterness.\n  Leon. Did he break out into tears?\n  Mess. In great measure.\n  Leon. A kind overflow of kindness. There are no faces truer than\n    those that are so wash'd. How much better is it to weep at joy\n    than to joy at weeping!\n  Beat. I pray you, is Signior Mountanto return'd from the wars or no?\n  Mess. I know none of that name, lady. There was none such in the\n    army of any sort.\n  Leon. What is he that you ask for, niece?\n  Hero. My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.\n  Mess. O, he's return'd, and as pleasant as ever he was.\n  Beat. He set up his bills here in Messina and challeng'd Cupid at\n    the flight, and my uncle's fool, reading the challenge,\n    subscrib'd for Cupid and challeng'd him at the burbolt. I pray\n    you, how many hath he kill'd and eaten in these wars? But how\n    many hath he kill'd? For indeed I promised to eat all of his\n    killing.\n  Leon. Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he'll\n    be meet with you, I doubt it not.\n  Mess. He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.\n  Beat. You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it. He is a\n    very valiant trencherman; he hath an excellent stomach.\n  Mess. And a good soldier too, lady.\n  Beat. And a good soldier to a lady; but what is he to a lord?\n  Mess. A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuff'd with all honourable\n    virtues.\n  Beat. It is so indeed. He is no less than a stuff'd man; but for\n    the stuffing--well, we are all mortal.\n  Leon. You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry\n    war betwixt Signior Benedick and her. They never meet but there's\n    a skirmish of wit between them.\n  Beat. Alas, he gets nothing by that! In our last conflict four of\n    his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man govern'd\n    with one; so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let\n    him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse; for\n    it is all the wealth that he hath left to be known a reasonable\n    creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new\n    sworn brother.\n  Mess. Is't possible?\n  Beat. Very easily possible. He wears his faith but as the fashion\n    of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.\n  Mess. I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.\n  Beat. No. An he were, I would burn my study. But I pray you, who is\n    his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a\n    voyage with him to the devil?\n  Mess. He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.\n  Beat. O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease! He is sooner\n    caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God\n    help the noble Claudio! If he have caught the Benedick, it will\n    cost him a thousand pound ere 'a be cured.\n  Mess. I will hold friends with you, lady.\n  Beat. Do, good friend.\n  Leon. You will never run mad, niece.\n  Beat. No, not till a hot January.\n  Mess. Don Pedro is approach'd.\n\n  Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar, and John the Bastard.\n\n  Pedro. Good Signior Leonato, are you come to meet your trouble? The\n    fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.\n  Leon. Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your Grace;\n    for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart\n    from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.\n  Pedro. You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your\n    daughter.\n  Leon. Her mother hath many times told me so.\n  Bene. Were you in doubt, sir, that you ask'd her?\n  Leon. Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.\n  Pedro. You have it full, Benedick. We may guess by this what you\n    are, being a man. Truly the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady;\n    for you are like an honourable father.\n  Bene. If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head\n    on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is.\n  Beat. I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick.\n    Nobody marks you.\n  Bene. What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?\n  Beat. Is it possible Disdain should die while she hath such meet\n    food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert\n    to disdain if you come in her presence.\n  Bene. Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of\n    all ladies, only you excepted; and I would I could find in my\n    heart that I had not a hard heart, for truly I love none.\n  Beat. A dear happiness to women! They would else have been troubled\n    with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of\n    your humour for that. I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow\n    than a man swear he loves me.\n  Bene. God keep your ladyship still in that mind! So some gentleman\n    or other shall scape a predestinate scratch'd face.\n  Beat. Scratching could not make it worse an 'twere such a face as\n    yours were.\n  Bene. Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.\n  Beat. A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.\n  Bene. I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a\n    continuer. But keep your way, a God's name! I have done.\n  Beat. You always end with a jade's trick. I know you of old.\n  Pedro. That is the sum of all, Leonato. Signior Claudio and Signior\n    Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him\n    we shall stay here at the least a month, and he heartly prays\n    some occasion may detain us longer. I dare swear he is no\n    hypocrite, but prays from his heart.\n  Leon. If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. [To Don\n    John] Let me bid you welcome, my lord. Being reconciled to the\n    Prince your brother, I owe you all duty.\n  John. I thank you. I am not of many words, but I thank you.\n  Leon. Please it your Grace lead on?\n  Pedro. Your hand, Leonato. We will go together.\n                            Exeunt. Manent Benedick and Claudio.\n  Claud. Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?\n  Bene. I noted her not, but I look'd on her.\n  Claud. Is she not a modest young lady?\n  Bene. Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple\n    true judgment? or would you have me speak after my custom, as\n    being a professed tyrant to their sex?\n  Claud. No. I pray thee speak in sober judgment.\n  Bene. Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high praise,\n    too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise.\n    Only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other\n    than she is, she were unhandsome, and being no other but as she\n    is, I do not like her.\n  Claud. Thou thinkest I am in sport. I pray thee tell me truly how\n    thou lik'st her.\n  Bene. Would you buy her, that you enquire after her?\n  Claud. Can the world buy such a jewel?\n  Bene. Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sad\n    brow? or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us Cupid is a\n    good hare-finder and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key\n    shall a man take you to go in the song?\n  Claud. In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I look'd on.\n  Bene. I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter.\n    There's her cousin, an she were not possess'd with a fury,exceeds\n    her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of\n    December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have\n    you?\n  Claud. I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the\n    contrary, if Hero would be my wife.\n  Bene. Is't come to this? In faith, hath not the world one man but\n    he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a\n    bachelor of threescore again? Go to, i' faith! An thou wilt needs\n    thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away\n    Sundays.\n\n                       Enter Don Pedro.\n\n    Look! Don Pedro is returned to seek you.\n  Pedro. What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to\n    Leonato's?\n  Bene. I would your Grace would constrain me to tell.\n  Pedro. I charge thee on thy allegiance.\n  Bene. You hear, Count Claudio. I can be secret as a dumb man, I\n    would have you think so; but, on my allegiance--mark you this-on\n    my allegiance! he is in love. With who? Now that is your Grace's\n    part. Mark how short his answer is: With Hero, Leonato's short\n    daughter.\n  Claud. If this were so, so were it utt'red.\n  Bene. Like the old tale, my lord: 'It is not so, nor 'twas not so;\n    but indeed, God forbid it should be so!'\n  Claud. If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be\n    otherwise.\n  Pedro. Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.\n  Claud. You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.\n  Pedro. By my troth, I speak my thought.\n  Claud. And, in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.\n  Bene. And, by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.\n  Claud. That I love her, I feel.\n  Pedro. That she is worthy, I know.\n  Bene. That I neither feel how she should be loved, nor know how she\n    should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me.\n    I will die in it at the stake.\n  Pedro. Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of\n    beauty.\n  Claud. And never could maintain his part but in the force of his\n    will.\n  Bene. That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me\n    up, I likewise give her most humble thanks; but that I will have\n    a rechate winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible\n    baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them\n    the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust\n    none; and the fine is (for the which I may go the finer), I will\n    live a bachelor.\n  Pedro. I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.\n  Bene. With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord; not with\n    love. Prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get\n    again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker's pen\n    and hang me up at the door of a brothel house for the sign of\n    blind Cupid.\n  Pedro. Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt\n    prove a notable argument.\n  Bene. If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and\n    he that hits me, let him be clapp'd on the shoulder and call'd\n    Adam.\n  Pedro. Well, as time shall try.\n    'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.'\n  Bene. The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear\n    it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead, and\n    let me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write\n    'Here is good horse to hire,' let them signify under my sign\n    'Here you may see Benedick the married man.'\n  Claud. If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.\n  Pedro. Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou\n    wilt quake for this shortly.\n  Bene. I look for an earthquake too then.\n  Pedro. Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the meantime,\n    good Signior Benedick, repair to Leonato's, commend me to him and\n    tell him I will not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made\n    great preparation.\n  Bene. I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and\n    so I commit you--\n  Claud. To the tuition of God. From my house--if I had it--\n  Pedro. The sixth of July. Your loving friend, Benedick.\n  Bene. Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is\n    sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly\n    basted on neither. Ere you flout old ends any further, examine\n    your conscience. And so I leave you.                   Exit.\n  Claud. My liege, your Highness now may do me good.\n  Pedro. My love is thine to teach. Teach it but how,\n    And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn\n    Any hard lesson that may do thee good.\n  Claud. Hath Leonato any son, my lord?\n  Pedro. No child but Hero; she's his only heir.\n    Dost thou affect her, Claudio?\n  Claud.O my lord,\n    When you went onward on this ended action,\n    I look'd upon her with a soldier's eye,\n    That lik'd, but had a rougher task in hand\n    Than to drive liking to the name of love;\n    But now I am return'd and that war-thoughts\n    Have left their places vacant, in their rooms\n    Come thronging soft and delicate desires,\n    All prompting me how fair young Hero is,\n    Saying I lik'd her ere I went to wars.\n  Pedro. Thou wilt be like a lover presently\n    And tire the hearer with a book of words.\n    If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it,\n    And I will break with her and with her father,\n    And thou shalt have her. Wast not to this end\n    That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?\n  Claud. How sweetly you do minister to love,\n    That know love's grief by his complexion!\n    But lest my liking might too sudden seem,\n    I would have salv'd it with a longer treatise.\n  Pedro. What need the bridge much broader than the flood?\n    The fairest grant is the necessity.\n    Look, what will serve is fit. 'Tis once, thou lovest,\n    And I will fit thee with the remedy.\n    I know we shall have revelling to-night.\n    I will assume thy part in some disguise\n    And tell fair Hero I am Claudio,\n    And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart\n    And take her hearing prisoner with the force\n    And strong encounter of my amorous tale.\n    Then after to her father will I break,\n    And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.\n    In practice let us put it presently.                 Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nA room in Leonato's house.\n\nEnter [at one door] Leonato and [at another door, Antonio] an old man,\nbrother to Leonato.\n\n  Leon. How now, brother? Where is my cousin your son? Hath he\n    provided this music?\n  Ant. He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell you strange\n    news that you yet dreamt not of.\n  Leon. Are they good?\n  Ant. As the event stamps them; but they have a good cover, they\n    show well outward. The Prince and Count Claudio, walking in a\n    thick-pleached alley in mine orchard, were thus much overheard by\n    a man of mine: the Prince discovered to Claudio that he loved my\n    niece your daughter and meant to acknowledge it this night in a\n    dance, and if he found her accordant, he meant to take the\n    present time by the top and instantly break with you of it.\n  Leon. Hath the fellow any wit that told you this?\n  Ant. A good sharp fellow. I will send for him, and question him\n    yourself.\n  Leon. No, no. We will hold it as a dream till it appear itself; but\n    I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better\n    prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go you and\n    tell her of it.                              [Exit Antonio.]\n\n         [Enter Antonio's Son with a Musician, and others.]\n\n    [To the Son] Cousin, you know what you have to do.\n    --[To the Musician] O, I cry you mercy, friend. Go you with me,\n    and I will use your skill.--Good cousin, have a care this busy\n    time.                                                Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nAnother room in Leonato's house.]\n\nEnter Sir John the Bastard and Conrade, his companion.\n\n  Con. What the goodyear, my lord! Why are you thus out of measure\n    sad?\n  John. There is no measure in the occasion that breeds; therefore\n    the sadness is without limit.\n  Con. You should hear reason.\n  John. And when I have heard it, what blessings brings it?\n  Con. If not a present remedy, at least a patient sufferance.\n  John. I wonder that thou (being, as thou say'st thou art, born\n    under Saturn) goest about to apply a moral medicine to a\n    mortifying mischief. I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when\n    I have cause, and smile at no man's jests; eat when I have\n    stomach, and wait for no man's leisure; sleep when I am drowsy,\n    and tend on no man's business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no\n    man in his humour.\n  Con. Yea, but you must not make the full show of this till you may\n    do it without controlment. You have of late stood out against\n    your brother, and he hath ta'en you newly into his grace, where\n    it is impossible you should take true root but by the fair\n    weather that you make yourself. It is needful that you frame the\n    season for your own harvest.\n  John. I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace,\n    and it better fits my blood to be disdain'd of all than to\n    fashion a carriage to rob love from any. In this, though I cannot\n    be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but\n    I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and\n    enfranchis'd with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in\n    my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I\n    would do my liking. In the meantime let me be that I am, and seek\n    not to alter me.\n  Con. Can you make no use of your discontent?\n  John. I make all use of it, for I use it only.\n\n                       Enter Borachio.\n\n    Who comes here? What news, Borachio?\n  Bora. I came yonder from a great supper. The Prince your brother is\n    royally entertain'd by Leonato, and I can give you intelligence\n    of an intended marriage.\n  John. Will it serve for any model to build mischief on?\n    What is he for a fool that betroths himself to unquietness?\n  Bora. Marry, it is your brother's right hand.\n  John. Who? the most exquisite Claudio?\n  Bora. Even he.\n  John. A proper squire! And who? and who? which way looks he?\n  Bora. Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato.\n  John. A very forward March-chick! How came you to this?\n  Bora. Being entertain'd for a perfumer, as I was smoking a musty\n    room, comes me the Prince and Claudio, hand in hand in sad\n    conference. I whipt me behind the arras and there heard it agreed\n    upon that the Prince should woo Hero for himself, and having\n    obtain'd her, give her to Count Claudio.\n  John. Come, come, let us thither. This may prove food to my\n    displeasure. That young start-up hath all the glory of my\n    overthrow. If I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way.\n    You are both sure, and will assist me?\n  Con. To the death, my lord.\n  John. Let us to the great supper. Their cheer is the greater that\n    I am subdued. Would the cook were o' my mind! Shall we go prove\n    what's to be done?\n  Bora. We'll wait upon your lordship.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. Scene I.\nA hall in Leonato's house.\n\nEnter Leonato, [Antonio] his Brother, Hero his Daughter,\nand Beatrice his Niece, and a Kinsman; [also Margaret and Ursula].\n\n  Leon. Was not Count John here at supper?\n  Ant. I saw him not.\n  Beat. How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am\n    heart-burn'd an hour after.\n  Hero. He is of a very melancholy disposition.\n  Beat. He were an excellent man that were made just in the midway\n    between him and Benedick. The one is too like an image and says\n    nothing, and the other too like my lady's eldest son, evermore\n    tattling.\n  Leon. Then half Signior Benedick's tongue in Count John's mouth,\n    and half Count John's melancholy in Signior Benedick's face--\n  Beat. With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in\n    his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world--if 'a\n    could get her good will.\n  Leon. By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband if\n    thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.\n  Ant. In faith, she's too curst.\n  Beat. Too curst is more than curst. I shall lessen God's sending\n    that way, for it is said, 'God sends a curst cow short horns,'\n    but to a cow too curst he sends none.\n  Leon. So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns.\n  Beat. Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am\n    at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord, I could not\n    endure a husband with a beard on his face. I had rather lie in\n    the woollen!\n  Leon. You may light on a husband that hath no beard.\n  Beat. What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel and make\n    him my waiting gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a\n    youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that\n    is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a\n    man, I am not for him. Therefore I will even take sixpence in\n    earnest of the berrord and lead his apes into hell.\n  Leon. Well then, go you into hell?\n  Beat. No; but to the gate, and there will the devil meet me like an\n    old cuckold with horns on his head, and say 'Get you to heaven,\n    Beatrice, get you to heaven. Here's no place for you maids.' So\n    deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter--for the heavens.\n    He shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry\n    as the day is long.\n  Ant. [to Hero] Well, niece, I trust you will be rul'd by your\n    father.\n  Beat. Yes faith. It is my cousin's duty to make cursy and say,\n    'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all that, cousin, let him\n    be a handsome fellow, or else make another cursy, and say,\n    'Father, as it please me.'\n  Leon. Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.\n  Beat. Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would\n    it not grieve a woman to be overmaster'd with a piece of valiant\n    dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl?\n    No, uncle, I'll none. Adam's sons are my brethren, and truly I\n    hold it a sin to match in my kinred.\n  Leon. Daughter, remember what I told you. If the Prince do solicit\n    you in that kind, you know your answer.\n  Beat. The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed\n    in good time. If the Prince be too important, tell him there is\n    measure in everything, and so dance out the answer. For, hear me,\n    Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a\n    measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like\n    a Scotch jig--and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly\n    modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes\n    Repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace\n    faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.\n  Leon. Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.\n  Beat. I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight.\n  Leon. The revellers are ent'ring, brother. Make good room.\n                                                 [Exit Antonio.]\n\n    Enter, [masked,] Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, and Balthasar.\n       [With them enter Antonio, also masked. After them enter]\n       Don John [and Borachio (without masks), who stand aside\n                 and look on during the dance].\n\n  Pedro. Lady, will you walk a bout with your friend?\n  Hero. So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing,\n    I am yours for the walk; and especially when I walk away.\n  Pedro. With me in your company?\n  Hero. I may say so when I please.\n  Pedro. And when please you to say so?\n  Hero. When I like your favour, for God defend the lute should be\n    like the case!\n  Pedro. My visor is Philemon's roof; within the house is Jove.\n  Hero. Why then, your visor should be thatch'd.\n  Pedro. Speak low if you speak love.         [Takes her aside.]\n  Balth. Well, I would you did like me.\n  Marg. So would not I for your own sake, for I have many ill\n    qualities.\n  Balth. Which is one?\n  Marg. I say my prayers aloud.\n  Balth. I love you the better. The hearers may cry Amen.\n  Marg. God match me with a good dancer!\n  Balth. Amen.\n  Marg. And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is done!\n    Answer, clerk.\n  Balth. No more words. The clerk is answered.\n                                              [Takes her aside.]\n  Urs. I know you well enough. You are Signior Antonio.\n  Ant. At a word, I am not.\n  Urs. I know you by the waggling of your head.\n  Ant. To tell you true, I counterfeit him.\n  Urs. You could never do him so ill-well unless you were the very\n    man. Here's his dry hand up and down. You are he, you are he!\n  Ant. At a word, I am not.\n  Urs. Come, come, do you think I do not know you by your excellent\n    wit? Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum you are he. Graces will\n    appear, and there's an end.              [ They step aside.]\n  Beat. Will you not tell me who told you so?\n  Bene. No, you shall pardon me.\n  Beat. Nor will you not tell me who you are?\n  Bene. Not now.\n  Beat. That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of the\n    'Hundred Merry Tales.' Well, this was Signior Benedick that said\n    so.\n  Bene. What's he?\n  Beat. I am sure you know him well enough.\n  Bene. Not I, believe me.\n  Beat. Did he never make you laugh?\n  Bene. I pray you, what is he?\n  Beat. Why, he is the Prince's jester, a very dull fool. Only his\n    gift is in devising impossible slanders. None but libertines\n    delight in him; and the commendation is not in his wit, but in\n    his villany; for he both pleases men and angers them, and then\n    they laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in the fleet.\n    I would he had boarded me.\n  Bene. When I know the gentleman, I'll tell him what you say.\n  Beat. Do, do. He'll but break a comparison or two on me; which\n    peradventure, not marked or not laugh'd at, strikes him into\n    melancholy; and then there's a partridge wing saved, for the fool\n    will eat no supper that night.\n                                                        [Music.]\n    We must follow the leaders.\n  Bene. In every good thing.\n  Beat. Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next\n    turning.\n        Dance. Exeunt (all but Don John, Borachio, and Claudio].\n  John. Sure my brother is amorous on Hero and hath withdrawn her\n    father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but\n    one visor remains.\n  Bora. And that is Claudio. I know him by his bearing.\n  John. Are you not Signior Benedick?\n  Claud. You know me well. I am he.\n  John. Signior, you are very near my brother in his love. He is\n    enamour'd on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her; she is no\n    equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it.\n  Claud. How know you he loves her?\n  John. I heard him swear his affection.\n  Bora. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight.\n  John. Come, let us to the banquet.\n                                          Exeunt. Manet Claudio.\n  Claud. Thus answer I in name of Benedick\n    But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.\n                                                      [Unmasks.]\n    'Tis certain so. The Prince wooes for himself.\n    Friendship is constant in all other things\n    Save in the office and affairs of love.\n    Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues;\n    Let every eye negotiate for itself\n    And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch\n    Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.\n    This is an accident of hourly proof,\n    Which I mistrusted not. Farewell therefore Hero!\n\n                  Enter Benedick [unmasked].\n\n  Bene. Count Claudio?\n  Claud. Yea, the same.\n  Bene. Come, will you go with me?\n  Claud. Whither?\n  Bene. Even to the next willow, about your own business, County. What\n    fashion will you wear the garland of? about your neck, like an\n    usurer's chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant's scarf? You\n    must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero.\n  Claud. I wish him joy of her.\n  Bene. Why, that's spoken like an honest drovier. So they sell\n    bullocks. But did you think the Prince would have served you\n    thus?\n  Claud. I pray you leave me.\n  Bene. Ho! now you strike like the blind man! 'Twas the boy that\n    stole your meat, and you'll beat the post.\n  Claud. If it will not be, I'll leave you.                Exit.\n  Bene. Alas, poor hurt fowl! now will he creep into sedges. But,\n    that my Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The\n    Prince's fool! Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am\n    merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so\n    reputed. It is the base (though bitter) disposition of Beatrice\n    that puts the world into her person and so gives me out. Well,\n    I'll be revenged as I may.\n\n                         Enter Don Pedro.\n\n  Pedro. Now, signior, where's the Count? Did you see him?\n  Bene. Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame, I found\n    him here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I\n    think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of\n    this young lady, and I off'red him my company to a willow tree,\n    either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him\n    up a rod, as being worthy to be whipt.\n  Pedro. To be whipt? What's his fault?\n  Bene. The flat transgression of a schoolboy who, being overjoyed\n    with finding a bird's nest, shows it his companion, and he steals\n    it.\n  Pedro. Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is\n    in the stealer.\n  Bene. Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the\n    garland too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the\n    rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stol'n\n    his bird's nest.\n  Pedro. I will but teach them to sing and restore them to the owner.\n  Bene. If their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say\n    honestly.\n  Pedro. The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you. The gentleman that\n    danc'd with her told her she is much wrong'd by you.\n  Bene. O, she misus'd me past the endurance of a block! An oak but\n    with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor\n    began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not\n    thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince's jester, that\n    I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such\n    impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark,\n    with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every\n    word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations,\n    there were no living near her; she would infect to the North\n    Star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that\n    Adam had left him before he transgress'd. She would have made\n    Hercules have turn'd spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make\n    the fire too. Come, talk not of her. You shall find her the\n    infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would\n    conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as\n    quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose,\n    because they would go thither; so indeed all disquiet, horror,\n    and perturbation follows her.\n\n           Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato, Hero.\n\n  Pedro. Look, here she comes.\n  Bene. Will your Grace command me any service to the world's end? I\n    will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can\n    devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the\n    furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John's\n    foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard; do you any\n    embassage to the Pygmies--rather than hold three words'\n    conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me?\n  Pedro. None, but to desire your good company.\n  Bene. O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady\n    Tongue.                                              [Exit.]\n  Pedro. Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior\n    Benedick.\n  Beat. Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for\n    it--a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won\n    it of me with false dice; therefore your Grace may well say I\n    have lost it.\n  Pedro. You have put him down, lady; you have put him down.\n  Beat. So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove\n    the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent\n    me to seek.\n  Pedro. Why, how now, Count? Wherefore are you sad?\n  Claud. Not sad, my lord.\n  Pedro. How then? sick?\n  Claud. Neither, my lord.\n  Beat. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but\n    civil count--civil as an orange, and something of that jealous\n    complexion.\n  Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though I'll\n    be sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I\n    have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won. I have broke with\n    her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage,\n    and God give thee joy!\n  Leon. Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His\n    Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it!\n  Beat. Speak, Count, 'tis your cue.\n  Claud. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little\n    happy if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours.\n    I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange.\n  Beat. Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss\n    and let not him speak neither.\n  Pedro. In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.\n  Beat. Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy\n    side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her\n    heart.\n  Claud. And so she doth, cousin.\n  Beat. Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but\n    I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for\n    a husband!'\n  Pedro. Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.\n  Beat. I would rather have one of your father's getting. Hath your\n    Grace ne'er a brother like you? Your father got excellent\n    husbands, if a maid could come by them.\n  Pedro. Will you have me, lady?\n  Beat. No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days:\n    your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your\n    Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.\n  Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes\n    you, for out o' question you were born in a merry hour.\n  Beat. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star\n    danc'd, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy!\n  Leon. Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?\n  Beat. I cry you mercy, uncle, By your Grace's pardon.    Exit.\n  Pedro. By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.\n  Leon. There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord. She\n    is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I\n    have heard my daughter say she hath often dreamt of unhappiness\n    and wak'd herself with laughing.\n  Pedro. She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.\n  Leon. O, by no means! She mocks all her wooers out of suit.\n  Pedro. She were an excellent wife for Benedick.\n  Leon. O Lord, my lord! if they were but a week married, they would\n    talk themselves mad.\n  Pedro. County Claudio, when mean you to go to church?\n  Claud. To-morrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all\n    his rites.\n  Leon. Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just\n    sevennight; and a time too brief too, to have all things answer\n    my mind.\n  Pedro. Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing;\n    but I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us.\n    I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules' labours, which\n    is, to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a\n    mountain of affection th' one with th' other. I would fain have\n    it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it if you three will\n    but minister such assistance as I shall give you direction.\n  Leon. My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights'\n    watchings.\n  Claud. And I, my lord.\n  Pedro. And you too, gentle Hero?\n  Hero. I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a\n    good husband.\n  Pedro. And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know.\n    Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain, of approved\n    valour, and confirm'd honesty. I will teach you how to humour\n    your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I,\n    [to Leonato and Claudio] with your two helps, will so practise on\n    Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy\n    stomach, he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this,\n    Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are\n    the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nA hall in Leonato's house.\n\nEnter [Don] John and Borachio.\n\n  John. It is so. The Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of\n    Leonato.\n  Bora. Yea, my lord; but I can cross it.\n  John. Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be med'cinable to me.\n    I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his\n    affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this\n    marriage?\n  Bora. Not honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty\n    shall appear in me.\n  John. Show me briefly how.\n  Bora. I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in\n    the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero.\n  John. I remember.\n  Bora. I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her\n    to look out at her lady's chamber window.\n  John. What life is in that to be the death of this marriage?\n  Bora. The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the\n    Prince your brother; spare not to tell him that he hath wronged\n    his honour in marrying the renowned Claudio (whose estimation do\n    you mightily hold up) to a contaminated stale, such a one as\n    Hero.\n  John. What proof shall I make of that?\n  Bora. Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo\n    Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue?\n  John. Only to despite them I will endeavour anything.\n  Bora. Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count\n    Claudio alone; tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend\n    a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as--in love of\n    your brother's honour, who hath made this match, and his friend's\n    reputation, who is thus like to be cozen'd with the semblance of\n    a maid--that you have discover'd thus. They will scarcely believe\n    this without trial. Offer them instances; which shall bear no\n    less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me\n    call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them\n    to see this the very night before the intended wedding (for in\n    the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be\n    absent) and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero's\n    disloyalty that jealousy shall be call'd assurance and all the\n    preparation overthrown.\n  John. Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in\n    practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a\n    thousand ducats.\n  Bora. Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not\n    shame me.\n  John. I will presently go learn their day of marriage.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nLeonato's orchard.\n\nEnter Benedick alone.\n\n  Bene. Boy!\n\n                    [Enter Boy.]\n\n  Boy. Signior?\n  Bene. In my chamber window lies a book. Bring it hither to me in\n    the orchard.\n  Boy. I am here already, sir.\n  Bene. I know that, but I would have thee hence and here again.\n    (Exit Boy.) I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much\n    another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love,\n    will, after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others,\n    become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love; and such\n    a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him\n    but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor\n    and the pipe. I have known when he would have walk'd ten mile\n    afoot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake\n    carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain\n    and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is\n    he turn'd orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet--\n    just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with\n    these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but\n    love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it,\n    till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a\n    fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am\n    well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in\n    one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall\n    be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never\n    cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not\n    near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an\n    excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it\n    please God. Ha, the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in\n    the arbour.                                         [Hides.]\n\n              Enter Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio.\n                      Music [within].\n\n  Pedro. Come, shall we hear this music?\n  Claud. Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is,\n    As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony!\n  Pedro. See you where Benedick hath hid himself?\n  Claud. O, very well, my lord. The music ended,\n    We'll fit the kid-fox with a pennyworth.\n\n                   Enter Balthasar with Music.\n\n  Pedro. Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again.\n  Balth. O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice\n    To slander music any more than once.\n  Pedro. It is the witness still of excellency\n    To put a strange face on his own perfection.\n    I pray thee sing, and let me woo no more.\n  Balth. Because you talk of wooing, I will sing,\n    Since many a wooer doth commence his suit\n    To her he thinks not worthy, yet he wooes,\n    Yet will he swear he loves.\n  Pedro. Nay, pray thee come;\n    Or if thou wilt hold longer argument,\n    Do it in notes.\n  Balth. Note this before my notes:\n    There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting.\n  Pedro. Why, these are very crotchets that he speaks!\n    Note notes, forsooth, and nothing!                  [Music.]\n  Bene. [aside] Now divine air! Now is his soul ravish'd! Is it not\n    strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?\n    Well, a horn for my money, when all's done.\n                                              [Balthasar sings.]\n                      The Song.\n\n        Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more!\n          Men were deceivers ever,\n        One foot in sea, and one on shore;\n          To one thing constant never.\n            Then sigh not so,\n            But let them go,\n          And be you blithe and bonny,\n        Converting all your sounds of woe\n          Into Hey nonny, nonny.\n\n        Sing no more ditties, sing no moe,\n          Of dumps so dull and heavy!\n        The fraud of men was ever so,\n          Since summer first was leavy.\n            Then sigh not so, &c.\n\n  Pedro. By my troth, a good song.\n  Balth. And an ill singer, my lord.\n  Pedro. Ha, no, no, faith! Thou sing'st well enough for a shift.\n  Bene. [aside] An he had been a dog that should have howl'd thus,\n    they would have hang'd him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no\n    mischief. I had as live have heard the night raven, come what\n    plague could have come after it.\n  Pedro. Yea, marry. Dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us\n    some excellent music; for to-morrow night we would have it at the\n    Lady Hero's chamber window.\n  Balth. The best I can, my lord.\n  Pedro. Do so. Farewell.\n                                Exit Balthasar [with Musicians].\n    Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of to-day? that\n    your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick?\n  Claud. O, ay!-[Aside to Pedro] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits.\n    --I did never think that lady would have loved any man.\n  Leon. No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote\n    on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours\n    seem'd ever to abhor.\n  Bene. [aside] Is't possible? Sits the wind in that corner?\n  Leon. By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but\n    that she loves him with an enraged affection. It is past the\n    infinite of thought.\n  Pedro. May be she doth but counterfeit.\n  Claud. Faith, like enough.\n  Leon. O God, counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion\n    came so near the life of passion as she discovers it.\n  Pedro. Why, what effects of passion shows she?\n  Claud. [aside] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite.\n  Leon. What effects, my lord? She will sit you--you heard my\n    daughter tell you how.\n  Claud. She did indeed.\n  Pedro. How, how, I pray you? You amaze me. I would have thought her\n    spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection.\n  Leon. I would have sworn it had, my lord--especially against\n    Benedick.\n  Bene. [aside] I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded\n    fellow speaks it. Knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such\n    reverence.\n  Claud. [aside] He hath ta'en th' infection. Hold it up.\n  Pedro. Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?\n  Leon. No, and swears she never will. That's her torment.\n  Claud. 'Tis true indeed. So your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says\n    she, 'that have so oft encount'red him with scorn, write to him\n    that I love him?'\"\n  Leon. This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for\n    she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her\n    smock till she have writ a sheet of paper. My daughter tells us\n    all.\n  Claud. Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest\n    your daughter told us of.\n  Leon. O, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found\n    'Benedick' and 'Beatrice' between the sheet?\n  Claud. That.\n  Leon. O, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence, rail'd at\n    herself that she should be so immodest to write to one that she\n    knew would flout her. 'I measure him,' says she, 'by my own\n    spirit; for I should flout him if he writ to me. Yea, though I\n    love him, I should.'\n  Claud. Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her\n    heart, tears her hair, prays, curses--'O sweet Benedick! God give\n    me patience!'\n  Leon. She doth indeed; my daughter says so. And the ecstasy hath so\n    much overborne her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will\n    do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true.\n  Pedro. It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she\n    will not discover it.\n  Claud. To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the\n    poor lady worse.\n  Pedro. An he should, it were an alms to hang him! She's an\n    excellent sweet lady, and (out of all suspicion) she is virtuous.\n  Claud. And she is exceeding wise.\n  Pedro. In everything but in loving Benedick.\n  Leon. O, my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body,\n    we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry\n    for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian.\n  Pedro. I would she had bestowed this dotage on me. I would have\n    daff'd all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you\n    tell Benedick of it and hear what 'a will say.\n  Leon. Were it good, think you?\n  Claud. Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die\n    if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known,\n    and she will die, if he woo her, rather than she will bate one\n    breath of her accustomed crossness.\n  Pedro. She doth well. If she should make tender of her love, 'tis\n    very possible he'll scorn it; for the man (as you know all) hath\n    a contemptible spirit.\n  Claud. He is a very proper man.\n  Pedro. He hath indeed a good outward happiness.\n  Claud. Before God! and in my mind, very wise.\n  Pedro. He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit.\n  Claud. And I take him to be valiant.\n  Pedro. As Hector, I assure you; and in the managing of quarrels you\n    may say he is wise, for either he avoids them with great\n    discretion, or undertakes them with a most Christianlike fear.\n  Leon. If he do fear God, 'a must necessarily keep peace. If he\n    break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and\n    trembling.\n  Pedro. And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it\n    seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am\n    sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of\n    her love?\n  Claud. Never tell him, my lord. Let her wear it out with good\n    counsel.\n  Leon. Nay, that's impossible; she may wear her heart out first.\n  Pedro. Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it\n    cool the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would\n    modestly examine himself to see how much he is unworthy so good a\n    lady.\n  Leon. My lord, will you .walk? Dinner is ready.\n                                               [They walk away.]\n  Claud. If he dote on her upon this, I will never trust my\n    expectation.\n  Pedro. Let there be the same net spread for her, and that must your\n    daughter and her gentlewomen carry. The sport will be, when they\n    hold one an opinion of another's dotage, and no such matter.\n    That's the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb\n    show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner.\n                       Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato].\n\n                [Benedick advances from the arbour.]\n\n  Bene. This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they\n    have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady.\n    It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it\n    must be requited. I hear how I am censur'd. They say I will bear\n    myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too\n    that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did\n    never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that\n    hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the\n    lady is fair--'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous\n    --'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me--by\n    my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of\n    her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance\n    have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I\n    have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite\n    alters? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure\n    in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of\n    the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world\n    must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not\n    think I should live till I were married.\n\n                 Enter Beatrice.\n\n    Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she's a fair lady! I do spy\n    some marks of love in her.\n  Beat. Against my will I am sent to bid You come in to dinner.\n  Bene. Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.\n  Beat. I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to\n    thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come.\n  Bene. You take pleasure then in the message?\n  Beat. Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knives point, and\n    choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior. Fare you well.\nExit.\n  Bene. Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.'\n    There's a double meaning in that. 'I took no more pains for those\n    thanks than you took pains to thank me.' That's as much as to\n    say, 'Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.' If I\n    do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I\n    am a Jew. I will go get her picture.                   Exit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. Scene I.\nLeonato's orchard.\n\nEnter Hero and two Gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula.\n\n  Hero. Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour.\n    There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice\n    Proposing with the Prince and Claudio.\n    Whisper her ear and tell her, I and Ursley\n    Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse\n    Is all of her. Say that thou overheard'st us;\n    And bid her steal into the pleached bower,\n    Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun,\n    Forbid the sun to enter--like favourites,\n    Made proud by princes, that advance their pride\n    Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her\n    To listen our propose. This is thy office.\n    Bear thee well in it and leave us alone.\n  Marg. I'll make her come, I warrant you, presently.    [Exit.]\n  Hero. Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,\n    As we do trace this alley up and down,\n    Our talk must only be of Benedick.\n    When I do name him, let it be thy part\n    To praise him more than ever man did merit.\n    My talk to thee must be how Benedick\n    Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter\n    Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made,\n    That only wounds by hearsay.\n\n                   [Enter Beatrice.]\n\n    Now begin;\n    For look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs\n    Close by the ground, to hear our conference.\n\n               [Beatrice hides in the arbour].\n\n  Urs. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish\n    Cut with her golden oars the silver stream\n    And greedily devour the treacherous bait.\n    So angle we for Beatrice, who even now\n    Is couched in the woodbine coverture.\n    Fear you not my part of the dialogue.\n  Hero. Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing\n    Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it.\n                                     [They approach the arbour.]\n    No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful.\n    I know her spirits are as coy and wild\n    As haggards of the rock.\n  Urs. But are you sure\n    That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?\n  Hero. So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord.\n  Urs. And did they bid you tell her of it, madam?\n  Hero. They did entreat me to acquaint her of it;\n    But I persuaded them, if they lov'd Benedick,\n    To wish him wrestle with affection\n    And never to let Beatrice know of it.\n  Urs. Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman\n    Deserve as full, as fortunate a bed\n    As ever Beatrice shall couch upon?\n  Hero. O god of love! I know he doth deserve\n    As much as may be yielded to a man:\n    But Nature never fram'd a woman's heart\n    Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice.\n    Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,\n    Misprizing what they look on; and her wit\n    Values itself so highly that to her\n    All matter else seems weak. She cannot love,\n    Nor take no shape nor project of affection,\n    She is so self-endeared.\n  Urs. Sure I think so;\n    And therefore certainly it were not good\n    She knew his love, lest she'll make sport at it.\n  Hero. Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man,\n    How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featur'd,\n    But she would spell him backward. If fair-fac'd,\n    She would swear the gentleman should be her sister;\n    If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antic,\n    Made a foul blot; if tall, a lance ill-headed;\n    If low, an agate very vilely cut;\n    If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds;\n    If silent, why, a block moved with none.\n    So turns she every man the wrong side out\n    And never gives to truth and virtue that\n    Which simpleness and merit purchaseth.\n  Urs. Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable.\n  Hero. No, not to be so odd, and from all fashions,\n    As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable.\n    But who dare tell her so? If I should speak,\n    She would mock me into air; O, she would laugh me\n    Out of myself, press me to death with wit!\n    Therefore let Benedick, like cover'd fire,\n    Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly.\n    It were a better death than die with mocks,\n    Which is as bad as die with tickling.\n  Urs. Yet tell her of it. Hear what she will say.\n  Hero. No; rather I will go to Benedick\n    And counsel him to fight against his passion.\n    And truly, I'll devise some honest slanders\n    To stain my cousin with. One doth not know\n    How much an ill word may empoison liking.\n  Urs. O, do not do your cousin such a wrong!\n    She cannot be so much without true judgment\n    (Having so swift and excellent a wit\n    As she is priz'd to have) as to refuse\n    So rare a gentleman as Signior Benedick.\n  Hero. He is the only man of Italy,\n    Always excepted my dear Claudio.\n  Urs. I pray you be not angry with me, madam,\n    Speaking my fancy: Signior Benedick,\n    For shape, for bearing, argument, and valour,\n    Goes foremost in report through Italy.\n  Hero. Indeed he hath an excellent good name.\n  Urs. His excellence did earn it ere he had it.\n    When are you married, madam?\n  Hero. Why, every day to-morrow! Come, go in.\n    I'll show thee some attires, and have thy counsel\n    Which is the best to furnish me to-morrow.\n                                               [They walk away.]\n  Urs. She's lim'd, I warrant you! We have caught her, madam.\n  Hero. If it prove so, then loving goes by haps;\n    Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.\n                                       Exeunt [Hero and Ursula].\n\n    [Beatrice advances from the arbour.]\n\n  Beat. What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?\n    Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much?\n    Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu!\n    No glory lives behind the back of such.\n    And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,\n    Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.\n    If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee\n    To bind our loves up in a holy band;\n    For others say thou dost deserve, and I\n    Believe it better than reportingly.                    Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nA room in Leonato's house.\n\nEnter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, and Leonato.\n\n  Pedro. I do but stay till your marriage be consummate, and then go\n    I toward Arragon.\n  Claud. I'll bring you thither, my lord, if you'll vouchsafe me.\n  Pedro. Nay, that would be as great a soil in the new gloss of your\n    marriage as to show a child his new coat and forbid him to wear\n    it. I will only be bold with Benedick for his company; for, from\n    the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he is all mirth.\n    He hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bowstring, and the little\n    hangman dare not shoot at him. He hath a heart as sound as a\n    bell; and his tongue is the clapper, for what his heart thinks,\n    his tongue speaks.\n  Bene. Gallants, I am not as I have been.\n  Leon. So say I. Methinks you are sadder.\n  Claud. I hope he be in love.\n  Pedro. Hang him, truant! There's no true drop of blood in him to be\n    truly touch'd with love. If he be sad, he wants money.\n  Bene. I have the toothache.\n  Pedro. Draw it.\n  Bene. Hang it!\n  Claud. You must hang it first and draw it afterwards.\n  Pedro. What? sigh for the toothache?\n  Leon. Where is but a humour or a worm.\n  Bene. Well, every one can master a grief but he that has it.\n  Claud. Yet say I he is in love.\n  Pedro. There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be a fancy\n    that he hath to strange disguises; as to be a Dutchman to-day, a\n    Frenchman to-morrow; or in the shape of two countries at once, as\n    a German from the waist downward, all slops, and a Spaniard from\n    the hip upward, no doublet. Unless he have a fancy to this\n    foolery, as it appears he hath, he is no fool for fancy, as you\n    would have it appear he is.\n  Claud. If he be not in love with some woman, there is no believing\n    old signs. 'A brushes his hat o' mornings. What should that bode?\n  Pedro. Hath any man seen him at the barber's?\n  Claud. No, but the barber's man hath been seen with him, and the\n     old ornament of his cheek hath already stuff'd tennis balls.\n  Leon. Indeed he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard.\n  Pedro. Nay, 'a rubs himself with civet. Can you smell him out by\n    that?\n  Claud. That's as much as to say, the sweet youth's in love.\n  Pedro. The greatest note of it is his melancholy.\n  Claud. And when was he wont to wash his face?\n  Pedro. Yea, or to paint himself? for the which I hear what they say\n    of him.\n  Claud. Nay, but his jesting spirit, which is new-crept into a\n    lutestring, and now govern'd by stops.\n  Pedro. Indeed that tells a heavy tale for him. Conclude, conclude,\n    he is in love.\n  Claud. Nay, but I know who loves him.\n  Pedro. That would I know too. I warrant, one that knows him not.\n  Claud. Yes, and his ill conditions; and in despite of all, dies for\n    him.\n  Pedro. She shall be buried with her face upwards.\n  Bene. Yet is this no charm for the toothache. Old signior, walk\n    aside with me. I have studied eight or nine wise words to speak\n    to you, which these hobby-horses must not hear.\n                                  [Exeunt Benedick and Leonato.]\n  Pedro. For my life, to break with him about Beatrice!\n  Claud. 'Tis even so. Hero and Margaret have by this played their\n    parts with Beatrice, and then the two bears will not bite one\n    another when they meet.\n\n                 Enter John the Bastard.\n\n  John. My lord and brother, God save you.\n  Pedro. Good den, brother.\n  John. If your leisure serv'd, I would speak with you.\n  Pedro. In private?\n  John. If it please you. Yet Count Claudio may hear, for what I\n    would speak of concerns him.\n  Pedro. What's the matter?\n  John. [to Claudio] Means your lordship to be married tomorrow?\n  Pedro. You know he does.\n  John. I know not that, when he knows what I know.\n  Claud. If there be any impediment, I pray you discover it.\n  John. You may think I love you not. Let that appear hereafter, and\n    aim better at me by that I now will manifest. For my brother, I\n    think he holds you well and in dearness of heart hath holp to\n    effect your ensuing marriage--surely suit ill spent and labour\n    ill bestowed!\n  Pedro. Why, what's the matter?\n  John. I came hither to tell you, and, circumstances short'ned (for\n    she has been too long a-talking of), the lady is disloyal.\n  Claud. Who? Hero?\n  John. Even she--Leonato's Hero, your Hero, every man's Hero.\n  Claud. Disloyal?\n  John. The word is too good to paint out her wickedness. I could say\n    she were worse; think you of a worse title, and I will fit her to\n    it. Wonder not till further warrant. Go but with me to-night, you\n    shall see her chamber window ent'red, even the night before her\n    wedding day. If you love her then, to-morrow wed her. But it\n    would better fit your honour to change your mind.\n  Claud. May this be so?\n  Pedro. I will not think it.\n  John. If you dare not trust that you see, confess not that you\n    know. If you will follow me, I will show you enough; and when you\n    have seen more and heard more, proceed accordingly.\n  Claud. If I see anything to-night why I should not marry her\n    to-morrow, in the congregation where I should wed, there will I\n    shame her.\n  Pedro. And, as I wooed for thee to obtain her, I will join with\n    thee to disgrace her.\n  John. I will disparage her no farther till you are my witnesses.\n    Bear it coldly but till midnight, and let the issue show itself.\n  Pedro. O day untowardly turned!\n  Claud. O mischief strangely thwarting!\n  John. O plague right well prevented!\n    So will you say when you have seen the Sequel.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nA street.\n\nEnter Dogberry and his compartner [Verges], with the Watch.\n\n  Dog. Are you good men and true?\n  Verg. Yea, or else it were pity but they should suffer salvation,\n    body and soul.\n  Dog. Nay, that were a punishment too good for them if they should\n    have any allegiance in them, being chosen for the Prince's watch.\n  Verg. Well, give them their charge, neighbour Dogberry.\n  Dog. First, who think you the most desartless man to be constable?\n  1. Watch. Hugh Oatcake, sir, or George Seacoal; for they can write\n    and read.\n  Dog. Come hither, neighbour Seacoal. God hath bless'd you with a\n    good name. To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune, but\n    to write and read comes by nature.\n  2. Watch. Both which, Master Constable--\n  Dog. You have. I knew it would be your answer. Well, for your\n    favour, sir, why, give God thanks and make no boast of it; and\n    for your writing and reading, let that appear when there is no\n    need of such vanity. You are thought here to be the most\n    senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch. Therefore\n    bear you the lanthorn. This is your charge: you shall comprehend\n    all vagrom men; you are to bid any man stand, in the Prince's\n    name.\n  2. Watch. How if 'a will not stand?\n  Dog. Why then, take no note of him, but let him go, and presently\n    call the rest of the watch together and thank God you are rid of\n    a knave.\n  Verg. If he will not stand when he is bidden, he is none of the\n    Prince's subjects.\n  Dog. True, and they are to meddle with none but the Prince's\n    subjects. You shall also make no noise in the streets; for for\n    the watch to babble and to talk is most tolerable, and not to be\n    endured.\n  2. Watch. We will rather sleep than talk. We know what belongs to\n    a watch.\n  Dog. Why, you speak like an ancient and most quiet watchman, for I\n    cannot see how sleeping should offend. Only have a care that your\n    bills be not stol'n. Well, you are to call at all the alehouses\n    and bid those that are drunk get them to bed.\n  2. Watch. How if they will not?\n  Dog. Why then, let them alone till they are sober. If they make you\n    not then the better answer, You may say they are not the men you\n    took them for.\n  2. Watch. Well, sir.\n  Dog. If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by virtue of your\n    office, to be no true man; and for such kind of men, the less you\n    meddle or make with them, why, the more your honesty.\n  2. Watch. If we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay hands on\n    him?\n  Dog. Truly, by your office you may; but I think they that touch\n    pitch will be defil'd. The most peaceable way for you, if you do\n    take a thief, is to let him show himself what he is, and steal\n    out of your company.\n  Verg. You have been always called a merciful man, partner.\n  Dog. Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who\n    hath any honesty in him.\n  Verg. If you hear a child cry in the night, you must call to the\n    nurse and bid her still it.\n  2. Watch. How if the nurse be asleep and will not hear us?\n  Dog. Why then, depart in peace and let the child wake her with\n    crying; for the ewe that will not hear her lamb when it baes will\n    never answer a calf when he bleats.\n  Verg. 'Tis very true.\n  Dog. This is the end of the charge: you, constable, are to present\n    the Prince's own person. If you meet the Prince in the night,\n    you may stay him.\n  Verg. Nay, by'r lady, that I think 'a cannot.\n  Dog. Five shillings to one on't with any man that knows the\n    statutes, he may stay him! Marry, not without the Prince be\n    willing; for indeed the watch ought to offend no man, and it is\n    an offence to stay a man against his will.\n  Verg. By'r lady, I think it be so.\n  Dog. Ha, ah, ha! Well, masters, good night. An there be any matter\n    of weight chances, call up me. Keep your fellows' counsels and\n    your own, and good night. Come, neighbour.\n  2. Watch. Well, masters, we hear our charge. Let us go sit here\n    upon the church bench till two, and then all to bed.\n  Dog. One word more, honest neighbours. I pray you watch about\n    Signior Leonato's door; for the wedding being there tomorrow,\n    there is a great coil to-night. Adieu. Be vigitant, I beseech\n    you.                           Exeunt [Dogberry and Verges].\n\n                     Enter Borachio and Conrade.\n\n  Bora. What, Conrade!\n  2. Watch. [aside] Peace! stir not!\n  Bora. Conrade, I say!\n  Con. Here, man. I am at thy elbow.\n  Bora. Mass, and my elbow itch'd! I thought there would a scab\n    follow.\n  Con. I will owe thee an answer for that; and now forward with thy\n    tale.\n  Bora. Stand thee close then under this penthouse, for it drizzles\n    rain, and I will, like a true drunkard, utter all to thee.\n  2. Watch. [aside] Some treason, masters. Yet stand close.\n  Bora. Therefore know I have earned of Don John a thousand ducats.\n  Con. Is it possible that any villany should be so dear?\n  Bora. Thou shouldst rather ask if it were possible any villany\n    should be so rich; for when rich villains have need of poor ones,\n    poor ones may make what price they will.\n  Con. I wonder at it.\n  Bora. That shows thou art unconfirm'd. Thou knowest that the\n    fashion of a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak, is nothing to a man.\n  Con. Yes, it is apparel.\n  Bora. I mean the fashion.\n  Con. Yes, the fashion is the fashion.\n  Bora. Tush! I may as well say the fool's the fool. But seest thou\n    not what a deformed thief this fashion is?\n  2. Watch. [aside] I know that Deformed. 'A bas been a vile thief\n    this seven year; 'a goes up and down like a gentleman. I remember\n    his name.\n  Bora. Didst thou not hear somebody?\n  Con. No; 'twas the vane on the house.\n  Bora. Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is?\n    how giddily 'a turns about all the hot-bloods between fourteen\n    and five-and-thirty? sometimes fashioning them like Pharaoh's\n    soldiers in the reechy painting, sometime like god Bel's priests\n    in the old church window, sometime like the shaven Hercules in\n    the smirch'd worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece seems as\n    massy as his club?\n  Con. All this I see; and I see that the fashion wears out more\n    apparel than the man. But art not thou thyself giddy with the\n    fashion too, that thou hast shifted out of thy tale into telling\n    me of the fashion?\n  Bora. Not so neither. But know that I have to-night wooed Margaret,\n    the Lady Hero's gentlewoman, by the name of Hero. She leans me\n    out at her mistress' chamber window, bids me a thousand times\n    good night--I tell this tale vilely; I should first tell thee how\n    the Prince, Claudio and my master, planted and placed and\n    possessed by my master Don John, saw afar off in the orchard this\n    amiable encounter.\n  Con. And thought they Margaret was Hero?\n  Bora. Two of them did, the Prince and Claudio; but the devil my\n    master knew she was Margaret; and partly by his oaths, which\n    first possess'd them, partly by the dark night, which did deceive\n    them, but chiefly by my villany, which did confirm any slander\n    that Don John had made, away went Claudio enrag'd; swore he would\n    meet her, as he was appointed, next morning at the temple, and\n    there, before the whole congregation, shame her with what he saw\n    o'ernight and send her home again without a husband.\n  2. Watch. We charge you in the Prince's name stand!\n  1. Watch. Call up the right Master Constable. We have here\n    recover'd the most dangerous piece of lechery that ever was known\n    in the commonwealth.\n  2. Watch. And one Deformed is one of them. I know him; 'a wears a\n    lock.\n  Con. Masters, masters--\n  1. Watch. You'll be made bring Deformed forth, I warrant you.\n  Con. Masters--\n  2. Watch. Never speak, we charge you. Let us obey you to go with\n    us.\n  Bora. We are like to prove a goodly commodity, being taken up of\n    these men's bills.\n  Con. A commodity in question, I warrant you. Come, we'll obey you.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nA Room in Leonato's house.\n\nEnter Hero, and Margaret and Ursula.\n\n  Hero. Good Ursula, wake my cousin Beatrice and desire her to rise.\n  Urs. I will, lady.\n  Hero. And bid her come hither.\n  Urs. Well.                                             [Exit.]\n  Marg. Troth, I think your other rebato were better.\n  Hero. No, pray thee, good Meg, I'll wear this.\n  Marg. By my troth, 's not so good, and I warrant your cousin will\n    say so.\n  Hero. My cousin's a fool, and thou art another. I'll wear none but\n    this.\n  Marg. I like the new tire within excellently, if the hair were a\n    thought browner; and your gown's a most rare fashion, i' faith.\n    I saw the Duchess of Milan's gown that they praise so.\n  Hero. O, that exceeds, they say.\n  Marg. By my troth, 's but a nightgown in respect of yours--\n    cloth-o'-gold and cuts, and lac'd with silver, set with pearls\n    down sleeves, side-sleeves, and skirts, round underborne with\n    a blush tinsel. But for a fine, quaint, graceful, and excellent\n    fashion, yours is worth ten on't.\n  Hero. God give me joy to wear it! for my heart is exceeding heavy.\n  Marg. 'Twill be heavier soon by the weight of a man.\n  Hero. Fie upon thee! art not ashamed?\n  Marg. Of what, lady? of speaking honourably? Is not marriage\n    honourable in a beggar? Is not your lord honourable without\n    marriage? I think you would have me say, 'saving your reverence,\n    a husband.' An bad thinking do not wrest true speaking, I'll\n    offend nobody. Is there any harm in 'the heavier for a husband'?\n    None, I think, an it be the right husband and the right wife.\n    Otherwise 'tis light, and not heavy. Ask my Lady Beatrice else.\n    Here she comes.\n\n                               Enter Beatrice.\n\n  Hero. Good morrow, coz.\n  Beat. Good morrow, sweet Hero.\n  Hero. Why, how now? Do you speak in the sick tune?\n  Beat. I am out of all other tune, methinks.\n  Marg. Clap's into 'Light o' love.' That goes without a burden. Do\n    you sing it, and I'll dance it.\n  Beat. Yea, 'Light o' love' with your heels! then, if your husband\n    have stables enough, you'll see he shall lack no barnes.\n  Marg. O illegitimate construction! I scorn that with my heels.\n  Beat. 'Tis almost five o'clock, cousin; 'tis time you were ready.\n    By my troth, I am exceeding ill. Hey-ho!\n  Marg. For a hawk, a horse, or a husband?\n  Beat. For the letter that begins them all, H.\n  Marg. Well, an you be not turn'd Turk, there's no more sailing by\n    the star.\n  Beat. What means the fool, trow?\n  Marg. Nothing I; but God send every one their heart's desire!\n  Hero. These gloves the Count sent me, they are an excellent\n    perfume.\n  Beat. I am stuff'd, cousin; I cannot smell.\n  Marg. A maid, and stuff'd! There's goodly catching of cold.\n  Beat. O, God help me! God help me! How long have you profess'd\n    apprehension?\n  Marg. Ever since you left it. Doth not my wit become me rarely?\n  Beat. It is not seen enough. You should wear it in your cap. By my\n    troth, I am sick.\n  Marg. Get you some of this distill'd carduus benedictus and lay it\n    to your heart. It is the only thing for a qualm.\n  Hero. There thou prick'st her with a thistle.\n  Beat. Benedictus? why benedictus? You have some moral in this\n    'benedictus.'\n  Marg. Moral? No, by my troth, I have no moral meaning; I meant\n    plain holy thistle. You may think perchance that I think you are\n    in love. Nay, by'r lady, I am not such a fool to think what I\n    list; nor I list not to think what I can; nor indeed I cannot\n    think, if I would think my heart out of thinking, that you are in\n    love, or that you will be in love, or that you can be in love.\n    Yet Benedick was such another, and now is he become a man. He\n    swore he would never marry; and yet now in despite of his heart\n    he eats his meat without grudging; and how you may be converted I\n    know not, but methinks you look with your eyes as other women do.\n  Beat. What pace is this that thy tongue keeps?\n  Marg. Not a false gallop.\n\n                         Enter Ursula.\n\n  Urs. Madam, withdraw. The Prince, the Count, Signior Benedick, Don\n    John, and all the gallants of the town are come to fetch you to\n    church.\n  Hero. Help to dress me, good coz, good Meg, good Ursula.\n                                                       [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nThe hall in Leonato's house.\n\nEnter Leonato and the Constable [Dogberry] and the Headborough [verges].\n\n  Leon. What would you with me, honest neighbour?\n  Dog. Marry, sir, I would have some confidence with you that decerns\n    you nearly.\n  Leon. Brief, I pray you; for you see it is a busy time with me.\n  Dog. Marry, this it is, sir.\n  Verg. Yes, in truth it is, sir.\n  Leon. What is it, my good friends?\n  Dog. Goodman Verges, sir, speaks a little off the matter--an old\n    man, sir, and his wits are not so blunt as, God help, I would\n    desire they were; but, in faith, honest as the skin between his\n    brows.\n  Verg. Yes, I thank God I am as honest as any man living that is an\n    old man and no honester than I.\n  Dog. Comparisons are odorous. Palabras, neighbour Verges.\n  Leon. Neighbours, you are tedious.\n  Dog. It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the poor Duke's\n    officers; but truly, for mine own part, if I were as tedious as a\n    king, I could find in my heart to bestow it all of your worship.\n  Leon. All thy tediousness on me, ah?\n  Dog. Yea, in 'twere a thousand pound more than 'tis; for I hear as\n    good exclamation on your worship as of any man in the city; and\n    though I be but a poor man, I am glad to hear it.\n  Verg. And so am I.\n  Leon. I would fain know what you have to say.\n  Verg. Marry, sir, our watch to-night, excepting your worship's\n    presence, ha' ta'en a couple of as arrant knaves as any in\n    Messina.\n  Dog. A good old man, sir; he will be talking. As they say, 'When\n    the age is in, the wit is out.' God help us! it is a world to\n    see! Well said, i' faith, neighbour Verges. Well, God's a good\n    man. An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind. An honest\n    soul, i' faith, sir, by my troth he is, as ever broke bread; but\n    God is to be worshipp'd; all men are not alike, alas, good\n    neighbour!\n  Leon. Indeed, neighbour, he comes too short of you.\n  Dog. Gifts that God gives.\n  Leon. I must leave you.\n  Dog. One word, sir. Our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two\n    aspicious persons, and we would have them this morning examined\n    before your worship.\n  Leon. Take their examination yourself and bring it me. I am now in\n    great haste, as it may appear unto you.\n  Dog. It shall be suffigance.\n  Leon. Drink some wine ere you go. Fare you well.\n\n                       [Enter a Messenger.]\n\n  Mess. My lord, they stay for you to give your daughter to her\n    husband.\n  Leon. I'll wait upon them. I am ready.\n                                 [Exeunt Leonato and Messenger.]\n  Dog. Go, good partner, go get you to Francis Seacoal; bid him bring\n    his pen and inkhorn to the jail. We are now to examination these\n    men.\n  Verg. And we must do it wisely.\n  Dog. We will spare for no wit, I warrant you. Here's that shall\n    drive some of them to a non-come. Only get the learned writer to\n    set down our excommunication, and meet me at the jail.\n                                                       [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. Scene I.\nA church.\n\nEnter Don Pedro, [John the] Bastard, Leonato, Friar [Francis], Claudio,\nBenedick, Hero, Beatrice, [and Attendants].\n\n  Leon. Come, Friar Francis, be brief. Only to the plain form of\n    marriage, and you shall recount their particular duties\n    afterwards.\n  Friar. You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?\n  Claud. No.\n  Leon. To be married to her. Friar, you come to marry her.\n  Friar. Lady, you come hither to be married to this count?\n  Hero. I do.\n  Friar. If either of you know any inward impediment why you should\n    not be conjoined, I charge you on your souls to utter it.\n  Claud. Know you any, Hero?\n  Hero. None, my lord.\n  Friar. Know you any, Count?\n  Leon. I dare make his answer--none.\n  Claud. O, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not\n    knowing what they do!\n  Bene. How now? interjections? Why then, some be of laughing, as,\n    ah, ha, he!\n  Claud. Stand thee by, friar. Father, by your leave:\n    Will you with free and unconstrained soul\n    Give me this maid your daughter?\n  Leon. As freely, son, as God did give her me.\n  Claud. And what have I to give you back whose worth\n    May counterpoise this rich and precious gift?\n  Pedro. Nothing, unless you render her again.\n  Claud. Sweet Prince, you learn me noble thankfulness.\n    There, Leonato, take her back again.\n    Give not this rotten orange to your friend.\n    She's but the sign and semblance of her honour.\n    Behold how like a maid she blushes here!\n    O, what authority and show of truth\n    Can cunning sin cover itself withal!\n    Comes not that blood as modest evidence\n    To witness simple virtue, Would you not swear,\n    All you that see her, that she were a maid\n    By these exterior shows? But she is none:\n    She knows the heat of a luxurious bed;\n    Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.\n  Leon. What do you mean, my lord?\n  Claud. Not to be married,\n    Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton.\n  Leon. Dear my lord, if you, in your own proof,\n    Have vanquish'd the resistance of her youth\n    And made defeat of her virginity--\n  Claud. I know what you would say. If I have known her,\n    You will say she did embrace me as a husband,\n    And so extenuate the forehand sin.\n    No, Leonato,\n    I never tempted her with word too large,\n    But, as a brother to his sister, show'd\n    Bashful sincerity and comely love.\n  Hero. And seem'd I ever otherwise to you?\n  Claud. Out on the seeming! I will write against it.\n    You seem to me as Dian in her orb,\n    As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown;\n    But you are more intemperate in your blood\n    Than Venus, or those pamp'red animals\n    That rage in savage sensuality.\n  Hero. Is my lord well that he doth speak so wide?\n  Leon. Sweet Prince, why speak not you?\n  Pedro. What should I speak?\n    I stand dishonour'd that have gone about\n    To link my dear friend to a common stale.\n  Leon. Are these things spoken, or do I but dream?\n  John. Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true.\n  Bene. This looks not like a nuptial.\n  Hero. 'True!' O God!\n  Claud. Leonato, stand I here?\n    Is this the Prince, Is this the Prince's brother?\n    Is this face Hero's? Are our eyes our own?\n  Leon. All this is so; but what of this, my lord?\n  Claud. Let me but move one question to your daughter,\n    And by that fatherly and kindly power\n    That you have in her, bid her answer truly.\n  Leon. I charge thee do so, as thou art my child.\n  Hero. O, God defend me! How am I beset!\n    What kind of catechising call you this?\n  Claud. To make you answer truly to your name.\n  Hero. Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name\n    With any just reproach?\n  Claud. Marry, that can Hero!\n    Hero itself can blot out Hero's virtue.\n    What man was he talk'd with you yesternight,\n    Out at your window betwixt twelve and one?\n    Now, if you are a maid, answer to this.\n  Hero. I talk'd with no man at that hour, my lord.\n  Pedro. Why, then are you no maiden. Leonato,\n    I am sorry you must hear. Upon my honour,\n    Myself, my brother, and this grieved Count\n    Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night\n    Talk with a ruffian at her chamber window,\n    Who hath indeed, most like a liberal villain,\n    Confess'd the vile encounters they have had\n    A thousand times in secret.\n  John. Fie, fie! they are not to be nam'd, my lord--\n    Not to be spoke of;\n    There is not chastity, enough in language\n    Without offence to utter them. Thus, pretty lady,\n    I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.\n  Claud. O Hero! what a Hero hadst thou been\n    If half thy outward graces had been plac'd\n    About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart!\n    But fare thee well, most foul, most fair! Farewell,\n    Thou pure impiety and impious purity!\n    For thee I'll lock up all the gates of love,\n    And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang,\n    To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,\n    And never shall it more be gracious.\n  Leon. Hath no man's dagger here a point for me?\n                                                  [Hero swoons.]\n  Beat. Why, how now, cousin? Wherefore sink you down?\n  John. Come let us go. These things, come thus to light,\n    Smother her spirits up.\n                      [Exeunt Don Pedro, Don Juan, and Claudio.]\n  Bene. How doth the lady?\n  Beat. Dead, I think. Help, uncle!\n    Hero! why, Hero! Uncle! Signior Benedick! Friar!\n  Leon. O Fate, take not away thy heavy hand!\n    Death is the fairest cover for her shame\n    That may be wish'd for.\n  Beat. How now, cousin Hero?\n  Friar. Have comfort, lady.\n  Leon. Dost thou look up?\n  Friar. Yea, wherefore should she not?\n  Leon. Wherefore? Why, doth not every earthly thing\n    Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny\n    The story that is printed in her blood?\n    Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes;\n    For, did I think thou wouldst not quickly die,\n    Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames,\n    Myself would on the rearward of reproaches\n    Strike at thy life. Griev'd I, I had but one?\n    Child I for that at frugal nature's frame?\n    O, one too much by thee! Why had I one?\n    Why ever wast thou lovely in my eyes?\n    Why had I not with charitable hand\n    Took up a beggar's issue at my gates,\n    Who smirched thus and mir'd with infamy,\n    I might have said, 'No part of it is mine;\n    This shame derives itself from unknown loins'?\n    But mine, and mine I lov'd, and mine I prais'd,\n    And mine that I was proud on--mine so much\n    That I myself was to myself not mine,\n    Valuing of her--why, she, O, she is fall'n\n    Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea\n    Hath drops too few to wash her clean again,\n    And salt too little which may season give\n    To her foul tainted flesh!\n  Bene. Sir, sir, be patient.\n    For my part, I am so attir'd in wonder,\n    I know not what to say.\n  Beat. O, on my soul, my cousin is belied!\n  Bene. Lady, were you her bedfellow last night?\n  Beat. No, truly, not; although, until last night,\n    I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow\n  Leon. Confirm'd, confirm'd! O, that is stronger made\n    Which was before barr'd up with ribs of iron!\n    Would the two princes lie? and Claudio lie,\n    Who lov'd her so that, speaking of her foulness,\n    Wash'd it with tears? Hence from her! let her die.\n  Friar. Hear me a little;\n    For I have only been silent so long,\n    And given way unto this course of fortune,\n    By noting of the lady. I have mark'd\n    A thousand blushing apparitions\n    To start into her face, a thousand innocent shames\n    In angel whiteness beat away those blushes,\n    And in her eye there hath appear'd a fire\n    To burn the errors that these princes hold\n    Against her maiden truth. Call me a fool;\n    Trust not my reading nor my observation,\n    Which with experimental seal doth warrant\n    The tenure of my book; trust not my age,\n    My reverence, calling, nor divinity,\n    If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here\n    Under some biting error.\n  Leon. Friar, it cannot be.\n    Thou seest that all the grace that she hath left\n    Is that she will not add to her damnation\n    A sin of perjury: she not denies it.\n    Why seek'st thou then to cover with excuse\n    That which appears in proper nakedness?\n  Friar. Lady, what man is he you are accus'd of?\n  Hero. They know that do accuse me; I know none.\n    If I know more of any man alive\n    Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant,\n    Let all my sins lack mercy! O my father,\n    Prove you that any man with me convers'd\n    At hours unmeet, or that I yesternight\n    Maintain'd the change of words with any creature,\n    Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death!\n  Friar. There is some strange misprision in the princes.\n  Bene. Two of them have the very bent of honour;\n    And if their wisdoms be misled in this,\n    The practice of it lives in John the bastard,\n    Whose spirits toil in frame of villanies.\n  Leon. I know not. If they speak but truth of her,\n    These hands shall tear her. If they wrong her honour,\n    The proudest of them shall well hear of it.\n    Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine,\n    Nor age so eat up my invention,\n    Nor fortune made such havoc of my means,\n    Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends,\n    But they shall find awak'd in such a kind\n    Both strength of limb and policy of mind,\n    Ability in means, and choice of friends,\n    To quit me of them throughly.\n  Friar. Pause awhile\n    And let my counsel sway you in this case.\n    Your daughter here the princes left for dead,\n    Let her awhile be secretly kept in,\n    And publish it that she is dead indeed;\n    Maintain a mourning ostentation,\n    And on your family's old monument\n    Hang mournful epitaphs, and do all rites\n    That appertain unto a burial.\n  Leon. What shall become of this? What will this do?\n  Friar. Marry, this well carried shall on her behalf\n    Change slander to remorse. That is some good.\n    But not for that dream I on this strange course,\n    But on this travail look for greater birth.\n    She dying, as it must be so maintain'd,\n    Upon the instant that she was accus'd,\n    Shall be lamented, pitied, and excus'd\n    Of every hearer; for it so falls out\n    That what we have we prize not to the worth\n    Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost,\n    Why, then we rack the value, then we find\n    The virtue that possession would not show us\n    Whiles it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio.\n    When he shall hear she died upon his words,\n    Th' idea of her life shall sweetly creep\n    Into his study of imagination,\n    And every lovely organ of her life\n    Shall come apparell'd in more precious habit,\n    More moving, delicate, and full of life,\n    Into the eye and prospect of his soul\n    Than when she liv'd indeed. Then shall he mourn\n    (If ever love had interest in his liver)\n    And wish he had not so accused her--\n    No, though be thought his accusation true.\n    Let this be so, and doubt not but success\n    Will fashion the event in better shape\n    Than I can lay it down in likelihood.\n    But if all aim but this be levell'd false,\n    The supposition of the lady's death\n    Will quench the wonder of her infamy.\n    And if it sort not well, you may conceal her,\n    As best befits her wounded reputation,\n    In some reclusive and religious life,\n    Out of all eyes, tongues, minds, and injuries.\n  Bene. Signior Leonato, let the friar advise you;\n    And though you know my inwardness and love\n    Is very much unto the Prince and Claudio,\n    Yet, by mine honour, I will deal in this\n    As secretly and justly as your soul\n    Should with your body.\n  Leon. Being that I flow in grief,\n    The smallest twine may lead me.\n  Friar. 'Tis well consented. Presently away;\n    For to strange sores strangely they strain the cure.\n    Come, lady, die to live. This wedding day\n    Perhaps is but prolong'd. Have patience and endure.\n                         Exeunt [all but Benedick and Beatrice].\n  Bene. Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?\n  Beat. Yea, and I will weep a while longer.\n  Bene. I will not desire that.\n  Beat. You have no reason. I do it freely.\n  Bene. Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.\n  Beat. Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right\n     her!\n  Bene. Is there any way to show such friendship?\n  Beat. A very even way, but no such friend.\n  Bene. May a man do it?\n  Beat. It is a man's office, but not yours.\n  Bene. I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that\n    strange?\n  Beat. As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for\n    me to say I loved nothing so well as you. But believe me not; and\n    yet I lie not. I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry\n    for my cousin.\n  Bene. By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.\n  Beat. Do not swear, and eat it.\n  Bene. I will swear by it that you love me, and I will make him eat\n    it that says I love not you.\n  Beat. Will you not eat your word?\n  Bene. With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love\n    thee.\n  Beat. Why then, God forgive me!\n  Bene. What offence, sweet Beatrice?\n  Beat. You have stayed me in a happy hour. I was about to protest I\n    loved you.\n  Bene. And do it with all thy heart.\n  Beat. I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to\n    protest.\n  Bene. Come, bid me do anything for thee.\n  Beat. Kill Claudio.\n  Bene. Ha! not for the wide world!\n  Beat. You kill me to deny it. Farewell.\n  Bene. Tarry, sweet Beatrice.\n  Beat. I am gone, though I am here. There is no love in you. Nay, I\n    pray you let me go.\n  Bene. Beatrice--\n  Beat. In faith, I will go.\n  Bene. We'll be friends first.\n  Beat. You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine\n    enemy.\n  Bene. Is Claudio thine enemy?\n  Beat. Is 'a not approved in the height a villain, that hath\n    slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O that I were a\n    man! What? bear her in hand until they come to take hands, and\n    then with public accusation, uncover'd slander, unmitigated\n    rancour--O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the\n    market place.\n  Bene. Hear me, Beatrice!\n  Beat. Talk with a man out at a window!-a proper saying!\n  Bene. Nay but Beatrice--\n  Beat. Sweet Hero! she is wrong'd, she is sland'red, she is undone.\n  Bene. Beat--\n  Beat. Princes and Counties! Surely a princely testimony, a goodly\n    count, Count Comfect, a sweet gallant surely! O that I were a man\n    for his sake! or that I had any friend would be a man for my\n    sake! But manhood is melted into cursies, valour into compliment,\n    and men are only turn'd into tongue, and trim ones too. He is now\n    as valiant as Hercules that only tells a lie,and swears it. I\n    cannot be a man with wishing; therefore I will die a woman with\n    grieving.\n  Bene. Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee.\n  Beat. Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.\n  Bene. Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wrong'd Hero?\n  Beat. Yea, as sure is I have a thought or a soul.\n  Bene. Enough, I am engag'd, I will challenge him. I will kiss your\n    hand, and so I leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a\n    dear account. As you hear of me, so think of me. Go comfort your\n    cousin. I must say she is dead-and so farewell.\n                                                       [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nA prison.\n\nEnter the Constables [Dogberry and Verges] and the Sexton, in gowns,\n[and the Watch, with Conrade and] Borachio.\n\n  Dog. Is our whole dissembly appear'd?\n  Verg. O, a stool and a cushion for the sexton.\n  Sex. Which be the malefactors?\n  Dog. Marry, that am I and my partner.\n  Verg. Nay, that's certain. We have the exhibition to examine.\n  Sex. But which are the offenders that are to be examined? let them\n    come before Master Constable.\n  Dog. Yea, marry, let them come before me. What is your name,\n    friend?\n  Bor. Borachio.\n  Dog. Pray write down Borachio. Yours, sirrah?\n  Con. I am a gentleman, sir, and my name is Conrade.\n  Dog. Write down Master Gentleman Conrade. Masters, do you serve\n    God?\n  Both. Yea, sir, we hope.\n  Dog. Write down that they hope they serve God; and write God first,\n    for God defend but God should go before such villains! Masters,\n    it is proved already that you are little better than false\n    knaves, and it will go near to be thought so shortly. How answer\n    you for yourselves?\n  Con. Marry, sir, we say we are none.\n  Dog. A marvellous witty fellow, I assure you; but I will go about\n    with him. Come you hither, sirrah. A word in your ear. Sir, I say\n    to you, it is thought you are false knaves.\n  Bora. Sir, I say to you we are none.\n  Dog. Well, stand aside. Fore God, they are both in a tale.\n    Have you writ down that they are none?\n  Sex. Master Constable, you go not the way to examine. You must call\n    forth the watch that are their accusers.\n  Dog. Yea, marry, that's the eftest way. Let the watch come forth.\n    Masters, I charge you in the Prince's name accuse these men.\n  1. Watch. This man said, sir, that Don John the Prince's brother\n    was a villain.\n  Dog. Write down Prince John a villain. Why, this is flat perjury,\n    to call a prince's brother villain.\n  Bora. Master Constable--\n  Dog. Pray thee, fellow, peace. I do not like thy look, I promise\n    thee.\n  Sex. What heard you him say else?\n  2. Watch. Marry, that he had received a thousand ducats of Don John\n    for accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully.\n  Dog. Flat burglary as ever was committed.\n  Verg. Yea, by th' mass, that it is.\n  Sex. What else, fellow?\n  1. Watch. And that Count Claudio did mean, upon his words, to\n    disgrace Hero before the whole assembly, and not marry her.\n  Dog. O villain! thou wilt be condemn'd into everlasting redemption\n    for this.\n  Sex. What else?\n  Watchmen. This is all.\n  Sex. And this is more, masters, than you can deny. Prince John is\n    this morning secretly stol'n away. Hero was in this manner\n    accus'd, in this manner refus'd, and upon the grief of this\n    suddenly died. Master Constable, let these men be bound and\n    brought to Leonato's. I will go before and show him their\n    examination.                                         [Exit.]\n  Dog. Come, let them be opinion'd.\n  Verg. Let them be in the hands--\n  Con. Off, coxcomb!\n  Dog. God's my life, where's the sexton? Let him write down the\n    Prince's officer coxcomb. Come, bind them.--Thou naughty varlet!\n  Con. Away! you are an ass, you are an ass.\n  Dog. Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my\n    years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! But, masters,\n    remember that I am an ass. Though it be not written down, yet\n    forget not that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of\n    piety, as shall be prov'd upon thee by good witness. I am a wise\n    fellow; and which is more, an officer; and which is more, a\n    householder; and which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any\n    is in Messina, and one that knows the law, go to! and a rich\n    fellow enough, go to! and a fellow that hath had losses; and one\n    that hath two gowns and everything handsome about him. Bring him\n    away. O that I had been writ down an ass!\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. Scene I.\nThe street, near Leonato's house.\n\nEnter Leonato and his brother [ Antonio].\n\n  Ant. If you go on thus, you will kill yourself,\n    And 'tis not wisdom thus to second grief\n    Against yourself.\n  Leon. I pray thee cease thy counsel,\n    Which falls into mine ears as profitless\n    As water in a sieve. Give not me counsel,\n    Nor let no comforter delight mine ear\n    But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine.\n    Bring me a father that so lov'd his child,\n    Whose joy of her is overwhelm'd like mine,\n    And bid him speak to me of patience.\n    Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine,\n    And let it answer every strain for strain,\n    As thus for thus, and such a grief for such,\n    In every lineament, branch, shape, and form.\n    If such a one will smile and stroke his beard,\n    Bid sorrow wag, cry 'hem' when he should groan,\n    Patch grief with proverbs, make misfortune drunk\n    With candle-wasters--bring him yet to me,\n    And I of him will gather patience.\n    But there is no such man; for, brother, men\n    Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief\n    Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,\n    Their counsel turns to passion, which before\n    Would give preceptial medicine to rage,\n    Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,\n    Charm ache with air and agony with words.\n    No, no! 'Tis all men's office to speak patience\n    To those that wring under the load of sorrow,\n    But no man's virtue nor sufficiency\n    To be so moral when he shall endure\n    The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel.\n    My griefs cry louder than advertisement.\n  Ant. Therein do men from children nothing differ.\n  Leon. I pray thee peace. I will be flesh and blood;\n    For there was never yet philosopher\n    That could endure the toothache patiently,\n    However they have writ the style of gods\n    And made a push at chance and sufferance.\n  Ant. Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself.\n    Make those that do offend you suffer too.\n  Leon. There thou speak'st reason. Nay, I will do so.\n    My soul doth tell me Hero is belied;\n    And that shall Claudio know; so shall the Prince,\n    And all of them that thus dishonour her.\n\n              Enter Don Pedro and Claudio.\n\n  Ant. Here comes the Prince and Claudio hastily.\n  Pedro. Good den, Good den.\n  Claud. Good day to both of you.\n  Leon. Hear you, my lords!\n  Pedro. We have some haste, Leonato.\n  Leon. Some haste, my lord! well, fare you well, my lord.\n    Are you so hasty now? Well, all is one.\n  Pedro. Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man.\n  Ant. If he could right himself with quarrelling,\n    Some of us would lie low.\n  Claud. Who wrongs him?\n  Leon. Marry, thou dost wrong me, thou dissembler, thou!\n    Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword;\n    I fear thee not.\n  Claud. Mary, beshrew my hand\n    If it should give your age such cause of fear.\n    In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword.\n  Leon. Tush, tush, man! never fleer and jest at me\n    I speak not like a dotard nor a fool,\n    As under privilege of age to brag\n    What I have done being young, or what would do,\n    Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy head,\n    Thou hast so wrong'd mine innocent child and me\n    That I am forc'd to lay my reverence by\n    And, with grey hairs and bruise of many days,\n    Do challenge thee to trial of a man.\n    I say thou hast belied mine innocent child;\n    Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,\n    And she lied buried with her ancestors-\n    O, in a tomb where never scandal slept,\n    Save this of hers, fram'd by thy villany!\n  Claud. My villany?\n  Leon. Thine, Claudio; thine I say.\n  Pedro. You say not right, old man\n  Leon. My lord, my lord,\n    I'll prove it on his body if he dare,\n    Despite his nice fence and his active practice,\n    His May of youth and bloom of lustihood.\n  Claud. Away! I will not have to do with you.\n  Leon. Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast kill'd my child.\n    If thou kill'st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man.\n    And. He shall kill two of us, and men indeed\n    But that's no matter; let him kill one first.\n    Win me and wear me! Let him answer me.\n    Come, follow me, boy,. Come, sir boy, come follow me.\n    Sir boy, I'll whip you from your foining fence!\n    Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.\n  Leon. Brother--\n  Ant. Content yourself. God knows I lov'd my niece,\n    And she is dead, slander'd to death by villains,\n    That dare as well answer a man indeed\n    As I dare take a serpent by the tongue.\n    Boys, apes, braggarts, jacks, milksops!\n  Leon. Brother Anthony--\n  Ant. Hold you content. What, man! I know them, yea,\n    And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple,\n    Scambling, outfacing, fashion-monging boys,\n    That lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander,\n    Go anticly, show outward hideousness,\n    And speak off half a dozen dang'rous words,\n    How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst;\n    And this is all.\n  Leon. But, brother Anthony--\n  Ant. Come, 'tis no matter.\n    Do not you meddle; let me deal in this.\n  Pedro. Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience.\n    My heart is sorry for your daughter's death;\n    But, on my honour, she was charg'd with nothing\n    But what was true, and very full of proof.\n  Leon. My lord, my lord--\n  Pedro. I will not hear you.\n  Leon. No? Come, brother, away!--I will be heard.\n  Ant. And shall, or some of us will smart for it.\n                                                    Exeunt ambo.\n\n                  Enter Benedick.\n\n  Pedro. See, see! Here comes the man we went to seek.\n  Claud. Now, signior, what news?\n  Bene. Good day, my lord.\n  Pedro. Welcome, signior. You are almost come to part almost a fray.\n  Claud. We had lik'd to have had our two noses snapp'd off with two\n    old men without teeth.\n  Pedro. Leonato and his brother. What think'st thou? Had we fought,\n    I doubt we should have been too young for them.\n  Bene. In a false quarrel there is no true valour. I came to seek\n    you both.\n  Claud. We have been up and down to seek thee; for we are high-proof\n    melancholy, and would fain have it beaten away. Wilt thou use thy\n    wit?\n  Bene. It is in my scabbard. Shall I draw it?\n  Pedro. Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side?\n  Claud. Never any did so, though very many have been beside their\n    wit. I will bid thee draw, as we do the minstrel--draw to\n    pleasure us.\n  Pedro. As I am an honest man, he looks pale. Art thou sick or\n    angry?\n  Claud. What, courage, man! What though care kill'd a cat, thou hast\n    mettle enough in thee to kill care.\n  Bene. Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career an you charge it\n    against me. I pray you choose another subject.\n  Claud. Nay then, give him another staff; this last was broke cross.\n  Pedro. By this light, he changes more and more. I think he be angry\n    indeed.\n  Claud. If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle.\n  Bene. Shall I speak a word in your ear?\n  Claud. God bless me from a challenge!\n  Bene. [aside to Claudio] You are a villain. I jest not; I will make\n    it good how you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare. Do\n    me right, or I will protest your cowardice. You have kill'd a\n    sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Let me hear\n    from you.\n  Claud. Well, I will meet you, so I may have good cheer.\n  Pedro. What, a feast, a feast?\n  Claud. I' faith, I thank him, he hath bid me to a calve's head and\n    a capon, the which if I do not carve most curiously, say my\n    knife's naught. Shall I not find a woodcock too?\n  Bene. Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily.\n  Pedro. I'll tell thee how Beatrice prais'd thy wit the other day. I\n    said thou hadst a fine wit: 'True,' said she, 'a fine little\n    one.' 'No,' said I, 'a great wit.' 'Right,' says she, 'a great\n    gross one.' 'Nay,' said I, 'a good wit.' 'Just,' said she, 'it\n    hurts nobody.' 'Nay,' said I, 'the gentleman is wise.' 'Certain,'\n    said she, a wise gentleman.' 'Nay,' said I, 'he hath the\n    tongues.' 'That I believe' said she, 'for he swore a thing to me\n    on Monday night which he forswore on Tuesday morning. There's a\n    double tongue; there's two tongues.' Thus did she an hour\n    together transshape thy particular virtues. Yet at last she\n    concluded with a sigh, thou wast the proper'st man in Italy.\n  Claud. For the which she wept heartily and said she cared not.\n  Pedro. Yea, that she did; but yet, for all that, an if she did not\n    hate him deadly, she would love him dearly. The old man's\n    daughter told us all.\n  Claud. All, all! and moreover, God saw him when he was hid in the\n    garden.\n  Pedro. But when shall we set the savage bull's horns on the\n    sensible Benedick's head?\n  Claud. Yea, and text underneath, 'Here dwells Benedick, the married\n    man'?\n  Bene. Fare you well, boy; you know my mind. I will leave you now to\n    your gossiplike humour. You break jests as braggards do their\n    blades, which God be thanked hurt not. My lord, for your many\n    courtesies I thank you. I must discontinue your company. Your\n    brother the bastard is fled from Messina. You have among you\n    kill'd a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord Lackbeard there, he\n    and I shall meet; and till then peace be with him.\n                                                         [Exit.]\n  Pedro. He is in earnest.\n  Claud. In most profound earnest; and, I'll warrant you, for the\n    love of Beatrice.\n  Pedro. And hath challeng'd thee.\n  Claud. Most sincerely.\n  Pedro. What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and\n    hose and leaves off his wit!\n\n  Enter Constables [Dogberry and Verges, with the Watch, leading]\n                      Conrade and Borachio.\n\n  Claud. He is then a giant to an ape; but then is an ape a doctor to\n    such a man.\n  Pedro. But, soft you, let me be! Pluck up, my heart, and be sad!\n    Did he not say my brother was fled?\n  Dog. Come you, sir. If justice cannot tame you, she shall ne'er\n    weigh more reasons in her balance. Nay, an you be a cursing\n    hypocrite once, you must be look'd to.\n  Pedro. How now? two of my brother's men bound? Borachio one.\n  Claud. Hearken after their offence, my lord.\n  Pedro. Officers, what offence have these men done?\n  Dog. Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they\n    have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and\n    lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified\n    unjust things; and to conclude, they are lying knaves.\n  Pedro. First, I ask thee what they have done; thirdly, I ask thee\n    what's their offence; sixth and lastly, why they are committed;\n    and to conclude, what you lay to their charge.\n  Claud. Rightly reasoned, and in his own division; and by my troth\n    there's one meaning well suited.\n  Pedro. Who have you offended, masters, that you are thus bound to\n    your answer? This learned constable is too cunning to be\n    understood. What's your offence?\n  Bora. Sweet Prince, let me go no farther to mine answer. Do you\n    hear me, and let this Count kill me. I have deceived even your\n    very eyes. What your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow\n    fools have brought to light, who in the night overheard me\n    confessing to this man, how Don John your brother incensed me to\n    slander the Lady Hero; how you were brought into the orchard and\n    saw me court Margaret in Hero's garments; how you disgrac'd her\n    when you should marry her. My villany they have upon record,\n    which I had rather seal with my death than repeat over to my\n    shame. The lady is dead upon mine and my master's false\n    accusation; and briefly, I desire nothing but the reward of a\n    villain.\n  Pedro. Runs not this speech like iron through your blood?\n  Claud. I have drunk poison whiles he utter'd it.\n  Pedro. But did my brother set thee on to this?\n  Bora. Yea, and paid me richly for the practice of it.\n  Pedro. He is compos'd and fram'd of treachery,\n    And fled he is upon this villany.\n  Claud. Sweet Hero, now thy image doth appear\n    In the rare semblance that I lov'd it first.\n  Dog. Come, bring away the plaintiffs. By this time our sexton hath\n    reformed Signior Leonato of the matter. And, masters, do not\n    forget to specify, when time and place shall serve, that I am an\n    ass.\n  Verg. Here, here comes Master Signior Leonato, and the sexton too.\n\n          Enter Leonato, his brother [Antonio], and the Sexton.\n\n  Leon. Which is the villain? Let me see his eyes,\n    That, when I note another man like him,\n    I may avoid him. Which of these is he?\n  Bora. If you would know your wronger, look on me.\n  Leon. Art thou the slave that with thy breath hast kill'd\n    Mine innocent child?\n  Bora. Yea, even I alone.\n  Leon. No, not so, villain! thou beliest thyself.\n    Here stand a pair of honourable men--\n    A third is fled--that had a hand in it.\n    I thank you princes for my daughter's death.\n    Record it with your high and worthy deeds.\n    'Twas bravely done, if you bethink you of it.\n  Claud. I know not how to pray your patience;\n    Yet I must speak. Choose your revenge yourself;\n    Impose me to what penance your invention\n    Can lay upon my sin. Yet sinn'd I not\n    But in mistaking.\n  Pedro. By my soul, nor I!\n    And yet, to satisfy this good old man,\n    I would bend under any heavy weight\n    That he'll enjoin me to.\n  Leon. I cannot bid you bid my daughter live-\n    That were impossible; but I pray you both,\n    Possess the people in Messina here\n    How innocent she died; and if your love\n    Can labour aught in sad invention,\n    Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb,\n    And sing it to her bones--sing it to-night.\n    To-morrow morning come you to my house,\n    And since you could not be my son-in-law,\n    Be yet my nephew. My brother hath a daughter,\n    Almost the copy of my child that's dead,\n    And she alone is heir to both of us.\n    Give her the right you should have giv'n her cousin,\n    And so dies my revenge.\n  Claud. O noble sir!\n    Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me.\n    I do embrace your offer; and dispose\n    For henceforth of poor Claudio.\n  Leon. To-morrow then I will expect your coming;\n    To-night I take my leave. This naughty man\n    Shall fact to face be brought to Margaret,\n    Who I believe was pack'd in all this wrong,\n    Hir'd to it by your brother.\n  Bora. No, by my soul, she was not;\n    Nor knew not what she did when she spoke to me;\n    But always hath been just and virtuous\n    In anything that I do know by her.\n  Dog. Moreover, sir, which indeed is not under white and black, this\n    plaintiff here, the offender, did call me ass. I beseech you let\n    it be rememb'red in his punishment. And also the watch heard them\n    talk of one Deformed. They say he wears a key in his ear, and a\n    lock hanging by it, and borrows money in God's name, the which he\n    hath us'd so long and never paid that now men grow hard-hearted\n    and will lend nothing for God's sake. Pray you examine him upon\n    that point.\n  Leon. I thank thee for thy care and honest pains.\n  Dog. Your worship speaks like a most thankful and reverent youth,\n    and I praise God for you.\n  Leon. There's for thy pains. [Gives money.]\n  Dog. God save the foundation!\n  Leon. Go, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee.\n  Dog. I leave an arrant knave with your worship, which I beseech\n    your worship to correct yourself, for the example of others.\n    God keep your worship! I wish your worship well. God restore you\n    to health! I humbly give you leave to depart; and if a merry\n    meeting may be wish'd, God prohibit it! Come, neighbour.\n                                   Exeunt [Dogberry and Verges].\n  Leon. Until to-morrow morning, lords, farewell.\n  Ant. Farewell, my lords. We look for you to-morrow.\n  Pedro. We will not fall.\n  Claud. To-night I'll mourn with Hero.\n                                 [Exeunt Don Pedro and Claudio.]\n  Leon. [to the Watch] Bring you these fellows on.--We'll talk with\n      Margaret,\n    How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nLeonato's orchard.\n\nEnter Benedick and Margaret [meeting].\n\n  Bene. Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at my hands\n    by helping me to the speech of Beatrice.\n  Marg. Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty?\n  Bene. In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living shall come\n    over it; for in most comely truth thou deservest it.\n  Marg. To have no man come over me? Why, shall I always keep below\n    stairs?\n  Bene. Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth--it catches.\n  Marg. And yours as blunt as the fencer's foils, which hit but hurt\n    not.\n  Bene. A most manly wit, Margaret: it will not hurt a woman.\n    And so I pray thee call Beatrice. I give thee the bucklers.\n  Marg. Give us the swords; we have bucklers of our own.\n  Bene. If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the pikes with a\n    vice, and they are dangerous weapons for maids.\n  Marg. Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs.\n  Bene. And therefore will come.\n                                                  Exit Margaret.\n       [Sings] The god of love,\n               That sits above\n           And knows me, and knows me,\n             How pitiful I deserve--\n\n    I mean in singing; but in loving Leander the good swimmer,\n    Troilus the first employer of panders, and a whole book full of\n    these quondam carpet-mongers, whose names yet run smoothly in the\n    even road of a blank verse--why, they were never so truly turn'd\n    over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I cannot show it in\n    rhyme. I have tried. I can find out no rhyme to 'lady' but 'baby'\n    --an innocent rhyme; for 'scorn,' 'horn'--a hard rhyme; for\n    'school', 'fool'--a babbling rhyme: very ominous endings! No, I\n    was not born under a rhyming planet, nor cannot woo in festival\n    terms.\n\n                    Enter Beatrice.\n\n    Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I call'd thee?\n  Beat. Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me.\n  Bene. O, stay but till then!\n  Beat. 'Then' is spoken. Fare you well now. And yet, ere I go, let\n    me go with that I came for, which is, with knowing what hath\n    pass'd between you and Claudio.\n  Bene. Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.\n  Beat. Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul\n    breath, and foul breath is noisome. Therefore I will depart\n    unkiss'd.\n  Bene. Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so\n    forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio\n    undergoes my challenge; and either I must shortly hear from him\n    or I will subscribe him a coward. And I pray thee now tell me,\n    for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?\n  Beat. For them all together, which maintain'd so politic a state of\n    evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with\n    them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love\n    for me?\n  Bene. Suffer love!--a good epithet. I do suffer love indeed, for I\n    love thee against my will.\n  Beat. In spite of your heart, I think. Alas, poor heart! If you\n    spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours, for I will never\n    love that which my friend hates.\n  Bene. Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.\n  Beat. It appears not in this confession. There's not one wise man\n    among twenty, that will praise himself.\n  Bene. An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that liv'd in the time of\n    good neighbours. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb\n    ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell\n    rings and the widow weeps.\n  Beat. And how long is that, think you?\n  Bene. Question: why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in rheum.\n    Therefore is it most expedient for the wise, if Don Worm (his\n    conscience) find no impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet\n    of his own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for praising\n    myself, who, I myself will bear witness, is praiseworthy. And now\n    tell me, how doth your cousin?\n  Beat. Very ill.\n  Bene. And how do you?\n  Beat. Very ill too.\n  Bene. Serve God, love me, and mend. There will I leave you too, for\n    here comes one in haste.\n\n                         Enter Ursula.\n\n  Urs. Madam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder's old coil at home.\n    It is proved my Lady Hero hath been falsely accus'd, the Prince\n    and Claudio mightily abus'd, and Don John is the author of all,\n    who is fled and gone. Will you come presently?\n  Beat. Will you go hear this news, signior?\n  Bene. I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried thy\n    eyes; and moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle's.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nA churchyard.\n\nEnter Claudio, Don Pedro, and three or four with tapers,\n[followed by Musicians].\n\n  Claud. Is this the monument of Leonato?\n  Lord. It is, my lord.\n  Claud. [reads from a scroll]\n\n                      Epitaph.\n\n        Done to death by slanderous tongues\n          Was the Hero that here lies.\n        Death, in guerdon of her wrongs,\n          Gives her fame which never dies.\n        So the life that died with shame\n        Lives in death with glorious fame.\n\n    Hang thou there upon the tomb,\n                                          [Hangs up the scroll.]\n    Praising her when I am dumb.\n    Now, music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn.\n\n                     Song.\n\n        Pardon, goddess of the night,\n        Those that slew thy virgin knight;\n        For the which, with songs of woe,\n        Round about her tomb they go.\n        Midnight, assist our moan,\n        Help us to sigh and groan\n          Heavily, heavily,\n        Graves, yawn and yield your dead,\n        Till death be uttered\n          Heavily, heavily.\n\n  Claud. Now unto thy bones good night!\n    Yearly will I do this rite.\n  Pedro. Good morrow, masters. Put your torches out.\n    The wolves have prey'd, and look, the gentle day,\n    Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about\n    Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.\n    Thanks to you all, and leave us. Fare you well.\n  Claud. Good morrow, masters. Each his several way.\n  Pedro. Come, let us hence and put on other weeds,\n    And then to Leonato's we will go.\n  Claud. And Hymen now with luckier issue speeds\n    Than this for whom we rend'red up this woe.          Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV\nThe hall in Leonato's house.\n\nEnter Leonato, Benedick, [Beatrice,] Margaret, Ursula, Antonio,\nFriar [Francis], Hero.\n\n  Friar. Did I not tell you she was innocent?\n  Leon. So are the Prince and Claudio, who accus'd her\n    Upon the error that you heard debated.\n    But Margaret was in some fault for this,\n    Although against her will, as it appears\n    In the true course of all the question.\n  Ant. Well, I am glad that all things sort so well.\n  Bene. And so am I, being else by faith enforc'd\n    To call young Claudio to a reckoning for it.\n  Leon. Well, daughter, and you gentlewomen all,\n    Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves,\n    And when I send for you, come hither mask'd.\n                                                  Exeunt Ladies.\n    The Prince and Claudio promis'd by this hour\n    To visit me. You know your office, brother:\n    You must be father to your brother's daughter,\n    And give her to young Claudio.\n  Ant. Which I will do with confirm'd countenance.\n  Bene. Friar, I must entreat your pains, I think.\n  Friar. To do what, signior?\n  Bene. To bind me, or undo me--one of them.\n    Signior Leonato, truth it is, good signior,\n    Your niece regards me with an eye of favour.\n  Leon. That eye my daughter lent her. 'Tis most true.\n  Bene. And I do with an eye of love requite her.\n  Leon. The sight whereof I think you had from me,\n    From Claudio, and the Prince; but what's your will?\n  Bene. Your answer, sir, is enigmatical;\n    But, for my will, my will is, your good will\n    May stand with ours, this day to be conjoin'd\n    In the state of honourable marriage;\n    In which, good friar, I shall desire your help.\n  Leon. My heart is with your liking.\n  Friar. And my help.\n\n       Enter Don Pedro and Claudio and two or three other.\n\n    Here comes the Prince and Claudio.\n  Pedro. Good morrow to this fair assembly.\n  Leon. Good morrow, Prince; good morrow, Claudio.\n    We here attend you. Are you yet determin'd\n    To-day to marry with my brother's daughter?\n  Claud. I'll hold my mind, were she an Ethiope.\n  Leon. Call her forth, brother. Here's the friar ready.\n                                                 [Exit Antonio.]\n  Pedro. Good morrow, Benedick. Why, what's the matter\n    That you have such a February face,\n    So full of frost, of storm, and cloudiness?\n  Claud. I think he thinks upon the savage bull.\n    Tush, fear not, man! We'll tip thy horns with gold,\n    And all Europa shall rejoice at thee,\n    As once Europa did at lusty Jove\n    When he would play the noble beast in love.\n  Bene. Bull Jove, sir, had an amiable low,\n    And some such strange bull leap'd your father's cow\n    And got a calf in that same noble feat\n    Much like to you, for you have just his bleat.\n\n       Enter [Leonato's] brother [Antonio], Hero, Beatrice,\n            Margaret, Ursula, [the ladies wearing masks].\n\n  Claud. For this I owe you. Here comes other reckonings.\n    Which is the lady I must seize upon?\n  Ant. This same is she, and I do give you her.\n  Claud. Why then, she's mine. Sweet, let me see your face.\n  Leon. No, that you shall not till you take her hand\n    Before this friar and swear to marry her.\n  Claud. Give me your hand before this holy friar.\n    I am your husband if you like of me.\n  Hero. And when I liv'd I was your other wife;       [Unmasks.]\n    And when you lov'd you were my other husband.\n  Claud. Another Hero!\n  Hero. Nothing certainer.\n    One Hero died defil'd; but I do live,\n    And surely as I live, I am a maid.\n  Pedro. The former Hero! Hero that is dead!\n  Leon. She died, my lord, but whiles her slander liv'd.\n  Friar. All this amazement can I qualify,\n    When, after that the holy rites are ended,\n    I'll tell you largely of fair Hero's death.\n    Meantime let wonder seem familiar,\n    And to the chapel let us presently.\n  Bene. Soft and fair, friar. Which is Beatrice?\n  Beat. [unmasks] I answer to that name. What is your will?\n  Bene. Do not you love me?\n  Beat. Why, no; no more than reason.\n  Bene. Why, then your uncle, and the Prince, and Claudio\n    Have been deceived; for they swore you did.\n  Beat. Do not you love me?\n  Bene. Troth, no; no more than reason.\n  Beat. Why, then my cousin, Margaret, and Ursula\n    Are much deceiv'd; for they did swear you did.\n  Bene. They swore that you were almost sick for me.\n  Beat. They swore that you were well-nigh dead for me.\n  Bene. 'Tis no such matter. Then you do not love me?\n  Beat. No, truly, but in friendly recompense.\n  Leon. Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman.\n  Claud. And I'll be sworn upon't that he loves her;\n    For here's a paper written in his hand,\n    A halting sonnet of his own pure brain,\n    Fashion'd to Beatrice.\n  Hero. And here's another,\n    Writ in my cousin's hand, stol'n from her pocket,\n    Containing her affection unto Benedick.\n  Bene. A miracle! Here's our own hands against our hearts.\n    Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity.\n  Beat. I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield upon\n    great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told\n    you were in a consumption.\n  Bene. Peace! I will stop your mouth.             [Kisses her.]\n  Beat. I'll tell thee what, Prince: a college of wit-crackers cannot\n    flout me out of my humour. Dost thou think I care for a satire or\n    an epigram? No. If a man will be beaten with brains, 'a shall\n    wear nothing handsome about him. In brief, since I do purpose to\n    marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say\n    against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have said\n    against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion.\n    For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee; but in\n    that thou art like to be my kinsman, live unbruis'd, and love my\n    cousin.\n  Claud. I had well hop'd thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that I\n    might have cudgell'd thee out of thy single life, to make thee a\n    double-dealer, which out of question thou wilt be if my cousin do\n    not look exceeding narrowly to thee.\n  Bene. Come, come, we are friends. Let's have a dance ere we are\n    married, that we may lighten our own hearts and our wives' heels.\n  Leon. We'll have dancing afterward.\n  Bene. First, of my word! Therefore play, music. Prince, thou art\n    sad. Get thee a wife, get thee a wife! There is no staff more\n    reverent than one tipp'd with horn.\n\n                       Enter Messenger.\n\n  Mess. My lord, your brother John is ta'en in flight,\n    And brought with armed men back to Messina.\n  Bene. Think not on him till to-morrow. I'll devise thee brave\n    punishments for him. Strike up, pipers!\n                                                Dance. [Exeunt.]\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1605\n\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO, MOOR OF VENICE\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  OTHELLO, the Moor, general of the Venetian forces\n  DESDEMONA, his wife\n  IAGO, ensign to Othello\n  EMILIA, his wife, lady-in-waiting to Desdemona\n  CASSIO, lieutenant to Othello\n  THE DUKE OF VENICE\n  BRABANTIO, Venetian Senator, father of Desdemona\n  GRATIANO, nobleman of Venice, brother of Brabantio\n  LODOVICO, nobleman of Venice, kinsman of Brabantio\n  RODERIGO, rejected suitor of Desdemona\n  BIANCA, mistress of Cassio\n  MONTANO, a Cypriot official\n  A Clown in service to Othello\n  Senators, Sailors, Messengers, Officers, Gentlemen, Musicians, and\n    Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE: Venice and Cyprus\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nVenice. A street.\n\nEnter Roderigo and Iago.\n\n  RODERIGO. Tush, never tell me! I take it much unkindly\n    That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse\n    As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.\n  IAGO. 'Sblood, but you will not hear me.\n    If ever I did dream of such a matter,\n    Abhor me.\n  RODERIGO. Thou told'st me thou didst hold him in thy hate.\n  IAGO. Despise me, if I do not. Three great ones of the city,\n    In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,\n    Off-capp'd to him; and, by the faith of man,\n    I know my price, I am worth no worse a place.\n    But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,\n    Evades them, with a bumbast circumstance\n    Horribly stuff'd with epithets of war,\n    And, in conclusion,\n    Nonsuits my mediators; for, \"Certes,\" says he,\n    \"I have already chose my officer.\"\n    And what was he?\n    Forsooth, a great arithmetician,\n    One Michael Cassio, a Florentine\n    (A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife)\n    That never set a squadron in the field,\n    Nor the division of a battle knows\n    More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric,\n    Wherein the toged consuls can propose\n    As masterly as he. Mere prattle without practice\n    Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had the election;\n    And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof\n    At Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds\n    Christian and heathen, must be belee'd and calm'd\n    By debitor and creditor. This counter-caster,\n    He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,\n    And I- God bless the mark!- his Moorship's ancient.\n  RODERIGO. By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman.\n  IAGO. Why, there's no remedy. 'Tis the curse of service,\n    Preferment goes by letter and affection,\n    And not by old gradation, where each second\n    Stood heir to the first. Now, sir, be judge yourself\n    Whether I in any just term am affined\n    To love the Moor.\n  RODERIGO.           I would not follow him then.\n  IAGO. O, sir, content you.\n    I follow him to serve my turn upon him:\n    We cannot all be masters, nor all masters\n    Cannot be truly follow'd. You shall mark\n    Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,\n    That doting on his own obsequious bondage\n    Wears out his time, much like his master's ass,\n    For nought but provender, and when he's old, cashier'd.\n    Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are\n    Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty,\n    Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,\n    And throwing but shows of service on their lords\n    Do well thrive by them; and when they have lined their coats\n    Do themselves homage. These fellows have some soul,\n    And such a one do I profess myself.\n    For, sir,\n    It is as sure as you are Roderigo,\n    Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago.\n    In following him, I follow but myself;\n    Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,\n    But seeming so, for my peculiar end.\n    For when my outward action doth demonstrate\n    The native act and figure of my heart\n    In complement extern, 'tis not long after\n    But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve\n    For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.\n  RODERIGO. What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe,\n    If he can carry't thus!\n  IAGO.                     Call up her father,\n    Rouse him, make after him, poison his delight,\n    Proclaim him in the streets, incense her kinsmen,\n    And, though he in a fertile climate dwell,\n    Plague him with flies. Though that his joy be joy,\n    Yet throw such changes of vexation on't\n    As it may lose some color.\n  RODERIGO. Here is her father's house; I'll call aloud.\n  IAGO. Do, with like timorous accent and dire yell\n    As when, by night and negligence, the fire\n    Is spied in populous cities.\n  RODERIGO. What, ho, Brabantio! Signior Brabantio, ho!\n  IAGO. Awake! What, ho, Brabantio! Thieves! Thieves! Thieves!\n    Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags!\n    Thieves! Thieves!\n\n                Brabantio appears above, at a window.\n\n  BRABANTIO. What is the reason of this terrible summons?\n    What is the matter there?\n  RODERIGO. Signior, is all your family within?\n  IAGO. Are your doors lock'd?\n  BRABANTIO.                   Why? Wherefore ask you this?\n  IAGO. 'Zounds, sir, you're robb'd! For shame, put on your gown;\n    Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;\n    Even now, now, very now, an old black ram\n    Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise!\n    Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,\n    Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you.\n    Arise, I say!\n  BRABANTIO. What, have you lost your wits?\n  RODERIGO. Most reverend signior, do you know my voice?\n  BRABANTIO. Not I. What are you?\n  RODERIGO. My name is Roderigo.\n  BRABANTIO.                     The worser welcome.\n    I have charged thee not to haunt about my doors.\n    In honest plainness thou hast heard me say\n    My daughter is not for thee; and now, in madness,\n    Being full of supper and distempering draughts,\n    Upon malicious bravery, dost thou come\n    To start my quiet.\n  RODERIGO. Sir, sir, sir-\n  BRABANTIO.               But thou must needs be sure\n    My spirit and my place have in them power\n    To make this bitter to thee.\n  RODERIGO.                      Patience, good sir.\n  BRABANTIO. What tell'st thou me of robbing? This is Venice;\n    My house is not a grange.\n  RODERIGO.                   Most grave Brabantio,\n    In simple and pure soul I come to you.\n  IAGO. 'Zounds, sir, you are one of those that will not serve God,\n    if the devil bid you. Because we come to do you service and you\n    think we are ruffians, you'll have your daughter covered with a\n    Barbary horse; you'll have your nephews neigh to you; you'll have\n    coursers for cousins, and gennets for germans.\n  BRABANTIO. What profane wretch art thou?\n  IAGO. I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the\n    Moor are now making the beast with two backs.\n  BRABANTIO. Thou are a villain.\n  IAGO.                          You are- a senator.\n  BRABANTIO. This thou shalt answer; I know thee, Roderigo.\n  RODERIGO. Sir, I will answer anything. But, I beseech you,\n    If't be your pleasure and most wise consent,\n    As partly I find it is, that your fair daughter,\n    At this odd-even and dull watch o' the night,\n    Transported with no worse nor better guard\n    But with a knave of common hire, a gondolier,\n    To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor-\n    If this be known to you, and your allowance,\n    We then have done you bold and saucy wrongs;\n    But if you know not this, my manners tell me\n    We have your wrong rebuke. Do not believe\n    That, from the sense of all civility,\n    I thus would play and trifle with your reverence.\n    Your daughter, if you have not given her leave,\n    I say again, hath made a gross revolt,\n    Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes\n    In an extravagant and wheeling stranger\n    Of here and everywhere. Straight satisfy yourself:\n    If she be in her chamber or your house,\n    Let loose on me the justice of the state\n    For thus deluding you.\n  BRABANTIO.               Strike on the tinder, ho!\n    Give me a taper! Call up all my people!\n    This accident is not unlike my dream;\n    Belief of it oppresses me already.\n    Light, I say, light!                                  Exit above.\n  IAGO.                  Farewell, for I must leave you.\n    It seems not meet, nor wholesome to my place,\n    To be produced- as, if I stay, I shall-\n    Against the Moor; for I do know, the state,\n    However this may gall him with some check,\n    Cannot with safety cast him, for he's embark'd\n    With such loud reason to the Cyprus wars,\n    Which even now stands in act, that, for their souls,\n    Another of his fathom they have none\n    To lead their business; in which regard,\n    Though I do hate him as I do hell pains,\n    Yet for necessity of present life,\n    I must show out a flag and sign of love,\n    Which is indeed but sign. That you shall surely find him,\n    Lead to the Sagittary the raised search,\n    And there will I be with him. So farewell.                  Exit.\n\n            Enter, below, Brabantio, in his nightgown, and\n                        Servants with torches.\n\n  BRABANTIO. It is too true an evil: gone she is,\n    And what's to come of my despised time\n    Is nought but bitterness. Now, Roderigo,\n    Where didst thou see her? O unhappy girl!\n    With the Moor, say'st thou? Who would be a father!\n    How didst thou know 'twas she? O, she deceives me\n    Past thought! What said she to you? Get more tapers.\n    Raise all my kindred. Are they married, think you?\n  RODERIGO. Truly, I think they are.\n  BRABANTIO. O heaven! How got she out? O treason of the blood!\n    Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters' minds\n    By what you see them act. Is there not charms\n    By which the property of youth and maidhood\n    May be abused? Have you not read, Roderigo,\n    Of some such thing?\n  RODERIGO.             Yes, sir, I have indeed.\n  BRABANTIO. Call up my brother. O, would you had had her!\n    Some one way, some another. Do you know\n    Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?\n  RODERIGO. I think I can discover him, if you please\n    To get good guard and go along with me.\n  BRABANTIO. Pray you, lead on. At every house I'll call;\n    I may command at most. Get weapons, ho!\n    And raise some special officers of night.\n    On, good Roderigo, I'll deserve your pains.               Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAnother street.\n\nEnter Othello, Iago, and Attendants with torches.\n\n  IAGO. Though in the trade of war I have slain men,\n    Yet do I hold it very stuff o' the conscience\n    To do no contrived murther. I lack iniquity\n    Sometimes to do me service. Nine or ten times\n    I had thought to have yerk'd him here under the ribs.\n  OTHELLO. 'Tis better as it is.\n  IAGO.                          Nay, but he prated\n    And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms\n    Against your honor\n    That, with the little godliness I have,\n    I did full hard forbear him. But I pray you, sir,\n    Are you fast married? Be assured of this,\n    That the magnifico is much beloved,\n    And hath in his effect a voice potential\n    As double as the Duke's. He will divorce you,\n    Or put upon you what restraint and grievance\n    The law, with all his might to enforce it on,\n    Will give him cable.\n  OTHELLO.               Let him do his spite.\n    My services, which I have done the signiory,\n    Shall out-tongue his complaints. 'Tis yet to know-\n    Which, when I know that boasting is an honor,\n    I shall promulgate- I fetch my life and being\n    From men of royal siege, and my demerits\n    May speak unbonneted to as proud a fortune\n    As this that I have reach'd. For know, Iago,\n    But that I love the gentle Desdemona,\n    I would not my unhoused free condition\n    Put into circumscription and confine\n    For the sea's worth. But, look! What lights come yond?\n  IAGO. Those are the raised father and his friends.\n    You were best go in.\n  OTHELLO.               Not I; I must be found.\n    My parts, my title, and my perfect soul\n    Shall manifest me rightly. Is it they?\n  IAGO. By Janus, I think no.\n\n           Enter Cassio and certain Officers with torches.\n\n  OTHELLO. The servants of the Duke? And my lieutenant?\n    The goodness of the night upon you, friends!\n    What is the news?\n  CASSIO.             The Duke does greet you, general,\n    And he requires your haste-post-haste appearance,\n    Even on the instant.\n  OTHELLO.               What is the matter, think you?\n  CASSIO. Something from Cyprus, as I may divine;\n    It is a business of some heat. The galleys\n    Have sent a dozen sequent messengers\n    This very night at one another's heels;\n    And many of the consuls, raised and met,\n    Are at the Duke's already. You have been hotly call'd for,\n    When, being not at your lodging to be found,\n    The Senate hath sent about three several quests\n    To search you out.\n  OTHELLO.             'Tis well I am found by you.\n    I will but spend a word here in the house\n    And go with you.                                            Exit.\n  CASSIO.            Ancient, what makes he here?\n  IAGO. Faith, he tonight hath boarded a land carack;\n    If it prove lawful prize, he's made forever.\n  CASSIO. I do not understand.\n  IAGO.                        He's married.\n  CASSIO.                                    To who?\n\n                          Re-enter Othello.\n\n  IAGO. Marry, to- Come, captain, will you go?\n  OTHELLO.                                     Have with you.\n  CASSIO. Here comes another troop to seek for you.\n  IAGO. It is Brabantio. General, be advised,\n    He comes to bad intent.\n\n         Enter Brabantio, Roderigo, and Officers with torches\n                             and weapons.\n\n  OTHELLO.                  Holla! Stand there!\n  RODERIGO. Signior, it is the Moor.\n  BRABANTIO.                         Down with him, thief!\n                                             They draw on both sides.\n  IAGO. You, Roderigo! Come, sir, I am for you.\n  OTHELLO. Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.\n    Good signior, you shall more command with years\n    Than with your weapons.\n  BRABANTIO. O thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my daughter?\n    Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her,\n    For I'll refer me to all things of sense,\n    If she in chains of magic were not bound,\n    Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy,\n    So opposite to marriage that she shunn'd\n    The wealthy, curled darlings of our nation,\n    Would ever have, to incur a general mock,\n    Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom\n    Of such a thing as thou- to fear, not to delight.\n    Judge me the world, if 'tis not gross in sense\n    That thou hast practiced on her with foul charms,\n    Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals\n    That weaken motion. I'll have't disputed on;\n    'Tis probable, and palpable to thinking.\n    I therefore apprehend and do attach thee\n    For an abuser of the world, a practicer\n    Of arts inhibited and out of warrant.\n    Lay hold upon him. If he do resist,\n    Subdue him at his peril.\n  OTHELLO.                   Hold your hands,\n    Both you of my inclining and the rest.\n    Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it\n    Without a prompter. Where will you that I go\n    To answer this your charge?\n  BRABANTIO.                    To prison, till fit time\n    Of law and course of direct session\n    Call thee to answer.\n  OTHELLO.               What if I do obey?\n    How may the Duke be therewith satisfied,\n    Whose messengers are here about my side,\n    Upon some present business of the state\n    To bring me to him?\n  FIRST OFFICER.        'Tis true, most worthy signior;\n    The Duke's in council, and your noble self,\n    I am sure, is sent for.\n  BRABANTIO.                How? The Duke in council?\n    In this time of the night? Bring him away;\n    Mine's not an idle cause. The Duke himself,\n    Or any of my brothers of the state,\n    Cannot but feel this wrong as 'twere their own;\n    For if such actions may have passage free,\n    Bond slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be.            Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA council chamber. The Duke and Senators sitting at a table;\nOfficers attending.\n\n  DUKE. There is no composition in these news\n    That gives them credit.\n  FIRST SENATOR.            Indeed they are disproportion'd;\n    My letters say a hundred and seven galleys.\n  DUKE. And mine, a hundred and forty.\n  SECOND SENATOR.                      And mine, two hundred.\n    But though they jump not on a just account-\n    As in these cases, where the aim reports,\n    'Tis oft with difference- yet do they all confirm\n    A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus.\n  DUKE. Nay, it is possible enough to judgement.\n    I do not so secure me in the error,\n    But the main article I do approve\n    In fearful sense.\n  SAILOR. [Within.] What, ho! What, ho! What, ho!\n  FIRST OFFICER. A messenger from the galleys.\n\n                            Enter Sailor.\n\n  DUKE.                                Now, what's the business?\n  SAILOR. The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes,\n    So was I bid report here to the state\n    By Signior Angelo.\n  DUKE. How say you by this change?\n  FIRST SENATOR.                    This cannot be,\n    By no assay of reason; 'tis a pageant\n    To keep us in false gaze. When we consider\n    The importancy of Cyprus to the Turk,\n    And let ourselves again but understand\n    That as it more concerns the Turk than Rhodes,\n    So may he with more facile question bear it,\n    For that it stands not in such warlike brace,\n    But altogether lacks the abilities\n    That Rhodes is dress'd in. If we make thought of this,\n    We must not think the Turk is so unskillful\n    To leave that latest which concerns him first,\n    Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain,\n    To wake and wage a danger profitless.\n  DUKE. Nay, in all confidence, he's not for Rhodes.\n  FIRST OFFICER. Here is more news.\n\n                          Enter a Messenger.\n\n  MESSENGER. The Ottomites, reverend and gracious,\n    Steering with due course toward the isle of Rhodes,\n    Have there injointed them with an after fleet.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Ay, so I thought. How many, as you guess?\n  MESSENGER. Of thirty sail; and now they do re-stem\n    Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance\n    Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signior Montano,\n    Your trusty and most valiant servitor,\n    With his free duty recommends you thus,\n    And prays you to believe him.\n  DUKE. 'Tis certain then for Cyprus.\n    Marcus Luccicos, is not he in town?\n  FIRST SENATOR. He's now in Florence.\n  DUKE. Write from us to him, post-post-haste dispatch.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor.\n\n       Enter Brabantio, Othello, Iago, Roderigo, and Officers.\n\n  DUKE. Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you\n    Against the general enemy Ottoman.\n    [To Brabantio.] I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior;\n    We lack'd your counsel and your help tonight.\n  BRABANTIO. So did I yours. Good your Grace, pardon me:\n    Neither my place nor aught I heard of business\n    Hath raised me from my bed, nor doth the general care\n    Take hold on me; for my particular grief\n    Is of so flood-gate and o'erbearing nature\n    That it engluts and swallows other sorrows,\n    And it is still itself.\n  DUKE.                     Why, what's the matter?\n  BRABANTIO. My daughter! O, my daughter!\n  ALL.                                    Dead?\n  BRABANTIO.                                    Ay, to me.\n    She is abused, stol'n from me and corrupted\n    By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;\n    For nature so preposterously to err,\n    Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense,\n    Sans witchcraft could not.\n  DUKE. Whoe'er he be that in this foul proceeding\n    Hath thus beguiled your daughter of herself\n    And you of her, the bloody book of law\n    You shall yourself read in the bitter letter\n    After your own sense, yea, though our proper son\n    Stood in your action.\n  BRABANTIO.              Humbly I thank your Grace.\n    Here is the man, this Moor, whom now, it seems,\n    Your special mandate for the state affairs\n    Hath hither brought.\n  ALL.                   We are very sorry for't.\n  DUKE. [To Othello.] What in your own part can you say to this?\n  BRABANTIO. Nothing, but this is so.\n  OTHELLO. Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,\n    My very noble and approved good masters,\n    That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,\n    It is most true; true, I have married her;\n    The very head and front of my offending\n    Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,\n    And little blest with the soft phrase of peace;\n    For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,\n    Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used\n    Their dearest action in the tented field,\n    And little of this great world can I speak,\n    More than pertains to feats of broil and battle;\n    And therefore little shall I grace my cause\n    In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,\n    I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver\n    Of my whole course of love: what drugs, what charms,\n    What conjuration, and what mighty magic-\n    For such proceeding I am charged withal-\n    I won his daughter.\n  BRABANTIO.            A maiden never bold,\n    Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion\n    Blush'd at herself; and she- in spite of nature,\n    Of years, of country, credit, everything-\n    To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on!\n    It is judgement maim'd and most imperfect,\n    That will confess perfection so could err\n    Against all rules of nature, and must be driven\n    To find out practices of cunning hell\n    Why this should be. I therefore vouch again\n    That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood,\n    Or with some dram conjured to this effect,\n    He wrought upon her.\n  DUKE.                  To vouch this is no proof,\n    Without more certain and more overt test\n    Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods\n    Of modern seeming do prefer against him.\n  FIRST SENATOR. But, Othello, speak.\n    Did you by indirect and forced courses\n    Subdue and poison this young maid's affections?\n    Or came it by request, and such fair question\n    As soul to soul affordeth?\n  OTHELLO.                     I do beseech you,\n    Send for the lady to the Sagittary,\n    And let her speak of me before her father.\n    If you do find me foul in her report,\n    The trust, the office I do hold of you,\n    Not only take away, but let your sentence\n    Even fall upon my life.\n  DUKE.                     Fetch Desdemona hither.\n  OTHELLO. Ancient, conduct them; you best know the place.\n                                          Exeunt Iago and Attendants.\n    And till she come, as truly as to heaven\n    I do confess the vices of my blood,\n    So justly to your grave ears I'll present\n    How I did thrive in this fair lady's love\n    And she in mine.\n  DUKE. Say it, Othello.\n  OTHELLO. Her father loved me, oft invited me,\n    Still question'd me the story of my life\n    From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,\n    That I have pass'd.\n    I ran it through, even from my boyish days\n    To the very moment that he bade me tell it:\n    Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,\n    Of moving accidents by flood and field,\n    Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,\n    Of being taken by the insolent foe\n    And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence\n    And portance in my travels' history;\n    Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,\n    Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven,\n    It was my hint to speak- such was the process-\n    And of the Cannibals that each other eat,\n    The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads\n    Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear\n    Would Desdemona seriously incline;\n    But still the house affairs would draw her thence,\n    Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,\n    She'ld come again, and with a greedy ear\n    Devour up my discourse; which I observing,\n    Took once a pliant hour, and found good means\n    To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart\n    That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,\n    Whereof by parcels she had something heard,\n    But not intentively. I did consent,\n    And often did beguile her of her tears\n    When I did speak of some distressful stroke\n    That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,\n    She gave me for my pains a world of sighs;\n    She swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange;\n    'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful.\n    She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd\n    That heaven had made her such a man; she thank'd me,\n    And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,\n    I should but teach him how to tell my story,\n    And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:\n    She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd,\n    And I loved her that she did pity them.\n    This only is the witchcraft I have used.\n    Here comes the lady; let her witness it.\n\n                Enter Desdemona, Iago, and Attendants.\n\n  DUKE. I think this tale would win my daughter too.\n    Good Brabantio,\n    Take up this mangled matter at the best:\n    Men do their broken weapons rather use\n    Than their bare hands.\n  BRABANTIO.               I pray you, hear her speak.\n    If she confess that she was half the wooer,\n    Destruction on my head, if my bad blame\n    Light on the man! Come hither, gentle mistress.\n    Do you perceive in all this noble company\n    Where most you owe obedience?\n  DESDEMONA.                      My noble father,\n    I do perceive here a divided duty.\n    To you I am bound for life and education;\n    My life and education both do learn me\n    How to respect you; you are the lord of duty,\n    I am hitherto your daughter. But here's my husband,\n    And so much duty as my mother show'd\n    To you, preferring you before her father,\n    So much I challenge that I may profess\n    Due to the Moor, my lord.\n  BRABANTIO.                  God be with you! I have done.\n    Please it your Grace, on to the state affairs;\n    I had rather to adopt a child than get it.\n    Come hither, Moor.\n    I here do give thee that with all my heart\n    Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart\n    I would keep from thee. For your sake, jewel,\n    I am glad at soul I have no other child;\n    For thy escape would teach me tyranny,\n    To hang clogs on them. I have done, my lord.\n  DUKE. Let me speak like yourself, and lay a sentence\n    Which, as a grise or step, may help these lovers\n    Into your favor.\n    When remedies are past, the griefs are ended\n    By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.\n    To mourn a mischief that is past and gone\n    Is the next way to draw new mischief on.\n    What cannot be preserved when Fortune takes,\n    Patience her injury a mockery makes.\n    The robb'd that smiles steals something from the thief;\n    He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.\n  BRABANTIO. So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile;\n    We lose it not so long as we can smile.\n    He bears the sentence well, that nothing bears\n    But the free comfort which from thence he hears;\n    But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow\n    That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.\n    These sentences, to sugar or to gall,\n    Being strong on both sides, are equivocal.\n    But words are words; I never yet did hear\n    That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.\n    I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state.\n  DUKE. The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for Cyprus.\n    Othello, the fortitude of the place is best known to you; and\n    though we have there a substitute of most allowed sufficiency,\n    yet opinion, a sovereign mistress of effects, throws a more safer\n    voice on you. You must therefore be content to slubber the gloss\n    of your new fortunes with this more stubborn and boisterous\n    expedition.\n  OTHELLO. The tyrant custom, most grave senators,\n    Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war\n    My thrice-driven bed of down. I do agnize\n    A natural and prompt alacrity\n    I find in hardness and do undertake\n    These present wars against the Ottomites.\n    Most humbly therefore bending to your state,\n    I crave fit disposition for my wife,\n    Due reference of place and exhibition,\n    With such accommodation and besort\n    As levels with her breeding.\n  DUKE.                          If you please,\n    Be't at her father's.\n  BRABANTIO.              I'll not have it so.\n  OTHELLO. Nor I.\n  DESDEMONA.      Nor I. I would not there reside\n    To put my father in impatient thoughts\n    By being in his eye. Most gracious Duke,\n    To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear,\n    And let me find a charter in your voice\n    To assist my simpleness.\n  DUKE. What would you, Desdemona?\n  DESDEMONA. That I did love the Moor to live with him,\n    My downright violence and storm of fortunes\n    May trumpet to the world. My heart's subdued\n    Even to the very quality of my lord.\n    I saw Othello's visage in his mind,\n    And to his honors and his valiant parts\n    Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.\n    So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,\n    A moth of peace, and he go to the war,\n    The rites for which I love him are bereft me,\n    And I a heavy interim shall support\n    By his dear absence. Let me go with him.\n  OTHELLO. Let her have your voices.\n    Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it not\n    To please the palate of my appetite,\n    Nor to comply with heat- the young affects\n    In me defunct- and proper satisfaction;\n    But to be free and bounteous to her mind.\n    And heaven defend your good souls, that you think\n    I will your serious and great business scant\n    For she is with me. No, when light-wing'd toys\n    Of feather'd Cupid seel with wanton dullness\n    My speculative and officed instruments,\n    That my disports corrupt and taint my business,\n    Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,\n    And all indign and base adversities\n    Make head against my estimation!\n  DUKE. Be it as you shall privately determine,\n    Either for her stay or going. The affair cries haste,\n    And speed must answer't: you must hence tonight.\n  DESDEMONA. Tonight, my lord?\n  DUKE.                        This night.\n  OTHELLO.                                 With all my heart.\n  DUKE. At nine i' the morning here we'll meet again.\n    Othello, leave some officer behind,\n    And he shall our commission bring to you,\n    With such things else of quality and respect\n    As doth import you.\n  OTHELLO.              So please your Grace, my ancient;\n    A man he is of honesty and trust.\n    To his conveyance I assign my wife,\n    With what else needful your good Grace shall think\n    To be sent after me.\n  DUKE.                  Let it be so.\n    Good night to everyone. [To Brabantio.] And, noble signior,\n    If virtue no delighted beauty lack,\n    Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well.\n  BRABANTIO. Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see;\n    She has deceived her father, and may thee.\n                                 Exeunt Duke, Senators, and Officers.\n  OTHELLO. My life upon her faith! Honest Iago,\n    My Desdemona must I leave to thee.\n    I prithee, let thy wife attend on her,\n    And bring them after in the best advantage.\n    Come, Desdemona, I have but an hour\n    Of love, of worldly matters and direction,\n    To spend with thee. We must obey the time.\n                                        Exeunt Othello and Desdemona.\n  RODERIGO. Iago!\n  IAGO. What say'st thou, noble heart?\n  RODERIGO. What will I do, thinkest thou?\n  IAGO. Why, go to bed and sleep.\n  RODERIGO. I will incontinently drown myself.\n  IAGO. If thou dost, I shall never love thee after.\n    Why, thou silly gentleman!\n  RODERIGO. It is silliness to live when to live is torment, and then\n    have we a prescription to die when death is our physician.\n  IAGO. O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four times\n    seven years, and since I could distinguish betwixt a benefit and\n    an injury, I never found man that knew how to love himself. Ere I\n    would say I would drown myself for the love of a guinea hen, I\n    would change my humanity with a baboon.\n  RODERIGO. What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so fond,\n    but it is not in my virtue to amend it.\n  IAGO. Virtue? a fig! 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus.\n    Our bodies are gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners; so\n    that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed\n    up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with\n    many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with\n    industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in\n    our wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of\n    reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of\n    our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions.\n    But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings,\n    our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this, that you call love, to\n    be a sect or scion.\n  RODERIGO. It cannot be.\n  IAGO. It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the\n    will. Come, be a man! Drown thyself? Drown cats and blind\n    puppies. I have professed me thy friend, and I confess me knit to\n    thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness; I could never\n    better stead thee than now. Put money in thy purse; follow thou\n    the wars; defeat thy favor with an usurped beard. I say, put\n    money in thy purse. It cannot be that Desdemona should long\n    continue her love to the Moor- put money in thy purse- nor he his\n    to her. It was a violent commencement, and thou shalt see an\n    answerable sequestration- put but money in thy purse. These Moors\n    are changeable in their wills- fill thy purse with money. The\n    food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him\n    shortly as acerb as the coloquintida. She must change for youth;\n    when she is sated with his body, she will find the error of her\n    choice. She must have change, she must; therefore put money in\n    thy purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a more delicate\n    way than drowning. Make all the money thou canst. If sanctimony\n    and a frail vow betwixt an erring barbarian and a supersubtle\n    Venetian be not too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell,\n    thou shalt enjoy her- therefore make money. A pox of drowning\n    thyself! It is clean out of the way. Seek thou rather to be\n    hanged in compassing thy joy than to be drowned and go without\n    her.\n  RODERIGO. Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on the issue?\n  IAGO. Thou art sure of me- go, make money. I have told thee often,\n    and I retell thee again and again, I hate the Moor. My cause is\n    hearted; thine hath no less reason. Let us be conjunctive in our\n    revenge against him. If thou canst cuckold him, thou dost thyself\n    a pleasure, me a sport. There are many events in the womb of time\n    which will be delivered. Traverse, go, provide thy money. We will\n    have more of this tomorrow. Adieu.\n  RODERIGO. Where shall we meet i' the morning?\n  IAGO. At my lodging.\n  RODERIGO. I'll be with thee betimes.\n  IAGO. Go to, farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?\n  RODERIGO. What say you?\n  IAGO. No more of drowning, do you hear?\n  RODERIGO. I am changed; I'll go sell all my land.             Exit.\n  IAGO. Thus do I ever make my fool my purse;\n    For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane\n    If I would time expend with such a snipe\n    But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor,\n    And it is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets\n    He has done my office. I know not if't be true,\n    But I for mere suspicion in that kind\n    Will do as if for surety. He holds me well,\n    The better shall my purpose work on him.\n    Cassio's a proper man. Let me see now-\n    To get his place, and to plume up my will\n    In double knavery- How, how?- Let's see-\n    After some time, to abuse Othello's ear\n    That he is too familiar with his wife.\n    He hath a person and a smooth dispose\n    To be suspected- framed to make women false.\n    The Moor is of a free and open nature,\n    That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,\n    And will as tenderly be led by the nose\n    As asses are.\n    I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night\n    Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.\n     Exit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nA seaport in Cyprus. An open place near the quay.\n\nEnter Montano and two Gentlemen.\n\n  MONTANO. What from the cape can you discern at sea?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Nothing at all. It is a high-wrought flood;\n    I cannot, 'twixt the heaven and the main,\n    Descry a sail.\n  MONTANO. Methinks the wind hath spoke aloud at land;\n    A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements.\n    If it hath ruffian'd so upon the sea,\n    What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them,\n    Can hold the mortise? What shall we hear of this?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. A segregation of the Turkish fleet.\n    For do but stand upon the foaming shore,\n    The chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds;\n    The wind-shaked surge, with high and monstrous mane,\n    Seems to cast water on the burning bear,\n    And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole.\n    I never did like molestation view\n    On the enchafed flood.\n  MONTANO.                 If that the Turkish fleet\n    Be not enshelter'd and embay'd, they are drown'd;\n    It is impossible to bear it out.\n\n                       Enter a third Gentleman.\n\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. News, lads! Our wars are done.\n    The desperate tempest hath so bang'd the Turks,\n    That their designment halts. A noble ship of Venice\n    Hath seen a grievous wreck and sufferance\n    On most part of their fleet.\n  MONTANO. How? Is this true?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN.            The ship is here put in,\n    A Veronesa. Michael Cassio,\n    Lieutenant to the warlike Moor, Othello,\n    Is come on shore; the Moor himself at sea,\n    And is in full commission here for Cyprus.\n  MONTANO. I am glad on't; 'tis a worthy governor.\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. But this same Cassio, though he speak of comfort\n    Touching the Turkish loss, yet he looks sadly\n    And prays the Moor be safe; for they were parted\n    With foul and violent tempest.\n  MONTANO.                         Pray heavens he be,\n    For I have served him, and the man commands\n    Like a full soldier. Let's to the seaside, ho!\n    As well to see the vessel that's come in\n    As to throw out our eyes for brave Othello,\n    Even till we make the main and the aerial blue\n    An indistinct regard.\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Come, let's do so,\n    For every minute is expectancy\n    Of more arrivance.\n\n                            Enter Cassio.\n\n  CASSIO. Thanks, you the valiant of this warlike isle,\n    That so approve the Moor! O, let the heavens\n    Give him defense against the elements,\n    For I have lost him on a dangerous sea.\n  MONTANO. I she well shipp'd?\n  CASSIO. His bark is stoutly timber'd, and his pilot\n    Of very expert and approved allowance;\n    Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death,\n    Stand in bold cure.\n                              A cry within, \"A sail, a sail, a sail!\"\n\n                      Enter a fourth Gentleman.\n\n                        What noise?\n  FOURTH GENTLEMAN. The town is empty; on the brow o' the sea\n    Stand ranks of people, and they cry, \"A sail!\"\n  CASSIO. My hopes do shape him for the governor.\n                                                          Guns heard.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. They do discharge their shot of courtesy-\n    Our friends at least.\n  CASSIO.                 I pray you, sir, go forth,\n    And give us truth who 'tis that is arrived.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I shall.                                    Exit.\n  MONTANO. But, good lieutenant, is your general wived?\n  CASSIO. Most fortunately: he hath achieved a maid\n    That paragons description and wild fame,\n    One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens,\n    And in the essential vesture of creation\n    Does tire the ingener.\n\n                      Re-enter second Gentleman.\n\n                           How now! who has put in?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Tis one Iago, ancient to the general.\n  CASSIO. He has had most favorable and happy speed:\n    Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds,\n    The gutter'd rocks, and congregated sands,\n    Traitors ensteep'd to clog the guiltless keel,\n    As having sense of beauty, do omit\n    Their mortal natures, letting go safely by\n    The divine Desdemona.\n  MONTANO.                What is she?\n  CASSIO. She that I spake of, our great captain's captain,\n    Left in the conduct of the bold Iago,\n    Whose footing here anticipates our thoughts\n    A se'nnight's speed. Great Jove, Othello guard,\n    And swell his sail with thine own powerful breath,\n    That he may bless this bay with his tall ship,\n    Make love's quick pants in Desdemona's arms,\n    Give renew'd fire to our extincted spirits,\n    And bring all Cyprus comfort.\n\n       Enter Desdemona, Emilia Iago, Roderigo, and Attendants.\n\n                                  O, behold,\n    The riches of the ship is come on shore!\n    Ye men of Cyprus, let her have your knees.\n    Hall to thee, lady! And the grace of heaven,\n    Before, behind thee, and on every hand,\n    Enwheel thee round!\n  DESDEMONA.            I thank you, valiant Cassio.\n    What tidings can you tell me of my lord?\n  CASSIO. He is not yet arrived, nor know I aught\n    But that he's well and will be shortly here.\n  DESDEMONA. O, but I fear- How lost you company?\n  CASSIO. The great contention of the sea and skies\n    Parted our fellowship- But, hark! a sail.\n                          A cry within, \"A sail, a sail!\" Guns heard.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. They give their greeting to the citadel;\n    This likewise is a friend.\n  CASSIO.                      See for the news.\n                                                      Exit Gentleman.\n    Good ancient, you are welcome. [To Emilia.] Welcome, mistress.\n    Let it not gall your patience, good Iago,\n    That I extend my manners; 'tis my breeding\n    That gives me this bold show of courtesy.             Kisses her.\n  IAGO. Sir, would she give you so much of her lips\n    As of her tongue she oft bestows on me,\n    You'ld have enough.\n  DESDEMONA.            Alas, she has no speech.\n  IAGO. In faith, too much;\n    I find it still when I have list to sleep.\n    Marry, before your ladyship I grant,\n    She puts her tongue a little in her heart\n    And chides with thinking.\n  EMILIA. You have little cause to say so.\n  IAGO. Come on, come on. You are pictures out of doors,\n    Bells in your parlors, wildcats in your kitchens,\n    Saints in your injuries, devils being offended,\n    Players in your housewifery, and housewives in your beds.\n  DESDEMONA. O, fie upon thee, slanderer!\n  IAGO. Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk:\n    You rise to play, and go to bed to work.\n  EMILIA. You shall not write my praise.\n  IAGO.                                  No, let me not.\n  DESDEMONA. What wouldst thou write of me, if thou shouldst\n    praise me?\n  IAGO. O gentle lady, do not put me to't,\n    For I am nothing if not critical.\n  DESDEMONA. Come on, assay- There's one gone to the harbor?\n  IAGO. Ay, madam.\n  DESDEMONA. I am not merry, but I do beguile\n    The thing I am by seeming otherwise.\n    Come, how wouldst thou praise me?\n  IAGO. I am about it, but indeed my invention\n    Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frieze;\n    It plucks out brains and all. But my Muse labors,\n    And thus she is deliver'd.\n    If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit,\n    The one's for use, the other useth it.\n  DESDEMONA. Well praised! How if she be black and witty?\n  IAGO. If she be black, and thereto have a wit,\n    She'll find a white that shall her blackness fit.\n  DESDEMONA. Worse and worse.\n  EMILIA. How if fair and foolish?\n  IAGO. She never yet was foolish that was fair,\n    For even her folly help'd her to an heir.\n  DESDEMONA. These are old fond paradoxes to make fools laugh i' the\n    alehouse. What miserable praise hast thou for her that's foul and\n    foolish?\n  IAGO. There's none so foul and foolish thereunto,\n    But does foul pranks which fair and wise ones do.\n  DESDEMONA. O heavy ignorance! Thou praisest the worst best. But what\n    praise couldst thou bestow on a deserving woman indeed, one that\n    in the authority of her merit did justly put on the vouch of very\n    malice itself?\n  IAGO. She that was ever fair and never proud,\n    Had tongue at will and yet was never loud,\n    Never lack'd gold and yet went never gay,\n    Fled from her wish and yet said, \"Now I may\";\n    She that, being anger'd, her revenge being nigh,\n    Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly;\n    She that in wisdom never was so frail\n    To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail;\n    She that could think and ne'er disclose her mind,\n    See suitors following and not look behind;\n    She was a wight, if ever such wight were-\n  DESDEMONA. To do what?\n  IAGO. To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.\n  DESDEMONA. O most lame and impotent conclusion! Do not learn of him,\n    Emilia, though he be thy husband. How say you, Cassio? Is he not\n    a most profane and liberal counselor?\n  CASSIO. He speaks home, madam. You may relish him more in the\n    soldier than in the scholar.\n  IAGO. [Aside.] He takes her by the palm; ay, well said, whisper.\n    With as little a web as this will I ensnare as great a fly as\n    Cassio. Ay, smile upon her, do; I will gyve thee in thine own\n    courtship. You say true; 'tis so, indeed. If such tricks as these\n    strip you out of your lieutenantry, it had been better you had\n    not kissed your three fingers so oft, which now again you are\n    most apt to play the sir in. Very good. Well kissed! an excellent\n    courtesy! 'tis so, indeed. Yet again your fingers to your lips?\n    Would they were clyster-pipes for your sake! [Trumpet within.]\n    The Moor! I know his trumpet.\n  CASSIO. 'Tis truly so.\n  DESDEMONA. Let's meet him and receive him.\n  CASSIO. Lo, where he comes!\n\n                    Enter Othello and Attendants.\n\n  OTHELLO. O my fair warrior!\n  DESDEMONA.                  My dear Othello!\n  OTHELLO. It gives me wonder great as my content\n    To see you here before me. O my soul's joy!\n    If after every tempest come such calms,\n    May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!\n    And let the laboring bark climb hills of seas\n    Olympus-high, and duck again as low\n    As hell's from heaven! If it were now to die,\n    'Twere now to be most happy; for I fear\n    My soul hath her content so absolute\n    That not another comfort like to this\n    Succeeds in unknown fate.\n  DESDEMONA.                  The heavens forbid\n    But that our loves and comforts should increase,\n    Even as our days do grow!\n  OTHELLO.                    Amen to that, sweet powers!\n    I cannot speak enough of this content;\n    It stops me here; it is too much of joy.\n    And this, and this, the greatest discords be          Kisses her.\n    That e'er our hearts shall make!\n  IAGO.                     [Aside.] O, you are well tuned now!\n    But I'll set down the pegs that make this music,\n    As honest as I am.\n  OTHELLO.             Come, let us to the castle.\n    News, friends: our wars are done, the Turks are drown'd.\n    How does my old acquaintance of this isle?\n    Honey, you shall be well desired in Cyprus;\n    I have found great love amongst them. O my sweet,\n    I prattle out of fashion, and I dote\n    In mine own comforts. I prithee, good Iago,\n    Go to the bay and disembark my coffers.\n    Bring thou the master to the citadel;\n    He is a good one, and his worthiness\n    Does challenge much respect. Come, Desdemona,\n    Once more well met at Cyprus.\n                                    Exeunt all but Iago and Roderigo.\n  IAGO. Do thou meet me presently at the harbor. Come hither. If thou\n    be'st valiant- as they say base men being in love have then a\n    nobility in their natures more than is native to them- list me.\n    The lieutenant tonight watches on the court of guard. First, I\n    must tell thee this: Desdemona is directly in love with him.\n  RODERIGO. With him? Why, 'tis not possible.\n  IAGO. Lay thy finger thus, and let thy soul be instructed. Mark me\n    with what violence she first loved the Moor, but for bragging and\n    telling her fantastical lies. And will she love him still for\n    prating? Let not thy discreet heart think it. Her eye must be\n    fed; and what delight shall she have to look on the devil? When\n    the blood is made dull with the act of sport, there should be,\n    again to inflame it and to give satiety a fresh appetite,\n    loveliness in favor, sympathy in years, manners, and beauties-\n    all which the Moor is defective in. Now, for want of these\n    required conveniences, her delicate tenderness will find itself\n    abused, begin to heave the gorge, disrelish and abhor the Moor;\n    very nature will instruct her in it and compel her to some second\n    choice. Now sir, this granted- as it is a most pregnant and\n    unforced position- who stands so eminently in the degree of this\n    fortune as Cassio does? A knave very voluble; no further\n    conscionable than in putting on the mere form of civil and humane\n    seeming, for the better compass of his salt and most hidden loose\n    affection? Why, none, why, none- a slipper and subtle knave, a\n    finder out of occasions, that has an eye can stamp and\n    counterfeit advantages, though true advantage never present\n    itself- a devilish knave! Besides, the knave is handsome, young,\n    and hath all those requisites in him that folly and green minds\n    look after- a pestilent complete knave, and the woman hath found\n    him already.\n  RODERIGO. I cannot believe that in her; she's full of most blest\n    condition.\n  IAGO. Blest fig's-end! The wine she drinks is made of grapes. If\n    she had been blest, she would never have loved the Moor. Blest\n    pudding! Didst thou not see her paddle with the palm of his hand?\n    Didst not mark that?\n  RODERIGO. Yes, that I did; but that was but courtesy.\n  IAGO. Lechery, by this hand; an index and obscure prologue to the\n    history of lust and foul thoughts. They met so near with their\n    lips that their breaths embraced together. Villainous thoughts,\n    Roderigo! When these mutualities so marshal the way, hard at hand\n    comes the master and main exercise, the incorporate conclusion.\n    Pish! But, sir, be you ruled by me. I have brought you from\n    Venice. Watch you tonight; for the command, I'll lay't upon you.\n    Cassio knows you not. I'll not be far from you. Do you find some\n    occasion to anger Cassio, either by speaking too loud, or\n    tainting his discipline, or from what other course you please,\n    which the time shall more favorably minister.\n  RODERIGO. Well.\n  IAGO. Sir, he is rash and very sudden in choler, and haply may\n    strike at you. Provoke him, that he may; for even out of that\n    will I cause these of Cyprus to mutiny, whose qualification shall\n    come into no true taste again but by the displanting of Cassio.\n    So shall you have a shorter journey to your desires by the means\n    I shall then have to prefer them, and the impediment most\n    profitably removed, without the which there were no expectation\n    of our prosperity.\n  RODERIGO. I will do this, if I can bring it to any opportunity.\n  IAGO. I warrant thee. Meet me by and by at the citadel. I must\n    fetch his necessaries ashore. Farewell.\n  RODERIGO. Adieu.                                              Exit.\n  IAGO. That Cassio loves her, I do well believe it;\n    That she loves him, 'tis apt and of great credit.\n    The Moor, howbeit that I endure him not,\n    Is of a constant, loving, noble nature,\n    And I dare think he'll prove to Desdemona\n    A most dear husband. Now, I do love her too,\n    Not out of absolute lust, though peradventure\n    I stand accountant for as great a sin,\n    But partly led to diet my revenge,\n    For that I do suspect the lusty Moor\n    Hath leap'd into my seat; the thought whereof\n    Doth like a poisonous mineral gnaw my inwards,\n    And nothing can or shall content my soul\n    Till I am even'd with him, wife for wife.\n    Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor\n    At least into a jealousy so strong\n    That judgement cannot cure. Which thing to do,\n    If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trace\n    For his quick hunting, stand the putting on,\n    I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip,\n    Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb\n    (For I fear Cassio with my nightcap too),\n    Make the Moor thank me, love me, and reward me\n    For making him egregiously an ass\n    And practicing upon his peace and quiet\n    Even to madness. 'Tis here, but yet confused:\n    Knavery's plain face is never seen till used.               Exit.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA street.\n\nEnter a Herald with a proclamation; people following.\n\n  HERALD. It is Othello's pleasure, our noble and valiant general,\n    that upon certain tidings now arrived, importing the mere\n    perdition of the Turkish fleet, every man put himself into\n    triumph; some to dance, some to make bonfires, each man to what\n    sport and revels his addiction leads him; for besides these\n    beneficial news, it is the celebration of his nuptial. So much\n    was his pleasure should be proclaimed. All offices are open, and\n    there is full liberty of feasting from this present hour of five\n    till the bell have told eleven. Heaven bless the isle of Cyprus\n    and our noble general Othello!                            Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA hall in the castle.\n\nEnter Othello, Desdemona, Cassio, and Attendants.\n\n  OTHELLO. Good Michael, look you to the guard tonight.\n    Let's teach ourselves that honorable stop,\n    Not to outsport discretion.\n  CASSIO. Iago hath direction what to do;\n    But notwithstanding with my personal eye\n    Will I look to't.\n  OTHELLO.            Iago is most honest.\n    Michael, good night. Tomorrow with your earliest\n    Let me have speech with you. Come, my dear love,\n    The purchase made, the fruits are to ensue;\n    That profit's yet to come 'tween me and you.\n    Good night.\n                           Exeunt Othello, Desdemona, and Attendants.\n\n                             Enter Iago.\n\n  CASSIO. Welcome, Iago; we must to the watch.\n  IAGO. Not this hour, lieutenant; 'tis not yet ten o' the clock. Our\n    general cast us thus early for the love of his Desdemona; who let\n    us not therefore blame. He hath not yet made wanton the night\n    with her, and she is sport for Jove.\n  CASSIO. She's a most exquisite lady.\n  IAGO. And, I'll warrant her, full of game.\n  CASSIO. Indeed she's a most fresh and delicate creature.\n  IAGO. What an eye she has! Methinks it sounds a parley to\n    provocation.\n  CASSIO. An inviting eye; and yet methinks right modest.\n  IAGO. And when she speaks, is it not an alarum to love?\n  CASSIO. She is indeed perfection.\n  IAGO. Well, happiness to their sheets! Come, lieutenant, I have a\n    stope of wine, and here without are a brace of Cyprus gallants\n    that would fain have a measure to the health of black Othello.\n  CASSIO. Not tonight, good Iago. I have very poor and unhappy brains\n    for drinking. I could well wish courtesy would invent some other\n    custom of entertainment.\n  IAGO. O, they are our friends! But one cup; I'll drink for you.\n  CASSIO. I have drunk but one cup tonight, and that was craftily\n    qualified too, and behold what innovation it makes here. I am\n    unfortunate in the infirmity, and dare not task my weakness with\n    any more.\n  IAGO. What, man! 'Tis a night of revels, the gallants desire it.\n  CASSIO. Where are they?\n  IAGO. Here at the door; I pray you, call them in.\n  CASSIO. I'll do't, but it dislikes me.                        Exit.\n  IAGO. If I can fasten but one cup upon him,\n    With that which he hath drunk tonight already,\n    He'll be as full of quarrel and offense\n    As my young mistress' dog. Now my sick fool Roderigo,\n    Whom love hath turn'd almost the wrong side out,\n    To Desdemona hath tonight caroused\n    Potations pottle-deep; and he's to watch.\n    Three lads of Cyprus, noble swelling spirits,\n    That hold their honors in a wary distance,\n    The very elements of this warlike isle,\n    Have I tonight fluster'd with flowing cups,\n    And they watch too. Now, 'mongst this flock of drunkards,\n    Am I to put our Cassio in some action\n    That may offend the isle. But here they come.\n    If consequence do but approve my dream,\n    My boat sails freely, both with wind and stream.\n\n           Re-enter Cassio; with him Montano and Gentlemen;\n                    Servants following with wine.\n\n  CASSIO. 'Fore God, they have given me a rouse already.\n  MONTANO. Good faith, a little one; not past a pint, as I am a\n    soldier.\n  IAGO. Some wine, ho!\n\n    [Sings.]   \"And let me the canakin clink, clink;\n               And let me the canakin clink.\n                 A soldier's a man;\n                 O, man's life's but a span;\n               Why then let a soldier drink.\"\n\n    Some wine, boys!\n  CASSIO. 'Fore God, an excellent song.\n  IAGO. I learned it in England, where indeed they are most potent in\n    potting. Your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander-\n    Drink, ho!- are nothing to your English.\n  CASSIO. Is your Englishman so expert in his drinking?\n  IAGO. Why, he drinks you with facility your Dane dead drunk; he\n    sweats not to overthrow your Almain; he gives your Hollander a\n    vomit ere the next pottle can be filled.\n  CASSIO. To the health of our general!\n  MONTANO. I am for it, lieutenant, and I'll do you justice.\n  IAGO. O sweet England!\n\n    [Sings.]   \"King Stephen was and-a worthy peer,\n                 His breeches cost him but a crown;\n               He held them sixpence all too dear,\n                 With that he call'd the tailor lown.\n\n               \"He was a wight of high renown,\n                 And thou art but of low degree.\n               'Tis pride that pulls the country down;\n                 Then take thine auld cloak about thee.\"\n\n    Some wine, ho!\n  CASSIO. Why, this is a more exquisite song than the other.\n  IAGO. Will you hear't again?\n  CASSIO. No, for I hold him to be unworthy of his place that does\n    those things. Well, God's above all, and there be souls must be\n    saved, and there be souls must not be saved.\n  IAGO. It's true, good lieutenant.\n  CASSIO. For mine own part- no offense to the general, nor any man\n    of quality- I hope to be saved.\n  IAGO. And so do I too, lieutenant.\n  CASSIO. Ay, but, by your leave, not before me; the lieutenant is to\n    be saved before the ancient. Let's have no more of this; let's to\n    our affairs. God forgive us our sins! Gentlemen, let's look to\n    our business. Do not think, gentlemen, I am drunk: this is my\n    ancient, this is my right hand, and this is my left. I am not\n    drunk now; I can stand well enough, and I speak well enough.\n  ALL. Excellent well.\n  CASSIO. Why, very well then; you must not think then that I am\n    drunk.                                                      Exit.\n  MONTANO. To the platform, masters; come, let's set the watch.\n  IAGO. You see this fellow that is gone before;\n    He is a soldier fit to stand by Caesar\n    And give direction. And do but see his vice;\n    'Tis to his virtue a just equinox,\n    The one as long as the other. 'Tis pity of him.\n    I fear the trust Othello puts him in\n    On some odd time of his infirmity\n    Will shake this island.\n  MONTANO.                  But is he often thus?\n  IAGO. 'Tis evermore the prologue to his sleep.\n    He'll watch the horologe a double set,\n    If drink rock not his cradle.\n  MONTANO.                        It were well\n    The general were put in mind of it.\n    Perhaps he sees it not, or his good nature\n    Prizes the virtue that appears in Cassio\n    And looks not on his evils. Is not this true?\n\n                           Enter Roderigo.\n\n  IAGO. [Aside to him.] How now, Roderigo!\n    I pray you, after the lieutenant; go.              Exit Roderigo.\n  MONTANO. And 'tis great pity that the noble Moor\n    Should hazard such a place as his own second\n    With one of an ingraft infirmity.\n    It were an honest action to say\n    So to the Moor.\n  IAGO.             Not I, for this fair island.\n    I do love Cassio well, and would do much\n    To cure him of this evil- But, hark! What noise?\n                                          A cry within, \"Help, help!\"\n\n                Re-enter Cassio, driving in Roderigo.\n\n  CASSIO. 'Zounds! You rogue! You rascal!\n  MONTANO. What's the matter, lieutenant?\n  CASSIO. A knave teach me my duty! But I'll beat the knave into a\n    twiggen bottle.\n  RODERIGO. Beat me!\n  CASSIO. Dost thou prate, rogue?                   Strikes Roderigo.\n  MONTANO. Nay, good lieutenant; I pray you, sir, hold your hand.\n  CASSIO. Let me go, sir, or I'll knock you o'er the mazzard.\n  MONTANO. Come, come, you're drunk.\n  CASSIO. Drunk?                                          They fight.\n  IAGO. [Aside to Roderigo.] Away, I say; go out and cry a mutiny.\n                                                       Exit Roderigo.\n    Nay, good lieutenant! God's will, gentlemen!\n    Help, ho!- Lieutenant- sir- Montano- sir-\n    Help, masters!- Here's a goodly watch indeed!\n                                                        A bell rings.\n    Who's that that rings the bell?- Diablo, ho!\n    The town will rise. God's will, lieutenant, hold!\n    You will be shamed forever.\n\n                   Re-enter Othello and Attendants.\n\n  OTHELLO.                      What is the matter here?\n  MONTANO. 'Zounds, I bleed still; I am hurt to the death.\n   Faints.\n  OTHELLO. Hold, for your lives!\n  IAGO. Hold, ho! Lieutenant- sir- Montano- gentlemen-\n    Have you forgot all place of sense and duty?\n    Hold! the general speaks to you! Hold, hold, for shame!\n  OTHELLO. Why, how now, ho! from whence ariseth this?\n    Are we turn'd Turks, and to ourselves do that\n    Which heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?\n    For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl.\n    He that stirs next to carve for his own rage\n    Holds his soul light; he dies upon his motion.\n    Silence that dreadful bell; it frights the isle\n    From her propriety. What is the matter, masters?\n    Honest Iago, that look'st dead with grieving,\n    Speak: who began this? On thy love, I charge thee.\n  IAGO. I do not know. Friends all but now, even now,\n    In quarter, and in terms like bride and groom\n    Devesting them for bed; and then, but now\n    (As if some planet had unwitted men),\n    Swords out, and tilting one at other's breast,\n    In opposition bloody. I cannot speak\n    Any beginning to this peevish odds;\n    And would in action glorious I had lost\n    Those legs that brought me to a part of it!\n  OTHELLO. How comes it, Michael, you are thus forgot?\n  CASSIO. I pray you, pardon me; I cannot speak.\n  OTHELLO. Worthy Montano, you were wont be civil;\n    The gravity and stillness of your youth\n    The world hath noted, and your name is great\n    In mouths of wisest censure. What's the matter,\n    That you unlace your reputation thus,\n    And spend your rich opinion for the name\n    Of a night-brawler? Give me answer to it.\n  MONTANO. Worthy Othello, I am hurt to danger.\n    Your officer, Iago, can inform you-\n    While I spare speech, which something now offends me-\n    Of all that I do know. Nor know I aught\n    By me that's said or done amiss this night,\n    Unless self-charity be sometimes a vice,\n    And to defend ourselves it be a sin\n    When violence assails us.\n  OTHELLO.                    Now, by heaven,\n    My blood begins my safer guides to rule,\n    And passion, having my best judgement collied,\n    Assays to lead the way. If I once stir,\n    Or do but lift this arm, the best of you\n    Shall sink in my rebuke. Give me to know\n    How this foul rout began, who set it on,\n    And he that is approved in this offense,\n    Though he had twinn'd with me, both at a birth,\n    Shall lose me. What! in a town of war,\n    Yet wild, the people's hearts brimful of fear,\n    To manage private and domestic quarrel,\n    In night, and on the court and guard of safety!\n    'Tis monstrous. Iago, who began't?\n  MONTANO. If partially affined, or leagued in office,\n    Thou dost deliver more or less than truth,\n    Thou art no soldier.\n  IAGO.                  Touch me not so near:\n    I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth\n    Than it should do offense to Michael Cassio;\n    Yet, I persuade myself, to speak the truth\n    Shall nothing wrong him. Thus it is, general.\n    Montano and myself being in speech,\n    There comes a fellow crying out for help,\n    And Cassio following him with determined sword,\n    To execute upon him. Sir, this gentleman\n    Steps in to Cassio and entreats his pause.\n    Myself the crying fellow did pursue,\n    Lest by his clamor- as it so fell out-\n    The town might fall in fright. He, swift of foot,\n    Outran my purpose; and I return'd the rather\n    For that I heard the clink and fall of swords,\n    And Cassio high in oath, which till tonight\n    I ne'er might say before. When I came back-\n    For this was brief- I found them close together,\n    At blow and thrust, even as again they were\n    When you yourself did part them.\n    More of this matter cannot I report.\n    But men are men; the best sometimes forget.\n    Though Cassio did some little wrong to him,\n    As men in rage strike those that wish them best,\n    Yet surely Cassio, I believe, received\n    From him that fled some strange indignity,\n    Which patience could not pass.\n  OTHELLO.                         I know, Iago,\n    Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter,\n    Making it light to Cassio. Cassio, I love thee,\n    But never more be officer of mine.\n\n                    Re-enter Desdemona, attended.\n\n    Look, if my gentle love be not raised up!\n    I'll make thee an example.\n  DESDEMONA.                   What's the matter?\n  OTHELLO. All's well now, sweeting; come away to bed.\n    Sir, for your hurts, myself will be your surgeon.\n    Lead him off.                             Exit Montano, attended.\n    Iago, look with care about the town,\n    And silence those whom this vile brawl distracted.\n    Come, Desdemona, 'tis the soldiers' life.\n    To have their balmy slumbers waked with strife.\n                                      Exeunt all but Iago and Cassio.\n  IAGO. What, are you hurt, lieutenant?\n  CASSIO. Ay, past all surgery.\n  IAGO. Marry, heaven forbid!\n  CASSIO. Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my\n    reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what\n    remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!\n  IAGO. As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily\n    wound; there is more sense in that than in reputation. Reputation\n    is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and\n    lost without deserving. You have lost no reputation at all,\n    unless you repute yourself such a loser. What, man! there are\n    ways to recover the general again. You are but now cast in his\n    mood, a punishment more in policy than in malice; even so as one\n    would beat his offenseless dog to affright an imperious lion. Sue\n    to him again, and he's yours.\n  CASSIO. I will rather sue to be despised than to deceive so good a\n    commander with so slight, so drunken, and so indiscreet an\n    officer. Drunk? and speak parrot? and squabble? swagger? swear?\n    and discourse fustian with one's own shadow? O thou invisible\n    spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call\n    thee devil!\n  IAGO. What was he that you followed with your sword?\n    What had he done to you?\n  CASSIO. I know not.\n  IAGO. Is't possible?\n  CASSIO. I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a\n    quarrel, but nothing wherefore. O God, that men should put an\n    enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should,\n    with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves\n    into beasts!\n  IAGO. Why, but you are now well enough. How came you thus\n     recovered?\n  CASSIO. It hath pleased the devil drunkenness to give place to the\n    devil wrath: one unperfectness shows me another, to make me\n    frankly despise myself.\n  IAGO. Come, you are too severe a moraler. As the time, the place,\n    and the condition of this country stands, I could heartily wish\n    this had not befallen; but since it is as it is, mend it for your\n    own good.\n  CASSIO. I will ask him for my place again; he shall tell me I am a\n    drunkard! Had I as many mouths as Hydra, such an answer would\n    stop them all. To be now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and\n    presently a beast! O strange! Every inordinate cup is unblest,\n    and the ingredient is a devil.\n  IAGO. Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be\n    well used. Exclaim no more against it. And, good lieutenant, I\n    think you think I love you.\n  CASSIO. I have well approved it, sir. I drunk!\n  IAGO. You or any man living may be drunk at some time, man. I'll\n    tell you what you shall do. Our general's wife is now the\n    general. I may say so in this respect, for that he hath devoted\n    and given up himself to the contemplation, mark, and denotement\n    of her parts and graces. Confess yourself freely to her;\n    importune her help to put you in your place again. She is of so\n    free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, she holds it a\n    vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested. This\n    broken joint between you and her husband entreat her to splinter;\n    and, my fortunes against any lay worth naming, this crack of your\n    love shall grow stronger than it was before.\n  CASSIO. You advise me well.\n  IAGO. I protest, in the sincerity of love and honest kindness.\n  CASSIO. I think it freely; and betimes in the morning I will beseech\n    the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me. I am desperate of my\n    fortunes if they check me here.\n  IAGO. You are in the right. Good night, lieutenant, I must to the\n    watch.\n  CASSIO. Good night, honest Iago.                              Exit.\n  IAGO. And what's he then that says I play the villain?\n    When this advice is free I give and honest,\n    Probal to thinking, and indeed the course\n    To win the Moor again? For 'tis most easy\n    The inclining Desdemona to subdue\n    In any honest suit. She's framed as fruitful\n    As the free elements. And then for her\n    To win the Moor, were't to renounce his baptism,\n    All seals and symbols of redeemed sin,\n    His soul is so enfetter'd to her love,\n    That she may make, unmake, do what she list,\n    Even as her appetite shall play the god\n    With his weak function. How am I then a villain\n    To counsel Cassio to this parallel course,\n    Directly to his good? Divinity of hell!\n    When devils will the blackest sins put on,\n    They do suggest at first with heavenly shows,\n    As I do now. For whiles this honest fool\n    Plies Desdemona to repair his fortune,\n    And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor,\n    I'll pour this pestilence into his ear,\n    That she repeals him for her body's lust;\n    And by how much she strives to do him good,\n    She shall undo her credit with the Moor.\n    So will I turn her virtue into pitch,\n    And out of her own goodness make the net\n    That shall enmesh them all.\n\n                           Enter Roderigo.\n\n                                How now, Roderigo!\n  RODERIGO. I do follow here in the chase, not like a hound that\n    hunts, but one that fills up the cry. My money is almost spent; I\n    have been tonight exceedingly well cudgeled; and I think the\n    issue will be, I shall have so much experience for my pains; and\n    so, with no money at all and a little more wit, return again to\n    Venice.\n  IAGO. How poor are they that have not patience!\n    What wound did ever heal but by degrees?\n    Thou know'st we work by wit and not by witchcraft,\n    And wit depends on dilatory time.\n    Does't not go well? Cassio hath beaten thee,\n    And thou by that small hurt hast cashier'd Cassio.\n    Though other things grow fair against the sun,\n    Yet fruits that blossom first will first be ripe.\n    Content thyself awhile. By the mass, 'tis morning;\n    Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.\n    Retire thee; go where thou art billeted.\n    Away, I say. Thou shalt know more hereafter.\n    Nay, get thee gone. [Exit Roderigo.] Two things are to be done:\n    My wife must move for Cassio to her mistress-\n    I'll set her on;\n    Myself the while to draw the Moor apart,\n    And bring him jump when he may Cassio find\n    Soliciting his wife. Ay, that's the way;\n    Dull not device by coldness and delay.                      Exit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nBefore the castle.\n\nEnter Cassio and some Musicians.\n\n  CASSIO. Masters, play here, I will content your pains; Something\n    that's brief; and bid \"Good morrow, general.\"\n    Music.\n\n                             Enter Clown.\n\n  CLOWN. Why, masters, have your instruments been in Naples, that\n    they speak i' the nose thus?\n  FIRST MUSICIAN. How, sir, how?\n  CLOWN. Are these, I pray you, wind instruments?\n  FIRST MUSICIAN. Ay, marry, are they, sir.\n  CLOWN. O, thereby hangs a tail.\n  FIRST MUSICIAN. Whereby hangs a tale, sir?\n  CLOWN. Marry, sir, by many a wind instrument that I know. But,\n    masters, here's money for you; and the general so likes your\n    music, that he desires you, for love's sake, to make no more\n    noise with it.\n  FIRST MUSICIAN. Well, sir, we will not.\n  CLOWN. If you have any music that may not be heard, to't again;\n    but, as they say, to hear music the general does not greatly\n    care.\n  FIRST MUSICIAN. We have none such, sir.\n  CLOWN. Then put up your pipes in your bag, for I'll away.\n    Go, vanish into air, away!                      Exeunt Musicians.\n  CASSIO. Dost thou hear, my honest friend?\n  CLOWN. No, I hear not your honest friend; I hear you.\n  CASSIO. Prithee, keep up thy quillets. There's a poor piece of gold\n    for thee. If the gentlewoman that attends the general's wife be\n    stirring, tell her there's one Cassio entreats her a little favor\n    of speech. Wilt thou do this?\n  CLOWN. She is stirring, sir. If she will stir hither, I shall seem\n    to notify unto her.\n  CASSIO. Do, good my friend.                             Exit Clown.\n\n                             Enter Iago.\n\n                              In happy time, Iago.\n  IAGO. You have not been abed, then?\n  CASSIO. Why, no; the day had broke\n    Before we parted. I have made bold, Iago,\n    To send in to your wife. My suit to her\n    Is that she will to virtuous Desdemona\n    Procure me some access.\n  IAGO.                     I'll send her to you presently;\n    And I'll devise a mean to draw the Moor\n    Out of the way, that your converse and business\n    May be more free.\n  CASSIO. I humbly thank you for't. [Exit Iago.] I never knew\n    A Florentine more kind and honest.\n\n                            Enter Emilia.\n\n  EMILIA. Good morrow, good lieutenant. I am sorry\n    For your displeasure, but all will sure be well.\n    The general and his wife are talking of it,\n    And she speaks for you stoutly. The Moor replies\n    That he you hurt is of great fame in Cyprus\n    And great affinity and that in wholesome wisdom\n    He might not but refuse you; but he protests he loves you\n    And needs no other suitor but his likings\n    To take the safest occasion by the front\n    To bring you in again.\n  CASSIO.                  Yet, I beseech you,\n    If you think fit, or that it may be done,\n    Give me advantage of some brief discourse\n    With Desdemona alone.\n  EMILIA.                 Pray you, come in.\n    I will bestow you where you shall have time\n    To speak your bosom freely.\n  CASSIO.                       I am much bound to you.\n   Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA room in the castle.\n\nEnter Othello, Iago, and Gentlemen.\n\n  OTHELLO. These letters give, Iago, to the pilot,\n    And by him do my duties to the Senate.\n    That done, I will be walking on the works;\n    Repair there to me.\n  IAGO.                 Well, my good lord, I'll do't.\n  OTHELLO. This fortification, gentlemen, shall we see't?\n  GENTLEMEN. We'll wait upon your lordship.                   Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe garden of the castle.\n\nEnter Desdemona, Cassio, and Emilia.\n\n  DESDEMONA. Be thou assured, good Cassio, I will do\n    All my abilities in thy behalf.\n  EMILIA. Good madam, do. I warrant it grieves my husband\n    As if the cause were his.\n  DESDEMONA. O, that's an honest fellow. Do not doubt, Cassio,\n    But I will have my lord and you again\n    As friendly as you were.\n  CASSIO.                    Bounteous madam,\n    Whatever shall become of Michael Cassio,\n    He's never anything but your true servant.\n  DESDEMONA. I know't: I thank you. You do love my lord:\n    You have known him long; and be you well assured\n    He shall in strangeness stand no farther off\n    Than in a politic distance.\n  CASSIO.                       Ay, but, lady,\n    That policy may either last so long,\n    Or feed upon such nice and waterish diet,\n    Or breed itself so out of circumstances,\n    That I being absent and my place supplied,\n    My general will forget my love and service.\n  DESDEMONA. Do not doubt that. Before Emilia here\n    I give thee warrant of thy place, assure thee,\n    If I do vow a friendship, I'll perform it\n    To the last article. My lord shall never rest;\n    I'll watch him tame and talk him out of patience;\n    His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift;\n    I'll intermingle everything he does\n    With Cassio's suit. Therefore be merry, Cassio,\n    For thy solicitor shall rather die\n    Than give thy cause away.\n\n                Enter Othello and Iago, at a distance.\n\n  EMILIA. Madam, here comes my lord.\n  CASSIO. Madam, I'll take my leave.\n  DESDEMONA. Nay, stay and hear me speak.\n  CASSIO. Madam, not now. I am very ill at ease,\n    Unfit for mine own purposes.\n  DESDEMONA. Well, do your discretion.                   Exit Cassio.\n  IAGO. Ha! I like not that.\n  OTHELLO. What dost thou say?\n  IAGO. Nothing, my lord; or if- I know not what.\n  OTHELLO. Was not that Cassio parted from my wife?\n  IAGO. Cassio, my lord! No, sure, I cannot think it,\n    That he would steal away so guilty-like,\n    Seeing you coming.\n  OTHELLO.             I do believe 'twas he.\n  DESDEMONA. How now, my lord!\n    I have been talking with a suitor here,\n    A man that languishes in your displeasure.\n  OTHELLO. Who is't you mean?\n  DESDEMONA. Why, your lieutenant, Cassio. Good my lord,\n    If I have any grace or power to move you,\n    His present reconciliation take;\n    For if he be not one that truly loves you,\n    That errs in ignorance and not in cunning,\n    I have no judgement in an honest face.\n    I prithee, call him back.\n  OTHELLO.                    Went he hence now?\n  DESDEMONA. Ay, sooth; so humbled\n    That he hath left part of his grief with me\n    To suffer with him. Good love, call him back.\n  OTHELLO. Not now, sweet Desdemona; some other time.\n  DESDEMONA. But shall't be shortly?\n  OTHELLO.                           The sooner, sweet, for you.\n  DESDEMONA. Shall't be tonight at supper?\n  OTHELLO.                                 No, not tonight.\n  DESDEMONA. Tomorrow dinner then?\n  OTHELLO.                         I shall not dine at home;\n    I meet the captains at the citadel.\n  DESDEMONA. Why then tomorrow night, or Tuesday morn,\n    On Tuesday noon, or night, on Wednesday morn.\n    I prithee, name the time, but let it not\n    Exceed three days. In faith, he's penitent;\n    And yet his trespass, in our common reason-\n    Save that, they say, the wars must make example\n    Out of their best- is not almost a fault\n    To incur a private check. When shall he come?\n    Tell me, Othello. I wonder in my soul,\n    What you would ask me, that I should deny,\n    Or stand so mammering on. What? Michael Cassio,\n    That came awooing with you, and so many a time\n    When I have spoke of you dispraisingly\n    Hath ta'en your part- to have so much to do\n    To bring him in! Trust me, I could do much-\n  OTHELLO. Prithee, no more. Let him come when he will;\n    I will deny thee nothing.\n  DESDEMONA.                  Why, this is not a boon;\n    'Tis as I should entreat you wear your gloves,\n    Or feed on nourishing dishes, or keep you warm,\n    Or sue to you to do a peculiar profit\n    To your own person. Nay, when I have a suit\n    Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed,\n    It shall be full of poise and difficult weight,\n    And fearful to be granted.\n  OTHELLO.                     I will deny thee nothing,\n    Whereon, I do beseech thee, grant me this,\n    To leave me but a little to myself.\n  DESDEMONA. Shall I deny you? No. Farewell, my lord.\n  OTHELLO. Farewell, my Desdemona; I'll come to thee straight.\n  DESDEMONA. Emilia, come. Be as your fancies teach you;\n    Whate'er you be, I am obedient.\n                                         Exeunt Desdemona and Emilia.\n  OTHELLO. Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul,\n    But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,\n    Chaos is come again.\n  IAGO. My noble lord-\n  OTHELLO.             What dost thou say, Iago?\n  IAGO. Did Michael Cassio, when you woo'd my lady,\n    Know of your love?\n  OTHELLO. He did, from first to last. Why dost thou ask?\n  IAGO. But for a satisfaction of my thought;\n    No further harm.\n  OTHELLO.           Why of thy thought, Iago?\n  IAGO. I did not think he had been acquainted with her.\n  OTHELLO. O, yes, and went between us very oft.\n  IAGO. Indeed!\n  OTHELLO. Indeed? ay, indeed. Discern'st thou aught in that?\n    Is he not honest?\n  IAGO. Honest, my lord?\n  OTHELLO. Honest? Ay, honest.\n  IAGO. My lord, for aught I know.\n  OTHELLO. What dost thou think?\n  IAGO. Think, my lord?\n  OTHELLO. Think, my lord? By heaven, he echoes me,\n    As if there were some monster in his thought\n    Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something.\n    I heard thee say even now, thou like'st not that,\n    When Cassio left my wife. What didst not like?\n    And when I told thee he was of my counsel\n    In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst, \"Indeed!\"\n    And didst contract and purse thy brow together,\n    As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain\n    Some horrible conceit. If thou dost love me,\n    Show me thy thought.\n  IAGO. My lord, you know I love you.\n  OTHELLO.                            I think thou dost;\n    And for I know thou'rt full of love and honesty\n    And weigh'st thy words before thou givest them breath,\n    Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more;\n    For such things in a false disloyal knave\n    Are tricks of custom; but in a man that's just\n    They're close dilations, working from the heart,\n    That passion cannot rule.\n  IAGO.                       For Michael Cassio,\n    I dare be sworn I think that he is honest.\n  OTHELLO. I think so too.\n  IAGO.                    Men should be what they seem;\n    Or those that be not, would they might seem none!\n  OTHELLO. Certain, men should be what they seem.\n  IAGO. Why then I think Cassio's an honest man.\n  OTHELLO. Nay, yet there's more in this.\n    I prithee, speak to me as to thy thinkings,\n    As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts\n    The worst of words.\n  IAGO.                 Good my lord, pardon me;\n    Though I am bound to every act of duty,\n    I am not bound to that all slaves are free to.\n    Utter my thoughts? Why, say they are vile and false;\n    As where's that palace whereinto foul things\n    Sometimes intrude not? Who has a breast so pure,\n    But some uncleanly apprehensions\n    Keep leets and law-days, and in session sit\n    With meditations lawful?\n  OTHELLO. Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago,\n    If thou but think'st him wrong'd and makest his ear\n    A stranger to thy thoughts.\n  IAGO.                         I do beseech you-\n    Though I perchance am vicious in my guess,\n    As, I confess, it is my nature's plague\n    To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy\n    Shapes faults that are not- that your wisdom yet,\n    From one that so imperfectly conceits,\n    Would take no notice, nor build yourself a trouble\n    Out of his scattering and unsure observance.\n    It were not for your quiet nor your good,\n    Nor for my manhood, honesty, or wisdom,\n    To let you know my thoughts.\n  OTHELLO.                       What dost thou mean?\n  IAGO. Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,\n    Is the immediate jewel of their souls.\n    Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;\n    'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;\n    But he that filches from me my good name\n    Robs me of that which not enriches him\n    And makes me poor indeed.\n  OTHELLO. By heaven, I'll know thy thoughts.\n  IAGO. You cannot, if my heart were in your hand;\n    Nor shall not, whilst 'tis in my custody.\n  OTHELLO. Ha!\n  IAGO.        O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!\n    It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock\n    The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss\n    Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;\n    But O, what damned minutes tells he o'er\n    Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!\n  OTHELLO. O misery!\n  IAGO. Poor and content is rich, and rich enough;\n    But riches fineless is as poor as winter\n    To him that ever fears he shall be poor.\n    Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend\n    From jealousy!\n  OTHELLO.         Why, why is this?\n    Think'st thou I'ld make a life of jealousy,\n    To follow still the changes of the moon\n    With fresh suspicions? No! To be once in doubt\n    Is once to be resolved. Exchange me for a goat\n    When I shall turn the business of my soul\n    To such exsufflicate and blown surmises,\n    Matching thy inference. 'Tis not to make me jealous\n    To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,\n    Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well;\n    Where virtue is, these are more virtuous.\n    Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw\n    The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt;\n    For she had eyes and chose me. No, Iago,\n    I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;\n    And on the proof, there is no more but this-\n    Away at once with love or jealousy!\n  IAGO. I am glad of it, for now I shall have reason\n    To show the love and duty that I bear you\n    With franker spirit. Therefore, as I am bound,\n    Receive it from me. I speak not yet of proof.\n    Look to your wife; observe her well with Cassio;\n    Wear your eye thus, not jealous nor secure.\n    I would not have your free and noble nature\n    Out of self-bounty be abused. Look to't.\n    I know our country disposition well;\n    In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks\n    They dare not show their husbands; their best conscience\n    Is not to leave't undone, but keep't unknown.\n  OTHELLO. Dost thou say so?\n  IAGO. She did deceive her father, marrying you;\n    And when she seem'd to shake and fear your looks,\n    She loved them most.\n  OTHELLO.               And so she did.\n  IAGO.                                  Why, go to then.\n    She that so young could give out such a seeming,\n    To seel her father's eyes up close as oak-\n    He thought 'twas witchcraft- but I am much to blame;\n    I humbly do beseech you of your pardon\n    For too much loving you.\n  OTHELLO.                   I am bound to thee forever.\n  IAGO. I see this hath a little dash'd your spirits.\n  OTHELLO. Not a jot, not a jot.\n  IAGO.                          I'faith, I fear it has.\n    I hope you will consider what is spoke\n    Comes from my love. But I do see you're moved;\n    I am to pray you not to strain my speech\n    To grosser issues nor to larger reach\n    Than to suspicion.\n  OTHELLO. I will not.\n  IAGO.                Should you do so, my lord,\n    My speech should fall into such vile success\n    Which my thoughts aim not at. Cassio's my worthy friend-\n    My lord, I see you're moved.\n  OTHELLO.                       No, not much moved.\n    I do not think but Desdemona's honest.\n  IAGO. Long live she so! and long live you to think so!\n  OTHELLO. And yet, how nature erring from itself-\n  IAGO. Ay, there's the point, as- to be bold with you-\n    Not to affect many proposed matches\n    Of her own clime, complexion, and degree,\n    Whereto we see in all things nature tends-\n    Foh, one may smell in such a will most rank,\n    Foul disproportion, thoughts unnatural.\n    But pardon me. I do not in position\n    Distinctly speak of her; though I may fear,\n    Her will, recoiling to her better judgement,\n    May fall to match you with her country forms,\n    And happily repent.\n  OTHELLO.              Farewell, farewell.\n    If more thou dost perceive, let me know more;\n    Set on thy wife to observe. Leave me, Iago.\n  IAGO. [Going.] My lord, I take my leave.\n  OTHELLO. Why did I marry? This honest creature doubtless\n    Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds.\n  IAGO. [Returning.] My lord, I would I might entreat your honor\n    To scan this thing no further; leave it to time.\n    Though it be fit that Cassio have his place,\n    For sure he fills it up with great ability,\n    Yet, if you please to hold him off awhile,\n    You shall by that perceive him and his means.\n    Note if your lady strain his entertainment\n    With any strong or vehement importunity;\n    Much will be seen in that. In the meantime,\n    Let me be thought too busy in my fears-\n    As worthy cause I have to fear I am-\n    And hold her free, I do beseech your honor.\n  OTHELLO. Fear not my government.\n  IAGO. I once more take my leave.                              Exit.\n  OTHELLO. This fellow's of exceeding honesty,\n    And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit,\n    Of human dealings. If I do prove her haggard,\n    Though that her jesses were my dear heartstrings,\n    I'ld whistle her off and let her down the wind\n    To prey at fortune. Haply, for I am black\n    And have not those soft parts of conversation\n    That chamberers have, or for I am declined\n    Into the vale of years- yet that's not much-\n    She's gone. I am abused, and my relief\n    Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage,\n    That we can call these delicate creatures ours,\n    And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad,\n    And live upon the vapor of a dungeon,\n    Than keep a corner in the thing I love\n    For others' uses. Yet, 'tis the plague of great ones:\n    Prerogatived are they less than the base;\n    'Tis destiny unshunnable, like death.\n    Even then this forked plague is fated to us\n    When we do quicken. Desdemona comes:\n\n                    Re-enter Desdemona and Emilia.\n\n    If she be false, O, then heaven mocks itself!\n    I'll not believe't.\n  DESDEMONA.            How now, my dear Othello!\n    Your dinner, and the generous islanders\n    By you invited, do attend your presence.\n  OTHELLO. I am to blame.\n  DESDEMONA.              Why do you speak so faintly?\n    Are you not well?\n  OTHELLO. I have a pain upon my forehead here.\n  DESDEMONA. Faith, that's with watching; 'twill away again.\n    Let me but bind it hard, within this hour\n    It will be well.\n  OTHELLO.           Your napkin is too little;\n            He puts the handkerchief from him, and she drops it.\n    Let it alone. Come, I'll go in with you.\n  DESDEMONA. I am very sorry that you are not well.\n                                        Exeunt Othello and Desdemona.\n  EMILIA. I am glad I have found this napkin;\n    This was her first remembrance from the Moor.\n    My wayward husband hath a hundred times\n    Woo'd me to steal it; but she so loves the token,\n    For he conjured her she should ever keep it,\n    That she reserves it evermore about her\n    To kiss and talk to. I'll have the work ta'en out,\n    And give't Iago. What he will do with it\n    Heaven knows, not I;\n    I nothing but to please his fantasy.\n\n                            Re-enter Iago.\n\n  IAGO. How now, what do you here alone?\n  EMILIA. Do not you chide; I have a thing for you.\n  IAGO. A thing for me? It is a common thing-\n  EMILIA. Ha!\n  IAGO. To have a foolish wife.\n  EMILIA. O, is that all? What will you give me now\n    For that same handkerchief?\n  IAGO.                         What handkerchief?\n  EMILIA. What handkerchief?\n    Why, that the Moor first gave to Desdemona,\n    That which so often you did bid me steal.\n  IAGO. Hast stol'n it from her?\n  EMILIA. No, faith; she let it drop by negligence,\n    And, to the advantage, I being here took't up.\n    Look, here it is.\n  IAGO.               A good wench; give it me.\n  EMILIA. What will you do with't, that you have been so earnest\n    To have me filch it?\n  IAGO. [Snatching it.] Why, what is that to you?\n  EMILIA. If't be not for some purpose of import,\n    Give't me again. Poor lady, she'll run mad\n    When she shall lack it.\n  IAGO. Be not acknown on't; I have use for it.\n    Go, leave me.                                        Exit Emilia.\n    I will in Cassio's lodging lose this napkin,\n    And let him find it. Trifles light as air\n    Are to the jealous confirmations strong\n    As proofs of holy writ; this may do something.\n    The Moor already changes with my poison:\n    Dangerous conceits are in their natures poisons,\n    Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,\n    But with a little act upon the blood\n    Burn like the mines of sulphur. I did say so.\n    Look, where he comes!\n\n                          Re-enter Othello.\n\n                          Not poppy, nor mandragora,\n    Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,\n    Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep\n    Which thou owedst yesterday.\n  OTHELLO.                       Ha, ha, false to me?\n  IAGO. Why, how now, general! No more of that.\n  OTHELLO. Avaunt! be gone! Thou hast set me on the rack.\n    I swear 'tis better to be much abused\n    Than but to know't a little.\n  IAGO.                          How now, my lord?\n  OTHELLO. What sense had I of her stol'n hours of lust?\n    I saw't not, thought it not, it harm'd not me;\n    I slept the next night well, was free and merry;\n    I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips.\n    He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stol'n,\n    Let him not know't and he's not robb'd at all.\n  IAGO. I am sorry to hear this.\n  OTHELLO. I had been happy if the general camp,\n    Pioners and all, had tasted her sweet body,\n    So I had nothing known. O, now forever\n    Farewell the tranquil mind! Farewell content!\n    Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars\n    That make ambition virtue! O, farewell,\n    Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,\n    The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,\n    The royal banner, and all quality,\n    Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!\n    And O you mortal engines, whose rude throats\n    The immortal Jove's dread clamors counterfeit,\n    Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!\n  IAGO. Is't possible, my lord?\n  OTHELLO. Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore;\n    Be sure of it. Give me the ocular proof;\n    Or, by the worth of man's eternal soul,\n    Thou hadst been better have been born a dog\n    Than answer my waked wrath!\n  IAGO.                         Is't come to this?\n  OTHELLO. Make me to see't; or at the least so prove it,\n    That the probation bear no hinge nor loop\n    To hang a doubt on; or woe upon thy life!\n  IAGO. My noble lord-\n  OTHELLO. If thou dost slander her and torture me,\n    Never pray more; abandon all remorse;\n    On horror's head horrors accumulate;\n    Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amazed;\n    For nothing canst thou to damnation add\n    Greater than that.\n  IAGO.                O grace! O heaven defend me!\n    Are you a man? have you a soul or sense?\n    God be wi' you; take mine office. O wretched fool,\n    That livest to make thine honesty a vice!\n    O monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world,\n    To be direct and honest is not safe.\n    I thank you for this profit, and from hence\n    I'll love no friend sith love breeds such offense.\n  OTHELLO. Nay, stay; thou shouldst be honest.\n  IAGO. I should be wise; for honesty's a fool,\n    And loses that it works for.\n  OTHELLO.                       By the world,\n    I think my wife be honest, and think she is not;\n    I think that thou art just, and think thou art not.\n    I'll have some proof. Her name, that was as fresh\n    As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black\n    As mine own face. If there be cords or knives,\n    Poison or fire, or suffocating streams,\n    I'll not endure it. Would I were satisfied!\n  IAGO. I see, sir, you are eaten up with passion;\n    I do repent me that I put it to you.\n    You would be satisfied?\n  OTHELLO.                  Would? Nay, I will.\n  IAGO. And may. But, how? how satisfied, my lord?\n    Would you, the supervisor, grossly gape on?\n    Behold her topp'd?\n  OTHELLO.             Death and damnation! O!\n  IAGO. It were a tedious difficulty, I think,\n    To bring them to that prospect. Damn them then,\n    If ever mortal eyes do see them bolster\n    More than their own! What then? how then?\n    What shall I say? Where's satisfaction?\n    It is impossible you should see this\n    Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys,\n    As salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross\n    As ignorance made drunk. But yet, I say,\n    If imputation and strong circumstances,\n    Which lead directly to the door of truth,\n    Will give you satisfaction, you may have't.\n  OTHELLO. Give me a living reason she's disloyal.\n  IAGO. I do not like the office;\n    But sith I am enter'd in this cause so far,\n    Prick'd to't by foolish honesty and love,\n    I will go on. I lay with Cassio lately\n    And, being troubled with a raging tooth,\n    I could not sleep.\n    There are a kind of men so loose of soul,\n    That in their sleeps will mutter their affairs;\n    One of this kind is Cassio.\n    In sleep I heard him say, \"Sweet Desdemona,\n    Let us be wary, let us hide our loves\";\n    And then, sir, would he gripe and wring my hand,\n    Cry, \"O sweet creature!\" and then kiss me hard,\n    As if he pluck'd up kisses by the roots,\n    That grew upon my lips; then laid his leg\n    Over my thigh, and sigh'd and kiss'd; and then\n    Cried, \"Cursed fate that gave thee to the Moor!\"\n  OTHELLO. O monstrous! monstrous!\n  IAGO.                            Nay, this was but his dream.\n  OTHELLO. But this denoted a foregone conclusion.\n    'Tis a shrewd doubt, though it be but a dream.\n  IAGO. And this may help to thicken other proofs\n    That do demonstrate thinly.\n  OTHELLO.                      I'll tear her all to pieces.\n  IAGO. Nay, but be wise; yet we see nothing done;\n    She may be honest yet. Tell me but this;\n    Have you not sometimes seen a handkerchief\n    Spotted with strawberries in your wife's hand?\n  OTHELLO. I gave her such a one; 'twas my first gift.\n  IAGO. I know not that; but such a handkerchief-\n    I am sure it was your wife's- did I today\n    See Cassio wipe his beard with.\n  OTHELLO.                          If it be that-\n  IAGO. If it be that, or any that was hers,\n    It speaks against her with the other proofs.\n  OTHELLO. O, that the slave had forty thousand lives!\n    One is too poor, too weak for my revenge.\n    Now do I see 'tis true. Look here, Iago,\n    All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven.\n    'Tis gone.\n    Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow hell!\n    Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne\n    To tyrannous hate! Swell, bosom, with thy fraught,\n    For 'tis of aspics' tongues!\n  IAGO.                          Yet be content.\n  OTHELLO. O, blood, blood, blood!\n  IAGO. Patience, I say; your mind perhaps may change.\n  OTHELLO. Never, Iago. Like to the Pontic Sea,\n    Whose icy current and compulsive course\n    Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on\n    To the Propontic and the Hellespont,\n    Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,\n    Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,\n    Till that a capable and wide revenge\n    Swallow them up. Now, by yond marble heaven,\n    In the due reverence of a sacred vow                      Kneels.\n    I here engage my words.\n  IAGO.                     Do not rise yet.                  Kneels.\n    Witness, you ever-burning lights above,\n    You elements that clip us round about,\n    Witness that here Iago doth give up\n    The execution of his wit, hands, heart,\n    To wrong'd Othello's service! Let him command,\n    And to obey shall be in me remorse,\n    What bloody business ever.                             They rise.\n  OTHELLO.                     I greet thy love,\n    Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance bounteous,\n    And will upon the instant put thee to't:\n    Within these three days let me hear thee say\n    That Cassio's not alive.\n  IAGO. My friend is dead, 'tis done at your request;\n    But let her live.\n  OTHELLO.            Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her!\n    Come, go with me apart; I will withdraw,\n    To furnish me with some swift means of death\n    For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant.\n  IAGO. I am your own forever.                                Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nBefore the castle.\n\nEnter Desdemona, Emilia, and Clown.\n\n  DESDEMONA. Do you know, sirrah, where Lieutenant Cassio lies?\n  CLOWN. I dare not say he lies anywhere.\n  DESDEMONA. Why, man?\n  CLOWN. He's a soldier; and for one to say a soldier lies, is\n    stabbing.\n  DESDEMONA. Go to! Where lodges he?\n  CLOWN. To tell you where he lodges, is to tell you where I lie.\n  DESDEMONA. Can anything be made of this?\n  CLOWN. I know not where he lodges, and for me to devise a lodging,\n    and say he lies here or he lies there, were to lie in mine own\n    throat.\n  DESDEMONA. Can you inquire him out and be edified by report?\n  CLOWN. I will catechize the world for him; that is, make questions\n    and by them answer.\n  DESDEMONA. Seek him, bid him come hither. Tell him I have moved my\n    lord on his behalf and hope all will be well.\n  CLOWN. To do this is within the compass of man's wit, and therefore\n    I will attempt the doing it.                                Exit.\n  DESDEMONA. Where should I lose that handkerchief, Emilia?\n  EMILIA. I know not, madam.\n  DESDEMONA. Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse\n    Full of crusadoes; and, but my noble Moor\n    Is true of mind and made of no such baseness\n    As jealous creatures are, it were enough\n    To put him to ill thinking.\n  EMILIA.                       Is he not jealous?\n  DESDEMONA. Who, he? I think the sun where he was born\n    Drew all such humors from him.\n  EMILIA.                          Look, where he comes.\n  DESDEMONA. I will not leave him now till Cassio\n    Be call'd to him.\n\n                            Enter Othello.\n\n                      How is't with you, my lord?\n  OTHELLO. Well, my good lady. [Aside.] O, hardness to dissemble!\n    How do you, Desdemona?\n  DESDEMONA.               Well, my good lord.\n  OTHELLO. Give me your hand. This hand is moist, my lady.\n  DESDEMONA. It yet has felt no age nor known no sorrow.\n  OTHELLO. This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart;\n    Hot, hot, and moist. This hand of yours requires\n    A sequester from liberty, fasting, and prayer,\n    Much castigation, exercise devout,\n    For here's a young and sweating devil here\n    That commonly rebels. 'Tis a good hand,\n    A frank one.\n  DESDEMONA. You may, indeed, say so;\n    For 'twas that hand that gave away my heart.\n  OTHELLO. A liberal hand. The hearts of old gave hands;\n    But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.\n  DESDEMONA. I cannot speak of this. Come now, your promise.\n  OTHELLO. What promise, chuck?\n  DESDEMONA. I have sent to bid Cassio come speak with you.\n  OTHELLO. I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me;\n    Lend me thy handkerchief.\n  DESDEMONA. Here, my lord.\n  OTHELLO. That which I gave you.\n  DESDEMONA. I have it not about me.\n  OTHELLO. Not?\n  DESDEMONA. No, faith, my lord.\n  OTHELLO. That's a fault. That handkerchief\n    Did an Egyptian to my mother give;\n    She was a charmer, and could almost read\n    The thoughts of people. She told her, while she kept it,\n    'Twould make her amiable and subdue my father\n    Entirely to her love, but if she lost it\n    Or made a gift of it, my father's eye\n    Should hold her loathed and his spirits should hunt\n    After new fancies. She dying gave it me,\n    And bid me, when my fate would have me wive,\n    To give it her. I did so, and take heed on't;\n    Make it a darling like your precious eye;\n    To lose't or give't away were such perdition\n    As nothing else could match.\n  DESDEMONA.                     Is't possible?\n  OTHELLO. 'Tis true; there's magic in the web of it.\n    A sibyl, that had number'd in the world\n    The sun to course two hundred compasses,\n    In her prophetic fury sew'd the work;\n    The worms were hallow'd that did breed the silk,\n    And it was dyed in mummy which the skillful\n    Conserved of maiden's hearts.\n  DESDEMONA.                      Indeed! is't true?\n  OTHELLO. Most veritable; therefore look to't well.\n  DESDEMONA. Then would to God that I had never seen't!\n  OTHELLO. Ha! wherefore?\n  DESDEMONA. Why do you speak so startingly and rash?\n  OTHELLO. Is't lost? is't gone? speak, is it out o' the way?\n  DESDEMONA. Heaven bless us!\n  OTHELLO. Say you?\n  DESDEMONA. It is not lost; but what an if it were?\n  OTHELLO. How?\n  DESDEMONA. I say, it is not lost.\n  OTHELLO. Fetch't, let me see it.\n  DESDEMONA. Why, so I can, sir, but I will not now.\n    This is a trick to put me from my suit.\n    Pray you, let Cassio be received again.\n  OTHELLO. Fetch me the handkerchief, my mind misgives.\n  DESDEMONA. Come, come,\n    You'll never meet a more sufficient man.\n  OTHELLO. The handkerchief!\n  DESDEMONA.                 I pray, talk me of Cassio.\n  OTHELLO. The handkerchief!\n  DESDEMONA.                 A man that all his time\n    Hath founded his good fortunes on your love,\n    Shared dangers with you-\n  OTHELLO. The handkerchief!\n  DESDEMONA. In sooth, you are to blame.\n  OTHELLO. Away!                                                Exit.\n  EMILIA. Is not this man jealous?\n  DESDEMONA. I ne'er saw this before.\n    Sure there's some wonder in this handkerchief;\n    I am most unhappy in the loss of it.\n  EMILIA. 'Tis not a year or two shows us a man.\n    They are all but stomachs and we all but food;\n    They eat us hungerly, and when they are full\n    They belch us. Look you! Cassio and my husband.\n\n                        Enter Cassio and Iago.\n\n  IAGO. There is no other way; 'tis she must do't.\n    And, lo, the happiness! Go and importune her.\n  DESDEMONA. How now, good Cassio! What's the news with you?\n  CASSIO. Madam, my former suit: I do beseech you\n    That by your virtuous means I may again\n    Exist and be a member of his love\n    Whom I with all the office of my heart\n    Entirely honor. I would not be delay'd.\n    If my offense be of such mortal kind\n    That nor my service past nor present sorrows\n    Nor purposed merit in futurity\n    Can ransom me into his love again,\n    But to know so must be my benefit;\n    So shall I clothe me in a forced content\n    And shut myself up in some other course\n    To Fortune's alms.\n  DESDEMONA.           Alas, thrice-gentle Cassio!\n    My advocation is not now in tune;\n    My lord is not my lord, nor should I know him\n    Were he in favor as in humor alter'd.\n    So help me every spirit sanctified,\n    As I have spoken for you all my best\n    And stood within the blank of his displeasure\n    For my free speech! You must awhile be patient.\n    What I can do I will; and more I will\n    Than for myself I dare. Let that suffice you.\n  IAGO. Is my lord angry?\n  EMILIA.                 He went hence but now,\n    And certainly in strange unquietness.\n  IAGO. Can he be angry? I have seen the cannon,\n    When it hath blown his ranks into the air\n    And, like the devil, from his very arm\n    Puff'd his own brother. And can he be angry?\n    Something of moment then. I will go meet him.\n    There's matter in't indeed if he be angry.\n  DESDEMONA. I prithee, do so.                             Exit Iago.\n                               Something sure of state,\n    Either from Venice or some unhatch'd practice\n    Made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him,\n    Hath puddled his clear spirit; and in such cases\n    Men's natures wrangle with inferior things,\n    Though great ones are their object. 'Tis even so;\n    For let our finger ache, and it indues\n    Our other healthful members even to that sense\n    Of pain. Nay, we must think men are not gods,\n    Nor of them look for such observancy\n    As fits the bridal. Beshrew me much, Emilia,\n    I was, unhandsome warrior as I am,\n    Arraigning his unkindness with my soul;\n    But now I find I had suborn'd the witness,\n    And he's indicted falsely.\n  EMILIA. Pray heaven it be state matters, as you think,\n    And no conception nor no jealous toy\n    Concerning you.\n  DESDEMONA. Alas the day, I never gave him cause!\n  EMILIA. But jealous souls will not be answer'd so;\n    They are not ever jealous for the cause,\n    But jealous for they are jealous. 'Tis a monster\n    Begot upon itself, born on itself.\n  DESDEMONA. Heaven keep that monster from Othello's mind!\n  EMILIA. Lady, amen.\n  DESDEMONA. I will go seek him. Cassio, walk hereabout.\n    If I do find him fit, I'll move your suit,\n    And seek to effect it to my uttermost.\n  CASSIO. I humbly thank your ladyship.\n                                         Exeunt Desdemona and Emilia.\n\n                            Enter Bianca.\n\n  BIANCA. Save you, friend Cassio!\n  CASSIO.                          What make you from home?\n    How is it with you, my most fair Bianca?\n    I'faith, sweet love, I was coming to your house.\n  BIANCA. And I was going to your lodging, Cassio.\n    What, keep a week away? seven days and nights?\n    Eight score eight hours? and lovers' absent hours,\n    More tedious than the dial eight score times?\n    O weary reckoning!\n  CASSIO.              Pardon me, Bianca.\n    I have this while with leaden thoughts been press'd;\n    But I shall in a more continuate time\n    Strike off this score of absence. Sweet Bianca,\n                                  Gives her Desdemona's handkerchief.\n    Take me this work out.\n  BIANCA.                  O Cassio, whence came this?\n    This is some token from a newer friend.\n    To the felt absence now I feel a cause.\n    Is't come to this? Well, well.\n  CASSIO.                          Go to, woman!\n    Throw your vile guesses in the devil's teeth,\n    From whence you have them. You are jealous now\n    That this is from some mistress, some remembrance.\n    No, by my faith, Bianca.\n  BIANCA.                    Why, whose is it?\n  CASSIO. I know not, sweet. I found it in my chamber.\n    I like the work well. Ere it be demanded-\n    As like enough it will- I'ld have it copied.\n    Take it, and do't; and leave me for this time.\n  BIANCA. Leave you! wherefore?\n  CASSIO. I do attend here on the general;\n    And think it no addition, nor my wish,\n    To have him see me woman'd.\n  BIANCA.                       Why, I pray you?\n  CASSIO. Not that I love you not.\n  BIANCA.                          But that you do not love me.\n    I pray you, bring me on the way a little,\n    And say if I shall see you soon at night.\n  CASSIO. 'Tis but a little way that I can bring you,\n    For I attend here, but I'll see you soon.\n  BIANCA. 'Tis very good; I must be circumstanced.            Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nCyprus. Before the castle.\n\nEnter Othello and Iago.\n\n  IAGO. Will you think so?\n  OTHELLO.                 Think so, Iago?\n  IAGO.                                    What,\n    To kiss in private?\n  OTHELLO.              An unauthorized kiss.\n  IAGO. Or to be naked with her friend in bed\n    An hour or more, not meaning any harm?\n  OTHELLO. Naked in bed, Iago, and not mean harm!\n    It is hypocrisy against the devil.\n    They that mean virtuously and yet do so,\n    The devil their virtue tempts and they tempt heaven.\n  IAGO. So they do nothing, 'tis a venial slip.\n    But if I give my wife a handkerchief-\n  OTHELLO. What then?\n  IAGO. Why, then, 'tis hers, my lord, and being hers,\n    She may, I think, bestow't on any man.\n  OTHELLO. She is protectress of her honor too.\n    May she give that?\n  IAGO. Her honor is an essence that's not seen;\n    They have it very oft that have it not.\n    But for the handkerchief-\n  OTHELLO. By heaven, I would most gladly have forgot it.\n    Thou said'st- O, it comes o'er my memory,\n    As doth the raven o'er the infected house,\n    Boding to all- he had my handkerchief.\n  IAGO. Ay, what of that?\n  OTHELLO.                That's not so good now.\n  IAGO.                                           What,\n    If I had said I had seen him do you wrong?\n    Or heard him say- as knaves be such abroad,\n    Who having, by their own importunate suit,\n    Or voluntary dotage of some mistress,\n    Convinced or supplied them, cannot choose\n    But they must blab-\n  OTHELLO.              Hath he said anything?\n  IAGO. He hath, my lord; but be you well assured,\n    No more than he'll unswear.\n  OTHELLO.                      What hath he said?\n  IAGO. Faith, that he did- I know not what he did.\n  OTHELLO. What? what?\n  IAGO. Lie-\n  OTHELLO. With her?\n  IAGO.              With her, on her, what you will.\n  OTHELLO. Lie with her! lie on her! We say lie on her, when they\n    belie her. Lie with her! 'Zounds, that's fulsome! Handkerchief-\n    confessions- handkerchief! To confess and be hanged for his labor-\n    first, to be hanged, and then to confess. I tremble at it.\n    Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing passion without\n    some instruction. It is not words that shakes me thus. Pish!\n    Noses, ears, and lips. Is't possible? Confess? Handkerchief? O\n    devil!\n                                                   Falls in a trance.\n  IAGO. Work on,\n    My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught,\n    And many worthy and chaste dames even thus,\n    All guiltless, meet reproach. What, ho! My lord!\n    My lord, I say! Othello!\n\n                            Enter Cassio.\n\n                             How now, Cassio!\n  CASSIO. What's the matter?\n  IAGO. My lord is fall'n into an epilepsy.\n    This is his second fit; he had one yesterday.\n  CASSIO. Rub him about the temples.\n  IAGO.                              No, forbear;\n    The lethargy must have his quiet course.\n    If not, he foams at mouth, and by and by\n    Breaks out to savage madness. Look, he stirs.\n    Do you withdraw yourself a little while,\n    He will recover straight. When he is gone,\n    I would on great occasion speak with you.            Exit Cassio.\n    How is it, general? Have you not hurt your head?\n  OTHELLO. Dost thou mock me?\n  IAGO.                       I mock you? No, by heaven.\n    Would you would bear your fortune like a man!\n  OTHELLO. A horned man's a monster and a beast.\n  IAGO. There's many a beast then in a populous city,\n    And many a civil monster.\n  OTHELLO. Did he confess it?\n  IAGO.                       Good sir, be a man;\n    Think every bearded fellow that's but yoked\n    May draw with you. There's millions now alive\n    That nightly lie in those unproper beds\n    Which they dare swear peculiar. Your case is better.\n    O, 'tis the spite of hell, the fiend's arch-mock,\n    To lip a wanton in a secure couch,\n    And to suppose her chaste! No, let me know,\n    And knowing what I am, I know what she shall be.\n  OTHELLO. O, thou art wise; 'tis certain.\n  IAGO.                                    Stand you awhile apart,\n    Confine yourself but in a patient list.\n    Whilst you were here o'erwhelmed with your grief-\n    A passion most unsuiting such a man-\n    Cassio came hither. I shifted him away,\n    And laid good 'scuse upon your ecstasy;\n    Bade him anon return and here speak with me\n    The which he promised. Do but encave yourself\n    And mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable scorns,\n    That dwell in every region of his face;\n    For I will make him tell the tale anew,\n    Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and when\n    He hath and is again to cope your wife.\n    I say, but mark his gesture. Marry, patience,\n    Or I shall say you are all in all in spleen,\n    And nothing of a man.\n  OTHELLO.                Dost thou hear, Iago?\n    I will be found most cunning in my patience;\n    But (dost thou hear?) most bloody.\n  IAGO.                                That's not amiss;\n    But yet keep time in all. Will you withdraw?\n                                                     Othello retires.\n    Now will I question Cassio of Bianca,\n    A housewife that by selling her desires\n    Buys herself bread and clothes. It is a creature\n    That dotes on Cassio, as 'tis the strumpet's plague\n    To beguile many and be beguiled by one.\n    He, when he hears of her, cannot refrain\n    From the excess of laughter. Here he comes.\n\n                           Re-enter Cassio.\n\n    As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad;\n    And his unbookish jealousy must construe\n    Poor Cassio's smiles, gestures, and light behavior\n    Quite in the wrong. How do you now, lieutenant?\n  CASSIO. The worser that you give me the addition\n    Whose want even kills me.\n  IAGO. Ply Desdemona well, and you are sure on't.\n    Now, if this suit lay in Bianco's power,\n    How quickly should you speed!\n  CASSIO.                         Alas, poor caitiff!\n  OTHELLO. Look, how he laughs already!\n  IAGO. I never knew a woman love man so.\n  CASSIO. Alas, poor rogue! I think, i'faith, she loves me.\n  OTHELLO. Now he denies it faintly and laughs it out.\n  IAGO. Do you hear, Cassio?\n  OTHELLO.                   Now he importunes him\n    To tell it o'er. Go to; well said, well said.\n  IAGO. She gives it out that you shall marry her.\n    Do you intend it?\n  CASSIO. Ha, ha, ha!\n  OTHELLO. Do you triumph, Roman? Do you triumph?\n  CASSIO. I marry her! What? A customer! I prithee, bear some charity\n    to my wit; do not think it so unwholesome. Ha, ha, ha!\n  OTHELLO. So, so, so, so. They laugh that win.\n  IAGO. Faith, the cry goes that you shall marry her.\n  CASSIO. Prithee, say true.\n  IAGO. I am a very villain else.\n  OTHELLO. Have you scored me? Well.\n  CASSIO. This is the monkey's own giving out. She is persuaded I\n    will marry her, out of her own love and flattery, not out of my\n    promise.\n  OTHELLO. Iago beckons me; now he begins the story.\n  CASSIO. She was here even now; she haunts me in every place. I was\n    the other day talking on the sea bank with certain Venetians, and\n    thither comes the bauble, and, by this hand, she falls me thus\n    about my neck-\n  OTHELLO. Crying, \"O dear Cassio!\" as it were; his gesture imports\n    it.\n  CASSIO. So hangs and lolls and weeps upon me; so hales and pulls\n    me. Ha, ha, ha!\n  OTHELLO. Now he tells how she plucked him to my chamber. O, I see\n    that nose of yours, but not that dog I shall throw it to.\n  CASSIO. Well, I must leave her company.\n  IAGO. Before me! look where she comes.\n  CASSIO. 'Tis such another fitchew! marry, a perfumed one.\n\n                            Enter Bianca.\n\n    What do you mean by this haunting of me?\n  BIANCA. Let the devil and his dam haunt you! What did you mean by\n    that same handkerchief you gave me even now? I was a fine fool to\n    take it. I must take out the work? A likely piece of work that\n    you should find it in your chamber and not know who left it\n    there! This is some minx's token, and I must take out the work?\n    There, give it your hobbyhorse. Wheresoever you had it, I'll take\n    out no work on't.\n  CASSIO. How now, my sweet Bianca! how now! how now!\n  OTHELLO. By heaven, that should be my handkerchief!\n  BIANCA. An you'll come to supper tonight, you may; an you will not,\n    come when you are next prepared for.                        Exit.\n  IAGO. After her, after her.\n  CASSIO. Faith, I must; she'll rail i' the street else.\n  IAGO. Will you sup there?\n  CASSIO. Faith, I intend so.\n  IAGO. Well, I may chance to see you, for I would very fain speak\n    with you.\n  CASSIO. Prithee, come; will you?\n  IAGO. Go to; say no more.                              Exit Cassio.\n  OTHELLO. [Advancing.] How shall I murther him, Iago?\n  IAGO. Did you perceive how he laughed at his vice?\n  OTHELLO. O Iago!\n  IAGO. And did you see the handkerchief?\n  OTHELLO. Was that mine?\n  IAGO. Yours, by this hand. And to see how he prizes the foolish\n    woman your wife! She gave it him, and he hath given it his whore.\n  OTHELLO. I would have him nine years akilling. A fine woman! a fair\n    woman! a sweet woman!\n  IAGO. Nay, you must forget that.\n  OTHELLO. Ay, let her rot, and perish, and be damned tonight, for\n    she shall not live. No, my heart is turned to stone; I strike it,\n    and it hurts my hand. O, the world hath not a sweeter creature.\n    She might lie by an emperor's side, and command him tasks.\n  IAGO. Nay, that's not your way.\n  OTHELLO. Hang her! I do but say what she is. So delicate with her\n    needle, an admirable musician. O, she will sing the savageness\n    out of a bear. Of so high and plenteous wit and invention-\n  IAGO. She's the worse for all this.\n  OTHELLO. O, a thousand, a thousand times. And then, of so gentle a\n    condition!\n  IAGO. Ay, too gentle.\n  OTHELLO. Nay, that's certain. But yet the pity of it, Iago!\n    O Iago, the pity of it, Iago!\n  IAGO. If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her patent to\n    offend, for, if it touch not you, it comes near nobody.\n  OTHELLO. I will chop her into messes. Cuckold me!\n  IAGO. O, 'tis foul in her.\n  OTHELLO. With mine officer!\n  IAGO. That's fouler.\n  OTHELLO. Get me some poison, Iago, this night. I'll not expostulate\n    with her, lest her body and beauty unprovide my mind again. This\n    night, Iago.\n  IAGO. Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed, even the bed\n    she hath contaminated.\n  OTHELLO. Good, good, the justice of it pleases, very good.\n  IAGO. And for Cassio, let me be his undertaker. You shall hear more\n    by midnight.\n  OTHELLO. Excellent good. [A trumpet within.] What trumpet is that\n    same?\n  IAGO. Something from Venice, sure. 'Tis Lodovico\n    Come from the Duke. And, see your wife is with him.\n\n              Enter Lodovico, Desdemona, and Attendants.\n\n  LODOVICO. God save the worthy general!\n  OTHELLO.                               With all my heart, sir.\n  LODOVICO. The Duke and Senators of Venice greet you.\n                                                  Gives him a letter.\n  OTHELLO. I kiss the instrument of their pleasures.\n                                         Opens the letter, and reads.\n  DESDEMONA. And what's the news, good cousin Lodovico?\n  IAGO. I am very glad to see you, signior;\n    Welcome to Cyprus.\n  LODOVICO. I thank you. How does Lieutenant Cassio?\n  IAGO. Lives, sir.\n  DESDEMONA. Cousin, there's fall'n between him and my lord\n    An unkind breech; but you shall make all well.\n  OTHELLO. Are you sure of that?\n  DESDEMONA. My lord?\n  OTHELLO. [Reads.] \"This fail you not to do, as you will-\"\n  LODOVICO. He did not call; he's busy in the paper.\n    Is there division 'twixt my lord and Cassio?\n  DESDEMONA. A most unhappy one. I would do much\n    To atone them, for the love I bear to Cassio.\n  OTHELLO. Fire and brimstone!\n  DESDEMONA. My lord?\n  OTHELLO. Are you wise?\n  DESDEMONA. What, is he angry?\n  LODOVICO.                     May be the letter moved him;\n    For, as I think, they do command him home,\n    Deputing Cassio in his government.\n  DESDEMONA. By my troth, I am glad on't.\n  OTHELLO.                                Indeed!\n  DESDEMONA.                                      My lord?\n  OTHELLO. I am glad to see you mad.\n  DESDEMONA.                         Why, sweet Othello?\n  OTHELLO. Devil!                                        Strikes her.\n  DESDEMONA. I have not deserved this.\n  LODOVICO. My lord, this would not be believed in Venice,\n    Though I should swear I saw't. 'Tis very much.\n    Make her amends; she weeps.\n  OTHELLO.                      O devil, devil!\n    If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,\n    Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.\n    Out of my sight!\n  DESDEMONA. [Going.] I will not stay to offend you.\n  LODOVICO. Truly, an obedient lady.\n    I do beseech your lordship, call her back.\n  OTHELLO. Mistress!\n  DESDEMONA. My lord?\n  OTHELLO. What would you with her, sir?\n  LODOVICO.                              Who, I, my lord?\n  OTHELLO. Ay, you did wish that I would make her turn.\n    Sir, she can turn and turn, and yet go on,\n    And turn again; and she can weep, sir, weep;\n    And she's obedient, as you say, obedient,\n    Very obedient. Proceed you in your tears.\n    Concerning this, sir- O well-painted passion!-\n    I am commanded home. Get you away;\n    I'll send for you anon. Sir, I obey the mandate,\n    And will return to Venice. Hence, avaunt!\n                                                      Exit Desdemona.\n    Cassio shall have my place. And, sir, tonight,\n    I do entreat that we may sup together.\n    You are welcome, sir, to Cyprus. Goats and monkeys!\n     Exit.\n  LODOVICO. Is this the noble Moor whom our full Senate\n    Call all in all sufficient? This the nature\n    Whom passion could not shake? whose solid virtue\n    The shot of accident nor dart of chance\n    Could neither graze nor pierce?\n  IAGO.                             He is much changed.\n  LODOVICO. Are his wits safe? Is he not light of brain?\n  IAGO. He's that he is. I may not breathe my censure\n    What he might be: if what he might he is not,\n    I would to heaven he were!\n  LODOVICO.                    What, strike his wife!\n  IAGO. Faith, that was not so well; yet would I knew\n    That stroke would prove the worst!\n  LODOVICO.                            Is it his use?\n    Or did the letters work upon his blood,\n    And new create this fault?\n  IAGO.                        Alas, alas!\n    It is not honesty in me to speak\n    What I have seen and known. You shall observe him,\n    And his own courses will denote him so\n    That I may save my speech. Do but go after,\n    And mark how he continues.\n  LODOVICO. I am sorry that I am deceived in him.             Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA room in the castle.\n\nEnter Othello and Emilia.\n\n  OTHELLO. You have seen nothing, then?\n  EMILIA. Nor ever heard, nor ever did suspect.\n  OTHELLO. Yes, you have seen Cassio and she together.\n  EMILIA. But then I saw no harm, and then I heard\n    Each syllable that breath made up between them.\n  OTHELLO. What, did they never whisper?\n  EMILIA.                                Never, my lord.\n  OTHELLO. Nor send you out o' the way?\n  EMILIA. Never.\n  OTHELLO. To fetch her fan, her gloves, her mask, nor nothing?\n  EMILIA. Never, my lord.\n  OTHELLO. That's strange.\n  EMILIA. I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest,\n    Lay down my soul at stake. If you think other,\n    Remove your thought; it doth abuse your bosom.\n    If any wretch have put this in your head,\n    Let heaven requite it with the serpent's curse!\n    For if she be not honest, chaste, and true,\n    There's no man happy; the purest of their wives\n    Is foul as slander.\n  OTHELLO.              Bid her come hither; go.         Exit Emilia.\n    She says enough; yet she's a simple bawd\n    That cannot say as much. This is a subtle whore,\n    A closet lock and key of villainous secrets.\n    And yet she'll kneel and pray; I have seen her do't.\n\n                     Enter Desdemona with Emilia.\n\n  DESDEMONA. My lord, what is your will?\n  OTHELLO.                               Pray, chuck, come hither.\n  DESDEMONA. What is your pleasure?\n  OTHELLO.                          Let me see your eyes;\n    Look in my face.\n  DESDEMONA.         What horrible fancy's this?\n  OTHELLO. [To Emilia.] Some of your function, mistress,\n    Leave procreants alone and shut the door;\n    Cough, or cry \"hem,\" if anybody come.\n    Your mystery, your mystery; nay, dispatch.           Exit Emilia.\n  DESDEMONA. Upon my knees, what doth your speech import?\n    I understand a fury in your words,\n    But not the words.\n  OTHELLO. Why, what art thou?\n  DESDEMONA. Your wife, my lord, your true and loyal wife.\n  OTHELLO. Come, swear it, damn thyself;\n    Lest, being like one of heaven, the devils themselves\n    Should fear to seize thee. Therefore be double-damn'd;\n    Swear thou art honest.\n  DESDEMONA.               Heaven doth truly know it.\n  OTHELLO. Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.\n  DESDEMONA. To whom, my lord? with whom? how am I false?\n  OTHELLO. O Desdemona! Away! away! away!\n  DESDEMONA. Alas the heavy day! Why do you weep?\n    Am I the motive of these tears, my lord?\n    If haply you my father do suspect\n    An instrument of this your calling back,\n    Lay not your blame on me. If you have lost him,\n    Why, I have lost him too.\n  OTHELLO.                    Had it pleased heaven\n    To try me with affliction, had they rain'd\n    All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head,\n    Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips,\n    Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,\n    I should have found in some place of my soul\n    A drop of patience; but, alas, to make me\n    A fixed figure for the time of scorn\n    To point his slow unmoving finger at!\n    Yet could I bear that too, well, very well;\n    But there, where I have garner'd up my heart,\n    Where either I must live or bear no life;\n    The fountain from the which my current runs,\n    Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!\n    Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads\n    To knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion there,\n    Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin,\n    Ay, there, look grim as hell!\n  DESDEMONA. I hope my noble lord esteems me honest.\n  OTHELLO. O, ay, as summer flies are in the shambles,\n    That quicken even with blowing. O thou weed,\n    Who art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet\n    That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst ne'er been born!\n  DESDEMONA. Alas, what ignorant sin have I committed?\n  OTHELLO. Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,\n    Made to write \"whore\" upon? What committed?\n    Committed? O thou public commoner!\n    I should make very forges of my cheeks,\n    That would to cinders burn up modesty,\n    Did I but speak thy deeds. What committed!\n    Heaven stops the nose at it, and the moon winks;\n    The bawdy wind, that kisses all it meets,\n    Is hush'd within the hollow mine of earth,\n    And will not hear it. What committed?\n    Impudent strumpet!\n  DESDEMONA.           By heaven, you do me wrong.\n  OTHELLO. Are not you a strumpet?\n  DESDEMONA.                       No, as I am a Christian.\n    If to preserve this vessel for my lord\n    From any other foul unlawful touch\n    Be not to be a strumpet, I am none.\n  OTHELLO. What, not a whore?\n  DESDEMONA.                  No, as I shall be saved.\n  OTHELLO. Is't possible?\n  DESDEMONA. O, heaven forgive us!\n  OTHELLO.                         I cry you mercy then;\n    I took you for that cunning whore of Venice\n    That married with Othello. [Raises his voice.] You, mistress,\n    That have the office opposite to Saint Peter,\n    And keep the gate of hell!\n\n                           Re-enter Emilia.\n\n                               You, you, ay, you!\n    We have done our course; there's money for your pains.\n    I pray you, turn the key, and keep our counsel.             Exit.\n  EMILIA. Alas, what does this gentleman conceive?\n    How do you, madam? How do you, my good lady?\n  DESDEMONA. Faith, half asleep.\n  EMILIA. Good madam, what's the matter with my lord?\n  DESDEMONA. With who?\n  EMILIA. Why, with my lord, madam.\n  DESDEMONA. Who is thy lord?\n  EMILIA.                     He that is yours, sweet lady.\n  DESDEMONA. I have none. Do not talk to me, Emilia;\n    I cannot weep, nor answer have I none\n    But what should go by water. Prithee, tonight\n    Lay on my bed my wedding sheets. Remember,\n    And call thy husband hither.\n  EMILIA.                        Here's a change indeed!\n     Exit.\n  DESDEMONA. 'Tis meet I should be used so, very meet.\n    How have I been behaved, that he might stick\n    The small'st opinion on my least misuse?\n\n                      Re-enter Emilia with Iago.\n\n  IAGO. What is your pleasure, madam? How is't with you?\n  DESDEMONA. I cannot tell. Those that do teach young babes\n    Do it with gentle means and easy tasks.\n    He might have chid me so, for in good faith,\n    I am a child to chiding.\n  IAGO.                      What's the matter, lady?\n  EMILIA. Alas, Iago, my lord hath so bewhored her,\n    Thrown such despite and heavy terms upon her,\n    As true hearts cannot bear.\n  DESDEMONA. Am I that name, Iago?\n  IAGO.                            What name, fair lady?\n  DESDEMONA. Such as she says my lord did say I was.\n  EMILIA. He call'd her whore; a beggar in his drink\n    Could not have laid such terms upon his callet.\n  IAGO. Why did he so?\n  DESDEMONA. I do not know; I am sure I am none such.\n  IAGO. Do not weep, do not weep. Alas the day!\n  EMILIA. Hath she forsook so many noble matches,\n    Her father and her country and her friends,\n    To be call'd whore? Would it not make one weep?\n  DESDEMONA. It is my wretched fortune.\n  IAGO.                                 Beshrew him for't!\n    How comes this trick upon him?\n  DESDEMONA.                       Nay, heaven doth know.\n  EMILIA. I will be hang'd, if some eternal villain,\n    Some busy and insinuating rogue,\n    Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office,\n    Have not devised this slander; I'll be hang'd else.\n  IAGO. Fie, there is no such man; it is impossible.\n  DESDEMONA. If any such there be, heaven pardon him!\n  EMILIA. A halter pardon him! And hell gnaw his bones!\n    Why should he call her whore? Who keeps her company?\n    What place? What time? What form? What likelihood?\n    The Moor's abused by some most villainous knave,\n    Some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow.\n    O heaven, that such companions thou'ldst unfold,\n    And put in every honest hand a whip\n    To lash the rascals naked through the world\n    Even from the east to the west!\n  IAGO.                             Speak within door.\n  EMILIA. O, fie upon them! Some such squire he was\n    That turn'd your wit the seamy side without,\n    And made you to suspect me with the Moor.\n  IAGO. You are a fool; go to.\n  DESDEMONA.                   O good Iago,\n    What shall I do to win my lord again?\n    Good friend, go to him, for by this light of heaven,\n    I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel:\n    If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love\n    Either in discourse of thought or actual deed,\n    Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense,\n    Delighted them in any other form,\n    Or that I do not yet, and ever did,\n    And ever will, though he do shake me off\n    To beggarly divorcement, love him dearly,\n    Comfort forswear me! Unkindness may do much,\n    And his unkindness may defeat my life,\n    But never taint my love. I cannot say \"whore.\"\n    It doth abhor me now I speak the word;\n    To do the act that might the addition earn\n    Not the world's mass of vanity could make me.\n  IAGO. I pray you, be content; 'tis but his humor:\n    The business of the state does him offense,\n    And he does chide with you.\n  DESDEMONA. If 'twere no other-\n  IAGO. 'Tis but so, I warrant.                      Trumpets within.\n    Hark, how these instruments summon to supper!\n    The messengers of Venice stay the meat.\n    Go in, and weep not; all things shall be well.\n                                         Exeunt Desdemona and Emilia.\n\n                           Enter Roderigo.\n\n    How now, Roderigo!\n  RODERIGO. I do not find that thou dealest justly with me.\n  IAGO. What in the contrary?\n  RODERIGO. Every day thou daffest me with some device, Iago; and\n    rather, as it seems to me now, keepest from me all conveniency\n    than suppliest me with the least advantage of hope. I will indeed\n    no longer endure it; nor am I yet persuaded to put up in peace\n    what already I have foolishly suffered.\n  IAGO. Will you hear me, Roderigo?\n  RODERIGO. Faith, I have heard too much, for your words and\n    performances are no kin together.\n  IAGO. You charge me most unjustly.\n  RODERIGO. With nought but truth. I have wasted myself out of my\n    means. The jewels you have had from me to deliver to Desdemona\n    would half have corrupted a votarist. You have told me she hath\n    received them and returned me expectations and comforts of sudden\n    respect and acquaintance; but I find none.\n  IAGO. Well, go to, very well.\n  RODERIGO. Very well! go to! I cannot go to, man; nor 'tis not very\n    well. By this hand, I say 'tis very scurvy, and begin to find\n    myself fopped in it.\n  IAGO. Very well.\n  RODERIGO. I tell you 'tis not very well. I will make myself known\n    to Desdemona. If she will return me my jewels, I will give over\n    my suit and repent my unlawful solicitation; if not, assure\n    yourself I will seek satisfaction of you.\n  IAGO. You have said now.\n  RODERIGO. Ay, and said nothing but what I protest intendment of\n    doing.\n  IAGO. Why, now I see there's mettle in thee; and even from this\n    instant do build on thee a better opinion than ever before. Give\n    me thy hand, Roderigo. Thou hast taken against me a most just\n    exception; but yet, I protest, have dealt most directly in thy\n    affair.\n  RODERIGO. It hath not appeared.\n  IAGO. I grant indeed it hath not appeared, and your suspicion is\n    not without wit and judgement. But, Roderigo, if thou hast that\n    in thee indeed, which I have greater reason to believe now than\n    ever, I mean purpose, courage, and valor, this night show it; if\n    thou the next night following enjoy not Desdemona, take me from\n    this world with treachery and devise engines for my life.\n  RODERIGO. Well, what is it? Is it within reason and compass?\n  IAGO. Sir, there is especial commission come from Venice to depute\n    Cassio in Othello's place.\n  RODERIGO. Is that true? Why then Othello and Desdemona return again\n    to Venice.\n  IAGO. O, no; he goes into Mauritania, and takes away with him the\n    fair Desdemona, unless his abode be lingered here by some\n    accident; wherein none can be so determinate as the removing of\n    Cassio.\n  RODERIGO. How do you mean, removing of him?\n  IAGO. Why, by making him uncapable of Othello's place; knocking out\n    his brains.\n  RODERIGO. And that you would have me to do?\n  IAGO. Ay, if you dare do yourself a profit and a right. He sups\n    tonight with a harlotry, and thither will I go to him. He knows\n    not yet of his honorable fortune. If you will watch his going\n    thence, which his will fashion to fall out between twelve and\n    one, you may take him at your pleasure; I will be near to second\n    your attempt, and he shall fall between us. Come, stand not\n    amazed at it, but go along with me; I will show you such a\n    necessity in his death that you shall think yourself bound to put\n    it on him. It is now high supper-time, and the night grows to\n    waste. About it.\n  RODERIGO. I will hear further reason for this.\n  IAGO. And you shall be satisfied.                           Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nAnother room in the castle.\n\nEnter Othello, Lodovico, Desdemona, Emilia, and Attendants.\n\n  LODOVICO. I do beseech you, sir, trouble yourself no further.\n  OTHELLO. O, pardon me; 'twill do me good to walk.\n  LODOVICO. Madam, good night; I humbly thank your ladyship.\n  DESDEMONA. Your honor is most welcome.\n  OTHELLO.                               Will you walk, sir?\n    O- Desdemona-\n  DESDEMONA. My lord?\n  OTHELLO. Get you to bed on the instant; I will be returned\n    forthwith. Dismiss your attendant there; look it be done.\n  DESDEMONA. I will, my lord.\n                            Exeunt Othello, Lodovico, and Attendants.\n  EMILIA. How goes it now? He looks gentler than he did.\n  DESDEMONA. He says he will return incontinent.\n    He hath commanded me to go to bed,\n    And bade me to dismiss you.\n  EMILIA.                       Dismiss me?\n  DESDEMONA. It was his bidding; therefore, good Emilia,\n    Give me my nightly wearing, and adieu.\n    We must not now displease him.\n  EMILIA. I would you had never seen him!\n  DESDEMONA. So would not I. My love doth so approve him,\n    That even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns-\n    Prithee, unpin me- have grace and favor in them.\n  EMILIA. I have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed.\n  DESDEMONA. All's one. Good faith, how foolish are our minds!\n    If I do die before thee, prithee shroud me\n    In one of those same sheets.\n  EMILIA.                        Come, come, you talk.\n  DESDEMONA. My mother had a maid call'd Barbary;\n    She was in love, and he she loved proved mad\n    And did forsake her. She had a song of \"willow\";\n    An old thing 'twas, but it express'd her fortune,\n    And she died singing it. That song tonight\n    Will not go from my mind; I have much to do\n    But to go hang my head all at one side\n    And sing it like poor Barbary. Prithee, dispatch.\n  EMILIA. Shall I go fetch your nightgown?\n  DESDEMONA.                               No, unpin me here.\n    This Lodovico is a proper man.\n  EMILIA. A very handsome man.\n  DESDEMONA. He speaks well.\n  EMILIA. I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot to\n    Palestine for a touch of his nether lip.\n  DESDEMONA. [Sings.]\n\n        \"The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,\n          Sing all a green willow;\n        Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,\n          Sing willow, willow, willow.\n        The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur'd her moans,\n          Sing willow, willow, willow;\n        Her salt tears fell from her, and soften'd the stones-\"\n\n    Lay be these-\n\n    [Sings.]   \"Sing willow, willow, willow-\"\n\n    Prithee, hie thee; he'll come anon-\n    [Sings.]   \"Sing all a green willow must be my garland.\n               Let nobody blame him; his scorn I approve-\"\n\n    Nay, that's not next. Hark, who is't that knocks?\n  EMILIA. It's the wind.\n  DESDEMONA. [Sings.]\n\n        \"I call'd my love false love; but what said he then?\n          Sing willow, willow, willow.\n        If I court moe women, you'll couch with moe men-\"\n\n    So get thee gone; good night. Mine eyes do itch;\n    Doth that bode weeping?\n  EMILIA.                   'Tis neither here nor there.\n  DESDEMONA. I have heard it said so. O, these men, these men!\n    Dost thou in conscience think- tell me, Emilia-\n    That there be women do abuse their husbands\n    In such gross kind?\n  EMILIA.               There be some such, no question.\n  DESDEMONA. Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?\n  EMILIA. Why, would not you?\n  DESDEMONA.                  No, by this heavenly light!\n  EMILIA. Nor I neither by this heavenly light; I might do't as well\n    i' the dark.\n  DESDEMONA. Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?\n  EMILIA. The world's a huge thing; it is a great price\n    For a small vice.\n  DESDEMONA.          In troth, I think thou wouldst not.\n  EMILIA. In troth, I think I should, and undo't when I had done.\n    Marry, I would not do such a thing for a joint-ring, nor for\n    measures of lawn, nor for gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any\n    petty exhibition; but, for the whole world- why, who would not\n    make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch? I should\n    venture purgatory for't.\n  DESDEMONA. Beshrew me, if I would do such a wrong\n    For the whole world.\n  EMILIA. Why, the wrong is but a wrong i' the world; and having the\n    world for your labor, 'tis a wrong in your own world, and you\n    might quickly make it right.\n  DESDEMONA. I do not think there is any such woman.\n  EMILIA. Yes, a dozen, and as many to the vantage as would store the\n      world they played for.\n    But I do think it is their husbands' faults\n    If wives do fall; say that they slack their duties\n    And pour our treasures into foreign laps,\n    Or else break out in peevish jealousies,\n    Throwing restraint upon us, or say they strike us,\n    Or scant our former having in despite,\n    Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,\n    Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know\n    Their wives have sense like them; they see and smell\n    And have their palates both for sweet and sour,\n    As husbands have. What is it that they do\n    When they change us for others? Is it sport?\n    I think it is. And doth affection breed it?\n    I think it doth. Is't frailty that thus errs?\n    It is so too. And have not we affections,\n    Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?\n    Then let them use us well; else let them know,\n    The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.\n  DESDEMONA. Good night, good night. Heaven me such uses send,\n    Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend!                Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nCyprus. A street.\n\nEnter Iago and Roderigo:\n\n  IAGO. Here, stand behind this bulk; straight will he come.\n    Wear thy good rapier bare, and put it home.\n    Quick, quick; fear nothing; I'll be at thy elbow.\n    It makes us, or it mars us; think on that,\n    And fix most firm thy resolution.\n  RODERIGO. Be near at hand; I may miscarry in't.\n  IAGO. Here, at thy hand, be bold, and take thy stand.\n  Retires.\n  RODERIGO. I have no great devotion to the deed;\n    And yet he hath given me satisfying reasons.\n    'Tis but a man gone. Forth, my sword; he dies.\n  IAGO. I have rubb'd this young quat almost to the sense,\n    And he grows angry. Now, whether he kill Cassio,\n    Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other,\n    Every way makes my gain. Live Roderigo,\n    He calls me to a restitution large\n    Of gold and jewels that I bobb'd from him,\n    As gifts to Desdemona;\n    It must not be. If Cassio do remain,\n    He hath a daily beauty in his life\n    That makes me ugly; and besides, the Moor\n    May unfold me to him; there stand I in much peril.\n    No, he must die. Be't so. I hear him coming.\n\n                            Enter Cassio.\n\n  RODERIGO. I know his gait; 'tis he. Villain, thou diest!\n                                              Makes a pass at Cassio.\n  CASSIO. That thrust had been mine enemy indeed,\n    But that my coat is better than thou know'st;\n    I will make proof of thine.           Draws, and wounds Roderigo.\n  RODERIGO.                     O, I am slain!\n            Iago from behind wounds Cassio in the leg, and exit.\n  CASSIO. I am maim'd forever. Help, ho! Murther! Murther!\n    Falls.\n\n                            Enter Othello.\n\n  OTHELLO. The voice of Cassio; Iago keeps his word.\n  RODERIGO. O, villain that I am!\n  OTHELLO.                        It is even so.\n  CASSIO. O, help, ho! Light! A surgeon!\n  OTHELLO. 'Tis he. O brave Iago, honest and just,\n    That hast such noble sense of thy friend's wrong!\n    Thou teachest me. Minion, your dear lies dead,\n    And your unblest fate hies. Strumpet, I come!\n    Forth of my heart those charms, thine eyes, are blotted;\n    Thy bed lust-stain'd shall with lust's blood be spotted.\n     Exit.\n\n                     Enter Lodovico and Gratiano.\n\n  CASSIO. What, ho! No watch? No passage? Murther! Murther!\n  GRATIANO. 'Tis some mischance; the cry is very direful.\n  CASSIO. O, help!\n  LODOVICO. Hark!\n  RODERIGO. O wretched villain!\n  LODOVICO. Two or three groan; it is a heavy night.\n    These may be counterfeits; let's think't unsafe\n    To come in to the cry without more help.\n  RODERIGO. Nobody come? Then shall I bleed to death.\n  LODOVICO. Hark!\n\n                     Re-enter Iago, with a light.\n\n  GRATIANO. Here's one comes in his shirt, with light and weapons.\n  IAGO. Who's there? Whose noise is this that cries on murther?\n  LODOVICO. We do not know.\n  IAGO.                     Did not you hear a cry?\n  CASSIO. Here, here! for heaven's sake, help me!\n  IAGO.                                       What's the matter?\n  GRATIANO. This is Othello's ancient, as I take it.\n  LODOVICO. The same indeed; a very valiant fellow.\n  IAGO. What are you here that cry so grievously?\n  CASSIO. Iago? O, I am spoil'd, undone by villains!\n    Give me some help.\n  IAGO. O me, lieutenant! What villains have done this?\n  CASSIO. I think that one of them is hereabout,\n    And cannot make away.\n  IAGO.                   O treacherous villains!\n    [To Lodovico and Gratiano.] What are you there?\n    Come in and give some help.\n  RODERIGO. O, help me here!\n  CASSIO. That's one of them.\n  IAGO.                       O murtherous slave! O villain!\n                                                      Stabs Roderigo.\n  RODERIGO. O damn'd Iago! O inhuman dog!\n  IAGO. Kill men i' the dark! Where be these bloody thieves?\n    How silent is this town! Ho! Murther! Murther!\n    What may you be? Are you of good or evil?\n  LODOVICO. As you shall prove us, praise us.\n  IAGO. Signior Lodovico?\n  LODOVICO. He, sir.\n  IAGO. I cry you mercy. Here's Cassio hurt by villains.\n  GRATIANO. Cassio?\n  IAGO. How is't, brother?\n  CASSIO. My leg is cut in two.\n  IAGO.                         Marry, heaven forbid!\n    Light, gentlemen; I'll bind it with my shirt.\n\n                            Enter Bianca.\n\n  BIANCA. What is the matter, ho? Who is't that cried?\n  IAGO. Who is't that cried?\n  BIANCA. O my dear Cassio, my sweet Cassio! O Cassio, Cassio,\n     Cassio!\n  IAGO. O notable strumpet! Cassio, may you suspect\n    Who they should be that have thus mangled you?\n  CASSIO. No.\n  GRATIANO. I am sorry to find you thus; I have been to seek you.\n  IAGO. Lend me a garter. So. O, for a chair,\n    To bear him easily hence!\n  BIANCA. Alas, he faints! O Cassio, Cassio, Cassio!\n  IAGO. Gentlemen all, I do suspect this trash\n    To be a party in this injury.\n    Patience awhile, good Cassio. Come, come;\n    Lend me a light. Know we this face or no?\n    Alas, my friend and my dear countryman\n    Roderigo? No- yes, sure. O heaven! Roderigo.\n  GRATIANO. What, of Venice?\n  IAGO. Even he, sir. Did you know him?\n  GRATIANO.                             Know him! ay.\n  IAGO. Signior Gratiano? I cry you gentle pardon;\n    These bloody accidents must excuse my manners,\n    That so neglected you.\n  GRATIANO.                I am glad to see you.\n  IAGO. How do you, Cassio? O, a chair, a chair!\n  GRATIANO. Roderigo!\n  IAGO. He, he, 'tis he. [A chair brought in.] O, that's well said:\n      the chair.\n    Some good man bear him carefully from hence;\n    I'll fetch the general's surgeon. [To Bianca.] For you, mistress,\n    Save you your labor. He that lies slain here, Cassio,\n    Was my dear friend; what malice was between you?\n  CASSIO. None in the world; nor do I know the man.\n  IAGO. [To Bianca.] What, look you pale? O, bear him out o' the air.\n                                   Cassio and Roderigo are borne off.\n    Stay you, good gentlemen. Look you pale, mistress?\n    Do you perceive the gastness of her eye?\n    Nay, if you stare, we shall hear more anon.\n    Behold her well; I pray you, look upon her.\n    Do you see, gentlemen? Nay, guiltiness will speak,\n    Though tongues were out of use.\n\n                            Enter Emilia.\n\n  EMILIA. 'Las, what's the matter? What's the matter, husband?\n  IAGO. Cassio hath here been set on in the dark\n    By Roderigo, and fellows that are 'scaped;\n    He's almost slain, and Roderigo dead.\n  EMILIA. Alas, good gentleman! alas, good Cassio!\n  IAGO. This is the fruit of whoring. Prithee, Emilia,\n    Go know of Cassio where he supp'd tonight.\n    What, do you shake at that?\n  BIANCA. He supp'd at my house; but I therefore shake not.\n  IAGO. O, did he so? I charge you, go with me.\n  EMILIA. Fie, fie upon thee, strumpet!\n  BIANCA. I am no strumpet, but of life as honest\n    As you that thus abuse me.\n  EMILIA.                      As I! foh! fie upon thee!\n  IAGO. Kind gentlemen, let's go see poor Cassio dress'd.\n    Come, mistress, you must tell's another tale.\n    Emilia, run you to the citadel,\n    And tell my lord and lady what hath happ'd!\n    Will you go on? [Aside.] This is the night\n    That either makes me or fordoes me quite.                 Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA bedchamber in the castle. Desdemona in bed asleep; a light burning.\n\nEnter Othello.\n\n  OTHELLO. It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.\n    Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!\n    It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood,\n    Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow\n    And smooth as monumental alabaster.\n    Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.\n    Put out the light, and then put out the light.\n    If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,\n    I can again thy former light restore,\n    Should I repent me; but once put out thy light,\n    Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,\n    I know not where is that Promethean heat\n    That can thy light relume. When I have pluck'd the rose,\n    I cannot give it vital growth again,\n    It must needs wither; I'll smell it on the tree.      Kisses her.\n    O, balmy breath, that dost almost persuade\n    Justice to break her sword! One more, one more;\n    Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,\n    And love thee after. One more, and this the last;\n    So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep,\n    But they are cruel tears; this sorrow's heavenly,\n    It strikes where it doth love. She wakes.\n  DESDEMONA. Who's there? Othello?\n  OTHELLO.                         Ay, Desdemona.\n  DESDEMONA. Will you come to bed, my lord?\n  OTHELLO. Have you pray'd tonight, Desdemona?\n  DESDEMONA. Ay, my lord.\n  OTHELLO. If you bethink yourself of any crime\n    Unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace,\n    Solicit for it straight.\n  DESDEMONA. Alas, my lord, what may you mean by that?\n  OTHELLO. Well, do it, and be brief; I will walk by.\n    I would not kill thy unprepared spirit.\n    No, heaven forfend! I would not kill thy soul.\n  DESDEMONA. Talk you of killing?\n  OTHELLO. Ay, I do.\n  DESDEMONA. Then heaven have mercy on me!\n  OTHELLO. Amen, with all my heart!\n  DESDEMONA. If you say so, I hope you will not kill me.\n  OTHELLO. Hum!\n  DESDEMONA. And yet I fear you, for you are fatal then\n    When your eyes roll so. Why I should fear I know not,\n    Since guiltiness I know not; but yet I feel I fear.\n  OTHELLO. Think on thy sins.\n  DESDEMONA.                  They are loves I bear to you.\n  OTHELLO. Ay, and for that thou diest.\n  DESDEMONA. That death's unnatural that kills for loving.\n    Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?\n    Some bloody passion shakes your very frame.\n    These are portents; but yet I hope, I hope,\n    They do not point on me.\n  OTHELLO.                   Peace, and be still!\n  DESDEMONA. I will so. What's the matter?\n  OTHELLO. That handkerchief which I so loved and gave thee\n    Thou gavest to Cassio.\n  DESDEMONA.               No, by my life and soul!\n    Send for the man, and ask him.\n  OTHELLO.                         Sweet soul, take heed,\n    Take heed of perjury; thou are on thy deathbed.\n  DESDEMONA. Ay, but not yet to die.\n  OTHELLO.                           Yes, presently:\n    Therefore confess thee freely of thy sin,\n    For to deny each article with oath\n    Cannot remove nor choke the strong conception\n    That I do groan withal. Thou art to die.\n  DESDEMONA. Then Lord have mercy on me!\n  OTHELLO.                               I say, amen.\n  DESDEMONA. And have you mercy too! I never did\n    Offend you in my life; never loved Cassio\n    But with such general warranty of heaven\n    As I might love. I never gave him token.\n  OTHELLO. By heaven, I saw my handkerchief in 's hand.\n    O perjured woman! Thou dost stone my heart,\n    And makest me call what I intend to do\n    A murther, which I thought a sacrifice.\n    I saw the handkerchief.\n  DESDEMONA.                He found it then;\n    I never gave it him. Send for him hither;\n    Let him confess a truth.\n  OTHELLO.                   He hath confess'd.\n  DESDEMONA. What, my lord?\n  OTHELLO. That he hath used thee.\n  DESDEMONA.                       How? unlawfully?\n  OTHELLO. Ay.\n  DESDEMONA. He will not say so.\n  OTHELLO.                       No, his mouth is stopp'd;\n    Honest Iago hath ta'en order for't.\n  DESDEMONA. O, my fear interprets! What, is he dead?\n  OTHELLO. Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge\n    Had stomach for them all.\n  DESDEMONA. Alas, he is betray'd, and I undone!\n  OTHELLO. Out, strumpet! Weep'st thou for him to my face?\n  DESDEMONA. O, banish me, my lord, but kill me not!\n  OTHELLO. Down, strumpet!\n  DESDEMONA. Kill me tomorrow; let me live tonight!\n  OTHELLO. Nay, if you strive-\n  DESDEMONA. But half an hour!\n  OTHELLO.                     Being done, there is no pause.\n  DESDEMONA. But while I say one prayer!\n  OTHELLO.                        It is too late.     He stifles her.\n  EMILIA. [Within.] My lord, my lord! What, ho! my lord, my lord!\n  OTHELLO. What noise is this? Not dead? not yet quite dead?\n    I that am cruel am yet merciful;\n    I would not have thee linger in thy pain.\n    So, so.\n  EMILIA. [Within.] What, ho! my lord, my lord!\n  OTHELLO.                                      Who's there?\n  EMILIA. [Within.] O, good my lord, I would speak a word with you!\n  OTHELLO. Yes, 'tis Emilia. By and by. She's dead.\n    'Tis like she comes to speak of Cassio's death.\n    The noise was here. Ha! no more moving?\n    Still as the grave. Shall she come in? were't good?\n    I think she stirs again. No. What's best to do?\n    If she come in, she'll sure speak to my wife.\n    My wife! My wife! What wife? I have no wife.\n    O, insupportable! O heavy hour!\n    Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse\n    Of sun and moon, and that the affrighted globe\n    Should yawn at alteration.\n  EMILIA. [Within.] I do beseech you\n    That I may speak with you, O, good my lord!\n  OTHELLO. I had forgot thee. O, come in, Emilia.\n    Soft, by and by. Let me the curtains draw.\n    Where art thou?                                 Unlocks the door.\n\n                            Enter Emilia.\n\n                    What's the matter with thee now?\n  EMILIA. O, my good lord, yonder's foul murthers done!\n  OTHELLO. What, now?\n  EMILIA. But now, my lord.\n  OTHELLO. It is the very error of the moon;\n    She comes more nearer earth than she was wont\n    And makes men mad.\n  EMILIA. Cassio, my lord, hath kill'd a young Venetian\n    Call'd Roderigo.\n  OTHELLO.           Roderigo kill'd?\n    And Cassio kill'd?\n  EMILIA.              No, Cassio is not kill'd.\n  OTHELLO. Not Cassio kill'd! Then murther's out of tune,\n    And sweet revenge grows harsh.\n  DESDEMONA. O, falsely, falsely murther'd!\n  EMILIA.                                   Alas, what cry is that?\n  OTHELLO. That? what?\n  EMILIA. Out, and alas! That was my lady's voice.\n    Help! help, ho! help! O lady, speak again!\n    Sweet Desdemona! O sweet mistress, speak!\n  DESDEMONA. A guiltless death I die.\n  EMILIA. O, who hath done this deed?\n  DESDEMONA. Nobody; I myself. Farewell;\n    Commend me to my kind lord. O, farewell!                    Dies.\n  OTHELLO. Why, how should she be murther'd?\n  EMILIA.                                    Alas, who knows?\n  OTHELLO. You heard her say herself, it was not I.\n  EMILIA. She said so; I must needs report the truth.\n  OTHELLO. She's like a liar gone to burning hell;\n    'Twas I that kill'd her.\n  EMILIA.                    O, the more angel she,\n    And you the blacker devil!\n  OTHELLO. She turn'd to folly, and she was a whore.\n  EMILIA. Thou dost belie her, and thou art a devil.\n  OTHELLO. She was false as water.\n  EMILIA.                          Thou art rash as fire, to say\n    That she was false. O, she was heavenly true!\n  OTHELLO. Cassio did top her; ask thy husband else.\n    O, I were damn'd beneath all depth in hell,\n    But that I did proceed upon just grounds\n    To this extremity. Thy husband knew it all.\n  EMILIA. My husband?\n  OTHELLO. Thy husband.\n  EMILIA. That she was false to wedlock?\n  OTHELLO. Ay, with Cassio. Nay, had she been true,\n    If heaven would make me such another world\n    Of one entire and perfect chrysolite,\n    I'ld not have sold her for it.\n  EMILIA.                          My husband?\n  OTHELLO. Ay, 'twas he that told me first.\n    An honest man he is, and hates the slime\n    That sticks on filthy deeds.\n  EMILIA.                        My husband?\n  OTHELLO. What needs this iteration, woman? I say thy husband.\n  EMILIA. O mistress, villainy hath made mocks with love!\n    My husband say that she was false!\n  OTHELLO.                             He, woman;\n    I say thy husband. Dost understand the word?\n    My friend, thy husband, honest, honest Iago.\n  EMILIA. If he say so, may his pernicious soul\n    Rot half a grain a day! He lies to the heart.\n    She was too fond of her most filthy bargain.\n  OTHELLO. Ha!\n  EMILIA. Do thy worst;\n    This deed of thine is no more worthy heaven\n    Than thou wast worthy her.\n  OTHELLO.                     Peace, you were best.\n  EMILIA. Thou hast not half that power to do me harm\n    As I have to be hurt. O gull! O dolt!\n    As ignorant as dirt! Thou hast done a deed-\n    I care not for thy sword; I'll make thee known,\n    Though I lost twenty lives. Help! help, ho! help!\n    The Moor hath kill'd my mistress! Murther, murther!\n\n              Enter Montano, Gratiano, Iago, and others.\n\n  MONTANO. What is the matter? How now, general?\n  EMILIA. O, are you come, Iago? You have done well,\n    That men must lay their murthers on your neck.\n  GRATIANO. What is the matter?\n  EMILIA. Disprove this villain, if thou be'st a man.\n    He says thou told'st him that his wife was false;\n    I know thou didst not, thou'rt not such a villain.\n    Speak, for my heart is full.\n  IAGO. I told him what I thought, and told no more\n    Than what he found himself was apt and true.\n  EMILIA. But did you ever tell him she was false?\n  IAGO. I did.\n  EMILIA. You told a lie, an odious, damned lie;\n    Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie!\n    She false with Cassio? Did you say with Cassio?\n  IAGO. With Cassio, mistress. Go to, charm your tongue.\n  EMILIA. I will not charm my tongue; I am bound to speak.\n    My mistress here lies murther'd in her bed-\n  ALL. O heavens forfend!\n  EMILIA. And your reports have set the murther on.\n  OTHELLO. Nay, stare not, masters; it is true indeed.\n  GRATIANO. 'Tis a strange truth.\n  MONTANO. O monstrous act!\n  EMILIA.                   Villainy, villainy, villainy!\n    I think upon't, I think, I smell't, O villainy!\n    I thought so then. I'll kill myself for grief.\n    O villainy, villainy!\n  IAGO. What, are you mad? I charge you, get you home.\n  EMILIA. Good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak;\n    'Tis proper I obey him, but not now.\n    Perchance, Iago, I will ne'er go home.\n  OTHELLO. O! O! O!                                 Falls on the bed.\n  EMILIA.           Nay, lay thee down and roar;\n    For thou hast kill'd the sweetest innocent\n    That e'er did lift up eye.\n  OTHELLO.            [Rises.] O, she was foul!\n    I scarce did know you, uncle; there lies your niece,\n    Whose breath indeed these hands have newly stopp'd.\n    I know this act shows horrible and grim.\n  GRATIANO. Poor Desdemon! I am glad thy father's dead.\n    Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief\n    Shore his old thread in twain; did he live now,\n    This sight would make him do a desperate turn,\n    Yea, curse his better angel from his side,\n    And fall to reprobation.\n  OTHELLO. 'Tis pitiful, but yet Iago knows\n    That she with Cassio hath the act of shame\n    A thousand times committed. Cassio confess'd it,\n    And she did gratify his amorous works\n    With that recognizance and pledge of love\n    Which I first gave her. I saw it in his hand,\n    It was a handkerchief, an antique token\n    My father gave my mother.\n  EMILIA. O heaven! O heavenly powers!\n  IAGO. 'Zounds! Hold your peace.\n  EMILIA.                         'Twill out, 'twill. I peace?\n    No, I will speak as liberal as the north;\n    Let heaven and men and devils, let them all,\n    All, all, cry shame against me, yet I'll speak.\n  IAGO. Be wise, and get you home.\n  EMILIA.                          I will not.\n                                          Iago offers to stab Emilia.\n  GRATIANO.                                    Fie!\n    Your sword upon a woman?\n  EMILIA. O thou dull Moor! That handkerchief thou speak'st of\n    I found by fortune and did give my husband,\n    For often with a solemn earnestness,\n    More than indeed belong'd to such a trifle,\n    He begg'd of me to steal it.\n  IAGO.                          Villainous whore!\n  EMILIA. She give it Cassio? No, alas, I found it,\n    And I did give't my husband.\n  IAGO.                          Filth, thou liest!\n  EMILIA. By heaven, I do not, I do not, gentlemen.\n    O murtherous coxcomb! What should such a fool\n    Do with so good a wife?\n  OTHELLO.                  Are there not stones in heaven\n    But what serve for thunder? Precious villain!\n                                         He runs at Iago, but Montano\n                                      disarms him. Iago stabs Emilia.\n  GRATIANO. The woman falls; sure, he hath kill'd his wife.\n  EMILIA. Ay, ay! O, lay me by my mistress' side.          Exit Iago.\n  GRATIANO. He's gone, but his wife's kill'd.\n  MONTANO. 'Tis a notorious villain. Take you this weapon,\n    Which I have here recover'd from the Moor.\n    Come, guard the door without; let him not pass,\n    But kill him rather. I'll after that same villain,\n    For 'tis a damned slave.       Exeunt all but Othello and Emilia.\n  OTHELLO.                   I am not valiant neither,\n    But every puny whipster gets my sword.\n    But why should honor outlive honesty?\n    Let it go all.\n  EMILIA.          What did thy song bode, lady?\n    Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan,\n    And die in music. [Sings.] \"Willow, willow, willow.\"\n    Moor, she was chaste; she loved thee, cruel Moor;\n    So come my soul to bliss, as I speak true;\n    So speaking as I think, I die, I die.                       Dies.\n  OTHELLO. I have another weapon in this chamber;\n    It is a sword of Spain, the ice-brook's temper-\n    O, here it is. Uncle, I must come forth.\n  GRATIANO. [Within.] If thou attempt it, it will cost thee dear.\n    Thou hast no weapon, and perforce must suffer.\n  OTHELLO. Look in upon me then, and speak with me,\n    Or, naked as I am, I will assault thee.\n\n                          Re-enter Gratiano.\n\n  GRATIANO. What is the matter?\n  OTHELLO.                      Behold, I have a weapon;\n    A better never did itself sustain\n    Upon a soldier's thigh. I have seen the day\n    That with this little arm and this good sword\n    I have made my way through more impediments\n    Than twenty times your stop. But, O vain boast!\n    Who can control his fate? 'Tis not so now.\n    Be not afraid, though you do see me weapon'd;\n    Here is my journey's end, here is my butt\n    And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.\n    Do you go back dismay'd? 'Tis a lost fear.\n    Man but a rush against Othello's breast,\n    And he retires. Where should Othello go?\n    Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starr'd wench!\n    Pale as thy smock! When we shall meet at compt,\n    This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,\n    And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl?\n    Even like thy chastity. O cursed, cursed slave!\n    Whip me, ye devils,\n    From the possession of this heavenly sight!\n    Blow me about in winds! Roast me in sulphur!\n    Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!\n    O Desdemon! dead, Desdemon! dead!\n    O! O! O!\n\n         Enter Lodovico, Montano, Cassio carried in a chair,\n                  and Officers with Iago, prisoner.\n\n  LODOVICO. Where is this rash and most unfortunate man?\n  OTHELLO. That's he that was Othello. Here I am.\n  LODOVICO. Where is that viper? Bring the villain forth.\n  OTHELLO. I look down towards his feet; but that's a fable.\n    If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee.      Wounds Iago.\n  LODOVICO. Wrench his sword from him.\n  IAGO.                                I bleed, sir, but not kill'd.\n  OTHELLO. I am not sorry neither. I'ld have thee live,\n    For, in my sense, 'tis happiness to die.\n  LODOVICO. O thou Othello, that wert once so good,\n    Fall'n in the practice of a damned slave,\n    What shall be said to thee?\n  OTHELLO.                      Why, anything;\n    An honorable murtherer, if you will,\n    For nought did I in hate, but all in honor.\n  LODOVICO. This wretch hath part confess'd his villainy.\n    Did you and he consent in Cassio's death?\n  OTHELLO. Ay.\n  CASSIO. Dear general, I never gave you cause.\n  OTHELLO. I do believe it, and I ask your pardon.\n    Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil\n    Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body?\n  IAGO. Demand me nothing; what you know, you know.\n    From this time forth I never will speak word.\n  LODOVICO. What, not to pray?\n  GRATIANO.                    Torments will ope your lips.\n  OTHELLO. Well, thou dost best.\n  LODOVICO. Sir, you shall understand what hath befall'n,\n    Which, as I think, you know not. Here is a letter\n    Found in the pocket of the slain Roderigo,\n    And here another. The one of them imports\n    The death of Cassio to be undertook\n    By Roderigo.\n  OTHELLO. O villain!\n  CASSIO.             Most heathenish and most gross!\n  LODOVICO. Now here's another discontented paper,\n    Found in his pocket too; and this, it seems,\n    Roderigo meant to have sent this damned villain;\n    But that, belike, Iago in the interim\n    Came in and satisfied him.\n  OTHELLO.                     O the pernicious caitiff!\n    How came you, Cassio, by that handkerchief\n    That was my wife's?\n  CASSIO.               I found it in my chamber;\n    And he himself confess'd but even now\n    That there he dropp'd it for a special purpose\n    Which wrought to his desire.\n  OTHELLO.                       O fool! fool! fool!\n  CASSIO. There is besides in Roderigo's letter,\n    How he upbraids Iago, that he made him\n    Brave me upon the watch, whereon it came\n    That I was cast. And even but now he spake\n    After long seeming dead, Iago hurt him,\n    Iago set him on.\n  LODOVICO. You must forsake this room, and go with us.\n    Your power and your command is taken off,\n    And Cassio rules in Cyprus. For this slave,\n    If there be any cunning cruelty\n    That can torment him much and hold him long,\n    It shall be his. You shall close prisoner rest,\n    Till that the nature of your fault be known\n    To the Venetian state. Come, bring away.\n  OTHELLO. Soft you; a word or two before you go.\n    I have done the state some service, and they know't.\n    No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,\n    When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,\n    Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,\n    Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak\n    Of one that loved not wisely but too well;\n    Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,\n    Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,\n    Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away\n    Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,\n    Albeit unused to the melting mood,\n    Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees\n    Their medicinal gum. Set you down this;\n    And say besides, that in Aleppo once,\n    Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk\n    Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,\n    I took by the throat the circumcised dog\n    And smote him, thus.                               Stabs himself.\n  LODOVICO. O bloody period!\n  GRATIANO.                  All that's spoke is marr'd.\n  OTHELLO. I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee. No way but this,\n    Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.\n                                          Falls on the bed, and dies.\n  CASSIO. This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon;\n    For he was great of heart.\n  LODOVICO.         [To Iago.] O Spartan dog,\n    More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea!\n    Look on the tragic loading of this bed;\n    This is thy work. The object poisons sight;\n    Let it be hid. Gratiano, keep the house,\n    And seize upon the fortunes of the Moor,\n    For they succeed on you. To you, Lord Governor,\n    Remains the censure of this hellish villain,\n    The time, the place, the torture. O, enforce it!\n    Myself will straight aboard, and to the state\n    This heavy act with heavy heart relate.                   Exeunt.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1596\n\n\nKING RICHARD THE SECOND\n\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  KING RICHARD THE SECOND\n  JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster - uncle to the King\n  EDMUND LANGLEY, Duke of York - uncle to the King\n  HENRY, surnamed BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford, son of\n    John of Gaunt, afterwards King Henry IV\n  DUKE OF AUMERLE, son of the Duke of York\n  THOMAS MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk\n  DUKE OF SURREY\n  EARL OF SALISBURY\n  EARL BERKELEY\n  BUSHY - favourites of King Richard\n  BAGOT -     \"      \"   \"     \"\n  GREEN -     \"      \"   \"     \"\n  EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND\n  HENRY PERCY, surnamed HOTSPUR, his son\n  LORD Ross                             LORD WILLOUGHBY\n  LORD FITZWATER                        BISHOP OF CARLISLE\n  ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER                  LORD MARSHAL\n  SIR STEPHEN SCROOP                    SIR PIERCE OF EXTON\n  CAPTAIN of a band of Welshmen         TWO GARDENERS\n\n  QUEEN to King Richard\n  DUCHESS OF YORK\n  DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER, widow of Thomas of Woodstock,\n    Duke of Gloucester\n  LADY attending on the Queen\n\n  Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Keeper, Messenger,\n    Groom, and other Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland and Wales\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter RICHARD, JOHN OF GAUNT, with other NOBLES and attendants\n\n  KING RICHARD. Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,\n    Hast thou, according to thy oath and band,\n    Brought hither Henry Hereford, thy bold son,\n    Here to make good the boist'rous late appeal,\n    Which then our leisure would not let us hear,\n    Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?\n  GAUNT. I have, my liege.\n  KING RICHARD. Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him\n    If he appeal the Duke on ancient malice,\n    Or worthily, as a good subject should,\n    On some known ground of treachery in him?\n  GAUNT. As near as I could sift him on that argument,\n    On some apparent danger seen in him\n    Aim'd at your Highness-no inveterate malice.\n  KING RICHARD. Then call them to our presence: face to face\n    And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear\n    The accuser and the accused freely speak.\n    High-stomach'd are they both and full of ire,\n    In rage, deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.\n\n         Enter BOLINGBROKE and MOWBRAY\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Many years of happy days befall\n    My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!\n  MOWBRAY. Each day still better other's happiness\n    Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap,\n    Add an immortal title to your crown!\n  KING RICHARD. We thank you both; yet one but flatters us,\n    As well appeareth by the cause you come;\n    Namely, to appeal each other of high treason.\n    Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object\n    Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?\n  BOLINGBROKE. First-heaven be the record to my speech!\n    In the devotion of a subject's love,\n    Tend'ring the precious safety of my prince,\n    And free from other misbegotten hate,\n    Come I appellant to this princely presence.\n    Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,\n    And mark my greeting well; for what I speak\n    My body shall make good upon this earth,\n    Or my divine soul answer it in heaven-\n    Thou art a traitor and a miscreant,\n    Too good to be so, and too bad to live,\n    Since the more fair and crystal is the sky,\n    The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.\n    Once more, the more to aggravate the note,\n    With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;\n    And wish-so please my sovereign-ere I move,\n    What my tongue speaks, my right drawn sword may prove.\n  MOWBRAY. Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal.\n    'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,\n    The bitter clamour of two eager tongues,\n    Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain;\n    The blood is hot that must be cool'd for this.\n    Yet can I not of such tame patience boast\n    As to be hush'd and nought at an to say.\n    First, the fair reverence of your Highness curbs me\n    From giving reins and spurs to my free speech;\n    Which else would post until it had return'd\n    These terms of treason doubled down his throat.\n    Setting aside his high blood's royalty,\n    And let him be no kinsman to my liege,\n    I do defy him, and I spit at him,\n    Call him a slanderous coward and a villain;\n    Which to maintain, I would allow him odds\n    And meet him, were I tied to run afoot\n    Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,\n    Or any other ground inhabitable\n    Where ever Englishman durst set his foot.\n    Meantime let this defend my loyalty-\n    By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie\n  BOLINGBROKE. Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,\n    Disclaiming here the kindred of the King;\n    And lay aside my high blood's royalty,\n    Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.\n    If guilty dread have left thee so much strength\n    As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop.\n    By that and all the rites of knighthood else\n    Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,\n    What I have spoke or thou canst worst devise.\n  MOWBRAY. I take it up; and by that sword I swear\n    Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder\n    I'll answer thee in any fair degree\n    Or chivalrous design of knightly trial;\n    And when I mount, alive may I not light\n    If I be traitor or unjustly fight!\n  KING RICHARD. What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?\n    It must be great that can inherit us\n    So much as of a thought of ill in him.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Look what I speak, my life shall prove it true-\n    That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand nobles\n    In name of lendings for your Highness' soldiers,\n    The which he hath detain'd for lewd employments\n    Like a false traitor and injurious villain.\n    Besides, I say and will in battle prove-\n    Or here, or elsewhere to the furthest verge\n    That ever was survey'd by English eye-\n    That all the treasons for these eighteen years\n    Complotted and contrived in this land\n    Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.\n    Further I say, and further will maintain\n    Upon his bad life to make all this good,\n    That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death,\n    Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,\n    And consequently, like a traitor coward,\n    Sluic'd out his innocent soul through streams of blood;\n    Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,\n    Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,\n    To me for justice and rough chastisement;\n    And, by the glorious worth of my descent,\n    This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.\n  KING RICHARD. How high a pitch his resolution soars!\n    Thomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this?\n  MOWBRAY. O, let my sovereign turn away his face\n    And bid his ears a little while be deaf,\n    Till I have told this slander of his blood\n    How God and good men hate so foul a liar.\n  KING RICHARD. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and cars.\n    Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,\n    As he is but my father's brother's son,\n    Now by my sceptre's awe I make a vow,\n    Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood\n    Should nothing privilege him nor partialize\n    The unstooping firmness of my upright soul.\n    He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:\n    Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.\n  MOWBRAY. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,\n    Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.\n    Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais\n    Disburs'd I duly to his Highness' soldiers;\n    The other part reserv'd I by consent,\n    For that my sovereign liege was in my debt\n    Upon remainder of a dear account\n    Since last I went to France to fetch his queen:\n    Now swallow down that lie. For Gloucester's death-\n    I slew him not, but to my own disgrace\n    Neglected my sworn duty in that case.\n    For you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,\n    The honourable father to my foe,\n    Once did I lay an ambush for your life,\n    A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul;\n    But ere I last receiv'd the sacrament\n    I did confess it, and exactly begg'd\n    Your Grace's pardon; and I hope I had it.\n    This is my fault. As for the rest appeal'd,\n    It issues from the rancour of a villain,\n    A recreant and most degenerate traitor;\n    Which in myself I boldly will defend,\n    And interchangeably hurl down my gage\n    Upon this overweening traitor's foot\n    To prove myself a loyal gentleman\n    Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.\n    In haste whereof, most heartily I pray\n    Your Highness to assign our trial day.\n  KING RICHARD. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd by me;\n    Let's purge this choler without letting blood-\n    This we prescribe, though no physician;\n    Deep malice makes too deep incision.\n    Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed:\n    Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.\n    Good uncle, let this end where it begun;\n    We'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.\n  GAUNT. To be a make-peace shall become my age.\n    Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.\n  KING RICHARD. And, Norfolk, throw down his.\n  GAUNT. When, Harry, when?\n    Obedience bids I should not bid again.\n  KING RICHARD. Norfolk, throw down; we bid.\n    There is no boot.\n  MOWBRAY. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot;\n    My life thou shalt command, but not my shame:\n    The one my duty owes; but my fair name,\n    Despite of death, that lives upon my grave\n    To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.\n    I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffl'd here;\n    Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,\n    The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood\n    Which breath'd this poison.\n  KING RICHARD. Rage must be withstood:\n    Give me his gage-lions make leopards tame.\n  MOWBRAY. Yea, but not change his spots. Take but my shame,\n    And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,\n    The purest treasure mortal times afford\n    Is spotless reputation; that away,\n    Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.\n    A jewel in a ten-times barr'd-up chest\n    Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.\n    Mine honour is my life; both grow in one;\n    Take honour from me, and my life is done:\n    Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;\n    In that I live, and for that will I die.\n  KING RICHARD. Cousin, throw up your gage; do you begin.\n  BOLINGBROKE. O, God defend my soul from such deep sin!\n    Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father's sight?\n    Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height\n    Before this outdar'd dastard? Ere my tongue\n    Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong\n    Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear\n    The slavish motive of recanting fear,\n    And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace,\n    Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face.\n                                                      Exit GAUNT\n  KING RICHARD. We were not born to sue, but to command;\n    Which since we cannot do to make you friends,\n    Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,\n    At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day.\n    There shall your swords and lances arbitrate\n    The swelling difference of your settled hate;\n    Since we can not atone you, we shall see\n    Justice design the victor's chivalry.\n    Lord Marshal, command our officers-at-arms\n    Be ready to direct these home alarms.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nLondon. The DUKE OF LANCASTER'S palace\n\nEnter JOHN OF GAUNT with the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER\n\n  GAUNT. Alas, the part I had in Woodstock's blood\n    Doth more solicit me than your exclaims\n    To stir against the butchers of his life!\n    But since correction lieth in those hands\n    Which made the fault that we cannot correct,\n    Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven;\n    Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth,\n    Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.\n  DUCHESS. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?\n    Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?\n    Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,\n    Were as seven vials of his sacred blood,\n    Or seven fair branches springing from one root.\n    Some of those seven are dried by nature's course,\n    Some of those branches by the Destinies cut;\n    But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,\n    One vial full of Edward's sacred blood,\n    One flourishing branch of his most royal root,\n    Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt;\n    Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,\n    By envy's hand and murder's bloody axe.\n    Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! That bed, that womb,\n    That mettle, that self mould, that fashion'd thee,\n    Made him a man; and though thou livest and breathest,\n    Yet art thou slain in him. Thou dost consent\n    In some large measure to thy father's death\n    In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,\n    Who was the model of thy father's life.\n    Call it not patience, Gaunt-it is despair;\n    In suff'ring thus thy brother to be slaught'red,\n    Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life,\n    Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee.\n    That which in mean men we entitle patience\n    Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.\n    What shall I say? To safeguard thine own life\n    The best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.\n  GAUNT. God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,\n    His deputy anointed in His sight,\n    Hath caus'd his death; the which if wrongfully,\n    Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift\n    An angry arm against His minister.\n  DUCHESS. Where then, alas, may I complain myself?\n  GAUNT. To God, the widow's champion and defence.\n  DUCHESS. Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.\n    Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold\n    Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight.\n    O, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,\n    That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!\n    Or, if misfortune miss the first career,\n    Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom\n    That they may break his foaming courser's back\n    And throw the rider headlong in the lists,\n    A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!\n    Farewell, old Gaunt; thy sometimes brother's wife,\n    With her companion, Grief, must end her life.\n  GAUNT. Sister, farewell; I must to Coventry.\n    As much good stay with thee as go with me!\n  DUCHESS. Yet one word more- grief boundeth where it falls,\n    Not with the empty hollowness, but weight.\n    I take my leave before I have begun,\n    For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.\n    Commend me to thy brother, Edmund York.\n    Lo, this is all- nay, yet depart not so;\n    Though this be all, do not so quickly go;\n    I shall remember more. Bid him- ah, what?-\n    With all good speed at Plashy visit me.\n    Alack, and what shall good old York there see\n    But empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls,\n    Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones?\n    And what hear there for welcome but my groans?\n    Therefore commend me; let him not come there\n    To seek out sorrow that dwells every where.\n    Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die;\n    The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\nThe lists at Coventry\n\nEnter the LORD MARSHAL and the DUKE OF AUMERLE\n\n  MARSHAL. My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford arm'd?\n  AUMERLE. Yea, at all points; and longs to enter in.\n  MARSHAL. The Duke of Norfolk, spightfully and bold,\n    Stays but the summons of the appelant's trumpet.\n  AUMERLE. Why then, the champions are prepar'd, and stay\n    For nothing but his Majesty's approach.\n\n     The trumpets sound, and the KING enters with his nobles,\n     GAUNT, BUSHY, BAGOT, GREEN, and others. When they are set,\n     enter MOWBRAY, Duke of Nor folk, in arms, defendant, and\n     a HERALD\n\n  KING RICHARD. Marshal, demand of yonder champion\n    The cause of his arrival here in arms;\n    Ask him his name; and orderly proceed\n    To swear him in the justice of his cause.\n  MARSHAL. In God's name and the King's, say who thou art,\n    And why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms;\n    Against what man thou com'st, and what thy quarrel.\n    Speak truly on thy knighthood and thy oath;\n    As so defend thee heaven and thy valour!\n  MOWBRAY. My name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk;\n    Who hither come engaged by my oath-\n    Which God defend a knight should violate!-\n    Both to defend my loyalty and truth\n    To God, my King, and my succeeding issue,\n    Against the Duke of Hereford that appeals me;\n    And, by the grace of God and this mine arm,\n    To prove him, in defending of myself,\n    A traitor to my God, my King, and me.\n    And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!\n\n   The trumpets sound. Enter BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford,\n            appellant, in armour, and a HERALD\n\n  KING RICHARD. Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms,\n    Both who he is and why he cometh hither\n    Thus plated in habiliments of war;\n    And formally, according to our law,\n    Depose him in the justice of his cause.\n  MARSHAL. What is thy name? and wherefore com'st thou hither\n    Before King Richard in his royal lists?\n    Against whom comest thou? and what's thy quarrel?\n    Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!\n  BOLINGBROKE. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\n    Am I; who ready here do stand in arms\n    To prove, by God's grace and my body's valour,\n    In lists on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,\n    That he is a traitor, foul and dangerous,\n    To God of heaven, King Richard, and to me.\n    And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!\n  MARSHAL. On pain of death, no person be so bold\n    Or daring-hardy as to touch the lists,\n    Except the Marshal and such officers\n    Appointed to direct these fair designs.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Lord Marshal, let me kiss my sovereign's hand,\n    And bow my knee before his Majesty;\n    For Mowbray and myself are like two men\n    That vow a long and weary pilgrimage.\n    Then let us take a ceremonious leave\n    And loving farewell of our several friends.\n  MARSHAL. The appellant in all duty greets your Highness,\n    And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.\n  KING RICHARD. We will descend and fold him in our arms.\n    Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,\n    So be thy fortune in this royal fight!\n    Farewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed,\n    Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.\n  BOLINGBROKE. O, let no noble eye profane a tear\n    For me, if I be gor'd with Mowbray's spear.\n    As confident as is the falcon's flight\n    Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.\n    My loving lord, I take my leave of you;\n    Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;\n    Not sick, although I have to do with death,\n    But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.\n    Lo, as at English feasts, so I regreet\n    The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.\n    O thou, the earthly author of my blood,\n    Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,\n    Doth with a twofold vigour lift me up\n    To reach at victory above my head,\n    Add proof unto mine armour with thy prayers,\n    And with thy blessings steel my lance's point,\n    That it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat\n    And furbish new the name of John o' Gaunt,\n    Even in the lusty haviour of his son.\n  GAUNT. God in thy good cause make thee prosperous!\n    Be swift like lightning in the execution,\n    And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,\n    Fall like amazing thunder on the casque\n    Of thy adverse pernicious enemy.\n    Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant, and live.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Mine innocence and Saint George to thrive!\n  MOWBRAY. However God or fortune cast my lot,\n    There lives or dies, true to King Richard's throne,\n    A loyal, just, and upright gentleman.\n    Never did captive with a freer heart\n    Cast off his chains of bondage, and embrace\n    His golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,\n    More than my dancing soul doth celebrate\n    This feast of battle with mine adversary.\n    Most mighty liege, and my companion peers,\n    Take from my mouth the wish of happy years.\n    As gentle and as jocund as to jest\n    Go I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast.\n  KING RICHARD. Farewell, my lord, securely I espy\n    Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.\n    Order the trial, Marshal, and begin.\n  MARSHAL. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\n    Receive thy lance; and God defend the right!\n  BOLINGBROKE. Strong as a tower in hope, I cry amen.\n  MARSHAL. [To an officer] Go bear this lance to Thomas,\n      Duke of Norfolk.\n  FIRST HERALD. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\n    Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself,\n    On pain to be found false and recreant,\n    To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,\n    A traitor to his God, his King, and him;\n    And dares him to set forward to the fight.\n  SECOND HERALD. Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,\n    On pain to be found false and recreant,\n    Both to defend himself, and to approve\n    Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\n    To God, his sovereign, and to him disloyal,\n    Courageously and with a free desire\n    Attending but the signal to begin.\n  MARSHAL. Sound trumpets; and set forward, combatants.\n                                           [A charge sounded]\n    Stay, the King hath thrown his warder down.\n  KING RICHARD. Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,\n    And both return back to their chairs again.\n    Withdraw with us; and let the trumpets sound\n    While we return these dukes what we decree.\n\n    A long flourish, while the KING consults his Council\n\n    Draw near,\n    And list what with our council we have done.\n    For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd\n    With that dear blood which it hath fostered;\n    And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect\n    Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' sword;\n    And for we think the eagle-winged pride\n    Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,\n    With rival-hating envy, set on you\n    To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle\n    Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;\n    Which so rous'd up with boist'rous untun'd drums,\n    With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,\n    And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,\n    Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace\n    And make us wade even in our kindred's blood-\n    Therefore we banish you our territories.\n    You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,\n    Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields\n    Shall not regreet our fair dominions,\n    But tread the stranger paths of banishment.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Your will be done. This must my comfort be-\n    That sun that warms you here shall shine on me,\n    And those his golden beams to you here lent\n    Shall point on me and gild my banishment.\n  KING RICHARD. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,\n    Which I with some unwillingness pronounce:\n    The sly slow hours shall not determinate\n    The dateless limit of thy dear exile;\n    The hopeless word of 'never to return'\n    Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.\n  MOWBRAY. A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,\n    And all unlook'd for from your Highness' mouth.\n    A dearer merit, not so deep a maim\n    As to be cast forth in the common air,\n    Have I deserved at your Highness' hands.\n    The language I have learnt these forty years,\n    My native English, now I must forgo;\n    And now my tongue's use is to me no more\n    Than an unstringed viol or a harp;\n    Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up\n    Or, being open, put into his hands\n    That knows no touch to tune the harmony.\n    Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,\n    Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;\n    And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance\n    Is made my gaoler to attend on me.\n    I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,\n    Too far in years to be a pupil now.\n    What is thy sentence, then, but speechless death,\n    Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?\n  KING RICHARD. It boots thee not to be compassionate;\n    After our sentence plaining comes too late.\n  MOWBRAY. Then thus I turn me from my countrv's light,\n    To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.\n  KING RICHARD. Return again, and take an oath with thee.\n    Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;\n    Swear by the duty that you owe to God,\n    Our part therein we banish with yourselves,\n    To keep the oath that we administer:\n    You never shall, so help you truth and God,\n    Embrace each other's love in banishment;\n    Nor never look upon each other's face;\n    Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile\n    This louring tempest of your home-bred hate;\n    Nor never by advised purpose meet\n    To plot, contrive, or complot any ill,\n    'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I swear.\n  MOWBRAY. And I, to keep all this.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy.\n    By this time, had the King permitted us,\n    One of our souls had wand'red in the air,\n    Banish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,\n    As now our flesh is banish'd from this land-\n    Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm;\n    Since thou hast far to go, bear not along\n    The clogging burden of a guilty soul.\n  MOWBRAY. No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor,\n    My name be blotted from the book of life,\n    And I from heaven banish'd as from hence!\n    But what thou art, God, thou, and I, do know;\n    And all too soon, I fear, the King shall rue.\n    Farewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray:\n    Save back to England, an the world's my way.            Exit\n  KING RICHARD. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes\n    I see thy grieved heart. Thy sad aspect\n    Hath from the number of his banish'd years\n    Pluck'd four away. [To BOLINGBROKE] Six frozen winters spent,\n    Return with welcome home from banishment.\n  BOLINGBROKE. How long a time lies in one little word!\n    Four lagging winters and four wanton springs\n    End in a word: such is the breath of Kings.\n  GAUNT. I thank my liege that in regard of me\n    He shortens four years of my son's exile;\n    But little vantage shall I reap thereby,\n    For ere the six years that he hath to spend\n    Can change their moons and bring their times about,\n    My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light\n    Shall be extinct with age and endless night;\n    My inch of taper will be burnt and done,\n    And blindfold death not let me see my son.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.\n  GAUNT. But not a minute, King, that thou canst give:\n    Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow\n    And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow;\n    Thou can'st help time to furrow me with age,\n    But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;\n    Thy word is current with him for my death,\n    But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.\n  KING RICHARD. Thy son is banish'd upon good advice,\n    Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave.\n    Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lour?\n  GAUNT. Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.\n    You urg'd me as a judge; but I had rather\n    You would have bid me argue like a father.\n    O, had it been a stranger, not my child,\n    To smooth his fault I should have been more mild.\n    A partial slander sought I to avoid,\n    And in the sentence my own life destroy'd.\n    Alas, I look'd when some of you should say\n    I was too strict to make mine own away;\n    But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue\n    Against my will to do myself this wrong.\n  KING RICHARD. Cousin, farewell; and, uncle, bid him so.\n    Six years we banish him, and he shall go.\n                                  Flourish. Exit KING with train\n  AUMERLE. Cousin, farewell; what presence must not know,\n    From where you do remain let paper show.\n  MARSHAL. My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride\n    As far as land will let me by your side.\n  GAUNT. O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,\n    That thou returnest no greeting to thy friends?\n  BOLINGBROKE. I have too few to take my leave of you,\n    When the tongue's office should be prodigal\n    To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.\n  GAUNT. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Joy absent, grief is present for that time.\n  GAUNT. What is six winters? They are quickly gone.\n  BOLINGBROKE. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.\n  GAUNT. Call it a travel that thou tak'st for pleasure.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,\n    Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.\n  GAUNT. The sullen passage of thy weary steps\n    Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set\n    The precious jewel of thy home return.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make\n    Will but remember me what a deal of world\n    I wander from the jewels that I love.\n    Must I not serve a long apprenticehood\n    To foreign passages; and in the end,\n    Having my freedom, boast of nothing else\n    But that I was a journeyman to grief?\n  GAUNT. All places that the eye of heaven visits\n    Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.\n    Teach thy necessity to reason thus:\n    There is no virtue like necessity.\n    Think not the King did banish thee,\n    But thou the King. Woe doth the heavier sit\n    Where it perceives it is but faintly home.\n    Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,\n    And not the King exil'd thee; or suppose\n    Devouring pestilence hangs in our air\n    And thou art flying to a fresher clime.\n    Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it\n    To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou com'st.\n    Suppose the singing birds musicians,\n    The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,\n    The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more\n    Than a delightful measure or a dance;\n    For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite\n    The man that mocks at it and sets it light.\n  BOLINGBROKE. O, who can hold a fire in his hand\n    By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?\n    Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite\n    By bare imagination of a feast?\n    Or wallow naked in December snow\n    By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?\n    O, no! the apprehension of the good\n    Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.\n    Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more\n    Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.\n  GAUNT. Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way.\n    Had I thy youtli and cause, I would not stay.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu;\n    My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!\n    Where'er I wander, boast of this I can:\n    Though banish'd, yet a trueborn English man.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\nLondon. The court\n\nEnter the KING, with BAGOT and GREEN, at one door;\nand the DUKE OF AUMERLE at another\n\n  KING RICHARD. We did observe. Cousin Aumerle,\n    How far brought you high Hereford on his way?\n  AUMERLE. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,\n    But to the next high way, and there I left him.\n  KING RICHARD. And say, what store of parting tears were shed?\n  AUMERLE. Faith, none for me; except the north-east wind,\n    Which then blew bitterly against our faces,\n    Awak'd the sleeping rheum, and so by chance\n    Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.\n  KING RICHARD. What said our cousin when you parted with him?\n  AUMERLE. 'Farewell.'\n    And, for my heart disdained that my tongue\n    Should so profane the word, that taught me craft\n    To counterfeit oppression of such grief\n    That words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.\n    Marry, would the word 'farewell' have length'ned hours\n    And added years to his short banishment,\n    He should have had a volume of farewells;\n    But since it would not, he had none of me.\n  KING RICHARD. He is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt,\n    When time shall call him home from banishment,\n    Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.\n    Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green,\n    Observ'd his courtship to the common people;\n    How he did seem to dive into their hearts\n    With humble and familiar courtesy;\n    What reverence he did throw away on slaves,\n    Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles\n    And patient underbearing of his fortune,\n    As 'twere to banish their affects with him.\n    Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;\n    A brace of draymen bid God speed him well\n    And had the tribute of his supple knee,\n    With 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends';\n    As were our England in reversion his,\n    And he our subjects' next degree in hope.\n  GREEN. Well, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts!\n    Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,\n    Expedient manage must be made, my liege,\n    Ere further leisure yicld them further means\n    For their advantage and your Highness' loss.\n  KING RICHARD. We will ourself in person to this war;\n    And, for our coffers, with too great a court\n    And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,\n    We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm;\n    The revenue whereof shall furnish us\n    For our affairs in hand. If that come short,\n    Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters;\n    Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,\n    They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold,\n    And send them after to supply our wants;\n    For we will make for Ireland presently.\n\n                     Enter BUSHY\n\n    Bushy, what news?\n  BUSHY. Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,\n    Suddenly taken; and hath sent poste-haste\n    To entreat your Majesty to visit him.\n  KING RICHARD. Where lies he?\n  BUSHY. At Ely House.\n  KING RICHARD. Now put it, God, in the physician's mind\n    To help him to his grave immediately!\n    The lining of his coffers shall make coats\n    To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.\n    Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him.\n    Pray God we may make haste, and come too late!\n  ALL. Amen.                                              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nLondon. Ely House\n\nEnter JOHN OF GAUNT, sick, with the DUKE OF YORK, etc.\n\n  GAUNT. Will the King come, that I may breathe my last\n    In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?\n  YORK. Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;\n    For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.\n  GAUNT. O, but they say the tongues of dying men\n    Enforce attention like deep harmony.\n    Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain;\n    For they breathe truth that breathe their words -in pain.\n    He that no more must say is listen'd more\n    Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;\n    More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before.\n    The setting sun, and music at the close,\n    As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,\n    Writ in remembrance more than things long past.\n    Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,\n    My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.\n  YORK. No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,\n    As praises, of whose taste the wise are fond,\n    Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound\n    The open ear of youth doth always listen;\n    Report of fashions in proud Italy,\n    Whose manners still our tardy apish nation\n    Limps after in base imitation.\n    Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity-\n    So it be new, there's no respect how vile-\n    That is not quickly buzz'd into his ears?\n    Then all too late comes counsel to be heard\n    Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.\n    Direct not him whose way himself will choose.\n    'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.\n  GAUNT. Methinks I am a prophet new inspir'd,\n    And thus expiring do foretell of him:\n    His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,\n    For violent fires soon burn out themselves;\n    Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;\n    He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;\n    With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder;\n    Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,\n    Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.\n    This royal throne of kings, this scept'red isle,\n    This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,\n    This other Eden, demi-paradise,\n    This fortress built by Nature for herself\n    Against infection and the hand of war,\n    This happy breed of men, this little world,\n    This precious stone set in the silver sea,\n    Which serves it in the office of a wall,\n    Or as a moat defensive to a house,\n    Against the envy of less happier lands;\n    This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,\n    This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,\n    Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth,\n    Renowned for their deeds as far from home,\n    For Christian service and true chivalry,\n    As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry\n    Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son;\n    This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,\n    Dear for her reputation through the world,\n    Is now leas'd out-I die pronouncing it-\n    Like to a tenement or pelting farm.\n    England, bound in with the triumphant sea,\n    Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege\n    Of wat'ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame,\n    With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds;\n    That England, that was wont to conquer others,\n    Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.\n    Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,\n    How happy then were my ensuing death!\n\n    Enter KING and QUEEN, AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT,\n                Ross, and WILLOUGHBY\n\n  YORK. The King is come; deal mildly with his youth,\n    For young hot colts being rag'd do rage the more.\n  QUEEN. How fares our noble uncle Lancaster?\n  KING RICHARD. What comfort, man? How is't with aged Gaunt?\n  GAUNT. O, how that name befits my composition!\n    Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old.\n    Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast;\n    And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?\n    For sleeping England long time have I watch'd;\n    Watching breeds leanness, leanness is an gaunt.\n    The pleasure that some fathers feed upon\n    Is my strict fast-I mean my children's looks;\n    And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt.\n    Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,\n    Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.\n  KING RICHARD. Can sick men play so nicely with their names?\n  GAUNT. No, misery makes sport to mock itself:\n    Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,\n    I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.\n  KING RICHARD. Should dying men flatter with those that live?\n  GAUNT. No, no; men living flatter those that die.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou, now a-dying, sayest thou flatterest me.\n  GAUNT. O, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.\n  KING RICHARD. I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.\n  GAUNT. Now He that made me knows I see thee ill;\n    Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.\n    Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land\n    Wherein thou liest in reputation sick;\n    And thou, too careless patient as thou art,\n    Commit'st thy anointed body to the cure\n    Of those physicians that first wounded thee:\n    A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,\n    Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;\n    And yet, incaged in so small a verge,\n    The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.\n    O, had thy grandsire with a prophet's eye\n    Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons,\n    From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,\n    Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd,\n    Which art possess'd now to depose thyself.\n    Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,\n    It were a shame to let this land by lease;\n    But for thy world enjoying but this land,\n    Is it not more than shame to shame it so?\n    Landlord of England art thou now, not King.\n    Thy state of law is bondslave to the law;\n    And thou-\n  KING RICHARD. A lunatic lean-witted fool,\n    Presuming on an ague's privilege,\n    Darest with thy frozen admonition\n    Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood\n    With fury from his native residence.\n    Now by my seat's right royal majesty,\n    Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son,\n    This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head\n    Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.\n  GAUNT. O, Spare me not, my brother Edward's son,\n    For that I was his father Edward's son;\n    That blood already, like the pelican,\n    Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd.\n    My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul-\n    Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls!-\n    May be a precedent and witness good\n    That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood.\n    Join with the present sickness that I have;\n    And thy unkindness be like crooked age,\n    To crop at once a too long withered flower.\n    Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!\n    These words hereafter thy tormentors be!\n    Convey me to my bed, then to my grave.\n    Love they to live that love and honour have.\n                               Exit, borne out by his attendants\n  KING RICHARD. And let them die that age and sullens have;\n    For both hast thou, and both become the grave.\n  YORK. I do beseech your Majesty impute his words\n    To wayward sickliness and age in him.\n    He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear\n    As Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.\n  KING RICHARD. Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;\n    As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.\n\n                Enter NORTHUMBERLAND\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your Majesty.\n  KING RICHARD. What says he?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Nay, nothing; all is said.\n    His tongue is now a stringless instrument;\n    Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.\n  YORK. Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!\n    Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.\n  KING RICHARD. The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he;\n    His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.\n    So much for that. Now for our Irish wars.\n    We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,\n    Which live like venom where no venom else\n    But only they have privilege to live.\n    And for these great affairs do ask some charge,\n    Towards our assistance we do seize to us\n    The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,\n    Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.\n  YORK. How long shall I be patient? Ah, how long\n    Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?\n    Not Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment,\n    Nor Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,\n    Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke\n    About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,\n    Have ever made me sour my patient cheek\n    Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.\n    I am the last of noble Edward's sons,\n    Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first.\n    In war was never lion rag'd more fierce,\n    In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,\n    Than was that young and princely gentleman.\n    His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,\n    Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;\n    But when he frown'd, it was against the French\n    And not against his friends. His noble hand\n    Did win what he did spend, and spent not that\n    Which his triumphant father's hand had won.\n    His hands were guilty of no kindred blood,\n    But bloody with the enemies of his kin.\n    O Richard! York is too far gone with grief,\n    Or else he never would compare between-\n  KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, what's the matter?\n  YORK. O my liege,\n    Pardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleas'd\n    Not to be pardoned, am content withal.\n    Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands\n    The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?\n    Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not Hereford live?\n    Was not Gaunt just? and is not Harry true?\n    Did not the one deserve to have an heir?\n    Is not his heir a well-deserving son?\n    Take Hereford's rights away, and take from Time\n    His charters and his customary rights;\n    Let not to-morrow then ensue to-day;\n    Be not thyself-for how art thou a king\n    But by fair sequence and succession?\n    Now, afore God-God forbid I say true!-\n    If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,\n    Call in the letters patents that he hath\n    By his attorneys-general to sue\n    His livery, and deny his off'red homage,\n    You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,\n    You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts,\n    And prick my tender patience to those thoughts\n    Which honour and allegiance cannot think.\n  KING RICHARD. Think what you will, we seize into our hands\n    His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.\n  YORK. I'll not be by the while. My liege, farewell.\n    What will ensue hereof there's none can tell;\n    But by bad courses may be understood\n    That their events can never fall out good.              Exit\n  KING RICHARD. Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight;\n    Bid him repair to us to Ely House\n    To see this business. To-morrow next\n    We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow.\n    And we create, in absence of ourself,\n    Our Uncle York Lord Governor of England;\n    For he is just, and always lov'd us well.\n    Come on, our queen; to-morrow must we part;\n    Be merry, for our time of stay is short.\n                   Flourish. Exeunt KING, QUEEN, BUSHY, AUMERLE,\n                                                GREEN, and BAGOT\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.\n    Ross. And living too; for now his son is Duke.\n  WILLOUGHBY. Barely in title, not in revenues.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Richly in both, if justice had her right.\n  ROSS. My heart is great; but it must break with silence,\n    Ere't be disburdened with a liberal tongue.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Nay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak more\n    That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!\n  WILLOUGHBY. Tends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of Hereford?\n    If it be so, out with it boldly, man;\n    Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.\n  ROSS. No good at all that I can do for him;\n    Unless you call it good to pity him,\n    Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Now, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are borne\n    In him, a royal prince, and many moe\n    Of noble blood in this declining land.\n    The King is not himself, but basely led\n    By flatterers; and what they will inform,\n    Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us an,\n    That will the King severely prosecute\n    'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.\n  ROSS. The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes;\n    And quite lost their hearts; the nobles hath he find\n    For ancient quarrels and quite lost their hearts.\n  WILLOUGHBY. And daily new exactions are devis'd,\n    As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what;\n    But what, a God's name, doth become of this?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Wars hath not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not,\n    But basely yielded upon compromise\n    That which his noble ancestors achiev'd with blows.\n    More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.\n  ROSS. The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.\n  WILLOUGHBY. The King's grown bankrupt like a broken man.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him.\n  ROSS. He hath not money for these Irish wars,\n    His burdenous taxations notwithstanding,\n    But by the robbing of the banish'd Duke.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. His noble kinsman-most degenerate king!\n    But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,\n    Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm;\n    We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,\n    And yet we strike not, but securely perish.\n  ROSS. We see the very wreck that we must suffer;\n    And unavoided is the danger now\n    For suffering so the causes of our wreck.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Not so; even through the hollow eyes of death\n    I spy life peering; but I dare not say\n    How near the tidings of our comfort is.\n  WILLOUGHBY. Nay, let us share thy thoughts as thou dost ours.\n  ROSS. Be confident to speak, Northumberland.\n    We three are but thyself, and, speaking so,\n    Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore be bold.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Then thus: I have from Le Port Blanc, a bay\n    In Brittany, receiv'd intelligence\n    That Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham,\n    That late broke from the Duke of Exeter,\n    His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,\n    Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,\n    Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton, and Francis Quoint-\n    All these, well furnish'd by the Duke of Britaine,\n    With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,\n    Are making hither with all due expedience,\n    And shortly mean to touch our northern shore.\n    Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay\n    The first departing of the King for Ireland.\n    If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,\n    Imp out our drooping country's broken wing,\n    Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,\n    Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt,\n    And make high majesty look like itself,\n    Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh;\n    But if you faint, as fearing to do so,\n    Stay and be secret, and myself will go.\n  ROSS. To horse, to horse! Urge doubts to them that fear.\n  WILLOUGHBY. Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nWindsor Castle\n\nEnter QUEEN, BUSHY, and BAGOT\n\n  BUSHY. Madam, your Majesty is too much sad.\n    You promis'd, when you parted with the King,\n    To lay aside life-harming heaviness\n    And entertain a cheerful disposition.\n  QUEEN. To please the King, I did; to please myself\n    I cannot do it; yet I know no cause\n    Why I should welcome such a guest as grief,\n    Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest\n    As my sweet Richard. Yet again methinks\n    Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb,\n    Is coming towards me, and my inward soul\n    With nothing trembles. At some thing it grieves\n    More than with parting from my lord the King.\n  BUSHY. Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,\n    Which shows like grief itself, but is not so;\n    For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,\n    Divides one thing entire to many objects,\n    Like perspectives which, rightly gaz'd upon,\n    Show nothing but confusion-ey'd awry,\n    Distinguish form. So your sweet Majesty,\n    Looking awry upon your lord's departure,\n    Find shapes of grief more than himself to wail;\n    Which, look'd on as it is, is nought but shadows\n    Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious Queen,\n    More than your lord's departure weep not-more is not seen;\n    Or if it be, 'tis with false sorrow's eye,\n    Which for things true weeps things imaginary.\n  QUEEN. It may be so; but yet my inward soul\n    Persuades me it is otherwise. Howe'er it be,\n    I cannot but be sad; so heavy sad\n    As-though, on thinking, on no thought I think-\n    Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.\n  BUSHY. 'Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.\n  QUEEN. 'Tis nothing less: conceit is still deriv'd\n    From some forefather grief; mine is not so,\n    For nothing hath begot my something grief,\n    Or something hath the nothing that I grieve;\n    'Tis in reversion that I do possess-\n    But what it is that is not yet known what,\n    I cannot name; 'tis nameless woe, I wot.\n\n                   Enter GREEN\n\n  GREEN. God save your Majesty! and well met, gentlemen.\n    I hope the King is not yet shipp'd for Ireland.\n  QUEEN. Why hopest thou so? 'Tis better hope he is;\n    For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope.\n    Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipp'd?\n  GREEN. That he, our hope, might have retir'd his power\n    And driven into despair an enemy's hope\n    Who strongly hath set footing in this land.\n    The banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself,\n    And with uplifted arms is safe arriv'd\n    At Ravenspurgh.\n  QUEEN. Now God in heaven forbid!\n  GREEN. Ah, madam, 'tis too true; and that is worse,\n    The Lord Northumberland, his son young Henry Percy,\n    The Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby,\n    With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.\n  BUSHY. Why have you not proclaim'd Northumberland\n    And all the rest revolted faction traitors?\n  GREEN. We have; whereupon the Earl of Worcester\n    Hath broken his staff, resign'd his stewardship,\n    And all the household servants fled with him\n    To Bolingbroke.\n  QUEEN. So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe,\n    And Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir.\n    Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy;\n    And I, a gasping new-deliver'd mother,\n    Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join'd.\n  BUSHY. Despair not, madam.\n  QUEEN. Who shall hinder me?\n    I will despair, and be at enmity\n    With cozening hope-he is a flatterer,\n    A parasite, a keeper-back of death,\n    Who gently would dissolve the bands of life,\n    Which false hope lingers in extremity.\n\n                    Enter YORK\n\n  GREEN. Here comes the Duke of York.\n  QUEEN. With signs of war about his aged neck.\n    O, full of careful business are his looks!\n    Uncle, for God's sake, speak comfortable words.\n  YORK. Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts.\n    Comfort's in heaven; and we are on the earth,\n    Where nothing lives but crosses, cares, and grief.\n    Your husband, he is gone to save far off,\n    Whilst others come to make him lose at home.\n    Here am I left to underprop his land,\n    Who, weak with age, cannot support myself.\n    Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made;\n    Now shall he try his friends that flatter'd him.\n\n                   Enter a SERVINGMAN\n\n  SERVINGMAN. My lord, your son was gone before I came.\n  YORK. He was-why so go all which way it will!\n    The nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold\n    And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford's side.\n    Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester;\n    Bid her send me presently a thousand pound.\n    Hold, take my ring.\n  SERVINGMAN. My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship,\n    To-day, as I came by, I called there-\n    But I shall grieve you to report the rest.\n  YORK. What is't, knave?\n  SERVINGMAN. An hour before I came, the Duchess died.\n  YORK. God for his mercy! what a tide of woes\n    Comes rushing on this woeful land at once!\n    I know not what to do. I would to God,\n    So my untruth had not provok'd him to it,\n    The King had cut off my head with my brother's.\n    What, are there no posts dispatch'd for Ireland?\n    How shall we do for money for these wars?\n    Come, sister-cousin, I would say-pray, pardon me.\n    Go, fellow, get thee home, provide some carts,\n    And bring away the armour that is there.\n                                                 Exit SERVINGMAN\n    Gentlemen, will you go muster men?\n    If I know how or which way to order these affairs\n    Thus disorderly thrust into my hands,\n    Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen.\n    T'one is my sovereign, whom both my oath\n    And duty bids defend; t'other again\n    Is my kinsman, whom the King hath wrong'd,\n    Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right.\n    Well, somewhat we must do.-Come, cousin,\n    I'll dispose of you. Gentlemen, go muster up your men\n    And meet me presently at Berkeley.\n    I should to Plashy too,\n    But time will not permit. All is uneven,\n    And everything is left at six and seven.\n                                           Exeunt YORK and QUEEN\n  BUSHY. The wind sits fair for news to go to Ireland.\n    But none returns. For us to levy power\n    Proportionable to the enemy\n    Is all unpossible.\n  GREEN. Besides, our nearness to the King in love\n    Is near the hate of those love not the King.\n  BAGOT. And that is the wavering commons; for their love\n    Lies in their purses; and whoso empties them,\n    By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.\n  BUSHY. Wherein the King stands generally condemn'd.\n  BAGOT. If judgment lie in them, then so do we,\n    Because we ever have been near the King.\n  GREEN. Well, I will for refuge straight to Bristow Castle.\n    The Earl of Wiltshire is already there.\n  BUSHY. Thither will I with you; for little office\n    Will the hateful commons perform for us,\n    Except Eke curs to tear us all to pieces.\n    Will you go along with us?\n  BAGOT. No; I will to Ireland to his Majesty.\n    Farewell. If heart's presages be not vain,\n    We three here part that ne'er shall meet again.\n  BUSHY. That's as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke.\n  GREEN. Alas, poor Duke! the task he undertakes\n    Is numb'ring sands and drinking oceans dry.\n    Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly.\n    Farewell at once-for once, for all, and ever.\n  BUSHY. Well, we may meet again.\n  BAGOT. I fear me, never.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\nGloucestershire\n\nEnter BOLINGBROKE and NORTHUMBERLAND, forces\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. How far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Believe me, noble lord,\n    I am a stranger here in Gloucestershire.\n    These high wild hills and rough uneven ways\n    Draws out our miles, and makes them wearisome;\n    And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,\n    Making the hard way sweet and delectable.\n    But I bethink me what a weary way\n    From Ravenspurgh to Cotswold will be found\n    In Ross and Willoughby, wanting your company,\n    Which, I protest, hath very much beguil'd\n    The tediousness and process of my travel.\n    But theirs is sweet'ned with the hope to have\n    The present benefit which I possess;\n    And hope to joy is little less in joy\n    Than hope enjoy'd. By this the weary lords\n    Shall make their way seem short, as mine hath done\n    By sight of what I have, your noble company.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Of much less value is my company\n    Than your good words. But who comes here?\n\n                 Enter HARRY PERCY\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. It is my son, young Harry Percy,\n    Sent from my brother Worcester, whencesoever.\n    Harry, how fares your uncle?\n  PERCY. I had thought, my lord, to have learn'd his health of you.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Why, is he not with the Queen?\n  PERCY. No, my good lord; he hath forsook the court,\n    Broken his staff of office, and dispers'd\n    The household of the King.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. What was his reason?\n    He was not so resolv'd when last we spake together.\n  PERCY. Because your lordship was proclaimed traitor.\n    But he, my lord, is gone to Ravenspurgh,\n    To offer service to the Duke of Hereford;\n    And sent me over by Berkeley, to discover\n    What power the Duke of York had levied there;\n    Then with directions to repair to Ravenspurgh.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Have you forgot the Duke of Hereford, boy?\n  PERCY. No, my good lord; for that is not forgot\n    Which ne'er I did remember; to my knowledge,\n    I never in my life did look on him.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Then learn to know him now; this is the Duke.\n  PERCY. My gracious lord, I tender you my service,\n    Such as it is, being tender, raw, and young;\n    Which elder days shall ripen, and confirm\n    To more approved service and desert.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I thank thee, gentle Percy; and be sure\n    I count myself in nothing else so happy\n    As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends;\n    And as my fortune ripens with thy love,\n    It shall be still thy true love's recompense.\n    My heart this covenant makes, my hand thus seals it.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. How far is it to Berkeley? And what stir\n    Keeps good old York there with his men of war?\n  PERCY. There stands the castle, by yon tuft of trees,\n    Mann'd with three hundred men, as I have heard;\n    And in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour-\n    None else of name and noble estimate.\n\n                  Enter Ross and WILLOUGHBY\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Here come the Lords of Ross and Willoughby,\n    Bloody with spurring, fiery-red with haste.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Welcome, my lords. I wot your love pursues\n    A banish'd traitor. All my treasury\n    Is yet but unfelt thanks, which, more enrich'd,\n    Shall be your love and labour's recompense.\n  ROSS. Your presence makes us rich, most noble lord.\n  WILLOUGHBY. And far surmounts our labour to attain it.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor;\n    Which, till my infant fortune comes to years,\n    Stands for my bounty. But who comes here?\n\n                     Enter BERKELEY\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. It is my Lord of Berkeley, as I guess.\n  BERKELEY. My Lord of Hereford, my message is to you.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My lord, my answer is-'to Lancaster';\n    And I am come to seek that name in England;\n    And I must find that title in your tongue\n    Before I make reply to aught you say.\n  BERKELEY. Mistake me not, my lord; 'tis not my meaning\n    To raze one title of your honour out.\n    To you, my lord, I come-what lord you will-\n    From the most gracious regent of this land,\n    The Duke of York, to know what pricks you on\n    To take advantage of the absent time,\n    And fright our native peace with self-borne arms.\n\n                 Enter YORK, attended\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. I shall not need transport my words by you;\n    Here comes his Grace in person. My noble uncle!\n                                                     [Kneels]\n  YORK. Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee,\n    Whose duty is deceivable and false.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My gracious uncle!-\n  YORK. Tut, tut!\n    Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.\n    I am no traitor's uncle; and that word 'grace'\n    In an ungracious mouth is but profane.\n    Why have those banish'd and forbidden legs\n    Dar'd once to touch a dust of England's ground?\n    But then more 'why?'-why have they dar'd to march\n    So many miles upon her peaceful bosom,\n    Frighting her pale-fac'd villages with war\n    And ostentation of despised arms?\n    Com'st thou because the anointed King is hence?\n    Why, foolish boy, the King is left behind,\n    And in my loyal bosom lies his power.\n    Were I but now lord of such hot youth\n    As when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself\n    Rescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men,\n    From forth the ranks of many thousand French,\n    O, then how quickly should this arm of mine,\n    Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise the\n    And minister correction to thy fault!\n  BOLINGBROKE My gracious uncle, let me know my fault;\n    On what condition stands it and wherein?\n  YORK. Even in condition of the worst degree-\n    In gross rebellion and detested treason.\n    Thou art a banish'd man, and here art come\n    Before the expiration of thy time,\n    In braving arms against thy sovereign.\n  BOLINGBROKE. As I was banish'd, I was banish'd Hereford;\n    But as I come, I come for Lancaster.\n    And, noble uncle, I beseech your Grace\n    Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye.\n    You are my father, for methinks in you\n    I see old Gaunt alive. O, then, my father,\n    Will you permit that I shall stand condemn'd\n    A wandering vagabond; my rights and royalties\n    Pluck'd from my arms perforce, and given away\n    To upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?\n    If that my cousin king be King in England,\n    It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.\n    You have a son, Aumerle, my noble cousin;\n    Had you first died, and he been thus trod down,\n    He should have found his uncle Gaunt a father\n    To rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.\n    I am denied to sue my livery here,\n    And yet my letters patents give me leave.\n    My father's goods are all distrain'd and sold;\n    And these and all are all amiss employ'd.\n    What would you have me do? I am a subject,\n    And I challenge law-attorneys are denied me;\n    And therefore personally I lay my claim\n    To my inheritance of free descent.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The noble Duke hath been too much abused.\n  ROSS. It stands your Grace upon to do him right.\n  WILLOUGHBY. Base men by his endowments are made great.\n  YORK. My lords of England, let me tell you this:\n    I have had feeling of my cousin's wrongs,\n    And labour'd all I could to do him right;\n    But in this kind to come, in braving arms,\n    Be his own carver and cut out his way,\n    To find out right with wrong-it may not be;\n    And you that do abet him in this kind\n    Cherish rebellion, and are rebels all.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The noble Duke hath sworn his coming is\n    But for his own; and for the right of that\n    We all have strongly sworn to give him aid;\n    And let him never see joy that breaks that oath!\n  YORK. Well, well, I see the issue of these arms.\n    I cannot mend it, I must needs confess,\n    Because my power is weak and all ill left;\n    But if I could, by Him that gave me life,\n    I would attach you all and make you stoop\n    Unto the sovereign mercy of the King;\n    But since I cannot, be it known unto you\n    I do remain as neuter. So, fare you well;\n    Unless you please to enter in the castle,\n    And there repose you for this night.\n  BOLINGBROKE. An offer, uncle, that we will accept.\n    But we must win your Grace to go with us\n    To Bristow Castle, which they say is held\n    By Bushy, Bagot, and their complices,\n    The caterpillars of the commonwealth,\n    Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.\n  YORK. It may be I will go with you; but yet I'll pause,\n    For I am loath to break our country's laws.\n    Nor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are.\n    Things past redress are now with me past care.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\nA camp in Wales\n\nEnter EARL OF SALISBURY and a WELSH CAPTAIN\n\n  CAPTAIN. My Lord of Salisbury, we have stay'd ten days\n    And hardly kept our countrymen together,\n    And yet we hear no tidings from the King;\n    Therefore we will disperse ourselves. Farewell.\n  SALISBURY. Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman;\n    The King reposeth all his confidence in thee.\n  CAPTAIN. 'Tis thought the King is dead; we will not stay.\n    The bay trees in our country are all wither'd,\n    And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;\n    The pale-fac'd moon looks bloody on the earth,\n    And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;\n    Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap-\n    The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,\n    The other to enjoy by rage and war.\n    These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.\n    Farewell. Our countrymen are gone and fled,\n    As well assur'd Richard their King is dead.             Exit\n  SALISBURY. Ah, Richard, with the eyes of heavy mind,\n    I see thy glory like a shooting star\n    Fall to the base earth from the firmament!\n    The sun sets weeping in the lowly west,\n    Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest;\n    Thy friends are fled, to wait upon thy foes;\n    And crossly to thy good all fortune goes.               Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nBOLINGBROKE'S camp at Bristol\n\nEnter BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY, ROSS, WILLOUGHBY,\nBUSHY and GREEN, prisoners\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Bring forth these men.\n    Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls-\n    Since presently your souls must part your bodies-\n    With too much urging your pernicious lives,\n    For 'twere no charity; yet, to wash your blood\n    From off my hands, here in the view of men\n    I will unfold some causes of your deaths:\n    You have misled a prince, a royal king,\n    A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,\n    By you unhappied and disfigured clean;\n    You have in manner with your sinful hours\n    Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him;\n    Broke the possession of a royal bed,\n    And stain'd the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks\n    With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs;\n    Myself-a prince by fortune of my birth,\n    Near to the King in blood, and near in love\n    Till you did make him misinterpret me-\n    Have stoop'd my neck under your injuries\n    And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,\n    Eating the bitter bread of banishment,\n    Whilst you have fed upon my signories,\n    Dispark'd my parks and fell'd my forest woods,\n    From my own windows torn my household coat,\n    Raz'd out my imprese, leaving me no sign\n    Save men's opinions and my living blood\n    To show the world I am a gentleman.\n    This and much more, much more than twice all this,\n    Condemns you to the death. See them delivered over\n    To execution and the hand of death.\n  BUSHY. More welcome is the stroke of death to me\n    Than Bolingbroke to England. Lords, farewell.\n  GREEN. My comfort is that heaven will take our souls,\n    And plague injustice with the pains of hell.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My Lord Northumberland, see them dispatch'd.\n           Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, and others, with the prisoners\n    Uncle, you say the Queen is at your house;\n    For God's sake, fairly let her be entreated.\n    Tell her I send to her my kind commends;\n    Take special care my greetings be delivered.\n  YORK. A gentleman of mine I have dispatch'd\n    With letters of your love to her at large.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Thanks, gentle uncle. Come, lords, away,\n    To fight with Glendower and his complices.\n    Awhile to work, and after holiday.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nThe coast of Wales. A castle in view\n\nDrums. Flourish and colours. Enter the KING, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE,\nAUMERLE, and soldiers\n\n  KING RICHARD. Barkloughly Castle can they this at hand?\n  AUMERLE. Yea, my lord. How brooks your Grace the air\n    After your late tossing on the breaking seas?\n  KING RICHARD. Needs must I like it well. I weep for joy\n    To stand upon my kingdom once again.\n    Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,\n    Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs.\n    As a long-parted mother with her child\n    Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,\n    So weeping-smiling greet I thee, my earth,\n    And do thee favours with my royal hands.\n    Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,\n    Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense;\n    But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,\n    And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way,\n    Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet\n    Which with usurping steps do trample thee;\n    Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies;\n    And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,\n    Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder,\n    Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch\n    Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies.\n    Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords.\n    This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones\n    Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king\n    Shall falter under foul rebellion's arms.\n  CARLISLE. Fear not, my lord; that Power that made you king\n    Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.\n    The means that heaven yields must be embrac'd\n    And not neglected; else, if heaven would,\n    And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse,\n    The proffered means of succour and redress.\n  AUMERLE. He means, my lord, that we are too remiss;\n    Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,\n    Grows strong and great in substance and in power.\n  KING RICHARD. Discomfortable cousin! know'st thou not\n    That when the searching eye of heaven is hid,\n    Behind the globe, that lights the lower world,\n    Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen\n    In murders and in outrage boldly here;\n    But when from under this terrestrial ball\n    He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines\n    And darts his light through every guilty hole,\n    Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,\n    The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,\n    Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?\n    So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,\n    Who all this while hath revell'd in the night,\n    Whilst we were wand'ring with the Antipodes,\n    Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,\n    His treasons will sit blushing in his face,\n    Not able to endure the sight of day,\n    But self-affrighted tremble at his sin.\n    Not all the water in the rough rude sea\n    Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;\n    The breath of worldly men cannot depose\n    The deputy elected by the Lord.\n    For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd\n    To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,\n    God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay\n    A glorious angel. Then, if angels fight,\n    Weak men must fall; for heaven still guards the right.\n\n                 Enter SALISBURY\n\n    Welcome, my lord. How far off lies your power?\n  SALISBURY. Nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord,\n    Than this weak arm. Discomfort guides my tongue,\n    And bids me speak of nothing but despair.\n    One day too late, I fear me, noble lord,\n    Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth.\n    O, call back yesterday, bid time return,\n    And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men!\n    To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late,\n    O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state;\n    For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,\n    Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispers'd, and fled.\n  AUMERLE. Comfort, my liege, why looks your Grace so pale?\n  KING RICHARD. But now the blood of twenty thousand men\n    Did triumph in my face, and they are fled;\n    And, till so much blood thither come again,\n    Have I not reason to look pale and dead?\n    All souls that will be safe, fly from my side;\n    For time hath set a blot upon my pride.\n  AUMERLE. Comfort, my liege; remember who you are.\n  KING RICHARD. I had forgot myself; am I not King?\n    Awake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest.\n    Is not the King's name twenty thousand names?\n    Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes\n    At thy great glory. Look not to the ground,\n    Ye favourites of a king; are we not high?\n    High be our thoughts. I know my uncle York\n    Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?\n\n                   Enter SCROOP\n\n  SCROOP. More health and happiness betide my liege\n    Than can my care-tun'd tongue deliver him.\n  KING RICHARD. Mine ear is open and my heart prepar'd.\n    The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.\n    Say, is my kingdom lost? Why, 'twas my care,\n    And what loss is it to be rid of care?\n    Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?\n    Greater he shall not be; if he serve God,\n    We'll serve him too, and be his fellow so.\n    Revolt our subjects? That we cannot mend;\n    They break their faith to God as well as us.\n    Cry woe, destruction, ruin, and decay-\n    The worst is death, and death will have his day.\n  SCROOP. Glad am I that your Highness is so arm'd\n    To bear the tidings of calamity.\n    Like an unseasonable stormy day\n    Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,\n    As if the world were all dissolv'd to tears,\n    So high above his limits swells the rage\n    Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land\n    With hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.\n    White-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps\n    Against thy majesty; boys, with women's voices,\n    Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints\n    In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown;\n    Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows\n    Of double-fatal yew against thy state;\n    Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills\n    Against thy seat: both young and old rebel,\n    And all goes worse than I have power to tell.\n  KING RICHARD. Too well, too well thou tell'st a tale so in.\n    Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? Where is Bagot?\n    What is become of Bushy? Where is Green?\n    That they have let the dangerous enemy\n    Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?\n    If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.\n    I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.\n  SCROOP. Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption!\n    Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!\n    Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart!\n    Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!\n    Would they make peace? Terrible hell make war\n    Upon their spotted souls for this offence!\n  SCROOP. Sweet love, I see, changing his property,\n    Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate.\n    Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made\n    With heads, and not with hands; those whom you curse\n    Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound\n    And lie full low, grav'd in the hollow ground.\n  AUMERLE. Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?\n  SCROOP. Ay, all of them at Bristow lost their heads.\n  AUMERLE. Where is the Duke my father with his power?\n  KING RICHARD. No matter where-of comfort no man speak.\n    Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;\n    Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes\n    Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.\n    Let's choose executors and talk of wills;\n    And yet not so-for what can we bequeath\n    Save our deposed bodies to the ground?\n    Our lands, our lives, and an, are Bolingbroke's.\n    And nothing can we can our own but death\n    And that small model of the barren earth\n    Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.\n    For God's sake let us sit upon the ground\n    And tell sad stories of the death of kings:\n    How some have been depos'd, some slain in war,\n    Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd,\n    Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd,\n    All murder'd-for within the hollow crown\n    That rounds the mortal temples of a king\n    Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits,\n    Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp;\n    Allowing him a breath, a little scene,\n    To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks;\n    Infusing him with self and vain conceit,\n    As if this flesh which walls about our life\n    Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus,\n    Comes at the last, and with a little pin\n    Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king!\n    Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood\n    With solemn reverence; throw away respect,\n    Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty;\n    For you have but mistook me all this while.\n    I live with bread like you, feel want,\n    Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,\n    How can you say to me I am a king?\n  CARLISLE. My lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,\n    But presently prevent the ways to wail.\n    To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,\n    Gives, in your weakness, strength unto your foe,\n    And so your follies fight against yourself.\n    Fear and be slain-no worse can come to fight;\n    And fight and die is death destroying death,\n    Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.\n  AUMERLE. My father hath a power; inquire of him,\n    And learn to make a body of a limb.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou chid'st me well. Proud Bolingbroke, I come\n    To change blows with thee for our day of doom.\n    This ague fit of fear is over-blown;\n    An easy task it is to win our own.\n    Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?\n    Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.\n  SCROOP. Men judge by the complexion of the sky\n    The state in inclination of the day;\n    So may you by my dull and heavy eye,\n    My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.\n    I play the torturer, by small and small\n    To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:\n    Your uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke;\n    And all your northern castles yielded up,\n    And all your southern gentlemen in arms\n    Upon his party.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou hast said enough.\n      [To AUMERLE] Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth\n    Of that sweet way I was in to despair!\n    What say you now? What comfort have we now?\n    By heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly\n    That bids me be of comfort any more.\n    Go to Flint Castle; there I'll pine away;\n    A king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.\n    That power I have, discharge; and let them go\n    To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,\n    For I have none. Let no man speak again\n    To alter this, for counsel is but vain.\n  AUMERLE. My liege, one word.\n  KING RICHARD. He does me double wrong\n    That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.\n    Discharge my followers; let them hence away,\n    From Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\nWales. Before Flint Castle\n\nEnter, with drum and colours, BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND,\nand forces\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. So that by this intelligence we learn\n    The Welshmen are dispers'd; and Salisbury\n    Is gone to meet the King, who lately landed\n    With some few private friends upon this coast.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The news is very fair and good, my lord.\n    Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.\n  YORK. It would beseem the Lord Northumberland\n    To say 'King Richard.' Alack the heavy day\n    When such a sacred king should hide his head!\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Your Grace mistakes; only to be brief,\n    Left I his title out.\n  YORK. The time hath been,\n    Would you have been so brief with him, he would\n    Have been so brief with you to shorten you,\n    For taking so the head, your whole head's length.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.\n  YORK. Take not, good cousin, further than you should,\n    Lest you mistake. The heavens are over our heads.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I know it, uncle; and oppose not myself\n    Against their will. But who comes here?\n\n                    Enter PERCY\n\n    Welcome, Harry. What, will not this castle yield?\n  PIERCY. The castle royally is mann'd, my lord,\n    Against thy entrance.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Royally!\n    Why, it contains no king?\n  PERCY. Yes, my good lord,\n    It doth contain a king; King Richard lies\n    Within the limits of yon lime and stone;\n    And with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,\n    Sir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman\n    Of holy reverence; who, I cannot learn.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. O, belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.\n  BOLINGBROKE. [To NORTHUMBERLAND] Noble lord,\n    Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle;\n    Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley\n    Into his ruin'd ears, and thus deliver:\n    Henry Bolingbroke\n    On both his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand,\n    And sends allegiance and true faith of heart\n    To his most royal person; hither come\n    Even at his feet to lay my arms and power,\n    Provided that my banishment repeal'd\n    And lands restor'd again be freely granted;\n    If not, I'll use the advantage of my power\n    And lay the summer's dust with showers of blood\n    Rain'd from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen;\n    The which how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke\n    It is such crimson tempest should bedrench\n    The fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land,\n    My stooping duty tenderly shall show.\n    Go, signify as much, while here we march\n    Upon the grassy carpet of this plain.\n           [NORTHUMBERLAND advances to the Castle, with a trumpet]\n    Let's march without the noise of threat'ning drum,\n    That from this castle's tottered battlements\n    Our fair appointments may be well perus'd.\n    Methinks King Richard and myself should meet\n    With no less terror than the elements\n    Of fire and water, when their thund'ring shock\n    At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.\n    Be he the fire, I'll be the yielding water;\n    The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain\n    My waters-on the earth, and not on him.\n    March on, and mark King Richard how he looks.\n\n      Parle without, and answer within; then a flourish.\n      Enter on the walls, the KING, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE,\n      AUMERLE, SCROOP, and SALISBURY\n\n    See, see, King Richard doth himself appear,\n    As doth the blushing discontented sun\n    From out the fiery portal of the east,\n    When he perceives the envious clouds are bent\n    To dim his glory and to stain the track\n    Of his bright passage to the occident.\n  YORK. Yet he looks like a king. Behold, his eye,\n    As bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth\n    Controlling majesty. Alack, alack, for woe,\n    That any harm should stain so fair a show!\n  KING RICHARD. [To NORTHUMBERLAND] We are amaz'd; and thus long\n      have we stood\n    To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,\n    Because we thought ourself thy lawful King;\n    And if we be, how dare thy joints forget\n    To pay their awful duty to our presence?\n    If we be not, show us the hand of God\n    That hath dismiss'd us from our stewardship;\n    For well we know no hand of blood and bone\n    Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,\n    Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.\n    And though you think that all, as you have done,\n    Have torn their souls by turning them from us,\n    And we are barren and bereft of friends,\n    Yet know-my master, God omnipotent,\n    Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf\n    Armies of pestilence; and they shall strike\n    Your children yet unborn and unbegot,\n    That lift your vassal hands against my head\n    And threat the glory of my precious crown.\n    Tell Bolingbroke, for yon methinks he stands,\n    That every stride he makes upon my land\n    Is dangerous treason; he is come to open\n    The purple testament of bleeding war;\n    But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,\n    Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons\n    Shall ill become the flower of England's face,\n    Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace\n    To scarlet indignation, and bedew\n    Her pastures' grass with faithful English blood.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The King of Heaven forbid our lord the King\n    Should so with civil and uncivil arms\n    Be rush'd upon! Thy thrice noble cousin,\n    Harry Bolingbroke, doth humbly kiss thy hand;\n    And by the honourable tomb he swears\n    That stands upon your royal grandsire's bones,\n    And by the royalties of both your bloods,\n    Currents that spring from one most gracious head,\n    And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,\n    And by the worth and honour of himself,\n    Comprising all that may be sworn or said,\n    His coming hither hath no further scope\n    Than for his lineal royalties, and to beg\n    Enfranchisement immediate on his knees;\n    Which on thy royal party granted once,\n    His glittering arms he will commend to rust,\n    His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart\n    To faithful service of your Majesty.\n    This swears he, as he is a prince, is just;\n    And as I am a gentleman I credit him.\n  KING RICHARD. Northumberland, say thus the King returns:\n    His noble cousin is right welcome hither;\n    And all the number of his fair demands\n    Shall be accomplish'd without contradiction.\n    With all the gracious utterance thou hast\n    Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends.\n    [To AUMERLE] We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not,\n    To look so poorly and to speak so fair?\n    Shall we call back Northumberland, and send\n    Defiance to the traitor, and so die?\n  AUMERLE. No, good my lord; let's fight with gentle words\n    Till time lend friends, and friends their helpful swords.\n  KING RICHARD. O God, O God! that e'er this tongue of mine\n    That laid the sentence of dread banishment\n    On yon proud man should take it off again\n    With words of sooth! O that I were as great\n    As is my grief, or lesser than my name!\n    Or that I could forget what I have been!\n    Or not remember what I must be now!\n    Swell'st thou, proud heart? I'll give thee scope to beat,\n    Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me.\n  AUMERLE. Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.\n  KING RICHARD. What must the King do now? Must he submit?\n    The King shall do it. Must he be depos'd?\n    The King shall be contented. Must he lose\n    The name of king? A God's name, let it go.\n    I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,\n    My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,\n    My gay apparel for an almsman's gown,\n    My figur'd goblets for a dish of wood,\n    My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff,\n    My subjects for a pair of carved saints,\n    And my large kingdom for a little grave,\n    A little little grave, an obscure grave-\n    Or I'll be buried in the king's high way,\n    Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet\n    May hourly trample on their sovereign's head;\n    For on my heart they tread now whilst I live,\n    And buried once, why not upon my head?\n    Aumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin!\n    We'll make foul weather with despised tears;\n    Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn\n    And make a dearth in this revolting land.\n    Or shall we play the wantons with our woes\n    And make some pretty match with shedding tears?\n    As thus: to drop them still upon one place\n    Till they have fretted us a pair of graves\n    Within the earth; and, therein laid-there lies\n    Two kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes.\n    Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see\n    I talk but idly, and you laugh at me.\n    Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,\n    What says King Bolingbroke? Will his Majesty\n    Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?\n    You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, in the base court he doth attend\n    To speak with you; may it please you to come down?\n  KING RICHARD. Down, down I come, like glist'ring Phaethon,\n    Wanting the manage of unruly jades.\n    In the base court? Base court, where kings grow base,\n    To come at traitors' calls, and do them grace.\n    In the base court? Come down? Down, court! down, king!\n    For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.\n                                               Exeunt from above\n  BOLINGBROKE. What says his Majesty?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Sorrow and grief of heart\n    Makes him speak fondly, like a frantic man;\n    Yet he is come.\n\n          Enter the KING, and his attendants, below\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Stand all apart,\n    And show fair duty to his Majesty.   [He kneels down]\n    My gracious lord-\n  KING RICHARD. Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee\n    To make the base earth proud with kissing it.\n    Me rather had my heart might feel your love\n    Than my unpleas'd eye see your courtesy.\n    Up, cousin, up; your heart is up, I know,\n    [Touching his own head] Thus high at least, although your\n      knee be low.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.\n  KING RICHARD. Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.\n  BOLINGBROKE. So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,\n    As my true service shall deserve your love.\n  KING RICHARD. Well you deserve. They well deserve to have\n    That know the strong'st and surest way to get.\n    Uncle, give me your hands; nay, dry your eyes:\n    Tears show their love, but want their remedies.\n    Cousin, I am too young to be your father,\n    Though you are old enough to be my heir.\n    What you will have, I'll give, and willing too;\n    For do we must what force will have us do.\n    Set on towards London. Cousin, is it so?\n  BOLINGBROKE. Yea, my good lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Then I must not say no.         Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\nThe DUKE OF YORK's garden\n\nEnter the QUEEN and two LADIES\n\n  QUEEN. What sport shall we devise here in this garden\n    To drive away the heavy thought of care?\n  LADY. Madam, we'll play at bowls.\n  QUEEN. 'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs\n    And that my fortune runs against the bias.\n  LADY. Madam, we'll dance.\n  QUEEN. My legs can keep no measure in delight,\n    When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief;\n    Therefore no dancing, girl; some other sport.\n  LADY. Madam, we'll tell tales.\n  QUEEN. Of sorrow or of joy?\n  LADY. Of either, madam.\n  QUEEN. Of neither, girl;\n    For if of joy, being altogether wanting,\n    It doth remember me the more of sorrow;\n    Or if of grief, being altogether had,\n    It adds more sorrow to my want of joy;\n    For what I have I need not to repeat,\n    And what I want it boots not to complain.\n  LADY. Madam, I'll sing.\n  QUEEN. 'Tis well' that thou hast cause;\n    But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.\n  LADY. I could weep, madam, would it do you good.\n  QUEEN. And I could sing, would weeping do me good,\n    And never borrow any tear of thee.\n\n           Enter a GARDENER and two SERVANTS\n\n    But stay, here come the gardeners.\n    Let's step into the shadow of these trees.\n    My wretchedness unto a row of pins,\n    They will talk of state, for every one doth so\n    Against a change: woe is forerun with woe.\n                                       [QUEEN and LADIES retire]\n  GARDENER. Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,\n    Which, like unruly children, make their sire\n    Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight;\n    Give some supportance to the bending twigs.\n    Go thou, and Eke an executioner\n    Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays\n    That look too lofty in our commonwealth:\n    All must be even in our government.\n    You thus employ'd, I will go root away\n    The noisome weeds which without profit suck\n    The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.\n  SERVANT. Why should we, in the compass of a pale,\n    Keep law and form and due proportion,\n    Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,\n    When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,\n    Is full of weeds; her fairest flowers chok'd up,\n    Her fruit trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd,\n    Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs\n    Swarming with caterpillars?\n  GARDENER. Hold thy peace.\n    He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring\n    Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf;\n    The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,\n    That seem'd in eating him to hold him up,\n    Are pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke-\n    I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.\n  SERVANT. What, are they dead?\n  GARDENER. They are; and Bolingbroke\n    Hath seiz'd the wasteful King. O, what pity is it\n    That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land\n    As we this garden! We at time of year\n    Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees,\n    Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood,\n    With too much riches it confound itself;\n    Had he done so to great and growing men,\n    They might have Ev'd to bear, and he to taste\n    Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches\n    We lop away, that bearing boughs may live;\n    Had he done so, himself had home the crown,\n    Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.\n  SERVANT. What, think you the King shall be deposed?\n  GARDENER. Depress'd he is already, and depos'd\n    'Tis doubt he will be. Letters came last night\n    To a dear friend of the good Duke of York's\n    That tell black tidings.\n  QUEEN. O, I am press'd to death through want of speaking!\n                                                [Coming forward]\n    Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,\n    How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?\n    What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested the\n    To make a second fall of cursed man?\n    Why dost thou say King Richard is depos'd?\n    Dar'st thou, thou little better thing than earth,\n    Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,\n    Cam'st thou by this ill tidings? Speak, thou wretch.\n  GARDENER. Pardon me, madam; little joy have\n    To breathe this news; yet what I say is true.\n    King Richard, he is in the mighty hold\n    Of Bolingbroke. Their fortunes both are weigh'd.\n    In your lord's scale is nothing but himself,\n    And some few vanities that make him light;\n    But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,\n    Besides himself, are all the English peers,\n    And with that odds he weighs King Richard down.\n    Post you to London, and you will find it so;\n    I speak no more than every one doth know.\n  QUEEN. Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,\n    Doth not thy embassage belong to me,\n    And am I last that knows it? O, thou thinkest\n    To serve me last, that I may longest keep\n    Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go\n    To meet at London London's King in woe.\n    What, was I born to this, that my sad look\n    Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?\n    Gard'ner, for telling me these news of woe,\n    Pray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow!\n                                         Exeunt QUEEN and LADIES\n  GARDENER. Poor Queen, so that thy state might be no worse,\n    I would my skill were subject to thy curse.\n    Here did she fall a tear; here in this place\n    I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace.\n    Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,\n    In the remembrance of a weeping queen.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\nWestminster Hall\n\nEnter, as to the Parliament, BOLINGBROKE, AUMERLE, NORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY,\nFITZWATER, SURREY, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, the ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER,\nand others; HERALD, OFFICERS, and BAGOT\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Call forth Bagot.\n    Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind-\n    What thou dost know of noble Gloucester's death;\n    Who wrought it with the King, and who perform'd\n    The bloody office of his timeless end.\n  BAGOT. Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.\n  BAGOT. My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue\n    Scorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd.\n    In that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted\n    I heard you say 'Is not my arm of length,\n    That reacheth from the restful English Court\n    As far as Calais, to mine uncle's head?'\n    Amongst much other talk that very time\n    I heard you say that you had rather refuse\n    The offer of an hundred thousand crowns\n    Than Bolingbroke's return to England;\n    Adding withal, how blest this land would be\n    In this your cousin's death.\n  AUMERLE. Princes, and noble lords,\n    What answer shall I make to this base man?\n    Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars\n    On equal terms to give him chastisement?\n    Either I must, or have mine honour soil'd\n    With the attainder of his slanderous lips.\n    There is my gage, the manual seal of death\n    That marks thee out for hell. I say thou liest,\n    And will maintain what thou hast said is false\n    In thy heart-blood, through being all too base\n    To stain the temper of my knightly sword.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Bagot, forbear; thou shalt not take it up.\n  AUMERLE. Excepting one, I would he were the best\n    In all this presence that hath mov'd me so.\n  FITZWATER. If that thy valour stand on sympathy,\n    There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine.\n    By that fair sun which shows me where thou stand'st,\n    I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it,\n    That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester's death.\n    If thou deniest it twenty times, thou liest;\n    And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,\n    Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.\n  AUMERLE. Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see that day.\n  FITZWATER. Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.\n  AUMERLE. Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.\n  PERCY. Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true\n    In this appeal as thou art an unjust;\n    And that thou art so, there I throw my gage,\n    To prove it on thee to the extremest point\n    Of mortal breathing. Seize it, if thou dar'st.\n  AUMERLE. An if I do not, may my hands rot of\n    And never brandish more revengeful steel\n    Over the glittering helmet of my foe!\n  ANOTHER LORD. I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle;\n    And spur thee on with fun as many lies\n    As may be halloa'd in thy treacherous ear\n    From sun to sun. There is my honour's pawn;\n    Engage it to the trial, if thou darest.\n  AUMERLE. Who sets me else? By heaven, I'll throw at all!\n    I have a thousand spirits in one breast\n    To answer twenty thousand such as you.\n  SURREY. My Lord Fitzwater, I do remember well\n    The very time Aumerle and you did talk.\n  FITZWATER. 'Tis very true; you were in presence then,\n    And you can witness with me this is true.\n  SURREY. As false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.\n  FITZWATER. Surrey, thou liest.\n  SURREY. Dishonourable boy!\n    That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword\n    That it shall render vengeance and revenge\n    Till thou the lie-giver and that lie do he\n    In earth as quiet as thy father's skull.\n    In proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn;\n    Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st.\n  FITZWATER. How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse!\n    If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,\n    I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,\n    And spit upon him whilst I say he lies,\n    And lies, and lies. There is my bond of faith,\n    To tie thee to my strong correction.\n    As I intend to thrive in this new world,\n    Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal.\n    Besides, I heard the banish'd Norfolk say\n    That thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men\n    To execute the noble Duke at Calais.\n  AUMERLE. Some honest Christian trust me with a gage\n    That Norfolk lies. Here do I throw down this,\n    If he may be repeal'd to try his honour.\n  BOLINGBROKE. These differences shall all rest under gage\n    Till Norfolk be repeal'd-repeal'd he shall be\n    And, though mine enemy, restor'd again\n    To all his lands and signories. When he is return'd,\n    Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial.\n  CARLISLE. That honourable day shall never be seen.\n    Many a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought\n    For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,\n    Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross\n    Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens;\n    And, toil'd with works of war, retir'd himself\n    To Italy; and there, at Venice, gave\n    His body to that pleasant country's earth,\n    And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,\n    Under whose colours he had fought so long.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Why, Bishop, is Norfolk dead?\n  CARLISLE. As surely as I live, my lord.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom\n    Of good old Abraham! Lords appellants,\n    Your differences shall all rest under gage\n    Till we assign you to your days of trial\n\n                 Enter YORK, attended\n\n  YORK. Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to the\n    From plume-pluck'd Richard, who with willing soul\n    Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields\n    To the possession of thy royal hand.\n    Ascend his throne, descending now from him-\n    And long live Henry, fourth of that name!\n  BOLINGBROKE. In God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne.\n  CARLISLE. Marry, God forbid!\n    Worst in this royal presence may I speak,\n    Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth.\n    Would God that any in this noble presence\n    Were enough noble to be upright judge\n    Of noble Richard! Then true noblesse would\n    Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.\n    What subject can give sentence on his king?\n    And who sits here that is not Richard's subject?\n    Thieves are not judg'd but they are by to hear,\n    Although apparent guilt be seen in them;\n    And shall the figure of God's majesty,\n    His captain, steward, deputy elect,\n    Anointed, crowned, planted many years,\n    Be judg'd by subject and inferior breath,\n    And he himself not present? O, forfend it, God,\n    That in a Christian climate souls refin'd\n    Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!\n    I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,\n    Stirr'd up by God, thus boldly for his king.\n    My Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,\n    Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king;\n    And if you crown him, let me prophesy-\n    The blood of English shall manure the ground,\n    And future ages groan for this foul act;\n    Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,\n    And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars\n    Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound;\n    Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny,\n    Shall here inhabit, and this land be call'd\n    The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls.\n    O, if you raise this house against this house,\n    It will the woefullest division prove\n    That ever fell upon this cursed earth.\n    Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,\n    Lest child, child's children, cry against you woe.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Well have you argued, sir; and, for your pains,\n    Of capital treason we arrest you here.\n    My Lord of Westminster, be it your charge\n    To keep him safely till his day of trial.\n    May it please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit?\n  BOLINGBROKE. Fetch hither Richard, that in common view\n    He may surrender; so we shall proceed\n    Without suspicion.\n  YORK. I will be his conduct.                              Exit\n  BOLINGBROKE. Lords, you that here are under our arrest,\n    Procure your sureties for your days of answer.\n    Little are we beholding to your love,\n    And little look'd for at your helping hands.\n\n      Re-enter YORK, with KING RICHARD, and OFFICERS\n                bearing the regalia\n\n  KING RICHARD. Alack, why am I sent for to a king,\n    Before I have shook off the regal thoughts\n    Wherewith I reign'd? I hardly yet have learn'd\n    To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee.\n    Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me\n    To this submission. Yet I well remember\n    The favours of these men. Were they not mine?\n    Did they not sometime cry 'All hail!' to me?\n    So Judas did to Christ; but he, in twelve,\n    Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand, none.\n    God save the King! Will no man say amen?\n    Am I both priest and clerk? Well then, amen.\n    God save the King! although I be not he;\n    And yet, amen, if heaven do think him me.\n    To do what service am I sent for hither?\n  YORK. To do that office of thine own good will\n    Which tired majesty did make thee offer-\n    The resignation of thy state and crown\n    To Henry Bolingbroke.\n  KING RICHARD. Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown.\n    Here, cousin,\n    On this side my hand, and on that side thine.\n    Now is this golden crown like a deep well\n    That owes two buckets, filling one another;\n    The emptier ever dancing in the air,\n    The other down, unseen, and full of water.\n    That bucket down and fun of tears am I,\n    Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I thought you had been willing to resign.\n  KING RICHARD. My crown I am; but still my griefs are mine.\n    You may my glories and my state depose,\n    But not my griefs; still am I king of those.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Part of your cares you give me with your crown.\n  KING RICHARD. Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down.\n    My care is loss of care, by old care done;\n    Your care is gain of care, by new care won.\n    The cares I give I have, though given away;\n    They tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Are you contented to resign the crown?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be;\n    Therefore no no, for I resign to thee.\n    Now mark me how I will undo myself:\n    I give this heavy weight from off my head,\n    And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,\n    The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;\n    With mine own tears I wash away my balm,\n    With mine own hands I give away my crown,\n    With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,\n    With mine own breath release all duteous oaths;\n    All pomp and majesty I do forswear;\n    My manors, rents, revenues, I forgo;\n    My acts, decrees, and statutes, I deny.\n    God pardon all oaths that are broke to me!\n    God keep all vows unbroke are made to thee!\n    Make me, that nothing have, with nothing griev'd,\n    And thou with all pleas'd, that hast an achiev'd.\n    Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,\n    And soon lie Richard in an earthly pit.\n    God save King Henry, unking'd Richard says,\n    And send him many years of sunshine days!\n    What more remains?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. No more; but that you read\n    These accusations, and these grievous crimes\n    Committed by your person and your followers\n    Against the state and profit of this land;\n    That, by confessing them, the souls of men\n    May deem that you are worthily depos'd.\n  KING RICHARD. Must I do so? And must I ravel out\n    My weav'd-up follies? Gentle Northumberland,\n    If thy offences were upon record,\n    Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop\n    To read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst,\n    There shouldst thou find one heinous article,\n    Containing the deposing of a king\n    And cracking the strong warrant of an oath,\n    Mark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven.\n    Nay, all of you that stand and look upon me\n    Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,\n    Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands,\n    Showing an outward pity-yet you Pilates\n    Have here deliver'd me to my sour cross,\n    And water cannot wash away your sin.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, dispatch; read o'er these\n    articles.\n  KING RICHARD. Mine eyes are full of tears; I cannot see.\n    And yet salt water blinds them not so much\n    But they can see a sort of traitors here.\n    Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,\n    I find myself a traitor with the rest;\n    For I have given here my soul's consent\n    T'undeck the pompous body of a king;\n    Made glory base, and sovereignty a slave,\n    Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord-\n  KING RICHARD. No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man,\n    Nor no man's lord; I have no name, no tide-\n    No, not that name was given me at the font-\n    But 'tis usurp'd. Alack the heavy day,\n    That I have worn so many winters out,\n    And know not now what name to call myself!\n    O that I were a mockery king of snow,\n    Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke\n    To melt myself away in water drops!\n    Good king, great king, and yet not greatly good,\n    An if my word be sterling yet in England,\n    Let it command a mirror hither straight,\n    That it may show me what a face I have\n    Since it is bankrupt of his majesty.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Go some of you and fetch a looking-glass.\n                                               Exit an attendant\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Read o'er this paper while the glass doth come.\n  KING RICHARD. Fiend, thou torments me ere I come to hell.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Urge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The Commons will not, then, be satisfied.\n  KING RICHARD. They shall be satisfied. I'll read enough,\n    When I do see the very book indeed\n    Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself.\n\n                Re-enter attendant with glass\n\n    Give me that glass, and therein will I read.\n    No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck\n    So many blows upon this face of mine\n    And made no deeper wounds? O flatt'ring glass,\n    Like to my followers in prosperity,\n    Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face\n    That every day under his household roof\n    Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face\n    That like the sun did make beholders wink?\n    Is this the face which fac'd so many follies\n    That was at last out-fac'd by Bolingbroke?\n    A brittle glory shineth in this face;\n    As brittle as the glory is the face;\n                        [Dashes the glass against the ground]\n    For there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers.\n    Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport-\n    How soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face.\n  BOLINGBROKE. The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd\n    The shadow of your face.\n  KING RICHARD. Say that again.\n    The shadow of my sorrow? Ha! let's see.\n    'Tis very true: my grief lies all within;\n    And these external manner of laments\n    Are merely shadows to the unseen grief\n    That swells with silence in the tortur'd soul.\n    There lies the substance; and I thank thee, king,\n    For thy great bounty, that not only giv'st\n    Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way\n    How to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon,\n    And then be gone and trouble you no more.\n    Shall I obtain it?\n  BOLINGBROKE. Name it, fair cousin.\n  KING RICHARD. Fair cousin! I am greater than a king;\n    For when I was a king, my flatterers\n    Were then but subjects; being now a subject,\n    I have a king here to my flatterer.\n    Being so great, I have no need to beg.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Yet ask.\n  KING RICHARD. And shall I have?\n  BOLINGBROKE. You shall.\n  KING RICHARD. Then give me leave to go.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Whither?\n  KING RICHARD. Whither you will, so I were from your sights.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Go, some of you convey him to the Tower.\n  KING RICHARD. O, good! Convey! Conveyers are you all,\n    That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.\n                     Exeunt KING RICHARD, some Lords and a Guard\n  BOLINGBROKE. On Wednesday next we solemnly set down\n    Our coronation. Lords, prepare yourselves.\n                    Exeunt all but the ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER, the\n                                 BISHOP OF CARLISLE, and AUMERLE\n  ABBOT. A woeful pageant have we here beheld.\n  CARLISLE. The woe's to come; the children yet unborn\n    Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.\n  AUMERLE. You holy clergymen, is there no plot\n    To rid the realm of this pernicious blot?\n  ABBOT. My lord,\n    Before I freely speak my mind herein,\n    You shall not only take the sacrament\n    To bury mine intents, but also to effect\n    Whatever I shall happen to devise.\n    I see your brows are full of discontent,\n    Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears.\n    Come home with me to supper; I will lay\n    A plot shall show us all a merry day.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\nLondon. A street leading to the Tower\n\nEnter the QUEEN, with her attendants\n\n  QUEEN. This way the King will come; this is the way\n    To Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower,\n    To whose flint bosom my condemned lord\n    Is doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke.\n    Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth\n    Have any resting for her true King's queen.\n\n            Enter KING RICHARD and Guard\n\n    But soft, but see, or rather do not see,\n    My fair rose wither. Yet look up, behold,\n    That you in pity may dissolve to dew,\n    And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.\n    Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand;\n    Thou map of honour, thou King Richard's tomb,\n    And not King Richard; thou most beauteous inn,\n    Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee,\n    When triumph is become an alehouse guest?\n  KING RICHARD. Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,\n    To make my end too sudden. Learn, good soul,\n    To think our former state a happy dream;\n    From which awak'd, the truth of what we are\n    Shows us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,\n    To grim Necessity; and he and\n    Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,\n    And cloister thee in some religious house.\n    Our holy lives must win a new world's crown,\n    Which our profane hours here have thrown down.\n  QUEEN. What, is my Richard both in shape and mind\n    Transform'd and weak'ned? Hath Bolingbroke depos'd\n    Thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?\n    The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw\n    And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage\n    To be o'erpow'r'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,\n    Take the correction mildly, kiss the rod,\n    And fawn on rage with base humility,\n    Which art a lion and the king of beasts?\n  KING RICHARD. A king of beasts, indeed! If aught but beasts,\n    I had been still a happy king of men.\n    Good sometimes queen, prepare thee hence for France.\n    Think I am dead, and that even here thou takest,\n    As from my death-bed, thy last living leave.\n    In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire\n    With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales\n    Of woeful ages long ago betid;\n    And ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs\n    Tell thou the lamentable tale of me,\n    And send the hearers weeping to their beds;\n    For why, the senseless brands will sympathize\n    The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,\n    And in compassion weep the fire out;\n    And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,\n    For the deposing of a rightful king.\n\n             Enter NORTHUMBERLAND attended\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang'd;\n    You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.\n    And, madam, there is order ta'en for you:\n    With all swift speed you must away to France.\n  KING RICHARD. Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal\n    The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,\n    The time shall not be many hours of age\n    More than it is, ere foul sin gathering head\n    Shall break into corruption. Thou shalt think\n    Though he divide the realm and give thee half\n    It is too little, helping him to all;\n    And he shall think that thou, which knowest the way\n    To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,\n    Being ne'er so little urg'd, another way\n    To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.\n    The love of wicked men converts to fear;\n    That fear to hate; and hate turns one or both\n    To worthy danger and deserved death.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My guilt be on my head, and there an end.\n    Take leave, and part; for you must part forthwith.\n  KING RICHARD. Doubly divorc'd! Bad men, you violate\n    A twofold marriage-'twixt my crown and me,\n    And then betwixt me and my married wife.\n    Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me;\n    And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.\n    Part us, Northumberland; I towards the north,\n    Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;\n    My wife to France, from whence set forth in pomp,\n    She came adorned hither like sweet May,\n    Sent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day.\n  QUEEN. And must we be divided? Must we part?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.\n  QUEEN. Banish us both, and send the King with me.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. That were some love, but little policy.\n  QUEEN. Then whither he goes thither let me go.\n  KING RICHARD. So two, together weeping, make one woe.\n    Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here;\n    Better far off than near, be ne'er the near.\n    Go, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans.\n  QUEEN. So longest way shall have the longest moans.\n  KING RICHARD. Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being short,\n    And piece the way out with a heavy heart.\n    Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief,\n    Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief.\n    One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;\n    Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.\n  QUEEN. Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part\n    To take on me to keep and kill thy heart.\n    So, now I have mine own again, be gone.\n    That I may strive to kill it with a groan.\n  KING RICHARD. We make woe wanton with this fond delay.\n    Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nThe DUKE OF YORK's palace\n\nEnter the DUKE OF YORK and the DUCHESS\n\n  DUCHESS. My Lord, you told me you would tell the rest,\n    When weeping made you break the story off,\n    Of our two cousins' coming into London.\n  YORK. Where did I leave?\n  DUCHESS. At that sad stop, my lord,\n    Where rude misgoverned hands from windows' tops\n    Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard's head.\n  YORK. Then, as I said, the Duke, great Bolingbroke,\n    Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed\n    Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know,\n    With slow but stately pace kept on his course,\n    Whilst all tongues cried 'God save thee, Bolingbroke!'\n    You would have thought the very windows spake,\n    So many greedy looks of young and old\n    Through casements darted their desiring eyes\n    Upon his visage; and that all the walls\n    With painted imagery had said at once\n    'Jesu preserve thee! Welcome, Bolingbroke!'\n    Whilst he, from the one side to the other turning,\n    Bareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck,\n    Bespake them thus, 'I thank you, countrymen.'\n    And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.\n  DUCHESS. Alack, poor Richard! where rode he the whilst?\n  YORK. As in a theatre the eyes of men\n    After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage\n    Are idly bent on him that enters next,\n    Thinking his prattle to be tedious;\n    Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes\n    Did scowl on gentle Richard; no man cried 'God save him!'\n    No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home;\n    But dust was thrown upon his sacred head;\n    Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,\n    His face still combating with tears and smiles,\n    The badges of his grief and patience,\n    That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd\n    The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,\n    And barbarism itself have pitied him.\n    But heaven hath a hand in these events,\n    To whose high will we bound our calm contents.\n    To Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now,\n    Whose state and honour I for aye allow.\n  DUCHESS. Here comes my son Aumerle.\n  YORK. Aumerle that was\n    But that is lost for being Richard's friend,\n    And madam, you must call him Rudand now.\n    I am in Parliament pledge for his truth\n    And lasting fealty to the new-made king.\n\n                  Enter AUMERLE\n\n  DUCHESS. Welcome, my son. Who are the violets now\n    That strew the green lap of the new come spring?\n  AUMERLE. Madam, I know not, nor I greatly care not.\n    God knows I had as lief be none as one.\n  YORK. Well, bear you well in this new spring of time,\n    Lest you be cropp'd before you come to prime.\n    What news from Oxford? Do these justs and triumphs hold?\n  AUMERLE. For aught I know, my lord, they do.\n  YORK. You will be there, I know.\n  AUMERLE. If God prevent not, I purpose so.\n  YORK. What seal is that that without thy bosom?\n    Yea, look'st thou pale? Let me see the writing.\n  AUMERLE. My lord, 'tis nothing.\n  YORK. No matter, then, who see it.\n    I will be satisfied; let me see the writing.\n  AUMERLE. I do beseech your Grace to pardon me;\n    It is a matter of small consequence\n    Which for some reasons I would not have seen.\n  YORK. Which for some reasons, sir, I mean to see.\n    I fear, I fear-\n  DUCHESS. What should you fear?\n    'Tis nothing but some bond that he is ent'red into\n    For gay apparel 'gainst the triumph-day.\n  YORK. Bound to himself! What doth he with a bond\n    That he is bound to? Wife, thou art a fool.\n    Boy, let me see the writing.\n  AUMERLE. I do beseech you, pardon me; I may not show it.\n  YORK. I will be satisfied; let me see it, I say.\n                [He plucks it out of his bosom, and reads it]\n    Treason, foul treason! Villain! traitor! slave!\n  DUCHESS. What is the matter, my lord?\n  YORK. Ho! who is within there?\n\n                    Enter a servant\n\n    Saddle my horse.\n    God for his mercy, what treachery is here!\n  DUCHESS. Why, York, what is it, my lord?\n  YORK. Give me my boots, I say; saddle my horse.\n                                                    Exit servant\n    Now, by mine honour, by my life, my troth,\n    I will appeach the villain.\n  DUCHESS. What is the matter?\n  YORK. Peace, foolish woman.\n  DUCHESS. I will not peace. What is the matter, Aumerle?\n  AUMERLE. Good mother, be content; it is no more\n    Than my poor life must answer.\n  DUCHESS. Thy life answer!\n  YORK. Bring me my boots. I will unto the King.\n\n              His man enters with his boots\n\n  DUCHESS. Strike him, Aumerle. Poor boy, thou art amaz'd.\n    Hence, villain! never more come in my sight.\n  YORK. Give me my boots, I say.\n  DUCHESS. Why, York, what wilt thou do?\n    Wilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own?\n    Have we more sons? or are we like to have?\n    Is not my teeming date drunk up with time?\n    And wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age\n    And rob me of a happy mother's name?\n    Is he not like thee? Is he not thine own?\n  YORK. Thou fond mad woman,\n    Wilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy?\n    A dozen of them here have ta'en the sacrament,\n    And interchangeably set down their hands\n    To kill the King at Oxford.\n  DUCHESS. He shall be none;\n    We'll keep him here. Then what is that to him?\n  YORK. Away, fond woman! were he twenty times my son\n    I would appeach him.\n  DUCHESS. Hadst thou groan'd for him\n    As I have done, thou wouldst be more pitiful.\n    But now I know thy mind: thou dost suspect\n    That I have been disloyal to thy bed\n    And that he is a bastard, not thy son.\n    Sweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind.\n    He is as like thee as a man may be\n    Not like to me, or any of my kin,\n    And yet I love him.\n  YORK. Make way, unruly woman!                             Exit\n  DUCHESS. After, Aumerle! Mount thee upon his horse;\n    Spur post, and get before him to the King,\n    And beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee.\n    I'll not be long behind; though I be old,\n    I doubt not but to ride as fast as York;\n    And never will I rise up from the ground\n    Till Bolingbroke have pardon'd thee. Away, be gone.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\nWindsor Castle\n\nEnter BOLINGBROKE as King, PERCY, and other LORDS\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Can no man tell me of my unthrifty son?\n    'Tis full three months since I did see him last.\n    If any plague hang over us, 'tis he.\n    I would to God, my lords, he might be found.\n    Inquire at London, 'mongst the taverns there,\n    For there, they say, he daily doth frequent\n    With unrestrained loose companions,\n    Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes\n    And beat our watch and rob our passengers,\n    Which he, young wanton and effeminate boy,\n    Takes on the point of honour to support\n    So dissolute a crew.\n  PERCY. My lord, some two days since I saw the Prince,\n    And told him of those triumphs held at Oxford.\n  BOLINGBROKE. And what said the gallant?\n  PERCY. His answer was, he would unto the stews,\n    And from the common'st creature pluck a glove\n    And wear it as a favour; and with that\n    He would unhorse the lustiest challenger.\n  BOLINGBROKE. As dissolute as desperate; yet through both\n    I see some sparks of better hope, which elder years\n    May happily bring forth. But who comes here?\n\n                Enter AUMERLE amazed\n\n  AUMERLE. Where is the King?\n  BOLINGBROKE. What means our cousin that he stares and looks\n    So wildly?\n  AUMERLE. God save your Grace! I do beseech your Majesty,\n    To have some conference with your Grace alone.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Withdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.\n                                          Exeunt PERCY and LORDS\n    What is the matter with our cousin now?\n  AUMERLE. For ever may my knees grow to the earth,\n                                                    [Kneels]\n    My tongue cleave to my roof within my mouth,\n    Unless a pardon ere I rise or speak.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Intended or committed was this fault?\n    If on the first, how heinous e'er it be,\n    To win thy after-love I pardon thee.\n  AUMERLE. Then give me leave that I may turn the key,\n    That no man enter till my tale be done.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Have thy desire.\n            [The DUKE OF YORK knocks at the door and crieth]\n  YORK. [Within] My liege, beware; look to thyself;\n    Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there.\n  BOLINGBROKE. [Drawing] Villain, I'll make thee safe.\n  AUMERLE. Stay thy revengeful hand; thou hast no cause to fear.\n  YORK. [Within] Open the door, secure, foolhardy King.\n    Shall I, for love, speak treason to thy face?\n    Open the door, or I will break it open.\n\n                    Enter YORK\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. What is the matter, uncle? Speak;\n    Recover breath; tell us how near is danger,\n    That we may arm us to encounter it.\n  YORK. Peruse this writing here, and thou shalt know\n    The treason that my haste forbids me show.\n  AUMERLE. Remember, as thou read'st, thy promise pass'd.\n    I do repent me; read not my name there;\n    My heart is not confederate with my hand.\n  YORK. It was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down.\n    I tore it from the traitor's bosom, King;\n    Fear, and not love, begets his penitence.\n    Forget to pity him, lest thy pity prove\n    A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.\n  BOLINGBROKE. O heinous, strong, and bold conspiracy!\n    O loyal father of a treacherous son!\n    Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain,\n    From whence this stream through muddy passages\n    Hath held his current and defil'd himself!\n    Thy overflow of good converts to bad;\n    And thy abundant goodness shall excuse\n    This deadly blot in thy digressing son.\n  YORK. So shall my virtue be his vice's bawd;\n    And he shall spend mine honour with his shame,\n    As thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold.\n    Mine honour lives when his dishonour dies,\n    Or my sham'd life in his dishonour lies.\n    Thou kill'st me in his life; giving him breath,\n    The traitor lives, the true man's put to death.\n  DUCHESS. [Within] I What ho, my liege, for God's sake, let me in.\n  BOLINGBROKE. What shrill-voic'd suppliant makes this eager cry?\n  DUCHESS. [Within] A woman, and thine aunt, great King; 'tis I.\n    Speak with me, pity me, open the door.\n    A beggar begs that never begg'd before.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Our scene is alt'red from a serious thing,\n    And now chang'd to 'The Beggar and the King.'\n    My dangerous cousin, let your mother in.\n    I know she is come to pray for your foul sin.\n  YORK. If thou do pardon whosoever pray,\n    More sins for this forgiveness prosper may.\n    This fest'red joint cut off, the rest rest sound;\n    This let alone will all the rest confound.\n\n                 Enter DUCHESS\n\n  DUCHESS. O King, believe not this hard-hearted man!\n    Love loving not itself, none other can.\n  YORK. Thou frantic woman, what dost thou make here?\n    Shall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear?\n  DUCHESS. Sweet York, be patient. Hear me, gentle liege.\n                                                     [Kneels]\n  BOLINGBROKE. Rise up, good aunt.\n  DUCHESS. Not yet, I thee beseech.\n    For ever will I walk upon my knees,\n    And never see day that the happy sees\n    Till thou give joy; until thou bid me joy\n    By pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.\n  AUMERLE. Unto my mother's prayers I bend my knee.\n                                                     [Kneels]\n  YORK. Against them both, my true joints bended be.\n                                                     [Kneels]\n    Ill mayst thou thrive, if thou grant any grace!\n  DUCHESS. Pleads he in earnest? Look upon his face;\n    His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest;\n    His words come from his mouth, ours from our breast.\n    He prays but faintly and would be denied;\n    We pray with heart and soul, and all beside.\n    His weary joints would gladly rise, I know;\n    Our knees still kneel till to the ground they grow.\n    His prayers are full of false hypocrisy;\n    Ours of true zeal and deep integrity.\n    Our prayers do out-pray his; then let them have\n    That mercy which true prayer ought to have.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Good aunt, stand up.\n  DUCHESS. do not say 'stand up';\n    Say 'pardon' first, and afterwards 'stand up.'\n    An if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,\n    'Pardon' should be the first word of thy speech.\n    I never long'd to hear a word till now;\n    Say 'pardon,' King; let pity teach thee how.\n    The word is short, but not so short as sweet;\n    No word like 'pardon' for kings' mouths so meet.\n  YORK. Speak it in French, King, say 'pardonne moy.'\n  DUCHESS. Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?\n    Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,\n    That sets the word itself against the word!\n    Speak 'pardon' as 'tis current in our land;\n    The chopping French we do not understand.\n    Thine eye begins to speak, set thy tongue there;\n    Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear,\n    That hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,\n    Pity may move thee 'pardon' to rehearse.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Good aunt, stand up.\n  DUCHESS. I do not sue to stand;\n    Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.\n  DUCHESS. O happy vantage of a kneeling knee!\n    Yet am I sick for fear. Speak it again.\n    Twice saying 'pardon' doth not pardon twain,\n    But makes one pardon strong.\n  BOLINGBROKE. With all my heart\n    I pardon him.\n  DUCHESS. A god on earth thou art.\n  BOLINGBROKE. But for our trusty brother-in-law and the Abbot,\n    With all the rest of that consorted crew,\n    Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels.\n    Good uncle, help to order several powers\n    To Oxford, or where'er these traitors are.\n    They shall not live within this world, I swear,\n    But I will have them, if I once know where.\n    Uncle, farewell; and, cousin, adieu;\n    Your mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true.\n  DUCHESS. Come, my old son; I pray God make thee new.      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\nWindsor Castle\n\nEnter SIR PIERCE OF EXTON and a servant\n\n  EXTON. Didst thou not mark the King, what words he spake?\n    'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?'\n    Was it not so?\n  SERVANT. These were his very words.\n  EXTON. 'Have I no friend?' quoth he. He spake it twice\n    And urg'd it twice together, did he not?\n  SERVANT. He did.\n  EXTON. And, speaking it, he wishtly look'd on me,\n    As who should say 'I would thou wert the man\n    That would divorce this terror from my heart';\n    Meaning the King at Pomfret. Come, let's go.\n    I am the King's friend, and will rid his foe.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\nPomfret Castle. The dungeon of the Castle\n\nEnter KING RICHARD\n\n  KING RICHARD. I have been studying how I may compare\n    This prison where I live unto the world\n    And, for because the world is populous\n    And here is not a creature but myself,\n    I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.\n    My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,\n    My soul the father; and these two beget\n    A generation of still-breeding thoughts,\n    And these same thoughts people this little world,\n    In humours like the people of this world,\n    For no thought is contented. The better sort,\n    As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd\n    With scruples, and do set the word itself\n    Against the word,\n    As thus: 'Come, little ones'; and then again,\n    'It is as hard to come as for a camel\n    To thread the postern of a small needle's eye.'\n    Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot\n    Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails\n    May tear a passage through the flinty ribs\n    Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;\n    And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.\n    Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves\n    That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,\n    Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars\n    Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame,\n    That many have and others must sit there;\n    And in this thought they find a kind of ease,\n    Bearing their own misfortunes on the back\n    Of such as have before endur'd the like.\n    Thus play I in one person many people,\n    And none contented. Sometimes am I king;\n    Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,\n    And so I am. Then crushing penury\n    Persuades me I was better when a king;\n    Then am I king'd again; and by and by\n    Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,\n    And straight am nothing. But whate'er I be,\n    Nor I, nor any man that but man is,\n    With nothing shall be pleas'd till he be eas'd\n    With being nothing.                    [The music plays]\n    Music do I hear?\n    Ha, ha! keep time. How sour sweet music is\n    When time is broke and no proportion kept!\n    So is it in the music of men's lives.\n    And here have I the daintiness of ear\n    To check time broke in a disorder'd string;\n    But, for the concord of my state and time,\n    Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.\n    I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;\n    For now hath time made me his numb'ring clock:\n    My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar\n    Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,\n    Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,\n    Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.\n    Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is\n    Are clamorous groans which strike upon my heart,\n    Which is the bell. So sighs, and tears, and groans,\n    Show minutes, times, and hours; but my time\n    Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,\n    While I stand fooling here, his Jack of the clock.\n    This music mads me. Let it sound no more;\n    For though it have holp madmen to their wits,\n    In me it seems it will make wise men mad.\n    Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me!\n    For 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard\n    Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.\n\n              Enter a GROOM of the stable\n\n  GROOM. Hail, royal Prince!\n  KING RICHARD. Thanks, noble peer!\n    The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.\n    What art thou? and how comest thou hither,\n    Where no man never comes but that sad dog\n    That brings me food to make misfortune live?\n  GROOM. I was a poor groom of thy stable, King,\n    When thou wert king; who, travelling towards York,\n    With much ado at length have gotten leave\n    To look upon my sometimes royal master's face.\n    O, how it ern'd my heart, when I beheld,\n    In London streets, that coronation-day,\n    When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary-\n    That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,\n    That horse that I so carefully have dress'd!\n  KING RICHARD. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,\n    How went he under him?\n  GROOM. So proudly as if he disdain'd the ground.\n  KING RICHARD. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!\n    That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;\n    This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.\n    Would he not stumble? would he not fall down,\n    Since pride must have a fall, and break the neck\n    Of that proud man that did usurp his back?\n    Forgiveness, horse! Why do I rail on thee,\n    Since thou, created to be aw'd by man,\n    Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse;\n    And yet I bear a burden like an ass,\n    Spurr'd, gall'd, and tir'd, by jauncing Bolingbroke.\n\n              Enter KEEPER with meat\n\n  KEEPER. Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay.\n  KING RICHARD. If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away.\n  GROOM. my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.\n Exit\n  KEEPER. My lord, will't please you to fall to?\n  KING RICHARD. Taste of it first as thou art wont to do.\n  KEEPER. My lord, I dare not. Sir Pierce of Exton,\n    Who lately came from the King, commands the contrary.\n  KING RICHARD. The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee!\n    Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.\n                                           [Beats the KEEPER]\n  KEEPER. Help, help, help!\n    The murderers, EXTON and servants, rush in, armed\n  KING RICHARD. How now! What means death in this rude assault?\n    Villain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument.\n                         [Snatching a weapon and killing one]\n    Go thou and fill another room in hell.\n              [He kills another, then EXTON strikes him down]\n    That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire\n    That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand\n    Hath with the King's blood stain'd the King's own land.\n    Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;\n    Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.\n                                                       [Dies]\n  EXTON. As full of valour as of royal blood.\n    Both have I spill'd. O, would the deed were good!\n    For now the devil, that told me I did well,\n    Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.\n    This dead King to the living King I'll bear.\n    Take hence the rest, and give them burial here.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 6.\nWindsor Castle\n\nFlourish. Enter BOLINGBROKE, the DUKE OF YORK, With other LORDS\nand attendants\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear\n    Is that the rebels have consum'd with fire\n    Our town of Ciceter in Gloucestershire;\n    But whether they be ta'en or slain we hear not.\n\n              Enter NORTHUMBERLAND\n\n    Welcome, my lord. What is the news?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. First, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness.\n    The next news is, I have to London sent\n    The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent.\n    The manner of their taking may appear\n    At large discoursed in this paper here.\n  BOLINGBROKE. We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains;\n    And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.\n\n                  Enter FITZWATER\n\n  FITZWATER. My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London\n    The heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely;\n    Two of the dangerous consorted traitors\n    That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot;\n    Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.\n\n         Enter PERCY, With the BISHOP OF CARLISLE\n\n  PERCY. The grand conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,\n    With clog of conscience and sour melancholy,\n    Hath yielded up his body to the grave;\n    But here is Carlisle living, to abide\n    Thy kingly doom, and sentence of his pride.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Carlisle, this is your doom:\n    Choose out some secret place, some reverend room,\n    More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life;\n    So as thou liv'st in peace, die free from strife;\n    For though mine enemy thou hast ever been,\n    High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.\n\n      Enter EXTON, with attendants, hearing a coffin\n\n  EXTON. Great King, within this coffin I present\n    Thy buried fear. Herein all breathless lies\n    The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,\n    Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought\n    A deed of slander with thy fatal hand\n    Upon my head and all this famous land.\n  EXTON. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.\n  BOLINGBROKE. They love not poison that do poison need,\n    Nor do I thee. Though I did wish him dead,\n    I hate the murderer, love him murdered.\n    The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,\n    But neither my good word nor princely favour;\n    With Cain go wander thorough shades of night,\n    And never show thy head by day nor light.\n    Lords, I protest my soul is full of woe\n    That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow.\n    Come, mourn with me for what I do lament,\n    And put on sullen black incontinent.\n    I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land,\n    To wash this blood off from my guilty hand.\n    March sadly after; grace my mournings here\n    In weeping after this untimely bier.                  Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1593\n\nKING RICHARD III\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  EDWARD THE FOURTH\n\n    Sons to the King\n  EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES afterwards KING EDWARD V\n  RICHARD, DUKE OF YORK,\n\n    Brothers to the King\n  GEORGE, DUKE OF CLARENCE,\n  RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, afterwards KING RICHARD III\n\n  A YOUNG SON OF CLARENCE (Edward, Earl of Warwick)\n  HENRY, EARL OF RICHMOND, afterwards KING HENRY VII\n  CARDINAL BOURCHIER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY\n  THOMAS ROTHERHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK\n  JOHN MORTON, BISHOP OF ELY\n  DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM\n  DUKE OF NORFOLK\n  EARL OF SURREY, his son\n  EARL RIVERS, brother to King Edward's Queen\n  MARQUIS OF DORSET and LORD GREY, her sons\n  EARL OF OXFORD\n  LORD HASTINGS\n  LORD LOVEL\n  LORD STANLEY, called also EARL OF DERBY\n  SIR THOMAS VAUGHAN\n  SIR RICHARD RATCLIFF\n  SIR WILLIAM CATESBY\n  SIR JAMES TYRREL\n  SIR JAMES BLOUNT\n  SIR WALTER HERBERT\n  SIR WILLIAM BRANDON\n  SIR ROBERT BRAKENBURY, Lieutenant of the Tower\n  CHRISTOPHER URSWICK, a priest\n  LORD MAYOR OF LONDON\n  SHERIFF OF WILTSHIRE\n  HASTINGS, a pursuivant\n  TRESSEL and BERKELEY, gentlemen attending on Lady Anne\n  ELIZABETH, Queen to King Edward IV\n  MARGARET, widow of King Henry VI\n  DUCHESS OF YORK, mother to King Edward IV\n  LADY ANNE, widow of Edward, Prince of Wales, son to King\n    Henry VI; afterwards married to the Duke of Gloucester\n  A YOUNG DAUGHTER OF CLARENCE (Margaret Plantagenet,\n    Countess of Salisbury)\n  Ghosts, of Richard's victims\n  Lords, Gentlemen, and Attendants; Priest, Scrivener, Page, Bishops,\n    Aldermen, Citizens, Soldiers, Messengers, Murderers, Keeper\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE: England\n\nKing Richard the Third\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, solus\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Now is the winter of our discontent\n    Made glorious summer by this sun of York;\n    And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house\n    In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.\n    Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;\n    Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;\n    Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,\n    Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.\n    Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front,\n    And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds\n    To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,\n    He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber\n    To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.\n    But I-that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,\n    Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass-\n    I-that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty\n    To strut before a wanton ambling nymph-\n    I-that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,\n    Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,\n    Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time\n    Into this breathing world scarce half made up,\n    And that so lamely and unfashionable\n    That dogs bark at me as I halt by them-\n    Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,\n    Have no delight to pass away the time,\n    Unless to spy my shadow in the sun\n    And descant on mine own deformity.\n    And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover\n    To entertain these fair well-spoken days,\n    I am determined to prove a villain\n    And hate the idle pleasures of these days.\n    Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,\n    By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,\n    To set my brother Clarence and the King\n    In deadly hate the one against the other;\n    And if King Edward be as true and just\n    As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,\n    This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up-\n    About a prophecy which says that G\n    Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.\n    Dive, thoughts, down to my soul. Here Clarence comes.\n\n             Enter CLARENCE, guarded, and BRAKENBURY\n\n    Brother, good day. What means this armed guard\n    That waits upon your Grace?\n  CLARENCE. His Majesty,\n    Tend'ring my person's safety, hath appointed\n    This conduct to convey me to th' Tower.\n  GLOUCESTER. Upon what cause?\n  CLARENCE. Because my name is George.\n  GLOUCESTER. Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours:\n    He should, for that, commit your godfathers.\n    O, belike his Majesty hath some intent\n    That you should be new-christ'ned in the Tower.\n    But what's the matter, Clarence? May I know?\n  CLARENCE. Yea, Richard, when I know; for I protest\n    As yet I do not; but, as I can learn,\n    He hearkens after prophecies and dreams,\n    And from the cross-row plucks the letter G,\n    And says a wizard told him that by G\n    His issue disinherited should be;\n    And, for my name of George begins with G,\n    It follows in his thought that I am he.\n    These, as I learn, and such like toys as these\n    Hath mov'd his Highness to commit me now.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, this it is when men are rul'd by women:\n    'Tis not the King that sends you to the Tower;\n    My Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, 'tis she\n    That tempers him to this extremity.\n    Was it not she and that good man of worship,\n    Antony Woodville, her brother there,\n    That made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower,\n    From whence this present day he is delivered?\n    We are not safe, Clarence; we are not safe.\n  CLARENCE. By heaven, I think there is no man is secure\n    But the Queen's kindred, and night-walking heralds\n    That trudge betwixt the King and Mistress Shore.\n    Heard you not what an humble suppliant\n    Lord Hastings was, for her delivery?\n  GLOUCESTER. Humbly complaining to her deity\n    Got my Lord Chamberlain his liberty.\n    I'll tell you what-I think it is our way,\n    If we will keep in favour with the King,\n    To be her men and wear her livery:\n    The jealous o'er-worn widow, and herself,\n    Since that our brother dubb'd them gentlewomen,\n    Are mighty gossips in our monarchy.\n  BRAKENBURY. I beseech your Graces both to pardon me:\n    His Majesty hath straitly given in charge\n    That no man shall have private conference,\n    Of what degree soever, with your brother.\n  GLOUCESTER. Even so; an't please your worship, Brakenbury,\n    You may partake of any thing we say:\n    We speak no treason, man; we say the King\n    Is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen\n    Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous;\n    We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,\n    A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue;\n    And that the Queen's kindred are made gentlefolks.\n    How say you, sir? Can you deny all this?\n  BRAKENBURY. With this, my lord, myself have naught to do.\n  GLOUCESTER. Naught to do with Mistress Shore! I tell thee,\n    fellow,\n    He that doth naught with her, excepting one,\n    Were best to do it secretly alone.\n  BRAKENBURY. What one, my lord?\n  GLOUCESTER. Her husband, knave! Wouldst thou betray me?\n  BRAKENBURY. I do beseech your Grace to pardon me, and\n    withal\n    Forbear your conference with the noble Duke.\n  CLARENCE. We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will\n    obey.\n  GLOUCESTER. We are the Queen's abjects and must obey.\n    Brother, farewell; I will unto the King;\n    And whatsoe'er you will employ me in-\n    Were it to call King Edward's widow sister-\n    I will perform it to enfranchise you.\n    Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood\n    Touches me deeper than you can imagine.\n  CLARENCE. I know it pleaseth neither of us well.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well, your imprisonment shall not be long;\n    I will deliver or else lie for you.\n    Meantime, have patience.\n  CLARENCE. I must perforce. Farewell.\n                          Exeunt CLARENCE, BRAKENBURY, and guard\n  GLOUCESTER. Go tread the path that thou shalt ne'er return.\n    Simple, plain Clarence, I do love thee so\n    That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,\n    If heaven will take the present at our hands.\n    But who comes here? The new-delivered Hastings?\n\n                       Enter LORD HASTINGS\n\n  HASTINGS. Good time of day unto my gracious lord!\n  GLOUCESTER. As much unto my good Lord Chamberlain!\n    Well are you welcome to the open air.\n    How hath your lordship brook'd imprisonment?\n  HASTINGS. With patience, noble lord, as prisoners must;\n    But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks\n    That were the cause of my imprisonment.\n  GLOUCESTER. No doubt, no doubt; and so shall Clarence too;\n    For they that were your enemies are his,\n    And have prevail'd as much on him as you.\n  HASTINGS. More pity that the eagles should be mew'd\n    Whiles kites and buzzards prey at liberty.\n  GLOUCESTER. What news abroad?\n  HASTINGS. No news so bad abroad as this at home:\n    The King is sickly, weak, and melancholy,\n    And his physicians fear him mightily.\n  GLOUCESTER. Now, by Saint John, that news is bad indeed.\n    O, he hath kept an evil diet long\n    And overmuch consum'd his royal person!\n    'Tis very grievous to be thought upon.\n    Where is he? In his bed?\n  HASTINGS. He is.\n  GLOUCESTER. Go you before, and I will follow you.\n                                                   Exit HASTINGS\n    He cannot live, I hope, and must not die\n    Till George be pack'd with posthorse up to heaven.\n    I'll in to urge his hatred more to Clarence\n    With lies well steel'd with weighty arguments;\n    And, if I fail not in my deep intent,\n    Clarence hath not another day to live;\n    Which done, God take King Edward to his mercy,\n    And leave the world for me to bustle in!\n    For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter.\n    What though I kill'd her husband and her father?\n    The readiest way to make the wench amends\n    Is to become her husband and her father;\n    The which will I-not all so much for love\n    As for another secret close intent\n    By marrying her which I must reach unto.\n    But yet I run before my horse to market.\n    Clarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns;\n    When they are gone, then must I count my gains.         Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nLondon. Another street\n\nEnter corpse of KING HENRY THE SIXTH, with halberds to guard it;\nLADY ANNE being the mourner, attended by TRESSEL and BERKELEY\n\n  ANNE. Set down, set down your honourable load-\n    If honour may be shrouded in a hearse;\n    Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament\n    Th' untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.\n    Poor key-cold figure of a holy king!\n    Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster!\n    Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!\n    Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost\n    To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,\n    Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughtered son,\n    Stabb'd by the self-same hand that made these wounds.\n    Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life\n    I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.\n    O, cursed be the hand that made these holes!\n    Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it!\n    Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence!\n    More direful hap betide that hated wretch\n    That makes us wretched by the death of thee\n    Than I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,\n    Or any creeping venom'd thing that lives!\n    If ever he have child, abortive be it,\n    Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,\n    Whose ugly and unnatural aspect\n    May fright the hopeful mother at the view,\n    And that be heir to his unhappiness!\n    If ever he have wife, let her be made\n    More miserable by the death of him\n    Than I am made by my young lord and thee!\n    Come, now towards Chertsey with your holy load,\n    Taken from Paul's to be interred there;\n    And still as you are weary of this weight\n    Rest you, whiles I lament King Henry's corse.\n                                [The bearers take up the coffin]\n\n                      Enter GLOUCESTER\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Stay, you that bear the corse, and set it down.\n  ANNE. What black magician conjures up this fiend\n    To stop devoted charitable deeds?\n  GLOUCESTER. Villains, set down the corse; or, by Saint Paul,\n    I'll make a corse of him that disobeys!\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. My lord, stand back, and let the coffin\n    pass.\n  GLOUCESTER. Unmannerd dog! Stand thou, when I command.\n    Advance thy halberd higher than my breast,\n    Or, by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot\n    And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.\n                               [The bearers set down the coffin]\n  ANNE. What, do you tremble? Are you all afraid?\n    Alas, I blame you not, for you are mortal,\n    And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.\n    Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!\n    Thou hadst but power over his mortal body,\n    His soul thou canst not have; therefore, be gone.\n  GLOUCESTER. Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.\n  ANNE. Foul devil, for God's sake, hence and trouble us not;\n    For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell\n    Fill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.\n    If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,\n    Behold this pattern of thy butcheries.\n    O, gentlemen, see, see! Dead Henry's wounds\n    Open their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh.\n    Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity,\n    For 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood\n    From cold and empty veins where no blood dwells;\n    Thy deeds inhuman and unnatural\n    Provokes this deluge most unnatural.\n    O God, which this blood mad'st, revenge his death!\n    O earth, which this blood drink'st, revenge his death!\n    Either, heav'n, with lightning strike the murd'rer dead;\n    Or, earth, gape open wide and eat him quick,\n    As thou dost swallow up this good king's blood,\n    Which his hell-govern'd arm hath butchered.\n  GLOUCESTER. Lady, you know no rules of charity,\n    Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.\n  ANNE. Villain, thou knowest nor law of God nor man:\n    No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.\n  GLOUCESTER. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.\n  ANNE. O wonderful, when devils tell the truth!\n  GLOUCESTER. More wonderful when angels are so angry.\n    Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,\n    Of these supposed crimes to give me leave\n    By circumstance but to acquit myself.\n  ANNE. Vouchsafe, diffus'd infection of a man,\n    Of these known evils but to give me leave\n    By circumstance to accuse thy cursed self.\n  GLOUCESTER. Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have\n    Some patient leisure to excuse myself.\n  ANNE. Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make\n    No excuse current but to hang thyself.\n  GLOUCESTER. By such despair I should accuse myself.\n  ANNE. And by despairing shalt thou stand excused\n    For doing worthy vengeance on thyself\n    That didst unworthy slaughter upon others.\n  GLOUCESTER. Say that I slew them not?\n  ANNE. Then say they were not slain.\n    But dead they are, and, devilish slave, by thee.\n  GLOUCESTER. I did not kill your husband.\n  ANNE. Why, then he is alive.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nay, he is dead, and slain by Edward's hands.\n  ANNE. In thy foul throat thou liest: Queen Margaret saw\n    Thy murd'rous falchion smoking in his blood;\n    The which thou once didst bend against her breast,\n    But that thy brothers beat aside the point.\n  GLOUCESTER. I was provoked by her sland'rous tongue\n    That laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.\n  ANNE. Thou wast provoked by thy bloody mind,\n    That never dream'st on aught but butcheries.\n    Didst thou not kill this king?\n  GLOUCESTER. I grant ye.\n  ANNE. Dost grant me, hedgehog? Then, God grant me to\n    Thou mayst be damned for that wicked deed!\n    O, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous!\n  GLOUCESTER. The better for the King of Heaven, that hath\n    him.\n  ANNE. He is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.\n  GLOUCESTER. Let him thank me that holp to send him\n    thither,\n    For he was fitter for that place than earth.\n  ANNE. And thou unfit for any place but hell.\n  GLOUCESTER. Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.\n  ANNE. Some dungeon.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your bed-chamber.\n  ANNE. Ill rest betide the chamber where thou liest!\n  GLOUCESTER. So will it, madam, till I lie with you.\n  ANNE. I hope so.\n  GLOUCESTER. I know so. But, gentle Lady Anne,\n    To leave this keen encounter of our wits,\n    And fall something into a slower method-\n    Is not the causer of the timeless deaths\n    Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,\n    As blameful as the executioner?\n  ANNE. Thou wast the cause and most accurs'd effect.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your beauty was the cause of that effect-\n    Your beauty that did haunt me in my sleep\n    To undertake the death of all the world\n    So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.\n  ANNE. If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,\n    These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.\n  GLOUCESTER. These eyes could not endure that beauty's\n    wreck;\n    You should not blemish it if I stood by.\n    As all the world is cheered by the sun,\n    So I by that; it is my day, my life.\n  ANNE. Black night o'ershade thy day, and death thy life!\n  GLOUCESTER. Curse not thyself, fair creature; thou art both.\n  ANNE. I would I were, to be reveng'd on thee.\n  GLOUCESTER. It is a quarrel most unnatural,\n    To be reveng'd on him that loveth thee.\n  ANNE. It is a quarrel just and reasonable,\n    To be reveng'd on him that kill'd my husband.\n  GLOUCESTER. He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband\n    Did it to help thee to a better husband.\n  ANNE. His better doth not breathe upon the earth.\n  GLOUCESTER. He lives that loves thee better than he could.\n  ANNE. Name him.\n  GLOUCESTER. Plantagenet.\n  ANNE. Why, that was he.\n  GLOUCESTER. The self-same name, but one of better nature.\n  ANNE. Where is he?\n  GLOUCESTER. Here.  [She spits at him]  Why dost thou spit\n    at me?\n  ANNE. Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake!\n  GLOUCESTER. Never came poison from so sweet a place.\n  ANNE. Never hung poison on a fouler toad.\n    Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes.\n  GLOUCESTER. Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.\n  ANNE. Would they were basilisks to strike thee dead!\n  GLOUCESTER. I would they were, that I might die at once;\n    For now they kill me with a living death.\n    Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,\n    Sham'd their aspects with store of childish drops-\n    These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear,\n    No, when my father York and Edward wept\n    To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made\n    When black-fac'd Clifford shook his sword at him;\n    Nor when thy warlike father, like a child,\n    Told the sad story of my father's death,\n    And twenty times made pause to sob and weep\n    That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks\n    Like trees bedash'd with rain-in that sad time\n    My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;\n    And what these sorrows could not thence exhale\n    Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.\n    I never sued to friend nor enemy;\n    My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word;\n    But, now thy beauty is propos'd my fee,\n    My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.\n                                   [She looks scornfully at him]\n    Teach not thy lip such scorn; for it was made\n    For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.\n    If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,\n    Lo here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword;\n    Which if thou please to hide in this true breast\n    And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,\n    I lay it naked to the deadly stroke,\n    And humbly beg the death upon my knee.\n      [He lays his breast open; she offers at it with his sword]\n    Nay, do not pause; for I did kill King Henry-\n    But 'twas thy beauty that provoked me.\n    Nay, now dispatch; 'twas I that stabb'd young Edward-\n    But 'twas thy heavenly face that set me on.\n                                           [She falls the sword]\n    Take up the sword again, or take up me.\n  ANNE. Arise, dissembler; though I wish thy death,\n    I will not be thy executioner.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it;\n  ANNE. I have already.\n  GLOUCESTER. That was in thy rage.\n    Speak it again, and even with the word\n    This hand, which for thy love did kill thy love,\n    Shall for thy love kill a far truer love;\n    To both their deaths shalt thou be accessary.\n  ANNE. I would I knew thy heart.\n  GLOUCESTER. 'Tis figur'd in my tongue.\n  ANNE. I fear me both are false.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then never was man true.\n  ANNE. well put up your sword.\n  GLOUCESTER. Say, then, my peace is made.\n  ANNE. That shalt thou know hereafter.\n  GLOUCESTER. But shall I live in hope?\n  ANNE. All men, I hope, live so.\n  GLOUCESTER. Vouchsafe to wear this ring.\n  ANNE. To take is not to give.               [Puts on the ring]\n  GLOUCESTER. Look how my ring encompasseth thy finger,\n    Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart;\n    Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.\n    And if thy poor devoted servant may\n    But beg one favour at thy gracious hand,\n    Thou dost confirm his happiness for ever.\n  ANNE. What is it?\n  GLOUCESTER. That it may please you leave these sad designs\n    To him that hath most cause to be a mourner,\n    And presently repair to Crosby House;\n    Where-after I have solemnly interr'd\n    At Chertsey monast'ry this noble king,\n    And wet his grave with my repentant tears-\n    I will with all expedient duty see you.\n    For divers unknown reasons, I beseech you,\n    Grant me this boon.\n  ANNE. With all my heart; and much it joys me too\n    To see you are become so penitent.\n    Tressel and Berkeley, go along with me.\n  GLOUCESTER. Bid me farewell.\n  ANNE. 'Tis more than you deserve;\n    But since you teach me how to flatter you,\n    Imagine I have said farewell already.\n                             Exeunt two GENTLEMEN With LADY ANNE\n  GLOUCESTER. Sirs, take up the corse.\n  GENTLEMEN. Towards Chertsey, noble lord?\n  GLOUCESTER. No, to White Friars; there attend my coming.\n                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER\n    Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?\n    Was ever woman in this humour won?\n    I'll have her; but I will not keep her long.\n    What! I that kill'd her husband and his father-\n    To take her in her heart's extremest hate,\n    With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,\n    The bleeding witness of my hatred by;\n    Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,\n    And I no friends to back my suit at all\n    But the plain devil and dissembling looks,\n    And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!\n    Ha!\n    Hath she forgot already that brave prince,\n    Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,\n    Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury?\n    A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman-\n    Fram'd in the prodigality of nature,\n    Young, valiant, wise, and no doubt right royal-\n    The spacious world cannot again afford;\n    And will she yet abase her eyes on me,\n    That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince\n    And made her widow to a woeful bed?\n    On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?\n    On me, that halts and am misshapen thus?\n    My dukedom to a beggarly denier,\n    I do mistake my person all this while.\n    Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,\n    Myself to be a marv'llous proper man.\n    I'll be at charges for a looking-glass,\n    And entertain a score or two of tailors\n    To study fashions to adorn my body.\n    Since I am crept in favour with myself,\n    I will maintain it with some little cost.\n    But first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave,\n    And then return lamenting to my love.\n    Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,\n    That I may see my shadow as I pass.                     Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter QUEEN ELIZABETH, LORD RIVERS, and LORD GREY\n\n  RIVERS. Have patience, madam; there's no doubt his Majesty\n    Will soon recover his accustom'd health.\n  GREY. In that you brook it ill, it makes him worse;\n    Therefore, for God's sake, entertain good comfort,\n    And cheer his Grace with quick and merry eyes.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. If he were dead, what would betide on\n    me?\n  GREY. No other harm but loss of such a lord.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The loss of such a lord includes all\n    harms.\n  GREY. The heavens have bless'd you with a goodly son\n    To be your comforter when he is gone.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, he is young; and his minority\n    Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,\n    A man that loves not me, nor none of you.\n  RIVER. Is it concluded he shall be Protector?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. It is determin'd, not concluded yet;\n    But so it must be, if the King miscarry.\n\n                     Enter BUCKINGHAM and DERBY\n\n  GREY. Here come the Lords of Buckingham and Derby.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Good time of day unto your royal Grace!\n  DERBY. God make your Majesty joyful as you have been.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The Countess Richmond, good my Lord\n    of Derby,\n    To your good prayer will scarcely say amen.\n    Yet, Derby, notwithstanding she's your wife\n    And loves not me, be you, good lord, assur'd\n    I hate not you for her proud arrogance.\n  DERBY. I do beseech you, either not believe\n    The envious slanders of her false accusers;\n    Or, if she be accus'd on true report,\n    Bear with her weakness, which I think proceeds\n    From wayward sickness and no grounded malice.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Saw you the King to-day, my Lord of\n    Derby?\n  DERBY. But now the Duke of Buckingham and I\n    Are come from visiting his Majesty.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What likelihood of his amendment,\n    Lords?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Madam, good hope; his Grace speaks\n    cheerfully.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. God grant him health! Did you confer\n    with him?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Ay, madam; he desires to make atonement\n    Between the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,\n    And between them and my Lord Chamberlain;\n    And sent to warn them to his royal presence.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Would all were well! But that will\n    never be.\n    I fear our happiness is at the height.\n\n              Enter GLOUCESTER, HASTINGS, and DORSET\n\n  GLOUCESTER. They do me wrong, and I will not endure it.\n    Who is it that complains unto the King\n    That I, forsooth, am stern and love them not?\n    By holy Paul, they love his Grace but lightly\n    That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.\n    Because I cannot flatter and look fair,\n    Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,\n    Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,\n    I must be held a rancorous enemy.\n    Cannot a plain man live and think no harm\n    But thus his simple truth must be abus'd\n    With silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?\n  GREY. To who in all this presence speaks your Grace?\n  GLOUCESTER. To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.\n    When have I injur'd thee? when done thee wrong,\n    Or thee, or thee, or any of your faction?\n    A plague upon you all! His royal Grace-\n    Whom God preserve better than you would wish!-\n    Cannot be quiet searce a breathing while\n    But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the\n    matter.\n    The King, on his own royal disposition\n    And not provok'd by any suitor else-\n    Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred\n    That in your outward action shows itself\n    Against my children, brothers, and myself-\n    Makes him to send that he may learn the ground.\n  GLOUCESTER. I cannot tell; the world is grown so bad\n    That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.\n    Since every Jack became a gentleman,\n    There's many a gentle person made a Jack.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Come, come, we know your meaning,\n    brother Gloucester:\n    You envy my advancement and my friends';\n    God grant we never may have need of you!\n  GLOUCESTER. Meantime, God grants that I have need of you.\n    Our brother is imprison'd by your means,\n    Myself disgrac'd, and the nobility\n    Held in contempt; while great promotions\n    Are daily given to ennoble those\n    That scarce some two days since were worth a noble.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. By Him that rais'd me to this careful\n    height\n    From that contented hap which I enjoy'd,\n    I never did incense his Majesty\n    Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been\n    An earnest advocate to plead for him.\n    My lord, you do me shameful injury\n    Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.\n  GLOUCESTER. You may deny that you were not the mean\n    Of my Lord Hastings' late imprisonment.\n  RIVERS. She may, my lord; for-\n  GLOUCESTER. She may, Lord Rivers? Why, who knows\n    not so?\n    She may do more, sir, than denying that:\n    She may help you to many fair preferments\n    And then deny her aiding hand therein,\n    And lay those honours on your high desert.\n    What may she not? She may-ay, marry, may she-\n  RIVERS. What, marry, may she?\n  GLOUCESTER. What, marry, may she? Marry with a king,\n    A bachelor, and a handsome stripling too.\n    Iwis your grandam had a worser match.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My Lord of Gloucester, I have too long\n    borne\n    Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs.\n    By heaven, I will acquaint his Majesty\n    Of those gross taunts that oft I have endur'd.\n    I had rather be a country servant-maid\n    Than a great queen with this condition-\n    To be so baited, scorn'd, and stormed at.\n\n                Enter old QUEEN MARGARET, behind\n\n    Small joy have I in being England's Queen.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. And less'ned be that small, God, I\n    beseech Him!\n    Thy honour, state, and seat, is due to me.\n  GLOUCESTER. What! Threat you me with telling of the\n    King?\n    Tell him and spare not. Look what I have said\n    I will avouch't in presence of the King.\n    I dare adventure to be sent to th' Tow'r.\n    'Tis time to speak-my pains are quite forgot.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Out, devil! I do remember them to\n    well:\n    Thou kill'dst my husband Henry in the Tower,\n    And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband\n    King,\n    I was a pack-horse in his great affairs,\n    A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,\n    A liberal rewarder of his friends;\n    To royalize his blood I spent mine own.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, and much better blood than his or\n    thine.\n  GLOUCESTER. In all which time you and your husband Grey\n    Were factious for the house of Lancaster;\n    And, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband\n    In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans slain?\n    Let me put in your minds, if you forget,\n    What you have been ere this, and what you are;\n    Withal, what I have been, and what I am.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. A murd'rous villain, and so still thou art.\n  GLOUCESTER. Poor Clarence did forsake his father, Warwick,\n    Ay, and forswore himself-which Jesu pardon!-\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Which God revenge!\n  GLOUCESTER. To fight on Edward's party for the crown;\n    And for his meed, poor lord, he is mewed up.\n    I would to God my heart were flint like Edward's,\n    Or Edward's soft and pitiful like mine.\n    I am too childish-foolish for this world.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Hie thee to hell for shame and leave this\n    world,\n    Thou cacodemon; there thy kingdom is.\n  RIVERS. My Lord of Gloucester, in those busy days\n    Which here you urge to prove us enemies,\n    We follow'd then our lord, our sovereign king.\n    So should we you, if you should be our king.\n  GLOUCESTER. If I should be! I had rather be a pedlar.\n    Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose\n    You should enjoy were you this country's king,\n    As little joy you may suppose in me\n    That I enjoy, being the Queen thereof.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. As little joy enjoys the Queen thereof;\n    For I am she, and altogether joyless.\n    I can no longer hold me patient.                 [Advancing]\n    Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out\n    In sharing that which you have pill'd from me.\n    Which of you trembles not that looks on me?\n    If not that, I am Queen, you bow like subjects,\n    Yet that, by you depos'd, you quake like rebels?\n    Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away!\n  GLOUCESTER. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in my\n    sight?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. But repetition of what thou hast marr'd,\n    That will I make before I let thee go.\n  GLOUCESTER. Wert thou not banished on pain of death?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I was; but I do find more pain in\n    banishment\n    Than death can yield me here by my abode.\n    A husband and a son thou ow'st to me;\n    And thou a kingdom; all of you allegiance.\n    This sorrow that I have by right is yours;\n    And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.\n  GLOUCESTER. The curse my noble father laid on thee,\n    When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper\n    And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes,\n    And then to dry them gav'st the Duke a clout\n    Steep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland-\n    His curses then from bitterness of soul\n    Denounc'd against thee are all fall'n upon thee;\n    And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. So just is God to right the innocent.\n  HASTINGS. O, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,\n    And the most merciless that e'er was heard of!\n  RIVERS. Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.\n  DORSET. No man but prophesied revenge for it.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. What, were you snarling all before I came,\n    Ready to catch each other by the throat,\n    And turn you all your hatred now on me?\n    Did York's dread curse prevail so much with heaven\n    That Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,\n    Their kingdom's loss, my woeful banishment,\n    Should all but answer for that peevish brat?\n    Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?\n    Why then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!\n    Though not by war, by surfeit die your king,\n    As ours by murder, to make him a king!\n    Edward thy son, that now is Prince of Wales,\n    For Edward our son, that was Prince of Wales,\n    Die in his youth by like untimely violence!\n    Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,\n    Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self!\n    Long mayest thou live to wail thy children's death,\n    And see another, as I see thee now,\n    Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall'd in mine!\n    Long die thy happy days before thy death;\n    And, after many length'ned hours of grief,\n    Die neither mother, wife, nor England's Queen!\n    Rivers and Dorset, you were standers by,\n    And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son\n    Was stabb'd with bloody daggers. God, I pray him,\n    That none of you may live his natural age,\n    But by some unlook'd accident cut off!\n  GLOUCESTER. Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd\n    hag.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. And leave out thee? Stay, dog, for thou\n    shalt hear me.\n    If heaven have any grievous plague in store\n    Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,\n    O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,\n    And then hurl down their indignation\n    On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!\n    The worm of conscience still be-gnaw thy soul!\n    Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st,\n    And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!\n    No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,\n    Unless it be while some tormenting dream\n    Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!\n    Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog,\n    Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity\n    The slave of nature and the son of hell,\n    Thou slander of thy heavy mother's womb,\n    Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins,\n    Thou rag of honour, thou detested-\n  GLOUCESTER. Margaret!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Richard!\n  GLOUCESTER. Ha?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I call thee not.\n  GLOUCESTER. I cry thee mercy then, for I did think\n    That thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Why, so I did, but look'd for no reply.\n    O, let me make the period to my curse!\n  GLOUCESTER. 'Tis done by me, and ends in-Margaret.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thus have you breath'd your curse\n    against yourself.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my\n    fortune!\n    Why strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider\n    Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?\n    Fool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself.\n    The day will come that thou shalt wish for me\n    To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-back'd toad.\n  HASTINGS. False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,\n    Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Foul shame upon you! you have all\n    mov'd mine.\n  RIVERS. Were you well serv'd, you would be taught your\n      duty.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. To serve me well you all should do me\n    duty,\n    Teach me to be your queen and you my subjects.\n    O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!\n  DORSET. Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Peace, Master Marquis, you are malapert;\n    Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.\n    O, that your young nobility could judge\n    What 'twere to lose it and be miserable!\n    They that stand high have many blasts to shake them,\n    And if they fall they dash themselves to pieces.\n  GLOUCESTER. Good counsel, marry; learn it, learn it, Marquis.\n  DORSET. It touches you, my lord, as much as me.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, and much more; but I was born so high,\n    Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top,\n    And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. And turns the sun to shade-alas! alas!\n    Witness my son, now in the shade of death,\n    Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath\n    Hath in eternal darkness folded up.\n    Your aery buildeth in our aery's nest.\n    O God that seest it, do not suffer it;\n    As it is won with blood, lost be it so!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Urge neither charity nor shame to me.\n    Uncharitably with me have you dealt,\n    And shamefully my hopes by you are butcher'd.\n    My charity is outrage, life my shame;\n    And in that shame still live my sorrow's rage!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Have done, have done.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. O princely Buckingham, I'll kiss thy\n    hand\n    In sign of league and amity with thee.\n    Now fair befall thee and thy noble house!\n    Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,\n    Nor thou within the compass of my curse.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Nor no one here; for curses never pass\n    The lips of those that breathe them in the air.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I will not think but they ascend the sky\n    And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.\n    O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!\n    Look when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,\n    His venom tooth will rankle to the death:\n    Have not to do with him, beware of him;\n    Sin, death, and hell, have set their marks on him,\n    And all their ministers attend on him.\n  GLOUCESTER. What doth she say, my Lord of Buckingham?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle\n    counsel,\n    And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?\n    O, but remember this another day,\n    When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,\n    And say poor Margaret was a prophetess!\n    Live each of you the subjects to his hate,\n    And he to yours, and all of you to God's!               Exit\n  BUCKINGHAM. My hair doth stand an end to hear her curses.\n  RIVERS. And so doth mine. I muse why she's at liberty.\n  GLOUCESTER. I cannot blame her; by God's holy Mother,\n    She hath had too much wrong; and I repent\n    My part thereof that I have done to her.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I never did her any to my knowledge.\n  GLOUCESTER. Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.\n    I was too hot to do somebody good\n    That is too cold in thinking of it now.\n    Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid;\n    He is frank'd up to fatting for his pains;\n    God pardon them that are the cause thereof!\n  RIVERS. A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,\n    To pray for them that have done scathe to us!\n  GLOUCESTER. So do I ever-  [Aside]  being well advis'd;\n    For had I curs'd now, I had curs'd myself.\n\n                         Enter CATESBY\n\n  CATESBY. Madam, his Majesty doth can for you,\n    And for your Grace, and you, my gracious lords.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Catesby, I come. Lords, will you go\n    with me?\n  RIVERS. We wait upon your Grace.\n                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER\n  GLOUCESTER. I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.\n    The secret mischiefs that I set abroach\n    I lay unto the grievous charge of others.\n    Clarence, who I indeed have cast in darkness,\n    I do beweep to many simple gulls;\n    Namely, to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham;\n    And tell them 'tis the Queen and her allies\n    That stir the King against the Duke my brother.\n    Now they believe it, and withal whet me\n    To be reveng'd on Rivers, Dorset, Grey;\n    But then I sigh and, with a piece of Scripture,\n    Tell them that God bids us do good for evil.\n    And thus I clothe my naked villainy\n    With odd old ends stol'n forth of holy writ,\n    And seem a saint when most I play the devil.\n\n                       Enter two MURDERERS\n\n    But, soft, here come my executioners.\n    How now, my hardy stout resolved mates!\n    Are you now going to dispatch this thing?\n  FIRST MURDERER. We are, my lord, and come to have the\n    warrant,\n    That we may be admitted where he is.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well thought upon; I have it here about me.\n                                             [Gives the warrant]\n    When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.\n    But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,\n    Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead;\n    For Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps\n    May move your hearts to pity, if you mark him.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to\n    prate;\n    Talkers are no good doers. Be assur'd\n    We go to use our hands and not our tongues.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your eyes drop millstones when fools' eyes fall\n    tears.\n    I like you, lads; about your business straight;\n    Go, go, dispatch.\n  FIRST MURDERER. We will, my noble lord.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nLondon. The Tower\n\nEnter CLARENCE and KEEPER\n\n  KEEPER. Why looks your Grace so heavily to-day?\n  CLARENCE. O, I have pass'd a miserable night,\n    So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,\n    That, as I am a Christian faithful man,\n    I would not spend another such a night\n    Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days-\n    So full of dismal terror was the time!\n  KEEPER. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you\n    tell me.\n  CLARENCE. Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower\n    And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;\n    And in my company my brother Gloucester,\n    Who from my cabin tempted me to walk\n    Upon the hatches. Thence we look'd toward England,\n    And cited up a thousand heavy times,\n    During the wars of York and Lancaster,\n    That had befall'n us. As we pac'd along\n    Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,\n    Methought that Gloucester stumbled, and in falling\n    Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard\n    Into the tumbling billows of the main.\n    O Lord, methought what pain it was to drown,\n    What dreadful noise of waters in my ears,\n    What sights of ugly death within my eyes!\n    Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wrecks,\n    A thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon,\n    Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,\n    Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,\n    All scatt'red in the bottom of the sea;\n    Some lay in dead men's skulls, and in the holes\n    Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept,\n    As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,\n    That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep\n    And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatt'red by.\n  KEEPER. Had you such leisure in the time of death\n    To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?\n  CLARENCE. Methought I had; and often did I strive\n    To yield the ghost, but still the envious flood\n    Stopp'd in my soul and would not let it forth\n    To find the empty, vast, and wand'ring air;\n    But smother'd it within my panting bulk,\n    Who almost burst to belch it in the sea.\n  KEEPER. Awak'd you not in this sore agony?\n  CLARENCE. No, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life.\n    O, then began the tempest to my soul!\n    I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood\n    With that sour ferryman which poets write of,\n    Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.\n    The first that there did greet my stranger soul\n    Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick,\n    Who spake aloud 'What scourge for perjury\n    Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?'\n    And so he vanish'd. Then came wand'ring by\n    A shadow like an angel, with bright hair\n    Dabbled in blood, and he shriek'd out aloud\n    'Clarence is come-false, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence,\n    That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury.\n    Seize on him, Furies, take him unto torment!'\n    With that, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends\n    Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears\n    Such hideous cries that, with the very noise,\n    I trembling wak'd, and for a season after\n    Could not believe but that I was in hell,\n    Such terrible impression made my dream.\n  KEEPER. No marvel, lord, though it affrighted you;\n    I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.\n  CLARENCE. Ah, Keeper, Keeper, I have done these things\n    That now give evidence against my soul\n    For Edward's sake, and see how he requites me!\n    O God! If my deep prayers cannot appease Thee,\n    But Thou wilt be aveng'd on my misdeeds,\n    Yet execute Thy wrath in me alone;\n    O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children!\n  KEEPER, I prithee sit by me awhile;\n    My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.\n  KEEPER. I will, my lord. God give your Grace good rest.\n                                               [CLARENCE sleeps]\n\n                  Enter BRAKENBURY the Lieutenant\n\n  BRAKENBURY. Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,\n    Makes the night morning and the noontide night.\n    Princes have but their titles for their glories,\n    An outward honour for an inward toil;\n    And for unfelt imaginations\n    They often feel a world of restless cares,\n    So that between their tides and low name\n    There's nothing differs but the outward fame.\n\n                      Enter the two MURDERERS\n\n  FIRST MURDERER. Ho! who's here?\n  BRAKENBURY. What wouldst thou, fellow, and how cam'st\n    thou hither?\n  FIRST MURDERER. I would speak with Clarence, and I came\n    hither on my legs.\n  BRAKENBURY. What, so brief?\n  SECOND MURDERER. 'Tis better, sir, than to be tedious. Let\n    him see our commission and talk no more.\n                                           [BRAKENBURY reads it]\n  BRAKENBURY. I am, in this, commanded to deliver\n    The noble Duke of Clarence to your hands.\n    I will not reason what is meant hereby,\n    Because I will be guiltless from the meaning.\n    There lies the Duke asleep; and there the keys.\n    I'll to the King and signify to him\n    That thus I have resign'd to you my charge.\n  FIRST MURDERER. You may, sir; 'tis a point of wisdom. Fare\n    you well.                       Exeunt BRAKENBURY and KEEPER\n  SECOND MURDERER. What, shall I stab him as he sleeps?\n  FIRST MURDERER. No; he'll say 'twas done cowardly, when\n    he wakes.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Why, he shall never wake until the great\n    judgment-day.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Why, then he'll say we stabb'd him\n    sleeping.\n  SECOND MURDERER. The urging of that word judgment hath\n    bred a kind of remorse in me.\n  FIRST MURDERER. What, art thou afraid?\n  SECOND MURDERER. Not to kill him, having a warrant; but to\n    be damn'd for killing him, from the which no warrant can\n    defend me.\n  FIRST MURDERER. I thought thou hadst been resolute.\n  SECOND MURDERER. So I am, to let him live.\n  FIRST MURDERER. I'll back to the Duke of Gloucester and\n    tell him so.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Nay, I prithee, stay a little. I hope this\n    passionate humour of mine will change; it was wont to\n    hold me but while one tells twenty.\n  FIRST MURDERER. How dost thou feel thyself now?\n    SECOND MURDERER. Faith, some certain dregs of conscience\n    are yet within me.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Remember our reward, when the deed's\n    done.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Zounds, he dies; I had forgot the reward.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Where's thy conscience now?\n  SECOND MURDERER. O, in the Duke of Gloucester's purse!\n  FIRST MURDERER. When he opens his purse to give us our\n    reward, thy conscience flies out.\n  SECOND MURDERER. 'Tis no matter; let it go; there's few or\n    none will entertain it.\n  FIRST MURDERER. What if it come to thee again?\n  SECOND MURDERER. I'll not meddle with it-it makes a man\n    coward: a man cannot steal, but it accuseth him; a man\n    cannot swear, but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his\n    neighbour's wife, but it detects him. 'Tis a blushing shame-\n    fac'd spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills a man\n    full of obstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold\n    that-by chance I found. It beggars any man that keeps it.\n    It is turn'd out of towns and cities for a dangerous thing;\n    and every man that means to live well endeavours to trust\n    to himself and live without it.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Zounds, 'tis even now at my elbow,\n    persuading me not to kill the Duke.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Take the devil in thy mind and believe\n    him not; he would insinuate with thee but to make the\n    sigh.\n  FIRST MURDERER. I am strong-fram'd; he cannot prevail with\n    me.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Spoke like a tall man that respects thy\n    reputation. Come, shall we fall to work?\n  FIRST MURDERER. Take him on the costard with the hilts of\n    thy sword, and then chop him in the malmsey-butt in the\n    next room.\n  SECOND MURDERER. O excellent device! and make a sop of\n    him.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Soft! he wakes.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Strike!\n  FIRST MURDERER. No, we'll reason with him.\n  CLARENCE. Where art thou, Keeper? Give me a cup of wine.\n  SECOND MURDERER. You shall have wine enough, my lord,\n    anon.\n  CLARENCE. In God's name, what art thou?\n  FIRST MURDERER. A man, as you are.\n  CLARENCE. But not as I am, royal.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Nor you as we are, loyal.\n  CLARENCE. Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble.\n  FIRST MURDERER. My voice is now the King's, my looks\n    mine own.\n  CLARENCE. How darkly and how deadly dost thou speak!\n    Your eyes do menace me. Why look you pale?\n    Who sent you hither? Wherefore do you come?\n  SECOND MURDERER. To, to, to-\n  CLARENCE. To murder me?\n  BOTH MURDERERS. Ay, ay.\n  CLARENCE. You scarcely have the hearts to tell me so,\n    And therefore cannot have the hearts to do it.\n    Wherein, my friends, have I offended you?\n  FIRST MURDERER. Offended us you have not, but the King.\n  CLARENCE. I shall be reconcil'd to him again.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Never, my lord; therefore prepare to die.\n  CLARENCE. Are you drawn forth among a world of men\n    To slay the innocent? What is my offence?\n    Where is the evidence that doth accuse me?\n    What lawful quest have given their verdict up\n    Unto the frowning judge, or who pronounc'd\n    The bitter sentence of poor Clarence' death?\n    Before I be convict by course of law,\n    To threaten me with death is most unlawful.\n    I charge you, as you hope to have redemption\n    By Christ's dear blood shed for our grievous sins,\n    That you depart and lay no hands on me.\n    The deed you undertake is damnable.\n  FIRST MURDERER. What we will do, we do upon command.\n  SECOND MURDERER. And he that hath commanded is our\n    King.\n  CLARENCE. Erroneous vassals! the great King of kings\n    Hath in the tables of his law commanded\n    That thou shalt do no murder. Will you then\n    Spurn at his edict and fulfil a man's?\n    Take heed; for he holds vengeance in his hand\n    To hurl upon their heads that break his law.\n  SECOND MURDERER. And that same vengeance doth he hurl\n    on thee\n    For false forswearing, and for murder too;\n    Thou didst receive the sacrament to fight\n    In quarrel of the house of Lancaster.\n  FIRST MURDERER. And like a traitor to the name of God\n    Didst break that vow; and with thy treacherous blade\n    Unripp'dst the bowels of thy sov'reign's son.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Whom thou wast sworn to cherish and\n    defend.\n  FIRST MURDERER. How canst thou urge God's dreadful law\n    to us,\n    When thou hast broke it in such dear degree?\n  CLARENCE. Alas! for whose sake did I that ill deed?\n    For Edward, for my brother, for his sake.\n    He sends you not to murder me for this,\n    For in that sin he is as deep as I.\n    If God will be avenged for the deed,\n    O, know you yet He doth it publicly.\n    Take not the quarrel from His pow'rful arm;\n    He needs no indirect or lawless course\n    To cut off those that have offended Him.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Who made thee then a bloody minister\n    When gallant-springing brave Plantagenet,\n    That princely novice, was struck dead by thee?\n  CLARENCE. My brother's love, the devil, and my rage.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Thy brother's love, our duty, and thy\n    faults,\n    Provoke us hither now to slaughter thee.\n  CLARENCE. If you do love my brother, hate not me;\n    I am his brother, and I love him well.\n    If you are hir'd for meed, go back again,\n    And I will send you to my brother Gloucester,\n    Who shall reward you better for my life\n    Than Edward will for tidings of my death.\n  SECOND MURDERER. You are deceiv'd: your brother Gloucester\n    hates you.\n  CLARENCE. O, no, he loves me, and he holds me dear.\n    Go you to him from me.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Ay, so we will.\n  CLARENCE. Tell him when that our princely father York\n    Bless'd his three sons with his victorious arm\n    And charg'd us from his soul to love each other,\n    He little thought of this divided friendship.\n    Bid Gloucester think of this, and he will weep.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Ay, millstones; as he lesson'd us to weep.\n  CLARENCE. O, do not slander him, for he is kind.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Right, as snow in harvest. Come, you\n    deceive yourself:\n    'Tis he that sends us to destroy you here.\n    CLARENCE. It cannot be; for he bewept my fortune\n    And hugg'd me in his arms, and swore with sobs\n    That he would labour my delivery.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Why, so he doth, when he delivers you\n    From this earth's thraldom to the joys of heaven.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Make peace with God, for you must die,\n    my lord.\n  CLARENCE. Have you that holy feeling in your souls\n    To counsel me to make my peace with God,\n    And are you yet to your own souls so blind\n    That you will war with God by murd'ring me?\n    O, sirs, consider: they that set you on\n    To do this deed will hate you for the deed.\n  SECOND MURDERER. What shall we do?\n  CLARENCE. Relent, and save your souls.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Relent! No, 'tis cowardly and womanish.\n  CLARENCE. Not to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.\n    Which of you, if you were a prince's son,\n    Being pent from liberty as I am now,\n    If two such murderers as yourselves came to you,\n    Would not entreat for life?\n    My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks;\n    O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,\n    Come thou on my side and entreat for me-\n    As you would beg were you in my distress.\n    A begging prince what beggar pities not?\n  SECOND MURDERER. Look behind you, my lord.\n  FIRST MURDERER.  [Stabbing him]  Take that, and that. If all\n    this will not do,\n    I'll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.\n                                              Exit with the body\n  SECOND MURDERER. A bloody deed, and desperately\n    dispatch'd!\n    How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands\n    Of this most grievous murder!\n\n                       Re-enter FIRST MURDERER\n\n  FIRST MURDERER-How now, what mean'st thou that thou\n    help'st me not?\n    By heavens, the Duke shall know how slack you have\n    been!\n  SECOND MURDERER. I would he knew that I had sav'd his\n    brother!\n    Take thou the fee, and tell him what I say;\n    For I repent me that the Duke is slain.                 Exit\n  FIRST MURDERER. So do not I. Go, coward as thou art.\n    Well, I'll go hide the body in some hole,\n    Till that the Duke give order for his burial;\n    And when I have my meed, I will away;\n    For this will out, and then I must not stay.            Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nFlourish. Enter KING EDWARD sick, QUEEN ELIZABETH, DORSET, RIVERS,\nHASTINGS, BUCKINGHAM, GREY, and others\n\n  KING EDWARD. Why, so. Now have I done a good day's\n    work.\n    You peers, continue this united league.\n    I every day expect an embassage\n    From my Redeemer to redeem me hence;\n    And more at peace my soul shall part to heaven,\n    Since I have made my friends at peace on earth.\n    Hastings and Rivers, take each other's hand;\n    Dissemble not your hatred, swear your love.\n  RIVERS. By heaven, my soul is purg'd from grudging hate;\n    And with my hand I seal my true heart's love.\n  HASTINGS. So thrive I, as I truly swear the like!\n  KING EDWARD. Take heed you dally not before your king;\n    Lest He that is the supreme King of kings\n    Confound your hidden falsehood and award\n    Either of you to be the other's end.\n  HASTINGS. So prosper I, as I swear perfect love!\n  RIVERS. And I, as I love Hastings with my heart!\n  KING EDWARD. Madam, yourself is not exempt from this;\n    Nor you, son Dorset; Buckingham, nor you:\n    You have been factious one against the other.\n    Wife, love Lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand;\n    And what you do, do it unfeignedly.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. There, Hastings; I will never more\n    remember\n    Our former hatred, so thrive I and mine!\n  KING EDWARD. Dorset, embrace him; Hastings, love Lord\n    Marquis.\n  DORSET. This interchange of love, I here protest,\n    Upon my part shall be inviolable.\n  HASTINGS. And so swear I.                       [They embrace]\n  KING EDWARD. Now, princely Buckingham, seal thou this\n    league\n    With thy embracements to my wife's allies,\n    And make me happy in your unity.\n  BUCKINGHAM.  [To the QUEEN]  Whenever Buckingham\n    doth turn his hate\n    Upon your Grace, but with all duteous love\n    Doth cherish you and yours, God punish me\n    With hate in those where I expect most love!\n    When I have most need to employ a friend\n    And most assured that he is a friend,\n    Deep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,\n    Be he unto me! This do I beg of God\n    When I am cold in love to you or yours.\n                                                  [They embrace]\n  KING EDWARD. A pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham,\n    Is this thy vow unto my sickly heart.\n    There wanteth now our brother Gloucester here\n    To make the blessed period of this peace.\n  BUCKINGHAM. And, in good time,\n    Here comes Sir Richard Ratcliff and the Duke.\n\n                      Enter GLOUCESTER, and RATCLIFF\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Good morrow to my sovereign king and\n    Queen;\n    And, princely peers, a happy time of day!\n  KING EDWARD. Happy, indeed, as we have spent the day.\n    Gloucester, we have done deeds of charity,\n    Made peace of enmity, fair love of hate,\n    Between these swelling wrong-incensed peers.\n  GLOUCESTER. A blessed labour, my most sovereign lord.\n    Among this princely heap, if any here,\n    By false intelligence or wrong surmise,\n    Hold me a foe-\n    If I unwittingly, or in my rage,\n    Have aught committed that is hardly borne\n    To any in this presence, I desire\n    To reconcile me to his friendly peace:\n    'Tis death to me to be at enmity;\n    I hate it, and desire all good men's love.\n    First, madam, I entreat true peace of you,\n    Which I will purchase with my duteous service;\n    Of you, my noble cousin Buckingham,\n    If ever any grudge were lodg'd between us;\n    Of you, and you, Lord Rivers, and of Dorset,\n    That all without desert have frown'd on me;\n    Of you, Lord Woodville, and, Lord Scales, of you;\n    Dukes, earls, lords, gentlemen-indeed, of all.\n    I do not know that Englishman alive\n    With whom my soul is any jot at odds\n    More than the infant that is born to-night.\n    I thank my God for my humility.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. A holy day shall this be kept hereafter.\n    I would to God all strifes were well compounded.\n    My sovereign lord, I do beseech your Highness\n    To take our brother Clarence to your grace.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, madam, have I off'red love for this,\n    To be so flouted in this royal presence?\n    Who knows not that the gentle Duke is dead?\n                                                [They all start]\n    You do him injury to scorn his corse.\n  KING EDWARD. Who knows not he is dead! Who knows\n    he is?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. All-seeing heaven, what a world is this!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Look I so pale, Lord Dorset, as the rest?\n  DORSET. Ay, my good lord; and no man in the presence\n    But his red colour hath forsook his cheeks.\n  KING EDWARD. Is Clarence dead? The order was revers'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. But he, poor man, by your first order died,\n    And that a winged Mercury did bear;\n    Some tardy cripple bare the countermand\n    That came too lag to see him buried.\n    God grant that some, less noble and less loyal,\n    Nearer in bloody thoughts, an not in blood,\n    Deserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,\n    And yet go current from suspicion!\n\n                           Enter DERBY\n\n  DERBY. A boon, my sovereign, for my service done!\n  KING EDWARD. I prithee, peace; my soul is full of sorrow.\n  DERBY. I Will not rise unless your Highness hear me.\n  KING EDWARD. Then say at once what is it thou requests.\n  DERBY. The forfeit, sovereign, of my servant's life;\n    Who slew to-day a riotous gentleman\n    Lately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk.\n  KING EDWARD. Have I a tongue to doom my brother's death,\n    And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave?\n    My brother killed no man-his fault was thought,\n    And yet his punishment was bitter death.\n    Who sued to me for him? Who, in my wrath,\n    Kneel'd at my feet, and bid me be advis'd?\n    Who spoke of brotherhood? Who spoke of love?\n    Who told me how the poor soul did forsake\n    The mighty Warwick and did fight for me?\n    Who told me, in the field at Tewksbury\n    When Oxford had me down, he rescued me\n    And said 'Dear Brother, live, and be a king'?\n    Who told me, when we both lay in the field\n    Frozen almost to death, how he did lap me\n    Even in his garments, and did give himself,\n    All thin and naked, to the numb cold night?\n    All this from my remembrance brutish wrath\n    Sinfully pluck'd, and not a man of you\n    Had so much race to put it in my mind.\n    But when your carters or your waiting-vassals\n    Have done a drunken slaughter and defac'd\n    The precious image of our dear Redeemer,\n    You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon;\n    And I, unjustly too, must grant it you.        [DERBY rises]\n    But for my brother not a man would speak;\n    Nor I, ungracious, speak unto myself\n    For him, poor soul. The proudest of you all\n    Have been beholding to him in his life;\n    Yet none of you would once beg for his life.\n    O God, I fear thy justice will take hold\n    On me, and you, and mine, and yours, for this!\n    Come, Hastings, help me to my closet. Ah, poor Clarence!\n                                 Exeunt some with KING and QUEEN\n  GLOUCESTER. This is the fruits of rashness. Mark'd you not\n    How that the guilty kindred of the Queen\n    Look'd pale when they did hear of Clarence' death?\n    O, they did urge it still unto the King!\n    God will revenge it. Come, lords, will you go\n    To comfort Edward with our company?\n  BUCKINGHAM. We wait upon your Grace.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the old DUCHESS OF YORK, with the SON and DAUGHTER of CLARENCE\n\n  SON. Good grandam, tell us, is our father dead?\n  DUCHESS. No, boy.\n  DAUGHTER. Why do you weep so oft, and beat your breast,\n    And cry 'O Clarence, my unhappy son!'?\n  SON. Why do you look on us, and shake your head,\n    And call us orphans, wretches, castaways,\n    If that our noble father were alive?\n  DUCHESS. My pretty cousins, you mistake me both;\n    I do lament the sickness of the King,\n    As loath to lose him, not your father's death;\n    It were lost sorrow to wail one that's lost.\n  SON. Then you conclude, my grandam, he is dead.\n    The King mine uncle is to blame for it.\n    God will revenge it; whom I will importune\n    With earnest prayers all to that effect.\n  DAUGHTER. And so will I.\n  DUCHESS. Peace, children, peace! The King doth love you\n    well.\n    Incapable and shallow innocents,\n    You cannot guess who caus'd your father's death.\n  SON. Grandam, we can; for my good uncle Gloucester\n    Told me the King, provok'd to it by the Queen,\n    Devis'd impeachments to imprison him.\n    And when my uncle told me so, he wept,\n    And pitied me, and kindly kiss'd my cheek;\n    Bade me rely on him as on my father,\n    And he would love me dearly as a child.\n  DUCHESS. Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle shape,\n    And with a virtuous vizor hide deep vice!\n    He is my son; ay, and therein my shame;\n    Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.\n  SON. Think you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?\n  DUCHESS. Ay, boy.\n  SON. I cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this?\n\n            Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, with her hair about her\n                ears; RIVERS and DORSET after her\n\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, who shall hinder me to wail and\n    weep,\n    To chide my fortune, and torment myself?\n    I'll join with black despair against my soul\n    And to myself become an enemy.\n  DUCHESS. What means this scene of rude impatience?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. To make an act of tragic violence.\n  EDWARD, my lord, thy son, our king, is dead.\n    Why grow the branches when the root is gone?\n    Why wither not the leaves that want their sap?\n    If you will live, lament; if die, be brief,\n    That our swift-winged souls may catch the King's,\n    Or like obedient subjects follow him\n    To his new kingdom of ne'er-changing night.\n  DUCHESS. Ah, so much interest have I in thy sorrow\n    As I had title in thy noble husband!\n    I have bewept a worthy husband's death,\n    And liv'd with looking on his images;\n    But now two mirrors of his princely semblance\n    Are crack'd in pieces by malignant death,\n    And I for comfort have but one false glass,\n    That grieves me when I see my shame in him.\n    Thou art a widow, yet thou art a mother\n    And hast the comfort of thy children left;\n    But death hath snatch'd my husband from mine arms\n    And pluck'd two crutches from my feeble hands-\n    Clarence and Edward. O, what cause have I-\n    Thine being but a moiety of my moan-\n    To overgo thy woes and drown thy cries?\n  SON. Ah, aunt, you wept not for our father's death!\n    How can we aid you with our kindred tears?\n  DAUGHTER. Our fatherless distress was left unmoan'd;\n    Your widow-dolour likewise be unwept!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Give me no help in lamentation;\n    I am not barren to bring forth complaints.\n    All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes\n    That I, being govern'd by the watery moon,\n    May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!\n    Ah for my husband, for my dear Lord Edward!\n  CHILDREN. Ah for our father, for our dear Lord Clarence!\n  DUCHESS. Alas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What stay had I but Edward? and he's\n    gone.\n  CHILDREN. What stay had we but Clarence? and he's gone.\n  DUCHESS. What stays had I but they? and they are gone.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Was never widow had so dear a loss.\n  CHILDREN. Were never orphans had so dear a loss.\n  DUCHESS. Was never mother had so dear a loss.\n    Alas, I am the mother of these griefs!\n    Their woes are parcell'd, mine is general.\n    She for an Edward weeps, and so do I:\n    I for a Clarence weep, so doth not she.\n    These babes for Clarence weep, and so do I:\n    I for an Edward weep, so do not they.\n    Alas, you three on me, threefold distress'd,\n    Pour all your tears! I am your sorrow's nurse,\n    And I will pamper it with lamentation.\n  DORSET. Comfort, dear mother. God is much displeas'd\n    That you take with unthankfulness his doing.\n    In common worldly things 'tis called ungrateful\n    With dull unwillingness to repay a debt\n    Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;\n    Much more to be thus opposite with heaven,\n    For it requires the royal debt it lent you.\n  RIVERS. Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother,\n    Of the young prince your son. Send straight for him;\n    Let him be crown'd; in him your comfort lives.\n    Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave,\n    And plant your joys in living Edward's throne.\n\n               Enter GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, DERBY,\n                      HASTINGS, and RATCLIFF\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Sister, have comfort. All of us have cause\n    To wail the dimming of our shining star;\n    But none can help our harms by wailing them.\n    Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy;\n    I did not see your Grace. Humbly on my knee\n    I crave your blessing.\n  DUCHESS. God bless thee; and put meekness in thy breast,\n    Love, charity, obedience, and true duty!\n  GLOUCESTER. Amen!  [Aside]  And make me die a good old\n    man!\n    That is the butt end of a mother's blessing;\n    I marvel that her Grace did leave it out.\n  BUCKINGHAM. You cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing\n    peers,\n    That bear this heavy mutual load of moan,\n    Now cheer each other in each other's love.\n    Though we have spent our harvest of this king,\n    We are to reap the harvest of his son.\n    The broken rancour of your high-swol'n hearts,\n    But lately splinter'd, knit, and join'd together,\n    Must gently be preserv'd, cherish'd, and kept.\n    Me seemeth good that, with some little train,\n    Forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fet\n    Hither to London, to be crown'd our King.\n\n RIVERS. Why with some little train, my Lord of\n    Buckingham?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Marry, my lord, lest by a multitude\n    The new-heal'd wound of malice should break out,\n    Which would be so much the more dangerous\n    By how much the estate is green and yet ungovern'd;\n    Where every horse bears his commanding rein\n    And may direct his course as please himself,\n    As well the fear of harm as harm apparent,\n    In my opinion, ought to be prevented.\n  GLOUCESTER. I hope the King made peace with all of us;\n    And the compact is firm and true in me.\n  RIVERS. And so in me; and so, I think, in an.\n    Yet, since it is but green, it should be put\n    To no apparent likelihood of breach,\n    Which haply by much company might be urg'd;\n    Therefore I say with noble Buckingham\n    That it is meet so few should fetch the Prince.\n  HASTINGS. And so say I.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then be it so; and go we to determine\n    Who they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.\n    Madam, and you, my sister, will you go\n    To give your censures in this business?\n                        Exeunt all but BUCKINGHAM and GLOUCESTER\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, whoever journeys to the Prince,\n    For God sake, let not us two stay at home;\n    For by the way I'll sort occasion,\n    As index to the story we late talk'd of,\n    To part the Queen's proud kindred from the Prince.\n  GLOUCESTER. My other self, my counsel's consistory,\n    My oracle, my prophet, my dear cousin,\n    I, as a child, will go by thy direction.\n    Toward Ludlow then, for we'll not stay behind.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter one CITIZEN at one door, and another at the other\n\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Good morrow, neighbour. Whither away so\n    fast?\n  SECOND CITIZEN. I promise you, I scarcely know myself.\n    Hear you the news abroad?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Yes, that the King is dead.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Ill news, by'r lady; seldom comes the\n    better.\n    I fear, I fear 'twill prove a giddy world.\n\n                        Enter another CITIZEN\n\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Neighbours, God speed!\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Give you good morrow, sir.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Doth the news hold of good King Edward's\n    death?\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Ay, sir, it is too true; God help the while!\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Then, masters, look to see a troublous\n    world.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. No, no; by God's good grace, his son shall\n    reign.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Woe to that land that's govern'd by a child.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. In him there is a hope of government,\n    Which, in his nonage, council under him,\n    And, in his full and ripened years, himself,\n    No doubt, shall then, and till then, govern well.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. So stood the state when Henry the Sixth\n    Was crown'd in Paris but at nine months old.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Stood the state so? No, no, good friends,\n    God wot;\n    For then this land was famously enrich'd\n    With politic grave counsel; then the King\n    Had virtuous uncles to protect his Grace.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Why, so hath this, both by his father and\n    mother.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Better it were they all came by his father,\n    Or by his father there were none at all;\n    For emulation who shall now be nearest\n    Will touch us all too near, if God prevent not.\n    O, full of danger is the Duke of Gloucester!\n    And the Queen's sons and brothers haught and proud;\n    And were they to be rul'd, and not to rule,\n    This sickly land might solace as before.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Come, come, we fear the worst; all will be\n    well.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. When clouds are seen, wise men put on\n    their cloaks;\n    When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand;\n    When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?\n    Untimely storms make men expect a dearth.\n    All may be well; but, if God sort it so,\n    'Tis more than we deserve or I expect.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Truly, the hearts of men are fun of fear.\n    You cannot reason almost with a man\n    That looks not heavily and fun of dread.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Before the days of change, still is it so;\n    By a divine instinct men's minds mistrust\n    Ensuing danger; as by proof we see\n    The water swell before a boist'rous storm.\n    But leave it all to God. Whither away?\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Marry, we were sent for to the justices.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. And so was I; I'll bear you company.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the young DUKE OF YORK, QUEEN ELIZABETH,\nand the DUCHESS OF YORK\n\n  ARCHBISHOP. Last night, I hear, they lay at Stony Stratford,\n    And at Northampton they do rest to-night;\n    To-morrow or next day they will be here.\n  DUCHESS. I long with all my heart to see the Prince.\n    I hope he is much grown since last I saw him.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But I hear no; they say my son of York\n    Has almost overta'en him in his growth.\n  YORK. Ay, mother; but I would not have it so.\n  DUCHESS. Why, my good cousin, it is good to grow.\n  YORK. Grandam, one night as we did sit at supper,\n    My uncle Rivers talk'd how I did grow\n    More than my brother. 'Ay,' quoth my uncle Gloucester\n    'Small herbs have grace: great weeds do grow apace.'\n    And since, methinks, I would not grow so fast,\n    Because sweet flow'rs are slow and weeds make haste.\n  DUCHESS. Good faith, good faith, the saying did not hold\n    In him that did object the same to thee.\n    He was the wretched'st thing when he was young,\n    So long a-growing and so leisurely\n    That, if his rule were true, he should be gracious.\n  ARCHBISHOP. And so no doubt he is, my gracious madam.\n  DUCHESS. I hope he is; but yet let mothers doubt.\n  YORK. Now, by my troth, if I had been rememb'red,\n    I could have given my uncle's Grace a flout\n    To touch his growth nearer than he touch'd mine.\n  DUCHESS. How, my young York? I prithee let me hear it.\n  YORK. Marry, they say my uncle grew so fast\n    That he could gnaw a crust at two hours old.\n    'Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.\n    Grandam, this would have been a biting jest.\n  DUCHESS. I prithee, pretty York, who told thee this?\n  YORK. Grandam, his nurse.\n  DUCHESS. His nurse! Why she was dead ere thou wast\n    born.\n  YORK. If 'twere not she, I cannot tell who told me.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. A parlous boy! Go to, you are too\n    shrewd.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Good madam, be not angry with the child.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Pitchers have ears.\n\n                        Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  ARCHBISHOP. Here comes a messenger. What news?\n  MESSENGER. Such news, my lord, as grieves me to report.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. How doth the Prince?\n  MESSENGER. Well, madam, and in health.\n  DUCHESS. What is thy news?\n  MESSENGER. Lord Rivers and Lord Grey\n    Are sent to Pomfret, and with them\n    Sir Thomas Vaughan, prisoners.\n  DUCHESS. Who hath committed them?\n  MESSENGER. The mighty Dukes, Gloucester and Buckingham.\n  ARCHBISHOP. For what offence?\n  MESSENGER. The sum of all I can, I have disclos'd.\n    Why or for what the nobles were committed\n    Is all unknown to me, my gracious lord.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ay me, I see the ruin of my house!\n    The tiger now hath seiz'd the gentle hind;\n    Insulting tyranny begins to jet\n    Upon the innocent and aweless throne.\n    Welcome, destruction, blood, and massacre!\n    I see, as in a map, the end of all.\n  DUCHESS. Accursed and unquiet wrangling days,\n    How many of you have mine eyes beheld!\n    My husband lost his life to get the crown;\n    And often up and down my sons were toss'd\n    For me to joy and weep their gain and loss;\n    And being seated, and domestic broils\n    Clean over-blown, themselves the conquerors\n    Make war upon themselves-brother to brother,\n    Blood to blood, self against self. O, preposterous\n    And frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen,\n    Or let me die, to look on death no more!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Come, come, my boy; we will to\n    sanctuary.\n    Madam, farewell.\n  DUCHESS. Stay, I will go with you.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. You have no cause.\n  ARCHBISHOP.  [To the QUEEN]  My gracious lady, go.\n    And thither bear your treasure and your goods.\n    For my part, I'll resign unto your Grace\n    The seal I keep; and so betide to me\n    As well I tender you and all of yours!\n    Go, I'll conduct you to the sanctuary.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. A street\n\nThe trumpets sound. Enter the PRINCE OF WALES, GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM,\nCATESBY, CARDINAL BOURCHIER, and others\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Welcome, sweet Prince, to London, to your\n    chamber.\n  GLOUCESTER. Welcome, dear cousin, my thoughts' sovereign.\n    The weary way hath made you melancholy.\n  PRINCE. No, uncle; but our crosses on the way\n    Have made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy.\n    I want more uncles here to welcome me.\n  GLOUCESTER. Sweet Prince, the untainted virtue of your\n    years\n    Hath not yet div'd into the world's deceit;\n    Nor more can you distinguish of a man\n    Than of his outward show; which, God He knows,\n    Seldom or never jumpeth with the heart.\n    Those uncles which you want were dangerous;\n    Your Grace attended to their sug'red words\n    But look'd not on the poison of their hearts.\n    God keep you from them and from such false friends!\n  PRINCE. God keep me from false friends! but they were\n    none.\n  GLOUCESTER. My lord, the Mayor of London comes to greet\n    you.\n\n                Enter the LORD MAYOR and his train\n\n  MAYOR. God bless your Grace with health and happy days!\n  PRINCE. I thank you, good my lord, and thank you all.\n    I thought my mother and my brother York\n    Would long ere this have met us on the way.\n    Fie, what a slug is Hastings, that he comes not\n    To tell us whether they will come or no!\n\n                        Enter LORD HASTINGS\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. And, in good time, here comes the sweating\n    Lord.\n  PRINCE. Welcome, my lord. What, will our mother come?\n  HASTINGS. On what occasion, God He knows, not I,\n    The Queen your mother and your brother York\n    Have taken sanctuary. The tender Prince\n    Would fain have come with me to meet your Grace,\n    But by his mother was perforce withheld.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Fie, what an indirect and peevish course\n    Is this of hers? Lord Cardinal, will your Grace\n    Persuade the Queen to send the Duke of York\n    Unto his princely brother presently?\n    If she deny, Lord Hastings, go with him\n    And from her jealous arms pluck him perforce.\n  CARDINAL. My Lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory\n    Can from his mother win the Duke of York,\n    Anon expect him here; but if she be obdurate\n    To mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid\n    We should infringe the holy privilege\n    Of blessed sanctuary! Not for all this land\n    Would I be guilty of so deep a sin.\n  BUCKINGHAM. You are too senseless-obstinate, my lord,\n    Too ceremonious and traditional.\n    Weigh it but with the grossness of this age,\n    You break not sanctuary in seizing him.\n    The benefit thereof is always granted\n    To those whose dealings have deserv'd the place\n    And those who have the wit to claim the place.\n    This Prince hath neither claim'd it nor deserv'd it,\n    And therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it.\n    Then, taking him from thence that is not there,\n    You break no privilege nor charter there.\n    Oft have I heard of sanctuary men;\n    But sanctuary children never till now.\n  CARDINAL. My lord, you shall o'errule my mind for once.\n    Come on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me?\n  HASTINGS. I go, my lord.\n  PRINCE. Good lords, make all the speedy haste you may.\n                                    Exeunt CARDINAL and HASTINGS\n    Say, uncle Gloucester, if our brother come,\n    Where shall we sojourn till our coronation?\n  GLOUCESTER. Where it seems best unto your royal self.\n    If I may counsel you, some day or two\n    Your Highness shall repose you at the Tower,\n    Then where you please and shall be thought most fit\n    For your best health and recreation.\n  PRINCE. I do not like the Tower, of any place.\n    Did Julius Caesar build that place, my lord?\n  BUCKINGHAM. He did, my gracious lord, begin that place,\n    Which, since, succeeding ages have re-edified.\n  PRINCE. Is it upon record, or else reported\n    Successively from age to age, he built it?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Upon record, my gracious lord.\n  PRINCE. But say, my lord, it were not regist'red,\n    Methinks the truth should Eve from age to age,\n    As 'twere retail'd to all posterity,\n    Even to the general all-ending day.\n  GLOUCESTER.  [Aside]  So wise so young, they say, do never\n    live long.\n  PRINCE. What say you, uncle?\n  GLOUCESTER. I say, without characters, fame lives long.\n    [Aside]  Thus, like the formal vice, Iniquity,\n    I moralize two meanings in one word.\n  PRINCE. That Julius Caesar was a famous man;\n    With what his valour did enrich his wit,\n    His wit set down to make his valour live.\n    Death makes no conquest of this conqueror;\n    For now he lives in fame, though not in life.\n    I'll tell you what, my cousin Buckingham-\n  BUCKINGHAM. What, my gracious lord?\n  PRINCE. An if I live until I be a man,\n    I'll win our ancient right in France again,\n    Or die a soldier as I liv'd a king.\n  GLOUCESTER.  [Aside]  Short summers lightly have a forward\n    spring.\n\n              Enter HASTINGS, young YORK, and the CARDINAL\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Now, in good time, here comes the Duke of\n    York.\n  PRINCE. Richard of York, how fares our loving brother?\n  YORK. Well, my dread lord; so must I can you now.\n  PRINCE. Ay brother, to our grief, as it is yours.\n    Too late he died that might have kept that title,\n    Which by his death hath lost much majesty.\n  GLOUCESTER. How fares our cousin, noble Lord of York?\n  YORK. I thank you, gentle uncle. O, my lord,\n    You said that idle weeds are fast in growth.\n    The Prince my brother hath outgrown me far.\n  GLOUCESTER. He hath, my lord.\n  YORK. And therefore is he idle?\n  GLOUCESTER. O, my fair cousin, I must not say so.\n  YORK. Then he is more beholding to you than I.\n  GLOUCESTER. He may command me as my sovereign;\n    But you have power in me as in a kinsman.\n  YORK. I pray you, uncle, give me this dagger.\n  GLOUCESTER. My dagger, little cousin? With all my heart!\n  PRINCE. A beggar, brother?\n  YORK. Of my kind uncle, that I know will give,\n    And being but a toy, which is no grief to give.\n  GLOUCESTER. A greater gift than that I'll give my cousin.\n  YORK. A greater gift! O, that's the sword to it!\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, gentle cousin, were it light enough.\n  YORK. O, then, I see you will part but with light gifts:\n    In weightier things you'll say a beggar nay.\n  GLOUCESTER. It is too heavy for your Grace to wear.\n  YORK. I weigh it lightly, were it heavier.\n  GLOUCESTER. What, would you have my weapon, little\n    Lord?\n  YORK. I would, that I might thank you as you call me.\n  GLOUCESTER. How?\n  YORK. Little.\n  PRINCE. My Lord of York will still be cross in talk.\n    Uncle, your Grace knows how to bear with him.\n  YORK. You mean, to bear me, not to bear with me.\n    Uncle, my brother mocks both you and me;\n    Because that I am little, like an ape,\n    He thinks that you should bear me on your shoulders.\n  BUCKINGHAM. With what a sharp-provided wit he reasons!\n    To mitigate the scorn he gives his uncle\n    He prettily and aptly taunts himself.\n    So cunning and so young is wonderful.\n  GLOUCESTER. My lord, will't please you pass along?\n    Myself and my good cousin Buckingham\n    Will to your mother, to entreat of her\n    To meet you at the Tower and welcome you.\n  YORK. What, will you go unto the Tower, my lord?\n  PRINCE. My Lord Protector needs will have it so.\n  YORK. I shall not sleep in quiet at the Tower.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, what should you fear?\n  YORK. Marry, my uncle Clarence' angry ghost.\n    My grandam told me he was murder'd there.\n  PRINCE. I fear no uncles dead.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nor none that live, I hope.\n  PRINCE. An if they live, I hope I need not fear.\n    But come, my lord; and with a heavy heart,\n    Thinking on them, go I unto the Tower.\n    A sennet.\n              Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, and CATESBY\n  BUCKINGHAM. Think you, my lord, this little prating York\n    Was not incensed by his subtle mother\n    To taunt and scorn you thus opprobriously?\n  GLOUCESTER. No doubt, no doubt. O, 'tis a perilous boy;\n    Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable.\n    He is all the mother's, from the top to toe.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Well, let them rest. Come hither, Catesby.\n    Thou art sworn as deeply to effect what we intend\n    As closely to conceal what we impart.\n    Thou know'st our reasons urg'd upon the way.\n    What think'st thou? Is it not an easy matter\n    To make William Lord Hastings of our mind,\n    For the instalment of this noble Duke\n    In the seat royal of this famous isle?\n  CATESBY. He for his father's sake so loves the Prince\n    That he will not be won to aught against him.\n  BUCKINGHAM. What think'st thou then of Stanley? Will\n    not he?\n  CATESBY. He will do all in all as Hastings doth.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Well then, no more but this: go, gentle\n    Catesby,\n    And, as it were far off, sound thou Lord Hastings\n    How he doth stand affected to our purpose;\n    And summon him to-morrow to the Tower,\n    To sit about the coronation.\n    If thou dost find him tractable to us,\n    Encourage him, and tell him all our reasons;\n    If he be leaden, icy, cold, unwilling,\n    Be thou so too, and so break off the talk,\n    And give us notice of his inclination;\n    For we to-morrow hold divided councils,\n    Wherein thyself shalt highly be employ'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Commend me to Lord William. Tell him,\n    Catesby,\n    His ancient knot of dangerous adversaries\n    To-morrow are let blood at Pomfret Castle;\n    And bid my lord, for joy of this good news,\n    Give Mistress Shore one gentle kiss the more.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Good Catesby, go effect this business soundly.\n  CATESBY. My good lords both, with all the heed I can.\n  GLOUCESTER. Shall we hear from you, Catesby, ere we sleep?\n  CATESBY. You shall, my lord.\n  GLOUCESTER. At Crosby House, there shall you find us both.\n                                                    Exit CATESBY\n  BUCKINGHAM. Now, my lord, what shall we do if we\n    perceive\n    Lord Hastings will not yield to our complots?\n  GLOUCESTER. Chop off his head-something we will\n    determine.\n    And, look when I am King, claim thou of me\n    The earldom of Hereford and all the movables\n    Whereof the King my brother was possess'd.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I'll claim that promise at your Grace's hand.\n  GLOUCESTER. And look to have it yielded with all kindness.\n    Come, let us sup betimes, that afterwards\n    We may digest our complots in some form.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nBefore LORD HASTING'S house\n\nEnter a MESSENGER to the door of HASTINGS\n\n  MESSENGER. My lord, my lord!                        [Knocking]\n  HASTINGS.  [Within]  Who knocks?\n  MESSENGER. One from the Lord Stanley.\n  HASTINGS.  [Within]  What is't o'clock?\n  MESSENGER. Upon the stroke of four.\n\n                        Enter LORD HASTINGS\n\n  HASTINGS. Cannot my Lord Stanley sleep these tedious\n    nights?\n  MESSENGER. So it appears by that I have to say.\n    First, he commends him to your noble self.\n  HASTINGS. What then?\n  MESSENGER. Then certifies your lordship that this night\n    He dreamt the boar had razed off his helm.\n    Besides, he says there are two councils kept,\n    And that may be determin'd at the one\n    Which may make you and him to rue at th' other.\n    Therefore he sends to know your lordship's pleasure-\n    If you will presently take horse with him\n    And with all speed post with him toward the north\n    To shun the danger that his soul divines.\n  HASTINGS. Go, fellow, go, return unto thy lord;\n    Bid him not fear the separated council:\n    His honour and myself are at the one,\n    And at the other is my good friend Catesby;\n    Where nothing can proceed that toucheth us\n    Whereof I shall not have intelligence.\n    Tell him his fears are shallow, without instance;\n    And for his dreams, I wonder he's so simple\n    To trust the mock'ry of unquiet slumbers.\n    To fly the boar before the boar pursues\n    Were to incense the boar to follow us\n    And make pursuit where he did mean no chase.\n    Go, bid thy master rise and come to me;\n    And we will both together to the Tower,\n    Where, he shall see, the boar will use us kindly.\n  MESSENGER. I'll go, my lord, and tell him what you say.\n Exit\n\n                         Enter CATESBY\n\n  CATESBY. Many good morrows to my noble lord!\n  HASTINGS. Good morrow, Catesby; you are early stirring.\n    What news, what news, in this our tott'ring state?\n  CATESBY. It is a reeling world indeed, my lord;\n    And I believe will never stand upright\n    Till Richard wear the garland of the realm.\n  HASTINGS. How, wear the garland! Dost thou mean the\n    crown?\n  CATESBY. Ay, my good lord.\n  HASTINGS. I'll have this crown of mine cut from my\n    shoulders\n    Before I'll see the crown so foul misplac'd.\n    But canst thou guess that he doth aim at it?\n  CATESBY. Ay, on my life; and hopes to find you forward\n    Upon his party for the gain thereof;\n    And thereupon he sends you this good news,\n    That this same very day your enemies,\n    The kindred of the Queen, must die at Pomfret.\n  HASTINGS. Indeed, I am no mourner for that news,\n    Because they have been still my adversaries;\n    But that I'll give my voice on Richard's side\n    To bar my master's heirs in true descent,\n    God knows I will not do it to the death.\n  CATESBY. God keep your lordship in that gracious mind!\n  HASTINGS. But I shall laugh at this a twelve month hence,\n    That they which brought me in my master's hate,\n    I live to look upon their tragedy.\n    Well, Catesby, ere a fortnight make me older,\n    I'll send some packing that yet think not on't.\n  CATESBY. 'Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord,\n    When men are unprepar'd and look not for it.\n  HASTINGS. O monstrous, monstrous! And so falls it out\n    With Rivers, Vaughan, Grey; and so 'twill do\n    With some men else that think themselves as safe\n    As thou and I, who, as thou knowest, are dear\n    To princely Richard and to Buckingham.\n  CATESBY. The Princes both make high account of you-\n    [Aside]  For they account his head upon the bridge.\n  HASTINGS. I know they do, and I have well deserv'd it.\n\n                      Enter LORD STANLEY\n\n    Come on, come on; where is your boar-spear, man?\n    Fear you the boar, and go so unprovided?\n  STANLEY. My lord, good morrow; good morrow, Catesby.\n    You may jest on, but, by the holy rood,\n    I do not like these several councils, I.\n  HASTINGS. My lord, I hold my life as dear as yours,\n    And never in my days, I do protest,\n    Was it so precious to me as 'tis now.\n    Think you, but that I know our state secure,\n    I would be so triumphant as I am?\n  STANLEY. The lords at Pomfret, when they rode from\n    London,\n    Were jocund and suppos'd their states were sure,\n    And they indeed had no cause to mistrust;\n    But yet you see how soon the day o'ercast.\n    This sudden stab of rancour I misdoubt;\n    Pray God, I say, I prove a needless coward.\n    What, shall we toward the Tower? The day is spent.\n  HASTINGS. Come, come, have with you. Wot you what, my\n    Lord?\n    To-day the lords you talk'd of are beheaded.\n  STANLEY. They, for their truth, might better wear their\n    heads\n    Than some that have accus'd them wear their hats.\n    But come, my lord, let's away.\n\n                 Enter HASTINGS, a pursuivant\n\n  HASTINGS. Go on before; I'll talk with this good fellow.\n                                      Exeunt STANLEY and CATESBY\n    How now, Hastings! How goes the world with thee?\n  PURSUIVANT. The better that your lordship please to ask.\n  HASTINGS. I tell thee, man, 'tis better with me now\n    Than when thou met'st me last where now we meet:\n    Then was I going prisoner to the Tower\n    By the suggestion of the Queen's allies;\n    But now, I tell thee-keep it to thyself-\n    This day those enernies are put to death,\n    And I in better state than e'er I was.\n  PURSUIVANT. God hold it, to your honour's good content!\n  HASTINGS. Gramercy, Hastings; there, drink that for me.\n                                          [Throws him his purse]\n  PURSUIVANT. I thank your honour.                          Exit\n\n                            Enter a PRIEST\n\n  PRIEST. Well met, my lord; I am glad to see your honour.\n  HASTINGS. I thank thee, good Sir John, with all my heart.\n    I am in your debt for your last exercise;\n    Come the next Sabbath, and I will content you.\n                                        [He whispers in his ear]\n  PRIEST. I'll wait upon your lordship.\n\n                            Enter BUCKINGHAM\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. What, talking with a priest, Lord\n    Chamberlain!\n    Your friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest:\n    Your honour hath no shriving work in hand.\n  HASTINGS. Good faith, and when I met this holy man,\n    The men you talk of came into my mind.\n    What, go you toward the Tower?\n  BUCKINGHAM. I do, my lord, but long I cannot stay there;\n    I shall return before your lordship thence.\n  HASTINGS. Nay, like enough, for I stay dinner there.\n  BUCKINGHAM.  [Aside]  And supper too, although thou\n    knowest it not.-\n    Come, will you go?\n  HASTINGS. I'll wait upon your lordship.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nPomfret Castle\n\nEnter SIR RICHARD RATCLIFF, with halberds, carrying the Nobles,\nRIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN, to death\n\n  RIVERS. Sir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this:\n    To-day shalt thou behold a subject die\n    For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.\n  GREY. God bless the Prince from all the pack of you!\n    A knot you are of damned blood-suckers.\n  VAUGHAN. You live that shall cry woe for this hereafter.\n  RATCLIFF. Dispatch; the limit of your lives is out.\n  RIVERS. O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,\n    Fatal and ominous to noble peers!\n    Within the guilty closure of thy walls\n  RICHARD the Second here was hack'd to death;\n    And for more slander to thy dismal seat,\n    We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink.\n  GREY. Now Margaret's curse is fall'n upon our heads,\n    When she exclaim'd on Hastings, you, and I,\n    For standing by when Richard stabb'd her son.\n  RIVERS. Then curs'd she Richard, then curs'd she\n    Buckingham,\n    Then curs'd she Hastings. O, remember, God,\n    To hear her prayer for them, as now for us!\n    And for my sister, and her princely sons,\n    Be satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,\n    Which, as thou know'st, unjustly must be spilt.\n  RATCLIFF. Make haste; the hour of death is expiate.\n  RIVERS. Come, Grey; come, Vaughan; let us here embrace.\n    Farewell, until we meet again in heaven.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4\n\nLondon. The Tower\n\nEnter BUCKINGHAM, DERBY, HASTINGS, the BISHOP of ELY, RATCLIFF, LOVEL,\nwith others and seat themselves at a table\n\n  HASTINGS. Now, noble peers, the cause why we are met\n    Is to determine of the coronation.\n    In God's name speak-when is the royal day?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Is all things ready for the royal time?\n  DERBY. It is, and wants but nomination.\n  BISHOP OF ELY. To-morrow then I judge a happy day.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Who knows the Lord Protector's mind\n    herein?\n    Who is most inward with the noble Duke?\n  BISHOP OF ELY. Your Grace, we think, should soonest know\n    his mind.\n  BUCKINGHAM. We know each other's faces; for our hearts,\n    He knows no more of mine than I of yours;\n    Or I of his, my lord, than you of mine.\n    Lord Hastings, you and he are near in love.\n  HASTINGS. I thank his Grace, I know he loves me well;\n    But for his purpose in the coronation\n    I have not sounded him, nor he deliver'd\n    His gracious pleasure any way therein.\n    But you, my honourable lords, may name the time;\n    And in the Duke's behalf I'll give my voice,\n    Which, I presume, he'll take in gentle part.\n\n                       Enter GLOUCESTER\n\n  BISHOP OF ELY. In happy time, here comes the Duke himself.\n  GLOUCESTER. My noble lords and cousins an, good morrow.\n    I have been long a sleeper, but I trust\n    My absence doth neglect no great design\n    Which by my presence might have been concluded.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Had you not come upon your cue, my lord,\n  WILLIAM Lord Hastings had pronounc'd your part-\n    I mean, your voice for crowning of the King.\n  GLOUCESTER. Than my Lord Hastings no man might be\n    bolder;\n    His lordship knows me well and loves me well.\n    My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn\n    I saw good strawberries in your garden there.\n    I do beseech you send for some of them.\n  BISHOP of ELY. Marry and will, my lord, with all my heart.\n Exit\n  GLOUCESTER. Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you.\n                                               [Takes him aside]\n    Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business,\n    And finds the testy gentleman so hot\n    That he will lose his head ere give consent\n    His master's child, as worshipfully he terms it,\n    Shall lose the royalty of England's throne.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Withdraw yourself awhile; I'll go with you.\n                                Exeunt GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM\n  DERBY. We have not yet set down this day of triumph.\n    To-morrow, in my judgment, is too sudden;\n    For I myself am not so well provided\n    As else I would be, were the day prolong'd.\n\n                    Re-enter the BISHOP OF ELY\n\n  BISHOP OF ELY. Where is my lord the Duke of Gloucester?\n    I have sent for these strawberries.\n  HASTINGS. His Grace looks cheerfully and smooth this\n    morning;\n    There's some conceit or other likes him well\n    When that he bids good morrow with such spirit.\n    I think there's never a man in Christendom\n    Can lesser hide his love or hate than he;\n    For by his face straight shall you know his heart.\n  DERBY. What of his heart perceive you in his face\n    By any livelihood he show'd to-day?\n  HASTINGS. Marry, that with no man here he is offended;\n    For, were he, he had shown it in his looks.\n\n               Re-enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM\n\n  GLOUCESTER. I pray you all, tell me what they deserve\n    That do conspire my death with devilish plots\n    Of damned witchcraft, and that have prevail'd\n    Upon my body with their hellish charms?\n  HASTINGS. The tender love I bear your Grace, my lord,\n    Makes me most forward in this princely presence\n    To doom th' offenders, whosoe'er they be.\n    I say, my lord, they have deserved death.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then be your eyes the witness of their evil.\n    Look how I am bewitch'd; behold, mine arm\n    Is like a blasted sapling wither'd up.\n    And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,\n    Consorted with that harlot strumpet Shore,\n    That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.\n  HASTINGS. If they have done this deed, my noble lord-\n  GLOUCESTER. If?-thou protector of this damned strumpet,\n    Talk'st thou to me of ifs? Thou art a traitor.\n    Off with his head! Now by Saint Paul I swear\n    I will not dine until I see the same.\n    Lovel and Ratcliff, look that it be done.\n    The rest that love me, rise and follow me.\n                    Exeunt all but HASTINGS, LOVEL, and RATCLIFF\n  HASTINGS. Woe, woe, for England! not a whit for me;\n    For I, too fond, might have prevented this.\n  STANLEY did dream the boar did raze our helms,\n    And I did scorn it and disdain to fly.\n    Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble,\n    And started when he look'd upon the Tower,\n    As loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.\n    O, now I need the priest that spake to me!\n    I now repent I told the pursuivant,\n    As too triumphing, how mine enemies\n    To-day at Pomfret bloodily were butcher'd,\n    And I myself secure in grace and favour.\n    O Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse\n    Is lighted on poor Hastings' wretched head!\n  RATCLIFF. Come, come, dispatch; the Duke would be at\n    dinner.\n    Make a short shrift; he longs to see your head.\n  HASTINGS. O momentary grace of mortal men,\n    Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!\n    Who builds his hope in air of your good looks\n    Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,\n    Ready with every nod to tumble down\n    Into the fatal bowels of the deep.\n  LOVEL. Come, come, dispatch; 'tis bootless to exclaim.\n  HASTINGS. O bloody Richard! Miserable England!\n    I prophesy the fearfull'st time to thee\n    That ever wretched age hath look'd upon.\n    Come, lead me to the block; bear him my head.\n    They smile at me who shortly shall be dead.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nLondon. The Tower-walls\n\nEnter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM in rotten armour, marvellous ill-favoured\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Come, cousin, canst thou quake and change\n    thy colour,\n    Murder thy breath in middle of a word,\n    And then again begin, and stop again,\n    As if thou were distraught and mad with terror?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian;\n    Speak and look back, and pry on every side,\n    Tremble and start at wagging of a straw,\n    Intending deep suspicion. Ghastly looks\n    Are at my service, like enforced smiles;\n    And both are ready in their offices\n    At any time to grace my stratagems.\n    But what, is Catesby gone?\n  GLOUCESTER. He is; and, see, he brings the mayor along.\n\n                 Enter the LORD MAYOR and CATESBY\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Lord Mayor-\n  GLOUCESTER. Look to the drawbridge there!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Hark! a drum.\n  GLOUCESTER. Catesby, o'erlook the walls.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Lord Mayor, the reason we have sent-\n  GLOUCESTER. Look back, defend thee; here are enemies.\n  BUCKINGHAM. God and our innocence defend and guard us!\n\n           Enter LOVEL and RATCLIFF, with HASTINGS' head\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Be patient; they are friends-Ratcliff and Lovel.\n  LOVEL. Here is the head of that ignoble traitor,\n    The dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.\n  GLOUCESTER. So dear I lov'd the man that I must weep.\n    I took him for the plainest harmless creature\n    That breath'd upon the earth a Christian;\n    Made him my book, wherein my soul recorded\n    The history of all her secret thoughts.\n    So smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue\n    That, his apparent open guilt omitted,\n    I mean his conversation with Shore's wife-\n    He liv'd from all attainder of suspects.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Well, well, he was the covert'st shelt'red\n    traitor\n    That ever liv'd.\n    Would you imagine, or almost believe-\n    Were't not that by great preservation\n    We live to tell it-that the subtle traitor\n    This day had plotted, in the council-house,\n    To murder me and my good Lord of Gloucester.\n  MAYOR. Had he done so?\n  GLOUCESTER. What! think you we are Turks or Infidels?\n    Or that we would, against the form of law,\n    Proceed thus rashly in the villain's death\n    But that the extreme peril of the case,\n    The peace of England and our persons' safety,\n    Enforc'd us to this execution?\n  MAYOR. Now, fair befall you! He deserv'd his death;\n    And your good Graces both have well proceeded\n    To warn false traitors from the like attempts.\n    I never look'd for better at his hands\n    After he once fell in with Mistress Shore.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Yet had we not determin'd he should die\n    Until your lordship came to see his end-\n    Which now the loving haste of these our friends,\n    Something against our meanings, have prevented-\n    Because, my lord, I would have had you heard\n    The traitor speak, and timorously confess\n    The manner and the purpose of his treasons:\n    That you might well have signified the same\n    Unto the citizens, who haply may\n    Misconster us in him and wail his death.\n  MAYOR. But, my good lord, your Grace's words shall serve\n    As well as I had seen and heard him speak;\n    And do not doubt, right noble Princes both,\n    But I'll acquaint our duteous citizens\n    With all your just proceedings in this cause.\n  GLOUCESTER. And to that end we wish'd your lordship here,\n    T' avoid the the the censures of the carping world.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Which since you come too late of our intent,\n    Yet witness what you hear we did intend.\n    And so, my good Lord Mayor, we bid farewell.\n                                                 Exit LORD MAYOR\n  GLOUCESTER. Go, after, after, cousin Buckingham.\n    The Mayor towards Guildhall hies him in an post.\n    There, at your meet'st advantage of the time,\n    Infer the bastardy of Edward's children.\n    Tell them how Edward put to death a citizen\n    Only for saying he would make his son\n    Heir to the crown-meaning indeed his house,\n    Which by the sign thereof was termed so.\n    Moreover, urge his hateful luxury\n    And bestial appetite in change of lust,\n    Which stretch'd unto their servants, daughters, wives,\n    Even where his raging eye or savage heart\n    Without control lusted to make a prey.\n    Nay, for a need, thus far come near my person:\n    Tell them, when that my mother went with child\n    Of that insatiate Edward, noble York\n    My princely father then had wars in France\n    And, by true computation of the time,\n    Found that the issue was not his begot;\n    Which well appeared in his lineaments,\n    Being nothing like the noble Duke my father.\n    Yet touch this sparingly, as 'twere far off;\n    Because, my lord, you know my mother lives.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Doubt not, my lord, I'll play the orator\n    As if the golden fee for which I plead\n    Were for myself; and so, my lord, adieu.\n  GLOUCESTER. If you thrive well, bring them to Baynard's\n    Castle;\n    Where you shall find me well accompanied\n    With reverend fathers and well learned bishops.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I go; and towards three or four o'clock\n    Look for the news that the Guildhall affords.           Exit\n  GLOUCESTER. Go, Lovel, with all speed to Doctor Shaw.\n    [To CATESBY]  Go thou to Friar Penker. Bid them both\n    Meet me within this hour at Baynard's Castle.\n                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER\n    Now will I go to take some privy order\n    To draw the brats of Clarence out of sight,\n    And to give order that no manner person\n    Have any time recourse unto the Princes.                Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 6.\n\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter a SCRIVENER\n\n  SCRIVENER. Here is the indictment of the good Lord Hastings;\n    Which in a set hand fairly is engross'd\n    That it may be to-day read o'er in Paul's.\n    And mark how well the sequel hangs together:\n    Eleven hours I have spent to write it over,\n    For yesternight by Catesby was it sent me;\n    The precedent was full as long a-doing;\n    And yet within these five hours Hastings liv'd,\n    Untainted, unexamin'd, free, at liberty.\n    Here's a good world the while! Who is so gros\n    That cannot see this palpable device?\n    Yet who's so bold but says he sees it not?\n    Bad is the world; and all will come to nought,\n    When such ill dealing must be seen in thought.          Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 7.\n\nLondon. Baynard's Castle\n\nEnter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM, at several doors\n\n  GLOUCESTER. How now, how now! What say the citizens?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Now, by the holy Mother of our Lord,\n    The citizens are mum, say not a word.\n  GLOUCESTER. Touch'd you the bastardy of Edward's\n    children?\n  BUCKINGHAM. I did; with his contract with Lady Lucy,\n    And his contract by deputy in France;\n    Th' insatiate greediness of his desire,\n    And his enforcement of the city wives;\n    His tyranny for trifles; his own bastardy,\n    As being got, your father then in France,\n    And his resemblance, being not like the Duke.\n    Withal I did infer your lineaments,\n    Being the right idea of your father,\n    Both in your form and nobleness of mind;\n    Laid open all your victories in Scotland,\n    Your discipline in war, wisdom in peace,\n    Your bounty, virtue, fair humility;\n    Indeed, left nothing fitting for your purpose\n    Untouch'd or slightly handled in discourse.\n    And when mine oratory drew toward end\n    I bid them that did love their country's good\n    Cry 'God save Richard, England's royal King!'\n  GLOUCESTER. And did they so?\n  BUCKINGHAM. No, so God help me, they spake not a word;\n    But, like dumb statues or breathing stones,\n    Star'd each on other, and look'd deadly pale.\n    Which when I saw, I reprehended them,\n    And ask'd the Mayor what meant this wilfull silence.\n    His answer was, the people were not used\n    To be spoke to but by the Recorder.\n    Then he was urg'd to tell my tale again.\n    'Thus saith the Duke, thus hath the Duke inferr'd'-\n    But nothing spoke in warrant from himself.\n    When he had done, some followers of mine own\n    At lower end of the hall hurl'd up their caps,\n    And some ten voices cried 'God save King Richard!'\n    And thus I took the vantage of those few-\n    'Thanks, gentle citizens and friends,' quoth I\n    'This general applause and cheerful shout\n    Argues your wisdoms and your love to Richard.'\n    And even here brake off and came away.\n  GLOUCESTER. What, tongueless blocks were they? Would\n    they not speak?\n    Will not the Mayor then and his brethren come?\n  BUCKINGHAM. The Mayor is here at hand. Intend some fear;\n    Be not you spoke with but by mighty suit;\n    And look you get a prayer-book in your hand,\n    And stand between two churchmen, good my lord;\n    For on that ground I'll make a holy descant;\n    And be not easily won to our requests.\n    Play the maid's part: still answer nay, and take it.\n  GLOUCESTER. I go; and if you plead as well for them\n    As I can say nay to thee for myself,\n    No doubt we bring it to a happy issue.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Go, go, up to the leads; the Lord Mayor\n    knocks.                                      Exit GLOUCESTER\n\n           Enter the LORD MAYOR, ALDERMEN, and citizens\n\n    Welcome, my lord. I dance attendance here;\n    I think the Duke will not be spoke withal.\n\n                         Enter CATESBY\n\n    Now, Catesby, what says your lord to my request?\n  CATESBY. He doth entreat your Grace, my noble lord,\n    To visit him to-morrow or next day.\n    He is within, with two right reverend fathers,\n    Divinely bent to meditation;\n    And in no worldly suits would he be mov'd,\n    To draw him from his holy exercise.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Return, good Catesby, to the gracious Duke;\n    Tell him, myself, the Mayor and Aldermen,\n    In deep designs, in matter of great moment,\n    No less importing than our general good,\n    Are come to have some conference with his Grace.\n  CATESBY. I'll signify so much unto him straight.          Exit\n  BUCKINGHAM. Ah ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!\n    He is not lolling on a lewd love-bed,\n    But on his knees at meditation;\n    Not dallying with a brace of courtezans,\n    But meditating with two deep divines;\n    Not sleeping, to engross his idle body,\n    But praying, to enrich his watchful soul.\n    Happy were England would this virtuous prince\n    Take on his Grace the sovereignty thereof;\n    But, sure, I fear we shall not win him to it.\n  MAYOR. Marry, God defend his Grace should say us nay!\n  BUCKINGHAM. I fear he will. Here Catesby comes again.\n\n                          Re-enter CATESBY\n\n    Now, Catesby, what says his Grace?\n  CATESBY. My lord,\n    He wonders to what end you have assembled\n    Such troops of citizens to come to him.\n    His Grace not being warn'd thereof before,\n    He fears, my lord, you mean no good to him.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Sorry I am my noble cousin should\n    Suspect me that I mean no good to him.\n    By heaven, we come to him in perfect love;\n    And so once more return and tell his Grace.\n                                                    Exit CATESBY\n    When holy and devout religious men\n    Are at their beads, 'tis much to draw them thence,\n    So sweet is zealous contemplation.\n\n           Enter GLOUCESTER aloft, between two BISHOPS.\n                      CATESBY returns\n\n  MAYOR. See where his Grace stands 'tween two clergymen!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Two props of virtue for a Christian prince,\n    To stay him from the fall of vanity;\n    And, see, a book of prayer in his hand,\n    True ornaments to know a holy man.\n    Famous Plantagenet, most gracious Prince,\n    Lend favourable ear to our requests,\n    And pardon us the interruption\n    Of thy devotion and right Christian zeal.\n  GLOUCESTER. My lord, there needs no such apology:\n    I do beseech your Grace to pardon me,\n    Who, earnest in the service of my God,\n    Deferr'd the visitation of my friends.\n    But, leaving this, what is your Grace's pleasure?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Even that, I hope, which pleaseth God above,\n    And all good men of this ungovern'd isle.\n  GLOUCESTER. I do suspect I have done some offence\n    That seems disgracious in the city's eye,\n    And that you come to reprehend my ignorance.\n  BUCKINGHAM. You have, my lord. Would it might please\n    your Grace,\n    On our entreaties, to amend your fault!\n  GLOUCESTER. Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Know then, it is your fault that you resign\n    The supreme seat, the throne majestical,\n    The scept'red office of your ancestors,\n    Your state of fortune and your due of birth,\n    The lineal glory of your royal house,\n    To the corruption of a blemish'd stock;\n    Whiles in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,\n    Which here we waken to our country's good,\n    The noble isle doth want her proper limbs;\n    Her face defac'd with scars of infamy,\n    Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,\n    And almost should'red in the swallowing gulf\n    Of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion.\n    Which to recure, we heartily solicit\n    Your gracious self to take on you the charge\n    And kingly government of this your land-\n    Not as protector, steward, substitute,\n    Or lowly factor for another's gain;\n    But as successively, from blood to blood,\n    Your right of birth, your empery, your own.\n    For this, consorted with the citizens,\n    Your very worshipful and loving friends,\n    And by their vehement instigation,\n    In this just cause come I to move your Grace.\n  GLOUCESTER. I cannot tell if to depart in silence\n    Or bitterly to speak in your reproof\n    Best fitteth my degree or your condition.\n    If not to answer, you might haply think\n    Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded\n    To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,\n    Which fondly you would here impose on me;\n    If to reprove you for this suit of yours,\n    So season'd with your faithful love to me,\n    Then, on the other side, I check'd my friends.\n    Therefore-to speak, and to avoid the first,\n    And then, in speaking, not to incur the last-\n    Definitively thus I answer you:\n    Your love deserves my thanks, but my desert\n    Unmeritable shuns your high request.\n    First, if all obstacles were cut away,\n    And that my path were even to the crown,\n    As the ripe revenue and due of birth,\n    Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,\n    So mighty and so many my defects,\n    That I would rather hide me from my greatness-\n    Being a bark to brook no mighty sea-\n    Than in my greatness covet to be hid,\n    And in the vapour of my glory smother'd.\n    But, God be thank'd, there is no need of me-\n    And much I need to help you, were there need.\n    The royal tree hath left us royal fruit\n    Which, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time,\n    Will well become the seat of majesty\n    And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.\n    On him I lay that you would lay on me-\n    The right and fortune of his happy stars,\n    Which God defend that I should wring from him.\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, this argues conscience in your\n    Grace;\n    But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,\n    All circumstances well considered.\n    You say that Edward is your brother's son.\n    So say we too, but not by Edward's wife;\n    For first was he contract to Lady Lucy-\n    Your mother lives a witness to his vow-\n    And afterward by substitute betroth'd\n    To Bona, sister to the King of France.\n    These both put off, a poor petitioner,\n    A care-craz'd mother to a many sons,\n    A beauty-waning and distressed widow,\n    Even in the afternoon of her best days,\n    Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,\n    Seduc'd the pitch and height of his degree\n    To base declension and loath'd bigamy.\n    By her, in his unlawful bed, he got\n    This Edward, whom our manners call the Prince.\n    More bitterly could I expostulate,\n    Save that, for reverence to some alive,\n    I give a sparing limit to my tongue.\n    Then, good my lord, take to your royal self\n    This proffer'd benefit of dignity;\n    If not to bless us and the land withal,\n    Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry\n    From the corruption of abusing times\n    Unto a lineal true-derived course.\n  MAYOR. Do, good my lord; your citizens entreat you.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer'd love.\n  CATESBY. O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!\n  GLOUCESTER. Alas, why would you heap this care on me?\n    I am unfit for state and majesty.\n    I do beseech you, take it not amiss:\n    I cannot nor I will not yield to you.\n  BUCKINGHAM. If you refuse it-as, in love and zeal,\n    Loath to depose the child, your brother's son;\n    As well we know your tenderness of heart\n    And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,\n    Which we have noted in you to your kindred\n    And egally indeed to all estates-\n    Yet know, whe'er you accept our suit or no,\n    Your brother's son shall never reign our king;\n    But we will plant some other in the throne\n    To the disgrace and downfall of your house;\n    And in this resolution here we leave you.\n    Come, citizens. Zounds, I'll entreat no more.\n  GLOUCESTER. O, do not swear, my lord of Buckingham.\n                          Exeunt BUCKINGHAM, MAYOR, and citizens\n  CATESBY. Call him again, sweet Prince, accept their suit.\n    If you deny them, all the land will rue it.\n  GLOUCESTER. Will you enforce me to a world of cares?\n    Call them again. I am not made of stones,\n    But penetrable to your kind entreaties,\n    Albeit against my conscience and my soul.\n\n                  Re-enter BUCKINGHAM and the rest\n\n    Cousin of Buckingham, and sage grave men,\n    Since you will buckle fortune on my back,\n    To bear her burden, whe'er I will or no,\n    I must have patience to endure the load;\n    But if black scandal or foul-fac'd reproach\n    Attend the sequel of your imposition,\n    Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me\n    From all the impure blots and stains thereof;\n    For God doth know, and you may partly see,\n    How far I am from the desire of this.\n  MAYOR. God bless your Grace! We see it, and will say it.\n  GLOUCESTER. In saying so, you shall but say the truth.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Then I salute you with this royal title-\n    Long live King Richard, England's worthy King!\n  ALL. Amen.\n  BUCKINGHAM. To-morrow may it please you to be crown'd?\n  GLOUCESTER. Even when you please, for you will have it so.\n  BUCKINGHAM. To-morrow, then, we will attend your Grace;\n    And so, most joyfully, we take our leave.\n  GLOUCESTER.  [To the BISHOPS]  Come, let us to our holy\n    work again.\n    Farewell, my cousin; farewell, gentle friends.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. Before the Tower\n\nEnter QUEEN ELIZABETH, DUCHESS of YORK, and MARQUIS of DORSET, at one door;\nANNE, DUCHESS of GLOUCESTER, leading LADY MARGARET PLANTAGENET,\nCLARENCE's young daughter, at another door\n\n  DUCHESS. Who meets us here? My niece Plantagenet,\n    Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloucester?\n    Now, for my life, she's wand'ring to the Tower,\n    On pure heart's love, to greet the tender Princes.\n    Daughter, well met.\n  ANNE. God give your Graces both\n    A happy and a joyful time of day!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. As much to you, good sister! Whither\n    away?\n  ANNE. No farther than the Tower; and, as I guess,\n    Upon the like devotion as yourselves,\n    To gratulate the gentle Princes there.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Kind sister, thanks; we'll enter\n    all together.\n\n                       Enter BRAKENBURY\n\n    And in good time, here the lieutenant comes.\n    Master Lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,\n    How doth the Prince, and my young son of York?\n  BRAKENBURY. Right well, dear madam. By your patience,\n    I may not suffer you to visit them.\n    The King hath strictly charg'd the contrary.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The King! Who's that?\n  BRAKENBURY. I mean the Lord Protector.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The Lord protect him from that kingly\n    title!\n    Hath he set bounds between their love and me?\n    I am their mother; who shall bar me from them?\n  DUCHESS. I am their father's mother; I will see them.\n  ANNE. Their aunt I am in law, in love their mother.\n    Then bring me to their sights; I'll bear thy blame,\n    And take thy office from thee on my peril.\n  BRAKENBURY. No, madam, no. I may not leave it so;\n    I am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me.            Exit\n\n                         Enter STANLEY\n\n  STANLEY. Let me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence,\n    And I'll salute your Grace of York as mother\n    And reverend looker-on of two fair queens.\n    [To ANNE]  Come, madam, you must straight to\n    Westminster,\n    There to be crowned Richard's royal queen.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, cut my lace asunder\n    That my pent heart may have some scope to beat,\n    Or else I swoon with this dead-killing news!\n  ANNE. Despiteful tidings! O unpleasing news!\n  DORSET. Be of good cheer; mother, how fares your Grace?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O Dorset, speak not to me, get thee\n    gone!\n    Death and destruction dogs thee at thy heels;\n    Thy mother's name is ominous to children.\n    If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,\n    And live with Richmond, from the reach of hell.\n    Go, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughter-house,\n    Lest thou increase the number of the dead,\n    And make me die the thrall of Margaret's curse,\n    Nor mother, wife, nor England's counted queen.\n  STANLEY. Full of wise care is this your counsel, madam.\n    Take all the swift advantage of the hours;\n    You shall have letters from me to my son\n    In your behalf, to meet you on the way.\n    Be not ta'en tardy by unwise delay.\n  DUCHESS. O ill-dispersing wind of misery!\n    O my accursed womb, the bed of death!\n    A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,\n    Whose unavoided eye is murderous.\n  STANLEY. Come, madam, come; I in all haste was sent.\n  ANNE. And I with all unwillingness will go.\n    O, would to God that the inclusive verge\n    Of golden metal that must round my brow\n    Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brains!\n    Anointed let me be with deadly venom,\n    And die ere men can say 'God save the Queen!'\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Go, go, poor soul; I envy not thy glory.\n    To feed my humour, wish thyself no harm.\n  ANNE. No, why? When he that is my husband now\n    Came to me, as I follow'd Henry's corse;\n    When scarce the blood was well wash'd from his hands\n    Which issued from my other angel husband,\n    And that dear saint which then I weeping follow'd-\n    O, when, I say, I look'd on Richard's face,\n    This was my wish: 'Be thou' quoth I 'accurs'd\n    For making me, so young, so old a widow;\n    And when thou wed'st, let sorrow haunt thy bed;\n    And be thy wife, if any be so mad,\n    More miserable by the life of thee\n    Than thou hast made me by my dear lord's death.'\n    Lo, ere I can repeat this curse again,\n    Within so small a time, my woman's heart\n    Grossly grew captive to his honey words\n    And prov'd the subject of mine own soul's curse,\n    Which hitherto hath held my eyes from rest;\n    For never yet one hour in his bed\n    Did I enjoy the golden dew of sleep,\n    But with his timorous dreams was still awak'd.\n    Besides, he hates me for my father Warwick;\n    And will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Poor heart, adieu! I pity thy complaining.\n  ANNE. No more than with my soul I mourn for yours.\n  DORSET. Farewell, thou woeful welcomer of glory!\n  ANNE. Adieu, poor soul, that tak'st thy leave of it!\n  DUCHESS.  [To DORSET]  Go thou to Richmond, and good\n    fortune guide thee!\n    [To ANNE]  Go thou to Richard, and good angels tend\n    thee!  [To QUEEN ELIZABETH]  Go thou to sanctuary, and good\n    thoughts possess thee!\n    I to my grave, where peace and rest lie with me!\n    Eighty odd years of sorrow have I seen,\n    And each hour's joy wreck'd with a week of teen.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Stay, yet look back with me unto the\n    Tower.\n    Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes\n    Whom envy hath immur'd within your walls,\n    Rough cradle for such little pretty ones.\n    Rude ragged nurse, old sullen playfellow\n    For tender princes, use my babies well.\n    So foolish sorrows bids your stones farewell.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nSound a sennet. Enter RICHARD, in pomp, as KING; BUCKINGHAM, CATESBY,\nRATCLIFF, LOVEL, a PAGE, and others\n\n  KING RICHARD. Stand all apart. Cousin of Buckingham!\n  BUCKINGHAM. My gracious sovereign?\n  KING RICHARD. Give me thy hand.\n                           [Here he ascendeth the throne. Sound]\n    Thus high, by thy advice\n    And thy assistance, is King Richard seated.\n    But shall we wear these glories for a day;\n    Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Still live they, and for ever let them last!\n  KING RICHARD. Ah, Buckingham, now do I play the touch,\n    To try if thou be current gold indeed.\n    Young Edward lives-think now what I would speak.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Say on, my loving lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, Buckingham, I say I would be King.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why, so you are, my thrice-renowned lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Ha! am I King? 'Tis so; but Edward lives.\n  BUCKINGHAM. True, noble Prince.\n  KING RICHARD. O bitter consequence:\n    That Edward still should live-true noble Prince!\n    Cousin, thou wast not wont to be so dull.\n    Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead.\n    And I would have it suddenly perform'd.\n    What say'st thou now? Speak suddenly, be brief.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Your Grace may do your pleasure.\n  KING RICHARD. Tut, tut, thou art all ice; thy kindness freezes.\n    Say, have I thy consent that they shall die?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Give me some little breath, some pause,\n    dear Lord,\n    Before I positively speak in this.\n    I will resolve you herein presently.                    Exit\n  CATESBY.  [Aside to another]  The King is angry; see, he\n    gnaws his lip.\n  KING RICHARD. I will converse with iron-witted fools\n                                      [Descends from the throne]\n    And unrespective boys; none are for me\n    That look into me with considerate eyes.\n    High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.\n    Boy!\n  PAGE. My lord?\n  KING RICHARD. Know'st thou not any whom corrupting\n    gold\n    Will tempt unto a close exploit of death?\n  PAGE. I know a discontented gentleman\n    Whose humble means match not his haughty spirit.\n    Gold were as good as twenty orators,\n    And will, no doubt, tempt him to anything.\n  KING RICHARD. What is his name?\n  PAGE. His name, my lord, is Tyrrel.\n  KING RICHARD. I partly know the man. Go, call him hither,\n    boy.                                               Exit PAGE\n    The deep-revolving witty Buckingham\n    No more shall be the neighbour to my counsels.\n    Hath he so long held out with me, untir'd,\n    And stops he now for breath? Well, be it so.\n\n                            Enter STANLEY\n\n    How now, Lord Stanley! What's the news?\n  STANLEY. Know, my loving lord,\n    The Marquis Dorset, as I hear, is fled\n    To Richmond, in the parts where he abides.    [Stands apart]\n  KING RICHARD. Come hither, Catesby. Rumour it abroad\n    That Anne, my wife, is very grievous sick;\n    I will take order for her keeping close.\n    Inquire me out some mean poor gentleman,\n    Whom I will marry straight to Clarence' daughter-\n    The boy is foolish, and I fear not him.\n    Look how thou dream'st! I say again, give out\n    That Anne, my queen, is sick and like to die.\n    About it; for it stands me much upon\n    To stop all hopes whose growth may damage me.\n                                                    Exit CATESBY\n    I must be married to my brother's daughter,\n    Or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass.\n    Murder her brothers, and then marry her!\n    Uncertain way of gain! But I am in\n    So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.\n    Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.\n\n                     Re-enter PAGE, with TYRREL\n\n    Is thy name Tyrrel?\n  TYRREL. James Tyrrel, and your most obedient subject.\n  KING RICHARD. Art thou, indeed?\n  TYRREL. Prove me, my gracious lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Dar'st'thou resolve to kill a friend of mine?\n  TYRREL. Please you;\n    But I had rather kill two enemies.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, then thou hast it. Two deep enemies,\n    Foes to my rest, and my sweet sleep's disturbers,\n    Are they that I would have thee deal upon.\n  TYRREL, I mean those bastards in the Tower.\n  TYRREL. Let me have open means to come to them,\n    And soon I'll rid you from the fear of them.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou sing'st sweet music. Hark, come\n    hither, Tyrrel.\n    Go, by this token. Rise, and lend thine ear.      [Whispers]\n    There is no more but so: say it is done,\n    And I will love thee and prefer thee for it.\n  TYRREL. I will dispatch it straight.                      Exit\n\n                    Re-enter BUCKINGHAM\n\n    BUCKINGHAM. My lord, I have consider'd in my mind\n    The late request that you did sound me in.\n  KING RICHARD. Well, let that rest. Dorset is fled to\n    Richmond.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I hear the news, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Stanley, he is your wife's son: well, look\n    unto it.\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, I claim the gift, my due by promise,\n    For which your honour and your faith is pawn'd:\n    Th' earldom of Hereford and the movables\n    Which you have promised I shall possess.\n  KING RICHARD. Stanley, look to your wife; if she convey\n    Letters to Richmond, you shall answer it.\n  BUCKINGHAM. What says your Highness to my just request?\n  KING RICHARD. I do remember me: Henry the Sixth\n    Did prophesy that Richmond should be King,\n    When Richmond was a little peevish boy.\n    A king!-perhaps-\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord-\n  KING RICHARD. How chance the prophet could not at that\n    time\n    Have told me, I being by, that I should kill him?\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, your promise for the earldom-\n  KING RICHARD. Richmond! When last I was at Exeter,\n    The mayor in courtesy show'd me the castle\n    And call'd it Rugemount, at which name I started,\n    Because a bard of Ireland told me once\n    I should not live long after I saw Richmond.\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord-\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, what's o'clock?\n  BUCKINGHAM. I am thus bold to put your Grace in mind\n    Of what you promis'd me.\n  KING RICHARD. Well, but o'clock?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Upon the stroke of ten.\n  KING RICHARD. Well, let it strike.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why let it strike?\n  KING RICHARD. Because that like a Jack thou keep'st the\n    stroke\n    Betwixt thy begging and my meditation.\n    I am not in the giving vein to-day.\n  BUCKINGHAM. May it please you to resolve me in my suit.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou troublest me; I am not in the vein.\n                                       Exeunt all but Buckingham\n  BUCKINGHAM. And is it thus? Repays he my deep service\n    With such contempt? Made I him King for this?\n    O, let me think on Hastings, and be gone\n    To Brecknock while my fearful head is on!               Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter TYRREL\n\n  TYRREL. The tyrannous and bloody act is done,\n    The most arch deed of piteous massacre\n    That ever yet this land was guilty of.\n    Dighton and Forrest, who I did suborn\n    To do this piece of ruthless butchery,\n    Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs,\n    Melted with tenderness and mild compassion,\n    Wept like two children in their deaths' sad story.\n    'O, thus' quoth Dighton 'lay the gentle babes'-\n    'Thus, thus,' quoth Forrest 'girdling one another\n    Within their alabaster innocent arms.\n    Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,\n    And in their summer beauty kiss'd each other.\n    A book of prayers on their pillow lay;\n    Which once,' quoth Forrest 'almost chang'd my mind;\n    But, O, the devil'-there the villain stopp'd;\n    When Dighton thus told on: 'We smothered\n    The most replenished sweet work of nature\n    That from the prime creation e'er she framed.'\n    Hence both are gone with conscience and remorse\n    They could not speak; and so I left them both,\n    To bear this tidings to the bloody King.\n\n                        Enter KING RICHARD\n\n    And here he comes. All health, my sovereign lord!\n  KING RICHARD. Kind Tyrrel, am I happy in thy news?\n  TYRREL. If to have done the thing you gave in charge\n    Beget your happiness, be happy then,\n    For it is done.\n  KING RICHARD. But didst thou see them dead?\n  TYRREL. I did, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. And buried, gentle Tyrrel?\n  TYRREL. The chaplain of the Tower hath buried them;\n    But where, to say the truth, I do not know.\n  KING RICHARD. Come to me, Tyrrel, soon at after supper,\n    When thou shalt tell the process of their death.\n    Meantime, but think how I may do thee good\n    And be inheritor of thy desire.\n    Farewell till then.\n  TYRREL. I humbly take my leave.                           Exit\n  KING RICHARD. The son of Clarence have I pent up close;\n    His daughter meanly have I match'd in marriage;\n    The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham's bosom,\n    And Anne my wife hath bid this world good night.\n    Now, for I know the Britaine Richmond aims\n    At young Elizabeth, my brother's daughter,\n    And by that knot looks proudly on the crown,\n    To her go I, a jolly thriving wooer.\n\n                           Enter RATCLIFF\n\n  RATCLIFF. My lord!\n  KING RICHARD. Good or bad news, that thou com'st in so\n    bluntly?\n  RATCLIFF. Bad news, my lord: Morton is fled to Richmond;\n    And Buckingham, back'd with the hardy Welshmen,\n    Is in the field, and still his power increaseth.\n  KING RICHARD. Ely with Richmond troubles me more near\n    Than Buckingham and his rash-levied strength.\n    Come, I have learn'd that fearful commenting\n    Is leaden servitor to dull delay;\n    Delay leads impotent and snail-pac'd beggary.\n    Then fiery expedition be my wing,\n    Jove's Mercury, and herald for a king!\n    Go, muster men. My counsel is my shield.\n    We must be brief when traitors brave the field.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nLondon. Before the palace\n\nEnter old QUEEN MARGARET\n\n  QUEEN MARGARET. So now prosperity begins to mellow\n    And drop into the rotten mouth of death.\n    Here in these confines slily have I lurk'd\n    To watch the waning of mine enemies.\n    A dire induction am I witness to,\n    And will to France, hoping the consequence\n    Will prove as bitter, black, and tragical.\n    Withdraw thee, wretched Margaret. Who comes here?\n                                                       [Retires]\n\n           Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH and the DUCHESS OF YORK\n\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, my poor princes! ah, my tender\n    babes!\n    My unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!\n    If yet your gentle souls fly in the air\n    And be not fix'd in doom perpetual,\n    Hover about me with your airy wings\n    And hear your mother's lamentation.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Hover about her; say that right for right\n    Hath dimm'd your infant morn to aged night.\n  DUCHESS. So many miseries have craz'd my voice\n    That my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute.\n    Edward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet,\n    Edward for Edward pays a dying debt.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Wilt thou, O God, fly from such gentle\n    lambs\n    And throw them in the entrails of the wolf?\n    When didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. When holy Harry died, and my sweet\n    son.\n  DUCHESS. Dead life, blind sight, poor mortal living ghost,\n    Woe's scene, world's shame, grave's due by life usurp'd,\n    Brief abstract and record of tedious days,\n    Rest thy unrest on England's lawful earth,    [Sitting down]\n    Unlawfully made drunk with innocent blood.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, that thou wouldst as soon afford a\n    grave\n    As thou canst yield a melancholy seat!\n    Then would I hide my bones, not rest them here.\n    Ah, who hath any cause to mourn but we?\n                                           [Sitting down by her]\n  QUEEN MARGARET.  [Coming forward]  If ancient sorrow be\n    most reverend,\n    Give mine the benefit of seniory,\n    And let my griefs frown on the upper hand.\n    If sorrow can admit society,        [Sitting down with them]\n    Tell o'er your woes again by viewing mine.\n    I had an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;\n    I had a husband, till a Richard kill'd him:\n    Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;\n    Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard kill'd him.\n  DUCHESS. I had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him;\n    I had a Rutland too, thou holp'st to kill him.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Thou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard\n    kill'd him.\n    From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept\n    A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death.\n    That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes\n    To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood,\n    That foul defacer of God's handiwork,\n    That excellent grand tyrant of the earth\n    That reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls,\n    Thy womb let loose to chase us to our graves.\n    O upright, just, and true-disposing God,\n    How do I thank thee that this carnal cur\n    Preys on the issue of his mother's body\n    And makes her pew-fellow with others' moan!\n  DUCHESS. O Harry's wife, triumph not in my woes!\n    God witness with me, I have wept for thine.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Bear with me; I am hungry for revenge,\n    And now I cloy me with beholding it.\n    Thy Edward he is dead, that kill'd my Edward;\n    The other Edward dead, to quit my Edward;\n    Young York he is but boot, because both they\n    Match'd not the high perfection of my loss.\n    Thy Clarence he is dead that stabb'd my Edward;\n    And the beholders of this frantic play,\n    Th' adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,\n    Untimely smother'd in their dusky graves.\n    Richard yet lives, hell's black intelligencer;\n    Only reserv'd their factor to buy souls\n    And send them thither. But at hand, at hand,\n    Ensues his piteous and unpitied end.\n    Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray,\n    To have him suddenly convey'd from hence.\n    Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray,\n    That I may live and say 'The dog is dead.'\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O, thou didst prophesy the time would\n      come\n    That I should wish for thee to help me curse\n    That bottled spider, that foul bunch-back'd toad!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I Call'd thee then vain flourish of my\n      fortune;\n    I call'd thee then poor shadow, painted queen,\n    The presentation of but what I was,\n    The flattering index of a direful pageant,\n    One heav'd a-high to be hurl'd down below,\n    A mother only mock'd with two fair babes,\n    A dream of what thou wast, a garish flag\n    To be the aim of every dangerous shot,\n    A sign of dignity, a breath, a bubble,\n    A queen in jest, only to fill the scene.\n    Where is thy husband now? Where be thy brothers?\n    Where be thy two sons? Wherein dost thou joy?\n    Who sues, and kneels, and says 'God save the Queen'?\n    Where be the bending peers that flattered thee?\n    Where be the thronging troops that followed thee?\n    Decline an this, and see what now thou art:\n    For happy wife, a most distressed widow;\n    For joyful mother, one that wails the name;\n    For one being su'd to, one that humbly sues;\n    For Queen, a very caitiff crown'd with care;\n    For she that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me;\n    For she being fear'd of all, now fearing one;\n    For she commanding all, obey'd of none.\n    Thus hath the course of justice whirl'd about\n    And left thee but a very prey to time,\n    Having no more but thought of what thou wast\n    To torture thee the more, being what thou art.\n    Thou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not\n    Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow?\n    Now thy proud neck bears half my burden'd yoke,\n    From which even here I slip my weary head\n    And leave the burden of it all on thee.\n    Farewell, York's wife, and queen of sad mischance;\n    These English woes shall make me smile in France.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O thou well skill'd in curses, stay awhile\n    And teach me how to curse mine enemies!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Forbear to sleep the nights, and fast the\n      days;\n    Compare dead happiness with living woe;\n    Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were,\n    And he that slew them fouler than he is.\n    Bett'ring thy loss makes the bad-causer worse;\n    Revolving this will teach thee how to curse.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My words are dull; O, quicken them\n    with thine!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Thy woes will make them sharp and\n    pierce like mine.                                       Exit\n  DUCHESS. Why should calamity be fun of words?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Windy attorneys to their client woes,\n    Airy succeeders of intestate joys,\n    Poor breathing orators of miseries,\n    Let them have scope; though what they will impart\n    Help nothing else, yet do they case the heart.\n  DUCHESS. If so, then be not tongue-tied. Go with me,\n    And in the breath of bitter words let's smother\n    My damned son that thy two sweet sons smother'd.\n    The trumpet sounds; be copious in exclaims.\n\n         Enter KING RICHARD and his train, marching with\n                     drums and trumpets\n\n  KING RICHARD. Who intercepts me in my expedition?\n  DUCHESS. O, she that might have intercepted thee,\n    By strangling thee in her accursed womb,\n    From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Hidest thou that forehead with a golden\n    crown\n    Where't should be branded, if that right were right,\n    The slaughter of the Prince that ow'd that crown,\n    And the dire death of my poor sons and brothers?\n    Tell me, thou villain slave, where are my children?\n  DUCHESS. Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother\n    Clarence?\n    And little Ned Plantagenet, his son?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Where is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan,\n    Grey?\n  DUCHESS. Where is kind Hastings?\n  KING RICHARD. A flourish, trumpets! Strike alarum, drums!\n    Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women\n    Rail on the Lord's anointed. Strike, I say!\n                                             [Flourish. Alarums]\n    Either be patient and entreat me fair,\n    Or with the clamorous report of war\n    Thus will I drown your exclamations.\n  DUCHESS. Art thou my son?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, I thank God, my father, and yourself.\n  DUCHESS. Then patiently hear my impatience.\n  KING RICHARD. Madam, I have a touch of your condition\n    That cannot brook the accent of reproof.\n  DUCHESS. O, let me speak!\n  KING RICHARD. Do, then; but I'll not hear.\n  DUCHESS. I will be mild and gentle in my words.\n  KING RICHARD. And brief, good mother; for I am in haste.\n  DUCHESS. Art thou so hasty? I have stay'd for thee,\n    God knows, in torment and in agony.\n  KING RICHARD. And came I not at last to comfort you?\n  DUCHESS. No, by the holy rood, thou know'st it well\n    Thou cam'st on earth to make the earth my hell.\n    A grievous burden was thy birth to me;\n    Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;\n    Thy school-days frightful, desp'rate, wild, and furious;\n    Thy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous;\n    Thy age confirm'd, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody,\n    More mild, but yet more harmful-kind in hatred.\n    What comfortable hour canst thou name\n    That ever grac'd me with thy company?\n  KING RICHARD. Faith, none but Humphrey Hour, that call'd\n    your Grace\n    To breakfast once forth of my company.\n    If I be so disgracious in your eye,\n    Let me march on and not offend you, madam.\n    Strike up the drum.\n  DUCHESS. I prithee hear me speak.\n  KING RICHARD. You speak too bitterly.\n  DUCHESS. Hear me a word;\n    For I shall never speak to thee again.\n  KING RICHARD. So.\n  DUCHESS. Either thou wilt die by God's just ordinance\n    Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror;\n    Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish\n    And never more behold thy face again.\n    Therefore take with thee my most grievous curse,\n    Which in the day of battle tire thee more\n    Than all the complete armour that thou wear'st!\n    My prayers on the adverse party fight;\n    And there the little souls of Edward's children\n    Whisper the spirits of thine enemies\n    And promise them success and victory.\n    Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end.\n    Shame serves thy life and doth thy death attend.        Exit\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Though far more cause, yet much less\n      spirit to curse\n    Abides in me; I say amen to her.\n  KING RICHARD. Stay, madam, I must talk a word with you.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I have no moe sons of the royal blood\n    For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,\n    They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens;\n    And therefore level not to hit their lives.\n  KING RICHARD. You have a daughter call'd Elizabeth.\n    Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. And must she die for this? O, let her\n      live,\n    And I'll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty,\n    Slander myself as false to Edward's bed,\n    Throw over her the veil of infamy;\n    So she may live unscarr'd of bleeding slaughter,\n    I will confess she was not Edward's daughter.\n  KING RICHARD. Wrong not her birth; she is a royal\n    Princess.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. To save her life I'll say she is not so.\n  KING RICHARD. Her life is safest only in her birth.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. And only in that safety died her\n      brothers.\n  KING RICHARD. Lo, at their birth good stars were opposite.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. No, to their lives ill friends were\n      contrary.\n  KING RICHARD. All unavoided is the doom of destiny.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. True, when avoided grace makes destiny.\n    My babes were destin'd to a fairer death,\n    If grace had bless'd thee with a fairer life.\n  KING RICHARD. You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Cousins, indeed; and by their uncle\n      cozen'd\n    Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.\n    Whose hand soever lanc'd their tender hearts,\n    Thy head, an indirectly, gave direction.\n    No doubt the murd'rous knife was dull and blunt\n    Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart\n    To revel in the entrails of my lambs.\n    But that stiff use of grief makes wild grief tame,\n    My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys\n    Till that my nails were anchor'd in thine eyes;\n    And I, in such a desp'rate bay of death,\n    Like a poor bark, of sails and tackling reft,\n    Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.\n  KING RICHARD. Madam, so thrive I in my enterprise\n    And dangerous success of bloody wars,\n    As I intend more good to you and yours\n    Than ever you or yours by me were harm'd!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What good is cover'd with the face of\n      heaven,\n    To be discover'd, that can do me good?\n  KING RICHARD. advancement of your children, gentle\n    lady.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Up to some scaffold, there to lose their\n    heads?\n  KING RICHARD. Unto the dignity and height of Fortune,\n    The high imperial type of this earth's glory.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Flatter my sorrow with report of it;\n    Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,\n    Canst thou demise to any child of mine?\n  KING RICHARD. Even all I have-ay, and myself and all\n    Will I withal endow a child of thine;\n    So in the Lethe of thy angry soul\n    Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs\n    Which thou supposest I have done to thee.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Be brief, lest that the process of thy\n      kindness\n    Last longer telling than thy kindness' date.\n  KING RICHARD. Then know, that from my soul I love thy\n    daughter.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My daughter's mother thinks it with her\n    soul.\n  KING RICHARD. What do you think?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. That thou dost love my daughter from\n      thy soul.\n    So from thy soul's love didst thou love her brothers,\n    And from my heart's love I do thank thee for it.\n  KING RICHARD. Be not so hasty to confound my meaning.\n    I mean that with my soul I love thy daughter\n    And do intend to make her Queen of England.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Well, then, who dost thou mean shall be\n    her king?\n  KING RICHARD. Even he that makes her Queen. Who else\n    should be?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What, thou?\n  KING RICHARD. Even so. How think you of it?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. How canst thou woo her?\n  KING RICHARD. That would I learn of you,\n    As one being best acquainted with her humour.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. And wilt thou learn of me?\n  KING RICHARD. Madam, with all my heart.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Send to her, by the man that slew her\n    brothers,\n    A pair of bleeding hearts; thereon engrave\n    'Edward' and 'York.' Then haply will she weep;\n    Therefore present to her-as sometimes Margaret\n    Did to thy father, steep'd in Rutland's blood-\n    A handkerchief; which, say to her, did drain\n    The purple sap from her sweet brother's body,\n    And bid her wipe her weeping eyes withal.\n    If this inducement move her not to love,\n    Send her a letter of thy noble deeds;\n    Tell her thou mad'st away her uncle Clarence,\n    Her uncle Rivers; ay, and for her sake\n    Mad'st quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.\n  KING RICHARD. You mock me, madam; this is not the way\n    To win your daughter.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. There is no other way;\n    Unless thou couldst put on some other shape\n    And not be Richard that hath done all this.\n  KING RICHARD. Say that I did all this for love of her.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but\n      hate thee,\n    Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.\n  KING RICHARD. Look what is done cannot be now amended.\n    Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,\n    Which after-hours gives leisure to repent.\n    If I did take the kingdom from your sons,\n    To make amends I'll give it to your daughter.\n    If I have kill'd the issue of your womb,\n    To quicken your increase I will beget\n    Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.\n    A grandam's name is little less in love\n    Than is the doating title of a mother;\n    They are as children but one step below,\n    Even of your metal, of your very blood;\n    Of all one pain, save for a night of groans\n    Endur'd of her, for whom you bid like sorrow.\n    Your children were vexation to your youth;\n    But mine shall be a comfort to your age.\n    The loss you have is but a son being King,\n    And by that loss your daughter is made Queen.\n    I cannot make you what amends I would,\n    Therefore accept such kindness as I can.\n    Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul\n    Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,\n    This fair alliance quickly shall can home\n    To high promotions and great dignity.\n    The King, that calls your beauteous daughter wife,\n    Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother;\n    Again shall you be mother to a king,\n    And all the ruins of distressful times\n    Repair'd with double riches of content.\n    What! we have many goodly days to see.\n    The liquid drops of tears that you have shed\n    Shall come again, transform'd to orient pearl,\n    Advantaging their loan with interest\n    Of ten times double gain of happiness.\n    Go, then, my mother, to thy daughter go;\n    Make bold her bashful years with your experience;\n    Prepare her ears to hear a wooer's tale;\n    Put in her tender heart th' aspiring flame\n    Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the Princes\n    With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys.\n    And when this arm of mine hath chastised\n    The petty rebel, dull-brain'd Buckingham,\n    Bound with triumphant garlands will I come,\n    And lead thy daughter to a conqueror's bed;\n    To whom I will retail my conquest won,\n    And she shall be sole victoress, Caesar's Caesar.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What were I best to say? Her father's\n      brother\n    Would be her lord? Or shall I say her uncle?\n    Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?\n    Under what title shall I woo for thee\n    That God, the law, my honour, and her love\n    Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?\n  KING RICHARD. Infer fair England's peace by this alliance.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Which she shall purchase with\n    still-lasting war.\n  KING RICHARD. Tell her the King, that may command,\n    entreats.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. That at her hands which the King's\n    King forbids.\n  KING RICHARD. Say she shall be a high and mighty queen.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. To wail the title, as her mother doth.\n  KING RICHARD. Say I will love her everlastingly.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But how long shall that title 'ever' last?\n  KING RICHARD. Sweetly in force unto her fair life's end.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But how long fairly shall her sweet life\n    last?\n  KING RICHARD. As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. As long as hell and Richard likes of it.\n  KING RICHARD. Say I, her sovereign, am her subject low.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But she, your subject, loathes such\n    sovereignty.\n  KING RICHARD. Be eloquent in my behalf to her.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. An honest tale speeds best being plainly\n    told.\n  KING RICHARD. Then plainly to her tell my loving tale.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.\n  KING RICHARD. Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O, no, my reasons are too deep and\n      dead-\n    Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.\n  KING RICHARD. Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Harp on it still shall I till heartstrings\n    break.\n  KING RICHARD. Now, by my George, my garter, and my\n    crown-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Profan'd, dishonour'd, and the third\n    usurp'd.\n  KING RICHARD. I swear-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. By nothing; for this is no oath:\n    Thy George, profan'd, hath lost his lordly honour;\n    Thy garter, blemish'd, pawn'd his knightly virtue;\n    Thy crown, usurp'd, disgrac'd his kingly glory.\n    If something thou wouldst swear to be believ'd,\n    Swear then by something that thou hast not wrong'd.\n  KING RICHARD. Then, by my self-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thy self is self-misus'd.\n  KING RICHARD. Now, by the world-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. 'Tis full of thy foul wrongs.\n  KING RICHARD. My father's death-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thy life hath it dishonour'd.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, then, by God-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. God's wrong is most of all.\n    If thou didst fear to break an oath with Him,\n    The unity the King my husband made\n    Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died.\n    If thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by Him,\n    Th' imperial metal, circling now thy head,\n    Had grac'd the tender temples of my child;\n    And both the Princes had been breathing here,\n    Which now, two tender bedfellows for dust,\n    Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.\n    What canst thou swear by now?\n  KING RICHARD. The time to come.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. That thou hast wronged in the time\n    o'erpast;\n    For I myself have many tears to wash\n    Hereafter time, for time past wrong'd by thee.\n    The children live whose fathers thou hast slaughter'd,\n    Ungovern'd youth, to wail it in their age;\n    The parents live whose children thou hast butcheed,\n    Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.\n    Swear not by time to come; for that thou hast\n    Misus'd ere us'd, by times ill-us'd o'erpast.\n  KING RICHARD. As I intend to prosper and repent,\n    So thrive I in my dangerous affairs\n    Of hostile arms! Myself myself confound!\n    Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours!\n    Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest!\n    Be opposite all planets of good luck\n    To my proceeding!-if, with dear heart's love,\n    Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,\n    I tender not thy beauteous princely daughter.\n    In her consists my happiness and thine;\n    Without her, follows to myself and thee,\n    Herself, the land, and many a Christian soul,\n    Death, desolation, ruin, and decay.\n    It cannot be avoided but by this;\n    It will not be avoided but by this.\n    Therefore, dear mother-I must call you so-\n    Be the attorney of my love to her;\n    Plead what I will be, not what I have been;\n    Not my deserts, but what I will deserve.\n    Urge the necessity and state of times,\n    And be not peevish-fond in great designs.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, if the devil tempt you to do good.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Shall I forget myself to be myself?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, if your self's remembrance wrong\n    yourself.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Yet thou didst kill my children.\n  KING RICHARD. But in your daughter's womb I bury them;\n    Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed\n    Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?\n  KING RICHARD. And be a happy mother by the deed.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I go. Write to me very shortly,\n    And you shall understand from me her mind.\n  KING RICHARD. Bear her my true love's kiss; and so, farewell.\n                               Kissing her. Exit QUEEN ELIZABETH\n    Relenting fool, and shallow, changing woman!\n\n                 Enter RATCLIFF; CATESBY following\n\n    How now! what news?\n  RATCLIFF. Most mighty sovereign, on the western coast\n    Rideth a puissant navy; to our shores\n    Throng many doubtful hollow-hearted friends,\n    Unarm'd, and unresolv'd to beat them back.\n    'Tis thought that Richmond is their admiral;\n    And there they hull, expecting but the aid\n    Of Buckingham to welcome them ashore.\n  KING RICHARD. Some light-foot friend post to the Duke of\n    Norfolk.\n    Ratcliff, thyself-or Catesby; where is he?\n  CATESBY. Here, my good lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Catesby, fly to the Duke.\n  CATESBY. I will my lord, with all convenient haste.\n  KING RICHARD. Ratcliff, come hither. Post to Salisbury;\n    When thou com'st thither-  [To CATESBY]  Dull,\n    unmindfull villain,\n    Why stay'st thou here, and go'st not to the Duke?\n  CATESBY. First, mighty liege, tell me your Highness' pleasure,\n    What from your Grace I shall deliver to him.\n  KING RICHARD. O, true, good Catesby. Bid him levy straight\n    The greatest strength and power that he can make\n    And meet me suddenly at Salisbury.\n  CATESBY. I go.                                            Exit\n  RATCLIFF. What, may it please you, shall I do at Salisbury?\n  KING RICHARD. Why, what wouldst thou do there before I\n    go?\n  RATCLIFF. Your Highness told me I should post before.\n  KING RICHARD. My mind is chang'd.\n\n                           Enter LORD STANLEY\n\n  STANLEY, what news with you?\n  STANLEY. None good, my liege, to please you with\n    the hearing;\n    Nor none so bad but well may be reported.\n  KING RICHARD. Hoyday, a riddle! neither good nor bad!\n    What need'st thou run so many miles about,\n    When thou mayest tell thy tale the nearest way?\n    Once more, what news?\n  STANLEY. Richmond is on the seas.\n  KING RICHARD. There let him sink, and be the seas on him!\n    White-liver'd runagate, what doth he there?\n  STANLEY. I know not, mighty sovereign, but by guess.\n  KING RICHARD. Well, as you guess?\n  STANLEY. Stirr'd up by Dorset, Buckingham, and Morton,\n    He makes for England here to claim the crown.\n  KING RICHARD. Is the chair empty? Is the sword unsway'd?\n    Is the King dead, the empire unpossess'd?\n    What heir of York is there alive but we?\n    And who is England's King but great York's heir?\n    Then tell me what makes he upon the seas.\n  STANLEY. Unless for that, my liege, I cannot guess.\n  KING RICHARD. Unless for that he comes to be your liege,\n    You cannot guess wherefore the Welshman comes.\n    Thou wilt revolt and fly to him, I fear.\n  STANLEY. No, my good lord; therefore mistrust me not.\n  KING RICHARD. Where is thy power then, to beat him back?\n    Where be thy tenants and thy followers?\n    Are they not now upon the western shore,\n    Safe-conducting the rebels from their ships?\n  STANLEY. No, my good lord, my friends are in the north.\n  KING RICHARD. Cold friends to me. What do they in the\n    north,\n    When they should serve their sovereign in the west?\n  STANLEY. They have not been commanded, mighty King.\n    Pleaseth your Majesty to give me leave,\n    I'll muster up my friends and meet your Grace\n    Where and what time your Majesty shall please.\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, ay, thou wouldst be gone to join with\n    Richmond;\n    But I'll not trust thee.\n  STANLEY. Most mighty sovereign,\n    You have no cause to hold my friendship doubtful.\n    I never was nor never will be false.\n  KING RICHARD. Go, then, and muster men. But leave behind\n    Your son, George Stanley. Look your heart be firm,\n    Or else his head's assurance is but frail.\n  STANLEY. So deal with him as I prove true to you.         Exit\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My gracious sovereign, now in Devonshire,\n    As I by friends am well advertised,\n    Sir Edward Courtney and the haughty prelate,\n    Bishop of Exeter, his elder brother,\n    With many moe confederates, are in arms.\n\n                         Enter another MESSENGER\n\n  SECOND MESSENGER. In Kent, my liege, the Guilfords are in\n    arms;\n    And every hour more competitors\n    Flock to the rebels, and their power grows strong.\n\n                         Enter another MESSENGER\n\n  THIRD MESSENGER. My lord, the army of great Buckingham-\n  KING RICHARD. Out on you, owls! Nothing but songs of\n    death?                                      [He strikes him]\n    There, take thou that till thou bring better news.\n  THIRD MESSENGER. The news I have to tell your Majesty\n    Is that by sudden floods and fall of waters\n    Buckingham's army is dispers'd and scatter'd;\n    And he himself wand'red away alone,\n    No man knows whither.\n  KING RICHARD. I cry thee mercy.\n    There is my purse to cure that blow of thine.\n    Hath any well-advised friend proclaim'd\n    Reward to him that brings the traitor in?\n  THIRD MESSENGER. Such proclamation hath been made,\n    my Lord.\n\n                      Enter another MESSENGER\n\n  FOURTH MESSENGER. Sir Thomas Lovel and Lord Marquis\n    Dorset,\n    'Tis said, my liege, in Yorkshire are in arms.\n    But this good comfort bring I to your Highness-\n    The Britaine navy is dispers'd by tempest.\n    Richmond in Dorsetshire sent out a boat\n    Unto the shore, to ask those on the banks\n    If they were his assistants, yea or no;\n    Who answer'd him they came from Buckingham\n    Upon his party. He, mistrusting them,\n    Hois'd sail, and made his course again for Britaine.\n  KING RICHARD. March on, march on, since we are up in\n    arms;\n    If not to fight with foreign enemies,\n    Yet to beat down these rebels here at home.\n\n                          Re-enter CATESBY\n\n  CATESBY. My liege, the Duke of Buckingham is taken-\n    That is the best news. That the Earl of Richmond\n    Is with a mighty power landed at Milford\n    Is colder tidings, yet they must be told.\n  KING RICHARD. Away towards Salisbury! While we reason\n    here\n    A royal battle might be won and lost.\n    Some one take order Buckingham be brought\n    To Salisbury; the rest march on with me.\n    Flourish.                                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nLORD DERBY'S house\n\nEnter STANLEY and SIR CHRISTOPHER URSWICK\n\n  STANLEY. Sir Christopher, tell Richmond this from me:\n    That in the sty of the most deadly boar\n    My son George Stanley is frank'd up in hold;\n    If I revolt, off goes young George's head;\n    The fear of that holds off my present aid.\n    So, get thee gone; commend me to thy lord.\n    Withal say that the Queen hath heartily consented\n    He should espouse Elizabeth her daughter.\n    But tell me, where is princely Richmond now?\n  CHRISTOPHER. At Pembroke, or at Ha'rford west in Wales.\n  STANLEY. What men of name resort to him?\n  CHRISTOPHER. Sir Walter Herbert, a renowned soldier;\n  SIR Gilbert Talbot, Sir William Stanley,\n  OXFORD, redoubted Pembroke, Sir James Blunt,\n    And Rice ap Thomas, with a valiant crew;\n    And many other of great name and worth;\n    And towards London do they bend their power,\n    If by the way they be not fought withal.\n  STANLEY. Well, hie thee to thy lord; I kiss his hand;\n    My letter will resolve him of my mind.\n    Farewell.                                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\n\nSalisbury. An open place\n\nEnter the SHERIFF and guard, with BUCKINGHAM, led to execution\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Will not King Richard let me speak with\n    him?\n  SHERIFF. No, my good lord; therefore be patient.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Hastings, and Edward's children, Grey, and\n    Rivers,\n    Holy King Henry, and thy fair son Edward,\n    Vaughan, and all that have miscarried\n    By underhand corrupted foul injustice,\n    If that your moody discontented souls\n    Do through the clouds behold this present hour,\n    Even for revenge mock my destruction!\n    This is All-Souls' day, fellow, is it not?\n  SHERIFF. It is, my lord.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why, then All-Souls' day is my body's\n    doomsday.\n    This is the day which in King Edward's time\n    I wish'd might fall on me when I was found\n    False to his children and his wife's allies;\n    This is the day wherein I wish'd to fall\n    By the false faith of him whom most I trusted;\n    This, this All-Souls' day to my fearful soul\n    Is the determin'd respite of my wrongs;\n    That high All-Seer which I dallied with\n    Hath turn'd my feigned prayer on my head\n    And given in earnest what I begg'd in jest.\n    Thus doth He force the swords of wicked men\n    To turn their own points in their masters' bosoms.\n    Thus Margaret's curse falls heavy on my neck.\n    'When he' quoth she 'shall split thy heart with sorrow,\n    Remember Margaret was a prophetess.'\n    Come lead me, officers, to the block of shame;\n    Wrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nCamp near Tamworth\n\nEnter RICHMOND, OXFORD, SIR JAMES BLUNT, SIR WALTER HERBERT, and others,\nwith drum and colours\n\n  RICHMOND. Fellows in arms, and my most loving friends,\n    Bruis'd underneath the yoke of tyranny,\n    Thus far into the bowels of the land\n    Have we march'd on without impediment;\n    And here receive we from our father Stanley\n    Lines of fair comfort and encouragement.\n    The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,\n    That spoil'd your summer fields and fruitful vines,\n    Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough\n    In your embowell'd bosoms-this foul swine\n    Is now even in the centre of this isle,\n    Near to the town of Leicester, as we learn.\n    From Tamworth thither is but one day's march.\n    In God's name cheerly on, courageous friends,\n    To reap the harvest of perpetual peace\n    By this one bloody trial of sharp war.\n  OXFORD. Every man's conscience is a thousand men,\n    To fight against this guilty homicide.\n  HERBERT. I doubt not but his friends will turn to us.\n  BLUNT. He hath no friends but what are friends for fear,\n    Which in his dearest need will fly from him.\n  RICHMOND. All for our vantage. Then in God's name march.\n    True hope is swift and flies with swallow's wings;\n    Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nBosworth Field\n\nEnter KING RICHARD in arms, with NORFOLK, RATCLIFF,\nthe EARL of SURREYS and others\n\n  KING RICHARD. Here pitch our tent, even here in Bosworth\n    field.\n    My Lord of Surrey, why look you so sad?\n  SURREY. My heart is ten times lighter than my looks.\n  KING RICHARD. My Lord of Norfolk!\n  NORFOLK. Here, most gracious liege.\n  KING RICHARD. Norfolk, we must have knocks; ha! must we\n    not?\n  NORFOLK. We must both give and take, my loving lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Up With my tent! Here will I lie to-night;\n                      [Soldiers begin to set up the KING'S tent]\n    But where to-morrow? Well, all's one for that.\n    Who hath descried the number of the traitors?\n  NORFOLK. Six or seven thousand is their utmost power.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, our battalia trebles that account;\n    Besides, the King's name is a tower of strength,\n    Which they upon the adverse faction want.\n    Up with the tent! Come, noble gentlemen,\n    Let us survey the vantage of the ground.\n    Call for some men of sound direction.\n    Let's lack no discipline, make no delay;\n    For, lords, to-morrow is a busy day.                  Exeunt\n\n             Enter, on the other side of the field,\n          RICHMOND, SIR WILLIAM BRANDON, OXFORD, DORSET,\n              and others. Some pitch RICHMOND'S tent\n\n  RICHMOND. The weary sun hath made a golden set,\n    And by the bright tract of his fiery car\n    Gives token of a goodly day to-morrow.\n    Sir William Brandon, you shall bear my standard.\n    Give me some ink and paper in my tent.\n    I'll draw the form and model of our battle,\n    Limit each leader to his several charge,\n    And part in just proportion our small power.\n    My Lord of Oxford-you, Sir William Brandon-\n    And you, Sir Walter Herbert-stay with me.\n    The Earl of Pembroke keeps his regiment;\n    Good Captain Blunt, bear my good night to him,\n    And by the second hour in the morning\n    Desire the Earl to see me in my tent.\n    Yet one thing more, good Captain, do for me-\n    Where is Lord Stanley quarter'd, do you know?\n  BLUNT. Unless I have mista'en his colours much-\n    Which well I am assur'd I have not done-\n    His regiment lies half a mile at least\n    South from the mighty power of the King.\n  RICHMOND. If without peril it be possible,\n    Sweet Blunt, make some good means to speak with him\n    And give him from me this most needful note.\n  BLUNT. Upon my life, my lord, I'll undertake it;\n    And so, God give you quiet rest to-night!\n  RICHMOND. Good night, good Captain Blunt. Come,\n    gentlemen,\n    Let us consult upon to-morrow's business.\n    In to my tent; the dew is raw and cold.\n                                   [They withdraw into the tent]\n\n            Enter, to his-tent, KING RICHARD, NORFOLK,\n                       RATCLIFF, and CATESBY\n\n  KING RICHARD. What is't o'clock?\n  CATESBY. It's supper-time, my lord;\n    It's nine o'clock.\n  KING RICHARD. I will not sup to-night.\n    Give me some ink and paper.\n    What, is my beaver easier than it was?\n    And all my armour laid into my tent?\n  CATESBY. It is, my liege; and all things are in readiness.\n  KING RICHARD. Good Norfolk, hie thee to thy charge;\n    Use careful watch, choose trusty sentinels.\n  NORFOLK. I go, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Stir with the lark to-morrow, gentle Norfolk.\n  NORFOLK. I warrant you, my lord.                          Exit\n  KING RICHARD. Catesby!\n  CATESBY. My lord?\n  KING RICHARD. Send out a pursuivant-at-arms\n    To Stanley's regiment; bid him bring his power\n    Before sunrising, lest his son George fall\n    Into the blind cave of eternal night.           Exit CATESBY\n    Fill me a bowl of wine. Give me a watch.\n    Saddle white Surrey for the field to-morrow.\n    Look that my staves be sound, and not too heavy.\n    Ratcliff!\n  RATCLIFF. My lord?\n  KING RICHARD. Saw'st thou the melancholy Lord\n    Northumberland?\n  RATCLIFF. Thomas the Earl of Surrey and himself,\n    Much about cock-shut time, from troop to troop\n    Went through the army, cheering up the soldiers.\n  KING RICHARD. So, I am satisfied. Give me a bowl of wine.\n    I have not that alacrity of spirit\n    Nor cheer of mind that I was wont to have.\n    Set it down. Is ink and paper ready?\n  RATCLIFF. It is, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Bid my guard watch; leave me.\n  RATCLIFF, about the mid of night come to my tent\n    And help to arm me. Leave me, I say.\n                                   Exit RATCLIFF. RICHARD sleeps\n\n               Enter DERBY to RICHMOND in his tent;\n                        LORDS attending\n\n  DERBY. Fortune and victory sit on thy helm!\n  RICHMOND. All comfort that the dark night can afford\n    Be to thy person, noble father-in-law!\n    Tell me, how fares our loving mother?\n  DERBY. I, by attorney, bless thee from thy mother,\n    Who prays continually for Richmond's good.\n    So much for that. The silent hours steal on,\n    And flaky darkness breaks within the east.\n    In brief, for so the season bids us be,\n    Prepare thy battle early in the morning,\n    And put thy fortune to the arbitrement\n    Of bloody strokes and mortal-staring war.\n    I, as I may-that which I would I cannot-\n    With best advantage will deceive the time\n    And aid thee in this doubtful shock of arms;\n    But on thy side I may not be too forward,\n    Lest, being seen, thy brother, tender George,\n    Be executed in his father's sight.\n    Farewell; the leisure and the fearful time\n    Cuts off the ceremonious vows of love\n    And ample interchange of sweet discourse\n    Which so-long-sund'red friends should dwell upon.\n    God give us leisure for these rites of love!\n    Once more, adieu; be valiant, and speed well!\n  RICHMOND. Good lords, conduct him to his regiment.\n    I'll strive with troubled thoughts to take a nap,\n    Lest leaden slumber peise me down to-morrow\n    When I should mount with wings of victory.\n    Once more, good night, kind lords and gentlemen.\n                                         Exeunt all but RICHMOND\n    O Thou, whose captain I account myself,\n    Look on my forces with a gracious eye;\n    Put in their hands Thy bruising irons of wrath,\n    That they may crush down with a heavy fall\n    The usurping helmets of our adversaries!\n    Make us Thy ministers of chastisement,\n    That we may praise Thee in the victory!\n    To Thee I do commend my watchful soul\n    Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes.\n    Sleeping and waking, O, defend me still!            [Sleeps]\n\n            Enter the GHOST Of YOUNG PRINCE EDWARD,\n                    son to HENRY THE SIXTH\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Let me sit heavy on thy soul\n    to-morrow!\n    Think how thou stabb'dst me in my prime of youth\n    At Tewksbury; despair, therefore, and die!\n    [To RICHMOND]  Be cheerful, Richmond; for the wronged\n    souls\n    Of butcher'd princes fight in thy behalf.\n    King Henry's issue, Richmond, comforts thee.\n\n              Enter the GHOST of HENRY THE SIXTH\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  When I was mortal, my anointed\n    body\n    By thee was punched full of deadly holes.\n    Think on the Tower and me. Despair, and die.\n    Harry the Sixth bids thee despair and die.\n    [To RICHMOND]  Virtuous and holy, be thou conqueror!\n    Harry, that prophesied thou shouldst be King,\n    Doth comfort thee in thy sleep. Live and flourish!\n\n                   Enter the GHOST of CLARENCE\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Let me sit heavy in thy soul\n    to-morrow! I that was wash'd to death with fulsome wine,\n    Poor Clarence, by thy guile betray'd to death!\n    To-morrow in the battle think on me,\n    And fall thy edgeless sword. Despair and die!\n    [To RICHMOND]  Thou offspring of the house of Lancaster,\n    The wronged heirs of York do pray for thee.\n    Good angels guard thy battle! Live and flourish!\n\n           Enter the GHOSTS of RIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN\n\n  GHOST OF RIVERS.  [To RICHARD]  Let me sit heavy in thy\n    soul to-morrow,\n    Rivers that died at Pomfret! Despair and die!\n  GHOST OF GREY.  [To RICHARD]  Think upon Grey, and let\n    thy soul despair!\n  GHOST OF VAUGHAN.  [To RICHARD]  Think upon Vaughan,\n    and with guilty fear\n    Let fall thy lance. Despair and die!\n  ALL.  [To RICHMOND]  Awake, and think our wrongs in\n    Richard's bosom\n    Will conquer him. Awake and win the day.\n\n                Enter the GHOST of HASTINGS\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Bloody and guilty, guiltily awake,\n    And in a bloody battle end thy days!\n    Think on Lord Hastings. Despair and die.\n    [To RICHMOND]   Quiet untroubled soul, awake, awake!\n    Arm, fight, and conquer, for fair England's sake!\n\n         Enter the GHOSTS of the two young PRINCES\n\n  GHOSTS.  [To RICHARD]  Dream on thy cousins smothered in\n    the Tower.\n    Let us be lead within thy bosom, Richard,\n    And weigh thee down to ruin, shame, and death!\n    Thy nephews' souls bid thee despair and die.\n    [To RICHMOND]  Sleep, Richmond, sleep in peace, and\n    wake in joy;\n    Good angels guard thee from the boar's annoy!\n    Live, and beget a happy race of kings!\n    Edward's unhappy sons do bid thee flourish.\n\n          Enter the GHOST of LADY ANNE, his wife\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Richard, thy wife, that wretched\n    Anne thy wife\n    That never slept a quiet hour with thee\n    Now fills thy sleep with perturbations.\n    To-morrow in the battle think on me,\n    And fall thy edgeless sword. Despair and die.\n    [To RICHMOND]  Thou quiet soul, sleep thou a quiet sleep;\n    Dream of success and happy victory.\n    Thy adversary's wife doth pray for thee.\n\n                   Enter the GHOST of BUCKINGHAM\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  The first was I that help'd thee\n    to the crown;\n    The last was I that felt thy tyranny.\n    O, in the battle think on Buckingham,\n    And die in terror of thy guiltiness!\n    Dream on, dream on of bloody deeds and death;\n    Fainting, despair; despairing, yield thy breath!\n    [To RICHMOND]  I died for hope ere I could lend thee aid;\n    But cheer thy heart and be thou not dismay'd:\n    God and good angels fight on Richmond's side;\n    And Richard falls in height of all his pride.\n            [The GHOSTS vanish. RICHARD starts out of his dream]\n  KING RICHARD. Give me another horse. Bind up my wounds.\n    Have mercy, Jesu! Soft! I did but dream.\n    O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!\n    The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.\n    Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.\n    What do I fear? Myself? There's none else by.\n    Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.\n    Is there a murderer here? No-yes, I am.\n    Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why-\n    Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself!\n    Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good\n    That I myself have done unto myself?\n    O, no! Alas, I rather hate myself\n    For hateful deeds committed by myself!\n    I am a villain; yet I lie, I am not.\n    Fool, of thyself speak well. Fool, do not flatter.\n    My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,\n    And every tongue brings in a several tale,\n    And every tale condemns me for a villain.\n    Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree;\n    Murder, stern murder, in the dir'st degree;\n    All several sins, all us'd in each degree,\n    Throng to the bar, crying all 'Guilty! guilty!'\n    I shall despair. There is no creature loves me;\n    And if I die no soul will pity me:\n    And wherefore should they, since that I myself\n    Find in myself no pity to myself?\n    Methought the souls of all that I had murder'd\n    Came to my tent, and every one did threat\n    To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.\n\n                            Enter RATCLIFF\n\n  RATCLIFF. My lord!\n  KING RICHARD. Zounds, who is there?\n  RATCLIFF. Ratcliff, my lord; 'tis I. The early village-cock\n    Hath twice done salutation to the morn;\n    Your friends are up and buckle on their armour.\n  KING RICHARD. O Ratcliff, I have dream'd a fearful dream!\n    What think'st thou-will our friends prove all true?\n  RATCLIFF. No doubt, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. O Ratcliff, I fear, I fear.\n  RATCLIFF. Nay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows.\n  KING RICHARD By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night\n    Have stuck more terror to the soul of Richard\n    Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers\n    Armed in proof and led by shallow Richmond.\n    'Tis not yet near day. Come, go with me;\n    Under our tents I'll play the eaves-dropper,\n    To see if any mean to shrink from me.                 Exeunt\n\n          Enter the LORDS to RICHMOND sitting in his tent\n\n  LORDS. Good morrow, Richmond!\n  RICHMOND. Cry mercy, lords and watchful gentlemen,\n    That you have ta'en a tardy sluggard here.\n  LORDS. How have you slept, my lord?\n  RICHMOND. The sweetest sleep and fairest-boding dreams\n    That ever ent'red in a drowsy head\n    Have I since your departure had, my lords.\n    Methought their souls whose bodies Richard murder'd\n    Came to my tent and cried on victory.\n    I promise you my soul is very jocund\n    In the remembrance of so fair a dream.\n    How far into the morning is it, lords?\n  LORDS. Upon the stroke of four.\n  RICHMOND. Why, then 'tis time to arm and give direction.\n\n                 His ORATION to his SOLDIERS\n\n    More than I have said, loving countrymen,\n    The leisure and enforcement of the time\n    Forbids to dwell upon; yet remember this:\n    God and our good cause fight upon our side;\n    The prayers of holy saints and wronged souls,\n    Like high-rear'd bulwarks, stand before our faces;\n    Richard except, those whom we fight against\n    Had rather have us win than him they follow.\n    For what is he they follow? Truly, gentlemen,\n    A bloody tyrant and a homicide;\n    One rais'd in blood, and one in blood establish'd;\n    One that made means to come by what he hath,\n    And slaughtered those that were the means to help him;\n    A base foul stone, made precious by the foil\n    Of England's chair, where he is falsely set;\n    One that hath ever been God's enemy.\n    Then if you fight against God's enemy,\n    God will in justice ward you as his soldiers;\n    If you do sweat to put a tyrant down,\n    You sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain;\n    If you do fight against your country's foes,\n    Your country's foes shall pay your pains the hire;\n    If you do fight in safeguard of your wives,\n    Your wives shall welcome home the conquerors;\n    If you do free your children from the sword,\n    Your children's children quits it in your age.\n    Then, in the name of God and all these rights,\n    Advance your standards, draw your willing swords.\n    For me, the ransom of my bold attempt\n    Shall be this cold corpse on the earth's cold face;\n    But if I thrive, the gain of my attempt\n    The least of you shall share his part thereof.\n    Sound drums and trumpets boldly and cheerfully;\n    God and Saint George! Richmond and victory!           Exeunt\n\n           Re-enter KING RICHARD, RATCLIFF, attendants,\n                         and forces\n\n  KING RICHARD. What said Northumberland as touching\n    Richmond?\n  RATCLIFF. That he was never trained up in arms.\n  KING RICHARD. He said the truth; and what said Surrey\n    then?\n  RATCLIFF. He smil'd, and said 'The better for our purpose.'\n  KING He was in the right; and so indeed it is.\n                                                 [Clock strikes]\n    Tell the clock there. Give me a calendar.\n    Who saw the sun to-day?\n  RATCLIFF. Not I, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Then he disdains to shine; for by the book\n    He should have brav'd the east an hour ago.\n    A black day will it be to somebody.\n    Ratcliff!\n  RATCLIFF. My lord?\n  KING RICHARD. The sun will not be seen to-day;\n    The sky doth frown and lour upon our army.\n    I would these dewy tears were from the ground.\n    Not shine to-day! Why, what is that to me\n    More than to Richmond? For the selfsame heaven\n    That frowns on me looks sadly upon him.\n\n                       Enter NORFOLK\n\n  NORFOLK. Arm, arm, my lord; the foe vaunts in the field.\n  KING RICHARD. Come, bustle, bustle; caparison my horse;\n    Call up Lord Stanley, bid him bring his power.\n    I will lead forth my soldiers to the plain,\n    And thus my battle shall be ordered:\n    My foreward shall be drawn out all in length,\n    Consisting equally of horse and foot;\n    Our archers shall be placed in the midst.\n    John Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Earl of Surrey,\n    Shall have the leading of this foot and horse.\n    They thus directed, we will follow\n    In the main battle, whose puissance on either side\n    Shall be well winged with our chiefest horse.\n    This, and Saint George to boot! What think'st thou,\n    Norfolk?\n  NORFOLK. A good direction, warlike sovereign.\n    This found I on my tent this morning.\n                                        [He sheweth him a paper]\n  KING RICHARD.                                          [Reads]\n    'Jockey of Norfolk, be not so bold,\n    For Dickon thy master is bought and sold.'\n    A thing devised by the enemy.\n    Go, gentlemen, every man unto his charge.\n    Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls;\n    Conscience is but a word that cowards use,\n    Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe.\n    Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.\n    March on, join bravely, let us to it pell-mell;\n    If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.\n\n                      His ORATION to his ARMY\n\n    What shall I say more than I have inferr'd?\n    Remember whom you are to cope withal-\n    A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways,\n    A scum of Britaines, and base lackey peasants,\n    Whom their o'er-cloyed country vomits forth\n    To desperate adventures and assur'd destruction.\n    You sleeping safe, they bring to you unrest;\n    You having lands, and bless'd with beauteous wives,\n    They would restrain the one, distain the other.\n    And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow,\n    Long kept in Britaine at our mother's cost?\n    A milk-sop, one that never in his life\n    Felt so much cold as over shoes in snow?\n    Let's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again;\n    Lash hence these over-weening rags of France,\n    These famish'd beggars, weary of their lives;\n    Who, but for dreaming on this fond exploit,\n    For want of means, poor rats, had hang'd themselves.\n    If we be conquered, let men conquer us,\n    And not these bastard Britaines, whom our fathers\n    Have in their own land beaten, bobb'd, and thump'd,\n    And, in record, left them the heirs of shame.\n    Shall these enjoy our lands? lie with our wives,\n    Ravish our daughters?  [Drum afar off]  Hark! I hear their\n    drum.\n    Fight, gentlemen of England! Fight, bold yeomen!\n    Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!\n    Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood;\n    Amaze the welkin with your broken staves!\n\n                        Enter a MESSENGER\n\n    What says Lord Stanley? Will he bring his power?\n  MESSENGER. My lord, he doth deny to come.\n  KING RICHARD. Off with his son George's head!\n  NORFOLK. My lord, the enemy is pass'd the marsh.\n    After the battle let George Stanley die.\n  KING RICHARD. A thousand hearts are great within my\n    bosom.\n    Advance our standards, set upon our foes;\n    Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George,\n    Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!\n    Upon them! Victory sits on our helms.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nAnother part of the field\n\nAlarum; excursions. Enter NORFOLK and forces; to him CATESBY\n\n  CATESBY. Rescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!\n    The King enacts more wonders than a man,\n    Daring an opposite to every danger.\n    His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,\n    Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death.\n    Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost.\n\n                     Alarums. Enter KING RICHARD\n\n  KING RICHARD. A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!\n  CATESBY. Withdraw, my lord! I'll help you to a horse.\n  KING RICHARD. Slave, I have set my life upon a cast\n    And I Will stand the hazard of the die.\n    I think there be six Richmonds in the field;\n    Five have I slain to-day instead of him.\n    A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nAnother part of the field\n\nAlarum. Enter RICHARD and RICHMOND; they fight; RICHARD is slain.\nRetreat and flourish. Enter RICHMOND, DERBY bearing the crown,\nwith other LORDS\n\n  RICHMOND. God and your arms be prais'd, victorious friends;\n    The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.\n  DERBY. Courageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee!\n    Lo, here, this long-usurped royalty\n    From the dead temples of this bloody wretch\n    Have I pluck'd off, to grace thy brows withal.\n    Wear it, enjoy it, and make much of it.\n  RICHMOND. Great God of heaven, say Amen to all!\n    But, teLL me is young George Stanley living.\n  DERBY. He is, my lord, and safe in Leicester town,\n    Whither, if it please you, we may now withdraw us.\n  RICHMOND. What men of name are slain on either side?\n  DERBY. John Duke of Norfolk, Walter Lord Ferrers,\n    Sir Robert Brakenbury, and Sir William Brandon.\n  RICHMOND. Inter their bodies as becomes their births.\n    Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled\n    That in submission will return to us.\n    And then, as we have ta'en the sacrament,\n    We will unite the white rose and the red.\n    Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction,\n    That long have frown'd upon their emnity!\n    What traitor hears me, and says not Amen?\n    England hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself;\n    The brother blindly shed the brother's blood,\n    The father rashly slaughter'd his own son,\n    The son, compell'd, been butcher to the sire;\n    All this divided York and Lancaster,\n    Divided in their dire division,\n    O, now let Richmond and Elizabeth,\n    The true succeeders of each royal house,\n    By God's fair ordinance conjoin together!\n    And let their heirs, God, if thy will be so,\n    Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac'd peace,\n    With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days!\n    Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,\n    That would reduce these bloody days again\n    And make poor England weep in streams of blood!\n    Let them not live to taste this land's increase\n    That would with treason wound this fair land's peace!\n    Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again-\n    That she may long live here, God say Amen!            Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1595\n\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  Chorus.\n\n  Escalus, Prince of Verona.\n  Paris, a young Count, kinsman to the Prince.\n  Montague, heads of two houses at variance with each other.\n  Capulet, heads of two houses at variance with each other.\n  An old Man, of the Capulet family.\n  Romeo, son to Montague.\n  Tybalt, nephew to Lady Capulet.\n  Mercutio, kinsman to the Prince and friend to Romeo.\n  Benvolio, nephew to Montague, and friend to Romeo\n  Tybalt, nephew to Lady Capulet.\n  Friar Laurence, Franciscan.\n  Friar John, Franciscan.\n  Balthasar, servant to Romeo.\n  Abram, servant to Montague.\n  Sampson, servant to Capulet.\n  Gregory, servant to Capulet.\n  Peter, servant to Juliet's nurse.\n  An Apothecary.\n  Three Musicians.\n  An Officer.\n\n  Lady Montague, wife to Montague.\n  Lady Capulet, wife to Capulet.\n  Juliet, daughter to Capulet.\n  Nurse to Juliet.\n\n  Citizens of Verona; Gentlemen and Gentlewomen of both houses;\n    Maskers, Torchbearers, Pages, Guards, Watchmen, Servants, and\n    Attendants.\n\n                            SCENE.--Verona; Mantua.\n\n\n\n                        THE PROLOGUE\n\n                        Enter Chorus.\n\n  Chor. Two households, both alike in dignity,\n    In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,\n    From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,\n    Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.\n    From forth the fatal loins of these two foes\n    A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;\n    Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows\n    Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.\n    The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,\n    And the continuance of their parents' rage,\n    Which, but their children's end, naught could remove,\n    Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;\n    The which if you with patient ears attend,\n    What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.\n                                                         [Exit.]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT I. Scene I.\nVerona. A public place.\n\nEnter Sampson and Gregory (with swords and bucklers) of the house of Capulet.\n\n  Samp. Gregory, on my word, we'll not carry coals.\n  Greg. No, for then we should be colliers.\n  Samp. I mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw.\n  Greg. Ay, while you live, draw your neck out of collar.\n  Samp. I strike quickly, being moved.\n  Greg. But thou art not quickly moved to strike.\n  Samp. A dog of the house of Montague moves me.\n  Greg. To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to stand.\n    Therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away.\n  Samp. A dog of that house shall move me to stand. I will take the\n    wall of any man or maid of Montague's.\n  Greg. That shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest goes to the\n    wall.\n  Samp. 'Tis true; and therefore women, being the weaker vessels, are\n    ever thrust to the wall. Therefore I will push Montague's men\n    from the wall and thrust his maids to the wall.\n  Greg. The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.\n  Samp. 'Tis all one. I will show myself a tyrant. When I have fought\n    with the men, I will be cruel with the maids- I will cut off\n    their heads.\n  Greg. The heads of the maids?\n  Samp. Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads.\n    Take it in what sense thou wilt.\n  Greg. They must take it in sense that feel it.\n  Samp. Me they shall feel while I am able to stand; and 'tis known I\n    am a pretty piece of flesh.\n  Greg. 'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst been\n    poor-John. Draw thy tool! Here comes two of the house of\n    Montagues.\n\n           Enter two other Servingmen [Abram and Balthasar].\n\n  Samp. My naked weapon is out. Quarrel! I will back thee.\n  Greg. How? turn thy back and run?\n  Samp. Fear me not.\n  Greg. No, marry. I fear thee!\n  Samp. Let us take the law of our sides; let them begin.\n  Greg. I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list.\n  Samp. Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them; which is\n    disgrace to them, if they bear it.\n  Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?\n  Samp. I do bite my thumb, sir.\n  Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?\n  Samp. [aside to Gregory] Is the law of our side if I say ay?\n  Greg. [aside to Sampson] No.\n  Samp. No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir; but I bite my\n    thumb, sir.\n  Greg. Do you quarrel, sir?\n  Abr. Quarrel, sir? No, sir.\n  Samp. But if you do, sir, am for you. I serve as good a man as you.\n  Abr. No better.\n  Samp. Well, sir.\n\n                        Enter Benvolio.\n\n  Greg. [aside to Sampson] Say 'better.' Here comes one of my\n    master's kinsmen.\n  Samp. Yes, better, sir.\n  Abr. You lie.\n  Samp. Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.\n                                                     They fight.\n  Ben. Part, fools! [Beats down their swords.]\n    Put up your swords. You know not what you do.\n\n                          Enter Tybalt.\n\n  Tyb. What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?\n    Turn thee Benvolio! look upon thy death.\n  Ben. I do but keep the peace. Put up thy sword,\n    Or manage it to part these men with me.\n  Tyb. What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word\n    As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.\n    Have at thee, coward!                            They fight.\n\n     Enter an officer, and three or four Citizens with clubs or\n                          partisans.\n\n  Officer. Clubs, bills, and partisans! Strike! beat them down!\n  Citizens. Down with the Capulets! Down with the Montagues!\n\n           Enter Old Capulet in his gown, and his Wife.\n\n  Cap. What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!\n  Wife. A crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a sword?\n  Cap. My sword, I say! Old Montague is come\n    And flourishes his blade in spite of me.\n\n                 Enter Old Montague and his Wife.\n\n  Mon. Thou villain Capulet!- Hold me not, let me go.\n  M. Wife. Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe.\n\n                Enter Prince Escalus, with his Train.\n\n  Prince. Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,\n    Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel-\n    Will they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts,\n    That quench the fire of your pernicious rage\n    With purple fountains issuing from your veins!\n    On pain of torture, from those bloody hands\n    Throw your mistempered weapons to the ground\n    And hear the sentence of your moved prince.\n    Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word\n    By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,\n    Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets\n    And made Verona's ancient citizens\n    Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments\n    To wield old partisans, in hands as old,\n    Cank'red with peace, to part your cank'red hate.\n    If ever you disturb our streets again,\n    Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.\n    For this time all the rest depart away.\n    You, Capulet, shall go along with me;\n    And, Montague, come you this afternoon,\n    To know our farther pleasure in this case,\n    To old Freetown, our common judgment place.\n    Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.\n              Exeunt [all but Montague, his Wife, and Benvolio].\n  Mon. Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?\n    Speak, nephew, were you by when it began?\n  Ben. Here were the servants of your adversary\n    And yours, close fighting ere I did approach.\n    I drew to part them. In the instant came\n    The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepar'd;\n    Which, as he breath'd defiance to my ears,\n    He swung about his head and cut the winds,\n    Who, nothing hurt withal, hiss'd him in scorn.\n    While we were interchanging thrusts and blows,\n    Came more and more, and fought on part and part,\n    Till the Prince came, who parted either part.\n  M. Wife. O, where is Romeo? Saw you him to-day?\n    Right glad I am he was not at this fray.\n  Ben. Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun\n    Peer'd forth the golden window of the East,\n    A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad;\n    Where, underneath the grove of sycamore\n    That westward rooteth from the city's side,\n    So early walking did I see your son.\n    Towards him I made; but he was ware of me\n    And stole into the covert of the wood.\n    I- measuring his affections by my own,\n    Which then most sought where most might not be found,\n    Being one too many by my weary self-\n    Pursu'd my humour, not Pursuing his,\n    And gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from me.\n  Mon. Many a morning hath he there been seen,\n    With tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew,\n    Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;\n    But all so soon as the all-cheering sun\n    Should in the farthest East bean to draw\n    The shady curtains from Aurora's bed,\n    Away from light steals home my heavy son\n    And private in his chamber pens himself,\n    Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight\n    And makes himself an artificial night.\n    Black and portentous must this humour prove\n    Unless good counsel may the cause remove.\n  Ben. My noble uncle, do you know the cause?\n  Mon. I neither know it nor can learn of him\n  Ben. Have you importun'd him by any means?\n  Mon. Both by myself and many other friend;\n    But he, his own affections' counsellor,\n    Is to himself- I will not say how true-\n    But to himself so secret and so close,\n    So far from sounding and discovery,\n    As is the bud bit with an envious worm\n    Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air\n    Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.\n    Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow,\n    We would as willingly give cure as know.\n\n                       Enter Romeo.\n\n  Ben. See, where he comes. So please you step aside,\n    I'll know his grievance, or be much denied.\n  Mon. I would thou wert so happy by thy stay\n    To hear true shrift. Come, madam, let's away,\n                                     Exeunt [Montague and Wife].\n  Ben. Good morrow, cousin.\n  Rom. Is the day so young?\n  Ben. But new struck nine.\n  Rom. Ay me! sad hours seem long.\n    Was that my father that went hence so fast?\n  Ben. It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?\n  Rom. Not having that which having makes them short.\n  Ben. In love?\n  Rom. Out-\n  Ben. Of love?\n  Rom. Out of her favour where I am in love.\n  Ben. Alas that love, so gentle in his view,\n    Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!\n  Rom. Alas that love, whose view is muffled still,\n    Should without eyes see pathways to his will!\n    Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?\n    Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.\n    Here's much to do with hate, but more with love.\n    Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!\n    O anything, of nothing first create!\n    O heavy lightness! serious vanity!\n    Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!\n    Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!\n    Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is\n    This love feel I, that feel no love in this.\n    Dost thou not laugh?\n  Ben. No, coz, I rather weep.\n  Rom. Good heart, at what?\n  Ben. At thy good heart's oppression.\n  Rom. Why, such is love's transgression.\n    Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,\n    Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest\n    With more of thine. This love that thou hast shown\n    Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.\n    Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs;\n    Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;\n    Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears.\n    What is it else? A madness most discreet,\n    A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.\n    Farewell, my coz.\n  Ben. Soft! I will go along.\n    An if you leave me so, you do me wrong.\n  Rom. Tut! I have lost myself; I am not here:\n    This is not Romeo, he's some other where.\n  Ben. Tell me in sadness, who is that you love?\n  Rom. What, shall I groan and tell thee?\n  Ben. Groan? Why, no;\n    But sadly tell me who.\n  Rom. Bid a sick man in sadness make his will.\n    Ah, word ill urg'd to one that is so ill!\n    In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.\n  Ben. I aim'd so near when I suppos'd you lov'd.\n  Rom. A right good markman! And she's fair I love.\n  Ben. A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.\n  Rom. Well, in that hit you miss. She'll not be hit\n    With Cupid's arrow. She hath Dian's wit,\n    And, in strong proof of chastity well arm'd,\n    From Love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd.\n    She will not stay the siege of loving terms,\n    Nor bide th' encounter of assailing eyes,\n    Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold.\n    O, she's rich in beauty; only poor\n    That, when she dies, with beauty dies her store.\n  Ben. Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?\n  Rom. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;\n    For beauty, starv'd with her severity,\n    Cuts beauty off from all posterity.\n    She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,\n    To merit bliss by making me despair.\n    She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow\n    Do I live dead that live to tell it now.\n  Ben. Be rul'd by me: forget to think of her.\n  Rom. O, teach me how I should forget to think!\n  Ben. By giving liberty unto thine eyes.\n    Examine other beauties.\n  Rom. 'Tis the way\n    To call hers (exquisite) in question more.\n    These happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows,\n    Being black puts us in mind they hide the fair.\n    He that is strucken blind cannot forget\n    The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.\n    Show me a mistress that is passing fair,\n    What doth her beauty serve but as a note\n    Where I may read who pass'd that passing fair?\n    Farewell. Thou canst not teach me to forget.\n  Ben. I'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.      Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nA Street.\n\nEnter Capulet, County Paris, and [Servant] -the Clown.\n\n  Cap. But Montague is bound as well as I,\n    In penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think,\n    For men so old as we to keep the peace.\n  Par. Of honourable reckoning are you both,\n    And pity 'tis you liv'd at odds so long.\n    But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?\n  Cap. But saying o'er what I have said before:\n    My child is yet a stranger in the world,\n    She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;\n    Let two more summers wither in their pride\n    Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.\n  Par. Younger than she are happy mothers made.\n  Cap. And too soon marr'd are those so early made.\n    The earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she;\n    She is the hopeful lady of my earth.\n    But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart;\n    My will to her consent is but a part.\n    An she agree, within her scope of choice\n    Lies my consent and fair according voice.\n    This night I hold an old accustom'd feast,\n    Whereto I have invited many a guest,\n    Such as I love; and you among the store,\n    One more, most welcome, makes my number more.\n    At my poor house look to behold this night\n    Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light.\n    Such comfort as do lusty young men feel\n    When well apparell'd April on the heel\n    Of limping Winter treads, even such delight\n    Among fresh female buds shall you this night\n    Inherit at my house. Hear all, all see,\n    And like her most whose merit most shall be;\n    Which, on more view of many, mine, being one,\n    May stand in number, though in reck'ning none.\n    Come, go with me. [To Servant, giving him a paper] Go, sirrah,\n      trudge about\n    Through fair Verona; find those persons out\n    Whose names are written there, and to them say,\n    My house and welcome on their pleasure stay-\n                                     Exeunt [Capulet and Paris].\n  Serv. Find them out whose names are written here? It is written\n    that the shoemaker should meddle with his yard and the tailor\n    with his last, the fisher with his pencil and the painter with\n    his nets; but I am sent to find those persons whose names are\n    here writ, and can never find what names the writing person hath\n    here writ. I must to the learned. In good time!\n\n                   Enter Benvolio and Romeo.\n\n  Ben. Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning;\n    One pain is lessoned by another's anguish;\n    Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;\n    One desperate grief cures with another's languish.\n    Take thou some new infection to thy eye,\n    And the rank poison of the old will die.\n  Rom. Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.\n  Ben. For what, I pray thee?\n  Rom. For your broken shin.\n  Ben. Why, Romeo, art thou mad?\n  Rom. Not mad, but bound more than a madman is;\n    Shut up in Prison, kept without my food,\n    Whipp'd and tormented and- God-den, good fellow.\n  Serv. God gi' go-den. I pray, sir, can you read?\n  Rom. Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.\n  Serv. Perhaps you have learned it without book. But I pray, can you\n    read anything you see?\n  Rom. Ay, If I know the letters and the language.\n  Serv. Ye say honestly. Rest you merry!\n  Rom. Stay, fellow; I can read.                       He reads.\n\n      'Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;\n      County Anselmo and his beauteous sisters;\n      The lady widow of Vitruvio;\n      Signior Placentio and His lovely nieces;\n      Mercutio and his brother Valentine;\n      Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters;\n      My fair niece Rosaline and Livia;\n      Signior Valentio and His cousin Tybalt;\n      Lucio and the lively Helena.'\n\n    [Gives back the paper.] A fair assembly. Whither should they come?\n  Serv. Up.\n  Rom. Whither?\n  Serv. To supper, to our house.\n  Rom. Whose house?\n  Serv. My master's.\n  Rom. Indeed I should have ask'd you that before.\n  Serv. Now I'll tell you without asking. My master is the great rich\n    Capulet; and if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray come\n    and crush a cup of wine. Rest you merry!               Exit.\n  Ben. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's\n    Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lov'st;\n    With all the admired beauties of Verona.\n    Go thither, and with unattainted eye\n    Compare her face with some that I shall show,\n    And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.\n  Rom. When the devout religion of mine eye\n    Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;\n    And these, who, often drown'd, could never die,\n    Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!\n    One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sun\n    Ne'er saw her match since first the world begun.\n  Ben. Tut! you saw her fair, none else being by,\n    Herself pois'd with herself in either eye;\n    But in that crystal scales let there be weigh'd\n    Your lady's love against some other maid\n    That I will show you shining at this feast,\n    And she shall scant show well that now seems best.\n  Rom. I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,\n    But to rejoice in splendour of my own.              [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nCapulet's house.\n\nEnter Capulet's Wife, and Nurse.\n\n  Wife. Nurse, where's my daughter? Call her forth to me.\n  Nurse. Now, by my maidenhead at twelve year old,\n    I bade her come. What, lamb! what ladybird!\n    God forbid! Where's this girl? What, Juliet!\n\n                         Enter Juliet.\n\n  Jul. How now? Who calls?\n  Nurse. Your mother.\n  Jul. Madam, I am here.\n    What is your will?\n  Wife. This is the matter- Nurse, give leave awhile,\n    We must talk in secret. Nurse, come back again;\n    I have rememb'red me, thou's hear our counsel.\n    Thou knowest my daughter's of a pretty age.\n  Nurse. Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.\n  Wife. She's not fourteen.\n  Nurse. I'll lay fourteen of my teeth-\n    And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four-\n    She is not fourteen. How long is it now\n    To Lammastide?\n  Wife. A fortnight and odd days.\n  Nurse. Even or odd, of all days in the year,\n    Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen.\n    Susan and she (God rest all Christian souls!)\n    Were of an age. Well, Susan is with God;\n    She was too good for me. But, as I said,\n    On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen;\n    That shall she, marry; I remember it well.\n    'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;\n    And she was wean'd (I never shall forget it),\n    Of all the days of the year, upon that day;\n    For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,\n    Sitting in the sun under the dovehouse wall.\n    My lord and you were then at Mantua.\n    Nay, I do bear a brain. But, as I said,\n    When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple\n    Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,\n    To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!\n    Shake, quoth the dovehouse! 'Twas no need, I trow,\n    To bid me trudge.\n    And since that time it is eleven years,\n    For then she could stand high-lone; nay, by th' rood,\n    She could have run and waddled all about;\n    For even the day before, she broke her brow;\n    And then my husband (God be with his soul!\n    'A was a merry man) took up the child.\n    'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?\n    Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;\n    Wilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidam,\n    The pretty wretch left crying, and said 'Ay.'\n    To see now how a jest shall come about!\n    I warrant, an I should live a thousand yeas,\n    I never should forget it. 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he,\n    And, pretty fool, it stinted, and said 'Ay.'\n  Wife. Enough of this. I pray thee hold thy peace.\n  Nurse. Yes, madam. Yet I cannot choose but laugh\n    To think it should leave crying and say 'Ay.'\n    And yet, I warrant, it bad upon it brow\n    A bump as big as a young cock'rel's stone;\n    A perilous knock; and it cried bitterly.\n    'Yea,' quoth my husband, 'fall'st upon thy face?\n    Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;\n    Wilt thou not, Jule?' It stinted, and said 'Ay.'\n  Jul. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.\n  Nurse. Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!\n    Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nurs'd.\n    An I might live to see thee married once, I have my wish.\n  Wife. Marry, that 'marry' is the very theme\n    I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,\n    How stands your disposition to be married?\n  Jul. It is an honour that I dream not of.\n  Nurse. An honour? Were not I thine only nurse,\n    I would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.\n  Wife. Well, think of marriage now. Younger than you,\n    Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,\n    Are made already mothers. By my count,\n    I was your mother much upon these years\n    That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:\n    The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.\n  Nurse. A man, young lady! lady, such a man\n    As all the world- why he's a man of wax.\n  Wife. Verona's summer hath not such a flower.\n  Nurse. Nay, he's a flower, in faith- a very flower.\n  Wife. What say you? Can you love the gentleman?\n    This night you shall behold him at our feast.\n    Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,\n    And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;\n    Examine every married lineament,\n    And see how one another lends content;\n    And what obscur'd in this fair volume lies\n    Find written in the margent of his eyes,\n    This precious book of love, this unbound lover,\n    To beautify him only lacks a cover.\n    The fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride\n    For fair without the fair within to hide.\n    That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,\n    That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;\n    So shall you share all that he doth possess,\n    By having him making yourself no less.\n  Nurse. No less? Nay, bigger! Women grow by men\n  Wife. Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?\n  Jul. I'll look to like, if looking liking move;\n    But no more deep will I endart mine eye\n    Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.\n\n                        Enter Servingman.\n\n  Serv. Madam, the guests are come, supper serv'd up, you call'd, my\n    young lady ask'd for, the nurse curs'd in the pantry, and\n    everything in extremity. I must hence to wait. I beseech you\n    follow straight.\n  Wife. We follow thee.                       Exit [Servingman].\n    Juliet, the County stays.\n  Nurse. Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nA street.\n\nEnter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six other Maskers; Torchbearers.\n\n  Rom. What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?\n    Or shall we on without apology?\n  Ben. The date is out of such prolixity.\n    We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf,\n    Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,\n    Scaring the ladies like a crowkeeper;\n    Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke\n    After the prompter, for our entrance;\n    But, let them measure us by what they will,\n    We'll measure them a measure, and be gone.\n  Rom. Give me a torch. I am not for this ambling.\n    Being but heavy, I will bear the light.\n  Mer. Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.\n  Rom. Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes\n    With nimble soles; I have a soul of lead\n    So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.\n  Mer. You are a lover. Borrow Cupid's wings\n    And soar with them above a common bound.\n  Rom. I am too sore enpierced with his shaft\n    To soar with his light feathers; and so bound\n    I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe.\n    Under love's heavy burthen do I sink.\n  Mer. And, to sink in it, should you burthen love-\n    Too great oppression for a tender thing.\n  Rom. Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,\n    Too rude, too boist'rous, and it pricks like thorn.\n  Mer. If love be rough with you, be rough with love.\n    Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.\n    Give me a case to put my visage in.\n    A visor for a visor! What care I\n    What curious eye doth quote deformities?\n    Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me.\n  Ben. Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in\n    But every man betake him to his legs.\n  Rom. A torch for me! Let wantons light of heart\n    Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels;\n    For I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase,\n    I'll be a candle-holder and look on;\n    The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.\n  Mer. Tut! dun's the mouse, the constable's own word!\n    If thou art Dun, we'll draw thee from the mire\n    Of this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st\n    Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!\n  Rom. Nay, that's not so.\n  Mer. I mean, sir, in delay\n    We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.\n    Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits\n    Five times in that ere once in our five wits.\n  Rom. And we mean well, in going to this masque;\n    But 'tis no wit to go.\n  Mer. Why, may one ask?\n  Rom. I dreamt a dream to-night.\n  Mer. And so did I.\n  Rom. Well, what was yours?\n  Mer. That dreamers often lie.\n  Rom. In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.\n  Mer. O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.\n    She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes\n    In shape no bigger than an agate stone\n    On the forefinger of an alderman,\n    Drawn with a team of little atomies\n    Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;\n    Her wagon spokes made of long spinners' legs,\n    The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;\n    Her traces, of the smallest spider's web;\n    Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams;\n    Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;\n    Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,\n    Not half so big as a round little worm\n    Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;\n    Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,\n    Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,\n    Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.\n    And in this state she 'gallops night by night\n    Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;\n    O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on cursies straight;\n    O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;\n    O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,\n    Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,\n    Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.\n    Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,\n    And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;\n    And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail\n    Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,\n    Then dreams he of another benefice.\n    Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,\n    And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,\n    Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,\n    Of healths five fadom deep; and then anon\n    Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,\n    And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two\n    And sleeps again. This is that very Mab\n    That plats the manes of horses in the night\n    And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish, hairs,\n    Which once untangled much misfortune bodes\n    This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,\n    That presses them and learns them first to bear,\n    Making them women of good carriage.\n    This is she-\n  Rom. Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!\n    Thou talk'st of nothing.\n  Mer. True, I talk of dreams;\n    Which are the children of an idle brain,\n    Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;\n    Which is as thin of substance as the air,\n    And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes\n    Even now the frozen bosom of the North\n    And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,\n    Turning his face to the dew-dropping South.\n  Ben. This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves.\n    Supper is done, and we shall come too late.\n  Rom. I fear, too early; for my mind misgives\n    Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,\n    Shall bitterly begin his fearful date\n    With this night's revels and expire the term\n    Of a despised life, clos'd in my breast,\n    By some vile forfeit of untimely death.\n    But he that hath the steerage of my course\n    Direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen!\n  Ben. Strike, drum.\n                           They march about the stage. [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nCapulet's house.\n\nServingmen come forth with napkins.\n\n  1. Serv. Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away?\n    He shift a trencher! he scrape a trencher!\n  2. Serv. When good manners shall lie all in one or two men's hands,\n    and they unwash'd too, 'tis a foul thing.\n  1. Serv. Away with the join-stools, remove the court-cubbert, look\n    to the plate. Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane and, as\n    thou loves me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell.\n    Anthony, and Potpan!\n  2. Serv. Ay, boy, ready.\n  1. Serv. You are look'd for and call'd for, ask'd for and sought\n    for, in the great chamber.\n  3. Serv. We cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys!\n    Be brisk awhile, and the longer liver take all.      Exeunt.\n\n    Enter the Maskers, Enter, [with Servants,] Capulet, his Wife,\n              Juliet, Tybalt, and all the Guests\n               and Gentlewomen to the Maskers.\n\n  Cap. Welcome, gentlemen! Ladies that have their toes\n    Unplagu'd with corns will have a bout with you.\n    Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all\n    Will now deny to dance? She that makes dainty,\n    She I'll swear hath corns. Am I come near ye now?\n    Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day\n    That I have worn a visor and could tell\n    A whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,\n    Such as would please. 'Tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone!\n    You are welcome, gentlemen! Come, musicians, play.\n    A hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls.\n                                    Music plays, and they dance.\n    More light, you knaves! and turn the tables up,\n    And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.\n    Ah, sirrah, this unlook'd-for sport comes well.\n    Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet,\n    For you and I are past our dancing days.\n    How long is't now since last yourself and I\n    Were in a mask?\n  2. Cap. By'r Lady, thirty years.\n  Cap. What, man? 'Tis not so much, 'tis not so much!\n    'Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio,\n    Come Pentecost as quickly as it will,\n    Some five-and-twenty years, and then we mask'd.\n  2. Cap. 'Tis more, 'tis more! His son is elder, sir;\n    His son is thirty.\n  Cap. Will you tell me that?\n    His son was but a ward two years ago.\n  Rom. [to a Servingman] What lady's that, which doth enrich the hand\n    Of yonder knight?\n  Serv. I know not, sir.\n  Rom. O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!\n    It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night\n    Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear-\n    Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!\n    So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows\n    As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.\n    The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand\n    And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.\n    Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!\n    For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.\n  Tyb. This, by his voice, should be a Montague.\n    Fetch me my rapier, boy. What, dares the slave\n    Come hither, cover'd with an antic face,\n    To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?\n    Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,\n    To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.\n  Cap. Why, how now, kinsman? Wherefore storm you so?\n  Tyb. Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe;\n    A villain, that is hither come in spite\n    To scorn at our solemnity this night.\n  Cap. Young Romeo is it?\n  Tyb. 'Tis he, that villain Romeo.\n  Cap. Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone.\n    'A bears him like a portly gentleman,\n    And, to say truth, Verona brags of him\n    To be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth.\n    I would not for the wealth of all this town\n    Here in my house do him disparagement.\n    Therefore be patient, take no note of him.\n    It is my will; the which if thou respect,\n    Show a fair presence and put off these frowns,\n    An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.\n  Tyb. It fits when such a villain is a guest.\n    I'll not endure him.\n  Cap. He shall be endur'd.\n    What, goodman boy? I say he shall. Go to!\n    Am I the master here, or you? Go to!\n    You'll not endure him? God shall mend my soul!\n    You'll make a mutiny among my guests!\n    You will set cock-a-hoop! you'll be the man!\n  Tyb. Why, uncle, 'tis a shame.\n  Cap. Go to, go to!\n    You are a saucy boy. Is't so, indeed?\n    This trick may chance to scathe you. I know what.\n    You must contrary me! Marry, 'tis time.-\n    Well said, my hearts!- You are a princox- go!\n    Be quiet, or- More light, more light!- For shame!\n    I'll make you quiet; what!- Cheerly, my hearts!\n  Tyb. Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting\n    Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.\n    I will withdraw; but this intrusion shall,\n    Now seeming sweet, convert to bitt'rest gall.          Exit.\n  Rom. If I profane with my unworthiest hand\n    This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:\n    My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand\n    To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.\n  Jul. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,\n    Which mannerly devotion shows in this;\n    For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,\n    And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.\n  Rom. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?\n  Jul. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in pray'r.\n  Rom. O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do!\n    They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.\n  Jul. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.\n  Rom. Then move not while my prayer's effect I take.\n    Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purg'd.  [Kisses her.]\n  Jul. Then have my lips the sin that they have took.\n  Rom. Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg'd!\n    Give me my sin again.                          [Kisses her.]\n  Jul. You kiss by th' book.\n  Nurse. Madam, your mother craves a word with you.\n  Rom. What is her mother?\n  Nurse. Marry, bachelor,\n    Her mother is the lady of the house.\n    And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous.\n    I nurs'd her daughter that you talk'd withal.\n    I tell you, he that can lay hold of her\n    Shall have the chinks.\n  Rom. Is she a Capulet?\n    O dear account! my life is my foe's debt.\n  Ben. Away, be gone; the sport is at the best.\n  Rom. Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest.\n  Cap. Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone;\n    We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.\n    Is it e'en so? Why then, I thank you all.\n    I thank you, honest gentlemen. Good night.\n    More torches here! [Exeunt Maskers.] Come on then, let's to bed.\n    Ah, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late;\n    I'll to my rest.\n                              Exeunt [all but Juliet and Nurse].\n  Jul. Come hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman?\n  Nurse. The son and heir of old Tiberio.\n  Jul. What's he that now is going out of door?\n  Nurse. Marry, that, I think, be young Petruchio.\n  Jul. What's he that follows there, that would not dance?\n  Nurse. I know not.\n  Jul. Go ask his name.- If he be married,\n    My grave is like to be my wedding bed.\n  Nurse. His name is Romeo, and a Montague,\n    The only son of your great enemy.\n  Jul. My only love, sprung from my only hate!\n    Too early seen unknown, and known too late!\n    Prodigious birth of love it is to me\n    That I must love a loathed enemy.\n  Nurse. What's this? what's this?\n  Jul. A rhyme I learnt even now\n    Of one I danc'd withal.\n                                     One calls within, 'Juliet.'\n  Nurse. Anon, anon!\n    Come, let's away; the strangers all are gone.        Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPROLOGUE\n\nEnter Chorus.\n\n  Chor. Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie,\n    And young affection gapes to be his heir;\n    That fair for which love groan'd for and would die,\n    With tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair.\n    Now Romeo is belov'd, and loves again,\n    Alike bewitched by the charm of looks;\n    But to his foe suppos'd he must complain,\n    And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks.\n    Being held a foe, he may not have access\n    To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear,\n    And she as much in love, her means much less\n    To meet her new beloved anywhere;\n    But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,\n    Temp'ring extremities with extreme sweet.\nExit.\n\n\n\n\nACT II. Scene I.\nA lane by the wall of Capulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Romeo alone.\n\n  Rom. Can I go forward when my heart is here?\n    Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.\n                     [Climbs the wall and leaps down within it.]\n\n                   Enter Benvolio with Mercutio.\n\n  Ben. Romeo! my cousin Romeo! Romeo!\n  Mer. He is wise,\n    And, on my life, hath stol'n him home to bed.\n  Ben. He ran this way, and leapt this orchard wall.\n    Call, good Mercutio.\n  Mer. Nay, I'll conjure too.\n    Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!\n    Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh;\n    Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied!\n    Cry but 'Ay me!' pronounce but 'love' and 'dove';\n    Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,\n    One nickname for her purblind son and heir,\n    Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim\n    When King Cophetua lov'd the beggar maid!\n    He heareth not, he stirreth not, be moveth not;\n    The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.\n    I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes.\n    By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,\n    By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh,\n    And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,\n    That in thy likeness thou appear to us!\n  Ben. An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.\n  Mer. This cannot anger him. 'Twould anger him\n    To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle\n    Of some strange nature, letting it there stand\n    Till she had laid it and conjur'd it down.\n    That were some spite; my invocation\n    Is fair and honest: in his mistress' name,\n    I conjure only but to raise up him.\n  Ben. Come, he hath hid himself among these trees\n    To be consorted with the humorous night.\n    Blind is his love and best befits the dark.\n  Mer. If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.\n    Now will he sit under a medlar tree\n    And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit\n    As maids call medlars when they laugh alone.\n    O, Romeo, that she were, O that she were\n    An open et cetera, thou a pop'rin pear!\n    Romeo, good night. I'll to my truckle-bed;\n    This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep.\n    Come, shall we go?\n  Ben. Go then, for 'tis in vain\n    'To seek him here that means not to be found.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nCapulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Romeo.\n\n  Rom. He jests at scars that never felt a wound.\n\n                     Enter Juliet above at a window.\n\n    But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?\n    It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!\n    Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,\n    Who is already sick and pale with grief\n    That thou her maid art far more fair than she.\n    Be not her maid, since she is envious.\n    Her vestal livery is but sick and green,\n    And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off.\n    It is my lady; O, it is my love!\n    O that she knew she were!\n    She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?\n    Her eye discourses; I will answer it.\n    I am too bold; 'tis not to me she speaks.\n    Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,\n    Having some business, do entreat her eyes\n    To twinkle in their spheres till they return.\n    What if her eyes were there, they in her head?\n    The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars\n    As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven\n    Would through the airy region stream so bright\n    That birds would sing and think it were not night.\n    See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!\n    O that I were a glove upon that hand,\n    That I might touch that cheek!\n  Jul. Ay me!\n  Rom. She speaks.\n    O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art\n    As glorious to this night, being o'er my head,\n    As is a winged messenger of heaven\n    Unto the white-upturned wond'ring eyes\n    Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him\n    When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds\n    And sails upon the bosom of the air.\n  Jul. O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?\n    Deny thy father and refuse thy name!\n    Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,\n    And I'll no longer be a Capulet.\n  Rom. [aside] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?\n  Jul. 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy.\n    Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.\n    What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,\n    Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part\n    Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!\n    What's in a name? That which we call a rose\n    By any other name would smell as sweet.\n    So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,\n    Retain that dear perfection which he owes\n    Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;\n    And for that name, which is no part of thee,\n    Take all myself.\n  Rom. I take thee at thy word.\n    Call me but love, and I'll be new baptiz'd;\n    Henceforth I never will be Romeo.\n  Jul. What man art thou that, thus bescreen'd in night,\n    So stumblest on my counsel?\n  Rom. By a name\n    I know not how to tell thee who I am.\n    My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,\n    Because it is an enemy to thee.\n    Had I it written, I would tear the word.\n  Jul. My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words\n    Of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound.\n    Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?\n  Rom. Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.\n  Jul. How cam'st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?\n    The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,\n    And the place death, considering who thou art,\n    If any of my kinsmen find thee here.\n  Rom. With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls;\n    For stony limits cannot hold love out,\n    And what love can do, that dares love attempt.\n    Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.\n  Jul. If they do see thee, they will murther thee.\n  Rom. Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye\n    Than twenty of their swords! Look thou but sweet,\n    And I am proof against their enmity.\n  Jul. I would not for the world they saw thee here.\n  Rom. I have night's cloak to hide me from their sight;\n    And but thou love me, let them find me here.\n    My life were better ended by their hate\n    Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.\n  Jul. By whose direction found'st thou out this place?\n  Rom. By love, that first did prompt me to enquire.\n    He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes.\n    I am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far\n    As that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea,\n    I would adventure for such merchandise.\n  Jul. Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face;\n    Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek\n    For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night.\n    Fain would I dwell on form- fain, fain deny\n    What I have spoke; but farewell compliment!\n    Dost thou love me, I know thou wilt say 'Ay';\n    And I will take thy word. Yet, if thou swear'st,\n    Thou mayst prove false. At lovers' perjuries,\n    They say Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo,\n    If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully.\n    Or if thou thinkest I am too quickly won,\n    I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,\n    So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.\n    In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond,\n    And therefore thou mayst think my haviour light;\n    But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true\n    Than those that have more cunning to be strange.\n    I should have been more strange, I must confess,\n    But that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware,\n    My true-love passion. Therefore pardon me,\n    And not impute this yielding to light love,\n    Which the dark night hath so discovered.\n  Rom. Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear,\n    That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops-\n  Jul. O, swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon,\n    That monthly changes in her circled orb,\n    Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.\n  Rom. What shall I swear by?\n  Jul. Do not swear at all;\n    Or if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,\n    Which is the god of my idolatry,\n    And I'll believe thee.\n  Rom. If my heart's dear love-\n  Jul. Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee,\n    I have no joy of this contract to-night.\n    It is too rash, too unadvis'd, too sudden;\n    Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be\n    Ere one can say 'It lightens.' Sweet, good night!\n    This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,\n    May prove a beauteous flow'r when next we meet.\n    Good night, good night! As sweet repose and rest\n    Come to thy heart as that within my breast!\n  Rom. O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?\n  Jul. What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?\n  Rom. Th' exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.\n  Jul. I gave thee mine before thou didst request it;\n    And yet I would it were to give again.\n  Rom. Would'st thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?\n  Jul. But to be frank and give it thee again.\n    And yet I wish but for the thing I have.\n    My bounty is as boundless as the sea,\n    My love as deep; the more I give to thee,\n    The more I have, for both are infinite.\n    I hear some noise within. Dear love, adieu!\n                                           [Nurse] calls within.\n    Anon, good nurse! Sweet Montague, be true.\n    Stay but a little, I will come again.                [Exit.]\n  Rom. O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard,\n    Being in night, all this is but a dream,\n    Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.\n\n                       Enter Juliet above.\n\n  Jul. Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.\n    If that thy bent of love be honourable,\n    Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,\n    By one that I'll procure to come to thee,\n    Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite;\n    And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay\n    And follow thee my lord throughout the world.\n  Nurse. (within) Madam!\n  Jul. I come, anon.- But if thou meanest not well,\n    I do beseech thee-\n  Nurse. (within) Madam!\n  Jul. By-and-by I come.-\n    To cease thy suit and leave me to my grief.\n    To-morrow will I send.\n  Rom. So thrive my soul-\n  Jul. A thousand times good night!                        Exit.\n  Rom. A thousand times the worse, to want thy light!\n    Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books;\n    But love from love, towards school with heavy looks.\n\n                     Enter Juliet again, [above].\n\n  Jul. Hist! Romeo, hist! O for a falconer's voice\n    To lure this tassel-gentle back again!\n    Bondage is hoarse and may not speak aloud;\n    Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,\n    And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine\n    With repetition of my Romeo's name.\n    Romeo!\n  Rom. It is my soul that calls upon my name.\n    How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,\n    Like softest music to attending ears!\n  Jul. Romeo!\n  Rom. My dear?\n  Jul. At what o'clock to-morrow\n    Shall I send to thee?\n  Rom. By the hour of nine.\n  Jul. I will not fail. 'Tis twenty years till then.\n    I have forgot why I did call thee back.\n  Rom. Let me stand here till thou remember it.\n  Jul. I shall forget, to have thee still stand there,\n    Rememb'ring how I love thy company.\n  Rom. And I'll still stay, to have thee still forget,\n    Forgetting any other home but this.\n  Jul. 'Tis almost morning. I would have thee gone-\n    And yet no farther than a wanton's bird,\n    That lets it hop a little from her hand,\n    Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,\n    And with a silk thread plucks it back again,\n    So loving-jealous of his liberty.\n  Rom. I would I were thy bird.\n  Jul. Sweet, so would I.\n    Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.\n    Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,\n    That I shall say good night till it be morrow.\n                                                         [Exit.]\n  Rom. Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!\n    Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!\n    Hence will I to my ghostly father's cell,\n    His help to crave and my dear hap to tell.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nFriar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar, [Laurence] alone, with a basket.\n\n  Friar. The grey-ey'd morn smiles on the frowning night,\n    Check'ring the Eastern clouds with streaks of light;\n    And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels\n    From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels.\n    Non, ere the sun advance his burning eye\n    The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry,\n    I must up-fill this osier cage of ours\n    With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.\n    The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb.\n    What is her burying gave, that is her womb;\n    And from her womb children of divers kind\n    We sucking on her natural bosom find;\n    Many for many virtues excellent,\n    None but for some, and yet all different.\n    O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies\n    In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities;\n    For naught so vile that on the earth doth live\n    But to the earth some special good doth give;\n    Nor aught so good but, strain'd from that fair use,\n    Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.\n    Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,\n    And vice sometime's by action dignified.\n    Within the infant rind of this small flower\n    Poison hath residence, and medicine power;\n    For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;\n    Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.\n    Two such opposed kings encamp them still\n    In man as well as herbs- grace and rude will;\n    And where the worser is predominant,\n    Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.\n\n                        Enter Romeo.\n\n  Rom. Good morrow, father.\n  Friar. Benedicite!\n    What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?\n    Young son, it argues a distempered head\n    So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed.\n    Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,\n    And where care lodges sleep will never lie;\n    But where unbruised youth with unstuff'd brain\n    Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign.\n    Therefore thy earliness doth me assure\n    Thou art uprous'd with some distemp'rature;\n    Or if not so, then here I hit it right-\n    Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.\n  Rom. That last is true-the sweeter rest was mine.\n  Friar. God pardon sin! Wast thou with Rosaline?\n  Rom. With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No.\n    I have forgot that name, and that name's woe.\n  Friar. That's my good son! But where hast thou been then?\n  Rom. I'll tell thee ere thou ask it me again.\n    I have been feasting with mine enemy,\n    Where on a sudden one hath wounded me\n    That's by me wounded. Both our remedies\n    Within thy help and holy physic lies.\n    I bear no hatred, blessed man, for, lo,\n    My intercession likewise steads my foe.\n  Friar. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift\n    Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.\n  Rom. Then plainly know my heart's dear love is set\n    On the fair daughter of rich Capulet;\n    As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine,\n    And all combin'd, save what thou must combine\n    By holy marriage. When, and where, and how\n    We met, we woo'd, and made exchange of vow,\n    I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,\n    That thou consent to marry us to-day.\n  Friar. Holy Saint Francis! What a change is here!\n    Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear,\n    So soon forsaken? Young men's love then lies\n    Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.\n    Jesu Maria! What a deal of brine\n    Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!\n    How much salt water thrown away in waste,\n    To season love, that of it doth not taste!\n    The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,\n    Thy old groans ring yet in mine ancient ears.\n    Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit\n    Of an old tear that is not wash'd off yet.\n    If e'er thou wast thyself, and these woes thine,\n    Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline.\n    And art thou chang'd? Pronounce this sentence then:\n    Women may fall when there's no strength in men.\n  Rom. Thou chid'st me oft for loving Rosaline.\n  Friar. For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.\n  Rom. And bad'st me bury love.\n  Friar. Not in a grave\n    To lay one in, another out to have.\n  Rom. I pray thee chide not. She whom I love now\n    Doth grace for grace and love for love allow.\n    The other did not so.\n  Friar. O, she knew well\n    Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell.\n    But come, young waverer, come go with me.\n    In one respect I'll thy assistant be;\n    For this alliance may so happy prove\n    To turn your households' rancour to pure love.\n  Rom. O, let us hence! I stand on sudden haste.\n  Friar. Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nA street.\n\nEnter Benvolio and Mercutio.\n\n  Mer. Where the devil should this Romeo be?\n    Came he not home to-night?\n  Ben. Not to his father's. I spoke with his man.\n  Mer. Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline,\n    Torments him so that he will sure run mad.\n  Ben. Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet,\n    Hath sent a letter to his father's house.\n  Mer. A challenge, on my life.\n  Ben. Romeo will answer it.\n  Mer. Any man that can write may answer a letter.\n  Ben. Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he dares, being\n    dared.\n  Mer. Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead! stabb'd with a white\n    wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a love song; the\n    very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft;\n    and is he a man to encounter Tybalt?\n  Ben. Why, what is Tybalt?\n  Mer. More than Prince of Cats, I can tell you. O, he's the\n    courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing\n    pricksong-keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me his\n    minim rest, one, two, and the third in your bosom! the very\n    butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist! a gentleman of\n    the very first house, of the first and second cause. Ah, the\n    immortal passado! the punto reverse! the hay.\n  Ben. The what?\n  Mer. The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes- these\n    new tuners of accent! 'By Jesu, a very good blade! a very tall\n    man! a very good whore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing,\n    grandsir, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange\n    flies, these fashion-mongers, these pardona-mi's, who stand so\n    much on the new form that they cannot sit at ease on the old\n    bench? O, their bones, their bones!\n\n                               Enter Romeo.\n\n  Ben. Here comes Romeo! here comes Romeo!\n  Mer. Without his roe, like a dried herring. O flesh, flesh, how art\n    thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed\n    in. Laura, to his lady, was but a kitchen wench (marry, she had a\n    better love to berhyme her), Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gypsy,\n    Helen and Hero hildings and harlots, This be a gray eye or so,\n    but not to the purpose. Signior Romeo, bon jour! There's a French\n    salutation to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit\n    fairly last night.\n  Rom. Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?\n  Mer. The slip, sir, the slip. Can you not conceive?\n  Rom. Pardon, good Mercutio. My business was great, and in such a\n    case as mine a man may strain courtesy.\n  Mer. That's as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a\n    man to bow in the hams.\n  Rom. Meaning, to cursy.\n  Mer. Thou hast most kindly hit it.\n  Rom. A most courteous exposition.\n  Mer. Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.\n  Rom. Pink for flower.\n  Mer. Right.\n  Rom. Why, then is my pump well-flower'd.\n  Mer. Well said! Follow me this jest now till thou hast worn out thy\n    pump, that, when the single sole of it is worn, the jest may\n    remain, after the wearing, solely singular.\n  Rom. O single-sold jest, solely singular for the singleness!\n  Mer. Come between us, good Benvolio! My wits faint.\n  Rom. Swits and spurs, swits and spurs! or I'll cry a match.\n  Mer. Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done; for thou\n    hast more of the wild goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I\n    have in my whole five. Was I with you there for the goose?\n  Rom. Thou wast never with me for anything when thou wast not there\n    for the goose.\n  Mer. I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.\n  Rom. Nay, good goose, bite not!\n  Mer. Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce.\n  Rom. And is it not, then, well serv'd in to a sweet goose?\n  Mer. O, here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an inch\n    narrow to an ell broad!\n  Rom. I stretch it out for that word 'broad,' which, added to the\n    goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.\n  Mer. Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? Now art\n    thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by\n    art as well as by nature. For this drivelling love is like a\n    great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in\n    a hole.\n  Ben. Stop there, stop there!\n  Mer. Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.\n  Ben. Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.\n  Mer. O, thou art deceiv'd! I would have made it short; for I was\n    come to the whole depth of my tale, and meant indeed to occupy\n    the argument no longer.\n  Rom. Here's goodly gear!\n\n                      Enter Nurse and her Man [Peter].\n\n  Mer. A sail, a sail!\n  Ben. Two, two! a shirt and a smock.\n  Nurse. Peter!\n  Peter. Anon.\n  Nurse. My fan, Peter.\n  Mer. Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the fairer face of\n    the two.\n  Nurse. God ye good morrow, gentlemen.\n  Mer. God ye good-den, fair gentlewoman.\n  Nurse. Is it good-den?\n  Mer. 'Tis no less, I tell ye; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now\n    upon the prick of noon.\n  Nurse. Out upon you! What a man are you!\n  Rom. One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to mar.\n  Nurse. By my troth, it is well said. 'For himself to mar,' quoth\n    'a? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I may find the young\n    Romeo?\n  Rom. I can tell you; but young Romeo will be older when you have\n    found him than he was when you sought him. I am the youngest of\n    that name, for fault of a worse.\n  Nurse. You say well.\n  Mer. Yea, is the worst well? Very well took, i' faith! wisely,\n    wisely.\n  Nurse. If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you.\n  Ben. She will endite him to some supper.\n  Mer. A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! So ho!\n  Rom. What hast thou found?\n  Mer. No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is\n    something stale and hoar ere it be spent\n                                     He walks by them and sings.\n\n                   An old hare hoar,\n                   And an old hare hoar,\n                Is very good meat in Lent;\n                   But a hare that is hoar\n                   Is too much for a score\n                When it hoars ere it be spent.\n\n    Romeo, will you come to your father's? We'll to dinner thither.\n  Rom. I will follow you.\n  Mer. Farewell, ancient lady. Farewell,\n    [sings] lady, lady, lady.\n                                      Exeunt Mercutio, Benvolio.\n  Nurse. Marry, farewell! I Pray you, Sir, what saucy merchant was\n    this that was so full of his ropery?\n  Rom. A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk and will\n    speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.\n  Nurse. An 'a speak anything against me, I'll take him down, an 'a\n    were lustier than he is, and twenty such jacks; and if I cannot,\n    I'll find those that shall. Scurvy knave! I am none of his\n    flirt-gills; I am none of his skains-mates. And thou must stand\n    by too, and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure!\n  Peter. I saw no man use you at his pleasure. If I had, my weapon\n    should quickly have been out, I warrant you. I dare draw as soon\n    as another man, if I see occasion in a good quarrel, and the law\n    on my side.\n  Nurse. Now, afore God, I am so vexed that every part about me\n    quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word; and, as I told you,\n    my young lady bid me enquire you out. What she bid me say, I will\n    keep to myself; but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her\n    into a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross kind of\n    behaviour, as they say; for the gentlewoman is young; and\n    therefore, if you should deal double with her, truly it were an\n    ill thing to be off'red to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.\n  Rom. Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I protest unto\n    thee-\n  Nurse. Good heart, and I faith I will tell her as much. Lord,\n    Lord! she will be a joyful woman.\n  Rom. What wilt thou tell her, nurse? Thou dost not mark me.\n  Nurse. I will tell her, sir, that you do protest, which, as I take\n    it, is a gentlemanlike offer.\n  Rom. Bid her devise\n    Some means to come to shrift this afternoon;\n    And there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell\n    Be shriv'd and married. Here is for thy pains.\n  Nurse. No, truly, sir; not a penny.\n  Rom. Go to! I say you shall.\n  Nurse. This afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there.\n  Rom. And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall.\n    Within this hour my man shall be with thee\n    And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair,\n    Which to the high topgallant of my joy\n    Must be my convoy in the secret night.\n    Farewell. Be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains.\n    Farewell. Commend me to thy mistress.\n  Nurse. Now God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir.\n  Rom. What say'st thou, my dear nurse?\n  Nurse. Is your man secret? Did you ne'er hear say,\n    Two may keep counsel, putting one away?\n  Rom. I warrant thee my man's as true as steel.\n  Nurse. Well, sir, my mistress is the sweetest lady. Lord, Lord!\n    when 'twas a little prating thing- O, there is a nobleman in\n    town, one Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard; but she, good\n    soul, had as lieve see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger\n    her sometimes, and tell her that Paris is the properer man; but\n    I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as any clout\n    in the versal world. Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with\n    a letter?\n  Rom. Ay, nurse; what of that? Both with an R.\n  Nurse. Ah, mocker! that's the dog's name. R is for the- No; I know\n    it begins with some other letter; and she hath the prettiest\n    sententious of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good\n    to hear it.\n  Rom. Commend me to thy lady.\n  Nurse. Ay, a thousand times. [Exit Romeo.] Peter!\n  Peter. Anon.\n  Nurse. Peter, take my fan, and go before, and apace.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nCapulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Juliet.\n\n  Jul. The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse;\n    In half an hour she 'promis'd to return.\n    Perchance she cannot meet him. That's not so.\n    O, she is lame! Love's heralds should be thoughts,\n    Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams\n    Driving back shadows over low'ring hills.\n    Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw Love,\n    And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.\n    Now is the sun upon the highmost hill\n    Of this day's journey, and from nine till twelve\n    Is three long hours; yet she is not come.\n    Had she affections and warm youthful blood,\n    She would be as swift in motion as a ball;\n    My words would bandy her to my sweet love,\n    And his to me,\n    But old folks, many feign as they were dead-\n    Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.\n\n                      Enter Nurse [and Peter].\n\n    O God, she comes! O honey nurse, what news?\n    Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.\n  Nurse. Peter, stay at the gate.\n                                                   [Exit Peter.]\n  Jul. Now, good sweet nurse- O Lord, why look'st thou sad?\n    Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;\n    If good, thou shamest the music of sweet news\n    By playing it to me with so sour a face.\n  Nurse. I am aweary, give me leave awhile.\n    Fie, how my bones ache! What a jaunce have I had!\n  Jul. I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news.\n    Nay, come, I pray thee speak. Good, good nurse, speak.\n  Nurse. Jesu, what haste! Can you not stay awhile?\n    Do you not see that I am out of breath?\n  Jul. How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath\n    To say to me that thou art out of breath?\n    The excuse that thou dost make in this delay\n    Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.\n    Is thy news good or bad? Answer to that.\n    Say either, and I'll stay the circumstance.\n    Let me be satisfied, is't good or bad?\n  Nurse. Well, you have made a simple choice; you know not how to\n    choose a man. Romeo? No, not he. Though his face be better than\n    any man's, yet his leg excels all men's; and for a hand and a\n    foot, and a body, though they be not to be talk'd on, yet they\n    are past compare. He is not the flower of courtesy, but, I'll\n    warrant him, as gentle as a lamb. Go thy ways, wench; serve God.\n    What, have you din'd at home?\n  Jul. No, no. But all this did I know before.\n    What says he of our marriage? What of that?\n  Nurse. Lord, how my head aches! What a head have I!\n    It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.\n    My back o' t' other side,- ah, my back, my back!\n    Beshrew your heart for sending me about\n    To catch my death with jauncing up and down!\n  Jul. I' faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.\n    Sweet, sweet, Sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?\n  Nurse. Your love says, like an honest gentleman, and a courteous,\n    and a kind, and a handsome; and, I warrant, a virtuous- Where is\n    your mother?\n  Jul. Where is my mother? Why, she is within.\n    Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest!\n    'Your love says, like an honest gentleman,\n    \"Where is your mother?\"'\n  Nurse. O God's Lady dear!\n    Are you so hot? Marry come up, I trow.\n    Is this the poultice for my aching bones?\n    Henceforward do your messages yourself.\n  Jul. Here's such a coil! Come, what says Romeo?\n  Nurse. Have you got leave to go to shrift to-day?\n  Jul. I have.\n  Nurse. Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence' cell;\n    There stays a husband to make you a wife.\n    Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks:\n    They'll be in scarlet straight at any news.\n    Hie you to church; I must another way,\n    To fetch a ladder, by the which your love\n    Must climb a bird's nest soon when it is dark.\n    I am the drudge, and toil in your delight;\n    But you shall bear the burthen soon at night.\n    Go; I'll to dinner; hie you to the cell.\n  Jul. Hie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene VI.\nFriar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar [Laurence] and Romeo.\n\n  Friar. So smile the heavens upon this holy act\n    That after-hours with sorrow chide us not!\n  Rom. Amen, amen! But come what sorrow can,\n    It cannot countervail the exchange of joy\n    That one short minute gives me in her sight.\n    Do thou but close our hands with holy words,\n    Then love-devouring death do what he dare-\n    It is enough I may but call her mine.\n  Friar. These violent delights have violent ends\n    And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,\n    Which, as they kiss, consume. The sweetest honey\n    Is loathsome in his own deliciousness\n    And in the taste confounds the appetite.\n    Therefore love moderately: long love doth so;\n    Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.\n\n                     Enter Juliet.\n\n    Here comes the lady. O, so light a foot\n    Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint.\n    A lover may bestride the gossamer\n    That idles in the wanton summer air,\n    And yet not fall; so light is vanity.\n  Jul. Good even to my ghostly confessor.\n  Friar. Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.\n  Jul. As much to him, else is his thanks too much.\n  Rom. Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy\n    Be heap'd like mine, and that thy skill be more\n    To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath\n    This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue\n    Unfold the imagin'd happiness that both\n    Receive in either by this dear encounter.\n  Jul. Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,\n    Brags of his substance, not of ornament.\n    They are but beggars that can count their worth;\n    But my true love is grown to such excess\n    cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.\n  Friar. Come, come with me, and we will make short work;\n    For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone\n    Till Holy Church incorporate two in one.\n                                                       [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. Scene I.\nA public place.\n\nEnter Mercutio, Benvolio, and Men.\n\n  Ben. I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire.\n    The day is hot, the Capulets abroad.\n    And if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl,\n    For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.\n  Mer. Thou art like one of these fellows that, when he enters the\n    confines of a tavern, claps me his sword upon the table and says\n    'God send me no need of thee!' and by the operation of the second\n    cup draws him on the drawer, when indeed there is no need.\n  Ben. Am I like such a fellow?\n  Mer. Come, come, thou art as hot a jack in thy mood as any in\n    Italy; and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be\n    moved.\n  Ben. And what to?\n  Mer. Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly, for\n    one would kill the other. Thou! why, thou wilt quarrel with a man\n    that hath a hair more or a hair less in his beard than thou hast.\n    Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other\n    reason but because thou hast hazel eyes. What eye but such an eye\n    would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is as full of quarrels as\n    an egg is full of meat; and yet thy head hath been beaten as\n    addle as an egg for quarrelling. Thou hast quarrell'd with a man\n    for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that\n    hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall out with a\n    tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter, with another\n    for tying his new shoes with an old riband? And yet thou wilt\n    tutor me from quarrelling!\n  Ben. An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should buy\n    the fee simple of my life for an hour and a quarter.\n  Mer. The fee simple? O simple!\n\n                       Enter Tybalt and others.\n\n  Ben. By my head, here come the Capulets.\n  Mer. By my heel, I care not.\n  Tyb. Follow me close, for I will speak to them.\n    Gentlemen, good den. A word with one of you.\n  Mer. And but one word with one of us?\n    Couple it with something; make it a word and a blow.\n  Tyb. You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you will give me\n    occasion.\n  Mer. Could you not take some occasion without giving\n  Tyb. Mercutio, thou consortest with Romeo.\n  Mer. Consort? What, dost thou make us minstrels? An thou make\n    minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords. Here's my\n    fiddlestick; here's that shall make you dance. Zounds, consort!\n  Ben. We talk here in the public haunt of men.\n    Either withdraw unto some private place\n    And reason coldly of your grievances,\n    Or else depart. Here all eyes gaze on us.\n  Mer. Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze.\n    I will not budge for no man's pleasure,\n\n                        Enter Romeo.\n\n  Tyb. Well, peace be with you, sir. Here comes my man.\n  Mer. But I'll be hang'd, sir, if he wear your livery.\n    Marry, go before to field, he'll be your follower!\n    Your worship in that sense may call him man.\n  Tyb. Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford\n    No better term than this: thou art a villain.\n  Rom. Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee\n    Doth much excuse the appertaining rage\n    To such a greeting. Villain am I none.\n    Therefore farewell. I see thou knowest me not.\n  Tyb. Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries\n    That thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw.\n  Rom. I do protest I never injur'd thee,\n    But love thee better than thou canst devise\n    Till thou shalt know the reason of my love;\n    And so good Capulet, which name I tender\n    As dearly as mine own, be satisfied.\n  Mer. O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!\n    Alla stoccata carries it away.                      [Draws.]\n    Tybalt, you ratcatcher, will you walk?\n  Tyb. What wouldst thou have with me?\n  Mer. Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives. That I\n    mean to make bold withal, and, as you shall use me hereafter,\n    dry-beat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of\n    his pitcher by the ears? Make haste, lest mine be about your ears\n    ere it be out.\n  Tyb. I am for you.                                    [Draws.]\n  Rom. Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.\n  Mer. Come, sir, your passado!\n                                                   [They fight.]\n  Rom. Draw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.\n    Gentlemen, for shame! forbear this outrage!\n    Tybalt, Mercutio, the Prince expressly hath\n    Forbid this bandying in Verona streets.\n    Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio!\n         Tybalt under Romeo's arm thrusts Mercutio in, and flies\n                                           [with his Followers].\n  Mer. I am hurt.\n    A plague o' both your houses! I am sped.\n    Is he gone and hath nothing?\n  Ben. What, art thou hurt?\n  Mer. Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch. Marry, 'tis enough.\n    Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.\n                                                    [Exit Page.]\n  Rom. Courage, man. The hurt cannot be much.\n  Mer. No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door;\n    but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. Ask for me to-morrow, and you\n    shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this\n    world. A plague o' both your houses! Zounds, a dog, a rat, a\n    mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a rogue, a\n    villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic! Why the devil\n    came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.\n  Rom. I thought all for the best.\n  Mer. Help me into some house, Benvolio,\n    Or I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses!\n    They have made worms' meat of me. I have it,\n    And soundly too. Your houses!\n                                 [Exit. [supported by Benvolio].\n  Rom. This gentleman, the Prince's near ally,\n    My very friend, hath got this mortal hurt\n    In my behalf- my reputation stain'd\n    With Tybalt's slander- Tybalt, that an hour\n    Hath been my kinsman. O sweet Juliet,\n    Thy beauty hath made me effeminate\n    And in my temper soft'ned valour's steel\n\n                      Enter Benvolio.\n\n  Ben. O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio's dead!\n    That gallant spirit hath aspir'd the clouds,\n    Which too untimely here did scorn the earth.\n  Rom. This day's black fate on moe days doth depend;\n    This but begins the woe others must end.\n\n                       Enter Tybalt.\n\n  Ben. Here comes the furious Tybalt back again.\n  Rom. Alive in triumph, and Mercutio slain?\n    Away to heaven respective lenity,\n    And fire-ey'd fury be my conduct now!\n    Now, Tybalt, take the 'villain' back again\n    That late thou gavest me; for Mercutio's soul\n    Is but a little way above our heads,\n    Staying for thine to keep him company.\n    Either thou or I, or both, must go with him.\n  Tyb. Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here,\n    Shalt with him hence.\n  Rom. This shall determine that.\n                                       They fight. Tybalt falls.\n  Ben. Romeo, away, be gone!\n    The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.\n    Stand not amaz'd. The Prince will doom thee death\n    If thou art taken. Hence, be gone, away!\n  Rom. O, I am fortune's fool!\n  Ben. Why dost thou stay?\n                                                     Exit Romeo.\n                      Enter Citizens.\n\n  Citizen. Which way ran he that kill'd Mercutio?\n    Tybalt, that murtherer, which way ran he?\n  Ben. There lies that Tybalt.\n  Citizen. Up, sir, go with me.\n    I charge thee in the Prince's name obey.\n\n  Enter Prince [attended], Old Montague, Capulet, their Wives,\n                     and [others].\n\n  Prince. Where are the vile beginners of this fray?\n  Ben. O noble Prince. I can discover all\n    The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl.\n    There lies the man, slain by young Romeo,\n    That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.\n  Cap. Wife. Tybalt, my cousin! O my brother's child!\n    O Prince! O husband! O, the blood is spill'd\n    Of my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true,\n    For blood of ours shed blood of Montague.\n    O cousin, cousin!\n  Prince. Benvolio, who began this bloody fray?\n  Ben. Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo's hand did stay.\n    Romeo, that spoke him fair, bid him bethink\n    How nice the quarrel was, and urg'd withal\n    Your high displeasure. All this- uttered\n    With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow'd-\n    Could not take truce with the unruly spleen\n    Of Tybalt deaf to peace, but that he tilts\n    With piercing steel at bold Mercutio's breast;\n    Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point,\n    And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats\n    Cold death aside and with the other sends\n    It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity\n    Retorts it. Romeo he cries aloud,\n    'Hold, friends! friends, part!' and swifter than his tongue,\n    His agile arm beats down their fatal points,\n    And 'twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm\n    An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life\n    Of stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled;\n    But by-and-by comes back to Romeo,\n    Who had but newly entertain'd revenge,\n    And to't they go like lightning; for, ere I\n    Could draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain;\n    And, as he fell, did Romeo turn and fly.\n    This is the truth, or let Benvolio die.\n  Cap. Wife. He is a kinsman to the Montague;\n    Affection makes him false, he speaks not true.\n    Some twenty of them fought in this black strife,\n    And all those twenty could but kill one life.\n    I beg for justice, which thou, Prince, must give.\n    Romeo slew Tybalt; Romeo must not live.\n  Prince. Romeo slew him; he slew Mercutio.\n    Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?\n  Mon. Not Romeo, Prince; he was Mercutio's friend;\n    His fault concludes but what the law should end,\n    The life of Tybalt.\n  Prince. And for that offence\n    Immediately we do exile him hence.\n    I have an interest in your hate's proceeding,\n    My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding;\n    But I'll amerce you with so strong a fine\n    That you shall all repent the loss of mine.\n    I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;\n    Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses.\n    Therefore use none. Let Romeo hence in haste,\n    Else, when he is found, that hour is his last.\n    Bear hence this body, and attend our will.\n    Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nCapulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Juliet alone.\n\n  Jul. Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,\n    Towards Phoebus' lodging! Such a wagoner\n    As Phaeton would whip you to the West\n    And bring in cloudy night immediately.\n    Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,\n    That runaway eyes may wink, and Romeo\n    Leap to these arms untalk'd of and unseen.\n    Lovers can see to do their amorous rites\n    By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,\n    It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,\n    Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,\n    And learn me how to lose a winning match,\n    Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods.\n    Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,\n    With thy black mantle till strange love, grown bold,\n    Think true love acted simple modesty.\n    Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;\n    For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night\n    Whiter than new snow upon a raven's back.\n    Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow'd night;\n    Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,\n    Take him and cut him out in little stars,\n    And he will make the face of heaven so fine\n    That all the world will be in love with night\n    And pay no worship to the garish sun.\n    O, I have bought the mansion of a love,\n    But not possess'd it; and though I am sold,\n    Not yet enjoy'd. So tedious is this day\n    As is the night before some festival\n    To an impatient child that hath new robes\n    And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,\n\n                Enter Nurse, with cords.\n\n    And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks\n    But Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence.\n    Now, nurse, what news? What hast thou there? the cords\n    That Romeo bid thee fetch?\n  Nurse. Ay, ay, the cords.\n                                             [Throws them down.]\n  Jul. Ay me! what news? Why dost thou wring thy hands\n  Nurse. Ah, weraday! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead!\n    We are undone, lady, we are undone!\n    Alack the day! he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead!\n  Jul. Can heaven be so envious?\n  Nurse. Romeo can,\n    Though heaven cannot. O Romeo, Romeo!\n    Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!\n  Jul. What devil art thou that dost torment me thus?\n    This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.\n    Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but 'I,'\n    And that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more\n    Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.\n    I am not I, if there be such an 'I';\n    Or those eyes shut that make thee answer 'I.'\n    If be be slain, say 'I'; or if not, 'no.'\n    Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.\n  Nurse. I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,\n    (God save the mark!) here on his manly breast.\n    A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;\n    Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood,\n    All in gore-blood. I swounded at the sight.\n  Jul. O, break, my heart! poor bankrout, break at once!\n    To prison, eyes; ne'er look on liberty!\n    Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here,\n    And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!\n  Nurse. O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!\n    O courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman\n    That ever I should live to see thee dead!\n  Jul. What storm is this that blows so contrary?\n    Is Romeo slaught'red, and is Tybalt dead?\n    My dear-lov'd cousin, and my dearer lord?\n    Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!\n    For who is living, if those two are gone?\n  Nurse. Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;\n    Romeo that kill'd him, he is banished.\n  Jul. O God! Did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?\n  Nurse. It did, it did! alas the day, it did!\n  Jul. O serpent heart, hid with a flow'ring face!\n    Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?\n    Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!\n    Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!\n    Despised substance of divinest show!\n    Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st-\n    A damned saint, an honourable villain!\n    O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell\n    When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend\n    In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?\n    Was ever book containing such vile matter\n    So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell\n    In such a gorgeous palace!\n  Nurse. There's no trust,\n    No faith, no honesty in men; all perjur'd,\n    All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.\n    Ah, where's my man? Give me some aqua vitae.\n    These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.\n    Shame come to Romeo!\n  Jul. Blister'd be thy tongue\n    For such a wish! He was not born to shame.\n    Upon his brow shame is asham'd to sit;\n    For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd\n    Sole monarch of the universal earth.\n    O, what a beast was I to chide at him!\n  Nurse. Will you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin?\n  Jul. Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?\n    Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name\n    When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?\n    But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?\n    That villain cousin would have kill'd my husband.\n    Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring!\n    Your tributary drops belong to woe,\n    Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.\n    My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;\n    And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband.\n    All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?\n    Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,\n    That murd'red me. I would forget it fain;\n    But O, it presses to my memory\n    Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds!\n    'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo- banished.'\n    That 'banished,' that one word 'banished,'\n    Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death\n    Was woe enough, if it had ended there;\n    Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship\n    And needly will be rank'd with other griefs,\n    Why followed not, when she said 'Tybalt's dead,'\n    Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,\n    Which modern lamentation might have mov'd?\n    But with a rearward following Tybalt's death,\n    'Romeo is banished'- to speak that word\n    Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,\n    All slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished'-\n    There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,\n    In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.\n    Where is my father and my mother, nurse?\n  Nurse. Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse.\n    Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.\n  Jul. Wash they his wounds with tears? Mine shall be spent,\n    When theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment.\n    Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are beguil'd,\n    Both you and I, for Romeo is exil'd.\n    He made you for a highway to my bed;\n    But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.\n    Come, cords; come, nurse. I'll to my wedding bed;\n    And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!\n  Nurse. Hie to your chamber. I'll find Romeo\n    To comfort you. I wot well where he is.\n    Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night.\n    I'll to him; he is hid at Laurence' cell.\n  Jul. O, find him! give this ring to my true knight\n    And bid him come to take his last farewell.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nFriar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar [Laurence].\n\n  Friar. Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man.\n    Affliction is enanmour'd of thy parts,\n    And thou art wedded to calamity.\n\n                         Enter Romeo.\n\n  Rom. Father, what news? What is the Prince's doom\n    What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand\n    That I yet know not?\n  Friar. Too familiar\n    Is my dear son with such sour company.\n    I bring thee tidings of the Prince's doom.\n  Rom. What less than doomsday is the Prince's doom?\n  Friar. A gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips-\n    Not body's death, but body's banishment.\n  Rom. Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say 'death';\n    For exile hath more terror in his look,\n    Much more than death. Do not say 'banishment.'\n  Friar. Hence from Verona art thou banished.\n    Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.\n  Rom. There is no world without Verona walls,\n    But purgatory, torture, hell itself.\n    Hence banished is banish'd from the world,\n    And world's exile is death. Then 'banishment'\n    Is death misterm'd. Calling death 'banishment,'\n    Thou cut'st my head off with a golden axe\n    And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.\n  Friar. O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!\n    Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind Prince,\n    Taking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law,\n    And turn'd that black word death to banishment.\n    This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.\n  Rom. 'Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here,\n    Where Juliet lives; and every cat and dog\n    And little mouse, every unworthy thing,\n    Live here in heaven and may look on her;\n    But Romeo may not. More validity,\n    More honourable state, more courtship lives\n    In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize\n    On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand\n    And steal immortal blessing from her lips,\n    Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,\n    Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;\n    But Romeo may not- he is banished.\n    This may flies do, when I from this must fly;\n    They are free men, but I am banished.\n    And sayest thou yet that exile is not death?\n    Hadst thou no poison mix'd, no sharp-ground knife,\n    No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,\n    But 'banished' to kill me- 'banished'?\n    O friar, the damned use that word in hell;\n    Howling attends it! How hast thou the heart,\n    Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,\n    A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,\n    To mangle me with that word 'banished'?\n  Friar. Thou fond mad man, hear me a little speak.\n  Rom. O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.\n  Friar. I'll give thee armour to keep off that word;\n    Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,\n    To comfort thee, though thou art banished.\n  Rom. Yet 'banished'? Hang up philosophy!\n    Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,\n    Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom,\n    It helps not, it prevails not. Talk no more.\n  Friar. O, then I see that madmen have no ears.\n  Rom. How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?\n  Friar. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.\n  Rom. Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel.\n    Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,\n    An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,\n    Doting like me, and like me banished,\n    Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,\n    And fall upon the ground, as I do now,\n    Taking the measure of an unmade grave.\n                                                 Knock [within].\n  Friar. Arise; one knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyself.\n  Rom. Not I; unless the breath of heartsick groans,\n    Mist-like infold me from the search of eyes.          Knock.\n  Friar. Hark, how they knock! Who's there? Romeo, arise;\n    Thou wilt be taken.- Stay awhile!- Stand up;          Knock.\n    Run to my study.- By-and-by!- God's will,\n    What simpleness is this.- I come, I come!             Knock.\n    Who knocks so hard? Whence come you? What's your will\n  Nurse. [within] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand.\n    I come from Lady Juliet.\n  Friar. Welcome then.\n\n                       Enter Nurse.\n\n  Nurse. O holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar\n    Where is my lady's lord, where's Romeo?\n  Friar. There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.\n  Nurse. O, he is even in my mistress' case,\n    Just in her case!\n  Friar. O woeful sympathy!\n    Piteous predicament!\n  Nurse. Even so lies she,\n    Blubb'ring and weeping, weeping and blubbering.\n    Stand up, stand up! Stand, an you be a man.\n    For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand!\n    Why should you fall into so deep an O?\n  Rom. (rises) Nurse-\n  Nurse. Ah sir! ah sir! Well, death's the end of all.\n  Rom. Spakest thou of Juliet? How is it with her?\n    Doth not she think me an old murtherer,\n    Now I have stain'd the childhood of our joy\n    With blood remov'd but little from her own?\n    Where is she? and how doth she! and what says\n    My conceal'd lady to our cancell'd love?\n  Nurse. O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;\n    And now falls on her bed, and then starts up,\n    And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,\n    And then down falls again.\n  Rom. As if that name,\n    Shot from the deadly level of a gun,\n    Did murther her; as that name's cursed hand\n    Murder'd her kinsman. O, tell me, friar, tell me,\n    In what vile part of this anatomy\n    Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack\n    The hateful mansion.                     [Draws his dagger.]\n  Friar. Hold thy desperate hand.\n    Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art;\n    Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote\n    The unreasonable fury of a beast.\n    Unseemly woman in a seeming man!\n    Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!\n    Thou hast amaz'd me. By my holy order,\n    I thought thy disposition better temper'd.\n    Hast thou slain Tybalt? Wilt thou slay thyself?\n    And slay thy lady that in thy life lives,\n    By doing damned hate upon thyself?\n    Why railest thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?\n    Since birth and heaven and earth, all three do meet\n    In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.\n    Fie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit,\n    Which, like a usurer, abound'st in all,\n    And usest none in that true use indeed\n    Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.\n    Thy noble shape is but a form of wax\n    Digressing from the valour of a man;\n    Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,\n    Killing that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish;\n    Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,\n    Misshapen in the conduct of them both,\n    Like powder in a skilless soldier's flask,\n    is get afire by thine own ignorance,\n    And thou dismemb'red with thine own defence.\n    What, rouse thee, man! Thy Juliet is alive,\n    For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead.\n    There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,\n    But thou slewest Tybalt. There art thou happy too.\n    The law, that threat'ned death, becomes thy friend\n    And turns it to exile. There art thou happy.\n    A pack of blessings light upon thy back;\n    Happiness courts thee in her best array;\n    But, like a misbhav'd and sullen wench,\n    Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love.\n    Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.\n    Go get thee to thy love, as was decreed,\n    Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her.\n    But look thou stay not till the watch be set,\n    For then thou canst not pass to Mantua,\n    Where thou shalt live till we can find a time\n    To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,\n    Beg pardon of the Prince, and call thee back\n    With twenty hundred thousand times more joy\n    Than thou went'st forth in lamentation.\n    Go before, nurse. Commend me to thy lady,\n    And bid her hasten all the house to bed,\n    Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto.\n    Romeo is coming.\n  Nurse. O Lord, I could have stay'd here all the night\n    To hear good counsel. O, what learning is!\n    My lord, I'll tell my lady you will come.\n  Rom. Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.\n  Nurse. Here is a ring she bid me give you, sir.\n    Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.           Exit.\n  Rom. How well my comfort is reviv'd by this!\n  Friar. Go hence; good night; and here stands all your state:\n    Either be gone before the watch be set,\n    Or by the break of day disguis'd from hence.\n    Sojourn in Mantua. I'll find out your man,\n    And he shall signify from time to time\n    Every good hap to you that chances here.\n    Give me thy hand. 'Tis late. Farewell; good night.\n  Rom. But that a joy past joy calls out on me,\n    It were a grief so brief to part with thee.\n    Farewell.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nCapulet's house\n\nEnter Old Capulet, his Wife, and Paris.\n\n  Cap. Things have fall'n out, sir, so unluckily\n    That we have had no time to move our daughter.\n    Look you, she lov'd her kinsman Tybalt dearly,\n    And so did I. Well, we were born to die.\n    'Tis very late; she'll not come down to-night.\n    I promise you, but for your company,\n    I would have been abed an hour ago.\n  Par. These times of woe afford no tune to woo.\n    Madam, good night. Commend me to your daughter.\n  Lady. I will, and know her mind early to-morrow;\n    To-night she's mew'd up to her heaviness.\n  Cap. Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender\n    Of my child's love. I think she will be rul'd\n    In all respects by me; nay more, I doubt it not.\n    Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed;\n    Acquaint her here of my son Paris' love\n    And bid her (mark you me?) on Wednesday next-\n    But, soft! what day is this?\n  Par. Monday, my lord.\n  Cap. Monday! ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon.\n    Thursday let it be- a Thursday, tell her\n    She shall be married to this noble earl.\n    Will you be ready? Do you like this haste?\n    We'll keep no great ado- a friend or two;\n    For hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,\n    It may be thought we held him carelessly,\n    Being our kinsman, if we revel much.\n    Therefore we'll have some half a dozen friends,\n    And there an end. But what say you to Thursday?\n  Par. My lord, I would that Thursday were to-morrow.\n  Cap. Well, get you gone. A Thursday be it then.\n    Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed;\n    Prepare her, wife, against this wedding day.\n    Farewell, My lord.- Light to my chamber, ho!\n    Afore me, It is so very very late\n    That we may call it early by-and-by.\n    Good night.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nCapulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Romeo and Juliet aloft, at the Window.\n\n  Jul. Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.\n    It was the nightingale, and not the lark,\n    That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear.\n    Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree.\n    Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.\n  Rom. It was the lark, the herald of the morn;\n    No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks\n    Do lace the severing clouds in yonder East.\n    Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day\n    Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.\n    I must be gone and live, or stay and die.\n  Jul. Yond light is not daylight; I know it, I.\n    It is some meteor that the sun exhales\n    To be to thee this night a torchbearer\n    And light thee on the way to Mantua.\n    Therefore stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone.\n  Rom. Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death.\n    I am content, so thou wilt have it so.\n    I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye,\n    'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;\n    Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat\n    The vaulty heaven so high above our heads.\n    I have more care to stay than will to go.\n    Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.\n    How is't, my soul? Let's talk; it is not day.\n  Jul. It is, it is! Hie hence, be gone, away!\n    It is the lark that sings so out of tune,\n    Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.\n    Some say the lark makes sweet division;\n    This doth not so, for she divideth us.\n    Some say the lark and loathed toad chang'd eyes;\n    O, now I would they had chang'd voices too,\n    Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,\n    Hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day!\n    O, now be gone! More light and light it grows.\n  Rom. More light and light- more dark and dark our woes!\n\n                          Enter Nurse.\n\n  Nurse. Madam!\n  Jul. Nurse?\n  Nurse. Your lady mother is coming to your chamber.\n    The day is broke; be wary, look about.\n  Jul. Then, window, let day in, and let life out.\n                                                         [Exit.]\n  Rom. Farewell, farewell! One kiss, and I'll descend.\n                                                  He goeth down.\n  Jul. Art thou gone so, my lord, my love, my friend?\n    I must hear from thee every day in the hour,\n    For in a minute there are many days.\n    O, by this count I shall be much in years\n    Ere I again behold my Romeo!\n  Rom. Farewell!\n    I will omit no opportunity\n    That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.\n  Jul. O, think'st thou we shall ever meet again?\n  Rom. I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve\n    For sweet discourses in our time to come.\n  Jul. O God, I have an ill-divining soul!\n    Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,\n    As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.\n    Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.\n  Rom. And trust me, love, in my eye so do you.\n    Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!\nExit.\n  Jul. O Fortune, Fortune! all men call thee fickle.\n    If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him\n    That is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, Fortune,\n    For then I hope thou wilt not keep him long\n    But send him back.\n  Lady. [within] Ho, daughter! are you up?\n  Jul. Who is't that calls? It is my lady mother.\n    Is she not down so late, or up so early?\n    What unaccustom'd cause procures her hither?\n\n                       Enter Mother.\n\n  Lady. Why, how now, Juliet?\n  Jul. Madam, I am not well.\n  Lady. Evermore weeping for your cousin's death?\n    What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?\n    An if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live.\n    Therefore have done. Some grief shows much of love;\n    But much of grief shows still some want of wit.\n  Jul. Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.\n  Lady. So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend\n    Which you weep for.\n  Jul. Feeling so the loss,\n    I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.\n  Lady. Well, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death\n    As that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.\n  Jul. What villain, madam?\n  Lady. That same villain Romeo.\n  Jul. [aside] Villain and he be many miles asunder.-\n    God pardon him! I do, with all my heart;\n    And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.\n  Lady. That is because the traitor murderer lives.\n  Jul. Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands.\n    Would none but I might venge my cousin's death!\n  Lady. We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not.\n    Then weep no more. I'll send to one in Mantua,\n    Where that same banish'd runagate doth live,\n    Shall give him such an unaccustom'd dram\n    That he shall soon keep Tybalt company;\n    And then I hope thou wilt be satisfied.\n  Jul. Indeed I never shall be satisfied\n    With Romeo till I behold him- dead-\n    Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex'd.\n    Madam, if you could find out but a man\n    To bear a poison, I would temper it;\n    That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,\n    Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors\n    To hear him nam'd and cannot come to him,\n    To wreak the love I bore my cousin Tybalt\n    Upon his body that hath slaughter'd him!\n  Lady. Find thou the means, and I'll find such a man.\n    But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.\n  Jul. And joy comes well in such a needy time.\n    What are they, I beseech your ladyship?\n  Lady. Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child;\n    One who, to put thee from thy heaviness,\n    Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy\n    That thou expects not nor I look'd not for.\n  Jul. Madam, in happy time! What day is that?\n  Lady. Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn\n    The gallant, young, and noble gentleman,\n    The County Paris, at Saint Peter's Church,\n    Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.\n  Jul. Now by Saint Peter's Church, and Peter too,\n    He shall not make me there a joyful bride!\n    I wonder at this haste, that I must wed\n    Ere he that should be husband comes to woo.\n    I pray you tell my lord and father, madam,\n    I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear\n    It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,\n    Rather than Paris. These are news indeed!\n  Lady. Here comes your father. Tell him so yourself,\n    And see how be will take it at your hands.\n\n                   Enter Capulet and Nurse.\n\n  Cap. When the sun sets the air doth drizzle dew,\n    But for the sunset of my brother's son\n    It rains downright.\n    How now? a conduit, girl? What, still in tears?\n    Evermore show'ring? In one little body\n    Thou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind:\n    For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,\n    Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is\n    Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs,\n    Who, raging with thy tears and they with them,\n    Without a sudden calm will overset\n    Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife?\n    Have you delivered to her our decree?\n  Lady. Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.\n    I would the fool were married to her grave!\n  Cap. Soft! take me with you, take me with you, wife.\n    How? Will she none? Doth she not give us thanks?\n    Is she not proud? Doth she not count her blest,\n    Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought\n    So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?\n  Jul. Not proud you have, but thankful that you have.\n    Proud can I never be of what I hate,\n    But thankful even for hate that is meant love.\n  Cap. How, how, how, how, choplogic? What is this?\n    'Proud'- and 'I thank you'- and 'I thank you not'-\n    And yet 'not proud'? Mistress minion you,\n    Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,\n    But fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next\n    To go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church,\n    Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.\n    Out, you green-sickness carrion I out, you baggage!\n    You tallow-face!\n  Lady. Fie, fie! what, are you mad?\n  Jul. Good father, I beseech you on my knees,\n    Hear me with patience but to speak a word.\n  Cap. Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!\n    I tell thee what- get thee to church a Thursday\n    Or never after look me in the face.\n    Speak not, reply not, do not answer me!\n    My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest\n    That God had lent us but this only child;\n    But now I see this one is one too much,\n    And that we have a curse in having her.\n    Out on her, hilding!\n  Nurse. God in heaven bless her!\n    You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.\n  Cap. And why, my Lady Wisdom? Hold your tongue,\n    Good Prudence. Smatter with your gossips, go!\n  Nurse. I speak no treason.\n  Cap. O, God-i-god-en!\n  Nurse. May not one speak?\n  Cap. Peace, you mumbling fool!\n    Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl,\n    For here we need it not.\n  Lady. You are too hot.\n  Cap. God's bread I it makes me mad. Day, night, late, early,\n    At home, abroad, alone, in company,\n    Waking or sleeping, still my care hath been\n    To have her match'd; and having now provided\n    A gentleman of princely parentage,\n    Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,\n    Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,\n    Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man-\n    And then to have a wretched puling fool,\n    A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,\n    To answer 'I'll not wed, I cannot love;\n    I am too young, I pray you pardon me'!\n    But, an you will not wed, I'll pardon you.\n    Graze where you will, you shall not house with me.\n    Look to't, think on't; I do not use to jest.\n    Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise:\n    An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;\n    An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,\n    For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,\n    Nor what is mine shall never do thee good.\n    Trust to't. Bethink you. I'll not be forsworn.         Exit.\n  Jul. Is there no pity sitting in the clouds\n    That sees into the bottom of my grief?\n    O sweet my mother, cast me not away!\n    Delay this marriage for a month, a week;\n    Or if you do not, make the bridal bed\n    In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.\n  Lady. Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word.\n    Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.            Exit.\n  Jul. O God!- O nurse, how shall this be prevented?\n    My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven.\n    How shall that faith return again to earth\n    Unless that husband send it me from heaven\n    By leaving earth? Comfort me, counsel me.\n    Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems\n    Upon so soft a subject as myself!\n    What say'st thou? Hast thou not a word of joy?\n    Some comfort, nurse.\n  Nurse. Faith, here it is.\n    Romeo is banish'd; and all the world to nothing\n    That he dares ne'er come back to challenge you;\n    Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth.\n    Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,\n    I think it best you married with the County.\n    O, he's a lovely gentleman!\n    Romeo's a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam,\n    Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye\n    As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,\n    I think you are happy in this second match,\n    For it excels your first; or if it did not,\n    Your first is dead- or 'twere as good he were\n    As living here and you no use of him.\n  Jul. Speak'st thou this from thy heart?\n  Nurse. And from my soul too; else beshrew them both.\n  Jul. Amen!\n  Nurse. What?\n  Jul. Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.\n    Go in; and tell my lady I am gone,\n    Having displeas'd my father, to Laurence' cell,\n    To make confession and to be absolv'd.\n  Nurse. Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.           Exit.\n  Jul. Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!\n    Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,\n    Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue\n    Which she hath prais'd him with above compare\n    So many thousand times? Go, counsellor!\n    Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.\n    I'll to the friar to know his remedy.\n    If all else fail, myself have power to die.            Exit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. Scene I.\nFriar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar, [Laurence] and County Paris.\n\n  Friar. On Thursday, sir? The time is very short.\n  Par. My father Capulet will have it so,\n    And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.\n  Friar. You say you do not know the lady's mind.\n    Uneven is the course; I like it not.\n  Par. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,\n    And therefore have I little talk'd of love;\n    For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.\n    Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous\n    That she do give her sorrow so much sway,\n    And in his wisdom hastes our marriage\n    To stop the inundation of her tears,\n    Which, too much minded by herself alone,\n    May be put from her by society.\n    Now do you know the reason of this haste.\n  Friar. [aside] I would I knew not why it should be slow'd.-\n    Look, sir, here comes the lady toward my cell.\n\n                    Enter Juliet.\n\n  Par. Happily met, my lady and my wife!\n  Jul. That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.\n  Par. That may be must be, love, on Thursday next.\n  Jul. What must be shall be.\n  Friar. That's a certain text.\n  Par. Come you to make confession to this father?\n  Jul. To answer that, I should confess to you.\n  Par. Do not deny to him that you love me.\n  Jul. I will confess to you that I love him.\n  Par. So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.\n  Jul. If I do so, it will be of more price,\n    Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.\n  Par. Poor soul, thy face is much abus'd with tears.\n  Jul. The tears have got small victory by that,\n    For it was bad enough before their spite.\n  Par. Thou wrong'st it more than tears with that report.\n  Jul. That is no slander, sir, which is a truth;\n    And what I spake, I spake it to my face.\n  Par. Thy face is mine, and thou hast sland'red it.\n  Jul. It may be so, for it is not mine own.\n    Are you at leisure, holy father, now,\n    Or shall I come to you at evening mass\n  Friar. My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.\n    My lord, we must entreat the time alone.\n  Par. God shield I should disturb devotion!\n    Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye.\n    Till then, adieu, and keep this holy kiss.             Exit.\n  Jul. O, shut the door! and when thou hast done so,\n    Come weep with me- past hope, past cure, past help!\n  Friar. Ah, Juliet, I already know thy grief;\n    It strains me past the compass of my wits.\n    I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,\n    On Thursday next be married to this County.\n  Jul. Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,\n    Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it.\n    If in thy wisdom thou canst give no help,\n    Do thou but call my resolution wise\n    And with this knife I'll help it presently.\n    God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands;\n    And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo's seal'd,\n    Shall be the label to another deed,\n    Or my true heart with treacherous revolt\n    Turn to another, this shall slay them both.\n    Therefore, out of thy long-experienc'd time,\n    Give me some present counsel; or, behold,\n    'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife\n    Shall play the empire, arbitrating that\n    Which the commission of thy years and art\n    Could to no issue of true honour bring.\n    Be not so long to speak. I long to die\n    If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.\n  Friar. Hold, daughter. I do spy a kind of hope,\n    Which craves as desperate an execution\n    As that is desperate which we would prevent.\n    If, rather than to marry County Paris\n    Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,\n    Then is it likely thou wilt undertake\n    A thing like death to chide away this shame,\n    That cop'st with death himself to scape from it;\n    And, if thou dar'st, I'll give thee remedy.\n  Jul. O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,\n    From off the battlements of yonder tower,\n    Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk\n    Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears,\n    Or shut me nightly in a charnel house,\n    O'ercover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,\n    With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;\n    Or bid me go into a new-made grave\n    And hide me with a dead man in his shroud-\n    Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble-\n    And I will do it without fear or doubt,\n    To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.\n  Friar. Hold, then. Go home, be merry, give consent\n    To marry Paris. Wednesday is to-morrow.\n    To-morrow night look that thou lie alone;\n    Let not the nurse lie with thee in thy chamber.\n    Take thou this vial, being then in bed,\n    And this distilled liquor drink thou off;\n    When presently through all thy veins shall run\n    A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse\n    Shall keep his native progress, but surcease;\n    No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;\n    The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade\n    To paly ashes, thy eyes' windows fall\n    Like death when he shuts up the day of life;\n    Each part, depriv'd of supple government,\n    Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death;\n    And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death\n    Thou shalt continue two-and-forty hours,\n    And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.\n    Now, when the bridegroom in the morning comes\n    To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead.\n    Then, as the manner of our country is,\n    In thy best robes uncovered on the bier\n    Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault\n    Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.\n    In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,\n    Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift;\n    And hither shall he come; and he and I\n    Will watch thy waking, and that very night\n    Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.\n    And this shall free thee from this present shame,\n    If no inconstant toy nor womanish fear\n    Abate thy valour in the acting it.\n  Jul. Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!\n  Friar. Hold! Get you gone, be strong and prosperous\n    In this resolve. I'll send a friar with speed\n    To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.\n  Jul. Love give me strength! and strength shall help afford.\n    Farewell, dear father.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nCapulet's house.\n\nEnter Father Capulet, Mother, Nurse, and Servingmen,\n                        two or three.\n\n  Cap. So many guests invite as here are writ.\n                                            [Exit a Servingman.]\n    Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.\n  Serv. You shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try if they can lick\n    their fingers.\n  Cap. How canst thou try them so?\n  Serv. Marry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own\n    fingers. Therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with\n    me.\n  Cap. Go, begone.\n                                                Exit Servingman.\n    We shall be much unfurnish'd for this time.\n    What, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?\n  Nurse. Ay, forsooth.\n  Cap. Well, be may chance to do some good on her.\n    A peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.\n\n                        Enter Juliet.\n\n  Nurse. See where she comes from shrift with merry look.\n  Cap. How now, my headstrong? Where have you been gadding?\n  Jul. Where I have learnt me to repent the sin\n    Of disobedient opposition\n    To you and your behests, and am enjoin'd\n    By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here\n    To beg your pardon. Pardon, I beseech you!\n    Henceforward I am ever rul'd by you.\n  Cap. Send for the County. Go tell him of this.\n    I'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.\n  Jul. I met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell\n    And gave him what becomed love I might,\n    Not stepping o'er the bounds of modesty.\n  Cap. Why, I am glad on't. This is well. Stand up.\n    This is as't should be. Let me see the County.\n    Ay, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither.\n    Now, afore God, this reverend holy friar,\n    All our whole city is much bound to him.\n  Jul. Nurse, will you go with me into my closet\n    To help me sort such needful ornaments\n    As you think fit to furnish me to-morrow?\n  Mother. No, not till Thursday. There is time enough.\n  Cap. Go, nurse, go with her. We'll to church to-morrow.\n                                        Exeunt Juliet and Nurse.\n  Mother. We shall be short in our provision.\n    'Tis now near night.\n  Cap. Tush, I will stir about,\n    And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife.\n    Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her.\n    I'll not to bed to-night; let me alone.\n    I'll play the housewife for this once. What, ho!\n    They are all forth; well, I will walk myself\n    To County Paris, to prepare him up\n    Against to-morrow. My heart is wondrous light,\n    Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nJuliet's chamber.\n\nEnter Juliet and Nurse.\n\n  Jul. Ay, those attires are best; but, gentle nurse,\n    I pray thee leave me to myself to-night;\n    For I have need of many orisons\n    To move the heavens to smile upon my state,\n    Which, well thou knowest, is cross and full of sin.\n\n                          Enter Mother.\n\n  Mother. What, are you busy, ho? Need you my help?\n  Jul. No, madam; we have cull'd such necessaries\n    As are behooffull for our state to-morrow.\n    So please you, let me now be left alone,\n    And let the nurse this night sit up with you;\n    For I am sure you have your hands full all\n    In this so sudden business.\n  Mother. Good night.\n    Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.\n                                      Exeunt [Mother and Nurse.]\n  Jul. Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.\n    I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins\n    That almost freezes up the heat of life.\n    I'll call them back again to comfort me.\n    Nurse!- What should she do here?\n    My dismal scene I needs must act alone.\n    Come, vial.\n    What if this mixture do not work at all?\n    Shall I be married then to-morrow morning?\n    No, No! This shall forbid it. Lie thou there.\n                                             Lays down a dagger.\n    What if it be a poison which the friar\n    Subtilly hath minist'red to have me dead,\n    Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd\n    Because he married me before to Romeo?\n    I fear it is; and yet methinks it should not,\n    For he hath still been tried a holy man.\n    I will not entertain so bad a thought.\n    How if, when I am laid into the tomb,\n    I wake before the time that Romeo\n    Come to redeem me? There's a fearful point!\n    Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,\n    To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,\n    And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?\n    Or, if I live, is it not very like\n    The horrible conceit of death and night,\n    Together with the terror of the place-\n    As in a vault, an ancient receptacle\n    Where for this many hundred years the bones\n    Of all my buried ancestors are pack'd;\n    Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,\n    Lies fest'ring in his shroud; where, as they say,\n    At some hours in the night spirits resort-\n    Alack, alack, is it not like that I,\n    So early waking- what with loathsome smells,\n    And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,\n    That living mortals, hearing them, run mad-\n    O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,\n    Environed with all these hideous fears,\n    And madly play with my forefathers' joints,\n    And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud.,\n    And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone\n    As with a club dash out my desp'rate brains?\n    O, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost\n    Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body\n    Upon a rapier's point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!\n    Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.\n\n        She [drinks and] falls upon her bed within the curtains.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nCapulet's house.\n\nEnter Lady of the House and Nurse.\n\n  Lady. Hold, take these keys and fetch more spices, nurse.\n  Nurse. They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.\n\n                       Enter Old Capulet.\n\n  Cap. Come, stir, stir, stir! The second cock hath crow'd,\n    The curfew bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock.\n    Look to the bak'd meats, good Angelica;\n    Spare not for cost.\n  Nurse. Go, you cot-quean, go,\n    Get you to bed! Faith, you'll be sick to-morrow\n    For this night's watching.\n  Cap. No, not a whit. What, I have watch'd ere now\n    All night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick.\n  Lady. Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time;\n    But I will watch you from such watching now.\n                                          Exeunt Lady and Nurse.\n  Cap. A jealous hood, a jealous hood!\n\n  Enter three or four [Fellows, with spits and logs and baskets.\n\n    What is there? Now, fellow,\n  Fellow. Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what.\n  Cap. Make haste, make haste. [Exit Fellow.] Sirrah, fetch drier\n      logs.\n    Call Peter; he will show thee where they are.\n  Fellow. I have a head, sir, that will find out logs\n    And never trouble Peter for the matter.\n  Cap. Mass, and well said; a merry whoreson, ha!\n    Thou shalt be loggerhead. [Exit Fellow.] Good faith, 'tis day.\n    The County will be here with music straight,\n    For so he said he would.                         Play music.\n    I hear him near.\n    Nurse! Wife! What, ho! What, nurse, I say!\n\n                              Enter Nurse.\n    Go waken Juliet; go and trim her up.\n    I'll go and chat with Paris. Hie, make haste,\n    Make haste! The bridegroom he is come already:\n    Make haste, I say.\n                                                       [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nJuliet's chamber.\n\n[Enter Nurse.]\n\n  Nurse. Mistress! what, mistress! Juliet! Fast, I warrant her, she.\n    Why, lamb! why, lady! Fie, you slug-abed!\n    Why, love, I say! madam! sweetheart! Why, bride!\n    What, not a word? You take your pennyworths now!\n    Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,\n    The County Paris hath set up his rest\n    That you shall rest but little. God forgive me!\n    Marry, and amen. How sound is she asleep!\n    I needs must wake her. Madam, madam, madam!\n    Ay, let the County take you in your bed!\n    He'll fright you up, i' faith. Will it not be?\n                                     [Draws aside the curtains.]\n    What, dress'd, and in your clothes, and down again?\n    I must needs wake you. Lady! lady! lady!\n    Alas, alas! Help, help! My lady's dead!\n    O weraday that ever I was born!\n    Some aqua-vitae, ho! My lord! my lady!\n\n                           Enter Mother.\n\n  Mother. What noise is here?\n  Nurse. O lamentable day!\n  Mother. What is the matter?\n  Nurse. Look, look! O heavy day!\n  Mother. O me, O me! My child, my only life!\n    Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!\n    Help, help! Call help.\n\n                            Enter Father.\n\n  Father. For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come.\n  Nurse. She's dead, deceas'd; she's dead! Alack the day!\n  Mother. Alack the day, she's dead, she's dead, she's dead!\n  Cap. Ha! let me see her. Out alas! she's cold,\n    Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff;\n    Life and these lips have long been separated.\n    Death lies on her like an untimely frost\n    Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.\n  Nurse. O lamentable day!\n  Mother. O woful time!\n  Cap. Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,\n    Ties up my tongue and will not let me speak.\n\n  Enter Friar [Laurence] and the County [Paris], with Musicians.\n\n  Friar. Come, is the bride ready to go to church?\n  Cap. Ready to go, but never to return.\n    O son, the night before thy wedding day\n    Hath Death lain with thy wife. See, there she lies,\n    Flower as she was, deflowered by him.\n    Death is my son-in-law, Death is my heir;\n    My daughter he hath wedded. I will die\n    And leave him all. Life, living, all is Death's.\n  Par. Have I thought long to see this morning's face,\n    And doth it give me such a sight as this?\n  Mother. Accurs'd, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!\n    Most miserable hour that e'er time saw\n    In lasting labour of his pilgrimage!\n    But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,\n    But one thing to rejoice and solace in,\n    And cruel Death hath catch'd it from my sight!\n  Nurse. O woe? O woful, woful, woful day!\n    Most lamentable day, most woful day\n    That ever ever I did yet behold!\n    O day! O day! O day! O hateful day!\n    Never was seen so black a day as this.\n    O woful day! O woful day!\n  Par. Beguil'd, divorced, wronged, spited, slain!\n    Most detestable Death, by thee beguil'd,\n    By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!\n    O love! O life! not life, but love in death\n  Cap. Despis'd, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd!\n    Uncomfortable time, why cam'st thou now\n    To murther, murther our solemnity?\n    O child! O child! my soul, and not my child!\n    Dead art thou, dead! alack, my child is dead,\n    And with my child my joys are buried!\n  Friar. Peace, ho, for shame! Confusion's cure lives not\n    In these confusions. Heaven and yourself\n    Had part in this fair maid! now heaven hath all,\n    And all the better is it for the maid.\n    Your part in her you could not keep from death,\n    But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.\n    The most you sought was her promotion,\n    For 'twas your heaven she should be advanc'd;\n    And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc'd\n    Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?\n    O, in this love, you love your child so ill\n    That you run mad, seeing that she is well.\n    She's not well married that lives married long,\n    But she's best married that dies married young.\n    Dry up your tears and stick your rosemary\n    On this fair corse, and, as the custom is,\n    In all her best array bear her to church;\n    For though fond nature bids us all lament,\n    Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.\n  Cap. All things that we ordained festival\n    Turn from their office to black funeral-\n    Our instruments to melancholy bells,\n    Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;\n    Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;\n    Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse;\n    And all things change them to the contrary.\n  Friar. Sir, go you in; and, madam, go with him;\n    And go, Sir Paris. Every one prepare\n    To follow this fair corse unto her grave.\n    The heavens do low'r upon you for some ill;\n    Move them no more by crossing their high will.\n                           Exeunt. Manent Musicians [and Nurse].\n  1. Mus. Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone.\n  Nurse. Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up!\n    For well you know this is a pitiful case.            [Exit.]\n  1. Mus. Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.\n\n                         Enter Peter.\n\n  Pet. Musicians, O, musicians, 'Heart's ease,' 'Heart's ease'!\n    O, an you will have me live, play 'Heart's ease.'\n  1. Mus. Why 'Heart's ease'',\n  Pet. O, musicians, because my heart itself plays 'My heart is full\n    of woe.' O, play me some merry dump to comfort me.\n  1. Mus. Not a dump we! 'Tis no time to play now.\n  Pet. You will not then?\n  1. Mus. No.\n  Pet. I will then give it you soundly.\n  1. Mus. What will you give us?\n  Pet. No money, on my faith, but the gleek. I will give you the\n     minstrel.\n  1. Mus. Then will I give you the serving-creature.\n  Pet. Then will I lay the serving-creature's dagger on your pate.\n    I will carry no crotchets. I'll re you, I'll fa you. Do you note\n    me?\n  1. Mus. An you re us and fa us, you note us.\n  2. Mus. Pray you put up your dagger, and put out your wit.\n  Pet. Then have at you with my wit! I will dry-beat you with an iron\n    wit, and put up my iron dagger. Answer me like men.\n\n           'When griping grief the heart doth wound,\n             And doleful dumps the mind oppress,\n           Then music with her silver sound'-\n\n    Why 'silver sound'? Why 'music with her silver sound'?\n    What say you, Simon Catling?\n  1. Mus. Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.\n  Pet. Pretty! What say You, Hugh Rebeck?\n  2. Mus. I say 'silver sound' because musicians sound for silver.\n  Pet. Pretty too! What say you, James Soundpost?\n  3. Mus. Faith, I know not what to say.\n  Pet. O, I cry you mercy! you are the singer. I will say for you. It\n    is 'music with her silver sound' because musicians have no gold\n    for sounding.\n\n           'Then music with her silver sound\n             With speedy help doth lend redress.'         [Exit.\n\n  1. Mus. What a pestilent knave is this same?\n  2. Mus. Hang him, Jack! Come, we'll in here, tarry for the\n    mourners, and stay dinner.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. Scene I.\nMantua. A street.\n\nEnter Romeo.\n\n  Rom. If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep\n    My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.\n    My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne,\n    And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit\n    Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.\n    I dreamt my lady came and found me dead\n    (Strange dream that gives a dead man leave to think!)\n    And breath'd such life with kisses in my lips\n    That I reviv'd and was an emperor.\n    Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess'd,\n    When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!\n\n                Enter Romeo's Man Balthasar, booted.\n\n    News from Verona! How now, Balthasar?\n    Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?\n    How doth my lady? Is my father well?\n    How fares my Juliet? That I ask again,\n    For nothing can be ill if she be well.\n  Man. Then she is well, and nothing can be ill.\n    Her body sleeps in Capel's monument,\n    And her immortal part with angels lives.\n    I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault\n    And presently took post to tell it you.\n    O, pardon me for bringing these ill news,\n    Since you did leave it for my office, sir.\n  Rom. Is it e'en so? Then I defy you, stars!\n    Thou knowest my lodging. Get me ink and paper\n    And hire posthorses. I will hence to-night.\n  Man. I do beseech you, sir, have patience.\n    Your looks are pale and wild and do import\n    Some misadventure.\n  Rom. Tush, thou art deceiv'd.\n    Leave me and do the thing I bid thee do.\n    Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?\n  Man. No, my good lord.\n  Rom. No matter. Get thee gone\n    And hire those horses. I'll be with thee straight.\n                                               Exit [Balthasar].\n    Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.\n    Let's see for means. O mischief, thou art swift\n    To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!\n    I do remember an apothecary,\n    And hereabouts 'a dwells, which late I noted\n    In tatt'red weeds, with overwhelming brows,\n    Culling of simples. Meagre were his looks,\n    Sharp misery had worn him to the bones;\n    And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,\n    An alligator stuff'd, and other skins\n    Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves\n    A beggarly account of empty boxes,\n    Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,\n    Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses\n    Were thinly scattered, to make up a show.\n    Noting this penury, to myself I said,\n    'An if a man did need a poison now\n    Whose sale is present death in Mantua,\n    Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.'\n    O, this same thought did but forerun my need,\n    And this same needy man must sell it me.\n    As I remember, this should be the house.\n    Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut. What, ho! apothecary!\n\n                        Enter Apothecary.\n\n  Apoth. Who calls so loud?\n  Rom. Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor.\n    Hold, there is forty ducats. Let me have\n    A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear\n    As will disperse itself through all the veins\n    That the life-weary taker mall fall dead,\n    And that the trunk may be discharg'd of breath\n    As violently as hasty powder fir'd\n    Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.\n  Apoth. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law\n    Is death to any he that utters them.\n  Rom. Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness\n    And fearest to die? Famine is in thy cheeks,\n    Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,\n    Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back:\n    The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law;\n    The world affords no law to make thee rich;\n    Then be not poor, but break it and take this.\n  Apoth. My poverty but not my will consents.\n  Rom. I pay thy poverty and not thy will.\n  Apoth. Put this in any liquid thing you will\n    And drink it off, and if you had the strength\n    Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.\n  Rom. There is thy gold- worse poison to men's souls,\n    Doing more murther in this loathsome world,\n    Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.\n    I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.\n    Farewell. Buy food and get thyself in flesh.\n    Come, cordial and not poison, go with me\n    To Juliet's grave; for there must I use thee.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nVerona. Friar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar John to Friar Laurence.\n\n  John. Holy Franciscan friar, brother, ho!\n\n                      Enter Friar Laurence.\n\n  Laur. This same should be the voice of Friar John.\n    Welcome from Mantua. What says Romeo?\n    Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.\n  John. Going to find a barefoot brother out,\n    One of our order, to associate me\n    Here in this city visiting the sick,\n    And finding him, the searchers of the town,\n    Suspecting that we both were in a house\n    Where the infectious pestilence did reign,\n    Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth,\n    So that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd.\n  Laur. Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo?\n  John. I could not send it- here it is again-\n    Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,\n    So fearful were they of infection.\n  Laur. Unhappy fortune! By my brotherhood,\n    The letter was not nice, but full of charge,\n    Of dear import; and the neglecting it\n    May do much danger. Friar John, go hence,\n    Get me an iron crow and bring it straight\n    Unto my cell.\n  John. Brother, I'll go and bring it thee.                 Exit.\n  Laur. Now, must I to the monument alone.\n    Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake.\n    She will beshrew me much that Romeo\n    Hath had no notice of these accidents;\n    But I will write again to Mantua,\n    And keep her at my cell till Romeo come-\n    Poor living corse, clos'd in a dead man's tomb!        Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nVerona. A churchyard; in it the monument of the Capulets.\n\nEnter Paris and his Page with flowers and [a torch].\n\n  Par. Give me thy torch, boy. Hence, and stand aloof.\n    Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.\n    Under yond yew tree lay thee all along,\n    Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground.\n    So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread\n    (Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves)\n    But thou shalt hear it. Whistle then to me,\n    As signal that thou hear'st something approach.\n    Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.\n  Page. [aside] I am almost afraid to stand alone\n    Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.     [Retires.]\n  Par. Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew\n    (O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones)\n    Which with sweet water nightly I will dew;\n    Or, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans.\n    The obsequies that I for thee will keep\n    Nightly shall be to strew, thy grave and weep.\n                                                    Whistle Boy.\n    The boy gives warning something doth approach.\n    What cursed foot wanders this way to-night\n    To cross my obsequies and true love's rite?\n    What, with a torch? Muffle me, night, awhile.     [Retires.]\n\n       Enter Romeo, and Balthasar with a torch, a mattock,\n                    and a crow of iron.\n\n  Rom. Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.\n    Hold, take this letter. Early in the morning\n    See thou deliver it to my lord and father.\n    Give me the light. Upon thy life I charge thee,\n    Whate'er thou hearest or seest, stand all aloof\n    And do not interrupt me in my course.\n    Why I descend into this bed of death\n    Is partly to behold my lady's face,\n    But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger\n    A precious ring- a ring that I must use\n    In dear employment. Therefore hence, be gone.\n    But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry\n    In what I farther shall intend to do,\n    By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint\n    And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs.\n    The time and my intents are savage-wild,\n    More fierce and more inexorable far\n    Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.\n  Bal. I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.\n  Rom. So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that.\n    Live, and be prosperous; and farewell, good fellow.\n  Bal. [aside] For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout.\n    His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.        [Retires.]\n  Rom. Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,\n    Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth,\n    Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,\n    And in despite I'll cram thee with more food.\n                                           Romeo opens the tomb.\n  Par. This is that banish'd haughty Montague\n    That murd'red my love's cousin- with which grief\n    It is supposed the fair creature died-\n    And here is come to do some villanous shame\n    To the dead bodies. I will apprehend him.\n    Stop thy unhallowed toil, vile Montague!\n    Can vengeance be pursu'd further than death?\n    Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee.\n    Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.\n  Rom. I must indeed; and therefore came I hither.\n    Good gentle youth, tempt not a desp'rate man.\n    Fly hence and leave me. Think upon these gone;\n    Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,\n    But not another sin upon my head\n    By urging me to fury. O, be gone!\n    By heaven, I love thee better than myself,\n    For I come hither arm'd against myself.\n    Stay not, be gone. Live, and hereafter say\n    A madman's mercy bid thee run away.\n  Par. I do defy thy, conjuration\n    And apprehend thee for a felon here.\n  Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy!\n                                                     They fight.\n  Page. O Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.\n                                            [Exit. Paris falls.]\n  Par. O, I am slain! If thou be merciful,\n    Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.                   [Dies.]\n  Rom. In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.\n    Mercutio's kinsman, noble County Paris!\n    What said my man when my betossed soul\n    Did not attend him as we rode? I think\n    He told me Paris should have married Juliet.\n    Said he not so? or did I dream it so?\n    Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet\n    To think it was so? O, give me thy hand,\n    One writ with me in sour misfortune's book!\n    I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave.\n    A grave? O, no, a lanthorn, slaught'red youth,\n    For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes\n    This vault a feasting presence full of light.\n    Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd.\n                                         [Lays him in the tomb.]\n    How oft when men are at the point of death\n    Have they been merry! which their keepers call\n    A lightning before death. O, how may I\n    Call this a lightning? O my love! my wife!\n    Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,\n    Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.\n    Thou art not conquer'd. Beauty's ensign yet\n    Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,\n    And death's pale flag is not advanced there.\n    Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?\n    O, what more favour can I do to thee\n    Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain\n    To sunder his that was thine enemy?\n    Forgive me, cousin.' Ah, dear Juliet,\n    Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe\n    That unsubstantial Death is amorous,\n    And that the lean abhorred monster keeps\n    Thee here in dark to be his paramour?\n    For fear of that I still will stay with thee\n    And never from this palace of dim night\n    Depart again. Here, here will I remain\n    With worms that are thy chambermaids. O, here\n    Will I set up my everlasting rest\n    And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars\n    From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!\n    Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you\n    The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss\n    A dateless bargain to engrossing death!\n    Come, bitter conduct; come, unsavoury guide!\n    Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on\n    The dashing rocks thy seasick weary bark!\n    Here's to my love! [Drinks.] O true apothecary!\n    Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.          Falls.\n\n    Enter Friar [Laurence], with lanthorn, crow, and spade.\n\n  Friar. Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night\n    Have my old feet stumbled at graves! Who's there?\n  Bal. Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.\n  Friar. Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend,\n    What torch is yond that vainly lends his light\n    To grubs and eyeless skulls? As I discern,\n    It burneth in the Capels' monument.\n  Bal. It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master,\n    One that you love.\n  Friar. Who is it?\n  Bal. Romeo.\n  Friar. How long hath he been there?\n  Bal. Full half an hour.\n  Friar. Go with me to the vault.\n  Bal. I dare not, sir.\n    My master knows not but I am gone hence,\n    And fearfully did menace me with death\n    If I did stay to look on his intents.\n  Friar. Stay then; I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me.\n    O, much I fear some ill unthrifty thing.\n  Bal. As I did sleep under this yew tree here,\n    I dreamt my master and another fought,\n    And that my master slew him.\n  Friar. Romeo!\n    Alack, alack, what blood is this which stains\n    The stony entrance of this sepulchre?\n    What mean these masterless and gory swords\n    To lie discolour'd by this place of peace? [Enters the tomb.]\n    Romeo! O, pale! Who else? What, Paris too?\n    And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour\n    Is guilty of this lamentable chance! The lady stirs.\n                                                   Juliet rises.\n  Jul. O comfortable friar! where is my lord?\n    I do remember well where I should be,\n    And there I am. Where is my Romeo?\n  Friar. I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest\n    Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep.\n    A greater power than we can contradict\n    Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.\n    Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;\n    And Paris too. Come, I'll dispose of thee\n    Among a sisterhood of holy nuns.\n    Stay not to question, for the watch is coming.\n    Come, go, good Juliet. I dare no longer stay.\n  Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.\n                                                   Exit [Friar].\n    What's here? A cup, clos'd in my true love's hand?\n    Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.\n    O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop\n    To help me after? I will kiss thy lips.\n    Haply some poison yet doth hang on them\n    To make me die with a restorative.             [Kisses him.]\n    Thy lips are warm!\n  Chief Watch. [within] Lead, boy. Which way?\n    Yea, noise? Then I'll be brief. O happy dagger!\n                                      [Snatches Romeo's dagger.]\n    This is thy sheath; there rest, and let me die.\n                  She stabs herself and falls [on Romeo's body].\n\n                Enter [Paris's] Boy and Watch.\n\n  Boy. This is the place. There, where the torch doth burn.\n  Chief Watch. 'the ground is bloody. Search about the churchyard.\n    Go, some of you; whoe'er you find attach.\n                                     [Exeunt some of the Watch.]\n    Pitiful sight! here lies the County slain;\n    And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,\n    Who here hath lain this two days buried.\n    Go, tell the Prince; run to the Capulets;\n    Raise up the Montagues; some others search.\n                                   [Exeunt others of the Watch.]\n    We see the ground whereon these woes do lie,\n    But the true ground of all these piteous woes\n    We cannot without circumstance descry.\n\n     Enter [some of the Watch,] with Romeo's Man [Balthasar].\n\n  2. Watch. Here's Romeo's man. We found him in the churchyard.\n  Chief Watch. Hold him in safety till the Prince come hither.\n\n          Enter Friar [Laurence] and another Watchman.\n\n  3. Watch. Here is a friar that trembles, sighs, and weeps.\n    We took this mattock and this spade from him\n    As he was coming from this churchyard side.\n  Chief Watch. A great suspicion! Stay the friar too.\n\n              Enter the Prince [and Attendants].\n\n  Prince. What misadventure is so early up,\n    That calls our person from our morning rest?\n\n            Enter Capulet and his Wife [with others].\n\n  Cap. What should it be, that they so shriek abroad?\n  Wife. The people in the street cry 'Romeo,'\n    Some 'Juliet,' and some 'Paris'; and all run,\n    With open outcry, toward our monument.\n  Prince. What fear is this which startles in our ears?\n  Chief Watch. Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain;\n    And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before,\n    Warm and new kill'd.\n  Prince. Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.\n  Chief Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man,\n    With instruments upon them fit to open\n    These dead men's tombs.\n  Cap. O heavens! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!\n    This dagger hath mista'en, for, lo, his house\n    Is empty on the back of Montague,\n    And it missheathed in my daughter's bosom!\n  Wife. O me! this sight of death is as a bell\n    That warns my old age to a sepulchre.\n\n               Enter Montague [and others].\n\n  Prince. Come, Montague; for thou art early up\n    To see thy son and heir more early down.\n  Mon. Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night!\n    Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath.\n    What further woe conspires against mine age?\n  Prince. Look, and thou shalt see.\n  Mon. O thou untaught! what manners is in this,\n    To press before thy father to a grave?\n  Prince. Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,\n    Till we can clear these ambiguities\n    And know their spring, their head, their true descent;\n    And then will I be general of your woes\n    And lead you even to death. Meantime forbear,\n    And let mischance be slave to patience.\n    Bring forth the parties of suspicion.\n  Friar. I am the greatest, able to do least,\n    Yet most suspected, as the time and place\n    Doth make against me, of this direful murther;\n    And here I stand, both to impeach and purge\n    Myself condemned and myself excus'd.\n  Prince. Then say it once what thou dost know in this.\n  Friar. I will be brief, for my short date of breath\n    Is not so long as is a tedious tale.\n    Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet;\n    And she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife.\n    I married them; and their stol'n marriage day\n    Was Tybalt's doomsday, whose untimely death\n    Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this city;\n    For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin'd.\n    You, to remove that siege of grief from her,\n    Betroth'd and would have married her perforce\n    To County Paris. Then comes she to me\n    And with wild looks bid me devise some mean\n    To rid her from this second marriage,\n    Or in my cell there would she kill herself.\n    Then gave I her (so tutored by my art)\n    A sleeping potion; which so took effect\n    As I intended, for it wrought on her\n    The form of death. Meantime I writ to Romeo\n    That he should hither come as this dire night\n    To help to take her from her borrowed grave,\n    Being the time the potion's force should cease.\n    But he which bore my letter, Friar John,\n    Was stay'd by accident, and yesternight\n    Return'd my letter back. Then all alone\n    At the prefixed hour of her waking\n    Came I to take her from her kindred's vault;\n    Meaning to keep her closely at my cell\n    Till I conveniently could send to Romeo.\n    But when I came, some minute ere the time\n    Of her awaking, here untimely lay\n    The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.\n    She wakes; and I entreated her come forth\n    And bear this work of heaven with patience;\n    But then a noise did scare me from the tomb,\n    And she, too desperate, would not go with me,\n    But, as it seems, did violence on herself.\n    All this I know, and to the marriage\n    Her nurse is privy; and if aught in this\n    Miscarried by my fault, let my old life\n    Be sacrific'd, some hour before his time,\n    Unto the rigour of severest law.\n  Prince. We still have known thee for a holy man.\n    Where's Romeo's man? What can he say in this?\n  Bal. I brought my master news of Juliet's death;\n    And then in post he came from Mantua\n    To this same place, to this same monument.\n    This letter he early bid me give his father,\n    And threat'ned me with death, going in the vault,\n    If I departed not and left him there.\n  Prince. Give me the letter. I will look on it.\n    Where is the County's page that rais'd the watch?\n    Sirrah, what made your master in this place?\n  Boy. He came with flowers to strew his lady's grave;\n    And bid me stand aloof, and so I did.\n    Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb;\n    And by-and-by my master drew on him;\n    And then I ran away to call the watch.\n  Prince. This letter doth make good the friar's words,\n    Their course of love, the tidings of her death;\n    And here he writes that he did buy a poison\n    Of a poor pothecary, and therewithal\n    Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.\n    Where be these enemies? Capulet, Montage,\n    See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,\n    That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!\n    And I, for winking at you, discords too,\n    Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punish'd.\n  Cap. O brother Montague, give me thy hand.\n    This is my daughter's jointure, for no more\n    Can I demand.\n  Mon. But I can give thee more;\n    For I will raise her Statue in pure gold,\n    That whiles Verona by that name is known,\n    There shall no figure at such rate be set\n    As that of true and faithful Juliet.\n  Cap. As rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie-\n    Poor sacrifices of our enmity!\n  Prince. A glooming peace this morning with it brings.\n    The sun for sorrow will not show his head.\n    Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;\n    Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished;\n    For never was a story of more woe\n    Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.\n                                                   Exeunt omnes.\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n1594\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE TAMING OF THE SHREW\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n    Persons in the Induction\n  A LORD\n  CHRISTOPHER SLY, a tinker\n  HOSTESS\n  PAGE\n  PLAYERS\n  HUNTSMEN\n  SERVANTS\n\n  BAPTISTA MINOLA, a gentleman of Padua\n  VINCENTIO, a Merchant of Pisa\n  LUCENTIO, son to Vincentio, in love with Bianca\n  PETRUCHIO, a gentleman of Verona, a suitor to Katherina\n\n    Suitors to Bianca\n  GREMIO\n  HORTENSIO\n\n    Servants to Lucentio\n  TRANIO\n  BIONDELLO\n\n    Servants to Petruchio\n  GRUMIO\n  CURTIS\n\n  A PEDANT\n\n    Daughters to Baptista\n  KATHERINA, the shrew\n  BIANCA\n\n  A WIDOW\n\n  Tailor, Haberdasher, and Servants attending on Baptista and\n    Petruchio\n\n                             SCENE:\n            Padua, and PETRUCHIO'S house in the country\n\nSC_1\n                      INDUCTION. SCENE I.\n                  Before an alehouse on a heath\n\n                      Enter HOSTESS and SLY\n\n  SLY. I'll pheeze you, in faith.\n  HOSTESS. A pair of stocks, you rogue!\n  SLY. Y'are a baggage; the Slys are no rogues. Look in the\n    chronicles: we came in with Richard Conqueror. Therefore, paucas\n    pallabris; let the world slide. Sessa!\n  HOSTESS. You will not pay for the glasses you have burst?\n  SLY. No, not a denier. Go by, Saint Jeronimy, go to thy cold bed\n    and warm thee.\n  HOSTESS. I know my remedy; I must go fetch the third-borough.\n Exit\n  SLY. Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, I'll answer him by law.\n    I'll not budge an inch, boy; let him come, and kindly.\n                                                  [Falls asleep]\n\n       Wind horns. Enter a LORD from hunting, with his train\n\n  LORD. Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds;\n    Brach Merriman, the poor cur, is emboss'd;\n    And couple Clowder with the deep-mouth'd brach.\n    Saw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good\n    At the hedge corner, in the coldest fault?\n    I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.\n  FIRST HUNTSMAN. Why, Belman is as good as he, my lord;\n    He cried upon it at the merest loss,\n    And twice to-day pick'd out the dullest scent;\n    Trust me, I take him for the better dog.\n  LORD. Thou art a fool; if Echo were as fleet,\n    I would esteem him worth a dozen such.\n    But sup them well, and look unto them all;\n    To-morrow I intend to hunt again.\n  FIRST HUNTSMAN. I will, my lord.\n  LORD. What's here? One dead, or drunk?\n    See, doth he breathe?\n  SECOND HUNTSMAN. He breathes, my lord. Were he not warm'd with ale,\n    This were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly.\n  LORD. O monstrous beast, how like a swine he lies!\n    Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!\n    Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man.\n    What think you, if he were convey'd to bed,\n    Wrapp'd in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,\n    A most delicious banquet by his bed,\n    And brave attendants near him when he wakes,\n    Would not the beggar then forget himself?\n  FIRST HUNTSMAN. Believe me, lord, I think he cannot choose.\n  SECOND HUNTSMAN. It would seem strange unto him when he wak'd.\n  LORD. Even as a flatt'ring dream or worthless fancy.\n    Then take him up, and manage well the jest:\n    Carry him gently to my fairest chamber,\n    And hang it round with all my wanton pictures;\n    Balm his foul head in warm distilled waters,\n    And burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet;\n    Procure me music ready when he wakes,\n    To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound;\n    And if he chance to speak, be ready straight,\n    And with a low submissive reverence\n    Say 'What is it your honour will command?'\n    Let one attend him with a silver basin\n    Full of rose-water and bestrew'd with flowers;\n    Another bear the ewer, the third a diaper,\n    And say 'Will't please your lordship cool your hands?'\n    Some one be ready with a costly suit,\n    And ask him what apparel he will wear;\n    Another tell him of his hounds and horse,\n    And that his lady mourns at his disease;\n    Persuade him that he hath been lunatic,\n    And, when he says he is, say that he dreams,\n    For he is nothing but a mighty lord.\n    This do, and do it kindly, gentle sirs;\n    It will be pastime passing excellent,\n    If it be husbanded with modesty.\n  FIRST HUNTSMAN. My lord, I warrant you we will play our part\n    As he shall think by our true diligence\n    He is no less than what we say he is.\n  LORD. Take him up gently, and to bed with him;\n    And each one to his office when he wakes.\n                          [SLY is carried out. A trumpet sounds]\n    Sirrah, go see what trumpet 'tis that sounds-\n                                                    Exit SERVANT\n    Belike some noble gentleman that means,\n    Travelling some journey, to repose him here.\n\n                         Re-enter a SERVINGMAN\n\n    How now! who is it?\n  SERVANT. An't please your honour, players\n    That offer service to your lordship.\n  LORD. Bid them come near.\n\n                             Enter PLAYERS\n\n    Now, fellows, you are welcome.\n  PLAYERS. We thank your honour.\n  LORD. Do you intend to stay with me to-night?\n  PLAYER. So please your lordship to accept our duty.\n  LORD. With all my heart. This fellow I remember\n    Since once he play'd a farmer's eldest son;\n    'Twas where you woo'd the gentlewoman so well.\n    I have forgot your name; but, sure, that part\n    Was aptly fitted and naturally perform'd.\n  PLAYER. I think 'twas Soto that your honour means.\n  LORD. 'Tis very true; thou didst it excellent.\n    Well, you are come to me in happy time,\n    The rather for I have some sport in hand\n    Wherein your cunning can assist me much.\n    There is a lord will hear you play to-night;\n    But I am doubtful of your modesties,\n    Lest, over-eying of his odd behaviour,\n    For yet his honour never heard a play,\n    You break into some merry passion\n    And so offend him; for I tell you, sirs,\n    If you should smile, he grows impatient.\n  PLAYER. Fear not, my lord; we can contain ourselves,\n    Were he the veriest antic in the world.\n  LORD. Go, sirrah, take them to the buttery,\n    And give them friendly welcome every one;\n    Let them want nothing that my house affords.\n                                       Exit one with the PLAYERS\n    Sirrah, go you to Bartholomew my page,\n    And see him dress'd in all suits like a lady;\n    That done, conduct him to the drunkard's chamber,\n    And call him 'madam,' do him obeisance.\n    Tell him from me- as he will win my love-\n    He bear himself with honourable action,\n    Such as he hath observ'd in noble ladies\n    Unto their lords, by them accomplished;\n    Such duty to the drunkard let him do,\n    With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,\n    And say 'What is't your honour will command,\n    Wherein your lady and your humble wife\n    May show her duty and make known her love?'\n    And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,\n    And with declining head into his bosom,\n    Bid him shed tears, as being overjoyed\n    To see her noble lord restor'd to health,\n    Who for this seven years hath esteemed him\n    No better than a poor and loathsome beggar.\n    And if the boy have not a woman's gift\n    To rain a shower of commanded tears,\n    An onion will do well for such a shift,\n    Which, in a napkin being close convey'd,\n    Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.\n    See this dispatch'd with all the haste thou canst;\n    Anon I'll give thee more instructions.     Exit a SERVINGMAN\n    I know the boy will well usurp the grace,\n    Voice, gait, and action, of a gentlewoman;\n    I long to hear him call the drunkard 'husband';\n    And how my men will stay themselves from laughter\n    When they do homage to this simple peasant.\n    I'll in to counsel them; haply my presence\n    May well abate the over-merry spleen,\n    Which otherwise would grow into extremes.             Exeunt\n\nSC_2\n                            SCENE II.\n               A bedchamber in the LORD'S house\n\n    Enter aloft SLY, with ATTENDANTS; some with apparel, basin\n             and ewer, and other appurtenances; and LORD\n\n  SLY. For God's sake, a pot of small ale.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Will't please your lordship drink a cup of sack?\n  SECOND SERVANT. Will't please your honour taste of these conserves?\n  THIRD SERVANT. What raiment will your honour wear to-day?\n  SLY. I am Christophero Sly; call not me 'honour' nor 'lordship.' I\n    ne'er drank sack in my life; and if you give me any conserves,\n    give me conserves of beef. Ne'er ask me what raiment I'll wear,\n    for I have no more doublets than backs, no more stockings than\n    legs, nor no more shoes than feet- nay, sometime more feet than\n    shoes, or such shoes as my toes look through the overleather.\n  LORD. Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour!\n    O, that a mighty man of such descent,\n    Of such possessions, and so high esteem,\n    Should be infused with so foul a spirit!\n  SLY. What, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher Sly, old\n    Sly's son of Burton Heath; by birth a pedlar, by education a\n    cardmaker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present\n    profession a tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of\n    Wincot, if she know me not; if she say I am not fourteen pence on\n    the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lying'st knave in\n    Christendom. What! I am not bestraught.  [Taking a pot of ale]\n    Here's-\n  THIRD SERVANT. O, this it is that makes your lady mourn!\n  SECOND SERVANT. O, this is it that makes your servants droop!\n  LORD. Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,\n    As beaten hence by your strange lunacy.\n    O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth!\n    Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment,\n    And banish hence these abject lowly dreams.\n    Look how thy servants do attend on thee,\n    Each in his office ready at thy beck.\n    Wilt thou have music? Hark! Apollo plays,            [Music]\n    And twenty caged nightingales do sing.\n    Or wilt thou sleep? We'll have thee to a couch\n    Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed\n    On purpose trimm'd up for Semiramis.\n    Say thou wilt walk: we will bestrew the ground.\n    Or wilt thou ride? Thy horses shall be trapp'd,\n    Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.\n    Dost thou love hawking? Thou hast hawks will soar\n    Above the morning lark. Or wilt thou hunt?\n    Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them\n    And fetch shall echoes from the hollow earth.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Say thou wilt course; thy greyhounds are as swift\n    As breathed stags; ay, fleeter than the roe.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Dost thou love pictures? We will fetch thee\n      straight\n    Adonis painted by a running brook,\n    And Cytherea all in sedges hid,\n    Which seem to move and wanton with her breath\n    Even as the waving sedges play wi' th' wind.\n  LORD. We'll show thee lo as she was a maid\n    And how she was beguiled and surpris'd,\n    As lively painted as the deed was done.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,\n    Scratching her legs, that one shall swear she bleeds\n    And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,\n    So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.\n  LORD. Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord.\n    Thou hast a lady far more beautiful\n    Than any woman in this waning age.\n  FIRST SERVANT. And, till the tears that she hath shed for thee\n    Like envious floods o'er-run her lovely face,\n    She was the fairest creature in the world;\n    And yet she is inferior to none.\n  SLY. Am I a lord and have I such a lady?\n    Or do I dream? Or have I dream'd till now?\n    I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak;\n    I smell sweet savours, and I feel soft things.\n    Upon my life, I am a lord indeed,\n    And not a tinker, nor Christopher Sly.\n    Well, bring our lady hither to our sight;\n    And once again, a pot o' th' smallest ale.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Will't please your Mightiness to wash your hands?\n    O, how we joy to see your wit restor'd!\n    O, that once more you knew but what you are!\n    These fifteen years you have been in a dream;\n    Or, when you wak'd, so wak'd as if you slept.\n  SLY. These fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly nap.\n    But did I never speak of all that time?\n  FIRST SERVANT. O, yes, my lord, but very idle words;\n    For though you lay here in this goodly chamber,\n    Yet would you say ye were beaten out of door;\n    And rail upon the hostess of the house,\n    And say you would present her at the leet,\n    Because she brought stone jugs and no seal'd quarts.\n    Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.\n  SLY. Ay, the woman's maid of the house.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Why, sir, you know no house nor no such maid,\n    Nor no such men as you have reckon'd up,\n    As Stephen Sly, and old John Naps of Greece,\n    And Peter Turph, and Henry Pimpernell;\n    And twenty more such names and men as these,\n    Which never were, nor no man ever saw.\n  SLY. Now, Lord be thanked for my good amends!\n  ALL. Amen.\n\n           Enter the PAGE as a lady, with ATTENDANTS\n\n  SLY. I thank thee; thou shalt not lose by it.\n  PAGE. How fares my noble lord?\n  SLY. Marry, I fare well; for here is cheer enough.\n    Where is my wife?\n  PAGE. Here, noble lord; what is thy will with her?\n  SLY. Are you my wife, and will not call me husband?\n    My men should call me 'lord'; I am your goodman.\n  PAGE. My husband and my lord, my lord and husband;\n    I am your wife in all obedience.\n  SLY. I know it well. What must I call her?\n  LORD. Madam.\n  SLY. Al'ce madam, or Joan madam?\n  LORD. Madam, and nothing else; so lords call ladies.\n  SLY. Madam wife, they say that I have dream'd\n    And slept above some fifteen year or more.\n  PAGE. Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,\n    Being all this time abandon'd from your bed.\n  SLY. 'Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.\n                                                 Exeunt SERVANTS\n    Madam, undress you, and come now to bed.\n  PAGE. Thrice noble lord, let me entreat of you\n    To pardon me yet for a night or two;\n    Or, if not so, until the sun be set.\n    For your physicians have expressly charg'd,\n    In peril to incur your former malady,\n    That I should yet absent me from your bed.\n    I hope this reason stands for my excuse.\n  SLY. Ay, it stands so that I may hardly tarry so long. But I would\n    be loath to fall into my dreams again. I will therefore tarry in\n    despite of the flesh and the blood.\n\n                       Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Your honour's players, hearing your amendment,\n    Are come to play a pleasant comedy;\n    For so your doctors hold it very meet,\n    Seeing too much sadness hath congeal'd your blood,\n    And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy.\n    Therefore they thought it good you hear a play\n    And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,\n    Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.\n  SLY. Marry, I will; let them play it. Is not a comonty a\n    Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick?\n  PAGE. No, my good lord, it is more pleasing stuff.\n  SLY. What, household stuff?\n  PAGE. It is a kind of history.\n  SLY. Well, we'll see't. Come, madam wife, sit by my side and let\n    the world slip;-we shall ne'er be younger.\n                                                 [They sit down]\n\n          A flourish of trumpets announces the play\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nPadua. A public place\n\nEnter LUCENTIO and his man TRANIO\n\n  LUCENTIO. Tranio, since for the great desire I had\n    To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,\n    I am arriv'd for fruitful Lombardy,\n    The pleasant garden of great Italy,\n    And by my father's love and leave am arm'd\n    With his good will and thy good company,\n    My trusty servant well approv'd in all,\n    Here let us breathe, and haply institute\n    A course of learning and ingenious studies.\n    Pisa, renowned for grave citizens,\n    Gave me my being and my father first,\n    A merchant of great traffic through the world,\n    Vincentio, come of the Bentivolii;\n    Vincentio's son, brought up in Florence,\n    It shall become to serve all hopes conceiv'd,\n    To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds.\n    And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,\n    Virtue and that part of philosophy\n    Will I apply that treats of happiness\n    By virtue specially to be achiev'd.\n    Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left\n    And am to Padua come as he that leaves\n    A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep,\n    And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.\n  TRANIO. Mi perdonato, gentle master mine;\n    I am in all affected as yourself;\n    Glad that you thus continue your resolve\n    To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.\n    Only, good master, while we do admire\n    This virtue and this moral discipline,\n    Let's be no Stoics nor no stocks, I pray,\n    Or so devote to Aristotle's checks\n    As Ovid be an outcast quite abjur'd.\n    Balk logic with acquaintance that you have,\n    And practise rhetoric in your common talk;\n    Music and poesy use to quicken you;\n    The mathematics and the metaphysics,\n    Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you.\n    No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en;\n    In brief, sir, study what you most affect.\n  LUCENTIO. Gramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise.\n    If, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,\n    We could at once put us in readiness,\n    And take a lodging fit to entertain\n    Such friends as time in Padua shall beget.\n\n      Enter BAPTISTA with his two daughters, KATHERINA\n        and BIANCA; GREMIO, a pantaloon; HORTENSIO,\n        suitor to BIANCA. LUCENTIO and TRANIO stand by\n\n    But stay awhile; what company is this?\n  TRANIO. Master, some show to welcome us to town.\n  BAPTISTA. Gentlemen, importune me no farther,\n    For how I firmly am resolv'd you know;\n    That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter\n    Before I have a husband for the elder.\n    If either of you both love Katherina,\n    Because I know you well and love you well,\n    Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.\n  GREMIO. To cart her rather. She's too rough for me.\n    There, there, Hortensio, will you any wife?\n  KATHERINA.  [To BAPTISTA]  I pray you, sir, is it your will\n    To make a stale of me amongst these mates?\n  HORTENSIO. Mates, maid! How mean you that? No mates for you,\n    Unless you were of gentler, milder mould.\n  KATHERINA. I' faith, sir, you shall never need to fear;\n    Iwis it is not halfway to her heart;\n    But if it were, doubt not her care should be\n    To comb your noddle with a three-legg'd stool,\n    And paint your face, and use you like a fool.\n  HORTENSIO. From all such devils, good Lord deliver us!\n  GREMIO. And me, too, good Lord!\n  TRANIO. Husht, master! Here's some good pastime toward;\n    That wench is stark mad or wonderful froward.\n  LUCENTIO. But in the other's silence do I see\n    Maid's mild behaviour and sobriety.\n    Peace, Tranio!\n  TRANIO. Well said, master; mum! and gaze your fill.\n  BAPTISTA. Gentlemen, that I may soon make good\n    What I have said- Bianca, get you in;\n    And let it not displease thee, good Bianca,\n    For I will love thee ne'er the less, my girl.\n  KATHERINA. A pretty peat! it is best\n    Put finger in the eye, an she knew why.\n  BIANCA. Sister, content you in my discontent.\n    Sir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe;\n    My books and instruments shall be my company,\n    On them to look, and practise by myself.\n  LUCENTIO. Hark, Tranio, thou mayst hear Minerva speak!\n  HORTENSIO. Signior Baptista, will you be so strange?\n    Sorry am I that our good will effects\n    Bianca's grief.\n  GREMIO. Why will you mew her up,\n    Signior Baptista, for this fiend of hell,\n    And make her bear the penance of her tongue?\n  BAPTISTA. Gentlemen, content ye; I am resolv'd.\n    Go in, Bianca.                                   Exit BIANCA\n    And for I know she taketh most delight\n    In music, instruments, and poetry,\n    Schoolmasters will I keep within my house\n    Fit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio,\n    Or, Signior Gremio, you, know any such,\n    Prefer them hither; for to cunning men\n    I will be very kind, and liberal\n    To mine own children in good bringing-up;\n    And so, farewell. Katherina, you may stay;\n    For I have more to commune with Bianca.                 Exit\n  KATHERINA. Why, and I trust I may go too, may I not?\n    What! shall I be appointed hours, as though, belike,\n    I knew not what to take and what to leave? Ha!          Exit\n  GREMIO. You may go to the devil's dam; your gifts are so good\n    here's none will hold you. There! Love is not so great,\n    Hortensio, but we may blow our nails together, and fast it fairly\n    out; our cake's dough on both sides. Farewell; yet, for the love\n    I bear my sweet Bianca, if I can by any means light on a fit man\n    to teach her that wherein she delights, I will wish him to her\n    father.\n  HORTENSIO. SO Will I, Signior Gremio; but a word, I pray. Though\n    the nature of our quarrel yet never brook'd parle, know now, upon\n    advice, it toucheth us both- that we may yet again have access to\n    our fair mistress, and be happy rivals in Bianca's love- to\n    labour and effect one thing specially.\n  GREMIO. What's that, I pray?\n  HORTENSIO. Marry, sir, to get a husband for her sister.\n  GREMIO. A husband? a devil.\n  HORTENSIO. I say a husband.\n  GREMIO. I say a devil. Think'st thou, Hortensio, though her father\n    be very rich, any man is so very a fool to be married to hell?\n  HORTENSIO. Tush, Gremio! Though it pass your patience and mine to\n    endure her loud alarums, why, man, there be good fellows in the\n    world, an a man could light on them, would take her with all\n    faults, and money enough.\n  GREMIO. I cannot tell; but I had as lief take her dowry with this\n    condition: to be whipp'd at the high cross every morning.\n  HORTENSIO. Faith, as you say, there's small choice in rotten\n    apples. But, come; since this bar in law makes us friends, it\n    shall be so far forth friendly maintain'd till by helping\n    Baptista's eldest daughter to a husband we set his youngest free\n    for a husband, and then have to't afresh. Sweet Bianca! Happy man\n    be his dole! He that runs fastest gets the ring. How say you,\n    Signior Gremio?\n  GREMIO. I am agreed; and would I had given him the best horse in\n    Padua to begin his wooing that would thoroughly woo her, wed her,\n    and bed her, and rid the house of her! Come on.\n                                     Exeunt GREMIO and HORTENSIO\n  TRANIO. I pray, sir, tell me, is it possible\n    That love should of a sudden take such hold?\n  LUCENTIO. O Tranio, till I found it to be true,\n    I never thought it possible or likely.\n    But see! while idly I stood looking on,\n    I found the effect of love in idleness;\n    And now in plainness do confess to thee,\n    That art to me as secret and as dear\n    As Anna to the Queen of Carthage was-\n    Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio,\n    If I achieve not this young modest girl.\n    Counsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst;\n    Assist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt.\n  TRANIO. Master, it is no time to chide you now;\n    Affection is not rated from the heart;\n    If love have touch'd you, nought remains but so:\n    'Redime te captum quam queas minimo.'\n  LUCENTIO. Gramercies, lad. Go forward; this contents;\n    The rest will comfort, for thy counsel's sound.\n  TRANIO. Master, you look'd so longly on the maid.\n    Perhaps you mark'd not what's the pith of all.\n  LUCENTIO. O, yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face,\n    Such as the daughter of Agenor had,\n    That made great Jove to humble him to her hand,\n    When with his knees he kiss'd the Cretan strand.\n  TRANIO. Saw you no more? Mark'd you not how her sister\n    Began to scold and raise up such a storm\n    That mortal ears might hardly endure the din?\n  LUCENTIO. Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move,\n    And with her breath she did perfume the air;\n    Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her.\n  TRANIO. Nay, then 'tis time to stir him from his trance.\n    I pray, awake, sir. If you love the maid,\n    Bend thoughts and wits to achieve her. Thus it stands:\n    Her elder sister is so curst and shrewd\n    That, till the father rid his hands of her,\n    Master, your love must live a maid at home;\n    And therefore has he closely mew'd her up,\n    Because she will not be annoy'd with suitors.\n  LUCENTIO. Ah, Tranio, what a cruel father's he!\n    But art thou not advis'd he took some care\n    To get her cunning schoolmasters to instruct her?\n  TRANIO. Ay, marry, am I, sir, and now 'tis plotted.\n  LUCENTIO. I have it, Tranio.\n  TRANIO. Master, for my hand,\n    Both our inventions meet and jump in one.\n  LUCENTIO. Tell me thine first.\n  TRANIO. You will be schoolmaster,\n    And undertake the teaching of the maid-\n    That's your device.\n  LUCENTIO. It is. May it be done?\n  TRANIO. Not possible; for who shall bear your part\n    And be in Padua here Vincentio's son;\n    Keep house and ply his book, welcome his friends,\n    Visit his countrymen, and banquet them?\n  LUCENTIO. Basta, content thee, for I have it full.\n    We have not yet been seen in any house,\n    Nor can we be distinguish'd by our faces\n    For man or master. Then it follows thus:\n    Thou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead,\n    Keep house and port and servants, as I should;\n    I will some other be- some Florentine,\n    Some Neapolitan, or meaner man of Pisa.\n    'Tis hatch'd, and shall be so. Tranio, at once\n    Uncase thee; take my colour'd hat and cloak.\n    When Biondello comes, he waits on thee;\n    But I will charm him first to keep his tongue.\n  TRANIO. So had you need.                [They exchange habits]\n    In brief, sir, sith it your pleasure is,\n    And I am tied to be obedient-\n    For so your father charg'd me at our parting:\n    'Be serviceable to my son' quoth he,\n    Although I think 'twas in another sense-\n    I am content to be Lucentio,\n    Because so well I love Lucentio.\n  LUCENTIO. Tranio, be so because Lucentio loves;\n    And let me be a slave t' achieve that maid\n    Whose sudden sight hath thrall'd my wounded eye.\n\n                       Enter BIONDELLO.\n\n    Here comes the rogue. Sirrah, where have you been?\n  BIONDELLO. Where have I been! Nay, how now! where are you?\n    Master, has my fellow Tranio stol'n your clothes?\n    Or you stol'n his? or both? Pray, what's the news?\n  LUCENTIO. Sirrah, come hither; 'tis no time to jest,\n    And therefore frame your manners to the time.\n    Your fellow Tranio here, to save my life,\n    Puts my apparel and my count'nance on,\n    And I for my escape have put on his;\n    For in a quarrel since I came ashore\n    I kill'd a man, and fear I was descried.\n    Wait you on him, I charge you, as becomes,\n    While I make way from hence to save my life.\n    You understand me?\n  BIONDELLO. I, sir? Ne'er a whit.\n  LUCENTIO. And not a jot of Tranio in your mouth:\n    Tranio is chang'd into Lucentio.\n  BIONDELLO. The better for him; would I were so too!\n  TRANIO. So could I, faith, boy, to have the next wish after,\n    That Lucentio indeed had Baptista's youngest daughter.\n    But, sirrah, not for my sake but your master's, I advise\n    You use your manners discreetly in all kind of companies.\n    When I am alone, why, then I am Tranio;\n    But in all places else your master Lucentio.\n  LUCENTIO. Tranio, let's go.\n    One thing more rests, that thyself execute-\n    To make one among these wooers. If thou ask me why-\n    Sufficeth, my reasons are both good and weighty.      Exeunt\n\n                 The Presenters above speak\n\n  FIRST SERVANT. My lord, you nod; you do not mind the play.\n  SLY. Yes, by Saint Anne do I. A good matter, surely; comes there\n    any more of it?\n  PAGE. My lord, 'tis but begun.\n  SLY. 'Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady\n    Would 'twere done!                        [They sit and mark]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nPadua. Before HORTENSIO'S house\n\nEnter PETRUCHIO and his man GRUMIO\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Verona, for a while I take my leave,\n    To see my friends in Padua; but of all\n    My best beloved and approved friend,\n    Hortensio; and I trow this is his house.\n    Here, sirrah Grumio, knock, I say.\n GRUMIO. Knock, sir! Whom should I knock?\n    Is there any man has rebus'd your worship?\n  PETRUCHIO. Villain, I say, knock me here soundly.\n  GRUMIO. Knock you here, sir? Why, sir, what am I, sir, that I\n    should knock you here, sir?\n  PETRUCHIO. Villain, I say, knock me at this gate,\n    And rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate.\n  GRUMIO. My master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock you first,\n    And then I know after who comes by the worst.\n  PETRUCHIO. Will it not be?\n    Faith, sirrah, an you'll not knock I'll ring it;\n    I'll try how you can sol-fa, and sing it.\n                                     [He wrings him by the ears]\n  GRUMIO. Help, masters, help! My master is mad.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now knock when I bid you, sirrah villain!\n\n                        Enter HORTENSIO\n\n  HORTENSIO. How now! what's the matter? My old friend Grumio and my\n    good friend Petruchio! How do you all at Verona?\n  PETRUCHIO. Signior Hortensio, come you to part the fray?\n    'Con tutto il cuore ben trovato' may I say.\n  HORTENSIO. Alla nostra casa ben venuto,\n    Molto honorato signor mio Petruchio.\n    Rise, Grumio, rise; we will compound this quarrel.\n  GRUMIO. Nay, 'tis no matter, sir, what he 'leges in Latin. If this\n    be not a lawful cause for me to leave his service- look you, sir:\n    he bid me knock him and rap him soundly, sir. Well, was it fit\n    for a servant to use his master so; being, perhaps, for aught I\n    see, two and thirty, a pip out?\n    Whom would to God I had well knock'd at first,\n    Then had not Grumio come by the worst.\n  PETRUCHIO. A senseless villain! Good Hortensio,\n    I bade the rascal knock upon your gate,\n    And could not get him for my heart to do it.\n  GRUMIO. Knock at the gate? O heavens! Spake you not these words\n    plain: 'Sirrah knock me here, rap me here, knock me well, and\n    knock me soundly'? And come you now with 'knocking at the gate'?\n  PETRUCHIO. Sirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you.\n  HORTENSIO. Petruchio, patience; I am Grumio's pledge;\n    Why, this's a heavy chance 'twixt him and you,\n    Your ancient, trusty, pleasant servant Grumio.\n    And tell me now, sweet friend, what happy gale\n    Blows you to Padua here from old Verona?\n  PETRUCHIO. Such wind as scatters young men through the world\n    To seek their fortunes farther than at home,\n    Where small experience grows. But in a few,\n    Signior Hortensio, thus it stands with me:\n    Antonio, my father, is deceas'd,\n    And I have thrust myself into this maze,\n    Haply to wive and thrive as best I may;\n    Crowns in my purse I have, and goods at home,\n    And so am come abroad to see the world.\n  HORTENSIO. Petruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee\n    And wish thee to a shrewd ill-favour'd wife?\n    Thou'dst thank me but a little for my counsel,\n    And yet I'll promise thee she shall be rich,\n    And very rich; but th'art too much my friend,\n    And I'll not wish thee to her.\n  PETRUCHIO. Signior Hortensio, 'twixt such friends as we\n    Few words suffice; and therefore, if thou know\n    One rich enough to be Petruchio's wife,\n    As wealth is burden of my wooing dance,\n    Be she as foul as was Florentius' love,\n    As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd\n    As Socrates' Xanthippe or a worse-\n    She moves me not, or not removes, at least,\n    Affection's edge in me, were she as rough\n    As are the swelling Adriatic seas.\n    I come to wive it wealthily in Padua;\n    If wealthily, then happily in Padua.\n  GRUMIO. Nay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his mind is.\n    Why, give him gold enough and marry him to a puppet or an\n    aglet-baby, or an old trot with ne'er a tooth in her head, though\n    she has as many diseases as two and fifty horses. Why, nothing\n    comes amiss, so money comes withal.\n  HORTENSIO. Petruchio, since we are stepp'd thus far in,\n    I will continue that I broach'd in jest.\n    I can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife\n    With wealth enough, and young and beauteous;\n    Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman;\n    Her only fault, and that is faults enough,\n    Is- that she is intolerable curst,\n    And shrewd and froward so beyond all measure\n    That, were my state far worser than it is,\n    I would not wed her for a mine of gold.\n  PETRUCHIO. Hortensio, peace! thou know'st not gold's effect.\n    Tell me her father's name, and 'tis enough;\n    For I will board her though she chide as loud\n    As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack.\n  HORTENSIO. Her father is Baptista Minola,\n    An affable and courteous gentleman;\n    Her name is Katherina Minola,\n    Renown'd in Padua for her scolding tongue.\n  PETRUCHIO. I know her father, though I know not her;\n    And he knew my deceased father well.\n    I will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her;\n    And therefore let me be thus bold with you\n    To give you over at this first encounter,\n    Unless you will accompany me thither.\n  GRUMIO. I pray you, sir, let him go while the humour lasts. O' my\n    word, and she knew him as well as I do, she would think scolding\n    would do little good upon him. She may perhaps call him half a\n    score knaves or so. Why, that's nothing; and he begin once, he'll\n    rail in his rope-tricks. I'll tell you what, sir: an she stand\n    him but a little, he will throw a figure in her face, and so\n    disfigure her with it that she shall have no more eyes to see\n    withal than a cat. You know him not, sir.\n  HORTENSIO. Tarry, Petruchio, I must go with thee,\n    For in Baptista's keep my treasure is.\n    He hath the jewel of my life in hold,\n    His youngest daughter, beautiful Bianca;\n    And her withholds from me, and other more,\n    Suitors to her and rivals in my love;\n    Supposing it a thing impossible-\n    For those defects I have before rehears'd-\n    That ever Katherina will be woo'd.\n    Therefore this order hath Baptista ta'en,\n    That none shall have access unto Bianca\n    Till Katherine the curst have got a husband.\n  GRUMIO. Katherine the curst!\n    A title for a maid of all titles the worst.\n  HORTENSIO. Now shall my friend Petruchio do me grace,\n    And offer me disguis'd in sober robes\n    To old Baptista as a schoolmaster\n    Well seen in music, to instruct Bianca;\n    That so I may by this device at least\n    Have leave and leisure to make love to her,\n    And unsuspected court her by herself.\n\n        Enter GREMIO with LUCENTIO disguised as CAMBIO\n\n  GRUMIO. Here's no knavery! See, to beguile the old folks, how the\n    young folks lay their heads together! Master, master, look about\n    you. Who goes there, ha?\n  HORTENSIO. Peace, Grumio! It is the rival of my love. Petruchio,\n    stand by awhile.\n  GRUMIO. A proper stripling, and an amorous!\n                                              [They stand aside]\n  GREMIO. O, very well; I have perus'd the note.\n    Hark you, sir; I'll have them very fairly bound-\n    All books of love, see that at any hand;\n    And see you read no other lectures to her.\n    You understand me- over and beside\n    Signior Baptista's liberality,\n    I'll mend it with a largess. Take your paper too,\n    And let me have them very well perfum'd;\n    For she is sweeter than perfume itself\n    To whom they go to. What will you read to her?\n  LUCENTIO. Whate'er I read to her, I'll plead for you\n    As for my patron, stand you so assur'd,\n    As firmly as yourself were still in place;\n    Yea, and perhaps with more successful words\n    Than you, unless you were a scholar, sir.\n  GREMIO. O this learning, what a thing it is!\n  GRUMIO. O this woodcock, what an ass it is!\n  PETRUCHIO. Peace, sirrah!\n  HORTENSIO. Grumio, mum!                       [Coming forward]\n    God save you, Signior Gremio!\n  GREMIO. And you are well met, Signior Hortensio.\n    Trow you whither I am going? To Baptista Minola.\n    I promis'd to enquire carefully\n    About a schoolmaster for the fair Bianca;\n    And by good fortune I have lighted well\n    On this young man; for learning and behaviour\n    Fit for her turn, well read in poetry\n    And other books- good ones, I warrant ye.\n  HORTENSIO. 'Tis well; and I have met a gentleman\n    Hath promis'd me to help me to another,\n    A fine musician to instruct our mistress;\n    So shall I no whit be behind in duty\n    To fair Bianca, so beloved of me.\n  GREMIO. Beloved of me- and that my deeds shall prove.\n  GRUMIO. And that his bags shall prove.\n  HORTENSIO. Gremio, 'tis now no time to vent our love.\n    Listen to me, and if you speak me fair\n    I'll tell you news indifferent good for either.\n    Here is a gentleman whom by chance I met,\n    Upon agreement from us to his liking,\n    Will undertake to woo curst Katherine;\n    Yea, and to marry her, if her dowry please.\n  GREMIO. So said, so done, is well.\n    Hortensio, have you told him all her faults?\n  PETRUCHIO. I know she is an irksome brawling scold;\n    If that be all, masters, I hear no harm.\n  GREMIO. No, say'st me so, friend? What countryman?\n  PETRUCHIO. Born in Verona, old Antonio's son.\n    My father dead, my fortune lives for me;\n    And I do hope good days and long to see.\n  GREMIO. O Sir, such a life with such a wife were strange!\n    But if you have a stomach, to't a God's name;\n    You shall have me assisting you in all.\n    But will you woo this wild-cat?\n  PETRUCHIO. Will I live?\n  GRUMIO. Will he woo her? Ay, or I'll hang her.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why came I hither but to that intent?\n    Think you a little din can daunt mine ears?\n    Have I not in my time heard lions roar?\n    Have I not heard the sea, puff'd up with winds,\n    Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?\n    Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,\n    And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?\n    Have I not in a pitched battle heard\n    Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang?\n    And do you tell me of a woman's tongue,\n    That gives not half so great a blow to hear\n    As will a chestnut in a fariner's fire?\n    Tush! tush! fear boys with bugs.\n  GRUMIO. For he fears none.\n  GREMIO. Hortensio, hark:\n    This gentleman is happily arriv'd,\n    My mind presumes, for his own good and ours.\n  HORTENSIO. I promis'd we would be contributors\n    And bear his charge of wooing, whatsoe'er.\n  GREMIO. And so we will- provided that he win her.\n  GRUMIO. I would I were as sure of a good dinner.\n\n    Enter TRANIO, bravely apparelled as LUCENTIO, and BIONDELLO\n\n  TRANIO. Gentlemen, God save you! If I may be bold,\n    Tell me, I beseech you, which is the readiest way\n    To the house of Signior Baptista Minola?\n  BIONDELLO. He that has the two fair daughters; is't he you mean?\n  TRANIO. Even he, Biondello.\n  GREMIO. Hark you, sir, you mean not her to-\n  TRANIO. Perhaps him and her, sir; what have you to do?\n  PETRUCHIO. Not her that chides, sir, at any hand, I pray.\n  TRANIO. I love no chiders, sir. Biondello, let's away.\n  LUCENTIO.  [Aside]  Well begun, Tranio.\n  HORTENSIO. Sir, a word ere you go.\n    Are you a suitor to the maid you talk of, yea or no?\n  TRANIO. And if I be, sir, is it any offence?\n  GREMIO. No; if without more words you will get you hence.\n  TRANIO. Why, sir, I pray, are not the streets as free\n    For me as for you?\n  GREMIO. But so is not she.\n\n  TRANIO. For what reason, I beseech you?\n  GREMIO. For this reason, if you'll know,\n    That she's the choice love of Signior Gremio.\n  HORTENSIO. That she's the chosen of Signior Hortensio.\n  TRANIO. Softly, my masters! If you be gentlemen,\n    Do me this right- hear me with patience.\n    Baptista is a noble gentleman,\n    To whom my father is not all unknown,\n    And, were his daughter fairer than she is,\n    She may more suitors have, and me for one.\n    Fair Leda's daughter had a thousand wooers;\n    Then well one more may fair Bianca have;\n    And so she shall: Lucentio shall make one,\n    Though Paris came in hope to speed alone.\n  GREMIO. What, this gentleman will out-talk us all!\n  LUCENTIO. Sir, give him head; I know he'll prove a jade.\n  PETRUCHIO. Hortensio, to what end are all these words?\n  HORTENSIO. Sir, let me be so bold as ask you,\n    Did you yet ever see Baptista's daughter?\n  TRANIO. No, sir, but hear I do that he hath two:\n    The one as famous for a scolding tongue\n    As is the other for beauteous modesty.\n  PETRUCHIO. Sir, sir, the first's for me; let her go by.\n  GREMIO. Yea, leave that labour to great Hercules,\n    And let it be more than Alcides' twelve.\n  PETRUCHIO. Sir, understand you this of me, in sooth:\n    The youngest daughter, whom you hearken for,\n    Her father keeps from all access of suitors,\n    And will not promise her to any man\n    Until the elder sister first be wed.\n    The younger then is free, and not before.\n  TRANIO. If it be so, sir, that you are the man\n    Must stead us all, and me amongst the rest;\n    And if you break the ice, and do this feat,\n    Achieve the elder, set the younger free\n    For our access- whose hap shall be to have her\n    Will not so graceless be to be ingrate.\n  HORTENSIO. Sir, you say well, and well you do conceive;\n    And since you do profess to be a suitor,\n    You must, as we do, gratify this gentleman,\n    To whom we all rest generally beholding.\n  TRANIO. Sir, I shall not be slack; in sign whereof,\n    Please ye we may contrive this afternoon,\n    And quaff carouses to our mistress' health;\n    And do as adversaries do in law-\n    Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.\n  GRUMIO, BIONDELLO. O excellent motion! Fellows, let's be gone.\n  HORTENSIO. The motion's good indeed, and be it so.\n    Petruchio, I shall be your ben venuto.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT Il. SCENE I.\nPadua. BAPTISTA'S house\n\nEnter KATHERINA and BIANCA\n\n  BIANCA. Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,\n    To make a bondmaid and a slave of me-\n    That I disdain; but for these other gawds,\n    Unbind my hands, I'll pull them off myself,\n    Yea, all my raiment, to my petticoat;\n    Or what you will command me will I do,\n    So well I know my duty to my elders.\n  KATHERINA. Of all thy suitors here I charge thee tell\n    Whom thou lov'st best. See thou dissemble not.\n  BIANCA. Believe me, sister, of all the men alive\n    I never yet beheld that special face\n    Which I could fancy more than any other.\n  KATHERINA. Minion, thou liest. Is't not Hortensio?\n  BIANCA. If you affect him, sister, here I swear\n    I'll plead for you myself but you shall have him.\n  KATHERINA. O then, belike, you fancy riches more:\n    You will have Gremio to keep you fair.\n  BIANCA. Is it for him you do envy me so?\n    Nay, then you jest; and now I well perceive\n    You have but jested with me all this while.\n    I prithee, sister Kate, untie my hands.\n  KATHERINA. [Strikes her]  If that be jest, then an the rest was so.\n\n                            Enter BAPTISTA\n\n  BAPTISTA. Why, how now, dame! Whence grows this insolence?\n    Bianca, stand aside- poor girl! she weeps.\n                                                [He unbinds her]\n    Go ply thy needle; meddle not with her.\n    For shame, thou hilding of a devilish spirit,\n    Why dost thou wrong her that did ne'er wrong thee?\n    When did she cross thee with a bitter word?\n  KATHERINA. Her silence flouts me, and I'll be reveng'd.\n                                            [Flies after BIANCA]\n  BAPTISTA. What, in my sight? Bianca, get thee in.\n                                                     Exit BIANCA\n  KATHERINA. What, will you not suffer me? Nay, now I see\n    She is your treasure, she must have a husband;\n    I must dance bare-foot on her wedding-day,\n    And for your love to her lead apes in hell.\n    Talk not to me; I will go sit and weep,\n    Till I can find occasion of revenge.          Exit KATHERINA\n  BAPTISTA. Was ever gentleman thus griev'd as I?\n    But who comes here?\n\n        Enter GREMIO, with LUCENTIO in the habit of a mean man;\n         PETRUCHIO, with HORTENSIO as a musician; and TRANIO,\n    as LUCENTIO, with his boy, BIONDELLO, bearing a lute and books\n\n  GREMIO. Good morrow, neighbour Baptista.\n  BAPTISTA. Good morrow, neighbour Gremio.\n    God save you, gentlemen!\n  PETRUCHIO. And you, good sir! Pray, have you not a daughter\n    Call'd Katherina, fair and virtuous?\n  BAPTISTA. I have a daughter, sir, call'd Katherina.\n  GREMIO. You are too blunt; go to it orderly.\n  PETRUCHIO. You wrong me, Signior Gremio; give me leave.\n    I am a gentleman of Verona, sir,\n    That, hearing of her beauty and her wit,\n    Her affability and bashful modesty,\n    Her wondrous qualities and mild behaviour,\n    Am bold to show myself a forward guest\n    Within your house, to make mine eye the witness\n    Of that report which I so oft have heard.\n    And, for an entrance to my entertainment,\n    I do present you with a man of mine,\n                                          [Presenting HORTENSIO]\n    Cunning in music and the mathematics,\n    To instruct her fully in those sciences,\n    Whereof I know she is not ignorant.\n    Accept of him, or else you do me wrong-\n    His name is Licio, born in Mantua.\n  BAPTISTA. Y'are welcome, sir, and he for your good sake;\n    But for my daughter Katherine, this I know,\n    She is not for your turn, the more my grief.\n  PETRUCHIO. I see you do not mean to part with her;\n    Or else you like not of my company.\n  BAPTISTA. Mistake me not; I speak but as I find.\n    Whence are you, sir? What may I call your name?\n  PETRUCHIO. Petruchio is my name, Antonio's son,\n    A man well known throughout all Italy.\n  BAPTISTA. I know him well; you are welcome for his sake.\n  GREMIO. Saving your tale, Petruchio, I pray,\n    Let us that are poor petitioners speak too.\n    Bacare! you are marvellous forward.\n  PETRUCHIO. O, pardon me, Signior Gremio! I would fain be doing.\n  GREMIO. I doubt it not, sir; but you will curse your wooing.\n    Neighbour, this is a gift very grateful, I am sure of it. To\n    express the like kindness, myself, that have been more kindly\n    beholding to you than any, freely give unto you this young\n    scholar  [Presenting LUCENTIO]  that hath been long studying at\n    Rheims; as cunning in Greek, Latin, and other languages, as the\n    other in music and mathematics. His name is Cambio. Pray accept\n    his service.\n  BAPTISTA. A thousand thanks, Signior Gremio. Welcome, good Cambio.\n    [To TRANIO]  But, gentle sir, methinks you walk like a stranger.\n    May I be so bold to know the cause of your coming?\n  TRANIO. Pardon me, sir, the boldness is mine own\n    That, being a stranger in this city here,\n    Do make myself a suitor to your daughter,\n    Unto Bianca, fair and virtuous.\n    Nor is your firm resolve unknown to me\n    In the preferment of the eldest sister.\n    This liberty is all that I request-\n    That, upon knowledge of my parentage,\n    I may have welcome 'mongst the rest that woo,\n    And free access and favour as the rest.\n    And toward the education of your daughters\n    I here bestow a simple instrument,\n    And this small packet of Greek and Latin books.\n    If you accept them, then their worth is great.\n  BAPTISTA. Lucentio is your name? Of whence, I pray?\n  TRANIO. Of Pisa, sir; son to Vincentio.\n  BAPTISTA. A mighty man of Pisa. By report\n    I know him well. You are very welcome, sir.\n    Take you the lute, and you the set of books;\n    You shall go see your pupils presently.\n    Holla, within!\n\n                         Enter a SERVANT\n\n    Sirrah, lead these gentlemen\n    To my daughters; and tell them both\n    These are their tutors. Bid them use them well.\n\n                Exit SERVANT leading HORTENSIO carrying the lute\n                                     and LUCENTIO with the books\n\n    We will go walk a little in the orchard,\n    And then to dinner. You are passing welcome,\n    And so I pray you all to think yourselves.\n  PETRUCHIO. Signior Baptista, my business asketh haste,\n    And every day I cannot come to woo.\n    You knew my father well, and in him me,\n    Left solely heir to all his lands and goods,\n    Which I have bettered rather than decreas'd.\n    Then tell me, if I get your daughter's love,\n    What dowry shall I have with her to wife?\n  BAPTISTA. After my death, the one half of my lands\n    And, in possession, twenty thousand crowns.\n  PETRUCHIO. And for that dowry, I'll assure her of\n    Her widowhood, be it that she survive me,\n    In all my lands and leases whatsoever.\n    Let specialities be therefore drawn between us,\n    That covenants may be kept on either hand.\n  BAPTISTA. Ay, when the special thing is well obtain'd,\n    That is, her love; for that is all in all.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, that is nothing; for I tell you, father,\n    I am as peremptory as she proud-minded;\n    And where two raging fires meet together,\n    They do consume the thing that feeds their fury.\n    Though little fire grows great with little wind,\n    Yet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all.\n    So I to her, and so she yields to me;\n    For I am rough, and woo not like a babe.\n  BAPTISTA. Well mayst thou woo, and happy be thy speed\n    But be thou arm'd for some unhappy words.\n  PETRUCHIO. Ay, to the proof, as mountains are for winds,\n    That shake not though they blow perpetually.\n\n             Re-enter HORTENSIO, with his head broke\n\n  BAPTISTA. How now, my friend! Why dost thou look so pale?\n  HORTENSIO. For fear, I promise you, if I look pale.\n  BAPTISTA. What, will my daughter prove a good musician?\n  HORTENSIO. I think she'll sooner prove a soldier:\n    Iron may hold with her, but never lutes.\n  BAPTISTA. Why, then thou canst not break her to the lute?\n  HORTENSIO. Why, no; for she hath broke the lute to me.\n    I did but tell her she mistook her frets,\n    And bow'd her hand to teach her fingering,\n    When, with a most impatient devilish spirit,\n    'Frets, call you these?' quoth she 'I'll fume with them.'\n    And with that word she struck me on the head,\n    And through the instrument my pate made way;\n    And there I stood amazed for a while,\n    As on a pillory, looking through the lute,\n    While she did call me rascal fiddler\n    And twangling Jack, with twenty such vile terms,\n    As she had studied to misuse me so.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench;\n    I love her ten times more than e'er I did.\n    O, how I long to have some chat with her!\n  BAPTISTA. Well, go with me, and be not so discomfited;\n    Proceed in practice with my younger daughter;\n    She's apt to learn, and thankful for good turns.\n    Signior Petruchio, will you go with us,\n    Or shall I send my daughter Kate to you?\n  PETRUCHIO. I pray you do.             Exeunt all but PETRUCHIO\n    I'll attend her here,\n    And woo her with some spirit when she comes.\n    Say that she rail; why, then I'll tell her plain\n    She sings as sweetly as a nightingale.\n    Say that she frown; I'll say she looks as clear\n    As morning roses newly wash'd with dew.\n    Say she be mute, and will not speak a word;\n    Then I'll commend her volubility,\n    And say she uttereth piercing eloquence.\n    If she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks,\n    As though she bid me stay by her a week;\n    If she deny to wed, I'll crave the day\n    When I shall ask the banns, and when be married.\n    But here she comes; :Lnd.now, Petruchio, speak.\n\n                        Enter KATHERINA\n\n    Good morrow, Kate- for that's your name, I hear.\n  KATHERINA. Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing:\n    They call me Katherine that do talk of me.\n  PETRUCHIO. You lie, in faith, for you are call'd plain Kate,\n    And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst;\n    But, Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom,\n    Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,\n    For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,\n    Take this of me, Kate of my consolation-\n    Hearing thy mildness prais'd in every town,\n    Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,\n    Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,\n    Myself am mov'd to woo thee for my wife.\n  KATHERINA. Mov'd! in good time! Let him that mov'd you hither\n    Remove you hence. I knew you at the first\n    You were a moveable.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, what's a moveable?\n  KATHERINA. A join'd-stool.\n  PETRUCHIO. Thou hast hit it. Come, sit on me.\n  KATHERINA. Asses are made to bear, and so are you.\n  PETRUCHIO. Women are made to bear, and so are you.\n  KATHERINA. No such jade as you, if me you mean.\n  PETRUCHIO. Alas, good Kate, I will not burden thee!\n    For, knowing thee to be but young and light-\n  KATHERINA. Too light for such a swain as you to catch;\n    And yet as heavy as my weight should be.\n  PETRUCHIO. Should be! should- buzz!\n  KATHERINA. Well ta'en, and like a buzzard.\n  PETRUCHIO. O, slow-wing'd turtle, shall a buzzard take thee?\n  KATHERINA. Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.\n  PETRUCHIO. Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.\n  KATHERINA. If I be waspish, best beware my sting.\n  PETRUCHIO. My remedy is then to pluck it out.\n  KATHERINA. Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.\n  PETRUCHIO. Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting?\n    In his tail.\n  KATHERINA. In his tongue.\n  PETRUCHIO. Whose tongue?\n  KATHERINA. Yours, if you talk of tales; and so farewell.\n  PETRUCHIO. What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again,\n    Good Kate; I am a gentleman.\n  KATHERINA. That I'll try.                    [She strikes him]\n  PETRUCHIO. I swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again.\n  KATHERINA. So may you lose your arms.\n    If you strike me, you are no gentleman;\n    And if no gentleman, why then no arms.\n  PETRUCHIO. A herald, Kate? O, put me in thy books!\n  KATHERINA. What is your crest- a coxcomb?\n  PETRUCHIO. A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.\n  KATHERINA. No cock of mine: you crow too like a craven.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, come, Kate, come; you must not look so sour.\n  KATHERINA. It is my fashion, when I see a crab.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, here's no crab; and therefore look not sour.\n  KATHERINA. There is, there is.\n  PETRUCHIO. Then show it me.\n  KATHERINA. Had I a glass I would.\n  PETRUCHIO. What, you mean my face?\n  KATHERINA. Well aim'd of such a young one.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now, by Saint George, I am too young for you.\n  KATHERINA. Yet you are wither'd.\n  PETRUCHIO. 'Tis with cares.\n  KATHERINA. I care not.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, hear you, Kate- in sooth, you scape not so.\n  KATHERINA. I chafe you, if I tarry; let me go.\n  PETRUCHIO. No, not a whit; I find you passing gentle.\n    'Twas told me you were rough, and coy, and sullen,\n    And now I find report a very liar;\n    For thou art pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,\n    But slow in speech, yet sweet as springtime flowers.\n    Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,\n    Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will,\n    Nor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk;\n    But thou with mildness entertain'st thy wooers;\n    With gentle conference, soft and affable.\n    Why does the world report that Kate doth limp?\n    O sland'rous world! Kate like the hazel-twig\n    Is straight and slender, and as brown in hue\n    As hazel-nuts, and sweeter than the kernels.\n    O, let me see thee walk. Thou dost not halt.\n  KATHERINA. Go, fool, and whom thou keep'st command.\n  PETRUCHIO. Did ever Dian so become a grove\n    As Kate this chamber with her princely gait?\n    O, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate;\n    And then let Kate be chaste, and Dian sportful!\n  KATHERINA. Where did you study all this goodly speech?\n  PETRUCHIO. It is extempore, from my mother wit.\n  KATHERINA. A witty mother! witless else her son.\n  PETRUCHIO. Am I not wise?\n  KATHERINA. Yes, keep you warm.\n  PETRUCHIO. Marry, so I mean, sweet Katherine, in thy bed.\n    And therefore, setting all this chat aside,\n    Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented\n    That you shall be my wife your dowry greed on;\n    And will you, nill you, I will marry you.\n    Now, Kate, I am a husband for your turn;\n    For, by this light, whereby I see thy beauty,\n    Thy beauty that doth make me like thee well,\n    Thou must be married to no man but me;\n    For I am he am born to tame you, Kate,\n    And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate\n    Conformable as other household Kates.\n\n               Re-enter BAPTISTA, GREMIO, and TRANIO\n\n    Here comes your father. Never make denial;\n    I must and will have Katherine to my wife.\n  BAPTISTA. Now, Signior Petruchio, how speed you with my daughter?\n  PETRUCHIO. How but well, sir? how but well?\n    It were impossible I should speed amiss.\n  BAPTISTA. Why, how now, daughter Katherine, in your dumps?\n  KATHERINA. Call you me daughter? Now I promise you\n    You have show'd a tender fatherly regard\n    To wish me wed to one half lunatic,\n    A mad-cap ruffian and a swearing Jack,\n    That thinks with oaths to face the matter out.\n  PETRUCHIO. Father, 'tis thus: yourself and all the world\n    That talk'd of her have talk'd amiss of her.\n    If she be curst, it is for policy,\n    For,she's not froward, but modest as the dove;\n    She is not hot, but temperate as the morn;\n    For patience she will prove a second Grissel,\n    And Roman Lucrece for her chastity.\n    And, to conclude, we have 'greed so well together\n    That upon Sunday is the wedding-day.\n  KATHERINA. I'll see thee hang'd on Sunday first.\n  GREMIO. Hark, Petruchio; she says she'll see thee hang'd first.\n  TRANIO. Is this your speeding? Nay, then good-night our part!\n  PETRUCHIO. Be patient, gentlemen. I choose her for myself;\n    If she and I be pleas'd, what's that to you?\n    'Tis bargain'd 'twixt us twain, being alone,\n    That she shall still be curst in company.\n    I tell you 'tis incredible to believe.\n    How much she loves me- O, the kindest Kate!\n    She hung about my neck, and kiss on kiss\n    She vied so fast, protesting oath on oath,\n    That in a twink she won me to her love.\n    O, you are novices! 'Tis a world to see,\n    How tame, when men and women are alone,\n    A meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew.\n    Give me thy hand, Kate; I will unto Venice,\n    To buy apparel 'gainst the wedding-day.\n    Provide the feast, father, and bid the guests;\n    I will be sure my Katherine shall be fine.\n  BAPTISTA. I know not what to say; but give me your hands.\n    God send you joy, Petruchio! 'Tis a match.\n  GREMIO, TRANIO. Amen, say we; we will be witnesses.\n  PETRUCHIO. Father, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu.\n    I will to Venice; Sunday comes apace;\n    We will have rings and things, and fine array;\n    And kiss me, Kate; we will be married a Sunday.\n                        Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATHERINA severally\n  GREMIO. Was ever match clapp'd up so suddenly?\n  BAPTISTA. Faith, gentlemen, now I play a merchant's part,\n    And venture madly on a desperate mart.\n  TRANIO. 'Twas a commodity lay fretting by you;\n    'Twill bring you gain, or perish on the seas.\n  BAPTISTA. The gain I seek is quiet in the match.\n  GREMIO. No doubt but he hath got a quiet catch.\n    But now, Baptista, to your younger daughter:\n    Now is the day we long have looked for;\n    I am your neighbour, and was suitor first.\n  TRANIO. And I am one that love Bianca more\n    Than words can witness or your thoughts can guess.\n  GREMIO. Youngling, thou canst not love so dear as I.\n  TRANIO. Greybeard, thy love doth freeze.\n  GREMIO. But thine doth fry.\n    Skipper, stand back; 'tis age that nourisheth.\n  TRANIO. But youth in ladies' eyes that flourisheth.\n  BAPTISTA. Content you, gentlemen; I will compound this strife.\n    'Tis deeds must win the prize, and he of both\n    That can assure my daughter greatest dower\n    Shall have my Bianca's love.\n    Say, Signior Gremio, what can you assure her?\n  GREMIO. First, as you know, my house within the city\n    Is richly furnished with plate and gold,\n    Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands;\n    My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;\n    In ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns;\n    In cypress chests my arras counterpoints,\n    Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,\n    Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl,\n    Valance of Venice gold in needle-work;\n    Pewter and brass, and all things that belongs\n    To house or housekeeping. Then at my farm\n    I have a hundred milch-kine to the pail,\n    Six score fat oxen standing in my stalls,\n    And all things answerable to this portion.\n    Myself am struck in years, I must confess;\n    And if I die to-morrow this is hers,\n    If whilst I live she will be only mine.\n  TRANIO. That 'only' came well in. Sir, list to me:\n    I am my father's heir and only son;\n    If I may have your daughter to my wife,\n    I'll leave her houses three or four as good\n    Within rich Pisa's walls as any one\n    Old Signior Gremio has in Padua;\n    Besides two thousand ducats by the year\n    Of fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure.\n    What, have I pinch'd you, Signior Gremio?\n  GREMIO. Two thousand ducats by the year of land!\n    [Aside]  My land amounts not to so much in all.-\n    That she shall have, besides an argosy\n    That now is lying in Marseilles road.\n    What, have I chok'd you with an argosy?\n  TRANIO. Gremio, 'tis known my father hath no less\n    Than three great argosies, besides two galliasses,\n    And twelve tight galleys. These I will assure her,\n    And twice as much whate'er thou off'rest next.\n  GREMIO. Nay, I have off'red all; I have no more;\n    And she can have no more than all I have;\n    If you like me, she shall have me and mine.\n  TRANIO. Why, then the maid is mine from all the world\n    By your firm promise; Gremio is out-vied.\n  BAPTISTA. I must confess your offer is the best;\n    And let your father make her the assurance,\n    She is your own. Else, you must pardon me;\n    If you should die before him, where's her dower?\n  TRANIO. That's but a cavil; he is old, I young.\n  GREMIO. And may not young men die as well as old?\n  BAPTISTA. Well, gentlemen,\n    I am thus resolv'd: on Sunday next you know\n    My daughter Katherine is to be married;\n    Now, on the Sunday following shall Bianca\n    Be bride to you, if you make this assurance;\n    If not, to Signior Gremio.\n    And so I take my leave, and thank you both.\n  GREMIO. Adieu, good neighbour.                   Exit BAPTISTA\n    Now, I fear thee not.\n    Sirrah young gamester, your father were a fool\n    To give thee all, and in his waning age\n    Set foot under thy table. Tut, a toy!\n    An old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy.              Exit\n  TRANIO. A vengeance on your crafty withered hide!\n    Yet I have fac'd it with a card of ten.\n    'Tis in my head to do my master good:\n    I see no reason but suppos'd Lucentio\n    Must get a father, call'd suppos'd Vincentio;\n    And that's a wonder- fathers commonly\n    Do get their children; but in this case of wooing\n    A child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nPadua. BAPTISTA'S house\n\nEnter LUCENTIO as CAMBIO, HORTENSIO as LICIO, and BIANCA\n\n  LUCENTIO. Fiddler, forbear; you grow too forward, sir.\n    Have you so soon forgot the entertainment\n    Her sister Katherine welcome'd you withal?\n  HORTENSIO. But, wrangling pedant, this is\n    The patroness of heavenly harmony.\n    Then give me leave to have prerogative;\n    And when in music we have spent an hour,\n    Your lecture shall have leisure for as much.\n  LUCENTIO. Preposterous ass, that never read so far\n    To know the cause why music was ordain'd!\n    Was it not to refresh the mind of man\n    After his studies or his usual pain?\n    Then give me leave to read philosophy,\n    And while I pause serve in your harmony.\n  HORTENSIO. Sirrah, I will not bear these braves of thine.\n  BIANCA. Why, gentlemen, you do me double wrong\n    To strive for that which resteth in my choice.\n    I arn no breeching scholar in the schools,\n    I'll not be tied to hours nor 'pointed times,\n    But learn my lessons as I please myself.\n    And to cut off all strife: here sit we down;\n    Take you your instrument, play you the whiles!\n    His lecture will be done ere you have tun'd.\n  HORTENSIO. You'll leave his lecture when I am in tune?\n  LUCENTIO. That will be never- tune your instrument.\n  BIANCA. Where left we last?\n  LUCENTIO. Here, madam:\n    'Hic ibat Simois, hic est Sigeia tellus,\n    Hic steterat Priami regia celsa senis.'\n  BIANCA. Construe them.\n  LUCENTIO. 'Hic ibat' as I told you before- 'Simois' I am Lucentio-\n    'hic est' son unto Vincentio of Pisa- 'Sigeia tellus' disguised\n    thus to get your love- 'Hic steterat' and that Lucentio that\n    comes a-wooing- 'Priami' is my man Tranio- 'regia' bearing my\n    port- 'celsa senis' that we might beguile the old pantaloon.\n  HORTENSIO. Madam, my instrument's in tune.\n  BIANCA. Let's hear. O fie! the treble jars.\n  LUCENTIO. Spit in the hole, man, and tune again.\n  BIANCA. Now let me see if I can construe it: 'Hic ibat Simois' I\n    know you not- 'hic est Sigeia tellus' I trust you not- 'Hic\n    steterat Priami' take heed he hear us not- 'regia' presume not-\n   'celsa senis' despair not.\n  HORTENSIO. Madam, 'tis now in tune.\n  LUCENTIO. All but the bass.\n  HORTENSIO. The bass is right; 'tis the base knave that jars.\n    [Aside]  How fiery and forward our pedant is!\n    Now, for my life, the knave doth court my love.\n    Pedascule, I'll watch you better yet.\n  BIANCA. In time I may believe, yet I mistrust.\n  LUCENTIO. Mistrust it not- for sure, AEacides\n    Was Ajax, call'd so from his grandfather.\n  BIANCA. I must believe my master; else, I promise you,\n    I should be arguing still upon that doubt;\n    But let it rest. Now, Licio, to you.\n    Good master, take it not unkindly, pray,\n    That I have been thus pleasant with you both.\n  HORTENSIO.  [To LUCENTIO]  You may go walk and give me leave\n      awhile;\n    My lessons make no music in three Parts.\n  LUCENTIO. Are you so formal, sir? Well, I must wait,\n    [Aside]  And watch withal; for, but I be deceiv'd,\n    Our fine musician groweth amorous.\n  HORTENSIO. Madam, before you touch the instrument\n    To learn the order of my fingering,\n    I must begin with rudiments of art,\n    To teach you gamut in a briefer sort,\n    More pleasant, pithy, and effectual,\n    Than hath been taught by any of my trade;\n    And there it is in writing fairly drawn.\n  BIANCA. Why, I am past my gamut long ago.\n  HORTENSIO. Yet read the gamut of Hortensio.\n  BIANCA.  [Reads]\n         '\"Gamut\" I am, the ground of all accord-\n         \"A re\" to plead Hortensio's passion-\n         \"B mi\" Bianca, take him for thy lord-\n         \"C fa ut\" that loves with all affection-\n         \"D sol re\" one clef, two notes have I-\n         \"E la mi\" show pity or I die.'\n    Call you this gamut? Tut, I like it not!\n    Old fashions please me best; I am not so nice\n    To change true rules for odd inventions.\n\n                       Enter a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. Mistress, your father prays you leave your books\n    And help to dress your sister's chamber up.\n    You know to-morrow is the wedding-day.\n  BIANCA. Farewell, sweet masters, both; I must be gone.\n                                       Exeunt BIANCA and SERVANT\n  LUCENTIO. Faith, mistress, then I have no cause to stay.\n Exit\n  HORTENSIO. But I have cause to pry into this pedant;\n    Methinks he looks as though he were in love.\n    Yet if thy thoughts, Bianca, be so humble\n    To cast thy wand'ring eyes on every stale-\n    Seize thee that list. If once I find thee ranging,\n  HORTENSIO will be quit with thee by changing.             Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nPadua. Before BAPTISTA'So house\n\nEnter BAPTISTA, GREMIO, TRANIO as LUCENTIO, KATHERINA, BIANCA,\nLUCENTIO as CAMBIO, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  BAPTISTA.  [To TRANIO]  Signior Lucentio, this is the 'pointed day\n    That Katherine and Petruchio should be married,\n    And yet we hear not of our son-in-law.\n    What will be said? What mockery will it be\n    To want the bridegroom when the priest attends\n    To speak the ceremonial rites of marriage!\n    What says Lucentio to this shame of ours?\n  KATHERINA. No shame but mine; I must, forsooth, be forc'd\n    To give my hand, oppos'd against my heart,\n    Unto a mad-brain rudesby, full of spleen,\n    Who woo'd in haste and means to wed at leisure.\n    I told you, I, he was a frantic fool,\n    Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behaviour;\n    And, to be noted for a merry man,\n    He'll woo a thousand, 'point the day of marriage,\n    Make friends invited, and proclaim the banns;\n    Yet never means to wed where he hath woo'd.\n    Now must the world point at poor Katherine,\n    And say 'Lo, there is mad Petruchio's wife,\n    If it would please him come and marry her!'\n  TRANIO. Patience, good Katherine, and Baptista too.\n    Upon my life, Petruchio means but well,\n    Whatever fortune stays him from his word.\n    Though he be blunt, I know him passing wise;\n    Though he be merry, yet withal he's honest.\n  KATHERINA. Would Katherine had never seen him though!\n                    Exit, weeping, followed by BIANCA and others\n  BAPTISTA. Go, girl, I cannot blame thee now to weep,\n    For such an injury would vex a very saint;\n    Much more a shrew of thy impatient humour.\n\n                           Enter BIONDELLO\n\n    Master, master! News, and such old news as you never heard of!\n  BAPTISTA. Is it new and old too? How may that be?\n  BIONDELLO. Why, is it not news to hear of Petruchio's coming?\n  BAPTISTA. Is he come?\n  BIONDELLO. Why, no, sir.\n  BAPTISTA. What then?\n  BIONDELLO. He is coming.\n  BAPTISTA. When will he be here?\n  BIONDELLO. When he stands where I am and sees you there.\n  TRANIO. But, say, what to thine old news?\n  BIONDELLO. Why, Petruchio is coming- in a new hat and an old\n    jerkin; a pair of old breeches thrice turn'd; a pair of boots\n    that have been candle-cases, one buckled, another lac'd; an old\n    rusty sword ta'en out of the town armoury, with a broken hilt,\n    and chapeless; with two broken points; his horse hipp'd, with an\n    old motley saddle and stirrups of no kindred; besides, possess'd\n    with the glanders and like to mose in the chine, troubled with\n    the lampass, infected with the fashions, full of windgalls, sped\n    with spavins, rayed with the yellows, past cure of the fives,\n    stark spoil'd with the staggers, begnawn with the bots, sway'd in\n    the back and shoulder-shotten, near-legg'd before, and with a\n    half-cheek'd bit, and a head-stall of sheep's leather which,\n    being restrained to keep him from stumbling, hath been often\n    burst, and now repaired with knots; one girth six times piec'd,\n    and a woman's crupper of velure, which hath two letters for her\n    name fairly set down in studs, and here and there piec'd with\n    pack-thread.\n  BAPTISTA. Who comes with him?\n  BIONDELLO. O, sir, his lackey, for all the world caparison'd like\n    the horse- with a linen stock on one leg and a kersey boot-hose\n    on the other, gart'red with a red and blue list; an old hat, and\n    the humour of forty fancies prick'd in't for a feather; a\n    monster, a very monster in apparel, and not like a Christian\n    footboy or a gentleman's lackey.\n  TRANIO. 'Tis some odd humour pricks him to this fashion;\n    Yet oftentimes lie goes but mean-apparell'd.\n  BAPTISTA. I am glad he's come, howsoe'er he comes.\n  BIONDELLO. Why, sir, he comes not.\n  BAPTISTA. Didst thou not say he comes?\n  BIONDELLO. Who? that Petruchio came?\n  BAPTISTA. Ay, that Petruchio came.\n  BIONDELLO. No, sir; I say his horse comes with him on his back.\n  BAPTISTA. Why, that's all one.\n  BIONDELLO. Nay, by Saint Jamy,\n             I hold you a penny,\n             A horse and a man\n             Is more than one,\n             And yet not many.\n\n                  Enter PETRUCHIO and GRUMIO\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Come, where be these gallants? Who's at home?\n  BAPTISTA. You are welcome, sir.\n  PETRUCHIO. And yet I come not well.\n  BAPTISTA. And yet you halt not.\n  TRANIO. Not so well apparell'd\n    As I wish you were.\n  PETRUCHIO. Were it better, I should rush in thus.\n    But where is Kate? Where is my lovely bride?\n    How does my father? Gentles, methinks you frown;\n    And wherefore gaze this goodly company\n    As if they saw some wondrous monument,\n    Some comet or unusual prodigy?\n  BAPTISTA. Why, sir, you know this is your wedding-day.\n    First were we sad, fearing you would not come;\n    Now sadder, that you come so unprovided.\n    Fie, doff this habit, shame to your estate,\n    An eye-sore to our solemn festival!\n  TRANIO. And tell us what occasion of import\n    Hath all so long detain'd you from your wife,\n    And sent you hither so unlike yourself?\n  PETRUCHIO. Tedious it were to tell, and harsh to hear;\n    Sufficeth I am come to keep my word,\n    Though in some part enforced to digress,\n    Which at more leisure I will so excuse\n    As you shall well be satisfied withal.\n    But where is Kate? I stay too long from her;\n    The morning wears, 'tis time we were at church.\n  TRANIO. See not your bride in these unreverent robes;\n    Go to my chamber, put on clothes of mine.\n  PETRUCHIO. Not I, believe me; thus I'll visit her.\n  BAPTISTA. But thus, I trust, you will not marry her.\n  PETRUCHIO. Good sooth, even thus; therefore ha' done with words;\n    To me she's married, not unto my clothes.\n    Could I repair what she will wear in me\n    As I can change these poor accoutrements,\n    'Twere well for Kate and better for myself.\n    But what a fool am I to chat with you,\n    When I should bid good-morrow to my bride\n    And seal the title with a lovely kiss!\n                                  Exeunt PETRUCHIO and PETRUCHIO\n  TRANIO. He hath some meaning in his mad attire.\n    We will persuade him, be it possible,\n    To put on better ere he go to church.\n  BAPTISTA. I'll after him and see the event of this.\n              Exeunt BAPTISTA, GREMIO, BIONDELLO, and ATTENDENTS\n  TRANIO. But to her love concerneth us to ad\n    Her father's liking; which to bring to pass,\n    As I before imparted to your worship,\n    I am to get a man- whate'er he be\n    It skills not much; we'll fit him to our turn-\n    And he shall be Vincentio of Pisa,\n    And make assurance here in Padua\n    Of greater sums than I have promised.\n    So shall you quietly enjoy your hope\n    And marry sweet Bianca with consent.\n  LUCENTIO. Were it not that my fellow schoolmaster\n    Doth watch Bianca's steps so narrowly,\n    'Twere good, methinks, to steal our marriage;\n    Which once perform'd, let all the world say no,\n    I'll keep mine own despite of all the world.\n  TRANIO. That by degrees we mean to look into\n    And watch our vantage in this business;\n    We'll over-reach the greybeard, Gremio,\n    The narrow-prying father, Minola,\n    The quaint musician, amorous Licio-\n    All for my master's sake, Lucentio.\n\n                           Re-enter GREMIO\n\n    Signior Gremio, came you from the church?\n  GREMIO. As willingly as e'er I came from school.\n  TRANIO. And is the bride and bridegroom coming home?\n  GREMIO. A bridegroom, say you? 'Tis a groom indeed,\n    A grumbling groom, and that the girl shall find.\n  TRANIO. Curster than she? Why, 'tis impossible.\n  GREMIO. Why, he's a devil, a devil, a very fiend.\n  TRANIO. Why, she's a devil, a devil, the devil's dam.\n  GREMIO. Tut, she's a lamb, a dove, a fool, to him!\n    I'll tell you, Sir Lucentio: when the priest\n    Should ask if Katherine should be his wife,\n    'Ay, by gogs-wouns' quoth he, and swore so loud\n    That, all amaz'd, the priest let fall the book;\n    And as he stoop'd again to take it up,\n    This mad-brain'd bridegroom took him such a cuff\n    That down fell priest and book, and book and priest.\n    'Now take them up,' quoth he 'if any list.'\n  TRANIO. What said the wench, when he rose again?\n  GREMIO. Trembled and shook, for why he stamp'd and swore\n    As if the vicar meant to cozen him.\n    But after many ceremonies done\n    He calls for wine: 'A health!' quoth he, as if\n    He had been abroad, carousing to his mates\n    After a storm; quaff'd off the muscadel,\n    And threw the sops all in the sexton's face,\n    Having no other reason\n    But that his beard grew thin and hungerly\n    And seem'd to ask him sops as he was drinking.\n    This done, he took the bride about the neck,\n    And kiss'd her lips with such a clamorous smack\n    That at the parting all the church did echo.\n    And I, seeing this, came thence for very shame;\n    And after me, I know, the rout is coming.\n    Such a mad marriage never was before.\n    Hark, hark! I hear the minstrels play.         [Music plays]\n\n       Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, BIANCA, BAPTISTA, HORTENSIO,\n                         GRUMIO, and train\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Gentlemen and friends, I thank you for your pains.\n    I know you think to dine with me to-day,\n    And have prepar'd great store of wedding cheer\n    But so it is- my haste doth call me hence,\n    And therefore here I mean to take my leave.\n  BAPTISTA. Is't possible you will away to-night?\n  PETRUCHIO. I must away to-day before night come.\n    Make it no wonder; if you knew my business,\n    You would entreat me rather go than stay.\n    And, honest company, I thank you all\n    That have beheld me give away myself\n    To this most patient, sweet, and virtuous wife.\n    Dine with my father, drink a health to me.\n    For I must hence; and farewell to you all.\n  TRANIO. Let us entreat you stay till after dinner.\n  PETRUCHIO. It may not be.\n  GREMIO. Let me entreat you.\n  PETRUCHIO. It cannot be.\n  KATHERINA. Let me entreat you.\n  PETRUCHIO. I am content.\n  KATHERINA. Are you content to stay?\n  PETRUCHIO. I am content you shall entreat me stay;\n    But yet not stay, entreat me how you can.\n  KATHERINA. Now, if you love me, stay.\n  PETRUCHIO. Grumio, my horse.\n  GRUMIO. Ay, sir, they be ready; the oats have eaten the horses.\n  KATHERINA. Nay, then,\n    Do what thou canst, I will not go to-day;\n    No, nor to-morrow, not till I please myself.\n    The door is open, sir; there lies your way;\n    You may be jogging whiles your boots are green;\n    For me, I'll not be gone till I please myself.\n    'Tis like you'll prove a jolly surly groom\n    That take it on you at the first so roundly.\n  PETRUCHIO. O Kate, content thee; prithee be not angry.\n  KATHERINA. I will be angry; what hast thou to do?\n    Father, be quiet; he shall stay my leisure.\n  GREMIO. Ay, marry, sir, now it begins to work.\n  KATHERINA. Gentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner.\n    I see a woman may be made a fool\n    If she had not a spirit to resist.\n  PETRUCHIO. They shall go forward, Kate, at thy command.\n    Obey the bride, you that attend on her;\n    Go to the feast, revel and domineer,\n    Carouse full measure to her maidenhead;\n    Be mad and merry, or go hang yourselves.\n    But for my bonny Kate, she must with me.\n    Nay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret;\n    I will be master of what is mine own-\n    She is my goods, my chattels, she is my house,\n    My household stuff, my field, my barn,\n    My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing,\n    And here she stands; touch her whoever dare;\n    I'll bring mine action on the proudest he\n    That stops my way in Padua. Grumio,\n    Draw forth thy weapon; we are beset with thieves;\n    Rescue thy mistress, if thou be a man.\n    Fear not, sweet wench; they shall not touch thee, Kate;\n    I'll buckler thee against a million.\n                         Exeunt PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, and GRUMIO\n  BAPTISTA. Nay, let them go, a couple of quiet ones.\n  GREMIO. Went they not quickly, I should die with laughing.\n  TRANIO. Of all mad matches, never was the like.\n  LUCENTIO. Mistress, what's your opinion of your sister?\n  BIANCA. That, being mad herself, she's madly mated.\n  GREMIO. I warrant him, Petruchio is Kated.\n  BAPTISTA. Neighbours and friends, though bride and bridegroom wants\n    For to supply the places at the table,\n    You know there wants no junkets at the feast.\n    Lucentio, you shall supply the bridegroom's place;\n    And let Bianca take her sister's room.\n  TRANIO. Shall sweet Bianca practise how to bride it?\n  BAPTISTA. She shall, Lucentio. Come, gentlemen, let's go.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nPETRUCHIO'S country house\n\nEnter GRUMIO\n\n  GRUMIO. Fie, fie on all tired jades, on all mad masters, and all\n    foul ways! Was ever man so beaten? Was ever man so ray'd? Was\n    ever man so weary? I am sent before to make a fire, and they are\n    coming after to warm them. Now were not I a little pot and soon\n    hot, my very lips might freeze to my teeth, my tongue to the roof\n    of my mouth, my heart in my belly, ere I should come by a fire to\n    thaw me. But I with blowing the fire shall warm myself; for,\n    considering the weather, a taller man than I will take cold.\n    Holla, ho! Curtis!\n\n                            Enter CURTIS\n\n  CURTIS. Who is that calls so coldly?\n  GRUMIO. A piece of ice. If thou doubt it, thou mayst slide from my\n    shoulder to my heel with no greater a run but my head and my\n    neck. A fire, good Curtis.\n  CURTIS. Is my master and his wife coming, Grumio?\n  GRUMIO. O, ay, Curtis, ay; and therefore fire, fire; cast on no\n    water.\n  CURTIS. Is she so hot a shrew as she's reported?\n  GRUMIO. She was, good Curtis, before this frost; but thou know'st\n    winter tames man, woman, and beast; for it hath tam'd my old\n    master, and my new mistress, and myself, fellow Curtis.\n  CURTIS. Away, you three-inch fool! I am no beast.\n  GRUMIO. Am I but three inches? Why, thy horn is a foot, and so long\n    am I at the least. But wilt thou make a fire, or shall I complain\n    on thee to our mistress, whose hand- she being now at hand- thou\n    shalt soon feel, to thy cold comfort, for being slow in thy hot\n    office?\n  CURTIS. I prithee, good Grumio, tell me how goes the world?\n  GRUMIO. A cold world, Curtis, in every office but thine; and\n    therefore fire. Do thy duty, and have thy duty, for my master and\n    mistress are almost frozen to death.\n  CURTIS. There's fire ready; and therefore, good Grumio, the news?\n  GRUMIO. Why, 'Jack boy! ho, boy!' and as much news as thou wilt.\n  CURTIS. Come, you are so full of cony-catching!\n  GRUMIO. Why, therefore, fire; for I have caught extreme cold.\n    Where's the cook? Is supper ready, the house trimm'd, rushes\n    strew'd, cobwebs swept, the serving-men in their new fustian,\n    their white stockings, and every officer his wedding-garment on?\n    Be the jacks fair within, the jills fair without, the carpets\n    laid, and everything in order?\n  CURTIS. All ready; and therefore, I pray thee, news.\n  GRUMIO. First know my horse is tired; my master and mistress fall'n\n    out.\n  CURTIS. How?\n  GRUMIO. Out of their saddles into the dirt; and thereby hangs a\n    tale.\n  CURTIS. Let's ha't, good Grumio.\n  GRUMIO. Lend thine ear.\n  CURTIS. Here.\n  GRUMIO. There.                                  [Striking him]\n  CURTIS. This 'tis to feel a tale, not to hear a tale.\n  GRUMIO. And therefore 'tis call'd a sensible tale; and this cuff\n    was but to knock at your car and beseech list'ning. Now I begin:\n    Imprimis, we came down a foul hill, my master riding behind my\n    mistress-\n  CURTIS. Both of one horse?\n  GRUMIO. What's that to thee?\n  CURTIS. Why, a horse.\n  GRUMIO. Tell thou the tale. But hadst thou not cross'd me, thou\n    shouldst have heard how her horse fell and she under her horse;\n    thou shouldst have heard in how miry a place, how she was\n    bemoil'd, how he left her with the horse upon her, how he beat me\n    because her horse stumbled, how she waded through the dirt to\n    pluck him off me, how he swore, how she pray'd that never pray'd\n    before, how I cried, how the horses ran away, how her bridle was\n    burst, how I lost my crupper- with many things of worthy memory,\n    which now shall die in oblivion, and thou return unexperienc'd to\n    thy grave.\n  CURTIS. By this reck'ning he is more shrew than she.\n  GRUMIO. Ay, and that thou and the proudest of you all shall find\n    when he comes home. But what talk I of this? Call forth\n    Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip, Walter, Sugarsop, and the\n    rest; let their heads be sleekly comb'd, their blue coats brush'd\n    and their garters of an indifferent knit; let them curtsy with\n    their left legs, and not presume to touch a hair of my mastcr's\n    horse-tail till they kiss their hands. Are they all ready?\n  CURTIS. They are.\n  GRUMIO. Call them forth.\n  CURTIS. Do you hear, ho? You must meet my master, to countenance my\n    mistress.\n  GRUMIO. Why, she hath a face of her own.\n  CURTIS. Who knows not that?\n  GRUMIO. Thou, it seems, that calls for company to countenance her.\n  CURTIS. I call them forth to credit her.\n  GRUMIO. Why, she comes to borrow nothing of them.\n\n                     Enter four or five SERVINGMEN\n\n  NATHANIEL. Welcome home, Grumio!\n  PHILIP. How now, Grumio!\n  JOSEPH. What, Grumio!\n  NICHOLAS. Fellow Grumio!\n  NATHANIEL. How now, old lad!\n  GRUMIO. Welcome, you!- how now, you!- what, you!- fellow, you!- and\n    thus much for greeting. Now, my spruce companions, is all ready,\n    and all things neat?\n  NATHANIEL. All things is ready. How near is our master?\n  GRUMIO. E'en at hand, alighted by this; and therefore be not-\n   Cock's passion, silence! I hear my master.\n\n                     Enter PETRUCHIO and KATHERINA\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Where be these knaves? What, no man at door\n    To hold my stirrup nor to take my horse!\n    Where is Nathaniel, Gregory, Philip?\n  ALL SERVANTS. Here, here, sir; here, sir.\n  PETRUCHIO. Here, sir! here, sir! here, sir! here, sir!\n    You logger-headed and unpolish'd grooms!\n    What, no attendance? no regard? no duty?\n    Where is the foolish knave I sent before?\n  GRUMIO. Here, sir; as foolish as I was before.\n  PETRUCHIO. YOU peasant swain! you whoreson malt-horse drudge!\n    Did I not bid thee meet me in the park\n    And bring along these rascal knaves with thee?\n  GRUMIO. Nathaniel's coat, sir, was not fully made,\n    And Gabriel's pumps were all unpink'd i' th' heel;\n    There was no link to colour Peter's hat,\n    And Walter's dagger was not come from sheathing;\n    There were none fine but Adam, Ralph, and Gregory;\n    The rest were ragged, old, and beggarly;\n    Yet, as they are, here are they come to meet you.\n  PETRUCHIO. Go, rascals, go and fetch my supper in.\n                                   Exeunt some of the SERVINGMEN\n\n    [Sings]  Where is the life that late I led?\n             Where are those-\n\n    Sit down, Kate, and welcome. Soud, soud, soud, soud!\n\n                 Re-enter SERVANTS with supper\n\n    Why, when, I say? Nay, good sweet Kate, be merry.\n    Off with my boots, you rogues! you villains, when?\n\n    [Sings]  It was the friar of orders grey,\n             As he forth walked on his way-\n\n    Out, you rogue! you pluck my foot awry;\n    Take that, and mend the plucking off the other.\n                                                   [Strikes him]\n    Be merry, Kate. Some water, here, what, ho!\n\n                      Enter one with water\n\n    Where's my spaniel Troilus? Sirrah, get you hence,\n    And bid my cousin Ferdinand come hither:\n                                                 Exit SERVINGMAN\n    One, Kate, that you must kiss and be acquainted with.\n    Where are my slippers? Shall I have some water?\n    Come, Kate, and wash, and welcome heartily.\n    You whoreson villain! will you let it fall?    [Strikes him]\n  KATHERINA. Patience, I pray you; 'twas a fault unwilling.\n  PETRUCHIO. A whoreson, beetle-headed, flap-ear'd knave!\n    Come, Kate, sit down; I know you have a stomach.\n    Will you give thanks, sweet Kate, or else shall I?\n    What's this? Mutton?\n  FIRST SERVANT. Ay.\n  PETRUCHIO. Who brought it?\n  PETER. I.\n  PETRUCHIO. 'Tis burnt; and so is all the meat.\n    What dogs are these? Where is the rascal cook?\n    How durst you villains bring it from the dresser\n    And serve it thus to me that love it not?\n    There, take it to you, trenchers, cups, and all;\n                                [Throws the meat, etc., at them]\n    You heedless joltheads and unmanner'd slaves!\n    What, do you grumble? I'll be with you straight.\n                                                 Exeunt SERVANTS\n  KATHERINA. I pray you, husband, be not so disquiet;\n    The meat was well, if you were so contented.\n  PETRUCHIO. I tell thee, Kate, 'twas burnt and dried away,\n    And I expressly am forbid to touch it;\n    For it engenders choler, planteth anger;\n    And better 'twere that both of us did fast,\n    Since, of ourselves, ourselves are choleric,\n    Than feed it with such over-roasted flesh.\n    Be patient; to-morrow 't shall be mended.\n    And for this night we'll fast for company.\n    Come, I will bring thee to thy bridal chamber.        Exeunt\n\n                     Re-enter SERVANTS severally\n\n  NATHANIEL. Peter, didst ever see the like?\n  PETER. He kills her in her own humour.\n\n                            Re-enter CURTIS\n\n  GRUMIO. Where is he?\n  CURTIS. In her chamber. Making a sermon of continency to her,\n    And rails, and swears, and rates, that she, poor soul,\n    Knows not which way to stand, to look, to speak.\n    And sits as one new risen from a dream.\n    Away, away! for he is coming hither.                  Exeunt\n\n                       Re-enter PETRUCHIO\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Thus have I politicly begun my reign,\n    And 'tis my hope to end successfully.\n    My falcon now is sharp and passing empty.\n    And till she stoop she must not be full-gorg'd,\n    For then she never looks upon her lure.\n    Another way I have to man my haggard,\n    To make her come, and know her keeper's call,\n    That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites\n    That bate and beat, and will not be obedient.\n    She eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat;\n    Last night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not;\n    As with the meat, some undeserved fault\n    I'll find about the making of the bed;\n    And here I'll fling the pillow, there the bolster,\n    This way the coverlet, another way the sheets;\n    Ay, and amid this hurly I intend\n    That all is done in reverend care of her-\n    And, in conclusion, she shall watch all night;\n    And if she chance to nod I'll rail and brawl\n    And with the clamour keep her still awake.\n    This is a way to kill a wife with kindness,\n    And thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humour.\n    He that knows better how to tame a shrew,\n    Now let him speak; 'tis charity to show.                Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nPadua. Before BAPTISTA'S house\n\nEnter TRANIO as LUCENTIO, and HORTENSIO as LICIO\n\n  TRANIO. Is 't possible, friend Licio, that Mistress Bianca\n    Doth fancy any other but Lucentio?\n    I tell you, sir, she bears me fair in hand.\n  HORTENSIO. Sir, to satisfy you in what I have said,\n    Stand by and mark the manner of his teaching.\n                                              [They stand aside]\n\n               Enter BIANCA, and LUCENTIO as CAMBIO\n\n  LUCENTIO. Now, mistress, profit you in what you read?\n  BIANCA. What, master, read you, First resolve me that.\n  LUCENTIO. I read that I profess, 'The Art to Love.'\n  BIANCA. And may you prove, sir, master of your art!\n  LUCENTIO. While you, sweet dear, prove mistress of my heart.\n                                                   [They retire]\n  HORTENSIO. Quick proceeders, marry! Now tell me, I pray,\n    You that durst swear that your Mistress Blanca\n    Lov'd none in the world so well as Lucentio.\n  TRANIO. O despiteful love! unconstant womankind!\n    I tell thee, Licio, this is wonderful.\n  HORTENSIO. Mistake no more; I am not Licio.\n    Nor a musician as I seem to be;\n    But one that scorn to live in this disguise\n    For such a one as leaves a gentleman\n    And makes a god of such a cullion.\n    Know, sir, that I am call'd Hortensio.\n  TRANIO. Signior Hortensio, I have often heard\n    Of your entire affection to Bianca;\n    And since mine eyes are witness of her lightness,\n    I will with you, if you be so contented,\n    Forswear Bianca and her love for ever.\n  HORTENSIO. See, how they kiss and court! Signior Lucentio,\n    Here is my hand, and here I firmly vow\n    Never to woo her more, but do forswear her,\n    As one unworthy all the former favours\n    That I have fondly flatter'd her withal.\n  TRANIO. And here I take the like unfeigned oath,\n    Never to marry with her though she would entreat;\n    Fie on her! See how beastly she doth court him!\n  HORTENSIO. Would all the world but he had quite forsworn!\n    For me, that I may surely keep mine oath,\n    I will be married to a wealtlly widow\n    Ere three days pass, which hath as long lov'd me\n    As I have lov'd this proud disdainful haggard.\n    And so farewell, Signior Lucentio.\n    Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks,\n    Shall win my love; and so I take my leave,\n    In resolution as I swore before.                        Exit\n  TRANIO. Mistress Bianca, bless you with such grace\n    As 'longeth to a lover's blessed case!\n    Nay, I have ta'en you napping, gentle love,\n    And have forsworn you with Hortensio.\n  BIANCA. Tranio, you jest; but have you both forsworn me?\n  TRANIO. Mistress, we have.\n  LUCENTIO. Then we are rid of Licio.\n  TRANIO. I' faith, he'll have a lusty widow now,\n    That shall be woo'd and wedded in a day.\n  BIANCA. God give him joy!\n  TRANIO. Ay, and he'll tame her.\n  BIANCA. He says so, Tranio.\n  TRANIO. Faith, he is gone unto the taming-school.\n  BIANCA. The taming-school! What, is there such a place?\n  TRANIO. Ay, mistress; and Petruchio is the master,\n    That teacheth tricks eleven and twenty long,\n    To tame a shrew and charm her chattering tongue.\n\n                       Enter BIONDELLO\n\n  BIONDELLO. O master, master, have watch'd so long\n    That I am dog-weary; but at last I spied\n    An ancient angel coming down the hill\n    Will serve the turn.\n  TRANIO. What is he, Biondello?\n  BIONDELLO. Master, a mercatante or a pedant,\n    I know not what; but formal in apparel,\n    In gait and countenance surely like a father.\n  LUCENTIO. And what of him, Tranio?\n  TRANIO. If he be credulous and trust my tale,\n    I'll make him glad to seem Vincentio,\n    And give assurance to Baptista Minola\n    As if he were the right Vincentio.\n    Take in your love, and then let me alone.\n                                      Exeunt LUCENTIO and BIANCA\n\n                         Enter a PEDANT\n\n  PEDANT. God save you, sir!\n  TRANIO. And you, sir; you are welcome.\n    Travel you far on, or are you at the farthest?\n  PEDANT. Sir, at the farthest for a week or two;\n    But then up farther, and as far as Rome;\n    And so to Tripoli, if God lend me life.\n  TRANIO. What countryman, I pray?\n  PEDANT. Of Mantua.\n  TRANIO. Of Mantua, sir? Marry, God forbid,\n    And come to Padua, careless of your life!\n  PEDANT. My life, sir! How, I pray? For that goes hard.\n  TRANIO. 'Tis death for any one in Mantua\n    To come to Padua. Know you not the cause?\n    Your ships are stay'd at Venice; and the Duke,\n    For private quarrel 'twixt your Duke and him,\n    Hath publish'd and proclaim'd it openly.\n    'Tis marvel- but that you are but newly come,\n    You might have heard it else proclaim'd about.\n  PEDANT. Alas, sir, it is worse for me than so!\n    For I have bills for money by exchange\n    From Florence, and must here deliver them.\n  TRANIO. Well, sir, to do you courtesy,\n    This will I do, and this I will advise you-\n    First, tell me, have you ever been at Pisa?\n  PEDANT. Ay, sir, in Pisa have I often been,\n    Pisa renowned for grave citizens.\n  TRANIO. Among them know you one Vincentio?\n  PEDANT. I know him not, but I have heard of him,\n    A merchant of incomparable wealth.\n  TRANIO. He is my father, sir; and, sooth to say,\n    In count'nance somewhat doth resemble you.\n  BIONDELLO.  [Aside]  As much as an apple doth an oyster, and all\n    one.\n  TRANIO. To save your life in this extremity,\n    This favour will I do you for his sake;\n    And think it not the worst of all your fortunes\n    That you are like to Sir Vincentio.\n    His name and credit shall you undertake,\n    And in my house you shall be friendly lodg'd;\n    Look that you take upon you as you should.\n    You understand me, sir. So shall you stay\n    Till you have done your business in the city.\n    If this be court'sy, sir, accept of it.\n  PEDANT. O, sir, I do; and will repute you ever\n    The patron of my life and liberty.\n  TRANIO. Then go with me to make the matter good.\n    This, by the way, I let you understand:\n    My father is here look'd for every day\n    To pass assurance of a dow'r in marriage\n    'Twixt me and one Baptista's daughter here.\n    In all these circumstances I'll instruct you.\n    Go with me to clothe you as becomes you.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nPETRUCHIO'S house\n\nEnter KATHERINA and GRUMIO\n\n  GRUMIO. No, no, forsooth; I dare not for my life.\n  KATHERINA. The more my wrong, the more his spite appears.\n    What, did he marry me to famish me?\n    Beggars that come unto my father's door\n    Upon entreaty have a present alms;\n    If not, elsewhere they meet with charity;\n    But I, who never knew how to entreat,\n    Nor never needed that I should entreat,\n    Am starv'd for meat, giddy for lack of sleep;\n    With oaths kept waking, and with brawling fed;\n    And that which spites me more than all these wants-\n    He does it under name of perfect love;\n    As who should say, if I should sleep or eat,\n    'Twere deadly sickness or else present death.\n    I prithee go and get me some repast;\n    I care not what, so it be wholesome food.\n  GRUMIO. What say you to a neat's foot?\n  KATHERINA. 'Tis passing good; I prithee let me have it.\n  GRUMIO. I fear it is too choleric a meat.\n    How say you to a fat tripe finely broil'd?\n  KATHERINA. I like it well; good Grumio, fetch it me.\n  GRUMIO. I cannot tell; I fear 'tis choleric.\n    What say you to a piece of beef and mustard?\n  KATHERINA. A dish that I do love to feed upon.\n  GRUMIO. Ay, but the mustard is too hot a little.\n  KATHERINA. Why then the beef, and let the mustard rest.\n  GRUMIO. Nay, then I will not; you shall have the mustard,\n    Or else you get no beef of Grumio.\n  KATHERINA. Then both, or one, or anything thou wilt.\n  GRUMIO. Why then the mustard without the beef.\n  KATHERINA. Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave,\n                                                     [Beats him]\n    That feed'st me with the very name of meat.\n    Sorrow on thee and all the pack of you\n    That triumph thus upon my misery!\n    Go, get thee gone, I say.\n\n               Enter PETRUCHIO, and HORTENSIO with meat\n\n  PETRUCHIO. How fares my Kate? What, sweeting, all amort?\n  HORTENSIO. Mistress, what cheer?\n  KATHERINA. Faith, as cold as can be.\n  PETRUCHIO. Pluck up thy spirits, look cheerfully upon me.\n    Here, love, thou seest how diligent I am,\n    To dress thy meat myself, and bring it thee.\n    I am sure, sweet Kate, this kindness merits thanks.\n    What, not a word? Nay, then thou lov'st it not,\n    And all my pains is sorted to no proof.\n    Here, take away this dish.\n  KATHERINA. I pray you, let it stand.\n  PETRUCHIO. The poorest service is repaid with thanks;\n    And so shall mine, before you touch the meat.\n  KATHERINA. I thank you, sir.\n  HORTENSIO. Signior Petruchio, fie! you are to blame.\n    Come, Mistress Kate, I'll bear you company.\n  PETRUCHIO.  [Aside]  Eat it up all, Hortensio, if thou lovest me.-\n    Much good do it unto thy gentle heart!\n    Kate, eat apace. And now, my honey love,\n    Will we return unto thy father's house\n    And revel it as bravely as the best,\n    With silken coats and caps, and golden rings,\n    With ruffs and cuffs and farthingales and things,\n    With scarfs and fans and double change of brav'ry.\n    With amber bracelets, beads, and all this knav'ry.\n    What, hast thou din'd? The tailor stays thy leisure,\n    To deck thy body with his ruffling treasure.\n\n                          Enter TAILOR\n\n    Come, tailor, let us see these ornaments;\n    Lay forth the gown.\n\n                        Enter HABERDASHER\n\n    What news with you, sir?\n  HABERDASHER. Here is the cap your worship did bespeak.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, this was moulded on a porringer;\n    A velvet dish. Fie, fie! 'tis lewd and filthy;\n    Why, 'tis a cockle or a walnut-shell,\n    A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap.\n    Away with it. Come, let me have a bigger.\n  KATHERINA. I'll have no bigger; this doth fit the time,\n    And gentlewomen wear such caps as these.\n  PETRUCHIO. When you are gentle, you shall have one too,\n    And not till then.\n  HORTENSIO.  [Aside]  That will not be in haste.\n  KATHERINA. Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak;\n    And speak I will. I am no child, no babe.\n    Your betters have endur'd me say my mind,\n    And if you cannot, best you stop your ears.\n    My tongue will tell the anger of my heart,\n    Or else my heart, concealing it, will break;\n    And rather than it shall, I will be free\n    Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, thou say'st true; it is a paltry cap,\n    A custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie;\n    I love thee well in that thou lik'st it not.\n  KATHERINA. Love me or love me not, I like the cap;\n    And it I will have, or I will have none.    Exit HABERDASHER\n  PETRUCHIO. Thy gown? Why, ay. Come, tailor, let us see't.\n    O mercy, God! what masquing stuff is here?\n    What's this? A sleeve? 'Tis like a demi-cannon.\n    What, up and down, carv'd like an appletart?\n    Here's snip and nip and cut and slish and slash,\n    Like to a censer in a barber's shop.\n    Why, what a devil's name, tailor, call'st thou this?\n  HORTENSIO.  [Aside]  I see she's like to have neither cap nor gown.\n  TAILOR. You bid me make it orderly and well,\n    According to the fashion and the time.\n  PETRUCHIO. Marry, and did; but if you be rememb'red,\n    I did not bid you mar it to the time.\n    Go, hop me over every kennel home,\n    For you shall hop without my custom, sir.\n    I'll none of it; hence! make your best of it.\n  KATHERINA. I never saw a better fashion'd gown,\n    More quaint, more pleasing, nor more commendable;\n    Belike you mean to make a puppet of me.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, true; he means to make a puppet of thee.\n  TAILOR. She says your worship means to make a puppet of her.\n  PETRUCHIO. O monstrous arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread, thou\n      thimble,\n    Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail,\n    Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou-\n    Brav'd in mine own house with a skein of thread!\n    Away, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant;\n    Or I shall so bemete thee with thy yard\n    As thou shalt think on prating whilst thou liv'st!\n    I tell thee, I, that thou hast marr'd her gown.\n  TAILOR. Your worship is deceiv'd; the gown is made\n    Just as my master had direction.\n    Grumio gave order how it should be done.\n  GRUMIO. I gave him no order; I gave him the stuff.\n  TAILOR. But how did you desire it should be made?\n  GRUMIO. Marry, sir, with needle and thread.\n  TAILOR. But did you not request to have it cut?\n  GRUMIO. Thou hast fac'd many things.\n  TAILOR. I have.\n  GRUMIO. Face not me. Thou hast brav'd many men; brave not me. I\n    will neither be fac'd nor brav'd. I say unto thee, I bid thy\n    master cut out the gown; but I did not bid him cut it to pieces.\n    Ergo, thou liest.\n  TAILOR. Why, here is the note of the fashion to testify.\n  PETRUCHIO. Read it.\n  GRUMIO. The note lies in's throat, if he say I said so.\n  TAILOR.  [Reads]  'Imprimis, a loose-bodied gown'-\n  GRUMIO. Master, if ever I said loose-bodied gown, sew me in the\n    skirts of it and beat me to death with a bottom of brown bread; I\n    said a gown.\n  PETRUCHIO. Proceed.\n  TAILOR.  [Reads]  'With a small compass'd cape'-\n  GRUMIO. I confess the cape.\n  TAILOR.  [Reads]  'With a trunk sleeve'-\n  GRUMIO. I confess two sleeves.\n  TAILOR.  [Reads]  'The sleeves curiously cut.'\n  PETRUCHIO. Ay, there's the villainy.\n  GRUMIO. Error i' th' bill, sir; error i' th' bill! I commanded the\n    sleeves should be cut out, and sew'd up again; and that I'll\n    prove upon thee, though thy little finger be armed in a thimble.\n  TAILOR. This is true that I say; an I had thee in place where, thou\n    shouldst know it.\n  GRUMIO. I am for thee straight; take thou the bill, give me thy\n    meteyard, and spare not me.\n  HORTENSIO. God-a-mercy, Grumio! Then he shall have no odds.\n  PETRUCHIO. Well, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me.\n  GRUMIO. You are i' th' right, sir; 'tis for my mistress.\n  PETRUCHIO. Go, take it up unto thy master's use.\n  GRUMIO. Villain, not for thy life! Take up my mistress' gown for\n    thy master's use!\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, sir, what's your conceit in that?\n  GRUMIO. O, sir, the conceit is deeper than you think for.\n    Take up my mistress' gown to his master's use!\n    O fie, fie, fie!\n  PETRUCHIO.  [Aside]  Hortensio, say thou wilt see the tailor paid.-\n    Go take it hence; be gone, and say no more.\n  HORTENSIO. Tailor, I'll pay thee for thy gown to-morrow;\n    Take no unkindness of his hasty words.\n    Away, I say; commend me to thy master.           Exit TAILOR\n  PETRUCHIO. Well, come, my Kate; we will unto your father's\n    Even in these honest mean habiliments;\n    Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor;\n    For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich;\n    And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,\n    So honour peereth in the meanest habit.\n    What, is the jay more precious than the lark\n    Because his feathers are more beautiful?\n    Or is the adder better than the eel\n    Because his painted skin contents the eye?\n    O no, good Kate; neither art thou the worse\n    For this poor furniture and mean array.\n    If thou account'st it shame, lay it on me;\n    And therefore frolic; we will hence forthwith\n    To feast and sport us at thy father's house.\n    Go call my men, and let us straight to him;\n    And bring our horses unto Long-lane end;\n    There will we mount, and thither walk on foot.\n    Let's see; I think 'tis now some seven o'clock,\n    And well we may come there by dinner-time.\n  KATHERINA. I dare assure you, sir, 'tis almost two,\n    And 'twill be supper-time ere you come there.\n  PETRUCHIO. It shall be seven ere I go to horse.\n    Look what I speak, or do, or think to do,\n    You are still crossing it. Sirs, let 't alone;\n    I will not go to-day; and ere I do,\n    It shall be what o'clock I say it is.\n  HORTENSIO. Why, so this gallant will command the sun.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nPadua. Before BAPTISTA'S house\n\nEnter TRANIO as LUCENTIO, and the PEDANT dressed like VINCENTIO\n\n  TRANIO. Sir, this is the house; please it you that I call?\n  PEDANT. Ay, what else? And, but I be deceived,\n    Signior Baptista may remember me\n    Near twenty years ago in Genoa,\n    Where we were lodgers at the Pegasus.\n  TRANIO. 'Tis well; and hold your own, in any case,\n    With such austerity as longeth to a father.\n\n                       Enter BIONDELLO\n\n  PEDANT. I warrant you. But, sir, here comes your boy;\n    'Twere good he were school'd.\n  TRANIO. Fear you not him. Sirrah Biondello,\n    Now do your duty throughly, I advise you.\n    Imagine 'twere the right Vincentio.\n  BIONDELLO. Tut, fear not me.\n  TRANIO. But hast thou done thy errand to Baptista?\n  BIONDELLO. I told him that your father was at Venice,\n    And that you look'd for him this day in Padua.\n  TRANIO. Th'art a tall fellow; hold thee that to drink.\n    Here comes Baptista. Set your countenance, sir.\n\n                 Enter BAPTISTA, and LUCENTIO as CAMBIO\n\n    Signior Baptista, you are happily met.\n    [To To the PEDANT] Sir, this is the gentleman I told you of;\n    I pray you stand good father to me now;\n    Give me Bianca for my patrimony.\n  PEDANT. Soft, son!\n    Sir, by your leave: having come to Padua\n    To gather in some debts, my son Lucentio\n    Made me acquainted with a weighty cause\n    Of love between your daughter and himself;\n    And- for the good report I hear of you,\n    And for the love he beareth to your daughter,\n    And she to him- to stay him not too long,\n    I am content, in a good father's care,\n    To have him match'd; and, if you please to like\n    No worse than I, upon some agreement\n    Me shall you find ready and willing\n    With one consent to have her so bestow'd;\n    For curious I cannot be with you,\n    Signior Baptista, of whom I hear so well.\n  BAPTISTA. Sir, pardon me in what I have to say.\n    Your plainness and your shortness please me well.\n    Right true it is your son Lucentio here\n    Doth love my daughter, and she loveth him,\n    Or both dissemble deeply their affections;\n    And therefore, if you say no more than this,\n    That like a father you will deal with him,\n    And pass my daughter a sufficient dower,\n    The match is made, and all is done-\n    Your son shall have my daughter with consent.\n  TRANIO. I thank you, sir. Where then do you know best\n    We be affied, and such assurance ta'en\n    As shall with either part's agreement stand?\n  BAPTISTA. Not in my house, Lucentio, for you know\n    Pitchers have ears, and I have many servants;\n    Besides, old Gremio is heark'ning still,\n    And happily we might be interrupted.\n  TRANIO. Then at my lodging, an it like you.\n    There doth my father lie; and there this night\n    We'll pass the business privately and well.\n    Send for your daughter by your servant here;\n    My boy shall fetch the scrivener presently.\n    The worst is this, that at so slender warning\n    You are like to have a thin and slender pittance.\n  BAPTISTA. It likes me well. Cambio, hie you home,\n    And bid Bianca make her ready straight;\n    And, if you will, tell what hath happened-\n    Lucentio's father is arriv'd in Padua,\n    And how she's like to be Lucentio's wife.      Exit LUCENTIO\n  BIONDELLO. I pray the gods she may, with all my heart.\n  TRANIO. Dally not with the gods, but get thee gone.\n                                                  Exit BIONDELLO\n    Signior Baptista, shall I lead the way?\n    Welcome! One mess is like to be your cheer;\n    Come, sir; we will better it in Pisa.\n  BAPTISTA. I follow you.                                 Exeunt\n\n            Re-enter LUCENTIO as CAMBIO, and BIONDELLO\n\n  BIONDELLO. Cambio.\n  LUCENTIO. What say'st thou, Biondello?\n  BIONDELLO. You saw my master wink and laugh upon you?\n  LUCENTIO. Biondello, what of that?\n  BIONDELLO. Faith, nothing; but has left me here behind to expound\n    the meaning or moral of his signs and tokens.\n  LUCENTIO. I pray thee moralize them.\n  BIONDELLO. Then thus: Baptista is safe, talking with the deceiving\n    father of a deceitful son.\n  LUCENTIO. And what of him?\n  BIONDELLO. His daughter is to be brought by you to the supper.\n  LUCENTIO. And then?\n  BIONDELLO. The old priest at Saint Luke's church is at your command\n    at all hours.\n  LUCENTIO. And what of all this?\n  BIONDELLO. I cannot tell, except they are busied about a\n    counterfeit assurance. Take your assurance of her, cum privilegio\n    ad imprimendum solum; to th' church take the priest, clerk, and\n    some sufficient honest witnesses.\n    If this be not that you look for, I have more to say,\n    But bid Bianca farewell for ever and a day.\n  LUCENTIO. Hear'st thou, Biondello?\n  BIONDELLO. I cannot tarry. I knew a wench married in an afternoon\n    as she went to the garden for parsley to stuff a rabbit; and so\n    may you, sir; and so adieu, sir. My master hath appointed me to\n    go to Saint Luke's to bid the priest be ready to come against you\n    come with your appendix.\n Exit\n  LUCENTIO. I may and will, if she be so contented.\n    She will be pleas'd; then wherefore should I doubt?\n    Hap what hap may, I'll roundly go about her;\n    It shall go hard if Cambio go without her.              Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nA public road\n\nEnter PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, HORTENSIO, and SERVANTS\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Come on, a God's name; once more toward our father's.\n    Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!\n  KATHERINA. The moon? The sun! It is not moonlight now.\n  PETRUCHIO. I say it is the moon that shines so bright.\n  KATHERINA. I know it is the sun that shines so bright.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now by my mother's son, and that's myself,\n    It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,\n    Or ere I journey to your father's house.\n    Go on and fetch our horses back again.\n    Evermore cross'd and cross'd; nothing but cross'd!\n  HORTENSIO. Say as he says, or we shall never go.\n  KATHERINA. Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,\n    And be it moon, or sun, or what you please;\n    And if you please to call it a rush-candle,\n    Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.\n  PETRUCHIO. I say it is the moon.\n  KATHERINA. I know it is the moon.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, then you lie; it is the blessed sun.\n  KATHERINA. Then, God be bless'd, it is the blessed sun;\n    But sun it is not, when you say it is not;\n    And the moon changes even as your mind.\n    What you will have it nam'd, even that it is,\n    And so it shall be so for Katherine.\n  HORTENSIO. Petruchio, go thy ways, the field is won.\n  PETRUCHIO. Well, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run,\n    And not unluckily against the bias.\n    But, soft! Company is coming here.\n\n                            Enter VINCENTIO\n\n    [To VINCENTIO]  Good-morrow, gentle mistress; where away?-\n    Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,\n    Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?\n    Such war of white and red within her cheeks!\n    What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty\n    As those two eyes become that heavenly face?\n    Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee.\n    Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty's sake.\n  HORTENSIO. 'A will make the man mad, to make a woman of him.\n  KATHERINA. Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,\n    Whither away, or where is thy abode?\n    Happy the parents of so fair a child;\n    Happier the man whom favourable stars\n    Allots thee for his lovely bed-fellow.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, how now, Kate, I hope thou art not mad!\n    This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, withered,\n    And not a maiden, as thou sayst he is.\n  KATHERINA. Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes,\n    That have been so bedazzled with the sun\n    That everything I look on seemeth green;\n    Now I perceive thou art a reverend father.\n    Pardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking.\n  PETRUCHIO. Do, good old grandsire, and withal make known\n    Which way thou travellest- if along with us,\n    We shall be joyful of thy company.\n  VINCENTIO. Fair sir, and you my merry mistress,\n    That with your strange encounter much amaz'd me,\n    My name is call'd Vincentio, my dwelling Pisa,\n    And bound I am to Padua, there to visit\n    A son of mine, which long I have not seen.\n  PETRUCHIO. What is his name?\n  VINCENTIO. Lucentio, gentle sir.\n  PETRUCHIO. Happily met; the happier for thy son.\n    And now by law, as well as reverend age,\n    I may entitle thee my loving father:\n    The sister to my wife, this gentlewoman,\n    Thy son by this hath married. Wonder not,\n    Nor be not grieved- she is of good esteem,\n    Her dowry wealthy, and of worthy birth;\n    Beside, so qualified as may beseem\n    The spouse of any noble gentleman.\n    Let me embrace with old Vincentio;\n    And wander we to see thy honest son,\n    Who will of thy arrival be full joyous.\n  VINCENTIO. But is this true; or is it else your pleasure,\n    Like pleasant travellers, to break a jest\n    Upon the company you overtake?\n  HORTENSIO. I do assure thee, father, so it is.\n  PETRUCHIO. Come, go along, and see the truth hereof;\n    For our first merriment hath made thee jealous.\n                                        Exeunt all but HORTENSIO\n  HORTENSIO. Well, Petruchio, this has put me in heart.\n    Have to my widow; and if she be froward,\n    Then hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward.         Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nPadua. Before LUCENTIO'S house\n\nEnter BIONDELLO, LUCENTIO, and BIANCA; GREMIO is out before\n\n  BIONDELLO. Softly and swiftly, sir, for the priest is ready.\n  LUCENTIO. I fly, Biondello; but they may chance to need the at\n    home, therefore leave us.\n  BIONDELLO. Nay, faith, I'll see the church a your back, and then\n    come back to my master's as soon as I can.\n                          Exeunt LUCENTIO, BIANCA, and BIONDELLO\n  GREMIO. I marvel Cambio comes not all this while.\n\n           Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, VINCENTIO, GRUMIO,\n                          and ATTENDANTS\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Sir, here's the door; this is Lucentio's house;\n    My father's bears more toward the market-place;\n    Thither must I, and here I leave you, sir.\n  VINCENTIO. You shall not choose but drink before you go;\n    I think I shall command your welcome here,\n    And by all likelihood some cheer is toward.         [Knocks]\n  GREMIO. They're busy within; you were best knock louder.\n                                [PEDANT looks out of the window]\n  PEDANT. What's he that knocks as he would beat down the gate?\n  VINCENTIO. Is Signior Lucentio within, sir?\n  PEDANT. He's within, sir, but not to be spoken withal.\n  VINCENTIO. What if a man bring him a hundred pound or two to make\n    merry withal?\n  PEDANT. Keep your hundred pounds to yourself; he shall need none so\n    long as I live.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, I told you your son was well beloved in Padua. Do\n    you hear, sir? To leave frivolous circumstances, I pray you tell\n    Signior Lucentio that his father is come from Pisa, and is here\n    at the door to speak with him.\n  PEDANT. Thou liest: his father is come from Padua, and here looking\n    out at the window.\n  VINCENTIO. Art thou his father?\n  PEDANT. Ay, sir; so his mother says, if I may believe her.\n  PETRUCHIO.  [To VINCENTIO]  Why, how now, gentleman!\n    Why, this is flat knavery to take upon you another man's name.\n  PEDANT. Lay hands on the villain; I believe 'a means to cozen\n    somebody in this city under my countenance.\n\n                       Re-enter BIONDELLO\n\n  BIONDELLO. I have seen them in the church together. God send 'em\n    good shipping! But who is here? Mine old master, Vicentio! Now we\n    are undone and brought to nothing.\n  VINCENTIO.  [Seeing BIONDELLO]  Come hither, crack-hemp.\n  BIONDELLO. I hope I may choose, sir.\n  VINCENTIO. Come hither, you rogue. What, have you forgot me?\n  BIONDELLO. Forgot you! No, sir. I could not forget you, for I never\n    saw you before in all my life.\n  VINCENTIO. What, you notorious villain, didst thou never see thy\n    master's father, Vincentio?\n  BIONDELLO. What, my old worshipful old master? Yes, marry, sir; see\n    where he looks out of the window.\n  VINCENTIO. Is't so, indeed?               [He beats BIONDELLO]\n  BIONDELLO. Help, help, help! Here's a madman will murder me.\n Exit\n  PEDANT. Help, son! help, Signior Baptista!     Exit from above\n  PETRUCHIO. Prithee, Kate, let's stand aside and see the end of this\n    controversy.                              [They stand aside]\n\n       Re-enter PEDANT below; BAPTISTA, TRANIO, and SERVANTS\n\n  TRANIO. Sir, what are you that offer to beat my servant?\n  VINCENTIO. What am I, sir? Nay, what are you, sir? O immortal gods!\n    O fine villain! A silken doublet, a velvet hose, a scarlet cloak,\n    and a copatain hat! O, I am undone! I am undone! While I play the\n    good husband at home, my son and my servant spend all at the\n    university.\n  TRANIO. How now! what's the matter?\n  BAPTISTA. What, is the man lunatic?\n  TRANIO. Sir, you seem a sober ancient gentleman by your habit, but\n    your words show you a madman. Why, sir, what 'cerns it you if I\n    wear pearl and gold? I thank my good father, I am able to\n    maintain it.\n  VINCENTIO. Thy father! O villain! he is a sailmaker in Bergamo.\n  BAPTISTA. You mistake, sir; you mistake, sir. Pray, what do you\n    think is his name?\n  VINCENTIO. His name! As if I knew not his name! I have brought him\n    up ever since he was three years old, and his name is Tranio.\n  PEDANT. Away, away, mad ass! His name is Lucentio; and he is mine\n    only son, and heir to the lands of me, Signior Vicentio.\n  VINCENTIO. Lucentio! O, he hath murd'red his master! Lay hold on\n    him, I charge you, in the Duke's name. O, my son, my son! Tell\n    me, thou villain, where is my son, Lucentio?\n  TRANIO. Call forth an officer.\n\n                      Enter one with an OFFICER\n\n    Carry this mad knave to the gaol. Father Baptista, I charge you\n    see that he be forthcoming.\n  VINCENTIO. Carry me to the gaol!\n  GREMIO. Stay, Officer; he shall not go to prison.\n  BAPTISTA. Talk not, Signior Gremio; I say he shall go to prison.\n  GREMIO. Take heed, Signior Baptista, lest you be cony-catch'd in\n    this business; I dare swear this is the right Vincentio.\n  PEDANT. Swear if thou dar'st.\n  GREMIO. Nay, I dare not swear it.\n  TRANIO. Then thou wert best say that I am not Lucentio.\n  GREMIO. Yes, I know thee to be Signior Lucentio.\n  BAPTISTA. Away with the dotard; to the gaol with him!\n  VINCENTIO. Thus strangers may be hal'd and abus'd. O monstrous\n    villain!\n\n          Re-enter BIONDELLO, with LUCENTIO and BIANCA\n\n  BIONDELLO. O, we are spoil'd; and yonder he is! Deny him, forswear\n    him, or else we are all undone.\n         Exeunt BIONDELLO, TRANIO, and PEDANT, as fast as may be\n  LUCENTIO.  [Kneeling]  Pardon, sweet father.\n  VINCENTIO. Lives my sweet son?\n  BIANCA. Pardon, dear father.\n  BAPTISTA. How hast thou offended?\n    Where is Lucentio?\n  LUCENTIO. Here's Lucentio,\n    Right son to the right Vincentio,\n    That have by marriage made thy daughter mine,\n    While counterfeit supposes blear'd thine eyne.\n  GREMIO. Here's packing, with a witness, to deceive us all!\n  VINCENTIO. Where is that damned villain, Tranio,\n    That fac'd and brav'd me in this matter so?\n  BAPTISTA. Why, tell me, is not this my Cambio?\n  BIANCA. Cambio is chang'd into Lucentio.\n  LUCENTIO. Love wrought these miracles. Bianca's love\n    Made me exchange my state with Tranio,\n    While he did bear my countenance in the town;\n    And happily I have arrived at the last\n    Unto the wished haven of my bliss.\n    What Tranio did, myself enforc'd him to;\n    Then pardon him, sweet father, for my sake.\n  VINCENTIO. I'll slit the villain's nose that would have sent me to\n    the gaol.\n  BAPTISTA.  [To LUCENTIO]  But do you hear, sir? Have you married my\n    daughter without asking my good will?\n  VINCENTIO. Fear not, Baptista; we will content you, go to; but I\n    will in to be revenged for this villainy.               Exit\n  BAPTISTA. And I to sound the depth of this knavery.       Exit\n  LUCENTIO. Look not pale, Bianca; thy father will not frown.\n                                      Exeunt LUCENTIO and BIANCA\n  GREMIO. My cake is dough, but I'll in among the rest;\n    Out of hope of all but my share of the feast.           Exit\n  KATHERINA. Husband, let's follow to see the end of this ado.\n  PETRUCHIO. First kiss me, Kate, and we will.\n  KATHERINA. What, in the midst of the street?\n  PETRUCHIO. What, art thou asham'd of me?\n  KATHERINA. No, sir; God forbid; but asham'd to kiss.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, then, let's home again. Come, sirrah, let's away.\n  KATHERINA. Nay, I will give thee a kiss; now pray thee, love, stay.\n  PETRUCHIO. Is not this well? Come, my sweet Kate:\n    Better once than never, for never too late.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nLUCENTIO'S house\n\nEnter BAPTISTA, VINCENTIO, GREMIO, the PEDANT, LUCENTIO, BIANCA,\nPETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, HORTENSIO, and WIDOW. The SERVINGMEN with TRANIO,\nBIONDELLO, and GRUMIO, bringing in a banquet\n\n  LUCENTIO. At last, though long, our jarring notes agree;\n    And time it is when raging war is done\n    To smile at scapes and perils overblown.\n    My fair Bianca, bid my father welcome,\n    While I with self-same kindness welcome thine.\n    Brother Petruchio, sister Katherina,\n    And thou, Hortensio, with thy loving widow,\n    Feast with the best, and welcome to my house.\n    My banquet is to close our stomachs up\n    After our great good cheer. Pray you, sit down;\n    For now we sit to chat as well as eat.            [They sit]\n  PETRUCHIO. Nothing but sit and sit, and eat and eat!\n  BAPTISTA. Padua affords this kindness, son Petruchio.\n  PETRUCHIO. Padua affords nothing but what is kind.\n  HORTENSIO. For both our sakes I would that word were true.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now, for my life, Hortensio fears his widow.\n  WIDOW. Then never trust me if I be afeard.\n  PETRUCHIO. YOU are very sensible, and yet you miss my sense:\n    I mean Hortensio is afeard of you.\n  WIDOW. He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.\n  PETRUCHIO. Roundly replied.\n  KATHERINA. Mistress, how mean you that?\n  WIDOW. Thus I conceive by him.\n  PETRUCHIO. Conceives by me! How likes Hortensio that?\n  HORTENSIO. My widow says thus she conceives her tale.\n  PETRUCHIO. Very well mended. Kiss him for that, good widow.\n  KATHERINA. 'He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.'\n    I pray you tell me what you meant by that.\n  WIDOW. Your husband, being troubled with a shrew,\n    Measures my husband's sorrow by his woe;\n    And now you know my meaning.\n  KATHERINA. A very mean meaning.\n  WIDOW. Right, I mean you.\n  KATHERINA. And I am mean, indeed, respecting you.\n  PETRUCHIO. To her, Kate!\n  HORTENSIO. To her, widow!\n  PETRUCHIO. A hundred marks, my Kate does put her down.\n  HORTENSIO. That's my office.\n  PETRUCHIO. Spoke like an officer- ha' to thee, lad.\n                                           [Drinks to HORTENSIO]\n  BAPTISTA. How likes Gremio these quick-witted folks?\n  GREMIO. Believe me, sir, they butt together well.\n  BIANCA. Head and butt! An hasty-witted body\n    Would say your head and butt were head and horn.\n  VINCENTIO. Ay, mistress bride, hath that awakened you?\n  BIANCA. Ay, but not frighted me; therefore I'll sleep again.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, that you shall not; since you have begun,\n    Have at you for a bitter jest or two.\n  BIANCA. Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush,\n    And then pursue me as you draw your bow.\n    You are welcome all.\n                             Exeunt BIANCA, KATHERINA, and WIDOW\n  PETRUCHIO. She hath prevented me. Here, Signior Tranio,\n    This bird you aim'd at, though you hit her not;\n    Therefore a health to all that shot and miss'd.\n  TRANIO. O, sir, Lucentio slipp'd me like his greyhound,\n    Which runs himself, and catches for his master.\n  PETRUCHIO. A good swift simile, but something currish.\n  TRANIO. 'Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself;\n    'Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay.\n  BAPTISTA. O, O, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now.\n  LUCENTIO. I thank thee for that gird, good Tranio.\n  HORTENSIO. Confess, confess; hath he not hit you here?\n  PETRUCHIO. 'A has a little gall'd me, I confess;\n    And, as the jest did glance away from me,\n    'Tis ten to one it maim'd you two outright.\n  BAPTISTA. Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio,\n    I think thou hast the veriest shrew of all.\n  PETRUCHIO. Well, I say no; and therefore, for assurance,\n    Let's each one send unto his wife,\n    And he whose wife is most obedient,\n    To come at first when he doth send for her,\n    Shall win the wager which we will propose.\n  HORTENSIO. Content. What's the wager?\n  LUCENTIO. Twenty crowns.\n  PETRUCHIO. Twenty crowns?\n    I'll venture so much of my hawk or hound,\n    But twenty times so much upon my wife.\n  LUCENTIO. A hundred then.\n  HORTENSIO. Content.\n  PETRUCHIO. A match! 'tis done.\n  HORTENSIO. Who shall begin?\n  LUCENTIO. That will I.\n    Go, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.\n  BIONDELLO. I go.                                          Exit\n  BAPTISTA. Son, I'll be your half Bianca comes.\n  LUCENTIO. I'll have no halves; I'll bear it all myself.\n\n                          Re-enter BIONDELLO\n\n    How now! what news?\n  BIONDELLO. Sir, my mistress sends you word\n    That she is busy and she cannot come.\n  PETRUCHIO. How! She's busy, and she cannot come!\n    Is that an answer?\n  GREMIO. Ay, and a kind one too.\n    Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.\n  PETRUCHIO. I hope better.\n  HORTENSIO. Sirrah Biondello, go and entreat my wife\n    To come to me forthwith.                      Exit BIONDELLO\n  PETRUCHIO. O, ho! entreat her!\n    Nay, then she must needs come.\n  HORTENSIO. I am afraid, sir,\n    Do what you can, yours will not be entreated.\n\n                            Re-enter BIONDELLO\n\n    Now, where's my wife?\n  BIONDELLO. She says you have some goodly jest in hand:\n    She will not come; she bids you come to her.\n  PETRUCHIO. Worse and worse; she will not come! O vile,\n    Intolerable, not to be endur'd!\n    Sirrah Grumio, go to your mistress;\n    Say I command her come to me.                    Exit GRUMIO\n  HORTENSIO. I know her answer.\n  PETRUCHIO. What?\n  HORTENSIO. She will not.\n  PETRUCHIO. The fouler fortune mine, and there an end.\n\n                             Re-enter KATHERINA\n\n  BAPTISTA. Now, by my holidame, here comes Katherina!\n  KATHERINA. What is your sir, that you send for me?\n  PETRUCHIO. Where is your sister, and Hortensio's wife?\n  KATHERINA. They sit conferring by the parlour fire.\n  PETRUCHIO. Go, fetch them hither; if they deny to come.\n    Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands.\n    Away, I say, and bring them hither straight.\n                                                  Exit KATHERINA\n  LUCENTIO. Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.\n  HORTENSIO. And so it is. I wonder what it bodes.\n  PETRUCHIO. Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life,\n    An awful rule, and right supremacy;\n    And, to be short, what not that's sweet and happy.\n  BAPTISTA. Now fair befall thee, good Petruchio!\n    The wager thou hast won; and I will ad\n    Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns;\n    Another dowry to another daughter,\n    For she is chang'd, as she had never been.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, I will win my wager better yet,\n    And show more sign of her obedience,\n    Her new-built virtue and obedience.\n\n                 Re-enter KATHERINA with BIANCA and WIDOW\n\n    See where she comes, and brings your froward wives\n    As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.\n    Katherine, that cap of yours becomes you not:\n    Off with that bauble, throw it underfoot.\n                                            [KATHERINA complies]\n  WIDOW. Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh\n    Till I be brought to such a silly pass!\n  BIANCA. Fie! what a foolish duty call you this?\n  LUCENTIO. I would your duty were as foolish too;\n    The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,\n    Hath cost me a hundred crowns since supper-time!\n  BIANCA. The more fool you for laying on my duty.\n  PETRUCHIO. Katherine, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women\n    What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.\n  WIDOW. Come, come, you're mocking; we will have no telling.\n  PETRUCHIO. Come on, I say; and first begin with her.\n  WIDOW. She shall not.\n  PETRUCHIO. I say she shall. And first begin with her.\n  KATHERINA. Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,\n    And dart not scornful glances from those eyes\n    To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.\n    It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,\n    Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,\n    And in no sense is meet or amiable.\n    A woman mov'd is like a fountain troubled-\n    Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;\n    And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty\n    Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.\n    Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,\n    Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,\n    And for thy maintenance commits his body\n    To painful labour both by sea and land,\n    To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,\n    Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;\n    And craves no other tribute at thy hands\n    But love, fair looks, and true obedience-\n    Too little payment for so great a debt.\n    Such duty as the subject owes the prince,\n    Even such a woman oweth to her husband;\n    And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,\n    And not obedient to his honest will,\n    What is she but a foul contending rebel\n    And graceless traitor to her loving lord?\n    I am asham'd that women are so simple\n    To offer war where they should kneel for peace;\n    Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,\n    When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.\n    Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,\n    Unapt to toll and trouble in the world,\n    But that our soft conditions and our hearts\n    Should well agree with our external parts?\n    Come, come, you froward and unable worms!\n    My mind hath been as big as one of yours,\n    My heart as great, my reason haply more,\n    To bandy word for word and frown for frown;\n    But now I see our lances are but straws,\n    Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,\n    That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.\n    Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,\n    And place your hands below your husband's foot;\n    In token of which duty, if he please,\n    My hand is ready, may it do him ease.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.\n  LUCENTIO. Well, go thy ways, old lad, for thou shalt ha't.\n  VINCENTIO. 'Tis a good hearing when children are toward.\n  LUCENTIO. But a harsh hearing when women are froward.\n  PETRUCHIO. Come, Kate, we'll to bed.\n    We three are married, but you two are sped.\n    [To LUCENTIO]  'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white;\n    And being a winner, God give you good night!\n                                  Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATHERINA\n  HORTENSIO. Now go thy ways; thou hast tam'd a curst shrow.\n  LUCENTIO. 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tam'd so.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1612\n\nTHE TEMPEST\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  ALONSO, King of Naples\n  SEBASTIAN, his brother\n  PROSPERO, the right Duke of Milan\n  ANTONIO, his brother, the usurping Duke of Milan\n  FERDINAND, son to the King of Naples\n  GONZALO, an honest old counsellor\n\n    Lords\n  ADRIAN\n  FRANCISCO\n  CALIBAN, a savage and deformed slave\n  TRINCULO, a jester\n  STEPHANO, a drunken butler\n  MASTER OF A SHIP\n  BOATSWAIN\n  MARINERS\n\n  MIRANDA, daughter to Prospero\n\n  ARIEL, an airy spirit\n\n    Spirits\n  IRIS\n  CERES\n  JUNO\n  NYMPHS\n  REAPERS\n  Other Spirits attending on Prospero\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nA ship at sea; afterwards an uninhabited island\n\n\n\nTHE TEMPEST\nACT I. SCENE 1\n\nOn a ship at sea; a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard\n\nEnter a SHIPMASTER and a BOATSWAIN\n\n  MASTER. Boatswain!\n  BOATSWAIN. Here, master; what cheer?\n  MASTER. Good! Speak to th' mariners; fall to't yarely, or\n    we run ourselves aground; bestir, bestir.               Exit\n\n                       Enter MARINERS\n\n  BOATSWAIN. Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!\n    yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to th' master's\n    whistle. Blow till thou burst thy wind, if room enough.\n\n          Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND\n                     GONZALO, and OTHERS\n\n  ALONSO. Good boatswain, have care. Where's the master?\n    Play the men.\n  BOATSWAIN. I pray now, keep below.\n  ANTONIO. Where is the master, boson?\n  BOATSWAIN. Do you not hear him? You mar our labour;\n    keep your cabins; you do assist the storm.\n  GONZALO. Nay, good, be patient.\n  BOATSWAIN. When the sea is. Hence! What cares these\n    roarers for the name of king? To cabin! silence! Trouble\n    us not.\n  GONZALO. Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.\n  BOATSWAIN. None that I more love than myself. You are\n    counsellor; if you can command these elements to\n    silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not\n    hand a rope more. Use your authority; if you cannot, give\n    thanks you have liv'd so long, and make yourself ready\n    in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so\n    hap.-Cheerly, good hearts!-Out of our way, I say.\n Exit\n  GONZALO. I have great comfort from this fellow. Methinks\n    he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is\n    perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging;\n    make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth\n    little advantage. If he be not born to be hang'd, our\n    case is miserable.                                    Exeunt\n\n                     Re-enter BOATSWAIN\n\n  BOATSWAIN. Down with the topmast. Yare, lower, lower!\n    Bring her to try wi' th' maincourse.  [A cry within]  A\n    plague upon this howling! They are louder than the\n    weather or our office.\n\n           Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZALO\n\n    Yet again! What do you here? Shall we give o'er, and\n    drown? Have you a mind to sink?\n  SEBASTIAN. A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous,\n    incharitable dog!\n  BOATSWAIN. Work you, then.\n  ANTONIO. Hang, cur; hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker;\n    we are less afraid to be drown'd than thou art.\n  GONZALO. I'll warrant him for drowning, though the ship were\n    no stronger than a nutshell, and as leaky as an unstanched\n    wench.\n  BOATSWAIN. Lay her a-hold, a-hold; set her two courses; off\n    to sea again; lay her off.\n\n                    Enter MARINERS, Wet\n  MARINERS. All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!\n                                                          Exeunt\n  BOATSWAIN. What, must our mouths be cold?\n  GONZALO. The King and Prince at prayers!\n    Let's assist them,\n    For our case is as theirs.\n  SEBASTIAN. I am out of patience.\n  ANTONIO. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.\n    This wide-chopp'd rascal-would thou mightst lie drowning\n    The washing of ten tides!\n  GONZALO. He'll be hang'd yet,\n    Though every drop of water swear against it,\n    And gape at wid'st to glut him.\n    [A confused noise within: Mercy on us!\n    We split, we split! Farewell, my wife and children!\n    Farewell, brother! We split, we split, we split!]\n  ANTONIO. Let's all sink wi' th' King.\n  SEBASTIAN. Let's take leave of him.\n                                    Exeunt ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN\n  GONZALO. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for\n    an acre of barren ground-long heath, brown furze, any\n    thing. The wills above be done, but I would fain die\n    dry death.                                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nThe Island. Before PROSPERO'S cell\n\nEnter PROSPERO and MIRANDA\n\n  MIRANDA. If by your art, my dearest father, you have\n    Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.\n    The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,\n    But that the sea, mounting to th' welkin's cheek,\n    Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered\n    With those that I saw suffer! A brave vessel,\n    Who had no doubt some noble creature in her,\n    Dash'd all to pieces! O, the cry did knock\n    Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perish'd.\n    Had I been any god of power, I would\n    Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere\n    It should the good ship so have swallow'd and\n    The fraughting souls within her.\n  PROSPERO. Be conected;\n    No more amazement; tell your piteous heart\n    There's no harm done.\n  MIRANDA. O, woe the day!\n  PROSPERO. No harm.\n    I have done nothing but in care of thee,\n    Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who\n    Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing\n    Of whence I am, nor that I am more better\n    Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,\n    And thy no greater father.\n  MIRANDA. More to know\n    Did never meddle with my thoughts.\n  PROSPERO. 'Tis time\n    I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand,\n    And pluck my magic garment from me. So,\n                                          [Lays down his mantle]\n    Lie there my art. Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.\n    The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd\n    The very virtue of compassion in thee,\n    I have with such provision in mine art\n    So safely ordered that there is no soul-\n    No, not so much perdition as an hair\n    Betid to any creature in the vessel\n    Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink.\n    Sit down, for thou must now know farther.\n  MIRANDA. You have often\n    Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd,\n    And left me to a bootless inquisition,\n    Concluding 'Stay; not yet.'\n  PROSPERO. The hour's now come;\n    The very minute bids thee ope thine ear.\n    Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember\n    A time before we came unto this cell?\n    I do not think thou canst; for then thou wast not\n    Out three years old.\n  MIRANDA. Certainly, sir, I can.\n  PROSPERO. By what? By any other house, or person?\n    Of any thing the image, tell me, that\n    Hath kept with thy remembrance?\n  MIRANDA. 'Tis far off,\n    And rather like a dream than an assurance\n    That my remembrance warrants. Had I not\n    Four, or five, women once, that tended me?\n  PROSPERO. Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it\n    That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else\n    In the dark backward and abysm of time?\n    If thou rememb'rest aught, ere thou cam'st here,\n    How thou cam'st here thou mayst.\n  MIRANDA. But that I do not.\n  PROSPERO. Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,\n    Thy father was the Duke of Milan, and\n    A prince of power.\n  MIRANDA. Sir, are not you my father?\n  PROSPERO. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and\n    She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father\n    Was Duke of Milan, and his only heir\n    And princess no worse issued.\n  MIRANDA. O, the heavens!\n    What foul play had we that we came from thence?\n    Or blessed was't we did?\n  PROSPERO. Both, both, my girl.\n    By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heav'd thence;\n    But blessedly holp hither.\n  MIRANDA. O, my heart bleeds\n    To think o' th' teen that I have turn'd you to,\n    Which is from my remembrance. Please you, farther.\n  PROSPERO. My brother and thy uncle, call'd Antonio-\n    I pray thee, mark me that a brother should\n    Be so perfidious. He, whom next thyself\n    Of all the world I lov'd, and to him put\n    The manage of my state; as at that time\n    Through all the signories it was the first,\n    And Prospero the prime duke, being so reputed\n    In dignity, and for the liberal arts\n    Without a parallel, those being all my study-\n    The government I cast upon my brother\n    And to my state grew stranger, being transported\n    And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle-\n    Dost thou attend me?\n  MIRANDA. Sir, most heedfully.\n  PROSPERO. Being once perfected how to grant suits,\n    How to deny them, who t' advance, and who\n    To trash for over-topping, new created\n    The creatures that were mine, I say, or chang'd 'em,\n    Or else new form'd 'em; having both the key\n    Of officer and office, set all hearts i' th' state\n    To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was\n    The ivy which had hid my princely trunk\n    And suck'd my verdure out on't. Thou attend'st not.\n  MIRANDA. O, good sir, I do!\n  PROSPERO. I pray thee, mark me.\n    I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated\n    To closeness and the bettering of my mind\n    With that which, but by being so retir'd,\n    O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my false brother\n    Awak'd an evil nature; and my trust,\n    Like a good parent, did beget of him\n    A falsehood, in its contrary as great\n    As my trust was; which had indeed no limit,\n    A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,\n    Not only with what my revenue yielded,\n    But what my power might else exact, like one\n    Who having into truth, by telling of it,\n    Made such a sinner of his memory,\n    To credit his own lie-he did believe\n    He was indeed the Duke; out o' th' substitution,\n    And executing th' outward face of royalty\n    With all prerogative. Hence his ambition growing-\n    Dost thou hear?\n  MIRANDA. Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.\n  PROSPERO. To have no screen between this part he play'd\n    And him he play'd it for, he needs will be\n    Absolute Milan. Me, poor man-my library\n    Was dukedom large enough-of temporal royalties\n    He thinks me now incapable; confederates,\n    So dry he was for sway, wi' th' King of Naples,\n    To give him annual tribute, do him homage,\n    Subject his coronet to his crown, and bend\n    The dukedom, yet unbow'd-alas, poor Milan!-\n    To most ignoble stooping.\n  MIRANDA. O the heavens!\n  PROSPERO. Mark his condition, and th' event, then tell me\n    If this might be a brother.\n  MIRANDA. I should sin\n    To think but nobly of my grandmother:\n    Good wombs have borne bad sons.\n  PROSPERO. Now the condition:\n    This King of Naples, being an enemy\n    To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit;\n    Which was, that he, in lieu o' th' premises,\n    Of homage, and I know not how much tribute,\n    Should presently extirpate me and mine\n    Out of the dukedom, and confer fair Milan\n    With all the honours on my brother. Whereon,\n    A treacherous army levied, one midnight\n    Fated to th' purpose, did Antonio open\n    The gates of Milan; and, i' th' dead of darkness,\n    The ministers for th' purpose hurried thence\n    Me and thy crying self.\n  MIRANDA. Alack, for pity!\n    I, not rememb'ring how I cried out then,\n    Will cry it o'er again; it is a hint\n    That wrings mine eyes to't.\n  PROSPERO. Hear a little further,\n    And then I'll bring thee to the present busines\n    Which now's upon 's; without the which this story\n    Were most impertinent.\n  MIRANDA. Wherefore did they not\n    That hour destroy us?\n  PROSPERO. Well demanded, wench!\n    My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not,\n    So dear the love my people bore me; nor set\n    A mark so bloody on the business; but\n    With colours fairer painted their foul ends.\n    In few, they hurried us aboard a bark;\n    Bore us some leagues to sea, where they prepared\n    A rotten carcass of a butt, not rigg'd,\n    Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats\n    Instinctively have quit it. There they hoist us,\n    To cry to th' sea, that roar'd to us; to sigh\n    To th' winds, whose pity, sighing back again,\n    Did us but loving wrong.\n  MIRANDA. Alack, what trouble\n    Was I then to you!\n  PROSPERO. O, a cherubin\n    Thou wast that did preserve me! Thou didst smile,\n    Infused with a fortitude from heaven,\n    When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt,\n    Under my burden groan'd; which rais'd in me\n    An undergoing stomach, to bear up\n    Against what should ensue.\n  MIRANDA. How came we ashore?\n  PROSPERO. By Providence divine.\n    Some food we had and some fresh water that\n    A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,\n    Out of his charity, who being then appointed\n    Master of this design, did give us, with\n    Rich garments, linens, stuffs, and necessaries,\n    Which since have steaded much; so, of his gentleness,\n    Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me\n    From mine own library with volumes that\n    I prize above my dukedom.\n  MIRANDA. Would I might\n    But ever see that man!\n  PROSPERO. Now I arise.                    [Puts on his mantle]\n    Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.\n    Here in this island we arriv'd; and here\n    Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit\n    Than other princess' can, that have more time\n    For vainer hours, and tutors not so careful.\n  MIRANDA. Heavens thank you for't! And now, I pray you,\n      sir,\n    For still 'tis beating in my mind, your reason\n    For raising this sea-storm?\n  PROSPERO. Know thus far forth:\n    By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune,\n    Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies\n    Brought to this shore; and by my prescience\n    I find my zenith doth depend upon\n    A most auspicious star, whose influence\n    If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes\n    Will ever after droop. Here cease more questions;\n    Thou art inclin'd to sleep; 'tis a good dullness,\n    And give it way. I know thou canst not choose.\n                                                [MIRANDA sleeps]\n    Come away, servant; come; I am ready now.\n    Approach, my Ariel. Come.\n\n                        Enter ARIEL\n\n  ARIEL. All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come\n    To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,\n    To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride\n    On the curl'd clouds. To thy strong bidding task\n    Ariel and all his quality.\n  PROSPERO. Hast thou, spirit,\n    Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?\n  ARIEL. To every article.\n    I boarded the King's ship; now on the beak,\n    Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,\n    I flam'd amazement. Sometime I'd divide,\n    And burn in many places; on the topmast,\n    The yards, and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,\n    Then meet and join Jove's lightning, the precursors\n    O' th' dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary\n    And sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks\n    Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune\n    Seem to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble,\n    Yea, his dread trident shake.\n  PROSPERO. My brave spirit!\n    Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil\n    Would not infect his reason?\n  ARIEL. Not a soul\n    But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd\n    Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners\n    Plung'd in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel,\n    Then all afire with me; the King's son, Ferdinand,\n    With hair up-staring-then like reeds, not hair-\n    Was the first man that leapt; cried 'Hell is empty,\n    And all the devils are here.'\n  PROSPERO. Why, that's my spirit!\n    But was not this nigh shore?\n  ARIEL. Close by, my master.\n  PROSPERO. But are they, Ariel, safe?\n  ARIEL. Not a hair perish'd;\n    On their sustaining garments not a blemish,\n    But fresher than before; and, as thou bad'st me,\n    In troops I have dispers'd them 'bout the isle.\n    The King's son have I landed by himself,\n    Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs\n    In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting,\n    His arms in this sad knot.\n  PROSPERO. Of the King's ship,\n    The mariners, say how thou hast dispos'd,\n    And all the rest o' th' fleet?\n  ARIEL. Safely in harbour\n    Is the King's ship; in the deep nook, where once\n    Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew\n    From the still-vex'd Bermoothes, there she's hid;\n    The mariners all under hatches stowed,\n    Who, with a charm join'd to their suff'red labour,\n    I have left asleep; and for the rest o' th' fleet,\n    Which I dispers'd, they all have met again,\n    And are upon the Mediterranean flote\n    Bound sadly home for Naples,\n    Supposing that they saw the King's ship wreck'd,\n    And his great person perish.\n  PROSPERO. Ariel, thy charge\n    Exactly is perform'd; but there's more work.\n    What is the time o' th' day?\n  ARIEL. Past the mid season.\n  PROSPERO. At least two glasses. The time 'twixt six and now\n    Must by us both be spent most preciously.\n  ARIEL. Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,\n    Let me remember thee what thou hast promis'd,\n    Which is not yet perform'd me.\n  PROSPERO. How now, moody?\n    What is't thou canst demand?\n  ARIEL. My liberty.\n  PROSPERO. Before the time be out? No more!\n  ARIEL. I prithee,\n    Remember I have done thee worthy service,\n    Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, serv'd\n    Without or grudge or grumblings. Thou didst promise\n    To bate me a full year.\n  PROSPERO. Dost thou forget\n    From what a torment I did free thee?\n  ARIEL. No.\n  PROSPERO. Thou dost; and think'st it much to tread the ooze\n    Of the salt deep,\n    To run upon the sharp wind of the north,\n    To do me business in the veins o' th' earth\n    When it is bak'd with frost.\n  ARIEL. I do not, sir.\n  PROSPERO. Thou liest, malignant thing. Hast thou forgot\n    The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy\n    Was grown into a hoop? Hast thou forgot her?\n  ARIEL. No, sir.\n  PROSPERO. Thou hast. Where was she born?\n    Speak; tell me.\n  ARIEL. Sir, in Argier.\n  PROSPERO. O, was she so? I must\n    Once in a month recount what thou hast been,\n    Which thou forget'st. This damn'd witch Sycorax,\n    For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible\n    To enter human hearing, from Argier\n    Thou know'st was banish'd; for one thing she did\n    They would not take her life. Is not this true?\n  ARIEL. Ay, sir.\n  PROSPERO. This blue-ey'd hag was hither brought with child,\n    And here was left by th'sailors. Thou, my slave,\n    As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant;\n    And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate\n    To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands,\n    Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,\n    By help of her more potent ministers,\n    And in her most unmitigable rage,\n    Into a cloven pine; within which rift\n    Imprison'd thou didst painfully remain\n    A dozen years; within which space she died,\n    And left thee there, where thou didst vent thy groans\n    As fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island-\n    Save for the son that she did litter here,\n    A freckl'd whelp, hag-born-not honour'd with\n    A human shape.\n  ARIEL. Yes, Caliban her son.\n  PROSPERO. Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban\n    Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st\n    What torment I did find thee in; thy groans\n    Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts\n    Of ever-angry bears; it was a torment\n    To lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax\n    Could not again undo. It was mine art,\n    When I arriv'd and heard thee, that made gape\n    The pine, and let thee out.\n  ARIEL. I thank thee, master.\n  PROSPERO. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak\n    And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till\n    Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters.\n  ARIEL. Pardon, master;\n    I will be correspondent to command,\n    And do my spriting gently.\n  PROSPERO. Do so; and after two days\n    I will discharge thee.\n  ARIEL. That's my noble master!\n    What shall I do? Say what. What shall I do?\n  PROSPERO. Go make thyself like a nymph o' th' sea; be subject\n    To no sight but thine and mine, invisible\n    To every eyeball else. Go take this shape,\n    And hither come in 't. Go, hence with diligence!\n                                                      Exit ARIEL\n    Awake, dear heart, awake; thou hast slept well;\n    Awake.\n  MIRANDA. The strangeness of your story put\n    Heaviness in me.\n  PROSPERO. Shake it off. Come on,\n    We'll visit Caliban, my slave, who never\n    Yields us kind answer.\n  MIRANDA. 'Tis a villain, sir,\n    I do not love to look on.\n  PROSPERO. But as 'tis,\n    We cannot miss him: he does make our fire,\n    Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices\n    That profit us. What ho! slave! Caliban!\n    Thou earth, thou! Speak.\n  CALIBAN.   [ Within]  There's wood enough within.\n  PROSPERO. Come forth, I say; there's other business for thee.\n    Come, thou tortoise! when?\n\n             Re-enter ARIEL like a water-nymph\n\n    Fine apparition! My quaint Ariel,\n    Hark in thine ear.\n  ARIEL. My lord, it shall be done.                         Exit\n  PROSPERO. Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself\n    Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!\n\n                       Enter CALIBAN\n\n  CALIBAN. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd\n    With raven's feather from unwholesome fen\n    Drop on you both! A south-west blow on ye\n    And blister you all o'er!\n  PROSPERO. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,\n    Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins\n    Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,\n    All exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinch'd\n    As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging\n    Than bees that made 'em.\n  CALIBAN. I must eat my dinner.\n    This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,\n    Which thou tak'st from me. When thou cam'st first,\n    Thou strok'st me and made much of me, wouldst give me\n    Water with berries in't, and teach me how\n    To name the bigger light, and how the less,\n    That burn by day and night; and then I lov'd thee,\n    And show'd thee all the qualities o' th' isle,\n    The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile.\n    Curs'd be I that did so! All the charms\n    Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!\n    For I am all the subjects that you have,\n    Which first was mine own king; and here you sty me\n    In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me\n    The rest o' th' island.\n  PROSPERO. Thou most lying slave,\n    Whom stripes may move, not kindness! I have us'd thee,\n    Filth as thou art, with human care, and lodg'd thee\n    In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate\n    The honour of my child.\n  CALIBAN. O ho, O ho! Would't had been done.\n    Thou didst prevent me; I had peopl'd else\n    This isle with Calibans.\n  MIRANDA. Abhorred slave,\n    Which any print of goodness wilt not take,\n    Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,\n    Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour\n    One thing or other. When thou didst not, savage,\n    Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like\n    A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes\n    With words that made them known. But thy vile race,\n    Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures\n    Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thou\n    Deservedly confin'd into this rock, who hadst\n    Deserv'd more than a prison.\n  CALIBAN. You taught me language, and my profit on't\n    Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you\n    For learning me your language!\n  PROSPERO. Hag-seed, hence!\n    Fetch us in fuel. And be quick, thou 'rt best,\n    To answer other business. Shrug'st thou, malice?\n    If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly\n    What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps,\n    Fill all thy bones with aches, make thee roar,\n    That beasts shall tremble at thy din.\n  CALIBAN. No, pray thee.\n    [Aside]  I must obey. His art is of such pow'r,\n    It would control my dam's god, Setebos,\n    And make a vassal of him.\n  PROSPERO. So, slave; hence!                       Exit CALIBAN\n\n         Re-enter ARIEL invisible, playing ad singing;\n                     FERDINAND following\n\n                          ARIEL'S SONG.\n            Come unto these yellow sands,\n              And then take hands;\n            Curtsied when you have and kiss'd,\n              The wild waves whist,\n            Foot it featly here and there,\n            And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.\n              Hark, hark!\n            [Burden dispersedly: Bow-wow.]\n              The watch dogs bark.\n            [Burden dispersedly: Bow-wow.]\n              Hark, hark! I hear\n            The strain of strutting chanticleer\n              Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow.\n  FERDINAND. Where should this music be? I' th' air or th'\n    earth?\n    It sounds no more; and sure it waits upon\n    Some god o' th' island. Sitting on a bank,\n    Weeping again the King my father's wreck,\n    This music crept by me upon the waters,\n    Allaying both their fury and my passion\n    With its sweet air; thence I have follow'd it,\n    Or it hath drawn me rather. But 'tis gone.\n    No, it begins again.\n\n                   ARIEL'S SONG\n         Full fathom five thy father lies;\n           Of his bones are coral made;\n         Those are pearls that were his eyes;\n           Nothing of him that doth fade\n         But doth suffer a sea-change\n         Into something rich and strange.\n         Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:\n           [Burden: Ding-dong.]\n         Hark! now I hear them-Ding-dong bell.\n\n  FERDINAND. The ditty does remember my drown'd father.\n    This is no mortal business, nor no sound\n    That the earth owes. I hear it now above me.\n  PROSPERO. The fringed curtains of thine eye advance,\n    And say what thou seest yond.\n  MIRANDA. What is't? a spirit?\n    Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir,\n    It carries a brave form. But 'tis a spirit.\n  PROSPERO. No, wench; it eats and sleeps and hath such senses\n    As we have, such. This gallant which thou seest\n    Was in the wreck; and but he's something stain'd\n    With grief, that's beauty's canker, thou mightst call him\n    A goodly person. He hath lost his fellows,\n    And strays about to find 'em.\n  MIRANDA. I might call him\n    A thing divine; for nothing natural\n    I ever saw so noble.\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  It goes on, I see,\n    As my soul prompts it. Spirit, fine spirit! I'll free thee\n    Within two days for this.\n  FERDINAND. Most sure, the goddess\n    On whom these airs attend! Vouchsafe my pray'r\n    May know if you remain upon this island;\n    And that you will some good instruction give\n    How I may bear me here. My prime request,\n    Which I do last pronounce, is, O you wonder!\n    If you be maid or no?\n  MIRANDA. No wonder, sir;\n    But certainly a maid.\n  FERDINAND. My language? Heavens!\n    I am the best of them that speak this speech,\n    Were I but where 'tis spoken.\n  PROSPERO. How? the best?\n    What wert thou, if the King of Naples heard thee?\n  FERDINAND. A single thing, as I am now, that wonders\n    To hear thee speak of Naples. He does hear me;\n    And that he does I weep. Myself am Naples,\n    Who with mine eyes, never since at ebb, beheld\n    The King my father wreck'd.\n  MIRANDA. Alack, for mercy!\n  FERDINAND. Yes, faith, and all his lords, the Duke of Milan\n    And his brave son being twain.\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  The Duke of Milan\n    And his more braver daughter could control thee,\n    If now 'twere fit to do't. At the first sight\n    They have chang'd eyes. Delicate Ariel,\n    I'll set thee free for this.  [To FERDINAND]  A word, good\n    sir;\n    I fear you have done yourself some wrong; a word.\n  MIRANDA. Why speaks my father so ungently? This\n    Is the third man that e'er I saw; the first\n    That e'er I sigh'd for. Pity move my father\n    To be inclin'd my way!\n  FERDINAND. O, if a virgin,\n    And your affection not gone forth, I'll make you\n    The Queen of Naples.\n  PROSPERO. Soft, Sir! one word more.\n    [Aside]  They are both in either's pow'rs; but this swift\n    busines\n    I must uneasy make, lest too light winning\n    Make the prize light.  [To FERDINAND]  One word more; I\n    charge thee\n    That thou attend me; thou dost here usurp\n    The name thou ow'st not; and hast put thyself\n    Upon this island as a spy, to win it\n    From me, the lord on't.\n  FERDINAND. No, as I am a man.\n  MIRANDA. There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple.\n    If the ill spirit have so fair a house,\n    Good things will strive to dwell with't.\n  PROSPERO. Follow me.\n    Speak not you for him; he's a traitor. Come;\n    I'll manacle thy neck and feet together.\n    Sea-water shalt thou drink; thy food shall be\n    The fresh-brook mussels, wither'd roots, and husks\n    Wherein the acorn cradled. Follow.\n  FERDINAND. No;\n    I will resist such entertainment till\n    Mine enemy has more power.\n                          [He draws, and is charmed from moving]\n  MIRANDA. O dear father,\n    Make not too rash a trial of him, for\n    He's gentle, and not fearful.\n  PROSPERO. What, I say,\n    My foot my tutor? Put thy sword up, traitor;\n    Who mak'st a show but dar'st not strike, thy conscience\n    Is so possess'd with guilt. Come from thy ward;\n    For I can here disarm thee with this stick\n    And make thy weapon drop.\n  MIRANDA. Beseech you, father!\n  PROSPERO. Hence! Hang not on my garments.\n  MIRANDA. Sir, have pity;\n    I'll be his surety.\n  PROSPERO. Silence! One word more\n    Shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee. What!\n    An advocate for an impostor! hush!\n    Thou think'st there is no more such shapes as he,\n    Having seen but him and Caliban. Foolish wench!\n    To th' most of men this is a Caliban,\n    And they to him are angels.\n  MIRANDA. My affections\n    Are then most humble; I have no ambition\n    To see a goodlier man.\n  PROSPERO. Come on; obey.\n    Thy nerves are in their infancy again,\n    And have no vigour in them.\n  FERDINAND. So they are;\n    My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up.\n    My father's loss, the weakness which I feel,\n    The wreck of all my friends, nor this man's threats\n    To whom I am subdu'd, are but light to me,\n    Might I but through my prison once a day\n    Behold this maid. All corners else o' th' earth\n    Let liberty make use of; space enough\n    Have I in such a prison.\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  It works.  [To FERDINAND]  Come on.-\n    Thou hast done well, fine Ariel!  [To FERDINAND]  Follow\n    me.\n    [To ARIEL]  Hark what thou else shalt do me.\n  MIRANDA. Be of comfort;\n    My father's of a better nature, sir,\n    Than he appears by speech; this is unwonted\n    Which now came from him.\n  PROSPERO.  [To ARIEL]  Thou shalt be as free\n    As mountain winds; but then exactly do\n    All points of my command.\n  ARIEL. To th' syllable.\n  PROSPERO.  [To FERDINAND]  Come, follow.  [To MIRANDA]\n    Speak not for him.                                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1\n\nAnother part of the island\n\nEnter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and OTHERS\n\n  GONZALO. Beseech you, sir, be merry; you have cause,\n    So have we all, of joy; for our escape\n    Is much beyond our loss. Our hint of woe\n    Is common; every day, some sailor's wife,\n    The masters of some merchant, and the merchant,\n    Have just our theme of woe; but for the miracle,\n    I mean our preservation, few in millions\n    Can speak like us. Then wisely, good sir, weigh\n    Our sorrow with our comfort.\n  ALONSO. Prithee, peace.\n  SEBASTIAN. He receives comfort like cold porridge.\n  ANTONIO. The visitor will not give him o'er so.\n  SEBASTIAN. Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit; by\n    and by it will strike.\n  GONZALO. Sir-\n  SEBASTIAN. One-Tell.\n  GONZALO. When every grief is entertain'd that's offer'd,\n    Comes to th' entertainer-\n  SEBASTIAN. A dollar.\n  GONZALO. Dolour comes to him, indeed; you have spoken\n    truer than you purpos'd.\n  SEBASTIAN. You have taken it wiselier than I meant you\n    should.\n  GONZALO. Therefore, my lord-\n  ANTONIO. Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!\n  ALONSO. I prithee, spare.\n  GONZALO. Well, I have done; but yet-\n  SEBASTIAN. He will be talking.\n  ANTONIO. Which, of he or Adrian, for a good wager, first\n    begins to crow?\n  SEBASTIAN. The old cock.\n  ANTONIO. The cock'rel.\n  SEBASTIAN. Done. The wager?\n  ANTONIO. A laughter.\n  SEBASTIAN. A match!\n  ADRIAN. Though this island seem to be desert-\n  ANTONIO. Ha, ha, ha!\n  SEBASTIAN. So, you're paid.\n  ADRIAN. Uninhabitable, and almost inaccessible-\n  SEBASTIAN. Yet-\n  ADRIAN. Yet-\n  ANTONIO. He could not miss't.\n  ADRIAN. It must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate\n    temperance.\n  ANTONIO. Temperance was a delicate wench.\n  SEBASTIAN. Ay, and a subtle; as he most learnedly\n    deliver'd.\n  ADRIAN. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly.\n  SEBASTIAN. As if it had lungs, and rotten ones.\n  ANTONIO. Or, as 'twere perfum'd by a fen.\n  GONZALO. Here is everything advantageous to life.\n  ANTONIO. True; save means to live.\n  SEBASTIAN. Of that there's none, or little.\n  GONZALO. How lush and lusty the grass looks! how green!\n  ANTONIO. The ground indeed is tawny.\n  SEBASTIAN. With an eye of green in't.\n  ANTONIO. He misses not much.\n  SEBASTIAN. No; he doth but mistake the truth totally.\n  GONZALO. But the rarity of it is, which is indeed almost\n    beyond credit-\n  SEBASTIAN. As many vouch'd rarities are.\n  GONZALO. That our garments, being, as they were, drench'd\n    in the sea, hold, notwithstanding, their freshness and\n    glosses, being rather new-dy'd, than stain'd with salt\n    water.\n  ANTONIO. If but one of his pockets could speak, would it\n    not say he lies?\n  SEBASTIAN. Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report.\n  GONZALO. Methinks our garments are now as fresh as when\n    we put them on first in Afric, at the marriage of the\n    King's fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis.\n  SEBASTIAN. 'Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in\n    our return.\n  ADRIAN. Tunis was never grac'd before with such a paragon\n    to their queen.\n  GONZALO. Not since widow Dido's time.\n  ANTONIO. Widow! a pox o' that! How came that 'widow'\n    in? Widow Dido!\n  SEBASTIAN. What if he had said 'widower Aeneas' too?\n    Good Lord, how you take it!\n  ADRIAN. 'Widow Dido' said you? You make me study of\n    that. She was of Carthage, not of Tunis.\n  GONZALO. This Tunis, sir, was Carthage.\n  ADRIAN. Carthage?\n  GONZALO. I assure you, Carthage.\n  ANTONIO. His word is more than the miraculous harp.\n  SEBASTIAN. He hath rais'd the wall, and houses too.\n  ANTONIO. What impossible matter will he make easy next?\n  SEBASTIAN. I think he will carry this island home in his\n    pocket, and give it his son for an apple.\n  ANTONIO. And, sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring\n    forth more islands.\n  GONZALO. Ay.\n  ANTONIO. Why, in good time.\n  GONZALO. Sir, we were talking that our garments seem now\n    as fresh as when we were at Tunis at the marriage of\n    your daughter, who is now Queen.\n  ANTONIO. And the rarest that e'er came there.\n  SEBASTIAN. Bate, I beseech you, widow Dido.\n  ANTONIO. O, widow Dido! Ay, widow Dido.\n  GONZALO. Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I\n    wore it? I mean, in a sort.\n  ANTONIO. That 'sort' was well fish'd for.\n  GONZALO. When I wore it at your daughter's marriage?\n  ALONSO. You cram these words into mine ears against\n    The stomach of my sense. Would I had never\n    Married my daughter there; for, coming thence,\n    My son is lost; and, in my rate, she too,\n    Who is so far from Italy removed\n    I ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir\n    Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish\n    Hath made his meal on thee?\n  FRANCISCO. Sir, he may live;\n    I saw him beat the surges under him,\n    And ride upon their backs; he trod the water,\n    Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted\n    The surge most swoln that met him; his bold head\n    'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oared\n    Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke\n    To th' shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bowed,\n    As stooping to relieve him. I not doubt\n    He came alive to land.\n  ALONSO. No, no, he's gone.\n  SEBASTIAN. Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss,\n    That would not bless our Europe with your daughter,\n    But rather lose her to an African;\n    Where she, at least, is banish'd from your eye,\n    Who hath cause to wet the grief on't.\n  ALONSO. Prithee, peace.\n  SEBASTIAN. You were kneel'd to, and importun'd otherwise\n    By all of us; and the fair soul herself\n    Weigh'd between loathness and obedience at\n    Which end o' th' beam should bow. We have lost your son,\n    I fear, for ever. Milan and Naples have\n    Moe widows in them of this business' making,\n    Than we bring men to comfort them;\n    The fault's your own.\n  ALONSO. So is the dear'st o' th' loss.\n  GONZALO. My lord Sebastian,\n    The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness,\n    And time to speak it in; you rub the sore,\n    When you should bring the plaster.\n  SEBASTIAN. Very well.\n  ANTONIO. And most chirurgeonly.\n  GONZALO. It is foul weather in us all, good sir,\n    When you are cloudy.\n  SEBASTIAN. Foul weather?\n  ANTONIO. Very foul.\n  GONZALO. Had I plantation of this isle, my lord-\n  ANTONIO. He'd sow 't with nettle-seed.\n  SEBASTIAN. Or docks, or mallows.\n  GONZALO. And were the king on't, what would I do?\n  SEBASTIAN. Scape being drunk for want of wine.\n  GONZALO. I' th' commonwealth I would by contraries\n    Execute all things; for no kind of traffic\n    Would I admit; no name of magistrate;\n    Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,\n    And use of service, none; contract, succession,\n    Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;\n    No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;\n    No occupation; all men idle, all;\n    And women too, but innocent and pure;\n    No sovereignty-\n  SEBASTIAN. Yet he would be king on't.\n  ANTONIO. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the\n    beginning.\n  GONZALO. All things in common nature should produce\n    Without sweat or endeavour. Treason, felony,\n    Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,\n    Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,\n    Of it own kind, all foison, all abundance,\n    To feed my innocent people.\n  SEBASTIAN. No marrying 'mong his subjects?\n  ANTONIO. None, man; all idle; whores and knaves.\n  GONZALO. I would with such perfection govern, sir,\n    T' excel the golden age.\n  SEBASTIAN. Save his Majesty!\n  ANTONIO. Long live Gonzalo!\n  GONZALO. And-do you mark me, sir?\n  ALONSO. Prithee, no more; thou dost talk nothing to me.\n  GONZALO. I do well believe your Highness; and did it to\n    minister occasion to these gentlemen, who are of such\n    sensible and nimble lungs that they always use to laugh\n    at nothing.\n  ANTONIO. 'Twas you we laugh'd at.\n  GONZALO. Who in this kind of merry fooling am nothing to\n    you; so you may continue, and laugh at nothing still.\n  ANTONIO. What a blow was there given!\n  SEBASTIAN. An it had not fall'n flat-long.\n  GONZALO. You are gentlemen of brave mettle; you would\n    lift the moon out of her sphere, if she would continue\n    in it five weeks without changing.\n\n          Enter ARIEL, invisible, playing solemn music\n\n  SEBASTIAN. We would so, and then go a-bat-fowling.\n  ANTONIO. Nay, good my lord, be not angry.\n  GONZALO. No, I warrant you; I will not adventure my\n    discretion so weakly. Will you laugh me asleep, for I am\n    very heavy?\n  ANTONIO. Go sleep, and hear us.\n                   [All sleep but ALONSO, SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO]\n  ALONSO. What, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes\n    Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts; I find\n    They are inclin'd to do so.\n  SEBASTIAN. Please you, sir,\n    Do not omit the heavy offer of it:\n    It seldom visits sorrow; when it doth,\n    It is a comforter.\n  ANTONIO. We two, my lord,\n    Will guard your person while you take your rest,\n    And watch your safety.\n  ALONSO. Thank you-wondrous heavy!\n                                     [ALONSO sleeps. Exit ARIEL]\n  SEBASTIAN. What a strange drowsiness possesses them!\n  ANTONIO. It is the quality o' th' climate.\n  SEBASTIAN. Why\n    Doth it not then our eyelids sink? I find not\n    Myself dispos'd to sleep.\n  ANTONIO. Nor I; my spirits are nimble.\n    They fell together all, as by consent;\n    They dropp'd, as by a thunder-stroke. What might,\n    Worthy Sebastian? O, what might! No more!\n    And yet methinks I see it in thy face,\n    What thou shouldst be; th' occasion speaks thee; and\n    My strong imagination sees a crown\n    Dropping upon thy head.\n  SEBASTIAN. What, art thou waking?\n  ANTONIO. Do you not hear me speak?\n  SEBASTIAN. I do; and surely\n    It is a sleepy language, and thou speak'st\n    Out of thy sleep. What is it thou didst say?\n    This is a strange repose, to be asleep\n    With eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving,\n    And yet so fast asleep.\n  ANTONIO. Noble Sebastian,\n    Thou let'st thy fortune sleep-die rather; wink'st\n    Whiles thou art waking.\n  SEBASTIAN. Thou dost snore distinctly;\n    There's meaning in thy snores.\n  ANTONIO. I am more serious than my custom; you\n    Must be so too, if heed me; which to do\n    Trebles thee o'er.\n  SEBASTIAN. Well, I am standing water.\n  ANTONIO. I'll teach you how to flow.\n  SEBASTIAN. Do so: to ebb,\n    Hereditary sloth instructs me.\n  ANTONIO. O,\n    If you but knew how you the purpose cherish,\n    Whiles thus you mock it! how, in stripping it,\n    You more invest it! Ebbing men indeed,\n    Most often, do so near the bottom run\n    By their own fear or sloth.\n  SEBASTIAN. Prithee say on.\n    The setting of thine eye and cheek proclaim\n    A matter from thee; and a birth, indeed,\n    Which throes thee much to yield.\n  ANTONIO. Thus, sir:\n    Although this lord of weak remembrance, this\n    Who shall be of as little memory\n    When he is earth'd, hath here almost persuaded-\n    For he's a spirit of persuasion, only\n    Professes to persuade-the King his son's alive,\n    'Tis as impossible that he's undrown'd\n    As he that sleeps here swims.\n  SEBASTIAN. I have no hope\n    That he's undrown'd.\n  ANTONIO. O, out of that 'no hope'\n    What great hope have you! No hope that way is\n    Another way so high a hope, that even\n    Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond,\n    But doubt discovery there. Will you grant with me\n    That Ferdinand is drown'd?\n  SEBASTIAN. He's gone.\n  ANTONIO. Then tell me,\n    Who's the next heir of Naples?\n  SEBASTIAN. Claribel.\n  ANTONIO. She that is Queen of Tunis; she that dwells\n    Ten leagues beyond man's life; she that from Naples\n    Can have no note, unless the sun were post,\n    The Man i' th' Moon's too slow, till newborn chins\n    Be rough and razorable; she that from whom\n    We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again,\n    And by that destiny, to perform an act\n    Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come\n    In yours and my discharge.\n  SEBASTIAN. What stuff is this! How say you?\n    'Tis true, my brother's daughter's Queen of Tunis;\n    So is she heir of Naples; 'twixt which regions\n    There is some space.\n  ANTONIO. A space whose ev'ry cubit\n    Seems to cry out 'How shall that Claribel\n    Measure us back to Naples? Keep in Tunis,\n    And let Sebastian wake.' Say this were death\n    That now hath seiz'd them; why, they were no worse\n    Than now they are. There be that can rule Naples\n    As well as he that sleeps; lords that can prate\n    As amply and unnecessarily\n    As this Gonzalo; I myself could make\n    A chough of as deep chat. O, that you bore\n    The mind that I do! What a sleep were this\n    For your advancement! Do you understand me?\n  SEBASTIAN. Methinks I do.\n  ANTONIO. And how does your content\n    Tender your own good fortune?\n  SEBASTIAN. I remember\n    You did supplant your brother Prospero.\n  ANTONIO. True.\n    And look how well my garments sit upon me,\n    Much feater than before. My brother's servants\n    Were then my fellows; now they are my men.\n  SEBASTIAN. But, for your conscience-\n  ANTONIO. Ay, sir; where lies that? If 'twere a kibe,\n    'Twould put me to my slipper; but I feel not\n    This deity in my bosom; twenty consciences\n    That stand 'twixt me and Milan, candied be they\n    And melt, ere they molest! Here lies your brother,\n    No better than the earth he lies upon,\n    If he were that which now he's like-that's dead;\n    Whom I with this obedient steel, three inches of it,\n    Can lay to bed for ever; whiles you, doing thus,\n    To the perpetual wink for aye might put\n    This ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who\n    Should not upbraid our course. For all the rest,\n    They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk;\n    They'll tell the clock to any business that\n    We say befits the hour.\n  SEBASTIAN. Thy case, dear friend,\n    Shall be my precedent; as thou got'st Milan,\n    I'll come by Naples. Draw thy sword. One stroke\n    Shall free thee from the tribute which thou payest;\n    And I the King shall love thee.\n  ANTONIO. Draw together;\n    And when I rear my hand, do you the like,\n    To fall it on Gonzalo.\n  SEBASTIAN. O, but one word.                  [They talk apart]\n\n          Re-enter ARIEL, invisible, with music and song\n\n  ARIEL. My master through his art foresees the danger\n    That you, his friend, are in; and sends me forth-\n    For else his project dies-to keep them living.\n                                        [Sings in GONZALO'S ear]\n    While you here do snoring lie,\n    Open-ey'd conspiracy\n    His time doth take.\n    If of life you keep a care,\n    Shake off slumber, and beware.\n    Awake, awake!\n\n  ANTONIO. Then let us both be sudden.\n  GONZALO. Now, good angels\n    Preserve the King!                               [They wake]\n  ALONSO. Why, how now?-Ho, awake!-Why are you drawn?\n    Wherefore this ghastly looking?\n  GONZALO. What's the matter?\n  SEBASTIAN. Whiles we stood here securing your repose,\n    Even now, we heard a hollow burst of bellowing\n    Like bulls, or rather lions; did't not wake you?\n    It struck mine ear most terribly.\n  ALONSO. I heard nothing.\n  ANTONIO. O, 'twas a din to fright a monster's ear,\n    To make an earthquake! Sure it was the roar\n    Of a whole herd of lions.\n  ALONSO. Heard you this, Gonzalo?\n  GONZALO. Upon mine honour, sir, I heard a humming,\n    And that a strange one too, which did awake me;\n    I shak'd you, sir, and cried; as mine eyes open'd,\n    I saw their weapons drawn-there was a noise,\n    That's verily. 'Tis best we stand upon our guard,\n    Or that we quit this place. Let's draw our weapons.\n  ALONSO. Lead off this ground; and let's make further\n    search\n    For my poor son.\n  GONZALO. Heavens keep him from these beasts!\n    For he is, sure, i' th' island.\n  ALONSO. Lead away.\n  ARIEL. Prospero my lord shall know what I have done;\n    So, King, go safely on to seek thy son.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nAnother part of the island\n\nEnter CALIBAN, with a burden of wood. A noise of thunder heard\n\n  CALIBAN. All the infections that the sun sucks up\n    From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him\n    By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me,\n    And yet I needs must curse. But they'll nor pinch,\n    Fright me with urchin-shows, pitch me i' th' mire,\n    Nor lead me, like a firebrand, in the dark\n    Out of my way, unless he bid 'em; but\n    For every trifle are they set upon me;\n    Sometime like apes that mow and chatter at me,\n    And after bite me; then like hedgehogs which\n    Lie tumbling in my barefoot way, and mount\n    Their pricks at my footfall; sometime am I\n    All wound with adders, who with cloven tongues\n    Do hiss me into madness.\n\n                         Enter TRINCULO\n\n    Lo, now, lo!\n    Here comes a spirit of his, and to torment me\n    For bringing wood in slowly. I'll fall flat;\n    Perchance he will not mind me.\n  TRINCULO. Here's neither bush nor shrub to bear off any\n    weather at all, and another storm brewing; I hear it\n    sing i' th' wind. Yond same black cloud, yond huge one,\n    looks like a foul bombard that would shed his liquor. If\n    it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to\n    hide my head. Yond same cloud cannot choose but fall by\n    pailfuls. What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or\n    alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and\n    fish-like smell; kind of not-of-the-newest Poor-John. A\n    strange fish! Were I in England now, as once I was, and\n    had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but\n    would give a piece of silver. There would this monster\n    make a man; any strange beast there makes a man; when\n    they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they\n    will lay out ten to see a dead Indian. Legg'd like a\n    man, and his fins like arms! Warm, o' my troth! I do now\n    let loose my opinion; hold it no longer: this is no\n    fish, but an islander, that hath lately suffered by\n    thunderbolt.  [Thunder]  Alas, the storm is come again! My\n    best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no\n    other shelter hereabout. Misery acquaints a man with\n    strange bed-fellows. I will here shroud till the dregs\n    of the storm be past.\n\n            Enter STEPHANO singing; a bottle in his hand\n\n  STEPHANO. I shall no more to sea, to sea,\n    Here shall I die ashore-\n    This is a very scurvy tune to sing at a man's funeral;\n    well, here's my comfort.                            [Drinks]\n\n    The master, the swabber, the boatswain, and I,\n    The gunner, and his mate,\n    Lov'd Mall, Meg, and Marian, and Margery,\n    But none of us car'd for Kate;\n    For she had a tongue with a tang,\n    Would cry to a sailor 'Go hang!'\n    She lov'd not the savour of tar nor of pitch,\n    Yet a tailor might scratch her where'er she did itch.\n    Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang!\n\n    This is a scurvy tune too; but here's my comfort.\n                                                        [Drinks]\n  CALIBAN. Do not torment me. O!\n  STEPHANO. What's the matter? Have we devils here? Do you\n    put tricks upon 's with savages and men of Ind? Ha! I\n    have not scap'd drowning to be afeard now of your four\n    legs; for it hath been said: As proper a man as ever\n    went on four legs cannot make him give ground; and it\n    shall be said so again, while Stephano breathes at\n    nostrils.\n  CALIBAN. The spirit torments me. O!\n  STEPHANO. This is some monster of the isle with four legs,\n    who hath got, as I take it, an ague. Where the devil\n    should he learn our language? I will give him some\n    relief, if it be but for that. If I can recover him, and\n    keep him tame, and get to Naples with him, he's a\n    present for any emperor that ever trod on neat's\n    leather.\n  CALIBAN. Do not torment me, prithee; I'll bring my wood\n    home faster.\n  STEPHANO. He's in his fit now, and does not talk after the\n    wisest. He shall taste of my bottle; if he have never\n    drunk wine afore, it will go near to remove his fit. If\n    I can recover him, and keep him tame, I will not take\n    too much for him; he shall pay for him that hath him,\n    and that soundly.\n  CALIBAN. Thou dost me yet but little hurt; thou wilt anon,\n    I know it by thy trembling; now Prosper works upon thee.\n  STEPHANO. Come on your ways; open your mouth; here is\n    that which will give language to you, cat. Open your\n    mouth; this will shake your shaking, I can tell you, and\n    that soundly; you cannot tell who's your friend. Open\n    your chaps again.\n  TRINCULO. I should know that voice; it should be-but he is\n    drown'd; and these are devils. O, defend me!\n  STEPHANO. Four legs and two voices; a most delicate monster!\n    His forward voice, now, is to speak well of his\n    friend; his backward voice is to utter foul speeches and\n    to detract. If all the wine in my bottle will recover\n    him, I will help his ague. Come-Amen! I will pour some\n    in thy other mouth.\n  TRINCULO. Stephano!\n  STEPHANO. Doth thy other mouth call me? Mercy, mercy!\n    This is a devil, and no monster; I will leave him; I\n    have no long spoon.\n  TRINCULO. Stephano! If thou beest Stephano, touch me, and\n    speak to me; for I am Trinculo-be not afeard-thy good\n    friend Trinculo.\n  STEPHANO. If thou beest Trinculo, come forth; I'll pull\n    the by the lesser legs; if any be Trinculo's legs, these\n    are they. Thou art very Trinculo indeed! How cam'st thou\n    to be the siege of this moon-calf? Can he vent\n    Trinculos?\n  TRINCULO. I took him to be kill'd with a thunderstroke.\n    But art thou not drown'd, Stephano? I hope now thou are\n    not drown'd. Is the storm overblown? I hid me under the\n    dead moon-calf's gaberdine for fear of the storm. And\n    art thou living, Stephano? O Stephano, two Neapolitans\n    scap'd!\n  STEPHANO. Prithee, do not turn me about; my stomach is not\n    constant.\n  CALIBAN.  [Aside]  These be fine things, an if they be not\n    sprites.\n    That's a brave god, and bears celestial liquor.\n    I will kneel to him.\n  STEPHANO. How didst thou scape? How cam'st thou hither?\n    Swear by this bottle how thou cam'st hither-I escap'd\n    upon a butt of sack, which the sailors heaved o'erboard-\n    by this bottle, which I made of the bark of a tree, with\n    mine own hands, since I was cast ashore.\n  CALIBAN. I'll swear upon that bottle to be thy true\n    subject, for the liquor is not earthly.\n  STEPHANO. Here; swear then how thou escap'dst.\n  TRINCULO. Swum ashore, man, like a duck; I can swim like\n    a duck, I'll be sworn.\n  STEPHANO.  [Passing the bottle]  Here, kiss the book. Though\n    thou canst swim like a duck, thou art made like a\n    goose.\n  TRINCULO. O Stephano, hast any more of this?\n  STEPHANO. The whole butt, man; my cellar is in a rock by\n    th' seaside, where my wine is hid. How now, moon-calf!\n    How does thine ague?\n  CALIBAN. Hast thou not dropp'd from heaven?\n  STEPHANO. Out o' th' moon, I do assure thee; I was the Man\n    i' th' Moon, when time was.\n  CALIBAN. I have seen thee in her, and I do adore thee. My\n    mistress show'd me thee, and thy dog and thy bush.\n  STEPHANO. Come, swear to that; kiss the book. I will\n    furnish it anon with new contents. Swear.\n                                                [CALIBAN drinks]\n  TRINCULO. By this good light, this is a very shallow\n    monster!\n    I afeard of him! A very weak monster! The Man i' th'\n    Moon! A most poor credulous monster! Well drawn,\n    monster, in good sooth!\n  CALIBAN. I'll show thee every fertile inch o' th' island;\n    and will kiss thy foot. I prithee be my god.\n  TRINCULO. By this light, a most perfidious and drunken\n    monster! When's god's asleep he'll rob his bottle.\n  CALIBAN. I'll kiss thy foot; I'll swear myself thy\n    subject.\n  STEPHANO. Come on, then; down, and swear.\n  TRINCULO. I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-\n    headed monster. A most scurvy monster! I could find in\n    my heart to beat him-\n  STEPHANO. Come, kiss.\n  TRINCULO. But that the poor monster's in drink. An\n    abominable monster!\n  CALIBAN. I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee\n    berries;\n    I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough.\n    A plague upon the tyrant that I serve!\n    I'll bear him no more sticks, but follow thee,\n    Thou wondrous man.\n  TRINCULO. A most ridiculous monster, to make a wonder of\n    a poor drunkard!\n  CALIBAN. I prithee let me bring thee where crabs grow;\n    And I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts;\n    Show thee a jay's nest, and instruct thee how\n    To snare the nimble marmoset; I'll bring thee\n    To clust'ring filberts, and sometimes I'll get thee\n    Young scamels from the rock. Wilt thou go with me?\n  STEPHANO. I prithee now, lead the way without any more\n    talking. Trinculo, the King and all our company else\n    being drown'd, we will inherit here. Here, bear my bottle.\n    Fellow Trinculo, we'll fill him by and by again.\n  CALIBAN.  [Sings drunkenly]  Farewell, master; farewell,\n    farewell!\n  TRINCULO. A howling monster; a drunken monster!\n  CALIBAN. No more dams I'll make for fish;\n    Nor fetch in firing\n    At requiring,\n    Nor scrape trenchering, nor wash dish.\n    'Ban 'Ban, Ca-Caliban,\n    Has a new master-Get a new man.\n    Freedom, high-day! high-day, freedom! freedom, high-\n    day, freedom!\n  STEPHANO. O brave monster! Lead the way.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1\n\nBefore PROSPERO'S cell\n\nEnter FERDINAND, hearing a log\n\n  FERDINAND. There be some sports are painful, and their\n    labour\n    Delight in them sets off; some kinds of baseness\n    Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters\n    Point to rich ends. This my mean task\n    Would be as heavy to me as odious, but\n    The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead,\n    And makes my labours pleasures. O, she is\n    Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed;\n    And he's compos'd of harshness. I must remove\n    Some thousands of these logs, and pile them up,\n    Upon a sore injunction; my sweet mistress\n    Weeps when she sees me work, and says such baseness\n    Had never like executor. I forget;\n    But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours,\n    Most busy, least when I do it.\n\n        Enter MIRANDA; and PROSPERO at a distance, unseen\n\n  MIRANDA. Alas, now; pray you,\n    Work not so hard; I would the lightning had\n    Burnt up those logs that you are enjoin'd to pile.\n    Pray, set it down and rest you; when this burns,\n    'Twill weep for having wearied you. My father\n    Is hard at study; pray, now, rest yourself;\n    He's safe for these three hours.\n  FERDINAND. O most dear mistress,\n    The sun will set before I shall discharge\n    What I must strive to do.\n  MIRANDA. If you'll sit down,\n    I'll bear your logs the while; pray give me that;\n    I'll carry it to the pile.\n  FERDINAND. No, precious creature;\n    I had rather crack my sinews, break my back,\n    Than you should such dishonour undergo,\n    While I sit lazy by.\n  MIRANDA. It would become me\n    As well as it does you; and I should do it\n    With much more ease; for my good will is to it,\n    And yours it is against.\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  Poor worm, thou art infected!\n    This visitation shows it.\n  MIRANDA. You look wearily.\n  FERDINAND. No, noble mistress; 'tis fresh morning with me\n    When you are by at night. I do beseech you,\n    Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers,\n    What is your name?\n  MIRANDA. Miranda-O my father,\n    I have broke your hest to say so!\n  FERDINAND. Admir'd Miranda!\n    What's dearest to the world! Full many a lady\n    I have ey'd with best regard; and many a time\n    Th' harmony of their tongues hath into bondage\n    Brought my too diligent ear; for several virtues\n    Have I lik'd several women, never any\n    With so full soul, but some defect in her\n    Did quarrel with the noblest grace she ow'd,\n    And put it to the foil; but you, O you,\n    So perfect and so peerless, are created\n    Of every creature's best!\n  MIRANDA. I do not know\n    One of my sex; no woman's face remember,\n    Save, from my glass, mine own; nor have I seen\n    More that I may call men than you, good friend,\n    And my dear father. How features are abroad,\n    I am skilless of; but, by my modesty,\n    The jewel in my dower, I would not wish\n    Any companion in the world but you;\n    Nor can imagination form a shape,\n    Besides yourself, to like of. But I prattle\n    Something too wildly, and my father's precepts\n    I therein do forget.\n  FERDINAND. I am, in my condition,\n    A prince, Miranda; I do think, a king-\n    I would not so!-and would no more endure\n    This wooden slavery than to suffer\n    The flesh-fly blow my mouth. Hear my soul speak:\n    The very instant that I saw you, did\n    My heart fly to your service; there resides\n    To make me slave to it; and for your sake\n    Am I this patient log-man.\n  MIRANDA. Do you love me?\n  FERDINAND. O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound,\n    And crown what I profess with kind event,\n    If I speak true! If hollowly, invert\n    What best is boded me to mischief! I,\n    Beyond all limit of what else i' th' world,\n    Do love, prize, honour you.\n  MIRANDA. I am a fool\n    To weep at what I am glad of.\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  Fair encounter\n    Of two most rare affections! Heavens rain grace\n    On that which breeds between 'em!\n  FERDINAND. Wherefore weep you?\n  MIRANDA. At mine unworthiness, that dare not offer\n    What I desire to give, and much less take\n    What I shall die to want. But this is trifling;\n    And all the more it seeks to hide itself,\n    The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning!\n    And prompt me, plain and holy innocence!\n    I am your wife, if you will marry me;\n    If not, I'll die your maid. To be your fellow\n    You may deny me; but I'll be your servant,\n    Whether you will or no.\n  FERDINAND. My mistress, dearest;\n    And I thus humble ever.\n  MIRANDA. My husband, then?\n  FERDINAND. Ay, with a heart as willing\n    As bondage e'er of freedom. Here's my hand.\n  MIRANDA. And mine, with my heart in't. And now farewell\n    Till half an hour hence.\n  FERDINAND. A thousand thousand!\n                          Exeunt FERDINAND and MIRANDA severally\n  PROSPERO. So glad of this as they I cannot be,\n    Who are surpris'd withal; but my rejoicing\n    At nothing can be more. I'll to my book;\n    For yet ere supper time must I perform\n    Much business appertaining.                             Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nAnother part of the island\n\nEnter CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO\n\n  STEPHANO. Tell not me-when the butt is out we will drink\n    water, not a drop before; therefore bear up, and board\n    'em. Servant-monster, drink to me.\n  TRINCULO. Servant-monster! The folly of this island! They\n    say there's but five upon this isle: we are three of\n    them; if th' other two be brain'd like us, the state\n    totters.\n  STEPHANO. Drink, servant-monster, when I bid thee; thy\n    eyes are almost set in thy head.\n  TRINCULO. Where should they be set else? He were a brave\n    monster indeed, if they were set in his tail.\n  STEPHANO. My man-monster hath drown'd his tongue in\n    sack. For my part, the sea cannot drown me; I swam, ere\n    I could recover the shore, five and thirty leagues, off\n    and on. By this light, thou shalt be my lieutenant,\n    monster, or my standard.\n  TRINCULO. Your lieutenant, if you list; he's no standard.\n  STEPHANO. We'll not run, Monsieur Monster.\n  TRINCULO. Nor go neither; but you'll lie like dogs, and\n    yet say nothing neither.\n  STEPHANO. Moon-calf, speak once in thy life, if thou beest\n    a good moon-calf.\n  CALIBAN. How does thy honour? Let me lick thy shoe.\n    I'll not serve him; he is not valiant.\n  TRINCULO. Thou liest, most ignorant monster: I am in case\n    to justle a constable. Why, thou debosh'd fish, thou,\n    was there ever man a coward that hath drunk so much sack\n    as I to-day? Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but\n    half fish and half a monster?\n  CALIBAN. Lo, how he mocks me! Wilt thou let him, my\n    lord?\n  TRINCULO. 'Lord' quoth he! That a monster should be such\n    a natural!\n  CALIBAN. Lo, lo again! Bite him to death, I prithee.\n  STEPHANO. Trinculo, keep a good tongue in your head; if\n    you prove a mutineer-the next tree! The poor monster's\n    my subject, and he shall not suffer indignity.\n  CALIBAN. I thank my noble lord. Wilt thou be pleas'd to\n    hearken once again to the suit I made to thee?\n  STEPHANO. Marry will I; kneel and repeat it; I will stand,\n    and so shall Trinculo.\n\n                     Enter ARIEL, invisible\n\n  CALIBAN. As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant,\n    sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the\n    island.\n  ARIEL. Thou liest.\n  CALIBAN. Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou;\n    I would my valiant master would destroy thee.\n    I do not lie.\n  STEPHANO. Trinculo, if you trouble him any more in's tale,\n    by this hand, I will supplant some of your teeth.\n  TRINCULO. Why, I said nothing.\n  STEPHANO. Mum, then, and no more. Proceed.\n  CALIBAN. I say, by sorcery he got this isle;\n    From me he got it. If thy greatness will\n    Revenge it on him-for I know thou dar'st,\n    But this thing dare not-\n  STEPHANO. That's most certain.\n  CALIBAN. Thou shalt be lord of it, and I'll serve thee.\n  STEPHANO. How now shall this be compass'd? Canst thou\n    bring me to the party?\n  CALIBAN. Yea, yea, my lord; I'll yield him thee asleep,\n    Where thou mayst knock a nail into his head.\n  ARIEL. Thou liest; thou canst not.\n  CALIBAN. What a pied ninny's this! Thou scurvy patch!\n    I do beseech thy greatness, give him blows,\n    And take his bottle from him. When that's gone\n    He shall drink nought but brine; for I'll not show him\n    Where the quick freshes are.\n  STEPHANO. Trinculo, run into no further danger; interrupt\n    the monster one word further and, by this hand, I'll turn\n    my mercy out o' doors, and make a stock-fish of thee.\n  TRINCULO. Why, what did I? I did nothing. I'll go farther\n    off.\n  STEPHANO. Didst thou not say he lied?\n  ARIEL. Thou liest.\n  STEPHANO. Do I so? Take thou that.  [Beats him]  As you like\n    this, give me the lie another time.\n  TRINCULO. I did not give the lie. Out o' your wits and\n    hearing too? A pox o' your bottle! This can sack and\n    drinking do. A murrain on your monster, and the devil\n    take your fingers!\n  CALIBAN. Ha, ha, ha!\n  STEPHANO. Now, forward with your tale.-Prithee stand\n    further off.\n  CALIBAN. Beat him enough; after a little time, I'll beat\n    him too.\n  STEPHANO. Stand farther. Come, proceed.\n  CALIBAN. Why, as I told thee, 'tis a custom with him\n    I' th' afternoon to sleep; there thou mayst brain him,\n    Having first seiz'd his books; or with a log\n    Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake,\n    Or cut his wezand with thy knife. Remember\n    First to possess his books; for without them\n    He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not\n    One spirit to command; they all do hate him\n    As rootedly as I. Burn but his books.\n    He has brave utensils-for so he calls them-\n    Which, when he has a house, he'll deck withal.\n    And that most deeply to consider is\n    The beauty of his daughter; he himself\n    Calls her a nonpareil. I never saw a woman\n    But only Sycorax my dam and she;\n    But she as far surpasseth Sycorax\n    As great'st does least.\n  STEPHANO. Is it so brave a lass?\n  CALIBAN. Ay, lord; she will become thy bed, I warrant,\n    And bring thee forth brave brood.\n  STEPHANO. Monster, I will kill this man; his daughter and I\n    will be King and Queen-save our Graces!-and Trinculo\n    and thyself shall be viceroys. Dost thou like the plot,\n    Trinculo?\n  TRINCULO. Excellent.\n  STEPHANO. Give me thy hand; I am sorry I beat thee; but\n    while thou liv'st, keep a good tongue in thy head.\n  CALIBAN. Within this half hour will he be asleep.\n    Wilt thou destroy him then?\n  STEPHANO. Ay, on mine honour.\n  ARIEL. This will I tell my master.\n  CALIBAN. Thou mak'st me merry; I am full of pleasure.\n    Let us be jocund; will you troll the catch\n    You taught me but while-ere?\n  STEPHANO. At thy request, monster, I will do reason, any\n    reason. Come on, Trinculo, let us sing.              [Sings]\n\n    Flout 'em and scout 'em,\n    And scout 'em and flout 'em;\n    Thought is free.\n\n  CALIBAN. That's not the tune.\n                      [ARIEL plays the tune on a tabor and pipe]\n  STEPHANO. What is this same?\n  TRINCULO. This is the tune of our catch, play'd by the\n    picture of Nobody.\n  STEPHANO. If thou beest a man, show thyself in thy\n    likeness; if thou beest a devil, take't as thou list.\n  TRINCULO. O, forgive me my sins!\n  STEPHANO. He that dies pays all debts. I defy thee. Mercy\n    upon us!\n  CALIBAN. Art thou afeard?\n  STEPHANO. No, monster, not I.\n  CALIBAN. Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,\n    Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.\n    Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments\n    Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,\n    That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,\n    Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,\n    The clouds methought would open and show riches\n    Ready to drop upon me, that, when I wak'd,\n    I cried to dream again.\n  STEPHANO. This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I\n    shall have my music for nothing.\n  CALIBAN. When Prospero is destroy'd.\n  STEPHANO. That shall be by and by; I remember the story.\n  TRINCULO. The sound is going away; let's follow it, and\n    after do our work.\n  STEPHANO. Lead, monster; we'll follow. I would I could see\n    this taborer; he lays it on.\n  TRINCULO. Wilt come? I'll follow, Stephano.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3\n\nAnother part of the island\n\nEnter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and OTHERS\n\n  GONZALO. By'r lakin, I can go no further, sir;\n    My old bones ache. Here's a maze trod, indeed,\n    Through forth-rights and meanders! By your patience,\n    I needs must rest me.\n  ALONSO. Old lord, I cannot blame thee,\n    Who am myself attach'd with weariness\n    To th' dulling of my spirits; sit down and rest.\n    Even here I will put off my hope, and keep it\n    No longer for my flatterer; he is drown'd\n    Whom thus we stray to find, and the sea mocks\n    Our frustrate search on land. Well, let him go.\n  ANTONIO.  [Aside to SEBASTIAN]  I am right glad that he's\n    so out of hope.\n    Do not, for one repulse, forgo the purpose\n    That you resolv'd t' effect.\n  SEBASTIAN.  [Aside to ANTONIO]  The next advantage\n    Will we take throughly.\n  ANTONIO.  [Aside to SEBASTIAN]  Let it be to-night;\n    For, now they are oppress'd with travel, they\n    Will not, nor cannot, use such vigilance\n    As when they are fresh.\n  SEBASTIAN.  [Aside to ANTONIO]  I say, to-night; no more.\n\n           Solemn and strange music; and PROSPERO on the\n           top, invisible. Enter several strange SHAPES,\n           bringing in a banquet; and dance about it with\n           gentle actions of salutations; and inviting the\n           KING, etc., to eat, they depart\n\n  ALONSO. What harmony is this? My good friends, hark!\n  GONZALO. Marvellous sweet music!\n  ALONSO. Give us kind keepers, heavens! What were these?\n  SEBASTIAN. A living drollery. Now I will believe\n    That there are unicorns; that in Arabia\n    There is one tree, the phoenix' throne, one phoenix\n    At this hour reigning-there.\n  ANTONIO. I'll believe both;\n    And what does else want credit, come to me,\n    And I'll be sworn 'tis true; travellers ne'er did lie,\n    Though fools at home condemn 'em.\n  GONZALO. If in Naples\n    I should report this now, would they believe me?\n    If I should say, I saw such islanders,\n    For certes these are people of the island,\n    Who though they are of monstrous shape yet, note,\n    Their manners are more gentle-kind than of\n    Our human generation you shall find\n    Many, nay, almost any.\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  Honest lord,\n    Thou hast said well; for some of you there present\n    Are worse than devils.\n  ALONSO. I cannot too much muse\n    Such shapes, such gesture, and such sound, expressing,\n    Although they want the use of tongue, a kind\n    Of excellent dumb discourse.\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  Praise in departing.\n  FRANCISCO. They vanish'd strangely.\n  SEBASTIAN. No matter, since\n    They have left their viands behind; for we have stomachs.\n    Will't please you taste of what is here?\n  ALONSO. Not I.\n  GONZALO. Faith, sir, you need not fear. When we were boys,\n    Who would believe that there were mountaineers,\n    Dewlapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at 'em\n    Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men\n    Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find\n    Each putter-out of five for one will bring us\n    Good warrant of.\n  ALONSO. I will stand to, and feed,\n    Although my last; no matter, since I feel\n    The best is past. Brother, my lord the Duke,\n    Stand to, and do as we.\n\n       Thunder and lightning. Enter ARIEL, like a harpy;\n       claps his wings upon the table; and, with a quaint\n                device, the banquet vanishes\n\n  ARIEL. You are three men of sin, whom Destiny,\n    That hath to instrument this lower world\n    And what is in't, the never-surfeited sea\n    Hath caus'd to belch up you; and on this island\n    Where man doth not inhabit-you 'mongst men\n    Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad;\n    And even with such-like valour men hang and drown\n    Their proper selves.\n                     [ALONSO, SEBASTIAN etc., draw their swords]\n    You fools! I and my fellows\n    Are ministers of Fate; the elements\n    Of whom your swords are temper'd may as well\n    Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs\n    Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish\n    One dowle that's in my plume; my fellow-ministers\n    Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt,\n    Your swords are now too massy for your strengths\n    And will not be uplifted. But remember-\n    For that's my business to you-that you three\n    From Milan did supplant good Prospero;\n    Expos'd unto the sea, which hath requit it,\n    Him, and his innocent child; for which foul deed\n    The pow'rs, delaying, not forgetting, have\n    Incens'd the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures,\n    Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso,\n    They have bereft; and do pronounce by me\n    Ling'ring perdition, worse than any death\n    Can be at once, shall step by step attend\n    You and your ways; whose wraths to guard you from-\n    Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls\n    Upon your heads-is nothing but heart's sorrow,\n    And a clear life ensuing.\n\n        He vanishes in thunder; then, to soft music, enter\n        the SHAPES again, and dance, with mocks and mows,\n                and carrying out the table\n\n  PROSPERO. Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou\n    Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring.\n    Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated\n    In what thou hadst to say; so, with good life\n    And observation strange, my meaner ministers\n    Their several kinds have done. My high charms work,\n    And these mine enemies are all knit up\n    In their distractions. They now are in my pow'r;\n    And in these fits I leave them, while I visit\n    Young Ferdinand, whom they suppose is drown'd,\n    And his and mine lov'd darling.                   Exit above\n  GONZALO. I' th' name of something holy, sir, why stand you\n    In this strange stare?\n  ALONSO. O, it is monstrous, monstrous!\n    Methought the billows spoke, and told me of it;\n    The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder,\n    That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounc'd\n    The name of Prosper; it did bass my trespass.\n    Therefore my son i' th' ooze is bedded; and\n    I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded,\n    And with him there lie mudded.                          Exit\n  SEBASTIAN. But one fiend at a time,\n    I'll fight their legions o'er.\n  ANTONIO. I'll be thy second.      Exeunt SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO\n  GONZALO. All three of them are desperate; their great guilt,\n    Like poison given to work a great time after,\n    Now gins to bite the spirits. I do beseech you,\n    That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly,\n    And hinder them from what this ecstasy\n    May now provoke them to.\n  ADRIAN. Follow, I pray you.                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1\n\nBefore PROSPERO'S cell\n\nEnter PROSPERO, FERDINAND, and MIRANDA\n\n  PROSPERO. If I have too austerely punish'd you,\n    Your compensation makes amends; for\n    Have given you here a third of mine own life,\n    Or that for which I live; who once again\n    I tender to thy hand. All thy vexations\n    Were but my trials of thy love, and thou\n    Hast strangely stood the test; here, afore heaven,\n    I ratify this my rich gift. O Ferdinand!\n    Do not smile at me that I boast her off,\n    For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise,\n    And make it halt behind her.\n  FERDINAND. I do believe it\n    Against an oracle.\n  PROSPERO. Then, as my gift, and thine own acquisition\n    Wort'hily purchas'd, take my daughter. But\n    If thou dost break her virgin-knot before\n    All sanctimonious ceremonies may\n    With full and holy rite be minist'red,\n    No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall\n    To make this contract grow; but barren hate,\n    Sour-ey'd disdain, and discord, shall bestrew\n    The union of your bed with weeds so loathly\n    That you shall hate it both. Therefore take heed,\n    As Hymen's lamps shall light you.\n  FERDINAND. As I hope\n    For quiet days, fair issue, and long life,\n    With such love as 'tis now, the murkiest den,\n    The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion\n    Our worser genius can, shall never melt\n    Mine honour into lust, to take away\n    The edge of that day's celebration,\n    When I shall think or Phoebus' steeds are founder'd\n    Or Night kept chain'd below.\n  PROSPERO. Fairly spoke.\n    Sit, then, and talk with her; she is thine own.\n    What, Ariel! my industrious servant, Ariel!\n\n                           Enter ARIEL\n\n  ARIEL. What would my potent master? Here I am.\n  PROSPERO. Thou and thy meaner fellows your last service\n    Did worthily perform; and I must use you\n    In such another trick. Go bring the rabble,\n    O'er whom I give thee pow'r, here to this place.\n    Incite them to quick motion; for I must\n    Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple\n    Some vanity of mine art; it is my promise,\n    And they expect it from me.\n  ARIEL. Presently?\n  PROSPERO. Ay, with a twink.\n  ARIEL. Before you can say 'come' and 'go,'\n    And breathe twice, and cry 'so, so,'\n    Each one, tripping on his toe,\n    Will be here with mop and mow.\n    Do you love me, master? No?\n  PROSPERO. Dearly, my delicate Ariel. Do not approach\n    Till thou dost hear me call.\n  ARIEL. Well! I conceive.                                  Exit\n  PROSPERO. Look thou be true; do not give dalliance\n    Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw\n    To th' fire i' th' blood. Be more abstemious,\n    Or else good night your vow!\n  FERDINAND. I warrant you, sir,\n    The white cold virgin snow upon my heart\n    Abates the ardour of my liver.\n  PROSPERO. Well!\n    Now come, my Ariel, bring a corollary,\n    Rather than want a spirit; appear, and pertly.\n    No tongue! All eyes! Be silent.                 [Soft music]\n\n                         Enter IRIS\n\n  IRIS. Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas\n    Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and pease;\n    Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,\n    And flat meads thatch'd with stover, them to keep;\n    Thy banks with pioned and twilled brims,\n    Which spongy April at thy hest betrims,\n    To make cold nymphs chaste crowns; and thy broom groves,\n    Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves,\n    Being lass-lorn; thy pole-clipt vineyard;\n    And thy sea-marge, sterile and rocky hard,\n    Where thou thyself dost air-the Queen o' th' sky,\n    Whose wat'ry arch and messenger am I,\n    Bids thee leave these; and with her sovereign grace,\n    Here on this grass-plot, in this very place,\n    To come and sport. Her peacocks fly amain.\n                                      [JUNO descends in her car]\n    Approach, rich Ceres, her to entertain.\n\n                        Enter CERES\n\n  CERES. Hail, many-coloured messenger, that ne'er\n    Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter;\n    Who, with thy saffron wings, upon my flow'rs\n    Diffusest honey drops, refreshing show'rs;\n    And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown\n    My bosky acres and my unshrubb'd down,\n    Rich scarf to my proud earth-why hath thy Queen\n    Summon'd me hither to this short-grass'd green?\n  IRIS. A contract of true love to celebrate,\n    And some donation freely to estate\n    On the blest lovers.\n  CERES. Tell me, heavenly bow,\n    If Venus or her son, as thou dost know,\n    Do now attend the Queen? Since they did plot\n    The means that dusky Dis my daughter got,\n    Her and her blind boy's scandal'd company\n    I have forsworn.\n  IRIS. Of her society\n    Be not afraid. I met her Deity\n    Cutting the clouds towards Paphos, and her son\n    Dove-drawn with her. Here thought they to have done\n    Some wanton charm upon this man and maid,\n    Whose vows are that no bed-rite shall be paid\n    Till Hymen's torch be lighted; but in vain.\n    Mars's hot minion is return'd again;\n    Her waspish-headed son has broke his arrows,\n    Swears he will shoot no more, but play with sparrows,\n    And be a boy right out.                       [JUNO alights]\n  CERES. Highest Queen of State,\n    Great Juno, comes; I know her by her gait.\n  JUNO. How does my bounteous sister? Go with me\n    To bless this twain, that they may prosperous be,\n    And honour'd in their issue.                     [They sing]\n  JUNO. Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,\n    Long continuance, and increasing,\n    Hourly joys be still upon you!\n    Juno sings her blessings on you.\n  CERES. Earth's increase, foison plenty,\n    Barns and gamers never empty;\n    Vines with clust'ring bunches growing,\n    Plants with goodly burden bowing;\n    Spring come to you at the farthest,\n    In the very end of harvest!\n    Scarcity and want shall shun you,\n    Ceres' blessing so is on you.\n  FERDINAND. This is a most majestic vision, and\n    Harmonious charmingly. May I be bold\n    To think these spirits?\n  PROSPERO. Spirits, which by mine art\n    I have from their confines call'd to enact\n    My present fancies.\n  FERDINAND. Let me live here ever;\n    So rare a wond'red father and a wise\n    Makes this place Paradise.\n           [JUNO and CERES whisper, and send IRIS on employment]\n  PROSPERO. Sweet now, silence;\n    Juno and Ceres whisper seriously.\n    There's something else to do; hush, and be mute,\n    Or else our spell is marr'd.\n  IRIS. You nymphs, call'd Naiads, of the wind'ring brooks,\n    With your sedg'd crowns and ever harmless looks,\n    Leave your crisp channels, and on this green land\n    Answer your summons; Juno does command.\n    Come, temperate nymphs, and help to celebrate\n    A contract of true love; be not too late.\n\n                      Enter certain NYMPHS\n\n    You sun-burnt sicklemen, of August weary,\n    Come hither from the furrow, and be merry;\n    Make holiday; your rye-straw hats put on,\n    And these fresh nymphs encounter every one\n    In country footing.\n\n        Enter certain REAPERS, properly habited; they join\n         with the NYMPHS in a graceful dance; towards the\n         end whereof PROSPERO starts suddenly, and speaks,\n          after which, to a strange, hollow, and confused\n                  noise, they heavily vanish\n\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  I had forgot that foul conspiracy\n    Of the beast Caliban and his confederates\n    Against my life; the minute of their plot\n    Is almost come.  [To the SPIRITS]  Well done; avoid; no\n    more!\n  FERDINAND. This is strange; your father's in some passion\n    That works him strongly.\n  MIRANDA. Never till this day\n    Saw I him touch'd with anger so distemper'd.\n  PROSPERO. You do look, my son, in a mov'd sort,\n    As if you were dismay'd; be cheerful, sir.\n    Our revels now are ended. These our actors,\n    As I foretold you, were all spirits, and\n    Are melted into air, into thin air;\n    And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,\n    The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,\n    The solemn temples, the great globe itself,\n    Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,\n    And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,\n    Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff\n    As dreams are made on; and our little life\n    Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vex'd;\n    Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled;\n    Be not disturb'd with my infirmity.\n    If you be pleas'd, retire into my cell\n    And there repose; a turn or two I'll walk\n    To still my beating mind.\n  FERDINAND, MIRANDA. We wish your peace.                 Exeunt\n  PROSPERO. Come, with a thought. I thank thee, Ariel; come.\n\n                       Enter ARIEL\n\n  ARIEL. Thy thoughts I cleave to. What's thy pleasure?\n  PROSPERO. Spirit,\n    We must prepare to meet with Caliban.\n  ARIEL. Ay, my commander. When I presented 'Ceres.'\n    I thought to have told thee of it; but I fear'd\n    Lest I might anger thee.\n  PROSPERO. Say again, where didst thou leave these varlets?\n  ARIEL. I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking;\n    So full of valour that they smote the air\n    For breathing in their faces; beat the ground\n    For kissing of their feet; yet always bending\n    Towards their project. Then I beat my tabor,\n    At which like unback'd colts they prick'd their ears,\n    Advanc'd their eyelids, lifted up their noses\n    As they smelt music; so I charm'd their cars,\n    That calf-like they my lowing follow'd through\n    Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss, and thorns,\n    Which ent'red their frail shins. At last I left them\n    I' th' filthy mantled pool beyond your cell,\n    There dancing up to th' chins, that the foul lake\n    O'erstunk their feet.\n  PROSPERO. This was well done, my bird.\n    Thy shape invisible retain thou still.\n    The trumpery in my house, go bring it hither\n    For stale to catch these thieves.\n  ARIEL. I go, I go.                                        Exit\n  PROSPERO. A devil, a born devil, on whose nature\n    Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains,\n    Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost;\n    And as with age his body uglier grows,\n    So his mind cankers. I will plague them all,\n    Even to roaring.\n\n       Re-enter ARIEL, loaden with glistering apparel, &c.\n\n    Come, hang them on this line.\n                          [PROSPERO and ARIEL remain, invisible]\n\n         Enter CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO, all wet\n\n  CALIBAN. Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole may not\n    Hear a foot fall; we now are near his cell.\n  STEPHANO. Monster, your fairy, which you say is a harmless\n    fairy, has done little better than play'd the Jack with us.\n  TRINCULO. Monster, I do smell all horse-piss at which my\n    nose is in great indignation.\n  STEPHANO. So is mine. Do you hear, monster? If I should\n    take a displeasure against you, look you-\n  TRINCULO. Thou wert but a lost monster.\n  CALIBAN. Good my lord, give me thy favour still.\n    Be patient, for the prize I'll bring thee to\n    Shall hoodwink this mischance; therefore speak softly.\n    All's hush'd as midnight yet.\n  TRINCULO. Ay, but to lose our bottles in the pool!\n  STEPHANO. There is not only disgrace and dishonour in\n    that, monster, but an infinite loss.\n  TRINCULO. That's more to me than my wetting; yet this is\n    your harmless fairy, monster.\n  STEPHANO. I will fetch off my bottle, though I be o'er\n    ears for my labour.\n  CALIBAN. Prithee, my king, be quiet. Seest thou here,\n    This is the mouth o' th' cell; no noise, and enter.\n    Do that good mischief which may make this island\n    Thine own for ever, and I, thy Caliban,\n    For aye thy foot-licker.\n  STEPHANO. Give me thy hand. I do begin to have bloody\n    thoughts.\n  TRINCULO. O King Stephano! O peer! O worthy Stephano!\n    Look what a wardrobe here is for thee!\n  CALIBAN. Let it alone, thou fool; it is but trash.\n  TRINCULO. O, ho, monster; we know what belongs to a\n    frippery. O King Stephano!\n  STEPHANO. Put off that gown, Trinculo; by this hand, I'll\n    have that gown.\n  TRINCULO. Thy Grace shall have it.\n  CALIBAN. The dropsy drown this fool! What do you mean\n    To dote thus on such luggage? Let 't alone,\n    And do the murder first. If he awake,\n    From toe to crown he'll fill our skins with pinches;\n    Make us strange stuff.\n  STEPHANO. Be you quiet, monster. Mistress line, is not\n    this my jerkin? Now is the jerkin under the line; now,\n    jerkin, you are like to lose your hair, and prove a bald\n    jerkin.\n  TRINCULO. Do, do. We steal by line and level, an't like\n    your Grace.\n  STEPHANO. I thank thee for that jest; here's a garment\n    for't. Wit shall not go unrewarded while I am king of\n    this country. 'Steal by line and level' is an excellent\n    pass of pate; there's another garmet for't.\n  TRINCULO. Monster, come, put some lime upon your fingers,\n    and away with the rest.\n  CALIBAN. I will have none on't. We shall lose our time,\n    And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes\n    With foreheads villainous low.\n  STEPHANO. Monster, lay-to your fingers; help to bear this\n    away where my hogshead of wine is, or I'll turn you out\n    of my kingdom. Go to, carry this.\n  TRINCULO. And this.\n  STEPHANO. Ay, and this.\n\n          A noise of hunters beard. Enter divers SPIRITS, in\n             shape of dogs and hounds, bunting them about;\n                   PROSPERO and ARIEL setting them on\n\n  PROSPERO. Hey, Mountain, hey!\n  ARIEL. Silver! there it goes, Silver!\n  PROSPERO. Fury, Fury! There, Tyrant, there! Hark, hark!\n                [CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO are driven out]\n    Go charge my goblins that they grind their joints\n    With dry convulsions, shorten up their sinews\n    With aged cramps, and more pinch-spotted make them\n    Than pard or cat o' mountain.\n  ARIEL. Hark, they roar.\n  PROSPERO. Let them be hunted soundly. At this hour\n    Lies at my mercy all mine enemies.\n    Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou\n    Shalt have the air at freedom; for a little\n    Follow, and do me service.                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1\n\nBefore PROSPERO'S cell\n\nEnter PROSPERO in his magic robes, and ARIEL\n\n  PROSPERO. Now does my project gather to a head;\n    My charms crack not, my spirits obey; and time\n    Goes upright with his carriage. How's the day?\n  ARIEL. On the sixth hour; at which time, my lord,\n    You said our work should cease.\n  PROSPERO. I did say so,\n    When first I rais'd the tempest. Say, my spirit,\n    How fares the King and 's followers?\n  ARIEL. Confin'd together\n    In the same fashion as you gave in charge;\n    Just as you left them; all prisoners, sir,\n    In the line-grove which weather-fends your cell;\n    They cannot budge till your release. The King,\n    His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted,\n    And the remainder mourning over them,\n    Brim full of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly\n    Him you term'd, sir, 'the good old lord, Gonzalo';\n    His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops\n    From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works 'em\n    That if you now beheld them your affections\n    Would become tender.\n  PROSPERO. Dost thou think so, spirit?\n  ARIEL. Mine would, sir, were I human.\n  PROSPERO. And mine shall.\n    Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling\n    Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,\n    One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,\n    Passion as they, be kindlier mov'd than thou art?\n    Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th' quick,\n    Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury\n    Do I take part; the rarer action is\n    In virtue than in vengeance; they being penitent,\n    The sole drift of my purpose doth extend\n    Not a frown further. Go release them, Ariel;\n    My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore,\n    And they shall be themselves.\n  ARIEL. I'll fetch them, sir.                              Exit\n  PROSPERO. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and\n    groves;\n    And ye that on the sands with printless foot\n    Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him\n    When he comes back; you demi-puppets that\n    By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,\n    Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime\n    Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice\n    To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid-\n    Weak masters though ye be-I have be-dimm'd\n    The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,\n    And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault\n    Set roaring war. To the dread rattling thunder\n    Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak\n    With his own bolt; the strong-bas'd promontory\n    Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck'd up\n    The pine and cedar. Graves at my command\n    Have wak'd their sleepers, op'd, and let 'em forth,\n    By my so potent art. But this rough magic\n    I here abjure; and, when I have requir'd\n    Some heavenly music-which even now I do-\n    To work mine end upon their senses that\n    This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,\n    Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,\n    And deeper than did ever plummet sound\n    I'll drown my book.                            [Solem music]\n\n            Here enters ARIEL before; then ALONSO, with\n          frantic gesture, attended by GONZALO; SEBASTIAN\n           and ANTONIO in like manner, attended by ADRIAN\n           and FRANCISCO. They all enter the circle which\n          PROSPERO had made, and there stand charm'd; which\n                    PROSPERO observing, speaks\n\n    A solemn air, and the best comforter\n    To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains,\n    Now useless, boil'd within thy skull! There stand,\n    For you are spell-stopp'd.\n    Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,\n    Mine eyes, ev'n sociable to the show of thine,\n    Fall fellowly drops. The charm dissolves apace,\n    And as the morning steals upon the night,\n    Melting the darkness, so their rising senses\n    Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle\n    Their clearer reason. O good Gonzalo,\n    My true preserver, and a loyal sir\n    To him thou follow'st! I will pay thy graces\n    Home both in word and deed. Most cruelly\n    Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter;\n    Thy brother was a furtherer in the act.\n    Thou art pinch'd for't now, Sebastian. Flesh and blood,\n    You, brother mine, that entertain'd ambition,\n    Expell'd remorse and nature, who, with Sebastian-\n    Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong-\n    Would here have kill'd your king, I do forgive thee,\n    Unnatural though thou art. Their understanding\n    Begins to swell, and the approaching tide\n    Will shortly fill the reasonable shore\n    That now lies foul and muddy. Not one of them\n    That yet looks on me, or would know me. Ariel,\n    Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell;           Exit ARIEL\n    I will discase me, and myself present\n    As I was sometime Milan. Quickly, spirit\n    Thou shalt ere long be free.\n\n        ARIEL, on returning, sings and helps to attire him\n\n    Where the bee sucks, there suck I;\n    In a cowslip's bell I lie;\n    There I couch when owls do cry.\n    On the bat's back I do fly\n    After summer merrily.\n    Merrily, merrily shall I live now\n    Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.\n\n  PROSPERO. Why, that's my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee;\n    But yet thou shalt have freedom. So, so, so.\n    To the King's ship, invisible as thou art;\n    There shalt thou find the mariners asleep\n    Under the hatches; the master and the boatswain\n    Being awake, enforce them to this place;\n    And presently, I prithee.\n  ARIEL. I drink the air before me, and return\n    Or ere your pulse twice beat.                           Exit\n  GONZALO. All torment, trouble, wonder and amazement,\n    Inhabits here. Some heavenly power guide us\n    Out of this fearful country!\n  PROSPERO. Behold, Sir King,\n    The wronged Duke of Milan, Prospero.\n    For more assurance that a living prince\n    Does now speak to thee, I embrace thy body;\n    And to thee and thy company I bid\n    A hearty welcome.\n  ALONSO. Whe'er thou be'st he or no,\n    Or some enchanted trifle to abuse me,\n    As late I have been, I not know. Thy pulse\n    Beats, as of flesh and blood; and, since I saw thee,\n    Th' affliction of my mind amends, with which,\n    I fear, a madness held me. This must crave-\n    An if this be at all-a most strange story.\n    Thy dukedom I resign, and do entreat\n    Thou pardon me my wrongs. But how should Prospero\n    Be living and be here?\n  PROSPERO. First, noble friend,\n    Let me embrace thine age, whose honour cannot\n    Be measur'd or confin'd.\n  GONZALO. Whether this be\n    Or be not, I'll not swear.\n  PROSPERO. You do yet taste\n    Some subtleties o' th' isle, that will not let you\n    Believe things certain. Welcome, my friends all!\n    [Aside to SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO]  But you, my brace of\n      lords, were I so minded,\n    I here could pluck his Highness' frown upon you,\n    And justify you traitors; at this time\n    I will tell no tales.\n  SEBASTIAN.  [Aside]  The devil speaks in him.\n  PROSPERO. No.\n    For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother\n    Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive\n    Thy rankest fault-all of them; and require\n    My dukedom of thee, which perforce I know\n    Thou must restore.\n  ALONSO. If thou beest Prospero,\n    Give us particulars of thy preservation;\n    How thou hast met us here, whom three hours since\n    Were wreck'd upon this shore; where I have lost-\n    How sharp the point of this remembrance is!-\n    My dear son Ferdinand.\n  PROSPERO. I am woe for't, sir.\n  ALONSO. Irreparable is the loss; and patience\n    Says it is past her cure.\n  PROSPERO. I rather think\n    You have not sought her help, of whose soft grace\n    For the like loss I have her sovereign aid,\n    And rest myself content.\n  ALONSO. You the like loss!\n  PROSPERO. As great to me as late; and, supportable\n    To make the dear loss, have I means much weaker\n    Than you may call to comfort you, for I\n    Have lost my daughter.\n  ALONSO. A daughter!\n    O heavens, that they were living both in Naples,\n    The King and Queen there! That they were, I wish\n    Myself were mudded in that oozy bed\n    Where my son lies. When did you lose your daughter?\n  PROSPERO. In this last tempest. I perceive these lords\n    At this encounter do so much admire\n    That they devour their reason, and scarce think\n    Their eyes do offices of truth, their words\n    Are natural breath; but, howsoe'er you have\n    Been justled from your senses, know for certain\n    That I am Prospero, and that very duke\n    Which was thrust forth of Milan; who most strangely\n    Upon this shore, where you were wrecked, was landed\n    To be the lord on't. No more yet of this;\n    For 'tis a chronicle of day by day,\n    Not a relation for a breakfast, nor\n    Befitting this first meeting. Welcome, sir;\n    This cell's my court; here have I few attendants,\n    And subjects none abroad; pray you, look in.\n    My dukedom since you have given me again,\n    I will requite you with as good a thing;\n    At least bring forth a wonder, to content ye\n    As much as me my dukedom.\n\n          Here PROSPERO discovers FERDINAND and MIRANDA,\n                      playing at chess\n\n  MIRANDA. Sweet lord, you play me false.\n  FERDINAND. No, my dearest love,\n    I would not for the world.\n  MIRANDA. Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle\n    And I would call it fair play.\n  ALONSO. If this prove\n    A vision of the island, one dear son\n    Shall I twice lose.\n  SEBASTIAN. A most high miracle!\n  FERDINAND. Though the seas threaten, they are merciful;\n    I have curs'd them without cause.                   [Kneels]\n  ALONSO. Now all the blessings\n    Of a glad father compass thee about!\n    Arise, and say how thou cam'st here.\n  MIRANDA. O, wonder!\n    How many goodly creatures are there here!\n    How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world\n    That has such people in't!\n  PROSPERO. 'Tis new to thee.\n  ALONSO. What is this maid with whom thou wast at play?\n    Your eld'st acquaintance cannot be three hours;\n    Is she the goddess that hath sever'd us,\n    And brought us thus together?\n  FERDINAND. Sir, she is mortal;\n    But by immortal Providence she's mine.\n    I chose her when I could not ask my father\n    For his advice, nor thought I had one. She\n    Is daughter to this famous Duke of Milan,\n    Of whom so often I have heard renown\n    But never saw before; of whom I have\n    Receiv'd a second life; and second father\n    This lady makes him to me.\n  ALONSO. I am hers.\n    But, O, how oddly will it sound that I\n    Must ask my child forgiveness!\n  PROSPERO. There, sir, stop;\n    Let us not burden our remembrances with\n    A heaviness that's gone.\n  GONZALO. I have inly wept,\n    Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you gods,\n    And on this couple drop a blessed crown;\n    For it is you that have chalk'd forth the way\n    Which brought us hither.\n  ALONSO. I say, Amen, Gonzalo!\n  GONZALO. Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue\n    Should become Kings of Naples? O, rejoice\n    Beyond a common joy, and set it down\n    With gold on lasting pillars: in one voyage\n    Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis;\n    And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife\n    Where he himself was lost; Prospero his dukedom\n    In a poor isle; and all of us ourselves\n    When no man was his own.\n  ALONSO.  [To FERDINAND and MIRANDA]  Give me your\n    hands.\n    Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart\n    That doth not wish you joy.\n  GONZALO. Be it so. Amen!\n\n           Re-enter ARIEL, with the MASTER and BOATSWAIN\n                     amazedly following\n\n    O look, sir; look, sir! Here is more of us!\n    I prophesied, if a gallows were on land,\n    This fellow could not drown. Now, blasphemy,\n    That swear'st grace o'erboard, not an oath on shore?\n    Hast thou no mouth by land? What is the news?\n  BOATSWAIN. The best news is that we have safely found\n    Our King and company; the next, our ship-\n    Which but three glasses since we gave out split-\n    Is tight and yare, and bravely rigg'd, as when\n    We first put out to sea.\n  ARIEL.  [Aside to PROSPERO]  Sir, all this service\n    Have I done since I went.\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside to ARIEL]  My tricksy spirit!\n  ALONSO. These are not natural events; they strengthen\n    From strange to stranger. Say, how came you hither?\n  BOATSWAIN. If I did think, sir, I were well awake,\n    I'd strive to tell you. We were dead of sleep,\n    And-how, we know not-all clapp'd under hatches;\n    Where, but even now, with strange and several noises\n    Of roaring, shrieking, howling, jingling chains,\n    And moe diversity of sounds, all horrible,\n    We were awak'd; straightway at liberty;\n    Where we, in all her trim, freshly beheld\n    Our royal, good, and gallant ship; our master\n    Cap'ring to eye her. On a trice, so please you,\n    Even in a dream, were we divided from them,\n    And were brought moping hither.\n  ARIEL.  [Aside to PROSPERO]  Was't well done?\n  PROSPERO.  [Aside to ARIEL]  Bravely, my diligence. Thou\n    shalt be free.\n  ALONSO. This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod;\n    And there is in this business more than nature\n    Was ever conduct of. Some oracle\n    Must rectify our knowledge.\n  PROSPERO. Sir, my liege,\n    Do not infest your mind with beating on\n    The strangeness of this business; at pick'd leisure,\n    Which shall be shortly, single I'll resolve you,\n    Which to you shall seem probable, of every\n    These happen'd accidents; till when, be cheerful\n    And think of each thing well.  [Aside to ARIEL]  Come\n    hither, spirit;\n    Set Caliban and his companions free;\n    Untie the spell.  [Exit ARIEL]  How fares my gracious sir?\n    There are yet missing of your company\n    Some few odd lads that you remember not.\n\n         Re-enter ARIEL, driving in CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and\n\n  TRINCULO, in their stolen apparel\n  STEPHANO. Every man shift for all the rest, and let no man\n    take care for himself; for all is but fortune. Coragio,\n    bully-monster, coragio!\n  TRINCULO. If these be true spies which I wear in my head,\n    here's a goodly sight.\n  CALIBAN. O Setebos, these be brave spirits indeed!\n    How fine my master is! I am afraid\n    He will chastise me.\n  SEBASTIAN. Ha, ha!\n    What things are these, my lord Antonio?\n    Will money buy'em?\n  ANTONIO. Very like; one of them\n    Is a plain fish, and no doubt marketable.\n  PROSPERO. Mark but the badges of these men, my lords,\n    Then say if they be true. This mis-shapen knave-\n    His mother was a witch, and one so strong\n    That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs,\n    And deal in her command without her power.\n    These three have robb'd me; and this demi-devil-\n    For he's a bastard one-had plotted with them\n    To take my life. Two of these fellows you\n    Must know and own; this thing of darkness I\n    Acknowledge mine.\n  CALIBAN. I shall be pinch'd to death.\n  ALONSO. Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler?\n  SEBASTIAN. He is drunk now; where had he wine?\n  ALONSO. And Trinculo is reeling ripe; where should they\n    Find this grand liquor that hath gilded 'em?\n    How cam'st thou in this pickle?\n  TRINCULO. I have been in such a pickle since I saw you\n    last that, I fear me, will never out of my bones. I\n    shall not fear fly-blowing.\n  SEBASTIAN. Why, how now, Stephano!\n  STEPHANO. O, touch me not; I am not Stephano, but a\n    cramp.\n  PROSPERO. You'd be king o' the isle, sirrah?\n  STEPHANO. I should have been a sore one, then.\n  ALONSO.  [Pointing to CALIBAN]  This is as strange a thing\n    as e'er I look'd on.\n  PROSPERO. He is as disproportioned in his manners\n    As in his shape. Go, sirrah, to my cell;\n    Take with you your companions; as you look\n    To have my pardon, trim it handsomely.\n  CALIBAN. Ay, that I will; and I'll be wise hereafter,\n    And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass\n    Was I to take this drunkard for a god,\n    And worship this dull fool!\n  PROSPERO. Go to; away!\n  ALONSO. Hence, and bestow your luggage where you found it.\n  SEBASTIAN. Or stole it, rather.\n                          Exeunt CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO\n  PROSPERO. Sir, I invite your Highness and your train\n    To my poor cell, where you shall take your rest\n    For this one night; which, part of it, I'll waste\n    With such discourse as, I not doubt, shall make it\n    Go quick away-the story of my life,\n    And the particular accidents gone by\n    Since I came to this isle. And in the morn\n    I'll bring you to your ship, and so to Naples,\n    Where I have hope to see the nuptial\n    Of these our dear-belov'd solemnized,\n    And thence retire me to my Milan, where\n    Every third thought shall be my grave.\n  ALONSO. I long\n    To hear the story of your life, which must\n    Take the ear strangely.\n  PROSPERO. I'll deliver all;\n    And promise you calm seas, auspicious gales,\n    And sail so expeditious that shall catch\n    Your royal fleet far off.  [Aside to ARIEL]  My Ariel,\n      chick,\n    That is thy charge. Then to the elements\n    Be free, and fare thou well!-Please you, draw near.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\nEPILOGUE\n                             EPILOGUE\n                        Spoken by PROSPERO\n\n          Now my charms are all o'erthrown,\n          And what strength I have's mine own,\n          Which is most faint. Now 'tis true,\n          I must be here confin'd by you,\n          Or sent to Naples. Let me not,\n          Since I have my dukedom got,\n          And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell\n          In this bare island by your spell;\n          But release me from my bands\n          With the help of your good hands.\n          Gentle breath of yours my sails\n          Must fill, or else my project fails,\n          Which was to please. Now I want\n          Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;\n          And my ending is despair\n          Unless I be reliev'd by prayer,\n          Which pierces so that it assaults\n          Mercy itself, and frees all faults.\n          As you from crimes would pardon'd be,\n          Let your indulgence set me free.\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1608\n\nTHE LIFE OF TIMON OF ATHENS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n    TIMON of Athens\n\n    LUCIUS\n    LUCULLUS\n    SEMPRONIUS\n       flattering lords\n\n    VENTIDIUS, one of Timon's false friends\n    ALCIBIADES, an Athenian captain\n    APEMANTUS, a churlish philosopher\n    FLAVIUS, steward to Timon\n\n    FLAMINIUS\n    LUCILIUS\n    SERVILIUS\n       Timon's servants\n\n    CAPHIS\n    PHILOTUS\n    TITUS\n    HORTENSIUS\n       servants to Timon's creditors\n\n    POET\n    PAINTER\n    JEWELLER\n    MERCHANT\n    MERCER\n    AN OLD ATHENIAN\n    THREE STRANGERS\n    A PAGE\n    A FOOL\n\n    PHRYNIA\n    TIMANDRA\n       mistresses to Alcibiades\n\n    CUPID\n    AMAZONS\n      in the Masque\n\n    Lords, Senators, Officers, Soldiers, Servants, Thieves, and\n      Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nAthens and the neighbouring woods\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nAthens. TIMON'S house\n\nEnter POET, PAINTER, JEWELLER, MERCHANT, and MERCER, at several doors\n\n  POET. Good day, sir.\n  PAINTER. I am glad y'are well.\n  POET. I have not seen you long; how goes the world?\n  PAINTER. It wears, sir, as it grows.\n  POET. Ay, that's well known.\n    But what particular rarity? What strange,\n    Which manifold record not matches? See,\n    Magic of bounty, all these spirits thy power\n    Hath conjur'd to attend! I know the merchant.\n  PAINTER. I know them both; th' other's a jeweller.\n  MERCHANT. O, 'tis a worthy lord!\n  JEWELLER. Nay, that's most fix'd.\n  MERCHANT. A most incomparable man; breath'd, as it were,\n    To an untirable and continuate goodness.\n    He passes.\n  JEWELLER. I have a jewel here-\n  MERCHANT. O, pray let's see't. For the Lord Timon, sir?\n  JEWELLER. If he will touch the estimate. But for that-\n  POET. When we for recompense have prais'd the vile,\n    It stains the glory in that happy verse\n    Which aptly sings the good.\n  MERCHANT. [Looking at the jewel] 'Tis a good form.\n  JEWELLER. And rich. Here is a water, look ye.\n  PAINTER. You are rapt, sir, in some work, some dedication\n    To the great lord.\n  POET. A thing slipp'd idly from me.\n    Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes\n    From whence 'tis nourish'd. The fire i' th' flint\n    Shows not till it be struck: our gentle flame\n    Provokes itself, and like the current flies\n    Each bound it chafes. What have you there?\n  PAINTER. A picture, sir. When comes your book forth?\n  POET. Upon the heels of my presentment, sir.\n    Let's see your piece.\n  PAINTER. 'Tis a good piece.\n  POET. So 'tis; this comes off well and excellent.\n  PAINTER. Indifferent.\n  POET. Admirable. How this grace\n    Speaks his own standing! What a mental power\n    This eye shoots forth! How big imagination\n    Moves in this lip! To th' dumbness of the gesture\n    One might interpret.\n  PAINTER. It is a pretty mocking of the life.\n    Here is a touch; is't good?\n  POET. I will say of it\n    It tutors nature. Artificial strife\n    Lives in these touches, livelier than life.\n\n              Enter certain SENATORS, and pass over\n\n  PAINTER. How this lord is followed!\n  POET. The senators of Athens- happy man!\n  PAINTER. Look, moe!\n  POET. You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors.\n    I have in this rough work shap'd out a man\n    Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug\n    With amplest entertainment. My free drift\n    Halts not particularly, but moves itself\n    In a wide sea of tax. No levell'd malice\n    Infects one comma in the course I hold,\n    But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on,\n    Leaving no tract behind.\n  PAINTER. How shall I understand you?\n  POET. I will unbolt to you.\n    You see how all conditions, how all minds-\n    As well of glib and slipp'ry creatures as\n    Of grave and austere quality, tender down\n    Their services to Lord Timon. His large fortune,\n    Upon his good and gracious nature hanging,\n    Subdues and properties to his love and tendance\n    All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-fac'd flatterer\n    To Apemantus, that few things loves better\n    Than to abhor himself; even he drops down\n    The knee before him, and returns in peace\n    Most rich in Timon's nod.\n  PAINTER. I saw them speak together.\n  POET. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill\n    Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd. The base o' th' mount\n    Is rank'd with all deserts, all kind of natures\n    That labour on the bosom of this sphere\n    To propagate their states. Amongst them all\n    Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fix'd\n    One do I personate of Lord Timon's frame,\n    Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her;\n    Whose present grace to present slaves and servants\n    Translates his rivals.\n  PAINTER. 'Tis conceiv'd to scope.\n    This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks,\n    With one man beckon'd from the rest below,\n    Bowing his head against the steepy mount\n    To climb his happiness, would be well express'd\n    In our condition.\n  POET. Nay, sir, but hear me on.\n    All those which were his fellows but of late-\n    Some better than his value- on the moment\n    Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance,\n    Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear,\n    Make sacred even his stirrup, and through him\n    Drink the free air.\n  PAINTER. Ay, marry, what of these?\n  POET. When Fortune in her shift and change of mood\n    Spurns down her late beloved, all his dependants,\n    Which labour'd after him to the mountain's top\n    Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down,\n    Not one accompanying his declining foot.\n  PAINTER. 'Tis common.\n    A thousand moral paintings I can show\n    That shall demonstrate these quick blows of Fortune's\n    More pregnantly than words. Yet you do well\n    To show Lord Timon that mean eyes have seen\n    The foot above the head.\n\n         Trumpets sound. Enter TIMON, addressing himself\n          courteously to every suitor, a MESSENGER from\n         VENTIDIUS talking with him; LUCILIUS and other\n                       servants following\n\n  TIMON. Imprison'd is he, say you?\n  MESSENGER. Ay, my good lord. Five talents is his debt;\n    His means most short, his creditors most strait.\n    Your honourable letter he desires\n    To those have shut him up; which failing,\n    Periods his comfort.\n  TIMON. Noble Ventidius! Well.\n    I am not of that feather to shake of\n    My friend when he must need me. I do know him\n    A gentleman that well deserves a help,\n    Which he shall have. I'll pay the debt, and free him.\n  MESSENGER. Your lordship ever binds him.\n  TIMON. Commend me to him; I will send his ransom;\n    And being enfranchis'd, bid him come to me.\n    'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,\n    But to support him after. Fare you well.\n  MESSENGER. All happiness to your honour!                  Exit\n\n                      Enter an OLD ATHENIAN\n\n  OLD ATHENIAN. Lord Timon, hear me speak.\n  TIMON. Freely, good father.\n  OLD ATHENIAN. Thou hast a servant nam'd Lucilius.\n  TIMON. I have so; what of him?\n  OLD ATHENIAN. Most noble Timon, call the man before thee.\n  TIMON. Attends he here, or no? Lucilius!\n  LUCILIUS. Here, at your lordship's service.\n  OLD ATHENIAN. This fellow here, Lord Timon, this thy creature,\n    By night frequents my house. I am a man\n    That from my first have been inclin'd to thrift,\n    And my estate deserves an heir more rais'd\n    Than one which holds a trencher.\n  TIMON. Well; what further?\n  OLD ATHENIAN. One only daughter have I, no kin else,\n    On whom I may confer what I have got.\n    The maid is fair, o' th' youngest for a bride,\n    And I have bred her at my dearest cost\n    In qualities of the best. This man of thine\n    Attempts her love; I prithee, noble lord,\n    Join with me to forbid him her resort;\n    Myself have spoke in vain.\n  TIMON. The man is honest.\n  OLD ATHENIAN. Therefore he will be, Timon.\n    His honesty rewards him in itself;\n    It must not bear my daughter.\n  TIMON. Does she love him?\n  OLD ATHENIAN. She is young and apt:\n    Our own precedent passions do instruct us\n    What levity's in youth.\n  TIMON. Love you the maid?\n  LUCILIUS. Ay, my good lord, and she accepts of it.\n  OLD ATHENIAN. If in her marriage my consent be missing,\n    I call the gods to witness I will choose\n    Mine heir from forth the beggars of the world,\n    And dispossess her all.\n  TIMON. How shall she be endow'd,\n    If she be mated with an equal husband?\n  OLD ATHENIAN. Three talents on the present; in future, all.\n  TIMON. This gentleman of mine hath serv'd me long;.\n    To build his fortune I will strain a little,\n    For 'tis a bond in men. Give him thy daughter:\n    What you bestow, in him I'll counterpoise,\n    And make him weigh with her.\n  OLD ATHENIAN. Most noble lord,\n    Pawn me to this your honour, she is his.\n  TIMON. My hand to thee; mine honour on my promise.\n  LUCILIUS. Humbly I thank your lordship. Never may\n    That state or fortune fall into my keeping\n    Which is not owed to you!\n                                Exeunt LUCILIUS and OLD ATHENIAN\n  POET. [Presenting his poem] Vouchsafe my labour, and long live your\n    lordship!\n  TIMON. I thank you; you shall hear from me anon;\n    Go not away. What have you there, my friend?\n  PAINTER. A piece of painting, which I do beseech\n    Your lordship to accept.\n  TIMON. Painting is welcome.\n    The painting is almost the natural man;\n    For since dishonour traffics with man's nature,\n    He is but outside; these pencill'd figures are\n    Even such as they give out. I like your work,\n    And you shall find I like it; wait attendance\n    Till you hear further from me.\n  PAINTER. The gods preserve ye!\n  TIMON. Well fare you, gentleman. Give me your hand;\n    We must needs dine together. Sir, your jewel\n    Hath suffered under praise.\n  JEWELLER. What, my lord! Dispraise?\n  TIMON. A mere satiety of commendations;\n    If I should pay you for't as 'tis extoll'd,\n    It would unclew me quite.\n  JEWELLER. My lord, 'tis rated\n    As those which sell would give; but you well know\n    Things of like value, differing in the owners,\n    Are prized by their masters. Believe't, dear lord,\n    You mend the jewel by the wearing it.\n  TIMON. Well mock'd.\n\n                      Enter APEMANTUS\n\n  MERCHANT. No, my good lord; he speaks the common tongue,\n    Which all men speak with him.\n  TIMON. Look who comes here; will you be chid?\n  JEWELLER. We'll bear, with your lordship.\n  MERCHANT. He'll spare none.\n  TIMON. Good morrow to thee, gentle Apemantus!\n  APEMANTUS. Till I be gentle, stay thou for thy good morrow;\n    When thou art Timon's dog, and these knaves honest.\n  TIMON. Why dost thou call them knaves? Thou know'st them not.\n  APEMANTUS. Are they not Athenians?\n  TIMON. Yes.\n  APEMANTUS. Then I repent not.\n  JEWELLER. You know me, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. Thou know'st I do; I call'd thee by thy name.\n  TIMON. Thou art proud, Apemantus.\n  APEMANTUS. Of nothing so much as that I am not like Timon.\n  TIMON. Whither art going?\n  APEMANTUS. To knock out an honest Athenian's brains.\n  TIMON. That's a deed thou't die for.\n  APEMANTUS. Right, if doing nothing be death by th' law.\n  TIMON. How lik'st thou this picture, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. The best, for the innocence.\n  TIMON. Wrought he not well that painted it?\n  APEMANTUS. He wrought better that made the painter; and yet he's\n    but a filthy piece of work.\n  PAINTER. Y'are a dog.\n  APEMANTUS. Thy mother's of my generation; what's she, if I be a dog?\n  TIMON. Wilt dine with me, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. No; I eat not lords.\n  TIMON. An thou shouldst, thou'dst anger ladies.\n  APEMANTUS. O, they eat lords; so they come by great bellies.\n  TIMON. That's a lascivious apprehension.\n  APEMANTUS. So thou apprehend'st it take it for thy labour.\n  TIMON. How dost thou like this jewel, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. Not so well as plain dealing, which will not cost a man\n    a doit.\n  TIMON. What dost thou think 'tis worth?\n  APEMANTUS. Not worth my thinking. How now, poet!\n  POET. How now, philosopher!\n  APEMANTUS. Thou liest.\n  POET. Art not one?\n  APEMANTUS. Yes.\n  POET. Then I lie not.\n  APEMANTUS. Art not a poet?\n  POET. Yes.\n  APEMANTUS. Then thou liest. Look in thy last work, where thou hast\n    feign'd him a worthy fellow.\n  POET. That's not feign'd- he is so.\n  APEMANTUS. Yes, he is worthy of thee, and to pay thee for thy\n    labour. He that loves to be flattered is worthy o' th' flatterer.\n    Heavens, that I were a lord!\n  TIMON. What wouldst do then, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. E'en as Apemantus does now: hate a lord with my heart.\n  TIMON. What, thyself?\n  APEMANTUS. Ay.\n  TIMON. Wherefore?\n  APEMANTUS. That I had no angry wit to be a lord.- Art not thou a\n    merchant?\n  MERCHANT. Ay, Apemantus.\n  APEMANTUS. Traffic confound thee, if the gods will not!\n  MERCHANT. If traffic do it, the gods do it.\n  APEMANTUS. Traffic's thy god, and thy god confound thee!\n\n                Trumpet sounds. Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  TIMON. What trumpet's that?\n  MESSENGER. 'Tis Alcibiades, and some twenty horse,\n    All of companionship.\n  TIMON. Pray entertain them; give them guide to us.\n                                          Exeunt some attendants\n    You must needs dine with me. Go not you hence\n    Till I have thank'd you. When dinner's done\n    Show me this piece. I am joyful of your sights.\n\n                Enter ALCIBIADES, with the rest\n\n    Most welcome, sir!                             [They salute]\n  APEMANTUS. So, so, there!\n    Aches contract and starve your supple joints!\n    That there should be small love amongst these sweet knaves,\n    And all this courtesy! The strain of man's bred out\n    Into baboon and monkey.\n  ALCIBIADES. Sir, you have sav'd my longing, and I feed\n    Most hungerly on your sight.\n  TIMON. Right welcome, sir!\n    Ere we depart we'll share a bounteous time\n    In different pleasures. Pray you, let us in.\n                                        Exeunt all but APEMANTUS\n\n                        Enter two LORDS\n\n  FIRST LORD. What time o' day is't, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. Time to be honest.\n  FIRST LORD. That time serves still.\n  APEMANTUS. The more accursed thou that still omit'st it.\n  SECOND LORD. Thou art going to Lord Timon's feast.\n  APEMANTUS. Ay; to see meat fill knaves and wine heat fools.\n  SECOND LORD. Fare thee well, fare thee well.\n  APEMANTUS. Thou art a fool to bid me farewell twice.\n  SECOND LORD. Why, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. Shouldst have kept one to thyself, for I mean to give\n    thee none.\n  FIRST LORD. Hang thyself.\n  APEMANTUS. No, I will do nothing at thy bidding; make thy requests\n    to thy friend.\n  SECOND LORD. Away, unpeaceable dog, or I'll spurn thee hence.\n  APEMANTUS. I will fly, like a dog, the heels o' th' ass.  Exit\n  FIRST LORD. He's opposite to humanity. Come, shall we in\n    And taste Lord Timon's bounty? He outgoes\n    The very heart of kindness.\n  SECOND LORD. He pours it out: Plutus, the god of gold,\n    Is but his steward; no meed but he repays\n    Sevenfold above itself; no gift to him\n    But breeds the giver a return exceeding\n    All use of quittance.\n  FIRST LORD. The noblest mind he carries\n    That ever govern'd man.\n  SECOND LORD. Long may he live in fortunes! shall we in?\n  FIRST LORD. I'll keep you company.                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA room of state in TIMON'S house\n\nHautboys playing loud music. A great banquet serv'd in;\nFLAVIUS and others attending; and then enter LORD TIMON, the states,\nthe ATHENIAN LORDS, VENTIDIUS, which TIMON redeem'd from prison.\nThen comes, dropping after all, APEMANTUS, discontentedly, like himself\n\n  VENTIDIUS. Most honoured Timon,\n    It hath pleas'd the gods to remember my father's age,\n    And call him to long peace.\n    He is gone happy, and has left me rich.\n    Then, as in grateful virtue I am bound\n    To your free heart, I do return those talents,\n    Doubled with thanks and service, from whose help\n    I deriv'd liberty.\n  TIMON. O, by no means,\n    Honest Ventidius! You mistake my love;\n    I gave it freely ever; and there's none\n    Can truly say he gives, if he receives.\n    If our betters play at that game, we must not dare\n    To imitate them: faults that are rich are fair.\n  VENTIDIUS. A noble spirit!\n  TIMON. Nay, my lords, ceremony was but devis'd at first\n    To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes,\n    Recanting goodness, sorry ere 'tis shown;\n    But where there is true friendship there needs none.\n    Pray, sit; more welcome are ye to my fortunes\n    Than my fortunes to me.                           [They sit]\n  FIRST LORD. My lord, we always have confess'd it.\n  APEMANTUS. Ho, ho, confess'd it! Hang'd it, have you not?\n  TIMON. O, Apemantus, you are welcome.\n  APEMANTUS. No;\n    You shall not make me welcome.\n    I come to have thee thrust me out of doors.\n  TIMON. Fie, th'art a churl; ye have got a humour there\n    Does not become a man; 'tis much to blame.\n    They say, my lords, Ira furor brevis est; but yond man is ever\n    angry. Go, let him have a table by himself; for he does neither\n    affect company nor is he fit for't indeed.\n  APEMANTUS. Let me stay at thine apperil, Timon.\n    I come to observe; I give thee warning on't.\n  TIMON. I take no heed of thee. Th'art an Athenian, therefore\n    welcome. I myself would have no power; prithee let my meat make\n    thee silent.\n  APEMANTUS. I scorn thy meat; 't'would choke me, for I should ne'er\n    flatter thee. O you gods, what a number of men eats Timon, and he\n    sees 'em not! It grieves me to see so many dip their meat in one\n    man's blood; and all the madness is, he cheers them up too.\n    I wonder men dare trust themselves with men.\n    Methinks they should invite them without knives:\n    Good for their meat and safer for their lives.\n    There's much example for't; the fellow that sits next him now,\n    parts bread with him, pledges the breath of him in a divided\n    draught, is the readiest man to kill him. 'T has been proved. If\n    I were a huge man I should fear to drink at meals.\n    Lest they should spy my windpipe's dangerous notes:\n    Great men should drink with harness on their throats.\n  TIMON. My lord, in heart! and let the health go round.\n  SECOND LORD. Let it flow this way, my good lord.\n  APEMANTUS. Flow this way! A brave fellow! He keeps his tides well.\n    Those healths will make thee and thy state look ill, Timon.\n    Here's that which is too weak to be a sinner, honest water, which\n    ne'er left man i' th' mire.\n    This and my food are equals; there's no odds.'\n    Feasts are too proud to give thanks to the gods.\n\n                  APEMANTUS' Grace\n\n           Immortal gods, I crave no pelf;\n           I pray for no man but myself.\n           Grant I may never prove so fond\n           To trust man on his oath or bond,\n           Or a harlot for her weeping,\n           Or a dog that seems a-sleeping,\n           Or a keeper with my freedom,\n           Or my friends, if I should need 'em.\n           Amen. So fall to't.\n           Rich men sin, and I eat root.       [Eats and drinks]\n\n    Much good dich thy good heart, Apemantus!\n  TIMON. Captain Alcibiades, your heart's in the field now.\n  ALCIBIADES. My heart is ever at your service, my lord.\n  TIMON. You had rather be at a breakfast of enemies than dinner of\n    friends.\n  ALCIBIADES. So they were bleeding new, my lord, there's no meat\n    like 'em; I could wish my best friend at such a feast.\n  APEMANTUS. Would all those flatterers were thine enemies then, that\n    then thou mightst kill 'em, and bid me to 'em.\n  FIRST LORD. Might we but have that happiness, my lord, that you\n    would once use our hearts, whereby we might express some part of\n    our zeals, we should think ourselves for ever perfect.\n  TIMON. O, no doubt, my good friends, but the gods themselves have\n    provided that I shall have much help from you. How had you been\n    my friends else? Why have you that charitable title from\n    thousands, did not you chiefly belong to my heart? I have told\n    more of you to myself than you can with modesty speak in your own\n    behalf; and thus far I confirm you. O you gods, think I, what\n    need we have any friends if we should ne'er have need of 'em?\n    They were the most needless creatures living, should we ne'er\n    have use for 'em; and would most resemble sweet instruments hung\n    up in cases, that keep their sounds to themselves. Why, I have\n    often wish'd myself poorer, that I might come nearer to you. We\n    are born to do benefits; and what better or properer can we call\n    our own than the riches of our friends? O, what a precious\n    comfort 'tis to have so many like brothers commanding one\n    another's fortunes! O, joy's e'en made away ere't can be born!\n    Mine eyes cannot hold out water, methinks. To forget their\n    faults, I drink to you.\n  APEMANTUS. Thou weep'st to make them drink, Timon.\n  SECOND LORD. Joy had the like conception in our eyes,\n    And at that instant like a babe sprung up.\n  APEMANTUS. Ho, ho! I laugh to think that babe a bastard.\n  THIRD LORD. I promise you, my lord, you mov'd me much.\n  APEMANTUS. Much!                                [Sound tucket]\n  TIMON. What means that trump?\n\n                        Enter a SERVANT\n\n    How now?\n  SERVANT. Please you, my lord, there are certain ladies most\n    desirous of admittance.\n  TIMON. Ladies! What are their wills?\n  SERVANT. There comes with them a forerunner, my lord, which bears\n    that office to signify their pleasures.\n  TIMON. I pray let them be admitted.\n\n                          Enter CUPID\n  CUPID. Hail to thee, worthy Timon, and to all\n    That of his bounties taste! The five best Senses\n    Acknowledge thee their patron, and come freely\n    To gratulate thy plenteous bosom. Th' Ear,\n    Taste, Touch, Smell, pleas'd from thy table rise;\n    They only now come but to feast thine eyes.\n  TIMON. They're welcome all; let 'em have kind admittance.\n    Music, make their welcome.                        Exit CUPID\n  FIRST LORD. You see, my lord, how ample y'are belov'd.\n\n      Music. Re-enter CUPID, witb a Masque of LADIES as Amazons,\n          with lutes in their hands, dancing and playing\n\n  APEMANTUS. Hoy-day, what a sweep of vanity comes this way!\n    They dance? They are mad women.\n    Like madness is the glory of this life,\n    As this pomp shows to a little oil and root.\n    We make ourselves fools to disport ourselves,\n    And spend our flatteries to drink those men\n    Upon whose age we void it up again\n    With poisonous spite and envy.\n    Who lives that's not depraved or depraves?\n    Who dies that bears not one spurn to their graves\n    Of their friends' gift?\n    I should fear those that dance before me now\n    Would one day stamp upon me. 'T has been done:\n    Men shut their doors against a setting sun.\n\n         The LORDS rise from table, with much adoring of\n        TIMON; and to show their loves, each single out an\n          Amazon, and all dance, men witb women, a lofty\n            strain or two to the hautboys, and cease\n\n  TIMON. You have done our pleasures much grace, fair ladies,\n    Set a fair fashion on our entertainment,\n    Which was not half so beautiful and kind;\n    You have added worth unto't and lustre,\n    And entertain'd me with mine own device;\n    I am to thank you for't.\n  FIRST LADY. My lord, you take us even at the best.\n  APEMANTUS. Faith, for the worst is filthy, and would not hold\n    taking, I doubt me.\n  TIMON. Ladies, there is an idle banquet attends you;\n    Please you to dispose yourselves.\n  ALL LADIES. Most thankfully, my lord.\n                                         Exeunt CUPID and LADIES\n  TIMON. Flavius!\n  FLAVIUS. My lord?\n  TIMON. The little casket bring me hither.\n  FLAVIUS. Yes, my lord. [Aside] More jewels yet!\n    There is no crossing him in's humour,\n    Else I should tell him- well i' faith, I should-\n    When all's spent, he'd be cross'd then, an he could.\n    'Tis pity bounty had not eyes behind,\n    That man might ne'er be wretched for his mind.          Exit\n  FIRST LORD. Where be our men?\n  SERVANT. Here, my lord, in readiness.\n  SECOND LORD. Our horses!\n\n               Re-enter FLAVIUS, with the casket\n\n  TIMON. O my friends,\n    I have one word to say to you. Look you, my good lord,\n    I must entreat you honour me so much\n    As to advance this jewel; accept it and wear it,\n    Kind my lord.\n  FIRST LORD. I am so far already in your gifts-\n  ALL. So are we all.\n\n                       Enter a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. My lord, there are certain nobles of the Senate newly\n    alighted and come to visit you.\n  TIMON. They are fairly welcome.                   Exit SERVANT\n  FLAVIUS. I beseech your honour, vouchsafe me a word; it does\n    concern you near.\n  TIMON. Near! Why then, another time I'll hear thee. I prithee let's\n    be provided to show them entertainment.\n  FLAVIUS. [Aside] I scarce know how.\n\n                     Enter another SERVANT\n\n  SECOND SERVANT. May it please vour honour, Lord Lucius, out of his\n    free love, hath presented to you four milk-white horses, trapp'd\n    in silver.\n  TIMON. I shall accept them fairly. Let the presents\n    Be worthily entertain'd.                        Exit SERVANT\n\n                      Enter a third SERVANT\n\n    How now! What news?\n  THIRD SERVANT. Please you, my lord, that honourable gentleman, Lord\n    Lucullus, entreats your company to-morrow to hunt with him and\n    has sent your honour two brace of greyhounds.\n  TIMON. I'll hunt with him; and let them be receiv'd,\n    Not without fair reward.                        Exit SERVANT\n  FLAVIUS. [Aside] What will this come to?\n    He commands us to provide and give great gifts,\n    And all out of an empty coffer;\n    Nor will he know his purse, or yield me this,\n    To show him what a beggar his heart is,\n    Being of no power to make his wishes good.\n    His promises fly so beyond his state\n    That what he speaks is all in debt; he owes\n    For ev'ry word. He is so kind that he now\n    Pays interest for't; his land's put to their books.\n    Well, would I were gently put out of office\n    Before I were forc'd out!\n    Happier is he that has no friend to feed\n    Than such that do e'en enemies exceed.\n    I bleed inwardly for my lord.                           Exit\n  TIMON. You do yourselves much wrong;\n    You bate too much of your own merits.\n    Here, my lord, a trifle of our love.\n  SECOND LORD. With more than common thanks I will receive it.\n  THIRD LORD. O, he's the very soul of bounty!\n  TIMON. And now I remember, my lord, you gave good words the other\n    day of a bay courser I rode on. 'Tis yours because you lik'd it.\n  THIRD LORD. O, I beseech you pardon me, my lord, in that.\n  TIMON. You may take my word, my lord: I know no man\n    Can justly praise but what he does affect.\n    I weigh my friend's affection with mine own.\n    I'll tell you true; I'll call to you.\n  ALL LORDS. O, none so welcome!\n  TIMON. I take all and your several visitations\n    So kind to heart 'tis not enough to give;\n    Methinks I could deal kingdoms to my friends\n    And ne'er be weary. Alcibiades,\n    Thou art a soldier, therefore seldom rich.\n    It comes in charity to thee; for all thy living\n    Is 'mongst the dead, and all the lands thou hast\n    Lie in a pitch'd field.\n  ALCIBIADES. Ay, defil'd land, my lord.\n  FIRST LORD. We are so virtuously bound-\n  TIMON. And so am I to you.\n  SECOND LORD. So infinitely endear'd-\n  TIMON. All to you. Lights, more lights!\n  FIRST LORD. The best of happiness, honour, and fortunes, keep with\n    you, Lord Timon!\n  TIMON. Ready for his friends.\n                              Exeunt all but APEMANTUS and TIMON\n  APEMANTUS. What a coil's here!\n    Serving of becks and jutting-out of bums!\n    I doubt whether their legs be worth the sums\n    That are given for 'em. Friendship's full of dregs:\n    Methinks false hearts should never have sound legs.\n    Thus honest fools lay out their wealth on curtsies.\n  TIMON. Now, Apemantus, if thou wert not sullen\n    I would be good to thee.\n  APEMANTUS. No, I'll nothing; for if I should be brib'd too, there\n    would be none left to rail upon thee, and then thou wouldst sin\n    the faster. Thou giv'st so long, Timon, I fear me thou wilt give\n    away thyself in paper shortly. What needs these feasts, pomps,\n    and vain-glories?\n  TIMON. Nay, an you begin to rail on society once, I am sworn not to\n    give regard to you. Farewell; and come with better music.\n Exit\n  APEMANTUS. So. Thou wilt not hear me now: thou shalt not then. I'll\n    lock thy heaven from thee.\n    O that men's ears should be\n    To counsel deaf, but not to flattery!                   Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nA SENATOR'S house\n\nEnter A SENATOR, with papers in his hand\n\n  SENATOR. And late, five thousand. To Varro and to Isidore\n    He owes nine thousand; besides my former sum,\n    Which makes it five and twenty. Still in motion\n    Of raging waste? It cannot hold; it will not.\n    If I want gold, steal but a beggar's dog\n    And give it Timon, why, the dog coins gold.\n    If I would sell my horse and buy twenty moe\n    Better than he, why, give my horse to Timon,\n    Ask nothing, give it him, it foals me straight,\n    And able horses. No porter at his gate,\n    But rather one that smiles and still invites\n    All that pass by. It cannot hold; no reason\n    Can sound his state in safety. Caphis, ho!\n    Caphis, I say!\n\n                         Enter CAPHIS\n\n  CAPHIS. Here, sir; what is your pleasure?\n  SENATOR. Get on your cloak and haste you to Lord Timon;\n    Importune him for my moneys; be not ceas'd\n    With slight denial, nor then silenc'd when\n    'Commend me to your master' and the cap\n    Plays in the right hand, thus; but tell him\n    My uses cry to me, I must serve my turn\n    Out of mine own; his days and times are past,\n    And my reliances on his fracted dates\n    Have smit my credit. I love and honour him,\n    But must not break my back to heal his finger.\n    Immediate are my needs, and my relief\n    Must not be toss'd and turn'd to me in words,\n    But find supply immediate. Get you gone;\n    Put on a most importunate aspect,\n    A visage of demand; for I do fear,\n    When every feather sticks in his own wing,\n    Lord Timon will be left a naked gull,\n    Which flashes now a phoenix. Get you gone.\n  CAPHIS. I go, sir.\n  SENATOR. Take the bonds along with you,\n    And have the dates in compt.\n  CAPHIS. I will, sir.\n  SENATOR. Go.                                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBefore TIMON'S house\n\nEnter FLAVIUS, TIMON'S Steward, with many bills in his hand\n\n  FLAVIUS. No care, no stop! So senseless of expense\n    That he will neither know how to maintain it\n    Nor cease his flow of riot; takes no account\n    How things go from him, nor resumes no care\n    Of what is to continue. Never mind\n    Was to be so unwise to be so kind.\n    What shall be done? He will not hear till feel.\n    I must be round with him. Now he comes from hunting.\n    Fie, fie, fie, fie!\n\n       Enter CAPHIS, and the SERVANTS Of ISIDORE and VARRO\n\n  CAPHIS. Good even, Varro. What, you come for money?\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. Is't not your business too?\n  CAPHIS. It is. And yours too, Isidore?\n  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. It is so.\n  CAPHIS. Would we were all discharg'd!\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. I fear it.\n  CAPHIS. Here comes the lord.\n\n            Enter TIMON and his train, with ALCIBIADES\n\n  TIMON. So soon as dinner's done we'll forth again,\n    My Alcibiades.- With me? What is your will?\n  CAPHIS. My lord, here is a note of certain dues.\n  TIMON. Dues! Whence are you?\n  CAPHIS. Of Athens here, my lord.\n  TIMON. Go to my steward.\n  CAPHIS. Please it your lordship, he hath put me off\n    To the succession of new days this month.\n    My master is awak'd by great occasion\n    To call upon his own, and humbly prays you\n    That with your other noble parts you'll suit\n    In giving him his right.\n  TIMON. Mine honest friend,\n    I prithee but repair to me next morning.\n  CAPHIS. Nay, good my lord-\n  TIMON. Contain thyself, good friend.\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. One Varro's servant, my good lord-\n  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. From Isidore: he humbly prays your speedy\n    payment-\n  CAPHIS. If you did know, my lord, my master's wants-\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. 'Twas due on forfeiture, my lord, six weeks and\n    past.\n  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. Your steward puts me off, my lord; and\n    I am sent expressly to your lordship.\n  TIMON. Give me breath.\n    I do beseech you, good my lords, keep on;\n    I'll wait upon you instantly.\n                                     Exeunt ALCIBIADES and LORDS\n    [To FLAVIUS] Come hither. Pray you,\n    How goes the world that I am thus encount'red\n    With clamorous demands of date-broke bonds\n    And the detention of long-since-due debts,\n    Against my honour?\n  FLAVIUS. Please you, gentlemen,\n    The time is unagreeable to this business.\n    Your importunacy cease till after dinner,\n    That I may make his lordship understand\n    Wherefore you are not paid.\n  TIMON. Do so, my friends.\n    See them well entertain'd.                              Exit\n  FLAVIUS. Pray draw near.                                  Exit\n\n                      Enter APEMANTUS and FOOL\n\n  CAPHIS. Stay, stay, here comes the fool with Apemantus.\n    Let's ha' some sport with 'em.\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. Hang him, he'll abuse us!\n  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. A plague upon him, dog!\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. How dost, fool?\n  APEMANTUS. Dost dialogue with thy shadow?\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. I speak not to thee.\n  APEMANTUS. No, 'tis to thyself. [To the FOOL] Come away.\n  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. [To VARRO'S SERVANT] There's the fool hangs on\n    your back already.\n  APEMANTUS. No, thou stand'st single; th'art not on him yet.\n  CAPHIS. Where's the fool now?\n  APEMANTUS. He last ask'd the question. Poor rogues and usurers'\n    men! Bawds between gold and want!\n  ALL SERVANTS. What are we, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. Asses.\n  ALL SERVANTS. Why?\n  APEMANTUS. That you ask me what you are, and do not know\n    yourselves. Speak to 'em, fool.\n  FOOL. How do you, gentlemen?\n  ALL SERVANTS. Gramercies, good fool. How does your mistress?\n  FOOL. She's e'en setting on water to scald such chickens as you\n    are. Would we could see you at Corinth!\n  APEMANTUS. Good! gramercy.\n\n                           Enter PAGE\n\n  FOOL. Look you, here comes my mistress' page.\n  PAGE. [To the FOOL] Why, how now, Captain? What do you in this wise\n    company? How dost thou, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. Would I had a rod in my mouth, that I might answer thee\n    profitably!\n  PAGE. Prithee, Apemantus, read me the superscription of these\n    letters; I know not which is which.\n  APEMANTUS. Canst not read?\n  PAGE. No.\n  APEMANTUS. There will little learning die, then, that day thou art\n    hang'd. This is to Lord Timon; this to Alcibiades. Go; thou wast\n    born a bastard, and thou't die a bawd.\n  PAGE. Thou wast whelp'd a dog, and thou shalt famish dog's death.\n    Answer not: I am gone.                             Exit PAGE\n  APEMANTUS. E'en so thou outrun'st grace.\n    Fool, I will go with you to Lord Timon's.\n  FOOL. Will you leave me there?\n  APEMANTUS. If Timon stay at home. You three serve three usurers?\n  ALL SERVANTS. Ay; would they serv'd us!\n  APEMANTUS. So would I- as good a trick as ever hangman serv'd\n    thief.\n  FOOL. Are you three usurers' men?\n  ALL SERVANTS. Ay, fool.\n  FOOL. I think no usurer but has a fool to his servant. My mistress\n    is one, and I am her fool. When men come to borrow of your\n    masters, they approach sadly and go away merry; but they enter my\n    mistress' house merrily and go away sadly. The reason of this?\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. I could render one.\n  APEMANTUS. Do it then, that we may account thee a whoremaster and a\n    knave; which notwithstanding, thou shalt be no less esteemed.\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. What is a whoremaster, fool?\n  FOOL. A fool in good clothes, and something like thee. 'Tis a\n    spirit. Sometime 't appears like a lord; sometime like a lawyer;\n    sometime like a philosopher, with two stones moe than's\n    artificial one. He is very often like a knight; and, generally,\n    in all shapes that man goes up and down in from fourscore to\n    thirteen, this spirit walks in.\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. Thou art not altogether a fool.\n  FOOL. Nor thou altogether a wise man.\n    As much foolery as I have, so much wit thou lack'st.\n  APEMANTUS. That answer might have become Apemantus.\n  VARRO'S SERVANT. Aside, aside; here comes Lord Timon.\n\n                    Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS\n\n  APEMANTUS. Come with me, fool, come.\n  FOOL. I do not always follow lover, elder brother, and woman;\n    sometime the philosopher.\n                                       Exeunt APEMANTUS and FOOL\n  FLAVIUS. Pray you walk near; I'll speak with you anon.\n                                                 Exeunt SERVANTS\n  TIMON. You make me marvel wherefore ere this time\n    Had you not fully laid my state before me,\n    That I might so have rated my expense\n    As I had leave of means.\n  FLAVIUS. You would not hear me\n    At many leisures I propos'd.\n  TIMON. Go to;\n    Perchance some single vantages you took\n    When my indisposition put you back,\n    And that unaptness made your minister\n    Thus to excuse yourself.\n  FLAVIUS. O my good lord,\n    At many times I brought in my accounts,\n    Laid them before you; you would throw them off\n    And say you found them in mine honesty.\n    When, for some trifling present, you have bid me\n    Return so much, I have shook my head and wept;\n    Yea, 'gainst th' authority of manners, pray'd you\n    To hold your hand more close. I did endure\n    Not seldom, nor no slight checks, when I have\n    Prompted you in the ebb of your estate\n    And your great flow of debts. My lov'd lord,\n    Though you hear now- too late!- yet now's a time:\n    The greatest of your having lacks a half\n    To pay your present debts.\n  TIMON. Let all my land be sold.\n  FLAVIUS. 'Tis all engag'd, some forfeited and gone;\n    And what remains will hardly stop the mouth\n    Of present dues. The future comes apace;\n    What shall defend the interim? And at length\n    How goes our reck'ning?\n  TIMON. To Lacedaemon did my land extend.\n  FLAVIUS. O my good lord, the world is but a word;\n    Were it all yours to give it in a breath,\n    How quickly were it gone!\n  TIMON. You tell me true.\n  FLAVIUS. If you suspect my husbandry or falsehood,\n    Call me before th' exactest auditors\n    And set me on the proof. So the gods bless me,\n    When all our offices have been oppress'd\n    With riotous feeders, when our vaults have wept\n    With drunken spilth of wine, when every room\n    Hath blaz'd with lights and bray'd with minstrelsy,\n    I have retir'd me to a wasteful cock\n    And set mine eyes at flow.\n  TIMON. Prithee no more.\n  FLAVIUS. 'Heavens,' have I said 'the bounty of this lord!\n    How many prodigal bits have slaves and peasants\n    This night englutted! Who is not Lord Timon's?\n    What heart, head, sword, force, means, but is Lord Timon's?\n    Great Timon, noble, worthy, royal Timon!'\n    Ah! when the means are gone that buy this praise,\n    The breath is gone whereof this praise is made.\n    Feast-won, fast-lost; one cloud of winter show'rs,\n    These flies are couch'd.\n  TIMON. Come, sermon me no further.\n    No villainous bounty yet hath pass'd my heart;\n    Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given.\n    Why dost thou weep? Canst thou the conscience lack\n    To think I shall lack friends? Secure thy heart:\n    If I would broach the vessels of my love,\n    And try the argument of hearts by borrowing,\n    Men and men's fortunes could I frankly use\n    As I can bid thee speak.\n  FLAVIUS. Assurance bless your thoughts!\n  TIMON. And, in some sort, these wants of mine are crown'd\n    That I account them blessings; for by these\n    Shall I try friends. You shall perceive how you\n    Mistake my fortunes; I am wealthy in my friends.\n    Within there! Flaminius! Servilius!\n\n           Enter FLAMINIUS, SERVILIUS, and another SERVANT\n\n  SERVANTS. My lord! my lord!\n  TIMON. I will dispatch you severally- you to Lord Lucius; to Lord\n    Lucullus you; I hunted with his honour to-day. You to Sempronius.\n    Commend me to their loves; and I am proud, say, that my occasions\n    have found time to use 'em toward a supply of money. Let the\n    request be fifty talents.\n  FLAMINIUS. As you have said, my lord.          Exeunt SERVANTS\n  FLAVIUS. [Aside] Lord Lucius and Lucullus? Humh!\n  TIMON. Go you, sir, to the senators,\n    Of whom, even to the state's best health, I have\n    Deserv'd this hearing. Bid 'em send o' th' instant\n    A thousand talents to me.\n  FLAVIUS. I have been bold,\n    For that I knew it the most general way,\n    To them to use your signet and your name;\n    But they do shake their heads, and I am here\n    No richer in return.\n  TIMON. Is't true? Can't be?\n  FLAVIUS. They answer, in a joint and corporate voice,\n    That now they are at fall, want treasure, cannot\n    Do what they would, are sorry- you are honourable-\n    But yet they could have wish'd- they know not-\n    Something hath been amiss- a noble nature\n    May catch a wrench- would all were well!- 'tis pity-\n    And so, intending other serious matters,\n    After distasteful looks, and these hard fractions,\n    With certain half-caps and cold-moving nods,\n    They froze me into silence.\n  TIMON. You gods, reward them!\n    Prithee, man, look cheerly. These old fellows\n    Have their ingratitude in them hereditary.\n    Their blood is cak'd, 'tis cold, it seldom flows;\n    'Tis lack of kindly warmth they are not kind;\n    And nature, as it grows again toward earth,\n    Is fashion'd for the journey dull and heavy.\n    Go to Ventidius. Prithee be not sad,\n    Thou art true and honest; ingeniously I speak,\n    No blame belongs to thee. Ventidius lately\n    Buried his father, by whose death he's stepp'd\n    Into a great estate. When he was poor,\n    Imprison'd, and in scarcity of friends,\n    I clear'd him with five talents. Greet him from me,\n    Bid him suppose some good necessity\n    Touches his friend, which craves to be rememb'red\n    With those five talents. That had, give't these fellows\n    To whom 'tis instant due. Nev'r speak or think\n    That Timon's fortunes 'mong his friends can sink.\n  FLAVIUS. I would I could not think it.\n    That thought is bounty's foe;\n    Being free itself, it thinks all others so.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nLUCULLUS' house\n\nFLAMINIUS waiting to speak with LUCULLUS. Enter SERVANT to him\n\n  SERVANT. I have told my lord of you; he is coming down to you.\n  FLAMINIUS. I thank you, sir.\n\n                           Enter LUCULLUS\n\n  SERVANT. Here's my lord.\n  LUCULLUS. [Aside] One of Lord Timon's men? A gift, I warrant. Why,\n    this hits right; I dreamt of a silver basin and ewer to-night-\n    Flaminius, honest Flaminius, you are very respectively welcome,\n    sir. Fill me some wine. [Exit SERVANT] And how does that\n    honourable, complete, freehearted gentleman of Athens, thy very\n    bountiful good lord and master?\n  FLAMINIUS. His health is well, sir.\n  LUCULLUS. I am right glad that his health is well, sir. And what\n    hast thou there under thy cloak, pretty Flaminius?\n  FLAMINIUS. Faith, nothing but an empty box, sir, which in my lord's\n    behalf I come to entreat your honour to supply;  who, having\n    great and instant occasion to use fifty talents, hath sent to\n    your lordship to furnish him, nothing doubting your present\n    assistance therein.\n  LUCULLIUS. La, la, la, la! 'Nothing doubting' says he? Alas, good\n    lord! a noble gentleman 'tis, if he would not keep so good a\n    house. Many a time and often I ha' din'd with him and told him\n    on't; and come again to supper to him of purpose to have him\n    spend less; and yet he would embrace no counsel, take no warning\n    by my coming. Every man has his fault, and honesty is his. I ha'\n    told him on't, but I could ne'er get him from't.\n\n                    Re-enter SERVANT, with wine\n\n  SERVANT. Please your lordship, here is the wine.\n  LUCULLUS. Flaminius, I have noted thee always wise. Here's to thee.\n  FLAMINIUS. Your lordship speaks your pleasure.\n  LUCULLUS. I have observed thee always for a towardly prompt spirit,\n    give thee thy due, and one that knows what belongs to reason, and\n    canst use the time well, if the time use thee well. Good parts in\n    thee. [To SERVANT] Get you gone, sirrah. [Exit SERVANT] Draw\n    nearer, honest Flaminius. Thy lord's a bountiful gentleman; but\n    thou art wise, and thou know'st well enough, although thou com'st\n    to me, that this is no time to lend money, especially upon bare\n    friendship without security. Here's three solidares for thee.\n    Good boy, wink at me, and say thou saw'st me not. Fare thee well.\n  FLAMINIUS. Is't possible the world should so much differ,\n    And we alive that liv'd? Fly, damned baseness,\n    To him that worships thee.         [Throwing the money back]\n  LUCULLUS. Ha! Now I see thou art a fool, and fit for thy master.\n Exit\n  FLAMINIUS. May these add to the number that may scald thee!\n    Let molten coin be thy damnation,\n    Thou disease of a friend and not himself!\n    Has friendship such a faint and milky heart\n    It turns in less than two nights? O you gods,\n    I feel my master's passion! This slave\n    Unto his honour has my lord's meat in him;\n    Why should it thrive and turn to nutriment\n    When he is turn'd to poison?\n    O, may diseases only work upon't!\n    And when he's sick to death, let not that part of nature\n    Which my lord paid for be of any power\n    To expel sickness, but prolong his hour!                Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA public place\n\nEnter Lucius, with three STRANGERS\n\n  LUCIUS. Who, the Lord Timon? He is my very good friend, and an\n    honourable gentleman.\n  FIRST STRANGER. We know him for no less, though we are but\n    strangers to him. But I can tell you one thing, my lord, and\n    which I hear from common rumours: now Lord Timon's happy hours\n    are done and past, and his estate shrinks from him.\n  LUCIUS. Fie, no: do not believe it; he cannot want for money.\n  SECOND STRANGER. But believe you this, my lord, that not long ago\n     one of his men was with the Lord Lucullus to borrow so many\n    talents; nay, urg'd extremely for't, and showed what necessity\n    belong'd to't, and yet was denied.\n  LUCIUS. How?\n  SECOND STRANGER. I tell you, denied, my lord.\n  LUCIUS. What a strange case was that! Now, before the gods, I am\n    asham'd on't. Denied that honourable man! There was very little\n    honour show'd in't. For my own part, I must needs confess I have\n    received some small kindnesses from him, as money, plate, jewels,\n    and such-like trifles, nothing comparing to his; yet, had he\n    mistook him and sent to me, I should ne'er have denied his\n    occasion so many talents.\n\n                             Enter SERVILIUS\n\n  SERVILIUS. See, by good hap, yonder's my lord; I have sweat to see\n    his honour.- My honour'd lord!\n  LUCIUS. Servilius? You are kindly met, sir. Fare thee well; commend\n    me to thy honourable virtuous lord, my very exquisite friend.\n  SERVILIUS. May it please your honour, my lord hath sent-\n  LUCIUS. Ha! What has he sent? I am so much endeared to that lord:\n    he's ever sending. How shall I thank him, think'st thou? And what\n    has he sent now?\n  SERVILIUS. Has only sent his present occasion now, my lord,\n    requesting your lordship to supply his instant use with so many\n    talents.\n  LUCIUS. I know his lordship is but merry with me;\n    He cannot want fifty-five hundred talents.\n  SERVILIUS. But in the mean time he wants less, my lord.\n    If his occasion were not virtuous\n    I should not urge it half so faithfully.\n  LUCIUS. Dost thou speak seriously, Servilius?\n  SERVILIUS. Upon my soul, 'tis true, sir.\n  LUCIUS. What a wicked beast was I to disfurnish myself against such\n    a good time, when I might ha' shown myself honourable! How\n    unluckily it happ'ned that I should purchase the day before for a\n    little part and undo a great deal of honour! Servilius, now\n    before the gods, I am not able to do- the more beast, I say! I\n    was sending to use Lord Timon myself, these gentlemen can\n    witness; but I would not for the wealth of Athens I had done't\n    now. Commend me bountifully to his good lordship, and I hope his\n    honour will conceive the fairest of me, because I have no power\n    to be kind. And tell him this from me: I count it one of my\n    greatest afflictions, say, that I cannot pleasure such an\n    honourable gentleman. Good Servilius, will you befriend me so far\n    as to use mine own words to him?\n  SERVILIUS. Yes, sir, I shall.\n  LUCIUS. I'll look you out a good turn, Servilius.\n                                                  Exit SERVILIUS\n    True, as you said, Timon is shrunk indeed;\n    And he that's once denied will hardly speed.            Exit\n  FIRST STRANGER. Do you observe this, Hostilius?\n  SECOND STRANGER. Ay, too well.\n  FIRST STRANGER. Why, this is the world's soul; and just of the same\n      piece\n    Is every flatterer's spirit. Who can call him his friend\n    That dips in the same dish? For, in my knowing,\n    Timon has been this lord's father,\n    And kept his credit with his purse;\n    Supported his estate; nay, Timon's money\n    Has paid his men their wages. He ne'er drinks\n    But Timon's silver treads upon his lip;\n    And yet- O, see the monstrousness of man\n    When he looks out in an ungrateful shape!-\n    He does deny him, in respect of his,\n    What charitable men afford to beggars.\n  THIRD STRANGER. Religion groans at it.\n  FIRST STRANGER. For mine own part,\n    I never tasted Timon in my life,\n    Nor came any of his bounties over me\n    To mark me for his friend; yet I protest,\n    For his right noble mind, illustrious virtue,\n    And honourable carriage,\n    Had his necessity made use of me,\n    I would have put my wealth into donation,\n    And the best half should have return'd to him,\n    So much I love his heart. But I perceive\n    Men must learn now with pity to dispense;\n    For policy sits above conscience.                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nSEMPRONIUS' house\n\nEnter SEMPRONIUS and a SERVANT of TIMON'S\n\n  SEMPRONIUS. Must he needs trouble me in't? Hum! 'Bove all others?\n    He might have tried Lord Lucius or Lucullus;\n    And now Ventidius is wealthy too,\n    Whom he redeem'd from prison. All these\n    Owe their estates unto him.\n  SERVANT. My lord,\n    They have all been touch'd and found base metal, for\n    They have all denied him.\n  SEMPRONIUS. How! Have they denied him?\n    Has Ventidius and Lucullus denied him?\n    And does he send to me? Three? Humh!\n    It shows but little love or judgment in him.\n    Must I be his last refuge? His friends, like physicians,\n    Thrice give him over. Must I take th' cure upon me?\n    Has much disgrac'd me in't; I'm angry at him,\n    That might have known my place. I see no sense for't,\n    But his occasions might have woo'd me first;\n    For, in my conscience, I was the first man\n    That e'er received gift from him.\n    And does he think so backwardly of me now\n    That I'll requite it last? No;\n    So it may prove an argument of laughter\n    To th' rest, and I 'mongst lords be thought a fool.\n    I'd rather than the worth of thrice the sum\n    Had sent to me first, but for my mind's sake;\n    I'd such a courage to do him good. But now return,\n    And with their faint reply this answer join:\n    Who bates mine honour shall not know my coin.           Exit\n  SERVANT. Excellent! Your lordship's a goodly villain. The devil\n    knew not what he did when he made man politic- he cross'd himself\n    by't; and I cannot think but, in the end, the villainies of man\n    will set him clear. How fairly this lord strives to appear foul!\n    Takes virtuous copies to be wicked, like those that under hot\n    ardent zeal would set whole realms on fire.\n    Of such a nature is his politic love.\n    This was my lord's best hope; now all are fled,\n    Save only the gods. Now his friends are dead,\n    Doors that were ne'er acquainted with their wards\n    Many a bounteous year must be employ'd\n    Now to guard sure their master.\n    And this is all a liberal course allows:\n    Who cannot keep his wealth must keep his house.         Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nA hall in TIMON'S house\n\nEnter two Of VARRO'S MEN, meeting LUCIUS' SERVANT, and others,\nall being servants of TIMON's creditors, to wait for his coming out.\nThen enter TITUS and HORTENSIUS\n\n  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. Well met; good morrow, Titus and Hortensius.\n  TITUS. The like to you, kind Varro.\n  HORTENSIUS. Lucius! What, do we meet together?\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Ay, and I think one business does command us all;\n    for mine is money.\n  TITUS. So is theirs and ours.\n\n                          Enter PHILOTUS\n\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. And Sir Philotus too!\n  PHILOTUS. Good day at once.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. welcome, good brother, what do you think the hour?\n  PHILOTUS. Labouring for nine.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. So much?\n  PHILOTUS. Is not my lord seen yet?\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Not yet.\n  PHILOTUS. I wonder on't; he was wont to shine at seven.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Ay, but the days are wax'd shorter with him;\n    You must consider that a prodigal course\n    Is like the sun's, but not like his recoverable.\n    I fear\n    'Tis deepest winter in Lord Timon's purse;\n    That is, one may reach deep enough and yet\n    Find little.\n  PHILOTUS. I am of your fear for that.\n  TITUS. I'll show you how t' observe a strange event.\n    Your lord sends now for money.\n  HORTENSIUS. Most true, he does.\n  TITUS. And he wears jewels now of Timon's gift,\n    For which I wait for money.\n  HORTENSIUS. It is against my heart.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Mark how strange it shows\n    Timon in this should pay more than he owes;\n    And e'en as if your lord should wear rich jewels\n    And send for money for 'em.\n  HORTENSIUS. I'm weary of this charge, the gods can witness;\n    I know my lord hath spent of Timon's wealth,\n    And now ingratitude makes it worse than stealth.\n  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. Yes, mine's three thousand crowns; what's\n    yours?\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Five thousand mine.\n  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. 'Tis much deep; and it should seem by th'\n      sum\n    Your master's confidence was above mine,\n    Else surely his had equall'd.\n\n                           Enter FLAMINIUS\n\n  TITUS. One of Lord Timon's men.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Flaminius! Sir, a word. Pray, is my lord ready to\n    come forth?\n  FLAMINIUS. No, indeed, he is not.\n  TITUS. We attend his lordship; pray signify so much.\n  FLAMINIUS. I need not tell him that; he knows you are to diligent.\n Exit\n\n                 Enter FLAVIUS, in a cloak, muffled\n\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Ha! Is not that his steward muffled so?\n    He goes away in a cloud. Call him, call him.\n  TITUS. Do you hear, sir?\n  SECOND VARRO'S SERVANT. By your leave, sir.\n  FLAVIUS. What do ye ask of me, my friend?\n  TITUS. We wait for certain money here, sir.\n  FLAVIUS. Ay,\n    If money were as certain as your waiting,\n    'Twere sure enough.\n    Why then preferr'd you not your sums and bills\n    When your false masters eat of my lord's meat?\n    Then they could smile, and fawn upon his debts,\n    And take down th' int'rest into their glutt'nous maws.\n    You do yourselves but wrong to stir me up;\n    Let me pass quietly.\n    Believe't, my lord and I have made an end:\n    I have no more to reckon, he to spend.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Ay, but this answer will not serve.\n  FLAVIUS. If 'twill not serve, 'tis not so base as you,\n    For you serve knaves.                                   Exit\n  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. How! What does his cashier'd worship mutter?\n  SECOND VARRO'S SERVANT. No matter what; he's poor, and that's\n    revenge enough. Who can speak broader than he that has no house\n    to put his head in? Such may rail against great buildings.\n\n                          Enter SERVILIUS\n\n  TITUS. O, here's Servilius; now we shall know some answer.\n  SERVILIUS. If I might beseech you, gentlemen, to repair some other\n    hour, I should derive much from't; for take't of my soul, my lord\n    leans wondrously to discontent. His comfortable temper has\n    forsook him; he's much out of health and keeps his chamber.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Many do keep their chambers are not sick;\n    And if it be so far beyond his health,\n    Methinks he should the sooner pay his debts,\n    And make a clear way to the gods.\n  SERVILIUS. Good gods!\n  TITUS. We cannot take this for answer, sir.\n  FLAMINIUS. [Within] Servilius, help! My lord! my lord!\n\n           Enter TIMON, in a rage, FLAMINIUS following\n\n  TIMON. What, are my doors oppos'd against my passage?\n    Have I been ever free, and must my house\n    Be my retentive enemy, my gaol?\n    The place which I have feasted, does it now,\n    Like all mankind, show me an iron heart?\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Put in now, Titus.\n  TITUS. My lord, here is my bill.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Here's mine.\n  HORTENSIUS. And mine, my lord.\n  BOTH VARRO'S SERVANTS. And ours, my lord.\n  PHILOTUS. All our bills.\n  TIMON. Knock me down with 'em; cleave me to the girdle.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Alas, my lord-\n  TIMON. Cut my heart in sums.\n  TITUS. Mine, fifty talents.\n  TIMON. Tell out my blood.\n  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Five thousand crowns, my lord.\n  TIMON. Five thousand drops pays that. What yours? and yours?\n  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. My lord-\n  SECOND VARRO'S SERVANT. My lord-\n  TIMON. Tear me, take me, and the gods fall upon you!      Exit\n  HORTENSIUS. Faith, I perceive our masters may throw their caps at\n    their money. These debts may well be call'd desperate ones, for a\n    madman owes 'em.                                      Exeunt\n\n                    Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS\n\n  TIMON. They have e'en put my breath from me, the slaves.\n    Creditors? Devils!\n  FLAVIUS. My dear lord-\n  TIMON. What if it should be so?\n  FLAMINIUS. My lord-\n  TIMON. I'll have it so. My steward!\n  FLAVIUS. Here, my lord.\n  TIMON. So fitly? Go, bid all my friends again:\n    Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius- all.\n    I'll once more feast the rascals.\n  FLAVIUS. O my lord,\n    You only speak from your distracted soul;\n    There is not so much left to furnish out\n    A moderate table.\n  TIMON. Be it not in thy care.\n    Go, I charge thee, invite them all; let in the tide\n    Of knaves once more; my cook and I'll provide.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nThe Senate House\n\nEnter three SENATORS at one door, ALCIBIADES meeting them, with attendants\n\n  FIRST SENATOR. My lord, you have my voice to't: the fault's bloody.\n    'Tis necessary he should die:\n    Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.\n  SECOND SENATOR. Most true; the law shall bruise him.\n  ALCIBIADES. Honour, health, and compassion, to the Senate!\n  FIRST SENATOR. Now, Captain?\n  ALCIBIADES. I am an humble suitor to your virtues;\n    For pity is the virtue of the law,\n    And none but tyrants use it cruelly.\n    It pleases time and fortune to lie heavy\n    Upon a friend of mine, who in hot blood\n    Hath stepp'd into the law, which is past depth\n    To those that without heed do plunge into't.\n    He is a man, setting his fate aside,\n    Of comely virtues;\n    Nor did he soil the fact with cowardice-\n    An honour in him which buys out his fault-\n    But with a noble fury and fair spirit,\n    Seeing his reputation touch'd to death,\n    He did oppose his foe;\n    And with such sober and unnoted passion\n    He did behove his anger ere 'twas spent,\n    As if he had but prov'd an argument.\n  FIRST SENATOR. You undergo too strict a paradox,\n    Striving to make an ugly deed look fair;\n    Your words have took such pains as if they labour'd\n    To bring manslaughter into form and set\n    Quarrelling upon the head of valour; which, indeed,\n    Is valour misbegot, and came into the world\n    When sects and factions were newly born.\n    He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer\n    The worst that man can breathe,\n    And make his wrongs his outsides,\n    To wear them like his raiment, carelessly,\n    And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart,\n    To bring it into danger.\n    If wrongs be evils, and enforce us kill,\n    What folly 'tis to hazard life for ill!\n  ALCIBIADES. My lord-\n  FIRST SENATOR. You cannot make gross sins look clear:\n    To revenge is no valour, but to bear.\n  ALCIBIADES. My lords, then, under favour, pardon me\n    If I speak like a captain:\n    Why do fond men expose themselves to battle,\n    And not endure all threats? Sleep upon't,\n    And let the foes quietly cut their throats,\n    Without repugnancy? If there be\n    Such valour in the bearing, what make we\n    Abroad? Why, then, women are more valiant,\n    That stay at home, if bearing carry it;\n    And the ass more captain than the lion; the fellow\n    Loaden with irons wiser than the judge,\n    If wisdom be in suffering. O my lords,\n    As you are great, be pitifully good.\n    Who cannot condemn rashness in cold blood?\n    To kill, I grant, is sin's extremest gust;\n    But, in defence, by mercy, 'tis most just.\n    To be in anger is impiety;\n    But who is man that is not angry?\n    Weigh but the crime with this.\n  SECOND SENATOR. You breathe in vain.\n  ALCIBIADES. In vain! His service done\n    At Lacedaemon and Byzantium\n    Were a sufficient briber for his life.\n  FIRST SENATOR. What's that?\n  ALCIBIADES. Why, I say, my lords, has done fair service,\n    And slain in fight many of your enemies;\n    How full of valour did he bear himself\n    In the last conflict, and made plenteous wounds!\n  SECOND SENATOR. He has made too much plenty with 'em.\n    He's a sworn rioter; he has a sin that often\n    Drowns him and takes his valour prisoner.\n    If there were no foes, that were enough\n    To overcome him. In that beastly fury\n    He has been known to commit outrages\n    And cherish factions. 'Tis inferr'd to us\n    His days are foul and his drink dangerous.\n  FIRST SENATOR. He dies.\n  ALCIBIADES. Hard fate! He might have died in war.\n    My lords, if not for any parts in him-\n    Though his right arm might purchase his own time,\n    And be in debt to none- yet, more to move you,\n    Take my deserts to his, and join 'em both;\n    And, for I know your reverend ages love\n    Security, I'll pawn my victories, all\n    My honours to you, upon his good returns.\n    If by this crime he owes the law his life,\n    Why, let the war receive't in valiant gore;\n    For law is strict, and war is nothing more.\n  FIRST SENATOR. We are for law: he dies. Urge it no more\n    On height of our displeasure. Friend or brother,\n    He forfeits his own blood that spills another.\n  ALCIBIADES. Must it be so? It must not be. My lords,\n    I do beseech you, know me.\n  SECOND SENATOR. How!\n  ALCIBIADES. Call me to your remembrances.\n  THIRD SENATOR. What!\n  ALCIBIADES. I cannot think but your age has forgot me;\n    It could not else be I should prove so base\n    To sue, and be denied such common grace.\n    My wounds ache at you.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Do you dare our anger?\n    'Tis in few words, but spacious in effect:\n    We banish thee for ever.\n  ALCIBIADES. Banish me!\n    Banish your dotage! Banish usury\n    That makes the Senate ugly.\n  FIRST SENATOR. If after two days' shine Athens contain thee,\n    Attend our weightier judgment. And, not to swell our spirit,\n    He shall be executed presently.              Exeunt SENATORS\n  ALCIBIADES. Now the gods keep you old enough that you may live\n    Only in bone, that none may look on you!\n    I'm worse than mad; I have kept back their foes,\n    While they have told their money and let out\n    Their coin upon large interest, I myself\n    Rich only in large hurts. All those for this?\n    Is this the balsam that the usuring Senate\n    Pours into captains' wounds? Banishment!\n    It comes not ill; I hate not to be banish'd;\n    It is a cause worthy my spleen and fury,\n    That I may strike at Athens. I'll cheer up\n    My discontented troops, and lay for hearts.\n    'Tis honour with most lands to be at odds;\n    Soldiers should brook as little wrongs as gods.         Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nA banqueting hall in TIMON'S house\n\nMusic. Tables set out; servants attending. Enter divers LORDS,\nfriends of TIMON, at several doors\n\n  FIRST LORD. The good time of day to you, sir.\n  SECOND LORD. I also wish it to you. I think this honourable lord\n    did but try us this other day.\n  FIRST LORD. Upon that were my thoughts tiring when we encount'red.\n    I hope it is not so low with him as he made it seem in the trial\n    of his several friends.\n  SECOND LORD. It should not be, by the persuasion of his new\n    feasting.\n  FIRST LORD. I should think so. He hath sent me an earnest inviting,\n    which many my near occasions did urge me to put off; but he hath\n    conjur'd me beyond them, and I must needs appear.\n  SECOND LORD. In like manner was I in debt to my importunate\n    business, but he would not hear my excuse. I am sorry, when he\n    sent to borrow of me, that my provision was out.\n  FIRST LORD. I am sick of that grief too, as I understand how all\n    things go.\n  SECOND LORD. Every man here's so. What would he have borrowed of\n    you?\n  FIRST LORD. A thousand pieces.\n  SECOND LORD. A thousand pieces!\n  FIRST LORD. What of you?\n  SECOND LORD. He sent to me, sir- here he comes.\n\n                   Enter TIMON and attendants\n\n  TIMON. With all my heart, gentlemen both! And how fare you?\n  FIRST LORD. Ever at the best, hearing well of your lordship.\n  SECOND LORD. The swallow follows not summer more willing than we\n    your lordship.\n  TIMON. [Aside] Nor more willingly leaves winter; such summer-birds\n    are men- Gentlemen, our dinner will not recompense this long\n    stay; feast your ears with the music awhile, if they will fare so\n    harshly o' th' trumpet's sound; we shall to't presently.\n  FIRST LORD. I hope it remains not unkindly with your lordship that\n    I return'd you an empty messenger.\n  TIMON. O sir, let it not trouble you.\n  SECOND LORD. My noble lord-\n  TIMON. Ah, my good friend, what cheer?\n  SECOND LORD. My most honourable lord, I am e'en sick of shame that,\n    when your lordship this other day sent to me, I was so\n    unfortunate a beggar.\n  TIMON. Think not on't, sir.\n  SECOND LORD. If you had sent but two hours before-\n  TIMON. Let it not cumber your better remembrance. [The banquet\n    brought in] Come, bring in all together.\n  SECOND LORD. All cover'd dishes!\n  FIRST LORD. Royal cheer, I warrant you.\n  THIRD LORD. Doubt not that, if money and the season can yield it.\n  FIRST LORD. How do you? What's the news?\n  THIRD LORD. Alcibiades is banish'd. Hear you of it?\n  FIRST AND SECOND LORDS. Alcibiades banish'd!\n  THIRD LORD. 'Tis so, be sure of it.\n  FIRST LORD. How? how?\n  SECOND LORD. I pray you, upon what?\n  TIMON. My worthy friends, will you draw near?\n  THIRD LORD. I'll tell you more anon. Here's a noble feast toward.\n  SECOND LORD. This is the old man still.\n  THIRD LORD. Will't hold? Will't hold?\n  SECOND LORD. It does; but time will- and so-\n  THIRD LORD. I do conceive.\n  TIMON. Each man to his stool with that spur as he would to the lip\n    of his mistress; your diet shall be in all places alike. Make not\n    a city feast of it, to let the meat cool ere we can agree upon\n    the first place. Sit, sit. The gods require our thanks:\n\n    You great benefactors, sprinkle our society with thankfulness.\n    For your own gifts make yourselves prais'd; but reserve still to\n    give, lest your deities be despised. Lend to each man enough,\n    that one need not lend to another; for were your god-heads to\n    borrow of men, men would forsake the gods. Make the meat be\n    beloved more than the man that gives it. Let no assembly of\n    twenty be without a score of villains. If there sit twelve women\n    at the table, let a dozen of them be- as they are. The rest of\n    your foes, O gods, the senators of Athens, together with the\n    common lag of people, what is amiss in them, you gods, make\n    suitable for destruction. For these my present friends, as they\n    are to me nothing, so in nothing bless them, and to nothing are\n    they welcome.\n\n    Uncover, dogs, and lap.        [The dishes are uncovered and\n                                  seen to he full of warm water]\n  SOME SPEAK. What does his lordship mean?\n  SOME OTHER. I know not.\n  TIMON. May you a better feast never behold,\n    You knot of mouth-friends! Smoke and lukewarm water\n    Is your perfection. This is Timon's last;\n    Who, stuck and spangled with your flatteries,\n    Washes it off, and sprinkles in your faces\n                             [Throwing the water in their faces]\n    Your reeking villainy. Live loath'd and long,\n    Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites,\n    Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears,\n    You fools of fortune, trencher friends, time's flies,\n    Cap and knee slaves, vapours, and minute-lacks!\n    Of man and beast the infinite malady\n    Crust you quite o'er! What, dost thou go?\n    Soft, take thy physic first; thou too, and thou.\n    Stay, I will lend thee money, borrow none.       [Throws the\n                            dishes at them, and drives them out]\n    What, all in motion? Henceforth be no feast\n    Whereat a villain's not a welcome guest.\n    Burn house! Sink Athens! Henceforth hated be\n    Of Timon man and all humanity!                          Exit\n\n                           Re-enter the LORDS\n\n  FIRST LORD. How now, my lords!\n  SECOND LORD. Know you the quality of Lord Timon's fury?\n  THIRD LORD. Push! Did you see my cap?\n  FOURTH LORD. I have lost my gown.\n  FIRST LORD. He's but a mad lord, and nought but humours sways him.\n    He gave me a jewel th' other day, and now he has beat it out of\n    my hat. Did you see my jewel?\n  THIRD LORD. Did you see my cap?\n  SECOND LORD. Here 'tis.\n  FOURTH LORD. Here lies my gown.\n  FIRST LORD. Let's make no stay.\n  SECOND LORD. Lord Timon's mad.\n  THIRD LORD. I feel't upon my bones.\n  FOURTH LORD. One day he gives us diamonds, next day stones.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nWithout the walls of Athens\n\nEnter TIMON\n\n  TIMON. Let me look back upon thee. O thou wall\n    That girdles in those wolves, dive in the earth\n    And fence not Athens! Matrons, turn incontinent.\n    Obedience, fail in children! Slaves and fools,\n    Pluck the grave wrinkled Senate from the bench\n    And minister in their steads. To general filths\n    Convert, o' th' instant, green virginity.\n    Do't in your parents' eyes. Bankrupts, hold fast;\n    Rather than render back, out with your knives\n    And cut your trusters' throats. Bound servants, steal:\n    Large-handed robbers your grave masters are,\n    And pill by law. Maid, to thy master's bed:\n    Thy mistress is o' th' brothel. Son of sixteen,\n    Pluck the lin'd crutch from thy old limping sire,\n    With it beat out his brains. Piety and fear,\n    Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,\n    Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood,\n    Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades,\n    Degrees, observances, customs and laws,\n    Decline to your confounding contraries\n    And let confusion live. Plagues incident to men,\n    Your potent and infectious fevers heap\n    On Athens, ripe for stroke. Thou cold sciatica,\n    Cripple our senators, that their limbs may halt\n    As lamely as their manners. Lust and liberty,\n    Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth,\n    That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive\n    And drown themselves in riot. Itches, blains,\n    Sow all th' Athenian bosoms, and their crop\n    Be general leprosy! Breath infect breath,\n    That their society, as their friendship, may\n    Be merely poison! Nothing I'll bear from thee\n    But nakedness, thou detestable town!\n    Take thou that too, with multiplying bans.\n    Timon will to the woods, where he shall find\n    Th' unkindest beast more kinder than mankind.\n    The gods confound- hear me, you good gods all-\n    The Athenians both within and out that wall!\n    And grant, as Timon grows, his hate may grow\n    To the whole race of mankind, high and low!\n    Amen.                                                   Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAthens. TIMON's house\n\nEnter FLAVIUS, with two or three SERVANTS\n\n  FIRST SERVANT. Hear you, Master Steward, where's our master?\n    Are we undone, cast off, nothing remaining?\n  FLAVIUS. Alack, my fellows, what should I say to you?\n    Let me be recorded by the righteous gods,\n    I am as poor as you.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Such a house broke!\n    So noble a master fall'n! All gone, and not\n    One friend to take his fortune by the arm\n    And go along with him?\n  SECOND SERVANT. As we do turn our backs\n    From our companion, thrown into his grave,\n    So his familiars to his buried fortunes\n    Slink all away; leave their false vows with him,\n    Like empty purses pick'd; and his poor self,\n    A dedicated beggar to the air,\n    With his disease of all-shunn'd poverty,\n    Walks, like contempt, alone. More of our fellows.\n\n                     Enter other SERVANTS\n\n  FLAVIUS. All broken implements of a ruin'd house.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Yet do our hearts wear Timon's livery;\n    That see I by our faces. We are fellows still,\n    Serving alike in sorrow. Leak'd is our bark;\n    And we, poor mates, stand on the dying deck,\n    Hearing the surges threat. We must all part\n    Into this sea of air.\n  FLAVIUS. Good fellows all,\n    The latest of my wealth I'll share amongst you.\n    Wherever we shall meet, for Timon's sake,\n    Let's yet be fellows; let's shake our heads and say,\n    As 'twere a knell unto our master's fortune,\n    'We have seen better days.' Let each take some.\n                                             [Giving them money]\n    Nay, put out all your hands. Not one word more!\n    Thus part we rich in sorrow, parting poor.\n                                [Embrace, and part several ways]\n    O the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us!\n    Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt,\n    Since riches point to misery and contempt?\n    Who would be so mock'd with glory, or to live\n    But in a dream of friendship,\n    To have his pomp, and all what state compounds,\n    But only painted, like his varnish'd friends?\n    Poor honest lord, brought low by his own heart,\n    Undone by goodness! Strange, unusual blood,\n    When man's worst sin is he does too much good!\n    Who then dares to be half so kind again?\n    For bounty, that makes gods, does still mar men.\n    My dearest lord- blest to be most accurst,\n    Rich only to be wretched- thy great fortunes\n    Are made thy chief afflictions. Alas, kind lord!\n    He's flung in rage from this ingrateful seat\n    Of monstrous friends; nor has he with him to\n    Supply his life, or that which can command it.\n    I'll follow and enquire him out.\n    I'll ever serve his mind with my best will;\n    Whilst I have gold, I'll be his steward still.          Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe woods near the sea-shore. Before TIMON'S cave\n\nEnter TIMON in the woods\n\n  TIMON. O blessed breeding sun, draw from the earth\n    Rotten humidity; below thy sister's orb\n    Infect the air! Twinn'd brothers of one womb-\n    Whose procreation, residence, and birth,\n    Scarce is dividant- touch them with several fortunes:\n    The greater scorns the lesser. Not nature,\n    To whom all sores lay siege, can bear great fortune\n    But by contempt of nature.\n    Raise me this beggar and deny't that lord:\n    The senator shall bear contempt hereditary,\n    The beggar native honour.\n    It is the pasture lards the rother's sides,\n    The want that makes him lean. Who dares, who dares,\n    In purity of manhood stand upright,\n    And say 'This man's a flatterer'? If one be,\n    So are they all; for every grise of fortune\n    Is smooth'd by that below. The learned pate\n    Ducks to the golden fool. All's oblique;\n    There's nothing level in our cursed natures\n    But direct villainy. Therefore be abhorr'd\n    All feasts, societies, and throngs of men!\n    His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdains.\n    Destruction fang mankind! Earth, yield me roots.\n                                                       [Digging]\n    Who seeks for better of thee, sauce his palate\n    With thy most operant poison. What is here?\n    Gold? Yellow, glittering, precious gold? No, gods,\n    I am no idle votarist. Roots, you clear heavens!\n    Thus much of this will make black white, foul fair,\n    Wrong right, base noble, old young, coward valiant.\n    Ha, you gods! why this? What, this, you gods? Why, this\n    Will lug your priests and servants from your sides,\n    Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads-\n    This yellow slave\n    Will knit and break religions, bless th' accurs'd,\n    Make the hoar leprosy ador'd, place thieves\n    And give them title, knee, and approbation,\n    With senators on the bench. This is it\n    That makes the wappen'd widow wed again-\n    She whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores\n    Would cast the gorge at this embalms and spices\n    To th 'April day again. Come, damn'd earth,\n    Thou common whore of mankind, that puts odds\n    Among the rout of nations, I will make thee\n    Do thy right nature.                        [March afar off]\n    Ha! a drum? Th'art quick,\n    But yet I'll bury thee. Thou't go, strong thief,\n    When gouty keepers of thee cannot stand.\n    Nay, stay thou out for earnest.          [Keeping some gold]\n\n          Enter ALCIBIADES, with drum and fife, in warlike\n                  manner; and PHRYNIA and TIMANDRA\n\n  ALCIBIADES. What art thou there? Speak.\n  TIMON. A beast, as thou art. The canker gnaw thy heart\n    For showing me again the eyes of man!\n  ALCIBIADES. What is thy name? Is man so hateful to thee\n    That art thyself a man?\n  TIMON. I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind.\n    For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,\n    That I might love thee something.\n  ALCIBIADES. I know thee well;\n    But in thy fortunes am unlearn'd and strange.\n  TIMON. I know thee too; and more than that I know thee\n    I not desire to know. Follow thy drum;\n    With man's blood paint the ground, gules, gules.\n    Religious canons, civil laws, are cruel;\n    Then what should war be? This fell whore of thine\n    Hath in her more destruction than thy sword\n    For all her cherubin look.\n  PHRYNIA. Thy lips rot off!\n  TIMON. I will not kiss thee; then the rot returns\n    To thine own lips again.\n  ALCIBIADES. How came the noble Timon to this change?\n  TIMON. As the moon does, by wanting light to give.\n    But then renew I could not, like the moon;\n    There were no suns to borrow of.\n  ALCIBIADES. Noble Timon,\n    What friendship may I do thee?\n  TIMON. None, but to\n    Maintain my opinion.\n  ALCIBIADES. What is it, Timon?\n  TIMON. Promise me friendship, but perform none. If thou wilt not\n    promise, the gods plague thee, for thou art man! If thou dost\n    perform, confound thee, for thou art a man!\n  ALCIBIADES. I have heard in some sort of thy miseries.\n  TIMON. Thou saw'st them when I had prosperity.\n  ALCIBIADES. I see them now; then was a blessed time.\n  TIMON. As thine is now, held with a brace of harlots.\n  TIMANDRA. Is this th' Athenian minion whom the world\n    Voic'd so regardfully?\n  TIMON. Art thou Timandra?\n  TIMANDRA. Yes.\n  TIMON. Be a whore still; they love thee not that use thee.\n    Give them diseases, leaving with thee their lust.\n    Make use of thy salt hours. Season the slaves\n    For tubs and baths; bring down rose-cheek'd youth\n    To the tub-fast and the diet.\n  TIMANDRA. Hang thee, monster!\n  ALCIBIADES. Pardon him, sweet Timandra, for his wits\n    Are drown'd and lost in his calamities.\n    I have but little gold of late, brave Timon,\n    The want whereof doth daily make revolt\n    In my penurious band. I have heard, and griev'd,\n    How cursed Athens, mindless of thy worth,\n    Forgetting thy great deeds, when neighbour states,\n    But for thy sword and fortune, trod upon them-\n  TIMON. I prithee beat thy drum and get thee gone.\n  ALCIBIADES. I am thy friend, and pity thee, dear Timon.\n  TIMON. How dost thou pity him whom thou dost trouble?\n    I had rather be alone.\n  ALCIBIADES. Why, fare thee well;\n    Here is some gold for thee.\n  TIMON. Keep it: I cannot eat it.\n  ALCIBIADES. When I have laid proud Athens on a heap-\n  TIMON. War'st thou 'gainst Athens?\n  ALCIBIADES. Ay, Timon, and have cause.\n  TIMON. The gods confound them all in thy conquest;\n    And thee after, when thou hast conquer'd!\n  ALCIBIADES. Why me, Timon?\n  TIMON. That by killing of villains\n    Thou wast born to conquer my country.\n    Put up thy gold. Go on. Here's gold. Go on.\n    Be as a planetary plague, when Jove\n    Will o'er some high-vic'd city hang his poison\n    In the sick air; let not thy sword skip one.\n    Pity not honour'd age for his white beard:\n    He is an usurer. Strike me the counterfeit matron:\n    It is her habit only that is honest,\n    Herself's a bawd. Let not the virgin's cheek\n    Make soft thy trenchant sword; for those milk paps\n    That through the window bars bore at men's eyes\n    Are not within the leaf of pity writ,\n    But set them down horrible traitors. Spare not the babe\n    Whose dimpled smiles from fools exhaust their mercy;\n    Think it a bastard whom the oracle\n    Hath doubtfully pronounc'd thy throat shall cut,\n    And mince it sans remorse. Swear against abjects;\n    Put armour on thine ears and on thine eyes,\n    Whose proof nor yells of mothers, maids, nor babes,\n    Nor sight of priests in holy vestments bleeding,\n    Shall pierce a jot. There's gold to pay thy soldiers.\n    Make large confusion; and, thy fury spent,\n    Confounded be thyself! Speak not, be gone.\n  ALCIBIADES. Hast thou gold yet? I'll take the gold thou givest me,\n    Not all thy counsel.\n  TIMON. Dost thou, or dost thou not, heaven's curse upon thee!\n  PHRYNIA AND TIMANDRA. Give us some gold, good Timon.\n    Hast thou more?\n  TIMON. Enough to make a whore forswear her trade,\n    And to make whores a bawd. Hold up, you sluts,\n    Your aprons mountant; you are not oathable,\n    Although I know you'll swear, terribly swear,\n    Into strong shudders and to heavenly agues,\n    Th' immortal gods that hear you. Spare your oaths;\n    I'll trust to your conditions. Be whores still;\n    And he whose pious breath seeks to convert you-\n    Be strong in whore, allure him, burn him up;\n    Let your close fire predominate his smoke,\n    And be no turncoats. Yet may your pains six months\n    Be quite contrary! And thatch your poor thin roofs\n    With burdens of the dead- some that were hang'd,\n    No matter. Wear them, betray with them. Whore still;\n    Paint till a horse may mire upon your face.\n    A pox of wrinkles!\n  PHRYNIA AND TIMANDRA. Well, more gold. What then?\n    Believe't that we'll do anything for gold.\n  TIMON. Consumptions sow\n    In hollow bones of man; strike their sharp shins,\n    And mar men's spurring. Crack the lawyer's voice,\n    That he may never more false title plead,\n    Nor sound his quillets shrilly. Hoar the flamen,\n    That scolds against the quality of flesh\n    And not believes himself. Down with the nose,\n    Down with it flat, take the bridge quite away\n    Of him that, his particular to foresee,\n    Smells from the general weal. Make curl'd-pate ruffians bald,\n    And let the unscarr'd braggarts of the war\n    Derive some pain from you. Plague all,\n    That your activity may defeat and quell\n    The source of all erection. There's more gold.\n    Do you damn others, and let this damn you,\n    And ditches grave you all!\n  PHRYNIA AND TIMANDRA. More counsel with more money, bounteous\n    Timon.\n  TIMON. More whore, more mischief first; I have given you earnest.\n  ALCIBIADES. Strike up the drum towards Athens. Farewell, Timon;\n    If I thrive well, I'll visit thee again.\n  TIMON. If I hope well, I'll never see thee more.\n  ALCIBIADES. I never did thee harm.\n  TIMON. Yes, thou spok'st well of me.\n  ALCIBIADES. Call'st thou that harm?\n  TIMON. Men daily find it. Get thee away, and take\n    Thy beagles with thee.\n  ALCIBIADES. We but offend him. Strike.\n                                Drum beats. Exeunt all but TIMON\n  TIMON. That nature, being sick of man's unkindness,\n    Should yet be hungry! Common mother, thou,         [Digging]\n    Whose womb unmeasurable and infinite breast\n    Teems and feeds all; whose self-same mettle,\n    Whereof thy proud child, arrogant man, is puff'd,\n    Engenders the black toad and adder blue,\n    The gilded newt and eyeless venom'd worm,\n    With all th' abhorred births below crisp heaven\n    Whereon Hyperion's quick'ning fire doth shine-\n    Yield him, who all thy human sons doth hate,\n    From forth thy plenteous bosom, one poor root!\n    Ensear thy fertile and conceptious womb,\n    Let it no more bring out ingrateful man!\n    Go great with tigers, dragons, wolves, and bears;\n    Teem with new monsters whom thy upward face\n    Hath to the marbled mansion all above\n    Never presented!- O, a root! Dear thanks!-\n    Dry up thy marrows, vines, and plough-torn leas,\n    Whereof ingrateful man, with liquorish draughts\n    And morsels unctuous, greases his pure mind,\n    That from it all consideration slips-\n\n                        Enter APEMANTUS\n\n    More man? Plague, plague!\n  APEMANTUS. I was directed hither. Men report\n    Thou dost affect my manners and dost use them.\n  TIMON. 'Tis, then, because thou dost not keep a dog,\n    Whom I would imitate. Consumption catch thee!\n  APEMANTUS. This is in thee a nature but infected,\n    A poor unmanly melancholy sprung\n    From change of fortune. Why this spade, this place?\n    This slave-like habit and these looks of care?\n    Thy flatterers yet wear silk, drink wine, lie soft,\n    Hug their diseas'd perfumes, and have forgot\n    That ever Timon was. Shame not these woods\n    By putting on the cunning of a carper.\n    Be thou a flatterer now, and seek to thrive\n    By that which has undone thee: hinge thy knee,\n    And let his very breath whom thou'lt observe\n    Blow off thy cap; praise his most vicious strain,\n    And call it excellent. Thou wast told thus;\n    Thou gav'st thine ears, like tapsters that bade welcome,\n    To knaves and all approachers. 'Tis most just\n    That thou turn rascal; hadst thou wealth again\n    Rascals should have't. Do not assume my likeness.\n  TIMON. Were I like thee, I'd throw away myself.\n  APEMANTUS. Thou hast cast away thyself, being like thyself;\n    A madman so long, now a fool. What, think'st\n    That the bleak air, thy boisterous chamberlain,\n    Will put thy shirt on warm? Will these moist trees,\n    That have outliv'd the eagle, page thy heels\n    And skip when thou point'st out? Will the cold brook,\n    Candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste\n    To cure thy o'ernight's surfeit? Call the creatures\n    Whose naked natures live in all the spite\n    Of wreakful heaven, whose bare unhoused trunks,\n    To the conflicting elements expos'd,\n    Answer mere nature- bid them flatter thee.\n    O, thou shalt find-\n  TIMON. A fool of thee. Depart.\n  APEMANTUS. I love thee better now than e'er I did.\n  TIMON. I hate thee worse.\n  APEMANTUS. Why?\n  TIMON. Thou flatter'st misery.\n  APEMANTUS. I flatter not, but say thou art a caitiff.\n  TIMON. Why dost thou seek me out?\n  APEMANTUS. To vex thee.\n  TIMON. Always a villain's office or a fool's.\n    Dost please thyself in't?\n  APEMANTUS. Ay.\n  TIMON. What, a knave too?\n  APEMANTUS. If thou didst put this sour-cold habit on\n    To castigate thy pride, 'twere well; but thou\n    Dost it enforcedly. Thou'dst courtier be again\n    Wert thou not beggar. Willing misery\n    Outlives incertain pomp, is crown'd before.\n    The one is filling still, never complete;\n    The other, at high wish. Best state, contentless,\n    Hath a distracted and most wretched being,\n    Worse than the worst, content.\n    Thou should'st desire to die, being miserable.\n  TIMON. Not by his breath that is more miserable.\n    Thou art a slave whom Fortune's tender arm\n    With favour never clasp'd, but bred a dog.\n    Hadst thou, like us from our first swath, proceeded\n    The sweet degrees that this brief world affords\n    To such as may the passive drugs of it\n    Freely command, thou wouldst have plung'd thyself\n    In general riot, melted down thy youth\n    In different beds of lust, and never learn'd\n    The icy precepts of respect, but followed\n    The sug'red game before thee. But myself,\n    Who had the world as my confectionary;\n    The mouths, the tongues, the eyes, and hearts of men\n    At duty, more than I could frame employment;\n    That numberless upon me stuck, as leaves\n    Do on the oak, have with one winter's brush\n    Fell from their boughs, and left me open, bare\n    For every storm that blows- I to bear this,\n    That never knew but better, is some burden.\n    Thy nature did commence in sufferance; time\n    Hath made thee hard in't. Why shouldst thou hate men?\n    They never flatter'd thee. What hast thou given?\n    If thou wilt curse, thy father, that poor rag,\n    Must be thy subject; who, in spite, put stuff\n    To some she-beggar and compounded thee\n    Poor rogue hereditary. Hence, be gone.\n    If thou hadst not been born the worst of men,\n    Thou hadst been a knave and flatterer.\n  APEMANTUS. Art thou proud yet?\n  TIMON. Ay, that I am not thee.\n  APEMANTUS. I, that I was\n    No prodigal.\n  TIMON. I, that I am one now.\n    Were all the wealth I have shut up in thee,\n    I'd give thee leave to hang it. Get thee gone.\n    That the whole life of Athens were in this!\n    Thus would I eat it.                         [Eating a root]\n  APEMANTUS. Here! I will mend thy feast.\n                                             [Offering him food]\n  TIMON. First mend my company: take away thyself.\n  APEMANTUS. So I shall mend mine own by th' lack of thine.\n  TIMON. 'Tis not well mended so; it is but botch'd.\n    If not, I would it were.\n  APEMANTUS. What wouldst thou have to Athens?\n  TIMON. Thee thither in a whirlwind. If thou wilt,\n    Tell them there I have gold; look, so I have.\n  APEMANTUS. Here is no use for gold.\n  TIMON. The best and truest;\n    For here it sleeps and does no hired harm.\n  APEMANTUS. Where liest a nights, Timon?\n  TIMON. Under that's above me.\n    Where feed'st thou a days, Apemantus?\n  APEMANTUS. Where my stomach. finds meat; or rather, where I eat it.\n  TIMON. Would poison were obedient, and knew my mind!\n  APEMANTUS. Where wouldst thou send it?\n  TIMON. To sauce thy dishes.\n  APEMANTUS. The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the\n    extremity of both ends. When thou wast in thy gilt and thy\n    perfume, they mock'd thee for too much curiosity; in thy rags\n    thou know'st none, but art despis'd for the contrary. There's a\n    medlar for thee; eat it.\n  TIMON. On what I hate I feed not.\n  APEMANTUS. Dost hate a medlar?\n  TIMON. Ay, though it look like thee.\n  APEMANTUS. An th' hadst hated medlars sooner, thou shouldst have\n    loved thyself better now. What man didst thou ever know unthrift\n    that was beloved after his means?\n  TIMON. Who, without those means thou talk'st of, didst thou ever\n    know belov'd?\n  APEMANTUS. Myself.\n  TIMON. I understand thee: thou hadst some means to keep a dog.\n  APEMANTUS. What things in the world canst thou nearest compare to\n    thy flatterers?\n  TIMON. Women nearest; but men, men are the things themselves. What\n    wouldst thou do with the world, Apemantus, if it lay in thy\n    power?\n  APEMANTUS. Give it the beasts, to be rid of the men.\n  TIMON. Wouldst thou have thyself fall in the confusion of men, and\n    remain a beast with the beasts?\n  APEMANTUS. Ay, Timon.\n  TIMON. A beastly ambition, which the gods grant thee t' attain to!\n    If thou wert the lion, the fox would beguile thee; if thou wert\n    the lamb, the fox would eat thee; if thou wert the fox, the lion\n    would suspect thee, when, peradventure, thou wert accus'd by the\n    ass. If thou wert the ass, thy dulness would torment thee; and\n    still thou liv'dst but as a breakfast to the wolf. If thou wert\n    the wolf, thy greediness would afflict thee, and oft thou\n    shouldst hazard thy life for thy dinner. Wert thou the unicorn,\n    pride and wrath would confound thee, and make thine own self the\n    conquest of thy fury. Wert thou bear, thou wouldst be kill'd by\n    the horse; wert thou a horse, thou wouldst be seiz'd by the\n    leopard; wert thou a leopard, thou wert german to the lion, and\n    the spots of thy kindred were jurors on thy life. All thy safety\n    were remotion, and thy defence absence. What beast couldst thou\n    be that were not subject to a beast? And what beast art thou\n    already, that seest not thy loss in transformation!\n  APEMANTUS. If thou couldst please me with speaking to me, thou\n    mightst have hit upon it here. The commonwealth of Athens is\n    become a forest of beasts.\n  TIMON. How has the ass broke the wall, that thou art out of the\n    city?\n  APEMANTUS. Yonder comes a poet and a painter. The plague of company\n    light upon thee! I will fear to catch it, and give way. When I\n    know not what else to do, I'll see thee again.\n  TIMON. When there is nothing living but thee, thou shalt be\n    welcome. I had rather be a beggar's dog than Apemantus.\n  APEMANTUS. Thou art the cap of all the fools alive.\n  TIMON. Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!\n  APEMANTUS. A plague on thee! thou art too bad to curse.\n  TIMON. All villains that do stand by thee are pure.\n  APEMANTUS. There is no leprosy but what thou speak'st.\n  TIMON. If I name thee.\n    I'll beat thee- but I should infect my hands.\n  APEMANTUS. I would my tongue could rot them off!\n  TIMON. Away, thou issue of a mangy dog!\n    Choler does kill me that thou art alive;\n    I swoon to see thee.\n  APEMANTUS. Would thou wouldst burst!\n  TIMON. Away,\n    Thou tedious rogue! I am sorry I shall lose\n    A stone by thee.                     [Throws a stone at him]\n  APEMANTUS. Beast!\n  TIMON. Slave!\n  APEMANTUS. Toad!\n  TIMON. Rogue, rogue, rogue!\n    I am sick of this false world, and will love nought\n    But even the mere necessities upon't.\n    Then, Timon, presently prepare thy grave;\n    Lie where the light foam of the sea may beat\n    Thy gravestone daily; make thine epitaph,\n    That death in me at others' lives may laugh.\n    [Looks at the gold] O thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce\n    'Twixt natural son and sire! thou bright defiler\n    Of Hymen's purest bed! thou valiant Mars!\n    Thou ever young, fresh, lov'd, and delicate wooer,\n    Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow\n    That lies on Dian's lap! thou visible god,\n    That sold'rest close impossibilities,\n    And mak'st them kiss! that speak'st with every tongue\n    To every purpose! O thou touch of hearts!\n    Think thy slave man rebels, and by thy virtue\n    Set them into confounding odds, that beasts\n    May have the world in empire!\n  APEMANTUS. Would 'twere so!\n    But not till I am dead. I'll say th' hast gold.\n    Thou wilt be throng'd to shortly.\n  TIMON. Throng'd to?\n  APEMANTUS. Ay.\n  TIMON. Thy back, I prithee.\n  APEMANTUS. Live, and love thy misery!\n  TIMON. Long live so, and so die! [Exit APEMANTUS] I am quit. More\n    things like men? Eat, Timon, and abhor them.\n\n                       Enter the BANDITTI\n\n  FIRST BANDIT. Where should he have this gold? It is some poor\n    fragment, some slender ort of his remainder. The mere want of\n    gold and the falling-from of his friends drove him into this\n    melancholy.\n  SECOND BANDIT. It is nois'd he hath a mass of treasure.\n  THIRD BANDIT. Let us make the assay upon him; if he care not for't,\n    he will supply us easily; if he covetously reserve it, how\n    shall's get it?\n  SECOND BANDIT. True; for he bears it not about him. 'Tis hid.\n  FIRST BANDIT. Is not this he?\n  BANDITTI. Where?\n  SECOND BANDIT. 'Tis his description.\n  THIRD BANDIT. He; I know him.\n  BANDITTI. Save thee, Timon!\n  TIMON. Now, thieves?\n  BANDITTI. Soldiers, not thieves.\n  TIMON. Both too, and women's sons.\n  BANDITTI. We are not thieves, but men that much do want.\n  TIMON. Your greatest want is, you want much of meat.\n    Why should you want? Behold, the earth hath roots;\n    Within this mile break forth a hundred springs;\n    The oaks bear mast, the briars scarlet hips;\n    The bounteous housewife Nature on each bush\n    Lays her full mess before you. Want! Why want?\n  FIRST BANDIT. We cannot live on grass, on berries, water,\n    As beasts and birds and fishes.\n  TIMON. Nor on the beasts themselves, the birds, and fishes;\n    You must eat men. Yet thanks I must you con\n    That you are thieves profess'd, that you work not\n    In holier shapes; for there is boundless theft\n    In limited professions. Rascal thieves,\n    Here's gold. Go, suck the subtle blood o' th' grape\n    Till the high fever seethe your blood to froth,\n    And so scape hanging. Trust not the physician;\n    His antidotes are poison, and he slays\n    Moe than you rob. Take wealth and lives together;\n    Do villainy, do, since you protest to do't,\n    Like workmen. I'll example you with thievery:\n    The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction\n    Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief,\n    And her pale fire she snatches from the sun;\n    The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves\n    The moon into salt tears; the earth's a thief,\n    That feeds and breeds by a composture stol'n\n    From gen'ral excrement- each thing's a thief.\n    The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power\n    Has uncheck'd theft. Love not yourselves; away,\n    Rob one another. There's more gold. Cut throats;\n    All that you meet are thieves. To Athens go,\n    Break open shops; nothing can you steal\n    But thieves do lose it. Steal not less for this\n    I give you; and gold confound you howsoe'er!\n    Amen.\n  THIRD BANDIT. Has almost charm'd me from my profession by\n    persuading me to it.\n  FIRST BANDIT. 'Tis in the malice of mankind that he thus advises\n    us; not to have us thrive in our mystery.\n  SECOND BANDIT. I'll believe him as an enemy, and give over my\n    trade.\n  FIRST BANDIT. Let us first see peace in Athens. There is no time so\n    miserable but a man may be true.              Exeunt THIEVES\n\n                         Enter FLAVIUS, to TIMON\n\n  FLAVIUS. O you gods!\n    Is yond despis'd and ruinous man my lord?\n    Full of decay and failing? O monument\n    And wonder of good deeds evilly bestow'd!\n    What an alteration of honour\n    Has desp'rate want made!\n    What viler thing upon the earth than friends,\n    Who can bring noblest minds to basest ends!\n    How rarely does it meet with this time's guise,\n    When man was wish'd to love his enemies!\n    Grant I may ever love, and rather woo\n    Those that would mischief me than those that do!\n    Has caught me in his eye; I will present\n    My honest grief unto him, and as my lord\n    Still serve him with my life. My dearest master!\n  TIMON. Away! What art thou?\n  FLAVIUS. Have you forgot me, sir?\n  TIMON. Why dost ask that? I have forgot all men;\n    Then, if thou grant'st th'art a man, I have forgot thee.\n  FLAVIUS. An honest poor servant of yours.\n  TIMON. Then I know thee not.\n    I never had honest man about me, I.\n    All I kept were knaves, to serve in meat to villains.\n  FLAVIUS. The gods are witness,\n    Nev'r did poor steward wear a truer grief\n    For his undone lord than mine eyes for you.\n  TIMON. What, dost thou weep? Come nearer. Then I love thee\n    Because thou art a woman and disclaim'st\n    Flinty mankind, whose eyes do never give\n    But thorough lust and laughter. Pity's sleeping.\n    Strange times, that weep with laughing, not with weeping!\n  FLAVIUS. I beg of you to know me, good my lord,\n    T' accept my grief, and whilst this poor wealth lasts\n    To entertain me as your steward still.\n  TIMON. Had I a steward\n    So true, so just, and now so comfortable?\n    It almost turns my dangerous nature mild.\n    Let me behold thy face. Surely, this man\n    Was born of woman.\n    Forgive my general and exceptless rashness,\n    You perpetual-sober gods! I do proclaim\n    One honest man- mistake me not, but one;\n    No more, I pray- and he's a steward.\n    How fain would I have hated all mankind!\n    And thou redeem'st thyself. But all, save thee,\n    I fell with curses.\n    Methinks thou art more honest now than wise;\n    For by oppressing and betraying me\n    Thou mightst have sooner got another service;\n    For many so arrive at second masters\n    Upon their first lord's neck. But tell me true,\n    For I must ever doubt though ne'er so sure,\n    Is not thy kindness subtle, covetous,\n    If not a usuring kindness, and as rich men deal gifts,\n    Expecting in return twenty for one?\n  FLAVIUS. No, my most worthy master, in whose breast\n    Doubt and suspect, alas, are plac'd too late!\n    You should have fear'd false times when you did feast:\n    Suspect still comes where an estate is least.\n    That which I show, heaven knows, is merely love,\n    Duty, and zeal, to your unmatched mind,\n    Care of your food and living; and believe it,\n    My most honour'd lord,\n    For any benefit that points to me,\n    Either in hope or present, I'd exchange\n    For this one wish, that you had power and wealth\n    To requite me by making rich yourself.\n  TIMON. Look thee, 'tis so! Thou singly honest man,\n    Here, take. The gods, out of my misery,\n    Have sent thee treasure. Go, live rich and happy,\n    But thus condition'd; thou shalt build from men;\n    Hate all, curse all, show charity to none,\n    But let the famish'd flesh slide from the bone\n    Ere thou relieve the beggar. Give to dogs\n    What thou deniest to men; let prisons swallow 'em,\n    Debts wither 'em to nothing. Be men like blasted woods,\n    And may diseases lick up their false bloods!\n    And so, farewell and thrive.\n  FLAVIUS. O, let me stay\n    And comfort you, my master.\n  TIMON. If thou hat'st curses,\n    Stay not; fly whilst thou art blest and free.\n    Ne'er see thou man, and let me ne'er see thee.\n                                                Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nThe woods. Before TIMON's cave\n\nEnter POET and PAINTER\n\n  PAINTER. As I took note of the place, it cannot be far where he\n    abides.\n  POET. to be thought of him? Does the rumour hold for true that he's\n    so full of gold?\n  PAINTER. Certain. Alcibiades reports it; Phrynia and Timandra had\n    gold of him. He likewise enrich'd poor straggling soldiers with\n    great quantity. 'Tis said he gave unto his steward a mighty sum.\n  POET. Then this breaking of his has been but a try for his friends?\n  PAINTER. Nothing else. You shall see him a palm in Athens again,\n    and flourish with the highest. Therefore 'tis not amiss we tender\n    our loves to him in this suppos'd distress of his; it will show\n    honestly in us, and is very likely to load our purposes with what\n    they travail for, if it be just and true report that goes of his\n    having.\n  POET. What have you now to present unto him?\n  PAINTER. Nothing at this time but my visitation; only I will\n    promise him an excellent piece.\n  POET. I must serve him so too, tell him of an intent that's coming\n    toward him.\n  PAINTER. Good as the best. Promising is the very air o' th' time;\n    it opens the eyes of expectation. Performance is ever the duller\n    for his act, and but in the plainer and simpler kind of people\n    the deed of saying is quite out of use. To promise is most\n    courtly and fashionable; performance is a kind of will or\n    testament which argues a great sickness in his judgment that\n    makes it.\n\n                    Enter TIMON from his cave\n\n  TIMON. [Aside] Excellent workman! Thou canst not paint a man so bad\n    as is thyself.\n  POET. I am thinking what I shall say I have provided for him. It\n    must be a personating of himself; a satire against the softness\n    of prosperity, with a discovery of the infinite flatteries that\n    follow youth and opulency.\n  TIMON. [Aside] Must thou needs stand for a villain in thine own\n    work? Wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men? Do so, I have\n    gold for thee.\n  POET. Nay, let's seek him;\n    Then do we sin against our own estate\n    When we may profit meet and come too late.\n  PAINTER. True;\n    When the day serves, before black-corner'd night,\n    Find what thou want'st by free and offer'd light.\n    Come.\n  TIMON. [Aside] I'll meet you at the turn. What a god's gold,\n    That he is worshipp'd in a baser temple\n    Than where swine feed!\n    'Tis thou that rig'st the bark and plough'st the foam,\n    Settlest admired reverence in a slave.\n    To thee be worship! and thy saints for aye\n    Be crown'd with plagues, that thee alone obey!\n    Fit I meet them.                   [Advancing from his cave]\n  POET. Hail, worthy Timon!\n  PAINTER. Our late noble master!\n  TIMON. Have I once liv'd to see two honest men?\n  POET. Sir,\n    Having often of your open bounty tasted,\n    Hearing you were retir'd, your friends fall'n off,\n    Whose thankless natures- O abhorred spirits!-\n    Not all the whips of heaven are large enough-\n    What! to you,\n    Whose star-like nobleness gave life and influence\n    To their whole being! I am rapt, and cannot cover\n    The monstrous bulk of this ingratitude\n    With any size of words.\n  TIMON. Let it go naked: men may see't the better.\n    You that are honest, by being what you are,\n    Make them best seen and known.\n  PAINTER. He and myself\n    Have travail'd in the great show'r of your gifts,\n    And sweetly felt it.\n  TIMON. Ay, you are honest men.\n  PAINTER. We are hither come to offer you our service.\n  TIMON. Most honest men! Why, how shall I requite you?\n    Can you eat roots, and drink cold water- No?\n  BOTH. What we can do, we'll do, to do you service.\n  TIMON. Y'are honest men. Y'have heard that I have gold;\n    I am sure you have. Speak truth; y'are honest men.\n  PAINTER. So it is said, my noble lord; but therefore\n    Came not my friend nor I.\n  TIMON. Good honest men! Thou draw'st a counterfeit\n    Best in all Athens. Th'art indeed the best;\n    Thou counterfeit'st most lively.\n  PAINTER. So, so, my lord.\n  TIMON. E'en so, sir, as I say. [To To POET] And for thy fiction,\n    Why, thy verse swells with stuff so fine and smooth\n    That thou art even natural in thine art.\n    But for all this, my honest-natur'd friends,\n    I must needs say you have a little fault.\n    Marry, 'tis not monstrous in you; neither wish I\n    You take much pains to mend.\n  BOTH. Beseech your honour\n    To make it known to us.\n  TIMON. You'll take it ill.\n  BOTH. Most thankfully, my lord.\n  TIMON. Will you indeed?\n  BOTH. Doubt it not, worthy lord.\n  TIMON. There's never a one of you but trusts a knave\n    That mightily deceives you.\n  BOTH. Do we, my lord?\n  TIMON. Ay, and you hear him cog, see him dissemble,\n    Know his gross patchery, love him, feed him,\n    Keep in your bosom; yet remain assur'd\n    That he's a made-up villain.\n  PAINTER. I know not such, my lord.\n  POET. Nor I.\n  TIMON. Look you, I love you well; I'll give you gold,\n    Rid me these villains from your companies.\n    Hang them or stab them, drown them in a draught,\n    Confound them by some course, and come to me,\n    I'll give you gold enough.\n  BOTH. Name them, my lord; let's know them.\n  TIMON. You that way, and you this- but two in company;\n    Each man apart, all single and alone,\n    Yet an arch-villain keeps him company.\n    [To the PAINTER] If, where thou art, two villians shall not be,\n    Come not near him. [To the POET] If thou wouldst not reside\n    But where one villain is, then him abandon.-\n    Hence, pack! there's gold; you came for gold, ye slaves.\n    [To the PAINTER] You have work for me; there's payment; hence!\n    [To the POET] You are an alchemist; make gold of that.-\n    Out, rascal dogs!                [Beats and drives them out]\n\n                    Enter FLAVIUS and two SENATORS\n\n  FLAVIUS. It is vain that you would speak with Timon;\n    For he is set so only to himself\n    That nothing but himself which looks like man\n    Is friendly with him.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Bring us to his cave.\n    It is our part and promise to th' Athenians\n    To speak with Timon.\n  SECOND SENATOR. At all times alike\n    Men are not still the same; 'twas time and griefs\n    That fram'd him thus. Time, with his fairer hand,\n    Offering the fortunes of his former days,\n    The former man may make him. Bring us to him,\n    And chance it as it may.\n  FLAVIUS. Here is his cave.\n    Peace and content be here! Lord Timon! Timon!\n    Look out, and speak to friends. Th' Athenians\n    By two of their most reverend Senate greet thee.\n    Speak to them, noble Timon.\n\n                   Enter TIMON out of his cave\n\n  TIMON. Thou sun that comforts, burn. Speak and be hang'd!\n    For each true word a blister, and each false\n    Be as a cauterizing to the root o' th' tongue,\n    Consuming it with speaking!\n  FIRST SENATOR. Worthy Timon-\n  TIMON. Of none but such as you, and you of Timon.\n  FIRST SENATOR. The senators of Athens greet thee, Timon.\n  TIMON. I thank them; and would send them back the plague,\n    Could I but catch it for them.\n  FIRST SENATOR. O, forget\n    What we are sorry for ourselves in thee.\n    The senators with one consent of love\n    Entreat thee back to Athens, who have thought\n    On special dignities, which vacant lie\n    For thy best use and wearing.\n  SECOND SENATOR. They confess\n    Toward thee forgetfulness too general, gross;\n    Which now the public body, which doth seldom\n    Play the recanter, feeling in itself\n    A lack of Timon's aid, hath sense withal\n    Of it own fail, restraining aid to Timon,\n    And send forth us to make their sorrowed render,\n    Together with a recompense more fruitful\n    Than their offence can weigh down by the dram;\n    Ay, even such heaps and sums of love and wealth\n    As shall to thee blot out what wrongs were theirs\n    And write in thee the figures of their love,\n    Ever to read them thine.\n  TIMON. You witch me in it;\n    Surprise me to the very brink of tears.\n    Lend me a fool's heart and a woman's eyes,\n    And I'll beweep these comforts, worthy senators.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Therefore so please thee to return with us,\n    And of our Athens, thine and ours, to take\n    The captainship, thou shalt be met with thanks,\n    Allow'd with absolute power, and thy good name\n    Live with authority. So soon we shall drive back\n    Of Alcibiades th' approaches wild,\n    Who, like a boar too savage, doth root up\n    His country's peace.\n  SECOND SENATOR. And shakes his threat'ning sword\n    Against the walls of Athens.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Therefore, Timon-\n  TIMON. Well, sir, I will. Therefore I will, sir, thus:\n    If Alcibiades kill my countrymen,\n    Let Alcibiades know this of Timon,\n    That Timon cares not. But if he sack fair Athens,\n    And take our goodly aged men by th' beards,\n    Giving our holy virgins to the stain\n    Of contumelious, beastly, mad-brain'd war,\n    Then let him know- and tell him Timon speaks it\n    In pity of our aged and our youth-\n    I cannot choose but tell him that I care not,\n    And let him take't at worst; for their knives care not,\n    While you have throats to answer. For myself,\n    There's not a whittle in th' unruly camp\n    But I do prize it at my love before\n    The reverend'st throat in Athens. So I leave you\n    To the protection of the prosperous gods,\n    As thieves to keepers.\n  FLAVIUS. Stay not, all's in vain.\n  TIMON. Why, I was writing of my epitaph;\n    It will be seen to-morrow. My long sickness\n    Of health and living now begins to mend,\n    And nothing brings me all things. Go, live still;\n    Be Alcibiades your plague, you his,\n    And last so long enough!\n  FIRST SENATOR. We speak in vain.\n  TIMON. But yet I love my country, and am not\n    One that rejoices in the common wreck,\n    As common bruit doth put it.\n  FIRST SENATOR. That's well spoke.\n  TIMON. Commend me to my loving countrymen-\n  FIRST SENATOR. These words become your lips as they pass through\n    them.\n  SECOND SENATOR. And enter in our ears like great triumphers\n    In their applauding gates.\n  TIMON. Commend me to them,\n    And tell them that, to ease them of their griefs,\n    Their fears of hostile strokes, their aches, losses,\n    Their pangs of love, with other incident throes\n    That nature's fragile vessel doth sustain\n    In life's uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do them-\n    I'll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades' wrath.\n  FIRST SENATOR. I like this well; he will return again.\n  TIMON. I have a tree, which grows here in my close,\n    That mine own use invites me to cut down,\n    And shortly must I fell it. Tell my friends,\n    Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree\n    From high to low throughout, that whoso please\n    To stop affliction, let him take his haste,\n    Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,\n    And hang himself. I pray you do my greeting.\n  FLAVIUS. Trouble him no further; thus you still shall find him.\n  TIMON. Come not to me again; but say to Athens\n    Timon hath made his everlasting mansion\n    Upon the beached verge of the salt flood,\n    Who once a day with his embossed froth\n    The turbulent surge shall cover. Thither come,\n    And let my gravestone be your oracle.\n    Lips, let sour words go by and language end:\n    What is amiss, plague and infection mend!\n    Graves only be men's works and death their gain!\n    Sun, hide thy beams. Timon hath done his reign.\n                                        Exit TIMON into his cave\n  FIRST SENATOR. His discontents are unremovably\n    Coupled to nature.\n  SECOND SENATOR. Our hope in him is dead. Let us return\n    And strain what other means is left unto us\n    In our dear peril.\n  FIRST SENATOR. It requires swift foot.                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBefore the walls of Athens\n\nEnter two other SENATORS with a MESSENGER\n\n  FIRST SENATOR. Thou hast painfully discover'd; are his files\n    As full as thy report?\n  MESSENGER. I have spoke the least.\n    Besides, his expedition promises\n    Present approach.\n  SECOND SENATOR. We stand much hazard if they bring not Timon.\n  MESSENGER. I met a courier, one mine ancient friend,\n    Whom, though in general part we were oppos'd,\n    Yet our old love had a particular force,\n    And made us speak like friends. This man was riding\n    From Alcibiades to Timon's cave\n    With letters of entreaty, which imported\n    His fellowship i' th' cause against your city,\n    In part for his sake mov'd.\n\n               Enter the other SENATORS, from TIMON\n\n  FIRST SENATOR. Here come our brothers.\n  THIRD SENATOR. No talk of Timon, nothing of him expect.\n    The enemies' drum is heard, and fearful scouring\n    Doth choke the air with dust. In, and prepare.\n    Ours is the fall, I fear; our foes the snare.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe TIMON's cave, and a rude tomb seen\n\nEnter a SOLDIER in the woods, seeking TIMON\n\n  SOLDIER. By all description this should be the place.\n    Who's here? Speak, ho! No answer? What is this?\n    Timon is dead, who hath outstretch'd his span.\n    Some beast rear'd this; here does not live a man.\n    Dead, sure; and this his grave. What's on this tomb\n    I cannot read; the character I'll take with wax.\n    Our captain hath in every figure skill,\n    An ag'd interpreter, though young in days;\n    Before proud Athens he's set down by this,\n    Whose fall the mark of his ambition is.                 Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nBefore the walls of Athens\n\nTrumpets sound. Enter ALCIBIADES with his powers before Athens\n\n  ALCIBIADES. Sound to this coward and lascivious town\n    Our terrible approach.\n\n       Sound a parley. The SENATORS appear upon the walls\n\n    Till now you have gone on and fill'd the time\n    With all licentious measure, making your wills\n    The scope of justice; till now, myself, and such\n    As slept within the shadow of your power,\n    Have wander'd with our travers'd arms, and breath'd\n    Our sufferance vainly. Now the time is flush,\n    When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong,\n    Cries of itself 'No more!' Now breathless wrong\n    Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease,\n    And pursy insolence shall break his wind\n    With fear and horrid flight.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Noble and young,\n    When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,\n    Ere thou hadst power or we had cause of fear,\n    We sent to thee, to give thy rages balm,\n    To wipe out our ingratitude with loves\n    Above their quantity.\n  SECOND SENATOR. So did we woo\n    Transformed Timon to our city's love\n    By humble message and by promis'd means.\n    We were not all unkind, nor all deserve\n    The common stroke of war.\n  FIRST SENATOR. These walls of ours\n    Were not erected by their hands from whom\n    You have receiv'd your griefs; nor are they such\n    That these great tow'rs, trophies, and schools, should fall\n    For private faults in them.\n  SECOND SENATOR. Nor are they living\n    Who were the motives that you first went out;\n    Shame, that they wanted cunning, in excess\n    Hath broke their hearts. March, noble lord,\n    Into our city with thy banners spread.\n    By decimation and a tithed death-\n    If thy revenges hunger for that food\n    Which nature loathes- take thou the destin'd tenth,\n    And by the hazard of the spotted die\n    Let die the spotted.\n  FIRST SENATOR. All have not offended;\n    For those that were, it is not square to take,\n    On those that are, revenge: crimes, like lands,\n    Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman,\n    Bring in thy ranks, but leave without thy rage;\n    Spare thy Athenian cradle, and those kin\n    Which, in the bluster of thy wrath, must fall\n    With those that have offended. Like a shepherd\n    Approach the fold and cull th' infected forth,\n    But kill not all together.\n  SECOND SENATOR. What thou wilt,\n    Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile\n    Than hew to't with thy sword.\n  FIRST SENATOR. Set but thy foot\n    Against our rampir'd gates and they shall ope,\n    So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before\n    To say thou't enter friendly.\n  SECOND SENATOR. Throw thy glove,\n    Or any token of thine honour else,\n    That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress\n    And not as our confusion, all thy powers\n    Shall make their harbour in our town till we\n    Have seal'd thy full desire.\n  ALCIBIADES. Then there's my glove;\n    Descend, and open your uncharged ports.\n    Those enemies of Timon's and mine own,\n    Whom you yourselves shall set out for reproof,\n    Fall, and no more. And, to atone your fears\n    With my more noble meaning, not a man\n    Shall pass his quarter or offend the stream\n    Of regular justice in your city's bounds,\n    But shall be render'd to your public laws\n    At heaviest answer.\n  BOTH. 'Tis most nobly spoken.\n  ALCIBIADES. Descend, and keep your words.\n                       [The SENATORS descend and open the gates]\n\n                 Enter a SOLDIER as a Messenger\n\n  SOLDIER. My noble General, Timon is dead;\n    Entomb'd upon the very hem o' th' sea;\n    And on his grave-stone this insculpture, which\n    With wax I brought away, whose soft impression\n    Interprets for my poor ignorance.\n\n                  ALCIBIADES reads the Epitaph\n\n    'Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft;\n    Seek not my name. A plague consume you wicked caitiffs left!\n    Here lie I, Timon, who alive all living men did hate.\n    Pass by, and curse thy fill; but pass, and stay not here thy\n      gait.'\n    These well express in thee thy latter spirits.\n    Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs,\n    Scorn'dst our brain's flow, and those our droplets which\n    From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit\n    Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye\n    On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead\n    Is noble Timon, of whose memory\n    Hereafter more. Bring me into your city,\n    And I will use the olive, with my sword;\n    Make war breed peace, make peace stint war, make each\n    Prescribe to other, as each other's leech.\n    Let our drums strike.                                 Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1594\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF TITUS ANDRONICUS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  SATURNINUS, son to the late Emperor of Rome, afterwards Emperor\n  BASSIANUS, brother to Saturninus\n  TITUS ANDRONICUS, a noble Roman\n  MARCUS ANDRONICUS, Tribune of the People, and brother to Titus\n\n    Sons to Titus Andronicus:\n  LUCIUS\n  QUINTUS\n  MARTIUS\n  MUTIUS\n\n  YOUNG LUCIUS, a boy, son to Lucius\n  PUBLIUS, son to Marcus Andronicus\n\n    Kinsmen to Titus:\n  SEMPRONIUS\n  CAIUS\n  VALENTINE\n\n  AEMILIUS, a noble Roman\n\n    Sons to Tamora:\n  ALARBUS\n  DEMETRIUS\n  CHIRON\n\n  AARON, a Moor, beloved by Tamora\n  A CAPTAIN\n  A MESSENGER\n  A CLOWN\n\n  TAMORA, Queen of the Goths\n  LAVINIA, daughter to Titus Andronicus\n  A NURSE, and a black CHILD\n\n  Romans and Goths, Senators, Tribunes, Officers, Soldiers, and\n    Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE:\n               Rome and the neighbourhood\n\n\nACT 1. SCENE I.\nRome. Before the Capitol\n\nFlourish. Enter the TRIBUNES and SENATORS aloft; and then enter below\nSATURNINUS and his followers at one door, and BASSIANUS and his followers\nat the other, with drums and trumpets\n\n  SATURNINUS. Noble patricians, patrons of my right,\n    Defend the justice of my cause with arms;\n    And, countrymen, my loving followers,\n    Plead my successive title with your swords.\n    I am his first born son that was the last\n    That ware the imperial diadem of Rome;\n    Then let my father's honours live in me,\n    Nor wrong mine age with this indignity.\n  BASSIANUS. Romans, friends, followers, favourers of my right,\n    If ever Bassianus, Caesar's son,\n    Were gracious in the eyes of royal Rome,\n    Keep then this passage to the Capitol;\n    And suffer not dishonour to approach\n    The imperial seat, to virtue consecrate,\n    To justice, continence, and nobility;\n    But let desert in pure election shine;\n    And, Romans, fight for freedom in your choice.\n\n        Enter MARCUS ANDRONICUS aloft, with the crown\n\n  MARCUS. Princes, that strive by factions and by friends\n    Ambitiously for rule and empery,\n    Know that the people of Rome, for whom we stand\n    A special party, have by common voice\n    In election for the Roman empery\n    Chosen Andronicus, surnamed Pius\n    For many good and great deserts to Rome.\n    A nobler man, a braver warrior,\n    Lives not this day within the city walls.\n    He by the Senate is accited home,\n    From weary wars against the barbarous Goths,\n    That with his sons, a terror to our foes,\n    Hath yok'd a nation strong, train'd up in arms.\n    Ten years are spent since first he undertook\n    This cause of Rome, and chastised with arms\n    Our enemies' pride; five times he hath return'd\n    Bleeding to Rome, bearing his valiant sons\n    In coffins from the field; and at this day\n    To the monument of that Andronici\n    Done sacrifice of expiation,\n    And slain the noblest prisoner of the Goths.\n    And now at last, laden with honour's spoils,\n    Returns the good Andronicus to Rome,\n    Renowned Titus, flourishing in arms.\n    Let us entreat, by honour of his name\n    Whom worthily you would have now succeed,\n    And in the Capitol and Senate's right,\n    Whom you pretend to honour and adore,\n    That you withdraw you and abate your strength,\n    Dismiss your followers, and, as suitors should,\n    Plead your deserts in peace and humbleness.\n  SATURNINUS. How fair the Tribune speaks to calm my thoughts.\n  BASSIANUS. Marcus Andronicus, so I do affy\n    In thy uprightness and integrity,\n    And so I love and honour thee and thine,\n    Thy noble brother Titus and his sons,\n    And her to whom my thoughts are humbled all,\n    Gracious Lavinia, Rome's rich ornament,\n    That I will here dismiss my loving friends,\n    And to my fortunes and the people's favour\n    Commit my cause in balance to be weigh'd.\n                                Exeunt the soldiers of BASSIANUS\n  SATURNINUS. Friends, that have been thus forward in my right,\n    I thank you all and here dismiss you all,\n    And to the love and favour of my country\n    Commit myself, my person, and the cause.\n                               Exeunt the soldiers of SATURNINUS\n    Rome, be as just and gracious unto me\n    As I am confident and kind to thee.\n    Open the gates and let me in.\n  BASSIANUS. Tribunes, and me, a poor competitor.\n                    [Flourish. They go up into the Senate House]\n\n                      Enter a CAPTAIN\n\n  CAPTAIN. Romans, make way. The good Andronicus,\n    Patron of virtue, Rome's best champion,\n    Successful in the battles that he fights,\n    With honour and with fortune is return'd\n    From where he circumscribed with his sword\n    And brought to yoke the enemies of Rome.\n\n        Sound drums and trumpets, and then enter MARTIUS\n        and MUTIUS, two of TITUS' sons; and then two men\n        bearing a coffin covered with black; then LUCIUS\n        and QUINTUS, two other sons; then TITUS ANDRONICUS;\n        and then TAMORA the Queen of Goths, with her three\n        sons, ALARBUS, DEMETRIUS, and CHIRON, with AARON the\n        Moor, and others,  as many as can be. Then set down\n        the coffin and TITUS speaks\n\n  TITUS. Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds!\n    Lo, as the bark that hath discharg'd her fraught\n    Returns with precious lading to the bay\n    From whence at first she weigh'd her anchorage,\n    Cometh Andronicus, bound with laurel boughs,\n    To re-salute his country with his tears,\n    Tears of true joy for his return to Rome.\n    Thou great defender of this Capitol,\n    Stand gracious to the rites that we intend!\n    Romans, of five and twenty valiant sons,\n    Half of the number that King Priam had,\n    Behold the poor remains, alive and dead!\n    These that survive let Rome reward with love;\n    These that I bring unto their latest home,\n    With burial amongst their ancestors.\n    Here Goths have given me leave to sheathe my sword.\n    Titus, unkind, and careless of thine own,\n    Why suffer'st thou thy sons, unburied yet,\n    To hover on the dreadful shore of Styx?\n    Make way to lay them by their brethren.\n                                            [They open the tomb]\n    There greet in silence, as the dead are wont,\n    And sleep in peace, slain in your country's wars.\n    O sacred receptacle of my joys,\n    Sweet cell of virtue and nobility,\n    How many sons hast thou of mine in store\n    That thou wilt never render to me more!\n  LUCIUS. Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths,\n    That we may hew his limbs, and on a pile\n    Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh\n    Before this earthy prison of their bones,\n    That so the shadows be not unappeas'd,\n    Nor we disturb'd with prodigies on earth.\n  TITUS. I give him you- the noblest that survives,\n    The eldest son of this distressed queen.\n  TAMORA. Stay, Roman brethen! Gracious conqueror,\n    Victorious Titus, rue the tears I shed,\n    A mother's tears in passion for her son;\n    And if thy sons were ever dear to thee,\n    O, think my son to be as dear to me!\n    Sufficeth not that we are brought to Rome\n    To beautify thy triumphs, and return\n    Captive to thee and to thy Roman yoke;\n    But must my sons be slaughtered in the streets\n    For valiant doings in their country's cause?\n    O, if to fight for king and commonweal\n    Were piety in thine, it is in these.\n    Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood.\n    Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?\n    Draw near them then in being merciful.\n    Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.\n    Thrice-noble Titus, spare my first-born son.\n  TITUS. Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me.\n    These are their brethren, whom your Goths beheld\n    Alive and dead; and for their brethren slain\n    Religiously they ask a sacrifice.\n    To this your son is mark'd, and die he must\n    T' appease their groaning shadows that are gone.\n  LUCIUS. Away with him, and make a fire straight;\n    And with our swords, upon a pile of wood,\n    Let's hew his limbs till they be clean consum'd.\n                                Exeunt TITUS' SONS, with ALARBUS\n  TAMORA. O cruel, irreligious piety!\n  CHIRON. Was never Scythia half so barbarous!\n  DEMETRIUS. Oppose not Scythia to ambitious Rome.\n    Alarbus goes to rest, and we survive\n    To tremble under Titus' threat'ning look.\n    Then, madam, stand resolv'd, but hope withal\n    The self-same gods that arm'd the Queen of Troy\n    With opportunity of sharp revenge\n    Upon the Thracian tyrant in his tent\n    May favour Tamora, the Queen of Goths-\n    When Goths were Goths and Tamora was queen-\n    To quit the bloody wrongs upon her foes.\n\n            Re-enter LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS, and\n   MUTIUS, the sons of ANDRONICUS, with their swords bloody\n\n  LUCIUS. See, lord and father, how we have perform'd\n    Our Roman rites: Alarbus' limbs are lopp'd,\n    And entrails feed the sacrificing fire,\n    Whose smoke like incense doth perfume the sky.\n    Remaineth nought but to inter our brethren,\n    And with loud 'larums welcome them to Rome.\n  TITUS. Let it be so, and let Andronicus\n    Make this his latest farewell to their souls.\n                 [Sound trumpets and lay the coffin in the tomb]\n    In peace and honour rest you here, my sons;\n    Rome's readiest champions, repose you here in rest,\n    Secure from worldly chances and mishaps!\n    Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,\n    Here grow no damned drugs, here are no storms,\n    No noise, but silence and eternal sleep.\n    In peace and honour rest you here, my sons!\n\n                       Enter LAVINIA\n\n  LAVINIA. In peace and honour live Lord Titus long;\n    My noble lord and father, live in fame!\n    Lo, at this tomb my tributary tears\n    I render for my brethren's obsequies;\n    And at thy feet I kneel, with tears of joy\n    Shed on this earth for thy return to Rome.\n    O, bless me here with thy victorious hand,\n    Whose fortunes Rome's best citizens applaud!\n  TITUS. Kind Rome, that hast thus lovingly reserv'd\n    The cordial of mine age to glad my heart!\n    Lavinia, live; outlive thy father's days,\n    And fame's eternal date, for virtue's praise!\n\n          Enter, above, MARCUS ANDRONICUS and TRIBUNES;\n          re-enter SATURNINUS, BASSIANUS, and attendants\n\n  MARCUS. Long live Lord Titus, my beloved brother,\n    Gracious triumpher in the eyes of Rome!\n  TITUS. Thanks, gentle Tribune, noble brother Marcus.\n  MARCUS. And welcome, nephews, from successful wars,\n    You that survive and you that sleep in fame.\n    Fair lords, your fortunes are alike in all\n    That in your country's service drew your swords;\n    But safer triumph is this funeral pomp\n    That hath aspir'd to Solon's happiness\n    And triumphs over chance in honour's bed.\n    Titus Andronicus, the people of Rome,\n    Whose friend in justice thou hast ever been,\n    Send thee by me, their Tribune and their trust,\n    This par]iament of white and spotless hue;\n    And name thee in election for the empire\n    With these our late-deceased Emperor's sons:\n    Be candidatus then, and put it on,\n    And help to set a head on headless Rome.\n  TITUS. A better head her glorious body fits\n    Than his that shakes for age and feebleness.\n    What should I don this robe and trouble you?\n    Be chosen with proclamations to-day,\n    To-morrow yield up rule, resign my life,\n    And set abroad new business for you all?\n    Rome, I have been thy soldier forty years,\n    And led my country's strength successfully,\n    And buried one and twenty valiant sons,\n    Knighted in field, slain manfully in arms,\n    In right and service of their noble country.\n    Give me a staff of honour for mine age,\n    But not a sceptre to control the world.\n    Upright he held it, lords, that held it last.\n  MARCUS. Titus, thou shalt obtain and ask the empery.\n  SATURNINUS. Proud and ambitious Tribune, canst thou tell?\n  TITUS. Patience, Prince Saturninus.\n  SATURNINUS. Romans, do me right.\n    Patricians, draw your swords, and sheathe them not\n    Till Saturninus be Rome's Emperor.\n    Andronicus, would thou were shipp'd to hell\n    Rather than rob me of the people's hearts!\n  LUCIUS. Proud Saturnine, interrupter of the good\n    That noble-minded Titus means to thee!\n  TITUS. Content thee, Prince; I will restore to thee\n    The people's hearts, and wean them from themselves.\n  BASSIANUS. Andronicus, I do not flatter thee,\n    But honour thee, and will do till I die.\n    My faction if thou strengthen with thy friends,\n    I will most thankful be; and thanks to men\n    Of noble minds is honourable meed.\n  TITUS. People of Rome, and people's Tribunes here,\n    I ask your voices and your suffrages:\n    Will ye bestow them friendly on Andronicus?\n  TRIBUNES. To gratify the good Andronicus,\n    And gratulate his safe return to Rome,\n    The people will accept whom he admits.\n  TITUS. Tribunes, I thank you; and this suit I make,\n    That you create our Emperor's eldest son,\n    Lord Saturnine; whose virtues will, I hope,\n    Reflect on Rome as Titan's rays on earth,\n    And ripen justice in this commonweal.\n    Then, if you will elect by my advice,\n    Crown him, and say 'Long live our Emperor!'\n  MARCUS. With voices and applause of every sort,\n    Patricians and plebeians, we create\n    Lord Saturninus Rome's great Emperor;\n    And say 'Long live our Emperor Saturnine!'\n                           [A long flourish till they come down]\n  SATURNINUS. Titus Andronicus, for thy favours done\n    To us in our election this day\n    I give thee thanks in part of thy deserts,\n    And will with deeds requite thy gentleness;\n    And for an onset, Titus, to advance\n    Thy name and honourable family,\n    Lavinia will I make my emperess,\n    Rome's royal mistress, mistress of my heart,\n    And in the sacred Pantheon her espouse.\n    Tell me, Andronicus, doth this motion please thee?\n  TITUS. It doth, my worthy lord, and in this match\n    I hold me highly honoured of your Grace,\n    And here in sight of Rome, to Saturnine,\n    King and commander of our commonweal,\n    The wide world's Emperor, do I consecrate\n    My sword, my chariot, and my prisoners,\n    Presents well worthy Rome's imperious lord;\n    Receive them then, the tribute that I owe,\n    Mine honour's ensigns humbled at thy feet.\n  SATURNINUS. Thanks, noble Titus, father of my life.\n    How proud I am of thee and of thy gifts\n    Rome shall record; and when I do forget\n    The least of these unspeakable deserts,\n    Romans, forget your fealty to me.\n  TITUS.  [To TAMORA]  Now, madam, are you prisoner to an emperor;\n    To him that for your honour and your state\n    Will use you nobly and your followers.\n  SATURNINUS.  [Aside]  A goodly lady, trust me; of the hue\n    That I would choose, were I to choose anew.-\n    Clear up, fair Queen, that cloudy countenance;\n    Though chance of war hath wrought this change of cheer,\n    Thou com'st not to be made a scorn in Rome-\n    Princely shall be thy usage every way.\n    Rest on my word, and let not discontent\n    Daunt all your hopes. Madam, he comforts you\n    Can make you greater than the Queen of Goths.\n    Lavinia, you are not displeas'd with this?\n  LAVINIA. Not I, my lord, sith true nobility\n    Warrants these words in princely courtesy.\n  SATURNINUS. Thanks, sweet Lavinia. Romans, let us go.\n    Ransomless here we set our prisoners free.\n    Proclaim our honours, lords, with trump and drum.\n                                                      [Flourish]\n  BASSIANUS. Lord Titus, by your leave, this maid is mine.\n                                               [Seizing LAVINIA]\n  TITUS. How, sir! Are you in earnest then, my lord?\n  BASSIANUS. Ay, noble Titus, and resolv'd withal\n    To do myself this reason and this right.\n  MARCUS. Suum cuique is our Roman justice:\n    This prince in justice seizeth but his own.\n  LUCIUS. And that he will and shall, if Lucius live.\n  TITUS. Traitors, avaunt! Where is the Emperor's guard?\n    Treason, my lord- Lavinia is surpris'd!\n  SATURNINUS. Surpris'd! By whom?\n  BASSIANUS. By him that justly may\n    Bear his betroth'd from all the world away.\n                        Exeunt BASSIANUS and MARCUS with LAVINIA\n  MUTIUS. Brothers, help to convey her hence away,\n    And with my sword I'll keep this door safe.\n                             Exeunt LUCIUS, QUINTUS, and MARTIUS\n  TITUS. Follow, my lord, and I'll soon bring her back.\n  MUTIUS. My lord, you pass not here.\n  TITUS. What, villain boy!\n    Bar'st me my way in Rome?\n  MUTIUS. Help, Lucius, help!\n            TITUS kills him. During the fray, exeunt SATURNINUS,\n                            TAMORA, DEMETRIUS, CHIRON, and AARON\n\n                      Re-enter Lucius\n\n  LUCIUS. My lord, you are unjust, and more than so:\n    In wrongful quarrel you have slain your son.\n  TITUS. Nor thou nor he are any sons of mine;\n    My sons would never so dishonour me.\n\n                 Re-enter aloft the EMPEROR\n      with TAMORA and her two Sons, and AARON the Moor\n\n    Traitor, restore Lavinia to the Emperor.\n  LUCIUS. Dead, if you will; but not to be his wife,\n    That is another's lawful promis'd love.                 Exit\n  SATURNINUS. No, Titus, no; the Emperor needs her not,\n    Nor her, nor thee, nor any of thy stock.\n    I'll trust by leisure him that mocks me once;\n    Thee never, nor thy traitorous haughty sons,\n    Confederates all thus to dishonour me.\n    Was there none else in Rome to make a stale\n    But Saturnine? Full well, Andronicus,\n    Agree these deeds with that proud brag of thine\n    That saidst I begg'd the empire at thy hands.\n  TITUS. O monstrous! What reproachful words are these?\n  SATURNINUS. But go thy ways; go, give that changing piece\n    To him that flourish'd for her with his sword.\n    A valiant son-in-law thou shalt enjoy;\n    One fit to bandy with thy lawless sons,\n    To ruffle in the commonwealth of Rome.\n  TITUS. These words are razors to my wounded heart.\n  SATURNINUS. And therefore, lovely Tamora, Queen of Goths,\n    That, like the stately Phoebe 'mongst her nymphs,\n    Dost overshine the gallant'st dames of Rome,\n    If thou be pleas'd with this my sudden choice,\n    Behold, I choose thee, Tamora, for my bride\n    And will create thee Emperess of Rome.\n    Speak, Queen of Goths, dost thou applaud my choice?\n    And here I swear by all the Roman gods-\n    Sith priest and holy water are so near,\n    And tapers burn so bright, and everything\n    In readiness for Hymenaeus stand-\n    I will not re-salute the streets of Rome,\n    Or climb my palace, till from forth this place\n    I lead espous'd my bride along with me.\n  TAMORA. And here in sight of heaven to Rome I swear,\n    If Saturnine advance the Queen of Goths,\n    She will a handmaid be to his desires,\n    A loving nurse, a mother to his youth.\n  SATURNINUS. Ascend, fair Queen, Pantheon. Lords, accompany\n    Your noble Emperor and his lovely bride,\n    Sent by the heavens for Prince Saturnine,\n    Whose wisdom hath her fortune conquered;\n    There shall we consummate our spousal rites.\n                                            Exeunt all but TITUS\n  TITUS. I am not bid to wait upon this bride.\n  TITUS, when wert thou wont to walk alone,\n    Dishonoured thus, and challenged of wrongs?\n\n                      Re-enter MARCUS,\n        and TITUS' SONS, LUCIUS, QUINTUS, and MARTIUS\n\n  MARCUS. O Titus, see, O, see what thou hast done!\n    In a bad quarrel slain a virtuous son.\n  TITUS. No, foolish Tribune, no; no son of mine-\n    Nor thou, nor these, confederates in the deed\n    That hath dishonoured all our family;\n    Unworthy brother and unworthy sons!\n  LUCIUS. But let us give him burial, as becomes;\n    Give Mutius burial with our bretheren.\n  TITUS. Traitors, away! He rests not in this tomb.\n    This monument five hundred years hath stood,\n    Which I have sumptuously re-edified;\n    Here none but soldiers and Rome's servitors\n    Repose in fame; none basely slain in brawls.\n    Bury him where you can, he comes not here.\n  MARCUS. My lord, this is impiety in you.\n    My nephew Mutius' deeds do plead for him;\n    He must be buried with his bretheren.\n  QUINTUS & MARTIUS. And shall, or him we will accompany.\n  TITUS. 'And shall!' What villain was it spake that word?\n  QUINTUS. He that would vouch it in any place but here.\n  TITUS. What, would you bury him in my despite?\n  MARCUS. No, noble Titus, but entreat of thee\n    To pardon Mutius and to bury him.\n  TITUS. Marcus, even thou hast struck upon my crest,\n    And with these boys mine honour thou hast wounded.\n    My foes I do repute you every one;\n    So trouble me no more, but get you gone.\n  MARTIUS. He is not with himself; let us withdraw.\n  QUINTUS. Not I, till Mutius' bones be buried.\n                                [The BROTHER and the SONS kneel]\n  MARCUS. Brother, for in that name doth nature plead-\n  QUINTUS. Father, and in that name doth nature speak-\n  TITUS. Speak thou no more, if all the rest will speed.\n  MARCUS. Renowned Titus, more than half my soul-\n  LUCIUS. Dear father, soul and substance of us all-\n  MARCUS. Suffer thy brother Marcus to inter\n    His noble nephew here in virtue's nest,\n    That died in honour and Lavinia's cause.\n    Thou art a Roman- be not barbarous.\n    The Greeks upon advice did bury Ajax,\n    That slew himself; and wise Laertes' son\n    Did graciously plead for his funerals.\n    Let not young Mutius, then, that was thy joy,\n    Be barr'd his entrance here.\n  TITUS. Rise, Marcus, rise;\n    The dismal'st day is this that e'er I saw,\n    To be dishonoured by my sons in Rome!\n    Well, bury him, and bury me the next.\n                                   [They put MUTIUS in the tomb]\n  LUCIUS. There lie thy bones, sweet Mutius, with thy friends,\n    Till we with trophies do adorn thy tomb.\n  ALL.  [Kneeling]  No man shed tears for noble Mutius;\n    He lives in fame that died in virtue's cause.\n  MARCUS. My lord- to step out of these dreary dumps-\n    How comes it that the subtle Queen of Goths\n    Is of a sudden thus advanc'd in Rome?\n  TITUS. I know not, Marcus, but I know it is-\n    Whether by device or no, the heavens can tell.\n    Is she not, then, beholding to the man\n    That brought her for this high good turn so far?\n  MARCUS. Yes, and will nobly him remunerate.\n\n           Flourish. Re-enter the EMPEROR, TAMORA\n        and her two SONS, with the MOOR, at one door;\n    at the other door, BASSIANUS and LAVINIA, with others\n\n  SATURNINUS. So, Bassianus, you have play'd your prize:\n    God give you joy, sir, of your gallant bride!\n  BASSIANUS. And you of yours, my lord! I say no more,\n    Nor wish no less; and so I take my leave.\n  SATURNINUS. Traitor, if Rome have law or we have power,\n    Thou and thy faction shall repent this rape.\n  BASSIANUS. Rape, call you it, my lord, to seize my own,\n    My true betrothed love, and now my wife?\n    But let the laws of Rome determine all;\n    Meanwhile am I possess'd of that is mine.\n  SATURNINUS. 'Tis good, sir. You are very short with us;\n    But if we live we'll be as sharp with you.\n  BASSIANUS. My lord, what I have done, as best I may,\n    Answer I must, and shall do with my life.\n    Only thus much I give your Grace to know:\n    By all the duties that I owe to Rome,\n    This noble gentleman, Lord Titus here,\n    Is in opinion and in honour wrong'd,\n    That, in the rescue of Lavinia,\n    With his own hand did slay his youngest son,\n    In zeal to you, and highly mov'd to wrath\n    To be controll'd in that he frankly gave.\n    Receive him then to favour, Saturnine,\n    That hath express'd himself in all his deeds\n    A father and a friend to thee and Rome.\n  TITUS. Prince Bassianus, leave to plead my deeds.\n    'Tis thou and those that have dishonoured me.\n    Rome and the righteous heavens be my judge\n    How I have lov'd and honoured Saturnine!\n  TAMORA. My worthy lord, if ever Tamora\n    Were gracious in those princely eyes of thine,\n    Then hear me speak indifferently for all;\n    And at my suit, sweet, pardon what is past.\n  SATURNINUS. What, madam! be dishonoured openly,\n    And basely put it up without revenge?\n  TAMORA. Not so, my lord; the gods of Rome forfend\n    I should be author to dishonour you!\n    But on mine honour dare I undertake\n    For good Lord Titus' innocence in all,\n    Whose fury not dissembled speaks his griefs.\n    Then at my suit look graciously on him;\n    Lose not so noble a friend on vain suppose,\n    Nor with sour looks afflict his gentle heart.\n    [Aside to SATURNINUS]  My lord, be rul'd by me,\n      be won at last;\n    Dissemble all your griefs and discontents.\n    You are but newly planted in your throne;\n    Lest, then, the people, and patricians too,\n    Upon a just survey take Titus' part,\n    And so supplant you for ingratitude,\n    Which Rome reputes to be a heinous sin,\n    Yield at entreats, and then let me alone:\n    I'll find a day to massacre them all,\n    And raze their faction and their family,\n    The cruel father and his traitorous sons,\n    To whom I sued for my dear son's life;\n    And make them know what 'tis to let a queen\n    Kneel in the streets and beg for grace in vain.-\n    Come, come, sweet Emperor; come, Andronicus.\n    Take up this good old man, and cheer the heart\n    That dies in tempest of thy angry frown.\n  SATURNINUS. Rise, Titus, rise; my Empress hath prevail'd.\n  TITUS. I thank your Majesty and her, my lord;\n    These words, these looks, infuse new life in me.\n  TAMORA. Titus, I am incorporate in Rome,\n    A Roman now adopted happily,\n    And must advise the Emperor for his good.\n    This day all quarrels die, Andronicus;\n    And let it be mine honour, good my lord,\n    That I have reconcil'd your friends and you.\n    For you, Prince Bassianus, I have pass'd\n    My word and promise to the Emperor\n    That you will be more mild and tractable.\n    And fear not, lords- and you, Lavinia.\n    By my advice, all humbled on your knees,\n    You shall ask pardon of his Majesty.\n  LUCIUS. We do, and vow to heaven and to his Highness\n    That what we did was mildly as we might,\n    Tend'ring our sister's honour and our own.\n  MARCUS. That on mine honour here do I protest.\n  SATURNINUS. Away, and talk not; trouble us no more.\n  TAMORA. Nay, nay, sweet Emperor, we must all be friends.\n    The Tribune and his nephews kneel for grace.\n    I will not be denied. Sweet heart, look back.\n  SATURNINUS. Marcus, for thy sake, and thy brother's here,\n    And at my lovely Tamora's entreats,\n    I do remit these young men's heinous faults.\n    Stand up.\n    Lavinia, though you left me like a churl,\n    I found a friend; and sure as death I swore\n    I would not part a bachelor from the priest.\n    Come, if the Emperor's court can feast two brides,\n    You are my guest, Lavinia, and your friends.\n    This day shall be a love-day, Tamora.\n  TITUS. To-morrow, and it please your Majesty\n    To hunt the panther and the hart with me,\n    With horn and hound we'll give your Grace bonjour.\n  SATURNINUS. Be it so, Titus, and gramercy too.\n                                          Exeunt. Sound trumpets\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nRome. Before the palace\n\nEnter AARON\n\n  AARON. Now climbeth Tamora Olympus' top,\n    Safe out of Fortune's shot, and sits aloft,\n    Secure of thunder's crack or lightning flash,\n    Advanc'd above pale envy's threat'ning reach.\n    As when the golden sun salutes the morn,\n    And, having gilt the ocean with his beams,\n    Gallops the zodiac in his glistening coach\n    And overlooks the highest-peering hills,\n    So Tamora.\n    Upon her wit doth earthly honour wait,\n    And virtue stoops and trembles at her frown.\n    Then, Aaron, arm thy heart and fit thy thoughts\n    To mount aloft with thy imperial mistress,\n    And mount her pitch whom thou in triumph long.\n    Hast prisoner held, fett'red in amorous chains,\n    And faster bound to Aaron's charming eyes\n    Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus.\n    Away with slavish weeds and servile thoughts!\n    I will be bright and shine in pearl and gold,\n    To wait upon this new-made emperess.\n    To wait, said I? To wanton with this queen,\n    This goddess, this Semiramis, this nymph,\n    This siren that will charm Rome's Saturnine,\n    And see his shipwreck and his commonweal's.\n    Hullo! what storm is this?\n\n            Enter CHIRON and DEMETRIUS, braving\n\n  DEMETRIUS. Chiron, thy years wants wit, thy wits wants edge\n    And manners, to intrude where I am grac'd,\n    And may, for aught thou knowest, affected be.\n  CHIRON. Demetrius, thou dost over-ween in all;\n    And so in this, to bear me down with braves.\n    'Tis not the difference of a year or two\n    Makes me less gracious or thee more fortunate:\n    I am as able and as fit as thou\n    To serve and to deserve my mistress' grace;\n    And that my sword upon thee shall approve,\n    And plead my passions for Lavinia's love.\n  AARON.  [Aside]  Clubs, clubs! These lovers will not keep the\n    peace.\n  DEMETRIUS. Why, boy, although our mother, unadvis'd,\n    Gave you a dancing rapier by your side,\n    Are you so desperate grown to threat your friends?\n    Go to; have your lath glued within your sheath\n    Till you know better how to handle it.\n  CHIRON. Meanwhile, sir, with the little skill I have,\n    Full well shalt thou perceive how much I dare.\n  DEMETRIUS. Ay, boy, grow ye so brave?              [They draw]\n  AARON.  [Coming forward]  Why, how now, lords!\n    So near the Emperor's palace dare ye draw\n    And maintain such a quarrel openly?\n    Full well I wot the ground of all this grudge:\n    I would not for a million of gold\n    The cause were known to them it most concerns;\n    Nor would your noble mother for much more\n    Be so dishonoured in the court of Rome.\n    For shame, put up.\n  DEMETRIUS. Not I, till I have sheath'd\n    My rapier in his bosom, and withal\n    Thrust those reproachful speeches down his throat\n    That he hath breath'd in my dishonour here.\n  CHIRON. For that I am prepar'd and full resolv'd,\n    Foul-spoken coward, that thund'rest with thy tongue,\n    And with thy weapon nothing dar'st perform.\n  AARON. Away, I say!\n    Now, by the gods that warlike Goths adore,\n    This pretty brabble will undo us all.\n    Why, lords, and think you not how dangerous\n    It is to jet upon a prince's right?\n    What, is Lavinia then become so loose,\n    Or Bassianus so degenerate,\n    That for her love such quarrels may be broach'd\n    Without controlment, justice, or revenge?\n    Young lords, beware; an should the Empress know\n    This discord's ground, the music would not please.\n  CHIRON. I care not, I, knew she and all the world:\n    I love Lavinia more than all the world.\n  DEMETRIUS. Youngling, learn thou to make some meaner choice:\n    Lavina is thine elder brother's hope.\n  AARON. Why, are ye mad, or know ye not in Rome\n    How furious and impatient they be,\n    And cannot brook competitors in love?\n    I tell you, lords, you do but plot your deaths\n    By this device.\n  CHIRON. Aaron, a thousand deaths\n    Would I propose to achieve her whom I love.\n  AARON. To achieve her- how?\n  DEMETRIUS. Why mak'st thou it so strange?\n    She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd;\n    She is a woman, therefore may be won;\n    She is Lavinia, therefore must be lov'd.\n    What, man! more water glideth by the mill\n    Than wots the miller of; and easy it is\n    Of a cut loaf to steal a shive, we know.\n    Though Bassianus be the Emperor's brother,\n    Better than he have worn Vulcan's badge.\n  AARON.  [Aside]  Ay, and as good as Saturninus may.\n  DEMETRIUS. Then why should he despair that knows to court it\n    With words, fair looks, and liberality?\n    What, hast not thou full often struck a doe,\n    And borne her cleanly by the keeper's nose?\n  AARON. Why, then, it seems some certain snatch or so\n    Would serve your turns.\n  CHIRON. Ay, so the turn were served.\n  DEMETRIUS. Aaron, thou hast hit it.\n  AARON. Would you had hit it too!\n    Then should not we be tir'd with this ado.\n    Why, hark ye, hark ye! and are you such fools\n    To square for this? Would it offend you, then,\n    That both should speed?\n  CHIRON. Faith, not me.\n  DEMETRIUS. Nor me, so I were one.\n  AARON. For shame, be friends, and join for that you jar.\n    'Tis policy and stratagem must do\n    That you affect; and so must you resolve\n    That what you cannot as you would achieve,\n    You must perforce accomplish as you may.\n    Take this of me: Lucrece was not more chaste\n    Than this Lavinia, Bassianus' love.\n    A speedier course than ling'ring languishment\n    Must we pursue, and I have found the path.\n    My lords, a solemn hunting is in hand;\n    There will the lovely Roman ladies troop;\n    The forest walks are wide and spacious,\n    And many unfrequented plots there are\n    Fitted by kind for rape and villainy.\n    Single you thither then this dainty doe,\n    And strike her home by force if not by words.\n    This way, or not at all, stand you in hope.\n    Come, come, our Empress, with her sacred wit\n    To villainy and vengeance consecrate,\n    Will we acquaint with all what we intend;\n    And she shall file our engines with advice\n    That will not suffer you to square yourselves,\n    But to your wishes' height advance you both.\n    The Emperor's court is like the house of Fame,\n    The palace full of tongues, of eyes, and ears;\n    The woods are ruthless, dreadful, deaf, and dull.\n    There speak and strike, brave boys, and take your turns;\n    There serve your lust, shadowed from heaven's eye,\n    And revel in Lavinia's treasury.\n  CHIRON. Thy counsel, lad, smells of no cowardice.\n  DEMETRIUS. Sit fas aut nefas, till I find the stream\n    To cool this heat, a charm to calm these fits,\n    Per Styga, per manes vehor.                           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA forest near Rome\n\nEnter TITUS ANDRONICUS, and his three sons, LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS,\nmaking a noise with hounds and horns; and MARCUS\n\n  TITUS. The hunt is up, the morn is bright and grey,\n    The fields are fragrant, and the woods are green.\n    Uncouple here, and let us make a bay,\n    And wake the Emperor and his lovely bride,\n    And rouse the Prince, and ring a hunter's peal,\n    That all the court may echo with the noise.\n    Sons, let it be your charge, as it is ours,\n    To attend the Emperor's person carefully.\n    I have been troubled in my sleep this night,\n    But dawning day new comfort hath inspir'd.\n\n         Here a cry of hounds, and wind horns in a peal.\n       Then enter SATURNINUS, TAMORA, BASSIANUS LAVINIA,\n            CHIRON, DEMETRIUS, and their attendants\n    Many good morrows to your Majesty!\n    Madam, to you as many and as good!\n    I promised your Grace a hunter's peal.\n  SATURNINUS. And you have rung it lustily, my lords-\n    Somewhat too early for new-married ladies.\n  BASSIANUS. Lavinia, how say you?\n  LAVINIA. I say no;\n    I have been broad awake two hours and more.\n  SATURNINUS. Come on then, horse and chariots let us have,\n    And to our sport.  [To TAMORA]  Madam, now shall ye see\n    Our Roman hunting.\n  MARCUS. I have dogs, my lord,\n    Will rouse the proudest panther in the chase,\n    And climb the highest promontory top.\n  TITUS. And I have horse will follow where the game\n    Makes way, and run like swallows o'er the plain.\n  DEMETRIUS. Chiron, we hunt not, we, with horse nor hound,\n    But hope to pluck a dainty doe to ground.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA lonely part of the forest\n\nEnter AARON alone, with a bag of gold\n\n  AARON. He that had wit would think that I had none,\n    To bury so much gold under a tree\n    And never after to inherit it.\n    Let him that thinks of me so abjectly\n    Know that this gold must coin a stratagem,\n    Which, cunningly effected, will beget\n    A very excellent piece of villainy.\n    And so repose, sweet gold, for their unrest\n                                                [Hides the gold]\n    That have their alms out of the Empress' chest.\n\n               Enter TAMORA alone, to the Moor\n\n  TAMORA. My lovely Aaron, wherefore look'st thou sad\n    When everything does make a gleeful boast?\n    The birds chant melody on every bush;\n    The snakes lie rolled in the cheerful sun;\n    The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind\n    And make a chequer'd shadow on the ground;\n    Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit,\n    And while the babbling echo mocks the hounds,\n    Replying shrilly to the well-tun'd horns,\n    As if a double hunt were heard at once,\n    Let us sit down and mark their yellowing noise;\n    And- after conflict such as was suppos'd\n    The wand'ring prince and Dido once enjoyed,\n    When with a happy storm they were surpris'd,\n    And curtain'd with a counsel-keeping cave-\n    We may, each wreathed in the other's arms,\n    Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber,\n    Whiles hounds and horns and sweet melodious birds\n    Be unto us as is a nurse's song\n    Of lullaby to bring her babe asleep.\n  AARON. Madam, though Venus govern your desires,\n    Saturn is dominator over mine.\n    What signifies my deadly-standing eye,\n    My silence and my cloudy melancholy,\n    My fleece of woolly hair that now uncurls\n    Even as an adder when she doth unroll\n    To do some fatal execution?\n    No, madam, these are no venereal signs.\n    Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand,\n    Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.\n    Hark, Tamora, the empress of my soul,\n    Which never hopes more heaven than rests in thee-\n    This is the day of doom for Bassianus;\n    His Philomel must lose her tongue to-day,\n    Thy sons make pillage of her chastity,\n    And wash their hands in Bassianus' blood.\n    Seest thou this letter? Take it up, I pray thee,\n    And give the King this fatal-plotted scroll.\n    Now question me no more; we are espied.\n    Here comes a parcel of our hopeful booty,\n    Which dreads not yet their lives' destruction.\n\n                Enter BASSIANUS and LAVINIA\n\n  TAMORA. Ah, my sweet Moor, sweeter to me than life!\n  AARON. No more, great Empress: Bassianus comes.\n    Be cross with him; and I'll go fetch thy sons\n    To back thy quarrels, whatsoe'er they be.               Exit\n  BASSIANUS. Who have we here? Rome's royal Emperess,\n    Unfurnish'd of her well-beseeming troop?\n    Or is it Dian, habited like her,\n    Who hath abandoned her holy groves\n    To see the general hunting in this forest?\n  TAMORA. Saucy controller of my private steps!\n    Had I the pow'r that some say Dian had,\n    Thy temples should be planted presently\n    With horns, as was Actaeon's; and the hounds\n    Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs,\n    Unmannerly intruder as thou art!\n  LAVINIA. Under your patience, gentle Emperess,\n    'Tis thought you have a goodly gift in horning,\n    And to be doubted that your Moor and you\n    Are singled forth to try thy experiments.\n    Jove shield your husband from his hounds to-day!\n    'Tis pity they should take him for a stag.\n  BASSIANUS. Believe me, Queen, your swarth Cimmerian\n    Doth make your honour of his body's hue,\n    Spotted, detested, and abominable.\n    Why are you sequest'red from all your train,\n    Dismounted from your snow-white goodly steed,\n    And wand'red hither to an obscure plot,\n    Accompanied but with a barbarous Moor,\n    If foul desire had not conducted you?\n  LAVINIA. And, being intercepted in your sport,\n    Great reason that my noble lord be rated\n    For sauciness. I pray you let us hence,\n    And let her joy her raven-coloured love;\n    This valley fits the purpose passing well.\n  BASSIANUS. The King my brother shall have notice of this.\n  LAVINIA. Ay, for these slips have made him noted long.\n    Good king, to be so mightily abused!\n  TAMORA. Why, I have patience to endure all this.\n\n                  Enter CHIRON and DEMETRIUS\n\n  DEMETRIUS. How now, dear sovereign, and our gracious mother!\n    Why doth your Highness look so pale and wan?\n  TAMORA. Have I not reason, think you, to look pale?\n    These two have 'ticed me hither to this place.\n    A barren detested vale you see it is:\n    The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,\n    Overcome with moss and baleful mistletoe;\n    Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds,\n    Unless the nightly owl or fatal raven.\n    And when they show'd me this abhorred pit,\n    They told me, here, at dead time of the night,\n    A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes,\n    Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins,\n    Would make such fearful and confused cries\n    As any mortal body hearing it\n    Should straight fall mad or else die suddenly.\n    No sooner had they told this hellish tale\n    But straight they told me they would bind me here\n    Unto the body of a dismal yew,\n    And leave me to this miserable death.\n    And then they call'd me foul adulteress,\n    Lascivious Goth, and all the bitterest terms\n    That ever ear did hear to such effect;\n    And had you not by wondrous fortune come,\n    This vengeance on me had they executed.\n    Revenge it, as you love your mother's life,\n    Or be ye not henceforth call'd my children.\n  DEMETRIUS. This is a witness that I am thy son.\n                                               [Stabs BASSIANUS]\n  CHIRON. And this for me, struck home to show my strength.\n                                                    [Also stabs]\n  LAVINIA. Ay, come, Semiramis- nay, barbarous Tamora,\n    For no name fits thy nature but thy own!\n  TAMORA. Give me the poniard; you shall know, my boys,\n    Your mother's hand shall right your mother's wrong.\n  DEMETRIUS. Stay, madam, here is more belongs to her;\n    First thrash the corn, then after burn the straw.\n    This minion stood upon her chastity,\n    Upon her nuptial vow, her loyalty,\n    And with that painted hope braves your mightiness;\n    And shall she carry this unto her grave?\n  CHIRON. An if she do, I would I were an eunuch.\n    Drag hence her husband to some secret hole,\n    And make his dead trunk pillow to our lust.\n  TAMORA. But when ye have the honey we desire,\n    Let not this wasp outlive, us both to sting.\n  CHIRON. I warrant you, madam, we will make that sure.\n    Come, mistress, now perforce we will enjoy\n    That nice-preserved honesty of yours.\n  LAVINIA. O Tamora! thou bearest a woman's face-\n  TAMORA. I will not hear her speak; away with her!\n  LAVINIA. Sweet lords, entreat her hear me but a word.\n  DEMETRIUS. Listen, fair madam: let it be your glory\n    To see her tears; but be your heart to them\n    As unrelenting flint to drops of rain.\n  LAVINIA. When did the tiger's young ones teach the dam?\n    O, do not learn her wrath- she taught it thee;\n    The milk thou suck'dst from her did turn to marble,\n    Even at thy teat thou hadst thy tyranny.\n    Yet every mother breeds not sons alike:\n    [To CHIRON]  Do thou entreat her show a woman's pity.\n  CHIRON. What, wouldst thou have me prove myself a bastard?\n  LAVINIA. 'Tis true, the raven doth not hatch a lark.\n    Yet have I heard- O, could I find it now!-\n    The lion, mov'd with pity, did endure\n    To have his princely paws par'd all away.\n    Some say that ravens foster forlorn children,\n    The whilst their own birds famish in their nests;\n    O, be to me, though thy hard heart say no,\n    Nothing so kind, but something pitiful!\n  TAMORA. I know not what it means; away with her!\n  LAVINIA. O, let me teach thee! For my father's sake,\n    That gave thee life when well he might have slain thee,\n    Be not obdurate, open thy deaf ears.\n  TAMORA. Hadst thou in person ne'er offended me,\n    Even for his sake am I pitiless.\n    Remember, boys, I pour'd forth tears in vain\n    To save your brother from the sacrifice;\n    But fierce Andronicus would not relent.\n    Therefore away with her, and use her as you will;\n    The worse to her the better lov'd of me.\n  LAVINIA. O Tamora, be call'd a gentle queen,\n    And with thine own hands kill me in this place!\n    For 'tis not life that I have begg'd so long;\n    Poor I was slain when Bassianus died.\n  TAMORA. What beg'st thou, then? Fond woman, let me go.\n  LAVINIA. 'Tis present death I beg; and one thing more,\n    That womanhood denies my tongue to tell:\n    O, keep me from their worse than killing lust,\n    And tumble me into some loathsome pit,\n    Where never man's eye may behold my body;\n    Do this, and be a charitable murderer.\n  TAMORA. So should I rob my sweet sons of their fee;\n    No, let them satisfy their lust on thee.\n  DEMETRIUS. Away! for thou hast stay'd us here too long.\n  LAVINIA. No grace? no womanhood? Ah, beastly creature,\n    The blot and enemy to our general name!\n    Confusion fall-\n  CHIRON. Nay, then I'll stop your mouth. Bring thou her husband.\n    This is the hole where Aaron bid us hide him.\n\n                 DEMETRIUS throws the body\n           of BASSIANUS into the pit; then exeunt\n         DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, dragging off LAVINIA\n\n  TAMORA. Farewell, my sons; see that you make her sure.\n    Ne'er let my heart know merry cheer indeed\n    Till all the Andronici be made away.\n    Now will I hence to seek my lovely Moor,\n    And let my spleenful sons this trull deflower.          Exit\n\n                  Re-enter AARON, with two\n             of TITUS' sons, QUINTUS and MARTIUS\n\n  AARON. Come on, my lords, the better foot before;\n    Straight will I bring you to the loathsome pit\n    Where I espied the panther fast asleep.\n  QUINTUS. My sight is very dull, whate'er it bodes.\n  MARTIUS. And mine, I promise you; were it not for shame,\n    Well could I leave our sport to sleep awhile.\n                                            [Falls into the pit]\n  QUINTUS. What, art thou fallen? What subtle hole is this,\n    Whose mouth is covered with rude-growing briers,\n    Upon whose leaves are drops of new-shed blood\n    As fresh as morning dew distill'd on flowers?\n    A very fatal place it seems to me.\n    Speak, brother, hast thou hurt thee with the fall?\n  MARTIUS. O brother, with the dismal'st object hurt\n    That ever eye with sight made heart lament!\n  AARON.  [Aside]  Now will I fetch the King to find them here,\n    That he thereby may have a likely guess\n    How these were they that made away his brother.         Exit\n  MARTIUS. Why dost not comfort me, and help me out\n    From this unhallow'd and blood-stained hole?\n  QUINTUS. I am surprised with an uncouth fear;\n    A chilling sweat o'er-runs my trembling joints;\n    My heart suspects more than mine eye can see.\n  MARTIUS. To prove thou hast a true divining heart,\n    Aaron and thou look down into this den,\n    And see a fearful sight of blood and death.\n  QUINTUS. Aaron is gone, and my compassionate heart\n    Will not permit mine eyes once to behold\n    The thing whereat it trembles by surmise;\n    O, tell me who it is, for ne'er till now\n    Was I a child to fear I know not what.\n  MARTIUS. Lord Bassianus lies beray'd in blood,\n    All on a heap, like to a slaughtered lamb,\n    In this detested, dark, blood-drinking pit.\n  QUINTUS. If it be dark, how dost thou know 'tis he?\n  MARTIUS. Upon his bloody finger he doth wear\n    A precious ring that lightens all this hole,\n    Which, like a taper in some monument,\n    Doth shine upon the dead man's earthy cheeks,\n    And shows the ragged entrails of this pit;\n    So pale did shine the moon on Pyramus\n    When he by night lay bath'd in maiden blood.\n    O brother, help me with thy fainting hand-\n    If fear hath made thee faint, as me it hath-\n    Out of this fell devouring receptacle,\n    As hateful as Cocytus' misty mouth.\n  QUINTUS. Reach me thy hand, that I may help thee out,\n    Or, wanting strength to do thee so much good,\n    I may be pluck'd into the swallowing womb\n    Of this deep pit, poor Bassianus' grave.\n    I have no strength to pluck thee to the brink.\n  MARTIUS. Nor I no strength to climb without thy help.\n  QUINTUS. Thy hand once more; I will not loose again,\n    Till thou art here aloft, or I below.\n    Thou canst not come to me- I come to thee.        [Falls in]\n\n            Enter the EMPEROR and AARON the Moor\n\n  SATURNINUS. Along with me! I'll see what hole is here,\n    And what he is that now is leapt into it.\n    Say, who art thou that lately didst descend\n    Into this gaping hollow of the earth?\n  MARTIUS. The unhappy sons of old Andronicus,\n    Brought hither in a most unlucky hour,\n    To find thy brother Bassianus dead.\n  SATURNINUS. My brother dead! I know thou dost but jest:\n    He and his lady both are at the lodge\n    Upon the north side of this pleasant chase;\n    'Tis not an hour since I left them there.\n  MARTIUS. We know not where you left them all alive;\n    But, out alas! here have we found him dead.\n\n                   Re-enter TAMORA, with\n         attendants; TITUS ANDRONICUS and Lucius\n\n  TAMORA. Where is my lord the King?\n  SATURNINUS. Here, Tamora; though griev'd with killing grief.\n  TAMORA. Where is thy brother Bassianus?\n  SATURNINUS. Now to the bottom dost thou search my wound;\n    Poor Bassianus here lies murdered.\n  TAMORA. Then all too late I bring this fatal writ,\n    The complot of this timeless tragedy;\n    And wonder greatly that man's face can fold\n    In pleasing smiles such murderous tyranny.\n                                 [She giveth SATURNINE a letter]\n    SATURNINUS.  [Reads]  'An if we miss to meet him handsomely,\n    Sweet huntsman- Bassianus 'tis we mean-\n    Do thou so much as dig the grave for him.\n    Thou know'st our meaning. Look for thy reward\n    Among the nettles at the elder-tree\n    Which overshades the mouth of that same pit\n    Where we decreed to bury Bassianus.\n    Do this, and purchase us thy lasting friends.'\n    O Tamora! was ever heard the like?\n    This is the pit and this the elder-tree.\n    Look, sirs, if you can find the huntsman out\n    That should have murdered Bassianus here.\n  AARON. My gracious lord, here is the bag of gold.\n  SATURNINUS.  [To TITUS]  Two of thy whelps, fell curs of bloody\n      kind,\n    Have here bereft my brother of his life.\n    Sirs, drag them from the pit unto the prison;\n    There let them bide until we have devis'd\n    Some never-heard-of torturing pain for them.\n  TAMORA. What, are they in this pit? O wondrous thing!\n    How easily murder is discovered!\n  TITUS. High Emperor, upon my feeble knee\n    I beg this boon, with tears not lightly shed,\n    That this fell fault of my accursed sons-\n    Accursed if the fault be prov'd in them-\n  SATURNINUS. If it be prov'd! You see it is apparent.\n    Who found this letter? Tamora, was it you?\n  TAMORA. Andronicus himself did take it up.\n  TITUS. I did, my lord, yet let me be their bail;\n    For, by my fathers' reverend tomb, I vow\n    They shall be ready at your Highness' will\n    To answer their suspicion with their lives.\n  SATURNINUS. Thou shalt not bail them; see thou follow me.\n    Some bring the murdered body, some the murderers;\n    Let them not speak a word- the guilt is plain;\n    For, by my soul, were there worse end than death,\n    That end upon them should be executed.\n  TAMORA. Andronicus, I will entreat the King.\n    Fear not thy sons; they shall do well enough.\n  TITUS. Come, Lucius, come; stay not to talk with them.     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the forest\n\nEnter the Empress' sons, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, with LAVINIA,\nher hands cut off, and her tongue cut out, and ravish'd\n\n  DEMETRIUS. So, now go tell, an if thy tongue can speak,\n    Who 'twas that cut thy tongue and ravish'd thee.\n  CHIRON. Write down thy mind, bewray thy meaning so,\n    An if thy stumps will let thee play the scribe.\n  DEMETRIUS. See how with signs and tokens she can scrowl.\n  CHIRON. Go home, call for sweet water, wash thy hands.\n  DEMETRIUS. She hath no tongue to call, nor hands to wash;\n    And so let's leave her to her silent walks.\n  CHIRON. An 'twere my cause, I should go hang myself.\n  DEMETRIUS. If thou hadst hands to help thee knit the cord.\n                                     Exeunt DEMETRIUS and CHIRON\n\n           Wind horns. Enter MARCUS, from hunting\n\n  MARCUS. Who is this?- my niece, that flies away so fast?\n    Cousin, a word: where is your husband?\n    If I do dream, would all my wealth would wake me!\n    If I do wake, some planet strike me down,\n    That I may slumber an eternal sleep!\n    Speak, gentle niece. What stern ungentle hands\n    Hath lopp'd, and hew'd, and made thy body bare\n    Of her two branches- those sweet ornaments\n    Whose circling shadows kings have sought to sleep in,\n    And might not gain so great a happiness\n    As half thy love? Why dost not speak to me?\n    Alas, a crimson river of warm blood,\n    Like to a bubbling fountain stirr'd with wind,\n    Doth rise and fall between thy rosed lips,\n    Coming and going with thy honey breath.\n    But sure some Tereus hath deflowered thee,\n    And, lest thou shouldst detect him, cut thy tongue.\n    Ah, now thou turn'st away thy face for shame!\n    And notwithstanding all this loss of blood-\n    As from a conduit with three issuing spouts-\n    Yet do thy cheeks look red as Titan's face\n    Blushing to be encount'red with a cloud.\n    Shall I speak for thee? Shall I say 'tis so?\n    O, that I knew thy heart, and knew the beast,\n    That I might rail at him to ease my mind!\n    Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopp'd,\n    Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is.\n    Fair Philomel, why she but lost her tongue,\n    And in a tedious sampler sew'd her mind;\n    But, lovely niece, that mean is cut from thee.\n    A craftier Tereus, cousin, hast thou met,\n    And he hath cut those pretty fingers off\n    That could have better sew'd than Philomel.\n    O, had the monster seen those lily hands\n    Tremble like aspen leaves upon a lute\n    And make the silken strings delight to kiss them,\n    He would not then have touch'd them for his life!\n    Or had he heard the heavenly harmony\n    Which that sweet tongue hath made,\n    He would have dropp'd his knife, and fell asleep,\n    As Cerberus at the Thracian poet's feet.\n    Come, let us go, and make thy father blind,\n    For such a sight will blind a father's eye;\n    One hour's storm will drown the fragrant meads,\n    What will whole months of tears thy father's eyes?\n    Do not draw back, for we will mourn with thee;\n    O, could our mourning case thy misery!                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nRome. A street\n\nEnter the JUDGES, TRIBUNES, and SENATORS, with TITUS' two sons\nMARTIUS and QUINTUS bound, passing on the stage to the place of execution,\nand TITUS going before, pleading\n\n  TITUS. Hear me, grave fathers; noble Tribunes, stay!\n    For pity of mine age, whose youth was spent\n    In dangerous wars whilst you securely slept;\n    For all my blood in Rome's great quarrel shed,\n    For all the frosty nights that I have watch'd,\n    And for these bitter tears, which now you see\n    Filling the aged wrinkles in my cheeks,\n    Be pitiful to my condemned sons,\n    Whose souls are not corrupted as 'tis thought.\n    For two and twenty sons I never wept,\n    Because they died in honour's lofty bed.\n                          [ANDRONICUS lieth down, and the judges\n                     pass by him with the prisoners, and exeunt]\n    For these, Tribunes, in the dust I write\n    My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears.\n    Let my tears stanch the earth's dry appetite;\n    My sons' sweet blood will make it shame and blush.\n    O earth, I will befriend thee more with rain\n    That shall distil from these two ancient urns,\n    Than youthful April shall with all his show'rs.\n    In summer's drought I'll drop upon thee still;\n    In winter with warm tears I'll melt the snow\n    And keep eternal spring-time on thy face,\n    So thou refuse to drink my dear sons' blood.\n\n             Enter Lucius with his weapon drawn\n\n    O reverend Tribunes! O gentle aged men!\n    Unbind my sons, reverse the doom of death,\n    And let me say, that never wept before,\n    My tears are now prevailing orators.\n  LUCIUS. O noble father, you lament in vain;\n    The Tribunes hear you not, no man is by,\n    And you recount your sorrows to a stone.\n  TITUS. Ah, Lucius, for thy brothers let me plead!\n    Grave Tribunes, once more I entreat of you.\n  LUCIUS. My gracious lord, no tribune hears you speak.\n  TITUS. Why, 'tis no matter, man: if they did hear,\n    They would not mark me; if they did mark,\n    They would not pity me; yet plead I must,\n    And bootless unto them.\n    Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones;\n    Who though they cannot answer my distress,\n    Yet in some sort they are better than the Tribunes,\n    For that they will not intercept my tale.\n    When I do weep, they humbly at my feet\n    Receive my tears, and seem to weep with me;\n    And were they but attired in grave weeds,\n    Rome could afford no tribunes like to these.\n    A stone is soft as wax: tribunes more hard than stones.\n    A stone is silent and offendeth not,\n    And tribunes with their tongues doom men to death.\n                                                         [Rises]\n    But wherefore stand'st thou with thy weapon drawn?\n  LUCIUS. To rescue my two brothers from their death;\n    For which attempt the judges have pronounc'd\n    My everlasting doom of banishment.\n  TITUS. O happy man! they have befriended thee.\n    Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceive\n    That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?\n    Tigers must prey, and Rome affords no prey\n    But me and mine; how happy art thou then\n    From these devourers to be banished!\n    But who comes with our brother Marcus here?\n\n                 Enter MARCUS with LAVINIA\n\n  MARCUS. Titus, prepare thy aged eyes to weep,\n    Or if not so, thy noble heart to break.\n    I bring consuming sorrow to thine age.\n  TITUS. Will it consume me? Let me see it then.\n  MARCUS. This was thy daughter.\n  TITUS. Why, Marcus, so she is.\n  LUCIUS. Ay me! this object kills me.\n  TITUS. Faint-hearted boy, arise, and look upon her.\n    Speak, Lavinia, what accursed hand\n    Hath made thee handless in thy father's sight?\n    What fool hath added water to the sea,\n    Or brought a fagot to bright-burning Troy?\n    My grief was at the height before thou cam'st,\n    And now like Nilus it disdaineth bounds.\n    Give me a sword, I'll chop off my hands too,\n    For they have fought for Rome, and all in vain;\n    And they have nurs'd this woe in feeding life;\n    In bootless prayer have they been held up,\n    And they have serv'd me to effectless use.\n    Now all the service I require of them\n    Is that the one will help to cut the other.\n    'Tis well, Lavinia, that thou hast no hands;\n    For hands to do Rome service is but vain.\n  LUCIUS. Speak, gentle sister, who hath martyr'd thee?\n  MARCUS. O, that delightful engine of her thoughts\n    That blabb'd them with such pleasing eloquence\n    Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage,\n    Where like a sweet melodious bird it sung\n    Sweet varied notes, enchanting every ear!\n  LUCIUS. O, say thou for her, who hath done this deed?\n  MARCUS. O, thus I found her straying in the park,\n    Seeking to hide herself as doth the deer\n    That hath receiv'd some unrecuring wound.\n  TITUS. It was my dear, and he that wounded her\n    Hath hurt me more than had he kill'd me dead;\n    For now I stand as one upon a rock,\n    Environ'd with a wilderness of sea,\n    Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,\n    Expecting ever when some envious surge\n    Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.\n    This way to death my wretched sons are gone;\n    Here stands my other son, a banish'd man,\n    And here my brother, weeping at my woes.\n    But that which gives my soul the greatest spurn\n    Is dear Lavinia, dearer than my soul.\n    Had I but seen thy picture in this plight,\n    It would have madded me; what shall I do\n    Now I behold thy lively body so?\n    Thou hast no hands to wipe away thy tears,\n    Nor tongue to tell me who hath martyr'd thee;\n    Thy husband he is dead, and for his death\n    Thy brothers are condemn'd, and dead by this.\n    Look, Marcus! Ah, son Lucius, look on her!\n    When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears\n    Stood on her cheeks, as doth the honey dew\n    Upon a gath'red lily almost withered.\n  MARCUS. Perchance she weeps because they kill'd her husband;\n    Perchance because she knows them innocent.\n  TITUS. If they did kill thy husband, then be joyful,\n    Because the law hath ta'en revenge on them.\n    No, no, they would not do so foul a deed;\n    Witness the sorrow that their sister makes.\n    Gentle Lavinia, let me kiss thy lips,\n    Or make some sign how I may do thee ease.\n    Shall thy good uncle and thy brother Lucius\n    And thou and I sit round about some fountain,\n    Looking all downwards to behold our cheeks\n    How they are stain'd, like meadows yet not dry\n    With miry slime left on them by a flood?\n    And in the fountain shall we gaze so long,\n    Till the fresh taste be taken from that clearness,\n    And made a brine-pit with our bitter tears?\n    Or shall we cut away our hands like thine?\n    Or shall we bite our tongues, and in dumb shows\n    Pass the remainder of our hateful days?\n    What shall we do? Let us that have our tongues\n    Plot some device of further misery\n    To make us wonder'd at in time to come.\n  LUCIUS. Sweet father, cease your tears; for at your grief\n    See how my wretched sister sobs and weeps.\n  MARCUS. Patience, dear niece. Good Titus, dry thine eyes.\n  TITUS. Ah, Marcus, Marcus! Brother, well I wot\n    Thy napkin cannot drink a tear of mine,\n    For thou, poor man, hast drown'd it with thine own.\n  LUCIUS. Ah, my Lavinia, I will wipe thy cheeks.\n  TITUS. Mark, Marcus, mark! I understand her signs.\n    Had she a tongue to speak, now would she say\n    That to her brother which I said to thee:\n    His napkin, with his true tears all bewet,\n    Can do no service on her sorrowful cheeks.\n    O, what a sympathy of woe is this\n    As far from help as Limbo is from bliss!\n\n                   Enter AARON the Moor\n\n  AARON. Titus Andronicus, my lord the Emperor\n    Sends thee this word, that, if thou love thy sons,\n    Let Marcus, Lucius, or thyself, old Titus,\n    Or any one of you, chop off your hand\n    And send it to the King: he for the same\n    Will send thee hither both thy sons alive,\n    And that shall be the ransom for their fault.\n  TITUS. O gracious Emperor! O gentle Aaron!\n    Did ever raven sing so like a lark\n    That gives sweet tidings of the sun's uprise?\n    With all my heart I'll send the Emperor my hand.\n    Good Aaron, wilt thou help to chop it off?\n  LUCIUS. Stay, father! for that noble hand of thine,\n    That hath thrown down so many enemies,\n    Shall not be sent. My hand will serve the turn,\n    My youth can better spare my blood than you,\n    And therefore mine shall save my brothers' lives.\n  MARCUS. Which of your hands hath not defended Rome\n    And rear'd aloft the bloody battle-axe,\n    Writing destruction on the enemy's castle?\n    O, none of both but are of high desert!\n    My hand hath been but idle; let it serve\n    To ransom my two nephews from their death;\n    Then have I kept it to a worthy end.\n  AARON. Nay, come, agree whose hand shall go along,\n    For fear they die before their pardon come.\n  MARCUS. My hand shall go.\n  LUCIUS. By heaven, it shall not go!\n  TITUS. Sirs, strive no more; such with'red herbs as these\n    Are meet for plucking up, and therefore mine.\n  LUCIUS. Sweet father, if I shall be thought thy son,\n    Let me redeem my brothers both from death.\n  MARCUS. And for our father's sake and mother's care,\n    Now let me show a brother's love to thee.\n  TITUS. Agree between you; I will spare my hand.\n  LUCIUS. Then I'll go fetch an axe.\n  MARCUS. But I will use the axe.\n                                        Exeunt LUCIUS and MARCUS\n  TITUS. Come hither, Aaron, I'll deceive them both;\n    Lend me thy hand, and I will give thee mine.\n  AARON.  [Aside]  If that be call'd deceit, I will be honest,\n    And never whilst I live deceive men so;\n    But I'll deceive you in another sort,\n    And that you'll say ere half an hour pass.\n                                       [He cuts off TITUS' hand]\n\n                 Re-enter LUCIUS and MARCUS\n\n TITUS. Now stay your strife. What shall be is dispatch'd.\n    Good Aaron, give his Majesty my hand;\n    Tell him it was a hand that warded him\n    From thousand dangers; bid him bury it.\n    More hath it merited- that let it have.\n    As for my sons, say I account of them\n    As jewels purchas'd at an easy price;\n    And yet dear too, because I bought mine own.\n  AARON. I go, Andronicus; and for thy hand\n    Look by and by to have thy sons with thee.\n    [Aside]  Their heads I mean. O, how this villainy\n    Doth fat me with the very thoughts of it!\n    Let fools do good, and fair men call for grace:\n    Aaron will have his soul black like his face.           Exit\n  TITUS. O, here I lift this one hand up to heaven,\n    And bow this feeble ruin to the earth;\n    If any power pities wretched tears,\n    To that I call!  [To LAVINIA]  What, would'st thou kneel with me?\n    Do, then, dear heart; for heaven shall hear our prayers,\n    Or with our sighs we'll breathe the welkin dim\n    And stain the sun with fog, as sometime clouds\n    When they do hug him in their melting bosoms.\n  MARCUS. O brother, speak with possibility,\n    And do not break into these deep extremes.\n  TITUS. Is not my sorrow deep, having no bottom?\n    Then be my passions bottomless with them.\n  MARCUS. But yet let reason govern thy lament.\n  TITUS. If there were reason for these miseries,\n    Then into limits could I bind my woes.\n    When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o'erflow?\n    If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad,\n    Threat'ning the welkin with his big-swol'n face?\n    And wilt thou have a reason for this coil?\n    I am the sea; hark how her sighs do blow.\n    She is the weeping welkin, I the earth;\n    Then must my sea be moved with her sighs;\n    Then must my earth with her continual tears\n    Become a deluge, overflow'd and drown'd;\n    For why my bowels cannot hide her woes,\n    But like a drunkard must I vomit them.\n    Then give me leave; for losers will have leave\n    To ease their stomachs with their bitter tongues.\n\n        Enter a MESSENGER, with two heads and a hand\n\n  MESSENGER. Worthy Andronicus, ill art thou repaid\n    For that good hand thou sent'st the Emperor.\n    Here are the heads of thy two noble sons;\n    And here's thy hand, in scorn to thee sent back-\n    Thy grief their sports, thy resolution mock'd,\n    That woe is me to think upon thy woes,\n    More than remembrance of my father's death.             Exit\n  MARCUS. Now let hot Aetna cool in Sicily,\n    And be my heart an ever-burning hell!\n    These miseries are more than may be borne.\n    To weep with them that weep doth ease some deal,\n    But sorrow flouted at is double death.\n  LUCIUS. Ah, that this sight should make so deep a wound,\n    And yet detested life not shrink thereat!\n    That ever death should let life bear his name,\n    Where life hath no more interest but to breathe!\n                                          [LAVINIA kisses TITUS]\n  MARCUS. Alas, poor heart, that kiss is comfortless\n    As frozen water to a starved snake.\n  TITUS. When will this fearful slumber have an end?\n  MARCUS. Now farewell, flatt'ry; die, Andronicus.\n    Thou dost not slumber: see thy two sons' heads,\n    Thy warlike hand, thy mangled daughter here;\n    Thy other banish'd son with this dear sight\n    Struck pale and bloodless; and thy brother, I,\n    Even like a stony image, cold and numb.\n    Ah! now no more will I control thy griefs.\n    Rent off thy silver hair, thy other hand\n    Gnawing with thy teeth; and be this dismal sight\n    The closing up of our most wretched eyes.\n    Now is a time to storm; why art thou still?\n  TITUS. Ha, ha, ha!\n  MARCUS. Why dost thou laugh? It fits not with this hour.\n  TITUS. Why, I have not another tear to shed;\n    Besides, this sorrow is an enemy,\n    And would usurp upon my wat'ry eyes\n    And make them blind with tributary tears.\n    Then which way shall I find Revenge's cave?\n    For these two heads do seem to speak to me,\n    And threat me I shall never come to bliss\n    Till all these mischiefs be return'd again\n    Even in their throats that have committed them.\n    Come, let me see what task I have to do.\n    You heavy people, circle me about,\n    That I may turn me to each one of you\n    And swear unto my soul to right your wrongs.\n    The vow is made. Come, brother, take a head,\n    And in this hand the other will I bear.\n    And, Lavinia, thou shalt be employ'd in this;\n    Bear thou my hand, sweet wench, between thy teeth.\n    As for thee, boy, go, get thee from my sight;\n    Thou art an exile, and thou must not stay.\n    Hie to the Goths and raise an army there;\n    And if ye love me, as I think you do,\n    Let's kiss and part, for we have much to do.\n                                           Exeunt all but Lucius\n  LUCIUS. Farewell, Andronicus, my noble father,\n    The woefull'st man that ever liv'd in Rome.\n    Farewell, proud Rome; till Lucius come again,\n    He leaves his pledges dearer than his life.\n    Farewell, Lavinia, my noble sister;\n    O, would thou wert as thou tofore hast been!\n    But now nor Lucius nor Lavinia lives\n    But in oblivion and hateful griefs.\n    If Lucius live, he will requite your wrongs\n    And make proud Saturnine and his emperess\n    Beg at the gates like Tarquin and his queen.\n    Now will I to the Goths, and raise a pow'r\n    To be reveng'd on Rome and Saturnine.                   Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. TITUS' house\n\nA banquet.\n\nEnter TITUS, MARCUS, LAVINIA, and the boy YOUNG LUCIUS\n\n  TITUS. So so, now sit; and look you eat no more\n    Than will preserve just so much strength in us\n    As will revenge these bitter woes of ours.\n    Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot;\n    Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands,\n    And cannot passionate our tenfold grief\n    With folded arms. This poor right hand of mine\n    Is left to tyrannize upon my breast;\n    Who, when my heart, all mad with misery,\n    Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh,\n    Then thus I thump it down.\n    [To LAVINIA]  Thou map of woe, that thus dost talk in signs!\n    When thy poor heart beats with outrageous beating,\n    Thou canst not strike it thus to make it still.\n    Wound it with sighing, girl, kill it with groans;\n    Or get some little knife between thy teeth\n    And just against thy heart make thou a hole,\n    That all the tears that thy poor eyes let fall\n    May run into that sink and, soaking in,\n    Drown the lamenting fool in sea-salt tears.\n  MARCUS. Fie, brother, fie! Teach her not thus to lay\n    Such violent hands upon her tender life.\n  TITUS. How now! Has sorrow made thee dote already?\n    Why, Marcus, no man should be mad but I.\n    What violent hands can she lay on her life?\n    Ah, wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands?\n    To bid Aeneas tell the tale twice o'er\n    How Troy was burnt and he made miserable?\n    O, handle not the theme, to talk of hands,\n    Lest we remember still that we have none.\n    Fie, fie, how franticly I square my talk,\n    As if we should forget we had no hands,\n    If Marcus did not name the word of hands!\n    Come, let's fall to; and, gentle girl, eat this:\n    Here is no drink. Hark, Marcus, what she says-\n    I can interpret all her martyr'd signs;\n    She says she drinks no other drink but tears,\n    Brew'd with her sorrow, mesh'd upon her cheeks.\n    Speechless complainer, I will learn thy thought;\n    In thy dumb action will I be as perfect\n    As begging hermits in their holy prayers.\n    Thou shalt not sigh, nor hold thy stumps to heaven,\n    Nor wink, nor nod, nor kneel, nor make a sign,\n    But I of these will wrest an alphabet,\n    And by still practice learn to know thy meaning.\n  BOY. Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments;\n    Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale.\n  MARCUS. Alas, the tender boy, in passion mov'd,\n    Doth weep to see his grandsire's heaviness.\n  TITUS. Peace, tender sapling; thou art made of tears,\n    And tears will quickly melt thy life away.\n                          [MARCUS strikes the dish with a knife]\n    What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife?\n  MARCUS. At that that I have kill'd, my lord- a fly.\n  TITUS. Out on thee, murderer, thou kill'st my heart!\n    Mine eyes are cloy'd with view of tyranny;\n    A deed of death done on the innocent\n    Becomes not Titus' brother. Get thee gone;\n    I see thou art not for my company.\n  MARCUS. Alas, my lord, I have but kill'd a fly.\n  TITUS. 'But!' How if that fly had a father and mother?\n    How would he hang his slender gilded wings\n    And buzz lamenting doings in the air!\n    Poor harmless fly,\n    That with his pretty buzzing melody\n    Came here to make us merry! And thou hast kill'd him.\n  MARCUS. Pardon me, sir; it was a black ill-favour'd fly,\n    Like to the Empress' Moor; therefore I kill'd him.\n  TITUS. O, O, O!\n    Then pardon me for reprehending thee,\n    For thou hast done a charitable deed.\n    Give me thy knife, I will insult on him,\n    Flattering myself as if it were the Moor\n    Come hither purposely to poison me.\n    There's for thyself, and that's for Tamora.\n    Ah, sirrah!\n    Yet, I think, we are not brought so low\n    But that between us we can kill a fly\n    That comes in likeness of a coal-black Moor.\n  MARCUS. Alas, poor man! grief has so wrought on him,\n    He takes false shadows for true substances.\n  TITUS. Come, take away. Lavinia, go with me;\n    I'll to thy closet, and go read with thee\n    Sad stories chanced in the times of old.\n    Come, boy, and go with me; thy sight is young,\n    And thou shalt read when mine begin to dazzle.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nRome. TITUS' garden\n\nEnter YOUNG LUCIUS and LAVINIA running after him,\nand the boy flies from her with his books under his arm.\n\nEnter TITUS and MARCUS\n\n  BOY. Help, grandsire, help! my aunt Lavinia\n    Follows me everywhere, I know not why.\n    Good uncle Marcus, see how swift she comes!\n    Alas, sweet aunt, I know not what you mean.\n  MARCUS. Stand by me, Lucius; do not fear thine aunt.\n  TITUS. She loves thee, boy, too well to do thee harm.\n  BOY. Ay, when my father was in Rome she did.\n  MARCUS. What means my niece Lavinia by these signs?\n  TITUS. Fear her not, Lucius; somewhat doth she mean.\n    See, Lucius, see how much she makes of thee.\n    Somewhither would she have thee go with her.\n    Ah, boy, Cornelia never with more care\n    Read to her sons than she hath read to thee\n    Sweet poetry and Tully's Orator.\n  MARCUS. Canst thou not guess wherefore she plies thee thus?\n  BOY. My lord, I know not, I, nor can I guess,\n    Unless some fit or frenzy do possess her;\n    For I have heard my grandsire say full oft\n    Extremity of griefs would make men mad;\n    And I have read that Hecuba of Troy\n    Ran mad for sorrow. That made me to fear;\n    Although, my lord, I know my noble aunt\n    Loves me as dear as e'er my mother did,\n    And would not, but in fury, fright my youth;\n    Which made me down to throw my books, and fly-\n    Causeless, perhaps. But pardon me, sweet aunt;\n    And, madam, if my uncle Marcus go,\n    I will most willingly attend your ladyship.\n  MARCUS. Lucius, I will.           [LAVINIA turns over with her\n                     stumps the books which Lucius has let fall]\n  TITUS. How now, Lavinia! Marcus, what means this?\n    Some book there is that she desires to see.\n    Which is it, girl, of these?- Open them, boy.-\n    But thou art deeper read and better skill'd;\n    Come and take choice of all my library,\n    And so beguile thy sorrow, till the heavens\n    Reveal the damn'd contriver of this deed.\n    Why lifts she up her arms in sequence thus?\n  MARCUS. I think she means that there were more than one\n    Confederate in the fact; ay, more there was,\n    Or else to heaven she heaves them for revenge.\n  TITUS. Lucius, what book is that she tosseth so?\n  BOY. Grandsire, 'tis Ovid's Metamorphoses;\n    My mother gave it me.\n  MARCUS. For love of her that's gone,\n    Perhaps she cull'd it from among the rest.\n  TITUS. Soft! So busily she turns the leaves! Help her.\n    What would she find? Lavinia, shall I read?\n    This is the tragic tale of Philomel\n    And treats of Tereus' treason and his rape;\n    And rape, I fear, was root of thy annoy.\n  MARCUS. See, brother, see! Note how she quotes the leaves.\n  TITUS. Lavinia, wert thou thus surpris'd, sweet girl,\n    Ravish'd and wrong'd as Philomela was,\n    Forc'd in the ruthless, vast, and gloomy woods?\n    See, see!\n    Ay, such a place there is where we did hunt-\n    O, had we never, never hunted there!-\n    Pattern'd by that the poet here describes,\n    By nature made for murders and for rapes.\n  MARCUS. O, why should nature build so foul a den,\n    Unless the gods delight in tragedies?\n  TITUS. Give signs, sweet girl, for here are none but friends,\n    What Roman lord it was durst do the deed.\n    Or slunk not Saturnine, as Tarquin erst,\n    That left the camp to sin in Lucrece' bed?\n  MARCUS. Sit down, sweet niece; brother, sit down by me.\n    Apollo, Pallas, Jove, or Mercury,\n    Inspire me, that I may this treason find!\n    My lord, look here! Look here, Lavinia!\n                                    [He writes his name with his\n                       staff, and guides it with feet and mouth]\n    This sandy plot is plain; guide, if thou canst,\n    This after me. I have writ my name\n    Without the help of any hand at all.\n    Curs'd be that heart that forc'd us to this shift!\n    Write thou, good niece, and here display at last\n    What God will have discovered for revenge.\n    Heaven guide thy pen to print thy sorrows plain,\n    That we may know the traitors and the truth!\n                               [She takes the staff in her mouth\n                          and guides it with stumps, and writes]\n    O, do ye read, my lord, what she hath writ?\n  TITUS. 'Stuprum- Chiron- Demetrius.'\n  MARCUS. What, what! the lustful sons of Tamora\n    Performers of this heinous bloody deed?\n  TITUS. Magni Dominator poli,\n    Tam lentus audis scelera? tam lentus vides?\n  MARCUS. O, calm thee, gentle lord! although I know\n    There is enough written upon this earth\n    To stir a mutiny in the mildest thoughts,\n    And arm the minds of infants to exclaims.\n    My lord, kneel down with me; Lavinia, kneel;\n    And kneel, sweet boy, the Roman Hector's hope;\n    And swear with me- as, with the woeful fere\n    And father of that chaste dishonoured dame,\n    Lord Junius Brutus sware for Lucrece' rape-\n    That we will prosecute, by good advice,\n    Mortal revenge upon these traitorous Goths,\n    And see their blood or die with this reproach.\n  TITUS. 'Tis sure enough, an you knew how;\n    But if you hunt these bear-whelps, then beware:\n    The dam will wake; and if she wind ye once,\n    She's with the lion deeply still in league,\n    And lulls him whilst she playeth on her back,\n    And when he sleeps will she do what she list.\n    You are a young huntsman, Marcus; let alone;\n    And come, I will go get a leaf of brass,\n    And with a gad of steel will write these words,\n    And lay it by. The angry northern wind\n    Will blow these sands like Sibyl's leaves abroad,\n    And where's our lesson, then? Boy, what say you?\n  BOY. I say, my lord, that if I were a man\n    Their mother's bedchamber should not be safe\n    For these base bondmen to the yoke of Rome.\n  MARCUS. Ay, that's my boy! Thy father hath full oft\n    For his ungrateful country done the like.\n  BOY. And, uncle, so will I, an if I live.\n  TITUS. Come, go with me into mine armoury.\n    Lucius, I'll fit thee; and withal my boy\n    Shall carry from me to the Empress' sons\n    Presents that I intend to send them both.\n    Come, come; thou'lt do my message, wilt thou not?\n  BOY. Ay, with my dagger in their bosoms, grandsire.\n  TITUS. No, boy, not so; I'll teach thee another course.\n    Lavinia, come. Marcus, look to my house.\n    Lucius and I'll go brave it at the court;\n    Ay, marry, will we, sir! and we'll be waited on.\n                         Exeunt TITUS, LAVINIA, and YOUNG LUCIUS\n  MARCUS. O heavens, can you hear a good man groan\n    And not relent, or not compassion him?\n    Marcus, attend him in his ecstasy,\n    That hath more scars of sorrow in his heart\n    Than foemen's marks upon his batt'red shield,\n    But yet so just that he will not revenge.\n    Revenge the heavens for old Andronicus!                 Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. The palace\n\nEnter AARON, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, at one door; and at the other door,\nYOUNG LUCIUS and another with a bundle of weapons, and verses writ upon them\n\n  CHIRON. Demetrius, here's the son of Lucius;\n    He hath some message to deliver us.\n  AARON. Ay, some mad message from his mad grandfather.\n  BOY. My lords, with all the humbleness I may,\n    I greet your honours from Andronicus-\n    [Aside]  And pray the Roman gods confound you both!\n  DEMETRIUS. Gramercy, lovely Lucius. What's the news?\n  BOY.  [Aside]  That you are both decipher'd, that's the news,\n    For villains mark'd with rape.- May it please you,\n    My grandsire, well advis'd, hath sent by me\n    The goodliest weapons of his armoury\n    To gratify your honourable youth,\n    The hope of Rome; for so he bid me say;\n    And so I do, and with his gifts present\n    Your lordships, that, whenever you have need,\n    You may be armed and appointed well.\n    And so I leave you both-  [Aside]  like bloody villains.\n                               Exeunt YOUNG LUCIUS and attendant\n  DEMETRIUS. What's here? A scroll, and written round about.\n    Let's see:\n    [Reads]  'Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,\n    Non eget Mauri iaculis, nec arcu.'\n  CHIRON. O, 'tis a verse in Horace, I know it well;\n    I read it in the grammar long ago.\n  AARON. Ay, just- a verse in Horace. Right, you have it.\n    [Aside]  Now, what a thing it is to be an ass!\n    Here's no sound jest! The old man hath found their guilt,\n    And sends them weapons wrapp'd about with lines\n    That wound, beyond their feeling, to the quick.\n    But were our witty Empress well afoot,\n    She would applaud Andronicus' conceit.\n    But let her rest in her unrest awhile-\n    And now, young lords, was't not a happy star\n    Led us to Rome, strangers, and more than so,\n    Captives, to be advanced to this height?\n    It did me good before the palace gate\n    To brave the Tribune in his brother's hearing.\n  DEMETRIUS. But me more good to see so great a lord\n    Basely insinuate and send us gifts.\n  AARON. Had he not reason, Lord Demetrius?\n    Did you not use his daughter very friendly?\n  DEMETRIUS. I would we had a thousand Roman dames\n    At such a bay, by turn to serve our lust.\n  CHIRON. A charitable wish and full of love.\n  AARON. Here lacks but your mother for to say amen.\n  CHIRON. And that would she for twenty thousand more.\n  DEMETRIUS. Come, let us go and pray to all the gods\n    For our beloved mother in her pains.\n  AARON.  [Aside]  Pray to the devils; the gods have given us over.\n                                                [Trumpets sound]\n  DEMETRIUS. Why do the Emperor's trumpets flourish thus?\n  CHIRON. Belike, for joy the Emperor hath a son.\n  DEMETRIUS. Soft! who comes here?\n\n            Enter NURSE, with a blackamoor CHILD\n\n  NURSE. Good morrow, lords.\n    O, tell me, did you see Aaron the Moor?\n  AARON. Well, more or less, or ne'er a whit at all,\n    Here Aaron is; and what with Aaron now?\n  NURSE. O gentle Aaron, we are all undone!\n    Now help, or woe betide thee evermore!\n  AARON. Why, what a caterwauling dost thou keep!\n    What dost thou wrap and fumble in thy arms?\n  NURSE. O, that which I would hide from heaven's eye:\n    Our Empress' shame and stately Rome's disgrace!\n    She is delivered, lord; she is delivered.\n  AARON. To whom?\n  NURSE. I mean she is brought a-bed.\n  AARON. Well, God give her good rest! What hath he sent her?\n  NURSE. A devil.\n  AARON. Why, then she is the devil's dam;\n    A joyful issue.\n  NURSE. A joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful issue!\n    Here is the babe, as loathsome as a toad\n    Amongst the fair-fac'd breeders of our clime;\n    The Empress sends it thee, thy stamp, thy seal,\n    And bids thee christen it with thy dagger's point.\n  AARON. Zounds, ye whore! Is black so base a hue?\n    Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom sure.\n  DEMETRIUS. Villain, what hast thou done?\n  AARON. That which thou canst not undo.\n  CHIRON. Thou hast undone our mother.\n  AARON. Villain, I have done thy mother.\n  DEMETRIUS. And therein, hellish dog, thou hast undone her.\n    Woe to her chance, and damn'd her loathed choice!\n    Accurs'd the offspring of so foul a fiend!\n  CHIRON. It shall not live.\n  AARON. It shall not die.\n  NURSE. Aaron, it must; the mother wills it so.\n  AARON. What, must it, nurse? Then let no man but I\n    Do execution on my flesh and blood.\n  DEMETRIUS. I'll broach the tadpole on my rapier's point.\n    Nurse, give it me; my sword shall soon dispatch it.\n  AARON. Sooner this sword shall plough thy bowels up.\n                     [Takes the CHILD from the NURSE, and draws]\n    Stay, murderous villains, will you kill your brother!\n    Now, by the burning tapers of the sky\n    That shone so brightly when this boy was got,\n    He dies upon my scimitar's sharp point\n    That touches this my first-born son and heir.\n    I tell you, younglings, not Enceladus,\n    With all his threat'ning band of Typhon's brood,\n    Nor great Alcides, nor the god of war,\n    Shall seize this prey out of his father's hands.\n    What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys!\n    Ye white-lim'd walls! ye alehouse painted signs!\n    Coal-black is better than another hue\n    In that it scorns to bear another hue;\n    For all the water in the ocean\n    Can never turn the swan's black legs to white,\n    Although she lave them hourly in the flood.\n    Tell the Empress from me I am of age\n    To keep mine own- excuse it how she can.\n  DEMETRIUS. Wilt thou betray thy noble mistress thus?\n  AARON. My mistress is my mistress: this my self,\n    The vigour and the picture of my youth.\n    This before all the world do I prefer;\n    This maugre all the world will I keep safe,\n    Or some of you shall smoke for it in Rome.\n  DEMETRIUS. By this our mother is for ever sham'd.\n  CHIRON. Rome will despise her for this foul escape.\n  NURSE. The Emperor in his rage will doom her death.\n  CHIRON. I blush to think upon this ignomy.\n  AARON. Why, there's the privilege your beauty bears:\n    Fie, treacherous hue, that will betray with blushing\n    The close enacts and counsels of thy heart!\n    Here's a young lad fram'd of another leer.\n    Look how the black slave smiles upon the father,\n    As who should say 'Old lad, I am thine own.'\n    He is your brother, lords, sensibly fed\n    Of that self-blood that first gave life to you;\n    And from your womb where you imprisoned were\n    He is enfranchised and come to light.\n    Nay, he is your brother by the surer side,\n    Although my seal be stamped in his face.\n  NURSE. Aaron, what shall I say unto the Empress?\n  DEMETRIUS. Advise thee, Aaron, what is to be done,\n    And we will all subscribe to thy advice.\n    Save thou the child, so we may all be safe.\n  AARON. Then sit we down and let us all consult.\n    My son and I will have the wind of you:\n    Keep there; now talk at pleasure of your safety.\n                                                      [They sit]\n  DEMETRIUS. How many women saw this child of his?\n  AARON. Why, so, brave lords! When we join in league\n    I am a lamb; but if you brave the Moor,\n    The chafed boar, the mountain lioness,\n    The ocean swells not so as Aaron storms.\n    But say, again, how many saw the child?\n  NURSE. Cornelia the midwife and myself;\n    And no one else but the delivered Empress.\n  AARON. The Emperess, the midwife, and yourself.\n    Two may keep counsel when the third's away:\n    Go to the Empress, tell her this I said.      [He kills her]\n    Weeke weeke!\n    So cries a pig prepared to the spit.\n  DEMETRIUS. What mean'st thou, Aaron? Wherefore didst thou this?\n  AARON. O Lord, sir, 'tis a deed of policy.\n    Shall she live to betray this guilt of ours-\n    A long-tongu'd babbling gossip? No, lords, no.\n    And now be it known to you my full intent:\n    Not far, one Muliteus, my countryman-\n    His wife but yesternight was brought to bed;\n    His child is like to her, fair as you are.\n    Go pack with him, and give the mother gold,\n    And tell them both the circumstance of all,\n    And how by this their child shall be advanc'd,\n    And be received for the Emperor's heir\n    And substituted in the place of mine,\n    To calm this tempest whirling in the court;\n    And let the Emperor dandle him for his own.\n    Hark ye, lords. You see I have given her physic,\n                                         [Pointing to the NURSE]\n    And you must needs bestow her funeral;\n    The fields are near, and you are gallant grooms.\n    This done, see that you take no longer days,\n    But send the midwife presently to me.\n    The midwife and the nurse well made away,\n    Then let the ladies tattle what they please.\n  CHIRON. Aaron, I see thou wilt not trust the air\n    With secrets.\n  DEMETRIUS. For this care of Tamora,\n    Herself and hers are highly bound to thee.\n\n         Exeunt DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, bearing off the dead NURSE\n\n  AARON. Now to the Goths, as swift as swallow flies,\n    There to dispose this treasure in mine arms,\n    And secretly to greet the Empress' friends.\n    Come on, you thick-lipp'd slave, I'll bear you hence;\n    For it is you that puts us to our shifts.\n    I'll make you feed on berries and on roots,\n    And feed on curds and whey, and suck the goat,\n    And cabin in a cave, and bring you up\n    To be a warrior and command a camp.\n                                             Exit with the CHILD\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nRome. A public place\n\nEnter TITUS, bearing arrows with letters on the ends of them;\nwith him MARCUS, YOUNG LUCIUS, and other gentlemen,\nPUBLIUS, SEMPRONIUS, and CAIUS, with bows\n\n  TITUS. Come, Marcus, come; kinsmen, this is the way.\n    Sir boy, let me see your archery;\n    Look ye draw home enough, and 'tis there straight.\n    Terras Astrea reliquit,\n    Be you rememb'red, Marcus; she's gone, she's fled.\n    Sirs, take you to your tools. You, cousins, shall\n    Go sound the ocean and cast your nets;\n    Happily you may catch her in the sea;\n    Yet there's as little justice as at land.\n    No; Publius and Sempronius, you must do it;\n    'Tis you must dig with mattock and with spade,\n    And pierce the inmost centre of the earth;\n    Then, when you come to Pluto's region,\n    I pray you deliver him this petition.\n    Tell him it is for justice and for aid,\n    And that it comes from old Andronicus,\n    Shaken with sorrows in ungrateful Rome.\n    Ah, Rome! Well, well, I made thee miserable\n    What time I threw the people's suffrages\n    On him that thus doth tyrannize o'er me.\n    Go get you gone; and pray be careful all,\n    And leave you not a man-of-war unsearch'd.\n    This wicked Emperor may have shipp'd her hence;\n    And, kinsmen, then we may go pipe for justice.\n  MARCUS. O Publius, is not this a heavy case,\n    To see thy noble uncle thus distract?\n  PUBLIUS. Therefore, my lords, it highly us concerns\n    By day and night t' attend him carefully,\n    And feed his humour kindly as we may\n    Till time beget some careful remedy.\n  MARCUS. Kinsmen, his sorrows are past remedy.\n    Join with the Goths, and with revengeful war\n    Take wreak on Rome for this ingratitude,\n    And vengeance on the traitor Saturnine.\n  TITUS. Publius, how now? How now, my masters?\n    What, have you met with her?\n  PUBLIUS. No, my good lord; but Pluto sends you word,\n    If you will have Revenge from hell, you shall.\n    Marry, for Justice, she is so employ'd,\n    He thinks, with Jove in heaven, or somewhere else,\n    So that perforce you must needs stay a time.\n  TITUS. He doth me wrong to feed me with delays.\n    I'll dive into the burning lake below\n    And pull her out of Acheron by the heels.\n    Marcus, we are but shrubs, no cedars we,\n    No big-bon'd men fram'd of the Cyclops' size;\n    But metal, Marcus, steel to the very back,\n    Yet wrung with wrongs more than our backs can bear;\n    And, sith there's no justice in earth nor hell,\n    We will solicit heaven, and move the gods\n    To send down justice for to wreak our wrongs.\n    Come, to this gear. You are a good archer, Marcus.\n                                      [He gives them the arrows]\n    'Ad Jovem' that's for you; here 'Ad Apollinem.'\n    'Ad Martem' that's for myself.\n    Here, boy, 'To Pallas'; here 'To Mercury.'\n    'To Saturn,' Caius- not to Saturnine:\n    You were as good to shoot against the wind.\n    To it, boy. Marcus, loose when I bid.\n    Of my word, I have written to effect;\n    There's not a god left unsolicited.\n  MARCUS. Kinsmen, shoot all your shafts into the court;\n    We will afflict the Emperor in his pride.\n  TITUS. Now, masters, draw.  [They shoot]  O, well said, Lucius!\n    Good boy, in Virgo's lap! Give it Pallas.\n  MARCUS. My lord, I aim a mile beyond the moon;\n    Your letter is with Jupiter by this.\n  TITUS. Ha! ha!\n    Publius, Publius, hast thou done?\n    See, see, thou hast shot off one of Taurus' horns.\n  MARCUS. This was the sport, my lord: when Publius shot,\n    The Bull, being gall'd, gave Aries such a knock\n    That down fell both the Ram's horns in the court;\n    And who should find them but the Empress' villain?\n    She laugh'd, and told the Moor he should not choose\n    But give them to his master for a present.\n  TITUS. Why, there it goes! God give his lordship joy!\n\n    Enter the CLOWN, with a basket and two pigeons in it\n\n    News, news from heaven! Marcus, the post is come.\n    Sirrah, what tidings? Have you any letters?\n    Shall I have justice? What says Jupiter?\n  CLOWN. Ho, the gibbet-maker? He says that he hath taken them down\n    again, for the man must not be hang'd till the next week.\n  TITUS. But what says Jupiter, I ask thee?\n  CLOWN. Alas, sir, I know not Jupiter; I never drank with him in all\n    my life.\n  TITUS. Why, villain, art not thou the carrier?\n  CLOWN. Ay, of my pigeons, sir; nothing else.\n  TITUS. Why, didst thou not come from heaven?\n  CLOWN. From heaven! Alas, sir, I never came there. God forbid I\n    should be so bold to press to heaven in my young days. Why, I am\n    going with my pigeons to the Tribunal Plebs, to take up a matter\n    of brawl betwixt my uncle and one of the Emperal's men.\n  MARCUS. Why, sir, that is as fit as can be to serve for your\n    oration; and let him deliver the pigeons to the Emperor from you.\n  TITUS. Tell me, can you deliver an oration to the Emperor with a\n    grace?\n  CLOWN. Nay, truly, sir, I could never say grace in all my life.\n  TITUS. Sirrah, come hither. Make no more ado,\n    But give your pigeons to the Emperor;\n    By me thou shalt have justice at his hands.\n    Hold, hold! Meanwhile here's money for thy charges.\n    Give me pen and ink. Sirrah, can you with a grace deliver up a\n    supplication?\n  CLOWN. Ay, sir.\n  TITUS. Then here is a supplication for you. And when you come to\n    him, at the first approach you must kneel; then kiss his foot;\n    then deliver up your pigeons; and then look for your reward. I'll\n    be at hand, sir; see you do it bravely.\n  CLOWN. I warrant you, sir; let me alone.\n  TITUS. Sirrah, hast thou a knife? Come let me see it.\n    Here, Marcus, fold it in the oration;\n    For thou hast made it like a humble suppliant.\n    And when thou hast given it to the Emperor,\n    Knock at my door, and tell me what he says.\n  CLOWN. God be with you, sir; I will.\n  TITUS. Come, Marcus, let us go. Publius, follow me.     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nRome. Before the palace\n\nEnter the EMPEROR, and the EMPRESS and her two sons, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON;\nLORDS and others. The EMPEROR brings the arrows in his hand that TITUS\nshot at him\n\n  SATURNINUS. Why, lords, what wrongs are these! Was ever seen\n    An emperor in Rome thus overborne,\n    Troubled, confronted thus; and, for the extent\n    Of egal justice, us'd in such contempt?\n    My lords, you know, as know the mightful gods,\n    However these disturbers of our peace\n    Buzz in the people's ears, there nought hath pass'd\n    But even with law against the wilful sons\n    Of old Andronicus. And what an if\n    His sorrows have so overwhelm'd his wits,\n    Shall we be thus afflicted in his wreaks,\n    His fits, his frenzy, and his bitterness?\n    And now he writes to heaven for his redress.\n    See, here's 'To Jove' and this 'To Mercury';\n    This 'To Apollo'; this 'To the God of War'-\n    Sweet scrolls to fly about the streets of Rome!\n    What's this but libelling against the Senate,\n    And blazoning our unjustice every where?\n    A goodly humour, is it not, my lords?\n    As who would say in Rome no justice were.\n    But if I live, his feigned ecstasies\n    Shall be no shelter to these outrages;\n    But he and his shall know that justice lives\n    In Saturninus' health; whom, if she sleep,\n    He'll so awake as he in fury shall\n    Cut off the proud'st conspirator that lives.\n  TAMORA. My gracious lord, my lovely Saturnine,\n    Lord of my life, commander of my thoughts,\n    Calm thee, and bear the faults of Titus' age,\n    Th' effects of sorrow for his valiant sons\n    Whose loss hath pierc'd him deep and scarr'd his heart;\n    And rather comfort his distressed plight\n    Than prosecute the meanest or the best\n    For these contempts.  [Aside]  Why, thus it shall become\n    High-witted Tamora to gloze with all.\n    But, Titus, I have touch'd thee to the quick,\n    Thy life-blood out; if Aaron now be wise,\n    Then is all safe, the anchor in the port.\n\n                       Enter CLOWN\n\n    How now, good fellow! Wouldst thou speak with us?\n  CLOWN. Yes, forsooth, an your mistriship be Emperial.\n  TAMORA. Empress I am, but yonder sits the Emperor.\n  CLOWN. 'Tis he.- God and Saint Stephen give you godden. I have\n    brought you a letter and a couple of pigeons here.\n                                   [SATURNINUS reads the letter]\n  SATURNINUS. Go take him away, and hang him presently.\n  CLOWN. How much money must I have?\n  TAMORA. Come, sirrah, you must be hang'd.\n  CLOWN. Hang'd! by'r lady, then I have brought up a neck to a fair\n    end.                                          [Exit guarded]\n  SATURNINUS. Despiteful and intolerable wrongs!\n    Shall I endure this monstrous villainy?\n    I know from whence this same device proceeds.\n    May this be borne- as if his traitorous sons\n    That died by law for murder of our brother\n    Have by my means been butchered wrongfully?\n    Go drag the villain hither by the hair;\n    Nor age nor honour shall shape privilege.\n    For this proud mock I'll be thy slaughterman,\n    Sly frantic wretch, that holp'st to make me great,\n    In hope thyself should govern Rome and me.\n\n                   Enter NUNTIUS AEMILIUS\n\n    What news with thee, Aemilius?\n  AEMILIUS. Arm, my lords! Rome never had more cause.\n    The Goths have gathered head; and with a power\n    Of high resolved men, bent to the spoil,\n    They hither march amain, under conduct\n    Of Lucius, son to old Andronicus;\n    Who threats in course of this revenge to do\n    As much as ever Coriolanus did.\n  SATURNINUS. Is warlike Lucius general of the Goths?\n    These tidings nip me, and I hang the head\n    As flowers with frost, or grass beat down with storms.\n    Ay, now begins our sorrows to approach.\n    'Tis he the common people love so much;\n    Myself hath often heard them say-\n    When I have walked like a private man-\n    That Lucius' banishment was wrongfully,\n    And they have wish'd that Lucius were their emperor.\n  TAMORA. Why should you fear? Is not your city strong?\n  SATURNINUS. Ay, but the citizens favour Lucius,\n    And will revolt from me to succour him.\n  TAMORA. King, be thy thoughts imperious like thy name!\n    Is the sun dimm'd, that gnats do fly in it?\n    The eagle suffers little birds to sing,\n    And is not careful what they mean thereby,\n    Knowing that with the shadow of his wings\n    He can at pleasure stint their melody;\n    Even so mayest thou the giddy men of Rome.\n    Then cheer thy spirit; for know thou, Emperor,\n    I will enchant the old Andronicus\n    With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous,\n    Than baits to fish or honey-stalks to sheep,\n    When as the one is wounded with the bait,\n    The other rotted with delicious feed.\n  SATURNINUS. But he will not entreat his son for us.\n  TAMORA. If Tamora entreat him, then he will;\n    For I can smooth and fill his aged ears\n    With golden promises, that, were his heart\n    Almost impregnable, his old ears deaf,\n    Yet should both ear and heart obey my tongue.\n    [To AEMILIUS]  Go thou before to be our ambassador;\n    Say that the Emperor requests a parley\n    Of warlike Lucius, and appoint the meeting\n    Even at his father's house, the old Andronicus.\n  SATURNINUS. Aemilius, do this message honourably;\n    And if he stand on hostage for his safety,\n    Bid him demand what pledge will please him best.\n  AEMILIUS. Your bidding shall I do effectually.            Exit\n  TAMORA. Now will I to that old Andronicus,\n    And temper him with all the art I have,\n    To pluck proud Lucius from the warlike Goths.\n    And now, sweet Emperor, be blithe again,\n    And bury all thy fear in my devices.\n  SATURNINUS. Then go successantly, and plead to him.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nPlains near Rome\n\nEnter LUCIUS with an army of GOTHS with drums and colours\n\n  LUCIUS. Approved warriors and my faithful friends,\n    I have received letters from great Rome\n    Which signifies what hate they bear their Emperor\n    And how desirous of our sight they are.\n    Therefore, great lords, be, as your titles witness,\n    Imperious and impatient of your wrongs;\n    And wherein Rome hath done you any scath,\n    Let him make treble satisfaction.\n  FIRST GOTH. Brave slip, sprung from the great Andronicus,\n    Whose name was once our terror, now our comfort,\n    Whose high exploits and honourable deeds\n    Ingrateful Rome requites with foul contempt,\n    Be bold in us: we'll follow where thou lead'st,\n    Like stinging bees in hottest summer's day,\n    Led by their master to the flow'red fields,\n    And be aveng'd on cursed Tamora.\n  ALL THE GOTHS. And as he saith, so say we all with him.\n  LUCIUS. I humbly thank him, and I thank you all.\n    But who comes here, led by a lusty Goth?\n\n     Enter a GOTH, leading AARON with his CHILD in his arms\n\n  SECOND GOTH. Renowned Lucius, from our troops I stray'd\n    To gaze upon a ruinous monastery;\n    And as I earnestly did fix mine eye\n    Upon the wasted building, suddenly\n    I heard a child cry underneath a wall.\n    I made unto the noise, when soon I heard\n    The crying babe controll'd with this discourse:\n    'Peace, tawny slave, half me and half thy dam!\n    Did not thy hue bewray whose brat thou art,\n    Had nature lent thee but thy mother's look,\n    Villain, thou mightst have been an emperor;\n    But where the bull and cow are both milk-white,\n    They never do beget a coal-black calf.\n    Peace, villain, peace!'- even thus he rates the babe-\n    'For I must bear thee to a trusty Goth,\n    Who, when he knows thou art the Empress' babe,\n    Will hold thee dearly for thy mother's sake.'\n    With this, my weapon drawn, I rush'd upon him,\n    Surpris'd him suddenly, and brought him hither\n    To use as you think needful of the man.\n  LUCIUS. O worthy Goth, this is the incarnate devil\n    That robb'd Andronicus of his good hand;\n    This is the pearl that pleas'd your Empress' eye;\n    And here's the base fruit of her burning lust.\n    Say, wall-ey'd slave, whither wouldst thou convey\n    This growing image of thy fiend-like face?\n    Why dost not speak? What, deaf? Not a word?\n    A halter, soldiers! Hang him on this tree,\n    And by his side his fruit of bastardy.\n  AARON. Touch not the boy, he is of royal blood.\n  LUCIUS. Too like the sire for ever being good.\n    First hang the child, that he may see it sprawl-\n    A sight to vex the father's soul withal.\n    Get me a ladder.\n                [A ladder brought, which AARON is made to climb]\n  AARON. Lucius, save the child,\n    And bear it from me to the Emperess.\n    If thou do this, I'll show thee wondrous things\n    That highly may advantage thee to hear;\n    If thou wilt not, befall what may befall,\n    I'll speak no more but 'Vengeance rot you all!'\n  LUCIUS. Say on; an if it please me which thou speak'st,\n    Thy child shall live, and I will see it nourish'd.\n  AARON. An if it please thee! Why, assure thee, Lucius,\n    'Twill vex thy soul to hear what I shall speak;\n    For I must talk of murders, rapes, and massacres,\n    Acts of black night, abominable deeds,\n    Complots of mischief, treason, villainies,\n    Ruthful to hear, yet piteously perform'd;\n    And this shall all be buried in my death,\n    Unless thou swear to me my child shall live.\n  LUCIUS. Tell on thy mind; I say thy child shall live.\n  AARON. Swear that he shall, and then I will begin.\n  LUCIUS. Who should I swear by? Thou believest no god;\n    That granted, how canst thou believe an oath?\n  AARON. What if I do not? as indeed I do not;\n    Yet, for I know thou art religious\n    And hast a thing within thee called conscience,\n    With twenty popish tricks and ceremonies\n    Which I have seen thee careful to observe,\n    Therefore I urge thy oath. For that I know\n    An idiot holds his bauble for a god,\n    And keeps the oath which by that god he swears,\n    To that I'll urge him. Therefore thou shalt vow\n    By that same god- what god soe'er it be\n    That thou adorest and hast in reverence-\n    To save my boy, to nourish and bring him up;\n    Or else I will discover nought to thee.\n  LUCIUS. Even by my god I swear to thee I will.\n  AARON. First know thou, I begot him on the Empress.\n  LUCIUS. O most insatiate and luxurious woman!\n  AARON. Tut, Lucius, this was but a deed of charity\n    To that which thou shalt hear of me anon.\n    'Twas her two sons that murdered Bassianus;\n    They cut thy sister's tongue, and ravish'd her,\n    And cut her hands, and trimm'd her as thou sawest.\n  LUCIUS. O detestable villain! Call'st thou that trimming?\n  AARON. Why, she was wash'd, and cut, and trimm'd, and 'twas\n    Trim sport for them which had the doing of it.\n  LUCIUS. O barbarous beastly villains like thyself!\n  AARON. Indeed, I was their tutor to instruct them.\n    That codding spirit had they from their mother,\n    As sure a card as ever won the set;\n    That bloody mind, I think, they learn'd of me,\n    As true a dog as ever fought at head.\n    Well, let my deeds be witness of my worth.\n    I train'd thy brethren to that guileful hole\n    Where the dead corpse of Bassianus lay;\n    I wrote the letter that thy father found,\n    And hid the gold within that letter mention'd,\n    Confederate with the Queen and her two sons;\n    And what not done, that thou hast cause to rue,\n    Wherein I had no stroke of mischief in it?\n    I play'd the cheater for thy father's hand,\n    And, when I had it, drew myself apart\n    And almost broke my heart with extreme laughter.\n    I pried me through the crevice of a wall,\n    When, for his hand, he had his two sons' heads;\n    Beheld his tears, and laugh'd so heartily\n    That both mine eyes were rainy like to his;\n    And when I told the Empress of this sport,\n    She swooned almost at my pleasing tale,\n    And for my tidings gave me twenty kisses.\n  GOTH. What, canst thou say all this and never blush?\n  AARON. Ay, like a black dog, as the saying is.\n  LUCIUS. Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?\n  AARON. Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.\n    Even now I curse the day- and yet, I think,\n    Few come within the compass of my curse-\n    Wherein I did not some notorious ill;\n    As kill a man, or else devise his death;\n    Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it;\n    Accuse some innocent, and forswear myself;\n    Set deadly enmity between two friends;\n    Make poor men's cattle break their necks;\n    Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,\n    And bid the owners quench them with their tears.\n    Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,\n    And set them upright at their dear friends' door\n    Even when their sorrows almost was forgot,\n    And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,\n    Have with my knife carved in Roman letters\n    'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'\n    Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things\n    As willingly as one would kill a fly;\n    And nothing grieves me heartily indeed\n    But that I cannot do ten thousand more.\n  LUCIUS. Bring down the devil, for he must not die\n    So sweet a death as hanging presently.\n  AARON. If there be devils, would I were a devil,\n    To live and burn in everlasting fire,\n    So I might have your company in hell\n    But to torment you with my bitter tongue!\n  LUCIUS. Sirs, stop his mouth, and let him speak no more.\n\n                       Enter AEMILIUS\n\n  GOTH. My lord, there is a messenger from Rome\n    Desires to be admitted to your presence.\n  LUCIUS. Let him come near.\n    Welcome, Aemilius. What's the news from Rome?\n  AEMILIUS. Lord Lucius, and you Princes of the Goths,\n    The Roman Emperor greets you all by me;\n    And, for he understands you are in arms,\n    He craves a parley at your father's house,\n    Willing you to demand your hostages,\n    And they shall be immediately deliver'd.\n  FIRST GOTH. What says our general?\n  LUCIUS. Aemilius, let the Emperor give his pledges\n    Unto my father and my uncle Marcus.\n    And we will come. March away.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. Before TITUS' house\n\nEnter TAMORA, and her two sons, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, disguised\n\n  TAMORA. Thus, in this strange and sad habiliment,\n    I will encounter with Andronicus,\n    And say I am Revenge, sent from below\n    To join with him and right his heinous wrongs.\n    Knock at his study, where they say he keeps\n    To ruminate strange plots of dire revenge;\n    Tell him Revenge is come to join with him,\n    And work confusion on his enemies.\n\n         They knock and TITUS opens his study door, above\n\n  TITUS. Who doth molest my contemplation?\n    Is it your trick to make me ope the door,\n    That so my sad decrees may fly away\n    And all my study be to no effect?\n    You are deceiv'd; for what I mean to do\n    See here in bloody lines I have set down;\n    And what is written shall be executed.\n  TAMORA. Titus, I am come to talk with thee.\n  TITUS. No, not a word. How can I grace my talk,\n    Wanting a hand to give it that accord?\n    Thou hast the odds of me; therefore no more.\n  TAMORA. If thou didst know me, thou wouldst talk with me.\n  TITUS. I am not mad, I know thee well enough:\n    Witness this wretched stump, witness these crimson lines;\n    Witness these trenches made by grief and care;\n    Witness the tiring day and heavy night;\n    Witness all sorrow that I know thee well\n    For our proud Empress, mighty Tamora.\n    Is not thy coming for my other hand?\n  TAMORA. Know thou, sad man, I am not Tamora:\n    She is thy enemy and I thy friend.\n    I am Revenge, sent from th' infernal kingdom\n    To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind\n    By working wreakful vengeance on thy foes.\n    Come down and welcome me to this world's light;\n    Confer with me of murder and of death;\n    There's not a hollow cave or lurking-place,\n    No vast obscurity or misty vale,\n    Where bloody murder or detested rape\n    Can couch for fear but I will find them out;\n    And in their ears tell them my dreadful name-\n    Revenge, which makes the foul offender quake.\n  TITUS. Art thou Revenge? and art thou sent to me\n    To be a torment to mine enemies?\n  TAMORA. I am; therefore come down and welcome me.\n  TITUS. Do me some service ere I come to thee.\n    Lo, by thy side where Rape and Murder stands;\n    Now give some surance that thou art Revenge-\n    Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot wheels;\n    And then I'll come and be thy waggoner\n    And whirl along with thee about the globes.\n    Provide thee two proper palfreys, black as jet,\n    To hale thy vengeful waggon swift away,\n    And find out murderers in their guilty caves;\n    And when thy car is loaden with their heads,\n    I will dismount, and by thy waggon wheel\n    Trot, like a servile footman, all day long,\n    Even from Hyperion's rising in the east\n    Until his very downfall in the sea.\n    And day by day I'll do this heavy task,\n    So thou destroy Rapine and Murder there.\n  TAMORA. These are my ministers, and come with me.\n  TITUS. Are they thy ministers? What are they call'd?\n  TAMORA. Rape and Murder; therefore called so\n    'Cause they take vengeance of such kind of men.\n  TITUS. Good Lord, how like the Empress' sons they are!\n    And you the Empress! But we worldly men\n    Have miserable, mad, mistaking eyes.\n    O sweet Revenge, now do I come to thee;\n    And, if one arm's embracement will content thee,\n    I will embrace thee in it by and by.\n  TAMORA. This closing with him fits his lunacy.\n    Whate'er I forge to feed his brain-sick humours,\n    Do you uphold and maintain in your speeches,\n    For now he firmly takes me for Revenge;\n    And, being credulous in this mad thought,\n    I'll make him send for Lucius his son,\n    And whilst I at a banquet hold him sure,\n    I'll find some cunning practice out of hand\n    To scatter and disperse the giddy Goths,\n    Or, at the least, make them his enemies.\n    See, here he comes, and I must ply my theme.\n\n                 Enter TITUS, below\n\n  TITUS. Long have I been forlorn, and all for thee.\n    Welcome, dread Fury, to my woeful house.\n    Rapine and Murder, you are welcome too.\n    How like the Empress and her sons you are!\n    Well are you fitted, had you but a Moor.\n    Could not all hell afford you such a devil?\n    For well I wot the Empress never wags\n    But in her company there is a Moor;\n    And, would you represent our queen aright,\n    It were convenient you had such a devil.\n    But welcome as you are. What shall we do?\n  TAMORA. What wouldst thou have us do, Andronicus?\n  DEMETRIUS. Show me a murderer, I'll deal with him.\n  CHIRON. Show me a villain that hath done a rape,\n    And I am sent to be reveng'd on him.\n  TAMORA. Show me a thousand that hath done thee wrong,\n    And I will be revenged on them all.\n  TITUS. Look round about the wicked streets of Rome,\n    And when thou find'st a man that's like thyself,\n    Good Murder, stab him; he's a murderer.\n    Go thou with him, and when it is thy hap\n    To find another that is like to thee,\n    Good Rapine, stab him; he is a ravisher.\n    Go thou with them; and in the Emperor's court\n    There is a queen, attended by a Moor;\n    Well shalt thou know her by thine own proportion,\n    For up and down she doth resemble thee.\n    I pray thee, do on them some violent death;\n    They have been violent to me and mine.\n  TAMORA. Well hast thou lesson'd us; this shall we do.\n    But would it please thee, good Andronicus,\n    To send for Lucius, thy thrice-valiant son,\n    Who leads towards Rome a band of warlike Goths,\n    And bid him come and banquet at thy house;\n    When he is here, even at thy solemn feast,\n    I will bring in the Empress and her sons,\n    The Emperor himself, and all thy foes;\n    And at thy mercy shall they stoop and kneel,\n    And on them shalt thou ease thy angry heart.\n    What says Andronicus to this device?\n  TITUS. Marcus, my brother! 'Tis sad Titus calls.\n\n                  Enter MARCUS\n\n    Go, gentle Marcus, to thy nephew Lucius;\n    Thou shalt inquire him out among the Goths.\n    Bid him repair to me, and bring with him\n    Some of the chiefest princes of the Goths;\n    Bid him encamp his soldiers where they are.\n    Tell him the Emperor and the Empress too\n    Feast at my house, and he shall feast with them.\n    This do thou for my love; and so let him,\n    As he regards his aged father's life.\n  MARCUS. This will I do, and soon return again.            Exit\n  TAMORA. Now will I hence about thy business,\n    And take my ministers along with me.\n  TITUS. Nay, nay, let Rape and Murder stay with me,\n    Or else I'll call my brother back again,\n    And cleave to no revenge but Lucius.\n  TAMORA.  [Aside to her sons]  What say you, boys? Will you abide\n      with him,\n    Whiles I go tell my lord the Emperor\n    How I have govern'd our determin'd jest?\n    Yield to his humour, smooth and speak him fair,\n    And tarry with him till I turn again.\n  TITUS.  [Aside]  I knew them all, though they suppos'd me mad,\n    And will o'er reach them in their own devices,\n    A pair of cursed hell-hounds and their dam.\n  DEMETRIUS. Madam, depart at pleasure; leave us here.\n  TAMORA. Farewell, Andronicus, Revenge now goes\n    To lay a complot to betray thy foes.\n  TITUS. I know thou dost; and, sweet Revenge, farewell.\n                                                     Exit TAMORA\n  CHIRON. Tell us, old man, how shall we be employ'd?\n  TITUS. Tut, I have work enough for you to do.\n    Publius, come hither, Caius, and Valentine.\n\n          Enter PUBLIUS, CAIUS, and VALENTINE\n\n  PUBLIUS. What is your will?\n  TITUS. Know you these two?\n  PUBLIUS. The Empress' sons, I take them: Chiron, Demetrius.\n  TITUS. Fie, Publius, fie! thou art too much deceiv'd.\n    The one is Murder, and Rape is the other's name;\n    And therefore bind them, gentle Publius-\n    Caius and Valentine, lay hands on them.\n    Oft have you heard me wish for such an hour,\n    And now I find it; therefore bind them sure,\n    And stop their mouths if they begin to cry.             Exit\n                         [They lay hold on CHIRON and DEMETRIUS]\n  CHIRON. Villains, forbear! we are the Empress' sons.\n  PUBLIUS. And therefore do we what we are commanded.\n    Stop close their mouths, let them not speak a word.\n    Is he sure bound? Look that you bind them fast.\n\n               Re-enter TITUS ANDRONICUS\n        with a knife, and LAVINIA, with a basin\n\n  TITUS. Come, come, Lavinia; look, thy foes are bound.\n    Sirs, stop their mouths, let them not speak to me;\n    But let them hear what fearful words I utter.\n    O villains, Chiron and Demetrius!\n    Here stands the spring whom you have stain'd with mud;\n    This goodly summer with your winter mix'd.\n    You kill'd her husband; and for that vile fault\n    Two of her brothers were condemn'd to death,\n    My hand cut off and made a merry jest;\n    Both her sweet hands, her tongue, and that more dear\n    Than hands or tongue, her spotless chastity,\n    Inhuman traitors, you constrain'd and forc'd.\n    What would you say, if I should let you speak?\n    Villains, for shame you could not beg for grace.\n    Hark, wretches! how I mean to martyr you.\n    This one hand yet is left to cut your throats,\n    Whiles that Lavinia 'tween her stumps doth hold\n    The basin that receives your guilty blood.\n    You know your mother means to feast with me,\n    And calls herself Revenge, and thinks me mad.\n    Hark, villains! I will grind your bones to dust,\n    And with your blood and it I'll make a paste;\n    And of the paste a coffin I will rear,\n    And make two pasties of your shameful heads;\n    And bid that strumpet, your unhallowed dam,\n    Like to the earth, swallow her own increase.\n    This is the feast that I have bid her to,\n    And this the banquet she shall surfeit on;\n    For worse than Philomel you us'd my daughter,\n    And worse than Progne I will be reveng'd.\n    And now prepare your throats. Lavinia, come,\n    Receive the blood; and when that they are dead,\n    Let me go grind their bones to powder small,\n    And with this hateful liquor temper it;\n    And in that paste let their vile heads be bak'd.\n    Come, come, be every one officious\n    To make this banquet, which I wish may prove\n    More stern and bloody than the Centaurs' feast.\n                                         [He cuts their throats]\n    So.\n    Now bring them in, for I will play the cook,\n    And see them ready against their mother comes.\n                                 Exeunt, bearing the dead bodies\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe court of TITUS' house\n\nEnter Lucius, MARCUS, and the GOTHS, with AARON prisoner,\nand his CHILD in the arms of an attendant\n\n  LUCIUS. Uncle Marcus, since 'tis my father's mind\n    That I repair to Rome, I am content.\n    FIRST GOTH. And ours with thine, befall what fortune will.\n  LUCIUS. Good uncle, take you in this barbarous Moor,\n    This ravenous tiger, this accursed devil;\n    Let him receive no sust'nance, fetter him,\n    Till he be brought unto the Empress' face\n    For testimony of her foul proceedings.\n    And see the ambush of our friends be strong;\n    I fear the Emperor means no good to us.\n  AARON. Some devil whisper curses in my ear,\n    And prompt me that my tongue may utter forth\n    The venomous malice of my swelling heart!\n  LUCIUS. Away, inhuman dog, unhallowed slave!\n    Sirs, help our uncle to convey him in.\n                        Exeunt GOTHS with AARON. Flourish within\n    The trumpets show the Emperor is at hand.\n\n            Sound trumpets. Enter SATURNINUS and\n    TAMORA, with AEMILIUS, TRIBUNES, SENATORS, and others\n\n  SATURNINUS. What, hath the firmament more suns than one?\n  LUCIUS. What boots it thee to can thyself a sun?\n  MARCUS. Rome's Emperor, and nephew, break the parle;\n    These quarrels must be quietly debated.\n    The feast is ready which the careful Titus\n    Hath ordain'd to an honourable end,\n    For peace, for love, for league, and good to Rome.\n    Please you, therefore, draw nigh and take your places.\n  SATURNINUS. Marcus, we will.\n                      [A table brought in. The company sit down]\n\n               Trumpets sounding, enter TITUS\n         like a cook, placing the dishes, and LAVINIA\n   with a veil over her face; also YOUNG LUCIUS, and others\n\n  TITUS. Welcome, my lord; welcome, dread Queen;\n    Welcome, ye warlike Goths; welcome, Lucius;\n    And welcome all. Although the cheer be poor,\n    'Twill fill your stomachs; please you eat of it.\n  SATURNINUS. Why art thou thus attir'd, Andronicus?\n  TITUS. Because I would be sure to have all well\n    To entertain your Highness and your Empress.\n  TAMORA. We are beholding to you, good Andronicus.\n  TITUS. An if your Highness knew my heart, you were.\n    My lord the Emperor, resolve me this:\n    Was it well done of rash Virginius\n    To slay his daughter with his own right hand,\n    Because she was enforc'd, stain'd, and deflower'd?\n  SATURNINUS. It was, Andronicus.\n  TITUS. Your reason, mighty lord.\n  SATURNINUS. Because the girl should not survive her shame,\n    And by her presence still renew his sorrows.\n  TITUS. A reason mighty, strong, and effectual;\n    A pattern, precedent, and lively warrant\n    For me, most wretched, to perform the like.\n    Die, die, Lavinia, and thy shame with thee;   [He kills her]\n    And with thy shame thy father's sorrow die!\n  SATURNINUS. What hast thou done, unnatural and unkind?\n  TITUS. Kill'd her for whom my tears have made me blind.\n    I am as woeful as Virginius was,\n    And have a thousand times more cause than he\n    To do this outrage; and it now is done.\n  SATURNINUS. What, was she ravish'd? Tell who did the deed.\n  TITUS. Will't please you eat?  Will't please your Highness feed?\n  TAMORA. Why hast thou slain thine only daughter thus?\n  TITUS. Not I; 'twas Chiron and Demetrius.\n    They ravish'd her, and cut away her tongue;\n    And they, 'twas they, that did her all this wrong.\n  SATURNINUS. Go, fetch them hither to us presently.\n  TITUS. Why, there they are, both baked in this pie,\n    Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,\n    Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.\n    'Tis true, 'tis true: witness my knife's sharp point.\n                                          [He stabs the EMPRESS]\n  SATURNINUS. Die, frantic wretch, for this accursed deed!\n                                                [He stabs TITUS]\n  LUCIUS. Can the son's eye behold his father bleed?\n    There's meed for meed, death for a deadly deed.\n                   [He stabs SATURNINUS. A great tumult. LUCIUS,\n               MARCUS, and their friends go up into the balcony]\n  MARCUS. You sad-fac'd men, people and sons of Rome,\n    By uproars sever'd, as a flight of fowl\n    Scatter'd by winds and high tempestuous gusts?\n    O, let me teach you how to knit again\n    This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf,\n    These broken limbs again into one body;\n    Lest Rome herself be bane unto herself,\n    And she whom mighty kingdoms curtsy to,\n    Like a forlorn and desperate castaway,\n    Do shameful execution on herself.\n    But if my frosty signs and chaps of age,\n    Grave witnesses of true experience,\n    Cannot induce you to attend my words,\n    [To Lucius]  Speak, Rome's dear friend, as erst our ancestor,\n    When with his solemn tongue he did discourse\n    To love-sick Dido's sad attending ear\n    The story of that baleful burning night,\n    When subtle Greeks surpris'd King Priam's Troy.\n    Tell us what Sinon hath bewitch'd our ears,\n    Or who hath brought the fatal engine in\n    That gives our Troy, our Rome, the civil wound.\n    My heart is not compact of flint nor steel;\n    Nor can I utter all our bitter grief,\n    But floods of tears will drown my oratory\n    And break my utt'rance, even in the time\n    When it should move ye to attend me most,\n    And force you to commiseration.\n    Here's Rome's young Captain, let him tell the tale;\n    While I stand by and weep to hear him speak.\n  LUCIUS. Then, gracious auditory, be it known to you\n    That Chiron and the damn'd Demetrius\n    Were they that murd'red our Emperor's brother;\n    And they it were that ravished our sister.\n    For their fell faults our brothers were beheaded,\n    Our father's tears despis'd, and basely cozen'd\n    Of that true hand that fought Rome's quarrel out\n    And sent her enemies unto the grave.\n    Lastly, myself unkindly banished,\n    The gates shut on me, and turn'd weeping out,\n    To beg relief among Rome's enemies;\n    Who drown'd their enmity in my true tears,\n    And op'd their arms to embrace me as a friend.\n    I am the turned forth, be it known to you,\n    That have preserv'd her welfare in my blood\n    And from her bosom took the enemy's point,\n    Sheathing the steel in my advent'rous body.\n    Alas! you know I am no vaunter, I;\n    My scars can witness, dumb although they are,\n    That my report is just and full of truth.\n    But, soft! methinks I do digress too much,\n    Citing my worthless praise. O, pardon me!\n    For when no friends are by, men praise themselves.\n  MARCUS. Now is my turn to speak. Behold the child.\n                  [Pointing to the CHILD in an attendant's arms]\n    Of this was Tamora delivered,\n    The issue of an irreligious Moor,\n    Chief architect and plotter of these woes.\n    The villain is alive in Titus' house,\n    Damn'd as he is, to witness this is true.\n    Now judge what cause had Titus to revenge\n    These wrongs unspeakable, past patience,\n    Or more than any living man could bear.\n    Now have you heard the truth: what say you, Romans?\n    Have we done aught amiss, show us wherein,\n    And, from the place where you behold us pleading,\n    The poor remainder of Andronici\n    Will, hand in hand, all headlong hurl ourselves,\n    And on the ragged stones beat forth our souls,\n    And make a mutual closure of our house.\n    Speak, Romans, speak; and if you say we shall,\n    Lo, hand in hand, Lucius and I will fall.\n  AEMILIUS. Come, come, thou reverend man of Rome,\n    And bring our Emperor gently in thy hand,\n    Lucius our Emperor; for well I know\n    The common voice do cry it shall be so.\n  ALL. Lucius, all hail, Rome's royal Emperor!\n  MARCUS. Go, go into old Titus' sorrowful house,\n    And hither hale that misbelieving Moor\n    To be adjudg'd some direful slaught'ring death,\n    As punishment for his most wicked life.          Exeunt some\n              attendants. LUCIUS, MARCUS, and the others descend\n  ALL. Lucius, all hail, Rome's gracious governor!\n  LUCIUS. Thanks, gentle Romans! May I govern so\n    To heal Rome's harms and wipe away her woe!\n    But, gentle people, give me aim awhile,\n    For nature puts me to a heavy task.\n    Stand all aloof; but, uncle, draw you near\n    To shed obsequious tears upon this trunk.\n    O, take this warm kiss on thy pale cold lips.  [Kisses TITUS]\n    These sorrowful drops upon thy blood-stain'd face,\n    The last true duties of thy noble son!\n  MARCUS. Tear for tear and loving kiss for kiss\n    Thy brother Marcus tenders on thy lips.\n    O, were the sum of these that I should pay\n    Countless and infinite, yet would I pay them!\n  LUCIUS. Come hither, boy; come, come, come, and learn of us\n    To melt in showers. Thy grandsire lov'd thee well;\n    Many a time he danc'd thee on his knee,\n    Sung thee asleep, his loving breast thy pillow;\n    Many a story hath he told to thee,\n    And bid thee bear his pretty tales in mind\n    And talk of them when he was dead and gone.\n  MARCUS. How many thousand times hath these poor lips,\n    When they were living, warm'd themselves on thine!\n    O, now, sweet boy, give them their latest kiss!\n    Bid him farewell; commit him to the grave;\n    Do them that kindness, and take leave of them.\n  BOY. O grandsire, grandsire! ev'n with all my heart\n    Would I were dead, so you did live again!\n    O Lord, I cannot speak to him for weeping;\n    My tears will choke me, if I ope my mouth.\n\n            Re-enter attendants with AARON\n\n  A ROMAN. You sad Andronici, have done with woes;\n    Give sentence on the execrable wretch\n    That hath been breeder of these dire events.\n  LUCIUS. Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him;\n    There let him stand and rave and cry for food.\n    If any one relieves or pities him,\n    For the offence he dies. This is our doom.\n    Some stay to see him fast'ned in the earth.\n  AARON. Ah, why should wrath be mute and fury dumb?\n    I am no baby, I, that with base prayers\n    I should repent the evils I have done;\n    Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did\n    Would I perform, if I might have my will.\n    If one good deed in all my life I did,\n    I do repent it from my very soul.\n  LUCIUS. Some loving friends convey the Emperor hence,\n    And give him burial in his father's grave.\n    My father and Lavinia shall forthwith\n    Be closed in our household's monument.\n    As for that ravenous tiger, Tamora,\n    No funeral rite, nor man in mourning weed,\n    No mournful bell shall ring her burial;\n    But throw her forth to beasts and birds to prey.\n    Her life was beastly and devoid of pity,\n    And being dead, let birds on her take pity.           Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1602\n\nTHE HISTORY OF TROILUS AND CRESSIDA\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  PRIAM, King of Troy\n\n    His sons:\n  HECTOR\n  TROILUS\n  PARIS\n  DEIPHOBUS\n  HELENUS\n\n  MARGARELON, a bastard son of Priam\n\n     Trojan commanders:\n  AENEAS\n  ANTENOR\n\n  CALCHAS, a Trojan priest, taking part with the Greeks\n  PANDARUS, uncle to Cressida\n  AGAMEMNON, the Greek general\n  MENELAUS, his brother\n\n    Greek commanders:\n  ACHILLES\n  AJAX\n  ULYSSES\n  NESTOR\n  DIOMEDES\n  PATROCLUS\n\n  THERSITES, a deformed and scurrilous Greek\n  ALEXANDER, servant to Cressida\n  SERVANT to Troilus\n  SERVANT to Paris\n  SERVANT to Diomedes\n\n  HELEN, wife to Menelaus\n  ANDROMACHE, wife to Hector\n  CASSANDRA, daughter to Priam, a prophetess\n  CRESSIDA, daughter to Calchas\n\n  Trojan and Greek Soldiers, and Attendants\n\n                          SCENE:\n             Troy and the Greek camp before it\n\nPROLOGUE\n                  TROILUS AND CRESSIDA\n                        PROLOGUE\n\n    In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece\n    The princes orgillous, their high blood chaf'd,\n    Have to the port of Athens sent their ships\n    Fraught with the ministers and instruments\n    Of cruel war. Sixty and nine that wore\n    Their crownets regal from th' Athenian bay\n    Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made\n    To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures\n    The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen,\n    With wanton Paris sleeps-and that's the quarrel.\n    To Tenedos they come,\n    And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge\n    Their war-like fraughtage. Now on Dardan plains\n    The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch\n    Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city,\n    Dardan, and Tymbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien,\n    And Antenorides, with massy staples\n    And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,\n    Sperr up the sons of Troy.\n    Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits\n    On one and other side, Troyan and Greek,\n    Sets all on hazard-and hither am I come\n    A Prologue arm'd, but not in confidence\n    Of author's pen or actor's voice, but suited\n    In like conditions as our argument,\n    To tell you, fair beholders, that our play\n    Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,\n    Beginning in the middle; starting thence away,\n    To what may be digested in a play.\n    Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are;\n    Now good or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1.\nTroy. Before PRIAM'S palace\n\nEnter TROILUS armed, and PANDARUS\n\n  TROILUS. Call here my varlet; I'll unarm again.\n    Why should I war without the walls of Troy\n    That find such cruel battle here within?\n    Each Troyan that is master of his heart,\n    Let him to field; Troilus, alas, hath none!\n  PANDARUS. Will this gear ne'er be mended?\n  TROILUS. The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength,\n    Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant;\n    But I am weaker than a woman's tear,\n    Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,\n    Less valiant than the virgin in the night,\n    And skilless as unpractis'd infancy.\n  PANDARUS. Well, I have told you enough of this; for my part,\n    I'll not meddle nor make no farther. He that will have a cake\n    out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.\n  TROILUS. Have I not tarried?\n  PANDARUS. Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.\n  TROILUS. Have I not tarried?\n  PANDARUS. Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening.\n  TROILUS. Still have I tarried.\n  PANDARUS. Ay, to the leavening; but here's yet in the word\n    'hereafter' the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating\n    of the oven, and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too,\n    or you may chance to burn your lips.\n  TROILUS. Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be,\n    Doth lesser blench at suff'rance than I do.\n    At Priam's royal table do I sit;\n    And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts-\n    So, traitor, then she comes when she is thence.\n  PANDARUS. Well, she look'd yesternight fairer than ever I saw her\n    look, or any woman else.\n  TROILUS. I was about to tell thee: when my heart,\n    As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain,\n    Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,\n    I have, as when the sun doth light a storm,\n    Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile.\n    But sorrow that is couch'd in seeming gladness\n    Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.\n  PANDARUS. An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's- well,\n    go to- there were no more comparison between the women. But, for\n    my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it,\n    praise her, but I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as\n    I did. I  will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit; but-\n  TROILUS. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus-\n    When I do tell thee there my hopes lie drown'd,\n    Reply not in how many fathoms deep\n    They lie indrench'd. I tell thee I am mad\n    In Cressid's love. Thou answer'st 'She is fair'-\n    Pourest in the open ulcer of my heart-\n    Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,\n    Handlest in thy discourse. O, that her hand,\n    In whose comparison all whites are ink\n    Writing their own reproach; to whose soft seizure\n    The cygnet's down is harsh, and spirit of sense\n    Hard as the palm of ploughman! This thou tell'st me,\n    As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her;\n    But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,\n    Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me\n    The knife that made it.\n  PANDARUS. I speak no more than truth.\n  TROILUS. Thou dost not speak so much.\n  PANDARUS. Faith, I'll not meddle in it. Let her be as she is: if\n    she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, she has the\n    mends in her own hands.\n  TROILUS. Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus!\n  PANDARUS. I have had my labour for my travail, ill thought on of\n    her and ill thought on of you; gone between and between, but\n    small thanks for my labour.\n  TROILUS. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? What, with me?\n  PANDARUS. Because she's kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as\n    Helen. An she were not kin to me, she would be as fair a Friday\n    as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not an she were a\n    blackamoor; 'tis all one to me.\n  TROILUS. Say I she is not fair?\n  PANDARUS. I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay\n    behind her father. Let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her\n    the next time I see her. For my part, I'll meddle nor make no\n    more i' th' matter.\n  TROILUS. Pandarus!\n  PANDARUS. Not I.\n  TROILUS. Sweet Pandarus!\n  PANDARUS. Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all\n    as I found it, and there an end.               Exit. Sound alarum\n  TROILUS. Peace, you ungracious clamours! Peace, rude sounds!\n    Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,\n    When with your blood you daily paint her thus.\n    I cannot fight upon this argument;\n    It is too starv'd a subject for my sword.\n    But Pandarus-O gods, how do you plague me!\n    I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;\n    And he's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo\n    As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.\n    Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,\n    What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?\n    Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl;\n    Between our Ilium and where she resides\n    Let it be call'd the wild and wand'ring flood;\n    Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar\n    Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.\n\n                Alarum. Enter AENEAS\n\n  AENEAS. How now, Prince Troilus! Wherefore not afield?\n  TROILUS. Because not there. This woman's answer sorts,\n    For womanish it is to be from thence.\n    What news, Aeneas, from the field to-day?\n  AENEAS. That Paris is returned home, and hurt.\n  TROILUS. By whom, Aeneas?\n  AENEAS. Troilus, by Menelaus.\n  TROILUS. Let Paris bleed: 'tis but a scar to scorn;\n    Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn.                      [Alarum]\n  AENEAS. Hark what good sport is out of town to-day!\n  TROILUS. Better at home, if 'would I might' were 'may.'\n    But to the sport abroad. Are you bound thither?\n  AENEAS. In all swift haste.\n  TROILUS. Come, go we then together.                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 2.\nTroy. A street\n\nEnter CRESSIDA and her man ALEXANDER\n\n  CRESSIDA. Who were those went by?\n  ALEXANDER. Queen Hecuba and Helen.\n  CRESSIDA. And whither go they?\n  ALEXANDER. Up to the eastern tower,\n    Whose height commands as subject all the vale,\n    To see the battle. Hector, whose patience\n    Is as a virtue fix'd, to-day was mov'd.\n    He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer;\n    And, like as there were husbandry in war,\n    Before the sun rose he was harness'd light,\n    And to the field goes he; where every flower\n    Did as a prophet weep what it foresaw\n    In Hector's wrath.\n  CRESSIDA. What was his cause of anger?\n  ALEXANDER. The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks\n    A lord of Troyan blood, nephew to Hector;\n    They call him Ajax.\n  CRESSIDA. Good; and what of him?\n  ALEXANDER. They say he is a very man per se,\n    And stands alone.\n  CRESSIDA. So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no\n    legs.\n  ALEXANDER. This man, lady, hath robb'd many beasts of their\n    particular additions: he is as valiant as a lion, churlish as the\n    bear, slow as the elephant-a man into whom nature hath so crowded\n    humours that his valour is crush'd into folly, his folly sauced\n    with discretion. There is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a\n    glimpse of, nor any man an attaint but he carries some stain of\n    it; he is melancholy without cause and merry against the hair; he\n    hath the joints of every thing; but everything so out of joint\n    that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use, or purblind\n    Argus, all eyes and no sight.\n  CRESSIDA. But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector\n      angry?\n  ALEXANDER. They say he yesterday cop'd Hector in the battle and\n    struck him down, the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since\n    kept Hector fasting and waking.\n\n                          Enter PANDARUS\n\n  CRESSIDA. Who comes here?\n  ALEXANDER. Madam, your uncle Pandarus.\n  CRESSIDA. Hector's a gallant man.\n  ALEXANDER. As may be in the world, lady.\n  PANDARUS. What's that? What's that?\n  CRESSIDA. Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.\n  PANDARUS. Good morrow, cousin Cressid. What do you talk of?- Good\n    morrow, Alexander.-How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium?\n  CRESSIDA. This morning, uncle.\n  PANDARUS. What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector arm'd\n    and gone ere you came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she?\n  CRESSIDA. Hector was gone; but Helen was not up.\n  PANDARUS. E'en so. Hector was stirring early.\n  CRESSIDA. That were we talking of, and of his anger.\n  PANDARUS. Was he angry?\n  CRESSIDA. So he says here.\n  PANDARUS. True, he was so; I know the cause too; he'll lay about\n    him today, I can tell them that. And there's Troilus will not\n    come far behind him; let them take heed of Troilus, I can tell\n    them that too.\n  CRESSIDA. What, is he angry too?\n  PANDARUS. Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two.\n  CRESSIDA. O Jupiter! there's no comparison.\n  PANDARUS. What, not between Troilus and Hector? Do you know a man\n    if you see him?\n  CRESSIDA. Ay, if I ever saw him before and knew him.\n  PANDARUS. Well, I say Troilus is Troilus.\n  CRESSIDA. Then you say as I say, for I am sure he is not Hector.\n  PANDARUS. No, nor Hector is not Troilus in some degrees.\n  CRESSIDA. 'Tis just to each of them: he is himself.\n  PANDARUS. Himself! Alas, poor Troilus! I would he were!\n  CRESSIDA. So he is.\n  PANDARUS. Condition I had gone barefoot to India.\n  CRESSIDA. He is not Hector.\n  PANDARUS. Himself! no, he's not himself. Would 'a were himself!\n    Well, the gods are above; time must friend or end. Well, Troilus,\n    well! I would my heart were in her body! No, Hector is not a\n    better man than Troilus.\n  CRESSIDA. Excuse me.\n  PANDARUS. He is elder.\n  CRESSIDA. Pardon me, pardon me.\n  PANDARUS. Th' other's not come to't; you shall tell me another tale\n    when th' other's come to't. Hector shall not have his wit this\n    year.\n  CRESSIDA. He shall not need it if he have his own.\n  PANDARUS. Nor his qualities.\n  CRESSIDA. No matter.\n  PANDARUS. Nor his beauty.\n  CRESSIDA. 'Twould not become him: his own's better.\n  PANDARUS. YOU have no judgment, niece. Helen herself swore th'\n    other day that Troilus, for a brown favour, for so 'tis, I must\n    confess- not brown neither-\n  CRESSIDA. No, but brown.\n  PANDARUS. Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown.\n  CRESSIDA. To say the truth, true and not true.\n  PANDARUS. She prais'd his complexion above Paris.\n  CRESSIDA. Why, Paris hath colour enough.\n  PANDARUS. So he has.\n  CRESSIDA. Then Troilus should have too much. If she prais'd him\n    above, his complexion is higher than his; he having colour\n    enough, and the other higher, is too flaming praise for a good\n    complexion. I had as lief Helen's golden tongue had commended\n    Troilus for a copper nose.\n  PANDARUS. I swear to you I think Helen loves him better than Paris.\n  CRESSIDA. Then she's a merry Greek indeed.\n  PANDARUS. Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th' other day\n    into the compass'd window-and you know he has not past three or\n    four hairs on his chin-\n  CRESSIDA. Indeed a tapster's arithmetic may soon bring his\n    particulars therein to a total.\n  PANDARUS. Why, he is very young, and yet will he within three pound\n    lift as much as his brother Hector.\n  CRESSIDA. Is he so young a man and so old a lifter?\n  PANDARUS. But to prove to you that Helen loves him: she came and\n    puts me her white hand to his cloven chin-\n  CRESSIDA. Juno have mercy! How came it cloven?\n  PANDARUS. Why, you know, 'tis dimpled. I think his smiling becomes\n    him better than any man in all Phrygia.\n  CRESSIDA. O, he smiles valiantly!\n  PANDARUS. Does he not?\n  CRESSIDA. O yes, an 'twere a cloud in autumn!\n  PANDARUS. Why, go to, then! But to prove to you that Helen loves\n    Troilus-\n  CRESSIDA. Troilus will stand to the proof, if you'll prove it so.\n  PANDARUS. Troilus! Why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an\n    addle egg.\n  CRESSIDA. If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle\n    head, you would eat chickens i' th' shell.\n  PANDARUS. I cannot choose but laugh to think how she tickled his\n    chin. Indeed, she has a marvell's white hand, I must needs\n    confess.\n  CRESSIDA. Without the rack.\n  PANDARUS. And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin.\n  CRESSIDA. Alas, poor chin! Many a wart is richer.\n  PANDARUS. But there was such laughing! Queen Hecuba laugh'd that\n    her eyes ran o'er.\n  CRESSIDA. With millstones.\n  PANDARUS. And Cassandra laugh'd.\n  CRESSIDA. But there was a more temperate fire under the pot of her\n    eyes. Did her eyes run o'er too?\n  PANDARUS. And Hector laugh'd.\n  CRESSIDA. At what was all this laughing?\n  PANDARUS. Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on Troilus'\n    chin.\n  CRESSIDA. An't had been a green hair I should have laugh'd too.\n  PANDARUS. They laugh'd not so much at the hair as at his pretty\n    answer.\n  CRESSIDA. What was his answer?\n  PANDARUS. Quoth she 'Here's but two and fifty hairs on your chin,\n    and one of them is white.'\n  CRESSIDA. This is her question.\n  PANDARUS. That's true; make no question of that. 'Two and fifty\n    hairs,' quoth he 'and one white. That white hair is my father,\n    and all the rest are his sons.' 'Jupiter!' quoth she 'which of\n    these hairs is Paris my husband?' 'The forked one,' quoth he,\n    'pluck't out and give it him.' But there was such laughing! and\n    Helen so blush'd, and Paris so chaf'd; and all the rest so\n    laugh'd that it pass'd.\n  CRESSIDA. So let it now; for it has been a great while going by.\n  PANDARUS. Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday; think on't.\n  CRESSIDA. So I do.\n  PANDARUS. I'll be sworn 'tis true; he will weep you, and 'twere a\n    man born in April.\n  CRESSIDA. And I'll spring up in his tears, an 'twere a nettle\n    against May.                                    [Sound a retreat]\n  PANDARUS. Hark! they are coming from the field. Shall we stand up\n    here and see them as they pass toward Ilium? Good niece, do,\n    sweet niece Cressida.\n  CRESSIDA. At your pleasure.\n  PANDARUS. Here, here, here's an excellent place; here we may see\n    most bravely. I'll tell you them all by their names as they pass\n    by; but mark Troilus above the rest.\n\n                       AENEAS passes\n\n  CRESSIDA. Speak not so loud.\n  PANDARUS. That's Aeneas. Is not that a brave man? He's one of the\n    flowers of Troy, I can tell you. But mark Troilus; you shall see\n    anon.\n\n                       ANTENOR passes\n\n  CRESSIDA. Who's that?\n  PANDARUS. That's Antenor. He has a shrewd wit, I can tell you; and\n    he's a man good enough; he's one o' th' soundest judgments in\n    Troy, whosoever, and a proper man of person. When comes Troilus?\n    I'll show you Troilus anon. If he see me, you shall see him nod\n    at me.\n  CRESSIDA. Will he give you the nod?\n  PANDARUS. You shall see.\n  CRESSIDA. If he do, the rich shall have more.\n\n                     HECTOR passes\n\n  PANDARUS. That's Hector, that, that, look you, that; there's a\n    fellow! Go thy way, Hector! There's a brave man, niece. O brave\n    Hector! Look how he looks. There's a countenance! Is't not a\n    brave man?\n  CRESSIDA. O, a brave man!\n  PANDARUS. Is 'a not? It does a man's heart good. Look you what\n    hacks are on his helmet! Look you yonder, do you see? Look you\n    there. There's no jesting; there's laying on; take't off who\n    will, as they say. There be hacks.\n  CRESSIDA. Be those with swords?\n  PANDARUS. Swords! anything, he cares not; an the devil come to him,\n    it's all one. By God's lid, it does one's heart good. Yonder\n    comes Paris, yonder comes Paris.\n\n                       PARIS passes\n\n    Look ye yonder, niece; is't not a gallant man too, is't not? Why,\n    this is brave now. Who said he came hurt home to-day? He's not\n    hurt. Why, this will do Helen's heart good now, ha! Would I could\n    see Troilus now! You shall see Troilus anon.\n\n                      HELENUS passes\n\n  CRESSIDA. Who's that?\n  PANDARUS. That's Helenus. I marvel where Troilus is. That's\n    Helenus. I think he went not forth to-day. That's Helenus.\n  CRESSIDA. Can Helenus fight, uncle?\n  PANDARUS. Helenus! no. Yes, he'll fight indifferent well. I marvel\n    where Troilus is. Hark! do you not hear the people cry 'Troilus'?\n    Helenus is a priest.\n  CRESSIDA. What sneaking fellow comes yonder?\n\n                    TROILUS passes\n\n  PANDARUS. Where? yonder? That's Deiphobus. 'Tis Troilus. There's a\n    man, niece. Hem! Brave Troilus, the prince of chivalry!\n  CRESSIDA. Peace, for shame, peace!\n  PANDARUS. Mark him; note him. O brave Troilus! Look well upon him,\n    niece; look you how his sword is bloodied, and his helm more\n    hack'd than Hector's; and how he looks, and how he goes! O\n    admirable youth! he never saw three and twenty. Go thy way,\n    Troilus, go thy way. Had I a sister were a grace or a daughter a\n    goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris? Paris\n    is dirt to him; and, I warrant, Helen, to change, would give an\n    eye to boot.\n  CRESSIDA. Here comes more.\n\n                 Common soldiers pass\n\n  PANDARUS. Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran!\n    porridge after meat! I could live and die in the eyes of Troilus.\n    Ne'er look, ne'er look; the eagles are gone. Crows and daws,\n    crows and daws! I had rather be such a man as Troilus than\n    Agamemnon and all Greece.\n  CRESSIDA. There is amongst the Greeks Achilles, a better man than\n    Troilus.\n  PANDARUS. Achilles? A drayman, a porter, a very camel!\n  CRESSIDA. Well, well.\n  PANDARUS. Well, well! Why, have you any discretion? Have you any\n    eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good\n    shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth,\n    liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man?\n  CRESSIDA. Ay, a minc'd man; and then to be bak'd with no date in\n    the pie, for then the man's date is out.\n  PANDARUS. You are such a woman! A man knows not at what ward you\n    lie.\n  CRESSIDA. Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend\n    my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to\n    defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these; and at all these\n    wards I lie at, at a thousand watches.\n  PANDARUS. Say one of your watches.\n  CRESSIDA. Nay, I'll watch you for that; and that's one of the\n    chiefest of them too. If I cannot ward what I would not have hit,\n    I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unless it swell\n    past hiding, and then it's past watching\n  PANDARUS. You are such another!\n\n                   Enter TROILUS' BOY\n\n  BOY. Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you.\n  PANDARUS. Where?\n  BOY. At your own house; there he unarms him.\n  PANDARUS. Good boy, tell him I come.                       Exit Boy\n    I doubt he be hurt. Fare ye well, good niece.\n  CRESSIDA. Adieu, uncle.\n  PANDARUS. I will be with you, niece, by and by.\n  CRESSIDA. To bring, uncle.\n  PANDARUS. Ay, a token from Troilus.\n  CRESSIDA. By the same token, you are a bawd.\n                                                        Exit PANDARUS\n    Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full sacrifice,\n    He offers in another's enterprise;\n    But more in Troilus thousand-fold I see\n    Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be,\n    Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing:\n    Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.\n    That she belov'd knows nought that knows not this:\n    Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is.\n    That she was never yet that ever knew\n    Love got so sweet as when desire did sue;\n    Therefore this maxim out of love I teach:\n    Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech.\n    Then though my heart's content firm love doth bear,\n    Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.                 Exit\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 3.\nThe Grecian camp. Before AGAMEMNON'S tent\n\nSennet. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, MENELAUS, and others\n\n  AGAMEMNON. Princes,\n    What grief hath set these jaundies o'er your cheeks?\n    The ample proposition that hope makes\n    In all designs begun on earth below\n    Fails in the promis'd largeness; checks and disasters\n    Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd,\n    As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,\n    Infects the sound pine, and diverts his grain\n    Tortive and errant from his course of growth.\n    Nor, princes, is it matter new to us\n    That we come short of our suppose so far\n    That after seven years' siege yet Troy walls stand;\n    Sith every action that hath gone before,\n    Whereof we have record, trial did draw\n    Bias and thwart, not answering the aim,\n    And that unbodied figure of the thought\n    That gave't surmised shape. Why then, you princes,\n    Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works\n    And call them shames, which are, indeed, nought else\n    But the protractive trials of great Jove\n    To find persistive constancy in men;\n    The fineness of which metal is not found\n    In fortune's love? For then the bold and coward,\n    The wise and fool, the artist and unread,\n    The hard and soft, seem all affin'd and kin.\n    But in the wind and tempest of her frown\n    Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,\n    Puffing at all, winnows the light away;\n    And what hath mass or matter by itself\n    Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.\n  NESTOR. With due observance of thy godlike seat,\n    Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply\n    Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance\n    Lies the true proof of men. The sea being smooth,\n    How many shallow bauble boats dare sail\n    Upon her patient breast, making their way\n    With those of nobler bulk!\n    But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage\n    The gentle Thetis, and anon behold\n    The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut,\n    Bounding between the two moist elements\n    Like Perseus' horse. Where's then the saucy boat,\n    Whose weak untimber'd sides but even now\n    Co-rivall'd greatness? Either to harbour fled\n    Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so\n    Doth valour's show and valour's worth divide\n    In storms of fortune; for in her ray and brightness\n    The herd hath more annoyance by the breeze\n    Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind\n    Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,\n    And flies fled under shade-why, then the thing of courage\n    As rous'd with rage, with rage doth sympathise,\n    And with an accent tun'd in self-same key\n    Retorts to chiding fortune.\n  ULYSSES. Agamemnon,\n    Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece,\n    Heart of our numbers, soul and only spirit\n    In whom the tempers and the minds of all\n    Should be shut up-hear what Ulysses speaks.\n    Besides the applause and approbation\n    The which, [To AGAMEMNON] most mighty, for thy place and sway,\n    [To NESTOR] And, thou most reverend, for thy stretch'd-out life,\n    I give to both your speeches- which were such\n    As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece\n    Should hold up high in brass; and such again\n    As venerable Nestor, hatch'd in silver,\n    Should with a bond of air, strong as the axle-tree\n    On which heaven rides, knit all the Greekish ears\n    To his experienc'd tongue-yet let it please both,\n    Thou great, and wise, to hear Ulysses speak.\n  AGAMEMNON. Speak, Prince of Ithaca; and be't of less expect\n    That matter needless, of importless burden,\n    Divide thy lips than we are confident,\n    When rank Thersites opes his mastic jaws,\n    We shall hear music, wit, and oracle.\n  ULYSSES. Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down,\n    And the great Hector's sword had lack'd a master,\n    But for these instances:\n    The specialty of rule hath been neglected;\n    And look how many Grecian tents do stand\n    Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.\n    When that the general is not like the hive,\n    To whom the foragers shall all repair,\n    What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,\n    Th' unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.\n    The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,\n    Observe degree, priority, and place,\n    Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,\n    Office, and custom, in all line of order;\n    And therefore is the glorious planet Sol\n    In noble eminence enthron'd and spher'd\n    Amidst the other, whose med'cinable eye\n    Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,\n    And posts, like the commandment of a king,\n    Sans check, to good and bad. But when the planets\n    In evil mixture to disorder wander,\n    What plagues and what portents, what mutiny,\n    What raging of the sea, shaking of earth,\n    Commotion in the winds! Frights, changes, horrors,\n    Divert and crack, rend and deracinate,\n    The unity and married calm of states\n    Quite from their fixture! O, when degree is shak'd,\n    Which is the ladder of all high designs,\n    The enterprise is sick! How could communities,\n    Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,\n    Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,\n    The primogenity and due of birth,\n    Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,\n    But by degree, stand in authentic place?\n    Take but degree away, untune that string,\n    And hark what discord follows! Each thing melts\n    In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters\n    Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,\n    And make a sop of all this solid globe;\n    Strength should be lord of imbecility,\n    And the rude son should strike his father dead;\n    Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong-\n    Between whose endless jar justice resides-\n    Should lose their names, and so should justice too.\n    Then everything includes itself in power,\n    Power into will, will into appetite;\n    And appetite, an universal wolf,\n    So doubly seconded with will and power,\n    Must make perforce an universal prey,\n    And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,\n    This chaos, when degree is suffocate,\n    Follows the choking.\n    And this neglection of degree it is\n    That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose\n    It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd\n    By him one step below, he by the next,\n    That next by him beneath; so ever step,\n    Exampl'd by the first pace that is sick\n    Of his superior, grows to an envious fever\n    Of pale and bloodless emulation.\n    And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,\n    Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,\n    Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.\n  NESTOR. Most wisely hath Ulysses here discover'd\n    The fever whereof all our power is sick.\n  AGAMEMNON. The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses,\n    What is the remedy?\n  ULYSSES. The great Achilles, whom opinion crowns\n    The sinew and the forehand of our host,\n    Having his ear full of his airy fame,\n    Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent\n    Lies mocking our designs; with him Patroclus\n    Upon a lazy bed the livelong day\n    Breaks scurril jests;\n    And with ridiculous and awkward action-\n    Which, slanderer, he imitation calls-\n    He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon,\n    Thy topless deputation he puts on;\n    And like a strutting player whose conceit\n    Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich\n    To hear the wooden dialogue and sound\n    'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage-\n    Such to-be-pitied and o'er-wrested seeming\n    He acts thy greatness in; and when he speaks\n    'Tis like a chime a-mending; with terms unsquar'd,\n    Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropp'd,\n    Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff\n    The large Achilles, on his press'd bed lolling,\n    From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause;\n    Cries 'Excellent! 'tis Agamemnon just.\n    Now play me Nestor; hem, and stroke thy beard,\n    As he being drest to some oration.'\n    That's done-as near as the extremest ends\n    Of parallels, as like Vulcan and his wife;\n    Yet god Achilles still cries 'Excellent!\n    'Tis Nestor right. Now play him me, Patroclus,\n    Arming to answer in a night alarm.'\n    And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age\n    Must be the scene of mirth: to cough and spit\n    And, with a palsy-fumbling on his gorget,\n    Shake in and out the rivet. And at this sport\n    Sir Valour dies; cries 'O, enough, Patroclus;\n    Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all\n    In pleasure of my spleen.' And in this fashion\n    All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes,\n    Severals and generals of grace exact,\n    Achievements, plots, orders, preventions,\n    Excitements to the field or speech for truce,\n    Success or loss, what is or is not, serves\n    As stuff for these two to make paradoxes.\n  NESTOR. And in the imitation of these twain-\n    Who, as Ulysses says, opinion crowns\n    With an imperial voice-many are infect.\n    Ajax is grown self-will'd and bears his head\n    In such a rein, in full as proud a place\n    As broad Achilles; keeps his tent like him;\n    Makes factious feasts; rails on our state of war\n    Bold as an oracle, and sets Thersites,\n    A slave whose gall coins slanders like a mint,\n    To match us in comparisons with dirt,\n    To weaken and discredit our exposure,\n    How rank soever rounded in with danger.\n  ULYSSES. They tax our policy and call it cowardice,\n    Count wisdom as no member of the war,\n    Forestall prescience, and esteem no act\n    But that of hand. The still and mental parts\n    That do contrive how many hands shall strike\n    When fitness calls them on, and know, by measure\n    Of their observant toil, the enemies' weight-\n    Why, this hath not a finger's dignity:\n    They call this bed-work, mapp'ry, closet-war;\n    So that the ram that batters down the wall,\n    For the great swinge and rudeness of his poise,\n    They place before his hand that made the engine,\n    Or those that with the fineness of their souls\n    By reason guide his execution.\n  NESTOR. Let this be granted, and Achilles' horse\n    Makes many Thetis' sons.                                 [Tucket]\n  AGAMEMNON. What trumpet? Look, Menelaus.\n  MENELAUS. From Troy.\n\n                      Enter AENEAS\n\n  AGAMEMNON. What would you fore our tent?\n  AENEAS. Is this great Agamemnon's tent, I pray you?\n  AGAMEMNON. Even this.\n  AENEAS. May one that is a herald and a prince\n    Do a fair message to his kingly eyes?\n  AGAMEMNON. With surety stronger than Achilles' an\n    Fore all the Greekish heads, which with one voice\n    Call Agamemnon head and general.\n  AENEAS. Fair leave and large security. How may\n    A stranger to those most imperial looks\n    Know them from eyes of other mortals?\n  AGAMEMNON. How?\n  AENEAS. Ay;\n    I ask, that I might waken reverence,\n    And bid the cheek be ready with a blush\n    Modest as Morning when she coldly eyes\n    The youthful Phoebus.\n    Which is that god in office, guiding men?\n    Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon?\n  AGAMEMNON. This Troyan scorns us, or the men of Troy\n    Are ceremonious courtiers.\n  AENEAS. Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarm'd,\n    As bending angels; that's their fame in peace.\n    But when they would seem soldiers, they have galls,\n    Good arms, strong joints, true swords; and, Jove's accord,\n    Nothing so full of heart. But peace, Aeneas,\n    Peace, Troyan; lay thy finger on thy lips.\n    The worthiness of praise distains his worth,\n    If that the prais'd himself bring the praise forth;\n    But what the repining enemy commends,\n    That breath fame blows; that praise, sole pure, transcends.\n  AGAMEMNON. Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself Aeneas?\n  AENEAS. Ay, Greek, that is my name.\n  AGAMEMNON. What's your affair, I pray you?\n  AENEAS. Sir, pardon; 'tis for Agamemnon's ears.\n  AGAMEMNON. He hears nought privately that comes from Troy.\n  AENEAS. Nor I from Troy come not to whisper with him;\n    I bring a trumpet to awake his ear,\n    To set his sense on the attentive bent,\n    And then to speak.\n  AGAMEMNON. Speak frankly as the wind;\n    It is not Agamemnon's sleeping hour.\n    That thou shalt know, Troyan, he is awake,\n    He tells thee so himself.\n  AENEAS. Trumpet, blow loud,\n    Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents;\n    And every Greek of mettle, let him know\n    What Troy means fairly shall be spoke aloud.\n                                                      [Sound trumpet]\n    We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy\n    A prince called Hector-Priam is his father-\n    Who in this dull and long-continued truce\n    Is resty grown; he bade me take a trumpet\n    And to this purpose speak: Kings, princes, lords!\n    If there be one among the fair'st of Greece\n    That holds his honour higher than his ease,\n    That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril,\n    That knows his valour and knows not his fear,\n    That loves his mistress more than in confession\n    With truant vows to her own lips he loves,\n    And dare avow her beauty and her worth\n    In other arms than hers-to him this challenge.\n    Hector, in view of Troyans and of Greeks,\n    Shall make it good or do his best to do it:\n    He hath a lady wiser, fairer, truer,\n    Than ever Greek did couple in his arms;\n    And will to-morrow with his trumpet call\n    Mid-way between your tents and walls of Troy\n    To rouse a Grecian that is true in love.\n    If any come, Hector shall honour him;\n    If none, he'll say in Troy, when he retires,\n    The Grecian dames are sunburnt and not worth\n    The splinter of a lance. Even so much.\n  AGAMEMNON. This shall be told our lovers, Lord Aeneas.\n    If none of them have soul in such a kind,\n    We left them all at home. But we are soldiers;\n    And may that soldier a mere recreant prove\n    That means not, hath not, or is not in love.\n    If then one is, or hath, or means to be,\n    That one meets Hector; if none else, I am he.\n  NESTOR. Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man\n    When Hector's grandsire suck'd. He is old now;\n    But if there be not in our Grecian mould\n    One noble man that hath one spark of fire\n    To answer for his love, tell him from me\n    I'll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver,\n    And in my vantbrace put this wither'd brawn,\n    And, meeting him, will tell him that my lady\n    Was fairer than his grandame, and as chaste\n    As may be in the world. His youth in flood,\n    I'll prove this truth with my three drops of blood.\n  AENEAS. Now heavens forfend such scarcity of youth!\n  ULYSSES. Amen.\n  AGAMEMNON. Fair Lord Aeneas, let me touch your hand;\n    To our pavilion shall I lead you, first.\n    Achilles shall have word of this intent;\n    So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent.\n    Yourself shall feast with us before you go,\n    And find the welcome of a noble foe.\n                                    Exeunt all but ULYSSES and NESTOR\n  ULYSSES. Nestor!\n  NESTOR. What says Ulysses?\n  ULYSSES. I have a young conception in my brain;\n    Be you my time to bring it to some shape.\n  NESTOR. What is't?\n  ULYSSES. This 'tis:\n    Blunt wedges rive hard knots. The seeded pride\n    That hath to this maturity blown up\n    In rank Achilles must or now be cropp'd\n    Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like evil\n    To overbulk us all.\n  NESTOR. Well, and how?\n  ULYSSES. This challenge that the gallant Hector sends,\n    However it is spread in general name,\n    Relates in purpose only to Achilles.\n  NESTOR. True. The purpose is perspicuous even as substance\n    Whose grossness little characters sum up;\n    And, in the publication, make no strain\n    But that Achilles, were his brain as barren\n    As banks of Libya-though, Apollo knows,\n    'Tis dry enough-will with great speed of judgment,\n    Ay, with celerity, find Hector's purpose\n    Pointing on him.\n  ULYSSES. And wake him to the answer, think you?\n  NESTOR. Why, 'tis most meet. Who may you else oppose\n    That can from Hector bring those honours off,\n    If not Achilles? Though 't be a sportful combat,\n    Yet in this trial much opinion dwells;\n    For here the Troyans taste our dear'st repute\n    With their fin'st palate; and trust to me, Ulysses,\n    Our imputation shall be oddly pois'd\n    In this vile action; for the success,\n    Although particular, shall give a scantling\n    Of good or bad unto the general;\n    And in such indexes, although small pricks\n    To their subsequent volumes, there is seen\n    The baby figure of the giant mas\n    Of things to come at large. It is suppos'd\n    He that meets Hector issues from our choice;\n    And choice, being mutual act of all our souls,\n    Makes merit her election, and doth boil,\n    As 'twere from forth us all, a man distill'd\n    Out of our virtues; who miscarrying,\n    What heart receives from hence a conquering part,\n    To steel a strong opinion to themselves?\n    Which entertain'd, limbs are his instruments,\n    In no less working than are swords and bows\n    Directive by the limbs.\n  ULYSSES. Give pardon to my speech.\n    Therefore 'tis meet Achilles meet not Hector.\n    Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares\n    And think perchance they'll sell; if not, the lustre\n    Of the better yet to show shall show the better,\n    By showing the worst first. Do not consent\n    That ever Hector and Achilles meet;\n    For both our honour and our shame in this\n    Are dogg'd with two strange followers.\n  NESTOR. I see them not with my old eyes. What are they?\n  ULYSSES. What glory our Achilles shares from Hector,\n    Were he not proud, we all should wear with him;\n    But he already is too insolent;\n    And it were better parch in Afric sun\n    Than in the pride and salt scorn of his eyes,\n    Should he scape Hector fair. If he were foil'd,\n    Why, then we do our main opinion crush\n    In taint of our best man. No, make a lott'ry;\n    And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw\n    The sort to fight with Hector. Among ourselves\n    Give him allowance for the better man;\n    For that will physic the great Myrmidon,\n    Who broils in loud applause, and make him fall\n    His crest, that prouder than blue Iris bends.\n    If the dull brainless Ajax come safe off,\n    We'll dress him up in voices; if he fail,\n    Yet go we under our opinion still\n    That we have better men. But, hit or miss,\n    Our project's life this shape of sense assumes-\n    Ajax employ'd plucks down Achilles' plumes.\n  NESTOR. Now, Ulysses, I begin to relish thy advice;\n    And I will give a taste thereof forthwith\n    To Agamemnon. Go we to him straight.\n    Two curs shall tame each other: pride alone\n    Must tarre the mastiffs on, as 'twere their bone.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1.\nThe Grecian camp\n\nEnter Ajax and THERSITES\n\n  AJAX. Thersites!\n  THERSITES. Agamemnon-how if he had boils full, an over, generally?\n  AJAX. Thersites!\n  THERSITES. And those boils did run-say so. Did not the general run\n    then? Were not that a botchy core?\n  AJAX. Dog!\n  THERSITES. Then there would come some matter from him;\n    I see none now.\n  AJAX. Thou bitch-wolf's son, canst thou not hear? Feel, then.\n                                                        [Strikes him]\n  THERSITES. The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted\n    lord!\n  AJAX. Speak, then, thou whinid'st leaven, speak. I will beat thee\n    into handsomeness.\n  THERSITES. I shall sooner rail thee into wit and holiness; but I\n    think thy horse will sooner con an oration than thou learn a\n    prayer without book. Thou canst strike, canst thou? A red murrain\n    o' thy jade's tricks!\n  AJAX. Toadstool, learn me the proclamation.\n  THERSITES. Dost thou think I have no sense, thou strikest me thus?\n  AJAX. The proclamation!\n  THERSITES. Thou art proclaim'd, a fool, I think.\n  AJAX. Do not, porpentine, do not; my fingers itch.\n  THERSITES. I would thou didst itch from head to foot and I had the\n    scratching of thee; I would make thee the loathsomest scab in\n    Greece. When thou art forth in the incursions, thou strikest as\n    slow as another.\n  AJAX. I say, the proclamation.\n  THERSITES. Thou grumblest and railest every hour on Achilles; and\n    thou art as full of envy at his greatness as Cerberus is at\n    Proserpina's beauty-ay, that thou bark'st at him.\n  AJAX. Mistress Thersites!\n  THERSITES. Thou shouldst strike him.\n  AJAX. Cobloaf!\n  THERSITES. He would pun thee into shivers with his fist, as a\n    sailor breaks a biscuit.\n  AJAX. You whoreson cur!                               [Strikes him]\n  THERSITES. Do, do.\n  AJAX. Thou stool for a witch!\n  THERSITES. Ay, do, do; thou sodden-witted lord! Thou hast no more\n    brain than I have in mine elbows; an assinico may tutor thee. You\n    scurvy valiant ass! Thou art here but to thrash Troyans, and thou\n    art bought and sold among those of any wit like a barbarian\n    slave. If thou use to beat me, I will begin at thy heel and tell\n    what thou art by inches, thou thing of no bowels, thou!\n  AJAX. You dog!\n  THERSITES. You scurvy lord!\n  AJAX. You cur!                                        [Strikes him]\n  THERSITES. Mars his idiot! Do, rudeness; do, camel; do, do.\n\n                 Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS\n\n  ACHILLES. Why, how now, Ajax! Wherefore do you thus?\n    How now, Thersites! What's the matter, man?\n  THERSITES. You see him there, do you?\n  ACHILLES. Ay; what's the matter?\n  THERSITES. Nay, look upon him.\n  ACHILLES. So I do. What's the matter?\n  THERSITES. Nay, but regard him well.\n  ACHILLES. Well! why, so I do.\n  THERSITES. But yet you look not well upon him; for who some ever\n    you take him to be, he is Ajax.\n  ACHILLES. I know that, fool.\n  THERSITES. Ay, but that fool knows not himself.\n  AJAX. Therefore I beat thee.\n  THERSITES. Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! His\n    evasions have ears thus long. I have bobb'd his brain more than\n    he has beat my bones. I will buy nine sparrows for a penny, and\n    his pia mater is not worth the ninth part of a sparrow. This\n    lord, Achilles, Ajax-who wears his wit in his belly and his guts\n    in his head-I'll tell you what I say of him.\n  ACHILLES. What?\n  THERSITES. I say this Ajax-             [AJAX offers to strike him]\n  ACHILLES. Nay, good Ajax.\n  THERSITES. Has not so much wit-\n  ACHILLES. Nay, I must hold you.\n  THERSITES. As will stop the eye of Helen's needle, for whom he\n    comes to fight.\n  ACHILLES. Peace, fool.\n  THERSITES. I would have peace and quietness, but the fool will not-\n    he there; that he; look you there.\n  AJAX. O thou damned cur! I shall-\n  ACHILLES. Will you set your wit to a fool's?\n  THERSITES. No, I warrant you, the fool's will shame it.\n  PATROCLUS. Good words, Thersites.\n  ACHILLES. What's the quarrel?\n  AJAX. I bade the vile owl go learn me the tenour of the\n    proclamation, and he rails upon me.\n  THERSITES. I serve thee not.\n  AJAX. Well, go to, go to.\n  THERSITES. I serve here voluntary.\n  ACHILLES. Your last service was suff'rance; 'twas not voluntary. No\n    man is beaten voluntary. Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as\n    under an impress.\n  THERSITES. E'en so; a great deal of your wit too lies in your\n    sinews, or else there be liars. Hector shall have a great catch\n    an he knock out either of your brains: 'a were as good crack a\n    fusty nut with no kernel.\n  ACHILLES. What, with me too, Thersites?\n  THERSITES. There's Ulysses and old Nestor-whose wit was mouldy ere\n    your grandsires had nails on their toes-yoke you like draught\n    oxen, and make you plough up the wars.\n  ACHILLES. What, what?\n  THERSITES. Yes, good sooth. To Achilles, to Ajax, to-\n  AJAX. I shall cut out your tongue.\n  THERSITES. 'Tis no matter; I shall speak as much as thou\n    afterwards.\n  PATROCLUS. No more words, Thersites; peace!\n  THERSITES. I will hold my peace when Achilles' brach bids me, shall\n    I?\n  ACHILLES. There's for you, Patroclus.\n  THERSITES. I will see you hang'd like clotpoles ere I come any more\n    to your tents. I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave\n    the faction of fools.                                        Exit\n  PATROCLUS. A good riddance.\n  ACHILLES. Marry, this, sir, is proclaim'd through all our host,\n    That Hector, by the fifth hour of the sun,\n    Will with a trumpet 'twixt our tents and Troy,\n    To-morrow morning, call some knight to arms\n    That hath a stomach; and such a one that dare\n    Maintain I know not what; 'tis trash. Farewell.\n  AJAX. Farewell. Who shall answer him?\n  ACHILLES. I know not; 'tis put to lott'ry. Otherwise. He knew his\n    man.\n  AJAX. O, meaning you! I will go learn more of it.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 2.\nTroy. PRIAM'S palace\n\nEnter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS, and HELENUS\n\n  PRIAM. After so many hours, lives, speeches, spent,\n    Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks:\n    'Deliver Helen, and all damage else-\n    As honour, loss of time, travail, expense,\n    Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consum'd\n    In hot digestion of this cormorant war-\n    Shall be struck off.' Hector, what say you to't?\n  HECTOR. Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I,\n    As far as toucheth my particular,\n    Yet, dread Priam,\n    There is no lady of more softer bowels,\n    More spongy to suck in the sense of fear,\n    More ready to cry out 'Who knows what follows?'\n    Than Hector is. The wound of peace is surety,\n    Surety secure; but modest doubt is call'd\n    The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches\n    To th' bottom of the worst. Let Helen go.\n    Since the first sword was drawn about this question,\n    Every tithe soul 'mongst many thousand dismes\n    Hath been as dear as Helen-I mean, of ours.\n    If we have lost so many tenths of ours\n    To guard a thing not ours, nor worth to us,\n    Had it our name, the value of one ten,\n    What merit's in that reason which denies\n    The yielding of her up?\n  TROILUS. Fie, fie, my brother!\n    Weigh you the worth and honour of a king,\n    So great as our dread father's, in a scale\n    Of common ounces? Will you with counters sum\n    The past-proportion of his infinite,\n    And buckle in a waist most fathomless\n    With spans and inches so diminutive\n    As fears and reasons? Fie, for godly shame!\n  HELENUS. No marvel though you bite so sharp at reasons,\n    You are so empty of them. Should not our father\n    Bear the great sway of his affairs with reasons,\n    Because your speech hath none that tells him so?\n  TROILUS. You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest;\n    You fur your gloves with reason. Here are your reasons:\n    You know an enemy intends you harm;\n    You know a sword employ'd is perilous,\n    And reason flies the object of all harm.\n    Who marvels, then, when Helenus beholds\n    A Grecian and his sword, if he do set\n    The very wings of reason to his heels\n    And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,\n    Or like a star disorb'd? Nay, if we talk of reason,\n    Let's shut our gates and sleep. Manhood and honour\n    Should have hare hearts, would they but fat their thoughts\n    With this cramm'd reason. Reason and respect\n    Make livers pale and lustihood deject.\n  HECTOR. Brother, she is not worth what she doth, cost\n    The keeping.\n  TROILUS. What's aught but as 'tis valued?\n  HECTOR. But value dwells not in particular will:\n    It holds his estimate and dignity\n    As well wherein 'tis precious of itself\n    As in the prizer. 'Tis mad idolatry\n    To make the service greater than the god-I\n    And the will dotes that is attributive\n    To what infectiously itself affects,\n    Without some image of th' affected merit.\n  TROILUS. I take to-day a wife, and my election\n    Is led on in the conduct of my will;\n    My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,\n    Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores\n    Of will and judgment: how may I avoid,\n    Although my will distaste what it elected,\n    The wife I chose? There can be no evasion\n    To blench from this and to stand firm by honour.\n    We turn not back the silks upon the merchant\n    When we have soil'd them; nor the remainder viands\n    We do not throw in unrespective sieve,\n    Because we now are full. It was thought meet\n    Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks;\n    Your breath with full consent benied his sails;\n    The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce,\n    And did him service. He touch'd the ports desir'd;\n    And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive\n    He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness\n    Wrinkles Apollo's, and makes stale the morning.\n    Why keep we her? The Grecians keep our aunt.\n    Is she worth keeping? Why, she is a pearl\n    Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships,\n    And turn'd crown'd kings to merchants.\n    If you'll avouch 'twas wisdom Paris went-\n    As you must needs, for you all cried 'Go, go'-\n    If you'll confess he brought home worthy prize-\n    As you must needs, for you all clapp'd your hands,\n    And cried 'Inestimable!' -why do you now\n    The issue of your proper wisdoms rate,\n    And do a deed that never fortune did-\n    Beggar the estimation which you priz'd\n    Richer than sea and land? O theft most base,\n    That we have stol'n what we do fear to keep!\n    But thieves unworthy of a thing so stol'n\n    That in their country did them that disgrace\n    We fear to warrant in our native place!\n  CASSANDRA. [Within] Cry, Troyans, cry.\n  PRIAM. What noise, what shriek is this?\n  TROILUS. 'Tis our mad sister; I do know her voice.\n  CASSANDRA. [Within] Cry, Troyans.\n  HECTOR. It is Cassandra.\n\n                  Enter CASSANDRA, raving\n\n  CASSANDRA. Cry, Troyans, cry. Lend me ten thousand eyes,\n    And I will fill them with prophetic tears.\n  HECTOR. Peace, sister, peace.\n  CASSANDRA. Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled eld,\n    Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry,\n    Add to my clamours. Let us pay betimes\n    A moiety of that mass of moan to come.\n    Cry, Troyans, cry. Practise your eyes with tears.\n    Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand;\n    Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all.\n    Cry, Troyans, cry, A Helen and a woe!\n    Cry, cry. Troy burns, or else let Helen go.                  Exit\n  HECTOR. Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains\n    Of divination in our sister work\n    Some touches of remorse, or is your blood\n    So madly hot that no discourse of reason,\n    Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause,\n    Can qualify the same?\n  TROILUS. Why, brother Hector,\n    We may not think the justness of each act\n    Such and no other than event doth form it;\n    Nor once deject the courage of our minds\n    Because Cassandra's mad. Her brain-sick raptures\n    Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel\n    Which hath our several honours all engag'd\n    To make it gracious. For my private part,\n    I am no more touch'd than all Priam's sons;\n    And Jove forbid there should be done amongst us\n    Such things as might offend the weakest spleen\n    To fight for and maintain.\n  PARIS. Else might the world convince of levity\n    As well my undertakings as your counsels;\n    But I attest the gods, your full consent\n    Gave wings to my propension, and cut of\n    All fears attending on so dire a project.\n    For what, alas, can these my single arms?\n    What propugnation is in one man's valour\n    To stand the push and enmity of those\n    This quarrel would excite? Yet, I protest,\n    Were I alone to pass the difficulties,\n    And had as ample power as I have will,\n    Paris should ne'er retract what he hath done\n    Nor faint in the pursuit.\n  PRIAM. Paris, you speak\n    Like one besotted on your sweet delights.\n    You have the honey still, but these the gall;\n    So to be valiant is no praise at all.\n  PARIS. Sir, I propose not merely to myself\n    The pleasures such a beauty brings with it;\n    But I would have the soil of her fair rape\n    Wip'd off in honourable keeping her.\n    What treason were it to the ransack'd queen,\n    Disgrace to your great worths, and shame to me,\n    Now to deliver her possession up\n    On terms of base compulsion! Can it be\n    That so degenerate a strain as this\n    Should once set footing in your generous bosoms?\n    There's not the meanest spirit on our party\n    Without a heart to dare or sword to draw\n    When Helen is defended; nor none so noble\n    Whose life were ill bestow'd or death unfam'd\n    Where Helen is the subject. Then, I say,\n    Well may we fight for her whom we know well\n    The world's large spaces cannot parallel.\n  HECTOR. Paris and Troilus, you have both said well;\n    And on the cause and question now in hand\n    Have gloz'd, but superficially; not much\n    Unlike young men, whom Aristode thought\n    Unfit to hear moral philosophy.\n    The reasons you allege do more conduce\n    To the hot passion of distemp'red blood\n    Than to make up a free determination\n    'Twixt right and wrong; for pleasure and revenge\n    Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice\n    Of any true decision. Nature craves\n    All dues be rend'red to their owners. Now,\n    What nearer debt in all humanity\n    Than wife is to the husband? If this law\n    Of nature be corrupted through affection;\n    And that great minds, of partial indulgence\n    To their benumbed wills, resist the same;\n    There is a law in each well-order'd nation\n    To curb those raging appetites that are\n    Most disobedient and refractory.\n    If Helen, then, be wife to Sparta's king-\n    As it is known she is-these moral laws\n    Of nature and of nations speak aloud\n    To have her back return'd. Thus to persist\n    In doing wrong extenuates not wrong,\n    But makes it much more heavy. Hector's opinion\n    Is this, in way of truth. Yet, ne'er the less,\n    My spritely brethren, I propend to you\n    In resolution to keep Helen still;\n    For 'tis a cause that hath no mean dependence\n    Upon our joint and several dignities.\n  TROILUS. Why, there you touch'd the life of our design.\n    Were it not glory that we more affected\n    Than the performance of our heaving spleens,\n    I would not wish a drop of Troyan blood\n    Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector,\n    She is a theme of honour and renown,\n    A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds,\n    Whose present courage may beat down our foes,\n    And fame in time to come canonize us;\n    For I presume brave Hector would not lose\n    So rich advantage of a promis'd glory\n    As smiles upon the forehead of this action\n    For the wide world's revenue.\n  HECTOR. I am yours,\n    You valiant offspring of great Priamus.\n    I have a roisting challenge sent amongst\n    The dull and factious nobles of the Greeks\n    Will strike amazement to their drowsy spirits.\n    I was advertis'd their great general slept,\n    Whilst emulation in the army crept.\n    This, I presume, will wake him.                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 3.\nThe Grecian camp. Before the tent of ACHILLES\n\nEnter THERSITES, solus\n\n  THERSITES. How now, Thersites! What, lost in the labyrinth of thy\n    fury? Shall the elephant Ajax carry it thus? He beats me, and I\n    rail at him. O worthy satisfaction! Would it were otherwise: that\n    I could beat him, whilst he rail'd at me! 'Sfoot, I'll learn to\n    conjure and raise devils, but I'll see some issue of my spiteful\n    execrations. Then there's Achilles, a rare engineer! If Troy be\n    not taken till these two undermine it, the walls will stand till\n    they fall of themselves. O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus,\n    forget that thou art Jove, the king of gods, and, Mercury, lose\n    all the serpentine craft of thy caduceus, if ye take not that\n    little little less-than-little wit from them that they have!\n    which short-arm'd ignorance itself knows is so abundant scarce,\n    it will not in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider without\n    drawing their massy irons and cutting the web. After this, the\n    vengeance on the whole camp! or, rather, the Neapolitan\n    bone-ache! for that, methinks, is the curse depending on those\n    that war for a placket. I have said my prayers; and devil Envy\n    say 'Amen.' What ho! my Lord Achilles!\n\n                      Enter PATROCLUS\n\n  PATROCLUS. Who's there? Thersites! Good Thersites, come in and\n    rail.\n  THERSITES. If I could 'a rememb'red a gilt counterfeit, thou\n    wouldst not have slipp'd out of my contemplation; but it is no\n    matter; thyself upon thyself! The common curse of mankind, folly\n    and ignorance, be thine in great revenue! Heaven bless thee from\n    a tutor, and discipline come not near thee! Let thy blood be thy\n    direction till thy death. Then if she that lays thee out says\n    thou art a fair corse, I'll be sworn and sworn upon't she never\n    shrouded any but lazars. Amen. Where's Achilles?\n  PATROCLUS. What, art thou devout? Wast thou in prayer?\n  THERSITES. Ay, the heavens hear me!\n  PATROCLUS. Amen.\n\n                      Enter ACHILLES\n\n  ACHILLES. Who's there?\n  PATROCLUS. Thersites, my lord.\n  ACHILLES. Where, where? O, where? Art thou come? Why, my cheese, my\n    digestion, why hast thou not served thyself in to my table so\n    many meals? Come, what's Agamemnon?\n  THERSITES. Thy commander, Achilles. Then tell me, Patroclus, what's\n    Achilles?\n  PATROCLUS. Thy lord, Thersites. Then tell me, I pray thee, what's\n    Thersites?\n  THERSITES. Thy knower, Patroclus. Then tell me, Patroclus, what art\n    thou?\n  PATROCLUS. Thou must tell that knowest.\n  ACHILLES. O, tell, tell,\n  THERSITES. I'll decline the whole question. Agamemnon commands\n    Achilles; Achilles is my lord; I am Patroclus' knower; and\n    Patroclus is a fool.\n  PATROCLUS. You rascal!\n  THERSITES. Peace, fool! I have not done.\n  ACHILLES. He is a privileg'd man. Proceed, Thersites.\n  THERSITES. Agamemnon is a fool; Achilles is a fool; Thersites is a\n    fool; and, as aforesaid, Patroclus is a fool.\n  ACHILLES. Derive this; come.\n  THERSITES. Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles;\n    Achilles is a fool to be commanded of Agamemnon; Thersites is a\n    fool to serve such a fool; and this Patroclus is a fool positive.\n  PATROCLUS. Why am I a fool?\n  THERSITES. Make that demand of the Creator. It suffices me thou\n    art. Look you, who comes here?\n  ACHILLES. Come, Patroclus, I'll speak with nobody. Come in with me,\n    Thersites.                                                   Exit\n  THERSITES. Here is such patchery, such juggling, and such knavery.\n    All the argument is a whore and a cuckold-a good quarrel to draw\n    emulous factions and bleed to death upon. Now the dry serpigo on\n    the subject, and war and lechery confound all!               Exit\n\n         Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR, DIOMEDES,\n                   AJAX, and CALCHAS\n\n  AGAMEMNON. Where is Achilles?\n  PATROCLUS. Within his tent; but ill-dispos'd, my lord.\n  AGAMEMNON. Let it be known to him that we are here.\n    He shent our messengers; and we lay by\n    Our appertainings, visiting of him.\n    Let him be told so; lest, perchance, he think\n    We dare not move the question of our place\n    Or know not what we are.\n  PATROCLUS. I shall say so to him.                              Exit\n  ULYSSES. We saw him at the opening of his tent.\n    He is not sick.\n  AJAX. Yes, lion-sick, sick of proud heart. You may call it\n    melancholy, if you will favour the man; but, by my head, 'tis\n    pride. But why, why? Let him show us a cause. A word, my lord.\n                                              [Takes AGAMEMNON aside]\n  NESTOR. What moves Ajax thus to bay at him?\n  ULYSSES. Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him.\n  NESTOR.Who, Thersites?\n  ULYSSES. He.\n  NESTOR. Then will Ajax lack matter, if he have lost his argument\n  ULYSSES. No; you see he is his argument that has his argument-\n    Achilles.\n  NESTOR. All the better; their fraction is more our wish than their\n    faction. But it was a strong composure a fool could disunite!\n  ULYSSES. The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie.\n\n                    Re-enter PATROCLUS\n\n    Here comes Patroclus.\n  NESTOR. No Achilles with him.\n  ULYSSES. The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy; his legs\n    are legs for necessity, not for flexure.\n  PATROCLUS. Achilles bids me say he is much sorry\n    If any thing more than your sport and pleasure\n    Did move your greatness and this noble state\n    To call upon him; he hopes it is no other\n    But for your health and your digestion sake,\n    An after-dinner's breath.\n  AGAMEMNON. Hear you, Patroclus.\n    We are too well acquainted with these answers;\n    But his evasion, wing'd thus swift with scorn,\n    Cannot outfly our apprehensions.\n    Much attribute he hath, and much the reason\n    Why we ascribe it to him. Yet all his virtues,\n    Not virtuously on his own part beheld,\n    Do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss;\n    Yea, like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish,\n    Are like to rot untasted. Go and tell him\n    We come to speak with him; and you shall not sin\n    If you do say we think him over-proud\n    And under-honest, in self-assumption greater\n    Than in the note of judgment; and worthier than himself\n    Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on,\n    Disguise the holy strength of their command,\n    And underwrite in an observing kind\n    His humorous predominance; yea, watch\n    His pettish lunes, his ebbs, his flows, as if\n    The passage and whole carriage of this action\n    Rode on his tide. Go tell him this, and ad\n    That if he overhold his price so much\n    We'll none of him, but let him, like an engine\n    Not portable, lie under this report:\n    Bring action hither; this cannot go to war.\n    A stirring dwarf we do allowance give\n    Before a sleeping giant. Tell him so.\n  PATROCLUS. I shall, and bring his answer presently.            Exit\n  AGAMEMNON. In second voice we'll not be satisfied;\n    We come to speak with him. Ulysses, enter you.\n                                                         Exit ULYSSES\n  AJAX. What is he more than another?\n  AGAMEMNON. No more than what he thinks he is.\n  AJAX. Is he so much? Do you not think he thinks himself a better\n    man than I am?\n  AGAMEMNON. No question.\n  AJAX. Will you subscribe his thought and say he is?\n  AGAMEMNON. No, noble Ajax; you are as strong, as valiant, as wise,\n    no less noble, much more gentle, and altogether more tractable.\n  AJAX. Why should a man be proud? How doth pride grow? I know not\n    what pride is.\n  AGAMEMNON. Your mind is the clearer, Ajax, and your virtues the\n    fairer. He that is proud eats up himself. Pride is his own glass,\n    his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself\n    but in the deed devours the deed in the praise.\n\n                      Re-enter ULYSSES\n\n  AJAX. I do hate a proud man as I do hate the engend'ring of toads.\n  NESTOR. [Aside] And yet he loves himself: is't not strange?\n  ULYSSES. Achilles will not to the field to-morrow.\n  AGAMEMNON. What's his excuse?\n  ULYSSES. He doth rely on none;\n    But carries on the stream of his dispose,\n    Without observance or respect of any,\n    In will peculiar and in self-admission.\n  AGAMEMNON. Why will he not, upon our fair request,\n    Untent his person and share the air with us?\n  ULYSSES. Things small as nothing, for request's sake only,\n    He makes important; possess'd he is with greatness,\n    And speaks not to himself but with a pride\n    That quarrels at self-breath. Imagin'd worth\n    Holds in his blood such swol'n and hot discourse\n    That 'twixt his mental and his active parts\n    Kingdom'd Achilles in commotion rages,\n    And batters down himself. What should I say?\n    He is so plaguy proud that the death tokens of it\n    Cry 'No recovery.'\n  AGAMEMNON. Let Ajax go to him.\n    Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent.\n    'Tis said he holds you well; and will be led\n    At your request a little from himself.\n  ULYSSES. O Agamemnon, let it not be so!\n    We'll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes\n    When they go from Achilles. Shall the proud lord\n    That bastes his arrogance with his own seam\n    And never suffers matter of the world\n    Enter his thoughts, save such as doth revolve\n    And ruminate himself-shall he be worshipp'd\n    Of that we hold an idol more than he?\n    No, this thrice-worthy and right valiant lord\n    Shall not so stale his palm, nobly acquir'd,\n    Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit,\n    As amply titled as Achilles is,\n    By going to Achilles.\n    That were to enlard his fat-already pride,\n    And add more coals to Cancer when he burns\n    With entertaining great Hyperion.\n    This lord go to him! Jupiter forbid,\n    And say in thunder 'Achilles go to him.'\n  NESTOR. [Aside] O, this is well! He rubs the vein of him.\n  DIOMEDES. [Aside] And how his silence drinks up this applause!\n  AJAX. If I go to him, with my armed fist I'll pash him o'er the\n    face.\n  AGAMEMNON. O, no, you shall not go.\n  AJAX. An 'a be proud with me I'll pheeze his pride.\n    Let me go to him.\n  ULYSSES. Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.\n  AJAX. A paltry, insolent fellow!\n  NESTOR. [Aside] How he describes himself!\n  AJAX. Can he not be sociable?\n  ULYSSES. [Aside] The raven chides blackness.\n  AJAX. I'll let his humours blood.\n  AGAMEMNON. [Aside] He will be the physician that should be the\n    patient.\n  AJAX. An all men were a my mind-\n  ULYSSES. [Aside] Wit would be out of fashion.\n  AJAX. 'A should not bear it so, 'a should eat's words first.\n    Shall pride carry it?\n  NESTOR. [Aside] An 'twould, you'd carry half.\n  ULYSSES. [Aside] 'A would have ten shares.\n  AJAX. I will knead him, I'll make him supple.\n  NESTOR. [Aside] He's not yet through warm. Force him with praises;\n    pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry.\n  ULYSSES. [To AGAMEMNON] My lord, you feed too much on this dislike.\n  NESTOR. Our noble general, do not do so.\n  DIOMEDES. You must prepare to fight without Achilles.\n  ULYSSES. Why 'tis this naming of him does him harm.\n    Here is a man-but 'tis before his face;\n    I will be silent.\n  NESTOR. Wherefore should you so?\n    He is not emulous, as Achilles is.\n  ULYSSES. Know the whole world, he is as valiant.\n  AJAX. A whoreson dog, that shall palter with us thus!\n    Would he were a Troyan!\n  NESTOR. What a vice were it in Ajax now-\n  ULYSSES. If he were proud.\n  DIOMEDES. Or covetous of praise.\n  ULYSSES. Ay, or surly borne.\n  DIOMEDES. Or strange, or self-affected.\n  ULYSSES. Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure\n    Praise him that gat thee, she that gave thee suck;\n    Fam'd be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature\n    Thrice-fam'd beyond, beyond all erudition;\n    But he that disciplin'd thine arms to fight-\n    Let Mars divide eternity in twain\n    And give him half; and, for thy vigour,\n    Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield\n    To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom,\n    Which, like a bourn, a pale, a shore, confines\n    Thy spacious and dilated parts. Here's Nestor,\n    Instructed by the antiquary times-\n    He must, he is, he cannot but be wise;\n    But pardon, father Nestor, were your days\n    As green as Ajax' and your brain so temper'd,\n    You should not have the eminence of him,\n    But be as Ajax.\n  AJAX. Shall I call you father?\n  NESTOR. Ay, my good son.\n  DIOMEDES. Be rul'd by him, Lord Ajax.\n  ULYSSES. There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles\n    Keeps thicket. Please it our great general\n    To call together all his state of war;\n    Fresh kings are come to Troy. To-morrow\n    We must with all our main of power stand fast;\n    And here's a lord-come knights from east to west\n    And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best.\n  AGAMEMNON. Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep.\n    Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.\n    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1.\nTroy. PRIAM'S palace\n\nMusic sounds within. Enter PANDARUS and a SERVANT\n\n  PANDARUS. Friend, you-pray you, a word. Do you not follow the young\n    Lord Paris?\n  SERVANT. Ay, sir, when he goes before me.\n  PANDARUS. You depend upon him, I mean?\n  SERVANT. Sir, I do depend upon the lord.\n  PANDARUS. You depend upon a notable gentleman; I must needs praise\n    him.\n  SERVANT. The lord be praised!\n  PANDARUS. You know me, do you not?\n  SERVANT. Faith, sir, superficially.\n  PANDARUS. Friend, know me better: I am the Lord Pandarus.\n  SERVANT. I hope I shall know your honour better.\n  PANDARUS. I do desire it.\n  SERVANT. You are in the state of grace.\n  PANDARUS. Grace! Not so, friend; honour and lordship are my titles.\n    What music is this?\n  SERVANT. I do but partly know, sir; it is music in parts.\n  PANDARUS. Know you the musicians?\n  SERVANT. Wholly, sir.\n  PANDARUS. Who play they to?\n  SERVANT. To the hearers, sir.\n  PANDARUS. At whose pleasure, friend?\n  SERVANT. At mine, sir, and theirs that love music.\n  PANDARUS. Command, I mean, friend.\n  SERVANT. Who shall I command, sir?\n  PANDARUS. Friend, we understand not one another: I am to courtly,\n    and thou art too cunning. At whose request do these men play?\n  SERVANT. That's to't, indeed, sir. Marry, sir, at the request of\n    Paris my lord, who is there in person; with him the mortal Venus,\n    the heart-blood of beauty, love's invisible soul-\n  PANDARUS. Who, my cousin, Cressida?\n  SERVANT. No, sir, Helen. Could not you find out that by her\n    attributes?\n  PANDARUS. It should seem, fellow, that thou hast not seen the Lady\n    Cressida. I come to speak with Paris from the Prince Troilus; I\n    will make a complimental assault upon him, for my business\n    seethes.\n  SERVANT. Sodden business! There's a stew'd phrase indeed!\n\n              Enter PARIS and HELEN, attended\n\n  PANDARUS. Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company!\n    Fair desires, in all fair measure, fairly guide them- especially\n    to you, fair queen! Fair thoughts be your fair pillow.\n  HELEN. Dear lord, you are full of fair words.\n  PANDARUS. You speak your fair pleasure, sweet queen. Fair prince,\n    here is good broken music.\n  PARIS. You have broke it, cousin; and by my life, you shall make it\n    whole again; you shall piece it out with a piece of your\n    performance.\n  HELEN. He is full of harmony.\n  PANDARUS. Truly, lady, no.\n  HELEN. O, sir-\n  PANDARUS. Rude, in sooth; in good sooth, very rude.\n  PARIS. Well said, my lord. Well, you say so in fits.\n  PANDARUS. I have business to my lord, dear queen. My lord, will you\n    vouchsafe me a word?\n  HELEN. Nay, this shall not hedge us out. We'll hear you sing,\n    certainly-\n  PANDARUS. Well sweet queen, you are pleasant with me. But, marry,\n    thus, my lord: my dear lord and most esteemed friend, your\n    brother Troilus-\n  HELEN. My Lord Pandarus, honey-sweet lord-\n  PANDARUS. Go to, sweet queen, go to-commends himself most\n    affectionately to you-\n  HELEN. You shall not bob us out of our melody. If you do, our\n    melancholy upon your head!\n  PANDARUS. Sweet queen, sweet queen; that's a sweet queen, i' faith.\n  HELEN. And to make a sweet lady sad is a sour offence.\n  PANDARUS. Nay, that shall not serve your turn; that shall it not,\n    in truth, la. Nay, I care not for such words; no, no. -And, my\n    lord, he desires you that, if the King call for him at supper,\n    you will make his excuse.\n  HELEN. My Lord Pandarus!\n  PANDARUS. What says my sweet queen, my very very sweet queen?\n  PARIS. What exploit's in hand? Where sups he to-night?\n  HELEN. Nay, but, my lord-\n  PANDARUS. What says my sweet queen?-My cousin will fall out with\n    you.\n  HELEN. You must not know where he sups.\n  PARIS. I'll lay my life, with my disposer Cressida.\n  PANDARUS. No, no, no such matter; you are wide. Come, your disposer\n    is sick.\n  PARIS. Well, I'll make's excuse.\n  PANDARUS. Ay, good my lord. Why should you say Cressida?\n    No, your poor disposer's sick.\n  PARIS. I spy.\n  PANDARUS. You spy! What do you spy?-Come, give me an instrument.\n    Now, sweet queen.\n  HELEN. Why, this is kindly done.\n  PANDARUS. My niece is horribly in love with a thing you have, sweet\n    queen.\n  HELEN. She shall have it, my lord, if it be not my Lord Paris.\n  PANDARUS. He! No, she'll none of him; they two are twain.\n  HELEN. Falling in, after falling out, may make them three.\n  PANDARUS. Come, come. I'll hear no more of this; I'll sing you a\n    song now.\n  HELEN. Ay, ay, prithee now. By my troth, sweet lord, thou hast a\n    fine forehead.\n  PANDARUS. Ay, you may, you may.\n  HELEN. Let thy song be love. This love will undo us all. O Cupid,\n    Cupid, Cupid!\n  PANDARUS. Love! Ay, that it shall, i' faith.\n  PARIS. Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love.\n  PANDARUS. In good troth, it begins so.                      [Sings]\n\n    Love, love, nothing but love, still love, still more!\n           For, oh, love's bow\n           Shoots buck and doe;\n           The shaft confounds\n           Not that it wounds,\n    But tickles still the sore.\n    These lovers cry, O ho, they die!\n       Yet that which seems the wound to kill\n    Doth turn O ho! to ha! ha! he!\n       So dying love lives still.\n    O ho! a while, but ha! ha! ha!\n    O ho! groans out for ha! ha! ha!-hey ho!\n\n  HELEN. In love, i' faith, to the very tip of the nose.\n  PARIS. He eats nothing but doves, love; and that breeds hot blood,\n    and hot blood begets hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot\n    deeds, and hot deeds is love.\n  PANDARUS. Is this the generation of love: hot blood, hot thoughts,\n    and hot deeds? Why, they are vipers. Is love a generation of\n    vipers? Sweet lord, who's a-field today?\n  PARIS. Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry\n    of Troy. I would fain have arm'd to-day, but my Nell would not\n    have it so. How chance my brother Troilus went not?\n  HELEN. He hangs the lip at something. You know all, Lord Pandarus.\n  PANDARUS. Not I, honey-sweet queen. I long to hear how they spend\n    to-day. You'll remember your brother's excuse?\n  PARIS. To a hair.\n  PANDARUS. Farewell, sweet queen.\n  HELEN. Commend me to your niece.\n  PANDARUS. I will, sweet queen.                Exit. Sound a retreat\n  PARIS. They're come from the field. Let us to Priam's hall\n    To greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo you\n    To help unarm our Hector. His stubborn buckles,\n    With these your white enchanting fingers touch'd,\n    Shall more obey than to the edge of steel\n    Or force of Greekish sinews; you shall do more\n    Than all the island kings-disarm great Hector.\n  HELEN. 'Twill make us proud to be his servant, Paris;\n    Yea, what he shall receive of us in duty\n    Gives us more palm in beauty than we have,\n    Yea, overshines ourself.\n  PARIS. Sweet, above thought I love thee.                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 2.\nTroy. PANDARUS' orchard\n\nEnter PANDARUS and TROILUS' BOY, meeting\n\n  PANDARUS. How now! Where's thy master? At my cousin Cressida's?\n  BOY. No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither.\n\n                      Enter TROILUS\n\n  PANDARUS. O, here he comes. How now, how now!\n  TROILUS. Sirrah, walk off.                                 Exit Boy\n  PANDARUS. Have you seen my cousin?\n  TROILUS. No, Pandarus. I stalk about her door\n    Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks\n    Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,\n    And give me swift transportance to these fields\n    Where I may wallow in the lily beds\n    Propos'd for the deserver! O gentle Pandar,\n    From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings,\n    And fly with me to Cressid!\n  PANDARUS. Walk here i' th' orchard, I'll bring her straight.\n      Exit\n  TROILUS. I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.\n    Th' imaginary relish is so sweet\n    That it enchants my sense; what will it be\n    When that the wat'ry palate tastes indeed\n    Love's thrice-repured nectar? Death, I fear me;\n    Swooning destruction; or some joy too fine,\n    Too subtle-potent, tun'd too sharp in sweetness,\n    For the capacity of my ruder powers.\n    I fear it much; and I do fear besides\n    That I shall lose distinction in my joys;\n    As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps\n    The enemy flying.\n\n                     Re-enter PANDARUS\n\n  PANDARUS. She's making her ready, she'll come straight; you must be\n    witty now. She does so blush, and fetches her wind so short, as\n    if she were fray'd with a sprite. I'll fetch her. It is the\n    prettiest villain; she fetches her breath as short as a new-ta'en\n    sparrow.                                                     Exit\n  TROILUS. Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom.\n    My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse,\n    And all my powers do their bestowing lose,\n    Like vassalage at unawares encount'ring\n    The eye of majesty.\n\n              Re-enter PANDARUS With CRESSIDA\n\n  PANDARUS. Come, come, what need you blush? Shame's a baby.-Here she\n    is now; swear the oaths now to her that you have sworn to me.-\n    What, are you gone again? You must be watch'd ere you be made\n    tame, must you? Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw\n    backward, we'll put you i' th' fills.-Why do you not speak to\n    her?-Come, draw this curtain and let's see your picture.\n    Alas the day, how loath you are to offend daylight! An 'twere\n    dark, you'd close sooner. So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress\n    How now, a kiss in fee-farm! Build there, carpenter; the air is\n    sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ere I part you. The\n    falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i' th' river. Go to, go\n    to.\n  TROILUS. You have bereft me of all words, lady.\n  PANDARUS. Words pay no debts, give her deeds; but she'll bereave\n    you o' th' deeds too, if she call your activity in question.\n    What, billing again? Here's 'In witness whereof the parties\n    interchangeably.' Come in, come in; I'll go get a fire.\n      Exit\n  CRESSIDA. Will you walk in, my lord?\n  TROILUS. O Cressid, how often have I wish'd me thus!\n  CRESSIDA. Wish'd, my lord! The gods grant-O my lord!\n  TROILUS. What should they grant? What makes this pretty abruption?\n    What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our\n    love?\n  CRESSIDA. More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes.\n  TROILUS. Fears make devils of cherubims; they never see truly.\n  CRESSIDA. Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing\n    than blind reason stumbling without fear. To fear the worst oft\n    cures the worse.\n  TROILUS. O, let my lady apprehend no fear! In all Cupid's pageant\n    there is presented no monster.\n  CRESSIDA. Nor nothing monstrous neither?\n  TROILUS. Nothing, but our undertakings when we vow to weep seas,\n    live in fire, cat rocks, tame tigers; thinking it harder for our\n    mistress to devise imposition enough than for us to undergo any\n    difficulty imposed. This is the monstruosity in love, lady, that\n    the will is infinite, and the execution confin'd; that the desire\n    is boundless, and the act a slave to limit.\n  CRESSIDA. They say all lovers swear more performance than they are\n    able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing\n    more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the\n    tenth part of one. They that have the voice of lions and the act\n    of hares, are they not monsters?\n  TROILUS. Are there such? Such are not we. Praise us as we are\n    tasted, allow us as we prove; our head shall go bare till merit\n    crown it. No perfection in reversion shall have a praise in\n    present. We will not name desert before his birth; and, being\n    born, his addition shall be humble. Few words to fair faith:\n    Troilus shall be such to Cressid as what envy can say worst shall\n    be a mock for his truth; and what truth can speak truest not\n    truer than Troilus.\n  CRESSIDA. Will you walk in, my lord?\n\n                    Re-enter PANDARUS\n\n  PANDARUS. What, blushing still? Have you not done talking yet?\n  CRESSIDA. Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to you.\n  PANDARUS. I thank you for that; if my lord get a boy of you, you'll\n    give him me. Be true to my lord; if he flinch, chide me for it.\n  TROILUS. You know now your hostages: your uncle's word and my firm\n    faith.\n  PANDARUS. Nay, I'll give my word for her too: our kindred, though\n    they be long ere they are wooed, they are constant being won;\n    they are burs, I can tell you; they'll stick where they are\n    thrown.\n  CRESSIDA. Boldness comes to me now and brings me heart.\n    Prince Troilus, I have lov'd you night and day\n    For many weary months.\n  TROILUS. Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?\n  CRESSIDA. Hard to seem won; but I was won, my lord,\n    With the first glance that ever-pardon me.\n    If I confess much, you will play the tyrant.\n    I love you now; but till now not so much\n    But I might master it. In faith, I lie;\n    My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown\n    Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!\n    Why have I blabb'd? Who shall be true to us,\n    When we are so unsecret to ourselves?\n    But, though I lov'd you well, I woo'd you not;\n    And yet, good faith, I wish'd myself a man,\n    Or that we women had men's privilege\n    Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,\n    For in this rapture I shall surely speak\n    The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,\n    Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws\n    My very soul of counsel. Stop my mouth.\n  TROILUS. And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.\n  PANDARUS. Pretty, i' faith.\n  CRESSIDA. My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me;\n    'Twas not my purpose thus to beg a kiss.\n    I am asham'd. O heavens! what have I done?\n    For this time will I take my leave, my lord.\n  TROILUS. Your leave, sweet Cressid!\n  PANDARUS. Leave! An you take leave till to-morrow morning-\n  CRESSIDA. Pray you, content you.\n  TROILUS. What offends you, lady?\n  CRESSIDA. Sir, mine own company.\n  TROILUS. You cannot shun yourself.\n  CRESSIDA. Let me go and try.\n    I have a kind of self resides with you;\n    But an unkind self, that itself will leave\n    To be another's fool. I would be gone.\n    Where is my wit? I know not what I speak.\n  TROILUS. Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.\n  CRESSIDA. Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love;\n    And fell so roundly to a large confession\n    To angle for your thoughts; but you are wise-\n    Or else you love not; for to be wise and love\n    Exceeds man's might; that dwells with gods above.\n  TROILUS. O that I thought it could be in a woman-\n    As, if it can, I will presume in you-\n    To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love;\n    To keep her constancy in plight and youth,\n    Outliving beauty's outward, with a mind\n    That doth renew swifter than blood decays!\n    Or that persuasion could but thus convince me\n    That my integrity and truth to you\n    Might be affronted with the match and weight\n    Of such a winnowed purity in love.\n    How were I then uplifted! but, alas,\n    I am as true as truth's simplicity,\n    And simpler than the infancy of truth.\n  CRESSIDA. In that I'll war with you.\n  TROILUS. O virtuous fight,\n    When right with right wars who shall be most right!\n    True swains in love shall in the world to come\n    Approve their truth by Troilus, when their rhymes,\n    Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,\n    Want similes, truth tir'd with iteration-\n    As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,\n    As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,\n    As iron to adamant, as earth to th' centre-\n    Yet, after all comparisons of truth,\n    As truth's authentic author to be cited,\n    'As true as Troilus' shall crown up the verse\n    And sanctify the numbers.\n  CRESSIDA. Prophet may you be!\n    If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,\n    When time is old and hath forgot itself,\n    When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy,\n    And blind oblivion swallow'd cities up,\n    And mighty states characterless are grated\n    To dusty nothing-yet let memory\n    From false to false, among false maids in love,\n    Upbraid my falsehood when th' have said 'As false\n    As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,\n    As fox to lamb, or wolf to heifer's calf,\n    Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son'-\n    Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood,\n    'As false as Cressid.'\n  PANDARUS. Go to, a bargain made; seal it, seal it; I'll be the\n    witness. Here I hold your hand; here my cousin's. If ever you\n    prove false one to another, since I have taken such pains to\n    bring you together, let all pitiful goers- between be call'd to\n    the world's end after my name-call them all Pandars; let all\n    constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all\n    brokers between Pandars. Say 'Amen.'\n  TROILUS. Amen.\n  CRESSIDA. Amen.\n  PANDARUS. Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber\n    and a bed; which bed, because it shall not speak of your\n    pretty encounters, press it to death. Away!\n    And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here,\n    Bed, chamber, pander, to provide this gear!                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 3.\nThe Greek camp\n\nFlourish. Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AJAX, MENELAUS,\nand CALCHAS\n\n  CALCHAS. Now, Princes, for the service I have done,\n    Th' advantage of the time prompts me aloud\n    To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind\n    That, through the sight I bear in things to come,\n    I have abandon'd Troy, left my possession,\n    Incurr'd a traitor's name, expos'd myself\n    From certain and possess'd conveniences\n    To doubtful fortunes, sequest'ring from me all\n    That time, acquaintance, custom, and condition,\n    Made tame and most familiar to my nature;\n    And here, to do you service, am become\n    As new into the world, strange, unacquainted-\n    I do beseech you, as in way of taste,\n    To give me now a little benefit\n    Out of those many regist'red in promise,\n    Which you say live to come in my behalf.\n  AGAMEMNON. What wouldst thou of us, Troyan? Make demand.\n  CALCHAS. You have a Troyan prisoner call'd Antenor,\n    Yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear.\n    Oft have you-often have you thanks therefore-\n    Desir'd my Cressid in right great exchange,\n    Whom Troy hath still denied; but this Antenor,\n    I know, is such a wrest in their affairs\n    That their negotiations all must slack\n    Wanting his manage; and they will almost\n    Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam,\n    In change of him. Let him be sent, great Princes,\n    And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence\n    Shall quite strike off all service I have done\n    In most accepted pain.\n  AGAMEMNON. Let Diomedes bear him,\n    And bring us Cressid hither. Calchas shall have\n    What he requests of us. Good Diomed,\n    Furnish you fairly for this interchange;\n    Withal, bring word if Hector will to-morrow\n    Be answer'd in his challenge. Ajax is ready.\n  DIOMEDES. This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden\n    Which I am proud to bear.\n                                          Exeunt DIOMEDES and CALCHAS\n\n           ACHILLES and PATROCLUS stand in their tent\n\n  ULYSSES. Achilles stands i' th' entrance of his tent.\n    Please it our general pass strangely by him,\n    As if he were forgot; and, Princes all,\n    Lay negligent and loose regard upon him.\n    I will come last. 'Tis like he'll question me\n    Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn'd on him?\n    If so, I have derision med'cinable\n    To use between your strangeness and his pride,\n    Which his own will shall have desire to drink.\n    It may do good. Pride hath no other glass\n    To show itself but pride; for supple knees\n    Feed arrogance and are the proud man's fees.\n  AGAMEMNON. We'll execute your purpose, and put on\n    A form of strangeness as we pass along.\n    So do each lord; and either greet him not,\n    Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more\n    Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way.\n  ACHILLES. What comes the general to speak with me?\n    You know my mind. I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy.\n  AGAMEMNON. What says Achilles? Would he aught with us?\n  NESTOR. Would you, my lord, aught with the general?\n  ACHILLES. No.\n  NESTOR. Nothing, my lord.\n  AGAMEMNON. The better.\n                                          Exeunt AGAMEMNON and NESTOR\n  ACHILLES. Good day, good day.\n  MENELAUS. How do you? How do you?                              Exit\n  ACHILLES. What, does the cuckold scorn me?\n  AJAX. How now, Patroclus?\n  ACHILLES. Good morrow, Ajax.\n  AJAX. Ha?\n  ACHILLES. Good morrow.\n  AJAX. Ay, and good next day too.                               Exit\n  ACHILLES. What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?\n  PATROCLUS. They pass by strangely. They were us'd to bend,\n    To send their smiles before them to Achilles,\n    To come as humbly as they us'd to creep\n    To holy altars.\n  ACHILLES. What, am I poor of late?\n    'Tis certain, greatness, once fall'n out with fortune,\n    Must fall out with men too. What the declin'd is,\n    He shall as soon read in the eyes of others\n    As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies,\n    Show not their mealy wings but to the summer;\n    And not a man for being simply man\n    Hath any honour, but honour for those honours\n    That are without him, as place, riches, and favour,\n    Prizes of accident, as oft as merit;\n    Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,\n    The love that lean'd on them as slippery too,\n    Doth one pluck down another, and together\n    Die in the fall. But 'tis not so with me:\n    Fortune and I are friends; I do enjoy\n    At ample point all that I did possess\n    Save these men's looks; who do, methinks, find out\n    Something not worth in me such rich beholding\n    As they have often given. Here is Ulysses.\n    I'll interrupt his reading.\n    How now, Ulysses!\n  ULYSSES. Now, great Thetis' son!\n  ACHILLES. What are you reading?\n  ULYSSES. A strange fellow here\n    Writes me that man-how dearly ever parted,\n    How much in having, or without or in-\n    Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,\n    Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;\n    As when his virtues shining upon others\n    Heat them, and they retort that heat again\n    To the first giver.\n  ACHILLES. This is not strange, Ulysses.\n    The beauty that is borne here in the face\n    The bearer knows not, but commends itself\n    To others' eyes; nor doth the eye itself-\n    That most pure spirit of sense-behold itself,\n    Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed\n    Salutes each other with each other's form;\n    For speculation turns not to itself\n    Till it hath travell'd, and is mirror'd there\n    Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all.\n  ULYSSES. I do not strain at the position-\n    It is familiar-but at the author's drift;\n    Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves\n    That no man is the lord of anything,\n    Though in and of him there be much consisting,\n    Till he communicate his parts to others;\n    Nor doth he of himself know them for aught\n    Till he behold them formed in th' applause\n    Where th' are extended; who, like an arch, reverb'rate\n    The voice again; or, like a gate of steel\n    Fronting the sun, receives and renders back\n    His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this;\n    And apprehended here immediately\n    Th' unknown Ajax. Heavens, what a man is there!\n    A very horse that has he knows not what!\n    Nature, what things there are\n    Most abject in regard and dear in use!\n    What things again most dear in the esteem\n    And poor in worth! Now shall we see to-morrow-\n    An act that very chance doth throw upon him-\n    Ajax renown'd. O heavens, what some men do,\n    While some men leave to do!\n    How some men creep in skittish Fortune's-hall,\n    Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!\n    How one man eats into another's pride,\n    While pride is fasting in his wantonness!\n    To see these Grecian lords!-why, even already\n    They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder,\n    As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast,\n    And great Troy shrinking.\n  ACHILLES. I do believe it; for they pass'd by me\n    As misers do by beggars-neither gave to me\n    Good word nor look. What, are my deeds forgot?\n  ULYSSES. Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,\n    Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,\n    A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes.\n    Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour'd\n    As fast as they are made, forgot as soon\n    As done. Perseverance, dear my lord,\n    Keeps honour bright. To have done is to hang\n    Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail\n    In monumental mock'ry. Take the instant way;\n    For honour travels in a strait so narrow -\n    Where one but goes abreast. Keep then the path,\n    For emulation hath a thousand sons\n    That one by one pursue; if you give way,\n    Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,\n    Like to an ent'red tide they all rush by\n    And leave you hindmost;\n    Or, like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank,\n    Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,\n    O'er-run and trampled on. Then what they do in present,\n    Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours;\n    For Time is like a fashionable host,\n    That slightly shakes his parting guest by th' hand;\n    And with his arms out-stretch'd, as he would fly,\n    Grasps in the corner. The welcome ever smiles,\n    And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek\n    Remuneration for the thing it was;\n    For beauty, wit,\n    High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,\n    Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all\n    To envious and calumniating Time.\n    One touch of nature makes the whole world kin-\n    That all with one consent praise new-born gawds,\n    Though they are made and moulded of things past,\n    And give to dust that is a little gilt\n    More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.\n    The present eye praises the present object.\n    Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,\n    That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax,\n    Since things in motion sooner catch the eye\n    Than what stirs not. The cry went once on thee,\n    And still it might, and yet it may again,\n    If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive\n    And case thy reputation in thy tent,\n    Whose glorious deeds but in these fields of late\n    Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves,\n    And drave great Mars to faction.\n  ACHILLES. Of this my privacy\n    I have strong reasons.\n  ULYSSES. But 'gainst your privacy\n    The reasons are more potent and heroical.\n    'Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love\n    With one of Priam's daughters.\n  ACHILLES. Ha! known!\n  ULYSSES. Is that a wonder?\n    The providence that's in a watchful state\n    Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold;\n    Finds bottom in th' uncomprehensive deeps;\n    Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods,\n    Do thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.\n    There is a mystery-with whom relation\n    Durst never meddle-in the soul of state,\n    Which hath an operation more divine\n    Than breath or pen can give expressure to.\n    All the commerce that you have had with Troy\n    As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord;\n    And better would it fit Achilles much\n    To throw down Hector than Polyxena.\n    But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home,\n    When fame shall in our island sound her trump,\n    And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing\n    'Great Hector's sister did Achilles win;\n    But our great Ajax bravely beat down him.'\n    Farewell, my lord. I as your lover speak.\n    The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break.          Exit\n  PATROCLUS. To this effect, Achilles, have I mov'd you.\n    A woman impudent and mannish grown\n    Is not more loath'd than an effeminate man\n    In time of action. I stand condemn'd for this;\n    They think my little stomach to the war\n    And your great love to me restrains you thus.\n    Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid\n    Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,\n    And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,\n    Be shook to airy air.\n  ACHILLES. Shall Ajax fight with Hector?\n  PATROCLUS. Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.\n  ACHILLES. I see my reputation is at stake;\n    My fame is shrewdly gor'd.\n  PATROCLUS. O, then, beware:\n    Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves;\n    Omission to do what is necessary\n    Seals a commission to a blank of danger;\n    And danger, like an ague, subtly taints\n    Even then when they sit idly in the sun.\n  ACHILLES. Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus.\n    I'll send the fool to Ajax, and desire him\n    T' invite the Troyan lords, after the combat,\n    To see us here unarm'd. I have a woman's longing,\n    An appetite that I am sick withal,\n    To see great Hector in his weeds of peace;\n    To talk with him, and to behold his visage,\n    Even to my full of view.\n\n                     Enter THERSITES\n\n    A labour sav'd!\n  THERSITES. A wonder!\n  ACHILLES. What?\n  THERSITES. Ajax goes up and down the field asking for himself.\n  ACHILLES. How so?\n  THERSITES. He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector, and is so\n    prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling that he raves in\n    saying nothing.\n  ACHILLES. How can that be?\n  THERSITES. Why, 'a stalks up and down like a peacock-a stride and a\n    stand; ruminaies like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her\n    brain to set down her reckoning, bites his lip with a politic\n    regard, as who should say 'There were wit in this head, an\n    'twould out'; and so there is; but it lies as coldly in him as\n    fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The man's\n    undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i' th' combat,\n    he'll break't himself in vainglory. He knows not me. I said 'Good\n    morrow, Ajax'; and he replies 'Thanks, Agamemnon.' What think you\n    of this man that takes me for the general? He's grown a very land\n    fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! A man may\n    wear it on both sides, like leather jerkin.\n  ACHILLES. Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.\n  THERSITES. Who, I? Why, he'll answer nobody; he professes not\n    answering. Speaking is for beggars: he wears his tongue in's\n    arms. I will put on his presence. Let Patroclus make his demands\n    to me, you shall see the pageant of Ajax.\n  ACHILLES. To him, Patroclus. Tell him I humbly desire the valiant\n    Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarm'd to my\n    tent; and to procure safe conduct for his person of the\n    magnanimous and most illustrious six-or-seven-times-honour'd\n    Captain General of the Grecian army, et cetera, Agamemnon. Do\n    this.\n  PATROCLUS. Jove bless great Ajax!\n  THERSITES. Hum!\n  PATROCLUS. I come from the worthy Achilles-\n  THERSITES. Ha!\n  PATROCLUS. Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his\n    tent-\n  THERSITES. Hum!\n  PATROCLUS. And to procure safe conduct from Agamemnon.\n  THERSITES. Agamemnon!\n  PATROCLUS. Ay, my lord.\n  THERSITES. Ha!\n  PATROCLUS. What you say to't?\n  THERSITES. God buy you, with all my heart.\n  PATROCLUS. Your answer, sir.\n  THERSITES. If to-morrow be a fair day, by eleven of the clock it\n    will go one way or other. Howsoever, he shall pay for me ere he\n    has me.\n  PATROCLUS. Your answer, sir.\n  THERSITES. Fare ye well, with all my heart.\n  ACHILLES. Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?\n  THERSITES. No, but he's out a tune thus. What music will be in him\n    when Hector has knock'd out his brains I know not; but, I am sure,\n    none; unless the fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings\n    on.\n  ACHILLES. Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.\n  THERSITES. Let me carry another to his horse; for that's the more\n    capable creature.\n  ACHILLES. My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr'd;\n    And I myself see not the bottom of it.\n                                        Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS\n  THERSITES. Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I\n    might water an ass at it. I had rather be a tick in a sheep than\n    such a valiant ignorance.                                    Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\nTroy. A street\n\nEnter, at one side, AENEAS, and servant with a torch; at another,\nPARIS, DEIPHOBUS, ANTENOR, DIOMEDES the Grecian, and others, with torches\n\n  PARIS. See, ho! Who is that there?\n  DEIPHOBUS. It is the Lord Aeneas.\n  AENEAS. Is the Prince there in person?\n    Had I so good occasion to lie long\n    As you, Prince Paris, nothing but heavenly business\n    Should rob my bed-mate of my company.\n  DIOMEDES. That's my mind too. Good morrow, Lord Aeneas.\n  PARIS. A valiant Greek, Aeneas -take his hand:\n    Witness the process of your speech, wherein\n    You told how Diomed, a whole week by days,\n    Did haunt you in the field.\n  AENEAS. Health to you, valiant sir,\n    During all question of the gentle truce;\n    But when I meet you arm'd, as black defiance\n    As heart can think or courage execute.\n  DIOMEDES. The one and other Diomed embraces.\n    Our bloods are now in calm; and so long health!\n    But when contention and occasion meet,\n    By Jove, I'll play the hunter for thy life\n    With all my force, pursuit, and policy.\n  AENEAS. And thou shalt hunt a lion, that will fly\n    With his face backward. In humane gentleness,\n    Welcome to Troy! now, by Anchises' life,\n    Welcome indeed! By Venus' hand I swear\n    No man alive can love in such a sort\n    The thing he means to kill, more excellently.\n  DIOMEDES. We sympathise. Jove let Aeneas live,\n    If to my sword his fate be not the glory,\n    A thousand complete courses of the sun!\n    But in mine emulous honour let him die\n    With every joint a wound, and that to-morrow!\n  AENEAS. We know each other well.\n  DIOMEDES.We do; and long to know each other worse.\n  PARIS. This is the most despiteful'st gentle greeting\n    The noblest hateful love, that e'er I heard of.\n    What business, lord, so early?\n  AENEAS. I was sent for to the King; but why, I know not.\n  PARIS. His purpose meets you: 'twas to bring this Greek\n    To Calchas' house, and there to render him,\n    For the enfreed Antenor, the fair Cressid.\n    Let's have your company; or, if you please,\n    Haste there before us. I constantly believe-\n    Or rather call my thought a certain knowledge-\n    My brother Troilus lodges there to-night.\n    Rouse him and give him note of our approach,\n    With the whole quality wherefore; I fear\n    We shall be much unwelcome.\n  AENEAS. That I assure you:\n    Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece\n    Than Cressid borne from Troy.\n  PARIS. There is no help;\n    The bitter disposition of the time\n    Will have it so. On, lord; we'll follow you.\n  AENEAS. Good morrow, all.                         Exit with servant\n  PARIS. And tell me, noble Diomed-faith, tell me true,\n    Even in the soul of sound good-fellowship-\n    Who in your thoughts deserves fair Helen best,\n    Myself or Menelaus?\n  DIOMEDES. Both alike:\n    He merits well to have her that doth seek her,\n    Not making any scruple of her soilure,\n    With such a hell of pain and world of charge;\n    And you as well to keep her that defend her,\n    Not palating the taste of her dishonour,\n    With such a costly loss of wealth and friends.\n    He like a puling cuckold would drink up\n    The lees and dregs of a flat tamed piece;\n    You, like a lecher, out of whorish loins\n    Are pleas'd to breed out your inheritors.\n    Both merits pois'd, each weighs nor less nor more;\n    But he as he, the heavier for a whore.\n  PARIS. You are too bitter to your country-woman.\n  DIOMEDES. She's bitter to her country. Hear me, Paris:\n    For every false drop in her bawdy veins\n    A Grecian's life hath sunk; for every scruple\n    Of her contaminated carrion weight\n    A Troyan hath been slain; since she could speak,\n    She hath not given so many good words breath\n    As for her Greeks and Troyans suff'red death.\n  PARIS. Fair Diomed, you do as chapmen do,\n    Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy;\n    But we in silence hold this virtue well:\n    We'll not commend what we intend to sell.\n    Here lies our way.                                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 2.\nTroy. The court of PANDARUS' house\n\nEnter TROILUS and CRESSIDA\n\n  TROILUS. Dear, trouble not yourself; the morn is cold.\n  CRESSIDA. Then, sweet my lord, I'll call mine uncle down;\n    He shall unbolt the gates.\n  TROILUS. Trouble him not;\n    To bed, to bed! Sleep kill those pretty eyes,\n    And give as soft attachment to thy senses\n    As infants' empty of all thought!\n  CRESSIDA. Good morrow, then.\n  TROILUS. I prithee now, to bed.\n  CRESSIDA. Are you aweary of me?\n  TROILUS. O Cressida! but that the busy day,\n    Wak'd by the lark, hath rous'd the ribald crows,\n    And dreaming night will hide our joys no longer,\n    I would not from thee.\n  CRESSIDA. Night hath been too brief.\n  TROILUS. Beshrew the witch! with venomous wights she stays\n    As tediously as hell, but flies the grasps of love\n    With wings more momentary-swift than thought.\n    You will catch cold, and curse me.\n  CRESSIDA. Prithee tarry.\n    You men will never tarry.\n    O foolish Cressid! I might have still held off,\n    And then you would have tarried. Hark! there's one up.\n  PANDARUS. [Within] What's all the doors open here?\n  TROILUS. It is your uncle.\n\n                     Enter PANDARUS\n\n  CRESSIDA. A pestilence on him! Now will he be mocking.\n    I shall have such a life!\n  PANDARUS. How now, how now! How go maidenheads?\n    Here, you maid! Where's my cousin Cressid?\n  CRESSIDA. Go hang yourself, you naughty mocking uncle.\n    You bring me to do, and then you flout me too.\n  PANDARUS. To do what? to do what? Let her say what.\n    What have I brought you to do?\n  CRESSIDA. Come, come, beshrew your heart! You'll ne'er be good,\n    Nor suffer others.\n  PANDARUS. Ha, ha! Alas, poor wretch! a poor capocchia! hast not\n    slept to-night? Would he not, a naughty man, let it sleep? A\n    bugbear take him!\n  CRESSIDA. Did not I tell you? Would he were knock'd i' th' head!\n                                                         [One knocks]\n    Who's that at door? Good uncle, go and see.\n    My lord, come you again into my chamber.\n    You smile and mock me, as if I meant naughtily.\n  TROILUS. Ha! ha!\n  CRESSIDA. Come, you are deceiv'd, I think of no such thing.\n   [Knock]\n    How earnestly they knock! Pray you come in:\n    I would not for half Troy have you seen here.\n                                          Exeunt TROILUS and CRESSIDA\n  PANDARUS. Who's there? What's the matter? Will you beat down the\n    door? How now? What's the matter?\n\n                          Enter AENEAS\n  AENEAS. Good morrow, lord, good morrow.\n  PANDARUS. Who's there? My lord Aeneas? By my troth,\n    I knew you not. What news with you so early?\n  AENEAS. Is not Prince Troilus here?\n  PANDARUS. Here! What should he do here?\n  AENEAS. Come, he is here, my lord; do not deny him.\n    It doth import him much to speak with me.\n  PANDARUS. Is he here, say you? It's more than I know, I'll be\n    sworn. For my own part, I came in late. What should he do here?\n  AENEAS. Who!-nay, then. Come, come, you'll do him wrong ere you are\n    ware; you'll be so true to him to be false to him. Do not you\n    know of him, but yet go fetch him hither; go.\n\n                       Re-enter TROILUS\n\n  TROILUS. How now! What's the matter?\n  AENEAS. My lord, I scarce have leisure to salute you,\n    My matter is so rash. There is at hand\n    Paris your brother, and Deiphobus,\n    The Grecian Diomed, and our Antenor\n    Deliver'd to us; and for him forthwith,\n    Ere the first sacrifice, within this hour,\n    We must give up to Diomedes' hand\n    The Lady Cressida.\n  TROILUS. Is it so concluded?\n  AENEAS. By Priam, and the general state of Troy.\n    They are at hand and ready to effect it.\n  TROILUS. How my achievements mock me!\n    I will go meet them; and, my lord Aeneas,\n    We met by chance; you did not find me here.\n  AENEAS. Good, good, my lord, the secrets of neighbour Pandar\n    Have not more gift in taciturnity.\n                                            Exeunt TROILUS and AENEAS\n  PANDARUS. Is't possible? No sooner got but lost? The devil take\n    Antenor! The young prince will go mad. A plague upon Antenor! I\n    would they had broke's neck.\n\n                     Re-enter CRESSIDA\n\n  CRESSIDA. How now! What's the matter? Who was here?\n  PANDARUS. Ah, ah!\n  CRESSIDA. Why sigh you so profoundly? Where's my lord? Gone? Tell\n    me, sweet uncle, what's the matter?\n  PANDARUS. Would I were as deep under the earth as I am above!\n  CRESSIDA. O the gods! What's the matter?\n  PANDARUS. Pray thee, get thee in. Would thou hadst ne'er been born!\n    I knew thou wouldst be his death! O, poor gentleman! A plague\n    upon Antenor!\n  CRESSIDA. Good uncle, I beseech you, on my knees I beseech you,\n    what's the matter?\n  PANDARUS. Thou must be gone, wench, thou must be gone; thou art\n    chang'd for Antenor; thou must to thy father, and be gone from\n    Troilus. 'Twill be his death; 'twill be his bane; he cannot bear\n    it.\n  CRESSIDA. O you immortal gods! I will not go.\n  PANDARUS. Thou must.\n  CRESSIDA. I will not, uncle. I have forgot my father;\n    I know no touch of consanguinity,\n    No kin, no love, no blood, no soul so near me\n    As the sweet Troilus. O you gods divine,\n    Make Cressid's name the very crown of falsehood,\n    If ever she leave Troilus! Time, force, and death,\n    Do to this body what extremes you can,\n    But the strong base and building of my love\n    Is as the very centre of the earth,\n    Drawing all things to it. I'll go in and weep-\n  PANDARUS. Do, do.\n  CRESSIDA. Tear my bright hair, and scratch my praised cheeks,\n    Crack my clear voice with sobs and break my heart,\n    With sounding 'Troilus.' I will not go from Troy.\n    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 3.\nTroy. A street before PANDARUS' house\n\nEnter PARIS, TROILUS, AENEAS, DEIPHOBUS, ANTENOR, and DIOMEDES\n\n  PARIS. It is great morning; and the hour prefix'd\n    For her delivery to this valiant Greek\n    Comes fast upon. Good my brother Troilus,\n    Tell you the lady what she is to do\n    And haste her to the purpose.\n  TROILUS. Walk into her house.\n    I'll bring her to the Grecian presently;\n    And to his hand when I deliver her,\n    Think it an altar, and thy brother Troilus\n    A priest, there off'ring to it his own heart.                Exit\n  PARIS. I know what 'tis to love,\n    And would, as I shall pity, I could help!\n    Please you walk in, my lords.                              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 4.\nTroy. PANDARUS' house\n\nEnter PANDARUS and CRESSIDA\n\n  PANDARUS. Be moderate, be moderate.\n  CRESSIDA. Why tell you me of moderation?\n    The grief is fine, full, perfect, that I taste,\n    And violenteth in a sense as strong\n    As that which causeth it. How can I moderate it?\n    If I could temporize with my affections\n    Or brew it to a weak and colder palate,\n    The like allayment could I give my grief.\n    My love admits no qualifying dross;\n    No more my grief, in such a precious loss.\n\n                    Enter TROILUS\n\n  PANDARUS. Here, here, here he comes. Ah, sweet ducks!\n  CRESSIDA. O Troilus! Troilus! [Embracing him]\n  PANDARUS. What a pair of spectacles is here! Let me embrace too. 'O\n    heart,' as the goodly saying is,\n          O heart, heavy heart,\n       Why sigh'st thou without breaking?\n    where he answers again\n       Because thou canst not ease thy smart\n       By friendship nor by speaking.\n    There was never a truer rhyme. Let us cast away nothing, for we\n    may live to have need of such a verse. We see it, we see it. How\n    now, lambs!\n  TROILUS. Cressid, I love thee in so strain'd a purity\n    That the bless'd gods, as angry with my fancy,\n    More bright in zeal than the devotion which\n    Cold lips blow to their deities, take thee from me.\n  CRESSIDA. Have the gods envy?\n  PANDARUS. Ay, ay, ay; 'tis too plain a case.\n  CRESSIDA. And is it true that I must go from Troy?\n  TROILUS. A hateful truth.\n  CRESSIDA. What, and from Troilus too?\n  TROILUS. From Troy and Troilus.\n  CRESSIDA. Is't possible?\n  TROILUS. And suddenly; where injury of chance\n    Puts back leave-taking, justles roughly by\n    All time of pause, rudely beguiles our lips\n    Of all rejoindure, forcibly prevents\n    Our lock'd embrasures, strangles our dear vows\n    Even in the birth of our own labouring breath.\n    We two, that with so many thousand sighs\n    Did buy each other, must poorly sell ourselves\n    With the rude brevity and discharge of one.\n    Injurious time now with a robber's haste\n    Crams his rich thievery up, he knows not how.\n    As many farewells as be stars in heaven,\n    With distinct breath and consign'd kisses to them,\n    He fumbles up into a loose adieu,\n    And scants us with a single famish'd kiss,\n    Distasted with the salt of broken tears.\n  AENEAS. [Within] My lord, is the lady ready?\n  TROILUS. Hark! you are call'd. Some say the Genius so\n    Cries 'Come' to him that instantly must die.\n    Bid them have patience; she shall come anon.\n  PANDARUS. Where are my tears? Rain, to lay this wind, or my heart\n    will be blown up by th' root?                                Exit\n  CRESSIDA. I must then to the Grecians?\n  TROILUS. No remedy.\n  CRESSIDA. A woeful Cressid 'mongst the merry Greeks!\n    When shall we see again?\n  TROILUS. Hear me, my love. Be thou but true of heart-\n  CRESSIDA. I true! how now! What wicked deem is this?\n  TROILUS. Nay, we must use expostulation kindly,\n    For it is parting from us.\n    I speak not 'Be thou true' as fearing thee,\n    For I will throw my glove to Death himself\n    That there's no maculation in thy heart;\n    But 'Be thou true' say I to fashion in\n    My sequent protestation: be thou true,\n    And I will see thee.\n  CRESSIDA. O, you shall be expos'd, my lord, to dangers\n    As infinite as imminent! But I'll be true.\n  TROILUS. And I'll grow friend with danger. Wear this sleeve.\n  CRESSIDA. And you this glove. When shall I see you?\n  TROILUS. I will corrupt the Grecian sentinels\n    To give thee nightly visitation.\n    But yet be true.\n  CRESSIDA. O heavens! 'Be true' again!\n  TROILUS. Hear why I speak it, love.\n    The Grecian youths are full of quality;\n    They're loving, well compos'd with gifts of nature,\n    And flowing o'er with arts and exercise.\n    How novelties may move, and parts with person,\n    Alas, a kind of godly jealousy,\n    Which I beseech you call a virtuous sin,\n    Makes me afeard.\n  CRESSIDA. O heavens! you love me not.\n  TROILUS. Die I a villain, then!\n    In this I do not call your faith in question\n    So mainly as my merit. I cannot sing,\n    Nor heel the high lavolt, nor sweeten talk,\n    Nor play at subtle games-fair virtues all,\n    To which the Grecians are most prompt and pregnant;\n    But I can tell that in each grace of these\n    There lurks a still and dumb-discoursive devil\n    That tempts most cunningly. But be not tempted.\n  CRESSIDA. Do you think I will?\n  TROILUS. No.\n    But something may be done that we will not;\n    And sometimes we are devils to ourselves,\n    When we will tempt the frailty of our powers,\n    Presuming on their changeful potency.\n  AENEAS. [Within] Nay, good my lord!\n  TROILUS. Come, kiss; and let us part.\n  PARIS. [Within] Brother Troilus!\n  TROILUS. Good brother, come you hither;\n    And bring Aeneas and the Grecian with you.\n  CRESSIDA. My lord, will you be true?\n  TROILUS. Who, I? Alas, it is my vice, my fault!\n    Whiles others fish with craft for great opinion,\n    I with great truth catch mere simplicity;\n    Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns,\n    With truth and plainness I do wear mine bare.\n\n      Enter AENEAS, PARIS, ANTENOR, DEIPHOBUS, and DIOMEDES\n\n    Fear not my truth: the moral of my wit\n    Is 'plain and true'; there's all the reach of it.\n    Welcome, Sir Diomed! Here is the lady\n    Which for Antenor we deliver you;\n    At the port, lord, I'll give her to thy hand,\n    And by the way possess thee what she is.\n    Entreat her fair; and, by my soul, fair Greek,\n    If e'er thou stand at mercy of my sword,\n    Name Cressid, and thy life shall be as safe\n    As Priam is in Ilion.\n  DIOMEDES. Fair Lady Cressid,\n    So please you, save the thanks this prince expects.\n    The lustre in your eye, heaven in your cheek,\n    Pleads your fair usage; and to Diomed\n    You shall be mistress, and command him wholly.\n  TROILUS. Grecian, thou dost not use me courteously\n    To shame the zeal of my petition to the\n    In praising her. I tell thee, lord of Greece,\n    She is as far high-soaring o'er thy praises\n    As thou unworthy to be call'd her servant.\n    I charge thee use her well, even for my charge;\n    For, by the dreadful Pluto, if thou dost not,\n    Though the great bulk Achilles be thy guard,\n    I'll cut thy throat.\n  DIOMEDES. O, be not mov'd, Prince Troilus.\n    Let me be privileg'd by my place and message\n    To be a speaker free: when I am hence\n    I'll answer to my lust. And know you, lord,\n    I'll nothing do on charge: to her own worth\n    She shall be priz'd. But that you say 'Be't so,'\n    I speak it in my spirit and honour, 'No.'\n  TROILUS. Come, to the port. I'll tell thee, Diomed,\n    This brave shall oft make thee to hide thy head.\n    Lady, give me your hand; and, as we walk,\n    To our own selves bend we our needful talk.\n                               Exeunt TROILUS, CRESSIDA, and DIOMEDES\n                                                      [Sound trumpet]\n  PARIS. Hark! Hector's trumpet.\n  AENEAS. How have we spent this morning!\n    The Prince must think me tardy and remiss,\n    That swore to ride before him to the field.\n  PARIS. 'Tis Troilus' fault. Come, come to field with him.\n  DEIPHOBUS. Let us make ready straight.\n  AENEAS. Yea, with a bridegroom's fresh alacrity\n    Let us address to tend on Hector's heels.\n    The glory of our Troy doth this day lie\n    On his fair worth and single chivalry.                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 5.\nThe Grecian camp. Lists set out\n\nEnter AJAX, armed; AGAMEMNON, ACHILLES, PATROCLUS, MENELAUS, ULYSSES,\nNESTOR, and others\n\n  AGAMEMNON. Here art thou in appointment fresh and fair,\n    Anticipating time with starting courage.\n    Give with thy trumpet a loud note to Troy,\n    Thou dreadful Ajax, that the appalled air\n    May pierce the head of the great combatant,\n    And hale him hither.\n  AJAX. Thou, trumpet, there's my purse.\n    Now crack thy lungs and split thy brazen pipe;\n    Blow, villain, till thy sphered bias cheek\n    Out-swell the colic of puff Aquilon'd.\n    Come, stretch thy chest, and let thy eyes spout blood:\n    Thou blowest for Hector.                         [Trumpet sounds]\n  ULYSSES. No trumpet answers.\n  ACHILLES. 'Tis but early days.\n\n                Enter DIOMEDES, with CRESSIDA\n\n  AGAMEMNON. Is not yond Diomed, with Calchas' daughter?\n  ULYSSES. 'Tis he, I ken the manner of his gait:\n    He rises on the toe. That spirit of his\n    In aspiration lifts him from the earth.\n  AGAMEMNON. Is this the lady Cressid?\n  DIOMEDES. Even she.\n  AGAMEMNON. Most dearly welcome to the Greeks, sweet lady.\n  NESTOR. Our general doth salute you with a kiss.\n  ULYSSES. Yet is the kindness but particular;\n    'Twere better she were kiss'd in general.\n  NESTOR. And very courtly counsel: I'll begin.\n    So much for Nestor.\n  ACHILLES. I'll take that winter from your lips, fair lady.\n    Achilles bids you welcome.\n  MENELAUS. I had good argument for kissing once.\n  PATROCLUS. But that's no argument for kissing now;\n    For thus popp'd Paris in his hardiment,\n    And parted thus you and your argument.\n  ULYSSES. O deadly gall, and theme of all our scorns!\n    For which we lose our heads to gild his horns.\n  PATROCLUS. The first was Menelaus' kiss; this, mine-\n                                                   [Kisses her again]\n    Patroclus kisses you.\n  MENELAUS. O, this is trim!\n  PATROCLUS. Paris and I kiss evermore for him.\n  MENELAUS. I'll have my kiss, sir. Lady, by your leave.\n  CRESSIDA. In kissing, do you render or receive?\n  PATROCLUS. Both take and give.\n  CRESSIDA. I'll make my match to live,\n    The kiss you take is better than you give;\n    Therefore no kiss.\n  MENELAUS. I'll give you boot; I'll give you three for one.\n  CRESSIDA. You are an odd man; give even or give none.\n  MENELAUS. An odd man, lady? Every man is odd.\n  CRESSIDA. No, Paris is not; for you know 'tis true\n    That you are odd, and he is even with you.\n  MENELAUS. You fillip me o' th' head.\n  CRESSIDA. No, I'll be sworn.\n  ULYSSES. It were no match, your nail against his horn.\n    May I, sweet lady, beg a kiss of you?\n  CRESSIDA. You may.\n  ULYSSES. I do desire it.\n  CRESSIDA. Why, beg then.\n  ULYSSES. Why then, for Venus' sake give me a kiss\n    When Helen is a maid again, and his.\n  CRESSIDA. I am your debtor; claim it when 'tis due.\n  ULYSSES. Never's my day, and then a kiss of you.\n  DIOMEDES. Lady, a word. I'll bring you to your father.\n                                                   Exit with CRESSIDA\n  NESTOR. A woman of quick sense.\n  ULYSSES. Fie, fie upon her!\n    There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,\n    Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out\n    At every joint and motive of her body.\n    O these encounters so glib of tongue\n    That give a coasting welcome ere it comes,\n    And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts\n    To every ticklish reader! Set them down\n    For sluttish spoils of opportunity,\n    And daughters of the game.                       [Trumpet within]\n  ALL. The Troyans' trumpet.\n\n        Enter HECTOR, armed; AENEAS, TROILUS, PARIS, HELENUS,\n                 and other Trojans, with attendants\n\n  AGAMEMNON. Yonder comes the troop.\n  AENEAS. Hail, all the state of Greece! What shall be done\n    To him that victory commands? Or do you purpose\n    A victor shall be known? Will you the knights\n    Shall to the edge of all extremity\n    Pursue each other, or shall they be divided\n    By any voice or order of the field?\n    Hector bade ask.\n  AGAMEMNON. Which way would Hector have it?\n  AENEAS. He cares not; he'll obey conditions.\n  ACHILLES. 'Tis done like Hector; but securely done,\n    A little proudly, and great deal misprizing\n    The knight oppos'd.\n  AENEAS. If not Achilles, sir,\n    What is your name?\n  ACHILLES. If not Achilles, nothing.\n  AENEAS. Therefore Achilles. But whate'er, know this:\n    In the extremity of great and little\n    Valour and pride excel themselves in Hector;\n    The one almost as infinite as all,\n    The other blank as nothing. Weigh him well,\n    And that which looks like pride is courtesy.\n    This Ajax is half made of Hector's blood;\n    In love whereof half Hector stays at home;\n    Half heart, half hand, half Hector comes to seek\n    This blended knight, half Troyan and half Greek.\n  ACHILLES. A maiden battle then? O, I perceive you!\n\n                   Re-enter DIOMEDES\n\n  AGAMEMNON. Here is Sir Diomed. Go, gentle knight,\n    Stand by our Ajax. As you and Lord ]Eneas\n    Consent upon the order of their fight,\n    So be it; either to the uttermost,\n    Or else a breath. The combatants being kin\n    Half stints their strife before their strokes begin.\n                                    [AJAX and HECTOR enter the lists]\n  ULYSSES. They are oppos'd already.\n  AGAMEMNON. What Troyan is that same that looks so heavy?\n  ULYSSES. The youngest son of Priam, a true knight;\n    Not yet mature, yet matchless; firm of word;\n    Speaking in deeds and deedless in his tongue;\n    Not soon provok'd, nor being provok'd soon calm'd;\n    His heart and hand both open and both free;\n    For what he has he gives, what thinks he shows,\n    Yet gives he not till judgment guide his bounty,\n    Nor dignifies an impair thought with breath;\n    Manly as Hector, but more dangerous;\n    For Hector in his blaze of wrath subscribes\n    To tender objects, but he in heat of action\n    Is more vindicative than jealous love.\n    They call him Troilus, and on him erect\n    A second hope as fairly built as Hector.\n    Thus says Aeneas, one that knows the youth\n    Even to his inches, and, with private soul,\n    Did in great Ilion thus translate him to me.\n                                      [Alarum. HECTOR and AJAX fight]\n  AGAMEMNON. They are in action.\n  NESTOR. Now, Ajax, hold thine own!\n  TROILUS. Hector, thou sleep'st;\n    Awake thee.\n  AGAMEMNON. His blows are well dispos'd. There, Ajax!\n                                                     [Trumpets cease]\n  DIOMEDES. You must no more.\n  AENEAS. Princes, enough, so please you.\n  AJAX. I am not warm yet; let us fight again.\n  DIOMEDES. As Hector pleases.\n  HECTOR. Why, then will I no more.\n    Thou art, great lord, my father's sister's son,\n    A cousin-german to great Priam's seed;\n    The obligation of our blood forbids\n    A gory emulation 'twixt us twain:\n    Were thy commixtion Greek and Troyan so\n    That thou could'st say 'This hand is Grecian all,\n    And this is Troyan; the sinews of this leg\n    All Greek, and this all Troy; my mother's blood\n    Runs on the dexter cheek, and this sinister\n    Bounds in my father's'; by Jove multipotent,\n    Thou shouldst not bear from me a Greekish member\n    Wherein my sword had not impressure made\n    Of our rank feud; but the just gods gainsay\n    That any drop thou borrow'dst from thy mother,\n    My sacred aunt, should by my mortal sword\n    Be drained! Let me embrace thee, Ajax.\n    By him that thunders, thou hast lusty arms;\n    Hector would have them fall upon him thus.\n    Cousin, all honour to thee!\n  AJAX. I thank thee, Hector.\n    Thou art too gentle and too free a man.\n    I came to kill thee, cousin, and bear hence\n    A great addition earned in thy death.\n  HECTOR. Not Neoptolemus so mirable,\n    On whose bright crest Fame with her loud'st Oyes\n    Cries 'This is he' could promise to himself\n    A thought of added honour torn from Hector.\n  AENEAS. There is expectance here from both the sides\n    What further you will do.\n  HECTOR. We'll answer it:\n    The issue is embracement. Ajax, farewell.\n  AJAX. If I might in entreaties find success,\n    As seld I have the chance, I would desire\n    My famous cousin to our Grecian tents.\n  DIOMEDES. 'Tis Agamemnon's wish; and great Achilles\n    Doth long to see unarm'd the valiant Hector.\n  HECTOR. Aeneas, call my brother Troilus to me,\n    And signify this loving interview\n    To the expecters of our Troyan part;\n    Desire them home. Give me thy hand, my cousin;\n    I will go eat with thee, and see your knights.\n\n        AGAMEMNON and the rest of the Greeks come forward\n\n  AJAX. Great Agamemnon comes to meet us here.\n  HECTOR. The worthiest of them tell me name by name;\n    But for Achilles, my own searching eyes\n    Shall find him by his large and portly size.\n  AGAMEMNON.Worthy all arms! as welcome as to one\n    That would be rid of such an enemy.\n    But that's no welcome. Understand more clear,\n    What's past and what's to come is strew'd with husks\n    And formless ruin of oblivion;\n    But in this extant moment, faith and troth,\n    Strain'd purely from all hollow bias-drawing,\n    Bids thee with most divine integrity,\n    From heart of very heart, great Hector, welcome.\n  HECTOR. I thank thee, most imperious Agamemnon.\n  AGAMEMNON. [To Troilus] My well-fam'd lord of Troy, no less to you.\n  MENELAUS. Let me confirm my princely brother's greeting.\n    You brace of warlike brothers, welcome hither.\n  HECTOR. Who must we answer?\n  AENEAS. The noble Menelaus.\n  HECTOR. O you, my lord? By Mars his gauntlet, thanks!\n    Mock not that I affect the untraded oath;\n    Your quondam wife swears still by Venus' glove.\n    She's well, but bade me not commend her to you.\n  MENELAUS. Name her not now, sir; she's a deadly theme.\n  HECTOR. O, pardon; I offend.\n  NESTOR. I have, thou gallant Troyan, seen thee oft,\n    Labouring for destiny, make cruel way\n    Through ranks of Greekish youth; and I have seen thee,\n    As hot as Perseus, spur thy Phrygian steed,\n    Despising many forfeits and subduements,\n    When thou hast hung thy advanced sword i' th' air,\n    Not letting it decline on the declined;\n    That I have said to some my standers-by\n    'Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life!'\n    And I have seen thee pause and take thy breath,\n    When that a ring of Greeks have hemm'd thee in,\n    Like an Olympian wrestling. This have I seen;\n    But this thy countenance, still lock'd in steel,\n    I never saw till now. I knew thy grandsire,\n    And once fought with him. He was a soldier good,\n    But, by great Mars, the captain of us all,\n    Never like thee. O, let an old man embrace thee;\n    And, worthy warrior, welcome to our tents.\n  AENEAS. 'Tis the old Nestor.\n  HECTOR. Let me embrace thee, good old chronicle,\n    That hast so long walk'd hand in hand with time.\n    Most reverend Nestor, I am glad to clasp thee.\n  NESTOR. I would my arms could match thee in contention\n    As they contend with thee in courtesy.\n  HECTOR. I would they could.\n  NESTOR. Ha!\n    By this white beard, I'd fight with thee to-morrow.\n    Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the time.\n  ULYSSES. I wonder now how yonder city stands,\n    When we have here her base and pillar by us.\n  HECTOR. I know your favour, Lord Ulysses, well.\n    Ah, sir, there's many a Greek and Troyan dead,\n    Since first I saw yourself and Diomed\n    In Ilion on your Greekish embassy.\n  ULYSSES. Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue.\n    My prophecy is but half his journey yet;\n    For yonder walls, that pertly front your town,\n    Yond towers, whose wanton tops do buss the clouds,\n    Must kiss their own feet.\n  HECTOR. I must not believe you.\n    There they stand yet; and modestly I think\n    The fall of every Phrygian stone will cost\n    A drop of Grecian blood. The end crowns all;\n    And that old common arbitrator, Time,\n    Will one day end it.\n  ULYSSES. So to him we leave it.\n    Most gentle and most valiant Hector, welcome.\n    After the General, I beseech you next\n    To feast with me and see me at my tent.\n  ACHILLES. I shall forestall thee, Lord Ulysses, thou!\n    Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes on thee;\n    I have with exact view perus'd thee, Hector,\n    And quoted joint by joint.\n  HECTOR. Is this Achilles?\n  ACHILLES. I am Achilles.\n  HECTOR. Stand fair, I pray thee; let me look on thee.\n  ACHILLES. Behold thy fill.\n  HECTOR. Nay, I have done already.\n  ACHILLES. Thou art too brief. I will the second time,\n    As I would buy thee, view thee limb by limb.\n  HECTOR. O, like a book of sport thou'lt read me o'er;\n    But there's more in me than thou understand'st.\n    Why dost thou so oppress me with thine eye?\n  ACHILLES. Tell me, you heavens, in which part of his body\n    Shall I destroy him? Whether there, or there, or there?\n    That I may give the local wound a name,\n    And make distinct the very breach whereout\n    Hector's great spirit flew. Answer me, heavens.\n  HECTOR. It would discredit the blest gods, proud man,\n    To answer such a question. Stand again.\n    Think'st thou to catch my life so pleasantly\n    As to prenominate in nice conjecture\n    Where thou wilt hit me dead?\n  ACHILLES. I tell thee yea.\n  HECTOR. Wert thou an oracle to tell me so,\n    I'd not believe thee. Henceforth guard thee well;\n    For I'll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there;\n    But, by the forge that stithied Mars his helm,\n    I'll kill thee everywhere, yea, o'er and o'er.\n    You wisest Grecians, pardon me this brag.\n    His insolence draws folly from my lips;\n    But I'll endeavour deeds to match these words,\n    Or may I never-\n  AJAX. Do not chafe thee, cousin;\n    And you, Achilles, let these threats alone\n    Till accident or purpose bring you to't.\n    You may have every day enough of Hector,\n    If you have stomach. The general state, I fear,\n    Can scarce entreat you to be odd with him.\n  HECTOR. I pray you let us see you in the field;\n    We have had pelting wars since you refus'd\n    The Grecians' cause.\n  ACHILLES. Dost thou entreat me, Hector?\n    To-morrow do I meet thee, fell as death;\n    To-night all friends.\n  HECTOR. Thy hand upon that match.\n  AGAMEMNON. First, all you peers of Greece, go to my tent;\n    There in the full convive we; afterwards,\n    As Hector's leisure and your bounties shall\n    Concur together, severally entreat him.\n    Beat loud the tambourines, let the trumpets blow,\n    That this great soldier may his welcome know.\n                                   Exeunt all but TROILUS and ULYSSES\n  TROILUS. My Lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you,\n    In what place of the field doth Calchas keep?\n  ULYSSES. At Menelaus' tent, most princely Troilus.\n    There Diomed doth feast with him to-night,\n    Who neither looks upon the heaven nor earth,\n    But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view\n    On the fair Cressid.\n  TROILUS. Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to you so much,\n    After we part from Agamemnon's tent,\n    To bring me thither?\n  ULYSSES. You shall command me, sir.\n    As gentle tell me of what honour was\n    This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there\n    That wails her absence?\n  TROILUS. O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars\n    A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord?\n    She was belov'd, she lov'd; she is, and doth;\n    But still sweet love is food for fortune's tooth.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\nThe Grecian camp. Before the tent of ACHILLES\n\nEnter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS\n\n  ACHILLES. I'll heat his blood with Greekish wine to-night,\n    Which with my scimitar I'll cool to-morrow.\n    Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.\n  PATROCLUS. Here comes Thersites.\n\n                   Enter THERSITES\n\n  ACHILLES. How now, thou core of envy!\n    Thou crusty batch of nature, what's the news?\n  THERSITES. Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, and idol of\n    idiot worshippers, here's a letter for thee.\n  ACHILLES. From whence, fragment?\n  THERSITES. Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.\n  PATROCLUS. Who keeps the tent now?\n  THERSITES. The surgeon's box or the patient's wound.\n  PATROCLUS. Well said, Adversity! and what needs these tricks?\n  THERSITES. Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk; thou\n    art said to be Achilles' male varlet.\n  PATROCLUS. Male varlet, you rogue! What's that?\n  THERSITES. Why, his masculine whore. Now, the rotten diseases of\n    the south, the guts-griping ruptures, catarrhs, loads o' gravel\n    in the back, lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten\n    livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas,\n    limekilns i' th' palm, incurable bone-ache, and the rivelled fee-\n    simple of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous\n    discoveries!\n  PATROCLUS. Why, thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest thou\n    to curse thus?\n  THERSITES. Do I curse thee?\n  PATROCLUS. Why, no, you ruinous butt; you whoreson\n    indistinguishable cur, no.\n  THERSITES. No! Why art thou, then, exasperate, thou idle immaterial\n    skein of sleid silk, thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye,\n    thou tassel of a prodigal's purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is\n    pest'red with such water-flies-diminutives of nature!\n  PATROCLUS. Out, gall!\n  THERSITES. Finch egg!\n  ACHILLES. My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite\n    From my great purpose in to-morrow's battle.\n    Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba,\n    A token from her daughter, my fair love,\n    Both taxing me and gaging me to keep\n    An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it.\n    Fall Greeks; fail fame; honour or go or stay;\n    My major vow lies here, this I'll obey.\n    Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent;\n    This night in banqueting must all be spent.\n    Away, Patroclus!                              Exit with PATROCLUS\n  THERSITES. With too much blood and too little brain these two may\n    run mad; but, if with too much brain and to little blood they do,\n    I'll be a curer of madmen. Here's Agamemnon, an honest fellow\n    enough, and one that loves quails, but he has not so much brain\n    as ear-wax; and the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, his\n    brother, the bull, the primitive statue and oblique memorial of\n    cuckolds, a thrifty shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his\n    brother's leg-to what form but that he is, should wit larded with\n    malice, and malice forced with wit, turn him to? To an ass, were\n    nothing: he is both ass and ox. To an ox, were nothing: he is both\n    ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a\n    lizard, an owl, a put-tock, or a herring without a roe, I would\n    not care; but to be Menelaus, I would conspire against destiny.\n    Ask me not what I would be, if I were not Thersites; for I care\n    not to be the louse of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus. Hey-day!\n    sprites and fires!\n\n         Enter HECTOR, TROILUS, AJAX, AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES,\n            NESTOR, MENELAUS, and DIOMEDES, with lights\n\n  AGAMEMNON. We go wrong, we go wrong.\n  AJAX. No, yonder 'tis;\n    There, where we see the lights.\n  HECTOR. I trouble you.\n  AJAX. No, not a whit.\n\n                    Re-enter ACHILLES\n\n  ULYSSES. Here comes himself to guide you.\n  ACHILLES. Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, Princes all.\n  AGAMEMNON. So now, fair Prince of Troy, I bid good night;\n    Ajax commands the guard to tend on you.\n  HECTOR. Thanks, and good night to the Greeks' general.\n  MENELAUS. Good night, my lord.\n  HECTOR. Good night, sweet Lord Menelaus.\n  THERSITES. Sweet draught! 'Sweet' quoth 'a?\n    Sweet sink, sweet sewer!\n  ACHILLES. Good night and welcome, both at once, to those\n    That go or tarry.\n  AGAMEMNON. Good night.\n                                        Exeunt AGAMEMNON and MENELAUS\n  ACHILLES. Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed,\n    Keep Hector company an hour or two.\n  DIOMEDES. I cannot, lord; I have important business,\n    The tide whereof is now. Good night, great Hector.\n  HECTOR. Give me your hand.\n  ULYSSES. [Aside to TROILUS] Follow his torch; he goes to\n    Calchas' tent; I'll keep you company.\n  TROILUS. Sweet sir, you honour me.\n  HECTOR. And so, good night.\n                         Exit DIOMEDES; ULYSSES and TROILUS following\n  ACHILLES. Come, come, enter my tent.\n                                             Exeunt all but THERSITES\n  THERSITES. That same Diomed's a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust\n    knave; I will no more trust him when he leers than I will a\n    serpent when he hisses. He will spend his mouth and promise, like\n    Brabbler the hound; but when he performs, astronomers foretell\n    it: it is prodigious, there will come some change; the sun\n    borrows of the moon when Diomed keeps his word. I will rather\n    leave to see Hector than not to dog him. They say he keeps a\n    Troyan drab, and uses the traitor Calchas' tent. I'll after.\n    Nothing but lechery! All incontinent varlets!                Exit\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 2.\nThe Grecian camp. Before CALCHAS' tent\n\nEnter DIOMEDES\n\n  DIOMEDES. What, are you up here, ho? Speak.\n  CALCHAS. [Within] Who calls?\n  DIOMEDES. Diomed. Calchas, I think. Where's your daughter?\n  CALCHAS. [Within] She comes to you.\n\n      Enter TROILUS and ULYSSES, at a distance; after them\n                        THERSITES\n\n  ULYSSES. Stand where the torch may not discover us.\n\n                     Enter CRESSIDA\n\n  TROILUS. Cressid comes forth to him.\n  DIOMEDES. How now, my charge!\n  CRESSIDA. Now, my sweet guardian! Hark, a word with you.\n[Whispers]\n  TROILUS. Yea, so familiar!\n  ULYSSES. She will sing any man at first sight.\n  THERSITES. And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff;\n    she's noted.\n  DIOMEDES. Will you remember?\n  CRESSIDA. Remember? Yes.\n  DIOMEDES. Nay, but do, then;\n    And let your mind be coupled with your words.\n  TROILUS. What shall she remember?\n  ULYSSES. List!\n  CRESSIDA. Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.\n  THERSITES. Roguery!\n  DIOMEDES. Nay, then-\n  CRESSIDA. I'll tell you what-\n  DIOMEDES. Fo, fo! come, tell a pin; you are a forsworn-\n  CRESSIDA. In faith, I cannot. What would you have me do?\n  THERSITES. A juggling trick, to be secretly open.\n  DIOMEDES. What did you swear you would bestow on me?\n  CRESSIDA. I prithee, do not hold me to mine oath;\n    Bid me do anything but that, sweet Greek.\n  DIOMEDES. Good night.\n  TROILUS. Hold, patience!\n  ULYSSES. How now, Troyan!\n  CRESSIDA. Diomed!\n  DIOMEDES. No, no, good night; I'll be your fool no more.\n  TROILUS. Thy better must.\n  CRESSIDA. Hark! a word in your ear.\n  TROILUS. O plague and madness!\n  ULYSSES. You are moved, Prince; let us depart, I pray,\n    Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself\n    To wrathful terms. This place is dangerous;\n    The time right deadly; I beseech you, go.\n  TROILUS. Behold, I pray you.\n  ULYSSES. Nay, good my lord, go off;\n    You flow to great distraction; come, my lord.\n  TROILUS. I prithee stay.\n  ULYSSES. You have not patience; come.\n  TROILUS. I pray you, stay; by hell and all hell's torments,\n    I will not speak a word.\n  DIOMEDES. And so, good night.\n  CRESSIDA. Nay, but you part in anger.\n  TROILUS. Doth that grieve thee? O withered truth!\n  ULYSSES. How now, my lord?\n  TROILUS. By Jove, I will be patient.\n  CRESSIDA. Guardian! Why, Greek!\n  DIOMEDES. Fo, fo! adieu! you palter.\n  CRESSIDA. In faith, I do not. Come hither once again.\n  ULYSSES. You shake, my lord, at something; will you go?\n    You will break out.\n  TROILUS. She strokes his cheek.\n  ULYSSES. Come, come.\n  TROILUS. Nay, stay; by Jove, I will not speak a word:\n    There is between my will and all offences\n    A guard of patience. Stay a little while.\n  THERSITES. How the devil luxury, with his fat rump and potato\n    finger, tickles these together! Fry, lechery, fry!\n  DIOMEDES. But will you, then?\n  CRESSIDA. In faith, I will, lo; never trust me else.\n  DIOMEDES. Give me some token for the surety of it.\n  CRESSIDA. I'll fetch you one.                                  Exit\n  ULYSSES. You have sworn patience.\n  TROILUS. Fear me not, my lord;\n    I will not be myself, nor have cognition\n    Of what I feel. I am all patience.\n\n                    Re-enter CRESSIDA\n\n  THERSITES. Now the pledge; now, now, now!\n  CRESSIDA. Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.\n  TROILUS. O beauty! where is thy faith?\n  ULYSSES. My lord!\n  TROILUS. I will be patient; outwardly I will.\n  CRESSIDA. You look upon that sleeve; behold it well.\n    He lov'd me-O false wench!-Give't me again.\n  DIOMEDES. Whose was't?\n  CRESSIDA. It is no matter, now I ha't again.\n    I will not meet with you to-morrow night.\n    I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.\n  THERSITES. Now she sharpens. Well said, whetstone.\n  DIOMEDES. I shall have it.\n  CRESSIDA. What, this?\n  DIOMEDES. Ay, that.\n  CRESSIDA. O all you gods! O pretty, pretty pledge!\n    Thy master now lies thinking on his bed\n    Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove,\n    And gives memorial dainty kisses to it,\n    As I kiss thee. Nay, do not snatch it from me;\n    He that takes that doth take my heart withal.\n  DIOMEDES. I had your heart before; this follows it.\n  TROILUS. I did swear patience.\n  CRESSIDA. You shall not have it, Diomed; faith, you shall not;\n    I'll give you something else.\n  DIOMEDES. I will have this. Whose was it?\n  CRESSIDA. It is no matter.\n  DIOMEDES. Come, tell me whose it was.\n  CRESSIDA. 'Twas one's that lov'd me better than you will.\n    But, now you have it, take it.\n  DIOMEDES. Whose was it?\n  CRESSIDA. By all Diana's waiting women yond,\n    And by herself, I will not tell you whose.\n  DIOMEDES. To-morrow will I wear it on my helm,\n    And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it.\n  TROILUS. Wert thou the devil and wor'st it on thy horn,\n    It should be challeng'd.\n  CRESSIDA. Well, well, 'tis done, 'tis past; and yet it is not;\n    I will not keep my word.\n  DIOMEDES. Why, then farewell;\n    Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.\n  CRESSIDA. You shall not go. One cannot speak a word\n    But it straight starts you.\n  DIOMEDES. I do not like this fooling.\n  THERSITES. Nor I, by Pluto; but that that likes not you\n    Pleases me best.\n  DIOMEDES. What, shall I come? The hour-\n  CRESSIDA. Ay, come-O Jove! Do come. I shall be plagu'd.\n  DIOMEDES. Farewell till then.\n  CRESSIDA. Good night. I prithee come.                 Exit DIOMEDES\n    Troilus, farewell! One eye yet looks on thee;\n    But with my heart the other eye doth see.\n    Ah, poor our sex! this fault in us I find,\n    The error of our eye directs our mind.\n    What error leads must err; O, then conclude,\n    Minds sway'd by eyes are full of turpitude.                  Exit\n  THERSITES. A proof of strength she could not publish more,\n    Unless she said 'My mind is now turn'd whore.'\n  ULYSSES. All's done, my lord.\n  TROILUS. It is.\n  ULYSSES. Why stay we, then?\n  TROILUS. To make a recordation to my soul\n    Of every syllable that here was spoke.\n    But if I tell how these two did coact,\n    Shall I not lie in publishing a truth?\n    Sith yet there is a credence in my heart,\n    An esperance so obstinately strong,\n    That doth invert th' attest of eyes and ears;\n    As if those organs had deceptious functions\n    Created only to calumniate.\n    Was Cressid here?\n  ULYSSES. I cannot conjure, Troyan.\n  TROILUS. She was not, sure.\n  ULYSSES. Most sure she was.\n  TROILUS. Why, my negation hath no taste of madness.\n  ULYSSES. Nor mine, my lord. Cressid was here but now.\n  TROILUS. Let it not be believ'd for womanhood.\n    Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage\n    To stubborn critics, apt, without a theme,\n    For depravation, to square the general sex\n    By Cressid's rule. Rather think this not Cressid.\n  ULYSSES. What hath she done, Prince, that can soil our mothers?\n  TROILUS. Nothing at all, unless that this were she.\n  THERSITES. Will 'a swagger himself out on's own eyes?\n  TROILUS. This she? No; this is Diomed's Cressida.\n    If beauty have a soul, this is not she;\n    If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimonies,\n    If sanctimony be the god's delight,\n    If there be rule in unity itself,\n    This was not she. O madness of discourse,\n    That cause sets up with and against itself!\n    Bifold authority! where reason can revolt\n    Without perdition, and loss assume all reason\n    Without revolt: this is, and is not, Cressid.\n    Within my soul there doth conduce a fight\n    Of this strange nature, that a thing inseparate\n    Divides more wider than the sky and earth;\n    And yet the spacious breadth of this division\n    Admits no orifex for a point as subtle\n    As Ariachne's broken woof to enter.\n    Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto's gates:\n    Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven.\n    Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself:\n    The bonds of heaven are slipp'd, dissolv'd, and loos'd;\n    And with another knot, five-finger-tied,\n    The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,\n    The fragments, scraps, the bits, and greasy relics\n    Of her o'er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomed.\n  ULYSSES. May worthy Troilus be half-attach'd\n    With that which here his passion doth express?\n  TROILUS. Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well\n    In characters as red as Mars his heart\n    Inflam'd with Venus. Never did young man fancy\n    With so eternal and so fix'd a soul.\n    Hark, Greek: as much as I do Cressid love,\n    So much by weight hate I her Diomed.\n    That sleeve is mine that he'll bear on his helm;\n    Were it a casque compos'd by Vulcan's skill\n    My sword should bite it. Not the dreadful spout\n    Which shipmen do the hurricano call,\n    Constring'd in mass by the almighty sun,\n    Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune's ear\n    In his descent than shall my prompted sword\n    Falling on Diomed.\n  THERSITES. He'll tickle it for his concupy.\n  TROILUS. O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false!\n    Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,\n    And they'll seem glorious.\n  ULYSSES. O, contain yourself;\n    Your passion draws ears hither.\n\n                       Enter AENEAS\n\n  AENEAS. I have been seeking you this hour, my lord.\n    Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy;\n    Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.\n  TROILUS. Have with you, Prince. My courteous lord, adieu.\n    Fairwell, revolted fair!-and, Diomed,\n    Stand fast and wear a castle on thy head.\n  ULYSSES. I'll bring you to the gates.\n  TROILUS. Accept distracted thanks.\n\n            Exeunt TROILUS, AENEAS. and ULYSSES\n\n  THERSITES. Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like\n    a raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me\n    anything for the intelligence of this whore; the parrot will not\n    do more for an almond than he for a commodious drab. Lechery,\n    lechery! Still wars and lechery! Nothing else holds fashion. A\n    burning devil take them!                                     Exit\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 3.\nTroy. Before PRIAM'S palace\n\nEnter HECTOR and ANDROMACHE\n\n  ANDROMACHE. When was my lord so much ungently temper'd\n    To stop his ears against admonishment?\n    Unarm, unarm, and do not fight to-day.\n  HECTOR. You train me to offend you; get you in.\n    By all the everlasting gods, I'll go.\n  ANDROMACHE. My dreams will, sure, prove ominous to the day.\n  HECTOR. No more, I say.\n\n                    Enter CASSANDRA\n\n  CASSANDRA. Where is my brother Hector?\n  ANDROMACHE. Here, sister, arm'd, and bloody in intent.\n    Consort with me in loud and dear petition,\n    Pursue we him on knees; for I have dreamt\n    Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night\n    Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter.\n  CASSANDRA. O, 'tis true!\n  HECTOR. Ho! bid my trumpet sound.\n  CASSANDRA. No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet brother!\n  HECTOR. Be gone, I say. The gods have heard me swear.\n  CASSANDRA. The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows;\n    They are polluted off'rings, more abhorr'd\n    Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.\n  ANDROMACHE. O, be persuaded! Do not count it holy\n    To hurt by being just. It is as lawful,\n    For we would give much, to use violent thefts\n    And rob in the behalf of charity.\n  CASSANDRA. It is the purpose that makes strong the vow;\n    But vows to every purpose must not hold.\n    Unarm, sweet Hector.\n  HECTOR. Hold you still, I say.\n    Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate.\n    Life every man holds dear; but the dear man\n    Holds honour far more precious dear than life.\n\n                      Enter TROILUS\n\n    How now, young man! Mean'st thou to fight to-day?\n  ANDROMACHE. Cassandra, call my father to persuade.\n                                                       Exit CASSANDRA\n  HECTOR. No, faith, young Troilus; doff thy harness, youth;\n    I am to-day i' th' vein of chivalry.\n    Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong,\n    And tempt not yet the brushes of the war.\n    Unarm thee, go; and doubt thou not, brave boy,\n    I'll stand to-day for thee and me and Troy.\n  TROILUS. Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you\n    Which better fits a lion than a man.\n  HECTOR. What vice is that, good Troilus?\n    Chide me for it.\n  TROILUS. When many times the captive Grecian falls,\n    Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,\n    You bid them rise and live.\n  HECTOR. O, 'tis fair play!\n  TROILUS. Fool's play, by heaven, Hector.\n  HECTOR. How now! how now!\n  TROILUS. For th' love of all the gods,\n    Let's leave the hermit Pity with our mother;\n    And when we have our armours buckled on,\n    The venom'd vengeance ride upon our swords,\n    Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth!\n  HECTOR. Fie, savage, fie!\n  TROILUS. Hector, then 'tis wars.\n  HECTOR. Troilus, I would not have you fight to-day.\n  TROILUS. Who should withhold me?\n    Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars\n    Beck'ning with fiery truncheon my retire;\n    Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees,\n    Their eyes o'ergalled with recourse of tears;\n    Nor you, my brother, with your true sword drawn,\n    Oppos'd to hinder me, should stop my way,\n    But by my ruin.\n\n              Re-enter CASSANDRA, with PRIAM\n\n  CASSANDRA. Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast;\n    He is thy crutch; now if thou lose thy stay,\n    Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee,\n    Fall all together.\n  PRIAM. Come, Hector, come, go back.\n    Thy wife hath dreamt; thy mother hath had visions;\n    Cassandra doth foresee; and I myself\n    Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt\n    To tell thee that this day is ominous.\n    Therefore, come back.\n  HECTOR. Aeneas is a-field;\n    And I do stand engag'd to many Greeks,\n    Even in the faith of valour, to appear\n    This morning to them.\n  PRIAM. Ay, but thou shalt not go.\n  HECTOR. I must not break my faith.\n    You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir,\n    Let me not shame respect; but give me leave\n    To take that course by your consent and voice\n    Which you do here forbid me, royal Priam.\n  CASSANDRA. O Priam, yield not to him!\n  ANDROMACHE. Do not, dear father.\n  HECTOR. Andromache, I am offended with you.\n    Upon the love you bear me, get you in.\n                                                      Exit ANDROMACHE\n  TROILUS. This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl\n    Makes all these bodements.\n  CASSANDRA. O, farewell, dear Hector!\n    Look how thou diest. Look how thy eye turns pale.\n    Look how thy wounds do bleed at many vents.\n    Hark how Troy roars; how Hecuba cries out;\n    How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth;\n    Behold distraction, frenzy, and amazement,\n    Like witless antics, one another meet,\n    And all cry, Hector! Hector's dead! O Hector!\n  TROILUS. Away, away!\n  CASSANDRA. Farewell!-yet, soft! Hector, I take my leave.\n    Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive.                  Exit\n  HECTOR. You are amaz'd, my liege, at her exclaim.\n    Go in, and cheer the town; we'll forth, and fight,\n    Do deeds worth praise and tell you them at night.\n  PRIAM. Farewell. The gods with safety stand about thee!\n                           Exeunt severally PRIAM and HECTOR. Alarums\n  TROILUS. They are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe,\n    I come to lose my arm or win my sleeve.\n\n                     Enter PANDARUS\n\n  PANDARUS. Do you hear, my lord? Do you hear?\n  TROILUS. What now?\n  PANDARUS. Here's a letter come from yond poor girl.\n  TROILUS. Let me read.\n  PANDARUS. A whoreson tisick, a whoreson rascally tisick so troubles\n    me, and the foolish fortune of this girl, and what one thing,\n    what another, that I shall leave you one o' th's days; and I have\n    a rheum in mine eyes too, and such an ache in my bones that\n    unless a man were curs'd I cannot tell what to think on't. What\n    says she there?\n  TROILUS. Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart;\n    Th' effect doth operate another way.\n                                                 [Tearing the letter]\n    Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change together.\n    My love with words and errors still she feeds,\n    But edifies another with her deeds.              Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 4.\nThe plain between Troy and the Grecian camp\n\nEnter THERSITES. Excursions\n\n  THERSITES. Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I'll go look\n    on. That dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same\n    scurvy doting foolish young knave's sleeve of Troy there in his\n    helm. I would fain see them meet, that that same young Troyan ass\n    that loves the whore there might send that Greekish whoremasterly\n    villain with the sleeve back to the dissembling luxurious drab of\n    a sleeve-less errand. A th' t'other side, the policy of those\n    crafty swearing rascals-that stale old mouse-eaten dry cheese,\n    Nestor, and that same dog-fox, Ulysses -is not prov'd worth a\n    blackberry. They set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur, Ajax,\n    against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles; and now is the cur,\n    Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm to-day;\n    whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy\n    grows into an ill opinion.\n\n             Enter DIOMEDES, TROILUS following\n\n    Soft! here comes sleeve, and t'other.\n  TROILUS. Fly not; for shouldst thou take the river Styx\n    I would swim after.\n  DIOMEDES. Thou dost miscall retire.\n    I do not fly; but advantageous care\n    Withdrew me from the odds of multitude.\n    Have at thee.\n  THERSITES. Hold thy whore, Grecian; now for thy whore,\n    Troyan-now the sleeve, now the sleeve!\n                                 Exeunt TROILUS and DIOMEDES fighting\n\n                        Enter HECTOR\n\n  HECTOR. What art thou, Greek? Art thou for Hector's match?\n    Art thou of blood and honour?\n  THERSITES. No, no-I am a rascal; a scurvy railing knave; a very\n    filthy rogue.\n  HECTOR. I do believe thee. Live.                               Exit\n  THERSITES. God-a-mercy, that thou wilt believe me; but a plague\n    break thy neck for frighting me! What's become of the wenching\n    rogues? I think they have swallowed one another. I would laugh at\n    that miracle. Yet, in a sort, lechery eats itself. I'll seek\n    them.                                                        Exit\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 5.\nAnother part of the plain\n\nEnter DIOMEDES and A SERVANT\n\n  DIOMEDES. Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus' horse;\n    Present the fair steed to my lady Cressid.\n    Fellow, commend my service to her beauty;\n    Tell her I have chastis'd the amorous Troyan,\n    And am her knight by proof.\n  SERVANT. I go, my lord.                                        Exit\n\n                       Enter AGAMEMNON\n\n  AGAMEMNON. Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamus\n    Hath beat down enon; bastard Margarelon\n    Hath Doreus prisoner,\n    And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam,\n    Upon the pashed corses of the kings\n    Epistrophus and Cedius. Polixenes is slain;\n    Amphimacus and Thoas deadly hurt;\n    Patroclus ta'en, or slain; and Palamedes\n    Sore hurt and bruis'd. The dreadful Sagittary\n    Appals our numbers. Haste we, Diomed,\n    To reinforcement, or we perish all.\n\n                        Enter NESTOR\n\n  NESTOR. Go, bear Patroclus' body to Achilles,\n    And bid the snail-pac'd Ajax arm for shame.\n    There is a thousand Hectors in the field;\n    Now here he fights on Galathe his horse,\n    And there lacks work; anon he's there afoot,\n    And there they fly or die, like scaled sculls\n    Before the belching whale; then is he yonder,\n    And there the strawy Greeks, ripe for his edge,\n    Fall down before him like the mower's swath.\n    Here, there, and everywhere, he leaves and takes;\n    Dexterity so obeying appetite\n    That what he will he does, and does so much\n    That proof is call'd impossibility.\n\n                       Enter ULYSSES\n\n  ULYSSES. O, courage, courage, courage, Princes! Great\n    Achilles Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance.\n    Patroclus' wounds have rous'd his drowsy blood,\n    Together with his mangled Myrmidons,\n    That noseless, handless, hack'd and chipp'd, come to\n    him, Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend\n    And foams at mouth, and he is arm'd and at it,\n    Roaring for Troilus; who hath done to-day\n    Mad and fantastic execution,\n    Engaging and redeeming of himself\n    With such a careless force and forceless care\n    As if that luck, in very spite of cunning,\n    Bade him win all.\n\n                        Enter AJAX\n\n  AJAX. Troilus! thou coward Troilus!                            Exit\n  DIOMEDES. Ay, there, there.\n  NESTOR. So, so, we draw together.                              Exit\n                      Enter ACHILLES\n\n  ACHILLES. Where is this Hector?\n    Come, come, thou boy-queller, show thy face;\n    Know what it is to meet Achilles angry.\n    Hector! where's Hector? I will none but Hector.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 6.\nAnother part of the plain\n\nEnter AJAX\n\n  AJAX. Troilus, thou coward Troilus, show thy head.\n\n                     Enter DIOMEDES\n\n  DIOMEDES. Troilus, I say! Where's Troilus?\n  AJAX. What wouldst thou?\n  DIOMEDES. I would correct him.\n  AJAX. Were I the general, thou shouldst have my office\n    Ere that correction. Troilus, I say! What, Troilus!\n\n                      Enter TROILUS\n\n  TROILUS. O traitor Diomed! Turn thy false face, thou traitor,\n    And pay thy life thou owest me for my horse.\n  DIOMEDES. Ha! art thou there?\n  AJAX. I'll fight with him alone. Stand, Diomed.\n  DIOMEDES. He is my prize. I will not look upon.\n  TROILUS. Come, both, you cogging Greeks; have at you\n                                                      Exeunt fighting\n\n                      Enter HECTOR\n\n  HECTOR. Yea, Troilus? O, well fought, my youngest brother!\n\n                     Enter ACHILLES\n\n  ACHILLES. Now do I see thee, ha! Have at thee, Hector!\n  HECTOR. Pause, if thou wilt.\n  ACHILLES. I do disdain thy courtesy, proud Troyan.\n    Be happy that my arms are out of use;\n    My rest and negligence befriends thee now,\n    But thou anon shalt hear of me again;\n    Till when, go seek thy fortune.                              Exit\n  HECTOR. Fare thee well.\n    I would have been much more a fresher man,\n    Had I expected thee.\n\n                     Re-enter TROILUS\n\n    How now, my brother!\n  TROILUS. Ajax hath ta'en Aeneas. Shall it be?\n    No, by the flame of yonder glorious heaven,\n    He shall not carry him; I'll be ta'en too,\n    Or bring him off. Fate, hear me what I say:\n    I reck not though thou end my life to-day.                   Exit\n\n                    Enter one in armour\n\n  HECTOR. Stand, stand, thou Greek; thou art a goodly mark.\n    No? wilt thou not? I like thy armour well;\n    I'll frush it and unlock the rivets all\n    But I'll be master of it. Wilt thou not, beast, abide?\n    Why then, fly on; I'll hunt thee for thy hide.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 7.\nAnother part of the plain\n\nEnter ACHILLES, with Myrmidons\n\n  ACHILLES. Come here about me, you my Myrmidons;\n    Mark what I say. Attend me where I wheel;\n    Strike not a stroke, but keep yourselves in breath;\n    And when I have the bloody Hector found,\n    Empale him with your weapons round about;\n    In fellest manner execute your arms.\n    Follow me, sirs, and my proceedings eye.\n    It is decreed Hector the great must die.                   Exeunt\n\n      Enter MENELAUS and PARIS, fighting; then THERSITES\n\n  THERSITES. The cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it. Now, bull!\n    now, dog! 'Loo, Paris, 'loo! now my double-horn'd Spartan! 'loo,\n    Paris, 'loo! The bull has the game. Ware horns, ho!\n                                            Exeunt PARIS and MENELAUS\n\n                      Enter MARGARELON\n\n  MARGARELON. Turn, slave, and fight.\n  THERSITES. What art thou?\n  MARGARELON. A bastard son of Priam's.\n  THERSITES. I am a bastard too; I love bastards. I am a bastard\n    begot, bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valour, in\n    everything illegitimate. One bear will not bite another, and\n    wherefore should one bastard? Take heed, the quarrel's most\n    ominous to us: if the son of a whore fight for a whore, he tempts\n    judgment. Farewell, bastard.\n      Exit\n  MARGARELON. The devil take thee, coward!                       Exit\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 8.\nAnother part of the plain\n\nEnter HECTOR\n\n  HECTOR. Most putrified core so fair without,\n    Thy goodly armour thus hath cost thy life.\n    Now is my day's work done; I'll take good breath:\n    Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death!\n [Disarms]\n\n              Enter ACHILLES and his Myrmidons\n\n  ACHILLES. Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set;\n    How ugly night comes breathing at his heels;\n    Even with the vail and dark'ning of the sun,\n    To close the day up, Hector's life is done.\n  HECTOR. I am unarm'd; forego this vantage, Greek.\n  ACHILLES. Strike, fellows, strike; this is the man I seek.\n                                                       [HECTOR falls]\n    So, Ilion, fall thou next! Come, Troy, sink down;\n    Here lies thy heart, thy sinews, and thy bone.\n    On, Myrmidons, and cry you an amain\n    'Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain.'\n                                                  [A retreat sounded]\n    Hark! a retire upon our Grecian part.\n  MYRMIDON. The Troyan trumpets sound the like, my lord.\n  ACHILLES. The dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth\n    And, stickler-like, the armies separates.\n    My half-supp'd sword, that frankly would have fed,\n    Pleas'd with this dainty bait, thus goes to bed.\n                                                 [Sheathes his sword]\n    Come, tie his body to my horse's tail;\n    Along the field I will the Troyan trail.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 9.\nAnother part of the plain\n\nSound retreat. Shout. Enter AGAMEMNON, AJAX, MENELAUS, NESTOR, DIOMEDES,\nand the rest, marching\n\n  AGAMEMNON. Hark! hark! what shout is this?\n  NESTOR. Peace, drums!\n  SOLDIERS. [Within] Achilles! Achilles! Hector's slain. Achilles!\n  DIOMEDES. The bruit is Hector's slain, and by Achilles.\n  AJAX. If it be so, yet bragless let it be;\n    Great Hector was as good a man as he.\n  AGAMEMNON. March patiently along. Let one be sent\n    To pray Achilles see us at our tent.\n    If in his death the gods have us befriended;\n    Great Troy is ours, and our sharp wars are ended.\n    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 10.\nAnother part of the plain\n\nEnter AENEAS, PARIS, ANTENOR, and DEIPHOBUS\n\n  AENEAS. Stand, ho! yet are we masters of the field.\n    Never go home; here starve we out the night.\n\n                         Enter TROILUS\n\n  TROILUS. Hector is slain.\n  ALL. Hector! The gods forbid!\n  TROILUS. He's dead, and at the murderer's horse's tail,\n    In beastly sort, dragg'd through the shameful field.\n    Frown on, you heavens, effect your rage with speed.\n    Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smile at Troy.\n    I say at once let your brief plagues be mercy,\n    And linger not our sure destructions on.\n  AENEAS. My lord, you do discomfort all the host.\n  TROILUS. You understand me not that tell me so.\n    I do not speak of flight, of fear of death,\n    But dare all imminence that gods and men\n    Address their dangers in. Hector is gone.\n    Who shall tell Priam so, or Hecuba?\n    Let him that will a screech-owl aye be call'd\n    Go in to Troy, and say there 'Hector's dead.'\n    There is a word will Priam turn to stone;\n    Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,\n    Cold statues of the youth; and, in a word,\n    Scare Troy out of itself. But, march away;\n    Hector is dead; there is no more to say.\n    Stay yet. You vile abominable tents,\n    Thus proudly pight upon our Phrygian plains,\n    Let Titan rise as early as he dare,\n    I'll through and through you. And, thou great-siz'd coward,\n    No space of earth shall sunder our two hates;\n    I'll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still,\n    That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy's thoughts.\n    Strike a free march to Troy. With comfort go;\n    Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe.\n\n                        Enter PANDARUS\n\n  PANDARUS. But hear you, hear you!\n  TROILUS. Hence, broker-lackey. Ignominy and shame\n    Pursue thy life and live aye with thy name!\n                                              Exeunt all but PANDARUS\n  PANDARUS. A goodly medicine for my aching bones! world! world! thus\n    is the poor agent despis'd! traitors and bawds, how earnestly are\n    you set a work, and how ill requited! Why should our endeavour be\n    so lov'd, and the performance so loathed? What verse for it? What\n    instance for it? Let me see-\n\n          Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing\n          Till he hath lost his honey and his sting;\n          And being once subdu'd in armed trail,\n          Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.\n\n    Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted\n    cloths. As many as be here of pander's hall,\n    Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar's fall;\n    Or, if you cannot weep, yet give some groans,\n    Though not for me, yet for your aching bones.\n    Brethren and sisters of the hold-door trade,\n    Some two months hence my will shall here be made.\n    It should be now, but that my fear is this,\n    Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss.\n    Till then I'll sweat and seek about for eases,\n    And at that time bequeath you my diseases.                   Exit\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1602\n\n\nTWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  ORSINO, Duke of Illyria\n  SEBASTIAN, brother of Viola\n  ANTONIO, a sea captain, friend of Sebastian\n  A SEA CAPTAIN, friend of Viola\n  VALENTINE, gentleman attending on the Duke\n  CURIO, gentleman attending on the Duke\n  SIR TOBY BELCH, uncle of Olivia\n  SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK\n  MALVOLIO, steward to Olivia\n  FABIAN, servant to Olivia\n  FESTE, a clown, servant to Olivia\n\n  OLIVIA, a rich countess\n  VIOLA, sister of Sebastian\n  MARIA, Olivia's waiting woman\n\n  Lords, Priests, Sailors, Officers, Musicians, and Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nA city in Illyria; and the sea-coast near it\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nThe DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter ORSINO, Duke of Illyria, CURIO, and other LORDS; MUSICIANS attending\n\n  DUKE. If music be the food of love, play on,\n    Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,\n    The appetite may sicken and so die.\n    That strain again! It had a dying fall;\n    O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound\n    That breathes upon a bank of violets,\n    Stealing and giving odour! Enough, no more;\n    'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.\n    O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou!\n    That, notwithstanding thy capacity\n    Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,\n    Of what validity and pitch soe'er,\n    But falls into abatement and low price\n    Even in a minute. So full of shapes is fancy,\n    That it alone is high fantastical.\n  CURIO. Will you go hunt, my lord?\n  DUKE. What, Curio?\n  CURIO. The hart.\n  DUKE. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have.\n    O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,\n    Methought she purg'd the air of pestilence!\n    That instant was I turn'd into a hart,\n    And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,\n    E'er since pursue me.\n\n                     Enter VALENTINE\n\n    How now! what news from her?\n  VALENTINE. So please my lord, I might not be admitted,\n    But from her handmaid do return this answer:\n    The element itself, till seven years' heat,\n    Shall not behold her face at ample view;\n    But like a cloistress she will veiled walk,\n    And water once a day her chamber round\n    With eye-offending brine; all this to season\n    A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh\n    And lasting in her sad remembrance.\n  DUKE. O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame\n    To pay this debt of love but to a brother,\n    How will she love when the rich golden shaft\n    Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else\n    That live in her; when liver, brain, and heart,\n    These sovereign thrones, are all supplied and fill'd,\n    Her sweet perfections, with one self king!\n    Away before me to sweet beds of flow'rs:\n    Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bow'rs.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe sea-coast\n\nEnter VIOLA, a CAPTAIN, and SAILORS\n\n  VIOLA. What country, friends, is this?\n  CAPTAIN. This is Illyria, lady.\n  VIOLA. And what should I do in Illyria?\n    My brother he is in Elysium.\n    Perchance he is not drown'd- what think you, sailors?\n  CAPTAIN. It is perchance that you yourself were saved.\n  VIOLA. O my poor brother! and so perchance may he be.\n  CAPTAIN. True, madam, and, to comfort you with chance,\n    Assure yourself, after our ship did split,\n    When you, and those poor number saved with you,\n    Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,\n    Most provident in peril, bind himself-\n    Courage and hope both teaching him the practice-\n    To a strong mast that liv'd upon the sea;\n    Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,\n    I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves\n    So long as I could see.\n  VIOLA. For saying so, there's gold.\n    Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope,\n    Whereto thy speech serves for authority,\n    The like of him. Know'st thou this country?\n  CAPTAIN. Ay, madam, well; for I was bred and born\n    Not three hours' travel from this very place.\n  VIOLA. Who governs here?\n  CAPTAIN. A noble duke, in nature as in name.\n  VIOLA. What is his name?\n  CAPTAIN. Orsino.\n  VIOLA. Orsino! I have heard my father name him.\n    He was a bachelor then.\n  CAPTAIN. And so is now, or was so very late;\n    For but a month ago I went from hence,\n    And then 'twas fresh in murmur- as, you know,\n    What great ones do the less will prattle of-\n    That he did seek the love of fair Olivia.\n  VIOLA. What's she?\n  CAPTAIN. A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count\n    That died some twelvemonth since, then leaving her\n    In the protection of his son, her brother,\n    Who shortly also died; for whose dear love,\n    They say, she hath abjur'd the company\n    And sight of men.\n  VIOLA. O that I serv'd that lady,\n    And might not be delivered to the world,\n    Till I had made mine own occasion mellow,\n    What my estate is!\n  CAPTAIN. That were hard to compass,\n    Because she will admit no kind of suit-\n    No, not the Duke's.\n  VIOLA. There is a fair behaviour in thee, Captain;\n    And though that nature with a beauteous wall\n    Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee\n    I will believe thou hast a mind that suits\n    With this thy fair and outward character.\n    I prithee, and I'll pay thee bounteously,\n    Conceal me what I am, and be my aid\n    For such disguise as haply shall become\n    The form of my intent. I'll serve this duke:\n    Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him;\n    It may be worth thy pains, for I can sing\n    And speak to him in many sorts of music,\n    That will allow me very worth his service.\n    What else may hap to time I will commit;\n    Only shape thou silence to my wit.\n  CAPTAIN. Be you his eunuch and your mute I'll be;\n    When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see.\n  VIOLA. I thank thee. Lead me on.                        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nOLIVIA'S house\n\nEnter SIR TOBY BELCH and MARIA\n\n  SIR TOBY. What a plague means my niece to take the death of her\n    brother thus? I am sure care's an enemy to life.\n  MARIA. By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o' nights;\n    your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours.\n  SIR TOBY. Why, let her except before excepted.\n  MARIA. Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits\n    of order.\n  SIR TOBY. Confine! I'll confine myself no finer than I am. These\n    clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too;\n    an they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps.\n  MARIA. That quaffing and drinking will undo you; I heard my lady\n    talk of it yesterday, and of a foolish knight that you brought in\n    one night here to be her wooer.\n  SIR TOBY. Who? Sir Andrew Aguecheek?\n  MARIA. Ay, he.\n  SIR TOBY. He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria.\n  MARIA. What's that to th' purpose?\n  SIR TOBY. Why, he has three thousand ducats a year.\n  MARIA. Ay, but he'll have but a year in all these ducats; he's a\n    very fool and a prodigal.\n  SIR TOBY. Fie that you'll say so! He plays o' th' viol-de-gamboys,\n    and speaks three or four languages word for word without book,\n    and hath all the good gifts of nature.\n  MARIA. He hath indeed, almost natural; for, besides that he's a\n    fool, he's a great quarreller; and but that he hath the gift of a\n    coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrelling, 'tis thought\n    among the prudent he would quickly have the gift of a grave.\n  SIR TOBY. By this hand, they are scoundrels and subtractors that\n    say so of him. Who are they?\n  MARIA. They that add, moreover, he's drunk nightly in your company.\n  SIR TOBY. With drinking healths to my niece; I'll drink to her as\n    long as there is a passage in my throat and drink in Illyria.\n    He's a coward and a coystrill that will not drink to my niece\n    till his brains turn o' th' toe like a parish-top. What, wench!\n    Castiliano vulgo! for here comes Sir Andrew Agueface.\n\n                    Enter SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK\n\n  AGUECHEEK. Sir Toby Belch! How now, Sir Toby Belch!\n  SIR TOBY. Sweet Sir Andrew!\n  AGUECHEEK. Bless you, fair shrew.\n  MARIA. And you too, sir.\n  SIR TOBY. Accost, Sir Andrew, accost.\n  AGUECHEEK. What's that?\n  SIR TOBY. My niece's chambermaid.\n  AGUECHEEK. Good Mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance.\n  MARIA. My name is Mary, sir.\n  AGUECHEEK. Good Mistress Mary Accost-\n  SIR Toby. You mistake, knight. 'Accost' is front her, board her,\n    woo her, assail her.\n  AGUECHEEK. By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company.\n    Is that the meaning of 'accost'?\n  MARIA. Fare you well, gentlemen.\n  SIR TOBY. An thou let part so, Sir Andrew, would thou mightst never\n    draw sword again!\n  AGUECHEEK. An you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw\n    sword again. Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand?\n  MARIA. Sir, I have not you by th' hand.\n  AGUECHEEK. Marry, but you shall have; and here's my hand.\n  MARIA. Now, sir, thought is free. I pray you, bring your hand to\n    th' buttry-bar and let it drink.\n  AGUECHEEK. Wherefore, sweetheart? What's your metaphor?\n  MARIA. It's dry, sir.\n  AGUECHEEK. Why, I think so; I am not such an ass but I can keep my\n    hand dry. But what's your jest?\n  MARIA. A dry jest, sir.\n  AGUECHEEK. Are you full of them?\n  MARIA. Ay, sir, I have them at my fingers' ends; marry, now I let\n    go your hand, I am barren.                        Exit MARIA\n  SIR TOBY. O knight, thou lack'st a cup of canary! When did I see\n    thee so put down?\n  AGUECHEEK. Never in your life, I think; unless you see canary put\n    me down. Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian\n    or an ordinary man has; but I am great eater of beef, and I\n    believe that does harm to my wit.\n  SIR TOBY. No question.\n  AGUECHEEK. An I thought that, I'd forswear it. I'll ride home\n    to-morrow, Sir Toby.\n  SIR TOBY. Pourquoi, my dear knight?\n  AGUECHEEK. What is 'pourquoi'- do or not do? I would I had bestowed\n    that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing, and\n    bear-baiting. Oh, had I but followed the arts!\n  SIR TOBY. Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair.\n  AGUECHEEK. Why, would that have mended my hair?\n  SIR TOBY. Past question; for thou seest it will not curl by nature.\n  AGUECHEEK. But it becomes me well enough, does't not?\n  SIR TOBY. Excellent; it hangs like flax on a distaff, and I hope to\n    see a huswife take thee between her legs and spin it off.\n  AGUECHEEK. Faith, I'll home to-morrow, Sir Toby. Your niece will\n    not be seen, or if she be, it's four to one she'll none of me;\n    the Count himself here hard by woos her.\n  SIR TOBY. She'll none o' th' Count; she'll not match above her\n    degree, neither in estate, years, nor wit; I have heard her\n    swear't. Tut, there's life in't, man.\n  AGUECHEEK. I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o' th' strangest\n    mind i' th' world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes\n    altogether.\n  SIR TOBY. Art thou good at these kickshawses, knight?\n  AGUECHEEK. As any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be, under the\n    degree of my betters; and yet I will not compare with an old man.\n  SIR TOBY. What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight?\n  AGUECHEEK. Faith, I can cut a caper.\n  SIR TOBY. And I can cut the mutton to't.\n  AGUECHEEK. And I think I have the back-trick simply as strong as\n    any man in Illyria.\n  SIR TOBY. Wherefore are these things hid? Wherefore have these\n    gifts a curtain before 'em? Are they like to take dust, like\n    Mistress Mall's picture? Why dost thou not go to church in a\n    galliard and come home in a coranto? My very walk should be a\n    jig; I would not so much as make water but in a sink-a-pace. What\n    dost thou mean? Is it a world to hide virtues in? I did think, by\n    the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was form'd under the\n    star of a galliard.\n  AGUECHEEK. Ay, 'tis strong, and it does indifferent well in\n    flame-colour'd stock. Shall we set about some revels?\n  SIR TOBY. What shall we do else? Were we not born under Taurus?\n  AGUECHEEK. Taurus? That's sides and heart.\n  SIR TOBY. No, sir; it is legs and thighs. Let me see the caper. Ha,\n    higher! Ha, ha, excellent!                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nThe DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter VALENTINE, and VIOLA in man's attire\n\n  VALENTINE. If the Duke continue these favours towards you, Cesario,\n    you are like to be much advanc'd; he hath known you but three\n    days, and already you are no stranger.\n  VIOLA. You either fear his humour or my negligence, that you call\n    in question the continuance of his love. Is he inconstant, sir,\n    in his favours?\n  VALENTINE. No, believe me.\n\n                  Enter DUKE, CURIO, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  VIOLA. I thank you. Here comes the Count.\n  DUKE. Who saw Cesario, ho?\n  VIOLA. On your attendance, my lord, here.\n  DUKE. Stand you awhile aloof. Cesario,\n    Thou know'st no less but all; I have unclasp'd\n    To thee the book even of my secret soul.\n    Therefore, good youth, address thy gait unto her;\n    Be not denied access, stand at her doors,\n    And tell them there thy fixed foot shall grow\n    Till thou have audience.\n  VIOLA. Sure, my noble lord,\n    If she be so abandon'd to her sorrow\n    As it is spoke, she never will admit me.\n  DUKE. Be clamorous and leap all civil bounds,\n    Rather than make unprofited return.\n  VIOLA. Say I do speak with her, my lord, what then?\n  DUKE. O, then unfold the passion of my love,\n    Surprise her with discourse of my dear faith!\n    It shall become thee well to act my woes:\n    She will attend it better in thy youth\n    Than in a nuncio's of more grave aspect.\n  VIOLA. I think not so, my lord.\n  DUKE. Dear lad, believe it,\n    For they shall yet belie thy happy years\n    That say thou art a man: Diana's lip\n    Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe\n    Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound,\n    And all is semblative a woman's part.\n    I know thy constellation is right apt\n    For this affair. Some four or five attend him-\n    All, if you will, for I myself am best\n    When least in company. Prosper well in this,\n    And thou shalt live as freely as thy lord\n    To call his fortunes thine.\n  VIOLA. I'll do my best\n    To woo your lady. [Aside] Yet, a barful strife!\n    Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife.\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nOLIVIA'S house\n\nEnter MARIA and CLOWN\n\n  MARIA. Nay, either tell me where thou hast been, or I will not open\n    my lips so wide as a bristle may enter in way of thy excuse; my\n    lady will hang thee for thy absence.\n  CLOWN. Let her hang me. He that is well hang'd in this world needs\n    to fear no colours.\n  MARIA. Make that good.\n  CLOWN. He shall see none to fear.\n  MARIA. A good lenten answer. I can tell thee where that saying was\n    born, of 'I fear no colours.'\n  CLOWN. Where, good Mistress Mary?\n  MARIA. In the wars; and that may you be bold to say in your\n    foolery.\n  CLOWN. Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are\n    fools, let them use their talents.\n  MARIA. Yet you will be hang'd for being so long absent; or to be\n    turn'd away- is not that as good as a hanging to you?\n  CLOWN. Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage; and for turning\n    away, let summer bear it out.\n  MARIA. You are resolute, then?\n  CLOWN. Not so, neither; but I am resolv'd on two points.\n  MARIA. That if one break, the other will hold; or if both break,\n    your gaskins fall.\n  CLOWN. Apt, in good faith, very apt! Well, go thy way; if Sir Toby\n    would leave drinking, thou wert as witty a piece of Eve's flesh\n    as any in Illyria.\n  MARIA. Peace, you rogue, no more o' that. Here comes my lady. Make\n    your excuse wisely, you were best.                      Exit\n\n                     Enter OLIVIA and MALVOLIO\n\n  CLOWN. Wit, an't be thy will, put me into good fooling! Those wits\n    that think they have thee do very oft prove fools; and I that am\n    sure I lack thee may pass for a wise man. For what says\n    Quinapalus? 'Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.' God bless\n    thee, lady!\n  OLIVIA. Take the fool away.\n  CLOWN. Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady.\n  OLIVIA. Go to, y'are a dry fool; I'll no more of you. Besides, you\n    grow dishonest.\n  CLOWN. Two faults, madonna, that drink and good counsel will amend;\n    for give the dry fool drink, then is the fool not dry. Bid the\n    dishonest man mend himself: if he mend, he is no longer\n    dishonest; if he cannot, let the botcher mend him. Anything\n    that's mended is but patch'd; virtue that transgresses is but\n    patch'd with sin, and sin that amends is but patch'd with virtue.\n    If that this simple syllogism will serve, so; if it will not,\n    what remedy? As there is no true cuckold but calamity, so\n    beauty's a flower. The lady bade take away the fool; therefore, I\n    say again, take her away.\n  OLIVIA. Sir, I bade them take away you.\n  CLOWN. Misprision in the highest degree! Lady, 'Cucullus non facit\n    monachum'; that's as much to say as I wear not motley in my\n    brain. Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.\n  OLIVIA. Can you do it?\n  CLOWN. Dexteriously, good madonna.\n  OLIVIA. Make your proof.\n  CLOWN. I must catechize you for it, madonna.\n    Good my mouse of virtue, answer me.\n  OLIVIA. Well, sir, for want of other idleness, I'll bide your\n    proof.\n  CLOWN. Good madonna, why mourn'st thou?\n  OLIVIA. Good fool, for my brother's death.\n  CLOWN. I think his soul is in hell, madonna.\n  OLIVIA. I know his soul is in heaven, fool.\n  CLOWN. The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul\n    being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen.\n  OLIVIA. What think you of this fool, Malvolio? Doth he not mend?\n  MALVOLIO. Yes, and shall do, till the pangs of death shake him.\n    Infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool.\n  CLOWN. God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity, for the better\n    increasing your folly! Sir Toby will be sworn that I am no fox;\n    but he will not pass his word for twopence that you are no fool.\n  OLIVIA. How say you to that, Malvolio?\n  MALVOLIO. I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren\n    rascal; I saw him put down the other day with an ordinary fool\n    that has no more brain than a stone. Look you now, he's out of\n    his guard already; unless you laugh and minister occasion to him,\n    he is gagg'd. I protest I take these wise men that crow so at\n    these set kind of fools no better than the fools' zanies.\n  OLIVIA. O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a\n    distemper'd appetite. To be generous, guiltless, and of free\n    disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem\n    cannon bullets. There is no slander in an allow'd fool, though he\n    do nothing but rail; nor no railing in known discreet man, though\n    he do nothing but reprove.\n  CLOWN. Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou speak'st well\n    of fools!\n\n                             Re-enter MARIA\n\n  MARIA. Madam, there is at the gate a young gentleman much desires\n    to speak with you.\n  OLIVIA. From the Count Orsino, is it?\n  MARIA. I know not, madam; 'tis a fair young man, and well attended.\n  OLIVIA. Who of my people hold him in delay?\n  MARIA. Sir Toby, madam, your kinsman.\n  OLIVIA. Fetch him off, I pray you; he speaks nothing but madman.\n    Fie on him! [Exit MARIA] Go you, Malvolio: if it be a suit from\n    the Count, I am sick, or not at home- what you will to dismiss\n    it. [Exit MALVOLIO] Now you see, sir, how your fooling grows old,\n    and people dislike it.\n  CLOWN. Thou hast spoke for us, madonna, as if thy eldest son should\n    be a fool; whose skull Jove cram with brains! For- here he comes-\n    one of thy kin has a most weak pia mater.\n\n                         Enter SIR TOBY\n\n  OLIVIA. By mine honour, half drunk! What is he at the gate, cousin?\n  SIR TOBY. A gentleman.\n  OLIVIA. A gentleman! What gentleman?\n  SIR TOBY. 'Tis a gentleman here. [Hiccups] A plague o' these\n    pickle-herring! How now, sot!\n  CLOWN. Good Sir Toby!\n  OLIVIA. Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this\n    lethargy?\n  SIR TOBY. Lechery! I defy lechery. There's one at the gate.\n  OLIVIA. Ay, marry; what is he?\n  SIR TOBY. Let him be the devil an he will, I care not; give me\n    faith, say I. Well, it's all one.                       Exit\n  OLIVIA. What's a drunken man like, fool?\n  CLOWN. Like a drown'd man, a fool, and a madman: one draught above\n    heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns\n    him.\n  OLIVIA. Go thou and seek the crowner, and let him sit o' my coz;\n    for he's in the third degree of drink, he's drown'd; go look\n    after him.\n  CLOWN. He is but mad yet, madonna, and the fool shall look to the\n    madman.                                                 Exit\n\n                           Re-enter MALVOLIO\n\n  MALVOLIO. Madam, yond young fellow swears he will speak with you. I\n    told him you were sick; he takes on him to understand so much,\n     and therefore comes to speak with you. I told him you were\n    asleep; he seems to have a foreknowledge of that too, and\n    therefore comes to speak with you. What is to be said to him,\n    lady? He's fortified against any denial.\n  OLIVIA. Tell him he shall not speak with me.\n  MALVOLIO. Has been told so; and he says he'll stand at your door\n    like a sheriff's post, and be the supporter to a bench, but he'll\n    speak with you.\n  OLIVIA. What kind o' man is he?\n  MALVOLIO. Why, of mankind.\n  OLIVIA. What manner of man?\n  MALVOLIO. Of very ill manner; he'll speak with you, will you or no.\n  OLIVIA. Of what personage and years is he?\n  MALVOLIO. Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy;\n    as a squash is before 'tis a peascod, or a codling when 'tis\n    almost an apple; 'tis with him in standing water, between boy and\n    man. He is very well-favour'd, and he speaks very shrewishly; one\n    would think his mother's milk were scarce out of him.\n  OLIVIA. Let him approach. Call in my gentlewoman.\n  MALVOLIO. Gentlewoman, my lady calls.                     Exit\n\n                          Re-enter MARIA\n\n  OLIVIA. Give me my veil; come, throw it o'er my face;\n    We'll once more hear Orsino's embassy.\n\n                             Enter VIOLA\n\n  VIOLA. The honourable lady of the house, which is she?\n  OLIVIA. Speak to me; I shall answer for her. Your will?\n  VIOLA. Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty- I pray you\n    tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her. I\n    would be loath to cast away my speech; for, besides that it is\n    excellently well penn'd, I have taken great pains to con it. Good\n    beauties, let me sustain no scorn; I am very comptible, even to\n    the least sinister usage.\n  OLIVIA. Whence came you, sir?\n  VIOLA. I can say little more than I have studied, and that\n    question's out of my part. Good gentle one, give me modest\n    assurance if you be the lady of the house, that I may proceed in\n    my speech.\n  OLIVIA. Are you a comedian?\n  VIOLA. No, my profound heart; and yet, by the very fangs of malice\n    I swear, I am not that I play. Are you the lady of the house?\n  OLIVIA. If I do not usurp myself, I am.\n  VIOLA. Most certain, if you are she, you do usurp yourself; for\n    what is yours to bestow is not yours to reserve. But this is from\n    my commission. I will on with my speech in your praise, and then\n    show you the heart of my message.\n  OLIVIA. Come to what is important in't. I forgive you the praise.\n  VIOLA. Alas, I took great pains to study it, and 'tis poetical.\n  OLIVIA. It is the more like to be feigned; I pray you keep it in. I\n    heard you were saucy at my gates, and allow'd your approach\n    rather to wonder at you than to hear you. If you be not mad, be\n    gone; if you have reason, be brief; 'tis not that time of moon\n    with me to make one in so skipping dialogue.\n  MARIA. Will you hoist sail, sir? Here lies your way.\n  VIOLA. No, good swabber, I am to hull here a little longer.\n    Some mollification for your giant, sweet lady.\n  OLIVIA. Tell me your mind.\n  VIOLA. I am a messenger.\n  OLIVIA. Sure, you have some hideous matter to deliver, when the\n    courtesy of it is so fearful. Speak your office.\n  VIOLA. It alone concerns your ear. I bring no overture of war, no\n    taxation of homage: I hold the olive in my hand; my words are as\n    full of peace as matter.\n  OLIVIA. Yet you began rudely. What are you? What would you?\n  VIOLA. The rudeness that hath appear'd in me have I learn'd from my\n    entertainment. What I am and what I would are as secret as\n    maidenhead- to your cars, divinity; to any other's, profanation.\n  OLIVIA. Give us the place alone; we will hear this divinity.\n    [Exeunt MARIA and ATTENDANTS] Now, sir, what is your text?\n  VIOLA. Most sweet lady-\n  OLIVIA. A comfortable doctrine, and much may be said of it.\n    Where lies your text?\n  VIOLA. In Orsino's bosom.\n  OLIVIA. In his bosom! In what chapter of his bosom?\n  VIOLA. To answer by the method: in the first of his heart.\n  OLIVIA. O, I have read it; it is heresy. Have you no more to say?\n  VIOLA. Good madam, let me see your face.\n  OLIVIA. Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate with my\n    face? You are now out of your text; but we will draw the curtain\n    and show you the picture. [Unveiling] Look you, sir, such a one I\n    was this present. Is't not well done?\n  VIOLA. Excellently done, if God did all.\n  OLIVIA. 'Tis in grain, sir; 'twill endure wind and weather.\n  VIOLA. 'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white\n    Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on.\n    Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive,\n    If you will lead these graces to the grave,\n    And leave the world no copy.\n  OLIVIA. O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted; I will give out\n    divers schedules of my beauty. It shall be inventoried, and every\n    particle and utensil labell'd to my will: as- item, two lips\n    indifferent red; item, two grey eyes with lids to them; item, one\n    neck, one chin, and so forth. Were you sent hither to praise me?\n  VIOLA. I see you what you are: you are too proud;\n    But, if you were the devil, you are fair.\n    My lord and master loves you- O, such love\n    Could be but recompens'd though you were crown'd\n    The nonpareil of beauty!\n  OLIVIA. How does he love me?\n  VIOLA. With adorations, fertile tears,\n    With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.\n  OLIVIA. Your lord does know my mind; I cannot love him.\n    Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble,\n    Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth;\n    In voices well divulg'd, free, learn'd, and valiant,\n    And in dimension and the shape of nature\n    A gracious person; but yet I cannot love him.\n    He might have took his answer long ago.\n  VIOLA. If I did love you in my master's flame,\n    With such a suff'ring, such a deadly life,\n    In your denial I would find no sense;\n    I would not understand it.\n  OLIVIA. Why, what would you?\n  VIOLA. Make me a willow cabin at your gate,\n    And call upon my soul within the house;\n    Write loyal cantons of contemned love\n    And sing them loud even in the dead of night;\n    Halloo your name to the reverberate hals,\n    And make the babbling gossip of the air\n    Cry out 'Olivia!' O, you should not rest\n    Between the elements of air and earth\n    But you should pity me!\n  OLIVIA. You might do much.\n    What is your parentage?\n  VIOLA. Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:\n    I am a gentleman.\n  OLIVIA. Get you to your lord.\n    I cannot love him; let him send no more-\n    Unless perchance you come to me again\n    To tell me how he takes it. Fare you well.\n    I thank you for your pains; spend this for me.\n  VIOLA. I am no fee'd post, lady; keep your purse;\n    My master, not myself, lacks recompense.\n    Love make his heart of flint that you shall love;\n    And let your fervour, like my master's, be\n    Plac'd in contempt! Farewell, fair cruelty.             Exit\n  OLIVIA. 'What is your parentage?'\n    'Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:\n    I am a gentleman.' I'll be sworn thou art;\n    Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit,\n    Do give thee five-fold blazon. Not too fast! Soft, soft!\n    Unless the master were the man. How now!\n    Even so quickly may one catch the plague?\n    Methinks I feel this youth's perfections\n    With an invisible and subtle stealth\n    To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.\n    What ho, Malvolio!\n\n                        Re-enter MALVOLIO\n\n  MALVOLIO. Here, madam, at your service.\n  OLIVIA. Run after that same peevish messenger,\n    The County's man. He left this ring behind him,\n    Would I or not. Tell him I'll none of it.\n    Desire him not to flatter with his lord,\n    Nor hold him up with hopes; I am not for him.\n    If that the youth will come this way to-morrow,\n    I'll give him reasons for't. Hie thee, Malvolio.\n  MALVOLIO. Madam, I will.                                  Exit\n  OLIVIA. I do I know not what, and fear to find\n    Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.\n    Fate, show thy force: ourselves we do not owe;\n    What is decreed must be; and be this so!                Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nThe sea-coast\n\nEnter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN\n\n  ANTONIO. Will you stay no longer; nor will you not that I go with\n    you?\n  SEBASTIAN. By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over me; the\n    malignancy of my fate might perhaps distemper yours; therefore I\n    shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone. It\n    were a bad recompense for your love to lay any of them on you.\n  ANTONIO. Let me know of you whither you are bound.\n  SEBASTIAN. No, sooth, sir; my determinate voyage is mere\n    extravagancy. But I perceive in you so excellent a touch of\n    modesty that you will not extort from me what I am willing to\n    keep in; therefore it charges me in manners the rather to express\n    myself. You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian,\n    which I call'd Roderigo; my father was that Sebastian of\n    Messaline whom I know you have heard of. He left behind him\n    myself and a sister, both born in an hour; if the heavens had\n    been pleas'd, would we had so ended! But you, sir, alter'd that;\n    for some hour before you took me from the breach of the sea was\n    my sister drown'd.\n  ANTONIO. Alas the day!\n  SEBASTIAN. A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled me,\n    was yet of many accounted beautiful; but though I could not with\n    such estimable wonder overfar believe that, yet thus far I will\n    boldly publish her: she bore mind that envy could not but call\n    fair. She is drown'd already, sir, with salt water, though I seem\n    to drown her remembrance again with more.\n  ANTONIO. Pardon me, sir, your bad entertainment.\n  SEBASTIAN. O good Antonio, forgive me your trouble.\n  ANTONIO. If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your\n    servant.\n  SEBASTIAN. If you will not undo what you have done- that is, kill\n    him whom you have recover'd-desire it not. Fare ye well at once;\n    my bosom is full of kindness, and I am yet so near the manners of\n    my mother that, upon the least occasion more, mine eyes will tell\n    tales of me. I am bound to the Count Orsino's court. Farewell.\n Exit\n  ANTONIO. The gentleness of all the gods go with thee!\n    I have many cnemies in Orsino's court,\n    Else would I very shortly see thee there.\n    But come what may, I do adore thee so\n    That danger shall seem sport, and I will go.            Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA street\n\nEnter VIOLA and MALVOLIO at several doors\n\n  MALVOLIO. Were you not ev'n now with the Countess Olivia?\n  VIOLA. Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since arriv'd but\n    hither.\n  MALVOLIO. She returns this ring to you, sir; you might have saved\n    me my pains, to have taken it away yourself. She adds, moreover,\n    that you should put your lord into a desperate assurance she will\n    none of him. And one thing more: that you be never so hardy to\n    come again in his affairs, unless it be to report your lord's\n    taking of this. Receive it so.\n  VIOLA. She took the ring of me; I'll none of it.\n  MALVOLIO. Come, sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is\n    it should be so return'd. If it be worth stooping for, there it\n    lies in your eye; if not, be it his that finds it.\n Exit\n  VIOLA. I left no ring with her; what means this lady?\n    Fortune forbid my outside have not charm'd her!\n    She made good view of me; indeed, so much\n    That methought her eyes had lost her tongue,\n    For she did speak in starts distractedly.\n    She loves me, sure: the cunning of her passion\n    Invites me in this churlish messenger.\n    None of my lord's ring! Why, he sent her none.\n    I am the man. If it be so- as 'tis-\n    Poor lady, she were better love a dream.\n    Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness\n    Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.\n    How easy is it for the proper-false\n    In women's waxen hearts to set their forms!\n    Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we!\n    For such as we are made of, such we be.\n    How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly,\n    And I, poor monster, fond as much on him;\n    And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.\n    What will become of this? As I am man,\n    My state is desperate for my master's love;\n    As I am woman- now alas the day!-\n    What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!\n    O Time, thou must untangle this, not I;\n    It is too hard a knot for me t' untie!                  Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nOLIVIA'S house\n\nEnter SIR TOBY and SIR ANDREW\n\n  SIR TOBY. Approach, Sir Andrew. Not to be abed after midnight is to\n    be up betimes; and 'diluculo surgere' thou know'st-\n  AGUECHEEK. Nay, by my troth, I know not; but I know to be up late\n    is to be up late.\n  SIR TOBY. A false conclusion! I hate it as an unfill'd can. To be\n    up after midnight and to go to bed then is early; so that to go\n    to bed after midnight is to go to bed betimes. Does not our lives\n    consist of the four elements?\n  AGUECHEEK. Faith, so they say; but I think it rather consists of\n    eating and drinking.\n  SIR TOBY. Th'art a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink.\n    Marian, I say! a stoup of wine.\n\n                          Enter CLOWN\n\n  AGUECHEEK. Here comes the fool, i' faith.\n  CLOWN. How now, my hearts! Did you never see the picture of 'we\n    three'?\n  SIR TOBY. Welcome, ass. Now let's have a catch.\n  AGUECHEEK. By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I had\n    rather than forty shillings I had such a leg, and so sweet a\n    breath to sing, as the fool has. In sooth, thou wast in very\n    gracious fooling last night, when thou spok'st of Pigrogromitus,\n    of the Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus; 'twas very\n    good, i' faith. I sent thee sixpence for thy leman; hadst it?\n  CLOWN. I did impeticos thy gratillity; for Malvolio's nose is no\n    whipstock. My lady has a white hand, and the Myrmidons are no\n    bottle-ale houses.\n  AGUECHEEK. Excellent! Why, this is the best fooling, when all is\n    done. Now, a song.\n  SIR TOBY. Come on, there is sixpence for you. Let's have a song.\n  AGUECHEEK. There's a testril of me too; if one knight give a-\nCLOWN. Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life?\n  SIR TOBY. A love-song, a love-song.\n  AGUECHEEK. Ay, ay; I care not for good life.\n\n                         CLOWN sings\n\n         O mistress mine, where are you roaming?\n         O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,\n           That can sing both high and low.\n           Trip no further, pretty sweeting;\n           Journeys end in lovers meeting,\n           Every wise man's son doth know.\n\n  AGUECHEEK. Excellent good, i' faith!\n  SIR TOBY. Good, good!\n\n                         CLOWN sings\n\n           What is love? 'Tis not hereafter;\n           Present mirth hath present laughter;\n             What's to come is still unsure.\n           In delay there lies no plenty,\n           Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty;\n             Youth's a stuff will not endure.\n\n  AGUECHEEK. A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight.\n  SIR TOBY. A contagious breath.\n  AGUECHEEK. Very sweet and contagious, i' faith.\n  SIR TOBY. To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion. But shall\n    we make the welkin dance indeed? Shall we rouse the night-owl in\n    a catch that will draw three souls out of one weaver? Shall we do\n    that?\n  AGUECHEEK. An you love me, let's do't. I am dog at a catch.\n  CLOWN. By'r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well.\n  AGUECHEEK. Most certain. Let our catch be 'Thou knave.'\n  CLOWN. 'Hold thy peace, thou knave' knight? I shall be constrain'd\n    in't to call thee knave, knight.\n  AGUECHEEK. 'Tis not the first time I have constrained one to call\n    me knave. Begin, fool: it begins 'Hold thy peace.'\n  CLOWN. I shall never begin if I hold my peace.\n  AGUECHEEK. Good, i' faith! Come, begin.           [Catch sung]\n\n                         Enter MARIA\n\n  MARIA. What a caterwauling do you keep here! If my lady have not\n    call'd up her steward Malvolio, and bid him turn you out of\n    doors, never trust me.\n  SIR TOBY. My lady's a Cataian, we are politicians, Malvolio's a\n    Peg-a-Ramsey, and                                    [Sings]\n                  Three merry men be we.\n    Am not I consanguineous? Am I not of her blood? Tilly-vally,\n    lady.                                                [Sings]\n              There dwelt a man in Babylon,\n              Lady, lady.\n  CLOWN. Beshrew me, the knight's in admirable fooling.\n  AGUECHEEK. Ay, he does well enough if he be dispos'd, and so do I\n    too; he does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural.\n  SIR TOBY. [Sings] O' the twelfth day of December-\n  MARIA. For the love o' God, peace!\n\n                       Enter MALVOLIO\n\n  MALVOLIO. My masters, are you mad? Or what are you? Have you no\n    wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this\n    time of night? Do ye make an ale-house of my lady's house, that\n    ye squeak out your coziers' catches without any mitigation or\n    remorse of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor\n    time, in you?\n  SIR TOBY. We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up!\n  MALVOLIO. Sir Toby, I must be round with you. My lady bade me tell\n    you that, though she harbours you as her kins-man, she's nothing\n    allied to your disorders. If you can separate yourself and your\n    misdemeanours, you are welcome to the house; if not, and it would\n    please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you\n    farewell.\n  SIR TOBY. [Sings] Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone.\n  MARIA. Nay, good Sir Toby.\n  CLOWN. [Sings] His eyes do show his days are almost done.\n  MALVOLIO. Is't even so?\n  SIR TOBY. [Sings] But I will never die.           [Falls down]\n  CLOWN. [Sings] Sir Toby, there you lie.\n  MALVOLIO. This is much credit to you.\n  SIR TOBY. [Sings] Shall I bid him go?\n  CLOWN. [Sings] What an if you do?\n  SIR TOBY. [Sings] Shall I bid him go, and spare not?\n  CLOWN. [Sings] O, no, no, no, no, you dare not.\n  SIR TOBY. [Rising] Out o' tune, sir! Ye lie. Art any more than a\n    steward? Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall\n    be no more cakes and ale?\n  CLOWN. Yes, by Saint Anne; and ginger shall be hot i' th' mouth\n    too.\n SIR TOBY. Th' art i' th' right. Go, sir, rub your chain with crumbs.\n    A stoup of wine, Maria!\n  MALVOLIO. Mistress Mary, if you priz'd my lady's favour at anything\n    more than contempt, you would not give means for this uncivil\n    rule; she shall know of it, by this hand.\n Exit\n  MARIA. Go shake your ears.\n  AGUECHEEK. 'Twere as good a deed as to drink when a man's ahungry,\n    to challenge him the field, and then to break promise with him\n    and make a fool of him.\n  SIR TOBY. Do't, knight. I'll write thee a challenge; or I'll\n    deliver thy indignation to him by word of mouth.\n  MARIA. Sweet Sir Toby, be patient for to-night; since the youth of\n    the Count's was to-day with my lady, she is much out of quiet.\n    For Monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him; if I do not gull\n    him into a nayword, and make him a common recreation, do not\n    think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed. I know I can\n    do it.\n  SIR TOBY. Possess us, possess us; tell us something of him.\n  MARIA. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan.\n  AGUECHEEK. O, if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog.\n  SIR TOBY. What, for being a Puritan? Thy exquisite reason, dear\n    knight?\n  AGUECHEEK. I have no exquisite reason for't, but I have reason good\n    enough.\n  MARIA. The devil a Puritan that he is, or anything constantly but a\n    time-pleaser; an affection'd ass that cons state without book and\n     utters it by great swarths; the best persuaded of himself, so\n    cramm'd, as he thinks, with excellencies that it is his grounds\n    of faith that all that look on him love him; and on that vice in\n    him will my revenge find notable cause to work.\n  SIR TOBY. What wilt thou do?\n  MARIA. I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of love;\n    wherein, by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the\n    manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and\n    complexion, he shall find himself most feelingly personated. I\n    can write very like my lady, your niece; on forgotten matter we\n    can hardly make distinction of our hands.\n  SIR TOBY. Excellent! I smell a device.\n  AGUECHEEK. I have't in my nose too.\n  SIR TOBY. He shall think, by the letters that thou wilt drop, that\n    they come from my niece, and that she's in love with him.\n  MARIA. My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour.\n  AGUECHEEK. And your horse now would make him an ass.\n  MARIA. Ass, I doubt not.\n  AGUECHEEK. O, 'twill be admirable!\n  MARIA. Sport royal, I warrant you. I know my physic will work with\n    him. I will plant you two, and let the fool make a third, where\n    he shall find the letter; observe his construction of it. For\n    this night, to bed, and dream on the event. Farewell.\n Exit\n  SIR TOBY. Good night, Penthesilea.\n  AGUECHEEK. Before me, she's a good wench.\n  SIR TOBY. She's a beagle true-bred, and one that adores me.\n    What o' that?\n  AGUECHEEK. I was ador'd once too.\n  SIR TOBY. Let's to bed, knight. Thou hadst need send for more\n    money.\n  AGUECHEEK. If I cannot recover your niece, I am a foul way out.\n  SIR TOBY. Send for money, knight; if thou hast her not i' th' end,\n    call me Cut.\n  AGUECHEEK. If I do not, never trust me; take it how you will.\n  SIR TOBY. Come, come, I'll go burn some sack; 'tis too late to go\n    to bed now. Come, knight; come, knight.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nThe DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter DUKE, VIOLA, CURIO, and OTHERS\n\n  DUKE. Give me some music. Now, good morrow, friends.\n    Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song,\n    That old and antique song we heard last night;\n    Methought it did relieve my passion much,\n    More than light airs and recollected terms\n    Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times.\n    Come, but one verse.\n  CURIO. He is not here, so please your lordship, that should sing\n    it.\n  DUKE. Who was it?\n  CURIO. Feste, the jester, my lord; a fool that the Lady Olivia's\n    father took much delight in. He is about the house.\n  DUKE. Seek him out, and play the tune the while.\n                                       Exit CURIO. [Music plays]\n    Come hither, boy. If ever thou shalt love,\n    In the sweet pangs of it remember me;\n    For such as I am all true lovers are,\n    Unstaid and skittish in all motions else\n    Save in the constant image of the creature\n    That is belov'd. How dost thou like this tune?\n  VIOLA. It gives a very echo to the seat\n    Where Love is thron'd.\n  DUKE. Thou dost speak masterly.\n    My life upon't, young though thou art, thine eye\n    Hath stay'd upon some favour that it loves;\n    Hath it not, boy?\n  VIOLA. A little, by your favour.\n  DUKE. What kind of woman is't?\n  VIOLA. Of your complexion.\n  DUKE. She is not worth thee, then. What years, i' faith?\n  VIOLA. About your years, my lord.\n  DUKE. Too old, by heaven! Let still the woman take\n    An elder than herself; so wears she to him,\n    So sways she level in her husband's heart.\n    For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,\n    Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,\n    More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won,\n    Than women's are.\n  VIOLA. I think it well, my lord.\n  DUKE. Then let thy love be younger than thyself,\n    Or thy affection cannot hold the bent;\n    For women are as roses, whose fair flow'r\n    Being once display'd doth fall that very hour.\n  VIOLA. And so they are; alas, that they are so!\n    To die, even when they to perfection grow!\n\n                  Re-enter CURIO and CLOWN\n\n  DUKE. O, fellow, come, the song we had last night.\n    Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain;\n    The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,\n    And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,\n    Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth,\n    And dallies with the innocence of love,\n    Like the old age.\n  CLOWN. Are you ready, sir?\n  DUKE. Ay; prithee, sing.                               [Music]\n\n                     FESTE'S SONG\n\n            Come away, come away, death;\n          And in sad cypress let me be laid;\n            Fly away, fly away, breath,\n          I am slain by a fair cruel maid.\n          My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,\n                 O, prepare it!\n          My part of death no one so true\n                 Did share it.\n\n            Not a flower, not a flower sweet,\n          On my black coffin let there be strown;\n            Not a friend, not a friend greet\n          My poor corpse where my bones shall be thrown;\n          A thousand thousand to save,\n                 Lay me, O, where\n          Sad true lover never find my grave,\n                 To weep there!\n\n  DUKE. There's for thy pains.\n  CLOWN. No pains, sir; I take pleasure in singing, sir.\n  DUKE. I'll pay thy pleasure, then.\n  CLOWN. Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid one time or another.\n  DUKE. Give me now leave to leave thee.\n  CLOWN. Now the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy\n    doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal. I\n    would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business\n    might be everything, and their intent everywhere: for that's it\n    that always makes a good voyage of nothing. Farewell.\n                                                      Exit CLOWN\n  DUKE. Let all the rest give place.\n                                     Exeunt CURIO and ATTENDANTS\n    Once more, Cesario,\n    Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty.\n    Tell her my love, more noble than the world,\n    Prizes not quantity of dirty lands;\n    The parts that fortune hath bestow'd upon her,\n    Tell her I hold as giddily as Fortune;\n    But 'tis that miracle and queen of gems\n    That Nature pranks her in attracts my soul.\n  VIOLA. But if she cannot love you, sir?\n  DUKE. I cannot be so answer'd.\n  VIOLA. Sooth, but you must.\n    Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,\n    Hath for your love as great a pang of heart\n    As you have for Olivia. You cannot love her;\n    You tell her so. Must she not then be answer'd?\n  DUKE. There is no woman's sides\n    Can bide the beating of so strong a passion\n    As love doth give my heart; no woman's heart\n    So big to hold so much; they lack retention.\n    Alas, their love may be call'd appetite-\n    No motion of the liver, but the palate-\n    That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt;\n    But mine is all as hungry as the sea,\n    And can digest as much. Make no compare\n    Between that love a woman can bear me\n    And that I owe Olivia.\n  VIOLA. Ay, but I know-\n  DUKE. What dost thou know?\n  VIOLA. Too well what love women to men may owe.\n    In faith, they are as true of heart as we.\n    My father had a daughter lov'd a man,\n    As it might be perhaps, were I a woman,\n    I should your lordship.\n  DUKE. And what's her history?\n  VIOLA. A blank, my lord. She never told her love,\n    But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud,\n    Feed on her damask cheek. She pin'd in thought;\n    And with a green and yellow melancholy\n    She sat like Patience on a monument,\n    Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?\n    We men may say more, swear more, but indeed\n    Our shows are more than will; for still we prove\n    Much in our vows, but little in our love.\n  DUKE. But died thy sister of her love, my boy?\n  VIOLA. I am all the daughters of my father's house,\n    And all the brothers too- and yet I know not.\n    Sir, shall I to this lady?\n  DUKE. Ay, that's the theme.\n    To her in haste. Give her this jewel; say\n    My love can give no place, bide no denay.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nOLIVIA'S garden\n\nEnter SIR TOBY, SIR ANDREW, and FABIAN\n\n  SIR TOBY. Come thy ways, Signior Fabian.\n  FABIAN. Nay, I'll come; if I lose a scruple of this sport let me be\n    boil'd to death with melancholy.\n  SIR TOBY. Wouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly rascally\n    sheep-biter come by some notable shame?\n  FABIAN. I would exult, man; you know he brought me out o' favour\n    with my lady about a bear-baiting here.\n  SIR TOBY. To anger him we'll have the bear again; and we will fool\n    him black and blue- shall we not, Sir Andrew?\n  AGUECHEEK. And we do not, it is pity of our lives.\n\n                       Enter MARIA\n\n  SIR TOBY. Here comes the little villain.\n    How now, my metal of India!\n  MARIA. Get ye all three into the box-tree. Malvolio's coming down\n    this walk. He has been yonder i' the sun practising behaviour to\n    his own shadow this half hour. Observe him, for the love of\n    mockery, for I know this letter will make a contemplative idiot\n    of him. Close, in the name of jesting! [As the men hide she drops\n    a letter] Lie thou there; for here comes the trout that must be\n    caught with tickling.\n Exit\n\n                      Enter MALVOLIO\n\n  MALVOLIO. 'Tis but fortune; all is fortune. Maria once told me she\n    did affect me; and I have heard herself come thus near, that,\n    should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion. Besides, she\n    uses me with a more exalted respect than any one else that\n    follows her. What should I think on't?\n  SIR TOBY. Here's an overweening rogue!\n  FABIAN. O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him;\n    how he jets under his advanc'd plumes!\n  AGUECHEEK. 'Slight, I could so beat the rogue-\n  SIR TOBY. Peace, I say.\n  MALVOLIO. To be Count Malvolio!\n  SIR TOBY. Ah, rogue!\n  AGUECHEEK. Pistol him, pistol him.\n  SIR TOBY. Peace, peace!\n  MALVOLIO. There is example for't: the Lady of the Strachy married\n    the yeoman of the wardrobe.\n  AGUECHEEK. Fie on him, Jezebel!\n  FABIAN. O, peace! Now he's deeply in; look how imagination blows\n    him.\n  MALVOLIO. Having been three months married to her, sitting in my\n    state-\n  SIR TOBY. O, for a stone-bow to hit him in the eye!\n  MALVOLIO. Calling my officers about me, in my branch'd velvet gown,\n    having come from a day-bed- where I have left Olivia sleeping-\n  SIR TOBY. Fire and brimstone!\n  FABIAN. O, peace, peace!\n  MALVOLIO. And then to have the humour of state; and after a demure\n    travel of regard, telling them I know my place as I would they\n    should do theirs, to ask for my kinsman Toby-\n  SIR TOBY. Bolts and shackles!\n  FABIAN. O, peace, peace, peace! Now, now.\n  MALVOLIO. Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make out for\n    him. I frown the while, and perchance wind up my watch, or play\n    with my- some rich jewel. Toby approaches; curtsies there to me-\n  SIR TOBY. Shall this fellow live?\n  FABIAN. Though our silence be drawn from us with cars, yet peace.\n  MALVOLIO. I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar smile\n   with an austere regard of control-\n  SIR TOBY. And does not Toby take you a blow o' the lips then?\n  MALVOLIO. Saying 'Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me on your\n    niece give me this prerogative of speech'-\n  SIR TOBY. What, what?\n  MALVOLIO. 'You must amend your drunkenness'-\n  SIR TOBY. Out, scab!\n  FABIAN. Nay, patience, or we break the sinews of our plot.\n  MALVOLIO. 'Besides, you waste the treasure of your time with a\n    foolish knight'-\n  AGUECHEEK. That's me, I warrant you.\n  MALVOLIO. 'One Sir Andrew.'\n  AGUECHEEK. I knew 'twas I; for many do call me fool.\n  MALVOLIO. What employment have we here?\n                                          [Taking up the letter]\n  FABIAN. Now is the woodcock near the gin.\n  SIR TOBY. O, peace! And the spirit of humours intimate reading\n    aloud to him!\n  MALVOLIO. By my life, this is my lady's hand: these be her very\n    C's, her U's, and her T's; and thus makes she her great P's. It\n    is, in contempt of question, her hand.\n  AGUECHEEK. Her C's, her U's, and her T's. Why that?\n  MALVOLIO. [Reads] 'To the unknown belov'd, this, and my good\n    wishes.' Her very phrases! By your leave, wax. Soft! And the\n    impressure her Lucrece with which she uses to seal; 'tis my lady.\n    To whom should this be?\n  FABIAN. This wins him, liver and all.\n  MALVOLIO. [Reads]\n\n                    Jove knows I love,\n                      But who?\n                    Lips, do not move;\n                    No man must know.'\n\n    'No man must know.' What follows? The numbers alter'd!\n    'No man must know.' If this should be thee, Malvolio?\n  SIR TOBY. Marry, hang thee, brock!\n  MALVOLIO. [Reads]\n\n             'I may command where I adore;\n               But silence, like a Lucrece knife,\n             With bloodless stroke my heart doth gore;\n               M. O. A. I. doth sway my life.'\n\n  FABIAN. A fustian riddle!\n  SIR TOBY. Excellent wench, say I.\n  MALVOLIO. 'M. O. A. I. doth sway my life.'\n    Nay, but first let me see, let me see, let me see.\n  FABIAN. What dish o' poison has she dress'd him!\n  SIR TOBY. And with what wing the staniel checks at it!\n  MALVOLIO. 'I may command where I adore.' Why, she may command me: I\n    serve her; she is my lady. Why, this is evident to any formal\n    capacity; there is no obstruction in this. And the end- what\n    should that alphabetical position portend? If I could make that\n    resemble something in me. Softly! M. O. A. I.-\n  SIR TOBY. O, ay, make up that! He is now at a cold scent.\n  FABIAN. Sowter will cry upon't for all this, though it be as rank\n    as a fox.\n  MALVOLIO. M- Malvolio; M- why, that begins my name.\n  FABIAN. Did not I say he would work it out?\n    The cur is excellent at faults.\n  MALVOLIO. M- But then there is no consonancy in the sequel; that\n    suffers under probation: A should follow, but O does.\n  FABIAN. And O shall end, I hope.\n  SIR TOBY. Ay, or I'll cudgel him, and make him cry 'O!'\n  MALVOLIO. And then I comes behind.\n  FABIAN. Ay, an you had any eye behind you, you might see more\n    detraction at your heels than fortunes before you.\n  MALVOLIO. M. O. A. I. This simulation is not as the former; and\n    yet, to crush this a little, it would bow to me, for every one of\n    these letters are in my name. Soft! here follows prose.\n                                                         [Reads]\n      'If this fall into thy hand, revolve. In my stars I am above\n    thee; but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some\n    achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. Thy\n    Fates open their hands; let thy blood and spirit embrace them;\n    and, to inure thyself to what thou art like to be, cast thy\n    humble slough and appear fresh. Be opposite with a kinsman, surly\n    with servants; let thy tongue tang arguments of state; put\n    thyself into the trick of singularity. She thus advises thee that\n    sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and\n    wish'd to see thee ever cross-garter'd. I say, remember, Go to,\n    thou art made, if thou desir'st to be so; if not, let me see thee\n    a steward still, the fellow of servants, and not worthy to touch\n    Fortune's fingers. Farewell. She that would alter services with\n    thee,\n                                         THE FORTUNATE-UNHAPPY.'\n\n    Daylight and champain discovers not more. This is open. I will be\n    proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I\n    will wash off gross acquaintance, I will be point-devise the very\n    man. I do not now fool myself to let imagination jade me; for\n    every reason excites to this, that my lady loves me. She did\n    commend my yellow stockings of late, she did praise my leg being\n    cross-garter'd; and in this she manifests herself to my love, and\n    with a kind of injunction drives me to these habits of her\n    liking. I thank my stars I am happy. I will be strange, stout, in\n    yellow stockings, and cross-garter'd, even with the swiftness of\n    putting on. Jove and my stars be praised! Here is yet a\n    postscript.\n\n    [Reads] 'Thou canst not choose but know who I am. If thou\n    entertain'st my love, let it appear in thy smiling; thy smiles\n    become thee well. Therefore in my presence still smile, dear my\n    sweet, I prithee.'\n\n    Jove, I thank thee. I will smile; I will do everything that thou\n    wilt have me.                                           Exit\n  FABIAN. I will not give my part of this sport for a pension of\n    thousands to be paid from the Sophy.\n  SIR TOBY. I could marry this wench for this device.\n  AGUECHEEK. So could I too.\n  SIR TOBY. And ask no other dowry with her but such another jest.\n\n                          Enter MARIA\n\n  AGUECHEEK. Nor I neither.\n  FABIAN. Here comes my noble gull-catcher.\n  SIR TOBY. Wilt thou set thy foot o' my neck?\n  AGUECHEEK. Or o' mine either?\n  SIR TOBY. Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip, and become thy\n    bond-slave?\n  AGUECHEEK. I' faith, or I either?\n  SIR TOBY. Why, thou hast put him in such a dream that when the\n    image of it leaves him he must run mad.\n  MARIA. Nay, but say true; does it work upon him?\n  SIR TOBY. Like aqua-vita! with a midwife.\n  AIARIA. If you will then see the fruits of the sport, mark his\n    first approach before my lady. He will come to her in yellow\n    stockings, and 'tis a colour she abhors, and cross-garter'd, a\n    fashion she detests; and he will smile upon her, which will now\n    be so unsuitable to her disposition, being addicted to a\n    melancholy as she is, that it cannot but turn him into a notable\n    contempt. If you will see it, follow me.\n  SIR TOBY. To the gates of Tartar, thou most excellent devil of wit!\n  AGUECHEEK. I'll make one too.                           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nOLIVIA'S garden\n\nEnter VIOLA, and CLOWN with a tabor\n\n  VIOLA. Save thee, friend, and thy music!\n    Dost thou live by thy tabor?\n  CLOWN. No, sir, I live by the church.\n  VIOLA. Art thou a churchman?\n  CLOWN. No such matter, sir: I do live by the church; for I do live\n    at my house, and my house doth stand by the church.\n  VIOLA. So thou mayst say the king lies by a beggar, if a beggar\n    dwell near him; or the church stands by thy tabor, if thy tabor\n    stand by the church.\n  CLOWN. You have said, sir. To see this age! A sentence is but a\n    chev'ril glove to a good wit. How quickly the wrong side may be\n    turn'd outward!\n  VIOLA. Nay, that's certain; they that dally nicely with words may\n    quickly make them wanton.\n  CLOWN. I would, therefore, my sister had had name, sir.\n  VIOLA. Why, man?\n  CLOWN. Why, sir, her name's a word; and to dally with that word\n    might make my sister wanton. But indeed words are very rascals\n    since bonds disgrac'd them.\n  VIOLA. Thy reason, man?\n  CLOWN. Troth, sir, I can yield you none without words, and words\n    are grown so false I am loath to prove reason with them.\n  VIOLA. I warrant thou art a merry fellow and car'st for nothing.\n  CLOWN. Not so, sir; I do care for something; but in my conscience,\n    sir, I do not care for you. If that be to care for nothing, sir,\n    I would it would make you invisible.\n  VIOLA. Art not thou the Lady Olivia's fool?\n  CLOWN. No, indeed, sir; the Lady Olivia has no folly; she will keep\n    no fool, sir, till she be married; and fools are as like husbands\n    as pilchers are to herrings- the husband's the bigger. I am\n    indeed not her fool, but her corrupter of words.\n  VIOLA. I saw thee late at the Count Orsino's.\n  CLOWN. Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun- it\n    shines everywhere. I would be sorry, sir, but the fool should be\n    as oft with your master as with my mistress: think I saw your\n    wisdom there.\n  VIOLA. Nay, an thou pass upon me, I'll no more with thee.\n    Hold, there's expenses for thee.             [Giving a coin]\n  CLOWN. Now Jove, in his next commodity of hair, send the a beard!\n  VIOLA. By my troth, I'll tell thee, I am almost sick for one;\n    [Aside] though I would not have it grow on my chin.- Is thy lady\n    within?\n  CLOWN. Would not a pair of these have bred, sir?\n  VIOLA. Yes, being kept together and put to use.\n  CLOWN. I would play Lord Pandarus of Phrygia, sir, to bring a\n    Cressida to this Troilus.\n  VIOLA. I understand you, sir; 'tis well begg'd.\n                                           [Giving another coin]\n  CLOWN. The matter, I hope, is not great, sir, begging but a beggar:\n    Cressida was a beggar. My lady is within, sir. I will construe to\n    them whence you come; who you are and what you would are out of\n    my welkin- I might say 'element' but the word is overworn.\n                                                      Exit CLOWN\n  VIOLA. This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;\n    And to do that well craves a kind of wit.\n    He must observe their mood on whom he jests,\n    The quality of persons, and the time;\n    And, like the haggard, check at every feather\n    That comes before his eye. This is a practice\n    As full of labour as a wise man's art;\n    For folly that he wisely shows is fit;\n    But wise men, folly-fall'n, quite taint their wit.\n\n                Enter SIR TOBY and SIR ANDREW\n\n  SIR TOBY. Save you, gentleman!\n  VIOLA. And you, sir.\n  AGUECHEEK. Dieu vous garde, monsieur.\n  VIOLA. Et vous aussi; votre serviteur.\n  AGUECHEEK. I hope, sir, you are; and I am yours.\n  SIR TOBY. Will you encounter the house? My niece is desirous you\n    should enter, if your trade be to her.\n  VIOLA. I am bound to your niece, sir; I mean, she is the list of my\n    voyage.\n  SIR TOBY. Taste your legs, sir; put them to motion.\n  VIOLA. My legs do better understand me, sir, than I understand what\n    you mean by bidding me taste my legs.\n  SIR TOBY. I mean, to go, sir, to enter.\n  VIOLA. I will answer you with gait and entrance. But we are\n    prevented.\n\n                  Enter OLIVIA and MARIA\n\n    Most excellent accomplish'd lady, the heavens rain odours on you!\n  AGUECHEEK. That youth's a rare courtier- 'Rain odours' well!\n  VIOLA. My matter hath no voice, lady, but to your own most pregnant\n    and vouchsafed car.\n  AGUECHEEK. 'Odours,' 'pregnant,' and 'vouchsafed'- I'll get 'em all\n    three all ready.\n  OLIVIA. Let the garden door be shut, and leave me to my hearing.\n    [Exeunt all but OLIVIA and VIOLA] Give me your hand, sir.\n  VIOLA. My duty, madam, and most humble service.\n  OLIVIA. What is your name?\n  VIOLA. Cesario is your servant's name, fair Princess.\n  OLIVIA. My servant, sir! 'Twas never merry world\n    Since lowly feigning was call'd compliment.\n    Y'are servant to the Count Orsino, youth.\n  VIOLA. And he is yours, and his must needs be yours:\n    Your servant's servant is your servant, madam.\n  OLIVIA. For him, I think not on him; for his thoughts,\n    Would they were blanks rather than fill'd with me!\n  VIOLA. Madam, I come to whet your gentle thoughts\n    On his behalf.\n  OLIVIA. O, by your leave, I pray you:\n    I bade you never speak again of him;\n    But, would you undertake another suit,\n    I had rather hear you to solicit that\n    Than music from the spheres.\n  VIOLA. Dear lady-\n  OLIVIA. Give me leave, beseech you. I did send,\n    After the last enchantment you did here,\n    A ring in chase of you; so did I abuse\n    Myself, my servant, and, I fear me, you.\n    Under your hard construction must I sit,\n    To force that on you in a shameful cunning\n    Which you knew none of yours. What might you think?\n    Have you not set mine honour at the stake,\n    And baited it with all th' unmuzzled thoughts\n    That tyrannous heart can think? To one of your receiving\n    Enough is shown: a cypress, not a bosom,\n    Hides my heart. So, let me hear you speak.\n  VIOLA. I Pity YOU.\n  OLIVIA. That's a degree to love.\n  VIOLA. No, not a grize; for 'tis a vulgar proof\n    That very oft we pity enemies.\n  OLIVIA. Why, then, methinks 'tis time to smile again.\n    O world, how apt the poor are to be proud!\n    If one should be a prey, how much the better\n    To fall before the lion than the wolf!       [Clock strikes]\n    The clock upbraids me with the waste of time.\n    Be not afraid, good youth; I will not have you;\n    And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest,\n    Your wife is like to reap a proper man.\n    There lies your way, due west.\n  VIOLA. Then westward-ho!\n    Grace and good disposition attend your ladyship!\n    You'll nothing, madam, to my lord by me?\n  OLIVIA. Stay.\n    I prithee tell me what thou think'st of me.\n  VIOLA. That you do think you are not what you are.\n  OLIVIA. If I think so, I think the same of you.\n  VIOLA. Then think you right: I am not what I am.\n  OLIVIA. I would you were as I would have you be!\n  VIOLA. Would it be better, madam, than I am?\n    I wish it might, for now I am your fool.\n  OLIVIA. O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful\n    In the contempt and anger of his lip!\n    A murd'rous guilt shows not itself more soon\n    Than love that would seem hid: love's night is noon.\n    Cesario, by the roses of the spring,\n    By maidhood, honour, truth, and every thing,\n    I love thee so that, maugre all thy pride,\n    Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide.\n    Do not extort thy reasons from this clause,\n    For that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause;\n    But rather reason thus with reason fetter:\n    Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.\n  VIOLA. By innocence I swear, and by my youth,\n    I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth,\n    And that no woman has; nor never none\n    Shall mistress be of it, save I alone.\n    And so adieu, good madam; never more\n    Will I my master's tears to you deplore.\n  OLIVIA. Yet come again; for thou perhaps mayst move\n    That heart which now abhors to like his love.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nOLIVIA'S house\n\nEnter SIR TOBY, SIR ANDREW and FABIAN\n\n  AGUECHEEK. No, faith, I'll not stay a jot longer.\n  SIR TOBY. Thy reason, dear venom, give thy reason.\n  FABIAN. You must needs yield your reason, Sir Andrew.\n  AGUECHEEK. Marry, I saw your niece do more favours to the Count's\n    servingman than ever she bestow'd upon me; I saw't i' th'\n    orchard.\n  SIR TOBY. Did she see thee the while, old boy? Tell me that.\n  AGUECHEEK. As plain as I see you now.\n  FABIAN. This was a great argument of love in her toward you.\n  AGUECHEEK. 'Slight! will you make an ass o' me?\n  FABIAN. I will prove it legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of judgment\n    and reason.\n  SIR TOBY. And they have been grand-jurymen since before Noah was a\n    sailor.\n  FABIAN. She did show favour to the youth in your sight only to\n    exasperate you, to awake your dormouse valour, to put fire in\n    your heart and brimstone in your liver. You should then have\n    accosted her; and with some excellent jests, fire-new from the\n    mint, you should have bang'd the youth into dumbness. This was\n    look'd for at your hand, and this was baulk'd. The double gilt of\n    this opportunity you let time wash off, and you are now sail'd\n    into the north of my lady's opinion; where you will hang like an\n    icicle on Dutchman's beard, unless you do redeem it by some\n    laudable attempt either of valour or policy.\n  AGUECHEEK. An't be any way, it must be with valour, for policy I\n    hate; I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician.\n  SIR TOBY. Why, then, build me thy fortunes upon the basis of\n    valour. Challenge me the Count's youth to fight with him; hurt\n    him in eleven places. My niece shall take note of it; and assure\n    thyself there is no love-broker in the world can more prevail in\n    man's commendation with woman than report of valour.\n  FABIAN. There is no way but this, Sir Andrew.\n  AGUECHEEK. Will either of you bear me a challenge to him?\n  SIR TOBY. Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief; it is\n    no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and full of invention.\n    Taunt him with the license of ink; if thou thou'st him some\n    thrice, it shall not be amiss; and as many lies as will lie in\n    thy sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the\n    bed of Ware in England, set 'em down; go about it. Let there be\n    gall enough in thy ink, though thou write with a goose-pen, no\n    matter. About it.\n  AGUECHEEK. Where shall I find you?\n  SIR TOBY. We'll call thee at the cubiculo. Go.\n                                                 Exit SIR ANDREW\n  FABIAN. This is a dear manakin to you, Sir Toby.\n  SIR TOBY. I have been dear to him, lad- some two thousand strong,\n    or so.\n  FABIAN. We shall have a rare letter from him; but you'll not\n    deliver't?\n  SIR TOBY. Never trust me then; and by all means stir on the youth\n    to an answer. I think oxen and wainropes cannot hale them\n    together. For Andrew, if he were open'd and you find so much\n    blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the\n    rest of th' anatomy.\n  FABIAN. And his opposite, the youth, bears in his visage no great\n    presage of cruelty.\n\n                         Enter MARIA\n\n  SIR TOBY. Look where the youngest wren of nine comes.\n  MARIA. If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourselves into\n    stitches, follow me. Yond gull Malvolio is turned heathen, a very\n    renegado; for there is no Christian that means to be saved by\n    believing rightly can ever believe such impossible passages of\n    grossness. He's in yellow stockings.\n  SIR TOBY. And cross-garter'd?\n  MARIA. Most villainously; like a pedant that keeps a school i' th'\n    church. I have dogg'd him like his murderer. He does obey every\n    point of the letter that I dropp'd to betray him. He does smile\n    his face into more lines than is in the new map with the\n    augmentation of the Indies. You have not seen such a thing as\n    'tis; I  can hardly forbear hurling things at him. I know my lady\n    will strike him; if she do, he'll smile and take't for a great\n    favour.\n  SIR TOBY. Come, bring us, bring us where he is.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA street\n\nEnter SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO\n\n  SEBASTIAN. I would not by my will have troubled you;\n    But since you make your pleasure of your pains,\n    I will no further chide you.\n  ANTONIO. I could not stay behind you: my desire,\n    More sharp than filed steel, did spur me forth;\n    And not all love to see you- though so much\n    As might have drawn one to a longer voyage-\n    But jealousy what might befall your travel,\n    Being skilless in these parts; which to a stranger,\n    Unguided and unfriended, often prove\n    Rough and unhospitable. My willing love,\n    The rather by these arguments of fear,\n    Set forth in your pursuit.\n  SEBASTIAN. My kind Antonio,\n    I can no other answer make but thanks,\n    And thanks, and ever thanks; and oft good turns\n    Are shuffl'd off with such uncurrent pay;\n    But were my worth as is my conscience firm,\n    You should find better dealing. What's to do?\n    Shall we go see the reliques of this town?\n  ANTONIO. To-morrow, sir; best first go see your lodging.\n  SEBASTIAN. I am not weary, and 'tis long to night;\n    I pray you, let us satisfy our eyes\n    With the memorials and the things of fame\n    That do renown this city.\n  ANTONIO. Would you'd pardon me.\n    I do not without danger walk these streets:\n    Once in a sea-fight 'gainst the Count his galleys\n    I did some service; of such note, indeed,\n    That, were I ta'en here, it would scarce be answer'd.\n  SEBASTIAN. Belike you slew great number of his people.\n  ANTONIO.Th' offence is not of such a bloody nature;\n    Albeit the quality of the time and quarrel\n    Might well have given us bloody argument.\n    It might have since been answer'd in repaying\n    What we took from them; which, for traffic's sake,\n    Most of our city did. Only myself stood out;\n    For which, if I be lapsed in this place,\n    I shall pay dear.\n  SEBASTIAN. Do not then walk too open.\n  ANTONIO. It doth not fit me. Hold, sir, here's my purse;\n    In the south suburbs, at the Elephant,\n    Is best to lodge. I will bespeak our diet,\n    Whiles you beguile the time and feed your knowledge\n    With viewing of the town; there shall you have me.\n  SEBASTIAN. Why I your purse?\n  ANTONIO. Haply your eye shall light upon some toy\n    You have desire to purchase; and your store,\n    I think, is not for idle markets, sir.\n  SEBASTIAN. I'll be your purse-bearer, and leave you for\n    An hour.\n  ANTONIO. To th' Elephant.\n  SEBASTIAN. I do remember.                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nOLIVIA'S garden\n\nEnter OLIVIA and MARIA\n\n  OLIVIA. I have sent after him; he says he'll come.\n    How shall I feast him? What bestow of him?\n    For youth is bought more oft than begg'd or borrow'd.\n    I speak too loud.\n    Where's Malvolio? He is sad and civil,\n    And suits well for a servant with my fortunes.\n    Where is Malvolio?\n  MARIA. He's coming, madam; but in very strange manner.\n    He is sure possess'd, madam.\n  OLIVIA. Why, what's the matter? Does he rave?\n  MARIA. No, madam, he does nothing but smile. Your ladyship were\n    best to have some guard about you if he come; for sure the man is\n    tainted in's wits.\n  OLIVIA. Go call him hither.                         Exit MARIA\n    I am as mad as he,\n    If sad and merry madness equal be.\n\n               Re-enter MARIA with MALVOLIO\n\n    How now, Malvolio!\n  MALVOLIO. Sweet lady, ho, ho.\n  OLIVIA. Smil'st thou?\n    I sent for thee upon a sad occasion.\n  MALVOLIO. Sad, lady? I could be sad. This does make some\n    obstruction in the blood, this cross-gartering; but what of that?\n    If it please the eye of one, it is with me as the very true\n    sonnet is: 'Please one and please all.'\n  OLIVIA. Why, how dost thou, man? What is the matter with thee?\n  MALVOLIO. Not black in my mind, though yellow in my legs.\n    It did come to his hands, and commands shall be executed.\n    I think we do know the sweet Roman hand.\n  OLIVIA. Wilt thou go to bed, Malvolio?\n  MALVOLIO. To bed? Ay, sweetheart, and I'll come to thee.\n  OLIVIA. God comfort thee! Why dost thou smile so, and kiss thy hand\n    so oft?\n  MARIA. How do you, Malvolio?\n  MALVOLIO. At your request? Yes, nightingales answer daws!\n  MARIA. Why appear you with this ridiculous boldness before my lady?\n  MALVOLIO. 'Be not afraid of greatness.' 'Twas well writ.\n  OLIVIA. What mean'st thou by that, Malvolio?\n  AIALVOLIO. 'Some are born great,'-\n  OLIVIA. Ha?\n  MALVOLIO. 'Some achieve greatness,'-\n  OLIVIA. What say'st thou?\n  MALVOLIO. 'And some have greatness thrust upon them.'\n  OLIVIA. Heaven restore thee!\n  MALVOLIO. 'Remember who commended thy yellow stockings,'-\n  OLIVIA. 'Thy yellow stockings?'\n  MALVOLIO. 'And wish'd to see thee cross-garterd.'\n  OLIVIA. 'Cross-garter'd?'\n  MALVOLIO. 'Go to, thou an made, if thou desir'st to be so';-\n  OLIVIA. Am I made?\n  MALVOLIO. 'If not, let me see thee a servant still.'\n  OLIVIA. Why, this is very midsummer madness.\n\n                     Enter SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. Madam, the young gentleman of the Count Orsino's is\n    return'd; I could hardly entreat him back; he attends your\n    ladyship's pleasure.\n  OLIVIA. I'll come to him. [Exit SERVANT] Good Maria, let this\n    fellow be look'd to. Where's my cousin Toby? Let some of my\n    people have a special care of him; I would not have him miscarry\n    for the half of my dowry.\n                                         Exeunt OLIVIA and MARIA\n  MALVOLIO. O, ho! do you come near me now? No worse man than Sir\n    Toby to look to me! This concurs directly with the letter: she\n    sends him on purpose, that I may appear stubborn to him; for she\n    incites me to that in the letter. 'Cast thy humble slough,' says\n    she. 'Be opposite with kinsman, surly with servants; let thy\n    tongue tang with arguments of state; put thyself into the trick\n    of singularity' and consequently sets down the manner how, as: a\n    sad face, a reverend carriage, a slow tongue, in the habit of\n    some sir of note, and so forth. I have lim'd her; but it is\n    Jove's doing, and Jove make me thankful! And when she went away\n    now- 'Let this fellow be look'd to.' 'Fellow,' not 'Malvolio' nor\n    after my degree, but 'fellow.' Why, everything adheres together,\n    that no dram of a scruple, no scruple of a scruple, no obstacle,\n    no incredulous or unsafe circumstance- What can be said? Nothing\n    that can be can come between me and the full prospect of my\n    hopes. Well, Jove, not I, is the doer of this, and he is to be\n    thanked.\n\n             Re-enter MARIA, with SIR TOBY and FABIAN\n\n  SIR TOBY. Which way is he, in the name of sanctity? If all the\n    devils of hell be drawn in little, and Legion himself possess'd\n    him, yet I'll speak to him.\n  FABIAN. Here he is, here he is. How is't with you, sir?\n  SIR TOBY. How is't with you, man?\n  MALVOLIO. Go off; I discard you. Let me enjoy my private; go off.\n  MARIA. Lo, how hollow the fiend speaks within him! Did not I tell\n    you? Sir Toby, my lady prays you to have a care of him.\n  MALVOLIO. Ah, ha! does she so?\n  SIR TOBY. Go to, go to; peace, peace; we must deal gently with him.\n    Let me alone. How do you, Malvolio? How is't with you? What, man,\n    defy the devil; consider, he's an enemy to mankind.\n  MALVOLIO. Do you know what you say?\n  MARIA. La you, an you speak ill of the devil, how he takes it at\n    heart! Pray God he be not bewitched.\n  FABIAN. Carry his water to th' wise woman.\n  MARIA. Marry, and it shall be done to-morrow morning, if I live. My\n    lady would not lose him for more than I'll say.\n  MALVOLIO. How now, mistress!\n  MARIA. O Lord!\n  SIR TOBY. Prithee hold thy peace; this is not the way. Do you not\n    see you move him? Let me alone with him.\n  FABIAN. No way but gentleness- gently, gently. The fiend is rough,\n    and will not be roughly us'd.\n  SIR TOBY. Why, how now, my bawcock!\n    How dost thou, chuck?\n  MALVOLIO. Sir!\n  SIR TOBY. Ay, Biddy, come with me. What, man, 'tis not for gravity\n    to play at cherrypit with Satan. Hang him, foul collier!\n  MARIA. Get him to say his prayers, good Sir Toby, get him to pray.\n  MALVOLIO. My prayers, minx!\n  MARIA. No, I warrant you, he will not hear of godliness.\n  MALVOLIO. Go, hang yourselves all! You are idle shallow things; I\n    am not of your element; you shall know more hereafter.\n Exit\n  SIR TOBY. Is't possible?\n  FABIAN. If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as\n    an improbable fiction.\n  SIR TOBY. His very genius hath taken the infection of the device,\n    man.\n  MARIA. Nay, pursue him now, lest the device take air and taint.\n  FABIAN. Why, we shall make him mad indeed.\n  MARIA. The house will be the quieter.\n  SIR TOBY. Come, we'll have him in a dark room and bound. My niece\n    is already in the belief that he's mad. We may carry it thus, for\n    our pleasure and his penance, till our very pastime, tired out of\n    breath, prompt us to have mercy on him; at which time we will\n    bring the device to the bar and crown thee for a finder of\n    madmen. But see, but see.\n\n                     Enter SIR ANDREW\n\n  FABIAN. More matter for a May morning.\n  AGUECHEEK. Here's the challenge; read it. I warrant there's vinegar\n    and pepper in't.\n  FABIAN. Is't so saucy?\n  AGUECHEEK. Ay, is't, I warrant him; do but read.\n  SIR TOBY. Give me. [Reads] 'Youth, whatsoever thou art, thou art\n    but a scurvy fellow.'\n  FABIAN. Good and valiant.\n  SIR TOBY. [Reads] 'Wonder not, nor admire not in thy mind, why I do\n    call thee so, for I will show thee no reason for't.'\n  FABIAN. A good note; that keeps you from the blow of the law.\n  SIR TOBY. [Reads] 'Thou com'st to the Lady Olivia, and in my sight\n    she uses thee kindly; but thou liest in thy throat; that is not\n    the matter I challenge thee for.'\n  FABIAN. Very brief, and to exceeding good sense- less.\n  SIR TOBY. [Reads] 'I will waylay thee going home; where if it be\n    thy chance to kill me'-\n  FABIAN. Good.\n  SIR TOBY. 'Thou kill'st me like a rogue and a villain.'\n  FABIAN. Still you keep o' th' windy side of the law. Good!\n  SIR TOBY. [Reads] 'Fare thee well; and God have mercy upon one of\n    our souls! He may have mercy upon mine; but my hope is better,\n    and so look to thyself. Thy friend, as thou usest him, and thy\n    sworn enemy,\n                                              ANDREW AGUECHEEK.'\n\n    If this letter move him not, his legs cannot. I'll give't him.\n  MARIA. You may have very fit occasion for't; he is now in some\n    commerce with my lady, and will by and by depart.\n  SIR TOBY. Go, Sir Andrew; scout me for him at the corner of the\n    orchard, like a bum-baily; so soon as ever thou seest him, draw;\n    and as thou draw'st, swear horrible; for it comes to pass oft\n    that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twang'd\n    off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would\n    have earn'd him. Away.\n  AGUECHEEK. Nay, let me alone for swearing.                Exit\n  SIR TOBY. Now will not I deliver his letter; for the behaviour of\n    the young gentleman gives him out to be of good capacity and\n    breeding; his employment between his lord and my niece confirms\n    no less. Therefore this letter, being so excellently ignorant,\n    will breed no terror in the youth: he will find it comes from a\n    clodpole. But, sir, I will deliver his challenge by word of\n    mouth, set upon Aguecheek notable report of valour, and drive the\n    gentleman- as know his youth will aptly receive it- into a most\n    hideous opinion of his rage, skill, fury, and impetuosity. This\n    will so fright them both that they will kill one another by the\n    look, like cockatrices.\n\n                Re-enter OLIVIA. With VIOLA\n\n  FABIAN. Here he comes with your niece; give them way till he take\n    leave, and presently after him.\n  SIR TOBY. I will meditate the while upon some horrid message for a\n    challenge.\n                              Exeunt SIR TOBY, FABIAN, and MARIA\n  OLIVIA. I have said too much unto a heart of stone,\n    And laid mine honour too unchary out;\n    There's something in me that reproves my fault;\n    But such a headstrong potent fault it is\n    That it but mocks reproof.\n  VIOLA. With the same haviour that your passion bears\n    Goes on my master's griefs.\n  OLIVIA. Here, wear this jewel for me; 'tis my picture.\n    Refuse it not; it hath no tongue to vex you.\n    And I beseech you come again to-morrow.\n    What shall you ask of me that I'll deny,\n    That honour sav'd may upon asking give?\n  VIOLA. Nothing but this- your true love for my master.\n  OLIVIA. How with mine honour may I give him that\n    Which I have given to you?\n  VIOLA. I will acquit you.\n  OLIVIA. Well, come again to-morrow. Fare thee well;\n    A fiend like thee might bear my soul to hell.           Exit\n\n              Re-enter SIR TOBY and SIR FABIAN\n\n  SIR TOBY. Gentleman, God save thee.\n  VIOLA. And you, sir.\n  SIR TOBY. That defence thou hast, betake thee tot. Of what nature\n    the wrongs are thou hast done him, I know not; but thy\n    intercepter, full of despite, bloody as the hunter, attends\n    thee at the orchard end. Dismount thy tuck, be yare in thy\n    preparation, for thy assailant is quick, skilful, and deadly.\n  VIOLA. You mistake, sir; I am sure no man hath any quarrel to me;\n    my remembrance is very free and clear from any image of offence\n    done to any man.\n  SIR TOBY. You'll find it otherwise, I assure you; therefore, if you\n    hold your life at any price, betake you to your guard; for your\n    opposite hath in him what youth, strength, skill, and wrath, can\n    furnish man withal.\n  VIOLA. I pray you, sir, what is he?\n  SIR TOBY. He is knight, dubb'd with unhatch'd rapier and on carpet\n    consideration; but he is a devil in private brawl. Souls and\n    bodies hath he divorc'd three; and his incensement at this moment\n    is so implacable that satisfaction can be none but by pangs of\n    death and sepulchre. Hob-nob is his word- give't or take't.\n  VIOLA. I will return again into the house and desire some conduct\n    of the lady. I am no fighter. I have heard of some kind of men\n    that put quarrels purposely on others to taste their valour;\n    belike this is a man of that quirk.\n  SIR TOBY. Sir, no; his indignation derives itself out of a very\n    competent injury; therefore, get you on and give him his desire.\n    Back you shall not to the house, unless you undertake that with\n    me which with as much safety you might answer him; therefore on,\n    or strip your sword stark naked; for meddle you must, that's\n    certain, or forswear to wear iron about you.\n  VIOLA. This is as uncivil as strange. I beseech you do me this\n    courteous office as to know of the knight what my offence to him\n    is: it is something of my negligence, nothing of my purpose.\n  SIR TOBY. I Will do so. Signior Fabian, stay you by this gentleman\n    till my return.                                Exit SIR TOBY\n  VIOLA. Pray you, sir, do you know of this matter?\n  FABIAN. I know the knight is incens'd against you, even to a mortal\n    arbitrement; but nothing of the circumstance more.\n  VIOLA. I beseech you, what manner of man is he?\n  FABIAN. Nothing of that wonderful promise, to read him by his form,\n    as you are like to find him in the proof of his valour. He is\n    indeed, sir, the most skilful, bloody, and fatal opposite that\n    you could possibly have found in any part of Illyria. Will you\n    walk towards him? I will make your peace with him if I can.\n  VIOLA. I shall be much bound to you for't. I am one that would\n    rather go with sir priest than sir knight. I care not who knows\n    so much of my mettle.                                 Exeunt\n\n                Re-enter SIR TOBY With SIR ANDREW\n\n  SIR TOBY. Why, man, he's a very devil; I have not seen such a\n    firago. I had a pass with him, rapier, scabbard, and all, and he\n    gives me the stuck in with such a mortal motion that it is\n    inevitable; and on the answer, he pays you as surely as your feet\n    hit the ground they step on. They say he has been fencer to the\n    Sophy.\n  AGUECHEEK. Pox on't, I'll not meddle with him.\n  SIR TOBY. Ay, but he will not now be pacified; Fabian can scarce\n    hold him yonder.\n  AGUECHEEK. Plague on't; an I thought he had been valiant, and so\n    cunning in fence, I'd have seen him damn'd ere I'd have\n    challeng'd him. Let him let the matter slip, and I'll give him\n    my horse, grey Capilet.\n  SIR TOBY. I'll make the motion. Stand here, make a good show on't;\n    this shall end without the perdition of souls. [Aside] Marry,\n    I'll ride your horse as well as I ride you.\n\n              Re-enter FABIAN and VIOLA\n\n    [To FABIAN] I have his horse to take up the quarrel; I have\n    persuaded him the youth's a devil.\n  FABIAN. [To SIR TOBY] He is as horribly conceited of him; and pants\n   and looks pale, as if a bear were at his heels.\n  SIR TOBY. [To VIOLA] There's no remedy, sir: he will fight with you\n    for's oath sake. Marry, he hath better bethought him of his\n    quarrel, and he finds that now scarce to be worth talking of.\n    Therefore draw for the supportance of his vow; he protests he\n    will not hurt you.\n  VIOLA. [Aside] Pray God defend me! A little thing would make me\n    tell them how much I lack of a man.\n  FABIAN. Give ground if you see him furious.\n  SIR TOBY. Come, Sir Andrew, there's no remedy; the gentleman will,\n    for his honour's sake, have one bout with you; he cannot by the\n    duello avoid it; but he has promis'd me, as he is a gentleman and\n    a soldier, he will not hurt you. Come on; to't.\n  AGUECHEEK. Pray God he keep his oath!                [They draw]\n\n                      Enter ANTONIO\n\n  VIOLA. I do assure you 'tis against my will.\n  ANTONIO. Put up your sword. If this young gentleman\n    Have done offence, I take the fault on me:\n    If you offend him, I for him defy you.\n  SIR TOBY. You, sir! Why, what are you?\n  ANTONIO. One, sir, that for his love dares yet do more\n    Than you have heard him brag to you he will.\n  SIR TOBY. Nay, if you be an undertaker, I am for you.\n                                                     [They draw]\n\n                         Enter OFFICERS\n\n  FABIAN. O good Sir Toby, hold! Here come the officers.\n  SIR TOBY. [To ANTONIO] I'll be with you anon.\n  VIOLA. Pray, sir, put your sword up, if you please.\n  AGUECHEEK. Marry, will I, sir; and for that I promis'd you, I'll be\n    as good as my word. He will bear you easily and reins well.\n  FIRST OFFICER. This is the man; do thy office.\n  SECOND OFFICER. Antonio, I arrest thee at the suit\n    Of Count Orsino.\n  ANTONIO. You do mistake me, sir.\n  FIRST OFFICER. No, sir, no jot; I know your favour well,\n    Though now you have no sea-cap on your head.\n    Take him away; he knows I know him well.\n  ANTONIO. I Must obey. [To VIOLA] This comes with seeking you;\n    But there's no remedy; I shall answer it.\n    What will you do, now my necessity\n    Makes me to ask you for my purse? It grieves me\n    Much more for what I cannot do for you\n    Than what befalls myself. You stand amaz'd;\n    But be of comfort.\n  SECOND OFFICER. Come, sir, away.\n  ANTONIO. I must entreat of you some of that money.\n  VIOLA. What money, sir?\n    For the fair kindness you have show'd me here,\n    And part being prompted by your present trouble,\n    Out of my lean and low ability\n    I'll lend you something. My having is not much;\n    I'll make division of my present with you;\n    Hold, there's half my coffer.\n  ANTONIO. Will you deny me now?\n    Is't possible that my deserts to you\n    Can lack persuasion? Do not tempt my misery,\n    Lest that it make me so unsound a man\n    As to upbraid you with those kindnesses\n    That I have done for you.\n  VIOLA. I know of none,\n    Nor know I you by voice or any feature.\n    I hate ingratitude more in a man\n    Than lying, vainness, babbling drunkenness,\n    Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption\n    Inhabits our frail blood.\n  ANTONIO. O heavens themselves!\n  SECOND OFFICER. Come, sir, I pray you go.\n  ANTONIO. Let me speak a little. This youth that you see here\n    I snatch'd one half out of the jaws of death,\n    Reliev'd him with such sanctity of love,\n    And to his image, which methought did promise\n    Most venerable worth, did I devotion.\n  FIRST OFFICER. What's that to us? The time goes by; away.\n  ANTONIO. But, O, how vile an idol proves this god!\n    Thou hast, Sebastian, done good feature shame.\n    In nature there's no blemish but the mind:\n    None can be call'd deform'd but the unkind.\n    Virtue is beauty; but the beauteous evil\n    Are empty trunks, o'erflourish'd by the devil.\n  FIRST OFFICER. The man grows mad. Away with him.\n    Come, come, sir.\n  ANTONIO. Lead me on.                        Exit with OFFICERS\n  VIOLA. Methinks his words do from such passion fly\n    That he believes himself; so do not I.\n    Prove true, imagination, O, prove true,\n    That I, dear brother, be now ta'en for you!\n  SIR TOBY. Come hither, knight; come hither, Fabian; we'll whisper\n    o'er a couplet or two of most sage saws.\n  VIOLA. He nam'd Sebastian. I my brother know\n    Yet living in my glass; even such and so\n    In favour was my brother; and he went\n    Still in this fashion, colour, ornament,\n    For him I imitate. O, if it prove,\n    Tempests are kind, and salt waves fresh in love!        Exit\n  SIR TOBY. A very dishonest paltry boy, and more a coward than a\n    hare. His dishonesty appears in leaving his friend here in\n    necessity and denying him; and for his cowardship, ask Fabian.\n  FABIAN. A coward, a most devout coward, religious in it.\n  AGUECHEEK. 'Slid, I'll after him again and beat him.\n  SIR TOBY. Do; cuff him soundly, but never draw thy sword.\n  AGUECHEEK. And I do not-                                  Exit\n  FABIAN. Come, let's see the event.\n  SIR TOBY. I dare lay any money 'twill be nothing yet.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nBefore OLIVIA'S house\n\nEnter SEBASTIAN and CLOWN\n\n  CLOWN. Will you make me believe that I am not sent for you?\n  SEBASTIAN. Go to, go to, thou art a foolish fellow; let me be clear\n    of thee.\n  CLOWN. Well held out, i' faith! No, I do not know you; nor I am not\n    sent to you by my lady, to bid you come speak with her; nor your\n    name is not Master Cesario; nor this is not my nose neither.\n    Nothing that is so is so.\n  SEBASTIAN. I prithee vent thy folly somewhere else.\n    Thou know'st not me.\n  CLOWN. Vent my folly! He has heard that word of some great man, and\n    now applies it to a fool. Vent my folly! I am afraid this great\n    lubber, the world, will prove a cockney. I prithee now, ungird\n    thy strangeness, and tell me what I shall vent to my lady. Shall\n    I vent to her that thou art coming?\n  SEBASTIAN. I prithee, foolish Greek, depart from me;\n    There's money for thee; if you tarry longer\n    I shall give worse payment.\n  CLOWN. By my troth, thou hast an open hand. These wise men that\n    give fools money get themselves a good report after fourteen\n    years' purchase.\n\n             Enter SIR ANDREW, SIR TOBY, and FABIAN\n\n  AGUECHEEK. Now, sir, have I met you again?\n    [Striking SEBASTIAN] There's for you.\n  SEBASTIAN. Why, there's for thee, and there, and there.\n    Are all the people mad?\n  SIR TOBY. Hold, sir, or I'll throw your dagger o'er the house.\n                                             [Holding SEBASTIAN]\n  CLOWN. This will I tell my lady straight. I would not be in some of\n    your coats for two-pence.                               Exit\n  SIR TOBY. Come on, sir; hold.\n  AGUECHEEK. Nay, let him alone. I'll go another way to work with\n    him; I'll have an action of battery against him, if there be any\n    law in Illyria; though I struck him first, yet it's no matter for\n    that.\n  SEBASTIAN. Let go thy hand.\n  SIR TOBY. Come, sir, I will not let you go. Come, my young soldier,\n    put up your iron; you are well flesh'd. Come on.\n  SEBASTIAN. I will be free from thee. What wouldst thou now?\n    If thou dar'st tempt me further, draw thy sword.     [Draws]\n  SIR TOBY. What, what? Nay, then I must have an ounce or two of this\n    malapert blood from you. [Draws]\n\n                        Enter OLIVIA\n\n  OLIVIA. Hold, Toby; on thy life, I charge thee hold.\n  SIR TOBY. Madam!\n  OLIVIA. Will it be ever thus? Ungracious wretch,\n    Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves,\n    Where manners ne'er were preach'd! Out of my sight!\n    Be not offended, dear Cesario-\n    Rudesby, be gone!\n                         Exeunt SIR TOBY, SIR ANDREW, and FABIAN\n    I prithee, gentle friend,\n    Let thy fair wisdom, not thy passion, sway\n    In this uncivil and unjust extent\n    Against thy peace. Go with me to my house,\n    And hear thou there how many fruitless pranks\n    This ruffian hath botch'd up, that thou thereby\n    Mayst smile at this. Thou shalt not choose but go;\n    Do not deny. Beshrew his soul for me!\n    He started one poor heart of mine in thee.\n  SEBASTIAN. What relish is in this? How runs the stream?\n    Or I am mad, or else this is a dream.\n    Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep;\n    If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep!\n  OLIVIA. Nay, come, I prithee. Would thou'dst be rul'd by me!\n  SEBASTIAN. Madam, I will.\n  OLIVIA. O, say so, and so be!                           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nOLIVIA'S house\n\nEnter MARIA and CLOWN\n\n  MARIA. Nay, I prithee, put on this gown and this beard; make him\n    believe thou art Sir Topas the curate; do it quickly. I'll call\n    Sir Toby the whilst.                                    Exit\n  CLOWN. Well, I'll put it on, and I will dissemble myself in't; and\n    I would I were the first that ever dissembled in such a gown. I\n    am not tall enough to become the function well nor lean enough to\n    be thought a good student; but to be said an honest man and a\n    good housekeeper goes as fairly as to say a careful man and a\n    great scholar. The competitors enter.\n\n                 Enter SIR TOBY and MARIA\n\n  SIR TOBY. Jove bless thee, Master Parson.\n  CLOWN. Bonos dies, Sir Toby; for as the old hermit of Prague, that\n    never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to niece of King\n    Gorboduc 'That that is is'; so I, being Master Parson, am Master\n    Parson; for what is 'that' but that, and 'is' but is?\n  SIR TOBY. To him, Sir Topas.\n  CLOWN. What ho, I say! Peace in this prison!\n  SIR TOBY. The knave counterfeits well; a good knave.\n  MALVOLIO. [Within] Who calls there?\n  CLOWN. Sir Topas the curate, who comes to visit Malvolio the\n    lunatic.\n  MALVOLIO. Sir Topas, Sir Topas, good Sir Topas, go to my lady.\n  CLOWN. Out, hyperbolical fiend! How vexest thou this man!\n    Talkest thou nothing but of ladies?\n  SIR TOBY. Well said, Master Parson.\n  MALVOLIO. Sir Topas, never was man thus wronged. Good Sir Topas, do\n    not think I am mad; they have laid me here in hideous darkness.\n  CLOWN. Fie, thou dishonest Satan! I call thee by the most modest\n    terms, for I am one of those gentle ones that will use the devil\n    himself with courtesy. Say'st thou that house is dark?\n  MALVOLIO. As hell, Sir Topas.\n  CLOWN. Why, it hath bay windows transparent as barricadoes, and the\n    clerestories toward the south north are as lustrous as ebony; and\n    yet complainest thou of obstruction?\n  MALVOLIO. I am not mad, Sir Topas. I say to you this house is dark.\n  CLOWN. Madman, thou errest. I say there is no darkness but\n    ignorance; in which thou art more puzzled than the Egyptians in\n    their fog.\n  MALVOLIO. I say this house is as dark as ignorance, though\n    ignorance were as dark as hell; and I say there was never man\n    thus abus'd. I am no more mad than you are; make the trial of it\n    in any constant question.\n  CLOWN. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl?\n  MALVOLIO. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.\n  CLOWN. What think'st thou of his opinion?\n  MALVOLIO. I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his\n    opinion.\n  CLOWN. Fare thee well. Remain thou still in darkness: thou shalt\n   hold th' opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow of thy wits; and\n    fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy\n    grandam. Fare thee well.\n  MALVOLIO. Sir Topas, Sir Topas!\n  SIR TOBY. My most exquisite Sir Topas!\n  CLOWN. Nay, I am for all waters.\n  MARIA. Thou mightst have done this without thy beard and gown: he\n    sees thee not.\n  SIR TOBY. To him in thine own voice, and bring me word how thou\n    find'st him. I would we were well rid of this knavery. If he may\n    be conveniently deliver'd, I would he were; for I am now so far\n    in offence with my niece that I cannot pursue with any safety\n    this sport to the upshot. Come by and by to my chamber.\n                                                 Exit with MARIA\n  CLOWN. [Sings] Hey, Robin, jolly Robin,\n    Tell me how thy lady does.\n  MALVOLIO. Fool!\n  CLOWN. [Sings] My lady is unkind, perdy.\n  MALVOLIO. Fool!\n  CLOWN. [Sings] Alas, why is she so?\n  MALVOLIO. Fool I say!\n  CLOWN. [Sings] She loves another- Who calls, ha?\n  MALVOLIO. Good fool, as ever thou wilt deserve well at my hand,\n    help me to a candle, and pen, ink, and paper; as I am a\n    gentleman, I will live to be thankful to thee for't.\n  CLOWN. Master Malvolio?\n  MALVOLIO. Ay, good fool.\n  CLOWN. Alas, sir, how fell you besides your five wits?\n  MALVOLIO. Fool, there was never man so notoriously abus'd;\n    I am as well in my wits, fool, as thou art.\n  CLOWN. But as well? Then you are mad indeed, if you be no better in\n    your wits than a fool.\n  MALVOLIO. They have here propertied me; keep me in darkness, send\n    ministers to me, asses, and do all they can to face me out of my\n    wits.\n  CLOWN. Advise you what. you say: the minister is here.\n    [Speaking as SIR TOPAS] Malvolio, thy wits the heavens restore!\n    Endeavour thyself to sleep, and leave thy vain bibble-babble.\n  MALVOLIO. Sir Topas!\n  CLOWN. Maintain no words with him, good fellow.- Who, I, sir? Not\n    I, sir. God buy you, good Sir Topas.- Marry, amen.- I will sir, I\n    will.\n  MALVOLIO. Fool, fool, fool, I say!\n  CLOWN. Alas, sir, be patient. What say you, sir? I am shent for\n    speaking to you.\n  MALVOLIO. Good fool, help me to some light and some paper.\n    I tell thee I am as well in my wits as any man in Illyria.\n  CLOWN. Well-a-day that you were, sir!\n  MALVOLIO. By this hand, I am. Good fool, some ink, paper, and\n    light; and convey what I will set down to my lady. It shall\n    advantage thee more than ever the bearing of letter did.\n  CLOWN. I will help you to't. But tell me true, are you not mad\n    indeed, or do you but counterfeit?\n  MALVOLIO. Believe me, I am not; I tell thee true.\n  CLOWN. Nay, I'll ne'er believe a madman till I see his brains.\n    I will fetch you light and paper and ink.\n  MALVOLIO. Fool, I'll requite it in the highest degree; I prithe be\n    gone.\n  CLOWN. [Singing]\n                   I am gone, sir,\n                   And anon, sir,\n                 I'll be with you again,\n                   In a trice,\n                   Like to the old Vice,\n                 Your need to sustain;\n\n                 Who with dagger of lath,\n                 In his rage and his wrath,\n                   Cries, Ah, ha! to the devil,\n                 Like a mad lad,\n                 Pare thy nails, dad.\n                   Adieu, goodman devil.                    Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nOLIVIA'S garden\n\nEnter SEBASTIAN\n\n  SEBASTIAN. This is the air; that is the glorious sun;\n    This pearl she gave me, I do feel't and see't;\n    And though 'tis wonder that enwraps me thus,\n    Yet 'tis not madness. Where's Antonio, then?\n    I could not find him at the Elephant;\n    Yet there he was; and there I found this credit,\n    That he did range the town to seek me out.\n    His counsel now might do me golden service;\n    For though my soul disputes well with my sense\n    That this may be some error, but no madness,\n    Yet doth this accident and flood of fortune\n    So far exceed all instance, all discourse,\n    That I am ready to distrust mine eyes\n    And wrangle with my reason, that persuades me\n    To any other trust but that I am mad,\n    Or else the lady's mad; yet if 'twere so,\n    She could not sway her house, command her followers,\n    Take and give back affairs and their dispatch\n    With such a smooth, discreet, and stable bearing,\n    As I perceive she does. There's something in't\n    That is deceivable. But here the lady comes.\n\n                Enter OLIVIA and PRIEST\n\n  OLIVIA. Blame not this haste of mine. If you mean well,\n    Now go with me and with this holy man\n    Into the chantry by; there, before him\n    And underneath that consecrated roof,\n    Plight me the fun assurance of your faith,\n    That my most jealous and too doubtful soul\n    May live at peace. He shall conceal it\n    Whiles you are willing it shall come to note,\n    What time we will our celebration keep\n    According to my birth. What do you say?\n  SEBASTIAN. I'll follow this good man, and go with you;\n    And, having sworn truth, ever will be true.\n  OLIVIA. Then lead the way, good father; and heavens so shine\n    That they may fairly note this act of mine!           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nBefore OLIVIA's house\n\nEnter CLOWN and FABIAN\n\n  FABIAN. Now, as thou lov'st me, let me see his letter.\n  CLOWN. Good Master Fabian, grant me another request.\n  FABIAN. Anything.\n  CLOWN. Do not desire to see this letter.\n  FABIAN. This is to give a dog, and in recompense desire my dog\n    again.\n\n             Enter DUKE, VIOLA, CURIO, and LORDS\n\n  DUKE. Belong you to the Lady Olivia, friends?\n  CLOWN. Ay, sir, we are some of her trappings.\n  DUKE. I know thee well. How dost thou, my good fellow?\n  CLOWN. Truly, sir, the better for my foes and the worse for my\n    friends.\n  DUKE. Just the contrary: the better for thy friends.\n  CLOWN. No, sir, the worse.\n  DUKE. How can that be?\n  CLOWN. Marry, sir, they praise me and make an ass of me. Now my\n    foes tell me plainly I am an ass; so that by my foes, sir, I\n    profit in the knowledge of myself, and by my friends I am abused;\n    so that, conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make\n    your two affirmatives, why then, the worse for my friends, and\n    the better for my foes.\n  DUKE. Why, this is excellent.\n  CLOWN. By my troth, sir, no; though it please you to be one of my\n    friends.\n  DUKE. Thou shalt not be the worse for me. There's gold.\n  CLOWN. But that it would be double-dealing, sir, I would you could\n    make it another.\n  DUKE. O, you give me ill counsel.\n  CLOWN. Put your grace in your pocket, sir, for this once, and let\n    your flesh and blood obey it.\n  DUKE. Well, I will be so much a sinner to be a double-dealer.\n    There's another.\n  CLOWN. Primo, secundo, tertio, is a good play; and the old saying\n    is 'The third pays for all.' The triplex, sir, is a good tripping\n    measure; or the bells of Saint Bennet, sir, may put you in mind-\n    one, two, three.\n  DUKE. You can fool no more money out of me at this throw; if you\n    will let your lady know I am here to speak with her, and bring\n    her along with you, it may awake my bounty further.\n  CLOWN. Marry, sir, lullaby to your bounty till I come again. I go,\n    sir; but I would not have you to think that my desire of having\n    is the sin of covetousness. But, as you say, sir, let your bounty\n    take a nap; I will awake it anon.                       Exit\n\n                 Enter ANTONIO and OFFICERS\n\n  VIOLA. Here comes the man, sir, that did rescue me.\n  DUKE. That face of his I do remember well;\n    Yet when I saw it last it was besmear'd\n    As black as Vulcan in the smoke of war.\n    A baubling vessel was he captain of,\n    For shallow draught and bulk unprizable,\n    With which such scathful grapple did he make\n    With the most noble bottom of our fleet\n    That very envy and the tongue of los\n    Cried fame and honour on him. What's the matter?\n  FIRST OFFICER. Orsino, this is that Antonio\n    That took the Phoenix and her fraught from Candy;\n    And this is he that did the Tiger board\n    When your young nephew Titus lost his leg.\n    Here in the streets, desperate of shame and state,\n    In private brabble did we apprehend him.\n  VIOLA. He did me kindness, sir; drew on my side;\n    But in conclusion put strange speech upon me.\n    I know not what 'twas but distraction.\n  DUKE. Notable pirate, thou salt-water thief!\n    What foolish boldness brought thee to their mercies\n    Whom thou, in terms so bloody and so dear,\n    Hast made thine enemies?\n  ANTONIO. Orsino, noble sir,\n    Be pleas'd that I shake off these names you give me:\n    Antonio never yet was thief or pirate,\n    Though I confess, on base and ground enough,\n    Orsino's enemy. A witchcraft drew me hither:\n    That most ingrateful boy there by your side\n    From the rude sea's enrag'd and foamy mouth\n    Did I redeem; a wreck past hope he was.\n    His life I gave him, and did thereto ad\n    My love without retention or restraint,\n    All his in dedication; for his sake,\n    Did I expose myself, pure for his love,\n    Into the danger of this adverse town;\n    Drew to defend him when he was beset;\n    Where being apprehended, his false cunning,\n    Not meaning to partake with me in danger,\n    Taught him to face me out of his acquaintance,\n    And grew a twenty years removed thing\n    While one would wink; denied me mine own purse,\n    Which I had recommended to his use\n    Not half an hour before.\n  VIOLA. How can this be?\n  DUKE. When came he to this town?\n  ANTONIO. To-day, my lord; and for three months before,\n    No int'rim, not a minute's vacancy,\n    Both day and night did we keep company.\n\n              Enter OLIVIA and ATTENDANTS\n\n  DUKE. Here comes the Countess; now heaven walks on earth.\n    But for thee, fellow- fellow, thy words are madness.\n    Three months this youth hath tended upon me-\n    But more of that anon. Take him aside.\n  OLIVIA. What would my lord, but that he may not have,\n    Wherein Olivia may seem serviceable?\n    Cesario, you do not keep promise with me.\n  VIOLA. Madam?\n  DUKE. Gracious Olivia-\n  OLIVIA. What do you say, Cesario? Good my lord-\n  VIOLA. My lord would speak; my duty hushes me.\n  OLIVIA. If it be aught to the old tune, my lord,\n    It is as fat and fulsome to mine ear\n    As howling after music.\n  DUKE. Still so cruel?\n  OLIVIA. Still so constant, lord.\n  DUKE. What, to perverseness? You uncivil lady,\n    To whose ingrate and unauspicious altars\n    My soul the faithfull'st off'rings hath breath'd out\n    That e'er devotion tender'd! What shall I do?\n  OLIVIA. Even what it please my lord, that shall become him.\n  DUKE. Why should I not, had I the heart to do it,\n    Like to the Egyptian thief at point of death,\n    Kill what I love?- a savage jealousy\n    That sometime savours nobly. But hear me this:\n    Since you to non-regardance cast my faith,\n    And that I partly know the instrument\n    That screws me from my true place in your favour,\n    Live you the marble-breasted tyrant still;\n    But this your minion, whom I know you love,\n    And whom, by heaven I swear, I tender dearly,\n    Him will I tear out of that cruel eye\n    Where he sits crowned in his master's spite.\n    Come, boy, with me; my thoughts are ripe in mischief:\n    I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love\n    To spite a raven's heart within a dove.\n  VIOLA. And I, most jocund, apt, and willingly,\n    To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die.\n  OLIVIA. Where goes Cesario?\n  VIOLA. After him I love\n    More than I love these eyes, more than my life,\n    More, by all mores, than e'er I shall love wife.\n    If I do feign, you witnesses above\n    Punish my life for tainting of my love!\n  OLIVIA. Ay me, detested! How am I beguil'd!\n  VIOLA. Who does beguile you? Who does do you wrong?\n  OLIVIA. Hast thou forgot thyself? Is it so long?\n    Call forth the holy father.                Exit an ATTENDANT\n  DUKE. Come, away!\n  OLIVIA. Whither, my lord? Cesario, husband, stay.\n  DUKE. Husband?\n  OLIVIA. Ay, husband; can he that deny?\n  DUKE. Her husband, sirrah?\n  VIOLA. No, my lord, not I.\n  OLIVIA. Alas, it is the baseness of thy fear\n    That makes thee strangle thy propriety.\n    Fear not, Cesario, take thy fortunes up;\n    Be that thou know'st thou art, and then thou art\n    As great as that thou fear'st.\n\n                   Enter PRIEST\n\n    O, welcome, father!\n    Father, I charge thee, by thy reverence,\n    Here to unfold- though lately we intended\n    To keep in darkness what occasion now\n    Reveals before 'tis ripe- what thou dost know\n    Hath newly pass'd between this youth and me.\n  PRIEST. A contract of eternal bond of love,\n    Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands,\n    Attested by the holy close of lips,\n    Strength'ned by interchangement of your rings;\n    And all the ceremony of this compact\n    Seal'd in my function, by my testimony;\n    Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave,\n    I have travell'd but two hours.\n  DUKE. O thou dissembling cub! What wilt thou be,\n    When time hath sow'd a grizzle on thy case?\n    Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow\n    That thine own trip shall be thine overthrow?\n    Farewell, and take her; but direct thy feet\n    Where thou and I henceforth may never meet.\n  VIOLA. My lord, I do protest-\n  OLIVIA. O, do not swear!\n    Hold little faith, though thou has too much fear.\n\n                  Enter SIR ANDREW\n\n  AGUECHEEK. For the love of God, a surgeon!\n    Send one presently to Sir Toby.\n  OLIVIA. What's the matter?\n  AGUECHEEK. Has broke my head across, and has given Sir Toby a\n    bloody coxcomb too. For the love of God, your help! I had rather\n    than forty pound I were at home.\n  OLIVIA. Who has done this, Sir Andrew?\n  AGUECHEEK. The Count's gentleman, one Cesario. We took him for a\n    coward, but he's the very devil incardinate.\n  DUKE. My gentleman, Cesario?\n  AGUECHEEK. Od's lifelings, here he is! You broke my head for\n    nothing; and that that did, I was set on to do't by Sir Toby.\n  VIOLA. Why do you speak to me? I never hurt you.\n    You drew your sword upon me without cause;\n    But I bespake you fair and hurt you not.\n\n                Enter SIR TOBY and CLOWN\n\n  AGUECHEEK. If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me; I think\n    you set nothing by a bloody coxcomb. Here comes Sir Toby halting;\n    you shall hear more; but if he had not been in drink, he would\n    have tickl'd you othergates than he did.\n  DUKE. How now, gentleman? How is't with you?\n  SIR TOBY. That's all one; has hurt me, and there's th' end on't.\n    Sot, didst see Dick Surgeon, sot?\n  CLOWN. O, he's drunk, Sir Toby, an hour agone; his eyes were set at\n    eight i' th' morning.\n  SIR TOBY. Then he's a rogue and a passy measures pavin. I hate a\n    drunken rogue.\n  OLIVIA. Away with him. Who hath made this havoc with them?\n  AGUECHEEK. I'll help you, Sir Toby, because we'll be dress'd\n    together.\n  SIR TOBY. Will you help- an ass-head and a coxcomb and a knave, a\n    thin fac'd knave, a gull?\n  OLIVIA. Get him to bed, and let his hurt be look'd to.\n                  Exeunt CLOWN, FABIAN, SIR TOBY, and SIR ANDREW\n\n                      Enter SEBASTIAN\n\n  SEBASTIAN. I am sorry, madam, I have hurt your kinsman;\n    But, had it been the brother of my blood,\n    I must have done no less with wit and safety.\n    You throw a strange regard upon me, and by that\n    I do perceive it hath offended you.\n    Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vows\n    We made each other but so late ago.\n  DUKE. One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons!\n    A natural perspective, that is and is not.\n  SEBASTIAN. Antonio, O my dear Antonio!\n    How have the hours rack'd and tortur'd me\n    Since I have lost thee!\n  ANTONIO. Sebastian are you?\n  SEBASTIAN. Fear'st thou that, Antonio?\n  ANTONIO. How have you made division of yourself?\n    An apple cleft in two is not more twin\n    Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?\n  OLIVIA. Most wonderful!\n  SEBASTIAN. Do I stand there? I never had a brother;\n    Nor can there be that deity in my nature\n    Of here and everywhere. I had a sister\n    Whom the blind waves and surges have devour'd.\n    Of charity, what kin are you to me?\n    What countryman, what name, what parentage?\n  VIOLA. Of Messaline; Sebastian was my father.\n    Such a Sebastian was my brother too;\n    So went he suited to his watery tomb;\n    If spirits can assume both form and suit,\n    You come to fright us.\n  SEBASTIAN. A spirit I am indeed,\n    But am in that dimension grossly clad\n    Which from the womb I did participate.\n    Were you a woman, as the rest goes even,\n    I should my tears let fall upon your cheek,\n    And say 'Thrice welcome, drowned Viola!'\n  VIOLA. My father had a mole upon his brow.\n  SEBASTIAN. And so had mine.\n  VIOLA. And died that day when Viola from her birth\n    Had numb'red thirteen years.\n  SEBASTIAN. O, that record is lively in my soul!\n    He finished indeed his mortal act\n    That day that made my sister thirteen years.\n  VIOLA. If nothing lets to make us happy both\n    But this my masculine usurp'd attire,\n    Do not embrace me till each circumstance\n    Of place, time, fortune, do cohere and jump\n    That I am Viola; which to confirm,\n    I'll bring you to a captain in this town,\n    Where lie my maiden weeds; by whose gentle help\n    I was preserv'd to serve this noble Count.\n    All the occurrence of my fortune since\n    Hath been between this lady and this lord.\n  SEBASTIAN. [To OLIVIA] So Comes it, lady, you have been mistook;\n    But nature to her bias drew in that.\n    You would have been contracted to a maid;\n    Nor are you therein, by my life, deceiv'd;\n    You are betroth'd both to a maid and man.\n  DUKE. Be not amaz'd; right noble is his blood.\n    If this be so, as yet the glass seems true,\n    I shall have share in this most happy wreck.\n    [To VIOLA] Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times\n    Thou never shouldst love woman like to me.\n  VIOLA. And all those sayings will I overswear;\n    And all those swearings keep as true in soul\n    As doth that orbed continent the fire\n    That severs day from night.\n  DUKE. Give me thy hand;\n    And let me see thee in thy woman's weeds.\n  VIOLA. The captain that did bring me first on shore\n    Hath my maid's garments. He, upon some action,\n    Is now in durance, at Malvolio's suit,\n    A gentleman and follower of my lady's.\n  OLIVIA. He shall enlarge him. Fetch Malvolio hither;\n    And yet, alas, now I remember me,\n    They say, poor gentleman, he's much distract.\n\n        Re-enter CLOWN, with a letter, and FABIAN\n\n    A most extracting frenzy of mine own\n    From my remembrance clearly banish'd his.\n    How does he, sirrah?\n  CLOWN. Truly, madam, he holds Belzebub at the stave's end as well\n    as a man in his case may do. Has here writ a letter to you; I\n    should have given 't you to-day morning, but as a madman's\n    epistles are no gospels, so it skills not much when they are\n    deliver'd.\n  OLIVIA. Open't, and read it.\n  CLOWN. Look then to be well edified when the fool delivers the\n    madman. [Reads madly ] 'By the Lord, madam-'\n  OLIVIA. How now! Art thou mad?\n  CLOWN. No, madam, I do but read madness. An your ladyship will have\n    it as it ought to be, you must allow vox.\n  OLIVIA. Prithee read i' thy right wits.\n  CLOWN. So I do, madonna; but to read his right wits is to read\n    thus; therefore perpend, my Princess, and give ear.\n  OLIVIA. [To FABIAN] Read it you, sirrah.\n  FABIAN. [Reads] 'By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, and the world\n    shall know it. Though you have put me into darkness and given\n    your drunken cousin rule over me, yet have I the benefit of my\n    senses as well as your ladyship. I have your own letter that\n    induced me to the semblance I put on, with the which I doubt not\n    but to do myself much right or you much shame. Think of me as you\n    please. I leave my duty a little unthought of, and speak out of\n    my injury.\n                                        THE MADLY-US'D MALVOLIO'\n\n  OLIVIA. Did he write this?\n  CLOWN. Ay, Madam.\n  DUKE. This savours not much of distraction.\n  OLIVIA. See him deliver'd, Fabian; bring him hither.\n                                                     Exit FABIAN\n    My lord, so please you, these things further thought on,\n    To think me as well a sister as a wife,\n    One day shall crown th' alliance on't, so please you,\n    Here at my house, and at my proper cost.\n  DUKE. Madam, I am most apt t' embrace your offer.\n    [To VIOLA] Your master quits you; and, for your service done\n      him,\n    So much against the mettle of your sex,\n    So far beneath your soft and tender breeding,\n    And since you call'd me master for so long,\n    Here is my hand; you shall from this time be\n    You master's mistress.\n  OLIVIA. A sister! You are she.\n\n                Re-enter FABIAN, with MALVOLIO\n\n  DUKE. Is this the madman?\n  OLIVIA. Ay, my lord, this same.\n    How now, Malvolio!\n  MALVOLIO. Madam, you have done me wrong,\n    Notorious wrong.\n  OLIVIA. Have I, Malvolio? No.\n  MALVOLIO. Lady, you have. Pray you peruse that letter.\n    You must not now deny it is your hand;\n    Write from it if you can, in hand or phrase;\n    Or say 'tis not your seal, not your invention;\n    You can say none of this. Well, grant it then,\n    And tell me, in the modesty of honour,\n    Why you have given me such clear lights of favour,\n    Bade me come smiling and cross-garter'd to you,\n    To put on yellow stockings, and to frown\n    Upon Sir Toby and the lighter people;\n    And, acting this in an obedient hope,\n    Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd,\n    Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,\n    And made the most notorious geck and gul\n    That e'er invention play'd on? Tell me why.\n  OLIVIA. Alas, Malvolio, this is not my writing,\n    Though, I confess, much like the character;\n    But out of question 'tis Maria's hand.\n    And now I do bethink me, it was she\n    First told me thou wast mad; then cam'st in smiling,\n    And in such forms which here were presuppos'd\n    Upon thee in the letter. Prithee, be content;\n    This practice hath most shrewdly pass'd upon thee,\n    But, when we know the grounds and authors of it,\n    Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge\n    Of thine own cause.\n  FABIAN. Good madam, hear me speak,\n    And let no quarrel nor no brawl to come\n    Taint the condition of this present hour,\n    Which I have wond'red at. In hope it shall not,\n    Most freely I confess myself and Toby\n    Set this device against Malvolio here,\n    Upon some stubborn and uncourteous parts\n    We had conceiv'd against him. Maria writ\n    The letter, at Sir Toby's great importance,\n    In recompense whereof he hath married her.\n    How with a sportful malice it was follow'd\n    May rather pluck on laughter than revenge,\n    If that the injuries be justly weigh'd\n    That have on both sides pass'd.\n  OLIVIA. Alas, poor fool, how have they baffl'd thee!\n  CLOWN. Why, 'Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some\n    have greatness thrown upon them.' I was one, sir, in this\n    interlude- one Sir Topas, sir; but that's all one. 'By the Lord,\n    fool, I am not mad!' But do you remember- 'Madam, why laugh you\n    at such a barren rascal? An you smile not, he's gagg'd'? And thus\n    the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.\n  MALVOLIO. I'll be reveng'd on the whole pack of you.\n Exit\n  OLIVIA. He hath been most notoriously abus'd.\n  DUKE. Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace;\n    He hath not told us of the captain yet.\n    When that is known, and golden time convents,\n    A solemn combination shall be made\n    Of our dear souls. Meantime, sweet sister,\n    We will not part from hence. Cesario, come;\n    For so you shall be while you are a man;\n    But when in other habits you are seen,\n    Orsino's mistress, and his fancy's queen.\n                                        Exeunt all but the CLOWN\n\n                        CLOWN sings\n\n           When that I was and a little tiny boy,\n             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,\n           A foolish thing was but a toy,\n             For the rain it raineth every day.\n\n           But when I came to man's estate,\n             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,\n           'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,\n             For the rain it raineth every day.\n\n           But when I came, alas! to wive,\n             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,\n           By swaggering could I never thrive,\n             For the rain it raineth every day.\n\n           But when I came unto my beds,\n             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,\n           With toss-pots still had drunken heads,\n             For the rain it raineth every day.\n\n           A great while ago the world begun,\n             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,\n           But that's all one, our play is done,\n           And we'll strive to please you every day.\n Exit\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1595\n\nTHE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  DUKE OF MILAN, father to Silvia\n  VALENTINE, one of the two gentlemen\n  PROTEUS,    \"  \"   \"   \"     \"\n  ANTONIO, father to Proteus\n  THURIO, a foolish rival to Valentine\n  EGLAMOUR, agent for Silvia in her escape\n  SPEED, a clownish servant to Valentine\n  LAUNCE, the like to Proteus\n  PANTHINO, servant to Antonio\n  HOST, where Julia lodges in Milan\n  OUTLAWS, with Valentine\n\n  JULIA, a lady of Verona, beloved of Proteus\n  SILVIA, the Duke's daughter, beloved of Valentine\n  LUCETTA, waiting-woman to Julia\n\n  SERVANTS\n  MUSICIANS\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nVerona; Milan; the frontiers of Mantua\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nVerona. An open place\n\nEnter VALENTINE and PROTEUS\n\n  VALENTINE. Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus:\n    Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.\n    Were't not affection chains thy tender days\n    To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love,\n    I rather would entreat thy company\n    To see the wonders of the world abroad,\n    Than, living dully sluggardiz'd at home,\n    Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.\n    But since thou lov'st, love still, and thrive therein,\n    Even as I would, when I to love begin.\n  PROTEUS. Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu!\n    Think on thy Proteus, when thou haply seest\n    Some rare noteworthy object in thy travel.\n    Wish me partaker in thy happiness\n    When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger,\n    If ever danger do environ thee,\n    Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers,\n    For I will be thy headsman, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. And on a love-book pray for my success?\n  PROTEUS. Upon some book I love I'll pray for thee.\n  VALENTINE. That's on some shallow story of deep love:\n    How young Leander cross'd the Hellespont.\n  PROTEUS. That's a deep story of a deeper love;\n    For he was more than over shoes in love.\n  VALENTINE. 'Tis true; for you are over boots in love,\n    And yet you never swum the Hellespont.\n  PROTEUS. Over the boots! Nay, give me not the boots.\n  VALENTINE. No, I will not, for it boots thee not.\n  PROTEUS. What?\n  VALENTINE. To be in love- where scorn is bought with groans,\n    Coy looks with heart-sore sighs, one fading moment's mirth\n    With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights;\n    If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain;\n    If lost, why then a grievous labour won;\n    However, but a folly bought with wit,\n    Or else a wit by folly vanquished.\n  PROTEUS. So, by your circumstance, you call me fool.\n  VALENTINE. So, by your circumstance, I fear you'll prove.\n  PROTEUS. 'Tis love you cavil at; I am not Love.\n  VALENTINE. Love is your master, for he masters you;\n    And he that is so yoked by a fool,\n    Methinks, should not be chronicled for wise.\n  PROTEUS. Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud\n    The eating canker dwells, so eating love\n    Inhabits in the finest wits of all.\n  VALENTINE. And writers say, as the most forward bud\n    Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,\n    Even so by love the young and tender wit\n    Is turn'd to folly, blasting in the bud,\n    Losing his verdure even in the prime,\n    And all the fair effects of future hopes.\n    But wherefore waste I time to counsel the\n    That art a votary to fond desire?\n    Once more adieu. My father at the road\n    Expects my coming, there to see me shipp'd.\n  PROTEUS. And thither will I bring thee, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. Sweet Proteus, no; now let us take our leave.\n    To Milan let me hear from thee by letters\n    Of thy success in love, and what news else\n    Betideth here in absence of thy friend;\n    And I likewise will visit thee with mine.\n  PROTEUS. All happiness bechance to thee in Milan!\n  VALENTINE. As much to you at home; and so farewell!\n                                                  Exit VALENTINE\n  PROTEUS. He after honour hunts, I after love;\n    He leaves his friends to dignify them more:\n    I leave myself, my friends, and all for love.\n    Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphis'd me,\n    Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,\n    War with good counsel, set the world at nought;\n    Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with thought.\n\n                         Enter SPEED\n\n  SPEED. Sir Proteus, save you! Saw you my master?\n  PROTEUS. But now he parted hence to embark for Milan.\n  SPEED. Twenty to one then he is shipp'd already,\n    And I have play'd the sheep in losing him.\n  PROTEUS. Indeed a sheep doth very often stray,\n    An if the shepherd be awhile away.\n  SPEED. You conclude that my master is a shepherd then, and\n    I a sheep?\n  PROTEUS. I do.\n  SPEED. Why then, my horns are his horns, whether I wake or sleep.\n  PROTEUS. A silly answer, and fitting well a sheep.\n  SPEED. This proves me still a sheep.\n  PROTEUS. True; and thy master a shepherd.\n  SPEED. Nay, that I can deny by a circumstance.\n  PROTEUS. It shall go hard but I'll prove it by another.\n  SPEED. The shepherd seeks the sheep, and not the sheep the\n    shepherd; but I seek my master, and my master seeks not me;\n    therefore, I am no sheep.\n  PROTEUS. The sheep for fodder follow the shepherd; the shepherd for\n    food follows not the sheep: thou for wages followest thy master;\n    thy master for wages follows not thee. Therefore, thou art a\n    sheep.\n  SPEED. Such another proof will make me cry 'baa.'\n  PROTEUS. But dost thou hear? Gav'st thou my letter to Julia?\n  SPEED. Ay, sir; I, a lost mutton, gave your letter to her, a lac'd\n    mutton; and she, a lac'd mutton, gave me, a lost mutton, nothing\n    for my labour.\n  PROTEUS. Here's too small a pasture for such store of muttons.\n  SPEED. If the ground be overcharg'd, you were best stick her.\n  PROTEUS. Nay, in that you are astray: 'twere best pound you.\n  SPEED. Nay, sir, less than a pound shall serve me for carrying your\n    letter.\n  PROTEUS. You mistake; I mean the pound- a pinfold.\n  SPEED. From a pound to a pin? Fold it over and over,\n    'Tis threefold too little for carrying a letter to your lover.\n  PROTEUS. But what said she?\n  SPEED.  [Nodding]  Ay.\n  PROTEUS. Nod- ay. Why, that's 'noddy.'\n  SPEED. You mistook, sir; I say she did nod; and you ask me if she\n    did nod; and I say 'Ay.'\n  PROTEUS. And that set together is 'noddy.'\n  SPEED. Now you have taken the pains to set it together, take it for\n    your pains.\n  PROTEUS. No, no; you shall have it for bearing the letter.\n  SPEED. Well, I perceive I must be fain to bear with you.\n  PROTEUS. Why, sir, how do you bear with me?\n  SPEED. Marry, sir, the letter, very orderly; having nothing but the\n    word 'noddy' for my pains.\n  PROTEUS. Beshrew me, but you have a quick wit.\n  SPEED. And yet it cannot overtake your slow purse.\n  PROTEUS. Come, come, open the matter; in brief, what said she?\n  SPEED. Open your purse, that the money and the matter may be both\n    at once delivered.\n  PROTEUS. Well, sir, here is for your pains. What said she?\n  SPEED. Truly, sir, I think you'll hardly win her.\n  PROTEUS. Why, couldst thou perceive so much from her?\n  SPEED. Sir, I could perceive nothing at all from her; no, not so\n    much as a ducat for delivering your letter; and being so hard to\n    me that brought your mind, I fear she'll prove as hard to you in\n    telling your mind. Give her no token but stones, for she's as\n    hard as steel.\n  PROTEUS. What said she? Nothing?\n  SPEED. No, not so much as 'Take this for thy pains.' To testify\n    your bounty, I thank you, you have testern'd me; in requital\n    whereof, henceforth carry your letters yourself; and so, sir,\n    I'll commend you to my master.\n  PROTEUS. Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wreck,\n    Which cannot perish, having thee aboard,\n    Being destin'd to a drier death on shore.         Exit SPEED\n    I must go send some better messenger.\n    I fear my Julia would not deign my lines,\n    Receiving them from such a worthless post.              Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nVerona. The garden Of JULIA'S house\n\nEnter JULIA and LUCETTA\n\n  JULIA. But say, Lucetta, now we are alone,\n    Wouldst thou then counsel me to fall in love?\n  LUCETTA. Ay, madam; so you stumble not unheedfully.\n  JULIA. Of all the fair resort of gentlemen\n    That every day with parle encounter me,\n    In thy opinion which is worthiest love?\n  LUCETTA. Please you, repeat their names; I'll show my mind\n    According to my shallow simple skill.\n  JULIA. What think'st thou of the fair Sir Eglamour?\n  LUCETTA. As of a knight well-spoken, neat, and fine;\n    But, were I you, he never should be mine.\n  JULIA. What think'st thou of the rich Mercatio?\n  LUCETTA. Well of his wealth; but of himself, so so.\n  JULIA. What think'st thou of the gentle Proteus?\n  LUCETTA. Lord, Lord! to see what folly reigns in us!\n  JULIA. How now! what means this passion at his name?\n  LUCETTA. Pardon, dear madam; 'tis a passing shame\n    That I, unworthy body as I am,\n    Should censure thus on lovely gentlemen.\n  JULIA. Why not on Proteus, as of all the rest?\n  LUCETTA. Then thus: of many good I think him best.\n  JULIA. Your reason?\n  LUCETTA. I have no other but a woman's reason:\n    I think him so, because I think him so.\n  JULIA. And wouldst thou have me cast my love on him?\n  LUCETTA. Ay, if you thought your love not cast away.\n  JULIA. Why, he, of all the rest, hath never mov'd me.\n  LUCETTA. Yet he, of all the rest, I think, best loves ye.\n  JULIA. His little speaking shows his love but small.\n  LUCETTA. Fire that's closest kept burns most of all.\n  JULIA. They do not love that do not show their love.\n  LUCETTA. O, they love least that let men know their love.\n  JULIA. I would I knew his mind.\n  LUCETTA. Peruse this paper, madam.\n  JULIA. 'To Julia'- Say, from whom?\n  LUCETTA. That the contents will show.\n  JULIA. Say, say, who gave it thee?\n  LUCETTA. Sir Valentine's page; and sent, I think, from Proteus.\n    He would have given it you; but I, being in the way,\n    Did in your name receive it; pardon the fault, I pray.\n  JULIA. Now, by my modesty, a goodly broker!\n    Dare you presume to harbour wanton lines?\n    To whisper and conspire against my youth?\n    Now, trust me, 'tis an office of great worth,\n    And you an officer fit for the place.\n    There, take the paper; see it be return'd;\n    Or else return no more into my sight.\n  LUCETTA. To plead for love deserves more fee than hate.\n  JULIA. Will ye be gone?\n  LUCETTA. That you may ruminate.                           Exit\n  JULIA. And yet, I would I had o'erlook'd the letter.\n    It were a shame to call her back again,\n    And pray her to a fault for which I chid her.\n    What fool is she, that knows I am a maid\n    And would not force the letter to my view!\n    Since maids, in modesty, say 'No' to that\n    Which they would have the profferer construe 'Ay.'\n    Fie, fie, how wayward is this foolish love,\n    That like a testy babe will scratch the nurse,\n    And presently, all humbled, kiss the rod!\n    How churlishly I chid Lucetta hence,\n    When willingly I would have had her here!\n    How angerly I taught my brow to frown,\n    When inward joy enforc'd my heart to smile!\n    My penance is to call Lucetta back\n    And ask remission for my folly past.\n    What ho! Lucetta!\n\n                     Re-enter LUCETTA\n\n  LUCETTA. What would your ladyship?\n  JULIA. Is't near dinner time?\n  LUCETTA. I would it were,\n    That you might kill your stomach on your meat\n    And not upon your maid.\n  JULIA. What is't that you took up so gingerly?\n  LUCETTA. Nothing.\n  JULIA. Why didst thou stoop then?\n  LUCETTA. To take a paper up that I let fall.\n  JULIA. And is that paper nothing?\n  LUCETTA. Nothing concerning me.\n  JULIA. Then let it lie for those that it concerns.\n  LUCETTA. Madam, it will not lie where it concerns,\n    Unless it have a false interpreter.\n  JULIA. Some love of yours hath writ to you in rhyme.\n  LUCETTA. That I might sing it, madam, to a tune.\n    Give me a note; your ladyship can set.\n  JULIA. As little by such toys as may be possible.\n    Best sing it to the tune of 'Light o' Love.'\n  LUCETTA. It is too heavy for so light a tune.\n  JULIA. Heavy! belike it hath some burden then.\n  LUCETTA. Ay; and melodious were it, would you sing it.\n  JULIA. And why not you?\n  LUCETTA. I cannot reach so high.\n  JULIA. Let's see your song.     [LUCETTA withholds the letter]\n    How now, minion!\n  LUCETTA. Keep tune there still, so you will sing it out.\n    And yet methinks I do not like this tune.\n  JULIA. You do not!\n  LUCETTA. No, madam; 'tis too sharp.\n  JULIA. You, minion, are too saucy.\n  LUCETTA. Nay, now you are too flat\n    And mar the concord with too harsh a descant;\n    There wanteth but a mean to fill your song.\n  JULIA. The mean is drown'd with your unruly bass.\n  LUCETTA. Indeed, I bid the base for Proteus.\n  JULIA. This babble shall not henceforth trouble me.\n    Here is a coil with protestation!         [Tears the letter]\n    Go, get you gone; and let the papers lie.\n    You would be fing'ring them, to anger me.\n  LUCETTA. She makes it strange; but she would be best pleas'd\n    To be so ang'red with another letter.                   Exit\n  JULIA. Nay, would I were so ang'red with the same!\n    O hateful hands, to tear such loving words!\n    Injurious wasps, to feed on such sweet honey\n    And kill the bees that yield it with your stings!\n    I'll kiss each several paper for amends.\n    Look, here is writ 'kind Julia.' Unkind Julia,\n    As in revenge of thy ingratitude,\n    I throw thy name against the bruising stones,\n    Trampling contemptuously on thy disdain.\n    And here is writ 'love-wounded Proteus.'\n    Poor wounded name! my bosom,,as a bed,\n    Shall lodge thee till thy wound be throughly heal'd;\n    And thus I search it with a sovereign kiss.\n    But twice or thrice was 'Proteus' written down.\n    Be calm, good wind, blow not a word away\n    Till I have found each letter in the letter-\n    Except mine own name; that some whirlwind bear\n    Unto a ragged, fearful, hanging rock,\n    And throw it thence into the raging sea.\n    Lo, here in one line is his name twice writ:\n    'Poor forlorn Proteus, passionate Proteus,\n    To the sweet Julia.' That I'll tear away;\n    And yet I will not, sith so prettily\n    He couples it to his complaining names.\n    Thus will I fold them one upon another;\n    Now kiss, embrace, contend, do what you will.\n\n                        Re-enter LUCETTA\n\n  LUCETTA. Madam,\n    Dinner is ready, and your father stays.\n  JULIA. Well, let us go.\n  LUCETTA. What, shall these papers lie like tell-tales here?\n  JULIA. If you respect them, best to take them up.\n  LUCETTA. Nay, I was taken up for laying them down;\n    Yet here they shall not lie for catching cold.\n  JULIA. I see you have a month's mind to them.\n  LUCETTA. Ay, madam, you may say what sights you see;\n    I see things too, although you judge I wink.\n  JULIA. Come, come; will't please you go?                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVerona. ANTONIO'S house\n\nEnter ANTONIO and PANTHINO\n\n  ANTONIO. Tell me, Panthino, what sad talk was that\n    Wherewith my brother held you in the cloister?\n  PANTHINO. 'Twas of his nephew Proteus, your son.\n  ANTONIO. Why, what of him?\n  PANTHINO. He wond'red that your lordship\n    Would suffer him to spend his youth at home,\n    While other men, of slender reputation,\n    Put forth their sons to seek preferment out:\n    Some to the wars, to try their fortune there;\n    Some to discover islands far away;\n    Some to the studious universities.\n    For any, or for all these exercises,\n    He said that Proteus, your son, was meet;\n    And did request me to importune you\n    To let him spend his time no more at home,\n    Which would be great impeachment to his age,\n    In having known no travel in his youth.\n  ANTONIO. Nor need'st thou much importune me to that\n    Whereon this month I have been hammering.\n    I have consider'd well his loss of time,\n    And how he cannot be a perfect man,\n    Not being tried and tutor'd in the world:\n    Experience is by industry achiev'd,\n    And perfected by the swift course of time.\n    Then tell me whither were I best to send him.\n  PANTHINO. I think your lordship is not ignorant\n    How his companion, youthful Valentine,\n    Attends the Emperor in his royal court.\n  ANTONIO. I know it well.\n  PANTHINO. 'Twere good, I think, your lordship sent him thither:\n    There shall he practise tilts and tournaments,\n    Hear sweet discourse, converse with noblemen,\n    And be in eye of every exercise\n    Worthy his youth and nobleness of birth.\n  ANTONIO. I like thy counsel; well hast thou advis'd;\n    And that thou mayst perceive how well I like it,\n    The execution of it shall make known:\n    Even with the speediest expedition\n    I will dispatch him to the Emperor's court.\n  PANTHINO. To-morrow, may it please you, Don Alphonso\n    With other gentlemen of good esteem\n    Are journeying to salute the Emperor,\n    And to commend their service to his will.\n  ANTONIO. Good company; with them shall Proteus go.\n\n                        Enter PROTEUS\n\n    And- in good time!- now will we break with him.\n  PROTEUS. Sweet love! sweet lines! sweet life!\n    Here is her hand, the agent of her heart;\n    Here is her oath for love, her honour's pawn.\n    O that our fathers would applaud our loves,\n    To seal our happiness with their consents!\n    O heavenly Julia!\n  ANTONIO. How now! What letter are you reading there?\n  PROTEUS. May't please your lordship, 'tis a word or two\n    Of commendations sent from Valentine,\n    Deliver'd by a friend that came from him.\n  ANTONIO. Lend me the letter; let me see what news.\n  PROTEUS. There is no news, my lord; but that he writes\n    How happily he lives, how well-belov'd\n    And daily graced by the Emperor;\n    Wishing me with him, partner of his fortune.\n  ANTONIO. And how stand you affected to his wish?\n  PROTEUS. As one relying on your lordship's will,\n    And not depending on his friendly wish.\n  ANTONIO. My will is something sorted with his wish.\n    Muse not that I thus suddenly proceed;\n    For what I will, I will, and there an end.\n    I am resolv'd that thou shalt spend some time\n    With Valentinus in the Emperor's court;\n    What maintenance he from his friends receives,\n    Like exhibition thou shalt have from me.\n    To-morrow be in readiness to go-\n    Excuse it not, for I am peremptory.\n  PROTEUS. My lord, I cannot be so soon provided;\n    Please you, deliberate a day or two.\n  ANTONIO. Look what thou want'st shall be sent after thee.\n    No more of stay; to-morrow thou must go.\n    Come on, Panthino; you shall be employ'd\n    To hasten on his expedition.\n                                     Exeunt ANTONIO and PANTHINO\n  PROTEUS. Thus have I shunn'd the fire for fear of burning,\n    And drench'd me in the sea, where I am drown'd.\n    I fear'd to show my father Julia's letter,\n    Lest he should take exceptions to my love;\n    And with the vantage of mine own excuse\n    Hath he excepted most against my love.\n    O, how this spring of love resembleth\n    The uncertain glory of an April day,\n    Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,\n    And by an by a cloud takes all away!\n\n                       Re-enter PANTHINO\n\n  PANTHINO. Sir Proteus, your father calls for you;\n    He is in haste; therefore, I pray you, go.\n  PROTEUS. Why, this it is: my heart accords thereto;\n    And yet a thousand times it answers 'No.'             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter VALENTINE and SPEED\n\n  SPEED. Sir, your glove.\n  VALENTINE. Not mine: my gloves are on.\n  SPEED. Why, then, this may be yours; for this is but one.\n  VALENTINE. Ha! let me see; ay, give it me, it's mine;\n    Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine!\n    Ah, Silvia! Silvia!\n  SPEED.  [Calling]  Madam Silvia! Madam Silvia!\n  VALENTINE. How now, sirrah?\n  SPEED. She is not within hearing, sir.\n  VALENTINE. Why, sir, who bade you call her?\n  SPEED. Your worship, sir; or else I mistook.\n  VALENTINE. Well, you'll still be too forward.\n  SPEED. And yet I was last chidden for being too slow.\n  VALENTINE. Go to, sir; tell me, do you know Madam Silvia?\n  SPEED. She that your worship loves?\n  VALENTINE. Why, how know you that I am in love?\n  SPEED. Marry, by these special marks: first, you have learn'd, like\n    Sir Proteus, to wreath your arms like a malcontent; to relish a\n    love-song, like a robin redbreast; to walk alone, like one that\n    had the pestilence; to sigh, like a school-boy that had lost his\n    A B C; to weep, like a young wench that had buried her grandam;\n    to fast, like one that takes diet; to watch, like one that fears\n    robbing; to speak puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas. You were\n    wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock; when you walk'd, to\n    walk like one of the lions; when you fasted, it was presently\n    after dinner; when you look'd sadly, it was for want of money.\n    And now you are metamorphis'd with a mistress, that, when I look\n    on you, I can hardly think you my master.\n  VALENTINE. Are all these things perceiv'd in me?\n  SPEED. They are all perceiv'd without ye.\n  VALENTINE. Without me? They cannot.\n  SPEED. Without you! Nay, that's certain; for, without you were so\n    simple, none else would; but you are so without these follies\n    that these follies are within you, and shine through you like the\n    water in an urinal, that not an eye that sees you but is a\n    physician to comment on your malady.\n  VALENTINE. But tell me, dost thou know my lady Silvia?\n  SPEED. She that you gaze on so, as she sits at supper?\n  VALENTINE. Hast thou observ'd that? Even she, I mean.\n  SPEED. Why, sir, I know her not.\n  VALENTINE. Dost thou know her by my gazing on her, and yet know'st\n    her not?\n  SPEED. Is she not hard-favour'd, sir?\n  VALENTINE. Not so fair, boy, as well-favour'd.\n  SPEED. Sir, I know that well enough.\n  VALENTINE. What dost thou know?\n  SPEED. That she is not so fair as, of you, well-favour'd.\n  VALENTINE. I mean that her beauty is exquisite, but her favour\n    infinite.\n  SPEED. That's because the one is painted, and the other out of all\n    count.\n  VALENTINE. How painted? and how out of count?\n  SPEED. Marry, sir, so painted, to make her fair, that no man counts\n    of her beauty.\n  VALENTINE. How esteem'st thou me? I account of her beauty.\n  SPEED. You never saw her since she was deform'd.\n  VALENTINE. How long hath she been deform'd?\n  SPEED. Ever since you lov'd her.\n  VALENTINE. I have lov'd her ever since I saw her, and still\n    I see her beautiful.\n  SPEED. If you love her, you cannot see her.\n  VALENTINE. Why?\n  SPEED. Because Love is blind. O that you had mine eyes; or your own\n    eyes had the lights they were wont to have when you chid at Sir\n    Proteus for going ungarter'd!\n  VALENTINE. What should I see then?\n  SPEED. Your own present folly and her passing deformity; for he,\n    being in love, could not see to garter his hose; and you, being\n    in love, cannot see to put on your hose.\n  VALENTINE. Belike, boy, then you are in love; for last morning you\n    could not see to wipe my shoes.\n  SPEED. True, sir; I was in love with my bed. I thank you, you\n    swing'd me for my love, which makes me the bolder to chide you\n    for yours.\n  VALENTINE. In conclusion, I stand affected to her.\n  SPEED. I would you were set, so your affection would cease.\n  VALENTINE. Last night she enjoin'd me to write some lines to one\n    she loves.\n  SPEED. And have you?\n  VALENTINE. I have.\n  SPEED. Are they not lamely writ?\n  VALENTINE. No, boy, but as well as I can do them.\n\n                           Enter SILVIA\n\n    Peace! here she comes.\n  SPEED.  [Aside]  O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet!\n    Now will he interpret to her.\n  VALENTINE. Madam and mistress, a thousand good morrows.\n  SPEED.  [Aside]  O, give ye good ev'n!\n    Here's a million of manners.\n  SILVIA. Sir Valentine and servant, to you two thousand.\n  SPEED.  [Aside]  He should give her interest, and she gives it him.\n  VALENTINE. As you enjoin'd me, I have writ your letter\n    Unto the secret nameless friend of yours;\n    Which I was much unwilling to proceed in,\n    But for my duty to your ladyship.\n  SILVIA. I thank you, gentle servant. 'Tis very clerkly done.\n  VALENTINE. Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off;\n    For, being ignorant to whom it goes,\n    I writ at random, very doubtfully.\n  SILVIA. Perchance you think too much of so much pains?\n  VALENTINE. No, madam; so it stead you, I will write,\n    Please you command, a thousand times as much;\n    And yet-\n  SILVIA. A pretty period! Well, I guess the sequel;\n    And yet I will not name it- and yet I care not.\n    And yet take this again- and yet I thank you-\n    Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more.\n  SPEED.  [Aside]  And yet you will; and yet another' yet.'\n  VALENTINE. What means your ladyship? Do you not like it?\n  SILVIA. Yes, yes; the lines are very quaintly writ;\n    But, since unwillingly, take them again.\n    Nay, take them.                      [Gives hack the letter]\n  VALENTINE. Madam, they are for you.\n  SILVIA. Ay, ay, you writ them, sir, at my request;\n    But I will none of them; they are for you:\n    I would have had them writ more movingly.\n  VALENTINE. Please you, I'll write your ladyship another.\n  SILVIA. And when it's writ, for my sake read it over;\n    And if it please you, so; if not, why, so.\n  VALENTINE. If it please me, madam, what then?\n  SILVIA. Why, if it please you, take it for your labour.\n    And so good morrow, servant.                     Exit SILVIA\n  SPEED. O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible,\n    As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple!\n    My master sues to her; and she hath taught her suitor,\n    He being her pupil, to become her tutor.\n    O excellent device! Was there ever heard a better,\n    That my master, being scribe, to himself should write the letter?\n  VALENTINE. How now, sir! What are you reasoning with yourself?\n  SPEED. Nay, I was rhyming: 'tis you that have the reason.\n  VALENTINE. To do what?\n  SPEED. To be a spokesman from Madam Silvia?\n  VALENTINE. To whom?\n  SPEED. To yourself; why, she woos you by a figure.\n  VALENTINE. What figure?\n  SPEED. By a letter, I should say.\n  VALENTINE. Why, she hath not writ to me.\n  SPEED. What need she, when she hath made you write to yourself?\n    Why, do you not perceive the jest?\n  VALENTINE. No, believe me.\n  SPEED. No believing you indeed, sir. But did you perceive her\n    earnest?\n  VALENTINE. She gave me none except an angry word.\n  SPEED. Why, she hath given you a letter.\n  VALENTINE. That's the letter I writ to her friend.\n  SPEED. And that letter hath she deliver'd, and there an end.\n  VALENTINE. I would it were no worse.\n  SPEED. I'll warrant you 'tis as well.\n    'For often have you writ to her; and she, in modesty,\n    Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply;\n    Or fearing else some messenger that might her mind discover,\n    Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her lover.'\n    All this I speak in print, for in print I found it. Why muse you,\n    sir? 'Tis dinner time.\n  VALENTINE. I have din'd.\n  SPEED. Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon Love can feed on\n    the air, I am one that am nourish'd by my victuals, and would\n    fain have meat. O, be not like your mistress! Be moved, be moved.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nVerona. JULIA'S house\n\nEnter PROTEUS and JULIA\n\n  PROTEUS. Have patience, gentle Julia.\n  JULIA. I must, where is no remedy.\n  PROTEUS. When possibly I can, I will return.\n  JULIA. If you turn not, you will return the sooner.\n    Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake.\n                                                 [Giving a ring]\n  PROTEUS. Why, then, we'll make exchange. Here, take you this.\n  JULIA. And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.\n  PROTEUS. Here is my hand for my true constancy;\n    And when that hour o'erslips me in the day\n    Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,\n    The next ensuing hour some foul mischance\n    Torment me for my love's forgetfulness!\n    My father stays my coming; answer not;\n    The tide is now- nay, not thy tide of tears:\n    That tide will stay me longer than I should.\n    Julia, farewell!                                  Exit JULIA\n    What, gone without a word?\n    Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak;\n    For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.\n\n                          Enter PANTHINO\n\n  PANTHINO. Sir Proteus, you are stay'd for.\n  PROTEUS. Go; I come, I come.\n    Alas! this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVerona. A street\n\nEnter LAUNCE, leading a dog\n\n  LAUNCE. Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the\n    kind of the Launces have this very fault. I have receiv'd my\n    proportion, like the Prodigious Son, and am going with Sir\n    Proteus to the Imperial's court. I think Crab my dog be the\n    sourest-natured dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father\n    wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her\n    hands, and all our house in a great perplexity; yet did not this\n    cruel-hearted cur shed one tear. He is a stone, a very pebble\n    stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog. A Jew would have\n    wept to have seen our parting; why, my grandam having no eyes,\n    look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I'll show you\n    the manner of it. This shoe is my father; no, this left shoe is\n    my father; no, no, left shoe is my mother; nay, that cannot be so\n    neither; yes, it is so, it is so, it hath the worser sole. This\n    shoe with the hole in it is my mother, and this my father. A\n    vengeance on 't! There 'tis. Now, sir, this staff is my sister,\n    for, look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a wand;\n    this hat is Nan our maid; I am the dog; no, the dog is himself,\n    and I am the dog- O, the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so, so.\n    Now come I to my father: 'Father, your blessing.' Now should not\n    the shoe speak a word for weeping; now should I kiss my father;\n    well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother. O that she could\n    speak now like a wood woman! Well, I kiss her- why there 'tis;\n    here's my mother's breath up and down. Now come I to my sister;\n    mark the moan she makes. Now the dog all this while sheds not a\n    tear, nor speaks a word; but see how I lay the dust with my\n    tears.\n\n                            Enter PANTHINO\n\n  PANTHINO. Launce, away, away, aboard! Thy master is shipp'd, and\n    thou art to post after with oars. What's the matter? Why weep'st\n    thou, man? Away, ass! You'll lose the tide if you tarry any\n    longer.\n  LAUNCE. It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the\n    unkindest tied that ever any man tied.\n  PANTHINO. What's the unkindest tide?\n  LAUNCE. Why, he that's tied here, Crab, my dog.\n  PANTHINO. Tut, man, I mean thou'lt lose the flood, and, in losing\n    the flood, lose thy voyage, and, in losing thy voyage, lose thy\n    master, and, in losing thy master, lose thy service, and, in\n    losing thy service- Why dost thou stop my mouth?\n  LAUNCE. For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue.\n  PANTHINO. Where should I lose my tongue?\n  LAUNCE. In thy tale.\n  PANTHINO. In thy tail!\n  LAUNCE. Lose the tide, and the voyage, and the master, and the\n    service, and the tied! Why, man, if the river were dry, I am able\n    to fill it with my tears; if the wind were down, I could drive\n    the boat with my sighs.\n  PANTHINO. Come, come away, man; I was sent to call thee.\n  LAUNCE. Sir, call me what thou dar'st.\n  PANTHINO. Will thou go?\n  LAUNCE. Well, I will go.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter SILVIA, VALENTINE, THURIO, and SPEED\n\n  SILVIA. Servant!\n  VALENTINE. Mistress?\n  SPEED. Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you.\n  VALENTINE. Ay, boy, it's for love.\n  SPEED. Not of you.\n  VALENTINE. Of my mistress, then.\n  SPEED. 'Twere good you knock'd him.                       Exit\n  SILVIA. Servant, you are sad.\n  VALENTINE. Indeed, madam, I seem so.\n  THURIO. Seem you that you are not?\n  VALENTINE. Haply I do.\n  THURIO. So do counterfeits.\n  VALENTINE. So do you.\n  THURIO. What seem I that I am not?\n  VALENTINE. Wise.\n  THURIO. What instance of the contrary?\n  VALENTINE. Your folly.\n  THURIO. And how quote you my folly?\n  VALENTINE. I quote it in your jerkin.\n  THURIO. My jerkin is a doublet.\n  VALENTINE. Well, then, I'll double your folly.\n  THURIO. How?\n  SILVIA. What, angry, Sir Thurio! Do you change colour?\n  VALENTINE. Give him leave, madam; he is a kind of chameleon.\n  THURIO. That hath more mind to feed on your blood than live in your\n    air.\n  VALENTINE. You have said, sir.\n  THURIO. Ay, sir, and done too, for this time.\n  VALENTINE. I know it well, sir; you always end ere you begin.\n  SILVIA. A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off.\n  VALENTINE. 'Tis indeed, madam; we thank the giver.\n  SILVIA. Who is that, servant?\n  VALENTINE. Yourself, sweet lady; for you gave the fire. Sir Thurio\n    borrows his wit from your ladyship's looks, and spends what he\n    borrows kindly in your company.\n  THURIO. Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall make your\n    wit bankrupt.\n  VALENTINE. I know it well, sir; you have an exchequer of words,\n    and, I think, no other treasure to give your followers; for it\n    appears by their bare liveries that they live by your bare words.\n\n                             Enter DUKE\n\n  SILVIA. No more, gentlemen, no more. Here comes my father.\n  DUKE. Now, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset.\n    Sir Valentine, your father is in good health.\n    What say you to a letter from your friends\n    Of much good news?\n  VALENTINE. My lord, I will be thankful\n    To any happy messenger from thence.\n  DUKE. Know ye Don Antonio, your countryman?\n  VALENTINE. Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman\n    To be of worth and worthy estimation,\n    And not without desert so well reputed.\n  DUKE. Hath he not a son?\n  VALENTINE. Ay, my good lord; a son that well deserves\n    The honour and regard of such a father.\n  DUKE. You know him well?\n  VALENTINE. I knew him as myself; for from our infancy\n    We have convers'd and spent our hours together;\n    And though myself have been an idle truant,\n    Omitting the sweet benefit of time\n    To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection,\n    Yet hath Sir Proteus, for that's his name,\n    Made use and fair advantage of his days:\n    His years but young, but his experience old;\n    His head unmellowed, but his judgment ripe;\n    And, in a word, for far behind his worth\n    Comes all the praises that I now bestow,\n    He is complete in feature and in mind,\n    With all good grace to grace a gentleman.\n  DUKE. Beshrew me, sir, but if he make this good,\n    He is as worthy for an empress' love\n    As meet to be an emperor's counsellor.\n    Well, sir, this gentleman is come to me\n    With commendation from great potentates,\n    And here he means to spend his time awhile.\n    I think 'tis no unwelcome news to you.\n  VALENTINE. Should I have wish'd a thing, it had been he.\n  DUKE. Welcome him, then, according to his worth-\n    Silvia, I speak to you, and you, Sir Thurio;\n    For Valentine, I need not cite him to it.\n    I will send him hither to you presently.           Exit DUKE\n  VALENTINE. This is the gentleman I told your ladyship\n    Had come along with me but that his mistresss\n    Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks.\n  SILVIA. Belike that now she hath enfranchis'd them\n    Upon some other pawn for fealty.\n  VALENTINE. Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.\n  SILVIA. Nay, then, he should be blind; and, being blind,\n    How could he see his way to seek out you?\n  VALENTINE. Why, lady, Love hath twenty pair of eyes.\n  THURIO. They say that Love hath not an eye at all.\n  VALENTINE. To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself;\n    Upon a homely object Love can wink.              Exit THURIO\n\n                         Enter PROTEUS\n\n  SILVIA. Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman.\n  VALENTINE. Welcome, dear Proteus! Mistress, I beseech you\n    Confirm his welcome with some special favour.\n  SILVIA. His worth is warrant for his welcome hither,\n    If this be he you oft have wish'd to hear from.\n  VALENTINE. Mistress, it is; sweet lady, entertain him\n    To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.\n  SILVIA. Too low a mistress for so high a servant.\n  PROTEUS. Not so, sweet lady; but too mean a servant\n    To have a look of such a worthy mistress.\n  VALENTINE. Leave off discourse of disability;\n    Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.\n  PROTEUS. My duty will I boast of, nothing else.\n  SILVIA. And duty never yet did want his meed.\n    Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.\n  PROTEUS. I'll die on him that says so but yourself.\n  SILVIA. That you are welcome?\n  PROTEUS. That you are worthless.\n\n                          Re-enter THURIO\n\n  THURIO. Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.\n  SILVIA. I wait upon his pleasure. Come, Sir Thurio,\n    Go with me. Once more, new servant, welcome.\n    I'll leave you to confer of home affairs;\n    When you have done we look to hear from you.\n  PROTEUS. We'll both attend upon your ladyship.\n                                        Exeunt SILVIA and THURIO\n  VALENTINE. Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came?\n  PROTEUS. Your friends are well, and have them much commended.\n  VALENTINE. And how do yours?\n  PROTEUS. I left them all in health.\n  VALENTINE. How does your lady, and how thrives your love?\n  PROTEUS. My tales of love were wont to weary you;\n    I know you joy not in a love-discourse.\n  VALENTINE. Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter'd now;\n    I have done penance for contemning Love,\n    Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd me\n    With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,\n    With nightly tears, and daily heart-sore sighs;\n    For, in revenge of my contempt of love,\n    Love hath chas'd sleep from my enthralled eyes\n    And made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow.\n    O gentle Proteus, Love's a mighty lord,\n    And hath so humbled me as I confess\n    There is no woe to his correction,\n    Nor to his service no such joy on earth.\n    Now no discourse, except it be of love;\n    Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep,\n    Upon the very naked name of love.\n  PROTEUS. Enough; I read your fortune in your eye.\n    Was this the idol that you worship so?\n  VALENTINE. Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?\n  PROTEUS. No; but she is an earthly paragon.\n  VALENTINE. Call her divine.\n  PROTEUS. I will not flatter her.\n  VALENTINE. O, flatter me; for love delights in praises!\n  PROTEUS. When I was sick you gave me bitter pills,\n    And I must minister the like to you.\n  VALENTINE. Then speak the truth by her; if not divine,\n    Yet let her be a principality,\n    Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.\n  PROTEUS. Except my mistress.\n  VALENTINE. Sweet, except not any;\n    Except thou wilt except against my love.\n  PROTEUS. Have I not reason to prefer mine own?\n  VALENTINE. And I will help thee to prefer her too:\n    She shall be dignified with this high honour-\n    To bear my lady's train, lest the base earth\n    Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss\n    And, of so great a favour growing proud,\n    Disdain to root the summer-swelling flow'r\n    And make rough winter everlastingly.\n  PROTEUS. Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this?\n  VALENTINE. Pardon me, Proteus; all I can is nothing\n    To her, whose worth makes other worthies nothing;\n    She is alone.\n  PROTEUS. Then let her alone.\n  VALENTINE. Not for the world! Why, man, she is mine own;\n    And I as rich in having such a jewel\n    As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,\n    The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.\n    Forgive me that I do not dream on thee,\n    Because thou seest me dote upon my love.\n    My foolish rival, that her father likes\n    Only for his possessions are so huge,\n    Is gone with her along; and I must after,\n    For love, thou know'st, is full of jealousy.\n  PROTEUS. But she loves you?\n  VALENTINE. Ay, and we are betroth'd; nay more, our marriage-hour,\n    With all the cunning manner of our flight,\n    Determin'd of- how I must climb her window,\n    The ladder made of cords, and all the means\n    Plotted and 'greed on for my happiness.\n    Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber,\n    In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel.\n  PROTEUS. Go on before; I shall enquire you forth;\n    I must unto the road to disembark\n    Some necessaries that I needs must use;\n    And then I'll presently attend you.\n  VALENTINE. Will you make haste?\n  PROTEUS. I will.                                Exit VALENTINE\n    Even as one heat another heat expels\n    Or as one nail by strength drives out another,\n    So the remembrance of my former love\n    Is by a newer object quite forgotten.\n    Is it my mind, or Valentinus' praise,\n    Her true perfection, or my false transgression,\n    That makes me reasonless to reason thus?\n    She is fair; and so is Julia that I love-\n    That I did love, for now my love is thaw'd;\n    Which like a waxen image 'gainst a fire\n    Bears no impression of the thing it was.\n    Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold,\n    And that I love him not as I was wont.\n    O! but I love his lady too too much,\n    And that's the reason I love him so little.\n    How shall I dote on her with more advice\n    That thus without advice begin to love her!\n    'Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,\n    And that hath dazzled my reason's light;\n    But when I look on her perfections,\n    There is no reason but I shall be blind.\n    If I can check my erring love, I will;\n    If not, to compass her I'll use my skill.               Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nMilan. A street\n\nEnter SPEED and LAUNCE severally\n\n  SPEED. Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to Padua.\n  LAUNCE. Forswear not thyself, sweet youth, for I am not welcome. I\n    reckon this always, that a man is never undone till he be hang'd,\n    nor never welcome to a place till some certain shot be paid, and\n    the hostess say 'Welcome!'\n  SPEED. Come on, you madcap; I'll to the alehouse with you\n    presently; where, for one shot of five pence, thou shalt have\n    five thousand welcomes. But, sirrah, how did thy master part with\n    Madam Julia?\n  LAUNCE. Marry, after they clos'd in earnest, they parted very\n    fairly in jest.\n  SPEED. But shall she marry him?\n  LAUNCE. No.\n  SPEED. How then? Shall he marry her?\n  LAUNCE. No, neither.\n  SPEED. What, are they broken?\n  LAUNCE. No, they are both as whole as a fish.\n  SPEED. Why then, how stands the matter with them?\n  LAUNCE. Marry, thus: when it stands well with him, it stands well\n    with her.\n  SPEED. What an ass art thou! I understand thee not.\n  LAUNCE. What a block art thou that thou canst not! My staff\n    understands me.\n  SPEED. What thou say'st?\n  LAUNCE. Ay, and what I do too; look thee, I'll but lean, and my\n    staff understands me.\n  SPEED. It stands under thee, indeed.\n  LAUNCE. Why, stand-under and under-stand is all one.\n  SPEED. But tell me true, will't be a match?\n  LAUNCE. Ask my dog. If he say ay, it will; if he say no, it will;\n    if he shake his tail and say nothing, it will.\n  SPEED. The conclusion is, then, that it will.\n  LAUNCE. Thou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a\n    parable.\n  SPEED. 'Tis well that I get it so. But, Launce, how say'st thou\n    that my master is become a notable lover?\n  LAUNCE. I never knew him otherwise.\n  SPEED. Than how?\n  LAUNCE. A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to be.\n  SPEED. Why, thou whoreson ass, thou mistak'st me.\n  LAUNCE. Why, fool, I meant not thee, I meant thy master.\n  SPEED. I tell thee my master is become a hot lover.\n  LAUNCE. Why, I tell thee I care not though he burn himself in love.\n    If thou wilt, go with me to the alehouse; if not, thou art an\n    Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian.\n  SPEED. Why?\n  LAUNCE. Because thou hast not so much charity in thee as to go to\n    the ale with a Christian. Wilt thou go?\n  SPEED. At thy service.                                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nMilan. The DUKE's palace\n\nEnter PROTEUS\n\n  PROTEUS. To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn;\n    To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn;\n    To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn;\n    And ev'n that pow'r which gave me first my oath\n    Provokes me to this threefold perjury:\n    Love bade me swear, and Love bids me forswear.\n    O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinn'd,\n    Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!\n    At first I did adore a twinkling star,\n    But now I worship a celestial sun.\n    Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken;\n    And he wants wit that wants resolved will\n    To learn his wit t' exchange the bad for better.\n    Fie, fie, unreverend tongue, to call her bad\n    Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr'd\n    With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths!\n    I cannot leave to love, and yet I do;\n    But there I leave to love where I should love.\n    Julia I lose, and Valentine I lose;\n    If I keep them, I needs must lose myself;\n    If I lose them, thus find I by their loss:\n    For Valentine, myself; for Julia, Silvia.\n    I to myself am dearer than a friend;\n    For love is still most precious in itself;\n    And Silvia- witness heaven, that made her fair!-\n    Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.\n    I will forget that Julia is alive,\n    Rememb'ring that my love to her is dead;\n    And Valentine I'll hold an enemy,\n    Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.\n    I cannot now prove constant to myself\n    Without some treachery us'd to Valentine.\n    This night he meaneth with a corded ladder\n    To climb celestial Silvia's chamber window,\n    Myself in counsel, his competitor.\n    Now presently I'll give her father notice\n    Of their disguising and pretended flight,\n    Who, all enrag'd, will banish Valentine,\n    For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter;\n    But, Valentine being gone, I'll quickly cross\n    By some sly trick blunt Thurio's dull proceeding.\n    Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,\n    As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift.            Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nVerona. JULIA'S house\n\nEnter JULIA and LUCETTA\n\n  JULIA. Counsel, Lucetta; gentle girl, assist me;\n    And, ev'n in kind love, I do conjure thee,\n    Who art the table wherein all my thoughts\n    Are visibly character'd and engrav'd,\n    To lesson me and tell me some good mean\n    How, with my honour, I may undertake\n    A journey to my loving Proteus.\n  LUCETTA. Alas, the way is wearisome and long!\n  JULIA. A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary\n    To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps;\n    Much less shall she that hath Love's wings to fly,\n    And when the flight is made to one so dear,\n    Of such divine perfection, as Sir Proteus.\n  LUCETTA. Better forbear till Proteus make return.\n  JULIA. O, know'st thou not his looks are my soul's food?\n    Pity the dearth that I have pined in\n    By longing for that food so long a time.\n    Didst thou but know the inly touch of love.\n    Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow\n    As seek to quench the fire of love with words.\n  LUCETTA. I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire,\n    But qualify the fire's extreme rage,\n    Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.\n  JULIA. The more thou dam'st it up, the more it burns.\n    The current that with gentle murmur glides,\n    Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;\n    But when his fair course is not hindered,\n    He makes sweet music with th' enamell'd stones,\n    Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge\n    He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;\n    And so by many winding nooks he strays,\n    With willing sport, to the wild ocean.\n    Then let me go, and hinder not my course.\n    I'll be as patient as a gentle stream,\n    And make a pastime of each weary step,\n    Till the last step have brought me to my love;\n    And there I'll rest as, after much turmoil,\n    A blessed soul doth in Elysium.\n  LUCETTA. But in what habit will you go along?\n  JULIA. Not like a woman, for I would prevent\n    The loose encounters of lascivious men;\n    Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds\n    As may beseem some well-reputed page.\n  LUCETTA. Why then, your ladyship must cut your hair.\n  JULIA. No, girl; I'll knit it up in silken strings\n    With twenty odd-conceited true-love knots-\n    To be fantastic may become a youth\n    Of greater time than I shall show to be.\n  LUCETTA. What fashion, madam, shall I make your breeches?\n  JULIA. That fits as well as 'Tell me, good my lord,\n    What compass will you wear your farthingale.'\n    Why ev'n what fashion thou best likes, Lucetta.\n  LUCETTA. You must needs have them with a codpiece, madam.\n  JULIA. Out, out, Lucetta, that will be ill-favour'd.\n  LUCETTA. A round hose, madam, now's not worth a pin,\n    Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on.\n  JULIA. Lucetta, as thou lov'st me, let me have\n    What thou think'st meet, and is most mannerly.\n    But tell me, wench, how will the world repute me\n    For undertaking so unstaid a journey?\n    I fear me it will make me scandaliz'd.\n  LUCETTA. If you think so, then stay at home and go not.\n  JULIA. Nay, that I will not.\n  LUCETTA. Then never dream on infamy, but go.\n    If Proteus like your journey when you come,\n    No matter who's displeas'd when you are gone.\n    I fear me he will scarce be pleas'd withal.\n  JULIA. That is the least, Lucetta, of my fear:\n    A thousand oaths, an ocean of his tears,\n    And instances of infinite of love,\n    Warrant me welcome to my Proteus.\n  LUCETTA. All these are servants to deceitful men.\n  JULIA. Base men that use them to so base effect!\n    But truer stars did govern Proteus' birth;\n    His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles,\n    His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate,\n    His tears pure messengers sent from his heart,\n    His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.\n  LUCETTA. Pray heav'n he prove so when you come to him.\n  JULIA. Now, as thou lov'st me, do him not that wrong\n    To bear a hard opinion of his truth;\n    Only deserve my love by loving him.\n    And presently go with me to my chamber,\n    To take a note of what I stand in need of\n    To furnish me upon my longing journey.\n    All that is mine I leave at thy dispose,\n    My goods, my lands, my reputation;\n    Only, in lieu thereof, dispatch me hence.\n    Come, answer not, but to it presently;\n    I am impatient of my tarriance.                       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter DUKE, THURIO, and PROTEUS\n\n  DUKE. Sir Thurio, give us leave, I pray, awhile;\n    We have some secrets to confer about.            Exit THURIO\n    Now tell me, Proteus, what's your will with me?\n  PROTEUS. My gracious lord, that which I would discover\n    The law of friendship bids me to conceal;\n    But, when I call to mind your gracious favours\n    Done to me, undeserving as I am,\n    My duty pricks me on to utter that\n    Which else no worldly good should draw from me.\n    Know, worthy prince, Sir Valentine, my friend,\n    This night intends to steal away your daughter;\n    Myself am one made privy to the plot.\n    I know you have determin'd to bestow her\n    On Thurio, whom your gentle daughter hates;\n    And should she thus be stol'n away from you,\n    It would be much vexation to your age.\n    Thus, for my duty's sake, I rather chose\n    To cross my friend in his intended drift\n    Than, by concealing it, heap on your head\n    A pack of sorrows which would press you down,\n    Being unprevented, to your timeless grave.\n  DUKE. Proteus, I thank thee for thine honest care,\n    Which to requite, command me while I live.\n    This love of theirs myself have often seen,\n    Haply when they have judg'd me fast asleep,\n    And oftentimes have purpos'd to forbid\n    Sir Valentine her company and my court;\n    But, fearing lest my jealous aim might err\n    And so, unworthily, disgrace the man,\n    A rashness that I ever yet have shunn'd,\n    I gave him gentle looks, thereby to find\n    That which thyself hast now disclos'd to me.\n    And, that thou mayst perceive my fear of this,\n    Knowing that tender youth is soon suggested,\n    I nightly lodge her in an upper tow'r,\n    The key whereof myself have ever kept;\n    And thence she cannot be convey'd away.\n  PROTEUS. Know, noble lord, they have devis'd a mean\n    How he her chamber window will ascend\n    And with a corded ladder fetch her down;\n    For which the youthful lover now is gone,\n    And this way comes he with it presently;\n    Where, if it please you, you may intercept him.\n    But, good my lord, do it so cunningly\n    That my discovery be not aimed at;\n    For love of you, not hate unto my friend,\n    Hath made me publisher of this pretence.\n  DUKE. Upon mine honour, he shall never know\n    That I had any light from thee of this.\n  PROTEUS. Adieu, my lord; Sir Valentine is coming.         Exit\n\n                        Enter VALENTINE\n\n  DUKE. Sir Valentine, whither away so fast?\n  VALENTINE. Please it your Grace, there is a messenger\n    That stays to bear my letters to my friends,\n    And I am going to deliver them.\n  DUKE. Be they of much import?\n  VALENTINE. The tenour of them doth but signify\n    My health and happy being at your court.\n  DUKE. Nay then, no matter; stay with me awhile;\n    I am to break with thee of some affairs\n    That touch me near, wherein thou must be secret.\n    'Tis not unknown to thee that I have sought\n    To match my friend Sir Thurio to my daughter.\n  VALENTINE. I know it well, my lord; and, sure, the match\n    Were rich and honourable; besides, the gentleman\n    Is full of virtue, bounty, worth, and qualities\n    Beseeming such a wife as your fair daughter.\n    Cannot your grace win her to fancy him?\n  DUKE. No, trust me; she is peevish, sullen, froward,\n    Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty;\n    Neither regarding that she is my child\n    Nor fearing me as if I were her father;\n    And, may I say to thee, this pride of hers,\n    Upon advice, hath drawn my love from her;\n    And, where I thought the remnant of mine age\n    Should have been cherish'd by her childlike duty,\n    I now am full resolv'd to take a wife\n    And turn her out to who will take her in.\n    Then let her beauty be her wedding-dow'r;\n    For me and my possessions she esteems not.\n  VALENTINE. What would your Grace have me to do in this?\n  DUKE. There is a lady, in Verona here,\n    Whom I affect; but she is nice, and coy,\n    And nought esteems my aged eloquence.\n    Now, therefore, would I have thee to my tutor-\n    For long agone I have forgot to court;\n    Besides, the fashion of the time is chang'd-\n    How and which way I may bestow myself\n    To be regarded in her sun-bright eye.\n  VALENTINE. Win her with gifts, if she respect not words:\n    Dumb jewels often in their silent kind\n    More than quick words do move a woman's mind.\n  DUKE. But she did scorn a present that I sent her.\n  VALENTINE. A woman sometime scorns what best contents her.\n    Send her another; never give her o'er,\n    For scorn at first makes after-love the more.\n    If she do frown, 'tis not in hate of you,\n    But rather to beget more love in you;\n    If she do chide, 'tis not to have you gone,\n    For why, the fools are mad if left alone.\n    Take no repulse, whatever she doth say;\n    For 'Get you gone' she doth not mean 'Away!'\n    Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces;\n    Though ne'er so black, say they have angels' faces.\n    That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,\n    If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.\n  DUKE. But she I mean is promis'd by her friends\n    Unto a youthful gentleman of worth;\n    And kept severely from resort of men,\n    That no man hath access by day to her.\n  VALENTINE. Why then I would resort to her by night.\n  DUKE. Ay, but the doors be lock'd and keys kept safe,\n    That no man hath recourse to her by night.\n  VALENTINE. What lets but one may enter at her window?\n  DUKE. Her chamber is aloft, far from the ground,\n    And built so shelving that one cannot climb it\n    Without apparent hazard of his life.\n  VALENTINE. Why then a ladder, quaintly made of cords,\n    To cast up with a pair of anchoring hooks,\n    Would serve to scale another Hero's tow'r,\n    So bold Leander would adventure it.\n  DUKE. Now, as thou art a gentleman of blood,\n    Advise me where I may have such a ladder.\n  VALENTINE. When would you use it? Pray, sir, tell me that.\n  DUKE. This very night; for Love is like a child,\n    That longs for everything that he can come by.\n  VALENTINE. By seven o'clock I'll get you such a ladder.\n  DUKE. But, hark thee; I will go to her alone;\n    How shall I best convey the ladder thither?\n  VALENTINE. It will be light, my lord, that you may bear it\n    Under a cloak that is of any length.\n  DUKE. A cloak as long as thine will serve the turn?\n  VALENTINE. Ay, my good lord.\n  DUKE. Then let me see thy cloak.\n    I'll get me one of such another length.\n  VALENTINE. Why, any cloak will serve the turn, my lord.\n  DUKE. How shall I fashion me to wear a cloak?\n    I pray thee, let me feel thy cloak upon me.\n    What letter is this same? What's here? 'To Silvia'!\n    And here an engine fit for my proceeding!\n    I'll be so bold to break the seal for once.          [Reads]\n      'My thoughts do harbour with my Silvia nightly,\n        And slaves they are to me, that send them flying.\n      O, could their master come and go as lightly,\n        Himself would lodge where, senseless, they are lying!\n      My herald thoughts in thy pure bosom rest them,\n        While I, their king, that thither them importune,\n      Do curse the grace that with such grace hath blest them,\n        Because myself do want my servants' fortune.\n      I curse myself, for they are sent by me,\n        That they should harbour where their lord should be.'\n    What's here?\n      'Silvia, this night I will enfranchise thee.'\n    'Tis so; and here's the ladder for the purpose.\n    Why, Phaethon- for thou art Merops' son-\n    Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car,\n    And with thy daring folly burn the world?\n    Wilt thou reach stars because they shine on thee?\n    Go, base intruder, over-weening slave,\n    Bestow thy fawning smiles on equal mates;\n    And think my patience, more than thy desert,\n    Is privilege for thy departure hence.\n    Thank me for this more than for all the favours\n    Which, all too much, I have bestow'd on thee.\n    But if thou linger in my territories\n    Longer than swiftest expedition\n    Will give thee time to leave our royal court,\n    By heaven! my wrath shall far exceed the love\n    I ever bore my daughter or thyself.\n    Be gone; I will not hear thy vain excuse,\n    But, as thou lov'st thy life, make speed from hence.    Exit\n  VALENTINE. And why not death rather than living torment?\n    To die is to be banish'd from myself,\n    And Silvia is myself; banish'd from her\n    Is self from self, a deadly banishment.\n    What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?\n    What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?\n    Unless it be to think that she is by,\n    And feed upon the shadow of perfection.\n    Except I be by Silvia in the night,\n    There is no music in the nightingale;\n    Unless I look on Silvia in the day,\n    There is no day for me to look upon.\n    She is my essence, and I leave to be\n    If I be not by her fair influence\n    Foster'd, illumin'd, cherish'd, kept alive.\n    I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom:\n    Tarry I here, I but attend on death;\n    But fly I hence, I fly away from life.\n\n                      Enter PROTEUS and LAUNCE\n\n  PROTEUS. Run, boy, run, run, seek him out.\n  LAUNCE. So-ho, so-ho!\n  PROTEUS. What seest thou?\n  LAUNCE. Him we go to find: there's not a hair on 's head but 'tis a\n    Valentine.\n  PROTEUS. Valentine?\n  VALENTINE. No.\n  PROTEUS. Who then? his spirit?\n  VALENTINE. Neither.\n  PROTEUS. What then?\n  VALENTINE. Nothing.\n  LAUNCE. Can nothing speak? Master, shall I strike?\n  PROTEUS. Who wouldst thou strike?\n  LAUNCE. Nothing.\n  PROTEUS. Villain, forbear.\n  LAUNCE. Why, sir, I'll strike nothing. I pray you-\n  PROTEUS. Sirrah, I say, forbear. Friend Valentine, a word.\n  VALENTINE. My ears are stopp'd and cannot hear good news,\n    So much of bad already hath possess'd them.\n  PROTEUS. Then in dumb silence will I bury mine,\n    For they are harsh, untuneable, and bad.\n  VALENTINE. Is Silvia dead?\n  PROTEUS. No, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. No Valentine, indeed, for sacred Silvia.\n    Hath she forsworn me?\n  PROTEUS. No, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. No Valentine, if Silvia have forsworn me.\n    What is your news?\n  LAUNCE. Sir, there is a proclamation that you are vanished.\n  PROTEUS. That thou art banished- O, that's the news!-\n    From hence, from Silvia, and from me thy friend.\n  VALENTINE. O, I have fed upon this woe already,\n    And now excess of it will make me surfeit.\n    Doth Silvia know that I am banished?\n  PROTEUS. Ay, ay; and she hath offered to the doom-\n    Which, unrevers'd, stands in effectual force-\n    A sea of melting pearl, which some call tears;\n    Those at her father's churlish feet she tender'd;\n    With them, upon her knees, her humble self,\n    Wringing her hands, whose whiteness so became them\n    As if but now they waxed pale for woe.\n    But neither bended knees, pure hands held up,\n    Sad sighs, deep groans, nor silver-shedding tears,\n    Could penetrate her uncompassionate sire-\n    But Valentine, if he be ta'en, must die.\n    Besides, her intercession chaf'd him so,\n    When she for thy repeal was suppliant,\n    That to close prison he commanded her,\n    With many bitter threats of biding there.\n  VALENTINE. No more; unless the next word that thou speak'st\n    Have some malignant power upon my life:\n    If so, I pray thee breathe it in mine ear,\n    As ending anthem of my endless dolour.\n  PROTEUS. Cease to lament for that thou canst not help,\n    And study help for that which thou lament'st.\n    Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.\n    Here if thou stay thou canst not see thy love;\n    Besides, thy staying will abridge thy life.\n    Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that,\n    And manage it against despairing thoughts.\n    Thy letters may be here, though thou art hence,\n    Which, being writ to me, shall be deliver'd\n    Even in the milk-white bosom of thy love.\n    The time now serves not to expostulate.\n    Come, I'll convey thee through the city gate;\n    And, ere I part with thee, confer at large\n    Of all that may concern thy love affairs.\n    As thou lov'st Silvia, though not for thyself,\n    Regard thy danger, and along with me.\n  VALENTINE. I pray thee, Launce, an if thou seest my boy,\n    Bid him make haste and meet me at the Northgate.\n  PROTEUS. Go, sirrah, find him out. Come, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. O my dear Silvia! Hapless Valentine!\n                                    Exeunt VALENTINE and PROTEUS\n  LAUNCE. I am but a fool, look you, and yet I have the wit to think\n    my master is a kind of a knave; but that's all one if he be but\n    one knave. He lives not now that knows me to be in love; yet I am\n    in love; but a team of horse shall not pluck that from me; nor\n    who 'tis I love; and yet 'tis a woman; but what woman I will not\n    tell myself; and yet 'tis a milkmaid; yet 'tis not a maid, for\n    she hath had gossips; yet 'tis a maid, for she is her master's\n    maid and serves for wages. She hath more qualities than a\n    water-spaniel- which is much in a bare Christian. Here is the\n    cate-log  [Pulling out a paper]  of her condition. 'Inprimis: She\n    can fetch and carry.' Why, a horse can do no more; nay, a horse\n    cannot fetch, but only carry; therefore is she better than a\n    jade. 'Item: She can milk.' Look you, a sweet virtue in a maid\n    with clean hands.\n\n                             Enter SPEED\n\n  SPEED. How now, Signior Launce! What news with your mastership?\n  LAUNCE. With my master's ship? Why, it is at sea.\n  SPEED. Well, your old vice still: mistake the word. What news,\n    then, in your paper?\n  LAUNCE. The black'st news that ever thou heard'st.\n  SPEED. Why, man? how black?\n  LAUNCE. Why, as black as ink.\n  SPEED. Let me read them.\n  LAUNCE. Fie on thee, jolt-head; thou canst not read.\n  SPEED. Thou liest; I can.\n  LAUNCE. I will try thee. Tell me this: Who begot thee?\n  SPEED. Marry, the son of my grandfather.\n  LAUNCE. O illiterate loiterer. It was the son of thy grandmother.\n    This proves that thou canst not read.\n  SPEED. Come, fool, come; try me in thy paper.\n  LAUNCE.  [Handing over the paper]  There; and Saint Nicholas be thy\n    speed.\n  SPEED.  [Reads]  'Inprimis: She can milk.'\n  LAUNCE. Ay, that she can.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She brews good ale.'\n  LAUNCE. And thereof comes the proverb: Blessing of your heart, you\n    brew good ale.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She can sew.'\n  LAUNCE. That's as much as to say 'Can she so?'\n  SPEED. 'Item: She can knit.'\n  LAUNCE. What need a man care for a stock with a wench, when she can\n    knit him a stock.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She can wash and scour.'\n  LAUNCE. A special virtue; for then she need not be wash'd and\n    scour'd.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She can spin.'\n  LAUNCE. Then may I set the world on wheels, when she can spin for\n    her living.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath many nameless virtues.'\n  LAUNCE. That's as much as to say 'bastard virtues'; that indeed\n    know not their fathers, and therefore have no names.\n  SPEED. 'Here follow her vices.'\n  LAUNCE. Close at the heels of her virtues.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is not to be kiss'd fasting, in respect of her\n    breath.'\n  LAUNCE. Well, that fault may be mended with a breakfast.\n    Read on.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath a sweet mouth.'\n  LAUNCE. That makes amends for her sour breath.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She doth talk in her sleep.'\n  LAUNCE. It's no matter for that, so she sleep not in her talk.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is slow in words.'\n  LAUNCE. O villain, that set this down among her vices! To be slow\n    in words is a woman's only virtue. I pray thee, out with't; and\n    place it for her chief virtue.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is proud.'\n  LAUNCE. Out with that too; it was Eve's legacy, and cannot be ta'en\n    from her.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath no teeth.'\n  LAUNCE. I care not for that neither, because I love crusts.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is curst.'\n  LAUNCE. Well, the best is, she hath no teeth to bite.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She will often praise her liquor.'\n  LAUNCE. If her liquor be good, she shall; if she will not, I will;\n    for good things should be praised.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is too liberal.'\n  LAUNCE. Of her tongue she cannot, for that's writ down she is slow\n    of; of her purse she shall not, for that I'll keep shut. Now of\n    another thing she may, and that cannot I help. Well, proceed.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath more hair than wit, and more faults\n    than hairs, and more wealth than faults.'\n  LAUNCE. Stop there; I'll have her; she was mine, and not mine,\n    twice or thrice in that last article. Rehearse that once more.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath more hair than wit'-\n  LAUNCE. More hair than wit. It may be; I'll prove it: the cover of\n    the salt hides the salt, and therefore it is more than the salt;\n    the hair that covers the wit is more than the wit, for the\n    greater hides the less. What's next?\n  SPEED. 'And more faults than hairs'-\n  LAUNCE. That's monstrous. O that that were out!\n  SPEED. 'And more wealth than faults.'\n  LAUNCE. Why, that word makes the faults gracious. Well, I'll have\n    her; an if it be a match, as nothing is impossible-\n  SPEED. What then?\n  LAUNCE. Why, then will I tell thee- that thy master stays for thee\n    at the Northgate.\n  SPEED. For me?\n  LAUNCE. For thee! ay, who art thou? He hath stay'd for a better man\n    than thee.\n  SPEED. And must I go to him?\n  LAUNCE. Thou must run to him, for thou hast stay'd so long that\n    going will scarce serve the turn.\n  SPEED. Why didst not tell me sooner? Pox of your love letters!\n Exit\n  LAUNCE. Now will he be swing'd for reading my letter. An unmannerly\n    slave that will thrust himself into secrets! I'll after, to\n    rejoice in the boy's correction.                        Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter DUKE and THURIO\n\n  DUKE. Sir Thurio, fear not but that she will love you\n    Now Valentine is banish'd from her sight.\n  THURIO. Since his exile she hath despis'd me most,\n    Forsworn my company and rail'd at me,\n    That I am desperate of obtaining her.\n  DUKE. This weak impress of love is as a figure\n    Trenched in ice, which with an hour's heat\n    Dissolves to water and doth lose his form.\n    A little time will melt her frozen thoughts,\n    And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.\n\n                          Enter PROTEUS\n\n    How now, Sir Proteus! Is your countryman,\n    According to our proclamation, gone?\n  PROTEUS. Gone, my good lord.\n  DUKE. My daughter takes his going grievously.\n  PROTEUS. A little time, my lord, will kill that grief.\n  DUKE. So I believe; but Thurio thinks not so.\n    Proteus, the good conceit I hold of thee-\n    For thou hast shown some sign of good desert-\n    Makes me the better to confer with thee.\n  PROTEUS. Longer than I prove loyal to your Grace\n    Let me not live to look upon your Grace.\n  DUKE. Thou know'st how willingly I would effect\n    The match between Sir Thurio and my daughter.\n  PROTEUS. I do, my lord.\n  DUKE. And also, I think, thou art not ignorant\n    How she opposes her against my will.\n  PROTEUS. She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.\n  DUKE. Ay, and perversely she persevers so.\n    What might we do to make the girl forget\n    The love of Valentine, and love Sir Thurio?\n  PROTEUS. The best way is to slander Valentine\n    With falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent-\n    Three things that women highly hold in hate.\n  DUKE. Ay, but she'll think that it is spoke in hate.\n  PROTEUS. Ay, if his enemy deliver it;\n    Therefore it must with circumstance be spoken\n    By one whom she esteemeth as his friend.\n  DUKE. Then you must undertake to slander him.\n  PROTEUS. And that, my lord, I shall be loath to do:\n    'Tis an ill office for a gentleman,\n    Especially against his very friend.\n  DUKE. Where your good word cannot advantage him,\n    Your slander never can endamage him;\n    Therefore the office is indifferent,\n    Being entreated to it by your friend.\n  PROTEUS. You have prevail'd, my lord; if I can do it\n    By aught that I can speak in his dispraise,\n    She shall not long continue love to him.\n    But say this weed her love from Valentine,\n    It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio.\n  THURIO. Therefore, as you unwind her love from him,\n    Lest it should ravel and be good to none,\n    You must provide to bottom it on me;\n    Which must be done by praising me as much\n    As you in worth dispraise Sir Valentine.\n  DUKE. And, Proteus, we dare trust you in this kind,\n    Because we know, on Valentine's report,\n    You are already Love's firm votary\n    And cannot soon revolt and change your mind.\n    Upon this warrant shall you have access\n    Where you with Silvia may confer at large-\n    For she is lumpish, heavy, melancholy,\n    And, for your friend's sake, will be glad of you-\n    Where you may temper her by your persuasion\n    To hate young Valentine and love my friend.\n  PROTEUS. As much as I can do I will effect.\n    But you, Sir Thurio, are not sharp enough;\n    You must lay lime to tangle her desires\n    By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes\n    Should be full-fraught with serviceable vows.\n  DUKE. Ay,\n    Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.\n  PROTEUS. Say that upon the altar of her beauty\n    You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart;\n    Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears\n    Moist it again, and frame some feeling line\n    That may discover such integrity;\n    For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews,\n    Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,\n    Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans\n    Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.\n    After your dire-lamenting elegies,\n    Visit by night your lady's chamber window\n    With some sweet consort; to their instruments\n    Tune a deploring dump- the night's dead silence\n    Will well become such sweet-complaining grievance.\n    This, or else nothing, will inherit her.\n  DUKE. This discipline shows thou hast been in love.\n  THURIO. And thy advice this night I'll put in practice;\n    Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,\n    Let us into the city presently\n    To sort some gentlemen well skill'd in music.\n    I have a sonnet that will serve the turn\n    To give the onset to thy good advice.\n  DUKE. About it, gentlemen!\n  PROTEUS. We'll wait upon your Grace till after supper,\n    And afterward determine our proceedings.\n  DUKE. Even now about it! I will pardon you.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT_4|SC_1\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nThe frontiers of Mantua. A forest\n\nEnter certain OUTLAWS\n\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. If there be ten, shrink not, but down with 'em.\n\n                  Enter VALENTINE and SPEED\n\n  THIRD OUTLAW. Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye;\n    If not, we'll make you sit, and rifle you.\n  SPEED. Sir, we are undone; these are the villains\n    That all the travellers do fear so much.\n  VALENTINE. My friends-\n  FIRST OUTLAW. That's not so, sir; we are your enemies.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Peace! we'll hear him.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. Ay, by my beard, will we; for he is a proper man.\n  VALENTINE. Then know that I have little wealth to lose;\n    A man I am cross'd with adversity;\n    My riches are these poor habiliments,\n    Of which if you should here disfurnish me,\n    You take the sum and substance that I have.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Whither travel you?\n  VALENTINE. To Verona.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Whence came you?\n  VALENTINE. From Milan.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. Have you long sojourn'd there?\n  VALENTINE. Some sixteen months, and longer might have stay'd,\n    If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. What, were you banish'd thence?\n  VALENTINE. I was.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. For what offence?\n  VALENTINE. For that which now torments me to rehearse:\n    I kill'd a man, whose death I much repent;\n    But yet I slew him manfully in fight,\n    Without false vantage or base treachery.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done so.\n    But were you banish'd for so small a fault?\n  VALENTINE. I was, and held me glad of such a doom.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Have you the tongues?\n  VALENTINE. My youthful travel therein made me happy,\n    Or else I often had been miserable.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,\n    This fellow were a king for our wild faction!\n  FIRST OUTLAW. We'll have him. Sirs, a word.\n  SPEED. Master, be one of them; it's an honourable kind of thievery.\n  VALENTINE. Peace, villain!\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Tell us this: have you anything to take to?\n  VALENTINE. Nothing but my fortune.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. Know, then, that some of us are gentlemen,\n    Such as the fury of ungovern'd youth\n    Thrust from the company of awful men;\n    Myself was from Verona banished\n    For practising to steal away a lady,\n    An heir, and near allied unto the Duke.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. And I from Mantua, for a gentleman\n    Who, in my mood, I stabb'd unto the heart.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. And I for such-like petty crimes as these.\n    But to the purpose- for we cite our faults\n    That they may hold excus'd our lawless lives;\n    And, partly, seeing you are beautified\n    With goodly shape, and by your own report\n    A linguist, and a man of such perfection\n    As we do in our quality much want-\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Indeed, because you are a banish'd man,\n    Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you.\n    Are you content to be our general-\n    To make a virtue of necessity,\n    And live as we do in this wilderness?\n  THIRD OUTLAW. What say'st thou? Wilt thou be of our consort?\n    Say 'ay' and be the captain of us all.\n    We'll do thee homage, and be rul'd by thee,\n    Love thee as our commander and our king.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. But if thou scorn our courtesy thou diest.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offer'd.\n  VALENTINE. I take your offer, and will live with you,\n    Provided that you do no outrages\n    On silly women or poor passengers.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. No, we detest such vile base practices.\n    Come, go with us; we'll bring thee to our crews,\n    And show thee all the treasure we have got;\n    Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nMilan. Outside the DUKE'S palace, under SILVIA'S window\n\nEnter PROTEUS\n\n  PROTEUS. Already have I been false to Valentine,\n    And now I must be as unjust to Thurio.\n    Under the colour of commending him\n    I have access my own love to prefer;\n    But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy,\n    To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.\n    When I protest true loyalty to her,\n    She twits me with my falsehood to my friend;\n    When to her beauty I commend my vows,\n    She bids me think how I have been forsworn\n    In breaking faith with Julia whom I lov'd;\n    And notwithstanding all her sudden quips,\n    The least whereof would quell a lover's hope,\n    Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love\n    The more it grows and fawneth on her still.\n\n                 Enter THURIO and MUSICIANS\n\n    But here comes Thurio. Now must we to her window,\n    And give some evening music to her ear.\n  THURIO. How now, Sir Proteus, are you crept before us?\n  PROTEUS. Ay, gentle Thurio; for you know that love\n    Will creep in service where it cannot go.\n  THURIO. Ay, but I hope, sir, that you love not here.\n  PROTEUS. Sir, but I do; or else I would be hence.\n  THURIO. Who? Silvia?\n  PROTEUS. Ay, Silvia- for your sake.\n  THURIO. I thank you for your own. Now, gentlemen,\n    Let's tune, and to it lustily awhile.\n\n    Enter at a distance, HOST, and JULIA in boy's clothes\n\n  HOST. Now, my young guest, methinks you're allycholly; I pray you,\n    why is it?\n  JULIA. Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry.\n  HOST. Come, we'll have you merry; I'll bring you where you shall\n    hear music, and see the gentleman that you ask'd for.\n  JULIA. But shall I hear him speak?\n  HOST. Ay, that you shall.                        [Music plays]\n  JULIA. That will be music.\n  HOST. Hark, hark!\n  JULIA. Is he among these?\n  HOST. Ay; but peace! let's hear 'em.\n\n                   SONG\n         Who is Silvia? What is she,\n           That all our swains commend her?\n         Holy, fair, and wise is she;\n           The heaven such grace did lend her,\n         That she might admired be.\n\n         Is she kind as she is fair?\n           For beauty lives with kindness.\n         Love doth to her eyes repair,\n           To help him of his blindness;\n         And, being help'd, inhabits there.\n\n         Then to Silvia let us sing\n           That Silvia is excelling;\n         She excels each mortal thing\n           Upon the dull earth dwelling.\n         'To her let us garlands bring.\n\n  HOST. How now, are you sadder than you were before?\n    How do you, man? The music likes you not.\n  JULIA. You mistake; the musician likes me not.\n  HOST. Why, my pretty youth?\n  JULIA. He plays false, father.\n  HOST. How, out of tune on the strings?\n  JULIA. Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my very\n    heart-strings.\n  HOST. You have a quick ear.\n  JULIA. Ay, I would I were deaf; it makes me have a slow heart.\n  HOST. I perceive you delight not in music.\n  JULIA. Not a whit, when it jars so.\n  HOST. Hark, what fine change is in the music!\n  JULIA. Ay, that change is the spite.\n  HOST. You would have them always play but one thing?\n  JULIA. I would always have one play but one thing.\n    But, Host, doth this Sir Proteus, that we talk on,\n    Often resort unto this gentlewoman?\n  HOST. I tell you what Launce, his man, told me: he lov'd her out of\n    all nick.\n  JULIA. Where is Launce?\n  HOST. Gone to seek his dog, which to-morrow, by his master's\n    command, he must carry for a present to his lady.\n  JULIA. Peace, stand aside; the company parts.\n  PROTEUS. Sir Thurio, fear not you; I will so plead\n    That you shall say my cunning drift excels.\n  THURIO. Where meet we?\n  PROTEUS. At Saint Gregory's well.\n  THURIO. Farewell.                  Exeunt THURIO and MUSICIANS\n\n                  Enter SILVIA above, at her window\n\n  PROTEUS. Madam, good ev'n to your ladyship.\n  SILVIA. I thank you for your music, gentlemen.\n    Who is that that spake?\n  PROTEUS. One, lady, if you knew his pure heart's truth,\n    You would quickly learn to know him by his voice.\n  SILVIA. Sir Proteus, as I take it.\n  PROTEUS. Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant.\n  SILVIA. What's your will?\n  PROTEUS. That I may compass yours.\n  SILVIA. You have your wish; my will is even this,\n    That presently you hie you home to bed.\n    Thou subtle, perjur'd, false, disloyal man,\n    Think'st thou I am so shallow, so conceitless,\n    To be seduced by thy flattery\n    That hast deceiv'd so many with thy vows?\n    Return, return, and make thy love amends.\n    For me, by this pale queen of night I swear,\n    I am so far from granting thy request\n    That I despise thee for thy wrongful suit,\n    And by and by intend to chide myself\n    Even for this time I spend in talking to thee.\n  PROTEUS. I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady;\n    But she is dead.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  'Twere false, if I should speak it;\n    For I am sure she is not buried.\n  SILVIA. Say that she be; yet Valentine, thy friend,\n    Survives, to whom, thyself art witness,\n    I am betroth'd; and art thou not asham'd\n    To wrong him with thy importunacy?\n  PROTEUS. I likewise hear that Valentine is dead.\n  SILVIA. And so suppose am I; for in his grave\n    Assure thyself my love is buried.\n  PROTEUS. Sweet lady, let me rake it from the earth.\n  SILVIA. Go to thy lady's grave, and call hers thence;\n    Or, at the least, in hers sepulchre thine.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  He heard not that.\n  PROTEUS. Madam, if your heart be so obdurate,\n    Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love,\n    The picture that is hanging in your chamber;\n    To that I'll speak, to that I'll sigh and weep;\n    For, since the substance of your perfect self\n    Is else devoted, I am but a shadow;\n    And to your shadow will I make true love.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  If 'twere a substance, you would, sure, deceive it\n    And make it but a shadow, as I am.\n  SILVIA. I am very loath to be your idol, sir;\n    But since your falsehood shall become you well\n    To worship shadows and adore false shapes,\n    Send to me in the morning, and I'll send it;\n    And so, good rest.\n  PROTEUS. As wretches have o'ernight\n    That wait for execution in the morn.\n                                       Exeunt PROTEUS and SILVIA\n  JULIA. Host, will you go?\n  HOST. By my halidom, I was fast asleep.\n  JULIA. Pray you, where lies Sir Proteus?\n  HOST. Marry, at my house. Trust me, I think 'tis almost day.\n  JULIA. Not so; but it hath been the longest night\n    That e'er I watch'd, and the most heaviest.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nUnder SILVIA'S window\n\nEnter EGLAMOUR\n\n  EGLAMOUR. This is the hour that Madam Silvia\n    Entreated me to call and know her mind;\n    There's some great matter she'd employ me in.\n    Madam, madam!\n\n             Enter SILVIA above, at her window\n\n  SILVIA. Who calls?\n  EGLAMOUR. Your servant and your friend;\n    One that attends your ladyship's command.\n  SILVIA. Sir Eglamour, a thousand times good morrow!\n  EGLAMOUR. As many, worthy lady, to yourself!\n    According to your ladyship's impose,\n    I am thus early come to know what service\n    It is your pleasure to command me in.\n  SILVIA. O Eglamour, thou art a gentleman-\n    Think not I flatter, for I swear I do not-\n    Valiant, wise, remorseful, well accomplish'd.\n    Thou art not ignorant what dear good will\n    I bear unto the banish'd Valentine;\n    Nor how my father would enforce me marry\n    Vain Thurio, whom my very soul abhors.\n    Thyself hast lov'd; and I have heard thee say\n    No grief did ever come so near thy heart\n    As when thy lady and thy true love died,\n    Upon whose grave thou vow'dst pure chastity.\n    Sir Eglamour, I would to Valentine,\n    To Mantua, where I hear he makes abode;\n    And, for the ways are dangerous to pass,\n    I do desire thy worthy company,\n    Upon whose faith and honour I repose.\n    Urge not my father's anger, Eglamour,\n    But think upon my grief, a lady's grief,\n    And on the justice of my flying hence\n    To keep me from a most unholy match,\n    Which heaven and fortune still rewards with plagues.\n    I do desire thee, even from a heart\n    As full of sorrows as the sea of sands,\n    To bear me company and go with me;\n    If not, to hide what I have said to thee,\n    That I may venture to depart alone.\n  EGLAMOUR. Madam, I pity much your grievances;\n    Which since I know they virtuously are plac'd,\n    I give consent to go along with you,\n    Recking as little what betideth me\n    As much I wish all good befortune you.\n    When will you go?\n  SILVIA. This evening coming.\n  EGLAMOUR. Where shall I meet you?\n  SILVIA. At Friar Patrick's cell,\n    Where I intend holy confession.\n  EGLAMOUR. I will not fail your ladyship. Good morrow, gentle lady.\n  SILVIA. Good morrow, kind Sir Eglamour.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nUnder SILVIA'S Window\n\nEnter LAUNCE with his dog\n\n  LAUNCE. When a man's servant shall play the cur with him, look you,\n    it goes hard- one that I brought up of a puppy; one that I sav'd\n    from drowning, when three or four of his blind brothers and\n    sisters went to it. I have taught him, even as one would say\n    precisely 'Thus I would teach a dog.' I was sent to deliver him\n    as a present to Mistress Silvia from my master; and I came no\n    sooner into the dining-chamber, but he steps me to her trencher\n    and steals her capon's leg. O, 'tis a foul thing when a cur\n    cannot keep himself in all companies! I would have, as one should\n    say, one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it\n    were, a dog at all things. If I had not had more wit than he, to\n    take a fault upon me that he did, I think verily he had been\n    hang'd for't; sure as I live, he had suffer'd for't. You shall\n    judge. He thrusts me himself into the company of three or four\n    gentleman-like dogs under the Duke's table; he had not been\n    there, bless the mark, a pissing while but all the chamber smelt\n    him. 'Out with the dog' says one; 'What cur is that?' says\n    another; 'Whip him out' says the third; 'Hang him up' says the\n    Duke. I, having been acquainted with the smell before, knew it\n    was Crab, and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs.\n    'Friend,' quoth I 'you mean to whip the dog.' 'Ay, marry do I'\n    quoth he. 'You do him the more wrong,' quoth I; \"twas I did the\n    thing you wot of.' He makes me no more ado, but whips me out of\n    the chamber. How many masters would do this for his servant? Nay,\n    I'll be sworn, I have sat in the stock for puddings he hath\n    stol'n, otherwise he had been executed; I have stood on the\n    pillory for geese he hath kill'd, otherwise he had suffer'd\n    for't. Thou think'st not of this now. Nay, I remember the trick\n    you serv'd me when I took my leave of Madam Silvia. Did not I bid\n    thee still mark me and do as I do? When didst thou see me heave\n    up my leg and make water against a gentlewoman's farthingale?\n    Didst thou ever see me do such a trick?\n\n               Enter PROTEUS, and JULIA in boy's clothes\n\n  PROTEUS. Sebastian is thy name? I like thee well,\n    And will employ thee in some service presently.\n  JULIA. In what you please; I'll do what I can.\n  PROTEUS..I hope thou wilt.  [To LAUNCE]  How now, you whoreson\n      peasant!\n    Where have you been these two days loitering?\n  LAUNCE. Marry, sir, I carried Mistress Silvia the dog you bade me.\n  PROTEUS. And what says she to my little jewel?\n  LAUNCE. Marry, she says your dog was a cur, and tells you currish\n    thanks is good enough for such a present.\n  PROTEUS. But she receiv'd my dog?\n  LAUNCE. No, indeed, did she not; here have I brought him back\n    again.\n  PROTEUS. What, didst thou offer her this from me?\n  LAUNCE. Ay, sir; the other squirrel was stol'n from me by the\n    hangman's boys in the market-place; and then I offer'd her mine\n    own, who is a dog as big as ten of yours, and therefore the gift\n    the greater.\n  PROTEUS. Go, get thee hence and find my dog again,\n    Or ne'er return again into my sight.\n    Away, I say. Stayest thou to vex me here?        Exit LAUNCE\n    A slave that still an end turns me to shame!\n    Sebastian, I have entertained thee\n    Partly that I have need of such a youth\n    That can with some discretion do my business,\n    For 'tis no trusting to yond foolish lout,\n    But chiefly for thy face and thy behaviour,\n    Which, if my augury deceive me not,\n    Witness good bringing up, fortune, and truth;\n    Therefore, know thou, for this I entertain thee.\n    Go presently, and take this ring with thee,\n    Deliver it to Madam Silvia-\n    She lov'd me well deliver'd it to me.\n  JULIA. It seems you lov'd not her, to leave her token.\n    She is dead, belike?\n  PROTEUS. Not so; I think she lives.\n  JULIA. Alas!\n  PROTEUS. Why dost thou cry 'Alas'?\n  JULIA. I cannot choose\n    But pity her.\n  PROTEUS. Wherefore shouldst thou pity her?\n  JULIA. Because methinks that she lov'd you as well\n    As you do love your lady Silvia.\n    She dreams on him that has forgot her love:\n    You dote on her that cares not for your love.\n    'Tis pity love should be so contrary;\n    And thinking on it makes me cry 'Alas!'\n  PROTEUS. Well, give her that ring, and therewithal\n    This letter. That's her chamber. Tell my lady\n    I claim the promise for her heavenly picture.\n    Your message done, hie home unto my chamber,\n    Where thou shalt find me sad and solitary.      Exit PROTEUS\n  JULIA. How many women would do such a message?\n    Alas, poor Proteus, thou hast entertain'd\n    A fox to be the shepherd of thy lambs.\n    Alas, poor fool, why do I pity him\n    That with his very heart despiseth me?\n    Because he loves her, he despiseth me;\n    Because I love him, I must pity him.\n    This ring I gave him, when he parted from me,\n    To bind him to remember my good will;\n    And now am I, unhappy messenger,\n    To plead for that which I would not obtain,\n    To carry that which I would have refus'd,\n    To praise his faith, which I would have disprais'd.\n    I am my master's true confirmed love,\n    But cannot be true servant to my master\n    Unless I prove false traitor to myself.\n    Yet will I woo for him, but yet so coldly\n    As, heaven it knows, I would not have him speed.\n\n                     Enter SILVIA, attended\n\n    Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you be my mean\n    To bring me where to speak with Madam Silvia.\n  SILVIA. What would you with her, if that I be she?\n  JULIA. If you be she, I do entreat your patience\n    To hear me speak the message I am sent on.\n  SILVIA. From whom?\n  JULIA. From my master, Sir Proteus, madam.\n  SILVIA. O, he sends you for a picture?\n  JULIA. Ay, madam.\n  SILVIA. Ursula, bring my picture there.\n    Go, give your master this. Tell him from me,\n    One Julia, that his changing thoughts forget,\n    Would better fit his chamber than this shadow.\n  JULIA. Madam, please you peruse this letter.\n    Pardon me, madam; I have unadvis'd\n    Deliver'd you a paper that I should not.\n    This is the letter to your ladyship.\n  SILVIA. I pray thee let me look on that again.\n  JULIA. It may not be; good madam, pardon me.\n  SILVIA. There, hold!\n    I will not look upon your master's lines.\n    I know they are stuff'd with protestations,\n    And full of new-found oaths, which he wul break\n    As easily as I do tear his paper.\n  JULIA. Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring.\n  SILVIA. The more shame for him that he sends it me;\n    For I have heard him say a thousand times\n    His Julia gave it him at his departure.\n    Though his false finger have profan'd the ring,\n    Mine shall not do his Julia so much wrong.\n  JULIA. She thanks you.\n  SILVIA. What say'st thou?\n  JULIA. I thank you, madam, that you tender her.\n    Poor gentlewoman, my master wrongs her much.\n  SILVIA. Dost thou know her?\n  JULIA. Almost as well as I do know myself.\n    To think upon her woes, I do protest\n    That I have wept a hundred several times.\n  SILVIA. Belike she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her.\n  JULIA. I think she doth, and that's her cause of sorrow.\n  SILVIA. Is she not passing fair?\n  JULIA. She hath been fairer, madam, than she is.\n    When she did think my master lov'd her well,\n    She, in my judgment, was as fair as you;\n    But since she did neglect her looking-glass\n    And threw her sun-expelling mask away,\n    The air hath starv'd the roses in her cheeks\n    And pinch'd the lily-tincture of her face,\n    That now she is become as black as I.\n  SILVIA. How tall was she?\n  JULIA. About my stature; for at Pentecost,\n    When all our pageants of delight were play'd,\n    Our youth got me to play the woman's part,\n    And I was trimm'd in Madam Julia's gown;\n    Which served me as fit, by all men's judgments,\n    As if the garment had been made for me;\n    Therefore I know she is about my height.\n    And at that time I made her weep a good,\n    For I did play a lamentable part.\n    Madam, 'twas Ariadne passioning\n    For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight;\n    Which I so lively acted with my tears\n    That my poor mistress, moved therewithal,\n    Wept bitterly; and would I might be dead\n    If I in thought felt not her very sorrow.\n  SILVIA. She is beholding to thee, gentle youth.\n    Alas, poor lady, desolate and left!\n    I weep myself, to think upon thy words.\n    Here, youth, there is my purse; I give thee this\n    For thy sweet mistress' sake, because thou lov'st her.\n    Farewell.                        Exit SILVIA with ATTENDANTS\n  JULIA. And she shall thank you for't, if e'er you know her.\n    A virtuous gentlewoman, mild and beautiful!\n    I hope my master's suit will be but cold,\n    Since she respects my mistress' love so much.\n    Alas, how love can trifle with itself!\n    Here is her picture; let me see. I think,\n    If I had such a tire, this face of mine\n    Were full as lovely as is this of hers;\n    And yet the painter flatter'd her a little,\n    Unless I flatter with myself too much.\n    Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow;\n    If that be all the difference in his love,\n    I'll get me such a colour'd periwig.\n    Her eyes are grey as glass, and so are mine;\n    Ay, but her forehead's low, and mine's as high.\n    What should it be that he respects in her\n    But I can make respective in myself,\n    If this fond Love were not a blinded god?\n    Come, shadow, come, and take this shadow up,\n    For 'tis thy rival. O thou senseless form,\n    Thou shalt be worshipp'd, kiss'd, lov'd, and ador'd!\n    And were there sense in his idolatry\n    My substance should be statue in thy stead.\n    I'll use thee kindly for thy mistress' sake,\n    That us'd me so; or else, by Jove I vow,\n    I should have scratch'd out your unseeing eyes,\n    To make my master out of love with thee.                Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nMilan. An abbey\n\nEnter EGLAMOUR\n\n  EGLAMOUR. The sun begins to gild the western sky,\n    And now it is about the very hour\n    That Silvia at Friar Patrick's cell should meet me.\n    She will not fail, for lovers break not hours\n    Unless it be to come before their time,\n    So much they spur their expedition.\n\n                         Enter SILVIA\n\n    See where she comes. Lady, a happy evening!\n  SILVIA. Amen, amen! Go on, good Eglamour,\n    Out at the postern by the abbey wall;\n    I fear I am attended by some spies.\n  EGLAMOUR. Fear not. The forest is not three leagues off;\n    If we recover that, we are sure enough.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter THURIO, PROTEUS, and JULIA as SEBASTIAN\n\n  THURIO. Sir Proteus, what says Silvia to my suit?\n  PROTEUS. O, sir, I find her milder than she was;\n    And yet she takes exceptions at your person.\n  THURIO. What, that my leg is too long?\n  PROTEUS. No; that it is too little.\n  THURIO. I'll wear a boot to make it somewhat rounder.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  But love will not be spurr'd to what it loathes.\n  THURIO. What says she to my face?\n  PROTEUS. She says it is a fair one.\n  THURIO. Nay, then, the wanton lies; my face is black.\n  PROTEUS. But pearls are fair; and the old saying is:\n    Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  'Tis true, such pearls as put out ladies' eyes;\n    For I had rather wink than look on them.\n  THURIO. How likes she my discourse?\n  PROTEUS. Ill, when you talk of war.\n  THURIO. But well when I discourse of love and peace?\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  But better, indeed, when you hold your peace.\n  THURIO. What says she to my valour?\n  PROTEUS. O, sir, she makes no doubt of that.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  She needs not, when she knows it cowardice.\n  THURIO. What says she to my birth?\n  PROTEUS. That you are well deriv'd.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  True; from a gentleman to a fool.\n  THURIO. Considers she my possessions?\n  PROTEUS. O, ay; and pities them.\n  THURIO. Wherefore?\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  That such an ass should owe them.\n  PROTEUS. That they are out by lease.\n  JULIA. Here comes the Duke.\n\n                          Enter DUKE\n\n  DUKE. How now, Sir Proteus! how now, Thurio!\n    Which of you saw Sir Eglamour of late?\n  THURIO. Not I.\n  PROTEUS. Nor I.\n  DUKE. Saw you my daughter?\n  PROTEUS. Neither.\n  DUKE. Why then,\n    She's fled unto that peasant Valentine;\n    And Eglamour is in her company.\n    'Tis true; for Friar Lawrence met them both\n    As he in penance wander'd through the forest;\n    Him he knew well, and guess'd that it was she,\n    But, being mask'd, he was not sure of it;\n    Besides, she did intend confession\n    At Patrick's cell this even; and there she was not.\n    These likelihoods confirm her flight from hence;\n    Therefore, I pray you, stand not to discourse,\n    But mount you presently, and meet with me\n    Upon the rising of the mountain foot\n    That leads toward Mantua, whither they are fled.\n    Dispatch, sweet gentlemen, and follow me.               Exit\n  THURIO. Why, this it is to be a peevish girl\n    That flies her fortune when it follows her.\n    I'll after, more to be reveng'd on Eglamour\n    Than for the love of reckless Silvia.                   Exit\n  PROTEUS. And I will follow, more for Silvia's love\n    Than hate of Eglamour, that goes with her.              Exit\n  JULIA. And I will follow, more to cross that love\n    Than hate for Silvia, that is gone for love.            Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe frontiers of Mantua. The forest\n\nEnter OUTLAWS with SILVA\n\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Come, come.\n    Be patient; we must bring you to our captain.\n  SILVIA. A thousand more mischances than this one\n    Have learn'd me how to brook this patiently.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Come, bring her away.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Where is the gentleman that was with her?\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Being nimble-footed, he hath outrun us,\n    But Moyses and Valerius follow him.\n    Go thou with her to the west end of the wood;\n    There is our captain; we'll follow him that's fled.\n    The thicket is beset; he cannot 'scape.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Come, I must bring you to our captain's cave;\n    Fear not; he bears an honourable mind,\n    And will not use a woman lawlessly.\n  SILVIA. O Valentine, this I endure for thee!            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the forest\n\nEnter VALENTINE\n\n  VALENTINE. How use doth breed a habit in a man!\n    This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,\n    I better brook than flourishing peopled towns.\n    Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,\n    And to the nightingale's complaining notes\n    Tune my distresses and record my woes.\n    O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,\n    Leave not the mansion so long tenantless,\n    Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall\n    And leave no memory of what it was!\n    Repair me with thy presence, Silvia:\n    Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain.\n    What halloing and what stir is this to-day?\n    These are my mates, that make their wills their law,\n    Have some unhappy passenger in chase.\n    They love me well; yet I have much to do\n    To keep them from uncivil outrages.\n    Withdraw thee, Valentine. Who's this comes here?\n                                                   [Steps aside]\n\n          Enter PROTEUS, SILVIA, and JULIA as Sebastian\n\n  PROTEUS. Madam, this service I have done for you,\n    Though you respect not aught your servant doth,\n    To hazard life, and rescue you from him\n    That would have forc'd your honour and your love.\n    Vouchsafe me, for my meed, but one fair look;\n    A smaller boon than this I cannot beg,\n    And less than this, I am sure, you cannot give.\n  VALENTINE.  [Aside]  How like a dream is this I see and hear!\n    Love, lend me patience to forbear awhile.\n  SILVIA. O miserable, unhappy that I am!\n  PROTEUS. Unhappy were you, madam, ere I came;\n    But by my coming I have made you happy.\n  SILVIA. By thy approach thou mak'st me most unhappy.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  And me, when he approacheth to your presence.\n  SILVIA. Had I been seized by a hungry lion,\n    I would have been a breakfast to the beast\n    Rather than have false Proteus rescue me.\n    O, heaven be judge how I love Valentine,\n    Whose life's as tender to me as my soul!\n    And full as much, for more there cannot be,\n    I do detest false, perjur'd Proteus.\n    Therefore be gone; solicit me no more.\n  PROTEUS. What dangerous action, stood it next to death,\n    Would I not undergo for one calm look?\n    O, 'tis the curse in love, and still approv'd,\n    When women cannot love where they're belov'd!\n  SILVIA. When Proteus cannot love where he's belov'd!\n    Read over Julia's heart, thy first best love,\n    For whose dear sake thou didst then rend thy faith\n    Into a thousand oaths; and all those oaths\n    Descended into perjury, to love me.\n    Thou hast no faith left now, unless thou'dst two,\n    And that's far worse than none; better have none\n    Than plural faith, which is too much by one.\n    Thou counterfeit to thy true friend!\n  PROTEUS. In love,\n    Who respects friend?\n  SILVIA. All men but Proteus.\n  PROTEUS. Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words\n    Can no way change you to a milder form,\n    I'll woo you like a soldier, at arms' end,\n    And love you 'gainst the nature of love- force ye.\n  SILVIA. O heaven!\n  PROTEUS. I'll force thee yield to my desire.\n  VALENTINE. Ruffian! let go that rude uncivil touch;\n    Thou friend of an ill fashion!\n  PROTEUS. Valentine!\n  VALENTINE. Thou common friend, that's without faith or love-\n    For such is a friend now; treacherous man,\n    Thou hast beguil'd my hopes; nought but mine eye\n    Could have persuaded me. Now I dare not say\n    I have one friend alive: thou wouldst disprove me.\n    Who should be trusted, when one's own right hand\n    Is perjured to the bosom? Proteus,\n    I am sorry I must never trust thee more,\n    But count the world a stranger for thy sake.\n    The private wound is deepest. O time most accurst!\n    'Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!\n  PROTEUS. My shame and guilt confounds me.\n    Forgive me, Valentine; if hearty sorrow\n    Be a sufficient ransom for offence,\n    I tender 't here; I do as truly suffer\n    As e'er I did commit.\n  VALENTINE. Then I am paid;\n    And once again I do receive thee honest.\n    Who by repentance is not satisfied\n    Is nor of heaven nor earth, for these are pleas'd;\n    By penitence th' Eternal's wrath's appeas'd.\n    And, that my love may appear plain and free,\n    All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.\n  JULIA. O me unhappy!                                  [Swoons]\n  PROTEUS. Look to the boy.\n  VALENTINE. Why, boy! why, wag! how now!\n    What's the matter? Look up; speak.\n  JULIA. O good sir, my master charg'd me to deliver a ring to Madam\n    Silvia, which, out of my neglect, was never done.\n  PROTEUS. Where is that ring, boy?\n  JULIA. Here 'tis; this is it.\n  PROTEUS. How! let me see. Why, this is the ring I gave to Julia.\n  JULIA. O, cry you mercy, sir, I have mistook;\n    This is the ring you sent to Silvia.\n  PROTEUS. But how cam'st thou by this ring?\n    At my depart I gave this unto Julia.\n  JULIA. And Julia herself did give it me;\n    And Julia herself have brought it hither.\n  PROTEUS. How! Julia!\n  JULIA. Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths,\n    And entertain'd 'em deeply in her heart.\n    How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root!\n    O Proteus, let this habit make thee blush!\n    Be thou asham'd that I have took upon me\n    Such an immodest raiment- if shame live\n    In a disguise of love.\n    It is the lesser blot, modesty finds,\n    Women to change their shapes than men their minds.\n  PROTEUS. Than men their minds! 'tis true. O heaven, were man\n    But constant, he were perfect! That one error\n    Fills him with faults; makes him run through all th' sins:\n    Inconstancy falls off ere it begins.\n    What is in Silvia's face but I may spy\n    More fresh in Julia's with a constant eye?\n  VALENTINE. Come, come, a hand from either.\n    Let me be blest to make this happy close;\n    'Twere pity two such friends should be long foes.\n  PROTEUS. Bear witness, heaven, I have my wish for ever.\n  JULIA. And I mine.\n\n                Enter OUTLAWS, with DUKE and THURIO\n\n  OUTLAW. A prize, a prize, a prize!\n  VALENTINE. Forbear, forbear, I say; it is my lord the Duke.\n    Your Grace is welcome to a man disgrac'd,\n    Banished Valentine.\n  DUKE. Sir Valentine!\n  THURIO. Yonder is Silvia; and Silvia's mine.\n  VALENTINE. Thurio, give back, or else embrace thy death;\n    Come not within the measure of my wrath;\n    Do not name Silvia thine; if once again,\n    Verona shall not hold thee. Here she stands\n    Take but possession of her with a touch-\n    I dare thee but to breathe upon my love.\n  THURIO. Sir Valentine, I care not for her, I;\n    I hold him but a fool that will endanger\n    His body for a girl that loves him not.\n    I claim her not, and therefore she is thine.\n  DUKE. The more degenerate and base art thou\n    To make such means for her as thou hast done\n    And leave her on such slight conditions.\n    Now, by the honour of my ancestry,\n    I do applaud thy spirit, Valentine,\n    And think thee worthy of an empress' love.\n    Know then, I here forget all former griefs,\n    Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again,\n    Plead a new state in thy unrivall'd merit,\n    To which I thus subscribe: Sir Valentine,\n    Thou art a gentleman, and well deriv'd;\n    Take thou thy Silvia, for thou hast deserv'd her.\n  VALENTINE. I thank your Grace; the gift hath made me happy.\n    I now beseech you, for your daughter's sake,\n    To grant one boon that I shall ask of you.\n  DUKE. I grant it for thine own, whate'er it be.\n  VALENTINE. These banish'd men, that I have kept withal,\n    Are men endu'd with worthy qualities;\n    Forgive them what they have committed here,\n    And let them be recall'd from their exile:\n    They are reformed, civil, full of good,\n    And fit for great employment, worthy lord.\n  DUKE. Thou hast prevail'd; I pardon them, and thee;\n    Dispose of them as thou know'st their deserts.\n    Come, let us go; we will include all jars\n    With triumphs, mirth, and rare solemnity.\n  VALENTINE. And, as we walk along, I dare be bold\n    With our discourse to make your Grace to smile.\n    What think you of this page, my lord?\n  DUKE. I think the boy hath grace in him; he blushes.\n  VALENTINE. I warrant you, my lord- more grace than boy.\n  DUKE. What mean you by that saying?\n  VALENTINE. Please you, I'll tell you as we pass along,\n    That you will wonder what hath fortuned.\n    Come, Proteus, 'tis your penance but to hear\n    The story of your loves discovered.\n    That done, our day of marriage shall be yours;\n    One feast, one house, one mutual happiness!     Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1611\n\nTHE WINTER'S TALE\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  LEONTES, King of Sicilia\n  MAMILLIUS, his son, the young Prince of Sicilia\n  CAMILLO,    lord of Sicilia\n  ANTIGONUS,    \"   \"     \"\n  CLEOMENES,    \"   \"     \"\n  DION,         \"   \"     \"\n  POLIXENES, King of Bohemia\n  FLORIZEL, his son, Prince of Bohemia\n  ARCHIDAMUS, a lord of Bohemia\n  OLD SHEPHERD, reputed father of Perdita\n  CLOWN, his son\n  AUTOLYCUS, a rogue\n  A MARINER\n  A GAOLER\n  TIME, as Chorus\n\n  HERMIONE, Queen to Leontes\n  PERDITA, daughter to Leontes and Hermione\n  PAULINA, wife to Antigonus\n  EMILIA, a lady attending on the Queen\n  MOPSA,   shepherdess\n  DORCAS,        \"\n\n  Other Lords, Gentlemen, Ladies, Officers, Servants, Shepherds,\n    Shepherdesses\n\n                              SCENE:\n                       Sicilia and Bohemia\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nSicilia. The palace of LEONTES\n\nEnter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS\n\n  ARCHIDAMUS. If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on the\n    like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see,\n    as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your\n    Sicilia.\n  CAMILLO. I think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to\n    pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.\n  ARCHIDAMUS. Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be\n    justified in our loves; for indeed-\n  CAMILLO. Beseech you-\n  ARCHIDAMUS. Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge: we\n    cannot with such magnificence, in so rare- I know not what to\n    say. We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses,\n    unintelligent of our insufficience, may, though they cannot\n    praise us, as little accuse us.\n  CAMILLO. You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely.\n  ARCHIDAMUS. Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me\n    and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.\n  CAMILLO. Sicilia cannot show himself overkind to Bohemia. They were\n    train'd together in their childhoods; and there rooted betwixt\n    them then such an affection which cannot choose but branch now.\n    Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made\n    separation of their society, their encounters, though not\n    personal, have been royally attorneyed with interchange of gifts,\n    letters, loving embassies; that they have seem'd to be together,\n    though absent; shook hands, as over a vast; and embrac'd as it\n    were from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their\n    loves!\n  ARCHIDAMUS. I think there is not in the world either malice or\n    matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young\n    Prince Mamillius; it is a gentleman of the greatest promise that\n    ever came into my note.\n  CAMILLO. I very well agree with you in the hopes of him. It is a\n    gallant child; one that indeed physics the subject, makes old\n    hearts fresh; they that went on crutches ere he was born desire\n    yet their life to see him a man.\n  ARCHIDAMUS. Would they else be content to die?\n  CAMILLO. Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should desire\n    to live.\n  ARCHIDAMUS. If the King had no son, they would desire to live on\n    crutches till he had one.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nSicilia. The palace of LEONTES\n\nEnter LEONTES, POLIXENES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, CAMILLO, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  POLIXENES. Nine changes of the wat'ry star hath been\n    The shepherd's note since we have left our throne\n    Without a burden. Time as long again\n    Would be fill'd up, my brother, with our thanks;\n    And yet we should for perpetuity\n    Go hence in debt. And therefore, like a cipher,\n    Yet standing in rich place, I multiply\n    With one 'We thank you' many thousands moe\n    That go before it.\n  LEONTES. Stay your thanks a while,\n    And pay them when you part.\n  POLIXENES. Sir, that's to-morrow.\n    I am question'd by my fears of what may chance\n    Or breed upon our absence, that may blow\n    No sneaping winds at home, to make us say\n    'This is put forth too truly.' Besides, I have stay'd\n    To tire your royalty.\n  LEONTES. We are tougher, brother,\n    Than you can put us to't.\n  POLIXENES. No longer stay.\n  LEONTES. One sev'night longer.\n  POLIXENES. Very sooth, to-morrow.\n  LEONTES. We'll part the time between's then; and in that\n    I'll no gainsaying.\n  POLIXENES. Press me not, beseech you, so.\n    There is no tongue that moves, none, none i' th' world,\n    So soon as yours could win me. So it should now,\n    Were there necessity in your request, although\n    'Twere needful I denied it. My affairs\n    Do even drag me homeward; which to hinder\n    Were in your love a whip to me; my stay\n    To you a charge and trouble. To save both,\n    Farewell, our brother.\n  LEONTES. Tongue-tied, our Queen? Speak you.\n  HERMIONE. I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until\n    You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,\n    Charge him too coldly. Tell him you are sure\n    All in Bohemia's well- this satisfaction\n    The by-gone day proclaim'd. Say this to him,\n    He's beat from his best ward.\n  LEONTES. Well said, Hermione.\n  HERMIONE. To tell he longs to see his son were strong;\n    But let him say so then, and let him go;\n    But let him swear so, and he shall not stay;\n    We'll thwack him hence with distaffs.\n    [To POLIXENES]  Yet of your royal presence I'll\n    adventure the borrow of a week. When at Bohemia\n    You take my lord, I'll give him my commission\n    To let him there a month behind the gest\n    Prefix'd for's parting.- Yet, good deed, Leontes,\n    I love thee not a jar o' th' clock behind\n    What lady she her lord.- You'll stay?\n  POLIXENES. No, madam.\n  HERMIONE. Nay, but you will?\n  POLIXENES. I may not, verily.\n  HERMIONE. Verily!\n    You put me off with limber vows; but I,\n    Though you would seek t' unsphere the stars with oaths,\n    Should yet say 'Sir, no going.' Verily,\n    You shall not go; a lady's 'verily' is\n    As potent as a lord's. Will go yet?\n    Force me to keep you as a prisoner,\n    Not like a guest; so you shall pay your fees\n    When you depart, and save your thanks. How say you?\n    My prisoner or my guest? By your dread 'verily,'\n    One of them you shall be.\n  POLIXENES. Your guest, then, madam:\n    To be your prisoner should import offending;\n    Which is for me less easy to commit\n    Than you to punish.\n  HERMIONE. Not your gaoler then,\n    But your kind. hostess. Come, I'll question you\n    Of my lord's tricks and yours when you were boys.\n    You were pretty lordings then!\n  POLIXENES. We were, fair Queen,\n    Two lads that thought there was no more behind\n    But such a day to-morrow as to-day,\n    And to be boy eternal.\n  HERMIONE. Was not my lord\n    The verier wag o' th' two?\n  POLIXENES. We were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' th' sun\n    And bleat the one at th' other. What we chang'd\n    Was innocence for innocence; we knew not\n    The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd\n    That any did. Had we pursu'd that life,\n    And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd\n    With stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven\n    Boldly 'Not guilty,' the imposition clear'd\n    Hereditary ours.\n  HERMIONE. By this we gather\n    You have tripp'd since.\n  POLIXENES. O my most sacred lady,\n    Temptations have since then been born to 's, for\n    In those unfledg'd days was my wife a girl;\n    Your precious self had then not cross'd the eyes\n    Of my young playfellow.\n  HERMIONE. Grace to boot!\n    Of this make no conclusion, lest you say\n    Your queen and I are devils. Yet, go on;\n    Th' offences we have made you do we'll answer,\n    If you first sinn'd with us, and that with us\n    You did continue fault, and that you slipp'd not\n    With any but with us.\n  LEONTES. Is he won yet?\n  HERMIONE. He'll stay, my lord.\n  LEONTES. At my request he would not.\n    Hermione, my dearest, thou never spok'st\n    To better purpose.\n  HERMIONE. Never?\n  LEONTES. Never but once.\n  HERMIONE. What! Have I twice said well? When was't before?\n    I prithee tell me; cram's with praise, and make's\n    As fat as tame things. One good deed dying tongueless\n    Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that.\n    Our praises are our wages; you may ride's\n    With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere\n    With spur we heat an acre. But to th' goal:\n    My last good deed was to entreat his stay;\n    What was my first? It has an elder sister,\n    Or I mistake you. O, would her name were Grace!\n    But once before I spoke to th' purpose- When?\n    Nay, let me have't; I long.\n  LEONTES. Why, that was when\n    Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death,\n    Ere I could make thee open thy white hand\n    And clap thyself my love; then didst thou utter\n    'I am yours for ever.'\n  HERMIONE. 'Tis Grace indeed.\n    Why, lo you now, I have spoke to th' purpose twice:\n    The one for ever earn'd a royal husband;\n    Th' other for some while a friend.\n                                  [Giving her hand to POLIXENES]\n  LEONTES.  [Aside]  Too hot, too hot!\n    To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods.\n    I have tremor cordis on me; my heart dances,\n    But not for joy, not joy. This entertainment\n    May a free face put on; derive a liberty\n    From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom,\n    And well become the agent. 'T may, I grant;\n    But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers,\n    As now they are, and making practis'd smiles\n    As in a looking-glass; and then to sigh, as 'twere\n    The mort o' th' deer. O, that is entertainment\n    My bosom likes not, nor my brows! Mamillius,\n    Art thou my boy?\n  MAMILLIUS. Ay, my good lord.\n  LEONTES. I' fecks!\n    Why, that's my bawcock. What! hast smutch'd thy nose?\n    They say it is a copy out of mine. Come, Captain,\n    We must be neat- not neat, but cleanly, Captain.\n    And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf,\n    Are all call'd neat.- Still virginalling\n    Upon his palm?- How now, you wanton calf,\n    Art thou my calf?\n  MAMILLIUS. Yes, if you will, my lord.\n  LEONTES. Thou want'st a rough pash and the shoots that I have,\n    To be full like me; yet they say we are\n    Almost as like as eggs. Women say so,\n    That will say anything. But were they false\n    As o'er-dy'd blacks, as wind, as waters- false\n    As dice are to be wish'd by one that fixes\n    No bourn 'twixt his and mine; yet were it true\n    To say this boy were like me. Come, sir page,\n    Look on me with your welkin eye. Sweet villain!\n    Most dear'st! my collop! Can thy dam?- may't be?\n    Affection! thy intention stabs the centre.\n    Thou dost make possible things not so held,\n    Communicat'st with dreams- how can this be?-\n    With what's unreal thou coactive art,\n    And fellow'st nothing. Then 'tis very credent\n    Thou mayst co-join with something; and thou dost-\n    And that beyond commission; and I find it,\n    And that to the infection of my brains\n    And hard'ning of my brows.\n  POLIXENES. What means Sicilia?\n  HERMIONE. He something seems unsettled.\n  POLIXENES. How, my lord!\n    What cheer? How is't with you, best brother?\n  HERMIONE. You look\n    As if you held a brow of much distraction.\n    Are you mov'd, my lord?\n  LEONTES. No, in good earnest.\n    How sometimes nature will betray its folly,\n    Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime\n    To harder bosoms! Looking on the lines\n    Of my boy's face, methoughts I did recoil\n    Twenty-three years; and saw myself unbreech'd,\n    In my green velvet coat; my dagger muzzl'd,\n    Lest it should bite its master and so prove,\n    As ornaments oft do, too dangerous.\n    How like, methought, I then was to this kernel,\n    This squash, this gentleman. Mine honest friend,\n    Will you take eggs for money?\n  MAMILLIUS. No, my lord, I'll fight.\n  LEONTES. You will? Why, happy man be's dole! My brother,\n    Are you so fond of your young prince as we\n    Do seem to be of ours?\n  POLIXENES. If at home, sir,\n    He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter;\n    Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy;\n    My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all.\n    He makes a July's day short as December,\n    And with his varying childness cures in me\n    Thoughts that would thick my blood.\n  LEONTES. So stands this squire\n    Offic'd with me. We two will walk, my lord,\n    And leave you to your graver steps. Hermione,\n    How thou lov'st us show in our brother's welcome;\n    Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap;\n    Next to thyself and my young rover, he's\n    Apparent to my heart.\n  HERMIONE. If you would seek us,\n    We are yours i' th' garden. Shall's attend you there?\n  LEONTES. To your own bents dispose you; you'll be found,\n    Be you beneath the sky.  [Aside]  I am angling now,\n    Though you perceive me not how I give line.\n    Go to, go to!\n    How she holds up the neb, the bill to him!\n    And arms her with the boldness of a wife\n    To her allowing husband!\n\n                      Exeunt POLIXENES, HERMIONE, and ATTENDANTS\n\n    Gone already!\n    Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and ears a fork'd one!\n    Go, play, boy, play; thy mother plays, and I\n    Play too; but so disgrac'd a part, whose issue\n    Will hiss me to my grave. Contempt and clamour\n    Will be my knell. Go, play, boy, play. There have been,\n    Or I am much deceiv'd, cuckolds ere now;\n    And many a man there is, even at this present,\n    Now while I speak this, holds his wife by th' arm\n    That little thinks she has been sluic'd in's absence,\n    And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour, by\n    Sir Smile, his neighbour. Nay, there's comfort in't,\n    Whiles other men have gates and those gates open'd,\n    As mine, against their will. Should all despair\n    That hath revolted wives, the tenth of mankind\n    Would hang themselves. Physic for't there's none;\n    It is a bawdy planet, that will strike\n    Where 'tis predominant; and 'tis pow'rfull, think it,\n    From east, west, north, and south. Be it concluded,\n    No barricado for a belly. Know't,\n    It will let in and out the enemy\n    With bag and baggage. Many thousand on's\n    Have the disease, and feel't not. How now, boy!\n  MAMILLIUS. I am like you, they say.\n  LEONTES. Why, that's some comfort.\n    What! Camillo there?\n  CAMILLO. Ay, my good lord.\n  LEONTES. Go play, Mamillius; thou'rt an honest man.\n                                                  Exit MAMILLIUS\n    Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.\n  CAMILLO. You had much ado to make his anchor hold;\n    When you cast out, it still came home.\n  LEONTES. Didst note it?\n  CAMILLO. He would not stay at your petitions; made\n    His business more material.\n  LEONTES. Didst perceive it?\n    [Aside]  They're here with me already; whisp'ring, rounding,\n    'Sicilia is a so-forth.' 'Tis far gone\n    When I shall gust it last.- How came't, Camillo,\n    That he did stay?\n  CAMILLO. At the good Queen's entreaty.\n  LEONTES. 'At the Queen's' be't. 'Good' should be pertinent;\n    But so it is, it is not. Was this taken\n    By any understanding pate but thine?\n    For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in\n    More than the common blocks. Not noted, is't,\n    But of the finer natures, by some severals\n    Of head-piece extraordinary? Lower messes\n    Perchance are to this business purblind? Say.\n  CAMILLO. Business, my lord? I think most understand\n    Bohemia stays here longer.\n  LEONTES. Ha?\n  CAMILLO. Stays here longer.\n  LEONTES. Ay, but why?\n  CAMILLO. To satisfy your Highness, and the entreaties\n    Of our most gracious mistress.\n  LEONTES. Satisfy\n    Th' entreaties of your mistress! Satisfy!\n    Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,\n    With all the nearest things to my heart, as well\n    My chamber-councils, wherein, priest-like, thou\n    Hast cleans'd my bosom- I from thee departed\n    Thy penitent reform'd; but we have been\n    Deceiv'd in thy integrity, deceiv'd\n    In that which seems so.\n  CAMILLO. Be it forbid, my lord!\n  LEONTES. To bide upon't: thou art not honest; or,\n    If thou inclin'st that way, thou art a coward,\n    Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining\n    From course requir'd; or else thou must be counted\n    A servant grafted in my serious trust,\n    And therein negligent; or else a fool\n    That seest a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn,\n    And tak'st it all for jest.\n  CAMILLO. My gracious lord,\n    I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful:\n    In every one of these no man is free\n    But that his negligence, his folly, fear,\n    Among the infinite doings of the world,\n    Sometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord,\n    If ever I were wilfull-negligent,\n    It was my folly; if industriously\n    I play'd the fool, it was my negligence,\n    Not weighing well the end; if ever fearful\n    To do a thing where I the issue doubted,\n    Whereof the execution did cry out\n    Against the non-performance, 'twas a fear\n    Which oft infects the wisest. These, my lord,\n    Are such allow'd infirmities that honesty\n    Is never free of. But, beseech your Grace,\n    Be plainer with me; let me know my trespass\n    By its own visage; if I then deny it,\n    'Tis none of mine.\n  LEONTES. Ha' not you seen, Camillo-\n    But that's past doubt; you have, or your eye-glass\n    Is thicker than a cuckold's horn- or heard-\n    For to a vision so apparent rumour\n    Cannot be mute- or thought- for cogitation\n    Resides not in that man that does not think-\n    My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess-\n    Or else be impudently negative,\n    To have nor eyes nor ears nor thought- then say\n    My wife's a hobby-horse, deserves a name\n    As rank as any flax-wench that puts to\n    Before her troth-plight. Say't and justify't.\n  CAMILLO. I would not be a stander-by to hear\n    My sovereign mistress clouded so, without\n    My present vengeance taken. Shrew my heart!\n    You never spoke what did become you less\n    Than this; which to reiterate were sin\n    As deep as that, though true.\n  LEONTES. Is whispering nothing?\n    Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?\n    Kissing with inside lip? Stopping the career\n    Of laughter with a sigh?- a note infallible\n    Of breaking honesty. Horsing foot on foot?\n    Skulking in corners? Wishing clocks more swift;\n    Hours, minutes; noon, midnight? And all eyes\n    Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,\n    That would unseen be wicked- is this nothing?\n    Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing;\n    The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing;\n    My is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings,\n    If this be nothing.\n  CAMILLO. Good my lord, be cur'd\n    Of this diseas'd opinion, and betimes;\n    For 'tis most dangerous.\n  LEONTES. Say it be, 'tis true.\n  CAMILLO. No, no, my lord.\n  LEONTES. It is; you lie, you lie.\n    I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee;\n    Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave,\n    Or else a hovering temporizer that\n    Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,\n    Inclining to them both. Were my wife's liver\n    Infected as her life, she would not live\n    The running of one glass.\n  CAMILLO. Who does her?\n  LEONTES. Why, he that wears her like her medal, hanging\n    About his neck, Bohemia; who- if I\n    Had servants true about me that bare eyes\n    To see alike mine honour as their profits,\n    Their own particular thrifts, they would do that\n    Which should undo more doing. Ay, and thou,\n    His cupbearer- whom I from meaner form\n    Have bench'd and rear'd to worship; who mayst see,\n    Plainly as heaven sees earth and earth sees heaven,\n    How I am gall'd- mightst bespice a cup\n    To give mine enemy a lasting wink;\n    Which draught to me were cordial.\n  CAMILLO. Sir, my lord,\n    I could do this; and that with no rash potion,\n    But with a ling'ring dram that should not work\n    Maliciously like poison. But I cannot\n    Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress,\n    So sovereignly being honourable.\n    I have lov'd thee-\n  LEONTES. Make that thy question, and go rot!\n    Dost think I am so muddy, so unsettled,\n    To appoint myself in this vexation; sully\n    The purity and whiteness of my sheets-\n    Which to preserve is sleep, which being spotted\n    Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps;\n    Give scandal to the blood o' th' Prince, my son-\n    Who I do think is mine, and love as mine-\n    Without ripe moving to 't? Would I do this?\n    Could man so blench?\n  CAMILLO. I must believe you, sir.\n    I do; and will fetch off Bohemia for't;\n    Provided that, when he's remov'd, your Highness\n    Will take again your queen as yours at first,\n    Even for your son's sake; and thereby for sealing\n    The injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms\n    Known and allied to yours.\n  LEONTES. Thou dost advise me\n    Even so as I mine own course have set down.\n    I'll give no blemish to her honour, none.\n  CAMILLO. My lord,\n    Go then; and with a countenance as clear\n    As friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia\n    And with your queen. I am his cupbearer;\n    If from me he have wholesome beverage,\n    Account me not your servant.\n  LEONTES. This is all:\n    Do't, and thou hast the one half of my heart;\n    Do't not, thou split'st thine own.\n  CAMILLO. I'll do't, my lord.\n  LEONTES. I will seem friendly, as thou hast advis'd me.   Exit\n  CAMILLO. O miserable lady! But, for me,\n    What case stand I in? I must be the poisoner\n    Of good Polixenes; and my ground to do't\n    Is the obedience to a master; one\n    Who, in rebellion with himself, will have\n    All that are his so too. To do this deed,\n    Promotion follows. If I could find example\n    Of thousands that had struck anointed kings\n    And flourish'd after, I'd not do't; but since\n    Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears not one,\n    Let villainy itself forswear't. I must\n    Forsake the court. To do't, or no, is certain\n    To me a break-neck. Happy star reign now!\n    Here comes Bohemia.\n\n                     Enter POLIXENES\n\n  POLIXENES. This is strange. Methinks\n    My favour here begins to warp. Not speak?\n    Good day, Camillo.\n  CAMILLO. Hail, most royal sir!\n  POLIXENES. What is the news i' th' court?\n  CAMILLO. None rare, my lord.\n  POLIXENES. The King hath on him such a countenance\n    As he had lost some province, and a region\n    Lov'd as he loves himself; even now I met him\n    With customary compliment, when he,\n    Wafting his eyes to th' contrary and falling\n    A lip of much contempt, speeds from me;\n    So leaves me to consider what is breeding\n    That changes thus his manners.\n  CAMILLO. I dare not know, my lord.\n  POLIXENES. How, dare not! Do not. Do you know, and dare not\n    Be intelligent to me? 'Tis thereabouts;\n    For, to yourself, what you do know, you must,\n    And cannot say you dare not. Good Camillo,\n    Your chang'd complexions are to me a mirror\n    Which shows me mine chang'd too; for I must be\n    A party in this alteration, finding\n    Myself thus alter'd with't.\n  CAMILLO. There is a sickness\n    Which puts some of us in distemper; but\n    I cannot name the disease; and it is caught\n    Of you that yet are well.\n  POLIXENES. How! caught of me?\n    Make me not sighted like the basilisk;\n    I have look'd on thousands who have sped the better\n    By my regard, but kill'd none so. Camillo-\n    As you are certainly a gentleman; thereto\n    Clerk-like experienc'd, which no less adorns\n    Our gentry than our parents' noble names,\n    In whose success we are gentle- I beseech you,\n    If you know aught which does behove my knowledge\n    Thereof to be inform'd, imprison't not\n    In ignorant concealment.\n  CAMILLO. I may not answer.\n  POLIXENES. A sickness caught of me, and yet I well?\n    I must be answer'd. Dost thou hear, Camillo?\n    I conjure thee, by all the parts of man\n    Which honour does acknowledge, whereof the least\n    Is not this suit of mine, that thou declare\n    What incidency thou dost guess of harm\n    Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near;\n    Which way to be prevented, if to be;\n    If not, how best to bear it.\n  CAMILLO. Sir, I will tell you;\n    Since I am charg'd in honour, and by him\n    That I think honourable. Therefore mark my counsel,\n    Which must be ev'n as swiftly followed as\n    I mean to utter it, or both yourself and me\n    Cry lost, and so goodnight.\n  POLIXENES. On, good Camillo.\n  CAMILLO. I am appointed him to murder you.\n  POLIXENES. By whom, Camillo?\n  CAMILLO. By the King.\n  POLIXENES. For what?\n  CAMILLO. He thinks, nay, with all confidence he swears,\n    As he had seen 't or been an instrument\n    To vice you to't, that you have touch'd his queen\n    Forbiddenly.\n  POLIXENES. O, then my best blood turn\n    To an infected jelly, and my name\n    Be yok'd with his that did betray the Best!\n    Turn then my freshest reputation to\n    A savour that may strike the dullest nostril\n    Where I arrive, and my approach be shunn'd,\n    Nay, hated too, worse than the great'st infection\n    That e'er was heard or read!\n  CAMILLO. Swear his thought over\n    By each particular star in heaven and\n    By all their influences, you may as well\n    Forbid the sea for to obey the moon\n    As or by oath remove or counsel shake\n    The fabric of his folly, whose foundation\n    Is pil'd upon his faith and will continue\n    The standing of his body.\n  POLIXENES. How should this grow?\n  CAMILLO. I know not; but I am sure 'tis safer to\n    Avoid what's grown than question how 'tis born.\n    If therefore you dare trust my honesty,\n    That lies enclosed in this trunk which you\n    Shall bear along impawn'd, away to-night.\n    Your followers I will whisper to the business;\n    And will, by twos and threes, at several posterns,\n    Clear them o' th' city. For myself, I'll put\n    My fortunes to your service, which are here\n    By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain,\n    For, by the honour of my parents, I\n    Have utt'red truth; which if you seek to prove,\n    I dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer\n    Than one condemn'd by the King's own mouth, thereon\n    His execution sworn.\n  POLIXENES. I do believe thee:\n    I saw his heart in's face. Give me thy hand;\n    Be pilot to me, and thy places shall\n    Still neighbour mine. My ships are ready, and\n    My people did expect my hence departure\n    Two days ago. This jealousy\n    Is for a precious creature; as she's rare,\n    Must it be great; and, as his person's mighty,\n    Must it be violent; and as he does conceive\n    He is dishonour'd by a man which ever\n    Profess'd to him, why, his revenges must\n    In that be made more bitter. Fear o'ershades me.\n    Good expedition be my friend, and comfort\n    The gracious Queen, part of this theme, but nothing\n    Of his ill-ta'en suspicion! Come, Camillo;\n    I will respect thee as a father, if\n    Thou bear'st my life off hence. Let us avoid.\n  CAMILLO. It is in mine authority to command\n    The keys of all the posterns. Please your Highness\n    To take the urgent hour. Come, sir, away.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nSicilia. The palace of LEONTES\n\nEnter HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, and LADIES\n\n  HERMIONE. Take the boy to you; he so troubles me,\n    'Tis past enduring.\n  FIRST LADY. Come, my gracious lord,\n    Shall I be your playfellow?\n  MAMILLIUS. No, I'll none of you.\n  FIRST LADY. Why, my sweet lord?\n  MAMILLIUS. You'll kiss me hard, and speak to me as if\n    I were a baby still. I love you better.\n  SECOND LADY. And why so, my lord?\n  MAMILLIUS. Not for because\n    Your brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say,\n    Become some women best; so that there be not\n    Too much hair there, but in a semicircle\n    Or a half-moon made with a pen.\n  SECOND LADY. Who taught't this?\n  MAMILLIUS. I learn'd it out of women's faces. Pray now,\n    What colour are your eyebrows?\n  FIRST LADY. Blue, my lord.\n  MAMILLIUS. Nay, that's a mock. I have seen a lady's nose\n    That has been blue, but not her eyebrows.\n  FIRST LADY. Hark ye:\n    The Queen your mother rounds apace. We shall\n    Present our services to a fine new prince\n    One of these days; and then you'd wanton with us,\n    If we would have you.\n  SECOND LADY. She is spread of late\n    Into a goodly bulk. Good time encounter her!\n  HERMIONE. What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now\n    I am for you again. Pray you sit by us,\n    And tell's a tale.\n  MAMILLIUS. Merry or sad shall't be?\n  HERMIONE. As merry as you will.\n  MAMILLIUS. A sad tale's best for winter. I have one\n    Of sprites and goblins.\n  HERMIONE. Let's have that, good sir.\n    Come on, sit down; come on, and do your best\n    To fright me with your sprites; you're pow'rfull at it.\n  MAMILLIUS. There was a man-\n  HERMIONE. Nay, come, sit down; then on.\n  MAMILLIUS. Dwelt by a churchyard- I will tell it softly;\n    Yond crickets shall not hear it.\n  HERMIONE. Come on then,\n    And give't me in mine ear.\n\n             Enter LEONTES, ANTIGONUS, LORDS, and OTHERS\n\n  LEONTES. he met there? his train? Camillo with him?\n  FIRST LORD. Behind the tuft of pines I met them; never\n    Saw I men scour so on their way. I ey'd them\n    Even to their ships.\n  LEONTES. How blest am I\n    In my just censure, in my true opinion!\n    Alack, for lesser knowledge! How accurs'd\n    In being so blest! There may be in the cup\n    A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart,\n    And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge\n    Is not infected; but if one present\n    Th' abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known\n    How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,\n    With violent hefts. I have drunk, and seen the spider.\n    Camillo was his help in this, his pander.\n    There is a plot against my life, my crown;\n    All's true that is mistrusted. That false villain\n    Whom I employ'd was pre-employ'd by him;\n    He has discover'd my design, and I\n    Remain a pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick\n    For them to play at will. How came the posterns\n    So easily open?\n  FIRST LORD. By his great authority;\n    Which often hath no less prevail'd than so\n    On your command.\n  LEONTES. I know't too well.\n    Give me the boy. I am glad you did not nurse him;\n    Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you\n    Have too much blood in him.\n  HERMIONE. What is this? Sport?\n  LEONTES. Bear the boy hence; he shall not come about her;\n    Away with him; and let her sport herself\n                                          [MAMILLIUS is led out]\n    With that she's big with- for 'tis Polixenes\n    Has made thee swell thus.\n  HERMIONE. But I'd say he had not,\n    And I'll be sworn you would believe my saying,\n    Howe'er you lean to th' nayward.\n  LEONTES. You, my lords,\n    Look on her, mark her well; be but about\n    To say 'She is a goodly lady' and\n    The justice of your hearts will thereto ad\n    'Tis pity she's not honest- honourable.'\n    Praise her but for this her without-door form,\n    Which on my faith deserves high speech, and straight\n    The shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands\n    That calumny doth use- O, I am out!-\n    That mercy does, for calumny will sear\n    Virtue itself- these shrugs, these hum's and ha's,\n    When you have said she's goodly, come between,\n    Ere you can say she's honest. But be't known,\n    From him that has most cause to grieve it should be,\n    She's an adultress.\n  HERMIONE. Should a villain say so,\n    The most replenish'd villain in the world,\n    He were as much more villain: you, my lord,\n    Do but mistake.\n  LEONTES. You have mistook, my lady,\n    Polixenes for Leontes. O thou thing!\n    Which I'll not call a creature of thy place,\n    Lest barbarism, making me the precedent,\n    Should a like language use to all degrees\n    And mannerly distinguishment leave out\n    Betwixt the prince and beggar. I have said\n    She's an adultress; I have said with whom.\n    More, she's a traitor; and Camillo is\n    A federary with her, and one that knows\n    What she should shame to know herself\n    But with her most vile principal- that she's\n    A bed-swerver, even as bad as those\n    That vulgars give bold'st titles; ay, and privy\n    To this their late escape.\n  HERMIONE. No, by my life,\n    Privy to none of this. How will this grieve you,\n    When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that\n    You thus have publish'd me! Gentle my lord,\n    You scarce can right me throughly then to say\n    You did mistake.\n  LEONTES. No; if I mistake\n    In those foundations which I build upon,\n    The centre is not big enough to bear\n    A school-boy's top. Away with her to prison.\n    He who shall speak for her is afar off guilty\n    But that he speaks.\n  HERMIONE. There's some ill planet reigns.\n    I must be patient till the heavens look\n    With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,\n    I am not prone to weeping, as our sex\n    Commonly are- the want of which vain dew\n    Perchance shall dry your pities- but I have\n    That honourable grief lodg'd here which burns\n    Worse than tears drown. Beseech you all, my lords,\n    With thoughts so qualified as your charities\n    Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so\n    The King's will be perform'd!\n  LEONTES.  [To the GUARD]  Shall I be heard?\n  HERMIONE. Who is't that goes with me? Beseech your highness\n    My women may be with me, for you see\n    My plight requires it. Do not weep, good fools;\n    There is no cause; when you shall know your mistress\n    Has deserv'd prison, then abound in tears\n    As I come out: this action I now go on\n    Is for my better grace. Adieu, my lord.\n    I never wish'd to see you sorry; now\n    I trust I shall. My women, come; you have leave.\n  LEONTES. Go, do our bidding; hence!\n                            Exeunt HERMIONE, guarded, and LADIES\n  FIRST LORD. Beseech your Highness, call the Queen again.\n  ANTIGONUS. Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice\n    Prove violence, in the which three great ones suffer,\n    Yourself, your queen, your son.\n  FIRST LORD. For her, my lord,\n    I dare my life lay down- and will do't, sir,\n    Please you t' accept it- that the Queen is spotless\n    I' th' eyes of heaven and to you- I mean\n    In this which you accuse her.\n  ANTIGONUS. If it prove\n    She's otherwise, I'll keep my stables where\n    I lodge my wife; I'll go in couples with her;\n    Than when I feel and see her no farther trust her;\n    For every inch of woman in the world,\n    Ay, every dram of woman's flesh is false,\n    If she be.\n  LEONTES. Hold your peaces.\n  FIRST LORD. Good my lord-\n  ANTIGONUS. It is for you we speak, not for ourselves.\n    You are abus'd, and by some putter-on\n    That will be damn'd for't. Would I knew the villain!\n    I would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw'd-\n    I have three daughters: the eldest is eleven;\n    The second and the third, nine and some five;\n    If this prove true, they'll pay for 't. By mine honour,\n    I'll geld 'em all; fourteen they shall not see\n    To bring false generations. They are co-heirs;\n    And I had rather glib myself than they\n    Should not produce fair issue.\n  LEONTES. Cease; no more.\n    You smell this business with a sense as cold\n    As is a dead man's nose; but I do see't and feel't\n    As you feel doing thus; and see withal\n    The instruments that feel.\n  ANTIGONUS. If it be so,\n    We need no grave to bury honesty;\n    There's not a grain of it the face to sweeten\n    Of the whole dungy earth.\n  LEONTES. What! Lack I credit?\n  FIRST LORD. I had rather you did lack than I, my lord,\n    Upon this ground; and more it would content me\n    To have her honour true than your suspicion,\n    Be blam'd for't how you might.\n  LEONTES. Why, what need we\n    Commune with you of this, but rather follow\n    Our forceful instigation? Our prerogative\n    Calls not your counsels; but our natural goodness\n    Imparts this; which, if you- or stupified\n    Or seeming so in skill- cannot or will not\n    Relish a truth like us, inform yourselves\n    We need no more of your advice. The matter,\n    The loss, the gain, the ord'ring on't, is all\n    Properly ours.\n  ANTIGONUS. And I wish, my liege,\n    You had only in your silent judgment tried it,\n    Without more overture.\n  LEONTES. How could that be?\n    Either thou art most ignorant by age,\n    Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo's flight,\n    Added to their familiarity-\n    Which was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture,\n    That lack'd sight only, nought for approbation\n    But only seeing, all other circumstances\n    Made up to th' deed- doth push on this proceeding.\n    Yet, for a greater confirmation-\n    For, in an act of this importance, 'twere\n    Most piteous to be wild- I have dispatch'd in post\n    To sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple,\n    Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know\n    Of stuff'd sufficiency. Now, from the oracle\n    They will bring all, whose spiritual counsel had,\n    Shall stop or spur me. Have I done well?\n  FIRST LORD. Well done, my lord.\n  LEONTES. Though I am satisfied, and need no more\n    Than what I know, yet shall the oracle\n    Give rest to th' minds of others such as he\n    Whose ignorant credulity will not\n    Come up to th' truth. So have we thought it good\n    From our free person she should be confin'd,\n    Lest that the treachery of the two fled hence\n    Be left her to perform. Come, follow us;\n    We are to speak in public; for this business\n    Will raise us all.\n  ANTIGONUS.  [Aside]  To laughter, as I take it,\n    If the good truth were known.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nSicilia. A prison\n\nEnter PAULINA, a GENTLEMAN, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  PAULINA. The keeper of the prison- call to him;\n    Let him have knowledge who I am.              Exit GENTLEMAN\n    Good lady!\n    No court in Europe is too good for thee;\n    What dost thou then in prison?\n\n                 Re-enter GENTLEMAN with the GAOLER\n\n    Now, good sir,\n    You know me, do you not?\n  GAOLER. For a worthy lady,\n    And one who much I honour.\n  PAULINA. Pray you, then,\n    Conduct me to the Queen.\n  GAOLER. I may not, madam;\n    To the contrary I have express commandment.\n  PAULINA. Here's ado, to lock up honesty and honour from\n    Th' access of gentle visitors! Is't lawful, pray you,\n    To see her women- any of them? Emilia?\n  GAOLER. So please you, madam,\n    To put apart these your attendants,\n    Shall bring Emilia forth.\n  PAULINA. I pray now, call her.\n    Withdraw yourselves.                       Exeunt ATTENDANTS\n  GAOLER. And, madam,\n    I must be present at your conference.\n  PAULINA. Well, be't so, prithee.                   Exit GAOLER\n    Here's such ado to make no stain a stain\n    As passes colouring.\n\n                 Re-enter GAOLER, with EMILIA\n\n    Dear gentlewoman,\n    How fares our gracious lady?\n  EMILIA. As well as one so great and so forlorn\n    May hold together. On her frights and griefs,\n    Which never tender lady hath borne greater,\n    She is, something before her time, deliver'd.\n  PAULINA. A boy?\n  EMILIA. A daughter, and a goodly babe,\n    Lusty, and like to live. The Queen receives\n    Much comfort in't; says 'My poor prisoner,\n    I am as innocent as you.'\n  PAULINA. I dare be sworn.\n    These dangerous unsafe lunes i' th' King, beshrew them!\n    He must be told on't, and he shall. The office\n    Becomes a woman best; I'll take't upon me;\n    If I prove honey-mouth'd, let my tongue blister,\n    And never to my red-look'd anger be\n    The trumpet any more. Pray you, Emilia,\n    Commend my best obedience to the Queen;\n    If she dares trust me with her little babe,\n    I'll show't the King, and undertake to be\n    Her advocate to th' loud'st. We do not know\n    How he may soften at the sight o' th' child:\n    The silence often of pure innocence\n    Persuades when speaking fails.\n  EMILIA. Most worthy madam,\n    Your honour and your goodness is so evident\n    That your free undertaking cannot miss\n    A thriving issue; there is no lady living\n    So meet for this great errand. Please your ladyship\n    To visit the next room, I'll presently\n    Acquaint the Queen of your most noble offer\n    Who but to-day hammer'd of this design,\n    But durst not tempt a minister of honour,\n    Lest she should be denied.\n  PAULINA. Tell her, Emilia,\n    I'll use that tongue I have; if wit flow from't\n    As boldness from my bosom, let't not be doubted\n    I shall do good.\n  EMILIA. Now be you blest for it!\n    I'll to the Queen. Please you come something nearer.\n  GAOLER. Madam, if't please the Queen to send the babe,\n    I know not what I shall incur to pass it,\n    Having no warrant.\n  PAULINA. You need not fear it, sir.\n    This child was prisoner to the womb, and is\n    By law and process of great Nature thence\n    Freed and enfranchis'd- not a party to\n    The anger of the King, nor guilty of,\n    If any be, the trespass of the Queen.\n  GAOLER. I do believe it.\n  PAULINA. Do not you fear. Upon mine honour, I\n    Will stand betwixt you and danger.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nSicilia. The palace of LEONTES\n\nEnter LEONTES, ANTIGONUS, LORDS, and SERVANTS\n\n  LEONTES. Nor night nor day no rest! It is but weakness\n    To bear the matter thus- mere weakness. If\n    The cause were not in being- part o' th' cause,\n    She, th' adultress; for the harlot king\n    Is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank\n    And level of my brain, plot-proof; but she\n    I can hook to me- say that she were gone,\n    Given to the fire, a moiety of my rest\n    Might come to me again. Who's there?\n  FIRST SERVANT. My lord?\n  LEONTES. How does the boy?\n  FIRST SERVANT. He took good rest to-night;\n    'Tis hop'd his sickness is discharg'd.\n  LEONTES. To see his nobleness!\n    Conceiving the dishonour of his mother,\n    He straight declin'd, droop'd, took it deeply,\n    Fasten'd and fix'd the shame on't in himself,\n    Threw off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep,\n    And downright languish'd. Leave me solely. Go,\n    See how he fares.  [Exit SERVANT]  Fie, fie! no thought of him!\n    The very thought of my revenges that way\n    Recoil upon me- in himself too mighty,\n    And in his parties, his alliance. Let him be,\n    Until a time may serve; for present vengeance,\n    Take it on her. Camillo and Polixenes\n    Laugh at me, make their pastime at my sorrow.\n    They should not laugh if I could reach them; nor\n    Shall she, within my pow'r.\n\n                 Enter PAULINA, with a CHILD\n\n  FIRST LORD. You must not enter.\n  PAULINA. Nay, rather, good my lords, be second to me.\n    Fear you his tyrannous passion more, alas,\n    Than the Queen's life? A gracious innocent soul,\n    More free than he is jealous.\n  ANTIGONUS. That's enough.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Madam, he hath not slept to-night; commanded\n    None should come at him.\n  PAULINA. Not so hot, good sir;\n    I come to bring him sleep. 'Tis such as you,\n    That creep like shadows by him, and do sigh\n    At each his needless heavings- such as you\n    Nourish the cause of his awaking: I\n    Do come with words as medicinal as true,\n    Honest as either, to purge him of that humour\n    That presses him from sleep.\n  LEONTES. What noise there, ho?\n  PAULINA. No noise, my lord; but needful conference\n    About some gossips for your Highness.\n  LEONTES. How!\n    Away with that audacious lady! Antigonus,\n    I charg'd thee that she should not come about me;\n    I knew she would.\n  ANTIGONUS. I told her so, my lord,\n    On your displeasure's peril, and on mine,\n    She should not visit you.\n  LEONTES. What, canst not rule her?\n  PAULINA. From all dishonesty he can: in this,\n    Unless he take the course that you have done-\n    Commit me for committing honour- trust it,\n    He shall not rule me.\n  ANTIGONUS. La you now, you hear!\n    When she will take the rein, I let her run;\n    But she'll not stumble.\n  PAULINA. Good my liege, I come-\n    And I beseech you hear me, who professes\n    Myself your loyal servant, your physician,\n    Your most obedient counsellor; yet that dares\n    Less appear so, in comforting your evils,\n    Than such as most seem yours- I say I come\n    From your good Queen.\n  LEONTES. Good Queen!\n  PAULINA. Good Queen, my lord, good Queen- I say good Queen;\n    And would by combat make her good, so were I\n    A man, the worst about you.\n  LEONTES. Force her hence.\n  PAULINA. Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes\n    First hand me. On mine own accord I'll off;\n    But first I'll do my errand. The good Queen,\n    For she is good, hath brought you forth a daughter;\n    Here 'tis; commends it to your blessing.\n                                         [Laying down the child]\n  LEONTES. Out!\n    A mankind witch! Hence with her, out o' door!\n    A most intelligencing bawd!\n  PAULINA. Not so.\n    I am as ignorant in that as you\n    In so entitling me; and no less honest\n    Than you are mad; which is enough, I'll warrant,\n    As this world goes, to pass for honest.\n  LEONTES. Traitors!\n    Will you not push her out? Give her the bastard.\n    [To ANTIGONUS]  Thou dotard, thou art woman-tir'd, unroosted\n    By thy Dame Partlet here. Take up the bastard;\n    Take't up, I say; give't to thy crone.\n  PAULINA. For ever\n    Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou\n    Tak'st up the Princess by that forced baseness\n    Which he has put upon't!\n  LEONTES. He dreads his wife.\n  PAULINA. So I would you did; then 'twere past all doubt\n    You'd call your children yours.\n  LEONTES. A nest of traitors!\n  ANTIGONUS. I am none, by this good light.\n  PAULINA. Nor I; nor any\n    But one that's here; and that's himself; for he\n    The sacred honour of himself, his Queen's,\n    His hopeful son's, his babe's, betrays to slander,\n    Whose sting is sharper than the sword's; and will not-\n    For, as the case now stands, it is a curse\n    He cannot be compell'd to 't- once remove\n    The root of his opinion, which is rotten\n    As ever oak or stone was sound.\n  LEONTES. A callat\n    Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband,\n    And now baits me! This brat is none of mine;\n    It is the issue of Polixenes.\n    Hence with it, and together with the dam\n    Commit them to the fire.\n  PAULINA. It is yours.\n    And, might we lay th' old proverb to your charge,\n    So like you 'tis the worse. Behold, my lords,\n    Although the print be little, the whole matter\n    And copy of the father- eye, nose, lip,\n    The trick of's frown, his forehead; nay, the valley,\n    The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek; his smiles;\n    The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger.\n    And thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it\n    So like to him that got it, if thou hast\n    The ordering of the mind too, 'mongst all colours\n    No yellow in't, lest she suspect, as he does,\n    Her children not her husband's!\n  LEONTES. A gross hag!\n    And, lozel, thou art worthy to be hang'd\n    That wilt not stay her tongue.\n  ANTIGONUS. Hang all the husbands\n    That cannot do that feat, you'll leave yourself\n    Hardly one subject.\n  LEONTES. Once more, take her hence.\n  PAULINA. A most unworthy and unnatural lord\n    Can do no more.\n  LEONTES. I'll ha' thee burnt.\n  PAULINA. I care not.\n    It is an heretic that makes the fire,\n    Not she which burns in't. I'll not call you tyrant\n    But this most cruel usage of your Queen-\n    Not able to produce more accusation\n    Than your own weak-hing'd fancy- something savours\n    Of tyranny, and will ignoble make you,\n    Yea, scandalous to the world.\n  LEONTES. On your allegiance,\n    Out of the chamber with her! Were I a tyrant,\n    Where were her life? She durst not call me so,\n    If she did know me one. Away with her!\n  PAULINA. I pray you, do not push me; I'll be gone.\n    Look to your babe, my lord; 'tis yours. Jove send her\n    A better guiding spirit! What needs these hands?\n    You that are thus so tender o'er his follies\n    Will never do him good, not one of you.\n    So, so. Farewell; we are gone.                          Exit\n  LEONTES. Thou, traitor, hast set on thy wife to this.\n    My child! Away with't. Even thou, that hast\n    A heart so tender o'er it, take it hence,\n    And see it instantly consum'd with fire;\n    Even thou, and none but thou. Take it up straight.\n    Within this hour bring me word 'tis done,\n    And by good testimony, or I'll seize thy life,\n    With that thou else call'st thine. If thou refuse,\n    And wilt encounter with my wrath, say so;\n    The bastard brains with these my proper hands\n    Shall I dash out. Go, take it to the fire;\n    For thou set'st on thy wife.\n  ANTIGONUS. I did not, sir.\n    These lords, my noble fellows, if they please,\n    Can clear me in't.\n  LORDS. We can. My royal liege,\n    He is not guilty of her coming hither.\n  LEONTES. You're liars all.\n  FIRST LORD. Beseech your Highness, give us better credit.\n    We have always truly serv'd you; and beseech\n    So to esteem of us; and on our knees we beg,\n    As recompense of our dear services\n    Past and to come, that you do change this purpose,\n    Which being so horrible, so bloody, must\n    Lead on to some foul issue. We all kneel.\n  LEONTES. I am a feather for each wind that blows.\n    Shall I live on to see this bastard kneel\n    And call me father? Better burn it now\n    Than curse it then. But be it; let it live.\n    It shall not neither.  [To ANTIGONUS]  You, Sir, come you hither.\n    You that have been so tenderly officious\n    With Lady Margery, your midwife there,\n    To save this bastard's life- for 'tis a bastard,\n    So sure as this beard's grey- what will you adventure\n    To save this brat's life?\n  ANTIGONUS. Anything, my lord,\n    That my ability may undergo,\n    And nobleness impose. At least, thus much:\n    I'll pawn the little blood which I have left\n    To save the innocent- anything possible.\n  LEONTES. It shall be possible. Swear by this sword\n    Thou wilt perform my bidding.\n  ANTIGONUS. I will, my lord.\n  LEONTES. Mark, and perform it- seest thou? For the fail\n    Of any point in't shall not only be\n    Death to thyself, but to thy lewd-tongu'd wife,\n    Whom for this time we pardon. We enjoin thee,\n    As thou art liegeman to us, that thou carry\n    This female bastard hence; and that thou bear it\n    To some remote and desert place, quite out\n    Of our dominions; and that there thou leave it,\n    Without more mercy, to it own protection\n    And favour of the climate. As by strange fortune\n    It came to us, I do in justice charge thee,\n    On thy soul's peril and thy body's torture,\n    That thou commend it strangely to some place\n    Where chance may nurse or end it. Take it up.\n  ANTIGONUS. I swear to do this, though a present death\n    Had been more merciful. Come on, poor babe.\n    Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens\n    To be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say,\n    Casting their savageness aside, have done\n    Like offices of pity. Sir, be prosperous\n    In more than this deed does require! And blessing\n    Against this cruelty fight on thy side,\n    Poor thing, condemn'd to loss!           Exit with the child\n  LEONTES. No, I'll not rear\n    Another's issue.\n\n                         Enter a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. Please your Highness, posts\n    From those you sent to th' oracle are come\n    An hour since. Cleomenes and Dion,\n    Being well arriv'd from Delphos, are both landed,\n    Hasting to th' court.\n  FIRST LORD. So please you, sir, their speed\n    Hath been beyond account.\n  LEONTES. Twenty-three days\n    They have been absent; 'tis good speed; foretells\n    The great Apollo suddenly will have\n    The truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords;\n    Summon a session, that we may arraign\n    Our most disloyal lady; for, as she hath\n    Been publicly accus'd, so shall she have\n    A just and open trial. While she lives,\n    My heart will be a burden to me. Leave me;\n    And think upon my bidding.                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nSicilia. On the road to the Capital\n\nEnter CLEOMENES and DION\n\n  CLEOMENES. The climate's delicate, the air most sweet,\n    Fertile the isle, the temple much surpassing\n    The common praise it bears.\n  DION. I shall report,\n    For most it caught me, the celestial habits-\n    Methinks I so should term them- and the reverence\n    Of the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice!\n    How ceremonious, solemn, and unearthly,\n    It was i' th' off'ring!\n  CLEOMENES. But of all, the burst\n    And the ear-deaf'ning voice o' th' oracle,\n    Kin to Jove's thunder, so surpris'd my sense\n    That I was nothing.\n  DION. If th' event o' th' journey\n    Prove as successful to the Queen- O, be't so!-\n    As it hath been to us rare, pleasant, speedy,\n    The time is worth the use on't.\n  CLEOMENES. Great Apollo\n    Turn all to th' best! These proclamations,\n    So forcing faults upon Hermione,\n    I little like.\n  DION. The violent carriage of it\n    Will clear or end the business. When the oracle-\n    Thus by Apollo's great divine seal'd up-\n    Shall the contents discover, something rare\n    Even then will rush to knowledge. Go; fresh horses.\n    And gracious be the issue!                            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nSicilia. A court of justice\n\nEnter LEONTES, LORDS, and OFFICERS\n\n  LEONTES. This sessions, to our great grief we pronounce,\n    Even pushes 'gainst our heart- the party tried,\n    The daughter of a king, our wife, and one\n    Of us too much belov'd. Let us be clear'd\n    Of being tyrannous, since we so openly\n    Proceed in justice, which shall have due course,\n    Even to the guilt or the purgation.\n    Produce the prisoner.\n  OFFICER. It is his Highness' pleasure that the Queen\n    Appear in person here in court.\n\n         Enter HERMIONE, as to her trial, PAULINA, and LADIES\n\n    Silence!\n  LEONTES. Read the indictment.\n  OFFICER.  [Reads]  'Hermione, Queen to the worthy Leontes, King of\n    Sicilia, thou art here accused and arraigned of high treason, in\n    committing adultery with Polixenes, King of Bohemia; and\n    conspiring with Camillo to take away the life of our sovereign\n    lord the King, thy royal husband: the pretence whereof being by\n    circumstances partly laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to the\n    faith and allegiance of true subject, didst counsel and aid them,\n    for their better safety, to fly away by night.'\n  HERMIONE. Since what I am to say must be but that\n    Which contradicts my accusation, and\n    The testimony on my part no other\n    But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me\n    To say 'Not guilty.' Mine integrity\n    Being counted falsehood shall, as I express it,\n    Be so receiv'd. But thus- if pow'rs divine\n    Behold our human actions, as they do,\n    I doubt not then but innocence shall make\n    False accusation blush, and tyranny\n    Tremble at patience. You, my lord, best know-\n    Who least will seem to do so- my past life\n    Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true,\n    As I am now unhappy; which is more\n    Than history can pattern, though devis'd\n    And play'd to take spectators; for behold me-\n    A fellow of the royal bed, which owe\n    A moiety of the throne, a great king's daughter,\n    The mother to a hopeful prince- here standing\n    To prate and talk for life and honour fore\n    Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it\n    As I weigh grief, which I would spare; for honour,\n    'Tis a derivative from me to mine,\n    And only that I stand for. I appeal\n    To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes\n    Came to your court, how I was in your grace,\n    How merited to be so; since he came,\n    With what encounter so uncurrent I\n    Have strain'd t' appear thus; if one jot beyond\n    The bound of honour, or in act or will\n    That way inclining, hard'ned be the hearts\n    Of all that hear me, and my near'st of kin\n    Cry fie upon my grave!\n  LEONTES. I ne'er heard yet\n    That any of these bolder vices wanted\n    Less impudence to gainsay what they did\n    Than to perform it first.\n  HERMIONE. That's true enough;\n    Though 'tis a saying, sir, not due to me.\n  LEONTES. You will not own it.\n  HERMIONE. More than mistress of\n    Which comes to me in name of fault, I must not\n    At all acknowledge. For Polixenes,\n    With whom I am accus'd, I do confess\n    I lov'd him as in honour he requir'd;\n    With such a kind of love as might become\n    A lady like me; with a love even such,\n    So and no other, as yourself commanded;\n    Which not to have done, I think had been in me\n    Both disobedience and ingratitude\n    To you and toward your friend; whose love had spoke,\n    Ever since it could speak, from an infant, freely,\n    That it was yours. Now for conspiracy:\n    I know not how it tastes, though it be dish'd\n    For me to try how; all I know of it\n    Is that Camillo was an honest man;\n    And why he left your court, the gods themselves,\n    Wotting no more than I, are ignorant.\n  LEONTES. You knew of his departure, as you know\n    What you have underta'en to do in's absence.\n  HERMIONE. Sir,\n    You speak a language that I understand not.\n    My life stands in the level of your dreams,\n    Which I'll lay down.\n  LEONTES. Your actions are my dreams.\n    You had a bastard by Polixenes,\n    And I but dream'd it. As you were past all shame-\n    Those of your fact are so- so past all truth;\n    Which to deny concerns more than avails; for as\n    Thy brat hath been cast out, like to itself,\n    No father owning it- which is indeed\n    More criminal in thee than it- so thou\n    Shalt feel our justice; in whose easiest passage\n    Look for no less than death.\n  HERMIONE. Sir, spare your threats.\n    The bug which you would fright me with I seek.\n    To me can life be no commodity.\n    The crown and comfort of my life, your favour,\n    I do give lost, for I do feel it gone,\n    But know not how it went; my second joy\n    And first fruits of my body, from his presence\n    I am barr'd, like one infectious; my third comfort,\n    Starr'd most unluckily, is from my breast-\n    The innocent milk in it most innocent mouth-\n    Hal'd out to murder; myself on every post\n    Proclaim'd a strumpet; with immodest hatred\n    The child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs\n    To women of all fashion; lastly, hurried\n    Here to this place, i' th' open air, before\n    I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege,\n    Tell me what blessings I have here alive\n    That I should fear to die. Therefore proceed.\n    But yet hear this- mistake me not: no life,\n    I prize it not a straw, but for mine honour\n    Which I would free- if I shall be condemn'd\n    Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else\n    But what your jealousies awake, I tell you\n    'Tis rigour, and not law. Your honours all,\n    I do refer me to the oracle:\n    Apollo be my judge!\n  FIRST LORD. This your request\n    Is altogether just. Therefore, bring forth,\n    And in Apollo's name, his oracle.\n                                         Exeunt certain OFFICERS\n  HERMIONE. The Emperor of Russia was my father;\n    O that he were alive, and here beholding\n    His daughter's trial! that he did but see\n    The flatness of my misery; yet with eyes\n    Of pity, not revenge!\n\n           Re-enter OFFICERS, with CLEOMENES and DION\n\n  OFFICER. You here shall swear upon this sword of justice\n    That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have\n    Been both at Delphos, and from thence have brought\n    This seal'd-up oracle, by the hand deliver'd\n    Of great Apollo's priest; and that since then\n    You have not dar'd to break the holy seal\n    Nor read the secrets in't.\n  CLEOMENES, DION. All this we swear.\n  LEONTES. Break up the seals and read.\n  OFFICER.  [Reads]  'Hermione is chaste; Polixenes blameless;\n    Camillo a true subject; Leontes a jealous tyrant; his innocent\n    babe truly begotten; and the King shall live without an heir, if\n    that which is lost be not found.'\n  LORDS. Now blessed be the great Apollo!\n  HERMIONE. Praised!\n  LEONTES. Hast thou read truth?\n  OFFICER. Ay, my lord; even so\n    As it is here set down.\n  LEONTES. There is no truth at all i' th' oracle.\n    The sessions shall proceed. This is mere falsehood.\n\n                        Enter a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. My lord the King, the King!\n  LEONTES. What is the business?\n  SERVANT. O sir, I shall be hated to report it:\n    The Prince your son, with mere conceit and fear\n    Of the Queen's speed, is gone.\n  LEONTES. How! Gone?\n  SERVANT. Is dead.\n  LEONTES. Apollo's angry; and the heavens themselves\n    Do strike at my injustice.                 [HERMIONE swoons]\n    How now, there!\n  PAULINA. This news is mortal to the Queen. Look down\n    And see what death is doing.\n  LEONTES. Take her hence.\n    Her heart is but o'ercharg'd; she will recover.\n    I have too much believ'd mine own suspicion.\n    Beseech you tenderly apply to her\n    Some remedies for life.\n                         Exeunt PAULINA and LADIES with HERMIONE\n    Apollo, pardon\n    My great profaneness 'gainst thine oracle.\n    I'll reconcile me to Polixenes,\n    New woo my queen, recall the good Camillo-\n    Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy.\n    For, being transported by my jealousies\n    To bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose\n    Camillo for the minister to poison\n    My friend Polixenes; which had been done\n    But that the good mind of Camillo tardied\n    My swift command, though I with death and with\n    Reward did threaten and encourage him,\n    Not doing it and being done. He, most humane\n    And fill'd with honour, to my kingly guest\n    Unclasp'd my practice, quit his fortunes here,\n    Which you knew great, and to the certain hazard\n    Of all incertainties himself commended,\n    No richer than his honour. How he glisters\n    Thorough my rust! And how his piety\n    Does my deeds make the blacker!\n\n                      Re-enter PAULINA\n\n  PAULINA. Woe the while!\n    O, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it,\n    Break too!\n  FIRST LORD. What fit is this, good lady?\n  PAULINA. What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?\n    What wheels, racks, fires? what flaying, boiling\n    In leads or oils? What old or newer torture\n    Must I receive, whose every word deserves\n    To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny\n    Together working with thy jealousies,\n    Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle\n    For girls of nine- O, think what they have done,\n    And then run mad indeed, stark mad; for all\n    Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it.\n    That thou betray'dst Polixenes, 'twas nothing;\n    That did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant,\n    And damnable ingrateful. Nor was't much\n    Thou wouldst have poison'd good Camillo's honour,\n    To have him kill a king- poor trespasses,\n    More monstrous standing by; whereof I reckon\n    The casting forth to crows thy baby daughter\n    To be or none or little, though a devil\n    Would have shed water out of fire ere done't;\n    Nor is't directly laid to thee, the death\n    Of the young Prince, whose honourable thoughts-\n    Thoughts high for one so tender- cleft the heart\n    That could conceive a gross and foolish sire\n    Blemish'd his gracious dam. This is not, no,\n    Laid to thy answer; but the last- O lords,\n    When I have said, cry 'Woe!'- the Queen, the Queen,\n    The sweet'st, dear'st creature's dead; and vengeance\n    For't not dropp'd down yet.\n  FIRST LORD. The higher pow'rs forbid!\n  PAULINA. I say she's dead; I'll swear't. If word nor oath\n    Prevail not, go and see. If you can bring\n    Tincture or lustre in her lip, her eye,\n    Heat outwardly or breath within, I'll serve you\n    As I would do the gods. But, O thou tyrant!\n    Do not repent these things, for they are heavier\n    Than all thy woes can stir; therefore betake thee\n    To nothing but despair. A thousand knees\n    Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting,\n    Upon a barren mountain, and still winter\n    In storm perpetual, could not move the gods\n    To look that way thou wert.\n  LEONTES. Go on, go on.\n    Thou canst not speak too much; I have deserv'd\n    All tongues to talk their bitt'rest.\n  FIRST LORD. Say no more;\n    Howe'er the business goes, you have made fault\n    I' th' boldness of your speech.\n  PAULINA. I am sorry for't.\n    All faults I make, when I shall come to know them.\n    I do repent. Alas, I have show'd too much\n    The rashness of a woman! He is touch'd\n    To th' noble heart. What's gone and what's past help\n    Should be past grief. Do not receive affliction\n    At my petition; I beseech you, rather\n    Let me be punish'd that have minded you\n    Of what you should forget. Now, good my liege,\n    Sir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman.\n    The love I bore your queen- lo, fool again!\n    I'll speak of her no more, nor of your children;\n    I'll not remember you of my own lord,\n    Who is lost too. Take your patience to you,\n    And I'll say nothing.\n  LEONTES. Thou didst speak but well\n    When most the truth; which I receive much better\n    Than to be pitied of thee. Prithee, bring me\n    To the dead bodies of my queen and son.\n    One grave shall be for both. Upon them shall\n    The causes of their death appear, unto\n    Our shame perpetual. Once a day I'll visit\n    The chapel where they lie; and tears shed there\n    Shall be my recreation. So long as nature\n    Will bear up with this exercise, so long\n    I daily vow to use it. Come, and lead me\n    To these sorrows.                                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nBohemia. The sea-coast\n\nEnter ANTIGONUS with the CHILD, and a MARINER\n\n  ANTIGONUS. Thou art perfect then our ship hath touch'd upon\n    The deserts of Bohemia?\n  MARINER. Ay, my lord, and fear\n    We have landed in ill time; the skies look grimly\n    And threaten present blusters. In my conscience,\n    The heavens with that we have in hand are angry\n    And frown upon 's.\n  ANTIGONUS. Their sacred wills be done! Go, get aboard;\n    Look to thy bark. I'll not be long before\n    I call upon thee.\n  MARINER. Make your best haste; and go not\n    Too far i' th' land; 'tis like to be loud weather;\n    Besides, this place is famous for the creatures\n    Of prey that keep upon't.\n  ANTIGONUS. Go thou away;\n    I'll follow instantly.\n  MARINER. I am glad at heart\n    To be so rid o' th' business.                           Exit\n  ANTIGONUS. Come, poor babe.\n    I have heard, but not believ'd, the spirits o' th' dead\n    May walk again. If such thing be, thy mother\n    Appear'd to me last night; for ne'er was dream\n    So like a waking. To me comes a creature,\n    Sometimes her head on one side some another-\n    I never saw a vessel of like sorrow,\n    So fill'd and so becoming; in pure white robes,\n    Like very sanctity, she did approach\n    My cabin where I lay; thrice bow'd before me;\n    And, gasping to begin some speech, her eyes\n    Became two spouts; the fury spent, anon\n    Did this break from her: 'Good Antigonus,\n    Since fate, against thy better disposition,\n    Hath made thy person for the thrower-out\n    Of my poor babe, according to thine oath,\n    Places remote enough are in Bohemia,\n    There weep, and leave it crying; and, for the babe\n    Is counted lost for ever, Perdita\n    I prithee call't. For this ungentle business,\n    Put on thee by my lord, thou ne'er shalt see\n    Thy wife Paulina more.' so, with shrieks,\n    She melted into air. Affrighted much,\n    I did in time collect myself, and thought\n    This was so and no slumber. Dreams are toys;\n    Yet, for this once, yea, superstitiously,\n    I will be squar'd by this. I do believe\n    Hermione hath suffer'd death, and that\n    Apollo would, this being indeed the issue\n    Of King Polixenes, it should here be laid,\n    Either for life or death, upon the earth\n    Of its right father. Blossom, speed thee well!\n                                         [Laying down the child]\n    There lie, and there thy character; there these\n                                          [Laying down a bundle]\n    Which may, if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty,\n    And still rest thine. The storm begins. Poor wretch,\n    That for thy mother's fault art thus expos'd\n    To loss and what may follow! Weep I cannot,\n    But my heart bleeds; and most accurs'd am I\n    To be by oath enjoin'd to this. Farewell!\n    The day frowns more and more. Thou'rt like to have\n    A lullaby too rough; I never saw\n    The heavens so dim by day.  [Noise of hunt within]  A savage\n      clamour!\n    Well may I get aboard! This is the chase;\n    I am gone for ever.                  Exit, pursued by a bear\n\n                      Enter an old SHEPHERD\n\n  SHEPHERD. I would there were no age between ten and three and\n    twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is\n    nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging\n    the ancientry, stealing, fighting-  [Horns]  Hark you now! Would\n    any but these boil'd brains of nineteen and two and twenty hunt\n    this weather? They have scar'd away two of my best sheep, which I\n    fear the wolf will sooner find than the master. If any where I\n    have them, 'tis by the sea-side, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an't\n    be thy will! What have we here?  [Taking up the child]  Mercy\n    on's, a barne! A very pretty barne. A boy or a child, I wonder? A\n    pretty one; a very pretty one- sure, some scape. Though I am not\n    bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. This\n    has been some stair-work, some trunk-work, some behind-door-work;\n    they were warmer that got this than the poor thing is here. I'll\n    take it up for pity; yet I'll tarry till my son come; he halloo'd\n    but even now. Whoa-ho-hoa!\n\n                          Enter CLOWN\n\n  CLOWN. Hilloa, loa!\n  SHEPHERD. What, art so near? If thou'lt see a thing to talk on when\n    thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What ail'st thou, man?\n  CLOWN. I have seen two such sights, by sea and by land! But I am\n    not to say it is a sea, for it is now the sky; betwixt the\n    firmament and it you cannot thrust a bodkin's point.\n  SHEPHERD. Why, boy, how is it?\n  CLOWN. I would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages, how it\n    takes up the shore! But that's not to the point. O, the most\n    piteous cry of the poor souls! Sometimes to see 'em, and not to\n    see 'em; now the ship boring the moon with her mainmast, and anon\n    swallowed with yeast and froth, as you'd thrust a cork into a\n    hogshead. And then for the land service- to see how the bear tore\n    out his shoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help, and said his\n    name was Antigonus, a nobleman! But to make an end of the ship-\n    to see how the sea flap-dragon'd it; but first, how the poor\n    souls roared, and the sea mock'd them; and how the poor gentleman\n    roared, and the bear mock'd him, both roaring louder than the sea\n    or weather.\n  SHEPHERD. Name of mercy, when was this, boy?\n  CLOWN. Now, now; I have not wink'd since I saw these sights; the\n    men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half din'd on the\n    gentleman; he's at it now.\n  SHEPHERD. Would I had been by to have help'd the old man!\n  CLOWN. I would you had been by the ship-side, to have help'd her;\n    there your charity would have lack'd footing.\n  SHEPHERD. Heavy matters, heavy matters! But look thee here, boy.\n    Now bless thyself; thou met'st with things dying, I with things\n    new-born. Here's a sight for thee; look thee, a bearing-cloth for\n    a squire's child! Look thee here; take up, take up, boy; open't.\n    So, let's see- it was told me I should be rich by the fairies.\n    This is some changeling. Open't. What's within, boy?\n  CLOWN. You're a made old man; if the sins of your youth are\n    forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold!\n  SHEPHERD. This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so. Up with't,\n    keep it close. Home, home, the next way! We are lucky, boy; and\n    to be so still requires nothing but secrecy. Let my sheep go.\n    Come, good boy, the next way home.\n  CLOWN. Go you the next way with your findings. I'll go see if the\n    bear be gone from the gentleman, and how much he hath eaten. They\n    are never curst but when they are hungry. If there be any of him\n    left, I'll bury it.\n  SHEPHERD. That's a good deed. If thou mayest discern by that which\n    is left of him what he is, fetch me to th' sight of him.\n  CLOWN. Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i' th' ground.\n  SHEPHERD. 'Tis a lucky day, boy; and we'll do good deeds on't.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\n\nEnter TIME, the CHORUS\n\n  TIME. I, that please some, try all, both joy and terror\n    Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error,\n    Now take upon me, in the name of Time,\n    To use my wings. Impute it not a crime\n    To me or my swift passage that I slide\n    O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried\n    Of that wide gap, since it is in my pow'r\n    To o'erthrow law, and in one self-born hour\n    To plant and o'erwhelm custom. Let me pass\n    The same I am, ere ancient'st order was\n    Or what is now receiv'd. I witness to\n    The times that brought them in; so shall I do\n    To th' freshest things now reigning, and make stale\n    The glistering of this present, as my tale\n    Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing,\n    I turn my glass, and give my scene such growing\n    As you had slept between. Leontes leaving-\n    Th' effects of his fond jealousies so grieving\n    That he shuts up himself- imagine me,\n    Gentle spectators, that I now may be\n    In fair Bohemia; and remember well\n    I mention'd a son o' th' King's, which Florizel\n    I now name to you; and with speed so pace\n    To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace\n    Equal with wond'ring. What of her ensues\n    I list not prophesy; but let Time's news\n    Be known when 'tis brought forth. A shepherd's daughter,\n    And what to her adheres, which follows after,\n    Is th' argument of Time. Of this allow,\n    If ever you have spent time worse ere now;\n    If never, yet that Time himself doth say\n    He wishes earnestly you never may.                      Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBohemia. The palace of POLIXENES\n\nEnter POLIXENES and CAMILLO\n\n  POLIXENES. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: 'tis\n    a sickness denying thee anything; a death to grant this.\n  CAMILLO. It is fifteen years since I saw my country; though I have\n    for the most part been aired abroad, I desire to lay my bones\n    there. Besides, the penitent King, my master, hath sent for me;\n    to whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to\n    think so, which is another spur to my departure.\n  POLIXENES. As thou lov'st me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of thy\n    services by leaving me now. The need I have of thee thine own\n    goodness hath made. Better not to have had thee than thus to want\n    thee; thou, having made me businesses which none without thee can\n    sufficiently manage, must either stay to execute them thyself, or\n    take away with thee the very services thou hast done; which if I\n    have not enough considered- as too much I cannot- to be more\n    thankful to thee shall be my study; and my profit therein the\n    heaping friendships. Of that fatal country Sicilia, prithee,\n    speak no more; whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance\n    of that penitent, as thou call'st him, and reconciled king, my\n    brother; whose loss of his most precious queen and children are\n    even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when saw'st thou the\n    Prince Florizel, my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue\n    not being gracious, than they are in losing them when they have\n    approved their virtues.\n  CAMILLO. Sir, it is three days since I saw the Prince. What his\n    happier affairs may be are to me unknown; but I have missingly\n    noted he is of late much retired from court, and is less frequent\n    to his princely exercises than formerly he hath appeared.\n  POLIXENES. I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some care,\n    so far that I have eyes under my service which look upon his\n    removedness; from whom I have this intelligence, that he is\n    seldom from the house of a most homely shepherd- a man, they say,\n    that from very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his\n    neighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate.\n  CAMILLO. I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of\n    most rare note. The report of her is extended more than can be\n    thought to begin from such a cottage.\n  POLIXENES. That's likewise part of my intelligence; but, I fear, the\n    angle that plucks our son thither. Thou shalt accompany us to the\n    place; where we will, not appearing what we are, have some\n    question with the shepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not\n    uneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither. Prithee be my\n    present partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of\n    Sicilia.\n  CAMILLO. I willingly obey your command.\n  POLIXENES. My best Camillo! We must disguise ourselves.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nBohemia. A road near the SHEPHERD'S cottage\n\nEnter AUTOLYCUS, singing\n\n      When daffodils begin to peer,\n        With heigh! the doxy over the dale,\n      Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year,\n        For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.\n\n      The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,\n        With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!\n      Doth set my pugging tooth on edge,\n        For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.\n\n      The lark, that tirra-lirra chants,\n        With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,\n      Are summer songs for me and my aunts,\n        While we lie tumbling in the hay.\n\n    I have serv'd Prince Florizel, and in my time wore three-pile;\n    but now I am out of service.\n\n      But shall I go mourn for that, my dear?\n        The pale moon shines by night;\n      And when I wander here and there,\n        I then do most go right.\n\n      If tinkers may have leave to live,\n        And bear the sow-skin budget,\n      Then my account I well may give\n        And in the stocks avouch it.\n\n    My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen.\n    My father nam'd me Autolycus; who, being, I as am, litter'd under\n    Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With\n    die and drab I purchas'd this caparison; and my revenue is the\n    silly-cheat. Gallows and knock are too powerful on the highway;\n    beating and hanging are terrors to me; for the life to come, I\n    sleep out the thought of it. A prize! a prize!\n\n                            Enter CLOWN\n\n  CLOWN. Let me see: every 'leven wether tods; every tod yields pound\n    and odd shilling; fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?\n  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  If the springe hold, the cock's mine.\n  CLOWN. I cannot do 't without counters. Let me see: what am I to\n    buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of sugar, five\n    pound of currants, rice- what will this sister of mine do with\n    rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast, and she\n    lays it on. She hath made me four and twenty nosegays for the\n    shearers- three-man song-men all, and very good ones; but they\n    are most of them means and bases; but one Puritan amongst them,\n    and he sings psalms to hornpipes. I must have saffron to colour\n    the warden pies; mace; dates- none, that's out of my note;\n    nutmegs, seven; race or two of ginger, but that I may beg; four\n    pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o' th' sun.\n  AUTOLYCUS.  [Grovelling on the ground]  O that ever I was born!\n  CLOWN. I' th' name of me!\n  AUTOLYCUS. O, help me, help me! Pluck but off these rags; and then,\n    death, death!\n  CLOWN. Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay on\n    thee, rather than have these off.\n  AUTOLYCUS. O sir, the loathsomeness of them offend me more than the\n    stripes I have received, which are mighty ones and millions.\n  CLOWN. Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great\n    matter.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I am robb'd, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta'en\n    from me, and these detestable things put upon me.\n  CLOWN. What, by a horseman or a footman?\n  AUTOLYCUS. A footman, sweet sir, a footman.\n  CLOWN. Indeed, he should be a footman, by the garments he has left\n    with thee; if this be a horseman's coat, it hath seen very hot\n    service. Lend me thy hand, I'll help thee. Come, lend me thy\n    hand.                                       [Helping him up]\n  AUTOLYCUS. O, good sir, tenderly, O!\n  CLOWN. Alas, poor soul!\n  AUTOLYCUS. O, good sir, softly, good sir; I fear, sir, my shoulder\n    blade is out.\n  CLOWN. How now! Canst stand?\n  AUTOLYCUS. Softly, dear sir  [Picks his pocket];  good sir, softly.\n    You ha' done me a charitable office.\n  CLOWN. Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.\n  AUTOLYCUS. No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir. I have a\n    kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was\n    going; I shall there have money or anything I want. Offer me no\n    money, I pray you; that kills my heart.\n  CLOWN. What manner of fellow was he that robb'd you?\n  AUTOLYCUS. A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with\n    troll-my-dames; I knew him once a servant of the Prince. I cannot\n    tell, good sir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was\n    certainly whipt out of the court.\n  CLOWN. His vices, you would say; there's no virtue whipt out of the\n    court. They cherish it to make it stay there; and yet it will no\n    more but abide.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well; he hath\n    been since an ape-bearer; then a process-server, a bailiff; then\n    he compass'd a motion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker's\n    wife within a mile where my land and living lies; and, having\n    flown over many knavish professions, he settled only in rogue.\n    Some call him Autolycus.\n  CLOWN. Out upon him! prig, for my life, prig! He haunts wakes,\n    fairs, and bear-baitings.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue that put\n    me into this apparel.\n  CLOWN. Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia; if you had but\n    look'd big and spit at him, he'd have run.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter; I am false\n    of heart that way, and that he knew, I warrant him.\n  CLOWN. How do you now?\n  AUTOLYCUS. Sweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand and walk.\n    I will even take my leave of you and pace softly towards my\n    kinsman's.\n  CLOWN. Shall I bring thee on the way?\n  AUTOLYCUS. No, good-fac'd sir; no, sweet sir.\n  CLOWN. Then fare thee well. I must go buy spices for our\n    sheep-shearing.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Prosper you, sweet sir!                  Exit CLOWN\n    Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I'll be with\n    you at your sheep-shearing too. If I make not this cheat bring\n    out another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unroll'd,\n    and my name put in the book of virtue!\n                                                         [Sings]\n            Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,\n              And merrily hent the stile-a;\n            A merry heart goes all the day,\n              Your sad tires in a mile-a.                   Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nBohemia. The SHEPHERD'S cottage\n\nEnter FLORIZEL and PERDITA\n\n  FLORIZEL. These your unusual weeds to each part of you\n    Do give a life- no shepherdess, but Flora\n    Peering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing\n    Is as a meeting of the petty gods,\n    And you the Queen on't.\n  PERDITA. Sir, my gracious lord,\n    To chide at your extremes it not becomes me-\n    O, pardon that I name them! Your high self,\n    The gracious mark o' th' land, you have obscur'd\n    With a swain's wearing; and me, poor lowly maid,\n    Most goddess-like prank'd up. But that our feasts\n    In every mess have folly, and the feeders\n    Digest it with a custom, I should blush\n    To see you so attir'd; swoon, I think,\n    To show myself a glass.\n  FLORIZEL. I bless the time\n    When my good falcon made her flight across\n    Thy father's ground.\n  PERDITA. Now Jove afford you cause!\n    To me the difference forges dread; your greatness\n    Hath not been us'd to fear. Even now I tremble\n    To think your father, by some accident,\n    Should pass this way, as you did. O, the Fates!\n    How would he look to see his work, so noble,\n    Vilely bound up? What would he say? Or how\n    Should I, in these my borrowed flaunts, behold\n    The sternness of his presence?\n  FLORIZEL. Apprehend\n    Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves,\n    Humbling their deities to love, have taken\n    The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter\n    Became a bull and bellow'd; the green Neptune\n    A ram and bleated; and the fire-rob'd god,\n    Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,\n    As I seem now. Their transformations\n    Were never for a piece of beauty rarer,\n    Nor in a way so chaste, since my desires\n    Run not before mine honour, nor my lusts\n    Burn hotter than my faith.\n  PERDITA. O, but, sir,\n    Your resolution cannot hold when 'tis\n    Oppos'd, as it must be, by th' pow'r of the King.\n    One of these two must be necessities,\n    Which then will speak, that you must change this purpose,\n    Or I my life.\n  FLORIZEL. Thou dearest Perdita,\n    With these forc'd thoughts, I prithee, darken not\n    The mirth o' th' feast. Or I'll be thine, my fair,\n    Or not my father's; for I cannot be\n    Mine own, nor anything to any, if\n    I be not thine. To this I am most constant,\n    Though destiny say no. Be merry, gentle;\n    Strangle such thoughts as these with any thing\n    That you behold the while. Your guests are coming.\n    Lift up your countenance, as it were the day\n    Of celebration of that nuptial which\n    We two have sworn shall come.\n  PERDITA. O Lady Fortune,\n    Stand you auspicious!\n  FLORIZEL. See, your guests approach.\n    Address yourself to entertain them sprightly,\n    And let's be red with mirth.\n\n        Enter SHEPHERD, with POLIXENES and CAMILLO, disguised;\n                 CLOWN, MOPSA, DORCAS, with OTHERS\n\n  SHEPHERD. Fie, daughter! When my old wife liv'd, upon\n    This day she was both pantler, butler, cook;\n    Both dame and servant; welcom'd all; serv'd all;\n    Would sing her song and dance her turn; now here\n    At upper end o' th' table, now i' th' middle;\n    On his shoulder, and his; her face o' fire\n    With labour, and the thing she took to quench it\n    She would to each one sip. You are retired,\n    As if you were a feasted one, and not\n    The hostess of the meeting. Pray you bid\n    These unknown friends to's welcome, for it is\n    A way to make us better friends, more known.\n    Come, quench your blushes, and present yourself\n    That which you are, Mistress o' th' Feast. Come on,\n    And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,\n    As your good flock shall prosper.\n  PERDITA.  [To POLIXENES]  Sir, welcome.\n    It is my father's will I should take on me\n    The hostess-ship o' th' day.  [To CAMILLO]\n    You're welcome, sir.\n    Give me those flow'rs there, Dorcas. Reverend sirs,\n    For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep\n    Seeming and savour all the winter long.\n    Grace and remembrance be to you both!\n    And welcome to our shearing.\n  POLIXENES. Shepherdess-\n    A fair one are you- well you fit our ages\n    With flow'rs of winter.\n  PERDITA. Sir, the year growing ancient,\n    Not yet on summer's death nor on the birth\n    Of trembling winter, the fairest flow'rs o' th' season\n    Are our carnations and streak'd gillyvors,\n    Which some call nature's bastards. Of that kind\n    Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not\n    To get slips of them.\n  POLIXENES. Wherefore, gentle maiden,\n    Do you neglect them?\n  PERDITA. For I have heard it said\n    There is an art which in their piedness shares\n    With great creating nature.\n  POLIXENES. Say there be;\n    Yet nature is made better by no mean\n    But nature makes that mean; so over that art\n    Which you say adds to nature, is an art\n    That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry\n    A gentler scion to the wildest stock,\n    And make conceive a bark of baser kind\n    By bud of nobler race. This is an art\n    Which does mend nature- change it rather; but\n    The art itself is nature.\n  PERDITA. So it is.\n  POLIXENES. Then make your garden rich in gillyvors,\n    And do not call them bastards.\n  PERDITA. I'll not put\n    The dibble in earth to set one slip of them;\n    No more than were I painted I would wish\n    This youth should say 'twere well, and only therefore\n    Desire to breed by me. Here's flow'rs for you:\n    Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;\n    The marigold, that goes to bed wi' th' sun,\n    And with him rises weeping; these are flow'rs\n    Of middle summer, and I think they are given\n    To men of middle age. Y'are very welcome.\n  CAMILLO. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock,\n    And only live by gazing.\n  PERDITA. Out, alas!\n    You'd be so lean that blasts of January\n    Would blow you through and through. Now, my fair'st friend,\n    I would I had some flow'rs o' th' spring that might\n    Become your time of day- and yours, and yours,\n    That wear upon your virgin branches yet\n    Your maidenheads growing. O Proserpina,\n    From the flowers now that, frighted, thou let'st fall\n    From Dis's waggon!- daffodils,\n    That come before the swallow dares, and take\n    The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim\n    But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes\n    Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,\n    That die unmarried ere they can behold\n    Bright Phoebus in his strength- a malady\n    Most incident to maids; bold oxlips, and\n    The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds,\n    The flow'r-de-luce being one. O, these I lack\n    To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend\n    To strew him o'er and o'er!\n  FLORIZEL. What, like a corse?\n  PERDITA. No; like a bank for love to lie and play on;\n    Not like a corse; or if- not to be buried,\n    But quick, and in mine arms. Come, take your flow'rs.\n    Methinks I play as I have seen them do\n    In Whitsun pastorals. Sure, this robe of mine\n    Does change my disposition.\n  FLORIZEL. What you do\n    Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,\n    I'd have you do it ever. When you sing,\n    I'd have you buy and sell so; so give alms;\n    Pray so; and, for the ord'ring your affairs,\n    To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you\n    A wave o' th' sea, that you might ever do\n    Nothing but that; move still, still so,\n    And own no other function. Each your doing,\n    So singular in each particular,\n    Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds,\n    That all your acts are queens.\n  PERDITA. O Doricles,\n    Your praises are too large. But that your youth,\n    And the true blood which peeps fairly through't,\n    Do plainly give you out an unstain'd shepherd,\n    With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,\n    You woo'd me the false way.\n  FLORIZEL. I think you have\n    As little skill to fear as I have purpose\n    To put you to't. But, come; our dance, I pray.\n    Your hand, my Perdita; so turtles pair\n    That never mean to part.\n  PERDITA. I'll swear for 'em.\n  POLIXENES. This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever\n    Ran on the green-sward; nothing she does or seems\n    But smacks of something greater than herself,\n    Too noble for this place.\n  CAMILLO. He tells her something\n    That makes her blood look out. Good sooth, she is\n    The queen of curds and cream.\n  CLOWN. Come on, strike up.\n  DORCAS. Mopsa must be your mistress; marry, garlic,\n    To mend her kissing with!\n  MOPSA. Now, in good time!\n  CLOWN. Not a word, a word; we stand upon our manners.\n    Come, strike up.                                     [Music]\n\n          Here a dance Of SHEPHERDS and SHEPHERDESSES\n\n  POLIXENES. Pray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this\n    Which dances with your daughter?\n  SHEPHERD. They call him Doricles, and boasts himself\n    To have a worthy feeding; but I have it\n    Upon his own report, and I believe it:\n    He looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter;\n    I think so too; for never gaz'd the moon\n    Upon the water as he'll stand and read,\n    As 'twere my daughter's eyes; and, to be plain,\n    I think there is not half a kiss to choose\n    Who loves another best.\n  POLIXENES. She dances featly.\n  SHEPHERD. So she does any thing; though I report it\n    That should be silent. If young Doricles\n    Do light upon her, she shall bring him that\n    Which he not dreams of.\n\n                      Enter a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. O master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the door, you\n    would never dance again after a tabor and pipe; no, the bagpipe\n    could not move you. He sings several tunes faster than you'll\n    tell money; he utters them as he had eaten ballads, and all men's\n    ears grew to his tunes.\n  CLOWN. He could never come better; he shall come in. I love a\n    ballad but even too well, if it be doleful matter merrily set\n    down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.\n  SERVANT. He hath songs for man or woman of all sizes; no milliner\n    can so fit his customers with gloves. He has the prettiest\n    love-songs for maids; so without bawdry, which is strange; with\n    such delicate burdens of dildos and fadings, 'jump her and thump\n    her'; and where some stretch-mouth'd rascal would, as it were,\n    mean mischief, and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the\n    maid to answer 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man'- puts him off,\n    slights him, with 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man.'\n  POLIXENES. This is a brave fellow.\n  CLOWN. Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited fellow.\n    Has he any unbraided wares?\n  SERVANT. He hath ribbons of all the colours i' th' rainbow; points,\n    more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle, though\n    they come to him by th' gross; inkles, caddisses, cambrics,\n    lawns. Why he sings 'em over as they were gods or goddesses; you\n    would think a smock were she-angel, he so chants to the\n    sleeve-hand and the work about the square on't.\n  CLOWN. Prithee bring him in; and let him approach singing.\n  PERDITA. Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in's tunes.\n                                                    Exit SERVANT\n  CLOWN. You have of these pedlars that have more in them than you'd\n    think, sister.\n  PERDITA. Ay, good brother, or go about to think.\n\n                   Enter AUTOLYCUS, Singing\n\n           Lawn as white as driven snow;\n           Cypress black as e'er was crow;\n           Gloves as sweet as damask roses;\n           Masks for faces and for noses;\n           Bugle bracelet, necklace amber,\n           Perfume for a lady's chamber;\n           Golden quoifs and stomachers,\n           For my lads to give their dears;\n           Pins and poking-sticks of steel-\n           What maids lack from head to heel.\n           Come, buy of me, come; come buy, come buy;\n           Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry.\n           Come, buy.\n\n  CLOWN. If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take no\n    money of me; but being enthrall'd as I am, it will also be the\n    bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.\n  MOPSA. I was promis'd them against the feast; but they come not too\n    late now.\n  DORCAS. He hath promis'd you more than that, or there be liars.\n  MOPSA. He hath paid you all he promis'd you. May be he has paid you\n    more, which will shame you to give him again.\n  CLOWN. Is there no manners left among maids? Will they wear their\n    plackets where they should bear their faces? Is there not\n    milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle\n    off these secrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all our\n    guests? 'Tis well they are whisp'ring. Clammer your tongues, and\n    not a word more.\n  MOPSA. I have done. Come, you promis'd me a tawdry-lace, and a pair\n    of sweet gloves.\n  CLOWN. Have I not told thee how I was cozen'd by the way, and lost\n    all my money?\n  AUTOLYCUS. And indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad; therefore it\n    behoves men to be wary.\n  CLOWN. Fear not thou, man; thou shalt lose nothing here.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I hope so, sir; for I have about me many parcels of\n    charge.\n  CLOWN. What hast here? Ballads?\n  MOPSA. Pray now, buy some. I love a ballad in print a-life, for\n    then we are sure they are true.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Here's one to a very doleful tune: how a usurer's wife\n    was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burden, and how she\n    long'd to eat adders' heads and toads carbonado'd.\n  MOPSA. Is it true, think you?\n  AUTOLYCUS. Very true, and but a month old.\n  DORCAS. Bless me from marrying a usurer!\n  AUTOLYCUS. Here's the midwife's name to't, one Mistress Taleporter,\n    and five or six honest wives that were present. Why should I\n    carry lies abroad?\n  MOPSA. Pray you now, buy it.\n  CLOWN. Come on, lay it by; and let's first see moe ballads; we'll\n    buy the other things anon.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Here's another ballad, of a fish that appeared upon the\n    coast on Wednesday the fourscore of April, forty thousand fathom\n    above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of\n    maids. It was thought she was a woman, and was turn'd into a cold\n    fish for she would not exchange flesh with one that lov'd her.\n    The ballad is very pitiful, and as true.\n  DORCAS. Is it true too, think you?\n  AUTOLYCUS. Five justices' hands at it; and witnesses more than my\n    pack will hold.\n  CLOWN. Lay it by too. Another.\n  AUTOLYCUS. This is a merry ballad, but a very pretty one.\n  MOPSA. Let's have some merry ones.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Why, this is a passing merry one, and goes to the tune\n    of 'Two maids wooing a man.' There's scarce a maid westward but\n    she sings it; 'tis in request, I can tell you.\n  MOPSA. can both sing it. If thou'lt bear a part, thou shalt hear;\n    'tis in three parts.\n  DORCAS. We had the tune on't a month ago.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I can bear my part; you must know 'tis my occupation.\n    Have at it with you.\n\n                        SONG\n\n  AUTOLYCUS. Get you hence, for I must go\n             Where it fits not you to know.\n  DORCAS.    Whither?\n  MOPSA.       O, whither?\n  DORCAS.        Whither?\n  MOPSA.     It becomes thy oath full well\n             Thou to me thy secrets tell.\n  DORCAS.    Me too! Let me go thither\n  MOPSA.     Or thou goest to th' grange or mill.\n  DORCAS.    If to either, thou dost ill.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Neither.\n  DORCAS.    What, neither?\n  AUTOLYCUS. Neither.\n  DORCAS.    Thou hast sworn my love to be.\n  MOPSA.     Thou hast sworn it more to me.\n             Then whither goest? Say, whither?\n\n  CLOWN. We'll have this song out anon by ourselves; my father and\n    the gentlemen are in sad talk, and we'll not trouble them. Come,\n    bring away thy pack after me. Wenches, I'll buy for you both.\n    Pedlar, let's have the first choice. Follow me, girls.\n                                      Exit with DORCAS and MOPSA\n  AUTOLYCUS. And you shall pay well for 'em.\n                                         Exit AUTOLYCUS, Singing\n\n             Will you buy any tape,\n             Or lace for your cape,\n           My dainty duck, my dear-a?\n             Any silk, any thread,\n             Any toys for your head,\n           Of the new'st and fin'st, fin'st wear-a?\n             Come to the pedlar;\n             Money's a meddler\n           That doth utter all men's ware-a.\n\n                   Re-enter SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three\n    neat-herds, three swineherds, that have made themselves all men\n    of hair; they call themselves Saltiers, and they have dance which\n    the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not\n    in't; but they themselves are o' th' mind, if it be not too rough\n    for some that know little but bowling, it will please\n    plentifully.\n  SHEPHERD. Away! We'll none on't; here has been too much homely\n    foolery already. I know, sir, we weary you.\n  POLIXENES. You weary those that refresh us. Pray, let's see these\n    four threes of herdsmen.\n  SERVANT. One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danc'd\n    before the King; and not the worst of the three but jumps twelve\n    foot and a half by th' squier.\n  SHEPHERD. Leave your prating; since these good men are pleas'd, let\n    them come in; but quickly now.\n  SERVANT. Why, they stay at door, sir.                     Exit\n\n                    Here a dance of twelve SATYRS\n\n  POLIXENES.  [To SHEPHERD]  O, father, you'll know more of that\n      hereafter.\n    [To CAMILLO]  Is it not too far gone? 'Tis time to part them.\n    He's simple and tells much.  [To FLORIZEL]  How now, fair\n      shepherd!\n    Your heart is full of something that does take\n    Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young\n    And handed love as you do, I was wont\n    To load my she with knacks; I would have ransack'd\n    The pedlar's silken treasury and have pour'd it\n    To her acceptance: you have let him go\n    And nothing marted with him. If your lass\n    Interpretation should abuse and call this\n    Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited\n    For a reply, at least if you make a care\n    Of happy holding her.\n  FLORIZEL. Old sir, I know\n    She prizes not such trifles as these are.\n    The gifts she looks from me are pack'd and lock'd\n    Up in my heart, which I have given already,\n    But not deliver'd. O, hear me breathe my life\n    Before this ancient sir, whom, it should seem,\n    Hath sometime lov'd. I take thy hand- this hand,\n    As soft as dove's down and as white as it,\n    Or Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd snow that's bolted\n    By th' northern blasts twice o'er.\n  POLIXENES. What follows this?\n    How prettily the young swain seems to wash\n    The hand was fair before! I have put you out.\n    But to your protestation; let me hear\n    What you profess.\n  FLORIZEL. Do, and be witness to't.\n  POLIXENES. And this my neighbour too?\n  FLORIZEL. And he, and more\n    Than he, and men- the earth, the heavens, and all:\n    That, were I crown'd the most imperial monarch,\n    Thereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth\n    That ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge\n    More than was ever man's, I would not prize them\n    Without her love; for her employ them all;\n    Commend them and condemn them to her service\n    Or to their own perdition.\n  POLIXENES. Fairly offer'd.\n  CAMILLO. This shows a sound affection.\n  SHEPHERD. But, my daughter,\n    Say you the like to him?\n  PERDITA. I cannot speak\n    So well, nothing so well; no, nor mean better.\n    By th' pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out\n    The purity of his.\n  SHEPHERD. Take hands, a bargain!\n    And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to't:\n    I give my daughter to him, and will make\n    Her portion equal his.\n  FLORIZEL. O, that must be\n    I' th' virtue of your daughter. One being dead,\n    I shall have more than you can dream of yet;\n    Enough then for your wonder. But come on,\n    Contract us fore these witnesses.\n  SHEPHERD. Come, your hand;\n    And, daughter, yours.\n  POLIXENES. Soft, swain, awhile, beseech you;\n    Have you a father?\n  FLORIZEL. I have, but what of him?\n  POLIXENES. Knows he of this?\n  FLORIZEL. He neither does nor shall.\n  POLIXENES. Methinks a father\n    Is at the nuptial of his son a guest\n    That best becomes the table. Pray you, once more,\n    Is not your father grown incapable\n    Of reasonable affairs? Is he not stupid\n    With age and alt'ring rheums? Can he speak, hear,\n    Know man from man, dispute his own estate?\n    Lies he not bed-rid, and again does nothing\n    But what he did being childish?\n  FLORIZEL. No, good sir;\n    He has his health, and ampler strength indeed\n    Than most have of his age.\n  POLIXENES. By my white beard,\n    You offer him, if this be so, a wrong\n    Something unfilial. Reason my son\n    Should choose himself a wife; but as good reason\n    The father- all whose joy is nothing else\n    But fair posterity- should hold some counsel\n    In such a business.\n  FLORIZEL. I yield all this;\n    But, for some other reasons, my grave sir,\n    Which 'tis not fit you know, I not acquaint\n    My father of this business.\n  POLIXENES. Let him know't.\n  FLORIZEL. He shall not.\n  POLIXENES. Prithee let him.\n  FLORIZEL. No, he must not.\n  SHEPHERD. Let him, my son; he shall not need to grieve\n    At knowing of thy choice.\n  FLORIZEL. Come, come, he must not.\n    Mark our contract.\n  POLIXENES.  [Discovering himself]  Mark your divorce, young sir,\n    Whom son I dare not call; thou art too base\n    To be acknowledg'd- thou a sceptre's heir,\n    That thus affects a sheep-hook! Thou, old traitor,\n    I am sorry that by hanging thee I can but\n    Shorten thy life one week. And thou, fresh piece\n    Of excellent witchcraft, who of force must know\n    The royal fool thou cop'st with-\n  SHEPHERD. O, my heart!\n  POLIXENES. I'll have thy beauty scratch'd with briers and made\n    More homely than thy state. For thee, fond boy,\n    If I may ever know thou dost but sigh\n    That thou no more shalt see this knack- as never\n    I mean thou shalt- we'll bar thee from succession;\n    Not hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin,\n    Farre than Deucalion off. Mark thou my words.\n    Follow us to the court. Thou churl, for this time,\n    Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee\n    From the dead blow of it. And you, enchantment,\n    Worthy enough a herdsman- yea, him too\n    That makes himself, but for our honour therein,\n    Unworthy thee- if ever henceforth thou\n    These rural latches to his entrance open,\n    Or hoop his body more with thy embraces,\n    I will devise a death as cruel for thee\n    As thou art tender to't.                                Exit\n  PERDITA. Even here undone!\n    I was not much afeard; for once or twice\n    I was about to speak and tell him plainly\n    The self-same sun that shines upon his court\n    Hides not his visage from our cottage, but\n    Looks on alike.  [To FLORIZEL]  Will't please you, sir, be gone?\n    I told you what would come of this. Beseech you,\n    Of your own state take care. This dream of mine-\n    Being now awake, I'll queen it no inch farther,\n    But milk my ewes and weep.\n  CAMILLO. Why, how now, father!\n    Speak ere thou diest.\n  SHEPHERD. I cannot speak nor think,\n    Nor dare to know that which I know.  [To FLORIZEL]  O sir,\n    You have undone a man of fourscore-three\n    That thought to fill his grave in quiet, yea,\n    To die upon the bed my father died,\n    To lie close by his honest bones; but now\n    Some hangman must put on my shroud and lay me\n    Where no priest shovels in dust. [To PERDITA] O cursed wretch,\n    That knew'st this was the Prince, and wouldst adventure\n    To mingle faith with him!- Undone, undone!\n    If I might die within this hour, I have liv'd\n    To die when I desire.                                   Exit\n  FLORIZEL. Why look you so upon me?\n    I am but sorry, not afeard; delay'd,\n    But nothing alt'red. What I was, I am:\n    More straining on for plucking back; not following\n    My leash unwillingly.\n  CAMILLO. Gracious, my lord,\n    You know your father's temper. At this time\n    He will allow no speech- which I do guess\n    You do not purpose to him- and as hardly\n    Will he endure your sight as yet, I fear;\n    Then, till the fury of his Highness settle,\n    Come not before him.\n  FLORIZEL. I not purpose it.\n    I think Camillo?\n  CAMILLO. Even he, my lord.\n  PERDITA. How often have I told you 'twould be thus!\n    How often said my dignity would last\n    But till 'twere known!\n  FLORIZEL. It cannot fail but by\n    The violation of my faith; and then\n    Let nature crush the sides o' th' earth together\n    And mar the seeds within! Lift up thy looks.\n    From my succession wipe me, father; I\n    Am heir to my affection.\n  CAMILLO. Be advis'd.\n  FLORIZEL. I am- and by my fancy; if my reason\n    Will thereto be obedient, I have reason;\n    If not, my senses, better pleas'd with madness,\n    Do bid it welcome.\n  CAMILLO. This is desperate, sir.\n  FLORIZEL. So call it; but it does fulfil my vow:\n    I needs must think it honesty. Camillo,\n    Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may\n    Be thereat glean'd, for all the sun sees or\n    The close earth wombs, or the profound seas hides\n    In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath\n    To this my fair belov'd. Therefore, I pray you,\n    As you have ever been my father's honour'd friend,\n    When he shall miss me- as, in faith, I mean not\n    To see him any more- cast your good counsels\n    Upon his passion. Let myself and Fortune\n    Tug for the time to come. This you may know,\n    And so deliver: I am put to sea\n    With her who here I cannot hold on shore.\n    And most opportune to her need I have\n    A vessel rides fast by, but not prepar'd\n    For this design. What course I mean to hold\n    Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor\n    Concern me the reporting.\n  CAMILLO. O my lord,\n    I would your spirit were easier for advice.\n    Or stronger for your need.\n  FLORIZEL. Hark, Perdita.                     [Takes her aside]\n    [To CAMILLO]  I'll hear you by and by.\n  CAMILLO. He's irremovable,\n    Resolv'd for flight. Now were I happy if\n    His going I could frame to serve my turn,\n    Save him from danger, do him love and honour,\n    Purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia\n    And that unhappy king, my master, whom\n    I so much thirst to see.\n  FLORIZEL. Now, good Camillo,\n    I am so fraught with curious business that\n    I leave out ceremony.\n  CAMILLO. Sir, I think\n    You have heard of my poor services i' th' love\n    That I have borne your father?\n  FLORIZEL. Very nobly\n    Have you deserv'd. It is my father's music\n    To speak your deeds; not little of his care\n    To have them recompens'd as thought on.\n  CAMILLO. Well, my lord,\n    If you may please to think I love the King,\n    And through him what's nearest to him, which is\n    Your gracious self, embrace but my direction.\n    If your more ponderous and settled project\n    May suffer alteration, on mine honour,\n    I'll point you where you shall have such receiving\n    As shall become your Highness; where you may\n    Enjoy your mistress, from the whom, I see,\n    There's no disjunction to be made but by,\n    As heavens forfend! your ruin- marry her;\n    And with my best endeavours in your absence\n    Your discontenting father strive to qualify,\n    And bring him up to liking.\n  FLORIZEL. How, Camillo,\n    May this, almost a miracle, be done?\n    That I may call thee something more than man,\n    And after that trust to thee.\n  CAMILLO. Have you thought on\n    A place whereto you'll go?\n  FLORIZEL. Not any yet;\n    But as th' unthought-on accident is guilty\n    To what we wildly do, so we profess\n    Ourselves to be the slaves of chance and flies\n    Of every wind that blows.\n  CAMILLO. Then list to me.\n    This follows, if you will not change your purpose\n    But undergo this flight: make for Sicilia,\n    And there present yourself and your fair princess-\n    For so, I see, she must be- fore Leontes.\n    She shall be habited as it becomes\n    The partner of your bed. Methinks I see\n    Leontes opening his free arms and weeping\n    His welcomes forth; asks thee there 'Son, forgiveness!'\n    As 'twere i' th' father's person; kisses the hands\n    Of your fresh princess; o'er and o'er divides him\n    'Twixt his unkindness and his kindness- th' one\n    He chides to hell, and bids the other grow\n    Faster than thought or time.\n  FLORIZEL. Worthy Camillo,\n    What colour for my visitation shall I\n    Hold up before him?\n  CAMILLO. Sent by the King your father\n    To greet him and to give him comforts. Sir,\n    The manner of your bearing towards him, with\n    What you as from your father shall deliver,\n    Things known betwixt us three, I'll write you down;\n    The which shall point you forth at every sitting\n    What you must say, that he shall not perceive\n    But that you have your father's bosom there\n    And speak his very heart.\n  FLORIZEL. I am bound to you.\n    There is some sap in this.\n  CAMILLO. A course more promising\n    Than a wild dedication of yourselves\n    To unpath'd waters, undream'd shores, most certain\n    To miseries enough; no hope to help you,\n    But as you shake off one to take another;\n    Nothing so certain as your anchors, who\n    Do their best office if they can but stay you\n    Where you'll be loath to be. Besides, you know\n    Prosperity's the very bond of love,\n    Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together\n    Affliction alters.\n  PERDITA. One of these is true:\n    I think affliction may subdue the cheek,\n    But not take in the mind.\n  CAMILLO. Yea, say you so?\n    There shall not at your father's house these seven years\n    Be born another such.\n  FLORIZEL. My good Camillo,\n    She is as forward of her breeding as\n    She is i' th' rear o' our birth.\n  CAMILLO. I cannot say 'tis pity\n    She lacks instructions, for she seems a mistress\n    To most that teach.\n  PERDITA. Your pardon, sir; for this\n    I'll blush you thanks.\n  FLORIZEL. My prettiest Perdita!\n    But, O, the thorns we stand upon! Camillo-\n    Preserver of my father, now of me;\n    The medicine of our house- how shall we do?\n    We are not furnish'd like Bohemia's son;\n    Nor shall appear in Sicilia.\n  CAMILLO. My lord,\n    Fear none of this. I think you know my fortunes\n    Do all lie there. It shall be so my care\n    To have you royally appointed as if\n    The scene you play were mine. For instance, sir,\n    That you may know you shall not want- one word.\n                                               [They talk aside]\n\n                     Re-enter AUTOLYCUS\n\n  AUTOLYCUS. Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his sworn\n    brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold all my trumpery;\n    not a counterfeit stone, not a ribbon, glass, pomander, brooch,\n    table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet,\n    horn-ring, to keep my pack from fasting. They throng who should\n    buy first, as if my trinkets had been hallowed and brought a\n    benediction to the buyer; by which means I saw whose purse was\n    best in picture; and what I saw, to my good use I rememb'red. My\n    clown, who wants but something to be a reasonable man, grew so in\n    love with the wenches' song that he would not stir his pettitoes\n    till he had both tune and words, which so drew the rest of the\n    herd to me that all their other senses stuck in ears. You might\n    have pinch'd a placket, it was senseless; 'twas nothing to geld a\n    codpiece of a purse; I would have fil'd keys off that hung in\n    chains. No hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song, and admiring\n    the nothing of it. So that in this time of lethargy I pick'd and\n    cut most of their festival purses; and had not the old man come\n    in with whoobub against his daughter and the King's son and\n    scar'd my choughs from the chaff, I had not left a purse alive in\n    the whole army.\n\n              CAMILLO, FLORIZEL, and PERDITA come forward\n\n  CAMILLO. Nay, but my letters, by this means being there\n    So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.\n  FLORIZEL. And those that you'll procure from King Leontes?\n  CAMILLO. Shall satisfy your father.\n  PERDITA. Happy be you!\n    All that you speak shows fair.\n  CAMILLO.  [seeing AUTOLYCUS]  Who have we here?\n    We'll make an instrument of this; omit\n    Nothing may give us aid.\n  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  If they have overheard me now- why, hanging.\n  CAMILLO. How now, good fellow! Why shak'st thou so?\n    Fear not, man; here's no harm intended to thee.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I am a poor fellow, sir.\n  CAMILLO. Why, be so still; here's nobody will steal that from thee.\n    Yet for the outside of thy poverty we must make an exchange;\n    therefore discase thee instantly- thou must think there's a\n    necessity in't- and change garments with this gentleman. Though\n    the pennyworth on his side be the worst, yet hold thee, there's\n    some boot.  [Giving money]\n  AUTOLYCUS. I am a poor fellow, sir.  [Aside]  I know ye well\n    enough.\n  CAMILLO. Nay, prithee dispatch. The gentleman is half flay'd\n    already.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Are you in camest, sir?  [Aside]  I smell the trick\n    on't.\n  FLORIZEL. Dispatch, I prithee.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Indeed, I have had earnest; but I cannot with conscience\n    take it.\n  CAMILLO. Unbuckle, unbuckle.\n\n             FLORIZEL and AUTOLYCUS exchange garments\n\n    Fortunate mistress- let my prophecy\n    Come home to ye!- you must retire yourself\n    Into some covert; take your sweetheart's hat\n    And pluck it o'er your brows, muffle your face,\n    Dismantle you, and, as you can, disliken\n    The truth of your own seeming, that you may-\n    For I do fear eyes over- to shipboard\n    Get undescried.\n  PERDITA. I see the play so lies\n    That I must bear a part.\n  CAMILLO. No remedy.\n    Have you done there?\n  FLORIZEL. Should I now meet my father,\n    He would not call me son.\n  CAMILLO. Nay, you shall have no hat.\n                                          [Giving it to PERDITA]\n    Come, lady, come. Farewell, my friend.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Adieu, sir.\n  FLORIZEL. O Perdita, what have we twain forgot!\n    Pray you a word.                       [They converse apart]\n  CAMILLO.  [Aside]  What I do next shall be to tell the King\n    Of this escape, and whither they are bound;\n    Wherein my hope is I shall so prevail\n    To force him after; in whose company\n    I shall re-view Sicilia, for whose sight\n    I have a woman's longing.\n  FLORIZEL. Fortune speed us!\n    Thus we set on, Camillo, to th' sea-side.\n  CAMILLO. The swifter speed the better.\n                           Exeunt FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and CAMILLO\n  AUTOLYCUS. I understand the business, I hear it. To have an open\n    ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a\n    cut-purse; a good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for\n    th' other senses. I see this is the time that the unjust man doth\n    thrive. What an exchange had this been without boot! What a boot\n    is here with this exchange! Sure, the gods do this year connive\n    at us, and we may do anything extempore. The Prince himself is\n    about a piece of iniquity- stealing away from his father with his\n    clog at his heels. If I thought it were a piece of honesty to\n    acquaint the King withal, I would not do't. I hold it the more\n    knavery to conceal it; and therein am I constant to my\n    profession.\n\n                   Re-enter CLOWN and SHEPHERD\n\n    Aside, aside- here is more matter for a hot brain. Every lane's\n    end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a careful man\n    work.\n  CLOWN. See, see; what a man you are now! There is no other way but\n    to tell the King she's a changeling and none of your flesh and\n    blood.\n  SHEPHERD. Nay, but hear me.\n  CLOWN. Nay- but hear me.\n  SHEPHERD. Go to, then.\n  CLOWN. She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh and blood\n    has not offended the King; and so your flesh and blood is not to\n    be punish'd by him. Show those things you found about her, those\n    secret things- all but what she has with her. This being done,\n    let the law go whistle; I warrant you.\n  SHEPHERD. I will tell the King all, every word- yea, and his son's\n    pranks too; who, I may say, is no honest man, neither to his\n    father nor to me, to go about to make me the King's\n    brother-in-law.\n  CLOWN. Indeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you could have\n    been to him; and then your blood had been the dearer by I know\n    how much an ounce.\n  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  Very wisely, puppies!\n  SHEPHERD. Well, let us to the King. There is that in this fardel\n    will make him scratch his beard.\n  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  I know not what impediment this complaint may\n    be to the flight of my master.\n  CLOWN. Pray heartily he be at palace.\n  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  Though I am not naturally honest, I am so\n    sometimes by chance. Let me pocket up my pedlar's excrement.\n    [Takes off his false beard]  How now, rustics! Whither are you\n    bound?\n  SHEPHERD. To th' palace, an it like your worship.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Your affairs there, what, with whom, the condition of\n    that fardel, the place of your dwelling, your names, your ages,\n    of what having, breeding, and anything that is fitting to be\n    known- discover.\n  CLOWN. We are but plain fellows, sir.\n  AUTOLYCUS. A lie: you are rough and hairy. Let me have no lying; it\n    becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give us soldiers the\n    lie; but we pay them for it with stamped coin, not stabbing\n    steel; therefore they do not give us the lie.\n  CLOWN. Your worship had like to have given us one, if you had not\n    taken yourself with the manner.\n  SHEPHERD. Are you a courtier, an't like you, sir?\n  AUTOLYCUS. Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier. Seest thou\n    not the air of the court in these enfoldings? Hath not my gait in\n    it the measure of the court? Receives not thy nose court-odour\n    from me? Reflect I not on thy baseness court-contempt? Think'st\n    thou, for that I insinuate, that toaze from thee thy business, I\n    am therefore no courtier? I am courtier cap-a-pe, and one that\n    will either push on or pluck back thy business there; whereupon I\n    command the to open thy affair.\n  SHEPHERD. My business, sir, is to the King.\n  AUTOLYCUS. What advocate hast thou to him?\n  SHEPHERD. I know not, an't like you.\n  CLOWN. Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant; say you have none.\n  SHEPHERD. None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.\n  AUTOLYCUS. How blessed are we that are not simple men!\n    Yet nature might have made me as these are,\n    Therefore I will not disdain.\n  CLOWN. This cannot be but a great courtier.\n  SHEPHERD. His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely.\n  CLOWN. He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical.\n    A great man, I'll warrant; I know by the picking on's teeth.\n  AUTOLYCUS. The fardel there? What's i' th' fardel? Wherefore that\n    box?\n  SHEPHERD. Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and box which\n    none must know but the King; and which he shall know within this\n    hour, if I may come to th' speech of him.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Age, thou hast lost thy labour.\n  SHEPHERD. Why, Sir?\n  AUTOLYCUS. The King is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a new\n    ship to purge melancholy and air himself; for, if thou be'st\n    capable of things serious, thou must know the King is full of\n    grief.\n  SHEPHERD. So 'tis said, sir- about his son, that should have\n    married a shepherd's daughter.\n  AUTOLYCUS. If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly; the\n    curses he shall have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the\n    back of man, the heart of monster.\n  CLOWN. Think you so, sir?\n  AUTOLYCUS. Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy and\n    vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to him, though\n    remov'd fifty times, shall all come under the hangman- which,\n    though it be great pity, yet it is necessary. An old\n    sheep-whistling rogue, a ram-tender, to offer to have his\n    daughter come into grace! Some say he shall be ston'd; but that\n    death is too soft for him, say I. Draw our throne into a\n    sheep-cote!- all deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy.\n  CLOWN. Has the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear, an't like you,\n    sir?\n  AUTOLYCUS. He has a son- who shall be flay'd alive; then 'nointed\n    over with honey, set on the head of a wasp's nest; then stand\n    till he be three quarters and a dram dead; then recover'd again\n    with aqua-vitae or some other hot infusion; then, raw as he is,\n    and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall he be set\n    against a brick wall, the sun looking with a southward eye upon\n    him, where he is to behold him with flies blown to death. But\n    what talk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be\n    smil'd at, their offences being so capital? Tell me, for you seem\n    to be honest plain men, what you have to the King. Being\n    something gently consider'd, I'll bring you where he is aboard,\n    tender your persons to his presence, whisper him in your behalfs;\n    and if it be in man besides the King to effect your suits, here\n    is man shall do it.\n  CLOWN. He seems to be of great authority. Close with him, give him\n    gold; and though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led\n    by the nose with gold. Show the inside of your purse to the\n    outside of his hand, and no more ado. Remember- ston'd and flay'd\n    alive.\n  SHEPHERD. An't please you, sir, to undertake the business for us,\n    here is that gold I have. I'll make it as much more, and leave\n    this young man in pawn till I bring it you.\n  AUTOLYCUS. After I have done what I promised?\n  SHEPHERD. Ay, sir.\n  AUTOLYCUS. Well, give me the moiety. Are you a party in this\n    business?\n  CLOWN. In some sort, sir; but though my case be a pitiful one, I\n    hope I shall not be flay'd out of it.\n  AUTOLYCUS. O, that's the case of the shepherd's son! Hang him,\n    he'll be made an example.\n  CLOWN. Comfort, good comfort! We must to the King and show our\n    strange sights. He must know 'tis none of your daughter nor my\n    sister; we are gone else. Sir, I will give you as much as this\n    old man does, when the business is performed; and remain, as he\n    says, your pawn till it be brought you.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side; go on\n    the right-hand; I will but look upon the hedge, and follow you.\n  CLOWN. We are blest in this man, as I may say, even blest.\n  SHEPHERD. Let's before, as he bids us. He was provided to do us\n    good.                              Exeunt SHEPHERD and CLOWN\n  AUTOLYCUS. If I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune would not\n    suffer me: she drops booties in my mouth. I am courted now with a\n    double occasion- gold, and a means to do the Prince my master\n    good; which who knows how that may turn back to my advancement? I\n    will bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him. If he\n    think it fit to shore them again, and that the complaint they\n    have to the King concerns him nothing, let him call me rogue for\n    being so far officious; for I am proof against that title, and\n    what shame else belongs to't. To him will I present them. There\n    may be matter in it.                                    Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nSicilia. The palace of LEONTES\n\nEnter LEONTES, CLEOMENES, DION, PAULINA, and OTHERS\n\n  CLEOMENES. Sir, you have done enough, and have perform'd\n    A saint-like sorrow. No fault could you make\n    Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down\n    More penitence than done trespass. At the last,\n    Do as the heavens have done: forget your evil;\n    With them forgive yourself.\n  LEONTES. Whilst I remember\n    Her and her virtues, I cannot forget\n    My blemishes in them, and so still think of\n    The wrong I did myself; which was so much\n    That heirless it hath made my kingdom, and\n    Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man\n    Bred his hopes out of.\n  PAULINA. True, too true, my lord.\n    If, one by one, you wedded all the world,\n    Or from the all that are took something good\n    To make a perfect woman, she you kill'd\n    Would be unparallel'd.\n  LEONTES. I think so. Kill'd!\n    She I kill'd! I did so; but thou strik'st me\n    Sorely, to say I did. It is as bitter\n    Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good now,\n    Say so but seldom.\n  CLEOMENES. Not at all, good lady.\n    You might have spoken a thousand things that would\n    Have done the time more benefit, and grac'd\n    Your kindness better.\n  PAULINA. You are one of those\n    Would have him wed again.\n  DION. If you would not so,\n    You pity not the state, nor the remembrance\n    Of his most sovereign name; consider little\n    What dangers, by his Highness' fail of issue,\n    May drop upon his kingdom and devour\n    Incertain lookers-on. What were more holy\n    Than to rejoice the former queen is well?\n    What holier than, for royalty's repair,\n    For present comfort, and for future good,\n    To bless the bed of majesty again\n    With a sweet fellow to't?\n  PAULINA. There is none worthy,\n    Respecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods\n    Will have fulfill'd their secret purposes;\n    For has not the divine Apollo said,\n    Is't not the tenour of his oracle,\n    That King Leontes shall not have an heir\n    Till his lost child be found? Which that it shall,\n    Is all as monstrous to our human reason\n    As my Antigonus to break his grave\n    And come again to me; who, on my life,\n    Did perish with the infant. 'Tis your counsel\n    My lord should to the heavens be contrary,\n    Oppose against their wills.  [To LEONTES]  Care not for issue;\n    The crown will find an heir. Great Alexander\n    Left his to th' worthiest; so his successor\n    Was like to be the best.\n  LEONTES. Good Paulina,\n    Who hast the memory of Hermione,\n    I know, in honour, O that ever I\n    Had squar'd me to thy counsel! Then, even now,\n    I might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes,\n    Have taken treasure from her lips-\n  PAULINA. And left them\n    More rich for what they yielded.\n  LEONTES. Thou speak'st truth.\n    No more such wives; therefore, no wife. One worse,\n    And better us'd, would make her sainted spirit\n    Again possess her corpse, and on this stage,\n    Where we offend her now, appear soul-vex'd,\n    And begin 'Why to me'-\n  PAULINA. Had she such power,\n    She had just cause.\n  LEONTES. She had; and would incense me\n    To murder her I married.\n  PAULINA. I should so.\n    Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'd bid you mark\n    Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in't\n    You chose her; then I'd shriek, that even your ears\n    Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd\n    Should be 'Remember mine.'\n  LEONTES. Stars, stars,\n    And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife;\n    I'll have no wife, Paulina.\n  PAULINA. Will you swear\n    Never to marry but by my free leave?\n  LEONTES. Never, Paulina; so be blest my spirit!\n  PAULINA. Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.\n  CLEOMENES. You tempt him over-much.\n  PAULINA. Unless another,\n    As like Hermione as is her picture,\n    Affront his eye.\n  CLEOMENES. Good madam-\n  PAULINA. I have done.\n    Yet, if my lord will marry- if you will, sir,\n    No remedy but you will- give me the office\n    To choose you a queen. She shall not be so young\n    As was your former; but she shall be such\n    As, walk'd your first queen's ghost, it should take joy\n    To see her in your arms.\n  LEONTES. My true Paulina,\n    We shall not marry till thou bid'st us.\n  PAULINA. That\n    Shall be when your first queen's again in breath;\n    Never till then.\n\n                       Enter a GENTLEMAN\n\n  GENTLEMAN. One that gives out himself Prince Florizel,\n    Son of Polixenes, with his princess- she\n    The fairest I have yet beheld- desires access\n    To your high presence.\n  LEONTES. What with him? He comes not\n    Like to his father's greatness. His approach,\n    So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us\n    'Tis not a visitation fram'd, but forc'd\n    By need and accident. What train?\n  GENTLEMAN. But few,\n    And those but mean.\n  LEONTES. His princess, say you, with him?\n  GENTLEMAN. Ay; the most peerless piece of earth, I think,\n    That e'er the sun shone bright on.\n  PAULINA. O Hermione,\n    As every present time doth boast itself\n    Above a better gone, so must thy grave\n    Give way to what's seen now! Sir, you yourself\n    Have said and writ so, but your writing now\n    Is colder than that theme: 'She had not been,\n    Nor was not to be equall'd.' Thus your verse\n    Flow'd with her beauty once; 'tis shrewdly ebb'd,\n    To say you have seen a better.\n  GENTLEMAN. Pardon, madam.\n    The one I have almost forgot- your pardon;\n    The other, when she has obtain'd your eye,\n    Will have your tongue too. This is a creature,\n    Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal\n    Of all professors else, make proselytes\n    Of who she but bid follow.\n  PAULINA. How! not women?\n  GENTLEMAN. Women will love her that she is a woman\n    More worth than any man; men, that she is\n    The rarest of all women.\n  LEONTES. Go, Cleomenes;\n    Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends,\n    Bring them to our embracement.                        Exeunt\n    Still, 'tis strange\n    He thus should steal upon us.\n  PAULINA. Had our prince,\n    Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd\n    Well with this lord; there was not full a month\n    Between their births.\n  LEONTES. Prithee no more; cease. Thou know'st\n    He dies to me again when talk'd of. Sure,\n    When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches\n    Will bring me to consider that which may\n    Unfurnish me of reason.\n\n         Re-enter CLEOMENES, with FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and\n                            ATTENDANTS\n\n    They are come.\n    Your mother was most true to wedlock, Prince;\n    For she did print your royal father off,\n    Conceiving you. Were I but twenty-one,\n    Your father's image is so hit in you\n    His very air, that I should call you brother,\n    As I did him, and speak of something wildly\n    By us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome!\n    And your fair princess- goddess! O, alas!\n    I lost a couple that 'twixt heaven and earth\n    Might thus have stood begetting wonder as\n    You, gracious couple, do. And then I lost-\n    All mine own folly- the society,\n    Amity too, of your brave father, whom,\n    Though bearing misery, I desire my life\n    Once more to look on him.\n  FLORIZEL. By his command\n    Have I here touch'd Sicilia, and from him\n    Give you all greetings that a king, at friend,\n    Can send his brother; and, but infirmity,\n    Which waits upon worn times, hath something seiz'd\n    His wish'd ability, he had himself\n    The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his\n    Measur'd, to look upon you; whom he loves,\n    He bade me say so, more than all the sceptres\n    And those that bear them living.\n  LEONTES. O my brother-\n    Good gentleman!- the wrongs I have done thee stir\n    Afresh within me; and these thy offices,\n    So rarely kind, are as interpreters\n    Of my behind-hand slackness! Welcome hither,\n    As is the spring to th' earth. And hath he too\n    Expos'd this paragon to th' fearful usage,\n    At least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune,\n    To greet a man not worth her pains, much less\n    Th' adventure of her person?\n  FLORIZEL. Good, my lord,\n    She came from Libya.\n  LEONTES. Where the warlike Smalus,\n    That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and lov'd?\n  FLORIZEL. Most royal sir, from thence; from him whose daughter\n    His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her; thence,\n    A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross'd,\n    To execute the charge my father gave me\n    For visiting your Highness. My best train\n    I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd;\n    Who for Bohemia bend, to signify\n    Not only my success in Libya, sir,\n    But my arrival and my wife's in safety\n    Here where we are.\n  LEONTES. The blessed gods\n    Purge all infection from our air whilst you\n    Do climate here! You have a holy father,\n    A graceful gentleman, against whose person,\n    So sacred as it is, I have done sin,\n    For which the heavens, taking angry note,\n    Have left me issueless; and your father's blest,\n    As he from heaven merits it, with you,\n    Worthy his goodness. What might I have been,\n    Might I a son and daughter now have look'd on,\n    Such goodly things as you!\n\n                      Enter a LORD\n\n  LORD. Most noble sir,\n    That which I shall report will bear no credit,\n    Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir,\n    Bohemia greets you from himself by me;\n    Desires you to attach his son, who has-\n    His dignity and duty both cast off-\n    Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with\n    A shepherd's daughter.\n  LEONTES. Where's Bohemia? Speak.\n  LORD. Here in your city; I now came from him.\n    I speak amazedly; and it becomes\n    My marvel and my message. To your court\n    Whiles he was hast'ning- in the chase, it seems,\n    Of this fair couple- meets he on the way\n    The father of this seeming lady and\n    Her brother, having both their country quitted\n    With this young prince.\n  FLORIZEL. Camillo has betray'd me;\n    Whose honour and whose honesty till now\n    Endur'd all weathers.\n  LORD. Lay't so to his charge;\n    He's with the King your father.\n  LEONTES. Who? Camillo?\n  LORD. Camillo, sir; I spake with him; who now\n    Has these poor men in question. Never saw I\n    Wretches so quake. They kneel, they kiss the earth;\n    Forswear themselves as often as they speak.\n    Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them\n    With divers deaths in death.\n  PERDITA. O my poor father!\n    The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have\n    Our contract celebrated.\n  LEONTES. You are married?\n  FLORIZEL. We are not, sir, nor are we like to be;\n    The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first.\n    The odds for high and low's alike.\n  LEONTES. My lord,\n    Is this the daughter of a king?\n  FLORIZEL. She is,\n    When once she is my wife.\n  LEONTES. That 'once,' I see by your good father's speed,\n    Will come on very slowly. I am sorry,\n    Most sorry, you have broken from his liking\n    Where you were tied in duty; and as sorry\n    Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,\n    That you might well enjoy her.\n  FLORIZEL. Dear, look up.\n    Though Fortune, visible an enemy,\n    Should chase us with my father, pow'r no jot\n    Hath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir,\n    Remember since you ow'd no more to time\n    Than I do now. With thought of such affections,\n    Step forth mine advocate; at your request\n    My father will grant precious things as trifles.\n  LEONTES. Would he do so, I'd beg your precious mistress,\n    Which he counts but a trifle.\n  PAULINA. Sir, my liege,\n    Your eye hath too much youth in't. Not a month\n    Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes\n    Than what you look on now.\n  LEONTES. I thought of her\n    Even in these looks I made.  [To FLORIZEL]  But your petition\n    Is yet unanswer'd. I will to your father.\n    Your honour not o'erthrown by your desires,\n    I am friend to them and you. Upon which errand\n    I now go toward him; therefore, follow me,\n    And mark what way I make. Come, good my lord.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nSicilia. Before the palace of LEONTES\n\nEnter AUTOLYCUS and a GENTLEMAN\n\n  AUTOLYCUS. Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I was by at the opening of the fardel, heard the\n    old shepherd deliver the manner how he found it; whereupon, after\n    a little amazedness, we were all commanded out of the chamber;\n    only this, methought I heard the shepherd say he found the child.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I would most gladly know the issue of it.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I make a broken delivery of the business; but the\n    changes I perceived in the King and Camillo were very notes of\n    admiration. They seem'd almost, with staring on one another, to\n    tear the cases of their eyes; there was speech in their dumbness,\n    language in their very gesture; they look'd as they had heard of\n    a world ransom'd, or one destroyed. A notable passion of wonder\n    appeared in them; but the wisest beholder that knew no more but\n    seeing could not say if th' importance were joy or sorrow- but in\n    the extremity of the one it must needs be.\n\n                    Enter another GENTLEMAN\n\n    Here comes a gentleman that happily knows more. The news, Rogero?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Nothing but bonfires. The oracle is fulfill'd:\n    the King's daughter is found. Such a deal of wonder is broken out\n    within this hour that ballad-makers cannot be able to express it.\n\n                    Enter another GENTLEMAN\n\n    Here comes the Lady Paulina's steward; he can deliver you more.\n    How goes it now, sir? This news, which is call'd true, is so like\n    an old tale that the verity of it is in strong suspicion. Has the\n    King found his heir?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by\n    circumstance. That which you hear you'll swear you see, there is\n    such unity in the proofs. The mantle of Queen Hermione's; her\n    jewel about the neck of it; the letters of Antigonus found with\n    it, which they know to be his character; the majesty of the\n    creature in resemblance of the mother; the affection of nobleness\n    which nature shows above her breeding; and many other evidences-\n    proclaim her with all certainty to be the King's daughter. Did\n    you see the meeting of the two kings?\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. No.\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Then you have lost a sight which was to be seen,\n    cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one joy crown\n    another, so and in such manner that it seem'd sorrow wept to take\n    leave of them; for their joy waded in tears. There was casting up\n    of eyes, holding up of hands, with countenance of such\n    distraction that they were to be known by garment, not by favour.\n    Our king, being ready to leap out of himself for joy of his found\n    daughter, as if that joy were now become a loss, cries 'O, thy\n    mother, thy mother!' then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then embraces\n    his son-in-law; then again worries he his daughter with clipping\n    her. Now he thanks the old shepherd, which stands by like a\n    weather-bitten conduit of many kings' reigns. I never heard of\n    such another encounter, which lames report to follow it and\n    undoes description to do it.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried\n    hence the child?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Like an old tale still, which will have matter to\n    rehearse, though credit be asleep and not an ear open: he was\n    torn to pieces with a bear. This avouches the shepherd's son, who\n    has not only his innocence, which seems much, to justify him, but\n    a handkerchief and rings of his that Paulina knows.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. What became of his bark and his followers?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Wreck'd the same instant of their master's death,\n    and in the view of the shepherd; so that all the instruments\n    which aided to expose the child were even then lost when it was\n    found. But, O, the noble combat that 'twixt joy and sorrow was\n    fought in Paulina! She had one eye declin'd for the loss of her\n    husband, another elevated that the oracle was fulfill'd. She\n    lifted the Princess from the earth, and so locks her in embracing\n    as if she would pin her to her heart, that she might no more be\n    in danger of losing.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. The dignity of this act was worth the audience of\n    kings and princes; for by such was it acted.\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. One of the prettiest touches of all, and that\n    which angl'd for mine eyes- caught the water, though not the\n    fish- was, when at the relation of the Queen's death, with the\n    manner how she came to't bravely confess'd and lamented by the\n    King, how attentivenes wounded his daughter; till, from one sign\n    of dolour to another, she did with an 'Alas!'- I would fain say-\n    bleed tears; for I am sure my heart wept blood. Who was most\n    marble there changed colour; some swooned, all sorrowed. If all\n    the world could have seen't, the woe had been universal.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Are they returned to the court?\n  THIRD GENTLEMAN. No. The Princess hearing of her mother's statue,\n    which is in the keeping of Paulina- a piece many years in doing\n    and now newly perform'd by that rare Italian master, Julio\n    Romano, who, had he himself eternity and could put breath into\n    his work, would beguile nature of her custom, so perfectly he is\n    her ape. He so near to Hermione hath done Hermione that they say\n    one would speak to her and stand in hope of answer- thither with\n    all greediness of affection are they gone, and there they intend\n    to sup.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I thought she had some great matter there in\n    hand; for she hath privately twice or thrice a day, ever since\n    the death of Hermione, visited that removed house. Shall we\n    thither, and with our company piece the rejoicing?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Who would be thence that has the benefit of\n    access? Every wink of an eye some new grace will be born. Our\n    absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge. Let's along.\n                                                Exeunt GENTLEMEN\n  AUTOLYCUS. Now, had I not the dash of my former life in me, would\n    preferment drop on my head. I brought the old man and his son\n    aboard the Prince; told him I heard them talk of a fardel and I\n    know not what; but he at that time over-fond of the shepherd's\n    daughter- so he then took her to be- who began to be much\n    sea-sick, and himself little better, extremity of weather\n    continuing, this mystery remained undiscover'd. But 'tis all one\n    to me; for had I been the finder-out of this secret, it would not\n    have relish'd among my other discredits.\n\n                    Enter SHEPHERD and CLOWN\n\n    Here come those I have done good to against my will, and already\n    appearing in the blossoms of their fortune.\n  SHEPHERD. Come, boy; I am past moe children, but thy sons and\n    daughters will be all gentlemen born.\n  CLOWN. You are well met, sir. You denied to fight with me this\n    other day, because I was no gentleman born. See you these\n    clothes? Say you see them not and think me still no gentleman\n    born. You were best say these robes are not gentlemen born. Give\n    me the lie, do; and try whether I am not now a gentleman born.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I know you are now, sir, a gentleman born.\n  CLOWN. Ay, and have been so any time these four hours.\n  SHEPHERD. And so have I, boy.\n  CLOWN. So you have; but I was a gentleman born before my father;\n    for the King's son took me by the hand and call'd me brother; and\n    then the two kings call'd my father brother; and then the Prince,\n    my brother, and the Princess, my sister, call'd my father father.\n    And so we wept; and there was the first gentleman-like tears that\n    ever we shed.\n  SHEPHERD. We may live, son, to shed many more.\n  CLOWN. Ay; or else 'twere hard luck, being in so preposterous\n    estate as we are.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the faults I\n    have committed to your worship, and to give me your good report\n    to the Prince my master.\n  SHEPHERD. Prithee, son, do; for we must be gentle, now we are\n    gentlemen.\n  CLOWN. Thou wilt amend thy life?\n  AUTOLYCUS. Ay, an it like your good worship.\n  CLOWN. Give me thy hand. I will swear to the Prince thou art as\n    honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia.\n  SHEPHERD. You may say it, but not swear it.\n  CLOWN. Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and franklins\n    say it: I'll swear it.\n  SHEPHERD. How if it be false, son?\n  CLOWN. If it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear it in\n    the behalf of his friend. And I'll swear to the Prince thou art a\n    tall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt not be drunk; but I\n    know thou art no tall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt be\n    drunk. But I'll swear it; and I would thou wouldst be a tall\n    fellow of thy hands.\n  AUTOLYCUS. I will prove so, sir, to my power.\n  CLOWN. Ay, by any means, prove a tall fellow. If I do not wonder\n    how thou dar'st venture to be drunk not being a tall fellow,\n    trust me not. Hark! the kings and the princes, our kindred, are\n    going to see the Queen's picture. Come, follow us; we'll be thy\n    good masters.                                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nSicilia. A chapel in PAULINA's house\n\nEnter LEONTES, POLIXENES, FLORIZEL, PERDITA, CAMILLO, PAULINA,\nLORDS and ATTENDANTS\n\n  LEONTES. O grave and good Paulina, the great comfort\n    That I have had of thee!\n  PAULINA. What, sovereign sir,\n    I did not well, I meant well. All my services\n    You have paid home; but that you have vouchsaf'd,\n    With your crown'd brother and these your contracted\n    Heirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit,\n    It is a surplus of your grace, which never\n    My life may last to answer.\n  LEONTES. O Paulina,\n    We honour you with trouble; but we came\n    To see the statue of our queen. Your gallery\n    Have we pass'd through, not without much content\n    In many singularities; but we saw not\n    That which my daughter came to look upon,\n    The statue of her mother.\n  PAULINA. As she liv'd peerless,\n    So her dead likeness, I do well believe,\n    Excels whatever yet you look'd upon\n    Or hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it\n    Lonely, apart. But here it is. Prepare\n    To see the life as lively mock'd as ever\n    Still sleep mock'd death. Behold; and say 'tis well.\n                [PAULINA draws a curtain, and discovers HERMIONE\n                                         standing like a statue]\n    I like your silence; it the more shows off\n    Your wonder; but yet speak. First, you, my liege.\n    Comes it not something near?\n  LEONTES. Her natural posture!\n    Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed\n    Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she\n    In thy not chiding; for she was as tender\n    As infancy and grace. But yet, Paulina,\n    Hermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing\n    So aged as this seems.\n  POLIXENES. O, not by much!\n  PAULINA. So much the more our carver's excellence,\n    Which lets go by some sixteen years and makes her\n    As she liv'd now.\n  LEONTES. As now she might have done,\n    So much to my good comfort as it is\n    Now piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood,\n    Even with such life of majesty- warm life,\n    As now it coldly stands- when first I woo'd her!\n    I am asham'd. Does not the stone rebuke me\n    For being more stone than it? O royal piece,\n    There's magic in thy majesty, which has\n    My evils conjur'd to remembrance, and\n    From thy admiring daughter took the spirits,\n    Standing like stone with thee!\n  PERDITA. And give me leave,\n    And do not say 'tis superstition that\n    I kneel, and then implore her blessing. Lady,\n    Dear queen, that ended when I but began,\n    Give me that hand of yours to kiss.\n  PAULINA. O, patience!\n    The statue is but newly fix'd, the colour's\n    Not dry.\n  CAMILLO. My lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on,\n    Which sixteen winters cannot blow away,\n    So many summers dry. Scarce any joy\n    Did ever so long live; no sorrow\n    But kill'd itself much sooner.\n  POLIXENES. Dear my brother,\n    Let him that was the cause of this have pow'r\n    To take off so much grief from you as he\n    Will piece up in himself.\n  PAULINA. Indeed, my lord,\n    If I had thought the sight of my poor image\n    Would thus have wrought you- for the stone is mine-\n    I'd not have show'd it.\n  LEONTES. Do not draw the curtain.\n  PAULINA. No longer shall you gaze on't, lest your fancy\n    May think anon it moves.\n  LEONTES. Let be, let be.\n    Would I were dead, but that methinks already-\n    What was he that did make it? See, my lord,\n    Would you not deem it breath'd, and that those veins\n    Did verily bear blood?\n  POLIXENES. Masterly done!\n    The very life seems warm upon her lip.\n  LEONTES. The fixture of her eye has motion in't,\n    As we are mock'd with art.\n  PAULINA. I'll draw the curtain.\n    My lord's almost so far transported that\n    He'll think anon it lives.\n  LEONTES. O sweet Paulina,\n    Make me to think so twenty years together!\n    No settled senses of the world can match\n    The pleasure of that madness. Let 't alone.\n  PAULINA. I am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirr'd you; but\n    I could afflict you farther.\n  LEONTES. Do, Paulina;\n    For this affliction has a taste as sweet\n    As any cordial comfort. Still, methinks,\n    There is an air comes from her. What fine chisel\n    Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me,\n    For I will kiss her.\n  PAULINA. Good my lord, forbear.\n    The ruddiness upon her lip is wet;\n    You'll mar it if you kiss it; stain your own\n    With oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?\n  LEONTES. No, not these twenty years.\n  PERDITA. So long could I\n    Stand by, a looker-on.\n  PAULINA. Either forbear,\n    Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you\n    For more amazement. If you can behold it,\n    I'll make the statue move indeed, descend,\n    And take you by the hand, but then you'll think-\n    Which I protest against- I am assisted\n    By wicked powers.\n  LEONTES. What you can make her do\n    I am content to look on; what to speak\n    I am content to hear; for 'tis as easy\n    To make her speak as move.\n  PAULINA. It is requir'd\n    You do awake your faith. Then all stand still;\n    Or those that think it is unlawful business\n    I am about, let them depart.\n  LEONTES. Proceed.\n    No foot shall stir.\n  PAULINA. Music, awake her: strike.                     [Music]\n    'Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach;\n    Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come;\n    I'll fill your grave up. Stir; nay, come away.\n    Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him\n    Dear life redeems you. You perceive she stirs.\n                         [HERMIONE comes down from the pedestal]\n    Start not; her actions shall be holy as\n    You hear my spell is lawful. Do not shun her\n    Until you see her die again; for then\n    You kill her double. Nay, present your hand.\n    When she was young you woo'd her; now in age\n    Is she become the suitor?\n  LEONTES. O, she's warm!\n    If this be magic, let it be an art\n    Lawful as eating.\n  POLIXENES. She embraces him.\n  CAMILLO. She hangs about his neck.\n    If she pertain to life, let her speak too.\n  POLIXENES. Ay, and make it manifest where she has liv'd,\n    Or how stol'n from the dead.\n  PAULINA. That she is living,\n    Were it but told you, should be hooted at\n    Like an old tale; but it appears she lives\n    Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while.\n    Please you to interpose, fair madam. Kneel,\n    And pray your mother's blessing. Turn, good lady;\n    Our Perdita is found.\n  HERMIONE. You gods, look down,\n    And from your sacred vials pour your graces\n    Upon my daughter's head! Tell me, mine own,\n    Where hast thou been preserv'd? Where liv'd? How found\n    Thy father's court? For thou shalt hear that I,\n    Knowing by Paulina that the oracle\n    Gave hope thou wast in being, have preserv'd\n    Myself to see the issue.\n  PAULINA. There's time enough for that,\n    Lest they desire upon this push to trouble\n    Your joys with like relation. Go together,\n    You precious winners all; your exultation\n    Partake to every one. I, an old turtle,\n    Will wing me to some wither'd bough, and there\n    My mate, that's never to be found again,\n    Lament till I am lost.\n  LEONTES. O peace, Paulina!\n    Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent,\n    As I by thine a wife. This is a match,\n    And made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine;\n    But how, is to be question'd; for I saw her,\n    As I thought, dead; and have, in vain, said many\n    A prayer upon her grave. I'll not seek far-\n    For him, I partly know his mind- to find thee\n    An honourable husband. Come, Camillo,\n    And take her by the hand whose worth and honesty\n    Is richly noted, and here justified\n    By us, a pair of kings. Let's from this place.\n    What! look upon my brother. Both your pardons,\n    That e'er I put between your holy looks\n    My ill suspicion. This your son-in-law,\n    And son unto the King, whom heavens directing,\n    Is troth-plight to your daughter. Good Paulina,\n    Lead us from hence where we may leisurely\n    Each one demand and answer to his part\n    Perform'd in this wide gap of time since first\n    We were dissever'd. Hastily lead away.                Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1609\n\nA LOVER'S COMPLAINT\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\n  From off a hill whose concave womb reworded\n  A plaintful story from a sist'ring vale,\n  My spirits t'attend this double voice accorded,\n  And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale,\n  Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,\n  Tearing of papers, breaking rings atwain,\n  Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.\n\n  Upon her head a platted hive of straw,\n  Which fortified her visage from the sun,\n  Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw\n  The carcase of a beauty spent and done.\n  Time had not scythed all that youth begun,\n  Nor youth all quit, but spite of heaven's fell rage\n  Some beauty peeped through lattice of seared age.\n\n  Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,\n  Which on it had conceited characters,\n  Laund'ring the silken figures in the brine\n  That seasoned woe had pelleted in tears,\n  And often reading what contents it bears;\n  As often shrieking undistinguished woe,\n  In clamours of all size, both high and low.\n\n  Sometimes her levelled eyes their carriage ride,\n  As they did batt'ry to the spheres intend;\n  Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied\n  To th' orbed earth; sometimes they do extend\n  Their view right on; anon their gazes lend\n  To every place at once, and nowhere fixed,\n  The mind and sight distractedly commixed.\n\n  Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat,\n  Proclaimed in her a careless hand of pride;\n  For some, untucked, descended her sheaved hat,\n  Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside;\n  Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,\n  And, true to bondage, would not break from thence,\n  Though slackly braided in loose negligence.\n\n  A thousand favours from a maund she drew\n  Of amber, crystal, and of beaded jet,\n  Which one by one she in a river threw,\n  Upon whose weeping margent she was set;\n  Like usury applying wet to wet,\n  Or monarchs' hands that lets not bounty fall\n  Where want cries some, but where excess begs all.\n\n  Of folded schedules had she many a one,\n  Which she perused, sighed, tore, and gave the flood;\n  Cracked many a ring of posied gold and bone,\n  Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud;\n  Found yet moe letters sadly penned in blood,\n  With sleided silk feat and affectedly\n  Enswathed and sealed to curious secrecy.\n\n  These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes,\n  And often kissed, and often 'gan to tear;\n  Cried, 'O false blood, thou register of lies,\n  What unapproved witness dost thou bear!\n  Ink would have seemed more black and damned here!\n  This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,\n  Big discontents so breaking their contents.\n\n  A reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh,\n  Sometime a blusterer that the ruffle knew\n  Of court, of city, and had let go by\n  The swiftest hours observed as they flew,\n  Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew;\n  And, privileged by age, desires to know\n  In brief the grounds and motives of her woe.\n\n  So slides he down upon his grained bat,\n  And comely distant sits he by her side;\n  When he again desires her, being sat,\n  Her grievance with his hearing to divide.\n  If that from him there may be aught applied\n  Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage,\n  'Tis promised in the charity of age.\n\n  'Father,' she says, 'though in me you behold\n  The injury of many a blasting hour,\n  Let it not tell your judgement I am old:\n  Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power.\n  I might as yet have been a spreading flower,\n  Fresh to myself, if I had self-applied\n  Love to myself, and to no love beside.\n\n  'But woe is me! too early I attended\n  A youthful suit- it was to gain my grace-\n  O, one by nature's outwards so commended\n  That maidens' eyes stuck over all his face.\n  Love lacked a dwelling and made him her place;\n  And when in his fair parts she did abide,\n  She was new lodged and newly deified.\n\n  'His browny locks did hang in crooked curls;\n  And every light occasion of the wind\n  Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls.\n  What's sweet to do, to do will aptly find:\n  Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind;\n  For on his visage was in little drawn\n  What largeness thinks in Paradise was sawn.\n\n  'Small show of man was yet upon his chin;\n  His phoenix down began but to appear,\n  Like unshorn velvet, on that termless skin,\n  Whose bare out-bragged the web it seemed to wear:\n  Yet showed his visage by that cost more dear;\n  And nice affections wavering stood in doubt\n  If best were as it was, or best without.\n\n  'His qualities were beauteous as his form,\n  For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free;\n  Yet if men moved him, was he such a storm\n  As oft 'twixt May and April is to see,\n  When winds breathe sweet, unruly though they be.\n  His rudeness so with his authorized youth\n  Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.\n\n  'Well could he ride, and often men would say,\n  \"That horse his mettle from his rider takes:\n  Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,\n  What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!\"\n  And controversy hence a question takes\n  Whether the horse by him became his deed,\n  Or he his manage by th' well-doing steed.\n\n  'But quickly on this side the verdict went:\n  His real habitude gave life and grace\n  To appertainings and to ornament,\n  Accomplished in himself, not in his case,\n  All aids, themselves made fairer by their place,\n  Came for additions; yet their purposed trim\n  Pierced not his grace, but were all graced by him.\n\n  'So on the tip of his subduing tongue\n  All kind of arguments and question deep,\n  All replication prompt, and reason strong,\n  For his advantage still did wake and sleep.\n  To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,\n  He had the dialect and different skill,\n  Catching all passions in his craft of will,\n\n  'That he did in the general bosom reign\n  Of young, of old, and sexes both enchanted,\n  To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain\n  In personal duty, following where he haunted.\n  Consents bewitched, ere he desire, have granted,\n  And dialogued for him what he would say,\n  Asked their own wills, and made their wills obey.\n\n  'Many there were that did his picture get,\n  To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind;\n  Like fools that in th' imagination set\n  The goodly objects which abroad they find\n  Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assigned;\n  And labouring in moe pleasures to bestow them\n  Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them.\n\n  'So many have, that never touched his hand,\n  Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart.\n  My woeful self, that did in freedom stand,\n  And was my own fee-simple, not in part,\n  What with his art in youth, and youth in art,\n  Threw my affections in his charmed power\n  Reserved the stalk and gave him all my flower.\n\n  'Yet did I not, as some my equals did,\n  Demand of him, nor being desired yielded;\n  Finding myself in honour so forbid,\n  With safest distance I mine honour shielded.\n  Experience for me many bulwarks builded\n  Of proofs new-bleeding, which remained the foil\n  Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil.\n\n  'But ah, who ever shunned by precedent\n  The destined ill she must herself assay?\n  Or forced examples, 'gainst her own content,\n  To put the by-past perils in her way?\n  Counsel may stop awhile what will not stay;\n  For when we rage, advice is often seen\n  By blunting us to make our wills more keen.\n\n  'Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood\n  That we must curb it upon others' proof,\n  To be forbod the sweets that seems so good\n  For fear of harms that preach in our behoof.\n  O appetite, from judgement stand aloof!\n  The one a palate hath that needs will taste,\n  Though Reason weep, and cry it is thy last.\n\n  'For further I could say this man's untrue,\n  And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling;\n  Heard where his plants in others' orchards grew;\n  Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling;\n  Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling;\n  Thought characters and words merely but art,\n  And bastards of his foul adulterate heart.\n\n  'And long upon these terms I held my city,\n  Till thus he 'gan besiege me: \"Gentle maid,\n  Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity,\n  And be not of my holy vows afraid.\n  That's to ye sworn to none was ever said;\n  For feasts of love I have been called unto,\n  Till now did ne'er invite nor never woo.\n\n  '\"All my offences that abroad you see\n  Are errors of the blood, none of the mind;\n  Love made them not; with acture they may be,\n  Where neither party is nor true nor kind.\n  They sought their shame that so their shame did find;\n  And so much less of shame in me remains\n  By how much of me their reproach contains.\n\n  '\"Among the many that mine eyes have seen,\n  Not one whose flame my heart so much as warmed,\n  Or my affection put to th' smallest teen,\n  Or any of my leisures ever charmed.\n  Harm have I done to them, but ne'er was harmed;\n  Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free,\n  And reigned commanding in his monarchy.\n\n  '\"Look here what tributes wounded fancies sent me,\n  Of paled pearls and rubies red as blood;\n  Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me\n  Of grief and blushes, aptly understood\n  In bloodless white and the encrimsoned mood-\n  Effects of terror and dear modesty,\n  Encamped in hearts, but fighting outwardly.\n\n  '\"And, lo, behold these talents of their hair,\n  With twisted metal amorously empleached,\n  I have receiv'd from many a several fair,\n  Their kind acceptance weepingly beseeched,\n  With the annexions of fair gems enriched,\n  And deep-brained sonnets that did amplify\n  Each stone's dear nature, worth, and quality.\n\n  '\"The diamond? why, 'twas beautiful and hard,\n  Whereto his invised properties did tend;\n  The deep-green em'rald, in whose fresh regard\n  Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend;\n  The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend\n  With objects manifold; each several stone,\n  With wit well blazoned, smiled, or made some moan.\n\n  '\"Lo, all these trophies of affections hot,\n  Of pensived and subdued desires the tender,\n  Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not,\n  But yield them up where I myself must render-\n  That is, to you, my origin and ender;\n  For these, of force, must your oblations be,\n  Since I their altar, you enpatron me.\n\n  '\"O then advance of yours that phraseless hand\n  Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise;\n  Take all these similes to your own command,\n  Hallowed with sighs that burning lungs did raise;\n  What me your minister for you obeys\n  Works under you; and to your audit comes\n  Their distract parcels in combined sums.\n\n  '\"Lo, this device was sent me from a nun,\n  Or sister sanctified, of holiest note,\n  Which late her noble suit in court did shun,\n  Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote;\n  For she was sought by spirits of richest coat,\n  But kept cold distance, and did thence remove\n  To spend her living in eternal love.\n\n  '\"But, O my sweet, what labour is't to leave\n  The thing we have not, mast'ring what not strives,\n  Playing the place which did no form receive,\n  Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves!\n  She that her fame so to herself contrives,\n  The scars of battle scapeth by the flight,\n  And makes her absence valiant, not her might.\n\n  '\"O pardon me in that my boast is true!\n  The accident which brought me to her eye\n  Upon the moment did her force subdue,\n  And now she would the caged cloister fly.\n  Religious love put out religion's eye.\n  Not to be tempted, would she be immured,\n  And now to tempt all liberty procured.\n\n  '\"How mighty then you are, O hear me tell!\n  The broken bosoms that to me belong\n  Have emptied all their fountains in my well,\n  And mine I pour your ocean all among.\n  I strong o'er them, and you o'er me being strong,\n  Must for your victory us all congest,\n  As compound love to physic your cold breast.\n\n  '\"My parts had pow'r to charm a sacred nun,\n  Who, disciplined, ay, dieted in grace,\n  Believed her eyes when they t'assail begun,\n  All vows and consecrations giving place,\n  O most potential love, vow, bond, nor space,\n  In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine,\n  For thou art all, and all things else are thine.\n\n  '\"When thou impressest, what are precepts worth\n  Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame,\n  How coldly those impediments stand forth,\n  Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame!\n  Love's arms are peace, 'gainst rule, 'gainst sense, 'gainst shame.\n  And sweetens, in the suff'ring pangs it bears,\n  The aloes of all forces, shocks and fears.\n\n  '\"Now all these hearts that do on mine depend,\n  Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine,\n  And supplicant their sighs to your extend,\n  To leave the batt'ry that you make 'gainst mine,\n  Lending soft audience to my sweet design,\n  And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath,\n  That shall prefer and undertake my troth.\"\n\n  'This said, his wat'ry eyes he did dismount,\n  Whose sights till then were levelled on my face;\n  Each cheek a river running from a fount\n  With brinish current downward flowed apace.\n  O, how the channel to the stream gave grace!\n  Who glazed with crystal gate the glowing roses\n  That flame through water which their hue encloses.\n\n  'O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies\n  In the small orb of one particular tear!\n  But with the inundation of the eyes\n  What rocky heart to water will not wear?\n  What breast so cold that is not warmed here?\n  O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath,\n  Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath.\n\n  'For lo, his passion, but an art of craft,\n  Even there resolved my reason into tears;\n  There my white stole of chastity I daffed,\n  Shook off my sober guards and civil fears;\n  Appear to him as he to me appears,\n  All melting; though our drops this diff'rence bore:\n  His poisoned me, and mine did him restore.\n\n  'In him a plenitude of subtle matter,\n  Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,\n  Of burning blushes or of weeping water,\n  Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,\n  In either's aptness, as it best deceives,\n  To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes,\n  Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows;\n\n  'That not a heart which in his level came\n  Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim,\n  Showing fair nature is both kind and tame;\n  And, veiled in them, did win whom he would maim.\n  Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;\n  When he most burned in heart-wished luxury,\n  He preached pure maid and praised cold chastity.\n\n  'Thus merely with the garment of a Grace\n  The naked and concealed fiend he covered,\n  That th' unexperient gave the tempter place,\n  Which, like a cherubin, above them hovered.\n  Who, young and simple, would not be so lovered?\n  Ay me, I fell, and yet do question make\n  What I should do again for such a sake.\n\n  'O, that infected moisture of his eye,\n  O, that false fire which in his cheek so glowed,\n  O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly,\n  O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestowed,\n  O, all that borrowed motion, seeming owed,\n  Would yet again betray the fore-betrayed,\n  And new pervert a reconciled maid.'\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1041":"University Library. HTML version by Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE SONNETS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\n\n  I\n\n  From fairest creatures we desire increase,\n  That thereby beauty's rose might never die,\n  But as the riper should by time decease,\n  His tender heir might bear his memory:\n  But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,\n  Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,\n  Making a famine where abundance lies,\n  Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:\n  Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,\n  And only herald to the gaudy spring,\n  Within thine own bud buriest thy content,\n  And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding:\n    Pity the world, or else this glutton be,\n    To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.\n\n  II\n\n  When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,\n  And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,\n  Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,\n  Will be a tatter'd weed of small worth held:\n  Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,\n  Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;\n  To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,\n  Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.\n  How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use,\n  If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine\n  Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,'\n  Proving his beauty by succession thine!\n    This were to be new made when thou art old,\n    And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.\n\n  III\n\n  Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest\n  Now is the time that face should form another;\n  Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,\n  Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.\n  For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb\n  Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?\n  Or who is he so fond will be the tomb,\n  Of his self-love to stop posterity?\n  Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee\n  Calls back the lovely April of her prime;\n  So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,\n  Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.\n    But if thou live, remember'd not to be,\n    Die single and thine image dies with thee.\n\n  IV\n\n  Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend\n  Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?\n  Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,\n  And being frank she lends to those are free:\n  Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse\n  The bounteous largess given thee to give?\n  Profitless usurer, why dost thou use\n  So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?\n  For having traffic with thy self alone,\n  Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive:\n  Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,\n  What acceptable audit canst thou leave?\n    Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,\n    Which, used, lives th' executor to be.\n\n  V\n\n  Those hours, that with gentle work did frame\n  The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,\n  Will play the tyrants to the very same\n  And that unfair which fairly doth excel;\n  For never-resting time leads summer on\n  To hideous winter, and confounds him there;\n  Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,\n  Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:\n  Then were not summer's distillation left,\n  A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,\n  Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,\n  Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was:\n    But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet,\n    Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.\n\n\n  VI\n\n  Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,\n  In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:\n  Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place\n  With beauty's treasure ere it be self-kill'd.\n  That use is not forbidden usury,\n  Which happies those that pay the willing loan;\n  That's for thy self to breed another thee,\n  Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;\n  Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,\n  If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee:\n  Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,\n  Leaving thee living in posterity?\n    Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair\n    To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.\n\n  VII\n\n  Lo! in the orient when the gracious light\n  Lifts up his burning head, each under eye\n  Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,\n  Serving with looks his sacred majesty;\n  And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill,\n  Resembling strong youth in his middle age,\n  Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,\n  Attending on his golden pilgrimage:\n  But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,\n  Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,\n  The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are\n  From his low tract, and look another way:\n    So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon:\n    Unlook'd, on diest unless thou get a son.\n\n  VIII\n\n  Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?\n  Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:\n  Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,\n  Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?\n  If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,\n  By unions married, do offend thine ear,\n  They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds\n  In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.\n  Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,\n  Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;\n  Resembling sire and child and happy mother,\n  Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:\n    Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,\n    Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'\n\n  IX\n\n  Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,\n  That thou consum'st thy self in single life?\n  Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,\n  The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;\n  The world will be thy widow and still weep\n  That thou no form of thee hast left behind,\n  When every private widow well may keep\n  By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:\n  Look! what an unthrift in the world doth spend\n  Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;\n  But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,\n  And kept unused the user so destroys it.\n    No love toward others in that bosom sits\n    That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.\n\n  X\n\n  For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,\n  Who for thy self art so unprovident.\n  Grant, if thou wilt, thou art belov'd of many,\n  But that thou none lov'st is most evident:\n  For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate,\n  That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire,\n  Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate\n  Which to repair should be thy chief desire.\n  O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind:\n  Shall hate be fairer lodg'd than gentle love?\n  Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,\n  Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:\n    Make thee another self for love of me,\n    That beauty still may live in thine or thee.\n\n  XI\n\n  As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'st,\n  In one of thine, from that which thou departest;\n  And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st,\n  Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest,\n  Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase;\n  Without this folly, age, and cold decay:\n  If all were minded so, the times should cease\n  And threescore year would make the world away.\n  Let those whom nature hath not made for store,\n  Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:\n  Look, whom she best endow'd, she gave thee more;\n  Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:\n    She carv'd thee for her seal, and meant thereby,\n    Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.\n\n  XII\n\n  When I do count the clock that tells the time,\n  And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;\n  When I behold the violet past prime,\n  And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white;\n  When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,\n  Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,\n  And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,\n  Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,\n  Then of thy beauty do I question make,\n  That thou among the wastes of time must go,\n  Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake\n  And die as fast as they see others grow;\n    And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence\n    Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.\n\n  XIII\n\n  O! that you were your self; but, love you are\n  No longer yours, than you your self here live:\n  Against this coming end you should prepare,\n  And your sweet semblance to some other give:\n  So should that beauty which you hold in lease\n  Find no determination; then you were\n  Yourself again, after yourself's decease,\n  When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.\n  Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,\n  Which husbandry in honour might uphold,\n  Against the stormy gusts of winter's day\n  And barren rage of death's eternal cold?\n    O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,\n    You had a father: let your son say so.\n\n  XIV\n\n  Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck;\n  And yet methinks I have astronomy,\n  But not to tell of good or evil luck,\n  Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;\n  Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,\n  Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,\n  Or say with princes if it shall go well\n  By oft predict that I in heaven find:\n  But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,\n  And constant stars in them I read such art\n  As 'Truth and beauty shall together thrive,\n  If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert';\n    Or else of thee this I prognosticate:\n    'Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.'\n\n  XV\n\n  When I consider every thing that grows\n  Holds in perfection but a little moment,\n  That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows\n  Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;\n  When I perceive that men as plants increase,\n  Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky,\n  Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,\n  And wear their brave state out of memory;\n  Then the conceit of this inconstant stay\n  Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,\n  Where wasteful Time debateth with decay\n  To change your day of youth to sullied night,\n    And all in war with Time for love of you,\n    As he takes from you, I engraft you new.\n\n  XVI\n\n  But wherefore do not you a mightier way\n  Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?\n  And fortify your self in your decay\n  With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?\n  Now stand you on the top of happy hours,\n  And many maiden gardens, yet unset,\n  With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,\n  Much liker than your painted counterfeit:\n  So should the lines of life that life repair,\n  Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen,\n  Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,\n  Can make you live your self in eyes of men.\n    To give away yourself, keeps yourself still,\n    And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.\n\n  XVII\n\n  Who will believe my verse in time to come,\n  If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?\n  Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb\n  Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.\n  If I could write the beauty of your eyes,\n  And in fresh numbers number all your graces,\n  The age to come would say 'This poet lies;\n  Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'\n  So should my papers, yellow'd with their age,\n  Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue,\n  And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage\n  And stretched metre of an antique song:\n    But were some child of yours alive that time,\n    You should live twice,--in it, and in my rhyme.\n\n  XVIII\n\n  Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?\n  Thou art more lovely and more temperate:\n  Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,\n  And summer's lease hath all too short a date:\n  Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,\n  And often is his gold complexion dimm'd,\n  And every fair from fair sometime declines,\n  By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd:\n  But thy eternal summer shall not fade,\n  Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,\n  Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,\n  When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,\n    So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,\n    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.\n\n  XIX\n\n  Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,\n  And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;\n  Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,\n  And burn the long-liv'd phoenix, in her blood;\n  Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,\n  And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,\n  To the wide world and all her fading sweets;\n  But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:\n  O! carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,\n  Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;\n  Him in thy course untainted do allow\n  For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.\n    Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,\n    My love shall in my verse ever live young.\n\n  XX\n\n  A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,\n  Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;\n  A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted\n  With shifting change, as is false women's fashion:\n  An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,\n  Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;\n  A man in hue all 'hues' in his controlling,\n  Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.\n  And for a woman wert thou first created;\n  Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,\n  And by addition me of thee defeated,\n  By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.\n    But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,\n    Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.\n\n  XXI\n\n  So is it not with me as with that Muse,\n  Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse,\n  Who heaven itself for ornament doth use\n  And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,\n  Making a couplement of proud compare.\n  With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,\n  With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare,\n  That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.\n  O! let me, true in love, but truly write,\n  And then believe me, my love is as fair\n  As any mother's child, though not so bright\n  As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air:\n    Let them say more that like of hearsay well;\n    I will not praise that purpose not to sell.\n\n  XXII\n\n  My glass shall not persuade me I am old,\n  So long as youth and thou are of one date;\n  But when in thee time's furrows I behold,\n  Then look I death my days should expiate.\n  For all that beauty that doth cover thee,\n  Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,\n  Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:\n  How can I then be elder than thou art?\n  O! therefore love, be of thyself so wary\n  As I, not for myself, but for thee will;\n  Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary\n  As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.\n    Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,\n    Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.\n\n  XXIII\n\n  As an unperfect actor on the stage,\n  Who with his fear is put beside his part,\n  Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,\n  Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;\n  So I, for fear of trust, forget to say\n  The perfect ceremony of love's rite,\n  And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,\n  O'ercharg'd with burthen of mine own love's might.\n  O! let my looks be then the eloquence\n  And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,\n  Who plead for love, and look for recompense,\n  More than that tongue that more hath more express'd.\n    O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:\n    To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.\n\n  XXIV\n\n  Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd,\n  Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;\n  My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,\n  And perspective it is best painter's art.\n  For through the painter must you see his skill,\n  To find where your true image pictur'd lies,\n  Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,\n  That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.\n  Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:\n  Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me\n  Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun\n  Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;\n    Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,\n    They draw but what they see, know not the heart.\n\n  XXV\n\n  Let those who are in favour with their stars\n  Of public honour and proud titles boast,\n  Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars\n  Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.\n  Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread\n  But as the marigold at the sun's eye,\n  And in themselves their pride lies buried,\n  For at a frown they in their glory die.\n  The painful warrior famoused for fight,\n  After a thousand victories once foil'd,\n  Is from the book of honour razed quite,\n  And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:\n    Then happy I, that love and am belov'd,\n    Where I may not remove nor be remov'd.\n\n  XXVI\n\n  Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage\n  Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,\n  To thee I send this written embassage,\n  To witness duty, not to show my wit:\n  Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine\n  May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,\n  But that I hope some good conceit of thine\n  In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it:\n  Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,\n  Points on me graciously with fair aspect,\n  And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving,\n  To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:\n    Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;\n    Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.\n\n  XXVII\n\n  Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,\n  The dear respose for limbs with travel tir'd;\n  But then begins a journey in my head\n  To work my mind, when body's work's expired:\n  For then my thoughts--from far where I abide--\n  Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,\n  And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,\n  Looking on darkness which the blind do see:\n  Save that my soul's imaginary sight\n  Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,\n  Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,\n  Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.\n    Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,\n    For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.\n\n  XXVIII\n\n  How can I then return in happy plight,\n  That am debarre'd the benefit of rest?\n  When day's oppression is not eas'd by night,\n  But day by night and night by day oppress'd,\n  And each, though enemies to either's reign,\n  Do in consent shake hands to torture me,\n  The one by toil, the other to complain\n  How far I toil, still farther off from thee.\n  I tell the day, to please him thou art bright,\n  And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:\n  So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night,\n  When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.\n    But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,\n    And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger.\n\n  XXIX\n\n  When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes\n  I all alone beweep my outcast state,\n  And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,\n  And look upon myself, and curse my fate,\n  Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,\n  Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,\n  Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,\n  With what I most enjoy contented least;\n  Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,\n  Haply I think on thee,-- and then my state,\n  Like to the lark at break of day arising\n  From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;\n    For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings\n    That then I scorn to change my state with kings.\n\n  XXX\n\n  When to the sessions of sweet silent thought\n  I summon up remembrance of things past,\n  I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,\n  And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:\n  Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,\n  For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,\n  And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,\n  And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:\n  Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,\n  And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er\n  The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,\n  Which I new pay as if not paid before.\n    But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,\n    All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.\n\n  XXXI\n\n  Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,\n  Which I by lacking have supposed dead;\n  And there reigns Love, and all Love's loving parts,\n  And all those friends which I thought buried.\n  How many a holy and obsequious tear\n  Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,\n  As interest of the dead, which now appear\n  But things remov'd that hidden in thee lie!\n  Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,\n  Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,\n  Who all their parts of me to thee did give,\n  That due of many now is thine alone:\n    Their images I lov'd, I view in thee,\n    And thou--all they--hast all the all of me.\n\n  XXXII\n\n  If thou survive my well-contented day,\n  When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover\n  And shalt by fortune once more re-survey\n  These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,\n  Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,\n  And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,\n  Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,\n  Exceeded by the height of happier men.\n  O! then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:\n  'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,\n  A dearer birth than this his love had brought,\n  To march in ranks of better equipage:\n    But since he died and poets better prove,\n    Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.\n\n  XXXIII\n\n  Full many a glorious morning have I seen\n  Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,\n  Kissing with golden face the meadows green,\n  Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;\n  Anon permit the basest clouds to ride\n  With ugly rack on his celestial face,\n  And from the forlorn world his visage hide,\n  Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:\n  Even so my sun one early morn did shine,\n  With all triumphant splendour on my brow;\n  But out! alack! he was but one hour mine,\n  The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.\n    Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;\n    Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.\n\n  XXXIV\n\n  Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,\n  And make me travel forth without my cloak,\n  To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,\n  Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?\n  'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,\n  To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,\n  For no man well of such a salve can speak,\n  That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:\n  Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;\n  Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:\n  The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief\n  To him that bears the strong offence's cross.\n    Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,\n    And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.\n\n  XXXV\n\n  No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done:\n  Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud:\n  Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,\n  And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.\n  All men make faults, and even I in this,\n  Authorizing thy trespass with compare,\n  Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,\n  Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;\n  For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,--\n  Thy adverse party is thy advocate,--\n  And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:\n  Such civil war is in my love and hate,\n    That I an accessary needs must be,\n    To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.\n\n  XXXVI\n\n  Let me confess that we two must be twain,\n  Although our undivided loves are one:\n  So shall those blots that do with me remain,\n  Without thy help, by me be borne alone.\n  In our two loves there is but one respect,\n  Though in our lives a separable spite,\n  Which though it alter not love's sole effect,\n  Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.\n  I may not evermore acknowledge thee,\n  Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,\n  Nor thou with public kindness honour me,\n  Unless thou take that honour from thy name:\n    But do not so, I love thee in such sort,\n    As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.\n\n  XXXVII\n\n  As a decrepit father takes delight\n  To see his active child do deeds of youth,\n  So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite,\n  Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth;\n  For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,\n  Or any of these all, or all, or more,\n  Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,\n  I make my love engrafted, to this store:\n  So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis'd,\n  Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give\n  That I in thy abundance am suffic'd,\n  And by a part of all thy glory live.\n    Look what is best, that best I wish in thee:\n    This wish I have; then ten times happy me!\n\n  XXXVIII\n\n  How can my muse want subject to invent,\n  While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse\n  Thine own sweet argument, too excellent\n  For every vulgar paper to rehearse?\n  O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in me\n  Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;\n  For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,\n  When thou thy self dost give invention light?\n  Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth\n  Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;\n  And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth\n  Eternal numbers to outlive long date.\n    If my slight muse do please these curious days,\n    The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.\n\n  XXXIX\n\n  O! how thy worth with manners may I sing,\n  When thou art all the better part of me?\n  What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?\n  And what is't but mine own when I praise thee?\n  Even for this, let us divided live,\n  And our dear love lose name of single one,\n  That by this separation I may give\n  That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone.\n  O absence! what a torment wouldst thou prove,\n  Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,\n  To entertain the time with thoughts of love,\n  Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,\n    And that thou teachest how to make one twain,\n    By praising him here who doth hence remain.\n\n  XL\n\n  Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all;\n  What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?\n  No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;\n  All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.\n  Then, if for my love, thou my love receivest,\n  I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest;\n  But yet be blam'd, if thou thy self deceivest\n  By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.\n  I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,\n  Although thou steal thee all my poverty:\n  And yet, love knows it is a greater grief\n  To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury.\n    Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,\n    Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.\n\n  XLI\n\n  Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,\n  When I am sometime absent from thy heart,\n  Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,\n  For still temptation follows where thou art.\n  Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,\n  Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd;\n  And when a woman woos, what woman's son\n  Will sourly leave her till he have prevail'd?\n  Ay me! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,\n  And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,\n  Who lead thee in their riot even there\n  Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:--\n    Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,\n    Thine by thy beauty being false to me.\n\n  XLII\n\n  That thou hast her it is not all my grief,\n  And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;\n  That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,\n  A loss in love that touches me more nearly.\n  Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye:\n  Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her;\n  And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,\n  Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.\n  If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,\n  And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;\n  Both find each other, and I lose both twain,\n  And both for my sake lay on me this cross:\n    But here's the joy; my friend and I are one;\n    Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.\n\n  XLIII\n\n  When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,\n  For all the day they view things unrespected;\n  But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,\n  And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.\n  Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,\n  How would thy shadow's form form happy show\n  To the clear day with thy much clearer light,\n  When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!\n  How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made\n  By looking on thee in the living day,\n  When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade\n  Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!\n    All days are nights to see till I see thee,\n    And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.\n\n  XLIV\n\n  If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,\n  Injurious distance should not stop my way;\n  For then despite of space I would be brought,\n  From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.\n  No matter then although my foot did stand\n  Upon the farthest earth remov'd from thee;\n  For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,\n  As soon as think the place where he would be.\n  But, ah! thought kills me that I am not thought,\n  To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,\n  But that so much of earth and water wrought,\n  I must attend time's leisure with my moan;\n    Receiving nought by elements so slow\n    But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.\n\n  XLV\n\n  The other two, slight air, and purging fire\n  Are both with thee, wherever I abide;\n  The first my thought, the other my desire,\n  These present-absent with swift motion slide.\n  For when these quicker elements are gone\n  In tender embassy of love to thee,\n  My life, being made of four, with two alone\n  Sinks down to death, oppress'd with melancholy;\n  Until life's composition be recur'd\n  By those swift messengers return'd from thee,\n  Who even but now come back again, assur'd,\n  Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:\n    This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,\n    I send them back again, and straight grow sad.\n\n  XLVI\n\n  Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,\n  How to divide the conquest of thy sight;\n  Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,\n  My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.\n  My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,--\n  A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes--\n  But the defendant doth that plea deny,\n  And says in him thy fair appearance lies.\n  To side this title is impannelled\n  A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;\n  And by their verdict is determined\n  The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part:\n    As thus; mine eye's due is thy outward part,\n    And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.\n\n  XLVII\n\n  Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,\n  And each doth good turns now unto the other:\n  When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,\n  Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,\n  With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,\n  And to the painted banquet bids my heart;\n  Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,\n  And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:\n  So, either by thy picture or my love,\n  Thy self away, art present still with me;\n  For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,\n  And I am still with them, and they with thee;\n    Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight\n    Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.\n\n  XLVIII\n\n  How careful was I when I took my way,\n  Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,\n  That to my use it might unused stay\n  From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!\n  But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,\n  Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,\n  Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,\n  Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.\n  Thee have I not lock'd up in any chest,\n  Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,\n  Within the gentle closure of my breast,\n  From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part;\n    And even thence thou wilt be stol'n I fear,\n    For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.\n\n  XLIX\n\n  Against that time, if ever that time come,\n  When I shall see thee frown on my defects,\n  When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,\n  Call'd to that audit by advis'd respects;\n  Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,\n  And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,\n  When love, converted from the thing it was,\n  Shall reasons find of settled gravity;\n  Against that time do I ensconce me here,\n  Within the knowledge of mine own desert,\n  And this my hand, against my self uprear,\n  To guard the lawful reasons on thy part:\n    To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,\n    Since why to love I can allege no cause.\n\n  L\n\n  How heavy do I journey on the way,\n  When what I seek, my weary travel's end,\n  Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,\n  'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!'\n  The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,\n  Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,\n  As if by some instinct the wretch did know\n  His rider lov'd not speed, being made from thee:\n  The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,\n  That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,\n  Which heavily he answers with a groan,\n  More sharp to me than spurring to his side;\n    For that same groan doth put this in my mind,\n    My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.\n\n  LI\n\n  Thus can my love excuse the slow offence\n  Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed:\n  From where thou art why should I haste me thence?\n  Till I return, of posting is no need.\n  O! what excuse will my poor beast then find,\n  When swift extremity can seem but slow?\n  Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind,\n  In winged speed no motion shall I know,\n  Then can no horse with my desire keep pace;\n  Therefore desire, of perfect'st love being made,\n  Shall neigh--no dull flesh--in his fiery race;\n  But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,--\n    'Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,\n    Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.'\n\n  LII\n\n  So am I as the rich, whose blessed key,\n  Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,\n  The which he will not every hour survey,\n  For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.\n  Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,\n  Since, seldom coming in that long year set,\n  Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,\n  Or captain jewels in the carcanet.\n  So is the time that keeps you as my chest,\n  Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,\n  To make some special instant special-blest,\n  By new unfolding his imprison'd pride.\n    Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,\n    Being had, to triumph; being lacked, to hope.\n\n  LIII\n\n  What is your substance, whereof are you made,\n  That millions of strange shadows on you tend?\n  Since every one, hath every one, one shade,\n  And you but one, can every shadow lend.\n  Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit\n  Is poorly imitated after you;\n  On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,\n  And you in Grecian tires are painted new:\n  Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,\n  The one doth shadow of your beauty show,\n  The other as your bounty doth appear;\n  And you in every blessed shape we know.\n    In all external grace you have some part,\n    But you like none, none you, for constant heart.\n\n  LIV\n\n  O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem\n  By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.\n  The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem\n  For that sweet odour, which doth in it live.\n  The canker blooms have full as deep a dye\n  As the perfumed tincture of the roses.\n  Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly\n  When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:\n  But, for their virtue only is their show,\n  They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade;\n  Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;\n  Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made:\n    And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,\n    When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.\n\n  LV\n\n  Not marble, nor the gilded monuments\n  Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;\n  But you shall shine more bright in these contents\n  Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.\n  When wasteful war shall statues overturn,\n  And broils root out the work of masonry,\n  Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn\n  The living record of your memory.\n  'Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity\n  Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room\n  Even in the eyes of all posterity\n  That wear this world out to the ending doom.\n    So, till the judgment that yourself arise,\n    You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.\n\n  LVI\n\n  Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said\n  Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,\n  Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd,\n  To-morrow sharpened in his former might:\n  So, love, be thou, although to-day thou fill\n  Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,\n  To-morrow see again, and do not kill\n  The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness.\n  Let this sad interim like the ocean be\n  Which parts the shore, where two contracted new\n  Come daily to the banks, that when they see\n  Return of love, more blest may be the view;\n    Or call it winter, which being full of care,\n    Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.\n\n  LVII\n\n  Being your slave what should I do but tend,\n  Upon the hours, and times of your desire?\n  I have no precious time at all to spend;\n  Nor services to do, till you require.\n  Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,\n  Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,\n  Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,\n  When you have bid your servant once adieu;\n  Nor dare I question with my jealous thought\n  Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,\n  But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought\n  Save, where you are, how happy you make those.\n    So true a fool is love, that in your will,\n    Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.\n\n  LVIII\n\n  That god forbid, that made me first your slave,\n  I should in thought control your times of pleasure,\n  Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,\n  Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!\n  O! let me suffer, being at your beck,\n  The imprison'd absence of your liberty;\n  And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,\n  Without accusing you of injury.\n  Be where you list, your charter is so strong\n  That you yourself may privilage your time\n  To what you will; to you it doth belong\n  Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.\n    I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,\n    Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.\n\n  LIX\n\n  If there be nothing new, but that which is\n  Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,\n  Which labouring for invention bear amiss\n  The second burthen of a former child!\n  O! that record could with a backward look,\n  Even of five hundred courses of the sun,\n  Show me your image in some antique book,\n  Since mind at first in character was done!\n  That I might see what the old world could say\n  To this composed wonder of your frame;\n  Wh'r we are mended, or wh'r better they,\n  Or whether revolution be the same.\n    O! sure I am the wits of former days,\n    To subjects worse have given admiring praise.\n\n  LX\n\n  Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,\n  So do our minutes hasten to their end;\n  Each changing place with that which goes before,\n  In sequent toil all forwards do contend.\n  Nativity, once in the main of light,\n  Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,\n  Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,\n  And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.\n  Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth\n  And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,\n  Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,\n  And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:\n    And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand.\n    Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.\n\n  LXI\n\n  Is it thy will, thy image should keep open\n  My heavy eyelids to the weary night?\n  Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,\n  While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?\n  Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee\n  So far from home into my deeds to pry,\n  To find out shames and idle hours in me,\n  The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?\n  O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:\n  It is my love that keeps mine eye awake:\n  Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,\n  To play the watchman ever for thy sake:\n    For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,\n    From me far off, with others all too near.\n\n  LXII\n\n  Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye\n  And all my soul, and all my every part;\n  And for this sin there is no remedy,\n  It is so grounded inward in my heart.\n  Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,\n  No shape so true, no truth of such account;\n  And for myself mine own worth do define,\n  As I all other in all worths surmount.\n  But when my glass shows me myself indeed\n  Beated and chopp'd with tanned antiquity,\n  Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;\n  Self so self-loving were iniquity.\n    'Tis thee,--myself,--that for myself I praise,\n    Painting my age with beauty of thy days.\n\n  LXIII\n\n  Against my love shall be as I am now,\n  With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erworn;\n  When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow\n  With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn\n  Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night;\n  And all those beauties whereof now he's king\n  Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,\n  Stealing away the treasure of his spring;\n  For such a time do I now fortify\n  Against confounding age's cruel knife,\n  That he shall never cut from memory\n  My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life:\n    His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,\n    And they shall live, and he in them still green.\n\n  LXIV\n\n  When I have seen by Time's fell hand defac'd\n  The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age;\n  When sometime lofty towers I see down-raz'd,\n  And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;\n  When I have seen the hungry ocean gain\n  Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,\n  And the firm soil win of the watery main,\n  Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;\n  When I have seen such interchange of state,\n  Or state itself confounded, to decay;\n  Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate--\n  That Time will come and take my love away.\n    This thought is as a death which cannot choose\n    But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.\n\n  LXV\n\n  Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,\n  But sad mortality o'ersways their power,\n  How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,\n  Whose action is no stronger than a flower?\n  O! how shall summer's honey breath hold out,\n  Against the wrackful siege of battering days,\n  When rocks impregnable are not so stout,\n  Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays?\n  O fearful meditation! where, alack,\n  Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?\n  Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?\n  Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?\n    O! none, unless this miracle have might,\n    That in black ink my love may still shine bright.\n\n  LXVI\n\n  Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,\n  As to behold desert a beggar born,\n  And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,\n  And purest faith unhappily forsworn,\n  And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd,\n  And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,\n  And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd,\n  And strength by limping sway disabled\n  And art made tongue-tied by authority,\n  And folly--doctor-like--controlling skill,\n  And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,\n  And captive good attending captain ill:\n    Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone,\n    Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.\n\n  LXVII\n\n  Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,\n  And with his presence grace impiety,\n  That sin by him advantage should achieve,\n  And lace itself with his society?\n  Why should false painting imitate his cheek,\n  And steel dead seeming of his living hue?\n  Why should poor beauty indirectly seek\n  Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?\n  Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,\n  Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively veins?\n  For she hath no exchequer now but his,\n  And proud of many, lives upon his gains.\n    O! him she stores, to show what wealth she had\n    In days long since, before these last so bad.\n\n  LXVIII\n\n  Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,\n  When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,\n  Before these bastard signs of fair were born,\n  Or durst inhabit on a living brow;\n  Before the golden tresses of the dead,\n  The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,\n  To live a second life on second head;\n  Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay:\n  In him those holy antique hours are seen,\n  Without all ornament, itself and true,\n  Making no summer of another's green,\n  Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;\n    And him as for a map doth Nature store,\n    To show false Art what beauty was of yore.\n\n  LXIX\n\n  Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view\n  Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;\n  All tongues--the voice of souls--give thee that due,\n  Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.\n  Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd;\n  But those same tongues, that give thee so thine own,\n  In other accents do this praise confound\n  By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.\n  They look into the beauty of thy mind,\n  And that in guess they measure by thy deeds;\n  Then--churls--their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,\n  To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:\n    But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,\n    The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.\n\n  LXX\n\n  That thou art blam'd shall not be thy defect,\n  For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;\n  The ornament of beauty is suspect,\n  A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.\n  So thou be good, slander doth but approve\n  Thy worth the greater being woo'd of time;\n  For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,\n  And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.\n  Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days\n  Either not assail'd, or victor being charg'd;\n  Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,\n  To tie up envy, evermore enlarg'd,\n    If some suspect of ill mask'd not thy show,\n    Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.\n\n  LXXI\n\n  No longer mourn for me when I am dead\n  Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell\n  Give warning to the world that I am fled\n  From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:\n  Nay, if you read this line, remember not\n  The hand that writ it, for I love you so,\n  That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,\n  If thinking on me then should make you woe.\n  O! if,--I say you look upon this verse,\n  When I perhaps compounded am with clay,\n  Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;\n  But let your love even with my life decay;\n    Lest the wise world should look into your moan,\n    And mock you with me after I am gone.\n\n  LXXII\n\n  O! lest the world should task you to recite\n  What merit lived in me, that you should love\n  After my death,--dear love, forget me quite,\n  For you in me can nothing worthy prove;\n  Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,\n  To do more for me than mine own desert,\n  And hang more praise upon deceased I\n  Than niggard truth would willingly impart:\n  O! lest your true love may seem false in this\n  That you for love speak well of me untrue,\n  My name be buried where my body is,\n  And live no more to shame nor me nor you.\n    For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,\n    And so should you, to love things nothing worth.\n\n  LXXIII\n\n  That time of year thou mayst in me behold\n  When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang\n  Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,\n  Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.\n  In me thou see'st the twilight of such day\n  As after sunset fadeth in the west;\n  Which by and by black night doth take away,\n  Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.\n  In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,\n  That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,\n  As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,\n  Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.\n    This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,\n    To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.\n\n  LXXIV\n\n  But be contented: when that fell arrest\n  Without all bail shall carry me away,\n  My life hath in this line some interest,\n  Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.\n  When thou reviewest this, thou dost review\n  The very part was consecrate to thee:\n  The earth can have but earth, which is his due;\n  My spirit is thine, the better part of me:\n  So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,\n  The prey of worms, my body being dead;\n  The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,\n  Too base of thee to be remembered.\n    The worth of that is that which it contains,\n    And that is this, and this with thee remains.\n\n  LXXV\n\n  So are you to my thoughts as food to life,\n  Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;\n  And for the peace of you I hold such strife\n  As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.\n  Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon\n  Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;\n  Now counting best to be with you alone,\n  Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure:\n  Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,\n  And by and by clean starved for a look;\n  Possessing or pursuing no delight,\n  Save what is had, or must from you be took.\n    Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,\n    Or gluttoning on all, or all away.\n\n  LXXVI\n\n  Why is my verse so barren of new pride,\n  So far from variation or quick change?\n  Why with the time do I not glance aside\n  To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?\n  Why write I still all one, ever the same,\n  And keep invention in a noted weed,\n  That every word doth almost tell my name,\n  Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?\n  O! know sweet love I always write of you,\n  And you and love are still my argument;\n  So all my best is dressing old words new,\n  Spending again what is already spent:\n    For as the sun is daily new and old,\n    So is my love still telling what is told.\n\n  LXXVII\n\n  Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,\n  Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;\n  These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,\n  And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.\n  The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show\n  Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;\n  Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know\n  Time's thievish progress to eternity.\n  Look! what thy memory cannot contain,\n  Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find\n  Those children nursed, deliver'd from thy brain,\n  To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.\n    These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,\n    Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.\n\n  LXXVIII\n\n  So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse,\n  And found such fair assistance in my verse\n  As every alien pen hath got my use\n  And under thee their poesy disperse.\n  Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing\n  And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,\n  Have added feathers to the learned's wing\n  And given grace a double majesty.\n  Yet be most proud of that which I compile,\n  Whose influence is thine, and born of thee:\n  In others' works thou dost but mend the style,\n  And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;\n    But thou art all my art, and dost advance\n    As high as learning, my rude ignorance.\n\n  LXXIX\n\n  Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,\n  My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;\n  But now my gracious numbers are decay'd,\n  And my sick Muse doth give an other place.\n  I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument\n  Deserves the travail of a worthier pen;\n  Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent\n  He robs thee of, and pays it thee again.\n  He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word\n  From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give,\n  And found it in thy cheek: he can afford\n  No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.\n    Then thank him not for that which he doth say,\n    Since what he owes thee, thou thyself dost pay.\n\n  LXXX\n\n  O! how I faint when I of you do write,\n  Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,\n  And in the praise thereof spends all his might,\n  To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame!\n  But since your worth--wide as the ocean is,--\n  The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,\n  My saucy bark, inferior far to his,\n  On your broad main doth wilfully appear.\n  Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,\n  Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;\n  Or, being wrack'd, I am a worthless boat,\n  He of tall building, and of goodly pride:\n    Then if he thrive and I be cast away,\n    The worst was this,--my love was my decay.\n\n  LXXXI\n\n  Or I shall live your epitaph to make,\n  Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;\n  From hence your memory death cannot take,\n  Although in me each part will be forgotten.\n  Your name from hence immortal life shall have,\n  Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:\n  The earth can yield me but a common grave,\n  When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.\n  Your monument shall be my gentle verse,\n  Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;\n  And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,\n  When all the breathers of this world are dead;\n    You still shall live,--such virtue hath my pen,--\n    Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.\n\n  LXXXII\n\n  I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,\n  And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook\n  The dedicated words which writers use\n  Of their fair subject, blessing every book.\n  Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,\n  Finding thy worth a limit past my praise;\n  And therefore art enforced to seek anew\n  Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.\n  And do so, love; yet when they have devis'd,\n  What strained touches rhetoric can lend,\n  Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathiz'd\n  In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend;\n    And their gross painting might be better us'd\n    Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus'd.\n\n  LXXXIII\n\n  I never saw that you did painting need,\n  And therefore to your fair no painting set;\n  I found, or thought I found, you did exceed\n  That barren tender of a poet's debt:\n  And therefore have I slept in your report,\n  That you yourself, being extant, well might show\n  How far a modern quill doth come too short,\n  Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.\n  This silence for my sin you did impute,\n  Which shall be most my glory being dumb;\n  For I impair not beauty being mute,\n  When others would give life, and bring a tomb.\n    There lives more life in one of your fair eyes\n    Than both your poets can in praise devise.\n\n  LXXXIV\n\n  Who is it that says most, which can say more,\n  Than this rich praise,--that you alone, are you?\n  In whose confine immured is the store\n  Which should example where your equal grew.\n  Lean penury within that pen doth dwell\n  That to his subject lends not some small glory;\n  But he that writes of you, if he can tell\n  That you are you, so dignifies his story,\n  Let him but copy what in you is writ,\n  Not making worse what nature made so clear,\n  And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,\n  Making his style admired every where.\n    You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,\n    Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.\n\n  LXXXV\n\n  My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,\n  While comments of your praise richly compil'd,\n  Reserve their character with golden quill,\n  And precious phrase by all the Muses fil'd.\n  I think good thoughts, whilst others write good words,\n  And like unlettered clerk still cry 'Amen'\n  To every hymn that able spirit affords,\n  In polish'd form of well-refined pen.\n  Hearing you praised, I say ''tis so, 'tis true,'\n  And to the most of praise add something more;\n  But that is in my thought, whose love to you,\n  Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.\n    Then others, for the breath of words respect,\n    Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.\n\n  LXXXVI\n\n  Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,\n  Bound for the prize of all too precious you,\n  That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,\n  Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?\n  Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,\n  Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?\n  No, neither he, nor his compeers by night\n  Giving him aid, my verse astonished.\n  He, nor that affable familiar ghost\n  Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,\n  As victors of my silence cannot boast;\n  I was not sick of any fear from thence:\n    But when your countenance fill'd up his line,\n    Then lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine.\n\n  LXXXVII\n\n  Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,\n  And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,\n  The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;\n  My bonds in thee are all determinate.\n  For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?\n  And for that riches where is my deserving?\n  The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,\n  And so my patent back again is swerving.\n  Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,\n  Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking;\n  So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,\n  Comes home again, on better judgement making.\n    Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,\n    In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.\n\n  LXXXVIII\n\n  When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light,\n  And place my merit in the eye of scorn,\n  Upon thy side, against myself I'll fight,\n  And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.\n  With mine own weakness, being best acquainted,\n  Upon thy part I can set down a story\n  Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted;\n  That thou in losing me shalt win much glory:\n  And I by this will be a gainer too;\n  For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,\n  The injuries that to myself I do,\n  Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.\n    Such is my love, to thee I so belong,\n    That for thy right, myself will bear all wrong.\n\n  LXXXIX\n\n  Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,\n  And I will comment upon that offence:\n  Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt,\n  Against thy reasons making no defence.\n  Thou canst not love disgrace me half so ill,\n  To set a form upon desired change,\n  As I'll myself disgrace; knowing thy will,\n  I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange;\n  Be absent from thy walks; and in my tongue\n  Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,\n  Lest I, too much profane, should do it wrong,\n  And haply of our old acquaintance tell.\n    For thee, against my self I'll vow debate,\n    For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.\n\n  XC\n\n  Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;\n  Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,\n  Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,\n  And do not drop in for an after-loss:\n  Ah! do not, when my heart hath 'scap'd this sorrow,\n  Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;\n  Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,\n  To linger out a purpos'd overthrow.\n  If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,\n  When other petty griefs have done their spite,\n  But in the onset come: so shall I taste\n  At first the very worst of fortune's might;\n    And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,\n    Compar'd with loss of thee, will not seem so.\n\n  XCI\n\n  Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,\n  Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,\n  Some in their garments though new-fangled ill;\n  Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;\n  And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,\n  Wherein it finds a joy above the rest:\n  But these particulars are not my measure,\n  All these I better in one general best.\n  Thy love is better than high birth to me,\n  Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' costs,\n  Of more delight than hawks and horses be;\n  And having thee, of all men's pride I boast:\n    Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take\n    All this away, and me most wretchcd make.\n\n  XCII\n\n  But do thy worst to steal thyself away,\n  For term of life thou art assured mine;\n  And life no longer than thy love will stay,\n  For it depends upon that love of thine.\n  Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,\n  When in the least of them my life hath end.\n  I see a better state to me belongs\n  Than that which on thy humour doth depend:\n  Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,\n  Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie.\n  O! what a happy title do I find,\n  Happy to have thy love, happy to die!\n    But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot?\n    Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.\n\n  XCIII\n\n  So shall I live, supposing thou art true,\n  Like a deceived husband; so love's face\n  May still seem love to me, though alter'd new;\n  Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place:\n  For there can live no hatred in thine eye,\n  Therefore in that I cannot know thy change.\n  In many's looks, the false heart's history\n  Is writ in moods, and frowns, and wrinkles strange.\n  But heaven in thy creation did decree\n  That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell;\n  Whate'er thy thoughts, or thy heart's workings be,\n  Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.\n    How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,\n    If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!\n\n  XCIV\n\n  They that have power to hurt, and will do none,\n  That do not do the thing they most do show,\n  Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,\n  Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;\n  They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,\n  And husband nature's riches from expense;\n  They are the lords and owners of their faces,\n  Others, but stewards of their excellence.\n  The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,\n  Though to itself, it only live and die,\n  But if that flower with base infection meet,\n  The basest weed outbraves his dignity:\n    For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;\n    Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.\n\n  XCV\n\n  How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame\n  Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,\n  Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!\n  O! in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose.\n  That tongue that tells the story of thy days,\n  Making lascivious comments on thy sport,\n  Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise;\n  Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.\n  O! what a mansion have those vices got\n  Which for their habitation chose out thee,\n  Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot\n  And all things turns to fair that eyes can see!\n    Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;\n    The hardest knife ill-us'd doth lose his edge.\n\n  XCVI\n\n  Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;\n  Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;\n  Both grace and faults are lov'd of more and less:\n  Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort.\n  As on the finger of a throned queen\n  The basest jewel will be well esteem'd,\n  So are those errors that in thee are seen\n  To truths translated, and for true things deem'd.\n  How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,\n  If like a lamb he could his looks translate!\n  How many gazers mightst thou lead away,\n  if thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!\n    But do not so; I love thee in such sort,\n    As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.\n\n  XCVII\n\n  How like a winter hath my absence been\n  From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!\n  What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!\n  What old December's bareness everywhere!\n  And yet this time removed was summer's time;\n  The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,\n  Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,\n  Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:\n  Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me\n  But hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit;\n  For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,\n  And, thou away, the very birds are mute:\n    Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,\n    That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.\n\n  XCVIII\n\n  From you have I been absent in the spring,\n  When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,\n  Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,\n  That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.\n  Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell\n  Of different flowers in odour and in hue,\n  Could make me any summer's story tell,\n  Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:\n  Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,\n  Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;\n  They were but sweet, but figures of delight,\n  Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.\n    Yet seem'd it winter still, and you away,\n    As with your shadow I with these did play.\n\n  XCIX\n\n  The forward violet thus did I chide:\n  Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,\n  If not from my love's breath? The purple pride\n  Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells\n  In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dy'd.\n  The lily I condemned for thy hand,\n  And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair;\n  The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,\n  One blushing shame, another white despair;\n  A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both,\n  And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;\n  But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth\n  A vengeful canker eat him up to death.\n    More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,\n    But sweet, or colour it had stol'n from thee.\n\n  C\n\n  Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,\n  To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?\n  Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,\n  Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?\n  Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,\n  In gentle numbers time so idly spent;\n  Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem\n  And gives thy pen both skill and argument.\n  Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,\n  If Time have any wrinkle graven there;\n  If any, be a satire to decay,\n  And make time's spoils despised every where.\n    Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,\n    So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.\n\n  CI\n\n  O truant Muse what shall be thy amends\n  For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd?\n  Both truth and beauty on my love depends;\n  So dost thou too, and therein dignified.\n  Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,\n  'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;\n  Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;\n  But best is best, if never intermix'd'?\n  Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?\n  Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee\n  To make him much outlive a gilded tomb\n  And to be prais'd of ages yet to be.\n    Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how\n    To make him seem long hence as he shows now.\n\n  CII\n\n  My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;\n  I love not less, though less the show appear;\n  That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming,\n  The owner's tongue doth publish every where.\n  Our love was new, and then but in the spring,\n  When I was wont to greet it with my lays;\n  As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,\n  And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:\n  Not that the summer is less pleasant now\n  Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,\n  But that wild music burthens every bough,\n  And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.\n    Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:\n    Because I would not dull you with my song.\n\n  CIII\n\n  Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth,\n  That having such a scope to show her pride,\n  The argument, all bare, is of more worth\n  Than when it hath my added praise beside!\n  O! blame me not, if I no more can write!\n  Look in your glass, and there appears a face\n  That over-goes my blunt invention quite,\n  Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.\n  Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,\n  To mar the subject that before was well?\n  For to no other pass my verses tend\n  Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;\n    And more, much more, than in my verse can sit,\n    Your own glass shows you when you look in it.\n\n  CIV\n\n  To me, fair friend, you never can be old,\n  For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,\n  Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,\n  Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,\n  Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd,\n  In process of the seasons have I seen,\n  Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,\n  Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.\n  Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,\n  Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd;\n  So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,\n  Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd:\n    For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:\n    Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.\n\n  CV\n\n  Let not my love be call'd idolatry,\n  Nor my beloved as an idol show,\n  Since all alike my songs and praises be\n  To one, of one, still such, and ever so.\n  Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,\n  Still constant in a wondrous excellence;\n  Therefore my verse to constancy confin'd,\n  One thing expressing, leaves out difference.\n  'Fair, kind, and true,' is all my argument,\n  'Fair, kind, and true,' varying to other words;\n  And in this change is my invention spent,\n  Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.\n    Fair, kind, and true, have often liv'd alone,\n    Which three till now, never kept seat in one.\n\n  CVI\n\n  When in the chronicle of wasted time\n  I see descriptions of the fairest wights,\n  And beauty making beautiful old rime,\n  In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,\n  Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,\n  Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,\n  I see their antique pen would have express'd\n  Even such a beauty as you master now.\n  So all their praises are but prophecies\n  Of this our time, all you prefiguring;\n  And for they looked but with divining eyes,\n  They had not skill enough your worth to sing:\n    For we, which now behold these present days,\n    Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.\n\n  CVII\n\n  Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul\n  Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,\n  Can yet the lease of my true love control,\n  Supposed as forfeit to a confin'd doom.\n  The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd,\n  And the sad augurs mock their own presage;\n  Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd,\n  And peace proclaims olives of endless age.\n  Now with the drops of this most balmy time,\n  My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,\n  Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rime,\n  While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:\n    And thou in this shalt find thy monument,\n    When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.\n\n  CVIII\n\n  What's in the brain, that ink may character,\n  Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit?\n  What's new to speak, what now to register,\n  That may express my love, or thy dear merit?\n  Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,\n  I must each day say o'er the very same;\n  Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,\n  Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.\n  So that eternal love in love's fresh case,\n  Weighs not the dust and injury of age,\n  Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,\n  But makes antiquity for aye his page;\n    Finding the first conceit of love there bred,\n    Where time and outward form would show it dead.\n\n  CIX\n\n  O! never say that I was false of heart,\n  Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify,\n  As easy might I from my self depart\n  As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:\n  That is my home of love: if I have rang'd,\n  Like him that travels, I return again;\n  Just to the time, not with the time exchang'd,\n  So that myself bring water for my stain.\n  Never believe though in my nature reign'd,\n  All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,\n  That it could so preposterously be stain'd,\n  To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;\n    For nothing this wide universe I call,\n    Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.\n\n  CX\n\n  Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there,\n  And made my self a motley to the view,\n  Gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,\n  Made old offences of affections new;\n  Most true it is, that I have look'd on truth\n  Askance and strangely; but, by all above,\n  These blenches gave my heart another youth,\n  And worse essays prov'd thee my best of love.\n  Now all is done, save what shall have no end:\n  Mine appetite I never more will grind\n  On newer proof, to try an older friend,\n  A god in love, to whom I am confin'd.\n    Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,\n    Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.\n\n  CXI\n\n  O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide,\n  The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,\n  That did not better for my life provide\n  Than public means which public manners breeds.\n  Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,\n  And almost thence my nature is subdu'd\n  To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:\n  Pity me, then, and wish I were renew'd;\n  Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink,\n  Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection;\n  No bitterness that I will bitter think,\n  Nor double penance, to correct correction.\n    Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,\n    Even that your pity is enough to cure me.\n\n  CXII\n\n  Your love and pity doth the impression fill,\n  Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow;\n  For what care I who calls me well or ill,\n  So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?\n  You are my all-the-world, and I must strive\n  To know my shames and praises from your tongue;\n  None else to me, nor I to none alive,\n  That my steel'd sense or changes right or wrong.\n  In so profound abysm I throw all care\n  Of others' voices, that my adder's sense\n  To critic and to flatterer stopped are.\n  Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:\n    You are so strongly in my purpose bred,\n    That all the world besides methinks are dead.\n\n  CXIII\n\n  Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;\n  And that which governs me to go about\n  Doth part his function and is partly blind,\n  Seems seeing, but effectually is out;\n  For it no form delivers to the heart\n  Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch:\n  Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,\n  Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;\n  For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,\n  The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,\n  The mountain or the sea, the day or night:\n  The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.\n    Incapable of more, replete with you,\n    My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.\n\n  CXIV\n\n  Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you,\n  Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?\n  Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true,\n  And that your love taught it this alchemy,\n  To make of monsters and things indigest\n  Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,\n  Creating every bad a perfect best,\n  As fast as objects to his beams assemble?\n  O! 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,\n  And my great mind most kingly drinks it up:\n  Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,\n  And to his palate doth prepare the cup:\n    If it be poison'd, 'tis the lesser sin\n    That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.\n\n  CXV\n\n  Those lines that I before have writ do lie,\n  Even those that said I could not love you dearer:\n  Yet then my judgment knew no reason why\n  My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.\n  But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents\n  Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,\n  Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,\n  Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;\n  Alas! why fearing of Time's tyranny,\n  Might I not then say, 'Now I love you best,'\n  When I was certain o'er incertainty,\n  Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?\n    Love is a babe, then might I not say so,\n    To give full growth to that which still doth grow?\n\n  CXVI\n\n  Let me not to the marriage of true minds\n  Admit impediments. Love is not love\n  Which alters when it alteration finds,\n  Or bends with the remover to remove:\n  O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,\n  That looks on tempests and is never shaken;\n  It is the star to every wandering bark,\n  Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.\n  Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks\n  Within his bending sickle's compass come;\n  Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,\n  But bears it out even to the edge of doom.\n    If this be error and upon me prov'd,\n    I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.\n\n  CXVII\n\n  Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all,\n  Wherein I should your great deserts repay,\n  Forgot upon your dearest love to call,\n  Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;\n  That I have frequent been with unknown minds,\n  And given to time your own dear-purchas'd right;\n  That I have hoisted sail to all the winds\n  Which should transport me farthest from your sight.\n  Book both my wilfulness and errors down,\n  And on just proof surmise, accumulate;\n  Bring me within the level of your frown,\n  But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate;\n    Since my appeal says I did strive to prove\n    The constancy and virtue of your love.\n\n  CXVIII\n\n  Like as, to make our appetite more keen,\n  With eager compounds we our palate urge;\n  As, to prevent our maladies unseen,\n  We sicken to shun sickness when we purge;\n  Even so, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,\n  To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;\n  And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness\n  To be diseas'd, ere that there was true needing.\n  Thus policy in love, to anticipate\n  The ills that were not, grew to faults assur'd,\n  And brought to medicine a healthful state\n  Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cur'd;\n    But thence I learn and find the lesson true,\n    Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.\n\n  CXIX\n\n  What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,\n  Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within,\n  Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,\n  Still losing when I saw myself to win!\n  What wretched errors hath my heart committed,\n  Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!\n  How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted,\n  In the distraction of this madding fever!\n  O benefit of ill! now I find true\n  That better is, by evil still made better;\n  And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,\n  Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.\n    So I return rebuk'd to my content,\n    And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.\n\n  CXX\n\n  That you were once unkind befriends me now,\n  And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,\n  Needs must I under my transgression bow,\n  Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel.\n  For if you were by my unkindness shaken,\n  As I by yours, you've pass'd a hell of time;\n  And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken\n  To weigh how once I suffer'd in your crime.\n  O! that our night of woe might have remember'd\n  My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,\n  And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd\n  The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!\n    But that your trespass now becomes a fee;\n    Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.\n\n  CXXI\n\n  'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,\n  When not to be receives reproach of being;\n  And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd\n  Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:\n  For why should others' false adulterate eyes\n  Give salutation to my sportive blood?\n  Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,\n  Which in their wills count bad what I think good?\n  No, I am that I am, and they that level\n  At my abuses reckon up their own:\n  I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;\n  By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;\n    Unless this general evil they maintain,\n    All men are bad and in their badness reign.\n\n  CXXII\n\n  Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain\n  Full character'd with lasting memory,\n  Which shall above that idle rank remain,\n  Beyond all date; even to eternity:\n  Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart\n  Have faculty by nature to subsist;\n  Till each to raz'd oblivion yield his part\n  Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd.\n  That poor retention could not so much hold,\n  Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;\n  Therefore to give them from me was I bold,\n  To trust those tables that receive thee more:\n    To keep an adjunct to remember thee\n    Were to import forgetfulness in me.\n\n  CXXIII\n\n  No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:\n  Thy pyramids built up with newer might\n  To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;\n  They are but dressings of a former sight.\n  Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire\n  What thou dost foist upon us that is old;\n  And rather make them born to our desire\n  Than think that we before have heard them told.\n  Thy registers and thee I both defy,\n  Not wondering at the present nor the past,\n  For thy records and what we see doth lie,\n  Made more or less by thy continual haste.\n    This I do vow and this shall ever be;\n    I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.\n\n  CXXIV\n\n  If my dear love were but the child of state,\n  It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'd,\n  As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate,\n  Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd.\n  No, it was builded far from accident;\n  It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls\n  Under the blow of thralled discontent,\n  Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:\n  It fears not policy, that heretic,\n  Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,\n  But all alone stands hugely politic,\n  That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.\n    To this I witness call the fools of time,\n    Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.\n\n  CXXV\n\n  Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,\n  With my extern the outward honouring,\n  Or laid great bases for eternity,\n  Which proves more short than waste or ruining?\n  Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour\n  Lose all and more by paying too much rent\n  For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,\n  Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?\n  No; let me be obsequious in thy heart,\n  And take thou my oblation, poor but free,\n  Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art,\n  But mutual render, only me for thee.\n    Hence, thou suborned informer! a true soul\n    When most impeach'd, stands least in thy control.\n\n  CXXVI\n\n  O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power\n  Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his fickle hour;\n  Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st\n  Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.\n  If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,\n  As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,\n  She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill\n  May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.\n  Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!\n  She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:\n    Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,\n    And her quietus is to render thee.\n\n  CXXVII\n\n  In the old age black was not counted fair,\n  Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;\n  But now is black beauty's successive heir,\n  And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame:\n  For since each hand hath put on Nature's power,\n  Fairing the foul with Art's false borrowed face,\n  Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,\n  But is profan'd, if not lives in disgrace.\n  Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,\n  Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem\n  At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,\n  Sland'ring creation with a false esteem:\n    Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,\n    That every tongue says beauty should look so.\n\n  CXXVIII\n\n  How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,\n  Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds\n  With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st\n  The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,\n  Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,\n  To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,\n  Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,\n  At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!\n  To be so tickled, they would change their state\n  And situation with those dancing chips,\n  O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,\n  Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips.\n    Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,\n    Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.\n\n  CXXIX\n\n  The expense of spirit in a waste of shame\n  Is lust in action: and till action, lust\n  Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame,\n  Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;\n  Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight;\n  Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,\n  Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait,\n  On purpose laid to make the taker mad:\n  Mad in pursuit and in possession so;\n  Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme;\n  A bliss in proof,-- and prov'd, a very woe;\n  Before, a joy propos'd; behind a dream.\n    All this the world well knows; yet none knows well\n    To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.\n\n  CXXX\n\n  My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;\n  Coral is far more red, than her lips red:\n  If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;\n  If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.\n  I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,\n  But no such roses see I in her cheeks;\n  And in some perfumes is there more delight\n  Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.\n  I love to hear her speak, yet well I know\n  That music hath a far more pleasing sound:\n  I grant I never saw a goddess go,--\n  My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:\n    And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,\n    As any she belied with false compare.\n\n  CXXXI\n\n  Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,\n  As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;\n  For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart\n  Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.\n  Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold,\n  Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;\n  To say they err I dare not be so bold,\n  Although I swear it to myself alone.\n  And to be sure that is not false I swear,\n  A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,\n  One on another's neck, do witness bear\n  Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.\n    In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,\n    And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.\n\n  CXXXII\n\n  Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,\n  Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,\n  Have put on black and loving mourners be,\n  Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.\n  And truly not the morning sun of heaven\n  Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,\n  Nor that full star that ushers in the even,\n  Doth half that glory to the sober west,\n  As those two mourning eyes become thy face:\n  O! let it then as well beseem thy heart\n  To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,\n  And suit thy pity like in every part.\n    Then will I swear beauty herself is black,\n    And all they foul that thy complexion lack.\n\n  CXXXIII\n\n  Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan\n  For that deep wound it gives my friend and me!\n  Is't not enough to torture me alone,\n  But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?\n  Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken,\n  And my next self thou harder hast engross'd:\n  Of him, myself, and thee I am forsaken;\n  A torment thrice three-fold thus to be cross'd:\n  Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward,\n  But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail;\n  Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard;\n  Thou canst not then use rigour in my jail:\n    And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee,\n    Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.\n\n  CXXXIV\n\n  So, now I have confess'd that he is thine,\n  And I my self am mortgag'd to thy will,\n  Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine\n  Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:\n  But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,\n  For thou art covetous, and he is kind;\n  He learn'd but surety-like to write for me,\n  Under that bond that him as fast doth bind.\n  The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,\n  Thou usurer, that putt'st forth all to use,\n  And sue a friend came debtor for my sake;\n  So him I lose through my unkind abuse.\n    Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me:\n    He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.\n\n  CXXXV\n\n  Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy 'Will,'\n  And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in over-plus;\n  More than enough am I that vex'd thee still,\n  To thy sweet will making addition thus.\n  Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,\n  Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?\n  Shall will in others seem right gracious,\n  And in my will no fair acceptance shine?\n  The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,\n  And in abundance addeth to his store;\n  So thou, being rich in 'Will,' add to thy 'Will'\n  One will of mine, to make thy large will more.\n    Let no unkind 'No' fair beseechers kill;\n    Think all but one, and me in that one 'Will.'\n\n  CXXXVI\n\n  If thy soul check thee that I come so near,\n  Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will',\n  And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there;\n  Thus far for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil.\n  'Will', will fulfil the treasure of thy love,\n  Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one.\n  In things of great receipt with ease we prove\n  Among a number one is reckon'd none:\n  Then in the number let me pass untold,\n  Though in thy store's account I one must be;\n  For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold\n  That nothing me, a something sweet to thee:\n    Make but my name thy love, and love that still,\n    And then thou lov'st me for my name is 'Will.'\n\n  CXXXVII\n\n  Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,\n  That they behold, and see not what they see?\n  They know what beauty is, see where it lies,\n  Yet what the best is take the worst to be.\n  If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks,\n  Be anchor'd in the bay where all men ride,\n  Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,\n  Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?\n  Why should my heart think that a several plot,\n  Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?\n  Or mine eyes, seeing this, say this is not,\n  To put fair truth upon so foul a face?\n    In things right true my heart and eyes have err'd,\n    And to this false plague are they now transferr'd.\n\n  CXXXVIII\n\n  When my love swears that she is made of truth,\n  I do believe her though I know she lies,\n  That she might think me some untutor'd youth,\n  Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.\n  Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,\n  Although she knows my days are past the best,\n  Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:\n  On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:\n  But wherefore says she not she is unjust?\n  And wherefore say not I that I am old?\n  O! love's best habit is in seeming trust,\n  And age in love, loves not to have years told:\n    Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,\n    And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.\n\n  CXXXIX\n\n  O! call not me to justify the wrong\n  That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;\n  Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue:\n  Use power with power, and slay me not by art,\n  Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,\n  Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside:\n  What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy might\n  Is more than my o'erpress'd defence can bide?\n  Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows\n  Her pretty looks have been mine enemies;\n  And therefore from my face she turns my foes,\n  That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:\n    Yet do not so; but since I am near slain,\n    Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.\n\n\n  CXL\n\n  Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press\n  My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;\n  Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express\n  The manner of my pity-wanting pain.\n  If I might teach thee wit, better it were,\n  Though not to love, yet, love to tell me so;--\n  As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,\n  No news but health from their physicians know;--\n  For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,\n  And in my madness might speak ill of thee;\n  Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,\n  Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.\n    That I may not be so, nor thou belied,\n    Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.\n\n  CXLI\n\n  In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,\n  For they in thee a thousand errors note;\n  But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,\n  Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote.\n  Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted;\n  Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,\n  Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited\n  To any sensual feast with thee alone:\n  But my five wits nor my five senses can\n  Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,\n  Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man,\n  Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:\n    Only my plague thus far I count my gain,\n    That she that makes me sin awards me pain.\n\n  CXLII\n\n  Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,\n  Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:\n  O! but with mine compare thou thine own state,\n  And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;\n  Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine,\n  That have profan'd their scarlet ornaments\n  And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,\n  Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents.\n  Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those\n  Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:\n  Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows,\n  Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.\n    If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,\n    By self-example mayst thou be denied!\n\n  CXLIII\n\n  Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch\n  One of her feather'd creatures broke away,\n  Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch\n  In pursuit of the thing she would have stay;\n  Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,\n  Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent\n  To follow that which flies before her face,\n  Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;\n  So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee,\n  Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;\n  But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,\n  And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind;\n    So will I pray that thou mayst have thy 'Will,'\n    If thou turn back and my loud crying still.\n\n  CXLIV\n\n  Two loves I have of comfort and despair,\n  Which like two spirits do suggest me still:\n  The better angel is a man right fair,\n  The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.\n  To win me soon to hell, my female evil,\n  Tempteth my better angel from my side,\n  And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,\n  Wooing his purity with her foul pride.\n  And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend,\n  Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;\n  But being both from me, both to each friend,\n  I guess one angel in another's hell:\n    Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,\n    Till my bad angel fire my good one out.\n\n  CXLV\n\n  Those lips that Love's own hand did make,\n  Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate',\n  To me that languish'd for her sake:\n  But when she saw my woeful state,\n  Straight in her heart did mercy come,\n  Chiding that tongue that ever sweet\n  Was us'd in giving gentle doom;\n  And taught it thus anew to greet;\n  'I hate' she alter'd with an end,\n  That followed it as gentle day,\n  Doth follow night, who like a fiend\n  From heaven to hell is flown away.\n    'I hate', from hate away she threw,\n    And sav'd my life, saying 'not you'.\n\n  CXLVI\n\n  Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,\n  My sinful earth these rebel powers array,\n  Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,\n  Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?\n  Why so large cost, having so short a lease,\n  Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?\n  Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,\n  Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?\n  Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,\n  And let that pine to aggravate thy store;\n  Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;\n  Within be fed, without be rich no more:\n    So shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,\n    And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.\n\n  CXLVII\n\n  My love is as a fever longing still,\n  For that which longer nurseth the disease;\n  Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,\n  The uncertain sickly appetite to please.\n  My reason, the physician to my love,\n  Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,\n  Hath left me, and I desperate now approve\n  Desire is death, which physic did except.\n  Past cure I am, now Reason is past care,\n  And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;\n  My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,\n  At random from the truth vainly express'd;\n    For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,\n    Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.\n\n  CXLVIII\n\n  O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head,\n  Which have no correspondence with true sight;\n  Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,\n  That censures falsely what they see aright?\n  If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,\n  What means the world to say it is not so?\n  If it be not, then love doth well denote\n  Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,\n  How can it? O! how can Love's eye be true,\n  That is so vexed with watching and with tears?\n  No marvel then, though I mistake my view;\n  The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.\n    O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,\n    Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.\n\n  CXLIX\n\n  Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,\n  When I against myself with thee partake?\n  Do I not think on thee, when I forgot\n  Am of my self, all tyrant, for thy sake?\n  Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,\n  On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon,\n  Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend\n  Revenge upon myself with present moan?\n  What merit do I in my self respect,\n  That is so proud thy service to despise,\n  When all my best doth worship thy defect,\n  Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?\n    But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind;\n    Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.\n\n  CL\n\n  O! from what power hast thou this powerful might,\n  With insufficiency my heart to sway?\n  To make me give the lie to my true sight,\n  And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?\n  Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,\n  That in the very refuse of thy deeds\n  There is such strength and warrantise of skill,\n  That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?\n  Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,\n  The more I hear and see just cause of hate?\n  O! though I love what others do abhor,\n  With others thou shouldst not abhor my state:\n    If thy unworthiness rais'd love in me,\n    More worthy I to be belov'd of thee.\n\n  CLI\n\n  Love is too young to know what conscience is,\n  Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?\n  Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,\n  Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:\n  For, thou betraying me, I do betray\n  My nobler part to my gross body's treason;\n  My soul doth tell my body that he may\n  Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,\n  But rising at thy name doth point out thee,\n  As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,\n  He is contented thy poor drudge to be,\n  To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.\n    No want of conscience hold it that I call\n    Her 'love,' for whose dear love I rise and fall.\n\n  CLII\n\n  In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,\n  But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;\n  In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn,\n  In vowing new hate after new love bearing:\n  But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,\n  When I break twenty? I am perjur'd most;\n  For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,\n  And all my honest faith in thee is lost:\n  For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,\n  Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy;\n  And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,\n  Or made them swear against the thing they see;\n    For I have sworn thee fair; more perjur'd I,\n    To swear against the truth so foul a lie!\n\n  CLIII\n\n  Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep:\n  A maid of Dian's this advantage found,\n  And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep\n  In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;\n  Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love,\n  A dateless lively heat, still to endure,\n  And grew a seeting bath, which yet men prove\n  Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.\n  But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,\n  The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;\n  I, sick withal, the help of bath desired,\n  And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest,\n    But found no cure, the bath for my help lies\n    Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes.\n\n  CLIV\n\n  The little Love-god lying once asleep,\n  Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,\n  Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to keep\n  Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand\n  The fairest votary took up that fire\n  Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd;\n  And so the general of hot desire\n  Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarm'd.\n  This brand she quenched in a cool well by,\n  Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,\n  Growing a bath and healthful remedy,\n  For men diseas'd; but I, my mistress' thrall,\n    Came there for cure and this by that I prove,\n    Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1045":"\n\n\n\n\nVENUS AND ADONIS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n     'Villa miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo\n     Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua.'\n\nTO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLEY,\n\nEARL OF SOUHAMPTON, AND BARON OF TICHFIELD.\n\nRIGHT HONOURABLE,\n\nI know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your\nlordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a\nprop to support so weak a burthen: only, if your honour seem but\npleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of\nall idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But if\nthe first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had\nso noble a godfather, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it\nyield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honourable survey,\nand your honour to your heart's content; which I wish may always answer\nyour own wish and the world's hopeful expectation.\n\nYour honour's in all duty,\n\nWILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\n\n\n\nVENUS AND ADONIS\n\n\n     EVEN as the sun with purple-colour'd face\n     Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn,\n     Rose-cheek'd Adonis tried him to the chase;\n     Hunting he lov'd, but love he laugh'd to scorn;        4\n       Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,\n       And like a bold-fac'd suitor 'gins to woo him.\n\n     'Thrice fairer than myself,' thus she began,\n     'The field's chief flower, sweet above compare,        8\n     Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man,\n     More white and red than doves or roses are;\n       Nature that made thee, with herself at strife,\n       Saith that the world hath ending with thy life.     12\n\n     'Vouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed,\n     And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow;\n     If thou wilt deign this favour, for thy meed\n     A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know:             16\n     Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses;\n     And being set, I'll smother thee with kisses:\n\n     'And yet not cloy thy lips with loath'd satiety,\n     But rather famish them amid their plenty,             20\n     Making them red and pale with fresh variety;\n     Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty:\n       A summer's day will seem an hour but short,\n       Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.'         24\n\n     With this she seizeth on his sweating palm,\n     The precedent of pith and livelihood,\n     And, trembling in her passion, calls it balm,\n     Earth's sovereign salve to do a goddess good:         28\n       Being so enrag'd, desire doth lend her force\n       Courageously to pluck him from his horse.\n\n     Over one arm the lusty courser's rein\n     Under her other was the tender boy,                   32\n     Who blush'd and pouted in a dull disdain,\n     With leaden appetite, unapt to toy;\n       She red and hot as coals of glowing fire\n       He red for shame, but frosty in desire.             36\n\n     The studded bridle on a ragged bough\n     Nimbly she fastens;--O! how quick is love:--\n     The steed is stalled up, and even now\n     To tie the rider she begins to prove:                 40\n       Backward she push'd him, as she would be thrust,\n       And govern'd him in strength, though not in lust.\n\n     So soon was she along, as he was down,\n     Each leaning on their elbows and their hips:          44\n     Now doth she stroke his cheek, now doth he frown,\n     And 'gins to chide, but soon she stops his lips;\n     And kissing speaks, with lustful language broken,\n     'If thou wilt chide, thy lips shall never open.'      48\n\n     He burns with bashful shame; she with her tears\n     Doth quench the maiden burning of his cheeks;\n     Then with her windy sighs and golden hairs\n     To fan and blow them dry again she seeks:             52\n       He saith she is immodest, blames her miss;\n       What follows more she murders with a kiss.\n\n     Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast,\n     Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh and bone,      56\n     Shaking her wings, devouring all in haste,\n     Till either gorge be stuff'd or prey be gone;\n     Even so she kiss'd his brow, his cheek, his chin,\n     And where she ends she doth anew begin.               60\n\n     Forc'd to content, but never to obey,\n     Panting he lies, and breatheth in her face;\n     She feedeth on the steam, as on a prey,\n     And calls it heavenly moisture, air of grace;         64\n       Wishing her cheeks were gardens full of flowers\n       So they were dewd with such distilling showers.\n\n     Look! how a bird lies tangled in a net,\n     So fasten'd in her arms Adonis lies;                  68\n     Pure shame and aw'd resistance made him fret,\n     Which bred more beauty in his angry eyes:\n       Rain added to a river that is rank\n       Perforce will force it overflow the bank.           72\n\n\n     Still she entreats, and prettily entreats,\n     For to a pretty ear she tunes her tale;\n     Still is he sullen, still he lours and frets,\n     'Twixt crimson shame and anger ashy-pale;             76\n       Being red she loves him best; and being white,\n       Her best is better'd with a more delight.\n\n     Look how he can, she cannot choose but love;\n     And by her fair immortal hand she swears,             80\n     From his soft bosom never to remove,\n     Till he take truce with her contending tears,\n       Which long have rain'd, making her cheeks all wet;\n       And one sweet kiss shall pay this countless debt.\n\n     Upon this promise did he raise his chin               85\n     Like a dive-dapper peering through a wave,\n     Who, being look'd on, ducks as quickly in;\n     So offers he to give what she did crave;              88\n       But when her lips were ready for his pay,\n       He winks, and turns his lips another way.\n\n     Never did passenger in summer's heat\n     More thirst for drink than she for this good turn.    92\n     Her help she sees, but help she cannot get;\n     She bathes in water, yet her fire must burn:\n       'O! pity,' 'gan she cry, 'flint-hearted boy:\n       'Tis but a kiss I beg; why art thou coy?            96\n\n     'I have been woo'd, as I entreat thee now,\n     Even by the stern and direful god of war,\n     Whose sinewy neck in battle ne'er did bow,\n     Who conquers where he comes in every jar;             100\n       Yet hath he been my captive and my slave,\n       And begg'd for that which thou unask'd shalt have.\n\n     'Over my altars hath he hung his lance,\n     His batter'd shield, his uncontrolled crest,         104\n     And for my sake hath learn'd to sport and dance\n     To toy, to wanton, dally, smile, and jest;\n       Scorning his churlish drum and ensign red\n       Making my arms his field, his tent my bed.         108\n\n     'Thus he that overrul'd I oversway'd,\n     Leading him prisoner in a red-rose chain:\n     Strong-temper'd steel his stronger strength obey'd,\n     Yet was he servile to my coy disdain.                112\n       O! be not proud, nor brag not of thy might,\n       For mastering her that foil'd the god of fight.\n\n     Touch but my lips with those falr lips of thine,--\n     Though mine be not so fair, yet are they red,--      116\n     The kiss shall be thine own as well as mine:\n     What seest thou in the ground? hold up thy head:\n       Look in mine eyeballs, there thy beauty lies;\n       Then why not lips on lips, since eyes in eyes?     120\n\n     'Art thou asham'd to kiss? then wink again,\n     And I will wink; so shall the day seem night;\n     Love keeps his revels where there are but twain;\n     Be bold to play, our sport is not in sight:          124\n       These blue-vein'd violets whereon we lean\n       Never can blab, nor know not what we mean.\n\n     'The tender spring upon thy tempting lip             127\n     Shows thee unripe, yet mayst thou well be tasted:\n     Make use of time, let not advantage slip;\n     Beauty within itself should not be wasted:\n       Fair flowers that are not gather'd in their prime\n       Rot and consume themselves in little time.         132\n\n     'Were I hard-favour'd, foul, or wrinkled-old,\n     Ill-nurtur'd, crooked, churlish, harsh in voice,\n     O'erworn, despised, rheumatic, and cold,\n     Thick-sighted, barren, lean, and lacking juice,      136\n       Then mightst thou pause, for then I were not for thee;\n       But having no defects, why dost abhor me?\n\n     'Thou canst not see one winkle in my brow;           139\n     Mine eyes are grey and bright, and quick in turning;\n     My beauty as the spring doth yearly grow;\n     My flesh is soft and plump, my marrow burning;\n       My smooth moist hand, were it with thy hand felt.\n       Would in thy palm dissolve, or seem to melt.       144\n\n     'Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear,\n     Or like a fairy, trip upon the green,\n     Or, like a nymph, with long dishevell'd hair,\n     Dance on the sands, and yet no footing seen:         148\n       Love is a spirit all compact of fire,\n       Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire.\n\n     'Witness this primrose bank whereon I lie;           151\n     These forceless flowers like sturdy trees support me;\n     Two strengthless doves will draw me through the sky,\n     From morn till night, even where I list to sport me:\n       Is love so light, sweet boy, and may it be\n       That thou shouldst think it heavy unto thee?       156\n\n     'Is thine own heart to shine own face affected?\n     Can thy right hand seize love upon thy left?\n     Then woo thyself, be of thyself rejected,\n     Steal thine own freedom, and complain on theft.      160\n       Narcissus so himself himself forsook,\n       And died to kiss his shadow in the brook.\n\n     'Torches are made to light, jewels to wear,\n     Dainties to taste, fresh beauty for the use,         164\n     Herbs for their smell, and sappy plants to bear;\n     Things growing to themselves are growth's abuse:\n       Seeds spring from seeds, and beauty breedeth beauty;\n       Thou wast begot; to get it is thy duty.            168\n\n     'Upon the earth's increase why shouldst thou feed,\n     Unless the earth with thy increase be fed?\n     By law of nature thou art bound to breed,\n     That thine may live when thou thyself art dead;      172\n       And so in spite of death thou dost survive,\n       In that thy likeness still is left alive.'\n\n     By this the love-sick queen began to sweat,\n     For where they lay the shadow had forsook them,      176\n     And Titan, tired in the mid-day heat\n     With burning eye did hotly overlook them,\n       Wishing Adonis had his team to guide,\n       So he were like him and by Venus' side.            180\n\n     And now Adonis with a lazy spright,\n     And with a heavy, dark, disliking eye,\n     His louring brows o'erwhelming his fair sight,\n     Like misty vapours when they blot the sky,           184\n       Souring his cheeks, cries, 'Fie! no more of love:\n       The sun doth burn my face; I must remove.'\n\n     'Ay me,' quoth Venus, 'young, and so unkind!\n     What bare excuses mak'st thou to be gone!            188\n     I'll sigh celestial breath, whose gentle wind\n     Shall cool the heat of this descending sun:\n       I'll make a shadow for thee of my hairs;           191\n       If they burn too, I'll quench them with my tears.\n\n     'The sun that shines from heaven shines but warm,\n     And lo! I lie between that sun and thee:\n     The heat I have from thence doth little harm,\n     Thine eye darts forth the fire that burneth me;      196\n       And were I not immortal, life were done\n       Between this heavenly and earthly sun.\n\n     'Art thou obdurate, flinty, hard as steel?\n     Nay, more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth:   200\n     Art thou a woman's son, and canst not feel\n     What 'tis to love? how want of love tormenteth?\n       O! had thy mother borne so hard a mind,            203\n       She had not brought forth thee, but died unkind.\n\n\n     'What am I that thou shouldst contemn me this?\n     Or what great danger dwells upon my suit?\n     What were thy lips the worse for one poor kiss?\n       Speak, fair; but speak fair words, or else be mute:\n       Give me one kiss, I'll give it thee again,         209\n     And one for interest if thou wilt have twain.\n\n     'Fie! lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone,\n     Well-painted idol, image dull and dead,              212\n     Statue contenting but the eye alone,\n     Thing like a man, but of no woman bred:\n       Thou art no man, though of a man's complexion,\n       For men will kiss even by their own direction.'    216\n\n     This said, impatience chokes her pleading tongue,\n     And swelling passion doth provoke a pause;\n     Red cheeks and fiery eyes blaze forth her wrong;\n     Being judge in love, she cannot right her cause:     220\n       And now she weeps, and now she fain would speak,\n       And now her sobs do her intendments break.\n\n     Sometimes she shakes her head, and then his hand;\n     Now gazeth she on him, now on the ground;            224\n     Sometimes her arms infold him like a band:\n     She would, he will not in her arms be bound;\n       And when from thence he struggles to be gone,\n       She locks her lily fingers one in one.             228\n\n     'Fondling,' she saith, 'since I have hemm'd thee here\n     Within the circuit of this ivory pale,\n     I'll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer;\n     Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale:        232\n       Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,\n       Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.\n\n     'Within this limit is relief enough,\n     Sweet bottom-grass and high delightful plain,        236\n     Round rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough,\n     To shelter thee from tempest and from rain:\n       Then be my deer, since I am such a park;           239\n       No dog shall rouse thee, though a thousand bark.'\n\n     At this Adonis smiles as in disdain,\n     That in each cheek appears a pretty dimple:\n     Love made those hollows, if himself were slain,\n     He might be buried in a tomb so simple;              244\n       Foreknowing well, if there he came to lie,\n       Why, there Love liv'd, and there he could not die.\n\n     These lovely caves, these round enchanting pits,\n     Open'd their mouths to swallow Venus' liking.        248\n     Being mad before, how doth she now for wits?\n     Struck dead at first, what needs a second striking?\n       Poor queen of love, in thine own law forlorn,\n       To love a cheek that smiles at thee in scorn!      252\n\n     Now which way shall she turn? what shall she say?\n     Her words are done, her woes the more increasing;\n     The time is spent, her object will away,\n     And from her twining arms doth urge releasing:       256\n       'Pity,' she cries; 'some favour, some remorse!'\n       Away he springs, and hasteth to his horse.\n\n     But lo! from forth a copse that neighbours by,\n     A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,          260\n     Adonis' tramping courier doth espy,\n     And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud:\n       The strong-neck'd steed, being tied unto a tree,\n       Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.    264\n\n     Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,\n     And now his woven girths he breaks asunder;\n     The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds,\n     Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven's thunder;\n       The iron bit he crusheth 'tween his teeth,         269\n       Controlling what he was controlled with.\n\n     His ears up-prick'd; his braided hanging mane\n     Upon his compass'd crest now stand on end;           272\n     His nostrils drink the air, and forth again,\n     As from a furnace, vapours doth he send:\n       His eye, which scornfully glisters like fire,\n       Shows his hot courage and his high desire.         276\n\n     Sometime he trots, as if he told the steps,\n     With gentle majesty and modest pride;\n     Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps,\n     As who should say, 'Lo! thus my strength is tried;\n       And this I do to captivate the eye                 281\n       Of the fair breeder that is standing by.'\n\n     What recketh he his rider's angry stir,\n     His flattering 'Holla', or his 'Stand, I say'?       284\n     What cares he now for curb or pricking spur?\n     For rich caparisons or trapping gay?\n       He sees his love, and nothing else he sees,\n       Nor nothing else with his proud sight agrees.      288\n\n     Look, when a painter would surpass the life,\n     In limning out a well-proportion'd steed,\n     His art with nature's workmanship at strife,\n     As if the dead the living should exceed;             292\n       So did this horse excel a common one,\n       In shape, in courage, colour, pace and bone.\n\n     Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,\n     Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,\n     High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong,\n     Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide:\n       Look, what a horse should have he did not lack,\n       Save a proud rider on so proud a back.             300\n\n     Sometimes he scuds far off, and there he stares;\n     Anon he starts at stirring of a feather;\n     To bid the wind a base he now prepares,\n     And whe'r he run or fly they know not whether;       304\n       For through his mane and tail the high wind sings,\n       Fanning the hairs, who wave like feather'd wings.\n\n     He looks upon his love, and neighs unto her;\n     She answers him as if she knew his mind;             308\n     Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her,\n     She puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind,\n       Spurns at his love and scorns the heat he feels,\n       Beating his kind embracements with her heels.      312\n\n     Then, like a melancholy malcontent,\n     He vails his tail, that, like a falling plume,\n     Cool shadow to his melting buttock lent:\n     He stamps, and bites the poor flies in his fume.     316\n       His love, perceiving how he is enrag'd,\n       Grew kinder, and his fury was assuag'd.\n\n     His testy master goeth about to take him;\n     When lo! the unback'd breeder, full of fear,         320\n     Jealous of catching, swiftly doth forsake him,\n     With her the horse, and left Adonis there:\n       As they were mad, unto the wood they hie them,\n       Outstripping crows that strive to overfly them.    324\n\n     All swoln with chafing, down Adonis sits,\n     Banning his boisterous and unruly beast:\n     And now the happy season once more fits,\n     That love-sick Love by pleading may be blest;        328\n       For lovers say, the heart hath treble wrong\n       When it is barr'd the aidance of the tongue.\n\n     An oven that is stopp'd, or river stay'd,\n     Burneth more hotly, swelleth with more rage:         332\n     So of concealed sorrow may be said;\n     Free vent of words love's fire doth assuage;\n       But when the heart's attorney once is mute\n       The client breaks, as desperate in his suit.       336\n\n     He sees her coming, and begins to glow,--\n     Even as a dying coal revives with wind,--\n     And with his bonnet hides his angry brow;\n     Looks on the dull earth with disturbed mind,         340\n       Taking no notice that she is so nigh,\n       For all askance he holds her in his eye.\n\n     O! what a sight it was, wistly to view\n     How she came stealing to the wayward boy;            344\n     To note the fighting conflict of her hue,\n     How white and red each other did destroy:\n       But now her cheek was pale, and by and by\n       It flash'd forth fire, as lightning from the sky.  348\n\n     Now was she just before him as he sat,\n     And like a lowly lover down she kneels;\n     With one fair hand she heaveth up his hat,\n     Her other tender hand his fair cheek feels:          352\n       His tenderer cheek receives her soft hand's print,\n       As apt as new-fall'n snow takes any dint.\n\n     O! what a war of looks was then between them;\n     Her eyes petitioners to his eyes suing;              356\n     His eyes saw her eyes as they had not seen them;\n     Her eyes woo'd still, his eyes disdain'd the wooing:\n       And all this dumb play had his acts made plain\n       With tears, which, chorus-like, her eyes did rain.\n\n     Full gently now she takes him by the hand,           361\n     A lily prison'd in a gaol of snow,\n     Or ivory in an alabaster band;\n     So white a friend engirts so white a foe:            364\n       This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling,\n       Show'd like two silver doves that sit a-billing.\n\n     Once more the engine of her thoughts began:\n     'O fairest mover on this mortal round,               368\n     Would thou wert as I am, and I a man,\n     My heart all whole as thine, thy heart my wound;\n       For one sweet look thy help I would assure thee,\n       Though nothing but my body's bane would cure thee.'\n\n     'Give me my hand,' saith he, 'why dost thou feel it?'\n     'Give me my heart,' saith she, 'and thou shalt have it;\n     O! give it me, lest thy hard heart do steel it,\n     And being steel'd, soft sighs can never grave it:    376\n       Then love's deep groans I never shall regard,\n       Because Adonis' heart hath made mine hard.'\n\n     'For shame,' he cries, 'let go, and let me go;\n     My day's delight is past, my horse is gone,          380\n     And 'tis your fault I am bereft him so:\n     I pray you hence, and leave me here alone:\n       For all my mind, my thought, my busy care,\n       Is how to get my palfrey from the mare.'           384\n\n     Thus she replies: 'Thy palfrey, as he should,\n     Welcomes the warm approach of sweet desire:\n     Affection is a coal that must be cool'd;\n     Else, suffer'd, it will set the heart on fire:       388\n       The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none;\n       Therefore no marvel though thy horse be gone.\n\n     'How like a Jade he stood, tied to the tree,\n     Servilely master'd with a leathern rein!             392\n     But when he saw his love, his youth's fair fee,\n     He held such petty bondage in disdain;\n       Throwing the base thong from his bending crest,\n       Enfranchising his mouth, his back, his breast.     396\n\n     'Who sees his true-love in her naked bed,\n     Teaching the sheets a whiter hue than white,\n     But, when his glutton eye so full hath fed,\n     His other agents aim at like delight?                400\n       Who is so faint, that dare not be so bold\n       To touch the fire, the weather being cold?\n\n     'Let me excuse thy courser, gentle boy;\n     And learn of him, I heartily beseech thee,           404\n     To take advantage on presented joy\n     Though I were dumb, yet his proceedings teach thee.\n       O learn to love, the lesson is but plain,\n       And once made perfect, never lost again.           408\n\n     'I know not love,' quoth he, 'nor will not know it,\n     Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it;\n     'Tis much to borrow, and I will not owe it;\n     My love to love is love but to disgrace it;          412\n       For I have heard it is a life in death,\n       That laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath.\n\n     'Who wears a garment shapeless and unfinish'd?\n     Who plucks the bud before one leaf put forth?        416\n     If springing things be any jot diminish'd,\n     They wither in their prime, prove nothing worth;\n       The colt that's back'd and burden'd being young\n       Loseth his pride, and never waxeth strong.         420\n\n     'You hurt my hand with wringing. Let us part,\n     And leave this idle theme, this bootless chat:\n     Remove your siege from my unyielding heart;\n     To love's alarms it will not ope the gate:           424\n       Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flattery;\n       For where a heart is hard they make no battery.'\n\n     'What! canst thou talk?' quoth she, 'hast thou a tongue?\n     O! would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing;        428\n     Thy mermaid's voice hath done me double wrong;\n     I had my load before, now press'd with bearing:\n       Melodious discord, heavenly tune, harsh-sounding,\n       Ear's deep-sweet music, and heart's deep-sore wounding.\n\n     'Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love          433\n     That inward beauty and invisible;\n     Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move\n     Each part in me that were but sensible:              436\n       Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see,\n       Yet should I be in love by touching thee.\n\n     'Say, that the sense of feeling were bereft me,\n     And that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch,       440\n     And nothing but the very smell were left me,\n     Yet would my love to thee be still as much;\n       For from the stillitory of thy face excelling\n       Comes breath perfum'd that breedeth love by smelling.\n\n     'But O! what banquet wert thou to the taste,         445\n     Being nurse and feeder of the other four;\n     Would they not wish the feast might ever last,\n     And bid Suspicion double-lock the door,\n       Lest Jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest,\n       Should, by his stealing in, disturb the feast?'    448\n\n     Once more the ruby-colour'd portal open'd,\n     Which to his speech did honey passage yield,         452\n     Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken'd\n     Wrack to the seaman, tempest to the field,\n       Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,\n       Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.      456\n\n     This ill presage advisedly she marketh:\n     Even as the wind is hush'd before it raineth,\n     Or as the wolf doth grin before he barketh,\n     Or as the berry breaks before it staineth,           460\n       Or like the deadly bullet of a gun,\n       His meaning struck her ere his words begun.\n\n     And at his look she flatly falleth down\n     For looks kill love, and love by looks reviveth;     464\n     A smile recures the wounding of a frown;\n     But blessed bankrupt, that by love so thriveth!\n       The silly boy, believing she is dead\n       Claps her pale cheek, till clapping makes it red;  468\n\n     And all amaz'd brake off his late intent,\n     For sharply he did think to reprehend her,\n     Which cunning love did wittily prevent:\n     Fair fall the wit that can so well defend her!       472\n       For on the grass she lies as she were slain\n       Till his breath breatheth life in her again.\n\n     He wrings her nose, he strikes her on the cheeks,\n     He bends her fingers, holds her pulses hard,         476\n     He chafes her lips; a thousand ways he seeks\n     To mend the hurt that his unkindness marr'd:\n       He kisses her; and she, by her good will,\n       Will never rise, so he will kiss her still.        480\n\n     The night of sorrow now is turn'd to day:\n     Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth,\n     Like the fair sun, when in his fresh array\n     He cheers the morn, and all the world relieveth:     484\n       And as the bright sun glorifies the sky,\n       So is her face illumin'd with her eye;\n\n     Whose beams upon his hairless face are fix'd,\n     As if from thence they borrow'd all their shine.     488\n     Were never four such lamps together mix'd,\n     Had not his clouded with his brow's repine;\n       But hers, which through the crystal tears gave light\n       Shone like the moon in water seen by night.        492\n\n     'O! where am I?' quoth she, 'in earth or heaven,\n     Or in the ocean drench'd, or in the fire?\n     What hour is this? or morn or weary even?\n     Do I delight to die, or life desire?                 496\n       But now I liv'd, and life was death's annoy;\n       But now I died, and death was lively joy.\n\n     'O! thou didst kill me; kill me once again:\n     Thy eyes' shrewd tutor, that hard heart of thine,    500\n     Hath taught them scornful tricks, and such disdain,\n     That they have murder'd this poor heart of mine;\n       And these mine eyes, true leaders to their queen,\n       But for thy piteous lips no more had seen.         504\n\n     'Long may they kiss each other for this cure!\n     O! never let their crimson liveries wear;\n     And as they last, their verdure still endure,\n     To drive infection from the dangerous year:          508\n       That the star-gazers, having writ on death,\n       May say, the plague is banish'd by thy breath.\n\n     'Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted,\n     What bargains may I make, still to be sealing?       512\n     To sell myself I can be well contented,\n     So thou wilt buy and pay and use good dealing;\n       Which purchase if thou make, for fear of slips\n       Set thy seal-manual on my wax-red lips.            516\n\n     'A thousand kisses buys my heart from me;\n     And pay them at thy leisure, one by one.\n     What is ten hundred touches unto thee?\n     Are they not quickly told and quickly gone?          520\n       Say, for non-payment that the debt should double,\n       Is twenty hundred kisses such a trouble?'\n\n     'Fair queen,' quoth he, 'if any love you owe me,\n     Measure my strangeness with my unripe years:         524\n     Before I know myself, seek not to know me;\n     No fisher but the ungrown fry forbears:\n       The mellow plum doth fall, the green sticks fast,\n       Or being early pluck'd is sour to taste.           528\n\n     'Look! the world's comforter, with weary gait\n     His day's hot task hath ended in the west;\n     The owl, night's herald, shrieks, 'tis very late;\n     The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest,     532\n       And coal-black clouds that shadow heaven's light\n       Do summon us to part, and bid good night.\n\n     'Now let me say good night, and so say you;\n     If you will say so, you shall have a kiss.'          536\n     'Good night,' quoth she; and ere he says adieu,\n     The honey fee of parting tender'd is:\n       Her arms do lend his neck a sweet embrace;\n       Incorporate then they seem, face grows to face.    540\n\n     Till, breathless, he disjoin'd, and backward drew\n     The heavenly moisture, that sweet coral mouth,\n     Whose precious taste her thirsty lips well knew,\n     Whereon they surfeit, yet complain on drouth:        544\n       He with her plenty press'd, she faint with dearth,\n       Their lips together glu'd, fall to the earth.\n\n     Now quick desire hath caught the yielding prey,\n     And glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth;       548\n     Her lips are conquerors, his lips obey,\n     Paying what ransom the insulter willeth;\n       Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high,\n       That she will draw his lips' rich treasure dry.    552\n\n     And having felt the sweetness of the spoil,\n     With blindfold fury she begins to forage;\n     Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil,\n     And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage;      556\n       Planting oblivion, beating reason back,\n       Forgetting shame's pure blush and honour's wrack.\n\n     Hot, faint, and weary, with her hard embracing,\n     Like a wild bird being tam'd with too much handling,\n     Or as the fleet-foot roe that's tir'd with chasing,  561\n     Or like the froward infant still'd with dandling,\n       He now obeys, and now no more resisteth,\n       While she takes all she can, not all she listeth.  564\n\n     What wax so frozen but dissolves with tempering,\n     And yields at last to every light impression?\n     Things out of hope are compass'd oft with venturing,\n     Chiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission:     568\n       Affection faints not like a pale-fac'd coward,\n       But then woos best when most his choice is froward.\n\n     When he did frown, O! had she then gave over,\n     Such nectar from his lips she had not suck'd.        572\n     Foul words and frowns must not repel a lover;\n     What though the rose have prickles, yet 'tis pluck'd:\n       Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast,\n       Yet love breaks through and picks them all at last.\n\n     For pity now she can no more detain him;             577\n     The poor fool prays her that he may depart:\n     She is resolv'd no longer to restrain him,\n     Bids him farewell, and look well to her heart,       580\n       The which, by Cupid's bow she doth protest,\n       He carries thence incaged in his breast.\n\n     'Sweet boy,' she says, 'this night I'll waste in sorrow,\n     For my sick heart commands mine eyes to watch.       584\n     Tell me, Love's master, shall we meet to-morrow\n     Say, shall we? shall we? wilt thou make the match?'\n       He tells her, no; to-morrow he intends\n       To hunt the boar with certain of his friends.      588\n\n     'The boar!' quoth she; whereat a sudden pale,\n     Like lawn being spread upon the blushing rose,\n     Usurps her cheeks, she trembles at his tale,\n     And on his neck her yoking arms she throws:          592\n       She sinketh down, still hanging by his neck,\n       He on her belly falls, she on her back.\n\n     Now is she in the very lists of love,\n     Her champion mounted for the hot encounter:          596\n     All is imaginary she doth prove,\n     He will not manage her, although he mount her;\n       That worse than Tantalus' is her annoy,\n       To clip Elysium and to lack her joy.               600\n\n     Even as poor birds, deceiv'd with painted grapes,\n     Do surfeit by the eye and pine the maw,\n     Even so she languisheth in her mishaps,\n     As those poor birds that helpless berries saw.       604\n       The warm effects which she in him finds missing,\n       She seeks to kindle with continual kissing.\n\n     But all in vain, good queen, it will not be:\n     She hath assay'd as much as may be prov'd;           608\n     Her pleading hath deserv'd a greater fee;\n     She's Love, she loves, and yet she is not lov'd.\n       'Fie, fie!' he says, 'you crush me; let me go;\n       You have no reason to withhold me so.'             612\n\n     'Thou hadst been gone,' quoth she, 'sweet boy, ere this,\n     But that thou told'st me thou wouldst hunt the boar.\n     O! be advis'd; thou know'st not what it is\n     With javelin's point a churlish swine to gore,       616\n       Whose tushes never sheath'd he whetteth still,\n       Like to a mortal butcher, bent to kill.\n\n     'On his bow-back he hath a battle set\n     Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes;         620\n     His eyes like glow-worms shine when he doth fret;\n     His snout digs sepulchres where'er he goes;\n       Being mov'd, he strikes whate'er is in his way,\n       And whom he strikes his crooked tushes slay.       624\n\n     'His brawny sides, with hairy bristles arm'd,\n     Are better proof than thy spear's point can enter;\n     His short thick neck cannot be easily harm'd;\n     Being ireful, on the lion he will venture:           628\n       The thorny brambles and embracing bushes,\n       As fearful of him, part, through whom he rushes.\n\n     'Alas! he nought esteems that face of thine,\n     To which Love's eyes pay tributary gazes;            632\n     Nor thy soft hands, sweet lips, and crystal eyne,\n     Whose full perfection all the world amazes;\n       But having thee at vantage, wondrous dread!\n       Would root these beauties as he roots the mead.\n\n     'O! let him keep his loathsome cabin still;          637\n     Beauty hath nought to do with such foul fiends:\n     Come not within his danger by thy will;\n     They that thrive well take counsel of their friends.\n       When thou didst name the boar, not to dissemble,\n       I fear'd thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.\n\n     'Didst thou not mark my face? was it not white?\n     Saw'st thou not signs of fear lurk in mine eye?      644\n     Grew I not faint? And fell I not downright?\n     Within my bosom, whereon thou dost lie,\n       My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest,\n       But, like an earthquake, shakes thee on my breast.\n\n     'For where Love reigns, disturbing Jealousy          649\n     Doth call himself Affection's sentinel;\n     Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny,\n     And in a peaceful hour doth cry \"Kill, kill!\"        652\n       Distempering gentle Love in his desire,\n       As air and water do abate the fire.\n\n     'This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy,\n     This canker that eats up Love's tender spring,       656\n     This carry-tale, dissentious Jealousy,\n     That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,\n       Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear\n       That if I love thee, I thy death should fear:      660\n\n     'And more than so, presenteth to mine eye\n     The picture of an angry-chafing boar,\n     Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie\n     An image like thyself, all stain'd with gore;        664\n       Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed\n       Doth make them droop with grief and hang the head.\n\n     'What should I do, seeing thee so indeed,\n     That tremble at the imagination?                     668\n     The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed,\n     And fear doth teach it divination:\n       I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow,\n       If thou encounter with the boar to-morrow.         672\n\n     'But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul'd by me;\n     Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,\n     Or at the fox which lives by subtilty,\n     Or at the roe which no encounter dare:               676\n       Pursue these fearful creatures o'er the downs,\n       And on thy well-breath'd horse keep with thy hound.\n\n     'And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,\n     Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles      680\n     How he outruns the winds, and with what care\n     He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:\n       The many musits through the which he goes\n       Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.            684\n\n     'Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,\n     To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,\n     And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,\n     To stop the loud pursuers in their yell,             688\n       And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer;\n       Danger deviseth shifts, wit waits on fear:\n\n     'For there his smell with others being mingled,      691\n     The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,\n     Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled\n     With much ado the cold fault cleanly out;\n       Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies,\n       As if another chase were in the skies.             696\n\n     'By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,\n     Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear,\n     To hearken if his foes pursue him still:\n     Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;                700\n     And now his grief may be compared well\n     To one sore sick that hears the passing bell.\n\n     'Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch\n     Turn, and return, indenting with the way;            704\n     Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch,\n     Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:\n       For misery is trodden on by many,\n       And being low never reliev'd by any.               708\n\n     'Lie quietly, and hear a little more;\n     Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise:\n     To make thee hate the hunting of the boar,\n     Unlike myself thou hear'st me moralize,              712\n       Applying this to that, and so to so;\n       For love can comment upon every woe.\n\n     'Where did I leave?' 'No matter where,' quoth he\n     'Leave me, and then the story aptly ends:            716\n     The night is spent,' 'Why, what of that?' quoth she.\n     'I am,' quoth he, 'expected of my friends;\n       And now 'tis dark, and going I shall fall.'\n       'In night,' quoth she, 'desire sees best of all.'  720\n\n     But if thou fall, O! then imagine this,\n     The earth, in love with thee, thy footing trips,\n     And all is but to rob thee of a kiss.                723\n     Rich preys make true men thieves; so do thy lips\n       Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn,\n       Lest she should steal a kiss and die forsworn.\n\n     'Now of this dark night I perceive the reason:\n     Cynthia for shame obscures her silver shine          728\n     Till forging Nature be condemn'd of treason,\n     For stealing moulds from heaven that were divine;\n       Wherein she fram'd thee in high heaven's despite,\n       To shame the sun by day and her by night.          732\n\n     'And therefore hath she brib'd the Destinies,\n     To cross the curious workmanship of nature\n     To mingle beauty with infirmities,\n     And pure perfection with impure defeature;           736\n       Making it subject to the tyranny\n       Of mad mischances and much misery;\n\n     'As burning fevers, agues pale and faint,\n     Life-poisoning pestilence and frenzies wood,         740\n     The marrow-eating sickness, whose attains\n     Disorder breeds by heating of the blood;\n       Surfeits, imposthumes, grief, and damn'd despair,\n       Swear nature's death for framing thee so fair.     744\n\n     'And not the least of all these maladies\n     But in one minute's fight brings beauty under:\n     Both favour, savour hue, and qualities,\n     Whereat the impartial gazer late did wonder,         748\n       Are on the sudden wasted, thaw'd and done,\n       As mountain-snow melts with the mid-day sun.\n\n     'Therefore, despite of fruitless chastity,\n     Love-lacking vestals and self-loving nuns,           752\n     That on the earth would breed a scarcity\n     And barren dearth of daughters and of sons,\n       Be prodigal: the lamp that burns by night\n       Dries up his oil to lend the world his light.      756\n\n     'What is thy body but a swallowing grave,\n     Seeming to bury that posterity\n     Which by the rights of time thou needs must have,\n     If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?          760\n       If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,\n       Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain.\n\n\n     'So in thyself thyself art made away;\n     A mischief worse than civil home-bred strife,        764\n     Or theirs whose desperate hands themselves do slay,\n     Or butcher-sire that reeves his son of life.\n       Foul-cankering rust the hidden treasure frets,\n       But gold that's put to use more gold begets.'      768\n\n     'Nay then,' quoth Adon, 'you will fall again\n     Into your idle over-handled theme;\n     The kiss I gave you is bestow'd in vain,\n     And all in vain you strive against the stream;       772\n       For by this black-fac'd night, desire's foul nurse,\n       Your treatise makes me like you worse and worse.\n\n     'If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues,\n     And every tongue more moving than your own,          776\n     Bewitching like the wanton mermaid's songs,\n     Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown;\n       For know, my heart stands armed in mine ear,\n       And will not let a false sound enter there;        780\n\n     'Lest the deceiving harmony should run\n     Into the quiet closure of my breast;\n     And then my little heart were quite undone,\n     In his bedchamber to be barr'd of rest.              784\n       No, lady, no; my heart longs not to groan,\n       But soundly sleeps, while now it sleeps alone.\n\n     'What have you urg'd that I cannot reprove?\n     The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger;        790\n     I hate not love, but your device in love\n     That lends embracements unto every stranger.\n       You do it for increase: O strange excuse!\n       When reason is the bawd to lust's abuse.           792\n\n     'Call it not, love, for Love to heaven is fled,\n     Since sweating Lust on earth usurp'd his name;\n     Under whose simple semblance he hath fed\n     Upon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame;           796\n       Which the hot tyrant stains and soon bereaves,\n       As caterpillars do the tender leaves.\n\n     'Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,\n     But Lust's effect is tempest after sun;              800\n     Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,\n     Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done.\n       Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies;\n       Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.       804\n\n     'More I could tell, but more I dare not say;\n     The text is old, the orator too green.\n     Therefore, in sadness, now I will away;\n     My face is full of shame, my heart of teen:          808\n       Mine ears, that to your wanton talk attended\n       Do burn themselves for having so offended.'\n\n     With this he breaketh from the sweet embrace         811\n     Of those fair arms which bound him to her breast,\n     And homeward through the dark laund runs apace;\n     Leaves Love upon her back deeply distress'd.\n       Look, how a bright star shooteth from the sky\n       So glides he in the night from Venus' eye;         816\n\n     Which after him she darts, as one on shore\n     Gazing upon a late-embarked friend,\n     Till the wild waves will have him seen no more,\n     Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend:        820\n       So did the merciless and pitchy night\n       Fold in the object that did feed her sight.\n\n     Whereat amaz'd, as one that unaware\n     Hath dropp'd a precious jewel in the flood,          824\n     Or 'stonish'd as night-wanderers often are,\n     Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood;\n       Even so confounded in the dark she lay,\n       Having lost the fair discovery of her way.         828\n\n     And now she beats her heart, whereat it groans,\n     That all the neighbour caves, as seeming troubled,\n     Make verbal repetition of her moans;\n     Passion on passion deeply is redoubled:              832\n       'Ay me!' she cries, and twenty times, 'Woe, woe!'\n       And twenty echoes twenty times cry so.\n\n     She marking them, begins a wailing note,\n     And sings extemporally a woeful ditty;               836\n     How love makes young men thrall and old men dote;\n     How love is wise in folly foolish-witty:\n       Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe,\n       And still the choir of echoes answer so.           840\n\n     Her song was tedious, and outwore the night,\n     For lovers' hours are long, though seeming short:\n     If pleas'd themselves, others, they think, delight\n     In such like circumstance, with such like sport:     844\n       Their copious stories, oftentimes begun,\n       End without audience, and are never done.\n\n     For who hath she to spend the night withal,\n     But idle sounds resembling parasites;                848\n     Like shrill-tongu'd tapsters answering every call,\n     Soothing the humour of fantastic wits?\n       She says, ''Tis so:' they answer all, ''Tis so;'\n       And would say after her, if she said 'No'.         852\n\n     Lo! here the gentle lark, weary of rest,\n     From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,\n     And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast\n     The sun ariseth in his majesty;                      856\n       Who doth the world so gloriously behold,\n       That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold.\n\n     Venus salutes him with this fair good morrow:\n     'O thou clear god, and patron of all light,          860\n     From whom each lamp and shining star doth borrow\n     The beauteous influence that makes him bright,\n       There lives a son that suck'd an earthly mother,\n       May lend thee light, as thou dost lend to other'\n\n     This said, she hasteth to a myrtle grove,            865\n     Musing the morning is so much o'erworn,\n     And yet she hears no tidings of her love;\n     She hearkens for his hounds and for his horn:        868\n       Anon she hears them chant it lustily,\n       And all in haste she coasteth to the cry.\n\n     And as she runs, the bushes in the way\n     Some catch her by the neck, some kiss her face,      872\n     Some twine about her thigh to make her stay:\n     She wildly breaketh from their strict embrace,\n       Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ache,\n       Hasting to feed her fawn hid in some brake.        876\n\n     By this she hears the hounds are at a bay;\n     Whereat she starts, like one that spies an adder\n     Wreath'd up in fatal folds just in his way,\n     The fear whereof doth make him shake and shudder;\n       Even so the timorous yelping of the hounds         881\n       Appals her senses, and her spirit confounds.\n\n     For now she knows it is no gentle chase,\n     But the blunt boar, rough bear, or lion proud,       884\n     Because the cry remaineth in one place,\n     Wilere fearfully the dogs exclaim aloud:\n       Finding their enemy to be so curst,\n       They all strain courtesy who shall cope him first.\n\n     This dismal cry rings sadly in her ear,              889\n     Througll which it enters to surprise her heart;\n     Who, overcome by doubt and bloodless fear,\n     With cold-pale weakness numbs each feeling part;\n       Like soldiers, when their captain once doth yield,\n       They basely fly and dare not stay the field.\n\n     Thus stands she in a trembling ecstasy,\n     Till, cheering up her senses sore dismay'd,          896\n     She tells them 'tis a causeless fantasy,\n     And childish error, that they are afraid;\n       Bids them leave quaking, bids them fear no more:\n       And with that word she spied the hunted boar;\n\n     Whose frothy mouth bepainted all with red,           901\n     Like milk and blood being mingled both together,\n     A second fear through all her sinews spread,\n     Which madly hurries her she knows not whither:       904\n       This way she runs, and now she will no further,\n       But back retires to rate the boar for murther.\n\n     A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways,\n     She treads the path that she untreads again;         908\n     Her more than haste is mated with delays,\n     Like the proceedings of a drunken brain,\n       Full of respects, yet nought at all respecting,\n       In hand with all things, nought at all effecting.\n\n     Here kennel'd in a brake she finds a hound,          913\n     And asks the weary caitiff for his master,\n     And there another licking of his wound,\n     Gainst venom'd sores the only sovereign plaster;     916\n       And here she meets another sadly scowling,\n       To whom she speaks, and he replies with howling.\n\n     When he hath ceas'd his ill-resounding noise,\n     Another flap-mouth'd mourner, black and grim,        920\n     Against the welkin volleys out his voice;\n     Another and another answer him,\n       Clapping their proud tails to the ground below,\n       Shaking their scratch'd ears, bleeding as they go.\n\n     Look, how the world's poor people are amaz'd         925\n     At apparitions, signs, and prodigies,\n     Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gaz'd,\n     Infusing them with dreadful prophecies;              928\n       So she at these sad sighs draws up her breath,\n       And, sighing it again, exclaims on Death.\n\n     'Hard-favour'd tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean,           931\n     Hateful divorce of love,'--thus chides she Death,--\n     'Grim-grinning ghost, earth's worm, what dost thou mean\n     To stifle beauty and to steal his breath,\n       Who when he liv'd, his breath and beauty set\n       Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet?            936\n\n     'If he be dead, O no! it cannot be,\n     Seeing his beauty, thou shouldst strike at it;\n     O yes! it may; thou hast no eyes to see,\n     But hatefully at random dost thou hit.               940\n       Thy mark is feeble age, but thy false dart\n       Mistakes that aim and cleaves an infant's heart.\n\n     'Hadst thou but bid beware, then he had spoke,\n     And, hearing him, thy power had lost his power.      944\n     The Destinies will curse thee for this stroke;\n     They bid thee crop a weed, thou pluck'st a flower.\n       Love's golden arrow at him shoull have fled,\n       And not Death's ebon dart, to strike him dead.     948\n\n     'Dost thou drink tears, that thou provok'st such weeping?\n     What may a heavy groan advantage thee?\n     Why hast thou cast into eternal sleeping\n     Those eyes that taught all other eyes to see?        952\n       Now Nature cares not for thy mortal vigour\n       Since her best work is ruin'd with thy rigour.'\n\n     Here overcome, as one full of despair,\n     She vail'd her eyelids, who, like sluices, stopp'd   956\n     The crystal tide that from her two cheeks fair\n     In the sweet channel of her bosom dropp'd\n       But through the flood-gates breaks the silver rain,\n       And with his strong course opens them again.       960\n\n     O! how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow;\n     Her eyes seen in the tears, tears in her eye;\n     Both crystals, where they view'd each other's sorrow,\n     Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry;      964\n       But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,\n       Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.\n\n     Variable passions throng her constant woe,\n     As striving who should best become her grief;        968\n     All entertain'd, each passion labours so,\n     That every present sorrow seemeth chief,\n     But none is best; then join they all together,\n     Like many clouds consulting for foul weather.        972\n\n     By this, far off she hears some huntsman holloa;\n     A nurse's song no'er pleas'd her babe so well:\n     The dire imagination she did follow\n     This sound of hope doth labour to expel;             976\n       For now reviving joy bids her rejoice,\n       And flatters her it is Adonis' voice.\n\n     Whereat her tears began to turn their tide,\n     Being prison'd in her eye, like pearls in glass;     980\n     Yet sometimes falls an orient drop beside,\n     Which her cheek melts, as scorning it should pass\n       To wash the foul face of the sluttish ground,\n       Who is but drunken when she seemeth drown'd.\n\n     O hard-believing love! how strange it seems          985\n     Not to believe, and yet too credulous;\n     Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes;\n     Despair and hope make thee ridiculous:               988\n       The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely,\n       In likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly.\n\n     Now she unweaves the web that she hath wrought,\n     Adonis lives, and Death is not to blame;             992\n     It was not she that call'd him all to naught,\n     Now she adds honours to his hateful name;\n       She clepes him king of graves, and grave for kings,\n       Imperious supreme of all mortal things.            996\n\n     'No, no,' quoth she, 'sweet Death, I did but jest;\n     Yet pardon me, I felt a kind of fear\n     Whenas I met the boar, that bloody beast,\n     Which knows no pity, but is still severe;           1000\n       Then, gentle shadow,--truth I must confess--\n       I rail'd on thee, fearing my love's decease.\n\n     'Tis not my fault: the boar provok'd my tongue;\n     Be wreak'd on him, invisible commander;             1004\n     'Tis he, foul creature, that hath done thee wrong;\n     I did but act, he 's author of my slander:\n       Grief hath two tongues: and never woman yet,\n       Could rule them both without ten women's wit.'\n\n     Thus hoping that Adonis is alive,                   1009\n     Her rash suspect sile doth extenuate;\n     And that his beauty may the better thrive,\n     With Death she humbly doth insinuate;               1012\n       Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs; and stories\n       His victories, his triumphs, and his glories.\n\n     'O Jove!' quoth she, 'how much a fool was I,\n     To be of such a weak and silly mind                 1016\n     To wail his death who lives and must not die\n     Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind;\n       For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,\n       And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again.        1020\n\n     'Fie, fie, fond love! thou art so full of fear\n     As one with treasure laden, hemm'd with thieves\n     Trifles, unwitnessed with eye or ear,\n     Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves.'    1024\n       Even at this word she hears a merry horn\n       Whereat she leaps that was but late forlorn.\n\n     As falcon to the lure, away she flies;\n     The grass stoops not, she treads on it so light;    1028\n     And in her haste unfortunately spies\n     The foul boar's conquest on her fair delight;\n       Which seen, her eyes, as murder'd with the view,\n       Like stars asham'd of day, themselves withdrew:\n\n     Or, as the snail, whose tender horns being hit,     1033\n     Shrinks backwards in his shelly cave with pain,\n     And there, all smother'd up, in shade doth sit,\n     Long after fearing to creep forth again;            1036\n       So, at his bloody view, her eyes are fled\n       Into the deep dark cabills of her head;\n\n     Where they resign their office and their light\n     To the disposing of her troubled brain;             1040\n     Who bids them still consort with ugly night,\n     And never wound the heart with looks again;\n       Who, like a king perplexed in his throne,\n       By their suggestion gives a deadly groan,         1044\n\n     Whereat each tributary subject quakes;\n     As when the wind, imprison'd in the ground,\n     Struggling for passage, earth's foundation shakes,\n     Which with cold terror doth men's minds confound.\n       This mutiny each part doth so surprise            1049\n       That from their dark beds once more leap her eyes;\n\n     And, being open'd, threw unwilling light\n     Upon the wide wound that the boar had trench'd\n     In his soft flank; whose wonted lily white          1053\n     With purple tears, that his wound wept, was drench'd:\n       No flower was nigh, no grass, herb, leaf, or weed\n       But stole his blood and seem'd with him to bleed.\n\n     This solemn sympathy poor Venus noteth,             1057\n     Over one shoulder doth she hang her head,\n     Dumbly she passions, franticly she doteth;\n     She thinks he could not die, he is not dead:        1060\n       Her voice is stopp'd, her joints forget to bow,\n       Her eyes are mad that they have wept till now.\n\n     Upon his hurt she looks so steadfastly,\n     That her sight dazzling makes the wound seem three;\n     And then she reprehends her mangling eye,           1065\n     That makes more gashes where no breach should be:\n       His face seems twain, each several limb is doubled;\n       For oft the eye mistakes, the brain being troubled.\n\n     'My tongue cannot express my grief for one,         1069\n     And yet,' quoth she, 'behold two Adons dead!\n     My sighs are blown away, my salt tears gone,\n     Mine eyes are turn'd to fire, my heart to lead:     1072\n       Heavy heart's lead, melt at mine eyes' red fire!\n       So shall I die by drops of hot desire.\n\n     'Alas! poor world, what treasure hast thou lost!\n     What face remains alive that's worth the viewing?\n     Whose tongue is music now? what canst thou boast\n     Of things long since, or anything ensuing?          1078\n       The flowers are sweet, their colours fresh and trim;\n       But true-sweet beauty liv'd and died with him.\n\n     'Bonnet nor veil henceforth no creature wear!       1081\n     Nor sun nor wind will ever strive to kiss you:\n     Having no fair to lose, you need not fear;\n     The sun doth scorn you, and the wind doth hiss you:\n       But when Adonis liv'd, sun and sharp air          1085\n       Lurk'd like two thieves, to rob him of his fair:\n\n     'And therefore would he put his bonnet on,\n     Under whose brim the gaudy sun would peep;          1088\n     The wind would blow it off, and, being gone,\n     Play with his locks: then would Adonis weep;\n       And straight, in pity of his tender years,\n       They both would strive who first should dry his tears.\n\n     'To see his face the lion walk'd along              1093\n     Behind some hedge, because he would not fear him;\n     To recreate himself when he hath sung,\n     The tiger would be tame and gently hear him;        1096\n       If he had spoke, the wolf would leave his prey,\n       And never fright the silly lamb that day.\n\n     'When he beheld his shadow in the brook,\n     The fishes spread on it their golden gills;         1100\n     When he was by, the birds such pleasure took,\n     That some would sing, some other in their bills\n       Would bring him mulberries and ripe-red cherries\n       He fed them with his sight, they him with berries.\n\n     'But this foul, grim, and urchin-spouted boar,      1105\n     Whose downward eye still looketh for a grave,\n     Ne'er saw the beauteous livery that he wore;\n     Witness the entertainment that he gave:             1108\n       If he did see his face, why then I know\n       He thought to kiss him, and hath killed him so.\n\n     ''Tis true, 'tis true; thus was Adonis slain:\n     He ran upon the boar with his sharp spear,          1112\n     Who did not whet his teeth at him again,\n     But by a kiss thought to persuade him there;\n       And nuzzling in his flank, the loving swine\n       Sheath'd unaware the tusk in his soft groin.      1116\n\n     'Had I been tooth'd like him, I must confess,\n     With kissing him I should have kill'd him first;\n     But he is dead, and never did he bless\n     My youth with his; the more am I accurst.'          1120\n       With this she falleth in the place she stood,\n       And stains her face with his congealed blood.\n\n     Sho looks upon his lips, and they are pale;\n     She takes him by the hand, and that is cold;        1124\n     She whispers in his ears a heavy tale,\n     As if they heard the woeful words she told;\n     She lifts the coffer-lids that close his eyes,\n     Where, lo! two lamps, burnt out, in darkness lies;\n\n     Two glasses where herself herself beheld            1129\n     A thousand times, and now no more reflect;\n     Their virtue lost, wherein they late excell'd,\n     And every beauty robb'd of his effect:              1132\n       'Wonder of time,' quoth she, 'this is my spite,\n       That, you being dead, the day should yet be light.\n\n     'Since thou art dead, lo! here I prophesy,\n     Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend:              1136\n     It shall be waited on with jealousy,\n     Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end;\n       Ne'er settled equally, but high or low;\n       That all love's pleasure shall not match his woe.\n\n     'It shall be fickle, false, and full of fraud,      1141\n     Bud and be blasted in a breathing-while;\n     The bottom poison, and the top o'erstraw'd\n     With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile:    1144\n       The strongest body shall it make most weak,\n       Strike the wise dumb and teach the fool to speak.\n\n     'It shall be sparing and too full of riot,\n     Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures;        1148\n     The staring ruffian shall it keep in quiet,\n     Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures;\n       It shall be raging mad, and silly mild,\n       Make the young old, the old become a child.       1152\n\n     'It shall suspect where is no cause of fear;\n     It shall not fear where it should most mistrust;\n     It shall be merciful, and too severe,\n     And most deceiving when it seems most just;         1156\n       Perverse it shall be, where it shows most toward,\n       Put fear to velour, courage to the coward.\n\n     'It shall be cause of war and dire events,\n     And set dissension 'twixt the son and sire;         1160\n     Subject and servile to all discontents,\n     As dry combustious matter is to fire:\n       Sith in his prime Death doth my love destroy,\n       They that love best their love shall not enjoy.'  1164\n\n     By this, the boy that by her side lay kill'd\n     Was melted like a vapour from her sight,\n     And in his blood that on the ground lay spill'd,\n     A purple flower sprung up, chequer'd with white;    1168\n       Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood\n       Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.\n\n     She bows her head, the new-sprung flower to smell,\n     Comparing it to her Adonis' breath;                 1172\n     And says within her bosom it shall dwell,\n     Since he himself is reft from her by death:\n       She drops the stalk, and in the breach appears\n       Green dropping sap, which she compares to tears.\n\n     'Poor flower,' quoth she, 'this was thy father's guise,\n     Sweet issue of a more sweet-smelling sire,\n     For every little grief to wet his eyes:\n     To grow unto himself was his desire,                1180\n       And so 'tis shine; but know, it is as good\n       To wither in my breast as in his blood.\n\n     'Here was thy father's bed, here in my breast;\n     Thou art the next of blood, and 'tis thy right:     1184\n     Lo! in this hollow cradle take thy rest,\n     My throbbing heart shall rock thee day and night:\n       There shall not be one minute in an hour\n       Wherein I will not kiss my sweet love's flower.'\n\n     Thus weary of the world, away she hies,             1189\n     And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid\n     Their mistress, mounted, through the empty skies\n     In her light chariot quickly is convey'd;           1192\n       Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen\n       Means to immure herself and not be seen.\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"10606":"proofreading Team\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRAGEDIE OF\nHAMLET,\nPRINCE OF DENMARKE\n\nA STUDY WITH THE TEXT\nOF\nTHE FOLIO OF 1623\n\nBY\nGEORGE MACDONALD\n\n\"What would you gracious figure?\"\n\n\n\nTO\n\nMY HONOURED RELATIVE\n\nALEXANDER STEWART MACCOLL\n\nA LITTLE _LESS_ THAN KIN, AND _MORE_ THAN KIND\n\nTO WHOM I OWE IN ESPECIAL THE TRUE UNDERSTANDING OF\n\nTHE GREAT SOLILOQUY\n\nI DEDICATE\n\nWITH LOVE AND GRATITUDE\n\nTHIS EFFORT TO GIVE HAMLET AND SHAKSPERE THEIR DUE\n\nGEORGE MAC DONALD\n\nBORDIGHERA\n\n_Christmas_, 1884\n\n\n               Summary:\n\nThe Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark:\n a study of the text of the folio of 1623\n          By George MacDonald\n[Motto]: \"What would you, gracious figure?\"\n\nDr. Greville MacDonald looks on his father's commentary as the \"most\nimportant interpretation of the play ever written... It is his intuitive\nunderstanding ... rather than learned analysis--of which there is yet\noverwhelming evidence--that makes it so splendid.\"\n\nReading Level: Mature youth and adults.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nBy this edition of HAMLET I hope to help the student of Shakspere to\nunderstand the play--and first of all Hamlet himself, whose spiritual\nand moral nature are the real material of the tragedy, to which every\nother interest of the play is subservient. But while mainly attempting,\nfrom the words and behaviour Shakspere has given him, to explain the\nman, I have cast what light I could upon everything in the play,\nincluding the perplexities arising from extreme condensation of meaning,\nfigure, and expression.\n\nAs it is more than desirable that the student should know when he is\nreading the most approximate presentation accessible of what Shakspere\nuttered, and when that which modern editors have, with reason good or\nbad, often not without presumption, substituted for that which they\nreceived, I have given the text, letter for letter, point for point, of\nthe First Folio, with the variations of the Second Quarto in the margin\nand at the foot of the page.\n\nOf HAMLET there are but two editions of authority, those called the\nSecond Quarto and the First Folio; but there is another which requires\nremark.\n\nIn the year 1603 came out the edition known as the First Quarto--clearly\nwithout the poet's permission, and doubtless as much to his displeasure:\nthe following year he sent out an edition very different, and larger in\nthe proportion of one hundred pages to sixty-four. Concerning the former\nmy theory is--though it is not my business to enter into the question\nhere--that it was printed from Shakspere's sketch for the play, written\nwith matter crowding upon him too fast for expansion or development, and\nintended only for a continuous memorandum of things he would take up and\nwork out afterwards. It seems almost at times as if he but marked\ncertain bales of thought so as to find them again, and for the present\nthrew them aside--knowing that by the marks he could recall the thoughts\nthey stood for, but not intending thereby to convey them to any reader.\nI cannot, with evidence before me, incredible but through the eyes\nthemselves, of the illimitable scope of printers' blundering, believe\n_all_ the confusion, unintelligibility, neglect of grammar,\nconstruction, continuity, sense, attributable to them. In parts it is\nmore like a series of notes printed with the interlineations horribly\njumbled; while in other parts it looks as if it had been taken down from\nthe stage by an ear without a brain, and then yet more incorrectly\nprinted; parts, nevertheless, in which it most differs from the\nauthorized editions, are yet indubitably from the hand of Shakspere. I\ngreatly doubt if any ready-writer would have dared publish some of its\nchaotic passages as taken down from the stage; nor do I believe the play\nwas ever presented in anything like such an unfinished state. I rather\nthink some fellow about the theatre, whether more rogue or fool we will\npay him the thankful tribute not to enquire, chancing upon the crude\nembryonic mass in the poet's hand, traitorously pounced upon it, and\nbetrayed it to the printers--therein serving the poet such an evil turn\nas if a sculptor's workman took a mould of the clay figure on which his\nmaster had been but a few days employed, and published casts of it as\nthe sculptor's work.[1] To us not the less is the _corpus delicti_\nprecious--and that unspeakably--for it enables us to see something of\nthe creational development of the drama, besides serving occasionally to\ncast light upon portions of it, yielding hints of the original intention\nwhere the after work has less plainly presented it.\n\n[Footnote 1: Shakspere has in this matter fared even worse than Sir\nThomas Browne, the first edition of whose _Religio Medici_, nowise\nintended for the public, was printed without his knowledge.]\n\nThe Second Quarto bears on its title-page, compelled to a recognition of\nthe former,--'Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much againe as\nit was, according to the true and perfect Coppie'; and it is in truth a\nharmonious world of which the former issue was but the chaos. It is the\ndrama itself, the concluded work of the master's hand, though yet to be\nonce more subjected to a little pruning, a little touching, a little\nrectifying. But the author would seem to have been as trusting over the\nwork of the printers, as they were careless of his, and the result is\nsometimes pitiable. The blunders are appalling. Both in it and in the\nFolio the marginal note again and again suggests itself: 'Here the\ncompositor was drunk, the press-reader asleep, the devil only aware.'\nBut though the blunders elbow one another in tumultuous fashion, not\ntherefore all words and phrases supposed to be such are blunders. The\nold superstition of plenary inspiration may, by its reverence for the\nvery word, have saved many a meaning from the obliteration of a\nmisunderstanding scribe: in all critical work it seems to me well to\ncling to the _word_ until one sinks not merely baffled, but exhausted.\n\nI come now to the relation between the Second Quarto and the Folio.\n\nMy theory is--that Shakspere worked upon his own copy of the Second\nQuarto, cancelling and adding, and that, after his death, this copy\ncame, along with original manuscripts, into the hands of his friends the\neditors of the Folio, who proceeded to print according to his\nalterations.\n\nThese friends and editors in their preface profess thus: 'It had bene a\nthing, we confesse, worthie to haue bene wished, that the Author\nhimselfe had liu'd to haue set forth, and ouerseen his owne writings;\nBut since it hath bin ordain'd otherwise, and he by death departed from\nthat right, we pray you do not envie his Friends, the office of their\ncare, and paine, to haue collected & publish'd them, as where (before)\nyou were abus'd with diuerse stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed,\nand deformed by the frauds and stealthes of iniurious impostors, that\nexpos'd them: euen those, are now offer'd to your view cur'd, and\nperfect of their limbes; and all the rest, absolute in their numbers, as\nhe conceiued th[=e]. Who, as he was a happie imitator of Nature, was a\nmost gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together: And what\nhe thought, he vttered with that easinesse, that wee haue scarse\nreceiued from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our prouince, who\nonely gather his works, and giue them you, to praise him. It is yours\nthat reade him.'\n\nThese are hardly the words of men who would take liberties, and\nliberties enormous, after ideas of their own, with the text of a friend\nthus honoured. But although they printed with intent altogether\nfaithful, they did so certainly without any adequate jealousy of the\nprinters--apparently without a suspicion of how they could blunder. Of\nblunders therefore in the Folio also there are many, some through mere\nfollowing of blundered print, some in fresh corruption of the same, some\nthrough mistaking of the manuscript corrections, and some probably from\nthe misprinting of mistakes, so that the corrections themselves are at\ntimes anything but correctly recorded. I assume also that the printers\nwere not altogether above the mean passion, common to the day-labourers\nof Art, from Chaucer's Adam Scrivener down to the present carvers of\nmarble, for modifying and improving the work of the master. The vain\nincapacity of a self-constituted critic will make him regard his poorest\nfancy as an emendation; seldom has he the insight of Touchstone to\nrecognize, or his modesty to acknowledge, that although his own, it is\nnone the less an ill-favoured thing.\n\nNot such, however, was the spirit of the editors; and all the changes of\nimportance from the text of the Quarto I receive as Shakspere's own.\nWith this belief there can be no presumption in saying that they seem to\nme not only to trim the parts immediately affected, but to render the\nplay more harmonious and consistent. It is no presumption to take the\nPoet for superior to his work and capable of thinking he could better\nit--neither, so believing, to imagine one can see that he has been\nsuccessful.\n\nA main argument for the acceptance of the Folio edition as the Poet's\nlast presentment of his work, lies in the fact that there are passages\nin it which are not in the Quarto, and are very plainly from his hand.\nIf we accept these, what right have we to regard the omission from the\nFolio of passages in the Quarto as not proceeding from the same hand?\nHad there been omissions only, we might well have doubted; but the\ninsertions greatly tend to remove the doubt. I cannot even imagine the\narguments which would prevail upon me to accept the latter and refuse\nthe former. Omission itself shows for a master-hand: see the magnificent\npassage omitted, and rightly, by Milton from the opening of his _Comus_.\n\n'But when a man has published two forms of a thing, may we not judge\nbetween him and himself, and take the reading we like better?'\nAssuredly. Take either the Quarto or the Folio; both are Shakspere's.\nTake any reading from either, and defend it. But do not mix up the two,\nretaining what he omits along with what he inserts, and print them so.\nThis is what the editors do--and the thing is not Shakspere's. With\nhomage like this, no artist could be other than indignant. It is well to\nshow every difference, even to one of spelling where it might indicate\npossibly a different word, but there ought to be no mingling of\ndifferences. If I prefer the reading of the Quarto to that of the Folio,\nas may sometimes well happen where blunders so abound, I say I\n_prefer_--I do not dare to substitute. My student shall owe nothing of\nhis text to any but the editors of the Folio, John Heminge and Henrie\nCondell.\n\nI desire to take him with me. I intend a continuous, but ever-varying,\nwhile one-ended lesson. We shall follow the play step by step, avoiding\nalmost nothing that suggests difficulty, and noting everything that\nseems to throw light on the character of a person of the drama. The\npointing I consider a matter to be dealt with as any one pleases--for\nthe sake of sense, of more sense, of better sense, as much as if the\ntext were a Greek manuscript without any division of words. This\nposition I need not argue with anyone who has given but a cursory glance\nto the original page, or knows anything of printers' pointing. I hold\nhard by the word, for that is, or may be, grain: the pointing as we have\nit is merest chaff, and more likely to be wrong than right. Here also,\nhowever, I change nothing in the text, only suggest in the notes. Nor do\nI remark on any of the pointing where all that is required is the\nattention of the student.\n\nDoubtless many will consider not a few of the notes unnecessary. But\nwhat may be unnecessary to one, may be welcome to another, and it is\nimpossible to tell what a student may or may not know. At the same time\nthose form a large class who imagine they know a thing when they do not\nunderstand it enough to see there is a difficulty in it: to such, an\nattempt at explanation must of course seem foolish.\n\nA _number_ in the margin refers to a passage of the play or in the\nnotes, and is the number of the page where the passage is to be found.\nIf the student finds, for instance, against a certain line upon page 8,\nthe number 12, and turns to page 12, he will there find the number 8\nagainst a certain line: the two lines or passages are to be compared,\nand will be found in some way parallel, or mutually explanatory.\n\nWherever I refer to the Quarto, I intend the 2nd Quarto--that is\nShakspere's own authorized edition, published in his life-time. Where\noccasionally I refer to the surreptitious edition, the mere inchoation\nof the drama, I call it, as it is, the _1st Quarto_.\n\nAny word or phrase or stage-direction in the 2nd Quarto differing from\nthat in the Folio, is placed on the margin in a line with the other:\nchoice between them I generally leave to my student. Omissions are\nmainly given as footnotes. Each edition does something to correct the\nerrors of the other.\n\nI beg my companion on this journey to let Hamlet reveal himself in the\nplay, to observe him as he assumes individuality by the concretion of\ncharacteristics. I warn him that any popular notion concerning him which\nhe may bring with him, will be only obstructive to a perception of the\ntrue idea of the grandest of all Shakspere's presentations.\n\nIt will amuse this and that man to remark how often I speak of Hamlet as\nif he were a real man and not the invention of Shakspere--for indeed the\nHamlet of the old story is no more that of Shakspere than a lump of coal\nis a diamond; but I imagine, if he tried the thing himself, he would\nfind it hardly possible to avoid so speaking, and at the same time say\nwhat he had to say.\n\nI give hearty thanks to the press-reader, a gentleman whose name I do\nnot know, not only for keen watchfulness over the printing-difficulties\nof the book, but for saving me from several blunders in derivation.\n\nBORDIGHERA: _December_, 1884.\n\n[Transcriber's Note: In the paper original, each left-facing page\ncontained the text of the play, with sidenotes and footnote references,\nand the corresponding right-facing page contained the footnotes\nthemselves and additional commentary. In this electronic text, the\nplay-text pages are numbered (contrary to custom in electronic texts),\nto allow use of the cross-references provided in the sidenotes and\nfootnotes. In the play text, sidenotes towards the left of the page are\nthose marginal cross-references described earlier, and sidenotes toward\nthe right of the page are the differences noted a few paragraphs later.]\n\n[Page 1]\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRAGEDIE\n\nOF\n\nHAMLET\n\nPRINCE OF DENMARKE.\n\n[Page 2]\n\n\n\n\n_ACTUS PRIMUS._\n\n\n_Enter Barnardo and Francisco two Centinels_[1].\n\n_Barnardo._ Who's there?\n\n_Fran._[2] Nay answer me: Stand and vnfold yourselfe.\n\n_Bar._ Long liue the King.[3]\n\n_Fran._ _Barnardo?_\n\n_Bar._ He.\n\n_Fran._ You come most carefully vpon your houre.\n\n_Bar._ 'Tis now strook twelue, get thee to bed _Francisco_.\n\n_Fran._ For this releefe much thankes:  'Tis\n[Sidenote: 42] bitter cold,\nAnd I am sicke at heart.[4]\n\n_Barn._ Haue you had quiet Guard?[5]\n\n_Fran._ Not a Mouse stirring.\n\n_Barn._ Well, goodnight. If you do meet _Horatio_ and\n_Marcellus_, the Riuals[6] of my Watch, bid them make hast.\n\n_Enter Horatio and Marcellus._\n\n_Fran._ I thinke I heare them. Stand: who's there?\n                                     [Sidenote: Stand ho, who is there?]\n\n_Hor._ Friends to this ground.\n\n_Mar._ And Leige-men to the Dane.\n\n_Fran._ Giue you good night.\n\n_Mar._ O farwel honest Soldier, who hath           [Sidenote: souldiers]\nrelieu'd you?\n\n[Footnote 1: --meeting. Almost dark.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --on the post, and with the right of challenge.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The watchword.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The key-note to the play--as in _Macbeth_: 'Fair is\nfoul and foul is fair.' The whole nation is troubled by late events at\ncourt.]\n\n[Footnote 5: --thinking of the apparition.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Companions_.]\n\n[Page 4]\n\n_Fra._ _Barnardo_ ha's my place: giue you good-night.   [Sidenote: hath]\n_Exit Fran._\n\n_Mar._ Holla _Barnardo_.\n\n_Bar._ Say, what is Horatio there?\n\n_Hor._ A peece of him.\n\n_Bar._ Welcome _Horatio_, welcome good _Marcellus_.\n\n_Mar._ What, ha's this thing appear'd againe to    [Sidenote: _Hor_.[1]]\nnight.\n\n_Bar._ I haue seene nothing.\n\n_Mar._ Horatio saies, 'tis but our Fantasie,\nAnd will not let beleefe take hold of him\nTouching this dreaded sight, twice seene of vs,\nTherefore I haue intreated him along\nWith vs, to watch the minutes of this Night,\nThat if againe this Apparition come,\n[Sidenote: 6] He may approue our eyes, and speake to it.[2]\n\n_Hor._ Tush, tush, 'twill not appeare.\n\n_Bar._ Sit downe a-while,\nAnd let vs once againe assaile your eares,\nThat are so fortified against our Story,\nWhat we two Nights haue seene.          [Sidenote: have two nights seen]\n\n_Hor._ Well, sit we downe,\nAnd let vs heare _Barnardo_ speake of this.\n\n_Barn._ Last night of all,\nWhen yond same Starre that's Westward from the Pole\nHad made his course t'illume that part of Heauen\nWhere now it burnes, _Marcellus_ and my selfe,\nThe Bell then beating one.[3]\n\n_Mar._ Peace, breake thee of: _Enter the Ghost_. [Sidenote: Enter Ghost]\nLooke where it comes againe.\n\n_Barn._ In the same figure, like the King that's dead.\n\n[Footnote 1: Better, I think; for the tone is scoffing, and Horatio is\nthe incredulous one who has not seen it.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --being a scholar, and able to address it as an apparition\nought to be addressed--Marcellus thinking, perhaps, with others, that a\nghost required Latin.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _1st Q._ 'towling one.]\n\n[Page 6]\n\n[Sidenote: 4] _Mar._ Thou art a Scholler; speake to it _Horatio._\n\n_Barn._ Lookes it not like the King? Marke it _Horatio_.\n                                                 [Sidenote: Looks a not]\n_Hora._ Most like: It harrowes me with fear and wonder.\n                                                 [Sidenote: horrowes[1]]\n\n_Barn._ It would be spoke too.[2]\n\n_Mar._ Question it _Horatio._          [Sidenote: Speak to it _Horatio_]\n\n_Hor._ What art thou that vsurp'st this time of night,[3]\nTogether with that Faire and Warlike forme[4]\nIn which the Maiesty of buried Denmarke\nDid sometimes[5] march: By Heauen I charge thee speake.\n\n_Mar._ It is offended.[6]\n\n_Barn._ See, it stalkes away.\n\n_Hor._ Stay: speake; speake: I Charge thee, speake.\n               _Exit the Ghost._               [Sidenote: _Exit Ghost._]\n\n_Mar._ 'Tis gone, and will not answer.\n\n_Barn._ How now _Horatio_? You tremble and look pale:\nIs not this something more then Fantasie?\nWhat thinke you on't?\n\n_Hor._ Before my God, I might not this beleeue\nWithout the sensible and true auouch\nOf mine owne eyes.\n\n_Mar._ Is it not like the King?\n\n_Hor._ As thou art to thy selfe,\nSuch was the very Armour he had on,\nWhen th' Ambitious Norwey combatted: [Sidenote: when he the ambitious]\nSo frown'd he once, when in an angry parle\nHe smot the sledded Pollax on the Ice.[8]         [Sidenote: sleaded[7]]\n'Tis strange.\n\n[Sidenote: 274] _Mar._ Thus twice before, and iust at this dead houre,\n                                            [Sidenote: and jump at this]\n\n[Footnote 1: _1st Q_. 'horrors mee'.]\n\n[Footnote 2: A ghost could not speak, it was believed, until it was\nspoken to.]\n\n[Footnote 3: It was intruding upon the realm of the embodied.]\n\n[Footnote 4: None of them took it as certainly the late king: it was\nonly clear to them that it was like him. Hence they say, 'usurp'st the\nforme.']\n\n[Footnote 5: _formerly_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: --at the word _usurp'st_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Also _1st Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: The usual interpretation is 'the sledged Poles'; but not to\nmention that in a parley such action would have been treacherous, there\nis another far more picturesque, and more befitting the _angry parle_,\nat the same time more characteristic and forcible: the king in his anger\nsmote his loaded pole-axe on the ice. There is some uncertainty about\nthe word _sledded_ or _sleaded_ (which latter suggests _lead_), but we\nhave the word _sledge_ and _sledge-hammer_, the smith's heaviest, and\nthe phrase, 'a sledging blow.' The quarrel on the occasion referred to\nrather seems with the Norwegians (See Schmidt's _Shakespeare-Lexicon:\nSledded_.) than with the Poles; and there would be no doubt as to the\nlatter interpretation being the right one, were it not that _the\nPolacke_, for the Pole, or nation of the Poles, does occur in the play.\nThat is, however, no reason why the Dane should not have carried a\npole-axe, or caught one from the hand of an attendant. In both our\nauthorities, and in the _1st Q_. also, the word is _pollax_--as in\nChaucer's _Knights Tale_: 'No maner schot, ne pollax, ne schort\nknyf,'--in the _Folio_ alone with a capital; whereas not once in the\nplay is the similar word that stands for the Poles used in the plural.\nIn the _2nd Quarto_ there is _Pollacke_ three times, _Pollack_ once,\n_Pole_ once; in the _1st Quarto_, _Polacke_ twice; in the _Folio_,\n_Poleak_ twice, _Polake_ once. The Poet seems to have avoided the plural\nform.]\n\n[Page 8]\n\nWith Martiall stalke,[1] hath he gone by our Watch.\n\n_Hor_. In what particular thought to work, I know not:\nBut in the grosse and scope of my Opinion,              [Sidenote: mine]\nThis boades some strange erruption to our State.\n\n_Mar_. Good now sit downe, and tell me he that knowes\n[Sidenote: 16] Why this same strict and most obseruant Watch,[2]\nSo nightly toyles the subiect of the Land,\nAnd why such dayly Cast of Brazon Cannon\n                                    [Sidenote: And with such dayly cost]\nAnd Forraigne Mart for Implements of warre:\nWhy such impresse of Ship-wrights, whose sore Taske\nDo's not diuide the Sunday from the weeke,\nWhat might be toward, that this sweaty hast[3]\nDoth make the Night ioynt-Labourer with the day:\nWho is't that can informe me?\n\n_Hor._ That can I,\nAt least the whisper goes so: Our last King,\nWhose Image euen but now appear'd to vs,\nWas (as you know) by _Fortinbras_ of Norway,\n(Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate Pride)[4]\nDar'd to the Combate. In which, our Valiant _Hamlet_,\n(For so this side of our knowne world esteem'd him)[5]\n[Sidenote: 6] Did slay this _Fortinbras_: who by a Seal'd Compact,\nWell ratified by Law, and Heraldrie,                 [Sidenote: heraldy]\nDid forfeite (with his life) all those his Lands       [Sidenote: these]\nWhich he stood seiz'd on,[6] to the Conqueror:    [Sidenote: seaz'd of,]\nAgainst the which, a Moity[7] competent\nWas gaged by our King: which had return'd        [Sidenote: had returne]\nTo the Inheritance of _Fortinbras_,\n\n[Footnote 1: _1st Q_. 'Marshall stalke'.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Here is set up a frame of external relations, to inclose\nwith fitting contrast, harmony, and suggestion, the coming show of\nthings. 273]\n\n[Footnote 3: _1st Q_. 'sweaty march'.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Pride that leads to emulate: the ambition to excel--not\noneself, but another.]\n\n[Footnote 5: The whole western hemisphere.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _stood possessed of_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Used by Shakspere for _a part_.]\n\n[Page 10]\n\nHad he bin Vanquisher, as by the same Cou'nant\n                                             [Sidenote: the same comart]\nAnd carriage of the Article designe,[1]           [Sidenote: desseigne,]\nHis fell to _Hamlet_. Now sir, young _Fortinbras_,\nOf vnimproued[2] Mettle, hot and full,\nHath in the skirts of Norway, heere and there,\nShark'd[3] vp a List of Landlesse Resolutes,     [Sidenote: of lawlesse]\nFor Foode and Diet, to some Enterprize\nThat hath a stomacke in't[4]: which is no other\n(And it doth well appeare vnto our State)              [Sidenote: As it]\nBut to recouer of vs by strong hand\nAnd termes Compulsatiue, those foresaid Lands  [Sidenote: compulsatory,]\nSo by his Father lost: and this (I take it)\nIs the maine Motiue of our Preparations,\nThe Sourse of this our Watch, and the cheefe head\nOf this post-hast, and Romage[5] in the Land.\n\n       [A]_Enter Ghost againe_.\n\nBut soft, behold: Loe, where it comes againe:\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n_Bar._ I thinke it be no other, but enso;\nWell may it sort[6] that this portentous figure\nComes armed through our watch so like the King\nThat was and is the question of these warres.\n\n_Hora._ A moth it is to trouble the mindes eye:\nIn the most high and palmy state of Rome,\nA little ere the mightiest _Iulius_ fell\nThe graues stood tennatlesse, and the sheeted dead\nDid squeake and gibber in the Roman streets[7]\nAs starres with traines of fier, and dewes of blood\nDisasters in the sunne; and the moist starre,\nVpon whose influence _Neptunes_ Empier stands\nWas sicke almost to doomesday with eclipse.\nAnd euen the like precurse of feare euents\nAs harbindgers preceading still the fates\nAnd prologue to the _Omen_ comming on\nHaue heauen and earth together demonstrated\nVnto our Climatures and countrymen.[8]\n\n               _Enter Ghost_.]\n\n[Footnote 1: French d\u00e9sign\u00e9.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _not proved_ or _tried. Improvement_, as we use the word,\nis the result of proof or trial: _upon-proof-ment_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Is _shark'd_ related to the German _scharren_? _Zusammen\nscharren--to scrape together._ The Anglo-Saxon _searwian_ is _to\nprepare, entrap, take_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Some enterprise of acquisition; one for the sake of getting\nsomething.]\n\n[Footnote 5: In Scotch, _remish_--the noise of confused and varied\nmovements; a _row_; a _rampage_.--Associated with French _remuage_?]\n\n[Footnote 6: _suit_: so used in Scotland still, I think.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Julius Caesar_, act i. sc. 3, and act ii. sc. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 8: The only suggestion I dare make for the rectifying of the\nconfusion of this speech is, that, if the eleventh line were inserted\nbetween the fifth and sixth, there would be sense, and very nearly\ngrammar.\n\n                              and the sheeted dead\n    Did squeake and gibber in the Roman streets,\n    As harbindgers preceading still the fates;\n    As starres with traines of fier, and dewes of blood\n(Here understand _precede_)\n    Disasters in the sunne;\n\nThe tenth will close with the twelfth line well enough.\n\nBut no one, any more than myself, will be _satisfied_ with the\nsuggestion. The probability is, of course, that a line has dropped out\nbetween the fifth and sixth. Anything like this would restore the\nconnection:\n\n_The labouring heavens themselves teemed dire portent_\nAs starres &c.]\n\n[Page 12]\n\nIle crosse it, though it blast me.[1] Stay Illusion:[2]\n                                  [Sidenote: _It[4] spreads his armes_.]\nIf thou hast any sound, or vse of Voyce,[3]\nSpeake to me. If there be any good thing to be done,\nThat may to thee do ease, and grace to me; speak to me.\nIf thou art priuy to thy Countries Fate\n(Which happily foreknowing may auoyd) Oh speake.\nOr, if thou hast vp-hoorded in thy life\nExtorted Treasure in the wombe of Earth,\n(For which, they say, you Spirits oft walke in death)   [Sidenote: your]\n                                          [Sidenote: _The cocke crowes_]\nSpeake of it. Stay, and speake. Stop it _Marcellus_.\n\n_Mar_. Shall I strike at it with my Partizan? [Sidenote: strike it with]\n\n_Hor_. Do, if it will not stand.\n\n_Barn_. 'Tis heere.\n\n_Hor_. 'Tis heere.\n\n_Mar_. 'Tis gone.         _Exit Ghost_[5]\nWe do it wrong, being so Maiesticall[6]\nTo offer it the shew of Violence,\nFor it is as the Ayre, invulnerable,\nAnd our vaine blowes, malicious Mockery.\n\n_Barn_. It was about to speake, when the Cocke crew.\n\n_Hor_. And then it started, like a guilty thing\nVpon a fearfull Summons. I haue heard,\nThe Cocke that is the Trumpet to the day,      [Sidenote: to the morne,]\nDoth with his lofty and shrill-sounding Throate[7]\nAwake the God of Day: and at his warning,\nWhether in Sea, or Fire, in Earth, or Ayre,\nTh'extrauagant,[8] and erring[9] Spirit, hyes\nTo his Confine. And of the truth heerein,\nThis present Obiect made probation.[10]\n\n_Mar_. It faded on the crowing of the Cocke.[11]\n\n[Footnote 1: There are various tales of the blasting power of evil\nghosts.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Plain doubt, and strong.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'sound of voice, or use of voice': physical or mental\nfaculty of speech.]\n\n[Footnote 4: I judge this _It_ a mistake for _H._, standing for\n_Horatio_: he would stop it.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'As we cannot hurt it, our blows are a mockery; and it is\nwrong to mock anything so majestic': _For_ belongs to _shew_; 'We do it\nwrong, being so majestical, to offer it what is but a _show_ of\nviolence, for it is, &c.']\n\n[Footnote 7: _1st Q._ 'his earely and shrill crowing throate.']\n\n[Footnote 8: straying beyond bounds.]\n\n[Footnote 9: wandering.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'gave proof.']\n\n[Footnote 11: This line said thoughtfully--as the text of the\nobservation following it. From the _eerie_ discomfort of their position,\nMarcellus takes refuge in the thought of the Saviour's birth into the\nhaunted world, bringing sweet law, restraint, and health.]\n\n[Page 14]\n\nSome sayes, that euer 'gainst that Season comes          [Sidenote: say]\nWherein our Sauiours Birth is celebrated,\nThe Bird of Dawning singeth all night long:        [Sidenote: This bird]\nAnd then (they say) no Spirit can walke abroad,\n                                          [Sidenote: spirit dare sturre]\nThe nights are wholsome, then no Planets strike,\nNo Faiery talkes, nor Witch hath power to Charme:\n                                             [Sidenote: fairy takes,[1]]\nSo hallow'd, and so gracious is the time.      [Sidenote: is that time.]\n\n_Hor._ So haue I heard, and do in part beleeue it.\nBut looke, the Morne in Russet mantle clad,\nWalkes o're the dew of yon high Easterne Hill,   [Sidenote: Eastward[2]]\nBreake we our Watch vp, and by my aduice              [Sidenote: advise]\nLet vs impart what we haue scene to night\nVnto yong _Hamlet_. For vpon my life,\nThis Spirit dumbe to vs, will speake to him:\nDo you consent we shall acquaint him with it,\nAs needfull in our Loues, fitting our Duty?\n\n[Sidenote: 30] _Mar._ Let do't I pray, and I this morning know\nWhere we shall finde him most conueniently.      [Sidenote: convenient.]\n                                       _Exeunt._\n\n\nSCENA SECUNDA[3]\n\n\n_Enter Claudius King of Denmarke. Gertrude the\nQueene, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, and his Sister\nOphelia, Lords Attendant._[4]\n                  [Sidenote: _Florish. Enter Claudius, King of Denmarke,\n                   Gertrad the Queene, Counsaile: as Polonius, and his\n                   sonne Laertes, Hamelt Cum Abijs._]\n\n_King._ Though yet of _Hamlet_ our deere Brothers death\n                                                    [Sidenote: _Claud._]\nThe memory be greene: and that it vs befitted\nTo beare our hearts in greefe, and our whole Kingdome\nTo be contracted in one brow of woe:\nYet so farre hath Discretion fought with Nature,\nThat we with wisest sorrow thinke on him,\n\n[Footnote 1: Does it mean--_carries off any child, leaving a\nchangeling_? or does it mean--_affect with evil_, as a disease might\ninfect or _take_?]\n\n[Footnote 2: _1st Q_. 'hie mountaine top,']\n\n[Footnote 3: _In neither Q._]\n\n[Footnote 4: The first court after the marriage.]\n\n[Page 16]\n\nTogether with remembrance of our selues.\nTherefore our sometimes Sister, now our Queen,\nTh'Imperiall Ioyntresse of this warlike State,       [Sidenote: to this]\nHaue we, as 'twere, with a defeated ioy,\nWith one Auspicious, and one Dropping eye,\n                                         [Sidenote: an auspitious and a]\nWith mirth in Funerall, and with Dirge in Marriage,\nIn equall Scale weighing Delight and Dole[1]\nTaken to Wife; nor haue we heerein barr'd[2]\nYour better Wisedomes, which haue freely gone\nWith this affaire along, for all our Thankes.\n[Sidenote: 8] Now followes, that you know young _Fortinbras_,[3]\nHolding a weake supposall of our worth;\nOr thinking by our late deere Brothers death,\nOur State to be disioynt, and out of Frame,\nColleagued with the dreame of his Aduantage;[4]  [Sidenote: this dreame]\nHe hath not fayl'd to pester vs with Message,\nImporting the surrender of those Lands\nLost by his Father: with all Bonds of Law              [Sidenote: bands]\nTo our most valiant Brother. So much for him.\n\n_Enter Voltemand and Cornelius._[5]\n\nNow for our selfe, and for this time of meeting\nThus much the businesse is. We haue heere writ\nTo Norway, Vncle of young _Fortinbras_,\nWho Impotent and Bedrid, scarsely heares\nOf this his Nephewes purpose, to suppresse\nHis further gate[6] heerein. In that the Leuies,\nThe Lists, and full proportions are all made\nOut of his subiect: and we heere dispatch\nYou good _Cornelius_, and you _Voltemand_,\nFor bearing of this greeting to old Norway,          [Sidenote: bearers]\nGiuing to you no further personall power\nTo businesse with the King, more then the scope\nOf these dilated Articles allow:[7]               [Sidenote: delated[8]]\nFarewell and let your hast commend your duty.[9]\n\n[Footnote 1: weighing out an equal quantity of each.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Like _crossed_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'Now follows--that (_which_) you know--young\nFortinbras:--']\n\n[Footnote 4: _Colleagued_ agrees with _supposall_. The preceding two\nlines may be regarded as somewhat parenthetical. _Dream of\nadvantage_--hope of gain.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 6: _going; advance._ Note in Norway also, as well as in\nDenmark, the succession of the brother.]\n\n[Footnote 7: (_giving them papers_).]\n\n[Footnote 8: Which of these is right, I cannot tell. _Dilated_ means\n_expanded_, and would refer to _the scope; _delated_ means\n_committed_--to them, to limit them.]\n\n[Footnote 9: idea of duty.]\n\n[Page 18]\n\n_Volt._ In that, and all things, will we shew our duty.\n\n_King._ We doubt it nothing, heartily farewell.\n\n[Sidenote: 74]           [1]_Exit Voltemand and Cornelius._\n\nAnd now _Laertes_, what's the newes with you?\nYou told vs of some suite. What is't _Laertes_?\nYou cannot speake of Reason to the Dane,\nAnd loose your voyce. What would'st thou beg _Laertes_,\nThat shall not be my Offer, not thy Asking?[2]\nThe Head is not more Natiue to the Heart,\nThe Hand more Instrumentall to the Mouth,\nThen is the Throne of Denmarke to thy Father.[3]\nWhat would'st thou haue _Laertes_?\n\n_Laer._ Dread my Lord,                              [Sidenote: My dread]\nYour leaue and fauour to returne to France,\nFrom whence, though willingly I came to Denmarke\nTo shew my duty in your Coronation,\nYet now I must confesse, that duty done,\n[Sidenote: 22] My thoughts and wishes bend againe towards toward\nFrance,[4]\nAnd bow them to your gracious leaue and pardon.\n\n_King._ Haue you your Fathers leaue?\nWhat sayes _Pollonius_?\n\n[A] _Pol._ He hath my Lord:\nI do beseech you giue him leaue to go.\n\n_King._ Take thy faire houre _Laertes_, time be thine,\nAnd thy best graces spend it at thy will:\nBut now my Cosin _Hamlet_, and my Sonne?\n\n[Footnote A: _In the Quarto_:--\n\n_Polo._ Hath[5] my Lord wroung from me my slowe leaue\nBy laboursome petition, and at last\nVpon his will I seald my hard consent,[6]\nI doe beseech you giue him leaue to goe.]\n\n[Footnote 1: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet\nspeaking, I will hear.'--_Isaiah_, lxv. 24.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The villain king courts his courtiers.]\n\n[Footnote 4: He had been educated there. Compare 23. But it would seem\nrather to the court than the university he desired to return. See his\nfather's instructions, 38.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _H'ath_--a contraction for _He hath_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: A play upon the act of sealing a will with wax.]\n\n[Page 20]\n\n_Ham._ A little more then kin, and lesse then kinde.[1]\n\n_King._ How is it that the Clouds still hang on you?\n\n_Ham._ Not so my Lord, I am too much i'th'Sun.[2]\n                                [Sidenote: so much my ... in the sonne.]\n\n_Queen._ Good Hamlet cast thy nightly colour off,[4]\n                                                  [Sidenote: nighted[3]]\nAnd let thine eye looke like a Friend on Denmarke.\nDo not for euer with thy veyled[5] lids               [Sidenote: vailed]\nSeeke for thy Noble Father in the dust;\nThou know'st 'tis common, all that liues must dye,\nPassing through Nature, to Eternity.\n\n_Ham._ I Madam, it is common.[6]\n\n_Queen._ If it be;\nWhy seemes it so particular with thee.\n\n_Ham._ Seemes Madam? Nay, it is: I know not Seemes:[7]\n'Tis not alone my Inky Cloake (good Mother)\n                                     [Sidenote: cloake coold mother [8]]\nNor Customary suites of solemne Blacke,\nNor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,\nNo, nor the fruitfull Riuer in the Eye,\nNor the deiected hauiour of the Visage,\nTogether with all Formes, Moods, shewes of Griefe,\n                                           [Sidenote: moodes, chapes of]\nThat can denote me truly. These indeed Seeme,[9]      [Sidenote: deuote]\nFor they are actions that a man might[10] play:\nBut I haue that Within, which passeth show;           [Sidenote: passes]\nThese, but the Trappings, and the Suites of woe.\n\n_King._ 'Tis sweet and commendable\nIn your Nature _Hamlet_,\nTo giue these mourning duties to your Father:[11]\nBut you must know, your Father lost a Father,\nThat Father lost, lost his, and the Suruiuer bound\nIn filiall Obligation, for some terme\nTo do obsequious[12] Sorrow. But to perseuer\nIn obstinate Condolement, is a course\n\n[Footnote 1: An _aside_. Hamlet's first utterance is of dislike to his\nuncle. He is more than _kin_ through his unwelcome marriage--less than\n_kind_ by the difference in their natures. To be _kind_ is to behave as\none _kinned_ or related. But the word here is the noun, and means\n_nature_, or sort by birth.]\n\n[Footnote 2: A word-play may be here intended between _sun_ and _son_:\n_a little more than kin--too much i' th' Son_. So George Herbert:\n\n    For when he sees my ways, I die;\n    But I have got his _Son_, and he hath none;\n\nand Dr. Donne:\n\n                at my death thy Son\n    Shall shine, as he shines now and heretofore.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'Wintred garments'--_As You Like It_, iii. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 4: He is the only one who has not for the wedding put off his\nmourning.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _lowered_, or cast down: _Fr. avaler_, to lower.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'Plainly you treat it as a common matter--a thing of no\nsignificance!' _I_ is constantly used for _ay_, _yes_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: He pounces on the word _seems_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Not unfrequently the type would appear to have been set up\nfrom dictation.]\n\n[Footnote 9: They are things of the outside, and must _seem_, for they\nare capable of being imitated; they are the natural _shows_ of grief.\nBut he has that in him which cannot _show_ or _seem_, because nothing\ncan represent it. These are 'the Trappings and the Suites of _woe_;'\nthey fitly represent woe, but they cannot shadow forth that which is\nwithin him--a something different from woe, far beyond it and worse,\npassing all reach of embodiment and manifestation. What this something\nis, comes out the moment he is left by himself.]\n\n[Footnote 10: The emphasis is on _might_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Both his uncle and his mother decline to understand him.\nThey will have it he mourns the death of his father, though they must at\nleast suspect another cause for his grief. Note the intellectual mastery\nof the hypocrite--which accounts for his success.]\n\n[Footnote 12: belonging to _obsequies_.]\n\n[Page 22]\n\nOf impious stubbornnesse. Tis vnmanly greefe,\nIt shewes a will most incorrect to Heauen,\nA Heart vnfortified, a Minde impatient,             [Sidenote: or minde]\nAn Vnderstanding simple, and vnschool'd:\nFor, what we know must be, and is as common\nAs any the most vulgar thing to sence,\nWhy should we in our peeuish Opposition\nTake it to heart? Fye, 'tis a fault to Heauen,\nA fault against the Dead, a fault to Nature,\nTo Reason most absurd, whose common Theame\nIs death of Fathers, and who still hath cried,\nFrom the first Coarse,[1] till he that dyed to day,   [Sidenote: course]\nThis must be so. We pray you throw to earth\nThis vnpreuayling woe, and thinke of vs\nAs of a Father; For let the world take note,\nYou are the most immediate to our Throne,[2]\nAnd with no lesse Nobility of Loue,\nThen that which deerest Father beares his Sonne,\nDo I impart towards you. For your intent              [Sidenote: toward]\n[Sidenote: 18] In going backe to Schoole in Wittenberg,[3]\nIt is most retrograde to our desire:               [Sidenote: retrogard]\nAnd we beseech you, bend you to remaine\nHeere in the cheere and comfort of our eye,\nOur cheefest Courtier Cosin, and our Sonne.\n\n_Qu._ Let not thy Mother lose her Prayers _Hamlet_:    [Sidenote: loose]\nI prythee stay with vs, go not to Wittenberg.      [Sidenote: pray thee]\n\n_Ham._ I shall in all my best\nObey you Madam.[4]\n\n_King._ Why 'tis a louing, and a faire Reply,\nBe as our selfe in Denmarke. Madam come,\nThis gentle and vnforc'd accord of _Hamlet_[5]\nSits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,\nNo iocond health that Denmarke drinkes to day,\n[Sidenote: 44] But the great Cannon to the Clowds shall tell,\n\n[Footnote 1: _Corpse_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --seeking to propitiate him with the hope that his\nsuccession had been but postponed by his uncle's election.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Note that Hamlet was educated in Germany--at Wittenberg,\nthe university where in 1508 Luther was appointed professor of\nPhilosophy. Compare 19. There was love of study as well as disgust with\nhome in his desire to return to _Schoole_: this from what we know of him\nafterwards.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Emphasis on _obey_. A light on the character of Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 5: He takes it, or pretends to take it, for far more than it\nwas. He desires friendly relations with Hamlet.]\n\n[Page 24]\n\nAnd the Kings Rouce,[1] the Heauens shall bruite againe,\nRespeaking earthly Thunder. Come away.\n     _Exeunt_              [Sidenote: _Florish. Exeunt all but Hamlet._]\n\n_Manet Hamlet._\n\n[2]_Ham._ Oh that this too too solid Flesh, would melt,\n                                            [Sidenote: sallied flesh[3]]\nThaw, and resolue it selfe into a Dew:\n[Sidenote: 125,247,260] Or that the Euerlasting had not fixt\n[Sidenote: 121 _bis_] His Cannon 'gainst Selfe-slaughter. O God, O God!\n                                [Sidenote: seale slaughter, o God, God,]\nHow weary, stale, flat, and vnprofitable                [Sidenote: wary]\nSeemes to me all the vses of this world?               [Sidenote: seeme]\nFie on't? Oh fie, fie, 'tis an vnweeded Garden       [Sidenote: ah fie,]\nThat growes to Seed: Things rank, and grosse in Nature\nPossesse it meerely. That it should come to this:\n                            [Sidenote: meerely that it should come thus]\nBut two months dead[4]: Nay, not so much; not two,\nSo excellent a King, that was to this\n_Hiperion_ to a Satyre: so louing to my Mother,\nThat he might not beteene the windes of heauen    [Sidenote: beteeme[5]]\nVisit her face too roughly. Heauen and Earth\nMust I remember: why she would hang on him,           [Sidenote: should]\nAs if encrease of Appetite had growne\nBy what it fed on; and yet within a month?\nLet me not thinke on't: Frailty, thy name is woman.[6]\nA little Month, or ere those shooes were old,\nWith which she followed my poore Fathers body\nLike _Niobe_, all teares. Why she, euen she.[7]\n(O Heauen! A beast that wants discourse[8] of Reason   [Sidenote: O God]\nWould haue mourn'd longer) married with mine Vnkle,       [Sidenote: my]\n\n[Footnote 1: German _Rausch_, _drunkenness_. 44, 68]\n\n[Footnote 2: A soliloquy is as the drawing called a section of a thing:\nit shows the inside of the man. Soliloquy is only rare, not unnatural,\nand in art serves to reveal more of nature. In the drama it is the\nlifting of a veil through which dialogue passes. The scene is for the\nmoment shifted into the lonely spiritual world, and here we begin to\nknow Hamlet. Such is his wretchedness, both in mind and circumstance,\nthat he could well wish to vanish from the world. The suggestion of\nsuicide, however, he dismisses at once--with a momentary regret, it is\ntrue--but he dismisses it--as against the will of God to whom he appeals\nin his misery. The cause of his misery is now made plain to us--his\ntrouble that passes show, deprives life of its interest, and renders the\nworld a disgust to him. There is no lamentation over his father's death,\nso dwelt upon by the king; for loving grief does not crush. Far less\ncould his uncle's sharp practice, in scheming for his own election\nduring Hamlet's absence, have wrought in a philosopher like him such an\neffect. The one makes him sorrowful, the other might well annoy him, but\nneither could render him unhappy: his misery lies at his mother's door;\nit is her conduct that has put out the light of her son's life. She who\nhad been to him the type of all excellence, she whom his father had\nidolized, has within a month of his death married his uncle, and is\nliving in habitual incest--for as such, a marriage of the kind was then\nunanimously regarded. To Hamlet's condition and behaviour, his mother,\nher past and her present, is the only and sufficing key. His very idea\nof unity had been rent in twain.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _1st Q_. 'too much grieu'd and sallied flesh.' _Sallied_,\nsullied: compare _sallets_, 67, 103. I have a strong suspicion that\n_sallied_ and not _solid_ is the true word. It comes nearer the depth of\nHamlet's mood.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Two months at the present moment.]\n\n[Footnote 5: This is the word all the editors take: which is right, I do\nnot know; I doubt if either is. The word in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_,\nact i. sc. 1--\n\n    Belike for want of rain; which I could well\n    Beteem them from the tempest of mine eyes--\n\nI cannot believe the same word. The latter means _produce for_, as from\nthe place of origin. The word, in the sense necessary to this passage,\nis not, so far as I know, to be found anywhere else. I have no\nsuggestion to make.]\n\n[Footnote 6: From his mother he generalizes to _woman_. After having\nbelieved in such a mother, it may well be hard for a man to believe in\nany woman.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Q._ omits 'euen she.']\n\n[Footnote 8: the going abroad among things.]\n\n[Page 26]\n\nMy Fathers Brother: but no more like my Father,\nThen I to _Hercules_. Within a Moneth?\nEre yet the salt of most vnrighteous Teares\nHad left the flushing of her gauled eyes,             [Sidenote: in her]\nShe married. O most wicked speed, to post[1]\nWith such dexterity to Incestuous sheets:\nIt is not, nor it cannot come to good,\nBut breake my heart, for I must hold my tongue.[2]\n\n_Enter Horatio, Barnard, and Marcellus._\n                                  [Sidenote: _Marcellus, and Bernardo._]\n\n_Hor._ Haile to your Lordship.[3]\n\n_Ham._ I am glad to see you well:\n_Horatio_, or I do forget my selfe.\n\n_Hor._ The same my Lord,\nAnd your poore Seruant euer.\n\n[Sidenote: 134] _Ham._ [4]Sir my good friend,\nIle change that name with you:[5]\nAnd what make you from Wittenberg _Horatio_?[6]\n_Marcellus._[7]\n\n_Mar._ My good Lord.\n\n_Ham._ I am very glad to see you: good euen Sir.[8]\nBut what in faith make you from _Wittemberge_?\n\n_Hor._ A truant disposition, good my Lord.[9]\n\n_Ham._ I would not haue your Enemy say so;[10]     [Sidenote: not heare]\nNor shall you doe mine eare that violence,[11]       [Sidenote: my eare]\n[Sidenote: 134] To make it truster of your owne report\nAgainst your selfe. I know you are no Truant:\nBut what is your affaire in _Elsenour_?\nWee'l teach you to drinke deepe, ere you depart.[12]\n                                       [Sidenote: you for to drinke ere]\n\n_Hor._ My Lord, I came to see your Fathers Funerall.\n\n_Ham._ I pray thee doe not mock me (fellow Student) [Sidenote: pre thee]\nI thinke it was to see my Mothers Wedding.         [Sidenote: was to my]\n\n[Footnote 1: I suggest the pointing:\n\n    speed! To post ... sheets!]\n\n[Footnote 2: Fit moment for the entrance of his father's messengers.]\n\n[Footnote 3: They do not seem to have been intimate before, though we\nknow from Hamlet's speech (134) that he had had the greatest respect for\nHoratio. The small degree of doubt in Hamlet's recognition of his friend\nis due to the darkness, and the unexpectedness of his appearance.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _1st Q._ 'O my good friend, I change, &c.' This would leave\nit doubtful whether he wished to exchange servant or friend; but 'Sir,\nmy _good friend_,' correcting Horatio, makes his intent plain.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Emphasis on _that_: 'I will exchange the name of _friend_\nwith you.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'What are you doing from--out of, _away\nfrom_--Wittenberg?']\n\n[Footnote 7: In recognition: the word belongs to Hamlet's speech.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Point thus_: 'you.--Good even, sir.'--_to Barnardo, whom\nhe does not know._]\n\n[Footnote 9: An ungrammatical reply. He does not wish to give the real,\npainful answer, and so replies confusedly, as if he had been asked,\n'What makes you?' instead of, 'What do you make?']\n\n[Footnote 10: '--I should know how to answer him.']\n\n[Footnote 11: Emphasis on _you_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Said with contempt for his surroundings.]\n\n[Page 28]\n\n_Hor._ Indeed my Lord, it followed hard vpon.\n\n_Ham._ Thrift, thrift _Horatio_: the Funerall Bakt-meats\nDid coldly furnish forth the Marriage Tables;\nWould I had met my dearest foe in heauen,[1]\nEre I had euer seerie that day _Horatio_.[2]   [Sidenote: Or ever I had]\nMy father, me thinkes I see my father.\n\n_Hor._ Oh where my Lord?                            [Sidenote: Where my]\n\n_Ham._ In my minds eye (_Horatio_)[3]\n\n_Hor._ I saw him once; he was a goodly King.     [Sidenote: once, a was]\n\n_Ham._ He was a man, take him for all in all:    [Sidenote: A was a man]\nI shall not look vpon his like againe.\n\n_Hor._ My Lord, I thinke I saw him yesternight.\n\n_Ham._ Saw? Who?[4]\n\n_Hor._ My Lord, the King your Father.\n\n_Ham._ The King my Father?[5]\n\n_Hor._ Season[6] your admiration for a while\nWith an attent eare;[7] till I may deliuer\nVpon the witnesse of these Gentlemen,\nThis maruell to you.\n\n_Ham._ For Heauens loue let me heare.             [Sidenote: God's love]\n\n_Hor._ Two nights together, had these Gentlemen\n(_Marcellus_ and _Barnardo_) on their Watch\nIn the dead wast and middle of the night[8]\nBeene thus encountred. A figure like your Father,[9]\nArm'd at all points exactly, _Cap a Pe_,[10]  [Sidenote: Armed at poynt]\nAppeares before them, and with sollemne march\nGoes slow and stately: By them thrice he walkt,\n                                     [Sidenote: stately by them; thrice]\nBy their opprest and feare-surprized eyes,\nWithin his Truncheons length; whilst they bestil'd\n                                          [Sidenote: they distill'd[11]]\nAlmost to Ielly with the Act of feare,[12]\nStand dumbe and speake not to him. This to me\nIn dreadfull[13] secrecie impart they did,\nAnd I with them the third Night kept the Watch,\nWhereas[14] they had deliuer'd both in time,\n\n[Footnote 1: _Dear_ is not unfrequently used as an intensive; but 'my\ndearest foe' is not 'the man who hates me most,' but 'the man whom most\nI regard as my foe.']\n\n[Footnote 2: Note Hamlet's trouble: the marriage, not the death, nor the\nsupplantation.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --with a little surprise at Horatio's question.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Said as if he must have misheard. Astonishment comes only\nwith the next speech.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _1st Q_. 'Ha, ha, the King my father ke you.']\n\n[Footnote 6: Qualify.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _1st Q_. 'an attentiue eare,'.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Possibly, _dead vast_, as in _1st Q_.; but _waste_ as good,\nleaving also room to suppose a play in the word.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Note the careful uncertainty.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _1st Q. 'Capapea_.']\n\n[Footnote 11: Either word would do: the _distilling_ off of the animal\nspirits would leave the man a jelly; the cold of fear would _bestil_\nthem and him to a jelly. _1st Q. distilled_. But I judge _bestil'd_ the\nbetter, as the truer to the operation of fear. Compare _The Winter's\nTale_, act v. sc. 3:--\n\n    There's magic in thy majesty, which has\n\n    From thy admiring daughter took the spirits,\n    Standing like stone with thee.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Act: present influence.]\n\n[Footnote 13: a secrecy more than solemn.]\n\n[Footnote 14: 'Where, as'.]\n\n[Page 30]\n\nForme of the thing; each word made true and good,\nThe Apparition comes. I knew your Father:\nThese hands are not more like.\n\n_Ham_. But where was this?\n\n_Mar_. My Lord, vpon the platforme where we watcht.    [Sidenote: watch]\n\n_Ham_. Did you not speake to it?\n\n_Her_. My Lord, I did;\nBut answere made it none: yet once me thought\nIt lifted vp it head, and did addresse\nIt selfe to motion, like as it would speake:\nBut euen then, the Morning Cocke crew lowd;\nAnd at the sound it shrunke in hast away,\nAnd vanisht from our sight.\n\n_Ham_. Tis very strange.\n\n_Hor_. As I doe liue my honourd Lord 'tis true;\n[Sidenote: 14] And we did thinke it writ downe in our duty\nTo let you know of it.\n\n[Sidenote: 32,52] _Ham_. Indeed, indeed Sirs; but this troubles me.\n                                            [Sidenote: Indeede Sirs but]\nHold you the watch to Night?\n\n_Both_. We doe my Lord.                               [Sidenote: _All_.]\n\n_Ham_. Arm'd, say you?\n\n_Both_. Arm'd, my Lord.                               [Sidenote: _All_.]\n\n_Ham_. From top to toe?\n\n_Both_. My Lord, from head to foote.                  [Sidenote: _All_.]\n\n_Ham_. Then saw you not his face?\n\n_Hor_. O yes, my Lord, he wore his Beauer vp.\n\n_Ham_. What, lookt he frowningly?\n\n[Sidenote: 54,174] _Hor_. A countenance more in sorrow then in anger.[1]\n\n[Sidenote: 120] _Ham_. Pale, or red?\n\n_Hor_. Nay very pale.\n\n[Footnote 1: The mood of the Ghost thus represented, remains the same\ntowards his wife throughout the play.]\n\n[Page 32]\n\n_Ham._ And fixt his eyes vpon you?\n\n_Hor._ Most constantly.\n\n_Ham._ I would I had beene there.\n\n_Hor._ It would haue much amaz'd you.\n\n_Ham._ Very like, very like: staid it long? [Sidenote: Very like, stayd]\n\n_Hor._ While one with moderate hast might tell a hundred.\n                                                    [Sidenote: hundreth]\n\n_All._ Longer, longer.                               [Sidenote: _Both._]\n\n_Hor._ Not when I saw't.\n\n_Ham._ His Beard was grisly?[1] no.                 [Sidenote: grissl'd]\n\n_Hor._ It was, as I haue seene it in his life,\n[Sidenote: 138] A Sable[2] Siluer'd.\n\n_Ham._ Ile watch to Night; perchance 'twill wake againe.\n                                               [Sidenote: walke againe.]\n\n_Hor._ I warrant you it will.                     [Sidenote:  warn't it]\n\n[Sidenote: 44] _Ham._ If it assume my noble Fathers person,[3]\nIle speake to it, though Hell it selfe should gape\nAnd bid me hold my peace.  I pray you all,\nIf you haue hitherto conceald this sight;\nLet it bee treble[5] in your silence still: [Sidenote: be tenable in[4]]\nAnd whatsoeuer els shall hap to night,      [Sidenote: what someuer els]\nGiue it an vnderstanding but no tongue;\nI will requite your loues; so, fare ye well:       [Sidenote: farre you]\nVpon the Platforme twixt eleuen and twelue,\n                                         [Sidenote: a leauen and twelfe]\nIle visit you.\n\n_All._  Our duty to your Honour.   _Exeunt._\n\n_Ham._ Your loue, as mine to you: farewell.           [Sidenote: loves,]\nMy Fathers Spirit in Armes?[6] All is not well:\n[Sidenote: 30,52] I doubt some foule play: would the Night were come;\nTill then sit still my soule; foule deeds will rise,\n                                                [Sidenote: fonde deedes]\nThough all the earth orewhelm them to mens eies.\n                                           _Exit._\n\n[Footnote 1: _grisly_--gray; _grissl'd_--turned gray;--mixed with\nwhite.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The colour of sable-fur, I think.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Hamlet does not _accept_ the Appearance as his father; he\nthinks it may be he, but seems to take a usurpation of his form for very\npossible.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _1st Q_. 'tenible']\n\n[Footnote 5: If _treble_ be the right word, the actor in uttering it\nmust point to each of the three, with distinct yet rapid motion. The\nphrase would be a strange one, but not unlike Shakspere. Compare\n_Cymbeline_, act v. sc. 5: 'And your three motives to the battle,'\nmeaning 'the motives of you three.' Perhaps, however, it is only the\nadjective for the adverb: '_having concealed it hitherto, conceal it\ntrebly now_.' But _tenible_ may be the word: 'let it be a thing to be\nkept in your silence still.']\n\n[Footnote 6: Alone, he does not dispute _the idea_ of its being his\nfather.]\n\n[Page 34]\n\n\n_SCENA TERTIA_[1]\n\n\n_Enter Laertes and Ophelia_.           [Sidenote: _Ophelia his Sister._]\n\n_Laer_. My necessaries are imbark't; Farewell:     [Sidenote: inbarckt,]\nAnd Sister, as the Winds giue Benefit,\nAnd Conuoy is assistant: doe not sleepe,\n                                    [Sidenote: conuay, in assistant doe]\nBut let me heare from you.\n\n_Ophel_. Doe you doubt that?\n\n_Laer_. For _Hamlet_, and the trifling of his fauours,\n                                                     [Sidenote: favour,]\nHold it a fashion and a toy in Bloud;\nA Violet in the youth of Primy Nature;\nFroward,[2] not permanent; sweet not lasting\nThe suppliance of a minute? No more.[3]\n                                  [Sidenote: The perfume and suppliance]\n\n_Ophel_. No more but so.[4]\n\n_Laer_. Thinke it no more.\nFor nature cressant does not grow alone,\n[Sidenote: 172] In thewes[5] and Bulke: but as his Temple waxes,[6]\n                                         [Sidenote: bulkes, but as this]\nThe inward seruice of the Minde and Soule\nGrowes wide withall. Perhaps he loues you now,[7]\nAnd now no soyle nor cautell[8] doth besmerch\nThe vertue of his feare: but you must feare\n                                            [Sidenote: of his will, but]\nHis greatnesse weigh'd, his will is not his owne;[9]    [Sidenote: wayd]\nFor hee himselfe is subiect to his Birth:[10]\nHee may not, as vnuallued persons doe,\nCarue for himselfe; for, on his choyce depends\nThe sanctity and health of the weole State.\n                                  [Sidenote: The safty and | this whole]\nAnd therefore must his choyce be circumscrib'd[11]\nVnto the voyce and yeelding[12] of that Body,\nWhereof he is the Head. Then if he sayes he loues you,\nIt fits your wisedome so farre to beleeue it;\nAs he in his peculiar Sect and force[13]\n                                [Sidenote: his particuler act and place]\nMay giue his saying deed: which is no further,\n\n[Footnote 1: _Not in Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Same as _forward_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'No more' makes a new line in the _Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: I think this speech should end with a point of\ninterrogation.]\n\n[Footnote 5: muscles.]\n\n[Footnote 6: The body is the temple, in which the mind and soul are the\nworshippers: their service grows with the temple--wide, changing and\nincreasing its objects. The degraded use of the grand image is after the\ncharacter of him who makes it.]\n\n[Footnote 7: The studied contrast between Laertes and Hamlet begins\nalready to appear: the dishonest man, honestly judging after his own\ndishonesty, warns his sister against the honest man.]\n\n[Footnote 8: deceit.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'You have cause to fear when you consider his greatness:\nhis will &c.' 'You must fear, his greatness being weighed; for because\nof that greatness, his will is not his own.']\n\n[Footnote 10: _This line not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 11: limited.]\n\n[Footnote 12: allowance.]\n\n[Footnote 13: This change from the _Quarto_ seems to me to bear the mark\nof Shakspere's hand. The meaning is the same, but the words are more\nindividual and choice: the _sect_, the _head_ in relation to the body,\nis more pregnant than _place_; and _force_, that is _power_, is a fuller\nword than _act_, or even _action_, for which it plainly appears to\nstand.]\n\n[Page 36]\n\nThen the maine voyce of _Denmarke_ goes withall.\nThen weigh what losse your Honour may sustaine,\nIf with too credent eare you list his Songs;\nOr lose your Heart; or your chast Treasure open     [Sidenote: Or loose]\nTo his vnmastred[1] importunity.\nFeare it _Ophelia_, feare it my deare Sister,\nAnd keepe within the reare of your Affection;[2]\n                                            [Sidenote: keepe you in the]\nOut of the shot and danger of Desire.\nThe chariest Maid is Prodigall enough,                   [Sidenote: The]\nIf she vnmaske her beauty to the Moone:[3]\nVertue it selfe scapes not calumnious stroakes,       [Sidenote: Vertue]\nThe Canker Galls, the Infants of the Spring\n                                       [Sidenote: The canker gaules the]\nToo oft before the buttons[6] be disclos'd,    [Sidenote: their buttons]\nAnd in the Morne and liquid dew of Youth,\nContagious blastments are most imminent.\nBe wary then, best safety lies in feare;\nYouth to it selfe rebels, though none else neere.[6]\n\n_Ophe_. I shall th'effect of this good Lesson keepe,\nAs watchmen to my heart: but good my Brother        [Sidenote: watchman]\nDoe not as some vngracious Pastors doe,\nShew me the steepe and thorny way to Heauen;\nWhilst like a puft and recklesse Libertine\nHimselfe, the Primrose path of dalliance treads,\nAnd reaks not his owne reade.[7][8][9]\n\n_Laer_. Oh, feare me not.[10]\n\n_Enter Polonius_.\n\nI stay too long; but here my Father comes:\nA double blessing is a double grace;\nOccasion smiles vpon a second leaue.[11]\n\n_Polon_. Yet heere _Laertes_? Aboord, aboord for shame,\nThe winde sits in the shoulder of your saile,\nAnd you are staid for there: my blessing with you;\n                                   [Sidenote: for, there my | with thee]\n\n[Footnote 1: Without a master; lawless.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Do not go so far as inclination would lead you. Keep behind\nyour liking. Do not go to the front with your impulse.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --_but_ to the moon--which can show it so little.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Opened but not closed quotations in the _Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: The French _bouton_ is also both _button_ and _bud_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'Inclination is enough to have to deal with, let alone\nadded temptation.' Like his father, Laertes is wise for another--a man\nof maxims, not behaviour. His morality is in his intellect and for\nself-ends, not in his will, and for the sake of truth and\nrighteousness.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _1st Q_.\n\n    But my deere brother, do not you\n    Like to a cunning Sophister,\n    Teach me the path and ready way to heauen,\n    While you forgetting what is said to me,\n    Your selfe, like to a carelesse libertine\n    Doth giue his heart, his appetite at ful,\n    And little recks how that his honour dies.\n\n    'The primrose way to the everlasting bonfire.'\n    --_Macbeth_, ii. 3:\n\n    'The flowery way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire.'\n    _All's Well_, iv. 5.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'heeds not his own counsel.']\n\n[Footnote 9: Here in Quarto, _Enter Polonius._]\n\n[Footnote 10: With the fitting arrogance and impertinence of a libertine\nbrother, he has read his sister a lecture on propriety of behaviour; but\nwhen she gently suggests that what is good for her is good for him\ntoo,--'Oh, fear me not!--I stay too long.']\n\n[Footnote 11: 'A second leave-taking is a happy chance': the chance, or\noccasion, because it is happy, smiles. It does not mean that occasion\nsmiles upon a second leave, but that, upon a second leave, occasion\nsmiles. There should be a comma after _smiles_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: As many of Polonius' aphorismic utterances as are given in\nthe 1st Quarto have there inverted commas; but whether intended as\ngleanings from books or as fruits of experience, the light they throw on\nthe character of him who speaks them is the same: they show it\naltogether selfish. He is a man of the world, wise in his generation,\nhis principles the best of their bad sort. Of these his son is a fit\nrecipient and retailer, passing on to his sister their father's grand\ndoctrine of self-protection. But, wise in maxim, Polonius is foolish in\npractice--not from senility, but from vanity.]\n\n[Page 38]\n\nAnd these few Precepts in thy memory,[1]\nSee thou Character.[2] Giue thy thoughts no tongue,\n                                                  [Sidenote: Looke thou]\nNor any vnproportion'd[3] thought his Act:\nBe thou familiar; but by no meanes vulgar:[4]\nThe friends thou hast, and their adoption tride,[5]\n                                               [Sidenote: Those friends]\nGrapple them to thy Soule, with hoopes of Steele:       [Sidenote: unto]\nBut doe not dull thy palme, with entertainment\nOf each vnhatch't, vnfledg'd Comrade.[6] Beware\n                           [Sidenote: each new hatcht unfledgd courage,]\nOf entrance to a quarrell: but being in\nBear't that th'opposed may beware of thee.\nGiue euery man thine eare; but few thy voyce:      [Sidenote: thy eare,]\nTake each mans censure[7]; but reserue thy Judgement;\nCostly thy habit as thy purse can buy;\nBut not exprest in fancie; rich, not gawdie:\nFor the Apparell oft proclaimes the man.\nAnd they in France of the best ranck and station,\nAre of a most select and generous[8] cheff in that.[10]\n                                 [Sidenote: Or of a generous, chiefe[9]]\nNeither a borrower, nor a lender be;             [Sidenote: lender boy,]\nFor lone oft loses both it selfe and friend:            [Sidenote: loue]\nAnd borrowing duls the edge of Husbandry.[11]\n                                                [Sidenote: dulleth edge]\nThis aboue all; to thine owne selfe be true:\nAnd it must follow, as the Night the Day,\nThou canst not then be false to any man.[12]\nFarewell: my Blessing season[13] this in thee.\n\n_Laer_. Most humbly doe I take my leaue, my Lord.\n\n_Polon_. The time inuites you, goe, your seruants tend.\n                                                [Sidenote: time inuests]\n\n_Laer._ Farewell _Ophelia_, and remember well\nWhat I haue said to you.[14]\n\n_Ophe_. Tis in my memory lockt,\nAnd you your selfe shall keepe the key of it,\n\n_Laer_. Farewell.        _Exit Laer_.\n\n_Polon_. What ist _Ophelia_ he hath said to you?\n\n[Footnote 1: He hurries him to go, yet immediately begins to prose.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Engrave.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Not settled into its true shape (?) or, out of proportion\nwith its occasions (?)--I cannot say which.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'Cultivate close relations, but do not lie open to common\naccess.' 'Have choice intimacies, but do not be _hail, fellow! well met_\nwith everybody.' What follows is an expansion of the lesson.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'The friends thou hast--and the choice of them justified by\ntrial--'_equal to_: 'provided their choice be justified &c.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'Do not make the palm hard, and dull its touch of\ndiscrimination, by shaking hands in welcome with every one that turns\nup.']\n\n[Footnote 7: judgment, opinion.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Generosus_, of good breed, a gentleman.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _1st Q_. 'generall chiefe.']\n\n[Footnote 10: No doubt the omission of _of a_ gives the right number of\nsyllables to the verse, and makes room for the interpretation which a\ndash between _generous_ and _chief_ renders clearer: 'Are most select\nand generous--chief in that,'--'are most choice and well-bred--chief,\nindeed--at the head or top, in the matter of dress.' But without\n_necessity_ or _authority_--one of the two, I would not throw away a\nword; and suggest therefore that Shakspere had here the French idiom _de\nson chef_ in his mind, and qualifies the noun in it with adjectives of\nhis own. The Academy Dictionary gives _de son propre mouvement_ as one\ninterpretation of the phrase. The meaning would be, 'they are of a most\nchoice and developed instinct in dress.' _Cheff_ or _chief_ suggests the\nupper third of the heraldic shield, but I cannot persuade the suggestion\nto further development. The hypercatalectic syllables _of a_, swiftly\nspoken, matter little to the verse, especially as it is _dramatic_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Those that borrow, having to pay, lose heart for saving.\n\n    'There's husbandry in heaven;\n    Their candles are all out.'--_Macbeth_, ii. 1.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Certainly a man cannot be true to himself without being\ntrue to others; neither can he be true to others without being true to\nhimself; but if a man make himself the centre for the birth of action,\nit will follow, '_as the night the day_,' that he will be true neither\nto himself nor to any other man. In this regard note the history of\nLaertes, developed in the play.]\n\n[Footnote 13: --as salt, to make the counsel keep.]\n\n[Footnote 14: See _note 9, page 37_.]\n\n[Page 40]\n\n_Ophe._ So please you, somthing touching the L. _Hamlet._\n\n_Polon._ Marry, well bethought:\nTis told me he hath very oft of late\nGiuen priuate time to you; and you your selfe\nHaue of your audience beene most free and bounteous.[1]\nIf it be so, as so tis put on me;[2]\nAnd that in way of caution: I must tell you,\nYou doe not vnderstand your selfe so cleerely,\nAs it behoues my Daughter, and your Honour\nWhat is betweene you, giue me vp the truth?\n\n_Ophe._ He hath my Lord of late, made many tenders\nOf his affection to me.\n\n_Polon._ Affection, puh.  You speake like a greene Girle,\nVnsifted in such perillous Circumstance.\nDoe you beleeue his tenders, as you call them?\n\n_Ophe._ I do not know, my Lord, what I should thinke.\n\n_Polon._ Marry Ile teach you; thinke your self a Baby,\n                                                      [Sidenote: I will]\nThat you haue tane his tenders for true pay,      [Sidenote: tane these]\nWhich are not starling. Tender your selfe more dearly;\n                                                    [Sidenote: sterling]\nOr not to crack the winde of the poore Phrase,\n                                                [Sidenote: (not ... &c.]\nRoaming it[3] thus, you'l tender me a foole.[4]\n                                               [Sidenote: Wrong it thus]\n\n_Ophe._ My Lord, he hath importun'd me with loue,\nIn honourable fashion.\n\n_Polon._ I, fashion you may call it, go too, go too.\n\n_Ophe._ And hath giuen countenance to his speech,\nMy Lord, with all the vowes of Heauen.\n                           [Sidenote: with almost all the holy vowes of]\n\n[Footnote 1: There had then been a good deal of intercourse between\nHamlet and Ophelia: she had heartily encouraged him.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'as so I am informed, and that by way of caution,']\n\n[Footnote 3: --making it, 'the poor phrase' _tenders_, gallop wildly\nabout--as one might _roam_ a horse; _larking it_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'you will in your own person present me a fool.']\n\n[Page 42]\n\n_Polon_. I, Springes to catch Woodcocks.[1] I doe know\n                                                     [Sidenote: springs]\nWhen the Bloud burnes, how Prodigall the Soule[2]\nGiues the tongue vowes: these blazes, Daughter,    [Sidenote: Lends the]\nGiuing more light then heate; extinct in both,[3]\nEuen in their promise, as it is a making;\nYou must not take for fire. For this time Daughter,[4]\n                                             [Sidenote: fire, from this]\nBe somewhat scanter of your Maiden presence;       [Sidenote: something]\nSet your entreatments[5] at a higher rate,\nThen a command to parley. For Lord _Hamlet_,          [Sidenote: parle;]\nBeleeue so much in him, that he is young,\nAnd with a larger tether may he walke,                 [Sidenote: tider]\nThen may be giuen you. In few,[6] _Ophelia_,\nDoe not beleeue his vowes; for they are Broakers,\nNot of the eye,[7] which their Inuestments show:\n                                                 [Sidenote: of that die]\nBut meere implorators of vnholy Sutes,         [Sidenote: imploratators]\nBreathing like sanctified and pious bonds,\nThe better to beguile. This is for all:[8]           [Sidenote: beguide]\nI would not, in plaine tearmes, from this time forth,\nHaue you so slander any moment leisure,[9]\n[Sidenote: 70, 82] As to giue words or talke with the Lord _Hamlet_:[10]\nLooke too't, I charge you; come your wayes.\n\n_Ophe_. I shall obey my Lord.[11]     _Exeunt_.\n\n_Enter Hamlet, Horatio, Marcellus._          [Sidenote: _and Marcellus_]\n\n[Sidenote: 2] _Ham_. [12]The Ayre bites shrewdly: is it very cold?[13]\n\n_Hor_. It is a nipping and an eager ayre.\n\n_Ham_. What hower now?\n\n_Hor_. I thinke it lacks of twelue.\n\n_Mar_. No, it is strooke.\n\n_Hor_. Indeed I heard it not: then it drawes neere the season,\n                                                     [Sidenote: it then]\nWherein the Spirit held his wont to walke.\nWhat does this meane my Lord? [14]\n          [Sidenote: _A flourish of trumpets and 2 peeces goes of._[14]]\n\n[Footnote 1: Woodcocks were understood to have no brains.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _1st Q_. 'How prodigall the tongue lends the heart vowes.'\nI was inclined to take _Prodigall_ for a noun, a proper name or epithet\ngiven to the soul, as in a moral play: _Prodigall, the soul_; but I\nconclude it only an adjective used as an adverb, and the capital P a\nblunder.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --in both light and heat.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The _Quarto_ has not 'Daughter.']\n\n[Footnote 5: _To be entreated_ is _to yield_: 'he would nowise be\nentreated:' _entreatments, yieldings_: 'you are not to see him just\nbecause he chooses to command a parley.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'In few words'; in brief.]\n\n[Footnote 7: I suspect a misprint in the Folio here--that an _e_ has got\nin for a _d_, and that the change from the _Quarto_ should be _Not of\nthe dye_. Then the line would mean, using the antecedent word _brokers_\nin the bad sense, 'Not themselves of the same colour as their garments\n(_investments_); his vows are clothed in innocence, but are not\ninnocent; they are mere panders.' The passage is rendered yet more\nobscure to the modern sense by the accidental propinquity of _bonds,\nbrokers_, and _investments_--which have nothing to do with _stocks_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'This means in sum:'.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'so slander any moment with the name of leisure as to': to\ncall it leisure, if leisure stood for talk with Hamlet, would be to\nslander the time. We might say, 'so slander any man friend as to expect\nhim to do this or that unworthy thing for you.']\n\n[Footnote 10: _1st Q_.\n\n    _Ofelia_, receiue none of his letters,\n    For louers lines are snares to intrap the heart;\n    [Sidenote: 82] Refuse his tokens, both of them are keyes\n    To vnlocke Chastitie vnto Desire;\n    Come in _Ofelia_; such men often proue,\n    Great in their wordes, but little in their loue.\n\n'_men often prove such_--great &c.'--Compare _Twelfth Night_, act ii.\nsc. 4, lines 120, 121, _Globe ed.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Fresh trouble for Hamlet_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _1st Q._\n\n    The ayre bites shrewd; it is an eager and\n    An nipping winde, what houre i'st?]\n\n[Footnote 13: Again the cold.]\n\n[Footnote 14: The stage-direction of the _Q_. is necessary here.]\n\n[Page 44]\n\n[Sidenote: 22, 25] _Ham_. The King doth wake to night, and takes his\nrouse,\nKeepes wassels and the swaggering vpspring reeles,[1]\n                                         [Sidenote: wassell | up-spring]\nAnd as he dreines his draughts of Renish downe,\nThe kettle Drum and Trumpet thus bray out\nThe triumph of his Pledge.\n\n_Horat_. Is it a custome?\n\n_Ham_. I marry ist;\nAnd to my mind, though I am natiue heere,             [Sidenote: But to]\nAnd to the manner borne: It is a Custome\nMore honour'd in the breach, then the obseruance.\n[A]\n\n_Enter Ghost._\n\n_Hor_. Looke my Lord, it comes.\n\n[Sidenote: 172] _Ham_. Angels and Ministers of Grace defend vs:\n[Sidenote: 32] Be thou a Spirit of health, or Goblin damn'd,\nBring with thee ayres from Heauen, or blasts from Hell,[2]\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto:--_\n\nThis heauy headed reueale east and west[3]\nMakes vs tradust, and taxed of other nations,\nThey clip[4] vs drunkards, and with Swinish phrase\nSoyle our addition,[5] and indeede it takes\nFrom our atchieuements, though perform'd at height[6]\nThe pith and marrow of our attribute,\nSo oft it chaunces in particuler men,[7]\nThat for some vicious mole[8] of nature in them\nAs in their birth wherein they are not guilty,[8]\n(Since nature cannot choose his origin)\nBy their ore-grow'th of some complextion[10]\nOft breaking downe the pales and forts of reason\nOr by[11] some habit, that too much ore-leauens\nThe forme of plausiue[12] manners, that[13] these men\nCarrying I say the stamp of one defect\nBeing Natures liuery, or Fortunes starre,[14]\nHis[15] vertues els[16] be they as pure as grace,\nAs infinite as man may vndergoe,[17]\nShall in the generall censure[18] take corruption\nFrom that particuler fault:[19] the dram of eale[20]\nDoth all the noble substance of a doubt[21]\nTo his[22] owne scandle.]\n\n[Footnote 1: Does Hamlet here call his uncle an _upspring_, an\n_upstart_? or is the _upspring_ a dance, the English equivalent of 'the\nhigh _lavolt_' of _Troil. and Cress_. iv. 4, and governed by\n_reels_--'keeps wassels, and reels the swaggering upspring'--a dance\nthat needed all the steadiness as well as agility available, if, as I\nsuspect, it was that in which each gentleman lifted the lady high, and\nkissed her before setting her down? I cannot answer, I can only put the\nquestion. The word _swaggering_ makes me lean to the former\ninterpretation.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Observe again Hamlet's uncertainty. He does not take it for\ngranted that it is _his father's_ spirit, though it is plainly his\nform.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The Quarto surely came too early for this passage to have\nbeen suggested by the shameful habits which invaded the court through\nthe example of Anne of Denmark! Perhaps Shakspere cancelled it both\nbecause he would not have it supposed he had meant to reflect on the\nqueen, and because he came to think it too diffuse.]\n\n[Footnote 4: clepe, _call_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Same as _attribute_, two lines lower--the thing imputed to,\nor added to us--our reputation, our title or epithet.]\n\n[Footnote 6: performed to perfection.]\n\n[Footnote 7: individuals.]\n\n[Footnote 8: A mole on the body, according to the place where it\nappeared, was regarded as significant of character: in that relation, a\n_vicious mole_ would be one that indicated some special vice; but here\nthe allusion is to a live mole of constitutional fault, burrowing\nwithin, whose presence the mole-_heap_ on the skin indicates.]\n\n[Footnote 9: The order here would be: 'for some vicious mole of nature\nin them, as by their o'er-growth, in their birth--wherein they are not\nguilty, since nature cannot choose his origin (or parentage)--their\no'ergrowth of (their being overgrown or possessed by) some complexion,\n&c.']\n\n[Footnote 10: _Complexion_, as the exponent of the _temperament_, or\nmasterful tendency of the nature, stands here for _temperament_--'oft\nbreaking down &c.' Both words have in them the element of _mingling_--a\nmingling to certain results.]\n\n[Footnote 11: The connection is:\n\n    That for some vicious mole--\n    As by their o'ergrowth--\n    Or by some habit, &c.]\n\n[Footnote 12: pleasing.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Repeat from above '--so oft it chaunces,' before 'that\nthese men.']\n\n[Footnote 14: 'whether the thing come by Nature or by Destiny,'\n_Fortune's star_: the mark set on a man by fortune to prove her share in\nhim. 83.]\n\n[Footnote 15: A change to the singular.]\n\n[Footnote l6: 'be his virtues besides as pure &c.']\n\n[Footnote 17: _walk under; carry_.]\n\n[Footnote 18: the judgment of the many.]\n\n[Footnote 19: 'Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send\nforth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in\nreputation for wisdom and honour.' Eccles. x. 1.]\n\n[Footnote 20: Compare Quarto reading, page 112:\n\n    The spirit that I haue scene\n    May be a deale, and the deale hath power &c.\n\nIf _deale_ here stand for _devil_, then _eale_ may in the same edition\nbe taken to stand for _evil_. It is hardly necessary to suspect a Scotch\nprinter; _evil_ is often used as a monosyllable, and _eale_ may have\nbeen a pronunciation of it half-way towards _ill_, which is its\ncontraction.]\n\n[Footnote 21: I do not believe there is any corruption in the rest of\nthe passage. 'Doth it of a doubt:' _affects it with a doubt_, brings it\ninto doubt. The following from _Measure for Measure_, is like, though\nnot the same.\n\n    I have on Angelo imposed the office,\n    Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home\n    And yet my nature never in the fight\n    _To do in slander._\n\n'To do my nature in slander'; to affect it with slander; to bring it\ninto slander, 'Angelo may punish in my name, but, not being present, I\nshall not be accused of cruelty, which would be to slander my nature.']\n\n[Footnote 22: _his_--the man's; see _note_ 13 above.]\n\n[Page 46]\n\n[Sidenote: 112] Be thy euents wicked or charitable,\n                                                  [Sidenote: thy intent]\nThou com'st in such a questionable shape[1]\nThat I will speake to thee. Ile call thee _Hamlet_,[2]\nKing, Father, Royall Dane: Oh, oh, answer me,\n                                             [Sidenote: Dane, \u00f4 answere]\nLet me not burst in Ignorance; but tell\nWhy thy Canoniz'd bones Hearsed in death,[3]\nHaue burst their cerments; why the Sepulcher\nWherein we saw thee quietly enurn'd,[4]\n                                         [Sidenote: quietly interr'd[3]]\nHath op'd his ponderous and Marble iawes,\nTo cast thee vp againe? What may this meane?\nThat thou dead Coarse againe in compleat steele,\nReuisits thus the glimpses of the Moone,\nMaking Night hidious? And we fooles of Nature,[6]\nSo horridly to shake our disposition,[7]\nWith thoughts beyond thee; reaches of our Soules,[8]\n                                                 [Sidenote: the reaches]\nSay, why is this? wherefore? what should we doe?[9]\n\n_Ghost beckens Hamlet._\n\n_Hor._ It beckons you to goe away with it,           [Sidenote: Beckins]\nAs if it some impartment did desire\nTo you alone.\n\n_Mar._ Looke with what courteous action\nIt wafts you to a more remoued ground:                 [Sidenote: waues]\nBut doe not goe with it.\n\n_Hor._ No, by no meanes.\n\n_Ham_. It will not speake: then will I follow it.\n                                                      [Sidenote: I will]\n\n_Hor._ Doe not my Lord.\n\n_Ham._ Why, what should be the feare?\nI doe not set my life at a pins fee;\nAnd for my Soule, what can it doe to that?\nBeing a thing immortall as it selfe:[10]\nIt waues me forth againe; Ile follow it.\n\n_Hor._ What if it tempt you toward the Floud my Lord?[11]\n\n[Footnote 1: --that of his father, so moving him to question it.\n_Questionable_ does not mean _doubtful_, but _fit to be questioned_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'I'll _call_ thee'--for the nonce.]\n\n[Footnote 3: I think _hearse_ was originally the bier--French _herse_, a\nharrow--but came to be applied to the coffin: _hearsed_ in\ndeath--_coffined_ in death.]\n\n[Footnote 4: There is no impropriety in the use of the word _inurned_.\nIt is a figure--a word once-removed in its application: the sepulchre is\nthe urn, the body the ashes. _Interred_ Shakspere had concluded\nincorrect, for the body was not laid in the earth.]\n\n[Footnote 5: So in _1st Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'fooles of Nature'--fools in the presence of her\nknowledge--to us no knowledge--of her action, to us inexplicable. _A\nfact_ that looks unreasonable makes one feel like a fool. See Psalm\nlxxiii. 22: 'So foolish was I and ignorant, I was as a beast before\nthee.' As some men are our fools, we are all Nature's fools; we are so\nfar from knowing anything as it is.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Even if Shakspere cared more about grammar than he does, a\nman in Hamlet's perturbation he might well present as making a breach in\nit; but we are not reduced even to justification. _Toschaken_ (_to_ as\nGerman _zu_ intensive) is a recognized English word; it means _to shake\nto pieces_. The construction of the passage is, 'What may this mean,\nthat thou revisitest thus the glimpses of the moon, and that we so\nhorridly to-shake our disposition?' So in _The Merry Wives_,\n\n    And fairy-like to-pinch the unclean knight.\n\n'our disposition': our _cosmic structure_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'with thoughts that are too much for them, and as an\nearthquake to them.']\n\n[Footnote 9: Like all true souls, Hamlet wants to know what he is _to\ndo_. He looks out for the action required of him.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Note here Hamlet's mood--dominated by his faith. His life\nin this world his mother has ruined; he does not care for it a pin: he\nis not the less confident of a nature that is immortal. In virtue of\nthis belief in life, he is indifferent to the form of it. When, later in\nthe play, he seems to fear death, it is death the consequence of an\naction of whose rightness he is not convinced.]\n\n[Footnote 11: _The Quarto has dropped out_ 'Lord.']\n\n[Page 48]\n\nOr to the dreadfull Sonnet of the Cliffe,             [Sidenote: somnet]\nThat beetles[1] o're his base into the Sea,          [Sidenote: bettles]\n[Sidenote: 112] And there assumes some other horrible forme,[2]\n                                                      [Sidenote: assume]\nWhich might depriue your Soueraignty[3] of Reason\nAnd draw you into madnesse thinke of it?\n\n[A]\n\n_Ham._ It wafts me still; goe on, Ile follow thee.\n                                                       [Sidenote: waues]\n\n_Mar._ You shall not goe my Lord.\n\n_Ham._ Hold off your hand.                             [Sidenote: hands]\n\n_Hor._ Be rul'd, you shall not goe.\n\n_Ham._ My fate cries out,\nAnd makes each petty Artire[4] in this body,       [Sidenote: arture[4]]\nAs hardy as the Nemian Lions nerue:\nStill am I cal'd? Vnhand me Gentlemen:\nBy Heau'n, Ile make a Ghost of him that lets me:\nI say away, goe on, Ile follow thee.\n\n_Exeunt Ghost & Hamlet._\n\n_Hor._ He waxes desperate with imagination.[5]       [Sidenote: imagion]\n\n_Mar._ Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.\n\n_Hor._ Haue after, to what issue will this come?\n\n_Mar._ Something is rotten in the State of Denmarke.\n\n_Hor._ Heauen will direct it.\n\n_Mar._ Nay, let's follow him.     _Exeunt._\n\n_Enter Ghost and Hamlet._\n\n_Ham._ Where wilt thou lead me? speak; Ile go no further.\n                                                     [Sidenote: Whether]\n\n_Gho._ Marke me.\n\n_Ham._ I will.\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\nThe very place puts toyes of desperation\nWithout more motiue, into euery braine\nThat lookes so many fadoms to the sea\nAnd heares it rore beneath.]\n\n[Footnote 1: _1st Q_. 'beckles'--perhaps for _buckles--bends_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Note the unbelief in the Ghost.]\n\n[Footnote 3: sovereignty--_soul_: so in _Romeo and Juliet_, act v. sc.\n1, l. 3:--\n\n    My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The word _artery_, invariably substituted by the editors,\nis without authority. In the first Quarto, the word is _Artiue_; in the\nsecond (see margin) _arture_. This latter I take to be the right\none--corrupted into _Artire_ in the Folio. It seems to have troubled the\nprinters, and possibly the editors. The third Q. has followed the\nsecond; the fourth has _artyre_; the fifth Q. and the fourth F. have\n_attire_; the second and third Folios follow the first. Not until the\nsixth Q. does _artery_ appear. See _Cambridge Shakespeare. Arture_ was\nto all concerned, and to the language itself, a new word. That _artery_\nwas not Shakspere's intention might be concluded from its unfitness:\nwhat propriety could there be in _making an artery hardy_? The sole,\nimperfect justification I was able to think of for such use of the word\narose from the fact that, before the discovery of the circulation of the\nblood (published in 1628), it was believed that the arteries (found\nempty after death) served for the movements of the animal spirits: this\nmight vaguely _associate_ the arteries with _courage_. But the sight of\nthe word _arture_ in the second Quarto at once relieved me.\n\nI do not know if a list has ever been gathered of the words _made_ by\nShakspere: here is one of them--_arture_, from the same root as _artus,\na joint--arcere, to hold together_, adjective _arctus, tight. Arture_,\nthen, stands for _juncture_. This perfectly fits. In terror the weakest\nparts are the joints, for their _artures_ are not _hardy_. 'And you, my\nsinews, ... bear me stiffly up.' 55, 56.\n\nSince writing as above, a friend informs me that _arture_ is the exact\nequivalent of the [Greek: haphae] of Colossians ii. 19, as interpreted\nby Bishop Lightfoot--'the relation between contiguous limbs, not the\nparts of the limbs themselves in the neighbourhood of contact,'--for\nwhich relation 'there is no word in our language in common use.']\n\n[Footnote 5: 'with the things he imagines.']\n\n[Page 50]\n\n_Gho._ My hower is almost come,[1]\nWhen I to sulphurous and tormenting Flames\nMust render vp my selfe.\n\n_Ham._ Alas poore Ghost.\n\n_Gho._ Pitty me not, but lend thy serious hearing\nTo what I shall vnfold.\n\n_Ham._ Speake, I am bound to heare.\n\n_Gho._ So art thou to reuenge, when thou shalt heare.\n\n_Ham._ What?\n\n_Gho._ I am thy Fathers Spirit,\nDoom'd for a certaine terme to walke the night;[2]\nAnd for the day confin'd to fast in Fiers,[3]\nTill the foule crimes done in my dayes of Nature\nAre burnt and purg'd away? But that I am forbid\nTo tell the secrets of my Prison-House;\nI could a Tale vnfold, whose lightest word[4]\nWould harrow vp thy soule, freeze thy young blood,\nMake thy two eyes like Starres, start from their Spheres,\nThy knotty and combined locks to part,               [Sidenote: knotted]\nAnd each particular haire to stand an end,[5]\nLike Quilles vpon the fretfull[6] Porpentine    [Sidenote: fearefull[6]]\nBut this eternall blason[7] must not be\nTo eares of flesh and bloud; list _Hamlet_, oh list,\n                                        [Sidenote: blood, list, \u00f4 list;]\nIf thou didst euer thy deare Father loue.\n\n_Ham._ Oh Heauen![8]                                     [Sidenote: God]\n\n_Gho._ Reuenge his foule and most vnnaturall Murther.[9]\n\n_Ham._ Murther?\n\n_Ghost._ Murther most foule, as in the best it is;\nBut this most foule, strange, and vnnaturall.\n\n_Ham._ Hast, hast me to know it,          [Sidenote: Hast me to know't,]\nThat with wings as swift\n\n[Footnote 1: The night is the Ghost's day.]\n\n[Footnote 2: To walk the night, and see how things go, without being\nable to put a finger to them, is part of his cleansing.]\n\n[Footnote 3: More horror yet for Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 4: He would have him think of life and its doings as of awful\nimport. He gives his son what warning he may.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _An end_ is like _agape, an hungred_. 71, 175.]\n\n[Footnote 6: The word in the Q. suggests _fretfull_ a misprint for\n_frightful_. It is _fretfull_ in the 1st Q. as well.]\n\n[Footnote 7: To _blason_ is to read off in proper heraldic terms the\narms blasoned upon a shield. _A blason_ is such a reading, but is here\nused for a picture in words of other objects.]\n\n[Footnote 8: --in appeal to God whether he had not loved his father.]\n\n[Footnote 9: The horror still accumulates. The knowledge of evil--not\nevil in the abstract, but evil alive, and all about him--comes darkening\ndown upon Hamlet's being. Not only is his father an inhabitant of the\nnether fires, but he is there by murder.]\n\n[Page 52]\n\nAs meditation, or the thoughts of Loue,\nMay sweepe to my Reuenge.[1]\n\n_Ghost._ I finde thee apt,\nAnd duller should'st thou be then the fat weede[2]\n[Sidenote: 194] That rots it selfe in ease, on Lethe Wharfe,[4]\n                                                   [Sidenote: rootes[3]]\nWould'st thou not stirre in this. Now _Hamlet_ heare:\nIt's giuen out, that sleeping in mine Orchard,          [Sidenote: 'Tis]\nA Serpent stung me: so the whole eare of Denmarke,\nIs by a forged processe of my death\nRankly abus'd: But know thou Noble youth,\nThe Serpent that did sting thy Fathers life,\nNow weares his Crowne.\n\n[Sidenote: 30,32] _Ham._ O my Propheticke soule: mine Vncle?[5]\n                                                          [Sidenote: my]\n\n_Ghost._ I that incestuous, that adulterate Beast[6]\nWith witchcraft of his wits, hath Traitorous guifts.\n                                                  [Sidenote: wits, with]\nOh wicked Wit, and Gifts, that haue the power\nSo to seduce? Won to to this shamefull Lust     [Sidenote: wonne to his]\nThe will of my most seeming vertuous Queene:\nOh _Hamlet_, what a falling off was there,      [Sidenote: what failing]\nFrom me, whose loue was of that dignity,\nThat it went hand in hand, euen with[7] the Vow\nI made to her in Marriage; and to decline\nVpon a wretch, whose Naturall gifts were poore\nTo those of mine. But Vertue, as it neuer wil be moued,\nThough Lewdnesse court it in a shape of Heauen:\nSo Lust, though to a radiant Angell link'd,    [Sidenote: so but though]\nWill sate it selfe in[8] a Celestiall bed, and prey on Garbage.[9]\n                                          [Sidenote: Will sort it selfe]\nBut soft, me thinkes I sent the Mornings Ayre; [Sidenote: morning ayre,]\nBriefe let me be: Sleeping within mine Orchard,           [Sidenote: my]\nMy custome alwayes in the afternoone;                 [Sidenote: of the]\nVpon my secure hower thy Vncle stole\n\n[Footnote 1: Now, _for the moment_, he has no doubt, and vengeance is\nhis first thought.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Hamlet may be supposed to recall this, if we suppose him\nafterwards to accuse himself so bitterly and so unfairly as in the\n_Quarto_, 194.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Also _1st Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: landing-place on the bank of Lethe, the hell-river of\noblivion.]\n\n[Footnote 5: This does not mean that he had suspected his uncle, but\nthat his dislike to him was prophetic.]\n\n[Footnote 6: How can it be doubted that in this speech the Ghost accuses\nhis wife and brother of adultery? Their marriage was not adultery. See\nhow the ghastly revelation grows on Hamlet--his father in hell--murdered\nby his brother--dishonoured by his wife!]\n\n[Footnote 7: _parallel with; correspondent to_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _1st Q_. 'fate itself from a'.]\n\n[Footnote 9: This passage, from 'Oh _Hamlet_,' most indubitably asserts\nthe adultery of Gertrude.]\n\n[Page 54]\n\nWith iuyce of cursed Hebenon[1] in a Violl,           [Sidenote: Hebona]\nAnd in the Porches of mine eares did poure                [Sidenote: my]\nThe leaperous Distilment;[2] whose effect\nHolds such an enmity with bloud of Man,\nThat swift as Quick-siluer, it courses[3] through\nThe naturall Gates and Allies of the Body;\nAnd with a sodaine vigour it doth posset       [Sidenote: doth possesse]\nAnd curd, like Aygre droppings into Milke,          [Sidenote: eager[4]]\nThe thin and wholsome blood: so did it mine;\nAnd a most instant Tetter bak'd about,       [Sidenote: barckt about[5]]\nMost Lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,\nAll my smooth Body.\nThus was I, sleeping, by a Brothers hand,\nOf Life, of Crowne, and Queene at once dispatcht;  [Sidenote: of Queene]\n[Sidenote: 164] Cut off euen in the Blossomes of my Sinne,\nVnhouzzled, disappointed, vnnaneld,[6] [Sidenote: Vnhuzled, | vnanueld,]\n[Sidenote: 262] No reckoning made, but sent to my account\nWith all my imperfections on my head;\nOh horrible, Oh horrible, most horrible:\nIf thou hast nature in thee beare it not;\nLet not the Royall Bed of Denmarke be\nA Couch for Luxury and damned Incest.[7]\nBut howsoeuer thou pursuest this Act,\n                                     [Sidenote: howsomeuer thou pursues]\n[Sidenote: 30,174] Taint not thy mind; nor let thy Soule contriue\n[Sidenote: 140] Against thy Mother ought; leaue her to heauen,\nAnd to those Thornes that in her bosome lodge,\nTo pricke and sting her. Fare thee well at once;\nThe Glow-worme showes the Matine to be neere,\nAnd gins to pale his vneffectuall Fire:\nAdue, adue, _Hamlet_: remember me. _Exit_.\n                        [Sidenote: Adiew, adiew, adiew, remember me.[8]]\n\n_Ham._ Oh all you host of Heauen! Oh Earth: what els?\nAnd shall I couple Hell?[9] Oh fie[10]: hold my heart;\n                                               [Sidenote: hold, hold my]\nAnd you my sinnewes, grow not instant Old;\n\n[Footnote 1: Ebony.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _producing leprosy_--as described in result below.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _1st Q_. 'posteth'.]\n\n[Footnote 4: So also _1st Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: This _barckt_--meaning _cased as a bark cases its tree_--is\nused in _1st Q_. also: 'And all my smoothe body, barked, and tetterd\nouer.' The word is so used in Scotland still.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Husel (Anglo-Saxon)_ is _an offering, the sacrament.\nDisappointed, not appointed_: Dr. Johnson. _Unaneled, unoiled, without\nthe extreme unction_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: It is on public grounds, as a king and a Dane, rather than\nas a husband and a murdered man, that he urges on his son the execution\nof justice. Note the tenderness towards his wife that follows--more\nmarked, 174; here it is mingled with predominating regard to his son to\nwhose filial nature he dreads injury.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Q_. omits _Exit_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: He must: his father is there!]\n\n[Footnote 10: The interjection is addressed to _heart_ and _sinews_,\nwhich forget their duty.]\n\n[Page 56]\n\nBut beare me stiffely vp: Remember thee?[1]       [Sidenote: swiftly vp]\nI, thou poore Ghost, while memory holds a seate       [Sidenote: whiles]\nIn this distracted Globe[2]: Remember thee?\nYea, from the Table of my Memory,[3]\nIle wipe away all triuiall fond Records,\nAll sawes[4] of Bookes, all formes, all presures past,\nThat youth and obseruation coppied there;\nAnd thy Commandment all alone shall liue\nWithin the Booke and Volume of my Braine,\nVnmixt with baser matter; yes, yes, by Heauen:\n                                              [Sidenote: matter, yes by]\n[Sidenote: 168] Oh most pernicious woman![5]\nOh Villaine, Villaine, smiling damned Villaine!\nMy Tables, my Tables; meet it is I set it downe,[6]\n                                             [Sidenote: My tables, meet]\nThat one may smile, and smile and be a Villaine;\nAt least I'm sure it may be so in Denmarke;             [Sidenote: I am]\nSo Vnckle there you are: now to my word;[7]\nIt is; Adue, Adue, Remember me:[8] I haue sworn't.\n                              [Sidenote: _Enter Horatio, and Marcellus_]\n\n_Hor. and Mar. within_. My Lord, my Lord.         [Sidenote: _Hora._ My]\n\n_Enter Horatio and Marcellus._\n\n_Mar_. Lord _Hamlet_.\n\n_Hor_. Heauen secure him.                            [Sidenote: Heauens]\n\n_Mar_. So be it.\n\n_Hor_. Illo, ho, ho, my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Hillo, ho, ho, boy; come bird, come.[9]\n                                         [Sidenote: boy come, and come.]\n\n_Mar_. How ist't my Noble Lord?\n\n_Hor_. What newes, my Lord?\n\n_Ham_. Oh wonderfull![10]\n\n_Hor_. Good my Lord tell it.\n\n_Ham_. No you'l reueale it.                         [Sidenote: you will]\n\n_Hor_. Not I, my Lord, by Heauen.\n\n_Mar_. Nor I, my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. How say you then, would heart of man once think it?\nBut you'l be secret?\n\n[Footnote 1: For the moment he has no doubt that he has seen and spoken\nwith the ghost of his father.]\n\n[Footnote 2: his head.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The whole speech is that of a student, accustomed to books,\nto take notes, and to fix things in his memory. 'Table,' _tablet_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _wise sayings_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: The Ghost has revealed her adultery: Hamlet suspects her of\ncomplicity in the murder, 168.]\n\n[Footnote 6: It may well seem odd that Hamlet should be represented as,\nat such a moment, making a note in his tablets; but without further\nallusion to the student-habit, I would remark that, in cases where\nstrongest passion is roused, the intellect has yet sometimes an\nautomatic trick of working independently. For instance from Shakspere,\nsee Constance in _King John_--how, in her agony over the loss of her\nson, both her fancy, playing with words, and her imagination, playing\nwith forms, are busy.\n\nNote the glimpse of Hamlet's character here given: he had been something\nof an optimist; at least had known villainy only from books; at thirty\nyears of age it is to him a discovery that a man may smile and be a\nvillain! Then think of the shock of such discoveries as are here forced\nupon him! Villainy is no longer a mere idea, but a fact! and of all\nvillainous deeds those of his own mother and uncle are the worst! But\nnote also his honesty, his justice to humanity, his philosophic\ntemperament, in the qualification he sets to the memorandum, '--at least\nin Denmark!']\n\n[Footnote 7: 'my word,'--the word he has to keep in mind; his cue.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Should not the actor here make a pause, with hand uplifted,\nas taking a solemn though silent oath?]\n\n[Footnote 9: --as if calling to a hawk.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Here comes the test of the actor's _possible_: here Hamlet\nhimself begins to act, and will at once assume a _r\u00f4le_, ere yet he well\nknows what it must be. One thing only is clear to him--that the\ncommunication of the Ghost is not a thing to be shared--that he must\nkeep it with all his power of secrecy: the honour both of father and of\nmother is at stake. In order to do so, he must begin by putting on\nhimself a cloak of darkness, and hiding his feelings--first of all the\npresent agitation which threatens to overpower him. His immediate\nimpulse or instinctive motion is to force an air, and throw a veil of\ngrimmest humour over the occurrence. The agitation of the horror at his\nheart, ever working and constantly repressed, shows through the veil,\nand gives an excited uncertainty to his words, and a wild vacillation to\nhis manner and behaviour.]\n\n[Page 58]\n\n_Both_. I, by Heau'n, my Lord.[1]\n\n_Ham_. There's nere a villaine dwelling in all Denmarke\nBut hee's an arrant knaue.\n\n_Hor_. There needs no Ghost my Lord, come from the\nGraue, to tell vs this.\n\n_Ham_. Why right, you are i'th'right;                 [Sidenote: in the]\nAnd so, without more circumstance at all,\nI hold it fit that we shake hands, and part:\nYou, as your busines and desires shall point you:     [Sidenote: desire]\nFor euery man ha's businesse and desire,[2]             [Sidenote: hath]\nSuch as it is: and for mine owne poore part,              [Sidenote: my]\nLooke you, Ile goe pray.[4]              [Sidenote: I will goe pray.[3]]\n\n_Hor_. These are but wild and hurling words, my Lord.\n                                                 [Sidenote: whurling[5]]\n\n_Ham_. I'm sorry they offend you heartily:              [Sidenote: I am]\nYes faith, heartily.\n\n_Hor_. There's no offence my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Yes, by Saint _Patricke_, but there is my Lord,[6]\n                                          [Sidenote: there is _Horatio_]\nAnd much offence too, touching this Vision heere;[7]\n[Sidenote: 136] It is an honest Ghost, that let me tell you:[8]\nFor your desire to know what is betweene vs,\nO'remaster't as you may. And now good friends,\nAs you are Friends, Schollers and Soldiers,\nGiue me one poore request.\n\n_Hor_. What is't my Lord? we will.\n\n_Ham_. Neuer make known what you haue seen to night.[9]\n\n_Both_. My Lord, we will not.\n\n_Ham_. Nay, but swear't.\n\n_Hor_. Infaith my Lord, not I.[10]\n\n_Mar_. Nor I my Lord: in faith.\n\n_Ham_. Vpon my sword.[11]\n\n[Footnote 1: _Q. has not_ 'my Lord.']\n\n[Footnote 2: Here shows the philosopher.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Q. has not_ 'Looke you.']\n\n[Footnote 4: '--nothing else is left me.' This seems to me one of the\nfinest touches in the revelation of Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _1st Q_. 'wherling'.]\n\n[Footnote 6: I take the change from the _Quarto_ here to be no blunder.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Point thus_: 'too!--Touching.']\n\n[Footnote 8: The struggle to command himself is plain throughout.]\n\n[Footnote 9: He could not endure the thought of the resulting\ngossip;--which besides would interfere with, possibly frustrate, the\ncarrying out of his part.]\n\n[Footnote 10: This is not a refusal to swear; it is the oath itself:\n'_In faith I will not_!']\n\n[Footnote 11: He would have them swear on the cross-hilt of his sword.]\n\n[Page 60]\n\n_Marcell._ We haue sworne my Lord already.[1]\n\n_Ham._ Indeed, vpon my sword, Indeed.\n\n_Gho._ Sweare.[2]  _Ghost cries vnder the Stage._[3]\n\n_Ham._ Ah ha boy, sayest thou so. Art thou           [Sidenote: Ha, ha,]\nthere truepenny?[4] Come one you here this fellow\n                                          [Sidenote: Come on, you heare]\nin the selleredge\nConsent to sweare.\n\n_Hor._ Propose the Oath my Lord.[5]\n\n_Ham._ Neuer to speake of this that you haue seene.\nSweare by my sword.\n\n_Gho._ Sweare.\n\n_Ham. Hic & vbique_? Then wee'l shift for grownd,  [Sidenote: shift our]\nCome hither Gentlemen,\nAnd lay your hands againe vpon my sword,\nNeuer to speake of this that you haue heard:[6]\nSweare by my Sword.\n\n_Gho._ Sweare.[7]                       [Sidenote: Sweare by his sword.]\n\n_Ham._ Well said old Mole, can'st worke i'th' ground so fast?\n                                                 [Sidenote: it'h' earth]\nA worthy Pioner, once more remoue good friends.\n\n_Hor._ Oh day and night: but this is wondrous strange.\n\n_Ham._ And therefore as a stranger giue it welcome.\nThere are more things in Heauen and Earth, _Horatio_,\nThen are dream't of in our Philosophy But come,      [Sidenote: in your]\nHere as before, neuer so helpe you mercy,\nHow strange or odde so ere I beare my selfe;   [Sidenote: How | so mere]\n(As I perchance heereafter shall thinke meet              [Sidenote: As]\n[Sidenote: 136, 156, 178] To put an Anticke disposition on:)[8]\n                                                          [Sidenote: on]\nThat you at such time seeing me, neuer shall           [Sidenote: times]\nWith Armes encombred thus, or thus, head shake;\n                                                [Sidenote: or this head]\n\n[Footnote 1: He feels his honour touched.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The Ghost's interference heightens Hamlet's agitation. If\nhe does not talk, laugh, jest, it will overcome him. Also he must not\nshow that he believes it his father's ghost: that must be kept to\nhimself--for the present at least. He shows it therefore no\nrespect--treats the whole thing humorously, so avoiding, or at least\nparrying question. It is all he can do to keep the mastery of himself,\ndodging horror with half-forced, half-hysterical laughter. Yet is he all\nthe time intellectually on the alert. See how, instantly active, he\nmakes use of the voice from beneath to enforce his requisition of\nsilence. Very speedily too he grows quiet: a glimmer of light as to the\ncourse of action necessary to him has begun to break upon him: it breaks\nfrom his own wild and disjointed behaviour in the attempt to hide the\nconflict of his feelings--which suggests to him the idea of shrouding\nhimself, as did David at the court of the Philistines, in the cloak of\nmadness: thereby protected from the full force of what suspicion any\nabsorption of manner or outburst of feeling must occasion, he may win\ntime to lay his plans. Note how, in the midst of his horror, he is yet\nable to think, plan, resolve.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _1st Q. 'The Gost under the stage.'_]\n\n[Footnote 4: While Hamlet seems to take it so coolly, the others have\nfled in terror from the spot. He goes to them. Their fear must be what,\non the two occasions after, makes him shift to another place when the\nGhost speaks.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Now at once he consents.]\n\n[Footnote 6: In the _Quarto_ this and the next line are transposed.]\n\n[Footnote 7: What idea is involved as the cause of the Ghost's thus\ninterfering?--That he too sees what difficulties must encompass the\ncarrying out of his behest, and what absolute secrecy is thereto\nessential.]\n\n[Footnote 8: This idea, hardly yet a resolve, he afterwards carries out\nso well, that he deceives not only king and queen and court, but the\nmost of his critics ever since: to this day they believe him mad. Such\nmust have studied in the play a phantom of their own misconception, and\ncan never have seen the Hamlet of Shakspere. Thus prejudiced, they\nmistake also the effects of moral and spiritual perturbation and misery\nfor further sign of intellectual disorder--even for proof of moral\nweakness, placing them in the same category with the symptoms of the\ninsanity which he simulates, and by which they are deluded.]\n\n[Page 62]\n\nOr by pronouncing of some doubtfull Phrase;\nAs well, we know, or we could and if we would,\n                                           [Sidenote: As well, well, we]\nOr if we list to speake; or there be and if there might,\n                                               [Sidenote: if they might]\nOr such ambiguous giuing out to note,                   [Sidenote: note]\nThat you know ought of me; this not to doe:\n                                        [Sidenote: me, this doe sweare,]\nSo grace and mercy at your most neede helpe you:\nSweare.[1]\n\n_Ghost_. Sweare.[2]\n\n_Ham_. Rest, rest perturbed Spirit[3]: so Gentlemen,\nWith all my loue I doe commend me to you;\nAnd what so poore a man as _Hamlet_ is,\nMay doe t'expresse his loue and friending to you,\nGod willing shall not lacke: let vs goe in together,\nAnd still your fingers on your lippes I pray,\nThe time is out of ioynt: Oh cursed spight,[4]\n[Sidenote: 126] That euer I was borne to set it right.\nNay, come let's goe together.         _Exeunt._[5]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nSUMMARY OF ACT I.\n\n\nThis much of Hamlet we have now learned: he is a thoughtful man, a\ngenuine student, little acquainted with the world save through books,\nand a lover of his kind. His university life at Wittenberg is suddenly\ninterrupted by a call to the funeral of his father, whom he dearly loves\nand honours. Ere he reaches Denmark, his uncle Claudius has contrived,\nin an election (202, 250, 272) probably hastened and secretly\ninfluenced, to gain the voice of the representatives at least of the\npeople, and ascend the throne. Hence his position must have been an\nirksome one from the first; but, within a month of his father's death,\nhis mother's marriage with his uncle--a relation universally regarded as\nincestuous--plunges him in the deepest misery. The play introduces him\nat the first court held after the wedding. He is attired in the mourning\nof his father's funeral, which he had not laid aside for the wedding.\nHis aspect is of absolute dejection, and he appears in a company for\nwhich he is so unfit only for the sake of desiring permission to leave\nthe court, and go back to his studies at Wittenberg.[A] Left to himself,\nhe breaks out in agonized and indignant lamentation over his mother's\nconduct, dwelling mainly on her disregard of his father's memory. Her\nconduct and his partial discovery of her character, is the sole cause of\nhis misery. In such his mood, Horatio, a fellow-student, brings him word\nthat his father's spirit walks at night. He watches for the Ghost, and\nreceives from him a frightful report of his present condition, into\nwhich, he tells him, he was cast by the murderous hand of his brother,\nwith whom his wife had been guilty of adultery. He enjoins him to put a\nstop to the crime in which they are now living, by taking vengeance on\nhis uncle. Uncertain at the moment how to act, and dreading the\nconsequences of rousing suspicion by the perturbation which he could not\nbut betray, he grasps at the sudden idea of affecting madness. We have\nlearned also Hamlet's relation to Ophelia, the daughter of the selfish,\nprating, busy Polonius, who, with his son Laertes, is destined to work\nout the earthly fate of Hamlet. Of Laertes, as yet, we only know that he\nprates like his father, is self-confident, and was educated at Paris,\nwhither he has returned. Of Ophelia we know nothing but that she is\ngentle, and that she is fond of Hamlet, whose attentions she has\nencouraged, but with whom, upon her father's severe remonstrance, she is\nready, outwardly at least, to break.\n\n[Footnote A: Roger Ascham, in his _Scholemaster_, if I mistake not, sets\nthe age, up to which a man should be under tutors, at twenty-nine.]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'Sweare' _not in Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: They do not this time shift their ground, but swear--in\ndumb show.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --for now they had obeyed his command and sworn secrecy.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'cursed spight'--not merely that he had been born to do\nhangman's work, but that he should have been born at all--of a mother\nwhose crime against his father had brought upon him the wretched\nnecessity which must proclaim her ignominy. Let the student do his best\nto realize the condition of Hamlet's heart and mind in relation to his\nmother.]\n\n[Footnote: 5 This first act occupies part of a night, a day, and part of\nthe next night.]\n\n[Page 64]\n\n\n\nACTUS SECUNDUS.[1]\n\n\n_Enter Polonius, and Reynoldo._\n                 [Sidenote: _Enter old Polonius, with his man, or two._]\n\n_Polon._ Giue him his money, and these notes _Reynoldo_.[2]\n                                                  [Sidenote: this money]\n\n_Reynol._ I will my Lord.\n\n_Polon._ You shall doe maruels wisely: good _Reynoldo_,\n                                                    [Sidenote: meruiles]\nBefore you visite him you make inquiry\n                                        [Sidenote: him, to make inquire]\nOf his behauiour.[3]\n\n_Reynol._ My Lord, I did intend it.\n\n_Polon._ Marry, well said;\nVery well said. Looke you Sir,\nEnquire me first what Danskers are in Paris;\nAnd how, and who; what meanes; and where they keepe:\nWhat company, at what expence: and finding\nBy this encompassement and drift of question,\nThat they doe know my sonne: Come you more neerer[4]\nThen your particular demands will touch it,\nTake you as 'twere some distant knowledge of him,\nAnd thus I know his father and his friends,          [Sidenote: As thus]\nAnd in part him. Doe you marke this _Reynoldo_?\n\n_Reynol._ I, very well my Lord.\n\n_Polon._ And in part him, but you may say not well;\nBut if't be hee I meane, hees very wilde;\nAddicted so and so; and there put on him\nWhat forgeries you please: marry, none so ranke,\nAs may dishonour him; take heed of that:\nBut Sir, such wanton, wild, and vsuall slips,\nAs are Companions noted and most knowne\nTo youth and liberty.\n\n[Footnote 1: _Not in Quarto._\n\nBetween this act and the former, sufficient time has passed to allow the\nambassadors to go to Norway and return: 74. See 138, and what Hamlet\nsays of the time since his father's death, 24, by which together the\ninterval _seems_ indicated as about two months, though surely so much\ntime was not necessary.\n\nCause and effect _must_ be truly presented; time and space are mere\naccidents, and of small consequence in the drama, whose very idea is\ncompression for the sake of presentation. All that is necessary in\nregard to time is, that, either by the act-pause, or the intervention of\na fresh scene, the passing of it should be indicated.\n\nThis second act occupies the forenoon of one day.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _1st Q._\n\n    _Montano_, here, these letters to my sonne,\n    And this same mony with my blessing to him,\n    And bid him ply his learning good _Montano_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The father has no confidence in the son, and rightly, for\nboth are unworthy: he turns on him the cunning of the courtier, and\nsends a spy on his behaviour. The looseness of his own principles comes\nout very clear in his anxieties about his son; and, having learned the\nideas of the father as to what becomes a gentleman, we are not surprised\nto find the son such as he afterwards shows himself. Till the end\napproaches, we hear no more of Laertes, nor is more necessary; but\nwithout this scene we should have been unprepared for his vileness.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Point thus_: 'son, come you more nearer; then &c.' The\n_then_ here does not stand for _than_, and to change it to _than_ makes\nat once a contradiction. The sense is: 'Having put your general\nquestions first, and been answered to your purpose, then your particular\ndemands will come in, and be of service; they will reach to the\npoint--_will touch it_.' The _it_ is impersonal. After it should come a\nperiod.]\n\n[Page 66]\n\n_Reynol._ As gaming my Lord.\n\n_Polon._ I, or drinking, fencing, swearing,\nQuarelling, drabbing. You may goe so farre.\n\n_Reynol._ My Lord that would dishonour him.\n\n_Polon._ Faith no, as you may season it in the charge;[1]\n                                                [Sidenote: Fayth as you]\nYou must not put another scandall on him,\nThat hee is open to Incontinencie;[2]\nThat's not my meaning: but breath his faults so quaintly,\nThat they may seeme the taints of liberty;\nThe flash and out-breake of a fiery minde,\nA sauagenes in vnreclaim'd[3] bloud of generall assault.[4]\n\n_Reynol._ But my good Lord.[5]\n\n_Polon._ Wherefore should you doe this?[6]\n\n_Reynol._ I my Lord, I would know that.\n\n_Polon._ Marry Sir, heere's my drift,\nAnd I belieue it is a fetch of warrant:[7]           [Sidenote: of wit,]\nYou laying these slight sulleyes[8] on my Sonne,\n                                                  [Sidenote: sallies[8]]\nAs 'twere a thing a little soil'd i'th'working:\n                                        [Sidenote: soiled with working,]\nMarke you your party in conuerse; him you would sound,\nHauing euer seene. In the prenominate crimes,   [Sidenote: seene in the]\nThe youth you breath of guilty, be assur'd\nHe closes with you in this consequence:\nGood sir, or so, or friend, or Gentleman.\nAccording to the Phrase and the Addition,[9]   [Sidenote: phrase or the]\nOf man and Country.\n\n_Reynol._ Very good my Lord.\n\n_Polon._ And then Sir does he this?\n                            [Sidenote: doos a this a doos, what was _I_]\nHe does: what was I about to say?\nI was about to say somthing: where did I leaue?\n                                          [Sidenote: By the masse I was]\n\n_Reynol._ At closes in the consequence:\nAt friend, or so, and Gentleman.[10]\n\n[Footnote 1: _1st Q._\n\n    I faith not a whit, no not a whit,\n\n    As you may bridle it not disparage him a iote.]\n\n[Footnote 2: This may well seem prating inconsistency, but I suppose\nmeans that he must not be represented as without moderation in his\nwickedness.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Untamed_, as a hawk.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The lines are properly arranged in _Q_.\n\n    A sauagenes in vnreclamed blood,\n    Of generall assault.\n\n--that is, 'which assails all.']\n\n[Footnote 5: Here a hesitating pause.]\n\n[Footnote 6: --with the expression of, 'Is that what you would say?']\n\n[Footnote 7: 'a fetch with warrant for it'--a justifiable trick.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Compare _sallied_, 25, both Quartos; _sallets_ 67, 103; and\nsee _soil'd_, next line.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'Addition,' epithet of courtesy in address.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _Q_. has not this line]\n\n[Page 68]\n\n_Polon._ At closes in the consequence, I marry,\nHe closes with you thus. I know the Gentleman,\n                                             [Sidenote: He closes thus,]\nI saw him yesterday, or tother day;                 [Sidenote: th'other]\nOr then or then, with such and such; and as you say,\n                                                    [Sidenote: or such,]\n[Sidenote: 25] There was he gaming, there o'retooke in's Rouse,\n                                [Sidenote: was a gaming there, or tooke]\nThere falling out at Tennis; or perchance,\nI saw him enter such a house of saile;                 [Sidenote: sale,]\n_Videlicet_, a Brothell, or so forth. See you now;\nYour bait of falshood, takes this Cape of truth;\n                                             [Sidenote: take this carpe]\nAnd thus doe we of wisedome and of reach[1]\nWith windlesses,[2] and with assaies of Bias,\nBy indirections finde directions out:\nSo by my former Lecture and aduice\nShall you my Sonne; you haue me, haue you not?\n\n_Reynol._ My Lord I haue.\n\n_Polon._ God buy you; fare you well,                 [Sidenote: ye | ye]\n\n_Reynol._ Good my Lord.\n\n_Polon._ Obserue his inclination in your selfe.[3]\n\n_Reynol._ I shall my Lord.\n\n_Polon._ And let him[4] plye his Musicke.\n\n_Reynol._ Well, my Lord.        _Exit_.\n\n_Enter Ophelia_.\n\n_Polon_. Farewell:\nHow now _Ophelia_, what's the matter?\n\n_Ophe_. Alas my Lord, I haue beene so affrighted.\n                                         [Sidenote: O my Lord, my Lord,]\n\n_Polon_. With what, in the name of Heauen?\n                                           [Sidenote: i'th name of God?]\n\n_Ophe_. My Lord, as I was sowing in my Chamber,     [Sidenote: closset,]\nLord _Hamlet_ with his doublet all vnbrac'd,[5]\nNo hat vpon his head, his stockings foul'd,\nVngartred, and downe giued[6] to his Anckle,\nPale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,\nAnd with a looke so pitious in purport,\nAs if he had been loosed out of hell,\n\n[Footnote 1: of far reaching mind.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The word windlaces is explained in the dictionaries as\n_shifts, subtleties_--but apparently on the sole authority of this\npassage. There must be a figure in _windlesses_, as well as in _assaies\nof Bias_, which is a phrase plain enough to bowlers: the trying of other\ndirections than that of the _jack_, in the endeavour to come at one with\nthe law of the bowl's bias. I find _wanlass_ a term in hunting: it had\nto do with driving game to a given point--whether in part by getting to\nwindward of it, I cannot tell. The word may come of the verb wind, from\nits meaning '_to manage by shifts or expedients_': _Barclay_. As he has\nspoken of fishing, could the _windlesses_ refer to any little instrument\nsuch as now used upon a fishing-rod? I do not think it. And how do the\nwords _windlesses_ and _indirections_ come together? Was a windless some\ncontrivance for determining how the wind blew? I bethink me that a thin\nwithered straw is in Scotland called a _windlestrae_: perhaps such\nstraws were thrown up to find out 'by indirection' the direction of the\nwind.\n\nThe press-reader sends me two valuable quotations, through Latham's\nedition of Johnson's Dictionary, from Dr. H. Hammond (1605-1660), in\nwhich _windlass_ is used as a verb:--\n\n'A skilful woodsman, by windlassing, presently gets a shoot, which,\nwithout taking a compass, and thereby a commodious stand, he could never\nhave obtained.'\n\n'She is not so much at leasure as to windlace, or use craft, to satisfy\nthem.'\n\nTo _windlace_ seems then to mean 'to steal along to leeward;' would it\nbe absurd to suggest that, so-doing, the hunter _laces the wind_?\nShakspere, with many another, I fancy, speaks of _threading the night_\nor _the darkness_.\n\nJohnson explains the word in the text as 'A handle by which anything is\nturned.']\n\n[Footnote 3: 'in your selfe.' may mean either 'through the insight\nafforded by your own feelings'; or 'in respect of yourself,' 'toward\nyourself.' I do not know which is intended.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 1st Q. 'And bid him'.]\n\n[Footnote 5: loose; _undone_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: His stockings, slipped down in wrinkles round his ankles,\nsuggested the rings of _gyves_ or fetters. The verb _gyve_, of which the\npassive participle is here used, is rarer.]\n\n[Page 70]\n\nTo speake of horrors: he comes before me.\n\n_Polon._ Mad for thy Loue?\n\n_Ophe._ My Lord, I doe not know: but truly I do feare it.[1]\n\n_Polon._ What said he?\n\n_Ophe._[2] He tooke me by the wrist, and held me hard;\nThen goes he to the length of all his arme;\nAnd with his other hand thus o're his brow,\nHe fals to such perusall of my face,\nAs he would draw it. Long staid he so,                  [Sidenote: As a]\nAt last, a little shaking of mine Arme:\nAnd thrice his head thus wauing vp and downe;\nHe rais'd a sigh, so pittious and profound,\nThat it did seeme to shatter all his bulke,            [Sidenote: As it]\nAnd end his being. That done, he lets me goe,\nAnd with his head ouer his shoulders turn'd,        [Sidenote: shoulder]\nHe seem'd to finde his way without his eyes,\nFor out adores[3] he went without their helpe;        [Sidenote: helps,]\nAnd to the last, bended their light on me.\n\n_Polon._ Goe with me, I will goe seeke the King,   [Sidenote: Come, goe]\nThis is the very extasie of Loue,\nWhose violent property foredoes[4] it selfe,\nAnd leads the will to desperate Vndertakings,\nAs oft as any passion vnder Heauen,                 [Sidenote: passions]\nThat does afflict our Natures. I am sorrie,\nWhat haue you giuen him any hard words of late?\n\n_Ophe_. No my good Lord: but as you did command,\n[Sidenote: 42, 82] I did repell his Letters, and deny'de\nHis accesse to me.[5]\n\n_Pol_. That hath made him mad.\nI am sorrie that with better speed and Judgement\n                                                [Sidenote: better heede]\n[Sidenote: 83] I had not quoted[6] him. I feare he did but trifle,\n                                           [Sidenote: coted[6] | fear'd]\nAnd meant to wracke thee: but beshrew my iealousie:\n\n[Footnote 1: She would be glad her father should think so.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The detailed description of Hamlet and his behaviour that\nfollows, must be introduced in order that the side mirror of narrative\nmay aid the front mirror of drama, and between them be given a true\nnotion of his condition both mental and bodily. Although weeks have\npassed since his interview with the Ghost, he is still haunted with the\nmemory of it, still broods over its horrible revelation. That he had,\nprobably soon, begun to feel far from certain of the truth of the\napparition, could not make the thoughts and questions it had awaked,\ncease tormenting his whole being. The stifling smoke of his mother's\nconduct had in his mind burst into loathsome flame, and through her he\nhas all but lost his faith in humanity. To know his uncle a villain, was\nto know his uncle a villain; to know his mother false, was to doubt\nwomen, doubt the whole world.\n\nIn the meantime Ophelia, in obedience to her father, and evidently\nwithout reason assigned, has broken off communication with him: he reads\nher behaviour by the lurid light of his mother's. She too is false! she\ntoo is heartless! he can look to her for no help! She has turned against\nhim to curry favour with his mother and his uncle!\n\nCan she be such as his mother! Why should she not be? His mother had\nseemed as good! He would give his life to know her honest and pure.\nMight he but believe her what he had believed her, he would yet have a\nhiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest! If he could but\nknow the truth! Alone with her once more but for a moment, he would read\nher very soul by the might of his! He must see her! He would see her! In\nthe agony of a doubt upon which seemed to hang the bliss or bale of his\nbeing, yet not altogether unintimidated by a sense of his intrusion, he\nwalks into the house of Polonius, and into the chamber of Ophelia.\n\nEver since the night of the apparition, the court, from the behaviour\nassumed by Hamlet, has believed his mind affected; and when he enters\nher room, Ophelia, though such is the insight of love that she is able\nto read in the face of the son the father's purgatorial sufferings, the\npicture of one 'loosed out of hell, to speak of horrors,' attributes all\nthe strangeness of his appearance and demeanour, such as she describes\nthem to her father, to that supposed fact. But there is, in truth, as\nlittle of affected as of actual madness in his behaviour in her\npresence. When he comes before her pale and trembling, speechless and\nwith staring eyes, it is with no simulated insanity, but in the agonized\nhope, scarce distinguishable from despair, of finding, in the testimony\nof her visible presence, an assurance that the doubts ever tearing his\nspirit and sickening his brain, are but the offspring of his phantasy.\nThere she sits!--and there he stands, vainly endeavouring through her\neyes to read her soul! for, alas,\n\n                    there's no art\n    To find the mind's construction in the face!\n\n--until at length, finding himself utterly baffled, but unable, save by\nthe removal of his person, to take his eyes from her face, he retires\nspeechless as he came. Such is the man whom we are now to see wandering\nabout the halls and corridors of the great castle-palace.\n\nHe may by this time have begun to doubt even the reality of the sight he\nhad seen. The moment the pressure of a marvellous presence is removed,\nit is in the nature of man the same moment to begin to doubt; and\ninstead of having any reason to wish the apparition a true one, he had\nevery reason to desire to believe it an illusion or a lying spirit.\nGreat were his excuse even if he forced likelihoods, and suborned\nwitnesses in the court of his own judgment. To conclude it false was to\nthink his father in heaven, and his mother not an adulteress, not a\nmurderess! At once to kill his uncle would be to seal these horrible\nthings irrevocable, indisputable facts. Strongest reasons he had for not\ntaking immediate action in vengeance; but no smallest incapacity for\naction had share in his delay. The Poet takes recurrent pains, as if he\nforesaw hasty conclusions, to show his hero a man of promptitude, with\nthis truest fitness for action, that he would not make unlawful haste.\nWithout sufficing assurance, he would have no part in the fate either of\nthe uncle he disliked or the mother he loved.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _a doors_, like _an end_. 51, 175.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _undoes, frustrates, destroys_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: See quotation from _1st Quarto,_ 43.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Quoted_ or _coted: observed_; Fr. _coter_, to mark the\nnumber. Compare 95.]\n\n[Page 72]\n\nIt seemes it is as proper to our Age,        [Sidenote: By heauen it is]\nTo cast beyond our selues[1] in our Opinions,\nAs it is common for the yonger sort\nTo lacke discretion.[2] Come, go we to the King,\nThis must be knowne, which being kept close might moue\nMore greefe to hide, then hate to vtter loue.[3]       [Sidenote: Come.]\n                                     _Exeunt._\n\n\n_SCENA SECUNDA._[4]\n\n\n_Enter King, Queene, Rosincrane, and Guildensterne Cum alijs.\n               [Sidenote: Florish: Enter King and Queene, Rosencraus and\n                                                      Guyldensterne.[5]]\n\n_King._ Welcome deere _Rosincrance_ and _Guildensterne_.\nMoreouer,[6] that we much did long to see you,\nThe neede we haue to vse you, did prouoke\n[Sidenote: 92] Our hastie sending.[7] Something haue you heard\nOf _Hamlets_ transformation: so I call it,           [Sidenote: so call]\nSince not th'exterior, nor the inward man           [Sidenote: Sith nor]\nResembles that it was. What it should bee\nMore then his Fathers death, that thus hath put him\nSo much from th'understanding of himselfe,\nI cannot deeme of.[8] I intreat you both,             [Sidenote: dreame]\nThat being of so young dayes[9] brought vp with him:\nAnd since so Neighbour'd to[10] his youth,and humour,\n                                      [Sidenote: And sith | and hauior,]\nThat you vouchsafe your rest heere in our Court\nSome little time: so by your Companies\nTo draw him on to pleasures, and to gather\n[Sidenote: 116] So much as from Occasions you may gleane,\n                                                    [Sidenote: occasion]\n[A]\nThat open'd lies within our remedie.[11]\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\nWhether ought to vs vnknowne afflicts him thus,]\n\n[Footnote 1:\n\n    'to be overwise--to overreach ourselves'\n    'ambition, which o'erleaps itself,'\n    --_Macbeth_, act i. sc. 7.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Polonius is a man of faculty. His courtier-life, his\nself-seeking, his vanity, have made and make him the fool he is.]\n\n[Footnote 3: He hopes now to get his daughter married to the prince.\n\nWe have here a curious instance of Shakspere's not unfrequently\nexcessive condensation. Expanded, the clause would be like this: 'which,\nbeing kept close, might move more grief by the hiding of love, than to\nutter love might move hate:' the grief in the one case might be greater\nthan the hate in the other would be. It verges on confusion, and may not\nbe as Shakspere wrote it, though it is like his way.\n\n_1st Q._\n\n    Lets to the king, this madnesse may prooue,\n    Though wilde a while, yet more true to thy loue.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Q._ has not _Cum alijs._]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'Moreover that &c.': _moreover_ is here used as a\npreposition, with the rest of the clause for its objective.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Rosincrance and Guildensterne are, from the first and\nthroughout, the creatures of the king.]\n\n[Footnote 8: The king's conscience makes him suspicious of Hamlet's\nsuspicion.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'from such an early age'.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'since then so familiar with'.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'to gather as much as you may glean from opportunities, of\nthat which, when disclosed to us, will lie within our remedial power.'\nIf the line of the Quarto be included, it makes plainer construction.\nThe line beginning with '_So much_,' then becomes parenthetical, and _to\ngather_ will not immediately govern that line, but the rest of the\nsentence.]\n\n[Page 74]\n\n_Qu._ Good Gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of you,\nAnd sure I am, two men there are not liuing,    [Sidenote: there is not]\nTo whom he more adheres. If it will please you\nTo shew vs so much Gentrie,[1] and good will,\nAs to expend your time with vs a-while,\nFor the supply and profit of our Hope,[2]\nYour Visitation shall receiue such thankes\nAs fits a Kings remembrance.\n\n_Rosin._ Both your Maiesties\nMight by the Soueraigne power you haue of vs,\nPut your dread pleasures, more into Command\nThen to Entreatie,\n\n_Guil._ We both[3] obey,                              [Sidenote: But we]\nAnd here giue vp our selues, in the full bent,[4]\nTo lay our Seruices freely at your feete,            [Sidenote: seruice]\nTo be commanded.\n\n_King._ Thankes _Rosincrance_, and gentle _Guildensterne_.\n\n_Qu._ Thankes _Guildensterne_ and gentle _Rosincrance_,[5]\nAnd I beseech you instantly to visit\nMy too much changed Sonne.\nGo some of ye,                                           [Sidenote: you]\nAnd bring the Gentlemen where _Hamlet_ is,       [Sidenote: bring these]\n\n_Guil._ Heauens make our presence and our practises\nPleasant and helpfull to him.          _Exit_[6]\n\n_Queene._ Amen.               [Sidenote: Amen. _Exeunt Ros. and Guyld._]\n\n_Enter Polonius._\n\n[Sidenote: 18] _Pol._ Th'Ambassadors from Norwey, my good Lord,\nAre ioyfully return'd.\n\n[Footnote 1: gentleness, grace, favour.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Their hope in Hamlet, as their son and heir.]\n\n[Footnote 3: both majesties.]\n\n[Footnote 4: If we put a comma after _bent_, the phrase will mean 'in\nthe full _purpose_ or _design_ to lay our services &c.' Without the\ncomma, the content of the phrase would be general:--'in the devoted\nforce of our faculty.' The latter is more like Shakspere.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Is there not tact intended in the queen's reversal of her\nhusband's arrangement of the two names--that each might have precedence,\nand neither take offence?]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Page 76]\n\n_King._ Thou still hast bin the Father of good Newes.\n\n_Pol._ Haue I, my Lord?[1] Assure you, my good Liege,\n                                                 [Sidenote: I assure my]\nI hold my dutie, as I hold my Soule,\nBoth to my God, one to my gracious King:[2]   [Sidenote: God, and to[2]]\nAnd I do thinke, or else this braine of mine\nHunts not the traile of Policie, so sure\nAs I haue vs'd to do: that I haue found          [Sidenote: it hath vsd]\nThe very cause of _Hamlets_ Lunacie.\n\n_King._ Oh speake of that, that I do long to heare.\n                                                  [Sidenote: doe I long]\n\n_Pol._ Giue first admittance to th'Ambassadors,\nMy Newes shall be the Newes to that great Feast,\n                                          [Sidenote: the fruite to that]\n\n_King._ Thy selfe do grace to them, and bring them in.\nHe tels me my sweet Queene, that he hath found\n                                        [Sidenote: my deere Gertrard he]\nThe head[3] and sourse of all your Sonnes distemper.\n\n_Qu._ I doubt it is no other, but the maine,\nHis Fathers death, and our o're-hasty Marriage.[4]\n                                                  [Sidenote: our hastie]\n\n_Enter Polonius, Voltumand, and Cornelius._\n                                        [Sidenote: _Enter_ Embassadors.]\n\n_King._ Well, we shall sift him. Welcome good Frends:\n                                                     [Sidenote: my good]\nSay _Voltumand_, what from our Brother Norwey?\n\n_Volt._ Most faire returne of Greetings, and Desires.\nVpon our first,[5] he sent out to suppresse\nHis Nephewes Leuies, which to him appear'd\nTo be a preparation 'gainst the Poleak:            [Sidenote: Pollacke,]\nBut better look'd into, he truly found\nIt was against your Highnesse, whereat greeued,\nThat so his Sicknesse, Age, and Impotence\nWas falsely borne in hand,[6] sends[7] out Arrests\nOn _Fortinbras_, which he (in breefe) obeyes,\n\n[Footnote 1: To be spoken triumphantly, but in the peculiar tone of one\nthinking, 'You little know what better news I have behind!']\n\n[Footnote 2: I cannot tell which is the right reading; if the _Q.'s_, it\nmeans, '_I hold my duty precious as my soul, whether to my God or my\nking_'; if the _F.'s_, it is a little confused by the attempt of\nPolonius to make a fine euphuistic speech:--'_I hold my duty as I hold\nmy soul,--both at the command of my God, one at the command of my\nking_.']\n\n[Footnote 3: the spring; the river-head\n\n    'The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood'\n\n    _Macbeth,_ act ii. sc. 3.]\n\n[Footnote 4: She goes a step farther than the king in accounting for\nHamlet's misery--knows there is more cause of it yet, but hopes he does\nnot know so much cause for misery as he might know.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Either 'first' stands for _first desire_, or it is a noun,\nand the meaning of the phrase is, 'The instant we mentioned the\nmatter'.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'borne in hand'--played with, taken advantage of.\n\n    'How you were borne in hand, how cross'd,'\n\n    _Macbeth,_ act iii. sc. 1.]\n\n[Footnote 7: The nominative pronoun was not _quite_ indispensable to the\nverb in Shakspere's time.]\n\n[Page 78]\n\nReceiues rebuke from Norwey: and in fine,\nMakes Vow before his Vnkle, neuer more\nTo giue th'assay of Armes against your Maiestie.\nWhereon old Norwey, ouercome with ioy,\nGiues him three thousand Crownes in Annuall Fee,\n                                         [Sidenote: threescore thousand]\nAnd his Commission to imploy those Soldiers\nSo leuied as before, against the Poleak:           [Sidenote: Pollacke,]\nWith an intreaty heerein further shewne,\n[Sidenote: 190] That it might please you to giue quiet passe\nThrough your Dominions, for his Enterprize,         [Sidenote: for this]\nOn such regards of safety and allowance,\nAs therein are set downe.\n\n_King_. It likes vs well:\nAnd at our more consider'd[1] time wee'l read,\nAnswer, and thinke vpon this Businesse.\nMeane time we thanke you, for your well-tooke Labour.\nGo to your rest, at night wee'l Feast together.[2]\nMost welcome home.       _Exit Ambass_.\n                                          [Sidenote: Exeunt Embassadors]\n\n_Pol_. This businesse is very well ended.[3]         [Sidenote: is well]\nMy Liege, and Madam, to expostulate[4]\nWhat Maiestie should be, what Dutie is,[5]\nWhy day is day; night, night; and time is time,\nWere nothing but to waste Night, Day and Time.\nTherefore, since Breuitie is the Soule of Wit,\n                                          [Sidenote: Therefore breuitie]\nAnd tediousnesse, the limbes and outward flourishes,[6]\nI will be breefe. Your Noble Sonne is mad:\nMad call I it; for to define true Madnesse,\nWhat is't, but to be nothing else but mad.[7]\nBut let that go.\n\n_Qu_. More matter, with lesse Art.[8]\n\n_Pol_. Madam, I sweare I vse no Art at all:\nThat he is mad, 'tis true: 'Tis true 'tis pittie,  [Sidenote: hee's mad]\nAnd pittie it is true; A foolish figure,[9]\n                                         [Sidenote: pitty tis tis true,]\n\n[Footnote 1: time given up to, or filled with consideration; _or,\nperhaps_, time chosen for a purpose.]\n\n[Footnote 2: He is always feasting.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Now for _his_ turn! He sets to work at once with his\nrhetoric.]\n\n[Footnote 4: to lay down beforehand as postulates.]\n\n[Footnote 5: We may suppose a dash and pause after '_Dutie is_'. The\nmeaning is plain enough, though logical form is wanting.]\n\n[Footnote 6: As there is no imagination in Polonius, we cannot look for\ngreat aptitude in figure.]\n\n[Footnote 7: The nature of madness also is a postulate.]\n\n[Footnote 8: She is impatient, but wraps her rebuke in a compliment.\nArt, so-called, in speech, was much favoured in the time of Elizabeth.\nAnd as a compliment Polonius takes the form in which she expresses her\ndislike of his tediousness, and her anxiety after his news: pretending\nto wave it off, he yet, in his gratification, coming on the top of his\nexcitement with the importance of his fancied discovery, plunges\nimmediately into a very slough of _art_, and becomes absolutely silly.]\n\n[Footnote 9: It is no figure at all. It is hardly even a play with the\nwords.]\n\n[Page 80]\n\nBut farewell it: for I will vse no Art.\nMad let vs grant him then: and now remaines\nThat we finde out the cause of this effect,\nOr rather say, the cause of this defect;\nFor this effect defectiue, comes by cause,\nThus it remaines, and the remainder thus. Perpend,\nI haue a daughter: haue, whil'st she is mine,          [Sidenote: while]\nWho in her Dutie and Obedience, marke,\nHath giuen me this: now gather, and surmise.\n\n                   _The Letter_.[1]\n_To the Celestiall, and my Soules Idoll, the most\n                   beautified Ophelia_.\nThat's an ill Phrase, a vilde Phrase, beautified\nis a vilde Phrase: but you shall heare these in her thus in her\nexcellent white bosome, these.[2]                  [Sidenote: these, &c]\n\n_Qu_. Came this from _Hamlet_ to her.\n\n_Pol_. Good Madam stay awhile, I will be faithfull.\n_Doubt thou, the Starres are fire_,                 [Sidenote: _Letter_]\n_Doubt, that the Sunne doth moue;\nDoubt Truth to be a Lier,\nBut neuer Doubt, I loue.[3]\nO deere Ophelia, I am ill at these Numbers: I\nhaue not Art to reckon my grones; but that I loue\nthee best, oh most Best beleeue it. Adieu.\n          Thine euermore most deere Lady, whilst this\n                  Machine is to him_, Hamlet.\nThis in Obedience hath my daughter shew'd me:\n                                          [Sidenote: _Pol_. This showne]\nAnd more aboue hath his soliciting,   [Sidenote: more about solicitings]\nAs they fell out by Time, by Meanes, and Place,\nAll giuen to mine eare.\n\n_King_. But how hath she receiu'd his Loue?\n\n_Pol_. What do you thinke of me?\n\n_King_. As of a man, faithfull and Honourable.\n\n_Pol_. I wold faine proue so. But what might you think?\n\n[Footnote 1: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Point thus_: 'but you shall heare. _These, in her\nexcellent white bosom, these_:'\n\nLadies, we are informed, wore a small pocket in front of the\nbodice;--but to accept the fact as an explanation of this passage, is to\ncast the passage away. Hamlet _addresses_ his letter, not to Ophelia's\npocket, but to Ophelia herself, at her house--that is, in the palace of\nher bosom, excellent in whiteness. In like manner, signing himself, he\nmakes mention of his body as a machine of which he has the use for a\ntime. So earnest is Hamlet that when he makes love, he is the more a\nphilosopher. But he is more than a philosopher: he is a man of the\nUniverse, not a man of this world only.\n\nWe must not allow the fashion of the time in which the play was written,\nto cause doubt as to the genuine heartiness of Hamlet's love-making.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _1st Q._\n\n    Doubt that in earth is fire,\n    Doubt that the starres doe moue,\n    Doubt trueth to be a liar,\n    But doe not doubt I loue.]\n\n[Page 82]\n\nWhen I had seene this hot loue on the wing,\nAs I perceiued it, I must tell you that\nBefore my Daughter told me, what might you\nOr my deere Maiestie your Queene heere, think,\nIf I had playd the Deske or Table-booke,[1]\nOr giuen my heart a winking, mute and dumbe,         [Sidenote: working]\nOr look'd vpon this Loue, with idle sight,[2]\nWhat might you thinke? No, I went round to worke,\nAnd (my yong Mistris) thus I did bespeake[3]\nLord _Hamlet_ is a Prince out of thy Starre,[4]\nThis must not be:[5] and then, I Precepts gaue her,\n                                                [Sidenote: I prescripts]\nThat she should locke her selfe from his Resort,    [Sidenote: from her]\n[Sidenote: 42[6], 43, 70] Admit no Messengers, receiue no Tokens:\nWhich done, she tooke the Fruites of my Aduice,[7]\nAnd he repulsed. A short Tale to make,           [Sidenote: repell'd, a]\nFell into a Sadnesse, then into a Fast,[8]\nThence to a Watch, thence into a Weaknesse,       [Sidenote: to a wath,]\nThence to a Lightnesse, and by this declension   [Sidenote: to lightnes]\nInto the Madnesse whereon now he raues,              [Sidenote: wherein]\nAnd all we waile for.[9]                          [Sidenote: mourne for]\n\n_King_. Do you thinke 'tis this?[10]            [Sidenote: thinke this?]\n\n_Qu_. It may be very likely.                            [Sidenote: like]\n\n_Pol_. Hath there bene such a time, I'de fain know that,\n                                                     [Sidenote: I would]\nThat I haue possitiuely said, 'tis so,\nWhen it prou'd otherwise?\n\n_King_. Not that I know.\n\n_Pol_. Take this from this[11]; if this be otherwise,\nIf Circumstances leade me, I will finde\nWhere truth is hid, though it were hid indeede\nWithin the Center.\n\n_King_. How may we try it further?\n\n[Footnote 1: --behaved like a piece of furniture.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The love of talk makes a man use many idle words, foolish\nexpressions, and useless repetitions.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Notwithstanding the parenthesis, I take 'Mistris' to be the\nobjective to 'bespeake'--that is, _address_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Star_, mark of sort or quality; brand (45). The _1st Q_.\ngoes on--\n\n    An'd one that is vnequall for your loue:\n\nBut it may mean, as suggested by my _Reader_, 'outside thy destiny,'--as\nruled by the star of nativity--and I think it does.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Here is a change from the impression conveyed in the first\nact: he attributes his interference to his care for what befitted\nroyalty; whereas, talking to Ophelia (40, 72), he attributes it entirely\nto his care for her;--so partly in the speech correspondent to the\npresent in _1st Q_.:--\n\n    Now since which time, seeing his loue thus cross'd,\n    Which I tooke to be idle, and but sport,\n    He straitway grew into a melancholy,]\n\n[Footnote 6: See also passage in note from _1st Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: She obeyed him. The 'fruits' of his advice were her\nconformed actions.]\n\n[Footnote 8: When the appetite goes, and the sleep follows, doubtless\nthe man is on the steep slope of madness. But as to Hamlet, and how\nmatters were with him, what Polonius says is worth nothing.]\n\n[Footnote 9: '_wherein_ now he raves, and _wherefor_ all we wail.']\n\n[Footnote 10: _To the queen_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: head from shoulders.]\n\n[Page 84]\n\n_Pol_. You know sometimes\nHe walkes foure houres together, heere[1]\nIn the Lobby.\n\n_Qu_. So he ha's indeed.                    [Sidenote: he dooes indeede]\n\n[Sidenote: 118] _Pol_. At such a time Ile loose my Daughter to him,\nBe you and I behinde an Arras then,\nMarke the encounter: If he loue her not,\nAnd be not from his reason falne thereon;\nLet me be no Assistant for a State,\nAnd keepe a Farme and Carters.                     [Sidenote: But keepe]\n\n_King_. We will try it.\n\n_Enter Hamlet reading on a Booke._[2]\n\n_Qu_. But looke where sadly the poore wretch\nComes reading.[3]\n\n_Pol_. Away I do beseech you, both away,\nHe boord[4] him presently.        _Exit King & Queen_[5]\nOh giue me leaue.[6] How does my good Lord _Hamlet_?\n\n_Ham_. Well, God-a-mercy.\n\n_Pol_. Do you know me, my Lord?\n\n[Sidenote: 180] _Ham_. Excellent, excellent well: y'are a\nFish-monger.[7]                      [Sidenote: Excellent well, you are]\n\n_Pol_. Not I my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Then I would you were so honest a man.\n\n_Pol_. Honest, my Lord?\n\n_Ham_. I sir, to be honest as this world goes, is\nto bee one man pick'd out of two thousand.\n                                           [Sidenote: tenne thousand[8]]\n\n_Pol_. That's very true, my Lord.\n\n_Ham_.[9] For if the Sun breed Magots in a dead\ndogge, being a good kissing Carrion--[10]      [Sidenote: carrion. Have]\nHaue you a daughter?[11]\n\n_Pol_. I haue my Lord.\n\n[Footnote 1: _1st Q_.\n\n    The Princes walke is here in the galery,\n    There let _Ofelia_, walke vntill hee comes:\n    Your selfe and I will stand close in the study,]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Not in Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _1st Q_.--\n\n    _King_. See where hee comes poring vppon a booke.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The same as accost, both meaning originally _go to the side\nof_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _A line back in the Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'Please you to go away.' 89, 203. Here should come the\npreceding stage-direction.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Now first the Play shows us Hamlet in his affected madness.\nHe has a great dislike to the selfish, time-serving courtier, who, like\nhis mother, has forsaken the memory of his father--and a great distrust\nof him as well. The two men are moral antipodes. Each is given to\nmoralizing--but compare their reflections: those of Polonius reveal a\nlover of himself, those of Hamlet a lover of his kind; Polonius is\ninterested in success; Hamlet in humanity.]\n\n[Footnote 8: So also in _1st Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: --reading, or pretending to read, the words from the book\nhe carries.]\n\n[Footnote 10: When the passion for emendation takes possession of a man,\nhis opportunities are endless--so many seeming emendations offer\nthemselves which are in themselves not bad, letters and words affording\nas much play as the keys of a piano. 'Being a god kissing carrion,' is\nin itself good enough; but Shakspere meant what stands in both Quarto\nand Folio: _the dead dog being a carrion good at kissing_. The arbitrary\nchanges of the editors are amazing.]\n\n[Footnote 11: He cannot help his mind constantly turning upon women; and\nif his thoughts of them are often cruelly false, it is not Hamlet but\nhis mother who is to blame: her conduct has hurled him from the peak of\noptimism into the bottomless pool of pessimistic doubt, above the foul\nwaters of which he keeps struggling to lift his head.]\n\n[Page 86]\n\n_Ham_. Let her not walke i'th'Sunne: Conception[1]\nis a blessing, but not as your daughter may      [Sidenote: but as your]\nconceiue. Friend looke too't.\n\n[Sidenote: 100] _Pol_.[2] How say you by that? Still harping on\nmy daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said   [Sidenote: a sayd I]\nI was a Fishmonger: he is farre gone, farre gone:\n                      [Sidenote: Fishmonger, a is farre gone, and truly]\nand truly in my youth, I suffred much extreamity and truly\nfor loue: very neere this.  Ile speake to him\nagaine.\n\nWhat do you read my Lord?\n\n_Ham_. Words, words, words.\n\n_Pol_. What is the matter, my Lord?\n\n_Ham_. Betweene who?[3]\n\n_Pol_. I meane the matter you meane, my\n                                    [Sidenote: matter that you reade my]\nLord.\n\n_Ham_. Slanders Sir: for the Satyricall slaue\n                                      [Sidenote: satericall rogue sayes]\nsaies here, that old men haue gray Beards; that\ntheir faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thicke\nAmber, or Plum-Tree Gumme: and that they haue     [Sidenote: Amber, and]\na plentifull locke of Wit, together with weake\n                                     [Sidenote: lacke | with most weake]\nHammes. All which Sir, though I most powerfully,\nand potently beleeue; yet I holde it not\nHonestie[4] to haue it thus set downe: For you\n                  [Sidenote: for your selfe sir shall grow old as I am:]\nyour selfe Sir, should be old as I am, if like a Crab\nyou could go backward.\n\n_Pol_.[5] Though this be madnesse,\nYet there is Method in't: will you walke\nOut of the ayre[6] my Lord?\n\n_Ham_. Into my Graue?\n\n_Pol_. Indeed that is out o'th'Ayre:\n                                     [Sidenote: that's out of the ayre;]\nHow pregnant (sometimes) his Replies are?\nA happinesse,\nThat often Madnesse hits on,\nWhich Reason and Sanitie could not                  [Sidenote: sanctity]\nSo prosperously be deliuer'd of.\n\n[Footnote 1: One of the meanings of the word, and more in use then than\nnow, is _understanding_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: (_aside_).]\n\n[Footnote 3: --pretending to take him to mean by _matter_, the _point of\nquarrel_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Propriety.]\n\n[Footnote 5: (_aside_).]\n\n[Footnote 6: the draught.]\n\n[Page 88]\n\n[A] I will leaue him,\nAnd sodainely contriue the meanes of meeting\nBetweene him,[1] and my daughter.\nMy Honourable Lord, I will most humbly\nTake my leaue of you.\n\n_Ham_. You cannot Sir take from[2] me any thing,\nthat I will more willingly part withall, except my\n                          [Sidenote: will not more | my life, except my]\nlife, my life.[3]\n                      [Sidenote: _Enter Guyldersterne, and Rosencrans_.]\n\n_Polon_. Fare you well my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. These tedious old fooles.\n\n_Polon_. You goe to seeke my Lord _Hamlet_;         [Sidenote: the Lord]\nthere hee is.\n\n_Enter Rosincran and Guildensterne_.[4]\n\n_Rosin_. God saue you Sir.\n\n_Guild_. Mine honour'd Lord?\n\n_Rosin_. My most deare Lord?\n\n_Ham_. My excellent good friends? How do'st   [Sidenote: My extent good]\nthou _Guildensterne_? Oh, _Rosincrane_; good Lads:\n                                                [Sidenote: A Rosencraus]\nHow doe ye both?                                         [Sidenote: you]\n\n_Rosin_. As the indifferent Children of the earth.\n\n_Guild_. Happy, in that we are not ouer-happy: [Sidenote: euer happy on]\non Fortunes Cap, we are not the very Button.  [Sidenote:  Fortunes lap,]\n\n_Ham_. Nor the Soales of her Shoo?\n\n_Rosin_. Neither my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Then you liue about her waste, or in the\nmiddle of her fauour?                                [Sidenote: fauors.]\n\n_Guil_. Faith, her priuates, we.\n\n_Ham_. In the secret parts of Fortune? Oh,\nmost true: she is a Strumpet.[5] What's the newes?\n                                                 [Sidenote: What newes?]\n\n_Rosin_. None my Lord; but that the World's          [Sidenote: but the]\ngrowne honest.\n\n_Ham_. Then is Doomesday neere: But your\n\n[Footnote A: _In the Quarto, the speech ends thus_:--I will leaue him\nand my daughter.[6] My Lord, I will take my leaue of you.]\n\n[Footnote 1: From 'And sodainely' _to_ 'betweene him,' _not in Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: It is well here to recall the modes of the word _leave_:\n'_Give me leave_,' Polonius says with proper politeness to the king and\nqueen when he wants _them_ to go--that is, 'Grant me your _departure_';\nbut he would, going himself, _take_ his leave, his departure, _of_ or\n_from_ them--by their permission to go. Hamlet means, 'You cannot take\nfrom me anything I will more willingly part with than your leave, or, my\npermission to you to go.' 85, 203. See the play on the two meanings of\nthe word in _Twelfth Night_, act ii. sc. 4:\n\n    _Duke_. Give me now leave to leave thee;\n\nthough I suspect it ought to be--\n\n    _Duke_. Give me now leave.\n\n    _Clown_. To leave thee!--Now, the melancholy &c.]\n\n[Footnote 3: It is a relief to him to speak the truth under the cloak of\nmadness--ravingly. He has no one to whom to open his heart: what lies\nthere he feels too terrible for even the eye of Horatio. He has not\napparently told him as yet more than the tale of his father's murder.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Above, in Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: In this and all like utterances of Hamlet, we see what worm\nit is that lies gnawing at his heart.]\n\n[Footnote 6: This is a slip in the _Quarto_--rectified in the _Folio_:\nhis daughter was not present.]\n\n[Page 90]\n\nnewes is not true.[1] [2] Let me question more in particular:\nwhat haue you my good friends, deserued\nat the hands of Fortune, that she sends you to\nPrison hither?\n\n_Guil_. Prison, my Lord?\n\n_Ham_. Denmark's a Prison.\n\n_Rosin_. Then is the World one.\n\n_Ham_. A goodly one, in which there are many\nConfines, Wards, and Dungeons; _Denmarke_ being\none o'th'worst.\n\n_Rosin_. We thinke not so my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Why then 'tis none to you; for there is\nnothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it\nso[3]: to me it is a prison.\n\n_Rosin_. Why then your Ambition makes it one:\n'tis too narrow for your minde.[4]\n\n_Ham_. O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell,\nand count my selfe a King of infinite space; were\nit not that I haue bad dreames.\n\n_Guil_. Which dreames indeed are Ambition:\nfor the very substance[5] of the Ambitious, is meerely\nthe shadow of a Dreame.\n\n_Ham_. A dreame it selfe is but a shadow.\n\n_Rosin_. Truely, and I hold Ambition of so ayry\nand light a quality, that it is but a shadowes shadow.\n\n_Ham_. Then are our Beggers bodies; and our\nMonarchs and out-stretcht Heroes the Beggers\nShadowes: shall wee to th'Court: for, by my fey[6]\nI cannot reason?[7]\n\n_Both_. Wee'l wait vpon you.\n\n_Ham_. No such matter.[8] I will not sort you\nwith the rest of my seruants: for to speake to you\nlike an honest man: I am most dreadfully attended;[9]\nbut in the beaten way of friendship,[10]              [Sidenote: But in]\n\nWhat make you at _Elsonower_?\n\n[Footnote 1: 'it is not true that the world is grown honest': he doubts\nthemselves. His eye is sharper because his heart is sorer since he left\nWittenberg. He proceeds to examine them.]\n\n[Footnote 2: This passage, beginning with 'Let me question,' and ending\nwith 'dreadfully attended,' is not in the _Quarto_.\n\nWho inserted in the Folio this and other passages? Was it or was it not\nShakspere? Beyond a doubt they are Shakspere's all. Then who omitted\nthose omitted? Was Shakspere incapable of refusing any of his own work?\nOr would these editors, who profess to have all opportunity, and who,\nbelonging to the theatre, must have had the best of opportunities, have\ndesired or dared to omit what far more painstaking editors have since\npresumed, though out of reverence, to restore?]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'but it is thinking that makes it so:']\n\n[Footnote 4: --feeling after the cause of Hamlet's strangeness, and\nfollowing the readiest suggestion, that of chagrin at missing the\nsuccession.]\n\n[Footnote 5: objects and aims.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _foi_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Does he choose beggars as the representatives of substance\nbecause they lack ambition--that being shadow? Or does he take them as\nthe shadows of humanity, that, following Rosincrance, he may get their\nshadows, the shadows therefore of shadows, to parallel _monarchs_ and\n_heroes_? But he is not satisfied with his own analogue--therefore will\nto the court, where good logic is not wanted--where indeed he knows a\nhellish lack of reason.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'On no account.']\n\n[Footnote 9: 'I have very bad servants.' Perhaps he judges his servants\nspies upon him. Or might he mean that he was _haunted with bad\nthoughts_? Or again, is it a stroke of his pretence of\nmadness--suggesting imaginary followers?]\n\n[Footnote: 10: 'to speak plainly, as old friends.']\n\n[Page 92]\n\n_Rosin_. To visit you my Lord, no other occasion.\n\n_Ham_. Begger that I am, I am euen poore in    [Sidenote: am ever poore]\nthankes; but I thanke you: and sure deare friends\nmy thanks are too deare a halfepeny[1]; were you\n[Sidenote: 72] not sent for? Is it your owne inclining? Is it a\nfree visitation?[2] Come, deale iustly with me:\ncome, come; nay speake.                          [Sidenote: come, come,]\n\n_Guil_. What should we say my Lord?[3]\n\n_Ham_. Why any thing. But to the purpose;\n                                [Sidenote: Any thing but to'th purpose:]\nyou were sent for; and there is a kinde confession\n                                          [Sidenote: kind of confession]\nin your lookes; which your modesties haue not\ncraft enough to color, I know the good King and\n[Sidenote: 72] Queene haue sent for you.\n\n_Rosin_. To what end my Lord?\n\n_Ham_. That you must teach me: but let mee\nconiure[4] you by the rights of our fellowship, by\nthe consonancy of our youth,[5] by the Obligation\nof our euer-preserued loue, and by what more\ndeare, a better proposer could charge you withall;       [Sidenote: can]\nbe euen and direct with me, whether you were sent\nfor or no.\n\n_Rosin_. What say you?[6]\n\n_Ham_. Nay then I haue an eye of you[7]: if you\nloue me hold not off.[8]\n\n[Sidenote: 72] _Guil_. My Lord, we were sent for.\n\n_Ham_. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation\npreuent your discouery of your secricie to [Sidenote: discovery, and\n          your secrecie to the King and Queene moult no feather,[10]]\nthe King and Queene[9] moult no feather, I haue\n[Sidenote: 116] of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my\nmirth, forgone all custome of exercise; and indeed,\n                                                  [Sidenote: exercises;]\nit goes so heauenly with my disposition; that this   [Sidenote: heauily]\ngoodly frame the Earth, seemes to me a sterrill\nPromontory; this most excellent Canopy the Ayre,\nlook you, this braue ore-hanging, this Maiesticall\n                                       [Sidenote: orehanging firmament,]\nRoofe, fretted with golden fire: why, it appeares no\n                                                   [Sidenote: appeareth]\n\n[Footnote 1: --because they were by no means hearty thanks.]\n\n[Footnote 2: He wants to know whether they are in his uncle's employment\nand favour; whether they pay court to himself for his uncle's ends.]\n\n[Footnote 3: He has no answer ready.]\n\n[Footnote 4: He will not cast them from him without trying a direct\nappeal to their old friendship for plain dealing. This must be\nremembered in relation to his treatment of them afterwards. He affords\nthem every chance of acting truly--conjuring them to honesty--giving\nthem a push towards repentance.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Either, 'the harmony of our young days,' or, 'the\nsympathies of our present youth.']\n\n[Footnote 6: --_to Guildenstern_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: (_aside_) 'I will keep an eye upon you;'.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'do not hold back.']\n\n[Footnote 9: The _Quarto_ seems here to have the right reading.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'your promise of secrecy remain intact;'.]\n\n[Page 94]\n\nother thing to mee, then a foule and pestilent congregation\n                                         [Sidenote: nothing to me but a]\nof vapours. What a piece of worke is              [Sidenote: what peece]\na man! how Noble in Reason? how infinite in\nfaculty? in forme and mouing how expresse and     [Sidenote: faculties,]\nadmirable? in Action, how like an Angel? in apprehension,\nhow like a God? the beauty of the\nworld, the Parragon of Animals; and yet to me,\nwhat is this Quintessence of Dust? Man delights\nnot me;[1] no, nor Woman neither; though by your\n                                           [Sidenote: not me, nor women]\nsmiling you seeme to say so.[2]\n\n_Rosin._ My Lord, there was no such stuffe in\nmy thoughts.\n\n_Ham._ Why did you laugh, when I said, Man\n                                        [Sidenote: yee laugh then, when]\ndelights not me?\n\n_Rosin._ To thinke, my Lord, if you delight not\nin Man, what Lenton entertainment the Players\nshall receiue from you:[3] wee coated them[4] on the\nway, and hither are they comming to offer you\nSeruice.\n\n_Ham._[5] He that playes the King shall be welcome;\nhis Maiesty shall haue Tribute of mee:                [Sidenote: on me,]\nthe aduenturous Knight shal vse his Foyle and\nTarget: the Louer shall not sigh _gratis_, the\nhumorous man[6] shall end his part in peace: [7] the\nClowne shall make those laugh whose lungs are\ntickled a'th' sere:[8] and the Lady shall say her\nminde freely; or the blanke Verse shall halt for't[9]:\n                                                 [Sidenote: black verse]\nwhat Players are they?\n\n_Rosin._ Euen those you Were wont to take\n                                           [Sidenote: take such delight]\ndelight in the Tragedians of the City.\n\n_Ham._ How chances it they trauaile? their residence\nboth in reputation and profit was better both\nwayes.\n\n_Rosin._ I thinke their Inhibition comes by the\nmeanes of the late Innouation?[10]\n\n[Footnote 1: A genuine description, so far as it goes, of the state of\nHamlet's mind. But he does not reveal the operating cause--his loss of\nfaith in women, which has taken the whole poetic element out of heaven,\nearth, and humanity: he would have his uncle's spies attribute his\ncondition to mere melancholy.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --said angrily, I think.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --a ready-witted subterfuge.]\n\n[Footnote 4: came alongside of them; got up with them; apparently rather\nfrom Fr. _c\u00f4t\u00e9_ than _coter_; like _accost_. Compare 71. But I suspect\nit only means _noted_, _observed_, and is from _coter_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: --_with humorous imitation, perhaps, of each of the\ncharacters_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: --the man with a whim.]\n\n[Footnote 7: This part of the speech--from [7] to [8], is not in the\n_Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Halliwell gives a quotation in which the touch-hole of a\npistol is called the _sere_: the _sere_, then, of the lungs would mean\nthe opening of the lungs--the part with which we laugh: those 'whose\nlungs are tickled a' th' sere,' are such as are ready to laugh on the\nleast provocation: _tickled_--_irritable, ticklish_--ready to laugh, as\nanother might be to cough. 'Tickled o' the sere' was a common phrase,\nsignifying, thus, _propense_.\n\n    _1st Q._ The clowne shall make them laugh\n    That are tickled in the lungs,]\n\n[Footnote 9: Does this refer to the pause that expresses the\nunutterable? or to the ruin of the measure of the verse by an\nincompetent heroine?]\n\n[Footnote 10: Does this mean, 'I think their prohibition comes through\nthe late innovation,'--of the children's acting; or, 'I think they are\nprevented from staying at home by the late new measures,'--such, namely,\nas came of the puritan opposition to stage-plays? This had grown so\nstrong, that, in 1600, the Privy Council issued an order restricting the\nnumber of theatres in London to two: by such an _innovation_ a number of\nplayers might well be driven to the country.]\n\n[Page 96]\n\n_Ham_. Doe they hold the same estimation they\ndid when I was in the City? Are they so follow'd?\n\n_Rosin_. No indeed, they are not.              [Sidenote: are they not.]\n\n[1]_Ham_. How comes it? doe they grow rusty?\n\n_Rosin_. Nay, their indeauour keepes in the\nwonted pace; But there is Sir an ayrie of Children,[2]\nlittle Yases,[3] that crye out[4] on the top of question;[5]\nand are most tyrannically clap't for't: these are\nnow the fashion, and so be-ratled the common\nStages[6] (so they call them) that many wearing\nRapiers,[7] are affraide of Goose-quils, and dare\nscarse come thither.[8]\n\n_Ham_. What are they Children? Who maintains\n'em? How are they escoted?[9] Will they pursue\nthe Quality[10] no longer then they can sing?[11] Will\nthey not say afterwards if they should grow themselues\nto common Players (as it is like most[12] if\ntheir meanes are no better) their Writers[13] do them\nwrong, to make them exclaim against their owne\nSuccession.[14]\n\n_Rosin_. Faith there ha's bene much to do on\nboth sides: and the Nation holds it no sinne, to\ntarre them[15] to Controuersie. There was for a\nwhile, no mony bid for argument, vnlesse the Poet\nand the Player went to Cuffes in the Question.[16]\n\n_Ham_. Is't possible?\n\n_Guild_. Oh there ha's beene much throwing\nabout of Braines.\n\n_Ham_. Do the Boyes carry it away?[17]\n\n_Rosin_. I that they do my Lord, _Hercules_ and\nhis load too.[18]\n\n_Ham_. It is not strange: for mine Vnckle is\n                                      [Sidenote: not very strange, | my]\nKing of Denmarke, and those that would make\nmowes at him while my Father liued; giue twenty,\n                                                 [Sidenote: make mouths]\n\n[Footnote 1: The whole of the following passage, beginning with 'How\ncomes it,' and ending with 'Hercules and his load too,' belongs to the\n_Folio_ alone--is not in the _Quarto_.\n\nIn the _1st Quarto_ we find the germ of the passage--unrepresented in\nthe _2nd_, developed in the _Folio_.\n\n    _Ham_. Players, what Players be they?\n\n    _Ross_. My Lord, the Tragedians of the Citty,\n    Those that you tooke delight to see so often.\n\n    _Ham_. How comes it that they trauell? Do\n    they grow restie?\n\n    _Gil_. No my Lord, their reputation holds as it was wont.\n\n    _Ham_. How then?\n\n    _Gil_. Yfaith my Lord, noueltie carries it away,\n    For the principall publike audience that\n    Came to them, are turned to priuate playes,[19]\n    And to the humour[20] of children.\n\n    _Ham_. I doe not greatly wonder of it,\n    For those that would make mops and moes\n    At my vncle, when my father liued, &c.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _a nest of children_. The acting of the children of two or\nthree of the chief choirs had become the rage.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Eyases_--unfledged hawks.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Children _cry out_ rather than _speak_ on the stage.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'cry out beyond dispute'--_unquestionably_; 'cry out and no\nmistake.' 'He does not top his part.' _The Rehearsal_, iii. 1.--'_He is\nnot up to it_.' But perhaps here is intended _above reason_: 'they cry\nout excessively, excruciatingly.' 103.\n\nThis said, in top of rage the lines she rents,--_A Lover's Complaint_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: I presume it should be the present tense, _beratle_--except\nthe _are_ of the preceding member be understood: 'and so beratled _are_\nthe common stages.' If the _present_, then the children 'so abuse the\ngrown players,'--in the pieces they acted, particularly in the new\n_arguments_, written for them--whence the reference to _goose-quills_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --of the play-going public.]\n\n[Footnote 8: --for dread of sharing in the ridicule.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _paid_--from the French _escot_, a shot or reckoning: _Dr.\nJohnson_.]\n\n[Footnote 10: --the quality of players; the profession of the stage.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'Will they cease playing when their voices change?']\n\n[Footnote 12: Either _will_ should follow here, or _like_ and _most_\nmust change places.]\n\n[Footnote 13: 'those that write for them'.]\n\n[Footnote 14: --what they had had to come to themselves.]\n\n[Footnote 15: 'to incite the children and the grown players to\ncontroversy': _to tarre them on like dogs_: see _King John_, iv. 1.]\n\n[Footnote 16: 'No stage-manager would buy a new argument, or prologue,\nto a play, unless the dramatist and one of the actors were therein\nrepresented as falling out on the question of the relative claims of the\nchildren and adult actors.']\n\n[Footnote 17: 'Have the boys the best of it?']\n\n[Footnote 18: 'That they have, out and away.' Steevens suggests that\nallusion is here made to the sign of the Globe Theatre--Hercules bearing\nthe world for Atlas.]\n\n[Footnote 19: amateur-plays.]\n\n[Footnote 20: whimsical fashion.]\n\n[Page 98]\n\nforty, an hundred Ducates a peece, for his picture[1]\n                                    [Sidenote: fortie, fifty, a hundred]\nin Little.[2] There is something in this more then\n                                    [Sidenote: little, s'bloud there is]\nNaturall, if Philosophic could finde it out.\n\n_Flourish for tke Players_.[3]                  [Sidenote: _A Florish_.]\n\n_Guil_. There are the Players.\n\n_Ham_. Gentlemen, you are welcom to _Elsonower_:\nyour hands, come: The appurtenance of         [Sidenote: come then, th']\nWelcome, is Fashion and Ceremony. Let me\n[Sidenote: 260] comply with you in the Garbe,[4] lest my extent[5] to\n                                 [Sidenote: in this garb: let me extent]\nthe Players (which I tell you must shew fairely\noutward) should more appeare like entertainment[6]\n                                                   [Sidenote: outwards,]\nthen yours.[7] You are welcome: but my Vnckle\nFather, and Aunt Mother are deceiu'd.\n\n_Guil_. In what my deere Lord?\n\n_Ham_. I am but mad North, North-West: when\nthe Winde is Southerly, I know a Hawke from a\nHandsaw.[8]\n\n_Enter Polonius_.\n\n_Pol_. Well[9] be with you Gentlemen.\n\n_Ham_. Hearke you _Guildensterne_, and you too:\nat each eare a hearer: that great Baby you see\nthere, is not yet out of his swathing clouts.\n                                            [Sidenote: swadling clouts.]\n\n_Rosin_. Happily he's the second time come to          [Sidenote: he is]\nthem: for they say, an old man is twice a childe.\n\n_Ham_. I will Prophesie. Hee comes to tell me\nof the Players. Mark it, you say right Sir: for a\n                                               [Sidenote: sir, a Monday]\nMonday morning 'twas so indeed.[10]      [Sidenote: t'was then indeede.]\n\n_Pol_. My Lord, I haue Newes to tell you.\n\n_Ham_. My Lord, I haue Newes to tell you.\nWhen _Rossius_ an Actor in Rome----[11]     [Sidenote: _Rossius_ was an]\n\n_Pol_. The Actors are come hither my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Buzze, buzze.[12]\n\n_Pol_. Vpon mine Honor.[13]                               [Sidenote: my]\n\n_Ham_. Then can each Actor on his Asse----         [Sidenote: came each]\n\n[Footnote 1: If there be any logical link here, except that, after the\ninstance adduced, no change in social fashion--nothing at all indeed, is\nto be wondered at, I fail to see it. Perhaps the speech is intended to\nbelong to the simulation. The last sentence of it appears meant to\nconvey the impression that he suspects nothing--is only bewildered by\nthe course of things.]\n\n[Footnote 2: his miniature.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --to indicate their approach.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _com'ply_--accent on first syllable--'pass compliments with\nyou' (260)--_in the garb_, either 'in appearance,' or 'in the fashion of\nthe hour.']\n\n[Footnote 5: 'the amount of courteous reception I extend'--'my advances\nto the players.']\n\n[Footnote 6: reception, welcome.]\n\n[Footnote 7: He seems to desire that they shall no more be on the\nfooting of fellow-students, and thus to rid himself of the old relation.\nPerhaps he hints that they are players too. From any further show of\nfriendliness he takes refuge in convention--and professed\nconvention--supplying a reason in order to escape a dangerous\ninterpretation of his sudden formality--'lest you should suppose me more\ncordial to the players than to you.' The speech is full of inwoven\nirony, doubtful, and refusing to be ravelled out. With what merely\nhalf-shown, yet scathing satire it should be spoken and accompanied!]\n\n[Footnote 8: A proverb of the time comically corrupted--_handsaw for\nhernshaw_--a heron, the quarry of the hawk. He denies his madness as\nmadmen do--and in terms themselves not unbefitting madness--so making it\nseem the more genuine. Yet every now and then, urged by the commotion of\nhis being, he treads perilously on the border of self-betrayal.]\n\n[Footnote 9: used as a noun.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _Point thus_: 'Mark it.--You say right, sir; &c.' He takes\nup a speech that means nothing, and might mean anything, to turn aside\nthe suspicion their whispering might suggest to Polonius that they had\nbeen talking about him--so better to lay his trap for him.]\n\n[Footnote 11: He mentions the _actor_ to lead Polonius so that his\nprophecy of him shall come true.]\n\n[Footnote 12: An interjection of mockery: he had made a fool of him.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Polonius thinks he is refusing to believe him.]\n\n[Page 100]\n\n_Polon_. The best Actors in the world, either for\nTragedie, Comedie, Historic, Pastorall: Pastoricall-\nComicall-Historicall-Pastorall: [1] Tragicall-Historicall:\nTragicall-Comicall--Historicall-Pastorall[1]:\nScene indiuible,[2] or Poem vnlimited.[3] _Seneca_ cannot\n                                       [Sidenote: scene indeuidible,[2]]\nbe too heauy, nor _Plautus_ too light, for the law of\nWrit, and the Liberty. These are the onely men.[4]\n\n_Ham_. O _Iephta_ Iudge of Israel, what a Treasure\nhad'st thou?\n\n_Pol_. What a Treasure had he, my Lord?[5]\n\n_Ham_. Why one faire Daughter, and no more,[6]\nThe which he loued passing well.[6]\n\n[Sidenote: 86] _Pol_. Still on my Daughter.\n\n_Ham_. Am I not i'th'right old _Iephta_?\n\n_Polon_. If you call me _Iephta_ my Lord, I haue\na daughter that I loue passing well.\n\n_Ham_. Nay that followes not.[7]\n\n_Polon_. What followes then, my Lord?\n\n_Ham_. Why, As by lot, God wot:[6] and then you\nknow, It came to passe, as most like it was:[6] The\nfirst rowe of the _Pons[8] Chanson_ will shew you more,\n                                               [Sidenote: pious chanson]\nFor looke where my Abridgements[9] come.\n                                         [Sidenote: abridgment[9] comes]\n\n_Enter foure or fiue Players._\n                                        [Sidenote: _Enter the Players._]\n\nY'are welcome Masters, welcome all. I am glad        [Sidenote: You are]\nto see thee well: Welcome good Friends. O my\n               [Sidenote: oh old friend, why thy face is valanct[10]]\nolde Friend? Thy face is valiant[10] since I saw thee\nlast: Com'st thou to beard me in Denmarke?\nWhat, my yong Lady and Mistris?[11] Byrlady          [Sidenote: by lady]\nyour Ladiship is neerer Heauen then when I saw      [Sidenote: nerer to]\nyou last, by the altitude of a Choppine.[12] Pray\nGod your voice like a peece of vncurrant Gold be\nnot crack'd within the ring.[13] Masters, you are all\nwelcome: wee'l e'ne to't like French Faulconers,[14]\n                                       [Sidenote: like friendly Fankner]\nflie at any thing we see: wee'l haue a Speech\n\n[Footnote 1: From [1] to [1] is not in the _Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Does this phrase mean _all in one scene_?]\n\n[Footnote 3: A poem to be recited only--one not _limited_, or _divided_\ninto speeches.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Point thus_: 'too light. For the law of Writ, and the\nLiberty, these are the onely men':--_either for written plays_, that is,\n_or for those in which the players extemporized their speeches_.\n\n    _1st Q_. 'For the law hath writ those are the onely men.']\n\n[Footnote 5: Polonius would lead him on to talk of his daughter.]\n\n[Footnote 6: These are lines of the first stanza of an old ballad still\nin existence. Does Hamlet suggest that as Jephthah so Polonius had\nsacrificed his daughter? Or is he only desirous of making him talk about\nher?]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'That is not as the ballad goes.']\n\n[Footnote 8: That this is a corruption of the _pious_ in the _Quarto_,\nis made clearer from the _1st Quarto_: 'the first verse of the godly\nBallet wil tel you all.']\n\n[Footnote 9: _abridgment_--that which _abridges_, or cuts short. His\n'Abridgements' were the Players.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _1st Q_. 'Vallanced'--_with a beard_, that is. Both\nreadings may be correct.]\n\n[Footnote 11: A boy of course: no women had yet appeared on the stage.]\n\n[Footnote 12: A Venetian boot, stilted, sometimes very high.]\n\n[Footnote 13: --because then it would be unfit for a woman-part. A piece\nof gold so worn that it had a crack reaching within the inner circle was\nno longer current. _1st Q_. 'in the ring:'--was a pun intended?]\n\n[Footnote 14: --like French sportsmen of the present day too.]\n\n[Page 102]\n\nstraight. Come giue vs a tast of your quality:\ncome, a passionate speech.\n\n_1. Play._ What speech, my Lord?               [Sidenote: my good Lord?]\n\n_Ham._ I heard thee speak me a speech once, but\nit was neuer Acted: or if it was, not aboue once,\nfor the Play I remember pleas'd not the Million,\n'twas _Cauiarie_ to the Generall[1]: but it was (as I\nreceiu'd it, and others, whose iudgement in such\nmatters, cried in the top of mine)[2] an excellent\nPlay; well digested in the Scoenes, set downe with\nas much modestie, as cunning.[3] I remember one\nsaid there was no Sallets[4] in the lines, to make the  [Sidenote: were]\nmatter sauoury; nor no matter in the phrase,[5] that\nmight indite the Author of affectation, but cal'd it\n                                                  [Sidenote: affection,]\nan honest method[A]. One cheefe Speech in it, I\n                                           [Sidenote: one speech in't I]\ncheefely lou'd, 'twas _\u00c6neas_ Tale to _Dido_, and\n                                           [Sidenote: _Aeneas_ talke to]\nthereabout of it especially, where he speaks of         [Sidenote: when]\n_Priams_[6] slaughter. If it liue in your memory,\nbegin at this Line, let me see, let me see: The\nrugged _Pyrrhus_ like th'_Hyrcanian_ Beast.[7] It is\n                                                     [Sidenote: tis not]\nnot so: it begins[8] with _Pyrrhus_.[9]\n\n[10] The rugged _Pyrrhus_, he whose Sable Armes[11]\nBlacke as his purpose, did the night resemble\nWhen he lay couched in the Ominous[12] Horse,\nHath now this dread and blacke Complexion smear'd\nWith Heraldry more dismall: Head to foote\nNow is he to take Geulles,[13] horridly Trick'd\n                                     [Sidenote: is he totall Gules [18]]\nWith blood of Fathers, Mothers, Daughters, Sonnes,\n[14] Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets,\nThat lend a tyrannous, and damned light         [Sidenote: and a damned]\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto:_--\nas wholesome as sweete, and by very much, more handsome then\nfine:]\n\n[Footnote 1: The salted roe of the sturgeon is a delicacy disliked by\nmost people.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'were superior to mine.'\n\nThe _1st Quarto_ has,\n\n'Cried in the toppe of their iudgements, an excellent play,'--that is,\n_pronounced it, to the best of their judgments, an excellent play_.\n\nNote the difference between 'the top of _my_ judgment', and 'the top of\n_their_ judgments'. 97.]\n\n[Footnote 3: skill.]\n\n[Footnote 4: coarse jests. 25, 67.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _style_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _1st Q_. 'Princes slaughter.']\n\n[Footnote 7: _1st Q_. 'th'arganian beast:' 'the Hyrcan tiger,' Macbeth,\niii. 4.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'it _begins_': emphasis on begins.]\n\n[Footnote 9: A pause; then having recollected, he starts afresh.]\n\n[Footnote 10: These passages are Shakspere's own, not quotations: the\nQuartos differ. But when he wrote them he had in his mind a phantom of\nMarlowe's _Dido, Queen of Carthage_. I find Steevens has made a similar\nconjecture, and quotes from Marlowe two of the passages I had marked as\nbeing like passages here.]\n\n[Footnote 11: The poetry is admirable in its kind--intentionally\n_charged_, to raise it to the second stage-level, above the blank verse,\nthat is, of the drama in which it is set, as that blank verse is raised\nabove the ordinary level of speech. 143.\n\nThe correspondent passage in _1st Q_. runs nearly parallel for a few\nlines.]\n\n[Footnote 12:--like _portentous_.]\n\n[Footnote 13: 'all red', _1st Q_. 'totall guise.']\n\n[Footnote 14: Here the _1st Quarto_ has:--\n\n    Back't and imparched in calagulate gore,\n    Rifted in earth and fire, olde grandsire _Pryam_ seekes:\n    So goe on.]\n\n[Page 104]\n\nTo their vilde Murthers, roasted in wrath and fire,\n                                        [Sidenote: their Lords murther,]\nAnd thus o're-sized with coagulate gore,\nWith eyes like Carbuncles, the hellish _Pyrrhus_\nOld Grandsire _Priam_ seekes.[1]\n                                 [Sidenote: seekes; so proceede you.[2]]\n\n_Pol_. Fore God, my Lord, well spoken, with\ngood accent, and good discretion.[3]\n\n_1. Player_. Anon he findes him,                      [Sidenote: _Play_]\nStriking too short at Greekes.[4] His anticke Sword,\nRebellious to his Arme, lyes where it falles\nRepugnant to command[4]: vnequall match,             [Sidenote: matcht,]\n_Pyrrhus_ at _Priam_ driues, in Rage strikes wide:\nBut with the whiffe and winde of his fell Sword,\nTh'vnnerued Father fals.[5] Then senselesse Illium,[6]\nSeeming to feele his blow, with flaming top\n                                        [Sidenote: seele[7] this blowe,]\nStoopes to his Bace, and with a hideous crash\nTakes Prisoner _Pyrrhus_ eare. For loe, his Sword\nWhich was declining on the Milkie head\nOf Reuerend _Priam_, seem'd i'th'Ayre to sticke:\nSo as a painted Tyrant _Pyrrhus_ stood,[8]        [Sidenote: stood Like]\nAnd like a Newtrall to his will and matter,[9] did nothing.[10]\n[11] But as we often see against some storme,\nA silence in the Heauens, the Racke stand still,\nThe bold windes speechlesse, and the Orbe below\nAs hush as death: Anon the dreadfull Thunder\n[Sidenote: 110] Doth rend the Region.[11] So after _Pyrrhus_ pause,\nArowsed Vengeance sets him new a-worke,\nAnd neuer did the Cyclops hammers fall\nOn Mars his Armours, forg'd for proofe Eterne,\n                                              [Sidenote: _Marses_ Armor]\nWith lesse remorse then _Pyrrhus_ bleeding sword\nNow falles on _Priam_.\n[12] Out, out, thou Strumpet-Fortune, all you Gods,\nIn generall Synod take away her power:\nBreake all the Spokes and Fallies from her wheele,   [Sidenote: follies]\n\n[Footnote 1: This, though horrid enough, is in degree below the\ndescription in _Dido_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: He is directing the player to take up the speech there\nwhere he leaves it. See last quotation from _1st Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _judgment_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: --with an old man's under-reaching blows--till his arm is\nso jarred by a missed blow, that he cannot raise his sword again.]\n\n[Footnote 5:\n\n    Whereat he lifted up his bedrid limbs,\n    And would have grappled with Achilles' son,\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    Which he, disdaining, whisk'd his sword about,\n    And with the wound[13] thereof the king fell down.\n\n    Marlowe's _Dido, Queen of Carthage_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: The _Quarto_ has omitted '_Then senselesse Illium_,' or\nsomething else.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Printed with the long f[symbol for archaic long s].]\n\n[Footnote 8: --motionless as a tyrant in a picture.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'standing between his will and its object as if he had no\nrelation to either.']\n\n[Footnote 10:\n\n    And then in triumph ran into the streets,\n    Through which he could not pass for slaughtered men;\n    So, leaning on his sword, he stood stone still,\n    Viewing the fire wherewith rich Ilion burnt.\n\n    Marlowe's _Dido, Queen of Carthage_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Who does not feel this passage, down to 'Region,'\nthoroughly Shaksperean!]\n\n[Footnote 12: Is not the rest of this speech very plainly Shakspere's?]\n\n[Footnote 13: _wind_, I think it should be.]\n\n[Page 106]\n\nAnd boule the round Naue downe the hill of Heauen,\nAs low as to the Fiends.\n\n_Pol_. This is too long.\n\n_Ham_. It shall to'th Barbars, with your beard.       [Sidenote: to the]\nPrythee say on: He's for a Iigge, or a tale of\nBaudry, or hee sleepes. Say on; come to _Hecuba_.\n\n_1. Play_. But who, O who, had seen the inobled[1] Queen.\n                             [Sidenote: But who, a woe, had | mobled[1]]\n\n_Ham_. The inobled[1] Queene?                         [Sidenote: mobled]\n\n_Pol_. That's good: Inobled[1] Queene is good.[2]\n\n_1. Play_. Run bare-foot vp and downe,\nThreatning the flame                                  [Sidenote: flames]\nWith Bisson Rheume:[3] A clout about that head,  [Sidenote: clout vppon]\nWhere late the Diadem stood, and for a Robe\nAbout her lanke and all ore-teamed Loines,[4]\nA blanket in th'Alarum of feare caught vp.        [Sidenote: the alarme]\nWho this had seene, with tongue in Venome steep'd,\n'Gainst Fortunes State, would Treason haue pronounc'd?[5]\nBut if the Gods themselues did see her then,\nWhen she saw _Pyrrhus_ make malicious sport\nIn mincing with his Sword her Husbands limbes,[6]    [Sidenote: husband]\nThe instant Burst of Clamour that she made\n(Vnlesse things mortall moue them not at all)\nWould haue made milche[7] the Burning eyes of Heauen,\nAnd passion in the Gods.[8]\n\n_Pol_. Looke where[9] he ha's not turn'd his colour,\nand ha's teares in's eyes. Pray you no more.         [Sidenote: prethee]\n\n_Ham_. 'Tis well, He haue thee speake out the\nrest, soone. Good my Lord, will you see the     [Sidenote: rest of this]\nPlayers wel bestow'd. Do ye heare, let them be           [Sidenote: you]\nwell vs'd: for they are the Abstracts and breefe    [Sidenote: abstract]\nChronicles of the time. After your death, you\n\n[Footnote 1: '_mobled_'--also in _1st Q_.--may be the word: _muffled_\nseems a corruption of it: compare _mob-cap_, and\n\n    'The moon does mobble up herself'\n\n    --_Shirley_, quoted by _Farmer_;\n\nbut I incline to '_inobled_,' thrice in the _Folio_--once with a\ncapital: I take it to stand for _'ignobled,' degraded_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'Inobled Queene is good.' _Not in Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --threatening to put the flames out with blind tears:\n'_bisen,' blind_--Ang. Sax.]\n\n[Footnote 4: --she had had so many children.]\n\n[Footnote 5: There should of course be no point of interrogation here.]\n\n[Footnote 6:\n\n    This butcher, whilst his hands were yet held up,\n    Treading upon his breast, struck off his hands.\n\n    Marlowe's _Dido, Queen of Carthage_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: '_milche_'--capable of giving milk: here _capable of\ntears_, which the burning eyes of the gods were not before.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'And would have made passion in the Gods.']\n\n[Footnote 9: 'whether'.]\n\n[Page 108]\n\nwere better haue a bad Epitaph, then their ill\nreport while you liued.[1]                              [Sidenote: live]\n\n_Pol_. My Lord, I will vse them according to\ntheir desart.\n\n_Ham_. Gods bodykins man, better. Vse euerie\n                                    [Sidenote: bodkin man, much better,]\nman after his desart, and who should scape whipping:\n                                                       [Sidenote: shall]\nvse them after your own Honor and Dignity.\nThe lesse they deserue, the more merit is in\nyour bountie. Take them in.\n\n_Pol_. Come sirs.            _Exit Polon_.[2]\n\n_Ham_. Follow him Friends: wee'l heare a play\nto morrow.[3] Dost thou heare me old Friend, can\nyou play the murther of _Gonzago_?\n\n_Play_. I my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Wee'l ha't to morrow night. You could\nfor a need[4] study[5] a speech of some dosen or sixteene\n                                 [Sidenote: for neede | dosen lines, or]\nlines, which I would set downe, and insert\nin't? Could ye not?[6]                                   [Sidenote: you]\n\n_Play_. I my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Very well. Follow that Lord, and looke\nyou mock him not.[7] My good Friends, Ile leaue\nyou til night you are welcome to _Elsonower_?\n                                 [Sidenote: _Exeuent Pol. and Players_.]\n\n_Rosin_. Good my Lord.         _Exeunt_.\n\n_Manet Hamlet_.[8]\n\n_Ham_. I so, God buy'ye[9]: Now I am alone.   [Sidenote: buy to you,[9]]\nOh what a Rogue and Pesant slaue am I?[10]\nIs it not monstrous that this Player heere,[11]\nBut in a Fixion, in a dreame of Passion,\nCould force his soule so to his whole conceit,[12]\n                                             [Sidenote: his own conceit]\nThat from her working, all his visage warm'd;\n                                        [Sidenote: all the visage wand,]\nTeares in his eyes, distraction in's Aspect,          [Sidenote: in his]\nA broken voyce, and his whole Function suiting        [Sidenote: an his]\nWith Formes, to his Conceit?[13] And all for nothing?\n\n[Footnote 1: Why do the editors choose the present tense of the\n_Quarto_? Hamlet does not mean, 'It is worse to have the ill report of\nthe Players while you live, than a bad epitaph after your death.' The\norder of the sentence has provided against that meaning. What he means\nis, that their ill report in life will be more against your reputation\nafter death than a bad epitaph.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Not in Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: He detains their leader.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'for a special reason'.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Study_ is still the Player's word for _commit to memory_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Note Hamlet's quick resolve, made clearer towards the end\nof the following soliloquy.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Polonius is waiting at the door: this is intended for his\nhearing.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Not in Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Note the varying forms of _God be with you_.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _1st Q_.\n\n    Why what a dunghill idiote slaue am I?\n    Why these Players here draw water from eyes:\n    For Hecuba, why what is Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?]\n\n[Footnote 11: Everything rings on the one hard, fixed idea that\npossesses him; but this one idea has many sides. Of late he has been\nthinking more upon the woman-side of it; but the Player with his speech\nhas brought his father to his memory, and he feels he has been\nforgetting him: the rage of the actor recalls his own 'cue for passion.'\nAlways more ready to blame than justify himself, he feels as if he ought\nto have done more, and so falls to abusing himself.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _imagination_.]\n\n[Footnote 13: 'his whole operative nature providing fit forms for the\nembodiment of his imagined idea'--of which forms he has already\nmentioned his _warmed visage_, his _tears_, his _distracted look_, his\n_broken voice_.\n\nIn this passage we have the true idea of the operation of the genuine\n_acting faculty_. Actor as well as dramatist, the Poet gives us here his\nown notion of his second calling.]\n\n[Page 110]\n\nFor _Hecuba_?\nWhat's _Hecuba_ to him, or he to _Hecuba_,[1]\n                                               [Sidenote: or he to her,]\nThat he should weepe for her? What would he doe,\nHad he the Motiue and the Cue[2] for passion\n                                              [Sidenote: , and that for]\nThat I haue? He would drowne the Stage with teares,\nAnd cleaue the generall eare with horrid speech:\nMake mad the guilty, and apale[3] the free,[4]\nConfound the ignorant, and amaze indeed,\nThe very faculty of Eyes and Eares. Yet I,         [Sidenote: faculties]\nA dull and muddy-metled[5] Rascall, peake\nLike Iohn a-dreames, vnpregnant of my cause,[6]\nAnd can say nothing: No, not for a King,\nVpon whose property,[7] and most deere life,\nA damn'd defeate[8] was made. Am I a Coward?[9]\nWho calles me Villaine? breakes my pate a-crosse?\nPluckes off my Beard, and blowes it in my face?\nTweakes me by'th'Nose?[10] giues me the Lye i'th' Throate,\n                                                      [Sidenote: by the]\nAs deepe as to the Lungs? Who does me this?\nHa? Why I should take it: for it cannot be,\n                                             [Sidenote: Hah, s'wounds I]\nBut I am Pigeon-Liuer'd, and lacke Gall[11]\nTo make Oppression bitter, or ere this,\n[Sidenote: 104] I should haue fatted all the Region Kites\n                                             [Sidenote: should a fatted]\nWith this Slaues Offall, bloudy: a Bawdy villaine,\n                                               [Sidenote: bloody, baudy]\nRemorselesse,[12] Treacherous, Letcherous, kindles[13] villaine!\nOh Vengeance![14]\nWho? What an Asse am I? I sure, this is most braue,\n                                 [Sidenote: Why what an Asse am I, this]\nThat I, the Sonne of the Deere murthered,            [Sidenote: a deere]\nPrompted to my Reuenge by Heauen, and Hell,\nMust (like a Whore) vnpacke my heart with words,\nAnd fall a Cursing like a very Drab,[15]\nA Scullion? Fye vpon't: Foh. About my Braine.[16]\n                                 [Sidenote: a stallyon, | braines; hum,]\n\n[Footnote 1: Here follows in 1st _Q_.\n\n    What would he do and if he had my losse?\n    His father murdred, and a Crowne bereft him,\n    [Sidenote: 174] He would turne all his teares to droppes of blood,\n    Amaze the standers by with his laments,\n\n    &c. &c.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Speaking of the Player, he uses the player-word.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _make pale_--appal.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _the innocent_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Mettle_ is spirit--rather in the sense of _animal-spirit_:\n_mettlesome_--spirited, _as a horse_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: '_unpossessed by_ my cause'.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _personality, proper person_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _undoing, destruction_--from French _d\u00e9faire_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: In this mood he no more understands, and altogether doubts\nhimself, as he has previously come to doubt the world.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _1st Q_. 'or twites my nose.']\n\n[Footnote 11: It was supposed that pigeons had no gall--I presume from\ntheir livers not tasting bitter like those of perhaps most birds.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _pitiless_.]\n\n[Footnote 13: _unnatural_.]\n\n[Footnote 14: This line is not in the _Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Here in _Q._ the line runs on to include _Foh_. The next\nline ends with _heard_.]\n\n[Footnote 16: _Point thus_: 'About! my brain.' He apostrophizes his\nbrain, telling it to set to work.]\n\n[Page 112]\n\nI haue heard, that guilty Creatures sitting at a Play,\nHaue by the very cunning of the Scoene,[1]\nBene strooke so to the soule, that presently\nThey haue proclaim'd their Malefactions.\nFor Murther, though it haue no tongue, will speake\nWith most myraculous Organ.[2] Ile haue these Players,\nPlay something like the murder of my Father,\nBefore mine Vnkle. Ile obserue his lookes,\n[Sidenote: 137] Ile tent him to the quicke: If he but blench[3]\n                                             [Sidenote: if a doe blench]\nI know my course. The Spirit that I haue seene\n[Sidenote: 48] May[4] be the Diuell, and the Diuel hath power\n                               [Sidenote: May be a deale, and the deale]\nT'assume a pleasing shape, yea and perhaps\nOut of my Weaknesse, and my Melancholly,[5]\nAs he is very potent with such Spirits,[6]\n[Sidenote: 46] Abuses me to damne me.[7] Ile haue grounds\nMore Relatiue then this: The Play's the thing,\nWherein Ile catch the Conscience of the King.\n                                        _Exit._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nSUMMARY.\n\n\nThe division between the second and third acts is by common consent\nplaced here. The third act occupies the afternoon, evening, and night of\nthe same day with the second.\n\nThis soliloquy is Hamlet's first, and perhaps we may find it correct to\nsay _only_ outbreak of self-accusation. He charges himself with lack of\nfeeling, spirit, and courage, in that he has not yet taken vengeance on\nhis uncle. But unless we are prepared to accept and justify to the full\nhis own hardest words against himself, and grant him a muddy-mettled,\npigeon-livered rascal, we must examine and understand him, so as to\naccount for his conduct better than he could himself. If we allow that\nperhaps he accuses himself too much, we may find on reflection that he\naccuses himself altogether wrongfully. If a man is content to think the\nworst of Hamlet, I care to hold no argument with that man.\n\nWe must not look for _expressed_ logical sequence in a soliloquy, which\nis a vocal mind. The mind is seldom conscious of the links or\ntransitions of a yet perfectly logical process developed in it. This\nremark, however, is more necessary in regard to the famous soliloquy to\nfollow.\n\nIn Hamlet, misery has partly choked even vengeance; and although sure in\nhis heart that his uncle is guilty, in his brain he is not sure.\nBitterly accusing himself in an access of wretchedness and rage and\ncredence, he forgets the doubt that has restrained him, with all besides\nwhich he might so well urge in righteous defence, not excuse, of his\ndelay. But ungenerous criticism has, by all but universal consent,\naccepted his own verdict against himself. So in common life there are\nthousands on thousands who, upon the sad confession of a man\nimmeasurably greater than themselves, and showing his greatness in the\nhumility whose absence makes admission impossible to them, immediately\npounce upon him with vituperation, as if he were one of the vile, and\nthey infinitely better. Such should be indignant with St. Paul and\nsay--if he was the chief of sinners, what insolence to lecture _them_!\nand certainly the more justified publican would never by them have been\nallowed to touch the robe of the less justified Pharisee. Such critics\nsurely take little or no pains to understand the object of their\ncontempt: because Hamlet is troubled and blames himself, they without\nhesitation condemn him--and there where he is most commendable. It is\nthe righteous man who is most ready to accuse himself; the unrighteous\nis least ready. Who is able when in deep trouble, rightly to analyze his\nfeelings? Delay in action is not necessarily abandonment of duty; in\nHamlet's case it is a due recognition of duty, which condemns\nprecipitancy--and action in the face of doubt, so long as it is nowise\ncompelled, is precipitancy. The first thing is _to be sure_: Hamlet has\nnever been sure; he spies at length a chance of making himself sure; he\nseizes upon it; and while his sudden resolve to make use of the players,\nlike the equally sudden resolve to shroud himself in pretended madness,\nmanifests him fertile in expedient, the carrying out of both manifests\nhim right capable and diligent in execution--_a man of action in every\ntrue sense of the word_.\n\nThe self-accusation of Hamlet has its ground in the lapse of weeks\nduring which nothing has been done towards punishing the king. Suddenly\nroused to a keen sense of the fact, he feels as if surely he might have\ndone something. The first act ends with a burning vow of righteous\nvengeance; the second shows him wandering about the palace in\nprofoundest melancholy--such as makes it more than easy for him to\nassume the forms of madness the moment he marks any curious eye bent\nupon him. Let him who has never loved and revered a mother, call such\nmelancholy weakness. He has indeed done nothing towards the fulfilment\nof his vow; but the way in which he made the vow, the terms in which he\nexacted from his companions their promise of silence, and his scheme for\neluding suspicion, combine to show that from the first he perceived its\nfulfilment would be hard, saw the obstacles in his way, and knew it\nwould require both time and caution. That even in the first rush of his\nwrath he should thus be aware of difficulty, indicates moral symmetry;\nbut the full weight of what lay in his path could appear to him only\nupon reflection. Partly in the light of passages yet to come, I will\nimagine the further course of his thoughts, which the closing couplet of\nthe first act shows as having already begun to apale 'the native hue of\nresolution.'\n\n'But how shall I take vengeance on my uncle? Shall I publicly accuse\nhim, or slay him at once? In the one case what answer can I make to his\ndenial? in the other, what justification can I offer? If I say the\nspirit of my father accuses him, what proof can I bring? My companions\nonly saw the apparition--heard no word from him; and my uncle's party\nwill assert, with absolute likelihood to the minds of those who do not\nknow me--and who here knows me but my mother!--that charge is a mere\ncoinage of jealous disappointment, working upon the melancholy I have\nnot cared to hide. (174-6.) When I act, it must be to kill him, and to\nwhat misconstruction shall I not expose myself! (272) If the thing must\nso be, I must brave all; but I could never present myself thereafter as\nsuccessor to the crown of one whom I had first slain and then vilified\non the accusation of an apparition whom no one heard but myself! I must\nfind _proof_--such proof as will satisfy others as well as myself. My\nimmediate duty is _evidence_, not vengeance.'\n\nWe have seen besides, that, when informed of the haunting presence of\nthe Ghost, he expected the apparition with not a little doubt as to its\nauthenticity--a doubt which, even when he saw it, did not immediately\nvanish: is it any wonder that when the apparition was gone, the doubt\nshould return? Return it did, in accordance with the reaction which\nwaits upon all high-strung experience. If he did not believe in the\nperson who performed it, would any man long believe in any miracle?\nHamlet soon begins to question whether he can with confidence accept the\nappearance for that which it appeared and asserted itself to be. He\nsteps over to the stand-point of his judges, and doubts the only\ntestimony he has to produce. Far more:--was he not bound in common\nhumanity, not to say _filialness_, to doubt it? To doubt the Ghost, was\nto doubt a testimony which to accept was to believe his father in\nhorrible suffering, his uncle a murderer, his mother at least an\nadulteress; to kill his uncle was to set his seal to the whole, and,\nbesides, to bring his mother into frightful suspicion of complicity in\nhis father's murder. Ought not the faintest shadow of a doubt, assuaging\never so little the glare of the hell-sun of such crime, to be welcome to\nthe tortured heart? Wretched wife and woman as his mother had shown\nherself, the Ghost would have him think her far worse--perhaps, even\naccessory to her husband's murder! For action he _must_ have proof!\n\nAt the same time, what every one knew of his mother, coupled now with\nthe mere idea of the Ghost's accusation, wrought in him such misery,\nroused in him so many torturing and unanswerable questions, so blotted\nthe face of the universe and withered the heart of hope, that he could\nnot but doubt whether, in such a world of rogues and false women, it was\nworth his while to slay one villain out of the swarm.\n\nOphelia's behaviour to him, in obedience to her father, of which she\ngives him no explanation, has added 'the pangs of disprized love,' and\nincreased his doubts of woman-kind. 120.\n\nBut when his imagination, presenting afresh the awful interview, brings\nhim more immediately under the influence of the apparition and its\nbehest, he is for the moment delivered both from the stunning effect of\nits communication and his doubt of its truth; forgetting then the\nconsiderations that have wrought in him, he accuses himself of\nremissness, blames himself grievously for his delay. Soon, however, his\nsenses resume their influence, and he doubts again. So goes the\nmill-round of his thoughts, with the revolving of many wheels.\n\nHis whole conscious nature is frightfully shaken: he would be the poor\ncreature most of his critics would make of him, were it otherwise; it is\nbecause of his greatness that he suffers so terribly, and doubts so\nmuch. A mother's crime is far more paralyzing than a father's murder is\nstimulating; and either he has not set himself in thorough earnest to\nfind the proof he needs, or he has as yet been unable to think of any\nserviceable means to the end, when the half real, half simulated emotion\nof the Player yet again rouses in him the sense of remissness, leads him\nto accuse himself of forgotten obligation and heartlessness, and\nsimultaneously suggests a device for putting the Ghost and his words to\nthe test. Instantly he seizes the chance: when a thing has to be done,\nand can be done, Hamlet is _never_ wanting--shows himself the very\npromptest of men.\n\nIn the last passage of this act I do not take it that he is expressing\nan idea then first occurring to him: that the whole thing may be a snare\nof the devil is a doubt with which during weeks he has been familiar.\n\nThe delay through which, in utter failure to comprehend his character,\nhe has been so miserably misjudged, falls really between the first and\nsecond acts, although it seems in the regard of most readers to underlie\nand protract the whole play. Its duration is measured by the journey of\nthe ambassadors to and from the neighbouring kingdom of Norway.\n\nIt is notably odd, by the way, that those who accuse Hamlet of inaction,\nare mostly the same who believe his madness a reality! In truth,\nhowever, his affected madness is one of the strongest signs of his\nactivity, and his delay one of the strongest proofs of his sanity.\n\nThis second act, the third act, and a part always given to the fourth,\nbut which really belongs to the third, occupy in all only one day.\n\n[Footnote 1: Here follows in _1st Q._\n\n                        confest a murder\n    Committed long before.\n    This spirit that I haue seene may be the Diuell,\n    And out of my weakenesse and my melancholy,\n    As he is very potent with such men,\n    Doth seeke to damne me, I will haue sounder proofes,\n    The play's the thing, &c.]\n\n[Footnote 2:\n\n    'Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;' &c.\n\n    _Macbeth_, iii. 4.]\n\n[Footnote 3: In the _1st Q._ Hamlet, speaking to Horatio (l 37), says,\n\n    And if he doe not bleach, and change at that,--\n\n_Bleach_ is radically the same word as _blench_:--to bleach, to blanch,\nto blench--_to grow white_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Emphasis on _May_, as resuming previous doubtful thought\nand suspicion.]\n\n[Footnote 5: --caused from the first by his mother's behaviour, not\nconstitutional.]\n\n[Footnote 6: --'such conditions of the spirits'.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Here is one element in the very existence of the preceding\nact: doubt as to the facts of the case has been throughout operating to\nrestrain him; and here first he reveals, perhaps first recognizes its\ninfluence. Subject to change of feeling with the wavering of conviction,\nhe now for a moment regards his uncertainty as involving unnatural\ndistrust of a being in whose presence he cannot help _feeling_ him his\nfather. He was familiar with the lore of the supernatural, and knew the\ndoubt he expresses to be not without support.--His companions as well\nhad all been in suspense as to the identity of the apparition with the\nlate king.]\n\n[Page 116]\n\n_Enter King, Queene, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosincrance,\nGuildenstern, and Lords._[1]           [Sidenote: Guyldensterne, Lords.]\n\n[Sidenote: 72] _King._ And can you by no drift of circumstance\n                                      [Sidenote: An can | of conference]\nGet from him why he puts on[2] this Confusion:\nGrating so harshly all his dayes of quiet\nWith turbulent and dangerous Lunacy.\n\n_Rosin._ He does confesse he feeles himselfe distracted,\n[Sidenote: 92] But from what cause he will by no meanes speake.\n                                                      [Sidenote: a will]\n\n_Guil._ Nor do we finde him forward to be sounded,\nBut with a crafty Madnesse[3] keepes aloofe:\nWhen we would bring him on to some Confession\nOf his true state.\n\n_Qu._ Did he receiue you well?\n\n_Rosin._ Most like a Gentleman.\n\n_Guild._ But with much forcing of his disposition.[4]\n\n_Rosin._ Niggard of question, but of our demands\nMost free in his reply.[5]\n\n_Qu._ Did you assay him to any pastime?\n\n_Rosin._ Madam, it so fell out, that certaine Players\nWe ore-wrought on the way: of these we told him,\n                                               [Sidenote: ore-raught[6]]\nAnd there did seeme in him a kinde of ioy\nTo heare of it: They are about the Court,    [Sidenote: are heere about]\nAnd (as I thinke) they haue already order\nThis night to play before him.\n\n_Pol._ 'Tis most true;\nAnd he beseech'd me to intreate your Majesties\nTo heare, and see the matter.\n\n_King._ With all my heart, and it doth much content me\nTo heare him so inclin'd. Good Gentlemen,\n\n[Footnote 1: This may be regarded as the commencement of the Third Act.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The phrase seems to imply a doubt of the genuineness of the\nlunacy.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Nominative pronoun omitted here._]\n\n[Footnote 4: He has noted, without understanding them, the signs of\nHamlet's suspicion of themselves.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Compare the seemingly opposite statements of the two:\nHamlet had bewildered them.]\n\n[Foonote 6: _over-reached_--came up with, caught up, overtook.]\n\n[Page 118]\n\nGiue him a further edge,[1] and driue his purpose on\n                                          [Sidenote: purpose into these]\nTo these delights.\n\n_Rosin._ We shall my Lord. _Exeunt._\n                                       [Sidenote: _Exeunt Ros. & Guyl._]\n\n_King._ Sweet Gertrude leaue vs too,          [Sidenote: Gertrard | two]\nFor we haue closely sent for _Hamlet_ hither,\n[Sidenote: 84] That he, as 'twere by accident, may there\n                                                       [Sidenote: heere]\nAffront[2] _Ophelia_.  Her Father, and my selfe[3] (lawful espials)[4]\nWill so bestow our selues, that seeing vnseene\nWe may of their encounter frankely iudge,\nAnd gather by him, as he is behaued,\nIf't be th'affliction of his loue, or no,\nThat thus he suffers for.\n\n_Qu._ I shall obey you,\nAnd for your part _Ophelia_,[5] I do wish\nThat your good Beauties be the happy cause\nOf _Hamlets_ wildenesse: so shall I hope your Vertues\n[Sidenote: 240] Will bring him to his wonted way againe,\nTo both your Honors.[6]\n\n_Ophe._ Madam, I wish it may.\n\n_Pol. Ophelia_, walke you heere.  Gracious so please ye[7]\n                                                        [Sidenote: you,]\nWe will bestow our selues: Reade on this booke,[8]\nThat shew of such an exercise may colour\nYour lonelinesse.[9] We are oft too blame in this,[10]\n                                                   [Sidenote: lowlines:]\n'Tis too much prou'd, that with Deuotions visage,\nAnd pious Action, we do surge o're                     [Sidenote: sugar]\nThe diuell himselfe.\n\n[Sidenote: 161]  _King._ Oh 'tis true:          [Sidenote: tis too true]\nHow smart a lash that speech doth giue my Conscience?\nThe Harlots Cheeke beautied with plaist'ring Art\nIs not more vgly to the thing that helpes it,[11]\nThen is my deede, to my most painted word.[12]\nOh heauie burthen![13]\n\n[Footnote 1: '_edge_ him on'--somehow corrupted into _egg_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _confront_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Clause in parenthesis not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 4: --apologetic to the queen.]\n\n[Footnote 5: --_going up to Ophelia_--I would say, who stands at a\nlittle distance, and has not heard what has been passing between them.]\n\n[Footnote 6: The queen encourages Ophelia in hoping to marry Hamlet, and\nmay so have a share in causing a certain turn her madness takes.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --_aside to the king_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: --_to Ophelia:_ her prayer-book. 122.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _1st Q._\n\n    And here _Ofelia_, reade you on this booke,\n    And walke aloofe, the King shal be vnseene.]\n\n[Footnote 10: --_aside to the king._ I insert these _asides_, and\nsuggest the queen's going up to Ophelia, to show how we may easily hold\nOphelia ignorant of their plot. Poor creature as she was, I would\nbelieve Shakspere did not mean her to lie to Hamlet. This may be why he\nomitted that part of her father's speech in the _1st Q._ given in the\nnote immediately above, telling her the king is going to hide. Still, it\nwould be excuse enough for _her_, that she thought his madness justified\nthe deception.]\n\n[Footnote 11: --ugly to the paint that helps by hiding it--to which it\nlies so close, and from which it has no secrets. Or, 'ugly to' may mean,\n'ugly _compared with_.']\n\n[Footnote 12: 'most painted'--_very much painted_. His painted word is\nthe paint to the deed. _Painted_ may be taken for _full of paint_.]\n\n[Footnote 13: This speech of the king is the first _assurance_ we have\nof his guilt.]\n\n[Page 120]\n\n_Pol._ I heare him comming, let's withdraw my Lord.\n                                          [Sidenote: comming, with-draw]\n                                     _Exeunt._[1]\n\n_Enter Hamlet._[2]\n\n_Ham._ To be, or not to be, that is the Question:\nWhether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer\nThe Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune,\n[Sidenote: 200,250] Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,[3]\nAnd by opposing end them:[4] to dye, to sleepe\nNo more; and by a sleepe, to say we end\nThe Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockes\nThat Flesh is heyre too? 'Tis a consummation\nDeuoutly to be wish'd.[5] To dye to sleepe,\nTo sleepe, perchance to Dreame;[6] I, there's the rub,\nFor in that sleepe of death, what[7] dreames may come,[8]\nWhen we haue shuffle'd off this mortall coile,\n[Sidenote: 186] Must giue vs pawse.[9] There's the respect\nThat makes Calamity of so long life:[10]\nFor who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time,\nThe Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely,\n                                                 [Sidenote: proude mans]\n[Sidenote: 114] The pangs of dispriz'd Loue,[11] the Lawes delay,\n                                                    [Sidenote: despiz'd]\nThe insolence of Office, and the Spurnes\nThat patient merit of the vnworthy takes,                [Sidenote: th']\nWhen he himselfe might his _Quietus_ make\n[Sidenote: 194,252-3] With a bare Bodkin?[12] Who would these Fardles\n    beare[13]                                  [Sidenote: would fardels]\nTo grunt and sweat vnder a weary life,\n[Sidenote: 194] But that the dread of something after death,[14]\nThe vndiscouered Countrey, from whose Borne\nNo Traueller returnes,[15] Puzels the will,\nAnd makes vs rather beare those illes we haue,\nThen flye to others that we know not of.\nThus Conscience does make Cowards of vs all,[16]\n[Sidenote: 30] And thus the Natiue hew of Resolution[17]\nIs sicklied o're, with the pale cast of Thought,[18]\n                                                     [Sidenote: sickled]\n\n[Footnote 1: _Not in Q._--They go behind the tapestry, where it hangs\nover the recess of the doorway. Ophelia thinks they have left the room.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _In Q. before last speech._]\n\n[Footnote 3: Perhaps to a Danish or Dutch critic, or one from the\neastern coast of England, this simile would not seem so unfit as it does\nto some.]\n\n[Footnote 4: To print this so as I would have it read, I would complete\nthis line from here with points, and commence the next with points. At\nthe other breaks of the soliloquy, as indicated below, I would do the\nsame--thus:\n\n    And by opposing end them....\n                       ....To die--to sleep,]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Break_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Break_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Emphasis on _what_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Such dreams as the poor Ghost's.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _Break._ --'_pawse_' is the noun, and from its use at page\n186, we may judge it means here 'pause for reflection.']\n\n[Footnote 10: 'makes calamity so long-lived.']\n\n[Footnote 11: --not necessarily disprized by the _lady_; the disprizer\nin Hamlet's case was the worldly and suspicious father--and that in\npart, and seemingly to Hamlet altogether, for the king's sake.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _small sword_. If there be here any allusion to suicide,\nit is on the general question, and with no special application to\nhimself. 24. But it is the king and the bare bodkin his thought\nassociates. How could he even glance at the things he has just\nmentioned, as each, a reason for suicide? It were a cowardly country\nindeed where the question might be asked, 'Who would not commit suicide\nbecause of any one of these things, except on account of what may follow\nafter death?'! One might well, however, be tempted to destroy an\noppressor, _and risk his life in that._]\n\n[Footnote 13: _Fardel_, burden: the old French for _fardeau_, I am\ninformed.]\n\n[Footnote 14: --a dread caused by conscience.]\n\n[Footnote 15: The Ghost could not be imagined as having _returned_.]\n\n[Footnote 16: 'of us all' _not in Q._ It is not the fear of evil that\nmakes us cowards, but the fear of _deserved_ evil. The Poet may intend\nthat conscience alone is the cause of fear in man. '_Coward_' does not\nhere involve contempt: it should be spoken with a grim smile. But Hamlet\nwould hardly call turning from _suicide_ cowardice in any sense. 24.]\n\n[Footnote 17: --such as was his when he vowed vengeance.]\n\n[Footnote 18: --such as immediately followed on that The _native_ hue of\nresolution--that which is natural to man till interruption comes--is\nruddy; the hue of thought is pale. I suspect the '_pale cast_' of an\nallusion to whitening with _rough-cast_.]\n\n[Page 122]\n\nAnd enterprizes of great pith and moment,[1]       [Sidenote: pitch [1]]\nWith this regard their Currants turne away,             [Sidenote: awry]\nAnd loose the name of Action.[2] Soft you now,\n[Sidenote: 119] The faire _Ophelia_? Nimph, in thy Orizons[3]\nBe all my sinnes remembred.[4]\n\n_Ophe._ Good my Lord,\nHow does your Honor for this many a day?\n\n_Ham._ I humbly thanke you: well, well, well.[5]\n\n_Ophe._ My Lord, I haue Remembrances of yours,\nThat I haue longed long to re-deliuer.\nI pray you now, receiue them.\n\n_Ham._ No, no, I neuer gaue you ought.[6]\n                                          [Sidenote: No, not I, I never]\n\n_Ophe._ My honor'd Lord, I know right well you did,\n                                                    [Sidenote: you know]\nAnd with them words of so sweet breath compos'd,\nAs made the things more rich, then perfume left:\n                    [Sidenote: these things | their perfume lost.[7]]\nTake these againe, for to the Noble minde\nRich gifts wax poore, when giuers proue vnkinde.\nThere my Lord.[8]\n\n_Ham._ Ha, ha: Are you honest?[9]\n\n_Ophe._ My Lord.\n\n_Ham._ Are you faire?\n\n_Ophe._ What meanes your Lordship?\n\n_Ham._ That if you be honest and faire, your\n                                     [Sidenote: faire, you should admit]\nHonesty[10] should admit no discourse to your Beautie.\n\n_Ophe._ Could Beautie my Lord, haue better\nComerce[11] then your Honestie?[12]\n                                     [Sidenote: Then with honestie?[11]]\n\n_Ham._ I trulie: for the power of Beautie, will\nsooner transforme Honestie from what it is, to a\nBawd, then the force of Honestie can translate\nBeautie into his likenesse. This was sometime a\nParadox, but now the time giues it proofe. I did\nloue you once.[13]\n\n_Ophe._ Indeed my Lord, you made me beleeue so.\n\n[Footnote 1: How could _suicide_ be styled _an enterprise of great\npith_? Yet less could it be called _of great pitch_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: I allow this to be a general reflection, but surely it\nserves to show that _conscience_ must at least be one of Hamlet's\nrestraints.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --by way of intercession.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Note the entire change of mood from that of the last\nsoliloquy. The right understanding of this soliloquy is indispensable to\nthe right understanding of Hamlet. But we are terribly trammelled and\nhindered, as in the understanding of Hamlet throughout, so here in the\nunderstanding of his meditation, by traditional assumption. I was roused\nto think in the right direction concerning it, by the honoured friend\nand relative to whom I have feebly acknowledged my obligation by\ndedicating to him this book. I could not at first see it as he saw it:\n'Think about it, and you will,' he said. I did think, and by\ndegrees--not very quickly--my prejudgments thinned, faded, and almost\nvanished. I trust I see it now as a whole, and in its true relations,\ninternal and external--its relations to itself, to the play, and to the\nHamlet, of Shakspere.\n\nNeither in its first verse, then, nor in it anywhere else, do I find\neven an allusion to suicide. What Hamlet is referring to in the said\nfirst verse, it is not possible with certainty to determine, for it is\nbut the vanishing ripple of a preceding ocean of thought, from which he\nis just stepping out upon the shore of the articulate. He may have been\nplunged in some profound depth of the metaphysics of existence, or he\nmay have been occupied with the one practical question, that of the\nslaying of his uncle, which has, now in one form, now in another,\nhaunted his spirit for weeks. Perhaps, from the message he has just\nreceived, he expects to meet the king, and conscience, confronting\ntemptation, has been urging the necessity of proof; perhaps a righteous\nconsideration of consequences, which sometimes have share in the primary\nduty, has been making him shrink afresh from the shedding of blood, for\nevery thoughtful mind recoils from the irrevocable, and that is an awful\nform of the irrevocable. But whatever thought, general or special, this\nfirst verse may be dismissing, we come at once thereafter into the light\nof a definite question: 'Which is nobler--to endure evil fortune, or to\noppose it _\u00e0 outrance_; to bear in passivity, or to resist where\nresistance is hopeless--resist to the last--to the death which is its\nunavoidable end?'\n\nThen comes a pause, during which he is thinking--we will not say 'too\nprecisely on the event,' but taking his account with consequences: the\nresult appears in the uttered conviction that the extreme possible\nconsequence, death, is a good and not an evil. Throughout, observe, how\nhere, as always, he generalizes, himself being to himself but the type\nof his race.\n\nThen follows another pause, during which he seems prosecuting the\nthought, for he has already commenced further remark in similar strain,\nwhen suddenly a new and awful element introduces itself:\n\n                       ....To die--to sleep.--\n    --To _sleep_! perchance to _dream_!\n\nHe had been thinking of death only as the passing away of the present\nwith its troubles; here comes the recollection that death has its own\ntroubles--its own thoughts, its own consciousness: if it be a sleep, it\nhas its dreams. '_What dreams may come_' means, 'the sort of dreams that\nmay come'; the emphasis is on the _what_, not on the _may_; there is no\nquestion whether dreams will come, but there is question of the\ncharacter of the dreams. This consideration is what makes calamity so\nlong-lived! 'For who would bear the multiform ills of life'--he alludes\nto his own wrongs, but mingles, in his generalizing way, others of those\nmost common to humanity, and refers to the special cure for some of his\nown which was close to his hand--'who would bear these things if he\ncould, as I can, make his quietus with a bare bodkin'--that is, by\nslaying his enemy--'who would then bear them, but that he fears the\nfuture, and the divine judgment upon his life and actions--that\nconscience makes a coward of him!'[14]\n\nTo run, not the risk of death, but the risks that attend upon and follow\ndeath, Hamlet must be certain of what he is about; he must be sure it is\na right thing he does, or he will leave it undone. Compare his speech,\n250, 'Does it not, &c.':--by the time he speaks this speech, he has had\nperfect proof, and asserts the righteousness of taking vengeance in\nalmost an agony of appeal to Horatio.\n\nThe more continuous and the more formally logical a soliloquy, the less\nnatural it is. The logic should be all there, but latent; the bones of\nit should not show: they do not show here.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _One_ 'well' _only in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 6: He does not want to take them back, and so sever even that\nweak bond between them. He has not given her up.]\n\n[Footnote 7: The _Q._ reading seems best. The perfume of his gifts was\nthe sweet words with which they were given; those words having lost\ntheir savour, the mere gifts were worth nothing.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Released from the commands her father had laid upon her,\nand emboldened by the queen's approval of more than the old relation\nbetween them, she would timidly draw Hamlet back to the past--to love\nand a sound mind.]\n\n[Footnote 9: I do not here suppose a noise or movement of the arras, or\nthink that the talk from this point bears the mark of the madness he\nwould have assumed on the least suspicion of espial. His distrust of\nOphelia comes from a far deeper source--suspicion of all women, grown\ndoubtful to him through his mother. Hopeless for her, he would give his\nlife to know that Ophelia was not like her. Hence the cruel things he\nsays to her here and elsewhere; they are the brood of a heart haunted\nwith horrible, alas! too excusable phantoms of distrust. A man wretched\nas Hamlet must be forgiven for being rude; it is love suppressed, love\nthat can neither breathe nor burn, that makes him rude. His horrid\ninsinuations are a hungry challenge to indignant rejection. He would\nsting Ophelia to defence of herself and her sex. But, either from her\nlove, or from gentleness to his supposed madness, as afterwards in the\nplay-scene, or from the poverty and weakness of a nature so fathered and\nso brothered, she hears, and says nothing. 139.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Honesty is here figured as a porter,--just after, as a\nporter that may be corrupted.]\n\n[Footnote 11: If the _Folio_ reading is right, _commerce_ means\n_companionship_; if the _Quarto_ reading, then it means _intercourse_.\nNote _then_ constantly for our _than_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: I imagine Ophelia here giving Hamlet a loving look--which\nhardens him. But I do not think she lays emphasis on _your_; the word is\nhere, I take it, used (as so often then) impersonally.]\n\n[Footnote 13: '--proof in you and me: _I_ loved _you_ once, but my\nhonesty did not translate your beauty into its likeness.']\n\n[Footnote 14: That the Great Judgement was here in Shakspere's thought,\nwill be plain to those who take light from the corresponding passage in\nthe _1st Quarto_. As it makes an excellent specimen of that issue in the\ncharacter I am most inclined to attribute to it--that of original sketch\nand continuous line of notes, with more or less finished passages in\nplace among the notes--I will here quote it, recommending it to my\nstudent's attention. If it be what I suggest, it is clear that Shakspere\nhad not at first altogether determined how he would carry the\nsoliloquy--what line he was going to follow in it: here hope and fear\ncontend for the place of motive to patience. The changes from it in the\ntext are well worth noting: the religion is lessened: the hope\ndisappears: were they too much of pearls to cast before 'barren\nspectators'? The manuscript could never have been meant for any eye but\nhis own, seeing it was possible to print from it such a chaos--over\nwhich yet broods the presence of the formative spirit of the Poet.\n\n    _Ham._ To be, or not to be, I there's the point,\n    To Die, to sleepe, is that all? I all:\n    No, to sleepe, to dreame, I mary there it goes,\n    For in that dreame of death, when wee awake,\n    [Sidenote: 24, 247, 260] And borne before an euerlasting Iudge,\n    From whence no passenger euer retur'nd,\n    The vndiscouered country, at whose sight\n    The happy smile, and the accursed damn'd.\n    But for this, the ioyfull hope of this,\n    Whol'd beare the scornes and flattery of the world,\n    Scorned by the right rich, the rich curssed of the poore?\n    The widow being oppressed, the orphan wrong'd,\n    The taste of hunger, or a tirants raigne,\n    And thousand more calamities besides,\n    To grunt and sweate vnder this weary life,\n    When that he may his full _Quietus_ make,\n    With a bare bodkin, who would this indure,\n    But for a hope of something after death?\n    Which pulses the braine, and doth confound the sence,\n    Which makes vs rather beare those euilles we haue,\n    Than flie to others that we know not of.\n    I that, O this conscience makes cowardes of vs all,\n    Lady in thy orizons, be all my sinnes remembred.]\n\n[Page 126]\n\n_Ham._ You should not haue beleeued me. For\nvertue cannot so innocculate[1] our old stocke,[2] but\nwe shall rellish of it.[3] I loued you not.[4]\n\n_Ophe._ I was the more deceiued.\n\n_Ham._ Get thee to a Nunnerie. Why would'st           [Sidenote: thee a]\nthou be a breeder of Sinners? I am my selfe indifferent[5]\n[Sidenote: 132] honest, but yet I could accuse me of\nsuch things,[6] that it were better my Mother had\n[Sidenote: 62] not borne me,[7] I am very prowd, reuengefull,\nAmbitious, with more offences at my becke, then I\nhaue thoughts to put them in imagination, to giue\nthem shape, or time to acte them in. What should\nsuch Fellowes as I do, crawling betweene Heauen\n                                            [Sidenote: earth and heauen]\nand Earth.[8] We are arrant Knaues all[10], beleeue\nnone of vs.[9] Goe thy wayes to a Nunnery.\nWhere's your Father?[11]\n\n_Ophe._ At home, my Lord.[12]\n\n_Ham._ Let the doores be shut vpon him, that\nhe may play the Foole no way, but in's owne house.[13]\n                                                [Sidenote: no where but]\nFarewell.[14]\n\n_Ophe._ O helpe him, you sweet Heauens.\n\n_Ham._[15] If thou doest Marry, Ile giue thee this\nPlague for thy Dowrie. Be thou as chast as Ice,\nas pure as Snow, thou shalt not escape Calumny.[16]\nGet thee to a Nunnery. Go,[17] Farewell.[18] Or if\nthou wilt needs Marry, marry a fool: for Wise men\nknow well enough, what monsters[19] you make of\nthem. To a Nunnery go, and quickly too. Farwell.[20]\n\n_Ophe._ O[21] heauenly Powers, restore him.\n\n_Ham._[22] I haue heard of your pratlings[23] too wel\n                                         [Sidenote: your paintings well]\nenough. God has giuen you one pace,[23] and you\n                                            [Sidenote: hath | one face,]\nmake your selfe another: you gidge, you amble,\n                             [Sidenote: selfes | you gig and amble, and]\nand you lispe, and nickname Gods creatures, and\n                                       [Sidenote: you list you nickname]\nmake your Wantonnesse, your[24] Ignorance.[25] Go\n\n[Footnote 1: 'inoculate'--_bud_, in the horticultural use.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _trunk_ or _stem_ of the family tree.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Emphasis on _relish_--'keep something of the old flavour of\nthe stock.']\n\n[Footnote 4: He tries her now with denying his love--perhaps moved in\npart by a feeling, taught by his mother's, of how imperfect it was.]\n\n[Footnote 5: tolerably.]\n\n[Footnote 6: He turns from baiting woman in her to condemn himself. Is\nit not the case with every noble nature, that the knowledge of wrong in\nanother arouses in it the consciousness of its own faults and sins, of\nits own evil possibilities? Hurled from the heights of ideal humanity,\nHamlet not only recognizes in himself every evil tendency of his race,\nbut almost feels himself individually guilty of every transgression.\n'God, God, forgive us all!' exclaims the doctor who has just witnessed\nthe misery of Lady Macbeth, unveiling her guilt.\n\nThis whole speech of Hamlet is profoundly sane--looking therefore\naltogether insane to the shallow mind, on which the impression of its\ninsanity is deepened by its coming from him so freely. The common nature\ndisappointed rails at humanity; Hamlet, his earthly ideal destroyed,\nwould tear his individual human self to pieces.]\n\n[Footnote 7: This we may suppose uttered with an expression as startling\nto Ophelia as impenetrable.]\n\n[Footnote 8: He is disgusted with himself, with his own nature and\nconsciousness--]\n\n[Footnote 9: --and this reacts on his kind.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'all' _not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 11: Here, perhaps, he grows suspicious--asks himself why he is\nallowed this prolonged _t\u00eate \u00e0 t\u00eate_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: I am willing to believe she thinks so.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Whether he trusts Ophelia or not, he does not take her\nstatement for correct, and says this in the hope that Polonius is not\ntoo far off to hear it. The speech is for him, not for Ophelia, and will\nseem to her to come only from his madness.]\n\n[Footnote 14: _Exit_.]\n\n[Footnote 15: (_re-entering_)]\n\n[Footnote 16: 'So many are bad, that your virtue will not be believed\nin.']\n\n[Footnote 17: 'Go' _not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 18: _Exit, and re-enter._]\n\n[Footnote 19: _Cornuti._]\n\n[Footnote 20: _Exit._]\n\n[Footnote 21: 'O' _not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 22: (_re-entering_)]\n\n[Footnote 23: I suspect _pratlings_ to be a corruption, not of the\nprinted _paintings_, but of some word substituted for it by the Poet,\nperhaps _prancings_, and _pace_ to be correct.]\n\n[Footnote 24: 'your' _not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 25: As the present type to him of womankind, he assails her\nwith such charges of lightness as are commonly brought against women. He\ndoes not go farther: she is not his mother, and he hopes she is\ninnocent. But he cannot make her speak!]\n\n[Page 128]\n\ntoo, Ile no more on't, it hath made me mad. I say,\nwe will haue no more Marriages.[1] Those that are\n                                             [Sidenote: no mo marriage,]\nmarried already,[2] all but one shall liue, the rest\nshall keep as they are. To a Nunnery, go.\n\n                         _Exit Hamlet_.               [Sidenote: _Exit_]\n\n[3]_Ophe._ O what a Noble minde is heere o're-throwne?\nThe Courtiers, Soldiers, Schollers: Eye, tongue, sword,\nTh'expectansie and Rose[4] of the faire State,\n                                            [Sidenote: Th' expectation,]\nThe glasse of Fashion,[5] and the mould of Forme,[6]\nTh'obseru'd of all Obseruers, quite, quite downe.\nHaue I of Ladies most deiect and wretched,          [Sidenote: And I of]\nThat suck'd the Honie of his Musicke Vowes:          [Sidenote: musickt]\nNow see that Noble, and most Soueraigne Reason,     [Sidenote: see what]\nLike sweet Bels iangled out of tune, and harsh,[7]\n                                                 [Sidenote: out of time]\nThat vnmatch'd Forme and Feature of blowne youth,[8]\n                                              [Sidenote: and stature of]\nBlasted with extasie.[9] Oh woe is me,\nT'haue scene what I haue scene: see what I see.[10]\n                                                     [Sidenote: _Exit_.]\n\n_Enter King, and Polonius_.\n\n_King_. Loue? His affections do not that way tend,\nNor what he spake, though it lack'd Forme a little,      [Sidenote: Not]\nWas not like Madnesse.[11] There's something in his soule?\nO're which his Melancholly sits on brood,\nAnd I do doubt the hatch, and the disclose[12]\nWill be some danger,[11] which to preuent       [Sidenote: which for to]\nI haue in quicke determination\n[Sidenote: 138, 180] Thus set it downe. He shall with speed to England\nFor the demand of our neglected Tribute:\nHaply the Seas and Countries different\n\n[Footnote 1: 'The thing must be put a stop to! the world must cease! it\nis not fit to go on.']\n\n[Footnote 2: 'already--(_aside_) all but one--shall live.']\n\n[Footnote 3: _1st Q_.\n\n    _Ofe._ Great God of heauen, what a quicke change is this?\n    The Courtier, Scholler, Souldier, all in him,\n    All dasht and splinterd thence, O woe is me,\n    To a seene what I haue seene, see what I see. _Exit_.\n\nTo his cruel words Ophelia is impenetrable--from the conviction that not\nhe but his madness speaks.\n\nThe moment he leaves her, she breaks out in such phrase as a young girl\nwould hardly have used had she known that the king and her father were\nlistening. I grant, however, the speech may be taken as a soliloquy\naudible to the spectators only, who to the persons of a play are _but_\nthe spiritual presences.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'The hope and flower'--The _rose_ is not unfrequently used\nin English literature as the type of perfection.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'he by whom Fashion dressed herself'--_he who set the\nfashion_. His great and small virtues taken together, Hamlet makes us\nthink of Sir Philip Sidney--ten years older than Shakspere, and dead\nsixteen years before _Hamlet_ was written.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'he after whose ways, or modes of behaviour, men shaped\ntheirs'--therefore the mould in which their forms were cast;--_the\nobject of universal imitation_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: I do not know whether this means--the peal rung without\nregard to tune or time--or--the single bell so handled that the tongue\nchecks and jars the vibration. In some country places, I understand,\nthey go about ringing a set of hand-bells.]\n\n[Footnote 8: youth in full blossom.]\n\n[Footnote 9: madness 177.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'to see now such a change from what I saw then.']\n\n[Footnote 11: The king's conscience makes him keen. He is, all through,\ndoubtful of the madness.]\n\n[Footnote 12: --of the fact- or fancy-egg on which his melancholy sits\nbrooding]\n\n[Page 130]\n\nWith variable Obiects, shall expell\nThis something setled matter[1] in his heart\nWhereon his Braines still beating, puts him thus\nFrom[2] fashion of himselfe. What thinke you on't?\n\n_Pol_. It shall do well. But yet do I beleeue\nThe Origin and Commencement of this greefe       [Sidenote: his greefe,]\nSprung from neglected loue.[3] How now _Ophelia_?\nYou neede not tell vs, what Lord _Hamlet_ saide,\nWe heard it all.[4] My Lord, do as you please,\nBut if you hold it fit after the Play,\nLet his Queene Mother all alone intreat him\nTo shew his Greefes: let her be round with him,      [Sidenote: griefe,]\nAnd Ile be plac'd so, please you in the eare\nOf all their Conference. If she finde him not,[5]\nTo England send him: Or confine him where\nYour wisedome best shall thinke.\n\n_King_. It shall be so:\nMadnesse in great Ones, must not vnwatch'd go.[6]\n                                                   [Sidenote: unmatched]\n                                       _Exeunt_.\n\n_Enter Hamlet, and two or three of the Players_.\n                                                 [Sidenote: _and three_]\n\n_Ham_.[7] Speake the Speech I pray you, as I\npronounc'd it to you trippingly[8] on the Tongue:\nBut if you mouth it, as many of your Players do,\n                                              [Sidenote: of our Players]\nI had as liue[9] the Town-Cryer had spoke my     [Sidenote: cryer spoke]\nLines:[10] Nor do not saw the Ayre too much your   [Sidenote: much with]\nhand thus, but vse all gently; for in the verie\nTorrent, Tempest, and (as I may say) the Whirlewinde\n                                              [Sidenote: say, whirlwind]\nof Passion, you must acquire and beget a             [Sidenote: of your]\nTemperance that may giue it Smoothnesse.[11] O it\noffends mee to the Soule, to see a robustious Perywig-pated\n                                                  [Sidenote: to heare a]\nFellow, teare a Passion to tatters, to              [Sidenote: totters,]\nverie ragges, to split the eares of the Groundlings:[12]\n                                                      [Sidenote: spleet]\nwho (for the most part) are capeable[13] of nothing,\nbut inexplicable dumbe shewes,[14] and noise:[15] I\ncould haue such a Fellow whipt for o're-doing          [Sidenote: would]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'something of settled matter'--_id\u00e9e fixe_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: '_away from_ his own true likeness'; 'makes him so unlike\nhimself.']\n\n[Footnote 3: Polonius is crestfallen, but positive.]\n\n[Footnote 4: This supports the notion of Ophelia's ignorance of the\nespial. Polonius thinks she is about to disclose what has passed, and\n_informs_ her of its needlessness. But it _might_ well enough be taken\nas only an assurance of the success of their listening--that they had\nheard without difficulty.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'If she do not find him out': a comparable phrase, common\nat the time, was, _Take me with you_, meaning, _Let me understand you_.\n\nPolonius, for his daughter's sake, and his own in her, begs for him\nanother chance.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'in the insignificant, madness may roam the country, but in\nthe great it must be watched.' The _unmatcht_ of the _Quarto_ might bear\nthe meaning of _countermatched_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: I should suggest this exhortation to the Players introduced\nwith the express purpose of showing how absolutely sane Hamlet was,\ncould I believe that Shakspere saw the least danger of Hamlet's pretence\nbeing mistaken for reality.]\n\n[Footnote 8: He would have neither blundering nor emphasis such as might\nrouse too soon the king's suspicion, or turn it into certainty.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'liue'--_lief_]\n\n[Footnote 10: 1st Q.:--\n\n    I'de rather heare a towne bull bellow,\n    Then such a fellow speake my lines.\n\n_Lines_ is a player-word still.]\n\n[Footnote 11: --smoothness such as belongs to the domain of Art, and\nwill both save from absurdity, and allow the relations with surroundings\nto manifest themselves;--harmoniousness, which is the possibility of\nco-existence.]\n\n[Footnote 12: those on the ground--that is, in the pit; there was no\ngallery then.]\n\n[Footnote 13: _receptive_.]\n\n[Footnote 14: --gestures extravagant and unintelligible as those of a\ndumb show that could not by the beholder be interpreted; gestures\nincorrespondent to the words.\n\nA _dumb show_ was a stage-action without words.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Speech that is little but rant, and scarce related to the\nsense, is hardly better than a noise; it might, for the purposes of art,\nas well be a sound inarticulate.]\n\n[Page 132]\n\nTermagant[1]: it out-Herod's Herod[2] Pray you\nauoid it.\n\n_Player._ I warrant your Honor.\n\n_Ham._ Be not too tame neyther: but let your\nowne Discretion be your Tutor. Sute the Action\nto the Word, the Word to the Action, with this\nspeciall obseruance: That you ore-stop not the    [Sidenote: ore-steppe]\nmodestie of Nature; for any thing so ouer-done,     [Sidenote ore-doone]\nis fro[3] the purpose of Playing, whose end both at\nthe first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twer the\nMirrour vp to Nature; to shew Vertue her owne   [Sidenote: her feature;]\nFeature, Scorne[4] her owne Image, and the verie\nAge and Bodie of the Time, his forme and pressure.[5]\nNow, this ouer-done, or come tardie off,[6] though it\nmake the vnskilfull laugh, cannot but make the      [Sidenote: it makes]\nIudicious greeue; The censure of the which One,[7]\n                                                [Sidenote: of which one]\nmust in your allowance[8] o're-way a whole Theater\nof Others. Oh, there bee Players that I haue\nscene Play, and heard others praise, and that highly\n                                                     [Sidenote: praysd,]\n(not to speake it prophanely) that neyther hauing\nthe accent of Christians, nor the gate of Christian,\nPagan, or Norman, haue so strutted and bellowed,\n                                        [Sidenote: Pagan, nor man, haue]\nthat I haue thought some of Natures Iouerney-men\nhad made men, and not made them well, they\nimitated Humanity so abhominably.[9]\n\n[Sidenote: 126] _Play._ I hope we haue reform'd that indifferently[10]\nwith vs, Sir.\n\n_Ham._ O reforme it altogether. And let those\nthat play your Clownes, speake no more then is set\ndowne for them.[12] For there be of them, that will\nthemselues laugh, to set on some quantitie of\nbarren Spectators to laugh too, though in the\nmeane time, some necessary Question of the Play\nbe then to be considered:[12] that's Villanous, and\nshewes a most pittifull Ambition in the Fool that\nvses it.[13] Go make you readie.    _Exit Players_\n\n[Footnote 1: 'An imaginary God of the Mahometans, represented as a most\nviolent character in the old Miracle-plays and Moralities.'--_Sh. Lex._]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'represented as a swaggering tyrant in the old dramatic\nperformances.'--_Sh. Lex._]\n\n[Footnote 3: _away from_: inconsistent with.]\n\n[Footnote 4: --that which is deserving of scorn.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _impression_, as on wax. Some would persuade us that\nShakspere's own plays do not do this; but such critics take the\n_accidents_ or circumstances of a time for the _body_ of it--the clothes\nfor the person. _Human_ nature is 'Nature,' however _dressed_.\n\nThere should be a comma after 'Age.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'laggingly represented'--A word belonging to _time_ is\nsubstituted for a word belonging to _space_:--'this over-done, or\ninadequately effected'; 'this over-done, or under-done.']\n\n[Footnote 7: 'and the judgment of such a one.' '_the which_' seems\nequivalent to _and--such_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'must, you will grant.']\n\n[Footnote 9: Shakspere may here be playing with a false derivation, as I\nwas myself when the true was pointed out to me--fancying _abominable_\nderived from _ab_ and _homo_. If so, then he means by the phrase: 'they\nimitated humanity so from the nature of man, so _inhumanly_.']\n\n[Footnote 10: tolerably.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'Sir' _not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 12: Shakspere must have himself suffered from such clowns:\nColeridge thinks some of their _gag_ has crept into his print.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Here follow in the _1st Q._ several specimens of such a\nclown's foolish jests and behaviour.]\n\n[Page 134]\n\n_Enter Polonius, Rosincrance, and Guildensterne_.[1]\n                              [Sidenote: _Guyldensterne, & Rosencraus_.]\n\nHow now my Lord,\nWill the King heare this peece of Worke?\n\n_Pol_. And the Queene too, and that presently.[2]\n\n_Ham_. Bid the Players make hast.\n\n                              _Exit Polonius_.[3]\n\nWill you two helpe to hasten them?[4]\n\n_Both_. We will my Lord.        _Exeunt_.\n                        [Sidenote: _Ros_. I my Lord. _Exeunt they two_.]\n\n_Enter Horatio_[5]\n\n_Ham_. What hoa, _Horatio_?                       [Sidenote: What howe,]\n\n_Hora_. Heere sweet Lord, at your Seruice.\n\n[Sidenote: 26] _Ham_.[7] _Horatio_, thou art eene as iust a man\nAs ere my Conversation coap'd withall.\n\n_Hora_. O my deere Lord.[6]\n\n_Ham_.[7] Nay do not thinke I flatter:\nFor what aduancement may I hope from thee,[8]\nThat no Reuennew hast, but thy good spirits\nTo feed and cloath thee. Why shold the poor be flatter'd?\nNo, let the Candied[9] tongue, like absurd pompe,      [Sidenote: licke]\nAnd crooke the pregnant Hindges of the knee,[10]\nWhere thrift may follow faining? Dost thou heare,\n                                                    [Sidenote: fauning;]\nSince my deere Soule was Mistris of my choyse;[11]\n                                                 [Sidenote: her choice,]\nAnd could of men distinguish, her election\nHath seal'd thee for her selfe. For thou hast bene\n                                                [Sidenote: S'hath seald]\n[Sidenote: 272] As one in suffering all, that suffers nothing.\nA man that Fortunes buffets, and Rewards\nHath 'tane with equall Thankes. And blest are those,    [Sidenote: Hast]\nWhose Blood and Iudgement are so well co-mingled,\n                                               [Sidenote: comedled,[12]]\n[Sidenote: 26] That they are not a Pipe for Fortunes finger,\nTo sound what stop she please.[13] Giue me that man,\nThat is not Passions Slaue,[14] and I will weare him\nIn my hearts Core: I, in my Heart of heart,[15]\nAs I do thee. Something too much of this.[16]\n\n[Footnote 1: _In Q. at end of speech._]\n\n[Footnote 2: He humours Hamlet as if he were a child.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 4: He has sent for Horatio, and is expecting him.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _In Q. after next speech._]\n\n[Footnote 6: --repudiating the praise.]\n\n[Footnote 7: To know a man, there is scarce a readier way than to hear\nhim talk of his friend--why he loves, admires, chooses him. The Poet\nhere gives us a wide window into Hamlet. So genuine is his respect for\n_being_, so indifferent is he to _having_, that he does not shrink, in\nargument for his own truth, from reminding his friend to his face that,\nbeing a poor man, nothing is to be gained from him--nay, from telling\nhim that it is through his poverty he has learned to admire him, as a\nman of courage, temper, contentment, and independence, with nothing but\nhis good spirits for an income--a man whose manhood is dominant both\nover his senses and over his fortune--a true Stoic. He describes an\nideal man, then clasps the ideal to his bosom as his own, in the person\nof his friend. Only a great man could so worship another, choosing him\nfor such qualities; and hereby Shakspere shows us his Hamlet--a brave,\nnoble, wise, pure man, beset by circumstances the most adverse\nconceivable. That Hamlet had not misapprehended Horatio becomes evident\nin the last scene of all. 272.]\n\n[Footnote 8: The mother of flattery is self-advantage.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _sugared_. _1st Q._:\n\n    Let flattery sit on those time-pleasing tongs;\n    To glose with them that loues to heare their praise;\n    And not with such as thou _Horatio_.\n    There is a play to night, &c.]\n\n[Footnote 10: A pregnant figure and phrase, requiring thought.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'since my real self asserted its dominion, and began to\nrule my choice,' making it pure, and withdrawing it from the tyranny of\nimpulse and liking.]\n\n[Footnote 12: The old word _medle_ is synonymous with _mingle._]\n\n[Footnote 13: To Hamlet, the lordship of man over himself, despite of\ncircumstance, is a truth, and therefore a duty.]\n\n[Footnote 14: The man who has chosen his friend thus, is hardly himself\none to act without sufficing reason, or take vengeance without certain\nproof of guilt.]\n\n[Footnote 15: He justifies the phrase, repeating it.]\n\n[Footnote 16: --apologetic for having praised him to his face.]\n\n[Page 136]\n\nThere is a Play to night before the King,\nOne Scoene of it comes neere the Circumstance\nWhich I haue told thee, of my Fathers death.\nI prythee, when thou see'st that Acte a-foot,[1]\nEuen with the verie Comment of my[2] Soule      [Sidenote: thy[2] soule]\nObserue mine Vnkle: If his occulted guilt,         [Sidenote: my Vncle,]\nDo not it selfe vnkennell in one speech,\n[Sidenote: 58] It is a damned Ghost that we haue seene:[3]\nAnd my Imaginations are as foule\nAs Vulcans Stythe.[4] Giue him needfull note,\n                                          [Sidenote: stithy; | heedfull]\nFor I mine eyes will riuet to his Face:\nAnd after we will both our iudgements ioyne,[5]\nTo censure of his seeming.[6]                     [Sidenote: in censure]\n\n_Hora._ Well my Lord.\nIf he steale ought the whil'st this Play is Playing.    [Sidenote: if a]\nAnd scape detecting, I will pay the Theft.[1]      [Sidenote: detected,]\n\n_Enter King, Queene, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosincrance,\nGuildensterne, and other Lords attendant with\nhis Guard carrying Torches. Danish March.\nSound a Flourish._\n            [Sidenote: _Enter Trumpets and Kettle Drummes, King, Queene,\n                                                    Polonius, Ophelia._]\n\n_Ham._ They are comming to the Play: I must\n[Sidenote: 60, 156, 178] be idle.[7] Get you a place.\n\n_King._ How fares our Cosin _Hamlet_?\n\n_Ham._ Excellent Ifaith, of the Camelions dish:\n[Sidenote: 154] I eate the Ayre promise-cramm'd,[8] you cannot feed\nCapons so.[9]\n\n_King._ I haue nothing with this answer _Hamlet_,\nthese words are not mine.[10]\n\n_Ham._ No, nor mine. Now[11] my Lord, you\nplaid once i'th'Vniuersity, you say?\n\n_Polon._ That I did my Lord, and was accounted         [Sidenote: did I]\na good Actor.\n\n[Footnote 1: Here follows in _1st Q._\n\n    Marke thou the King, doe but obserue his lookes,\n    For I mine eies will riuet to his face:\n    [Sidenote: 112] And if he doe not bleach, and change at that,\n    It is a damned ghost that we haue seene.\n    _Horatio_, haue a care, obserue him well.\n\n    _Hor_. My lord, mine eies shall still be on his face,\n    And not the smallest alteration\n    That shall appeare in him, but I shall note it.]\n\n[Footnote 2: I take 'my' to be right: 'watch my uncle with the\ncomment--the discriminating judgment, that is--of _my_ soul, more intent\nthan thine.']\n\n[Footnote 3: He has then, ere this, taken Horatio into his\nconfidence--so far at least as the Ghost's communication concerning the\nmurder.]\n\n[Footnote 4: a dissyllable: _stithy_, _anvil_; Scotch, _studdy_.\n\nHamlet's doubt is here very evident: he hopes he may find it a false\nghost: what good man, what good son would not? He has clear cause and\nreason--it is his duty to delay. That the cause and reason and duty are\nnot invariably clear to Hamlet himself--not clear in every mood, is\nanother thing. Wavering conviction, doubt of evidence, the corollaries\nof assurance, the oppression of misery, a sense of the worthlessness of\nthe world's whole economy--each demanding delay, might yet well, all\ntogether, affect the man's feeling as mere causes of rather than reasons\nfor hesitation. The conscientiousness of Hamlet stands out the clearer\nthat, throughout, his dislike to his uncle, predisposing him to believe\nany ill of him, is more than evident. By his incompetent or prejudiced\njudges, Hamlet's accusations and justifications of himself are equally\nplaced to the _discredit_ of his account. They seem to think a man could\nnever accuse himself except he were in the wrong; therefore if ever he\nexcuses himself, he is the more certainly in the wrong: whatever point\nmay tell on the other side, it is to be disregarded.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'bring our two judgments together for comparison.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'in order to judge of the significance of his looks and\nbehaviour.']\n\n[Footnote 7: Does he mean _foolish_, that is, _lunatic_? or\n_insouciant_, and _unpreoccupied_?]\n\n[Footnote 8: The king asks Hamlet how he _fares_--that is, how he gets\non; Hamlet pretends to think he has asked him about his diet. His talk\nhas at once become wild; ere the king enters he has donned his cloak of\nmadness. Here he confesses to ambition--will favour any notion\nconcerning himself rather than give ground for suspecting the real state\nof his mind and feeling.\n\nIn the _1st Q._ 'the Camelions dish' almost appears to mean the play,\nnot the king's promises.]\n\n[Footnote 9: In some places they push food down the throats of the\npoultry they want to fatten, which is technically, I believe, called\n_cramming_ them.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'You have not taken me with you; I have not laid hold of\nyour meaning; I have nothing by your answer.' 'Your words have not\nbecome my property; they have not given themselves to me in their\nmeaning.']\n\n[Footnote 11: _Point thus_: 'No, nor mine now.--My Lord,' &c. '--not\nmine, now I have uttered them, for so I have given them away.' Or does\nhe mean to disclaim their purport?]\n\n[Page 138]\n\n_Ham._ And[1] what did you enact?\n\n_Pol._ I did enact _Iulius Caesar_, I was kill'd\ni'th'Capitol: _Brutus_ kill'd me.\n\n_Ham._ It was a bruite part of him, to kill so\nCapitall a Calfe there.[2] Be the Players ready?\n\n_Rosin._ I my Lord, they stay vpon your patience.\n\n_Qu._ Come hither my good _Hamlet_, sit by me.      [Sidenote: my deere]\n\n_Ham._ No good Mother, here's Mettle more attractiue.[3]\n\n_Pol._ Oh ho, do you marke that?[4]\n\n_Ham._ Ladie, shall I lye in your Lap?\n\n_Ophe._ No my Lord.\n\n_Ham._ I meane, my Head vpon your Lap?[5]\n\n_Ophe._ I my Lord.[6]\n\n_Ham._ Do you thinke I meant Country[7] matters?\n\n_Ophe._ I thinke nothing, my Lord.\n\n_Ham._ That's a faire thought to ly between\nMaids legs.\n\n_Ophe._ What is my Lord?\n\n_Ham._ Nothing.\n\n_Ophe._ You are merrie, my Lord?\n\n_Ham._ Who I?\n\n_Ophe._ I my Lord.[8]\n\n_Ham._ Oh God, your onely Iigge-maker[9]: what\nshould a man do, but be merrie. For looke you\nhow cheerefully my Mother lookes, and my Father\ndyed within's two Houres.\n\n[Sidenote: 65] _Ophe._ Nay, 'tis twice two moneths, my Lord.[10]\n\n_Ham._ So long? Nay then let the Diuel weare\n[Sidenote: 32] blacke, for Ile haue a suite of Sables.[11] Oh\nHeauens! dye two moneths ago, and not forgotten\nyet?[12] Then there's hope, a great mans Memorie,\nmay out-liue his life halfe a yeare: But byrlady  [Sidenote: ber Lady a]\nhe must builde Churches then: or else shall he       [Sidenote: shall a]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'And ' _not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 2: Emphasis on _there_. 'There' is not in _1st Q._ Hamlet\nmeans it was a desecration of the Capitol.]\n\n[Footnote 3: He cannot be familiar with his mother, so avoids her--will\nnot sit by her, cannot, indeed, bear to be near her. But he loves and\nhopes in Ophelia still.]\n\n[Footnote 4: '--Did I not tell you so?']\n\n[Footnote 5: This speech and the next are not in the _Q._, but are\nshadowed in the _1st Q._]\n\n[Footnote 6: _--consenting_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: In _1st Quarto_, 'contrary.'\n\nHamlet hints, probing her character--hoping her unable to understand. It\nis the festering soreness of his feeling concerning his mother, making\nhim doubt with the haunting agony of a loathed possibility, that\nprompts, urges, forces from him his ugly speeches--nowise to be\njustified, only to be largely excused in his sickening consciousness of\nhis mother's presence. Such pain as Hamlet's, the ferment of subverted\nlove and reverence, may lightly bear the blame of hideous manners,\nseeing, they spring from no wantonness, but from the writhing of\ntortured and helpless Purity. Good manners may be as impossible as out\nof place in the presence of shameless evil.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Ophelia bears with him for his own and his madness' sake,\nand is less uneasy because of the presence of his mother. To account\n_satisfactorily_ for Hamlet's speeches to her, is not easy. The freer\ncustom of the age, freer to an extent hardly credible in this, will not\n_satisfy_ the lovers of Hamlet, although it must have _some_ weight. The\nnecessity for talking madly, because he is in the presence of his uncle,\nand perhaps, to that end, for uttering whatever comes to him, without\npause for choice, might give us another hair's-weight. Also he may be\nsupposed confident that Ophelia would not understand him, while his\nuncle would naturally set such worse than improprieties down to wildest\nmadness. But I suspect that here as before (123), Shakepere would show\nHamlet's soul full of bitterest, passionate loathing; his mother has\ncompelled him to think of horrors and women together, so turning their\npreciousness into a disgust; and this feeling, his assumed madhess\nallows him to indulge and partly relieve by utterance. Could he have\nprovoked Ophelia to rebuke him with the severity he courted, such rebuke\nwould have been joy to him. Perhaps yet a small addition of weight to\nthe scale of his excuse may be found in his excitement about his play,\nand the necessity for keeping down that excitement. Suggestion is easier\nthan judgment.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'here's for the jig-maker! he's the right man!' Or perhaps\nhe is claiming the part as his own: 'I am your only jig-maker!']\n\n[Footnote 10: This needs not be taken for the exact time. The statement\nnotwithstanding suggests something like two months between the first and\nsecond acts, for in the first, Hamlet says his father has not been dead\ntwo months. 24. We are not bound to take it for more than a rough\napproximation; Ophelia would make the best of things for the queen, who\nis very kind to her.]\n\n[Footnote 11: the fur of the sable.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _1st Q._\n\n                nay then there's some\n    Likelyhood, a gentlemans death may outliue memorie,\n    But by my faith &c.]\n\n[Page 140]\n\nsuffer not thinking on, with the Hoby-horsse,\nwhose Epitaph is, For o, For o, the Hoby-horse\nis forgot.\n\n_Hoboyes play. The dumbe shew enters._\n                 [Sidenote: _The Trumpets sounds. Dumbe show followes._]\n\n_Enter a King and Queene, very louingly; the Queene\n                                   [Sidenote: _and a Queene, the queen_]\nembracing him. She kneeles, and makes shew of\n   [Sidenote: _embracing him, and he her, he takes her up, and_]\nProtestation vnto him. He takes her vp, and\ndeclines his head vpon her neck. Layes him downe\n                                            [Sidenote: _necke, he lyes_]\nvpon a Banke of Flowers.  She seeing him\na-sleepe, leaues him. Anon comes in a Fellow,\n                                [Sidenote: _anon come in an other man_,]\ntakes off his Crowne, kisses it, and powres poyson\n                                                 [Sidenote: _it, pours_]\nin the Kings eares, and Exits. The Queene returnes,\n                       [Sidenote: _the sleepers eares, and leaues him:_]\nfindes the King dead, and makes passionate       [Sidenote: dead, makes]\nAction. The Poysoner, with some two or\n                   [Sidenote: _some three or foure come in againe, seeme\n                                                            to condole_]\nthree Mutes comes in againe, seeming to lament\nwith her. The dead body is carried away: The\n                                             [Sidenote: _with her, the_]\nPoysoner Wooes the Queene with Gifts, she\n[Sidenote: 54] seemes loath and vnwilling awhile, but in the end,\n                                      [Sidenote: _seemes harsh awhile_,]\naccepts his loue.[1]   _Exeunt[2]_           [Sidenote: _accepts loue._]\n\n_Ophe._ What meanes this, my Lord?\n\n_Ham._ Marry this is Miching _Malicho_[3] that\n                                     [Sidenote: this munching _Mallico_]\nmeanes Mischeefe.\n\n_Ophe._ Belike this shew imports the Argument\nof the Play?\n\n_Ham._ We shall know by these Fellowes:\n                               [Sidenote: this fellow, _Enter Prologue_]\nthe Players cannot keepe counsell, they'l tell\n                                              [Sidenote: keepe, they'le]\nall.[4]\n\n_Ophe._ Will they tell vs what this shew meant?  [Sidenote: Will a tell]\n\n_Ham._ I, or any shew that you'l shew him. Bee      [Sidenote: you will]\nnot you asham'd to shew, hee'l not shame to tell\nyou what it meanes.\n\n_Ophe._ You are naught,[5] you are naught, Ile\nmarke the Play.\n\n[Footnote 1: The king, not the queen, is aimed at. Hamlet does not\nforget the injunction of the Ghost to spare his mother. 54.\n\nThe king should be represented throughout as struggling not to betray\nhimself.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 3: _skulking mischief_: the latter word is Spanish, To _mich_\nis to _play truant_.\n\n    How tenderly her tender hands betweene\n    In yvorie cage she did the micher bind.\n\n_The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia_, page 84.\n\nMy _Reader_ tells me the word is still in use among printers, with the\npronunciation _mike_, and the meaning _to skulk_ or _idle_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: --their part being speech, that of the others only dumb\nshow.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _naughty_: persons who do not behave well are treated as if\nthey were not--are made nought of--are set at nought; hence our word\nnaughty.\n\n'Be naught awhile' (_As You Like It_, i. 1)--'take yourself away;' 'be\nnobody;' 'put yourself in the corner.']\n\n[Page 142]\n\n_Enter[1] Prologue._\n\n_For vs, and for our Tragedie,\nHeere stooping to your Clemencie:\nWe begge your hearing Patientlie._\n\n_Ham._ Is this a Prologue, or the Poesie[2] of a       [Sidenote: posie]\nRing?\n\n_Ophe._ 'Tis[3] briefe my Lord.\n\n_Ham._ As Womans loue.\n\n[4] _Enter King and his Queene._                [Sidenote: _and Queene_]\n\n[Sidenote: 234] _King._ Full thirtie times[5] hath Phoebus Cart gon\nround,\nNeptunes salt Wash, and _Tellus_ Orbed ground:     [Sidenote: orb'd the]\nAnd thirtie dozen Moones with borrowed sheene,\nAbout the World haue times twelue thirties beene,\nSince loue our hearts, and _Hymen_ did our hands\nVnite comutuall, in most sacred Bands.[6]\n\n_Bap._ So many iournies may the Sunne and Moone      [Sidenote: _Quee._]\nMake vs againe count o're, ere loue be done.\nBut woe is me, you are so sicke of late,\nSo farre from cheere, and from your forme state,\n                                      [Sidenote: from our former state,]\nThat I distrust you: yet though I distrust,\nDiscomfort you (my Lord) it nothing must:\n[A]\nFor womens Feare and Loue, holds quantitie,  [Sidenote: And womens hold]\nIn neither ought, or in extremity:[7]\n                                     [Sidenote: Eyther none, in neither]\nNow what my loue is, proofe hath made you know,\n                                           [Sidenote: my Lord is proofe]\nAnd as my Loue is siz'd, my Feare is so.              [Sidenote: ciz'd,]\n[B]\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n    For women feare too much, euen as they loue,]\n\n[Footnote B: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n    Where loue is great, the litlest doubts are feare,\n    Where little feares grow great, great loue growes there.]\n\n[Footnote 1: _Enter_ not in _Q._]\n\n[Footnote 2: Commonly _posy_: a little sentence engraved inside a\nring--perhaps originally a tiny couplet, therefore _poesy_, _1st Q._, 'a\npoesie for a ring?']\n\n[Footnote 3: Emphasis on ''Tis.']\n\n[Footnote 4: Very little blank verse of any kind was written before\nShakspere's; the usual form of dramatic verse was long, irregular, rimed\nlines: the Poet here uses the heroic couplet, which gives a resemblance\nto the older plays by its rimes, while also by its stately and\nmonotonous movement the play-play is differenced from the play into\nwhich it is introduced, and caused to _look_ intrinsically like a play\nin relation to the rest of the play of which it is part. In other words,\nit stands off from the surrounding play, slightly elevated both by form\nand formality. 103.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _1st Q._\n\n    _Duke._ Full fortie yeares are past, their date is gone,\n    Since happy time ioyn'd both our hearts as one:\n    And now the blood that fill'd my youthfull veines,\n    Ruunes weakely in their pipes, and all the straines\n    Of musicke, which whilome pleasde mine eare,\n    Is now a burthen that Age cannot beare:\n    And therefore sweete Nature must pay his due,\n    To heauen must I, and leaue the earth with you.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Here Hamlet gives the time his father and mother had been\nmarried, and Shakspere points at Hamlet's age. 234. The Poet takes\npains to show his hero's years.]\n\n[Footnote 7: This line, whose form in the _Quarto_ is very careless,\nseems but a careless correction, leaving the sense as well as the\nconstruction obscure: 'Women's fear and love keep the scales level; in\n_neither_ is there ought, or in _both_ there is fulness;' or: 'there is\nno moderation in their fear and their love; either they have _none_ of\neither, or they have _excess_ of both.' Perhaps he tried to express both\nideas at once. But compression is always in danger of confusion.]\n\n[Page 144]\n\n_King._ Faith I must leaue thee Loue, and shortly too:\nMy operant Powers my Functions leaue to do:  [Sidenote: their functions]\nAnd thou shall liue in this faire world behinde,\nHonour'd, belou'd, and haply, one as kinde.\nFor Husband shalt thou----\n\n_Bap._ Oh confound the rest:                         [Sidenote: _Quee._]\nSuch Loue, must needs be Treason in my brest:\nIn second Husband, let me be accurst,\nNone wed the second, but who kill'd the first.[1]\n\n_Ham._ Wormwood, Wormwood.         [Sidenote: _Ham_. That's wormwood[2]]\n\n_Bapt._ The instances[3] that second Marriage moue,\nAre base respects of Thrift,[4] but none of Loue.\nA second time, I kill my Husband dead,\nWhen second Husband kisses me in Bed.\n\n_King._ I do beleeue you. Think what now you speak:\nBut what we do determine, oft we breake:\nPurpose is but the slaue to Memorie,[5]\nOf violent Birth, but poore validitie:[6]\nWhich now like Fruite vnripe stickes on the Tree,\n                                              [Sidenote: now the fruite]\nBut fall vnshaken, when they mellow bee.[7]\nMost necessary[8] 'tis, that we forget\nTo pay our selues, what to our selues is debt:\nWhat to our selues in passion we propose,\nThe passion ending, doth the purpose lose.\nThe violence of other Greefe or Ioy,                 [Sidenote: eyther,]\nTheir owne ennactors with themselues destroy:     [Sidenote: ennactures]\nWhere Ioy most Reuels, Greefe doth most lament;\nGreefe ioyes, Ioy greeues on slender accident.[9]\n                                      [Sidenote: Greefe ioy ioy griefes]\nThis world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange\nThat euen our Loues should with our Fortunes change.\nFor 'tis a question left vs yet to proue,\nWhether Loue lead Fortune, or else Fortune Loue.\n\n[Footnote 1: Is this to be supposed in the original play, or inserted by\nHamlet, embodying an unuttered and yet more fearful doubt with regard to\nhis mother?]\n\n[Footnote 2: This speech is on the margin in the _Quarto_, and the\nQueene's speech runs on without break.]\n\n[Footnote 3: the urgencies; the motives.]\n\n[Footnote 4: worldly advantage.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'Purpose holds but while Memory holds.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'Purpose is born in haste, but is of poor strength to\nlive.']\n\n[Footnote 7: Here again there is carelessness of construction, as if the\nPoet had not thought it worth his while to correct this subsidiary\nportion of the drama. I do not see how to lay the blame on the\nprinter.--'Purpose is a mere fruit, which holds on or falls only as it\nmust. The element of persistency is not in it.']\n\n[Footnote 8: unavoidable--coming of necessity.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'Grief turns into joy, and joy into grief, on a slight\nchance.']\n\n[Page 146]\n\nThe great man downe, you marke his fauourites flies,\n                                                   [Sidenote: fauourite]\nThe poore aduanc'd, makes Friends of Enemies:\nAnd hitherto doth Loue on Fortune tend,\nFor who not needs, shall neuer lacke a Frend:\nAnd who in want a hollow Friend doth try,\nDirectly seasons him his Enemie.[1]\nBut orderly to end, where I begun,\nOur Willes and Fates do so contrary run,\nThat our Deuices still are ouerthrowne,\nOur thoughts are ours, their ends none of our owne.[2]\n[Sidenote: 246] So thinke thou wilt no second Husband wed.\nBut die thy thoughts, when thy first Lord is dead.\n\n_Bap._ Nor Earth to giue me food, nor Heauen light,  [Sidenote: _Quee._]\nSport and repose locke from me day and night:[3]\n[A]\nEach opposite that blankes the face of ioy,\nMeet what I would haue well, and it destroy:\nBoth heere, and hence, pursue me lasting strife,[4]\nIf once a Widdow, euer I be Wife.[5] [Sidenote: once I be a | be a wife]\n\n_Ham._ If she should breake it now.[6]\n\n_King._ 'Tis deepely sworne:\nSweet, leaue me heere a while,\nMy spirits grow dull, and faine I would beguile\nThe tedious day with sleepe.\n\n_Qu._ Sleepe rocke thy Braine,                    [Sidenote: Sleepes[7]]\nAnd neuer come mischance betweene vs twaine,\n                              _Exit_               [Sidenote: _Exeunt._]\n\n_Ham._ Madam, how like you this Play?\n\n_Qu._ The Lady protests to much me thinkes,     [Sidenote: doth protest]\n\n_Ham._ Oh but shee'l keepe her word.\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto:_--\n\n    To desperation turne my trust and hope,[8]\n    And Anchors[9] cheere in prison be my scope]\n\n[Footnote 1: All that is wanted to make a real enemy of an unreal friend\nis the seasoning of a requested favour.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'Our thoughts are ours, but what will come of them we\ncannot tell.']\n\n[Footnote 3: 'May Day and Night lock from me sport and repose.']\n\n[Footnote 4: 'May strife pursue me in the world and out of it.']\n\n[Footnote 5: In all this, there is nothing to reflect on his mother\nbeyond what everybody knew.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _This speech is in the margin of the Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'May my trust and hope turn to despair.']\n\n[Footnote 9: an anchoret's.]\n\n[Page 148]\n\n_King_. Haue you heard the Argument, is there\nno Offence in't?[1]\n\n_Ham_. No, no, they do but iest, poyson in iest,\nno Offence i'th'world.[2]\n\n_King_. What do you call the Play?\n\n_Ham._ The Mouse-trap: Marry how? Tropically:[3]\nThis Play is the Image of a murder done\nin _Vienna: Gonzago_ is the Dukes name, his wife\n_Baptista_: you shall see anon: 'tis a knauish peece\nof worke: But what o'that? Your Maiestie, and       [Sidenote: of that?]\nwee that haue free soules, it touches vs not: let the\ngall'd iade winch: our withers are vnrung.[4]\n\n_Enter Lucianus._[5]\n\nThis is one _Lucianus_ nephew to the King.\n\n_Ophe_. You are a good Chorus, my Lord.\n                                     [Sidenote: are as good as a Chorus]\n\n_Ham_. I could interpret betweene you and your\nloue: if I could see the Puppets dallying.[6]\n\n_Ophe_. You are keene my Lord, you are keene.\n\n_Ham_. It would cost you a groaning, to take off my edge.\n                                                        [Sidenote: mine]\n\n_Ophe_. Still better and worse.\n\n_Ham_. So you mistake Husbands.[7]              [Sidenote: mistake your]\nBegin Murderer. Pox, leaue thy damnable Faces,\n                                            [Sidenote: murtherer, leave]\nand begin. Come, the croaking Rauen doth bellow\nfor Reuenge.[8]\n\n_Lucian_. Thoughts blacke, hands apt,\nDrugges fit, and Time agreeing:\nConfederate season, else, no Creature seeing:[9]  [Sidenote: Considerat]\nThou mixture ranke, of Midnight Weeds collected,\nWith Hecats Ban, thrice blasted, thrice infected,   [Sidenote: invected]\nThy naturall Magicke, and dire propertie,\nOn wholsome life, vsurpe immediately.                 [Sidenote: vsurps]\n\n_Powres the poyson in his eares_.[10]\n\n_Ham_. He poysons him i'th Garden for's estate:\n                                         [Sidenote: A poysons | for his]\n\n[Footnote 1: --said, perhaps, to Polonius. Is there a lapse here in the\nking's self-possession? or is this speech only an outcome of its\ncompleteness--a pretence of fearing the play may glance at the queen for\nmarrying him?]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'It is but jest; don't be afraid: there is no reality in\nit'--as one might say to a child seeing a play.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Figuratively: from _trope_. In the _1st Q._ the passage\nstands thus:\n\n    _Ham_. Mouse-trap: mary how trapically: this play is\n    The image of a murder done in _guyana_,]\n\n[Footnote 4: Here Hamlet endangers himself to force the king to\nself-betrayal.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _In Q. after next line._]\n\n[Footnote 6: In a puppet-play, if she and her love were the puppets, he\ncould supply the speeches.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Is this a misprint for 'so you _must take_ husbands'--for\nbetter and worse, namely? or is it a thrust at his mother--'So you\nmis-take husbands, going from the better to a worse'? In _1st Q._: 'So\nyou must take your husband, begin.']\n\n[Footnote 8: Probably a mocking parody or burlesque of some well-known\nexaggeration--such as not a few of Marlowe's lines.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'none beholding save the accomplice hour:'.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Page 150]\n\nHis name's _Gonzago_: the Story is extant and writ\n                                                 [Sidenote: and written]\nin choyce Italian. You shall see anon how the\n                                              [Sidenote: in very choice]\nMurtherer gets the loue of _Gonzago's_ wife.\n\n_Ophe_. The King rises.[1]\n\n_Ham_. What, frighted with false fire.[2]\n\n_Qu_. How fares my Lord?\n\n_Pol_. Giue o're the Play.\n\n_King_. Giue me some Light. Away.[3]\n\n_All_. Lights, Lights, Lights.      _Exeunt_\n                     [Sidenote: _Pol. | Exeunt all but Ham. & Horatio._]\n\n_Manet Hamlet & Horatio._\n\n_Ham_.[4] Why let the strucken Deere go weepe,\nThe Hart vngalled play:\nFor some must watch, while some must sleepe;\nSo runnes the world away.\nWould not this[5] Sir, and a Forrest of Feathers, if\nthe rest of my Fortunes turne Turke with me; with\ntwo Prouinciall Roses[6] on my rac'd[7] Shooes, get me\n                                    [Sidenote: with prouinciall | raz'd]\na Fellowship[8] in a crie[9] of Players sir.        [Sidenote: Players?]\n\n_Hor_. Halfe a share.\n\n_Ham_. A whole one I,[10]\n[11] For thou dost know: Oh Damon deere,\nThis Realme dismantled was of Loue himselfe,\nAnd now reignes heere.\nA verie verie Paiocke.[12]\n\n_Hora_. You might haue Rim'd.[13]\n\n_Ham_. Oh good _Horatio_, Ile take the Ghosts\nword for a thousand pound. Did'st perceiue?\n\n_Hora_. Verie well my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Vpon the talke of the poysoning?\n\n_Hora_. I did verie well note him.\n\n_Enter Rosincrance and Guildensterne_.[14]\n\n_Ham_. Oh, ha? Come some Musick.[15] Come the Recorders:\n                                                      [Sidenote: Ah ha,]\n\n[Footnote 1: --in ill suppressed agitation.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _This speech is not in the Quarto_.--Is the 'false fire'\nwhat we now call _stage-fire_?--'What! frighted at a mere play?']\n\n[Footnote 3: The stage--the stage-stage, that is--alone is lighted. Does\nthe king stagger out blindly, madly, shaking them from him? I think\nnot--but as if he were taken suddenly ill.]\n\n[Footnote 4: --_singing_--that he may hide his agitation, restrain\nhimself, and be regarded as careless-mad, until all are safely gone.]\n\n[Footnote 5: --his success with the play.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'Roses of Provins,' we are told--probably artificial.]\n\n[Footnote 7: The meaning is very doubtful. But for the _raz'd_ of the\n_Quarto_, I should suggest _lac'd_. Could it mean _cut low_?]\n\n[Footnote 8: _a share_, as immediately below.]\n\n[Footnote 9: A _cry_ of hounds is a pack. So in _King Lear_, act v. sc.\n3, 'packs and sects of great ones.']\n\n[Footnote 10: _I_ for _ay_--that is, _yes_!--He insists on a whole\nshare.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Again he takes refuge in singing.]\n\n[Footnote 12: The lines are properly measured in the _Quarto_:\n\n    For thou doost know oh Damon deere\n    This Realme dismantled was\n    Of _Ioue_ himselfe, and now raignes heere\n    A very very paiock.\n\nBy _Jove_, he of course intends _his father_. 170. What 'Paiocke' means,\nwhether _pagan_, or _peacock_, or _bajocco_, matters nothing, since it\nis intended for nonsense.]\n\n[Footnote 13: To rime with _was_, Horatio naturally expected _ass_ to\nfollow as the end of the last line: in the wanton humour of his\nexcitement, Hamlet disappointed him.]\n\n[Footnote 14: _In Q. after next speech_.]\n\n[Footnote 15: He hears Rosincrance and Guildensterne coming, and changes\nhis behaviour--calling for music to end the play with. Either he wants,\nunder its cover, to finish his talk with Horatio in what is for the\nmoment the safest place, or he would mask himself before his two false\nfriends. Since the departure of the king--I would suggest--he has borne\nhimself with evident apprehension, every now and then glancing about\nhim, as fearful of what may follow his uncle's recognition of the intent\nof the play. Three times he has burst out singing.\n\nOr might not his whole carriage, with the call for music, be the outcome\nof a grimly merry satisfaction at the success of his scheme?]\n\n[Page 152]\n\nFor if the King like not the Comedie,\nWhy then belike he likes it not perdie.[1]\nCome some Musicke.\n\n_Guild._ Good my Lord, vouchsafe me a word\nwith you.\n\n_Ham._ Sir, a whole History.\n\n_Guild._ The King, sir.\n\n_Ham._ I sir, what of him?\n\n_Guild._ Is in his retyrement, maruellous distemper'd.\n\n_Ham._ With drinke Sir?\n\n_Guild._ No my Lord, rather with choller.[2]      [Sidenote: Lord, with]\n\n_Ham._ Your wisedome should shew it selfe more\nricher, to signifie this to his Doctor: for me to\n                                                 [Sidenote: the Doctor,]\nput him to his Purgation, would perhaps plundge\nhim into farre more Choller.[2]                    [Sidenote: into more]\n\n_Guild._ Good my Lord put your discourse into\nsome frame,[3] and start not so wildely from my        [Sidenote: stare]\naffayre.\n\n_Ham._ I am tame Sir, pronounce.\n\n_Guild._ The Queene your Mother, in most great\naffliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.\n\n_Ham._ You are welcome.[4]\n\n_Guild._ Nay, good my Lord, this courtesie is\nnot of the right breed. If it shall please you to\nmake me a wholsome answer, I will doe your\nMothers command'ment: if not, your pardon, and\nmy returne shall bee the end of my Businesse.    [Sidenote: of busines.]\n\n_Ham._ Sir, I cannot.\n\n_Guild._ What, my Lord?\n\n_Ham._ Make you a wholsome answere: my wits\ndiseas'd. But sir, such answers as I can make, you   [Sidenote: answere]\nshal command: or rather you say, my Mother:    [Sidenote: rather as you]\ntherfore no more but to the matter. My Mother\nyou say.\n\n[Footnote 1: These two lines he may be supposed to sing.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Choler means bile, and thence anger. Hamlet in his answer\nplays on the two meanings:--'to give him the kind of medicine I think\nfit for him, would perhaps much increase his displeasure.']\n\n[Footnote 3: some logical consistency.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _--with an exaggeration of courtesy_.]\n\n[Page 154]\n\n_Rosin._ Then thus she sayes: your behauior\nhath stroke her into amazement, and admiration.[1]\n\n_Ham._ Oh wonderfull Sonne, that can so astonish     [Sidenote: stonish]\na Mother. But is there no sequell at the heeles\nof this Mothers admiration?              [Sidenote: admiration, impart.]\n\n_Rosin._ She desires to speake with you in her\nClosset, ere you go to bed.\n\n_Ham._ We shall obey, were she ten times our\nMother. Haue you any further Trade with vs?\n\n_Rosin._ My Lord, you once did loue me.\n\n_Ham._ So I do still, by these pickers and     [Sidenote: And doe still]\nstealers.[2]\n\n_Rosin._ Good my Lord, what is your cause of\ndistemper? You do freely barre the doore of your\n                             [Sidenote: surely barre the door vpon your]\nowne Libertie, if you deny your greefes to your your\nFriend.\n\n_Ham._ Sir I lacke Aduancement.\n\n_Rosin._ How can that be, when you haue the\n[Sidenote: 136] voyce of the King himselfe, for your Succession in\nDenmarke?\n\n[3]\n\n_Ham._ I, but while the grasse growes,[4] the         [Sidenote: I sir,]\nProuerbe is something musty.\n\n_Enter one with a Recorder._[5]\n\nO the Recorder. Let me see, to withdraw with,\n                        [Sidenote: \u00f4 the Recorders, let mee see one, to]\nyou,[6] why do you go about to recouer the winde of\nmee,[7] as if you would driue me into a toyle?[8]\n\n_Guild._ O my Lord, if my Dutie be too bold,\nmy loue is too vnmannerly.[9]\n\n_Ham._ I do not well vnderstand that.[10] Will you,\nplay vpon this Pipe?\n\n_Guild._ My Lord, I cannot.\n\n_Ham._ I pray you.\n\n_Guild._ Beleeue me, I cannot.\n\n_Ham._ I do beseech you.\n\n[Footnote 1: wonder, astonishment.]\n\n[Footnote 2: He swears an oath that will not hold, being by the hand of\na thief.\n\nIn the Catechism: 'Keep my hands from picking and stealing.']\n\n[Footnote 3: Here in Quarto, _Enter the Players with Recorders._]\n\n[Footnote 4: '... the colt starves.']\n\n[Footnote 5: _Not in Q._ The stage-direction of the _Folio_ seems\ndoubtful. Hamlet has called for the orchestra: we may either suppose one\nto precede the others, or that the rest are already scattered; but the\n_Quarto_ direction and reading seem better.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _--taking Guildensterne aside_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'to get to windward of me.']\n\n[Footnote 8: 'Why do you seek to get the advantage of me, as if you\nwould drive me to betray myself?'--Hunters, by sending on the wind their\nscent to the game, drive it into their toils.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Guildensterne tries euphuism, but hardly succeeds. He\nintends to plead that any fault in his approach must be laid to the\ncharge of his love. _Duty_ here means _homage_--so used still by the\ncommon people.]\n\n[Footnote 10: --said with a smile of gentle contempt.]\n\n[Page 156]\n\n_Guild_. I know no touch of it, my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Tis as easie as lying: gouerne these            [Sidenote: It is]\nVentiges with your finger and thumbe, giue it\n                                  [Sidenote: fingers, & the vmber, giue]\nbreath with your mouth, and it will discourse most\n                                               [Sidenote: most eloquent]\nexcellent Musicke.  Looke you, these are the\nstoppes.\n\n_Guild_. But these cannot I command to any\nvtterance of hermony, I haue not the skill.\n\n_Ham_. Why looke you now, how vnworthy a\nthing you make of me: you would play vpon mee;\nyou would seeme to know my stops: you would\npluck out the heart of my Mysterie; you would\nsound mee from my lowest Note, to the top of my\n                                         [Sidenote: note to my compasse]\nCompasse: and there is much Musicke, excellent\nVoice, in this little Organe, yet cannot you make\n                            [Sidenote: it speak, s'hloud do you think I]\nit. Why do you thinke, that I am easier to bee\nplaid on, then a Pipe? Call me what Instrument\nyou will, though you can fret[1] me, you cannot\n                                            [Sidenote: you fret me not,]\n[Sidenote: 184] play vpon me. God blesse you Sir.[2]\n\n_Enter Polonius_.\n\n_Polon_. My Lord; the Queene would speak\nwith you, and presently.\n\n_Ham_. Do you see that Clowd? that's almost in  [Sidenote: yonder clowd]\nshape like a Camell.                              [Sidenote: shape of a]\n\n_Polon_. By'th'Misse, and it's like a Camell  [Sidenote: masse and tis,]\nindeed.\n\n_Ham_. Me thinkes it is like a Weazell.\n\n_Polon_. It is back'd like a Weazell.\n\n_Ham_. Or like a Whale?[3]\n\n_Polon_. Verie like a Whale.[4]\n\n_Ham_. Then will I come to my Mother, by and by:      [Sidenote: I will]\n[Sidenote: 60, 136, 178] They foole me to the top of my bent.[5]\nI will come by and by.\n\n[Footnote 1: --with allusion to the _frets_ or _stop-marks_ of a\nstringed instrument.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --_to Polonius_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: There is nothing insanely arbitrary in these suggestions of\nlikeness; a cloud might very well be like every one of the three; the\ncamel has a hump, the weasel humps himself, and the whale is a hump.]\n\n[Footnote 4: He humours him in everything, as he would a madman.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Hamlet's cleverness in simulating madness is dwelt upon in\nthe old story. See '_Hystorie of Hamblet, prince of Denmarke_.']\n\n[Page 158]\n\n_Polon_.[1] I will say so.        _Exit_.[1]\n\n_Ham_.[1] By and by, is easily said. Leaue me Friends:\n'Tis now the verie witching time of night,\nWhen Churchyards yawne, and Hell it selfe breaths out\n                                                   [Sidenote: brakes[2]]\nContagion to this world.[3] Now could I drink hot blood,\nAnd do such bitter businesse as the day\n                              [Sidenote: such busines as the bitter day]\nWould quake to looke on.[4] Soft now, to my Mother:\nOh Heart, loose not thy Nature;[5] let not euer\nThe Soule of _Nero_[6] enter this firme bosome:\nLet me be cruell, not vnnaturall.\n[Sidenote: 172] I will speake Daggers[7] to her, but vse none:\n                                                      [Sidenote: dagger]\nMy Tongue and Soule in this be Hypocrites.[8]\nHow in my words someuer she be shent,[9]\nTo giue them Seales,[10] neuer my Soule consent.[4]\n                                                     [Sidenote: _Exit._]\n\n_Enter King, Rosincrance, and Guildensterne_.\n\n_King_. I like him not, nor stands it safe with vs,\nTo let his madnesse range.[11] Therefore prepare you,\n[Sidenote: 167] I your Commission will forthwith dispatch,[12]\n[Sidenote: 180] And he to England shall along with you:\nThe termes of our estate, may not endure[13]\nHazard so dangerous as doth hourely grow        [Sidenote: so neer's as]\nOut of his Lunacies.                             [Sidenote: his browes.]\n\n_Guild_. We will our selues prouide:\nMost holie and Religious feare it is[14]\nTo keepe those many many bodies safe\nThat liue and feede vpon your Maiestie.[15]\n\n_Rosin_. The single\nAnd peculiar[16] life is bound\nWith all the strength and Armour of the minde,\n\n[Footnote 1: The _Quarto_, not having _Polon., Exit, or Ham._, and\narranging differently, reads thus:--\n\n    They foole me to the top of my bent, I will come by and by,\n    Leaue me friends.\n    I will, say so. By and by is easily said,\n    Tis now the very &c.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _belches_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --thinking of what the Ghost had told him, perhaps: it was\nthe time when awful secrets wander about the world. Compare _Macbeth_,\nact ii. sc. 1; also act iii. sc. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The assurance of his uncle's guilt, gained through the\neffect of the play upon him, and the corroboration of his mother's guilt\nby this partial confirmation of the Ghost's assertion, have once more\nstirred in Hamlet the fierceness of vengeance. But here afresh comes\nout the balanced nature of the man--say rather, the supremacy in him of\nreason and will. His dear soul, having once become mistress of his\nchoice, remains mistress for ever. He _could_ drink hot blood, he\n_could_ do bitter business, but he will carry himself as a son, and the\nson of his father, _ought_ to carry himself towards a guilty\nmother--_mother_ although guilty.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Thus he girds himself for the harrowing interview. Aware of\nthe danger he is in of forgetting his duty to his mother, he strengthens\nhimself in filial righteousness, dreading to what word or deed a burst\nof indignation might drive him. One of his troubles now is the way he\nfeels towards his mother.]\n\n[Footnote 6: --who killed his mother.]\n\n[Footnote 7: His words should be as daggers.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Pretenders_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _reproached_ or _rebuked_--though oftener _scolded_.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'to seal them with actions'--Actions are the seals to\nwords, and make them irrevocable.]\n\n[Footnote 11: _walk at liberty_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _get ready_.]\n\n[Footnote 13: He had, it would appear, taken them into his confidence in\nthe business; they knew what was to be in their commission, and were\nthorough traitors to Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 14: --holy and religious precaution for the sake of the many\ndepending on him.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Is there not unconscious irony of their own parasitism\nhere intended?]\n\n[Footnote 16: _private individual_.]\n\n[Page 160]\n\nTo keepe it selfe from noyance:[1] but much more,\nThat Spirit, vpon whose spirit depends and rests\n                                         [Sidenote: whose weale depends]\nThe lives of many, the cease of Maiestie               [Sidenote: cesse]\nDies not alone;[2] but like a Gulfe doth draw\nWhat's neere it, with it. It is a massie wheele\n                                           [Sidenote: with it, or it is]\nFixt on the Somnet of the highest Mount,\nTo whose huge Spoakes, ten thousand lesser things\n                                                [Sidenote: hough spokes]\nAre mortiz'd and adioyn'd: which when it falles,\nEach small annexment, pettie consequence\nAttends the boystrous Ruine. Neuer alone              [Sidenote: raine,]\nDid the King sighe, but with a generall grone.      [Sidenote: but a[3]]\n\n_King._[4] Arme you,[5] I pray you to this speedie Voyage;\n                                                      [Sidenote: viage,]\nFor we will Fetters put vpon this feare,[6]   [Sidenote: put about this]\nWhich now goes too free-footed.\n\n_Both._ We will haste vs.     _Exeunt Gent_\n\n_Enter Polonius._\n\nPol. My Lord, he's going to his Mothers Closset:\nBehinde the Arras Ile conuey my selfe\nTo heare the Processe. Ile warrant shee'l tax him home,\nAnd as you said, and wisely was it said,\n'Tis meete that some more audience then a Mother,\nSince Nature makes them partiall, should o're-heare\nThe speech of vantage.[7] Fare you well my Liege,\nIle call vpon you ere you go to bed,\nAnd tell you what I know.                              [Sidenote: Exit.]\n\n_King._ Thankes deere my Lord.\nOh my offence is ranke, it smels to heauen,\nIt hath the primall eldest curse vpon't,\nA Brothers murther.[8] Pray can I not,\nThough inclination be as sharpe as will:\nMy stronger guilt,[9] defeats my strong intent,\n\n[Footnote 1: The philosophy of which self is the centre. The speeches of\nboth justify the king in proceeding to extremes against Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The same as to say: 'The passing, ceasing, or ending of\nmajesty dies not--is not finished or accomplished, without that of\nothers;' 'the dying ends or ceases not,' &c.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The _but_ of the _Quarto_ is better, only the line halts.\nIt is the preposition, meaning _without_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _heedless of their flattery_. It is hardly applicable\nenough to interest him.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'Provide yourselves.']\n\n[Footnote 6: fear active; cause of fear; thing to be afraid of; the noun\nof the verb _fear_, to _frighten_:\n\n    Or in the night, imagining some fear,\n    How easy is a bush supposed a bear!\n\n_A Midsummer Night's Dream_, act v. sc. i.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Schmidt (_Sh. Lex._) says _of vantage_ means _to boot_. I\ndo not think he is right. Perhaps Polonius means 'from a position of\nadvantage.' Or perhaps 'The speech of vantage' is to be understood as\nimplying that Hamlet, finding himself in a position of vantage, that is,\nalone with his mother, will probably utter himself with little\nrestraint.]\n\n[Footnote 8: This is the first proof positive of his guilt accorded even\nto the spectator of the play: here Claudius confesses not merely guilt\n(118), but the very deed. Thoughtless critics are so ready to judge\nanother as if he knew all they know, that it is desirable here to remind\nthe student that only he, not Hamlet, hears this soliloquy. The\nfalseness of half the judgments in the world comes from our not taking\ncare and pains first to know accurately the actions, and then to\nunderstand the mental and moral condition, of those we judge.]\n\n[Footnote 9: --his present guilty indulgence--stronger than his strong\nintent to pray.]\n\n[Page 162]\n\nAnd like a man to double businesse bound,[1]\nI stand in pause where I shall first begin,\nAnd both[2] neglect; what if this cursed hand\nWere thicker then it selfe with Brothers blood,\nIs there not Raine enough in the sweet Heauens\nTo wash it white as Snow? Whereto serues mercy,\nBut to confront the visage of Offence?\nAnd what's in Prayer, but this two-fold force,\nTo be fore-stalled ere we come to fall,\nOr pardon'd being downe? Then Ile looke vp,           [Sidenote: pardon]\nMy fault is past. But oh, what forme of Prayer\nCan serue my turne? Forgiue me my foule Murther:\nThat cannot be, since I am still possest\nOf those effects for which I did the Murther.[3]\nMy Crowne, mine owne Ambition, and my Queene:\nMay one be pardon'd, and retaine th'offence?\nIn the corrupted currants of this world,\nOffences gilded hand may shoue by Iustice              [Sidenote: showe]\nAnd oft 'tis seene, the wicked prize it selfe\nBuyes out the Law; but 'tis not so aboue,\nThere is no shuffling, there the Action lyes\nIn his true Nature, and we our selues compell'd\nEuen to the teeth and forehead of our faults,\nTo giue in euidence. What then? What rests?\nTry what Repentance can. What can it not?\nYet what can it, when one cannot repent?[4]\nOh wretched state! Oh bosome, blacke as death!\nOh limed[5] soule, that strugling to be free,\nArt more ingag'd[6]: Helpe Angels, make assay:[7]\nBow stubborne knees, and heart with strings of Steele,\nBe soft as sinewes of the new-borne Babe,\nAll may be well.\n\n[Footnote 1: Referring to his double guilt--the one crime past, the\nother in continuance.\n\nHere is the corresponding passage in the _1st Q._, with the adultery\nplainly confessed:--\n\n    _Enter the King._\n\n    _King_. O that this wet that falles vpon my face\n    Would wash the crime cleere from my conscience!\n    When I looke vp to heauen, I see my trespasse,\n    The earth doth still crie out vpon my fact,\n    Pay me the murder of a brother and a king,\n    And the adulterous fault I haue committed:\n    O these are sinnes that are vnpardonable:\n    Why say thy sinnes were blacker then is ieat,\n    Yet may contrition make them as white as snowe:\n    I but still to perseuer in a sinne,\n    It is an act gainst the vniuersall power,\n    Most wretched man, stoope, bend thee to thy prayer,\n    Aske grace of heauen to keepe thee from despaire.]\n\n[Footnote 2: both crimes.]\n\n[Footnote 3: He could repent of and pray forgiveness for the murder, if\nhe could repent of the adultery and incest, and give up the queen. It is\nnot the sins they have done, but the sins they will not leave, that damn\nmen. 'This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and\nmen loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.'\nThe murder deeply troubled him; the adultery not so much; the incest and\nusurpation mainly as interfering with the forgiveness of the murder.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Even hatred of crime committed is not repentance:\nrepentance is the turning away from wrong doing: 'Cease to do evil;\nlearn to do well.']\n\n[Footnote 5: --caught and held by crime, as a bird by bird-lime.]\n\n[Footnote 6: entangled.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _said to his knees_. Point thus:--'Helpe Angels! Make\nassay--bow, stubborne knees!']\n\n[Page 164]\n\n_Enter Hamlet_.\n\n_Ham_.[1] Now might I do it pat, now he is praying,\n                             [Sidenote: doe it, but now a is a praying,]\nAnd now Ile doo't, and so he goes to Heauen,       [Sidenote: so a goes]\nAnd so am I reueng'd: that would be scann'd,       [Sidenote: reuendge,]\nA Villaine killes my Father, and for that\nI his foule Sonne, do this same Villaine send     [Sidenote: sole sonne]\nTo heauen. Oh this is hyre and Sallery, not Reuenge.\n                 [Sidenote: To heauen. Why, this is base and silly, not]\nHe tooke my Father grossely, full of bread,          [Sidenote: A tooke]\n[Sidenote: 54, 262] With all his Crimes broad blowne, as fresh as May,\n                                                 [Sidenote: as flush as]\nAnd how his Audit stands, who knowes, saue Heauen:[2]\nBut in our circumstance and course of thought\n'Tis heauie with him: and am I then reueng'd,\nTo take him in the purging of his Soule,\nWhen he is fit and season'd for his passage? No.\nVp Sword, and know thou a more horrid hent[3]\nWhen he is drunke asleepe: or in his Rage,\nOr in th'incestuous pleasure of his bed,\nAt gaming, swearing, or about some acte  [Sidenote: At game a swearing,]\nThat ha's no rellish of Saluation in't,\nThen trip him,[4] that his heeles may kicke at Heauen,\nAnd that his Soule may be as damn'd and blacke\nAs Hell, whereto it goes.[5] My Mother stayes,[6]\nThis Physicke but prolongs thy sickly dayes.[7]\n                                          _Exit_.\n\n_King_. My words flye vp, my thoughts remain below,\nWords without thoughts, neuer to Heauen go.[8]\n                                          _Exit_.\n\n_Enter Queene and Polonius_.            [Sidenote: _Enter Gertrard and_]\n\n_Pol_. He will come straight:                         [Sidenote: A will]\nLooke you lay home to him\n\n[Footnote 1: In the _1st Q._ this speech commences with, 'I so, come\nforth and worke thy last,' evidently addressed to his sword; afterwards,\nhaving changed his purpose, he says, 'no, get thee vp agen.']\n\n[Footnote 2: This indicates doubt of the Ghost still. He is unwilling to\nbelieve in him.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _grasp_. This is the only instance I know of _hent_ as a\nnoun. The verb _to hent, to lay hold of_, is not so rare. 'Wait till\nthou be aware of a grasp with a more horrid purpose in it.']\n\n[Footnote 4: --still addressed to his sword.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Are we to take Hamlet's own presentment of his reasons as\nexhaustive? Doubtless to kill him at his prayers, whereupon, after the\nnotions of the time, he would go to heaven, would be anything but\njustice--the murdered man in hell--the murderer in heaven! But it is\neasy to suppose Hamlet finding it impossible to slay a man on his\nknees--and that from behind: thus in the unseen Presence, he was in\nsanctuary, and the avenger might well seek reason or excuse for not\n_then_, not _there_ executing the decree.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'waits for me.']\n\n[Footnote 7: He seems now to have made up his mind, and to await only\nfit time and opportunity; but he is yet to receive confirmation strong\nas holy writ.\n\nThis is the first chance Hamlet has had--within the play--of killing the\nking, and any imputation of faulty irresolution therein is simply silly.\nIt shows the soundness of Hamlet's reason, and the steadiness of his\nwill, that he refuses to be carried away by passion, or the temptation\nof opportunity. The sight of the man on his knees might well start fresh\ndoubt of his guilt, or even wake the thought of sparing a repentant\nsinner. He knows also that in taking vengeance on her husband he could\nnot avoid compromising his mother. Besides, a man like Hamlet could not\nfail to perceive how the killing of his uncle, and in such an attitude,\nwould look to others.\n\nIt may be judged, however, that the reason he gives to himself for not\nslaying the king, was only an excuse, that his soul revolted from the\nidea of assassination, and was calmed in a measure by the doubt whether\na man could thus pray--in supposed privacy, we must remember--and be a\nmurderer. Not even yet had he proof _positive_, absolute, conclusive:\nthe king might well take offence at the play, even were he innocent; and\nin any case Hamlet would desire _presentable_ proof: he had positively\nnone to show the people in justification of vengeance.\n\nAs in excitement a man's moods may be opalescent in their changes, and\nas the most contrary feelings may coexist in varying degrees, all might\nbe in a mind, which I have suggested as present in that of Hamlet.\n\nTo have been capable of the kind of action most of his critics would\ndemand of a man, Hamlet must have been the weakling they imagine him.\nWhen at length, after a righteous delay, partly willed, partly\ninevitable, he holds documents in the king's handwriting as proofs of\nhis treachery--_proofs which can be shown_--giving him both right and\npower over the life of the traitor, then, and only then, is he in cool\nblood absolutely satisfied as to his duty--which conviction, working\nwith opportunity, and that opportunity plainly the last, brings the end;\nthe righteous deed is done, and done righteously, the doer blameless in\nthe doing of it. The Poet is not careful of what is called poetic\njustice in his play, though therein is no failure; what he is careful of\nis personal rightness in the hero of it.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _1st Q_.\n\n    _King_ My wordes fly vp, my sinnes remaine below.\n    No King on earth is safe, if Gods his foe. _Exit King_.\n\nSo he goes to make himself safe by more crime! His repentance is mainly\nfear.]\n\n[Page 166]\n\nTell him his prankes haue been too broad to beare with,\nAnd that your Grace hath scree'nd, and stoode betweene\nMuch heate, and him. Ile silence me e'ene heere:\n                                                 [Sidenote: euen heere,]\nPray you be round[1] with him.[2]            [Sidenote: _Enter Hamlet_.]\n\n_Ham. within_. Mother, mother, mother.[3]\n\n_Qu_. Ile warrant you, feare me not.    [Sidenote: _Ger_. Ile wait you,]\nWithdraw, I heare him comming.\n\n_Enter Hamlet_.[4]\n\n_Ham_.[5] Now Mother, what's the matter?\n\n_Qu_. _Hamlet_, thou hast thy Father much offended.   [Sidenote: _Ger_.]\n\n_Ham_. Mother, you haue my Father much offended.\n\n_Qu_. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.     [Sidenote: _Ger_.]\n\n_Ham._ Go, go, you question with an idle tongue.\n                                       [Sidenote: with a wicked tongue.]\n\n_Qu_. Why how now _Hamlet_?[6]                        [Sidenote: _Ger_.]\n\n_Ham_. Whats the matter now?\n\n_Qu_. Haue you forgot me?[7]                          [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n_Ham_. No by the Rood, not so:\nYou are the Queene, your Husbands Brothers wife,\nBut would you were not so. You are my Mother.[8]\n                                           [Sidenote: And would it were]\n\n_Qu_. Nay, then Ile set those to you that can speake.[9]\n                                                      [Sidenote: _Ger_.]\n\n_Ham_. Come, come, and sit you downe, you shall not boudge:\nYou go not till I set you vp a glasse,\nWhere you may see the inmost part of you?      [Sidenote: the most part]\n\n_Qu_. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murther        [Sidenote: _Ger_.]\nme?[10] Helpe, helpe, hoa.                        [Sidenote: Helpe how.]\n\n_Pol_. What hoa, helpe, helpe, helpe.        [Sidenote: What how helpe.]\n\n_Ham_. How now, a Rat? dead for a Ducate, dead.[11]\n\n[Footnote 1: _The Quarto has not_ 'with him.']\n\n[Footnote 2: _He goes behind the arras._]\n\n[Footnote 3: _The Quarto has not this speech._]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 5: _1st Q._\n\n    _Ham_. Mother, mother, O are you here?\n    How i'st with you mother?\n\n    _Queene_ How i'st with you?\n\n    _Ham_, I'le tell you, but first weele make all safe.\n\nHere, evidently, he bolts the doors.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _1st Q._\n\n    _Queene_ How now boy?\n\n    _Ham_. How now mother! come here, sit downe, for you\n    shall heare me speake.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --'that you speak to me in such fashion?']\n\n[Footnote 8: _Point thus_: 'so: you'--'would you were not so, for you\nare _my_ mother.'--_with emphasis on_ 'my.' The whole is spoken sadly.]\n\n[Footnote 9: --'speak so that you must mind them.']\n\n[Footnote 10: The apprehension comes from the combined action of her\nconscience and the notion of his madness.]\n\n[Footnote 11: There is no precipitancy here--only instant resolve and\nexecution. It is another outcome and embodiment of Hamlet's rare faculty\nfor action, showing his delay the more admirable. There is here neither\ntime nor call for delay. Whoever the man behind the arras might be, he\nhad, by spying upon him in the privacy of his mother's room, forfeited\nto Hamlet his right to live; he had heard what he had said to his\nmother, and his death was necessary; for, if he left the room, Hamlet's\nlast chance of fulfilling his vow to the Ghost was gone: if the play had\nnot sealed, what he had now spoken must seal his doom. But the decree\nhad in fact already gone forth against his life. 158.]\n\n[Page 168]\n\n_Pol._ Oh I am slaine. [1]_Killes Polonius._[2]\n\n_Qu._ Oh me, what hast thou done?                     [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n_Ham._ Nay I know not, is it the King?[3]\n\n_Qu._ Oh what a rash, and bloody deed is this?        [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n_Ham._ A bloody deed, almost as bad good Mother,\n[Sidenote: 56] As kill a King,[4] and marrie with his Brother.\n\n_Qu._ As kill a King?                                 [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n_Ham._ I Lady, 'twas my word.[5]                      [Sidenote: it was]\nThou wretched, rash, intruding foole farewell,\nI tooke thee for thy Betters,[3] take thy Fortune,   [Sidenote: better,]\nThou find'st to be too busie, is some danger,\nLeaue wringing of your hands, peace, sit you downe,\nAnd let me wring your heart, for so I shall\nIf it be made of penetrable stuffe;\nIf damned Custome haue not braz'd it so,\nThat it is proofe and bulwarke against Sense.          [Sidenote: it be]\n\n_Qu._ What haue I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tong,\n                                                      [Sidenote: _Ger._]\nIn noise so rude against me?[6]\n\n_Ham._ Such an Act\nThat blurres the grace and blush of Modestie,[7]\nCalls Vertue Hypocrite, takes off the Rose\nFrom the faire forehead of an innocent loue,\nAnd makes a blister there.[8] Makes marriage vowes\n                                                  [Sidenote: And sets a]\nAs false as Dicers Oathes. Oh such a deed,\nAs from the body of Contraction[9] pluckes\nThe very soule, and sweete Religion makes\nA rapsidie of words. Heauens face doth glow,           [Sidenote: dooes]\nYea this solidity and compound masse,               [Sidenote: Ore this]\nWith tristfull visage as against the doome,\n                                         [Sidenote: with heated visage,]\nIs thought-sicke at the act.[10]                [Sidenote: thought sick]\n\n_Qu._ Aye me; what act,[11] that roares so lowd,[12]\nand thunders in the Index.[13]\n\n[Footnote 1: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 2: --_through the arras_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Hamlet takes him for, hopes it is the king, and thinks here\nto conclude: he is not praying now! and there is not a moment to be\nlost, for he has betrayed his presence and called for help. As often as\nimmediate action is demanded of Hamlet, he is immediate with his\nresponse--never hesitates, never blunders. There is no blunder here:\nbeing where he was, the death of Polonius was necessary now to the death\nof the king. Hamlet's resolve is instant, and the act simultaneous with\nthe resolve. The weak man is sure to be found wanting when immediate\naction is necessary; Hamlet never is. Doubtless those who blame him as\ndilatory, here blame him as precipitate, for they judge according to\nappearance and consequence.\n\nAll his delay after this is plainly compelled, although I grant he was\nnot sorry to have to await such _more presentable_ evidence as at last\nhe procured, so long as he did not lose the final possibility of\nvengeance.]\n\n[Footnote 4: This is the sole reference in the interview to the murder.\nI take it for tentative, and that Hamlet is satisfied by his mother's\nutterance, carriage, and expression, that she is innocent of any\nknowledge of that crime. Neither does he allude to the adultery: there\nis enough in what she cannot deny, and that only which can be remedied\nneeds be taken up; while to break with the king would open the door of\nrepentance for all that had preceded.]\n\n[Footnote 5: He says nothing of the Ghost to his mother.]\n\n[Footnote 6: She still holds up and holds out.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'makes Modesty itself suspected.']\n\n[Footnote 8: 'makes Innocence ashamed of the love it cherishes.']\n\n[Footnote 9: 'plucks the spirit out of all forms of contracting or\nagreeing.' We have lost the social and kept only the physical meaning of\nthe noun.]\n\n[Footnote 10: I cannot help thinking the _Quarto_ reading of this\npassage the more intelligible, as well as much the more powerful. We may\nimagine a red aurora, by no means a very unusual phenomenon, over the\nexpanse of the sky:--\n\n            Heaven's face doth glow (_blush_)\n    O'er this solidity and compound mass,\n\n(_the earth, solid, material, composite, a corporeal mass in\nconfrontment with the spirit-like etherial, simple, uncompounded heaven\nleaning over it_)\n\n    With tristful (_or_ heated, _as the reader may choose_)\n          visage: as against the doom,\n\n(_as in the presence, or in anticipation of the revealing judgment_)\n\n    Is thought sick at the act.\n\n(_thought is sick at the act of the queen_)\n\nMy difficulties as to the _Folio_ reading are--why the earth should be\nso described without immediate contrast with the sky; and--how the earth\ncould be showing a tristful visage, and the sickness of its thought. I\nthink, if the Poet indeed made the alterations and they are not mere\nblunders, he must have made them hurriedly, and without due attention. I\nwould not forget, however, that there may be something present but too\ngood for me to find, which would make the passage plain as it stands.\n\nCompare _As you like it_, act i. sc. 3.\n\n    For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,\n    Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.]\n\n[Footnote 11: In Q. the rest of this speech is Hamlet's; his long speech\nbegins here, taking up the queen's word.]\n\n[Footnote 12: She still stands out.]\n\n[Footnote 13: 'thunders in the very indication or mention of it.' But by\n'the Index' may be intended the influx or table of contents of a book,\nat the beginning of it.]\n\n[Page 170]\n\n_Ham._ Looke heere vpon this Picture, and on this,\nThe counterfet presentment of two Brothers:[1]\nSee what a grace was seated on his Brow,             [Sidenote: on this]\n[Sidenote: 151] _Hyperions_ curies, the front of Ioue himselfe,\nAn eye like Mars, to threaten or command        [Sidenote: threaten and]\nA Station, like the Herald Mercurie\nNew lighted on a heauen kissing hill:  [Sidenote: on a heaue, a kissing]\nA Combination, and a forme indeed,\nWhere euery God did seeme to set his Seale,\nTo giue the world assurance of a man.[2]\nThis was your Husband. Looke you now what followes.\nHeere is your Husband, like a Mildew'd eare\nBlasting his wholsom breath. Haue you eyes?\n                                           [Sidenote: wholsome brother,]\nCould you on this faire Mountaine leaue to feed,\nAnd batten on this Moore?[3] Ha? Haue you eyes?\nYou cannot call it Loue: For at your age,\nThe hey-day[4] in the blood is tame, it's humble,\nAnd waites vpon the Judgement: and what Iudgement\nWould step from this, to this? [A] What diuell was't,\nThat thus hath cousend you at hoodman-blinde?[5]      [Sidenote: hodman]\n[B]\nO Shame! where is thy Blush? Rebellious Hell,\nIf thou canst mutine in a Matrons bones,\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n                            sence sure youe haue\nEls could you not haue motion, but sure that sence\nIs appoplext, for madnesse would not erre\nNor sence to extacie[6] was nere so thral'd\nBut it reseru'd some quantity of choise[7]\nTo serue in such[8] a difference,]\n\n[Footnote B: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\nEyes without feeling, feeling without sight.\nEares without hands, or eyes, smelling sance[9] all,\nOr but a sickly part of one true sence\nCould not so mope:[10]]\n\n[Footnote 1: He points to the portraits of the two brothers, side by\nside on the wall.]\n\n[Footnote 2: See _Julius Caesar_, act v. sc. 5,--speech of _Antony_ at\nthe end.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --perhaps an allusion as well to the complexion of\nClaudius, both moral and physical.]\n\n[Footnote 4: --perhaps allied to the German _heida_, and possibly the\nEnglish _hoyden_ and _hoity-toity_. Or is it merely\n_high-day--noontide_?]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'played tricks with you while hooded in the game of\n_blind-man's-bluff_?' The omitted passage of the _Quarto_ enlarges the\nfigure.\n\n_1st Q._ 'hob-man blinde.']\n\n[Footnote 6: madness.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Attributing soul to sense, he calls its distinguishment\n_choice_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: --emphasis on _such_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: This spelling seems to show how the English word _sans_\nshould be pronounced.]\n\n[Footnote 10: --'be so dull.']\n\n[Page 172]\n\nTo flaming youth, let Vertue be as waxe,\nAnd melt in her owne fire. Proclaime no shame,\nWhen the compulsiue Ardure giues the charge,\nSince Frost it selfe,[1] as actiuely doth burne,\nAs Reason panders Will.             [Sidenote: And reason pardons will.]\n\n_Qu._ O Hamlet, speake no more.[2]                    [Sidenote: _Ger._]\nThou turn'st mine eyes into my very soule,\n                                 [Sidenote: my very eyes into my soule,]\nAnd there I see such blacke and grained[3] spots,\n                                               [Sidenote: greeued spots]\nAs will not leaue their Tinct.[4]     [Sidenote: will leaue there their]\n\n_Ham._ Nay, but to liue[5]\nIn the ranke sweat of an enseamed bed,              [Sidenote: inseemed]\nStew'd in Corruption; honying and making loue\n[Sidenote: 34] Ouer the nasty Stye.[6]\n\n_Qu._ Oh speake to me, no more,                       [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n[Sidenote: 158] These words like Daggers enter in mine eares.\n                                                          [Sidenote: my]\nNo more sweet _Hamlet_.\n\n_Ham._ A Murderer, and a Villaine:\nA Slaue, that is not twentieth part the tythe  [Sidenote: part the kyth]\nOf your precedent Lord. A vice[7] of Kings,\nA Cutpurse of the Empire and the Rule.\nThat from a shelfe, the precious Diadem stole,\nAnd put it in his Pocket.\n\n_Qu._ No more.[8]                                     [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n_Enter Ghost._[9]\n\n_Ham._ A King of shreds and patches.\n[Sidenote: 44] Saue me; and houer o're me with your wings[10]\nYou heauenly Guards. What would you gracious figure?\n                                               [Sidenote: your gracious]\n\n_Qu._ Alas he's mad.[11]                              [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n_Ham._ Do you not come your tardy Sonne to chide,\nThat laps't in Time and Passion, lets go by[12]\nTh'important acting of your dread command? Oh say.[13]\n\n[Footnote 1: --his mother's matronly age.]\n\n[Footnote 2: She gives way at last.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --spots whose blackness has sunk into the grain, or final\nparticles of the substance.]\n\n[Footnote 4: --transition form of tint:--'will never give up their\ncolour;' 'will never be cleansed.']\n\n[Footnote 5: He persists.]\n\n[Footnote 6: --Claudius himself--his body no 'temple of the Holy Ghost,'\nbut a pig-sty. 3.]\n\n[Footnote 7: The clown of the old Moral Play.]\n\n[Footnote 8: She seems neither surprised nor indignant at any point in\nthe accusation: her consciousness of her own guiit has overwhelmed her.]\n\n[Footnote 9: The _1st Q._ has _Enter the ghost in his night gowne_. It\nwas then from the first intended that he should not at this point appear\nin armour--in which, indeed, the epithet _gracious figure_ could hardly\nbe applied to him, though it might well enough in one of the costumes in\nwhich Hamlet was accustomed to see him--as this dressing-gown of the\n_1st Q._ A ghost would appear in the costume in which he naturally\nimagined himself, and in his wife's room would not show himself clothed\nas when walking among the fortifications of the castle. But by the words\nlower down (174)--\n\n    My Father in his habite, as he liued,\n\nthe Poet indicates, not his dressing-gown, but his usual habit, _i.e._\nattire.]\n\n[Footnote 10: --almost the same invocation as when first he saw the\napparition.]\n\n[Footnote 11: The queen cannot see the Ghost. Her conduct has built such\na wall between her and her husband that I doubt whether, were she a\nghost also, she could see him. Her heart had left him, so they are no\nmore together in the sphere of mutual vision. Neither does the Ghost\nwish to show himself to her. As his presence is not corporeal, a ghost\nmay be present to but one of a company.]\n\n[Footnote 12: 1. 'Who, lapsed (_fallen, guilty_), lets action slip in\ndelay and suffering.' 2. 'Who, lapsed in (_fallen in, overwhelmed by_)\ndelay and suffering, omits' &c. 3. 'lapsed in respect of time, and\nbecause of passion'--the meaning of the preposition _in_, common to\nboth, reacted upon by the word it governs. 4. 'faulty both in delaying,\nand in yielding to suffering, when action is required.' 5. 'lapsed\nthrough having too much time and great suffering.' 6. 'allowing himself\nto be swept along by time and grief.'\n\nSurely there is not another writer whose words would so often admit of\nsuch multiform and varied interpretation--each form good, and true, and\nsuitable to the context! He seems to see at once all the relations of a\nthing, and to try to convey them at once, in an utterance single as the\nthing itself. He would condense the infinite soul of the meaning into\nthe trembling, overtaxed body of the phrase!]\n\n[Footnote 13: In the renewed presence of the Ghost, all its former\ninfluence and all the former conviction of its truth, return upon him.\nHe knows also how his behaviour must appear to the Ghost, and sees\nhimself as the Ghost sees him. Confronted with the gracious figure, how\nshould he think of self-justification! So far from being able to explain\nthings, he even forgets the doubt that had held him back--it has\nvanished from the noble presence! He is now in the world of belief; the\nworld of doubt is nowhere!--Note the masterly opposition of moods.]\n\n[Page 174]\n\n_Ghost._ Do not forget: this Visitation\nIs but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.[1]\nBut looke, Amazement on thy Mother sits;[2]\n[Sidenote: 30, 54] O step betweene her, and her fighting Soule,[3]\n[Sidenote: 198] Conceit[4] in weakest bodies, strongest workes.\nSpeake to her _Hamlet_.[5]\n\n_Ham._ How is it with you Lady?[6]\n\n_Qu._ Alas, how is't with you?                        [Sidenote: _Ger._]\nThat you bend your eye on vacancie,              [Sidenote: you do bend]\nAnd with their corporall ayre do hold discourse.\n                                    [Sidenote: with th'incorporall ayre]\nForth at your eyes, your spirits wildely peepe,\nAnd as the sleeping Soldiours in th'Alarme,\nYour bedded haire, like life in excrements,[7]\nStart vp, and stand an end.[8] Oh gentle Sonne,\nVpon the heate and flame of thy distemper\nSprinkle coole patience. Whereon do you looke?[9]\n\n_Ham._ On him, on him: look you how pale he glares,\nHis forme and cause conioyn'd, preaching to stones,\nWould make them capeable.[10] Do not looke vpon me,[11]\nLeast with this pitteous action you conuert\nMy sterne effects: then what I haue to do,[12]\n[Sidenote: 111] Will want true colour; teares perchance for blood.[13]\n\n_Qu._ To who do you speake this?              [Sidenote: _Ger._ To whom]\n\n_Ham._ Do you see nothing there?\n\n_Qu._ Nothing at all, yet all that is I see.[14]      [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n_Ham._ Nor did you nothing heare?\n\n_Qu._ No, nothing but our selues.                     [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n_Ham._ Why look you there: looke how it steals away:\n[Sidenote: 173] My Father in his habite, as he liued,\nLooke where he goes euen now out at the Portall.\n                        _Exit._                [Sidenote: _Exit Ghost._]\n\n[Sidenote: 114] _Qu._ This is the very coynage of your Braine,\n                                                      [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n[Footnote 1: The Ghost here judges, as alone is possible to him, from\nwhat he knows--from the fact that his brother Claudius has not yet made\nhis appearance in the ghost-world. Not understanding Hamlet's\ndifficulties, he mistakes Hamlet himself.]\n\n[Footnote 2: He mistakes also, through his tenderness, the condition of\nhis wife--imagining, it would seem, that she feels his presence, though\nshe cannot see him, or recognize the source of the influence which he\nsupposes to be moving her conscience: she is only perturbed by Hamlet's\nbehaviour.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --fighting within itself, as the sea in a storm may be said\nto fight.\n\nHe is careful as ever over the wife he had loved and loves still;\ncareful no less of the behaviour of the son to his mother.\n\nIn the _1st Q._ we have:--\n\n    But I perceiue by thy distracted lookes,\n    Thy mother's fearefull, and she stands amazde:\n    Speake to her Hamlet, for her sex is weake,\n    Comfort thy mother, Hamlet, thinke on me.]\n\n[Footnote 4: --not used here for bare _imagination_, but imagination\nwith its concomitant feeling:--_conception_. 198.]\n\n[Footnote 5: His last word ere he vanishes utterly, concerns his queen;\nhe is tender and gracious still to her who sent him to hell. This\nattitude of the Ghost towards his faithless wife, is one of the\nprofoundest things in the play. All the time she is not thinking of him\nany more than seeing him--for 'is he not dead!'--is looking straight at\nwhere he stands, but is all unaware of him.]\n\n[Footnote 6: I understand him to speak this with a kind of lost,\nmechanical obedience. The description his mother gives of him makes it\nseem as if the Ghost were drawing his ghost out to himself, and turning\nhis body thereby half dead.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'as if there were life in excrements.' The nails and hair\nwere 'excrements'--things _growing out_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Note the form _an end_--not _on end_. 51, 71.]\n\n[Footnote 9: --all spoken coaxingly, as to one in a mad fit. She regards\nhis perturbation as a sudden assault of his ever present malady. One who\nsees what others cannot see they are always ready to count mad.]\n\n[Footnote 10: able to _take_, that is, to _understand_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: --_to the Ghost_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: 'what is in my power to do.']\n\n[Footnote 13: Note antithesis here: '_your piteous action_;' '_my stern\neffects_'--the things, that is, 'which I have to effect.' 'Lest your\npiteous show convert--change--my stern doing; then what I do will lack\ntrue colour; the result may be tears instead of blood; I shall weep\ninstead of striking.']\n\n[Footnote 14: It is one of the constantly recurring delusions of\nhumanity that we see all there is.]\n\n[Page 176]\n\n[Sidenote: 114] This bodilesse Creation extasie[1] is very cunning\nin.[2]\n\n_Ham._ Extasie?[3]\nMy Pulse as yours doth temperately keepe time,\nAnd makes as healthfull Musicke.[4] It is not madnesse\nThat I haue vttered; bring me to the Test\nAnd I the matter will re-word: which madnesse        [Sidenote: And the]\nWould gamboll from. Mother, for loue of Grace,\nLay not a flattering Vnction to your soule,\n                                         [Sidenote: not that flattering]\nThat not your trespasse, but my madnesse speakes:\n[Sidenote: 182] It will but skin and filme the Vlcerous place,\nWhil'st ranke Corruption mining all within,           [Sidenote: whiles]\nInfects vnseene, Confesse your selfe to Heauen,\nRepent what's past, auoyd what is to come,\nAnd do not spred the Compost or the Weedes,   [Sidenote: compost on the]\nTo make them ranke. Forgiue me this my Vertue,       [Sidenote: ranker,]\nFor in the fatnesse of this pursie[5] times,           [Sidenote: these]\nVertue it selfe, of Vice must pardon begge,\nYea courb,[6] and woe, for leaue to do him good.\n                                              [Sidenote: curbe and wooe]\n\n_Qu._ Oh Hamlet,                                      [Sidenote: _Ger._]\nThou hast cleft my heart in twaine.\n\n_Ham._ O throw away the worser part of it,\nAnd Liue the purer with the other halfe.       [Sidenote: And leaue the]\nGood night, but go not to mine Vnkles bed,                [Sidenote: my]\nAssume a Vertue, if you haue it not,[7][A] refraine to night\n                                 [Sidenote: Assune | to refraine night,]\nAnd that shall lend a kinde of easinesse\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n[8]That monster custome, who all sence doth eate\nOf habits deuill,[9] is angell yet in this\nThat to the vse of actions faire and good,\nHe likewise giues a frock or Liuery\nThat aptly is put on]\n\n[Footnote 1: madness 129.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Here is the correspondent speech in the _1st Q._ I give it\nbecause of the queen's denial of complicity in the murder.\n\n    _Queene_ Alas, it is the weakenesse of thy braine.\n    Which makes thy tongue to blazon thy hearts griefe:\n    But as I haue a soule, I sweare by heauen,\n    I neuer knew of this most horride murder:\n    But Hamlet, this is onely fantasie,\n    And for my loue forget these idle fits.\n\n    _Ham_. Idle, no mother, my pulse doth beate like yours,\n    It is not madnesse that possesseth Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 4: --_time_ being a great part of music. Shakspere more than\nonce or twice employs _music_ as a symbol with reference to corporeal\ncondition: see, for instance, _As you like it_, act i. sc. 2, 'But is\nthere any else longs to see this broken music in his sides? is there yet\nanother dotes upon rib-breaking?' where the _broken music_ may be\nregarded as the antithesis of the _healthful music_ here.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _swoln, pampered_: an allusion to the _purse_ itself,\nwhether intended or not, is suggested.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _bend, bow_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: To _assume_ is to take to one: by _assume a virtue_, Hamlet\ndoes not mean _pretend_--but the very opposite: _to pretend_ is _to hold\nforth, to show_; what he means is, 'Adopt a virtue'--that of\n_abstinence_--'and act upon it, order your behaviour by it, although you\nmay not _feel_ it. Choose the virtue--take it, make it yours.']\n\n[Footnote 8: This omitted passage is obscure with the special\nShaksperean obscurity that comes of over-condensation. He omitted it, I\nthink, because of its obscurity. Its general meaning is plain\nenough--that custom helps the man who tries to assume a virtue, as well\nas renders it more and more difficult for him who indulges in vice to\nleave it. I will paraphrase: 'That monster, Custom, who eats away all\nsense, the devil of habits, is angel yet in this, that, for the exercise\nof fair and good actions, he also provides a habit, a suitable frock or\nlivery, that is easily put on.' The play with the two senses of the word\n_habit_ is more easily seen than set forth. To paraphrase more freely:\n'That devil of habits, Custom, who eats away all sense of wrong-doing,\nhas yet an angel-side to him, in that he gives a man a mental dress, a\nhabit, helpful to the doing of the right thing.' The idea of hypocrisy\ndoes not come in at all. The advice of Hamlet is: 'Be virtuous in your\nactions, even if you cannot in your feelings; do not do the wrong thing\nyou would like to do, and custom will render the abstinence easy.']\n\n[Footnote 9: I suspect it should be '_Of habits evil_'--the antithesis\nto _angel_ being _monster_.]\n\n[Page 178]\n\nTo the next abstinence. [A] Once more goodnight,\nAnd when you are desirous to be blest,\nIle blessing begge of you.[1] For this same Lord,\nI do repent: but heauen hath pleas'd it so,[2]\nTo punish me with this, and this with me,\nThat I must be their[3] Scourge and Minister.\nI will bestow him,[4] and will answer well\nThe death I gaue him:[5] so againe, good night.\nI must be cruell, onely to be kinde;[6]\nThus bad begins,[7] and worse remaines behinde.[8]  [Sidenote: This bad]\n\n[B]\n\n_Qu_. What shall I do?                                [Sidenote: _Ger_.]\n\n_Ham_. Not this by no meanes that I bid you do:\nLet the blunt King tempt you againe to bed,   [Sidenote: the blowt King]\nPinch Wanton on your cheeke, call you his Mouse,\nAnd let him for a paire of reechie[9] kisses,\nOr padling in your necke with his damn'd Fingers,\nMake you to rauell all this matter out,               [Sidenote: rouell]\n[Sidenote: 60, 136, 156] That I essentially am not in madnesse.\nBut made in craft.[10] 'Twere good you let him know,     [Sidenote: mad]\nFor who that's but a Queene, faire, sober, wise,\nWould from a Paddocke,[11] from a Bat, a Gibbe,[12]\nSuch deere concernings hide, Who would do so,\nNo in despight of Sense and Secrecie,\nVnpegge the Basket on the houses top:\nLet the Birds flye, and like the famous Ape\nTo try Conclusions[13] in the Basket, creepe\nAnd breake your owne necke downe.[14]\n\n_Qu_. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath,    [Sidenote: _Ger_.]\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto;_--\n\n                     the next more easie:[15]\nFor vse almost can change the stamp of nature,\nAnd either[16] the deuill, or throwe him out\nWith wonderous potency:]\n\n[Footnote B: _Here in the Quarto:_--\n\nOne word more good Lady.[17]]\n\n[Footnote 1: In bidding his mother good night, he would naturally, after\nthe custom of the time, have sought her blessing: it would be a farce\nnow: when she seeks the blessing of God, he will beg hers; now, a plain\n_good night_ must serve.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Note the curious inverted use of _pleased_. It is here a\ntransitive, not an impersonal verb. The construction of the sentence is,\n'pleased it so, _in order to_ punish us, that I must' &c.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The noun to which _their_ is the pronoun is _heaven_--as if\nhe had written _the gods_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'take him to a place fit for him to lie in.']\n\n[Footnote 5: 'hold my face to it, and justify it.']\n\n[Footnote 6: --omitting or refusing to embrace her.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --looking at Polonius.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Does this mean for himself to do, or for Polonius to\nendure?]\n\n[Footnote 9: reeky, smoky, fumy.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Hamlet considers his madness the same that he so\ndeliberately assumed. But his idea of himself goes for nothing where the\nexperts conclude him mad! His absolute clarity where he has no occasion\nto act madness, goes for as little, for 'all madmen have their sane\nmoments'!]\n\n[Footnote 11: _a toad_; in Scotland, _a frog_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: an old cat.]\n\n[Footnote 13: _Experiments_, Steevens says: is it not rather _results_?]\n\n[Footnote 14: I fancy the story, which so far as I know has not been\ntraced, goes on to say that the basket was emptied from the house-top to\nsend the pigeons flying, and so the ape got his neck broken. The phrase\n'breake your owne necke _downe_' seems strange: it could hardly have\nbeen written _neck-bone_!]\n\n[Footnote 15: This passage would fall in better with the preceding with\nwhich it is vitally one--for it would more evenly continue its form--if\nthe preceding _devil_ were, as I propose above, changed to _evil_. But,\nprecious as is every word in them, both passages are well omitted.]\n\n[Footnote 16: Plainly there is a word left out, if not lost here. There\nis no authority for the supplied _master_. I am inclined to propose a\npause and a gesture, with perhaps an _inarticulation_.]\n\n[Footnote 17: --interrogatively perhaps, Hamlet noting her about to\nspeak; but I would prefer it thus: 'One word more:--good lady--' Here\nhe pauses so long that she speaks. Or we _might_ read it thus:\n\n    _Qu._ One word more.\n    _Ham._ Good lady?\n    _Qu._ What shall I do?]\n\n[Page 180]\n\nAnd breath of life: I haue no life to breath\nWhat thou hast saide to me.[1]\n\n[Sidenote: 128, 158] _Ham._ I must to England, you know that?[2]\n\n_Qu._ Alacke I had forgot: Tis so concluded on.       [Sidenote: _Ger._]\n\n_Ham._ [A] This man shall set me packing:[3]\nIle lugge the Guts into the Neighbor roome,[4]\nMother goodnight. Indeede this Counsellor [Sidenote: night indeed, this]\nIs now most still, most secret, and most graue,\n[Sidenote: 84] Who was in life, a foolish prating Knaue.\n                                              [Sidenote: a most foolish]\nCome sir, to draw toward an end with you.[5]\nGood night Mother.\n\n_Exit Hamlet tugging in Polonius._[6]                [Sidenote: _Exit._]\n\n[7]\n\n_Enter King._                    [Sidenote: Enter King, and Queene, with\n                                          Rosencraus and Guyldensterne.]\n\n_King._ There's matters in these sighes.\nThese profound heaues\nYou must translate; Tis fit we vnderstand them.\nWhere is your Sonne?[8]\n\n_Qu._ [B] Ah my good Lord, what haue I seene to night?\n                                 [Sidenote: _Ger._ | Ah mine owne Lord,]\n\n_King._ What _Gertrude_? How do's _Hamlet_?\n\n_Qu._ Mad as the Seas, and winde, when both contend\n                                            [Sidenote: _Ger._ | sea and]\nWhich is the Mightier, in his lawlesse fit[9]\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n[10]Ther's letters seald, and my two Schoolefellowes,\nWhom I will trust as I will Adders fang'd,\nThey beare the mandat, they must sweep my way\nAnd marshall me to knauery[11]: let it worke,\nFor tis the sport to haue the enginer\nHoist[12] with his owne petar,[13] an't shall goe hard\nBut I will delue one yard belowe their mines,\nAnd blowe them at the Moone: \u00f4 tis most sweete\nWhen in one line two crafts directly meete,]\n\n[Footnote B: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\nBestow this place on vs a little while.[14]]\n\n[Footnote 1: _1st Q._\n\n    O mother, if euer you did my deare father loue,\n    Forbeare the adulterous bed to night,\n    And win your selfe by little as you may,\n    In time it may be you wil lothe him quite:\n    And mother, but assist mee in reuenge,\n    And in his death your infamy shall die.\n\n    _Queene. Hamlet_, I vow by that maiesty,\n    That knowes our thoughts, and lookes into our hearts,\n    I will conceale, consent, and doe my best,\n    What stratagem soe're thou shalt deuise.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The king had spoken of it both before and after the play:\nHoratio might have heard of it and told Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'My banishment will be laid to this deed of mine.']\n\n[Footnote 4: --to rid his mother of it.]\n\n[Footnote 5: It may cross him, as he says this, dragging the body out by\none end of it, and toward the end of its history, that he is himself\ndrawing toward an end along with Polonius.]\n\n[Footnote 6: --_and weeping_. 182. See _note_ 5, 183.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Here, according to the editors, comes 'Act IV.' For this\nthere is no authority, and the point of division seems to me very\nobjectionable. The scene remains the same, as noted from Capell in _Cam.\nSh._, and the entrance of the king follows immediately on the exit of\nHamlet. He finds his wife greatly perturbed; she has not had time to\ncompose herself.\n\nFrom the beginning of Act II., on to where I would place the end of Act\nIII., there is continuity.]\n\n[Footnote 8: I would have this speech uttered with pauses and growing\nurgency, mingled at length with displeasure.]\n\n[Footnote 9: She is faithful to her son, declaring him mad, and\nattributing the death of 'the unseen' Polonius to his madness.]\n\n[Footnote 10: This passage, like the rest, I hold to be omitted by\nShakspere himself. It represents Hamlet as divining the plot with whose\nexecution his false friends were entrusted. The Poet had at first\nintended Hamlet to go on board the vessel with a design formed upon this\nfor the out-witting of his companions, and to work out that design.\nAfterwards, however, he alters his plan, and represents his escape as\nmore plainly providential: probably he did not see how to manage it by\nany scheme of Hamlet so well as by the attack of a pirate; possibly he\nwished to write the passage (246) in which Hamlet, so consistently with\nhis character, attributes his return to the divine shaping of the end\nrough-hewn by himself. He had designs--'dear plots'--but they were other\nthan fell out--a rough-hewing that was shaped to a different end. The\ndiscomfiture of his enemies was not such as he had designed: it was\nbrought about by no previous plot, but through a discovery. At the same\ntime his deliverance was not effected by the fingering of the packet,\nbut by the attack of the pirate: even the re-writing of the commission\ndid nothing towards his deliverance, resulted only in the punishment of\nhis traitorous companions. In revising the Quarto, the Poet sees that\nthe passage before us, in which is expressed the strongest suspicion of\nhis companions, with a determination to outwit and punish them, is\ninconsistent with the representation Hamlet gives afterwards of a\nrestlessness and suspicion newly come upon him, which he attributes to\nthe Divinity.\n\nNeither was it likely he would say so much to his mother while so little\nsure of her as to warn her, on the ground of danger to herself, against\nrevealing his sanity to the king. As to this, however, the portion\nomitted might, I grant, be regarded as an _aside_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: --to be done _to_ him.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _Hoised_, from verb _hoise_--still used in Scotland.]\n\n[Footnote 13: a kind of explosive shell, which was fixed to the object\nmeant to be destroyed. Note once more Hamlet's delight in action.]\n\n[Footnote 14: --_said to Ros. and Guild._: in plain speech, 'Leave us a\nlittle while.']\n\n[Page 182]\n\nBehinde the Arras, hearing something stirre,\nHe whips his Rapier out, and cries a Rat, a Rat,\n                               [Sidenote: Whyps out his Rapier, cryes a]\nAnd in his brainish apprehension killes              [Sidenote: in this]\nThe vnseene good old man.\n\n_King._ Oh heauy deed:\nIt had bin so with vs[1] had we beene there:\nHis Liberty is full of threats to all,[2]\nTo you your selfe, to vs, to euery one.\nAlas, how shall this bloody deede be answered?\nIt will be laide to vs, whose prouidence\nShould haue kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt,\nThis mad yong man.[2] But so much was our loue,\nWe would not vnderstand what was most fit,\nBut like the Owner of a foule disease,\n[Sidenote: 176] To keepe it from divulging, let's it feede\n                                                      [Sidenote: let it]\nEuen on the pith of life. Where is he gone?\n\n_Qu._ To draw apart the body he hath kild,              [Sidenote: Ger.]\nO're whom his very madnesse[3] like some Oare\nAmong a Minerall of Mettels base\n[Sidenote: 181] Shewes it selfe pure.[4] He weepes for what is done.[5]\n                                             [Sidenote: pure, a weeepes]\n\n_King:_ Oh _Gertrude_, come away:\nThe Sun no sooner shall the Mountaines touch,\nBut we will ship him hence, and this vilde deed,\nWe must with all our Maiesty and Skill\n[Sidenote: 200] Both countenance, and excuse.[6]\n                       _Enter Ros. & Guild_.[7]\nHo _Guildenstern_:\nFriends both go ioyne you with some further ayde:\n_Hamlet_ in madnesse hath Polonius slaine,\nAnd from his Mother Clossets hath he drag'd him.\n                                             [Sidenote: closet | dreg'd]\nGo seeke him out, speake faire, and bring the body\nInto the Chappell. I pray you hast in this.\n                             _Exit Gent_[8]\nCome _Gertrude_, wee'l call vp our wisest friends,\nTo let them know both what we meane to do,           [Sidenote: And let]\n\n[Footnote 1: the royal plural.]\n\n[Footnote 2: He knows the thrust was meant for him. But he would not\nhave it so understood; he too lays it to his madness, though he too\nknows better.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'he, although mad'; 'his nature, in spite of his madness.']\n\n[Footnote 4: by his weeping, in the midst of much to give a different\nimpression.]\n\n[Footnote 5: We have no reason to think the queen inventing here: what\ncould she gain by it? the point indeed was rather against Hamlet, as\nshowing it was not Polonius he had thought to kill. He was more than\never annoyed with the contemptible old man, who had by his\nmeddlesomeness brought his death to his door; but he was very sorry\nnevertheless over Ophelia's father: those rough words in his last speech\nare spoken with the tears running down his face. We have seen the\nstrange, almost discordant mingling in him of horror and humour, after\nthe first appearance of the Ghost, 58, 60: something of the same may be\nsupposed when he finds he has killed Polonius: in the highstrung nervous\ncondition that must have followed such a talk with his mother, it would\nbe nowise strange that he should weep heartily even in the midst of\ncontemptuous anger. Or perhaps a sudden breakdown from attempted show of\nindifference, would not be amiss in the representation.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'both countenance with all our majesty, and excuse with all\nour skill.']\n\n[Footnote 7: In the _Quarto_ a line back.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Page 184]\n\nAnd what's vntimely[1] done. [A] Oh come away,        [Sidenote: doone,]\nMy soule is full of discord and dismay.   _Exeunt._\n\n_Enter Hamlet._            [Sidenote: _Hamlet, Rosencrans, and others._]\n\n_Ham._ Safely stowed.[2]       [Sidenote: stowed, but soft, what noyse,]\n\n_Gentlemen within._ _Hamlet_. Lord _Hamlet_?\n\n_Ham._ What noise? Who cals on _Hamlet_?\nOh heere they come.\n\n_Enter Ros. and Guildensterne._[4]\n\n_Ro._ What haue you done my Lord with the dead body?\n\n_Ham._ Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis Kinne.[5]\n                                                 [Sidenote: Compound it]\n\n_Rosin._ Tell vs where 'tis, that we may take it thence,\nAnd beare it to the Chappell.\n\n_Ham._ Do not beleeue it.[6]\n\n_Rosin._ Beleeue what?\n\n[Sidenote: 156] _Ham._ That I can keepe your counsell, and not\nmine owne. Besides, to be demanded of a Spundge,\nwhat replication should be made by the Sonne of\na King.[7]\n\n_Rosin._ Take you me for a Spundge, my Lord?\n\n_Ham._ I sir, that sokes vp the Kings Countenance,\nhis Rewards, his Authorities, but such Officers\ndo the King best seruice in the end. He keepes\nthem like an Ape in the corner of his iaw,[8] first\n                                            [Sidenote: like an apple in]\nmouth'd to be last swallowed, when he needes what\nyou haue glean'd, it is but squeezing you, and\nSpundge you shall be dry againe.\n\n_Rosin._ I vnderstand you not my Lord.\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\nWhose whisper ore the worlds dyameter,[9]\n[Sidenote: 206] As leuell as the Cannon to his blanck,[10]\nTransports his poysned shot, may miffe[11] our Name,\nAnd hit the woundlesse ayre.]\n\n[Footnote 1: unhappily.]\n\n[Footnote 2: He has hid the body--to make the whole look the work of a\nmad fit.]\n\n[Footnote 3: This line is not in the _Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Not in Q. See margin above._]\n\n[Footnote 5: He has put it in a place which, little visited, is very\ndusty.]\n\n[Footnote 6: He is mad to them--sane only to his mother and Horatio.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _euphuistic_: 'asked a question by a sponge, what answer\nshould a prince make?']\n\n[Footnote 8: _1st Q._:\n\n    For hee doth keep you as an Ape doth nuttes,\n    In the corner of his Iaw, first mouthes you,\n    Then swallowes you:]\n\n[Footnote 9: Here most modern editors insert, '_so, haply, slander_'.\nBut, although I think the Poet left out this obscure passage merely from\ndissatisfaction with it, I believe it renders a worthy sense as it\nstands. The antecedent to _whose_ is _friends_: _cannon_ is nominative\nto _transports_; and the only difficulty is the epithet _poysned_\napplied to _shot_, which seems transposed from the idea of an\n_unfriendly_ whisper. Perhaps Shakspere wrote _poysed shot_. But taking\nthis as it stands, the passage might be paraphrased thus: 'Whose\n(favourable) whisper over the world's diameter (_from one side of the\nworld to the other_), as level (_as truly aimed_) as the cannon (of an\nevil whisper) transports its poisoned shot to his blank (_the white\ncentre of the target_), may shoot past our name (so keeping us clear),\nand hit only the invulnerable air.' ('_the intrenchant air_': _Macbeth_,\nact v. sc. 8). This interpretation rests on the idea of\nover-condensation with its tendency to seeming confusion--the only fault\nI know in the Poet--a grand fault, peculiarly his own, born of the\nbeating of his wings against the impossible. It is much as if, able to\nthink two thoughts at once, he would compel his phrase to utter them at\nonce.]\n\n[Footnote 10:\n\n                    for the harlot king\n    Is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank\n    And level of my brain, plot-proof;\n\n    _The Winter's Tale_, act ii. sc. 3.\n\n    My life stands in the level of your dreams,\n\n    _Ibid_, act iii. sc. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 11: two _ff_ for two long _ss_.]\n\n[Page 186]\n\n_Ham._ I am glad of it: a knavish speech\nsleepes in a foolish eare.\n\n_Rosin._ My Lord, you must tell us where the\nbody is, and go with us to the King.\n\n_Ham._ The body is with the King, but the King\nis not with the body.[1] The King, is a thing----\n\n_Guild._ A thing my Lord?\n\n_Ham._ Of nothing[2]: bring me to him, hide\nFox, and all after.[3]              _Exeunt_[4]\n\n_Enter King._                      [Sidenote: _King, and two or three._]\n\n_King._ I have sent to seeke him, and to find the bodie:\nHow dangerous is it that this man goes loose:[5]\nYet must not we put the strong Law on him:\n[Sidenote: 212] Hee's loved of the distracted multitude,[6]\nWho like not in their iudgement, but their eyes:\nAnd where 'tis so, th'Offenders scourge is weigh'd\nBut neerer the offence: to beare all smooth, and euen,\n                                                   [Sidenote: neuer the]\nThis sodaine sending him away, must seeme\n[Sidenote: 120] Deliberate pause,[7] diseases desperate growne,\nBy desperate appliance are releeved,\nOr not at all.       _Enter Rosincrane._\n                              [Sidenote: _Rosencraus and all the rest._]\nHow now? What hath befalne?\n\n_Rosin._ Where the dead body is bestow'd my Lord,\nWe cannot get from him.\n\n_King._ But where is he?[8]\n\n_Rosin._ Without my Lord, guarded[9] to know your pleasure.\n\n_King._ Bring him before us.\n\n_Rosin._ Hoa, Guildensterne? Bring in my Lord.\n                [Sidenote: _Ros._ How, bring in the Lord. _They enter._]\n\n_Enter Hamlet and Guildensterne_[10]\n\n_King._ Now _Hamlet_, where's _Polonius?_\n\n[Footnote 1: 'The body is in the king's house, therefore with the king;\nbut the king knows not where, therefore the king is not with the body.']\n\n[Footnote 2: 'A thing of nothing' seems to have been a common phrase.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The _Quarto_ has not 'hide Fox, and all after.']\n\n[Footnote 4: Hamlet darts out, with the others after him, as in a hunt.\nPossibly there was a game called _Hide fox, and all after_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: He is a hypocrite even to himself.]\n\n[Footnote 6: This had all along helped to Hamlet's safety.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'must be made to look the result of deliberate reflection.'\nClaudius fears the people may imagine Hamlet treacherously used, driven\nto self-defence, and hurried out of sight to be disposed of.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Emphasis on _he_; the point of importance with the king, is\n_where he is_, not where the body is.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Henceforward he is guarded, or at least closely watched,\naccording to the _Folio_--left much to himself according to the\n_Quarto_. 192.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Page 188]\n\n_Ham._ At Supper.\n\n_King._ At Supper? Where?\n\n_Ham._ Not where he eats, but where he is eaten,\n                                                  [Sidenote: where a is]\na certaine conuocation of wormes are e'ne at him.\n                                      [Sidenote: of politique wormes[1]]\nYour worm is your onely Emperor for diet. We\nfat all creatures else to fat vs, and we fat our selfe\n                                                   [Sidenote: ourselves]\nfor Magots.  Your fat King, and your leane\nBegger is but variable seruice to dishes, but to one\n                                                  [Sidenote: two dishes]\nTable that's the end.\n\n[A]\n\n_King._ What dost thou meane by this?[2]\n\n_Ham._  Nothing but to shew you how a King\nmay go a Progresse[3] through the guts of a Begger.[4]\n\n_King._ Where is _Polonius_.\n\n_Ham._ In heauen, send thither to see. If your\nMessenger finde him not there, seeke him i'th other\nplace your selfe: but indeed, if you finde him not\n                  [Sidenote: but if indeed you find him not within this]\nthis moneth, you shall nose him as you go vp the\nstaires into the Lobby.\n\n_King._ Go seeke him there.\n\n_Ham._ He will stay till ye come.\n                                        [Sidenote: A will stay till you]\n\n_K._ _Hamlet_, this deed of thine, for thine especial safety\n                              [Sidenote: this deede for thine especiall]\nWhich we do tender, as we deerely greeue\nFor that which thou hast done,[5] must send thee hence\nWith fierie Quicknesse.[6] Therefore prepare thy selfe,\nThe Barke is readie, and the winde at helpe,[7]\nTh'Associates tend,[8] and euery thing at bent       [Sidenote: is bent]\nFor England.\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto:_--\n\n_King_ Alas, alas.[9]\n\n_Ham._ A man may fish with the worme that hath eate of a King, and eate\nof the fish that hath fedde of that worme.]\n\n[Footnote 1: --such as Rosincrance and Guildensterne!]\n\n[Footnote 2: I suspect this and the following speech ought by the\nprinters to have been omitted also: without the preceding two speeches\nof the Quarto they are not accounted for.]\n\n[Footnote 3: a royal progress.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Hamlet's philosophy deals much now with the worthlessness\nof all human distinctions and affairs.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'and we care for your safety as much as we grieve for the\ndeath of Polonius.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'With fierie Quicknesse.' _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 7: fair--ready to help.]\n\n[Footnote 8: attend, wait.]\n\n[Footnote 9: pretending despair over his madness.]\n\n[Page 190]\n\n_Ham._ For England?\n\n_King._ I _Hamlet_.\n\n_Ham._ Good.\n\n_King._ So is it, if thou knew'st our purposes.\n\n_Ham._ I see a Cherube that see's him: but        [Sidenote: sees them,]\ncome, for England. Farewell deere Mother.\n\n_King._ Thy louing Father _Hamlet_.\n\n_Hamlet._ My Mother: Father and Mother is\nman and wife: man and wife is one flesh, and so [Sidenote: flesh, so my]\nmy mother.[1] Come, for England.     _Exit_\n\n[Sidenote: 195] _King._ Follow him at foote,[2]\nTempt him with speed aboord:\nDelay it not, He haue him hence to night.\nAway, for euery thing is Seal'd and done\nThat else leanes on[3] th'Affaire pray you make hast.\nAnd England, if my loue thou holdst at ought,\nAs my great power thereof may giue thee sense,\nSince yet thy Cicatrice lookes raw and red[4]\nAfter the Danish Sword, and thy free awe\nPayes homage to vs[5]; thou maist not coldly set[6]\nOur Soueraigne Processe,[7] which imports at full\nBy Letters conjuring to that effect                [Sidenote: congruing]\nThe present death of _Hamlet_. Do it England,\nFor like the Hecticke[8] in my blood he rages,\nAnd thou must cure me: Till I know 'tis done,\nHow ere my happes,[9] my ioyes were ne're begun.[10]\n                                      [Sidenote: ioyes will nere begin.]\n                                       _Exit_[11]\n\n[Sidenote: 274]  [12]_Enter Fortinbras with an Armie._\n                               [Sidenote: with his Army ouer the stage.]\n\n_For._ Go Captaine, from me greet the Danish King,\nTell him that by his license, _Fortinbras_\n[Sidenote: 78] Claimes the conueyance[13] of a promis'd March\n                                                  [Sidenote: Craues the]\nOuer his Kingdome. You know the Rendeuous:[14]\n\n[Footnote 1: He will not touch the hand of his father's murderer.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'at his heels.']\n\n[Footnote 3: 'belongs to.']\n\n[Footnote 4: 'as my great power may give thee feeling of its value,\nseeing the scar of my vengeance has hardly yet had time to heal.']\n\n[Footnote 5: 'and thy fear uncompelled by our presence, pays homage to\nus.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'set down to cool'; 'set in the cold.']\n\n[Footnote 7: _mandate_: 'Where's Fulvia's process?' _Ant. and Cl._, act\ni. sc. 1. _Shakespeare Lexicon_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _hectic fever--habitual_ or constant fever.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'whatever my fortunes.']\n\n[Footnote 10: The original, the _Quarto_ reading--'_my ioyes will nere\nbegin_' seems to me in itself better, and the cause of the change to be\nas follows.\n\nIn the _Quarto_ the next scene stands as in our modern editions, ending\nwith the rime,\n\n                  \u00f4 from this time forth,\n    My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth.   _Exit_.\n\nThis was the act-pause, the natural end of act iii.\n\nBut when the author struck out all but the commencement of the scene,\nleaving only the three little speeches of Fortinbras and his captain,\nthen plainly the act-pause must fall at the end of the preceding scene.\nHe therefore altered the end of the last verse to make it rime with the\nforegoing, in accordance with his frequent way of using a rime before an\nimportant pause.\n\nIt perplexes us to think how on his way to the vessel, Hamlet could fall\nin with the Norwegian captain. This may have been one of Shakspere's\nreasons for striking the whole scene out--but he had other and more\npregnant reasons.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Here is now the proper close of the _Third Act_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _Commencement of the Fourth Act._\n\nBetween the third and the fourth passes the time Hamlet is away; for the\nlatter, in which he returns, and whose scenes are _contiguous_, needs no\nmore than one day.]\n\n[Footnote 13: 'claims a convoy in fulfilment of the king's promise to\nallow him to march over his kingdom.' The meaning is made plainer by the\ncorrespondent passage in the _1st Quarto_:\n\n    Tell him that _Fortenbrasse_ nephew to old _Norway_,\n    Craues a free passe and conduct ouer his land,\n    According to the Articles agreed on:]\n\n[Footnote 14: 'where to rejoin us.']\n\n[Page 192]\n\nIf that his Maiesty would ought with vs,\nWe shall expresse our dutie in his eye,[1]\nAnd let[2] him know so.\n\n_Cap._ I will doo't, my Lord.\n\n_For._ Go safely[3] on.      _Exit._                  [Sidenote: softly]\n\n[A]\n\n[4] _Enter Queene and Horatio_.\n                 [Sidenote: _Enter Horatio, Gertrard, and a Gentleman_.]\n\n_Qu._ I will not speake with her.\n\n_Hor._[5] She is importunate, indeed distract, her   [Sidenote: _Gent_.]\nmoode will needs be pittied.\n\n_Qu_. What would she haue?\n\n_Hor_. She speakes much of her Father; saies she heares\n                                                     [Sidenote: _Gent_.]\n\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n_Enter Hamlet, Rosencraus, &c._\n\n_Ham_. Good sir whose powers are these?\n\n_Cap_. They are of _Norway_ sir.\n\n_Ham_. How purposd sir I pray you?\n\n_Cap_. Against some part of _Poland_.\n\n_Ham_. Who commaunds them sir?\n\n_Cap_. The Nephew to old _Norway, Fortenbrasse_.\n\n_Ham_. Goes it against the maine of _Poland_ sir,\nOr for some frontire?\n\n_Cap_. Truly to speake, and with no addition,[6]\nWe goe to gaine a little patch of ground[7]\nThat hath in it no profit but the name\nTo pay fiue duckets, fiue I would not farme it;\nNor will it yeeld to _Norway_ or the _Pole_\nA rancker rate, should it be sold in fee.\n\n_Ham_. Why then the Pollacke neuer will defend it.\n\n_Cap_. Yes, it is already garisond.\n\n_Ham_. Two thousand soules, and twenty thousand duckets\nWill not debate the question of this straw\nThis is th'Impostume of much wealth and peace,\nThat inward breakes, and showes no cause without\nWhy the man dies.[8] I humbly thanke you sir.\n\n_Cap_. God buy you sir.\n\n_Ros_. Wil't please you goe my Lord?\n\n[Sidenote: 187, 195] _Ham_. Ile be with you straight, goe a little\nbefore.[9]\n[10]How all occasions[11] doe informe against me,\n\n[Continued on next text page.]]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'we shall pay our respects, waiting upon his person.']\n\n[Footnote 2: 'let,' _imperative mood_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'with proper precaution,' _said to his attendant\nofficers._]\n\n[Footnote 4: This was originally intended, I repeat, for the\ncommencement of the act. But when the greater part of the foregoing\nscene was omitted, and the third act made to end with the scene before\nthat, then the small part left of the all-but-cancelled scene must open\nthe fourth act.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Hamlet absent, we find his friend looking after Ophelia.\nGertrude seems less friendly towards her.]\n\n[Footnote 6: exaggeration.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --probably a small outlying island or coast-fortress, _not\nfar off_, else why should Norway care about it at all? If the word\n_frontier_ has the meaning, as the _Shakespeare Lexicon_ says, of 'an\noutwork in fortification,' its use two lines back would, taken\nfiguratively, tend to support this.]\n\n[Footnote 8: The meaning may be as in the following paraphrase: 'This\nquarrelling about nothing is (the breaking of) the abscess caused by\nwealth and peace--which breaking inward (in general corruption), would\nshow no outward sore in sign of why death came.' Or it might be _forced_\nthus:--\n\n    This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace.\n    That (which) inward breaks, and shows no cause without--\n    Why, the man dies!\n\nBut it may mean:--'The war is an imposthume, which will break within,\nand cause much affliction to the people that make the war.' On the other\nhand, Hamlet seems to regard it as a process for, almost a sign of\nhealth.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Note his freedom.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _See_ 'examples grosse as earth' _below_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: While every word that Shakspere wrote we may well take\npains to grasp thoroughly, my endeavour to cast light on this passage is\nmade with the distinct understanding in my own mind that the author\nhimself disapproved of and omitted it, and that good reason is not\nwanting why he should have done so. At the same time, if my student, for\nthis book is for those who would have help and will take pains to the\ntrue understanding of the play, would yet retain the passage, I protest\nagainst the acceptance of Hamlet's judgment of himself, except as\nrevealing the simplicity and humility of his nature and character. That\nas often as a vivid memory of either interview with the Ghost came back\nupon him, he should feel rebuked and ashamed, and vexed with himself,\nis, in the morally, intellectually, and emotionally troubled state of\nhis mind, nowise the less natural that he had the best of reasons for\nthe delay because of which he _here_ so unmercifully abuses himself. A\nman of self-satisfied temperament would never in similar circumstances\nhave done so. But Hamlet was, by nature and education, far from such\nself-satisfaction; and there is in him besides such a strife and turmoil\nof opposing passions and feelings and apparent duties, as can but rarely\nrise in a human soul. With which he ought to side, his conscience is not\nsure--sides therefore now with one, now with another. At the same time\nit is by no means the long delay the critics imagine of which he is\naccusing himself--it is only that the thing _is not done_.\n\nIn certain moods the action a man dislikes will _therefore_ look to him\nthe more like a duty; and this helps to prevent Hamlet from knowing\nalways how great a part conscience bears in the omission because of\nwhich he condemns and even contemns himself. The conscience does not\nnaturally examine itself--is not necessarily self-conscious. In any\nsoliloquy, a man must speak from his present mood: we who are not\nsuffering, and who have many of his moods before us, ought to understand\nHamlet better than he understands himself. To himself, sitting in\njudgment on himself, it would hardly appear a decent cause of, not to\nsay reason for, a moment's delay in punishing his uncle, that he was so\nweighed down with misery because of his mother and Ophelia, that it\nseemed of no use to kill one villain out of the villainous world; it\nwould seem but 'bestial oblivion'; and, although his reputation as a\nprince was deeply concerned, _any_ reflection on the consequences to\nhimself would at times appear but a 'craven scruple'; while at times\neven the whispers of conscience might seem a 'thinking too precisely on\nthe event.' A conscientious man of changeful mood wilt be very ready in\neither mood to condemn the other. The best and rightest men will\nsometimes accuse themselves in a manner that seems to those who know\nthem best, unfounded, unreasonable, almost absurd. We must not, I say,\ntake the hero's judgment of himself as the author's judgment of him. The\ntwo judgments, that of a man upon himself from within, and that of his\nbeholder upon him from without, are not congeneric. They are different\nin origin and in kind, and cannot be adopted either of them into the\nsource of the other without most serious and dangerous mistake. So\nadopted, each becomes another thing altogether. It is to me probable\nthat, although it involves other unfitnesses, the Poet omitted the\npassage chiefly from coming to see the danger of its giving occasion, or\nat least support, to an altogether mistaken and unjust idea of his\nHamlet.]\n\n[Page 194]\n\nThere's trickes i'th'world, and hems, and beats her heart,\nSpurnes enuiously at Strawes,[1] speakes things in doubt,[2]\nThat carry but halfe sense: Her speech is nothing,[3]\nYet the vnshaped vse of it[4] doth moue\nThe hearers to Collection[5]; they ayme[6] at it,\n                                               [Sidenote: they yawne at]\nAnd botch the words[7] vp fit to their owne thoughts\n\n\n[_Continuation of quote from Quarto from previous text page_:--\n\nAnd spur my dull reuenge. [8]What is a man\nIf his chiefe good and market of his time\nBe but to sleepe and feede, a beast, no more;\nSure he that made vs with such large discourse[9]\nLooking before and after, gaue vs not\nThat capabilitie and god-like reason\nTo fust in vs vnvsd,[8] now whether it be\n[Sidenote: 52, 120] Bestiall obliuion,[10] or some crauen scruple\nOf thinking too precisely on th'euent,[11]\nA thought which quarterd hath but one part wisedom,\nAnd euer three parts coward, I doe not know\nWhy yet I liue to say this thing's to doe,\nSith I haue cause, and will, and strength, and meanes\nTo doo't;[12] examples grosse as earth exhort me,\nWitnes this Army of such masse and charge,\n[Sidenote: 235] Led by a delicate and tender Prince,\nWhose spirit with diuine ambition puft,\nMakes mouthes at the invisible euent,\n[Sidenote: 120] Exposing what is mortall, and vnsure,\nTo all that fortune, death, and danger dare,[13]\nEuen for an Egge-shell. Rightly to be great,\nIs not to stirre without great argument,\nBut greatly to find quarrell in a straw\nWhen honour's at the stake, how stand I then\nThat haue a father kild, a mother staind,\nExcytements of my reason, and my blood,\nAnd let all sleepe,[14] while to my shame I see\nThe iminent death of twenty thousand men,\nThat for a fantasie and tricke[15] of fame\nGoe to their graues like beds, fight for a plot\nWhereon the numbers cannot try the cause,[16]\nWhich is not tombe enough and continent[17]\nTo hide the slaine,[18] \u00f4 from this time forth,\nMy thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth.[19]    _Exit._]\n\n[Footnote 1: trifles.]\n\n[Footnote 2: doubtfully.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'there is nothing in her speech.']\n\n[Footnote 4: 'the formless mode of it.']\n\n[Footnote 5: 'to gathering things and putting them together.']\n\n[Footnote 6: guess.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Ophelia's words.]\n\n[Footnote 8: I am in doubt whether this passage from 'What is a man'\ndown to 'unused,' does not refer to the king, and whether Hamlet is not\npersuading himself that it can be no such objectionable thing to kill\none hardly above a beast. At all events it is far more applicable to the\nking: it was not one of Hamlet's faults, in any case, to fail of using\nhis reason. But he may just as well accuse himself of that too! At the\nsame time the worst neglect of reason lies in not carrying out its\nconclusions, and if we cannot justify Hamlet in his delay, the passage\nis of good application to him. 'Bestiall oblivion' does seem to connect\nhimself with the reflection; but how thoroughly is the thing intended by\nsuch a phrase alien from the character of Hamlet!]\n\n[Footnote 9: --the mental faculty of running hither and thither: 'We\nlook before and after.' _Shelley: To a Skylark_.]\n\n[Footnote 10: --the forgetfulness of such a beast as he has just\nmentioned.]\n\n[Footnote 11: --the _consequences_. The scruples that come of thinking\nof the event, Hamlet certainly had: that they were _craven_ scruples,\nthat his thinking was too precise, I deny to the face of the noble\nself-accuser. Is that a craven scruple which, seeing no good to result\nfrom the horrid deed, shrinks from its irretrievableness, and demands at\nleast absolute assurance of guilt? or that 'a thinking too precisely on\nthe event,' to desire, as the prince of his people, to leave an un\nwounded name behind him?]\n\n[Footnote 12: This passage is the strongest there is on the side of the\nordinary misconception of the character of Hamlet. It comes from\nhimself; and it is as ungenerous as it is common and unfair to use such\na weapon against a man. Does any but St. Paul himself say he was the\nchief of sinners? Consider Hamlet's condition, tormented on all sides,\nwithin and without, and think whether this outbreak against himself be\nnot as unfair as it is natural. Lest it should be accepted against him,\nShakspere did well to leave it out. In bitter disappointment, both\nbecause of what is and what is not, both because of what he has done and\nwhat he has failed to do, having for the time lost all chance, with the\nlast vision of the Ghost still haunting his eyes, his last reproachful\nwords yet ringing in his ears, are we bound to take his judgment of\nhimself because it is against himself? Are we _bound_ to take any man's\njudgment because it is against himself? I answer, 'No more than if it\nwere for himself.' A good man's judgment, where he is at all perplexed,\nespecially if his motive comes within his own question, is ready to be\nagainst himself, as a bad man's is sure to be for himself. Or because he\nis a philosopher, does it follow that throughout he understands himself?\nWere such a man in cool, untroubled conditions, we might feel compelled\nto take his judgment, but surely not here! A philosopher in such state\nas Hamlet's would understand the quality of his spiritual operations\nwith no more certainty than another man. In his present mood, Hamlet\nforgets the cogency of the reasons that swayed him in the other; forgets\nthat his uppermost feeling then was doubt, as horror, indignation, and\nconviction are uppermost now. Things were never so clear to Hamlet as to\nus.\n\nBut how can he say he has strength and means--in the position in which\nhe now finds himself? I am glad to be able to believe, let my defence of\nHamlet against himself be right or wrong, that Shakspere intended the\nomission of the passage. I lay nothing on the great lack of logic\nthroughout the speech, for that would not make it unfit for Hamlet in\nsuch mood, while it makes its omission from the play of less consequence\nto my general argument.]\n\n[Footnote 13: _threaten_. This supports my argument as to the great\nsoliloquy--that it was death as the result of his slaying the king, or\nattempting to do so, not death by suicide, he was thinking of: he\nexpected to die himself in the punishing of his uncle.]\n\n[Footnote 14: He had had no chance but that when the king was on his\nknees.]\n\n[Footnote 15: 'a fancy and illusion.']\n\n[Footnote 16: 'which is too small for those engaged to find room to\nfight on it.']\n\n[Footnote 17: 'continent,' _containing space_.]\n\n[Footnote 18: This soliloquy is antithetic to the other. Here is no\nthought of the 'something after death.']\n\n[Footnote 19: If, with this speech in his mouth, Hamlet goes coolly on\nboard the vessel, _not being compelled thereto_ (190, 192, 216), and\npossessing means to his vengeance, as here he says, and goes merely in\norder to hoist Rosincrance and Guildensterne with their own petard--that\nis, if we must keep the omitted passages, then the author exposes his\nhero to a more depreciatory judgment than any from which I would justify\nhim, and a conception of his character entirely inconsistent with the\nrest of the play. He did not observe the risk at the time he wrote the\npassage, but discovering it afterwards, rectified the oversight--to the\ndissatisfaction of his critics, who have agreed in restoring what he\ncancelled.]\n\n[Page 196]\n\nWhich as her winkes, and nods, and gestures yeeld[1] them,\nIndeed would make one thinke there would[2] be thought,\n                                           [Sidenote: there might[2] be]\nThough nothing sure, yet much vnhappily.\n\n_Qu_. 'Twere good she were spoken with,[3]           [Sidenote: _Hora_.]\nFor she may strew dangerous coniectures\nIn ill breeding minds.[4] Let her come in.  [Sidenote: _Enter Ophelia_.]\nTo my sicke soule (as sinnes true Nature is)\n                                           [Sidenote: _Quee_. 'To my[5]]\nEach toy seemes Prologue, to some great amisse,        [Sidenote: 'Each]\nSo full of Artlesse iealousie is guilt,                  [Sidenote: 'So]\nIt spill's it selfe, in fearing to be spilt.[6]          [Sidenote: 'It]\n\n_Enter Ophelia distracted_.[7]\n\n_Ophe_. Where is the beauteous Maiesty of\nDenmark.\n\n_Qu_. How now _Ophelia_?                       [Sidenote: _shee sings_.]\n\n_Ophe. How should I your true loue know from another one?\nBy his Cockle hat and staffe, and his Sandal shoone._\n\n_Qu_. Alas sweet Lady: what imports this Song?\n\n_Ophe_. Say you? Nay pray you marke.\n_He is dead and gone Lady, he is dead and gone,\nAt his head a grasse-greene Turfe, at his heeles a stone._\n                                                       [Sidenote: O ho.]\n\n_Enter King_.\n\n_Qu_. Nay but _Ophelia_.\n\n_Ophe_. Pray you marke.\n_White his Shrow'd as the Mountaine Snow._     [Sidenote: _Enter King_.]\n\n_Qu_. Alas looke heere my Lord,\n\n[Sidenote: 246] _Ophe. Larded[8] with sweet flowers_:\n                                             [Sidenote: Larded all with]\n_Which bewept to the graue did not go_,     [Sidenote: ground | _Song_.]\n_With true-loue showres_,\n\n[Footnote 1: 'present them,'--her words, that is--giving significance or\ninterpretation to them.]\n\n[Footnote 2: If this _would_, and not the _might_ of the _Quarto_, be\nthe correct reading, it means that Ophelia would have something thought\nso and so.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --changing her mind on Horatio's representation. At first\nshe would not speak with her.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'minds that breed evil.']\n\n[Footnote 5: --as a quotation.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Instance, the history of Macbeth.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _1st Q. Enter Ofelia playing on a Lute, and her haire downe\nsinging._\n\nHamlet's apparent madness would seem to pass into real madness in\nOphelia. King Lear's growing perturbation becomes insanity the moment he\nsees the pretended madman Edgar.\n\nThe forms of Ophelia's madness show it was not her father's death that\ndrove her mad, but his death by the hand of Hamlet, which, with Hamlet's\nbanishment, destroyed all the hope the queen had been fostering in her\nof marrying him some day.]\n\n[Footnote 8: This expression is, as Dr. Johnson says, taken from\ncookery; but it is so used elsewhere by Shakspere that we cannot regard\nit here as a scintillation of Ophelia's insanity.]\n\n[Page 198]\n\n_King_. How do ye, pretty Lady?                          [Sidenote: you]\n\n_Ophe_. Well, God dil'd you.[1] They say the\n                                           [Sidenote: good dild you,[1]]\nOwle was a Bakers daughter.[2] Lord, wee know\nwhat we are, but know not what we may be. God\nbe at your Table.\n\n[Sidenote: 174] _King_. Conceit[3] vpon her Father.\n\n_Ophe_. Pray you let's haue no words of this:      [Sidenote: Pray lets]\nbut when they aske you what it meanes, say you\nthis:\n\n[4] _To morrow is S. Valentines day, all in the morning betime,\nAnd I a Maid at your Window to be your Valentine.\nThen vp he rose, and don'd[5] his clothes, and dupt[5] the chamber dore,\nLet in the Maid, that out a Maid, neuer departed more._\n\n_King_. Pretty _Ophelia._\n\n_Ophe_. Indeed la? without an oath Ile make an\n                                             [Sidenote: Indeede without]\nend ont.[6]\n\n_By gis, and by S. Charity,\nAlacke, and fie for shame:\nYong men wil doo't, if they come too't,\nBy Cocke they are too blame.\nQuoth she before you tumbled me,\nYou promis'd me to Wed:\nSo would I ha done by yonder Sunne_,  [Sidenote: (He answers,) So would]\n_And thou hadst not come to my bed._\n\n_King_. How long hath she bin this?              [Sidenote: beene thus?]\n\n_Ophe_. I hope all will be well. We must bee\npatient, but I cannot choose but weepe, to thinke\nthey should lay him i'th'cold ground: My brother\n                                              [Sidenote: they wouid lay]\nshall knowe of it, and so I thanke you for your\ngood counsell. Come, my Coach: Goodnight\nLadies: Goodnight sweet Ladies: Goodnight,\ngoodnight.                       _Exit_[7]\n\n[Footnote 1: _1st Q_. 'God yeeld you,' that is, _reward you_. Here we\nhave a blunder for the contraction, 'God 'ild you'--perhaps a common\nblunder.]\n\n[Footnote 2: For the silly legend, see Douce's note in _Johnson and\nSteevens_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: imaginative brooding.]\n\n[Footnote 4: We dare no judgment on madness in life: we need not in\nart.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Preterites of _don_ and _dup_, contracted from _do on_ and\n_do up_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: --disclaiming false modesty.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Not in Q_.]\n\n[Page 200]\n\n_King_. Follow her close,\nGiue her good watch I pray you:\nOh this is the poyson of deepe greefe, it springs\nAll from her Fathers death. Oh _Gertrude, Gertrude_,\n      [Sidenote: death, and now behold, \u00f4 _Gertrard, Gertrard_,]\nWhen sorrowes comes, they come not single spies,[1]\n                                               [Sidenote: sorrowes come]\nBut in Battaliaes. First, her Father slaine,     [Sidenote: battalians:]\nNext your Sonne gone, and he most violent Author\nOf his owne iust remoue: the people muddied,[2]\nThicke and vnwholsome in their thoughts, and whispers\n                                                 [Sidenote: in thoughts]\nFor[3] good _Polonius_ death; and we haue done but greenly\n[Sidenote: 182] In hugger mugger[4] to interre him. Poore _Ophelia_\nDiuided from her selfe,[5] and her faire Iudgement,\nWithout the which we are Pictures, or meere Beasts.\nLast, and as much containing as all these,\nHer Brother is in secret come from France,\nKeepes on his wonder,[6] keepes himselfe in clouds,\n                                            [Sidenote: Feeds on this[6]]\nAnd wants not Buzzers to infect his eare                [Sidenote: care]\nWith pestilent Speeches of his Fathers death,\nWhere in necessitie of matter Beggard,     [Sidenote: Wherein necessity]\nWill nothing sticke our persons to Arraigne           [Sidenote: person]\nIn eare and eare.[7] O my deere _Gertrude_, this,\nLike to a murdering Peece[8] in many places,\nGiues me superfluous death.          _A Noise within_.\n\n_Enter a Messenger_.\n\n_Qu_. Alacke, what noyse is this?[9]\n\n_King_. Where are my _Switzers_?[10]\n                       [Sidenote: _King_. Attend, where is my Swissers,]\nLet them guard the doore. What is the matter?\n\n_Mes_. Saue your selfe, my Lord.\n[Sidenote: 120] The Ocean (ouer-peering of his List[11])\nEates not the Flats with more impittious[12] haste\n\n[Footnote 1: --each alone, like scouts.]\n\n[Footnote 2: stirred up like pools--with similar result.]\n\n[Footnote 3: because of.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The king wished to avoid giving the people any pretext or\ncause for interfering: he dreaded whatever might lead to enquiry--to the\nqueen of course pretending it was to avoid exposing Hamlet to the\npopular indignation. _Hugger mugger--secretly: Steevens and Malone._]\n\n[Footnote 5: The phrase has the same _visual_ root as _beside\nherself_--both signifying '_not at one_ with herself.']\n\n[Footnote 6: If the _Quarto_ reading is right, 'this wonder' means the\nhurried and suspicious funeral of his father. But the _Folio_ reading is\nquite Shaksperean: 'He keeps on (as a garment) the wonder of the people\nat him'; _keeps his behaviour such that the people go on wondering about\nhim_: the phrase is explained by the next clause. Compare:\n\n    By being seldom seen, I could not stir\n    But, like a comet, I was wondered at.\n\n_K. Henry IV. P. I_. act iii. sc. 1.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'wherein Necessity, beggared of material, will not scruple\nto whisper invented accusations against us.']\n\n[Footnote 8: --the name given to a certain small cannon--perhaps charged\nwith various missiles, hence the better figuring the number and variety\nof 'sorrows' he has just recounted.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _This line not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 10: Note that the king is well guarded, and Hamlet had to lay\nhis account with great risk in the act of killing him.]\n\n[Footnote 11: _border, as of cloth_: the mounds thrown up to keep the sea out.\nThe figure here specially fits a Dane.]\n\n[Footnote 12: I do not know whether this word means _pitiless_, or\nstands for _impetuous_. The _Quarto_ has one _t_.]\n\n[Page 202]\n\nThen young _Laertes_, in a Riotous head,[1]\nOre-beares your Officers, the rabble call him Lord,\nAnd as the world were now but to begin,\nAntiquity forgot, Custome not knowne,\nThe Ratifiers and props of euery word,[2]\n[Sidenote: 62] They cry choose we? _Laertes_ shall be King,[3]\n                                                     [Sidenote: The cry]\nCaps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds,\n_Laertes_ shall be King, _Laertes_ King.\n\n_Qu_. How cheerefully on the false Traile they cry,\n                                           [Sidenote: _A noise within_.]\nOh this is Counter you false Danish Dogges.[4]\n\n_Noise within.  Enter Laertes_[5].    [Sidenote: _Laertes with others_.]\n\n_King_. The doores are broke.\n\n_Laer_. Where is the King, sirs? Stand you all without.\n                                       [Sidenote: this King? sirs stand]\n\n_All_. No, let's come in.\n\n_Laer_. I pray you giue me leaue.[6]\n\n_All_. We will, we will.\n\n_Laer_. I thanke you: Keepe the doore.\nOh thou vilde King, giue me my Father.\n\n_Qu_. Calmely good _Laertes_.\n\n_Laer_. That drop of blood, that calmes[7]       [Sidenote: thats calme]\nProclaimes me Bastard:\nCries Cuckold to my Father, brands the Harlot\nEuen heere betweene the chaste vnsmirched brow\nOf my true Mother.[8]\n\n_Kin_. What is the cause _Laertes_,\nThat thy Rebellion lookes so Gyant-like?\nLet him go _Gertrude_: Do not feare[9] our person:\nThere's such Diuinity doth hedge a King,[10]\nThat Treason can but peepe to what it would,\nActs little of his will.[11] Tell me _Laertes_,\n\n[Footnote 1: _Head_ is a rising or gathering of people--generally\nrebellious, I think.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Antiquity and Custom.]\n\n[Footnote 3: This refers to the election of Claudius--evidently not a\npopular election, but effected by intrigue with the aristocracy and the\narmy: 'They cry, Let us choose: Laertes shall be king!'\n\nWe may suppose the attempt of Claudius to have been favoured by the\nlingering influence of the old Norse custom of succession, by which not\nthe son but the brother inherited. 16, _bis._]\n\n[Footnote 4: To hunt counter is to 'hunt the game by the heel or track.'\nThe queen therefore accuses them of not using their scent or judgment,\nbut following appearances.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Now at length re-appears Laertes, who has during the\ninterim been ripening in Paris for villainy. He is wanted for the\ncatastrophe, and requires but the last process of a few hours in the\nhell-oven of a king's instigation.]\n\n[Footnote 6: The customary and polite way of saying _leave me_: 'grant\nme your absence.' 85, 89.]\n\n[Footnote 7: grows calm.]\n\n[Footnote 8: In taking vengeance Hamlet must acknowledge his mother such\nas Laertes says inaction on his part would proclaim his mother.\n\nThe actress should here let a shadow cross the queen's face: though too\nweak to break with the king, she has begun to repent.]\n\n[Footnote 9: fear _for_.]\n\n[Footnote 10: The consummate hypocrite claims the protection of the\nsacred hedge through which he had himself broken--or crept rather, like\na snake, to kill. He can act innocence the better that his conscience is\nclear as to Polonius.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'can only peep through the hedge to its desire--acts\nlittle of its will.']\n\n[Page 204]\n\nWhy thou art thus Incenst? Let him go _Gertrude_.\nSpeake man.\n\n_Laer_. Where's my Father?                             [Sidenote: is my]\n\n_King_. Dead.\n\n_Qu_. But not by him.\n\n_King_. Let him demand his fill.\n\n_Laer_. How came he dead? Ile not be Iuggel'd with.\nTo hell Allegeance: Vowes, to the blackest diuell.\nConscience and Grace, to the profoundest Pit\nI dare Damnation: to this point I stand,\nThat both the worlds I giue to negligence,\nLet come what comes: onely Ile be reueng'd\nMost throughly for my Father.\n\n_King_. Who shall stay you?[1]\n\n_Laer_. My Will, not all the world,[1]               [Sidenote: worlds:]\nAnd for my meanes, Ile husband them so well,\nThey shall go farre with little.\n\n_King_. Good _Laertes_:\nIf you desire to know the certaintie\nOf your deere Fathers death, if writ in your reuenge,\n                                           [Sidenote: Father, i'st writ]\nThat Soop-stake[2] you will draw both Friend and Foe,\nWinner and Looser.[3]\n\n_Laer_. None but his Enemies.\n\n_King_. Will you know them then.\n\n_La_. To his good Friends, thus wide Ile ope my Armes:\nAnd like the kinde Life-rend'ring Politician,[4]\n                                      [Sidenote: life-rendring Pelican,]\nRepast them with my blood.[5]\n\n_King_. Why now you speake\nLike a good Childe,[6] and a true Gentleman.\nThat I am guiltlesse of your Fathers death,\nAnd am most sensible in greefe for it,[7]           [Sidenote: sencibly]\n\n[Footnote 1:\n\n    'Who shall _prevent_ you?'\n    'My own will only--not all the world,'\n\nor,\n\n    'Who will _support_ you?'\n    'My will. Not all the world shall prevent me,'--\n\nso playing on the two meanings of the word _stay._ Or it _might_ mean:\n'Not all the world shall stay my will.']\n\n[Footnote 2: swoop-stake--_sweepstakes_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'and be loser as well as winner--' If the _Folio's_ is\nthe right reading, then the sentence is unfinished, and should have a\ndash, not a period.]\n\n[Footnote 4: A curious misprint: may we not suspect a somewhat dull\njoker among the compositors?]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'a true son to your father.']\n\n[Footnote 7: 'feel much grief for it.']\n\n[Footnote 5: Laertes is a ranter--false everywhere.\n\nPlainly he is introduced as the foil from which Hamlet 'shall stick\nfiery off.' In this speech he shows his moral condition directly the\nopposite of Hamlet's: he has no principle but revenge. His conduct ought\nto be quite satisfactory to Hamlet's critics; there is action enough in\nit of the very kind they would have of Hamlet; and doubtless it would be\nsatisfactory to them but for the treachery that follows. The one, dearly\nloving a father who deserves immeasurably better of him than Polonius of\nLaertes, will not for the sake of revenge disregard either conscience,\njustice, or grace; the other will not delay even to inquire into the\nfacts of his father's fate, but will act at once on hearsay, rushing to\na blind satisfaction that cannot even be called retaliation, caring for\nneither right nor wrong, cursing conscience and the will of God, and\ndaring damnation. He slights assurance as to the hand by which his\nfather fell, dismisses all reflection that might interfere with a stupid\nrevenge. To make up one's mind at once, and act without ground, is\nweakness, not strength: this Laertes does--and is therefore just the man\nto be the villainous, not the innocent, tool of villainy. He who has\nsufficing ground and refuses to act is weak; but the ground that will\nsatisfy the populace, of which the commonplace critic is the fair type,\nwill not satisfy either the man of conscience or of wisdom. The mass of\nworld-bepraised action owes its existence to the pressure of\ncircumstance, not to the will and conscience of the man. Hamlet waits\nfor light, even with his heart accusing him; Laertes rushes into the\ndark, dagger in hand, like a mad Malay: so he kill, he cares not whom.\nSuch a man is easily tempted to the vilest treachery, for the light that\nis in him is darkness; he is not a true man; he is false in himself.\nThis is what comes of his father's maxim:\n\n    To thine own self be true;\n    And it must follow, _as the night the day_ (!)\n    Thou canst not then be false to any man.\n\nLike the aphorism 'Honesty is the best policy,' it reveals the\ndifference between a fact and a truth. Both sayings are correct as\nfacts, but as guides of conduct devilishly false, leading to dishonesty\nand treachery. To be true to the divine self in us, is indeed to be true\nto all; but it is only by being true to all, against the ever present\nand urging false self, that at length we shall see the divine self rise\nabove the chaotic waters of our selfishness, and know it so as to be\ntrue to it.\n\nOf Laertes we must note also that it is not all for love of his father\nthat he is ready to cast allegiance to hell, and kill the king: he has\nthe voice of the people to succeed him.]\n\n[Page 206]\n\n[Sidenote: 184] It shall as leuell to your Iudgement pierce\n                                                      [Sidenote: peare']\nAs day do's to your eye.[1]\n\n_A noise within. [2]Let her come in._\n\n_Enter Ophelia[3]_\n\n_Laer_. How now? what noise is that?[4]\n                           [Sidenote: _Laer_. Let her come in. How now,]\nOh heate drie vp my Braines, teares seuen times salt,\nBurne out the Sence and Vertue of mine eye.\nBy Heauen, thy madnesse shall be payed by waight,\n                                                 [Sidenote: with weight]\nTill our Scale turnes the beame. Oh Rose of May,       [Sidenote: turne]\nDeere Maid, kinde Sister, sweet _Ophelia_:\nOh Heauens, is't possible, a yong Maids wits,\nShould be as mortall as an old mans life?[5]    [Sidenote: a poore mans]\nNature is fine[6] in Loue, and where 'tis fine,\nIt sends some precious instance of it selfe\nAfter the thing it loues.[7]\n\n_Ophe. They bore him bare fac'd on the Beer._\n                              [Sidenote: _Song_.] [Sidenote: bare-faste]\n_Hey non nony, nony, hey nony:[8]\nAnd on his graue raines many a teare_,\n                                     [Sidenote: And in his graue rain'd]\n_Fare you well my Doue._\n\n_Laer_. Had'st thou thy wits, and did'st perswade\nReuenge, it could not moue thus.\n\n_Ophe_. You must sing downe a-downe, and\n                                   [Sidenote: sing a downe a downe, And]\nyou call him[9] a-downe-a. Oh, how the wheele[10]\nbecomes it? It is the false Steward that stole his\nmasters daughter.[11]\n\n_Laer_. This nothings more then matter.[12]\n\n_Ophe_. There's Rosemary,[13] that's for Remembraunce.\nPray loue remember: and there is             [Sidenote: , pray you loue]\nPaconcies, that's for Thoughts.                  [Sidenote: Pancies[14]]\n\n_Laer_. A document[15] in madnesse, thoughts and\nremembrance fitted.\n\n_Ophe_. There's Fennell[16] for you, and Columbines[16]:\nther's Rew[17] for you, and heere's some for\n\n[Footnote 1: 'pierce as _directly_ to your judgment.'\n\nBut the simile of the _day_ seems to favour the reading of the\n_Q._--'peare,' for _appear_. In the word _level_ would then be indicated\nthe _rising_ sun.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 3: _1st Q. 'Enter Ofelia as before_.']\n\n[Footnote 4: To render it credible that Laertes could entertain the vile\nproposal the king is about to make, it is needful that all possible\ninfluences should be represented as combining to swell the commotion of\nhis spirit, and overwhelm what poor judgment and yet poorer conscience\nhe had. Altogether unprepared, he learns Ophelia's pitiful condition by\nthe sudden sight of the harrowing change in her--and not till after that\nhears who killed his father and brought madness on his sister.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _1st Q._\n\n    I'st possible a yong maides life,\n    Should be as mortall as an olde mans sawe?]\n\n[Footnote 6: delicate, exquisite.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'where 'tis fine': I suggest that the _it_ here may be\nimpersonal: 'where _things_, where _all_ is fine,' that is, 'in a fine\nsoul'; then the meaning would be, 'Nature is fine always in love, and\nwhere the soul also is fine, she sends from it' &c. But the _where_ may\nbe equal, perhaps, to _whereas_. I can hardly think the phrase means\nmerely '_and where it is in love_.' It might intend--'and where Love is\nfine, it sends' &c. The 'precious instance of itself,' that is,\n'something that is a part and specimen of itself,' is here the 'young\nmaid's wits': they are sent after the 'old man's life.'--These three\nlines are not in the Quarto. It is not disputed that they are from\nShakspere's hand: if the insertion of these be his, why should the\nomission of others not be his also?]\n\n[Footnote 8: _This line is not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 9: '_if_ you call him': I think this is not a part of the\nsong, but is spoken of her father.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _the burden of the song_: Steevens.]\n\n[Footnote 11: The subject of the ballad.]\n\n[Footnote 12: 'more than sense'--in incitation to revenge.]\n\n[Footnote 13: --an evergreen, and carried at funerals: _Johnson_.\n\n    For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep\n    Seeming and savour ail the winter long:\n    Grace and remembrance be to you both.\n\n_The Winter's Tale_, act iv. sc. 3.]\n\n[Footnote 14: _pense\u00e9s_.]\n\n[Footnote 15: _a teaching, a lesson_--the fitting of thoughts and\nremembrance, namely--which he applies to his intent of revenge. Or may\nit not rather be meant that the putting of these two flowers together\nwas a happy hit of her madness, presenting the fantastic emblem of a\ndocument or writing--the very idea of which is the keeping of thoughts\nin remembrance?]\n\n[Footnote 16: --said to mean _flattery_ and _thanklessness_--perhaps\ngiven to the king.]\n\n[Footnote 17: _Repentance_--given to the queen. Another name of the\nplant was _Herb-Grace_, as below, in allusion, doubtless, to its common\nname--_rue_ or _repentance_ being both the gift of God, and an act of\ngrace.]\n\n[Page 208]\n\nme. Wee may call it Herbe-Grace a Sundaies:\n                    [Sidenote: herbe of Grace a Sondaies, you may weare]\nOh you must weare your Rew with a difference.[1]\nThere's a Daysie,[2] I would giue you some Violets,[3]\nbut they wither'd all when my Father dyed: They\nsay, he made a good end;                          [Sidenote: say a made]\n\n_For bonny sweet Robin is all my ioy._\n\n_Laer_. Thought, and Affliction, Passion, Hell it selfe:\n                                                [Sidenote: afflictions,]\nShe turnes to Fauour, and to prettinesse.\n\n                                                      [Sidenote:_Song._]\n\n_Ophe. And will he not come againe_,              [Sidenote: will a not]\n_And will he not come againe_:                    [Sidenote: will a not]\n_No, no, he is dead, go to thy Death-bed,\nHe neuer wil come againe.\nHis Beard as white as Snow_,                    [Sidenote: beard was as]\n_All[4] Flaxen was his Pole:\nHe is gone, he is gone, and we cast away mone,\nGramercy[5] on his Soule._                    [Sidenote: God a mercy on]\nAnd of all Christian Soules, I pray God.[6]\n                                          [Sidenote: Christians soules,]\nGod buy ye.[7]          _Exeunt Ophelia_[8]             [Sidenote: you.]\n\n_Laer_. Do you see this, you Gods?       [Sidenote: Doe you this \u00f4 God.]\n\n_King. Laertes_, I must common[9] with your greefe,  [Sidenote: commune]\nOr you deny me right: go but apart,\nMake choice of whom your wisest Friends you will,\nAnd they shall heare and iudge 'twixt you and me;\nIf by direct or by Colaterall hand\nThey finde vs touch'd,[10] we will our Kingdome giue,\nOur Crowne, our Life, and all that we call Ours\nTo you in satisfaction. But if not,\nBe you content to lend your patience to vs,[11]\nAnd we shall ioyntly labour with your soule\nTo giue it due content.\n\n_Laer_. Let this be so:[12]\nHis meanes of death,[13] his obscure buriall;      [Sidenote: funerall,]\nNo Trophee, Sword, nor Hatchment o're his bones,[14]\n\n[Footnote 1: --perhaps the heraldic term. The Poet, not Ophelia, intends\nthe special fitness of the speech. Ophelia means only that the rue of\nthe matron must differ from the rue of the girl.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'the dissembling daisy': _Greene_--quoted by _Henley_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --standing for _faithfulness: Malone_, from an old song.]\n\n[Footnote 4: '_All' not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 5: Wherever else Shakspere uses the word, it is in the sense\nof _grand merci--great thanks (Skeat's Etym. Dict.)_; here it is surely\na corruption, whether Ophelia's or the printer's, of the _Quarto_\nreading, '_God a mercy_' which, spoken quickly, sounds very near\n_gramercy_. The _1st Quarto_ also has 'God a mercy.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'I pray God.' _not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'God b' wi' ye': _good bye._]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'I must have a share in your grief.' The word does mean\n_commune_, but here is more pregnant, as evidenced in the next phrase,\n'Or you deny me right:'--'do not give me justice.']\n\n[Footnote 10: 'touched with the guilt of the deed, either as having done\nit with our own hand, or caused it to be done by the hand of one at our\nside.']\n\n[Footnote 11: We may paraphrase thus: 'Be pleased to grant us a loan of\nyour patience,' that is, _be patient for a while at our request_, 'and\nwe will work along with your soul to gain for it (your soul) just\nsatisfaction.']\n\n[Footnote 12: He consents--but immediately _re-sums_ the grounds of his\nwrathful suspicion.]\n\n[Footnote 13: --the way in which he met his death.]\n\n[Footnote 14: --customary honours to the noble dead. _A trophy_ was an\narrangement of the armour and arms of the dead in a set decoration. The\norigin of the word _hatchment_ shows its intent: it is a corruption of\n_achievement_.]\n\n[Page 210]\n\nNo Noble rite, nor formall ostentation,[1]\nCry to be heard, as 'twere from Heauen to Earth,\nThat I must call in question.[2]                   [Sidenote: call't in]\n\n_King_. So you shall:\nAnd where th'offence is, let the great Axe fall.\nI pray you go with me.[3]                _Exeunt_\n\n_Enter Horatio, with an Attendant_.    [Sidenote: _Horatio and others_.]\n\n_Hora_. What are they that would speake with\nme?\n\n_Ser_. Saylors sir, they say they haue Letters\n                                           [_Gent_. Sea-faring men sir,]\nfor you.\n\n_Hor_. Let them come in,[4]\nI do not know from what part of the world\nI should be greeted, if not from Lord _Hamlet_.\n\n_Enter Saylor_.                                   [Sidenote: _Saylers_.]\n\n_Say_. God blesse you Sir.\n\n_Hor_. Let him blesse thee too.\n\n_Say_. Hee shall Sir, and't[5] please him. There's\n                                      [Sidenote: A shall sir and please]\na Letter for you Sir: It comes from th'Ambassadours\n                                  [Sidenote: it came fr\u00f5 th' Embassador]\nthat was bound for England, if your name\nbe _Horatio_, as I am let to know[6] it is.\n\n_Reads the Letter_[7]\n\nHoratio, _When thou shalt haue ouerlook'd this_,\n                                         [Sidenote: _Hor. Horatio_ when]\n_giue these Fellowes some meanes to the King: They\nhaue Letters for him. Ere we were two dayes[8] old\nat Sea, a Pyrate of very Warlicke appointment gaue\nvs Chace. Finding our selues too slow of Saile, we\nput on a compelled Valour. In the Grapple, I boarded_\n                                          [Sidenote: valour, and in the]\n_them: On the instant they got cleare of our Shippe,\nso I alone became their Prisoner.[9] They haue dealt\nwith mee, like Theeues of Mercy, but they knew what\nthey did. I am to doe a good turne for them. Let_\n                                                     [Sidenote: a turne]\n_the King have the Letters I haue sent, and repaire\nthou to me with as much hast as thou wouldest flye_\n                                              [Sidenote: much speede as]\n_death[10] I haue words to speake in your eare, will_\n                                               [Sidenote: in thine eare]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'formal ostentation'--show or publication of honour\naccording to form or rule.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'so that I must call in question'--institute inquiry; or\n'--_that_ (these things) I must call in question.']\n\n[Footnote 3: Note such a half line frequently after the not uncommon\nclosing couplet--as if to take off the formality of the couplet, and\nlead back, through the more speech-like, to greater verisimilitude.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Here the servant goes, and the rest of the speech Horatio\nspeaks _solus_. He had expected to hear from Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'and it please'--_if it please_. _An_ for _if_ is merely\n_and_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'I am told.']\n\n[Footnote 7: _Not in Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: This gives an approximate clue to the time between the\nsecond and third acts: it needs not have been a week.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Note once more the unfailing readiness of Hamlet where\nthere was no question as to the fitness of the action seemingly\nrequired. This is the man who by too much thinking, forsooth, has\nrendered himself incapable of action!--so far ahead of the foremost\nbehind him, that, when the pirate, not liking such close quarters, 'on\nthe instant got clear,' he is the only one on her deck! There was no\nquestion here as to what ought to be done: the pirate grappled them; he\nboarded her. Thereafter, with his prompt faculty for dealing with men,\nhe soon comes to an understanding with his captors, and they agree, upon\nsome certain condition, to put him on shore.\n\nHe writes in unusual spirits; for he has now gained full, presentable,\nand indisputable proof of the treachery which before he scarcely\ndoubted, but could not demonstrate. The present instance of it has to do\nwith himself, not his father, but in itself would justify the slaying of\nhis uncle, whose plausible way had possibly perplexed him so that he\ncould not thoroughly believe him the villain he was: bad as he must be,\ncould he actually have killed his own brother, and _such_ a brother? A\nbetter man than Laertes might have acted more promptly than Hamlet, and\nso happened to _do_ right; but he would not have _been_ right, for the\nproof was _not_ sufficient.]\n\n[Footnote 10: The value Hamlet sets on his discovery, evident in his\njoyous urgency to share it with his friend, is explicable only on the\nground of the relief it is to his mind to be now at length quite certain\nof his duty.]\n\n[Page 212]\n\n_make thee dumbe, yet are they much too light for the\nbore of the Matter.[1] These good Fellowes will bring_\n                                                 [Sidenote: the bord of]\n_thee where I am. Rosincrance and Guildensterne,\nhold their course for England. Of them I haue\nmuch to tell thee, Farewell.\n                       He that thou knowest thine._\n                        [Sidenote: _So that thou knowest thine Hamlet._]\n                                    Hamlet.\n\nCome, I will giue you way for these your Letters,\n                                  [Sidenote: _Hor_. Come I will you way]\nAnd do't the speedier, that you may direct me\nTo him from whom you brought them.      _Exit_.    [Sidenote: _Exeunt._]\n\n_Enter King and Laertes._[2]\n\n_King_. Now must your conscience my acquittance seal,\nAnd you must put me in your heart for Friend,\nSith you haue heard, and with a knowing eare,[3]\nThat he which hath your Noble Father slaine,\nPursued my life.[4]\n\n_Laer_. It well appeares. But tell me,\nWhy you proceeded not against these feates,[5]      [Sidenote: proceede]\nSo crimefull, and so Capitall in Nature,[6]        [Sidenote: criminall]\nAs by your Safety, Wisedome, all things else,\n                                 [Sidenote: safetie, greatnes, wisdome,]\nYou mainly[7] were stirr'd vp?\n\n_King_. O for two speciall Reasons,\nWhich may to you (perhaps) seeme much vnsinnowed,[8]\nAnd yet to me they are strong. The Queen his Mother,\n                                      [Sidenote: But yet | tha'r strong]\nLiues almost by his lookes: and for my selfe,\nMy Vertue or my Plague, be it either which,[9]\nShe's so coniunctiue to my life and soule;\n                                          [Sidenote: she is so concliue]\nThat as the Starre moues not but in his Sphere,[10]\nI could not but by her. The other Motiue,\nWhy to a publike count I might not go,\n[Sidenote: 186] Is the great loue the generall gender[11] beare him,\nWho dipping all his Faults in their affection,\n\n[Footnote 1: Note here also Hamlet's feeling of the importance of what\nhas passed since he parted with his friend. 'The bullet of my words,\nthough it will strike thee dumb, is much too small for the bore of the\nreality (the facts) whence it will issue.']\n\n[Footnote 2: While we have been present at the interview between Horatio\nand the sailors, the king has been persuading Laertes.]\n\n[Footnote 3: an ear of judgment.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'thought then to have killed me.']\n\n[Footnote 5: _faits_, deeds.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'deeds so deserving of death, not merely in the eye of the\nlaw, but in their own nature.']\n\n[Footnote 7: powerfully.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'unsinewed.']\n\n[Footnote 9: 'either-which.']\n\n[Footnote 10: 'moves not but in the moving of his sphere,'--The stars\nwere popularly supposed to be fixed in a solid crystalline sphere, and\nmoved in its motion only. The queen, Claudius implies, is his sphere; he\ncould not move but by her.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Here used in the sense of the Fr. _'genre'--sort_. It is\nnot the only instance of the word so used by Shakspere.\n\nThe king would rouse in Laertes jealousy of Hamlet.]\n\n[Page 214]\n\nWould like the Spring that turneth Wood to Stone, [Sidenote: Worke like]\nConuert his Gyues to Graces.[1] So that my Arrowes\nToo slightly timbred for so loud a Winde,\n                                       [Sidenote: for so loued Arm'd[2]]\nWould haue reuerted to my Bow againe,\nAnd not where I had arm'd them.[2]\n                                  [Sidenote: But not | have aym'd them.]\n\n_Laer_. And so haue I a Noble Father lost,\nA Sister driuen into desperate tearmes,[3]\nWho was (if praises may go backe againe)     [Sidenote: whose worth, if]\nStood Challenger on mount of all the Age\nFor her perfections. But my reuenge will come.\n\n_King_. Breake not your sleepes for that,\nYou must not thinke\nThat we are made of stuffe, so flat, and dull,\nThat we can let our Beard be shooke with danger,[4]\nAnd thinke it pastime. You shortly shall heare more,[5]\nI lou'd your Father, and we loue our Selfe,\nAnd that I hope will teach you to imagine----[6]\n\n_Enter a Messenger_.                         [Sidenote: _with letters._]\n\nHow now? What Newes?\n\n_Mes._ Letters my Lord from _Hamlet_.[7] This to\n                                          [Sidenote: _Messen_. These to]\nyour Maiesty: this to the Queene.\n\n_King_. From _Hamlet_? Who brought them?\n\n_Mes_. Saylors my Lord they say, I saw them not:\nThey were giuen me by _Claudio_, he recciu'd them.[8]\n                              [Sidenote: them Of him that brought them.]\n\n_King. Laertes_ you shall heare them:[9]\nLeaue vs.                 _Exit Messenger_[10]\n\n_High and Mighty, you shall know I am set\nnaked on your Kingdome. To morrow shall I begge\nleaue to see your Kingly Eyes[11] When I shall (first\nasking your Pardon thereunto) recount th'Occasions_\n                        [Sidenote: the occasion of my suddaine returne.]\n_of my sodaine, and more strange returne._[12]\n                                        Hamlet.[13]\nWhat should this meane? Are all the rest come backe?\n                                                [Sidenote: _King_. What]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'would convert his fetters--if I imprisoned him--to graces,\ncommending him yet more to their regard.']\n\n[Footnote 2: _arm'd_ is certainly the right, and a true Shaksperean\nword:--it was no fault in the aim, but in the force of the flight--no\nmatter of the eye, but of the arm, which could not give momentum enough\nto such slightly timbered arrows. The fault in the construction of the\nlast line, I need not remark upon.\n\nI think there is a hint of this the genuine meaning even in the\nblundered and partly unintelligible reading of the _Quarto_. If we leave\nout 'for so loued,' we have this: 'So that my arrows, too slightly\ntimbered, would have reverted armed to my bow again, but not (_would not\nhave gone_) where I have aimed them,'--implying that his arrows would\nhave turned their armed heads against himself.\n\nWhat the king says here is true, but far from _the_ truth: he feared\ndriving Hamlet, and giving him at the same time opportunity, to speak in\nhis own defence and render his reasons.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _extremes_? or _conditions_?]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'With many a tempest hadde his berd ben\nschake.'--_Chaucer_, of the Schipman, in _The Prologue_ to _The\nCanterbury Tales_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: --hear of Hamlet's death in England, he means.\n\nAt this point in the _1st Q._ comes a scene between Horatio and the\nqueen, in which he informs her of a letter he had just received from\nHamlet,\n\n    Whereas he writes how he escap't the danger,\n    And subtle treason that the king had plotted,\n    Being crossed by the contention of the windes,\n    He found the Packet &c.\n\nHoratio does not mention the pirates, but speaks of Hamlet 'being set\nashore,' and of _Gilderstone_ and _Rossencraft_ going on to their fate.\nThe queen assures Horatio that she is but temporizing with the king, and\nshows herself anxious for the success of her son's design against his\nlife. The Poet's intent was not yet clear to himself.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Here his crow cracks.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _From_ 'How now' _to_ 'Hamlet' is _not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 8: Horatio has given the sailors' letters to Claudio, he to\nanother.]\n\n[Footnote 9: He wants to show him that he has nothing behind--that he is\nopen with him: he will read without having pre-read.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 11: He makes this request for an interview with the intent of\nkilling him. The king takes care he does not have it.]\n\n[Footnote 12: '_more strange than sudden_.']\n\n[Footnote 13: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Page 216]\n\nOr is it some abuse?[1] Or no such thing?[2]\n                                            [Sidenote: abuse, and no[2]]\n\n_Laer_. Know you the hand?[3]\n\n_Kin_. 'Tis _Hamlets_ Character, naked and in a\nPostscript here he sayes alone:[4] Can you aduise [Sidenote: deuise me?]\nme?[5]\n\n_Laer_. I'm lost in it my Lord; but let him come,       [Sidenote: I am]\nIt warmes the very sicknesse in my heart,\nThat I shall liue and tell him to his teeth; [Sidenote: That I liue and]\nThus diddest thou.                                     [Sidenote: didst]\n\n_Kin_. If it be so _Laertes_, as how should it be so:[6]\nHow otherwise will you be rul'd by me?\n\n_Laer_. If so[7] you'l not o'rerule me to a peace.\n                                  [Sidenote: I my Lord, so you will not]\n\n_Kin_. To thine owne peace: if he be now return'd,\n[Sidenote: 195] As checking[8] at his Voyage, and that he meanes\n                                       [Sidenote: As the King[8] at his]\nNo more to vndertake it; I will worke him\nTo an exployt now ripe in my Deuice,                 [Sidenote: deuise,]\nVnder the which he shall not choose but fall;\nAnd for his death no winde of blame shall breath,\n[Sidenote: 221] But euen his Mother shall vncharge the practice,[9]\nAnd call it accident: [A] Some two Monthes hence[10]\n                                            [Sidenote: two months since]\nHere was a Gentleman of _Normandy_,\nI'ue seene my selfe, and seru'd against the French,   [Sidenote: I haue]\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n_Laer_. My Lord I will be rul'd,\nThe rather if you could deuise it so\nThat I might be the organ.\n\n_King_. It falls right,\nYou haue beene talkt of since your trauaile[11] much,\nAnd that in _Hamlets_ hearing, for a qualitie\nWherein they say you shine, your summe of parts[12]\nDid not together plucke such enuie from him\nAs did that one, and that in my regard\nOf the vnworthiest siedge.[13]\n\n_Laer_. What part is that my Lord?\n\n_King_. A very ribaud[14] in the cap of youth,\nYet needfull to, for youth no lesse becomes[15]\nThe light and carelesse liuery that it weares\nThen setled age, his sables, and his weedes[16]\nImporting health[17] and grauenes;]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'some trick played on me?' Compare _K. Lear_, act v. sc. 7:\n'I am mightily abused.']\n\n[Footnote 2: I incline to the _Q._ reading here: 'or is it some trick,\nand no reality in it?']\n\n[Footnote 3: --following the king's suggestion.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Point thus_: 'Tis _Hamlets_ Character. 'Naked'!--And, in a\nPostscript here, he sayes 'alone'! Can &c.\n\n'_Alone_'--to allay suspicion of his having brought assistance with\nhim.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Fine flattery--preparing the way for the instigation he is\nabout to commence.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Point thus_: '--as how should it be so? how\notherwise?--will' &c. The king cannot tell what to think--either how it\ncan be, or how it might be otherwise--for here is Hamlet's own hand!]\n\n[Footnote 7: provided.]\n\n[Footnote 8: A hawk was said _to check_ when it forsook its proper game\nfor some other bird that crossed its flight. The blunder in the _Quarto_\nis odd, plainly from manuscript copy, and is not likely to have been set\nright by any but the author.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'shall not give the _practice'--artifice, cunning attempt,\nchicane_, or _trick_--but a word not necessarily offensive--'the name it\ndeserves, but call it _accident_:' 221.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'Some' _not in Q.--Hence_ may be either _backwards_ or\n_forwards_; now it is used only _forwards_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: travels.]\n\n[Footnote 12: 'all your excellencies together.']\n\n[Footnote 13: seat, place, grade, position, merit.]\n\n[Footnote 14: 'A very riband'--a mere trifling accomplishment: the _u_\nof the text can but be a misprint for _n_.]\n\n[Footnote 15: _youth_ obj., _livery_ nom. to _becomes_.]\n\n[Footnote 16: 'than his furs and his robes become settled age.']\n\n[Footnote 17: Warburton thinks the word ought to be _wealth_, but I\ndoubt it; _health_, in its sense of wholeness, general soundness, in\naffairs as well as person, I should prefer.]\n\n[Page 218]\n\nAnd they ran[1] well on Horsebacke; but this Gallant\n                                            [Sidenote: they can well[1]]\nHad witchcraft in't[2]; he grew into his Seat,   [Sidenote: vnto his]\nAnd to such wondrous doing brought his Horse,\nAs had he beene encorps't and demy-Natur'd\nWith the braue Beast,[3] so farre he past my thought,\n                                      [Sidenote: he topt me thought,[4]]\nThat I in forgery[5] of shapes and trickes,\nCome short of what he did.[6]\n\n_Laer_. A Norman was't?\n\n_Kin_. A Norman.\n\n_Laer_. Vpon my life _Lamound_.                    [Sidenote: _Lamord_.]\n\n_Kin_. The very same.\n\n_Laer_. I know him well, he is the Brooch indeed,\nAnd Iemme of all our Nation,                 [Sidenote: all the Nation.]\n\n_Kin_. Hee mad confession of you,\nAnd gaue you such a Masterly report,\nFor Art and exercise in your defence;\nAnd for your Rapier most especially,              [Sidenote: especiall,]\nThat he cryed out, t'would be a sight indeed,[7]\nIf one could match you [A] Sir. This report of his\n                                                  [Sidenote: ; sir this]\n[Sidenote: 120, 264] Did _Hamlet_ so envenom with his Enuy,[8]\nThat he could nothing doe but wish and begge,\nYour sodaine comming ore to play with him;[9]       [Sidenote: with you]\nNow out of this.[10]\n\n_Laer_. Why out of this, my Lord?                   [Sidenote: What out]\n\n_Kin. Laertes_ was your Father deare to you?\nOr are you like the painting[11] of a sorrow,\nA face without a heart?\n\n_Laer_. Why aske you this?\n\n_Kin_. Not that I thinke you did not loue your Father,\nBut that I know Loue is begun by Time[12]:\n\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto:--_\n\n                      ; the Scrimures[13] of their nation\nHe swore had neither motion, guard nor eye,\nIf you opposd them;]\n\n[Footnote 1: I think the _can_ of the _Quarto_ is the true word.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --in his horsemanship.]\n\n[Footnote 3: There is no mistake in the order 'had he beene'; the\ntransposition is equivalent to _if_: 'as if he had been unbodied with,\nand shared half the nature of the brave beast.'\n\nThese two lines, from _As_ to _thought_, must be taken parenthetically;\nor else there must be supposed a dash after _Beast_, and a fresh start\nmade.\n\n'But he (as if Centaur-like he had been one piece with the horse) was no\nmore moved than one with the going of his own legs:'\n\n'it seemed, as he borrowed the horse's body, so he lent the horse his\nmind:'--Sir Philip Sidney. _Arcadia_, B. ii. p. 115.]\n\n[Footnote 4: '--surpassed, I thought.']\n\n[Footnote 5: 'in invention of.']\n\n[Footnote 6: Emphasis on _did_, as antithetic to _forgery_: 'my\ninventing came short of his doing.']\n\n[Footnote 7: 'it would be a sight indeed to see you matched with an\nequal.' The king would strengthen Laertes' confidence in his\nproficiency.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'made him so spiteful by stirring up his habitual envy.']\n\n[Footnote 9: All invention.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Here should be a dash: the king pauses. He is approaching\ndangerous ground--is about to propose a thing abominable, and therefore\nto the influence of flattered vanity and roused emulation, would add the\nfiercest heat of stimulated love and hatred--to which end he proceeds to\ncast doubt on the quality of Laertes' love for his father.]\n\n[Footnote 11: the picture.]\n\n[Footnote 12: 'through habit.']\n\n[Footnote 13: French _escrimeurs_: fencers.]\n\n[Page 220]\n\nAnd that I see in passages of proofe,[1]\nTime qualifies the sparke and fire of it:[2]\n[A]\n_Hamlet_ comes backe: what would you vndertake,\nTo show your selfe your Fathers sonne indeed,\n                            [Sidenote: selfe indeede your fathers sonne]\nMore then in words?\n\n_Laer_. To cut his throat i'th'Church.[3]\n\n_Kin_. No place indeed should murder Sancturize;\nReuenge should haue no bounds: but good _Laertes_\nWill you doe this, keepe close within your Chamber,\n_Hamlet_ return'd, shall know you are come home:\nWee'l put on those shall praise your excellence,\nAnd set a double varnish on the fame\nThe Frenchman gaue you, bring you in fine together,\nAnd wager on your heads, he being remisse,[4]       [Sidenote: ore your]\n[Sidenote: 218] Most generous, and free from all contriuing,\nWill not peruse[5] the Foiles? So that with ease,\nOr with a little shuffling, you may choose\nA Sword vnbaited,[6] and in a passe of practice,[7]  [Sidenote: pace of]\nRequit him for your Father.\n\n_Laer_. I will doo't,\nAnd for that purpose Ile annoint my Sword:[8]   [Sidenote: for purpose,]\nI bought an Vnction of a Mountebanke\nSo mortall, I but dipt a knife in it,[9]\n                                   [Sidenote: mortall, that but dippe a]\nWhere it drawes blood, no Cataplasme so rare,\nCollected from all Simples that haue Vertue\n\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\nThere liues within the very flame of loue\nA kind of weeke or snufe that will abate it,[10]\nAnd nothing is at a like goodnes still,[11]\nFor goodnes growing to a plurisie,[12]\nDies in his owne too much, that we would doe\nWe should doe when we would: for this would change,[13]\nAnd hath abatements and delayes as many,\nAs there are tongues, are hands, are accedents,\nAnd then this should is like a spend thrifts sigh,\nThat hurts by easing;[14] but to the quick of th'vlcer,]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'passages of proofe,'--_trials_. 'I see when it is put to\nthe test.']\n\n[Footnote 2: 'time modifies it.']\n\n[Footnote 3: Contrast him here with Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 4: careless.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _examine_--the word being of general application then.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _unblunted_. Some foils seem to have been made with a\nbutton that could be taken--probably _screwed_ off.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Whether _practice_ here means exercise or cunning, I cannot\ndetermine. Possibly the king uses the word as once before 216--to be\ntaken as Laertes may please.]\n\n[Footnote 8: In the _1st Q._ this proposal also is made by the king.]\n\n[Footnote 9:\n\n    'So mortal, yes, a knife being but dipt in it,' or,\n    'So mortal, did I but dip a knife in it.']\n\n[Footnote 10: To understand this figure, one must be familiar with the\nbehaviour of the wick of a common lamp or tallow candle.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'nothing keeps always at the same degree of goodness.']\n\n[Footnote 12: A _plurisie_ is just a _too-muchness_, from _plus,\npluris--a plethora_, not our word _pleurisy_, from [Greek: pleura]. See\nnotes in _Johnson and Steevens_.]\n\n[Footnote 13: The sense here requires an _s_, and the space in the\n_Quarto_ between the _e_ and the comma gives the probability that a\nletter has dropt out.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Modern editors seem agreed to substitute the adjective\n_spendthrift_: our sole authority has _spendthrifts_, and by it I hold.\nThe meaning seems this: 'the _would_ changes, the thing is not done, and\nthen the _should_, the mere acknowledgment of duty, is like the sigh of\na spendthrift, who regrets consequences but does not change his way: it\neases his conscience for a moment, and so injures him.' There would at\nthe same time be allusion to what was believed concerning sighs: Dr.\nJohnson says, 'It is a notion very prevalent, that _sighs_ impair the\nstrength, and wear out the animal powers.']\n\n[Page 222]\n\nVnder the Moone, can saue the thing from death,\nThat is but scratcht withall: Ile touch my point,\nWith this contagion, that if I gall him slightly,[1]\nIt may be death.\n\n_Kin_. Let's further thinke of this,\nWeigh what conuenience[2] both of time and meanes\nMay fit vs to our shape,[3] if this should faile;\nAnd that our drift looke through our bad performance,\n'Twere better not assaid; therefore this Proiect\nShould haue a backe or second, that might hold,\nIf this should blast in proofe:[4] Soft, let me see[5]\n                                                   [Sidenote: did blast]\nWee'l make a solemne wager on your commings,[6]  [Sidenote: cunnings[6]]\nI ha't: when in your motion you are hot and dry,  [Sidenote: hate, when]\nAs[7] make your bowts more violent to the end,[8]\n                                                [Sidenote: to that end,]\nAnd that he cals for drinke; Ile haue prepar'd him\n                                                 [Sidenote: prefard him]\n[Sidenote: 268] A Challice for the nonce[9]; whereon but sipping,\nIf he by chance escape your venom'd stuck,[10]\nOur purpose may[11] hold there: how sweet Queene.\n                                [Sidenote: there: but stay, what noyse?]\n\n_Enter Queene_.\n\n_Queen_. One woe doth tread vpon anothers heele,\nSo fast they'l follow[12]: your Sister's drown'd _Laertes_.\n                                                [Sidenote: they follow;]\n\n_Laer_. Drown'd! O where?[13]\n\n_Queen_. There is a Willow[14] growes aslant a Brooke,\n                                          [Sidenote: ascaunt the Brooke]\nThat shewes his hore leaues in the glassie streame:\n                                                [Sidenote: horry leaues]\nThere with fantasticke Garlands did she come,[15]\n                                        [Sidenote: Therewith | she make]\nOf Crow-flowers,[16] Nettles, Daysies, and long Purples,\nThat liberall Shepheards giue a grosser name;\nBut our cold Maids doe Dead Mens Fingers call them:\n                                               [Sidenote: our cull-cold]\nThere on the pendant[17] boughes, her Coronet weeds[18]\nClambring to hang;[19] an enuious sliuer broke,[20]\nWhen downe the weedy Trophies,[19] and her selfe,  [Sidenote: her weedy]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'that though I should gall him but slightly,' or, 'that if\nI gall him ever so slightly.']\n\n[Footnote 2: proper arrangement.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'fit us exactly, like a garment cut to our shape,' or\nperhaps 'shape' is used for _intent, purpose. Point thus_: 'shape. If\nthis should faile, And' &c.]\n\n[Footnote 4: This seems to allude to the assay of a firearm, and to mean\n'_burst on the trial_.' Note 'assaid' two lines back.]\n\n[Footnote 5: There should be a pause here, and a longer pause after\n_commings_: the king is contriving. 'I ha't' should have a line to\nitself, with again a pause, but a shorter one.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Veney, venue_, is a term of fencing: a bout, a\nthrust--from _venir, to come_--whence 'commings.' (259) But _cunnings_,\nmeaning _skills_, may be the word.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'As' is here equivalent to 'and so.']\n\n[Footnote 8: --to the end of making Hamlet hot and dry.]\n\n[Footnote 9: for the special occasion.]\n\n[Footnote 10: thrust. _Twelfth Night_, act iii. sc. 4. 'he gives me the\nstuck in with such a mortal motion.' _Stocco_ in Italian is a long\nrapier; and _stoccata_ a thrust. _Rom. and Jul_., act iii. sc. 1. See\n_Shakespeare-Lexicon_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'may' does not here express _doubt_, but _intention_.]\n\n[Footnote 12: If this be the right reading, it means, 'so fast they\ninsist on following.']\n\n[Footnote 13: He speaks it as about to rush to her.]\n\n[Footnote 14: --the choice of Ophelia's fantastic madness, as being the\ntree of lamenting lovers.]\n\n[Footnote 15: --always busy with flowers.]\n\n[Footnote 16: Ranunculus: _Sh. Lex._]\n\n[Footnote 17: --specially descriptive of the willow.]\n\n[Footnote 18: her wild flowers made into a garland.]\n\n[Footnote 19: The intention would seem, that she imagined herself\ndecorating a monument to her father. Hence her _Coronet weeds_ and the\nPoet's _weedy Trophies_.]\n\n[Footnote 20: _Sliver_, I suspect, called so after the fact, because\n_slivered_ or torn off. In _Macbeth_ we have:\n\n    slips of yew\n    Slivered in the moon's eclipse.\n\nBut it may be that _sliver_ was used for a _twig_, such as could be torn\noff.\n\n_Slip_ and _sliver_ must be of the same root.]\n\n[Page 224]\n\nFell in the weeping Brooke, her cloathes spred wide,\nAnd Mermaid-like, a while they bore her vp,\nWhich time she chaunted snatches of old tunes,[1]\n                                              [Sidenote: old laudes,[1]]\nAs one incapable of[2] her owne distresse,\nOr like a creature Natiue, and indued[3]\nVnto that Element: but long it could not be,\nTill that her garments, heauy with her drinke,  [Sidenote: theyr drinke]\nPul'd the poore wretch from her melodious buy,[4]\n                                               [Sidenote: melodious lay]\nTo muddy death.[5]\n\n_Laer_. Alas then, is she drown'd?                    [Sidenote: she is]\n\n_Queen_. Drown'd, drown'd.\n\n_Laer_. Too much of water hast thou poore _Ophelia_,\nAnd therefore I forbid my teares: but yet\nIt is our tricke,[6] Nature her custome holds,\nLet shame say what it will; when these are gone\nThe woman will be out:[7] Adue my Lord,\nI haue a speech of fire, that faine would blaze,\n                                               [Sidenote: speech a fire]\nBut that this folly doubts[8] it.     _Exit._ [Sidenote: drownes it.[8]]\n\n_Kin_. Let's follow, _Gertrude_:\nHow much I had to doe to calme his rage?\nNow feare I this will giue it start againe;\nTherefore let's follow.                _Exeunt_.[9]\n\n[10]_Enter two Clownes._\n\n_Clown_. Is she to bee buried in Christian buriall,\n                                  [Sidenote: buriall, when she wilfully]\nthat wilfully seekes her owne saluation?[11]\n\n_Other_. I tell thee she is, and therefore make her\n                                               [Sidenote: is, therefore]\nGraue straight,[12] the Crowner hath sate on her, and\nfinds it Christian buriall.\n\n_Clo_. How can that be, vnlesse she drowned her\nselfe in her owne defence?\n\n_Other_. Why 'tis found so.[13]\n\n_Clo_. It must be _Se offendendo_,[14] it cannot bee else:\n                                          [Sidenote: be so offended, it]\n\n[Footnote 1: They were not lauds she was in the habit of singing, to\njudge by the snatches given.]\n\n[Footnote 2: not able to take in, not understanding, not conscious of.]\n\n[Footnote 3: clothed, endowed, fitted for. See _Sh. Lex._]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Could_ the word be for _buoy_--'her clothes spread wide,'\non which she floated singing--therefore her melodious buoy or float?]\n\n[Footnote 5: How could the queen know all this, when there was no one\nnear enough to rescue her? Does not the Poet intend the mode of her\ndeath given here for an invention of the queen, to hide the girl's\nsuicide, and by circumstance beguile the sorrow-rage of Laertes?]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'I cannot help it.']\n\n[Footnote 7: 'when these few tears are spent, all the woman will be out\nof me: I shall be a man again.']\n\n[Footnote 8: _douts_: 'this foolish water of tears puts it out.' _See Q.\nreading._]\n\n[Footnote 9: Here ends the Fourth Act, between which and the Fifth may\nintervene a day or two.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Act V. This act _requires_ only part of a day; the funeral\nand the catastrophe might be on the same.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Has this a confused connection with the fancy that\nsalvation is getting to heaven?]\n\n[Footnote 12: Whether this means _straightway_, or _not crooked_, I\ncannot tell.]\n\n[Footnote 13: 'the coroner has settled it.']\n\n[Footnote 14: The Clown's blunder for _defendendo_.]\n\n[Page 226]\n\nfor heere lies the point; If I drowne my selfe\nwittingly, it argues an Act: and an Act hath three\nbranches. It is an Act to doe and to performe;\n              [Sidenote: it is to act, to doe, to performe, or all: she]\nargall[1] she drown'd her selfe wittingly.\n\n_Other_. Nay but heare you Goodman Deluer.  [Sidenote: good man deluer.]\n\n_Clown_. Giue me leaue; heere lies the water;\ngood: heere stands the man; good: If the man\ngoe to this water and drowne himsele; it is will\nhe nill he, he goes; marke you that? But if the\nwater come to him and drowne him; hee drownes\nnot himselfe. Argall, hee that is not guilty of his\nowne death, shortens not his owne life.\n\n_Other_. But is this law?\n\n_Clo_. I marry is't, Crowners Quest Law.\n\n_Other_. Will you ha the truth on't: if this had  [Sidenote: truth an't]\nnot beene a Gentlewoman, shee should haue beene\nburied out of[2] Christian Buriall.                    [Sidenote: out a]\n\n_Clo_. Why there thou say'st. And the more\npitty that great folke should haue countenance in\nthis world to drowne or hang themselues, more then\ntheir euen[3] Christian. Come, my Spade; there is\nno ancient Gentlemen, but Gardiners, Ditchers and\nGraue-makers; they hold vp _Adams_ Profession.\n\n_Other_. Was he a Gentleman?\n\n_Clo_. He was the first that euer bore Armes.          [Sidenote: A was]\n\n[4]_Other_. Why he had none.\n\n_Clo_. What, ar't a Heathen? how dost thou vnderstand\nthe Scripture? the Scripture sayes _Adam_\ndig'd; could hee digge without Armes?[4] Ile put\nanother question to thee; if thou answerest me not\nto the purpose, confesse thy selfe----\n\n_Other_. Go too.\n\n_Clo_. What is he that builds stronger then either\nthe Mason, the Shipwright, or the Carpenter?\n\n_Other_. The Gallowes-maker; for that Frame\noutliues a thousand Tenants.                   [Sidenote: that outliues]\n\n[Footnote 1: _ergo_, therefore.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _without_. The pleasure the speeches of the Clown give us,\nlies partly in the undercurrent of sense, so disguised by stupidity in\nthe utterance; and partly in the wit which mainly succeeds in its end by\nthe failure of its means.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _equal_, that is _fellow_ Christian.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _From 'Other' to_ 'Armes' _not in Quarto._]\n\n[Page 228]\n\n_Clo_. I like thy wit well in good faith, the\nGallowes does well; but how does it well? it does\nwell to those that doe ill: now, thou dost ill to say\nthe Gallowes is built stronger then the Church:\nArgall, the Gallowes may doe well to thee. Too't\nagaine, Come.\n\n_Other_. Who builds stronger then a Mason, a\nShipwright, or a Carpenter?\n\n_Clo_. I, tell me that, and vnyoake.[1]\n\n_Other_. Marry, now I can tell.\n\n_Clo_. Too't.\n\n_Other_. Masse, I cannot tell.\n\n_Enter Hamlet and Horatio a farre off._[2]\n\n_Clo_. Cudgell thy braines no more about it; for\nyour dull Asse will not mend his pace with beating,\nand when you are ask't this question next, say\na Graue-maker: the Houses that he makes, lasts\n                                            [Sidenote: houses hee makes]\ntill Doomesday: go, get thee to _Yaughan_,[3] fetch\n                           [Sidenote: thee in, and fetch mee a soope of]\nme a stoupe of Liquor.\n\n_Sings._[4]\n\n_In youth when I did loue, did loue_,                [Sidenote: _Song._]\n  _me thought it was very sweete:\nTo contract O the time for a my behoue,\n  O me thought there was nothing meete[5]_\n                                 [Sidenote: there a was nothing a meet.]\n\n                            [Sidenote: _Enter Hamlet & Horatio_]\n\n_Ham_. Ha's this fellow no feeling of his businesse,\n                           [Sidenote: busines? a sings in graue-making.]\nthat he sings at Graue-making?[6]\n\n_Hor_. Custome hath made it in him a property[7]\nof easinesse.\n\n_Ham_. 'Tis ee'n so; the hand of little Imployment\nhath the daintier sense.\n\n_Clowne sings._[8]\n\n_But Age with his stealing steps_               [Sidenote _Clow. Song._]\n_hath caught me in his clutch_:               [Sidenote: hath clawed me]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'unyoke your team'--as having earned his rest.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 3: Whether this is the name of a place, or the name of an\ninnkeeper, or is merely an inexplicable corruption--some take it for a\nstage-direction to yawn--I cannot tell. See _Q._ reading.\n\nIt is said to have been discovered that a foreigner named Johan sold ale\nnext door to the Globe.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 5: A song ascribed to Lord Vaux is in this and the following\nstanzas made nonsense of.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Note Hamlet's mood throughout what follows. He has entered\nthe shadow of death.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Property_ is what specially belongs to the individual;\nhere it is his _peculiar work_, or _personal calling_: 'custom has made\nit with him an easy duty.']\n\n[Footnote 8: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Page 230]\n\n_And hath shipped me intill the Land_,                  [Sidenote: into]\n  _as if I had neuer beene such_.\n\n_Ham_. That Scull had a tongue in it, and could\nsing once: how the knaue iowles it to th' grownd,        [Sidenote: the]\nas if it were _Caines_ Iaw-bone, that did the first    [Sidenote: twere]\nmurther: It might be the Pate of a Polititian which\n                                          [Sidenote: murder, this might]\nthis Asse o're Offices: one that could circumuent\n                        [Sidenote: asse now ore-reaches; one that would]\nGod, might it not?\n\n_Hor_. It might, my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Or of a Courtier, which could say, Good\nMorrow sweet Lord: how dost thou, good Lord?\n                                            [Sidenote: thou sweet lord?]\nthis might be my Lord such a one, that prais'd my\nLord such a ones Horse, when he meant to begge\n                                              [Sidenote: when a went to]\nit; might it not?[1]\n\n_Hor_. I, my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Why ee'n so: and now my Lady\nWormes,[2] Chaplesse,[3] and knockt about the Mazard[4]\n                                  [Sidenote: Choples | the massene with]\nwith a Sextons Spade; heere's fine Reuolution, if\n                                                  [Sidenote: and we had]\nwee had the tricke to see't. Did these bones cost\nno more the breeding, but to play at Loggets[5] with\n'em? mine ake to thinke on't.                           [Sidenote: them]\n\n_Clowne sings._[6]\n\n_A Pickhaxe and a Spade, a Spade_,             [Sidenote: _Clow. Song._]\n  _for and a shrowding-Sheete:\nO a Pit of Clay for to be made,\n  for such a Guest is meete_.\n\n_Ham_. There's another: why might not that\nbee the Scull of of a Lawyer? where be his        [Sidenote: skull of a]\nQuiddits[7] now? his Quillets[7]? his Cases? his  [Sidenote: quiddities]\nTenures, and his Tricks? why doe's he suffer this\nrude knaue now to knocke him about the Sconce[8]\n                                            [Sidenote: this madde knaue]\nwith a dirty Shouell, and will not tell him of his\nAction of Battery? hum. This fellow might be\nin's time a great buyer of Land, with his\nStatutes, his Recognizances, his Fines, his double\n\n[Footnote 1: To feel the full force of this, we must call up the\nexpression on the face of 'such a one' as he begged the horse--probably\nimitated by Hamlet--and contrast it with the look on the face of the\nskull.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'now the property of my Lady Worm.']\n\n[Footnote 3: the lower jaw gone.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _the upper jaw_, I think--not _the head_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: a game in which pins of wood, called loggats, nearly two\nfeet long, were half thrown, half slid, towards a bowl. _Blount_:\nJohnson and Steevens.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 7: a lawyer's quirks and quibbles. See _Johnson and Steevens_.\n\n_1st Q._\n\n                    now where is your\n    Quirkes and quillets now,]\n\n[Footnote 8: Humorous, or slang word for _the head_. 'A fort--a\nhead-piece--the head': _Webster's Dict_.]\n\n[Page 232]\n\nVouchers, his Recoueries: [1] Is this the fine[2] of his\nFines, and the recouery[3] of his Recoueries,[1] to haue\nhis fine[4] Pate full of fine[4] Dirt? will his Vouchers\n                                               [Sidenote: will vouchers]\nvouch him no more of his Purchases, and double\n                                    [Sidenote: purchases & doubles then]\nones too, then the length and breadth of a paire of\nIndentures? the very Conueyances of his Lands\nwill hardly lye in this Boxe[5]; and must the Inheritor\n                                         [Sidenote: scarcely iye; | th']\nhimselfe haue no more?[6] ha?\n\n_Hor_. Not a iot more, my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. Is not Parchment made of Sheep-skinnes?\n\n_Hor_. I my Lord, and of Calue-skinnes too.\n                                           [Sidenote: Calues-skinnes to]\n\n_Ham_. They are Sheepe and Calues that seek       [Sidenote: which seek]\nout assurance in that. I will speake to this fellow:\nwhose Graue's this Sir?                          [Sidenote: this sirra?]\n\n_Clo_. Mine Sir:                  [Sidenote: _Clow_. Mine sir, or a pit]\n\n_O a Pit of Clay for to be made,\nfor such a Guest is meete._[7]\n\n_Ham_. I thinke it be thine indeed: for thou\nliest in't.\n\n_Clo_. You lye out on't Sir, and therefore it is not     [Sidenote: tis]\nyours: for my part, I doe not lye in't; and yet it [Sidenote: in't, yet]\nis mine.\n\n_Ham_. Thou dost lye in't, to be in't and say 'tis     [Sidenote: it is]\nthine: 'tis for the dead, not for the quicke, therefore\nthou lyest.\n\n_Clo_. Tis a quicke lye Sir, 'twill away againe\nfrom me to you.[8]\n\n_Ham_. What man dost thou digge it for?\n\n_Clo_. For no man Sir.\n\n_Ham_. What woman then?\n\n_Clo_. For none neither.\n\n_Ham_. Who is to be buried in't?\n\n_Clo_. One that was a woman Sir; but rest her\nSoule, shee's dead.\n\n[Footnote 1: _From_ 'Is' _to_ 'Recoueries' _not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 2: the end.]\n\n[Footnote 3: the property regained by his Recoveries.]\n\n[Footnote 4: third and fourth meanings of the word _fine_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: the skull.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'must the heir have no more either?'\n\n_1st Q_.\n\n                                     and must\n    The honor (_owner?_) lie there?]\n\n[Footnote 7: _This line not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 8: He _gives_ the lie.]\n\n[Page 234]\n\n_Ham_. How absolute[1] the knaue is? wee must\n[Sidenote: 256] speake by the Carde,[2] or equiuocation will vndoe\nvs: by the Lord _Horatio_, these three yeares[3] I haue\n                                                  [Sidenote: this three]\ntaken note of it, the Age is growne so picked,[4]      [Sidenote: tooke]\nthat the toe of the Pesant comes so neere the\nheeles of our Courtier, hee galls his Kibe.[5] How\n                                            [Sidenote: the heele of the]\nlong hast thou been a Graue-maker?         [Sidenote: been Graue-maker?]\n\n_Clo_. Of all the dayes i'th'yeare, I came too't\n                                                [Sidenote: Of the dayes]\nthat day[6] that our last King _Hamlet_ o'recame    [Sidenote: ouercame]\n_Fortinbras_.\n\n_Ham_. How long is that since?\n\n_Clo_. Cannot you tell that? euery foole can tell\n[Sidenote: 143] that: It was the very day,[6] that young _Hamlet_ was\n                                               [Sidenote: was that very]\nborne,[8] hee that was mad, and sent into England,\n                                                 [Sidenote: that is mad]\n\n_Ham_. I marry, why was he sent into England?\n\n_Clo_. Why, because he was mad; hee shall recouer\n                                          [Sidenote: a was mad: a shall]\nhis wits there; or if he do not, it's no great\n                                               [Sidenote: if a do | tis]\nmatter there.\n\n_Ham_. Why?\n\n_Clo_. 'Twill not be scene in him, there the men\n                                            [Sidenote: him there, there]\nare as mad as he.\n\n_Ham_. How came he mad?\n\n_Clo_. Very strangely they say.\n\n_Ham_. How strangely?[7]\n\n_Clo_. Faith e'ene with loosing his wits.\n\n_Ham_. Vpon what ground?\n\n_Clo_. Why heere in Denmarke[8]: I haue bin sixeteene [Sidenote: Sexten]\n[Sidenote: 142-3] heere, man and Boy thirty yeares.[9]\n\n_Ham_. How long will a man lie 'ith' earth ere he\nrot?\n\n_Clo_. Ifaith, if he be not rotten before he die (as\n                                   [Sidenote: Fayth if a be not | a die]\nwe haue many pocky Coarses now adaies, that will\n                                           [Sidenote: corses, that will]\nscarce hold the laying in) he will last you some      [Sidenote: a will]\neight yeare, or nine yeare. A Tanner will last you\nnine yeare.\n\n[Footnote 1: 'How the knave insists on precision!']\n\n[Footnote 2: chart: _Skeat's Etym. Dict._]\n\n[Footnote 3: Can this indicate any point in the history of English\nsociety?]\n\n[Footnote 4: so fastidious; so given to _picking_ and choosing; so\nchoice.]\n\n[Footnote 5: The word is to be found in any dictionary, but is not\ngenerally understood. Lord Byron, a very inaccurate writer, takes it to\nmean _heel_:\n\n    Devices quaint, and frolics ever new,\n      Tread on each others' kibes:\n\n_Childe Harold, Canto 1. St. 67._\n\nIt means a _chilblain_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Then Fortinbras _could_ have been but a few months younger\nthan Hamlet, and may have been older. Hamlet then, in the Quarto\npassage, could not by _tender_ mean _young_.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'In what way strangely?'--_in what strange way_? Or the\n_How_ may be _how much_, in retort to the _very_; but the intent would\nbe the same--a request for further information.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Hamlet has asked on what ground or provocation, that is,\nfrom what cause, Hamlet lost his wits; the sexton chooses to take the\nword _ground_ materially.]\n\n[Footnote 9: The Poet makes him say how long he had been sexton--but how\nnaturally and informally--by a stupid joke!--in order a second time, and\nmore certainly, to tell us Hamlet's age: he must have held it a point\nnecessary to the understanding of Hamlet.\n\nNote Hamlet's question immediately following. It looks as if he had\nfirst said to himself: 'Yes--I have been thirty years above ground!' and\n_then_ said to the sexton, 'How long will a man lie i' th' earth ere he\nrot?' We might enquire even too curiously as to the connecting links.]\n\n[Page 236]\n\n_Ham_. Why he, more then another?\n\n_Clo_. Why sir, his hide is so tan'd with his Trade,\nthat he will keepe out water a great while. And       [Sidenote: a will]\nyour water, is a sore Decayer of your horson dead\nbody. Heres a Scull now: this Scul, has laine in\n                    [Sidenote: now hath iyen you i'th earth 23. yeeres.]\nthe earth three and twenty years.\n\n_Ham_. Whose was it?\n\n_Clo_. A whoreson mad Fellowes it was;\nWhose doe you thinke it was?\n\n_Ham_. Nay, I know not.\n\n_Clo_. A pestlence on him for a mad Rogue, a\npou'rd a Flaggon of Renish on my head once.\nThis same Scull Sir, this same Scull sir, was _Yoricks_\n                [Sidenote: once; this same skull sir, was sir _Yoricks_]\nScull, the Kings Iester.\n\n_Ham_. This?\n\n_Clo_. E'ene that.\n\n_Ham_. Let me see. Alas poore _Yorick_, I knew\n                                           [Sidenote: _Ham_. Alas poore]\nhim _Horatio_, a fellow of infinite Iest; of most excellent\nfancy, he hath borne me on his backe a                  [Sidenote: bore]\nthousand times: And how abhorred[1] my Imagination\n                                         [Sidenote: and now how | in my]\nis, my gorge rises at it. Heere hung those            [Sidenote: it is:]\nlipps, that I haue kist I know not how oft. Where\nbe your Iibes now? Your Gambals? Your Songs?\nYour flashes of Merriment that were wont to set\nthe Table on a Rore? No one[2] now to mock your      [Sidenote: not one]\nown Ieering? Quite chopfalne[3]? Now get you to\n                                              [Sidenote: owne grinning,]\nmy Ladies Chamber, and tell her, let her paint an\n                                               [Sidenote: Ladies table,]\ninch thicke, to this fauour[4] she must come. Make\nher laugh at that: prythee _Horatio_ tell me one\nthing.\n\n_Hor_. What's that my Lord?\n\n_Ham_. Dost thou thinke _Alexander_ lookt o'this      [Sidenote: a this]\nfashion i'th' earth?\n\n_Hor_. E'ene so.\n\n_Ham_. And smelt so? Puh.\n\n[Footnote 1: If this be the true reading, _abhorred_ must mean\n_horrified_; but I incline to the _Quarto_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'Not one jibe, not one flash of merriment now?']\n\n[Footnote 3: --chop indeed quite fallen off!]\n\n[Footnote 4: _to this look_--that of the skull.]\n\n[Page 238]\n\n_Hor_. E'ene so, my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. To what base vses we may returne\n_Horatio_. Why may not Imagination trace the\nNoble dust of _Alexander_, till he[1] find it stopping a\n                                                      [Sidenote: a find]\nbunghole.\n\n_Hor_. 'Twere to consider: to curiously to consider\n                                     [Sidenote:  consider too curiously]\nso.\n\n_Ham_. No faith, not a iot. But to follow him\nthether with modestie[2] enough, and likeliehood to\nlead it; as thus. _Alexander_ died: _Alexander_ was\n                                        [Sidenote: lead it. _Alexander_]\nburied: _Alexander_ returneth into dust; the dust is      [Sidenote: to]\nearth; of earth we make Lome, and why of that\nLome (whereto he was conuerted) might they not\nstopp a Beere-barrell?[3]\n\nImperiall _Caesar_, dead and turn'd to clay,       [Sidenote: Imperious]\nMight stop a hole to keepe the winde away.\nOh, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,\nShould patch a Wall, t'expell the winters flaw.[4]\n                                                [Sidenote: waters flaw.]\nBut soft, but soft, aside; heere comes the King.\n                                     [Sidenote: , but soft awhile, here]\n\n_Enter King, Queene, Laertes, and a Coffin_,\n                        [Sidenote: _Enter K. Q. Laertes and the corse._]\n      _with Lords attendant._\n\nThe Queene, the Courtiers. Who is that they follow,\n                                                   [Sidenote: this they]\nAnd with such maimed rites? This doth betoken,\nThe Coarse they follow, did with disperate hand,\nFore do it owne life; 'twas some Estate.[5]  [Sidenote: twas of some[5]]\nCouch[6] we a while, and mark.\n\n_Laer_. What Cerimony else?\n\n_Ham_. That is _Laertes_, a very Noble youth:[7]\nMarke.\n\n_Laer_. What Cerimony else?[8]\n\n_Priest_. Her Obsequies haue bin as farre inlarg'd,  [Sidenote: _Doct_.]\nAs we haue warrantis,[9] her death was doubtfull,[10]\n                                                  [Sidenote: warrantie,]\nAnd but that great Command, o're-swaies the order,[11]\n\n[Footnote 1: Imagination personified.]\n\n[Footnote 2: moderation.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'Loam, Lome--grafting clay. Mortar made of Clay and Straw;\nalso a sort of Plaister used by Chymists to stop up their\nVessels.'--_Bailey's Dict._]\n\n[Footnote 4: a sudden puff or blast of wind.\n\nHamlet here makes a solemn epigram. For the right understanding of the\nwhole scene, the student must remember that Hamlet is\nphilosophizing--following things out, curiously or otherwise--on the\nbrink of a grave, concerning the tenant for which he has enquired--'what\nwoman then?'--but received no answer.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'the corpse was of some position.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'let us lie down'--behind a grave or stone.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Hamlet was quite in the dark as to Laertes' character; he\nhad seen next to nothing of him.]\n\n[Footnote 8: The priest making no answer, Laertes repeats the question.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _warrantise_.]\n\n[Footnote 10: This casts discredit on the queen's story, 222. The\npriest believes she died by suicide, only calls her death doubtful to\nexcuse their granting her so many of the rites of burial.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'settled mode of proceeding.'--_Schmidt's Sh. Lex._--But\nis it not rather _the order_ of the church?]\n\n[Page 240]\n\nShe should in ground vnsanctified haue lodg'd,\n                                    [Sidenote: vnsanctified been lodged]\nTill the last Trumpet. For charitable praier,       [Sidenote: prayers,]\nShardes,[1] Flints, and Peebles, should be throwne on her:\nYet heere she is allowed her Virgin Rites,\n                                           [Sidenote: virgin Crants,[2]]\nHer Maiden strewments,[3] and the bringing home\nOf Bell and Buriall.[4]\n\n_Laer_. Must there no more be done?\n\n_Priest_. No more be done:[5]                        [Sidenote: _Doct._]\nWe should prophane the seruice of the dead,\nTo sing sage[6] _Requiem_, and such rest to her\n                                              [Sidenote: sing a Requiem]\nAs to peace-parted Soules.\n\n_Laer_. Lay her i'th' earth,\nAnd from her faire and vnpolluted flesh,\nMay Violets spring. I tell thee (churlish Priest)\nA Ministring Angell shall my Sister be,\nWhen thou liest howling?\n\n_Ham_. What, the faire _Ophelia_?[7]\n\n_Queene_. Sweets, to the sweet farewell.[8]\n[Sidenote: 118] I hop'd thou should'st haue bin my _Hamlets_ wife:\nI thought thy Bride-bed to haue deckt (sweet Maid)\nAnd not t'haue strew'd thy Graue.                   [Sidenote: not haue]\n\n_Laer_. Oh terrible woer,[9]                    [Sidenote: O treble woe]\nFall ten times trebble, on that cursed head  [Sidenote: times double on]\nWhose wicked deed, thy most Ingenioussence\nDepriu'd thee of. Hold off the earth a while,\nTill I haue caught her once more in mine armes:\n                          _Leaps in the graue._[10]\nNow pile your dust, vpon the quicke, and dead,\nTill of this flat a Mountaine you haue made,\nTo o're top old _Pelion_, or the skyish head        [Sidenote: To'retop]\nOf blew _Olympus_.[11]\n\n_Ham_.[12] What is he, whose griefes                  [Sidenote: griefe]\nBeares such an Emphasis? whose phrase of Sorrow\n\n[Footnote 1: 'Shardes' _not in Quarto._ It means _potsherds_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: chaplet--_German_ krantz, used even for virginity itself.]\n\n[Footnote 3: strewments with _white_ flowers. (?)]\n\n[Footnote 4: the burial service.]\n\n[Footnote 5: as an exclamation, I think.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Is the word _sage_ used as representing the unfitness of a\nrequiem to her state of mind? or is it only from its kindred with\n_solemn_? It was because she was not 'peace-parted' that they could not\nsing _rest_ to her.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Everything_ here depends on the actor.]\n\n[Footnote 8: I am not sure the queen is not _apostrophizing_ the flowers\nshe is throwing into or upon the coffin: 'Sweets, be my farewell to the\nsweet.']\n\n[Footnote 9: The Folio _may_ be right here:--'Oh terrible wooer!--May\nten times treble thy misfortunes fall' &c.]\n\n[Footnote 10: This stage-direction is not in the _Quarto_.\n\nHere the _1st Quarto_ has:--\n\n    _Lear_. Forbeare the earth a while: sister farewell:\n           _Leartes leapes into the graue._\n    Now powre your earth on _Olympus_ hie,\n    And make a hill to o're top olde _Pellon_:\n           _Hamlet leapes in after Leartes_\n    Whats he that coniures so?\n\n    _Ham_. Beholde tis I, _Hamlet_ the Dane.]\n\n[Footnote 11: The whole speech is bravado--the frothy grief of a weak,\nexcitable effusive nature.]\n\n[Footnote 12: He can remain apart no longer, and approaches the\ncompany.]\n\n[Page 242]\n\nConiure the wandring Starres, and makes them stand   [Sidenote: Coniues]\nLike wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,\n_Hamlet_ the Dane.[1]\n\n_Laer_. The deuill take thy soule.[2]\n\n_Ham_. Thou prai'st not well,\nI prythee take thy fingers from my throat;[3]\nSir though I am not Spleenatiue, and rash,\n                              [Sidenote: For though | spleenatiue rash,]\nYet haue I something in me dangerous,        [Sidenote: in me something]\nWhich let thy wisenesse feare. Away thy hand.\n                               [Sidenote: wisedome feare; hold off they]\n\n_King_. Pluck them asunder.\n\n_Qu. Hamlet, Hamlet_.                      [Sidenote: _All_. Gentlemen.]\n\n_Gen_. Good my Lord be quiet.                   [Sidenote: _Hora_. Good]\n\n_Ham_. Why I will fight with him vppon this Theme,\nVntill my eielids will no longer wag.[4]\n\n_Qu_. Oh my Sonne, what Theame?\n\n_Ham_. I lou'd _Ophelia_[5]; fortie thousand Brothers\nCould not (with all there quantitie of Loue)\nMake vp my summe. What wilt thou do for her?[6]\n\n_King_. Oh he is mad _Laertes_.[7]\n\n_Qu_. For loue of God forbeare him.\n\n_Ham_. Come show me what thou'lt doe.\n                          [Sidenote: _Ham_ S'wounds shew | th'owt fight,\n                                                woo't fast, woo't teare]\nWoo't weepe? Woo't fight? Woo't teare thy selfe?\nWoo't drinke vp _Esile_, eate a Crocodile?[6]\nIle doo't. Dost thou come heere to whine;         [Sidenote: doost come]\nTo outface me with leaping in her Graue?\nBe[8] buried quicke with her, and so will I.\nAnd if thou prate of Mountaines; let them throw\nMillions of Akers on vs; till our ground\nSindging his pate against the burning Zone,\n[Sidenote: 262] Make _Ossa_ like a wart. Nay, and thoul't mouth,\nIle rant as well as thou.[9]\n\n[Footnote 1: This fine speech is yet spoken in the character of madman,\nwhich Hamlet puts on once more the moment he has to appear before the\nking. Its poetry and dignity belong to Hamlet's feeling; its\nextravagance to his assumed insanity. It must be remembered that death\nis a small affair to Hamlet beside his mother's life, and that the death\nof Ophelia may even be some consolation to him.\n\nIn the _Folio_, a few lines back, Laertes leaps into the grave. There is\nno such direction in the _Q_. In neither is Hamlet said to leap into the\ngrave; only the _1st Q._ so directs. It is a stage-business that must\nplease the _common_ actor of Hamlet; but there is nothing in the text\nany more than in the margin of _Folio_ or _Quarto_ to justify it, and it\nwould but for the horror of it be ludicrous. The coffin is supposed to\nbe in the grave: must Laertes jump down upon it, followed by Hamlet, and\nthe two fight and trample over the body?\n\nYet I take the '_Leaps in the grave_' to be an action intended for\nLaertes by the Poet. His 'Hold off the earth a while,' does not\nnecessarily imply that the body is already in the grave. He has before\nsaid, 'Lay her i'th' earth': then it was not in the grave. It is just\nabout to be lowered, when, with that cry of 'Hold off the earth a\nwhile,' he jumps into the grave, and taking the corpse, on a bier at the\nside of it, in his arms, calls to the spectators to pile a mountain on\nthem--in the wild speech that brings out Hamlet. The quiet dignity of\nHamlet's speech does not comport with his jumping into the grave:\nLaertes comes out of the grave, and flies at Hamlet's throat. So, at\nleast, I would have the thing acted.\n\nThere is, however, nothing in the text to show that Laertes comes out of\nthe grave, and if the manager insist on the traditional mode, I would\nsuggest that the grave be represented much larger. In Mr. Jewitt's book\non Grave-Mounds, I read of a 'female skeleton in a grave six feet deep,\nten feet long, and eight feet wide.' Such a grave would give room for\nboth beside the body, and dismiss the hideousness of the common\nrepresentation.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --_springing out of the grave and flying at Hamlet_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Note the temper, self-knowledge, self-government, and\nself-distrust of Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The eyelids last of all become incapable of motion.]\n\n[Footnote 5: That he loved her is the only thing to explain the\nharshness of his behaviour to her. Had he not loved her and not been\nmiserable about her, he would have been as polite to her as well bred\npeople would have him.]\n\n[Footnote 6: The gallants of Shakspere's day would challenge each other\nto do more disagreeable things than any of these in honour of their\nmistresses.\n\n'_\u00c9sil._ s.m. Ancien nom du Vinaigre.' _Supplement to Academy Dict._,\n1847.--'Eisile, _vinegar_': Bosworth's _Anglo-Saxon Dict_., from\nSomner's _Saxon Dict._, 1659.--'Eisel (_Saxon), vinegar; verjuice; any\nacid_': Johnson's _Dict_.\n\n_1st Q_. 'Wilt drinke vp vessels.' The word _up_ very likely implies the\nsteady emptying of a vessel specified--at a draught, and not by\ndegrees.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --pretending care over Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Emphasis on _Be_, which I take for the _imperative mood_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: The moment it is uttered, he recognizes and confesses to\nthe rant, ashamed of it even under the cover of his madness. It did not\nbelong _altogether_ to the madness. Later he expresses to Horatio his\nregret in regard to this passage between him and Laertes, and afterwards\napologizes to Laertes. 252, 262.\n\nPerhaps this is the speech in all the play of which it is most difficult\nto get into a sympathetic comprehension. The student must call to mind\nthe elements at war in Hamlet's soul, and generating discords in his\nbehaviour: to those comes now the shock of Ophelia's death; the last tie\nthat bound him to life is gone--the one glimmer of hope left him for\nthis world! The grave upon whose brink he has been bandying words with\nthe sexton, is for _her_! Into such a consciousness comes the rant of\nLaertes. Only the forms of madness are free to him, while no form is too\nstrong in which to repudiate indifference to Ophelia: for her sake, as\nwell as to relieve his own heart, he casts the clear confession of his\nlove into her grave. He is even jealous, over her dead body, of her\nbrother's profession of love to her--as if any brother could love as he\nloved! This is foolish, no doubt, but human, and natural to a certain\nchildishness in grief. 252.\n\nAdd to this, that Hamlet--see later in his speeches to Osricke--had a\nlively inclination to answer a fool according to his folly (256), to\noutherod Herod if Herod would rave, out-euphuize Euphues himself if he\nwould be ridiculous:--the digestion of all these things in the retort of\nmeditation will result, I would fain think, in an understanding and\nartistic justification of even this speech of Hamlet: the more I\nconsider it the truer it seems. If proof be necessary that real feeling\nis mingled in the madness of the utterance, it may be found in the fact\nthat he is immediately ashamed of its extravagance.]\n\n[Page 244]\n\n_Kin_.[1] This is meere Madnesse:                 [Sidenote: _Quee_.[1]]\nAnd thus awhile the fit will worke on him:          [Sidenote: And this]\nAnon as patient as the female Doue,\nWhen that her golden[2] Cuplet[3] are disclos'd[4];\n                                                  [Sidenote: cuplets[3]]\nHis silence will sit drooping.[5]\n\n_Ham_. Heare you Sir:[6]\nWhat is the reason that you vse me thus?\nI loud' you euer;[7] but it is no matter:[8]\nLet _Hercules_ himselfe doe what he may,\nThe Cat will Mew, and Dogge will haue his day.[9]\n           _Exit._                [Sidenote: _Exit Hamlet and Horatio._]\n\n_Kin_. I pray you good Horatio wait vpon him,\n                                              [Sidenote: pray thee good]\nStrengthen you patience in our last nights speech,      [Sidenote: your]\n[Sidenote: 254] Wee'l put the matter to the present push:[10]\nGood _Gertrude_ set some watch ouer your Sonne,\nThis Graue shall haue a liuing[11] Monument:[12]\nAn houre of quiet shortly shall we see;[13]\n                                         [Sidenote: quiet thirtie shall]\nTill then, in patience our proceeding be.   _Exeunt._\n\n[Footnote 1: I hardly know which to choose as the speaker of this\nspeech. It would be a fine specimen of the king's hypocrisy; and perhaps\nindeed its poetry, lovely in itself, but at such a time sentimental, is\nfitter for him than the less guilty queen.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'covered with a yellow down' _Heath_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The singular is better: 'the pigeon lays no more than _two_\neggs.' _Steevens_. Only, _couplets_ might be used like _twins_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: --_hatched_, the sporting term of the time.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'The pigeon never quits her nest for three days after her\ntwo young ones are hatched, except for a few moments to get food.'\n_Steevens_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Laertes stands eyeing him with evil looks.]\n\n[Footnote 7: I suppose here a pause: he waits in vain some response from\nLaertes.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Here he retreats into his madness.]\n\n[Footnote 9: '--but I cannot compel you to hear reason. Do what he will,\nHercules himself cannot keep the cat from mewing, or the dog from\nfollowing his inclination!'--said in a half humorous, half contemptuous\ndespair.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'into immediate train'--_to Laertes_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: _life-like_, or _lasting_?]\n\n[Footnote 12: --_again to Laertes_.]\n\n[Footnote 13: --when Hamlet is dead.]\n\n[Page 246]\n\n_Enter Hamlet and Horatio._\n\n_Ham._ So much for this Sir; now let me see the other,[1]\n                                           [Sidenote: now shall you see]\nYou doe remember all the Circumstance.[2]\n\n_Hor._ Remember it my Lord?[3]\n\n_Ham._ Sir, in my heart there was a kinde of fighting,\nThat would not let me sleepe;[4] me thought I lay\n                                                  [Sidenote: my thought]\nWorse then the mutines in the Bilboes,[5] rashly,      [Sidenote: bilbo]\n(And praise be rashnesse for it)[6] let vs know,      [Sidenote: prayed]\nOur indiscretion sometimes serues vs well,          [Sidenote: sometime]\nWhen our deare plots do paule,[7] and that should teach vs,\n                                    [Sidenote: deepe | should learne us]\n[Sidenote: 146, 181] There's a Diuinity that shapes our ends,[8]\nRough-hew them how we will.[9]\n\n_Hor._ That is most certaine.\n\n_Ham._ Vp from my Cabin\nMy sea-gowne scarft about me in the darke,\nGrop'd I to finde out them;[10] had my desire,\nFinger'd their Packet[11], and in fine, withdrew\nTo mine owne roome againe, making so bold,\n(My feares forgetting manners) to vnseale          [Sidenote: to vnfold]\nTheir grand Commission, where I found _Horatio_,\nOh royall[12] knauery: An exact command,            [Sidenote: A royall]\n[Sidenote: 196] Larded with many seuerall sorts of reason;\n                                                    [Sidenote: reasons,]\nImporting Denmarks health, and Englands too,\nWith hoo, such Bugges[13] and Goblins in my life,        [Sidenote: hoe]\nThat on the superuize[14] no leasure bated,[15]\nNo not to stay the grinding of the Axe,\nMy head shoud be struck off.\n\n_Hor._ Ist possible?\n\n_Ham._ Here's the Commission, read it at more leysure:\n\n[Footnote 1: I would suggest that the one paper, which he has just\nshown, is a commission the king gave to himself; the other, which he is\nabout to show, that given to Rosincrance and Guildensterne. He is\nsetting forth his proof of the king's treachery.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --of the king's words and behaviour, possibly, in giving\nhim his papers, Horatio having been present; or it might mean, 'Have you\ngot the things I have just told you clear in your mind?']\n\n[Footnote 3: '--as if I could forget a single particular of it!']\n\n[Footnote 4: The _Shaping Divinity_ was moving him.]\n\n[Footnote 5: The fetters called _bilboes_ fasten a couple of mutinous\nsailors together by the legs.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Does he not here check himself and begin\nafresh--remembering that the praise belongs to the Divinity?]\n\n[Footnote 7: _pall_--from the root of _pale_--'come to nothing.' He had\nhad his plots from which he hoped much; the king's commission had\nrendered them futile. But he seems to have grown doubtful of his plans\nbefore, probably through the doubt of his companions which led him to\nseek acquaintance with their commission, and he may mean that his 'dear\nplots' had begun to pall _upon him_. Anyhow the sudden 'indiscretion' of\nsearching for and unsealing the ambassadors' commission served him as\nnothing else could have served him.]\n\n[Footnote 8: --even by our indiscretion. Emphasis on _shapes_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Here is another sign of Hamlet's religion. 24, 125, 260.\nWe start to work out an idea, but the result does not correspond with\nthe idea: another has been at work along with us. We rough-hew--block\nout our marble, say for a Mercury; the result is an Apollo. Hamlet had\nrough-hewn his ends--he had begun plans to certain ends, but had he been\nallowed to go on shaping them alone, the result, even had he carried out\nhis plans and shaped his ends to his mind, would have been failure.\nAnother mallet and chisel were busy shaping them otherwise from the\nfirst, and carrying them out to a true success. For _success_ is not the\nsuccess of plans, but the success of ends.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Emphasize _I_ and _them_, as the rhythm requires, and the\nphrase becomes picturesque.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'got my fingers on their papers.']\n\n[Footnote 12: Emphasize _royal_.]\n\n[Footnote 13: A _bug_ is any object causing terror.]\n\n[Footnote 14: immediately on the reading.]\n\n[Footnote 15: --no interval abated, taken off the immediacy of the order\nrespite granted.]\n\n[Page 248]\n\nBut wilt thou heare me how I did proceed?      [Sidenote: heare now how]\n\n_Hor_. I beseech you.\n\n_Ham_. Being thus benetted round with Villaines,[1]\nEre I could make a Prologue to my braines,        [Sidenote: Or I could]\nThey had begun the Play.[2] I sate me downe,\nDeuis'd a new Commission,[3] wrote it faire,\nI once did hold it as our Statists[4] doe,\nA basenesse to write faire; and laboured much\nHow to forget that learning: but Sir now,\nIt did me Yeomans[5] seruice: wilt thou know          [Sidenote: yemans]\nThe effects[6] of what I wrote?                 [Sidenote: Th'effect[6]]\n\n_Hor_. I, good my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. An earnest Coniuration from the King,\nAs England was his faithfull Tributary,\nAs loue betweene them, as the Palme should flourish,\n                              [Sidenote: them like the | might florish,]\nAs Peace should still her wheaten Garland weare,\nAnd stand a Comma 'tweene their amities,[7]\nAnd many such like Assis[8] of great charge,\n                                             [Sidenote: like, as sir of]\nThat on the view and know of these Contents,         [Sidenote: knowing]\nWithout debatement further, more or lesse,\nHe should the bearers put to sodaine death,    [Sidenote: those bearers]\nNot shriuing time allowed.\n\n_Hor_. How was this seal'd?\n\n_Ham_. Why, euen in that was Heauen ordinate;      [Sidenote: ordinant,]\nI had my fathers Signet in my Purse,\nWhich was the Modell of that Danish Seale:\nFolded the Writ vp in forme of the other,\n                                         [Sidenote: in the forme of th']\nSubscrib'd it, gau't th'impression, plac't it safely,\n                                               [Sidenote: Subscribe it,]\nThe changeling neuer knowne: Now, the next day\nWas our Sea Fight, and what to this was sement,  [Sidenote: was sequent]\nThou know'st already.[9]\n\n_Hor_. So _Guildensterne_ and _Rosincrance_, go too't.\n\n[Footnote 1: --the nearest, Rosincrance and Guildensterne: Hamlet was\nquite satisfied of their villainy.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'I had no need to think: the thing came to me at once.']\n\n[Footnote 3: Note Hamlet's rapid practicality--not merely in devising,\nbut in carrying out.]\n\n[Footnote 4: statesmen.]\n\n[Footnote 5: '_Yeomen of the guard of the king's body_ were anciently\ntwo hundred and fifty men, of the best rank under gentry, and of larger\nstature than ordinary; every one being required to be six feet\nhigh.'--_E. Chambers' Cyclopaedia_. Hence '_yeoman's_ service' must mean\nthe very best of service.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Note our common phrase: 'I wrote to this effect.']\n\n[Footnote 7: 'as he would have Peace stand between their friendships\nlike a comma between two words.' Every point has in it a conjunctive, as\nwell as a disjunctive element: the former seems the one regarded\nhere--only that some amities require more than a comma to separate them.\nThe _comma_ does not make much of a figure--is good enough for its\nposition, however; if indeed the fact be not, that, instead of standing\nfor _Peace_, it does not even stand for itself, but for some other word.\nI do not for my part think so.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Dr. Johnson says there is a quibble here with _asses_ as\nbeasts of _charge_ or burden. It is probable enough, seeing, as Malone\ntells us, that in Warwickshire, as did Dr. Johnson himself, they\npronounce _as_ hard. In Aberdeenshire the sound of the _s_ varies with\nthe intent of the word: '_az_ he said'; '_ass_ strong _az_ a horse.']\n\n[Footnote 9: To what purpose is this half-voyage to England made part of\nthe play? The action--except, as not a few would have it, the very\naction be delay--is nowise furthered by it; Hamlet merely goes and\nreturns.\n\nTo answer this question, let us find the real ground for Hamlet's\nreflection, 'There's a Divinity that shapes our ends.' Observe, he is\nset at liberty without being in the least indebted to the finding of the\ncommission--by the attack, namely, of the pirate; and this was not the\nshaping of his ends of which he was thinking when he made the\nreflection, for it had reference to the finding of the commission. What\nthen was the ground of the reflection? And what justifies the whole\npassage in relation to the Poet's object, the character of Hamlet?\n\nThis, it seems to me:--\n\nAlthough Hamlet could not have had much doubt left with regard to his\nuncle's guilt, yet a man with a fine, delicate--what most men would\nthink, because so much more exacting than theirs--fastidious conscience,\nmight well desire some proof more positive yet, before he did a deed so\nrepugnant to his nature, and carrying in it such a loud condemnation of\nhis mother. And more: he might well wish to have something to _show_: a\nman's conviction is no proof, though it may work in others inclination\nto receive proof. Hamlet is sent to sea just to get such proof as will\nnot only thoroughly satisfy himself, but be capable of being shown to\nothers. He holds now in his hand--to lay before the people--the two\ncontradictory commissions. By his voyage then he has gained both\nassurance of his duty, and provision against the consequence he mainly\ndreaded, that of leaving a wounded name behind him. 272. This is the\nshaping of his ends--so exactly to his needs, so different from his\nrough-hewn plans--which is the work of the Divinity. The man who desires\nto know his duty that he may _do_ it, who will not shirk it when he does\nknow it, will have time allowed him and the thing made plain to him; his\nperplexity will even strengthen and purify his will. The weak man is he\nwho, certain of what is required of him, fails to meet it: so never once\nfails Hamlet. Note, in all that follows, that a load seems taken off\nhim: after a gracious tardiness to believe up to the point of action, he\nis at length satisfied. Hesitation belongs to the noble nature, to\nHamlet; precipitation to the poor nature, to Laertes, the son of\nPolonius. Compare Brutus in _Julius Caesar_--a Hamlet in favourable\ncircumstances, with Hamlet--a Brutus in the most unfavourable\ncircumstances conceivable.]\n\n[Page 250]\n\n_Ham_. Why man, they did make loue to this imployment[1]\nThey are not neere my Conscience; their debate\n                                             [Sidenote: their defeat[2]]\nDoth by their owne insinuation[3] grow:[4]             [Sidenote: Dooes]\n'Tis dangerous, when the baser nature comes\nBetweene the passe, and fell incensed points\nOf mighty opposites.[5]\n\n_Hor_. Why, what a King is this?[6]\n\n_Ham_. Does it not, thinkst thee,[7] stand me now vpon[8]\n                                    [Sidenote: not thinke thee[7] stand]\n[Sidenote: 120] He that hath kil'd my King,[9] and whor'd my Mother,\n[Sidenote: 62] Popt in betweene th'election and my hopes,\n\n[Footnote 1: _This verse not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 2: destruction.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'Their destruction they have enticed on themselves by their\nown behaviour;' or, 'they have _crept into_ their fate by their\nunderhand dealings.' The _Sh. Lex._ explains _insinuation_ as\n_meddling_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: With the concern of Horatio for the fate of Rosincrance and\nGuildensterne, Hamlet shows no sympathy. It has been objected to his\ncharacter that there is nothing in the play to show them privy to the\ncontents of their commission; to this it would be answer enough, that\nHamlet is satisfied of their worthlessness, and that their whole\nbehaviour in the play shows them merest parasites; but, at the same\ntime, we must note that, in changing the commission, he had no\nintention, could have had no thought, of letting them go to England\nwithout him: that was a pure shaping of their ends by the Divinity.\nPossibly his own 'dear plots' had in them the notion of getting help\nagainst his uncle from the king of England, in which case he would\nwillingly of course have continued his journey; but whatever they may be\nsupposed to have been, they were laid in connection with the voyage, not\nfounded on the chance of its interruption. It is easy to imagine a man\nlike him, averse to the shedding of blood, intending interference for\ntheir lives: as heir apparent, he would certainly have been listened to.\nThe tone of his reply to Horatio is that of one who has been made the\nunintending cause of a deserved fate: the thing having fallen out so,\nthe Divinity having so shaped their ends, there was nothing in their\ncharacter, any more than in that of Polonius, to make him regret their\ndeath, or the part he had had in it.]\n\n[Footnote 5: The 'mighty opposites' here are the king and Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Perhaps, as Hamlet talked, he has been parenthetically\nglancing at the real commission. Anyhow conviction is growing stronger\nin Horatio, whom, for the occasion, we may regard as a type of the\npublic.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'thinkst thee,' in the fashion of the Friends, or 'thinke\nthee' in the sense of 'bethink thee.']\n\n[Footnote 8: 'Does it not rest now on me?--is it not now my duty?--is it\nnot _incumbent on me_ (with _lie_ for _stand_)--\"is't not perfect\nconscience\"?']\n\n[Footnote 9: Note '_my king_' not _my father_: he had to avenge a crime\nagainst the state, the country, himself as a subject--not merely a\nprivate wrong.]\n\n[Page 252]\n\nThrowne out his Angle for my proper life,[1]\nAnd with such coozenage;[2] is't not perfect conscience,[3]\n                                                 [Sidenote: conscience?]\n[Sidenote: 120] To quit him with this arme?[4] And is't not to be\ndamn'd[5]\nTo let this Canker of our nature come\nIn further euill.[6]\n\n_Hor._ It must be shortly knowne to him from England\nWhat is the issue of the businesse there.[7]\n\n_Ham._ It will be short,\n[Sidenote: 262] The _interim's_ mine,[8] and a mans life's no more[9]\nThen to say one:[10] but I am very sorry good _Horatio_,\n[Sidenote: 245] That to _Laertes_ I forgot my selfe;\nFor by the image of my Cause, I see\n[Sidenote: 262] The Portraiture of his;[11] Ile count his fauours:[12]\n\n[Footnote 1: Here is the charge at length in full against the king--of\nquality and proof sufficient now, not merely to justify, but to compel\naction against him.]\n\n[Footnote 2: He was such a _fine_ hypocrite that Hamlet, although he\nhated and distrusted him, was perplexed as to the possibility of his\nguilt. His good acting was almost too much for Hamlet himself. This is\nhis 'coozenage.'\n\nAfter 'coozenage' should come a dash, bringing '--is't not perfect\nconscience' (_is it not absolutely righteous_) into closest sequence,\nalmost apposition, with 'Does it not stand me now upon--'.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Here comes in the _Quarto, 'Enter a Courtier_.' All from\nthis point to 'Peace, who comes heere?' included, is in addition to the\n_Quarto_ text--not in the _Q._, that is.]\n\n[Footnote 4: I would here refer my student to the soliloquy--with its\n_sea of troubles_, and _the taking of arms against it_. 123, n. 4.]\n\n[Footnote 5: These three questions: 'Does it not stand me now\nupon?'--'Is't not perfect conscience?'--'Is't not to be damned?' reveal\nthe whole relation between the inner and outer, the unseen and the seen,\nthe thinking and the acting Hamlet. 'Is not the thing right?--Is it not\nmy duty?--Would not the neglect of it deserve damnation?' He is\nsatisfied.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'is it not a thing to be damned--to let &c.?' or, 'would it\nnot be to be damned, (to be in a state of damnation, or, to bring\ndamnation on oneself) to let this human cancer, the king, go on to\nfurther evil?']\n\n[Footnote 7: '--so you have not much time.']\n\n[Footnote 8: 'True, it will be short, but till then is mine, and will be\nlong enough for me.' He is resolved.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Now that he is assured of what is right, the Shadow that\nwaits him on the path to it, has no terror for him. He ceases to be\nanxious as to 'what dreams may come,' as to the 'something after death,'\nas to 'the undiscovered country,' the moment his conscience is\nsatisfied. 120. It cannot now make a coward of him. It was never in\nregard to the past that Hamlet dreaded death, but in regard to the\nrighteousness of the action which was about to occasion his death. Note\nthat he expects death; at least he has long made up his mind to the\ngreat risk of it--the death referred to in the soliloquy--which, after\nall, was not that which did overtake him. There is nothing about suicide\nhere, nor was there there.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'a man's life must soon be over anyhow.']\n\n[Footnote 11: The approach of death causes him to think of and regret\neven the small wrongs he has done; he laments his late behaviour to\nLaertes, and makes excuse for him: the similarity of their condition,\neach having lost a father by violence, ought, he says, to have taught\nhim gentleness with him. The _1st Quarto_ is worth comparing here:--\n\n    _Enter Hamlet and Horatio_\n\n    _Ham_. Beleeue mee, it greeues mee much _Horatio_,\n    That to _Leartes_ I forgot my selfe:\n    For by my selfe me thinkes I feele his griefe,\n    Though there's a difference in each others wrong.]\n\n[Footnote 12: 'I will not forget,' or, 'I will call to mind, what merits\nhe has,' or 'what favours he has shown me.' But I suspect the word\n'_count_' ought to be _court_.--He does court his favour when next they\nmeet--in lovely fashion. He has no suspicion of his enmity.]\n\n[Page 254]\n\n[Sidenote: 242, 262] But sure the brauery[1] of his griefe did put me\nInto a Towring passion.[2]\n\n_Hor._ Peace, who comes heere?\n\n_Enter young Osricke._[3]                [Sidenote: _Enter a Courtier._]\n\n_Osr._ Your Lordship is right welcome back to        [Sidenote: _Cour._]\nDenmarke.\n\n_Ham._ I humbly thank you Sir, dost know this   [Sidenote: humble thank]\nwaterflie?[4]\n\n_Hor._ No my good Lord.\n\n_Ham._ Thy state is the more gracious; for 'tis a\nvice to know him[5]: he hath much Land, and fertile;\nlet a Beast be Lord of Beasts, and his Crib shall\nstand at the Kings Messe;[6] 'tis a Chowgh[7]; but\nas I saw spacious in the possession of dirt.[8]    [Sidenote: as I say,]\n\n_Osr._ Sweet Lord, if your friendship[9] were at\n                                     [Sidenote: _Cour._ | Lordshippe[?]]\nleysure, I should impart a thing to you from his\nMaiesty.\n\n_Ham._ I will receiue it with all diligence of   [Sidenote: it sir with]\nspirit; put your Bonet to his right vse, 'tis for the\n                                                [Sidenote: spirit, your]\nhead.\n\nOsr. I thanke your Lordship, 'tis very hot[10]\n                                               [Sidenote: Cour. | it is]\n\n_Ham._ No, beleeue mee 'tis very cold, the winde\nis Northerly.\n\n_Osr._ It is indifferent cold[11] my Lord indeed.    [Sidenote: _Cour._]\n\n_Ham._ Mee thinkes it is very soultry, and hot\n                           [Sidenote: But yet me | sully and hot, or my]\nfor my Complexion.[12]\n\n_Osr._ Exceedingly, my Lord, it is very soultry,     [Sidenote: _Cour._]\nas 'twere I cannot tell how: but my Lord,[13] his\n                                                [Sidenote: how: my Lord]\nMaiesty bad me signifie to you, that he ha's laid a\n                                                  [Sidenote: that a had]\n[Sidenote: 244] great wager on your head: Sir, this is the matter.[14]\n\n_Ham._ I beseech you remember.[15]\n\n_Osr._ Nay, in good faith, for mine ease in good\n                          [Sidenote: Cour. Nay good my Lord for my ease]\n\n[Footnote 1: the great show; bravado.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --with which fell in well the forms of his pretended\nmadness. But that the passion was real, this reaction of repentance\nshows. It was not the first time his pretence had given him liberty to\nease his heart with wild words. Jealous of the boastfulness of Laertes'\naffection, he began at once--in keeping with his assumed character of\nmadman, but not the less in harmony with his feelings--to outrave him.]\n\n[Footnote 3: One of the sort that would gather to such a king--of the\nsame kind as Rosincrance and Guildensterne.\n\nIn the _1st Q. 'Enter a Bragart Gentleman_.']\n\n[Footnote 4: --_to Horatio_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'Thou art the more in a state of grace, for it is a vice to\nknow him.']\n\n[Footnote 6: 'his manger shall stand where the king is served.' Wealth\nis always received by Rank--Mammon nowhere better worshipped than in\nkings' courts.]\n\n[Footnote 7: '_a bird of the crow-family_'--as a figure, '_always\napplied to rich and avaricious people_.' A _chuff_ is a surly _clown_.\nIn Scotch a _coof_ is 'a silly, dastardly fellow.']\n\n[Footnote 8: land.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'friendship' is better than 'Lordshippe,' as euphuistic.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'I thanke your Lordship; (_puts on his hat_) 'tis very\nhot.']\n\n[Footnote 11: 'rather cold.']\n\n[Footnote 12: 'and hot--for _my_ temperament.']\n\n[Footnote 13: Not able to go on, he plunges into his message.]\n\n[Footnote 14: --_takes off his hat_.]\n\n[Footnote 15: --making a sign to him again to put on his hat.]\n\n[Page 256]\n\nfaith[1]: Sir, [A] you are not ignorant of what excellence\n_Laertes_ [B] is at his weapon.[2]          [Sidenote: _Laertes_ is.[2]]\n\n_Ham_. What's his weapon?[3]\n\n_Osr_. Rapier and dagger.               [Sidenote: _Cour._]\n\n_Ham_. That's two of his weapons: but well.\n\n_Osr_. The sir King ha's wag'd with him six\n                            [Sidenote: _Cour_. The King sir hath wagerd]\nBarbary Horses, against the which he impon'd[4] as I\n                                             [Sidenote: hee has impaund]\ntake it, sixe French Rapiers and Poniards, with\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n[5] here is newly com to Court _Laertes_, belieue me an absolute\ngentlemen, ful of most excellent differences,[6] of very soft\nsociety,[7] and great\n[Sidenote: 234] showing[8]: indeede to speake sellingly[9] of him, hee\nis the card or kalender[10] of gentry: for you shall find in him the\ncontinent of what part a Gentleman would see.[11]\n\n[Sidenote: 245] _Ham_.[12] Sir, his definement suffers no perdition[13]\nin you, though I know to deuide him inuentorially,[14] would dosie[15]\nth'arithmaticke of memory, and yet but yaw[16] neither in respect of\nhis quick saile, but in the veritie of extolment, I take him to be a\nsoule of great article,[17] & his infusion[18] of such dearth[19] and\nrarenesse, as to make true dixion of him, his semblable is his\nmirrour,[20] & who els would trace him, his vmbrage, nothing more.[21]\n\n_Cour_. Your Lordship speakes most infallibly of him.[22]\n\n_Ham_. The concernancy[23] sir, why doe we wrap the gentleman in our\nmore rawer breath?[24]\n\n_Cour_. Sir.[25]\n\n_Hora_. Ist not possible to vnderstand in another tongue,[26] you will\ntoo't sir really.[27]\n\n_Ham_. What imports the nomination of this gentleman.\n\n_Cour_. Of _Laertes_.[28]\n\n_Hora_. His purse is empty already, all's golden words are spent.\n\n_Ham_. Of him sir.[29]\n\n_Cour_. I know you are not ignorant.[30]\n\n_Ham_. I would you did sir, yet in faith if you did, it would not\nmuch approoue me,[31] well sir.\n\n_Cour_.]\n\n[Footnote B: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n_Ham_. I dare not confesse that, least I should compare with him in\nexcellence, but to know a man wel, were to knowe himselfe.[32]\n\n_Cour_. I meane sir for this weapon, but in the imputation laide on\nhim,[33] by them in his meed, hee's vnfellowed.[34]]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'in good faith, it is not for manners, but for my comfort I\ntake it off.' Perhaps the hat was intended only to be carried, and would\nnot really go on his head.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The _Quarto_ has not 'at his weapon,' which is inserted to\ntake the place of the passage omitted, and connect the edges of the\ngap.]\n\n[Footnote 3: So far from having envied Laertes' reputation for fencing,\nas the king asserts, Hamlet seems not even to have known which was\nLaertes' weapon.]\n\n[Footnote 4: laid down--staked.]\n\n[Footnote 5: This and the following passages seem omitted for\ncurtailment, and perhaps in part because they were less amusing when the\nfashion of euphuism had passed. The good of holding up the mirror to\nfolly was gone when it was no more the 'form and pressure' of 'the very\nage and body of the time.']\n\n[Footnote 6: of great variety of excellence.]\n\n[Footnote 7: gentle manners.]\n\n[Footnote 8: fine presence.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Is this a stupid attempt at wit on the part of Osricke--'to\npraise him as if you wanted to sell him'--stupid because it acknowledges\nexaggeration?]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'the chart or book of reference.' 234.]\n\n[Footnote 11: I think _part_ here should be plural; then the passage\nwould paraphrase thus:--'you shall find in him the sum of what parts\n(_endowments_) a gentleman would wish to see.']\n\n[Footnote 12: Hamlet answers the fool according to his folly, but\noutdoes him, to his discomfiture.]\n\n[Footnote 13: 'his description suffers no loss in your mouth.']\n\n[Footnote 14: 'to analyze him into all and each of his qualities.']\n\n[Footnote 15: dizzy.]\n\n[Footnote 16: 'and yet _would_ but yaw neither' _Yaw_, 'the movement by\nwhich a ship deviates from the line of her course towards the right or\nleft in steering.' Falconer's _Marine Dictionary_. The meaning seems to\nbe that the inventorial description could not overtake his merits,\nbecause it would _yaw_--keep turning out of the direct line of their\nquick sail. But Hamlet is set on using far-fetched and absurd forms and\nphrases to the non-plussing of Osricke, nor cares much to be _correct_.]\n\n[Footnote 17: I take this use of the word _article_ to be merely for the\noccasion; it uas never surely in _use_ for _substance_.]\n\n[Footnote 18: '--the infusion of his soul into his body,' 'his soul's\nembodiment.' The _Sh. Lex._ explains _infusion_ as 'endowments,\nqualities,' and it may be right.]\n\n[Footnote 19: scarcity.]\n\n[Footnote 20: '--it alone can show his likeness.']\n\n[Footnote 21: 'whoever would follow in his footsteps--copy him--is only\nhis shadow.']\n\n[Footnote 22: Here a pause, I think.]\n\n[Footnote 23: 'To the matter in hand!'--recalling the attention of\nOsricke to the purport of his visit.]\n\n[Footnote 24: 'why do we presume to talk about him with our less refined\nbreath?']\n\n[Footnote 25: The Courtier is now thoroughly bewildered.]\n\n[Footnote 26: 'Can you only _speak_ in another tongue? Is it not\npossible to _understand_ in it as well?']\n\n[Footnote 27: 'It is your own fault; you _will_ court your fate! you\n_will_ go and be made a fool of!']\n\n[Footnote 28: He catches at the word he understands. The actor must here\nsupply the meaning, with the baffled, disconcerted look of a fool who\nhas failed in the attempt to seem knowing.]\n\n[Footnote 29:--answering the Courtier.]\n\n[Footnote 30: He pauses, looking for some out-of-the-way mode wherein to\ncontinue. Hamlet takes him up.]\n\n[Footnote 31: 'your witness to my knowledge would not be of much\navail.']\n\n[Footnote 32: Paraphrase: 'for merely to know a man well, implies that\nyou yourself _know_.' To know a man well, you must know his knowledge: a\nman, to judge his neighbour, must be at least his equal.]\n\n[Footnote 33: faculty attributed to him.]\n\n[Footnote 34: _Point thus_: 'laide on him by them, in his meed hee's\nunfellowed.' 'in his merit he is peerless.']\n\n[Page 258]\n\ntheir assignes,[1] as Girdle, Hangers or so[2]: three of\n                                              [Sidenote: hanger and so.]\nthe Carriages infaith are very deare to fancy,[3] very\nresponsiue[4] to the hilts, most delicate carriages\nand of very liberall conceit.[5]\n\n_Ham_. What call you the Carriages?[6]\n\n[A]\n\n_Osr_. The Carriages Sir, are the hangers.\n                                        [Sidenote: _Cour_. The carriage]\n\n_Ham_. The phrase would bee more Germaine[7] to\nthe matter: If we could carry Cannon by our sides;\n                                              [Sidenote: carry a cannon]\nI would it might be Hangers till then; but on sixe\n                                   [Sidenote: it be | then, but on, six]\nBarbary Horses against sixe French Swords: their\nAssignes, and three liberall conceited Carriages,[8]\nthat's the French but against the Danish; why is  [Sidenote: French bet]\nthis impon'd as you call it[9]?              [Sidenote: this all you[9]]\n\n_Osr_.  The King Sir, hath laid that in a dozen\n                                    [Sidenote: _Cour_. | layd sir, that]\npasses betweene you and him, hee shall not exceed\n                                         [Sidenote: your selfe and him,]\nyou three hits;[10] He hath one twelue for mine,[11]\n                               [Sidenote: hath layd on twelue for nine,]\nand that would come to imediate tryall, if your [Sidenote: and it would]\nLordship would vouchsafe the Answere.[12]\n\n_Ham_. How if I answere no?[13]\n\n_Osr_. I meane my Lord,[14] the opposition of your   [Sidenote: _Cour_.]\nperson in tryall.\n\n_Ham_. Sir, I will walke heere in the Hall; if it\nplease his Maiestie, 'tis the breathing time of day    [Sidenote: it is]\nwith me[15]; let the Foyles bee brought, the Gentleman\nwilling, and the King hold his purpose; I will\nwin for him if I can: if not, Ile gaine nothing but\n                                          [Sidenote: him and I | I will]\nmy shame, and the odde hits.[16]\n\n_Osr_. Shall I redeliuer you ee'n so?[17]\n                             [Sidenote: _Cour_. Shall I deliuer you so?]\n\n_Ham_. To this effect Sir, after what flourish your\nnature will.\n\n_Osr_. I commend my duty to your Lordship.           [Sidenote: _Cour_.]\n\n_Ham_. Yours, yours [18]: hee does well to commend\n                                 [Sidenote: _Ham_. Yours doo's well[18]]\nit himselfe, there are no tongues else for's tongue,  [Sidenote: turne.]\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--\n\n_Hora_. I knew you must be edified by the margent[19] ere you had\ndone.]\n\n[Footnote 1: accompaniments or belongings; things _assigned_ to them.]\n\n[Footnote 2: the thongs or chains attaching the sheath of a weapon to\nthe girdle; what the weapon _hangs_ by. The '_or so_' seems to indicate\nthat Osricke regrets having used the old-fashioned word, which he\nimmediately changes for _carriages_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: imagination, taste, the artistic faculty.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'corresponding to--going well with the hilts,'--in shape,\nornament, and colour.]\n\n[Footnote 5: bold invention.]\n\n[Footnote 6: a new word, unknown to Hamlet;--court-slang, to which he\nprefers the old-fashioned, homely word.]\n\n[Footnote 7: related; 'akin to the matter.']\n\n[Footnote 8: He uses Osricke's words--with a touch of derision, I should\nsay.]\n\n[Footnote 9: I do not take the _Quarto_ reading for incorrect. Hamlet\nsays: 'why is this all----you call it --? --?' as if he wanted to use\nthe word (_imponed_) which Osricke had used, but did not remember it: he\nasks for it, saying '_you call it_' interrogatively.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _1st Q_\n\n                  that yong Leartes in twelue venies   223\n    At Rapier and Dagger do not get three oddes of you,]\n\n[Footnote 11: In all printer's work errors are apt to come in clusters.]\n\n[Footnote 12: the response, or acceptance of the challenge.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Hamlet plays with the word, pretending to take it in its\ncommon meaning.]\n\n[Footnote 14: 'By _answer_, I mean, my lord, the opposition &c.']\n\n[Footnote 15: 'my time for exercise:' he treats the proposal as the\ntrifle it seems--a casual affair to be settled at once--hoping perhaps\nthat the king will come with like carelessness.]\n\n[Footnote 16: the _three_.]\n\n[Footnote 17: To Osricke the answer seems too direct and unadorned for\nears royal.]\n\n[Footnote 18: I cannot help here preferring the _Q_. If we take the\n_Folio_ reading, we must take it thus: 'Yours! yours!' spoken with\ncontempt;--'as if _you_ knew anything of duty!'--for we see from what\nfollows that he is playing with the word _duty_. Or we might read it,\n'Yours commends yours,' with the same sense as the reading of the _Q._,\nwhich is, 'Yours,' that is, '_Your_ lordship--does well to commend his\nduty himself--there is no one else to do it.' This former shape is\nsimpler; that of the _Folio_ is burdened with ellipsis--loaded with\nlack. And surely _turne_ is the true reading!--though we may take the\nother to mean, 'there are no tongues else on the side of his tongue.']\n\n[Footnote 19: --as of the Bible, for a second interpretative word or\nphrase.]\n\n[Page 260]\n\n_Hor_. This Lapwing runs away with the shell\non his head.[1]\n\n[Sidenote: 98] _Ham_. He did Compile[2] with his Dugge before\n                                    [Sidenote: _Ham_. A did sir[2] with]\nhee suck't it: thus had he and mine more of the\n                                  [Sidenote: a suckt has he | many more]\nsame Beauy[3] that I know the drossie age dotes  [Sidenote: same breede]\non; only got the tune[4] of the time, and outward\n                                   [Sidenote: and out of an habit of[5]]\nhabite of encounter,[5] a kinde of yesty collection,   [Sidenote: histy]\nwhich carries them through and through the most\nfond and winnowed opinions; and doe but blow\n                             [Sidenote: prophane and trennowed opinions]\nthem to their tryalls: the Bubbles are out.[6]\n                                           [Sidenote: their triall, the]\n\n[A]\n\n_Hor_. You will lose this wager, my Lord.     [Sidenote: loose my Lord.]\n\n_Ham_. I doe not thinke so, since he went into\nFrance, I haue beene in continuall practice; I shall\n[Sidenote: 265] winne at the oddes:[7] but thou wouldest not thinke\n                                                   [Sidenote: ods; thou]\nhow all heere about my heart:[8] but it is no matter[9]\n                                         [Sidenote: how ill all's heere]\n\n_Hor_. Nay, good my Lord.\n\n_Ham_. It is but foolery; but it is such a kinde\nof gain-giuing[10] as would perhaps trouble a woman,\n                                                  [Sidenote: gamgiuing.]\n\n_Hor_. If your minde dislike any thing, obey.[11]   [Sidenote: obay it.]\nI will forestall[12] their repaire hither, and say you\nare not fit.\n\n_Ham_. Not a whit, we defie Augury[13]; there's a\n                                           [Sidenote: there is speciall]\n[Sidenote: 24, 125, 247] speciall Prouidence in the fall of a\nsparrow.[14] If\n\n\n[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto:--_\n\n_Enter a Lord_.[15]\n\n_Lord_. My Lord, his Maiestie commended him to you by young\nOstricke,[16] who brings backe to him that you attend him in the hall,\nhe sends to know if your pleasure hold to play with _Laertes_, or that\nyou will take longer time?[17]\n\n_Ham_. I am constant to my purposes, they followe the Kings pleasure,\nif his fitnes speakes, mine is ready[18]: now or whensoeuer, prouided I\nbe so able as now.\n\n_Lord_. The King, and Queene, and all are comming downe.\n\n_Ham_. In happy time.[19]\n\n_Lord_. The Queene desires you to vse some gentle\nentertainment[20] _Laertes_, before you fall to play.\n\n_Ham_. Shee well instructs me.]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'Well, he _is_ a young one!']\n\n[Footnote 2: '_Com'ply_,' with accent on first syllable: _comply with_\nmeans _pay compliments to, compliment_. See _Q._ reading: 'A did sir\nwith':--_sir_ here is a verb--_sir with_ means _say sir to_: 'he\n_sirred, complied_ with his nurse's breast before &c.' Hamlet speaks in\nmockery of the affected court-modes of speech and address, the fashion\nof euphuism--a mechanical attempt at the poetic.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _a flock of birds_--suggested by '_This Lapwing_.']\n\n[Footnote 4: 'the mere mode.']\n\n[Footnote 5: 'and external custom of intercourse.' But here too I rather\ntake the _Q._ to be right: 'They have only got the fashion of the time;\nand, out of a habit of wordy conflict, (they have got) a collection of\ntricks of speech,--a yesty, frothy mass, with nothing in it, which\ncarries them in triumph through the most foolish and fastidious (nice,\nchoice, punctilious, whimsical) judgments.' _Yesty_ I take to be right,\nand _prophane_ (vulgar) to have been altered by the Poet to _fond_\n(foolish); of _trennowed_ I can make nothing beyond a misprint.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Hamlet had just blown Osricke to his trial in his chosen\nkind, and the bubble had burst. The braggart gentleman had no faculty to\ngenerate after the dominant fashion, no invention to support his\nambition--had but a yesty collection, which failing him the moment\nsomething unconventional was wanted, the fool had to look a discovered\nfool.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'I shall win by the odds allowed me; he will not exceed me\nthree hits.']\n\n[Footnote 8: He has a presentiment of what is coming.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Nothing in this world is of much consequence to him now.\nAlso, he believes in 'a special Providence.']\n\n[Footnote 10: 'a yielding, a sinking' at the heart? The _Sh. Lex._ says\n_misgiving_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'obey the warning.']\n\n[Footnote 12: 'go to them before they come here'--'_prevent_ their\ncoming.']\n\n[Footnote 13: The knowledge, even, of what is to come could never, any\nmore than ordinary expediency, be the _law_ of a man's conduct. St.\nPaul, informed by the prophet Agabus of the troubles that awaited him at\nJerusalem, and entreated by his friends not to go thither, believed the\nprophet, and went on to Jerusalem to be delivered into the hands of the\nGentiles.]\n\n[Footnote 14: One of Shakspere's many allusions to sayings of the Lord.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Osricke does not come back: he has begged off but ventures\nlater, under the wing of the king.]\n\n[Footnote 16: May not this form of the name suggest that in it is\nintended the 'foolish' ostrich?]\n\n[Footnote 17: The king is making delay: he has to have his 'union'\nready.]\n\n[Footnote 18: 'if he feels ready, I am.']\n\n[Footnote 19: 'They are _well-come_.']\n\n[Footnote 20: 'to be polite to Laertes.' The print shows where _to_ has\nslipped out.\n\nThe queen is anxious; she distrusts Laertes, and the king's influence\nover him.]\n\n[Page 262]\n\nit[1] be now, 'tis not to come: if it bee not to come,\n                                                     [Sidenote: be, tis]\nit will bee now: if it be not now; yet it will come;\n                                               [Sidenote: it well come,]\n[Sidenote: 54, 164] the readinesse is all,[2] since no man ha's ought of\n                      [Sidenote: man of ought he leaues, knowes what ist\n                                              to leaue betimes, let be.]\n[Sidenote: 252] what he leaues. What is't to leaue betimes?[3]\n\n_Enter King, Queene, Laertes and Lords, with other\nAttendants with Foyles, and Gauntlets, a Table\nand Flagons of Wine on it._\n               [Sidenote: _A table prepard, Trumpets, Drums and officers\n                         with cushion,  King, Queene, and all the state,\n                                         Foiles, Daggers, and Laertes._]\n\n_Kin_. Come _Hamlet_ come, and take this hand\nfrom me.\n\n[Sidenote: 245] _Ham_.[4] Giue me your pardon Sir, I'ue done you\nwrong,[5]                                             [Sidenote: I haue]\nBut pardon't as you are a Gentleman.\nThis presence[6] knowes,\nAnd you must needs haue heard how I am punisht\nWith sore distraction?[7] What I haue done       [Sidenote: With a sore]\nThat might your nature honour, and exception\n[Sidenote: 242, 252] Roughly awake,[8] heere proclaime was madnesse:[9]\nWas't _Hamlet_ wrong'd _Laertes_? Neuer _Hamlet_.\nIf _Hamlet_ from himselfe be tane away:           [Sidenote: fane away,]\nAnd when he's not himselfe, do's wrong _Laertes_,\nThen _Hamlet_ does it not, _Hamlet_ denies it:[10]\nWho does it then? His Madnesse? If't be so,\n_Hamlet_ is of the Faction that is wrong'd,\nHis madnesse is poore _Hamlets_ Enemy.[11]\nSir, in this Audience,[12]\nLet my disclaiming from a purpos'd euill,[13]\nFree me so farre[14] in your most generous thoughts,\nThat I haue shot mine Arrow o're the house,               [Sidenote: my]\nAnd hurt my Mother.[15]                         [Sidenote: brother.[15]]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'it'--death, the end.]\n\n[Footnote 2: His father had been taken unready. 54.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Point_: 'all. Since'; 'leaves, what'--'Since no man has\nanything of what he has left, those who left it late are in the same\nposition as those who left it early.' Compare the common saying, 'It\nwill be all the same in a hundred years.' The _Q._ reading comes much to\nthe same thing--'knows of ought he leaves'--'has any knowledge of it,\nanything to do with it, in any sense possesses it.'\n\nWe may find a deeper meaning in the passage, however--surely not too\ndeep for Shakspere:--'Since nothing can be truly said to be possessed as\nhis own which a man must at one time or another yield; since that which\nis _own_ can never be taken from the owner, but solely that which is\nlent him; since the nature of a thing that has to be left is not such\nthat it _could_ be possessed, why should a man mind parting with it\nearly?'--There is far more in this than merely that at the end of the\nday it will be all the same. The thing that ever was really a man's own,\nGod has given, and God will not, and man cannot, take away. Note the\nunity of religion and philosophy in Hamlet: he takes the one true\nposition. Note also his courage: he has a strong presentiment of death,\nbut will not turn a step from his way. If Death be coming, he will\nconfront him. He does not believe in chance. He is ready--that is\nwilling. All that is needful is, that he should not go as one who cannot\nhelp it, but as one who is for God's will, who chooses that will as his\nown.\n\nThere is so much behind in Shakspere's characters--so much that can only\nbe hinted at! The dramatist has not the _word_-scope of the novelist;\nhis art gives him little _room_; he must effect in a phrase what the\nother may take pages to. He needs good seconding by his actors as sorely\nas the composer needs good rendering of his music by the orchestra. It\nis a lesson in unity that the greatest art can least work alone; that\nthe greatest _finder_ most needs the help of others to show his\n_findings_. The dramatist has live men and women for the very\ninstruments of his art--who must not be mere instruments, but\nfellow-workers; and upon them he is greatly dependent for final outcome.\n\nHere the actor should show a marked calmness and elevation in Hamlet. He\nshould have around him as it were a luminous cloud, the cloud of his\ncoming end. A smile not all of this world should close the speech. He\nhas given himself up, and is at peace.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Note in this apology the sweetness of Hamlet's nature. How\nfew are alive enough, that is unselfish and true enough, to be capable\nof genuine apology! The low nature always feels, not the wrong, but the\nconfession of it, degrading.]\n\n[Footnote 5: --the wrong of his rudeness at the funeral.]\n\n[Footnote 6: all present.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --true in a deeper sense than they would understand.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'that might roughly awake your nature, honour, and\nexception,':--consider the phrase--_to take exception at a thing_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: It was by cause of madness, not by cause of evil intent.\nFor all purpose of excuse it was madness, if only pretended madness; it\nwas there of another necessity, and excused offence like real madness.\nWhat he said was true, not merely expedient, to the end he meant it to\nserve. But all passion may be called madness, because therein the mind\nis absorbed with one idea; 'anger is a brief madness,' and he was in a\n'towering passion': he proclaims it madness and so abjures it.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'refuses the wrong altogether--will in his true self have\nnothing to do with it.' No evil thing comes of our true selves, and\nconfession is the casting of it from us, the only true denial. He who\nwill not confess a wrong, holds to the wrong.]\n\n[Footnote 11: All here depends on the expression in the utterance.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _This line not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 13: This is Hamlet's summing up of the whole--his explanation\nof the speech.]\n\n[Footnote 14: 'so far as this in your generous judgment--that you regard\nme as having shot &c.']\n\n[Footnote 15: _Brother_ is much easier to accept, though _Mother_ might\nbe in the simile.\n\nTo do justice to the speech we must remember that Hamlet has no quarrel\nwhatever with Laertes, that he has expressed admiration of him, and that\nhe is inclined to love him for Ophelia's sake. His apology has no\nreference to the fate of his father or his sister; Hamlet is not aware\nthat Laertes associates him with either, and plainly the public did not\nknow Hamlet killed Polonius; while Laertes could have no intention of\nalluding to the fact, seeing it would frustrate his scheme of\ntreachery.]\n\n[Page 264]\n\n_Laer_. I am satisfied in Nature,[1]\nWhose motiue in this case should stirre me most\nTo my Reuenge. But in my termes of Honor\nI stand aloofe, and will no reconcilement,\nTill by some elder Masters of knowne Honor,\nI haue a voyce, and president of peace\nTo keepe my name vngorg'd.[2] But till that time,\n                             [Sidenote: To my name vngord: but all that]\nI do receiue your offer'd loue like loue,\nAnd wil not wrong it.\n\n_Ham_. I do embrace it freely,                     [Sidenote: I embrace]\nAnd will this Brothers wager frankely play.\nGiue vs the Foyles: Come on.[3]\n\n_Laer_. Come one for me.[4]\n\n_Ham_. Ile be your foile[5] _Laertes_, in mine ignorance,\n[Sidenote: 218] Your Skill shall like a Starre i'th'darkest night,[6]\nSticke fiery off indeede.\n\n_Laer_. You mocke me Sir.\n\n_Ham_. No by this hand.[7]\n\n_King_. Giue them the Foyles yong _Osricke_,[8]\n                                              [Sidenote: _Ostricke_,[8]]\nCousen _Hamlet_, you know the wager.\n\n_Ham_. Verie well my Lord,\nYour Grace hath laide the oddes a'th'weaker side,        [Sidenote: has]\n\n_King._ I do not feare it,\nI haue seene you both:[9]\nBut since he is better'd, we haue therefore oddes.[10]\n                                                  [Sidenote: better, we]\n\n[Footnote 1: 'in my own feelings and person.' Laertes does not refer to\nhis father or sister. He professes to be satisfied in his heart with\nHamlet's apology for his behaviour at the funeral, but not to be sure\nwhether in the opinion of others, and by the laws of honour, he can\naccept it as amends, and forbear to challenge him. But the words 'Whose\nmotiue in this case should stirre me most to my Reuenge' may refer to\nhis father and sister, and, if so taken, should be spoken aside. To\naccept apology for them and not for his honour would surely be too\nbarefaced! The point concerning them has not been started.\n\nBut why not receive the apology as quite satisfactory? That he would not\nseems to show a lingering regard to _real_ honour. A downright villain,\nlike the king, would have pretended its _thorough_\nacceptance--especially as they were just going to fence like friends;\nbut he, as regards his honour, will not accept it until justified in\ndoing so by the opinion of 'some elder masters,' receiving from them 'a\nvoice and precedent of peace'--counsel to, and justification, or example\nof peace. He keeps the door of quarrel open--will not profess to be\n_altogether_ friends with him, though he does not hint at his real\nground of offence: that mooted, the match of skill, with its immense\nadvantages for villainy, would have been impossible. He means treachery\nall the time; careful of his honour, he can, like most apes of fashion,\nlet his honesty go; still, so complex is human nature, he holds his\nspeech declining thorough reconciliation as a shield to shelter his\ntreachery from his own contempt: he has taken care not to profess\nabsolute friendship, and so left room for absolute villainy! He has had\nregard to his word! Relieved perhaps by the demoniacal quibble, he\nfollows it immediately with an utterance of full-blown perfidy.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Perhaps _ungorg'd_ might mean _unthrottled_.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'Come on' _is not in the Q._--I suspect this _Come on_ but\na misplaced shadow from the '_Come one_' immediately below, and better\nomitted. Hamlet could not say '_Come on_' before Laertes was ready, and\n'_Come one_' after 'Give us the foils,' would be very awkward. But it\nmay be said to the attendant courtiers.]\n\n[Footnote 4: He says this while Hamlet is still choosing, in order that\na second bundle of foils, in which is the unbated and poisoned one, may\nbe brought him. So 'generous and free from all contriving' is Hamlet,\n(220) that, even with the presentiment in his heart, he has no fear of\ntreachery.]\n\n[Footnote 5: As persons of the drama, the Poet means Laertes to be foil\nto Hamlet.--With the play upon the word before us, we can hardly help\nthinking of the _third_ signification of the word _foil_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'My ignorance will be the foil of darkest night to the\nburning star of your skill.' This is no flattery; Hamlet believes\nLaertes, to whose praises he has listened (218)--though not with the\nenvy his uncle attributes to him--the better fencer: he expects to win\nonly 'at the odds.' 260.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --not '_by these pickers and stealers_,' his oath to his\nfalse friends. 154.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Plainly a favourite with the king.--He is _Ostricke_ always\nin the _Q_.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'seen you both play'--though not together.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _Point thus_:\n\n    I do not fear it--I have seen you both!\n    But since, he is bettered: we have therefore odds.\n\n'Since'--'_since the time I saw him_.']\n\n[Page 266]\n\n_Laer_. This is too heauy,\nLet me see another.[1]\n\n_Ham_. This likes me well,\nThese Foyles haue all a length.[2]   _Prepare to play._[3]\n\n_Osricke_. I my good Lord.                           [Sidenote: _Ostr._]\n\n_King_. Set me the Stopes of wine vpon that Table:\nIf _Hamlet_ giue the first, or second hit,\nOr quit in answer of the third exchange,[4]\nLet all the Battlements their Ordinance fire,\n[Sidenote: 268] The King shal drinke to _Hamlets_ better breath,\nAnd in the Cup an vnion[5] shal he throw            [Sidenote: an Vince]\nRicher then that,[6] which foure successiue Kings\nIn Denmarkes Crowne haue worne.\nGiue me the Cups,\nAnd let the Kettle to the Trumpets speake,           [Sidenote: trumpet]\nThe Trumpet to the Cannoneer without,\nThe Cannons to the Heauens, the Heauen to Earth,\nNow the King drinkes to _Hamlet_. Come, begin,\n                                       [Sidenote: _Trumpets the while._]\nAnd you the Iudges[7] beare a wary eye.\n\n_Ham_. Come on sir.\n\n_Laer_. Come on sir.          _They play._[8]  [Sidenote: Come my Lord.]\n\n_Ham_. One.\n\n_Laer_. No.\n\n_Ham_. Iudgement.[9]\n\n_Osr_. A hit, a very palpable hit.                [Sidenote: _Ostrick._]\n\n_Laer_. Well: againe.             [Sidenote: _Drum, trumpets and a shot.\n                                            Florish, a peece goes off._]\n\n_King_. Stay, giue me drinke.\n_Hamlet_, this Pearle is thine,\nHere's to thy health. Giue him the cup,[10]\n\n             _Trumpets sound, and shot goes off._[11]\n\n_Ham_. Ile play this bout first, set by a-while.[12]\n                                                   [Sidenote: set it by]\nCome: Another hit; what say you?\n\n_Laer_. A touch, a touch, I do confesse.[13]\n                                      [Sidenote: _Laer_. | doe confest.]\n\n_King_. Our Sonne shall win.\n\n[Footnote 1: --to make it look as if he were choosing.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --asked in an offhand way. The fencers must not measure\nweapons, because how then could the unbated point escape discovery? It\nis quite like Hamlet to take even Osricke's word for their equal\nlength.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'or be quits with Laertes the third bout':--in any case,\nwhatever the probabilities, even if Hamlet be wounded, the king, who has\nnot perfect confidence in the 'unction,' will fall back on his second\nline of ambush--in which he has more trust: he will drink to Hamlet,\nwhen Hamlet will be bound to drink also.]\n\n[Footnote 5: The Latin _unio_ was a large pearl. The king's _union_ I\ntake to be poison made up like a pearl.]\n\n[Footnote 6: --a well-known one in the crown.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --of whom Osricke was one.]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 9: --appealing to the judges.]\n\n[Footnote 10: He throws in the _pearl_, and drinks--for it will take\nsome moments to dissolve and make the wine poisonous--then sends the cup\nto Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 11: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 12: He does not refuse to drink, but puts it by, neither\nshowing nor entertaining suspicion, fearing only the effect of the\ndraught on his play. He is bent on winning the wager--perhaps with\nfurther intent.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Laertes has little interest in the match, but much in his\nown play.]\n\n[Page 268]\n\n[Sidenote: 266] _Qu_. He's fat, and scant of breath.[1]\nHeere's a Napkin, rub thy browes,\n                               [Sidenote: Heere _Hamlet_ take my napkin]\nThe Queene Carowses to thy fortune, _Hamlet_.\n\n_Ham_. Good Madam.[2]\n\n_King_. _Gertrude_, do not drinke.\n\n_Qu_. I will my Lord;\nI pray you pardon me.[3]\n\n[Sidenote: 222]_King_. It is the poyson'd Cup, it is too late.[4]\n\n_Ham_. I dare not drinke yet Madam,\nBy and by.[5]\n\n_Qu_. Come, let me wipe thy face.[6]\n\n_Laer_. My Lord, Ile hit him now.\n\n_King_. I do not thinke't.\n\n_Laer_. And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.[7]\n                                             [Sidenote: it is | against]\n\n_Ham_. Come for the third.\n_Laertes_, you but dally,                        [Sidenote: you doe but]\nI pray you passe with your best violence,\nI am affear'd you make a wanton of me.[8]      [Sidenote: I am sure you]\n\n_Laer_. Say you so? Come on.      _Play._\n\n_Osr_. Nothing neither way.                          [Sidenote: _Ostr._]\n\n_Laer_. Haue at you now.[9]\n\n    _In scuffling they change Rapiers._[10]\n\n_King_. Part them, they are incens'd.[11]\n\n_Ham_. Nay come, againe.[12]\n\n_Osr_. Looke to the Queene there hoa.  [Sidenote: _Ostr._ | there howe.]\n\n_Hor_. They bleed on both sides. How is't my           [Sidenote: is it]\nLord?\n\n_Osr_. How is't _Laertes_?                           [Sidenote: _Ostr._]\n\n_Laer_. Why as a Woodcocke[13]\nTo mine Sprindge, _Osricke_,   [Sidenote: mine owne sprindge _Ostrick_,]\nI am iustly kill'd with mine owne Treacherie.[14]\n\n_Ham_. How does the Queene?\n\n_King_. She sounds[15] to see them bleede.\n\n_Qu_. No, no, the drinke, the drinke[16]\n\n[Footnote 1: She is anxious about him. It may be that this speech, and\nthat of the king before (266), were fitted to the person of the actor\nwho first represented Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --a simple acknowledgment of her politeness: he can no more\nbe familiarly loving with his mother.]\n\n[Footnote 3: She drinks, and offers the cup to Hamlet.]\n\n[Footnote 4: He is too much afraid of exposing his villainy to be prompt\nenough to prevent her.]\n\n[Footnote 5: This is not meant by the Poet to show suspicion: he does\nnot mean Hamlet to die so.]\n\n[Footnote 6: The actor should not allow her: she approaches Hamlet; he\nrecoils a little.]\n\n[Footnote 7: He has compunctions, but it needs failure to make them\npotent.]\n\n[Footnote 8: 'treat me as an effeminate creature.']\n\n[Footnote 9: He makes a sudden attack, without warning of the fourth\nbout.]\n\n[Footnote 10: _Not in Q._\n\nThe 1st Q. directs:--_They catch one anothers Rapiers, find both are\nwounded_, &c.\n\nThe thing, as I understand it, goes thus: With the words 'Have at you\nnow!' Laertes stabs Hamlet; Hamlet, apprised thus of his treachery, lays\nhold of his rapier, wrenches it from him, and stabs him with it in\nreturn.]\n\n[Footnote 11: 'they have lost their temper.']\n\n[Footnote 12: --said with indignation and scorn, but without suspicion\nof the worst.]\n\n[Footnote 13: --the proverbially foolish bird. The speech must be spoken\nwith breaks. Its construction is broken.]\n\n[Footnote 14: His conscience starts up, awake and strong, at the\napproach of Death. As the show of the world withdraws, the realities\nassert themselves. He repents, and makes confession of his sin, seeing\nit now in its true nature, and calling it by its own name. It is a\ncompensation of the weakness of some that they cannot be strong in\nwickedness. The king did not so repent, and with his strength was the\nmore to blame.]\n\n[Footnote 15: _swounds, swoons_.]\n\n[Footnote 16: She is true to her son. The maternal outlasts the\nadulterous.]\n\n[Page 270]\n\nOh my deere _Hamlet_, the drinke, the drinke,\nI am poyson'd.\n\n_Ham_. Oh Villany! How? Let the doore be lock'd.\nTreacherie, seeke it out.[1]\n\n_Laer_. It is heere _Hamlet_.[2]\n_Hamlet_,[3] thou art slaine,\nNo Medicine in the world can do thee good.\nIn thee, there is not halfe an houre of life;   [Sidenote: houres life,]\nThe Treacherous Instrument is in thy hand,             [Sidenote: in my]\nVnbated and envenom'd: the foule practise[4]\nHath turn'd it selfe on me. Loe, heere I lye,\nNeuer to rise againe: Thy Mothers poyson'd:\nI can no more, the King, the King's too blame.[5]\n\n_Ham_. The point envenom'd too,\nThen venome to thy worke.[6]\n                         _Hurts the King._[7]\n\n_All_. Treason, Treason.\n\n_King_. O yet defend me Friends, I am but hurt.\n\n_Ham_. Heere thou incestuous, murdrous,\n                         [Sidenote:  Heare thou incestious damned Dane,]\nDamned Dane,\nDrinke off this Potion: Is thy Vnion heere?\n                               [Sidenote: of this | is the Onixe heere?]\nFollow my Mother.[8]           _King Dyes._[9]\n\n_Laer_. He is iustly seru'd.\nIt is a poyson temp'red by himselfe:\nExchange forgiuenesse with me, Noble _Hamlet_;\nMine and my Fathers death come not vpon thee,\nNor thine on me.[10]                 _Dyes._[11]\n\n_Ham_. Heauen make thee free of it,[12] I follow thee.\nI am dead _Horatio_, wretched Queene adiew.\nYou that looke pale, and tremble at this chance,\nThat are but Mutes[13] or audience to this acte:\nHad I but time (as this fell Sergeant death\nIs strick'd in his Arrest) oh I could tell you.       [Sidenote: strict]\n\n[Footnote 1: The thing must be ended now. The door must be locked, to\nkeep all in that are in, and all out that are out. Then he can do as he\nwill.]\n\n[Footnote 2: --laying his hand on his heart, I think.]\n\n[Footnote 3: In Q. _Hamlet_ only once.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _scheme, artifice, deceitful contrivance_; in modern slang,\n_dodge_.]\n\n[Footnote 5: He turns on the prompter of his sin--crowning the justice\nof the king's capital punishment.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Point_: 'too!'\n\n_1st Q._ Then venome to thy venome, die damn'd villaine.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Not in Quarto._\n\nThe true moment, now only, has at last come. Hamlet has lived to do his\nduty with a clear conscience, and is thereupon permitted to go. The man\nwho asks whether this be poetic justice or no, is unworthy of an answer.\n'The Tragedie of Hamlet' is _The Drama of Moral Perplexity_.]\n\n[Footnote 8: A grim play on the word _Union: 'follow my mother_'. It\nsuggests a terrible meeting below.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 10: His better nature triumphs. The moment he was wounded,\nknowing he must die, he began to change. Defeat is a mighty aid to\nrepentance; and processes grow rapid in the presence of Death: he\nforgives and desires forgiveness.]\n\n[Footnote 11: _Not in Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 12: Note how heartily Hamlet pardons the wrong done to\nhimself--the only wrong of course which a man has to pardon.]\n\n[Footnote 13: _supernumeraries_. Note the other figures too--_audience,\nact_--all of the theatre.]\n\n[Page 272]\n\nBut let it be: _Horatio_, I am dead,\nThou liu'st, report me and my causes right     [Sidenote: cause a right]\nTo the vnsatisfied.[1]\n\n_Hor_. Neuer beleeue it.\n[Sidenote: 134] I am more an Antike Roman then a Dane:\n[Sidenote: 135] Heere's yet some Liquor left.[2]\n\n_Ham_. As th'art a man, giue me the Cup.\nLet go, by Heauen Ile haue't.                          [Sidenote: hate,]\n[Sidenote: 114, 251] Oh good _Horatio_, what a wounded name,[3]\n                                            [Sidenote: O god _Horatio_,]\n(Things standing thus vnknowne) shall liue behind me.\n                                    [Sidenote: shall I leaue behind me?]\nIf thou did'st euer hold me in thy heart,\nAbsent thee from felicitie awhile,\nAnd in this harsh world draw thy breath in paine,[1]\n                                      [Sidenote: _A march a farre off._]\nTo tell my Storie.[4]\n            _March afarre off, and shout within._[5]\nWhat warlike noyse is this?\n\n_Enter Osricke._\n\n_Osr_. Yong _Fortinbras_, with conquest come from Poland\nTo th'Ambassadors of England giues this warlike volly.[6]\n\n_Ham_. O I dye _Horatio_:\nThe potent poyson quite ore-crowes my spirit,\nI cannot liue to heare the Newes from England,\n[Sidenote: 62] But I do prophesie[7] th'election lights\n[Sidenote: 276] On _Fortinbras_, he ha's my dying voyce,[8]\nSo tell him with the occurrents more and lesse,[9]       [Sidenote: th']\nWhich haue solicited.[10] The rest is silence. O, o, o, o.[11]\n                                       _Dyes_[12]\n\n_Hora_. Now cracke a Noble heart:                   [Sidenote: cracks a]\nGoodnight sweet Prince,\nAnd flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest,\nWhy do's the Drumme come hither?\n\n[Footnote 1: His care over his reputation with the people is princely,\nand casts a true light on his delay. No good man can be willing to seem\nbad, except the _being good_ necessitates it. A man must be willing to\nappear a villain if that is the consequence of being a true man, but he\ncannot be indifferent to that appearance. He cannot be indifferent to\nwearing the look of the thing he hates. Hamlet, that he may be\nunderstood by the nation, makes, with noble confidence in his\nfriendship, the large demand on Horatio, to live and suffer for his\nsake.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Here first we see plainly the love of Horatio for Hamlet:\nhere first is Hamlet's judgment of Horatio (134) justified.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --for having killed his uncle:--what, then, if he had slain\nhim at once?]\n\n[Footnote 4: Horatio must be represented as here giving sign of assent.\n\n_1st Q._\n\n    _Ham_. Vpon my loue I charge thee let it goe,\n    O fie _Horatio_, and if thou shouldst die,\n    What a scandale wouldst thou leaue behinde?\n    What tongue should tell the story of our deaths,\n    If not from thee?]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Not in Q._]\n\n[Footnote 6: The frame is closing round the picture. 9.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Shakspere more than once or twice makes the dying\nprophesy.]\n\n[Footnote 8: His last thought is for his country; his last effort at\nutterance goes to prevent a disputed succession.]\n\n[Footnote 9: 'greater and less'--as in the psalm,\n\n    'The Lord preserves all, more and less,\n      That bear to him a loving heart.']\n\n[Footnote 10: led to the necessity.]\n\n[Footnote 11: _These interjections are not in the Quarto._]\n\n[Footnote 12: _Not in Q._\n\nAll Shakspere's tragedies suggest that no action ever ends, only goes\noff the stage of the world on to another.]\n\n[Page 274]\n\n[Sidenote: 190] _Enter Fortinbras and English Ambassador, with_\n                 [Sidenote: _Enter Fortenbrasse, with the Embassadors._]\n  _Drumme, Colours, and Attendants._\n\n_Fortin_. Where is this sight?\n\n_Hor_. What is it ye would see;                          [Sidenote: you]\nIf ought of woe, or wonder, cease your search.[1]\n\n_For_. His quarry[2] cries on hauocke.[3] Oh proud death,\n                                                 [Sidenote: This quarry]\nWhat feast is toward[4] in thine eternall Cell.\nThat thou so many Princes, at a shoote,                 [Sidenote: shot]\nSo bloodily hast strooke.[5]\n\n_Amb_. The sight is dismall,\nAnd our affaires from England come too late,\nThe eares are senselesse that should giue vs hearing,[6]\nTo tell him his command'ment is fulfill'd,\nThat _Rosincrance_ and _Guildensterne_ are dead:\nWhere should we haue our thankes?[7]\n\n_Hor_. Not from his mouth,[8]\nHad it[9] th'abilitie of life to thanke you:\nHe neuer gaue command'ment for their death.\n[Sidenote: 6] But since so iumpe[10] vpon this bloodie question,[11]\nYou from the Polake warres, and you from England\nAre heere arriued. Giue order[12] that these bodies\nHigh on a stage be placed to the view,\nAnd let me speake to th'yet vnknowing world,        [Sidenote: , to yet]\nHow these things came about. So shall you heare\nOf carnall, bloudie, and vnnaturall acts,[13]\nOf accidentall Judgements,[14] casuall slaughters[15]\nOf death's put on by cunning[16] and forc'd cause,[17]\n                                   [Sidenote: deaths | and for no cause]\nAnd in this vpshot, purposes mistooke,[18]\nFalne on the Inuentors heads. All this can I             [Sidenote: th']\nTruly deliuer.\n\n_For_. Let vs hast to heare it,\nAnd call the Noblest to the Audience.\nFor me, with sorrow, I embrace my Fortune,\nI haue some Rites of memory[19] in this Kingdome,\n                                               [Sidenote: rights of[19]]\n\n[Footnote 1: --for here it is.]\n\n[Footnote 2: the heap of game after a hunt.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'Havoc's victims cry out against him.']\n\n[Footnote 4: in preparation.]\n\n[Footnote 5: All the real actors in the tragedy, except Horatio, are\ndead.]\n\n[Footnote 6: This line may be taken as a parenthesis; then--'come too\nlate' joins itself with 'to tell him.' Or we may connect 'hearing' with\n'to tell him':--'the ears that should give us hearing in order that we\nmight tell him' etc.]\n\n[Footnote 7: They thus inquire after the successor of Claudius.]\n\n[Footnote 8: --the mouth of Claudius.]\n\n[Footnote 9: --even if it had.]\n\n[Footnote 10: 'so exactly,' or 'immediately'--perhaps\n_opportunely--fittingly_.]\n\n[Footnote 11: dispute, strife.]\n\n[Footnote 12: --addressed to Fortinbras, I should say. The state is\ndisrupt, the household in disorder; there is no head; Horatio turns\ntherefore to Fortinbras, who, besides having a claim to the crown, and\nbeing favoured by Hamlet, alone has power at the moment--for his army is\nwith him.]\n\n[Footnote 13: --those of Claudius.]\n\n[Footnote 14: 'just judgments brought about by accident'--as in the case\nof all slain except the king, whose judgment was not accidental, and\nHamlet, whose death was not a judgment.]\n\n[Footnote 15: --those of the queen, Polonius, and Ophelia.]\n\n[Footnote 16: 'put on,' _indued_, 'brought on themselves'--those of\nRosincrance, Guildensterne, and Laertes.]\n\n[Footnote 17: --those of the king and Polonius.]\n\n[Footnote 18: 'and in this result'--_pointing to the bodies_--'purposes\nwhich have mistaken their way, and fallen on the inventors' heads.' _I\nam mistaken_ or _mistook_, means _I have mistaken_; 'purposes\nmistooke'--_purposes in themselves mistaken_:--that of Laertes, which\ncame back on himself; and that of the king in the matter of the poison,\nwhich, by falling on the queen, also came back on the inventor.]\n\n[Footnote 19: The _Quarto_ is correct here, I think: '_rights of the\npast_'--'claims of descent.' Or 'rights of memory' might mean--'_rights\nyet remembered_.'\n\nFortinbras is not one to miss a chance: even in this shadowy 'person,'\ncharacter is recognizably maintained.]\n\n[Page 276]\n\nWhich are to claime,[1] my vantage doth   [Sidenote: Which now to clame]\nInuite me,\n\n_Hor_. Of that I shall haue alwayes[2] cause to speake,\n                                          [Sidenote: haue also cause[3]]\nAnd from his mouth\n[Sidenote: 272] Whose voyce will draw on more:[3]\n                                              [Sidenote: drawe no more,]\nBut let this same be presently perform'd,\nEuen whiles mens mindes are wilde,                     [Sidenote: while]\nLest more mischance\nOn plots, and errors happen.[4]\n\n_For_. Let foure Captaines\nBeare _Hamlet_ like a Soldier to the Stage,\nFor he was likely, had he beene put on[5]\nTo haue prou'd most royally:[6]                      [Sidenote: royall;]\nAnd for his passage,[7]\nThe Souldiours Musicke, and the rites of Warre[8]   [Sidenote: right of]\nSpeake[9] lowdly for him.\nTake vp the body; Such a sight as this               [Sidenote: bodies,]\nBecomes the Field, but heere shewes much amis.\nGo, bid the Souldiers shoote.[10]\n\n_Exeunt Marching: after the which, a Peale_        [Sidenote: _Exeunt._]\n_of Ordenance are shot off._\n\n\nFINIS.\n\n[Footnote 1: 'which must now be claimed'--except the _Quarto_ be right\nhere also.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The _Quarto_ surely is right here.]\n\n[Footnote 3: --Hamlet's mouth. The message he entrusted to Horatio for\nFortinbras, giving his voice, or vote, for him, was sure to 'draw on\nmore' voices.]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'lest more mischance happen in like manner, through plots\nand mistakes.']\n\n[Footnote 5: 'had he been put forward'--_had occasion sent him out_.]\n\n[Footnote 6: 'to have proved a most royal soldier:'--A soldier gives\nhere his testimony to Hamlet's likelihood in the soldier's calling. Note\nthe kind of regard in which the Poet would show him held.]\n\n[Footnote 7: --the passage of his spirit to its place.]\n\n[Footnote 8: --military mourning or funeral rites.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _imperative mood_: 'let the soldier's music and the rites\nof war speak loudly for him.' 'Go, bid the souldiers shoote,' with which\nthe drama closes, is a more definite initiatory order to the same\neffect.]\n\n[Footnote 10: The end is a half-line after a riming couplet--as if there\nwere more to come--as there must be after every tragedy. Mere poetic\njustice will not satisfy Shakspere in a tragedy, for tragedy is _life_;\nin a comedy it may do well enough, for that deals but with\nlife-surfaces--and who then more careful of it! but in tragedy something\nfar higher ought to be aimed at. The end of this drama is reached when\nHamlet, having attained the possibility of doing so, performs his work\n_in righteousness_. The common critical mind would have him left the\nfatherless, motherless, loverless, almost friendless king of a\njustifiably distrusting nation--with an eternal grief for his father\nweighing him down to the abyss; with his mother's sin blackening for him\nall womankind, and blasting the face of both heaven and earth; and with\nthe knowledge in his heart that he had sent the woman he loved, with her\nfather and her brother, out of the world--maniac, spy, and traitor.\nInstead of according him such 'poetic justice,' the Poet gives Hamlet\nthe only true success of doing his duty to the end--for it was as much\nhis duty not to act before, as it was his duty to act at last--then\nsends him after his Ophelia--into a world where true heart will find\ntrue way of setting right what is wrong, and of atoning for every ill,\nwittingly or unwittingly done or occasioned in this.\n\nIt seems to me most admirable that Hamlet, being so great, is yet\noutwardly so like other people: the Poet never obtrudes his greatness.\nAnd just because he is modest, confessing weakness and perplexity, small\npeople take him for yet smaller than themselves who never confess\nanything, and seldom feel anything amiss with them. Such will adduce\neven Hamlet's disparagement of himself to Ophelia when overwhelmed with\na sense of human worthlessness (126), as proof that he was no hero!\nThey call it weakness that he would not, foolishly and selfishly, make\ngood his succession against the king, regardless of the law of election,\nand careless of the weal of the kingdom for which he shows himself so\nanxious even in the throes of death! To my mind he is the grandest hero\nin fiction--absolutely human--so troubled, yet so true!]\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1100":"\n\n\n\n\n1592\n\nTHE FIRST PART OF HENRY THE SIXTH\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n  DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, uncle to the King, and Protector\n  DUKE OF BEDFORD, uncle to the King, and Regent of France\n  THOMAS BEAUFORT, DUKE OF EXETER, great-uncle to the king\n  HENRY BEAUFORT, great-uncle to the King, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER,\n     and afterwards CARDINAL\n  JOHN BEAUFORT, EARL OF SOMERSET, afterwards Duke\n  RICHARD PLANTAGENET, son of Richard late Earl of Cambridge,\n    afterwards DUKE OF YORK\n  EARL OF WARWICK\n  EARL OF SALISBURY\n  EARL OF SUFFOLK\n  LORD TALBOT, afterwards EARL OF SHREWSBURY\n  JOHN TALBOT, his son\n  EDMUND MORTIMER, EARL OF MARCH\n  SIR JOHN FASTOLFE\n  SIR WILLIAM LUCY\n  SIR WILLIAM GLANSDALE\n  SIR THOMAS GARGRAVE\n  MAYOR of LONDON\n  WOODVILLE, Lieutenant of the Tower\n  VERNON, of the White Rose or York faction\n  BASSET, of the Red Rose or Lancaster faction\n  A LAWYER\n  GAOLERS, to Mortimer\n  CHARLES, Dauphin, and afterwards King of France\n  REIGNIER, DUKE OF ANJOU, and titular King of Naples\n  DUKE OF BURGUNDY\n  DUKE OF ALENCON\n  BASTARD OF ORLEANS\n  GOVERNOR OF PARIS\n  MASTER-GUNNER OF ORLEANS, and his SON\n  GENERAL OF THE FRENCH FORCES in Bordeaux\n  A FRENCH SERGEANT\n  A PORTER\n  AN OLD SHEPHERD, father to Joan la Pucelle\n  MARGARET, daughter to Reignier, afterwards married to\n    King Henry\n  COUNTESS OF AUVERGNE\n  JOAN LA PUCELLE, Commonly called JOAN OF ARC\n\n  Lords, Warders of the Tower, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers,\n  Messengers, English and French Attendants. Fiends appearing\n    to La Pucelle\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland and France\n\n\n\n\nThe First Part of King Henry the Sixth\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1.\n\nWestminster Abbey\n\nDead March. Enter the funeral of KING HENRY THE FIFTH,\nattended on by the DUKE OF BEDFORD, Regent of France,\nthe DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, Protector, the DUKE OF EXETER,\nthe EARL OF WARWICK, the BISHOP OF WINCHESTER\n\n  BEDFORD. Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to\n    night! Comets, importing change of times and states,\n    Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky\n    And with them scourge the bad revolting stars\n    That have consented unto Henry's death!\n    King Henry the Fifth, too famous to live long!\n    England ne'er lost a king of so much worth.\n  GLOUCESTER. England ne'er had a king until his time.\n    Virtue he had, deserving to command;\n    His brandish'd sword did blind men with his beams;\n    His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings;\n    His sparkling eyes, replete with wrathful fire,\n    More dazzled and drove back his enemies\n    Than mid-day sun fierce bent against their faces.\n    What should I say? His deeds exceed all speech:\n    He ne'er lift up his hand but conquered.\n  EXETER. We mourn in black; why mourn we not in blood?\n    Henry is dead and never shall revive.\n    Upon a wooden coffin we attend;\n    And death's dishonourable victory\n    We with our stately presence glorify,\n    Like captives bound to a triumphant car.\n    What! shall we curse the planets of mishap\n    That plotted thus our glory's overthrow?\n    Or shall we think the subtle-witted French\n    Conjurers and sorcerers, that, afraid of him,\n    By magic verses have contriv'd his end?\n  WINCHESTER. He was a king bless'd of the King of kings;\n    Unto the French the dreadful judgment-day\n    So dreadful will not be as was his sight.\n    The battles of the Lord of Hosts he fought;\n    The Church's prayers made him so prosperous.\n  GLOUCESTER. The Church! Where is it? Had not churchmen\n    pray'd,\n    His thread of life had not so soon decay'd.\n    None do you like but an effeminate prince,\n    Whom like a school-boy you may overawe.\n  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, whate'er we like, thou art\n    Protector\n    And lookest to command the Prince and realm.\n    Thy wife is proud; she holdeth thee in awe\n    More than God or religious churchmen may.\n  GLOUCESTER. Name not religion, for thou lov'st the flesh;\n    And ne'er throughout the year to church thou go'st,\n    Except it be to pray against thy foes.\n  BEDFORD. Cease, cease these jars and rest your minds in peace;\n    Let's to the altar. Heralds, wait on us.\n    Instead of gold, we'll offer up our arms,\n    Since arms avail not, now that Henry's dead.\n    Posterity, await for wretched years,\n    When at their mothers' moist'ned eyes babes shall suck,\n    Our isle be made a nourish of salt tears,\n    And none but women left to wail the dead.\n  HENRY the Fifth, thy ghost I invocate:\n    Prosper this realm, keep it from civil broils,\n    Combat with adverse planets in the heavens.\n    A far more glorious star thy soul will make\n    Than Julius Caesar or bright\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My honourable lords, health to you all!\n    Sad tidings bring I to you out of France,\n    Of loss, of slaughter, and discomfiture:\n    Guienne, Champagne, Rheims, Orleans,\n    Paris, Guysors, Poictiers, are all quite lost.\n  BEDFORD. What say'st thou, man, before dead Henry's corse?\n    Speak softly, or the loss of those great towns\n    Will make him burst his lead and rise from death.\n  GLOUCESTER. Is Paris lost? Is Rouen yielded up?\n    If Henry were recall'd to life again,\n    These news would cause him once more yield the ghost.\n  EXETER. How were they lost? What treachery was us'd?\n  MESSENGER. No treachery, but want of men and money.\n    Amongst the soldiers this is muttered\n    That here you maintain several factions;\n    And whilst a field should be dispatch'd and fought,\n    You are disputing of your generals:\n    One would have ling'ring wars, with little cost;\n    Another would fly swift, but wanteth wings;\n    A third thinks, without expense at all,\n    By guileful fair words peace may be obtain'd.\n    Awake, awake, English nobility!\n    Let not sloth dim your honours, new-begot.\n    Cropp'd are the flower-de-luces in your arms;\n    Of England's coat one half is cut away.\n  EXETER. Were our tears wanting to this funeral,\n    These tidings would call forth their flowing tides.\n  BEDFORD. Me they concern; Regent I am of France.\n    Give me my steeled coat; I'll fight for France.\n    Away with these disgraceful wailing robes!\n    Wounds will I lend the French instead of eyes,\n    To weep their intermissive miseries.\n\n                   Enter a second MESSENGER\n\n  SECOND MESSENGER. Lords, view these letters full of bad\n    mischance.\n    France is revolted from the English quite,\n    Except some petty towns of no import.\n    The Dauphin Charles is crowned king in Rheims;\n    The Bastard of Orleans with him is join'd;\n    Reignier, Duke of Anjou, doth take his part;\n    The Duke of Alencon flieth to his side.\n  EXETER. The Dauphin crowned king! all fly to him!\n    O, whither shall we fly from this reproach?\n  GLOUCESTER. We will not fly but to our enemies' throats.\n    Bedford, if thou be slack I'll fight it out.\n  BEDFORD. Gloucester, why doubt'st thou of my forwardness?\n    An army have I muster'd in my thoughts,\n    Wherewith already France is overrun.\n\n                   Enter a third MESSENGER\n\n  THIRD MESSENGER. My gracious lords, to add to your\n    laments,\n    Wherewith you now bedew King Henry's hearse,\n    I must inform you of a dismal fight\n    Betwixt the stout Lord Talbot and the French.\n  WINCHESTER. What! Wherein Talbot overcame? Is't so?\n  THIRD MESSENGER. O, no; wherein Lord Talbot was\n    o'erthrown.\n    The circumstance I'll tell you more at large.\n    The tenth of August last this dreadful lord,\n    Retiring from the siege of Orleans,\n    Having full scarce six thousand in his troop,\n    By three and twenty thousand of the French\n    Was round encompassed and set upon.\n    No leisure had he to enrank his men;\n    He wanted pikes to set before his archers;\n    Instead whereof sharp stakes pluck'd out of hedges\n    They pitched in the ground confusedly\n    To keep the horsemen off from breaking in.\n    More than three hours the fight continued;\n    Where valiant Talbot, above human thought,\n    Enacted wonders with his sword and lance:\n    Hundreds he sent to hell, and none durst stand him;\n    Here, there, and everywhere, enrag'd he slew\n    The French exclaim'd the devil was in arms;\n    All the whole army stood agaz'd on him.\n    His soldiers, spying his undaunted spirit,\n    'A Talbot! a Talbot!' cried out amain,\n    And rush'd into the bowels of the battle.\n    Here had the conquest fully been seal'd up\n    If Sir John Fastolfe had not play'd the coward.\n    He, being in the vaward plac'd behind\n    With purpose to relieve and follow them-\n    Cowardly fled, not having struck one stroke;\n    Hence grew the general wreck and massacre.\n    Enclosed were they with their enemies.\n    A base Walloon, to win the Dauphin's grace,\n    Thrust Talbot with a spear into the back;\n    Whom all France, with their chief assembled strength,\n    Durst not presume to look once in the face.\n  BEDFORD. Is Talbot slain? Then I will slay myself,\n    For living idly here in pomp and ease,\n    Whilst such a worthy leader, wanting aid,\n    Unto his dastard foemen is betray'd.\n  THIRD MESSENGER. O no, he lives, but is took prisoner,\n    And Lord Scales with him, and Lord Hungerford;\n    Most of the rest slaughter'd or took likewise.\n  BEDFORD. His ransom there is none but I shall pay.\n    I'll hale the Dauphin headlong from his throne;\n    His crown shall be the ransom of my friend;\n    Four of their lords I'll change for one of ours.\n    Farewell, my masters; to my task will I;\n    Bonfires in France forthwith I am to make\n    To keep our great Saint George's feast withal.\n    Ten thousand soldiers with me I will take,\n    Whose bloody deeds shall make an Europe quake.\n  THIRD MESSENGER. So you had need; for Orleans is besieg'd;\n    The English army is grown weak and faint;\n    The Earl of Salisbury craveth supply\n    And hardly keeps his men from mutiny,\n    Since they, so few, watch such a multitude.\n  EXETER. Remember, lords, your oaths to Henry sworn,\n    Either to quell the Dauphin utterly,\n    Or bring him in obedience to your yoke.\n  BEDFORD. I do remember it, and here take my leave\n    To go about my preparation.                             Exit\n  GLOUCESTER. I'll to the Tower with all the haste I can\n    To view th' artillery and munition;\n    And then I will proclaim young Henry king.              Exit\n  EXETER. To Eltham will I, where the young King is,\n    Being ordain'd his special governor;\n    And for his safety there I'll best devise.              Exit\n  WINCHESTER.  [Aside]  Each hath his place and function to\n    attend:\n    I am left out; for me nothing remains.\n    But long I will not be Jack out of office.\n    The King from Eltham I intend to steal,\n    And sit at chiefest stern of public weal.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE 2.\n\n                  France. Before Orleans\n\n      Sound a flourish. Enter CHARLES THE DAUPHIN, ALENCON,\n           and REIGNIER, marching with drum and soldiers\n\n  CHARLES. Mars his true moving, even as in the heavens\n    So in the earth, to this day is not known.\n    Late did he shine upon the English side;\n    Now we are victors, upon us he smiles.\n    What towns of any moment but we have?\n    At pleasure here we lie near Orleans;\n    Otherwhiles the famish'd English, like pale ghosts,\n    Faintly besiege us one hour in a month.\n  ALENCON. They want their porridge and their fat bull\n    beeves.\n    Either they must be dieted like mules\n    And have their provender tied to their mouths,\n    Or piteous they will look, like drowned mice.\n  REIGNIER. Let's raise the siege. Why live we idly here?\n    Talbot is taken, whom we wont to fear;\n    Remaineth none but mad-brain'd Salisbury,\n    And he may well in fretting spend his gall\n    Nor men nor money hath he to make war.\n  CHARLES. Sound, sound alarum; we will rush on them.\n    Now for the honour of the forlorn French!\n    Him I forgive my death that killeth me,\n    When he sees me go back one foot or flee.             Exeunt\n\n       Here alarum. They are beaten hack by the English, with\n         great loss. Re-enter CHARLES, ALENCON, and REIGNIER\n\n  CHARLES. Who ever saw the like? What men have I!\n    Dogs! cowards! dastards! I would ne'er have fled\n    But that they left me midst my enemies.\n  REIGNIER. Salisbury is a desperate homicide;\n    He fighteth as one weary of his life.\n    The other lords, like lions wanting food,\n    Do rush upon us as their hungry prey.\n  ALENCON. Froissart, a countryman of ours, records\n    England all Olivers and Rowlands bred\n    During the time Edward the Third did reign.\n    More truly now may this be verified;\n    For none but Samsons and Goliases\n    It sendeth forth to skirmish. One to ten!\n    Lean raw-bon'd rascals! Who would e'er suppose\n    They had such courage and audacity?\n  CHARLES. Let's leave this town; for they are hare-brain'd\n    slaves,\n    And hunger will enforce them to be more eager.\n    Of old I know them; rather with their teeth\n    The walls they'll tear down than forsake the siege.\n  REIGNIER. I think by some odd gimmers or device\n    Their arms are set, like clocks, still to strike on;\n    Else ne'er could they hold out so as they do.\n    By my consent, we'll even let them alone.\n  ALENCON. Be it so.\n\n                   Enter the BASTARD OF ORLEANS\n\n  BASTARD. Where's the Prince Dauphin? I have news for him.\n  CHARLES. Bastard of Orleans, thrice welcome to us.\n  BASTARD. Methinks your looks are sad, your cheer appall'd.\n    Hath the late overthrow wrought this offence?\n    Be not dismay'd, for succour is at hand.\n    A holy maid hither with me I bring,\n    Which, by a vision sent to her from heaven,\n    Ordained is to raise this tedious siege\n    And drive the English forth the bounds of France.\n    The spirit of deep prophecy she hath,\n    Exceeding the nine sibyls of old Rome:\n    What's past and what's to come she can descry.\n    Speak, shall I call her in? Believe my words,\n    For they are certain and unfallible.\n  CHARLES. Go, call her in.                       [Exit BASTARD]\n    But first, to try her skill,\n    Reignier, stand thou as Dauphin in my place;\n    Question her proudly; let thy looks be stern;\n    By this means shall we sound what skill she hath.\n\n                  Re-enter the BASTARD OF ORLEANS with\n                          JOAN LA PUCELLE\n\n  REIGNIER. Fair maid, is 't thou wilt do these wondrous feats?\n  PUCELLE. Reignier, is 't thou that thinkest to beguile me?\n    Where is the Dauphin? Come, come from behind;\n    I know thee well, though never seen before.\n    Be not amaz'd, there's nothing hid from me.\n    In private will I talk with thee apart.\n    Stand back, you lords, and give us leave awhile.\n  REIGNIER. She takes upon her bravely at first dash.\n  PUCELLE. Dauphin, I am by birth a shepherd's daughter,\n    My wit untrain'd in any kind of art.\n    Heaven and our Lady gracious hath it pleas'd\n    To shine on my contemptible estate.\n    Lo, whilst I waited on my tender lambs\n    And to sun's parching heat display'd my cheeks,\n    God's Mother deigned to appear to me,\n    And in a vision full of majesty\n    Will'd me to leave my base vocation\n    And free my country from calamity\n    Her aid she promis'd and assur'd success.\n    In complete glory she reveal'd herself;\n    And whereas I was black and swart before,\n    With those clear rays which she infus'd on me\n    That beauty am I bless'd with which you may see.\n    Ask me what question thou canst possible,\n    And I will answer unpremeditated.\n    My courage try by combat if thou dar'st,\n    And thou shalt find that I exceed my sex.\n    Resolve on this: thou shalt be fortunate\n    If thou receive me for thy warlike mate.\n  CHARLES. Thou hast astonish'd me with thy high terms.\n    Only this proof I'll of thy valour make\n    In single combat thou shalt buckle with me;\n    And if thou vanquishest, thy words are true;\n    Otherwise I renounce all confidence.\n  PUCELLE. I am prepar'd; here is my keen-edg'd sword,\n    Deck'd with five flower-de-luces on each side,\n    The which at Touraine, in Saint Katherine's churchyard,\n    Out of a great deal of old iron I chose forth.\n  CHARLES. Then come, o' God's name; I fear no woman.\n  PUCELLE. And while I live I'll ne'er fly from a man.\n                 [Here they fight and JOAN LA PUCELLE overcomes]\n  CHARLES. Stay, stay thy hands; thou art an Amazon,\n    And fightest with the sword of Deborah.\n  PUCELLE. Christ's Mother helps me, else I were too weak.\n  CHARLES. Whoe'er helps thee, 'tis thou that must help me.\n    Impatiently I burn with thy desire;\n    My heart and hands thou hast at once subdu'd.\n    Excellent Pucelle, if thy name be so,\n    Let me thy servant and not sovereign be.\n    'Tis the French Dauphin sueth to thee thus.\n  PUCELLE. I must not yield to any rites of love,\n    For my profession's sacred from above.\n    When I have chased all thy foes from hence,\n    Then will I think upon a recompense.\n  CHARLES. Meantime look gracious on thy prostrate thrall.\n  REIGNIER. My lord, methinks, is very long in talk.\n  ALENCON. Doubtless he shrives this woman to her smock;\n    Else ne'er could he so long protract his speech.\n  REIGNIER. Shall we disturb him, since he keeps no mean?\n  ALENCON. He may mean more than we poor men do know;\n    These women are shrewd tempters with their tongues.\n  REIGNIER. My lord, where are you? What devise you on?\n    Shall we give o'er Orleans, or no?\n  PUCELLE. Why, no, I say; distrustful recreants!\n    Fight till the last gasp; I will be your guard.\n  CHARLES. What she says I'll confirm; we'll fight it out.\n  PUCELLE. Assign'd am I to be the English scourge.\n    This night the siege assuredly I'll raise.\n    Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon days,\n    Since I have entered into these wars.\n    Glory is like a circle in the water,\n    Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself\n    Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.\n    With Henry's death the English circle ends;\n    Dispersed are the glories it included.\n    Now am I like that proud insulting ship\n    Which Caesar and his fortune bare at once.\n  CHARLES. Was Mahomet inspired with a dove?\n    Thou with an eagle art inspired then.\n    Helen, the mother of great Constantine,\n    Nor yet Saint Philip's daughters were like thee.\n    Bright star of Venus, fall'n down on the earth,\n    How may I reverently worship thee enough?\n  ALENCON. Leave off delays, and let us raise the siege.\n  REIGNIER. Woman, do what thou canst to save our honours;\n    Drive them from Orleans, and be immortaliz'd.\n  CHARLES. Presently we'll try. Come, let's away about it.\n    No prophet will I trust if she prove false.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE 3.\n\n                London. Before the Tower gates\n\n       Enter the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, with his serving-men\n                       in blue coats\n\n  GLOUCESTER. I am come to survey the Tower this day;\n    Since Henry's death, I fear, there is conveyance.\n    Where be these warders that they wait not here?\n    Open the gates; 'tis Gloucester that calls.\n  FIRST WARDER.  [Within]  Who's there that knocks so\n    imperiously?\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. It is the noble Duke of Gloucester.\n  SECOND WARDER.  [Within]  Whoe'er he be, you may not be\n    let in.\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Villains, answer you so the Lord\n    Protector?\n  FIRST WARDER.  [Within]  The Lord protect him! so we\n    answer him.\n    We do no otherwise than we are will'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Who willed you, or whose will stands but\n    mine?\n    There's none Protector of the realm but I.\n    Break up the gates, I'll be your warrantize.\n    Shall I be flouted thus by dunghill grooms?\n                  [GLOUCESTER'S men rush at the Tower gates, and\n                         WOODVILLE the Lieutenant speaks within]\n  WOODVILLE.  [Within]  What noise is this? What traitors\n    have we here?\n  GLOUCESTER. Lieutenant, is it you whose voice I hear?\n    Open the gates; here's Gloucester that would enter.\n  WOODVILLE.  [Within]  Have patience, noble Duke, I may\n    not open;\n    The Cardinal of Winchester forbids.\n    From him I have express commandment\n    That thou nor none of thine shall be let in.\n  GLOUCESTER. Faint-hearted Woodville, prizest him fore me?\n    Arrogant Winchester, that haughty prelate\n    Whom Henry, our late sovereign, ne'er could brook!\n    Thou art no friend to God or to the King.\n    Open the gates, or I'll shut thee out shortly.\n  SERVING-MEN. Open the gates unto the Lord Protector,\n    Or we'll burst them open, if that you come not quickly.\n\n       Enter to the PROTECTOR at the Tower gates WINCHESTER\n                   and his men in tawny coats\n\n  WINCHESTER. How now, ambitious Humphry! What means\n    this?\n  GLOUCESTER. Peel'd priest, dost thou command me to be\n    shut out?\n  WINCHESTER. I do, thou most usurping proditor,\n    And not Protector of the King or realm.\n  GLOUCESTER. Stand back, thou manifest conspirator,\n    Thou that contrived'st to murder our dead lord;\n    Thou that giv'st whores indulgences to sin.\n    I'll canvass thee in thy broad cardinal's hat,\n    If thou proceed in this thy insolence.\n  WINCHESTER. Nay, stand thou back; I will not budge a foot.\n    This be Damascus; be thou cursed Cain,\n    To slay thy brother Abel, if thou wilt.\n  GLOUCESTER. I will not slay thee, but I'll drive thee back.\n    Thy scarlet robes as a child's bearing-cloth\n    I'll use to carry thee out of this place.\n  WINCHESTER. Do what thou dar'st; I beard thee to thy face.\n  GLOUCESTER. What! am I dar'd and bearded to my face?\n    Draw, men, for all this privileged place\n    Blue-coats to tawny-coats. Priest, beware your beard;\n    I mean to tug it, and to cuff you soundly;\n    Under my feet I stamp thy cardinal's hat;\n    In spite of Pope or dignities of church,\n    Here by the cheeks I'll drag thee up and down.\n  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, thou wilt answer this before the\n    Pope.\n  GLOUCESTER. Winchester goose! I cry 'A rope, a rope!'\n    Now beat them hence; why do you let them stay?\n    Thee I'll chase hence, thou wolf in sheep's array.\n    Out, tawny-coats! Out, scarlet hypocrite!\n\n         Here GLOUCESTER'S men beat out the CARDINAL'S\n        men; and enter in the hurly burly the MAYOR OF\n                  LONDON and his OFFICERS\n\n  MAYOR. Fie, lords! that you, being supreme magistrates,\n    Thus contumeliously should break the peace!\n  GLOUCESTER. Peace, Mayor! thou know'st little of my wrongs:\n    Here's Beaufort, that regards nor God nor King,\n    Hath here distrain'd the Tower to his use.\n  WINCHESTER. Here's Gloucester, a foe to citizens;\n    One that still motions war and never peace,\n    O'ercharging your free purses with large fines;\n    That seeks to overthrow religion,\n    Because he is Protector of the realm,\n    And would have armour here out of the Tower,\n    To crown himself King and suppress the Prince.\n  GLOUCESTER. I Will not answer thee with words, but blows.\n                                      [Here they skirmish again]\n  MAYOR. Nought rests for me in this tumultuous strife\n    But to make open proclamation.\n    Come, officer, as loud as e'er thou canst,\n    Cry.\n  OFFICER.  [Cries]  All manner of men assembled here in arms\n    this day against God's peace and the King's, we charge\n    and command you, in his Highness' name, to repair to\n    your several dwelling-places; and not to wear, handle, or\n    use, any sword, weapon, or dagger, henceforward, upon\n    pain of death.\n  GLOUCESTER. Cardinal, I'll be no breaker of the law;\n    But we shall meet and break our minds at large.\n  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, we'll meet to thy cost, be sure;\n    Thy heart-blood I will have for this day's work.\n  MAYOR. I'll call for clubs if you will not away.\n    This Cardinal's more haughty than the devil.\n  GLOUCESTER. Mayor, farewell; thou dost but what thou\n    mayst.\n  WINCHESTER. Abominable Gloucester, guard thy head,\n    For I intend to have it ere long.\n                    Exeunt, severally, GLOUCESTER and WINCHESTER\n                                             with their servants\n  MAYOR. See the coast clear'd, and then we will depart.\n    Good God, these nobles should such stomachs bear!\n    I myself fight not once in forty year.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                               SCENE 4.\n\n                        France. Before Orleans\n\n               Enter, on the walls, the MASTER-GUNNER\n                       OF ORLEANS and his BOY\n\n  MASTER-GUNNER. Sirrah, thou know'st how Orleans is\n    besieg'd,\n    And how the English have the suburbs won.\n  BOY. Father, I know; and oft have shot at them,\n    Howe'er unfortunate I miss'd my aim.\n  MASTER-GUNNER. But now thou shalt not. Be thou rul'd\n    by me.\n    Chief master-gunner am I of this town;\n    Something I must do to procure me grace.\n    The Prince's espials have informed me\n    How the English, in the suburbs close intrench'd,\n    Wont, through a secret grate of iron bars\n    In yonder tower, to overpeer the city,\n    And thence discover how with most advantage\n    They may vex us with shot or with assault.\n    To intercept this inconvenience,\n    A piece of ordnance 'gainst it I have plac'd;\n    And even these three days have I watch'd\n    If I could see them. Now do thou watch,\n    For I can stay no longer.\n    If thou spy'st any, run and bring me word;\n    And thou shalt find me at the Governor's.               Exit\n  BOY. Father, I warrant you; take you no care;\n    I'll never trouble you, if I may spy them.              Exit\n\n          Enter SALISBURY and TALBOT on the turrets, with\n            SIR WILLIAM GLANSDALE, SIR THOMAS GARGRAVE,\n                            and others\n\n  SALISBURY. Talbot, my life, my joy, again return'd!\n    How wert thou handled being prisoner?\n    Or by what means got'st thou to be releas'd?\n    Discourse, I prithee, on this turret's top.\n  TALBOT. The Earl of Bedford had a prisoner\n    Call'd the brave Lord Ponton de Santrailles;\n    For him was I exchang'd and ransomed.\n    But with a baser man of arms by far\n    Once, in contempt, they would have barter'd me;\n    Which I disdaining scorn'd, and craved death\n    Rather than I would be so vile esteem'd.\n    In fine, redeem'd I was as I desir'd.\n    But, O! the treacherous Fastolfe wounds my heart\n    Whom with my bare fists I would execute,\n    If I now had him brought into my power.\n  SALISBURY. Yet tell'st thou not how thou wert entertain'd.\n  TALBOT. With scoffs, and scorns, and contumelious taunts,\n    In open market-place produc'd they me\n    To be a public spectacle to all;\n    Here, said they, is the terror of the French,\n    The scarecrow that affrights our children so.\n    Then broke I from the officers that led me,\n    And with my nails digg'd stones out of the ground\n    To hurl at the beholders of my shame;\n    My grisly countenance made others fly;\n    None durst come near for fear of sudden death.\n    In iron walls they deem'd me not secure;\n    So great fear of my name 'mongst them was spread\n    That they suppos'd I could rend bars of steel\n    And spurn in pieces posts of adamant;\n    Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had\n    That walk'd about me every minute-while;\n    And if I did but stir out of my bed,\n    Ready they were to shoot me to the heart.\n\n                Enter the BOY with a linstock\n\n  SALISBURY. I grieve to hear what torments you endur'd;\n    But we will be reveng'd sufficiently.\n    Now it is supper-time in Orleans:\n    Here, through this grate, I count each one\n    And view the Frenchmen how they fortify.\n    Let us look in; the sight will much delight thee.\n    Sir Thomas Gargrave and Sir William Glansdale,\n    Let me have your express opinions\n    Where is best place to make our batt'ry next.\n  GARGRAVE. I think at the North Gate; for there stand lords.\n  GLANSDALE. And I here, at the bulwark of the bridge.\n  TALBOT. For aught I see, this city must be famish'd,\n    Or with light skirmishes enfeebled.\n                     [Here they shoot and SALISBURY and GARGRAVE\n                                                      fall down]\n  SALISBURY. O Lord, have mercy on us, wretched sinners!\n  GARGRAVE. O Lord, have mercy on me, woeful man!\n  TALBOT. What chance is this that suddenly hath cross'd us?\n    Speak, Salisbury; at least, if thou canst speak.\n    How far'st thou, mirror of all martial men?\n    One of thy eyes and thy cheek's side struck off!\n    Accursed tower! accursed fatal hand\n    That hath contriv'd this woeful tragedy!\n    In thirteen battles Salisbury o'ercame;\n    Henry the Fifth he first train'd to the wars;\n    Whilst any trump did sound or drum struck up,\n    His sword did ne'er leave striking in the field.\n    Yet liv'st thou, Salisbury? Though thy speech doth fail,\n    One eye thou hast to look to heaven for grace;\n    The sun with one eye vieweth all the world.\n    Heaven, be thou gracious to none alive\n    If Salisbury wants mercy at thy hands!\n    Bear hence his body; I will help to bury it.\n    Sir Thomas Gargrave, hast thou any life?\n    Speak unto Talbot; nay, look up to him.\n    Salisbury, cheer thy spirit with this comfort,\n    Thou shalt not die whiles\n    He beckons with his hand and smiles on me,\n    As who should say 'When I am dead and gone,\n    Remember to avenge me on the French.'\n    Plantagenet, I will; and like thee, Nero,\n    Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn.\n    Wretched shall France be only in my name.\n                  [Here an alarum, and it thunders and lightens]\n    What stir is this? What tumult's in the heavens?\n    Whence cometh this alarum and the noise?\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My lord, my lord, the French have gather'd\n    head\n    The Dauphin, with one Joan la Pucelle join'd,\n    A holy prophetess new risen up,\n    Is come with a great power to raise the siege.\n                  [Here SALISBURY lifteth himself up and groans]\n  TALBOT. Hear, hear how dying Salisbury doth groan.\n    It irks his heart he cannot be reveng'd.\n    Frenchmen, I'll be a Salisbury to you.\n    Pucelle or puzzel, dolphin or dogfish,\n    Your hearts I'll stamp out with my horse's heels\n    And make a quagmire of your mingled brains.\n    Convey me Salisbury into his tent,\n    And then we'll try what these dastard Frenchmen dare.\n                                                  Alarum. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 5.\n\n                          Before Orleans\n\n         Here an alarum again, and TALBOT pursueth the\n      DAUPHIN and driveth him. Then enter JOAN LA PUCELLE\n       driving Englishmen before her. Then enter TALBOT\n\n  TALBOT. Where is my strength, my valour, and my force?\n    Our English troops retire, I cannot stay them;\n    A woman clad in armour chaseth them.\n\n                          Enter LA PUCELLE\n\n    Here, here she comes. I'll have a bout with thee.\n    Devil or devil's dam, I'll conjure thee;\n    Blood will I draw on thee-thou art a witch\n    And straightway give thy soul to him thou serv'st.\n  PUCELLE. Come, come, 'tis only I that must disgrace thee.\n                                               [Here they fight]\n  TALBOT. Heavens, can you suffer hell so to prevail?\n    My breast I'll burst with straining of my courage.\n    And from my shoulders crack my arms asunder,\n    But I will chastise this high minded strumpet.\n                                              [They fight again]\n  PUCELLE. Talbot, farewell; thy hour is not yet come.\n    I must go victual Orleans forthwith.\n             [A short alarum; then enter the town with soldiers]\n    O'ertake me if thou canst; I scorn thy strength.\n    Go, go, cheer up thy hungry starved men;\n    Help Salisbury to make his testament.\n    This day is ours, as many more shall be.                Exit\n  TALBOT. My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel;\n    I know not where I am nor what I do.\n    A witch by fear, not force, like Hannibal,\n    Drives back our troops and conquers as she lists.\n    So bees with smoke and doves with noisome stench\n    Are from their hives and houses driven away.\n    They call'd us, for our fierceness, English dogs;\n    Now like to whelps we crying run away.\n                                                [A short alarum]\n    Hark, countrymen! Either renew the fight\n    Or tear the lions out of England's coat;\n    Renounce your soil, give sheep in lions' stead:\n    Sheep run not half so treacherous from the wolf,\n    Or horse or oxen from the leopard,\n    As you fly from your oft subdued slaves.\n                                 [Alarum. Here another skirmish]\n    It will not be-retire into your trenches.\n    You all consented unto Salisbury's death,\n    For none would strike a stroke in his revenge.\n    Pucelle is ent'red into Orleans\n    In spite of us or aught that we could do.\n    O, would I were to die with Salisbury!\n    The shame hereof will make me hide my head.\n                                    Exit TALBOT. Alarum; retreat\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 6.\n\n                              ORLEANS\n\n        Flourish. Enter on the walls, LA PUCELLE, CHARLES,\n                REIGNIER, ALENCON, and soldiers\n\n  PUCELLE. Advance our waving colours on the walls;\n    Rescu'd is Orleans from the English.\n    Thus Joan la Pucelle hath perform'd her word.\n  CHARLES. Divinest creature, Astraea's daughter,\n    How shall I honour thee for this success?\n    Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens,\n    That one day bloom'd and fruitful were the next.\n    France, triumph in thy glorious prophetess.\n    Recover'd is the town of Orleans.\n    More blessed hap did ne'er befall our state.\n  REIGNIER. Why ring not out the bells aloud throughout the\n    town?\n    Dauphin, command the citizens make bonfires\n    And feast and banquet in the open streets\n    To celebrate the joy that God hath given us.\n  ALENCON. All France will be replete with mirth and joy\n    When they shall hear how we have play'd the men.\n  CHARLES. 'Tis Joan, not we, by whom the day is won;\n    For which I will divide my crown with her;\n    And all the priests and friars in my realm\n    Shall in procession sing her endless praise.\n    A statelier pyramis to her I'll rear\n    Than Rhodope's of Memphis ever was.\n    In memory of her, when she is dead,\n    Her ashes, in an urn more precious\n    Than the rich jewel'd coffer of Darius,\n    Transported shall be at high festivals\n    Before the kings and queens of France.\n    No longer on Saint Denis will we cry,\n    But Joan la Pucelle shall be France's saint.\n    Come in, and let us banquet royally\n    After this golden day of victory. Flourish.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1.\n\nBefore Orleans\n\nEnter a FRENCH SERGEANT and two SENTINELS\n\n  SERGEANT. Sirs, take your places and be vigilant.\n    If any noise or soldier you perceive\n    Near to the walls, by some apparent sign\n    Let us have knowledge at the court of guard.\n  FIRST SENTINEL. Sergeant, you shall.           [Exit SERGEANT]\n    Thus are poor servitors,\n    When others sleep upon their quiet beds,\n    Constrain'd to watch in darkness, rain, and cold.\n\n             Enter TALBOT, BEDFORD, BURGUNDY, and forces,\n          with scaling-ladders; their drums beating a dead\n                              march\n\n  TALBOT. Lord Regent, and redoubted Burgundy,\n    By whose approach the regions of Artois,\n    Wallon, and Picardy, are friends to us,\n    This happy night the Frenchmen are secure,\n    Having all day carous'd and banqueted;\n    Embrace we then this opportunity,\n    As fitting best to quittance their deceit,\n    Contriv'd by art and baleful sorcery.\n  BEDFORD. Coward of France, how much he wrongs his fame,\n    Despairing of his own arm's fortitude,\n    To join with witches and the help of hell!\n  BURGUNDY. Traitors have never other company.\n    But what's that Pucelle whom they term so pure?\n  TALBOT. A maid, they say.\n  BEDFORD. A maid! and be so martial!\n  BURGUNDY. Pray God she prove not masculine ere long,\n    If underneath the standard of the French\n    She carry armour as she hath begun.\n  TALBOT. Well, let them practise and converse with spirits:\n    God is our fortress, in whose conquering name\n    Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks.\n  BEDFORD. Ascend, brave Talbot; we will follow thee.\n  TALBOT. Not all together; better far, I guess,\n    That we do make our entrance several ways;\n    That if it chance the one of us do fail\n    The other yet may rise against their force.\n  BEDFORD. Agreed; I'll to yond corner.\n  BURGUNDY. And I to this.\n  TALBOT. And here will Talbot mount or make his grave.\n    Now, Salisbury, for thee, and for the right\n    Of English Henry, shall this night appear\n    How much in duty I am bound to both.\n             [The English scale the walls and cry 'Saint George!\n                                                     a Talbot!']\n    SENTINEL. Arm! arm! The enemy doth make assault.\n\n           The French leap o'er the walls in their shirts.\n           Enter, several ways, BASTARD, ALENCON, REIGNIER,\n                     half ready and half unready\n\n  ALENCON. How now, my lords? What, all unready so?\n  BASTARD. Unready! Ay, and glad we 'scap'd so well.\n  REIGNIER. 'Twas time, I trow, to wake and leave our beds,\n    Hearing alarums at our chamber doors.\n  ALENCON. Of all exploits since first I follow'd arms\n    Ne'er heard I of a warlike enterprise\n    More venturous or desperate than this.\n  BASTARD. I think this Talbot be a fiend of hell.\n  REIGNIER. If not of hell, the heavens, sure, favour him\n  ALENCON. Here cometh Charles; I marvel how he sped.\n\n                    Enter CHARLES and LA PUCELLE\n\n  BASTARD. Tut! holy Joan was his defensive guard.\n  CHARLES. Is this thy cunning, thou deceitful dame?\n    Didst thou at first, to flatter us withal,\n    Make us partakers of a little gain\n    That now our loss might be ten times so much?\n  PUCELLE. Wherefore is Charles impatient with his friend?\n    At all times will you have my power alike?\n    Sleeping or waking, must I still prevail\n    Or will you blame and lay the fault on me?\n    Improvident soldiers! Had your watch been good\n    This sudden mischief never could have fall'n.\n  CHARLES. Duke of Alencon, this was your default\n    That, being captain of the watch to-night,\n    Did look no better to that weighty charge.\n  ALENCON. Had all your quarters been as safely kept\n    As that whereof I had the government,\n    We had not been thus shamefully surpris'd.\n  BASTARD. Mine was secure.\n  REIGNIER. And so was mine, my lord.\n  CHARLES. And, for myself, most part of all this night,\n    Within her quarter and mine own precinct\n    I was employ'd in passing to and fro\n    About relieving of the sentinels.\n    Then how or which way should they first break in?\n  PUCELLE. Question, my lords, no further of the case,\n    How or which way; 'tis sure they found some place\n    But weakly guarded, where the breach was made.\n    And now there rests no other shift but this\n    To gather our soldiers, scatter'd and dispers'd,\n    And lay new platforms to endamage them.\n\n               Alarum. Enter an ENGLISH SOLDIER, crying\n            'A Talbot! A Talbot!' They fly, leaving their\n                           clothes behind\n\n  SOLDIER. I'll be so bold to take what they have left.\n    The cry of Talbot serves me for a sword;\n    For I have loaden me with many spoils,\n    Using no other weapon but his name.                     Exit\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 2.\n\n                      ORLEANS. Within the town\n\n            Enter TALBOT, BEDFORD, BURGUNDY, a CAPTAIN,\n                           and others\n\n  BEDFORD. The day begins to break, and night is fled\n    Whose pitchy mantle over-veil'd the earth.\n    Here sound retreat and cease our hot pursuit.\n                                               [Retreat sounded]\n  TALBOT. Bring forth the body of old Salisbury\n    And here advance it in the market-place,\n    The middle centre of this cursed town.\n    Now have I paid my vow unto his soul;\n    For every drop of blood was drawn from him\n    There hath at least five Frenchmen died to-night.\n    And that hereafter ages may behold\n    What ruin happened in revenge of him,\n    Within their chiefest temple I'll erect\n    A tomb, wherein his corpse shall be interr'd;\n    Upon the which, that every one may read,\n    Shall be engrav'd the sack of Orleans,\n    The treacherous manner of his mournful death,\n    And what a terror he had been to France.\n    But, lords, in all our bloody massacre,\n    I muse we met not with the Dauphin's grace,\n    His new-come champion, virtuous Joan of Arc,\n    Nor any of his false confederates.\n  BEDFORD. 'Tis thought, Lord Talbot, when the fight began,\n    Rous'd on the sudden from their drowsy beds,\n    They did amongst the troops of armed men\n    Leap o'er the walls for refuge in the field.\n  BURGUNDY. Myself, as far as I could well discern\n    For smoke and dusky vapours of the night,\n    Am sure I scar'd the Dauphin and his trull,\n    When arm in arm they both came swiftly running,\n    Like to a pair of loving turtle-doves\n    That could not live asunder day or night.\n    After that things are set in order here,\n    We'll follow them with all the power we have.\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. All hail, my lords! Which of this princely train\n    Call ye the warlike Talbot, for his acts\n    So much applauded through the realm of France?\n  TALBOT. Here is the Talbot; who would speak with him?\n  MESSENGER. The virtuous lady, Countess of Auvergne,\n    With modesty admiring thy renown,\n    By me entreats, great lord, thou wouldst vouchsafe\n    To visit her poor castle where she lies,\n    That she may boast she hath beheld the man\n    Whose glory fills the world with loud report.\n  BURGUNDY. Is it even so? Nay, then I see our wars\n    Will turn into a peaceful comic sport,\n    When ladies crave to be encount'red with.\n    You may not, my lord, despise her gentle suit.\n  TALBOT. Ne'er trust me then; for when a world of men\n    Could not prevail with all their oratory,\n    Yet hath a woman's kindness overrul'd;\n    And therefore tell her I return great thanks\n    And in submission will attend on her.\n    Will not your honours bear me company?\n  BEDFORD. No, truly; 'tis more than manners will;\n    And I have heard it said unbidden guests\n    Are often welcomest when they are gone.\n  TALBOT. Well then, alone, since there's no remedy,\n    I mean to prove this lady's courtesy.\n    Come hither, Captain.  [Whispers]   You perceive my mind?\n  CAPTAIN. I do, my lord, and mean accordingly.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 3.\n\n                      AUVERGNE. The Castle\n\n               Enter the COUNTESS and her PORTER\n\n  COUNTESS. Porter, remember what I gave in charge;\n    And when you have done so, bring the keys to me.\n  PORTER. Madam, I will.\n  COUNTESS. The plot is laid; if all things fall out right,\n    I shall as famous be by this exploit.\n    As Scythian Tomyris by Cyrus' death.\n    Great is the rumour of this dreadful knight,\n    And his achievements of no less account.\n    Fain would mine eyes be witness with mine ears\n    To give their censure of these rare reports.\n\n    Enter MESSENGER and TALBOT.\n\n  MESSENGER. Madam, according as your ladyship desir'd,\n    By message crav'd, so is Lord Talbot come.\n  COUNTESS. And he is welcome. What! is this the man?\n  MESSENGER. Madam, it is.\n  COUNTESS. Is this the scourge of France?\n    Is this Talbot, so much fear'd abroad\n    That with his name the mothers still their babes?\n    I see report is fabulous and false.\n    I thought I should have seen some Hercules,\n    A second Hector, for his grim aspect\n    And large proportion of his strong-knit limbs.\n    Alas, this is a child, a silly dwarf!\n    It cannot be this weak and writhled shrimp\n    Should strike such terror to his enemies.\n  TALBOT. Madam, I have been bold to trouble you;\n    But since your ladyship is not at leisure,\n    I'll sort some other time to visit you.              [Going]\n  COUNTESS. What means he now? Go ask him whither he\n    goes.\n  MESSENGER. Stay, my Lord Talbot; for my lady craves\n    To know the cause of your abrupt departure.\n  TALBOT. Marry, for that she's in a wrong belief,\n    I go to certify her Talbot's here.\n\n                      Re-enter PORTER With keys\n\n  COUNTESS. If thou be he, then art thou prisoner.\n  TALBOT. Prisoner! To whom?\n  COUNTESS. To me, blood-thirsty lord\n    And for that cause I train'd thee to my house.\n    Long time thy shadow hath been thrall to me,\n    For in my gallery thy picture hangs;\n    But now the substance shall endure the like\n    And I will chain these legs and arms of thine\n    That hast by tyranny these many years\n    Wasted our country, slain our citizens,\n    And sent our sons and husbands captivate.\n  TALBOT. Ha, ha, ha!\n  COUNTESS. Laughest thou, wretch? Thy mirth shall turn to\n    moan.\n  TALBOT. I laugh to see your ladyship so fond\n    To think that you have aught but Talbot's shadow\n    Whereon to practise your severity.\n  COUNTESS. Why, art not thou the man?\n  TALBOT. I am indeed.\n  COUNTESS. Then have I substance too.\n  TALBOT. No, no, I am but shadow of myself.\n    You are deceiv'd, my substance is not here;\n    For what you see is but the smallest part\n    And least proportion of humanity.\n    I tell you, madam, were the whole frame here,\n    It is of such a spacious lofty pitch\n    Your roof were not sufficient to contain 't.\n  COUNTESS. This is a riddling merchant for the nonce;\n    He will be here, and yet he is not here.\n    How can these contrarieties agree?\n  TALBOT. That will I show you presently.\n\n                   Winds his horn; drums strike up;\n                  a peal of ordnance. Enter soldiers\n\n    How say you, madam? Are you now persuaded\n    That Talbot is but shadow of himself?\n    These are his substance, sinews, arms, and strength,\n    With which he yoketh your rebellious necks,\n    Razeth your cities, and subverts your towns,\n    And in a moment makes them desolate.\n  COUNTESS. Victorious Talbot! pardon my abuse.\n    I find thou art no less than fame hath bruited,\n    And more than may be gathered by thy shape.\n    Let my presumption not provoke thy wrath,\n    For I am sorry that with reverence\n    I did not entertain thee as thou art.\n  TALBOT. Be not dismay'd, fair lady; nor misconster\n    The mind of Talbot as you did mistake\n    The outward composition of his body.\n    What you have done hath not offended me.\n    Nor other satisfaction do I crave\n    But only, with your patience, that we may\n    Taste of your wine and see what cates you have,\n    For soldiers' stomachs always serve them well.\n  COUNTESS. With all my heart, and think me honoured\n    To feast so great a warrior in my house.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n                            SCENE 4.\n\n                   London. The Temple garden\n\n         Enter the EARLS OF SOMERSET, SUFFOLK, and WARWICK;\n           RICHARD PLANTAGENET, VERNON, and another LAWYER\n\n  PLANTAGENET. Great lords and gentlemen, what means this\n    silence?\n    Dare no man answer in a case of truth?\n  SUFFOLK. Within the Temple Hall we were too loud;\n    The garden here is more convenient.\n  PLANTAGENET. Then say at once if I maintain'd the truth;\n    Or else was wrangling Somerset in th' error?\n  SUFFOLK. Faith, I have been a truant in the law\n    And never yet could frame my will to it;\n    And therefore frame the law unto my will.\n  SOMERSET. Judge you, my Lord of Warwick, then, between us.\n  WARWICK. Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch;\n    Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth;\n    Between two blades, which bears the better temper;\n    Between two horses, which doth bear him best;\n    Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye\n    I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgment;\n    But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,\n    Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.\n  PLANTAGENET. Tut, tut, here is a mannerly forbearance:\n    The truth appears so naked on my side\n    That any purblind eye may find it out.\n  SOMERSET. And on my side it is so well apparell'd,\n    So clear, so shining, and so evident,\n    That it will glimmer through a blind man's eye.\n  PLANTAGENET. Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak,\n    In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts.\n    Let him that is a true-born gentleman\n    And stands upon the honour of his birth,\n    If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,\n    From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.\n  SOMERSET. Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer,\n    But dare maintain the party of the truth,\n    Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.\n  WARWICK. I love no colours; and, without all colour\n    Of base insinuating flattery,\n    I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet.\n  SUFFOLK. I pluck this red rose with young Somerset,\n    And say withal I think he held the right.\n  VERNON. Stay, lords and gentlemen, and pluck no more\n    Till you conclude that he upon whose side\n    The fewest roses are cropp'd from the tree\n    Shall yield the other in the right opinion.\n  SOMERSET. Good Master Vernon, it is well objected;\n    If I have fewest, I subscribe in silence.\n  PLANTAGENET. And I.\n  VERNON. Then, for the truth and plainness of the case,\n    I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here,\n    Giving my verdict on the white rose side.\n  SOMERSET. Prick not your finger as you pluck it off,\n    Lest, bleeding, you do paint the white rose red,\n    And fall on my side so, against your will.\n  VERNON. If I, my lord, for my opinion bleed,\n    Opinion shall be surgeon to my hurt\n    And keep me on the side where still I am.\n  SOMERSET. Well, well, come on; who else?\n  LAWYER.  [To Somerset]  Unless my study and my books be\n    false,\n    The argument you held was wrong in you;\n    In sign whereof I pluck a white rose too.\n  PLANTAGENET. Now, Somerset, where is your argument?\n  SOMERSET. Here in my scabbard, meditating that\n    Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red.\n  PLANTAGENET. Meantime your cheeks do counterfeit our\n    roses;\n    For pale they look with fear, as witnessing\n    The truth on our side.\n  SOMERSET. No, Plantagenet,\n    'Tis not for fear but anger that thy cheeks\n    Blush for pure shame to counterfeit our roses,\n    And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error.\n  PLANTAGENET. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset?\n  SOMERSET. Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet?\n  PLANTAGENET. Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his truth;\n    Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.\n  SOMERSET. Well, I'll find friends to wear my bleeding roses,\n    That shall maintain what I have said is true,\n    Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen.\n  PLANTAGENET. Now, by this maiden blossom in my hand,\n    I scorn thee and thy fashion, peevish boy.\n  SUFFOLK. Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet.\n  PLANTAGENET. Proud Pole, I will, and scorn both him and\n    thee.\n  SUFFOLK. I'll turn my part thereof into thy throat.\n  SOMERSET. Away, away, good William de la Pole!\n    We grace the yeoman by conversing with him.\n  WARWICK. Now, by God's will, thou wrong'st him, Somerset;\n    His grandfather was Lionel Duke of Clarence,\n    Third son to the third Edward, King of England.\n    Spring crestless yeomen from so deep a root?\n  PLANTAGENET. He bears him on the place's privilege,\n    Or durst not for his craven heart say thus.\n  SOMERSET. By Him that made me, I'll maintain my words\n    On any plot of ground in Christendom.\n    Was not thy father, Richard Earl of Cambridge,\n    For treason executed in our late king's days?\n    And by his treason stand'st not thou attainted,\n    Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry?\n    His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood;\n    And till thou be restor'd thou art a yeoman.\n  PLANTAGENET. My father was attached, not attainted;\n    Condemn'd to die for treason, but no traitor;\n    And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset,\n    Were growing time once ripened to my will.\n    For your partaker Pole, and you yourself,\n    I'll note you in my book of memory\n    To scourge you for this apprehension.\n    Look to it well, and say you are well warn'd.\n  SOMERSET. Ay, thou shalt find us ready for thee still;\n    And know us by these colours for thy foes\n    For these my friends in spite of thee shall wear.\n  PLANTAGENET. And, by my soul, this pale and angry rose,\n    As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate,\n    Will I for ever, and my faction, wear,\n    Until it wither with me to my grave,\n    Or flourish to the height of my degree.\n  SUFFOLK. Go forward, and be chok'd with thy ambition!\n    And so farewell until I meet thee next.                 Exit\n  SOMERSET. Have with thee, Pole. Farewell, ambitious\n    Richard.                                                Exit\n  PLANTAGENET. How I am brav'd, and must perforce endure\n    it!\n  WARWICK. This blot that they object against your house\n    Shall be wip'd out in the next Parliament,\n    Call'd for the truce of Winchester and Gloucester;\n    And if thou be not then created York,\n    I will not live to be accounted Warwick.\n    Meantime, in signal of my love to thee,\n    Against proud Somerset and William Pole,\n    Will I upon thy party wear this rose;\n    And here I prophesy: this brawl to-day,\n    Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,\n    Shall send between the Red Rose and the White\n    A thousand souls to death and deadly night.\n  PLANTAGENET. Good Master Vernon, I am bound to you\n    That you on my behalf would pluck a flower.\n  VERNON. In your behalf still will I wear the same.\n  LAWYER. And so will I.\n  PLANTAGENET. Thanks, gentle sir.\n    Come, let us four to dinner. I dare say\n    This quarrel will drink blood another day.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 5.\n\n                       The Tower of London\n\n         Enter MORTIMER, brought in a chair, and GAOLERS\n\n  MORTIMER. Kind keepers of my weak decaying age,\n    Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.\n    Even like a man new haled from the rack,\n    So fare my limbs with long imprisonment;\n    And these grey locks, the pursuivants of death,\n    Nestor-like aged in an age of care,\n    Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer.\n    These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent,\n    Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent;\n    Weak shoulders, overborne with burdening grief,\n    And pithless arms, like to a withered vine\n    That droops his sapless branches to the ground.\n    Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is numb,\n    Unable to support this lump of clay,\n    Swift-winged with desire to get a grave,\n    As witting I no other comfort have.\n    But tell me, keeper, will my nephew come?\n  FIRST KEEPER. Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will come.\n    We sent unto the Temple, unto his chamber;\n    And answer was return'd that he will come.\n  MORTIMER. Enough; my soul shall then be satisfied.\n    Poor gentleman! his wrong doth equal mine.\n    Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign,\n    Before whose glory I was great in arms,\n    This loathsome sequestration have I had;\n    And even since then hath Richard been obscur'd,\n    Depriv'd of honour and inheritance.\n    But now the arbitrator of despairs,\n    Just Death, kind umpire of men's miseries,\n    With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence.\n    I would his troubles likewise were expir'd,\n    That so he might recover what was lost.\n\n                     Enter RICHARD PLANTAGENET\n\n  FIRST KEEPER. My lord, your loving nephew now is come.\n  MORTIMER. Richard Plantagenet, my friend, is he come?\n  PLANTAGENET. Ay, noble uncle, thus ignobly us'd,\n    Your nephew, late despised Richard, comes.\n  MORTIMER. Direct mine arms I may embrace his neck\n    And in his bosom spend my latter gasp.\n    O, tell me when my lips do touch his cheeks,\n    That I may kindly give one fainting kiss.\n    And now declare, sweet stem from York's great stock,\n    Why didst thou say of late thou wert despis'd?\n  PLANTAGENET. First, lean thine aged back against mine arm;\n    And, in that ease, I'll tell thee my disease.\n    This day, in argument upon a case,\n    Some words there grew 'twixt Somerset and me;\n    Among which terms he us'd his lavish tongue\n    And did upbraid me with my father's death;\n    Which obloquy set bars before my tongue,\n    Else with the like I had requited him.\n    Therefore, good uncle, for my father's sake,\n    In honour of a true Plantagenet,\n    And for alliance sake, declare the cause\n    My father, Earl of Cambridge, lost his head.\n  MORTIMER. That cause, fair nephew, that imprison'd me\n    And hath detain'd me all my flow'ring youth\n    Within a loathsome dungeon, there to pine,\n    Was cursed instrument of his decease.\n  PLANTAGENET. Discover more at large what cause that was,\n    For I am ignorant and cannot guess.\n  MORTIMER. I will, if that my fading breath permit\n    And death approach not ere my tale be done.\n    Henry the Fourth, grandfather to this king,\n    Depos'd his nephew Richard, Edward's son,\n    The first-begotten and the lawful heir\n    Of Edward king, the third of that descent;\n    During whose reign the Percies of the north,\n    Finding his usurpation most unjust,\n    Endeavour'd my advancement to the throne.\n    The reason mov'd these warlike lords to this\n    Was, for that-young Richard thus remov'd,\n    Leaving no heir begotten of his body-\n    I was the next by birth and parentage;\n    For by my mother I derived am\n    From Lionel Duke of Clarence, third son\n    To King Edward the Third; whereas he\n    From John of Gaunt doth bring his pedigree,\n    Being but fourth of that heroic line.\n    But mark: as in this haughty great attempt\n    They laboured to plant the rightful heir,\n    I lost my liberty, and they their lives.\n    Long after this, when Henry the Fifth,\n    Succeeding his father Bolingbroke, did reign,\n    Thy father, Earl of Cambridge, then deriv'd\n    From famous Edmund Langley, Duke of York,\n    Marrying my sister, that thy mother was,\n    Again, in pity of my hard distress,\n    Levied an army, weening to redeem\n    And have install'd me in the diadem;\n    But, as the rest, so fell that noble earl,\n    And was beheaded. Thus the Mortimers,\n    In whom the title rested, were suppress'd.\n  PLANTAGENET. Of Which, my lord, your honour is the last.\n  MORTIMER. True; and thou seest that I no issue have,\n    And that my fainting words do warrant death.\n    Thou art my heir; the rest I wish thee gather;\n    But yet be wary in thy studious care.\n  PLANTAGENET. Thy grave admonishments prevail with me.\n    But yet methinks my father's execution\n    Was nothing less than bloody tyranny.\n  MORTIMER. With silence, nephew, be thou politic;\n    Strong fixed is the house of Lancaster\n    And like a mountain not to be remov'd.\n    But now thy uncle is removing hence,\n    As princes do their courts when they are cloy'd\n    With long continuance in a settled place.\n  PLANTAGENET. O uncle, would some part of my young years\n    Might but redeem the passage of your age!\n  MORTIMER. Thou dost then wrong me, as that slaughterer\n    doth\n    Which giveth many wounds when one will kill.\n    Mourn not, except thou sorrow for my good;\n    Only give order for my funeral.\n    And so, farewell; and fair be all thy hopes,\n    And prosperous be thy life in peace and war!          [Dies]\n  PLANTAGENET. And peace, no war, befall thy parting soul!\n    In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage,\n    And like a hermit overpass'd thy days.\n    Well, I will lock his counsel in my breast;\n    And what I do imagine, let that rest.\n    Keepers, convey him hence; and I myself\n    Will see his burial better than his life.\n                Exeunt GAOLERS, hearing out the body of MORTIMER\n    Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer,\n    Chok'd with ambition of the meaner sort;\n    And for those wrongs, those bitter injuries,\n    Which Somerset hath offer'd to my house,\n    I doubt not but with honour to redress;\n    And therefore haste I to the Parliament,\n    Either to be restored to my blood,\n    Or make my ill th' advantage of my good.                Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. The Parliament House\n\nFlourish. Enter the KING, EXETER, GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, SOMERSET,\nand SUFFOLK;\nthe BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, RICHARD PLANTAGENET, and others.\nGLOUCESTER offers to put up a bill; WINCHESTER snatches it, and\ntears it\n\n  WINCHESTER. Com'st thou with deep premeditated lines,\n    With written pamphlets studiously devis'd?\n    Humphrey of Gloucester, if thou canst accuse\n    Or aught intend'st to lay unto my charge,\n    Do it without invention, suddenly;\n    I with sudden and extemporal speech\n    Purpose to answer what thou canst object.\n  GLOUCESTER. Presumptuous priest, this place commands my\n    patience,\n    Or thou shouldst find thou hast dishonour'd me.\n    Think not, although in writing I preferr'd\n    The manner of thy vile outrageous crimes,\n    That therefore I have forg'd, or am not able\n    Verbatim to rehearse the method of my pen.\n    No, prelate; such is thy audacious wickedness,\n    Thy lewd, pestiferous, and dissentious pranks,\n    As very infants prattle of thy pride.\n    Thou art a most pernicious usurer;\n    Froward by nature, enemy to peace;\n    Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems\n    A man of thy profession and degree;\n    And for thy treachery, what's more manifest\n    In that thou laid'st a trap to take my life,\n    As well at London Bridge as at the Tower?\n    Beside, I fear me, if thy thoughts were sifted,\n    The King, thy sovereign, is not quite exempt\n    From envious malice of thy swelling heart.\n  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, I do defy thee. Lords, vouchsafe\n    To give me hearing what I shall reply.\n    If I were covetous, ambitious, or perverse,\n    As he will have me, how am I so poor?\n    Or how haps it I seek not to advance\n    Or raise myself, but keep my wonted calling?\n    And for dissension, who preferreth peace\n    More than I do, except I be provok'd?\n    No, my good lords, it is not that offends;\n    It is not that that incens'd hath incens'd the Duke:\n    It is because no one should sway but he;\n    No one but he should be about the King;\n    And that engenders thunder in his breast\n    And makes him roar these accusations forth.\n    But he shall know I am as good\n  GLOUCESTER. As good!\n    Thou bastard of my grandfather!\n  WINCHESTER. Ay, lordly sir; for what are you, I pray,\n    But one imperious in another's throne?\n  GLOUCESTER. Am I not Protector, saucy priest?\n  WINCHESTER. And am not I a prelate of the church?\n  GLOUCESTER. Yes, as an outlaw in a castle keeps,\n    And useth it to patronage his theft.\n  WINCHESTER. Unreverent Gloucester!\n  GLOUCESTER. Thou art reverend\n    Touching thy spiritual function, not thy life.\n  WINCHESTER. Rome shall remedy this.\n  WARWICK. Roam thither then.\n  SOMERSET. My lord, it were your duty to forbear.\n  WARWICK. Ay, see the bishop be not overborne.\n  SOMERSET. Methinks my lord should be religious,\n    And know the office that belongs to such.\n  WARWICK. Methinks his lordship should be humbler;\n    It fitteth not a prelate so to plead.\n  SOMERSET. Yes, when his holy state is touch'd so near.\n  WARWICK. State holy or unhallow'd, what of that?\n    Is not his Grace Protector to the King?\n  PLANTAGENET.  [Aside]  Plantagenet, I see, must hold his\n    tongue,\n    Lest it be said 'Speak, sirrah, when you should;\n    Must your bold verdict enter talk with lords?'\n    Else would I have a fling at Winchester.\n  KING HENRY. Uncles of Gloucester and of Winchester,\n    The special watchmen of our English weal,\n    I would prevail, if prayers might prevail\n    To join your hearts in love and amity.\n    O, what a scandal is it to our crown\n    That two such noble peers as ye should jar!\n    Believe me, lords, my tender years can tell\n    Civil dissension is a viperous worm\n    That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth.\n                  [A noise within: 'Down with the tawny coats!']\n    What tumult's this?\n  WARWICK. An uproar, I dare warrant,\n    Begun through malice of the Bishop's men.\n                              [A noise again: 'Stones! Stones!']\n\n                Enter the MAYOR OF LONDON, attended\n\n  MAYOR. O, my good lords, and virtuous Henry,\n    Pity the city of London, pity us!\n    The Bishop and the Duke of Gloucester's men,\n    Forbidden late to carry any weapon,\n    Have fill'd their pockets full of pebble stones\n    And, banding themselves in contrary parts,\n    Do pelt so fast at one another's pate\n    That many have their giddy brains knock'd out.\n    Our windows are broke down in every street,\n    And we for fear compell'd to shut our shops.\n\n        Enter in skirmish, the retainers of GLOUCESTER and\n               WINCHESTER, with bloody pates\n\n  KING HENRY. We charge you, on allegiance to ourself,\n    To hold your slaught'ring hands and keep the peace.\n    Pray, uncle Gloucester, mitigate this strife.\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Nay, if we be forbidden stones, we'll\n    fall to it with our teeth.\n  SECOND SERVING-MAN. Do what ye dare, we are as resolute.\n                                                [Skirmish again]\n  GLOUCESTER. You of my household, leave this peevish broil,\n    And set this unaccustom'd fight aside.\n  THIRD SERVING-MAN. My lord, we know your Grace to be a\n    man\n    Just and upright, and for your royal birth\n    Inferior to none but to his Majesty;\n    And ere that we will suffer such a prince,\n    So kind a father of the commonweal,\n    To be disgraced by an inkhorn mate,\n    We and our wives and children all will fight\n    And have our bodies slaught'red by thy foes.\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Ay, and the very parings of our nails\n    Shall pitch a field when we are dead.          [Begin again]\n  GLOUCESTER. Stay, stay, I say!\n    And if you love me, as you say you do,\n    Let me persuade you to forbear awhile.\n  KING HENRY. O, how this discord doth afflict my soul!\n    Can you, my Lord of Winchester, behold\n    My sighs and tears and will not once relent?\n    Who should be pitiful, if you be not?\n    Or who should study to prefer a peace,\n    If holy churchmen take delight in broils?\n  WARWICK. Yield, my Lord Protector; yield, Winchester;\n    Except you mean with obstinate repulse\n    To slay your sovereign and destroy the realm.\n    You see what mischief, and what murder too,\n    Hath been enacted through your enmity;\n    Then be at peace, except ye thirst for blood.\n  WINCHESTER. He shall submit, or I will never yield.\n  GLOUCESTER. Compassion on the King commands me stoop,\n    Or I would see his heart out ere the priest\n    Should ever get that privilege of me.\n  WARWICK. Behold, my Lord of Winchester, the Duke\n    Hath banish'd moody discontented fury,\n    As by his smoothed brows it doth appear;\n    Why look you still so stem and tragical?\n  GLOUCESTER. Here, Winchester, I offer thee my hand.\n  KING HENRY. Fie, uncle Beaufort! I have heard you preach\n    That malice was a great and grievous sin;\n    And will not you maintain the thing you teach,\n    But prove a chief offender in the same?\n  WARWICK. Sweet King! The Bishop hath a kindly gird.\n    For shame, my Lord of Winchester, relent;\n    What, shall a child instruct you what to do?\n  WINCHESTER. Well, Duke of Gloucester, I will yield to thee;\n    Love for thy love and hand for hand I give.\n  GLOUCESTER  [Aside]  Ay, but, I fear me, with a hollow\n    heart.\n    See here, my friends and loving countrymen:\n    This token serveth for a flag of truce\n    Betwixt ourselves and all our followers.\n    So help me God, as I dissemble not!\n  WINCHESTER  [Aside]  So help me God, as I intend it not!\n  KING HENRY. O loving uncle, kind Duke of Gloucester,\n    How joyful am I made by this contract!\n    Away, my masters! trouble us no more;\n    But join in friendship, as your lords have done.\n  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Content: I'll to the surgeon's.\n  SECOND SERVING-MAN. And so will I.\n  THIRD SERVING-MAN. And I will see what physic the tavern\n    affords.                         Exeunt servants, MAYOR, &C.\n  WARWICK. Accept this scroll, most gracious sovereign;\n    Which in the right of Richard Plantagenet\n    We do exhibit to your Majesty.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well urg'd, my Lord of Warwick; for, sweet\n    prince,\n    An if your Grace mark every circumstance,\n    You have great reason to do Richard right;\n    Especially for those occasions\n    At Eltham Place I told your Majesty.\n  KING HENRY. And those occasions, uncle, were of force;\n    Therefore, my loving lords, our pleasure is\n    That Richard be restored to his blood.\n  WARWICK. Let Richard be restored to his blood;\n    So shall his father's wrongs be recompens'd.\n  WINCHESTER. As will the rest, so willeth Winchester.\n  KING HENRY. If Richard will be true, not that alone\n    But all the whole inheritance I give\n    That doth belong unto the house of York,\n    From whence you spring by lineal descent.\n  PLANTAGENET. Thy humble servant vows obedience\n    And humble service till the point of death.\n  KING HENRY. Stoop then and set your knee against my foot;\n    And in reguerdon of that duty done\n    I girt thee with the valiant sword of York.\n    Rise, Richard, like a true Plantagenet,\n    And rise created princely Duke of York.\n  PLANTAGENET. And so thrive Richard as thy foes may fall!\n    And as my duty springs, so perish they\n    That grudge one thought against your Majesty!\n  ALL. Welcome, high Prince, the mighty Duke of York!\n  SOMERSET.  [Aside]  Perish, base Prince, ignoble Duke of\n    York!\n  GLOUCESTER. Now will it best avail your Majesty\n    To cross the seas and to be crown'd in France:\n    The presence of a king engenders love\n    Amongst his subjects and his loyal friends,\n    As it disanimates his enemies.\n  KING HENRY. When Gloucester says the word, King Henry\n    goes;\n    For friendly counsel cuts off many foes.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your ships already are in readiness.\n                         Sennet. Flourish. Exeunt all but EXETER\n  EXETER. Ay, we may march in England or in France,\n    Not seeing what is likely to ensue.\n    This late dissension grown betwixt the peers\n    Burns under feigned ashes of forg'd love\n    And will at last break out into a flame;\n    As fest'red members rot but by degree\n    Till bones and flesh and sinews fall away,\n    So will this base and envious discord breed.\n    And now I fear that fatal prophecy.\n    Which in the time of Henry nam'd the Fifth\n    Was in the mouth of every sucking babe:\n    That Henry born at Monmouth should win all,\n    And Henry born at Windsor should lose all.\n    Which is so plain that Exeter doth wish\n    His days may finish ere that hapless time.              Exit\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 2.\n\n                      France. Before Rouen\n\n       Enter LA PUCELLE disguis'd, with four soldiers dressed\n            like countrymen, with sacks upon their backs\n\n  PUCELLE. These are the city gates, the gates of Rouen,\n    Through which our policy must make a breach.\n    Take heed, be wary how you place your words;\n    Talk like the vulgar sort of market-men\n    That come to gather money for their corn.\n    If we have entrance, as I hope we shall,\n    And that we find the slothful watch but weak,\n    I'll by a sign give notice to our friends,\n    That Charles the Dauphin may encounter them.\n  FIRST SOLDIER. Our sacks shall be a mean to sack the city,\n    And we be lords and rulers over Rouen;\n    Therefore we'll knock.                              [Knocks]\n  WATCH.  [Within]  Qui est la?\n  PUCELLE. Paysans, pauvres gens de France\n    Poor market-folks that come to sell their corn.\n  WATCH. Enter, go in; the market-bell is rung.\n  PUCELLE. Now, Rouen, I'll shake thy bulwarks to the\n    ground.\n\n                               [LA PUCELLE, &c., enter the town]\n\n        Enter CHARLES, BASTARD, ALENCON, REIGNIER, and forces\n\n  CHARLES. Saint Denis bless this happy stratagem!\n    And once again we'll sleep secure in Rouen.\n  BASTARD. Here ent'red Pucelle and her practisants;\n    Now she is there, how will she specify\n    Here is the best and safest passage in?\n  ALENCON. By thrusting out a torch from yonder tower;\n    Which once discern'd shows that her meaning is\n    No way to that, for weakness, which she ent'red.\n\n             Enter LA PUCELLE, on the top, thrusting out\n                         a torch burning\n\n  PUCELLE. Behold, this is the happy wedding torch\n    That joineth Rouen unto her countrymen,\n    But burning fatal to the Talbotites.                    Exit\n  BASTARD. See, noble Charles, the beacon of our friend;\n    The burning torch in yonder turret stands.\n  CHARLES. Now shine it like a comet of revenge,\n    A prophet to the fall of all our foes!\n  ALENCON. Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends;\n    Enter, and cry 'The Dauphin!' presently,\n    And then do execution on the watch. Alarum.           Exeunt\n\n              An alarum. Enter TALBOT in an excursion\n\n  TALBOT. France, thou shalt rue this treason with thy tears,\n    If Talbot but survive thy treachery.\n  PUCELLE, that witch, that damned sorceress,\n    Hath wrought this hellish mischief unawares,\n    That hardly we escap'd the pride of France.             Exit\n\n        An alarum; excursions. BEDFORD brought in sick in\n          a chair. Enter TALBOT and BURGUNDY without;\n         within, LA PUCELLE, CHARLES, BASTARD, ALENCON,\n                 and REIGNIER, on the walls\n\n  PUCELLE. Good morrow, gallants! Want ye corn for bread?\n    I think the Duke of Burgundy will fast\n    Before he'll buy again at such a rate.\n    'Twas full of darnel-do you like the taste?\n  BURGUNDY. Scoff on, vile fiend and shameless courtezan.\n    I trust ere long to choke thee with thine own,\n    And make thee curse the harvest of that corn.\n  CHARLES. Your Grace may starve, perhaps, before that time.\n  BEDFORD. O, let no words, but deeds, revenge this treason!\n  PUCELLE. What you do, good grey beard? Break a\n    lance,\n    And run a tilt at death within a chair?\n  TALBOT. Foul fiend of France and hag of all despite,\n    Encompass'd with thy lustful paramours,\n    Becomes it thee to taunt his valiant age\n    And twit with cowardice a man half dead?\n    Damsel, I'll have a bout with you again,\n    Or else let Talbot perish with this shame.\n  PUCELLE. Are ye so hot, sir? Yet, Pucelle, hold thy peace;\n    If Talbot do but thunder, rain will follow.\n                 [The English party whisper together in council]\n    God speed the parliament! Who shall be the Speaker?\n  TALBOT. Dare ye come forth and meet us in the field?\n  PUCELLE. Belike your lordship takes us then for fools,\n    To try if that our own be ours or no.\n  TALBOT. I speak not to that railing Hecate,\n    But unto thee, Alencon, and the rest.\n    Will ye, like soldiers, come and fight it out?\n  ALENCON. Signior, no.\n  TALBOT. Signior, hang! Base muleteers of France!\n    Like peasant foot-boys do they keep the walls,\n    And dare not take up arms like gentlemen.\n  PUCELLE. Away, captains! Let's get us from the walls;\n    For Talbot means no goodness by his looks.\n    God b'uy, my lord; we came but to tell you\n    That we are here.                      Exeunt from the walls\n\n  TALBOT. And there will we be too, ere it be long,\n    Or else reproach be Talbot's greatest fame!\n    Vow, Burgundy, by honour of thy house,\n    Prick'd on by public wrongs sustain'd in France,\n    Either to get the town again or die;\n    And I, as sure as English Henry lives\n    And as his father here was conqueror,\n    As sure as in this late betrayed town\n    Great Coeur-de-lion's heart was buried\n    So sure I swear to get the town or die.\n  BURGUNDY. My vows are equal partners with thy vows.\n  TALBOT. But ere we go, regard this dying prince,\n    The valiant Duke of Bedford. Come, my lord,\n    We will bestow you in some better place,\n    Fitter for sickness and for crazy age.\n  BEDFORD. Lord Talbot, do not so dishonour me;\n    Here will I sit before the walls of Rouen,\n    And will be partner of your weal or woe.\n  BURGUNDY. Courageous Bedford, let us now persuade you.\n  BEDFORD. Not to be gone from hence; for once I read\n    That stout Pendragon in his litter sick\n    Came to the field, and vanquished his foes.\n    Methinks I should revive the soldiers' hearts,\n    Because I ever found them as myself.\n  TALBOT. Undaunted spirit in a dying breast!\n    Then be it so. Heavens keep old Bedford safe!\n    And now no more ado, brave Burgundy,\n    But gather we our forces out of hand\n    And set upon our boasting enemy.\n          Exeunt against the town all but BEDFORD and attendants\n\n           An alarum; excursions. Enter SIR JOHN FASTOLFE,\n                           and a CAPTAIN\n\n  CAPTAIN. Whither away, Sir John Fastolfe, in such haste?\n  FASTOLFE. Whither away? To save myself by flight:\n    We are like to have the overthrow again.\n  CAPTAIN. What! Will you and leave Lord Talbot?\n  FASTOLFE. Ay,\n    All the Talbots in the world, to save my life.          Exit\n\n  CAPTAIN. Cowardly knight! ill fortune follow thee!\n                                              Exit into the town\n\n         Retreat; excursions. LA PUCELLE, ALENCON,\n                      and CHARLES fly\n\n  BEDFORD. Now, quiet soul, depart when heaven please,\n    For I have seen our enemies' overthrow.\n    What is the trust or strength of foolish man?\n    They that of late were daring with their scoffs\n    Are glad and fain by flight to save themselves.\n            [BEDFORD dies and is carried in by two in his chair]\n\n          An alarum. Re-enter TALBOT, BURGUNDY, and the rest\n\n  TALBOT. Lost and recovered in a day again!\n    This is a double honour, Burgundy.\n    Yet heavens have glory for this victory!\n  BURGUNDY. Warlike and martial Talbot, Burgundy\n    Enshrines thee in his heart, and there erects\n    Thy noble deeds as valour's monuments.\n  TALBOT. Thanks, gentle Duke. But where is Pucelle now?\n    I think her old familiar is asleep.\n    Now where's the Bastard's braves, and Charles his gleeks?\n    What, all amort? Rouen hangs her head for grief\n    That such a valiant company are fled.\n    Now will we take some order in the town,\n    Placing therein some expert officers;\n    And then depart to Paris to the King,\n    For there young Henry with his nobles lie.\n  BURGUNDY. What Lord Talbot pleaseth Burgundy.\n  TALBOT. But yet, before we go, let's not forget\n    The noble Duke of Bedford, late deceas'd,\n    But see his exequies fulfill'd in Rouen.\n    A braver soldier never couched lance,\n    A gentler heart did never sway in court;\n    But kings and mightiest potentates must die,\n    For that's the end of human misery.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 3.\n\n                      The plains near Rouen\n\n        Enter CHARLES, the BASTARD, ALENCON, LA PUCELLE,\n                          and forces\n\n  PUCELLE. Dismay not, Princes, at this accident,\n    Nor grieve that Rouen is so recovered.\n    Care is no cure, but rather corrosive,\n    For things that are not to be remedied.\n    Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while\n    And like a peacock sweep along his tail;\n    We'll pull his plumes and take away his train,\n    If Dauphin and the rest will be but rul'd.\n  CHARLES. We have guided by thee hitherto,\n    And of thy cunning had no diffidence;\n    One sudden foil shall never breed distrust\n  BASTARD. Search out thy wit for secret policies,\n    And we will make thee famous through the world.\n    ALENCON. We'll set thy statue in some holy place,\n    And have thee reverenc'd like a blessed saint.\n    Employ thee, then, sweet virgin, for our good.\n  PUCELLE. Then thus it must be; this doth Joan devise:\n    By fair persuasions, mix'd with sug'red words,\n    We will entice the Duke of Burgundy\n    To leave the Talbot and to follow us.\n  CHARLES. Ay, marry, sweeting, if we could do that,\n    France were no place for Henry's warriors;\n    Nor should that nation boast it so with us,\n    But be extirped from our provinces.\n  ALENCON. For ever should they be expuls'd from France,\n    And not have tide of an earldom here.\n  PUCELLE. Your honours shall perceive how I will work\n    To bring this matter to the wished end.\n                                          [Drum sounds afar off]\n    Hark! by the sound of drum you may perceive\n    Their powers are marching unto Paris-ward.\n\n          Here sound an English march. Enter, and pass over\n                at a distance, TALBOT and his forces\n\n    There goes the Talbot, with his colours spread,\n    And all the troops of English after him.\n\n            French march. Enter the DUKE OF BURGUNDY and\n                         his forces\n\n    Now in the rearward comes the Duke and his.\n    Fortune in favour makes him lag behind.\n    Summon a parley; we will talk with him.\n                                       [Trumpets sound a parley]\n  CHARLES. A parley with the Duke of Burgundy!\n  BURGUNDY. Who craves a parley with the Burgundy?\n  PUCELLE. The princely Charles of France, thy countryman.\n  BURGUNDY. What say'st thou, Charles? for I am marching\n    hence.\n  CHARLES. Speak, Pucelle, and enchant him with thy words.\n  PUCELLE. Brave Burgundy, undoubted hope of France!\n    Stay, let thy humble handmaid speak to thee.\n  BURGUNDY. Speak on; but be not over-tedious.\n  PUCELLE. Look on thy country, look on fertile France,\n    And see the cities and the towns defac'd\n    By wasting ruin of the cruel foe;\n    As looks the mother on her lowly babe\n    When death doth close his tender dying eyes,\n    See, see the pining malady of France;\n    Behold the wounds, the most unnatural wounds,\n    Which thou thyself hast given her woeful breast.\n    O, turn thy edged sword another way;\n    Strike those that hurt, and hurt not those that help!\n    One drop of blood drawn from thy country's bosom\n    Should grieve thee more than streams of foreign gore.\n    Return thee therefore with a flood of tears,\n    And wash away thy country's stained spots.\n  BURGUNDY. Either she hath bewitch'd me with her words,\n    Or nature makes me suddenly relent.\n  PUCELLE. Besides, all French and France exclaims on thee,\n    Doubting thy birth and lawful progeny.\n    Who join'st thou with but with a lordly nation\n    That will not trust thee but for profit's sake?\n    When Talbot hath set footing once in France,\n    And fashion'd thee that instrument of ill,\n    Who then but English Henry will be lord,\n    And thou be thrust out like a fugitive?\n    Call we to mind-and mark but this for proof:\n    Was not the Duke of Orleans thy foe?\n    And was he not in England prisoner?\n    But when they heard he was thine enemy\n    They set him free without his ransom paid,\n    In spite of Burgundy and all his friends.\n    See then, thou fight'st against thy countrymen,\n    And join'st with them will be thy slaughtermen.\n    Come, come, return; return, thou wandering lord;\n    Charles and the rest will take thee in their arms.\n  BURGUNDY. I am vanquished; these haughty words of hers\n    Have batt'red me like roaring cannon-shot\n    And made me almost yield upon my knees.\n    Forgive me, country, and sweet countrymen\n    And, lords, accept this hearty kind embrace.\n    My forces and my power of men are yours;\n    So, farewell, Talbot; I'll no longer trust thee.\n  PUCELLE. Done like a Frenchman-  [Aside]  turn and turn\n    again.\n  CHARLES. Welcome, brave Duke! Thy friendship makes us\n    fresh.\n  BASTARD. And doth beget new courage in our breasts.\n  ALENCON. Pucelle hath bravely play'd her part in this,\n    And doth deserve a coronet of gold.\n  CHARLES. Now let us on, my lords, and join our powers,\n    And seek how we may prejudice the foe.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE 4.\n\n                     Paris. The palace\n\n         Enter the KING, GLOUCESTER, WINCHESTER, YORK,\n             SUFFOLK, SOMERSET, WARWICK, EXETER,\n           VERNON, BASSET, and others. To them, with\n                     his soldiers, TALBOT\n\n  TALBOT. My gracious Prince, and honourable peers,\n    Hearing of your arrival in this realm,\n    I have awhile given truce unto my wars\n    To do my duty to my sovereign;\n    In sign whereof, this arm that hath reclaim'd\n    To your obedience fifty fortresses,\n    Twelve cities, and seven walled towns of strength,\n    Beside five hundred prisoners of esteem,\n    Lets fall his sword before your Highness' feet,\n    And with submissive loyalty of heart\n    Ascribes the glory of his conquest got\n    First to my God and next unto your Grace.           [Kneels]\n  KING HENRY. Is this the Lord Talbot, uncle Gloucester,\n    That hath so long been resident in France?\n  GLOUCESTER. Yes, if it please your Majesty, my liege.\n  KING HENRY. Welcome, brave captain and victorious lord!\n    When I was young, as yet I am not old,\n    I do remember how my father said\n    A stouter champion never handled sword.\n    Long since we were resolved of your truth,\n    Your faithful service, and your toil in war;\n    Yet never have you tasted our reward,\n    Or been reguerdon'd with so much as thanks,\n    Because till now we never saw your face.\n    Therefore stand up; and for these good deserts\n    We here create you Earl of Shrewsbury;\n    And in our coronation take your place.\n              Sennet. Flourish. Exeunt all but VERNON and BASSET\n  VERNON. Now, sir, to you, that were so hot at sea,\n    Disgracing of these colours that I wear\n    In honour of my noble Lord of York\n    Dar'st thou maintain the former words thou spak'st?\n  BASSET. Yes, sir; as well as you dare patronage\n    The envious barking of your saucy tongue\n    Against my lord the Duke of Somerset.\n  VERNON. Sirrah, thy lord I honour as he is.\n  BASSET. Why, what is he? As good a man as York!\n  VERNON. Hark ye: not so. In witness, take ye that.\n                                                   [Strikes him]\n  BASSET. Villain, thou knowest the law of arms is such\n    That whoso draws a sword 'tis present death,\n    Or else this blow should broach thy dearest blood.\n    But I'll unto his Majesty and crave\n    I may have liberty to venge this wrong;\n    When thou shalt see I'll meet thee to thy cost.\n  VERNON. Well, miscreant, I'll be there as soon as you;\n    And, after, meet you sooner than you would.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\n\nPark. The palace\n\nEnter the KING, GLOUCESTER, WINCHESTER, YORK, SUFFOLK, SOMERSET,\nWARWICK,\nTALBOT, EXETER, the GOVERNOR OF PARIS, and others\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Lord Bishop, set the crown upon his head.\n  WINCHESTER. God save King Henry, of that name the Sixth!\n  GLOUCESTER. Now, Governor of Paris, take your oath\n                                               [GOVERNOR kneels]\n    That you elect no other king but him,\n    Esteem none friends but such as are his friends,\n    And none your foes but such as shall pretend\n    Malicious practices against his state.\n    This shall ye do, so help you righteous God!\n                                   Exeunt GOVERNOR and his train\n\n                    Enter SIR JOHN FASTOLFE\n\n  FASTOLFE. My gracious sovereign, as I rode from Calais,\n    To haste unto your coronation,\n    A letter was deliver'd to my hands,\n    Writ to your Grace from th' Duke of Burgundy.\n  TALBOT. Shame to the Duke of Burgundy and thee!\n    I vow'd, base knight, when I did meet thee next\n    To tear the Garter from thy craven's leg,  [Plucking it off]\n    Which I have done, because unworthily\n    Thou wast installed in that high degree.\n    Pardon me, princely Henry, and the rest:\n    This dastard, at the battle of Patay,\n    When but in all I was six thousand strong,\n    And that the French were almost ten to one,\n    Before we met or that a stroke was given,\n    Like to a trusty squire did run away;\n    In which assault we lost twelve hundred men;\n    Myself and divers gentlemen beside\n    Were there surpris'd and taken prisoners.\n    Then judge, great lords, if I have done amiss,\n    Or whether that such cowards ought to wear\n    This ornament of knighthood-yea or no.\n  GLOUCESTER. To say the truth, this fact was infamous\n    And ill beseeming any common man,\n    Much more a knight, a captain, and a leader.\n  TALBOT. When first this order was ordain'd, my lords,\n    Knights of the Garter were of noble birth,\n    Valiant and virtuous, full of haughty courage,\n    Such as were grown to credit by the wars;\n    Not fearing death nor shrinking for distress,\n    But always resolute in most extremes.\n    He then that is not furnish'd in this sort\n    Doth but usurp the sacred name of knight,\n    Profaning this most honourable order,\n    And should, if I were worthy to be judge,\n    Be quite degraded, like a hedge-born swain\n    That doth presume to boast of gentle blood.\n  KING HENRY. Stain to thy countrymen, thou hear'st thy\n    doom.\n    Be packing, therefore, thou that wast a knight;\n    Henceforth we banish thee on pain of death.\n                                                   Exit FASTOLFE\n\n    And now, my Lord Protector, view the letter\n    Sent from our uncle Duke of Burgundy.\n  GLOUCESTER.  [Viewing the superscription]  What means his\n    Grace, that he hath chang'd his style?\n    No more but plain and bluntly 'To the King!'\n    Hath he forgot he is his sovereign?\n    Or doth this churlish superscription\n    Pretend some alteration in good-will?\n    What's here?  [Reads]  'I have, upon especial cause,\n    Mov'd with compassion of my country's wreck,\n    Together with the pitiful complaints\n    Of such as your oppression feeds upon,\n    Forsaken your pernicious faction,\n    And join'd with Charles, the rightful King of France.'\n    O monstrous treachery! Can this be so\n    That in alliance, amity, and oaths,\n    There should be found such false dissembling guile?\n  KING HENRY. What! Doth my uncle Burgundy revolt?\n  GLOUCESTER. He doth, my lord, and is become your foe.\n  KING HENRY. Is that the worst this letter doth contain?\n  GLOUCESTER. It is the worst, and all, my lord, he writes.\n  KING HENRY. Why then Lord Talbot there shall talk with\n    him\n    And give him chastisement for this abuse.\n    How say you, my lord, are you not content?\n  TALBOT. Content, my liege! Yes; but that I am prevented,\n    I should have begg'd I might have been employ'd.\n  KING HENRY. Then gather strength and march unto him\n    straight;\n    Let him perceive how ill we brook his treason.\n    And what offence it is to flout his friends.\n  TALBOT. I go, my lord, in heart desiring still\n    You may behold confusion of your foes.                  Exit\n\n                       Enter VERNON and BASSET\n\n  VERNON. Grant me the combat, gracious sovereign.\n  BASSET. And me, my lord, grant me the combat too.\n  YORK. This is my servant: hear him, noble Prince.\n  SOMERSET. And this is mine: sweet Henry, favour him.\n  KING HENRY. Be patient, lords, and give them leave to speak.\n    Say, gentlemen, what makes you thus exclaim,\n    And wherefore crave you combat, or with whom?\n  VERNON. With him, my lord; for he hath done me wrong.\n  BASSET. And I with him; for he hath done me wrong.\n  KING HENRY. What is that wrong whereof you both\n    complain? First let me know, and then I'll answer you.\n  BASSET. Crossing the sea from England into France,\n    This fellow here, with envious carping tongue,\n    Upbraided me about the rose I wear,\n    Saying the sanguine colour of the leaves\n    Did represent my master's blushing cheeks\n    When stubbornly he did repugn the truth\n    About a certain question in the law\n    Argu'd betwixt the Duke of York and him;\n    With other vile and ignominious terms\n    In confutation of which rude reproach\n    And in defence of my lord's worthiness,\n    I crave the benefit of law of arms.\n  VERNON. And that is my petition, noble lord;\n    For though he seem with forged quaint conceit\n    To set a gloss upon his bold intent,\n    Yet know, my lord, I was provok'd by him,\n    And he first took exceptions at this badge,\n    Pronouncing that the paleness of this flower\n    Bewray'd the faintness of my master's heart.\n  YORK. Will not this malice, Somerset, be left?\n  SOMERSET. Your private grudge, my Lord of York, will out,\n    Though ne'er so cunningly you smother it.\n  KING HENRY. Good Lord, what madness rules in brainsick\n    men, When for so slight and frivolous a cause\n    Such factious emulations shall arise!\n    Good cousins both, of York and Somerset,\n    Quiet yourselves, I pray, and be at peace.\n  YORK. Let this dissension first be tried by fight,\n    And then your Highness shall command a peace.\n  SOMERSET. The quarrel toucheth none but us alone;\n    Betwixt ourselves let us decide it then.\n  YORK. There is my pledge; accept it, Somerset.\n  VERNON. Nay, let it rest where it began at first.\n  BASSET. Confirm it so, mine honourable lord.\n  GLOUCESTER. Confirm it so? Confounded be your strife;\n    And perish ye, with your audacious prate!\n    Presumptuous vassals, are you not asham'd\n    With this immodest clamorous outrage\n    To trouble and disturb the King and us?\n    And you, my lords- methinks you do not well\n    To bear with their perverse objections,\n    Much less to take occasion from their mouths\n    To raise a mutiny betwixt yourselves.\n    Let me persuade you take a better course.\n  EXETER. It grieves his Highness. Good my lords, be friends.\n  KING HENRY. Come hither, you that would be combatants:\n    Henceforth I charge you, as you love our favour,\n    Quite to forget this quarrel and the cause.\n    And you, my lords, remember where we are:\n    In France, amongst a fickle wavering nation;\n    If they perceive dissension in our looks\n    And that within ourselves we disagree,\n    How will their grudging stomachs be provok'd\n    To wilful disobedience, and rebel!\n    Beside, what infamy will there arise\n    When foreign princes shall be certified\n    That for a toy, a thing of no regard,\n    King Henry's peers and chief nobility\n    Destroy'd themselves and lost the realm of France!\n    O, think upon the conquest of my father,\n    My tender years; and let us not forgo\n    That for a trifle that was bought with blood!\n    Let me be umpire in this doubtful strife.\n    I see no reason, if I wear this rose,\n                                         [Putting on a red rose]\n    That any one should therefore be suspicious\n    I more incline to Somerset than York:\n    Both are my kinsmen, and I love them both.\n    As well they may upbraid me with my crown,\n    Because, forsooth, the King of Scots is crown'd.\n    But your discretions better can persuade\n    Than I am able to instruct or teach;\n    And, therefore, as we hither came in peace,\n    So let us still continue peace and love.\n    Cousin of York, we institute your Grace\n    To be our Regent in these parts of France.\n    And, good my Lord of Somerset, unite\n    Your troops of horsemen with his bands of foot;\n    And like true subjects, sons of your progenitors,\n    Go cheerfully together and digest\n    Your angry choler on your enemies.\n    Ourself, my Lord Protector, and the rest,\n    After some respite will return to Calais;\n    From thence to England, where I hope ere long\n    To be presented by your victories\n    With Charles, Alencon, and that traitorous rout.\n                         Flourish. Exeunt all but YORK, WARWICK,\n                                                  EXETER, VERNON\n  WARWICK. My Lord of York, I promise you, the King\n    Prettily, methought, did play the orator.\n  YORK. And so he did; but yet I like it not,\n    In that he wears the badge of Somerset.\n  WARWICK. Tush, that was but his fancy; blame him not;\n    I dare presume, sweet prince, he thought no harm.\n  YORK. An if I wist he did-but let it rest;\n    Other affairs must now be managed.\n                                           Exeunt all but EXETER\n  EXETER. Well didst thou, Richard, to suppress thy voice;\n    For had the passions of thy heart burst out,\n    I fear we should have seen decipher'd there\n    More rancorous spite, more furious raging broils,\n    Than yet can be imagin'd or suppos'd.\n    But howsoe'er, no simple man that sees\n    This jarring discord of nobility,\n    This shouldering of each other in the court,\n    This factious bandying of their favourites,\n    But that it doth presage some ill event.\n    'Tis much when sceptres are in children's hands;\n    But more when envy breeds unkind division:\n    There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.           Exit\n\n\n\n\n                               SCENE 2.\n\n                        France. Before Bordeaux\n\n                   Enter TALBOT, with trump and drum\n\n  TALBOT. Go to the gates of Bordeaux, trumpeter;\n    Summon their general unto the wall.\n\n             Trumpet sounds a parley. Enter, aloft, the\n                 GENERAL OF THE FRENCH, and others\n\n    English John Talbot, Captains, calls you forth,\n    Servant in arms to Harry King of England;\n    And thus he would open your city gates,\n    Be humble to us, call my sovereignvours\n    And do him homage as obedient subjects,\n    And I'll withdraw me and my bloody power;\n    But if you frown upon this proffer'd peace,\n    You tempt the fury of my three attendants,\n    Lean famine, quartering steel, and climbing fire;\n    Who in a moment even with the earth\n    Shall lay your stately and air braving towers,\n    If you forsake the offer of their love.\n  GENERAL OF THE FRENCH. Thou ominous and fearful owl of\n    death,\n    Our nation's terror and their bloody scourge!\n    The period of thy tyranny approacheth.\n    On us thou canst not enter but by death;\n    For, I protest, we are well fortified,\n    And strong enough to issue out and fight.\n    If thou retire, the Dauphin, well appointed,\n    Stands with the snares of war to tangle thee.\n    On either hand thee there are squadrons pitch'd\n    To wall thee from the liberty of flight,\n    And no way canst thou turn thee for redress\n    But death doth front thee with apparent spoil\n    And pale destruction meets thee in the face.\n    Ten thousand French have ta'en the sacrament\n    To rive their dangerous artillery\n    Upon no Christian soul but English Talbot.\n    Lo, there thou stand'st, a breathing valiant man,\n    Of an invincible unconquer'd spirit!\n    This is the latest glory of thy praise\n    That I, thy enemy, due thee withal;\n    For ere the glass that now begins to run\n    Finish the process of his sandy hour,\n    These eyes that see thee now well coloured\n    Shall see thee withered, bloody, pale, and dead.\n                                                 [Drum afar off]\n    Hark! hark! The Dauphin's drum, a warning bell,\n    Sings heavy music to thy timorous soul;\n    And mine shall ring thy dire departure out.             Exit\n  TALBOT. He fables not; I hear the enemy.\n    Out, some light horsemen, and peruse their wings.\n    O, negligent and heedless discipline!\n    How are we park'd and bounded in a pale\n    A little herd of England's timorous deer,\n    Maz'd with a yelping kennel of French curs!\n    If we be English deer, be then in blood;\n    Not rascal-like to fall down with a pinch,\n    But rather, moody-mad and desperate stags,\n    Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel\n    And make the cowards stand aloof at bay.\n    Sell every man his life as dear as mine,\n    And they shall find dear deer of us, my friends.\n    God and Saint George, Talbot and England's right,\n    Prosper our colours in this dangerous fight!          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE 3.\n\n                      Plains in Gascony\n\n        Enter YORK, with trumpet and many soldiers. A\n                   MESSENGER meets him\n\n  YORK. Are not the speedy scouts return'd again\n    That dogg'd the mighty army of the Dauphin?\n  MESSENGER. They are return'd, my lord, and give it out\n    That he is march'd to Bordeaux with his power\n    To fight with Talbot; as he march'd along,\n    By your espials were discovered\n    Two mightier troops than that the Dauphin led,\n    Which join'd with him and made their march for\n    Bordeaux.\n  YORK. A plague upon that villain Somerset\n    That thus delays my promised supply\n    Of horsemen that were levied for this siege!\n    Renowned Talbot doth expect my aid,\n    And I am louted by a traitor villain\n    And cannot help the noble chevalier.\n    God comfort him in this necessity!\n    If he miscarry, farewell wars in France.\n\n                      Enter SIR WILLIAM LUCY\n\n  LUCY. Thou princely leader of our English strength,\n    Never so needful on the earth of France,\n    Spur to the rescue of the noble Talbot,\n    Who now is girdled with a waist of iron\n    And hemm'd about with grim destruction.\n    To Bordeaux, warlike Duke! to Bordeaux, York!\n    Else, farewell Talbot, France, and England's honour.\n  YORK. O God, that Somerset, who in proud heart\n    Doth stop my cornets, were in Talbot's place!\n    So should we save a valiant gentleman\n    By forfeiting a traitor and a coward.\n    Mad ire and wrathful fury makes me weep\n    That thus we die while remiss traitors sleep.\n  LUCY. O, send some succour to the distress'd lord!\n  YORK. He dies; we lose; I break my warlike word.\n    We mourn: France smiles. We lose: they daily get-\n    All long of this vile traitor Somerset.\n  LUCY. Then God take mercy on brave Talbot's soul,\n    And on his son, young John, who two hours since\n    I met in travel toward his warlike father.\n    This seven years did not Talbot see his son;\n    And now they meet where both their lives are done.\n  YORK. Alas, what joy shall noble Talbot have\n    To bid his young son welcome to his grave?\n    Away! vexation almost stops my breath,\n    That sund'red friends greet in the hour of death.\n    Lucy, farewell; no more my fortune can\n    But curse the cause I cannot aid the man.\n    Maine, Blois, Poictiers, and Tours, are won away\n    Long all of Somerset and his delay.         Exit with forces\n  LUCY. Thus, while the vulture of sedition\n    Feeds in the bosom of such great commanders,\n    Sleeping neglection doth betray to loss\n    The conquest of our scarce cold conqueror,\n    That ever-living man of memory,\n    Henry the Fifth. Whiles they each other cross,\n    Lives, honours, lands, and all, hurry to loss.          Exit\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 4.\n\n                     Other plains of Gascony\n\n        Enter SOMERSET, With his forces; an OFFICER of\n                     TALBOT'S with him\n\n  SOMERSET. It is too late; I cannot send them now.\n    This expedition was by York and Talbot\n    Too rashly plotted; all our general force\n    Might with a sally of the very town\n    Be buckled with. The over daring Talbot\n    Hath sullied all his gloss of former honour\n    By this unheedful, desperate, wild adventure.\n    York set him on to fight and die in shame.\n    That, Talbot dead, great York might bear the name.\n  OFFICER. Here is Sir William Lucy, who with me\n    Set from our o'er-match'd forces forth for aid.\n\n                       Enter SIR WILLIAM LUCY\n\n  SOMERSET. How now, Sir William! Whither were you sent?\n  LUCY. Whither, my lord! From bought and sold Lord\n    Talbot,\n    Who, ring'd about with bold adversity,\n    Cries out for noble York and Somerset\n    To beat assailing death from his weak legions;\n    And whiles the honourable captain there\n    Drops bloody sweat from his war-wearied limbs\n    And, in advantage ling'ring, looks for rescue,\n    You, his false hopes, the trust of England's honour,\n    Keep off aloof with worthless emulation.\n    Let not your private discord keep away\n    The levied succours that should lend him aid,\n    While he, renowned noble gentleman,\n    Yield up his life unto a world of odds.\n    Orleans the Bastard, Charles, Burgundy,\n    Alencon, Reignier, compass him about,\n    And Talbot perisheth by your default.\n  SOMERSET. York set him on; York should have sent him aid.\n  LUCY. And York as fast upon your Grace exclaims,\n    Swearing that you withhold his levied host,\n    Collected for this expedition.\n  SOMERSET. York lies; he might have sent and had the horse.\n    I owe him little duty and less love,\n    And take foul scorn to fawn on him by sending.\n  LUCY. The fraud of England, not the force of France,\n    Hath now entrapp'd the noble minded Talbot.\n    Never to England shall he bear his life,\n    But dies betray'd to fortune by your strife.\n  SOMERSET. Come, go; I will dispatch the horsemen straight;\n    Within six hours they will be at his aid.\n  LUCY. Too late comes rescue; he is ta'en or slain,\n    For fly he could not if he would have fled;\n    And fly would Talbot never, though he might.\n  SOMERSET. If he be dead, brave Talbot, then, adieu!\n  LUCY. His fame lives in the world, his shame in you.\nExeunt\n\n\n                               SCENE 5.\n\n                   The English camp near Bordeaux\n\n                    Enter TALBOT and JOHN his son\n\n  TALBOT. O young John Talbot! I did send for thee\n    To tutor thee in stratagems of war,\n    That Talbot's name might be in thee reviv'd\n    When sapless age and weak unable limbs\n    Should bring thy father to his drooping chair.\n    But, O malignant and ill-boding stars!\n    Now thou art come unto a feast of death,\n    A terrible and unavoided danger;\n    Therefore, dear boy, mount on my swiftest horse,\n    And I'll direct thee how thou shalt escape\n    By sudden flight. Come, dally not, be gone.\n  JOHN. Is my name Talbot, and am I your son?\n    And shall I fly? O, if you love my mother,\n    Dishonour not her honourable name,\n    To make a bastard and a slave of me!\n    The world will say he is not Talbot's blood\n    That basely fled when noble Talbot stood.\n  TALBOT. Fly to revenge my death, if I be slain.\n  JOHN. He that flies so will ne'er return again.\n  TALBOT. If we both stay, we both are sure to die.\n  JOHN. Then let me stay; and, father, do you fly.\n    Your loss is great, so your regard should be;\n    My worth unknown, no loss is known in me;\n    Upon my death the French can little boast;\n    In yours they will, in you all hopes are lost.\n    Flight cannot stain the honour you have won;\n    But mine it will, that no exploit have done;\n    You fled for vantage, every one will swear;\n    But if I bow, they'll say it was for fear.\n    There is no hope that ever I will stay\n    If the first hour I shrink and run away.\n    Here, on my knee, I beg mortality,\n    Rather than life preserv'd with infamy.\n  TALBOT. Shall all thy mother's hopes lie in one tomb?\n  JOHN. Ay, rather than I'll shame my mother's womb.\n  TALBOT. Upon my blessing I command thee go.\n  JOHN. To fight I will, but not to fly the foe.\n  TALBOT. Part of thy father may be sav'd in thee.\n  JOHN. No part of him but will be shame in me.\n  TALBOT. Thou never hadst renown, nor canst not lose it.\n  JOHN. Yes, your renowned name; shall flight abuse it?\n  TALBOT. Thy father's charge shall clear thee from that stain.\n  JOHN. You cannot witness for me, being slain.\n    If death be so apparent, then both fly.\n  TALBOT. And leave my followers here to fight and die?\n    My age was never tainted with such shame.\n  JOHN. And shall my youth be guilty of such blame?\n    No more can I be severed from your side\n    Than can yourself yourself yourself in twain divide.\n    Stay, go, do what you will, the like do I;\n    For live I will not if my father die.\n  TALBOT. Then here I take my leave of thee, fair son,\n    Born to eclipse thy life this afternoon.\n    Come, side by side together live and die;\n    And soul with soul from France to heaven fly.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                             SCENE 6.\n\n                         A field of battle\n\n         Alarum: excursions wherein JOHN TALBOT is hemm'd\n                  about, and TALBOT rescues him\n\n  TALBOT. Saint George and victory! Fight, soldiers, fight.\n    The Regent hath with Talbot broke his word\n    And left us to the rage of France his sword.\n    Where is John Talbot? Pause and take thy breath;\n    I gave thee life and rescu'd thee from death.\n  JOHN. O, twice my father, twice am I thy son!\n    The life thou gav'st me first was lost and done\n    Till with thy warlike sword, despite of fate,\n    To my determin'd time thou gav'st new date.\n  TALBOT. When from the Dauphin's crest thy sword struck\n    fire,\n    It warm'd thy father's heart with proud desire\n    Of bold-fac'd victory. Then leaden age,\n    Quicken'd with youthful spleen and warlike rage,\n    Beat down Alencon, Orleans, Burgundy,\n    And from the pride of Gallia rescued thee.\n    The ireful bastard Orleans, that drew blood\n    From thee, my boy, and had the maidenhood\n    Of thy first fight, I soon encountered\n    And, interchanging blows, I quickly shed\n    Some of his bastard blood; and in disgrace\n    Bespoke him thus: 'Contaminated, base,\n    And misbegotten blood I spill of thine,\n    Mean and right poor, for that pure blood of mine\n    Which thou didst force from Talbot, my brave boy.'\n    Here purposing the Bastard to destroy,\n    Came in strong rescue. Speak, thy father's care;\n    Art thou not weary, John? How dost thou fare?\n    Wilt thou yet leave the battle, boy, and fly,\n    Now thou art seal'd the son of chivalry?\n    Fly, to revenge my death when I am dead:\n    The help of one stands me in little stead.\n    O, too much folly is it, well I wot,\n    To hazard all our lives in one small boat!\n    If I to-day die not with Frenchmen's rage,\n    To-morrow I shall die with mickle age.\n    By me they nothing gain an if I stay:\n    'Tis but the short'ning of my life one day.\n    In thee thy mother dies, our household's name,\n    My death's revenge, thy youth, and England's fame.\n    All these and more we hazard by thy stay;\n    All these are sav'd if thou wilt fly away.\n  JOHN. The sword of Orleans hath not made me smart;\n    These words of yours draw life-blood from my heart.\n    On that advantage, bought with such a shame,\n    To save a paltry life and slay bright fame,\n    Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly,\n    The coward horse that bears me fall and die!\n    And like me to the peasant boys of France,\n    To be shame's scorn and subject of mischance!\n    Surely, by all the glory you have won,\n    An if I fly, I am not Talbot's son;\n    Then talk no more of flight, it is no boot;\n    If son to Talbot, die at Talbot's foot.\n  TALBOT. Then follow thou thy desp'rate sire of Crete,\n    Thou Icarus; thy life to me is sweet.\n    If thou wilt fight, fight by thy father's side;\n    And, commendable prov'd, let's die in pride.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                               SCENE 7.\n\n                      Another part of the field\n\n       Alarum; excursions. Enter old TALBOT led by a SERVANT\n\n  TALBOT. Where is my other life? Mine own is gone.\n    O, where's young Talbot? Where is valiant John?\n    Triumphant death, smear'd with captivity,\n    Young Talbot's valour makes me smile at thee.\n    When he perceiv'd me shrink and on my knee,\n    His bloody sword he brandish'd over me,\n    And like a hungry lion did commence\n    Rough deeds of rage and stern impatience;\n    But when my angry guardant stood alone,\n    Tend'ring my ruin and assail'd of none,\n    Dizzy-ey'd fury and great rage of heart\n    Suddenly made him from my side to start\n    Into the clust'ring battle of the French;\n    And in that sea of blood my boy did drench\n    His overmounting spirit; and there died,\n    My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride.\n\n         Enter soldiers, bearing the body of JOHN TALBOT\n\n  SERVANT. O my dear lord, lo where your son is borne!\n  TALBOT. Thou antic Death, which laugh'st us here to scorn,\n    Anon, from thy insulting tyranny,\n    Coupled in bonds of perpetuity,\n    Two Talbots, winged through the lither sky,\n    In thy despite shall scape mortality.\n    O thou whose wounds become hard-favoured Death,\n    Speak to thy father ere thou yield thy breath!\n    Brave Death by speaking, whether he will or no;\n    Imagine him a Frenchman and thy foe.\n    Poor boy! he smiles, methinks, as who should say,\n    Had Death been French, then Death had died to-day.\n    Come, come, and lay him in his father's arms.\n    My spirit can no longer bear these harms.\n    Soldiers, adieu! I have what I would have,\n    Now my old arms are young John Talbot's grave.        [Dies]\n\n            Enter CHARLES, ALENCON, BURGUNDY, BASTARD,\n                     LA PUCELLE, and forces\n\n  CHARLES. Had York and Somerset brought rescue in,\n    We should have found a bloody day of this.\n  BASTARD. How the young whelp of Talbot's, raging wood,\n    Did flesh his puny sword in Frenchmen's blood!\n  PUCELLE. Once I encount'red him, and thus I said:\n    'Thou maiden youth, be vanquish'd by a maid.'\n    But with a proud majestical high scorn\n    He answer'd thus: 'Young Talbot was not born\n    To be the pillage of a giglot wench.'\n    So, rushing in the bowels of the French,\n    He left me proudly, as unworthy fight.\n  BURGUNDY. Doubtless he would have made a noble knight.\n    See where he lies inhearsed in the arms\n    Of the most bloody nurser of his harms!\n  BASTARD. Hew them to pieces, hack their bones asunder,\n    Whose life was England's glory, Gallia's wonder.\n  CHARLES. O, no; forbear! For that which we have fled\n    During the life, let us not wrong it dead.\n\n            Enter SIR WILLIAM Lucy, attended; a FRENCH\n                         HERALD preceding\n\n  LUCY. Herald, conduct me to the Dauphin's tent,\n    To know who hath obtain'd the glory of the day.\n  CHARLES. On what submissive message art thou sent?\n  LUCY. Submission, Dauphin! 'Tis a mere French word:\n    We English warriors wot not what it means.\n    I come to know what prisoners thou hast ta'en,\n    And to survey the bodies of the dead.\n  CHARLES. For prisoners ask'st thou? Hell our prison is.\n    But tell me whom thou seek'st.\n  LUCY. But where's the great Alcides of the field,\n    Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury,\n    Created for his rare success in arms\n    Great Earl of Washford, Waterford, and Valence,\n    Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield,\n    Lord Strange of Blackmere, Lord Verdun of Alton,\n    Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, Lord Furnival of Sheffield,\n    The thrice victorious Lord of Falconbridge,\n    Knight of the noble order of Saint George,\n    Worthy Saint Michael, and the Golden Fleece,\n    Great Marshal to Henry the Sixth\n    Of all his wars within the realm of France?\n  PUCELLE. Here's a silly-stately style indeed!\n    The Turk, that two and fifty kingdoms hath,\n    Writes not so tedious a style as this.\n    Him that thou magnifi'st with all these tides,\n    Stinking and fly-blown lies here at our feet.\n  LUCY. Is Talbot slain-the Frenchmen's only scourge,\n    Your kingdom's terror and black Nemesis?\n    O, were mine eye-bans into bullets turn'd,\n    That I in rage might shoot them at your faces!\n    O that I could but can these dead to life!\n    It were enough to fright the realm of France.\n    Were but his picture left amongst you here,\n    It would amaze the proudest of you all.\n    Give me their bodies, that I may bear them hence\n    And give them burial as beseems their worth.\n  PUCELLE. I think this upstart is old Talbot's ghost,\n    He speaks with such a proud commanding spirit.\n    For God's sake, let him have them; to keep them here,\n    They would but stink, and putrefy the air.\n  CHARLES. Go, take their bodies hence.\n  LUCY. I'll bear them hence; but from their ashes shall be\n    rear'd\n    A phoenix that shall make all France afeard.\n  CHARLES. So we be rid of them, do with them what thou\n    wilt.\n    And now to Paris in this conquering vein!\n    All will be ours, now bloody Talbot's slain.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nSennet. Enter the KING, GLOUCESTER, and EXETER\n\n  KING HENRY. Have you perus'd the letters from the Pope,\n    The Emperor, and the Earl of Armagnac?\n  GLOUCESTER. I have, my lord; and their intent is this:\n    They humbly sue unto your Excellence\n    To have a godly peace concluded of\n    Between the realms of England and of France.\n  KING HENRY. How doth your Grace affect their motion?\n  GLOUCESTER. Well, my good lord, and as the only means\n    To stop effusion of our Christian blood\n    And stablish quietness on every side.\n  KING HENRY. Ay, marry, uncle; for I always thought\n    It was both impious and unnatural\n    That such immanity and bloody strife\n    Should reign among professors of one faith.\n  GLOUCESTER. Beside, my lord, the sooner to effect\n    And surer bind this knot of amity,\n    The Earl of Armagnac, near knit to Charles,\n    A man of great authority in France,\n    Proffers his only daughter to your Grace\n    In marriage, with a large and sumptuous dowry.\n  KING HENRY. Marriage, uncle! Alas, my years are young\n    And fitter is my study and my books\n    Than wanton dalliance with a paramour.\n    Yet call th' ambassadors, and, as you please,\n    So let them have their answers every one.\n    I shall be well content with any choice\n    Tends to God's glory and my country's weal.\n\n                   Enter in Cardinal's habit\n        BEAUFORT, the PAPAL LEGATE, and two AMBASSADORS\n\n  EXETER. What! Is my Lord of Winchester install'd\n    And call'd unto a cardinal's degree?\n    Then I perceive that will be verified\n    Henry the Fifth did sometime prophesy:\n    'If once he come to be a cardinal,\n    He'll make his cap co-equal with the crown.'\n  KING HENRY. My Lords Ambassadors, your several suits\n    Have been consider'd and debated on.\n    Your purpose is both good and reasonable,\n    And therefore are we certainly resolv'd\n    To draw conditions of a friendly peace,\n    Which by my Lord of Winchester we mean\n    Shall be transported presently to France.\n  GLOUCESTER. And for the proffer of my lord your master,\n    I have inform'd his Highness so at large,\n    As, liking of the lady's virtuous gifts,\n    Her beauty, and the value of her dower,\n    He doth intend she shall be England's Queen.\n  KING HENRY.  [To AMBASSADOR]  In argument and proof of\n    which contract,\n    Bear her this jewel, pledge of my affection.\n    And so, my Lord Protector, see them guarded\n    And safely brought to Dover; where inshipp'd,\n    Commit them to the fortune of the sea.\n\n                        Exeunt all but WINCHESTER and the LEGATE\n  WINCHESTER. Stay, my Lord Legate; you shall first receive\n    The sum of money which I promised\n    Should be delivered to his Holiness\n    For clothing me in these grave ornaments.\n  LEGATE. I will attend upon your lordship's leisure.\n  WINCHESTER.  [Aside]  Now Winchester will not submit, I\n    trow,\n    Or be inferior to the proudest peer.\n    Humphrey of Gloucester, thou shalt well perceive\n    That neither in birth or for authority\n    The Bishop will be overborne by thee.\n    I'll either make thee stoop and bend thy knee,\n    Or sack this country with a mutiny.                   Exeunt\n\n\n                              SCENE 2.\n\n                       France. Plains in Anjou\n\n              Enter CHARLES, BURGUNDY, ALENCON, BASTARD,\n                   REIGNIER, LA PUCELLE, and forces\n\n  CHARLES. These news, my lords, may cheer our drooping\n    spirits:\n    'Tis said the stout Parisians do revolt\n    And turn again unto the warlike French.\n  ALENCON. Then march to Paris, royal Charles of France,\n    And keep not back your powers in dalliance.\n  PUCELLE. Peace be amongst them, if they turn to us;\n    Else ruin combat with their palaces!\n\n                            Enter a SCOUT\n\n  SCOUT. Success unto our valiant general,\n    And happiness to his accomplices!\n  CHARLES. What tidings send our scouts? I prithee speak.\n  SCOUT. The English army, that divided was\n    Into two parties, is now conjoin'd in one,\n    And means to give you battle presently.\n  CHARLES. Somewhat too sudden, sirs, the warning is;\n    But we will presently provide for them.\n  BURGUNDY. I trust the ghost of Talbot is not there.\n    Now he is gone, my lord, you need not fear.\n  PUCELLE. Of all base passions fear is most accurs'd.\n    Command the conquest, Charles, it shall be thine,\n    Let Henry fret and all the world repine.\n  CHARLES. Then on, my lords; and France be fortunate!\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                            SCENE 3.\n\n                         Before Angiers\n\n              Alarum, excursions. Enter LA PUCELLE\n\n  PUCELLE. The Regent conquers and the Frenchmen fly.\n    Now help, ye charming spells and periapts;\n    And ye choice spirits that admonish me\n    And give me signs of future accidents;             [Thunder]\n    You speedy helpers that are substitutes\n    Under the lordly monarch of the north,\n    Appear and aid me in this enterprise!\n\n                          Enter FIENDS\n\n    This speedy and quick appearance argues proof\n    Of your accustom'd diligence to me.\n    Now, ye familiar spirits that are cull'd\n    Out of the powerful regions under earth,\n    Help me this once, that France may get the field.\n                                       [They walk and speak not]\n\n    O, hold me not with silence over-long!\n    Where I was wont to feed you with my blood,\n    I'll lop a member off and give it you\n    In earnest of a further benefit,\n    So you do condescend to help me now.\n                                         [They hang their heads]\n    No hope to have redress? My body shall\n    Pay recompense, if you will grant my suit.\n                                        [They shake their heads]\n    Cannot my body nor blood sacrifice\n    Entreat you to your wonted furtherance?\n    Then take my soul-my body, soul, and all,\n    Before that England give the French the foil.\n                                                   [They depart]\n    See! they forsake me. Now the time is come\n    That France must vail her lofty-plumed crest\n    And let her head fall into England's lap.\n    My ancient incantations are too weak,\n    And hell too strong for me to buckle with.\n    Now, France, thy glory droopeth to the dust.            Exit\n\n\n          Excursions. Enter French and English, fighting.\n         LA PUCELLE and YORK fight hand to hand; LA PUCELLE\n                    is taken. The French fly\n\n  YORK. Damsel of France, I think I have you fast.\n    Unchain your spirits now with spelling charms,\n    And try if they can gain your liberty.\n    A goodly prize, fit for the devil's grace!\n    See how the ugly witch doth bend her brows\n    As if, with Circe, she would change my shape!\n  PUCELLE. Chang'd to a worser shape thou canst not be.\n  YORK. O, Charles the Dauphin is a proper man:\n    No shape but his can please your dainty eye.\n  PUCELLE. A plaguing mischief fight on Charles and thee!\n    And may ye both be suddenly surpris'd\n    By bloody hands, in sleeping on your beds!\n  YORK. Fell banning hag; enchantress, hold thy tongue.\n  PUCELLE. I prithee give me leave to curse awhile.\n  YORK. Curse, miscreant, when thou comest to the stake.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n          Alarum. Enter SUFFOLK, with MARGARET in his hand\n\n  SUFFOLK. Be what thou wilt, thou art my prisoner.\n                                                  [Gazes on her]\n    O fairest beauty, do not fear nor fly!\n    For I will touch thee but with reverent hands;\n    I kiss these fingers for eternal peace,\n    And lay them gently on thy tender side.\n    Who art thou? Say, that I may honour thee.\n  MARGARET. Margaret my name, and daughter to a king,\n    The King of Naples-whosoe'er thou art.\n  SUFFOLK. An earl I am, and Suffolk am I call'd.\n    Be not offended, nature's miracle,\n    Thou art allotted to be ta'en by me.\n    So doth the swan her downy cygnets save,\n    Keeping them prisoner underneath her wings.\n    Yet, if this servile usage once offend,\n    Go and be free again as Suffolk's friend.     [She is going]\n\n    O, stay!  [Aside]  I have no power to let her pass;\n    My hand would free her, but my heart says no.\n    As plays the sun upon the glassy streams,\n    Twinkling another counterfeited beam,\n    So seems this gorgeous beauty to mine eyes.\n    Fain would I woo her, yet I dare not speak.\n    I'll call for pen and ink, and write my mind.\n    Fie, de la Pole! disable not thyself;\n    Hast not a tongue? Is she not here thy prisoner?\n    Wilt thou be daunted at a woman's sight?\n    Ay, beauty's princely majesty is such\n    Confounds the tongue and makes the senses rough.\n  MARGARET. Say, Earl of Suffolk, if thy name be so,\n    What ransom must I pay before I pass?\n    For I perceive I am thy prisoner.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  How canst thou tell she will deny thy\n    suit,\n    Before thou make a trial of her love?\n  MARGARET. Why speak'st thou not? What ransom must I\n    pay?\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd;\n    She is a woman, therefore to be won.\n  MARGARET. Wilt thou accept of ransom-yea or no?\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  Fond man, remember that thou hast a\n    wife;\n    Then how can Margaret be thy paramour?\n  MARGARET. I were best leave him, for he will not hear.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  There all is marr'd; there lies a cooling\n    card.\n  MARGARET. He talks at random; sure, the man is mad.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  And yet a dispensation may be had.\n  MARGARET. And yet I would that you would answer me.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  I'll win this Lady Margaret. For whom?\n    Why, for my King! Tush, that's a wooden thing!\n  MARGARET. He talks of wood. It is some carpenter.\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  Yet so my fancy may be satisfied,\n    And peace established between these realms.\n    But there remains a scruple in that too;\n    For though her father be the King of Naples,\n    Duke of Anjou and Maine, yet is he poor,\n    And our nobility will scorn the match.\n  MARGARET. Hear ye, Captain-are you not at leisure?\n  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  It shall be so, disdain they ne'er so much.\n    Henry is youthful, and will quickly yield.\n    Madam, I have a secret to reveal.\n  MARGARET.  [Aside]  What though I be enthrall'd? He seems\n    a knight,\n    And will not any way dishonour me.\n  SUFFOLK. Lady, vouchsafe to listen what I say.\n  MARGARET.  [Aside]  Perhaps I shall be rescu'd by the French;\n    And then I need not crave his courtesy.\n  SUFFOLK. Sweet madam, give me hearing in a cause\n  MARGARET.  [Aside]  Tush! women have been captivate ere\n    now.\n  SUFFOLK. Lady, wherefore talk you so?\n  MARGARET. I cry you mercy, 'tis but quid for quo.\n  SUFFOLK. Say, gentle Princess, would you not suppose\n    Your bondage happy, to be made a queen?\n  MARGARET. To be a queen in bondage is more vile\n    Than is a slave in base servility;\n    For princes should be free.\n  SUFFOLK. And so shall you,\n    If happy England's royal king be free.\n  MARGARET. Why, what concerns his freedom unto me?\n  SUFFOLK. I'll undertake to make thee Henry's queen,\n    To put a golden sceptre in thy hand\n    And set a precious crown upon thy head,\n    If thou wilt condescend to be my-\n  MARGARET. What?\n  SUFFOLK. His love.\n  MARGARET. I am unworthy to be Henry's wife.\n  SUFFOLK. No, gentle madam; I unworthy am\n    To woo so fair a dame to be his wife\n    And have no portion in the choice myself.\n    How say you, madam? Are ye so content?\n  MARGARET. An if my father please, I am content.\n  SUFFOLK. Then call our captains and our colours forth!\n    And, madam, at your father's castle walls\n    We'll crave a parley to confer with him.\n\n           Sound a parley. Enter REIGNIER on the walls\n\n    See, Reignier, see, thy daughter prisoner!\n  REIGNIER. To whom?\n  SUFFOLK. To me.\n  REIGNIER. Suffolk, what remedy?\n    I am a soldier and unapt to weep\n    Or to exclaim on fortune's fickleness.\n  SUFFOLK. Yes, there is remedy enough, my lord.\n    Consent, and for thy honour give consent,\n    Thy daughter shall be wedded to my king,\n    Whom I with pain have woo'd and won thereto;\n    And this her easy-held imprisonment\n    Hath gain'd thy daughter princely liberty.\n  REIGNIER. Speaks Suffolk as he thinks?\n  SUFFOLK. Fair Margaret knows\n    That Suffolk doth not flatter, face, or feign.\n  REIGNIER. Upon thy princely warrant I descend\n    To give thee answer of thy just demand.\n                                    Exit REIGNIER from the walls\n\n  SUFFOLK. And here I will expect thy coming.\n\n                Trumpets sound. Enter REIGNIER below\n\n  REIGNIER. Welcome, brave Earl, into our territories;\n    Command in Anjou what your Honour pleases.\n  SUFFOLK. Thanks, Reignier, happy for so sweet a child,\n    Fit to be made companion with a king.\n    What answer makes your Grace unto my suit?\n  REIGNIER. Since thou dost deign to woo her little worth\n    To be the princely bride of such a lord,\n    Upon condition I may quietly\n    Enjoy mine own, the country Maine and Anjou,\n    Free from oppression or the stroke of war,\n    My daughter shall be Henry's, if he please.\n  SUFFOLK. That is her ransom; I deliver her.\n    And those two counties I will undertake\n    Your Grace shall well and quietly enjoy.\n  REIGNIER. And I again, in Henry's royal name,\n    As deputy unto that gracious king,\n    Give thee her hand for sign of plighted faith.\n  SUFFOLK. Reignier of France, I give thee kingly thanks,\n    Because this is in traffic of a king.\n    [Aside]  And yet, methinks, I could be well content\n    To be mine own attorney in this case.\n    I'll over then to England with this news,\n    And make this marriage to be solemniz'd.\n    So, farewell, Reignier. Set this diamond safe\n    In golden palaces, as it becomes.\n  REIGNIER. I do embrace thee as I would embrace\n    The Christian prince, King Henry, were he here.\n  MARGARET. Farewell, my lord. Good wishes, praise, and\n    prayers,\n    Shall Suffolk ever have of Margaret.          [She is going]\n  SUFFOLK. Farewell, sweet madam. But hark you, Margaret\n    No princely commendations to my king?\n  MARGARET. Such commendations as becomes a maid,\n    A virgin, and his servant, say to him.\n  SUFFOLK. Words sweetly plac'd and modestly directed.\n    But, madam, I must trouble you again\n    No loving token to his Majesty?\n  MARGARET. Yes, my good lord: a pure unspotted heart,\n    Never yet taint with love, I send the King.\n  SUFFOLK. And this withal.                         [Kisses her]\n  MARGARET. That for thyself, I will not so presume\n    To send such peevish tokens to a king.\n                                    Exeunt REIGNIER and MARGARET\n  SUFFOLK. O, wert thou for myself! But, Suffolk, stay;\n    Thou mayst not wander in that labyrinth:\n    There Minotaurs and ugly treasons lurk.\n    Solicit Henry with her wondrous praise.\n    Bethink thee on her virtues that surmount,\n    And natural graces that extinguish art;\n    Repeat their semblance often on the seas,\n    That, when thou com'st to kneel at Henry's feet,\n    Thou mayst bereave him of his wits with wonder.         Exit\n\n\n\n\n                               SCENE 4.\n\n                  Camp of the DUKE OF YORK in Anjou\n\n                   Enter YORK, WARWICK, and others\n  YORK. Bring forth that sorceress, condemn'd to burn.\n\n              Enter LA PUCELLE, guarded, and a SHEPHERD\n\n  SHEPHERD. Ah, Joan, this kills thy father's heart outright!\n    Have I sought every country far and near,\n    And, now it is my chance to find thee out,\n    Must I behold thy timeless cruel death?\n    Ah, Joan, sweet daughter Joan, I'll die with thee!\n  PUCELLE. Decrepit miser! base ignoble wretch!\n    I am descended of a gentler blood;\n    Thou art no father nor no friend of mine.\n  SHEPHERD. Out, out! My lords, an please you, 'tis not so;\n    I did beget her, all the parish knows.\n    Her mother liveth yet, can testify\n    She was the first fruit of my bach'lorship.\n  WARWICK. Graceless, wilt thou deny thy parentage?\n  YORK. This argues what her kind of life hath been-\n    Wicked and vile; and so her death concludes.\n  SHEPHERD. Fie, Joan, that thou wilt be so obstacle!\n    God knows thou art a collop of my flesh;\n    And for thy sake have I shed many a tear.\n    Deny me not, I prithee, gentle Joan.\n  PUCELLE. Peasant, avaunt! You have suborn'd this man\n    Of purpose to obscure my noble birth.\n  SHEPHERD. 'Tis true, I gave a noble to the priest\n    The morn that I was wedded to her mother.\n    Kneel down and take my blessing, good my girl.\n    Wilt thou not stoop? Now cursed be the time\n    Of thy nativity. I would the milk\n    Thy mother gave thee when thou suck'dst her breast\n    Had been a little ratsbane for thy sake.\n    Or else, when thou didst keep my lambs afield,\n    I wish some ravenous wolf had eaten thee.\n    Dost thou deny thy father, cursed drab?\n    O, burn her, burn her! Hanging is too good.             Exit\n  YORK. Take her away; for she hath liv'd too long,\n    To fill the world with vicious qualities.\n  PUCELLE. First let me tell you whom you have condemn'd:\n    Not me begotten of a shepherd swain,\n    But issued from the progeny of kings;\n    Virtuous and holy, chosen from above\n    By inspiration of celestial grace,\n    To work exceeding miracles on earth.\n    I never had to do with wicked spirits.\n    But you, that are polluted with your lusts,\n    Stain'd with the guiltless blood of innocents,\n    Corrupt and tainted with a thousand vices,\n    Because you want the grace that others have,\n    You judge it straight a thing impossible\n    To compass wonders but by help of devils.\n    No, misconceived! Joan of Arc hath been\n    A virgin from her tender infancy,\n    Chaste and immaculate in very thought;\n    Whose maiden blood, thus rigorously effus'd,\n    Will cry for vengeance at the gates of heaven.\n  YORK. Ay, ay. Away with her to execution!\n  WARWICK. And hark ye, sirs; because she is a maid,\n    Spare for no fagots, let there be enow.\n    Place barrels of pitch upon the fatal stake,\n    That so her torture may be shortened.\n  PUCELLE. Will nothing turn your unrelenting hearts?\n    Then, Joan, discover thine infirmity\n    That warranteth by law to be thy privilege:\n    I am with child, ye bloody homicides;\n    Murder not then the fruit within my womb,\n    Although ye hale me to a violent death.\n  YORK. Now heaven forfend! The holy maid with child!\n  WARWICK. The greatest miracle that e'er ye wrought:\n    Is all your strict preciseness come to this?\n  YORK. She and the Dauphin have been juggling.\n    I did imagine what would be her refuge.\n  WARWICK. Well, go to; we'll have no bastards live;\n    Especially since Charles must father it.\n  PUCELLE. You are deceiv'd; my child is none of his:\n    It was Alencon that enjoy'd my love.\n  YORK. Alencon, that notorious Machiavel!\n    It dies, an if it had a thousand lives.\n  PUCELLE. O, give me leave, I have deluded you.\n    'Twas neither Charles nor yet the Duke I nam'd,\n    But Reignier, King of Naples, that prevail'd.\n  WARWICK. A married man! That's most intolerable.\n  YORK. Why, here's a girl! I think she knows not well\n    There were so many-whom she may accuse.\n  WARWICK. It's sign she hath been liberal and free.\n  YORK. And yet, forsooth, she is a virgin pure.\n    Strumpet, thy words condemn thy brat and thee.\n    Use no entreaty, for it is in vain.\n  PUCELLE. Then lead me hence-with whom I leave my\n    curse:\n    May never glorious sun reflex his beams\n    Upon the country where you make abode;\n    But darkness and the gloomy shade of death\n    Environ you, till mischief and despair\n    Drive you to break your necks or hang yourselves!\n                                                   Exit, guarded\n  YORK. Break thou in pieces and consume to ashes,\n    Thou foul accursed minister of hell!\n\n               Enter CARDINAL BEAUFORT, attended\n\n  CARDINAL. Lord Regent, I do greet your Excellence\n    With letters of commission from the King.\n    For know, my lords, the states of Christendom,\n    Mov'd with remorse of these outrageous broils,\n    Have earnestly implor'd a general peace\n    Betwixt our nation and the aspiring French;\n    And here at hand the Dauphin and his train\n    Approacheth, to confer about some matter.\n  YORK. Is all our travail turn'd to this effect?\n    After the slaughter of so many peers,\n    So many captains, gentlemen, and soldiers,\n    That in this quarrel have been overthrown\n    And sold their bodies for their country's benefit,\n    Shall we at last conclude effeminate peace?\n    Have we not lost most part of all the towns,\n    By treason, falsehood, and by treachery,\n    Our great progenitors had conquered?\n    O Warwick, Warwick! I foresee with grief\n    The utter loss of all the realm of France.\n  WARWICK. Be patient, York. If we conclude a peace,\n    It shall be with such strict and severe covenants\n    As little shall the Frenchmen gain thereby.\n\n        Enter CHARLES, ALENCON, BASTARD, REIGNIER, and others\n\n  CHARLES. Since, lords of England, it is thus agreed\n    That peaceful truce shall be proclaim'd in France,\n    We come to be informed by yourselves\n    What the conditions of that league must be.\n  YORK. Speak, Winchester; for boiling choler chokes\n    The hollow passage of my poison'd voice,\n    By sight of these our baleful enemies.\n  CARDINAL. Charles, and the rest, it is enacted thus:\n    That, in regard King Henry gives consent,\n    Of mere compassion and of lenity,\n    To ease your country of distressful war,\n    An suffer you to breathe in fruitful peace,\n    You shall become true liegemen to his crown;\n    And, Charles, upon condition thou wilt swear\n    To pay him tribute and submit thyself,\n    Thou shalt be plac'd as viceroy under him,\n    And still enjoy thy regal dignity.\n  ALENCON. Must he be then as shadow of himself?\n    Adorn his temples with a coronet\n    And yet, in substance and authority,\n    Retain but privilege of a private man?\n    This proffer is absurd and reasonless.\n  CHARLES. 'Tis known already that I am possess'd\n    With more than half the Gallian territories,\n    And therein reverenc'd for their lawful king.\n    Shall I, for lucre of the rest unvanquish'd,\n    Detract so much from that prerogative\n    As to be call'd but viceroy of the whole?\n    No, Lord Ambassador; I'll rather keep\n    That which I have than, coveting for more,\n    Be cast from possibility of all.\n  YORK. Insulting Charles! Hast thou by secret means\n    Us'd intercession to obtain a league,\n    And now the matter grows to compromise\n    Stand'st thou aloof upon comparison?\n    Either accept the title thou usurp'st,\n    Of benefit proceeding from our king\n    And not of any challenge of desert,\n    Or we will plague thee with incessant wars.\n  REIGNIER.  [To CHARLES]  My lord, you do not well in\n    obstinacy\n    To cavil in the course of this contract.\n    If once it be neglected, ten to one\n    We shall not find like opportunity.\n  ALENCON.  [To CHARLES]  To say the truth, it is your policy\n    To save your subjects from such massacre\n    And ruthless slaughters as are daily seen\n    By our proceeding in hostility;\n    And therefore take this compact of a truce,\n    Although you break it when your pleasure serves.\n  WARWICK. How say'st thou, Charles? Shall our condition\n    stand?\n  CHARLES. It shall;\n    Only reserv'd, you claim no interest\n    In any of our towns of garrison.\n  YORK. Then swear allegiance to his Majesty:\n    As thou art knight, never to disobey\n    Nor be rebellious to the crown of England\n    Thou, nor thy nobles, to the crown of England.\n                    [CHARLES and the rest give tokens of fealty]\n    So, now dismiss your army when ye please;\n    Hang up your ensigns, let your drums be still,\n    For here we entertain a solemn peace.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n                              SCENE 5.\n\n                         London. The palace\n\n            Enter SUFFOLK, in conference with the KING,\n                     GLOUCESTER and EXETER\n\n  KING HENRY. Your wondrous rare description, noble Earl,\n    Of beauteous Margaret hath astonish'd me.\n    Her virtues, graced with external gifts,\n    Do breed love's settled passions in my heart;\n    And like as rigour of tempestuous gusts\n    Provokes the mightiest hulk against the tide,\n    So am I driven by breath of her renown\n    Either to suffer shipwreck or arrive\n    Where I may have fruition of her love.\n  SUFFOLK. Tush, my good lord! This superficial tale\n    Is but a preface of her worthy praise.\n    The chief perfections of that lovely dame,\n    Had I sufficient skill to utter them,\n    Would make a volume of enticing lines,\n    Able to ravish any dull conceit;\n    And, which is more, she is not so divine,\n    So full-replete with choice of all delights,\n    But with as humble lowliness of mind\n    She is content to be at your command\n    Command, I mean, of virtuous intents,\n    To love and honour Henry as her lord.\n  KING HENRY. And otherwise will Henry ne'er presume.\n    Therefore, my Lord Protector, give consent\n    That Margaret may be England's royal Queen.\n  GLOUCESTER. So should I give consent to flatter sin.\n    You know, my lord, your Highness is betroth'd\n    Unto another lady of esteem.\n    How shall we then dispense with that contract,\n    And not deface your honour with reproach?\n  SUFFOLK. As doth a ruler with unlawful oaths;\n    Or one that at a triumph, having vow'd\n    To try his strength, forsaketh yet the lists\n    By reason of his adversary's odds:\n    A poor earl's daughter is unequal odds,\n    And therefore may be broke without offence.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, what, I pray, is Margaret more than\n    that?\n    Her father is no better than an earl,\n    Although in glorious titles he excel.\n  SUFFOLK. Yes, my lord, her father is a king,\n    The King of Naples and Jerusalem;\n    And of such great authority in France\n    As his alliance will confirm our peace,\n    And keep the Frenchmen in allegiance.\n  GLOUCESTER. And so the Earl of Armagnac may do,\n    Because he is near kinsman unto Charles.\n  EXETER. Beside, his wealth doth warrant a liberal dower;\n    Where Reignier sooner will receive than give.\n  SUFFOLK. A dow'r, my lords! Disgrace not so your king,\n    That he should be so abject, base, and poor,\n    To choose for wealth and not for perfect love.\n    Henry is able to enrich his queen,\n    And not to seek a queen to make him rich.\n    So worthless peasants bargain for their wives,\n    As market-men for oxen, sheep, or horse.\n    Marriage is a matter of more worth\n    Than to be dealt in by attorneyship;\n    Not whom we will, but whom his Grace affects,\n    Must be companion of his nuptial bed.\n    And therefore, lords, since he affects her most,\n    It most of all these reasons bindeth us\n    In our opinions she should be preferr'd;\n    For what is wedlock forced but a hell,\n    An age of discord and continual strife?\n    Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss,\n    And is a pattern of celestial peace.\n    Whom should we match with Henry, being a king,\n    But Margaret, that is daughter to a king?\n    Her peerless feature, joined with her birth,\n    Approves her fit for none but for a king;\n    Her valiant courage and undaunted spirit,\n    More than in women commonly is seen,\n    Will answer our hope in issue of a king;\n    For Henry, son unto a conqueror,\n    Is likely to beget more conquerors,\n    If with a lady of so high resolve\n    As is fair Margaret he be link'd in love.\n    Then yield, my lords; and here conclude with me\n    That Margaret shall be Queen, and none but she.\n  KING HENRY. Whether it be through force of your report,\n    My noble Lord of Suffolk, or for that\n    My tender youth was never yet attaint\n    With any passion of inflaming love,\n    I cannot tell; but this I am assur'd,\n    I feel such sharp dissension in my breast,\n    Such fierce alarums both of hope and fear,\n    As I am sick with working of my thoughts.\n    Take therefore shipping; post, my lord, to France;\n    Agree to any covenants; and procure\n    That Lady Margaret do vouchsafe to come\n    To cross the seas to England, and be crown'd\n    King Henry's faithful and anointed queen.\n    For your expenses and sufficient charge,\n    Among the people gather up a tenth.\n    Be gone, I say; for till you do return\n    I rest perplexed with a thousand cares.\n    And you, good uncle, banish all offence:\n    If you do censure me by what you were,\n    Not what you are, I know it will excuse\n    This sudden execution of my will.\n    And so conduct me where, from company,\n    I may revolve and ruminate my grief.                    Exit\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, grief, I fear me, both at first and last.\n                                    Exeunt GLOUCESTER and EXETER\n  SUFFOLK. Thus Suffolk hath prevail'd; and thus he goes,\n    As did the youthful Paris once to Greece,\n    With hope to find the like event in love\n    But prosper better than the Troyan did.\n    Margaret shall now be Queen, and rule the King;\n    But I will rule both her, the King, and realm.          Exit\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nThe First Part of King Henry the Sixth"}
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{"1101":"\n\n\n\n\n1591\n\nTHE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n  HUMPHREY, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, his uncle\n  CARDINAL BEAUFORT, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, great-uncle to the\nKing\n  RICHARD PLANTAGENET, DUKE OF YORK\n  EDWARD and RICHARD, his sons\n  DUKE OF SOMERSET\n  DUKE OF SUFFOLK\n  DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM\n  LORD CLIFFORD\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD, his son\n  EARL OF SALISBURY\n  EARL OF WARWICK\n  LORD SCALES\n  LORD SAY\n  SIR HUMPHREY STAFFORD\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD, his brother\n  SIR JOHN STANLEY\n  VAUX\n  MATTHEW GOFFE\n  A LIEUTENANT, a SHIPMASTER, a MASTER'S MATE, and WALTER\nWHITMORE\n  TWO GENTLEMEN, prisoners with Suffolk\n  JOHN HUME and JOHN SOUTHWELL, two priests\n  ROGER BOLINGBROKE, a conjurer\n  A SPIRIT raised by him\n  THOMAS HORNER, an armourer\n  PETER, his man\n  CLERK OF CHATHAM\n  MAYOR OF SAINT ALBANS\n  SAUNDER SIMPCOX, an impostor\n  ALEXANDER IDEN, a Kentish gentleman\n  JACK CADE, a rebel\n  GEORGE BEVIS, JOHN HOLLAND, DICK THE BUTCHER, SMITH THE WEAVER,\n    MICHAEL, &c., followers of Cade\n  TWO MURDERERS\n\n  MARGARET, Queen to King Henry\n  ELEANOR, Duchess of Gloucester\n  MARGERY JOURDAIN, a witch\n  WIFE to SIMPCOX\n\n  Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Petitioners, Aldermen, a Herald,\n    a Beadle, a Sheriff, Officers, Citizens, Prentices,\nFalconers,\n    Guards, Soldiers, Messengers, &c.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nLondon. The palace\n\nFlourish of trumpets; then hautboys. Enter the KING, DUKE\nHUMPHREY\nOF GLOUCESTER, SALISBURY, WARWICK, and CARDINAL BEAUFORT, on the\none side;\nthe QUEEN, SUFFOLK, YORK, SOMERSET, and BUCKINGHAM, on the other\n\n  SUFFOLK. As by your high imperial Majesty\n    I had in charge at my depart for France,\n    As procurator to your Excellence,\n    To marry Princess Margaret for your Grace;\n    So, in the famous ancient city Tours,\n    In presence of the Kings of France and Sicil,\n    The Dukes of Orleans, Calaber, Bretagne, and Alencon,\n    Seven earls, twelve barons, and twenty reverend bishops,\n    I have perform'd my task, and was espous'd;\n    And humbly now upon my bended knee,\n    In sight of England and her lordly peers,\n    Deliver up my title in the Queen\n    To your most gracious hands, that are the substance\n    Of that great shadow I did represent:\n    The happiest gift that ever marquis gave,\n    The fairest queen that ever king receiv'd.\n  KING HENRY. Suffolk, arise. Welcome, Queen Margaret:\n    I can express no kinder sign of love\n    Than this kind kiss. O Lord, that lends me life,\n    Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!\n    For thou hast given me in this beauteous face\n    A world of earthly blessings to my soul,\n    If sympathy of love unite our thoughts.\n  QUEEN. Great King of England, and my gracious lord,\n    The mutual conference that my mind hath had,\n    By day, by night, waking and in my dreams,\n    In courtly company or at my beads,\n    With you, mine alder-liefest sovereign,\n    Makes me the bolder to salute my king\n    With ruder terms, such as my wit affords\n    And over-joy of heart doth minister.\n  KING HENRY. Her sight did ravish, but her grace in speech,\n    Her words y-clad with wisdom's majesty,\n    Makes me from wond'ring fall to weeping joys,\n    Such is the fulness of my heart's content.\n    Lords, with one cheerful voice welcome my love.\n  ALL. [Kneeling] Long live Queen Margaret, England's happiness!\n  QUEEN. We thank you all.                            [Flourish]\n  SUFFOLK. My Lord Protector, so it please your Grace,\n    Here are the articles of contracted peace\n    Between our sovereign and the French King Charles,\n    For eighteen months concluded by consent.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Reads] 'Imprimis: It is agreed between the French\nKing\n    Charles and William de la Pole, Marquess of Suffolk,\nambassador\n    for Henry King of England, that the said Henry shall espouse\nthe\n    Lady Margaret, daughter unto Reignier King of Naples,\nSicilia,\n    and Jerusalem, and crown her Queen of England ere the\nthirtieth\n    of May next ensuing.\n      Item: That the duchy of Anjou and the county of Maine shall\nbe\n    released and delivered to the King her father'-\n                                           [Lets the paper fall]\n  KING HENRY. Uncle, how now!\n  GLOUCESTER. Pardon me, gracious lord;\n    Some sudden qualm hath struck me at the heart,\n    And dimm'd mine eyes, that I can read no further.\n  KING HENRY. Uncle of Winchester, I pray read on.\n  CARDINAL. [Reads] 'Item: It is further agreed between them that\nthe\n    duchies of Anjou and Maine shall be released and delivered\nover\n    to the King her father, and she sent over of the King of\n    England's own proper cost and charges, without having any\ndowry.'\n  KING HENRY. They please us well. Lord Marquess, kneel down.\n    We here create thee the first Duke of Suffolk,\n    And girt thee with the sword. Cousin of York,\n    We here discharge your Grace from being Regent\n    I' th' parts of France, till term of eighteen months\n    Be full expir'd. Thanks, uncle Winchester,\n    Gloucester, York, Buckingham, Somerset,\n    Salisbury, and Warwick;\n    We thank you all for this great favour done\n    In entertainment to my princely queen.\n    Come, let us in, and with all speed provide\n    To see her coronation be perform'd.\n                                 Exeunt KING, QUEEN, and SUFFOLK\n  GLOUCESTER. Brave peers of England, pillars of the state,\n    To you Duke Humphrey must unload his grief\n    Your grief, the common grief of all the land.\n    What! did my brother Henry spend his youth,\n    His valour, coin, and people, in the wars?\n    Did he so often lodge in open field,\n    In winter's cold and summer's parching heat,\n    To conquer France, his true inheritance?\n    And did my brother Bedford toil his wits\n    To keep by policy what Henry got?\n    Have you yourselves, Somerset, Buckingham,\n    Brave York, Salisbury, and victorious Warwick,\n    Receiv'd deep scars in France and Normandy?\n    Or hath mine uncle Beaufort and myself,\n    With all the learned Council of the realm,\n    Studied so long, sat in the Council House\n    Early and late, debating to and fro\n    How France and Frenchmen might be kept in awe?\n    And had his Highness in his infancy\n    Crowned in Paris, in despite of foes?\n    And shall these labours and these honours die?\n    Shall Henry's conquest, Bedford's vigilance,\n    Your deeds of war, and all our counsel die?\n    O peers of England, shameful is this league!\n    Fatal this marriage, cancelling your fame,\n    Blotting your names from books of memory,\n    Razing the characters of your renown,\n    Defacing monuments of conquer'd France,\n    Undoing all, as all had never been!\n  CARDINAL. Nephew, what means this passionate discourse,\n    This peroration with such circumstance?\n    For France, 'tis ours; and we will keep it still.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, uncle, we will keep it if we can;\n    But now it is impossible we should.\n    Suffolk, the new-made duke that rules the roast,\n    Hath given the duchy of Anjou and Maine\n    Unto the poor King Reignier, whose large style\n    Agrees not with the leanness of his purse.\n  SALISBURY. Now, by the death of Him that died for all,\n    These counties were the keys of Normandy!\n    But wherefore weeps Warwick, my valiant son?\n  WARWICK. For grief that they are past recovery;\n    For were there hope to conquer them again\n    My sword should shed hot blood, mine eyes no tears.\n    Anjou and Maine! myself did win them both;\n    Those provinces these arms of mine did conquer;\n    And are the cities that I got with wounds\n    Deliver'd up again with peaceful words?\n    Mort Dieu!\n  YORK. For Suffolk's duke, may he be suffocate,\n    That dims the honour of this warlike isle!\n    France should have torn and rent my very heart\n    Before I would have yielded to this league.\n    I never read but England's kings have had\n    Large sums of gold and dowries with their wives;\n    And our King Henry gives away his own\n    To match with her that brings no vantages.\n  GLOUCESTER. A proper jest, and never heard before,\n    That Suffolk should demand a whole fifteenth\n    For costs and charges in transporting her!\n    She should have stay'd in France, and starv'd in France,\n    Before-\n  CARDINAL. My Lord of Gloucester, now ye grow too hot:\n    It was the pleasure of my lord the King.\n  GLOUCESTER. My Lord of Winchester, I know your mind;\n    'Tis not my speeches that you do mislike,\n    But 'tis my presence that doth trouble ye.\n    Rancour will out: proud prelate, in thy face\n    I see thy fury; if I longer stay\n    We shall begin our ancient bickerings.\n    Lordings, farewell; and say, when I am gone,\n    I prophesied France will be lost ere long.              Exit\n  CARDINAL. So, there goes our Protector in a rage.\n    'Tis known to you he is mine enemy;\n    Nay, more, an enemy unto you all,\n    And no great friend, I fear me, to the King.\n    Consider, lords, he is the next of blood\n    And heir apparent to the English crown.\n    Had Henry got an empire by his marriage\n    And all the wealthy kingdoms of the west,\n    There's reason he should be displeas'd at it.\n    Look to it, lords; let not his smoothing words\n    Bewitch your hearts; be wise and circumspect.\n    What though the common people favour him,\n    Calling him 'Humphrey, the good Duke of Gloucester,'\n    Clapping their hands, and crying with loud voice\n    'Jesu maintain your royal excellence!'\n    With 'God preserve the good Duke Humphrey!'\n    I fear me, lords, for all this flattering gloss,\n    He will be found a dangerous Protector.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why should he then protect our sovereign,\n    He being of age to govern of himself?\n    Cousin of Somerset, join you with me,\n    And all together, with the Duke of Suffolk,\n    We'll quickly hoise Duke Humphrey from his seat.\n  CARDINAL. This weighty business will not brook delay;\n    I'll to the Duke of Suffolk presently.                  Exit\n  SOMERSET. Cousin of Buckingham, though Humphrey's pride\n    And greatness of his place be grief to us,\n    Yet let us watch the haughty cardinal;\n    His insolence is more intolerable\n    Than all the princes in the land beside;\n    If Gloucester be displac'd, he'll be Protector.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Or thou or I, Somerset, will be Protector,\n    Despite Duke Humphrey or the Cardinal.\n                                  Exeunt BUCKINGHAM and SOMERSET\n  SALISBURY. Pride went before, ambition follows him.\n    While these do labour for their own preferment,\n    Behoves it us to labour for the realm.\n    I never saw but Humphrey Duke of Gloucester\n    Did bear him like a noble gentleman.\n    Oft have I seen the haughty Cardinal-\n    More like a soldier than a man o' th' church,\n    As stout and proud as he were lord of all-\n    Swear like a ruffian and demean himself\n    Unlike the ruler of a commonweal.\n    Warwick my son, the comfort of my age,\n    Thy deeds, thy plainness, and thy housekeeping,\n    Hath won the greatest favour of the commons,\n    Excepting none but good Duke Humphrey.\n    And, brother York, thy acts in Ireland,\n    In bringing them to civil discipline,\n    Thy late exploits done in the heart of France\n    When thou wert Regent for our sovereign,\n    Have made thee fear'd and honour'd of the people:\n    Join we together for the public good,\n    In what we can, to bridle and suppress\n    The pride of Suffolk and the Cardinal,\n    With Somerset's and Buckingham's ambition;\n    And, as we may, cherish Duke Humphrey's deeds\n    While they do tend the profit of the land.\n  WARWICK. So God help Warwick, as he loves the land\n    And common profit of his country!\n  YORK. And so says York- [Aside] for he hath greatest cause.\n  SALISBURY. Then let's make haste away and look unto the main.\n  WARWICK. Unto the main! O father, Maine is lost-\n    That Maine which by main force Warwick did win,\n    And would have kept so long as breath did last.\n    Main chance, father, you meant; but I meant Maine,\n    Which I will win from France, or else be slain.\n                                    Exeunt WARWICK and SALISBURY\n\n  YORK. Anjou and Maine are given to the French;\n    Paris is lost; the state of Normandy\n    Stands on a tickle point now they are gone.\n    Suffolk concluded on the articles;\n    The peers agreed; and Henry was well pleas'd\n    To changes two dukedoms for a duke's fair daughter.\n    I cannot blame them all: what is't to them?\n    'Tis thine they give away, and not their own.\n    Pirates may make cheap pennyworths of their pillage,\n    And purchase friends, and give to courtezans,\n    Still revelling like lords till all be gone;\n    While as the silly owner of the goods\n    Weeps over them and wrings his hapless hands\n    And shakes his head and trembling stands aloof,\n    While all is shar'd and all is borne away,\n    Ready to starve and dare not touch his own.\n    So York must sit and fret and bite his tongue,\n    While his own lands are bargain'd for and sold.\n    Methinks the realms of England, France, and Ireland,\n    Bear that proportion to my flesh and blood\n    As did the fatal brand Althaea burnt\n    Unto the prince's heart of Calydon.\n    Anjou and Maine both given unto the French!\n    Cold news for me, for I had hope of France,\n    Even as I have of fertile England's soil.\n    A day will come when York shall claim his own;\n    And therefore I will take the Nevils' parts,\n    And make a show of love to proud Duke Humphrey,\n    And when I spy advantage, claim the crown,\n    For that's the golden mark I seek to hit.\n    Nor shall proud Lancaster usurp my right,\n    Nor hold the sceptre in his childish fist,\n    Nor wear the diadem upon his head,\n    Whose church-like humours fits not for a crown.\n    Then, York, be still awhile, till time do serve;\n    Watch thou and wake, when others be asleep,\n    To pry into the secrets of the state;\n    Till Henry, surfeiting in joys of love\n    With his new bride and England's dear-bought queen,\n    And Humphrey with the peers be fall'n at jars;\n    Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose,\n    With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfum'd,\n    And in my standard bear the arms of York,\n    To grapple with the house of Lancaster;\n    And force perforce I'll make him yield the crown,\n    Whose bookish rule hath pull'd fair England down.       Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe DUKE OF GLOUCESTER'S house\n\nEnter DUKE and his wife ELEANOR\n\n  DUCHESS. Why droops my lord, like over-ripen'd corn\n    Hanging the head at Ceres' plenteous load?\n    Why doth the great Duke Humphrey knit his brows,\n    As frowning at the favours of the world?\n    Why are thine eyes fix'd to the sullen earth,\n    Gazing on that which seems to dim thy sight?\n    What see'st thou there? King Henry's diadem,\n    Enchas'd with all the honours of the world?\n    If so, gaze on, and grovel on thy face\n    Until thy head be circled with the same.\n    Put forth thy hand, reach at the glorious gold.\n    What, is't too short? I'll lengthen it with mine;\n    And having both together heav'd it up,\n    We'll both together lift our heads to heaven,\n    And never more abase our sight so low\n    As to vouchsafe one glance unto the ground.\n  GLOUCESTER. O Nell, sweet Nell, if thou dost love thy lord,\n    Banish the canker of ambitious thoughts!\n    And may that thought, when I imagine ill\n    Against my king and nephew, virtuous Henry,\n    Be my last breathing in this mortal world!\n    My troublous dreams this night doth make me sad.\n  DUCHESS. What dream'd my lord? Tell me, and I'll requite it\n    With sweet rehearsal of my morning's dream.\n  GLOUCESTER. Methought this staff, mine office-badge in court,\n    Was broke in twain; by whom I have forgot,\n    But, as I think, it was by th' Cardinal;\n    And on the pieces of the broken wand\n    Were plac'd the heads of Edmund Duke of Somerset\n    And William de la Pole, first Duke of Suffolk.\n    This was my dream; what it doth bode God knows.\n  DUCHESS. Tut, this was nothing but an argument\n    That he that breaks a stick of Gloucester's grove\n    Shall lose his head for his presumption.\n    But list to me, my Humphrey, my sweet Duke:\n    Methought I sat in seat of majesty\n    In the cathedral church of Westminster,\n    And in that chair where kings and queens were crown'd;\n    Where Henry and Dame Margaret kneel'd to me,\n    And on my head did set the diadem.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nay, Eleanor, then must I chide outright.\n    Presumptuous dame, ill-nurtur'd Eleanor!\n    Art thou not second woman in the realm,\n    And the Protector's wife, belov'd of him?\n    Hast thou not worldly pleasure at command\n    Above the reach or compass of thy thought?\n    And wilt thou still be hammering treachery\n    To tumble down thy husband and thyself\n    From top of honour to disgrace's feet?\n    Away from me, and let me hear no more!\n  DUCHESS. What, what, my lord! Are you so choleric\n    With Eleanor for telling but her dream?\n    Next time I'll keep my dreams unto myself\n    And not be check'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nay, be not angry; I am pleas'd again.\n\n                       Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My Lord Protector, 'tis his Highness' pleasure\n    You do prepare to ride unto Saint Albans,\n    Where as the King and Queen do mean to hawk.\n  GLOUCESTER. I go. Come, Nell, thou wilt ride with us?\n  DUCHESS. Yes, my good lord, I'll follow presently.\n                                 Exeunt GLOUCESTER and MESSENGER\n    Follow I must; I cannot go before,\n    While Gloucester bears this base and humble mind.\n    Were I a man, a duke, and next of blood,\n    I would remove these tedious stumbling-blocks\n    And smooth my way upon their headless necks;\n    And, being a woman, I will not be slack\n    To play my part in Fortune's pageant.\n    Where are you there, Sir John? Nay, fear not, man,\n    We are alone; here's none but thee and I.\n\n                           Enter HUME\n\n  HUME. Jesus preserve your royal Majesty!\n  DUCHESS. What say'st thou? Majesty! I am but Grace.\n  HUME. But, by the grace of God and Hume's advice,\n    Your Grace's title shall be multiplied.\n  DUCHESS. What say'st thou, man? Hast thou as yet conferr'd\n    With Margery Jourdain, the cunning witch of Eie,\n    With Roger Bolingbroke, the conjurer?\n    And will they undertake to do me good?\n  HUME. This they have promised, to show your Highness\n    A spirit rais'd from depth of underground\n    That shall make answer to such questions\n    As by your Grace shall be propounded him\n  DUCHESS. It is enough; I'll think upon the questions;\n    When from Saint Albans we do make return\n    We'll see these things effected to the full.\n    Here, Hume, take this reward; make merry, man,\n    With thy confederates in this weighty cause.            Exit\n  HUME. Hume must make merry with the Duchess' gold;\n    Marry, and shall. But, how now, Sir John Hume!\n    Seal up your lips and give no words but mum:\n    The business asketh silent secrecy.\n    Dame Eleanor gives gold to bring the witch:\n    Gold cannot come amiss were she a devil.\n    Yet have I gold flies from another coast-\n    I dare not say from the rich Cardinal,\n    And from the great and new-made Duke of Suffolk;\n    Yet I do find it so; for, to be plain,\n    They, knowing Dame Eleanor's aspiring humour,\n    Have hired me to undermine the Duchess,\n    And buzz these conjurations in her brain.\n    They say 'A crafty knave does need no broker';\n    Yet am I Suffolk and the Cardinal's broker.\n    Hume, if you take not heed, you shall go near\n    To call them both a pair of crafty knaves.\n    Well, so its stands; and thus, I fear, at last\n    Hume's knavery will be the Duchess' wreck,\n    And her attainture will be Humphrey's fall\n    Sort how it will, I shall have gold for all.            Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter three or four PETITIONERS, PETER, the Armourer's man, being\none\n\n  FIRST PETITIONER. My masters, let's stand close; my Lord\nProtector\n    will come this way by and by, and then we may deliver our\n    supplications in the quill.\n  SECOND PETITIONER. Marry, the Lord protect him, for he's a good\n    man, Jesu bless him!\n\n                       Enter SUFFOLK and QUEEN\n\n  FIRST PETITIONER. Here 'a comes, methinks, and the Queen with\nhim.\n    I'll be the first, sure.\n  SECOND PETITIONER. Come back, fool; this is the Duke of Suffolk\nand\n    not my Lord Protector.\n  SUFFOLK. How now, fellow! Wouldst anything with me?\n  FIRST PETITIONER. I pray, my lord, pardon me; I took ye for my\nLord\n    Protector.\n  QUEEN. [Reads] 'To my Lord Protector!' Are your supplications\nto\n    his lordship? Let me see them. What is thine?\n  FIRST PETITIONER. Mine is, an't please your Grace, against John\n    Goodman, my Lord Cardinal's man, for keeping my house and\nlands,\n    and wife and all, from me.\n  SUFFOLK. Thy wife too! That's some wrong indeed. What's yours?\n    What's here! [Reads] 'Against the Duke of Suffolk, for\nenclosing\n    the commons of Melford.' How now, sir knave!\n  SECOND PETITIONER. Alas, sir, I am but a poor petitioner of our\n    whole township.\n  PETER. [Presenting his petition] Against my master, Thomas\nHorner,\n    for saying that the Duke of York was rightful heir to the\ncrown.\n  QUEEN. What say'st thou? Did the Duke of York say he was\nrightful\n    heir to the crown?\n  PETER. That my master was? No, forsooth. My master said that he\n    was, and that the King was an usurper.\n  SUFFOLK. Who is there? [Enter servant] Take this fellow in, and\n    send for his master with a pursuivant presently. We'll hear\nmore\n    of your matter before the King.\n                                         Exit servant with PETER\n  QUEEN. And as for you, that love to be protected\n    Under the wings of our Protector's grace,\n    Begin your suits anew, and sue to him.\n                                       [Tears the supplications]\n    Away, base cullions! Suffolk, let them go.\n  ALL. Come, let's be gone.                               Exeunt\n  QUEEN. My Lord of Suffolk, say, is this the guise,\n    Is this the fashions in the court of England?\n    Is this the government of Britain's isle,\n    And this the royalty of Albion's king?\n    What, shall King Henry be a pupil still,\n    Under the surly Gloucester's governance?\n    Am I a queen in title and in style,\n    And must be made a subject to a duke?\n    I tell thee, Pole, when in the city Tours\n    Thou ran'st a tilt in honour of my love\n    And stol'st away the ladies' hearts of France,\n    I thought King Henry had resembled thee\n    In courage, courtship, and proportion;\n    But all his mind is bent to holiness,\n    To number Ave-Maries on his beads;\n    His champions are the prophets and apostles;\n    His weapons, holy saws of sacred writ;\n    His study is his tilt-yard, and his loves\n    Are brazen images of canonized saints.\n    I would the college of the Cardinals\n    Would choose him Pope, and carry him to Rome,\n    And set the triple crown upon his head;\n    That were a state fit for his holiness.\n  SUFFOLK. Madam, be patient. As I was cause\n    Your Highness came to England, so will I\n    In England work your Grace's full content.\n  QUEEN. Beside the haughty Protector, have we Beaufort\n    The imperious churchman; Somerset, Buckingham,\n    And grumbling York; and not the least of these\n    But can do more in England than the King.\n  SUFFOLK. And he of these that can do most of all\n    Cannot do more in England than the Nevils;\n    Salisbury and Warwick are no simple peers.\n  QUEEN. Not all these lords do vex me half so much\n    As that proud dame, the Lord Protector's wife.\n    She sweeps it through the court with troops of ladies,\n    More like an empress than Duke Humphrey's wife.\n    Strangers in court do take her for the Queen.\n    She bears a duke's revenues on her back,\n    And in her heart she scorns our poverty;\n    Shall I not live to be aveng'd on her?\n    Contemptuous base-born callet as she is,\n    She vaunted 'mongst her minions t' other day\n    The very train of her worst wearing gown\n    Was better worth than all my father's lands,\n    Till Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter.\n  SUFFOLK. Madam, myself have lim'd a bush for her,\n    And plac'd a quire of such enticing birds\n    That she will light to listen to the lays,\n    And never mount to trouble you again.\n    So, let her rest. And, madam, list to me,\n    For I am bold to counsel you in this:\n    Although we fancy not the Cardinal,\n    Yet must we join with him and with the lords,\n    Till we have brought Duke Humphrey in disgrace.\n    As for the Duke of York, this late complaint\n    Will make but little for his benefit.\n    So one by one we'll weed them all at last,\n    And you yourself shall steer the happy helm.\n\n          Sound a sennet. Enter the KING, DUKE HUMPHREY,\n     CARDINAL BEAUFORT, BUCKINGHAM, YORK, SOMERSET, SALISBURY,\n              WARWICK, and the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER\n\n  KING HENRY. For my part, noble lords, I care not which:\n    Or Somerset or York, all's one to me.\n  YORK. If York have ill demean'd himself in France,\n    Then let him be denay'd the regentship.\n  SOMERSET. If Somerset be unworthy of the place,\n    Let York be Regent; I will yield to him.\n  WARWICK. Whether your Grace be worthy, yea or no,\n    Dispute not that; York is the worthier.\n  CARDINAL. Ambitious Warwick, let thy betters speak.\n  WARWICK. The Cardinal's not my better in the field.\n  BUCKINGHAM. All in this presence are thy betters, Warwick.\n  WARWICK. Warwick may live to be the best of all.\n  SALISBURY. Peace, son! And show some reason, Buckingham,\n    Why Somerset should be preferr'd in this.\n  QUEEN. Because the King, forsooth, will have it so.\n  GLOUCESTER. Madam, the King is old enough himself\n    To give his censure. These are no women's matters.\n  QUEEN. If he be old enough, what needs your Grace\n    To be Protector of his Excellence?\n  GLOUCESTER. Madam, I am Protector of the realm;\n    And at his pleasure will resign my place.\n  SUFFOLK. Resign it then, and leave thine insolence.\n    Since thou wert king- as who is king but thou?-\n    The commonwealth hath daily run to wrack,\n    The Dauphin hath prevail'd beyond the seas,\n    And all the peers and nobles of the realm\n    Have been as bondmen to thy sovereignty.\n  CARDINAL. The commons hast thou rack'd; the clergy's bags\n    Are lank and lean with thy extortions.\n  SOMERSET. Thy sumptuous buildings and thy wife's attire\n    Have cost a mass of public treasury.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Thy cruelty in execution\n    Upon offenders hath exceeded law,\n    And left thee to the mercy of the law.\n  QUEEN. Thy sale of offices and towns in France,\n    If they were known, as the suspect is great,\n    Would make thee quickly hop without thy head.\n                  Exit GLOUCESTER. The QUEEN drops QUEEN her fan\n    Give me my fan. What, minion, can ye not?\n                        [She gives the DUCHESS a box on the ear]\n    I cry your mercy, madam; was it you?\n  DUCHESS. Was't I? Yea, I it was, proud Frenchwoman.\n    Could I come near your beauty with my nails,\n    I could set my ten commandments in your face.\n  KING HENRY. Sweet aunt, be quiet; 'twas against her will.\n  DUCHESS. Against her will, good King? Look to 't in time;\n    She'll hamper thee and dandle thee like a baby.\n    Though in this place most master wear no breeches,\n    She shall not strike Dame Eleanor unreveng'd.           Exit\n  BUCKINGHAM. Lord Cardinal, I will follow Eleanor,\n    And listen after Humphrey, how he proceeds.\n    She's tickled now; her fume needs no spurs,\n    She'll gallop far enough to her destruction.            Exit\n\n                      Re-enter GLOUCESTER\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Now, lords, my choler being overblown\n    With walking once about the quadrangle,\n    I come to talk of commonwealth affairs.\n    As for your spiteful false objections,\n    Prove them, and I lie open to the law;\n    But God in mercy so deal with my soul\n    As I in duty love my king and country!\n    But to the matter that we have in hand:\n    I say, my sovereign, York is meetest man\n    To be your Regent in the realm of France.\n  SUFFOLK. Before we make election, give me leave\n    To show some reason, of no little force,\n    That York is most unmeet of any man.\n  YORK. I'll tell thee, Suffolk, why I am unmeet:\n    First, for I cannot flatter thee in pride;\n    Next, if I be appointed for the place,\n    My Lord of Somerset will keep me here\n    Without discharge, money, or furniture,\n    Till France be won into the Dauphin's hands.\n    Last time I danc'd attendance on his will\n    Till Paris was besieg'd, famish'd, and lost.\n  WARWICK. That can I witness; and a fouler fact\n    Did never traitor in the land commit.\n  SUFFOLK. Peace, headstrong Warwick!\n  WARWICK. Image of pride, why should I hold my peace?\n\n        Enter HORNER, the Armourer, and his man PETER, guarded\n\n  SUFFOLK. Because here is a man accus'd of treason:\n    Pray God the Duke of York excuse himself!\n  YORK. Doth any one accuse York for a traitor?\n  KING HENRY. What mean'st thou, Suffolk? Tell me, what are\nthese?\n  SUFFOLK. Please it your Majesty, this is the man\n    That doth accuse his master of high treason;\n    His words were these: that Richard Duke of York\n    Was rightful heir unto the English crown,\n    And that your Majesty was an usurper.\n  KING HENRY. Say, man, were these thy words?\n  HORNER. An't shall please your Majesty, I never said nor\nthought\n    any such matter. God is my witness, I am falsely accus'd by\nthe\n    villain.\n  PETER. [Holding up his hands] By these ten bones, my lords, he\ndid\n    speak them to me in the garret one night, as we were scouring\nmy\n    Lord of York's armour.\n  YORK. Base dunghill villain and mechanical,\n    I'll have thy head for this thy traitor's speech.\n    I do beseech your royal Majesty,\n    Let him have all the rigour of the law.\n  HORNER`. Alas, my lord, hang me if ever I spake the words. My\n    accuser is my prentice; and when I did correct him for his\nfault\n    the other day, he did vow upon his knees he would be even\nwith\n    me. I have good witness of this; therefore I beseech your\n    Majesty, do not cast away an honest man for a villain's\n    accusation.\n  KING HENRY. Uncle, what shall we say to this in law?\n  GLOUCESTER. This doom, my lord, if I may judge:\n    Let Somerset be Regent o'er the French,\n    Because in York this breeds suspicion;\n    And let these have a day appointed them\n    For single combat in convenient place,\n    For he hath witness of his servant's malice.\n    This is the law, and this Duke Humphrey's doom.\n  SOMERSET. I humbly thank your royal Majesty.\n  HORNER. And I accept the combat willingly.\n  PETER. Alas, my lord, I cannot fight; for God's sake, pity my\ncase!\n    The spite of man prevaileth against me. O Lord, have mercy\nupon\n    me, I shall never be able to fight a blow! O Lord, my heart!\n  GLOUCESTER. Sirrah, or you must fight or else be hang'd.\n  KING HENRY. Away with them to prison; and the day of combat\nshall\n    be the last of the next month.\n    Come, Somerset, we'll see thee sent away.   Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. The DUKE OF GLOUCESTER'S garden\n\nEnter MARGERY JOURDAIN, the witch; the two priests, HUME and\nSOUTHWELL;\nand BOLINGBROKE\n\n  HUME. Come, my masters; the Duchess, I tell you, expects\n    performance of your promises.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Master Hume, we are therefore provided; will her\n    ladyship behold and hear our exorcisms?\n  HUME. Ay, what else? Fear you not her courage.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I have heard her reported to be a woman of an\n    invincible spirit; but it shall be convenient, Master Hume,\nthat\n    you be by her aloft while we be busy below; and so I pray you\ngo,\n    in God's name, and leave us. [Exit HUME] Mother Jourdain, be\nyou\n    prostrate and grovel on the earth; John Southwell, read you;\nand\n    let us to our work.\n\n                 Enter DUCHESS aloft, followed by HUME\n\n  DUCHESS. Well said, my masters; and welcome all. To this gear,\nthe\n    sooner the better.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Patience, good lady; wizards know their times:\n    Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,\n    The time of night when Troy was set on fire;\n    The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl,\n    And spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves-\n    That time best fits the work we have in hand.\n    Madam, sit you, and fear not: whom we raise\n    We will make fast within a hallow'd verge.\n\n     [Here they do the ceremonies belonging, and make the circle;\n          BOLINGBROKE or SOUTHWELL reads: 'Conjuro te,' &c.\n     It thunders and lightens terribly; then the SPIRIT riseth]\n\n  SPIRIT. Adsum.\n  MARGERY JOURDAIN. Asmath,\n    By the eternal God, whose name and power\n    Thou tremblest at, answer that I shall ask;\n    For till thou speak thou shalt not pass from hence.\n  SPIRIT. Ask what thou wilt; that I had said and done.\n  BOLINGBROKE. [Reads] 'First of the king: what shall of him\nbecome?'\n  SPIRIT. The Duke yet lives that Henry shall depose;\n    But him outlive, and die a violent death.\n             [As the SPIRIT speaks, SOUTHWELL writes the answer]\n  BOLINGBROKE. 'What fates await the Duke of Suffolk?'\n  SPIRIT. By water shall he die and take his end.\n  BOLINGBROKE. 'What shall befall the Duke of Somerset?'\n  SPIRIT. Let him shun castles:\n    Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains\n    Than where castles mounted stand.\n    Have done, for more I hardly can endure.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Descend to darkness and the burning lake;\n    False fiend, avoid!       Thunder and lightning. Exit SPIRIT\n\n               Enter the DUKE OF YORK and the DUKE OF\n                 BUCKINGHAM with guard, and break in\n\n  YORK. Lay hands upon these traitors and their trash.\n    Beldam, I think we watch'd you at an inch.\n    What, madam, are you there? The King and commonweal\n    Are deeply indebted for this piece of pains;\n    My Lord Protector will, I doubt it not,\n    See you well guerdon'd for these good deserts.\n  DUCHESS. Not half so bad as thine to England's king,\n    Injurious Duke, that threatest where's no cause.\n  BUCKINGHAM. True, madam, none at all. What can you this?\n    Away with them! let them be clapp'd up close,\n    And kept asunder. You, madam, shall with us.\n    Stafford, take her to thee.\n    We'll see your trinkets here all forthcoming.\n    All, away!\n                Exeunt, above, DUCHESS and HUME, guarded; below,\n                       WITCH, SOUTHWELL and BOLINGBROKE, guarded\n  YORK. Lord Buckingham, methinks you watch'd her well.\n    A pretty plot, well chosen to build upon!\n    Now, pray, my lord, let's see the devil's writ.\n    What have we here?                                   [Reads]\n    'The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose;\n    But him outlive, and die a violent death.'\n    Why, this is just\n    'Aio te, Aeacida, Romanos vincere posse.'\n    Well, to the rest:\n    'Tell me what fate awaits the Duke of Suffolk?'\n    'By water shall he die and take his end.'\n    'What shall betide the Duke of Somerset?'\n    'Let him shun castles;\n    Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains\n    Than where castles mounted stand.'\n    Come, come, my lords;\n    These oracles are hardly attain'd,\n    And hardly understood.\n    The King is now in progress towards Saint Albans,\n    With him the husband of this lovely lady;\n    Thither go these news as fast as horse can carry them-\n    A sorry breakfast for my Lord Protector.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Your Grace shall give me leave, my Lord of York,\n    To be the post, in hope of his reward.\n  YORK. At your pleasure, my good lord.\n    Who's within there, ho?\n\n                       Enter a serving-man\n\n    Invite my Lords of Salisbury and Warwick\n    To sup with me to-morrow night. Away!                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nSaint Albans\n\nEnter the KING, QUEEN, GLOUCESTER, CARDINAL, and SUFFOLK,\nwith Falconers halloing\n\n  QUEEN. Believe me, lords, for flying at the brook,\n    I saw not better sport these seven years' day;\n    Yet, by your leave, the wind was very high,\n    And ten to one old Joan had not gone out.\n  KING HENRY. But what a point, my lord, your falcon made,\n    And what a pitch she flew above the rest!\n    To see how God in all His creatures works!\n    Yea, man and birds are fain of climbing high.\n  SUFFOLK. No marvel, an it like your Majesty,\n    My Lord Protector's hawks do tow'r so well;\n    They know their master loves to be aloft,\n    And bears his thoughts above his falcon's pitch.\n  GLOUCESTER. My lord, 'tis but a base ignoble mind\n    That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.\n  CARDINAL. I thought as much; he would be above the clouds.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, my lord Cardinal, how think you by that?\n    Were it not good your Grace could fly to heaven?\n  KING HENRY. The treasury of everlasting joy!\n  CARDINAL. Thy heaven is on earth; thine eyes and thoughts\n    Beat on a crown, the treasure of thy heart;\n    Pernicious Protector, dangerous peer,\n    That smooth'st it so with King and commonweal.\n  GLOUCESTER. What, Cardinal, is your priesthood grown\nperemptory?\n    Tantaene animis coelestibus irae?\n    Churchmen so hot? Good uncle, hide such malice;\n    With such holiness can you do it?\n  SUFFOLK. No malice, sir; no more than well becomes\n    So good a quarrel and so bad a peer.\n  GLOUCESTER. As who, my lord?\n  SUFFOLK. Why, as you, my lord,\n    An't like your lordly Lord's Protectorship.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, Suffolk, England knows thine insolence.\n  QUEEN. And thy ambition, Gloucester.\n  KING HENRY. I prithee, peace,\n    Good Queen, and whet not on these furious peers;\n    For blessed are the peacemakers on earth.\n  CARDINAL. Let me be blessed for the peace I make\n    Against this proud Protector with my sword!\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CARDINAL] Faith, holy uncle, would 'twere\n    come to that!\n  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Marry, when thou dar'st.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CARDINAL] Make up no factious numbers for\nthe\n      matter;\n    In thine own person answer thy abuse.\n  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Ay, where thou dar'st not peep;\nan\n      if thou dar'st,\n    This evening on the east side of the grove.\n  KING HENRY. How now, my lords!\n  CARDINAL. Believe me, cousin Gloucester,\n    Had not your man put up the fowl so suddenly,\n    We had had more sport. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Come with thy\n      two-hand sword.\n  GLOUCESTER. True, uncle.\n  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Are ye advis'd? The east side\nof\n    the grove?\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CARDINAL] Cardinal, I am with you.\n  KING HENRY. Why, how now, uncle Gloucester!\n  GLOUCESTER. Talking of hawking; nothing else, my lord.\n    [Aside to CARDINAL] Now, by God's Mother, priest,\n    I'll shave your crown for this,\n    Or all my fence shall fail.\n  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Medice, teipsum;\n    Protector, see to't well; protect yourself.\n  KING HENRY. The winds grow high; so do your stomachs, lords.\n    How irksome is this music to my heart!\n    When such strings jar, what hope of harmony?\n    I pray, my lords, let me compound this strife.\n\n         Enter a TOWNSMAN of Saint Albans, crying 'A miracle!'\n\n  GLOUCESTER. What means this noise?\n    Fellow, what miracle dost thou proclaim?\n  TOWNSMAN. A miracle! A miracle!\n  SUFFOLK. Come to the King, and tell him what miracle.\n  TOWNSMAN. Forsooth, a blind man at Saint Albans shrine\n    Within this half hour hath receiv'd his sight;\n    A man that ne'er saw in his life before.\n  KING HENRY. Now God be prais'd that to believing souls\n    Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair!\n\n           Enter the MAYOR OF SAINT ALBANS and his brethren,\n               bearing Simpcox between two in a chair;\n                 his WIFE and a multitude following\n\n  CARDINAL. Here comes the townsmen on procession\n    To present your Highness with the man.\n  KING HENRY. Great is his comfort in this earthly vale,\n    Although by his sight his sin be multiplied.\n  GLOUCESTER. Stand by, my masters; bring him near the King;\n    His Highness' pleasure is to talk with him.\n  KING HENRY. Good fellow, tell us here the circumstance,\n    That we for thee may glorify the Lord.\n    What, hast thou been long blind and now restor'd?\n  SIMPCOX. Born blind, an't please your Grace.\n  WIFE. Ay indeed was he.\n  SUFFOLK. What woman is this?\n  WIFE. His wife, an't like your worship.\n  GLOUCESTER. Hadst thou been his mother, thou couldst have\nbetter\n    told.\n  KING HENRY. Where wert thou born?\n  SIMPCOX. At Berwick in the north, an't like your Grace.\n  KING HENRY. Poor soul, God's goodness hath been great to thee.\n    Let never day nor night unhallowed pass,\n    But still remember what the Lord hath done.\n  QUEEN. Tell me, good fellow, cam'st thou here by chance,\n    Or of devotion, to this holy shrine?\n  SIMPCOX. God knows, of pure devotion; being call'd\n    A hundred times and oft'ner, in my sleep,\n    By good Saint Alban, who said 'Simpcox, come,\n    Come, offer at my shrine, and I will help thee.'\n  WIFE. Most true, forsooth; and many time and oft\n    Myself have heard a voice to call him so.\n  CARDINAL. What, art thou lame?\n  SIMPCOX. Ay, God Almighty help me!\n  SUFFOLK. How cam'st thou so?\n  SIMPCOX. A fall off of a tree.\n  WIFE. A plum tree, master.\n  GLOUCESTER. How long hast thou been blind?\n  SIMPCOX. O, born so, master!\n  GLOUCESTER. What, and wouldst climb a tree?\n  SIMPCOX. But that in all my life, when I was a youth.\n  WIFE. Too true; and bought his climbing very dear.\n  GLOUCESTER. Mass, thou lov'dst plums well, that wouldst venture\nso.\n  SIMPCOX. Alas, good master, my wife desir'd some damsons\n    And made me climb, With danger of my life.\n  GLOUCESTER. A subtle knave! But yet it shall not serve:\n    Let me see thine eyes; wink now; now open them;\n    In my opinion yet thou seest not well.\n  SIMPCOX. Yes, master, clear as day, I thank God and Saint\nAlban.\n  GLOUCESTER. Say'st thou me so? What colour is this cloak of?\n  SIMPCOX. Red, master; red as blood.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, that's well said. What colour is my gown of?\n  SIMPCOX. Black, forsooth; coal-black as jet.\n  KING HENRY. Why, then, thou know'st what colour jet is of?\n  SUFFOLK. And yet, I think, jet did he never see.\n  GLOUCESTER. But cloaks and gowns before this day a many.\n  WIFE. Never before this day in all his life.\n  GLOUCESTER. Tell me, sirrah, what's my name?\n  SIMPCOX. Alas, master, I know not.\n  GLOUCESTER. What's his name?\n  SIMPCOX. I know not.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nor his?\n  SIMPCOX. No, indeed, master.\n  GLOUCESTER. What's thine own name?\n  SIMPCOX. Saunder Simpcox, an if it please you, master.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then, Saunder, sit there, the lying'st knave in\n    Christendom. If thou hadst been born blind, thou mightst as\nwell\n    have known all our names as thus to name the several colours\nwe\n    do wear. Sight may distinguish of colours; but suddenly to\n    nominate them all, it is impossible. My lords, Saint Alban\nhere\n    hath done a miracle; and would ye not think his cunning to be\n    great that could restore this cripple to his legs again?\n  SIMPCOX. O master, that you could!\n  GLOUCESTER. My masters of Saint Albans, have you not beadles in\n    your town, and things call'd whips?\n  MAYOR. Yes, my lord, if it please your Grace.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then send for one presently.\n  MAYOR. Sirrah, go fetch the beadle hither straight.\n                                               Exit an attendant\n  GLOUCESTER. Now fetch me a stool hither by and by. [A stool\n    brought] Now, sirrah, if you mean to save yourself from\nwhipping,\n    leap me over this stool and run away.\n  SIMPCOX. Alas, master, I am not able to stand alone!\n    You go about to torture me in vain.\n\n                         Enter a BEADLE with whips\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Well, sir, we must have you find your legs.\n    Sirrah beadle, whip him till he leap over that same stool.\n  BEADLE. I will, my lord. Come on, sirrah; off with your doublet\n    quickly.\n  SIMPCOX. Alas, master, what shall I do? I am not able to stand.\n\n           After the BEADLE hath hit him once, he leaps over\n           the stool and runs away; and they follow and cry\n                             'A miracle!'\n\n  KING HENRY. O God, seest Thou this, and bearest so long?\n  QUEEN. It made me laugh to see the villain run.\n  GLOUCESTER. Follow the knave, and take this drab away.\n  WIFE. Alas, sir, we did it for pure need!\n  GLOUCESTER. Let them be whipp'd through every market town till\nthey\n    come to Berwick, from whence they came.\n                                 Exeunt MAYOR, BEADLE, WIFE, &c.\n  CARDINAL. Duke Humphrey has done a miracle to-day.\n  SUFFOLK. True; made the lame to leap and fly away.\n  GLOUCESTER. But you have done more miracles than I:\n    You made in a day, my lord, whole towns to fly.\n\n                         Enter BUCKINGHAM\n\n  KING HENRY. What tidings with our cousin Buckingham?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Such as my heart doth tremble to unfold:\n    A sort of naughty persons, lewdly bent,\n    Under the countenance and confederacy\n    Of Lady Eleanor, the Protector's wife,\n    The ringleader and head of all this rout,\n    Have practis'd dangerously against your state,\n    Dealing with witches and with conjurers,\n    Whom we have apprehended in the fact,\n    Raising up wicked spirits from under ground,\n    Demanding of King Henry's life and death\n    And other of your Highness' Privy Council,\n    As more at large your Grace shall understand.\n  CARDINAL. And so, my Lord Protector, by this means\n    Your lady is forthcoming yet at London.\n    This news, I think, hath turn'd your weapon's edge;\n    'Tis like, my lord, you will not keep your hour.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ambitious churchman, leave to afflict my heart.\n    Sorrow and grief have vanquish'd all my powers;\n    And, vanquish'd as I am, I yield to the\n    Or to the meanest groom.\n  KING HENRY. O God, what mischiefs work the wicked ones,\n    Heaping confusion on their own heads thereby!\n  QUEEN. Gloucester, see here the tainture of thy nest;\n    And look thyself be faultless, thou wert best.\n  GLOUCESTER. Madam, for myself, to heaven I do appeal\n    How I have lov'd my King and commonweal;\n    And for my wife I know not how it stands.\n    Sorry I am to hear what I have heard.\n    Noble she is; but if she have forgot\n    Honour and virtue, and convers'd with such\n    As, like to pitch, defile nobility,\n    I banish her my bed and company\n    And give her as a prey to law and shame,\n    That hath dishonoured Gloucester's honest name.\n  KING HENRY. Well, for this night we will repose us here.\n    To-morrow toward London back again\n    To look into this business thoroughly\n    And call these foul offenders to their answers,\n    And poise the cause in justice' equal scales,\n    Whose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause prevails.\n                                                Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nLondon. The DUKE OF YORK'S garden\n\nEnter YORK, SALISBURY, and WARWICK\n\n  YORK. Now, my good Lords of Salisbury and Warwick,\n    Our simple supper ended, give me leave\n    In this close walk to satisfy myself\n    In craving your opinion of my tide,\n    Which is infallible, to England's crown.\n  SALISBURY. My lord, I long to hear it at full.\n  WARWICK. Sweet York, begin; and if thy claim be good,\n    The Nevils are thy subjects to command.\n  YORK. Then thus:\n    Edward the Third, my lords, had seven sons;\n    The first, Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales;\n    The second, William of Hatfield; and the third,\n    Lionel Duke of Clarence; next to whom\n    Was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster;\n    The fifth was Edmund Langley, Duke of York;\n    The sixth was Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester;\n    William of Windsor was the seventh and last.\n    Edward the Black Prince died before his father\n    And left behind him Richard, his only son,\n    Who, after Edward the Third's death, reign'd as king\n    Till Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster,\n    The eldest son and heir of John of Gaunt,\n    Crown'd by the name of Henry the Fourth,\n    Seiz'd on the realm, depos'd the rightful king,\n    Sent his poor queen to France, from whence she came.\n    And him to Pomfret, where, as all you know,\n    Harmless Richard was murdered traitorously.\n  WARWICK. Father, the Duke hath told the truth;\n    Thus got the house of Lancaster the crown.\n  YORK. Which now they hold by force, and not by right;\n    For Richard, the first son's heir, being dead,\n    The issue of the next son should have reign'd.\n  SALISBURY. But William of Hatfield died without an heir.\n  YORK. The third son, Duke of Clarence, from whose line\n    I claim the crown, had issue Philippe, a daughter,\n    Who married Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March;\n    Edmund had issue, Roger Earl of March;\n    Roger had issue, Edmund, Anne, and Eleanor.\n  SALISBURY. This Edmund, in the reign of Bolingbroke,\n    As I have read, laid claim unto the crown;\n    And, but for Owen Glendower, had been king,\n    Who kept him in captivity till he died.\n    But, to the rest.\n  YORK. His eldest sister, Anne,\n    My mother, being heir unto the crown,\n    Married Richard Earl of Cambridge, who was\n    To Edmund Langley, Edward the Third's fifth son, son.\n    By her I claim the kingdom: she was heir\n    To Roger Earl of March, who was the son\n    Of Edmund Mortimer, who married Philippe,\n    Sole daughter unto Lionel Duke of Clarence;\n    So, if the issue of the elder son\n    Succeed before the younger, I am King.\n  WARWICK. What plain proceedings is more plain than this?\n    Henry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt,\n    The fourth son: York claims it from the third.\n    Till Lionel's issue fails, his should not reign.\n    It fails not yet, but flourishes in thee\n    And in thy sons, fair slips of such a stock.\n    Then, father Salisbury, kneel we together,\n    And in this private plot be we the first\n    That shall salute our rightful sovereign\n    With honour of his birthright to the crown.\n  BOTH. Long live our sovereign Richard, England's King!\n  YORK. We thank you, lords. But I am not your king\n    Till I be crown'd, and that my sword be stain'd\n    With heart-blood of the house of Lancaster;\n    And that's not suddenly to be perform'd,\n    But with advice and silent secrecy.\n    Do you as I do in these dangerous days:\n    Wink at the Duke of Suffolk's insolence,\n    At Beaufort's pride, at Somerset's ambition,\n    At Buckingham, and all the crew of them,\n    Till they have snar'd the shepherd of the flock,\n    That virtuous prince, the good Duke Humphrey;\n    'Tis that they seek; and they, in seeking that,\n    Shall find their deaths, if York can prophesy.\n  SALISBURY. My lord, break we off; we know your mind at full.\n  WARWICK. My heart assures me that the Earl of Warwick\n    Shall one day make the Duke of York a king.\n  YORK. And, Nevil, this I do assure myself,\n    Richard shall live to make the Earl of Warwick\n    The greatest man in England but the King.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nLondon. A hall of justice\n\nSound trumpets. Enter the KING and State: the QUEEN, GLOUCESTER,\nYORK,\nSUFFOLK, and SALISBURY, with guard, to banish the DUCHESS. Enter,\nguarded,\nthe DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER, MARGERY JOURDAIN, HUME, SOUTHWELL, and\nBOLINGBROKE\n\n  KING HENRY. Stand forth, Dame Eleanor Cobham, Gloucester's\nwife:\n    In sight of God and us, your guilt is great;\n    Receive the sentence of the law for sins\n    Such as by God's book are adjudg'd to death.\n    You four, from hence to prison back again;\n    From thence unto the place of execution:\n    The witch in Smithfield shall be burnt to ashes,\n    And you three shall be strangled on the gallows.\n    You, madam, for you are more nobly born,\n    Despoiled of your honour in your life,\n    Shall, after three days' open penance done,\n    Live in your country here in banishment\n    With Sir John Stanley in the Isle of Man.\n  DUCHESS. Welcome is banishment; welcome were my death.\n  GLOUCESTER. Eleanor, the law, thou seest, hath judged thee.\n    I cannot justify whom the law condemns.\n             Exeunt the DUCHESS and the other prisoners, guarded\n    Mine eyes are full of tears, my heart of grief.\n    Ah, Humphrey, this dishonour in thine age\n    Will bring thy head with sorrow to the ground!\n    I beseech your Majesty give me leave to go;\n    Sorrow would solace, and mine age would ease.\n  KING HENRY. Stay, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester; ere thou go,\n    Give up thy staff; Henry will to himself\n    Protector be; and God shall be my hope,\n    My stay, my guide, and lantern to my feet.\n    And go in peace, Humphrey, no less belov'd\n    Than when thou wert Protector to thy King.\n  QUEEN. I see no reason why a king of years\n    Should be to be protected like a child.\n    God and King Henry govern England's realm!\n    Give up your staff, sir, and the King his realm.\n  GLOUCESTER. My staff! Here, noble Henry, is my staff.\n    As willingly do I the same resign\n    As ere thy father Henry made it mine;\n    And even as willingly at thy feet I leave it\n    As others would ambitiously receive it.\n    Farewell, good King; when I am dead and gone,\n    May honourable peace attend thy throne!                 Exit\n  QUEEN. Why, now is Henry King, and Margaret Queen,\n    And Humphrey Duke of Gloucester scarce himself,\n    That bears so shrewd a maim: two pulls at once-\n    His lady banish'd and a limb lopp'd off.\n    This staff of honour raught, there let it stand\n    Where it best fits to be, in Henry's hand.\n  SUFFOLK. Thus droops this lofty pine and hangs his sprays;\n    Thus Eleanor's pride dies in her youngest days.\n  YORK. Lords, let him go. Please it your Majesty,\n    This is the day appointed for the combat;\n    And ready are the appellant and defendant,\n    The armourer and his man, to enter the lists,\n    So please your Highness to behold the fight.\n  QUEEN. Ay, good my lord; for purposely therefore\n    Left I the court, to see this quarrel tried.\n  KING HENRY. A God's name, see the lists and all things fit;\n    Here let them end it, and God defend the right!\n  YORK. I never saw a fellow worse bested,\n    Or more afraid to fight, than is the appellant,\n    The servant of his armourer, my lords.\n\n        Enter at one door, HORNER, the Armourer, and his\n         NEIGHBOURS, drinking to him so much that he is\n        drunk; and he enters with a drum before him and\n       his staff with a sand-bag fastened to it; and at the\n        other door PETER, his man, with a drum and sandbag,\n                  and PRENTICES drinking to him\n\n  FIRST NEIGHBOUR. Here, neighbour Horner, I drink to you in a\ncup of\n    sack; and fear not, neighbour, you shall do well enough.\n  SECOND NEIGHBOUR. And here, neighbour, here's a cup of\ncharneco.\n  THIRD NEIGHBOUR. And here's a pot of good double beer,\nneighbour;\n    drink, and fear not your man.\n  HORNER. Let it come, i' faith, and I'll pledge you all; and a\nfig\n    for Peter!\n  FIRST PRENTICE. Here, Peter, I drink to thee; and be not\nafraid.\n  SECOND PRENTICE. Be merry, Peter, and fear not thy master:\nfight\n    for credit of the prentices.\n  PETER. I thank you all. Drink, and pray for me, I pray you; for\nI\n    think I have taken my last draught in this world. Here,\nRobin, an\n    if I die, I give thee my apron; and, Will, thou shalt have my\n    hammer; and here, Tom, take all the money that I have. O Lord\n    bless me, I pray God! for I am never able to deal with my\nmaster,\n    he hath learnt so much fence already.\n  SALISBURY. Come, leave your drinking and fall to blows.\n    Sirrah, what's thy name?\n  PETER. Peter, forsooth.\n  SALISBURY. Peter? What more?\n  PETER. Thump.\n  SALISBURY. Thump? Then see thou thump thy master well.\n  HORNER. Masters, I am come hither, as it were, upon my man's\n    instigation, to prove him a knave and myself an honest man;\nand\n    touching the Duke of York, I will take my death I never meant\nhim\n    any ill, nor the King, nor the Queen; and therefore, Peter,\nhave\n    at thee with a down right blow!\n  YORK. Dispatch- this knave's tongue begins to double.\n    Sound, trumpets, alarum to the combatants!\n                 [Alarum. They fight and PETER strikes him down]\n  HORNER. Hold, Peter, hold! I confess, I confess treason.\n                                                          [Dies]\n  YORK. Take away his weapon. Fellow, thank God, and the good\nwine in\n    thy master's way.\n  PETER. O God, have I overcome mine enemies in this presence? O\n    Peter, thou hast prevail'd in right!\n  KING HENRY. Go, take hence that traitor from our sight,\n    For by his death we do perceive his guilt;\n    And God in justice hath reveal'd to us\n    The truth and innocence of this poor fellow,\n    Which he had thought to have murder'd wrongfully.\n    Come, fellow, follow us for thy reward.\n                                        Sound a flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter DUKE HUMPHREY and his men, in mourning cloaks\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Thus sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud,\n    And after summer evermore succeeds\n    Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold;\n    So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.\n    Sirs, what's o'clock?\n  SERVING-MAN. Ten, my lord.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ten is the hour that was appointed me\n    To watch the coming of my punish'd duchess.\n    Uneath may she endure the flinty streets\n    To tread them with her tender-feeling feet.\n    Sweet Nell, ill can thy noble mind abrook\n    The abject people gazing on thy face,\n    With envious looks, laughing at thy shame,\n    That erst did follow thy proud chariot wheels\n    When thou didst ride in triumph through the streets.\n    But, soft! I think she comes, and I'll prepare\n    My tear-stain'd eyes to see her miseries.\n\n          Enter the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER in a white sheet,\n            and a taper burning in her hand, with SIR JOHN\n               STANLEY, the SHERIFF, and OFFICERS\n\n  SERVING-MAN. So please your Grace, we'll take her from the\nsheriff.\n  GLOUCESTER. No, stir not for your lives; let her pass by.\n  DUCHESS. Come you, my lord, to see my open shame?\n    Now thou dost penance too. Look how they gaze!\n    See how the giddy multitude do point\n    And nod their heads and throw their eyes on thee;\n    Ah, Gloucester, hide thee from their hateful looks,\n    And, in thy closet pent up, rue my shame\n    And ban thine enemies, both mine and thine!\n  GLOUCESTER. Be patient, gentle Nell; forget this grief.\n  DUCHESS. Ah, Gloucester, teach me to forget myself!\n    For whilst I think I am thy married wife\n    And thou a prince, Protector of this land,\n    Methinks I should not thus be led along,\n    Mail'd up in shame, with papers on my back,\n    And follow'd with a rabble that rejoice\n    To see my tears and hear my deep-fet groans.\n    The ruthless flint doth cut my tender feet,\n    And when I start, the envious people laugh\n    And bid me be advised how I tread.\n    Ah, Humphrey, can I bear this shameful yoke?\n    Trowest thou that e'er I'll look upon the world\n    Or count them happy that enjoy the sun?\n    No; dark shall be my light and night my day;\n    To think upon my pomp shall be my hell.\n    Sometimes I'll say I am Duke Humphrey's wife,\n    And he a prince, and ruler of the land;\n    Yet so he rul'd, and such a prince he was,\n    As he stood by whilst I, his forlorn duchess,\n    Was made a wonder and a pointing-stock\n    To every idle rascal follower.\n    But be thou mild, and blush not at my shame,\n    Nor stir at nothing till the axe of death\n    Hang over thee, as sure it shortly will.\n    For Suffolk- he that can do all in all\n    With her that hateth thee and hates us all-\n    And York, and impious Beaufort, that false priest,\n    Have all lim'd bushes to betray thy wings,\n    And, fly thou how thou canst, they'll tangle thee.\n    But fear not thou until thy foot be snar'd,\n    Nor never seek prevention of thy foes.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ah, Nell, forbear! Thou aimest all awry.\n    I must offend before I be attainted;\n    And had I twenty times so many foes,\n    And each of them had twenty times their power,\n    All these could not procure me any scathe\n    So long as I am loyal, true, and crimeless.\n    Wouldst have me rescue thee from this reproach?\n    Why, yet thy scandal were not wip'd away,\n    But I in danger for the breach of law.\n    Thy greatest help is quiet, gentle Nell.\n    I pray thee sort thy heart to patience;\n    These few days' wonder will be quickly worn.\n\n                          Enter a HERALD\n\n  HERALD. I summon your Grace to his Majesty's Parliament,\n    Holden at Bury the first of this next month.\n  GLOUCESTER. And my consent ne'er ask'd herein before!\n    This is close dealing. Well, I will be there.    Exit HERALD\n    My Nell, I take my leave- and, master sheriff,\n    Let not her penance exceed the King's commission.\n  SHERIFF. An't please your Grace, here my commission stays;\n    And Sir John Stanley is appointed now\n    To take her with him to the Isle of Man.\n  GLOUCESTER. Must you, Sir John, protect my lady here?\n  STANLEY. So am I given in charge, may't please your Grace.\n  GLOUCESTER. Entreat her not the worse in that I pray\n    You use her well; the world may laugh again,\n    And I may live to do you kindness if\n    You do it her. And so, Sir John, farewell.\n  DUCHESS. What, gone, my lord, and bid me not farewell!\n  GLOUCESTER. Witness my tears, I cannot stay to speak.\n                                  Exeunt GLOUCESTER and servants\n  DUCHESS. Art thou gone too? All comfort go with thee!\n    For none abides with me. My joy is death-\n    Death, at whose name I oft have been afeard,\n    Because I wish'd this world's eternity.\n    Stanley, I prithee go, and take me hence;\n    I care not whither, for I beg no favour,\n    Only convey me where thou art commanded.\n  STANLEY. Why, madam, that is to the Isle of Man,\n    There to be us'd according to your state.\n  DUCHESS. That's bad enough, for I am but reproach-\n    And shall I then be us'd reproachfully?\n  STANLEY. Like to a duchess and Duke Humphrey's lady;\n    According to that state you shall be us'd.\n  DUCHESS. Sheriff, farewell, and better than I fare,\n    Although thou hast been conduct of my shame.\n  SHERIFF. It is my office; and, madam, pardon me.\n  DUCHESS. Ay, ay, farewell; thy office is discharg'd.\n    Come, Stanley, shall we go?\n  STANLEY. Madam, your penance done, throw off this sheet,\n    And go we to attire you for our journey.\n  DUCHESS. My shame will not be shifted with my sheet.\n    No, it will hang upon my richest robes\n    And show itself, attire me how I can.\n    Go, lead the way; I long to see my prison.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nThe Abbey at Bury St. Edmunds\n\nSound a sennet. Enter the KING, the QUEEN, CARDINAL, SUFFOLK,\nYORK,\nBUCKINGHAM, SALISBURY, and WARWICK, to the Parliament\n\n  KING HENRY. I muse my Lord of Gloucester is not come.\n    'Tis not his wont to be the hindmost man,\n    Whate'er occasion keeps him from us now.\n  QUEEN. Can you not see, or will ye not observe\n    The strangeness of his alter'd countenance?\n    With what a majesty he bears himself;\n    How insolent of late he is become,\n    How proud, how peremptory, and unlike himself?\n    We know the time since he was mild and affable,\n    And if we did but glance a far-off look\n    Immediately he was upon his knee,\n    That all the court admir'd him for submission.\n    But meet him now and be it in the morn,\n    When every one will give the time of day,\n    He knits his brow and shows an angry eye\n    And passeth by with stiff unbowed knee,\n    Disdaining duty that to us belongs.\n    Small curs are not regarded when they grin,\n    But great men tremble when the lion roars,\n    And Humphrey is no little man in England.\n    First note that he is near you in descent,\n    And should you fall he is the next will mount;\n    Me seemeth, then, it is no policy-\n    Respecting what a rancorous mind he bears,\n    And his advantage following your decease-\n    That he should come about your royal person\n    Or be admitted to your Highness' Council.\n    By flattery hath he won the commons' hearts;\n    And when he please to make commotion,\n    'Tis to be fear'd they all will follow him.\n    Now 'tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted;\n    Suffer them now, and they'll o'ergrow the garden\n    And choke the herbs for want of husbandry.\n    The reverent care I bear unto my lord\n    Made me collect these dangers in the Duke.\n    If it be fond, can it a woman's fear;\n    Which fear if better reasons can supplant,\n    I will subscribe, and say I wrong'd the Duke.\n    My Lord of Suffolk, Buckingham, and York,\n    Reprove my allegation if you can,\n    Or else conclude my words effectual.\n  SUFFOLK. Well hath your Highness seen into this duke;\n    And had I first been put to speak my mind,\n    I think I should have told your Grace's tale.\n    The Duchess, by his subornation,\n    Upon my life, began her devilish practices;\n    Or if he were not privy to those faults,\n    Yet by reputing of his high descent-\n    As next the King he was successive heir-\n    And such high vaunts of his nobility,\n    Did instigate the bedlam brainsick Duchess\n    By wicked means to frame our sovereign's fall.\n    Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep,\n    And in his simple show he harbours treason.\n    The fox barks not when he would steal the lamb.\n    No, no, my sovereign, Gloucester is a man\n    Unsounded yet, and full of deep deceit.\n  CARDINAL. Did he not, contrary to form of law,\n    Devise strange deaths for small offences done?\n  YORK. And did he not, in his protectorship,\n    Levy great sums of money through the realm\n    For soldiers' pay in France, and never sent it?\n    By means whereof the towns each day revolted.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Tut, these are petty faults to faults unknown\n    Which time will bring to light in smooth Duke Humphrey.\n  KING HENRY. My lords, at once: the care you have of us,\n    To mow down thorns that would annoy our foot,\n    Is worthy praise; but shall I speak my conscience?\n    Our kinsman Gloucester is as innocent\n    From meaning treason to our royal person\n    As is the sucking lamb or harmless dove:\n    The Duke is virtuous, mild, and too well given\n    To dream on evil or to work my downfall.\n  QUEEN. Ah, what's more dangerous than this fond affiance?\n    Seems he a dove? His feathers are but borrow'd,\n    For he's disposed as the hateful raven.\n    Is he a lamb? His skin is surely lent him,\n    For he's inclin'd as is the ravenous wolf.\n    Who cannot steal a shape that means deceit?\n    Take heed, my lord; the welfare of us all\n    Hangs on the cutting short that fraudful man.\n\n                          Enter SOMERSET\n\n  SOMERSET. All health unto my gracious sovereign!\n  KING HENRY. Welcome, Lord Somerset. What news from France?\n  SOMERSET. That all your interest in those territories\n    Is utterly bereft you; all is lost.\n  KING HENRY. Cold news, Lord Somerset; but God's will be done!\n  YORK. [Aside] Cold news for me; for I had hope of France\n    As firmly as I hope for fertile England.\n    Thus are my blossoms blasted in the bud,\n    And caterpillars eat my leaves away;\n    But I will remedy this gear ere long,\n    Or sell my title for a glorious grave.\n\n                         Enter GLOUCESTER\n\n  GLOUCESTER. All happiness unto my lord the King!\n    Pardon, my liege, that I have stay'd so long.\n  SUFFOLK. Nay, Gloucester, know that thou art come too soon,\n    Unless thou wert more loyal than thou art.\n    I do arrest thee of high treason here.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well, Suffolk, thou shalt not see me blush\n    Nor change my countenance for this arrest:\n    A heart unspotted is not easily daunted.\n    The purest spring is not so free from mud\n    As I am clear from treason to my sovereign.\n    Who can accuse me? Wherein am I guilty?\n  YORK. 'Tis thought, my lord, that you took bribes of France\n    And, being Protector, stay'd the soldiers' pay;\n    By means whereof his Highness hath lost France.\n  GLOUCESTER. Is it but thought so? What are they that think it?\n    I never robb'd the soldiers of their pay\n    Nor ever had one penny bribe from France.\n    So help me God, as I have watch'd the night-\n    Ay, night by night- in studying good for England!\n    That doit that e'er I wrested from the King,\n    Or any groat I hoarded to my use,\n    Be brought against me at my trial-day!\n    No; many a pound of mine own proper store,\n    Because I would not tax the needy commons,\n    Have I dispursed to the garrisons,\n    And never ask'd for restitution.\n  CARDINAL. It serves you well, my lord, to say so much.\n  GLOUCESTER. I say no more than truth, so help me God!\n  YORK. In your protectorship you did devise\n    Strange tortures for offenders, never heard of,\n    That England was defam'd by tyranny.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, 'tis well known that whiles I was Protector\n    Pity was all the fault that was in me;\n    For I should melt at an offender's tears,\n    And lowly words were ransom for their fault.\n    Unless it were a bloody murderer,\n    Or foul felonious thief that fleec'd poor passengers,\n    I never gave them condign punishment.\n    Murder indeed, that bloody sin, I tortur'd\n    Above the felon or what trespass else.\n  SUFFOLK. My lord, these faults are easy, quickly answer'd;\n    But mightier crimes are laid unto your charge,\n    Whereof you cannot easily purge yourself.\n    I do arrest you in His Highness' name,\n    And here commit you to my Lord Cardinal\n    To keep until your further time of trial.\n  KING HENRY. My Lord of Gloucester, 'tis my special hope\n    That you will clear yourself from all suspense.\n    My conscience tells me you are innocent.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ah, gracious lord, these days are dangerous!\n    Virtue is chok'd with foul ambition,\n    And charity chas'd hence by rancour's hand;\n    Foul subornation is predominant,\n    And equity exil'd your Highness' land.\n    I know their complot is to have my life;\n    And if my death might make this island happy\n    And prove the period of their tyranny,\n    I would expend it with all willingness.\n    But mine is made the prologue to their play;\n    For thousands more that yet suspect no peril\n    Will not conclude their plotted tragedy.\n    Beaufort's red sparkling eyes blab his heart's malice,\n    And Suffolk's cloudy brow his stormy hate;\n    Sharp Buckingham unburdens with his tongue\n    The envious load that lies upon his heart;\n    And dogged York, that reaches at the moon,\n    Whose overweening arm I have pluck'd back,\n    By false accuse doth level at my life.\n    And you, my sovereign lady, with the rest,\n    Causeless have laid disgraces on my head,\n    And with your best endeavour have stirr'd up\n    My liefest liege to be mine enemy;\n    Ay, all of you have laid your heads together-\n    Myself had notice of your conventicles-\n    And all to make away my guiltless life.\n    I shall not want false witness to condemn me\n    Nor store of treasons to augment my guilt.\n    The ancient proverb will be well effected:\n    'A staff is quickly found to beat a dog.'\n  CARDINAL. My liege, his railing is intolerable.\n    If those that care to keep your royal person\n    From treason's secret knife and traitor's rage\n    Be thus upbraided, chid, and rated at,\n    And the offender granted scope of speech,\n    'Twill make them cool in zeal unto your Grace.\n  SUFFOLK. Hath he not twit our sovereign lady here\n    With ignominious words, though clerkly couch'd,\n    As if she had suborned some to swear\n    False allegations to o'erthrow his state?\n  QUEEN. But I can give the loser leave to chide.\n  GLOUCESTER. Far truer spoke than meant: I lose indeed.\n    Beshrew the winners, for they play'd me false!\n    And well such losers may have leave to speak.\n  BUCKINGHAM. He'll wrest the sense, and hold us here all day.\n    Lord Cardinal, he is your prisoner.\n  CARDINAL. Sirs, take away the Duke, and guard him sure.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ah, thus King Henry throws away his crutch\n    Before his legs be firm to bear his body!\n    Thus is the shepherd beaten from thy side,\n    And wolves are gnarling who shall gnaw thee first.\n    Ah, that my fear were false! ah, that it were!\n    For, good King Henry, thy decay I fear.        Exit, guarded\n  KING HENRY. My lords, what to your wisdoms seemeth best\n    Do or undo, as if ourself were here.\n  QUEEN. What, will your Highness leave the Parliament?\n  KING HENRY. Ay, Margaret; my heart is drown'd with grief,\n    Whose flood begins to flow within mine eyes;\n    My body round engirt with misery-\n    For what's more miserable than discontent?\n    Ah, uncle Humphrey, in thy face I see\n    The map of honour, truth, and loyalty!\n    And yet, good Humphrey, is the hour to come\n    That e'er I prov'd thee false or fear'd thy faith.\n    What louring star now envies thy estate\n    That these great lords, and Margaret our Queen,\n    Do seek subversion of thy harmless life?\n    Thou never didst them wrong, nor no man wrong;\n    And as the butcher takes away the calf,\n    And binds the wretch, and beats it when it strays,\n    Bearing it to the bloody slaughter-house,\n    Even so, remorseless, have they borne him hence;\n    And as the dam runs lowing up and down,\n    Looking the way her harmless young one went,\n    And can do nought but wail her darling's loss,\n    Even so myself bewails good Gloucester's case\n    With sad unhelpful tears, and with dimm'd eyes\n    Look after him, and cannot do him good,\n    So mighty are his vowed enemies.\n    His fortunes I will weep, and 'twixt each groan\n    Say 'Who's a traitor? Gloucester he is none.'           Exit\n  QUEEN. Free lords, cold snow melts with the sun's hot beams:\n    Henry my lord is cold in great affairs,\n    Too full of foolish pity; and Gloucester's show\n    Beguiles him as the mournful crocodile\n    With sorrow snares relenting passengers;\n    Or as the snake, roll'd in a flow'ring bank,\n    With shining checker'd slough, doth sting a child\n    That for the beauty thinks it excellent.\n    Believe me, lords, were none more wise than I-\n    And yet herein I judge mine own wit good-\n    This Gloucester should be quickly rid the world\n    To rid us from the fear we have of him.\n  CARDINAL. That he should die is worthy policy;\n    But yet we want a colour for his death.\n    'Tis meet he be condemn'd by course of law.\n  SUFFOLK. But, in my mind, that were no policy:\n    The King will labour still to save his life;\n    The commons haply rise to save his life;\n    And yet we have but trivial argument,\n    More than mistrust, that shows him worthy death.\n  YORK. So that, by this, you would not have him die.\n  SUFFOLK. Ah, York, no man alive so fain as I!\n  YORK. 'Tis York that hath more reason for his death.\n    But, my Lord Cardinal, and you, my Lord of Suffolk,\n    Say as you think, and speak it from your souls:\n    Were't not all one an empty eagle were set\n    To guard the chicken from a hungry kite\n    As place Duke Humphrey for the King's Protector?\n  QUEEN. So the poor chicken should be sure of death.\n  SUFFOLK. Madam, 'tis true; and were't not madness then\n    To make the fox surveyor of the fold?\n    Who being accus'd a crafty murderer,\n    His guilt should be but idly posted over,\n    Because his purpose is not executed.\n    No; let him die, in that he is a fox,\n    By nature prov'd an enemy to the flock,\n    Before his chaps be stain'd with crimson blood,\n    As Humphrey, prov'd by reasons, to my liege.\n    And do not stand on quillets how to slay him;\n    Be it by gins, by snares, by subtlety,\n    Sleeping or waking, 'tis no matter how,\n    So he be dead; for that is good deceit\n    Which mates him first that first intends deceit.\n  QUEEN. Thrice-noble Suffolk, 'tis resolutely spoke.\n  SUFFOLK. Not resolute, except so much were done,\n    For things are often spoke and seldom meant;\n    But that my heart accordeth with my tongue,\n    Seeing the deed is meritorious,\n    And to preserve my sovereign from his foe,\n    Say but the word, and I will be his priest.\n  CARDINAL. But I would have him dead, my Lord of Suffolk,\n    Ere you can take due orders for a priest;\n    Say you consent and censure well the deed,\n    And I'll provide his executioner-\n    I tender so the safety of my liege.\n  SUFFOLK. Here is my hand the deed is worthy doing.\n  QUEEN. And so say I.\n  YORK. And I. And now we three have spoke it,\n    It skills not greatly who impugns our doom.\n\n                          Enter a POST\n\n  POST. Great lords, from Ireland am I come amain\n    To signify that rebels there are up\n    And put the Englishmen unto the sword.\n    Send succours, lords, and stop the rage betime,\n    Before the wound do grow uncurable;\n    For, being green, there is great hope of help.\n  CARDINAL. A breach that craves a quick expedient stop!\n    What counsel give you in this weighty cause?\n  YORK. That Somerset be sent as Regent thither;\n    'Tis meet that lucky ruler be employ'd,\n    Witness the fortune he hath had in France.\n  SOMERSET. If York, with all his far-fet policy,\n    Had been the Regent there instead of me,\n    He never would have stay'd in France so long.\n  YORK. No, not to lose it all as thou hast done.\n    I rather would have lost my life betimes\n    Than bring a burden of dishonour home\n    By staying there so long till all were lost.\n    Show me one scar character'd on thy skin:\n    Men's flesh preserv'd so whole do seldom win.\n  QUEEN. Nay then, this spark will prove a raging fire,\n    If wind and fuel be brought to feed it with;\n    No more, good York; sweet Somerset, be still.\n    Thy fortune, York, hadst thou been Regent there,\n    Might happily have prov'd far worse than his.\n  YORK. What, worse than nought? Nay, then a shame take all!\n  SOMERSET. And in the number, thee that wishest shame!\n  CARDINAL. My Lord of York, try what your fortune is.\n    Th' uncivil kerns of Ireland are in arms\n    And temper clay with blood of Englishmen;\n    To Ireland will you lead a band of men,\n    Collected choicely, from each county some,\n    And try your hap against the Irishmen?\n  YORK. I will, my lord, so please his Majesty.\n  SUFFOLK. Why, our authority is his consent,\n    And what we do establish he confirms;\n    Then, noble York, take thou this task in hand.\n  YORK. I am content; provide me soldiers, lords,\n    Whiles I take order for mine own affairs.\n  SUFFOLK. A charge, Lord York, that I will see perform'd.\n    But now return we to the false Duke Humphrey.\n  CARDINAL. No more of him; for I will deal with him\n    That henceforth he shall trouble us no more.\n    And so break off; the day is almost spent.\n    Lord Suffolk, you and I must talk of that event.\n  YORK. My Lord of Suffolk, within fourteen days\n    At Bristol I expect my soldiers;\n    For there I'll ship them all for Ireland.\n  SUFFOLK. I'll see it truly done, my Lord of York.\n                                             Exeunt all but YORK\n  YORK. Now, York, or never, steel thy fearful thoughts\n    And change misdoubt to resolution;\n    Be that thou hop'st to be; or what thou art\n    Resign to death- it is not worth th' enjoying.\n    Let pale-fac'd fear keep with the mean-born man\n    And find no harbour in a royal heart.\n    Faster than spring-time show'rs comes thought on thought,\n    And not a thought but thinks on dignity.\n    My brain, more busy than the labouring spider,\n    Weaves tedious snares to trap mine enemies.\n    Well, nobles, well, 'tis politicly done\n    To send me packing with an host of men.\n    I fear me you but warm the starved snake,\n    Who, cherish'd in your breasts, will sting your hearts.\n    'Twas men I lack'd, and you will give them me;\n    I take it kindly. Yet be well assur'd\n    You put sharp weapons in a madman's hands.\n    Whiles I in Ireland nourish a mighty band,\n    I will stir up in England some black storm\n    Shall blow ten thousand souls to heaven or hell;\n    And this fell tempest shall not cease to rage\n    Until the golden circuit on my head,\n    Like to the glorious sun's transparent beams,\n    Do calm the fury of this mad-bred flaw.\n    And for a minister of my intent\n    I have seduc'd a headstrong Kentishman,\n    John Cade of Ashford,\n    To make commotion, as full well he can,\n    Under the tide of John Mortimer.\n    In Ireland have I seen this stubborn Cade\n    Oppose himself against a troop of kerns,\n    And fought so long tiff that his thighs with darts\n    Were almost like a sharp-quill'd porpentine;\n    And in the end being rescu'd, I have seen\n    Him caper upright like a wild Morisco,\n    Shaking the bloody darts as he his bells.\n    Full often, like a shag-hair'd crafty kern,\n    Hath he conversed with the enemy,\n    And undiscover'd come to me again\n    And given me notice of their villainies.\n    This devil here shall be my substitute;\n    For that John Mortimer, which now is dead,\n    In face, in gait, in speech, he doth resemble.\n    By this I shall perceive the commons' mind,\n    How they affect the house and claim of York.\n    Say he be taken, rack'd, and tortured;\n    I know no pain they can inflict upon him\n    Will make him say I mov'd him to those arms.\n    Say that he thrive, as 'tis great like he will,\n    Why, then from Ireland come I with my strength,\n    And reap the harvest which that rascal sow'd;\n    For Humphrey being dead, as he shall be,\n    And Henry put apart, the next for me.                   Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBury St. Edmunds. A room of state\n\nEnter two or three MURDERERS running over the stage,\nfrom the murder of DUKE HUMPHREY\n\n  FIRST MURDERER. Run to my Lord of Suffolk; let him know\n    We have dispatch'd the Duke, as he commanded.\n  SECOND MURDERER. O that it were to do! What have we done?\n    Didst ever hear a man so penitent?\n\n                           Enter SUFFOLK\n\n  FIRST MURDERER. Here comes my lord.\n  SUFFOLK. Now, sirs, have you dispatch'd this thing?\n  FIRST MURDERER. Ay, my good lord, he's dead.\n  SUFFOLK. Why, that's well said. Go, get you to my house;\n    I will reward you for this venturous deed.\n    The King and all the peers are here at hand.\n    Have you laid fair the bed? Is all things well,\n    According as I gave directions?\n  FIRST MURDERER. 'Tis, my good lord.\n  SUFFOLK. Away! be gone.                       Exeunt MURDERERS\n\n             Sound trumpets. Enter the KING, the QUEEN,\n                CARDINAL, SOMERSET, with attendants\n\n  KING HENRY. Go call our uncle to our presence straight;\n    Say we intend to try his Grace to-day,\n    If he be guilty, as 'tis published.\n  SUFFOLK. I'll call him presently, my noble lord.          Exit\n  KING HENRY. Lords, take your places; and, I pray you all,\n    Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloucester\n    Than from true evidence, of good esteem,\n    He be approv'd in practice culpable.\n  QUEEN. God forbid any malice should prevail\n    That faultless may condemn a nobleman!\n    Pray God he may acquit him of suspicion!\n  KING HENRY. I thank thee, Meg; these words content me much.\n\n                           Re-enter SUFFOLK\n\n    How now! Why look'st thou pale? Why tremblest thou?\n    Where is our uncle? What's the matter, Suffolk?\n  SUFFOLK. Dead in his bed, my lord; Gloucester is dead.\n  QUEEN. Marry, God forfend!\n  CARDINAL. God's secret judgment! I did dream to-night\n    The Duke was dumb and could not speak a word.\n                                               [The KING swoons]\n  QUEEN. How fares my lord? Help, lords! The King is dead.\n  SOMERSET. Rear up his body; wring him by the nose.\n  QUEEN. Run, go, help, help! O Henry, ope thine eyes!\n  SUFFOLK. He doth revive again; madam, be patient.\n  KING. O heavenly God!\n  QUEEN. How fares my gracious lord?\n  SUFFOLK. Comfort, my sovereign! Gracious Henry, comfort!\n  KING HENRY. What, doth my Lord of Suffolk comfort me?\n    Came he right now to sing a raven's note,\n    Whose dismal tune bereft my vital pow'rs;\n    And thinks he that the chirping of a wren,\n    By crying comfort from a hollow breast,\n    Can chase away the first conceived sound?\n    Hide not thy poison with such sug'red words;\n    Lay not thy hands on me; forbear, I say,\n    Their touch affrights me as a serpent's sting.\n    Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight!\n    Upon thy eye-balls murderous tyranny\n    Sits in grim majesty to fright the world.\n    Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding;\n    Yet do not go away; come, basilisk,\n    And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight;\n    For in the shade of death I shall find joy-\n    In life but double death,'now Gloucester's dead.\n  QUEEN. Why do you rate my Lord of Suffolk thus?\n    Although the Duke was enemy to him,\n    Yet he most Christian-like laments his death;\n    And for myself- foe as he was to me-\n    Might liquid tears, or heart-offending groans,\n    Or blood-consuming sighs, recall his life,\n    I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,\n    Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs,\n    And all to have the noble Duke alive.\n    What know I how the world may deem of me?\n    For it is known we were but hollow friends:\n    It may be judg'd I made the Duke away;\n    So shall my name with slander's tongue be wounded,\n    And princes' courts be fill'd with my reproach.\n    This get I by his death. Ay me, unhappy!\n    To be a queen and crown'd with infamy!\n  KING HENRY. Ah, woe is me for Gloucester, wretched man!\n  QUEEN. Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.\n    What, dost thou turn away, and hide thy face?\n    I am no loathsome leper- look on me.\n    What, art thou like the adder waxen deaf?\n    Be poisonous too, and kill thy forlorn Queen.\n    Is all thy comfort shut in Gloucester's tomb?\n    Why, then Dame Margaret was ne'er thy joy.\n    Erect his statue and worship it,\n    And make my image but an alehouse sign.\n    Was I for this nigh wreck'd upon the sea,\n    And twice by awkward wind from England's bank\n    Drove back again unto my native clime?\n    What boded this but well-forewarning wind\n    Did seem to say 'Seek not a scorpion's nest,\n    Nor set no footing on this unkind shore'?\n    What did I then but curs'd the gentle gusts,\n    And he that loos'd them forth their brazen caves;\n    And bid them blow towards England's blessed shore,\n    Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock?\n    Yet Aeolus would not be a murderer,\n    But left that hateful office unto thee.\n    The pretty-vaulting sea refus'd to drown me,\n    Knowing that thou wouldst have me drown'd on shore\n    With tears as salt as sea through thy unkindness;\n    The splitting rocks cow'r'd in the sinking sands\n    And would not dash me with their ragged sides,\n    Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they,\n    Might in thy palace perish Margaret.\n    As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs,\n    When from thy shore the tempest beat us back,\n    I stood upon the hatches in the storm;\n    And when the dusky sky began to rob\n    My earnest-gaping sight of thy land's view,\n    I took a costly jewel from my neck-\n    A heart it was, bound in with diamonds-\n    And threw it towards thy land. The sea receiv'd it;\n    And so I wish'd thy body might my heart.\n    And even with this I lost fair England's view,\n    And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart,\n    And call'd them blind and dusky spectacles\n    For losing ken of Albion's wished coast.\n    How often have I tempted Suffolk's tongue-\n    The agent of thy foul inconstancy-\n    To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did\n    When he to madding Dido would unfold\n    His father's acts commenc'd in burning Troy!\n    Am I not witch'd like her? Or thou not false like him?\n    Ay me, I can no more! Die, Margaret,\n    For Henry weeps that thou dost live so long.\n\n               Noise within. Enter WARWICK, SALISBURY,\n                          and many commons\n\n  WARWICK. It is reported, mighty sovereign,\n    That good Duke Humphrey traitorously is murd'red\n    By Suffolk and the Cardinal Beaufort's means.\n    The commons, like an angry hive of bees\n    That want their leader, scatter up and down\n    And care not who they sting in his revenge.\n    Myself have calm'd their spleenful mutiny\n    Until they hear the order of his death.\n  KING HENRY. That he is dead, good Warwick, 'tis too true;\n    But how he died God knows, not Henry.\n    Enter his chamber, view his breathless corpse,\n    And comment then upon his sudden death.\n  WARWICK. That shall I do, my liege. Stay, Salisbury,\n    With the rude multitude till I return.                  Exit\n                                   Exit SALISBURY with the\ncommons\n  KING HENRY. O Thou that judgest all things, stay my thoughts-\n    My thoughts that labour to persuade my soul\n    Some violent hands were laid on Humphrey's life!\n    If my suspect be false, forgive me, God;\n    For judgment only doth belong to Thee.\n    Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips\n    With twenty thousand kisses and to drain\n    Upon his face an ocean of salt tears\n    To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk;\n    And with my fingers feel his hand un-feeling;\n    But all in vain are these mean obsequies;\n    And to survey his dead and earthy image,\n    What were it but to make my sorrow greater?\n\n               Bed put forth with the body. Enter WARWICK\n\n  WARWICK. Come hither, gracious sovereign, view this body.\n  KING HENRY. That is to see how deep my grave is made;\n    For with his soul fled all my worldly solace,\n    For, seeing him, I see my life in death.\n  WARWICK. As surely as my soul intends to live\n    With that dread King that took our state upon Him\n    To free us from his Father's wrathful curse,\n    I do believe that violent hands were laid\n    Upon the life of this thrice-famed Duke.\n  SUFFOLK. A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue!\n    What instance gives Lord Warwick for his vow?\n  WARWICK. See how the blood is settled in his face.\n    Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,\n    Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless,\n    Being all descended to the labouring heart,\n    Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,\n    Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy,\n    Which with the heart there cools, and ne'er returneth\n    To blush and beautify the cheek again.\n    But see, his face is black and full of blood;\n    His eye-balls further out than when he liv'd,\n    Staring full ghastly like a strangled man;\n    His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with struggling;\n    His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd\n    And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdu'd.\n    Look, on the sheets his hair, you see, is sticking;\n    His well-proportion'd beard made rough and rugged,\n    Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodged.\n    It cannot be but he was murd'red here:\n    The least of all these signs were probable.\n  SUFFOLK. Why, Warwick, who should do the Duke to death?\n    Myself and Beaufort had him in protection;\n    And we, I hope, sir, are no murderers.\n  WARWICK. But both of you were vow'd Duke Humphrey's foes;\n    And you, forsooth, had the good Duke to keep.\n    'Tis like you would not feast him like a friend;\n    And 'tis well seen he found an enemy.\n  QUEEN. Then you, belike, suspect these noblemen\n    As guilty of Duke Humphrey's timeless death.\n  WARWICK. Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh,\n    And sees fast by a butcher with an axe,\n    But will suspect 'twas he that made the slaughter?\n    Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest\n    But may imagine how the bird was dead,\n    Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?\n    Even so suspicious is this tragedy.\n  QUEEN. Are you the butcher, Suffolk? Where's your knife?\n    Is Beaufort term'd a kite? Where are his talons?\n  SUFFOLK. I wear no knife to slaughter sleeping men;\n    But here's a vengeful sword, rusted with ease,\n    That shall be scoured in his rancorous heart\n    That slanders me with murder's crimson badge.\n    Say if thou dar'st, proud Lord of Warwickshire,\n    That I am faulty in Duke Humphrey's death.\n                           Exeunt CARDINAL, SOMERSET, and others\n  WARWICK. What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him?\n  QUEEN. He dares not calm his contumelious spirit,\n    Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,\n    Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.\n  WARWICK. Madam, be still- with reverence may I say;\n    For every word you speak in his behalf\n    Is slander to your royal dignity.\n  SUFFOLK. Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanour,\n    If ever lady wrong'd her lord so much,\n    Thy mother took into her blameful bed\n    Some stern untutor'd churl, and noble stock\n    Was graft with crab-tree slip, whose fruit thou art,\n    And never of the Nevils' noble race.\n  WARWICK. But that the guilt of murder bucklers thee,\n    And I should rob the deathsman of his fee,\n    Quitting thee thereby of ten thousand shames,\n    And that my sovereign's presence makes me mild,\n    I would, false murd'rous coward, on thy knee\n    Make thee beg pardon for thy passed speech\n    And say it was thy mother that thou meant'st,\n    That thou thyself was born in bastardy;\n    And, after all this fearful homage done,\n    Give thee thy hire and send thy soul to hell,\n    Pernicious blood-sucker of sleeping men.\n  SUFFOLK. Thou shalt be waking while I shed thy blood,\n    If from this presence thou dar'st go with me.\n  WARWICK. Away even now, or I will drag thee hence.\n    Unworthy though thou art, I'll cope with thee,\n    And do some service to Duke Humphrey's ghost.\n                                      Exeunt SUFFOLK and WARWICK\n  KING HENRY. What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?\n    Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just;\n    And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,\n    Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.\n                                                [A noise within]\n  QUEEN. What noise is this?\n\n       Re-enter SUFFOLK and WARWICK, with their weapons drawn\n\n  KING. Why, how now, lords, your wrathful weapons drawn\n    Here in our presence! Dare you be so bold?\n    Why, what tumultuous clamour have we here?\n  SUFFOLK. The trait'rous Warwick, with the men of Bury,\n    Set all upon me, mighty sovereign.\n\n                        Re-enter SALISBURY\n\n  SALISBURY. [To the Commons within] Sirs, stand apart, the King\n      shall know your mind.\n    Dread lord, the commons send you word by me\n    Unless Lord Suffolk straight be done to death,\n    Or banished fair England's territories,\n    They will by violence tear him from your palace\n    And torture him with grievous ling'ring death.\n    They say by him the good Duke Humphrey died;\n    They say in him they fear your Highness' death;\n    And mere instinct of love and loyalty,\n    Free from a stubborn opposite intent,\n    As being thought to contradict your liking,\n    Makes them thus forward in his banishment.\n    They say, in care of your most royal person,\n    That if your Highness should intend to sleep\n    And charge that no man should disturb your rest,\n    In pain of your dislike or pain of death,\n    Yet, notwithstanding such a strait edict,\n    Were there a serpent seen with forked tongue\n    That slily glided towards your Majesty,\n    It were but necessary you were wak'd,\n    Lest, being suffer'd in that harmful slumber,\n    The mortal worm might make the sleep eternal.\n    And therefore do they cry, though you forbid,\n    That they will guard you, whe'er you will or no,\n    From such fell serpents as false Suffolk is;\n    With whose envenomed and fatal sting\n    Your loving uncle, twenty times his worth,\n    They say, is shamefully bereft of life.\n  COMMONS. [Within] An answer from the King, my Lord of\nSalisbury!\n  SUFFOLK. 'Tis like the commons, rude unpolish'd hinds,\n    Could send such message to their sovereign;\n    But you, my lord, were glad to be employ'd,\n    To show how quaint an orator you are.\n    But all the honour Salisbury hath won\n    Is that he was the lord ambassador\n    Sent from a sort of tinkers to the King.\n  COMMONS. [Within] An answer from the King, or we will all break\nin!\n  KING HENRY. Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from me\n    I thank them for their tender loving care;\n    And had I not been cited so by them,\n    Yet did I purpose as they do entreat;\n    For sure my thoughts do hourly prophesy\n    Mischance unto my state by Suffolk's means.\n    And therefore by His Majesty I swear,\n    Whose far unworthy deputy I am,\n    He shall not breathe infection in this air\n    But three days longer, on the pain of death.\n                                                  Exit SALISBURY\n  QUEEN. O Henry, let me plead for gentle Suffolk!\n  KING HENRY. Ungentle Queen, to call him gentle Suffolk!\n    No more, I say; if thou dost plead for him,\n    Thou wilt but add increase unto my wrath.\n    Had I but said, I would have kept my word;\n    But when I swear, it is irrevocable.\n    If after three days' space thou here be'st found\n    On any ground that I am ruler of,\n    The world shall not be ransom for thy life.\n    Come, Warwick, come, good Warwick, go with me;\n    I have great matters to impart to thee.\n                                Exeunt all but QUEEN and SUFFOLK\n  QUEEN. Mischance and sorrow go along with you!\n    Heart's discontent and sour affliction\n    Be playfellows to keep you company!\n    There's two of you; the devil make a third,\n    And threefold vengeance tend upon your steps!\n  SUFFOLK. Cease, gentle Queen, these execrations,\n    And let thy Suffolk take his heavy leave.\n  QUEEN. Fie, coward woman and soft-hearted wretch,\n    Has thou not spirit to curse thine enemy?\n  SUFFOLK. A plague upon them! Wherefore should I curse them?\n    Would curses kill as doth the mandrake's groan,\n    I would invent as bitter searching terms,\n    As curst, as harsh, and horrible to hear,\n    Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth,\n    With full as many signs of deadly hate,\n    As lean-fac'd Envy in her loathsome cave.\n    My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words,\n    Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint,\n    Mine hair be fix'd an end, as one distract;\n    Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban;\n    And even now my burden'd heart would break,\n    Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink!\n    Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste!\n    Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees!\n    Their chiefest prospect murd'ring basilisks!\n    Their softest touch as smart as lizards' stings!\n    Their music frightful as the serpent's hiss,\n    And boding screech-owls make the consort full!\n    all the foul terrors in dark-seated hell-\n  QUEEN. Enough, sweet Suffolk, thou torment'st thyself;\n    And these dread curses, like the sun 'gainst glass,\n    Or like an overcharged gun, recoil,\n    And turns the force of them upon thyself.\n  SUFFOLK. You bade me ban, and will you bid me leave?\n    Now, by the ground that I am banish'd from,\n    Well could I curse away a winter's night,\n    Though standing naked on a mountain top\n    Where biting cold would never let grass grow,\n    And think it but a minute spent in sport.\n  QUEEN. O, let me entreat thee cease! Give me thy hand,\n    That I may dew it with my mournful tears;\n    Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place\n    To wash away my woeful monuments.\n    O, could this kiss be printed in thy hand,\n    That thou might'st think upon these by the seal,\n    Through whom a thousand sighs are breath'd for thee!\n    So, get thee gone, that I may know my grief;\n    'Tis but surmis'd whiles thou art standing by,\n    As one that surfeits thinking on a want.\n    I will repeal thee or, be well assur'd,\n    Adventure to be banished myself;\n    And banished I am, if but from thee.\n    Go, speak not to me; even now be gone.\n    O, go not yet! Even thus two friends condemn'd\n    Embrace, and kiss, and take ten thousand leaves,\n    Loather a hundred times to part than die.\n    Yet now, farewell; and farewell life with thee!\n  SUFFOLK. Thus is poor Suffolk ten times banished,\n    Once by the King and three times thrice by thee,\n    'Tis not the land I care for, wert thou thence;\n    A wilderness is populous enough,\n    So Suffolk had thy heavenly company;\n    For where thou art, there is the world itself,\n    With every several pleasure in the world;\n    And where thou art not, desolation.\n    I can no more: Live thou to joy thy life;\n    Myself no joy in nought but that thou liv'st.\n\n                           Enter VAUX\n\n  QUEEN. Whither goes Vaux so fast? What news, I prithee?\n  VAUX. To signify unto his Majesty\n    That Cardinal Beaufort is at point of death;\n    For suddenly a grievous sickness took him\n    That makes him gasp, and stare, and catch the air,\n    Blaspheming God, and cursing men on earth.\n    Sometime he talks as if Duke Humphrey's ghost\n    Were by his side; sometime he calls the King\n    And whispers to his pillow, as to him,\n    The secrets of his overcharged soul;\n    And I am sent to tell his Majesty\n    That even now he cries aloud for him.\n  QUEEN. Go tell this heavy message to the King.       Exit VAUX\n    Ay me! What is this world! What news are these!\n    But wherefore grieve I at an hour's poor loss,\n    Omitting Suffolk's exile, my soul's treasure?\n    Why only, Suffolk, mourn I not for thee,\n    And with the southern clouds contend in tears-\n    Theirs for the earth's increase, mine for my sorrows?\n    Now get thee hence: the King, thou know'st, is coming;\n    If thou be found by me; thou art but dead.\n  SUFFOLK. If I depart from thee I cannot live;\n    And in thy sight to die, what were it else\n    But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap?\n    Here could I breathe my soul into the air,\n    As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe\n    Dying with mother's dug between its lips;\n    Where, from thy sight, I should be raging mad\n    And cry out for thee to close up mine eyes,\n    To have thee with thy lips to stop my mouth;\n    So shouldst thou either turn my flying soul,\n    Or I should breathe it so into thy body,\n    And then it liv'd in sweet Elysium.\n    To die by thee were but to die in jest:\n    From thee to die were torture more than death.\n    O, let me stay, befall what may befall!\n  QUEEN. Away! Though parting be a fretful corrosive,\n    It is applied to a deathful wound.\n    To France, sweet Suffolk. Let me hear from thee;\n    For whereso'er thou art in this world's globe\n    I'll have an Iris that shall find thee out.\n  SUFFOLK. I go.\n  QUEEN. And take my heart with thee.           [She kisses him]\n  SUFFOLK. A jewel, lock'd into the woefull'st cask\n    That ever did contain a thing of worth.\n    Even as a splitted bark, so sunder we:\n    This way fall I to death.\n  QUEEN. This way for me.                       Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nLondon. CARDINAL BEAUFORT'S bedchamber\n\nEnter the KING, SALISBURY, and WARWICK, to the CARDINAL in bed\n\n  KING HENRY. How fares my lord? Speak, Beaufort, to thy\nsovereign.\n  CARDINAL. If thou be'st Death I'll give thee England's\ntreasure,\n    Enough to purchase such another island,\n    So thou wilt let me live and feel no pain.\n  KING HENRY. Ah, what a sign it is of evil life\n    Where death's approach is seen so terrible!\n  WARWICK. Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to thee.\n  CARDINAL. Bring me unto my trial when you will.\n    Died he not in his bed? Where should he die?\n    Can I make men live, whe'er they will or no?\n    O, torture me no more! I will confess.\n    Alive again? Then show me where he is;\n    I'll give a thousand pound to look upon him.\n    He hath no eyes, the dust hath blinded them.\n    Comb down his hair; look, look! it stands upright,\n    Like lime-twigs set to catch my winged soul!\n    Give me some drink; and bid the apothecary\n    Bring the strong poison that I bought of him.\n  KING HENRY. O Thou eternal Mover of the heavens,\n    Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch!\n    O, beat away the busy meddling fiend\n    That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul,\n    And from his bosom purge this black despair!\n  WARWICK. See how the pangs of death do make him grin\n  SALISBURY. Disturb him not, let him pass peaceably.\n  KING HENRY. Peace to his soul, if God's good pleasure be!\n    Lord Card'nal, if thou think'st on heaven's bliss,\n    Hold up thy hand, make signal of thy hope.\n    He dies, and makes no sign: O God, forgive him!\n  WARWICK. So bad a death argues a monstrous life.\n  KING HENRY. Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.\n    Close up his eyes, and draw the curtain close;\n    And let us all to meditation.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nThe coast of Kent\n\nAlarum.  Fight at sea.  Ordnance goes off.  Enter a LIEUTENANT,\na SHIPMASTER and his MATE, and WALTER WHITMORE, with sailors;\nSUFFOLK and other GENTLEMEN, as prisoners\n\n  LIEUTENANT. The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day\n    Is crept into the bosom of the sea;\n    And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades\n    That drag the tragic melancholy night;\n    Who with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings\n    Clip dead men's graves, and from their misty jaws\n    Breathe foul contagious darkness in the air.\n    Therefore bring forth the soldiers of our prize;\n    For, whilst our pinnace anchors in the Downs,\n    Here shall they make their ransom on the sand,\n    Or with their blood stain this discoloured shore.\n    Master, this prisoner freely give I thee;\n    And thou that art his mate make boot of this;\n    The other, Walter Whitmore, is thy share.\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. What is my ransom, master, let me know?\n  MASTER. A thousand crowns, or else lay down your head.\n  MATE. And so much shall you give, or off goes yours.\n  LIEUTENANT. What, think you much to pay two thousand crowns,\n    And bear the name and port of gentlemen?\n    Cut both the villains' throats- for die you shall;\n    The lives of those which we have lost in fight\n    Be counterpois'd with such a petty sum!\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I'll give it, sir: and therefore spare my\nlife.\n  SECOND GENTLEMAN. And so will I, and write home for it\nstraight.\n  WHITMORE. I lost mine eye in laying the prize aboard,\n    [To SUFFOLK] And therefore, to revenge it, shalt thou die;\n    And so should these, if I might have my will.\n  LIEUTENANT. Be not so rash; take ransom, let him live.\n  SUFFOLK. Look on my George, I am a gentleman:\n    Rate me at what thou wilt, thou shalt be paid.\n  WHITMORE. And so am I: my name is Walter Whitmore.\n    How now! Why start'st thou? What, doth death affright?\n  SUFFOLK. Thy name affrights me, in whose sound is death.\n    A cunning man did calculate my birth\n    And told me that by water I should die;\n    Yet let not this make thee be bloody-minded;\n    Thy name is Gualtier, being rightly sounded.\n  WHITMORE. Gualtier or Walter, which it is I care not:\n    Never yet did base dishonour blur our name\n    But with our sword we wip'd away the blot;\n    Therefore, when merchant-like I sell revenge,\n    Broke be my sword, my arms torn and defac'd,\n    And I proclaim'd a coward through the world.\n  SUFFOLK. Stay, Whitmore, for thy prisoner is a prince,\n    The Duke of Suffolk, William de la Pole.\n  WHITMORE. The Duke of Suffolk muffled up in rags?\n  SUFFOLK. Ay, but these rags are no part of the Duke:\n    Jove sometime went disguis'd, and why not I?\n  LIEUTENANT. But Jove was never slain, as thou shalt be.\n  SUFFOLK. Obscure and lowly swain, King Henry's blood,\n    The honourable blood of Lancaster,\n    Must not be shed by such a jaded groom.\n    Hast thou not kiss'd thy hand and held my stirrup,\n    Bareheaded plodded by my foot-cloth mule,\n    And thought thee happy when I shook my head?\n    How often hast thou waited at my cup,\n    Fed from my trencher, kneel'd down at the board,\n    When I have feasted with Queen Margaret?\n    Remember it, and let it make thee crestfall'n,\n    Ay, and allay thus thy abortive pride,\n    How in our voiding-lobby hast thou stood\n    And duly waited for my coming forth.\n    This hand of mine hath writ in thy behalf,\n    And therefore shall it charm thy riotous tongue.\n  WHITMORE. Speak, Captain, shall I stab the forlorn swain?\n  LIEUTENANT. First let my words stab him, as he hath me.\n  SUFFOLK. Base slave, thy words are blunt, and so art thou.\n  LIEUTENANT. Convey him hence, and on our longboat's side\n    Strike off his head.\n  SUFFOLK. Thou dar'st not, for thy own.\n  LIEUTENANT. Poole!\n  SUFFOLK. Poole?\n  LIEUTENANT. Ay, kennel, puddle, sink, whose filth and dirt\n    Troubles the silver spring where England drinks;\n    Now will I dam up this thy yawning mouth\n    For swallowing the treasure of the realm.\n    Thy lips, that kiss'd the Queen, shall sweep the ground;\n    And thou that smil'dst at good Duke Humphrey's death\n    Against the senseless winds shalt grin in vain,\n    Who in contempt shall hiss at thee again;\n    And wedded be thou to the hags of hell\n    For daring to affy a mighty lord\n    Unto the daughter of a worthless king,\n    Having neither subject, wealth, nor diadem.\n    By devilish policy art thou grown great,\n    And, like ambitious Sylla, overgorg'd\n    With gobbets of thy mother's bleeding heart.\n    By thee Anjou and Maine were sold to France;\n    The false revolting Normans thorough thee\n    Disdain to call us lord; and Picardy\n    Hath slain their governors, surpris'd our forts,\n    And sent the ragged soldiers wounded home.\n    The princely Warwick, and the Nevils all,\n    Whose dreadful swords were never drawn in vain,\n    As hating thee, are rising up in arms;\n    And now the house of York- thrust from the crown\n    By shameful murder of a guiltless king\n    And lofty proud encroaching tyranny-\n    Burns with revenging fire, whose hopeful colours\n    Advance our half-fac'd sun, striving to shine,\n    Under the which is writ 'Invitis nubibus.'\n    The commons here in Kent are up in arms;\n    And to conclude, reproach and beggary\n    Is crept into the palace of our King,\n    And all by thee. Away! convey him hence.\n  SUFFOLK. O that I were a god, to shoot forth thunder\n    Upon these paltry, servile, abject drudges!\n    Small things make base men proud: this villain here,\n    Being captain of a pinnace, threatens more\n    Than Bargulus, the strong Illyrian pirate.\n    Drones suck not eagles' blood but rob beehives.\n    It is impossible that I should die\n    By such a lowly vassal as thyself.\n    Thy words move rage and not remorse in me.\n    I go of message from the Queen to France:\n    I charge thee waft me safely cross the Channel.\n  LIEUTENANT. Walter-\n  WHITMORE. Come, Suffolk, I must waft thee to thy death.\n  SUFFOLK. Gelidus timor occupat artus: it is thee I fear.\n  WHITMORE. Thou shalt have cause to fear before I leave thee.\n    What, are ye daunted now? Now will ye stoop?\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. My gracious lord, entreat him, speak him fair.\n  SUFFOLK. Suffolk's imperial tongue is stem and rough,\n    Us'd to command, untaught to plead for favour.\n    Far be it we should honour such as these\n    With humble suit: no, rather let my head\n    Stoop to the block than these knees bow to any\n    Save to the God of heaven and to my king;\n    And sooner dance upon a bloody pole\n    Than stand uncover'd to the vulgar groom.\n    True nobility is exempt from fear:\n    More can I bear than you dare execute.\n  LIEUTENANT. Hale him away, and let him talk no more.\n  SUFFOLK. Come, soldiers, show what cruelty ye can,\n    That this my death may never be forgot-\n    Great men oft die by vile bezonians:\n    A Roman sworder and banditto slave\n    Murder'd sweet Tully; Brutus' bastard hand\n    Stabb'd Julius Caesar; savage islanders\n    Pompey the Great; and Suffolk dies by pirates.\n                                        Exit WALTER with SUFFOLK\n  LIEUTENANT. And as for these, whose ransom we have set,\n    It is our pleasure one of them depart;\n    Therefore come you with us, and let him go.\n                              Exeunt all but the FIRST GENTLEMAN\n\n                Re-enter WHITMORE with SUFFOLK'S body\n\n  WHITMORE. There let his head and lifeless body lie,\n    Until the Queen his mistress bury it.                   Exit\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. O barbarous and bloody spectacle!\n    His body will I bear unto the King.\n    If he revenge it not, yet will his friends;\n    So will the Queen, that living held him dear.\n                                              Exit with the body\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBlackheath\n\nEnter GEORGE BEVIS and JOHN HOLLAND\n\n  GEORGE. Come and get thee a sword, though made of a lath; they\nhave\n    been up these two days.\n  JOHN. They have the more need to sleep now, then.\n  GEORGE. I tell thee Jack Cade the clothier means to dress the\n    commonwealth, and turn it, and set a new nap upon it.\n  JOHN. So he had need, for 'tis threadbare. Well, I say it was\nnever\n    merry world in England since gentlemen came up.\n  GEORGE. O miserable age! Virtue is not regarded in\nhandicraftsmen.\n  JOHN. The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons.\n  GEORGE. Nay, more, the King's Council are no good workmen.\n  JOHN. True; and yet it is said 'Labour in thy vocation'; which\nis\n    as much to say as 'Let the magistrates be labouring men'; and\n    therefore should we be magistrates.\n  GEORGE. Thou hast hit it; for there's no better sign of a brave\n    mind than a hard hand.\n  JOHN. I see them! I see them! There's Best's son, the tanner of\n    Wingham-\n  GEORGE. He shall have the skins of our enemies to make dog's\n    leather of.\n  JOHN. And Dick the butcher-\n  GEORGE. Then is sin struck down, like an ox, and iniquity's\nthroat\n    cut like a calf.\n  JOHN. And Smith the weaver-\n  GEORGE. Argo, their thread of life is spun.\n  JOHN. Come, come, let's fall in with them.\n\n                Drum. Enter CADE, DICK THE BUTCHER, SMITH\n             THE WEAVER, and a SAWYER, with infinite numbers\n\n  CADE. We John Cade, so term'd of our supposed father-\n  DICK. [Aside] Or rather, of stealing a cade of herrings.\n  CADE. For our enemies shall fall before us, inspired with the\n    spirit of putting down kings and princes- command silence.\n  DICK. Silence!\n  CADE. My father was a Mortimer-\n  DICK. [Aside] He was an honest man and a good bricklayer.\n  CADE. My mother a Plantagenet-\n  DICK. [Aside] I knew her well; she was a midwife.\n  CADE. My wife descended of the Lacies-\n  DICK. [Aside] She was, indeed, a pedlar's daughter, and sold\nmany\n    laces.\n  SMITH. [Aside] But now of late, not able to travel with her\nfurr'd\n    pack, she washes bucks here at home.\n  CADE. Therefore am I of an honourable house.\n  DICK. [Aside] Ay, by my faith, the field is honourable, and\nthere\n    was he born, under a hedge, for his father had never a house\nbut\n    the cage.\n  CADE. Valiant I am.\n  SMITH. [Aside] 'A must needs; for beggary is valiant.\n  CADE. I am able to endure much.\n  DICK. [Aside] No question of that; for I have seen him whipt\nthree\n    market days together.\n  CADE. I fear neither sword nor fire.\n  SMITH. [Aside] He need not fear the sword, for his coat is of\n    proof.\n  DICK. [Aside] But methinks he should stand in fear of fire,\nbeing\n    burnt i' th' hand for stealing of sheep.\n  CADE. Be brave, then, for your captain is brave, and vows\n    reformation. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves\n    sold for a penny; the three-hoop'd pot shall have ten hoops;\nand\n    I will make it felony to drink small beer. All the realm\nshall be\n    in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass. And\n    when I am king- as king I will be\n  ALL. God save your Majesty!\n  CADE. I thank you, good people- there shall be no money; all\nshall\n    eat and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one\n    livery, that they may agree like brothers and worship me\ntheir\n    lord.\n  DICK. The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.\n  CADE. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing,\nthat\n    of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment?\nThat\n    parchment, being scribbl'd o'er, should undo a man? Some say\nthe\n    bee stings; but I say 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal\nonce\n    to a thing, and I was never mine own man since. How now!\nWho's\n    there?\n\n              Enter some, bringing in the CLERK OF CHATHAM\n\n  SMITH. The clerk of Chatham. He can write and read and cast\n    accompt.\n  CADE. O monstrous!\n  SMITH. We took him setting of boys' copies.\n  CADE. Here's a villain!\n  SMITH. Has a book in his pocket with red letters in't.\n  CADE. Nay, then he is a conjurer.\n  DICK. Nay, he can make obligations and write court-hand.\n  CADE. I am sorry for't; the man is a proper man, of mine\nhonour;\n    unless I find him guilty, he shall not die. Come hither,\nsirrah,\n    I must examine thee. What is thy name?\n  CLERK. Emmanuel.\n  DICK. They use to write it on the top of letters; 'twill go\nhard\n    with you.\n  CADE. Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name, or hast\nthou a\n    mark to thyself, like a honest plain-dealing man?\n  CLERK. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I\ncan\n    write my name.\n  ALL. He hath confess'd. Away with him! He's a villain and a\n    traitor.\n  CADE. Away with him, I say! Hang him with his pen and inkhorn\nabout\n    his neck.                            Exit one with the CLERK\n\n                           Enter MICHAEL\n\n  MICHAEL. Where's our General?\n  CADE. Here I am, thou particular fellow.\n  MICHAEL. Fly, fly, fly! Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother\nare\n    hard by, with the King's forces.\n  CADE. Stand, villain, stand, or I'll fell thee down. He shall\nbe\n    encount'red with a man as good as himself. He is but a\nknight,\n    is 'a?\n  MICHAEL. No.\n  CADE. To equal him, I will make myself a knight presently.\n    [Kneels] Rise up, Sir John Mortimer. [Rises] Now have at him!\n\n                Enter SIR HUMPHREY STAFFORD and WILLIAM\n                  his brother, with drum and soldiers\n\n  STAFFORD. Rebellious hinds, the filth and scum of Kent,\n    Mark'd for the gallows, lay your weapons down;\n    Home to your cottages, forsake this groom;\n    The King is merciful if you revolt.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. But angry, wrathful, and inclin'd to blood,\n    If you go forward; therefore yield or die.\n  CADE. As for these silken-coated slaves, I pass not;\n    It is to you, good people, that I speak,\n    O'er whom, in time to come, I hope to reign;\n    For I am rightful heir unto the crown.\n  STAFFORD. Villain, thy father was a plasterer;\n    And thou thyself a shearman, art thou not?\n  CADE. And Adam was a gardener.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. And what of that?\n  CADE. Marry, this: Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March,\n    Married the Duke of Clarence' daughter, did he not?\n  STAFFORD. Ay, sir.\n  CADE. By her he had two children at one birth.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. That's false.\n  CADE. Ay, there's the question; but I say 'tis true.\n    The elder of them being put to nurse,\n    Was by a beggar-woman stol'n away,\n    And, ignorant of his birth and parentage,\n    Became a bricklayer when he came to age.\n    His son am I; deny it if you can.\n  DICK. Nay, 'tis too true; therefore he shall be king.\n  SMITH. Sir, he made a chimney in my father's house, and the\nbricks\n    are alive at this day to testify it; therefore deny it not.\n  STAFFORD. And will you credit this base drudge's words\n    That speaks he knows not what?\n  ALL. Ay, marry, will we; therefore get ye gone.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. Jack Cade, the Duke of York hath taught you\nthis.\n  CADE. [Aside] He lies, for I invented it myself- Go to, sirrah,\n    tell the King from me that for his father's sake, Henry the\n    Fifth, in whose time boys went to span-counter for French\ncrowns,\n    I am content he shall reign; but I'll be Protector over him.\n  DICK. And furthermore, we'll have the Lord Say's head for\nselling\n    the dukedom of Maine.\n  CADE. And good reason; for thereby is England main'd and fain\nto go\n    with a staff, but that my puissance holds it up. Fellow\nkings, I\n    tell you that that Lord Say hath gelded the commonwealth and\nmade\n    it an eunuch; and more than that, he can speak French, and\n    therefore he is a traitor.\n  STAFFORD. O gross and miserable ignorance!\n  CADE. Nay, answer if you can; the Frenchmen are our enemies. Go\nto,\n    then, I ask but this: can he that speaks with the tongue of\nan\n    enemy be a good counsellor, or no?\n  ALL. No, no; and therefore we'll have his head.\n  WILLIAM STAFFORD. Well, seeing gentle words will not prevail,\n    Assail them with the army of the King.\n  STAFFORD. Herald, away; and throughout every town\n    Proclaim them traitors that are up with Cade;\n    That those which fly before the battle ends\n    May, even in their wives'and children's sight,\n    Be hang'd up for example at their doors.\n    And you that be the King's friends, follow me.\n                           Exeunt the TWO STAFFORDS and soldiers\n  CADE. And you that love the commons follow me.\n    Now show yourselves men; 'tis for liberty.\n    We will not leave one lord, one gentleman;\n    Spare none but such as go in clouted shoon,\n    For they are thrifty honest men and such\n    As would- but that they dare not- take our parts.\n  DICK. They are all in order, and march toward us.\n  CADE. But then are we in order when we are most out of order.\nCome,\n    march forward.                                        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nAnother part of Blackheath\n\nAlarums to the fight, wherein both the STAFFORDS are slain.\nEnter CADE and the rest\n\n  CADE. Where's Dick, the butcher of Ashford?\n  DICK. Here, sir.\n  CADE. They fell before thee like sheep and oxen, and thou\nbehavedst\n    thyself as if thou hadst been in thine own slaughter-house;\n    therefore thus will I reward thee- the Lent shall be as long\n    again as it is, and thou shalt have a licence to kill for a\n    hundred lacking one.\n  DICK. I desire no more.\n  CADE. And, to speak truth, thou deserv'st no less. [Putting on\nSIR\n    HUMPHREY'S brigandine] This monument of the victory will I\nbear,\n    and the bodies shall be dragged at my horse heels till I do\ncome\n    to London, where we will have the mayor's sword borne before\nus.\n  DICK. If we mean to thrive and do good, break open the gaols\nand\n    let out the prisoners.\n  CADE. Fear not that, I warrant thee. Come, let's march towards\n    London.                                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the KING with a supplication, and the QUEEN with SUFFOLK'S\nhead;\nthe DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, and the LORD SAY\n\n  QUEEN. Oft have I heard that grief softens the mind\n    And makes it fearful and degenerate;\n    Think therefore on revenge and cease to weep.\n    But who can cease to weep, and look on this?\n    Here may his head lie on my throbbing breast;\n    But where's the body that I should embrace?\n  BUCKINGHAM. What answer makes your Grace to the rebels'\n    supplication?\n  KING HENRY. I'll send some holy bishop to entreat;\n    For God forbid so many simple souls\n    Should perish by the sword! And I myself,\n    Rather than bloody war shall cut them short,\n    Will parley with Jack Cade their general.\n    But stay, I'll read it over once again.\n  QUEEN. Ah, barbarous villains! Hath this lovely face\n    Rul'd like a wandering planet over me,\n    And could it not enforce them to relent\n    That were unworthy to behold the same?\n  KING HENRY. Lord Say, Jack Cade hath sworn to have thy head.\n  SAY. Ay, but I hope your Highness shall have his.\n  KING HENRY. How now, madam!\n    Still lamenting and mourning for Suffolk's death?\n    I fear me, love, if that I had been dead,\n    Thou wouldst not have mourn'd so much for me.\n  QUEEN. No, my love, I should not mourn, but die for thee.\n\n                        Enter A MESSENGER\n\n  KING HENRY. How now! What news? Why com'st thou in such haste?\n  MESSENGER. The rebels are in Southwark; fly, my lord!\n    Jack Cade proclaims himself Lord Mortimer,\n    Descended from the Duke of Clarence' house,\n    And calls your Grace usurper, openly,\n    And vows to crown himself in Westminster.\n    His army is a ragged multitude\n    Of hinds and peasants, rude and merciless;\n    Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother's death\n    Hath given them heart and courage to proceed.\n    All scholars, lawyers, courtiers, gentlemen,\n    They call false caterpillars and intend their death.\n  KING HENRY. O graceless men! they know not what they do.\n  BUCKINGHAM. My gracious lord, retire to Killingworth\n    Until a power be rais'd to put them down.\n  QUEEN. Ah, were the Duke of Suffolk now alive,\n    These Kentish rebels would be soon appeas'd!\n  KING HENRY. Lord Say, the traitors hate thee;\n    Therefore away with us to Killingworth.\n  SAY. So might your Grace's person be in danger.\n    The sight of me is odious in their eyes;\n    And therefore in this city will I stay\n    And live alone as secret as I may.\n\n                      Enter another MESSENGER\n\n  SECOND MESSENGER. Jack Cade hath gotten London Bridge.\n    The citizens fly and forsake their houses;\n    The rascal people, thirsting after prey,\n    Join with the traitor; and they jointly swear\n    To spoil the city and your royal court.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Then linger not, my lord; away, take horse.\n  KING HENRY. Come Margaret; God, our hope, will succour us.\n  QUEEN. My hope is gone, now Suffolk is deceas'd.\n  KING HENRY. [To LORD SAY] Farewell, my lord, trust not the\nKentish\n    rebels.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Trust nobody, for fear you be betray'd.\n  SAY. The trust I have is in mine innocence,\n    And therefore am I bold and resolute.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nLondon. The Tower\n\nEnter LORD SCALES Upon the Tower, walking. Then enter two or\nthree CITIZENS,\nbelow\n\n  SCALES. How now! Is Jack Cade slain?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. No, my lord, nor likely to be slain; for they\nhave\n    won the bridge, killing all those that withstand them.\n    The Lord Mayor craves aid of your honour from the\n    Tower, to defend the city from the rebels.\n  SCALES. Such aid as I can spare you shall command,\n    But I am troubled here with them myself;\n    The rebels have assay'd to win the Tower.\n    But get you to Smithfield, and gather head,\n    And thither I will send you Matthew Goffe;\n    Fight for your King, your country, and your lives;\n    And so, farewell, for I must hence again.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nLondon. Cannon street\n\nEnter JACK CADE and the rest, and strikes his staff on London\nStone\n\n  CADE. Now is Mortimer lord of this city. And here, sitting upon\n    London Stone, I charge and command that, of the city's cost,\nthe\n    pissing conduit run nothing but claret wine this first year\nof\n    our reign. And now henceforward it shall be treason for any\nthat\n    calls me other than Lord Mortimer.\n\n                    Enter a SOLDIER, running\n\n  SOLDIER. Jack Cade! Jack Cade!\n  CADE. Knock him down there.                    [They kill him]\n  SMITH. If this fellow be wise, he'll never call ye Jack Cade\nmore;\n    I think he hath a very fair warning.\n  DICK. My lord, there's an army gathered together in Smithfield.\n  CADE. Come then, let's go fight with them. But first go and set\n    London Bridge on fire; and, if you can, burn down the Tower\ntoo.\n    Come, let's away.                                     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nLondon. Smithfield\n\nAlarums. MATTHEW GOFFE is slain, and all the rest.  Then enter\nJACK CADE,\nwith his company\n\n  CADE. So, sirs. Now go some and pull down the Savoy; others to\nth'\n    Inns of Court; down with them all.\n  DICK. I have a suit unto your lordship.\n  CADE. Be it a lordship, thou shalt have it for that word.\n  DICK. Only that the laws of England may come out of your mouth.\n  JOHN. [Aside] Mass, 'twill be sore law then; for he was thrust\nin\n    the mouth with a spear, and 'tis not whole yet.\n  SMITH. [Aside] Nay, John, it will be stinking law; for his\nbreath\n    stinks with eating toasted cheese.\n  CADE. I have thought upon it; it shall be so. Away, burn all\nthe\n    records of the realm. My mouth shall be the Parliament of\n    England.\n  JOHN. [Aside] Then we are like to have biting statutes, unless\nhis\n    teeth be pull'd out.\n  CADE. And henceforward all things shall be in common.\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My lord, a prize, a prize! Here's the Lord Say,\nwhich\n    sold the towns in France; he that made us pay one and twenty\n    fifteens, and one shining to the pound, the last subsidy.\n\n                Enter GEORGE BEVIS, with the LORD SAY\n\n  CADE. Well, he shall be beheaded for it ten times. Ah, thou\nsay,\n    thou serge, nay, thou buckram lord! Now art thou within point\n    blank of our jurisdiction regal. What canst thou answer to my\n    Majesty for giving up of Normandy unto Mounsieur Basimecu the\n    Dauphin of France? Be it known unto thee by these presence,\neven\n    the presence of Lord Mortimer, that I am the besom that must\n    sweep the court clean of such filth as thou art. Thou hast\nmost\n    traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a\n    grammar school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no\nother\n    books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing\nto\n    be us'd, and, contrary to the King, his crown, and dignity,\nthou\n    hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face that\nthou\n    hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb,\nand\n    such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear.\n    Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor men\nbefore\n    them about matters they were not able to answer. Moreover,\nthou\n    hast put them in prison, and because they could not read,\nthou\n    hast hang'd them, when, indeed, only for that cause they have\n    been most worthy to live. Thou dost ride in a foot-cloth,\ndost\n    thou not?\n  SAY. What of that?\n  CADE. Marry, thou ought'st not to let thy horse wear a cloak,\nwhen\n    honester men than thou go in their hose and doublets.\n  DICK. And work in their shirt too, as myself, for example, that\nam\n    a butcher.\n  SAY. You men of Kent-\n  DICK. What say you of Kent?\n  SAY. Nothing but this: 'tis 'bona terra, mala gens.'\n  CADE. Away with him, away with him! He speaks Latin.\n  SAY. Hear me but speak, and bear me where you will.\n    Kent, in the Commentaries Caesar writ,\n    Is term'd the civil'st place of all this isle.\n    Sweet is the country, because full of riches;\n    The people liberal valiant, active, wealthy;\n    Which makes me hope you are not void of pity.\n    I sold not Maine, I lost not Normandy;\n    Yet, to recover them, would lose my life.\n    Justice with favour have I always done;\n    Pray'rs and tears have mov'd me, gifts could never.\n    When have I aught exacted at your hands,\n    But to maintain the King, the realm, and you?\n    Large gifts have I bestow'd on learned clerks,\n    Because my book preferr'd me to the King,\n    And seeing ignorance is the curse of God,\n    Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven,\n    Unless you be possess'd with devilish spirits\n    You cannot but forbear to murder me.\n    This tongue hath parley'd unto foreign kings\n    For your behoof.\n  CADE. Tut, when struck'st thou one blow in the field?\n  SAY. Great men have reaching hands. Oft have I struck\n    Those that I never saw, and struck them dead.\n  GEORGE. O monstrous coward! What, to come behind folks?\n  SAY. These cheeks are pale for watching for your good.\n  CADE. Give him a box o' th' ear, and that will make 'em red\nagain.\n  SAY. Long sitting to determine poor men's causes\n    Hath made me full of sickness and diseases.\n  CADE. Ye shall have a hempen caudle then, and the help of\nhatchet.\n  DICK. Why dost thou quiver, man?\n  SAY. The palsy, and not fear, provokes me.\n  CADE. Nay, he nods at us, as who should say 'I'll be even with\n    you'; I'll see if his head will stand steadier on a pole, or\nno.\n    Take him away, and behead him.\n  SAY. Tell me: wherein have I offended most?\n    Have I affected wealth or honour? Speak.\n    Are my chests fill'd up with extorted gold?\n    Is my apparel sumptuous to behold?\n    Whom have I injur'd, that ye seek my death?\n    These hands are free from guiltless bloodshedding,\n    This breast from harbouring foul deceitful thoughts.\n    O, let me live!\n  CADE. [Aside] I feel remorse in myself with his words; but I'll\n\n    bridle it. He shall die, an it be but for pleading so well\nfor\n    his life.- Away with him! He has a familiar under his tongue;\nhe\n    speaks not o' God's name. Go, take him away, I say, and\nstrike\n    off his head presently, and then break into his son-in-law's\n    house, Sir James Cromer, and strike off his head, and bring\nthem\n    both upon two poles hither.\n  ALL. It shall be done.\n  SAY. Ah, countrymen! if when you make your pray'rs,\n    God should be so obdurate as yourselves,\n    How would it fare with your departed souls?\n    And therefore yet relent and save my life.\n  CADE. Away with him, and do as I command ye.  [Exeunt some with\n    LORD SAY]  The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a\nhead\n    on his shoulders, unless he pay me tribute; there shall not a\n    maid be married, but she shall pay to me her maidenhead ere\nthey\n    have it. Men shall hold of me in capite; and we charge and\n    command that their wives be as free as heart can wish or\ntongue\n    can tell.\n  DICK. My lord, when shall we go to Cheapside, and take up\n    commodities upon our bills?\n  CADE. Marry, presently.\n  ALL. O, brave!\n\n                      Re-enter one with the heads\n\n  CADE. But is not this braver? Let them kiss one another, for\nthey\n    lov'd well when they were alive. Now part them again, lest\nthey\n    consult about the giving up of some more towns in France.\n    Soldiers, defer the spoil of the city until night; for with\nthese\n    borne before us instead of maces will we ride through the\n    streets, and at every corner have them kiss. Away!     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\nSouthwark\n\nAlarum and retreat. Enter again CADE and all his rabblement\n\n  CADE. Up Fish Street! down Saint Magnus' Corner! Kill and knock\n    down! Throw them into Thames!               [Sound a parley]\n    What noise is this I hear? Dare any be so bold to sound\nretreat\n    or parley when I command them kill?\n\n            Enter BUCKINGHAM and old CLIFFORD, attended\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Ay, here they be that dare and will disturb thee.\n    And therefore yet relent, and save my life.\n    Know, Cade, we come ambassadors from the King\n    Unto the commons whom thou hast misled;\n    And here pronounce free pardon to them all\n    That will forsake thee and go home in peace.\n  CLIFFORD. What say ye, countrymen? Will ye relent\n    And yield to mercy whilst 'tis offer'd you,\n    Or let a rebel lead you to your deaths?\n    Who loves the King, and will embrace his pardon,\n    Fling up his cap and say 'God save his Majesty!'\n    Who hateth him and honours not his father,\n    Henry the Fifth, that made all France to quake,\n    Shake he his weapon at us and pass by.\n  ALL. God save the King! God save the King!\n  CADE. What, Buckingham and Clifford, are ye so brave?\n    And you, base peasants, do ye believe him? Will you needs be\n    hang'd with your about your necks? Hath my sword therefore\nbroke\n    through London gates, that you should leave me at the White\nHart\n    in Southwark? I thought ye would never have given out these\narms\n    till you had recovered your ancient freedom. But you are all\n    recreants and dastards, and delight to live in slavery to the\n    nobility. Let them break your backs with burdens, take your\n    houses over your heads, ravish your wives and daughters\nbefore\n    your faces. For me, I will make shift for one; and so God's\ncurse\n    light upon you all!\n  ALL. We'll follow Cade, we'll follow Cade!\n  CLIFFORD. Is Cade the son of Henry the Fifth,\n    That thus you do exclaim you'll go with him?\n    Will he conduct you through the heart of France,\n    And make the meanest of you earls and dukes?\n    Alas, he hath no home, no place to fly to;\n    Nor knows he how to live but by the spoil,\n    Unless by robbing of your friends and us.\n    Were't not a shame that whilst you live at jar\n    The fearful French, whom you late vanquished,\n    Should make a start o'er seas and vanquish you?\n    Methinks already in this civil broil\n    I see them lording it in London streets,\n    Crying 'Villiago!' unto all they meet.\n    Better ten thousand base-born Cades miscarry\n    Than you should stoop unto a Frenchman's mercy.\n    To France, to France, and get what you have lost;\n    Spare England, for it is your native coast.\n    Henry hath money; you are strong and manly.\n    God on our side, doubt not of victory.\n  ALL. A Clifford! a Clifford! We'll follow the King and\nClifford.\n  CADE. Was ever feather so lightly blown to and fro as this\n    multitude? The name of Henry the Fifth hales them to an\nhundred\n    mischiefs, and makes them leave me desolate. I see them lay\ntheir\n    heads together to surprise me. My sword make way for me for\nhere\n    is no staying. In despite of the devils and hell, have\nthrough\n    the very middest of you! and heavens and honour be witness\nthat\n    no want of resolution in me, but only my followers' base and\n    ignominious treasons, makes me betake me to my heels.\n Exit\n  BUCKINGHAM. What, is he fled? Go some, and follow him;\n    And he that brings his head unto the King\n    Shall have a thousand crowns for his reward.\n                                             Exeunt some of them\n    Follow me, soldiers; we'll devise a mean\n    To reconcile you all unto the King.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IX.\nKilling, worth Castle\n\nSound trumpets. Enter KING, QUEEN, and SOMERSET, on the terrace\n\n  KING HENRY. Was ever king that joy'd an earthly throne\n    And could command no more content than I?\n    No sooner was I crept out of my cradle\n    But I was made a king, at nine months old.\n    Was never subject long'd to be a King\n    As I do long and wish to be a subject.\n\n               Enter BUCKINGHAM and old CLIFFORD\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Health and glad tidings to your Majesty!\n  KING HENRY. Why, Buckingham, is the traitor Cade surpris'd?\n    Or is he but retir'd to make him strong?\n\n     Enter, below, multitudes, with halters about their necks\n\n  CLIFFORD. He is fled, my lord, and all his powers do yield,\n    And humbly thus, with halters on their necks,\n    Expect your Highness' doom of life or death.\n  KING HENRY. Then, heaven, set ope thy everlasting gates,\n    To entertain my vows of thanks and praise!\n    Soldiers, this day have you redeem'd your lives,\n    And show'd how well you love your Prince and country.\n    Continue still in this so good a mind,\n    And Henry, though he be infortunate,\n    Assure yourselves, will never be unkind.\n    And so, with thanks and pardon to you all,\n    I do dismiss you to your several countries.\n  ALL. God save the King! God save the King!\n\n                     Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Please it your Grace to be advertised\n    The Duke of York is newly come from Ireland\n    And with a puissant and a mighty power\n    Of gallowglasses and stout kerns\n    Is marching hitherward in proud array,\n    And still proclaimeth, as he comes along,\n    His arms are only to remove from thee\n    The Duke of Somerset, whom he terms a traitor.\n  KING HENRY. Thus stands my state, 'twixt Cade and York\ndistress'd;\n    Like to a ship that, having scap'd a tempest,\n    Is straightway calm'd, and boarded with a pirate;\n    But now is Cade driven back, his men dispers'd,\n    And now is York in arms to second him.\n    I pray thee, Buckingham, go and meet him\n    And ask him what's the reason of these arms.\n    Tell him I'll send Duke Edmund to the Tower-\n    And Somerset, we will commit thee thither\n    Until his army be dismiss'd from him.\n  SOMERSET. My lord,\n    I'll yield myself to prison willingly,\n    Or unto death, to do my country good.\n  KING HENRY. In any case be not too rough in terms,\n    For he is fierce and cannot brook hard language.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I will, my lord, and doubt not so to deal\n    As all things shall redound unto your good.\n  KING HENRY. Come, wife, let's in, and learn to govern better;\n    For yet may England curse my wretched reign.\n                                                Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE X.\nKent. Iden's garden\n\nEnter CADE\n\n  CADE. Fie on ambitions! Fie on myself, that have a sword and\nyet am\n    ready to famish! These five days have I hid me in these woods\nand\n    durst not peep out, for all the country is laid for me; but\nnow\n    am I so hungry that, if I might have a lease of my life for a\n    thousand years, I could stay no longer. Wherefore, on a brick\n    wall have I climb'd into this garden, to see if I can eat\ngrass\n    or pick a sallet another while, which is not amiss to cool a\n    man's stomach this hot weather. And I think this word\n'sallet'\n    was born to do me good; for many a time, but for a sallet, my\n    brain-pain had been cleft with a brown bill; and many a time,\n    when I have been dry, and bravely marching, it hath serv'd me\n    instead of a quart-pot to drink in; and now the word 'sallet'\n    must serve me to feed on.\n\n                             Enter IDEN\n\n  IDEN. Lord, who would live turmoiled in the court\n    And may enjoy such quiet walks as these?\n    This small inheritance my father left me\n    Contenteth me, and worth a monarchy.\n    I seek not to wax great by others' waning\n    Or gather wealth I care not with what envy;\n    Sufficeth that I have maintains my state,\n    And sends the poor well pleased from my gate.\n  CADE. Here's the lord of the soil come to seize me for a stray,\nfor\n    entering his fee-simple without leave. Ah, villain, thou wilt\n    betray me, and get a thousand crowns of the King by carrying\nmy\n    head to him; but I'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich and\n    swallow my sword like a great pin ere thou and I part.\n  IDEN. Why, rude companion, whatsoe'er thou be,\n    I know thee not; why then should I betray thee?\n    Is't not enough to break into my garden\n    And like a thief to come to rob my grounds,\n    Climbing my walls in spite of me the owner,\n    But thou wilt brave me with these saucy terms?\n  CADE. Brave thee? Ay, by the best blood that ever was broach'd,\nand\n    beard thee too. Look on me well: I have eat no meat these\nfive\n    days, yet come thou and thy five men and if I do not leave\nyou\n    all as dead as a door-nail, I pray God I may never eat grass\n    more.\n  IDEN. Nay, it shall ne'er be said, while England stands,\n    That Alexander Iden, an esquire of Kent,\n    Took odds to combat a poor famish'd man.\n    Oppose thy steadfast-gazing eyes to mine;\n    See if thou canst outface me with thy looks;\n    Set limb to limb, and thou art far the lesser;\n    Thy hand is but a finger to my fist,\n    Thy leg a stick compared with this truncheon;\n    My foot shall fight with all the strength thou hast,\n    And if mine arm be heaved in the air,\n    Thy grave is digg'd already in the earth.\n    As for words, whose greatness answers words,\n    Let this my sword report what speech forbears.\n  CADE. By my valour, the most complete champion that ever I\nheard!\n    Steel, if thou turn the edge, or cut not out the burly bon'd\n    clown in chines of beef ere thou sleep in thy sheath, I\nbeseech\n    God on my knees thou mayst be turn'd to hobnails. [Here they\n\n    fight; CADE falls] O, I am slain! famine and no other hath\nslain\n    me. Let ten thousand devils come against me, and give me but\nthe\n    ten meals I have lost, and I'd defy them all. Wither, garden,\nand\n    be henceforth a burying place to all that do dwell in this\nhouse,\n    because the unconquered soul of Cade is fled.\n  IDEN. Is't Cade that I have slain, that monstrous traitor?\n    Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed\n    And hang thee o'er my tomb when I am dead.\n    Ne'er shall this blood be wiped from thy point,\n    But thou shalt wear it as a herald's coat\n    To emblaze the honour that thy master got.\n  CADE. Iden, farewell; and be proud of thy victory. Tell Kent\nfrom\n    me she hath lost her best man, and exhort all the world to be\n    cowards; for I, that never feared any, am vanquished by\nfamine,\n    not by valour.                                        [Dies]\n  IDEN. How much thou wrong'st me, heaven be my judge.\n    Die, damned wretch, the curse of her that bare thee!\n    And as I thrust thy body in with my sword,\n    So wish I, I might thrust thy soul to hell.\n    Hence will I drag thee headlong by the heels\n    Unto a dunghill, which shall be thy grave,\n    And there cut off thy most ungracious head,\n    Which I will bear in triumph to the King,\n    Leaving thy trunk for crows to feed upon.               Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nFields between Dartford and Blackheath\n\nEnter YORK, and his army of Irish, with drum and colours\n\n  YORK. From Ireland thus comes York to claim his right\n    And pluck the crown from feeble Henry's head:\n    Ring bells aloud, burn bonfires clear and bright,\n    To entertain great England's lawful king.\n    Ah, sancta majestas! who would not buy thee dear?\n    Let them obey that knows not how to rule;\n    This hand was made to handle nought but gold.\n    I cannot give due action to my words\n    Except a sword or sceptre balance it.\n    A sceptre shall it have, have I a soul\n    On which I'll toss the flower-de-luce of France.\n\n                         Enter BUCKINGHAM\n\n    [Aside] Whom have we here? Buckingham, to disturb me?\n    The King hath sent him, sure: I must dissemble.\n  BUCKINGHAM. York, if thou meanest well I greet thee well.\n  YORK. Humphrey of Buckingham, I accept thy greeting.\n    Art thou a messenger, or come of pleasure?\n  BUCKINGHAM. A messenger from Henry, our dread liege,\n    To know the reason of these arms in peace;\n    Or why thou, being a subject as I am,\n    Against thy oath and true allegiance sworn,\n    Should raise so great a power without his leave,\n    Or dare to bring thy force so near the court.\n  YORK. [Aside] Scarce can I speak, my choler is so great.\n    O, I could hew up rocks and fight with flint,\n    I am so angry at these abject terms;\n    And now, like Ajax Telamonius,\n    On sheep or oxen could I spend my fury.\n    I am far better born than is the King,\n    More like a king, more kingly in my thoughts;\n    But I must make fair weather yet awhile,\n    Till Henry be more weak and I more strong.-\n    Buckingham, I prithee, pardon me\n    That I have given no answer all this while;\n    My mind was troubled with deep melancholy.\n    The cause why I have brought this army hither\n    Is to remove proud Somerset from the King,\n    Seditious to his Grace and to the state.\n  BUCKINGHAM. That is too much presumption on thy part;\n    But if thy arms be to no other end,\n    The King hath yielded unto thy demand:\n    The Duke of Somerset is in the Tower.\n  YORK. Upon thine honour, is he prisoner?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Upon mine honour, he is prisoner.\n  YORK. Then, Buckingham, I do dismiss my pow'rs.\n    Soldiers, I thank you all; disperse yourselves;\n    Meet me to-morrow in Saint George's field,\n    You shall have pay and everything you wish.\n    And let my sovereign, virtuous Henry,\n    Command my eldest son, nay, all my sons,\n    As pledges of my fealty and love.\n    I'll send them all as willing as I live:\n    Lands, goods, horse, armour, anything I have,\n    Is his to use, so Somerset may die.\n  BUCKINGHAM. York, I commend this kind submission.\n    We twain will go into his Highness' tent.\n\n                  Enter the KING, and attendants\n\n  KING HENRY. Buckingham, doth York intend no harm to us,\n    That thus he marcheth with thee arm in arm?\n  YORK. In all submission and humility\n    York doth present himself unto your Highness.\n  KING HENRY. Then what intends these forces thou dost bring?\n  YORK. To heave the traitor Somerset from hence,\n    And fight against that monstrous rebel Cade,\n    Who since I heard to be discomfited.\n\n                    Enter IDEN, with CADE's head\n\n  IDEN. If one so rude and of so mean condition\n    May pass into the presence of a king,\n    Lo, I present your Grace a traitor's head,\n    The head of Cade, whom I in combat slew.\n  KING HENRY. The head of Cade! Great God, how just art Thou!\n    O, let me view his visage, being dead,\n    That living wrought me such exceeding trouble.\n    Tell me, my friend, art thou the man that slew him?\n  IDEN. I was, an't like your Majesty.\n  KING HENRY. How art thou call'd? And what is thy degree?\n  IDEN. Alexander Iden, that's my name;\n    A poor esquire of Kent that loves his king.\n  BUCKINGHAM. So please it you, my lord, 'twere not amiss\n    He were created knight for his good service.\n  KING HENRY. Iden, kneel down. [He kneels] Rise up a knight.\n    We give thee for reward a thousand marks,\n    And will that thou thenceforth attend on us.\n  IDEN. May Iden live to merit such a bounty,\n    And never live but true unto his liege!\n\n                    Enter the QUEEN and SOMERSET\n\n  KING HENRY. See, Buckingham! Somerset comes with th' Queen:\n    Go, bid her hide him quickly from the Duke.\n  QUEEN. For thousand Yorks he shall not hide his head,\n    But boldly stand and front him to his face.\n  YORK. How now! Is Somerset at liberty?\n    Then, York, unloose thy long-imprisoned thoughts\n    And let thy tongue be equal with thy heart.\n    Shall I endure the sight of Somerset?\n    False king, why hast thou broken faith with me,\n    Knowing how hardly I can brook abuse?\n    King did I call thee? No, thou art not king;\n    Not fit to govern and rule multitudes,\n    Which dar'st not, no, nor canst not rule a traitor.\n    That head of thine doth not become a crown;\n    Thy hand is made to grasp a palmer's staff,\n    And not to grace an awful princely sceptre.\n    That gold must round engirt these brows of mine,\n    Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles' spear,\n    Is able with the change to kill and cure.\n    Here is a hand to hold a sceptre up,\n    And with the same to act controlling laws.\n    Give place. By heaven, thou shalt rule no more\n    O'er him whom heaven created for thy ruler.\n  SOMERSET. O monstrous traitor! I arrest thee, York,\n    Of capital treason 'gainst the King and crown.\n    Obey, audacious traitor; kneel for grace.\n  YORK. Wouldst have me kneel? First let me ask of these,\n    If they can brook I bow a knee to man.\n    Sirrah, call in my sons to be my bail:        Exit attendant\n    I know, ere thy will have me go to ward,\n    They'll pawn their swords for my enfranchisement.\n  QUEEN. Call hither Clifford; bid him come amain,\n    To say if that the bastard boys of York\n    Shall be the surety for their traitor father.\n                                                 Exit BUCKINGHAM\n  YORK. O blood-bespotted Neapolitan,\n    Outcast of Naples, England's bloody scourge!\n    The sons of York, thy betters in their birth,\n    Shall be their father's bail; and bane to those\n    That for my surety will refuse the boys!\n\n               Enter EDWARD and RICHARD PLANTAGENET\n\n    See where they come: I'll warrant they'll make it good.\n\n                     Enter CLIFFORD and his SON\n\n  QUEEN. And here comes Clifford to deny their bail.\n  CLIFFORD. Health and all happiness to my lord the King!\n                                                        [Kneels]\n  YORK. I thank thee, Clifford. Say, what news with thee?\n    Nay, do not fright us with an angry look.\n    We are thy sovereign, Clifford, kneel again;\n    For thy mistaking so, we pardon thee.\n  CLIFFORD. This is my King, York, I do not mistake;\n    But thou mistakes me much to think I do.\n    To Bedlam with him! Is the man grown mad?\n  KING HENRY. Ay, Clifford; a bedlam and ambitious humour\n    Makes him oppose himself against his king.\n  CLIFFORD. He is a traitor; let him to the Tower,\n    And chop away that factious pate of his.\n  QUEEN. He is arrested, but will not obey;\n    His sons, he says, shall give their words for him.\n  YORK. Will you not, sons?\n  EDWARD. Ay, noble father, if our words will serve.\n  RICHARD. And if words will not, then our weapons shall.\n  CLIFFORD. Why, what a brood of traitors have we here!\n  YORK. Look in a glass, and call thy image so:\n    I am thy king, and thou a false-heart traitor.\n    Call hither to the stake my two brave bears,\n    That with the very shaking of their chains\n    They may astonish these fell-lurking curs.\n    Bid Salisbury and Warwick come to me.\n\n               Enter the EARLS OF WARWICK and SALISBURY\n\n  CLIFFORD. Are these thy bears? We'll bait thy bears to death,\n    And manacle the berard in their chains,\n    If thou dar'st bring them to the baiting-place.\n  RICHARD. Oft have I seen a hot o'er weening cur\n    Run back and bite, because he was withheld;\n    Who, being suffer'd, with the bear's fell paw,\n    Hath clapp'd his tail between his legs and cried;\n    And such a piece of service will you do,\n    If you oppose yourselves to match Lord Warwick.\n  CLIFFORD. Hence, heap of wrath, foul indigested lump,\n    As crooked in thy manners as thy shape!\n  YORK. Nay, we shall heat you thoroughly anon.\n  CLIFFORD. Take heed, lest by your heat you burn yourselves.\n  KING HENRY. Why, Warwick, hath thy knee forgot to bow?\n    Old Salisbury, shame to thy silver hair,\n    Thou mad misleader of thy brainsick son!\n    What, wilt thou on thy death-bed play the ruffian\n    And seek for sorrow with thy spectacles?\n    O, where is faith? O, where is loyalty?\n    If it be banish'd from the frosty head,\n    Where shall it find a harbour in the earth?\n    Wilt thou go dig a grave to find out war\n    And shame thine honourable age with blood?\n    Why art thou old, and want'st experience?\n    Or wherefore dost abuse it, if thou hast it?\n    For shame! In duty bend thy knee to me,\n    That bows unto the grave with mickle age.\n  SALISBURY. My lord, I have considered with myself\n    The tide of this most renowned duke,\n    And in my conscience do repute his Grace\n    The rightful heir to England's royal seat.\n  KING HENRY. Hast thou not sworn allegiance unto me?\n  SALISBURY. I have.\n  KING HENRY. Canst thou dispense with heaven for such an oath?\n  SALISBURY. It is great sin to swear unto a sin;\n    But greater sin to keep a sinful oath.\n    Who can be bound by any solemn vow\n    To do a murd'rous deed, to rob a man,\n    To force a spotless virgin's chastity,\n    To reave the orphan of his patrimony,\n    To wring the widow from her custom'd right,\n    And have no other reason for this wrong\n    But that he was bound by a solemn oath?\n  QUEEN. A subtle traitor needs no sophister.\n  KING HENRY. Call Buckingham, and bid him arm himself.\n  YORK. Call Buckingham, and all the friends thou hast,\n    I am resolv'd for death or dignity.\n  CLIFFORD. The first I warrant thee, if dreams prove true.\n  WARWICK. You were best to go to bed and dream again\n    To keep thee from the tempest of the field.\n  CLIFFORD. I am resolv'd to bear a greater storm\n    Than any thou canst conjure up to-day;\n    And that I'll write upon thy burgonet,\n    Might I but know thee by thy household badge.\n  WARWICK. Now, by my father's badge, old Nevil's crest,\n    The rampant bear chain'd to the ragged staff,\n    This day I'll wear aloft my burgonet,\n    As on a mountain-top the cedar shows,\n    That keeps his leaves in spite of any storm,\n    Even to affright thee with the view thereof.\n  CLIFFORD. And from thy burgonet I'll rend thy bear\n    And tread it under foot with all contempt,\n    Despite the berard that protects the bear.\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD. And so to arms, victorious father,\n    To quell the rebels and their complices.\n  RICHARD. Fie! charity, for shame! Speak not in spite,\n    For you shall sup with Jesu Christ to-night.\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD. Foul stigmatic, that's more than thou canst\ntell.\n  RICHARD. If not in heaven, you'll surely sup in hell.\n                                                Exeunt severally\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nSaint Albans\n\nAlarums to the battle. Enter WARWICK\n\n  WARWICK. Clifford of Cumberland, 'tis Warwick calls;\n    And if thou dost not hide thee from the bear,\n    Now, when the angry trumpet sounds alarum\n    And dead men's cries do fill the empty air,\n    Clifford, I say, come forth and fight with me.\n    Proud northern lord, Clifford of Cumberland,\n  WARWICK is hoarse with calling thee to arms.\n\n                          Enter YORK\n\n    How now, my noble lord! what, all a-foot?\n  YORK. The deadly-handed Clifford slew my steed;\n    But match to match I have encount'red him,\n    And made a prey for carrion kites and crows\n    Even of the bonny beast he lov'd so well.\n\n                      Enter OLD CLIFFORD\n\n  WARWICK. Of one or both of us the time is come.\n  YORK. Hold, Warwick, seek thee out some other chase,\n    For I myself must hunt this deer to death.\n  WARWICK. Then, nobly, York; 'tis for a crown thou fight'st.\n    As I intend, Clifford, to thrive to-day,\n    It grieves my soul to leave thee unassail'd.            Exit\n  CLIFFORD. What seest thou in me, York? Why dost thou pause?\n  YORK. With thy brave bearing should I be in love\n    But that thou art so fast mine enemy.\n  CLIFFORD. Nor should thy prowess want praise and esteem\n    But that 'tis shown ignobly and in treason.\n  YORK. So let it help me now against thy sword,\n    As I in justice and true right express it!\n  CLIFFORD. My soul and body on the action both!\n  YORK. A dreadful lay! Address thee instantly.\n                                 [They fight and CLIFFORD falls]\n  CLIFFORD. La fin couronne les oeuvres.                  [Dies]\n  YORK. Thus war hath given thee peace, for thou art still.\n    Peace with his soul, heaven, if it be thy will!         Exit\n\n\n                     Enter YOUNG CLIFFORD\n\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD. Shame and confusion! All is on the rout;\n    Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds\n    Where it should guard. O war, thou son of hell,\n    Whom angry heavens do make their minister,\n    Throw in the frozen bosoms of our part\n    Hot coals of vengeance! Let no soldier fly.\n    He that is truly dedicate to war\n    Hath no self-love; nor he that loves himself\n    Hath not essentially, but by circumstance,\n    The name of valour.                 [Sees his father's body]\n    O, let the vile world end\n    And the premised flames of the last day\n    Knit earth and heaven together!\n    Now let the general trumpet blow his blast,\n    Particularities and petty sounds\n    To cease! Wast thou ordain'd, dear father,\n    To lose thy youth in peace and to achieve\n    The silver livery of advised age,\n    And in thy reverence and thy chair-days thus\n    To die in ruffian battle? Even at this sight\n    My heart is turn'd to stone; and while 'tis mine\n    It shall be stony. York not our old men spares;\n    No more will I their babes. Tears virginal\n    Shall be to me even as the dew to fire;\n    And beauty, that the tyrant oft reclaims,\n    Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax.\n    Henceforth I will not have to do with pity:\n    Meet I an infant of the house of York,\n    Into as many gobbets will I cut it\n    As wild Medea young Absyrtus did;\n    In cruelty will I seek out my fame.\n    Come, thou new ruin of old Clifford's house;\n    As did Aeneas old Anchises bear,\n    So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders;\n    But then Aeneas bare a living load,\n    Nothing so heavy as these woes of mine.\n                                              Exit with the body\n\n\n       Enter RICHARD and SOMERSET to fight. SOMERSET is killed\n\n  RICHARD. So, lie thou there;\n    For underneath an alehouse' paltry sign,\n    The Castle in Saint Albans, Somerset\n    Hath made the wizard famous in his death.\n    Sword, hold thy temper; heart, be wrathful still:\n    Priests pray for enemies, but princes kill.             Exit\n\n        Fight. Excursions. Enter KING, QUEEN, and others\n\n  QUEEN. Away, my lord! You are slow; for shame, away!\n  KING HENRY. Can we outrun the heavens? Good Margaret, stay.\n  QUEEN. What are you made of? You'll nor fight nor fly.\n    Now is it manhood, wisdom, and defence,\n    To give the enemy way, and to secure us\n    By what we can, which can no more but fly.\n                                               [Alarum afar off]\n    If you be ta'en, we then should see the bottom\n    Of all our fortunes; but if we haply scape-\n    As well we may, if not through your neglect-\n    We shall to London get, where you are lov'd,\n    And where this breach now in our fortunes made\n    May readily be stopp'd.\n\n                     Re-enter YOUNG CLIFFORD\n\n  YOUNG CLIFFORD. But that my heart's on future mischief set,\n    I would speak blasphemy ere bid you fly;\n    But fly you must; uncurable discomfit\n    Reigns in the hearts of all our present parts.\n    Away, for your relief! and we will live\n    To see their day and them our fortune give.\n    Away, my lord, away!                                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nFields near Saint Albans\n\nAlarum. Retreat. Enter YORK, RICHARD, WARWICK, and soldiers,\nwith drum and colours\n\n  YORK. Of Salisbury, who can report of him,\n    That winter lion, who in rage forgets\n    Aged contusions and all brush of time\n    And, like a gallant in the brow of youth,\n    Repairs him with occasion? This happy day\n    Is not itself, nor have we won one foot,\n    If Salisbury be lost.\n  RICHARD. My noble father,\n    Three times to-day I holp him to his horse,\n    Three times bestrid him, thrice I led him off,\n    Persuaded him from any further act;\n    But still where danger was, still there I met him;\n    And like rich hangings in a homely house,\n    So was his will in his old feeble body.\n    But, noble as he is, look where he comes.\n\n                         Enter SALISBURY\n\n  SALISBURY. Now, by my sword, well hast thou fought to-day!\n    By th' mass, so did we all. I thank you, Richard:\n    God knows how long it is I have to live,\n    And it hath pleas'd Him that three times to-day\n    You have defended me from imminent death.\n    Well, lords, we have not got that which we have;\n    'Tis not enough our foes are this time fled,\n    Being opposites of such repairing nature.\n  YORK. I know our safety is to follow them;\n    For, as I hear, the King is fled to London\n    To call a present court of Parliament.\n    Let us pursue him ere the writs go forth.\n    What says Lord Warwick? Shall we after them?\n  WARWICK. After them? Nay, before them, if we can.\n    Now, by my faith, lords, 'twas a glorious day:\n    Saint Albans' battle, won by famous York,\n    Shall be eterniz'd in all age to come.\n    Sound drum and trumpets and to London all;\n    And more such days as these to us befall!             Exeunt\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nThe Second Part of King Henry the Sixth\n\n"}
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{"1102":"\n\n\n\n\n1591\n\nTHE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  KING HENRY THE SIXTH\n  EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, his son\n  LEWIS XI, King of France           DUKE OF SOMERSET\n  DUKE OF EXETER                     EARL OF OXFORD\n  EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND             EARL OF WESTMORELAND\n  LORD CLIFFORD\n  RICHARD PLANTAGENET, DUKE OF YORK\n  EDWARD, EARL OF MARCH, afterwards KING EDWARD IV, his son\n  EDMUND, EARL OF RUTLAND, his son\n  GEORGE, afterwards DUKE OF CLARENCE, his son\n  RICHARD, afterwards DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, his son\n  DUKE OF NORFOLK                    MARQUIS OF MONTAGUE\n  EARL OF WARWICK                    EARL OF PEMBROKE\n  LORD HASTINGS                      LORD STAFFORD\n  SIR JOHN MORTIMER, uncle to the Duke of York\n  SIR HUGH MORTIMER, uncle to the Duke of York\n  HENRY, EARL OF RICHMOND, a youth\n  LORD RIVERS, brother to Lady Grey\n  SIR WILLIAM STANLEY                SIR JOHN MONTGOMERY\n  SIR JOHN SOMERVILLE                TUTOR, to Rutland\n  MAYOR OF YORK                      LIEUTENANT OF THE TOWER\n  A NOBLEMAN                         TWO KEEPERS\n  A HUNTSMAN\n  A SON that has killed his father\n  A FATHER that has killed his son\n\n  QUEEN MARGARET\n  LADY GREY, afterwards QUEEN to Edward IV\n  BONA, sister to the French Queen\n\n  Soldiers, Attendants, Messengers, Watchmen, etc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland and France\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nLondon. The Parliament House\n\nAlarum. Enter DUKE OF YORK, EDWARD, RICHARD, NORFOLK, MONTAGUE,\nWARWICK,\nand soldiers, with white roses in their hats\n\n  WARWICK. I wonder how the King escap'd our hands.\n  YORK. While we pursu'd the horsemen of the north,\n    He slily stole away and left his men;\n    Whereat the great Lord of Northumberland,\n    Whose warlike ears could never brook retreat,\n    Cheer'd up the drooping army, and himself,\n    Lord Clifford, and Lord Stafford, all abreast,\n    Charg'd our main battle's front, and, breaking in,\n    Were by the swords of common soldiers slain.\n  EDWARD. Lord Stafford's father, Duke of Buckingham,\n    Is either slain or wounded dangerous;\n    I cleft his beaver with a downright blow.\n    That this is true, father, behold his blood.\n  MONTAGUE. And, brother, here's the Earl of Wiltshire's blood,\n    Whom I encount'red as the battles join'd.\n  RICHARD. Speak thou for me, and tell them what I did.\n                                 [Throwing down SOMERSET'S head]\n  YORK. Richard hath best deserv'd of all my sons.\n    But is your Grace dead, my Lord of Somerset?\n  NORFOLK. Such hope have all the line of John of Gaunt!\n  RICHARD. Thus do I hope to shake King Henry's head.\n  WARWICK. And so do I. Victorious Prince of York,\n    Before I see thee seated in that throne\n    Which now the house of Lancaster usurps,\n    I vow by heaven these eyes shall never close.\n    This is the palace of the fearful King,\n    And this the regal seat. Possess it, York;\n    For this is thine, and not King Henry's heirs'.\n  YORK. Assist me then, sweet Warwick, and I will;\n    For hither we have broken in by force.\n  NORFOLK. We'll all assist you; he that flies shall die.\n  YORK. Thanks, gentle Norfolk. Stay by me, my lords;\n    And, soldiers, stay and lodge by me this night.\n                                                    [They go up]\n  WARWICK. And when the King comes, offer him no violence.\n    Unless he seek to thrust you out perforce.\n  YORK. The Queen this day here holds her parliament,\n    But little thinks we shall be of her council.\n    By words or blows here let us win our right.\n  RICHARD. Arm'd as we are, let's stay within this house.\n  WARWICK. The bloody parliament shall this be call'd,\n    Unless Plantagenet, Duke of York, be King,\n    And bashful Henry depos'd, whose cowardice\n    Hath made us by-words to our enemies.\n  YORK. Then leave me not, my lords; be resolute:\n    I mean to take possession of my right.\n  WARWICK. Neither the King, nor he that loves him best,\n    The proudest he that holds up Lancaster,\n    Dares stir a wing if Warwick shake his bells.\n    I'll plant Plantagenet, root him up who dares.\n    Resolve thee, Richard; claim the English crown.\n                                      [YORK occupies the throne]\n\n       Flourish. Enter KING HENRY, CLIFFORD, NORTHUMBERLAND,\n        WESTMORELAND, EXETER, and others, with red roses in\n                            their hats\n\n  KING HENRY. My lords, look where the sturdy rebel sits,\n    Even in the chair of state! Belike he means,\n    Back'd by the power of Warwick, that false peer,\n    To aspire unto the crown and reign as king.\n    Earl of Northumberland, he slew thy father;\n    And thine, Lord Clifford; and you both have vow'd revenge\n    On him, his sons, his favourites, and his friends.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. If I be not, heavens be reveng'd on me!\n  CLIFFORD. The hope thereof makes Clifford mourn in steel.\n  WESTMORELAND. What, shall we suffer this? Let's pluck him down;\n    My heart for anger burns; I cannot brook it.\n  KING HENRY. Be patient, gentle Earl of Westmoreland.\n  CLIFFORD. Patience is for poltroons such as he;\n    He durst not sit there had your father liv'd.\n    My gracious lord, here in the parliament\n    Let us assail the family of York.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Well hast thou spoken, cousin; be it so.\n  KING HENRY. Ah, know you not the city favours them,\n    And they have troops of soldiers at their beck?\n  EXETER. But when the Duke is slain they'll quickly fly.\n  KING HENRY. Far be the thought of this from Henry's heart,\n    To make a shambles of the parliament house!\n    Cousin of Exeter, frowns, words, and threats,\n    Shall be the war that Henry means to use.\n    Thou factious Duke of York, descend my throne\n    And kneel for grace and mercy at my feet;\n    I am thy sovereign.\n  YORK. I am thine.\n  EXETER. For shame, come down; he made thee Duke of York.\n  YORK. 'Twas my inheritance, as the earldom was.\n  EXETER. Thy father was a traitor to the crown.\n  WARWICK. Exeter, thou art a traitor to the crown\n    In following this usurping Henry.\n  CLIFFORD. Whom should he follow but his natural king?\n  WARWICK. True, Clifford; and that's Richard Duke of York.\n  KING HENRY. And shall I stand, and thou sit in my throne?\n  YORK. It must and shall be so; content thyself.\n  WARWICK. Be Duke of Lancaster; let him be King.\n  WESTMORELAND. He is both King and Duke of Lancaster;\n    And that the Lord of Westmoreland shall maintain.\n  WARWICK. And Warwick shall disprove it. You forget\n    That we are those which chas'd you from the field,\n    And slew your fathers, and with colours spread\n    March'd through the city to the palace gates.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Yes, Warwick, I remember it to my grief;\n    And, by his soul, thou and thy house shall rue it.\n  WESTMORELAND. Plantagenet, of thee, and these thy sons,\n    Thy kinsmen, and thy friends, I'll have more lives\n    Than drops of blood were in my father's veins.\n  CLIFFORD. Urge it no more; lest that instead of words\n    I send thee, Warwick, such a messenger\n    As shall revenge his death before I stir.\n  WARWICK. Poor Clifford, how I scorn his worthless threats!\n  YORK. Will you we show our title to the crown?\n    If not, our swords shall plead it in the field.\n  KING HENRY. What title hast thou, traitor, to the crown?\n    Thy father was, as thou art, Duke of York;\n    Thy grandfather, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March:\n    I am the son of Henry the Fifth,\n    Who made the Dauphin and the French to stoop,\n    And seiz'd upon their towns and provinces.\n  WARWICK. Talk not of France, sith thou hast lost it all.\n  KING HENRY. The Lord Protector lost it, and not I:\n    When I was crown'd, I was but nine months old.\n  RICHARD. You are old enough now, and yet methinks you lose.\n    Father, tear the crown from the usurper's head.\n  EDWARD. Sweet father, do so; set it on your head.\n  MONTAGUE. Good brother, as thou lov'st and honourest arms,\n    Let's fight it out and not stand cavilling thus.\n  RICHARD. Sound drums and trumpets, and the King will fly.\n  YORK. Sons, peace!\n  KING HENRY. Peace thou! and give King Henry leave to speak.\n  WARWICK. Plantagenet shall speak first. Hear him, lords;\n    And be you silent and attentive too,\n    For he that interrupts him shall not live.\n  KING HENRY. Think'st thou that I will leave my kingly throne,\n    Wherein my grandsire and my father sat?\n    No; first shall war unpeople this my realm;\n    Ay, and their colours, often borne in France,\n    And now in England to our heart's great sorrow,\n    Shall be my winding-sheet. Why faint you, lords?\n    My title's good, and better far than his.\n  WARWICK. Prove it, Henry, and thou shalt be King.\n  KING HENRY. Henry the Fourth by conquest got the crown.\n  YORK. 'Twas by rebellion against his king.\n  KING HENRY. [Aside] I know not what to say; my title's weak.-\n    Tell me, may not a king adopt an heir?\n  YORK. What then?\n  KING HENRY. An if he may, then am I lawful King;\n    For Richard, in the view of many lords,\n    Resign'd the crown to Henry the Fourth,\n    Whose heir my father was, and I am his.\n  YORK. He rose against him, being his sovereign,\n    And made him to resign his crown perforce.\n  WARWICK. Suppose, my lords, he did it unconstrain'd,\n    Think you 'twere prejudicial to his crown?\n  EXETER. No; for he could not so resign his crown\n    But that the next heir should succeed and reign.\n  KING HENRY. Art thou against us, Duke of Exeter?\n  EXETER. His is the right, and therefore pardon me.\n  YORK. Why whisper you, my lords, and answer not?\n  EXETER. My conscience tells me he is lawful King.\n  KING HENRY. [Aside] All will revolt from me, and turn to him.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Plantagenet, for all the claim thou lay'st,\n    Think not that Henry shall be so depos'd.\n  WARWICK. Depos'd he shall be, in despite of all.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Thou art deceiv'd. 'Tis not thy southern power\n    Of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, nor of Kent,\n    Which makes thee thus presumptuous and proud,\n    Can set the Duke up in despite of me.\n  CLIFFORD. King Henry, be thy title right or wrong,\n    Lord Clifford vows to fight in thy defence.\n    May that ground gape, and swallow me alive,\n    Where I shall kneel to him that slew my father!\n  KING HENRY. O Clifford, how thy words revive my heart!\n  YORK. Henry of Lancaster, resign thy crown.\n    What mutter you, or what conspire you, lords?\n  WARWICK. Do right unto this princely Duke of York;\n    Or I will fill the house with armed men,\n    And over the chair of state, where now he sits,\n    Write up his title with usurping blood.\n                                [He stamps with his foot and the\n                                       soldiers show themselves]\n  KING HENRY. My Lord of Warwick, hear but one word:\n    Let me for this my life-time reign as king.\n  YORK. Confirm the crown to me and to mine heirs,\n    And thou shalt reign in quiet while thou liv'st.\n  KING HENRY. I am content. Richard Plantagenet,\n    Enjoy the kingdom after my decease.\n  CLIFFORD. What wrong is this unto the Prince your son!\n  WARWICK. What good is this to England and himself!\n  WESTMORELAND. Base, fearful, and despairing Henry!\n  CLIFFORD. How hast thou injur'd both thyself and or us!\n  WESTMORELAND. I cannot stay to hear these articles.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Nor I.\n  CLIFFORD. Come, cousin, let us tell the Queen these news.\n  WESTMORELAND. Farewell, faint-hearted and degenerate king,\n    In whose cold blood no spark of honour bides.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Be thou a prey unto the house of York\n    And die in bands for this unmanly deed!\n  CLIFFORD. In dreadful war mayst thou be overcome,\n    Or live in peace abandon'd and despis'd!\n                                Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, CLIFFORD,\n                                                and WESTMORELAND\n  WARWICK. Turn this way, Henry, and regard them not.\n  EXETER. They seek revenge, and therefore will not yield.\n  KING HENRY. Ah, Exeter!\n  WARWICK. Why should you sigh, my lord?\n  KING HENRY. Not for myself, Lord Warwick, but my son,\n    Whom I unnaturally shall disinherit.\n    But be it as it may. [To YORK] I here entail\n    The crown to thee and to thine heirs for ever;\n    Conditionally, that here thou take an oath\n    To cease this civil war, and, whilst I live,\n    To honour me as thy king and sovereign,\n    And neither by treason nor hostility\n    To seek to put me down and reign thyself.\n  YORK. This oath I willingly take, and will perform.\n                                        [Coming from the throne]\n  WARWICK. Long live King Henry! Plantagenet, embrace him.\n  KING HENRY. And long live thou, and these thy forward sons!\n  YORK. Now York and Lancaster are reconcil'd.\n  EXETER. Accurs'd be he that seeks to make them foes!\n                                   [Sennet. Here they come down]\n  YORK. Farewell, my gracious lord; I'll to my castle.\n  WARWICK. And I'll keep London with my soldiers.\n  NORFOLK. And I to Norfolk with my followers.\n  MONTAGUE. And I unto the sea, from whence I came.\n                                             Exeunt the YORKISTS\n  KING HENRY. And I, with grief and sorrow, to the court.\n\n            Enter QUEEN MARGARET and the PRINCE OF WALES\n\n  EXETER. Here comes the Queen, whose looks bewray her anger.\n    I'll steal away.\n  KING HENRY. Exeter, so will I.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Nay, go not from me; I will follow thee.\n  KING HENRY. Be patient, gentle queen, and I will stay.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Who can be patient in such extremes?\n    Ah, wretched man! Would I had died a maid,\n    And never seen thee, never borne thee son,\n    Seeing thou hast prov'd so unnatural a father!\n    Hath he deserv'd to lose his birthright thus?\n    Hadst thou but lov'd him half so well as I,\n    Or felt that pain which I did for him once,\n    Or nourish'd him as I did with my blood,\n    Thou wouldst have left thy dearest heart-blood there\n    Rather than have made that savage duke thine heir,\n    And disinherited thine only son.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Father, you cannot disinherit me.\n    If you be King, why should not I succeed?\n  KING HENRY. Pardon me, Margaret; pardon me, sweet son.\n    The Earl of Warwick and the Duke enforc'd me.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Enforc'd thee! Art thou King and wilt be\n      forc'd?\n    I shame to hear thee speak. Ah, timorous wretch!\n    Thou hast undone thyself, thy son, and me;\n    And giv'n unto the house of York such head\n    As thou shalt reign but by their sufferance.\n    To entail him and his heirs unto the crown,\n    What is it but to make thy sepulchre\n    And creep into it far before thy time?\n    Warwick is Chancellor and the lord of Calais;\n    Stern Falconbridge commands the narrow seas;\n    The Duke is made Protector of the realm;\n    And yet shalt thou be safe? Such safety finds\n    The trembling lamb environed with wolves.\n    Had I been there, which am a silly woman,\n    The soldiers should have toss'd me on their pikes\n    Before I would have granted to that act.\n    But thou prefer'st thy life before thine honour;\n    And seeing thou dost, I here divorce myself,\n    Both from thy table, Henry, and thy bed,\n    Until that act of parliament be repeal'd\n    Whereby my son is disinherited.\n    The northern lords that have forsworn thy colours\n    Will follow mine, if once they see them spread;\n    And spread they shall be, to thy foul disgrace\n    And utter ruin of the house of York.\n    Thus do I leave thee. Come, son, let's away;\n    Our army is ready; come, we'll after them.\n  KING HENRY. Stay, gentle Margaret, and hear me speak.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Thou hast spoke too much already; get thee\ngone.\n  KING HENRY. Gentle son Edward, thou wilt stay with me?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, to be murder'd by his enemies.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. When I return with victory from the field\n    I'll see your Grace; till then I'll follow her.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Come, son, away; we may not linger thus.\n                            Exeunt QUEEN MARGARET and the PRINCE\n  KING HENRY. Poor queen! How love to me and to her son\n    Hath made her break out into terms of rage!\n    Reveng'd may she be on that hateful Duke,\n    Whose haughty spirit, winged with desire,\n    Will cost my crown, and like an empty eagle\n    Tire on the flesh of me and of my son!\n    The loss of those three lords torments my heart.\n    I'll write unto them, and entreat them fair;\n    Come, cousin, you shall be the messenger.\n  EXETER. And I, I hope, shall reconcile them all.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nSandal Castle, near Wakefield, in Yorkshire\n\nFlourish. Enter EDWARD, RICHARD, and MONTAGUE\n\n  RICHARD. Brother, though I be youngest, give me leave.\n  EDWARD. No, I can better play the orator.\n  MONTAGUE. But I have reasons strong and forcible.\n\n                     Enter the DUKE OF YORK\n\n  YORK. Why, how now, sons and brother! at a strife?\n    What is your quarrel? How began it first?\n  EDWARD. No quarrel, but a slight contention.\n  YORK. About what?\n  RICHARD. About that which concerns your Grace and us-\n    The crown of England, father, which is yours.\n  YORK. Mine, boy? Not till King Henry be dead.\n  RICHARD. Your right depends not on his life or death.\n  EDWARD. Now you are heir, therefore enjoy it now.\n    By giving the house of Lancaster leave to breathe,\n    It will outrun you, father, in the end.\n  YORK. I took an oath that he should quietly reign.\n  EDWARD. But for a kingdom any oath may be broken:\n    I would break a thousand oaths to reign one year.\n  RICHARD. No; God forbid your Grace should be forsworn.\n  YORK. I shall be, if I claim by open war.\n  RICHARD. I'll prove the contrary, if you'll hear me speak.\n  YORK. Thou canst not, son; it is impossible.\n  RICHARD. An oath is of no moment, being not took\n    Before a true and lawful magistrate\n    That hath authority over him that swears.\n    Henry had none, but did usurp the place;\n    Then, seeing 'twas he that made you to depose,\n    Your oath, my lord, is vain and frivolous.\n    Therefore, to arms. And, father, do but think\n    How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown,\n    Within whose circuit is Elysium\n    And all that poets feign of bliss and joy.\n    Why do we linger thus? I cannot rest\n    Until the white rose that I wear be dy'd\n    Even in the lukewarm blood of Henry's heart.\n  YORK. Richard, enough; I will be King, or die.\n    Brother, thou shalt to London presently\n    And whet on Warwick to this enterprise.\n    Thou, Richard, shalt to the Duke of Norfolk\n    And tell him privily of our intent.\n    You, Edward, shall unto my Lord Cobham,\n    With whom the Kentishmen will willingly rise;\n    In them I trust, for they are soldiers,\n    Witty, courteous, liberal, full of spirit.\n    While you are thus employ'd, what resteth more\n    But that I seek occasion how to rise,\n    And yet the King not privy to my drift,\n    Nor any of the house of Lancaster?\n\n                      Enter a MESSENGER\n\n    But, stay. What news? Why com'st thou in such post?\n  MESSENGER. The Queen with all the northern earls and lords\n    Intend here to besiege you in your castle.\n    She is hard by with twenty thousand men;\n    And therefore fortify your hold, my lord.\n  YORK. Ay, with my sword. What! think'st thou that we fear them?\n    Edward and Richard, you shall stay with me;\n    My brother Montague shall post to London.\n    Let noble Warwick, Cobham, and the rest,\n    Whom we have left protectors of the King,\n    With pow'rful policy strengthen themselves\n    And trust not simple Henry nor his oaths.\n  MONTAGUE. Brother, I go; I'll win them, fear it not.\n    And thus most humbly I do take my leave.                Exit\n\n              Enter SIR JOHN and SIR HUGH MORTIMER\n\n  YORK. Sir john and Sir Hugh Mortimer, mine uncles!\n    You are come to Sandal in a happy hour;\n    The army of the Queen mean to besiege us.\n  SIR JOHN. She shall not need; we'll meet her in the field.\n  YORK. What, with five thousand men?\n  RICHARD. Ay, with five hundred, father, for a need.\n    A woman's general; what should we fear?\n                                              [A march afar off]\n  EDWARD. I hear their drums. Let's set our men in order,\n    And issue forth and bid them battle straight.\n  YORK. Five men to twenty! Though the odds be great,\n    I doubt not, uncle, of our victory.\n    Many a battle have I won in France,\n    When as the enemy hath been ten to one;\n    Why should I not now have the like success?           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nField of battle between Sandal Castle and Wakefield\n\nAlarum. Enter RUTLAND and his TUTOR\n\n  RUTLAND. Ah, whither shall I fly to scape their hands?\n    Ah, tutor, look where bloody Clifford comes!\n\n                  Enter CLIFFORD and soldiers\n\n  CLIFFORD. Chaplain, away! Thy priesthood saves thy life.\n    As for the brat of this accursed duke,\n    Whose father slew my father, he shall die.\n  TUTOR. And I, my lord, will bear him company.\n  CLIFFORD. Soldiers, away with him!\n  TUTOR. Ah, Clifford, murder not this innocent child,\n    Lest thou be hated both of God and man.\n                                    Exit, forced off by soldiers\n  CLIFFORD. How now, is he dead already? Or is it fear\n    That makes him close his eyes? I'll open them.\n  RUTLAND. So looks the pent-up lion o'er the wretch\n    That trembles under his devouring paws;\n    And so he walks, insulting o'er his prey,\n    And so he comes, to rend his limbs asunder.\n    Ah, gentle Clifford, kill me with thy sword,\n    And not with such a cruel threat'ning look!\n    Sweet Clifford, hear me speak before I die.\n    I am too mean a subject for thy wrath;\n    Be thou reveng'd on men, and let me live.\n  CLIFFORD. In vain thou speak'st, poor boy; my father's blood\n    Hath stopp'd the passage where thy words should enter.\n  RUTLAND. Then let my father's blood open it again:\n    He is a man, and, Clifford, cope with him.\n  CLIFFORD. Had I thy brethren here, their lives and thine\n    Were not revenge sufficient for me;\n    No, if I digg'd up thy forefathers' graves\n    And hung their rotten coffins up in chains,\n    It could not slake mine ire nor ease my heart.\n    The sight of any of the house of York\n    Is as a fury to torment my soul;\n    And till I root out their accursed line\n    And leave not one alive, I live in hell.\n    Therefore-\n  RUTLAND. O, let me pray before I take my death!\n    To thee I pray: sweet Clifford, pity me.\n  CLIFFORD. Such pity as my rapier's point affords.\n  RUTLAND. I never did thee harm; why wilt thou slay me?\n  CLIFFORD. Thy father hath.\n  RUTLAND. But 'twas ere I was born.\n    Thou hast one son; for his sake pity me,\n    Lest in revenge thereof, sith God is just,\n    He be as miserably slain as I.\n    Ah, let me live in prison all my days;\n    And when I give occasion of offence\n    Then let me die, for now thou hast no cause.\n  CLIFFORD. No cause!\n    Thy father slew my father; therefore, die.       [Stabs him]\n  RUTLAND. Di faciant laudis summa sit ista tuae!         [Dies]\n  CLIFFORD. Plantagenet, I come, Plantagenet;\n    And this thy son's blood cleaving to my blade\n    Shall rust upon my weapon, till thy blood,\n    Congeal'd with this, do make me wipe off both.          Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the field\n\nAlarum. Enter the DUKE OF YORK\n\n  YORK. The army of the Queen hath got the field.\n    My uncles both are slain in rescuing me;\n    And all my followers to the eager foe\n    Turn back and fly, like ships before the wind,\n    Or lambs pursu'd by hunger-starved wolves.\n    My sons- God knows what hath bechanced them;\n    But this I know- they have demean'd themselves\n    Like men born to renown by life or death.\n    Three times did Richard make a lane to me,\n    And thrice cried 'Courage, father! fight it out.'\n    And full as oft came Edward to my side\n    With purple falchion, painted to the hilt\n    In blood of those that had encount'red him.\n    And when the hardiest warriors did retire,\n    Richard cried 'Charge, and give no foot of ground!'\n    And cried 'A crown, or else a glorious tomb!\n    A sceptre, or an earthly sepulchre!'\n    With this we charg'd again; but out alas!\n    We bodg'd again; as I have seen a swan\n    With bootless labour swim against the tide\n    And spend her strength with over-matching waves.\n                                         [A short alarum within]\n    Ah, hark! The fatal followers do pursue,\n    And I am faint and cannot fly their fury;\n    And were I strong, I would not shun their fury.\n    The sands are numb'red that make up my life;\n    Here must I stay, and here my life must end.\n\n         Enter QUEEN MARGARET, CLIFFORD, NORTHUMBERLAND,\n               the PRINCE OF WALES, and soldiers\n\n    Come, bloody Clifford, rough Northumberland,\n    I dare your quenchless fury to more rage;\n    I am your butt, and I abide your shot.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Yield to our mercy, proud Plantagenet.\n  CLIFFORD. Ay, to such mercy as his ruthless arm\n    With downright payment show'd unto my father.\n    Now Phaethon hath tumbled from his car,\n    And made an evening at the noontide prick.\n  YORK. My ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth\n    A bird that will revenge upon you all;\n    And in that hope I throw mine eyes to heaven,\n    Scorning whate'er you can afflict me with.\n    Why come you not? What! multitudes, and fear?\n  CLIFFORD. So cowards fight when they can fly no further;\n    So doves do peck the falcon's piercing talons;\n    So desperate thieves, all hopeless of their lives,\n    Breathe out invectives 'gainst the officers.\n  YORK. O Clifford, but bethink thee once again,\n    And in thy thought o'errun my former time;\n    And, if thou canst for blushing, view this face,\n    And bite thy tongue that slanders him with cowardice\n    Whose frown hath made thee faint and fly ere this!\n  CLIFFORD. I will not bandy with thee word for word,\n    But buckler with thee blows, twice two for one.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Hold, valiant Clifford; for a thousand causes\n    I would prolong awhile the traitor's life.\n    Wrath makes him deaf; speak thou, Northumberland.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Hold, Clifford! do not honour him so much\n    To prick thy finger, though to wound his heart.\n    What valour were it, when a cur doth grin,\n    For one to thrust his hand between his teeth,\n    When he might spurn him with his foot away?\n    It is war's prize to take all vantages;\n    And ten to one is no impeach of valour.\n                         [They lay hands on YORK, who struggles]\n  CLIFFORD. Ay, ay, so strives the woodcock with the gin.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. So doth the cony struggle in the net.\n  YORK. So triumph thieves upon their conquer'd booty;\n    So true men yield, with robbers so o'er-match'd.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. What would your Grace have done unto him now?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Brave warriors, Clifford and Northumberland,\n    Come, make him stand upon this molehill here\n    That raught at mountains with outstretched arms,\n    Yet parted but the shadow with his hand.\n    What, was it you that would be England's king?\n    Was't you that revell'd in our parliament\n    And made a preachment of your high descent?\n    Where are your mess of sons to back you now?\n    The wanton Edward and the lusty George?\n    And where's that valiant crook-back prodigy,\n    Dicky your boy, that with his grumbling voice\n    Was wont to cheer his dad in mutinies?\n    Or, with the rest, where is your darling Rutland?\n    Look, York: I stain'd this napkin with the blood\n    That valiant Clifford with his rapier's point\n    Made issue from the bosom of the boy;\n    And if thine eyes can water for his death,\n    I give thee this to dry thy cheeks withal.\n    Alas, poor York! but that I hate thee deadly,\n    I should lament thy miserable state.\n    I prithee grieve to make me merry, York.\n    What, hath thy fiery heart so parch'd thine entrails\n    That not a tear can fall for Rutland's death?\n    Why art thou patient, man? Thou shouldst be mad;\n    And I to make thee mad do mock thee thus.\n    Stamp, rave, and fret, that I may sing and dance.\n    Thou wouldst be fee'd, I see, to make me sport;\n    York cannot speak unless he wear a crown.\n    A crown for York!-and, lords, bow low to him.\n    Hold you his hands whilst I do set it on.\n                             [Putting a paper crown on his head]\n    Ay, marry, sir, now looks he like a king!\n    Ay, this is he that took King Henry's chair,\n    And this is he was his adopted heir.\n    But how is it that great Plantagenet\n    Is crown'd so soon and broke his solemn oath?\n    As I bethink me, you should not be King\n    Till our King Henry had shook hands with death.\n    And will you pale your head in Henry's glory,\n    And rob his temples of the diadem,\n    Now in his life, against your holy oath?\n    O, 'tis a fault too too\n    Off with the crown and with the crown his head;\n    And, whilst we breathe, take time to do him dead.\n  CLIFFORD. That is my office, for my father's sake.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Nay, stay; let's hear the orisons he makes.\n  YORK. She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France,\n    Whose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth!\n    How ill-beseeming is it in thy sex\n    To triumph like an Amazonian trull\n    Upon their woes whom fortune captivates!\n    But that thy face is visard-like, unchanging,\n    Made impudent with use of evil deeds,\n    I would assay, proud queen, to make thee blush.\n    To tell thee whence thou cam'st, of whom deriv'd,\n    Were shame enough to shame thee, wert thou not shameless.\n    Thy father bears the type of King of Naples,\n    Of both the Sicils and Jerusalem,\n    Yet not so wealthy as an English yeoman.\n    Hath that poor monarch taught thee to insult?\n    It needs not, nor it boots thee not, proud queen;\n    Unless the adage must be verified,\n    That beggars mounted run their horse to death.\n    'Tis beauty that doth oft make women proud;\n    But, God He knows, thy share thereof is small.\n    'Tis virtue that doth make them most admir'd;\n    The contrary doth make thee wond'red at.\n    'Tis government that makes them seem divine;\n    The want thereof makes thee abominable.\n    Thou art as opposite to every good\n    As the Antipodes are unto us,\n    Or as the south to the septentrion.\n    O tiger's heart wrapp'd in a woman's hide!\n    How couldst thou drain the life-blood of the child,\n    To bid the father wipe his eyes withal,\n    And yet be seen to bear a woman's face?\n    Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible:\n    Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless.\n    Bid'st thou me rage? Why, now thou hast thy wish;\n    Wouldst have me weep? Why, now thou hast thy will;\n    For raging wind blows up incessant showers,\n    And when the rage allays, the rain begins.\n    These tears are my sweet Rutland's obsequies;\n    And every drop cries vengeance for his death\n    'Gainst thee, fell Clifford, and thee, false Frenchwoman.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Beshrew me, but his passions move me so\n    That hardly can I check my eyes from tears.\n  YORK. That face of his the hungry cannibals\n    Would not have touch'd, would not have stain'd with blood;\n    But you are more inhuman, more inexorable-\n    O, ten times more- than tigers of Hyrcania.\n    See, ruthless queen, a hapless father's tears.\n    This cloth thou dipp'dst in blood of my sweet boy,\n    And I with tears do wash the blood away.\n    Keep thou the napkin, and go boast of this;\n    And if thou tell'st the heavy story right,\n    Upon my soul, the hearers will shed tears;\n    Yea, even my foes will shed fast-falling tears\n    And say 'Alas, it was a piteous deed!'\n    There, take the crown, and with the crown my curse;\n    And in thy need such comfort come to thee\n    As now I reap at thy too cruel hand!\n    Hard-hearted Clifford, take me from the world;\n    My soul to heaven, my blood upon your heads!\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Had he been slaughter-man to all my kin,\n    I should not for my life but weep with him,\n    To see how inly sorrow gripes his soul.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. What, weeping-ripe, my Lord Northumberland?\n    Think but upon the wrong he did us all,\n    And that will quickly dry thy melting tears.\n  CLIFFORD. Here's for my oath, here's for my father's death.\n                                                  [Stabbing him]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. And here's to right our gentle-hearted king.\n                                                  [Stabbing him]\n  YORK. Open Thy gate of mercy, gracious God!\n    My soul flies through these wounds to seek out Thee.\n                                                          [Dies]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Off with his head, and set it on York gates;\n    So York may overlook the town of York.\n                                                Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nA plain near Mortimer's Cross in Herefordshire\n\nA march. Enter EDWARD, RICHARD, and their power\n\n  EDWARD. I wonder how our princely father scap'd,\n    Or whether he be scap'd away or no\n    From Clifford's and Northumberland's pursuit.\n    Had he been ta'en, we should have heard the news;\n    Had he been slain, we should have heard the news;\n    Or had he scap'd, methinks we should have heard\n    The happy tidings of his good escape.\n    How fares my brother? Why is he so sad?\n  RICHARD. I cannot joy until I be resolv'd\n    Where our right valiant father is become.\n    I saw him in the battle range about,\n    And watch'd him how he singled Clifford forth.\n    Methought he bore him in the thickest troop\n    As doth a lion in a herd of neat;\n    Or as a bear, encompass'd round with dogs,\n    Who having pinch'd a few and made them cry,\n    The rest stand all aloof and bark at him.\n    So far'd our father with his enemies;\n    So fled his enemies my warlike father.\n    Methinks 'tis prize enough to be his son.\n    See how the morning opes her golden gates\n    And takes her farewell of the glorious sun.\n    How well resembles it the prime of youth,\n    Trimm'd like a younker prancing to his love!\n  EDWARD. Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?\n  RICHARD. Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;\n    Not separated with the racking clouds,\n    But sever'd in a pale clear-shining sky.\n    See, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,\n    As if they vow'd some league inviolable.\n    Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.\n    In this the heaven figures some event.\n  EDWARD. 'Tis wondrous strange, the like yet never heard of.\n    I think it cites us, brother, to the field,\n    That we, the sons of brave Plantagenet,\n    Each one already blazing by our meeds,\n    Should notwithstanding join our lights together\n    And overshine the earth, as this the world.\n    Whate'er it bodes, henceforward will I bear\n    Upon my target three fair shining suns.\n  RICHARD. Nay, bear three daughters- by your leave I speak it,\n    You love the breeder better than the male.\n\n                 Enter a MESSENGER, blowing\n\n    But what art thou, whose heavy looks foretell\n    Some dreadful story hanging on thy tongue?\n  MESSENGER. Ah, one that was a woeful looker-on\n    When as the noble Duke of York was slain,\n    Your princely father and my loving lord!\n  EDWARD. O, speak no more! for I have heard too much.\n  RICHARD. Say how he died, for I will hear it all.\n  MESSENGER. Environed he was with many foes,\n    And stood against them as the hope of Troy\n    Against the Greeks that would have ent'red Troy.\n    But Hercules himself must yield to odds;\n    And many strokes, though with a little axe,\n    Hews down and fells the hardest-timber'd oak.\n    By many hands your father was subdu'd;\n    But only slaught'red by the ireful arm\n    Of unrelenting Clifford and the Queen,\n    Who crown'd the gracious Duke in high despite,\n    Laugh'd in his face; and when with grief he wept,\n    The ruthless Queen gave him to dry his cheeks\n    A napkin steeped in the harmless blood\n    Of sweet young Rutland, by rough Clifford slain;\n    And after many scorns, many foul taunts,\n    They took his head, and on the gates of York\n    They set the same; and there it doth remain,\n    The saddest spectacle that e'er I view'd.\n  EDWARD. Sweet Duke of York, our prop to lean upon,\n    Now thou art gone, we have no staff, no stay.\n    O Clifford, boist'rous Clifford, thou hast slain\n    The flow'r of Europe for his chivalry;\n    And treacherously hast thou vanquish'd him,\n    For hand to hand he would have vanquish'd thee.\n    Now my soul's palace is become a prison.\n    Ah, would she break from hence, that this my body\n    Might in the ground be closed up in rest!\n    For never henceforth shall I joy again;\n    Never, O never, shall I see more joy.\n  RICHARD. I cannot weep, for all my body's moisture\n    Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart;\n    Nor can my tongue unload my heart's great burden,\n    For self-same wind that I should speak withal\n    Is kindling coals that fires all my breast,\n    And burns me up with flames that tears would quench.\n    To weep is to make less the depth of grief.\n    Tears then for babes; blows and revenge for me!\n    Richard, I bear thy name; I'll venge thy death,\n    Or die renowned by attempting it.\n  EDWARD. His name that valiant duke hath left with thee;\n    His dukedom and his chair with me is left.\n  RICHARD. Nay, if thou be that princely eagle's bird,\n    Show thy descent by gazing 'gainst the sun;\n    For chair and dukedom, throne and kingdom, say:\n    Either that is thine, or else thou wert not his.\n\n         March. Enter WARWICK, MONTAGUE, and their army\n\n  WARWICK. How now, fair lords! What fare? What news abroad?\n  RICHARD. Great Lord of Warwick, if we should recount\n    Our baleful news and at each word's deliverance\n    Stab poinards in our flesh till all were told,\n    The words would add more anguish than the wounds.\n    O valiant lord, the Duke of York is slain!\n  EDWARD. O Warwick, Warwick! that Plantagenet\n    Which held thee dearly as his soul's redemption\n    Is by the stern Lord Clifford done to death.\n  WARWICK. Ten days ago I drown'd these news in tears;\n    And now, to add more measure to your woes,\n    I come to tell you things sith then befall'n.\n    After the bloody fray at Wakefield fought,\n    Where your brave father breath'd his latest gasp,\n    Tidings, as swiftly as the posts could run,\n    Were brought me of your loss and his depart.\n    I, then in London, keeper of the King,\n    Muster'd my soldiers, gathered flocks of friends,\n    And very well appointed, as I thought,\n    March'd toward Saint Albans to intercept the Queen,\n    Bearing the King in my behalf along;\n    For by my scouts I was advertised\n    That she was coming with a full intent\n    To dash our late decree in parliament\n    Touching King Henry's oath and your succession.\n    Short tale to make- we at Saint Albans met,\n    Our battles join'd, and both sides fiercely fought;\n    But whether 'twas the coldness of the King,\n    Who look'd full gently on his warlike queen,\n    That robb'd my soldiers of their heated spleen,\n    Or whether 'twas report of her success,\n    Or more than common fear of Clifford's rigour,\n    Who thunders to his captives blood and death,\n    I cannot judge; but, to conclude with truth,\n    Their weapons like to lightning came and went:\n    Our soldiers', like the night-owl's lazy flight\n    Or like an idle thresher with a flail,\n    Fell gently down, as if they struck their friends.\n    I cheer'd them up with justice of our cause,\n    With promise of high pay and great rewards,\n    But all in vain; they had no heart to fight,\n    And we in them no hope to win the day;\n    So that we fled: the King unto the Queen;\n    Lord George your brother, Norfolk, and myself,\n    In haste post-haste are come to join with you;\n    For in the marches here we heard you were\n    Making another head to fight again.\n  EDWARD. Where is the Duke of Norfolk, gentle Warwick?\n    And when came George from Burgundy to England?\n  WARWICK. Some six miles off the Duke is with the soldiers;\n    And for your brother, he was lately sent\n    From your kind aunt, Duchess of Burgundy,\n    With aid of soldiers to this needful war.\n  RICHARD. 'Twas odds, belike, when valiant Warwick fled.\n    Oft have I heard his praises in pursuit,\n    But ne'er till now his scandal of retire.\n  WARWICK. Nor now my scandal, Richard, dost thou hear;\n    For thou shalt know this strong right hand of mine\n    Can pluck the diadem from faint Henry's head\n    And wring the awful sceptre from his fist,\n    Were he as famous and as bold in war\n    As he is fam'd for mildness, peace, and prayer.\n  RICHARD. I know it well, Lord Warwick; blame me not.\n    'Tis love I bear thy glories makes me speak.\n    But in this troublous time what's to be done?\n    Shall we go throw away our coats of steel\n    And wrap our bodies in black mourning-gowns,\n    Numbering our Ave-Maries with our beads?\n    Or shall we on the helmets of our foes\n    Tell our devotion with revengeful arms?\n    If for the last, say 'Ay,' and to it, lords.\n  WARWICK. Why, therefore Warwick came to seek you out;\n    And therefore comes my brother Montague.\n    Attend me, lords. The proud insulting Queen,\n    With Clifford and the haught Northumberland,\n    And of their feather many moe proud birds,\n    Have wrought the easy-melting King like wax.\n    He swore consent to your succession,\n    His oath enrolled in the parliament;\n    And now to London all the crew are gone\n    To frustrate both his oath and what beside\n    May make against the house of Lancaster.\n    Their power, I think, is thirty thousand strong.\n    Now if the help of Norfolk and myself,\n    With all the friends that thou, brave Earl of March,\n    Amongst the loving Welshmen canst procure,\n    Will but amount to five and twenty thousand,\n    Why, Via! to London will we march amain,\n    And once again bestride our foaming steeds,\n    And once again cry 'Charge upon our foes!'\n    But never once again turn back and fly.\n  RICHARD. Ay, now methinks I hear great Warwick speak.\n    Ne'er may he live to see a sunshine day\n    That cries 'Retire!' if Warwick bid him stay.\n  EDWARD. Lord Warwick, on thy shoulder will I lean;\n    And when thou fail'st- as God forbid the hour!-\n    Must Edward fall, which peril heaven forfend.\n  WARWICK. No longer Earl of March, but Duke of York;\n    The next degree is England's royal throne,\n    For King of England shalt thou be proclaim'd\n    In every borough as we pass along;\n    And he that throws not up his cap for joy\n    Shall for the fault make forfeit of his head.\n    King Edward, valiant Richard, Montague,\n    Stay we no longer, dreaming of renown,\n    But sound the trumpets and about our task.\n  RICHARD. Then, Clifford, were thy heart as hard as steel,\n    As thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds,\n    I come to pierce it or to give thee mine.\n  EDWARD. Then strike up drums. God and Saint George for us!\n\n                       Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  WARWICK. How now! what news?\n  MESSENGER. The Duke of Norfolk sends you word by me\n    The Queen is coming with a puissant host,\n    And craves your company for speedy counsel.\n  WARWICK. Why, then it sorts; brave warriors, let's away.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBefore York\n\nFlourish. Enter KING HENRY, QUEEN MARGARET, the PRINCE OF WALES,\nCLIFFORD,\nNORTHUMBERLAND, with drum and trumpets\n\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Welcome, my lord, to this brave town of York.\n    Yonder's the head of that arch-enemy\n    That sought to be encompass'd with your crown.\n    Doth not the object cheer your heart, my lord?\n  KING HENRY. Ay, as the rocks cheer them that fear their wreck-\n    To see this sight, it irks my very soul.\n    Withhold revenge, dear God; 'tis not my fault,\n    Nor wittingly have I infring'd my vow.\n  CLIFFORD. My gracious liege, this too much lenity\n    And harmful pity must be laid aside.\n    To whom do lions cast their gentle looks?\n    Not to the beast that would usurp their den.\n    Whose hand is that the forest bear doth lick?\n    Not his that spoils her young before her face.\n    Who scapes the lurking serpent's mortal sting?\n    Not he that sets his foot upon her back,\n    The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on,\n    And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.\n    Ambitious York did level at thy crown,\n    Thou smiling while he knit his angry brows.\n    He, but a Duke, would have his son a king,\n    And raise his issue like a loving sire:\n    Thou, being a king, bless'd with a goodly son,\n    Didst yield consent to disinherit him,\n    Which argued thee a most unloving father.\n    Unreasonable creatures feed their young;\n    And though man's face be fearful to their eyes,\n    Yet, in protection of their tender ones,\n    Who hath not seen them- even with those wings\n    Which sometime they have us'd with fearful flight-\n    Make war with him that climb'd unto their nest,\n    Offering their own lives in their young's defence\n    For shame, my liege, make them your precedent!\n    Were it not pity that this goodly boy\n    Should lose his birthright by his father's fault,\n    And long hereafter say unto his child\n    'What my great-grandfather and grandsire got\n    My careless father fondly gave away'?\n    Ah, what a shame were this! Look on the boy;\n    And let his manly face, which promiseth\n    Successful fortune, steel thy melting heart\n    To hold thine own and leave thine own with him.\n  KING HENRY. Full well hath Clifford play'd the orator,\n    Inferring arguments of mighty force.\n    But, Clifford, tell me, didst thou never hear\n    That things ill got had ever bad success?\n    And happy always was it for that son\n    Whose father for his hoarding went to hell?\n    I'll leave my son my virtuous deeds behind;\n    And would my father had left me no more!\n    For all the rest is held at such a rate\n    As brings a thousand-fold more care to keep\n    Than in possession any jot of pleasure.\n    Ah, cousin York! would thy best friends did know\n    How it doth grieve me that thy head is here!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. My lord, cheer up your spirits; our foes are\nnigh,\n    And this soft courage makes your followers faint.\n    You promis'd knighthood to our forward son:\n    Unsheathe your sword and dub him presently.\n    Edward, kneel down.\n  KING HENRY. Edward Plantagenet, arise a knight;\n    And learn this lesson: Draw thy sword in right.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. My gracious father, by your kingly leave,\n    I'll draw it as apparent to the crown,\n    And in that quarrel use it to the death.\n  CLIFFORD. Why, that is spoken like a toward prince.\n\n                      Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Royal commanders, be in readiness;\n    For with a band of thirty thousand men\n    Comes Warwick, backing of the Duke of York,\n    And in the towns, as they do march along,\n    Proclaims him king, and many fly to him.\n    Darraign your battle, for they are at hand.\n  CLIFFORD. I would your Highness would depart the field:\n    The Queen hath best success when you are absent.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, good my lord, and leave us to our fortune.\n  KING HENRY. Why, that's my fortune too; therefore I'll stay.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Be it with resolution, then, to fight.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. My royal father, cheer these noble lords,\n    And hearten those that fight in your defence.\n    Unsheathe your sword, good father; cry 'Saint George!'\n\n         March. Enter EDWARD, GEORGE, RICHARD, WARWICK,\n                NORFOLK, MONTAGUE, and soldiers\n\n  EDWARD. Now, perjur'd Henry, wilt thou kneel for grace\n    And set thy diadem upon my head,\n    Or bide the mortal fortune of the field?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Go rate thy minions, proud insulting boy.\n    Becomes it thee to be thus bold in terms\n    Before thy sovereign and thy lawful king?\n  EDWARD. I am his king, and he should bow his knee.\n    I was adopted heir by his consent:\n    Since when, his oath is broke; for, as I hear,\n    You that are King, though he do wear the crown,\n    Have caus'd him by new act of parliament\n    To blot out me and put his own son in.\n  CLIFFORD. And reason too:\n    Who should succeed the father but the son?\n  RICHARD. Are you there, butcher? O, I cannot speak!\n  CLIFFORD. Ay, crook-back, here I stand to answer thee,\n    Or any he, the proudest of thy sort.\n  RICHARD. 'Twas you that kill'd young Rutland, was it not?\n  CLIFFORD. Ay, and old York, and yet not satisfied.\n  RICHARD. For God's sake, lords, give signal to the fight.\n  WARWICK. What say'st thou, Henry? Wilt thou yield the crown?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Why, how now, long-tongu'd Warwick! Dare you\nspeak?\n    When you and I met at Saint Albans last\n    Your legs did better service than your hands.\n  WARWICK. Then 'twas my turn to fly, and now 'tis thine.\n  CLIFFORD. You said so much before, and yet you fled.\n  WARWICK. 'Twas not your valour, Clifford, drove me thence.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. No, nor your manhood that durst make you stay.\n\n  RICHARD. Northumberland, I hold thee reverently.\n    Break off the parley; for scarce I can refrain\n    The execution of my big-swol'n heart\n    Upon that Clifford, that cruel child-killer.\n  CLIFFORD. I slew thy father; call'st thou him a child?\n  RICHARD. Ay, like a dastard and a treacherous coward,\n    As thou didst kill our tender brother Rutland;\n    But ere sunset I'll make thee curse the deed.\n  KING HENRY. Have done with words, my lords, and hear me speak.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Defy them then, or else hold close thy lips.\n  KING HENRY. I prithee give no limits to my tongue:\n    I am a king, and privileg'd to speak.\n  CLIFFORD. My liege, the wound that bred this meeting here\n    Cannot be cur'd by words; therefore be still.\n  RICHARD. Then, executioner, unsheathe thy sword.\n    By Him that made us all, I am resolv'd\n    That Clifford's manhood lies upon his tongue.\n  EDWARD. Say, Henry, shall I have my right, or no?\n    A thousand men have broke their fasts to-day\n    That ne'er shall dine unless thou yield the crown.\n  WARWICK. If thou deny, their blood upon thy head;\n    For York in justice puts his armour on.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. If that be right which Warwick says is right,\n    There is no wrong, but every thing is right.\n  RICHARD. Whoever got thee, there thy mother stands;\n    For well I wot thou hast thy mother's tongue.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. But thou art neither like thy sire nor dam;\n    But like a foul misshapen stigmatic,\n    Mark'd by the destinies to be avoided,\n    As venom toads or lizards' dreadful stings.\n  RICHARD. Iron of Naples hid with English gilt,\n    Whose father bears the title of a king-\n    As if a channel should be call'd the sea-\n    Sham'st thou not, knowing whence thou art extraught,\n    To let thy tongue detect thy base-born heart?\n  EDWARD. A wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns\n    To make this shameless callet know herself.\n    Helen of Greece was fairer far than thou,\n    Although thy husband may be Menelaus;\n    And ne'er was Agamemmon's brother wrong'd\n    By that false woman as this king by thee.\n    His father revell'd in the heart of France,\n    And tam'd the King, and made the Dauphin stoop;\n    And had he match'd according to his state,\n    He might have kept that glory to this day;\n    But when he took a beggar to his bed\n    And grac'd thy poor sire with his bridal day,\n    Even then that sunshine brew'd a show'r for him\n    That wash'd his father's fortunes forth of France\n    And heap'd sedition on his crown at home.\n    For what hath broach'd this tumult but thy pride?\n    Hadst thou been meek, our title still had slept;\n    And we, in pity of the gentle King,\n    Had slipp'd our claim until another age.\n  GEORGE. But when we saw our sunshine made thy spring,\n    And that thy summer bred us no increase,\n    We set the axe to thy usurping root;\n    And though the edge hath something hit ourselves,\n    Yet know thou, since we have begun to strike,\n    We'll never leave till we have hewn thee down,\n    Or bath'd thy growing with our heated bloods.\n  EDWARD. And in this resolution I defy thee;\n    Not willing any longer conference,\n    Since thou deniest the gentle King to speak.\n    Sound trumpets; let our bloody colours wave,\n    And either victory or else a grave!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Stay, Edward.\n  EDWARD. No, wrangling woman, we'll no longer stay;\n    These words will cost ten thousand lives this day.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA field of battle between Towton and Saxton, in Yorkshire\n\nAlarum; excursions. Enter WARWICK\n\n  WARWICK. Forspent with toil, as runners with a race,\n    I lay me down a little while to breathe;\n    For strokes receiv'd and many blows repaid\n    Have robb'd my strong-knit sinews of their strength,\n    And spite of spite needs must I rest awhile.\n\n                     Enter EDWARD, running\n\n  EDWARD. Smile, gentle heaven, or strike, ungentle death;\n    For this world frowns, and Edward's sun is clouded.\n  WARWICK. How now, my lord. What hap? What hope of good?\n\n                         Enter GEORGE\n\n  GEORGE. Our hap is lost, our hope but sad despair;\n    Our ranks are broke, and ruin follows us.\n    What counsel give you? Whither shall we fly?\n  EDWARD. Bootless is flight: they follow us with wings;\n    And weak we are, and cannot shun pursuit.\n\n                         Enter RICHARD\n\n  RICHARD. Ah, Warwick, why hast thou withdrawn thyself?\n    Thy brother's blood the thirsty earth hath drunk,\n    Broach'd with the steely point of Clifford's lance;\n    And in the very pangs of death he cried,\n    Like to a dismal clangor heard from far,\n    'Warwick, revenge! Brother, revenge my death.'\n    So, underneath the belly of their steeds,\n    That stain'd their fetlocks in his smoking blood,\n    The noble gentleman gave up the ghost.\n  WARWICK. Then let the earth be drunken with our blood.\n    I'll kill my horse, because I will not fly.\n    Why stand we like soft-hearted women here,\n    Wailing our losses, whiles the foe doth rage,\n    And look upon, as if the tragedy\n    Were play'd in jest by counterfeiting actors?\n    Here on my knee I vow to God above\n    I'll never pause again, never stand still,\n    Till either death hath clos'd these eyes of mine\n    Or fortune given me measure of revenge.\n  EDWARD. O Warwick, I do bend my knee with thine,\n    And in this vow do chain my soul to thine!\n    And ere my knee rise from the earth's cold face\n    I throw my hands, mine eyes, my heart to Thee,\n    Thou setter-up and plucker-down of kings,\n    Beseeching Thee, if with Thy will it stands\n    That to my foes this body must be prey,\n    Yet that Thy brazen gates of heaven may ope\n    And give sweet passage to my sinful soul.\n    Now, lords, take leave until we meet again,\n    Where'er it be, in heaven or in earth.\n  RICHARD. Brother, give me thy hand; and, gentle Warwick,\n    Let me embrace thee in my weary arms.\n    I that did never weep now melt with woe\n    That winter should cut off our spring-time so.\n  WARWICK. Away, away! Once more, sweet lords, farewell.\n  GEORGE. Yet let us all together to our troops,\n    And give them leave to fly that will not stay,\n    And call them pillars that will stand to us;\n    And if we thrive, promise them such rewards\n    As victors wear at the Olympian games.\n    This may plant courage in their quailing breasts,\n    For yet is hope of life and victory.\n    Forslow no longer; make we hence amain.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the field\n\nExcursions. Enter RICHARD and CLIFFORD\n\n  RICHARD. Now, Clifford, I have singled thee alone.\n    Suppose this arm is for the Duke of York,\n    And this for Rutland; both bound to revenge,\n    Wert thou environ'd with a brazen wall.\n  CLIFFORD. Now, Richard, I am with thee here alone.\n    This is the hand that stabbed thy father York;\n    And this the hand that slew thy brother Rutland;\n    And here's the heart that triumphs in their death\n    And cheers these hands that slew thy sire and brother\n    To execute the like upon thyself;\n    And so, have at thee!                           [They fight]\n\n                 Enter WARWICK; CLIFFORD flies\n\n  RICHARD. Nay, Warwick, single out some other chase;\n    For I myself will hunt this wolf to death.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAnother part of the field\n\nAlarum. Enter KING HENRY alone\n\n  KING HENRY. This battle fares like to the morning's war,\n    When dying clouds contend with growing light,\n    What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,\n    Can neither call it perfect day nor night.\n    Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea\n    Forc'd by the tide to combat with the wind;\n    Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea\n    Forc'd to retire by fury of the wind.\n    Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;\n    Now one the better, then another best;\n    Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,\n    Yet neither conqueror nor conquered.\n    So is the equal poise of this fell war.\n    Here on this molehill will I sit me down.\n    To whom God will, there be the victory!\n    For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,\n    Have chid me from the battle, swearing both\n    They prosper best of all when I am thence.\n    Would I were dead, if God's good will were so!\n    For what is in this world but grief and woe?\n    O God! methinks it were a happy life\n    To be no better than a homely swain;\n    To sit upon a hill, as I do now,\n    To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,\n    Thereby to see the minutes how they run-\n    How many makes the hour full complete,\n    How many hours brings about the day,\n    How many days will finish up the year,\n    How many years a mortal man may live.\n    When this is known, then to divide the times-\n    So many hours must I tend my flock;\n    So many hours must I take my rest;\n    So many hours must I contemplate;\n    So many hours must I sport myself;\n    So many days my ewes have been with young;\n    So many weeks ere the poor fools will can;\n    So many years ere I shall shear the fleece:\n    So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,\n    Pass'd over to the end they were created,\n    Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.\n    Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!\n    Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade\n    To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,\n    Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy\n    To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?\n    O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.\n    And to conclude: the shepherd's homely curds,\n    His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,\n    His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,\n    All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,\n    Is far beyond a prince's delicates-\n    His viands sparkling in a golden cup,\n    His body couched in a curious bed,\n    When care, mistrust, and treason waits on him.\n\n       Alarum. Enter a son that hath kill'd his Father, at\n       one door; and a FATHER that hath kill'd his Son, at\n                         another door\n\n  SON. Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.\n    This man whom hand to hand I slew in fight\n    May be possessed with some store of crowns;\n    And I, that haply take them from him now,\n    May yet ere night yield both my life and them\n    To some man else, as this dead man doth me.\n    Who's this? O God! It is my father's face,\n    Whom in this conflict I unwares have kill'd.\n    O heavy times, begetting such events!\n    From London by the King was I press'd forth;\n    My father, being the Earl of Warwick's man,\n    Came on the part of York, press'd by his master;\n    And I, who at his hands receiv'd my life,\n    Have by my hands of life bereaved him.\n    Pardon me, God, I knew not what I did.\n    And pardon, father, for I knew not thee.\n    My tears shall wipe away these bloody marks;\n    And no more words till they have flow'd their fill.\n  KING HENRY. O piteous spectacle! O bloody times!\n    Whiles lions war and battle for their dens,\n    Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity.\n    Weep, wretched man; I'll aid thee tear for tear;\n    And let our hearts and eyes, like civil war,\n    Be blind with tears and break o'ercharg'd with grief.\n\n               Enter FATHER, bearing of his SON\n\n  FATHER. Thou that so stoutly hath resisted me,\n    Give me thy gold, if thou hast any gold;\n    For I have bought it with an hundred blows.\n    But let me see. Is this our foeman's face?\n    Ah, no, no, no, no, it is mine only son!\n    Ah, boy, if any life be left in thee,\n    Throw up thine eye! See, see what show'rs arise,\n    Blown with the windy tempest of my heart\n    Upon thy wounds, that kills mine eye and heart!\n    O, pity, God, this miserable age!\n    What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly,\n    Erroneous, mutinous, and unnatural,\n    This deadly quarrel daily doth beget!\n    O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon,\n    And hath bereft thee of thy life too late!\n  KING HENRY. Woe above woe! grief more than common grief!\n    O that my death would stay these ruthful deeds!\n    O pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity!\n    The red rose and the white are on his face,\n    The fatal colours of our striving houses:\n    The one his purple blood right well resembles;\n    The other his pale cheeks, methinks, presenteth.\n    Wither one rose, and let the other flourish!\n    If you contend, a thousand lives must perish.\n  SON. How will my mother for a father's death\n    Take on with me, and ne'er be satisfied!\n  FATHER. How will my wife for slaughter of my son\n    Shed seas of tears, and ne'er be satisfied!\n  KING HENRY. How will the country for these woeful chances\n    Misthink the King, and not be satisfied!\n  SON. Was ever son so rued a father's death?\n  FATHER. Was ever father so bemoan'd his son?\n  KING HENRY. Was ever king so griev'd for subjects' woe?\n    Much is your sorrow; mine ten times so much.\n  SON. I'll bear thee hence, where I may weep my fill.\n                                              Exit with the body\n  FATHER. These arms of mine shall be thy winding-sheet;\n    My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre,\n    For from my heart thine image ne'er shall go;\n    My sighing breast shall be thy funeral bell;\n    And so obsequious will thy father be,\n    Even for the loss of thee, having no more,\n    As Priam was for all his valiant sons.\n    I'll bear thee hence; and let them fight that will,\n    For I have murdered where I should not kill.\n                                              Exit with the body\n  KING HENRY. Sad-hearted men, much overgone with care,\n    Here sits a king more woeful than you are.\n\n           Alarums, excursions. Enter QUEEN MARGARET,\n                  PRINCE OF WALES, and EXETER\n\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Fly, father, fly; for all your friends are\nfled,\n    And Warwick rages like a chafed bull.\n    Away! for death doth hold us in pursuit.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Mount you, my lord; towards Berwick post amain.\n    Edward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds\n    Having the fearful flying hare in sight,\n    With fiery eyes sparkling for very wrath,\n    And bloody steel grasp'd in their ireful hands,\n    Are at our backs; and therefore hence amain.\n  EXETER. Away! for vengeance comes along with them.\n    Nay, stay not to expostulate; make speed;\n    Or else come after. I'll away before.\n  KING HENRY. Nay, take me with thee, good sweet Exeter.\n    Not that I fear to stay, but love to go\n    Whither the Queen intends. Forward; away!             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nAnother part of the field\n\nA loud alarum. Enter CLIFFORD, wounded\n\n  CLIFFORD. Here burns my candle out; ay, here it dies,\n    Which, whiles it lasted, gave King Henry light.\n    O Lancaster, I fear thy overthrow\n    More than my body's parting with my soul!\n    My love and fear glu'd many friends to thee;\n    And, now I fall, thy tough commixture melts,\n    Impairing Henry, strength'ning misproud York.\n    The common people swarm like summer flies;\n    And whither fly the gnats but to the sun?\n    And who shines now but Henry's enemies?\n    O Phoebus, hadst thou never given consent\n    That Phaethon should check thy fiery steeds,\n    Thy burning car never had scorch'd the earth!\n    And, Henry, hadst thou sway'd as kings should do,\n    Or as thy father and his father did,\n    Giving no ground unto the house of York,\n    They never then had sprung like summer flies;\n    I and ten thousand in this luckless realm\n    Had left no mourning widows for our death;\n    And thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace.\n    For what doth cherish weeds but gentle air?\n    And what makes robbers bold but too much lenity?\n    Bootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds.\n    No way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight.\n    The foe is merciless and will not pity;\n    For at their hands I have deserv'd no pity.\n    The air hath got into my deadly wounds,\n    And much effuse of blood doth make me faint.\n    Come, York and Richard, Warwick and the rest;\n    I stabb'd your fathers' bosoms: split my breast.\n                                                     [He faints]\n\n       Alarum and retreat. Enter EDWARD, GEORGE, RICHARD\n               MONTAGUE, WARWICK, and soldiers\n\n  EDWARD. Now breathe we, lords. Good fortune bids us pause\n    And smooth the frowns of war with peaceful looks.\n    Some troops pursue the bloody-minded Queen\n    That led calm Henry, though he were a king,\n    As doth a sail, fill'd with a fretting gust,\n    Command an argosy to stern the waves.\n    But think you, lords, that Clifford fled with them?\n  WARWICK. No, 'tis impossible he should escape;\n    For, though before his face I speak the words,\n    Your brother Richard mark'd him for the grave;\n    And, whereso'er he is, he's surely dead.\n                                     [CLIFFORD groans, and dies]\n  RICHARD. Whose soul is that which takes her heavy leave?\n    A deadly groan, like life and death's departing.\n    See who it is.\n  EDWARD. And now the battle's ended,\n    If friend or foe, let him be gently used.\n  RICHARD. Revoke that doom of mercy, for 'tis Clifford;\n    Who not contented that he lopp'd the branch\n    In hewing Rutland when his leaves put forth,\n    But set his murd'ring knife unto the root\n    From whence that tender spray did sweetly spring-\n    I mean our princely father, Duke of York.\n  WARWICK. From off the gates of York fetch down the head,\n    Your father's head, which Clifford placed there;\n    Instead whereof let this supply the room.\n    Measure for measure must be answered.\n  EDWARD. Bring forth that fatal screech-owl to our house,\n    That nothing sung but death to us and ours.\n    Now death shall stop his dismal threat'ning sound,\n    And his ill-boding tongue no more shall speak.\n  WARWICK. I think his understanding is bereft.\n    Speak, Clifford, dost thou know who speaks to thee?\n    Dark cloudy death o'ershades his beams of life,\n    And he nor sees nor hears us what we say.\n  RICHARD. O, would he did! and so, perhaps, he doth.\n    'Tis but his policy to counterfeit,\n    Because he would avoid such bitter taunts\n    Which in the time of death he gave our father.\n  GEORGE. If so thou think'st, vex him with eager words.\n  RICHARD. Clifford, ask mercy and obtain no grace.\n  EDWARD. Clifford, repent in bootless penitence.\n  WARWICK. Clifford, devise excuses for thy faults.\n  GEORGE. While we devise fell tortures for thy faults.\n  RICHARD. Thou didst love York, and I am son to York.\n  EDWARD. Thou pitied'st Rutland, I will pity thee.\n  GEORGE. Where's Captain Margaret, to fence you now?\n  WARWICK. They mock thee, Clifford; swear as thou wast wont.\n  RICHARD. What, not an oath? Nay, then the world goes hard\n    When Clifford cannot spare his friends an oath.\n    I know by that he's dead; and by my soul,\n    If this right hand would buy two hours' life,\n    That I in all despite might rail at him,\n    This hand should chop it off, and with the issuing blood\n    Stifle the villain whose unstanched thirst\n    York and young Rutland could not satisfy.\n  WARWICK. Ay, but he's dead. Off with the traitor's head,\n    And rear it in the place your father's stands.\n    And now to London with triumphant march,\n    There to be crowned England's royal King;\n    From whence shall Warwick cut the sea to France,\n    And ask the Lady Bona for thy queen.\n    So shalt thou sinew both these lands together;\n    And, having France thy friend, thou shalt not dread\n    The scatt'red foe that hopes to rise again;\n    For though they cannot greatly sting to hurt,\n    Yet look to have them buzz to offend thine ears.\n    First will I see the coronation;\n    And then to Brittany I'll cross the sea\n    To effect this marriage, so it please my lord.\n  EDWARD. Even as thou wilt, sweet Warwick, let it be;\n    For in thy shoulder do I build my seat,\n    And never will I undertake the thing\n    Wherein thy counsel and consent is wanting.\n    Richard, I will create thee Duke of Gloucester;\n    And George, of Clarence; Warwick, as ourself,\n    Shall do and undo as him pleaseth best.\n  RICHARD. Let me be Duke of Clarence, George of Gloucester;\n    For Gloucester's dukedom is too ominous.\n  WARWICK. Tut, that's a foolish observation.\n    Richard, be Duke of Gloucester. Now to London\n    To see these honours in possession.                   Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nA chase in the north of England\n\nEnter two KEEPERS, with cross-bows in their hands\n\n  FIRST KEEPER. Under this thick-grown brake we'll shroud\nourselves,\n    For through this laund anon the deer will come;\n    And in this covert will we make our stand,\n    Culling the principal of all the deer.\n  SECOND KEEPER. I'll stay above the hill, so both may shoot.\n  FIRST KEEPER. That cannot be; the noise of thy cross-bow\n    Will scare the herd, and so my shoot is lost.\n    Here stand we both, and aim we at the best;\n    And, for the time shall not seem tedious,\n    I'll tell thee what befell me on a day\n    In this self-place where now we mean to stand.\n  SECOND KEEPER. Here comes a man; let's stay till he be past.\n\n        Enter KING HENRY, disguised, with a prayer-book\n\n  KING HENRY. From Scotland am I stol'n, even of pure love,\n    To greet mine own land with my wishful sight.\n    No, Harry, Harry, 'tis no land of thine;\n    Thy place is fill'd, thy sceptre wrung from thee,\n    Thy balm wash'd off wherewith thou wast anointed.\n    No bending knee will call thee Caesar now,\n    No humble suitors press to speak for right,\n    No, not a man comes for redress of thee;\n    For how can I help them and not myself?\n  FIRST KEEPER. Ay, here's a deer whose skin's a keeper's fee.\n    This is the quondam King; let's seize upon him.\n  KING HENRY. Let me embrace thee, sour adversity,\n    For wise men say it is the wisest course.\n  SECOND KEEPER. Why linger we? let us lay hands upon him.\n  FIRST KEEPER. Forbear awhile; we'll hear a little more.\n  KING HENRY. My Queen and son are gone to France for aid;\n    And, as I hear, the great commanding Warwick\n    Is thither gone to crave the French King's sister\n    To wife for Edward. If this news be true,\n    Poor queen and son, your labour is but lost;\n    For Warwick is a subtle orator,\n    And Lewis a prince soon won with moving words.\n    By this account, then, Margaret may win him;\n    For she's a woman to be pitied much.\n    Her sighs will make a batt'ry in his breast;\n    Her tears will pierce into a marble heart;\n    The tiger will be mild whiles she doth mourn;\n    And Nero will be tainted with remorse\n    To hear and see her plaints, her brinish tears.\n    Ay, but she's come to beg: Warwick, to give.\n    She, on his left side, craving aid for Henry:\n    He, on his right, asking a wife for Edward.\n    She weeps, and says her Henry is depos'd:\n    He smiles, and says his Edward is install'd;\n    That she, poor wretch, for grief can speak no more;\n    Whiles Warwick tells his title, smooths the wrong,\n    Inferreth arguments of mighty strength,\n    And in conclusion wins the King from her\n    With promise of his sister, and what else,\n    To strengthen and support King Edward's place.\n    O Margaret, thus 'twill be; and thou, poor soul,\n    Art then forsaken, as thou went'st forlorn!\n  SECOND KEEPER. Say, what art thou that talk'st of kings and\nqueens?\n  KING HENRY. More than I seem, and less than I was born to:\n    A man at least, for less I should not be;\n    And men may talk of kings, and why not I?\n  SECOND KEEPER. Ay, but thou talk'st as if thou wert a king.\n  KING HENRY. Why, so I am- in mind; and that's enough.\n  SECOND KEEPER. But, if thou be a king, where is thy crown?\n  KING HENRY. My crown is in my heart, not on my head;\n    Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones,\n    Not to be seen. My crown is call'd content;\n    A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.\n  SECOND KEEPER. Well, if you be a king crown'd with content,\n    Your crown content and you must be contented\n    To go along with us; for as we think,\n    You are the king King Edward hath depos'd;\n    And we his subjects, sworn in all allegiance,\n    Will apprehend you as his enemy.\n  KING HENRY. But did you never swear, and break an oath?\n  SECOND KEEPER. No, never such an oath; nor will not now.\n  KING HENRY. Where did you dwell when I was King of England?\n  SECOND KEEPER. Here in this country, where we now remain.\n  KING HENRY. I was anointed king at nine months old;\n    My father and my grandfather were kings;\n    And you were sworn true subjects unto me;\n    And tell me, then, have you not broke your oaths?\n  FIRST KEEPER. No;\n    For we were subjects but while you were king.\n  KING HENRY. Why, am I dead? Do I not breathe a man?\n    Ah, simple men, you know not what you swear!\n    Look, as I blow this feather from my face,\n    And as the air blows it to me again,\n    Obeying with my wind when I do blow,\n    And yielding to another when it blows,\n    Commanded always by the greater gust,\n    Such is the lightness of you common men.\n    But do not break your oaths; for of that sin\n    My mild entreaty shall not make you guilty.\n    Go where you will, the King shall be commanded;\n    And be you kings: command, and I'll obey.\n  FIRST KEEPER. We are true subjects to the King, King Edward.\n  KING HENRY. So would you be again to Henry,\n    If he were seated as King Edward is.\n  FIRST KEEPER. We charge you, in God's name and the King's,\n    To go with us unto the officers.\n  KING HENRY. In God's name, lead; your King's name be obey'd;\n    And what God will, that let your King perform;\n    And what he will, I humbly yield unto.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and LADY GREY\n\n  KING EDWARD. Brother of Gloucester, at Saint Albans' field\n    This lady's husband, Sir Richard Grey, was slain,\n    His land then seiz'd on by the conqueror.\n    Her suit is now to repossess those lands;\n    Which we in justice cannot well deny,\n    Because in quarrel of the house of York\n    The worthy gentleman did lose his life.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your Highness shall do well to grant her suit;\n    It were dishonour to deny it her.\n  KING EDWARD. It were no less; but yet I'll make a pause.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] Yea, is it so?\n    I see the lady hath a thing to grant,\n    Before the King will grant her humble suit.\n  CLARENCE. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] He knows the game; how true he\n    keeps the wind!\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] Silence!\n  KING EDWARD. Widow, we will consider of your suit;\n    And come some other time to know our mind.\n  LADY GREY. Right gracious lord, I cannot brook delay.\n    May it please your Highness to resolve me now;\n    And what your pleasure is shall satisfy me.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] Ay, widow? Then I'll warrant you all your\n      lands,\n    An if what pleases him shall pleasure you.\n    Fight closer or, good faith, you'll catch a blow.\n  CLARENCE. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] I fear her not, unless she\nchance\n    to fall.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] God forbid that, for he'll take\n    vantages.\n  KING EDWARD. How many children hast thou, widow, tell me.\n  CLARENCE. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] I think he means to beg a child\nof\n    her.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] Nay, then whip me; he'll rather\n    give her two.\n  LADY GREY. Three, my most gracious lord.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] You shall have four if you'll be rul'd by\nhim.\n  KING EDWARD. 'Twere pity they should lose their father's lands.\n\n  LADY GREY. Be pitiful, dread lord, and grant it, then.\n  KING EDWARD. Lords, give us leave; I'll try this widow's wit.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] Ay, good leave have you; for you will have\n      leave\n    Till youth take leave and leave you to the crutch.\n                              [GLOUCESTER and CLARENCE withdraw]\n  KING EDWARD. Now tell me, madam, do you love your children?\n  LADY GREY. Ay, full as dearly as I love myself.\n  KING EDWARD. And would you not do much to do them good?\n  LADY GREY. To do them good I would sustain some harm.\n  KING EDWARD. Then get your husband's lands, to do them good.\n  LADY GREY. Therefore I came unto your Majesty.\n  KING EDWARD. I'll tell you how these lands are to be got.\n  LADY GREY. So shall you bind me to your Highness' service.\n  KING EDWARD. What service wilt thou do me if I give them?\n  LADY GREY. What you command that rests in me to do.\n  KING EDWARD. But you will take exceptions to my boon.\n  LADY GREY. No, gracious lord, except I cannot do it.\n  KING EDWARD. Ay, but thou canst do what I mean to ask.\n  LADY GREY. Why, then I will do what your Grace commands.\n  GLOUCESTER. He plies her hard; and much rain wears the marble.\n  CLARENCE. As red as fire! Nay, then her wax must melt.\n  LADY GREY. Why stops my lord? Shall I not hear my task?\n  KING EDWARD. An easy task; 'tis but to love a king.\n  LADY GREY. That's soon perform'd, because I am a subject.\n  KING EDWARD. Why, then, thy husband's lands I freely give thee.\n  LADY GREY. I take my leave with many thousand thanks.\n  GLOUCESTER. The match is made; she seals it with a curtsy.\n  KING EDWARD. But stay thee- 'tis the fruits of love I mean.\n  LADY GREY. The fruits of love I mean, my loving liege.\n  KING EDWARD. Ay, but, I fear me, in another sense.\n    What love, thinkst thou, I sue so much to get?\n  LADY GREY. My love till death, my humble thanks, my prayers;\n    That love which virtue begs and virtue grants.\n  KING EDWARD. No, by my troth, I did not mean such love.\n  LADY GREY. Why, then you mean not as I thought you did.\n  KING EDWARD. But now you partly may perceive my mind.\n  LADY GREY. My mind will never grant what I perceive\n    Your Highness aims at, if I aim aright.\n  KING EDWARD. To tell thee plain, I aim to lie with thee.\n  LADY GREY. To tell you plain, I had rather lie in prison.\n  KING EDWARD. Why, then thou shalt not have thy husband's lands.\n  LADY GREY. Why, then mine honesty shall be my dower;\n    For by that loss I will not purchase them.\n  KING EDWARD. Therein thou wrong'st thy children mightily.\n  LADY GREY. Herein your Highness wrongs both them and me.\n    But, mighty lord, this merry inclination\n    Accords not with the sadness of my suit.\n    Please you dismiss me, either with ay or no.\n  KING EDWARD. Ay, if thou wilt say ay to my request;\n    No, if thou dost say no to my demand.\n  LADY GREY. Then, no, my lord. My suit is at an end.\n  GLOUCESTER. The widow likes him not; she knits her brows.\n  CLARENCE. He is the bluntest wooer in Christendom.\n  KING EDWARD. [Aside] Her looks doth argue her replete with\nmodesty;\n    Her words doth show her wit incomparable;\n    All her perfections challenge sovereignty.\n    One way or other, she is for a king;\n    And she shall be my love, or else my queen.\n    Say that King Edward take thee for his queen?\n  LADY GREY. 'Tis better said than done, my gracious lord.\n    I am a subject fit to jest withal,\n    But far unfit to be a sovereign.\n  KING EDWARD. Sweet widow, by my state I swear to thee\n    I speak no more than what my soul intends;\n    And that is to enjoy thee for my love.\n  LADY GREY. And that is more than I will yield unto.\n    I know I am too mean to be your queen,\n    And yet too good to be your concubine.\n  KING EDWARD. You cavil, widow; I did mean my queen.\n  LADY GREY. 'Twill grieve your Grace my sons should call you\nfather.\n  KING EDWARD.No more than when my daughters call thee mother.\n    Thou art a widow, and thou hast some children;\n    And, by God's Mother, I, being but a bachelor,\n    Have other some. Why, 'tis a happy thing\n    To be the father unto many sons.\n    Answer no more, for thou shalt be my queen.\n  GLOUCESTER. The ghostly father now hath done his shrift.\n  CLARENCE. When he was made a shriver, 'twas for shrift.\n  KING EDWARD. Brothers, you muse what chat we two have had.\n  GLOUCESTER. The widow likes it not, for she looks very sad.\n  KING EDWARD. You'd think it strange if I should marry her.\n  CLARENCE. To who, my lord?\n  KING EDWARD. Why, Clarence, to myself.\n  GLOUCESTER. That would be ten days' wonder at the least.\n  CLARENCE. That's a day longer than a wonder lasts.\n  GLOUCESTER. By so much is the wonder in extremes.\n  KING EDWARD. Well, jest on, brothers; I can tell you both\n    Her suit is granted for her husband's lands.\n\n                       Enter a NOBLEMAN\n\n  NOBLEMAN. My gracious lord, Henry your foe is taken\n    And brought your prisoner to your palace gate.\n  KING EDWARD. See that he be convey'd unto the Tower.\n    And go we, brothers, to the man that took him\n    To question of his apprehension.\n    Widow, go you along. Lords, use her honourably.\n                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, Edward will use women honourably.\n    Would he were wasted, marrow, bones, and all,\n    That from his loins no hopeful branch may spring\n    To cross me from the golden time I look for!\n    And yet, between my soul's desire and me-\n    The lustful Edward's title buried-\n    Is Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward,\n    And all the unlook'd for issue of their bodies,\n    To take their rooms ere I can place myself.\n    A cold premeditation for my purpose!\n    Why, then I do but dream on sovereignty;\n    Like one that stands upon a promontory\n    And spies a far-off shore where he would tread,\n    Wishing his foot were equal with his eye;\n    And chides the sea that sunders him from thence,\n    Saying he'll lade it dry to have his way-\n    So do I wish the crown, being so far off;\n    And so I chide the means that keeps me from it;\n    And so I say I'll cut the causes off,\n    Flattering me with impossibilities.\n    My eye's too quick, my heart o'erweens too much,\n    Unless my hand and strength could equal them.\n    Well, say there is no kingdom then for Richard;\n    What other pleasure can the world afford?\n    I'll make my heaven in a lady's lap,\n    And deck my body in gay ornaments,\n    And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.\n    O miserable thought! and more unlikely\n    Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns.\n    Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb;\n    And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,\n    She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe\n    To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub\n    To make an envious mountain on my back,\n    Where sits deformity to mock my body;\n    To shape my legs of an unequal size;\n    To disproportion me in every part,\n    Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp\n    That carries no impression like the dam.\n    And am I, then, a man to be belov'd?\n    O monstrous fault to harbour such a thought!\n    Then, since this earth affords no joy to me\n    But to command, to check, to o'erbear such\n    As are of better person than myself,\n    I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,\n    And whiles I live t' account this world but hell,\n    Until my misshap'd trunk that bear this head\n    Be round impaled with a glorious crown.\n    And yet I know not how to get the crown,\n    For many lives stand between me and home;\n    And I- like one lost in a thorny wood\n    That rents the thorns and is rent with the thorns,\n    Seeking a way and straying from the way\n    Not knowing how to find the open air,\n    But toiling desperately to find it out-\n    Torment myself to catch the English crown;\n    And from that torment I will free myself\n    Or hew my way out with a bloody axe.\n    Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,\n    And cry 'Content!' to that which grieves my heart,\n    And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,\n    And frame my face to all occasions.\n    I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;\n    I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;\n    I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,\n    Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,\n    And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.\n    I can add colours to the chameleon,\n    Change shapes with Protheus for advantages,\n    And set the murderous Machiavel to school.\n    Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?\n    Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.           Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nFrance.  The KING'S palace\n\nFlourish.  Enter LEWIS the French King, his sister BONA,\nhis Admiral call'd BOURBON; PRINCE EDWARD, QUEEN MARGARET,\nand the EARL of OXFORD.  LEWIS sits, and riseth up again\n\n  LEWIS. Fair Queen of England, worthy Margaret,\n    Sit down with us. It ill befits thy state\n    And birth that thou shouldst stand while Lewis doth sit.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. No, mighty King of France. Now Margaret\n    Must strike her sail and learn a while to serve\n    Where kings command. I was, I must confess,\n    Great Albion's Queen in former golden days;\n    But now mischance hath trod my title down\n    And with dishonour laid me on the ground,\n    Where I must take like seat unto my fortune,\n    And to my humble seat conform myself.\n  LEWIS. Why, say, fair Queen, whence springs this deep despair?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. From such a cause as fills mine eyes with tears\n    And stops my tongue, while heart is drown'd in cares.\n  LEWIS. Whate'er it be, be thou still like thyself,\n    And sit thee by our side. [Seats her by him] Yield not thy\nneck\n    To fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind\n    Still ride in triumph over all mischance.\n    Be plain, Queen Margaret, and tell thy grief;\n    It shall be eas'd, if France can yield relief.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Those gracious words revive my drooping\nthoughts\n    And give my tongue-tied sorrows leave to speak.\n    Now therefore be it known to noble Lewis\n    That Henry, sole possessor of my love,\n    Is, of a king, become a banish'd man,\n    And forc'd to live in Scotland a forlorn;\n    While proud ambitious Edward Duke of York\n    Usurps the regal title and the seat\n    Of England's true-anointed lawful King.\n    This is the cause that I, poor Margaret,\n    With this my son, Prince Edward, Henry's heir,\n    Am come to crave thy just and lawful aid;\n    And if thou fail us, all our hope is done.\n    Scotland hath will to help, but cannot help;\n    Our people and our peers are both misled,\n    Our treasure seiz'd, our soldiers put to flight,\n    And, as thou seest, ourselves in heavy plight.\n  LEWIS. Renowned Queen, with patience calm the storm,\n    While we bethink a means to break it off.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. The more we stay, the stronger grows our foe.\n  LEWIS. The more I stay, the more I'll succour thee.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. O, but impatience waiteth on true sorrow.\n    And see where comes the breeder of my sorrow!\n\n                        Enter WARWICK\n\n  LEWIS. What's he approacheth boldly to our presence?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Our Earl of Warwick, Edward's greatest friend.\n  LEWIS. Welcome, brave Warwick! What brings thee to France?\n                                      [He descends. She ariseth]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, now begins a second storm to rise;\n    For this is he that moves both wind and tide.\n  WARWICK. From worthy Edward, King of Albion,\n    My lord and sovereign, and thy vowed friend,\n    I come, in kindness and unfeigned love,\n    First to do greetings to thy royal person,\n    And then to crave a league of amity,\n    And lastly to confirm that amity\n    With nuptial knot, if thou vouchsafe to grant\n    That virtuous Lady Bona, thy fair sister,\n    To England's King in lawful marriage.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. [Aside] If that go forward, Henry's hope is\ndone.\n  WARWICK. [To BONA] And, gracious madam, in our king's behalf,\n    I am commanded, with your leave and favour,\n    Humbly to kiss your hand, and with my tongue\n    To tell the passion of my sovereign's heart;\n    Where fame, late ent'ring at his heedful ears,\n    Hath plac'd thy beauty's image and thy virtue.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. King Lewis and Lady Bona, hear me speak\n    Before you answer Warwick. His demand\n    Springs not from Edward's well-meant honest love,\n    But from deceit bred by necessity;\n    For how can tyrants safely govern home\n    Unless abroad they purchase great alliance?\n    To prove him tyrant this reason may suffice,\n    That Henry liveth still; but were he dead,\n    Yet here Prince Edward stands, King Henry's son.\n    Look therefore, Lewis, that by this league and marriage\n    Thou draw not on thy danger and dishonour;\n    For though usurpers sway the rule a while\n    Yet heav'ns are just, and time suppresseth wrongs.\n  WARWICK. Injurious Margaret!\n  PRINCE OF WALES. And why not Queen?\n  WARWICK. Because thy father Henry did usurp;\n    And thou no more art prince than she is queen.\n  OXFORD. Then Warwick disannuls great John of Gaunt,\n    Which did subdue the greatest part of Spain;\n    And, after John of Gaunt, Henry the Fourth,\n    Whose wisdom was a mirror to the wisest;\n    And, after that wise prince, Henry the Fifth,\n    Who by his prowess conquered all France.\n    From these our Henry lineally descends.\n  WARWICK. Oxford, how haps it in this smooth discourse\n    You told not how Henry the Sixth hath lost\n    All that which Henry the Fifth had gotten?\n    Methinks these peers of France should smile at that.\n    But for the rest: you tell a pedigree\n    Of threescore and two years- a silly time\n    To make prescription for a kingdom's worth.\n  OXFORD. Why, Warwick, canst thou speak against thy liege,\n    Whom thou obeyed'st thirty and six years,\n    And not betray thy treason with a blush?\n  WARWICK. Can Oxford that did ever fence the right\n    Now buckler falsehood with a pedigree?\n    For shame! Leave Henry, and call Edward king.\n  OXFORD. Call him my king by whose injurious doom\n    My elder brother, the Lord Aubrey Vere,\n    Was done to death; and more than so, my father,\n    Even in the downfall of his mellow'd years,\n    When nature brought him to the door of death?\n    No, Warwick, no; while life upholds this arm,\n    This arm upholds the house of Lancaster.\n  WARWICK. And I the house of York.\n  LEWIS. Queen Margaret, Prince Edward, and Oxford,\n    Vouchsafe at our request to stand aside\n    While I use further conference with Warwick.\n                                              [They stand aloof]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Heavens grant that Warwick's words bewitch him\nnot!\n  LEWIS. Now, Warwick, tell me, even upon thy conscience,\n    Is Edward your true king? for I were loath\n    To link with him that were not lawful chosen.\n  WARWICK. Thereon I pawn my credit and mine honour.\n  LEWIS. But is he gracious in the people's eye?\n  WARWICK. The more that Henry was unfortunate.\n  LEWIS. Then further: all dissembling set aside,\n    Tell me for truth the measure of his love\n    Unto our sister Bona.\n  WARWICK. Such it seems\n    As may beseem a monarch like himself.\n    Myself have often heard him say and swear\n    That this his love was an eternal plant\n    Whereof the root was fix'd in virtue's ground,\n    The leaves and fruit maintain'd with beauty's sun,\n    Exempt from envy, but not from disdain,\n    Unless the Lady Bona quit his pain.\n  LEWIS. Now, sister, let us hear your firm resolve.\n  BONA. Your grant or your denial shall be mine.\n    [To WARWICK] Yet I confess that often ere this day,\n    When I have heard your king's desert recounted,\n    Mine ear hath tempted judgment to desire.\n  LEWIS. Then, Warwick, thus: our sister shall be Edward's.\n    And now forthwith shall articles be drawn\n    Touching the jointure that your king must make,\n    Which with her dowry shall be counterpois'd.\n    Draw near, Queen Margaret, and be a witness\n    That Bona shall be wife to the English king.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. To Edward, but not to the English king.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Deceitful Warwick, it was thy device\n    By this alliance to make void my suit.\n    Before thy coming, Lewis was Henry's friend.\n  LEWIS. And still is friend to him and Margaret.\n    But if your title to the crown be weak,\n    As may appear by Edward's good success,\n    Then 'tis but reason that I be releas'd\n    From giving aid which late I promised.\n    Yet shall you have all kindness at my hand\n    That your estate requires and mine can yield.\n  WARWICK. Henry now lives in Scotland at his case,\n    Where having nothing, nothing can he lose.\n    And as for you yourself, our quondam queen,\n    You have a father able to maintain you,\n    And better 'twere you troubled him than France.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Peace, impudent and shameless Warwick,\n    Proud setter up and puller down of kings!\n    I will not hence till with my talk and tears,\n    Both full of truth, I make King Lewis behold\n    Thy sly conveyance and thy lord's false love;\n    For both of you are birds of self-same feather.\n                                    [POST blowing a horn within]\n  LEWIS. Warwick, this is some post to us or thee.\n\n                       Enter the POST\n\n  POST. My lord ambassador, these letters are for you,\n    Sent from your brother, Marquis Montague.\n    These from our King unto your Majesty.\n    And, madam, these for you; from whom I know not.\n                                   [They all read their letters]\n  OXFORD. I like it well that our fair Queen and mistress\n    Smiles at her news, while Warwick frowns at his.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Nay, mark how Lewis stamps as he were nettled.\n    I hope all's for the best.\n  LEWIS. Warwick, what are thy news? And yours, fair Queen?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Mine such as fill my heart with unhop'd joys.\n  WARWICK. Mine, full of sorrow and heart's discontent.\n  LEWIS. What, has your king married the Lady Grey?\n    And now, to soothe your forgery and his,\n    Sends me a paper to persuade me patience?\n    Is this th' alliance that he seeks with France?\n    Dare he presume to scorn us in this manner?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I told your Majesty as much before.\n    This proveth Edward's love and Warwick's honesty.\n  WARWICK. King Lewis, I here protest in sight of heaven,\n    And by the hope I have of heavenly bliss,\n    That I am clear from this misdeed of Edward's-\n    No more my king, for he dishonours me,\n    But most himself, if he could see his shame.\n    Did I forget that by the house of York\n    My father came untimely to his death?\n    Did I let pass th' abuse done to my niece?\n    Did I impale him with the regal crown?\n    Did I put Henry from his native right?\n    And am I guerdon'd at the last with shame?\n    Shame on himself! for my desert is honour;\n    And to repair my honour lost for him\n    I here renounce him and return to Henry.\n    My noble Queen, let former grudges pass,\n    And henceforth I am thy true servitor.\n    I will revenge his wrong to Lady Bona,\n    And replant Henry in his former state.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Warwick, these words have turn'd my hate to\nlove;\n    And I forgive and quite forget old faults,\n    And joy that thou becom'st King Henry's friend.\n  WARWICK. So much his friend, ay, his unfeigned friend,\n    That if King Lewis vouchsafe to furnish us\n    With some few bands of chosen soldiers,\n    I'll undertake to land them on our coast\n    And force the tyrant from his seat by war.\n    'Tis not his new-made bride shall succour him;\n    And as for Clarence, as my letters tell me,\n    He's very likely now to fall from him\n    For matching more for wanton lust than honour\n    Or than for strength and safety of our country.\n  BONA. Dear brother, how shall Bona be reveng'd\n    But by thy help to this distressed queen?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Renowned Prince, how shall poor Henry live\n    Unless thou rescue him from foul despair?\n  BONA. My quarrel and this English queen's are one.\n  WARWICK. And mine, fair Lady Bona, joins with yours.\n  LEWIS. And mine with hers, and thine, and Margaret's.\n    Therefore, at last, I firmly am resolv'd\n    You shall have aid.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Let me give humble thanks for all at once.\n  LEWIS. Then, England's messenger, return in post\n    And tell false Edward, thy supposed king,\n    That Lewis of France is sending over masquers\n    To revel it with him and his new bride.\n    Thou seest what's past; go fear thy king withal.\n  BONA. Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,\n    I'll wear the willow-garland for his sake.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Tell him my mourning weeds are laid aside,\n    And I am ready to put armour on.\n  WARWICK. Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong,\n    And therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long.\n    There's thy reward; be gone.                       Exit POST\n  LEWIS. But, Warwick,\n    Thou and Oxford, with five thousand men,\n    Shall cross the seas and bid false Edward battle:\n    And, as occasion serves, this noble Queen\n    And Prince shall follow with a fresh supply.\n    Yet, ere thou go, but answer me one doubt:\n    What pledge have we of thy firm loyalty?\n  WARWICK. This shall assure my constant loyalty:\n    That if our Queen and this young Prince agree,\n    I'll join mine eldest daughter and my joy\n    To him forthwith in holy wedlock bands.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Yes, I agree, and thank you for your motion.\n    Son Edward, she is fair and virtuous,\n    Therefore delay not- give thy hand to Warwick;\n    And with thy hand thy faith irrevocable\n    That only Warwick's daughter shall be thine.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Yes, I accept her, for she well deserves it;\n    And here, to pledge my vow, I give my hand.\n                                  [He gives his hand to WARWICK]\n  LEWIS. stay we now? These soldiers shall be levied;\n    And thou, Lord Bourbon, our High Admiral,\n    Shall waft them over with our royal fleet.\n    I long till Edward fall by war's mischance\n    For mocking marriage with a dame of France.\n                                          Exeunt all but WARWICK\n  WARWICK. I came from Edward as ambassador,\n    But I return his sworn and mortal foe.\n    Matter of marriage was the charge he gave me,\n    But dreadful war shall answer his demand.\n    Had he none else to make a stale but me?\n    Then none but I shall turn his jest to sorrow.\n    I was the chief that rais'd him to the crown,\n    And I'll be chief to bring him down again;\n    Not that I pity Henry's misery,\n    But seek revenge on Edward's mockery.                   Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, SOMERSET, and MONTAGUE\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Now tell me, brother Clarence, what think you\n    Of this new marriage with the Lady Grey?\n    Hath not our brother made a worthy choice?\n  CLARENCE. Alas, you know 'tis far from hence to France!\n    How could he stay till Warwick made return?\n  SOMERSET. My lords, forbear this talk; here comes the King.\n\n           Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD, attended; LADY\n          GREY, as Queen; PEMBROKE, STAFFORD, HASTINGS,\n      and others. Four stand on one side, and four on the other\n\n  GLOUCESTER. And his well-chosen bride.\n  CLARENCE. I mind to tell him plainly what I think.\n  KING EDWARD. Now, brother of Clarence, how like you our choice\n    That you stand pensive as half malcontent?\n  CLARENCE. As well as Lewis of France or the Earl of Warwick,\n    Which are so weak of courage and in judgment\n    That they'll take no offence at our abuse.\n  KING EDWARD. Suppose they take offence without a cause;\n    They are but Lewis and Warwick: I am Edward,\n    Your King and Warwick's and must have my will.\n  GLOUCESTER. And shall have your will, because our King.\n    Yet hasty marriage seldom proveth well.\n  KING EDWARD. Yea, brother Richard, are you offended too?\n  GLOUCESTER. Not I.\n    No, God forbid that I should wish them sever'd\n    Whom God hath join'd together; ay, and 'twere pity\n    To sunder them that yoke so well together.\n  KING EDWARD. Setting your scorns and your mislike aside,\n    Tell me some reason why the Lady Grey\n    Should not become my wife and England's Queen.\n    And you too, Somerset and Montague,\n    Speak freely what you think.\n  CLARENCE. Then this is mine opinion: that King Lewis\n    Becomes your enemy for mocking him\n    About the marriage of the Lady Bona.\n  GLOUCESTER. And Warwick, doing what you gave in charge,\n    Is now dishonoured by this new marriage.\n  KING EDWARD. What if both Lewis and Warwick be appeas'd\n    By such invention as I can devise?\n  MONTAGUE. Yet to have join'd with France in such alliance\n    Would more have strength'ned this our commonwealth\n    'Gainst foreign storms than any home-bred marriage.\n  HASTINGS. Why, knows not Montague that of itself\n    England is safe, if true within itself?\n  MONTAGUE. But the safer when 'tis back'd with France.\n  HASTINGS. 'Tis better using France than trusting France.\n    Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas\n    Which He hath giv'n for fence impregnable,\n    And with their helps only defend ourselves.\n    In them and in ourselves our safety lies.\n  CLARENCE. For this one speech Lord Hastings well deserves\n    To have the heir of the Lord Hungerford.\n  KING EDWARD. Ay, what of that? it was my will and grant;\n    And for this once my will shall stand for law.\n  GLOUCESTER. And yet methinks your Grace hath not done well\n    To give the heir and daughter of Lord Scales\n    Unto the brother of your loving bride.\n    She better would have fitted me or Clarence;\n    But in your bride you bury brotherhood.\n  CLARENCE. Or else you would not have bestow'd the heir\n    Of the Lord Bonville on your new wife's son,\n    And leave your brothers to go speed elsewhere.\n  KING EDWARD. Alas, poor Clarence! Is it for a wife\n    That thou art malcontent? I will provide thee.\n  CLARENCE. In choosing for yourself you show'd your judgment,\n    Which being shallow, you shall give me leave\n    To play the broker in mine own behalf;\n    And to that end I shortly mind to leave you.\n  KING EDWARD. Leave me or tarry, Edward will be King,\n    And not be tied unto his brother's will.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My lords, before it pleas'd his Majesty\n    To raise my state to title of a queen,\n    Do me but right, and you must all confess\n    That I was not ignoble of descent:\n    And meaner than myself have had like fortune.\n    But as this title honours me and mine,\n    So your dislikes, to whom I would be pleasing,\n    Doth cloud my joys with danger and with sorrow.\n  KING EDWARD. My love, forbear to fawn upon their frowns.\n    What danger or what sorrow can befall thee,\n    So long as Edward is thy constant friend\n    And their true sovereign whom they must obey?\n    Nay, whom they shall obey, and love thee too,\n    Unless they seek for hatred at my hands;\n    Which if they do, yet will I keep thee safe,\n    And they shall feel the vengeance of my wrath.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] I hear, yet say not much, but think the\nmore.\n\n                          Enter a POST\n\n  KING EDWARD. Now, messenger, what letters or what news\n    From France?\n  MESSENGER. My sovereign liege, no letters, and few words,\n    But such as I, without your special pardon,\n    Dare not relate.\n  KING EDWARD. Go to, we pardon thee; therefore, in brief,\n    Tell me their words as near as thou canst guess them.\n    What answer makes King Lewis unto our letters?\n  MESSENGER. At my depart, these were his very words:\n    'Go tell false Edward, the supposed king,\n    That Lewis of France is sending over masquers\n    To revel it with him and his new bride.'\n  KING EDWARD. IS Lewis so brave? Belike he thinks me Henry.\n    But what said Lady Bona to my marriage?\n  MESSENGER. These were her words, utt'red with mild disdain:\n    'Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,\n    I'll wear the willow-garland for his sake.'\n  KING EDWARD. I blame not her: she could say little less;\n    She had the wrong. But what said Henry's queen?\n    For I have heard that she was there in place.\n  MESSENGER. 'Tell him' quoth she 'my mourning weeds are done,\n    And I am ready to put armour on.'\n  KING EDWARD. Belike she minds to play the Amazon.\n    But what said Warwick to these injuries?\n  MESSENGER. He, more incens'd against your Majesty\n    Than all the rest, discharg'd me with these words:\n    'Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong;\n    And therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long.'\n  KING EDWARD. Ha! durst the traitor breathe out so proud words?\n    Well, I will arm me, being thus forewarn'd.\n    They shall have wars and pay for their presumption.\n    But say, is Warwick friends with Margaret?\n  MESSENGER. Ay, gracious sovereign; they are so link'd in\nfriendship\n    That young Prince Edward marries Warwick's daughter.\n  CLARENCE. Belike the elder; Clarence will have the younger.\n    Now, brother king, farewell, and sit you fast,\n    For I will hence to Warwick's other daughter;\n    That, though I want a kingdom, yet in marriage\n    I may not prove inferior to yourself.\n    You that love me and Warwick, follow me.\n                                      Exit, and SOMERSET follows\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] Not I.\n    My thoughts aim at a further matter; I\n    Stay not for the love of Edward but the crown.\n  KING EDWARD. Clarence and Somerset both gone to Warwick!\n    Yet am I arm'd against the worst can happen;\n    And haste is needful in this desp'rate case.\n    Pembroke and Stafford, you in our behalf\n    Go levy men and make prepare for war;\n    They are already, or quickly will be landed.\n    Myself in person will straight follow you.\n                                    Exeunt PEMBROKE and STAFFORD\n    But ere I go, Hastings and Montague,\n    Resolve my doubt. You twain, of all the rest,\n    Are near to Warwick by blood and by alliance.\n    Tell me if you love Warwick more than me?\n    If it be so, then both depart to him:\n    I rather wish you foes than hollow friends.\n    But if you mind to hold your true obedience,\n    Give me assurance with some friendly vow,\n    That I may never have you in suspect.\n  MONTAGUE. So God help Montague as he proves true!\n  HASTINGS. And Hastings as he favours Edward's cause!\n  KING EDWARD. Now, brother Richard, will you stand by us?\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, in despite of all that shall withstand you.\n  KING EDWARD. Why, so! then am I sure of victory.\n    Now therefore let us hence, and lose no hour\n    Till we meet Warwick with his foreign pow'r.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA plain in Warwickshire\n\nEnter WARWICK and OXFORD, with French soldiers\n\n  WARWICK. Trust me, my lord, all hitherto goes well;\n    The common people by numbers swarm to us.\n\n                 Enter CLARENCE and SOMERSET\n\n    But see where Somerset and Clarence comes.\n    Speak suddenly, my lords- are we all friends?\n  CLARENCE. Fear not that, my lord.\n  WARWICK. Then, gentle Clarence, welcome unto Warwick;\n    And welcome, Somerset. I hold it cowardice\n    To rest mistrustful where a noble heart\n    Hath pawn'd an open hand in sign of love;\n    Else might I think that Clarence, Edward's brother,\n    Were but a feigned friend to our proceedings.\n    But welcome, sweet Clarence; my daughter shall be thine.\n    And now what rests but, in night's coverture,\n    Thy brother being carelessly encamp'd,\n    His soldiers lurking in the towns about,\n    And but attended by a simple guard,\n    We may surprise and take him at our pleasure?\n    Our scouts have found the adventure very easy;\n    That as Ulysses and stout Diomede\n    With sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus' tents,\n    And brought from thence the Thracian fatal steeds,\n    So we, well cover'd with the night's black mantle,\n    At unawares may beat down Edward's guard\n    And seize himself- I say not 'slaughter him,'\n    For I intend but only to surprise him.\n    You that will follow me to this attempt,\n    Applaud the name of Henry with your leader.\n                                         [They all cry 'Henry!']\n    Why then, let's on our way in silent sort.\n    For Warwick and his friends, God and Saint George!    Exeunt\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nEdward's camp, near Warwick\n\nEnter three WATCHMEN, to guard the KING'S tent\n\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. Come on, my masters, each man take his stand;\n    The King by this is set him down to sleep.\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. What, will he not to bed?\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. Why, no; for he hath made a solemn vow\n    Never to lie and take his natural rest\n    Till Warwick or himself be quite suppress'd.\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. To-morrow then, belike, shall be the day,\n    If Warwick be so near as men report.\n  THIRD WATCHMAN. But say, I pray, what nobleman is that\n    That with the King here resteth in his tent?\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. 'Tis the Lord Hastings, the King's chiefest\nfriend.\n  THIRD WATCHMAN. O, is it So? But why commands the King\n    That his chief followers lodge in towns about him,\n    While he himself keeps in the cold field?\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. 'Tis the more honour, because more dangerous.\n  THIRD WATCHMAN. Ay, but give me worship and quietness;\n    I like it better than dangerous honour.\n    If Warwick knew in what estate he stands,\n    'Tis to be doubted he would waken him.\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. Unless our halberds did shut up his passage.\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. Ay, wherefore else guard we his royal tent\n    But to defend his person from night-foes?\n\n             Enter WARWICK, CLARENCE, OXFORD, SOMERSET,\n                   and French soldiers, silent all\n\n  WARWICK. This is his tent; and see where stand his guard.\n    Courage, my masters! Honour now or never!\n    But follow me, and Edward shall be ours.\n  FIRST WATCHMAN. Who goes there?\n  SECOND WATCHMAN. Stay, or thou diest.\n\n       WARWICK and the rest cry all 'Warwick! Warwick!' and\n      set upon the guard, who fly, crying 'Arm! Arm!' WARWICK\n                   and the rest following them\n\n      The drum playing and trumpet sounding, re-enter WARWICK\n         and the rest, bringing the KING out in his gown,\n   sitting in a chair. GLOUCESTER and HASTINGS fly over the stage\n\n  SOMERSET. What are they that fly there?\n  WARWICK. Richard and Hastings. Let them go; here is the Duke.\n  KING EDWARD. The Duke! Why, Warwick, when we parted,\n    Thou call'dst me King?\n  WARWICK. Ay, but the case is alter'd.\n    When you disgrac'd me in my embassade,\n    Then I degraded you from being King,\n    And come now to create you Duke of York.\n    Alas, how should you govern any kingdom\n    That know not how to use ambassadors,\n    Nor how to be contented with one wife,\n    Nor how to use your brothers brotherly,\n    Nor how to study for the people's welfare,\n    Nor how to shroud yourself from enemies?\n  KING EDWARD. Yea, brother of Clarence, art thou here too?\n    Nay, then I see that Edward needs must down.\n    Yet, Warwick, in despite of all mischance,\n    Of thee thyself and all thy complices,\n    Edward will always bear himself as King.\n    Though fortune's malice overthrow my state,\n    My mind exceeds the compass of her wheel.\n  WARWICK. Then, for his mind, be Edward England's king;\n                                           [Takes off his crown]\n    But Henry now shall wear the English crown\n    And be true King indeed; thou but the shadow.\n    My Lord of Somerset, at my request,\n    See that forthwith Duke Edward be convey'd\n    Unto my brother, Archbishop of York.\n    When I have fought with Pembroke and his fellows,\n    I'll follow you and tell what answer\n    Lewis and the Lady Bona send to him.\n    Now for a while farewell, good Duke of York.\n  KING EDWARD. What fates impose, that men must needs abide;\n    It boots not to resist both wind and tide.\n                                    [They lead him out forcibly]\n  OXFORD. What now remains, my lords, for us to do\n    But march to London with our soldiers?\n  WARWICK. Ay, that's the first thing that we have to do;\n    To free King Henry from imprisonment,\n    And see him seated in the regal throne.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter QUEEN ELIZABETH and RIVERS\n\n  RIVERS. Madam, what makes you in this sudden change?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Why, brother Rivers, are you yet to learn\n    What late misfortune is befall'n King Edward?\n  RIVERS. What, loss of some pitch'd battle against Warwick?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. No, but the loss of his own royal person.\n  RIVERS. Then is my sovereign slain?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ay, almost slain, for he is taken prisoner;\n    Either betray'd by falsehood of his guard\n    Or by his foe surpris'd at unawares;\n    And, as I further have to understand,\n    Is new committed to the Bishop of York,\n    Fell Warwick's brother, and by that our foe.\n  RIVERS. These news, I must confess, are full of grief;\n    Yet, gracious madam, bear it as you may:\n    Warwick may lose that now hath won the day.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Till then, fair hope must hinder life's decay.\n    And I the rather wean me from despair\n    For love of Edward's offspring in my womb.\n    This is it that makes me bridle passion\n    And bear with mildness my misfortune's cross;\n    Ay, ay, for this I draw in many a tear\n    And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs,\n    Lest with my sighs or tears I blast or drown\n    King Edward's fruit, true heir to th' English crown.\n  RIVERS. But, madam, where is Warwick then become?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I am inform'd that he comes towards London\n    To set the crown once more on Henry's head.\n    Guess thou the rest: King Edward's friends must down.\n    But to prevent the tyrant's violence-\n    For trust not him that hath once broken faith-\n    I'll hence forthwith unto the sanctuary\n    To save at least the heir of Edward's right.\n    There shall I rest secure from force and fraud.\n    Come, therefore, let us fly while we may fly:\n    If Warwick take us, we are sure to die.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nA park near Middleham Castle in Yorkshire\n\nEnter GLOUCESTER, LORD HASTINGS, SIR WILLIAM STANLEY, and others\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Now, my Lord Hastings and Sir William Stanley,\n    Leave off to wonder why I drew you hither\n    Into this chiefest thicket of the park.\n    Thus stands the case: you know our King, my brother,\n    Is prisoner to the Bishop here, at whose hands\n    He hath good usage and great liberty;\n    And often but attended with weak guard\n    Comes hunting this way to disport himself.\n    I have advertis'd him by secret means\n    That if about this hour he make this way,\n    Under the colour of his usual game,\n    He shall here find his friends, with horse and men,\n    To set him free from his captivity.\n\n             Enter KING EDWARD and a HUNTSMAN with him\n\n  HUNTSMAN. This way, my lord; for this way lies the game.\n  KING EDWARD. Nay, this way, man. See where the huntsmen stand.\n    Now, brother of Gloucester, Lord Hastings, and the rest,\n    Stand you thus close to steal the Bishop's deer?\n  GLOUCESTER. Brother, the time and case requireth haste;\n    Your horse stands ready at the park corner.\n  KING EDWARD. But whither shall we then?\n  HASTINGS. To Lynn, my lord; and shipt from thence to Flanders.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well guess'd, believe me; for that was my meaning.\n  KING EDWARD. Stanley, I will requite thy forwardness.\n  GLOUCESTER. But wherefore stay we? 'Tis no time to talk.\n  KING EDWARD. Huntsman, what say'st thou? Wilt thou go along?\n  HUNTSMAN. Better do so than tarry and be hang'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Come then, away; let's ha' no more ado.\n  KING EDWARD. Bishop, farewell. Shield thee from Warwick's\nfrown,\n    And pray that I may repossess the crown.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nLondon. The Tower\n\nFlourish. Enter KING HENRY, CLARENCE, WARWICK, SOMERSET, young\nHENRY,\nEARL OF RICHMOND, OXFORD, MONTAGUE, LIEUTENANT OF THE TOWER, and\nattendants\n\n  KING HENRY. Master Lieutenant, now that God and friends\n    Have shaken Edward from the regal seat\n    And turn'd my captive state to liberty,\n    My fear to hope, my sorrows unto joys,\n    At our enlargement what are thy due fees?\n  LIEUTENANT. Subjects may challenge nothing of their sov'reigns;\n    But if an humble prayer may prevail,\n    I then crave pardon of your Majesty.\n  KING HENRY. For what, Lieutenant? For well using me?\n    Nay, be thou sure I'll well requite thy kindness,\n    For that it made my imprisonment a pleasure;\n    Ay, such a pleasure as incaged birds\n    Conceive when, after many moody thoughts,\n    At last by notes of household harmony\n    They quite forget their loss of liberty.\n    But, Warwick, after God, thou set'st me free,\n    And chiefly therefore I thank God and thee;\n    He was the author, thou the instrument.\n    Therefore, that I may conquer fortune's spite\n    By living low where fortune cannot hurt me,\n    And that the people of this blessed land\n    May not be punish'd with my thwarting stars,\n    Warwick, although my head still wear the crown,\n    I here resign my government to thee,\n    For thou art fortunate in all thy deeds.\n  WARWICK. Your Grace hath still been fam'd for virtuous,\n    And now may seem as wise as virtuous\n    By spying and avoiding fortune's malice,\n    For few men rightly temper with the stars;\n    Yet in this one thing let me blame your Grace,\n    For choosing me when Clarence is in place.\n  CLARENCE. No, Warwick, thou art worthy of the sway,\n    To whom the heav'ns in thy nativity\n    Adjudg'd an olive branch and laurel crown,\n    As likely to be blest in peace and war;\n    And therefore I yield thee my free consent.\n  WARWICK. And I choose Clarence only for Protector.\n  KING HENRY. Warwick and Clarence, give me both your hands.\n    Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts,\n    That no dissension hinder government.\n    I make you both Protectors of this land,\n    While I myself will lead a private life\n    And in devotion spend my latter days,\n    To sin's rebuke and my Creator's praise.\n  WARWICK. What answers Clarence to his sovereign's will?\n  CLARENCE. That he consents, if Warwick yield consent,\n    For on thy fortune I repose myself.\n  WARWICK. Why, then, though loath, yet must I be content.\n    We'll yoke together, like a double shadow\n    To Henry's body, and supply his place;\n    I mean, in bearing weight of government,\n    While he enjoys the honour and his ease.\n    And, Clarence, now then it is more than needful\n    Forthwith that Edward be pronounc'd a traitor,\n    And all his lands and goods confiscated.\n  CLARENCE. What else? And that succession be determin'd.\n  WARWICK. Ay, therein Clarence shall not want his part.\n  KING HENRY. But, with the first of all your chief affairs,\n    Let me entreat- for I command no more-\n    That Margaret your Queen and my son Edward\n    Be sent for to return from France with speed;\n    For till I see them here, by doubtful fear\n    My joy of liberty is half eclips'd.\n  CLARENCE. It shall be done, my sovereign, with all speed.\n  KING HENRY. My Lord of Somerset, what youth is that,\n    Of whom you seem to have so tender care?\n  SOMERSET. My liege, it is young Henry, Earl of Richmond.\n  KING HENRY. Come hither, England's hope.\n                                     [Lays his hand on his head]\n    If secret powers\n    Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts,\n    This pretty lad will prove our country's bliss.\n    His looks are full of peaceful majesty;\n    His head by nature fram'd to wear a crown,\n    His hand to wield a sceptre; and himself\n    Likely in time to bless a regal throne.\n    Make much of him, my lords; for this is he\n    Must help you more than you are hurt by me.\n\n                          Enter a POST\n\n  WARWICK. What news, my friend?\n  POST. That Edward is escaped from your brother\n    And fled, as he hears since, to Burgundy.\n  WARWICK. Unsavoury news! But how made he escape?\n  POST. He was convey'd by Richard Duke of Gloucester\n    And the Lord Hastings, who attended him\n    In secret ambush on the forest side\n    And from the Bishop's huntsmen rescu'd him;\n    For hunting was his daily exercise.\n  WARWICK. My brother was too careless of his charge.\n    But let us hence, my sovereign, to provide\n    A salve for any sore that may betide.\n                   Exeunt all but SOMERSET, RICHMOND, and OXFORD\n  SOMERSET. My lord, I like not of this flight of Edward's;\n    For doubtless Burgundy will yield him help,\n    And we shall have more wars befor't be long.\n    As Henry's late presaging prophecy\n    Did glad my heart with hope of this young Richmond,\n    So doth my heart misgive me, in these conflicts,\n    What may befall him to his harm and ours.\n    Therefore, Lord Oxford, to prevent the worst,\n    Forthwith we'll send him hence to Brittany,\n    Till storms be past of civil enmity.\n  OXFORD. Ay, for if Edward repossess the crown,\n    'Tis like that Richmond with the rest shall down.\n  SOMERSET. It shall be so; he shall to Brittany.\n    Come therefore, let's about it speedily.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nBefore York\n\nFlourish. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, HASTINGS, and soldiers\n\n  KING EDWARD. Now, brother Richard, Lord Hastings, and the rest,\n    Yet thus far fortune maketh us amends,\n    And says that once more I shall interchange\n    My waned state for Henry's regal crown.\n    Well have we pass'd and now repass'd the seas,\n    And brought desired help from Burgundy;\n    What then remains, we being thus arriv'd\n    From Ravenspurgh haven before the gates of York,\n    But that we enter, as into our dukedom?\n  GLOUCESTER. The gates made fast! Brother, I like not this;\n    For many men that stumble at the threshold\n    Are well foretold that danger lurks within.\n  KING EDWARD. Tush, man, abodements must not now affright us.\n    By fair or foul means we must enter in,\n    For hither will our friends repair to us.\n  HASTINGS. My liege, I'll knock once more to summon them.\n\n         Enter, on the walls, the MAYOR OF YORK and\n                       his BRETHREN\n\n  MAYOR. My lords, we were forewarned of your coming\n    And shut the gates for safety of ourselves,\n    For now we owe allegiance unto Henry.\n  KING EDWARD. But, Master Mayor, if Henry be your King,\n    Yet Edward at the least is Duke of York.\n  MAYOR. True, my good lord; I know you for no less.\n  KING EDWARD. Why, and I challenge nothing but my dukedom,\n    As being well content with that alone.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] But when the fox hath once got in his nose,\n    He'll soon find means to make the body follow.\n  HASTINGS. Why, Master Mayor, why stand you in a doubt?\n    Open the gates; we are King Henry's friends.\n  MAYOR. Ay, say you so? The gates shall then be open'd.\n                                                   [He descends]\n  GLOUCESTER. A wise stout captain, and soon persuaded!\n  HASTINGS. The good old man would fain that all were well,\n    So 'twere not long of him; but being ent'red,\n    I doubt not, I, but we shall soon persuade\n    Both him and all his brothers unto reason.\n\n             Enter, below, the MAYOR and two ALDERMEN\n\n  KING EDWARD. So, Master Mayor. These gates must not be shut\n    But in the night or in the time of war.\n    What! fear not, man, but yield me up the keys;\n                                                [Takes his keys]\n    For Edward will defend the town and thee,\n    And all those friends that deign to follow me.\n\n           March. Enter MONTGOMERY with drum and soldiers\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Brother, this is Sir John Montgomery,\n    Our trusty friend, unless I be deceiv'd.\n  KING EDWARD. Welcome, Sir john! But why come you in arms?\n  MONTGOMERY. To help King Edward in his time of storm,\n    As every loyal subject ought to do.\n  KING EDWARD. Thanks, good Montgomery; but we now forget\n    Our title to the crown, and only claim\n    Our dukedom till God please to send the rest.\n  MONTGOMERY. Then fare you well, for I will hence again.\n    I came to serve a king and not a duke.\n    Drummer, strike up, and let us march away.\n                                      [The drum begins to march]\n  KING EDWARD. Nay, stay, Sir John, a while, and we'll debate\n    By what safe means the crown may be recover'd.\n  MONTGOMERY. What talk you of debating? In few words:\n    If you'll not here proclaim yourself our King,\n    I'll leave you to your fortune and be gone\n    To keep them back that come to succour you.\n    Why shall we fight, if you pretend no title?\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, brother, wherefore stand you on nice points?\n  KING EDWARD. When we grow stronger, then we'll make our claim;\n    Till then 'tis wisdom to conceal our meaning.\n  HASTINGS. Away with scrupulous wit! Now arms must rule.\n  GLOUCESTER. And fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns.\n    Brother, we will proclaim you out of hand;\n    The bruit thereof will bring you many friends.\n  KING EDWARD. Then be it as you will; for 'tis my right,\n    And Henry but usurps the diadem.\n  MONTGOMERY. Ay, now my sovereign speaketh like himself;\n    And now will I be Edward's champion.\n  HASTINGS. Sound trumpet; Edward shall be here proclaim'd.\n    Come, fellow soldier, make thou proclamation.\n                                   [Gives him a paper. Flourish]\n  SOLDIER. [Reads] 'Edward the Fourth, by the grace of God,\n    King of England and France, and Lord of Ireland, &c.'\n  MONTGOMERY. And whoso'er gainsays King Edward's right,\n    By this I challenge him to single fight.\n                                          [Throws down gauntlet]\n  ALL. Long live Edward the Fourth!\n  KING EDWARD. Thanks, brave Montgomery, and thanks unto you all;\n    If fortune serve me, I'll requite this kindness.\n    Now for this night let's harbour here in York;\n    And when the morning sun shall raise his car\n    Above the border of this horizon,\n    We'll forward towards Warwick and his mates;\n    For well I wot that Henry is no soldier.\n    Ah, froward Clarence, how evil it beseems the\n    To flatter Henry and forsake thy brother!\n    Yet, as we may, we'll meet both thee and Warwick.\n    Come on, brave soldiers; doubt not of the day,\n    And, that once gotten, doubt not of large pay.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\nLondon. The palace\n\nFlourish. Enter KING HENRY, WARWICK, MONTAGUE, CLARENCE, OXFORD,\nand EXETER\n\n  WARWICK. What counsel, lords? Edward from Belgia,\n    With hasty Germans and blunt Hollanders,\n    Hath pass'd in safety through the narrow seas\n    And with his troops doth march amain to London;\n    And many giddy people flock to him.\n  KING HENRY. Let's levy men and beat him back again.\n  CLARENCE. A little fire is quickly trodden out,\n    Which, being suffer'd, rivers cannot quench.\n  WARWICK. In Warwickshire I have true-hearted friends,\n    Not mutinous in peace, yet bold in war;\n    Those will I muster up, and thou, son Clarence,\n    Shalt stir up in Suffolk, Norfolk, and in Kent,\n    The knights and gentlemen to come with thee.\n    Thou, brother Montague, in Buckingham,\n    Northampton, and in Leicestershire, shalt find\n    Men well inclin'd to hear what thou command'st.\n    And thou, brave Oxford, wondrous well belov'd,\n    In Oxfordshire shalt muster up thy friends.\n    My sovereign, with the loving citizens,\n    Like to his island girt in with the ocean\n    Or modest Dian circled with her nymphs,\n    Shall rest in London till we come to him.\n    Fair lords, take leave and stand not to reply.\n    Farewell, my sovereign.\n  KING HENRY. Farewell, my Hector and my Troy's true hope.\n  CLARENCE. In sign of truth, I kiss your Highness' hand.\n  KING HENRY. Well-minded Clarence, be thou fortunate!\n  MONTAGUE. Comfort, my lord; and so I take my leave.\n  OXFORD. [Kissing the KING'S band] And thus I seal my truth and\nbid\n    adieu.\n  KING HENRY. Sweet Oxford, and my loving Montague,\n    And all at once, once more a happy farewell.\n  WARWICK. Farewell, sweet lords; let's meet at Coventry.\n                              Exeunt all but the KING and EXETER\n  KING HENRY. Here at the palace will I rest a while.\n    Cousin of Exeter, what thinks your lordship?\n    Methinks the power that Edward hath in field\n    Should not be able to encounter mine.\n  EXETER. The doubt is that he will seduce the rest.\n  KING HENRY. That's not my fear; my meed hath got me fame:\n    I have not stopp'd mine ears to their demands,\n    Nor posted off their suits with slow delays;\n    My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,\n    My mildness hath allay'd their swelling griefs,\n    My mercy dried their water-flowing tears;\n    I have not been desirous of their wealth,\n    Nor much oppress'd them with great subsidies,\n    Nor forward of revenge, though they much err'd.\n    Then why should they love Edward more than me?\n    No, Exeter, these graces challenge grace;\n    And, when the lion fawns upon the lamb,\n    The lamb will never cease to follow him.\n                      [Shout within 'A Lancaster! A Lancaster!']\n  EXETER. Hark, hark, my lord! What shouts are these?\n\n            Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, and soldiers\n\n  KING EDWARD. Seize on the shame-fac'd Henry, bear him hence;\n    And once again proclaim us King of England.\n    You are the fount that makes small brooks to flow.\n    Now stops thy spring; my sea shall suck them dry,\n    And swell so much the higher by their ebb.\n    Hence with him to the Tower: let him not speak.\n                                     Exeunt some with KING HENRY\n    And, lords, towards Coventry bend we our course,\n    Where peremptory Warwick now remains.\n    The sun shines hot; and, if we use delay,\n    Cold biting winter mars our hop'd-for hay.\n  GLOUCESTER. Away betimes, before his forces join,\n    And take the great-grown traitor unawares.\n    Brave warriors, march amain towards Coventry.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nCoventry\n\nEnter WARWICK, the MAYOR OF COVENTRY, two MESSENGERS,\nand others upon the walls\n\n  WARWICK. Where is the post that came from valiant Oxford?\n    How far hence is thy lord, mine honest fellow?\n  FIRST MESSENGER. By this at Dunsmore, marching hitherward.\n  WARWICK. How far off is our brother Montague?\n    Where is the post that came from Montague?\n  SECOND MESSENGER. By this at Daintry, with a puissant troop.\n\n                   Enter SIR JOHN SOMERVILLE\n\n  WARWICK. Say, Somerville, what says my loving son?\n    And by thy guess how nigh is Clarence now?\n  SOMERVILLE. At Southam I did leave him with his forces,\n    And do expect him here some two hours hence.\n                                                    [Drum heard]\n  WARWICK. Then Clarence is at hand; I hear his drum.\n  SOMERVILLE. It is not his, my lord; here Southam lies.\n    The drum your Honour hears marcheth from Warwick.\n  WARWICK. Who should that be? Belike unlook'd for friends.\n  SOMERVILLE. They are at hand, and you shall quickly know.\n\n        March. Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER,\n                         and soldiers\n\n  KING EDWARD. Go, trumpet, to the walls, and sound a parle.\n  GLOUCESTER. See how the surly Warwick mans the wall.\n  WARWICK. O unbid spite! Is sportful Edward come?\n    Where slept our scouts or how are they seduc'd\n    That we could hear no news of his repair?\n  KING EDWARD. Now, Warwick, wilt thou ope the city gates,\n    Speak gentle words, and humbly bend thy knee,\n    Call Edward King, and at his hands beg mercy?\n    And he shall pardon thee these outrages.\n  WARWICK. Nay, rather, wilt thou draw thy forces hence,\n    Confess who set thee up and pluck'd thee down,\n    Call Warwick patron, and be penitent?\n    And thou shalt still remain the Duke of York.\n  GLOUCESTER. I thought, at least, he would have said the King;\n    Or did he make the jest against his will?\n  WARWICK. Is not a dukedom, sir, a goodly gift?\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, by my faith, for a poor earl to give.\n    I'll do thee service for so good a gift.\n  WARWICK. 'Twas I that gave the kingdom to thy brother.\n  KING EDWARD. Why then 'tis mine, if but by Warwick's gift.\n  WARWICK. Thou art no Atlas for so great a weight;\n    And, weakling, Warwick takes his gift again;\n    And Henry is my King, Warwick his subject.\n  KING EDWARD. But Warwick's king is Edward's prisoner.\n    And, gallant Warwick, do but answer this:\n    What is the body when the head is off?\n  GLOUCESTER. Alas, that Warwick had no more forecast,\n    But, whiles he thought to steal the single ten,\n    The king was slily finger'd from the deck!\n    You left poor Henry at the Bishop's palace,\n    And ten to one you'll meet him in the Tower.\n  KING EDWARD. 'Tis even so; yet you are Warwick still.\n  GLOUCESTER. Come, Warwick, take the time; kneel down, kneel\ndown.\n    Nay, when? Strike now, or else the iron cools.\n  WARWICK. I had rather chop this hand off at a blow,\n    And with the other fling it at thy face,\n    Than bear so low a sail to strike to thee.\n  KING EDWARD. Sail how thou canst, have wind and tide thy\nfriend,\n    This hand, fast wound about thy coal-black hair,\n    Shall, whiles thy head is warm and new cut off,\n    Write in the dust this sentence with thy blood:\n    'Wind-changing Warwick now can change no more.'\n\n               Enter OXFORD, with drum and colours\n\n  WARWICK. O cheerful colours! See where Oxford comes.\n  OXFORD. Oxford, Oxford, for Lancaster!\n                              [He and his forces enter the city]\n  GLOUCESTER. The gates are open, let us enter too.\n  KING EDWARD. So other foes may set upon our backs.\n    Stand we in good array, for they no doubt\n    Will issue out again and bid us battle;\n    If not, the city being but of small defence,\n    We'll quietly rouse the traitors in the same.\n  WARWICK. O, welcome, Oxford! for we want thy help.\n\n             Enter MONTAGUE, with drum and colours\n\n  MONTAGUE. Montague, Montague, for Lancaster!\n                              [He and his forces enter the city]\n  GLOUCESTER. Thou and thy brother both shall buy this treason\n    Even with the dearest blood your bodies bear.\n  KING EDWARD. The harder match'd, the greater victory.\n    My mind presageth happy gain and conquest.\n\n             Enter SOMERSET, with drum and colours\n\n  SOMERSET. Somerset, Somerset, for Lancaster!\n                              [He and his forces enter the city]\n  GLOUCESTER. Two of thy name, both Dukes of Somerset,\n    Have sold their lives unto the house of York;\n    And thou shalt be the third, if this sword hold.\n\n             Enter CLARENCE, with drum and colours\n\n  WARWICK. And lo where George of Clarence sweeps along,\n    Of force enough to bid his brother battle;\n    With whom an upright zeal to right prevails\n    More than the nature of a brother's love.\n  CLARENCE. Clarence, Clarence, for Lancaster!\n  KING EDWARD. Et tu Brute- wilt thou stab Caesar too?\n    A parley, sirrah, to George of Clarence.\n                  [Sound a parley. RICHARD and CLARENCE whisper]\n  WARWICK. Come, Clarence, come. Thou wilt if Warwick call.\n  CLARENCE. [Taking the red rose from his hat and throwing\n      it at WARWICK]\n    Father of Warwick, know you what this means?\n    Look here, I throw my infamy at thee.\n    I will not ruinate my father's house,\n    Who gave his blood to lime the stones together,\n    And set up Lancaster. Why, trowest thou, Warwick,\n    That Clarence is so harsh, so blunt, unnatural,\n    To bend the fatal instruments of war\n    Against his brother and his lawful King?\n    Perhaps thou wilt object my holy oath.\n    To keep that oath were more impiety\n    Than Jephtha when he sacrific'd his daughter.\n    I am so sorry for my trespass made\n    That, to deserve well at my brother's hands,\n    I here proclaim myself thy mortal foe;\n    With resolution whereso'er I meet thee-\n    As I will meet thee, if thou stir abroad-\n    To plague thee for thy foul misleading me.\n    And so, proud-hearted Warwick, I defy thee,\n    And to my brother turn my blushing cheeks.\n    Pardon me, Edward, I will make amends;\n    And, Richard, do not frown upon my faults,\n    For I will henceforth be no more unconstant.\n  KING EDWARD. Now welcome more, and ten times more belov'd,\n    Than if thou never hadst deserv'd our hate.\n  GLOUCESTER. Welcome, good Clarence; this is brother-like.\n  WARWICK. O passing traitor, perjur'd and unjust!\n  KING EDWARD. What, Warwick, wilt thou leave die town and fight?\n\n    Or shall we beat the stones about thine ears?\n  WARWICK. Alas, I am not coop'd here for defence!\n    I will away towards Barnet presently\n    And bid thee battle, Edward, if thou dar'st.\n  KING EDWARD. Yes, Warwick, Edward dares and leads the way.\n    Lords, to the field; Saint George and victory!\n                                                 Exeunt YORKISTS\n                         [March. WARWICK and his company follow]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA field of battle near Barnet\n\nAlarum and excursions. Enter KING EDWARD, bringing forth WARWICK,\nwounded\n\n  KING EDWARD. So, lie thou there. Die thou, and die our fear;\n    For Warwick was a bug that fear'd us all.\n    Now, Montague, sit fast; I seek for thee,\n    That Warwick's bones may keep thine company.            Exit\n  WARWICK. Ah, who is nigh? Come to me, friend or foe,\n    And tell me who is victor, York or Warwick?\n    Why ask I that? My mangled body shows,\n    My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows,\n    That I must yield my body to the earth\n    And, by my fall, the conquest to my foe.\n    Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,\n    Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,\n    Under whose shade the ramping lion slept,\n    Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree\n    And kept low shrubs from winter's pow'rful wind.\n    These eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's black veil,\n    Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun\n    To search the secret treasons of the world;\n    The wrinkles in my brows, now fill'd with blood,\n    Were lik'ned oft to kingly sepulchres;\n    For who liv'd King, but I could dig his grave?\n    And who durst smile when Warwick bent his brow?\n    Lo now my glory smear'd in dust and blood!\n    My parks, my walks, my manors, that I had,\n    Even now forsake me; and of all my lands\n    Is nothing left me but my body's length.\n    what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?\n    And live we how we can, yet die we must.\n\n                  Enter OXFORD and SOMERSET\n\n  SOMERSET. Ah, Warwick, Warwick! wert thou as we are,\n    We might recover all our loss again.\n    The Queen from France hath brought a puissant power;\n    Even now we heard the news. Ah, couldst thou fly!\n  WARWICK. Why then, I would not fly. Ah, Montague,\n    If thou be there, sweet brother, take my hand,\n    And with thy lips keep in my soul a while!\n    Thou lov'st me not; for, brother, if thou didst,\n    Thy tears would wash this cold congealed blood\n    That glues my lips and will not let me speak.\n    Come quickly, Montague, or I am dead.\n  SOMERSET. Ah, Warwick! Montague hath breath'd his last;\n    And to the latest gasp cried out for Warwick,\n    And said 'Commend me to my valiant brother.'\n    And more he would have said; and more he spoke,\n    Which sounded like a clamour in a vault,\n    That mought not be distinguish'd; but at last,\n    I well might hear, delivered with a groan,\n    'O farewell, Warwick!'\n  WARWICK. Sweet rest his soul! Fly, lords, and save yourselves:\n    For Warwick bids you all farewell, to meet in heaven.\n                                                          [Dies]\n  OXFORD. Away, away, to meet the Queen's great power!\n                                  [Here they bear away his body]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nAnother part of the field\n\nFlourish. Enter KING in triumph; with GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and\nthe rest\n\n  KING EDWARD. Thus far our fortune keeps an upward course,\n    And we are grac'd with wreaths of victory.\n    But in the midst of this bright-shining day\n    I spy a black, suspicious, threat'ning cloud\n    That will encounter with our glorious sun\n    Ere he attain his easeful western bed-\n    I mean, my lords, those powers that the Queen\n    Hath rais'd in Gallia have arriv'd our coast\n    And, as we hear, march on to fight with us.\n  CLARENCE. A little gale will soon disperse that cloud\n    And blow it to the source from whence it came;\n    Thy very beams will dry those vapours up,\n    For every cloud engenders not a storm.\n  GLOUCESTER. The Queen is valued thirty thousand strong,\n    And Somerset, with Oxford, fled to her.\n    If she have time to breathe, be well assur'd\n    Her faction will be full as strong as ours.\n  KING EDWARD. are advertis'd by our loving friends\n    That they do hold their course toward Tewksbury;\n    We, having now the best at Barnet field,\n    Will thither straight, for willingness rids way;\n    And as we march our strength will be augmented\n    In every county as we go along.\n    Strike up the drum; cry 'Courage!' and away.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nPlains wear Tewksbury\n\nFlourish. March. Enter QUEEN MARGARET, PRINCE EDWARD, SOMERSET,\nOXFORD,\nand SOLDIERS\n\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Great lords, wise men ne'er sit and wail their\n      loss,\n    But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.\n    What though the mast be now blown overboard,\n    The cable broke, the holding-anchor lost,\n    And half our sailors swallow'd in the flood;\n    Yet lives our pilot still. Is't meet that he\n    Should leave the helm and, like a fearful lad,\n    With tearful eyes add water to the sea\n    And give more strength to that which hath too much;\n    Whiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock,\n    Which industry and courage might have sav'd?\n    Ah, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this!\n    Say Warwick was our anchor; what of that?\n    And Montague our top-mast; what of him?\n    Our slaught'red friends the tackles; what of these?\n    Why, is not Oxford here another anchor?\n    And Somerset another goodly mast?\n    The friends of France our shrouds and tacklings?\n    And, though unskilful, why not Ned and I\n    For once allow'd the skilful pilot's charge?\n    We will not from the helm to sit and weep,\n    But keep our course, though the rough wind say no,\n    From shelves and rocks that threaten us with wreck,\n    As good to chide the waves as speak them fair.\n    And what is Edward but a ruthless sea?\n    What Clarence but a quicksand of deceit?\n    And Richard but a ragged fatal rock?\n    All these the enemies to our poor bark.\n    Say you can swim; alas, 'tis but a while!\n    Tread on the sand; why, there you quickly sink.\n    Bestride the rock; the tide will wash you off,\n    Or else you famish- that's a threefold death.\n    This speak I, lords, to let you understand,\n    If case some one of you would fly from us,\n    That there's no hop'd-for mercy with the brothers\n    More than with ruthless waves, with sands, and rocks.\n    Why, courage then! What cannot be avoided\n    'Twere childish weakness to lament or fear.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Methinks a woman of this valiant spirit\n    Should, if a coward hear her speak these words,\n    Infuse his breast with magnanimity\n    And make him naked foil a man-at-arms.\n    I speak not this as doubting any here;\n    For did I but suspect a fearful man,\n    He should have leave to go away betimes,\n    Lest in our need he might infect another\n    And make him of the like spirit to himself.\n    If any such be here- as God forbid!-\n    Let him depart before we need his help.\n  OXFORD. Women and children of so high a courage,\n    And warriors faint! Why, 'twere perpetual shame.\n    O brave young Prince! thy famous grandfather\n    Doth live again in thee. Long mayst thou Eve\n    To bear his image and renew his glories!\n  SOMERSET. And he that will not fight for such a hope,\n    Go home to bed and, like the owl by day,\n    If he arise, be mock'd and wond'red at.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Thanks, gentle Somerset; sweet Oxford, thanks.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. And take his thanks that yet hath nothing\nelse.\n\n                        Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Prepare you, lords, for Edward is at hand\n    Ready to fight; therefore be resolute.\n  OXFORD. I thought no less. It is his policy\n    To haste thus fast, to find us unprovided.\n  SOMERSET. But he's deceiv'd; we are in readiness.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. This cheers my heart, to see your forwardness.\n  OXFORD. Here pitch our battle; hence we will not budge.\n\n      Flourish and march. Enter, at a distance, KING EDWARD,\n               GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and soldiers\n\n  KING EDWARD. Brave followers, yonder stands the thorny wood\n    Which, by the heavens' assistance and your strength,\n    Must by the roots be hewn up yet ere night.\n    I need not add more fuel to your fire,\n    For well I wot ye blaze to burn them out.\n    Give signal to the fight, and to it, lords.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Lords, knights, and gentlemen, what I should\nsay\n    My tears gainsay; for every word I speak,\n    Ye see, I drink the water of my eye.\n    Therefore, no more but this: Henry, your sovereign,\n    Is prisoner to the foe; his state usurp'd,\n    His realm a slaughter-house, his subjects slain,\n    His statutes cancell'd, and his treasure spent;\n    And yonder is the wolf that makes this spoil.\n    You fight in justice. Then, in God's name, lords,\n    Be valiant, and give signal to the fight.\n                             Alarum, retreat, excursions. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nAnother part of the field\n\nFlourish. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and forces,\nWith QUEEN MARGARET, OXFORD, and SOMERSET, prisoners\n\n  KING EDWARD. Now here a period of tumultuous broils.\n    Away with Oxford to Hames Castle straight;\n    For Somerset, off with his guilty head.\n    Go, bear them hence; I will not hear them speak.\n  OXFORD. For my part, I'll not trouble thee with words.\n  SOMERSET. Nor I, but stoop with patience to my fortune.\n                             Exeunt OXFORD and SOMERSET, guarded\n  QUEEN MARGARET. So part we sadly in this troublous world,\n    To meet with joy in sweet Jerusalem.\n  KING EDWARD. Is proclamation made that who finds Edward\n    Shall have a high reward, and he his life?\n  GLOUCESTER. It is; and lo where youthful Edward comes.\n\n                Enter soldiers, with PRINCE EDWARD\n\n  KING EDWARD. Bring forth the gallant; let us hear him speak.\n    What, can so young a man begin to prick?\n    Edward, what satisfaction canst thou make\n    For bearing arms, for stirring up my subjects,\n    And all the trouble thou hast turn'd me to?\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Speak like a subject, proud ambitious York.\n    Suppose that I am now my father's mouth;\n    Resign thy chair, and where I stand kneel thou,\n    Whilst I propose the self-same words to the\n    Which, traitor, thou wouldst have me answer to.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ah, that thy father had been so resolv'd!\n  GLOUCESTER. That you might still have worn the petticoat\n    And ne'er have stol'n the breech from Lancaster.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Let Aesop fable in a winter's night;\n    His currish riddle sorts not with this place.\n  GLOUCESTER. By heaven, brat, I'll plague ye for that word.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, thou wast born to be a plague to men.\n  GLOUCESTER. For God's sake, take away this captive scold.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. Nay, take away this scolding crookback rather.\n  KING EDWARD. Peace, wilful boy, or I will charm your tongue.\n  CLARENCE. Untutor'd lad, thou art too malapert.\n  PRINCE OF WALES. I know my duty; you are all undutiful.\n    Lascivious Edward, and thou perjur'd George,\n    And thou misshapen Dick, I tell ye all\n    I am your better, traitors as ye are;\n    And thou usurp'st my father's right and mine.\n  KING EDWARD. Take that, the likeness of this railer here.\n                                                     [Stabs him]\n  GLOUCESTER. Sprawl'st thou? Take that, to end thy agony.\n                                                     [Stabs him]\n  CLARENCE. And there's for twitting me with perjury.\n                                                     [Stabs him]\n  QUEEN MARGARET. O, kill me too!\n  GLOUCESTER. Marry, and shall.             [Offers to kill her]\n  KING EDWARD. Hold, Richard, hold; for we have done to much.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why should she live to fill the world with words?\n  KING EDWARD. What, doth she swoon? Use means for her recovery.\n  GLOUCESTER. Clarence, excuse me to the King my brother.\n    I'll hence to London on a serious matter;\n    Ere ye come there, be sure to hear some news.\n  CLARENCE. What? what?\n  GLOUCESTER. The Tower! the Tower!                         Exit\n  QUEEN MARGARET. O Ned, sweet Ned, speak to thy mother, boy!\n    Canst thou not speak? O traitors! murderers!\n    They that stabb'd Caesar shed no blood at all,\n    Did not offend, nor were not worthy blame,\n    If this foul deed were by to equal it.\n    He was a man: this, in respect, a child;\n    And men ne'er spend their fury on a child.\n    What's worse than murderer, that I may name it?\n    No, no, my heart will burst, an if I speak-\n    And I will speak, that so my heart may burst.\n    Butchers and villains! bloody cannibals!\n    How sweet a plant have you untimely cropp'd!\n    You have no children, butchers, if you had,\n    The thought of them would have stirr'd up remorse.\n    But if you ever chance to have a child,\n    Look in his youth to have him so cut off\n    As, deathsmen, you have rid this sweet young prince!\n  KING EDWARD. Away with her; go, bear her hence perforce.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Nay, never bear me hence; dispatch me here.\n    Here sheathe thy sword; I'll pardon thee my death.\n    What, wilt thou not? Then, Clarence, do it thou.\n  CLARENCE. By heaven, I will not do thee so much ease.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Good Clarence, do; sweet Clarence, do thou do\nit.\n  CLARENCE. Didst thou not hear me swear I would not do it?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, but thou usest to forswear thyself.\n    'Twas sin before, but now 'tis charity.\n    What! wilt thou not? Where is that devil's butcher,\n    Hard-favour'd Richard? Richard, where art thou?\n    Thou art not here. Murder is thy alms-deed;\n    Petitioners for blood thou ne'er put'st back.\n  KING EDWARD. Away, I say; I charge ye bear her hence.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. So come to you and yours as to this prince.\n                                          Exit, led out forcibly\n  KING EDWARD. Where's Richard gone?\n  CLARENCE. To London, all in post; and, as I guess,\n    To make a bloody supper in the Tower.\n  KING EDWARD. He's sudden, if a thing comes in his head.\n    Now march we hence. Discharge the common sort\n    With pay and thanks; and let's away to London\n    And see our gentle queen how well she fares.\n    By this, I hope, she hath a son for me.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nLondon. The Tower\n\nEnter KING HENRY and GLOUCESTER with the LIEUTENANT, on the walls\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Good day, my lord. What, at your book so hard?\n  KING HENRY. Ay, my good lord- my lord, I should say rather.\n    'Tis sin to flatter; 'good' was little better.\n    'Good Gloucester' and 'good devil' were alike,\n    And both preposterous; therefore, not 'good lord.'\n  GLOUCESTER. Sirrah, leave us to ourselves; we must confer.\n                                                 Exit LIEUTENANT\n  KING HENRY. So flies the reckless shepherd from the wolf;\n    So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece,\n    And next his throat unto the butcher's knife.\n    What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?\n  GLOUCESTER. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind:\n    The thief doth fear each bush an officer.\n  KING HENRY. The bird that hath been limed in a bush\n    With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush;\n    And I, the hapless male to one sweet bird,\n    Have now the fatal object in my eye\n    Where my poor young was lim'd, was caught, and kill'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, what a peevish fool was that of Crete\n    That taught his son the office of a fowl!\n    And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd.\n  KING HENRY. I, Daedalus; my poor boy, Icarus;\n    Thy father, Minos, that denied our course;\n    The sun that sear'd the wings of my sweet boy,\n    Thy brother Edward; and thyself, the sea\n    Whose envious gulf did swallow up his life.\n    Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!\n    My breast can better brook thy dagger's point\n    Than can my ears that tragic history.\n    But wherefore dost thou come? Is't for my life?\n  GLOUCESTER. Think'st thou I am an executioner?\n  KING HENRY. A persecutor I am sure thou art.\n    If murdering innocents be executing,\n    Why, then thou are an executioner.\n  GLOUCESTER. Thy son I kill'd for his presumption.\n  KING HENRY. Hadst thou been kill'd when first thou didst\npresume,\n    Thou hadst not liv'd to kill a son of mine.\n    And thus I prophesy, that many a thousand\n    Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear,\n    And many an old man's sigh, and many a widow's,\n    And many an orphan's water-standing eye-\n    Men for their sons, wives for their husbands,\n    Orphans for their parents' timeless death-\n    Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.\n    The owl shriek'd at thy birth- an evil sign;\n    The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;\n    Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempest shook down trees;\n    The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top,\n    And chatt'ring pies in dismal discords sung;\n    Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain,\n    And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope,\n    To wit, an indigest deformed lump,\n    Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.\n    Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born,\n    To signify thou cam'st to bite the world;\n    And if the rest be true which I have heard,\n    Thou cam'st-\n  GLOUCESTER. I'll hear no more. Die, prophet, in thy speech.\n                                                     [Stabs him]\n    For this, amongst the rest, was I ordain'd.\n  KING HENRY. Ay, and for much more slaughter after this.\n    O, God forgive my sins and pardon thee!               [Dies]\n  GLOUCESTER. What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster\n    Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.\n    See how my sword weeps for the poor King's death.\n    O, may such purple tears be always shed\n    From those that wish the downfall of our house!\n    If any spark of life be yet remaining,\n    Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither-\n                                               [Stabs him again]\n    I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.\n    Indeed, 'tis true that Henry told me of;\n    For I have often heard my mother say\n    I came into the world with my legs forward.\n    Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste\n    And seek their ruin that usurp'd our right?\n    The midwife wonder'd; and the women cried\n    'O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!'\n    And so I was, which plainly signified\n    That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.\n    Then, since the heavens have shap'd my body so,\n    Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.\n    I have no brother, I am like no brother;\n    And this word 'love,' which greybeards call divine,\n    Be resident in men like one another,\n    And not in me! I am myself alone.\n    Clarence, beware; thou keep'st me from the light,\n    But I will sort a pitchy day for thee;\n    For I will buzz abroad such prophecies\n    That Edward shall be fearful of his life;\n    And then to purge his fear, I'll be thy death.\n    King Henry and the Prince his son are gone.\n    Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest;\n    Counting myself but bad till I be best.\n    I'll throw thy body in another room,\n    And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom.\n                                              Exit with the body\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nLondon. The palace\n\nFlourish. Enter KING EDWARD, QUEEN ELIZABETH, CLARENCE,\nGLOUCESTER,\nHASTINGS, NURSE, with the Young PRINCE, and attendants\n\n  KING EDWARD. Once more we sit in England's royal throne,\n    Repurchas'd with the blood of enemies.\n    What valiant foemen, like to autumn's corn,\n    Have we mow'd down in tops of all their pride!\n    Three Dukes of Somerset, threefold renown'd\n    For hardy and undoubted champions;\n    Two Cliffords, as the father and the son;\n    And two Northumberlands- two braver men\n    Ne'er spurr'd their coursers at the trumpet's sound;\n    With them the two brave bears, Warwick and Montague,\n    That in their chains fetter'd the kingly lion\n    And made the forest tremble when they roar'd.\n    Thus have we swept suspicion from our seat\n    And made our footstool of security.\n    Come hither, Bess, and let me kiss my boy.\n    Young Ned, for thee thine uncles and myself\n    Have in our armours watch'd the winter's night,\n    Went all afoot in summer's scalding heat,\n    That thou might'st repossess the crown in peace;\n    And of our labours thou shalt reap the gain.\n  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] I'll blast his harvest if your head were\nlaid;\n    For yet I am not look'd on in the world.\n    This shoulder was ordain'd so thick to heave;\n    And heave it shall some weight or break my back.\n    Work thou the way- and that shall execute.\n  KING EDWARD. Clarence and Gloucester, love my lovely queen;\n    And kiss your princely nephew, brothers both.\n  CLARENCE. The duty that I owe unto your Majesty\n    I seal upon the lips of this sweet babe.\n  KING EDWARD. Thanks, noble Clarence; worthy brother, thanks.\n  GLOUCESTER. And that I love the tree from whence thou\nsprang'st,\n    Witness the loving kiss I give the fruit.\n    [Aside] To say the truth, so Judas kiss'd his master\n    And cried 'All hail!' when as he meant all harm.\n  KING EDWARD. Now am I seated as my soul delights,\n    Having my country's peace and brothers' loves.\n  CLARENCE. What will your Grace have done with Margaret?\n    Reignier, her father, to the King of France\n    Hath pawn'd the Sicils and Jerusalem,\n    And hither have they sent it for her ransom.\n  KING EDWARD. Away with her, and waft her hence to France.\n    And now what rests but that we spend the time\n    With stately triumphs, mirthful comic shows,\n    Such as befits the pleasure of the court?\n    Sound drums and trumpets. Farewell, sour annoy!\n    For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.             Exeunt\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nTHE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH"}
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{"1103":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThis Etext file is presented by Project Gutenberg, in\ncooperation with World Library, Inc., from their Library of the\nFuture and Shakespeare CDROMS.  Project Gutenberg often releases\nEtexts that are NOT placed in the Public Domain!!\n\n*This Etext has certain copyright implications you should read!*\n\n\n\n\nSCENE: England\n\nKing Richard the Third\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, solus\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Now is the winter of our discontent\n    Made glorious summer by this sun of York;\n    And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house\n    In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.\n    Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;\n    Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;\n    Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,\n    Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.\n    Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front,\n    And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds\n    To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,\n    He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber\n    To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.\n    But I-that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,\n    Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass-\n    I-that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty\n    To strut before a wanton ambling nymph-\n    I-that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,\n    Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,\n    Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time\n    Into this breathing world scarce half made up,\n    And that so lamely and unfashionable\n    That dogs bark at me as I halt by them-\n    Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,\n    Have no delight to pass away the time,\n    Unless to spy my shadow in the sun\n    And descant on mine own deformity.\n    And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover\n    To entertain these fair well-spoken days,\n    I am determined to prove a villain\n    And hate the idle pleasures of these days.\n    Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,\n    By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,\n    To set my brother Clarence and the King\n    In deadly hate the one against the other;\n    And if King Edward be as true and just\n    As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,\n    This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up-\n    About a prophecy which says that G\n    Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.\n    Dive, thoughts, down to my soul. Here Clarence comes.\n\n             Enter CLARENCE, guarded, and BRAKENBURY\n\n    Brother, good day. What means this armed guard\n    That waits upon your Grace?\n  CLARENCE. His Majesty,\n    Tend'ring my person's safety, hath appointed\n    This conduct to convey me to th' Tower.\n  GLOUCESTER. Upon what cause?\n  CLARENCE. Because my name is George.\n  GLOUCESTER. Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours:\n    He should, for that, commit your godfathers.\n    O, belike his Majesty hath some intent\n    That you should be new-christ'ned in the Tower.\n    But what's the matter, Clarence? May I know?\n  CLARENCE. Yea, Richard, when I know; for I protest\n    As yet I do not; but, as I can learn,\n    He hearkens after prophecies and dreams,\n    And from the cross-row plucks the letter G,\n    And says a wizard told him that by G\n    His issue disinherited should be;\n    And, for my name of George begins with G,\n    It follows in his thought that I am he.\n    These, as I learn, and such like toys as these\n    Hath mov'd his Highness to commit me now.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, this it is when men are rul'd by women:\n    'Tis not the King that sends you to the Tower;\n    My Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, 'tis she\n    That tempers him to this extremity.\n    Was it not she and that good man of worship,\n    Antony Woodville, her brother there,\n    That made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower,\n    From whence this present day he is delivered?\n    We are not safe, Clarence; we are not safe.\n  CLARENCE. By heaven, I think there is no man is secure\n    But the Queen's kindred, and night-walking heralds\n    That trudge betwixt the King and Mistress Shore.\n    Heard you not what an humble suppliant\n    Lord Hastings was, for her delivery?\n  GLOUCESTER. Humbly complaining to her deity\n    Got my Lord Chamberlain his liberty.\n    I'll tell you what-I think it is our way,\n    If we will keep in favour with the King,\n    To be her men and wear her livery:\n    The jealous o'er-worn widow, and herself,\n    Since that our brother dubb'd them gentlewomen,\n    Are mighty gossips in our monarchy.\n  BRAKENBURY. I beseech your Graces both to pardon me:\n    His Majesty hath straitly given in charge\n    That no man shall have private conference,\n    Of what degree soever, with your brother.\n  GLOUCESTER. Even so; an't please your worship, Brakenbury,\n    You may partake of any thing we say:\n    We speak no treason, man; we say the King\n    Is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen\n    Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous;\n    We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,\n    A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue;\n    And that the Queen's kindred are made gentlefolks.\n    How say you, sir? Can you deny all this?\n  BRAKENBURY. With this, my lord, myself have naught to do.\n  GLOUCESTER. Naught to do with Mistress Shore! I tell thee,\n    fellow,\n    He that doth naught with her, excepting one,\n    Were best to do it secretly alone.\n  BRAKENBURY. What one, my lord?\n  GLOUCESTER. Her husband, knave! Wouldst thou betray me?\n  BRAKENBURY. I do beseech your Grace to pardon me, and\n    withal\n    Forbear your conference with the noble Duke.\n  CLARENCE. We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will\n    obey.\n  GLOUCESTER. We are the Queen's abjects and must obey.\n    Brother, farewell; I will unto the King;\n    And whatsoe'er you will employ me in-\n    Were it to call King Edward's widow sister-\n    I will perform it to enfranchise you.\n    Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood\n    Touches me deeper than you can imagine.\n  CLARENCE. I know it pleaseth neither of us well.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well, your imprisonment shall not be long;\n    I will deliver or else lie for you.\n    Meantime, have patience.\n  CLARENCE. I must perforce. Farewell.\n                          Exeunt CLARENCE, BRAKENBURY, and guard\n  GLOUCESTER. Go tread the path that thou shalt ne'er return.\n    Simple, plain Clarence, I do love thee so\n    That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,\n    If heaven will take the present at our hands.\n    But who comes here? The new-delivered Hastings?\n\n                       Enter LORD HASTINGS\n\n  HASTINGS. Good time of day unto my gracious lord!\n  GLOUCESTER. As much unto my good Lord Chamberlain!\n    Well are you welcome to the open air.\n    How hath your lordship brook'd imprisonment?\n  HASTINGS. With patience, noble lord, as prisoners must;\n    But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks\n    That were the cause of my imprisonment.\n  GLOUCESTER. No doubt, no doubt; and so shall Clarence too;\n    For they that were your enemies are his,\n    And have prevail'd as much on him as you.\n  HASTINGS. More pity that the eagles should be mew'd\n    Whiles kites and buzzards prey at liberty.\n  GLOUCESTER. What news abroad?\n  HASTINGS. No news so bad abroad as this at home:\n    The King is sickly, weak, and melancholy,\n    And his physicians fear him mightily.\n  GLOUCESTER. Now, by Saint John, that news is bad indeed.\n    O, he hath kept an evil diet long\n    And overmuch consum'd his royal person!\n    'Tis very grievous to be thought upon.\n    Where is he? In his bed?\n  HASTINGS. He is.\n  GLOUCESTER. Go you before, and I will follow you.\n                                                   Exit HASTINGS\n    He cannot live, I hope, and must not die\n    Till George be pack'd with posthorse up to heaven.\n    I'll in to urge his hatred more to Clarence\n    With lies well steel'd with weighty arguments;\n    And, if I fail not in my deep intent,\n    Clarence hath not another day to live;\n    Which done, God take King Edward to his mercy,\n    And leave the world for me to bustle in!\n    For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter.\n    What though I kill'd her husband and her father?\n    The readiest way to make the wench amends\n    Is to become her husband and her father;\n    The which will I-not all so much for love\n    As for another secret close intent\n    By marrying her which I must reach unto.\n    But yet I run before my horse to market.\n    Clarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns;\n    When they are gone, then must I count my gains.         Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nLondon. Another street\n\nEnter corpse of KING HENRY THE SIXTH, with halberds to guard it;\nLADY ANNE being the mourner, attended by TRESSEL and BERKELEY\n\n  ANNE. Set down, set down your honourable load-\n    If honour may be shrouded in a hearse;\n    Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament\n    Th' untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.\n    Poor key-cold figure of a holy king!\n    Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster!\n    Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!\n    Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost\n    To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,\n    Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughtered son,\n    Stabb'd by the self-same hand that made these wounds.\n    Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life\n    I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.\n    O, cursed be the hand that made these holes!\n    Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it!\n    Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence!\n    More direful hap betide that hated wretch\n    That makes us wretched by the death of thee\n    Than I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,\n    Or any creeping venom'd thing that lives!\n    If ever he have child, abortive be it,\n    Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,\n    Whose ugly and unnatural aspect\n    May fright the hopeful mother at the view,\n    And that be heir to his unhappiness!\n    If ever he have wife, let her be made\n    More miserable by the death of him\n    Than I am made by my young lord and thee!\n    Come, now towards Chertsey with your holy load,\n    Taken from Paul's to be interred there;\n    And still as you are weary of this weight\n    Rest you, whiles I lament King Henry's corse.\n                                [The bearers take up the coffin]\n\n                      Enter GLOUCESTER\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Stay, you that bear the corse, and set it down.\n  ANNE. What black magician conjures up this fiend\n    To stop devoted charitable deeds?\n  GLOUCESTER. Villains, set down the corse; or, by Saint Paul,\n    I'll make a corse of him that disobeys!\n  FIRST GENTLEMAN. My lord, stand back, and let the coffin\n    pass.\n  GLOUCESTER. Unmannerd dog! Stand thou, when I command.\n    Advance thy halberd higher than my breast,\n    Or, by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot\n    And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.\n                               [The bearers set down the coffin]\n  ANNE. What, do you tremble? Are you all afraid?\n    Alas, I blame you not, for you are mortal,\n    And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.\n    Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!\n    Thou hadst but power over his mortal body,\n    His soul thou canst not have; therefore, be gone.\n  GLOUCESTER. Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.\n  ANNE. Foul devil, for God's sake, hence and trouble us not;\n    For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell\n    Fill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.\n    If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,\n    Behold this pattern of thy butcheries.\n    O, gentlemen, see, see! Dead Henry's wounds\n    Open their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh.\n    Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity,\n    For 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood\n    From cold and empty veins where no blood dwells;\n    Thy deeds inhuman and unnatural\n    Provokes this deluge most unnatural.\n    O God, which this blood mad'st, revenge his death!\n    O earth, which this blood drink'st, revenge his death!\n    Either, heav'n, with lightning strike the murd'rer dead;\n    Or, earth, gape open wide and eat him quick,\n    As thou dost swallow up this good king's blood,\n    Which his hell-govern'd arm hath butchered.\n  GLOUCESTER. Lady, you know no rules of charity,\n    Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.\n  ANNE. Villain, thou knowest nor law of God nor man:\n    No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.\n  GLOUCESTER. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.\n  ANNE. O wonderful, when devils tell the truth!\n  GLOUCESTER. More wonderful when angels are so angry.\n    Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,\n    Of these supposed crimes to give me leave\n    By circumstance but to acquit myself.\n  ANNE. Vouchsafe, diffus'd infection of a man,\n    Of these known evils but to give me leave\n    By circumstance to accuse thy cursed self.\n  GLOUCESTER. Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have\n    Some patient leisure to excuse myself.\n  ANNE. Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make\n    No excuse current but to hang thyself.\n  GLOUCESTER. By such despair I should accuse myself.\n  ANNE. And by despairing shalt thou stand excused\n    For doing worthy vengeance on thyself\n    That didst unworthy slaughter upon others.\n  GLOUCESTER. Say that I slew them not?\n  ANNE. Then say they were not slain.\n    But dead they are, and, devilish slave, by thee.\n  GLOUCESTER. I did not kill your husband.\n  ANNE. Why, then he is alive.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nay, he is dead, and slain by Edward's hands.\n  ANNE. In thy foul throat thou liest: Queen Margaret saw\n    Thy murd'rous falchion smoking in his blood;\n    The which thou once didst bend against her breast,\n    But that thy brothers beat aside the point.\n  GLOUCESTER. I was provoked by her sland'rous tongue\n    That laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.\n  ANNE. Thou wast provoked by thy bloody mind,\n    That never dream'st on aught but butcheries.\n    Didst thou not kill this king?\n  GLOUCESTER. I grant ye.\n  ANNE. Dost grant me, hedgehog? Then, God grant me to\n    Thou mayst be damned for that wicked deed!\n    O, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous!\n  GLOUCESTER. The better for the King of Heaven, that hath\n    him.\n  ANNE. He is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.\n  GLOUCESTER. Let him thank me that holp to send him\n    thither,\n    For he was fitter for that place than earth.\n  ANNE. And thou unfit for any place but hell.\n  GLOUCESTER. Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.\n  ANNE. Some dungeon.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your bed-chamber.\n  ANNE. Ill rest betide the chamber where thou liest!\n  GLOUCESTER. So will it, madam, till I lie with you.\n  ANNE. I hope so.\n  GLOUCESTER. I know so. But, gentle Lady Anne,\n    To leave this keen encounter of our wits,\n    And fall something into a slower method-\n    Is not the causer of the timeless deaths\n    Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,\n    As blameful as the executioner?\n  ANNE. Thou wast the cause and most accurs'd effect.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your beauty was the cause of that effect-\n    Your beauty that did haunt me in my sleep\n    To undertake the death of all the world\n    So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.\n  ANNE. If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,\n    These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.\n  GLOUCESTER. These eyes could not endure that beauty's\n    wreck;\n    You should not blemish it if I stood by.\n    As all the world is cheered by the sun,\n    So I by that; it is my day, my life.\n  ANNE. Black night o'ershade thy day, and death thy life!\n  GLOUCESTER. Curse not thyself, fair creature; thou art both.\n  ANNE. I would I were, to be reveng'd on thee.\n  GLOUCESTER. It is a quarrel most unnatural,\n    To be reveng'd on him that loveth thee.\n  ANNE. It is a quarrel just and reasonable,\n    To be reveng'd on him that kill'd my husband.\n  GLOUCESTER. He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband\n    Did it to help thee to a better husband.\n  ANNE. His better doth not breathe upon the earth.\n  GLOUCESTER. He lives that loves thee better than he could.\n  ANNE. Name him.\n  GLOUCESTER. Plantagenet.\n  ANNE. Why, that was he.\n  GLOUCESTER. The self-same name, but one of better nature.\n  ANNE. Where is he?\n  GLOUCESTER. Here.  [She spits at him]  Why dost thou spit\n    at me?\n  ANNE. Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake!\n  GLOUCESTER. Never came poison from so sweet a place.\n  ANNE. Never hung poison on a fouler toad.\n    Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes.\n  GLOUCESTER. Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.\n  ANNE. Would they were basilisks to strike thee dead!\n  GLOUCESTER. I would they were, that I might die at once;\n    For now they kill me with a living death.\n    Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,\n    Sham'd their aspects with store of childish drops-\n    These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear,\n    No, when my father York and Edward wept\n    To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made\n    When black-fac'd Clifford shook his sword at him;\n    Nor when thy warlike father, like a child,\n    Told the sad story of my father's death,\n    And twenty times made pause to sob and weep\n    That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks\n    Like trees bedash'd with rain-in that sad time\n    My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;\n    And what these sorrows could not thence exhale\n    Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.\n    I never sued to friend nor enemy;\n    My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word;\n    But, now thy beauty is propos'd my fee,\n    My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.\n                                   [She looks scornfully at him]\n    Teach not thy lip such scorn; for it was made\n    For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.\n    If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,\n    Lo here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword;\n    Which if thou please to hide in this true breast\n    And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,\n    I lay it naked to the deadly stroke,\n    And humbly beg the death upon my knee.\n      [He lays his breast open; she offers at it with his sword]\n    Nay, do not pause; for I did kill King Henry-\n    But 'twas thy beauty that provoked me.\n    Nay, now dispatch; 'twas I that stabb'd young Edward-\n    But 'twas thy heavenly face that set me on.\n                                           [She falls the sword]\n    Take up the sword again, or take up me.\n  ANNE. Arise, dissembler; though I wish thy death,\n    I will not be thy executioner.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it;\n  ANNE. I have already.\n  GLOUCESTER. That was in thy rage.\n    Speak it again, and even with the word\n    This hand, which for thy love did kill thy love,\n    Shall for thy love kill a far truer love;\n    To both their deaths shalt thou be accessary.\n  ANNE. I would I knew thy heart.\n  GLOUCESTER. 'Tis figur'd in my tongue.\n  ANNE. I fear me both are false.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then never was man true.\n  ANNE. well put up your sword.\n  GLOUCESTER. Say, then, my peace is made.\n  ANNE. That shalt thou know hereafter.\n  GLOUCESTER. But shall I live in hope?\n  ANNE. All men, I hope, live so.\n  GLOUCESTER. Vouchsafe to wear this ring.\n  ANNE. To take is not to give.               [Puts on the ring]\n  GLOUCESTER. Look how my ring encompasseth thy finger,\n    Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart;\n    Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.\n    And if thy poor devoted servant may\n    But beg one favour at thy gracious hand,\n    Thou dost confirm his happiness for ever.\n  ANNE. What is it?\n  GLOUCESTER. That it may please you leave these sad designs\n    To him that hath most cause to be a mourner,\n    And presently repair to Crosby House;\n    Where-after I have solemnly interr'd\n    At Chertsey monast'ry this noble king,\n    And wet his grave with my repentant tears-\n    I will with all expedient duty see you.\n    For divers unknown reasons, I beseech you,\n    Grant me this boon.\n  ANNE. With all my heart; and much it joys me too\n    To see you are become so penitent.\n    Tressel and Berkeley, go along with me.\n  GLOUCESTER. Bid me farewell.\n  ANNE. 'Tis more than you deserve;\n    But since you teach me how to flatter you,\n    Imagine I have said farewell already.\n                             Exeunt two GENTLEMEN With LADY ANNE\n  GLOUCESTER. Sirs, take up the corse.\n  GENTLEMEN. Towards Chertsey, noble lord?\n  GLOUCESTER. No, to White Friars; there attend my coming.\n                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER\n    Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?\n    Was ever woman in this humour won?\n    I'll have her; but I will not keep her long.\n    What! I that kill'd her husband and his father-\n    To take her in her heart's extremest hate,\n    With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,\n    The bleeding witness of my hatred by;\n    Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,\n    And I no friends to back my suit at all\n    But the plain devil and dissembling looks,\n    And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!\n    Ha!\n    Hath she forgot already that brave prince,\n    Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,\n    Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury?\n    A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman-\n    Fram'd in the prodigality of nature,\n    Young, valiant, wise, and no doubt right royal-\n    The spacious world cannot again afford;\n    And will she yet abase her eyes on me,\n    That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince\n    And made her widow to a woeful bed?\n    On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?\n    On me, that halts and am misshapen thus?\n    My dukedom to a beggarly denier,\n    I do mistake my person all this while.\n    Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,\n    Myself to be a marv'llous proper man.\n    I'll be at charges for a looking-glass,\n    And entertain a score or two of tailors\n    To study fashions to adorn my body.\n    Since I am crept in favour with myself,\n    I will maintain it with some little cost.\n    But first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave,\n    And then return lamenting to my love.\n    Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,\n    That I may see my shadow as I pass.                     Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter QUEEN ELIZABETH, LORD RIVERS, and LORD GREY\n\n  RIVERS. Have patience, madam; there's no doubt his Majesty\n    Will soon recover his accustom'd health.\n  GREY. In that you brook it ill, it makes him worse;\n    Therefore, for God's sake, entertain good comfort,\n    And cheer his Grace with quick and merry eyes.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. If he were dead, what would betide on\n    me?\n  GREY. No other harm but loss of such a lord.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The loss of such a lord includes all\n    harms.\n  GREY. The heavens have bless'd you with a goodly son\n    To be your comforter when he is gone.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, he is young; and his minority\n    Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,\n    A man that loves not me, nor none of you.\n  RIVER. Is it concluded he shall be Protector?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. It is determin'd, not concluded yet;\n    But so it must be, if the King miscarry.\n\n                     Enter BUCKINGHAM and DERBY\n\n  GREY. Here come the Lords of Buckingham and Derby.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Good time of day unto your royal Grace!\n  DERBY. God make your Majesty joyful as you have been.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The Countess Richmond, good my Lord\n    of Derby,\n    To your good prayer will scarcely say amen.\n    Yet, Derby, notwithstanding she's your wife\n    And loves not me, be you, good lord, assur'd\n    I hate not you for her proud arrogance.\n  DERBY. I do beseech you, either not believe\n    The envious slanders of her false accusers;\n    Or, if she be accus'd on true report,\n    Bear with her weakness, which I think proceeds\n    From wayward sickness and no grounded malice.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Saw you the King to-day, my Lord of\n    Derby?\n  DERBY. But now the Duke of Buckingham and I\n    Are come from visiting his Majesty.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What likelihood of his amendment,\n    Lords?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Madam, good hope; his Grace speaks\n    cheerfully.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. God grant him health! Did you confer\n    with him?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Ay, madam; he desires to make atonement\n    Between the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,\n    And between them and my Lord Chamberlain;\n    And sent to warn them to his royal presence.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Would all were well! But that will\n    never be.\n    I fear our happiness is at the height.\n\n              Enter GLOUCESTER, HASTINGS, and DORSET\n\n  GLOUCESTER. They do me wrong, and I will not endure it.\n    Who is it that complains unto the King\n    That I, forsooth, am stern and love them not?\n    By holy Paul, they love his Grace but lightly\n    That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.\n    Because I cannot flatter and look fair,\n    Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,\n    Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,\n    I must be held a rancorous enemy.\n    Cannot a plain man live and think no harm\n    But thus his simple truth must be abus'd\n    With silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?\n  GREY. To who in all this presence speaks your Grace?\n  GLOUCESTER. To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.\n    When have I injur'd thee? when done thee wrong,\n    Or thee, or thee, or any of your faction?\n    A plague upon you all! His royal Grace-\n    Whom God preserve better than you would wish!-\n    Cannot be quiet searce a breathing while\n    But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the\n    matter.\n    The King, on his own royal disposition\n    And not provok'd by any suitor else-\n    Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred\n    That in your outward action shows itself\n    Against my children, brothers, and myself-\n    Makes him to send that he may learn the ground.\n  GLOUCESTER. I cannot tell; the world is grown so bad\n    That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.\n    Since every Jack became a gentleman,\n    There's many a gentle person made a Jack.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Come, come, we know your meaning,\n    brother Gloucester:\n    You envy my advancement and my friends';\n    God grant we never may have need of you!\n  GLOUCESTER. Meantime, God grants that I have need of you.\n    Our brother is imprison'd by your means,\n    Myself disgrac'd, and the nobility\n    Held in contempt; while great promotions\n    Are daily given to ennoble those\n    That scarce some two days since were worth a noble.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. By Him that rais'd me to this careful\n    height\n    From that contented hap which I enjoy'd,\n    I never did incense his Majesty\n    Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been\n    An earnest advocate to plead for him.\n    My lord, you do me shameful injury\n    Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.\n  GLOUCESTER. You may deny that you were not the mean\n    Of my Lord Hastings' late imprisonment.\n  RIVERS. She may, my lord; for-\n  GLOUCESTER. She may, Lord Rivers? Why, who knows\n    not so?\n    She may do more, sir, than denying that:\n    She may help you to many fair preferments\n    And then deny her aiding hand therein,\n    And lay those honours on your high desert.\n    What may she not? She may-ay, marry, may she-\n  RIVERS. What, marry, may she?\n  GLOUCESTER. What, marry, may she? Marry with a king,\n    A bachelor, and a handsome stripling too.\n    Iwis your grandam had a worser match.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My Lord of Gloucester, I have too long\n    borne\n    Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs.\n    By heaven, I will acquaint his Majesty\n    Of those gross taunts that oft I have endur'd.\n    I had rather be a country servant-maid\n    Than a great queen with this condition-\n    To be so baited, scorn'd, and stormed at.\n\n                Enter old QUEEN MARGARET, behind\n\n    Small joy have I in being England's Queen.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. And less'ned be that small, God, I\n    beseech Him!\n    Thy honour, state, and seat, is due to me.\n  GLOUCESTER. What! Threat you me with telling of the\n    King?\n    Tell him and spare not. Look what I have said\n    I will avouch't in presence of the King.\n    I dare adventure to be sent to th' Tow'r.\n    'Tis time to speak-my pains are quite forgot.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Out, devil! I do remember them to\n    well:\n    Thou kill'dst my husband Henry in the Tower,\n    And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband\n    King,\n    I was a pack-horse in his great affairs,\n    A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,\n    A liberal rewarder of his friends;\n    To royalize his blood I spent mine own.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, and much better blood than his or\n    thine.\n  GLOUCESTER. In all which time you and your husband Grey\n    Were factious for the house of Lancaster;\n    And, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband\n    In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans slain?\n    Let me put in your minds, if you forget,\n    What you have been ere this, and what you are;\n    Withal, what I have been, and what I am.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. A murd'rous villain, and so still thou art.\n  GLOUCESTER. Poor Clarence did forsake his father, Warwick,\n    Ay, and forswore himself-which Jesu pardon!-\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Which God revenge!\n  GLOUCESTER. To fight on Edward's party for the crown;\n    And for his meed, poor lord, he is mewed up.\n    I would to God my heart were flint like Edward's,\n    Or Edward's soft and pitiful like mine.\n    I am too childish-foolish for this world.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Hie thee to hell for shame and leave this\n    world,\n    Thou cacodemon; there thy kingdom is.\n  RIVERS. My Lord of Gloucester, in those busy days\n    Which here you urge to prove us enemies,\n    We follow'd then our lord, our sovereign king.\n    So should we you, if you should be our king.\n  GLOUCESTER. If I should be! I had rather be a pedlar.\n    Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose\n    You should enjoy were you this country's king,\n    As little joy you may suppose in me\n    That I enjoy, being the Queen thereof.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. As little joy enjoys the Queen thereof;\n    For I am she, and altogether joyless.\n    I can no longer hold me patient.                 [Advancing]\n    Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out\n    In sharing that which you have pill'd from me.\n    Which of you trembles not that looks on me?\n    If not that, I am Queen, you bow like subjects,\n    Yet that, by you depos'd, you quake like rebels?\n    Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away!\n  GLOUCESTER. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in my\n    sight?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. But repetition of what thou hast marr'd,\n    That will I make before I let thee go.\n  GLOUCESTER. Wert thou not banished on pain of death?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I was; but I do find more pain in\n    banishment\n    Than death can yield me here by my abode.\n    A husband and a son thou ow'st to me;\n    And thou a kingdom; all of you allegiance.\n    This sorrow that I have by right is yours;\n    And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.\n  GLOUCESTER. The curse my noble father laid on thee,\n    When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper\n    And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes,\n    And then to dry them gav'st the Duke a clout\n    Steep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland-\n    His curses then from bitterness of soul\n    Denounc'd against thee are all fall'n upon thee;\n    And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. So just is God to right the innocent.\n  HASTINGS. O, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,\n    And the most merciless that e'er was heard of!\n  RIVERS. Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.\n  DORSET. No man but prophesied revenge for it.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. What, were you snarling all before I came,\n    Ready to catch each other by the throat,\n    And turn you all your hatred now on me?\n    Did York's dread curse prevail so much with heaven\n    That Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,\n    Their kingdom's loss, my woeful banishment,\n    Should all but answer for that peevish brat?\n    Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?\n    Why then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!\n    Though not by war, by surfeit die your king,\n    As ours by murder, to make him a king!\n    Edward thy son, that now is Prince of Wales,\n    For Edward our son, that was Prince of Wales,\n    Die in his youth by like untimely violence!\n    Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,\n    Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self!\n    Long mayest thou live to wail thy children's death,\n    And see another, as I see thee now,\n    Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall'd in mine!\n    Long die thy happy days before thy death;\n    And, after many length'ned hours of grief,\n    Die neither mother, wife, nor England's Queen!\n    Rivers and Dorset, you were standers by,\n    And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son\n    Was stabb'd with bloody daggers. God, I pray him,\n    That none of you may live his natural age,\n    But by some unlook'd accident cut off!\n  GLOUCESTER. Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd\n    hag.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. And leave out thee? Stay, dog, for thou\n    shalt hear me.\n    If heaven have any grievous plague in store\n    Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,\n    O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,\n    And then hurl down their indignation\n    On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!\n    The worm of conscience still be-gnaw thy soul!\n    Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st,\n    And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!\n    No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,\n    Unless it be while some tormenting dream\n    Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!\n    Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog,\n    Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity\n    The slave of nature and the son of hell,\n    Thou slander of thy heavy mother's womb,\n    Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins,\n    Thou rag of honour, thou detested-\n  GLOUCESTER. Margaret!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Richard!\n  GLOUCESTER. Ha?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I call thee not.\n  GLOUCESTER. I cry thee mercy then, for I did think\n    That thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Why, so I did, but look'd for no reply.\n    O, let me make the period to my curse!\n  GLOUCESTER. 'Tis done by me, and ends in-Margaret.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thus have you breath'd your curse\n    against yourself.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my\n    fortune!\n    Why strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider\n    Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?\n    Fool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself.\n    The day will come that thou shalt wish for me\n    To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-back'd toad.\n  HASTINGS. False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,\n    Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Foul shame upon you! you have all\n    mov'd mine.\n  RIVERS. Were you well serv'd, you would be taught your\n      duty.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. To serve me well you all should do me\n    duty,\n    Teach me to be your queen and you my subjects.\n    O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!\n  DORSET. Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Peace, Master Marquis, you are malapert;\n    Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.\n    O, that your young nobility could judge\n    What 'twere to lose it and be miserable!\n    They that stand high have many blasts to shake them,\n    And if they fall they dash themselves to pieces.\n  GLOUCESTER. Good counsel, marry; learn it, learn it, Marquis.\n  DORSET. It touches you, my lord, as much as me.\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, and much more; but I was born so high,\n    Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top,\n    And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. And turns the sun to shade-alas! alas!\n    Witness my son, now in the shade of death,\n    Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath\n    Hath in eternal darkness folded up.\n    Your aery buildeth in our aery's nest.\n    O God that seest it, do not suffer it;\n    As it is won with blood, lost be it so!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Urge neither charity nor shame to me.\n    Uncharitably with me have you dealt,\n    And shamefully my hopes by you are butcher'd.\n    My charity is outrage, life my shame;\n    And in that shame still live my sorrow's rage!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Have done, have done.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. O princely Buckingham, I'll kiss thy\n    hand\n    In sign of league and amity with thee.\n    Now fair befall thee and thy noble house!\n    Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,\n    Nor thou within the compass of my curse.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Nor no one here; for curses never pass\n    The lips of those that breathe them in the air.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I will not think but they ascend the sky\n    And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.\n    O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!\n    Look when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,\n    His venom tooth will rankle to the death:\n    Have not to do with him, beware of him;\n    Sin, death, and hell, have set their marks on him,\n    And all their ministers attend on him.\n  GLOUCESTER. What doth she say, my Lord of Buckingham?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle\n    counsel,\n    And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?\n    O, but remember this another day,\n    When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,\n    And say poor Margaret was a prophetess!\n    Live each of you the subjects to his hate,\n    And he to yours, and all of you to God's!               Exit\n  BUCKINGHAM. My hair doth stand an end to hear her curses.\n  RIVERS. And so doth mine. I muse why she's at liberty.\n  GLOUCESTER. I cannot blame her; by God's holy Mother,\n    She hath had too much wrong; and I repent\n    My part thereof that I have done to her.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I never did her any to my knowledge.\n  GLOUCESTER. Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.\n    I was too hot to do somebody good\n    That is too cold in thinking of it now.\n    Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid;\n    He is frank'd up to fatting for his pains;\n    God pardon them that are the cause thereof!\n  RIVERS. A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,\n    To pray for them that have done scathe to us!\n  GLOUCESTER. So do I ever-  [Aside]  being well advis'd;\n    For had I curs'd now, I had curs'd myself.\n\n                         Enter CATESBY\n\n  CATESBY. Madam, his Majesty doth can for you,\n    And for your Grace, and you, my gracious lords.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Catesby, I come. Lords, will you go\n    with me?\n  RIVERS. We wait upon your Grace.\n                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER\n  GLOUCESTER. I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.\n    The secret mischiefs that I set abroach\n    I lay unto the grievous charge of others.\n    Clarence, who I indeed have cast in darkness,\n    I do beweep to many simple gulls;\n    Namely, to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham;\n    And tell them 'tis the Queen and her allies\n    That stir the King against the Duke my brother.\n    Now they believe it, and withal whet me\n    To be reveng'd on Rivers, Dorset, Grey;\n    But then I sigh and, with a piece of Scripture,\n    Tell them that God bids us do good for evil.\n    And thus I clothe my naked villainy\n    With odd old ends stol'n forth of holy writ,\n    And seem a saint when most I play the devil.\n\n                       Enter two MURDERERS\n\n    But, soft, here come my executioners.\n    How now, my hardy stout resolved mates!\n    Are you now going to dispatch this thing?\n  FIRST MURDERER. We are, my lord, and come to have the\n    warrant,\n    That we may be admitted where he is.\n  GLOUCESTER. Well thought upon; I have it here about me.\n                                             [Gives the warrant]\n    When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.\n    But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,\n    Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead;\n    For Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps\n    May move your hearts to pity, if you mark him.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to\n    prate;\n    Talkers are no good doers. Be assur'd\n    We go to use our hands and not our tongues.\n  GLOUCESTER. Your eyes drop millstones when fools' eyes fall\n    tears.\n    I like you, lads; about your business straight;\n    Go, go, dispatch.\n  FIRST MURDERER. We will, my noble lord.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nLondon. The Tower\n\nEnter CLARENCE and KEEPER\n\n  KEEPER. Why looks your Grace so heavily to-day?\n  CLARENCE. O, I have pass'd a miserable night,\n    So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,\n    That, as I am a Christian faithful man,\n    I would not spend another such a night\n    Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days-\n    So full of dismal terror was the time!\n  KEEPER. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you\n    tell me.\n  CLARENCE. Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower\n    And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;\n    And in my company my brother Gloucester,\n    Who from my cabin tempted me to walk\n    Upon the hatches. Thence we look'd toward England,\n    And cited up a thousand heavy times,\n    During the wars of York and Lancaster,\n    That had befall'n us. As we pac'd along\n    Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,\n    Methought that Gloucester stumbled, and in falling\n    Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard\n    Into the tumbling billows of the main.\n    O Lord, methought what pain it was to drown,\n    What dreadful noise of waters in my ears,\n    What sights of ugly death within my eyes!\n    Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wrecks,\n    A thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon,\n    Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,\n    Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,\n    All scatt'red in the bottom of the sea;\n    Some lay in dead men's skulls, and in the holes\n    Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept,\n    As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,\n    That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep\n    And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatt'red by.\n  KEEPER. Had you such leisure in the time of death\n    To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?\n  CLARENCE. Methought I had; and often did I strive\n    To yield the ghost, but still the envious flood\n    Stopp'd in my soul and would not let it forth\n    To find the empty, vast, and wand'ring air;\n    But smother'd it within my panting bulk,\n    Who almost burst to belch it in the sea.\n  KEEPER. Awak'd you not in this sore agony?\n  CLARENCE. No, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life.\n    O, then began the tempest to my soul!\n    I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood\n    With that sour ferryman which poets write of,\n    Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.\n    The first that there did greet my stranger soul\n    Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick,\n    Who spake aloud 'What scourge for perjury\n    Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?'\n    And so he vanish'd. Then came wand'ring by\n    A shadow like an angel, with bright hair\n    Dabbled in blood, and he shriek'd out aloud\n    'Clarence is come-false, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence,\n    That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury.\n    Seize on him, Furies, take him unto torment!'\n    With that, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends\n    Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears\n    Such hideous cries that, with the very noise,\n    I trembling wak'd, and for a season after\n    Could not believe but that I was in hell,\n    Such terrible impression made my dream.\n  KEEPER. No marvel, lord, though it affrighted you;\n    I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.\n  CLARENCE. Ah, Keeper, Keeper, I have done these things\n    That now give evidence against my soul\n    For Edward's sake, and see how he requites me!\n    O God! If my deep prayers cannot appease Thee,\n    But Thou wilt be aveng'd on my misdeeds,\n    Yet execute Thy wrath in me alone;\n    O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children!\n    Keeper, I prithee sit by me awhile;\n    My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.\n  KEEPER. I will, my lord. God give your Grace good rest.\n                                               [CLARENCE sleeps]\n\n                  Enter BRAKENBURY the Lieutenant\n\n  BRAKENBURY. Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,\n    Makes the night morning and the noontide night.\n    Princes have but their titles for their glories,\n    An outward honour for an inward toil;\n    And for unfelt imaginations\n    They often feel a world of restless cares,\n    So that between their tides and low name\n    There's nothing differs but the outward fame.\n\n                      Enter the two MURDERERS\n\n  FIRST MURDERER. Ho! who's here?\n  BRAKENBURY. What wouldst thou, fellow, and how cam'st\n    thou hither?\n  FIRST MURDERER. I would speak with Clarence, and I came\n    hither on my legs.\n  BRAKENBURY. What, so brief?\n  SECOND MURDERER. 'Tis better, sir, than to be tedious. Let\n    him see our commission and talk no more.\n                                           [BRAKENBURY reads it]\n  BRAKENBURY. I am, in this, commanded to deliver\n    The noble Duke of Clarence to your hands.\n    I will not reason what is meant hereby,\n    Because I will be guiltless from the meaning.\n    There lies the Duke asleep; and there the keys.\n    I'll to the King and signify to him\n    That thus I have resign'd to you my charge.\n  FIRST MURDERER. You may, sir; 'tis a point of wisdom. Fare\n    you well.                       Exeunt BRAKENBURY and KEEPER\n  SECOND MURDERER. What, shall I stab him as he sleeps?\n  FIRST MURDERER. No; he'll say 'twas done cowardly, when\n    he wakes.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Why, he shall never wake until the great\n    judgment-day.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Why, then he'll say we stabb'd him\n    sleeping.\n  SECOND MURDERER. The urging of that word judgment hath\n    bred a kind of remorse in me.\n  FIRST MURDERER. What, art thou afraid?\n  SECOND MURDERER. Not to kill him, having a warrant; but to\n    be damn'd for killing him, from the which no warrant can\n    defend me.\n  FIRST MURDERER. I thought thou hadst been resolute.\n  SECOND MURDERER. So I am, to let him live.\n  FIRST MURDERER. I'll back to the Duke of Gloucester and\n    tell him so.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Nay, I prithee, stay a little. I hope this\n    passionate humour of mine will change; it was wont to\n    hold me but while one tells twenty.\n  FIRST MURDERER. How dost thou feel thyself now?\n    SECOND MURDERER. Faith, some certain dregs of conscience\n    are yet within me.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Remember our reward, when the deed's\n    done.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Zounds, he dies; I had forgot the reward.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Where's thy conscience now?\n  SECOND MURDERER. O, in the Duke of Gloucester's purse!\n  FIRST MURDERER. When he opens his purse to give us our\n    reward, thy conscience flies out.\n  SECOND MURDERER. 'Tis no matter; let it go; there's few or\n    none will entertain it.\n  FIRST MURDERER. What if it come to thee again?\n  SECOND MURDERER. I'll not meddle with it-it makes a man\n    coward: a man cannot steal, but it accuseth him; a man\n    cannot swear, but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his\n    neighbour's wife, but it detects him. 'Tis a blushing shame-\n    fac'd spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills a man\n    full of obstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold\n    that-by chance I found. It beggars any man that keeps it.\n    It is turn'd out of towns and cities for a dangerous thing;\n    and every man that means to live well endeavours to trust\n    to himself and live without it.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Zounds, 'tis even now at my elbow,\n    persuading me not to kill the Duke.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Take the devil in thy mind and believe\n    him not; he would insinuate with thee but to make the\n    sigh.\n  FIRST MURDERER. I am strong-fram'd; he cannot prevail with\n    me.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Spoke like a tall man that respects thy\n    reputation. Come, shall we fall to work?\n  FIRST MURDERER. Take him on the costard with the hilts of\n    thy sword, and then chop him in the malmsey-butt in the\n    next room.\n  SECOND MURDERER. O excellent device! and make a sop of\n    him.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Soft! he wakes.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Strike!\n  FIRST MURDERER. No, we'll reason with him.\n  CLARENCE. Where art thou, Keeper? Give me a cup of wine.\n  SECOND MURDERER. You shall have wine enough, my lord,\n    anon.\n  CLARENCE. In God's name, what art thou?\n  FIRST MURDERER. A man, as you are.\n  CLARENCE. But not as I am, royal.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Nor you as we are, loyal.\n  CLARENCE. Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble.\n  FIRST MURDERER. My voice is now the King's, my looks\n    mine own.\n  CLARENCE. How darkly and how deadly dost thou speak!\n    Your eyes do menace me. Why look you pale?\n    Who sent you hither? Wherefore do you come?\n  SECOND MURDERER. To, to, to-\n  CLARENCE. To murder me?\n  BOTH MURDERERS. Ay, ay.\n  CLARENCE. You scarcely have the hearts to tell me so,\n    And therefore cannot have the hearts to do it.\n    Wherein, my friends, have I offended you?\n  FIRST MURDERER. Offended us you have not, but the King.\n  CLARENCE. I shall be reconcil'd to him again.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Never, my lord; therefore prepare to die.\n  CLARENCE. Are you drawn forth among a world of men\n    To slay the innocent? What is my offence?\n    Where is the evidence that doth accuse me?\n    What lawful quest have given their verdict up\n    Unto the frowning judge, or who pronounc'd\n    The bitter sentence of poor Clarence' death?\n    Before I be convict by course of law,\n    To threaten me with death is most unlawful.\n    I charge you, as you hope to have redemption\n    By Christ's dear blood shed for our grievous sins,\n    That you depart and lay no hands on me.\n    The deed you undertake is damnable.\n  FIRST MURDERER. What we will do, we do upon command.\n  SECOND MURDERER. And he that hath commanded is our\n    King.\n  CLARENCE. Erroneous vassals! the great King of kings\n    Hath in the tables of his law commanded\n    That thou shalt do no murder. Will you then\n    Spurn at his edict and fulfil a man's?\n    Take heed; for he holds vengeance in his hand\n    To hurl upon their heads that break his law.\n  SECOND MURDERER. And that same vengeance doth he hurl\n    on thee\n    For false forswearing, and for murder too;\n    Thou didst receive the sacrament to fight\n    In quarrel of the house of Lancaster.\n  FIRST MURDERER. And like a traitor to the name of God\n    Didst break that vow; and with thy treacherous blade\n    Unripp'dst the bowels of thy sov'reign's son.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Whom thou wast sworn to cherish and\n    defend.\n  FIRST MURDERER. How canst thou urge God's dreadful law\n    to us,\n    When thou hast broke it in such dear degree?\n  CLARENCE. Alas! for whose sake did I that ill deed?\n    For Edward, for my brother, for his sake.\n    He sends you not to murder me for this,\n    For in that sin he is as deep as I.\n    If God will be avenged for the deed,\n    O, know you yet He doth it publicly.\n    Take not the quarrel from His pow'rful arm;\n    He needs no indirect or lawless course\n    To cut off those that have offended Him.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Who made thee then a bloody minister\n    When gallant-springing brave Plantagenet,\n    That princely novice, was struck dead by thee?\n  CLARENCE. My brother's love, the devil, and my rage.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Thy brother's love, our duty, and thy\n    faults,\n    Provoke us hither now to slaughter thee.\n  CLARENCE. If you do love my brother, hate not me;\n    I am his brother, and I love him well.\n    If you are hir'd for meed, go back again,\n    And I will send you to my brother Gloucester,\n    Who shall reward you better for my life\n    Than Edward will for tidings of my death.\n  SECOND MURDERER. You are deceiv'd: your brother Gloucester\n    hates you.\n  CLARENCE. O, no, he loves me, and he holds me dear.\n    Go you to him from me.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Ay, so we will.\n  CLARENCE. Tell him when that our princely father York\n    Bless'd his three sons with his victorious arm\n    And charg'd us from his soul to love each other,\n    He little thought of this divided friendship.\n    Bid Gloucester think of this, and he will weep.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Ay, millstones; as he lesson'd us to weep.\n  CLARENCE. O, do not slander him, for he is kind.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Right, as snow in harvest. Come, you\n    deceive yourself:\n    'Tis he that sends us to destroy you here.\n    CLARENCE. It cannot be; for he bewept my fortune\n    And hugg'd me in his arms, and swore with sobs\n    That he would labour my delivery.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Why, so he doth, when he delivers you\n    From this earth's thraldom to the joys of heaven.\n  SECOND MURDERER. Make peace with God, for you must die,\n    my lord.\n  CLARENCE. Have you that holy feeling in your souls\n    To counsel me to make my peace with God,\n    And are you yet to your own souls so blind\n    That you will war with God by murd'ring me?\n    O, sirs, consider: they that set you on\n    To do this deed will hate you for the deed.\n  SECOND MURDERER. What shall we do?\n  CLARENCE. Relent, and save your souls.\n  FIRST MURDERER. Relent! No, 'tis cowardly and womanish.\n  CLARENCE. Not to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.\n    Which of you, if you were a prince's son,\n    Being pent from liberty as I am now,\n    If two such murderers as yourselves came to you,\n    Would not entreat for life?\n    My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks;\n    O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,\n    Come thou on my side and entreat for me-\n    As you would beg were you in my distress.\n    A begging prince what beggar pities not?\n  SECOND MURDERER. Look behind you, my lord.\n  FIRST MURDERER.  [Stabbing him]  Take that, and that. If all\n    this will not do,\n    I'll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.\n                                              Exit with the body\n  SECOND MURDERER. A bloody deed, and desperately\n    dispatch'd!\n    How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands\n    Of this most grievous murder!\n\n                       Re-enter FIRST MURDERER\n\n  FIRST MURDERER-How now, what mean'st thou that thou\n    help'st me not?\n    By heavens, the Duke shall know how slack you have\n    been!\n  SECOND MURDERER. I would he knew that I had sav'd his\n    brother!\n    Take thou the fee, and tell him what I say;\n    For I repent me that the Duke is slain.                 Exit\n  FIRST MURDERER. So do not I. Go, coward as thou art.\n    Well, I'll go hide the body in some hole,\n    Till that the Duke give order for his burial;\n    And when I have my meed, I will away;\n    For this will out, and then I must not stay.            Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nFlourish. Enter KING EDWARD sick, QUEEN ELIZABETH, DORSET,\nRIVERS,\nHASTINGS, BUCKINGHAM, GREY, and others\n\n  KING EDWARD. Why, so. Now have I done a good day's\n    work.\n    You peers, continue this united league.\n    I every day expect an embassage\n    From my Redeemer to redeem me hence;\n    And more at peace my soul shall part to heaven,\n    Since I have made my friends at peace on earth.\n    Hastings and Rivers, take each other's hand;\n    Dissemble not your hatred, swear your love.\n  RIVERS. By heaven, my soul is purg'd from grudging hate;\n    And with my hand I seal my true heart's love.\n  HASTINGS. So thrive I, as I truly swear the like!\n  KING EDWARD. Take heed you dally not before your king;\n    Lest He that is the supreme King of kings\n    Confound your hidden falsehood and award\n    Either of you to be the other's end.\n  HASTINGS. So prosper I, as I swear perfect love!\n  RIVERS. And I, as I love Hastings with my heart!\n  KING EDWARD. Madam, yourself is not exempt from this;\n    Nor you, son Dorset; Buckingham, nor you:\n    You have been factious one against the other.\n    Wife, love Lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand;\n    And what you do, do it unfeignedly.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. There, Hastings; I will never more\n    remember\n    Our former hatred, so thrive I and mine!\n  KING EDWARD. Dorset, embrace him; Hastings, love Lord\n    Marquis.\n  DORSET. This interchange of love, I here protest,\n    Upon my part shall be inviolable.\n  HASTINGS. And so swear I.                       [They embrace]\n  KING EDWARD. Now, princely Buckingham, seal thou this\n    league\n    With thy embracements to my wife's allies,\n    And make me happy in your unity.\n  BUCKINGHAM.  [To the QUEEN]  Whenever Buckingham\n    doth turn his hate\n    Upon your Grace, but with all duteous love\n    Doth cherish you and yours, God punish me\n    With hate in those where I expect most love!\n    When I have most need to employ a friend\n    And most assured that he is a friend,\n    Deep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,\n    Be he unto me! This do I beg of God\n    When I am cold in love to you or yours.\n                                                  [They embrace]\n  KING EDWARD. A pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham,\n    Is this thy vow unto my sickly heart.\n    There wanteth now our brother Gloucester here\n    To make the blessed period of this peace.\n  BUCKINGHAM. And, in good time,\n    Here comes Sir Richard Ratcliff and the Duke.\n\n                      Enter GLOUCESTER, and RATCLIFF\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Good morrow to my sovereign king and\n    Queen;\n    And, princely peers, a happy time of day!\n  KING EDWARD. Happy, indeed, as we have spent the day.\n    Gloucester, we have done deeds of charity,\n    Made peace of enmity, fair love of hate,\n    Between these swelling wrong-incensed peers.\n  GLOUCESTER. A blessed labour, my most sovereign lord.\n    Among this princely heap, if any here,\n    By false intelligence or wrong surmise,\n    Hold me a foe-\n    If I unwittingly, or in my rage,\n    Have aught committed that is hardly borne\n    To any in this presence, I desire\n    To reconcile me to his friendly peace:\n    'Tis death to me to be at enmity;\n    I hate it, and desire all good men's love.\n    First, madam, I entreat true peace of you,\n    Which I will purchase with my duteous service;\n    Of you, my noble cousin Buckingham,\n    If ever any grudge were lodg'd between us;\n    Of you, and you, Lord Rivers, and of Dorset,\n    That all without desert have frown'd on me;\n    Of you, Lord Woodville, and, Lord Scales, of you;\n    Dukes, earls, lords, gentlemen-indeed, of all.\n    I do not know that Englishman alive\n    With whom my soul is any jot at odds\n    More than the infant that is born to-night.\n    I thank my God for my humility.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. A holy day shall this be kept hereafter.\n    I would to God all strifes were well compounded.\n    My sovereign lord, I do beseech your Highness\n    To take our brother Clarence to your grace.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, madam, have I off'red love for this,\n    To be so flouted in this royal presence?\n    Who knows not that the gentle Duke is dead?\n                                                [They all start]\n    You do him injury to scorn his corse.\n  KING EDWARD. Who knows not he is dead! Who knows\n    he is?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. All-seeing heaven, what a world is this!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Look I so pale, Lord Dorset, as the rest?\n  DORSET. Ay, my good lord; and no man in the presence\n    But his red colour hath forsook his cheeks.\n  KING EDWARD. Is Clarence dead? The order was revers'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. But he, poor man, by your first order died,\n    And that a winged Mercury did bear;\n    Some tardy cripple bare the countermand\n    That came too lag to see him buried.\n    God grant that some, less noble and less loyal,\n    Nearer in bloody thoughts, an not in blood,\n    Deserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,\n    And yet go current from suspicion!\n\n                           Enter DERBY\n\n  DERBY. A boon, my sovereign, for my service done!\n  KING EDWARD. I prithee, peace; my soul is full of sorrow.\n  DERBY. I Will not rise unless your Highness hear me.\n  KING EDWARD. Then say at once what is it thou requests.\n  DERBY. The forfeit, sovereign, of my servant's life;\n    Who slew to-day a riotous gentleman\n    Lately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk.\n  KING EDWARD. Have I a tongue to doom my brother's death,\n    And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave?\n    My brother killed no man-his fault was thought,\n    And yet his punishment was bitter death.\n    Who sued to me for him? Who, in my wrath,\n    Kneel'd at my feet, and bid me be advis'd?\n    Who spoke of brotherhood? Who spoke of love?\n    Who told me how the poor soul did forsake\n    The mighty Warwick and did fight for me?\n    Who told me, in the field at Tewksbury\n    When Oxford had me down, he rescued me\n    And said 'Dear Brother, live, and be a king'?\n    Who told me, when we both lay in the field\n    Frozen almost to death, how he did lap me\n    Even in his garments, and did give himself,\n    All thin and naked, to the numb cold night?\n    All this from my remembrance brutish wrath\n    Sinfully pluck'd, and not a man of you\n    Had so much race to put it in my mind.\n    But when your carters or your waiting-vassals\n    Have done a drunken slaughter and defac'd\n    The precious image of our dear Redeemer,\n    You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon;\n    And I, unjustly too, must grant it you.        [DERBY rises]\n    But for my brother not a man would speak;\n    Nor I, ungracious, speak unto myself\n    For him, poor soul. The proudest of you all\n    Have been beholding to him in his life;\n    Yet none of you would once beg for his life.\n    O God, I fear thy justice will take hold\n    On me, and you, and mine, and yours, for this!\n    Come, Hastings, help me to my closet. Ah, poor Clarence!\n                                 Exeunt some with KING and QUEEN\n  GLOUCESTER. This is the fruits of rashness. Mark'd you not\n    How that the guilty kindred of the Queen\n    Look'd pale when they did hear of Clarence' death?\n    O, they did urge it still unto the King!\n    God will revenge it. Come, lords, will you go\n    To comfort Edward with our company?\n  BUCKINGHAM. We wait upon your Grace.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the old DUCHESS OF YORK, with the SON and DAUGHTER of\nCLARENCE\n\n  SON. Good grandam, tell us, is our father dead?\n  DUCHESS. No, boy.\n  DAUGHTER. Why do you weep so oft, and beat your breast,\n    And cry 'O Clarence, my unhappy son!'?\n  SON. Why do you look on us, and shake your head,\n    And call us orphans, wretches, castaways,\n    If that our noble father were alive?\n  DUCHESS. My pretty cousins, you mistake me both;\n    I do lament the sickness of the King,\n    As loath to lose him, not your father's death;\n    It were lost sorrow to wail one that's lost.\n  SON. Then you conclude, my grandam, he is dead.\n    The King mine uncle is to blame for it.\n    God will revenge it; whom I will importune\n    With earnest prayers all to that effect.\n  DAUGHTER. And so will I.\n  DUCHESS. Peace, children, peace! The King doth love you\n    well.\n    Incapable and shallow innocents,\n    You cannot guess who caus'd your father's death.\n  SON. Grandam, we can; for my good uncle Gloucester\n    Told me the King, provok'd to it by the Queen,\n    Devis'd impeachments to imprison him.\n    And when my uncle told me so, he wept,\n    And pitied me, and kindly kiss'd my cheek;\n    Bade me rely on him as on my father,\n    And he would love me dearly as a child.\n  DUCHESS. Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle shape,\n    And with a virtuous vizor hide deep vice!\n    He is my son; ay, and therein my shame;\n    Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.\n  SON. Think you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?\n  DUCHESS. Ay, boy.\n  SON. I cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this?\n\n            Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, with her hair about her\n                ears; RIVERS and DORSET after her\n\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, who shall hinder me to wail and\n    weep,\n    To chide my fortune, and torment myself?\n    I'll join with black despair against my soul\n    And to myself become an enemy.\n  DUCHESS. What means this scene of rude impatience?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. To make an act of tragic violence.\n  EDWARD, my lord, thy son, our king, is dead.\n    Why grow the branches when the root is gone?\n    Why wither not the leaves that want their sap?\n    If you will live, lament; if die, be brief,\n    That our swift-winged souls may catch the King's,\n    Or like obedient subjects follow him\n    To his new kingdom of ne'er-changing night.\n  DUCHESS. Ah, so much interest have I in thy sorrow\n    As I had title in thy noble husband!\n    I have bewept a worthy husband's death,\n    And liv'd with looking on his images;\n    But now two mirrors of his princely semblance\n    Are crack'd in pieces by malignant death,\n    And I for comfort have but one false glass,\n    That grieves me when I see my shame in him.\n    Thou art a widow, yet thou art a mother\n    And hast the comfort of thy children left;\n    But death hath snatch'd my husband from mine arms\n    And pluck'd two crutches from my feeble hands-\n    Clarence and Edward. O, what cause have I-\n    Thine being but a moiety of my moan-\n    To overgo thy woes and drown thy cries?\n  SON. Ah, aunt, you wept not for our father's death!\n    How can we aid you with our kindred tears?\n  DAUGHTER. Our fatherless distress was left unmoan'd;\n    Your widow-dolour likewise be unwept!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Give me no help in lamentation;\n    I am not barren to bring forth complaints.\n    All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes\n    That I, being govern'd by the watery moon,\n    May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!\n    Ah for my husband, for my dear Lord Edward!\n  CHILDREN. Ah for our father, for our dear Lord Clarence!\n  DUCHESS. Alas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What stay had I but Edward? and he's\n    gone.\n  CHILDREN. What stay had we but Clarence? and he's gone.\n  DUCHESS. What stays had I but they? and they are gone.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Was never widow had so dear a loss.\n  CHILDREN. Were never orphans had so dear a loss.\n  DUCHESS. Was never mother had so dear a loss.\n    Alas, I am the mother of these griefs!\n    Their woes are parcell'd, mine is general.\n    She for an Edward weeps, and so do I:\n    I for a Clarence weep, so doth not she.\n    These babes for Clarence weep, and so do I:\n    I for an Edward weep, so do not they.\n    Alas, you three on me, threefold distress'd,\n    Pour all your tears! I am your sorrow's nurse,\n    And I will pamper it with lamentation.\n  DORSET. Comfort, dear mother. God is much displeas'd\n    That you take with unthankfulness his doing.\n    In common worldly things 'tis called ungrateful\n    With dull unwillingness to repay a debt\n    Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;\n    Much more to be thus opposite with heaven,\n    For it requires the royal debt it lent you.\n  RIVERS. Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother,\n    Of the young prince your son. Send straight for him;\n    Let him be crown'd; in him your comfort lives.\n    Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave,\n    And plant your joys in living Edward's throne.\n\n               Enter GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, DERBY,\n                      HASTINGS, and RATCLIFF\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Sister, have comfort. All of us have cause\n    To wail the dimming of our shining star;\n    But none can help our harms by wailing them.\n    Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy;\n    I did not see your Grace. Humbly on my knee\n    I crave your blessing.\n  DUCHESS. God bless thee; and put meekness in thy breast,\n    Love, charity, obedience, and true duty!\n  GLOUCESTER. Amen!  [Aside]  And make me die a good old\n    man!\n    That is the butt end of a mother's blessing;\n    I marvel that her Grace did leave it out.\n  BUCKINGHAM. You cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing\n    peers,\n    That bear this heavy mutual load of moan,\n    Now cheer each other in each other's love.\n    Though we have spent our harvest of this king,\n    We are to reap the harvest of his son.\n    The broken rancour of your high-swol'n hearts,\n    But lately splinter'd, knit, and join'd together,\n    Must gently be preserv'd, cherish'd, and kept.\n    Me seemeth good that, with some little train,\n    Forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fet\n    Hither to London, to be crown'd our King.\n\n RIVERS. Why with some little train, my Lord of\n    Buckingham?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Marry, my lord, lest by a multitude\n    The new-heal'd wound of malice should break out,\n    Which would be so much the more dangerous\n    By how much the estate is green and yet ungovern'd;\n    Where every horse bears his commanding rein\n    And may direct his course as please himself,\n    As well the fear of harm as harm apparent,\n    In my opinion, ought to be prevented.\n  GLOUCESTER. I hope the King made peace with all of us;\n    And the compact is firm and true in me.\n  RIVERS. And so in me; and so, I think, in an.\n    Yet, since it is but green, it should be put\n    To no apparent likelihood of breach,\n    Which haply by much company might be urg'd;\n    Therefore I say with noble Buckingham\n    That it is meet so few should fetch the Prince.\n  HASTINGS. And so say I.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then be it so; and go we to determine\n    Who they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.\n    Madam, and you, my sister, will you go\n    To give your censures in this business?\n                        Exeunt all but BUCKINGHAM and GLOUCESTER\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, whoever journeys to the Prince,\n    For God sake, let not us two stay at home;\n    For by the way I'll sort occasion,\n    As index to the story we late talk'd of,\n    To part the Queen's proud kindred from the Prince.\n  GLOUCESTER. My other self, my counsel's consistory,\n    My oracle, my prophet, my dear cousin,\n    I, as a child, will go by thy direction.\n    Toward Ludlow then, for we'll not stay behind.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter one CITIZEN at one door, and another at the other\n\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Good morrow, neighbour. Whither away so\n    fast?\n  SECOND CITIZEN. I promise you, I scarcely know myself.\n    Hear you the news abroad?\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Yes, that the King is dead.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Ill news, by'r lady; seldom comes the\n    better.\n    I fear, I fear 'twill prove a giddy world.\n\n                        Enter another CITIZEN\n\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Neighbours, God speed!\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Give you good morrow, sir.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Doth the news hold of good King Edward's\n    death?\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Ay, sir, it is too true; God help the while!\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Then, masters, look to see a troublous\n    world.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. No, no; by God's good grace, his son shall\n    reign.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Woe to that land that's govern'd by a child.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. In him there is a hope of government,\n    Which, in his nonage, council under him,\n    And, in his full and ripened years, himself,\n    No doubt, shall then, and till then, govern well.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. So stood the state when Henry the Sixth\n    Was crown'd in Paris but at nine months old.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Stood the state so? No, no, good friends,\n    God wot;\n    For then this land was famously enrich'd\n    With politic grave counsel; then the King\n    Had virtuous uncles to protect his Grace.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Why, so hath this, both by his father and\n    mother.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Better it were they all came by his father,\n    Or by his father there were none at all;\n    For emulation who shall now be nearest\n    Will touch us all too near, if God prevent not.\n    O, full of danger is the Duke of Gloucester!\n    And the Queen's sons and brothers haught and proud;\n    And were they to be rul'd, and not to rule,\n    This sickly land might solace as before.\n  FIRST CITIZEN. Come, come, we fear the worst; all will be\n    well.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. When clouds are seen, wise men put on\n    their cloaks;\n    When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand;\n    When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?\n    Untimely storms make men expect a dearth.\n    All may be well; but, if God sort it so,\n    'Tis more than we deserve or I expect.\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Truly, the hearts of men are fun of fear.\n    You cannot reason almost with a man\n    That looks not heavily and fun of dread.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. Before the days of change, still is it so;\n    By a divine instinct men's minds mistrust\n    Ensuing danger; as by proof we see\n    The water swell before a boist'rous storm.\n    But leave it all to God. Whither away?\n  SECOND CITIZEN. Marry, we were sent for to the justices.\n  THIRD CITIZEN. And so was I; I'll bear you company.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the young DUKE OF YORK, QUEEN\nELIZABETH,\nand the DUCHESS OF YORK\n\n  ARCHBISHOP. Last night, I hear, they lay at Stony Stratford,\n    And at Northampton they do rest to-night;\n    To-morrow or next day they will be here.\n  DUCHESS. I long with all my heart to see the Prince.\n    I hope he is much grown since last I saw him.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But I hear no; they say my son of York\n    Has almost overta'en him in his growth.\n  YORK. Ay, mother; but I would not have it so.\n  DUCHESS. Why, my good cousin, it is good to grow.\n  YORK. Grandam, one night as we did sit at supper,\n    My uncle Rivers talk'd how I did grow\n    More than my brother. 'Ay,' quoth my uncle Gloucester\n    'Small herbs have grace: great weeds do grow apace.'\n    And since, methinks, I would not grow so fast,\n    Because sweet flow'rs are slow and weeds make haste.\n  DUCHESS. Good faith, good faith, the saying did not hold\n    In him that did object the same to thee.\n    He was the wretched'st thing when he was young,\n    So long a-growing and so leisurely\n    That, if his rule were true, he should be gracious.\n  ARCHBISHOP. And so no doubt he is, my gracious madam.\n  DUCHESS. I hope he is; but yet let mothers doubt.\n  YORK. Now, by my troth, if I had been rememb'red,\n    I could have given my uncle's Grace a flout\n    To touch his growth nearer than he touch'd mine.\n  DUCHESS. How, my young York? I prithee let me hear it.\n  YORK. Marry, they say my uncle grew so fast\n    That he could gnaw a crust at two hours old.\n    'Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.\n    Grandam, this would have been a biting jest.\n  DUCHESS. I prithee, pretty York, who told thee this?\n  YORK. Grandam, his nurse.\n  DUCHESS. His nurse! Why she was dead ere thou wast\n    born.\n  YORK. If 'twere not she, I cannot tell who told me.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. A parlous boy! Go to, you are too\n    shrewd.\n  ARCHBISHOP. Good madam, be not angry with the child.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Pitchers have ears.\n\n                        Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  ARCHBISHOP. Here comes a messenger. What news?\n  MESSENGER. Such news, my lord, as grieves me to report.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. How doth the Prince?\n  MESSENGER. Well, madam, and in health.\n  DUCHESS. What is thy news?\n  MESSENGER. Lord Rivers and Lord Grey\n    Are sent to Pomfret, and with them\n    Sir Thomas Vaughan, prisoners.\n  DUCHESS. Who hath committed them?\n  MESSENGER. The mighty Dukes, Gloucester and Buckingham.\n  ARCHBISHOP. For what offence?\n  MESSENGER. The sum of all I can, I have disclos'd.\n    Why or for what the nobles were committed\n    Is all unknown to me, my gracious lord.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ay me, I see the ruin of my house!\n    The tiger now hath seiz'd the gentle hind;\n    Insulting tyranny begins to jet\n    Upon the innocent and aweless throne.\n    Welcome, destruction, blood, and massacre!\n    I see, as in a map, the end of all.\n  DUCHESS. Accursed and unquiet wrangling days,\n    How many of you have mine eyes beheld!\n    My husband lost his life to get the crown;\n    And often up and down my sons were toss'd\n    For me to joy and weep their gain and loss;\n    And being seated, and domestic broils\n    Clean over-blown, themselves the conquerors\n    Make war upon themselves-brother to brother,\n    Blood to blood, self against self. O, preposterous\n    And frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen,\n    Or let me die, to look on death no more!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Come, come, my boy; we will to\n    sanctuary.\n    Madam, farewell.\n  DUCHESS. Stay, I will go with you.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. You have no cause.\n  ARCHBISHOP.  [To the QUEEN]  My gracious lady, go.\n    And thither bear your treasure and your goods.\n    For my part, I'll resign unto your Grace\n    The seal I keep; and so betide to me\n    As well I tender you and all of yours!\n    Go, I'll conduct you to the sanctuary.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. A street\n\nThe trumpets sound. Enter the PRINCE OF WALES, GLOUCESTER,\nBUCKINGHAM,\nCATESBY, CARDINAL BOURCHIER, and others\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Welcome, sweet Prince, to London, to your\n    chamber.\n  GLOUCESTER. Welcome, dear cousin, my thoughts' sovereign.\n    The weary way hath made you melancholy.\n  PRINCE. No, uncle; but our crosses on the way\n    Have made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy.\n    I want more uncles here to welcome me.\n  GLOUCESTER. Sweet Prince, the untainted virtue of your\n    years\n    Hath not yet div'd into the world's deceit;\n    Nor more can you distinguish of a man\n    Than of his outward show; which, God He knows,\n    Seldom or never jumpeth with the heart.\n    Those uncles which you want were dangerous;\n    Your Grace attended to their sug'red words\n    But look'd not on the poison of their hearts.\n    God keep you from them and from such false friends!\n  PRINCE. God keep me from false friends! but they were\n    none.\n  GLOUCESTER. My lord, the Mayor of London comes to greet\n    you.\n\n                Enter the LORD MAYOR and his train\n\n  MAYOR. God bless your Grace with health and happy days!\n  PRINCE. I thank you, good my lord, and thank you all.\n    I thought my mother and my brother York\n    Would long ere this have met us on the way.\n    Fie, what a slug is Hastings, that he comes not\n    To tell us whether they will come or no!\n\n                        Enter LORD HASTINGS\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. And, in good time, here comes the sweating\n    Lord.\n  PRINCE. Welcome, my lord. What, will our mother come?\n  HASTINGS. On what occasion, God He knows, not I,\n    The Queen your mother and your brother York\n    Have taken sanctuary. The tender Prince\n    Would fain have come with me to meet your Grace,\n    But by his mother was perforce withheld.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Fie, what an indirect and peevish course\n    Is this of hers? Lord Cardinal, will your Grace\n    Persuade the Queen to send the Duke of York\n    Unto his princely brother presently?\n    If she deny, Lord Hastings, go with him\n    And from her jealous arms pluck him perforce.\n  CARDINAL. My Lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory\n    Can from his mother win the Duke of York,\n    Anon expect him here; but if she be obdurate\n    To mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid\n    We should infringe the holy privilege\n    Of blessed sanctuary! Not for all this land\n    Would I be guilty of so deep a sin.\n  BUCKINGHAM. You are too senseless-obstinate, my lord,\n    Too ceremonious and traditional.\n    Weigh it but with the grossness of this age,\n    You break not sanctuary in seizing him.\n    The benefit thereof is always granted\n    To those whose dealings have deserv'd the place\n    And those who have the wit to claim the place.\n    This Prince hath neither claim'd it nor deserv'd it,\n    And therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it.\n    Then, taking him from thence that is not there,\n    You break no privilege nor charter there.\n    Oft have I heard of sanctuary men;\n    But sanctuary children never till now.\n  CARDINAL. My lord, you shall o'errule my mind for once.\n    Come on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me?\n  HASTINGS. I go, my lord.\n  PRINCE. Good lords, make all the speedy haste you may.\n                                    Exeunt CARDINAL and HASTINGS\n    Say, uncle Gloucester, if our brother come,\n    Where shall we sojourn till our coronation?\n  GLOUCESTER. Where it seems best unto your royal self.\n    If I may counsel you, some day or two\n    Your Highness shall repose you at the Tower,\n    Then where you please and shall be thought most fit\n    For your best health and recreation.\n  PRINCE. I do not like the Tower, of any place.\n    Did Julius Caesar build that place, my lord?\n  BUCKINGHAM. He did, my gracious lord, begin that place,\n    Which, since, succeeding ages have re-edified.\n  PRINCE. Is it upon record, or else reported\n    Successively from age to age, he built it?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Upon record, my gracious lord.\n  PRINCE. But say, my lord, it were not regist'red,\n    Methinks the truth should Eve from age to age,\n    As 'twere retail'd to all posterity,\n    Even to the general all-ending day.\n  GLOUCESTER.  [Aside]  So wise so young, they say, do never\n    live long.\n  PRINCE. What say you, uncle?\n  GLOUCESTER. I say, without characters, fame lives long.\n    [Aside]  Thus, like the formal vice, Iniquity,\n    I moralize two meanings in one word.\n  PRINCE. That Julius Caesar was a famous man;\n    With what his valour did enrich his wit,\n    His wit set down to make his valour live.\n    Death makes no conquest of this conqueror;\n    For now he lives in fame, though not in life.\n    I'll tell you what, my cousin Buckingham-\n  BUCKINGHAM. What, my gracious lord?\n  PRINCE. An if I live until I be a man,\n    I'll win our ancient right in France again,\n    Or die a soldier as I liv'd a king.\n  GLOUCESTER.  [Aside]  Short summers lightly have a forward\n    spring.\n\n              Enter HASTINGS, young YORK, and the CARDINAL\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Now, in good time, here comes the Duke of\n    York.\n  PRINCE. Richard of York, how fares our loving brother?\n  YORK. Well, my dread lord; so must I can you now.\n  PRINCE. Ay brother, to our grief, as it is yours.\n    Too late he died that might have kept that title,\n    Which by his death hath lost much majesty.\n  GLOUCESTER. How fares our cousin, noble Lord of York?\n  YORK. I thank you, gentle uncle. O, my lord,\n    You said that idle weeds are fast in growth.\n    The Prince my brother hath outgrown me far.\n  GLOUCESTER. He hath, my lord.\n  YORK. And therefore is he idle?\n  GLOUCESTER. O, my fair cousin, I must not say so.\n  YORK. Then he is more beholding to you than I.\n  GLOUCESTER. He may command me as my sovereign;\n    But you have power in me as in a kinsman.\n  YORK. I pray you, uncle, give me this dagger.\n  GLOUCESTER. My dagger, little cousin? With all my heart!\n  PRINCE. A beggar, brother?\n  YORK. Of my kind uncle, that I know will give,\n    And being but a toy, which is no grief to give.\n  GLOUCESTER. A greater gift than that I'll give my cousin.\n  YORK. A greater gift! O, that's the sword to it!\n  GLOUCESTER. Ay, gentle cousin, were it light enough.\n  YORK. O, then, I see you will part but with light gifts:\n    In weightier things you'll say a beggar nay.\n  GLOUCESTER. It is too heavy for your Grace to wear.\n  YORK. I weigh it lightly, were it heavier.\n  GLOUCESTER. What, would you have my weapon, little\n    Lord?\n  YORK. I would, that I might thank you as you call me.\n  GLOUCESTER. How?\n  YORK. Little.\n  PRINCE. My Lord of York will still be cross in talk.\n    Uncle, your Grace knows how to bear with him.\n  YORK. You mean, to bear me, not to bear with me.\n    Uncle, my brother mocks both you and me;\n    Because that I am little, like an ape,\n    He thinks that you should bear me on your shoulders.\n  BUCKINGHAM. With what a sharp-provided wit he reasons!\n    To mitigate the scorn he gives his uncle\n    He prettily and aptly taunts himself.\n    So cunning and so young is wonderful.\n  GLOUCESTER. My lord, will't please you pass along?\n    Myself and my good cousin Buckingham\n    Will to your mother, to entreat of her\n    To meet you at the Tower and welcome you.\n  YORK. What, will you go unto the Tower, my lord?\n  PRINCE. My Lord Protector needs will have it so.\n  YORK. I shall not sleep in quiet at the Tower.\n  GLOUCESTER. Why, what should you fear?\n  YORK. Marry, my uncle Clarence' angry ghost.\n    My grandam told me he was murder'd there.\n  PRINCE. I fear no uncles dead.\n  GLOUCESTER. Nor none that live, I hope.\n  PRINCE. An if they live, I hope I need not fear.\n    But come, my lord; and with a heavy heart,\n    Thinking on them, go I unto the Tower.\n    A sennet.\n              Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, and CATESBY\n  BUCKINGHAM. Think you, my lord, this little prating York\n    Was not incensed by his subtle mother\n    To taunt and scorn you thus opprobriously?\n  GLOUCESTER. No doubt, no doubt. O, 'tis a perilous boy;\n    Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable.\n    He is all the mother's, from the top to toe.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Well, let them rest. Come hither, Catesby.\n    Thou art sworn as deeply to effect what we intend\n    As closely to conceal what we impart.\n    Thou know'st our reasons urg'd upon the way.\n    What think'st thou? Is it not an easy matter\n    To make William Lord Hastings of our mind,\n    For the instalment of this noble Duke\n    In the seat royal of this famous isle?\n  CATESBY. He for his father's sake so loves the Prince\n    That he will not be won to aught against him.\n  BUCKINGHAM. What think'st thou then of Stanley? Will\n    not he?\n  CATESBY. He will do all in all as Hastings doth.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Well then, no more but this: go, gentle\n    Catesby,\n    And, as it were far off, sound thou Lord Hastings\n    How he doth stand affected to our purpose;\n    And summon him to-morrow to the Tower,\n    To sit about the coronation.\n    If thou dost find him tractable to us,\n    Encourage him, and tell him all our reasons;\n    If he be leaden, icy, cold, unwilling,\n    Be thou so too, and so break off the talk,\n    And give us notice of his inclination;\n    For we to-morrow hold divided councils,\n    Wherein thyself shalt highly be employ'd.\n  GLOUCESTER. Commend me to Lord William. Tell him,\n    Catesby,\n    His ancient knot of dangerous adversaries\n    To-morrow are let blood at Pomfret Castle;\n    And bid my lord, for joy of this good news,\n    Give Mistress Shore one gentle kiss the more.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Good Catesby, go effect this business soundly.\n  CATESBY. My good lords both, with all the heed I can.\n  GLOUCESTER. Shall we hear from you, Catesby, ere we sleep?\n  CATESBY. You shall, my lord.\n  GLOUCESTER. At Crosby House, there shall you find us both.\n                                                    Exit CATESBY\n  BUCKINGHAM. Now, my lord, what shall we do if we\n    perceive\n    Lord Hastings will not yield to our complots?\n  GLOUCESTER. Chop off his head-something we will\n    determine.\n    And, look when I am King, claim thou of me\n    The earldom of Hereford and all the movables\n    Whereof the King my brother was possess'd.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I'll claim that promise at your Grace's hand.\n  GLOUCESTER. And look to have it yielded with all kindness.\n    Come, let us sup betimes, that afterwards\n    We may digest our complots in some form.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nBefore LORD HASTING'S house\n\nEnter a MESSENGER to the door of HASTINGS\n\n  MESSENGER. My lord, my lord!                        [Knocking]\n  HASTINGS.  [Within]  Who knocks?\n  MESSENGER. One from the Lord Stanley.\n  HASTINGS.  [Within]  What is't o'clock?\n  MESSENGER. Upon the stroke of four.\n\n                        Enter LORD HASTINGS\n\n  HASTINGS. Cannot my Lord Stanley sleep these tedious\n    nights?\n  MESSENGER. So it appears by that I have to say.\n    First, he commends him to your noble self.\n  HASTINGS. What then?\n  MESSENGER. Then certifies your lordship that this night\n    He dreamt the boar had razed off his helm.\n    Besides, he says there are two councils kept,\n    And that may be determin'd at the one\n    Which may make you and him to rue at th' other.\n    Therefore he sends to know your lordship's pleasure-\n    If you will presently take horse with him\n    And with all speed post with him toward the north\n    To shun the danger that his soul divines.\n  HASTINGS. Go, fellow, go, return unto thy lord;\n    Bid him not fear the separated council:\n    His honour and myself are at the one,\n    And at the other is my good friend Catesby;\n    Where nothing can proceed that toucheth us\n    Whereof I shall not have intelligence.\n    Tell him his fears are shallow, without instance;\n    And for his dreams, I wonder he's so simple\n    To trust the mock'ry of unquiet slumbers.\n    To fly the boar before the boar pursues\n    Were to incense the boar to follow us\n    And make pursuit where he did mean no chase.\n    Go, bid thy master rise and come to me;\n    And we will both together to the Tower,\n    Where, he shall see, the boar will use us kindly.\n  MESSENGER. I'll go, my lord, and tell him what you say.\n Exit\n\n                         Enter CATESBY\n\n  CATESBY. Many good morrows to my noble lord!\n  HASTINGS. Good morrow, Catesby; you are early stirring.\n    What news, what news, in this our tott'ring state?\n  CATESBY. It is a reeling world indeed, my lord;\n    And I believe will never stand upright\n    Till Richard wear the garland of the realm.\n  HASTINGS. How, wear the garland! Dost thou mean the\n    crown?\n  CATESBY. Ay, my good lord.\n  HASTINGS. I'll have this crown of mine cut from my\n    shoulders\n    Before I'll see the crown so foul misplac'd.\n    But canst thou guess that he doth aim at it?\n  CATESBY. Ay, on my life; and hopes to find you forward\n    Upon his party for the gain thereof;\n    And thereupon he sends you this good news,\n    That this same very day your enemies,\n    The kindred of the Queen, must die at Pomfret.\n  HASTINGS. Indeed, I am no mourner for that news,\n    Because they have been still my adversaries;\n    But that I'll give my voice on Richard's side\n    To bar my master's heirs in true descent,\n    God knows I will not do it to the death.\n  CATESBY. God keep your lordship in that gracious mind!\n  HASTINGS. But I shall laugh at this a twelve month hence,\n    That they which brought me in my master's hate,\n    I live to look upon their tragedy.\n    Well, Catesby, ere a fortnight make me older,\n    I'll send some packing that yet think not on't.\n  CATESBY. 'Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord,\n    When men are unprepar'd and look not for it.\n  HASTINGS. O monstrous, monstrous! And so falls it out\n    With Rivers, Vaughan, Grey; and so 'twill do\n    With some men else that think themselves as safe\n    As thou and I, who, as thou knowest, are dear\n    To princely Richard and to Buckingham.\n  CATESBY. The Princes both make high account of you-\n    [Aside]  For they account his head upon the bridge.\n  HASTINGS. I know they do, and I have well deserv'd it.\n\n                      Enter LORD STANLEY\n\n    Come on, come on; where is your boar-spear, man?\n    Fear you the boar, and go so unprovided?\n  STANLEY. My lord, good morrow; good morrow, Catesby.\n    You may jest on, but, by the holy rood,\n    I do not like these several councils, I.\n  HASTINGS. My lord, I hold my life as dear as yours,\n    And never in my days, I do protest,\n    Was it so precious to me as 'tis now.\n    Think you, but that I know our state secure,\n    I would be so triumphant as I am?\n  STANLEY. The lords at Pomfret, when they rode from\n    London,\n    Were jocund and suppos'd their states were sure,\n    And they indeed had no cause to mistrust;\n    But yet you see how soon the day o'ercast.\n    This sudden stab of rancour I misdoubt;\n    Pray God, I say, I prove a needless coward.\n    What, shall we toward the Tower? The day is spent.\n  HASTINGS. Come, come, have with you. Wot you what, my\n    Lord?\n    To-day the lords you talk'd of are beheaded.\n  STANLEY. They, for their truth, might better wear their\n    heads\n    Than some that have accus'd them wear their hats.\n    But come, my lord, let's away.\n\n                 Enter HASTINGS, a pursuivant\n\n  HASTINGS. Go on before; I'll talk with this good fellow.\n                                      Exeunt STANLEY and CATESBY\n    How now, Hastings! How goes the world with thee?\n  PURSUIVANT. The better that your lordship please to ask.\n  HASTINGS. I tell thee, man, 'tis better with me now\n    Than when thou met'st me last where now we meet:\n    Then was I going prisoner to the Tower\n    By the suggestion of the Queen's allies;\n    But now, I tell thee-keep it to thyself-\n    This day those enernies are put to death,\n    And I in better state than e'er I was.\n  PURSUIVANT. God hold it, to your honour's good content!\n  HASTINGS. Gramercy, Hastings; there, drink that for me.\n                                          [Throws him his purse]\n  PURSUIVANT. I thank your honour.                          Exit\n\n                            Enter a PRIEST\n\n  PRIEST. Well met, my lord; I am glad to see your honour.\n  HASTINGS. I thank thee, good Sir John, with all my heart.\n    I am in your debt for your last exercise;\n    Come the next Sabbath, and I will content you.\n                                        [He whispers in his ear]\n  PRIEST. I'll wait upon your lordship.\n\n                            Enter BUCKINGHAM\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. What, talking with a priest, Lord\n    Chamberlain!\n    Your friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest:\n    Your honour hath no shriving work in hand.\n  HASTINGS. Good faith, and when I met this holy man,\n    The men you talk of came into my mind.\n    What, go you toward the Tower?\n  BUCKINGHAM. I do, my lord, but long I cannot stay there;\n    I shall return before your lordship thence.\n  HASTINGS. Nay, like enough, for I stay dinner there.\n  BUCKINGHAM.  [Aside]  And supper too, although thou\n    knowest it not.-\n    Come, will you go?\n  HASTINGS. I'll wait upon your lordship.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nPomfret Castle\n\nEnter SIR RICHARD RATCLIFF, with halberds, carrying the Nobles,\nRIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN, to death\n\n  RIVERS. Sir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this:\n    To-day shalt thou behold a subject die\n    For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.\n  GREY. God bless the Prince from all the pack of you!\n    A knot you are of damned blood-suckers.\n  VAUGHAN. You live that shall cry woe for this hereafter.\n  RATCLIFF. Dispatch; the limit of your lives is out.\n  RIVERS. O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,\n    Fatal and ominous to noble peers!\n    Within the guilty closure of thy walls\n  RICHARD the Second here was hack'd to death;\n    And for more slander to thy dismal seat,\n    We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink.\n  GREY. Now Margaret's curse is fall'n upon our heads,\n    When she exclaim'd on Hastings, you, and I,\n    For standing by when Richard stabb'd her son.\n  RIVERS. Then curs'd she Richard, then curs'd she\n    Buckingham,\n    Then curs'd she Hastings. O, remember, God,\n    To hear her prayer for them, as now for us!\n    And for my sister, and her princely sons,\n    Be satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,\n    Which, as thou know'st, unjustly must be spilt.\n  RATCLIFF. Make haste; the hour of death is expiate.\n  RIVERS. Come, Grey; come, Vaughan; let us here embrace.\n    Farewell, until we meet again in heaven.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4\n\nLondon. The Tower\n\nEnter BUCKINGHAM, DERBY, HASTINGS, the BISHOP of ELY, RATCLIFF,\nLOVEL,\nwith others and seat themselves at a table\n\n  HASTINGS. Now, noble peers, the cause why we are met\n    Is to determine of the coronation.\n    In God's name speak-when is the royal day?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Is all things ready for the royal time?\n  DERBY. It is, and wants but nomination.\n  BISHOP OF ELY. To-morrow then I judge a happy day.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Who knows the Lord Protector's mind\n    herein?\n    Who is most inward with the noble Duke?\n  BISHOP OF ELY. Your Grace, we think, should soonest know\n    his mind.\n  BUCKINGHAM. We know each other's faces; for our hearts,\n    He knows no more of mine than I of yours;\n    Or I of his, my lord, than you of mine.\n    Lord Hastings, you and he are near in love.\n  HASTINGS. I thank his Grace, I know he loves me well;\n    But for his purpose in the coronation\n    I have not sounded him, nor he deliver'd\n    His gracious pleasure any way therein.\n    But you, my honourable lords, may name the time;\n    And in the Duke's behalf I'll give my voice,\n    Which, I presume, he'll take in gentle part.\n\n                       Enter GLOUCESTER\n\n  BISHOP OF ELY. In happy time, here comes the Duke himself.\n  GLOUCESTER. My noble lords and cousins an, good morrow.\n    I have been long a sleeper, but I trust\n    My absence doth neglect no great design\n    Which by my presence might have been concluded.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Had you not come upon your cue, my lord,\n  WILLIAM Lord Hastings had pronounc'd your part-\n    I mean, your voice for crowning of the King.\n  GLOUCESTER. Than my Lord Hastings no man might be\n    bolder;\n    His lordship knows me well and loves me well.\n    My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn\n    I saw good strawberries in your garden there.\n    I do beseech you send for some of them.\n  BISHOP of ELY. Marry and will, my lord, with all my heart.\n Exit\n  GLOUCESTER. Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you.\n                                               [Takes him aside]\n    Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business,\n    And finds the testy gentleman so hot\n    That he will lose his head ere give consent\n    His master's child, as worshipfully he terms it,\n    Shall lose the royalty of England's throne.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Withdraw yourself awhile; I'll go with you.\n                                Exeunt GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM\n  DERBY. We have not yet set down this day of triumph.\n    To-morrow, in my judgment, is too sudden;\n    For I myself am not so well provided\n    As else I would be, were the day prolong'd.\n\n                    Re-enter the BISHOP OF ELY\n\n  BISHOP OF ELY. Where is my lord the Duke of Gloucester?\n    I have sent for these strawberries.\n  HASTINGS. His Grace looks cheerfully and smooth this\n    morning;\n    There's some conceit or other likes him well\n    When that he bids good morrow with such spirit.\n    I think there's never a man in Christendom\n    Can lesser hide his love or hate than he;\n    For by his face straight shall you know his heart.\n  DERBY. What of his heart perceive you in his face\n    By any livelihood he show'd to-day?\n  HASTINGS. Marry, that with no man here he is offended;\n    For, were he, he had shown it in his looks.\n\n               Re-enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM\n\n  GLOUCESTER. I pray you all, tell me what they deserve\n    That do conspire my death with devilish plots\n    Of damned witchcraft, and that have prevail'd\n    Upon my body with their hellish charms?\n  HASTINGS. The tender love I bear your Grace, my lord,\n    Makes me most forward in this princely presence\n    To doom th' offenders, whosoe'er they be.\n    I say, my lord, they have deserved death.\n  GLOUCESTER. Then be your eyes the witness of their evil.\n    Look how I am bewitch'd; behold, mine arm\n    Is like a blasted sapling wither'd up.\n    And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,\n    Consorted with that harlot strumpet Shore,\n    That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.\n  HASTINGS. If they have done this deed, my noble lord-\n  GLOUCESTER. If?-thou protector of this damned strumpet,\n    Talk'st thou to me of ifs? Thou art a traitor.\n    Off with his head! Now by Saint Paul I swear\n    I will not dine until I see the same.\n    Lovel and Ratcliff, look that it be done.\n    The rest that love me, rise and follow me.\n                    Exeunt all but HASTINGS, LOVEL, and RATCLIFF\n  HASTINGS. Woe, woe, for England! not a whit for me;\n    For I, too fond, might have prevented this.\n  STANLEY did dream the boar did raze our helms,\n    And I did scorn it and disdain to fly.\n    Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble,\n    And started when he look'd upon the Tower,\n    As loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.\n    O, now I need the priest that spake to me!\n    I now repent I told the pursuivant,\n    As too triumphing, how mine enemies\n    To-day at Pomfret bloodily were butcher'd,\n    And I myself secure in grace and favour.\n    O Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse\n    Is lighted on poor Hastings' wretched head!\n  RATCLIFF. Come, come, dispatch; the Duke would be at\n    dinner.\n    Make a short shrift; he longs to see your head.\n  HASTINGS. O momentary grace of mortal men,\n    Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!\n    Who builds his hope in air of your good looks\n    Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,\n    Ready with every nod to tumble down\n    Into the fatal bowels of the deep.\n  LOVEL. Come, come, dispatch; 'tis bootless to exclaim.\n  HASTINGS. O bloody Richard! Miserable England!\n    I prophesy the fearfull'st time to thee\n    That ever wretched age hath look'd upon.\n    Come, lead me to the block; bear him my head.\n    They smile at me who shortly shall be dead.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nLondon. The Tower-walls\n\nEnter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM in rotten armour, marvellous\nill-favoured\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Come, cousin, canst thou quake and change\n    thy colour,\n    Murder thy breath in middle of a word,\n    And then again begin, and stop again,\n    As if thou were distraught and mad with terror?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian;\n    Speak and look back, and pry on every side,\n    Tremble and start at wagging of a straw,\n    Intending deep suspicion. Ghastly looks\n    Are at my service, like enforced smiles;\n    And both are ready in their offices\n    At any time to grace my stratagems.\n    But what, is Catesby gone?\n  GLOUCESTER. He is; and, see, he brings the mayor along.\n\n                 Enter the LORD MAYOR and CATESBY\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Lord Mayor-\n  GLOUCESTER. Look to the drawbridge there!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Hark! a drum.\n  GLOUCESTER. Catesby, o'erlook the walls.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Lord Mayor, the reason we have sent-\n  GLOUCESTER. Look back, defend thee; here are enemies.\n  BUCKINGHAM. God and our innocence defend and guard us!\n\n           Enter LOVEL and RATCLIFF, with HASTINGS' head\n\n  GLOUCESTER. Be patient; they are friends-Ratcliff and Lovel.\n  LOVEL. Here is the head of that ignoble traitor,\n    The dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.\n  GLOUCESTER. So dear I lov'd the man that I must weep.\n    I took him for the plainest harmless creature\n    That breath'd upon the earth a Christian;\n    Made him my book, wherein my soul recorded\n    The history of all her secret thoughts.\n    So smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue\n    That, his apparent open guilt omitted,\n    I mean his conversation with Shore's wife-\n    He liv'd from all attainder of suspects.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Well, well, he was the covert'st shelt'red\n    traitor\n    That ever liv'd.\n    Would you imagine, or almost believe-\n    Were't not that by great preservation\n    We live to tell it-that the subtle traitor\n    This day had plotted, in the council-house,\n    To murder me and my good Lord of Gloucester.\n  MAYOR. Had he done so?\n  GLOUCESTER. What! think you we are Turks or Infidels?\n    Or that we would, against the form of law,\n    Proceed thus rashly in the villain's death\n    But that the extreme peril of the case,\n    The peace of England and our persons' safety,\n    Enforc'd us to this execution?\n  MAYOR. Now, fair befall you! He deserv'd his death;\n    And your good Graces both have well proceeded\n    To warn false traitors from the like attempts.\n    I never look'd for better at his hands\n    After he once fell in with Mistress Shore.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Yet had we not determin'd he should die\n    Until your lordship came to see his end-\n    Which now the loving haste of these our friends,\n    Something against our meanings, have prevented-\n    Because, my lord, I would have had you heard\n    The traitor speak, and timorously confess\n    The manner and the purpose of his treasons:\n    That you might well have signified the same\n    Unto the citizens, who haply may\n    Misconster us in him and wail his death.\n  MAYOR. But, my good lord, your Grace's words shall serve\n    As well as I had seen and heard him speak;\n    And do not doubt, right noble Princes both,\n    But I'll acquaint our duteous citizens\n    With all your just proceedings in this cause.\n  GLOUCESTER. And to that end we wish'd your lordship here,\n    T' avoid the the the censures of the carping world.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Which since you come too late of our intent,\n    Yet witness what you hear we did intend.\n    And so, my good Lord Mayor, we bid farewell.\n                                                 Exit LORD MAYOR\n  GLOUCESTER. Go, after, after, cousin Buckingham.\n    The Mayor towards Guildhall hies him in an post.\n    There, at your meet'st advantage of the time,\n    Infer the bastardy of Edward's children.\n    Tell them how Edward put to death a citizen\n    Only for saying he would make his son\n    Heir to the crown-meaning indeed his house,\n    Which by the sign thereof was termed so.\n    Moreover, urge his hateful luxury\n    And bestial appetite in change of lust,\n    Which stretch'd unto their servants, daughters, wives,\n    Even where his raging eye or savage heart\n    Without control lusted to make a prey.\n    Nay, for a need, thus far come near my person:\n    Tell them, when that my mother went with child\n    Of that insatiate Edward, noble York\n    My princely father then had wars in France\n    And, by true computation of the time,\n    Found that the issue was not his begot;\n    Which well appeared in his lineaments,\n    Being nothing like the noble Duke my father.\n    Yet touch this sparingly, as 'twere far off;\n    Because, my lord, you know my mother lives.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Doubt not, my lord, I'll play the orator\n    As if the golden fee for which I plead\n    Were for myself; and so, my lord, adieu.\n  GLOUCESTER. If you thrive well, bring them to Baynard's\n    Castle;\n    Where you shall find me well accompanied\n    With reverend fathers and well learned bishops.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I go; and towards three or four o'clock\n    Look for the news that the Guildhall affords.           Exit\n  GLOUCESTER. Go, Lovel, with all speed to Doctor Shaw.\n    [To CATESBY]  Go thou to Friar Penker. Bid them both\n    Meet me within this hour at Baynard's Castle.\n                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER\n    Now will I go to take some privy order\n    To draw the brats of Clarence out of sight,\n    And to give order that no manner person\n    Have any time recourse unto the Princes.                Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 6.\n\nLondon. A street\n\nEnter a SCRIVENER\n\n  SCRIVENER. Here is the indictment of the good Lord Hastings;\n    Which in a set hand fairly is engross'd\n    That it may be to-day read o'er in Paul's.\n    And mark how well the sequel hangs together:\n    Eleven hours I have spent to write it over,\n    For yesternight by Catesby was it sent me;\n    The precedent was full as long a-doing;\n    And yet within these five hours Hastings liv'd,\n    Untainted, unexamin'd, free, at liberty.\n    Here's a good world the while! Who is so gros\n    That cannot see this palpable device?\n    Yet who's so bold but says he sees it not?\n    Bad is the world; and all will come to nought,\n    When such ill dealing must be seen in thought.          Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 7.\n\nLondon. Baynard's Castle\n\nEnter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM, at several doors\n\n  GLOUCESTER. How now, how now! What say the citizens?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Now, by the holy Mother of our Lord,\n    The citizens are mum, say not a word.\n  GLOUCESTER. Touch'd you the bastardy of Edward's\n    children?\n  BUCKINGHAM. I did; with his contract with Lady Lucy,\n    And his contract by deputy in France;\n    Th' insatiate greediness of his desire,\n    And his enforcement of the city wives;\n    His tyranny for trifles; his own bastardy,\n    As being got, your father then in France,\n    And his resemblance, being not like the Duke.\n    Withal I did infer your lineaments,\n    Being the right idea of your father,\n    Both in your form and nobleness of mind;\n    Laid open all your victories in Scotland,\n    Your discipline in war, wisdom in peace,\n    Your bounty, virtue, fair humility;\n    Indeed, left nothing fitting for your purpose\n    Untouch'd or slightly handled in discourse.\n    And when mine oratory drew toward end\n    I bid them that did love their country's good\n    Cry 'God save Richard, England's royal King!'\n  GLOUCESTER. And did they so?\n  BUCKINGHAM. No, so God help me, they spake not a word;\n    But, like dumb statues or breathing stones,\n    Star'd each on other, and look'd deadly pale.\n    Which when I saw, I reprehended them,\n    And ask'd the Mayor what meant this wilfull silence.\n    His answer was, the people were not used\n    To be spoke to but by the Recorder.\n    Then he was urg'd to tell my tale again.\n    'Thus saith the Duke, thus hath the Duke inferr'd'-\n    But nothing spoke in warrant from himself.\n    When he had done, some followers of mine own\n    At lower end of the hall hurl'd up their caps,\n    And some ten voices cried 'God save King Richard!'\n    And thus I took the vantage of those few-\n    'Thanks, gentle citizens and friends,' quoth I\n    'This general applause and cheerful shout\n    Argues your wisdoms and your love to Richard.'\n    And even here brake off and came away.\n  GLOUCESTER. What, tongueless blocks were they? Would\n    they not speak?\n    Will not the Mayor then and his brethren come?\n  BUCKINGHAM. The Mayor is here at hand. Intend some fear;\n    Be not you spoke with but by mighty suit;\n    And look you get a prayer-book in your hand,\n    And stand between two churchmen, good my lord;\n    For on that ground I'll make a holy descant;\n    And be not easily won to our requests.\n    Play the maid's part: still answer nay, and take it.\n  GLOUCESTER. I go; and if you plead as well for them\n    As I can say nay to thee for myself,\n    No doubt we bring it to a happy issue.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Go, go, up to the leads; the Lord Mayor\n    knocks.                                      Exit GLOUCESTER\n\n           Enter the LORD MAYOR, ALDERMEN, and citizens\n\n    Welcome, my lord. I dance attendance here;\n    I think the Duke will not be spoke withal.\n\n                         Enter CATESBY\n\n    Now, Catesby, what says your lord to my request?\n  CATESBY. He doth entreat your Grace, my noble lord,\n    To visit him to-morrow or next day.\n    He is within, with two right reverend fathers,\n    Divinely bent to meditation;\n    And in no worldly suits would he be mov'd,\n    To draw him from his holy exercise.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Return, good Catesby, to the gracious Duke;\n    Tell him, myself, the Mayor and Aldermen,\n    In deep designs, in matter of great moment,\n    No less importing than our general good,\n    Are come to have some conference with his Grace.\n  CATESBY. I'll signify so much unto him straight.          Exit\n  BUCKINGHAM. Ah ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!\n    He is not lolling on a lewd love-bed,\n    But on his knees at meditation;\n    Not dallying with a brace of courtezans,\n    But meditating with two deep divines;\n    Not sleeping, to engross his idle body,\n    But praying, to enrich his watchful soul.\n    Happy were England would this virtuous prince\n    Take on his Grace the sovereignty thereof;\n    But, sure, I fear we shall not win him to it.\n  MAYOR. Marry, God defend his Grace should say us nay!\n  BUCKINGHAM. I fear he will. Here Catesby comes again.\n\n                          Re-enter CATESBY\n\n    Now, Catesby, what says his Grace?\n  CATESBY. My lord,\n    He wonders to what end you have assembled\n    Such troops of citizens to come to him.\n    His Grace not being warn'd thereof before,\n    He fears, my lord, you mean no good to him.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Sorry I am my noble cousin should\n    Suspect me that I mean no good to him.\n    By heaven, we come to him in perfect love;\n    And so once more return and tell his Grace.\n                                                    Exit CATESBY\n    When holy and devout religious men\n    Are at their beads, 'tis much to draw them thence,\n    So sweet is zealous contemplation.\n\n           Enter GLOUCESTER aloft, between two BISHOPS.\n                      CATESBY returns\n\n  MAYOR. See where his Grace stands 'tween two clergymen!\n  BUCKINGHAM. Two props of virtue for a Christian prince,\n    To stay him from the fall of vanity;\n    And, see, a book of prayer in his hand,\n    True ornaments to know a holy man.\n    Famous Plantagenet, most gracious Prince,\n    Lend favourable ear to our requests,\n    And pardon us the interruption\n    Of thy devotion and right Christian zeal.\n  GLOUCESTER. My lord, there needs no such apology:\n    I do beseech your Grace to pardon me,\n    Who, earnest in the service of my God,\n    Deferr'd the visitation of my friends.\n    But, leaving this, what is your Grace's pleasure?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Even that, I hope, which pleaseth God above,\n    And all good men of this ungovern'd isle.\n  GLOUCESTER. I do suspect I have done some offence\n    That seems disgracious in the city's eye,\n    And that you come to reprehend my ignorance.\n  BUCKINGHAM. You have, my lord. Would it might please\n    your Grace,\n    On our entreaties, to amend your fault!\n  GLOUCESTER. Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Know then, it is your fault that you resign\n    The supreme seat, the throne majestical,\n    The scept'red office of your ancestors,\n    Your state of fortune and your due of birth,\n    The lineal glory of your royal house,\n    To the corruption of a blemish'd stock;\n    Whiles in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,\n    Which here we waken to our country's good,\n    The noble isle doth want her proper limbs;\n    Her face defac'd with scars of infamy,\n    Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,\n    And almost should'red in the swallowing gulf\n    Of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion.\n    Which to recure, we heartily solicit\n    Your gracious self to take on you the charge\n    And kingly government of this your land-\n    Not as protector, steward, substitute,\n    Or lowly factor for another's gain;\n    But as successively, from blood to blood,\n    Your right of birth, your empery, your own.\n    For this, consorted with the citizens,\n    Your very worshipful and loving friends,\n    And by their vehement instigation,\n    In this just cause come I to move your Grace.\n  GLOUCESTER. I cannot tell if to depart in silence\n    Or bitterly to speak in your reproof\n    Best fitteth my degree or your condition.\n    If not to answer, you might haply think\n    Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded\n    To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,\n    Which fondly you would here impose on me;\n    If to reprove you for this suit of yours,\n    So season'd with your faithful love to me,\n    Then, on the other side, I check'd my friends.\n    Therefore-to speak, and to avoid the first,\n    And then, in speaking, not to incur the last-\n    Definitively thus I answer you:\n    Your love deserves my thanks, but my desert\n    Unmeritable shuns your high request.\n    First, if all obstacles were cut away,\n    And that my path were even to the crown,\n    As the ripe revenue and due of birth,\n    Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,\n    So mighty and so many my defects,\n    That I would rather hide me from my greatness-\n    Being a bark to brook no mighty sea-\n    Than in my greatness covet to be hid,\n    And in the vapour of my glory smother'd.\n    But, God be thank'd, there is no need of me-\n    And much I need to help you, were there need.\n    The royal tree hath left us royal fruit\n    Which, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time,\n    Will well become the seat of majesty\n    And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.\n    On him I lay that you would lay on me-\n    The right and fortune of his happy stars,\n    Which God defend that I should wring from him.\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, this argues conscience in your\n    Grace;\n    But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,\n    All circumstances well considered.\n    You say that Edward is your brother's son.\n    So say we too, but not by Edward's wife;\n    For first was he contract to Lady Lucy-\n    Your mother lives a witness to his vow-\n    And afterward by substitute betroth'd\n    To Bona, sister to the King of France.\n    These both put off, a poor petitioner,\n    A care-craz'd mother to a many sons,\n    A beauty-waning and distressed widow,\n    Even in the afternoon of her best days,\n    Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,\n    Seduc'd the pitch and height of his degree\n    To base declension and loath'd bigamy.\n    By her, in his unlawful bed, he got\n    This Edward, whom our manners call the Prince.\n    More bitterly could I expostulate,\n    Save that, for reverence to some alive,\n    I give a sparing limit to my tongue.\n    Then, good my lord, take to your royal self\n    This proffer'd benefit of dignity;\n    If not to bless us and the land withal,\n    Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry\n    From the corruption of abusing times\n    Unto a lineal true-derived course.\n  MAYOR. Do, good my lord; your citizens entreat you.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer'd love.\n  CATESBY. O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!\n  GLOUCESTER. Alas, why would you heap this care on me?\n    I am unfit for state and majesty.\n    I do beseech you, take it not amiss:\n    I cannot nor I will not yield to you.\n  BUCKINGHAM. If you refuse it-as, in love and zeal,\n    Loath to depose the child, your brother's son;\n    As well we know your tenderness of heart\n    And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,\n    Which we have noted in you to your kindred\n    And egally indeed to all estates-\n    Yet know, whe'er you accept our suit or no,\n    Your brother's son shall never reign our king;\n    But we will plant some other in the throne\n    To the disgrace and downfall of your house;\n    And in this resolution here we leave you.\n    Come, citizens. Zounds, I'll entreat no more.\n  GLOUCESTER. O, do not swear, my lord of Buckingham.\n                          Exeunt BUCKINGHAM, MAYOR, and citizens\n  CATESBY. Call him again, sweet Prince, accept their suit.\n    If you deny them, all the land will rue it.\n  GLOUCESTER. Will you enforce me to a world of cares?\n    Call them again. I am not made of stones,\n    But penetrable to your kind entreaties,\n    Albeit against my conscience and my soul.\n\n                  Re-enter BUCKINGHAM and the rest\n\n    Cousin of Buckingham, and sage grave men,\n    Since you will buckle fortune on my back,\n    To bear her burden, whe'er I will or no,\n    I must have patience to endure the load;\n    But if black scandal or foul-fac'd reproach\n    Attend the sequel of your imposition,\n    Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me\n    From all the impure blots and stains thereof;\n    For God doth know, and you may partly see,\n    How far I am from the desire of this.\n  MAYOR. God bless your Grace! We see it, and will say it.\n  GLOUCESTER. In saying so, you shall but say the truth.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Then I salute you with this royal title-\n    Long live King Richard, England's worthy King!\n  ALL. Amen.\n  BUCKINGHAM. To-morrow may it please you to be crown'd?\n  GLOUCESTER. Even when you please, for you will have it so.\n  BUCKINGHAM. To-morrow, then, we will attend your Grace;\n    And so, most joyfully, we take our leave.\n  GLOUCESTER.  [To the BISHOPS]  Come, let us to our holy\n    work again.\n    Farewell, my cousin; farewell, gentle friends.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\n\nLondon. Before the Tower\n\nEnter QUEEN ELIZABETH, DUCHESS of YORK, and MARQUIS of DORSET, at\none door;\nANNE, DUCHESS of GLOUCESTER, leading LADY MARGARET PLANTAGENET,\nCLARENCE's young daughter, at another door\n\n  DUCHESS. Who meets us here? My niece Plantagenet,\n    Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloucester?\n    Now, for my life, she's wand'ring to the Tower,\n    On pure heart's love, to greet the tender Princes.\n    Daughter, well met.\n  ANNE. God give your Graces both\n    A happy and a joyful time of day!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. As much to you, good sister! Whither\n    away?\n  ANNE. No farther than the Tower; and, as I guess,\n    Upon the like devotion as yourselves,\n    To gratulate the gentle Princes there.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Kind sister, thanks; we'll enter\n    all together.\n\n                       Enter BRAKENBURY\n\n    And in good time, here the lieutenant comes.\n    Master Lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,\n    How doth the Prince, and my young son of York?\n  BRAKENBURY. Right well, dear madam. By your patience,\n    I may not suffer you to visit them.\n    The King hath strictly charg'd the contrary.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The King! Who's that?\n  BRAKENBURY. I mean the Lord Protector.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The Lord protect him from that kingly\n    title!\n    Hath he set bounds between their love and me?\n    I am their mother; who shall bar me from them?\n  DUCHESS. I am their father's mother; I will see them.\n  ANNE. Their aunt I am in law, in love their mother.\n    Then bring me to their sights; I'll bear thy blame,\n    And take thy office from thee on my peril.\n  BRAKENBURY. No, madam, no. I may not leave it so;\n    I am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me.            Exit\n\n                         Enter STANLEY\n\n  STANLEY. Let me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence,\n    And I'll salute your Grace of York as mother\n    And reverend looker-on of two fair queens.\n    [To ANNE]  Come, madam, you must straight to\n    Westminster,\n    There to be crowned Richard's royal queen.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, cut my lace asunder\n    That my pent heart may have some scope to beat,\n    Or else I swoon with this dead-killing news!\n  ANNE. Despiteful tidings! O unpleasing news!\n  DORSET. Be of good cheer; mother, how fares your Grace?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O Dorset, speak not to me, get thee\n    gone!\n    Death and destruction dogs thee at thy heels;\n    Thy mother's name is ominous to children.\n    If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,\n    And live with Richmond, from the reach of hell.\n    Go, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughter-house,\n    Lest thou increase the number of the dead,\n    And make me die the thrall of Margaret's curse,\n    Nor mother, wife, nor England's counted queen.\n  STANLEY. Full of wise care is this your counsel, madam.\n    Take all the swift advantage of the hours;\n    You shall have letters from me to my son\n    In your behalf, to meet you on the way.\n    Be not ta'en tardy by unwise delay.\n  DUCHESS. O ill-dispersing wind of misery!\n    O my accursed womb, the bed of death!\n    A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,\n    Whose unavoided eye is murderous.\n  STANLEY. Come, madam, come; I in all haste was sent.\n  ANNE. And I with all unwillingness will go.\n    O, would to God that the inclusive verge\n    Of golden metal that must round my brow\n    Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brains!\n    Anointed let me be with deadly venom,\n    And die ere men can say 'God save the Queen!'\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Go, go, poor soul; I envy not thy glory.\n    To feed my humour, wish thyself no harm.\n  ANNE. No, why? When he that is my husband now\n    Came to me, as I follow'd Henry's corse;\n    When scarce the blood was well wash'd from his hands\n    Which issued from my other angel husband,\n    And that dear saint which then I weeping follow'd-\n    O, when, I say, I look'd on Richard's face,\n    This was my wish: 'Be thou' quoth I 'accurs'd\n    For making me, so young, so old a widow;\n    And when thou wed'st, let sorrow haunt thy bed;\n    And be thy wife, if any be so mad,\n    More miserable by the life of thee\n    Than thou hast made me by my dear lord's death.'\n    Lo, ere I can repeat this curse again,\n    Within so small a time, my woman's heart\n    Grossly grew captive to his honey words\n    And prov'd the subject of mine own soul's curse,\n    Which hitherto hath held my eyes from rest;\n    For never yet one hour in his bed\n    Did I enjoy the golden dew of sleep,\n    But with his timorous dreams was still awak'd.\n    Besides, he hates me for my father Warwick;\n    And will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Poor heart, adieu! I pity thy complaining.\n  ANNE. No more than with my soul I mourn for yours.\n  DORSET. Farewell, thou woeful welcomer of glory!\n  ANNE. Adieu, poor soul, that tak'st thy leave of it!\n  DUCHESS.  [To DORSET]  Go thou to Richmond, and good\n    fortune guide thee!\n    [To ANNE]  Go thou to Richard, and good angels tend\n    thee!  [To QUEEN ELIZABETH]  Go thou to sanctuary, and good\n    thoughts possess thee!\n    I to my grave, where peace and rest lie with me!\n    Eighty odd years of sorrow have I seen,\n    And each hour's joy wreck'd with a week of teen.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Stay, yet look back with me unto the\n    Tower.\n    Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes\n    Whom envy hath immur'd within your walls,\n    Rough cradle for such little pretty ones.\n    Rude ragged nurse, old sullen playfellow\n    For tender princes, use my babies well.\n    So foolish sorrows bids your stones farewell.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nSound a sennet. Enter RICHARD, in pomp, as KING; BUCKINGHAM,\nCATESBY,\nRATCLIFF, LOVEL, a PAGE, and others\n\n  KING RICHARD. Stand all apart. Cousin of Buckingham!\n  BUCKINGHAM. My gracious sovereign?\n  KING RICHARD. Give me thy hand.\n                           [Here he ascendeth the throne. Sound]\n    Thus high, by thy advice\n    And thy assistance, is King Richard seated.\n    But shall we wear these glories for a day;\n    Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Still live they, and for ever let them last!\n  KING RICHARD. Ah, Buckingham, now do I play the touch,\n    To try if thou be current gold indeed.\n    Young Edward lives-think now what I would speak.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Say on, my loving lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, Buckingham, I say I would be King.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why, so you are, my thrice-renowned lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Ha! am I King? 'Tis so; but Edward lives.\n  BUCKINGHAM. True, noble Prince.\n  KING RICHARD. O bitter consequence:\n    That Edward still should live-true noble Prince!\n    Cousin, thou wast not wont to be so dull.\n    Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead.\n    And I would have it suddenly perform'd.\n    What say'st thou now? Speak suddenly, be brief.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Your Grace may do your pleasure.\n  KING RICHARD. Tut, tut, thou art all ice; thy kindness freezes.\n    Say, have I thy consent that they shall die?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Give me some little breath, some pause,\n    dear Lord,\n    Before I positively speak in this.\n    I will resolve you herein presently.                    Exit\n  CATESBY.  [Aside to another]  The King is angry; see, he\n    gnaws his lip.\n  KING RICHARD. I will converse with iron-witted fools\n                                      [Descends from the throne]\n    And unrespective boys; none are for me\n    That look into me with considerate eyes.\n    High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.\n    Boy!\n  PAGE. My lord?\n  KING RICHARD. Know'st thou not any whom corrupting\n    gold\n    Will tempt unto a close exploit of death?\n  PAGE. I know a discontented gentleman\n    Whose humble means match not his haughty spirit.\n    Gold were as good as twenty orators,\n    And will, no doubt, tempt him to anything.\n  KING RICHARD. What is his name?\n  PAGE. His name, my lord, is Tyrrel.\n  KING RICHARD. I partly know the man. Go, call him hither,\n    boy.                                               Exit PAGE\n    The deep-revolving witty Buckingham\n    No more shall be the neighbour to my counsels.\n    Hath he so long held out with me, untir'd,\n    And stops he now for breath? Well, be it so.\n\n                            Enter STANLEY\n\n    How now, Lord Stanley! What's the news?\n  STANLEY. Know, my loving lord,\n    The Marquis Dorset, as I hear, is fled\n    To Richmond, in the parts where he abides.    [Stands apart]\n  KING RICHARD. Come hither, Catesby. Rumour it abroad\n    That Anne, my wife, is very grievous sick;\n    I will take order for her keeping close.\n    Inquire me out some mean poor gentleman,\n    Whom I will marry straight to Clarence' daughter-\n    The boy is foolish, and I fear not him.\n    Look how thou dream'st! I say again, give out\n    That Anne, my queen, is sick and like to die.\n    About it; for it stands me much upon\n    To stop all hopes whose growth may damage me.\n                                                    Exit CATESBY\n    I must be married to my brother's daughter,\n    Or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass.\n    Murder her brothers, and then marry her!\n    Uncertain way of gain! But I am in\n    So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.\n    Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.\n\n                     Re-enter PAGE, with TYRREL\n\n    Is thy name Tyrrel?\n  TYRREL. James Tyrrel, and your most obedient subject.\n  KING RICHARD. Art thou, indeed?\n  TYRREL. Prove me, my gracious lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Dar'st'thou resolve to kill a friend of mine?\n  TYRREL. Please you;\n    But I had rather kill two enemies.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, then thou hast it. Two deep enemies,\n    Foes to my rest, and my sweet sleep's disturbers,\n    Are they that I would have thee deal upon.\n  TYRREL, I mean those bastards in the Tower.\n  TYRREL. Let me have open means to come to them,\n    And soon I'll rid you from the fear of them.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou sing'st sweet music. Hark, come\n    hither, Tyrrel.\n    Go, by this token. Rise, and lend thine ear.      [Whispers]\n    There is no more but so: say it is done,\n    And I will love thee and prefer thee for it.\n  TYRREL. I will dispatch it straight.                      Exit\n\n                    Re-enter BUCKINGHAM\n\n    BUCKINGHAM. My lord, I have consider'd in my mind\n    The late request that you did sound me in.\n  KING RICHARD. Well, let that rest. Dorset is fled to\n    Richmond.\n  BUCKINGHAM. I hear the news, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Stanley, he is your wife's son: well, look\n    unto it.\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, I claim the gift, my due by promise,\n    For which your honour and your faith is pawn'd:\n    Th' earldom of Hereford and the movables\n    Which you have promised I shall possess.\n  KING RICHARD. Stanley, look to your wife; if she convey\n    Letters to Richmond, you shall answer it.\n  BUCKINGHAM. What says your Highness to my just request?\n  KING RICHARD. I do remember me: Henry the Sixth\n    Did prophesy that Richmond should be King,\n    When Richmond was a little peevish boy.\n    A king!-perhaps-\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord-\n  KING RICHARD. How chance the prophet could not at that\n    time\n    Have told me, I being by, that I should kill him?\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, your promise for the earldom-\n  KING RICHARD. Richmond! When last I was at Exeter,\n    The mayor in courtesy show'd me the castle\n    And call'd it Rugemount, at which name I started,\n    Because a bard of Ireland told me once\n    I should not live long after I saw Richmond.\n  BUCKINGHAM. My lord-\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, what's o'clock?\n  BUCKINGHAM. I am thus bold to put your Grace in mind\n    Of what you promis'd me.\n  KING RICHARD. Well, but o'clock?\n  BUCKINGHAM. Upon the stroke of ten.\n  KING RICHARD. Well, let it strike.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why let it strike?\n  KING RICHARD. Because that like a Jack thou keep'st the\n    stroke\n    Betwixt thy begging and my meditation.\n    I am not in the giving vein to-day.\n  BUCKINGHAM. May it please you to resolve me in my suit.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou troublest me; I am not in the vein.\n                                       Exeunt all but Buckingham\n  BUCKINGHAM. And is it thus? Repays he my deep service\n    With such contempt? Made I him King for this?\n    O, let me think on Hastings, and be gone\n    To Brecknock while my fearful head is on!               Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter TYRREL\n\n  TYRREL. The tyrannous and bloody act is done,\n    The most arch deed of piteous massacre\n    That ever yet this land was guilty of.\n    Dighton and Forrest, who I did suborn\n    To do this piece of ruthless butchery,\n    Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs,\n    Melted with tenderness and mild compassion,\n    Wept like two children in their deaths' sad story.\n    'O, thus' quoth Dighton 'lay the gentle babes'-\n    'Thus, thus,' quoth Forrest 'girdling one another\n    Within their alabaster innocent arms.\n    Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,\n    And in their summer beauty kiss'd each other.\n    A book of prayers on their pillow lay;\n    Which once,' quoth Forrest 'almost chang'd my mind;\n    But, O, the devil'-there the villain stopp'd;\n    When Dighton thus told on: 'We smothered\n    The most replenished sweet work of nature\n    That from the prime creation e'er she framed.'\n    Hence both are gone with conscience and remorse\n    They could not speak; and so I left them both,\n    To bear this tidings to the bloody King.\n\n                        Enter KING RICHARD\n\n    And here he comes. All health, my sovereign lord!\n  KING RICHARD. Kind Tyrrel, am I happy in thy news?\n  TYRREL. If to have done the thing you gave in charge\n    Beget your happiness, be happy then,\n    For it is done.\n  KING RICHARD. But didst thou see them dead?\n  TYRREL. I did, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. And buried, gentle Tyrrel?\n  TYRREL. The chaplain of the Tower hath buried them;\n    But where, to say the truth, I do not know.\n  KING RICHARD. Come to me, Tyrrel, soon at after supper,\n    When thou shalt tell the process of their death.\n    Meantime, but think how I may do thee good\n    And be inheritor of thy desire.\n    Farewell till then.\n  TYRREL. I humbly take my leave.                           Exit\n  KING RICHARD. The son of Clarence have I pent up close;\n    His daughter meanly have I match'd in marriage;\n    The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham's bosom,\n    And Anne my wife hath bid this world good night.\n    Now, for I know the Britaine Richmond aims\n    At young Elizabeth, my brother's daughter,\n    And by that knot looks proudly on the crown,\n    To her go I, a jolly thriving wooer.\n\n                           Enter RATCLIFF\n\n  RATCLIFF. My lord!\n  KING RICHARD. Good or bad news, that thou com'st in so\n    bluntly?\n  RATCLIFF. Bad news, my lord: Morton is fled to Richmond;\n    And Buckingham, back'd with the hardy Welshmen,\n    Is in the field, and still his power increaseth.\n  KING RICHARD. Ely with Richmond troubles me more near\n    Than Buckingham and his rash-levied strength.\n    Come, I have learn'd that fearful commenting\n    Is leaden servitor to dull delay;\n    Delay leads impotent and snail-pac'd beggary.\n    Then fiery expedition be my wing,\n    Jove's Mercury, and herald for a king!\n    Go, muster men. My counsel is my shield.\n    We must be brief when traitors brave the field.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nLondon. Before the palace\n\nEnter old QUEEN MARGARET\n\n  QUEEN MARGARET. So now prosperity begins to mellow\n    And drop into the rotten mouth of death.\n    Here in these confines slily have I lurk'd\n    To watch the waning of mine enemies.\n    A dire induction am I witness to,\n    And will to France, hoping the consequence\n    Will prove as bitter, black, and tragical.\n    Withdraw thee, wretched Margaret. Who comes here?\n                                                       [Retires]\n\n           Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH and the DUCHESS OF YORK\n\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, my poor princes! ah, my tender\n    babes!\n    My unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!\n    If yet your gentle souls fly in the air\n    And be not fix'd in doom perpetual,\n    Hover about me with your airy wings\n    And hear your mother's lamentation.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Hover about her; say that right for right\n    Hath dimm'd your infant morn to aged night.\n  DUCHESS. So many miseries have craz'd my voice\n    That my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute.\n    Edward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet,\n    Edward for Edward pays a dying debt.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Wilt thou, O God, fly from such gentle\n    lambs\n    And throw them in the entrails of the wolf?\n    When didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?\n  QUEEN MARGARET. When holy Harry died, and my sweet\n    son.\n  DUCHESS. Dead life, blind sight, poor mortal living ghost,\n    Woe's scene, world's shame, grave's due by life usurp'd,\n    Brief abstract and record of tedious days,\n    Rest thy unrest on England's lawful earth,    [Sitting down]\n    Unlawfully made drunk with innocent blood.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, that thou wouldst as soon afford a\n    grave\n    As thou canst yield a melancholy seat!\n    Then would I hide my bones, not rest them here.\n    Ah, who hath any cause to mourn but we?\n                                           [Sitting down by her]\n  QUEEN MARGARET.  [Coming forward]  If ancient sorrow be\n    most reverend,\n    Give mine the benefit of seniory,\n    And let my griefs frown on the upper hand.\n    If sorrow can admit society,        [Sitting down with them]\n    Tell o'er your woes again by viewing mine.\n    I had an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;\n    I had a husband, till a Richard kill'd him:\n    Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;\n    Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard kill'd him.\n  DUCHESS. I had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him;\n    I had a Rutland too, thou holp'st to kill him.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Thou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard\n    kill'd him.\n    From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept\n    A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death.\n    That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes\n    To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood,\n    That foul defacer of God's handiwork,\n    That excellent grand tyrant of the earth\n    That reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls,\n    Thy womb let loose to chase us to our graves.\n    O upright, just, and true-disposing God,\n    How do I thank thee that this carnal cur\n    Preys on the issue of his mother's body\n    And makes her pew-fellow with others' moan!\n  DUCHESS. O Harry's wife, triumph not in my woes!\n    God witness with me, I have wept for thine.\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Bear with me; I am hungry for revenge,\n    And now I cloy me with beholding it.\n    Thy Edward he is dead, that kill'd my Edward;\n    The other Edward dead, to quit my Edward;\n    Young York he is but boot, because both they\n    Match'd not the high perfection of my loss.\n    Thy Clarence he is dead that stabb'd my Edward;\n    And the beholders of this frantic play,\n    Th' adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,\n    Untimely smother'd in their dusky graves.\n    Richard yet lives, hell's black intelligencer;\n    Only reserv'd their factor to buy souls\n    And send them thither. But at hand, at hand,\n    Ensues his piteous and unpitied end.\n    Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray,\n    To have him suddenly convey'd from hence.\n    Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray,\n    That I may live and say 'The dog is dead.'\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O, thou didst prophesy the time would\n      come\n    That I should wish for thee to help me curse\n    That bottled spider, that foul bunch-back'd toad!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. I Call'd thee then vain flourish of my\n      fortune;\n    I call'd thee then poor shadow, painted queen,\n    The presentation of but what I was,\n    The flattering index of a direful pageant,\n    One heav'd a-high to be hurl'd down below,\n    A mother only mock'd with two fair babes,\n    A dream of what thou wast, a garish flag\n    To be the aim of every dangerous shot,\n    A sign of dignity, a breath, a bubble,\n    A queen in jest, only to fill the scene.\n    Where is thy husband now? Where be thy brothers?\n    Where be thy two sons? Wherein dost thou joy?\n    Who sues, and kneels, and says 'God save the Queen'?\n    Where be the bending peers that flattered thee?\n    Where be the thronging troops that followed thee?\n    Decline an this, and see what now thou art:\n    For happy wife, a most distressed widow;\n    For joyful mother, one that wails the name;\n    For one being su'd to, one that humbly sues;\n    For Queen, a very caitiff crown'd with care;\n    For she that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me;\n    For she being fear'd of all, now fearing one;\n    For she commanding all, obey'd of none.\n    Thus hath the course of justice whirl'd about\n    And left thee but a very prey to time,\n    Having no more but thought of what thou wast\n    To torture thee the more, being what thou art.\n    Thou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not\n    Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow?\n    Now thy proud neck bears half my burden'd yoke,\n    From which even here I slip my weary head\n    And leave the burden of it all on thee.\n    Farewell, York's wife, and queen of sad mischance;\n    These English woes shall make me smile in France.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O thou well skill'd in curses, stay awhile\n    And teach me how to curse mine enemies!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Forbear to sleep the nights, and fast the\n      days;\n    Compare dead happiness with living woe;\n    Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were,\n    And he that slew them fouler than he is.\n    Bett'ring thy loss makes the bad-causer worse;\n    Revolving this will teach thee how to curse.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My words are dull; O, quicken them\n    with thine!\n  QUEEN MARGARET. Thy woes will make them sharp and\n    pierce like mine.                                       Exit\n  DUCHESS. Why should calamity be fun of words?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Windy attorneys to their client woes,\n    Airy succeeders of intestate joys,\n    Poor breathing orators of miseries,\n    Let them have scope; though what they will impart\n    Help nothing else, yet do they case the heart.\n  DUCHESS. If so, then be not tongue-tied. Go with me,\n    And in the breath of bitter words let's smother\n    My damned son that thy two sweet sons smother'd.\n    The trumpet sounds; be copious in exclaims.\n\n         Enter KING RICHARD and his train, marching with\n                     drums and trumpets\n\n  KING RICHARD. Who intercepts me in my expedition?\n  DUCHESS. O, she that might have intercepted thee,\n    By strangling thee in her accursed womb,\n    From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Hidest thou that forehead with a golden\n    crown\n    Where't should be branded, if that right were right,\n    The slaughter of the Prince that ow'd that crown,\n    And the dire death of my poor sons and brothers?\n    Tell me, thou villain slave, where are my children?\n  DUCHESS. Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother\n    Clarence?\n    And little Ned Plantagenet, his son?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Where is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan,\n    Grey?\n  DUCHESS. Where is kind Hastings?\n  KING RICHARD. A flourish, trumpets! Strike alarum, drums!\n    Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women\n    Rail on the Lord's anointed. Strike, I say!\n                                             [Flourish. Alarums]\n    Either be patient and entreat me fair,\n    Or with the clamorous report of war\n    Thus will I drown your exclamations.\n  DUCHESS. Art thou my son?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, I thank God, my father, and yourself.\n  DUCHESS. Then patiently hear my impatience.\n  KING RICHARD. Madam, I have a touch of your condition\n    That cannot brook the accent of reproof.\n  DUCHESS. O, let me speak!\n  KING RICHARD. Do, then; but I'll not hear.\n  DUCHESS. I will be mild and gentle in my words.\n  KING RICHARD. And brief, good mother; for I am in haste.\n  DUCHESS. Art thou so hasty? I have stay'd for thee,\n    God knows, in torment and in agony.\n  KING RICHARD. And came I not at last to comfort you?\n  DUCHESS. No, by the holy rood, thou know'st it well\n    Thou cam'st on earth to make the earth my hell.\n    A grievous burden was thy birth to me;\n    Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;\n    Thy school-days frightful, desp'rate, wild, and furious;\n    Thy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous;\n    Thy age confirm'd, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody,\n    More mild, but yet more harmful-kind in hatred.\n    What comfortable hour canst thou name\n    That ever grac'd me with thy company?\n  KING RICHARD. Faith, none but Humphrey Hour, that call'd\n    your Grace\n    To breakfast once forth of my company.\n    If I be so disgracious in your eye,\n    Let me march on and not offend you, madam.\n    Strike up the drum.\n  DUCHESS. I prithee hear me speak.\n  KING RICHARD. You speak too bitterly.\n  DUCHESS. Hear me a word;\n    For I shall never speak to thee again.\n  KING RICHARD. So.\n  DUCHESS. Either thou wilt die by God's just ordinance\n    Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror;\n    Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish\n    And never more behold thy face again.\n    Therefore take with thee my most grievous curse,\n    Which in the day of battle tire thee more\n    Than all the complete armour that thou wear'st!\n    My prayers on the adverse party fight;\n    And there the little souls of Edward's children\n    Whisper the spirits of thine enemies\n    And promise them success and victory.\n    Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end.\n    Shame serves thy life and doth thy death attend.        Exit\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Though far more cause, yet much less\n      spirit to curse\n    Abides in me; I say amen to her.\n  KING RICHARD. Stay, madam, I must talk a word with you.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I have no moe sons of the royal blood\n    For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,\n    They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens;\n    And therefore level not to hit their lives.\n  KING RICHARD. You have a daughter call'd Elizabeth.\n    Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. And must she die for this? O, let her\n      live,\n    And I'll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty,\n    Slander myself as false to Edward's bed,\n    Throw over her the veil of infamy;\n    So she may live unscarr'd of bleeding slaughter,\n    I will confess she was not Edward's daughter.\n  KING RICHARD. Wrong not her birth; she is a royal\n    Princess.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. To save her life I'll say she is not so.\n  KING RICHARD. Her life is safest only in her birth.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. And only in that safety died her\n      brothers.\n  KING RICHARD. Lo, at their birth good stars were opposite.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. No, to their lives ill friends were\n      contrary.\n  KING RICHARD. All unavoided is the doom of destiny.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. True, when avoided grace makes destiny.\n    My babes were destin'd to a fairer death,\n    If grace had bless'd thee with a fairer life.\n  KING RICHARD. You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Cousins, indeed; and by their uncle\n      cozen'd\n    Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.\n    Whose hand soever lanc'd their tender hearts,\n    Thy head, an indirectly, gave direction.\n    No doubt the murd'rous knife was dull and blunt\n    Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart\n    To revel in the entrails of my lambs.\n    But that stiff use of grief makes wild grief tame,\n    My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys\n    Till that my nails were anchor'd in thine eyes;\n    And I, in such a desp'rate bay of death,\n    Like a poor bark, of sails and tackling reft,\n    Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.\n  KING RICHARD. Madam, so thrive I in my enterprise\n    And dangerous success of bloody wars,\n    As I intend more good to you and yours\n    Than ever you or yours by me were harm'd!\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What good is cover'd with the face of\n      heaven,\n    To be discover'd, that can do me good?\n  KING RICHARD. advancement of your children, gentle\n    lady.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Up to some scaffold, there to lose their\n    heads?\n  KING RICHARD. Unto the dignity and height of Fortune,\n    The high imperial type of this earth's glory.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Flatter my sorrow with report of it;\n    Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,\n    Canst thou demise to any child of mine?\n  KING RICHARD. Even all I have-ay, and myself and all\n    Will I withal endow a child of thine;\n    So in the Lethe of thy angry soul\n    Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs\n    Which thou supposest I have done to thee.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Be brief, lest that the process of thy\n      kindness\n    Last longer telling than thy kindness' date.\n  KING RICHARD. Then know, that from my soul I love thy\n    daughter.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My daughter's mother thinks it with her\n    soul.\n  KING RICHARD. What do you think?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. That thou dost love my daughter from\n      thy soul.\n    So from thy soul's love didst thou love her brothers,\n    And from my heart's love I do thank thee for it.\n  KING RICHARD. Be not so hasty to confound my meaning.\n    I mean that with my soul I love thy daughter\n    And do intend to make her Queen of England.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Well, then, who dost thou mean shall be\n    her king?\n  KING RICHARD. Even he that makes her Queen. Who else\n    should be?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What, thou?\n  KING RICHARD. Even so. How think you of it?\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. How canst thou woo her?\n  KING RICHARD. That would I learn of you,\n    As one being best acquainted with her humour.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. And wilt thou learn of me?\n  KING RICHARD. Madam, with all my heart.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Send to her, by the man that slew her\n    brothers,\n    A pair of bleeding hearts; thereon engrave\n    'Edward' and 'York.' Then haply will she weep;\n    Therefore present to her-as sometimes Margaret\n    Did to thy father, steep'd in Rutland's blood-\n    A handkerchief; which, say to her, did drain\n    The purple sap from her sweet brother's body,\n    And bid her wipe her weeping eyes withal.\n    If this inducement move her not to love,\n    Send her a letter of thy noble deeds;\n    Tell her thou mad'st away her uncle Clarence,\n    Her uncle Rivers; ay, and for her sake\n    Mad'st quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.\n  KING RICHARD. You mock me, madam; this is not the way\n    To win your daughter.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. There is no other way;\n    Unless thou couldst put on some other shape\n    And not be Richard that hath done all this.\n  KING RICHARD. Say that I did all this for love of her.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but\n      hate thee,\n    Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.\n  KING RICHARD. Look what is done cannot be now amended.\n    Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,\n    Which after-hours gives leisure to repent.\n    If I did take the kingdom from your sons,\n    To make amends I'll give it to your daughter.\n    If I have kill'd the issue of your womb,\n    To quicken your increase I will beget\n    Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.\n    A grandam's name is little less in love\n    Than is the doating title of a mother;\n    They are as children but one step below,\n    Even of your metal, of your very blood;\n    Of all one pain, save for a night of groans\n    Endur'd of her, for whom you bid like sorrow.\n    Your children were vexation to your youth;\n    But mine shall be a comfort to your age.\n    The loss you have is but a son being King,\n    And by that loss your daughter is made Queen.\n    I cannot make you what amends I would,\n    Therefore accept such kindness as I can.\n    Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul\n    Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,\n    This fair alliance quickly shall can home\n    To high promotions and great dignity.\n    The King, that calls your beauteous daughter wife,\n    Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother;\n    Again shall you be mother to a king,\n    And all the ruins of distressful times\n    Repair'd with double riches of content.\n    What! we have many goodly days to see.\n    The liquid drops of tears that you have shed\n    Shall come again, transform'd to orient pearl,\n    Advantaging their loan with interest\n    Of ten times double gain of happiness.\n    Go, then, my mother, to thy daughter go;\n    Make bold her bashful years with your experience;\n    Prepare her ears to hear a wooer's tale;\n    Put in her tender heart th' aspiring flame\n    Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the Princes\n    With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys.\n    And when this arm of mine hath chastised\n    The petty rebel, dull-brain'd Buckingham,\n    Bound with triumphant garlands will I come,\n    And lead thy daughter to a conqueror's bed;\n    To whom I will retail my conquest won,\n    And she shall be sole victoress, Caesar's Caesar.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What were I best to say? Her father's\n      brother\n    Would be her lord? Or shall I say her uncle?\n    Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?\n    Under what title shall I woo for thee\n    That God, the law, my honour, and her love\n    Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?\n  KING RICHARD. Infer fair England's peace by this alliance.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Which she shall purchase with\n    still-lasting war.\n  KING RICHARD. Tell her the King, that may command,\n    entreats.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. That at her hands which the King's\n    King forbids.\n  KING RICHARD. Say she shall be a high and mighty queen.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. To wail the title, as her mother doth.\n  KING RICHARD. Say I will love her everlastingly.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But how long shall that title 'ever' last?\n  KING RICHARD. Sweetly in force unto her fair life's end.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But how long fairly shall her sweet life\n    last?\n  KING RICHARD. As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. As long as hell and Richard likes of it.\n  KING RICHARD. Say I, her sovereign, am her subject low.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But she, your subject, loathes such\n    sovereignty.\n  KING RICHARD. Be eloquent in my behalf to her.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. An honest tale speeds best being plainly\n    told.\n  KING RICHARD. Then plainly to her tell my loving tale.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.\n  KING RICHARD. Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O, no, my reasons are too deep and\n      dead-\n    Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.\n  KING RICHARD. Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Harp on it still shall I till heartstrings\n    break.\n  KING RICHARD. Now, by my George, my garter, and my\n    crown-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Profan'd, dishonour'd, and the third\n    usurp'd.\n  KING RICHARD. I swear-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. By nothing; for this is no oath:\n    Thy George, profan'd, hath lost his lordly honour;\n    Thy garter, blemish'd, pawn'd his knightly virtue;\n    Thy crown, usurp'd, disgrac'd his kingly glory.\n    If something thou wouldst swear to be believ'd,\n    Swear then by something that thou hast not wrong'd.\n  KING RICHARD. Then, by my self-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thy self is self-misus'd.\n  KING RICHARD. Now, by the world-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. 'Tis full of thy foul wrongs.\n  KING RICHARD. My father's death-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thy life hath it dishonour'd.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, then, by God-\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. God's wrong is most of all.\n    If thou didst fear to break an oath with Him,\n    The unity the King my husband made\n    Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died.\n    If thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by Him,\n    Th' imperial metal, circling now thy head,\n    Had grac'd the tender temples of my child;\n    And both the Princes had been breathing here,\n    Which now, two tender bedfellows for dust,\n    Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.\n    What canst thou swear by now?\n  KING RICHARD. The time to come.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. That thou hast wronged in the time\n    o'erpast;\n    For I myself have many tears to wash\n    Hereafter time, for time past wrong'd by thee.\n    The children live whose fathers thou hast slaughter'd,\n    Ungovern'd youth, to wail it in their age;\n    The parents live whose children thou hast butcheed,\n    Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.\n    Swear not by time to come; for that thou hast\n    Misus'd ere us'd, by times ill-us'd o'erpast.\n  KING RICHARD. As I intend to prosper and repent,\n    So thrive I in my dangerous affairs\n    Of hostile arms! Myself myself confound!\n    Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours!\n    Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest!\n    Be opposite all planets of good luck\n    To my proceeding!-if, with dear heart's love,\n    Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,\n    I tender not thy beauteous princely daughter.\n    In her consists my happiness and thine;\n    Without her, follows to myself and thee,\n    Herself, the land, and many a Christian soul,\n    Death, desolation, ruin, and decay.\n    It cannot be avoided but by this;\n    It will not be avoided but by this.\n    Therefore, dear mother-I must call you so-\n    Be the attorney of my love to her;\n    Plead what I will be, not what I have been;\n    Not my deserts, but what I will deserve.\n    Urge the necessity and state of times,\n    And be not peevish-fond in great designs.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, if the devil tempt you to do good.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Shall I forget myself to be myself?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, if your self's remembrance wrong\n    yourself.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Yet thou didst kill my children.\n  KING RICHARD. But in your daughter's womb I bury them;\n    Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed\n    Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?\n  KING RICHARD. And be a happy mother by the deed.\n  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I go. Write to me very shortly,\n    And you shall understand from me her mind.\n  KING RICHARD. Bear her my true love's kiss; and so, farewell.\n                               Kissing her. Exit QUEEN ELIZABETH\n    Relenting fool, and shallow, changing woman!\n\n                 Enter RATCLIFF; CATESBY following\n\n    How now! what news?\n  RATCLIFF. Most mighty sovereign, on the western coast\n    Rideth a puissant navy; to our shores\n    Throng many doubtful hollow-hearted friends,\n    Unarm'd, and unresolv'd to beat them back.\n    'Tis thought that Richmond is their admiral;\n    And there they hull, expecting but the aid\n    Of Buckingham to welcome them ashore.\n  KING RICHARD. Some light-foot friend post to the Duke of\n    Norfolk.\n    Ratcliff, thyself-or Catesby; where is he?\n  CATESBY. Here, my good lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Catesby, fly to the Duke.\n  CATESBY. I will my lord, with all convenient haste.\n  KING RICHARD. Ratcliff, come hither. Post to Salisbury;\n    When thou com'st thither-  [To CATESBY]  Dull,\n    unmindfull villain,\n    Why stay'st thou here, and go'st not to the Duke?\n  CATESBY. First, mighty liege, tell me your Highness' pleasure,\n    What from your Grace I shall deliver to him.\n  KING RICHARD. O, true, good Catesby. Bid him levy straight\n    The greatest strength and power that he can make\n    And meet me suddenly at Salisbury.\n  CATESBY. I go.                                            Exit\n  RATCLIFF. What, may it please you, shall I do at Salisbury?\n  KING RICHARD. Why, what wouldst thou do there before I\n    go?\n  RATCLIFF. Your Highness told me I should post before.\n  KING RICHARD. My mind is chang'd.\n\n                           Enter LORD STANLEY\n\n  STANLEY, what news with you?\n  STANLEY. None good, my liege, to please you with\n    the hearing;\n    Nor none so bad but well may be reported.\n  KING RICHARD. Hoyday, a riddle! neither good nor bad!\n    What need'st thou run so many miles about,\n    When thou mayest tell thy tale the nearest way?\n    Once more, what news?\n  STANLEY. Richmond is on the seas.\n  KING RICHARD. There let him sink, and be the seas on him!\n    White-liver'd runagate, what doth he there?\n  STANLEY. I know not, mighty sovereign, but by guess.\n  KING RICHARD. Well, as you guess?\n  STANLEY. Stirr'd up by Dorset, Buckingham, and Morton,\n    He makes for England here to claim the crown.\n  KING RICHARD. Is the chair empty? Is the sword unsway'd?\n    Is the King dead, the empire unpossess'd?\n    What heir of York is there alive but we?\n    And who is England's King but great York's heir?\n    Then tell me what makes he upon the seas.\n  STANLEY. Unless for that, my liege, I cannot guess.\n  KING RICHARD. Unless for that he comes to be your liege,\n    You cannot guess wherefore the Welshman comes.\n    Thou wilt revolt and fly to him, I fear.\n  STANLEY. No, my good lord; therefore mistrust me not.\n  KING RICHARD. Where is thy power then, to beat him back?\n    Where be thy tenants and thy followers?\n    Are they not now upon the western shore,\n    Safe-conducting the rebels from their ships?\n  STANLEY. No, my good lord, my friends are in the north.\n  KING RICHARD. Cold friends to me. What do they in the\n    north,\n    When they should serve their sovereign in the west?\n  STANLEY. They have not been commanded, mighty King.\n    Pleaseth your Majesty to give me leave,\n    I'll muster up my friends and meet your Grace\n    Where and what time your Majesty shall please.\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, ay, thou wouldst be gone to join with\n    Richmond;\n    But I'll not trust thee.\n  STANLEY. Most mighty sovereign,\n    You have no cause to hold my friendship doubtful.\n    I never was nor never will be false.\n  KING RICHARD. Go, then, and muster men. But leave behind\n    Your son, George Stanley. Look your heart be firm,\n    Or else his head's assurance is but frail.\n  STANLEY. So deal with him as I prove true to you.         Exit\n\n                          Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My gracious sovereign, now in Devonshire,\n    As I by friends am well advertised,\n    Sir Edward Courtney and the haughty prelate,\n    Bishop of Exeter, his elder brother,\n    With many moe confederates, are in arms.\n\n                         Enter another MESSENGER\n\n  SECOND MESSENGER. In Kent, my liege, the Guilfords are in\n    arms;\n    And every hour more competitors\n    Flock to the rebels, and their power grows strong.\n\n                         Enter another MESSENGER\n\n  THIRD MESSENGER. My lord, the army of great Buckingham-\n  KING RICHARD. Out on you, owls! Nothing but songs of\n    death?                                      [He strikes him]\n    There, take thou that till thou bring better news.\n  THIRD MESSENGER. The news I have to tell your Majesty\n    Is that by sudden floods and fall of waters\n    Buckingham's army is dispers'd and scatter'd;\n    And he himself wand'red away alone,\n    No man knows whither.\n  KING RICHARD. I cry thee mercy.\n    There is my purse to cure that blow of thine.\n    Hath any well-advised friend proclaim'd\n    Reward to him that brings the traitor in?\n  THIRD MESSENGER. Such proclamation hath been made,\n    my Lord.\n\n                      Enter another MESSENGER\n\n  FOURTH MESSENGER. Sir Thomas Lovel and Lord Marquis\n    Dorset,\n    'Tis said, my liege, in Yorkshire are in arms.\n    But this good comfort bring I to your Highness-\n    The Britaine navy is dispers'd by tempest.\n    Richmond in Dorsetshire sent out a boat\n    Unto the shore, to ask those on the banks\n    If they were his assistants, yea or no;\n    Who answer'd him they came from Buckingham\n    Upon his party. He, mistrusting them,\n    Hois'd sail, and made his course again for Britaine.\n  KING RICHARD. March on, march on, since we are up in\n    arms;\n    If not to fight with foreign enemies,\n    Yet to beat down these rebels here at home.\n\n                          Re-enter CATESBY\n\n  CATESBY. My liege, the Duke of Buckingham is taken-\n    That is the best news. That the Earl of Richmond\n    Is with a mighty power landed at Milford\n    Is colder tidings, yet they must be told.\n  KING RICHARD. Away towards Salisbury! While we reason\n    here\n    A royal battle might be won and lost.\n    Some one take order Buckingham be brought\n    To Salisbury; the rest march on with me.\n    Flourish.                                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nLORD DERBY'S house\n\nEnter STANLEY and SIR CHRISTOPHER URSWICK\n\n  STANLEY. Sir Christopher, tell Richmond this from me:\n    That in the sty of the most deadly boar\n    My son George Stanley is frank'd up in hold;\n    If I revolt, off goes young George's head;\n    The fear of that holds off my present aid.\n    So, get thee gone; commend me to thy lord.\n    Withal say that the Queen hath heartily consented\n    He should espouse Elizabeth her daughter.\n    But tell me, where is princely Richmond now?\n  CHRISTOPHER. At Pembroke, or at Ha'rford west in Wales.\n  STANLEY. What men of name resort to him?\n  CHRISTOPHER. Sir Walter Herbert, a renowned soldier;\n  SIR Gilbert Talbot, Sir William Stanley,\n  OXFORD, redoubted Pembroke, Sir James Blunt,\n    And Rice ap Thomas, with a valiant crew;\n    And many other of great name and worth;\n    And towards London do they bend their power,\n    If by the way they be not fought withal.\n  STANLEY. Well, hie thee to thy lord; I kiss his hand;\n    My letter will resolve him of my mind.\n    Farewell.                                             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\n\nSalisbury. An open place\n\nEnter the SHERIFF and guard, with BUCKINGHAM, led to execution\n\n  BUCKINGHAM. Will not King Richard let me speak with\n    him?\n  SHERIFF. No, my good lord; therefore be patient.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Hastings, and Edward's children, Grey, and\n    Rivers,\n    Holy King Henry, and thy fair son Edward,\n    Vaughan, and all that have miscarried\n    By underhand corrupted foul injustice,\n    If that your moody discontented souls\n    Do through the clouds behold this present hour,\n    Even for revenge mock my destruction!\n    This is All-Souls' day, fellow, is it not?\n  SHERIFF. It is, my lord.\n  BUCKINGHAM. Why, then All-Souls' day is my body's\n    doomsday.\n    This is the day which in King Edward's time\n    I wish'd might fall on me when I was found\n    False to his children and his wife's allies;\n    This is the day wherein I wish'd to fall\n    By the false faith of him whom most I trusted;\n    This, this All-Souls' day to my fearful soul\n    Is the determin'd respite of my wrongs;\n    That high All-Seer which I dallied with\n    Hath turn'd my feigned prayer on my head\n    And given in earnest what I begg'd in jest.\n    Thus doth He force the swords of wicked men\n    To turn their own points in their masters' bosoms.\n    Thus Margaret's curse falls heavy on my neck.\n    'When he' quoth she 'shall split thy heart with sorrow,\n    Remember Margaret was a prophetess.'\n    Come lead me, officers, to the block of shame;\n    Wrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nCamp near Tamworth\n\nEnter RICHMOND, OXFORD, SIR JAMES BLUNT, SIR WALTER HERBERT, and\nothers,\nwith drum and colours\n\n  RICHMOND. Fellows in arms, and my most loving friends,\n    Bruis'd underneath the yoke of tyranny,\n    Thus far into the bowels of the land\n    Have we march'd on without impediment;\n    And here receive we from our father Stanley\n    Lines of fair comfort and encouragement.\n    The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,\n    That spoil'd your summer fields and fruitful vines,\n    Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough\n    In your embowell'd bosoms-this foul swine\n    Is now even in the centre of this isle,\n    Near to the town of Leicester, as we learn.\n    From Tamworth thither is but one day's march.\n    In God's name cheerly on, courageous friends,\n    To reap the harvest of perpetual peace\n    By this one bloody trial of sharp war.\n  OXFORD. Every man's conscience is a thousand men,\n    To fight against this guilty homicide.\n  HERBERT. I doubt not but his friends will turn to us.\n  BLUNT. He hath no friends but what are friends for fear,\n    Which in his dearest need will fly from him.\n  RICHMOND. All for our vantage. Then in God's name march.\n    True hope is swift and flies with swallow's wings;\n    Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nBosworth Field\n\nEnter KING RICHARD in arms, with NORFOLK, RATCLIFF,\nthe EARL of SURREYS and others\n\n  KING RICHARD. Here pitch our tent, even here in Bosworth\n    field.\n    My Lord of Surrey, why look you so sad?\n  SURREY. My heart is ten times lighter than my looks.\n  KING RICHARD. My Lord of Norfolk!\n  NORFOLK. Here, most gracious liege.\n  KING RICHARD. Norfolk, we must have knocks; ha! must we\n    not?\n  NORFOLK. We must both give and take, my loving lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Up With my tent! Here will I lie to-night;\n                      [Soldiers begin to set up the KING'S tent]\n    But where to-morrow? Well, all's one for that.\n    Who hath descried the number of the traitors?\n  NORFOLK. Six or seven thousand is their utmost power.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, our battalia trebles that account;\n    Besides, the King's name is a tower of strength,\n    Which they upon the adverse faction want.\n    Up with the tent! Come, noble gentlemen,\n    Let us survey the vantage of the ground.\n    Call for some men of sound direction.\n    Let's lack no discipline, make no delay;\n    For, lords, to-morrow is a busy day.                  Exeunt\n\n             Enter, on the other side of the field,\n          RICHMOND, SIR WILLIAM BRANDON, OXFORD, DORSET,\n              and others. Some pitch RICHMOND'S tent\n\n  RICHMOND. The weary sun hath made a golden set,\n    And by the bright tract of his fiery car\n    Gives token of a goodly day to-morrow.\n    Sir William Brandon, you shall bear my standard.\n    Give me some ink and paper in my tent.\n    I'll draw the form and model of our battle,\n    Limit each leader to his several charge,\n    And part in just proportion our small power.\n    My Lord of Oxford-you, Sir William Brandon-\n    And you, Sir Walter Herbert-stay with me.\n    The Earl of Pembroke keeps his regiment;\n    Good Captain Blunt, bear my good night to him,\n    And by the second hour in the morning\n    Desire the Earl to see me in my tent.\n    Yet one thing more, good Captain, do for me-\n    Where is Lord Stanley quarter'd, do you know?\n  BLUNT. Unless I have mista'en his colours much-\n    Which well I am assur'd I have not done-\n    His regiment lies half a mile at least\n    South from the mighty power of the King.\n  RICHMOND. If without peril it be possible,\n    Sweet Blunt, make some good means to speak with him\n    And give him from me this most needful note.\n  BLUNT. Upon my life, my lord, I'll undertake it;\n    And so, God give you quiet rest to-night!\n  RICHMOND. Good night, good Captain Blunt. Come,\n    gentlemen,\n    Let us consult upon to-morrow's business.\n    In to my tent; the dew is raw and cold.\n                                   [They withdraw into the tent]\n\n            Enter, to his-tent, KING RICHARD, NORFOLK,\n                       RATCLIFF, and CATESBY\n\n  KING RICHARD. What is't o'clock?\n  CATESBY. It's supper-time, my lord;\n    It's nine o'clock.\n  KING RICHARD. I will not sup to-night.\n    Give me some ink and paper.\n    What, is my beaver easier than it was?\n    And all my armour laid into my tent?\n  CATESBY. It is, my liege; and all things are in readiness.\n  KING RICHARD. Good Norfolk, hie thee to thy charge;\n    Use careful watch, choose trusty sentinels.\n  NORFOLK. I go, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Stir with the lark to-morrow, gentle Norfolk.\n  NORFOLK. I warrant you, my lord.                          Exit\n  KING RICHARD. Catesby!\n  CATESBY. My lord?\n  KING RICHARD. Send out a pursuivant-at-arms\n    To Stanley's regiment; bid him bring his power\n    Before sunrising, lest his son George fall\n    Into the blind cave of eternal night.           Exit CATESBY\n    Fill me a bowl of wine. Give me a watch.\n    Saddle white Surrey for the field to-morrow.\n    Look that my staves be sound, and not too heavy.\n    Ratcliff!\n  RATCLIFF. My lord?\n  KING RICHARD. Saw'st thou the melancholy Lord\n    Northumberland?\n  RATCLIFF. Thomas the Earl of Surrey and himself,\n    Much about cock-shut time, from troop to troop\n    Went through the army, cheering up the soldiers.\n  KING RICHARD. So, I am satisfied. Give me a bowl of wine.\n    I have not that alacrity of spirit\n    Nor cheer of mind that I was wont to have.\n    Set it down. Is ink and paper ready?\n  RATCLIFF. It is, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Bid my guard watch; leave me.\n  RATCLIFF, about the mid of night come to my tent\n    And help to arm me. Leave me, I say.\n                                   Exit RATCLIFF. RICHARD sleeps\n\n               Enter DERBY to RICHMOND in his tent;\n                        LORDS attending\n\n  DERBY. Fortune and victory sit on thy helm!\n  RICHMOND. All comfort that the dark night can afford\n    Be to thy person, noble father-in-law!\n    Tell me, how fares our loving mother?\n  DERBY. I, by attorney, bless thee from thy mother,\n    Who prays continually for Richmond's good.\n    So much for that. The silent hours steal on,\n    And flaky darkness breaks within the east.\n    In brief, for so the season bids us be,\n    Prepare thy battle early in the morning,\n    And put thy fortune to the arbitrement\n    Of bloody strokes and mortal-staring war.\n    I, as I may-that which I would I cannot-\n    With best advantage will deceive the time\n    And aid thee in this doubtful shock of arms;\n    But on thy side I may not be too forward,\n    Lest, being seen, thy brother, tender George,\n    Be executed in his father's sight.\n    Farewell; the leisure and the fearful time\n    Cuts off the ceremonious vows of love\n    And ample interchange of sweet discourse\n    Which so-long-sund'red friends should dwell upon.\n    God give us leisure for these rites of love!\n    Once more, adieu; be valiant, and speed well!\n  RICHMOND. Good lords, conduct him to his regiment.\n    I'll strive with troubled thoughts to take a nap,\n    Lest leaden slumber peise me down to-morrow\n    When I should mount with wings of victory.\n    Once more, good night, kind lords and gentlemen.\n                                         Exeunt all but RICHMOND\n    O Thou, whose captain I account myself,\n    Look on my forces with a gracious eye;\n    Put in their hands Thy bruising irons of wrath,\n    That they may crush down with a heavy fall\n    The usurping helmets of our adversaries!\n    Make us Thy ministers of chastisement,\n    That we may praise Thee in the victory!\n    To Thee I do commend my watchful soul\n    Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes.\n    Sleeping and waking, O, defend me still!            [Sleeps]\n\n            Enter the GHOST Of YOUNG PRINCE EDWARD,\n                    son to HENRY THE SIXTH\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Let me sit heavy on thy soul\n    to-morrow!\n    Think how thou stabb'dst me in my prime of youth\n    At Tewksbury; despair, therefore, and die!\n    [To RICHMOND]  Be cheerful, Richmond; for the wronged\n    souls\n    Of butcher'd princes fight in thy behalf.\n    King Henry's issue, Richmond, comforts thee.\n\n              Enter the GHOST of HENRY THE SIXTH\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  When I was mortal, my anointed\n    body\n    By thee was punched full of deadly holes.\n    Think on the Tower and me. Despair, and die.\n    Harry the Sixth bids thee despair and die.\n    [To RICHMOND]  Virtuous and holy, be thou conqueror!\n    Harry, that prophesied thou shouldst be King,\n    Doth comfort thee in thy sleep. Live and flourish!\n\n                   Enter the GHOST of CLARENCE\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Let me sit heavy in thy soul\n    to-morrow! I that was wash'd to death with fulsome wine,\n    Poor Clarence, by thy guile betray'd to death!\n    To-morrow in the battle think on me,\n    And fall thy edgeless sword. Despair and die!\n    [To RICHMOND]  Thou offspring of the house of Lancaster,\n    The wronged heirs of York do pray for thee.\n    Good angels guard thy battle! Live and flourish!\n\n           Enter the GHOSTS of RIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN\n\n  GHOST OF RIVERS.  [To RICHARD]  Let me sit heavy in thy\n    soul to-morrow,\n    Rivers that died at Pomfret! Despair and die!\n  GHOST OF GREY.  [To RICHARD]  Think upon Grey, and let\n    thy soul despair!\n  GHOST OF VAUGHAN.  [To RICHARD]  Think upon Vaughan,\n    and with guilty fear\n    Let fall thy lance. Despair and die!\n  ALL.  [To RICHMOND]  Awake, and think our wrongs in\n    Richard's bosom\n    Will conquer him. Awake and win the day.\n\n                Enter the GHOST of HASTINGS\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Bloody and guilty, guiltily awake,\n    And in a bloody battle end thy days!\n    Think on Lord Hastings. Despair and die.\n    [To RICHMOND]   Quiet untroubled soul, awake, awake!\n    Arm, fight, and conquer, for fair England's sake!\n\n         Enter the GHOSTS of the two young PRINCES\n\n  GHOSTS.  [To RICHARD]  Dream on thy cousins smothered in\n    the Tower.\n    Let us be lead within thy bosom, Richard,\n    And weigh thee down to ruin, shame, and death!\n    Thy nephews' souls bid thee despair and die.\n    [To RICHMOND]  Sleep, Richmond, sleep in peace, and\n    wake in joy;\n    Good angels guard thee from the boar's annoy!\n    Live, and beget a happy race of kings!\n    Edward's unhappy sons do bid thee flourish.\n\n          Enter the GHOST of LADY ANNE, his wife\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Richard, thy wife, that wretched\n    Anne thy wife\n    That never slept a quiet hour with thee\n    Now fills thy sleep with perturbations.\n    To-morrow in the battle think on me,\n    And fall thy edgeless sword. Despair and die.\n    [To RICHMOND]  Thou quiet soul, sleep thou a quiet sleep;\n    Dream of success and happy victory.\n    Thy adversary's wife doth pray for thee.\n\n                   Enter the GHOST of BUCKINGHAM\n\n  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  The first was I that help'd thee\n    to the crown;\n    The last was I that felt thy tyranny.\n    O, in the battle think on Buckingham,\n    And die in terror of thy guiltiness!\n    Dream on, dream on of bloody deeds and death;\n    Fainting, despair; despairing, yield thy breath!\n    [To RICHMOND]  I died for hope ere I could lend thee aid;\n    But cheer thy heart and be thou not dismay'd:\n    God and good angels fight on Richmond's side;\n    And Richard falls in height of all his pride.\n            [The GHOSTS vanish. RICHARD starts out of his dream]\n  KING RICHARD. Give me another horse. Bind up my wounds.\n    Have mercy, Jesu! Soft! I did but dream.\n    O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!\n    The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.\n    Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.\n    What do I fear? Myself? There's none else by.\n    Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.\n    Is there a murderer here? No-yes, I am.\n    Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why-\n    Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself!\n    Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good\n    That I myself have done unto myself?\n    O, no! Alas, I rather hate myself\n    For hateful deeds committed by myself!\n    I am a villain; yet I lie, I am not.\n    Fool, of thyself speak well. Fool, do not flatter.\n    My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,\n    And every tongue brings in a several tale,\n    And every tale condemns me for a villain.\n    Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree;\n    Murder, stern murder, in the dir'st degree;\n    All several sins, all us'd in each degree,\n    Throng to the bar, crying all 'Guilty! guilty!'\n    I shall despair. There is no creature loves me;\n    And if I die no soul will pity me:\n    And wherefore should they, since that I myself\n    Find in myself no pity to myself?\n    Methought the souls of all that I had murder'd\n    Came to my tent, and every one did threat\n    To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.\n\n                            Enter RATCLIFF\n\n  RATCLIFF. My lord!\n  KING RICHARD. Zounds, who is there?\n  RATCLIFF. Ratcliff, my lord; 'tis I. The early village-cock\n    Hath twice done salutation to the morn;\n    Your friends are up and buckle on their armour.\n  KING RICHARD. O Ratcliff, I have dream'd a fearful dream!\n    What think'st thou-will our friends prove all true?\n  RATCLIFF. No doubt, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. O Ratcliff, I fear, I fear.\n  RATCLIFF. Nay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows.\n  KING RICHARD By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night\n    Have stuck more terror to the soul of Richard\n    Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers\n    Armed in proof and led by shallow Richmond.\n    'Tis not yet near day. Come, go with me;\n    Under our tents I'll play the eaves-dropper,\n    To see if any mean to shrink from me.                 Exeunt\n\n          Enter the LORDS to RICHMOND sitting in his tent\n\n  LORDS. Good morrow, Richmond!\n  RICHMOND. Cry mercy, lords and watchful gentlemen,\n    That you have ta'en a tardy sluggard here.\n  LORDS. How have you slept, my lord?\n  RICHMOND. The sweetest sleep and fairest-boding dreams\n    That ever ent'red in a drowsy head\n    Have I since your departure had, my lords.\n    Methought their souls whose bodies Richard murder'd\n    Came to my tent and cried on victory.\n    I promise you my soul is very jocund\n    In the remembrance of so fair a dream.\n    How far into the morning is it, lords?\n  LORDS. Upon the stroke of four.\n  RICHMOND. Why, then 'tis time to arm and give direction.\n\n                 His ORATION to his SOLDIERS\n\n    More than I have said, loving countrymen,\n    The leisure and enforcement of the time\n    Forbids to dwell upon; yet remember this:\n    God and our good cause fight upon our side;\n    The prayers of holy saints and wronged souls,\n    Like high-rear'd bulwarks, stand before our faces;\n    Richard except, those whom we fight against\n    Had rather have us win than him they follow.\n    For what is he they follow? Truly, gentlemen,\n    A bloody tyrant and a homicide;\n    One rais'd in blood, and one in blood establish'd;\n    One that made means to come by what he hath,\n    And slaughtered those that were the means to help him;\n    A base foul stone, made precious by the foil\n    Of England's chair, where he is falsely set;\n    One that hath ever been God's enemy.\n    Then if you fight against God's enemy,\n    God will in justice ward you as his soldiers;\n    If you do sweat to put a tyrant down,\n    You sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain;\n    If you do fight against your country's foes,\n    Your country's foes shall pay your pains the hire;\n    If you do fight in safeguard of your wives,\n    Your wives shall welcome home the conquerors;\n    If you do free your children from the sword,\n    Your children's children quits it in your age.\n    Then, in the name of God and all these rights,\n    Advance your standards, draw your willing swords.\n    For me, the ransom of my bold attempt\n    Shall be this cold corpse on the earth's cold face;\n    But if I thrive, the gain of my attempt\n    The least of you shall share his part thereof.\n    Sound drums and trumpets boldly and cheerfully;\n    God and Saint George! Richmond and victory!           Exeunt\n\n           Re-enter KING RICHARD, RATCLIFF, attendants,\n                         and forces\n\n  KING RICHARD. What said Northumberland as touching\n    Richmond?\n  RATCLIFF. That he was never trained up in arms.\n  KING RICHARD. He said the truth; and what said Surrey\n    then?\n  RATCLIFF. He smil'd, and said 'The better for our purpose.'\n  KING He was in the right; and so indeed it is.\n                                                 [Clock strikes]\n    Tell the clock there. Give me a calendar.\n    Who saw the sun to-day?\n  RATCLIFF. Not I, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Then he disdains to shine; for by the book\n    He should have brav'd the east an hour ago.\n    A black day will it be to somebody.\n    Ratcliff!\n  RATCLIFF. My lord?\n  KING RICHARD. The sun will not be seen to-day;\n    The sky doth frown and lour upon our army.\n    I would these dewy tears were from the ground.\n    Not shine to-day! Why, what is that to me\n    More than to Richmond? For the selfsame heaven\n    That frowns on me looks sadly upon him.\n\n                       Enter NORFOLK\n\n  NORFOLK. Arm, arm, my lord; the foe vaunts in the field.\n  KING RICHARD. Come, bustle, bustle; caparison my horse;\n    Call up Lord Stanley, bid him bring his power.\n    I will lead forth my soldiers to the plain,\n    And thus my battle shall be ordered:\n    My foreward shall be drawn out all in length,\n    Consisting equally of horse and foot;\n    Our archers shall be placed in the midst.\n    John Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Earl of Surrey,\n    Shall have the leading of this foot and horse.\n    They thus directed, we will follow\n    In the main battle, whose puissance on either side\n    Shall be well winged with our chiefest horse.\n    This, and Saint George to boot! What think'st thou,\n    Norfolk?\n  NORFOLK. A good direction, warlike sovereign.\n    This found I on my tent this morning.\n                                        [He sheweth him a paper]\n  KING RICHARD.                                          [Reads]\n    'Jockey of Norfolk, be not so bold,\n    For Dickon thy master is bought and sold.'\n    A thing devised by the enemy.\n    Go, gentlemen, every man unto his charge.\n    Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls;\n    Conscience is but a word that cowards use,\n    Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe.\n    Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.\n    March on, join bravely, let us to it pell-mell;\n    If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.\n\n                      His ORATION to his ARMY\n\n    What shall I say more than I have inferr'd?\n    Remember whom you are to cope withal-\n    A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways,\n    A scum of Britaines, and base lackey peasants,\n    Whom their o'er-cloyed country vomits forth\n    To desperate adventures and assur'd destruction.\n    You sleeping safe, they bring to you unrest;\n    You having lands, and bless'd with beauteous wives,\n    They would restrain the one, distain the other.\n    And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow,\n    Long kept in Britaine at our mother's cost?\n    A milk-sop, one that never in his life\n    Felt so much cold as over shoes in snow?\n    Let's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again;\n    Lash hence these over-weening rags of France,\n    These famish'd beggars, weary of their lives;\n    Who, but for dreaming on this fond exploit,\n    For want of means, poor rats, had hang'd themselves.\n    If we be conquered, let men conquer us,\n    And not these bastard Britaines, whom our fathers\n    Have in their own land beaten, bobb'd, and thump'd,\n    And, in record, left them the heirs of shame.\n    Shall these enjoy our lands? lie with our wives,\n    Ravish our daughters?  [Drum afar off]  Hark! I hear their\n    drum.\n    Fight, gentlemen of England! Fight, bold yeomen!\n    Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!\n    Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood;\n    Amaze the welkin with your broken staves!\n\n                        Enter a MESSENGER\n\n    What says Lord Stanley? Will he bring his power?\n  MESSENGER. My lord, he doth deny to come.\n  KING RICHARD. Off with his son George's head!\n  NORFOLK. My lord, the enemy is pass'd the marsh.\n    After the battle let George Stanley die.\n  KING RICHARD. A thousand hearts are great within my\n    bosom.\n    Advance our standards, set upon our foes;\n    Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George,\n    Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!\n    Upon them! Victory sits on our helms.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nAnother part of the field\n\nAlarum; excursions. Enter NORFOLK and forces; to him CATESBY\n\n  CATESBY. Rescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!\n    The King enacts more wonders than a man,\n    Daring an opposite to every danger.\n    His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,\n    Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death.\n    Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost.\n\n                     Alarums. Enter KING RICHARD\n\n  KING RICHARD. A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!\n  CATESBY. Withdraw, my lord! I'll help you to a horse.\n  KING RICHARD. Slave, I have set my life upon a cast\n    And I Will stand the hazard of the die.\n    I think there be six Richmonds in the field;\n    Five have I slain to-day instead of him.\n    A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nAnother part of the field\n\nAlarum. Enter RICHARD and RICHMOND; they fight; RICHARD is slain.\nRetreat and flourish. Enter RICHMOND, DERBY bearing the crown,\nwith other LORDS\n\n  RICHMOND. God and your arms be prais'd, victorious friends;\n    The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.\n  DERBY. Courageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee!\n    Lo, here, this long-usurped royalty\n    From the dead temples of this bloody wretch\n    Have I pluck'd off, to grace thy brows withal.\n    Wear it, enjoy it, and make much of it.\n  RICHMOND. Great God of heaven, say Amen to all!\n    But, teLL me is young George Stanley living.\n  DERBY. He is, my lord, and safe in Leicester town,\n    Whither, if it please you, we may now withdraw us.\n  RICHMOND. What men of name are slain on either side?\n  DERBY. John Duke of Norfolk, Walter Lord Ferrers,\n    Sir Robert Brakenbury, and Sir William Brandon.\n  RICHMOND. Inter their bodies as becomes their births.\n    Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled\n    That in submission will return to us.\n    And then, as we have ta'en the sacrament,\n    We will unite the white rose and the red.\n    Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction,\n    That long have frown'd upon their emnity!\n    What traitor hears me, and says not Amen?\n    England hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself;\n    The brother blindly shed the brother's blood,\n    The father rashly slaughter'd his own son,\n    The son, compell'd, been butcher to the sire;\n    All this divided York and Lancaster,\n    Divided in their dire division,\n    O, now let Richmond and Elizabeth,\n    The true succeeders of each royal house,\n    By God's fair ordinance conjoin together!\n    And let their heirs, God, if thy will be so,\n    Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac'd peace,\n    With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days!\n    Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,\n    That would reduce these bloody days again\n    And make poor England weep in streams of blood!\n    Let them not live to taste this land's increase\n    That would with treason wound this fair land's peace!\n    Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again-\n    That she may long live here, God say Amen!            Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1104":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1593\n\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\nSOLINUS, Duke of Ephesus\nAEGEON, a merchant of Syracuse\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS twin brothers and sons to\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Aegion and Aemelia\n\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS twin brothers, and attendants on\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE the two Antipholuses\n\nBALTHAZAR, a merchant\nANGELO, a goldsmith\nFIRST MERCHANT, friend to Antipholus of Syracuse\nSECOND MERCHANT, to whom Angelo is a debtor\nPINCH, a schoolmaster\n\nAEMILIA, wife to AEgeon; an abbess at Ephesus\nADRIANA, wife to Antipholus of Ephesus\nLUCIANA, her sister\nLUCE, servant to Adriana\n\nA COURTEZAN\n\nGaoler, Officers, Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEphesus\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS\n\nACT I. SCENE 1\n\nA hall in the DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter the DUKE OF EPHESUS, AEGEON, the Merchant\nof Syracuse, GAOLER, OFFICERS, and other ATTENDANTS\n\nAEGEON. Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall,\n  And by the doom of death end woes and all.\nDUKE. Merchant of Syracuse, plead no more;\n  I am not partial to infringe our laws.\n  The enmity and discord which of late\n  Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke\n  To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen,\n  Who, wanting guilders to redeem their lives,\n  Have seal'd his rigorous statutes with their bloods,\n  Excludes all pity from our threat'ning looks.\n  For, since the mortal and intestine jars\n  'Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us,\n  It hath in solemn synods been decreed,\n  Both by the Syracusians and ourselves,\n  To admit no traffic to our adverse towns;\n  Nay, more: if any born at Ephesus\n  Be seen at any Syracusian marts and fairs;\n  Again, if any Syracusian born\n  Come to the bay of Ephesus-he dies,\n  His goods confiscate to the Duke's dispose,\n  Unless a thousand marks be levied,\n  To quit the penalty and to ransom him.\n  Thy substance, valued at the highest rate,\n  Cannot amount unto a hundred marks;\n  Therefore by law thou art condemn'd to die.\nAEGEON. Yet this my comfort: when your words are done,\n  My woes end likewise with the evening sun.\nDUKE. Well, Syracusian, say in brief the cause\n  Why thou departed'st from thy native home,\n  And for what cause thou cam'st to Ephesus.\nAEGEON. A heavier task could not have been impos'd\n  Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable;\n  Yet, that the world may witness that my end\n  Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence,\n  I'll utter what my sorrow gives me leave.\n  In Syracuse was I born, and wed\n  Unto a woman, happy but for me,\n  And by me, had not our hap been bad.\n  With her I liv'd in joy; our wealth increas'd\n  By prosperous voyages I often made\n  To Epidamnum; till my factor's death,\n  And the great care of goods at random left,\n  Drew me from kind embracements of my spouse:\n  From whom my absence was not six months old,\n  Before herself, almost at fainting under\n  The pleasing punishment that women bear,\n  Had made provision for her following me,\n  And soon and safe arrived where I was.\n  There had she not been long but she became\n  A joyful mother of two goodly sons;\n  And, which was strange, the one so like the other\n  As could not be disdnguish'd but by names.\n  That very hour, and in the self-same inn,\n  A mean woman was delivered\n  Of such a burden, male twins, both alike.\n  Those, for their parents were exceeding poor,\n  I bought, and brought up to attend my sons.\n  My wife, not meanly proud of two such boys,\n  Made daily motions for our home return;\n  Unwilling, I agreed. Alas! too soon\n  We came aboard.\n  A league from Epidamnum had we sail'd\n  Before the always-wind-obeying deep\n  Gave any tragic instance of our harm:\n  But longer did we not retain much hope,\n  For what obscured light the heavens did grant\n  Did but convey unto our fearful minds\n  A doubtful warrant of immediate death;\n  Which though myself would gladly have embrac'd,\n  Yet the incessant weepings of my wife,\n  Weeping before for what she saw must come,\n  And piteous plainings of the pretty babes,\n  That mourn'd for fashion, ignorant what to fear,\n  Forc'd me to seek delays for them and me.\n  And this it was, for other means was none:\n  The sailors sought for safety by our boat,\n  And left the ship, then sinking-ripe, to us;\n  My wife, more careful for the latter-born,\n  Had fast'ned him unto a small spare mast,\n  Such as sea-faring men provide for storms;\n  To him one of the other twins was bound,\n  Whilst I had been like heedful of the other.\n  The children thus dispos'd, my wife and I,\n  Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fix'd,\n  Fast'ned ourselves at either end the mast,\n  And, floating straight, obedient to the stream,\n  Was carried towards Corinth, as we thought.\n  At length the sun, gazing upon the earth,\n  Dispers'd those vapours that offended us;\n  And, by the benefit of his wished light,\n  The seas wax'd calm, and we discovered\n  Two ships from far making amain to us-\n  Of Corinth that, of Epidaurus this.\n  But ere they came-O, let me say no more!\n  Gather the sequel by that went before.\nDUKE. Nay, forward, old man, do not break off so;\n  For we may pity, though not pardon thee.\nAEGEON. O, had the gods done so, I had not now\n  Worthily term'd them merciless to us!\n  For, ere the ships could meet by twice five leagues,\n  We were encount'red by a mighty rock,\n  Which being violently borne upon,\n  Our helpful ship was splitted in the midst;\n  So that, in this unjust divorce of us,\n  Fortune had left to both of us alike\n  What to delight in, what to sorrow for.\n  Her part, poor soul, seeming as burdened\n  With lesser weight, but not with lesser woe,\n  Was carried with more speed before the wind;\n  And in our sight they three were taken up\n  By fishermen of Corinth, as we thought.\n  At length another ship had seiz'd on us;\n  And, knowing whom it was their hap to save,\n  Gave healthful welcome to their ship-wreck'd guests,\n  And would have reft the fishers of their prey,\n  Had not their bark been very slow of sail;\n  And therefore homeward did they bend their course.\n  Thus have you heard me sever'd from my bliss,\n  That by misfortunes was my life prolong'd,\n  To tell sad stories of my own mishaps.\nDUKE. And, for the sake of them thou sorrowest for,\n  Do me the favour to dilate at full\n  What have befall'n of them and thee till now.\nAEGEON. My youngest boy, and yet my eldest care,\n  At eighteen years became inquisitive\n  After his brother, and importun'd me\n  That his attendant-so his case was like,\n  Reft of his brother, but retain'd his name-\n  Might bear him company in the quest of him;\n  Whom whilst I laboured of a love to see,\n  I hazarded the loss of whom I lov'd.\n  Five summers have I spent in farthest Greece,\n  Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia,\n  And, coasting homeward, came to Ephesus;\n  Hopeless to find, yet loath to leave unsought\n  Or that or any place that harbours men.\n  But here must end the story of my life;\n  And happy were I in my timely death,\n  Could all my travels warrant me they live.\nDUKE. Hapless, Aegeon, whom the fates have mark'd\n  To bear the extremity of dire mishap!\n  Now, trust me, were it not against our laws,\n  Against my crown, my oath, my dignity,\n  Which princes, would they, may not disannul,\n  My soul should sue as advocate for thee.\n  But though thou art adjudged to the death,\n  And passed sentence may not be recall'd\n  But to our honour's great disparagement,\n  Yet will I favour thee in what I can.\n  Therefore, merchant, I'll limit thee this day\n  To seek thy help by beneficial hap.\n  Try all the friends thou hast in Ephesus;\n  Beg thou, or borrow, to make up the sum,\n  And live; if no, then thou art doom'd to die.\n  Gaoler, take him to thy custody.\nGAOLER. I will, my lord.\nAEGEON. Hopeless and helpless doth Aegeon wend,\n  But to procrastinate his lifeless end.\n<Exeunt\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nThe mart\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, and FIRST\nMERCHANT\n\nFIRST MERCHANT. Therefore, give out you are of Epidamnum,\n  Lest that your goods too soon be confiscate.\n  This very day a Syracusian merchant\n  Is apprehended for arrival here;\n  And, not being able to buy out his life,\n  According to the statute of the town,\n  Dies ere the weary sun set in the west.\n  There is your money that I had to keep.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Go bear it to the Centaur, where we host.\n  And stay there, Dromio, till I come to thee.\n  Within this hour it will be dinner-time;\n  Till that, I'll view the manners of the town,\n  Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings,\n  And then return and sleep within mine inn;\n  For with long travel I am stiff and weary.\n  Get thee away.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Many a man would take you at your word,\n  And go indeed, having so good a mean.\n<Exit\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. A trusty villain, sir, that very oft,\n  When I am dull with care and melancholy,\n  Lightens my humour with his merry jests.\n  What, will you walk with me about the town,\n  And then go to my inn and dine with me?\nFIRST MERCHANT. I am invited, sir, to certain merchants,\n  Of whom I hope to make much benefit;\n  I crave your pardon. Soon at five o'clock,\n  Please you, I'll meet with you upon the mart,\n  And afterward consort you till bed time.\n  My present business calls me from you now.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Farewell till then. I will go lose\nmyself,\n  And wander up and down to view the city.\nFIRST MERCHANT. Sir, I commend you to your own content.\n<Exit FIRST MERCHANT\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. He that commends me to mine own content\n  Commends me to the thing I cannot get.\n  I to the world am like a drop of water\n  That in the ocean seeks another drop,\n  Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,\n  Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself.\n  So I, to find a mother and a brother,\n  In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF EPHESUS\n\n  Here comes the almanac of my true date.\n  What now? How chance thou art return'd so soon?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Return'd so soon! rather approach'd too late.\n  The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit;\n  The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell-\n  My mistress made it one upon my cheek;\n  She is so hot because the meat is cold,\n  The meat is cold because you come not home,\n  You come not home because you have no stomach,\n  You have no stomach, having broke your fast;\n  But we, that know what 'tis to fast and pray,\n  Are penitent for your default to-day.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Stop in your wind, sir; tell me this, I\npray:\n  Where have you left the money that I gave you?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. O-Sixpence that I had a Wednesday last\n  To pay the saddler for my mistress' crupper?\n  The saddler had it, sir; I kept it not.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I am not in a sportive humour now;\n  Tell me, and dally not, where is the money?\n  We being strangers here, how dar'st thou trust\n  So great a charge from thine own custody?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I pray you jest, sir, as you sit at dinner.\n  I from my mistress come to you in post;\n  If I return, I shall be post indeed,\n  For she will score your fault upon my pate.\n  Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock,\n  And strike you home without a messenger.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Come, Dromio, come, these jests are out\nof season;\n  Reserve them till a merrier hour than this.\n  Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. To me, sir? Why, you gave no gold to me.\n  ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Come on, sir knave, have done your\nfoolishness,\n  And tell me how thou hast dispos'd thy charge.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. My charge was but to fetch you from the mart\n  Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner.\n  My mistress and her sister stays for you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Now, as I am a Christian, answer me\n  In what safe place you have bestow'd my money,\n  Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours,\n  That stands on tricks when I am undispos'd.\n  Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I have some marks of yours upon my pate,\n  Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders,\n  But not a thousand marks between you both.\n  If I should pay your worship those again,\n  Perchance you will not bear them patiently.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thy mistress' marks! What mistress,\nslave, hast thou?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Your worship's wife, my mistress at the\nPhoenix;\n  She that doth fast till you come home to dinner,\n  And prays that you will hie you home to dinner.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my\nface,\n  Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave.\n[Beats him]\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. What mean you, sir? For God's sake hold your\nhands!\n  Nay, an you will not, sir, I'll take my heels.\n<Exit\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Upon my life, by some device or other\n  The villain is o'erraught of all my money.\n  They say this town is full of cozenage;\n  As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,\n  Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,\n  Soul-killing witches that deform the body,\n  Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,\n  And many such-like liberties of sin;\n  If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner.\n  I'll to the Centaur to go seek this slave.\n  I greatly fear my money is not safe.\n<Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT Il. SCENE 1\n\nThe house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\n\nEnter ADRIANA, wife to ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, with LUCIANA, her\nsister\n\nADRIANA. Neither my husband nor the slave return'd\n  That in such haste I sent to seek his master!\n  Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock.\nLUCIANA. Perhaps some merchant hath invited him,\n  And from the mart he's somewhere gone to dinner;\n  Good sister, let us dine, and never fret.\n  A man is master of his liberty;\n  Time is their master, and when they see time,\n  They'll go or come. If so, be patient, sister.\nADRIANA. Why should their liberty than ours be more?\nLUCIANA. Because their business still lies out o' door.\nADRIANA. Look when I serve him so, he takes it ill.\nLUCIANA. O, know he is the bridle of your will.\nADRIANA. There's none but asses will be bridled so.\nLUCIANA. Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe.\n  There's nothing situate under heaven's eye\n  But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky.\n  The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls,\n  Are their males' subjects, and at their controls.\n  Man, more divine, the master of all these,\n  Lord of the wide world and wild wat'ry seas,\n  Indu'd with intellectual sense and souls,\n  Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls,\n  Are masters to their females, and their lords;\n  Then let your will attend on their accords.\nADRIANA. This servitude makes you to keep unwed.\nLUCIANA. Not this, but troubles of the marriage-bed.\nADRIANA. But, were you wedded, you would bear some sway.\nLUCIANA. Ere I learn love, I'll practise to obey.\nADRIANA. How if your husband start some other where?\nLUCIANA. Till he come home again, I would forbear.\nADRIANA. Patience unmov'd! no marvel though she pause:\n  They can be meek that have no other cause.\n  A wretched soul, bruis'd with adversity,\n  We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;\n  But were we burd'ned with like weight of pain,\n  As much, or more, we should ourselves complain.\n  So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee,\n  With urging helpless patience would relieve me;\n  But if thou live to see like right bereft,\n  This fool-begg'd patience in thee will be left.\nLUCIANA. Well, I will marry one day, but to try.\n  Here comes your man, now is your husband nigh.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF EPHESUS\n\nADRIANA. Say, is your tardy master now at hand?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, he's at two hands with me, and that my\ntwo\n  ears can witness.\nADRIANA. Say, didst thou speak with him? Know'st thou his mind?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ay, ay, he told his mind upon mine ear.\n  Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it.\nLUCIANA. Spake he so doubtfully thou could'st not feel his\nmeaning?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, he struck so plainly I could to\n  well feel his blows; and withal so doubtfully that I could\n  scarce understand them.\nADRIANA. But say, I prithee, is he coming home?\n  It seems he hath great care to please his wife.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad.\nADRIANA. Horn-mad, thou villain!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I mean not cuckold-mad;\n  But, sure, he is stark mad.\n  When I desir'd him to come home to dinner,\n  He ask'd me for a thousand marks in gold.\n  \"Tis dinner time' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.\n  'Your meat doth burn' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.\n  'Will you come home?' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.\n  'Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain?'\n  'The pig' quoth I 'is burn'd'; 'My gold!' quoth he.\n  'My mistress, sir,' quoth I; 'Hang up thy mistress;\n  I know not thy mistress; out on thy mistress.'\nLUCIANA. Quoth who?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Quoth my master.\n  'I know' quoth he 'no house, no wife, no mistress.'\n  So that my errand, due unto my tongue,\n  I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders;\n  For, in conclusion, he did beat me there.\nADRIANA. Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Go back again, and be new beaten home?\n  For God's sake, send some other messenger.\nADRIANA. Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. And he will bless that cross with other\nbeating;\n  Between you I shall have a holy head.\nADRIANA. Hence, prating peasant! Fetch thy master home.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Am I so round with you, as you with me,\n  That like a football you do spurn me thus?\n  You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither;\n  If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.\n<Exit\nLUCIANA. Fie, how impatience loureth in your face!\nADRIANA. His company must do his minions grace,\n  Whilst I at home starve for a merry look.\n  Hath homely age th' alluring beauty took\n  From my poor cheek? Then he hath wasted it.\n  Are my discourses dull? Barren my wit?\n  If voluble and sharp discourse be marr'd,\n  Unkindness blunts it more than marble hard.\n  Do their gay vestments his affections bait?\n  That's not my fault; he's master of my state.\n  What ruins are in me that can be found\n  By him not ruin'd? Then is he the ground\n  Of my defeatures. My decayed fair\n  A sunny look of his would soon repair.\n  But, too unruly deer, he breaks the pale,\n  And feeds from home; poor I am but his stale.\nLUCIANA. Self-harming jealousy! fie, beat it hence.\nADRIANA. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense.\n  I know his eye doth homage otherwhere;\n  Or else what lets it but he would be here?\n  Sister, you know he promis'd me a chain;\n  Would that alone a love he would detain,\n  So he would keep fair quarter with his bed!\n  I see the jewel best enamelled\n  Will lose his beauty; yet the gold bides still\n  That others touch and, often touching, will\n  Where gold; and no man that hath a name\n  By falsehood and corruption doth it shame.\n  Since that my beauty cannot please his eye,\n  I'll weep what's left away, and weeping die.\nLUCIANA. How many fond fools serve mad jealousy!\n<Exeunt\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nThe mart\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up\n  Safe at the Centaur, and the heedful slave\n  Is wand'red forth in care to seek me out.\n  By computation and mine host's report\n  I could not speak with Dromio since at first\n  I sent him from the mart. See, here he comes.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE\n\n  How now, sir, is your merry humour alter'd?\n  As you love strokes, so jest with me again.\n  You know no Centaur! You receiv'd no gold!\n  Your mistress sent to have me home to dinner!\n  My house was at the Phoenix! Wast thou mad,\n  That thus so madly thou didst answer me?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. What answer, sir? When spake I such a word?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Even now, even here, not half an hour\nsince.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I did not see you since you sent me hence,\n  Home to the Centaur, with the gold you gave me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Villain, thou didst deny the gold's\nreceipt,\n  And told'st me of a mistress and a dinner;\n  For which, I hope, thou felt'st I was displeas'd.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I am glad to see you in this merry vein.\n  What means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the\nteeth?\n  Think'st thou I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that.\n[Beating him]\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Hold, sir, for God's sake! Now your jest is\nearnest.\n  Upon what bargain do you give it me?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Because that I familiarly sometimes\n  Do use you for my fool and chat with you,\n  Your sauciness will jest upon my love,\n  And make a common of my serious hours.\n  When the sun shines let foolish gnats make sport,\n  But creep in crannies when he hides his beams.\n  If you will jest with me, know my aspect,\n  And fashion your demeanour to my looks,\n  Or I will beat this method in your sconce.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Sconce, call you it? So you would\n  leave battering, I had rather have it a head. An you use\n  these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head, and\n  insconce it too; or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders.\n  But I pray, sir, why am I beaten?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Dost thou not know?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Shall I tell you why?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they say\n  every why hath a wherefore.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, first for flouting me; and then\nwherefore,\n  For urging it the second time to me.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Was there ever any man thus beaten out of\nseason,\n  When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason?\n  Well, sir, I thank you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thank me, sir! for what?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, for this something that you gave\n  me for nothing.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I'll make you amends next, to\n  give you nothing for something. But say, sir, is it dinnertime?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, sir; I think the meat wants that I have.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. In good time, sir, what's that?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Basting.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Well, sir, then 'twill be dry.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. If it be, sir, I pray you eat none of it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Your reason?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Lest it make you choleric, and purchase me\n  another dry basting.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Well, sir, learn to jest in good time;\n  there's a time for all things.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I durst have denied that, before you\n  were so choleric.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. By what rule, sir?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the\n  plain bald pate of Father Time himself.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Let's hear it.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. There's no time for a man to recover\n  his hair that grows bald by nature.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. May he not do it by fine and recovery?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig, and\n  recover the lost hair of another man.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why is Time such a niggard of\n  hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Because it is a blessing that he bestows\n  on beasts, and what he hath scanted men in hair he hath\n  given them in wit.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, but there's many a man\n  hath more hair than wit.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Not a man of those but he hath the\n  wit to lose his hair.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, thou didst conclude hairy\n  men plain dealers without wit.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. The plainer dealer, the sooner lost;\n  yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. For what reason?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. For two; and sound ones too.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Nay, not sound I pray you.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Sure ones, then.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Certain ones, then.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Name them.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. The one, to save the money that he spends in\n  tiring; the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his\n  porridge.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. You would all this time have prov'd there\n  is no time for all things.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, and did, sir; namely, no time to\nrecover\n  hair lost by nature.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. But your reason was not substantial, why\n  there is no time to recover.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald,\n  and therefore to the world's end will have bald followers.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I knew 't'would be a bald conclusion.\nBut,\n  soft, who wafts us yonder?\n\nEnter ADRIANA and LUCIANA\n\nADRIANA. Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown.\n  Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects;\n  I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.\n  The time was once when thou unurg'd wouldst vow\n  That never words were music to thine ear,\n  That never object pleasing in thine eye,\n  That never touch well welcome to thy hand,\n  That never meat sweet-savour'd in thy taste,\n  Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carv'd to thee.\n  How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,\n  That thou art then estranged from thyself?\n  Thyself I call it, being strange to me,\n  That, undividable, incorporate,\n  Am better than thy dear self's better part.\n  Ah, do not tear away thyself from me;\n  For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall\n  A drop of water in the breaking gulf,\n  And take unmingled thence that drop again\n  Without addition or diminishing,\n  As take from me thyself, and not me too.\n  How dearly would it touch thee to the quick,\n  Should'st thou but hear I were licentious,\n  And that this body, consecrate to thee,\n  By ruffian lust should be contaminate!\n  Wouldst thou not spit at me and spurn at me,\n  And hurl the name of husband in my face,\n  And tear the stain'd skin off my harlot-brow,\n  And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring,\n  And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?\n  I know thou canst, and therefore see thou do it.\n  I am possess'd with an adulterate blot;\n  My blood is mingled with the crime of lust;\n  For if we two be one, and thou play false,\n  I do digest the poison of thy flesh,\n  Being strumpeted by thy contagion.\n  Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed;\n  I live dis-stain'd, thou undishonoured.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you\nnot:\n  In Ephesus I am but two hours old,\n  As strange unto your town as to your talk,\n  Who, every word by all my wit being scann'd,\n  Wants wit in all one word to understand.\nLUCIANA. Fie, brother, how the world is chang'd with you!\n  When were you wont to use my sister thus?\n  She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. By Dromio?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. By me?\nADRIANA. By thee; and this thou didst return from him-\n  That he did buffet thee, and in his blows\n  Denied my house for his, me for his wife.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Did you converse, sir, with this\ngentlewoman?\n  What is the course and drift of your compact?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I, Sir? I never saw her till this time.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Villain, thou liest; for even her very\nwords\n  Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I never spake with her in all my life.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. How can she thus, then, call us by our\nnames,\n  Unless it be by inspiration?\nADRIANA. How ill agrees it with your gravity\n  To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave,\n  Abetting him to thwart me in my mood!\n  Be it my wrong you are from me exempt,\n  But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.\n  Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine;\n  Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,\n  Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,\n  Makes me with thy strength to communicate.\n  If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,\n  Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss;\n  Who all, for want of pruning, with intrusion\n  Infect thy sap, and live on thy confusion.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. To me she speaks; she moves me for her\ntheme.\n  What, was I married to her in my dream?\n  Or sleep I now, and think I hear all this?\n  What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?\n  Until I know this sure uncertainty,\n  I'll entertain the offer'd fallacy.\nLUCIANA. Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, for my beads! I cross me for sinner.\n  This is the fairy land. O spite of spites!\n  We talk with goblins, owls, and sprites.\n  If we obey them not, this will ensue:\n  They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue.\nLUCIANA. Why prat'st thou to thyself, and answer'st not?\n  Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I am transformed, master, am not I?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I think thou art in mind, and so am I.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nay, master, both in mind and in my shape.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thou hast thine own form.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, I am an ape.\nLUCIANA. If thou art chang'd to aught, 'tis to an ass.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. 'Tis true; she rides me, and I long for\ngrass.\n  'Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be\n  But I should know her as well as she knows me.\nADRIANA. Come, come, no longer will I be a fool,\n  To put the finger in the eye and weep,\n  Whilst man and master laughs my woes to scorn.\n  Come, sir, to dinner. Dromio, keep the gate.\n  Husband, I'll dine above with you to-day,\n  And shrive you of a thousand idle pranks.\n  Sirrah, if any ask you for your master,\n  Say he dines forth, and let no creature enter.\n  Come, sister. Dromio, play the porter well.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?\n  Sleeping or waking, mad or well-advis'd?\n  Known unto these, and to myself disguis'd!\n  I'll say as they say, and persever so,\n  And in this mist at all adventures go.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, shall I be porter at the gate?\nADRIANA. Ay; and let none enter, lest I break your pate.\nLUCIANA. Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late.\n<Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1\n\nBefore the house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, DROMIO OF EPHESUS, ANGELO, and\nBALTHAZAR\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Good Signior Angelo, you must excuse us\nall;\n  My wife is shrewish when I keep not hours.\n  Say that I linger'd with you at your shop\n  To see the making of her carcanet,\n  And that to-morrow you will bring it home.\n  But here's a villain that would face me down\n  He met me on the mart, and that I beat him,\n  And charg'd him with a thousand marks in gold,\n  And that I did deny my wife and house.\n  Thou drunkard, thou, what didst thou mean by this?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Say what you will, sir, but I know what I\nknow.\n  That you beat me at the mart I have your hand to show;\n  If the skin were parchment, and the blows you gave were ink,\n  Your own handwriting would tell you what I think.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I think thou art an ass.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Marry, so it doth appear\n  By the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear.\n  I should kick, being kick'd; and being at that pass,\n  You would keep from my heels, and beware of an ass.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Y'are sad, Signior Balthazar; pray God our\ncheer\n  May answer my good will and your good welcome here.\nBALTHAZAR. I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your welcome\ndear.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. O, Signior Balthazar, either at flesh or\nfish,\n  A table full of welcome makes scarce one dainty dish.\nBALTHAZAR. Good meat, sir, is common; that every churl affords.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And welcome more common; for that's\nnothing\n  but words.\nBALTHAZAR. Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Ay, to a niggardly host and more sparing\nguest.\n  But though my cates be mean, take them in good part;\n  Better cheer may you have, but not with better heart.\n  But, soft, my door is lock'd; go bid them let us in.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Maud, Bridget, Marian, Cicely, Gillian, Ginn!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. [Within] Mome, malt-horse, capon, coxcomb,\nidiot, patch!\n  Either get thee from the door, or sit down at the hatch.\n  Dost thou conjure for wenches, that thou call'st for such\nstore,\n  When one is one too many? Go get thee from the door.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. What patch is made our porter?\n  My master stays in the street.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Let him walk from whence he came,\n    lest he catch cold on's feet.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Who talks within there? Ho, open the door!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Right, sir; I'll tell you when,\n    an you'll tell me wherefore.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Wherefore? For my dinner;\n    I have not din'd to-day.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Nor to-day here you must not;\n    come again when you may.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. What art thou that keep'st me out\n    from the house I owe?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  The porter for this time,\n    sir, and my name is Dromio.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. O Villain, thou hast stol'n both mine\n    office and my name!\n  The one ne'er got me credit, the other mickle blame.\n  If thou hadst been Dromio to-day in my place,\n  Thou wouldst have chang'd thy face for a name, or thy name for\nan ass.\n\nEnter LUCE, within\n\nLUCE.  [Within]  What a coil is there, Dromio? Who are those at\nthe gate?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Let my master in, Luce.\nLUCE.  [Within]  Faith, no, he comes too late;\n  And so tell your master.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. O Lord, I must laugh!\n  Have at you with a proverb: Shall I set in my staff?\nLUCE.  [Within]  Have at you with another: that's-when? can you\ntell?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  If thy name be called Luce\n    -Luce, thou hast answer'd him well.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Do you hear, you minion? You'll let us in,\nI hope?\nLUCE.  [Within]  I thought to have ask'd you.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  And you said no.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. SO, Come, help: well struck! there was blow\nfor blow.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou baggage, let me in.\nLUCE.  [Within]  Can you tell for whose sake?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Master, knock the door hard.\nLUCE.  [Within]  Let him knock till it ache.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You'll cry for this, minion, if beat the\ndoor down.\nLUCE.  [Within] What needs all that, and a pair of stocks in the\ntown?\n\nEnter ADRIANA, within\n\nADRIANA.  [Within]  Who is that at the door, that keeps all this\nnoise?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  By my troth, your town is\n    troubled with unruly boys.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Are you there, wife? You might\n    have come before.\nADRIANA.  [Within]  Your wife, sir knave! Go get you from the\ndoor.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. If YOU went in pain, master, this 'knave'\nwould go sore.\nANGELO. Here is neither cheer, sir, nor welcome; we would fain\nhave either.\nBALTHAZAR. In debating which was best, we shall part with\nneither.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. They stand at the door, master; bid them\nwelcome hither.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There is something in the wind, that we\ncannot get in.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. You would say so, master, if your garments\nwere thin.\n  Your cake here is warm within; you stand here in the cold;\n  It would make a man mad as a buck to be so bought and sold.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Go fetch me something; I'll break ope the\ngate.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Break any breaking here,\n    and I'll break your knave's pate.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. A man may break a word with you,\n    sir; and words are but wind;\n  Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  It seems thou want'st breaking;\n    out upon thee, hind!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Here's too much 'out upon thee!' pray thee let\nme in.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Ay, when fowls have no\n    feathers and fish have no fin.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Well, I'll break in; go borrow me a crow.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. A crow without feather? Master, mean you so?\n  For a fish without a fin, there's a fowl without a feather;\n  If a crow help us in, sirrah, we'll pluck a crow together.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Go get thee gone; fetch me an iron crow.\nBALTHAZAR. Have patience, sir; O, let it not be so!\n  Herein you war against your reputation,\n  And draw within the compass of suspect\n  Th' unviolated honour of your wife.\n  Once this-your long experience of her wisdom,\n  Her sober virtue, years, and modesty,\n  Plead on her part some cause to you unknown;\n  And doubt not, sir, but she will well excuse\n  Why at this time the doors are made against you.\n  Be rul'd by me: depart in patience,\n  And let us to the Tiger all to dinner;\n  And, about evening, come yourself alone\n  To know the reason of this strange restraint.\n  If by strong hand you offer to break in\n  Now in the stirring passage of the day,\n  A vulgar comment will be made of it,\n  And that supposed by the common rout\n  Against your yet ungalled estimation\n  That may with foul intrusion enter in\n  And dwell upon your grave when you are dead;\n  For slander lives upon succession,\n  For ever hous'd where it gets possession.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You have prevail'd. I will depart in\nquiet,\n  And in despite of mirth mean to be merry.\n  I know a wench of excellent discourse,\n  Pretty and witty; wild, and yet, too, gentle;\n  There will we dine. This woman that I mean,\n  My wife-but, I protest, without desert-\n  Hath oftentimes upbraided me withal;\n  To her will we to dinner.  [To ANGELO]  Get you home\n  And fetch the chain; by this I know 'tis made.\n  Bring it, I pray you, to the Porpentine;\n  For there's the house. That chain will I bestow-\n  Be it for nothing but to spite my wife-\n  Upon mine hostess there; good sir, make haste.\n  Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me,\n  I'll knock elsewhere, to see if they'll disdain me.\nANGELO. I'll meet you at that place some hour hence.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Do so; this jest shall cost me some\nexpense.\n<Exeunt\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nBefore the house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\n\nEnter LUCIANA with ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE\n\nLUCIANA. And may it be that you have quite forgot\n  A husband's office? Shall, Antipholus,\n  Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?\n  Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous?\n  If you did wed my sister for her wealth,\n  Then for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness;\n  Or, if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth;\n  Muffle your false love with some show of blindness;\n  Let not my sister read it in your eye;\n  Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator;\n  Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty;\n  Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger;\n  Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted;\n  Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint;\n  Be secret-false. What need she be acquainted?\n  What simple thief brags of his own attaint?\n  'Tis double wrong to truant with your bed\n  And let her read it in thy looks at board;\n  Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed;\n  Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word.\n  Alas, poor women! make us but believe,\n  Being compact of credit, that you love us;\n  Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve;\n  We in your motion turn, and you may move us.\n  Then, gentle brother, get you in again;\n  Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife.\n  'Tis holy sport to be a little vain\n  When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Sweet mistress-what your name is else, I\nknow not,\n  Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine-\n  Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not\n  Than our earth's wonder-more than earth, divine.\n  Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak;\n  Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit,\n  Smoth'red in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,\n  The folded meaning of your words' deceit.\n  Against my soul's pure truth why labour you\n  To make it wander in an unknown field?\n  Are you a god? Would you create me new?\n  Transform me, then, and to your pow'r I'll yield.\n  But if that I am I, then well I know\n  Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,\n  Nor to her bed no homage do I owe;\n  Far more, far more, to you do I decline.\n  O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,\n  To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears.\n  Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote;\n  Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,\n  And as a bed I'll take them, and there he;\n  And in that glorious supposition think\n  He gains by death that hath such means to die.\n  Let Love, being light, be drowned if she sink.\nLUCIANA. What, are you mad, that you do reason so?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.\nLUCIANA. It is a fault that springeth from your eye.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being\nby.\nLUCIANA. Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. As good to wink, sweet love, as look on\nnight.\nLUCIANA. Why call you me love? Call my sister so.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thy sister's sister.\nLUCIANA. That's my sister.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. No;\n  It is thyself, mine own self's better part;\n  Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart,\n  My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope's aim,\n  My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.\nLUCIANA. All this my sister is, or else should be.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am\nthee;\n  Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life;\n  Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife.\n  Give me thy hand.\nLUCIANA. O, soft, sir, hold you still;\n  I'll fetch my sister to get her good will.\n<Exit LUCIANA\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, how now, Dromio! Where run'st thou\n  so fast?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Do you know me, sir? Am I Dromio?\n  Am I your man? Am I myself?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thou art Dromio, thou art my\n  man, thou art thyself.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I am an ass, I am a woman's man, and besides\n  myself.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What woman's man, and how besides\nthyself?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due\n  to a woman-one that claims me, one that haunts me, one\n  that will have me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What claim lays she to thee?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, such claim as you would\n  lay to your horse; and she would have me as a beast: not\n  that, I being a beast, she would have me; but that she,\n  being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What is she?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. A very reverent body; ay, such a one\n  as a man may not speak of without he say 'Sir-reverence.'\n  I have but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a\n  wondrous fat marriage.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. How dost thou mean a fat marriage?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, she's the kitchen-wench,\n  and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to but\n  to make a lamp of her and run from her by her own light.\n  I warrant, her rags and the tallow in them will burn\n  Poland winter. If she lives till doomsday, she'll burn\n  week longer than the whole world.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What complexion is she of?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Swart, like my shoe; but her face\n  nothing like so clean kept; for why, she sweats, a man may\n  go over shoes in the grime of it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. That's a fault that water will mend.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood\n  could not do it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What's her name?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nell, sir; but her name and three\n  quarters, that's an ell and three quarters, will not measure\n  her from hip to hip.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Then she bears some breadth?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No longer from head to foot than\n  from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find\n  out countries in her.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. In what part of her body stands Ireland?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, in her buttocks; I found it out\nby\n  the bogs.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where Scotland?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I found it by the barrenness, hard in\n  the palm of the hand.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where France?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. In her forehead, arm'd and reverted,\n  making war against her heir.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where England?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I look'd for the chalky cliffs, but I\n  could find no whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her\n  chin, by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where Spain?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Faith, I saw it not, but I felt it hot in\n  her breath.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where America, the Indies?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, sir, upon her nose, an o'er embellished\nwith\n  rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to\nthe\n  hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of caracks to be\n  ballast at her nose.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, Sir, I did not look so low. To\n  conclude: this drudge or diviner laid claim to me; call'd me\n  Dromio; swore I was assur'd to her; told me what privy\n  marks I had about me, as, the mark of my shoulder, the\n  mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I,\n  amaz'd, ran from her as a witch.\n  And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith,\n    and my heart of steel,\n  She had transform'd me to a curtal dog, and made me turn i' th'\nwheel.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Go hie thee presently post to the road;\n  An if the wind blow any way from shore,\n  I will not harbour in this town to-night.\n  If any bark put forth, come to the mart,\n  Where I will walk till thou return to me.\n  If every one knows us, and we know none,\n  'Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack and be gone.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. As from a bear a man would run for life,\n  So fly I from her that would be my wife.\n<Exit\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. There's none but witches do inhabit here,\n  And therefore 'tis high time that I were hence.\n  She that doth call me husband, even my soul\n  Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister,\n  Possess'd with such a gentle sovereign grace,\n  Of such enchanting presence and discourse,\n  Hath almost made me traitor to myself;\n  But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong,\n  I'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song.\n\nEnter ANGELO with the chain\n\nANGELO. Master Antipholus!\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Ay, that's my name.\nANGELO. I know it well, sir. Lo, here is the chain.\n  I thought to have ta'en you at the Porpentine;\n  The chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What is your will that I shall do with\nthis?\nANGELO. What please yourself, sir; I have made it for you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Made it for me, sir! I bespoke it not.\nANGELO. Not once nor twice, but twenty times you have.\n  Go home with it, and please your wife withal;\n  And soon at supper-time I'll visit you,\n  And then receive my money for the chain.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I pray you, sir, receive the money now,\n  For fear you ne'er see chain nor money more.\nANGELO. You are a merry man, sir; fare you well.\n<Exit\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What I should think of this cannot tell:\n  But this I think, there's no man is so vain\n  That would refuse so fair an offer'd chain.\n  I see a man here needs not live by shifts,\n  When in the streets he meets such golden gifts.\n  I'll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay;\n  If any ship put out, then straight away.\n<Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1\n\nA public place\n\nEnter SECOND MERCHANT, ANGELO, and an OFFICER\n\nSECOND MERCHANT. You know since Pentecost the sum is due,\n  And since I have not much importun'd you;\n  Nor now I had not, but that I am bound\n  To Persia, and want guilders for my voyage.\n  Therefore make present satisfaction,\n  Or I'll attach you by this officer.\nANGELO. Even just the sum that I do owe to you\n  Is growing to me by Antipholus;\n  And in the instant that I met with you\n  He had of me a chain; at five o'clock\n  I shall receive the money for the same.\n  Pleaseth you walk with me down to his house,\n  I will discharge my bond, and thank you too.\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, and DROMIO OF EPHESUS, from the\nCOURTEZAN'S\n\nOFFICER. That labour may you save; see where he comes.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. While I go to the goldsmith's house, go\nthou\n  And buy a rope's end; that will I bestow\n  Among my wife and her confederates,\n  For locking me out of my doors by day.\n  But, soft, I see the goldsmith. Get thee gone;\n  Buy thou a rope, and bring it home to me.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I buy a thousand pound a year; I buy a rope.\n<Exit DROMIO\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. A man is well holp up that trusts to you!\n  I promised your presence and the chain;\n  But neither chain nor goldsmith came to me.\n  Belike you thought our love would last too long,\n  If it were chain'd together, and therefore came not.\nANGELO. Saving your merry humour, here's the note\n  How much your chain weighs to the utmost carat,\n  The fineness of the gold, and chargeful fashion,\n  Which doth amount to three odd ducats more\n  Than I stand debted to this gentleman.\n  I pray you see him presently discharg'd,\n  For he is bound to sea, and stays but for it.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I am not furnish'd with the present money;\n  Besides, I have some business in the town.\n  Good signior, take the stranger to my house,\n  And with you take the chain, and bid my wife\n  Disburse the sum on the receipt thereof.\n  Perchance I will be there as soon as you.\nANGELO. Then you will bring the chain to her yourself?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. No; bear it with you, lest I come not time\nenough.\nANGELO. Well, sir, I will. Have you the chain about you?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. An if I have not, sir, I hope you have;\n  Or else you may return without your money.\nANGELO. Nay, come, I pray you, sir, give me the chain;\n  Both wind and tide stays for this gentleman,\n  And I, to blame, have held him here too long.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Good Lord! you use this dalliance to\nexcuse\n  Your breach of promise to the Porpentine;\n  I should have chid you for not bringing it,\n  But, like a shrew, you first begin to brawl.\nSECOND MERCHANT. The hour steals on; I pray you, sir, dispatch.\nANGELO. You hear how he importunes me-the chain!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Why, give it to my wife, and fetch your\nmoney.\nANGELO. Come, come, you know I gave it you even now.\n  Either send the chain or send by me some token.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Fie, now you run this humour out of\nbreath!\n  Come, where's the chain? I pray you let me see it.\nSECOND MERCHANT. My business cannot brook this dalliance.\n  Good sir, say whe'r you'll answer me or no;\n  If not, I'll leave him to the officer.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I answer you! What should I answer you?\nANGELO. The money that you owe me for the chain.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I owe you none till I receive the chain.\nANGELO. You know I gave it you half an hour since.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You gave me none; you wrong me much to say\nso.\nANGELO. You wrong me more, sir, in denying it.\n  Consider how it stands upon my credit.\nSECOND MERCHANT. Well, officer, arrest him at my suit.\nOFFICER. I do; and charge you in the Duke's name to obey me.\nANGELO. This touches me in reputation.\n  Either consent to pay this sum for me,\n  Or I attach you by this officer.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Consent to pay thee that I never had!\n  Arrest me, foolish fellow, if thou dar'st.\nANGELO. Here is thy fee; arrest him, officer.\n  I would not spare my brother in this case,\n  If he should scorn me so apparently.\nOFFICER. I do arrest you, sir; you hear the suit.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I do obey thee till I give thee bail.\n  But, sirrah, you shall buy this sport as dear\n  As all the metal in your shop will answer.\nANGELO. Sir, sir, I shall have law in Ephesus,\n  To your notorious shame, I doubt it not.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, from the bay\n\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, there's a bark of Epidamnum\n  That stays but till her owner comes aboard,\n  And then, sir, she bears away. Our fraughtage, sir,\n  I have convey'd aboard; and I have bought\n  The oil, the balsamum, and aqua-vitx.\n  The ship is in her trim; the merry wind\n  Blows fair from land; they stay for nought at an\n  But for their owner, master, and yourself.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. How now! a madman? Why, thou peevish\nsheep,\n  What ship of Epidamnum stays for me?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. A ship you sent me to, to hire waftage.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. THOU drunken slave! I sent the for a rope;\n  And told thee to what purpose and what end.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. YOU sent me for a rope's end as soon-\n  You sent me to the bay, sir, for a bark.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I Will debate this matter at more leisure,\n  And teach your ears to list me with more heed.\n  To Adriana, villain, hie thee straight;\n  Give her this key, and tell her in the desk\n  That's cover'd o'er with Turkish tapestry\n  There is a purse of ducats; let her send it.\n  Tell her I am arrested in the street,\n  And that shall bail me; hie thee, slave, be gone.\n  On, officer, to prison till it come.\n<Exeunt all but DROMIO\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. To Adriana! that is where we din'd,\n  Where Dowsabel did claim me for her husband.\n  She is too big, I hope, for me to compass.\n  Thither I must, although against my will,\n  For servants must their masters' minds fulfil.\n<Exit\n\n\nSCENE 2\n\nThe house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\n\nEnter ADRIANA and LUCIANA\n\nADRIANA. Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so?\n  Might'st thou perceive austerely in his eye\n  That he did plead in earnest? Yea or no?\n  Look'd he or red or pale, or sad or merrily?\n  What observation mad'st thou in this case\n  Of his heart's meteors tilting in his face?\nLUCIANA. First he denied you had in him no right.\nADRIANA. He meant he did me none-the more my spite.\nLUCIANA. Then swore he that he was a stranger here.\nADRIANA. And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were.\nLUCIANA. Then pleaded I for you.\nADRIANA. And what said he?\nLUCIANA. That love I begg'd for you he begg'd of me.\nADRIANA. With what persuasion did he tempt thy love?\nLUCIANA. With words that in an honest suit might move.\n  First he did praise my beauty, then my speech.\nADRIANA. Didst speak him fair?\nLUCIANA. Have patience, I beseech.\nADRIANA. I cannot, nor I will not hold me still;\n  My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will.\n  He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere,\n  Ill-fac'd, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere;\n  Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind;\n  Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.\nLUCIANA. Who would be jealous then of such a one?\n  No evil lost is wail'd when it is gone.\nADRIANA. Ah, but I think him better than I say,\n  And yet would herein others' eyes were worse.\n  Far from her nest the lapwing cries away;\n  My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.\n\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Here go-the desk, the purse. Sweet\n  now, make haste.\nLUCIANA. How hast thou lost thy breath?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. By running fast.\nADRIANA. Where is thy master, Dromio? Is he well?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell.\n  A devil in an everlasting garment hath him;\n  One whose hard heart is button'd up with steel;\n  A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough;\n  A wolf, nay worse, a fellow all in buff;\n  A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands\n  The passages of alleys, creeks, and narrow lands;\n  A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot well;\n  One that, before the Judgment, carries poor souls to hell.\nADRIANA. Why, man, what is the matter?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I do not know the matter; he is rested on the\ncase.\nADRIANA. What, is he arrested? Tell me, at whose suit?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I know not at whose suit he is arrested well;\n  But he's in a suit of buff which 'rested him, that can I tell.\n  Will you send him, mistress, redemption, the money in his desk?\nADRIANA. Go fetch it, sister.  [Exit LUCIANA]  This I wonder at:\n  Thus he unknown to me should be in debt.\n  Tell me, was he arrested on a band?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. on a band, but on a stronger thing,\n  A chain, a chain. Do you not hear it ring?\nADRIANA. What, the chain?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, no, the bell; 'tis time that I were gone.\n  It was two ere I left him, and now the clock strikes one.\nADRIANA. The hours come back! That did I never hear.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O yes. If any hour meet a sergeant,\n    'a turns back for very fear.\nADRIANA. As if Time were in debt! How fondly dost thou reason!\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Time is a very bankrupt, and owes\n    more than he's worth to season.\n  Nay, he's a thief too: have you not heard men say\n  That Time comes stealing on by night and day?\n  If 'a be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way,\n  Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day?\n\nRe-enter LUCIANA with a purse\n\nADRIANA. Go, Dromio, there's the money; bear it straight,\n  And bring thy master home immediately.\n  Come, sister; I am press'd down with conceit-\n  Conceit, my comfort and my injury.\n<Exeunt\n\n\nSCENE 3\n\nThe mart\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. There's not a man I meet but doth salute\nme\n  As if I were their well-acquainted friend;\n  And every one doth call me by my name.\n  Some tender money to me, some invite me,\n  Some other give me thanks for kindnesses,\n  Some offer me commodities to buy;\n  Even now a tailor call'd me in his shop,\n  And show'd me silks that he had bought for me,\n  And therewithal took measure of my body.\n  Sure, these are but imaginary wiles,\n  And Lapland sorcerers inhabit here.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE\n\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, here's the gold you sent me\n  for. What, have you got the picture of old Adam new-apparell'd?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What gold is this? What Adam dost thou\nmean?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Not that Adam that kept the Paradise,\n  but that Adam that keeps the prison; he that goes in the\n  calf's skin that was kill'd for the Prodigal; he that came\nbehind\n  you, sir, like an evil angel, and bid you forsake your liberty.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I understand thee not.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No? Why, 'tis a plain case: he that\n  went, like a bass-viol, in a case of leather; the man, sir,\n  that, when gentlemen are tired, gives them a sob, and rest\n  them; he, sir, that takes pity on decayed men, and give\n  them suits of durance; he that sets up his rest to do more\n  exploits with his mace than a morris-pike.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What, thou mean'st an officer?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Ay, sir, the sergeant of the band;\n  that brings any man to answer it that breaks his band; on\n  that thinks a man always going to bed, and says 'God give\n  you good rest!'\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Well, sir, there rest in your foolery. Is\n  there any ship puts forth to-night? May we be gone?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Why, sir, I brought you word an\n  hour since that the bark Expedition put forth to-night; and\n  then were you hind'red by the sergeant, to tarry for the\n  boy Delay. Here are the angels that you sent for to deliver\nyou.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. The fellow is distract, and so am I;\n  And here we wander in illusions.\n  Some blessed power deliver us from hence!\n\nEnter a COURTEZAN\n\nCOURTEZAN. Well met, well met, Master Antipholus.\n  I see, sir, you have found the goldsmith now.\n  Is that the chain you promis'd me to-day?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Satan, avoid! I charge thee, tempt me\nnot.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, is this Mistress Satan?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. It is the devil.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nay, she is worse, she is the devil's\n  dam, and here she comes in the habit of a light wench; and\n  thereof comes that the wenches say 'God damn me!' That's\n  as much to say 'God make me a light wench!' It is written\n  they appear to men like angels of light; light is an effect\n  of fire, and fire will burn; ergo, light wenches will burn.\n  Come not near her.\nCOURTEZAN. Your man and you are marvellous merry, sir.\n  Will you go with me? We'll mend our dinner here.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, if you do, expect spoon-meat,\n  or bespeak a long spoon.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, Dromio?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, he must have a long spoon\n  that must eat with the devil.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Avoid then, fiend! What tell'st thou me\nof supping?\n  Thou art, as you are all, a sorceress;\n  I conjure thee to leave me and be gone.\nCOURTEZAN. Give me the ring of mine you had at dinner,\n  Or, for my diamond, the chain you promis'd,\n  And I'll be gone, sir, and not trouble you.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Some devils ask but the parings of one's\nnail,\n  A rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin,\n  A nut, a cherry-stone;\n  But she, more covetous, would have a chain.\n  Master, be wise; an if you give it her,\n  The devil will shake her chain, and fright us with it.\nCOURTEZAN. I pray you, sir, my ring, or else the chain;\n  I hope you do not mean to cheat me so.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Avaunt, thou witch! Come, Dromio, let us\ngo.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. 'Fly pride' says the peacock. Mistress, that\nyou know.\n<Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE\nCOURTEZAN. Now, out of doubt, Antipholus is mad,\n  Else would he never so demean himself.\n  A ring he hath of mine worth forty ducats,\n  And for the same he promis'd me a chain;\n  Both one and other he denies me now.\n  The reason that I gather he is mad,\n  Besides this present instance of his rage,\n  Is a mad tale he told to-day at dinner\n  Of his own doors being shut against his entrance.\n  Belike his wife, acquainted with his fits,\n  On purpose shut the doors against his way.\n  My way is now to hie home to his house,\n  And tell his wife that, being lunatic,\n  He rush'd into my house and took perforce\n  My ring away. This course I fittest choose,\n  For forty ducats is too much to lose.\n<Exit\n\n\nSCENE 4\n\nA street\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS with the OFFICER\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Fear me not, man; I will not break away.\n  I'll give thee, ere I leave thee, so much money,\n  To warrant thee, as I am 'rested for.\n  My wife is in a wayward mood to-day,\n  And will not lightly trust the messenger.\n  That I should be attach'd in Ephesus,\n  I tell you 'twill sound harshly in her cars.\n\nEnter DROMIO OF EPHESUS, with a rope's-end\n\n  Here comes my man; I think he brings the money.\n  How now, sir! Have you that I sent you for?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Here's that, I warrant you, will pay them all.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. But where's the money?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Why, sir, I gave the money for the rope.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Five hundred ducats, villain, for rope?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I'll serve you, sir, five hundred at the rate.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. To what end did I bid thee hie thee home?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. To a rope's-end, sir; and to that end am I\n  return'd.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And to that end, sir, I will welcome you.\n[Beating him]\nOFFICER. Good sir, be patient.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, 'tis for me to be patient; I am in\n  adversity.\nOFFICER. Good now, hold thy tongue.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, rather persuade him to hold his hands.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou whoreson, senseless villain!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I would I were senseless, sir, that I\n  might not feel your blows.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou art sensible in nothing but\n  blows, and so is an ass.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I am an ass indeed; you may prove it\n  by my long 'ears. I have served him from the hour of my\n  nativity to this instant, and have nothing at his hands for\n  my service but blows. When I am cold he heats me with\n  beating; when I am warm he cools me with beating. I am\n  wak'd with it when I sleep; rais'd with it when I sit; driven\n  out of doors with it when I go from home; welcom'd home\n  with it when I return; nay, I bear it on my shoulders as\n  beggar wont her brat; and I think, when he hath lam'd me,\n  I shall beg with it from door to door.\n\nEnter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, the COURTEZAN, and a SCHOOLMASTER\ncall'd PINCH\n\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Come, go along; my wife is coming yonder.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Mistress, 'respice finem,' respect your end;\nor\n  rather, to prophesy like the parrot, 'Beware the rope's-end.'\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Wilt thou still talk?\n[Beating him]\nCOURTEZAN. How say you now? Is not your husband mad?\nADRIANA. His incivility confirms no less.\n  Good Doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer:\n  Establish him in his true sense again,\n  And I will please you what you will demand.\nLUCIANA. Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks!\nCOURTEZAN. Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy.\nPINCH. Give me your hand, and let me feel your pulse.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There is my hand, and let it feel your\near.\n[Striking him]\nPINCH. I charge thee, Satan, hous'd within this man,\n  To yield possession to my holy prayers,\n  And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight.\n  I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Peace, doting wizard, peace! I am not mad.\nADRIANA. O, that thou wert not, poor distressed soul!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You minion, you, are these your customers?\n  Did this companion with the saffron face\n  Revel and feast it at my house to-day,\n  Whilst upon me the guilty doors were shut,\n  And I denied to enter in my house?\nADRIANA. O husband, God doth know you din'd at home,\n  Where would you had remain'd until this time,\n  Free from these slanders and this open shame!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Din'd at home! Thou villain, what sayest\nthou?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sir, Sooth to say, you did not dine at home.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Were not my doors lock'd up and I shut\nout?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Perdie, your doors were lock'd and you shut\nout.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And did not she herself revile me there?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sans fable, she herself revil'd you there.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Did not her kitchen-maid rail, taunt, and\nscorn me?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Certes, she did; the kitchen-vestal scorn'd\nyou.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And did not I in rage depart from thence?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. In verity, you did. My bones bear witness,\n  That since have felt the vigour of his rage.\nADRIANA. Is't good to soothe him in these contraries?\nPINCH. It is no shame; the fellow finds his vein,\n  And, yielding to him, humours well his frenzy.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou hast suborn'd the goldsmith to arrest\nme.\nADRIANA. Alas, I sent you money to redeem you,\n  By Dromio here, who came in haste for it.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Money by me! Heart and goodwill you might,\n  But surely, master, not a rag of money.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Went'st not thou to her for purse of\nducats?\nADRIANA. He came to me, and I deliver'd it.\nLUCIANA. And I am witness with her that she did.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. God and the rope-maker bear me witness\n  That I was sent for nothing but a rope!\nPINCH. Mistress, both man and master is possess'd;\n  I know it by their pale and deadly looks.\n  They must be bound, and laid in some dark room.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Say, wherefore didst thou lock me forth\nto-day?\n  And why dost thou deny the bag of gold?\nADRIANA. I did not, gentle husband, lock thee forth.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. And, gentle master, I receiv'd no gold;\n  But I confess, sir, that we were lock'd out.\nADRIANA. Dissembling villain, thou speak'st false in both.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Dissembling harlot, thou art false in all,\n  And art confederate with a damned pack\n  To make a loathsome abject scorn of me;\n  But with these nails I'll pluck out these false eyes\n  That would behold in me this shameful sport.\nADRIANA. O, bind him, bind him; let him not come near me.\nPINCH. More company! The fiend is strong within him.\n\nEnter three or four, and offer to bind him. He strives\n\nLUCIANA. Ay me, poor man, how pale and wan he looks!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. What, will you murder me? Thou gaoler,\nthou,\n  I am thy prisoner. Wilt thou suffer them\n  To make a rescue?\nOFFICER. Masters, let him go;\n  He is my prisoner, and you shall not have him.\nPINCH. Go bind this man, for he is frantic too.\n[They bind DROMIO]\nADRIANA. What wilt thou do, thou peevish officer?\n  Hast thou delight to see a wretched man\n  Do outrage and displeasure to himself?\nOFFICER. He is my prisoner; if I let him go,\n  The debt he owes will be requir'd of me.\nADRIANA. I will discharge thee ere I go from thee;\n  Bear me forthwith unto his creditor,\n  And, knowing how the debt grows, I will pay it.\n  Good Master Doctor, see him safe convey'd\n  Home to my house. O most unhappy day!\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. O most unhappy strumpet!\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Master, I am here ent'red in bond for you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Out on thee, villian! Wherefore\n  dost thou mad me?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Will you be bound for nothing?\n  Be mad, good master; cry 'The devil!'\nLUCIANA. God help, poor souls, how idly do they talk!\nADRIANA. Go bear him hence. Sister, go you with me.\n<Exeunt all but ADRIANA, LUCIANA, OFFICERS, and COURTEZAN\n  Say now, whose suit is he arrested at?\nOFFICER. One Angelo, a goldsmith; do you know him?\nADRIANA. I know the man. What is the sum he owes?\nOFFICER. Two hundred ducats.\nADRIANA. Say, how grows it due?\nOFFICER. Due for a chain your husband had of him.\nADRIANA. He did bespeak a chain for me, but had it not.\nCOURTEZAN. When as your husband, all in rage, to-day\n  Came to my house, and took away my ring-\n  The ring I saw upon his finger now-\n  Straight after did I meet him with a chain.\nADRIANA. It may be so, but I did never see it.\n  Come, gaoler, bring me where the goldsmith is;\n  I long to know the truth hereof at large.\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, with his rapier drawn, and\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE.\n\nLUCIANA. God, for thy mercy! they are loose again.\nADRIANA. And come with naked swords.\n  Let's call more help to have them bound again.\nOFFICER. Away, they'll kill us!\n<Exeunt all but ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE as fast as may be, frighted\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I see these witches are afraid of swords.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. She that would be your wife now ran from you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Come to the Centaur; fetch our stuff from\nthence.\n  I long that we were safe and sound aboard.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Faith, stay here this night; they will\n  surely do us no harm; you saw they speak us fair, give us\n  gold; methinks they are such a gentle nation that, but for\n  the mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage of me,\n  could find in my heart to stay here still and turn witch.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I will not stay to-night for all the\ntown;\n  Therefore away, to get our stuff aboard.\n<Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1\n\nA street before a priory\n\nEnter SECOND MERCHANT and ANGELO\n\nANGELO. I am sorry, sir, that I have hind'red you;\n  But I protest he had the chain of me,\n  Though most dishonestly he doth deny it.\nSECOND MERCHANT. How is the man esteem'd here in the city?\nANGELO. Of very reverend reputation, sir,\n  Of credit infinite, highly belov'd,\n  Second to none that lives here in the city;\n  His word might bear my wealth at any time.\nSECOND MERCHANT. Speak softly; yonder, as I think, he walks.\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE\n\nANGELO. 'Tis so; and that self chain about his neck\n  Which he forswore most monstrously to have.\n  Good sir, draw near to me, I'll speak to him.\n  Signior Andpholus, I wonder much\n  That you would put me to this shame and trouble;\n  And, not without some scandal to yourself,\n  With circumstance and oaths so to deny\n  This chain, which now you wear so openly.\n  Beside the charge, the shame, imprisonment,\n  You have done wrong to this my honest friend;\n  Who, but for staying on our controversy,\n  Had hoisted sail and put to sea to-day.\n  This chain you had of me; can you deny it?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I think I had; I never did deny it.\nSECOND MERCHANT. Yes, that you did, sir, and forswore it too.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Who heard me to deny it or forswear it?\nSECOND MERCHANT. These ears of mine, thou know'st, did hear thee.\n  Fie on thee, wretch! 'tis pity that thou liv'st\n  To walk where any honest men resort.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thou art a villain to impeach me thus;\n  I'll prove mine honour and mine honesty\n  Against thee presently, if thou dar'st stand.\nSECOND MERCHANT. I dare, and do defy thee for a villain.\n[They draw]\n\nEnter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, the COURTEZAN, and OTHERS\n\nADRIANA. Hold, hurt him not, for God's sake! He is mad.\n  Some get within him, take his sword away;\n  Bind Dromio too, and bear them to my house.\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Run, master, run; for God's sake take a\nhouse.\n  This is some priory. In, or we are spoil'd.\n<Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE to the\npriory\n\nEnter the LADY ABBESS\n\nABBESS. Be quiet, people. Wherefore throng you hither?\nADRIANA. To fetch my poor distracted husband hence.\n  Let us come in, that we may bind him fast,\n  And bear him home for his recovery.\nANGELO. I knew he was not in his perfect wits.\nSECOND MERCHANT. I am sorry now that I did draw on him.\nABBESS. How long hath this possession held the man?\nADRIANA. This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad,\n  And much different from the man he was;\n  But till this afternoon his passion\n  Ne'er brake into extremity of rage.\nABBESS. Hath he not lost much wealth by wreck of sea?\n  Buried some dear friend? Hath not else his eye\n  Stray'd his affection in unlawful love?\n  A sin prevailing much in youthful men\n  Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing.\n  Which of these sorrows is he subject to?\nADRIANA. To none of these, except it be the last;\n  Namely, some love that drew him oft from home.\nABBESS. You should for that have reprehended him.\nADRIANA. Why, so I did.\nABBESS. Ay, but not rough enough.\nADRIANA. As roughly as my modesty would let me.\nABBESS. Haply in private.\nADRIANA. And in assemblies too.\nABBESS. Ay, but not enough.\nADRIANA. It was the copy of our conference.\n  In bed, he slept not for my urging it;\n  At board, he fed not for my urging it;\n  Alone, it was the subject of my theme;\n  In company, I often glanced it;\n  Still did I tell him it was vile and bad.\nABBESS. And thereof came it that the man was mad.\n  The venom clamours of a jealous woman\n  Poisons more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.\n  It seems his sleeps were hind'red by thy railing,\n  And thereof comes it that his head is light.\n  Thou say'st his meat was sauc'd with thy upbraidings:\n  Unquiet meals make ill digestions;\n  Thereof the raging fire of fever bred;\n  And what's a fever but a fit of madness?\n  Thou say'st his sports were hind'red by thy brawls.\n  Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue\n  But moody and dull melancholy,\n  Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair,\n  And at her heels a huge infectious troop\n  Of pale distemperatures and foes to life?\n  In food, in sport, and life-preserving rest,\n  To be disturb'd would mad or man or beast.\n  The consequence is, then, thy jealous fits\n  Hath scar'd thy husband from the use of wits.\nLUCIANA. She never reprehended him but mildly,\n  When he demean'd himself rough, rude, and wildly.\n  Why bear you these rebukes, and answer not?\nADRIANA. She did betray me to my own reproof.\n  Good people, enter, and lay hold on him.\nABBESS. No, not a creature enters in my house.\nADRIANA. Then let your servants bring my husband forth.\nABBESS. Neither; he took this place for sanctuary,\n  And it shall privilege him from your hands\n  Till I have brought him to his wits again,\n  Or lose my labour in assaying it.\nADRIANA. I will attend my husband, be his nurse,\n  Diet his sickness, for it is my office,\n  And will have no attorney but myself;\n  And therefore let me have him home with me.\nABBESS. Be patient; for I will not let him stir\n  Till I have us'd the approved means I have,\n  With wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers,\n  To make of him a formal man again.\n  It is a branch and parcel of mine oath,\n  A charitable duty of my order;\n  Therefore depart, and leave him here with me.\nADRIANA. I will not hence and leave my husband here;\n  And ill it doth beseem your holiness\n  To separate the husband and the wife.\nABBESS. Be quiet, and depart; thou shalt not have him.\n<Exit\nLUCIANA. Complain unto the Duke of this indignity.\nADRIANA. Come, go; I will fall prostrate at his feet,\n  And never rise until my tears and prayers\n  Have won his Grace to come in person hither\n  And take perforce my husband from the Abbess.\nSECOND MERCHANT. By this, I think, the dial points at five;\n  Anon, I'm sure, the Duke himself in person\n  Comes this way to the melancholy vale,\n  The place of death and sorry execution,\n  Behind the ditches of the abbey here.\nANGELO. Upon what cause?\nSECOND MERCHANT. To see a reverend Syracusian merchant,\n  Who put unluckily into this bay\n  Against the laws and statutes of this town,\n  Beheaded publicly for his offence.\nANGELO. See where they come; we will behold his death.\nLUCIANA. Kneel to the Duke before he pass the abbey.\n\nEnter the DUKE, attended; AEGEON, bareheaded;\nwith the HEADSMAN and other OFFICERS\n\nDUKE. Yet once again proclaim it publicly,\n  If any friend will pay the sum for him,\n  He shall not die; so much we tender him.\nADRIANA. Justice, most sacred Duke, against the Abbess!\nDUKE. She is a virtuous and a reverend lady;\n  It cannot be that she hath done thee wrong.\nADRIANA. May it please your Grace, Antipholus, my husband,\n  Who I made lord of me and all I had\n  At your important letters-this ill day\n  A most outrageous fit of madness took him,\n  That desp'rately he hurried through the street,\n  With him his bondman all as mad as he,\n  Doing displeasure to the citizens\n  By rushing in their houses, bearing thence\n  Rings, jewels, anything his rage did like.\n  Once did I get him bound and sent him home,\n  Whilst to take order for the wrongs I went,\n  That here and there his fury had committed.\n  Anon, I wot not by what strong escape,\n  He broke from those that had the guard of him,\n  And with his mad attendant and himself,\n  Each one with ireful passion, with drawn swords,\n  Met us again and, madly bent on us,\n  Chas'd us away; till, raising of more aid,\n  We came again to bind them. Then they fled\n  Into this abbey, whither we pursu'd them;\n  And here the Abbess shuts the gates on us,\n  And will not suffer us to fetch him out,\n  Nor send him forth that we may bear him hence.\n  Therefore, most gracious Duke, with thy command\n  Let him be brought forth and borne hence for help.\nDUKE. Long since thy husband serv'd me in my wars,\n  And I to thee engag'd a prince's word,\n  When thou didst make him master of thy bed,\n  To do him all the grace and good I could.\n  Go, some of you, knock at the abbey gate,\n  And bid the Lady Abbess come to me,\n  I will determine this before I stir.\n\nEnter a MESSENGER\n\nMESSENGER. O mistress, mistress, shift and save yourself!\n  My master and his man are both broke loose,\n  Beaten the maids a-row and bound the doctor,\n  Whose beard they have sing'd off with brands of fire;\n  And ever, as it blaz'd, they threw on him\n  Great pails of puddled mire to quench the hair.\n  My master preaches patience to him, and the while\n  His man with scissors nicks him like a fool;\n  And sure, unless you send some present help,\n  Between them they will kill the conjurer.\nADRIANA. Peace, fool! thy master and his man are here,\n  And that is false thou dost report to us.\nMESSENGER. Mistress, upon my life, I tell you true;\n  I have not breath'd almost since I did see it.\n  He cries for you, and vows, if he can take you,\n  To scorch your face, and to disfigure you.\n[Cry within]\n  Hark, hark, I hear him, mistress; fly, be gone!\nDUKE. Come, stand by me; fear nothing. Guard with halberds.\nADRIANA. Ay me, it is my husband! Witness you\n  That he is borne about invisible.\n  Even now we hous'd him in the abbey here,\n  And now he's there, past thought of human reason.\n\nEnter ANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS and DROMIO OFEPHESUS\n\nANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS. Justice, most gracious Duke; O, grant me\njustice!\n  Even for the service that long since I did thee,\n  When I bestrid thee in the wars, and took\n  Deep scars to save thy life; even for the blood\n  That then I lost for thee, now grant me justice.\nAEGEON. Unless the fear of death doth make me dote,\n  I see my son Antipholus, and Dromio.\nANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS. Justice, sweet Prince, against that woman\nthere!\n  She whom thou gav'st to me to be my wife,\n  That hath abused and dishonoured me\n  Even in the strength and height of injury.\n  Beyond imagination is the wrong\n  That she this day hath shameless thrown on me.\nDUKE. Discover how, and thou shalt find me just.\nANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS. This day, great Duke, she shut the doors\nupon me,\n  While she with harlots feasted in my house.\nDUKE. A grievous fault. Say, woman, didst thou so?\nADRIANA. No, my good lord. Myself, he, and my sister,\n  To-day did dine together. So befall my soul\n  As this is false he burdens me withal!\nLUCIANA. Ne'er may I look on day nor sleep on night\n  But she tells to your Highness simple truth!\nANGELO. O peflur'd woman! They are both forsworn.\n  In this the madman justly chargeth them.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. My liege, I am advised what I say;\n  Neither disturbed with the effect of wine,\n  Nor heady-rash, provok'd with raging ire,\n  Albeit my wrongs might make one wiser mad.\n  This woman lock'd me out this day from dinner;\n  That goldsmith there, were he not pack'd with her,\n  Could witness it, for he was with me then;\n  Who parted with me to go fetch a chain,\n  Promising to bring it to the Porpentine,\n  Where Balthazar and I did dine together.\n  Our dinner done, and he not coming thither,\n  I went to seek him. In the street I met him,\n  And in his company that gentleman.\n  There did this perjur'd goldsmith swear me down\n  That I this day of him receiv'd the chain,\n  Which, God he knows, I saw not; for the which\n  He did arrest me with an officer.\n  I did obey, and sent my peasant home\n  For certain ducats; he with none return'd.\n  Then fairly I bespoke the officer\n  To go in person with me to my house.\n  By th' way we met my wife, her sister, and a rabble more\n  Of vile confederates. Along with them\n  They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-fac'd villain,\n  A mere anatomy, a mountebank,\n  A threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller,\n  A needy, hollow-ey'd, sharp-looking wretch,\n  A living dead man. This pernicious slave,\n  Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer,\n  And gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,\n  And with no face, as 'twere, outfacing me,\n  Cries out I was possess'd. Then all together\n  They fell upon me, bound me, bore me thence,\n  And in a dark and dankish vault at home\n  There left me and my man, both bound together;\n  Till, gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder,\n  I gain'd my freedom, and immediately\n  Ran hither to your Grace; whom I beseech\n  To give me ample satisfaction\n  For these deep shames and great indignities.\nANGELO. My lord, in truth, thus far I witness with him,\n  That he din'd not at home, but was lock'd out.\nDUKE. But had he such a chain of thee, or no?\nANGELO. He had, my lord, and when he ran in here,\n  These people saw the chain about his neck.\nSECOND MERCHANT. Besides, I will be sworn these ears of mine\n  Heard you confess you had the chain of him,\n  After you first forswore it on the mart;\n  And thereupon I drew my sword on you,\n  And then you fled into this abbey here,\n  From whence, I think, you are come by miracle.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I never came within these abbey walls,\n  Nor ever didst thou draw thy sword on me;\n  I never saw the chain, so help me Heaven!\n  And this is false you burden me withal.\nDUKE. Why, what an intricate impeach is this!\n  I think you all have drunk of Circe's cup.\n  If here you hous'd him, here he would have been;\n  If he were mad, he would not plead so coldly.\n  You say he din'd at home: the goldsmith here\n  Denies that saying. Sirrah, what say you?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sir, he din'd with her there, at the\nPorpentine.\nCOURTEZAN. He did; and from my finger snatch'd that ring.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. 'Tis true, my liege; this ring I had of\nher.\nDUKE. Saw'st thou him enter at the abbey here?\nCOURTEZAN. As sure, my liege, as I do see your Grace.\nDUKE. Why, this is strange. Go call the Abbess hither.\n  I think you are all mated or stark mad.\n<Exit one to the ABBESS\nAEGEON. Most mighty Duke, vouchsafe me speak a word:\n  Haply I see a friend will save my life\n  And pay the sum that may deliver me.\nDUKE. Speak freely, Syracusian, what thou wilt.\nAEGEON. Is not your name, sir, call'd Antipholus?\n  And is not that your bondman Dromio?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Within this hour I was his bondman, sir,\n  But he, I thank him, gnaw'd in two my cords\n  Now am I Dromio and his man unbound.\nAEGEON. I am sure you both of you remember me.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ourselves we do remember, sir, by you;\n  For lately we were bound as you are now.\n  You are not Pinch's patient, are you, sir?\nAEGEON. Why look you strange on me? You know me well.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I never saw you in my life till now.\nAEGEON. O! grief hath chang'd me since you saw me last;\n  And careful hours with time's deformed hand\n  Have written strange defeatures in my face.\n  But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Neither.\nAEGEON. Dromio, nor thou?\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. No, trust me, sir, nor I.\nAEGEON. I am sure thou dost.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ay, sir, but I am sure I do not; and\n  whatsoever a man denies, you are now bound to believe him.\nAEGEON. Not know my voice! O time's extremity,\n  Hast thou so crack'd and splitted my poor tongue\n  In seven short years that here my only son\n  Knows not my feeble key of untun'd cares?\n  Though now this grained face of mine be hid\n  In sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow,\n  And all the conduits of my blood froze up,\n  Yet hath my night of life some memory,\n  My wasting lamps some fading glimmer left,\n  My dull deaf ears a little use to hear;\n  All these old witnesses-I cannot err-\n  Tell me thou art my son Antipholus.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I never saw my father in my life.\nAEGEON. But seven years since, in Syracuse, boy,\n  Thou know'st we parted; but perhaps, my son,\n  Thou sham'st to acknowledge me in misery.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. The Duke and all that know me in\n  the city Can witness with me that it is not so:\n  I ne'er saw Syracuse in my life.\nDUKE. I tell thee, Syracusian, twenty years\n  Have I been patron to Antipholus,\n  During which time he ne'er saw Syracuse.\n  I see thy age and dangers make thee dote.\n\nRe-enter the ABBESS, with ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF\nSYRACUSE\n\nABBESS. Most mighty Duke, behold a man much wrong'd.\n[All gather to see them]\nADRIANA. I see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive me.\nDUKE. One of these men is genius to the other;\n  And so of these. Which is the natural man,\n  And which the spirit? Who deciphers them?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I, sir, am Dromio; command him away.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. I, Sir, am Dromio; pray let me stay.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Aegeon, art thou not? or else his\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, my old master! who hath bound\nABBESS. Whoever bound him, I will loose his bonds,\n  And gain a husband by his liberty.\n  Speak, old Aegeon, if thou be'st the man\n  That hadst a wife once call'd Aemilia,\n  That bore thee at a burden two fair sons.\n  O, if thou be'st the same Aegeon, speak,\n  And speak unto the same Aemilia!\nAEGEON. If I dream not, thou art Aemilia.\n  If thou art she, tell me where is that son\n  That floated with thee on the fatal raft?\nABBESS. By men of Epidamnum he and I\n  And the twin Dromio, all were taken up;\n  But by and by rude fishermen of Corinth\n  By force took Dromio and my son from them,\n  And me they left with those of Epidamnum.\n  What then became of them I cannot tell;\n  I to this fortune that you see me in.\nDUKE. Why, here begins his morning story right.\n  These two Antipholus', these two so like,\n  And these two Dromios, one in semblance-\n  Besides her urging of her wreck at sea-\n  These are the parents to these children,\n  Which accidentally are met together.\n  Antipholus, thou cam'st from Corinth first?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. No, sir, not I; I came from Syracuse.\nDUKE. Stay, stand apart; I know not which is which.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I came from Corinth, my most gracious\nlord.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. And I with him.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Brought to this town by that most famous\nwarrior,\n  Duke Menaphon, your most renowned uncle.\nADRIANA. Which of you two did dine with me to-day?\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I, gentle mistress.\nADRIANA. And are not you my husband?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. No; I say nay to that.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. And so do I, yet did she call me so;\n  And this fair gentlewoman, her sister here,\n  Did call me brother.  [To LUCIANA]  What I told you then,\n  I hope I shall have leisure to make good;\n  If this be not a dream I see and hear.\nANGELO. That is the chain, sir, which you had of me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I think it be, sir; I deny it not.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And you, sir, for this chain arrested me.\nANGELO. I think I did, sir; I deny it not.\nADRIANA. I sent you money, sir, to be your bail,\n  By Dromio; but I think he brought it not.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. No, none by me.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. This purse of ducats I receiv'd from you,\n  And Dromio my man did bring them me.\n  I see we still did meet each other's man,\n  And I was ta'en for him, and he for me,\n  And thereupon these ERRORS are arose.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. These ducats pawn I for my father here.\nDUKE. It shall not need; thy father hath his life.\nCOURTEZAN. Sir, I must have that diamond from you.\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There, take it; and much thanks for my\n  good cheer.\nABBESS. Renowned Duke, vouchsafe to take the pains\n  To go with us into the abbey here,\n  And hear at large discoursed all our fortunes;\n  And all that are assembled in this place\n  That by this sympathized one day's error\n  Have suffer'd wrong, go keep us company,\n  And we shall make full satisfaction.\n  Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail\n  Of you, my sons; and till this present hour\n  My heavy burden ne'er delivered.\n  The Duke, my husband, and my children both,\n  And you the calendars of their nativity,\n  Go to a gossips' feast, and go with me;\n  After so long grief, such nativity!\nDUKE. With all my heart, I'll gossip at this feast.\n<Exeunt all but ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, ANTIPHOLUS OF\nEPHESUS, DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, and DROMIO OF EPHESUS\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, shall I fetch your stuff from\nshipboard?\nANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Dromio, what stuff of mine hast thou\nembark'd?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Your goods that lay at host, sir, in the\nCentaur.\nANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. He speaks to me. I am your master,\nDromio.\n  Come, go with us; we'll look to that anon.\n  Embrace thy brother there; rejoice with him.\n<Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. There is a fat friend at your master's house,\n  That kitchen'd me for you to-day at dinner;\n  She now shall be my sister, not my wife.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother;\n  I see by you I am a sweet-fac'd youth.\n  Will you walk in to see their gossiping?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Not I, sir; you are my elder.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. That's a question; how shall we try it?\nDROMIO OF SYRACUSE. We'll draw cuts for the senior; till then,\n    lead thou first.\nDROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, then, thus:\n  We came into the world like brother and brother,\n  And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another.\n<Exeunt\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nTHE COMEDY OF ERRORS"}
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{"1105":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE SONNETS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\n                     1\n  From fairest creatures we desire increase,\n  That thereby beauty's rose might never die,\n  But as the riper should by time decease,\n  His tender heir might bear his memory:\n  But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,\n  Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,\n  Making a famine where abundance lies,\n  Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:\n  Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,\n  And only herald to the gaudy spring,\n  Within thine own bud buriest thy content,\n  And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding:\n    Pity the world, or else this glutton be,\n    To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.\n\n\n                     2\n  When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,\n  And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,\n  Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,\n  Will be a tattered weed of small worth held:\n  Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,\n  Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;\n  To say within thine own deep sunken eyes,\n  Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.\n  How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,\n  If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine\n  Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse'\n  Proving his beauty by succession thine.\n    This were to be new made when thou art old,\n    And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.\n\n\n                     3\n  Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,\n  Now is the time that face should form another,\n  Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,\n  Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.\n  For where is she so fair whose uneared womb\n  Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?\n  Or who is he so fond will be the tomb,\n  Of his self-love to stop posterity?\n  Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee\n  Calls back the lovely April of her prime,\n  So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,\n  Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.\n    But if thou live remembered not to be,\n    Die single and thine image dies with thee.\n\n\n                     4\n  Unthrifty loveliness why dost thou spend,\n  Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?\n  Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,\n  And being frank she lends to those are free:\n  Then beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse,\n  The bounteous largess given thee to give?\n  Profitless usurer why dost thou use\n  So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?\n  For having traffic with thy self alone,\n  Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive,\n  Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,\n  What acceptable audit canst thou leave?\n    Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,\n    Which used lives th' executor to be.\n\n\n                     5\n  Those hours that with gentle work did frame\n  The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell\n  Will play the tyrants to the very same,\n  And that unfair which fairly doth excel:\n  For never-resting time leads summer on\n  To hideous winter and confounds him there,\n  Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,\n  Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:\n  Then were not summer's distillation left\n  A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,\n  Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,\n  Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.\n    But flowers distilled though they with winter meet,\n    Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet.\n\n\n                     6\n  Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,\n  In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled:\n  Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place,\n  With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed:\n  That use is not forbidden usury,\n  Which happies those that pay the willing loan;\n  That's for thy self to breed another thee,\n  Or ten times happier be it ten for one,\n  Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,\n  If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:\n  Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,\n  Leaving thee living in posterity?\n    Be not self-willed for thou art much too fair,\n    To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.\n\n\n                     7\n  Lo in the orient when the gracious light\n  Lifts up his burning head, each under eye\n  Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,\n  Serving with looks his sacred majesty,\n  And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,\n  Resembling strong youth in his middle age,\n  Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,\n  Attending on his golden pilgrimage:\n  But when from highmost pitch with weary car,\n  Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,\n  The eyes (fore duteous) now converted are\n  From his low tract and look another way:\n    So thou, thy self out-going in thy noon:\n    Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.\n\n\n                     8\n  Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?\n  Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:\n  Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,\n  Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?\n  If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,\n  By unions married do offend thine ear,\n  They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds\n  In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear:\n  Mark how one string sweet husband to another,\n  Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;\n  Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,\n  Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:\n    Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,\n    Sings this to thee, 'Thou single wilt prove none'.\n\n\n                     9\n  Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,\n  That thou consum'st thy self in single life?\n  Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,\n  The world will wail thee like a makeless wife,\n  The world will be thy widow and still weep,\n  That thou no form of thee hast left behind,\n  When every private widow well may keep,\n  By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:\n  Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend\n  Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;\n  But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,\n  And kept unused the user so destroys it:\n    No love toward others in that bosom sits\n    That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.\n\n\n                     10\n  For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any\n  Who for thy self art so unprovident.\n  Grant if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,\n  But that thou none lov'st is most evident:\n  For thou art so possessed with murd'rous hate,\n  That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire,\n  Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate\n  Which to repair should be thy chief desire:\n  O change thy thought, that I may change my mind,\n  Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?\n  Be as thy presence is gracious and kind,\n  Or to thy self at least kind-hearted prove,\n    Make thee another self for love of me,\n    That beauty still may live in thine or thee.\n\n\n                     11\n  As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou grow'st,\n  In one of thine, from that which thou departest,\n  And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st,\n  Thou mayst call thine, when thou from youth convertest,\n  Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase,\n  Without this folly, age, and cold decay,\n  If all were minded so, the times should cease,\n  And threescore year would make the world away:\n  Let those whom nature hath not made for store,\n  Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:\n  Look whom she best endowed, she gave thee more;\n  Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:\n    She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby,\n    Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.\n\n\n                     12\n  When I do count the clock that tells the time,\n  And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,\n  When I behold the violet past prime,\n  And sable curls all silvered o'er with white:\n  When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,\n  Which erst from heat did canopy the herd\n  And summer's green all girded up in sheaves\n  Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:\n  Then of thy beauty do I question make\n  That thou among the wastes of time must go,\n  Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,\n  And die as fast as they see others grow,\n    And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence\n    Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.\n\n\n                     13\n  O that you were your self, but love you are\n  No longer yours, than you your self here live,\n  Against this coming end you should prepare,\n  And your sweet semblance to some other give.\n  So should that beauty which you hold in lease\n  Find no determination, then you were\n  Your self again after your self's decease,\n  When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.\n  Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,\n  Which husbandry in honour might uphold,\n  Against the stormy gusts of winter's day\n  And barren rage of death's eternal cold?\n    O none but unthrifts, dear my love you know,\n    You had a father, let your son say so.\n\n\n                     14\n  Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck,\n  And yet methinks I have astronomy,\n  But not to tell of good, or evil luck,\n  Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality,\n  Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell;\n  Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,\n  Or say with princes if it shall go well\n  By oft predict that I in heaven find.\n  But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,\n  And constant stars in them I read such art\n  As truth and beauty shall together thrive\n  If from thy self, to store thou wouldst convert:\n    Or else of thee this I prognosticate,\n    Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.\n\n\n                     15\n  When I consider every thing that grows\n  Holds in perfection but a little moment.\n  That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows\n  Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.\n  When I perceive that men as plants increase,\n  Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky:\n  Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,\n  And wear their brave state out of memory.\n  Then the conceit of this inconstant stay,\n  Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,\n  Where wasteful time debateth with decay\n  To change your day of youth to sullied night,\n    And all in war with Time for love of you,\n    As he takes from you, I engraft you new.\n\n\n                     16\n  But wherefore do not you a mightier way\n  Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time?\n  And fortify your self in your decay\n  With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?\n  Now stand you on the top of happy hours,\n  And many maiden gardens yet unset,\n  With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,\n  Much liker than your painted counterfeit:\n  So should the lines of life that life repair\n  Which this (Time's pencil) or my pupil pen\n  Neither in inward worth nor outward fair\n  Can make you live your self in eyes of men.\n    To give away your self, keeps your self still,\n    And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.\n\n\n                     17\n  Who will believe my verse in time to come\n  If it were filled with your most high deserts?\n  Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb\n  Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts:\n  If I could write the beauty of your eyes,\n  And in fresh numbers number all your graces,\n  The age to come would say this poet lies,\n  Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.\n  So should my papers (yellowed with their age)\n  Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,\n  And your true rights be termed a poet's rage,\n  And stretched metre of an antique song.\n    But were some child of yours alive that time,\n    You should live twice in it, and in my rhyme.\n\n\n                     18\n  Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?\n  Thou art more lovely and more temperate:\n  Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,\n  And summer's lease hath all too short a date:\n  Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,\n  And often is his gold complexion dimmed,\n  And every fair from fair sometime declines,\n  By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:\n  But thy eternal summer shall not fade,\n  Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,\n  Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,\n  When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,\n    So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,\n    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.\n\n\n                     19\n  Devouring Time blunt thou the lion's paws,\n  And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,\n  Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,\n  And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood,\n  Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,\n  And do whate'er thou wilt swift-footed Time\n  To the wide world and all her fading sweets:\n  But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,\n  O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,\n  Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen,\n  Him in thy course untainted do allow,\n  For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.\n    Yet do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,\n    My love shall in my verse ever live young.\n\n\n                     20\n  A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,\n  Hast thou the master mistress of my passion,\n  A woman's gentle heart but not acquainted\n  With shifting change as is false women's fashion,\n  An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling:\n  Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth,\n  A man in hue all hues in his controlling,\n  Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.\n  And for a woman wert thou first created,\n  Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,\n  And by addition me of thee defeated,\n  By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.\n    But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,\n    Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.\n\n\n                     21\n  So is it not with me as with that muse,\n  Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,\n  Who heaven it self for ornament doth use,\n  And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,\n  Making a couplement of proud compare\n  With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems:\n  With April's first-born flowers and all things rare,\n  That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.\n  O let me true in love but truly write,\n  And then believe me, my love is as fair,\n  As any mother's child, though not so bright\n  As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:\n    Let them say more that like of hearsay well,\n    I will not praise that purpose not to sell.\n\n\n                     22\n  My glass shall not persuade me I am old,\n  So long as youth and thou are of one date,\n  But when in thee time's furrows I behold,\n  Then look I death my days should expiate.\n  For all that beauty that doth cover thee,\n  Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,\n  Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me,\n  How can I then be elder than thou art?\n  O therefore love be of thyself so wary,\n  As I not for my self, but for thee will,\n  Bearing thy heart which I will keep so chary\n  As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.\n    Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,\n    Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.\n\n\n                     23\n  As an unperfect actor on the stage,\n  Who with his fear is put beside his part,\n  Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,\n  Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;\n  So I for fear of trust, forget to say,\n  The perfect ceremony of love's rite,\n  And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,\n  O'ercharged with burthen of mine own love's might:\n  O let my looks be then the eloquence,\n  And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,\n  Who plead for love, and look for recompense,\n  More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.\n    O learn to read what silent love hath writ,\n    To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.\n\n\n                     24\n  Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled,\n  Thy beauty's form in table of my heart,\n  My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,\n  And perspective it is best painter's art.\n  For through the painter must you see his skill,\n  To find where your true image pictured lies,\n  Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,\n  That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes:\n  Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done,\n  Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me\n  Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun\n  Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;\n    Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,\n    They draw but what they see, know not the heart.\n\n\n                     25\n  Let those who are in favour with their stars,\n  Of public honour and proud titles boast,\n  Whilst I whom fortune of such triumph bars\n  Unlooked for joy in that I honour most;\n  Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread,\n  But as the marigold at the sun's eye,\n  And in themselves their pride lies buried,\n  For at a frown they in their glory die.\n  The painful warrior famoused for fight,\n  After a thousand victories once foiled,\n  Is from the book of honour razed quite,\n  And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:\n    Then happy I that love and am beloved\n    Where I may not remove nor be removed.\n\n\n                     26\n  Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage\n  Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit;\n  To thee I send this written embassage\n  To witness duty, not to show my wit.\n  Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine\n  May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it;\n  But that I hope some good conceit of thine\n  In thy soul's thought (all naked) will bestow it:\n  Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,\n  Points on me graciously with fair aspect,\n  And puts apparel on my tattered loving,\n  To show me worthy of thy sweet respect,\n    Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee,\n    Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.\n\n\n                     27\n  Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,\n  The dear respose for limbs with travel tired,\n  But then begins a journey in my head\n  To work my mind, when body's work's expired.\n  For then my thoughts (from far where I abide)\n  Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,\n  And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,\n  Looking on darkness which the blind do see.\n  Save that my soul's imaginary sight\n  Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,\n  Which like a jewel (hung in ghastly night)\n  Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.\n    Lo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind,\n    For thee, and for my self, no quiet find.\n\n\n                     28\n  How can I then return in happy plight\n  That am debarred the benefit of rest?\n  When day's oppression is not eased by night,\n  But day by night and night by day oppressed.\n  And each (though enemies to either's reign)\n  Do in consent shake hands to torture me,\n  The one by toil, the other to complain\n  How far I toil, still farther off from thee.\n  I tell the day to please him thou art bright,\n  And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:\n  So flatter I the swart-complexioned night,\n  When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.\n    But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,\n    And night doth nightly make grief's length seem stronger\n\n\n                     29\n  When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,\n  I all alone beweep my outcast state,\n  And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,\n  And look upon my self and curse my fate,\n  Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,\n  Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,\n  Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,\n  With what I most enjoy contented least,\n  Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,\n  Haply I think on thee, and then my state,\n  (Like to the lark at break of day arising\n  From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,\n    For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,\n    That then I scorn to change my state with kings.\n\n\n                     30\n  When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,\n  I summon up remembrance of things past,\n  I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,\n  And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:\n  Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow)\n  For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,\n  And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,\n  And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight.\n  Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,\n  And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er\n  The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,\n  Which I new pay as if not paid before.\n    But if the while I think on thee (dear friend)\n    All losses are restored, and sorrows end.\n\n\n                     31\n  Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,\n  Which I by lacking have supposed dead,\n  And there reigns love and all love's loving parts,\n  And all those friends which I thought buried.\n  How many a holy and obsequious tear\n  Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,\n  As interest of the dead, which now appear,\n  But things removed that hidden in thee lie.\n  Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,\n  Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,\n  Who all their parts of me to thee did give,\n  That due of many, now is thine alone.\n    Their images I loved, I view in thee,\n    And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.\n\n\n                     32\n  If thou survive my well-contented day,\n  When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover\n  And shalt by fortune once more re-survey\n  These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover:\n  Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,\n  And though they be outstripped by every pen,\n  Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,\n  Exceeded by the height of happier men.\n  O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought,\n  'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,\n  A dearer birth than this his love had brought\n  To march in ranks of better equipage:\n    But since he died and poets better prove,\n    Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.\n\n\n                     33\n  Full many a glorious morning have I seen,\n  Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,\n  Kissing with golden face the meadows green;\n  Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy:\n  Anon permit the basest clouds to ride,\n  With ugly rack on his celestial face,\n  And from the forlorn world his visage hide\n  Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:\n  Even so my sun one early morn did shine,\n  With all triumphant splendour on my brow,\n  But out alack, he was but one hour mine,\n  The region cloud hath masked him from me now.\n    Yet him for this, my love no whit disdaineth,\n    Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.\n\n\n                     34\n  Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,\n  And make me travel forth without my cloak,\n  To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,\n  Hiding thy brav'ry in their rotten smoke?\n  'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,\n  To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,\n  For no man well of such a salve can speak,\n  That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:\n  Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief,\n  Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss,\n  Th' offender's sorrow lends but weak relief\n  To him that bears the strong offence's cross.\n    Ah but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,\n    And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.\n\n\n                     35\n  No more be grieved at that which thou hast done,\n  Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,\n  Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,\n  And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.\n  All men make faults, and even I in this,\n  Authorizing thy trespass with compare,\n  My self corrupting salving thy amiss,\n  Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are:\n  For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,\n  Thy adverse party is thy advocate,\n  And 'gainst my self a lawful plea commence:\n  Such civil war is in my love and hate,\n    That I an accessary needs must be,\n    To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.\n\n\n                     36\n  Let me confess that we two must be twain,\n  Although our undivided loves are one:\n  So shall those blots that do with me remain,\n  Without thy help, by me be borne alone.\n  In our two loves there is but one respect,\n  Though in our lives a separable spite,\n  Which though it alter not love's sole effect,\n  Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.\n  I may not evermore acknowledge thee,\n  Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,\n  Nor thou with public kindness honour me,\n  Unless thou take that honour from thy name:\n    But do not so, I love thee in such sort,\n    As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.\n\n\n                     37\n  As a decrepit father takes delight,\n  To see his active child do deeds of youth,\n  So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite\n  Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.\n  For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,\n  Or any of these all, or all, or more\n  Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,\n  I make my love engrafted to this store:\n  So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,\n  Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give,\n  That I in thy abundance am sufficed,\n  And by a part of all thy glory live:\n    Look what is best, that best I wish in thee,\n    This wish I have, then ten times happy me.\n\n\n                     38\n  How can my muse want subject to invent\n  While thou dost breathe that pour'st into my verse,\n  Thine own sweet argument, too excellent,\n  For every vulgar paper to rehearse?\n  O give thy self the thanks if aught in me,\n  Worthy perusal stand against thy sight,\n  For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,\n  When thou thy self dost give invention light?\n  Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth\n  Than those old nine which rhymers invocate,\n  And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth\n  Eternal numbers to outlive long date.\n    If my slight muse do please these curious days,\n    The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.\n\n\n                     39\n  O how thy worth with manners may I sing,\n  When thou art all the better part of me?\n  What can mine own praise to mine own self bring:\n  And what is't but mine own when I praise thee?\n  Even for this, let us divided live,\n  And our dear love lose name of single one,\n  That by this separation I may give:\n  That due to thee which thou deserv'st alone:\n  O absence what a torment wouldst thou prove,\n  Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,\n  To entertain the time with thoughts of love,\n  Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive.\n    And that thou teachest how to make one twain,\n    By praising him here who doth hence remain.\n\n\n                     40\n  Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all,\n  What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?\n  No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call,\n  All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more:\n  Then if for my love, thou my love receivest,\n  I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest,\n  But yet be blamed, if thou thy self deceivest\n  By wilful taste of what thy self refusest.\n  I do forgive thy robbery gentle thief\n  Although thou steal thee all my poverty:\n  And yet love knows it is a greater grief\n  To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury.\n    Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,\n    Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.\n\n\n                     41\n  Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,\n  When I am sometime absent from thy heart,\n  Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,\n  For still temptation follows where thou art.\n  Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,\n  Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed.\n  And when a woman woos, what woman's son,\n  Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?\n  Ay me, but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,\n  And chide thy beauty, and thy straying youth,\n  Who lead thee in their riot even there\n  Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:\n    Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,\n    Thine by thy beauty being false to me.\n\n\n                     42\n  That thou hast her it is not all my grief,\n  And yet it may be said I loved her dearly,\n  That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,\n  A loss in love that touches me more nearly.\n  Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye,\n  Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her,\n  And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,\n  Suff'ring my friend for my sake to approve her.\n  If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,\n  And losing her, my friend hath found that loss,\n  Both find each other, and I lose both twain,\n  And both for my sake lay on me this cross,\n    But here's the joy, my friend and I are one,\n    Sweet flattery, then she loves but me alone.\n\n\n                     43\n  When most I wink then do mine eyes best see,\n  For all the day they view things unrespected,\n  But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,\n  And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.\n  Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright\n  How would thy shadow's form, form happy show,\n  To the clear day with thy much clearer light,\n  When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!\n  How would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made,\n  By looking on thee in the living day,\n  When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade,\n  Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!\n    All days are nights to see till I see thee,\n    And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.\n\n\n                     44\n  If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,\n  Injurious distance should not stop my way,\n  For then despite of space I would be brought,\n  From limits far remote, where thou dost stay,\n  No matter then although my foot did stand\n  Upon the farthest earth removed from thee,\n  For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,\n  As soon as think the place where he would be.\n  But ah, thought kills me that I am not thought\n  To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,\n  But that so much of earth and water wrought,\n  I must attend, time's leisure with my moan.\n    Receiving nought by elements so slow,\n    But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.\n\n\n                     45\n  The other two, slight air, and purging fire,\n  Are both with thee, wherever I abide,\n  The first my thought, the other my desire,\n  These present-absent with swift motion slide.\n  For when these quicker elements are gone\n  In tender embassy of love to thee,\n  My life being made of four, with two alone,\n  Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy.\n  Until life's composition be recured,\n  By those swift messengers returned from thee,\n  Who even but now come back again assured,\n  Of thy fair health, recounting it to me.\n    This told, I joy, but then no longer glad,\n    I send them back again and straight grow sad.\n\n\n                     46\n  Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,\n  How to divide the conquest of thy sight,\n  Mine eye, my heart thy picture's sight would bar,\n  My heart, mine eye the freedom of that right,\n  My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,\n  (A closet never pierced with crystal eyes)\n  But the defendant doth that plea deny,\n  And says in him thy fair appearance lies.\n  To side this title is impanelled\n  A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,\n  And by their verdict is determined\n  The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part.\n    As thus, mine eye's due is thy outward part,\n    And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.\n\n\n                     47\n  Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,\n  And each doth good turns now unto the other,\n  When that mine eye is famished for a look,\n  Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother;\n  With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,\n  And to the painted banquet bids my heart:\n  Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,\n  And in his thoughts of love doth share a part.\n  So either by thy picture or my love,\n  Thy self away, art present still with me,\n  For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,\n  And I am still with them, and they with thee.\n    Or if they sleep, thy picture in my sight\n    Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.\n\n\n                     48\n  How careful was I when I took my way,\n  Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,\n  That to my use it might unused stay\n  From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!\n  But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,\n  Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,\n  Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,\n  Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.\n  Thee have I not locked up in any chest,\n  Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,\n  Within the gentle closure of my breast,\n  From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part,\n    And even thence thou wilt be stol'n I fear,\n    For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.\n\n\n                     49\n  Against that time (if ever that time come)\n  When I shall see thee frown on my defects,\n  When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,\n  Called to that audit by advised respects,\n  Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,\n  And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye,\n  When love converted from the thing it was\n  Shall reasons find of settled gravity;\n  Against that time do I ensconce me here\n  Within the knowledge of mine own desert,\n  And this my hand, against my self uprear,\n  To guard the lawful reasons on thy part,\n    To leave poor me, thou hast the strength of laws,\n    Since why to love, I can allege no cause.\n\n\n                     50\n  How heavy do I journey on the way,\n  When what I seek (my weary travel's end)\n  Doth teach that case and that repose to say\n  'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend.'\n  The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,\n  Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,\n  As if by some instinct the wretch did know\n  His rider loved not speed being made from thee:\n  The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,\n  That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,\n  Which heavily he answers with a groan,\n  More sharp to me than spurring to his side,\n    For that same groan doth put this in my mind,\n    My grief lies onward and my joy behind.\n\n\n                     51\n  Thus can my love excuse the slow offence,\n  Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed,\n  From where thou art, why should I haste me thence?\n  Till I return of posting is no need.\n  O what excuse will my poor beast then find,\n  When swift extremity can seem but slow?\n  Then should I spur though mounted on the wind,\n  In winged speed no motion shall I know,\n  Then can no horse with my desire keep pace,\n  Therefore desire (of perfect'st love being made)\n  Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race,\n  But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,\n    Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,\n    Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.\n\n\n                     52\n  So am I as the rich whose blessed key,\n  Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,\n  The which he will not every hour survey,\n  For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.\n  Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,\n  Since seldom coming in that long year set,\n  Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,\n  Or captain jewels in the carcanet.\n  So is the time that keeps you as my chest\n  Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,\n  To make some special instant special-blest,\n  By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.\n    Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,\n    Being had to triumph, being lacked to hope.\n\n\n                     53\n  What is your substance, whereof are you made,\n  That millions of strange shadows on you tend?\n  Since every one, hath every one, one shade,\n  And you but one, can every shadow lend:\n  Describe Adonis and the counterfeit,\n  Is poorly imitated after you,\n  On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,\n  And you in Grecian tires are painted new:\n  Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,\n  The one doth shadow of your beauty show,\n  The other as your bounty doth appear,\n  And you in every blessed shape we know.\n    In all external grace you have some part,\n    But you like none, none you for constant heart.\n\n\n                     54\n  O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,\n  By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!\n  The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem\n  For that sweet odour, which doth in it live:\n  The canker blooms have full as deep a dye,\n  As the perfumed tincture of the roses,\n  Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,\n  When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:\n  But for their virtue only is their show,\n  They live unwooed, and unrespected fade,\n  Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so,\n  Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made:\n    And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,\n    When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.\n\n\n                     55\n  Not marble, nor the gilded monuments\n  Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,\n  But you shall shine more bright in these contents\n  Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.\n  When wasteful war shall statues overturn,\n  And broils root out the work of masonry,\n  Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn:\n  The living record of your memory.\n  'Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity\n  Shall you pace forth, your praise shall still find room,\n  Even in the eyes of all posterity\n  That wear this world out to the ending doom.\n    So till the judgment that your self arise,\n    You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.\n\n\n                     56\n  Sweet love renew thy force, be it not said\n  Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,\n  Which but to-day by feeding is allayed,\n  To-morrow sharpened in his former might.\n  So love be thou, although to-day thou fill\n  Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,\n  To-morrow see again, and do not kill\n  The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness:\n  Let this sad interim like the ocean be\n  Which parts the shore, where two contracted new,\n  Come daily to the banks, that when they see:\n  Return of love, more blest may be the view.\n    Or call it winter, which being full of care,\n    Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.\n\n\n                     57\n  Being your slave what should I do but tend,\n  Upon the hours, and times of your desire?\n  I have no precious time at all to spend;\n  Nor services to do till you require.\n  Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,\n  Whilst I (my sovereign) watch the clock for you,\n  Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,\n  When you have bid your servant once adieu.\n  Nor dare I question with my jealous thought,\n  Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,\n  But like a sad slave stay and think of nought\n  Save where you are, how happy you make those.\n    So true a fool is love, that in your will,\n    (Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.\n\n\n                     58\n  That god forbid, that made me first your slave,\n  I should in thought control your times of pleasure,\n  Or at your hand th' account of hours to crave,\n  Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure.\n  O let me suffer (being at your beck)\n  Th' imprisoned absence of your liberty,\n  And patience tame to sufferance bide each check,\n  Without accusing you of injury.\n  Be where you list, your charter is so strong,\n  That you your self may privilage your time\n  To what you will, to you it doth belong,\n  Your self to pardon of self-doing crime.\n    I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,\n    Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.\n\n\n                     59\n  If there be nothing new, but that which is,\n  Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,\n  Which labouring for invention bear amis\n  The second burthen of a former child!\n  O that record could with a backward look,\n  Even of five hundred courses of the sun,\n  Show me your image in some antique book,\n  Since mind at first in character was done.\n  That I might see what the old world could say,\n  To this composed wonder of your frame,\n  Whether we are mended, or whether better they,\n  Or whether revolution be the same.\n    O sure I am the wits of former days,\n    To subjects worse have given admiring praise.\n\n\n                     60\n  Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,\n  So do our minutes hasten to their end,\n  Each changing place with that which goes before,\n  In sequent toil all forwards do contend.\n  Nativity once in the main of light,\n  Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,\n  Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,\n  And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.\n  Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,\n  And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,\n  Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,\n  And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.\n    And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand\n    Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.\n\n\n                     61\n  Is it thy will, thy image should keep open\n  My heavy eyelids to the weary night?\n  Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,\n  While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?\n  Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee\n  So far from home into my deeds to pry,\n  To find out shames and idle hours in me,\n  The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?\n  O no, thy love though much, is not so great,\n  It is my love that keeps mine eye awake,\n  Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,\n  To play the watchman ever for thy sake.\n    For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,\n    From me far off, with others all too near.\n\n\n                     62\n  Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,\n  And all my soul, and all my every part;\n  And for this sin there is no remedy,\n  It is so grounded inward in my heart.\n  Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,\n  No shape so true, no truth of such account,\n  And for my self mine own worth do define,\n  As I all other in all worths surmount.\n  But when my glass shows me my self indeed\n  beated and chopt with tanned antiquity,\n  Mine own self-love quite contrary I read:\n  Self, so self-loving were iniquity.\n    'Tis thee (my self) that for my self I praise,\n    Painting my age with beauty of thy days.\n\n\n                     63\n  Against my love shall be as I am now\n  With Time's injurious hand crushed and o'erworn,\n  When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow\n  With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn\n  Hath travelled on to age's steepy night,\n  And all those beauties whereof now he's king\n  Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,\n  Stealing away the treasure of his spring:\n  For such a time do I now fortify\n  Against confounding age's cruel knife,\n  That he shall never cut from memory\n  My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life.\n    His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,\n    And they shall live, and he in them still green.\n\n\n                     64\n  When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced\n  The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age,\n  When sometime lofty towers I see down-rased,\n  And brass eternal slave to mortal rage.\n  When I have seen the hungry ocean gain\n  Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,\n  And the firm soil win of the watery main,\n  Increasing store with loss, and loss with store.\n  When I have seen such interchange of State,\n  Or state it self confounded, to decay,\n  Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate\n  That Time will come and take my love away.\n    This thought is as a death which cannot choose\n    But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.\n\n\n                     65\n  Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,\n  But sad mortality o'ersways their power,\n  How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,\n  Whose action is no stronger than a flower?\n  O how shall summer's honey breath hold out,\n  Against the wrackful siege of batt'ring days,\n  When rocks impregnable are not so stout,\n  Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?\n  O fearful meditation, where alack,\n  Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?\n  Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,\n  Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?\n    O none, unless this miracle have might,\n    That in black ink my love may still shine bright.\n\n\n                     66\n  Tired with all these for restful death I cry,\n  As to behold desert a beggar born,\n  And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,\n  And purest faith unhappily forsworn,\n  And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,\n  And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,\n  And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,\n  And strength by limping sway disabled\n  And art made tongue-tied by authority,\n  And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,\n  And simple truth miscalled simplicity,\n  And captive good attending captain ill.\n    Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,\n    Save that to die, I leave my love alone.\n\n\n                     67\n  Ah wherefore with infection should he live,\n  And with his presence grace impiety,\n  That sin by him advantage should achieve,\n  And lace it self with his society?\n  Why should false painting imitate his cheek,\n  And steal dead seeming of his living hue?\n  Why should poor beauty indirectly seek,\n  Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?\n  Why should he live, now nature bankrupt is,\n  Beggared of blood to blush through lively veins,\n  For she hath no exchequer now but his,\n  And proud of many, lives upon his gains?\n    O him she stores, to show what wealth she had,\n    In days long since, before these last so bad.\n\n\n                     68\n  Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,\n  When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,\n  Before these bastard signs of fair were born,\n  Or durst inhabit on a living brow:\n  Before the golden tresses of the dead,\n  The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,\n  To live a second life on second head,\n  Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay:\n  In him those holy antique hours are seen,\n  Without all ornament, it self and true,\n  Making no summer of another's green,\n  Robbing no old to dress his beauty new,\n    And him as for a map doth Nature store,\n    To show false Art what beauty was of yore.\n\n\n                     69\n  Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view,\n  Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend:\n  All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee that due,\n  Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.\n  Thy outward thus with outward praise is crowned,\n  But those same tongues that give thee so thine own,\n  In other accents do this praise confound\n  By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.\n  They look into the beauty of thy mind,\n  And that in guess they measure by thy deeds,\n  Then churls their thoughts (although their eyes were kind)\n  To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:\n    But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,\n    The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.\n\n\n                     70\n  That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,\n  For slander's mark was ever yet the fair,\n  The ornament of beauty is suspect,\n  A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.\n  So thou be good, slander doth but approve,\n  Thy worth the greater being wooed of time,\n  For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,\n  And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.\n  Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days,\n  Either not assailed, or victor being charged,\n  Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,\n  To tie up envy, evermore enlarged,\n    If some suspect of ill masked not thy show,\n    Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.\n\n\n                     71\n  No longer mourn for me when I am dead,\n  Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell\n  Give warning to the world that I am fled\n  From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:\n  Nay if you read this line, remember not,\n  The hand that writ it, for I love you so,\n  That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,\n  If thinking on me then should make you woe.\n  O if (I say) you look upon this verse,\n  When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,\n  Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;\n  But let your love even with my life decay.\n    Lest the wise world should look into your moan,\n    And mock you with me after I am gone.\n\n\n                     72\n  O lest the world should task you to recite,\n  What merit lived in me that you should love\n  After my death (dear love) forget me quite,\n  For you in me can nothing worthy prove.\n  Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,\n  To do more for me than mine own desert,\n  And hang more praise upon deceased I,\n  Than niggard truth would willingly impart:\n  O lest your true love may seem false in this,\n  That you for love speak well of me untrue,\n  My name be buried where my body is,\n  And live no more to shame nor me, nor you.\n    For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,\n    And so should you, to love things nothing worth.\n\n\n                     73\n  That time of year thou mayst in me behold,\n  When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang\n  Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,\n  Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.\n  In me thou seest the twilight of such day,\n  As after sunset fadeth in the west,\n  Which by and by black night doth take away,\n  Death's second self that seals up all in rest.\n  In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,\n  That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,\n  As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,\n  Consumed with that which it was nourished by.\n    This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,\n    To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.\n\n\n                     74\n  But be contented when that fell arrest,\n  Without all bail shall carry me away,\n  My life hath in this line some interest,\n  Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.\n  When thou reviewest this, thou dost review,\n  The very part was consecrate to thee,\n  The earth can have but earth, which is his due,\n  My spirit is thine the better part of me,\n  So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,\n  The prey of worms, my body being dead,\n  The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,\n  Too base of thee to be remembered,\n    The worth of that, is that which it contains,\n    And that is this, and this with thee remains.\n\n\n                     75\n  So are you to my thoughts as food to life,\n  Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;\n  And for the peace of you I hold such strife\n  As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.\n  Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon\n  Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,\n  Now counting best to be with you alone,\n  Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure,\n  Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,\n  And by and by clean starved for a look,\n  Possessing or pursuing no delight\n  Save what is had, or must from you be took.\n    Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,\n    Or gluttoning on all, or all away.\n\n\n                     76\n  Why is my verse so barren of new pride?\n  So far from variation or quick change?\n  Why with the time do I not glance aside\n  To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?\n  Why write I still all one, ever the same,\n  And keep invention in a noted weed,\n  That every word doth almost tell my name,\n  Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?\n  O know sweet love I always write of you,\n  And you and love are still my argument:\n  So all my best is dressing old words new,\n  Spending again what is already spent:\n    For as the sun is daily new and old,\n    So is my love still telling what is told.\n\n\n                     77\n  Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,\n  Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste,\n  These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,\n  And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.\n  The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show,\n  Of mouthed graves will give thee memory,\n  Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know,\n  Time's thievish progress to eternity.\n  Look what thy memory cannot contain,\n  Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find\n  Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,\n  To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.\n    These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,\n    Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.\n\n\n                     78\n  So oft have I invoked thee for my muse,\n  And found such fair assistance in my verse,\n  As every alien pen hath got my use,\n  And under thee their poesy disperse.\n  Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing,\n  And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,\n  Have added feathers to the learned's wing,\n  And given grace a double majesty.\n  Yet be most proud of that which I compile,\n  Whose influence is thine, and born of thee,\n  In others' works thou dost but mend the style,\n  And arts with thy sweet graces graced be.\n    But thou art all my art, and dost advance\n    As high as learning, my rude ignorance.\n\n\n                     79\n  Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,\n  My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,\n  But now my gracious numbers are decayed,\n  And my sick muse doth give an other place.\n  I grant (sweet love) thy lovely argument\n  Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,\n  Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent,\n  He robs thee of, and pays it thee again,\n  He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word,\n  From thy behaviour, beauty doth he give\n  And found it in thy cheek: he can afford\n  No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.\n    Then thank him not for that which he doth say,\n    Since what he owes thee, thou thy self dost pay.\n\n\n                     80\n  O how I faint when I of you do write,\n  Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,\n  And in the praise thereof spends all his might,\n  To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.\n  But since your worth (wide as the ocean is)\n  The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,\n  My saucy bark (inferior far to his)\n  On your broad main doth wilfully appear.\n  Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,\n  Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride,\n  Or (being wrecked) I am a worthless boat,\n  He of tall building, and of goodly pride.\n    Then if he thrive and I be cast away,\n    The worst was this, my love was my decay.\n\n\n                     81\n  Or I shall live your epitaph to make,\n  Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,\n  From hence your memory death cannot take,\n  Although in me each part will be forgotten.\n  Your name from hence immortal life shall have,\n  Though I (once gone) to all the world must die,\n  The earth can yield me but a common grave,\n  When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie,\n  Your monument shall be my gentle verse,\n  Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,\n  And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,\n  When all the breathers of this world are dead,\n    You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen)\n    Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.\n\n\n                     82\n  I grant thou wert not married to my muse,\n  And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook\n  The dedicated words which writers use\n  Of their fair subject, blessing every book.\n  Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,\n  Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,\n  And therefore art enforced to seek anew,\n  Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.\n  And do so love, yet when they have devised,\n  What strained touches rhetoric can lend,\n  Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathized,\n  In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend.\n    And their gross painting might be better used,\n    Where cheeks need blood, in thee it is abused.\n\n\n                     83\n  I never saw that you did painting need,\n  And therefore to your fair no painting set,\n  I found (or thought I found) you did exceed,\n  That barren tender of a poet's debt:\n  And therefore have I slept in your report,\n  That you your self being extant well might show,\n  How far a modern quill doth come too short,\n  Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.\n  This silence for my sin you did impute,\n  Which shall be most my glory being dumb,\n  For I impair not beauty being mute,\n  When others would give life, and bring a tomb.\n    There lives more life in one of your fair eyes,\n    Than both your poets can in praise devise.\n\n\n                     84\n  Who is it that says most, which can say more,\n  Than this rich praise, that you alone, are you?\n  In whose confine immured is the store,\n  Which should example where your equal grew.\n  Lean penury within that pen doth dwell,\n  That to his subject lends not some small glory,\n  But he that writes of you, if he can tell,\n  That you are you, so dignifies his story.\n  Let him but copy what in you is writ,\n  Not making worse what nature made so clear,\n  And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,\n  Making his style admired every where.\n    You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,\n    Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.\n\n\n                     85\n  My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still,\n  While comments of your praise richly compiled,\n  Reserve their character with golden quill,\n  And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.\n  I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words,\n  And like unlettered clerk still cry Amen,\n  To every hymn that able spirit affords,\n  In polished form of well refined pen.\n  Hearing you praised, I say 'tis so, 'tis true,\n  And to the most of praise add something more,\n  But that is in my thought, whose love to you\n  (Though words come hindmost) holds his rank before,\n    Then others, for the breath of words respect,\n    Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.\n\n\n                     86\n  Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,\n  Bound for the prize of (all too precious) you,\n  That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,\n  Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?\n  Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,\n  Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?\n  No, neither he, nor his compeers by night\n  Giving him aid, my verse astonished.\n  He nor that affable familiar ghost\n  Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,\n  As victors of my silence cannot boast,\n  I was not sick of any fear from thence.\n    But when your countenance filled up his line,\n    Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine.\n\n\n                     87\n  Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,\n  And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,\n  The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing:\n  My bonds in thee are all determinate.\n  For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,\n  And for that riches where is my deserving?\n  The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,\n  And so my patent back again is swerving.\n  Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,\n  Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking,\n  So thy great gift upon misprision growing,\n  Comes home again, on better judgement making.\n    Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,\n    In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.\n\n\n                     88\n  When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,\n  And place my merit in the eye of scorn,\n  Upon thy side, against my self I'll fight,\n  And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn:\n  With mine own weakness being best acquainted,\n  Upon thy part I can set down a story\n  Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted:\n  That thou in losing me, shalt win much glory:\n  And I by this will be a gainer too,\n  For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,\n  The injuries that to my self I do,\n  Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.\n    Such is my love, to thee I so belong,\n    That for thy right, my self will bear all wrong.\n\n\n                     89\n  Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,\n  And I will comment upon that offence,\n  Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt:\n  Against thy reasons making no defence.\n  Thou canst not (love) disgrace me half so ill,\n  To set a form upon desired change,\n  As I'll my self disgrace, knowing thy will,\n  I will acquaintance strangle and look strange:\n  Be absent from thy walks and in my tongue,\n  Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,\n  Lest I (too much profane) should do it wrong:\n  And haply of our old acquaintance tell.\n    For thee, against my self I'll vow debate,\n    For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.\n\n\n                     90\n  Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,\n  Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross,\n  join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,\n  And do not drop in for an after-loss:\n  Ah do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow,\n  Come in the rearward of a conquered woe,\n  Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,\n  To linger out a purposed overthrow.\n  If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,\n  When other petty griefs have done their spite,\n  But in the onset come, so shall I taste\n  At first the very worst of fortune's might.\n    And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,\n    Compared with loss of thee, will not seem so.\n\n\n                     91\n  Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,\n  Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,\n  Some in their garments though new-fangled ill:\n  Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse.\n  And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,\n  Wherein it finds a joy above the rest,\n  But these particulars are not my measure,\n  All these I better in one general best.\n  Thy love is better than high birth to me,\n  Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' costs,\n  Of more delight than hawks and horses be:\n  And having thee, of all men's pride I boast.\n    Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take,\n    All this away, and me most wretchcd make.\n\n\n                     92\n  But do thy worst to steal thy self away,\n  For term of life thou art assured mine,\n  And life no longer than thy love will stay,\n  For it depends upon that love of thine.\n  Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,\n  When in the least of them my life hath end,\n  I see, a better state to me belongs\n  Than that, which on thy humour doth depend.\n  Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,\n  Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie,\n  O what a happy title do I find,\n  Happy to have thy love, happy to die!\n    But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot?\n    Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.\n\n\n                     93\n  So shall I live, supposing thou art true,\n  Like a deceived husband, so love's face,\n  May still seem love to me, though altered new:\n  Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place.\n  For there can live no hatred in thine eye,\n  Therefore in that I cannot know thy change,\n  In many's looks, the false heart's history\n  Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange.\n  But heaven in thy creation did decree,\n  That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell,\n  Whate'er thy thoughts, or thy heart's workings be,\n  Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.\n    How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,\n    If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show.\n\n\n                     94\n  They that have power to hurt, and will do none,\n  That do not do the thing, they most do show,\n  Who moving others, are themselves as stone,\n  Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:\n  They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,\n  And husband nature's riches from expense,\n  Tibey are the lords and owners of their faces,\n  Others, but stewards of their excellence:\n  The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,\n  Though to it self, it only live and die,\n  But if that flower with base infection meet,\n  The basest weed outbraves his dignity:\n    For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds,\n    Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.\n\n\n                     95\n  How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame,\n  Which like a canker in the fragrant rose,\n  Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!\n  O in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!\n  That tongue that tells the story of thy days,\n  (Making lascivious comments on thy sport)\n  Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise,\n  Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.\n  O what a mansion have those vices got,\n  Which for their habitation chose out thee,\n  Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot,\n  And all things turns to fair, that eyes can see!\n    Take heed (dear heart) of this large privilege,\n    The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.\n\n\n                     96\n  Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,\n  Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport,\n  Both grace and faults are loved of more and less:\n  Thou mak'st faults graces, that to thee resort:\n  As on the finger of a throned queen,\n  The basest jewel will be well esteemed:\n  So are those errors that in thee are seen,\n  To truths translated, and for true things deemed.\n  How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,\n  If like a lamb he could his looks translate!\n  How many gazers mightst thou lead away,\n  if thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!\n    But do not so, I love thee in such sort,\n    As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.\n\n\n                     97\n  How like a winter hath my absence been\n  From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!\n  What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!\n  What old December's bareness everywhere!\n  And yet this time removed was summer's time,\n  The teeming autumn big with rich increase,\n  Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,\n  Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease:\n  Yet this abundant issue seemed to me\n  But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit,\n  For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,\n  And thou away, the very birds are mute.\n    Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,\n    That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.\n\n\n                     98\n  From you have I been absent in the spring,\n  When proud-pied April (dressed in all his trim)\n  Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing:\n  That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.\n  Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell\n  Of different flowers in odour and in hue,\n  Could make me any summer's story tell:\n  Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:\n  Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,\n  Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose,\n  They were but sweet, but figures of delight:\n  Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.\n    Yet seemed it winter still, and you away,\n    As with your shadow I with these did play.\n\n\n                     99\n  The forward violet thus did I chide,\n  Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,\n  If not from my love's breath? The purple pride\n  Which on thy soft check for complexion dwells,\n  In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.\n  The lily I condemned for thy hand,\n  And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair,\n  The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,\n  One blushing shame, another white despair:\n  A third nor red, nor white, had stol'n of both,\n  And to his robbery had annexed thy breath,\n  But for his theft in pride of all his growth\n  A vengeful canker eat him up to death.\n    More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,\n    But sweet, or colour it had stol'n from thee.\n\n\n                     100\n  Where art thou Muse that thou forget'st so long,\n  To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?\n  Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,\n  Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?\n  Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,\n  In gentle numbers time so idly spent,\n  Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,\n  And gives thy pen both skill and argument.\n  Rise resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,\n  If time have any wrinkle graven there,\n  If any, be a satire to decay,\n  And make time's spoils despised everywhere.\n    Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,\n    So thou prevent'st his scythe, and crooked knife.\n\n\n                     101\n  O truant Muse what shall be thy amends,\n  For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?\n  Both truth and beauty on my love depends:\n  So dost thou too, and therein dignified:\n  Make answer Muse, wilt thou not haply say,\n  'Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed,\n  Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay:\n  But best is best, if never intermixed'?\n  Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?\n  Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee,\n  To make him much outlive a gilded tomb:\n  And to be praised of ages yet to be.\n    Then do thy office Muse, I teach thee how,\n    To make him seem long hence, as he shows now.\n\n\n                     102\n  My love is strengthened though more weak in seeming,\n  I love not less, though less the show appear,\n  That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming,\n  The owner's tongue doth publish every where.\n  Our love was new, and then but in the spring,\n  When I was wont to greet it with my lays,\n  As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,\n  And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:\n  Not that the summer is less pleasant now\n  Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,\n  But that wild music burthens every bough,\n  And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.\n    Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:\n    Because I would not dull you with my song.\n\n\n                     103\n  Alack what poverty my muse brings forth,\n  That having such a scope to show her pride,\n  The argument all bare is of more worth\n  Than when it hath my added praise beside.\n  O blame me not if I no more can write!\n  Look in your glass and there appears a face,\n  That over-goes my blunt invention quite,\n  Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.\n  Were it not sinful then striving to mend,\n  To mar the subject that before was well?\n  For to no other pass my verses tend,\n  Than of your graces and your gifts to tell.\n    And more, much more than in my verse can sit,\n    Your own glass shows you, when you look in it.\n\n\n                     104\n  To me fair friend you never can be old,\n  For as you were when first your eye I eyed,\n  Such seems your beauty still: three winters cold,\n  Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,\n  Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned,\n  In process of the seasons have I seen,\n  Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,\n  Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.\n  Ah yet doth beauty like a dial hand,\n  Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived,\n  So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand\n  Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.\n    For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred,\n    Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.\n\n\n                     105\n  Let not my love be called idolatry,\n  Nor my beloved as an idol show,\n  Since all alike my songs and praises be\n  To one, of one, still such, and ever so.\n  Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,\n  Still constant in a wondrous excellence,\n  Therefore my verse to constancy confined,\n  One thing expressing, leaves out difference.\n  Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,\n  Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words,\n  And in this change is my invention spent,\n  Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.\n    Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone.\n    Which three till now, never kept seat in one.\n\n\n                     106\n  When in the chronicle of wasted time,\n  I see descriptions of the fairest wights,\n  And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,\n  In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights,\n  Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,\n  Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,\n  I see their antique pen would have expressed,\n  Even such a beauty as you master now.\n  So all their praises are but prophecies\n  Of this our time, all you prefiguring,\n  And for they looked but with divining eyes,\n  They had not skill enough your worth to sing:\n    For we which now behold these present days,\n    Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.\n\n\n                     107\n  Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul,\n  Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,\n  Can yet the lease of my true love control,\n  Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.\n  The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,\n  And the sad augurs mock their own presage,\n  Incertainties now crown themselves assured,\n  And peace proclaims olives of endless age.\n  Now with the drops of this most balmy time,\n  My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,\n  Since spite of him I'll live in this poor rhyme,\n  While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes.\n    And thou in this shalt find thy monument,\n    When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.\n\n\n                     108\n  What's in the brain that ink may character,\n  Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit,\n  What's new to speak, what now to register,\n  That may express my love, or thy dear merit?\n  Nothing sweet boy, but yet like prayers divine,\n  I must each day say o'er the very same,\n  Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,\n  Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name.\n  So that eternal love in love's fresh case,\n  Weighs not the dust and injury of age,\n  Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,\n  But makes antiquity for aye his page,\n    Finding the first conceit of love there bred,\n    Where time and outward form would show it dead.\n\n\n                     109\n  O never say that I was false of heart,\n  Though absence seemed my flame to qualify,\n  As easy might I from my self depart,\n  As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:\n  That is my home of love, if I have ranged,\n  Like him that travels I return again,\n  Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,\n  So that my self bring water for my stain,\n  Never believe though in my nature reigned,\n  All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,\n  That it could so preposterously be stained,\n  To leave for nothing all thy sum of good:\n    For nothing this wide universe I call,\n    Save thou my rose, in it thou art my all.\n\n\n                     110\n  Alas 'tis true, I have gone here and there,\n  And made my self a motley to the view,\n  Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,\n  Made old offences of affections new.\n  Most true it is, that I have looked on truth\n  Askance and strangely: but by all above,\n  These blenches gave my heart another youth,\n  And worse essays proved thee my best of love.\n  Now all is done, have what shall have no end,\n  Mine appetite I never more will grind\n  On newer proof, to try an older friend,\n  A god in love, to whom I am confined.\n    Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,\n    Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.\n\n\n                     111\n  O for my sake do you with Fortune chide,\n  The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,\n  That did not better for my life provide,\n  Than public means which public manners breeds.\n  Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,\n  And almost thence my nature is subdued\n  To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:\n  Pity me then, and wish I were renewed,\n  Whilst like a willing patient I will drink,\n  Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection,\n  No bitterness that I will bitter think,\n  Nor double penance to correct correction.\n    Pity me then dear friend, and I assure ye,\n    Even that your pity is enough to cure me.\n\n\n                     112\n  Your love and pity doth th' impression fill,\n  Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow,\n  For what care I who calls me well or ill,\n  So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?\n  You are my all the world, and I must strive,\n  To know my shames and praises from your tongue,\n  None else to me, nor I to none alive,\n  That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.\n  In so profound abysm I throw all care\n  Of others' voices, that my adder's sense,\n  To critic and to flatterer stopped are:\n  Mark how with my neglect I do dispense.\n    You are so strongly in my purpose bred,\n    That all the world besides methinks are dead.\n\n\n                     113\n  Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,\n  And that which governs me to go about,\n  Doth part his function, and is partly blind,\n  Seems seeing, but effectually is out:\n  For it no form delivers to the heart\n  Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch,\n  Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,\n  Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:\n  For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,\n  The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,\n  The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night:\n  The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.\n    Incapable of more, replete with you,\n    My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.\n\n\n                     114\n  Or whether doth my mind being crowned with you\n  Drink up the monarch's plague this flattery?\n  Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,\n  And that your love taught it this alchemy?\n  To make of monsters, and things indigest,\n  Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,\n  Creating every bad a perfect best\n  As fast as objects to his beams assemble:\n  O 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,\n  And my great mind most kingly drinks it up,\n  Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,\n  And to his palate doth prepare the cup.\n    If it be poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin,\n    That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.\n\n\n                     115\n  Those lines that I before have writ do lie,\n  Even those that said I could not love you dearer,\n  Yet then my judgment knew no reason why,\n  My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer,\n  But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents\n  Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,\n  Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,\n  Divert strong minds to the course of alt'ring things:\n  Alas why fearing of time's tyranny,\n  Might I not then say 'Now I love you best,'\n  When I was certain o'er incertainty,\n  Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?\n    Love is a babe, then might I not say so\n    To give full growth to that which still doth grow.\n\n\n                     116\n  Let me not to the marriage of true minds\n  Admit impediments, love is not love\n  Which alters when it alteration finds,\n  Or bends with the remover to remove.\n  O no, it is an ever-fixed mark\n  That looks on tempests and is never shaken;\n  It is the star to every wand'ring bark,\n  Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.\n  Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks\n  Within his bending sickle's compass come,\n  Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,\n  But bears it out even to the edge of doom:\n    If this be error and upon me proved,\n    I never writ, nor no man ever loved.\n\n\n                     117\n  Accuse me thus, that I have scanted all,\n  Wherein I should your great deserts repay,\n  Forgot upon your dearest love to call,\n  Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day,\n  That I have frequent been with unknown minds,\n  And given to time your own dear-purchased right,\n  That I have hoisted sail to all the winds\n  Which should transport me farthest from your sight.\n  Book both my wilfulness and errors down,\n  And on just proof surmise, accumulate,\n  Bring me within the level of your frown,\n  But shoot not at me in your wakened hate:\n    Since my appeal says I did strive to prove\n    The constancy and virtue of your love.\n\n\n                     118\n  Like as to make our appetite more keen\n  With eager compounds we our palate urge,\n  As to prevent our maladies unseen,\n  We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.\n  Even so being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,\n  To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;\n  And sick of welfare found a kind of meetness,\n  To be diseased ere that there was true needing.\n  Thus policy in love t' anticipate\n  The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,\n  And brought to medicine a healthful state\n  Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured.\n    But thence I learn and find the lesson true,\n    Drugs poison him that so feil sick of you.\n\n\n                     119\n  What potions have I drunk of Siren tears\n  Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,\n  Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,\n  Still losing when I saw my self to win!\n  What wretched errors hath my heart committed,\n  Whilst it hath thought it self so blessed never!\n  How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted\n  In the distraction of this madding fever!\n  O benefit of ill, now I find true\n  That better is, by evil still made better.\n  And ruined love when it is built anew\n  Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.\n    So I return rebuked to my content,\n    And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.\n\n\n                     120\n  That you were once unkind befriends me now,\n  And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,\n  Needs must I under my transgression bow,\n  Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.\n  For if you were by my unkindness shaken\n  As I by yours, y'have passed a hell of time,\n  And I a tyrant have no leisure taken\n  To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.\n  O that our night of woe might have remembered\n  My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,\n  And soon to you, as you to me then tendered\n  The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!\n    But that your trespass now becomes a fee,\n    Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.\n\n\n                     121\n  'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,\n  When not to be, receives reproach of being,\n  And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed,\n  Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.\n  For why should others' false adulterate eyes\n  Give salutation to my sportive blood?\n  Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,\n  Which in their wills count bad what I think good?\n  No, I am that I am, and they that level\n  At my abuses, reckon up their own,\n  I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;\n  By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown\n    Unless this general evil they maintain,\n    All men are bad and in their badness reign.\n\n\n                     122\n  Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain\n  Full charactered with lasting memory,\n  Which shall above that idle rank remain\n  Beyond all date even to eternity.\n  Or at the least, so long as brain and heart\n  Have faculty by nature to subsist,\n  Till each to razed oblivion yield his part\n  Of thee, thy record never can be missed:\n  That poor retention could not so much hold,\n  Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score,\n  Therefore to give them from me was I bold,\n  To trust those tables that receive thee more:\n    To keep an adjunct to remember thee\n    Were to import forgetfulness in me.\n\n\n                     123\n  No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change,\n  Thy pyramids built up with newer might\n  To me are nothing novel, nothing strange,\n  They are but dressings Of a former sight:\n  Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire,\n  What thou dost foist upon us that is old,\n  And rather make them born to our desire,\n  Than think that we before have heard them told:\n  Thy registers and thee I both defy,\n  Not wond'ring at the present, nor the past,\n  For thy records, and what we see doth lie,\n  Made more or less by thy continual haste:\n    This I do vow and this shall ever be,\n    I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.\n\n\n                     124\n  If my dear love were but the child of state,\n  It might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered,\n  As subject to time's love or to time's hate,\n  Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.\n  No it was builded far from accident,\n  It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls\n  Under the blow of thralled discontent,\n  Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:\n  It fears not policy that heretic,\n  Which works on leases of short-numbered hours,\n  But all alone stands hugely politic,\n  That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.\n    To this I witness call the fools of time,\n    Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.\n\n\n                     125\n  Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,\n  With my extern the outward honouring,\n  Or laid great bases for eternity,\n  Which proves more short than waste or ruining?\n  Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour\n  Lose all, and more by paying too much rent\n  For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,\n  Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent?\n  No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,\n  And take thou my oblation, poor but free,\n  Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,\n  But mutual render, only me for thee.\n    Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul\n    When most impeached, stands least in thy control.\n\n\n                     126\n  O thou my lovely boy who in thy power,\n  Dost hold Time's fickle glass his fickle hour:\n  Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st,\n  Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.\n  If Nature (sovereign mistress over wrack)\n  As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,\n  She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill\n  May time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill.\n  Yet fear her O thou minion of her pleasure,\n  She may detain, but not still keep her treasure!\n    Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,\n    And her quietus is to render thee.\n\n\n                     127\n  In the old age black was not counted fair,\n  Or if it were it bore not beauty's name:\n  But now is black beauty's successive heir,\n  And beauty slandered with a bastard shame,\n  For since each hand hath put on nature's power,\n  Fairing the foul with art's false borrowed face,\n  Sweet beauty hath no name no holy bower,\n  But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.\n  Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,\n  Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem,\n  At such who not born fair no beauty lack,\n  Slandering creation with a false esteem,\n    Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,\n    That every tongue says beauty should look so.\n\n\n                     128\n  How oft when thou, my music, music play'st,\n  Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds\n  With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st\n  The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,\n  Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,\n  To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,\n  Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,\n  At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand.\n  To be so tickled they would change their state\n  And situation with those dancing chips,\n  O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,\n  Making dead wood more blest than living lips,\n    Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,\n    Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.\n\n\n                     129\n  Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame\n  Is lust in action, and till action, lust\n  Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody full of blame,\n  Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,\n  Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight,\n  Past reason hunted, and no sooner had\n  Past reason hated as a swallowed bait,\n  On purpose laid to make the taker mad.\n  Mad in pursuit and in possession so,\n  Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme,\n  A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe,\n  Before a joy proposed behind a dream.\n    All this the world well knows yet none knows well,\n    To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.\n\n\n                     130\n  My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,\n  Coral is far more red, than her lips red,\n  If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun:\n  If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:\n  I have seen roses damasked, red and white,\n  But no such roses see I in her cheeks,\n  And in some perfumes is there more delight,\n  Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.\n  I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,\n  That music hath a far more pleasing sound:\n  I grant I never saw a goddess go,\n  My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.\n    And yet by heaven I think my love as rare,\n    As any she belied with false compare.\n\n\n                     131\n  Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,\n  As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;\n  For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart\n  Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.\n  Yet in good faith some say that thee behold,\n  Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;\n  To say they err, I dare not be so bold,\n  Although I swear it to my self alone.\n  And to be sure that is not false I swear,\n  A thousand groans but thinking on thy face,\n  One on another's neck do witness bear\n  Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.\n    In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,\n    And thence this slander as I think proceeds.\n\n\n                     132\n  Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me,\n  Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,\n  Have put on black, and loving mourners be,\n  Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.\n  And truly not the morning sun of heaven\n  Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,\n  Nor that full star that ushers in the even\n  Doth half that glory to the sober west\n  As those two mourning eyes become thy face:\n  O let it then as well beseem thy heart\n  To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,\n  And suit thy pity like in every part.\n    Then will I swear beauty herself is black,\n    And all they foul that thy complexion lack.\n\n\n                     133\n  Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan\n  For that deep wound it gives my friend and me;\n  Is't not enough to torture me alone,\n  But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?\n  Me from my self thy cruel eye hath taken,\n  And my next self thou harder hast engrossed,\n  Of him, my self, and thee I am forsaken,\n  A torment thrice three-fold thus to be crossed:\n  Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward,\n  But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail,\n  Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard,\n  Thou canst not then use rigour in my gaol.\n    And yet thou wilt, for I being pent in thee,\n    Perforce am thine and all that is in me.\n\n\n                     134\n  So now I have confessed that he is thine,\n  And I my self am mortgaged to thy will,\n  My self I'll forfeit, so that other mine,\n  Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:\n  But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,\n  For thou art covetous, and he is kind,\n  He learned but surety-like to write for me,\n  Under that bond that him as fist doth bind.\n  The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,\n  Thou usurer that put'st forth all to use,\n  And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake,\n  So him I lose through my unkind abuse.\n    Him have I lost, thou hast both him and me,\n    He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.\n\n\n                     135\n  Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will,\n  And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in over-plus,\n  More than enough am I that vex thee still,\n  To thy sweet will making addition thus.\n  Wilt thou whose will is large and spacious,\n  Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?\n  Shall will in others seem right gracious,\n  And in my will no fair acceptance shine?\n  The sea all water, yet receives rain still,\n  And in abundance addeth to his store,\n  So thou being rich in will add to thy will\n  One will of mine to make thy large will more.\n    Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill,\n    Think all but one, and me in that one 'Will.'\n\n\n                     136\n  If thy soul check thee that I come so near,\n  Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will',\n  And will thy soul knows is admitted there,\n  Thus far for love, my love-suit sweet fulfil.\n  'Will', will fulfil the treasure of thy love,\n  Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one,\n  In things of great receipt with case we prove,\n  Among a number one is reckoned none.\n  Then in the number let me pass untold,\n  Though in thy store's account I one must be,\n  For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold,\n  That nothing me, a something sweet to thee.\n    Make but my name thy love, and love that still,\n    And then thou lov'st me for my name is Will.\n\n\n                     137\n  Thou blind fool Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,\n  That they behold and see not what they see?\n  They know what beauty is, see where it lies,\n  Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.\n  If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks,\n  Be anchored in the bay where all men ride,\n  Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,\n  Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?\n  Why should my heart think that a several plot,\n  Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?\n  Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not\n  To put fair truth upon so foul a face?\n    In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,\n    And to this false plague are they now transferred.\n\n\n                     138\n  When my love swears that she is made of truth,\n  I do believe her though I know she lies,\n  That she might think me some untutored youth,\n  Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.\n  Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,\n  Although she knows my days are past the best,\n  Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue,\n  On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:\n  But wherefore says she not she is unjust?\n  And wherefore say not I that I am old?\n  O love's best habit is in seeming trust,\n  And age in love, loves not to have years told.\n    Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,\n    And in our faults by lies we flattered be.\n\n\n                     139\n  O call not me to justify the wrong,\n  That thy unkindness lays upon my heart,\n  Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue,\n  Use power with power, and slay me not by art,\n  Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,\n  Dear heart forbear to glance thine eye aside,\n  What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might\n  Is more than my o'erpressed defence can bide?\n  Let me excuse thee, ah my love well knows,\n  Her pretty looks have been mine enemies,\n  And therefore from my face she turns my foes,\n  That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:\n    Yet do not so, but since I am near slain,\n    Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.\n\n\n                     140\n  Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press\n  My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain:\n  Lest sorrow lend me words and words express,\n  The manner of my pity-wanting pain.\n  If I might teach thee wit better it were,\n  Though not to love, yet love to tell me so,\n  As testy sick men when their deaths be near,\n  No news but health from their physicians know.\n  For if I should despair I should grow mad,\n  And in my madness might speak ill of thee,\n  Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,\n  Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.\n    That I may not be so, nor thou belied,\n    Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.\n\n\n                     141\n  In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,\n  For they in thee a thousand errors note,\n  But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,\n  Who in despite of view is pleased to dote.\n  Nor are mine cars with thy tongue's tune delighted,\n  Nor tender feeling to base touches prone,\n  Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited\n  To any sensual feast with thee alone:\n  But my five wits, nor my five senses can\n  Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,\n  Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,\n  Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:\n    Only my plague thus far I count my gain,\n    That she that makes me sin, awards me pain.\n\n\n                     142\n  Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,\n  Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving,\n  O but with mine, compare thou thine own state,\n  And thou shalt find it merits not reproving,\n  Or if it do, not from those lips of thine,\n  That have profaned their scarlet ornaments,\n  And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine,\n  Robbed others' beds' revenues of their rents.\n  Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov'st those,\n  Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee,\n  Root pity in thy heart that when it grows,\n  Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.\n    If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,\n    By self-example mayst thou be denied.\n\n\n                     143\n  Lo as a careful huswife runs to catch,\n  One of her feathered creatures broke away,\n  Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch\n  In pursuit of the thing she would have stay:\n  Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,\n  Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent,\n  To follow that which flies before her face:\n  Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;\n  So run'st thou after that which flies from thee,\n  Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind,\n  But if thou catch thy hope turn back to me:\n  And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind.\n    So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will,\n    If thou turn back and my loud crying still.\n\n\n                     144\n  Two loves I have of comfort and despair,\n  Which like two spirits do suggest me still,\n  The better angel is a man right fair:\n  The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.\n  To win me soon to hell my female evil,\n  Tempteth my better angel from my side,\n  And would corrupt my saint to be a devil:\n  Wooing his purity with her foul pride.\n  And whether that my angel be turned fiend,\n  Suspect I may, yet not directly tell,\n  But being both from me both to each friend,\n  I guess one angel in another's hell.\n    Yet this shall I ne'er know but live in doubt,\n    Till my bad angel fire my good one out.\n\n\n                     145\n  Those lips that Love's own hand did make,\n  Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate',\n  To me that languished for her sake:\n  But when she saw my woeful state,\n  Straight in her heart did mercy come,\n  Chiding that tongue that ever sweet,\n  Was used in giving gentle doom:\n  And taught it thus anew to greet:\n  'I hate' she altered with an end,\n  That followed it as gentle day,\n  Doth follow night who like a fiend\n  From heaven to hell is flown away.\n    'I hate', from hate away she threw,\n    And saved my life saying 'not you'.\n\n\n                     146\n  Poor soul the centre of my sinful earth,\n  My sinful earth these rebel powers array,\n  Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth\n  Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?\n  Why so large cost having so short a lease,\n  Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?\n  Shall worms inheritors of this excess\n  Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?\n  Then soul live thou upon thy servant's loss,\n  And let that pine to aggravate thy store;\n  Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;\n  Within be fed, without be rich no more,\n    So shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men,\n    And death once dead, there's no more dying then.\n\n\n                     147\n  My love is as a fever longing still,\n  For that which longer nurseth the disease,\n  Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,\n  Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please:\n  My reason the physician to my love,\n  Angry that his prescriptions are not kept\n  Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,\n  Desire is death, which physic did except.\n  Past cure I am, now reason is past care,\n  And frantic-mad with evermore unrest,\n  My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are,\n  At random from the truth vainly expressed.\n    For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,\n    Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.\n\n\n                     148\n  O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,\n  Which have no correspondence with true sight,\n  Or if they have, where is my judgment fled,\n  That censures falsely what they see aright?\n  If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,\n  What means the world to say it is not so?\n  If it be not, then love doth well denote,\n  Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no,\n  How can it? O how can love's eye be true,\n  That is so vexed with watching and with tears?\n  No marvel then though I mistake my view,\n  The sun it self sees not, till heaven clears.\n    O cunning love, with tears thou keep'st me blind,\n    Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.\n\n\n                     149\n  Canst thou O cruel, say I love thee not,\n  When I against my self with thee partake?\n  Do I not think on thee when I forgot\n  Am of my self, all-tyrant, for thy sake?\n  Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,\n  On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon,\n  Nay if thou lour'st on me do I not spend\n  Revenge upon my self with present moan?\n  What merit do I in my self respect,\n  That is so proud thy service to despise,\n  When all my best doth worship thy defect,\n  Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?\n    But love hate on for now I know thy mind,\n    Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.\n\n\n                     150\n  O from what power hast thou this powerful might,\n  With insufficiency my heart to sway,\n  To make me give the lie to my true sight,\n  And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?\n  Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,\n  That in the very refuse of thy deeds,\n  There is such strength and warrantise of skill,\n  That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?\n  Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,\n  The more I hear and see just cause of hate?\n  O though I love what others do abhor,\n  With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.\n    If thy unworthiness raised love in me,\n    More worthy I to be beloved of thee.\n\n\n                     151\n  Love is too young to know what conscience is,\n  Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?\n  Then gentle cheater urge not my amiss,\n  Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.\n  For thou betraying me, I do betray\n  My nobler part to my gross body's treason,\n  My soul doth tell my body that he may,\n  Triumph in love, flesh stays no farther reason,\n  But rising at thy name doth point out thee,\n  As his triumphant prize, proud of this pride,\n  He is contented thy poor drudge to be,\n  To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.\n    No want of conscience hold it that I call,\n    Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.\n\n\n                     152\n  In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,\n  But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing,\n  In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,\n  In vowing new hate after new love bearing:\n  But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,\n  When I break twenty? I am perjured most,\n  For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee:\n  And all my honest faith in thee is lost.\n  For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness:\n  Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy,\n  And to enlighten thee gave eyes to blindness,\n  Or made them swear against the thing they see.\n    For I have sworn thee fair: more perjured I,\n    To swear against the truth so foul a be.\n\n\n                     153\n  Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep,\n  A maid of Dian's this advantage found,\n  And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep\n  In a cold valley-fountain of that ground:\n  Which borrowed from this holy fire of Love,\n  A dateless lively heat still to endure,\n  And grew a seeting bath which yet men prove,\n  Against strange maladies a sovereign cure:\n  But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,\n  The boy for trial needs would touch my breast,\n  I sick withal the help of bath desired,\n  And thither hied a sad distempered guest.\n    But found no cure, the bath for my help lies,\n    Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress' eyes.\n\n\n                     154\n  The little Love-god lying once asleep,\n  Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,\n  Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep,\n  Came tripping by, but in her maiden hand,\n  The fairest votary took up that fire,\n  Which many legions of true hearts had warmed,\n  And so the general of hot desire,\n  Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarmed.\n  This brand she quenched in a cool well by,\n  Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,\n  Growing a bath and healthful remedy,\n  For men discased, but I my mistress' thrall,\n    Came there for cure and this by that I prove,\n    Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare,\nThe Sonnets."}
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{"1106":"\n\n\n\n\n1594\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF TITUS ANDRONICUS\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  SATURNINUS, son to the late Emperor of Rome, afterwards Emperor\n  BASSIANUS, brother to Saturninus\n  TITUS ANDRONICUS, a noble Roman\n  MARCUS ANDRONICUS, Tribune of the People, and brother to Titus\n\n    Sons to Titus Andronicus:\n  LUCIUS\n  QUINTUS\n  MARTIUS\n  MUTIUS\n\n  YOUNG LUCIUS, a boy, son to Lucius\n  PUBLIUS, son to Marcus Andronicus\n\n    Kinsmen to Titus:\n  SEMPRONIUS\n  CAIUS\n  VALENTINE\n\n  AEMILIUS, a noble Roman\n\n    Sons to Tamora:\n  ALARBUS\n  DEMETRIUS\n  CHIRON\n\n  AARON, a Moor, beloved by Tamora\n  A CAPTAIN\n  A MESSENGER\n  A CLOWN\n\n  TAMORA, Queen of the Goths\n  LAVINIA, daughter to Titus Andronicus\n  A NURSE, and a black CHILD\n\n  Romans and Goths, Senators, Tribunes, Officers, Soldiers, and\n    Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                          SCENE:\n               Rome and the neighbourhood\n\n\nACT 1. SCENE I.\nRome. Before the Capitol\n\nFlourish. Enter the TRIBUNES and SENATORS aloft; and then enter\nbelow\nSATURNINUS and his followers at one door, and BASSIANUS and his\nfollowers\nat the other, with drums and trumpets\n\n  SATURNINUS. Noble patricians, patrons of my right,\n    Defend the justice of my cause with arms;\n    And, countrymen, my loving followers,\n    Plead my successive title with your swords.\n    I am his first born son that was the last\n    That ware the imperial diadem of Rome;\n    Then let my father's honours live in me,\n    Nor wrong mine age with this indignity.\n  BASSIANUS. Romans, friends, followers, favourers of my right,\n    If ever Bassianus, Caesar's son,\n    Were gracious in the eyes of royal Rome,\n    Keep then this passage to the Capitol;\n    And suffer not dishonour to approach\n    The imperial seat, to virtue consecrate,\n    To justice, continence, and nobility;\n    But let desert in pure election shine;\n    And, Romans, fight for freedom in your choice.\n\n        Enter MARCUS ANDRONICUS aloft, with the crown\n\n  MARCUS. Princes, that strive by factions and by friends\n    Ambitiously for rule and empery,\n    Know that the people of Rome, for whom we stand\n    A special party, have by common voice\n    In election for the Roman empery\n    Chosen Andronicus, surnamed Pius\n    For many good and great deserts to Rome.\n    A nobler man, a braver warrior,\n    Lives not this day within the city walls.\n    He by the Senate is accited home,\n    From weary wars against the barbarous Goths,\n    That with his sons, a terror to our foes,\n    Hath yok'd a nation strong, train'd up in arms.\n    Ten years are spent since first he undertook\n    This cause of Rome, and chastised with arms\n    Our enemies' pride; five times he hath return'd\n    Bleeding to Rome, bearing his valiant sons\n    In coffins from the field; and at this day\n    To the monument of that Andronici\n    Done sacrifice of expiation,\n    And slain the noblest prisoner of the Goths.\n    And now at last, laden with honour's spoils,\n    Returns the good Andronicus to Rome,\n    Renowned Titus, flourishing in arms.\n    Let us entreat, by honour of his name\n    Whom worthily you would have now succeed,\n    And in the Capitol and Senate's right,\n    Whom you pretend to honour and adore,\n    That you withdraw you and abate your strength,\n    Dismiss your followers, and, as suitors should,\n    Plead your deserts in peace and humbleness.\n  SATURNINUS. How fair the Tribune speaks to calm my thoughts.\n  BASSIANUS. Marcus Andronicus, so I do affy\n    In thy uprightness and integrity,\n    And so I love and honour thee and thine,\n    Thy noble brother Titus and his sons,\n    And her to whom my thoughts are humbled all,\n    Gracious Lavinia, Rome's rich ornament,\n    That I will here dismiss my loving friends,\n    And to my fortunes and the people's favour\n    Commit my cause in balance to be weigh'd.\n                                Exeunt the soldiers of BASSIANUS\n  SATURNINUS. Friends, that have been thus forward in my right,\n    I thank you all and here dismiss you all,\n    And to the love and favour of my country\n    Commit myself, my person, and the cause.\n                               Exeunt the soldiers of SATURNINUS\n    Rome, be as just and gracious unto me\n    As I am confident and kind to thee.\n    Open the gates and let me in.\n  BASSIANUS. Tribunes, and me, a poor competitor.\n                    [Flourish. They go up into the Senate House]\n\n                      Enter a CAPTAIN\n\n  CAPTAIN. Romans, make way. The good Andronicus,\n    Patron of virtue, Rome's best champion,\n    Successful in the battles that he fights,\n    With honour and with fortune is return'd\n    From where he circumscribed with his sword\n    And brought to yoke the enemies of Rome.\n\n        Sound drums and trumpets, and then enter MARTIUS\n        and MUTIUS, two of TITUS' sons; and then two men\n        bearing a coffin covered with black; then LUCIUS\n        and QUINTUS, two other sons; then TITUS ANDRONICUS;\n        and then TAMORA the Queen of Goths, with her three\n        sons, ALARBUS, DEMETRIUS, and CHIRON, with AARON the\n        Moor, and others,  as many as can be. Then set down\n        the coffin and TITUS speaks\n\n  TITUS. Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds!\n    Lo, as the bark that hath discharg'd her fraught\n    Returns with precious lading to the bay\n    From whence at first she weigh'd her anchorage,\n    Cometh Andronicus, bound with laurel boughs,\n    To re-salute his country with his tears,\n    Tears of true joy for his return to Rome.\n    Thou great defender of this Capitol,\n    Stand gracious to the rites that we intend!\n    Romans, of five and twenty valiant sons,\n    Half of the number that King Priam had,\n    Behold the poor remains, alive and dead!\n    These that survive let Rome reward with love;\n    These that I bring unto their latest home,\n    With burial amongst their ancestors.\n    Here Goths have given me leave to sheathe my sword.\n    Titus, unkind, and careless of thine own,\n    Why suffer'st thou thy sons, unburied yet,\n    To hover on the dreadful shore of Styx?\n    Make way to lay them by their brethren.\n                                            [They open the tomb]\n    There greet in silence, as the dead are wont,\n    And sleep in peace, slain in your country's wars.\n    O sacred receptacle of my joys,\n    Sweet cell of virtue and nobility,\n    How many sons hast thou of mine in store\n    That thou wilt never render to me more!\n  LUCIUS. Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths,\n    That we may hew his limbs, and on a pile\n    Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh\n    Before this earthy prison of their bones,\n    That so the shadows be not unappeas'd,\n    Nor we disturb'd with prodigies on earth.\n  TITUS. I give him you- the noblest that survives,\n    The eldest son of this distressed queen.\n  TAMORA. Stay, Roman brethen! Gracious conqueror,\n    Victorious Titus, rue the tears I shed,\n    A mother's tears in passion for her son;\n    And if thy sons were ever dear to thee,\n    O, think my son to be as dear to me!\n    Sufficeth not that we are brought to Rome\n    To beautify thy triumphs, and return\n    Captive to thee and to thy Roman yoke;\n    But must my sons be slaughtered in the streets\n    For valiant doings in their country's cause?\n    O, if to fight for king and commonweal\n    Were piety in thine, it is in these.\n    Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood.\n    Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?\n    Draw near them then in being merciful.\n    Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.\n    Thrice-noble Titus, spare my first-born son.\n  TITUS. Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me.\n    These are their brethren, whom your Goths beheld\n    Alive and dead; and for their brethren slain\n    Religiously they ask a sacrifice.\n    To this your son is mark'd, and die he must\n    T' appease their groaning shadows that are gone.\n  LUCIUS. Away with him, and make a fire straight;\n    And with our swords, upon a pile of wood,\n    Let's hew his limbs till they be clean consum'd.\n                                Exeunt TITUS' SONS, with ALARBUS\n  TAMORA. O cruel, irreligious piety!\n  CHIRON. Was never Scythia half so barbarous!\n  DEMETRIUS. Oppose not Scythia to ambitious Rome.\n    Alarbus goes to rest, and we survive\n    To tremble under Titus' threat'ning look.\n    Then, madam, stand resolv'd, but hope withal\n    The self-same gods that arm'd the Queen of Troy\n    With opportunity of sharp revenge\n    Upon the Thracian tyrant in his tent\n    May favour Tamora, the Queen of Goths-\n    When Goths were Goths and Tamora was queen-\n    To quit the bloody wrongs upon her foes.\n\n            Re-enter LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS, and\n   MUTIUS, the sons of ANDRONICUS, with their swords bloody\n\n  LUCIUS. See, lord and father, how we have perform'd\n    Our Roman rites: Alarbus' limbs are lopp'd,\n    And entrails feed the sacrificing fire,\n    Whose smoke like incense doth perfume the sky.\n    Remaineth nought but to inter our brethren,\n    And with loud 'larums welcome them to Rome.\n  TITUS. Let it be so, and let Andronicus\n    Make this his latest farewell to their souls.\n                 [Sound trumpets and lay the coffin in the tomb]\n    In peace and honour rest you here, my sons;\n    Rome's readiest champions, repose you here in rest,\n    Secure from worldly chances and mishaps!\n    Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,\n    Here grow no damned drugs, here are no storms,\n    No noise, but silence and eternal sleep.\n    In peace and honour rest you here, my sons!\n\n                       Enter LAVINIA\n\n  LAVINIA. In peace and honour live Lord Titus long;\n    My noble lord and father, live in fame!\n    Lo, at this tomb my tributary tears\n    I render for my brethren's obsequies;\n    And at thy feet I kneel, with tears of joy\n    Shed on this earth for thy return to Rome.\n    O, bless me here with thy victorious hand,\n    Whose fortunes Rome's best citizens applaud!\n  TITUS. Kind Rome, that hast thus lovingly reserv'd\n    The cordial of mine age to glad my heart!\n    Lavinia, live; outlive thy father's days,\n    And fame's eternal date, for virtue's praise!\n\n          Enter, above, MARCUS ANDRONICUS and TRIBUNES;\n          re-enter SATURNINUS, BASSIANUS, and attendants\n\n  MARCUS. Long live Lord Titus, my beloved brother,\n    Gracious triumpher in the eyes of Rome!\n  TITUS. Thanks, gentle Tribune, noble brother Marcus.\n  MARCUS. And welcome, nephews, from successful wars,\n    You that survive and you that sleep in fame.\n    Fair lords, your fortunes are alike in all\n    That in your country's service drew your swords;\n    But safer triumph is this funeral pomp\n    That hath aspir'd to Solon's happiness\n    And triumphs over chance in honour's bed.\n    Titus Andronicus, the people of Rome,\n    Whose friend in justice thou hast ever been,\n    Send thee by me, their Tribune and their trust,\n    This par]iament of white and spotless hue;\n    And name thee in election for the empire\n    With these our late-deceased Emperor's sons:\n    Be candidatus then, and put it on,\n    And help to set a head on headless Rome.\n  TITUS. A better head her glorious body fits\n    Than his that shakes for age and feebleness.\n    What should I don this robe and trouble you?\n    Be chosen with proclamations to-day,\n    To-morrow yield up rule, resign my life,\n    And set abroad new business for you all?\n    Rome, I have been thy soldier forty years,\n    And led my country's strength successfully,\n    And buried one and twenty valiant sons,\n    Knighted in field, slain manfully in arms,\n    In right and service of their noble country.\n    Give me a staff of honour for mine age,\n    But not a sceptre to control the world.\n    Upright he held it, lords, that held it last.\n  MARCUS. Titus, thou shalt obtain and ask the empery.\n  SATURNINUS. Proud and ambitious Tribune, canst thou tell?\n  TITUS. Patience, Prince Saturninus.\n  SATURNINUS. Romans, do me right.\n    Patricians, draw your swords, and sheathe them not\n    Till Saturninus be Rome's Emperor.\n    Andronicus, would thou were shipp'd to hell\n    Rather than rob me of the people's hearts!\n  LUCIUS. Proud Saturnine, interrupter of the good\n    That noble-minded Titus means to thee!\n  TITUS. Content thee, Prince; I will restore to thee\n    The people's hearts, and wean them from themselves.\n  BASSIANUS. Andronicus, I do not flatter thee,\n    But honour thee, and will do till I die.\n    My faction if thou strengthen with thy friends,\n    I will most thankful be; and thanks to men\n    Of noble minds is honourable meed.\n  TITUS. People of Rome, and people's Tribunes here,\n    I ask your voices and your suffrages:\n    Will ye bestow them friendly on Andronicus?\n  TRIBUNES. To gratify the good Andronicus,\n    And gratulate his safe return to Rome,\n    The people will accept whom he admits.\n  TITUS. Tribunes, I thank you; and this suit I make,\n    That you create our Emperor's eldest son,\n    Lord Saturnine; whose virtues will, I hope,\n    Reflect on Rome as Titan's rays on earth,\n    And ripen justice in this commonweal.\n    Then, if you will elect by my advice,\n    Crown him, and say 'Long live our Emperor!'\n  MARCUS. With voices and applause of every sort,\n    Patricians and plebeians, we create\n    Lord Saturninus Rome's great Emperor;\n    And say 'Long live our Emperor Saturnine!'\n                           [A long flourish till they come down]\n  SATURNINUS. Titus Andronicus, for thy favours done\n    To us in our election this day\n    I give thee thanks in part of thy deserts,\n    And will with deeds requite thy gentleness;\n    And for an onset, Titus, to advance\n    Thy name and honourable family,\n    Lavinia will I make my emperess,\n    Rome's royal mistress, mistress of my heart,\n    And in the sacred Pantheon her espouse.\n    Tell me, Andronicus, doth this motion please thee?\n  TITUS. It doth, my worthy lord, and in this match\n    I hold me highly honoured of your Grace,\n    And here in sight of Rome, to Saturnine,\n    King and commander of our commonweal,\n    The wide world's Emperor, do I consecrate\n    My sword, my chariot, and my prisoners,\n    Presents well worthy Rome's imperious lord;\n    Receive them then, the tribute that I owe,\n    Mine honour's ensigns humbled at thy feet.\n  SATURNINUS. Thanks, noble Titus, father of my life.\n    How proud I am of thee and of thy gifts\n    Rome shall record; and when I do forget\n    The least of these unspeakable deserts,\n    Romans, forget your fealty to me.\n  TITUS.  [To TAMORA]  Now, madam, are you prisoner to an\nemperor;\n    To him that for your honour and your state\n    Will use you nobly and your followers.\n  SATURNINUS.  [Aside]  A goodly lady, trust me; of the hue\n    That I would choose, were I to choose anew.-\n    Clear up, fair Queen, that cloudy countenance;\n    Though chance of war hath wrought this change of cheer,\n    Thou com'st not to be made a scorn in Rome-\n    Princely shall be thy usage every way.\n    Rest on my word, and let not discontent\n    Daunt all your hopes. Madam, he comforts you\n    Can make you greater than the Queen of Goths.\n    Lavinia, you are not displeas'd with this?\n  LAVINIA. Not I, my lord, sith true nobility\n    Warrants these words in princely courtesy.\n  SATURNINUS. Thanks, sweet Lavinia. Romans, let us go.\n    Ransomless here we set our prisoners free.\n    Proclaim our honours, lords, with trump and drum.\n                                                      [Flourish]\n  BASSIANUS. Lord Titus, by your leave, this maid is mine.\n                                               [Seizing LAVINIA]\n  TITUS. How, sir! Are you in earnest then, my lord?\n  BASSIANUS. Ay, noble Titus, and resolv'd withal\n    To do myself this reason and this right.\n  MARCUS. Suum cuique is our Roman justice:\n    This prince in justice seizeth but his own.\n  LUCIUS. And that he will and shall, if Lucius live.\n  TITUS. Traitors, avaunt! Where is the Emperor's guard?\n    Treason, my lord- Lavinia is surpris'd!\n  SATURNINUS. Surpris'd! By whom?\n  BASSIANUS. By him that justly may\n    Bear his betroth'd from all the world away.\n                        Exeunt BASSIANUS and MARCUS with LAVINIA\n  MUTIUS. Brothers, help to convey her hence away,\n    And with my sword I'll keep this door safe.\n                             Exeunt LUCIUS, QUINTUS, and MARTIUS\n  TITUS. Follow, my lord, and I'll soon bring her back.\n  MUTIUS. My lord, you pass not here.\n  TITUS. What, villain boy!\n    Bar'st me my way in Rome?\n  MUTIUS. Help, Lucius, help!\n            TITUS kills him. During the fray, exeunt SATURNINUS,\n                            TAMORA, DEMETRIUS, CHIRON, and AARON\n\n                      Re-enter Lucius\n\n  LUCIUS. My lord, you are unjust, and more than so:\n    In wrongful quarrel you have slain your son.\n  TITUS. Nor thou nor he are any sons of mine;\n    My sons would never so dishonour me.\n\n                 Re-enter aloft the EMPEROR\n      with TAMORA and her two Sons, and AARON the Moor\n\n    Traitor, restore Lavinia to the Emperor.\n  LUCIUS. Dead, if you will; but not to be his wife,\n    That is another's lawful promis'd love.                 Exit\n  SATURNINUS. No, Titus, no; the Emperor needs her not,\n    Nor her, nor thee, nor any of thy stock.\n    I'll trust by leisure him that mocks me once;\n    Thee never, nor thy traitorous haughty sons,\n    Confederates all thus to dishonour me.\n    Was there none else in Rome to make a stale\n    But Saturnine? Full well, Andronicus,\n    Agree these deeds with that proud brag of thine\n    That saidst I begg'd the empire at thy hands.\n  TITUS. O monstrous! What reproachful words are these?\n  SATURNINUS. But go thy ways; go, give that changing piece\n    To him that flourish'd for her with his sword.\n    A valiant son-in-law thou shalt enjoy;\n    One fit to bandy with thy lawless sons,\n    To ruffle in the commonwealth of Rome.\n  TITUS. These words are razors to my wounded heart.\n  SATURNINUS. And therefore, lovely Tamora, Queen of Goths,\n    That, like the stately Phoebe 'mongst her nymphs,\n    Dost overshine the gallant'st dames of Rome,\n    If thou be pleas'd with this my sudden choice,\n    Behold, I choose thee, Tamora, for my bride\n    And will create thee Emperess of Rome.\n    Speak, Queen of Goths, dost thou applaud my choice?\n    And here I swear by all the Roman gods-\n    Sith priest and holy water are so near,\n    And tapers burn so bright, and everything\n    In readiness for Hymenaeus stand-\n    I will not re-salute the streets of Rome,\n    Or climb my palace, till from forth this place\n    I lead espous'd my bride along with me.\n  TAMORA. And here in sight of heaven to Rome I swear,\n    If Saturnine advance the Queen of Goths,\n    She will a handmaid be to his desires,\n    A loving nurse, a mother to his youth.\n  SATURNINUS. Ascend, fair Queen, Pantheon. Lords, accompany\n    Your noble Emperor and his lovely bride,\n    Sent by the heavens for Prince Saturnine,\n    Whose wisdom hath her fortune conquered;\n    There shall we consummate our spousal rites.\n                                            Exeunt all but TITUS\n  TITUS. I am not bid to wait upon this bride.\n  TITUS, when wert thou wont to walk alone,\n    Dishonoured thus, and challenged of wrongs?\n\n                      Re-enter MARCUS,\n        and TITUS' SONS, LUCIUS, QUINTUS, and MARTIUS\n\n  MARCUS. O Titus, see, O, see what thou hast done!\n    In a bad quarrel slain a virtuous son.\n  TITUS. No, foolish Tribune, no; no son of mine-\n    Nor thou, nor these, confederates in the deed\n    That hath dishonoured all our family;\n    Unworthy brother and unworthy sons!\n  LUCIUS. But let us give him burial, as becomes;\n    Give Mutius burial with our bretheren.\n  TITUS. Traitors, away! He rests not in this tomb.\n    This monument five hundred years hath stood,\n    Which I have sumptuously re-edified;\n    Here none but soldiers and Rome's servitors\n    Repose in fame; none basely slain in brawls.\n    Bury him where you can, he comes not here.\n  MARCUS. My lord, this is impiety in you.\n    My nephew Mutius' deeds do plead for him;\n    He must be buried with his bretheren.\n  QUINTUS & MARTIUS. And shall, or him we will accompany.\n  TITUS. 'And shall!' What villain was it spake that word?\n  QUINTUS. He that would vouch it in any place but here.\n  TITUS. What, would you bury him in my despite?\n  MARCUS. No, noble Titus, but entreat of thee\n    To pardon Mutius and to bury him.\n  TITUS. Marcus, even thou hast struck upon my crest,\n    And with these boys mine honour thou hast wounded.\n    My foes I do repute you every one;\n    So trouble me no more, but get you gone.\n  MARTIUS. He is not with himself; let us withdraw.\n  QUINTUS. Not I, till Mutius' bones be buried.\n                                [The BROTHER and the SONS kneel]\n  MARCUS. Brother, for in that name doth nature plead-\n  QUINTUS. Father, and in that name doth nature speak-\n  TITUS. Speak thou no more, if all the rest will speed.\n  MARCUS. Renowned Titus, more than half my soul-\n  LUCIUS. Dear father, soul and substance of us all-\n  MARCUS. Suffer thy brother Marcus to inter\n    His noble nephew here in virtue's nest,\n    That died in honour and Lavinia's cause.\n    Thou art a Roman- be not barbarous.\n    The Greeks upon advice did bury Ajax,\n    That slew himself; and wise Laertes' son\n    Did graciously plead for his funerals.\n    Let not young Mutius, then, that was thy joy,\n    Be barr'd his entrance here.\n  TITUS. Rise, Marcus, rise;\n    The dismal'st day is this that e'er I saw,\n    To be dishonoured by my sons in Rome!\n    Well, bury him, and bury me the next.\n                                   [They put MUTIUS in the tomb]\n  LUCIUS. There lie thy bones, sweet Mutius, with thy friends,\n    Till we with trophies do adorn thy tomb.\n  ALL.  [Kneeling]  No man shed tears for noble Mutius;\n    He lives in fame that died in virtue's cause.\n  MARCUS. My lord- to step out of these dreary dumps-\n    How comes it that the subtle Queen of Goths\n    Is of a sudden thus advanc'd in Rome?\n  TITUS. I know not, Marcus, but I know it is-\n    Whether by device or no, the heavens can tell.\n    Is she not, then, beholding to the man\n    That brought her for this high good turn so far?\n  MARCUS. Yes, and will nobly him remunerate.\n\n           Flourish. Re-enter the EMPEROR, TAMORA\n        and her two SONS, with the MOOR, at one door;\n    at the other door, BASSIANUS and LAVINIA, with others\n\n  SATURNINUS. So, Bassianus, you have play'd your prize:\n    God give you joy, sir, of your gallant bride!\n  BASSIANUS. And you of yours, my lord! I say no more,\n    Nor wish no less; and so I take my leave.\n  SATURNINUS. Traitor, if Rome have law or we have power,\n    Thou and thy faction shall repent this rape.\n  BASSIANUS. Rape, call you it, my lord, to seize my own,\n    My true betrothed love, and now my wife?\n    But let the laws of Rome determine all;\n    Meanwhile am I possess'd of that is mine.\n  SATURNINUS. 'Tis good, sir. You are very short with us;\n    But if we live we'll be as sharp with you.\n  BASSIANUS. My lord, what I have done, as best I may,\n    Answer I must, and shall do with my life.\n    Only thus much I give your Grace to know:\n    By all the duties that I owe to Rome,\n    This noble gentleman, Lord Titus here,\n    Is in opinion and in honour wrong'd,\n    That, in the rescue of Lavinia,\n    With his own hand did slay his youngest son,\n    In zeal to you, and highly mov'd to wrath\n    To be controll'd in that he frankly gave.\n    Receive him then to favour, Saturnine,\n    That hath express'd himself in all his deeds\n    A father and a friend to thee and Rome.\n  TITUS. Prince Bassianus, leave to plead my deeds.\n    'Tis thou and those that have dishonoured me.\n    Rome and the righteous heavens be my judge\n    How I have lov'd and honoured Saturnine!\n  TAMORA. My worthy lord, if ever Tamora\n    Were gracious in those princely eyes of thine,\n    Then hear me speak indifferently for all;\n    And at my suit, sweet, pardon what is past.\n  SATURNINUS. What, madam! be dishonoured openly,\n    And basely put it up without revenge?\n  TAMORA. Not so, my lord; the gods of Rome forfend\n    I should be author to dishonour you!\n    But on mine honour dare I undertake\n    For good Lord Titus' innocence in all,\n    Whose fury not dissembled speaks his griefs.\n    Then at my suit look graciously on him;\n    Lose not so noble a friend on vain suppose,\n    Nor with sour looks afflict his gentle heart.\n    [Aside to SATURNINUS]  My lord, be rul'd by me,\n      be won at last;\n    Dissemble all your griefs and discontents.\n    You are but newly planted in your throne;\n    Lest, then, the people, and patricians too,\n    Upon a just survey take Titus' part,\n    And so supplant you for ingratitude,\n    Which Rome reputes to be a heinous sin,\n    Yield at entreats, and then let me alone:\n    I'll find a day to massacre them all,\n    And raze their faction and their family,\n    The cruel father and his traitorous sons,\n    To whom I sued for my dear son's life;\n    And make them know what 'tis to let a queen\n    Kneel in the streets and beg for grace in vain.-\n    Come, come, sweet Emperor; come, Andronicus.\n    Take up this good old man, and cheer the heart\n    That dies in tempest of thy angry frown.\n  SATURNINUS. Rise, Titus, rise; my Empress hath prevail'd.\n  TITUS. I thank your Majesty and her, my lord;\n    These words, these looks, infuse new life in me.\n  TAMORA. Titus, I am incorporate in Rome,\n    A Roman now adopted happily,\n    And must advise the Emperor for his good.\n    This day all quarrels die, Andronicus;\n    And let it be mine honour, good my lord,\n    That I have reconcil'd your friends and you.\n    For you, Prince Bassianus, I have pass'd\n    My word and promise to the Emperor\n    That you will be more mild and tractable.\n    And fear not, lords- and you, Lavinia.\n    By my advice, all humbled on your knees,\n    You shall ask pardon of his Majesty.\n  LUCIUS. We do, and vow to heaven and to his Highness\n    That what we did was mildly as we might,\n    Tend'ring our sister's honour and our own.\n  MARCUS. That on mine honour here do I protest.\n  SATURNINUS. Away, and talk not; trouble us no more.\n  TAMORA. Nay, nay, sweet Emperor, we must all be friends.\n    The Tribune and his nephews kneel for grace.\n    I will not be denied. Sweet heart, look back.\n  SATURNINUS. Marcus, for thy sake, and thy brother's here,\n    And at my lovely Tamora's entreats,\n    I do remit these young men's heinous faults.\n    Stand up.\n    Lavinia, though you left me like a churl,\n    I found a friend; and sure as death I swore\n    I would not part a bachelor from the priest.\n    Come, if the Emperor's court can feast two brides,\n    You are my guest, Lavinia, and your friends.\n    This day shall be a love-day, Tamora.\n  TITUS. To-morrow, and it please your Majesty\n    To hunt the panther and the hart with me,\n    With horn and hound we'll give your Grace bonjour.\n  SATURNINUS. Be it so, Titus, and gramercy too.\n                                          Exeunt. Sound trumpets\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nRome. Before the palace\n\nEnter AARON\n\n  AARON. Now climbeth Tamora Olympus' top,\n    Safe out of Fortune's shot, and sits aloft,\n    Secure of thunder's crack or lightning flash,\n    Advanc'd above pale envy's threat'ning reach.\n    As when the golden sun salutes the morn,\n    And, having gilt the ocean with his beams,\n    Gallops the zodiac in his glistening coach\n    And overlooks the highest-peering hills,\n    So Tamora.\n    Upon her wit doth earthly honour wait,\n    And virtue stoops and trembles at her frown.\n    Then, Aaron, arm thy heart and fit thy thoughts\n    To mount aloft with thy imperial mistress,\n    And mount her pitch whom thou in triumph long.\n    Hast prisoner held, fett'red in amorous chains,\n    And faster bound to Aaron's charming eyes\n    Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus.\n    Away with slavish weeds and servile thoughts!\n    I will be bright and shine in pearl and gold,\n    To wait upon this new-made emperess.\n    To wait, said I? To wanton with this queen,\n    This goddess, this Semiramis, this nymph,\n    This siren that will charm Rome's Saturnine,\n    And see his shipwreck and his commonweal's.\n    Hullo! what storm is this?\n\n            Enter CHIRON and DEMETRIUS, braving\n\n  DEMETRIUS. Chiron, thy years wants wit, thy wits wants edge\n    And manners, to intrude where I am grac'd,\n    And may, for aught thou knowest, affected be.\n  CHIRON. Demetrius, thou dost over-ween in all;\n    And so in this, to bear me down with braves.\n    'Tis not the difference of a year or two\n    Makes me less gracious or thee more fortunate:\n    I am as able and as fit as thou\n    To serve and to deserve my mistress' grace;\n    And that my sword upon thee shall approve,\n    And plead my passions for Lavinia's love.\n  AARON.  [Aside]  Clubs, clubs! These lovers will not keep the\n    peace.\n  DEMETRIUS. Why, boy, although our mother, unadvis'd,\n    Gave you a dancing rapier by your side,\n    Are you so desperate grown to threat your friends?\n    Go to; have your lath glued within your sheath\n    Till you know better how to handle it.\n  CHIRON. Meanwhile, sir, with the little skill I have,\n    Full well shalt thou perceive how much I dare.\n  DEMETRIUS. Ay, boy, grow ye so brave?              [They draw]\n  AARON.  [Coming forward]  Why, how now, lords!\n    So near the Emperor's palace dare ye draw\n    And maintain such a quarrel openly?\n    Full well I wot the ground of all this grudge:\n    I would not for a million of gold\n    The cause were known to them it most concerns;\n    Nor would your noble mother for much more\n    Be so dishonoured in the court of Rome.\n    For shame, put up.\n  DEMETRIUS. Not I, till I have sheath'd\n    My rapier in his bosom, and withal\n    Thrust those reproachful speeches down his throat\n    That he hath breath'd in my dishonour here.\n  CHIRON. For that I am prepar'd and full resolv'd,\n    Foul-spoken coward, that thund'rest with thy tongue,\n    And with thy weapon nothing dar'st perform.\n  AARON. Away, I say!\n    Now, by the gods that warlike Goths adore,\n    This pretty brabble will undo us all.\n    Why, lords, and think you not how dangerous\n    It is to jet upon a prince's right?\n    What, is Lavinia then become so loose,\n    Or Bassianus so degenerate,\n    That for her love such quarrels may be broach'd\n    Without controlment, justice, or revenge?\n    Young lords, beware; an should the Empress know\n    This discord's ground, the music would not please.\n  CHIRON. I care not, I, knew she and all the world:\n    I love Lavinia more than all the world.\n  DEMETRIUS. Youngling, learn thou to make some meaner choice:\n    Lavina is thine elder brother's hope.\n  AARON. Why, are ye mad, or know ye not in Rome\n    How furious and impatient they be,\n    And cannot brook competitors in love?\n    I tell you, lords, you do but plot your deaths\n    By this device.\n  CHIRON. Aaron, a thousand deaths\n    Would I propose to achieve her whom I love.\n  AARON. To achieve her- how?\n  DEMETRIUS. Why mak'st thou it so strange?\n    She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd;\n    She is a woman, therefore may be won;\n    She is Lavinia, therefore must be lov'd.\n    What, man! more water glideth by the mill\n    Than wots the miller of; and easy it is\n    Of a cut loaf to steal a shive, we know.\n    Though Bassianus be the Emperor's brother,\n    Better than he have worn Vulcan's badge.\n  AARON.  [Aside]  Ay, and as good as Saturninus may.\n  DEMETRIUS. Then why should he despair that knows to court it\n    With words, fair looks, and liberality?\n    What, hast not thou full often struck a doe,\n    And borne her cleanly by the keeper's nose?\n  AARON. Why, then, it seems some certain snatch or so\n    Would serve your turns.\n  CHIRON. Ay, so the turn were served.\n  DEMETRIUS. Aaron, thou hast hit it.\n  AARON. Would you had hit it too!\n    Then should not we be tir'd with this ado.\n    Why, hark ye, hark ye! and are you such fools\n    To square for this? Would it offend you, then,\n    That both should speed?\n  CHIRON. Faith, not me.\n  DEMETRIUS. Nor me, so I were one.\n  AARON. For shame, be friends, and join for that you jar.\n    'Tis policy and stratagem must do\n    That you affect; and so must you resolve\n    That what you cannot as you would achieve,\n    You must perforce accomplish as you may.\n    Take this of me: Lucrece was not more chaste\n    Than this Lavinia, Bassianus' love.\n    A speedier course than ling'ring languishment\n    Must we pursue, and I have found the path.\n    My lords, a solemn hunting is in hand;\n    There will the lovely Roman ladies troop;\n    The forest walks are wide and spacious,\n    And many unfrequented plots there are\n    Fitted by kind for rape and villainy.\n    Single you thither then this dainty doe,\n    And strike her home by force if not by words.\n    This way, or not at all, stand you in hope.\n    Come, come, our Empress, with her sacred wit\n    To villainy and vengeance consecrate,\n    Will we acquaint with all what we intend;\n    And she shall file our engines with advice\n    That will not suffer you to square yourselves,\n    But to your wishes' height advance you both.\n    The Emperor's court is like the house of Fame,\n    The palace full of tongues, of eyes, and ears;\n    The woods are ruthless, dreadful, deaf, and dull.\n    There speak and strike, brave boys, and take your turns;\n    There serve your lust, shadowed from heaven's eye,\n    And revel in Lavinia's treasury.\n  CHIRON. Thy counsel, lad, smells of no cowardice.\n  DEMETRIUS. Sit fas aut nefas, till I find the stream\n    To cool this heat, a charm to calm these fits,\n    Per Styga, per manes vehor.                           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nA forest near Rome\n\nEnter TITUS ANDRONICUS, and his three sons, LUCIUS, QUINTUS,\nMARTIUS,\nmaking a noise with hounds and horns; and MARCUS\n\n  TITUS. The hunt is up, the morn is bright and grey,\n    The fields are fragrant, and the woods are green.\n    Uncouple here, and let us make a bay,\n    And wake the Emperor and his lovely bride,\n    And rouse the Prince, and ring a hunter's peal,\n    That all the court may echo with the noise.\n    Sons, let it be your charge, as it is ours,\n    To attend the Emperor's person carefully.\n    I have been troubled in my sleep this night,\n    But dawning day new comfort hath inspir'd.\n\n         Here a cry of hounds, and wind horns in a peal.\n       Then enter SATURNINUS, TAMORA, BASSIANUS LAVINIA,\n            CHIRON, DEMETRIUS, and their attendants\n    Many good morrows to your Majesty!\n    Madam, to you as many and as good!\n    I promised your Grace a hunter's peal.\n  SATURNINUS. And you have rung it lustily, my lords-\n    Somewhat too early for new-married ladies.\n  BASSIANUS. Lavinia, how say you?\n  LAVINIA. I say no;\n    I have been broad awake two hours and more.\n  SATURNINUS. Come on then, horse and chariots let us have,\n    And to our sport.  [To TAMORA]  Madam, now shall ye see\n    Our Roman hunting.\n  MARCUS. I have dogs, my lord,\n    Will rouse the proudest panther in the chase,\n    And climb the highest promontory top.\n  TITUS. And I have horse will follow where the game\n    Makes way, and run like swallows o'er the plain.\n  DEMETRIUS. Chiron, we hunt not, we, with horse nor hound,\n    But hope to pluck a dainty doe to ground.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nA lonely part of the forest\n\nEnter AARON alone, with a bag of gold\n\n  AARON. He that had wit would think that I had none,\n    To bury so much gold under a tree\n    And never after to inherit it.\n    Let him that thinks of me so abjectly\n    Know that this gold must coin a stratagem,\n    Which, cunningly effected, will beget\n    A very excellent piece of villainy.\n    And so repose, sweet gold, for their unrest\n                                                [Hides the gold]\n    That have their alms out of the Empress' chest.\n\n               Enter TAMORA alone, to the Moor\n\n  TAMORA. My lovely Aaron, wherefore look'st thou sad\n    When everything does make a gleeful boast?\n    The birds chant melody on every bush;\n    The snakes lie rolled in the cheerful sun;\n    The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind\n    And make a chequer'd shadow on the ground;\n    Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit,\n    And while the babbling echo mocks the hounds,\n    Replying shrilly to the well-tun'd horns,\n    As if a double hunt were heard at once,\n    Let us sit down and mark their yellowing noise;\n    And- after conflict such as was suppos'd\n    The wand'ring prince and Dido once enjoyed,\n    When with a happy storm they were surpris'd,\n    And curtain'd with a counsel-keeping cave-\n    We may, each wreathed in the other's arms,\n    Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber,\n    Whiles hounds and horns and sweet melodious birds\n    Be unto us as is a nurse's song\n    Of lullaby to bring her babe asleep.\n  AARON. Madam, though Venus govern your desires,\n    Saturn is dominator over mine.\n    What signifies my deadly-standing eye,\n    My silence and my cloudy melancholy,\n    My fleece of woolly hair that now uncurls\n    Even as an adder when she doth unroll\n    To do some fatal execution?\n    No, madam, these are no venereal signs.\n    Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand,\n    Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.\n    Hark, Tamora, the empress of my soul,\n    Which never hopes more heaven than rests in thee-\n    This is the day of doom for Bassianus;\n    His Philomel must lose her tongue to-day,\n    Thy sons make pillage of her chastity,\n    And wash their hands in Bassianus' blood.\n    Seest thou this letter? Take it up, I pray thee,\n    And give the King this fatal-plotted scroll.\n    Now question me no more; we are espied.\n    Here comes a parcel of our hopeful booty,\n    Which dreads not yet their lives' destruction.\n\n                Enter BASSIANUS and LAVINIA\n\n  TAMORA. Ah, my sweet Moor, sweeter to me than life!\n  AARON. No more, great Empress: Bassianus comes.\n    Be cross with him; and I'll go fetch thy sons\n    To back thy quarrels, whatsoe'er they be.               Exit\n  BASSIANUS. Who have we here? Rome's royal Emperess,\n    Unfurnish'd of her well-beseeming troop?\n    Or is it Dian, habited like her,\n    Who hath abandoned her holy groves\n    To see the general hunting in this forest?\n  TAMORA. Saucy controller of my private steps!\n    Had I the pow'r that some say Dian had,\n    Thy temples should be planted presently\n    With horns, as was Actaeon's; and the hounds\n    Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs,\n    Unmannerly intruder as thou art!\n  LAVINIA. Under your patience, gentle Emperess,\n    'Tis thought you have a goodly gift in horning,\n    And to be doubted that your Moor and you\n    Are singled forth to try thy experiments.\n    Jove shield your husband from his hounds to-day!\n    'Tis pity they should take him for a stag.\n  BASSIANUS. Believe me, Queen, your swarth Cimmerian\n    Doth make your honour of his body's hue,\n    Spotted, detested, and abominable.\n    Why are you sequest'red from all your train,\n    Dismounted from your snow-white goodly steed,\n    And wand'red hither to an obscure plot,\n    Accompanied but with a barbarous Moor,\n    If foul desire had not conducted you?\n  LAVINIA. And, being intercepted in your sport,\n    Great reason that my noble lord be rated\n    For sauciness. I pray you let us hence,\n    And let her joy her raven-coloured love;\n    This valley fits the purpose passing well.\n  BASSIANUS. The King my brother shall have notice of this.\n  LAVINIA. Ay, for these slips have made him noted long.\n    Good king, to be so mightily abused!\n  TAMORA. Why, I have patience to endure all this.\n\n                  Enter CHIRON and DEMETRIUS\n\n  DEMETRIUS. How now, dear sovereign, and our gracious mother!\n    Why doth your Highness look so pale and wan?\n  TAMORA. Have I not reason, think you, to look pale?\n    These two have 'ticed me hither to this place.\n    A barren detested vale you see it is:\n    The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,\n    Overcome with moss and baleful mistletoe;\n    Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds,\n    Unless the nightly owl or fatal raven.\n    And when they show'd me this abhorred pit,\n    They told me, here, at dead time of the night,\n    A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes,\n    Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins,\n    Would make such fearful and confused cries\n    As any mortal body hearing it\n    Should straight fall mad or else die suddenly.\n    No sooner had they told this hellish tale\n    But straight they told me they would bind me here\n    Unto the body of a dismal yew,\n    And leave me to this miserable death.\n    And then they call'd me foul adulteress,\n    Lascivious Goth, and all the bitterest terms\n    That ever ear did hear to such effect;\n    And had you not by wondrous fortune come,\n    This vengeance on me had they executed.\n    Revenge it, as you love your mother's life,\n    Or be ye not henceforth call'd my children.\n  DEMETRIUS. This is a witness that I am thy son.\n                                               [Stabs BASSIANUS]\n  CHIRON. And this for me, struck home to show my strength.\n                                                    [Also stabs]\n  LAVINIA. Ay, come, Semiramis- nay, barbarous Tamora,\n    For no name fits thy nature but thy own!\n  TAMORA. Give me the poniard; you shall know, my boys,\n    Your mother's hand shall right your mother's wrong.\n  DEMETRIUS. Stay, madam, here is more belongs to her;\n    First thrash the corn, then after burn the straw.\n    This minion stood upon her chastity,\n    Upon her nuptial vow, her loyalty,\n    And with that painted hope braves your mightiness;\n    And shall she carry this unto her grave?\n  CHIRON. An if she do, I would I were an eunuch.\n    Drag hence her husband to some secret hole,\n    And make his dead trunk pillow to our lust.\n  TAMORA. But when ye have the honey we desire,\n    Let not this wasp outlive, us both to sting.\n  CHIRON. I warrant you, madam, we will make that sure.\n    Come, mistress, now perforce we will enjoy\n    That nice-preserved honesty of yours.\n  LAVINIA. O Tamora! thou bearest a woman's face-\n  TAMORA. I will not hear her speak; away with her!\n  LAVINIA. Sweet lords, entreat her hear me but a word.\n  DEMETRIUS. Listen, fair madam: let it be your glory\n    To see her tears; but be your heart to them\n    As unrelenting flint to drops of rain.\n  LAVINIA. When did the tiger's young ones teach the dam?\n    O, do not learn her wrath- she taught it thee;\n    The milk thou suck'dst from her did turn to marble,\n    Even at thy teat thou hadst thy tyranny.\n    Yet every mother breeds not sons alike:\n    [To CHIRON]  Do thou entreat her show a woman's pity.\n  CHIRON. What, wouldst thou have me prove myself a bastard?\n  LAVINIA. 'Tis true, the raven doth not hatch a lark.\n    Yet have I heard- O, could I find it now!-\n    The lion, mov'd with pity, did endure\n    To have his princely paws par'd all away.\n    Some say that ravens foster forlorn children,\n    The whilst their own birds famish in their nests;\n    O, be to me, though thy hard heart say no,\n    Nothing so kind, but something pitiful!\n  TAMORA. I know not what it means; away with her!\n  LAVINIA. O, let me teach thee! For my father's sake,\n    That gave thee life when well he might have slain thee,\n    Be not obdurate, open thy deaf ears.\n  TAMORA. Hadst thou in person ne'er offended me,\n    Even for his sake am I pitiless.\n    Remember, boys, I pour'd forth tears in vain\n    To save your brother from the sacrifice;\n    But fierce Andronicus would not relent.\n    Therefore away with her, and use her as you will;\n    The worse to her the better lov'd of me.\n  LAVINIA. O Tamora, be call'd a gentle queen,\n    And with thine own hands kill me in this place!\n    For 'tis not life that I have begg'd so long;\n    Poor I was slain when Bassianus died.\n  TAMORA. What beg'st thou, then? Fond woman, let me go.\n  LAVINIA. 'Tis present death I beg; and one thing more,\n    That womanhood denies my tongue to tell:\n    O, keep me from their worse than killing lust,\n    And tumble me into some loathsome pit,\n    Where never man's eye may behold my body;\n    Do this, and be a charitable murderer.\n  TAMORA. So should I rob my sweet sons of their fee;\n    No, let them satisfy their lust on thee.\n  DEMETRIUS. Away! for thou hast stay'd us here too long.\n  LAVINIA. No grace? no womanhood? Ah, beastly creature,\n    The blot and enemy to our general name!\n    Confusion fall-\n  CHIRON. Nay, then I'll stop your mouth. Bring thou her husband.\n\n    This is the hole where Aaron bid us hide him.\n\n                 DEMETRIUS throws the body\n           of BASSIANUS into the pit; then exeunt\n         DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, dragging off LAVINIA\n\n  TAMORA. Farewell, my sons; see that you make her sure.\n    Ne'er let my heart know merry cheer indeed\n    Till all the Andronici be made away.\n    Now will I hence to seek my lovely Moor,\n    And let my spleenful sons this trull deflower.          Exit\n\n                  Re-enter AARON, with two\n             of TITUS' sons, QUINTUS and MARTIUS\n\n  AARON. Come on, my lords, the better foot before;\n    Straight will I bring you to the loathsome pit\n    Where I espied the panther fast asleep.\n  QUINTUS. My sight is very dull, whate'er it bodes.\n  MARTIUS. And mine, I promise you; were it not for shame,\n    Well could I leave our sport to sleep awhile.\n                                            [Falls into the pit]\n  QUINTUS. What, art thou fallen? What subtle hole is this,\n    Whose mouth is covered with rude-growing briers,\n    Upon whose leaves are drops of new-shed blood\n    As fresh as morning dew distill'd on flowers?\n    A very fatal place it seems to me.\n    Speak, brother, hast thou hurt thee with the fall?\n  MARTIUS. O brother, with the dismal'st object hurt\n    That ever eye with sight made heart lament!\n  AARON.  [Aside]  Now will I fetch the King to find them here,\n    That he thereby may have a likely guess\n    How these were they that made away his brother.         Exit\n  MARTIUS. Why dost not comfort me, and help me out\n    From this unhallow'd and blood-stained hole?\n  QUINTUS. I am surprised with an uncouth fear;\n    A chilling sweat o'er-runs my trembling joints;\n    My heart suspects more than mine eye can see.\n  MARTIUS. To prove thou hast a true divining heart,\n    Aaron and thou look down into this den,\n    And see a fearful sight of blood and death.\n  QUINTUS. Aaron is gone, and my compassionate heart\n    Will not permit mine eyes once to behold\n    The thing whereat it trembles by surmise;\n    O, tell me who it is, for ne'er till now\n    Was I a child to fear I know not what.\n  MARTIUS. Lord Bassianus lies beray'd in blood,\n    All on a heap, like to a slaughtered lamb,\n    In this detested, dark, blood-drinking pit.\n  QUINTUS. If it be dark, how dost thou know 'tis he?\n  MARTIUS. Upon his bloody finger he doth wear\n    A precious ring that lightens all this hole,\n    Which, like a taper in some monument,\n    Doth shine upon the dead man's earthy cheeks,\n    And shows the ragged entrails of this pit;\n    So pale did shine the moon on Pyramus\n    When he by night lay bath'd in maiden blood.\n    O brother, help me with thy fainting hand-\n    If fear hath made thee faint, as me it hath-\n    Out of this fell devouring receptacle,\n    As hateful as Cocytus' misty mouth.\n  QUINTUS. Reach me thy hand, that I may help thee out,\n    Or, wanting strength to do thee so much good,\n    I may be pluck'd into the swallowing womb\n    Of this deep pit, poor Bassianus' grave.\n    I have no strength to pluck thee to the brink.\n  MARTIUS. Nor I no strength to climb without thy help.\n  QUINTUS. Thy hand once more; I will not loose again,\n    Till thou art here aloft, or I below.\n    Thou canst not come to me- I come to thee.        [Falls in]\n\n            Enter the EMPEROR and AARON the Moor\n\n  SATURNINUS. Along with me! I'll see what hole is here,\n    And what he is that now is leapt into it.\n    Say, who art thou that lately didst descend\n    Into this gaping hollow of the earth?\n  MARTIUS. The unhappy sons of old Andronicus,\n    Brought hither in a most unlucky hour,\n    To find thy brother Bassianus dead.\n  SATURNINUS. My brother dead! I know thou dost but jest:\n    He and his lady both are at the lodge\n    Upon the north side of this pleasant chase;\n    'Tis not an hour since I left them there.\n  MARTIUS. We know not where you left them all alive;\n    But, out alas! here have we found him dead.\n\n                   Re-enter TAMORA, with\n         attendants; TITUS ANDRONICUS and Lucius\n\n  TAMORA. Where is my lord the King?\n  SATURNINUS. Here, Tamora; though griev'd with killing grief.\n  TAMORA. Where is thy brother Bassianus?\n  SATURNINUS. Now to the bottom dost thou search my wound;\n    Poor Bassianus here lies murdered.\n  TAMORA. Then all too late I bring this fatal writ,\n    The complot of this timeless tragedy;\n    And wonder greatly that man's face can fold\n    In pleasing smiles such murderous tyranny.\n                                 [She giveth SATURNINE a letter]\n    SATURNINUS.  [Reads]  'An if we miss to meet him handsomely,\n    Sweet huntsman- Bassianus 'tis we mean-\n    Do thou so much as dig the grave for him.\n    Thou know'st our meaning. Look for thy reward\n    Among the nettles at the elder-tree\n    Which overshades the mouth of that same pit\n    Where we decreed to bury Bassianus.\n    Do this, and purchase us thy lasting friends.'\n    O Tamora! was ever heard the like?\n    This is the pit and this the elder-tree.\n    Look, sirs, if you can find the huntsman out\n    That should have murdered Bassianus here.\n  AARON. My gracious lord, here is the bag of gold.\n  SATURNINUS.  [To TITUS]  Two of thy whelps, fell curs of bloody\n      kind,\n    Have here bereft my brother of his life.\n    Sirs, drag them from the pit unto the prison;\n    There let them bide until we have devis'd\n    Some never-heard-of torturing pain for them.\n  TAMORA. What, are they in this pit? O wondrous thing!\n    How easily murder is discovered!\n  TITUS. High Emperor, upon my feeble knee\n    I beg this boon, with tears not lightly shed,\n    That this fell fault of my accursed sons-\n    Accursed if the fault be prov'd in them-\n  SATURNINUS. If it be prov'd! You see it is apparent.\n    Who found this letter? Tamora, was it you?\n  TAMORA. Andronicus himself did take it up.\n  TITUS. I did, my lord, yet let me be their bail;\n    For, by my fathers' reverend tomb, I vow\n    They shall be ready at your Highness' will\n    To answer their suspicion with their lives.\n  SATURNINUS. Thou shalt not bail them; see thou follow me.\n    Some bring the murdered body, some the murderers;\n    Let them not speak a word- the guilt is plain;\n    For, by my soul, were there worse end than death,\n    That end upon them should be executed.\n  TAMORA. Andronicus, I will entreat the King.\n    Fear not thy sons; they shall do well enough.\n  TITUS. Come, Lucius, come; stay not to talk with them.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the forest\n\nEnter the Empress' sons, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, with LAVINIA,\nher hands cut off, and her tongue cut out, and ravish'd\n\n  DEMETRIUS. So, now go tell, an if thy tongue can speak,\n    Who 'twas that cut thy tongue and ravish'd thee.\n  CHIRON. Write down thy mind, bewray thy meaning so,\n    An if thy stumps will let thee play the scribe.\n  DEMETRIUS. See how with signs and tokens she can scrowl.\n  CHIRON. Go home, call for sweet water, wash thy hands.\n  DEMETRIUS. She hath no tongue to call, nor hands to wash;\n    And so let's leave her to her silent walks.\n  CHIRON. An 'twere my cause, I should go hang myself.\n  DEMETRIUS. If thou hadst hands to help thee knit the cord.\n                                     Exeunt DEMETRIUS and CHIRON\n\n           Wind horns. Enter MARCUS, from hunting\n\n  MARCUS. Who is this?- my niece, that flies away so fast?\n    Cousin, a word: where is your husband?\n    If I do dream, would all my wealth would wake me!\n    If I do wake, some planet strike me down,\n    That I may slumber an eternal sleep!\n    Speak, gentle niece. What stern ungentle hands\n    Hath lopp'd, and hew'd, and made thy body bare\n    Of her two branches- those sweet ornaments\n    Whose circling shadows kings have sought to sleep in,\n    And might not gain so great a happiness\n    As half thy love? Why dost not speak to me?\n    Alas, a crimson river of warm blood,\n    Like to a bubbling fountain stirr'd with wind,\n    Doth rise and fall between thy rosed lips,\n    Coming and going with thy honey breath.\n    But sure some Tereus hath deflowered thee,\n    And, lest thou shouldst detect him, cut thy tongue.\n    Ah, now thou turn'st away thy face for shame!\n    And notwithstanding all this loss of blood-\n    As from a conduit with three issuing spouts-\n    Yet do thy cheeks look red as Titan's face\n    Blushing to be encount'red with a cloud.\n    Shall I speak for thee? Shall I say 'tis so?\n    O, that I knew thy heart, and knew the beast,\n    That I might rail at him to ease my mind!\n    Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopp'd,\n    Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is.\n    Fair Philomel, why she but lost her tongue,\n    And in a tedious sampler sew'd her mind;\n    But, lovely niece, that mean is cut from thee.\n    A craftier Tereus, cousin, hast thou met,\n    And he hath cut those pretty fingers off\n    That could have better sew'd than Philomel.\n    O, had the monster seen those lily hands\n    Tremble like aspen leaves upon a lute\n    And make the silken strings delight to kiss them,\n    He would not then have touch'd them for his life!\n    Or had he heard the heavenly harmony\n    Which that sweet tongue hath made,\n    He would have dropp'd his knife, and fell asleep,\n    As Cerberus at the Thracian poet's feet.\n    Come, let us go, and make thy father blind,\n    For such a sight will blind a father's eye;\n    One hour's storm will drown the fragrant meads,\n    What will whole months of tears thy father's eyes?\n    Do not draw back, for we will mourn with thee;\n    O, could our mourning case thy misery!                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nRome. A street\n\nEnter the JUDGES, TRIBUNES, and SENATORS, with TITUS' two sons\nMARTIUS and QUINTUS bound, passing on the stage to the place of\nexecution,\nand TITUS going before, pleading\n\n  TITUS. Hear me, grave fathers; noble Tribunes, stay!\n    For pity of mine age, whose youth was spent\n    In dangerous wars whilst you securely slept;\n    For all my blood in Rome's great quarrel shed,\n    For all the frosty nights that I have watch'd,\n    And for these bitter tears, which now you see\n    Filling the aged wrinkles in my cheeks,\n    Be pitiful to my condemned sons,\n    Whose souls are not corrupted as 'tis thought.\n    For two and twenty sons I never wept,\n    Because they died in honour's lofty bed.\n                          [ANDRONICUS lieth down, and the judges\n                     pass by him with the prisoners, and exeunt]\n    For these, Tribunes, in the dust I write\n    My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears.\n    Let my tears stanch the earth's dry appetite;\n    My sons' sweet blood will make it shame and blush.\n    O earth, I will befriend thee more with rain\n    That shall distil from these two ancient urns,\n    Than youthful April shall with all his show'rs.\n    In summer's drought I'll drop upon thee still;\n    In winter with warm tears I'll melt the snow\n    And keep eternal spring-time on thy face,\n    So thou refuse to drink my dear sons' blood.\n\n             Enter Lucius with his weapon drawn\n\n    O reverend Tribunes! O gentle aged men!\n    Unbind my sons, reverse the doom of death,\n    And let me say, that never wept before,\n    My tears are now prevailing orators.\n  LUCIUS. O noble father, you lament in vain;\n    The Tribunes hear you not, no man is by,\n    And you recount your sorrows to a stone.\n  TITUS. Ah, Lucius, for thy brothers let me plead!\n    Grave Tribunes, once more I entreat of you.\n  LUCIUS. My gracious lord, no tribune hears you speak.\n  TITUS. Why, 'tis no matter, man: if they did hear,\n    They would not mark me; if they did mark,\n    They would not pity me; yet plead I must,\n    And bootless unto them.\n    Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones;\n    Who though they cannot answer my distress,\n    Yet in some sort they are better than the Tribunes,\n    For that they will not intercept my tale.\n    When I do weep, they humbly at my feet\n    Receive my tears, and seem to weep with me;\n    And were they but attired in grave weeds,\n    Rome could afford no tribunes like to these.\n    A stone is soft as wax: tribunes more hard than stones.\n    A stone is silent and offendeth not,\n    And tribunes with their tongues doom men to death.\n                                                         [Rises]\n    But wherefore stand'st thou with thy weapon drawn?\n  LUCIUS. To rescue my two brothers from their death;\n    For which attempt the judges have pronounc'd\n    My everlasting doom of banishment.\n  TITUS. O happy man! they have befriended thee.\n    Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceive\n    That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?\n    Tigers must prey, and Rome affords no prey\n    But me and mine; how happy art thou then\n    From these devourers to be banished!\n    But who comes with our brother Marcus here?\n\n                 Enter MARCUS with LAVINIA\n\n  MARCUS. Titus, prepare thy aged eyes to weep,\n    Or if not so, thy noble heart to break.\n    I bring consuming sorrow to thine age.\n  TITUS. Will it consume me? Let me see it then.\n  MARCUS. This was thy daughter.\n  TITUS. Why, Marcus, so she is.\n  LUCIUS. Ay me! this object kills me.\n  TITUS. Faint-hearted boy, arise, and look upon her.\n    Speak, Lavinia, what accursed hand\n    Hath made thee handless in thy father's sight?\n    What fool hath added water to the sea,\n    Or brought a fagot to bright-burning Troy?\n    My grief was at the height before thou cam'st,\n    And now like Nilus it disdaineth bounds.\n    Give me a sword, I'll chop off my hands too,\n    For they have fought for Rome, and all in vain;\n    And they have nurs'd this woe in feeding life;\n    In bootless prayer have they been held up,\n    And they have serv'd me to effectless use.\n    Now all the service I require of them\n    Is that the one will help to cut the other.\n    'Tis well, Lavinia, that thou hast no hands;\n    For hands to do Rome service is but vain.\n  LUCIUS. Speak, gentle sister, who hath martyr'd thee?\n  MARCUS. O, that delightful engine of her thoughts\n    That blabb'd them with such pleasing eloquence\n    Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage,\n    Where like a sweet melodious bird it sung\n    Sweet varied notes, enchanting every ear!\n  LUCIUS. O, say thou for her, who hath done this deed?\n  MARCUS. O, thus I found her straying in the park,\n    Seeking to hide herself as doth the deer\n    That hath receiv'd some unrecuring wound.\n  TITUS. It was my dear, and he that wounded her\n    Hath hurt me more than had he kill'd me dead;\n    For now I stand as one upon a rock,\n    Environ'd with a wilderness of sea,\n    Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,\n    Expecting ever when some envious surge\n    Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.\n    This way to death my wretched sons are gone;\n    Here stands my other son, a banish'd man,\n    And here my brother, weeping at my woes.\n    But that which gives my soul the greatest spurn\n    Is dear Lavinia, dearer than my soul.\n    Had I but seen thy picture in this plight,\n    It would have madded me; what shall I do\n    Now I behold thy lively body so?\n    Thou hast no hands to wipe away thy tears,\n    Nor tongue to tell me who hath martyr'd thee;\n    Thy husband he is dead, and for his death\n    Thy brothers are condemn'd, and dead by this.\n    Look, Marcus! Ah, son Lucius, look on her!\n    When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears\n    Stood on her cheeks, as doth the honey dew\n    Upon a gath'red lily almost withered.\n  MARCUS. Perchance she weeps because they kill'd her husband;\n    Perchance because she knows them innocent.\n  TITUS. If they did kill thy husband, then be joyful,\n    Because the law hath ta'en revenge on them.\n    No, no, they would not do so foul a deed;\n    Witness the sorrow that their sister makes.\n    Gentle Lavinia, let me kiss thy lips,\n    Or make some sign how I may do thee ease.\n    Shall thy good uncle and thy brother Lucius\n    And thou and I sit round about some fountain,\n    Looking all downwards to behold our cheeks\n    How they are stain'd, like meadows yet not dry\n    With miry slime left on them by a flood?\n    And in the fountain shall we gaze so long,\n    Till the fresh taste be taken from that clearness,\n    And made a brine-pit with our bitter tears?\n    Or shall we cut away our hands like thine?\n    Or shall we bite our tongues, and in dumb shows\n    Pass the remainder of our hateful days?\n    What shall we do? Let us that have our tongues\n    Plot some device of further misery\n    To make us wonder'd at in time to come.\n  LUCIUS. Sweet father, cease your tears; for at your grief\n    See how my wretched sister sobs and weeps.\n  MARCUS. Patience, dear niece. Good Titus, dry thine eyes.\n  TITUS. Ah, Marcus, Marcus! Brother, well I wot\n    Thy napkin cannot drink a tear of mine,\n    For thou, poor man, hast drown'd it with thine own.\n  LUCIUS. Ah, my Lavinia, I will wipe thy cheeks.\n  TITUS. Mark, Marcus, mark! I understand her signs.\n    Had she a tongue to speak, now would she say\n    That to her brother which I said to thee:\n    His napkin, with his true tears all bewet,\n    Can do no service on her sorrowful cheeks.\n    O, what a sympathy of woe is this\n    As far from help as Limbo is from bliss!\n\n                   Enter AARON the Moor\n\n  AARON. Titus Andronicus, my lord the Emperor\n    Sends thee this word, that, if thou love thy sons,\n    Let Marcus, Lucius, or thyself, old Titus,\n    Or any one of you, chop off your hand\n    And send it to the King: he for the same\n    Will send thee hither both thy sons alive,\n    And that shall be the ransom for their fault.\n  TITUS. O gracious Emperor! O gentle Aaron!\n    Did ever raven sing so like a lark\n    That gives sweet tidings of the sun's uprise?\n    With all my heart I'll send the Emperor my hand.\n    Good Aaron, wilt thou help to chop it off?\n  LUCIUS. Stay, father! for that noble hand of thine,\n    That hath thrown down so many enemies,\n    Shall not be sent. My hand will serve the turn,\n    My youth can better spare my blood than you,\n    And therefore mine shall save my brothers' lives.\n  MARCUS. Which of your hands hath not defended Rome\n    And rear'd aloft the bloody battle-axe,\n    Writing destruction on the enemy's castle?\n    O, none of both but are of high desert!\n    My hand hath been but idle; let it serve\n    To ransom my two nephews from their death;\n    Then have I kept it to a worthy end.\n  AARON. Nay, come, agree whose hand shall go along,\n    For fear they die before their pardon come.\n  MARCUS. My hand shall go.\n  LUCIUS. By heaven, it shall not go!\n  TITUS. Sirs, strive no more; such with'red herbs as these\n    Are meet for plucking up, and therefore mine.\n  LUCIUS. Sweet father, if I shall be thought thy son,\n    Let me redeem my brothers both from death.\n  MARCUS. And for our father's sake and mother's care,\n    Now let me show a brother's love to thee.\n  TITUS. Agree between you; I will spare my hand.\n  LUCIUS. Then I'll go fetch an axe.\n  MARCUS. But I will use the axe.\n                                        Exeunt LUCIUS and MARCUS\n  TITUS. Come hither, Aaron, I'll deceive them both;\n    Lend me thy hand, and I will give thee mine.\n  AARON.  [Aside]  If that be call'd deceit, I will be honest,\n    And never whilst I live deceive men so;\n    But I'll deceive you in another sort,\n    And that you'll say ere half an hour pass.\n                                       [He cuts off TITUS' hand]\n\n                 Re-enter LUCIUS and MARCUS\n\n TITUS. Now stay your strife. What shall be is dispatch'd.\n    Good Aaron, give his Majesty my hand;\n    Tell him it was a hand that warded him\n    From thousand dangers; bid him bury it.\n    More hath it merited- that let it have.\n    As for my sons, say I account of them\n    As jewels purchas'd at an easy price;\n    And yet dear too, because I bought mine own.\n  AARON. I go, Andronicus; and for thy hand\n    Look by and by to have thy sons with thee.\n    [Aside]  Their heads I mean. O, how this villainy\n    Doth fat me with the very thoughts of it!\n    Let fools do good, and fair men call for grace:\n    Aaron will have his soul black like his face.           Exit\n  TITUS. O, here I lift this one hand up to heaven,\n    And bow this feeble ruin to the earth;\n    If any power pities wretched tears,\n    To that I call!  [To LAVINIA]  What, would'st thou kneel with\nme?\n    Do, then, dear heart; for heaven shall hear our prayers,\n    Or with our sighs we'll breathe the welkin dim\n    And stain the sun with fog, as sometime clouds\n    When they do hug him in their melting bosoms.\n  MARCUS. O brother, speak with possibility,\n    And do not break into these deep extremes.\n  TITUS. Is not my sorrow deep, having no bottom?\n    Then be my passions bottomless with them.\n  MARCUS. But yet let reason govern thy lament.\n  TITUS. If there were reason for these miseries,\n    Then into limits could I bind my woes.\n    When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o'erflow?\n    If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad,\n    Threat'ning the welkin with his big-swol'n face?\n    And wilt thou have a reason for this coil?\n    I am the sea; hark how her sighs do blow.\n    She is the weeping welkin, I the earth;\n    Then must my sea be moved with her sighs;\n    Then must my earth with her continual tears\n    Become a deluge, overflow'd and drown'd;\n    For why my bowels cannot hide her woes,\n    But like a drunkard must I vomit them.\n    Then give me leave; for losers will have leave\n    To ease their stomachs with their bitter tongues.\n\n        Enter a MESSENGER, with two heads and a hand\n\n  MESSENGER. Worthy Andronicus, ill art thou repaid\n    For that good hand thou sent'st the Emperor.\n    Here are the heads of thy two noble sons;\n    And here's thy hand, in scorn to thee sent back-\n    Thy grief their sports, thy resolution mock'd,\n    That woe is me to think upon thy woes,\n    More than remembrance of my father's death.             Exit\n  MARCUS. Now let hot Aetna cool in Sicily,\n    And be my heart an ever-burning hell!\n    These miseries are more than may be borne.\n    To weep with them that weep doth ease some deal,\n    But sorrow flouted at is double death.\n  LUCIUS. Ah, that this sight should make so deep a wound,\n    And yet detested life not shrink thereat!\n    That ever death should let life bear his name,\n    Where life hath no more interest but to breathe!\n                                          [LAVINIA kisses TITUS]\n  MARCUS. Alas, poor heart, that kiss is comfortless\n    As frozen water to a starved snake.\n  TITUS. When will this fearful slumber have an end?\n  MARCUS. Now farewell, flatt'ry; die, Andronicus.\n    Thou dost not slumber: see thy two sons' heads,\n    Thy warlike hand, thy mangled daughter here;\n    Thy other banish'd son with this dear sight\n    Struck pale and bloodless; and thy brother, I,\n    Even like a stony image, cold and numb.\n    Ah! now no more will I control thy griefs.\n    Rent off thy silver hair, thy other hand\n    Gnawing with thy teeth; and be this dismal sight\n    The closing up of our most wretched eyes.\n    Now is a time to storm; why art thou still?\n  TITUS. Ha, ha, ha!\n  MARCUS. Why dost thou laugh? It fits not with this hour.\n  TITUS. Why, I have not another tear to shed;\n    Besides, this sorrow is an enemy,\n    And would usurp upon my wat'ry eyes\n    And make them blind with tributary tears.\n    Then which way shall I find Revenge's cave?\n    For these two heads do seem to speak to me,\n    And threat me I shall never come to bliss\n    Till all these mischiefs be return'd again\n    Even in their throats that have committed them.\n    Come, let me see what task I have to do.\n    You heavy people, circle me about,\n    That I may turn me to each one of you\n    And swear unto my soul to right your wrongs.\n    The vow is made. Come, brother, take a head,\n    And in this hand the other will I bear.\n    And, Lavinia, thou shalt be employ'd in this;\n    Bear thou my hand, sweet wench, between thy teeth.\n    As for thee, boy, go, get thee from my sight;\n    Thou art an exile, and thou must not stay.\n    Hie to the Goths and raise an army there;\n    And if ye love me, as I think you do,\n    Let's kiss and part, for we have much to do.\n                                           Exeunt all but Lucius\n  LUCIUS. Farewell, Andronicus, my noble father,\n    The woefull'st man that ever liv'd in Rome.\n    Farewell, proud Rome; till Lucius come again,\n    He leaves his pledges dearer than his life.\n    Farewell, Lavinia, my noble sister;\n    O, would thou wert as thou tofore hast been!\n    But now nor Lucius nor Lavinia lives\n    But in oblivion and hateful griefs.\n    If Lucius live, he will requite your wrongs\n    And make proud Saturnine and his emperess\n    Beg at the gates like Tarquin and his queen.\n    Now will I to the Goths, and raise a pow'r\n    To be reveng'd on Rome and Saturnine.                   Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. TITUS' house\n\nA banquet.\n\nEnter TITUS, MARCUS, LAVINIA, and the boy YOUNG LUCIUS\n\n  TITUS. So so, now sit; and look you eat no more\n    Than will preserve just so much strength in us\n    As will revenge these bitter woes of ours.\n    Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot;\n    Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands,\n    And cannot passionate our tenfold grief\n    With folded arms. This poor right hand of mine\n    Is left to tyrannize upon my breast;\n    Who, when my heart, all mad with misery,\n    Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh,\n    Then thus I thump it down.\n    [To LAVINIA]  Thou map of woe, that thus dost talk in signs!\n    When thy poor heart beats with outrageous beating,\n    Thou canst not strike it thus to make it still.\n    Wound it with sighing, girl, kill it with groans;\n    Or get some little knife between thy teeth\n    And just against thy heart make thou a hole,\n    That all the tears that thy poor eyes let fall\n    May run into that sink and, soaking in,\n    Drown the lamenting fool in sea-salt tears.\n  MARCUS. Fie, brother, fie! Teach her not thus to lay\n    Such violent hands upon her tender life.\n  TITUS. How now! Has sorrow made thee dote already?\n    Why, Marcus, no man should be mad but I.\n    What violent hands can she lay on her life?\n    Ah, wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands?\n    To bid Aeneas tell the tale twice o'er\n    How Troy was burnt and he made miserable?\n    O, handle not the theme, to talk of hands,\n    Lest we remember still that we have none.\n    Fie, fie, how franticly I square my talk,\n    As if we should forget we had no hands,\n    If Marcus did not name the word of hands!\n    Come, let's fall to; and, gentle girl, eat this:\n    Here is no drink. Hark, Marcus, what she says-\n    I can interpret all her martyr'd signs;\n    She says she drinks no other drink but tears,\n    Brew'd with her sorrow, mesh'd upon her cheeks.\n    Speechless complainer, I will learn thy thought;\n    In thy dumb action will I be as perfect\n    As begging hermits in their holy prayers.\n    Thou shalt not sigh, nor hold thy stumps to heaven,\n    Nor wink, nor nod, nor kneel, nor make a sign,\n    But I of these will wrest an alphabet,\n    And by still practice learn to know thy meaning.\n  BOY. Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments;\n    Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale.\n  MARCUS. Alas, the tender boy, in passion mov'd,\n    Doth weep to see his grandsire's heaviness.\n  TITUS. Peace, tender sapling; thou art made of tears,\n    And tears will quickly melt thy life away.\n                          [MARCUS strikes the dish with a knife]\n    What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife?\n  MARCUS. At that that I have kill'd, my lord- a fly.\n  TITUS. Out on thee, murderer, thou kill'st my heart!\n    Mine eyes are cloy'd with view of tyranny;\n    A deed of death done on the innocent\n    Becomes not Titus' brother. Get thee gone;\n    I see thou art not for my company.\n  MARCUS. Alas, my lord, I have but kill'd a fly.\n  TITUS. 'But!' How if that fly had a father and mother?\n    How would he hang his slender gilded wings\n    And buzz lamenting doings in the air!\n    Poor harmless fly,\n    That with his pretty buzzing melody\n    Came here to make us merry! And thou hast kill'd him.\n  MARCUS. Pardon me, sir; it was a black ill-favour'd fly,\n    Like to the Empress' Moor; therefore I kill'd him.\n  TITUS. O, O, O!\n    Then pardon me for reprehending thee,\n    For thou hast done a charitable deed.\n    Give me thy knife, I will insult on him,\n    Flattering myself as if it were the Moor\n    Come hither purposely to poison me.\n    There's for thyself, and that's for Tamora.\n    Ah, sirrah!\n    Yet, I think, we are not brought so low\n    But that between us we can kill a fly\n    That comes in likeness of a coal-black Moor.\n  MARCUS. Alas, poor man! grief has so wrought on him,\n    He takes false shadows for true substances.\n  TITUS. Come, take away. Lavinia, go with me;\n    I'll to thy closet, and go read with thee\n    Sad stories chanced in the times of old.\n    Come, boy, and go with me; thy sight is young,\n    And thou shalt read when mine begin to dazzle.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nRome. TITUS' garden\n\nEnter YOUNG LUCIUS and LAVINIA running after him,\nand the boy flies from her with his books under his arm.\n\nEnter TITUS and MARCUS\n\n  BOY. Help, grandsire, help! my aunt Lavinia\n    Follows me everywhere, I know not why.\n    Good uncle Marcus, see how swift she comes!\n    Alas, sweet aunt, I know not what you mean.\n  MARCUS. Stand by me, Lucius; do not fear thine aunt.\n  TITUS. She loves thee, boy, too well to do thee harm.\n  BOY. Ay, when my father was in Rome she did.\n  MARCUS. What means my niece Lavinia by these signs?\n  TITUS. Fear her not, Lucius; somewhat doth she mean.\n    See, Lucius, see how much she makes of thee.\n    Somewhither would she have thee go with her.\n    Ah, boy, Cornelia never with more care\n    Read to her sons than she hath read to thee\n    Sweet poetry and Tully's Orator.\n  MARCUS. Canst thou not guess wherefore she plies thee thus?\n  BOY. My lord, I know not, I, nor can I guess,\n    Unless some fit or frenzy do possess her;\n    For I have heard my grandsire say full oft\n    Extremity of griefs would make men mad;\n    And I have read that Hecuba of Troy\n    Ran mad for sorrow. That made me to fear;\n    Although, my lord, I know my noble aunt\n    Loves me as dear as e'er my mother did,\n    And would not, but in fury, fright my youth;\n    Which made me down to throw my books, and fly-\n    Causeless, perhaps. But pardon me, sweet aunt;\n    And, madam, if my uncle Marcus go,\n    I will most willingly attend your ladyship.\n  MARCUS. Lucius, I will.           [LAVINIA turns over with her\n                     stumps the books which Lucius has let fall]\n  TITUS. How now, Lavinia! Marcus, what means this?\n    Some book there is that she desires to see.\n    Which is it, girl, of these?- Open them, boy.-\n    But thou art deeper read and better skill'd;\n    Come and take choice of all my library,\n    And so beguile thy sorrow, till the heavens\n    Reveal the damn'd contriver of this deed.\n    Why lifts she up her arms in sequence thus?\n  MARCUS. I think she means that there were more than one\n    Confederate in the fact; ay, more there was,\n    Or else to heaven she heaves them for revenge.\n  TITUS. Lucius, what book is that she tosseth so?\n  BOY. Grandsire, 'tis Ovid's Metamorphoses;\n    My mother gave it me.\n  MARCUS. For love of her that's gone,\n    Perhaps she cull'd it from among the rest.\n  TITUS. Soft! So busily she turns the leaves! Help her.\n    What would she find? Lavinia, shall I read?\n    This is the tragic tale of Philomel\n    And treats of Tereus' treason and his rape;\n    And rape, I fear, was root of thy annoy.\n  MARCUS. See, brother, see! Note how she quotes the leaves.\n  TITUS. Lavinia, wert thou thus surpris'd, sweet girl,\n    Ravish'd and wrong'd as Philomela was,\n    Forc'd in the ruthless, vast, and gloomy woods?\n    See, see!\n    Ay, such a place there is where we did hunt-\n    O, had we never, never hunted there!-\n    Pattern'd by that the poet here describes,\n    By nature made for murders and for rapes.\n  MARCUS. O, why should nature build so foul a den,\n    Unless the gods delight in tragedies?\n  TITUS. Give signs, sweet girl, for here are none but friends,\n    What Roman lord it was durst do the deed.\n    Or slunk not Saturnine, as Tarquin erst,\n    That left the camp to sin in Lucrece' bed?\n  MARCUS. Sit down, sweet niece; brother, sit down by me.\n    Apollo, Pallas, Jove, or Mercury,\n    Inspire me, that I may this treason find!\n    My lord, look here! Look here, Lavinia!\n                                    [He writes his name with his\n                       staff, and guides it with feet and mouth]\n    This sandy plot is plain; guide, if thou canst,\n    This after me. I have writ my name\n    Without the help of any hand at all.\n    Curs'd be that heart that forc'd us to this shift!\n    Write thou, good niece, and here display at last\n    What God will have discovered for revenge.\n    Heaven guide thy pen to print thy sorrows plain,\n    That we may know the traitors and the truth!\n                               [She takes the staff in her mouth\n                          and guides it with stumps, and writes]\n    O, do ye read, my lord, what she hath writ?\n  TITUS. 'Stuprum- Chiron- Demetrius.'\n  MARCUS. What, what! the lustful sons of Tamora\n    Performers of this heinous bloody deed?\n  TITUS. Magni Dominator poli,\n    Tam lentus audis scelera? tam lentus vides?\n  MARCUS. O, calm thee, gentle lord! although I know\n    There is enough written upon this earth\n    To stir a mutiny in the mildest thoughts,\n    And arm the minds of infants to exclaims.\n    My lord, kneel down with me; Lavinia, kneel;\n    And kneel, sweet boy, the Roman Hector's hope;\n    And swear with me- as, with the woeful fere\n    And father of that chaste dishonoured dame,\n    Lord Junius Brutus sware for Lucrece' rape-\n    That we will prosecute, by good advice,\n    Mortal revenge upon these traitorous Goths,\n    And see their blood or die with this reproach.\n  TITUS. 'Tis sure enough, an you knew how;\n    But if you hunt these bear-whelps, then beware:\n    The dam will wake; and if she wind ye once,\n    She's with the lion deeply still in league,\n    And lulls him whilst she playeth on her back,\n    And when he sleeps will she do what she list.\n    You are a young huntsman, Marcus; let alone;\n    And come, I will go get a leaf of brass,\n    And with a gad of steel will write these words,\n    And lay it by. The angry northern wind\n    Will blow these sands like Sibyl's leaves abroad,\n    And where's our lesson, then? Boy, what say you?\n  BOY. I say, my lord, that if I were a man\n    Their mother's bedchamber should not be safe\n    For these base bondmen to the yoke of Rome.\n  MARCUS. Ay, that's my boy! Thy father hath full oft\n    For his ungrateful country done the like.\n  BOY. And, uncle, so will I, an if I live.\n  TITUS. Come, go with me into mine armoury.\n    Lucius, I'll fit thee; and withal my boy\n    Shall carry from me to the Empress' sons\n    Presents that I intend to send them both.\n    Come, come; thou'lt do my message, wilt thou not?\n  BOY. Ay, with my dagger in their bosoms, grandsire.\n  TITUS. No, boy, not so; I'll teach thee another course.\n    Lavinia, come. Marcus, look to my house.\n    Lucius and I'll go brave it at the court;\n    Ay, marry, will we, sir! and we'll be waited on.\n                         Exeunt TITUS, LAVINIA, and YOUNG LUCIUS\n  MARCUS. O heavens, can you hear a good man groan\n    And not relent, or not compassion him?\n    Marcus, attend him in his ecstasy,\n    That hath more scars of sorrow in his heart\n    Than foemen's marks upon his batt'red shield,\n    But yet so just that he will not revenge.\n    Revenge the heavens for old Andronicus!                 Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. The palace\n\nEnter AARON, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, at one door; and at the other\ndoor,\nYOUNG LUCIUS and another with a bundle of weapons, and verses\nwrit upon them\n\n  CHIRON. Demetrius, here's the son of Lucius;\n    He hath some message to deliver us.\n  AARON. Ay, some mad message from his mad grandfather.\n  BOY. My lords, with all the humbleness I may,\n    I greet your honours from Andronicus-\n    [Aside]  And pray the Roman gods confound you both!\n  DEMETRIUS. Gramercy, lovely Lucius. What's the news?\n  BOY.  [Aside]  That you are both decipher'd, that's the news,\n    For villains mark'd with rape.- May it please you,\n    My grandsire, well advis'd, hath sent by me\n    The goodliest weapons of his armoury\n    To gratify your honourable youth,\n    The hope of Rome; for so he bid me say;\n    And so I do, and with his gifts present\n    Your lordships, that, whenever you have need,\n    You may be armed and appointed well.\n    And so I leave you both-  [Aside]  like bloody villains.\n                               Exeunt YOUNG LUCIUS and attendant\n  DEMETRIUS. What's here? A scroll, and written round about.\n    Let's see:\n    [Reads]  'Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,\n    Non eget Mauri iaculis, nec arcu.'\n  CHIRON. O, 'tis a verse in Horace, I know it well;\n    I read it in the grammar long ago.\n  AARON. Ay, just- a verse in Horace. Right, you have it.\n    [Aside]  Now, what a thing it is to be an ass!\n    Here's no sound jest! The old man hath found their guilt,\n    And sends them weapons wrapp'd about with lines\n    That wound, beyond their feeling, to the quick.\n    But were our witty Empress well afoot,\n    She would applaud Andronicus' conceit.\n    But let her rest in her unrest awhile-\n    And now, young lords, was't not a happy star\n    Led us to Rome, strangers, and more than so,\n    Captives, to be advanced to this height?\n    It did me good before the palace gate\n    To brave the Tribune in his brother's hearing.\n  DEMETRIUS. But me more good to see so great a lord\n    Basely insinuate and send us gifts.\n  AARON. Had he not reason, Lord Demetrius?\n    Did you not use his daughter very friendly?\n  DEMETRIUS. I would we had a thousand Roman dames\n    At such a bay, by turn to serve our lust.\n  CHIRON. A charitable wish and full of love.\n  AARON. Here lacks but your mother for to say amen.\n  CHIRON. And that would she for twenty thousand more.\n  DEMETRIUS. Come, let us go and pray to all the gods\n    For our beloved mother in her pains.\n  AARON.  [Aside]  Pray to the devils; the gods have given us\nover.\n                                                [Trumpets sound]\n  DEMETRIUS. Why do the Emperor's trumpets flourish thus?\n  CHIRON. Belike, for joy the Emperor hath a son.\n  DEMETRIUS. Soft! who comes here?\n\n            Enter NURSE, with a blackamoor CHILD\n\n  NURSE. Good morrow, lords.\n    O, tell me, did you see Aaron the Moor?\n  AARON. Well, more or less, or ne'er a whit at all,\n    Here Aaron is; and what with Aaron now?\n  NURSE. O gentle Aaron, we are all undone!\n    Now help, or woe betide thee evermore!\n  AARON. Why, what a caterwauling dost thou keep!\n    What dost thou wrap and fumble in thy arms?\n  NURSE. O, that which I would hide from heaven's eye:\n    Our Empress' shame and stately Rome's disgrace!\n    She is delivered, lord; she is delivered.\n  AARON. To whom?\n  NURSE. I mean she is brought a-bed.\n  AARON. Well, God give her good rest! What hath he sent her?\n  NURSE. A devil.\n  AARON. Why, then she is the devil's dam;\n    A joyful issue.\n  NURSE. A joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful issue!\n    Here is the babe, as loathsome as a toad\n    Amongst the fair-fac'd breeders of our clime;\n    The Empress sends it thee, thy stamp, thy seal,\n    And bids thee christen it with thy dagger's point.\n  AARON. Zounds, ye whore! Is black so base a hue?\n    Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom sure.\n  DEMETRIUS. Villain, what hast thou done?\n  AARON. That which thou canst not undo.\n  CHIRON. Thou hast undone our mother.\n  AARON. Villain, I have done thy mother.\n  DEMETRIUS. And therein, hellish dog, thou hast undone her.\n    Woe to her chance, and damn'd her loathed choice!\n    Accurs'd the offspring of so foul a fiend!\n  CHIRON. It shall not live.\n  AARON. It shall not die.\n  NURSE. Aaron, it must; the mother wills it so.\n  AARON. What, must it, nurse? Then let no man but I\n    Do execution on my flesh and blood.\n  DEMETRIUS. I'll broach the tadpole on my rapier's point.\n    Nurse, give it me; my sword shall soon dispatch it.\n  AARON. Sooner this sword shall plough thy bowels up.\n                     [Takes the CHILD from the NURSE, and draws]\n    Stay, murderous villains, will you kill your brother!\n    Now, by the burning tapers of the sky\n    That shone so brightly when this boy was got,\n    He dies upon my scimitar's sharp point\n    That touches this my first-born son and heir.\n    I tell you, younglings, not Enceladus,\n    With all his threat'ning band of Typhon's brood,\n    Nor great Alcides, nor the god of war,\n    Shall seize this prey out of his father's hands.\n    What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys!\n    Ye white-lim'd walls! ye alehouse painted signs!\n    Coal-black is better than another hue\n    In that it scorns to bear another hue;\n    For all the water in the ocean\n    Can never turn the swan's black legs to white,\n    Although she lave them hourly in the flood.\n    Tell the Empress from me I am of age\n    To keep mine own- excuse it how she can.\n  DEMETRIUS. Wilt thou betray thy noble mistress thus?\n  AARON. My mistress is my mistress: this my self,\n    The vigour and the picture of my youth.\n    This before all the world do I prefer;\n    This maugre all the world will I keep safe,\n    Or some of you shall smoke for it in Rome.\n  DEMETRIUS. By this our mother is for ever sham'd.\n  CHIRON. Rome will despise her for this foul escape.\n  NURSE. The Emperor in his rage will doom her death.\n  CHIRON. I blush to think upon this ignomy.\n  AARON. Why, there's the privilege your beauty bears:\n    Fie, treacherous hue, that will betray with blushing\n    The close enacts and counsels of thy heart!\n    Here's a young lad fram'd of another leer.\n    Look how the black slave smiles upon the father,\n    As who should say 'Old lad, I am thine own.'\n    He is your brother, lords, sensibly fed\n    Of that self-blood that first gave life to you;\n    And from your womb where you imprisoned were\n    He is enfranchised and come to light.\n    Nay, he is your brother by the surer side,\n    Although my seal be stamped in his face.\n  NURSE. Aaron, what shall I say unto the Empress?\n  DEMETRIUS. Advise thee, Aaron, what is to be done,\n    And we will all subscribe to thy advice.\n    Save thou the child, so we may all be safe.\n  AARON. Then sit we down and let us all consult.\n    My son and I will have the wind of you:\n    Keep there; now talk at pleasure of your safety.\n                                                      [They sit]\n  DEMETRIUS. How many women saw this child of his?\n  AARON. Why, so, brave lords! When we join in league\n    I am a lamb; but if you brave the Moor,\n    The chafed boar, the mountain lioness,\n    The ocean swells not so as Aaron storms.\n    But say, again, how many saw the child?\n  NURSE. Cornelia the midwife and myself;\n    And no one else but the delivered Empress.\n  AARON. The Emperess, the midwife, and yourself.\n    Two may keep counsel when the third's away:\n    Go to the Empress, tell her this I said.      [He kills her]\n    Weeke weeke!\n    So cries a pig prepared to the spit.\n  DEMETRIUS. What mean'st thou, Aaron? Wherefore didst thou this?\n  AARON. O Lord, sir, 'tis a deed of policy.\n    Shall she live to betray this guilt of ours-\n    A long-tongu'd babbling gossip? No, lords, no.\n    And now be it known to you my full intent:\n    Not far, one Muliteus, my countryman-\n    His wife but yesternight was brought to bed;\n    His child is like to her, fair as you are.\n    Go pack with him, and give the mother gold,\n    And tell them both the circumstance of all,\n    And how by this their child shall be advanc'd,\n    And be received for the Emperor's heir\n    And substituted in the place of mine,\n    To calm this tempest whirling in the court;\n    And let the Emperor dandle him for his own.\n    Hark ye, lords. You see I have given her physic,\n                                         [Pointing to the NURSE]\n    And you must needs bestow her funeral;\n    The fields are near, and you are gallant grooms.\n    This done, see that you take no longer days,\n    But send the midwife presently to me.\n    The midwife and the nurse well made away,\n    Then let the ladies tattle what they please.\n  CHIRON. Aaron, I see thou wilt not trust the air\n    With secrets.\n  DEMETRIUS. For this care of Tamora,\n    Herself and hers are highly bound to thee.\n\n         Exeunt DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, bearing off the dead NURSE\n\n  AARON. Now to the Goths, as swift as swallow flies,\n    There to dispose this treasure in mine arms,\n    And secretly to greet the Empress' friends.\n    Come on, you thick-lipp'd slave, I'll bear you hence;\n    For it is you that puts us to our shifts.\n    I'll make you feed on berries and on roots,\n    And feed on curds and whey, and suck the goat,\n    And cabin in a cave, and bring you up\n    To be a warrior and command a camp.\n                                             Exit with the CHILD\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nRome. A public place\n\nEnter TITUS, bearing arrows with letters on the ends of them;\nwith him MARCUS, YOUNG LUCIUS, and other gentlemen,\nPUBLIUS, SEMPRONIUS, and CAIUS, with bows\n\n  TITUS. Come, Marcus, come; kinsmen, this is the way.\n    Sir boy, let me see your archery;\n    Look ye draw home enough, and 'tis there straight.\n    Terras Astrea reliquit,\n    Be you rememb'red, Marcus; she's gone, she's fled.\n    Sirs, take you to your tools. You, cousins, shall\n    Go sound the ocean and cast your nets;\n    Happily you may catch her in the sea;\n    Yet there's as little justice as at land.\n    No; Publius and Sempronius, you must do it;\n    'Tis you must dig with mattock and with spade,\n    And pierce the inmost centre of the earth;\n    Then, when you come to Pluto's region,\n    I pray you deliver him this petition.\n    Tell him it is for justice and for aid,\n    And that it comes from old Andronicus,\n    Shaken with sorrows in ungrateful Rome.\n    Ah, Rome! Well, well, I made thee miserable\n    What time I threw the people's suffrages\n    On him that thus doth tyrannize o'er me.\n    Go get you gone; and pray be careful all,\n    And leave you not a man-of-war unsearch'd.\n    This wicked Emperor may have shipp'd her hence;\n    And, kinsmen, then we may go pipe for justice.\n  MARCUS. O Publius, is not this a heavy case,\n    To see thy noble uncle thus distract?\n  PUBLIUS. Therefore, my lords, it highly us concerns\n    By day and night t' attend him carefully,\n    And feed his humour kindly as we may\n    Till time beget some careful remedy.\n  MARCUS. Kinsmen, his sorrows are past remedy.\n    Join with the Goths, and with revengeful war\n    Take wreak on Rome for this ingratitude,\n    And vengeance on the traitor Saturnine.\n  TITUS. Publius, how now? How now, my masters?\n    What, have you met with her?\n  PUBLIUS. No, my good lord; but Pluto sends you word,\n    If you will have Revenge from hell, you shall.\n    Marry, for Justice, she is so employ'd,\n    He thinks, with Jove in heaven, or somewhere else,\n    So that perforce you must needs stay a time.\n  TITUS. He doth me wrong to feed me with delays.\n    I'll dive into the burning lake below\n    And pull her out of Acheron by the heels.\n    Marcus, we are but shrubs, no cedars we,\n    No big-bon'd men fram'd of the Cyclops' size;\n    But metal, Marcus, steel to the very back,\n    Yet wrung with wrongs more than our backs can bear;\n    And, sith there's no justice in earth nor hell,\n    We will solicit heaven, and move the gods\n    To send down justice for to wreak our wrongs.\n    Come, to this gear. You are a good archer, Marcus.\n                                      [He gives them the arrows]\n    'Ad Jovem' that's for you; here 'Ad Apollinem.'\n    'Ad Martem' that's for myself.\n    Here, boy, 'To Pallas'; here 'To Mercury.'\n    'To Saturn,' Caius- not to Saturnine:\n    You were as good to shoot against the wind.\n    To it, boy. Marcus, loose when I bid.\n    Of my word, I have written to effect;\n    There's not a god left unsolicited.\n  MARCUS. Kinsmen, shoot all your shafts into the court;\n    We will afflict the Emperor in his pride.\n  TITUS. Now, masters, draw.  [They shoot]  O, well said, Lucius!\n    Good boy, in Virgo's lap! Give it Pallas.\n  MARCUS. My lord, I aim a mile beyond the moon;\n    Your letter is with Jupiter by this.\n  TITUS. Ha! ha!\n    Publius, Publius, hast thou done?\n    See, see, thou hast shot off one of Taurus' horns.\n  MARCUS. This was the sport, my lord: when Publius shot,\n    The Bull, being gall'd, gave Aries such a knock\n    That down fell both the Ram's horns in the court;\n    And who should find them but the Empress' villain?\n    She laugh'd, and told the Moor he should not choose\n    But give them to his master for a present.\n  TITUS. Why, there it goes! God give his lordship joy!\n\n    Enter the CLOWN, with a basket and two pigeons in it\n\n    News, news from heaven! Marcus, the post is come.\n    Sirrah, what tidings? Have you any letters?\n    Shall I have justice? What says Jupiter?\n  CLOWN. Ho, the gibbet-maker? He says that he hath taken them\ndown\n    again, for the man must not be hang'd till the next week.\n  TITUS. But what says Jupiter, I ask thee?\n  CLOWN. Alas, sir, I know not Jupiter; I never drank with him in\nall\n    my life.\n  TITUS. Why, villain, art not thou the carrier?\n  CLOWN. Ay, of my pigeons, sir; nothing else.\n  TITUS. Why, didst thou not come from heaven?\n  CLOWN. From heaven! Alas, sir, I never came there. God forbid I\n    should be so bold to press to heaven in my young days. Why, I\nam\n    going with my pigeons to the Tribunal Plebs, to take up a\nmatter\n    of brawl betwixt my uncle and one of the Emperal's men.\n  MARCUS. Why, sir, that is as fit as can be to serve for your\n    oration; and let him deliver the pigeons to the Emperor from\nyou.\n  TITUS. Tell me, can you deliver an oration to the Emperor with\na\n    grace?\n  CLOWN. Nay, truly, sir, I could never say grace in all my life.\n  TITUS. Sirrah, come hither. Make no more ado,\n    But give your pigeons to the Emperor;\n    By me thou shalt have justice at his hands.\n    Hold, hold! Meanwhile here's money for thy charges.\n    Give me pen and ink. Sirrah, can you with a grace deliver up\na\n    supplication?\n  CLOWN. Ay, sir.\n  TITUS. Then here is a supplication for you. And when you come\nto\n    him, at the first approach you must kneel; then kiss his\nfoot;\n    then deliver up your pigeons; and then look for your reward.\nI'll\n    be at hand, sir; see you do it bravely.\n  CLOWN. I warrant you, sir; let me alone.\n  TITUS. Sirrah, hast thou a knife? Come let me see it.\n    Here, Marcus, fold it in the oration;\n    For thou hast made it like a humble suppliant.\n    And when thou hast given it to the Emperor,\n    Knock at my door, and tell me what he says.\n  CLOWN. God be with you, sir; I will.\n  TITUS. Come, Marcus, let us go. Publius, follow me.     Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nRome. Before the palace\n\nEnter the EMPEROR, and the EMPRESS and her two sons, DEMETRIUS\nand CHIRON;\nLORDS and others. The EMPEROR brings the arrows in his hand that\nTITUS\nshot at him\n\n  SATURNINUS. Why, lords, what wrongs are these! Was ever seen\n    An emperor in Rome thus overborne,\n    Troubled, confronted thus; and, for the extent\n    Of egal justice, us'd in such contempt?\n    My lords, you know, as know the mightful gods,\n    However these disturbers of our peace\n    Buzz in the people's ears, there nought hath pass'd\n    But even with law against the wilful sons\n    Of old Andronicus. And what an if\n    His sorrows have so overwhelm'd his wits,\n    Shall we be thus afflicted in his wreaks,\n    His fits, his frenzy, and his bitterness?\n    And now he writes to heaven for his redress.\n    See, here's 'To Jove' and this 'To Mercury';\n    This 'To Apollo'; this 'To the God of War'-\n    Sweet scrolls to fly about the streets of Rome!\n    What's this but libelling against the Senate,\n    And blazoning our unjustice every where?\n    A goodly humour, is it not, my lords?\n    As who would say in Rome no justice were.\n    But if I live, his feigned ecstasies\n    Shall be no shelter to these outrages;\n    But he and his shall know that justice lives\n    In Saturninus' health; whom, if she sleep,\n    He'll so awake as he in fury shall\n    Cut off the proud'st conspirator that lives.\n  TAMORA. My gracious lord, my lovely Saturnine,\n    Lord of my life, commander of my thoughts,\n    Calm thee, and bear the faults of Titus' age,\n    Th' effects of sorrow for his valiant sons\n    Whose loss hath pierc'd him deep and scarr'd his heart;\n    And rather comfort his distressed plight\n    Than prosecute the meanest or the best\n    For these contempts.  [Aside]  Why, thus it shall become\n    High-witted Tamora to gloze with all.\n    But, Titus, I have touch'd thee to the quick,\n    Thy life-blood out; if Aaron now be wise,\n    Then is all safe, the anchor in the port.\n\n                       Enter CLOWN\n\n    How now, good fellow! Wouldst thou speak with us?\n  CLOWN. Yes, forsooth, an your mistriship be Emperial.\n  TAMORA. Empress I am, but yonder sits the Emperor.\n  CLOWN. 'Tis he.- God and Saint Stephen give you godden. I have\n    brought you a letter and a couple of pigeons here.\n                                   [SATURNINUS reads the letter]\n  SATURNINUS. Go take him away, and hang him presently.\n  CLOWN. How much money must I have?\n  TAMORA. Come, sirrah, you must be hang'd.\n  CLOWN. Hang'd! by'r lady, then I have brought up a neck to a\nfair\n    end.                                          [Exit guarded]\n  SATURNINUS. Despiteful and intolerable wrongs!\n    Shall I endure this monstrous villainy?\n    I know from whence this same device proceeds.\n    May this be borne- as if his traitorous sons\n    That died by law for murder of our brother\n    Have by my means been butchered wrongfully?\n    Go drag the villain hither by the hair;\n    Nor age nor honour shall shape privilege.\n    For this proud mock I'll be thy slaughterman,\n    Sly frantic wretch, that holp'st to make me great,\n    In hope thyself should govern Rome and me.\n\n                   Enter NUNTIUS AEMILIUS\n\n    What news with thee, Aemilius?\n  AEMILIUS. Arm, my lords! Rome never had more cause.\n    The Goths have gathered head; and with a power\n    Of high resolved men, bent to the spoil,\n    They hither march amain, under conduct\n    Of Lucius, son to old Andronicus;\n    Who threats in course of this revenge to do\n    As much as ever Coriolanus did.\n  SATURNINUS. Is warlike Lucius general of the Goths?\n    These tidings nip me, and I hang the head\n    As flowers with frost, or grass beat down with storms.\n    Ay, now begins our sorrows to approach.\n    'Tis he the common people love so much;\n    Myself hath often heard them say-\n    When I have walked like a private man-\n    That Lucius' banishment was wrongfully,\n    And they have wish'd that Lucius were their emperor.\n  TAMORA. Why should you fear? Is not your city strong?\n  SATURNINUS. Ay, but the citizens favour Lucius,\n    And will revolt from me to succour him.\n  TAMORA. King, be thy thoughts imperious like thy name!\n    Is the sun dimm'd, that gnats do fly in it?\n    The eagle suffers little birds to sing,\n    And is not careful what they mean thereby,\n    Knowing that with the shadow of his wings\n    He can at pleasure stint their melody;\n    Even so mayest thou the giddy men of Rome.\n    Then cheer thy spirit; for know thou, Emperor,\n    I will enchant the old Andronicus\n    With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous,\n    Than baits to fish or honey-stalks to sheep,\n    When as the one is wounded with the bait,\n    The other rotted with delicious feed.\n  SATURNINUS. But he will not entreat his son for us.\n  TAMORA. If Tamora entreat him, then he will;\n    For I can smooth and fill his aged ears\n    With golden promises, that, were his heart\n    Almost impregnable, his old ears deaf,\n    Yet should both ear and heart obey my tongue.\n    [To AEMILIUS]  Go thou before to be our ambassador;\n    Say that the Emperor requests a parley\n    Of warlike Lucius, and appoint the meeting\n    Even at his father's house, the old Andronicus.\n  SATURNINUS. Aemilius, do this message honourably;\n    And if he stand on hostage for his safety,\n    Bid him demand what pledge will please him best.\n  AEMILIUS. Your bidding shall I do effectually.            Exit\n  TAMORA. Now will I to that old Andronicus,\n    And temper him with all the art I have,\n    To pluck proud Lucius from the warlike Goths.\n    And now, sweet Emperor, be blithe again,\n    And bury all thy fear in my devices.\n  SATURNINUS. Then go successantly, and plead to him.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nPlains near Rome\n\nEnter LUCIUS with an army of GOTHS with drums and colours\n\n  LUCIUS. Approved warriors and my faithful friends,\n    I have received letters from great Rome\n    Which signifies what hate they bear their Emperor\n    And how desirous of our sight they are.\n    Therefore, great lords, be, as your titles witness,\n    Imperious and impatient of your wrongs;\n    And wherein Rome hath done you any scath,\n    Let him make treble satisfaction.\n  FIRST GOTH. Brave slip, sprung from the great Andronicus,\n    Whose name was once our terror, now our comfort,\n    Whose high exploits and honourable deeds\n    Ingrateful Rome requites with foul contempt,\n    Be bold in us: we'll follow where thou lead'st,\n    Like stinging bees in hottest summer's day,\n    Led by their master to the flow'red fields,\n    And be aveng'd on cursed Tamora.\n  ALL THE GOTHS. And as he saith, so say we all with him.\n  LUCIUS. I humbly thank him, and I thank you all.\n    But who comes here, led by a lusty Goth?\n\n     Enter a GOTH, leading AARON with his CHILD in his arms\n\n  SECOND GOTH. Renowned Lucius, from our troops I stray'd\n    To gaze upon a ruinous monastery;\n    And as I earnestly did fix mine eye\n    Upon the wasted building, suddenly\n    I heard a child cry underneath a wall.\n    I made unto the noise, when soon I heard\n    The crying babe controll'd with this discourse:\n    'Peace, tawny slave, half me and half thy dam!\n    Did not thy hue bewray whose brat thou art,\n    Had nature lent thee but thy mother's look,\n    Villain, thou mightst have been an emperor;\n    But where the bull and cow are both milk-white,\n    They never do beget a coal-black calf.\n    Peace, villain, peace!'- even thus he rates the babe-\n    'For I must bear thee to a trusty Goth,\n    Who, when he knows thou art the Empress' babe,\n    Will hold thee dearly for thy mother's sake.'\n    With this, my weapon drawn, I rush'd upon him,\n    Surpris'd him suddenly, and brought him hither\n    To use as you think needful of the man.\n  LUCIUS. O worthy Goth, this is the incarnate devil\n    That robb'd Andronicus of his good hand;\n    This is the pearl that pleas'd your Empress' eye;\n    And here's the base fruit of her burning lust.\n    Say, wall-ey'd slave, whither wouldst thou convey\n    This growing image of thy fiend-like face?\n    Why dost not speak? What, deaf? Not a word?\n    A halter, soldiers! Hang him on this tree,\n    And by his side his fruit of bastardy.\n  AARON. Touch not the boy, he is of royal blood.\n  LUCIUS. Too like the sire for ever being good.\n    First hang the child, that he may see it sprawl-\n    A sight to vex the father's soul withal.\n    Get me a ladder.\n                [A ladder brought, which AARON is made to climb]\n  AARON. Lucius, save the child,\n    And bear it from me to the Emperess.\n    If thou do this, I'll show thee wondrous things\n    That highly may advantage thee to hear;\n    If thou wilt not, befall what may befall,\n    I'll speak no more but 'Vengeance rot you all!'\n  LUCIUS. Say on; an if it please me which thou speak'st,\n    Thy child shall live, and I will see it nourish'd.\n  AARON. An if it please thee! Why, assure thee, Lucius,\n    'Twill vex thy soul to hear what I shall speak;\n    For I must talk of murders, rapes, and massacres,\n    Acts of black night, abominable deeds,\n    Complots of mischief, treason, villainies,\n    Ruthful to hear, yet piteously perform'd;\n    And this shall all be buried in my death,\n    Unless thou swear to me my child shall live.\n  LUCIUS. Tell on thy mind; I say thy child shall live.\n  AARON. Swear that he shall, and then I will begin.\n  LUCIUS. Who should I swear by? Thou believest no god;\n    That granted, how canst thou believe an oath?\n  AARON. What if I do not? as indeed I do not;\n    Yet, for I know thou art religious\n    And hast a thing within thee called conscience,\n    With twenty popish tricks and ceremonies\n    Which I have seen thee careful to observe,\n    Therefore I urge thy oath. For that I know\n    An idiot holds his bauble for a god,\n    And keeps the oath which by that god he swears,\n    To that I'll urge him. Therefore thou shalt vow\n    By that same god- what god soe'er it be\n    That thou adorest and hast in reverence-\n    To save my boy, to nourish and bring him up;\n    Or else I will discover nought to thee.\n  LUCIUS. Even by my god I swear to thee I will.\n  AARON. First know thou, I begot him on the Empress.\n  LUCIUS. O most insatiate and luxurious woman!\n  AARON. Tut, Lucius, this was but a deed of charity\n    To that which thou shalt hear of me anon.\n    'Twas her two sons that murdered Bassianus;\n    They cut thy sister's tongue, and ravish'd her,\n    And cut her hands, and trimm'd her as thou sawest.\n  LUCIUS. O detestable villain! Call'st thou that trimming?\n  AARON. Why, she was wash'd, and cut, and trimm'd, and 'twas\n    Trim sport for them which had the doing of it.\n  LUCIUS. O barbarous beastly villains like thyself!\n  AARON. Indeed, I was their tutor to instruct them.\n    That codding spirit had they from their mother,\n    As sure a card as ever won the set;\n    That bloody mind, I think, they learn'd of me,\n    As true a dog as ever fought at head.\n    Well, let my deeds be witness of my worth.\n    I train'd thy brethren to that guileful hole\n    Where the dead corpse of Bassianus lay;\n    I wrote the letter that thy father found,\n    And hid the gold within that letter mention'd,\n    Confederate with the Queen and her two sons;\n    And what not done, that thou hast cause to rue,\n    Wherein I had no stroke of mischief in it?\n    I play'd the cheater for thy father's hand,\n    And, when I had it, drew myself apart\n    And almost broke my heart with extreme laughter.\n    I pried me through the crevice of a wall,\n    When, for his hand, he had his two sons' heads;\n    Beheld his tears, and laugh'd so heartily\n    That both mine eyes were rainy like to his;\n    And when I told the Empress of this sport,\n    She swooned almost at my pleasing tale,\n    And for my tidings gave me twenty kisses.\n  GOTH. What, canst thou say all this and never blush?\n  AARON. Ay, like a black dog, as the saying is.\n  LUCIUS. Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?\n  AARON. Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.\n    Even now I curse the day- and yet, I think,\n    Few come within the compass of my curse-\n    Wherein I did not some notorious ill;\n    As kill a man, or else devise his death;\n    Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it;\n    Accuse some innocent, and forswear myself;\n    Set deadly enmity between two friends;\n    Make poor men's cattle break their necks;\n    Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,\n    And bid the owners quench them with their tears.\n    Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,\n    And set them upright at their dear friends' door\n    Even when their sorrows almost was forgot,\n    And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,\n    Have with my knife carved in Roman letters\n    'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'\n    Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things\n    As willingly as one would kill a fly;\n    And nothing grieves me heartily indeed\n    But that I cannot do ten thousand more.\n  LUCIUS. Bring down the devil, for he must not die\n    So sweet a death as hanging presently.\n  AARON. If there be devils, would I were a devil,\n    To live and burn in everlasting fire,\n    So I might have your company in hell\n    But to torment you with my bitter tongue!\n  LUCIUS. Sirs, stop his mouth, and let him speak no more.\n\n                       Enter AEMILIUS\n\n  GOTH. My lord, there is a messenger from Rome\n    Desires to be admitted to your presence.\n  LUCIUS. Let him come near.\n    Welcome, Aemilius. What's the news from Rome?\n  AEMILIUS. Lord Lucius, and you Princes of the Goths,\n    The Roman Emperor greets you all by me;\n    And, for he understands you are in arms,\n    He craves a parley at your father's house,\n    Willing you to demand your hostages,\n    And they shall be immediately deliver'd.\n  FIRST GOTH. What says our general?\n  LUCIUS. Aemilius, let the Emperor give his pledges\n    Unto my father and my uncle Marcus.\n    And we will come. March away.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nRome. Before TITUS' house\n\nEnter TAMORA, and her two sons, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, disguised\n\n  TAMORA. Thus, in this strange and sad habiliment,\n    I will encounter with Andronicus,\n    And say I am Revenge, sent from below\n    To join with him and right his heinous wrongs.\n    Knock at his study, where they say he keeps\n    To ruminate strange plots of dire revenge;\n    Tell him Revenge is come to join with him,\n    And work confusion on his enemies.\n\n         They knock and TITUS opens his study door, above\n\n  TITUS. Who doth molest my contemplation?\n    Is it your trick to make me ope the door,\n    That so my sad decrees may fly away\n    And all my study be to no effect?\n    You are deceiv'd; for what I mean to do\n    See here in bloody lines I have set down;\n    And what is written shall be executed.\n  TAMORA. Titus, I am come to talk with thee.\n  TITUS. No, not a word. How can I grace my talk,\n    Wanting a hand to give it that accord?\n    Thou hast the odds of me; therefore no more.\n  TAMORA. If thou didst know me, thou wouldst talk with me.\n  TITUS. I am not mad, I know thee well enough:\n    Witness this wretched stump, witness these crimson lines;\n    Witness these trenches made by grief and care;\n    Witness the tiring day and heavy night;\n    Witness all sorrow that I know thee well\n    For our proud Empress, mighty Tamora.\n    Is not thy coming for my other hand?\n  TAMORA. Know thou, sad man, I am not Tamora:\n    She is thy enemy and I thy friend.\n    I am Revenge, sent from th' infernal kingdom\n    To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind\n    By working wreakful vengeance on thy foes.\n    Come down and welcome me to this world's light;\n    Confer with me of murder and of death;\n    There's not a hollow cave or lurking-place,\n    No vast obscurity or misty vale,\n    Where bloody murder or detested rape\n    Can couch for fear but I will find them out;\n    And in their ears tell them my dreadful name-\n    Revenge, which makes the foul offender quake.\n  TITUS. Art thou Revenge? and art thou sent to me\n    To be a torment to mine enemies?\n  TAMORA. I am; therefore come down and welcome me.\n  TITUS. Do me some service ere I come to thee.\n    Lo, by thy side where Rape and Murder stands;\n    Now give some surance that thou art Revenge-\n    Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot wheels;\n    And then I'll come and be thy waggoner\n    And whirl along with thee about the globes.\n    Provide thee two proper palfreys, black as jet,\n    To hale thy vengeful waggon swift away,\n    And find out murderers in their guilty caves;\n    And when thy car is loaden with their heads,\n    I will dismount, and by thy waggon wheel\n    Trot, like a servile footman, all day long,\n    Even from Hyperion's rising in the east\n    Until his very downfall in the sea.\n    And day by day I'll do this heavy task,\n    So thou destroy Rapine and Murder there.\n  TAMORA. These are my ministers, and come with me.\n  TITUS. Are they thy ministers? What are they call'd?\n  TAMORA. Rape and Murder; therefore called so\n    'Cause they take vengeance of such kind of men.\n  TITUS. Good Lord, how like the Empress' sons they are!\n    And you the Empress! But we worldly men\n    Have miserable, mad, mistaking eyes.\n    O sweet Revenge, now do I come to thee;\n    And, if one arm's embracement will content thee,\n    I will embrace thee in it by and by.\n  TAMORA. This closing with him fits his lunacy.\n    Whate'er I forge to feed his brain-sick humours,\n    Do you uphold and maintain in your speeches,\n    For now he firmly takes me for Revenge;\n    And, being credulous in this mad thought,\n    I'll make him send for Lucius his son,\n    And whilst I at a banquet hold him sure,\n    I'll find some cunning practice out of hand\n    To scatter and disperse the giddy Goths,\n    Or, at the least, make them his enemies.\n    See, here he comes, and I must ply my theme.\n\n                 Enter TITUS, below\n\n  TITUS. Long have I been forlorn, and all for thee.\n    Welcome, dread Fury, to my woeful house.\n    Rapine and Murder, you are welcome too.\n    How like the Empress and her sons you are!\n    Well are you fitted, had you but a Moor.\n    Could not all hell afford you such a devil?\n    For well I wot the Empress never wags\n    But in her company there is a Moor;\n    And, would you represent our queen aright,\n    It were convenient you had such a devil.\n    But welcome as you are. What shall we do?\n  TAMORA. What wouldst thou have us do, Andronicus?\n  DEMETRIUS. Show me a murderer, I'll deal with him.\n  CHIRON. Show me a villain that hath done a rape,\n    And I am sent to be reveng'd on him.\n  TAMORA. Show me a thousand that hath done thee wrong,\n    And I will be revenged on them all.\n  TITUS. Look round about the wicked streets of Rome,\n    And when thou find'st a man that's like thyself,\n    Good Murder, stab him; he's a murderer.\n    Go thou with him, and when it is thy hap\n    To find another that is like to thee,\n    Good Rapine, stab him; he is a ravisher.\n    Go thou with them; and in the Emperor's court\n    There is a queen, attended by a Moor;\n    Well shalt thou know her by thine own proportion,\n    For up and down she doth resemble thee.\n    I pray thee, do on them some violent death;\n    They have been violent to me and mine.\n  TAMORA. Well hast thou lesson'd us; this shall we do.\n    But would it please thee, good Andronicus,\n    To send for Lucius, thy thrice-valiant son,\n    Who leads towards Rome a band of warlike Goths,\n    And bid him come and banquet at thy house;\n    When he is here, even at thy solemn feast,\n    I will bring in the Empress and her sons,\n    The Emperor himself, and all thy foes;\n    And at thy mercy shall they stoop and kneel,\n    And on them shalt thou ease thy angry heart.\n    What says Andronicus to this device?\n  TITUS. Marcus, my brother! 'Tis sad Titus calls.\n\n                  Enter MARCUS\n\n    Go, gentle Marcus, to thy nephew Lucius;\n    Thou shalt inquire him out among the Goths.\n    Bid him repair to me, and bring with him\n    Some of the chiefest princes of the Goths;\n    Bid him encamp his soldiers where they are.\n    Tell him the Emperor and the Empress too\n    Feast at my house, and he shall feast with them.\n    This do thou for my love; and so let him,\n    As he regards his aged father's life.\n  MARCUS. This will I do, and soon return again.            Exit\n  TAMORA. Now will I hence about thy business,\n    And take my ministers along with me.\n  TITUS. Nay, nay, let Rape and Murder stay with me,\n    Or else I'll call my brother back again,\n    And cleave to no revenge but Lucius.\n  TAMORA.  [Aside to her sons]  What say you, boys? Will you\nabide\n      with him,\n    Whiles I go tell my lord the Emperor\n    How I have govern'd our determin'd jest?\n    Yield to his humour, smooth and speak him fair,\n    And tarry with him till I turn again.\n  TITUS.  [Aside]  I knew them all, though they suppos'd me mad,\n    And will o'er reach them in their own devices,\n    A pair of cursed hell-hounds and their dam.\n  DEMETRIUS. Madam, depart at pleasure; leave us here.\n  TAMORA. Farewell, Andronicus, Revenge now goes\n    To lay a complot to betray thy foes.\n  TITUS. I know thou dost; and, sweet Revenge, farewell.\n                                                     Exit TAMORA\n  CHIRON. Tell us, old man, how shall we be employ'd?\n  TITUS. Tut, I have work enough for you to do.\n    Publius, come hither, Caius, and Valentine.\n\n          Enter PUBLIUS, CAIUS, and VALENTINE\n\n  PUBLIUS. What is your will?\n  TITUS. Know you these two?\n  PUBLIUS. The Empress' sons, I take them: Chiron, Demetrius.\n  TITUS. Fie, Publius, fie! thou art too much deceiv'd.\n    The one is Murder, and Rape is the other's name;\n    And therefore bind them, gentle Publius-\n    Caius and Valentine, lay hands on them.\n    Oft have you heard me wish for such an hour,\n    And now I find it; therefore bind them sure,\n    And stop their mouths if they begin to cry.             Exit\n                         [They lay hold on CHIRON and DEMETRIUS]\n  CHIRON. Villains, forbear! we are the Empress' sons.\n  PUBLIUS. And therefore do we what we are commanded.\n    Stop close their mouths, let them not speak a word.\n    Is he sure bound? Look that you bind them fast.\n\n               Re-enter TITUS ANDRONICUS\n        with a knife, and LAVINIA, with a basin\n\n  TITUS. Come, come, Lavinia; look, thy foes are bound.\n    Sirs, stop their mouths, let them not speak to me;\n    But let them hear what fearful words I utter.\n    O villains, Chiron and Demetrius!\n    Here stands the spring whom you have stain'd with mud;\n    This goodly summer with your winter mix'd.\n    You kill'd her husband; and for that vile fault\n    Two of her brothers were condemn'd to death,\n    My hand cut off and made a merry jest;\n    Both her sweet hands, her tongue, and that more dear\n    Than hands or tongue, her spotless chastity,\n    Inhuman traitors, you constrain'd and forc'd.\n    What would you say, if I should let you speak?\n    Villains, for shame you could not beg for grace.\n    Hark, wretches! how I mean to martyr you.\n    This one hand yet is left to cut your throats,\n    Whiles that Lavinia 'tween her stumps doth hold\n    The basin that receives your guilty blood.\n    You know your mother means to feast with me,\n    And calls herself Revenge, and thinks me mad.\n    Hark, villains! I will grind your bones to dust,\n    And with your blood and it I'll make a paste;\n    And of the paste a coffin I will rear,\n    And make two pasties of your shameful heads;\n    And bid that strumpet, your unhallowed dam,\n    Like to the earth, swallow her own increase.\n    This is the feast that I have bid her to,\n    And this the banquet she shall surfeit on;\n    For worse than Philomel you us'd my daughter,\n    And worse than Progne I will be reveng'd.\n    And now prepare your throats. Lavinia, come,\n    Receive the blood; and when that they are dead,\n    Let me go grind their bones to powder small,\n    And with this hateful liquor temper it;\n    And in that paste let their vile heads be bak'd.\n    Come, come, be every one officious\n    To make this banquet, which I wish may prove\n    More stern and bloody than the Centaurs' feast.\n                                         [He cuts their throats]\n    So.\n    Now bring them in, for I will play the cook,\n    And see them ready against their mother comes.\n                                 Exeunt, bearing the dead bodies\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe court of TITUS' house\n\nEnter Lucius, MARCUS, and the GOTHS, with AARON prisoner,\nand his CHILD in the arms of an attendant\n\n  LUCIUS. Uncle Marcus, since 'tis my father's mind\n    That I repair to Rome, I am content.\n    FIRST GOTH. And ours with thine, befall what fortune will.\n  LUCIUS. Good uncle, take you in this barbarous Moor,\n    This ravenous tiger, this accursed devil;\n    Let him receive no sust'nance, fetter him,\n    Till he be brought unto the Empress' face\n    For testimony of her foul proceedings.\n    And see the ambush of our friends be strong;\n    I fear the Emperor means no good to us.\n  AARON. Some devil whisper curses in my ear,\n    And prompt me that my tongue may utter forth\n    The venomous malice of my swelling heart!\n  LUCIUS. Away, inhuman dog, unhallowed slave!\n    Sirs, help our uncle to convey him in.\n                        Exeunt GOTHS with AARON. Flourish within\n    The trumpets show the Emperor is at hand.\n\n            Sound trumpets. Enter SATURNINUS and\n    TAMORA, with AEMILIUS, TRIBUNES, SENATORS, and others\n\n  SATURNINUS. What, hath the firmament more suns than one?\n  LUCIUS. What boots it thee to can thyself a sun?\n  MARCUS. Rome's Emperor, and nephew, break the parle;\n    These quarrels must be quietly debated.\n    The feast is ready which the careful Titus\n    Hath ordain'd to an honourable end,\n    For peace, for love, for league, and good to Rome.\n    Please you, therefore, draw nigh and take your places.\n  SATURNINUS. Marcus, we will.\n                      [A table brought in. The company sit down]\n\n               Trumpets sounding, enter TITUS\n         like a cook, placing the dishes, and LAVINIA\n   with a veil over her face; also YOUNG LUCIUS, and others\n\n  TITUS. Welcome, my lord; welcome, dread Queen;\n    Welcome, ye warlike Goths; welcome, Lucius;\n    And welcome all. Although the cheer be poor,\n    'Twill fill your stomachs; please you eat of it.\n  SATURNINUS. Why art thou thus attir'd, Andronicus?\n  TITUS. Because I would be sure to have all well\n    To entertain your Highness and your Empress.\n  TAMORA. We are beholding to you, good Andronicus.\n  TITUS. An if your Highness knew my heart, you were.\n    My lord the Emperor, resolve me this:\n    Was it well done of rash Virginius\n    To slay his daughter with his own right hand,\n    Because she was enforc'd, stain'd, and deflower'd?\n  SATURNINUS. It was, Andronicus.\n  TITUS. Your reason, mighty lord.\n  SATURNINUS. Because the girl should not survive her shame,\n    And by her presence still renew his sorrows.\n  TITUS. A reason mighty, strong, and effectual;\n    A pattern, precedent, and lively warrant\n    For me, most wretched, to perform the like.\n    Die, die, Lavinia, and thy shame with thee;   [He kills her]\n    And with thy shame thy father's sorrow die!\n  SATURNINUS. What hast thou done, unnatural and unkind?\n  TITUS. Kill'd her for whom my tears have made me blind.\n    I am as woeful as Virginius was,\n    And have a thousand times more cause than he\n    To do this outrage; and it now is done.\n  SATURNINUS. What, was she ravish'd? Tell who did the deed.\n  TITUS. Will't please you eat?  Will't please your Highness\nfeed?\n  TAMORA. Why hast thou slain thine only daughter thus?\n  TITUS. Not I; 'twas Chiron and Demetrius.\n    They ravish'd her, and cut away her tongue;\n    And they, 'twas they, that did her all this wrong.\n  SATURNINUS. Go, fetch them hither to us presently.\n  TITUS. Why, there they are, both baked in this pie,\n    Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,\n    Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.\n    'Tis true, 'tis true: witness my knife's sharp point.\n                                          [He stabs the EMPRESS]\n  SATURNINUS. Die, frantic wretch, for this accursed deed!\n                                                [He stabs TITUS]\n  LUCIUS. Can the son's eye behold his father bleed?\n    There's meed for meed, death for a deadly deed.\n                   [He stabs SATURNINUS. A great tumult. LUCIUS,\n               MARCUS, and their friends go up into the balcony]\n  MARCUS. You sad-fac'd men, people and sons of Rome,\n    By uproars sever'd, as a flight of fowl\n    Scatter'd by winds and high tempestuous gusts?\n    O, let me teach you how to knit again\n    This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf,\n    These broken limbs again into one body;\n    Lest Rome herself be bane unto herself,\n    And she whom mighty kingdoms curtsy to,\n    Like a forlorn and desperate castaway,\n    Do shameful execution on herself.\n    But if my frosty signs and chaps of age,\n    Grave witnesses of true experience,\n    Cannot induce you to attend my words,\n    [To Lucius]  Speak, Rome's dear friend, as erst our ancestor,\n\n    When with his solemn tongue he did discourse\n    To love-sick Dido's sad attending ear\n    The story of that baleful burning night,\n    When subtle Greeks surpris'd King Priam's Troy.\n    Tell us what Sinon hath bewitch'd our ears,\n    Or who hath brought the fatal engine in\n    That gives our Troy, our Rome, the civil wound.\n    My heart is not compact of flint nor steel;\n    Nor can I utter all our bitter grief,\n    But floods of tears will drown my oratory\n    And break my utt'rance, even in the time\n    When it should move ye to attend me most,\n    And force you to commiseration.\n    Here's Rome's young Captain, let him tell the tale;\n    While I stand by and weep to hear him speak.\n  LUCIUS. Then, gracious auditory, be it known to you\n    That Chiron and the damn'd Demetrius\n    Were they that murd'red our Emperor's brother;\n    And they it were that ravished our sister.\n    For their fell faults our brothers were beheaded,\n    Our father's tears despis'd, and basely cozen'd\n    Of that true hand that fought Rome's quarrel out\n    And sent her enemies unto the grave.\n    Lastly, myself unkindly banished,\n    The gates shut on me, and turn'd weeping out,\n    To beg relief among Rome's enemies;\n    Who drown'd their enmity in my true tears,\n    And op'd their arms to embrace me as a friend.\n    I am the turned forth, be it known to you,\n    That have preserv'd her welfare in my blood\n    And from her bosom took the enemy's point,\n    Sheathing the steel in my advent'rous body.\n    Alas! you know I am no vaunter, I;\n    My scars can witness, dumb although they are,\n    That my report is just and full of truth.\n    But, soft! methinks I do digress too much,\n    Citing my worthless praise. O, pardon me!\n    For when no friends are by, men praise themselves.\n  MARCUS. Now is my turn to speak. Behold the child.\n                  [Pointing to the CHILD in an attendant's arms]\n    Of this was Tamora delivered,\n    The issue of an irreligious Moor,\n    Chief architect and plotter of these woes.\n    The villain is alive in Titus' house,\n    Damn'd as he is, to witness this is true.\n    Now judge what cause had Titus to revenge\n    These wrongs unspeakable, past patience,\n    Or more than any living man could bear.\n    Now have you heard the truth: what say you, Romans?\n    Have we done aught amiss, show us wherein,\n    And, from the place where you behold us pleading,\n    The poor remainder of Andronici\n    Will, hand in hand, all headlong hurl ourselves,\n    And on the ragged stones beat forth our souls,\n    And make a mutual closure of our house.\n    Speak, Romans, speak; and if you say we shall,\n    Lo, hand in hand, Lucius and I will fall.\n  AEMILIUS. Come, come, thou reverend man of Rome,\n    And bring our Emperor gently in thy hand,\n    Lucius our Emperor; for well I know\n    The common voice do cry it shall be so.\n  ALL. Lucius, all hail, Rome's royal Emperor!\n  MARCUS. Go, go into old Titus' sorrowful house,\n    And hither hale that misbelieving Moor\n    To be adjudg'd some direful slaught'ring death,\n    As punishment for his most wicked life.          Exeunt some\n              attendants. LUCIUS, MARCUS, and the others descend\n  ALL. Lucius, all hail, Rome's gracious governor!\n  LUCIUS. Thanks, gentle Romans! May I govern so\n    To heal Rome's harms and wipe away her woe!\n    But, gentle people, give me aim awhile,\n    For nature puts me to a heavy task.\n    Stand all aloof; but, uncle, draw you near\n    To shed obsequious tears upon this trunk.\n    O, take this warm kiss on thy pale cold lips.  [Kisses TITUS]\n    These sorrowful drops upon thy blood-stain'd face,\n    The last true duties of thy noble son!\n  MARCUS. Tear for tear and loving kiss for kiss\n    Thy brother Marcus tenders on thy lips.\n    O, were the sum of these that I should pay\n    Countless and infinite, yet would I pay them!\n  LUCIUS. Come hither, boy; come, come, come, and learn of us\n    To melt in showers. Thy grandsire lov'd thee well;\n    Many a time he danc'd thee on his knee,\n    Sung thee asleep, his loving breast thy pillow;\n    Many a story hath he told to thee,\n    And bid thee bear his pretty tales in mind\n    And talk of them when he was dead and gone.\n  MARCUS. How many thousand times hath these poor lips,\n    When they were living, warm'd themselves on thine!\n    O, now, sweet boy, give them their latest kiss!\n    Bid him farewell; commit him to the grave;\n    Do them that kindness, and take leave of them.\n  BOY. O grandsire, grandsire! ev'n with all my heart\n    Would I were dead, so you did live again!\n    O Lord, I cannot speak to him for weeping;\n    My tears will choke me, if I ope my mouth.\n\n            Re-enter attendants with AARON\n\n  A ROMAN. You sad Andronici, have done with woes;\n    Give sentence on the execrable wretch\n    That hath been breeder of these dire events.\n  LUCIUS. Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him;\n    There let him stand and rave and cry for food.\n    If any one relieves or pities him,\n    For the offence he dies. This is our doom.\n    Some stay to see him fast'ned in the earth.\n  AARON. Ah, why should wrath be mute and fury dumb?\n    I am no baby, I, that with base prayers\n    I should repent the evils I have done;\n    Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did\n    Would I perform, if I might have my will.\n    If one good deed in all my life I did,\n    I do repent it from my very soul.\n  LUCIUS. Some loving friends convey the Emperor hence,\n    And give him burial in his father's grave.\n    My father and Lavinia shall forthwith\n    Be closed in our household's monument.\n    As for that ravenous tiger, Tamora,\n    No funeral rite, nor man in mourning weed,\n    No mournful bell shall ring her burial;\n    But throw her forth to beasts and birds to prey.\n    Her life was beastly and devoid of pity,\n    And being dead, let birds on her take pity.           Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nThe Tragedy of Titus Andronicus"}
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{"1107":"\n\n\n\n\n1594\n\nTHE TAMING OF THE SHREW\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n    Persons in the Induction\n  A LORD\n  CHRISTOPHER SLY, a tinker\n  HOSTESS\n  PAGE\n  PLAYERS\n  HUNTSMEN\n  SERVANTS\n\n  BAPTISTA MINOLA, a gentleman of Padua\n  VINCENTIO, a Merchant of Pisa\n  LUCENTIO, son to Vincentio, in love with Bianca\n  PETRUCHIO, a gentleman of Verona, a suitor to Katherina\n\n    Suitors to Bianca\n  GREMIO\n  HORTENSIO\n\n    Servants to Lucentio\n  TRANIO\n  BIONDELLO\n\n    Servants to Petruchio\n  GRUMIO\n  CURTIS\n\n  A PEDANT\n\n    Daughters to Baptista\n  KATHERINA, the shrew\n  BIANCA\n\n  A WIDOW\n\n  Tailor, Haberdasher, and Servants attending on Baptista and\n    Petruchio\n\n                             SCENE:\n            Padua, and PETRUCHIO'S house in the country\n\nSC_1\n                      INDUCTION. SCENE I.\n                  Before an alehouse on a heath\n\n                      Enter HOSTESS and SLY\n\n  SLY. I'll pheeze you, in faith.\n  HOSTESS. A pair of stocks, you rogue!\n  SLY. Y'are a baggage; the Slys are no rogues. Look in the\n    chronicles: we came in with Richard Conqueror. Therefore,\npaucas\n    pallabris; let the world slide. Sessa!\n  HOSTESS. You will not pay for the glasses you have burst?\n  SLY. No, not a denier. Go by, Saint Jeronimy, go to thy cold\nbed\n    and warm thee.\n  HOSTESS. I know my remedy; I must go fetch the third-borough.\n Exit\n  SLY. Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, I'll answer him by\nlaw.\n    I'll not budge an inch, boy; let him come, and kindly.\n                                                  [Falls asleep]\n\n       Wind horns. Enter a LORD from hunting, with his train\n\n  LORD. Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds;\n    Brach Merriman, the poor cur, is emboss'd;\n    And couple Clowder with the deep-mouth'd brach.\n    Saw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good\n    At the hedge corner, in the coldest fault?\n    I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.\n  FIRST HUNTSMAN. Why, Belman is as good as he, my lord;\n    He cried upon it at the merest loss,\n    And twice to-day pick'd out the dullest scent;\n    Trust me, I take him for the better dog.\n  LORD. Thou art a fool; if Echo were as fleet,\n    I would esteem him worth a dozen such.\n    But sup them well, and look unto them all;\n    To-morrow I intend to hunt again.\n  FIRST HUNTSMAN. I will, my lord.\n  LORD. What's here? One dead, or drunk?\n    See, doth he breathe?\n  SECOND HUNTSMAN. He breathes, my lord. Were he not warm'd with\nale,\n    This were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly.\n  LORD. O monstrous beast, how like a swine he lies!\n    Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!\n    Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man.\n    What think you, if he were convey'd to bed,\n    Wrapp'd in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,\n    A most delicious banquet by his bed,\n    And brave attendants near him when he wakes,\n    Would not the beggar then forget himself?\n  FIRST HUNTSMAN. Believe me, lord, I think he cannot choose.\n  SECOND HUNTSMAN. It would seem strange unto him when he wak'd.\n  LORD. Even as a flatt'ring dream or worthless fancy.\n    Then take him up, and manage well the jest:\n    Carry him gently to my fairest chamber,\n    And hang it round with all my wanton pictures;\n    Balm his foul head in warm distilled waters,\n    And burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet;\n    Procure me music ready when he wakes,\n    To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound;\n    And if he chance to speak, be ready straight,\n    And with a low submissive reverence\n    Say 'What is it your honour will command?'\n    Let one attend him with a silver basin\n    Full of rose-water and bestrew'd with flowers;\n    Another bear the ewer, the third a diaper,\n    And say 'Will't please your lordship cool your hands?'\n    Some one be ready with a costly suit,\n    And ask him what apparel he will wear;\n    Another tell him of his hounds and horse,\n    And that his lady mourns at his disease;\n    Persuade him that he hath been lunatic,\n    And, when he says he is, say that he dreams,\n    For he is nothing but a mighty lord.\n    This do, and do it kindly, gentle sirs;\n    It will be pastime passing excellent,\n    If it be husbanded with modesty.\n  FIRST HUNTSMAN. My lord, I warrant you we will play our part\n    As he shall think by our true diligence\n    He is no less than what we say he is.\n  LORD. Take him up gently, and to bed with him;\n    And each one to his office when he wakes.\n                          [SLY is carried out. A trumpet sounds]\n    Sirrah, go see what trumpet 'tis that sounds-\n                                                    Exit SERVANT\n    Belike some noble gentleman that means,\n    Travelling some journey, to repose him here.\n\n                         Re-enter a SERVINGMAN\n\n    How now! who is it?\n  SERVANT. An't please your honour, players\n    That offer service to your lordship.\n  LORD. Bid them come near.\n\n                             Enter PLAYERS\n\n    Now, fellows, you are welcome.\n  PLAYERS. We thank your honour.\n  LORD. Do you intend to stay with me to-night?\n  PLAYER. So please your lordship to accept our duty.\n  LORD. With all my heart. This fellow I remember\n    Since once he play'd a farmer's eldest son;\n    'Twas where you woo'd the gentlewoman so well.\n    I have forgot your name; but, sure, that part\n    Was aptly fitted and naturally perform'd.\n  PLAYER. I think 'twas Soto that your honour means.\n  LORD. 'Tis very true; thou didst it excellent.\n    Well, you are come to me in happy time,\n    The rather for I have some sport in hand\n    Wherein your cunning can assist me much.\n    There is a lord will hear you play to-night;\n    But I am doubtful of your modesties,\n    Lest, over-eying of his odd behaviour,\n    For yet his honour never heard a play,\n    You break into some merry passion\n    And so offend him; for I tell you, sirs,\n    If you should smile, he grows impatient.\n  PLAYER. Fear not, my lord; we can contain ourselves,\n    Were he the veriest antic in the world.\n  LORD. Go, sirrah, take them to the buttery,\n    And give them friendly welcome every one;\n    Let them want nothing that my house affords.\n                                       Exit one with the PLAYERS\n    Sirrah, go you to Bartholomew my page,\n    And see him dress'd in all suits like a lady;\n    That done, conduct him to the drunkard's chamber,\n    And call him 'madam,' do him obeisance.\n    Tell him from me- as he will win my love-\n    He bear himself with honourable action,\n    Such as he hath observ'd in noble ladies\n    Unto their lords, by them accomplished;\n    Such duty to the drunkard let him do,\n    With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,\n    And say 'What is't your honour will command,\n    Wherein your lady and your humble wife\n    May show her duty and make known her love?'\n    And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,\n    And with declining head into his bosom,\n    Bid him shed tears, as being overjoyed\n    To see her noble lord restor'd to health,\n    Who for this seven years hath esteemed him\n    No better than a poor and loathsome beggar.\n    And if the boy have not a woman's gift\n    To rain a shower of commanded tears,\n    An onion will do well for such a shift,\n    Which, in a napkin being close convey'd,\n    Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.\n    See this dispatch'd with all the haste thou canst;\n    Anon I'll give thee more instructions.     Exit a SERVINGMAN\n    I know the boy will well usurp the grace,\n    Voice, gait, and action, of a gentlewoman;\n    I long to hear him call the drunkard 'husband';\n    And how my men will stay themselves from laughter\n    When they do homage to this simple peasant.\n    I'll in to counsel them; haply my presence\n    May well abate the over-merry spleen,\n    Which otherwise would grow into extremes.             Exeunt\n\nSC_2\n                            SCENE II.\n               A bedchamber in the LORD'S house\n\n    Enter aloft SLY, with ATTENDANTS; some with apparel, basin\n             and ewer, and other appurtenances; and LORD\n\n  SLY. For God's sake, a pot of small ale.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Will't please your lordship drink a cup of sack?\n  SECOND SERVANT. Will't please your honour taste of these\nconserves?\n  THIRD SERVANT. What raiment will your honour wear to-day?\n  SLY. I am Christophero Sly; call not me 'honour' nor\n'lordship.' I\n    ne'er drank sack in my life; and if you give me any\nconserves,\n    give me conserves of beef. Ne'er ask me what raiment I'll\nwear,\n    for I have no more doublets than backs, no more stockings\nthan\n    legs, nor no more shoes than feet- nay, sometime more feet\nthan\n    shoes, or such shoes as my toes look through the overleather.\n  LORD. Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour!\n    O, that a mighty man of such descent,\n    Of such possessions, and so high esteem,\n    Should be infused with so foul a spirit!\n  SLY. What, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher Sly, old\n    Sly's son of Burton Heath; by birth a pedlar, by education a\n    cardmaker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present\n    profession a tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of\n    Wincot, if she know me not; if she say I am not fourteen\npence on\n    the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lying'st knave\nin\n    Christendom. What! I am not bestraught.  [Taking a pot of\nale]\n    Here's-\n  THIRD SERVANT. O, this it is that makes your lady mourn!\n  SECOND SERVANT. O, this is it that makes your servants droop!\n  LORD. Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,\n    As beaten hence by your strange lunacy.\n    O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth!\n    Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment,\n    And banish hence these abject lowly dreams.\n    Look how thy servants do attend on thee,\n    Each in his office ready at thy beck.\n    Wilt thou have music? Hark! Apollo plays,            [Music]\n    And twenty caged nightingales do sing.\n    Or wilt thou sleep? We'll have thee to a couch\n    Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed\n    On purpose trimm'd up for Semiramis.\n    Say thou wilt walk: we will bestrew the ground.\n    Or wilt thou ride? Thy horses shall be trapp'd,\n    Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.\n    Dost thou love hawking? Thou hast hawks will soar\n    Above the morning lark. Or wilt thou hunt?\n    Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them\n    And fetch shall echoes from the hollow earth.\n  FIRST SERVANT. Say thou wilt course; thy greyhounds are as\nswift\n    As breathed stags; ay, fleeter than the roe.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Dost thou love pictures? We will fetch thee\n      straight\n    Adonis painted by a running brook,\n    And Cytherea all in sedges hid,\n    Which seem to move and wanton with her breath\n    Even as the waving sedges play wi' th' wind.\n  LORD. We'll show thee lo as she was a maid\n    And how she was beguiled and surpris'd,\n    As lively painted as the deed was done.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,\n    Scratching her legs, that one shall swear she bleeds\n    And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,\n    So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.\n  LORD. Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord.\n    Thou hast a lady far more beautiful\n    Than any woman in this waning age.\n  FIRST SERVANT. And, till the tears that she hath shed for thee\n    Like envious floods o'er-run her lovely face,\n    She was the fairest creature in the world;\n    And yet she is inferior to none.\n  SLY. Am I a lord and have I such a lady?\n    Or do I dream? Or have I dream'd till now?\n    I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak;\n    I smell sweet savours, and I feel soft things.\n    Upon my life, I am a lord indeed,\n    And not a tinker, nor Christopher Sly.\n    Well, bring our lady hither to our sight;\n    And once again, a pot o' th' smallest ale.\n  SECOND SERVANT. Will't please your Mightiness to wash your\nhands?\n    O, how we joy to see your wit restor'd!\n    O, that once more you knew but what you are!\n    These fifteen years you have been in a dream;\n    Or, when you wak'd, so wak'd as if you slept.\n  SLY. These fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly nap.\n    But did I never speak of all that time?\n  FIRST SERVANT. O, yes, my lord, but very idle words;\n    For though you lay here in this goodly chamber,\n    Yet would you say ye were beaten out of door;\n    And rail upon the hostess of the house,\n    And say you would present her at the leet,\n    Because she brought stone jugs and no seal'd quarts.\n    Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.\n  SLY. Ay, the woman's maid of the house.\n  THIRD SERVANT. Why, sir, you know no house nor no such maid,\n    Nor no such men as you have reckon'd up,\n    As Stephen Sly, and old John Naps of Greece,\n    And Peter Turph, and Henry Pimpernell;\n    And twenty more such names and men as these,\n    Which never were, nor no man ever saw.\n  SLY. Now, Lord be thanked for my good amends!\n  ALL. Amen.\n\n           Enter the PAGE as a lady, with ATTENDANTS\n\n  SLY. I thank thee; thou shalt not lose by it.\n  PAGE. How fares my noble lord?\n  SLY. Marry, I fare well; for here is cheer enough.\n    Where is my wife?\n  PAGE. Here, noble lord; what is thy will with her?\n  SLY. Are you my wife, and will not call me husband?\n    My men should call me 'lord'; I am your goodman.\n  PAGE. My husband and my lord, my lord and husband;\n    I am your wife in all obedience.\n  SLY. I know it well. What must I call her?\n  LORD. Madam.\n  SLY. Al'ce madam, or Joan madam?\n  LORD. Madam, and nothing else; so lords call ladies.\n  SLY. Madam wife, they say that I have dream'd\n    And slept above some fifteen year or more.\n  PAGE. Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,\n    Being all this time abandon'd from your bed.\n  SLY. 'Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.\n                                                 Exeunt SERVANTS\n    Madam, undress you, and come now to bed.\n  PAGE. Thrice noble lord, let me entreat of you\n    To pardon me yet for a night or two;\n    Or, if not so, until the sun be set.\n    For your physicians have expressly charg'd,\n    In peril to incur your former malady,\n    That I should yet absent me from your bed.\n    I hope this reason stands for my excuse.\n  SLY. Ay, it stands so that I may hardly tarry so long. But I\nwould\n    be loath to fall into my dreams again. I will therefore tarry\nin\n    despite of the flesh and the blood.\n\n                       Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Your honour's players, hearing your amendment,\n    Are come to play a pleasant comedy;\n    For so your doctors hold it very meet,\n    Seeing too much sadness hath congeal'd your blood,\n    And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy.\n    Therefore they thought it good you hear a play\n    And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,\n    Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.\n  SLY. Marry, I will; let them play it. Is not a comonty a\n    Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick?\n  PAGE. No, my good lord, it is more pleasing stuff.\n  SLY. What, household stuff?\n  PAGE. It is a kind of history.\n  SLY. Well, we'll see't. Come, madam wife, sit by my side and\nlet\n    the world slip;-we shall ne'er be younger.\n                                                 [They sit down]\n\n          A flourish of trumpets announces the play\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nPadua. A public place\n\nEnter LUCENTIO and his man TRANIO\n\n  LUCENTIO. Tranio, since for the great desire I had\n    To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,\n    I am arriv'd for fruitful Lombardy,\n    The pleasant garden of great Italy,\n    And by my father's love and leave am arm'd\n    With his good will and thy good company,\n    My trusty servant well approv'd in all,\n    Here let us breathe, and haply institute\n    A course of learning and ingenious studies.\n    Pisa, renowned for grave citizens,\n    Gave me my being and my father first,\n    A merchant of great traffic through the world,\n    Vincentio, come of the Bentivolii;\n    Vincentio's son, brought up in Florence,\n    It shall become to serve all hopes conceiv'd,\n    To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds.\n    And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,\n    Virtue and that part of philosophy\n    Will I apply that treats of happiness\n    By virtue specially to be achiev'd.\n    Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left\n    And am to Padua come as he that leaves\n    A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep,\n    And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.\n  TRANIO. Mi perdonato, gentle master mine;\n    I am in all affected as yourself;\n    Glad that you thus continue your resolve\n    To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.\n    Only, good master, while we do admire\n    This virtue and this moral discipline,\n    Let's be no Stoics nor no stocks, I pray,\n    Or so devote to Aristotle's checks\n    As Ovid be an outcast quite abjur'd.\n    Balk logic with acquaintance that you have,\n    And practise rhetoric in your common talk;\n    Music and poesy use to quicken you;\n    The mathematics and the metaphysics,\n    Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you.\n    No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en;\n    In brief, sir, study what you most affect.\n  LUCENTIO. Gramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise.\n    If, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,\n    We could at once put us in readiness,\n    And take a lodging fit to entertain\n    Such friends as time in Padua shall beget.\n\n      Enter BAPTISTA with his two daughters, KATHERINA\n        and BIANCA; GREMIO, a pantaloon; HORTENSIO,\n        suitor to BIANCA. LUCENTIO and TRANIO stand by\n\n    But stay awhile; what company is this?\n  TRANIO. Master, some show to welcome us to town.\n  BAPTISTA. Gentlemen, importune me no farther,\n    For how I firmly am resolv'd you know;\n    That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter\n    Before I have a husband for the elder.\n    If either of you both love Katherina,\n    Because I know you well and love you well,\n    Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.\n  GREMIO. To cart her rather. She's too rough for me.\n    There, there, Hortensio, will you any wife?\n  KATHERINA.  [To BAPTISTA]  I pray you, sir, is it your will\n    To make a stale of me amongst these mates?\n  HORTENSIO. Mates, maid! How mean you that? No mates for you,\n    Unless you were of gentler, milder mould.\n  KATHERINA. I' faith, sir, you shall never need to fear;\n    Iwis it is not halfway to her heart;\n    But if it were, doubt not her care should be\n    To comb your noddle with a three-legg'd stool,\n    And paint your face, and use you like a fool.\n  HORTENSIO. From all such devils, good Lord deliver us!\n  GREMIO. And me, too, good Lord!\n  TRANIO. Husht, master! Here's some good pastime toward;\n    That wench is stark mad or wonderful froward.\n  LUCENTIO. But in the other's silence do I see\n    Maid's mild behaviour and sobriety.\n    Peace, Tranio!\n  TRANIO. Well said, master; mum! and gaze your fill.\n  BAPTISTA. Gentlemen, that I may soon make good\n    What I have said- Bianca, get you in;\n    And let it not displease thee, good Bianca,\n    For I will love thee ne'er the less, my girl.\n  KATHERINA. A pretty peat! it is best\n    Put finger in the eye, an she knew why.\n  BIANCA. Sister, content you in my discontent.\n    Sir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe;\n    My books and instruments shall be my company,\n    On them to look, and practise by myself.\n  LUCENTIO. Hark, Tranio, thou mayst hear Minerva speak!\n  HORTENSIO. Signior Baptista, will you be so strange?\n    Sorry am I that our good will effects\n    Bianca's grief.\n  GREMIO. Why will you mew her up,\n    Signior Baptista, for this fiend of hell,\n    And make her bear the penance of her tongue?\n  BAPTISTA. Gentlemen, content ye; I am resolv'd.\n    Go in, Bianca.                                   Exit BIANCA\n    And for I know she taketh most delight\n    In music, instruments, and poetry,\n    Schoolmasters will I keep within my house\n    Fit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio,\n    Or, Signior Gremio, you, know any such,\n    Prefer them hither; for to cunning men\n    I will be very kind, and liberal\n    To mine own children in good bringing-up;\n    And so, farewell. Katherina, you may stay;\n    For I have more to commune with Bianca.                 Exit\n  KATHERINA. Why, and I trust I may go too, may I not?\n    What! shall I be appointed hours, as though, belike,\n    I knew not what to take and what to leave? Ha!          Exit\n  GREMIO. You may go to the devil's dam; your gifts are so good\n    here's none will hold you. There! Love is not so great,\n    Hortensio, but we may blow our nails together, and fast it\nfairly\n    out; our cake's dough on both sides. Farewell; yet, for the\nlove\n    I bear my sweet Bianca, if I can by any means light on a fit\nman\n    to teach her that wherein she delights, I will wish him to\nher\n    father.\n  HORTENSIO. SO Will I, Signior Gremio; but a word, I pray.\nThough\n    the nature of our quarrel yet never brook'd parle, know now,\nupon\n    advice, it toucheth us both- that we may yet again have\naccess to\n    our fair mistress, and be happy rivals in Bianca's love- to\n    labour and effect one thing specially.\n  GREMIO. What's that, I pray?\n  HORTENSIO. Marry, sir, to get a husband for her sister.\n  GREMIO. A husband? a devil.\n  HORTENSIO. I say a husband.\n  GREMIO. I say a devil. Think'st thou, Hortensio, though her\nfather\n    be very rich, any man is so very a fool to be married to\nhell?\n  HORTENSIO. Tush, Gremio! Though it pass your patience and mine\nto\n    endure her loud alarums, why, man, there be good fellows in\nthe\n    world, an a man could light on them, would take her with all\n    faults, and money enough.\n  GREMIO. I cannot tell; but I had as lief take her dowry with\nthis\n    condition: to be whipp'd at the high cross every morning.\n  HORTENSIO. Faith, as you say, there's small choice in rotten\n    apples. But, come; since this bar in law makes us friends, it\n    shall be so far forth friendly maintain'd till by helping\n    Baptista's eldest daughter to a husband we set his youngest\nfree\n    for a husband, and then have to't afresh. Sweet Bianca! Happy\nman\n    be his dole! He that runs fastest gets the ring. How say you,\n    Signior Gremio?\n  GREMIO. I am agreed; and would I had given him the best horse\nin\n    Padua to begin his wooing that would thoroughly woo her, wed\nher,\n    and bed her, and rid the house of her! Come on.\n                                     Exeunt GREMIO and HORTENSIO\n  TRANIO. I pray, sir, tell me, is it possible\n    That love should of a sudden take such hold?\n  LUCENTIO. O Tranio, till I found it to be true,\n    I never thought it possible or likely.\n    But see! while idly I stood looking on,\n    I found the effect of love in idleness;\n    And now in plainness do confess to thee,\n    That art to me as secret and as dear\n    As Anna to the Queen of Carthage was-\n    Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio,\n    If I achieve not this young modest girl.\n    Counsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst;\n    Assist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt.\n  TRANIO. Master, it is no time to chide you now;\n    Affection is not rated from the heart;\n    If love have touch'd you, nought remains but so:\n    'Redime te captum quam queas minimo.'\n  LUCENTIO. Gramercies, lad. Go forward; this contents;\n    The rest will comfort, for thy counsel's sound.\n  TRANIO. Master, you look'd so longly on the maid.\n    Perhaps you mark'd not what's the pith of all.\n  LUCENTIO. O, yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face,\n    Such as the daughter of Agenor had,\n    That made great Jove to humble him to her hand,\n    When with his knees he kiss'd the Cretan strand.\n  TRANIO. Saw you no more? Mark'd you not how her sister\n    Began to scold and raise up such a storm\n    That mortal ears might hardly endure the din?\n  LUCENTIO. Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move,\n    And with her breath she did perfume the air;\n    Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her.\n  TRANIO. Nay, then 'tis time to stir him from his trance.\n    I pray, awake, sir. If you love the maid,\n    Bend thoughts and wits to achieve her. Thus it stands:\n    Her elder sister is so curst and shrewd\n    That, till the father rid his hands of her,\n    Master, your love must live a maid at home;\n    And therefore has he closely mew'd her up,\n    Because she will not be annoy'd with suitors.\n  LUCENTIO. Ah, Tranio, what a cruel father's he!\n    But art thou not advis'd he took some care\n    To get her cunning schoolmasters to instruct her?\n  TRANIO. Ay, marry, am I, sir, and now 'tis plotted.\n  LUCENTIO. I have it, Tranio.\n  TRANIO. Master, for my hand,\n    Both our inventions meet and jump in one.\n  LUCENTIO. Tell me thine first.\n  TRANIO. You will be schoolmaster,\n    And undertake the teaching of the maid-\n    That's your device.\n  LUCENTIO. It is. May it be done?\n  TRANIO. Not possible; for who shall bear your part\n    And be in Padua here Vincentio's son;\n    Keep house and ply his book, welcome his friends,\n    Visit his countrymen, and banquet them?\n  LUCENTIO. Basta, content thee, for I have it full.\n    We have not yet been seen in any house,\n    Nor can we be distinguish'd by our faces\n    For man or master. Then it follows thus:\n    Thou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead,\n    Keep house and port and servants, as I should;\n    I will some other be- some Florentine,\n    Some Neapolitan, or meaner man of Pisa.\n    'Tis hatch'd, and shall be so. Tranio, at once\n    Uncase thee; take my colour'd hat and cloak.\n    When Biondello comes, he waits on thee;\n    But I will charm him first to keep his tongue.\n  TRANIO. So had you need.                [They exchange habits]\n    In brief, sir, sith it your pleasure is,\n    And I am tied to be obedient-\n    For so your father charg'd me at our parting:\n    'Be serviceable to my son' quoth he,\n    Although I think 'twas in another sense-\n    I am content to be Lucentio,\n    Because so well I love Lucentio.\n  LUCENTIO. Tranio, be so because Lucentio loves;\n    And let me be a slave t' achieve that maid\n    Whose sudden sight hath thrall'd my wounded eye.\n\n                       Enter BIONDELLO.\n\n    Here comes the rogue. Sirrah, where have you been?\n  BIONDELLO. Where have I been! Nay, how now! where are you?\n    Master, has my fellow Tranio stol'n your clothes?\n    Or you stol'n his? or both? Pray, what's the news?\n  LUCENTIO. Sirrah, come hither; 'tis no time to jest,\n    And therefore frame your manners to the time.\n    Your fellow Tranio here, to save my life,\n    Puts my apparel and my count'nance on,\n    And I for my escape have put on his;\n    For in a quarrel since I came ashore\n    I kill'd a man, and fear I was descried.\n    Wait you on him, I charge you, as becomes,\n    While I make way from hence to save my life.\n    You understand me?\n  BIONDELLO. I, sir? Ne'er a whit.\n  LUCENTIO. And not a jot of Tranio in your mouth:\n    Tranio is chang'd into Lucentio.\n  BIONDELLO. The better for him; would I were so too!\n  TRANIO. So could I, faith, boy, to have the next wish after,\n    That Lucentio indeed had Baptista's youngest daughter.\n    But, sirrah, not for my sake but your master's, I advise\n    You use your manners discreetly in all kind of companies.\n    When I am alone, why, then I am Tranio;\n    But in all places else your master Lucentio.\n  LUCENTIO. Tranio, let's go.\n    One thing more rests, that thyself execute-\n    To make one among these wooers. If thou ask me why-\n    Sufficeth, my reasons are both good and weighty.      Exeunt\n\n                 The Presenters above speak\n\n  FIRST SERVANT. My lord, you nod; you do not mind the play.\n  SLY. Yes, by Saint Anne do I. A good matter, surely; comes\nthere\n    any more of it?\n  PAGE. My lord, 'tis but begun.\n  SLY. 'Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady\n    Would 'twere done!                        [They sit and mark]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nPadua. Before HORTENSIO'S house\n\nEnter PETRUCHIO and his man GRUMIO\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Verona, for a while I take my leave,\n    To see my friends in Padua; but of all\n    My best beloved and approved friend,\n    Hortensio; and I trow this is his house.\n    Here, sirrah Grumio, knock, I say.\n GRUMIO. Knock, sir! Whom should I knock?\n    Is there any man has rebus'd your worship?\n  PETRUCHIO. Villain, I say, knock me here soundly.\n  GRUMIO. Knock you here, sir? Why, sir, what am I, sir, that I\n    should knock you here, sir?\n  PETRUCHIO. Villain, I say, knock me at this gate,\n    And rap me well, or I'll knock your knave's pate.\n  GRUMIO. My master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock you\nfirst,\n    And then I know after who comes by the worst.\n  PETRUCHIO. Will it not be?\n    Faith, sirrah, an you'll not knock I'll ring it;\n    I'll try how you can sol-fa, and sing it.\n                                     [He wrings him by the ears]\n  GRUMIO. Help, masters, help! My master is mad.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now knock when I bid you, sirrah villain!\n\n                        Enter HORTENSIO\n\n  HORTENSIO. How now! what's the matter? My old friend Grumio and\nmy\n    good friend Petruchio! How do you all at Verona?\n  PETRUCHIO. Signior Hortensio, come you to part the fray?\n    'Con tutto il cuore ben trovato' may I say.\n  HORTENSIO. Alla nostra casa ben venuto,\n    Molto honorato signor mio Petruchio.\n    Rise, Grumio, rise; we will compound this quarrel.\n  GRUMIO. Nay, 'tis no matter, sir, what he 'leges in Latin. If\nthis\n    be not a lawful cause for me to leave his service- look you,\nsir:\n    he bid me knock him and rap him soundly, sir. Well, was it\nfit\n    for a servant to use his master so; being, perhaps, for aught\nI\n    see, two and thirty, a pip out?\n    Whom would to God I had well knock'd at first,\n    Then had not Grumio come by the worst.\n  PETRUCHIO. A senseless villain! Good Hortensio,\n    I bade the rascal knock upon your gate,\n    And could not get him for my heart to do it.\n  GRUMIO. Knock at the gate? O heavens! Spake you not these words\n    plain: 'Sirrah knock me here, rap me here, knock me well, and\n    knock me soundly'? And come you now with 'knocking at the\ngate'?\n  PETRUCHIO. Sirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you.\n  HORTENSIO. Petruchio, patience; I am Grumio's pledge;\n    Why, this's a heavy chance 'twixt him and you,\n    Your ancient, trusty, pleasant servant Grumio.\n    And tell me now, sweet friend, what happy gale\n    Blows you to Padua here from old Verona?\n  PETRUCHIO. Such wind as scatters young men through the world\n    To seek their fortunes farther than at home,\n    Where small experience grows. But in a few,\n    Signior Hortensio, thus it stands with me:\n    Antonio, my father, is deceas'd,\n    And I have thrust myself into this maze,\n    Haply to wive and thrive as best I may;\n    Crowns in my purse I have, and goods at home,\n    And so am come abroad to see the world.\n  HORTENSIO. Petruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee\n    And wish thee to a shrewd ill-favour'd wife?\n    Thou'dst thank me but a little for my counsel,\n    And yet I'll promise thee she shall be rich,\n    And very rich; but th'art too much my friend,\n    And I'll not wish thee to her.\n  PETRUCHIO. Signior Hortensio, 'twixt such friends as we\n    Few words suffice; and therefore, if thou know\n    One rich enough to be Petruchio's wife,\n    As wealth is burden of my wooing dance,\n    Be she as foul as was Florentius' love,\n    As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd\n    As Socrates' Xanthippe or a worse-\n    She moves me not, or not removes, at least,\n    Affection's edge in me, were she as rough\n    As are the swelling Adriatic seas.\n    I come to wive it wealthily in Padua;\n    If wealthily, then happily in Padua.\n  GRUMIO. Nay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his mind\nis.\n    Why, give him gold enough and marry him to a puppet or an\n    aglet-baby, or an old trot with ne'er a tooth in her head,\nthough\n    she has as many diseases as two and fifty horses. Why,\nnothing\n    comes amiss, so money comes withal.\n  HORTENSIO. Petruchio, since we are stepp'd thus far in,\n    I will continue that I broach'd in jest.\n    I can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife\n    With wealth enough, and young and beauteous;\n    Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman;\n    Her only fault, and that is faults enough,\n    Is- that she is intolerable curst,\n    And shrewd and froward so beyond all measure\n    That, were my state far worser than it is,\n    I would not wed her for a mine of gold.\n  PETRUCHIO. Hortensio, peace! thou know'st not gold's effect.\n    Tell me her father's name, and 'tis enough;\n    For I will board her though she chide as loud\n    As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack.\n  HORTENSIO. Her father is Baptista Minola,\n    An affable and courteous gentleman;\n    Her name is Katherina Minola,\n    Renown'd in Padua for her scolding tongue.\n  PETRUCHIO. I know her father, though I know not her;\n    And he knew my deceased father well.\n    I will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her;\n    And therefore let me be thus bold with you\n    To give you over at this first encounter,\n    Unless you will accompany me thither.\n  GRUMIO. I pray you, sir, let him go while the humour lasts. O'\nmy\n    word, and she knew him as well as I do, she would think\nscolding\n    would do little good upon him. She may perhaps call him half\na\n    score knaves or so. Why, that's nothing; and he begin once,\nhe'll\n    rail in his rope-tricks. I'll tell you what, sir: an she\nstand\n    him but a little, he will throw a figure in her face, and so\n    disfigure her with it that she shall have no more eyes to see\n    withal than a cat. You know him not, sir.\n  HORTENSIO. Tarry, Petruchio, I must go with thee,\n    For in Baptista's keep my treasure is.\n    He hath the jewel of my life in hold,\n    His youngest daughter, beautiful Bianca;\n    And her withholds from me, and other more,\n    Suitors to her and rivals in my love;\n    Supposing it a thing impossible-\n    For those defects I have before rehears'd-\n    That ever Katherina will be woo'd.\n    Therefore this order hath Baptista ta'en,\n    That none shall have access unto Bianca\n    Till Katherine the curst have got a husband.\n  GRUMIO. Katherine the curst!\n    A title for a maid of all titles the worst.\n  HORTENSIO. Now shall my friend Petruchio do me grace,\n    And offer me disguis'd in sober robes\n    To old Baptista as a schoolmaster\n    Well seen in music, to instruct Bianca;\n    That so I may by this device at least\n    Have leave and leisure to make love to her,\n    And unsuspected court her by herself.\n\n        Enter GREMIO with LUCENTIO disguised as CAMBIO\n\n  GRUMIO. Here's no knavery! See, to beguile the old folks, how\nthe\n    young folks lay their heads together! Master, master, look\nabout\n    you. Who goes there, ha?\n  HORTENSIO. Peace, Grumio! It is the rival of my love.\nPetruchio,\n    stand by awhile.\n  GRUMIO. A proper stripling, and an amorous!\n                                              [They stand aside]\n  GREMIO. O, very well; I have perus'd the note.\n    Hark you, sir; I'll have them very fairly bound-\n    All books of love, see that at any hand;\n    And see you read no other lectures to her.\n    You understand me- over and beside\n    Signior Baptista's liberality,\n    I'll mend it with a largess. Take your paper too,\n    And let me have them very well perfum'd;\n    For she is sweeter than perfume itself\n    To whom they go to. What will you read to her?\n  LUCENTIO. Whate'er I read to her, I'll plead for you\n    As for my patron, stand you so assur'd,\n    As firmly as yourself were still in place;\n    Yea, and perhaps with more successful words\n    Than you, unless you were a scholar, sir.\n  GREMIO. O this learning, what a thing it is!\n  GRUMIO. O this woodcock, what an ass it is!\n  PETRUCHIO. Peace, sirrah!\n  HORTENSIO. Grumio, mum!                       [Coming forward]\n    God save you, Signior Gremio!\n  GREMIO. And you are well met, Signior Hortensio.\n    Trow you whither I am going? To Baptista Minola.\n    I promis'd to enquire carefully\n    About a schoolmaster for the fair Bianca;\n    And by good fortune I have lighted well\n    On this young man; for learning and behaviour\n    Fit for her turn, well read in poetry\n    And other books- good ones, I warrant ye.\n  HORTENSIO. 'Tis well; and I have met a gentleman\n    Hath promis'd me to help me to another,\n    A fine musician to instruct our mistress;\n    So shall I no whit be behind in duty\n    To fair Bianca, so beloved of me.\n  GREMIO. Beloved of me- and that my deeds shall prove.\n  GRUMIO. And that his bags shall prove.\n  HORTENSIO. Gremio, 'tis now no time to vent our love.\n    Listen to me, and if you speak me fair\n    I'll tell you news indifferent good for either.\n    Here is a gentleman whom by chance I met,\n    Upon agreement from us to his liking,\n    Will undertake to woo curst Katherine;\n    Yea, and to marry her, if her dowry please.\n  GREMIO. So said, so done, is well.\n    Hortensio, have you told him all her faults?\n  PETRUCHIO. I know she is an irksome brawling scold;\n    If that be all, masters, I hear no harm.\n  GREMIO. No, say'st me so, friend? What countryman?\n  PETRUCHIO. Born in Verona, old Antonio's son.\n    My father dead, my fortune lives for me;\n    And I do hope good days and long to see.\n  GREMIO. O Sir, such a life with such a wife were strange!\n    But if you have a stomach, to't a God's name;\n    You shall have me assisting you in all.\n    But will you woo this wild-cat?\n  PETRUCHIO. Will I live?\n  GRUMIO. Will he woo her? Ay, or I'll hang her.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why came I hither but to that intent?\n    Think you a little din can daunt mine ears?\n    Have I not in my time heard lions roar?\n    Have I not heard the sea, puff'd up with winds,\n    Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?\n    Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,\n    And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?\n    Have I not in a pitched battle heard\n    Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang?\n    And do you tell me of a woman's tongue,\n    That gives not half so great a blow to hear\n    As will a chestnut in a fariner's fire?\n    Tush! tush! fear boys with bugs.\n  GRUMIO. For he fears none.\n  GREMIO. Hortensio, hark:\n    This gentleman is happily arriv'd,\n    My mind presumes, for his own good and ours.\n  HORTENSIO. I promis'd we would be contributors\n    And bear his charge of wooing, whatsoe'er.\n  GREMIO. And so we will- provided that he win her.\n  GRUMIO. I would I were as sure of a good dinner.\n\n    Enter TRANIO, bravely apparelled as LUCENTIO, and BIONDELLO\n\n  TRANIO. Gentlemen, God save you! If I may be bold,\n    Tell me, I beseech you, which is the readiest way\n    To the house of Signior Baptista Minola?\n  BIONDELLO. He that has the two fair daughters; is't he you\nmean?\n  TRANIO. Even he, Biondello.\n  GREMIO. Hark you, sir, you mean not her to-\n  TRANIO. Perhaps him and her, sir; what have you to do?\n  PETRUCHIO. Not her that chides, sir, at any hand, I pray.\n  TRANIO. I love no chiders, sir. Biondello, let's away.\n  LUCENTIO.  [Aside]  Well begun, Tranio.\n  HORTENSIO. Sir, a word ere you go.\n    Are you a suitor to the maid you talk of, yea or no?\n  TRANIO. And if I be, sir, is it any offence?\n  GREMIO. No; if without more words you will get you hence.\n  TRANIO. Why, sir, I pray, are not the streets as free\n    For me as for you?\n  GREMIO. But so is not she.\n\n  TRANIO. For what reason, I beseech you?\n  GREMIO. For this reason, if you'll know,\n    That she's the choice love of Signior Gremio.\n  HORTENSIO. That she's the chosen of Signior Hortensio.\n  TRANIO. Softly, my masters! If you be gentlemen,\n    Do me this right- hear me with patience.\n    Baptista is a noble gentleman,\n    To whom my father is not all unknown,\n    And, were his daughter fairer than she is,\n    She may more suitors have, and me for one.\n    Fair Leda's daughter had a thousand wooers;\n    Then well one more may fair Bianca have;\n    And so she shall: Lucentio shall make one,\n    Though Paris came in hope to speed alone.\n  GREMIO. What, this gentleman will out-talk us all!\n  LUCENTIO. Sir, give him head; I know he'll prove a jade.\n  PETRUCHIO. Hortensio, to what end are all these words?\n  HORTENSIO. Sir, let me be so bold as ask you,\n    Did you yet ever see Baptista's daughter?\n  TRANIO. No, sir, but hear I do that he hath two:\n    The one as famous for a scolding tongue\n    As is the other for beauteous modesty.\n  PETRUCHIO. Sir, sir, the first's for me; let her go by.\n  GREMIO. Yea, leave that labour to great Hercules,\n    And let it be more than Alcides' twelve.\n  PETRUCHIO. Sir, understand you this of me, in sooth:\n    The youngest daughter, whom you hearken for,\n    Her father keeps from all access of suitors,\n    And will not promise her to any man\n    Until the elder sister first be wed.\n    The younger then is free, and not before.\n  TRANIO. If it be so, sir, that you are the man\n    Must stead us all, and me amongst the rest;\n    And if you break the ice, and do this feat,\n    Achieve the elder, set the younger free\n    For our access- whose hap shall be to have her\n    Will not so graceless be to be ingrate.\n  HORTENSIO. Sir, you say well, and well you do conceive;\n    And since you do profess to be a suitor,\n    You must, as we do, gratify this gentleman,\n    To whom we all rest generally beholding.\n  TRANIO. Sir, I shall not be slack; in sign whereof,\n    Please ye we may contrive this afternoon,\n    And quaff carouses to our mistress' health;\n    And do as adversaries do in law-\n    Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.\n  GRUMIO, BIONDELLO. O excellent motion! Fellows, let's be gone.\n  HORTENSIO. The motion's good indeed, and be it so.\n    Petruchio, I shall be your ben venuto.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nPadua. BAPTISTA'S house\n\nEnter KATHERINA and BIANCA\n\n  BIANCA. Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,\n    To make a bondmaid and a slave of me-\n    That I disdain; but for these other gawds,\n    Unbind my hands, I'll pull them off myself,\n    Yea, all my raiment, to my petticoat;\n    Or what you will command me will I do,\n    So well I know my duty to my elders.\n  KATHERINA. Of all thy suitors here I charge thee tell\n    Whom thou lov'st best. See thou dissemble not.\n  BIANCA. Believe me, sister, of all the men alive\n    I never yet beheld that special face\n    Which I could fancy more than any other.\n  KATHERINA. Minion, thou liest. Is't not Hortensio?\n  BIANCA. If you affect him, sister, here I swear\n    I'll plead for you myself but you shall have him.\n  KATHERINA. O then, belike, you fancy riches more:\n    You will have Gremio to keep you fair.\n  BIANCA. Is it for him you do envy me so?\n    Nay, then you jest; and now I well perceive\n    You have but jested with me all this while.\n    I prithee, sister Kate, untie my hands.\n  KATHERINA. [Strikes her]  If that be jest, then an the rest was\nso.\n\n                            Enter BAPTISTA\n\n  BAPTISTA. Why, how now, dame! Whence grows this insolence?\n    Bianca, stand aside- poor girl! she weeps.\n                                                [He unbinds her]\n    Go ply thy needle; meddle not with her.\n    For shame, thou hilding of a devilish spirit,\n    Why dost thou wrong her that did ne'er wrong thee?\n    When did she cross thee with a bitter word?\n  KATHERINA. Her silence flouts me, and I'll be reveng'd.\n                                            [Flies after BIANCA]\n  BAPTISTA. What, in my sight? Bianca, get thee in.\n                                                     Exit BIANCA\n  KATHERINA. What, will you not suffer me? Nay, now I see\n    She is your treasure, she must have a husband;\n    I must dance bare-foot on her wedding-day,\n    And for your love to her lead apes in hell.\n    Talk not to me; I will go sit and weep,\n    Till I can find occasion of revenge.          Exit KATHERINA\n  BAPTISTA. Was ever gentleman thus griev'd as I?\n    But who comes here?\n\n        Enter GREMIO, with LUCENTIO in the habit of a mean man;\n         PETRUCHIO, with HORTENSIO as a musician; and TRANIO,\n    as LUCENTIO, with his boy, BIONDELLO, bearing a lute and\nbooks\n\n  GREMIO. Good morrow, neighbour Baptista.\n  BAPTISTA. Good morrow, neighbour Gremio.\n    God save you, gentlemen!\n  PETRUCHIO. And you, good sir! Pray, have you not a daughter\n    Call'd Katherina, fair and virtuous?\n  BAPTISTA. I have a daughter, sir, call'd Katherina.\n  GREMIO. You are too blunt; go to it orderly.\n  PETRUCHIO. You wrong me, Signior Gremio; give me leave.\n    I am a gentleman of Verona, sir,\n    That, hearing of her beauty and her wit,\n    Her affability and bashful modesty,\n    Her wondrous qualities and mild behaviour,\n    Am bold to show myself a forward guest\n    Within your house, to make mine eye the witness\n    Of that report which I so oft have heard.\n    And, for an entrance to my entertainment,\n    I do present you with a man of mine,\n                                          [Presenting HORTENSIO]\n    Cunning in music and the mathematics,\n    To instruct her fully in those sciences,\n    Whereof I know she is not ignorant.\n    Accept of him, or else you do me wrong-\n    His name is Licio, born in Mantua.\n  BAPTISTA. Y'are welcome, sir, and he for your good sake;\n    But for my daughter Katherine, this I know,\n    She is not for your turn, the more my grief.\n  PETRUCHIO. I see you do not mean to part with her;\n    Or else you like not of my company.\n  BAPTISTA. Mistake me not; I speak but as I find.\n    Whence are you, sir? What may I call your name?\n  PETRUCHIO. Petruchio is my name, Antonio's son,\n    A man well known throughout all Italy.\n  BAPTISTA. I know him well; you are welcome for his sake.\n  GREMIO. Saving your tale, Petruchio, I pray,\n    Let us that are poor petitioners speak too.\n    Bacare! you are marvellous forward.\n  PETRUCHIO. O, pardon me, Signior Gremio! I would fain be doing.\n  GREMIO. I doubt it not, sir; but you will curse your wooing.\n    Neighbour, this is a gift very grateful, I am sure of it. To\n    express the like kindness, myself, that have been more kindly\n    beholding to you than any, freely give unto you this young\n    scholar  [Presenting LUCENTIO]  that hath been long studying\nat\n    Rheims; as cunning in Greek, Latin, and other languages, as\nthe\n    other in music and mathematics. His name is Cambio. Pray\naccept\n    his service.\n  BAPTISTA. A thousand thanks, Signior Gremio. Welcome, good\nCambio.\n    [To TRANIO]  But, gentle sir, methinks you walk like a\nstranger.\n    May I be so bold to know the cause of your coming?\n  TRANIO. Pardon me, sir, the boldness is mine own\n    That, being a stranger in this city here,\n    Do make myself a suitor to your daughter,\n    Unto Bianca, fair and virtuous.\n    Nor is your firm resolve unknown to me\n    In the preferment of the eldest sister.\n    This liberty is all that I request-\n    That, upon knowledge of my parentage,\n    I may have welcome 'mongst the rest that woo,\n    And free access and favour as the rest.\n    And toward the education of your daughters\n    I here bestow a simple instrument,\n    And this small packet of Greek and Latin books.\n    If you accept them, then their worth is great.\n  BAPTISTA. Lucentio is your name? Of whence, I pray?\n  TRANIO. Of Pisa, sir; son to Vincentio.\n  BAPTISTA. A mighty man of Pisa. By report\n    I know him well. You are very welcome, sir.\n    Take you the lute, and you the set of books;\n    You shall go see your pupils presently.\n    Holla, within!\n\n                         Enter a SERVANT\n\n    Sirrah, lead these gentlemen\n    To my daughters; and tell them both\n    These are their tutors. Bid them use them well.\n\n                Exit SERVANT leading HORTENSIO carrying the lute\n                                     and LUCENTIO with the books\n\n    We will go walk a little in the orchard,\n    And then to dinner. You are passing welcome,\n    And so I pray you all to think yourselves.\n  PETRUCHIO. Signior Baptista, my business asketh haste,\n    And every day I cannot come to woo.\n    You knew my father well, and in him me,\n    Left solely heir to all his lands and goods,\n    Which I have bettered rather than decreas'd.\n    Then tell me, if I get your daughter's love,\n    What dowry shall I have with her to wife?\n  BAPTISTA. After my death, the one half of my lands\n    And, in possession, twenty thousand crowns.\n  PETRUCHIO. And for that dowry, I'll assure her of\n    Her widowhood, be it that she survive me,\n    In all my lands and leases whatsoever.\n    Let specialities be therefore drawn between us,\n    That covenants may be kept on either hand.\n  BAPTISTA. Ay, when the special thing is well obtain'd,\n    That is, her love; for that is all in all.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, that is nothing; for I tell you, father,\n    I am as peremptory as she proud-minded;\n    And where two raging fires meet together,\n    They do consume the thing that feeds their fury.\n    Though little fire grows great with little wind,\n    Yet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all.\n    So I to her, and so she yields to me;\n    For I am rough, and woo not like a babe.\n  BAPTISTA. Well mayst thou woo, and happy be thy speed\n    But be thou arm'd for some unhappy words.\n  PETRUCHIO. Ay, to the proof, as mountains are for winds,\n    That shake not though they blow perpetually.\n\n             Re-enter HORTENSIO, with his head broke\n\n  BAPTISTA. How now, my friend! Why dost thou look so pale?\n  HORTENSIO. For fear, I promise you, if I look pale.\n  BAPTISTA. What, will my daughter prove a good musician?\n  HORTENSIO. I think she'll sooner prove a soldier:\n    Iron may hold with her, but never lutes.\n  BAPTISTA. Why, then thou canst not break her to the lute?\n  HORTENSIO. Why, no; for she hath broke the lute to me.\n    I did but tell her she mistook her frets,\n    And bow'd her hand to teach her fingering,\n    When, with a most impatient devilish spirit,\n    'Frets, call you these?' quoth she 'I'll fume with them.'\n    And with that word she struck me on the head,\n    And through the instrument my pate made way;\n    And there I stood amazed for a while,\n    As on a pillory, looking through the lute,\n    While she did call me rascal fiddler\n    And twangling Jack, with twenty such vile terms,\n    As she had studied to misuse me so.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench;\n    I love her ten times more than e'er I did.\n    O, how I long to have some chat with her!\n  BAPTISTA. Well, go with me, and be not so discomfited;\n    Proceed in practice with my younger daughter;\n    She's apt to learn, and thankful for good turns.\n    Signior Petruchio, will you go with us,\n    Or shall I send my daughter Kate to you?\n  PETRUCHIO. I pray you do.             Exeunt all but PETRUCHIO\n    I'll attend her here,\n    And woo her with some spirit when she comes.\n    Say that she rail; why, then I'll tell her plain\n    She sings as sweetly as a nightingale.\n    Say that she frown; I'll say she looks as clear\n    As morning roses newly wash'd with dew.\n    Say she be mute, and will not speak a word;\n    Then I'll commend her volubility,\n    And say she uttereth piercing eloquence.\n    If she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks,\n    As though she bid me stay by her a week;\n    If she deny to wed, I'll crave the day\n    When I shall ask the banns, and when be married.\n    But here she comes; and now, Petruchio, speak.\n\n                        Enter KATHERINA\n\n    Good morrow, Kate- for that's your name, I hear.\n  KATHERINA. Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing:\n    They call me Katherine that do talk of me.\n  PETRUCHIO. You lie, in faith, for you are call'd plain Kate,\n    And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst;\n    But, Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom,\n    Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,\n    For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,\n    Take this of me, Kate of my consolation-\n    Hearing thy mildness prais'd in every town,\n    Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,\n    Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,\n    Myself am mov'd to woo thee for my wife.\n  KATHERINA. Mov'd! in good time! Let him that mov'd you hither\n    Remove you hence. I knew you at the first\n    You were a moveable.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, what's a moveable?\n  KATHERINA. A join'd-stool.\n  PETRUCHIO. Thou hast hit it. Come, sit on me.\n  KATHERINA. Asses are made to bear, and so are you.\n  PETRUCHIO. Women are made to bear, and so are you.\n  KATHERINA. No such jade as you, if me you mean.\n  PETRUCHIO. Alas, good Kate, I will not burden thee!\n    For, knowing thee to be but young and light-\n  KATHERINA. Too light for such a swain as you to catch;\n    And yet as heavy as my weight should be.\n  PETRUCHIO. Should be! should- buzz!\n  KATHERINA. Well ta'en, and like a buzzard.\n  PETRUCHIO. O, slow-wing'd turtle, shall a buzzard take thee?\n  KATHERINA. Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.\n  PETRUCHIO. Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry.\n  KATHERINA. If I be waspish, best beware my sting.\n  PETRUCHIO. My remedy is then to pluck it out.\n  KATHERINA. Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.\n  PETRUCHIO. Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting?\n    In his tail.\n  KATHERINA. In his tongue.\n  PETRUCHIO. Whose tongue?\n  KATHERINA. Yours, if you talk of tales; and so farewell.\n  PETRUCHIO. What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again,\n    Good Kate; I am a gentleman.\n  KATHERINA. That I'll try.                    [She strikes him]\n  PETRUCHIO. I swear I'll cuff you, if you strike again.\n  KATHERINA. So may you lose your arms.\n    If you strike me, you are no gentleman;\n    And if no gentleman, why then no arms.\n  PETRUCHIO. A herald, Kate? O, put me in thy books!\n  KATHERINA. What is your crest- a coxcomb?\n  PETRUCHIO. A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.\n  KATHERINA. No cock of mine: you crow too like a craven.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, come, Kate, come; you must not look so sour.\n  KATHERINA. It is my fashion, when I see a crab.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, here's no crab; and therefore look not sour.\n  KATHERINA. There is, there is.\n  PETRUCHIO. Then show it me.\n  KATHERINA. Had I a glass I would.\n  PETRUCHIO. What, you mean my face?\n  KATHERINA. Well aim'd of such a young one.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now, by Saint George, I am too young for you.\n  KATHERINA. Yet you are wither'd.\n  PETRUCHIO. 'Tis with cares.\n  KATHERINA. I care not.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, hear you, Kate- in sooth, you scape not so.\n  KATHERINA. I chafe you, if I tarry; let me go.\n  PETRUCHIO. No, not a whit; I find you passing gentle.\n    'Twas told me you were rough, and coy, and sullen,\n    And now I find report a very liar;\n    For thou art pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,\n    But slow in speech, yet sweet as springtime flowers.\n    Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,\n    Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will,\n    Nor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk;\n    But thou with mildness entertain'st thy wooers;\n    With gentle conference, soft and affable.\n    Why does the world report that Kate doth limp?\n    O sland'rous world! Kate like the hazel-twig\n    Is straight and slender, and as brown in hue\n    As hazel-nuts, and sweeter than the kernels.\n    O, let me see thee walk. Thou dost not halt.\n  KATHERINA. Go, fool, and whom thou keep'st command.\n  PETRUCHIO. Did ever Dian so become a grove\n    As Kate this chamber with her princely gait?\n    O, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate;\n    And then let Kate be chaste, and Dian sportful!\n  KATHERINA. Where did you study all this goodly speech?\n  PETRUCHIO. It is extempore, from my mother wit.\n  KATHERINA. A witty mother! witless else her son.\n  PETRUCHIO. Am I not wise?\n  KATHERINA. Yes, keep you warm.\n  PETRUCHIO. Marry, so I mean, sweet Katherine, in thy bed.\n    And therefore, setting all this chat aside,\n    Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented\n    That you shall be my wife your dowry greed on;\n    And will you, nill you, I will marry you.\n    Now, Kate, I am a husband for your turn;\n    For, by this light, whereby I see thy beauty,\n    Thy beauty that doth make me like thee well,\n    Thou must be married to no man but me;\n    For I am he am born to tame you, Kate,\n    And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate\n    Conformable as other household Kates.\n\n               Re-enter BAPTISTA, GREMIO, and TRANIO\n\n    Here comes your father. Never make denial;\n    I must and will have Katherine to my wife.\n  BAPTISTA. Now, Signior Petruchio, how speed you with my\ndaughter?\n  PETRUCHIO. How but well, sir? how but well?\n    It were impossible I should speed amiss.\n  BAPTISTA. Why, how now, daughter Katherine, in your dumps?\n  KATHERINA. Call you me daughter? Now I promise you\n    You have show'd a tender fatherly regard\n    To wish me wed to one half lunatic,\n    A mad-cap ruffian and a swearing Jack,\n    That thinks with oaths to face the matter out.\n  PETRUCHIO. Father, 'tis thus: yourself and all the world\n    That talk'd of her have talk'd amiss of her.\n    If she be curst, it is for policy,\n    For,she's not froward, but modest as the dove;\n    She is not hot, but temperate as the morn;\n    For patience she will prove a second Grissel,\n    And Roman Lucrece for her chastity.\n    And, to conclude, we have 'greed so well together\n    That upon Sunday is the wedding-day.\n  KATHERINA. I'll see thee hang'd on Sunday first.\n  GREMIO. Hark, Petruchio; she says she'll see thee hang'd first.\n  TRANIO. Is this your speeding? Nay, then good-night our part!\n  PETRUCHIO. Be patient, gentlemen. I choose her for myself;\n    If she and I be pleas'd, what's that to you?\n    'Tis bargain'd 'twixt us twain, being alone,\n    That she shall still be curst in company.\n    I tell you 'tis incredible to believe.\n    How much she loves me- O, the kindest Kate!\n    She hung about my neck, and kiss on kiss\n    She vied so fast, protesting oath on oath,\n    That in a twink she won me to her love.\n    O, you are novices! 'Tis a world to see,\n    How tame, when men and women are alone,\n    A meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew.\n    Give me thy hand, Kate; I will unto Venice,\n    To buy apparel 'gainst the wedding-day.\n    Provide the feast, father, and bid the guests;\n    I will be sure my Katherine shall be fine.\n  BAPTISTA. I know not what to say; but give me your hands.\n    God send you joy, Petruchio! 'Tis a match.\n  GREMIO, TRANIO. Amen, say we; we will be witnesses.\n  PETRUCHIO. Father, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu.\n    I will to Venice; Sunday comes apace;\n    We will have rings and things, and fine array;\n    And kiss me, Kate; we will be married a Sunday.\n                        Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATHERINA severally\n  GREMIO. Was ever match clapp'd up so suddenly?\n  BAPTISTA. Faith, gentlemen, now I play a merchant's part,\n    And venture madly on a desperate mart.\n  TRANIO. 'Twas a commodity lay fretting by you;\n    'Twill bring you gain, or perish on the seas.\n  BAPTISTA. The gain I seek is quiet in the match.\n  GREMIO. No doubt but he hath got a quiet catch.\n    But now, Baptista, to your younger daughter:\n    Now is the day we long have looked for;\n    I am your neighbour, and was suitor first.\n  TRANIO. And I am one that love Bianca more\n    Than words can witness or your thoughts can guess.\n  GREMIO. Youngling, thou canst not love so dear as I.\n  TRANIO. Greybeard, thy love doth freeze.\n  GREMIO. But thine doth fry.\n    Skipper, stand back; 'tis age that nourisheth.\n  TRANIO. But youth in ladies' eyes that flourisheth.\n  BAPTISTA. Content you, gentlemen; I will compound this strife.\n    'Tis deeds must win the prize, and he of both\n    That can assure my daughter greatest dower\n    Shall have my Bianca's love.\n    Say, Signior Gremio, what can you assure her?\n  GREMIO. First, as you know, my house within the city\n    Is richly furnished with plate and gold,\n    Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands;\n    My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;\n    In ivory coffers I have stuff'd my crowns;\n    In cypress chests my arras counterpoints,\n    Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,\n    Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl,\n    Valance of Venice gold in needle-work;\n    Pewter and brass, and all things that belongs\n    To house or housekeeping. Then at my farm\n    I have a hundred milch-kine to the pail,\n    Six score fat oxen standing in my stalls,\n    And all things answerable to this portion.\n    Myself am struck in years, I must confess;\n    And if I die to-morrow this is hers,\n    If whilst I live she will be only mine.\n  TRANIO. That 'only' came well in. Sir, list to me:\n    I am my father's heir and only son;\n    If I may have your daughter to my wife,\n    I'll leave her houses three or four as good\n    Within rich Pisa's walls as any one\n    Old Signior Gremio has in Padua;\n    Besides two thousand ducats by the year\n    Of fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure.\n    What, have I pinch'd you, Signior Gremio?\n  GREMIO. Two thousand ducats by the year of land!\n    [Aside]  My land amounts not to so much in all.-\n    That she shall have, besides an argosy\n    That now is lying in Marseilles road.\n    What, have I chok'd you with an argosy?\n  TRANIO. Gremio, 'tis known my father hath no less\n    Than three great argosies, besides two galliasses,\n    And twelve tight galleys. These I will assure her,\n    And twice as much whate'er thou off'rest next.\n  GREMIO. Nay, I have off'red all; I have no more;\n    And she can have no more than all I have;\n    If you like me, she shall have me and mine.\n  TRANIO. Why, then the maid is mine from all the world\n    By your firm promise; Gremio is out-vied.\n  BAPTISTA. I must confess your offer is the best;\n    And let your father make her the assurance,\n    She is your own. Else, you must pardon me;\n    If you should die before him, where's her dower?\n  TRANIO. That's but a cavil; he is old, I young.\n  GREMIO. And may not young men die as well as old?\n  BAPTISTA. Well, gentlemen,\n    I am thus resolv'd: on Sunday next you know\n    My daughter Katherine is to be married;\n    Now, on the Sunday following shall Bianca\n    Be bride to you, if you make this assurance;\n    If not, to Signior Gremio.\n    And so I take my leave, and thank you both.\n  GREMIO. Adieu, good neighbour.                   Exit BAPTISTA\n    Now, I fear thee not.\n    Sirrah young gamester, your father were a fool\n    To give thee all, and in his waning age\n    Set foot under thy table. Tut, a toy!\n    An old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy.              Exit\n  TRANIO. A vengeance on your crafty withered hide!\n    Yet I have fac'd it with a card of ten.\n    'Tis in my head to do my master good:\n    I see no reason but suppos'd Lucentio\n    Must get a father, call'd suppos'd Vincentio;\n    And that's a wonder- fathers commonly\n    Do get their children; but in this case of wooing\n    A child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nPadua. BAPTISTA'S house\n\nEnter LUCENTIO as CAMBIO, HORTENSIO as LICIO, and BIANCA\n\n  LUCENTIO. Fiddler, forbear; you grow too forward, sir.\n    Have you so soon forgot the entertainment\n    Her sister Katherine welcome'd you withal?\n  HORTENSIO. But, wrangling pedant, this is\n    The patroness of heavenly harmony.\n    Then give me leave to have prerogative;\n    And when in music we have spent an hour,\n    Your lecture shall have leisure for as much.\n  LUCENTIO. Preposterous ass, that never read so far\n    To know the cause why music was ordain'd!\n    Was it not to refresh the mind of man\n    After his studies or his usual pain?\n    Then give me leave to read philosophy,\n    And while I pause serve in your harmony.\n  HORTENSIO. Sirrah, I will not bear these braves of thine.\n  BIANCA. Why, gentlemen, you do me double wrong\n    To strive for that which resteth in my choice.\n    I arn no breeching scholar in the schools,\n    I'll not be tied to hours nor 'pointed times,\n    But learn my lessons as I please myself.\n    And to cut off all strife: here sit we down;\n    Take you your instrument, play you the whiles!\n    His lecture will be done ere you have tun'd.\n  HORTENSIO. You'll leave his lecture when I am in tune?\n  LUCENTIO. That will be never- tune your instrument.\n  BIANCA. Where left we last?\n  LUCENTIO. Here, madam:\n    'Hic ibat Simois, hic est Sigeia tellus,\n    Hic steterat Priami regia celsa senis.'\n  BIANCA. Construe them.\n  LUCENTIO. 'Hic ibat' as I told you before- 'Simois' I am\nLucentio-\n    'hic est' son unto Vincentio of Pisa- 'Sigeia tellus'\ndisguised\n    thus to get your love- 'Hic steterat' and that Lucentio that\n    comes a-wooing- 'Priami' is my man Tranio- 'regia' bearing my\n    port- 'celsa senis' that we might beguile the old pantaloon.\n  HORTENSIO. Madam, my instrument's in tune.\n  BIANCA. Let's hear. O fie! the treble jars.\n  LUCENTIO. Spit in the hole, man, and tune again.\n  BIANCA. Now let me see if I can construe it: 'Hic ibat Simois'\nI\n    know you not- 'hic est Sigeia tellus' I trust you not- 'Hic\n    steterat Priami' take heed he hear us not- 'regia' presume\nnot-\n   'celsa senis' despair not.\n  HORTENSIO. Madam, 'tis now in tune.\n  LUCENTIO. All but the bass.\n  HORTENSIO. The bass is right; 'tis the base knave that jars.\n    [Aside]  How fiery and forward our pedant is!\n    Now, for my life, the knave doth court my love.\n    Pedascule, I'll watch you better yet.\n  BIANCA. In time I may believe, yet I mistrust.\n  LUCENTIO. Mistrust it not- for sure, AEacides\n    Was Ajax, call'd so from his grandfather.\n  BIANCA. I must believe my master; else, I promise you,\n    I should be arguing still upon that doubt;\n    But let it rest. Now, Licio, to you.\n    Good master, take it not unkindly, pray,\n    That I have been thus pleasant with you both.\n  HORTENSIO.  [To LUCENTIO]  You may go walk and give me leave\n      awhile;\n    My lessons make no music in three Parts.\n  LUCENTIO. Are you so formal, sir? Well, I must wait,\n    [Aside]  And watch withal; for, but I be deceiv'd,\n    Our fine musician groweth amorous.\n  HORTENSIO. Madam, before you touch the instrument\n    To learn the order of my fingering,\n    I must begin with rudiments of art,\n    To teach you gamut in a briefer sort,\n    More pleasant, pithy, and effectual,\n    Than hath been taught by any of my trade;\n    And there it is in writing fairly drawn.\n  BIANCA. Why, I am past my gamut long ago.\n  HORTENSIO. Yet read the gamut of Hortensio.\n  BIANCA.  [Reads]\n         '\"Gamut\" I am, the ground of all accord-\n         \"A re\" to plead Hortensio's passion-\n         \"B mi\" Bianca, take him for thy lord-\n         \"C fa ut\" that loves with all affection-\n         \"D sol re\" one clef, two notes have I-\n         \"E la mi\" show pity or I die.'\n    Call you this gamut? Tut, I like it not!\n    Old fashions please me best; I am not so nice\n    To change true rules for odd inventions.\n\n                       Enter a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. Mistress, your father prays you leave your books\n    And help to dress your sister's chamber up.\n    You know to-morrow is the wedding-day.\n  BIANCA. Farewell, sweet masters, both; I must be gone.\n                                       Exeunt BIANCA and SERVANT\n  LUCENTIO. Faith, mistress, then I have no cause to stay.\n Exit\n  HORTENSIO. But I have cause to pry into this pedant;\n    Methinks he looks as though he were in love.\n    Yet if thy thoughts, Bianca, be so humble\n    To cast thy wand'ring eyes on every stale-\n    Seize thee that list. If once I find thee ranging,\n  HORTENSIO will be quit with thee by changing.             Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nPadua. Before BAPTISTA'S house\n\nEnter BAPTISTA, GREMIO, TRANIO as LUCENTIO, KATHERINA, BIANCA,\nLUCENTIO as CAMBIO, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  BAPTISTA.  [To TRANIO]  Signior Lucentio, this is the 'pointed\nday\n    That Katherine and Petruchio should be married,\n    And yet we hear not of our son-in-law.\n    What will be said? What mockery will it be\n    To want the bridegroom when the priest attends\n    To speak the ceremonial rites of marriage!\n    What says Lucentio to this shame of ours?\n  KATHERINA. No shame but mine; I must, forsooth, be forc'd\n    To give my hand, oppos'd against my heart,\n    Unto a mad-brain rudesby, full of spleen,\n    Who woo'd in haste and means to wed at leisure.\n    I told you, I, he was a frantic fool,\n    Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behaviour;\n    And, to be noted for a merry man,\n    He'll woo a thousand, 'point the day of marriage,\n    Make friends invited, and proclaim the banns;\n    Yet never means to wed where he hath woo'd.\n    Now must the world point at poor Katherine,\n    And say 'Lo, there is mad Petruchio's wife,\n    If it would please him come and marry her!'\n  TRANIO. Patience, good Katherine, and Baptista too.\n    Upon my life, Petruchio means but well,\n    Whatever fortune stays him from his word.\n    Though he be blunt, I know him passing wise;\n    Though he be merry, yet withal he's honest.\n  KATHERINA. Would Katherine had never seen him though!\n                    Exit, weeping, followed by BIANCA and others\n  BAPTISTA. Go, girl, I cannot blame thee now to weep,\n    For such an injury would vex a very saint;\n    Much more a shrew of thy impatient humour.\n\n                           Enter BIONDELLO\n\n    Master, master! News, and such old news as you never heard\nof!\n  BAPTISTA. Is it new and old too? How may that be?\n  BIONDELLO. Why, is it not news to hear of Petruchio's coming?\n  BAPTISTA. Is he come?\n  BIONDELLO. Why, no, sir.\n  BAPTISTA. What then?\n  BIONDELLO. He is coming.\n  BAPTISTA. When will he be here?\n  BIONDELLO. When he stands where I am and sees you there.\n  TRANIO. But, say, what to thine old news?\n  BIONDELLO. Why, Petruchio is coming- in a new hat and an old\n    jerkin; a pair of old breeches thrice turn'd; a pair of boots\n    that have been candle-cases, one buckled, another lac'd; an\nold\n    rusty sword ta'en out of the town armoury, with a broken\nhilt,\n    and chapeless; with two broken points; his horse hipp'd, with\nan\n    old motley saddle and stirrups of no kindred; besides,\npossess'd\n    with the glanders and like to mose in the chine, troubled\nwith\n    the lampass, infected with the fashions, full of windgalls,\nsped\n    with spavins, rayed with the yellows, past cure of the fives,\n    stark spoil'd with the staggers, begnawn with the bots,\nsway'd in\n    the back and shoulder-shotten, near-legg'd before, and with a\n    half-cheek'd bit, and a head-stall of sheep's leather which,\n    being restrained to keep him from stumbling, hath been often\n    burst, and now repaired with knots; one girth six times\npiec'd,\n    and a woman's crupper of velure, which hath two letters for\nher\n    name fairly set down in studs, and here and there piec'd with\n    pack-thread.\n  BAPTISTA. Who comes with him?\n  BIONDELLO. O, sir, his lackey, for all the world caparison'd\nlike\n    the horse- with a linen stock on one leg and a kersey\nboot-hose\n    on the other, gart'red with a red and blue list; an old hat,\nand\n    the humour of forty fancies prick'd in't for a feather; a\n    monster, a very monster in apparel, and not like a Christian\n    footboy or a gentleman's lackey.\n  TRANIO. 'Tis some odd humour pricks him to this fashion;\n    Yet oftentimes lie goes but mean-apparell'd.\n  BAPTISTA. I am glad he's come, howsoe'er he comes.\n  BIONDELLO. Why, sir, he comes not.\n  BAPTISTA. Didst thou not say he comes?\n  BIONDELLO. Who? that Petruchio came?\n  BAPTISTA. Ay, that Petruchio came.\n  BIONDELLO. No, sir; I say his horse comes with him on his back.\n  BAPTISTA. Why, that's all one.\n  BIONDELLO. Nay, by Saint Jamy,\n             I hold you a penny,\n             A horse and a man\n             Is more than one,\n             And yet not many.\n\n                  Enter PETRUCHIO and GRUMIO\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Come, where be these gallants? Who's at home?\n  BAPTISTA. You are welcome, sir.\n  PETRUCHIO. And yet I come not well.\n  BAPTISTA. And yet you halt not.\n  TRANIO. Not so well apparell'd\n    As I wish you were.\n  PETRUCHIO. Were it better, I should rush in thus.\n    But where is Kate? Where is my lovely bride?\n    How does my father? Gentles, methinks you frown;\n    And wherefore gaze this goodly company\n    As if they saw some wondrous monument,\n    Some comet or unusual prodigy?\n  BAPTISTA. Why, sir, you know this is your wedding-day.\n    First were we sad, fearing you would not come;\n    Now sadder, that you come so unprovided.\n    Fie, doff this habit, shame to your estate,\n    An eye-sore to our solemn festival!\n  TRANIO. And tell us what occasion of import\n    Hath all so long detain'd you from your wife,\n    And sent you hither so unlike yourself?\n  PETRUCHIO. Tedious it were to tell, and harsh to hear;\n    Sufficeth I am come to keep my word,\n    Though in some part enforced to digress,\n    Which at more leisure I will so excuse\n    As you shall well be satisfied withal.\n    But where is Kate? I stay too long from her;\n    The morning wears, 'tis time we were at church.\n  TRANIO. See not your bride in these unreverent robes;\n    Go to my chamber, put on clothes of mine.\n  PETRUCHIO. Not I, believe me; thus I'll visit her.\n  BAPTISTA. But thus, I trust, you will not marry her.\n  PETRUCHIO. Good sooth, even thus; therefore ha' done with\nwords;\n    To me she's married, not unto my clothes.\n    Could I repair what she will wear in me\n    As I can change these poor accoutrements,\n    'Twere well for Kate and better for myself.\n    But what a fool am I to chat with you,\n    When I should bid good-morrow to my bride\n    And seal the title with a lovely kiss!\n                                  Exeunt PETRUCHIO and GRUMIO\n  TRANIO. He hath some meaning in his mad attire.\n    We will persuade him, be it possible,\n    To put on better ere he go to church.\n  BAPTISTA. I'll after him and see the event of this.\n              Exeunt BAPTISTA, GREMIO, BIONDELLO, and ATTENDENTS\n  TRANIO. But to her love concerneth us to ad\n    Her father's liking; which to bring to pass,\n    As I before imparted to your worship,\n    I am to get a man- whate'er he be\n    It skills not much; we'll fit him to our turn-\n    And he shall be Vincentio of Pisa,\n    And make assurance here in Padua\n    Of greater sums than I have promised.\n    So shall you quietly enjoy your hope\n    And marry sweet Bianca with consent.\n  LUCENTIO. Were it not that my fellow schoolmaster\n    Doth watch Bianca's steps so narrowly,\n    'Twere good, methinks, to steal our marriage;\n    Which once perform'd, let all the world say no,\n    I'll keep mine own despite of all the world.\n  TRANIO. That by degrees we mean to look into\n    And watch our vantage in this business;\n    We'll over-reach the greybeard, Gremio,\n    The narrow-prying father, Minola,\n    The quaint musician, amorous Licio-\n    All for my master's sake, Lucentio.\n\n                           Re-enter GREMIO\n\n    Signior Gremio, came you from the church?\n  GREMIO. As willingly as e'er I came from school.\n  TRANIO. And is the bride and bridegroom coming home?\n  GREMIO. A bridegroom, say you? 'Tis a groom indeed,\n    A grumbling groom, and that the girl shall find.\n  TRANIO. Curster than she? Why, 'tis impossible.\n  GREMIO. Why, he's a devil, a devil, a very fiend.\n  TRANIO. Why, she's a devil, a devil, the devil's dam.\n  GREMIO. Tut, she's a lamb, a dove, a fool, to him!\n    I'll tell you, Sir Lucentio: when the priest\n    Should ask if Katherine should be his wife,\n    'Ay, by gogs-wouns' quoth he, and swore so loud\n    That, all amaz'd, the priest let fall the book;\n    And as he stoop'd again to take it up,\n    This mad-brain'd bridegroom took him such a cuff\n    That down fell priest and book, and book and priest.\n    'Now take them up,' quoth he 'if any list.'\n  TRANIO. What said the wench, when he rose again?\n  GREMIO. Trembled and shook, for why he stamp'd and swore\n    As if the vicar meant to cozen him.\n    But after many ceremonies done\n    He calls for wine: 'A health!' quoth he, as if\n    He had been abroad, carousing to his mates\n    After a storm; quaff'd off the muscadel,\n    And threw the sops all in the sexton's face,\n    Having no other reason\n    But that his beard grew thin and hungerly\n    And seem'd to ask him sops as he was drinking.\n    This done, he took the bride about the neck,\n    And kiss'd her lips with such a clamorous smack\n    That at the parting all the church did echo.\n    And I, seeing this, came thence for very shame;\n    And after me, I know, the rout is coming.\n    Such a mad marriage never was before.\n    Hark, hark! I hear the minstrels play.         [Music plays]\n\n       Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, BIANCA, BAPTISTA, HORTENSIO,\n                         GRUMIO, and train\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Gentlemen and friends, I thank you for your pains.\n    I know you think to dine with me to-day,\n    And have prepar'd great store of wedding cheer\n    But so it is- my haste doth call me hence,\n    And therefore here I mean to take my leave.\n  BAPTISTA. Is't possible you will away to-night?\n  PETRUCHIO. I must away to-day before night come.\n    Make it no wonder; if you knew my business,\n    You would entreat me rather go than stay.\n    And, honest company, I thank you all\n    That have beheld me give away myself\n    To this most patient, sweet, and virtuous wife.\n    Dine with my father, drink a health to me.\n    For I must hence; and farewell to you all.\n  TRANIO. Let us entreat you stay till after dinner.\n  PETRUCHIO. It may not be.\n  GREMIO. Let me entreat you.\n  PETRUCHIO. It cannot be.\n  KATHERINA. Let me entreat you.\n  PETRUCHIO. I am content.\n  KATHERINA. Are you content to stay?\n  PETRUCHIO. I am content you shall entreat me stay;\n    But yet not stay, entreat me how you can.\n  KATHERINA. Now, if you love me, stay.\n  PETRUCHIO. Grumio, my horse.\n  GRUMIO. Ay, sir, they be ready; the oats have eaten the horses.\n  KATHERINA. Nay, then,\n    Do what thou canst, I will not go to-day;\n    No, nor to-morrow, not till I please myself.\n    The door is open, sir; there lies your way;\n    You may be jogging whiles your boots are green;\n    For me, I'll not be gone till I please myself.\n    'Tis like you'll prove a jolly surly groom\n    That take it on you at the first so roundly.\n  PETRUCHIO. O Kate, content thee; prithee be not angry.\n  KATHERINA. I will be angry; what hast thou to do?\n    Father, be quiet; he shall stay my leisure.\n  GREMIO. Ay, marry, sir, now it begins to work.\n  KATHERINA. Gentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner.\n    I see a woman may be made a fool\n    If she had not a spirit to resist.\n  PETRUCHIO. They shall go forward, Kate, at thy command.\n    Obey the bride, you that attend on her;\n    Go to the feast, revel and domineer,\n    Carouse full measure to her maidenhead;\n    Be mad and merry, or go hang yourselves.\n    But for my bonny Kate, she must with me.\n    Nay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret;\n    I will be master of what is mine own-\n    She is my goods, my chattels, she is my house,\n    My household stuff, my field, my barn,\n    My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing,\n    And here she stands; touch her whoever dare;\n    I'll bring mine action on the proudest he\n    That stops my way in Padua. Grumio,\n    Draw forth thy weapon; we are beset with thieves;\n    Rescue thy mistress, if thou be a man.\n    Fear not, sweet wench; they shall not touch thee, Kate;\n    I'll buckler thee against a million.\n                         Exeunt PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, and GRUMIO\n  BAPTISTA. Nay, let them go, a couple of quiet ones.\n  GREMIO. Went they not quickly, I should die with laughing.\n  TRANIO. Of all mad matches, never was the like.\n  LUCENTIO. Mistress, what's your opinion of your sister?\n  BIANCA. That, being mad herself, she's madly mated.\n  GREMIO. I warrant him, Petruchio is Kated.\n  BAPTISTA. Neighbours and friends, though bride and bridegroom\nwants\n    For to supply the places at the table,\n    You know there wants no junkets at the feast.\n    Lucentio, you shall supply the bridegroom's place;\n    And let Bianca take her sister's room.\n  TRANIO. Shall sweet Bianca practise how to bride it?\n  BAPTISTA. She shall, Lucentio. Come, gentlemen, let's go.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nPETRUCHIO'S country house\n\nEnter GRUMIO\n\n  GRUMIO. Fie, fie on all tired jades, on all mad masters, and\nall\n    foul ways! Was ever man so beaten? Was ever man so ray'd? Was\n    ever man so weary? I am sent before to make a fire, and they\nare\n    coming after to warm them. Now were not I a little pot and\nsoon\n    hot, my very lips might freeze to my teeth, my tongue to the\nroof\n    of my mouth, my heart in my belly, ere I should come by a\nfire to\n    thaw me. But I with blowing the fire shall warm myself; for,\n    considering the weather, a taller man than I will take cold.\n    Holla, ho! Curtis!\n\n                            Enter CURTIS\n\n  CURTIS. Who is that calls so coldly?\n  GRUMIO. A piece of ice. If thou doubt it, thou mayst slide from\nmy\n    shoulder to my heel with no greater a run but my head and my\n    neck. A fire, good Curtis.\n  CURTIS. Is my master and his wife coming, Grumio?\n  GRUMIO. O, ay, Curtis, ay; and therefore fire, fire; cast on no\n    water.\n  CURTIS. Is she so hot a shrew as she's reported?\n  GRUMIO. She was, good Curtis, before this frost; but thou\nknow'st\n    winter tames man, woman, and beast; for it hath tam'd my old\n    master, and my new mistress, and myself, fellow Curtis.\n  CURTIS. Away, you three-inch fool! I am no beast.\n  GRUMIO. Am I but three inches? Why, thy horn is a foot, and so\nlong\n    am I at the least. But wilt thou make a fire, or shall I\ncomplain\n    on thee to our mistress, whose hand- she being now at hand-\nthou\n    shalt soon feel, to thy cold comfort, for being slow in thy\nhot\n    office?\n  CURTIS. I prithee, good Grumio, tell me how goes the world?\n  GRUMIO. A cold world, Curtis, in every office but thine; and\n    therefore fire. Do thy duty, and have thy duty, for my master\nand\n    mistress are almost frozen to death.\n  CURTIS. There's fire ready; and therefore, good Grumio, the\nnews?\n  GRUMIO. Why, 'Jack boy! ho, boy!' and as much news as thou\nwilt.\n  CURTIS. Come, you are so full of cony-catching!\n  GRUMIO. Why, therefore, fire; for I have caught extreme cold.\n    Where's the cook? Is supper ready, the house trimm'd, rushes\n    strew'd, cobwebs swept, the serving-men in their new fustian,\n    their white stockings, and every officer his wedding-garment\non?\n    Be the jacks fair within, the jills fair without, the carpets\n    laid, and everything in order?\n  CURTIS. All ready; and therefore, I pray thee, news.\n  GRUMIO. First know my horse is tired; my master and mistress\nfall'n\n    out.\n  CURTIS. How?\n  GRUMIO. Out of their saddles into the dirt; and thereby hangs a\n    tale.\n  CURTIS. Let's ha't, good Grumio.\n  GRUMIO. Lend thine ear.\n  CURTIS. Here.\n  GRUMIO. There.                                  [Striking him]\n  CURTIS. This 'tis to feel a tale, not to hear a tale.\n  GRUMIO. And therefore 'tis call'd a sensible tale; and this\ncuff\n    was but to knock at your car and beseech list'ning. Now I\nbegin:\n    Imprimis, we came down a foul hill, my master riding behind\nmy\n    mistress-\n  CURTIS. Both of one horse?\n  GRUMIO. What's that to thee?\n  CURTIS. Why, a horse.\n  GRUMIO. Tell thou the tale. But hadst thou not cross'd me, thou\n    shouldst have heard how her horse fell and she under her\nhorse;\n    thou shouldst have heard in how miry a place, how she was\n    bemoil'd, how he left her with the horse upon her, how he\nbeat me\n    because her horse stumbled, how she waded through the dirt to\n    pluck him off me, how he swore, how she pray'd that never\npray'd\n    before, how I cried, how the horses ran away, how her bridle\nwas\n    burst, how I lost my crupper- with many things of worthy\nmemory,\n    which now shall die in oblivion, and thou return\nunexperienc'd to\n    thy grave.\n  CURTIS. By this reck'ning he is more shrew than she.\n  GRUMIO. Ay, and that thou and the proudest of you all shall\nfind\n    when he comes home. But what talk I of this? Call forth\n    Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip, Walter, Sugarsop, and\nthe\n    rest; let their heads be sleekly comb'd, their blue coats\nbrush'd\n    and their garters of an indifferent knit; let them curtsy\nwith\n    their left legs, and not presume to touch a hair of my\nmaster's\n    horse-tail till they kiss their hands. Are they all ready?\n  CURTIS. They are.\n  GRUMIO. Call them forth.\n  CURTIS. Do you hear, ho? You must meet my master, to\ncountenance my\n    mistress.\n  GRUMIO. Why, she hath a face of her own.\n  CURTIS. Who knows not that?\n  GRUMIO. Thou, it seems, that calls for company to countenance\nher.\n  CURTIS. I call them forth to credit her.\n  GRUMIO. Why, she comes to borrow nothing of them.\n\n                     Enter four or five SERVINGMEN\n\n  NATHANIEL. Welcome home, Grumio!\n  PHILIP. How now, Grumio!\n  JOSEPH. What, Grumio!\n  NICHOLAS. Fellow Grumio!\n  NATHANIEL. How now, old lad!\n  GRUMIO. Welcome, you!- how now, you!- what, you!- fellow, you!-\nand\n    thus much for greeting. Now, my spruce companions, is all\nready,\n    and all things neat?\n  NATHANIEL. All things is ready. How near is our master?\n  GRUMIO. E'en at hand, alighted by this; and therefore be not-\n   Cock's passion, silence! I hear my master.\n\n                     Enter PETRUCHIO and KATHERINA\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Where be these knaves? What, no man at door\n    To hold my stirrup nor to take my horse!\n    Where is Nathaniel, Gregory, Philip?\n  ALL SERVANTS. Here, here, sir; here, sir.\n  PETRUCHIO. Here, sir! here, sir! here, sir! here, sir!\n    You logger-headed and unpolish'd grooms!\n    What, no attendance? no regard? no duty?\n    Where is the foolish knave I sent before?\n  GRUMIO. Here, sir; as foolish as I was before.\n  PETRUCHIO. YOU peasant swain! you whoreson malt-horse drudge!\n    Did I not bid thee meet me in the park\n    And bring along these rascal knaves with thee?\n  GRUMIO. Nathaniel's coat, sir, was not fully made,\n    And Gabriel's pumps were all unpink'd i' th' heel;\n    There was no link to colour Peter's hat,\n    And Walter's dagger was not come from sheathing;\n    There were none fine but Adam, Ralph, and Gregory;\n    The rest were ragged, old, and beggarly;\n    Yet, as they are, here are they come to meet you.\n  PETRUCHIO. Go, rascals, go and fetch my supper in.\n                                   Exeunt some of the SERVINGMEN\n\n    [Sings]  Where is the life that late I led?\n             Where are those-\n\n    Sit down, Kate, and welcome. Soud, soud, soud, soud!\n\n                 Re-enter SERVANTS with supper\n\n    Why, when, I say? Nay, good sweet Kate, be merry.\n    Off with my boots, you rogues! you villains, when?\n\n    [Sings]  It was the friar of orders grey,\n             As he forth walked on his way-\n\n    Out, you rogue! you pluck my foot awry;\n    Take that, and mend the plucking off the other.\n                                                   [Strikes him]\n    Be merry, Kate. Some water, here, what, ho!\n\n                      Enter one with water\n\n    Where's my spaniel Troilus? Sirrah, get you hence,\n    And bid my cousin Ferdinand come hither:\n                                                 Exit SERVINGMAN\n    One, Kate, that you must kiss and be acquainted with.\n    Where are my slippers? Shall I have some water?\n    Come, Kate, and wash, and welcome heartily.\n    You whoreson villain! will you let it fall?    [Strikes him]\n  KATHERINA. Patience, I pray you; 'twas a fault unwilling.\n  PETRUCHIO. A whoreson, beetle-headed, flap-ear'd knave!\n    Come, Kate, sit down; I know you have a stomach.\n    Will you give thanks, sweet Kate, or else shall I?\n    What's this? Mutton?\n  FIRST SERVANT. Ay.\n  PETRUCHIO. Who brought it?\n  PETER. I.\n  PETRUCHIO. 'Tis burnt; and so is all the meat.\n    What dogs are these? Where is the rascal cook?\n    How durst you villains bring it from the dresser\n    And serve it thus to me that love it not?\n    There, take it to you, trenchers, cups, and all;\n                                [Throws the meat, etc., at them]\n    You heedless joltheads and unmanner'd slaves!\n    What, do you grumble? I'll be with you straight.\n                                                 Exeunt SERVANTS\n  KATHERINA. I pray you, husband, be not so disquiet;\n    The meat was well, if you were so contented.\n  PETRUCHIO. I tell thee, Kate, 'twas burnt and dried away,\n    And I expressly am forbid to touch it;\n    For it engenders choler, planteth anger;\n    And better 'twere that both of us did fast,\n    Since, of ourselves, ourselves are choleric,\n    Than feed it with such over-roasted flesh.\n    Be patient; to-morrow 't shall be mended.\n    And for this night we'll fast for company.\n    Come, I will bring thee to thy bridal chamber.        Exeunt\n\n                     Re-enter SERVANTS severally\n\n  NATHANIEL. Peter, didst ever see the like?\n  PETER. He kills her in her own humour.\n\n                            Re-enter CURTIS\n\n  GRUMIO. Where is he?\n  CURTIS. In her chamber. Making a sermon of continency to her,\n    And rails, and swears, and rates, that she, poor soul,\n    Knows not which way to stand, to look, to speak.\n    And sits as one new risen from a dream.\n    Away, away! for he is coming hither.                  Exeunt\n\n                       Re-enter PETRUCHIO\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Thus have I politicly begun my reign,\n    And 'tis my hope to end successfully.\n    My falcon now is sharp and passing empty.\n    And till she stoop she must not be full-gorg'd,\n    For then she never looks upon her lure.\n    Another way I have to man my haggard,\n    To make her come, and know her keeper's call,\n    That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites\n    That bate and beat, and will not be obedient.\n    She eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat;\n    Last night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not;\n    As with the meat, some undeserved fault\n    I'll find about the making of the bed;\n    And here I'll fling the pillow, there the bolster,\n    This way the coverlet, another way the sheets;\n    Ay, and amid this hurly I intend\n    That all is done in reverend care of her-\n    And, in conclusion, she shall watch all night;\n    And if she chance to nod I'll rail and brawl\n    And with the clamour keep her still awake.\n    This is a way to kill a wife with kindness,\n    And thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humour.\n    He that knows better how to tame a shrew,\n    Now let him speak; 'tis charity to show.                Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nPadua. Before BAPTISTA'S house\n\nEnter TRANIO as LUCENTIO, and HORTENSIO as LICIO\n\n  TRANIO. Is 't possible, friend Licio, that Mistress Bianca\n    Doth fancy any other but Lucentio?\n    I tell you, sir, she bears me fair in hand.\n  HORTENSIO. Sir, to satisfy you in what I have said,\n    Stand by and mark the manner of his teaching.\n                                              [They stand aside]\n\n               Enter BIANCA, and LUCENTIO as CAMBIO\n\n  LUCENTIO. Now, mistress, profit you in what you read?\n  BIANCA. What, master, read you, First resolve me that.\n  LUCENTIO. I read that I profess, 'The Art to Love.'\n  BIANCA. And may you prove, sir, master of your art!\n  LUCENTIO. While you, sweet dear, prove mistress of my heart.\n                                                   [They retire]\n  HORTENSIO. Quick proceeders, marry! Now tell me, I pray,\n    You that durst swear that your Mistress Blanca\n    Lov'd none in the world so well as Lucentio.\n  TRANIO. O despiteful love! unconstant womankind!\n    I tell thee, Licio, this is wonderful.\n  HORTENSIO. Mistake no more; I am not Licio.\n    Nor a musician as I seem to be;\n    But one that scorn to live in this disguise\n    For such a one as leaves a gentleman\n    And makes a god of such a cullion.\n    Know, sir, that I am call'd Hortensio.\n  TRANIO. Signior Hortensio, I have often heard\n    Of your entire affection to Bianca;\n    And since mine eyes are witness of her lightness,\n    I will with you, if you be so contented,\n    Forswear Bianca and her love for ever.\n  HORTENSIO. See, how they kiss and court! Signior Lucentio,\n    Here is my hand, and here I firmly vow\n    Never to woo her more, but do forswear her,\n    As one unworthy all the former favours\n    That I have fondly flatter'd her withal.\n  TRANIO. And here I take the like unfeigned oath,\n    Never to marry with her though she would entreat;\n    Fie on her! See how beastly she doth court him!\n  HORTENSIO. Would all the world but he had quite forsworn!\n    For me, that I may surely keep mine oath,\n    I will be married to a wealthy widow\n    Ere three days pass, which hath as long lov'd me\n    As I have lov'd this proud disdainful haggard.\n    And so farewell, Signior Lucentio.\n    Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks,\n    Shall win my love; and so I take my leave,\n    In resolution as I swore before.                        Exit\n  TRANIO. Mistress Bianca, bless you with such grace\n    As 'longeth to a lover's blessed case!\n    Nay, I have ta'en you napping, gentle love,\n    And have forsworn you with Hortensio.\n  BIANCA. Tranio, you jest; but have you both forsworn me?\n  TRANIO. Mistress, we have.\n  LUCENTIO. Then we are rid of Licio.\n  TRANIO. I' faith, he'll have a lusty widow now,\n    That shall be woo'd and wedded in a day.\n  BIANCA. God give him joy!\n  TRANIO. Ay, and he'll tame her.\n  BIANCA. He says so, Tranio.\n  TRANIO. Faith, he is gone unto the taming-school.\n  BIANCA. The taming-school! What, is there such a place?\n  TRANIO. Ay, mistress; and Petruchio is the master,\n    That teacheth tricks eleven and twenty long,\n    To tame a shrew and charm her chattering tongue.\n\n                       Enter BIONDELLO\n\n  BIONDELLO. O master, master, have watch'd so long\n    That I am dog-weary; but at last I spied\n    An ancient angel coming down the hill\n    Will serve the turn.\n  TRANIO. What is he, Biondello?\n  BIONDELLO. Master, a mercatante or a pedant,\n    I know not what; but formal in apparel,\n    In gait and countenance surely like a father.\n  LUCENTIO. And what of him, Tranio?\n  TRANIO. If he be credulous and trust my tale,\n    I'll make him glad to seem Vincentio,\n    And give assurance to Baptista Minola\n    As if he were the right Vincentio.\n    Take in your love, and then let me alone.\n                                      Exeunt LUCENTIO and BIANCA\n\n                         Enter a PEDANT\n\n  PEDANT. God save you, sir!\n  TRANIO. And you, sir; you are welcome.\n    Travel you far on, or are you at the farthest?\n  PEDANT. Sir, at the farthest for a week or two;\n    But then up farther, and as far as Rome;\n    And so to Tripoli, if God lend me life.\n  TRANIO. What countryman, I pray?\n  PEDANT. Of Mantua.\n  TRANIO. Of Mantua, sir? Marry, God forbid,\n    And come to Padua, careless of your life!\n  PEDANT. My life, sir! How, I pray? For that goes hard.\n  TRANIO. 'Tis death for any one in Mantua\n    To come to Padua. Know you not the cause?\n    Your ships are stay'd at Venice; and the Duke,\n    For private quarrel 'twixt your Duke and him,\n    Hath publish'd and proclaim'd it openly.\n    'Tis marvel- but that you are but newly come,\n    You might have heard it else proclaim'd about.\n  PEDANT. Alas, sir, it is worse for me than so!\n    For I have bills for money by exchange\n    From Florence, and must here deliver them.\n  TRANIO. Well, sir, to do you courtesy,\n    This will I do, and this I will advise you-\n    First, tell me, have you ever been at Pisa?\n  PEDANT. Ay, sir, in Pisa have I often been,\n    Pisa renowned for grave citizens.\n  TRANIO. Among them know you one Vincentio?\n  PEDANT. I know him not, but I have heard of him,\n    A merchant of incomparable wealth.\n  TRANIO. He is my father, sir; and, sooth to say,\n    In count'nance somewhat doth resemble you.\n  BIONDELLO.  [Aside]  As much as an apple doth an oyster, and\nall\n    one.\n  TRANIO. To save your life in this extremity,\n    This favour will I do you for his sake;\n    And think it not the worst of all your fortunes\n    That you are like to Sir Vincentio.\n    His name and credit shall you undertake,\n    And in my house you shall be friendly lodg'd;\n    Look that you take upon you as you should.\n    You understand me, sir. So shall you stay\n    Till you have done your business in the city.\n    If this be court'sy, sir, accept of it.\n  PEDANT. O, sir, I do; and will repute you ever\n    The patron of my life and liberty.\n  TRANIO. Then go with me to make the matter good.\n    This, by the way, I let you understand:\n    My father is here look'd for every day\n    To pass assurance of a dow'r in marriage\n    'Twixt me and one Baptista's daughter here.\n    In all these circumstances I'll instruct you.\n    Go with me to clothe you as becomes you.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nPETRUCHIO'S house\n\nEnter KATHERINA and GRUMIO\n\n  GRUMIO. No, no, forsooth; I dare not for my life.\n  KATHERINA. The more my wrong, the more his spite appears.\n    What, did he marry me to famish me?\n    Beggars that come unto my father's door\n    Upon entreaty have a present alms;\n    If not, elsewhere they meet with charity;\n    But I, who never knew how to entreat,\n    Nor never needed that I should entreat,\n    Am starv'd for meat, giddy for lack of sleep;\n    With oaths kept waking, and with brawling fed;\n    And that which spites me more than all these wants-\n    He does it under name of perfect love;\n    As who should say, if I should sleep or eat,\n    'Twere deadly sickness or else present death.\n    I prithee go and get me some repast;\n    I care not what, so it be wholesome food.\n  GRUMIO. What say you to a neat's foot?\n  KATHERINA. 'Tis passing good; I prithee let me have it.\n  GRUMIO. I fear it is too choleric a meat.\n    How say you to a fat tripe finely broil'd?\n  KATHERINA. I like it well; good Grumio, fetch it me.\n  GRUMIO. I cannot tell; I fear 'tis choleric.\n    What say you to a piece of beef and mustard?\n  KATHERINA. A dish that I do love to feed upon.\n  GRUMIO. Ay, but the mustard is too hot a little.\n  KATHERINA. Why then the beef, and let the mustard rest.\n  GRUMIO. Nay, then I will not; you shall have the mustard,\n    Or else you get no beef of Grumio.\n  KATHERINA. Then both, or one, or anything thou wilt.\n  GRUMIO. Why then the mustard without the beef.\n  KATHERINA. Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave,\n                                                     [Beats him]\n    That feed'st me with the very name of meat.\n    Sorrow on thee and all the pack of you\n    That triumph thus upon my misery!\n    Go, get thee gone, I say.\n\n               Enter PETRUCHIO, and HORTENSIO with meat\n\n  PETRUCHIO. How fares my Kate? What, sweeting, all amort?\n  HORTENSIO. Mistress, what cheer?\n  KATHERINA. Faith, as cold as can be.\n  PETRUCHIO. Pluck up thy spirits, look cheerfully upon me.\n    Here, love, thou seest how diligent I am,\n    To dress thy meat myself, and bring it thee.\n    I am sure, sweet Kate, this kindness merits thanks.\n    What, not a word? Nay, then thou lov'st it not,\n    And all my pains is sorted to no proof.\n    Here, take away this dish.\n  KATHERINA. I pray you, let it stand.\n  PETRUCHIO. The poorest service is repaid with thanks;\n    And so shall mine, before you touch the meat.\n  KATHERINA. I thank you, sir.\n  HORTENSIO. Signior Petruchio, fie! you are to blame.\n    Come, Mistress Kate, I'll bear you company.\n  PETRUCHIO.  [Aside]  Eat it up all, Hortensio, if thou lovest\nme.-\n    Much good do it unto thy gentle heart!\n    Kate, eat apace. And now, my honey love,\n    Will we return unto thy father's house\n    And revel it as bravely as the best,\n    With silken coats and caps, and golden rings,\n    With ruffs and cuffs and farthingales and things,\n    With scarfs and fans and double change of brav'ry.\n    With amber bracelets, beads, and all this knav'ry.\n    What, hast thou din'd? The tailor stays thy leisure,\n    To deck thy body with his ruffling treasure.\n\n                          Enter TAILOR\n\n    Come, tailor, let us see these ornaments;\n    Lay forth the gown.\n\n                        Enter HABERDASHER\n\n    What news with you, sir?\n  HABERDASHER. Here is the cap your worship did bespeak.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, this was moulded on a porringer;\n    A velvet dish. Fie, fie! 'tis lewd and filthy;\n    Why, 'tis a cockle or a walnut-shell,\n    A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby's cap.\n    Away with it. Come, let me have a bigger.\n  KATHERINA. I'll have no bigger; this doth fit the time,\n    And gentlewomen wear such caps as these.\n  PETRUCHIO. When you are gentle, you shall have one too,\n    And not till then.\n  HORTENSIO.  [Aside]  That will not be in haste.\n  KATHERINA. Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak;\n    And speak I will. I am no child, no babe.\n    Your betters have endur'd me say my mind,\n    And if you cannot, best you stop your ears.\n    My tongue will tell the anger of my heart,\n    Or else my heart, concealing it, will break;\n    And rather than it shall, I will be free\n    Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, thou say'st true; it is a paltry cap,\n    A custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie;\n    I love thee well in that thou lik'st it not.\n  KATHERINA. Love me or love me not, I like the cap;\n    And it I will have, or I will have none.    Exit HABERDASHER\n  PETRUCHIO. Thy gown? Why, ay. Come, tailor, let us see't.\n    O mercy, God! what masquing stuff is here?\n    What's this? A sleeve? 'Tis like a demi-cannon.\n    What, up and down, carv'd like an appletart?\n    Here's snip and nip and cut and slish and slash,\n    Like to a censer in a barber's shop.\n    Why, what a devil's name, tailor, call'st thou this?\n  HORTENSIO.  [Aside]  I see she's like to have neither cap nor\ngown.\n  TAILOR. You bid me make it orderly and well,\n    According to the fashion and the time.\n  PETRUCHIO. Marry, and did; but if you be rememb'red,\n    I did not bid you mar it to the time.\n    Go, hop me over every kennel home,\n    For you shall hop without my custom, sir.\n    I'll none of it; hence! make your best of it.\n  KATHERINA. I never saw a better fashion'd gown,\n    More quaint, more pleasing, nor more commendable;\n    Belike you mean to make a puppet of me.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, true; he means to make a puppet of thee.\n  TAILOR. She says your worship means to make a puppet of her.\n  PETRUCHIO. O monstrous arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread, thou\n      thimble,\n    Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail,\n    Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou-\n    Brav'd in mine own house with a skein of thread!\n    Away, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant;\n    Or I shall so bemete thee with thy yard\n    As thou shalt think on prating whilst thou liv'st!\n    I tell thee, I, that thou hast marr'd her gown.\n  TAILOR. Your worship is deceiv'd; the gown is made\n    Just as my master had direction.\n    Grumio gave order how it should be done.\n  GRUMIO. I gave him no order; I gave him the stuff.\n  TAILOR. But how did you desire it should be made?\n  GRUMIO. Marry, sir, with needle and thread.\n  TAILOR. But did you not request to have it cut?\n  GRUMIO. Thou hast fac'd many things.\n  TAILOR. I have.\n  GRUMIO. Face not me. Thou hast brav'd many men; brave not me. I\n    will neither be fac'd nor brav'd. I say unto thee, I bid thy\n    master cut out the gown; but I did not bid him cut it to\npieces.\n    Ergo, thou liest.\n  TAILOR. Why, here is the note of the fashion to testify.\n  PETRUCHIO. Read it.\n  GRUMIO. The note lies in's throat, if he say I said so.\n  TAILOR.  [Reads]  'Imprimis, a loose-bodied gown'-\n  GRUMIO. Master, if ever I said loose-bodied gown, sew me in the\n    skirts of it and beat me to death with a bottom of brown\nbread; I\n    said a gown.\n  PETRUCHIO. Proceed.\n  TAILOR.  [Reads]  'With a small compass'd cape'-\n  GRUMIO. I confess the cape.\n  TAILOR.  [Reads]  'With a trunk sleeve'-\n  GRUMIO. I confess two sleeves.\n  TAILOR.  [Reads]  'The sleeves curiously cut.'\n  PETRUCHIO. Ay, there's the villainy.\n  GRUMIO. Error i' th' bill, sir; error i' th' bill! I commanded\nthe\n    sleeves should be cut out, and sew'd up again; and that I'll\n    prove upon thee, though thy little finger be armed in a\nthimble.\n  TAILOR. This is true that I say; an I had thee in place where,\nthou\n    shouldst know it.\n  GRUMIO. I am for thee straight; take thou the bill, give me thy\n    meteyard, and spare not me.\n  HORTENSIO. God-a-mercy, Grumio! Then he shall have no odds.\n  PETRUCHIO. Well, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me.\n  GRUMIO. You are i' th' right, sir; 'tis for my mistress.\n  PETRUCHIO. Go, take it up unto thy master's use.\n  GRUMIO. Villain, not for thy life! Take up my mistress' gown\nfor\n    thy master's use!\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, sir, what's your conceit in that?\n  GRUMIO. O, sir, the conceit is deeper than you think for.\n    Take up my mistress' gown to his master's use!\n    O fie, fie, fie!\n  PETRUCHIO.  [Aside]  Hortensio, say thou wilt see the tailor\npaid.-\n    Go take it hence; be gone, and say no more.\n  HORTENSIO. Tailor, I'll pay thee for thy gown to-morrow;\n    Take no unkindness of his hasty words.\n    Away, I say; commend me to thy master.           Exit TAILOR\n  PETRUCHIO. Well, come, my Kate; we will unto your father's\n    Even in these honest mean habiliments;\n    Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor;\n    For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich;\n    And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,\n    So honour peereth in the meanest habit.\n    What, is the jay more precious than the lark\n    Because his feathers are more beautiful?\n    Or is the adder better than the eel\n    Because his painted skin contents the eye?\n    O no, good Kate; neither art thou the worse\n    For this poor furniture and mean array.\n    If thou account'st it shame, lay it on me;\n    And therefore frolic; we will hence forthwith\n    To feast and sport us at thy father's house.\n    Go call my men, and let us straight to him;\n    And bring our horses unto Long-lane end;\n    There will we mount, and thither walk on foot.\n    Let's see; I think 'tis now some seven o'clock,\n    And well we may come there by dinner-time.\n  KATHERINA. I dare assure you, sir, 'tis almost two,\n    And 'twill be supper-time ere you come there.\n  PETRUCHIO. It shall be seven ere I go to horse.\n    Look what I speak, or do, or think to do,\n    You are still crossing it. Sirs, let 't alone;\n    I will not go to-day; and ere I do,\n    It shall be what o'clock I say it is.\n  HORTENSIO. Why, so this gallant will command the sun.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nPadua. Before BAPTISTA'S house\n\nEnter TRANIO as LUCENTIO, and the PEDANT dressed like VINCENTIO\n\n  TRANIO. Sir, this is the house; please it you that I call?\n  PEDANT. Ay, what else? And, but I be deceived,\n    Signior Baptista may remember me\n    Near twenty years ago in Genoa,\n    Where we were lodgers at the Pegasus.\n  TRANIO. 'Tis well; and hold your own, in any case,\n    With such austerity as longeth to a father.\n\n                       Enter BIONDELLO\n\n  PEDANT. I warrant you. But, sir, here comes your boy;\n    'Twere good he were school'd.\n  TRANIO. Fear you not him. Sirrah Biondello,\n    Now do your duty throughly, I advise you.\n    Imagine 'twere the right Vincentio.\n  BIONDELLO. Tut, fear not me.\n  TRANIO. But hast thou done thy errand to Baptista?\n  BIONDELLO. I told him that your father was at Venice,\n    And that you look'd for him this day in Padua.\n  TRANIO. Th'art a tall fellow; hold thee that to drink.\n    Here comes Baptista. Set your countenance, sir.\n\n                 Enter BAPTISTA, and LUCENTIO as CAMBIO\n\n    Signior Baptista, you are happily met.\n    [To the PEDANT] Sir, this is the gentleman I told you of;\n    I pray you stand good father to me now;\n    Give me Bianca for my patrimony.\n  PEDANT. Soft, son!\n    Sir, by your leave: having come to Padua\n    To gather in some debts, my son Lucentio\n    Made me acquainted with a weighty cause\n    Of love between your daughter and himself;\n    And- for the good report I hear of you,\n    And for the love he beareth to your daughter,\n    And she to him- to stay him not too long,\n    I am content, in a good father's care,\n    To have him match'd; and, if you please to like\n    No worse than I, upon some agreement\n    Me shall you find ready and willing\n    With one consent to have her so bestow'd;\n    For curious I cannot be with you,\n    Signior Baptista, of whom I hear so well.\n  BAPTISTA. Sir, pardon me in what I have to say.\n    Your plainness and your shortness please me well.\n    Right true it is your son Lucentio here\n    Doth love my daughter, and she loveth him,\n    Or both dissemble deeply their affections;\n    And therefore, if you say no more than this,\n    That like a father you will deal with him,\n    And pass my daughter a sufficient dower,\n    The match is made, and all is done-\n    Your son shall have my daughter with consent.\n  TRANIO. I thank you, sir. Where then do you know best\n    We be affied, and such assurance ta'en\n    As shall with either part's agreement stand?\n  BAPTISTA. Not in my house, Lucentio, for you know\n    Pitchers have ears, and I have many servants;\n    Besides, old Gremio is heark'ning still,\n    And happily we might be interrupted.\n  TRANIO. Then at my lodging, an it like you.\n    There doth my father lie; and there this night\n    We'll pass the business privately and well.\n    Send for your daughter by your servant here;\n    My boy shall fetch the scrivener presently.\n    The worst is this, that at so slender warning\n    You are like to have a thin and slender pittance.\n  BAPTISTA. It likes me well. Cambio, hie you home,\n    And bid Bianca make her ready straight;\n    And, if you will, tell what hath happened-\n    Lucentio's father is arriv'd in Padua,\n    And how she's like to be Lucentio's wife.      Exit LUCENTIO\n  BIONDELLO. I pray the gods she may, with all my heart.\n  TRANIO. Dally not with the gods, but get thee gone.\n                                                  Exit BIONDELLO\n    Signior Baptista, shall I lead the way?\n    Welcome! One mess is like to be your cheer;\n    Come, sir; we will better it in Pisa.\n  BAPTISTA. I follow you.                                 Exeunt\n\n            Re-enter LUCENTIO as CAMBIO, and BIONDELLO\n\n  BIONDELLO. Cambio.\n  LUCENTIO. What say'st thou, Biondello?\n  BIONDELLO. You saw my master wink and laugh upon you?\n  LUCENTIO. Biondello, what of that?\n  BIONDELLO. Faith, nothing; but has left me here behind to\nexpound\n    the meaning or moral of his signs and tokens.\n  LUCENTIO. I pray thee moralize them.\n  BIONDELLO. Then thus: Baptista is safe, talking with the\ndeceiving\n    father of a deceitful son.\n  LUCENTIO. And what of him?\n  BIONDELLO. His daughter is to be brought by you to the supper.\n  LUCENTIO. And then?\n  BIONDELLO. The old priest at Saint Luke's church is at your\ncommand\n    at all hours.\n  LUCENTIO. And what of all this?\n  BIONDELLO. I cannot tell, except they are busied about a\n    counterfeit assurance. Take your assurance of her, cum\nprivilegio\n    ad imprimendum solum; to th' church take the priest, clerk,\nand\n    some sufficient honest witnesses.\n    If this be not that you look for, I have more to say,\n    But bid Bianca farewell for ever and a day.\n  LUCENTIO. Hear'st thou, Biondello?\n  BIONDELLO. I cannot tarry. I knew a wench married in an\nafternoon\n    as she went to the garden for parsley to stuff a rabbit; and\nso\n    may you, sir; and so adieu, sir. My master hath appointed me\nto\n    go to Saint Luke's to bid the priest be ready to come against\nyou\n    come with your appendix.\n Exit\n  LUCENTIO. I may and will, if she be so contented.\n    She will be pleas'd; then wherefore should I doubt?\n    Hap what hap may, I'll roundly go about her;\n    It shall go hard if Cambio go without her.              Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nA public road\n\nEnter PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, HORTENSIO, and SERVANTS\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Come on, a God's name; once more toward our\nfather's.\n    Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!\n  KATHERINA. The moon? The sun! It is not moonlight now.\n  PETRUCHIO. I say it is the moon that shines so bright.\n  KATHERINA. I know it is the sun that shines so bright.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now by my mother's son, and that's myself,\n    It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,\n    Or ere I journey to your father's house.\n    Go on and fetch our horses back again.\n    Evermore cross'd and cross'd; nothing but cross'd!\n  HORTENSIO. Say as he says, or we shall never go.\n  KATHERINA. Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,\n    And be it moon, or sun, or what you please;\n    And if you please to call it a rush-candle,\n    Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.\n  PETRUCHIO. I say it is the moon.\n  KATHERINA. I know it is the moon.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, then you lie; it is the blessed sun.\n  KATHERINA. Then, God be bless'd, it is the blessed sun;\n    But sun it is not, when you say it is not;\n    And the moon changes even as your mind.\n    What you will have it nam'd, even that it is,\n    And so it shall be so for Katherine.\n  HORTENSIO. Petruchio, go thy ways, the field is won.\n  PETRUCHIO. Well, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run,\n    And not unluckily against the bias.\n    But, soft! Company is coming here.\n\n                            Enter VINCENTIO\n\n    [To VINCENTIO]  Good-morrow, gentle mistress; where away?-\n    Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,\n    Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?\n    Such war of white and red within her cheeks!\n    What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty\n    As those two eyes become that heavenly face?\n    Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee.\n    Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty's sake.\n  HORTENSIO. 'A will make the man mad, to make a woman of him.\n  KATHERINA. Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,\n    Whither away, or where is thy abode?\n    Happy the parents of so fair a child;\n    Happier the man whom favourable stars\n    Allots thee for his lovely bed-fellow.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, how now, Kate, I hope thou art not mad!\n    This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, withered,\n    And not a maiden, as thou sayst he is.\n  KATHERINA. Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes,\n    That have been so bedazzled with the sun\n    That everything I look on seemeth green;\n    Now I perceive thou art a reverend father.\n    Pardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking.\n  PETRUCHIO. Do, good old grandsire, and withal make known\n    Which way thou travellest- if along with us,\n    We shall be joyful of thy company.\n  VINCENTIO. Fair sir, and you my merry mistress,\n    That with your strange encounter much amaz'd me,\n    My name is call'd Vincentio, my dwelling Pisa,\n    And bound I am to Padua, there to visit\n    A son of mine, which long I have not seen.\n  PETRUCHIO. What is his name?\n  VINCENTIO. Lucentio, gentle sir.\n  PETRUCHIO. Happily met; the happier for thy son.\n    And now by law, as well as reverend age,\n    I may entitle thee my loving father:\n    The sister to my wife, this gentlewoman,\n    Thy son by this hath married. Wonder not,\n    Nor be not grieved- she is of good esteem,\n    Her dowry wealthy, and of worthy birth;\n    Beside, so qualified as may beseem\n    The spouse of any noble gentleman.\n    Let me embrace with old Vincentio;\n    And wander we to see thy honest son,\n    Who will of thy arrival be full joyous.\n  VINCENTIO. But is this true; or is it else your pleasure,\n    Like pleasant travellers, to break a jest\n    Upon the company you overtake?\n  HORTENSIO. I do assure thee, father, so it is.\n  PETRUCHIO. Come, go along, and see the truth hereof;\n    For our first merriment hath made thee jealous.\n                                        Exeunt all but HORTENSIO\n  HORTENSIO. Well, Petruchio, this has put me in heart.\n    Have to my widow; and if she be froward,\n    Then hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward.         Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nPadua. Before LUCENTIO'S house\n\nEnter BIONDELLO, LUCENTIO, and BIANCA; GREMIO is out before\n\n  BIONDELLO. Softly and swiftly, sir, for the priest is ready.\n  LUCENTIO. I fly, Biondello; but they may chance to need thee at\n    home, therefore leave us.\n  BIONDELLO. Nay, faith, I'll see the church a your back, and\nthen\n    come back to my master's as soon as I can.\n                          Exeunt LUCENTIO, BIANCA, and BIONDELLO\n  GREMIO. I marvel Cambio comes not all this while.\n\n           Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, VINCENTIO, GRUMIO,\n                          and ATTENDANTS\n\n  PETRUCHIO. Sir, here's the door; this is Lucentio's house;\n    My father's bears more toward the market-place;\n    Thither must I, and here I leave you, sir.\n  VINCENTIO. You shall not choose but drink before you go;\n    I think I shall command your welcome here,\n    And by all likelihood some cheer is toward.         [Knocks]\n  GREMIO. They're busy within; you were best knock louder.\n                                [PEDANT looks out of the window]\n  PEDANT. What's he that knocks as he would beat down the gate?\n  VINCENTIO. Is Signior Lucentio within, sir?\n  PEDANT. He's within, sir, but not to be spoken withal.\n  VINCENTIO. What if a man bring him a hundred pound or two to\nmake\n    merry withal?\n  PEDANT. Keep your hundred pounds to yourself; he shall need\nnone so\n    long as I live.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, I told you your son was well beloved in Padua.\nDo\n    you hear, sir? To leave frivolous circumstances, I pray you\ntell\n    Signior Lucentio that his father is come from Pisa, and is\nhere\n    at the door to speak with him.\n  PEDANT. Thou liest: his father is come from Padua, and here\nlooking\n    out at the window.\n  VINCENTIO. Art thou his father?\n  PEDANT. Ay, sir; so his mother says, if I may believe her.\n  PETRUCHIO.  [To VINCENTIO]  Why, how now, gentleman!\n    Why, this is flat knavery to take upon you another man's\nname.\n  PEDANT. Lay hands on the villain; I believe 'a means to cozen\n    somebody in this city under my countenance.\n\n                       Re-enter BIONDELLO\n\n  BIONDELLO. I have seen them in the church together. God send\n'em\n    good shipping! But who is here? Mine old master, Vicentio!\nNow we\n    are undone and brought to nothing.\n  VINCENTIO.  [Seeing BIONDELLO]  Come hither, crack-hemp.\n  BIONDELLO. I hope I may choose, sir.\n  VINCENTIO. Come hither, you rogue. What, have you forgot me?\n  BIONDELLO. Forgot you! No, sir. I could not forget you, for I\nnever\n    saw you before in all my life.\n  VINCENTIO. What, you notorious villain, didst thou never see\nthy\n    master's father, Vincentio?\n  BIONDELLO. What, my old worshipful old master? Yes, marry, sir;\nsee\n    where he looks out of the window.\n  VINCENTIO. Is't so, indeed?               [He beats BIONDELLO]\n  BIONDELLO. Help, help, help! Here's a madman will murder me.\n Exit\n  PEDANT. Help, son! help, Signior Baptista!     Exit from above\n  PETRUCHIO. Prithee, Kate, let's stand aside and see the end of\nthis\n    controversy.                              [They stand aside]\n\n       Re-enter PEDANT below; BAPTISTA, TRANIO, and SERVANTS\n\n  TRANIO. Sir, what are you that offer to beat my servant?\n  VINCENTIO. What am I, sir? Nay, what are you, sir? O immortal\ngods!\n    O fine villain! A silken doublet, a velvet hose, a scarlet\ncloak,\n    and a copatain hat! O, I am undone! I am undone! While I play\nthe\n    good husband at home, my son and my servant spend all at the\n    university.\n  TRANIO. How now! what's the matter?\n  BAPTISTA. What, is the man lunatic?\n  TRANIO. Sir, you seem a sober ancient gentleman by your habit,\nbut\n    your words show you a madman. Why, sir, what 'cerns it you if\nI\n    wear pearl and gold? I thank my good father, I am able to\n    maintain it.\n  VINCENTIO. Thy father! O villain! he is a sailmaker in Bergamo.\n  BAPTISTA. You mistake, sir; you mistake, sir. Pray, what do you\n\n    think is his name?\n  VINCENTIO. His name! As if I knew not his name! I have brought\nhim\n    up ever since he was three years old, and his name is Tranio.\n  PEDANT. Away, away, mad ass! His name is Lucentio; and he is\nmine\n    only son, and heir to the lands of me, Signior Vicentio.\n  VINCENTIO. Lucentio! O, he hath murd'red his master! Lay hold\non\n    him, I charge you, in the Duke's name. O, my son, my son!\nTell\n    me, thou villain, where is my son, Lucentio?\n  TRANIO. Call forth an officer.\n\n                      Enter one with an OFFICER\n\n    Carry this mad knave to the gaol. Father Baptista, I charge\nyou\n    see that he be forthcoming.\n  VINCENTIO. Carry me to the gaol!\n  GREMIO. Stay, Officer; he shall not go to prison.\n  BAPTISTA. Talk not, Signior Gremio; I say he shall go to\nprison.\n  GREMIO. Take heed, Signior Baptista, lest you be cony-catch'd\nin\n    this business; I dare swear this is the right Vincentio.\n  PEDANT. Swear if thou dar'st.\n  GREMIO. Nay, I dare not swear it.\n  TRANIO. Then thou wert best say that I am not Lucentio.\n  GREMIO. Yes, I know thee to be Signior Lucentio.\n  BAPTISTA. Away with the dotard; to the gaol with him!\n  VINCENTIO. Thus strangers may be hal'd and abus'd. O monstrous\n    villain!\n\n          Re-enter BIONDELLO, with LUCENTIO and BIANCA\n\n  BIONDELLO. O, we are spoil'd; and yonder he is! Deny him,\nforswear\n    him, or else we are all undone.\n         Exeunt BIONDELLO, TRANIO, and PEDANT, as fast as may be\n  LUCENTIO.  [Kneeling]  Pardon, sweet father.\n  VINCENTIO. Lives my sweet son?\n  BIANCA. Pardon, dear father.\n  BAPTISTA. How hast thou offended?\n    Where is Lucentio?\n  LUCENTIO. Here's Lucentio,\n    Right son to the right Vincentio,\n    That have by marriage made thy daughter mine,\n    While counterfeit supposes blear'd thine eyne.\n  GREMIO. Here's packing, with a witness, to deceive us all!\n  VINCENTIO. Where is that damned villain, Tranio,\n    That fac'd and brav'd me in this matter so?\n  BAPTISTA. Why, tell me, is not this my Cambio?\n  BIANCA. Cambio is chang'd into Lucentio.\n  LUCENTIO. Love wrought these miracles. Bianca's love\n    Made me exchange my state with Tranio,\n    While he did bear my countenance in the town;\n    And happily I have arrived at the last\n    Unto the wished haven of my bliss.\n    What Tranio did, myself enforc'd him to;\n    Then pardon him, sweet father, for my sake.\n  VINCENTIO. I'll slit the villain's nose that would have sent me\nto\n    the gaol.\n  BAPTISTA.  [To LUCENTIO]  But do you hear, sir? Have you\nmarried my\n    daughter without asking my good will?\n  VINCENTIO. Fear not, Baptista; we will content you, go to; but\nI\n    will in to be revenged for this villainy.               Exit\n  BAPTISTA. And I to sound the depth of this knavery.       Exit\n  LUCENTIO. Look not pale, Bianca; thy father will not frown.\n                                      Exeunt LUCENTIO and BIANCA\n  GREMIO. My cake is dough, but I'll in among the rest;\n    Out of hope of all but my share of the feast.           Exit\n  KATHERINA. Husband, let's follow to see the end of this ado.\n  PETRUCHIO. First kiss me, Kate, and we will.\n  KATHERINA. What, in the midst of the street?\n  PETRUCHIO. What, art thou asham'd of me?\n  KATHERINA. No, sir; God forbid; but asham'd to kiss.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, then, let's home again. Come, sirrah, let's\naway.\n  KATHERINA. Nay, I will give thee a kiss; now pray thee, love,\nstay.\n  PETRUCHIO. Is not this well? Come, my sweet Kate:\n    Better once than never, for never too late.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nLUCENTIO'S house\n\nEnter BAPTISTA, VINCENTIO, GREMIO, the PEDANT, LUCENTIO, BIANCA,\nPETRUCHIO, KATHERINA, HORTENSIO, and WIDOW. The SERVINGMEN with\nTRANIO,\nBIONDELLO, and GRUMIO, bringing in a banquet\n\n  LUCENTIO. At last, though long, our jarring notes agree;\n    And time it is when raging war is done\n    To smile at scapes and perils overblown.\n    My fair Bianca, bid my father welcome,\n    While I with self-same kindness welcome thine.\n    Brother Petruchio, sister Katherina,\n    And thou, Hortensio, with thy loving widow,\n    Feast with the best, and welcome to my house.\n    My banquet is to close our stomachs up\n    After our great good cheer. Pray you, sit down;\n    For now we sit to chat as well as eat.            [They sit]\n  PETRUCHIO. Nothing but sit and sit, and eat and eat!\n  BAPTISTA. Padua affords this kindness, son Petruchio.\n  PETRUCHIO. Padua affords nothing but what is kind.\n  HORTENSIO. For both our sakes I would that word were true.\n  PETRUCHIO. Now, for my life, Hortensio fears his widow.\n  WIDOW. Then never trust me if I be afeard.\n  PETRUCHIO. YOU are very sensible, and yet you miss my sense:\n    I mean Hortensio is afeard of you.\n  WIDOW. He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.\n  PETRUCHIO. Roundly replied.\n  KATHERINA. Mistress, how mean you that?\n  WIDOW. Thus I conceive by him.\n  PETRUCHIO. Conceives by me! How likes Hortensio that?\n  HORTENSIO. My widow says thus she conceives her tale.\n  PETRUCHIO. Very well mended. Kiss him for that, good widow.\n  KATHERINA. 'He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.'\n    I pray you tell me what you meant by that.\n  WIDOW. Your husband, being troubled with a shrew,\n    Measures my husband's sorrow by his woe;\n    And now you know my meaning.\n  KATHERINA. A very mean meaning.\n  WIDOW. Right, I mean you.\n  KATHERINA. And I am mean, indeed, respecting you.\n  PETRUCHIO. To her, Kate!\n  HORTENSIO. To her, widow!\n  PETRUCHIO. A hundred marks, my Kate does put her down.\n  HORTENSIO. That's my office.\n  PETRUCHIO. Spoke like an officer- ha' to thee, lad.\n                                           [Drinks to HORTENSIO]\n  BAPTISTA. How likes Gremio these quick-witted folks?\n  GREMIO. Believe me, sir, they butt together well.\n  BIANCA. Head and butt! An hasty-witted body\n    Would say your head and butt were head and horn.\n  VINCENTIO. Ay, mistress bride, hath that awakened you?\n  BIANCA. Ay, but not frighted me; therefore I'll sleep again.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, that you shall not; since you have begun,\n    Have at you for a bitter jest or two.\n  BIANCA. Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush,\n    And then pursue me as you draw your bow.\n    You are welcome all.\n                             Exeunt BIANCA, KATHERINA, and WIDOW\n  PETRUCHIO. She hath prevented me. Here, Signior Tranio,\n    This bird you aim'd at, though you hit her not;\n    Therefore a health to all that shot and miss'd.\n  TRANIO. O, sir, Lucentio slipp'd me like his greyhound,\n    Which runs himself, and catches for his master.\n  PETRUCHIO. A good swift simile, but something currish.\n  TRANIO. 'Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself;\n    'Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay.\n  BAPTISTA. O, O, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now.\n  LUCENTIO. I thank thee for that gird, good Tranio.\n  HORTENSIO. Confess, confess; hath he not hit you here?\n  PETRUCHIO. 'A has a little gall'd me, I confess;\n    And, as the jest did glance away from me,\n    'Tis ten to one it maim'd you two outright.\n  BAPTISTA. Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio,\n    I think thou hast the veriest shrew of all.\n  PETRUCHIO. Well, I say no; and therefore, for assurance,\n    Let's each one send unto his wife,\n    And he whose wife is most obedient,\n    To come at first when he doth send for her,\n    Shall win the wager which we will propose.\n  HORTENSIO. Content. What's the wager?\n  LUCENTIO. Twenty crowns.\n  PETRUCHIO. Twenty crowns?\n    I'll venture so much of my hawk or hound,\n    But twenty times so much upon my wife.\n  LUCENTIO. A hundred then.\n  HORTENSIO. Content.\n  PETRUCHIO. A match! 'tis done.\n  HORTENSIO. Who shall begin?\n  LUCENTIO. That will I.\n    Go, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.\n  BIONDELLO. I go.                                          Exit\n  BAPTISTA. Son, I'll be your half Bianca comes.\n  LUCENTIO. I'll have no halves; I'll bear it all myself.\n\n                          Re-enter BIONDELLO\n\n    How now! what news?\n  BIONDELLO. Sir, my mistress sends you word\n    That she is busy and she cannot come.\n  PETRUCHIO. How! She's busy, and she cannot come!\n    Is that an answer?\n  GREMIO. Ay, and a kind one too.\n    Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.\n  PETRUCHIO. I hope better.\n  HORTENSIO. Sirrah Biondello, go and entreat my wife\n    To come to me forthwith.                      Exit BIONDELLO\n  PETRUCHIO. O, ho! entreat her!\n    Nay, then she must needs come.\n  HORTENSIO. I am afraid, sir,\n    Do what you can, yours will not be entreated.\n\n                            Re-enter BIONDELLO\n\n    Now, where's my wife?\n  BIONDELLO. She says you have some goodly jest in hand:\n    She will not come; she bids you come to her.\n  PETRUCHIO. Worse and worse; she will not come! O vile,\n    Intolerable, not to be endur'd!\n    Sirrah Grumio, go to your mistress;\n    Say I command her come to me.                    Exit GRUMIO\n  HORTENSIO. I know her answer.\n  PETRUCHIO. What?\n  HORTENSIO. She will not.\n  PETRUCHIO. The fouler fortune mine, and there an end.\n\n                             Re-enter KATHERINA\n\n  BAPTISTA. Now, by my holidame, here comes Katherina!\n  KATHERINA. What is your will, sir, that you send for me?\n  PETRUCHIO. Where is your sister, and Hortensio's wife?\n  KATHERINA. They sit conferring by the parlour fire.\n  PETRUCHIO. Go, fetch them hither; if they deny to come.\n    Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands.\n    Away, I say, and bring them hither straight.\n                                                  Exit KATHERINA\n  LUCENTIO. Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.\n  HORTENSIO. And so it is. I wonder what it bodes.\n  PETRUCHIO. Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life,\n    An awful rule, and right supremacy;\n    And, to be short, what not that's sweet and happy.\n  BAPTISTA. Now fair befall thee, good Petruchio!\n    The wager thou hast won; and I will ad\n    Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns;\n    Another dowry to another daughter,\n    For she is chang'd, as she had never been.\n  PETRUCHIO. Nay, I will win my wager better yet,\n    And show more sign of her obedience,\n    Her new-built virtue and obedience.\n\n                 Re-enter KATHERINA with BIANCA and WIDOW\n\n    See where she comes, and brings your froward wives\n    As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.\n    Katherine, that cap of yours becomes you not:\n    Off with that bauble, throw it underfoot.\n                                            [KATHERINA complies]\n  WIDOW. Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh\n    Till I be brought to such a silly pass!\n  BIANCA. Fie! what a foolish duty call you this?\n  LUCENTIO. I would your duty were as foolish too;\n    The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,\n    Hath cost me a hundred crowns since supper-time!\n  BIANCA. The more fool you for laying on my duty.\n  PETRUCHIO. Katherine, I charge thee, tell these headstrong\nwomen\n    What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.\n  WIDOW. Come, come, you're mocking; we will have no telling.\n  PETRUCHIO. Come on, I say; and first begin with her.\n  WIDOW. She shall not.\n  PETRUCHIO. I say she shall. And first begin with her.\n  KATHERINA. Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,\n    And dart not scornful glances from those eyes\n    To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.\n    It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,\n    Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,\n    And in no sense is meet or amiable.\n    A woman mov'd is like a fountain troubled-\n    Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;\n    And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty\n    Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.\n    Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,\n    Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,\n    And for thy maintenance commits his body\n    To painful labour both by sea and land,\n    To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,\n    Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;\n    And craves no other tribute at thy hands\n    But love, fair looks, and true obedience-\n    Too little payment for so great a debt.\n    Such duty as the subject owes the prince,\n    Even such a woman oweth to her husband;\n    And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,\n    And not obedient to his honest will,\n    What is she but a foul contending rebel\n    And graceless traitor to her loving lord?\n    I am asham'd that women are so simple\n    To offer war where they should kneel for peace;\n    Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,\n    When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.\n    Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,\n    Unapt to toll and trouble in the world,\n    But that our soft conditions and our hearts\n    Should well agree with our external parts?\n    Come, come, you froward and unable worins!\n    My mind hath been as big as one of yours,\n    My heart as great, my reason haply more,\n    To bandy word for word and frown for frown;\n    But now I see our lances are but straws,\n    Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,\n    That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.\n    Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,\n    And place your hands below your husband's foot;\n    In token of which duty, if he please,\n    My hand is ready, may it do him ease.\n  PETRUCHIO. Why, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.\n  LUCENTIO. Well, go thy ways, old lad, for thou shalt ha't.\n  VINCENTIO. 'Tis a good hearing when children are toward.\n  LUCENTIO. But a harsh hearing when women are froward.\n  PETRUCHIO. Come, Kate, we'll to bed.\n    We three are married, but you two are sped.\n    [To LUCENTIO]  'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the\nwhite;\n    And being a winner, God give you good night!\n                                  Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATHERINA\n  HORTENSIO. Now go thy ways; thou hast tam'd a curst shrow.\n  LUCENTIO. 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tam'd so.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nThe Taming of the Shrew"}
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{"1108":"\n\n\n\n\n1595\n\nTHE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  DUKE OF MILAN, father to Silvia\n  VALENTINE, one of the two gentlemen\n  PROTEUS,    \"  \"   \"   \"     \"\n  ANTONIO, father to Proteus\n  THURIO, a foolish rival to Valentine\n  EGLAMOUR, agent for Silvia in her escape\n  SPEED, a clownish servant to Valentine\n  LAUNCE, the like to Proteus\n  PANTHINO, servant to Antonio\n  HOST, where Julia lodges in Milan\n  OUTLAWS, with Valentine\n\n  JULIA, a lady of Verona, beloved of Proteus\n  SILVIA, the Duke's daughter, beloved of Valentine\n  LUCETTA, waiting-woman to Julia\n\n  SERVANTS\n  MUSICIANS\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nVerona; Milan; the frontiers of Mantua\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nVerona. An open place\n\nEnter VALENTINE and PROTEUS\n\n  VALENTINE. Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus:\n    Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.\n    Were't not affection chains thy tender days\n    To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love,\n    I rather would entreat thy company\n    To see the wonders of the world abroad,\n    Than, living dully sluggardiz'd at home,\n    Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.\n    But since thou lov'st, love still, and thrive therein,\n    Even as I would, when I to love begin.\n  PROTEUS. Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu!\n    Think on thy Proteus, when thou haply seest\n    Some rare noteworthy object in thy travel.\n    Wish me partaker in thy happiness\n    When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger,\n    If ever danger do environ thee,\n    Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers,\n    For I will be thy headsman, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. And on a love-book pray for my success?\n  PROTEUS. Upon some book I love I'll pray for thee.\n  VALENTINE. That's on some shallow story of deep love:\n    How young Leander cross'd the Hellespont.\n  PROTEUS. That's a deep story of a deeper love;\n    For he was more than over shoes in love.\n  VALENTINE. 'Tis true; for you are over boots in love,\n    And yet you never swum the Hellespont.\n  PROTEUS. Over the boots! Nay, give me not the boots.\n  VALENTINE. No, I will not, for it boots thee not.\n  PROTEUS. What?\n  VALENTINE. To be in love- where scorn is bought with groans,\n    Coy looks with heart-sore sighs, one fading moment's mirth\n    With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights;\n    If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain;\n    If lost, why then a grievous labour won;\n    However, but a folly bought with wit,\n    Or else a wit by folly vanquished.\n  PROTEUS. So, by your circumstance, you call me fool.\n  VALENTINE. So, by your circumstance, I fear you'll prove.\n  PROTEUS. 'Tis love you cavil at; I am not Love.\n  VALENTINE. Love is your master, for he masters you;\n    And he that is so yoked by a fool,\n    Methinks, should not be chronicled for wise.\n  PROTEUS. Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud\n    The eating canker dwells, so eating love\n    Inhabits in the finest wits of all.\n  VALENTINE. And writers say, as the most forward bud\n    Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,\n    Even so by love the young and tender wit\n    Is turn'd to folly, blasting in the bud,\n    Losing his verdure even in the prime,\n    And all the fair effects of future hopes.\n    But wherefore waste I time to counsel the\n    That art a votary to fond desire?\n    Once more adieu. My father at the road\n    Expects my coming, there to see me shipp'd.\n  PROTEUS. And thither will I bring thee, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. Sweet Proteus, no; now let us take our leave.\n    To Milan let me hear from thee by letters\n    Of thy success in love, and what news else\n    Betideth here in absence of thy friend;\n    And I likewise will visit thee with mine.\n  PROTEUS. All happiness bechance to thee in Milan!\n  VALENTINE. As much to you at home; and so farewell!\n                                                  Exit VALENTINE\n  PROTEUS. He after honour hunts, I after love;\n    He leaves his friends to dignify them more:\n    I leave myself, my friends, and all for love.\n    Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphis'd me,\n    Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,\n    War with good counsel, set the world at nought;\n    Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with thought.\n\n                         Enter SPEED\n\n  SPEED. Sir Proteus, save you! Saw you my master?\n  PROTEUS. But now he parted hence to embark for Milan.\n  SPEED. Twenty to one then he is shipp'd already,\n    And I have play'd the sheep in losing him.\n  PROTEUS. Indeed a sheep doth very often stray,\n    An if the shepherd be awhile away.\n  SPEED. You conclude that my master is a shepherd then, and\n    I a sheep?\n  PROTEUS. I do.\n  SPEED. Why then, my horns are his horns, whether I wake or\nsleep.\n  PROTEUS. A silly answer, and fitting well a sheep.\n  SPEED. This proves me still a sheep.\n  PROTEUS. True; and thy master a shepherd.\n  SPEED. Nay, that I can deny by a circumstance.\n  PROTEUS. It shall go hard but I'll prove it by another.\n  SPEED. The shepherd seeks the sheep, and not the sheep the\n    shepherd; but I seek my master, and my master seeks not me;\n    therefore, I am no sheep.\n  PROTEUS. The sheep for fodder follow the shepherd; the shepherd\nfor\n    food follows not the sheep: thou for wages followest thy\nmaster;\n    thy master for wages follows not thee. Therefore, thou art a\n    sheep.\n  SPEED. Such another proof will make me cry 'baa.'\n  PROTEUS. But dost thou hear? Gav'st thou my letter to Julia?\n  SPEED. Ay, sir; I, a lost mutton, gave your letter to her, a\nlac'd\n    mutton; and she, a lac'd mutton, gave me, a lost mutton,\nnothing\n    for my labour.\n  PROTEUS. Here's too small a pasture for such store of muttons.\n  SPEED. If the ground be overcharg'd, you were best stick her.\n  PROTEUS. Nay, in that you are astray: 'twere best pound you.\n  SPEED. Nay, sir, less than a pound shall serve me for carrying\nyour\n    letter.\n  PROTEUS. You mistake; I mean the pound- a pinfold.\n  SPEED. From a pound to a pin? Fold it over and over,\n    'Tis threefold too little for carrying a letter to your\nlover.\n  PROTEUS. But what said she?\n  SPEED.  [Nodding]  Ay.\n  PROTEUS. Nod- ay. Why, that's 'noddy.'\n  SPEED. You mistook, sir; I say she did nod; and you ask me if\nshe\n    did nod; and I say 'Ay.'\n  PROTEUS. And that set together is 'noddy.'\n  SPEED. Now you have taken the pains to set it together, take it\nfor\n    your pains.\n  PROTEUS. No, no; you shall have it for bearing the letter.\n  SPEED. Well, I perceive I must be fain to bear with you.\n  PROTEUS. Why, sir, how do you bear with me?\n  SPEED. Marry, sir, the letter, very orderly; having nothing but\nthe\n    word 'noddy' for my pains.\n  PROTEUS. Beshrew me, but you have a quick wit.\n  SPEED. And yet it cannot overtake your slow purse.\n  PROTEUS. Come, come, open the matter; in brief, what said she?\n  SPEED. Open your purse, that the money and the matter may be\nboth\n    at once delivered.\n  PROTEUS. Well, sir, here is for your pains. What said she?\n  SPEED. Truly, sir, I think you'll hardly win her.\n  PROTEUS. Why, couldst thou perceive so much from her?\n  SPEED. Sir, I could perceive nothing at all from her; no, not\nso\n    much as a ducat for delivering your letter; and being so hard\nto\n    me that brought your mind, I fear she'll prove as hard to you\nin\n    telling your mind. Give her no token but stones, for she's as\n    hard as steel.\n  PROTEUS. What said she? Nothing?\n  SPEED. No, not so much as 'Take this for thy pains.' To testify\n\n    your bounty, I thank you, you have testern'd me; in requital\n    whereof, henceforth carry your letters yourself; and so, sir,\n    I'll commend you to my master.\n  PROTEUS. Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wreck,\n    Which cannot perish, having thee aboard,\n    Being destin'd to a drier death on shore.         Exit SPEED\n    I must go send some better messenger.\n    I fear my Julia would not deign my lines,\n    Receiving them from such a worthless post.              Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nVerona. The garden Of JULIA'S house\n\nEnter JULIA and LUCETTA\n\n  JULIA. But say, Lucetta, now we are alone,\n    Wouldst thou then counsel me to fall in love?\n  LUCETTA. Ay, madam; so you stumble not unheedfully.\n  JULIA. Of all the fair resort of gentlemen\n    That every day with parle encounter me,\n    In thy opinion which is worthiest love?\n  LUCETTA. Please you, repeat their names; I'll show my mind\n    According to my shallow simple skill.\n  JULIA. What think'st thou of the fair Sir Eglamour?\n  LUCETTA. As of a knight well-spoken, neat, and fine;\n    But, were I you, he never should be mine.\n  JULIA. What think'st thou of the rich Mercatio?\n  LUCETTA. Well of his wealth; but of himself, so so.\n  JULIA. What think'st thou of the gentle Proteus?\n  LUCETTA. Lord, Lord! to see what folly reigns in us!\n  JULIA. How now! what means this passion at his name?\n  LUCETTA. Pardon, dear madam; 'tis a passing shame\n    That I, unworthy body as I am,\n    Should censure thus on lovely gentlemen.\n  JULIA. Why not on Proteus, as of all the rest?\n  LUCETTA. Then thus: of many good I think him best.\n  JULIA. Your reason?\n  LUCETTA. I have no other but a woman's reason:\n    I think him so, because I think him so.\n  JULIA. And wouldst thou have me cast my love on him?\n  LUCETTA. Ay, if you thought your love not cast away.\n  JULIA. Why, he, of all the rest, hath never mov'd me.\n  LUCETTA. Yet he, of all the rest, I think, best loves ye.\n  JULIA. His little speaking shows his love but small.\n  LUCETTA. Fire that's closest kept burns most of all.\n  JULIA. They do not love that do not show their love.\n  LUCETTA. O, they love least that let men know their love.\n  JULIA. I would I knew his mind.\n  LUCETTA. Peruse this paper, madam.\n  JULIA. 'To Julia'- Say, from whom?\n  LUCETTA. That the contents will show.\n  JULIA. Say, say, who gave it thee?\n  LUCETTA. Sir Valentine's page; and sent, I think, from Proteus.\n    He would have given it you; but I, being in the way,\n    Did in your name receive it; pardon the fault, I pray.\n  JULIA. Now, by my modesty, a goodly broker!\n    Dare you presume to harbour wanton lines?\n    To whisper and conspire against my youth?\n    Now, trust me, 'tis an office of great worth,\n    And you an officer fit for the place.\n    There, take the paper; see it be return'd;\n    Or else return no more into my sight.\n  LUCETTA. To plead for love deserves more fee than hate.\n  JULIA. Will ye be gone?\n  LUCETTA. That you may ruminate.                           Exit\n  JULIA. And yet, I would I had o'erlook'd the letter.\n    It were a shame to call her back again,\n    And pray her to a fault for which I chid her.\n    What fool is she, that knows I am a maid\n    And would not force the letter to my view!\n    Since maids, in modesty, say 'No' to that\n    Which they would have the profferer construe 'Ay.'\n    Fie, fie, how wayward is this foolish love,\n    That like a testy babe will scratch the nurse,\n    And presently, all humbled, kiss the rod!\n    How churlishly I chid Lucetta hence,\n    When willingly I would have had her here!\n    How angerly I taught my brow to frown,\n    When inward joy enforc'd my heart to smile!\n    My penance is to call Lucetta back\n    And ask remission for my folly past.\n    What ho! Lucetta!\n\n                     Re-enter LUCETTA\n\n  LUCETTA. What would your ladyship?\n  JULIA. Is't near dinner time?\n  LUCETTA. I would it were,\n    That you might kill your stomach on your meat\n    And not upon your maid.\n  JULIA. What is't that you took up so gingerly?\n  LUCETTA. Nothing.\n  JULIA. Why didst thou stoop then?\n  LUCETTA. To take a paper up that I let fall.\n  JULIA. And is that paper nothing?\n  LUCETTA. Nothing concerning me.\n  JULIA. Then let it lie for those that it concerns.\n  LUCETTA. Madam, it will not lie where it concerns,\n    Unless it have a false interpreter.\n  JULIA. Some love of yours hath writ to you in rhyme.\n  LUCETTA. That I might sing it, madam, to a tune.\n    Give me a note; your ladyship can set.\n  JULIA. As little by such toys as may be possible.\n    Best sing it to the tune of 'Light o' Love.'\n  LUCETTA. It is too heavy for so light a tune.\n  JULIA. Heavy! belike it hath some burden then.\n  LUCETTA. Ay; and melodious were it, would you sing it.\n  JULIA. And why not you?\n  LUCETTA. I cannot reach so high.\n  JULIA. Let's see your song.     [LUCETTA withholds the letter]\n    How now, minion!\n  LUCETTA. Keep tune there still, so you will sing it out.\n    And yet methinks I do not like this tune.\n  JULIA. You do not!\n  LUCETTA. No, madam; 'tis too sharp.\n  JULIA. You, minion, are too saucy.\n  LUCETTA. Nay, now you are too flat\n    And mar the concord with too harsh a descant;\n    There wanteth but a mean to fill your song.\n  JULIA. The mean is drown'd with your unruly bass.\n  LUCETTA. Indeed, I bid the base for Proteus.\n  JULIA. This babble shall not henceforth trouble me.\n    Here is a coil with protestation!         [Tears the letter]\n    Go, get you gone; and let the papers lie.\n    You would be fing'ring them, to anger me.\n  LUCETTA. She makes it strange; but she would be best pleas'd\n    To be so ang'red with another letter.                   Exit\n  JULIA. Nay, would I were so ang'red with the same!\n    O hateful hands, to tear such loving words!\n    Injurious wasps, to feed on such sweet honey\n    And kill the bees that yield it with your stings!\n    I'll kiss each several paper for amends.\n    Look, here is writ 'kind Julia.' Unkind Julia,\n    As in revenge of thy ingratitude,\n    I throw thy name against the bruising stones,\n    Trampling contemptuously on thy disdain.\n    And here is writ 'love-wounded Proteus.'\n    Poor wounded name! my bosom,,as a bed,\n    Shall lodge thee till thy wound be throughly heal'd;\n    And thus I search it with a sovereign kiss.\n    But twice or thrice was 'Proteus' written down.\n    Be calm, good wind, blow not a word away\n    Till I have found each letter in the letter-\n    Except mine own name; that some whirlwind bear\n    Unto a ragged, fearful, hanging rock,\n    And throw it thence into the raging sea.\n    Lo, here in one line is his name twice writ:\n    'Poor forlorn Proteus, passionate Proteus,\n    To the sweet Julia.' That I'll tear away;\n    And yet I will not, sith so prettily\n    He couples it to his complaining names.\n    Thus will I fold them one upon another;\n    Now kiss, embrace, contend, do what you will.\n\n                        Re-enter LUCETTA\n\n  LUCETTA. Madam,\n    Dinner is ready, and your father stays.\n  JULIA. Well, let us go.\n  LUCETTA. What, shall these papers lie like tell-tales here?\n  JULIA. If you respect them, best to take them up.\n  LUCETTA. Nay, I was taken up for laying them down;\n    Yet here they shall not lie for catching cold.\n  JULIA. I see you have a month's mind to them.\n  LUCETTA. Ay, madam, you may say what sights you see;\n    I see things too, although you judge I wink.\n  JULIA. Come, come; will't please you go?                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVerona. ANTONIO'S house\n\nEnter ANTONIO and PANTHINO\n\n  ANTONIO. Tell me, Panthino, what sad talk was that\n    Wherewith my brother held you in the cloister?\n  PANTHINO. 'Twas of his nephew Proteus, your son.\n  ANTONIO. Why, what of him?\n  PANTHINO. He wond'red that your lordship\n    Would suffer him to spend his youth at home,\n    While other men, of slender reputation,\n    Put forth their sons to seek preferment out:\n    Some to the wars, to try their fortune there;\n    Some to discover islands far away;\n    Some to the studious universities.\n    For any, or for all these exercises,\n    He said that Proteus, your son, was meet;\n    And did request me to importune you\n    To let him spend his time no more at home,\n    Which would be great impeachment to his age,\n    In having known no travel in his youth.\n  ANTONIO. Nor need'st thou much importune me to that\n    Whereon this month I have been hammering.\n    I have consider'd well his loss of time,\n    And how he cannot be a perfect man,\n    Not being tried and tutor'd in the world:\n    Experience is by industry achiev'd,\n    And perfected by the swift course of time.\n    Then tell me whither were I best to send him.\n  PANTHINO. I think your lordship is not ignorant\n    How his companion, youthful Valentine,\n    Attends the Emperor in his royal court.\n  ANTONIO. I know it well.\n  PANTHINO. 'Twere good, I think, your lordship sent him thither:\n    There shall he practise tilts and tournaments,\n    Hear sweet discourse, converse with noblemen,\n    And be in eye of every exercise\n    Worthy his youth and nobleness of birth.\n  ANTONIO. I like thy counsel; well hast thou advis'd;\n    And that thou mayst perceive how well I like it,\n    The execution of it shall make known:\n    Even with the speediest expedition\n    I will dispatch him to the Emperor's court.\n  PANTHINO. To-morrow, may it please you, Don Alphonso\n    With other gentlemen of good esteem\n    Are journeying to salute the Emperor,\n    And to commend their service to his will.\n  ANTONIO. Good company; with them shall Proteus go.\n\n                        Enter PROTEUS\n\n    And- in good time!- now will we break with him.\n  PROTEUS. Sweet love! sweet lines! sweet life!\n    Here is her hand, the agent of her heart;\n    Here is her oath for love, her honour's pawn.\n    O that our fathers would applaud our loves,\n    To seal our happiness with their consents!\n    O heavenly Julia!\n  ANTONIO. How now! What letter are you reading there?\n  PROTEUS. May't please your lordship, 'tis a word or two\n    Of commendations sent from Valentine,\n    Deliver'd by a friend that came from him.\n  ANTONIO. Lend me the letter; let me see what news.\n  PROTEUS. There is no news, my lord; but that he writes\n    How happily he lives, how well-belov'd\n    And daily graced by the Emperor;\n    Wishing me with him, partner of his fortune.\n  ANTONIO. And how stand you affected to his wish?\n  PROTEUS. As one relying on your lordship's will,\n    And not depending on his friendly wish.\n  ANTONIO. My will is something sorted with his wish.\n    Muse not that I thus suddenly proceed;\n    For what I will, I will, and there an end.\n    I am resolv'd that thou shalt spend some time\n    With Valentinus in the Emperor's court;\n    What maintenance he from his friends receives,\n    Like exhibition thou shalt have from me.\n    To-morrow be in readiness to go-\n    Excuse it not, for I am peremptory.\n  PROTEUS. My lord, I cannot be so soon provided;\n    Please you, deliberate a day or two.\n  ANTONIO. Look what thou want'st shall be sent after thee.\n    No more of stay; to-morrow thou must go.\n    Come on, Panthino; you shall be employ'd\n    To hasten on his expedition.\n                                     Exeunt ANTONIO and PANTHINO\n  PROTEUS. Thus have I shunn'd the fire for fear of burning,\n    And drench'd me in the sea, where I am drown'd.\n    I fear'd to show my father Julia's letter,\n    Lest he should take exceptions to my love;\n    And with the vantage of mine own excuse\n    Hath he excepted most against my love.\n    O, how this spring of love resembleth\n    The uncertain glory of an April day,\n    Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,\n    And by an by a cloud takes all away!\n\n                       Re-enter PANTHINO\n\n  PANTHINO. Sir Proteus, your father calls for you;\n    He is in haste; therefore, I pray you, go.\n  PROTEUS. Why, this it is: my heart accords thereto;\n    And yet a thousand times it answers 'No.'             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter VALENTINE and SPEED\n\n  SPEED. Sir, your glove.\n  VALENTINE. Not mine: my gloves are on.\n  SPEED. Why, then, this may be yours; for this is but one.\n  VALENTINE. Ha! let me see; ay, give it me, it's mine;\n    Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine!\n    Ah, Silvia! Silvia!\n  SPEED.  [Calling]  Madam Silvia! Madam Silvia!\n  VALENTINE. How now, sirrah?\n  SPEED. She is not within hearing, sir.\n  VALENTINE. Why, sir, who bade you call her?\n  SPEED. Your worship, sir; or else I mistook.\n  VALENTINE. Well, you'll still be too forward.\n  SPEED. And yet I was last chidden for being too slow.\n  VALENTINE. Go to, sir; tell me, do you know Madam Silvia?\n  SPEED. She that your worship loves?\n  VALENTINE. Why, how know you that I am in love?\n  SPEED. Marry, by these special marks: first, you have learn'd,\nlike\n    Sir Proteus, to wreath your arms like a malcontent; to relish\na\n    love-song, like a robin redbreast; to walk alone, like one\nthat\n    had the pestilence; to sigh, like a school-boy that had lost\nhis\n    A B C; to weep, like a young wench that had buried her\ngrandam;\n    to fast, like one that takes diet; to watch, like one that\nfears\n    robbing; to speak puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas. You\nwere\n    wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock; when you walk'd,\nto\n    walk like one of the lions; when you fasted, it was presently\n    after dinner; when you look'd sadly, it was for want of\nmoney.\n    And now you are metamorphis'd with a mistress, that, when I\nlook\n    on you, I can hardly think you my master.\n  VALENTINE. Are all these things perceiv'd in me?\n  SPEED. They are all perceiv'd without ye.\n  VALENTINE. Without me? They cannot.\n  SPEED. Without you! Nay, that's certain; for, without you were\nso\n    simple, none else would; but you are so without these follies\n    that these follies are within you, and shine through you like\nthe\n    water in an urinal, that not an eye that sees you but is a\n    physician to comment on your malady.\n  VALENTINE. But tell me, dost thou know my lady Silvia?\n  SPEED. She that you gaze on so, as she sits at supper?\n  VALENTINE. Hast thou observ'd that? Even she, I mean.\n  SPEED. Why, sir, I know her not.\n  VALENTINE. Dost thou know her by my gazing on her, and yet\nknow'st\n    her not?\n  SPEED. Is she not hard-favour'd, sir?\n  VALENTINE. Not so fair, boy, as well-favour'd.\n  SPEED. Sir, I know that well enough.\n  VALENTINE. What dost thou know?\n  SPEED. That she is not so fair as, of you, well-favour'd.\n  VALENTINE. I mean that her beauty is exquisite, but her favour\n    infinite.\n  SPEED. That's because the one is painted, and the other out of\nall\n    count.\n  VALENTINE. How painted? and how out of count?\n  SPEED. Marry, sir, so painted, to make her fair, that no man\ncounts\n    of her beauty.\n  VALENTINE. How esteem'st thou me? I account of her beauty.\n  SPEED. You never saw her since she was deform'd.\n  VALENTINE. How long hath she been deform'd?\n  SPEED. Ever since you lov'd her.\n  VALENTINE. I have lov'd her ever since I saw her, and still\n    I see her beautiful.\n  SPEED. If you love her, you cannot see her.\n  VALENTINE. Why?\n  SPEED. Because Love is blind. O that you had mine eyes; or your\nown\n    eyes had the lights they were wont to have when you chid at\nSir\n    Proteus for going ungarter'd!\n  VALENTINE. What should I see then?\n  SPEED. Your own present folly and her passing deformity; for\nhe,\n    being in love, could not see to garter his hose; and you,\nbeing\n    in love, cannot see to put on your hose.\n  VALENTINE. Belike, boy, then you are in love; for last morning\nyou\n    could not see to wipe my shoes.\n  SPEED. True, sir; I was in love with my bed. I thank you, you\n    swing'd me for my love, which makes me the bolder to chide\nyou\n    for yours.\n  VALENTINE. In conclusion, I stand affected to her.\n  SPEED. I would you were set, so your affection would cease.\n  VALENTINE. Last night she enjoin'd me to write some lines to\none\n    she loves.\n  SPEED. And have you?\n  VALENTINE. I have.\n  SPEED. Are they not lamely writ?\n  VALENTINE. No, boy, but as well as I can do them.\n\n                           Enter SILVIA\n\n    Peace! here she comes.\n  SPEED.  [Aside]  O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet!\n    Now will he interpret to her.\n  VALENTINE. Madam and mistress, a thousand good morrows.\n  SPEED.  [Aside]  O, give ye good ev'n!\n    Here's a million of manners.\n  SILVIA. Sir Valentine and servant, to you two thousand.\n  SPEED.  [Aside]  He should give her interest, and she gives it\nhim.\n  VALENTINE. As you enjoin'd me, I have writ your letter\n    Unto the secret nameless friend of yours;\n    Which I was much unwilling to proceed in,\n    But for my duty to your ladyship.\n  SILVIA. I thank you, gentle servant. 'Tis very clerkly done.\n  VALENTINE. Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off;\n    For, being ignorant to whom it goes,\n    I writ at random, very doubtfully.\n  SILVIA. Perchance you think too much of so much pains?\n  VALENTINE. No, madam; so it stead you, I will write,\n    Please you command, a thousand times as much;\n    And yet-\n  SILVIA. A pretty period! Well, I guess the sequel;\n    And yet I will not name it- and yet I care not.\n    And yet take this again- and yet I thank you-\n    Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more.\n  SPEED.  [Aside]  And yet you will; and yet another' yet.'\n  VALENTINE. What means your ladyship? Do you not like it?\n  SILVIA. Yes, yes; the lines are very quaintly writ;\n    But, since unwillingly, take them again.\n    Nay, take them.                      [Gives hack the letter]\n  VALENTINE. Madam, they are for you.\n  SILVIA. Ay, ay, you writ them, sir, at my request;\n    But I will none of them; they are for you:\n    I would have had them writ more movingly.\n  VALENTINE. Please you, I'll write your ladyship another.\n  SILVIA. And when it's writ, for my sake read it over;\n    And if it please you, so; if not, why, so.\n  VALENTINE. If it please me, madam, what then?\n  SILVIA. Why, if it please you, take it for your labour.\n    And so good morrow, servant.                     Exit SILVIA\n  SPEED. O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible,\n    As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple!\n    My master sues to her; and she hath taught her suitor,\n    He being her pupil, to become her tutor.\n    O excellent device! Was there ever heard a better,\n    That my master, being scribe, to himself should write the\nletter?\n  VALENTINE. How now, sir! What are you reasoning with yourself?\n  SPEED. Nay, I was rhyming: 'tis you that have the reason.\n  VALENTINE. To do what?\n  SPEED. To be a spokesman from Madam Silvia?\n  VALENTINE. To whom?\n  SPEED. To yourself; why, she woos you by a figure.\n  VALENTINE. What figure?\n  SPEED. By a letter, I should say.\n  VALENTINE. Why, she hath not writ to me.\n  SPEED. What need she, when she hath made you write to yourself?\n    Why, do you not perceive the jest?\n  VALENTINE. No, believe me.\n  SPEED. No believing you indeed, sir. But did you perceive her\n    earnest?\n  VALENTINE. She gave me none except an angry word.\n  SPEED. Why, she hath given you a letter.\n  VALENTINE. That's the letter I writ to her friend.\n  SPEED. And that letter hath she deliver'd, and there an end.\n  VALENTINE. I would it were no worse.\n  SPEED. I'll warrant you 'tis as well.\n    'For often have you writ to her; and she, in modesty,\n    Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply;\n    Or fearing else some messenger that might her mind discover,\n    Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her\nlover.'\n    All this I speak in print, for in print I found it. Why muse\nyou,\n    sir? 'Tis dinner time.\n  VALENTINE. I have din'd.\n  SPEED. Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon Love can feed\non\n    the air, I am one that am nourish'd by my victuals, and would\n    fain have meat. O, be not like your mistress! Be moved, be\nmoved.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nVerona. JULIA'S house\n\nEnter PROTEUS and JULIA\n\n  PROTEUS. Have patience, gentle Julia.\n  JULIA. I must, where is no remedy.\n  PROTEUS. When possibly I can, I will return.\n  JULIA. If you turn not, you will return the sooner.\n    Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake.\n                                                 [Giving a ring]\n  PROTEUS. Why, then, we'll make exchange. Here, take you this.\n  JULIA. And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.\n  PROTEUS. Here is my hand for my true constancy;\n    And when that hour o'erslips me in the day\n    Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,\n    The next ensuing hour some foul mischance\n    Torment me for my love's forgetfulness!\n    My father stays my coming; answer not;\n    The tide is now- nay, not thy tide of tears:\n    That tide will stay me longer than I should.\n    Julia, farewell!                                  Exit JULIA\n    What, gone without a word?\n    Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak;\n    For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.\n\n                          Enter PANTHINO\n\n  PANTHINO. Sir Proteus, you are stay'd for.\n  PROTEUS. Go; I come, I come.\n    Alas! this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVerona. A street\n\nEnter LAUNCE, leading a dog\n\n  LAUNCE. Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping; all\nthe\n    kind of the Launces have this very fault. I have receiv'd my\n    proportion, like the Prodigious Son, and am going with Sir\n    Proteus to the Imperial's court. I think Crab my dog be the\n    sourest-natured dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father\n    wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing\nher\n    hands, and all our house in a great perplexity; yet did not\nthis\n    cruel-hearted cur shed one tear. He is a stone, a very pebble\n    stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog. A Jew would\nhave\n    wept to have seen our parting; why, my grandam having no\neyes,\n    look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I'll show\nyou\n    the manner of it. This shoe is my father; no, this left shoe\nis\n    my father; no, no, left shoe is my mother; nay, that cannot\nbe so\n    neither; yes, it is so, it is so, it hath the worser sole.\nThis\n    shoe with the hole in it is my mother, and this my father. A\n    vengeance on 't! There 'tis. Now, sir, this staff is my\nsister,\n    for, look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a\nwand;\n    this hat is Nan our maid; I am the dog; no, the dog is\nhimself,\n    and I am the dog- O, the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so,\nso.\n    Now come I to my father: 'Father, your blessing.' Now should\nnot\n    the shoe speak a word for weeping; now should I kiss my\nfather;\n    well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother. O that she could\n    speak now like a wood woman! Well, I kiss her- why there\n'tis;\n    here's my mother's breath up and down. Now come I to my\nsister;\n    mark the moan she makes. Now the dog all this while sheds not\na\n    tear, nor speaks a word; but see how I lay the dust with my\n    tears.\n\n                            Enter PANTHINO\n\n  PANTHINO. Launce, away, away, aboard! Thy master is shipp'd,\nand\n    thou art to post after with oars. What's the matter? Why\nweep'st\n    thou, man? Away, ass! You'll lose the tide if you tarry any\n    longer.\n  LAUNCE. It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the\n    unkindest tied that ever any man tied.\n  PANTHINO. What's the unkindest tide?\n  LAUNCE. Why, he that's tied here, Crab, my dog.\n  PANTHINO. Tut, man, I mean thou'lt lose the flood, and, in\nlosing\n    the flood, lose thy voyage, and, in losing thy voyage, lose\nthy\n    master, and, in losing thy master, lose thy service, and, in\n    losing thy service- Why dost thou stop my mouth?\n  LAUNCE. For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue.\n  PANTHINO. Where should I lose my tongue?\n  LAUNCE. In thy tale.\n  PANTHINO. In thy tail!\n  LAUNCE. Lose the tide, and the voyage, and the master, and the\n    service, and the tied! Why, man, if the river were dry, I am\nable\n    to fill it with my tears; if the wind were down, I could\ndrive\n    the boat with my sighs.\n  PANTHINO. Come, come away, man; I was sent to call thee.\n  LAUNCE. Sir, call me what thou dar'st.\n  PANTHINO. Will thou go?\n  LAUNCE. Well, I will go.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter SILVIA, VALENTINE, THURIO, and SPEED\n\n  SILVIA. Servant!\n  VALENTINE. Mistress?\n  SPEED. Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you.\n  VALENTINE. Ay, boy, it's for love.\n  SPEED. Not of you.\n  VALENTINE. Of my mistress, then.\n  SPEED. 'Twere good you knock'd him.                       Exit\n  SILVIA. Servant, you are sad.\n  VALENTINE. Indeed, madam, I seem so.\n  THURIO. Seem you that you are not?\n  VALENTINE. Haply I do.\n  THURIO. So do counterfeits.\n  VALENTINE. So do you.\n  THURIO. What seem I that I am not?\n  VALENTINE. Wise.\n  THURIO. What instance of the contrary?\n  VALENTINE. Your folly.\n  THURIO. And how quote you my folly?\n  VALENTINE. I quote it in your jerkin.\n  THURIO. My jerkin is a doublet.\n  VALENTINE. Well, then, I'll double your folly.\n  THURIO. How?\n  SILVIA. What, angry, Sir Thurio! Do you change colour?\n  VALENTINE. Give him leave, madam; he is a kind of chameleon.\n  THURIO. That hath more mind to feed on your blood than live in\nyour\n    air.\n  VALENTINE. You have said, sir.\n  THURIO. Ay, sir, and done too, for this time.\n  VALENTINE. I know it well, sir; you always end ere you begin.\n  SILVIA. A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot\noff.\n  VALENTINE. 'Tis indeed, madam; we thank the giver.\n  SILVIA. Who is that, servant?\n  VALENTINE. Yourself, sweet lady; for you gave the fire. Sir\nThurio\n    borrows his wit from your ladyship's looks, and spends what\nhe\n    borrows kindly in your company.\n  THURIO. Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall make\nyour\n    wit bankrupt.\n  VALENTINE. I know it well, sir; you have an exchequer of words,\n    and, I think, no other treasure to give your followers; for\nit\n    appears by their bare liveries that they live by your bare\nwords.\n\n                             Enter DUKE\n\n  SILVIA. No more, gentlemen, no more. Here comes my father.\n  DUKE. Now, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset.\n    Sir Valentine, your father is in good health.\n    What say you to a letter from your friends\n    Of much good news?\n  VALENTINE. My lord, I will be thankful\n    To any happy messenger from thence.\n  DUKE. Know ye Don Antonio, your countryman?\n  VALENTINE. Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman\n    To be of worth and worthy estimation,\n    And not without desert so well reputed.\n  DUKE. Hath he not a son?\n  VALENTINE. Ay, my good lord; a son that well deserves\n    The honour and regard of such a father.\n  DUKE. You know him well?\n  VALENTINE. I knew him as myself; for from our infancy\n    We have convers'd and spent our hours together;\n    And though myself have been an idle truant,\n    Omitting the sweet benefit of time\n    To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection,\n    Yet hath Sir Proteus, for that's his name,\n    Made use and fair advantage of his days:\n    His years but young, but his experience old;\n    His head unmellowed, but his judgment ripe;\n    And, in a word, for far behind his worth\n    Comes all the praises that I now bestow,\n    He is complete in feature and in mind,\n    With all good grace to grace a gentleman.\n  DUKE. Beshrew me, sir, but if he make this good,\n    He is as worthy for an empress' love\n    As meet to be an emperor's counsellor.\n    Well, sir, this gentleman is come to me\n    With commendation from great potentates,\n    And here he means to spend his time awhile.\n    I think 'tis no unwelcome news to you.\n  VALENTINE. Should I have wish'd a thing, it had been he.\n  DUKE. Welcome him, then, according to his worth-\n    Silvia, I speak to you, and you, Sir Thurio;\n    For Valentine, I need not cite him to it.\n    I will send him hither to you presently.           Exit DUKE\n  VALENTINE. This is the gentleman I told your ladyship\n    Had come along with me but that his mistresss\n    Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks.\n  SILVIA. Belike that now she hath enfranchis'd them\n    Upon some other pawn for fealty.\n  VALENTINE. Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.\n  SILVIA. Nay, then, he should be blind; and, being blind,\n    How could he see his way to seek out you?\n  VALENTINE. Why, lady, Love hath twenty pair of eyes.\n  THURIO. They say that Love hath not an eye at all.\n  VALENTINE. To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself;\n    Upon a homely object Love can wink.              Exit THURIO\n\n                         Enter PROTEUS\n\n  SILVIA. Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman.\n  VALENTINE. Welcome, dear Proteus! Mistress, I beseech you\n    Confirm his welcome with some special favour.\n  SILVIA. His worth is warrant for his welcome hither,\n    If this be he you oft have wish'd to hear from.\n  VALENTINE. Mistress, it is; sweet lady, entertain him\n    To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.\n  SILVIA. Too low a mistress for so high a servant.\n  PROTEUS. Not so, sweet lady; but too mean a servant\n    To have a look of such a worthy mistress.\n  VALENTINE. Leave off discourse of disability;\n    Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.\n  PROTEUS. My duty will I boast of, nothing else.\n  SILVIA. And duty never yet did want his meed.\n    Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.\n  PROTEUS. I'll die on him that says so but yourself.\n  SILVIA. That you are welcome?\n  PROTEUS. That you are worthless.\n\n                          Re-enter THURIO\n\n  THURIO. Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.\n  SILVIA. I wait upon his pleasure. Come, Sir Thurio,\n    Go with me. Once more, new servant, welcome.\n    I'll leave you to confer of home affairs;\n    When you have done we look to hear from you.\n  PROTEUS. We'll both attend upon your ladyship.\n                                        Exeunt SILVIA and THURIO\n  VALENTINE. Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came?\n  PROTEUS. Your friends are well, and have them much commended.\n  VALENTINE. And how do yours?\n  PROTEUS. I left them all in health.\n  VALENTINE. How does your lady, and how thrives your love?\n  PROTEUS. My tales of love were wont to weary you;\n    I know you joy not in a love-discourse.\n  VALENTINE. Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter'd now;\n    I have done penance for contemning Love,\n    Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd me\n    With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,\n    With nightly tears, and daily heart-sore sighs;\n    For, in revenge of my contempt of love,\n    Love hath chas'd sleep from my enthralled eyes\n    And made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow.\n    O gentle Proteus, Love's a mighty lord,\n    And hath so humbled me as I confess\n    There is no woe to his correction,\n    Nor to his service no such joy on earth.\n    Now no discourse, except it be of love;\n    Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep,\n    Upon the very naked name of love.\n  PROTEUS. Enough; I read your fortune in your eye.\n    Was this the idol that you worship so?\n  VALENTINE. Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?\n  PROTEUS. No; but she is an earthly paragon.\n  VALENTINE. Call her divine.\n  PROTEUS. I will not flatter her.\n  VALENTINE. O, flatter me; for love delights in praises!\n  PROTEUS. When I was sick you gave me bitter pills,\n    And I must minister the like to you.\n  VALENTINE. Then speak the truth by her; if not divine,\n    Yet let her be a principality,\n    Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.\n  PROTEUS. Except my mistress.\n  VALENTINE. Sweet, except not any;\n    Except thou wilt except against my love.\n  PROTEUS. Have I not reason to prefer mine own?\n  VALENTINE. And I will help thee to prefer her too:\n    She shall be dignified with this high honour-\n    To bear my lady's train, lest the base earth\n    Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss\n    And, of so great a favour growing proud,\n    Disdain to root the summer-swelling flow'r\n    And make rough winter everlastingly.\n  PROTEUS. Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this?\n  VALENTINE. Pardon me, Proteus; all I can is nothing\n    To her, whose worth makes other worthies nothing;\n    She is alone.\n  PROTEUS. Then let her alone.\n  VALENTINE. Not for the world! Why, man, she is mine own;\n    And I as rich in having such a jewel\n    As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,\n    The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.\n    Forgive me that I do not dream on thee,\n    Because thou seest me dote upon my love.\n    My foolish rival, that her father likes\n    Only for his possessions are so huge,\n    Is gone with her along; and I must after,\n    For love, thou know'st, is full of jealousy.\n  PROTEUS. But she loves you?\n  VALENTINE. Ay, and we are betroth'd; nay more, our\nmarriage-hour,\n    With all the cunning manner of our flight,\n    Determin'd of- how I must climb her window,\n    The ladder made of cords, and all the means\n    Plotted and 'greed on for my happiness.\n    Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber,\n    In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel.\n  PROTEUS. Go on before; I shall enquire you forth;\n    I must unto the road to disembark\n    Some necessaries that I needs must use;\n    And then I'll presently attend you.\n  VALENTINE. Will you make haste?\n  PROTEUS. I will.                                Exit VALENTINE\n    Even as one heat another heat expels\n    Or as one nail by strength drives out another,\n    So the remembrance of my former love\n    Is by a newer object quite forgotten.\n    Is it my mind, or Valentinus' praise,\n    Her true perfection, or my false transgression,\n    That makes me reasonless to reason thus?\n    She is fair; and so is Julia that I love-\n    That I did love, for now my love is thaw'd;\n    Which like a waxen image 'gainst a fire\n    Bears no impression of the thing it was.\n    Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold,\n    And that I love him not as I was wont.\n    O! but I love his lady too too much,\n    And that's the reason I love him so little.\n    How shall I dote on her with more advice\n    That thus without advice begin to love her!\n    'Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,\n    And that hath dazzled my reason's light;\n    But when I look on her perfections,\n    There is no reason but I shall be blind.\n    If I can check my erring love, I will;\n    If not, to compass her I'll use my skill.               Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nMilan. A street\n\nEnter SPEED and LAUNCE severally\n\n  SPEED. Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to Padua.\n  LAUNCE. Forswear not thyself, sweet youth, for I am not\nwelcome. I\n    reckon this always, that a man is never undone till he be\nhang'd,\n    nor never welcome to a place till some certain shot be paid,\nand\n    the hostess say 'Welcome!'\n  SPEED. Come on, you madcap; I'll to the alehouse with you\n    presently; where, for one shot of five pence, thou shalt have\n    five thousand welcomes. But, sirrah, how did thy master part\nwith\n    Madam Julia?\n  LAUNCE. Marry, after they clos'd in earnest, they parted very\n    fairly in jest.\n  SPEED. But shall she marry him?\n  LAUNCE. No.\n  SPEED. How then? Shall he marry her?\n  LAUNCE. No, neither.\n  SPEED. What, are they broken?\n  LAUNCE. No, they are both as whole as a fish.\n  SPEED. Why then, how stands the matter with them?\n  LAUNCE. Marry, thus: when it stands well with him, it stands\nwell\n    with her.\n  SPEED. What an ass art thou! I understand thee not.\n  LAUNCE. What a block art thou that thou canst not! My staff\n    understands me.\n  SPEED. What thou say'st?\n  LAUNCE. Ay, and what I do too; look thee, I'll but lean, and my\n    staff understands me.\n  SPEED. It stands under thee, indeed.\n  LAUNCE. Why, stand-under and under-stand is all one.\n  SPEED. But tell me true, will't be a match?\n  LAUNCE. Ask my dog. If he say ay, it will; if he say no, it\nwill;\n    if he shake his tail and say nothing, it will.\n  SPEED. The conclusion is, then, that it will.\n  LAUNCE. Thou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a\n    parable.\n  SPEED. 'Tis well that I get it so. But, Launce, how say'st thou\n    that my master is become a notable lover?\n  LAUNCE. I never knew him otherwise.\n  SPEED. Than how?\n  LAUNCE. A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to be.\n  SPEED. Why, thou whoreson ass, thou mistak'st me.\n  LAUNCE. Why, fool, I meant not thee, I meant thy master.\n  SPEED. I tell thee my master is become a hot lover.\n  LAUNCE. Why, I tell thee I care not though he burn himself in\nlove.\n    If thou wilt, go with me to the alehouse; if not, thou art an\n    Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian.\n  SPEED. Why?\n  LAUNCE. Because thou hast not so much charity in thee as to go\nto\n    the ale with a Christian. Wilt thou go?\n  SPEED. At thy service.                                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nMilan. The DUKE's palace\n\nEnter PROTEUS\n\n  PROTEUS. To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn;\n    To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn;\n    To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn;\n    And ev'n that pow'r which gave me first my oath\n    Provokes me to this threefold perjury:\n    Love bade me swear, and Love bids me forswear.\n    O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinn'd,\n    Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!\n    At first I did adore a twinkling star,\n    But now I worship a celestial sun.\n    Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken;\n    And he wants wit that wants resolved will\n    To learn his wit t' exchange the bad for better.\n    Fie, fie, unreverend tongue, to call her bad\n    Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr'd\n    With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths!\n    I cannot leave to love, and yet I do;\n    But there I leave to love where I should love.\n    Julia I lose, and Valentine I lose;\n    If I keep them, I needs must lose myself;\n    If I lose them, thus find I by their loss:\n    For Valentine, myself; for Julia, Silvia.\n    I to myself am dearer than a friend;\n    For love is still most precious in itself;\n    And Silvia- witness heaven, that made her fair!-\n    Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.\n    I will forget that Julia is alive,\n    Rememb'ring that my love to her is dead;\n    And Valentine I'll hold an enemy,\n    Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.\n    I cannot now prove constant to myself\n    Without some treachery us'd to Valentine.\n    This night he meaneth with a corded ladder\n    To climb celestial Silvia's chamber window,\n    Myself in counsel, his competitor.\n    Now presently I'll give her father notice\n    Of their disguising and pretended flight,\n    Who, all enrag'd, will banish Valentine,\n    For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter;\n    But, Valentine being gone, I'll quickly cross\n    By some sly trick blunt Thurio's dull proceeding.\n    Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,\n    As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift.            Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nVerona. JULIA'S house\n\nEnter JULIA and LUCETTA\n\n  JULIA. Counsel, Lucetta; gentle girl, assist me;\n    And, ev'n in kind love, I do conjure thee,\n    Who art the table wherein all my thoughts\n    Are visibly character'd and engrav'd,\n    To lesson me and tell me some good mean\n    How, with my honour, I may undertake\n    A journey to my loving Proteus.\n  LUCETTA. Alas, the way is wearisome and long!\n  JULIA. A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary\n    To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps;\n    Much less shall she that hath Love's wings to fly,\n    And when the flight is made to one so dear,\n    Of such divine perfection, as Sir Proteus.\n  LUCETTA. Better forbear till Proteus make return.\n  JULIA. O, know'st thou not his looks are my soul's food?\n    Pity the dearth that I have pined in\n    By longing for that food so long a time.\n    Didst thou but know the inly touch of love.\n    Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow\n    As seek to quench the fire of love with words.\n  LUCETTA. I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire,\n    But qualify the fire's extreme rage,\n    Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.\n  JULIA. The more thou dam'st it up, the more it burns.\n    The current that with gentle murmur glides,\n    Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;\n    But when his fair course is not hindered,\n    He makes sweet music with th' enamell'd stones,\n    Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge\n    He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;\n    And so by many winding nooks he strays,\n    With willing sport, to the wild ocean.\n    Then let me go, and hinder not my course.\n    I'll be as patient as a gentle stream,\n    And make a pastime of each weary step,\n    Till the last step have brought me to my love;\n    And there I'll rest as, after much turmoil,\n    A blessed soul doth in Elysium.\n  LUCETTA. But in what habit will you go along?\n  JULIA. Not like a woman, for I would prevent\n    The loose encounters of lascivious men;\n    Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds\n    As may beseem some well-reputed page.\n  LUCETTA. Why then, your ladyship must cut your hair.\n  JULIA. No, girl; I'll knit it up in silken strings\n    With twenty odd-conceited true-love knots-\n    To be fantastic may become a youth\n    Of greater time than I shall show to be.\n  LUCETTA. What fashion, madam, shall I make your breeches?\n  JULIA. That fits as well as 'Tell me, good my lord,\n    What compass will you wear your farthingale.'\n    Why ev'n what fashion thou best likes, Lucetta.\n  LUCETTA. You must needs have them with a codpiece, madam.\n  JULIA. Out, out, Lucetta, that will be ill-favour'd.\n  LUCETTA. A round hose, madam, now's not worth a pin,\n    Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on.\n  JULIA. Lucetta, as thou lov'st me, let me have\n    What thou think'st meet, and is most mannerly.\n    But tell me, wench, how will the world repute me\n    For undertaking so unstaid a journey?\n    I fear me it will make me scandaliz'd.\n  LUCETTA. If you think so, then stay at home and go not.\n  JULIA. Nay, that I will not.\n  LUCETTA. Then never dream on infamy, but go.\n    If Proteus like your journey when you come,\n    No matter who's displeas'd when you are gone.\n    I fear me he will scarce be pleas'd withal.\n  JULIA. That is the least, Lucetta, of my fear:\n    A thousand oaths, an ocean of his tears,\n    And instances of infinite of love,\n    Warrant me welcome to my Proteus.\n  LUCETTA. All these are servants to deceitful men.\n  JULIA. Base men that use them to so base effect!\n    But truer stars did govern Proteus' birth;\n    His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles,\n    His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate,\n    His tears pure messengers sent from his heart,\n    His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.\n  LUCETTA. Pray heav'n he prove so when you come to him.\n  JULIA. Now, as thou lov'st me, do him not that wrong\n    To bear a hard opinion of his truth;\n    Only deserve my love by loving him.\n    And presently go with me to my chamber,\n    To take a note of what I stand in need of\n    To furnish me upon my longing journey.\n    All that is mine I leave at thy dispose,\n    My goods, my lands, my reputation;\n    Only, in lieu thereof, dispatch me hence.\n    Come, answer not, but to it presently;\n    I am impatient of my tarriance.                       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter DUKE, THURIO, and PROTEUS\n\n  DUKE. Sir Thurio, give us leave, I pray, awhile;\n    We have some secrets to confer about.            Exit THURIO\n    Now tell me, Proteus, what's your will with me?\n  PROTEUS. My gracious lord, that which I would discover\n    The law of friendship bids me to conceal;\n    But, when I call to mind your gracious favours\n    Done to me, undeserving as I am,\n    My duty pricks me on to utter that\n    Which else no worldly good should draw from me.\n    Know, worthy prince, Sir Valentine, my friend,\n    This night intends to steal away your daughter;\n    Myself am one made privy to the plot.\n    I know you have determin'd to bestow her\n    On Thurio, whom your gentle daughter hates;\n    And should she thus be stol'n away from you,\n    It would be much vexation to your age.\n    Thus, for my duty's sake, I rather chose\n    To cross my friend in his intended drift\n    Than, by concealing it, heap on your head\n    A pack of sorrows which would press you down,\n    Being unprevented, to your timeless grave.\n  DUKE. Proteus, I thank thee for thine honest care,\n    Which to requite, command me while I live.\n    This love of theirs myself have often seen,\n    Haply when they have judg'd me fast asleep,\n    And oftentimes have purpos'd to forbid\n    Sir Valentine her company and my court;\n    But, fearing lest my jealous aim might err\n    And so, unworthily, disgrace the man,\n    A rashness that I ever yet have shunn'd,\n    I gave him gentle looks, thereby to find\n    That which thyself hast now disclos'd to me.\n    And, that thou mayst perceive my fear of this,\n    Knowing that tender youth is soon suggested,\n    I nightly lodge her in an upper tow'r,\n    The key whereof myself have ever kept;\n    And thence she cannot be convey'd away.\n  PROTEUS. Know, noble lord, they have devis'd a mean\n    How he her chamber window will ascend\n    And with a corded ladder fetch her down;\n    For which the youthful lover now is gone,\n    And this way comes he with it presently;\n    Where, if it please you, you may intercept him.\n    But, good my lord, do it so cunningly\n    That my discovery be not aimed at;\n    For love of you, not hate unto my friend,\n    Hath made me publisher of this pretence.\n  DUKE. Upon mine honour, he shall never know\n    That I had any light from thee of this.\n  PROTEUS. Adieu, my lord; Sir Valentine is coming.         Exit\n\n                        Enter VALENTINE\n\n  DUKE. Sir Valentine, whither away so fast?\n  VALENTINE. Please it your Grace, there is a messenger\n    That stays to bear my letters to my friends,\n    And I am going to deliver them.\n  DUKE. Be they of much import?\n  VALENTINE. The tenour of them doth but signify\n    My health and happy being at your court.\n  DUKE. Nay then, no matter; stay with me awhile;\n    I am to break with thee of some affairs\n    That touch me near, wherein thou must be secret.\n    'Tis not unknown to thee that I have sought\n    To match my friend Sir Thurio to my daughter.\n  VALENTINE. I know it well, my lord; and, sure, the match\n    Were rich and honourable; besides, the gentleman\n    Is full of virtue, bounty, worth, and qualities\n    Beseeming such a wife as your fair daughter.\n    Cannot your grace win her to fancy him?\n  DUKE. No, trust me; she is peevish, sullen, froward,\n    Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty;\n    Neither regarding that she is my child\n    Nor fearing me as if I were her father;\n    And, may I say to thee, this pride of hers,\n    Upon advice, hath drawn my love from her;\n    And, where I thought the remnant of mine age\n    Should have been cherish'd by her childlike duty,\n    I now am full resolv'd to take a wife\n    And turn her out to who will take her in.\n    Then let her beauty be her wedding-dow'r;\n    For me and my possessions she esteems not.\n  VALENTINE. What would your Grace have me to do in this?\n  DUKE. There is a lady, in Verona here,\n    Whom I affect; but she is nice, and coy,\n    And nought esteems my aged eloquence.\n    Now, therefore, would I have thee to my tutor-\n    For long agone I have forgot to court;\n    Besides, the fashion of the time is chang'd-\n    How and which way I may bestow myself\n    To be regarded in her sun-bright eye.\n  VALENTINE. Win her with gifts, if she respect not words:\n    Dumb jewels often in their silent kind\n    More than quick words do move a woman's mind.\n  DUKE. But she did scorn a present that I sent her.\n  VALENTINE. A woman sometime scorns what best contents her.\n    Send her another; never give her o'er,\n    For scorn at first makes after-love the more.\n    If she do frown, 'tis not in hate of you,\n    But rather to beget more love in you;\n    If she do chide, 'tis not to have you gone,\n    For why, the fools are mad if left alone.\n    Take no repulse, whatever she doth say;\n    For 'Get you gone' she doth not mean 'Away!'\n    Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces;\n    Though ne'er so black, say they have angels' faces.\n    That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,\n    If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.\n  DUKE. But she I mean is promis'd by her friends\n    Unto a youthful gentleman of worth;\n    And kept severely from resort of men,\n    That no man hath access by day to her.\n  VALENTINE. Why then I would resort to her by night.\n  DUKE. Ay, but the doors be lock'd and keys kept safe,\n    That no man hath recourse to her by night.\n  VALENTINE. What lets but one may enter at her window?\n  DUKE. Her chamber is aloft, far from the ground,\n    And built so shelving that one cannot climb it\n    Without apparent hazard of his life.\n  VALENTINE. Why then a ladder, quaintly made of cords,\n    To cast up with a pair of anchoring hooks,\n    Would serve to scale another Hero's tow'r,\n    So bold Leander would adventure it.\n  DUKE. Now, as thou art a gentleman of blood,\n    Advise me where I may have such a ladder.\n  VALENTINE. When would you use it? Pray, sir, tell me that.\n  DUKE. This very night; for Love is like a child,\n    That longs for everything that he can come by.\n  VALENTINE. By seven o'clock I'll get you such a ladder.\n  DUKE. But, hark thee; I will go to her alone;\n    How shall I best convey the ladder thither?\n  VALENTINE. It will be light, my lord, that you may bear it\n    Under a cloak that is of any length.\n  DUKE. A cloak as long as thine will serve the turn?\n  VALENTINE. Ay, my good lord.\n  DUKE. Then let me see thy cloak.\n    I'll get me one of such another length.\n  VALENTINE. Why, any cloak will serve the turn, my lord.\n  DUKE. How shall I fashion me to wear a cloak?\n    I pray thee, let me feel thy cloak upon me.\n    What letter is this same? What's here? 'To Silvia'!\n    And here an engine fit for my proceeding!\n    I'll be so bold to break the seal for once.          [Reads]\n      'My thoughts do harbour with my Silvia nightly,\n        And slaves they are to me, that send them flying.\n      O, could their master come and go as lightly,\n        Himself would lodge where, senseless, they are lying!\n      My herald thoughts in thy pure bosom rest them,\n        While I, their king, that thither them importune,\n      Do curse the grace that with such grace hath blest them,\n        Because myself do want my servants' fortune.\n      I curse myself, for they are sent by me,\n        That they should harbour where their lord should be.'\n    What's here?\n      'Silvia, this night I will enfranchise thee.'\n    'Tis so; and here's the ladder for the purpose.\n    Why, Phaethon- for thou art Merops' son-\n    Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car,\n    And with thy daring folly burn the world?\n    Wilt thou reach stars because they shine on thee?\n    Go, base intruder, over-weening slave,\n    Bestow thy fawning smiles on equal mates;\n    And think my patience, more than thy desert,\n    Is privilege for thy departure hence.\n    Thank me for this more than for all the favours\n    Which, all too much, I have bestow'd on thee.\n    But if thou linger in my territories\n    Longer than swiftest expedition\n    Will give thee time to leave our royal court,\n    By heaven! my wrath shall far exceed the love\n    I ever bore my daughter or thyself.\n    Be gone; I will not hear thy vain excuse,\n    But, as thou lov'st thy life, make speed from hence.    Exit\n  VALENTINE. And why not death rather than living torment?\n    To die is to be banish'd from myself,\n    And Silvia is myself; banish'd from her\n    Is self from self, a deadly banishment.\n    What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?\n    What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?\n    Unless it be to think that she is by,\n    And feed upon the shadow of perfection.\n    Except I be by Silvia in the night,\n    There is no music in the nightingale;\n    Unless I look on Silvia in the day,\n    There is no day for me to look upon.\n    She is my essence, and I leave to be\n    If I be not by her fair influence\n    Foster'd, illumin'd, cherish'd, kept alive.\n    I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom:\n    Tarry I here, I but attend on death;\n    But fly I hence, I fly away from life.\n\n                      Enter PROTEUS and LAUNCE\n\n  PROTEUS. Run, boy, run, run, seek him out.\n  LAUNCE. So-ho, so-ho!\n  PROTEUS. What seest thou?\n  LAUNCE. Him we go to find: there's not a hair on 's head but\n'tis a\n    Valentine.\n  PROTEUS. Valentine?\n  VALENTINE. No.\n  PROTEUS. Who then? his spirit?\n  VALENTINE. Neither.\n  PROTEUS. What then?\n  VALENTINE. Nothing.\n  LAUNCE. Can nothing speak? Master, shall I strike?\n  PROTEUS. Who wouldst thou strike?\n  LAUNCE. Nothing.\n  PROTEUS. Villain, forbear.\n  LAUNCE. Why, sir, I'll strike nothing. I pray you-\n  PROTEUS. Sirrah, I say, forbear. Friend Valentine, a word.\n  VALENTINE. My ears are stopp'd and cannot hear good news,\n    So much of bad already hath possess'd them.\n  PROTEUS. Then in dumb silence will I bury mine,\n    For they are harsh, untuneable, and bad.\n  VALENTINE. Is Silvia dead?\n  PROTEUS. No, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. No Valentine, indeed, for sacred Silvia.\n    Hath she forsworn me?\n  PROTEUS. No, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. No Valentine, if Silvia have forsworn me.\n    What is your news?\n  LAUNCE. Sir, there is a proclamation that you are vanished.\n  PROTEUS. That thou art banished- O, that's the news!-\n    From hence, from Silvia, and from me thy friend.\n  VALENTINE. O, I have fed upon this woe already,\n    And now excess of it will make me surfeit.\n    Doth Silvia know that I am banished?\n  PROTEUS. Ay, ay; and she hath offered to the doom-\n    Which, unrevers'd, stands in effectual force-\n    A sea of melting pearl, which some call tears;\n    Those at her father's churlish feet she tender'd;\n    With them, upon her knees, her humble self,\n    Wringing her hands, whose whiteness so became them\n    As if but now they waxed pale for woe.\n    But neither bended knees, pure hands held up,\n    Sad sighs, deep groans, nor silver-shedding tears,\n    Could penetrate her uncompassionate sire-\n    But Valentine, if he be ta'en, must die.\n    Besides, her intercession chaf'd him so,\n    When she for thy repeal was suppliant,\n    That to close prison he commanded her,\n    With many bitter threats of biding there.\n  VALENTINE. No more; unless the next word that thou speak'st\n    Have some malignant power upon my life:\n    If so, I pray thee breathe it in mine ear,\n    As ending anthem of my endless dolour.\n  PROTEUS. Cease to lament for that thou canst not help,\n    And study help for that which thou lament'st.\n    Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.\n    Here if thou stay thou canst not see thy love;\n    Besides, thy staying will abridge thy life.\n    Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that,\n    And manage it against despairing thoughts.\n    Thy letters may be here, though thou art hence,\n    Which, being writ to me, shall be deliver'd\n    Even in the milk-white bosom of thy love.\n    The time now serves not to expostulate.\n    Come, I'll convey thee through the city gate;\n    And, ere I part with thee, confer at large\n    Of all that may concern thy love affairs.\n    As thou lov'st Silvia, though not for thyself,\n    Regard thy danger, and along with me.\n  VALENTINE. I pray thee, Launce, an if thou seest my boy,\n    Bid him make haste and meet me at the Northgate.\n  PROTEUS. Go, sirrah, find him out. Come, Valentine.\n  VALENTINE. O my dear Silvia! Hapless Valentine!\n                                    Exeunt VALENTINE and PROTEUS\n  LAUNCE. I am but a fool, look you, and yet I have the wit to\nthink\n    my master is a kind of a knave; but that's all one if he be\nbut\n    one knave. He lives not now that knows me to be in love; yet\nI am\n    in love; but a team of horse shall not pluck that from me;\nnor\n    who 'tis I love; and yet 'tis a woman; but what woman I will\nnot\n    tell myself; and yet 'tis a milkmaid; yet 'tis not a maid,\nfor\n    she hath had gossips; yet 'tis a maid, for she is her\nmaster's\n    maid and serves for wages. She hath more qualities than a\n    water-spaniel- which is much in a bare Christian. Here is the\n\n    cate-log  [Pulling out a paper]  of her condition. 'Inprimis:\nShe\n    can fetch and carry.' Why, a horse can do no more; nay, a\nhorse\n    cannot fetch, but only carry; therefore is she better than a\n    jade. 'Item: She can milk.' Look you, a sweet virtue in a\nmaid\n    with clean hands.\n\n                             Enter SPEED\n\n  SPEED. How now, Signior Launce! What news with your mastership?\n  LAUNCE. With my master's ship? Why, it is at sea.\n  SPEED. Well, your old vice still: mistake the word. What news,\n    then, in your paper?\n  LAUNCE. The black'st news that ever thou heard'st.\n  SPEED. Why, man? how black?\n  LAUNCE. Why, as black as ink.\n  SPEED. Let me read them.\n  LAUNCE. Fie on thee, jolt-head; thou canst not read.\n  SPEED. Thou liest; I can.\n  LAUNCE. I will try thee. Tell me this: Who begot thee?\n  SPEED. Marry, the son of my grandfather.\n  LAUNCE. O illiterate loiterer. It was the son of thy\ngrandmother.\n    This proves that thou canst not read.\n  SPEED. Come, fool, come; try me in thy paper.\n  LAUNCE.  [Handing over the paper]  There; and Saint Nicholas be\nthy\n    speed.\n  SPEED.  [Reads]  'Inprimis: She can milk.'\n  LAUNCE. Ay, that she can.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She brews good ale.'\n  LAUNCE. And thereof comes the proverb: Blessing of your heart,\nyou\n    brew good ale.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She can sew.'\n  LAUNCE. That's as much as to say 'Can she so?'\n  SPEED. 'Item: She can knit.'\n  LAUNCE. What need a man care for a stock with a wench, when she\ncan\n    knit him a stock.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She can wash and scour.'\n  LAUNCE. A special virtue; for then she need not be wash'd and\n    scour'd.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She can spin.'\n  LAUNCE. Then may I set the world on wheels, when she can spin\nfor\n    her living.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath many nameless virtues.'\n  LAUNCE. That's as much as to say 'bastard virtues'; that indeed\n    know not their fathers, and therefore have no names.\n  SPEED. 'Here follow her vices.'\n  LAUNCE. Close at the heels of her virtues.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is not to be kiss'd fasting, in respect of\nher\n    breath.'\n  LAUNCE. Well, that fault may be mended with a breakfast.\n    Read on.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath a sweet mouth.'\n  LAUNCE. That makes amends for her sour breath.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She doth talk in her sleep.'\n  LAUNCE. It's no matter for that, so she sleep not in her talk.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is slow in words.'\n  LAUNCE. O villain, that set this down among her vices! To be\nslow\n    in words is a woman's only virtue. I pray thee, out with't;\nand\n    place it for her chief virtue.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is proud.'\n  LAUNCE. Out with that too; it was Eve's legacy, and cannot be\nta'en\n    from her.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath no teeth.'\n  LAUNCE. I care not for that neither, because I love crusts.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is curst.'\n  LAUNCE. Well, the best is, she hath no teeth to bite.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She will often praise her liquor.'\n  LAUNCE. If her liquor be good, she shall; if she will not, I\nwill;\n    for good things should be praised.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She is too liberal.'\n  LAUNCE. Of her tongue she cannot, for that's writ down she is\nslow\n    of; of her purse she shall not, for that I'll keep shut. Now\nof\n    another thing she may, and that cannot I help. Well, proceed.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath more hair than wit, and more faults\n    than hairs, and more wealth than faults.'\n  LAUNCE. Stop there; I'll have her; she was mine, and not mine,\n    twice or thrice in that last article. Rehearse that once\nmore.\n  SPEED. 'Item: She hath more hair than wit'-\n  LAUNCE. More hair than wit. It may be; I'll prove it: the cover\nof\n    the salt hides the salt, and therefore it is more than the\nsalt;\n    the hair that covers the wit is more than the wit, for the\n    greater hides the less. What's next?\n  SPEED. 'And more faults than hairs'-\n  LAUNCE. That's monstrous. O that that were out!\n  SPEED. 'And more wealth than faults.'\n  LAUNCE. Why, that word makes the faults gracious. Well, I'll\nhave\n    her; an if it be a match, as nothing is impossible-\n  SPEED. What then?\n  LAUNCE. Why, then will I tell thee- that thy master stays for\nthee\n    at the Northgate.\n  SPEED. For me?\n  LAUNCE. For thee! ay, who art thou? He hath stay'd for a better\nman\n    than thee.\n  SPEED. And must I go to him?\n  LAUNCE. Thou must run to him, for thou hast stay'd so long that\n    going will scarce serve the turn.\n  SPEED. Why didst not tell me sooner? Pox of your love letters!\n Exit\n  LAUNCE. Now will he be swing'd for reading my letter. An\nunmannerly\n    slave that will thrust himself into secrets! I'll after, to\n    rejoice in the boy's correction.                        Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter DUKE and THURIO\n\n  DUKE. Sir Thurio, fear not but that she will love you\n    Now Valentine is banish'd from her sight.\n  THURIO. Since his exile she hath despis'd me most,\n    Forsworn my company and rail'd at me,\n    That I am desperate of obtaining her.\n  DUKE. This weak impress of love is as a figure\n    Trenched in ice, which with an hour's heat\n    Dissolves to water and doth lose his form.\n    A little time will melt her frozen thoughts,\n    And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.\n\n                          Enter PROTEUS\n\n    How now, Sir Proteus! Is your countryman,\n    According to our proclamation, gone?\n  PROTEUS. Gone, my good lord.\n  DUKE. My daughter takes his going grievously.\n  PROTEUS. A little time, my lord, will kill that grief.\n  DUKE. So I believe; but Thurio thinks not so.\n    Proteus, the good conceit I hold of thee-\n    For thou hast shown some sign of good desert-\n    Makes me the better to confer with thee.\n  PROTEUS. Longer than I prove loyal to your Grace\n    Let me not live to look upon your Grace.\n  DUKE. Thou know'st how willingly I would effect\n    The match between Sir Thurio and my daughter.\n  PROTEUS. I do, my lord.\n  DUKE. And also, I think, thou art not ignorant\n    How she opposes her against my will.\n  PROTEUS. She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.\n  DUKE. Ay, and perversely she persevers so.\n    What might we do to make the girl forget\n    The love of Valentine, and love Sir Thurio?\n  PROTEUS. The best way is to slander Valentine\n    With falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent-\n    Three things that women highly hold in hate.\n  DUKE. Ay, but she'll think that it is spoke in hate.\n  PROTEUS. Ay, if his enemy deliver it;\n    Therefore it must with circumstance be spoken\n    By one whom she esteemeth as his friend.\n  DUKE. Then you must undertake to slander him.\n  PROTEUS. And that, my lord, I shall be loath to do:\n    'Tis an ill office for a gentleman,\n    Especially against his very friend.\n  DUKE. Where your good word cannot advantage him,\n    Your slander never can endamage him;\n    Therefore the office is indifferent,\n    Being entreated to it by your friend.\n  PROTEUS. You have prevail'd, my lord; if I can do it\n    By aught that I can speak in his dispraise,\n    She shall not long continue love to him.\n    But say this weed her love from Valentine,\n    It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio.\n  THURIO. Therefore, as you unwind her love from him,\n    Lest it should ravel and be good to none,\n    You must provide to bottom it on me;\n    Which must be done by praising me as much\n    As you in worth dispraise Sir Valentine.\n  DUKE. And, Proteus, we dare trust you in this kind,\n    Because we know, on Valentine's report,\n    You are already Love's firm votary\n    And cannot soon revolt and change your mind.\n    Upon this warrant shall you have access\n    Where you with Silvia may confer at large-\n    For she is lumpish, heavy, melancholy,\n    And, for your friend's sake, will be glad of you-\n    Where you may temper her by your persuasion\n    To hate young Valentine and love my friend.\n  PROTEUS. As much as I can do I will effect.\n    But you, Sir Thurio, are not sharp enough;\n    You must lay lime to tangle her desires\n    By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes\n    Should be full-fraught with serviceable vows.\n  DUKE. Ay,\n    Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.\n  PROTEUS. Say that upon the altar of her beauty\n    You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart;\n    Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears\n    Moist it again, and frame some feeling line\n    That may discover such integrity;\n    For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews,\n    Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,\n    Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans\n    Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.\n    After your dire-lamenting elegies,\n    Visit by night your lady's chamber window\n    With some sweet consort; to their instruments\n    Tune a deploring dump- the night's dead silence\n    Will well become such sweet-complaining grievance.\n    This, or else nothing, will inherit her.\n  DUKE. This discipline shows thou hast been in love.\n  THURIO. And thy advice this night I'll put in practice;\n    Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,\n    Let us into the city presently\n    To sort some gentlemen well skill'd in music.\n    I have a sonnet that will serve the turn\n    To give the onset to thy good advice.\n  DUKE. About it, gentlemen!\n  PROTEUS. We'll wait upon your Grace till after supper,\n    And afterward determine our proceedings.\n  DUKE. Even now about it! I will pardon you.             Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT_4|SC_1\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nThe frontiers of Mantua. A forest\n\nEnter certain OUTLAWS\n\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. If there be ten, shrink not, but down with 'em.\n\n                  Enter VALENTINE and SPEED\n\n  THIRD OUTLAW. Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye;\n    If not, we'll make you sit, and rifle you.\n  SPEED. Sir, we are undone; these are the villains\n    That all the travellers do fear so much.\n  VALENTINE. My friends-\n  FIRST OUTLAW. That's not so, sir; we are your enemies.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Peace! we'll hear him.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. Ay, by my beard, will we; for he is a proper man.\n  VALENTINE. Then know that I have little wealth to lose;\n    A man I am cross'd with adversity;\n    My riches are these poor habiliments,\n    Of which if you should here disfurnish me,\n    You take the sum and substance that I have.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Whither travel you?\n  VALENTINE. To Verona.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Whence came you?\n  VALENTINE. From Milan.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. Have you long sojourn'd there?\n  VALENTINE. Some sixteen months, and longer might have stay'd,\n    If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. What, were you banish'd thence?\n  VALENTINE. I was.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. For what offence?\n  VALENTINE. For that which now torments me to rehearse:\n    I kill'd a man, whose death I much repent;\n    But yet I slew him manfully in fight,\n    Without false vantage or base treachery.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done so.\n    But were you banish'd for so small a fault?\n  VALENTINE. I was, and held me glad of such a doom.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Have you the tongues?\n  VALENTINE. My youthful travel therein made me happy,\n    Or else I often had been miserable.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,\n    This fellow were a king for our wild faction!\n  FIRST OUTLAW. We'll have him. Sirs, a word.\n  SPEED. Master, be one of them; it's an honourable kind of\nthievery.\n  VALENTINE. Peace, villain!\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Tell us this: have you anything to take to?\n  VALENTINE. Nothing but my fortune.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. Know, then, that some of us are gentlemen,\n    Such as the fury of ungovern'd youth\n    Thrust from the company of awful men;\n    Myself was from Verona banished\n    For practising to steal away a lady,\n    An heir, and near allied unto the Duke.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. And I from Mantua, for a gentleman\n    Who, in my mood, I stabb'd unto the heart.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. And I for such-like petty crimes as these.\n    But to the purpose- for we cite our faults\n    That they may hold excus'd our lawless lives;\n    And, partly, seeing you are beautified\n    With goodly shape, and by your own report\n    A linguist, and a man of such perfection\n    As we do in our quality much want-\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Indeed, because you are a banish'd man,\n    Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you.\n    Are you content to be our general-\n    To make a virtue of necessity,\n    And live as we do in this wilderness?\n  THIRD OUTLAW. What say'st thou? Wilt thou be of our consort?\n    Say 'ay' and be the captain of us all.\n    We'll do thee homage, and be rul'd by thee,\n    Love thee as our commander and our king.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. But if thou scorn our courtesy thou diest.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Thou shalt not live to brag what we have\noffer'd.\n  VALENTINE. I take your offer, and will live with you,\n    Provided that you do no outrages\n    On silly women or poor passengers.\n  THIRD OUTLAW. No, we detest such vile base practices.\n    Come, go with us; we'll bring thee to our crews,\n    And show thee all the treasure we have got;\n    Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nMilan. Outside the DUKE'S palace, under SILVIA'S window\n\nEnter PROTEUS\n\n  PROTEUS. Already have I been false to Valentine,\n    And now I must be as unjust to Thurio.\n    Under the colour of commending him\n    I have access my own love to prefer;\n    But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy,\n    To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.\n    When I protest true loyalty to her,\n    She twits me with my falsehood to my friend;\n    When to her beauty I commend my vows,\n    She bids me think how I have been forsworn\n    In breaking faith with Julia whom I lov'd;\n    And notwithstanding all her sudden quips,\n    The least whereof would quell a lover's hope,\n    Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love\n    The more it grows and fawneth on her still.\n\n                 Enter THURIO and MUSICIANS\n\n    But here comes Thurio. Now must we to her window,\n    And give some evening music to her ear.\n  THURIO. How now, Sir Proteus, are you crept before us?\n  PROTEUS. Ay, gentle Thurio; for you know that love\n    Will creep in service where it cannot go.\n  THURIO. Ay, but I hope, sir, that you love not here.\n  PROTEUS. Sir, but I do; or else I would be hence.\n  THURIO. Who? Silvia?\n  PROTEUS. Ay, Silvia- for your sake.\n  THURIO. I thank you for your own. Now, gentlemen,\n    Let's tune, and to it lustily awhile.\n\n    Enter at a distance, HOST, and JULIA in boy's clothes\n\n  HOST. Now, my young guest, methinks you're allycholly; I pray\nyou,\n    why is it?\n  JULIA. Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry.\n  HOST. Come, we'll have you merry; I'll bring you where you\nshall\n    hear music, and see the gentleman that you ask'd for.\n  JULIA. But shall I hear him speak?\n  HOST. Ay, that you shall.                        [Music plays]\n  JULIA. That will be music.\n  HOST. Hark, hark!\n  JULIA. Is he among these?\n  HOST. Ay; but peace! let's hear 'em.\n\n                   SONG\n         Who is Silvia? What is she,\n           That all our swains commend her?\n         Holy, fair, and wise is she;\n           The heaven such grace did lend her,\n         That she might admired be.\n\n         Is she kind as she is fair?\n           For beauty lives with kindness.\n         Love doth to her eyes repair,\n           To help him of his blindness;\n         And, being help'd, inhabits there.\n\n         Then to Silvia let us sing\n           That Silvia is excelling;\n         She excels each mortal thing\n           Upon the dull earth dwelling.\n         'To her let us garlands bring.\n\n  HOST. How now, are you sadder than you were before?\n    How do you, man? The music likes you not.\n  JULIA. You mistake; the musician likes me not.\n  HOST. Why, my pretty youth?\n  JULIA. He plays false, father.\n  HOST. How, out of tune on the strings?\n  JULIA. Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my very\n    heart-strings.\n  HOST. You have a quick ear.\n  JULIA. Ay, I would I were deaf; it makes me have a slow heart.\n  HOST. I perceive you delight not in music.\n  JULIA. Not a whit, when it jars so.\n  HOST. Hark, what fine change is in the music!\n  JULIA. Ay, that change is the spite.\n  HOST. You would have them always play but one thing?\n  JULIA. I would always have one play but one thing.\n    But, Host, doth this Sir Proteus, that we talk on,\n    Often resort unto this gentlewoman?\n  HOST. I tell you what Launce, his man, told me: he lov'd her\nout of\n    all nick.\n  JULIA. Where is Launce?\n  HOST. Gone to seek his dog, which to-morrow, by his master's\n    command, he must carry for a present to his lady.\n  JULIA. Peace, stand aside; the company parts.\n  PROTEUS. Sir Thurio, fear not you; I will so plead\n    That you shall say my cunning drift excels.\n  THURIO. Where meet we?\n  PROTEUS. At Saint Gregory's well.\n  THURIO. Farewell.                  Exeunt THURIO and MUSICIANS\n\n                  Enter SILVIA above, at her window\n\n  PROTEUS. Madam, good ev'n to your ladyship.\n  SILVIA. I thank you for your music, gentlemen.\n    Who is that that spake?\n  PROTEUS. One, lady, if you knew his pure heart's truth,\n    You would quickly learn to know him by his voice.\n  SILVIA. Sir Proteus, as I take it.\n  PROTEUS. Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant.\n  SILVIA. What's your will?\n  PROTEUS. That I may compass yours.\n  SILVIA. You have your wish; my will is even this,\n    That presently you hie you home to bed.\n    Thou subtle, perjur'd, false, disloyal man,\n    Think'st thou I am so shallow, so conceitless,\n    To be seduced by thy flattery\n    That hast deceiv'd so many with thy vows?\n    Return, return, and make thy love amends.\n    For me, by this pale queen of night I swear,\n    I am so far from granting thy request\n    That I despise thee for thy wrongful suit,\n    And by and by intend to chide myself\n    Even for this time I spend in talking to thee.\n  PROTEUS. I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady;\n    But she is dead.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  'Twere false, if I should speak it;\n    For I am sure she is not buried.\n  SILVIA. Say that she be; yet Valentine, thy friend,\n    Survives, to whom, thyself art witness,\n    I am betroth'd; and art thou not asham'd\n    To wrong him with thy importunacy?\n  PROTEUS. I likewise hear that Valentine is dead.\n  SILVIA. And so suppose am I; for in his grave\n    Assure thyself my love is buried.\n  PROTEUS. Sweet lady, let me rake it from the earth.\n  SILVIA. Go to thy lady's grave, and call hers thence;\n    Or, at the least, in hers sepulchre thine.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  He heard not that.\n  PROTEUS. Madam, if your heart be so obdurate,\n    Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love,\n    The picture that is hanging in your chamber;\n    To that I'll speak, to that I'll sigh and weep;\n    For, since the substance of your perfect self\n    Is else devoted, I am but a shadow;\n    And to your shadow will I make true love.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  If 'twere a substance, you would, sure,\ndeceive it\n    And make it but a shadow, as I am.\n  SILVIA. I am very loath to be your idol, sir;\n    But since your falsehood shall become you well\n    To worship shadows and adore false shapes,\n    Send to me in the morning, and I'll send it;\n    And so, good rest.\n  PROTEUS. As wretches have o'ernight\n    That wait for execution in the morn.\n                                       Exeunt PROTEUS and SILVIA\n  JULIA. Host, will you go?\n  HOST. By my halidom, I was fast asleep.\n  JULIA. Pray you, where lies Sir Proteus?\n  HOST. Marry, at my house. Trust me, I think 'tis almost day.\n  JULIA. Not so; but it hath been the longest night\n    That e'er I watch'd, and the most heaviest.           Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nUnder SILVIA'S window\n\nEnter EGLAMOUR\n\n  EGLAMOUR. This is the hour that Madam Silvia\n    Entreated me to call and know her mind;\n    There's some great matter she'd employ me in.\n    Madam, madam!\n\n             Enter SILVIA above, at her window\n\n  SILVIA. Who calls?\n  EGLAMOUR. Your servant and your friend;\n    One that attends your ladyship's command.\n  SILVIA. Sir Eglamour, a thousand times good morrow!\n  EGLAMOUR. As many, worthy lady, to yourself!\n    According to your ladyship's impose,\n    I am thus early come to know what service\n    It is your pleasure to command me in.\n  SILVIA. O Eglamour, thou art a gentleman-\n    Think not I flatter, for I swear I do not-\n    Valiant, wise, remorseful, well accomplish'd.\n    Thou art not ignorant what dear good will\n    I bear unto the banish'd Valentine;\n    Nor how my father would enforce me marry\n    Vain Thurio, whom my very soul abhors.\n    Thyself hast lov'd; and I have heard thee say\n    No grief did ever come so near thy heart\n    As when thy lady and thy true love died,\n    Upon whose grave thou vow'dst pure chastity.\n    Sir Eglamour, I would to Valentine,\n    To Mantua, where I hear he makes abode;\n    And, for the ways are dangerous to pass,\n    I do desire thy worthy company,\n    Upon whose faith and honour I repose.\n    Urge not my father's anger, Eglamour,\n    But think upon my grief, a lady's grief,\n    And on the justice of my flying hence\n    To keep me from a most unholy match,\n    Which heaven and fortune still rewards with plagues.\n    I do desire thee, even from a heart\n    As full of sorrows as the sea of sands,\n    To bear me company and go with me;\n    If not, to hide what I have said to thee,\n    That I may venture to depart alone.\n  EGLAMOUR. Madam, I pity much your grievances;\n    Which since I know they virtuously are plac'd,\n    I give consent to go along with you,\n    Recking as little what betideth me\n    As much I wish all good befortune you.\n    When will you go?\n  SILVIA. This evening coming.\n  EGLAMOUR. Where shall I meet you?\n  SILVIA. At Friar Patrick's cell,\n    Where I intend holy confession.\n  EGLAMOUR. I will not fail your ladyship. Good morrow, gentle\nlady.\n  SILVIA. Good morrow, kind Sir Eglamour.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nUnder SILVIA'S Window\n\nEnter LAUNCE with his dog\n\n  LAUNCE. When a man's servant shall play the cur with him, look\nyou,\n    it goes hard- one that I brought up of a puppy; one that I\nsav'd\n    from drowning, when three or four of his blind brothers and\n    sisters went to it. I have taught him, even as one would say\n    precisely 'Thus I would teach a dog.' I was sent to deliver\nhim\n    as a present to Mistress Silvia from my master; and I came no\n    sooner into the dining-chamber, but he steps me to her\ntrencher\n    and steals her capon's leg. O, 'tis a foul thing when a cur\n    cannot keep himself in all companies! I would have, as one\nshould\n    say, one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it\n    were, a dog at all things. If I had not had more wit than he,\nto\n    take a fault upon me that he did, I think verily he had been\n    hang'd for't; sure as I live, he had suffer'd for't. You\nshall\n    judge. He thrusts me himself into the company of three or\nfour\n    gentleman-like dogs under the Duke's table; he had not been\n    there, bless the mark, a pissing while but all the chamber\nsmelt\n    him. 'Out with the dog' says one; 'What cur is that?' says\n    another; 'Whip him out' says the third; 'Hang him up' says\nthe\n    Duke. I, having been acquainted with the smell before, knew\nit\n    was Crab, and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs.\n    'Friend,' quoth I 'you mean to whip the dog.' 'Ay, marry do\nI'\n    quoth he. 'You do him the more wrong,' quoth I; \"twas I did\nthe\n    thing you wot of.' He makes me no more ado, but whips me out\nof\n    the chamber. How many masters would do this for his servant?\nNay,\n    I'll be sworn, I have sat in the stock for puddings he hath\n    stol'n, otherwise he had been executed; I have stood on the\n    pillory for geese he hath kill'd, otherwise he had suffer'd\n    for't. Thou think'st not of this now. Nay, I remember the\ntrick\n    you serv'd me when I took my leave of Madam Silvia. Did not I\nbid\n    thee still mark me and do as I do? When didst thou see me\nheave\n    up my leg and make water against a gentlewoman's farthingale?\n    Didst thou ever see me do such a trick?\n\n               Enter PROTEUS, and JULIA in boy's clothes\n\n  PROTEUS. Sebastian is thy name? I like thee well,\n    And will employ thee in some service presently.\n  JULIA. In what you please; I'll do what I can.\n  PROTEUS..I hope thou wilt.  [To LAUNCE]  How now, you whoreson\n      peasant!\n    Where have you been these two days loitering?\n  LAUNCE. Marry, sir, I carried Mistress Silvia the dog you bade\nme.\n  PROTEUS. And what says she to my little jewel?\n  LAUNCE. Marry, she says your dog was a cur, and tells you\ncurrish\n    thanks is good enough for such a present.\n  PROTEUS. But she receiv'd my dog?\n  LAUNCE. No, indeed, did she not; here have I brought him back\n    again.\n  PROTEUS. What, didst thou offer her this from me?\n  LAUNCE. Ay, sir; the other squirrel was stol'n from me by the\n    hangman's boys in the market-place; and then I offer'd her\nmine\n    own, who is a dog as big as ten of yours, and therefore the\ngift\n    the greater.\n  PROTEUS. Go, get thee hence and find my dog again,\n    Or ne'er return again into my sight.\n    Away, I say. Stayest thou to vex me here?        Exit LAUNCE\n    A slave that still an end turns me to shame!\n    Sebastian, I have entertained thee\n    Partly that I have need of such a youth\n    That can with some discretion do my business,\n    For 'tis no trusting to yond foolish lout,\n    But chiefly for thy face and thy behaviour,\n    Which, if my augury deceive me not,\n    Witness good bringing up, fortune, and truth;\n    Therefore, know thou, for this I entertain thee.\n    Go presently, and take this ring with thee,\n    Deliver it to Madam Silvia-\n    She lov'd me well deliver'd it to me.\n  JULIA. It seems you lov'd not her, to leave her token.\n    She is dead, belike?\n  PROTEUS. Not so; I think she lives.\n  JULIA. Alas!\n  PROTEUS. Why dost thou cry 'Alas'?\n  JULIA. I cannot choose\n    But pity her.\n  PROTEUS. Wherefore shouldst thou pity her?\n  JULIA. Because methinks that she lov'd you as well\n    As you do love your lady Silvia.\n    She dreams on him that has forgot her love:\n    You dote on her that cares not for your love.\n    'Tis pity love should be so contrary;\n    And thinking on it makes me cry 'Alas!'\n  PROTEUS. Well, give her that ring, and therewithal\n    This letter. That's her chamber. Tell my lady\n    I claim the promise for her heavenly picture.\n    Your message done, hie home unto my chamber,\n    Where thou shalt find me sad and solitary.      Exit PROTEUS\n  JULIA. How many women would do such a message?\n    Alas, poor Proteus, thou hast entertain'd\n    A fox to be the shepherd of thy lambs.\n    Alas, poor fool, why do I pity him\n    That with his very heart despiseth me?\n    Because he loves her, he despiseth me;\n    Because I love him, I must pity him.\n    This ring I gave him, when he parted from me,\n    To bind him to remember my good will;\n    And now am I, unhappy messenger,\n    To plead for that which I would not obtain,\n    To carry that which I would have refus'd,\n    To praise his faith, which I would have disprais'd.\n    I am my master's true confirmed love,\n    But cannot be true servant to my master\n    Unless I prove false traitor to myself.\n    Yet will I woo for him, but yet so coldly\n    As, heaven it knows, I would not have him speed.\n\n                     Enter SILVIA, attended\n\n    Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you be my mean\n    To bring me where to speak with Madam Silvia.\n  SILVIA. What would you with her, if that I be she?\n  JULIA. If you be she, I do entreat your patience\n    To hear me speak the message I am sent on.\n  SILVIA. From whom?\n  JULIA. From my master, Sir Proteus, madam.\n  SILVIA. O, he sends you for a picture?\n  JULIA. Ay, madam.\n  SILVIA. Ursula, bring my picture there.\n    Go, give your master this. Tell him from me,\n    One Julia, that his changing thoughts forget,\n    Would better fit his chamber than this shadow.\n  JULIA. Madam, please you peruse this letter.\n    Pardon me, madam; I have unadvis'd\n    Deliver'd you a paper that I should not.\n    This is the letter to your ladyship.\n  SILVIA. I pray thee let me look on that again.\n  JULIA. It may not be; good madam, pardon me.\n  SILVIA. There, hold!\n    I will not look upon your master's lines.\n    I know they are stuff'd with protestations,\n    And full of new-found oaths, which he wul break\n    As easily as I do tear his paper.\n  JULIA. Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring.\n  SILVIA. The more shame for him that he sends it me;\n    For I have heard him say a thousand times\n    His Julia gave it him at his departure.\n    Though his false finger have profan'd the ring,\n    Mine shall not do his Julia so much wrong.\n  JULIA. She thanks you.\n  SILVIA. What say'st thou?\n  JULIA. I thank you, madam, that you tender her.\n    Poor gentlewoman, my master wrongs her much.\n  SILVIA. Dost thou know her?\n  JULIA. Almost as well as I do know myself.\n    To think upon her woes, I do protest\n    That I have wept a hundred several times.\n  SILVIA. Belike she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her.\n  JULIA. I think she doth, and that's her cause of sorrow.\n  SILVIA. Is she not passing fair?\n  JULIA. She hath been fairer, madam, than she is.\n    When she did think my master lov'd her well,\n    She, in my judgment, was as fair as you;\n    But since she did neglect her looking-glass\n    And threw her sun-expelling mask away,\n    The air hath starv'd the roses in her cheeks\n    And pinch'd the lily-tincture of her face,\n    That now she is become as black as I.\n  SILVIA. How tall was she?\n  JULIA. About my stature; for at Pentecost,\n    When all our pageants of delight were play'd,\n    Our youth got me to play the woman's part,\n    And I was trimm'd in Madam Julia's gown;\n    Which served me as fit, by all men's judgments,\n    As if the garment had been made for me;\n    Therefore I know she is about my height.\n    And at that time I made her weep a good,\n    For I did play a lamentable part.\n    Madam, 'twas Ariadne passioning\n    For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight;\n    Which I so lively acted with my tears\n    That my poor mistress, moved therewithal,\n    Wept bitterly; and would I might be dead\n    If I in thought felt not her very sorrow.\n  SILVIA. She is beholding to thee, gentle youth.\n    Alas, poor lady, desolate and left!\n    I weep myself, to think upon thy words.\n    Here, youth, there is my purse; I give thee this\n    For thy sweet mistress' sake, because thou lov'st her.\n    Farewell.                        Exit SILVIA with ATTENDANTS\n  JULIA. And she shall thank you for't, if e'er you know her.\n    A virtuous gentlewoman, mild and beautiful!\n    I hope my master's suit will be but cold,\n    Since she respects my mistress' love so much.\n    Alas, how love can trifle with itself!\n    Here is her picture; let me see. I think,\n    If I had such a tire, this face of mine\n    Were full as lovely as is this of hers;\n    And yet the painter flatter'd her a little,\n    Unless I flatter with myself too much.\n    Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow;\n    If that be all the difference in his love,\n    I'll get me such a colour'd periwig.\n    Her eyes are grey as glass, and so are mine;\n    Ay, but her forehead's low, and mine's as high.\n    What should it be that he respects in her\n    But I can make respective in myself,\n    If this fond Love were not a blinded god?\n    Come, shadow, come, and take this shadow up,\n    For 'tis thy rival. O thou senseless form,\n    Thou shalt be worshipp'd, kiss'd, lov'd, and ador'd!\n    And were there sense in his idolatry\n    My substance should be statue in thy stead.\n    I'll use thee kindly for thy mistress' sake,\n    That us'd me so; or else, by Jove I vow,\n    I should have scratch'd out your unseeing eyes,\n    To make my master out of love with thee.                Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nMilan. An abbey\n\nEnter EGLAMOUR\n\n  EGLAMOUR. The sun begins to gild the western sky,\n    And now it is about the very hour\n    That Silvia at Friar Patrick's cell should meet me.\n    She will not fail, for lovers break not hours\n    Unless it be to come before their time,\n    So much they spur their expedition.\n\n                         Enter SILVIA\n\n    See where she comes. Lady, a happy evening!\n  SILVIA. Amen, amen! Go on, good Eglamour,\n    Out at the postern by the abbey wall;\n    I fear I am attended by some spies.\n  EGLAMOUR. Fear not. The forest is not three leagues off;\n    If we recover that, we are sure enough.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nMilan. The DUKE'S palace\n\nEnter THURIO, PROTEUS, and JULIA as SEBASTIAN\n\n  THURIO. Sir Proteus, what says Silvia to my suit?\n  PROTEUS. O, sir, I find her milder than she was;\n    And yet she takes exceptions at your person.\n  THURIO. What, that my leg is too long?\n  PROTEUS. No; that it is too little.\n  THURIO. I'll wear a boot to make it somewhat rounder.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  But love will not be spurr'd to what it\nloathes.\n  THURIO. What says she to my face?\n  PROTEUS. She says it is a fair one.\n  THURIO. Nay, then, the wanton lies; my face is black.\n  PROTEUS. But pearls are fair; and the old saying is:\n    Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  'Tis true, such pearls as put out ladies'\neyes;\n    For I had rather wink than look on them.\n  THURIO. How likes she my discourse?\n  PROTEUS. Ill, when you talk of war.\n  THURIO. But well when I discourse of love and peace?\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  But better, indeed, when you hold your peace.\n  THURIO. What says she to my valour?\n  PROTEUS. O, sir, she makes no doubt of that.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  She needs not, when she knows it cowardice.\n  THURIO. What says she to my birth?\n  PROTEUS. That you are well deriv'd.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  True; from a gentleman to a fool.\n  THURIO. Considers she my possessions?\n  PROTEUS. O, ay; and pities them.\n  THURIO. Wherefore?\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  That such an ass should owe them.\n  PROTEUS. That they are out by lease.\n  JULIA. Here comes the Duke.\n\n                          Enter DUKE\n\n  DUKE. How now, Sir Proteus! how now, Thurio!\n    Which of you saw Sir Eglamour of late?\n  THURIO. Not I.\n  PROTEUS. Nor I.\n  DUKE. Saw you my daughter?\n  PROTEUS. Neither.\n  DUKE. Why then,\n    She's fled unto that peasant Valentine;\n    And Eglamour is in her company.\n    'Tis true; for Friar Lawrence met them both\n    As he in penance wander'd through the forest;\n    Him he knew well, and guess'd that it was she,\n    But, being mask'd, he was not sure of it;\n    Besides, she did intend confession\n    At Patrick's cell this even; and there she was not.\n    These likelihoods confirm her flight from hence;\n    Therefore, I pray you, stand not to discourse,\n    But mount you presently, and meet with me\n    Upon the rising of the mountain foot\n    That leads toward Mantua, whither they are fled.\n    Dispatch, sweet gentlemen, and follow me.               Exit\n  THURIO. Why, this it is to be a peevish girl\n    That flies her fortune when it follows her.\n    I'll after, more to be reveng'd on Eglamour\n    Than for the love of reckless Silvia.                   Exit\n  PROTEUS. And I will follow, more for Silvia's love\n    Than hate of Eglamour, that goes with her.              Exit\n  JULIA. And I will follow, more to cross that love\n    Than hate for Silvia, that is gone for love.            Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe frontiers of Mantua. The forest\n\nEnter OUTLAWS with SILVA\n\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Come, come.\n    Be patient; we must bring you to our captain.\n  SILVIA. A thousand more mischances than this one\n    Have learn'd me how to brook this patiently.\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Come, bring her away.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Where is the gentleman that was with her?\n  SECOND OUTLAW. Being nimble-footed, he hath outrun us,\n    But Moyses and Valerius follow him.\n    Go thou with her to the west end of the wood;\n    There is our captain; we'll follow him that's fled.\n    The thicket is beset; he cannot 'scape.\n  FIRST OUTLAW. Come, I must bring you to our captain's cave;\n    Fear not; he bears an honourable mind,\n    And will not use a woman lawlessly.\n  SILVIA. O Valentine, this I endure for thee!            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nAnother part of the forest\n\nEnter VALENTINE\n\n  VALENTINE. How use doth breed a habit in a man!\n    This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,\n    I better brook than flourishing peopled towns.\n    Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,\n    And to the nightingale's complaining notes\n    Tune my distresses and record my woes.\n    O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,\n    Leave not the mansion so long tenantless,\n    Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall\n    And leave no memory of what it was!\n    Repair me with thy presence, Silvia:\n    Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain.\n    What halloing and what stir is this to-day?\n    These are my mates, that make their wills their law,\n    Have some unhappy passenger in chase.\n    They love me well; yet I have much to do\n    To keep them from uncivil outrages.\n    Withdraw thee, Valentine. Who's this comes here?\n                                                   [Steps aside]\n\n          Enter PROTEUS, SILVIA, and JULIA as Sebastian\n\n  PROTEUS. Madam, this service I have done for you,\n    Though you respect not aught your servant doth,\n    To hazard life, and rescue you from him\n    That would have forc'd your honour and your love.\n    Vouchsafe me, for my meed, but one fair look;\n    A smaller boon than this I cannot beg,\n    And less than this, I am sure, you cannot give.\n  VALENTINE.  [Aside]  How like a dream is this I see and hear!\n    Love, lend me patience to forbear awhile.\n  SILVIA. O miserable, unhappy that I am!\n  PROTEUS. Unhappy were you, madam, ere I came;\n    But by my coming I have made you happy.\n  SILVIA. By thy approach thou mak'st me most unhappy.\n  JULIA.  [Aside]  And me, when he approacheth to your presence.\n  SILVIA. Had I been seized by a hungry lion,\n    I would have been a breakfast to the beast\n    Rather than have false Proteus rescue me.\n    O, heaven be judge how I love Valentine,\n    Whose life's as tender to me as my soul!\n    And full as much, for more there cannot be,\n    I do detest false, perjur'd Proteus.\n    Therefore be gone; solicit me no more.\n  PROTEUS. What dangerous action, stood it next to death,\n    Would I not undergo for one calm look?\n    O, 'tis the curse in love, and still approv'd,\n    When women cannot love where they're belov'd!\n  SILVIA. When Proteus cannot love where he's belov'd!\n    Read over Julia's heart, thy first best love,\n    For whose dear sake thou didst then rend thy faith\n    Into a thousand oaths; and all those oaths\n    Descended into perjury, to love me.\n    Thou hast no faith left now, unless thou'dst two,\n    And that's far worse than none; better have none\n    Than plural faith, which is too much by one.\n    Thou counterfeit to thy true friend!\n  PROTEUS. In love,\n    Who respects friend?\n  SILVIA. All men but Proteus.\n  PROTEUS. Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words\n    Can no way change you to a milder form,\n    I'll woo you like a soldier, at arms' end,\n    And love you 'gainst the nature of love- force ye.\n  SILVIA. O heaven!\n  PROTEUS. I'll force thee yield to my desire.\n  VALENTINE. Ruffian! let go that rude uncivil touch;\n    Thou friend of an ill fashion!\n  PROTEUS. Valentine!\n  VALENTINE. Thou common friend, that's without faith or love-\n    For such is a friend now; treacherous man,\n    Thou hast beguil'd my hopes; nought but mine eye\n    Could have persuaded me. Now I dare not say\n    I have one friend alive: thou wouldst disprove me.\n    Who should be trusted, when one's own right hand\n    Is perjured to the bosom? Proteus,\n    I am sorry I must never trust thee more,\n    But count the world a stranger for thy sake.\n    The private wound is deepest. O time most accurst!\n    'Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!\n  PROTEUS. My shame and guilt confounds me.\n    Forgive me, Valentine; if hearty sorrow\n    Be a sufficient ransom for offence,\n    I tender 't here; I do as truly suffer\n    As e'er I did commit.\n  VALENTINE. Then I am paid;\n    And once again I do receive thee honest.\n    Who by repentance is not satisfied\n    Is nor of heaven nor earth, for these are pleas'd;\n    By penitence th' Eternal's wrath's appeas'd.\n    And, that my love may appear plain and free,\n    All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.\n  JULIA. O me unhappy!                                  [Swoons]\n  PROTEUS. Look to the boy.\n  VALENTINE. Why, boy! why, wag! how now!\n    What's the matter? Look up; speak.\n  JULIA. O good sir, my master charg'd me to deliver a ring to\nMadam\n    Silvia, which, out of my neglect, was never done.\n  PROTEUS. Where is that ring, boy?\n  JULIA. Here 'tis; this is it.\n  PROTEUS. How! let me see. Why, this is the ring I gave to\nJulia.\n  JULIA. O, cry you mercy, sir, I have mistook;\n    This is the ring you sent to Silvia.\n  PROTEUS. But how cam'st thou by this ring?\n    At my depart I gave this unto Julia.\n  JULIA. And Julia herself did give it me;\n    And Julia herself have brought it hither.\n  PROTEUS. How! Julia!\n  JULIA. Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths,\n    And entertain'd 'em deeply in her heart.\n    How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root!\n    O Proteus, let this habit make thee blush!\n    Be thou asham'd that I have took upon me\n    Such an immodest raiment- if shame live\n    In a disguise of love.\n    It is the lesser blot, modesty finds,\n    Women to change their shapes than men their minds.\n  PROTEUS. Than men their minds! 'tis true. O heaven, were man\n    But constant, he were perfect! That one error\n    Fills him with faults; makes him run through all th' sins:\n    Inconstancy falls off ere it begins.\n    What is in Silvia's face but I may spy\n    More fresh in Julia's with a constant eye?\n  VALENTINE. Come, come, a hand from either.\n    Let me be blest to make this happy close;\n    'Twere pity two such friends should be long foes.\n  PROTEUS. Bear witness, heaven, I have my wish for ever.\n  JULIA. And I mine.\n\n                Enter OUTLAWS, with DUKE and THURIO\n\n  OUTLAW. A prize, a prize, a prize!\n  VALENTINE. Forbear, forbear, I say; it is my lord the Duke.\n    Your Grace is welcome to a man disgrac'd,\n    Banished Valentine.\n  DUKE. Sir Valentine!\n  THURIO. Yonder is Silvia; and Silvia's mine.\n  VALENTINE. Thurio, give back, or else embrace thy death;\n    Come not within the measure of my wrath;\n    Do not name Silvia thine; if once again,\n    Verona shall not hold thee. Here she stands\n    Take but possession of her with a touch-\n    I dare thee but to breathe upon my love.\n  THURIO. Sir Valentine, I care not for her, I;\n    I hold him but a fool that will endanger\n    His body for a girl that loves him not.\n    I claim her not, and therefore she is thine.\n  DUKE. The more degenerate and base art thou\n    To make such means for her as thou hast done\n    And leave her on such slight conditions.\n    Now, by the honour of my ancestry,\n    I do applaud thy spirit, Valentine,\n    And think thee worthy of an empress' love.\n    Know then, I here forget all former griefs,\n    Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again,\n    Plead a new state in thy unrivall'd merit,\n    To which I thus subscribe: Sir Valentine,\n    Thou art a gentleman, and well deriv'd;\n    Take thou thy Silvia, for thou hast deserv'd her.\n  VALENTINE. I thank your Grace; the gift hath made me happy.\n    I now beseech you, for your daughter's sake,\n    To grant one boon that I shall ask of you.\n  DUKE. I grant it for thine own, whate'er it be.\n  VALENTINE. These banish'd men, that I have kept withal,\n    Are men endu'd with worthy qualities;\n    Forgive them what they have committed here,\n    And let them be recall'd from their exile:\n    They are reformed, civil, full of good,\n    And fit for great employment, worthy lord.\n  DUKE. Thou hast prevail'd; I pardon them, and thee;\n    Dispose of them as thou know'st their deserts.\n    Come, let us go; we will include all jars\n    With triumphs, mirth, and rare solemnity.\n  VALENTINE. And, as we walk along, I dare be bold\n    With our discourse to make your Grace to smile.\n    What think you of this page, my lord?\n  DUKE. I think the boy hath grace in him; he blushes.\n  VALENTINE. I warrant you, my lord- more grace than boy.\n  DUKE. What mean you by that saying?\n  VALENTINE. Please you, I'll tell you as we pass along,\n    That you will wonder what hath fortuned.\n    Come, Proteus, 'tis your penance but to hear\n    The story of your loves discovered.\n    That done, our day of marriage shall be yours;\n    One feast, one house, one mutual happiness!     Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nTwo Gentlemen of Verona"}
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{"1109":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1595\n\nLOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae.\n\n  FERDINAND, King of Navarre\n  BEROWNE,    lord attending on the King\n  LONGAVILLE,  \"      \"      \"   \"   \"\n  DUMAIN,      \"      \"      \"   \"   \"\n  BOYET,   lord attending on the Princess of France\n  MARCADE,   \"     \"       \"  \"     \"      \"    \"\n  DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, fantastical Spaniard\n  SIR NATHANIEL, a curate\n  HOLOFERNES, a schoolmaster\n  DULL, a constable\n  COSTARD, a clown\n  MOTH, page to Armado\n  A FORESTER\n\n  THE PRINCESS OF FRANCE\n  ROSALINE, lady attending on the Princess\n  MARIA,      \"     \"       \"  \"     \"\n  KATHARINE, lady attending on the Princess\n  JAQUENETTA, a country wench\n\n  Lords, Attendants, etc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nNavarre\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nNavarre. The King's park\n\nEnter the King, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN\n\n  KING. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,\n    Live regist'red upon our brazen tombs,\n    And then grace us in the disgrace of death;\n    When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,\n    Th' endeavour of this present breath may buy\n    That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge,\n    And make us heirs of all eternity.\n    Therefore, brave conquerors- for so you are\n    That war against your own affections\n    And the huge army of the world's desires-\n    Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:\n    Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;\n    Our court shall be a little Academe,\n    Still and contemplative in living art.\n    You three, Berowne, Dumain, and Longaville,\n    Have sworn for three years' term to live with me\n    My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes\n    That are recorded in this schedule here.\n    Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,\n    That his own hand may strike his honour down\n    That violates the smallest branch herein.\n    If you are arm'd to do as sworn to do,\n    Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.\n  LONGAVILLE. I am resolv'd; 'tis but a three years' fast.\n    The mind shall banquet, though the body pine.\n    Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits\n    Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.\n  DUMAIN. My loving lord, Dumain is mortified.\n    The grosser manner of these world's delights\n    He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves;\n    To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die,\n    With all these living in philosophy.\n  BEROWNE. I can but say their protestation over;\n    So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,\n    That is, to live and study here three years.\n    But there are other strict observances,\n    As: not to see a woman in that term,\n    Which I hope well is not enrolled there;\n    And one day in a week to touch no food,\n    And but one meal on every day beside,\n    The which I hope is not enrolled there;\n    And then to sleep but three hours in the night\n    And not be seen to wink of all the day-\n    When I was wont to think no harm all night,\n    And make a dark night too of half the day-\n    Which I hope well is not enrolled there.\n    O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,\n    Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep!\n  KING. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.\n  BEROWNE. Let me say no, my liege, an if you please:\n    I only swore to study with your Grace,\n    And stay here in your court for three years' space.\n  LONGAVILLE. You swore to that, Berowne, and to the rest.\n  BEROWNE. By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.\n    What is the end of study, let me know.\n  KING. Why, that to know which else we should not know.\n  BEROWNE. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense?\n  KING. Ay, that is study's god-like recompense.\n  BEROWNE. Come on, then; I will swear to study so,\n    To know the thing I am forbid to know,\n    As thus: to study where I well may dine,\n    When I to feast expressly am forbid;\n    Or study where to meet some mistress fine,\n    When mistresses from common sense are hid;\n    Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,\n    Study to break it, and not break my troth.\n    If study's gain be thus, and this be so,\n    Study knows that which yet it doth not know.\n    Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no.\n  KING. These be the stops that hinder study quite,\n    And train our intellects to vain delight.\n  BEROWNE. Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain\n    Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain,\n    As painfully to pore upon a book\n    To seek the light of truth; while truth the while\n    Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.\n    Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile;\n    So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,\n    Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.\n    Study me how to please the eye indeed,\n    By fixing it upon a fairer eye;\n    Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,\n    And give him light that it was blinded by.\n    Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,\n    That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks;\n    Small have continual plodders ever won,\n    Save base authority from others' books.\n    These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights\n    That give a name to every fixed star\n    Have no more profit of their shining nights\n    Than those that walk and wot not what they are.\n    Too much to know is to know nought but fame;\n    And every godfather can give a name.\n  KING. How well he's read, to reason against reading!\n  DUMAIN. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!\n  LONGAVILLE. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.\n  BEROWNE. The spring is near, when green geese are a-breeding.\n  DUMAIN. How follows that?\n  BEROWNE. Fit in his place and time.\n  DUMAIN. In reason nothing.\n  BEROWNE. Something then in rhyme.\n  LONGAVILLE. Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost\n    That bites the first-born infants of the spring.\n  BEROWNE. Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast\n    Before the birds have any cause to sing?\n    Why should I joy in any abortive birth?\n    At Christmas I no more desire a rose\n    Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows;\n    But like of each thing that in season grows;\n    So you, to study now it is too late,\n    Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.\n  KING. Well, sit out; go home, Berowne; adieu.\n  BEROWNE. No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you;\n    And though I have for barbarism spoke more\n    Than for that angel knowledge you can say,\n    Yet confident I'll keep what I have swore,\n    And bide the penance of each three years' day.\n    Give me the paper; let me read the same;\n    And to the strictest decrees I'll write my name.\n  KING. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!\n  BEROWNE. [Reads] 'Item. That no woman shall come within a mile\nof\n    my court'- Hath this been proclaimed?\n  LONGAVILLE. Four days ago.\n  BEROWNE. Let's see the penalty. [Reads] '-on pain of losing her\n    tongue.' Who devis'd this penalty?\n  LONGAVILLE. Marry, that did I.\n  BEROWNE. Sweet lord, and why?\n  LONGAVILLE. To fright them hence with that dread penalty.\n  BEROWNE. A dangerous law against gentility.\n    [Reads] 'Item. If any man be seen to talk with a woman within\n    the term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as\nthe\n    rest of the court can possibly devise.'\n    This article, my liege, yourself must break;\n    For well you know here comes in embassy\n    The French king's daughter, with yourself to speak-\n    A mild of grace and complete majesty-\n    About surrender up of Aquitaine\n    To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father;\n    Therefore this article is made in vain,\n    Or vainly comes th' admired princess hither.\n  KING. What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.\n  BEROWNE. So study evermore is over-shot.\n    While it doth study to have what it would,\n    It doth forget to do the thing it should;\n    And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,\n    'Tis won as towns with fire- so won, so lost.\n  KING. We must of force dispense with this decree;\n    She must lie here on mere necessity.\n  BEROWNE. Necessity will make us all forsworn\n    Three thousand times within this three years' space;\n    For every man with his affects is born,\n    Not by might mast'red, but by special grace.\n    If I break faith, this word shall speak for me:\n    I am forsworn on mere necessity.\n    So to the laws at large I write my name;        [Subscribes]\n    And he that breaks them in the least degree\n    Stands in attainder of eternal shame.\n    Suggestions are to other as to me;\n    But I believe, although I seem so loath,\n    I am the last that will last keep his oath.\n    But is there no quick recreation granted?\n  KING. Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted\n    With a refined traveller of Spain,\n    A man in all the world's new fashion planted,\n    That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;\n    One who the music of his own vain tongue\n    Doth ravish like enchanting harmony;\n    A man of complements, whom right and wrong\n    Have chose as umpire of their mutiny.\n    This child of fancy, that Armado hight,\n    For interim to our studies shall relate,\n    In high-born words, the worth of many a knight\n    From tawny Spain lost in the world's debate.\n    How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;\n    But I protest I love to hear him lie,\n    And I will use him for my minstrelsy.\n  BEROWNE. Armado is a most illustrious wight,\n    A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight.\n  LONGAVILLE. Costard the swain and he shall be our sport;\n    And so to study three years is but short.\n\n      Enter DULL, a constable, with a letter, and COSTARD\n\n  DULL. Which is the Duke's own person?\n  BEROWNE. This, fellow. What wouldst?\n  DULL. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his Grace's\n    farborough; but I would see his own person in flesh and\nblood.\n  BEROWNE. This is he.\n  DULL. Signior Arme- Arme- commends you. There's villainy\nabroad;\n    this letter will tell you more.\n  COSTARD. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.\n  KING. A letter from the magnificent Armado.\n  BEROWNE. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high\nwords.\n  LONGAVILLE. A high hope for a low heaven. God grant us\npatience!\n  BEROWNE. To hear, or forbear hearing?\n  LONGAVILLE. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or,\nto\n    forbear both.\n  BEROWNE. Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to\nclimb\n    in the merriness.\n  COSTARD. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta.\n    The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.\n  BEROWNE. In what manner?\n  COSTARD. In manner and form following, sir; all those three: I\nwas\n    seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with her upon the\nform,\n    and taken following her into the park; which, put together,\nis in\n    manner and form following. Now, sir, for the manner- it is\nthe\n    manner of a man to speak to a woman. For the form- in some\nform.\n  BEROWNE. For the following, sir?\n  COSTARD. As it shall follow in my correction; and God defend\nthe\n    right!\n  KING. Will you hear this letter with attention?\n  BEROWNE. As we would hear an oracle.\n  COSTARD. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the\nflesh.\n  KING. [Reads] 'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and sole\n    dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god and body's\nfost'ring\n    patron'-\n  COSTARD. Not a word of Costard yet.\n  KING. [Reads] 'So it is'-\n  COSTARD. It may be so; but if he say it is so, he is, in\ntelling\n    true, but so.\n  KING. Peace!\n  COSTARD. Be to me, and every man that dares not fight!\n  KING. No words!\n  COSTARD. Of other men's secrets, I beseech you.\n  KING. [Reads] 'So it is, besieged with sable-coloured\nmelancholy, I\n    did commend the black oppressing humour to the most wholesome\n    physic of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman,\nbetook\n    myself to walk. The time When? About the sixth hour; when\nbeasts\n    most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that\nnourishment\n    which is called supper. So much for the time When. Now for\nthe\n    ground Which? which, I mean, I upon; it is ycleped thy park.\nThen\n    for the place Where? where, I mean, I did encounter that\nobscene\n    and most prepost'rous event that draweth from my snow-white\npen\n    the ebon-coloured ink which here thou viewest, beholdest,\n    surveyest, or seest. But to the place Where? It standeth\n    north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy\n    curious-knotted garden. There did I see that low-spirited\nswain,\n    that base minnow of thy mirth,'\n  COSTARD. Me?\n  KING. 'that unlettered small-knowing soul,'\n  COSTARD. Me?\n  KING. 'that shallow vassal,'\n  COSTARD. Still me?\n  KING. 'which, as I remember, hight Costard,'\n  COSTARD. O, me!\n  KING. 'sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established\nproclaimed\n    edict and continent canon; which, with, O, with- but with\nthis I\n    passion to say wherewith-'\n  COSTARD. With a wench.\n    King. 'with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for\nthy\n    more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I, as my ever-esteemed\n    duty pricks me on, have sent to thee, to receive the meed of\n    punishment, by thy sweet Grace's officer, Antony Dull, a man\nof\n    good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.'\n  DULL. Me, an't shall please you; I am Antony Dull.\n  KING. 'For Jaquenetta- so is the weaker vessel called, which I\n    apprehended with the aforesaid swain- I keep her as a vessel\nof\n    thy law's fury; and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice,\n    bring her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted and\n    heart-burning heat of duty,\n                                         DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.'\n\n  BEROWNE. This is not so well as I look'd for, but the best that\n    ever I heard.\n  KING. Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say you to\n    this?\n  COSTARD. Sir, I confess the wench.\n  KING. Did you hear the proclamation?\n  COSTARD. I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of the\n    marking of it.\n  KING. It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment to be taken with\na\n    wench.\n  COSTARD. I was taken with none, sir; I was taken with a damsel.\n  KING. Well, it was proclaimed damsel.\n  COSTARD. This was no damsel neither, sir; she was a virgin.\n  KING. It is so varied too, for it was proclaimed virgin.\n  COSTARD. If it were, I deny her virginity; I was taken with a\nmaid.\n  KING. This 'maid' not serve your turn, sir.\n  COSTARD. This maid will serve my turn, sir.\n  KING. Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast a\nweek\n    with bran and water.\n  COSTARD. I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.\n  KING. And Don Armado shall be your keeper.\n    My Lord Berowne, see him delivered o'er;\n    And go we, lords, to put in practice that\n    Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.\n                             Exeunt KING, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN\n  BEROWNE. I'll lay my head to any good man's hat\n    These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.\n    Sirrah, come on.\n  COSTARD. I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is I was\ntaken\n    with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl; and therefore\n    welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day\nsmile\n    again; and till then, sit thee down, sorrow.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe park\n\nEnter ARMADO and MOTH, his page\n\n  ARMADO. Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit grows\n    melancholy?\n  MOTH. A great sign, sir, that he will look sad.\n  ARMADO. Why, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp.\n  MOTH. No, no; O Lord, sir, no!\n  ARMADO. How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender\n    juvenal?\n  MOTH. By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough\nsignior.\n  ARMADO. Why tough signior? Why tough signior?\n  MOTH. Why tender juvenal? Why tender juvenal?\n  ARMADO. I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton\n    appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate tender.\n  MOTH. And I, tough signior, as an appertinent title to your old\n    time, which we may name tough.\n  ARMADO. Pretty and apt.\n  MOTH. How mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? or I apt,\nand\n    my saying pretty?\n  ARMADO. Thou pretty, because little.\n  MOTH. Little pretty, because little. Wherefore apt?\n  ARMADO. And therefore apt, because quick.\n  MOTH. Speak you this in my praise, master?\n  ARMADO. In thy condign praise.\n  MOTH. I will praise an eel with the same praise.\n  ARMADO. that an eel is ingenious?\n  MOTH. That an eel is quick.\n  ARMADO. I do say thou art quick in answers; thou heat'st my\nblood.\n  MOTH. I am answer'd, sir.\n  ARMADO. I love not to be cross'd.\n  MOTH. [Aside] He speaks the mere contrary: crosses love not\nhim.\n  ARMADO. I have promised to study three years with the Duke.\n  MOTH. You may do it in an hour, sir.\n  ARMADO. Impossible.\n  MOTH. How many is one thrice told?\n  ARMADO. I am ill at reck'ning; it fitteth the spirit of a\ntapster.\n  MOTH. You are a gentleman and a gamester, sir.\n  ARMADO. I confess both; they are both the varnish of a complete\n    man.\n  MOTH. Then I am sure you know how much the gross sum of\ndeuce-ace\n    amounts to.\n  ARMADO. It doth amount to one more than two.\n  MOTH. Which the base vulgar do call three.\n  ARMADO. True.\n  MOTH. Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here is\nthree\n    studied ere ye'll thrice wink; and how easy it is to put\n'years'\n    to the word 'three,' and study three years in two words, the\n    dancing horse will tell you.\n  ARMADO. A most fine figure!\n  MOTH. [Aside] To prove you a cipher.\n  ARMADO. I will hereupon confess I am in love. And as it is base\nfor\n    a soldier to love, so am I in love with a base wench. If\ndrawing\n    my sword against the humour of affection would deliver me\nfrom\n    the reprobate thought of it, I would take Desire prisoner,\nand\n    ransom him to any French courtier for a new-devis'd curtsy. I\n    think scorn to sigh; methinks I should out-swear Cupid.\nComfort\n    me, boy; what great men have been in love?\n  MOTH. Hercules, master.\n  ARMADO. Most sweet Hercules! More authority, dear boy, name\nmore;\n    and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and\ncarriage.\n  MOTH. Samson, master; he was a man of good carriage, great\n    carriage, for he carried the town gates on his back like a\n    porter; and he was in love.\n  ARMADO. O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do excel\nthee\n    in my rapier as much as thou didst me in carrying gates. I am\nin\n    love too. Who was Samson's love, my dear Moth?\n  MOTH. A woman, master.\n  ARMADO. Of what complexion?\n  MOTH. Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the\n    four.\n  ARMADO. Tell me precisely of what complexion.\n  MOTH. Of the sea-water green, sir.\n  ARMADO. Is that one of the four complexions?\n  MOTH. As I have read, sir; and the best of them too.\n  ARMADO. Green, indeed, is the colour of lovers; but to have a\nlove\n    of that colour, methinks Samson had small reason for it. He\n    surely affected her for her wit.\n  MOTH. It was so, sir; for she had a green wit.\n  ARMADO. My love is most immaculate white and red.\n  MOTH. Most maculate thoughts, master, are mask'd under such\n    colours.\n  ARMADO. Define, define, well-educated infant.\n  MOTH. My father's wit my mother's tongue assist me!\n  ARMADO. Sweet invocation of a child; most pretty, and\npathetical!\n  MOTH.      If she be made of white and red,\n               Her faults will ne'er be known;\n             For blushing cheeks by faults are bred,\n               And fears by pale white shown.\n             Then if she fear, or be to blame,\n               By this you shall not know;\n             For still her cheeks possess the same\n               Which native she doth owe.\n    A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of white and\nred.\n  ARMADO. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar?\n  MOTH. The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three\nages\n    since; but I think now 'tis not to be found; or if it were,\nit\n    would neither serve for the writing nor the tune.\n  ARMADO. I will have that subject newly writ o'er, that I may\n    example my digression by some mighty precedent. Boy, I do\nlove\n    that country girl that I took in the park with the rational\nhind\n    Costard; she deserves well.\n  MOTH. [Aside] To be whipt; and yet a better love than my\nmaster.\n  ARMADO. Sing, boy; my spirit grows heavy in love.\n  MOTH. And that's great marvel, loving a light wench.\n  ARMADO. I say, sing.\n  MOTH. Forbear till this company be past.\n\n                Enter DULL, COSTARD, and JAQUENETTA\n\n  DULL. Sir, the Duke's pleasure is that you keep Costard safe;\nand\n    you must suffer him to take no delight nor no penance; but 'a\n    must fast three days a week. For this damsel, I must keep her\nat\n    the park; she is allow'd for the day-woman. Fare you well.\n  ARMADO. I do betray myself with blushing. Maid!\n  JAQUENETTA. Man!\n  ARMADO. I will visit thee at the lodge.\n  JAQUENETTA. That's hereby.\n  ARMADO. I know where it is situate.\n  JAQUENETTA. Lord, how wise you are!\n  ARMADO. I will tell thee wonders.\n  JAQUENETTA. With that face?\n  ARMADO. I love thee.\n  JAQUENETTA. So I heard you say.\n  ARMADO. And so, farewell.\n  JAQUENETTA. Fair weather after you!\n  DULL. Come, Jaquenetta, away.             Exit with JAQUENETTA\n  ARMADO. Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences ere thou be\n    pardoned.\n  COSTARD. Well, sir, I hope when I do it I shall do it on a full\n    stomach.\n  ARMADO. Thou shalt be heavily punished.\n  COSTARD. I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they are\nbut\n    lightly rewarded.\n  ARMADO. Take away this villain; shut him up.\n  MOTH. Come, you transgressing slave, away.\n  COSTARD. Let me not be pent up, sir; I will fast, being loose.\n  MOTH. No, sir; that were fast, and loose. Thou shalt to prison.\n  COSTARD. Well, if ever I do see the merry days of desolation\nthat I\n    have seen, some shall see.\n  MOTH. What shall some see?\n  COSTARD. Nay, nothing, Master Moth, but what they look upon. It\nis\n    not for prisoners to be too silent in their words, and\ntherefore\n    I will say nothing. I thank God I have as little patience as\n    another man, and therefore I can be quiet.\n                                         Exeunt MOTH and COSTARD\n  ARMADO. I do affect the very ground, which is base, where her\nshoe,\n    which is baser, guided by her foot, which is basest, doth\ntread.\n    I shall be forsworn- which is a great argument of falsehood-\nif I\n    love. And how can that be true love which is falsely\nattempted?\n    Love is a familiar; Love is a devil. There is no evil angel\nbut\n    Love. Yet was Samson so tempted, and he had an excellent\n    strength; yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good\nwit.\n    Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club, and\ntherefore\n    too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier. The first and second\ncause\n    will not serve my turn; the passado he respects not, the\nduello\n    he regards not; his disgrace is to be called boy, but his\nglory\n    is to subdue men. Adieu, valour; rust, rapier; be still,\ndrum;\n    for your manager is in love; yea, he loveth. Assist me, some\n    extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet.\n    Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE II.\nThe park\n\nEnter the PRINCESS OF FRANCE, with three attending ladies,\nROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, and two other LORDS\n\n  BOYET. Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits.\n    Consider who the King your father sends,\n    To whom he sends, and what's his embassy:\n    Yourself, held precious in the world's esteem,\n    To parley with the sole inheritor\n    Of all perfections that a man may owe,\n    Matchless Navarre; the plea of no less weight\n    Than Aquitaine, a dowry for a queen.\n    Be now as prodigal of all dear grace\n    As Nature was in making graces dear,\n    When she did starve the general world beside\n    And prodigally gave them all to you.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but\nmean,\n    Needs not the painted flourish of your praise.\n    Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,\n    Not utt'red by base sale of chapmen's tongues;\n    I am less proud to hear you tell my worth\n    Than you much willing to be counted wise\n    In spending your wit in the praise of mine.\n    But now to task the tasker: good Boyet,\n    You are not ignorant all-telling fame\n    Doth noise abroad Navarre hath made a vow,\n    Till painful study shall outwear three years,\n    No woman may approach his silent court.\n    Therefore to's seemeth it a needful course,\n    Before we enter his forbidden gates,\n    To know his pleasure; and in that behalf,\n    Bold of your worthiness, we single you\n    As our best-moving fair solicitor.\n    Tell him the daughter of the King of France,\n    On serious business, craving quick dispatch,\n    Importunes personal conference with his Grace.\n    Haste, signify so much; while we attend,\n    Like humble-visag'd suitors, his high will.\n  BOYET. Proud of employment, willingly I go.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. All pride is willing pride, and yours is\nso.\n                                                      Exit BOYET\n    Who are the votaries, my loving lords,\n    That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?\n  FIRST LORD. Lord Longaville is one.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Know you the man?\n  MARIA. I know him, madam; at a marriage feast,\n    Between Lord Perigort and the beauteous heir\n    Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnized\n    In Normandy, saw I this Longaville.\n    A man of sovereign parts, peerless esteem'd,\n    Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms;\n    Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.\n    The only soil of his fair virtue's gloss,\n    If virtue's gloss will stain with any soil,\n    Is a sharp wit match'd with too blunt a will,\n    Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills\n    It should none spare that come within his power.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Some merry mocking lord, belike; is't so?\n  MARIA. They say so most that most his humours know.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Such short-liv'd wits do wither as they\ngrow.\n    Who are the rest?\n  KATHARINE. The young Dumain, a well-accomplish'd youth,\n    Of all that virtue love for virtue loved;\n    Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill,\n    For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,\n    And shape to win grace though he had no wit.\n    I saw him at the Duke Alencon's once;\n    And much too little of that good I saw\n    Is my report to his great worthiness.\n  ROSALINE. Another of these students at that time\n    Was there with him, if I have heard a truth.\n    Berowne they call him; but a merrier man,\n    Within the limit of becoming mirth,\n    I never spent an hour's talk withal.\n    His eye begets occasion for his wit,\n    For every object that the one doth catch\n    The other turns to a mirth-moving jest,\n    Which his fair tongue, conceit's expositor,\n    Delivers in such apt and gracious words\n    That aged ears play truant at his tales,\n    And younger hearings are quite ravished;\n    So sweet and voluble is his discourse.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. God bless my ladies! Are they all in love,\n    That every one her own hath garnished\n    With such bedecking ornaments of praise?\n  FIRST LORD. Here comes Boyet.\n\n                       Re-enter BOYET\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Now, what admittance, lord?\n  BOYET. Navarre had notice of your fair approach,\n    And he and his competitors in oath\n    Were all address'd to meet you, gentle lady,\n    Before I came. Marry, thus much I have learnt:\n    He rather means to lodge you in the field,\n    Like one that comes here to besiege his court,\n    Than seek a dispensation for his oath,\n    To let you enter his unpeopled house.\n                                    [The LADIES-IN-WAITING mask]\n\n             Enter KING, LONGAVILLE, DUMAIN, BEROWNE,\n                         and ATTENDANTS\n\n    Here comes Navarre.\n  KING. Fair Princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'Fair' I give you back again; and 'welcome'\nI\n    have not yet. The roof of this court is too high to be yours,\nand\n    welcome to the wide fields too base to be mine.\n  KING. You shall be welcome, madam, to my court.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I will be welcome then; conduct me thither.\n  KING. Hear me, dear lady: I have sworn an oath-\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Our Lady help my lord! He'll be forsworn.\n  KING. Not for the world, fair madam, by my will.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Why, will shall break it; will, and nothing\n    else.\n  KING. Your ladyship is ignorant what it is.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Were my lord so, his ignorance were wise,\n    Where now his knowledge must prove ignorance.\n    I hear your Grace hath sworn out house-keeping.\n    'Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord,\n    And sin to break it.\n    But pardon me, I am too sudden bold;\n    To teach a teacher ill beseemeth me.\n    Vouchsafe to read the purpose of my coming,\n    And suddenly resolve me in my suit.         [Giving a paper]\n  KING. Madam, I will, if suddenly I may.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. YOU Will the sooner that I were away,\n    For you'll prove perjur'd if you make me stay.\n  BEROWNE. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?\n  KATHARINE. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?\n  BEROWNE. I know you did.\n  KATHARINE. How needless was it then to ask the question!\n  BEROWNE. You must not be so quick.\n  KATHARINE. 'Tis long of you, that spur me with such questions.\n  BEROWNE. Your wit 's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire.\n  KATHARINE. Not till it leave the rider in the mire.\n  BEROWNE. What time o' day?\n  KATHARINE. The hour that fools should ask.\n  BEROWNE. Now fair befall your mask!\n  KATHARINE. Fair fall the face it covers!\n  BEROWNE. And send you many lovers!\n  KATHARINE. Amen, so you be none.\n  BEROWNE. Nay, then will I be gone.\n  KING. Madam, your father here doth intimate\n    The payment of a hundred thousand crowns;\n    Being but the one half of an entire sum\n    Disbursed by my father in his wars.\n    But say that he or we, as neither have,\n    Receiv'd that sum, yet there remains unpaid\n    A hundred thousand more, in surety of the which,\n    One part of Aquitaine is bound to us,\n    Although not valued to the money's worth.\n    If then the King your father will restore\n    But that one half which is unsatisfied,\n    We will give up our right in Aquitaine,\n    And hold fair friendship with his Majesty.\n    But that, it seems, he little purposeth,\n    For here he doth demand to have repaid\n    A hundred thousand crowns; and not demands,\n    On payment of a hundred thousand crowns,\n    To have his title live in Aquitaine;\n    Which we much rather had depart withal,\n    And have the money by our father lent,\n    Than Aquitaine so gelded as it is.\n    Dear Princess, were not his requests so far\n    From reason's yielding, your fair self should make\n    A yielding 'gainst some reason in my breast,\n    And go well satisfied to France again.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. You do the King my father too much wrong,\n    And wrong the reputation of your name,\n    In so unseeming to confess receipt\n    Of that which hath so faithfully been paid.\n  KING. I do protest I never heard of it;\n    And, if you prove it, I'll repay it back\n    Or yield up Aquitaine.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We arrest your word.\n    Boyet, you can produce acquittances\n    For such a sum from special officers\n    Of Charles his father.\n  KING. Satisfy me so.\n  BOYET. So please your Grace, the packet is not come,\n    Where that and other specialties are bound;\n    To-morrow you shall have a sight of them.\n  KING. It shall suffice me; at which interview\n    All liberal reason I will yield unto.\n    Meantime receive such welcome at my hand\n    As honour, without breach of honour, may\n    Make tender of to thy true worthiness.\n    You may not come, fair Princess, within my gates;\n    But here without you shall be so receiv'd\n    As you shall deem yourself lodg'd in my heart,\n    Though so denied fair harbour in my house.\n    Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell.\n    To-morrow shall we visit you again.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Sweet health and fair desires consort your\n    Grace!\n  KING. Thy own wish wish I thee in every place.\n                                            Exit with attendants\n  BEROWNE. Lady, I will commend you to mine own heart.\n  ROSALINE. Pray you, do my commendations;\n    I would be glad to see it.\n  BEROWNE. I would you heard it groan.\n  ROSALINE. Is the fool sick?\n  BEROWNE. Sick at the heart.\n  ROSALINE. Alack, let it blood.\n  BEROWNE. Would that do it good?\n  ROSALINE. My physic says 'ay.'\n  BEROWNE. Will YOU prick't with your eye?\n  ROSALINE. No point, with my knife.\n  BEROWNE. Now, God save thy life!\n  ROSALINE. And yours from long living!\n  BEROWNE. I cannot stay thanksgiving.                [Retiring]\n  DUMAIN. Sir, I pray you, a word: what lady is that same?\n  BOYET. The heir of Alencon, Katharine her name.\n  DUMAIN. A gallant lady! Monsieur, fare you well.          Exit\n  LONGAVILLE. I beseech you a word: what is she in the white?\n  BOYET. A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.\n  LONGAVILLE. Perchance light in the light. I desire her name.\n  BOYET. She hath but one for herself; to desire that were a\nshame.\n  LONGAVILLE. Pray you, sir, whose daughter?\n  BOYET. Her mother's, I have heard.\n  LONGAVILLE. God's blessing on your beard!\n  BOYET. Good sir, be not offended;\n    She is an heir of Falconbridge.\n  LONGAVILLE. Nay, my choler is ended.\n    She is a most sweet lady.\n  BOYET. Not unlike, sir; that may be.           Exit LONGAVILLE\n  BEROWNE. What's her name in the cap?\n  BOYET. Rosaline, by good hap.\n  BEROWNE. Is she wedded or no?\n  BOYET. To her will, sir, or so.\n  BEROWNE. You are welcome, sir; adieu!\n  BOYET. Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.\n                                     Exit BEROWNE. LADIES Unmask\n  MARIA. That last is Berowne, the merry mad-cap lord;\n    Not a word with him but a jest.\n  BOYET. And every jest but a word.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. It was well done of you to take him at his\n    word.\n  BOYET. I was as willing to grapple as he was to board.\n  KATHARINE. Two hot sheeps, marry!\n  BOYET. And wherefore not ships?\n    No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.\n  KATHARINE. You sheep and I pasture- shall that finish the jest?\n  BOYET. So you grant pasture for me.     [Offering to kiss her]\n  KATHARINE. Not so, gentle beast;\n    My lips are no common, though several they be.\n  BOYET. Belonging to whom?\n  KATHARINE. To my fortunes and me.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles,\n      agree;\n    This civil war of wits were much better used\n    On Navarre and his book-men, for here 'tis abused.\n  BOYET. If my observation, which very seldom lies,\n    By the heart's still rhetoric disclosed with eyes,\n    Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. With what?\n  BOYET. With that which we lovers entitle 'affected.'\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Your reason?\n  BOYET. Why, all his behaviours did make their retire\n    To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire.\n    His heart, like an agate, with your print impressed,\n    Proud with his form, in his eye pride expressed;\n    His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,\n    Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be;\n    All senses to that sense did make their repair,\n    To feel only looking on fairest of fair.\n    Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eye,\n    As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy;\n    Who, tend'ring their own worth from where they were glass'd,\n    Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd.\n    His face's own margent did quote such amazes\n    That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes.\n    I'll give you Aquitaine and all that is his,\n    An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Come, to our pavilion. Boyet is dispos'd.\n  BOYET. But to speak that in words which his eye hath disclos'd;\n    I only have made a mouth of his eye,\n    By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.\n  MARIA. Thou art an old love-monger, and speakest skilfully.\n  KATHARINE. He is Cupid's grandfather, and learns news of him.\n  ROSALINE. Then was Venus like her mother; for her father is but\n    grim.\n  BOYET. Do you hear, my mad wenches?\n  MARIA. No.\n  BOYET. What, then; do you see?\n  MARIA. Ay, our way to be gone.\n  BOYET. You are too hard for me.                         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nThe park\n\nEnter ARMADO and MOTH\n\n  ARMADO. Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.\n                                         [MOTH sings Concolinel]\n  ARMADO. Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years, take this key, give\n    enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately hither; I\nmust\n    employ him in a letter to my love.\n  MOTH. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?\n  ARMADO. How meanest thou? Brawling in French?\n  MOTH. No, my complete master; but to jig off a tune at the\ntongue's\n    end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up\nyour\n    eyelids, sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the\n    throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love, sometime\n    through the nose, as if you snuff'd up love by smelling love,\n    with your hat penthouse-like o'er the shop of your eyes, with\n    your arms cross'd on your thin-belly doublet, like a rabbit\non a\n    spit, or your hands in your pocket, like a man after the old\n    painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and\naway.\n    These are complements, these are humours; these betray nice\n    wenches, that would be betrayed without these; and make them\nmen\n    of note- do you note me?- that most are affected to these.\n  ARMADO. How hast thou purchased this experience?\n  MOTH. By my penny of observation.\n  ARMADO. But O- but O-\n  MOTH. The hobby-horse is forgot.\n  ARMADO. Call'st thou my love 'hobby-horse'?\n  MOTH. No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love\n    perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your love?\n  ARMADO. Almost I had.\n  MOTH. Negligent student! learn her by heart.\n  ARMADO. By heart and in heart, boy.\n  MOTH. And out of heart, master; all those three I will prove.\n  ARMADO. What wilt thou prove?\n  MOTH. A man, if I live; and this, by, in, and without, upon the\n    instant. By heart you love her, because your heart cannot\ncome by\n    her; in heart you love her, because your heart is in love\nwith\n    her; and out of heart you love her, being out of heart that\nyou\n    cannot enjoy her.\n  ARMADO. I am all these three.\n  MOTH. And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.\n  ARMADO. Fetch hither the swain; he must carry me a letter.\n  MOTH. A message well sympathiz'd- a horse to be ambassador for\nan\n    ass.\n  ARMADO. Ha, ha, what sayest thou?\n  MOTH. Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he\nis\n    very slow-gaited. But I go.\n  ARMADO. The way is but short; away.\n  MOTH. As swift as lead, sir.\n  ARMADO. The meaning, pretty ingenious?\n    Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?\n  MOTH. Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no.\n  ARMADO. I say lead is slow.\n  MOTH. You are too swift, sir, to say so:\n    Is that lead slow which is fir'd from a gun?\n  ARMADO. Sweet smoke of rhetoric!\n    He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he;\n    I shoot thee at the swain.\n  MOTH. Thump, then, and I flee.                            Exit\n  ARMADO. A most acute juvenal; volable and free of grace!\n    By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face;\n    Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place.\n    My herald is return'd.\n\n                       Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD\n\n  MOTH. A wonder, master! here's a costard broken in a shin.\n  ARMADO. Some enigma, some riddle; come, thy l'envoy; begin.\n  COSTARD. No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in the mail,\nsir.\n    O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain; no l'envoy, no l'envoy;\nno\n    salve, sir, but a plantain!\n  ARMADO. By virtue thou enforcest laughter; thy silly thought,\nmy\n    spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous\n    smiling. O, pardon me, my stars! Doth the inconsiderate take\n    salve for l'envoy, and the word 'l'envoy' for a salve?\n  MOTH. Do the wise think them other? Is not l'envoy a salve?\n  ARMADO. No, page; it is an epilogue or discourse to make plain\n    Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.\n    I will example it:\n           The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,\n           Were still at odds, being but three.\n    There's the moral. Now the l'envoy.\n  MOTH. I will add the l'envoy. Say the moral again.\n  ARMADO.  The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,\n           Were still at odds, being but three.\n  MOTH.    Until the goose came out of door,\n           And stay'd the odds by adding four.\n    Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my\nl'envoy.\n           The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,\n           Were still at odds, being but three.\n  ARMADO.  Until the goose came out of door,\n           Staying the odds by adding four.\n  MOTH. A good l'envoy, ending in the goose; would you desire\nmore?\n  COSTARD. The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat.\n    Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat.\n    To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose;\n    Let me see: a fat l'envoy; ay, that's a fat goose.\n  ARMADO. Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?\n  MOTH. By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.\n    Then call'd you for the l'envoy.\n  COSTARD. True, and I for a plantain. Thus came your argument\nin;\n    Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought;\n    And he ended the market.\n  ARMADO. But tell me: how was there a costard broken in a shin?\n  MOTH. I will tell you sensibly.\n  COSTARD. Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth; I will speak that\n      l'envoy.\n    I, Costard, running out, that was safely within,\n    Fell over the threshold and broke my shin.\n  ARMADO. We will talk no more of this matter.\n  COSTARD. Till there be more matter in the shin.\n  ARMADO. Sirrah Costard. I will enfranchise thee.\n  COSTARD. O, Marry me to one Frances! I smell some l'envoy, some\n    goose, in this.\n  ARMADO. By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty,\n    enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immured, restrained,\n    captivated, bound.\n  COSTARD. True, true; and now you will be my purgation, and let\nme\n    loose.\n  ARMADO. I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance; and, in\n\n    lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this: bear this\n    significant [giving a letter] to the country maid Jaquenetta;\n    there is remuneration, for the best ward of mine honour is\n    rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow.                  Exit\n  MOTH. Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.\n  COSTARD. My sweet ounce of man's flesh, my incony Jew!\n                                                       Exit MOTH\n    Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration! O, that's\nthe\n    Latin word for three farthings. Three farthings-\nremuneration.\n    'What's the price of this inkle?'- 'One penny.'- 'No, I'll\ngive\n    you a remuneration.' Why, it carries it. Remuneration! Why,\nit is\n    a fairer name than French crown. I will never buy and sell\nout of\n    this word.\n\n                          Enter BEROWNE\n\n  BEROWNE. My good knave Costard, exceedingly well met!\n  COSTARD. Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy\nfor\n    a remuneration?\n  BEROWNE. What is a remuneration?\n  COSTARD. Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.\n  BEROWNE. Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk.\n  COSTARD. I thank your worship. God be wi' you!\n  BEROWNE. Stay, slave; I must employ thee.\n    As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,\n    Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.\n  COSTARD. When would you have it done, sir?\n  BEROWNE. This afternoon.\n  COSTARD. Well, I will do it, sir; fare you well.\n  BEROWNE. Thou knowest not what it is.\n  COSTARD. I shall know, sir, when I have done it.\n  BEROWNE. Why, villain, thou must know first.\n  COSTARD. I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.\n  BEROWNE. It must be done this afternoon.\n    Hark, slave, it is but this:\n    The Princess comes to hunt here in the park,\n    And in her train there is a gentle lady;\n    When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name,\n    And Rosaline they call her. Ask for her,\n    And to her white hand see thou do commend\n    This seal'd-up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go.\n                                         [Giving him a shilling]\n  COSTARD. Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration; a\n    'leven-pence farthing better; most sweet gardon! I will do\nit,\n    sir, in print. Gardon- remuneration!                    Exit\n  BEROWNE. And I, forsooth, in love; I, that have been love's\nwhip;\n    A very beadle to a humorous sigh;\n    A critic, nay, a night-watch constable;\n    A domineering pedant o'er the boy,\n    Than whom no mortal so magnificent!\n    This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy,\n    This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;\n    Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,\n    Th' anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,\n    Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,\n    Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,\n    Sole imperator, and great general\n    Of trotting paritors. O my little heart!\n    And I to be a corporal of his field,\n    And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!\n    What! I love, I sue, I seek a wife-\n    A woman, that is like a German clock,\n    Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,\n    And never going aright, being a watch,\n    But being watch'd that it may still go right!\n    Nay, to be perjur'd, which is worst of all;\n    And, among three, to love the worst of all,\n    A whitely wanton with a velvet brow,\n    With two pitch balls stuck in her face for eyes;\n    Ay, and, by heaven, one that will do the deed,\n    Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard.\n    And I to sigh for her! to watch for her!\n    To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague\n    That Cupid will impose for my neglect\n    Of his almighty dreadful little might.\n    Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, and groan:\n    Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.              Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nThe park\n\nEnter the PRINCESS, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, LORDS,\nATTENDANTS,\nand a FORESTER\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Was that the King that spurr'd his horse so\n      hard\n    Against the steep uprising of the hill?\n  BOYET. I know not; but I think it was not he.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Whoe'er 'a was, 'a show'd a mounting mind.\n    Well, lords, to-day we shall have our dispatch;\n    On Saturday we will return to France.\n    Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush\n    That we must stand and play the murderer in?\n  FORESTER. Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice;\n    A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I thank my beauty I am fair that shoot,\n    And thereupon thou speak'st the fairest shoot.\n  FORESTER. Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. What, what? First praise me, and again say\nno?\n    O short-liv'd pride! Not fair? Alack for woe!\n  FORESTER. Yes, madam, fair.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nay, never paint me now;\n    Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.\n    Here, good my glass, take this for telling true:\n                                             [ Giving him money]\n    Fair payment for foul words is more than due.\n  FORESTER. Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. See, see, my beauty will be sav'd by merit.\n    O heresy in fair, fit for these days!\n    A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.\n    But come, the bow. Now mercy goes to kill,\n    And shooting well is then accounted ill;\n    Thus will I save my credit in the shoot:\n    Not wounding, pity would not let me do't;\n    If wounding, then it was to show my skill,\n    That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.\n    And, out of question, so it is sometimes:\n    Glory grows guilty of detested crimes,\n    When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part,\n    We bend to that the working of the heart;\n    As I for praise alone now seek to spill\n    The poor deer's blood that my heart means no ill.\n  BOYET. Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty\n    Only for praise sake, when they strive to be\n    Lords o'er their lords?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Only for praise; and praise we may afford\n    To any lady that subdues a lord.\n\n                       Enter COSTARD\n\n  BOYET. Here comes a member of the commonwealth.\n  COSTARD. God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest\nthat\n    have no heads.\n  COSTARD. Which is the greatest lady, the highest?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The thickest and the tallest.\n  COSTARD. The thickest and the tallest! It is so; truth is\ntruth.\n    An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,\n    One o' these maids' girdles for your waist should be fit.\n    Are not you the chief woman? You are the thickest here.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. What's your will, sir? What's your will?\n  COSTARD. I have a letter from Monsieur Berowne to one\n    Lady Rosaline.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. O, thy letter, thy letter! He's a good\nfriend\n      of mine.\n    Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve.\n    Break up this capon.\n  BOYET. I am bound to serve.\n    This letter is mistook; it importeth none here.\n    It is writ to Jaquenetta.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We will read it, I swear.\n    Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear.\n  BOYET. [Reads] 'By heaven, that thou art fair is most\ninfallible;\n    true that thou art beauteous; truth itself that thou art\nlovely.\n    More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than\ntruth\n    itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal. The\n    magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon\nthe\n    pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was\nthat\n    might rightly say, 'Veni, vidi, vici'; which to annothanize\nin\n    the vulgar,- O base and obscure vulgar!- videlicet, He came,\nsaw,\n    and overcame. He came, one; saw, two; overcame, three. Who\ncame?-\n    the king. Why did he come?- to see. Why did he see?-to\novercome.\n    To whom came he?- to the beggar. What saw he?- the beggar.\nWho\n    overcame he?- the beggar. The conclusion is victory; on whose\n    side?- the king's. The captive is enrich'd; on whose side?-\nthe\n    beggar's. The catastrophe is a nuptial; on whose side?- the\n    king's. No, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king,\nfor so\n    stands the comparison; thou the beggar, for so witnesseth thy\n    lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may. Shall I enforce\nthy\n    love? I could. Shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt\nthou\n    exchange for rags?- robes, for tittles?- titles, for thyself?\n    -me. Thus expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot,\nmy\n    eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part.\n                  Thine in the dearest design of industry,\n                                           DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.\n\n    'Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar\n    'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey;\n    Submissive fall his princely feet before,\n    And he from forage will incline to play.\n    But if thou strive, poor soul, what are thou then?\n    Food for his rage, repasture for his den.'\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. What plume of feathers is he that indited\nthis\n      letter?\n    What vane? What weathercock? Did you ever hear better?\n  BOYET. I am much deceived but I remember the style.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Else your memory is bad, going o'er it\n    erewhile.\n  BOYET. This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in court;\n    A phantasime, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport\n    To the Prince and his book-mates.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thou fellow, a word.\n    Who gave thee this letter?\n  COSTARD. I told you: my lord.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. To whom shouldst thou give it?\n  COSTARD. From my lord to my lady.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. From which lord to which lady?\n  COSTARD. From my Lord Berowne, a good master of mine,\n    To a lady of France that he call'd Rosaline.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords,\n\n      away.\n    [To ROSALINE] Here, sweet, put up this; 'twill be thine\nanother\n      day.                             Exeunt PRINCESS and TRAIN\n  BOYET. Who is the shooter? who is the shooter?\n  ROSALINE. Shall I teach you to know?\n  BOYET. Ay, my continent of beauty.\n  ROSALINE. Why, she that bears the bow.\n    Finely put off!\n  BOYET. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry,\n    Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry.\n    Finely put on!\n  ROSALINE. Well then, I am the shooter.\n  BOYET. And who is your deer?\n  ROSALINE. If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near.\n    Finely put on indeed!\n  MARIA. You Still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at\nthe\n    brow.\n  BOYET. But she herself is hit lower. Have I hit her now?\n  ROSALINE. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a\nman\n    when King Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the\nhit\n    it?\n  BOYET. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman\nwhen\n    Queen Guinever of Britain was a little wench, as touching the\nhit\n    it.\n  ROSALINE. [Singing]\n            Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,\n            Thou canst not hit it, my good man.\n  BOYET.    An I cannot, cannot, cannot,\n            An I cannot, another can.\n                                   Exeunt ROSALINE and KATHARINE\n  COSTARD. By my troth, most pleasant! How both did fit it!\n  MARIA. A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did hit it.\n  BOYET. A mark! O, mark but that mark! A mark, says my lady!\n    Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be.\n  MARIA. Wide o' the bow-hand! I' faith, your hand is out.\n  COSTARD. Indeed, 'a must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the\n    clout.\n  BOYET. An if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.\n  COSTARD. Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.\n  MARIA. Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul.\n  COSTARD. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her\nto\n    bowl.\n  BOYET. I fear too much rubbing; good-night, my good owl.\n                                          Exeunt BOYET and MARIA\n  COSTARD. By my soul, a swain, a most simple clown!\n    Lord, Lord! how the ladies and I have put him down!\n    O' my troth, most sweet jests, most incony vulgar wit!\n    When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so\nfit.\n    Armado a th' t'one side- O, a most dainty man!\n    To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!\n    To see him kiss his hand, and how most sweetly 'a will swear!\n    And his page a t' other side, that handful of wit!\n    Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!\n    Sola, sola!                                     Exit COSTARD\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe park\n\nFrom the shooting within, enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and\nDULL\n\n  NATHANIEL. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the\ntestimony of\n    a good conscience.\n  HOLOFERNES. The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripe\nas\n    the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of\ncaelo,\n    the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab\non\n    the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth.\n  NATHANIEL. Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly\n    varied, like a scholar at the least; but, sir, I assure ye it\nwas\n    a buck of the first head.\n  HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.\n  DULL. 'Twas not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.\n  HOLOFERNES. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of\ninsinuation,\n    as it were, in via, in way, of explication; facere, as it\nwere,\n    replication, or rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his\n    inclination, after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated,\n    unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or ratherest\n    unconfirmed fashion, to insert again my haud credo for a\ndeer.\n  DULL. I Said the deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.\n  HOLOFERNES. Twice-sod simplicity, bis coctus!\n    O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!\n  NATHANIEL. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred\nin\n      a book;\n    He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his\n    intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only\nsensible\n    in the duller parts;\n    And such barren plants are set before us that we thankful\nshould\n      be-\n    Which we of taste and feeling are- for those parts that do\n      fructify in us more than he.\n    For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a\nfool,\n    So, were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a\nschool.\n    But, omne bene, say I, being of an old father's mind:\n    Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.\n  DULL. You two are book-men: can you tell me by your wit\n    What was a month old at Cain's birth that's not five weeks\nold as\n      yet?\n  HOLOFERNES. Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull.\n  DULL. What is Dictynna?\n  NATHANIEL. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.\n  HOLOFERNES. The moon was a month old when Adam was no more,\n    And raught not to five weeks when he came to five-score.\n    Th' allusion holds in the exchange.\n  DULL. 'Tis true, indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.\n  HOLOFERNES. God comfort thy capacity! I say th' allusion holds\nin\n    the exchange.\n  DULL. And I say the polusion holds in the exchange; for the\nmoon is\n    never but a month old; and I say, beside, that 'twas a\npricket\n    that the Princess kill'd.\n  HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph\non\n    the death of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, call the\ndeer\n    the Princess kill'd a pricket.\n  NATHANIEL. Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge, so it shall\nplease\n    you to abrogate scurrility.\n  HOLOFERNES. I Will something affect the letter, for it argues\n    facility.\n\n    The preyful Princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing\n      pricket.\n    Some say a sore; but not a sore till now made sore with\nshooting.\n    The dogs did yell; put el to sore, then sorel jumps from\nthicket-\n    Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting.\n    If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores o' sorel.\n    Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L.\n\n  NATHANIEL. A rare talent!\n  DULL. [Aside] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with\na\n    talent.\n  HOLOFERNES. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a\nfoolish\n    extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects,\n    ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions. These are begot\nin\n    the ventricle of memory, nourish'd in the womb of pia mater,\nand\n    delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is\ngood in\n    those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.\n  NATHANIEL. Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my\n    parishioners; for their sons are well tutor'd by you, and\ntheir\n    daughters profit very greatly under you. You are a good\nmember of\n    the commonwealth.\n  HOLOFERNES. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, they shall\nwant\n    no instruction; if their daughters be capable, I will put it\nto\n    them; but, vir sapit qui pauca loquitur. A soul feminine\nsaluteth\n    us.\n\n                    Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD\n\n  JAQUENETTA. God give you good morrow, Master Person.\n  HOLOFERNES. Master Person, quasi pers-one. And if one should be\n    pierc'd which is the one?\n  COSTARD. Marry, Master Schoolmaster, he that is likest to a\n    hogshead.\n  HOLOFERNES. Piercing a hogshead! A good lustre of conceit in a\nturf\n    of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine;\n'tis\n    pretty; it is well.\n  JAQUENETTA. Good Master Parson, be so good as read me this\nletter;\n    it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado. I\n    beseech you read it.\n  HOLOFERNES. Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra\n    Ruminat-\n    and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as\n    the traveller doth of Venice:\n                   Venetia, Venetia,\n                   Chi non ti vede, non ti pretia.\n    Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not,\n    loves thee not-\n                      Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.\n    Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or rather as\n    Horace says in his- What, my soul, verses?\n  NATHANIEL. Ay, sir, and very learned.\n  HOLOFERNES. Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege,\ndomine.\n  NATHANIEL. [Reads] 'If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear\nto\n      love?\n    Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed!\n    Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove;\n    Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed.\n    Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes,\n    Where all those pleasures live that art would comprehend.\n    If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;\n    Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend;\n    All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder;\n    Which is to me some praise that I thy parts admire.\n    Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful\nthunder,\n    Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.\n    Celestial as thou art, O, pardon love this wrong,\n    That singes heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue.'\n  HOLOFERNES. You find not the apostrophas, and so miss the\naccent:\n    let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers\nratified;\n    but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy,\n    caret. Ovidius Naso was the man. And why, indeed, 'Naso' but\nfor\n    smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of\n    invention? Imitari is nothing: so doth the hound his master,\nthe\n    ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But, damosella\nvirgin,\n    was this directed to you?\n  JAQUENETTA. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Berowne, one of the\nstrange\n    queen's lords.\n  HOLOFERNES. I will overglance the superscript: 'To the\nsnow-white\n    hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline.' I will look again\non\n    the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party\n    writing to the person written unto: 'Your Ladyship's in all\n    desired employment, Berowne.' Sir Nathaniel, this Berowne is\none\n    of the votaries with the King; and here he hath framed a\nletter\n    to a sequent of the stranger queen's which accidentally, or\nby\n    the way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my\nsweet;\n    deliver this paper into the royal hand of the King; it may\n    concern much. Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty.\nAdieu.\n  JAQUENETTA. Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life!\n  COSTARD. Have with thee, my girl.\n                                   Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA\n  NATHANIEL. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very\n    religiously; and, as a certain father saith-\n  HOLOFERNES. Sir, tell not me of the father; I do fear\ncolourable\n    colours. But to return to the verses: did they please you,\nSir\n    Nathaniel?\n  NATHANIEL. Marvellous well for the pen.\n  HOLOFERNES. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil\nof\n    mine; where, if, before repast, it shall please you to\ngratify\n    the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with\nthe\n    parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben\n    venuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned,\n    neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech\nyour\n    society.\n  NATHANIEL. And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is\nthe\n    happiness of life.\n  HOLOFERNES. And certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.\n    [To DULL] Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not say me nay:\n    pauca verba. Away; the gentles are at their game, and we will\nto\n    our recreation.                                       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nThe park\n\nEnter BEROWNE, with a paper his band, alone\n\n  BEROWNE. The King he is hunting the deer: I am coursing myself.\n    They have pitch'd a toil: I am tolling in a pitch- pitch that\n    defiles. Defile! a foul word. Well, 'set thee down, sorrow!'\nfor\n    so they say the fool said, and so say I, and I am the fool.\nWell\n    proved, wit. By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it\nkills\n    sheep; it kills me- I a sheep. Well proved again o' my side.\nI\n    will not love; if I do, hang me. I' faith, I will not. O, but\nher\n    eye! By this light, but for her eye, I would not love her-\nyes,\n    for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie,\nand\n    lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love; and it hath taught me\nto\n    rhyme, and to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme,\nand\n    here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already;\nthe\n    clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet\n    clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not\n    care a pin if the other three were in. Here comes one with a\n    paper; God give him grace to groan!\n                                            [Climbs into a tree]\n\n                      Enter the KING, with a paper\n\n  KING. Ay me!\n  BEROWNE. Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast\nthump'd\n    him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets!\n  KING. [Reads]\n      'So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not\n      To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,\n      As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote\n      The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows;\n      Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright\n      Through the transparent bosom of the deep,\n      As doth thy face through tears of mine give light.\n      Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep;\n      No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;\n      So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.\n      Do but behold the tears that swell in me,\n      And they thy glory through my grief will show.\n      But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep\n      My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.\n      O queen of queens! how far dost thou excel\n      No thought can think nor tongue of mortal tell.'\n    How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper-\n    Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?\n                                                   [Steps aside]\n\n                  Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper\n\n    What, Longaville, and reading! Listen, car.\n  BEROWNE. Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!\n  LONGAVILLE. Ay me, I am forsworn!\n  BEROWNE. Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.\n  KING. In love, I hope; sweet fellowship in shame!\n  BEROWNE. One drunkard loves another of the name.\n  LONGAVILLE. Am I the first that have been perjur'd so?\n  BEROWNE. I could put thee in comfort: not by two that I know;\n    Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society,\n    The shape of Love's Tyburn that hangs up simplicity.\n  LONGAVILLE. I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move.\n    O sweet Maria, empress of my love!\n    These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.\n  BEROWNE. O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose:\n    Disfigure not his slop.\n  LONGAVILLE. This same shall go.          [He reads the sonnet]\n      'Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,\n      'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,\n      Persuade my heart to this false perjury?\n      Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.\n      A woman I forswore; but I will prove,\n      Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:\n      My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;\n      Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me.\n      Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is;\n      Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,\n      Exhal'st this vapour-vow; in thee it is.\n      If broken, then it is no fault of mine;\n      If by me broke, what fool is not so wise\n      To lose an oath to win a paradise?'\n  BEROWNE. This is the liver-vein, which makes flesh a deity,\n    A green goose a goddess- pure, pure idolatry.\n    God amend us, God amend! We are much out o' th' way.\n\n                      Enter DUMAIN, with a paper\n\n  LONGAVILLE. By whom shall I send this?- Company! Stay.\n                                                   [Steps aside]\n  BEROWNE. 'All hid, all hid'- an old infant play.\n    Like a demigod here sit I in the sky,\n    And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye.\n    More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish!\n    Dumain transformed! Four woodcocks in a dish!\n  DUMAIN. O most divine Kate!\n  BEROWNE. O most profane coxcomb!\n  DUMAIN. By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!\n  BEROWNE. By earth, she is not, corporal: there you lie.\n  DUMAIN. Her amber hairs for foul hath amber quoted.\n  BEROWNE. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted.\n  DUMAIN. As upright as the cedar.\n  BEROWNE. Stoop, I say;\n    Her shoulder is with child.\n  DUMAIN. As fair as day.\n  BEROWNE. Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.\n  DUMAIN. O that I had my wish!\n  LONGAVILLE. And I had mine!\n  KING. And I mine too,.good Lord!\n  BEROWNE. Amen, so I had mine! Is not that a good word?\n  DUMAIN. I would forget her; but a fever she\n    Reigns in my blood, and will rememb'red be.\n  BEROWNE. A fever in your blood? Why, then incision\n    Would let her out in saucers. Sweet misprision!\n  DUMAIN. Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ.\n  BEROWNE. Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit.\n  DUMAIN. [Reads]\n        'On a day-alack the day!-\n        Love, whose month is ever May,\n        Spied a blossom passing fair\n        Playing in the wanton air.\n        Through the velvet leaves the wind,\n        All unseen, can passage find;\n        That the lover, sick to death,\n        Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.\n        \"Air,\" quoth he \"thy cheeks may blow;\n        Air, would I might triumph so!\n        But, alack, my hand is sworn\n        Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn;\n        Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,\n        Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.\n        Do not call it sin in me\n        That I am forsworn for thee;\n        Thou for whom Jove would swear\n        Juno but an Ethiope were;\n        And deny himself for Jove,\n        Turning mortal for thy love.\"'\n    This will I send; and something else more plain\n    That shall express my true love's fasting pain.\n    O, would the King, Berowne and Longaville,\n    Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,\n    Would from my forehead wipe a perjur'd note;\n    For none offend where all alike do dote.\n  LONGAVILLE. [Advancing] Dumain, thy love is far from charity,\n    That in love's grief desir'st society;\n    You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,\n    To be o'erheard and taken napping so.\n  KING. [Advancing] Come, sir, you blush; as his, your case is\nsuch.\n    You chide at him, offending twice as much:\n    You do not love Maria! Longaville\n    Did never sonnet for her sake compile;\n    Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart\n    His loving bosom, to keep down his heart.\n    I have been closely shrouded in this bush,\n    And mark'd you both, and for you both did blush.\n    I heard your guilty rhymes, observ'd your fashion,\n    Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion.\n    'Ay me!' says one. 'O Jove!' the other cries.\n    One, her hairs were gold; crystal the other's eyes.\n    [To LONGAVILLE] You would for paradise break faith and troth;\n    [To Dumain] And Jove for your love would infringe an oath.\n    What will Berowne say when that he shall hear\n    Faith infringed which such zeal did swear?\n    How will he scorn, how will he spend his wit!\n    How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it!\n    For all the wealth that ever I did see,\n    I would not have him know so much by me.\n  BEROWNE. [Descending] Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy,\n    Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me.\n    Good heart, what grace hast thou thus to reprove\n    These worms for loving, that art most in love?\n    Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears\n    There is no certain princess that appears;\n    You'll not be perjur'd; 'tis a hateful thing;\n    Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting.\n    But are you not ashamed? Nay, are you not,\n    All three of you, to be thus much o'ershot?\n    You found his mote; the King your mote did see;\n    But I a beam do find in each of three.\n    O, what a scene of fool'ry have I seen,\n    Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!\n    O, me, with what strict patience have I sat,\n    To see a king transformed to a gnat!\n    To see great Hercules whipping a gig,\n    And profound Solomon to tune a jig,\n    And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,\n    And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!\n    Where lies thy grief, O, tell me, good Dumain?\n    And, gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?\n    And where my liege's? All about the breast.\n    A caudle, ho!\n  KING. Too bitter is thy jest.\n    Are we betrayed thus to thy over-view?\n  BEROWNE. Not you by me, but I betrayed to you.\n    I that am honest, I that hold it sin\n    To break the vow I am engaged in;\n    I am betrayed by keeping company\n    With men like you, men of inconstancy.\n    When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?\n    Or groan for Joan? or spend a minute's time\n    In pruning me? When shall you hear that I\n    Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,\n    A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist,\n    A leg, a limb-\n  KING. Soft! whither away so fast?\n    A true man or a thief that gallops so?\n  BEROWNE. I post from love; good lover, let me go.\n\n                 Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD\n\n  JAQUENETTA. God bless the King!\n  KING. What present hast thou there?\n  COSTARD. Some certain treason.\n  KING. What makes treason here?\n  COSTARD. Nay, it makes nothing, sir.\n  KING. If it mar nothing neither,\n    The treason and you go in peace away together.\n  JAQUENETTA. I beseech your Grace, let this letter be read;\n    Our person misdoubts it: 'twas treason, he said.\n  KING. Berowne, read it over.        [BEROWNE reads the letter]\n    Where hadst thou it?\n  JAQUENETTA. Of Costard.\n  KING. Where hadst thou it?\n  COSTARD. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.\n                                      [BEROWNE tears the letter]\n  KING. How now! What is in you? Why dost thou tear it?\n  BEROWNE. A toy, my liege, a toy! Your Grace needs not fear it.\n  LONGAVILLE. It did move him to passion, and therefore let's\nhear\n     it.\n  DUMAIN. It is Berowne's writing, and here is his name.\n                                       [Gathering up the pieces]\n  BEROWNE. [ To COSTARD] Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you were\nborn\n      to do me shame.\n    Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess.\n  KING. What?\n  BEROWNE. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the\nmess;\n    He, he, and you- and you, my liege!- and I\n    Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.\n    O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.\n    DUMAIN. Now the number is even.\n  BEROWNE. True, true, we are four.\n    Will these turtles be gone?\n  KING. Hence, sirs, away.\n  COSTARD. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.\n                                   Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA\n  BEROWNE. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O, let us embrace!\n    As true we are as flesh and blood can be.\n    The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;\n    Young blood doth not obey an old decree.\n    We cannot cross the cause why we were born,\n    Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn.\n  KING. What, did these rent lines show some love of thine?\n  BEROWNE. 'Did they?' quoth you. Who sees the heavenly Rosaline\n    That, like a rude and savage man of Inde\n    At the first op'ning of the gorgeous east,\n    Bows not his vassal head and, strucken blind,\n    Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?\n    What peremptory eagle-sighted eye\n    Dares look upon the heaven of her brow\n    That is not blinded by her majesty?\n  KING. What zeal, what fury hath inspir'd thee now?\n    My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon;\n    She, an attending star, scarce seen a light.\n  BEROWNE. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Berowne.\n    O, but for my love, day would turn to night!\n    Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty\n    Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek,\n    Where several worthies make one dignity,\n    Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek.\n    Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues-\n    Fie, painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not!\n    To things of sale a seller's praise belongs:\n    She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot.\n    A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn,\n    Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye.\n    Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born,\n    And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy.\n    O, 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine!\n  KING. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.\n  BEROWNE. Is ebony like her? O wood divine!\n    A wife of such wood were felicity.\n    O, who can give an oath? Where is a book?\n    That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack,\n    If that she learn not of her eye to look.\n    No face is fair that is not full so black.\n  KING. O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,\n    The hue of dungeons, and the school of night;\n    And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well.\n  BEROWNE. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.\n    O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt,\n    It mourns that painting and usurping hair\n    Should ravish doters with a false aspect;\n    And therefore is she born to make black fair.\n    Her favour turns the fashion of the days;\n    For native blood is counted painting now;\n    And therefore red that would avoid dispraise\n    Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.\n  DUMAIN. To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.\n  LONGAVILLE. And since her time are colliers counted bright.\n  KING. And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.\n  DUMAIN. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.\n  BEROWNE. Your mistresses dare never come in rain\n    For fear their colours should be wash'd away.\n  KING. 'Twere good yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,\n    I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day.\n  BEROWNE. I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.\n  KING. No devil will fright thee then so much as she.\n  DUMAIN. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.\n  LONGAVILLE. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see.\n                                              [Showing his shoe]\n  BEROWNE. O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,\n    Her feet were much too dainty for such tread!\n  DUMAIN. O vile! Then, as she goes, what upward lies\n    The street should see as she walk'd overhead.\n  KING. But what of this? Are we not all in love?\n  BEROWNE. Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn.\n  KING. Then leave this chat; and, good Berowne, now prove\n    Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.\n  DUMAIN. Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.\n  LONGAVILLE. O, some authority how to proceed;\n    Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil!\n  DUMAIN. Some salve for perjury.\n  BEROWNE. 'Tis more than need.\n    Have at you, then, affection's men-at-arms.\n    Consider what you first did swear unto:\n    To fast, to study, and to see no woman-\n    Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.\n    Say, can you fast? Your stomachs are too young,\n    And abstinence engenders maladies.\n    And, where that you you have vow'd to study, lords,\n    In that each of you have forsworn his book,\n    Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look?\n    For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,\n    Have found the ground of study's excellence\n    Without the beauty of a woman's face?\n    From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:\n    They are the ground, the books, the academes,\n    From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.\n    Why, universal plodding poisons up\n    The nimble spirits in the arteries,\n    As motion and long-during action tires\n    The sinewy vigour of the traveller.\n    Now, for not looking on a woman's face,\n    You have in that forsworn the use of eyes,\n    And study too, the causer of your vow;\n    For where is author in the world\n    Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?\n    Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,\n    And where we are our learning likewise is;\n    Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,\n    With ourselves.\n    Do we not likewise see our learning there?\n    O, we have made a vow to study, lords,\n    And in that vow we have forsworn our books.\n    For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,\n    In leaden contemplation have found out\n    Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes\n    Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with?\n    Other slow arts entirely keep the brain;\n    And therefore, finding barren practisers,\n    Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil;\n    But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,\n    Lives not alone immured in the brain,\n    But with the motion of all elements\n    Courses as swift as thought in every power,\n    And gives to every power a double power,\n    Above their functions and their offices.\n    It adds a precious seeing to the eye:\n    A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind.\n    A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,\n    When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd.\n    Love's feeling is more soft and sensible\n    Than are the tender horns of cockled snails:\n    Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste.\n    For valour, is not Love a Hercules,\n    Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?\n    Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical\n    As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair.\n    And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods\n    Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.\n    Never durst poet touch a pen to write\n    Until his ink were temp'red with Love's sighs;\n    O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,\n    And plant in tyrants mild humility.\n    From women's eyes this doctrine I derive.\n    They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;\n    They are the books, the arts, the academes,\n    That show, contain, and nourish, all the world,\n    Else none at all in aught proves excellent.\n    Then fools you were these women to forswear;\n    Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.\n    For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love;\n    Or for Love's sake, a word that loves all men;\n    Or for men's sake, the authors of these women;\n    Or women's sake, by whom we men are men-\n    Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,\n    Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.\n    It is religion to be thus forsworn;\n    For charity itself fulfils the law,\n    And who can sever love from charity?\n  KING. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!\n  BEROWNE. Advance your standards, and upon them, lords;\n    Pell-mell, down with them! be first advis'd,\n    In conflict, that you get the sun of them.\n  LONGAVILLE. Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by.\n    Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?\n  KING. And win them too; therefore let us devise\n    Some entertainment for them in their tents.\n  BEROWNE. First, from the park let us conduct them thither;\n    Then homeward every man attach the hand\n    Of his fair mistress. In the afternoon\n    We will with some strange pastime solace them,\n    Such as the shortness of the time can shape;\n    For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,\n    Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.\n  KING. Away, away! No time shall be omitted\n    That will betime, and may by us be fitted.\n  BEROWNE. Allons! allons! Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn,\n    And justice always whirls in equal measure.\n    Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn;\n    If so, our copper buys no better treasure.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nThe park\n\nEnter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL\n\n  HOLOFERNES. Satis quod sufficit.\n  NATHANIEL. I praise God for you, sir. Your reasons at dinner\nhave\n    been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility,\nwitty\n    without affection, audacious without impudency, learned\nwithout\n    opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this\nquondam\n    day with a companion of the King's who is intituled,\nnominated,\n    or called, Don Adriano de Armado.\n  HOLOFERNES. Novi hominem tanquam te. His humour is lofty, his\n    discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious,\nhis\n    gait majestical and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous,\nand\n    thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too\nodd,\n    as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.\n  NATHANIEL. A most singular and choice epithet.\n                                      [Draws out his table-book]\n  HOLOFERNES. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer\nthan\n    the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical\nphantasimes,\n    such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of\n    orthography, as to speak 'dout' fine, when he should say\n'doubt';\n    'det' when he should pronounce 'debt'- d, e, b, t, not d, e,\nt.\n    He clepeth a calf 'cauf,' half 'hauf'; neighbour vocatur\n    'nebour'; 'neigh' abbreviated 'ne.' This is abhominable-\nwhich he\n    would call 'abbominable.' It insinuateth me of insanie: ne\n    intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.\n  NATHANIEL. Laus Deo, bone intelligo.\n  HOLOFERNES. 'Bone'?- 'bone' for 'bene.' Priscian a little\n    scratch'd; 'twill serve.\n\n                 Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD\n\n  NATHANIEL. Videsne quis venit?\n  HOLOFERNES. Video, et gaudeo.\n  ARMADO. [To MOTH] Chirrah!\n  HOLOFERNES. Quare 'chirrah,' not 'sirrah'?\n  ARMADO. Men of peace, well encount'red.\n  HOLOFERNES. Most military sir, salutation.\n  MOTH. [Aside to COSTARD] They have been at a great feast of\n    languages and stol'n the scraps.\n  COSTARD. O, they have liv'd long on the alms-basket of words. I\n    marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word, for thou\nare\n    not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus; thou\nart\n    easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.\n  MOTH. Peace! the peal begins.\n  ARMADO. [To HOLOFERNES] Monsieur, are you not lett'red?\n  MOTH. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook. What is a, b,\nspelt\n    backward with the horn on his head?\n  HOLOFERNES. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.\n  MOTH. Ba, most silly sheep with a horn. You hear his learning.\n  HOLOFERNES. Quis, quis, thou consonant?\n  MOTH. The third of the five vowels, if You repeat them; or the\n    fifth, if I.\n  HOLOFERNES. I will repeat them: a, e, I-\n  MOTH. The sheep; the other two concludes it: o, U.\n  ARMADO. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet\ntouch,\n    a quick venue of wit- snip, snap, quick and home. It\nrejoiceth my\n    intellect. True wit!\n  MOTH. Offer'd by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.\n  HOLOFERNES. What is the figure? What is the figure?\n  MOTH. Horns.\n  HOLOFERNES. Thou disputes like an infant; go whip thy gig.\n  MOTH. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your\n    infamy circum circa- a gig of a cuckold's horn.\n  COSTARD. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst\nhave it\n    to buy ginger-bread. Hold, there is the very remuneration I\nhad\n    of thy master, thou halfpenny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg\nof\n    discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased that thou wert\nbut\n    my bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to;\n    thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say.\n  HOLOFERNES. O, I smell false Latin; 'dunghill' for unguem.\n  ARMADO. Arts-man, preambulate; we will be singuled from the\n    barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house on\nthe\n    top of the mountain?\n  HOLOFERNES. Or mons, the hill.\n  ARMADO. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.\n  HOLOFERNES. I do, sans question.\n  ARMADO. Sir, it is the King's most sweet pleasure and affection\nto\n    congratulate the Princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors\nof\n    this day; which the rude multitude call the afternoon.\n  HOLOFERNES. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is\nliable,\n    congruent, and measurable, for the afternoon. The word is\nwell\n    cull'd, chose, sweet, and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do\nassure.\n  ARMADO. Sir, the King is a noble gentleman, and my familiar, I\ndo\n    assure ye, very good friend. For what is inward between us,\nlet\n    it pass. I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy. I beseech\n    thee, apparel thy head. And among other importunate and most\n    serious designs, and of great import indeed, too- but let\nthat\n    pass; for I must tell thee it will please his Grace, by the\n    world, sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder, and with his\nroyal\n    finger thus dally with my excrement, with my mustachio; but,\n    sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable:\n    some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to\nimpart\n    to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the\nworld;\n    but let that pass. The very all of all is- but, sweet heart,\nI do\n    implore secrecy- that the King would have me present the\n    Princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or\nshow,\n    or pageant, or antic, or firework. Now, understanding that\nthe\n    curate and your sweet self are good at such eruptions and\nsudden\n    breaking-out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you\nwithal,\n    to the end to crave your assistance.\n  HOLOFERNES. Sir, you shall present before her the Nine\nWorthies.\n    Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some\n    show in the posterior of this day, to be rend'red by our\n    assistance, the King's command, and this most gallant,\n    illustrate, and learned gentleman, before the Princess- I say\n    none so fit as to present the Nine Worthies.\n  NATHANIEL. Where will you find men worthy enough to present\nthem?\n  HOLOFERNES. Joshua, yourself; myself, Alexander; this gallant\n    gentleman, Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great\n    limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the page,\nHercules.\n  ARMADO. Pardon, sir; error: he is not quantity enough for that\n    Worthy's thumb; he is not so big as the end of his club.\n  HOLOFERNES. Shall I have audience? He shall present Hercules in\n    minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and\nI\n    will have an apology for that purpose.\n  MOTH. An excellent device! So, if any of the audience hiss, you\nmay\n    cry 'Well done, Hercules; now thou crushest the snake!' That\nis\n    the way to make an offence gracious, though few have the\ngrace to\n    do it.\n  ARMADO. For the rest of the Worthies?\n  HOLOFERNES. I will play three myself.\n  MOTH. Thrice-worthy gentleman!\n  ARMADO. Shall I tell you a thing?\n  HOLOFERNES. We attend.\n  ARMADO. We will have, if this fadge not, an antic. I beseech\nyou,\n    follow.\n  HOLOFERNES. Via, goodman Dull! Thou has spoken no word all this\n    while.\n  DULL. Nor understood none neither, sir.\n  HOLOFERNES. Allons! we will employ thee.\n  DULL. I'll make one in a dance, or so, or I will play\n    On the tabor to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.\n  HOLOFERNES. Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nThe park\n\nEnter the PRINCESS, MARIA, KATHARINE, and ROSALINE\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we\ndepart,\n    If fairings come thus plentifully in.\n    A lady wall'd about with diamonds!\n    Look you what I have from the loving King.\n  ROSALINE. Madam, came nothing else along with that?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nothing but this! Yes, as much love in\nrhyme\n    As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper\n    Writ o' both sides the leaf, margent and all,\n    That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.\n  ROSALINE. That was the way to make his godhead wax;\n    For he hath been five thousand year a boy.\n  KATHARINE. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.\n  ROSALINE. You'll ne'er be friends with him: 'a kill'd your\nsister.\n  KATHARINE. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy;\n    And so she died. Had she been light, like you,\n    Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,\n    She might 'a been a grandam ere she died.\n    And so may you; for a light heart lives long.\n  ROSALINE. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?\n  KATHARINE. A light condition in a beauty dark.\n  ROSALINE. We need more light to find your meaning out.\n  KATHARINE. You'll mar the light by taking it in snuff;\n    Therefore I'll darkly end the argument.\n  ROSALINE. Look what you do, you do it still i' th' dark.\n  KATHARINE. So do not you; for you are a light wench.\n  ROSALINE. Indeed, I weigh not you; and therefore light.\n  KATHARINE. You weigh me not? O, that's you care not for me.\n  ROSALINE. Great reason; for 'past cure is still past care.'\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Well bandied both; a set of wit well\nplay'd.\n    But, Rosaline, you have a favour too?\n    Who sent it? and what is it?\n  ROSALINE. I would you knew.\n    An if my face were but as fair as yours,\n    My favour were as great: be witness this.\n    Nay, I have verses too, I thank Berowne;\n    The numbers true, and, were the numb'ring too,\n    I were the fairest goddess on the ground.\n    I am compar'd to twenty thousand fairs.\n    O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Anything like?\n  ROSALINE. Much in the letters; nothing in the praise.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Beauteous as ink- a good conclusion.\n  KATHARINE. Fair as a text B in a copy-book.\n  ROSALINE. Ware pencils, ho! Let me not die your debtor,\n    My red dominical, my golden letter:\n    O that your face were not so full of O's!\n  KATHARINE. A pox of that jest! and I beshrew all shrows!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. But, Katharine, what was sent to you from\nfair\n    Dumain?\n  KATHARINE. Madam, this glove.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Did he not send you twain?\n  KATHARINE. Yes, madam; and, moreover,\n    Some thousand verses of a faithful lover;\n    A huge translation of hypocrisy,\n    Vilely compil'd, profound simplicity.\n  MARIA. This, and these pearl, to me sent Longaville;\n    The letter is too long by half a mile.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I think no less. Dost thou not wish in\nheart\n    The chain were longer and the letter short?\n  MARIA. Ay, or I would these hands might never part.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.\n  ROSALINE. They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.\n    That same Berowne I'll torture ere I go.\n    O that I knew he were but in by th' week!\n    How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek,\n    And wait the season, and observe the times,\n    And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes,\n    And shape his service wholly to my hests,\n    And make him proud to make me proud that jests!\n    So pertaunt-like would I o'ersway his state\n    That he should be my fool, and I his fate.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. None are so surely caught, when they are\n      catch'd,\n    As wit turn'd fool; folly, in wisdom hatch'd,\n    Hath wisdom's warrant and the help of school,\n    And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.\n  ROSALINE. The blood of youth burns not with such excess\n    As gravity's revolt to wantonness.\n  MARIA. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note\n    As fool'ry in the wise when wit doth dote,\n    Since all the power thereof it doth apply\n    To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.\n\n                          Enter BOYET\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face.\n  BOYET. O, I am stabb'd with laughter! Where's her Grace?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thy news, Boyet?\n  BOYET. Prepare, madam, prepare!\n    Arm, wenches, arm! Encounters mounted are\n    Against your peace. Love doth approach disguis'd,\n    Armed in arguments; you'll be surpris'd.\n    Muster your wits; stand in your own defence;\n    Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Saint Dennis to Saint Cupid! What are they\n    That charge their breath against us? Say, scout, say.\n  BOYET. Under the cool shade of a sycamore\n    I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour;\n    When, lo, to interrupt my purpos'd rest,\n    Toward that shade I might behold addrest\n    The King and his companions; warily\n    I stole into a neighbour thicket by,\n    And overheard what you shall overhear-\n    That, by and by, disguis'd they will be here.\n    Their herald is a pretty knavish page,\n    That well by heart hath conn'd his embassage.\n    Action and accent did they teach him there:\n    'Thus must thou speak' and 'thus thy body bear,'\n    And ever and anon they made a doubt\n    Presence majestical would put him out;\n    'For' quoth the King 'an angel shalt thou see;\n    Yet fear not thou, but speak audaciously.'\n    The boy replied 'An angel is not evil;\n    I should have fear'd her had she been a devil.'\n    With that all laugh'd, and clapp'd him on the shoulder,\n    Making the bold wag by their praises bolder.\n    One rubb'd his elbow, thus, and fleer'd, and swore\n    A better speech was never spoke before.\n    Another with his finger and his thumb\n    Cried 'Via! we will do't, come what will come.'\n    The third he caper'd, and cried 'All goes well.'\n    The fourth turn'd on the toe, and down he fell.\n    With that they all did tumble on the ground,\n    With such a zealous laughter, so profound,\n    That in this spleen ridiculous appears,\n    To check their folly, passion's solemn tears.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. But what, but what, come they to visit us?\n  BOYET. They do, they do, and are apparell'd thus,\n    Like Muscovites or Russians, as I guess.\n    Their purpose is to parley, court, and dance;\n    And every one his love-feat will advance\n    Unto his several mistress; which they'll know\n    By favours several which they did bestow.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. And will they so? The gallants shall be\ntask'd,\n    For, ladies, we will every one be mask'd;\n    And not a man of them shall have the grace,\n    Despite of suit, to see a lady's face.\n    Hold, Rosaline, this favour thou shalt wear,\n    And then the King will court thee for his dear;\n    Hold, take thou this, my sweet, and give me thine,\n    So shall Berowne take me for Rosaline.\n    And change you favours too; so shall your loves\n    Woo contrary, deceiv'd by these removes.\n  ROSALINE. Come on, then, wear the favours most in sight.\n  KATHARINE. But, in this changing, what is your intent?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The effect of my intent is to cross theirs.\n    They do it but in mocking merriment,\n    And mock for mock is only my intent.\n    Their several counsels they unbosom shall\n    To loves mistook, and so be mock'd withal\n    Upon the next occasion that we meet\n    With visages display'd to talk and greet.\n  ROSALINE. But shall we dance, if they desire us to't?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. No, to the death, we will not move a foot,\n    Nor to their penn'd speech render we no grace;\n    But while 'tis spoke each turn away her face.\n  BOYET. Why, that contempt will kill the speaker's heart,\n    And quite divorce his memory from his part.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Therefore I do it; and I make no doubt\n    The rest will ne'er come in, if he be out.\n    There's no such sport as sport by sport o'erthrown,\n    To make theirs ours, and ours none but our own;\n    So shall we stay, mocking intended game,\n    And they well mock'd depart away with shame.\n                                         [Trumpet sounds within]\n  BOYET. The trumpet sounds; be mask'd; the maskers come.\n                                               [The LADIES mask]\n\n          Enter BLACKAMOORS music, MOTH as Prologue, the\n     KING and his LORDS as maskers, in the guise of Russians\n\n  MOTH. All hail, the richest heauties on the earth!\n  BOYET. Beauties no richer than rich taffeta.\n  MOTH. A holy parcel of the fairest dames\n                            [The LADIES turn their backs to him]\n    That ever turn'd their- backs- to mortal views!\n  BEROWNE. Their eyes, villain, their eyes.\n  MOTH. That ever turn'd their eyes to mortal views!\n    Out-\n  BOYET. True; out indeed.\n  MOTH. Out of your favours, heavenly spirits, vouchsafe\n    Not to behold-\n  BEROWNE. Once to behold, rogue.\n  MOTH. Once to behold with your sun-beamed eyes- with your\n    sun-beamed eyes-\n  BOYET. They will not answer to that epithet;\n    You were best call it 'daughter-beamed eyes.'\n  MOTH. They do not mark me, and that brings me out.\n  BEROWNE. Is this your perfectness? Be gone, you rogue.\n                                                       Exit MOTH\n  ROSALINE. What would these strangers? Know their minds, Boyet.\n    If they do speak our language, 'tis our will\n    That some plain man recount their purposes.\n    Know what they would.\n  BOYET. What would you with the Princess?\n  BEROWNE. Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.\n  ROSALINE. What would they, say they?\n  BOYET. Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.\n  ROSALINE. Why, that they have; and bid them so be gone.\n  BOYET. She says you have it, and you may be gone.\n  KING. Say to her we have measur'd many miles\n    To tread a measure with her on this grass.\n  BOYET. They say that they have measur'd many a mile\n    To tread a measure with you on this grass.\n  ROSALINE. It is not so. Ask them how many inches\n    Is in one mile? If they have measured many,\n    The measure, then, of one is eas'ly told.\n  BOYET. If to come hither you have measur'd miles,\n    And many miles, the Princess bids you tell\n    How many inches doth fill up one mile.\n  BEROWNE. Tell her we measure them by weary steps.\n  BOYET. She hears herself.\n  ROSALINE. How many weary steps\n    Of many weary miles you have o'ergone\n    Are numb'red in the travel of one mile?\n  BEROWNE. We number nothing that we spend for you;\n    Our duty is so rich, so infinite,\n    That we may do it still without accompt.\n    Vouchsafe to show the sunshine of your face,\n    That we, like savages, may worship it.\n  ROSALINE. My face is but a moon, and clouded too.\n  KING. Blessed are clouds, to do as such clouds do.\n    Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine,\n    Those clouds removed, upon our watery eyne.\n  ROSALINE. O vain petitioner! beg a greater matter;\n    Thou now requests but moonshine in the water.\n  KING. Then in our measure do but vouchsafe one change.\n    Thou bid'st me beg; this begging is not strange.\n  ROSALINE. Play, music, then. Nay, you must do it soon.\n    Not yet? No dance! Thus change I like the moon.\n  KING. Will you not dance? How come you thus estranged?\n  ROSALINE. You took the moon at full; but now she's changed.\n  KING. Yet still she is the Moon, and I the Man.\n    The music plays; vouchsafe some motion to it.\n  ROSALINE. Our ears vouchsafe it.\n  KING. But your legs should do it.\n  ROSALINE. Since you are strangers, and come here by chance,\n    We'll not be nice; take hands. We will not dance.\n  KING. Why take we hands then?\n  ROSALINE. Only to part friends.\n    Curtsy, sweet hearts; and so the measure ends.\n  KING. More measure of this measure; be not nice.\n  ROSALINE. We can afford no more at such a price.\n  KING. Price you yourselves. What buys your company?\n  ROSALINE. Your absence only.\n  KING. That can never be.\n  ROSALINE. Then cannot we be bought; and so adieu-\n    Twice to your visor and half once to you.\n  KING. If you deny to dance, let's hold more chat.\n  ROSALINE. In private then.\n  KING. I am best pleas'd with that.       [They converse apart]\n  BEROWNE. White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Honey, and milk, and sugar; there is three.\n  BEROWNE. Nay, then, two treys, an if you grow so nice,\n    Metheglin, wort, and malmsey; well run dice!\n    There's half a dozen sweets.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Seventh sweet, adieu!\n    Since you can cog, I'll play no more with you.\n  BEROWNE. One word in secret.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Let it not be sweet.\n  BEROWNE. Thou grievest my gall.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Gall! bitter.\n  BEROWNE. Therefore meet.                 [They converse apart]\n  DUMAIN. Will you vouchsafe with me to change a word?\n  MARIA. Name it.\n  DUMAIN. Fair lady-\n  MARIA. Say you so? Fair lord-\n    Take that for your fair lady.\n  DUMAIN. Please it you,\n    As much in private, and I'll bid adieu.\n                                           [They converse apart]\n  KATHARINE. What, was your vizard made without a tongue?\n  LONGAVILLE. I know the reason, lady, why you ask.\n  KATHARINE. O for your reason! Quickly, sir; I long.\n  LONGAVILLE. You have a double tongue within your mask,\n    And would afford my speechless vizard half.\n  KATHARINE. 'Veal' quoth the Dutchman. Is not 'veal' a calf?\n  LONGAVILLE. A calf, fair lady!\n  KATHARINE. No, a fair lord calf.\n  LONGAVILLE. Let's part the word.\n  KATHARINE. No, I'll not be your half.\n    Take all and wean it; it may prove an ox.\n  LONGAVILLE. Look how you butt yourself in these sharp mocks!\n    Will you give horns, chaste lady? Do not so.\n  KATHARINE. Then die a calf, before your horns do grow.\n  LONGAVILLE. One word in private with you ere I die.\n  KATHARINE. Bleat softly, then; the butcher hears you cry.\n                                           [They converse apart]\n  BOYET. The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen\n    As is the razor's edge invisible,\n    Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen,\n    Above the sense of sense; so sensible\n    Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings,\n    Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.\n  ROSALINE. Not one word more, my maids; break off, break off.\n  BEROWNE. By heaven, all dry-beaten with pure scoff!\n  KING. Farewell, mad wenches; you have simple wits.\n                             Exeunt KING, LORDS, and BLACKAMOORS\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovits.\n    Are these the breed of wits so wondered at?\n  BOYET. Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puff'd out.\n  ROSALINE. Well-liking wits they have; gross, gross; fat, fat.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. O poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout!\n    Will they not, think you, hang themselves to-night?\n    Or ever but in vizards show their faces?\n    This pert Berowne was out of count'nance quite.\n  ROSALINE. They were all in lamentable cases!\n    The King was weeping-ripe for a good word.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Berowne did swear himself out of all suit.\n  MARIA. Dumain was at my service, and his sword.\n    'No point' quoth I; my servant straight was mute.\n  KATHARINE. Lord Longaville said I came o'er his heart;\n    And trow you what he call'd me?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Qualm, perhaps.\n  KATHARINE. Yes, in good faith.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Go, sickness as thou art!\n  ROSALINE. Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps.\n    But will you hear? The King is my love sworn.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. And quick Berowne hath plighted faith to\nme.\n  KATHARINE. And Longaville was for my service born.\n  MARIA. Dumain is mine, as sure as bark on tree.\n  BOYET. Madam, and pretty mistresses, give ear:\n    Immediately they will again be here\n    In their own shapes; for it can never be\n    They will digest this harsh indignity.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Will they return?\n  BOYET. They will, they will, God knows,\n    And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows;\n    Therefore, change favours; and, when they repair,\n    Blow like sweet roses in this summer air.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. How blow? how blow? Speak to be understood.\n  BOYET. Fair ladies mask'd are roses in their bud:\n    Dismask'd, their damask sweet commixture shown,\n    Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Avaunt, perplexity! What shall we do\n    If they return in their own shapes to woo?\n  ROSALINE. Good madam, if by me you'll be advis'd,\n    Let's mock them still, as well known as disguis'd.\n    Let us complain to them what fools were here,\n    Disguis'd like Muscovites, in shapeless gear;\n    And wonder what they were, and to what end\n    Their shallow shows and prologue vilely penn'd,\n    And their rough carriage so ridiculous,\n    Should be presented at our tent to us.\n  BOYET. Ladies, withdraw; the gallants are at hand.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Whip to our tents, as roes run o'er land.\n                 Exeunt PRINCESS, ROSALINE, KATHARINE, and MARIA\n\n         Re-enter the KING, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN,\n                        in their proper habits\n\n  KING. Fair sir, God save you! Where's the Princess?\n  BOYET. Gone to her tent. Please it your Majesty\n    Command me any service to her thither?\n  KING. That she vouchsafe me audience for one word.\n  BOYET. I will; and so will she, I know, my lord.          Exit\n  BEROWNE. This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease,\n    And utters it again when God doth please.\n    He is wit's pedlar, and retails his wares\n    At wakes, and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs;\n    And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know,\n    Have not the grace to grace it with such show.\n    This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve;\n    Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve.\n    'A can carve too, and lisp; why this is he\n    That kiss'd his hand away in courtesy;\n    This is the ape of form, Monsieur the Nice,\n    That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice\n    In honourable terms; nay, he can sing\n    A mean most meanly; and in ushering,\n    Mend him who can. The ladies call him sweet;\n    The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet.\n    This is the flow'r that smiles on every one,\n    To show his teeth as white as whales-bone;\n    And consciences that will not die in debt\n    Pay him the due of 'honey-tongued Boyet.'\n  KING. A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart,\n    That put Armado's page out of his part!\n\n        Re-enter the PRINCESS, ushered by BOYET; ROSALINE,\n                      MARIA, and KATHARINE\n\n  BEROWNE. See where it comes! Behaviour, what wert thou\n    Till this man show'd thee? And what art thou now?\n  KING. All hail, sweet madam, and fair time of day!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'Fair' in 'all hail' is foul, as I\nconceive.\n  KING. Construe my speeches better, if you may.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Then wish me better; I will give you leave.\n  KING. We came to visit you, and purpose now\n    To lead you to our court; vouchsafe it then.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. This field shall hold me, and so hold your\nvow:\n    Nor God, nor I, delights in perjur'd men.\n  KING. Rebuke me not for that which you provoke.\n    The virtue of your eye must break my oath.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. You nickname virtue: vice you should have\n      spoke;\n    For virtue's office never breaks men's troth.\n    Now by my maiden honour, yet as pure\n    As the unsullied lily, I protest,\n    A world of torments though I should endure,\n    I would not yield to be your house's guest;\n    So much I hate a breaking cause to be\n    Of heavenly oaths, vowed with integrity.\n  KING. O, you have liv'd in desolation here,\n    Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Not so, my lord; it is not so, I swear;\n    We have had pastimes here, and pleasant game;\n    A mess of Russians left us but of late.\n  KING. How, madam! Russians!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Ay, in truth, my lord;\n    Trim gallants, full of courtship and of state.\n  ROSALINE. Madam, speak true. It is not so, my lord.\n    My lady, to the manner of the days,\n    In courtesy gives undeserving praise.\n    We four indeed confronted were with four\n    In Russian habit; here they stayed an hour\n    And talk'd apace; and in that hour, my lord,\n    They did not bless us with one happy word.\n    I dare not call them fools; but this I think,\n    When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.\n  BEROWNE. This jest is dry to me. Fair gentle sweet,\n    Your wit makes wise things foolish; when we greet,\n    With eyes best seeing, heaven's fiery eye,\n    By light we lose light; your capacity\n    Is of that nature that to your huge store\n    Wise things seem foolish and rich things but poor.\n  ROSALINE. This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye-\n  BEROWNE. I am a fool, and full of poverty.\n  ROSALINE. But that you take what doth to you belong,\n    It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.\n  BEROWNE. O, I am yours, and all that I possess.\n  ROSALINE. All the fool mine?\n  BEROWNE. I cannot give you less.\n  ROSALINE. Which of the vizards was it that you wore?\n  BEROWNE. Where? when? what vizard? Why demand you this?\n  ROSALINE. There, then, that vizard; that superfluous case\n    That hid the worse and show'd the better face.\n  KING. We were descried; they'll mock us now downright.\n  DUMAIN. Let us confess, and turn it to a jest.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Amaz'd, my lord? Why looks your Highness\nsad?\n  ROSALINE. Help, hold his brows! he'll swoon! Why look you pale?\n    Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy.\n  BEROWNE. Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury.\n    Can any face of brass hold longer out?\n    Here stand I, lady- dart thy skill at me,\n    Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout,\n    Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance,\n    Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit;\n    And I will wish thee never more to dance,\n    Nor never more in Russian habit wait.\n    O, never will I trust to speeches penn'd,\n    Nor to the motion of a school-boy's tongue,\n    Nor never come in vizard to my friend,\n    Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper's song.\n    Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,\n    Three-pil'd hyperboles, spruce affectation,\n    Figures pedantical- these summer-flies\n    Have blown me full of maggot ostentation.\n    I do forswear them; and I here protest,\n    By this white glove- how white the hand, God knows!-\n    Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd\n    In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes.\n    And, to begin, wench- so God help me, law!-\n    My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.\n  ROSALINE. Sans 'sans,' I pray you.\n  BEROWNE. Yet I have a trick\n    Of the old rage; bear with me, I am sick;\n    I'll leave it by degrees. Soft, let us see-\n    Write 'Lord have mercy on us' on those three;\n    They are infected; in their hearts it lies;\n    They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes.\n    These lords are visited; you are not free,\n    For the Lord's tokens on you do I see.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. No, they are free that gave these tokens to\nus.\n  BEROWNE. Our states are forfeit; seek not to undo us.\n  ROSALINE. It is not so; for how can this be true,\n    That you stand forfeit, being those that sue?\n  BEROWNE. Peace; for I will not have to do with you.\n  ROSALINE. Nor shall not, if I do as I intend.\n  BEROWNE. Speak for yourselves; my wit is at an end.\n  KING. Teach us, sweet madam, for our rude transgression\n    Some fair excuse.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The fairest is confession.\n    Were not you here but even now, disguis'd?\n  KING. Madam, I was.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. And were you well advis'd?\n  KING. I was, fair madam.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. When you then were here,\n    What did you whisper in your lady's ear?\n  KING. That more than all the world I did respect her.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. When she shall challenge this, you will\nreject\n    her.\n  KING. Upon mine honour, no.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Peace, peace, forbear;\n    Your oath once broke, you force not to forswear.\n  KING. Despise me when I break this oath of mine.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I will; and therefore keep it. Rosaline,\n    What did the Russian whisper in your ear?\n  ROSALINE. Madam, he swore that he did hold me dear\n    As precious eyesight, and did value me\n    Above this world; adding thereto, moreover,\n    That he would wed me, or else die my lover.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. God give thee joy of him! The noble lord\n     Most honourably doth uphold his word.\n  KING. What mean you, madam? By my life, my troth,\n    I never swore this lady such an oath.\n  ROSALINE. By heaven, you did; and, to confirm it plain,\n    You gave me this; but take it, sir, again.\n  KING. My faith and this the Princess I did give;\n    I knew her by this jewel on her sleeve.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Pardon me, sir, this jewel did she wear;\n    And Lord Berowne, I thank him, is my dear.\n    What, will you have me, or your pearl again?\n BEROWNE. Neither of either; I remit both twain.\n    I see the trick on't: here was a consent,\n    Knowing aforehand of our merriment,\n    To dash it like a Christmas comedy.\n    Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany,\n    Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick,\n    That smiles his cheek in years and knows the trick\n    To make my lady laugh when she's dispos'd,\n    Told our intents before; which once disclos'd,\n    The ladies did change favours; and then we,\n    Following the signs, woo'd but the sign of she.\n    Now, to our perjury to add more terror,\n    We are again forsworn in will and error.\n    Much upon this it is; [To BOYET] and might not you\n    Forestall our sport, to make us thus untrue?\n    Do not you know my lady's foot by th' squier,\n    And laugh upon the apple of her eye?\n    And stand between her back, sir, and the fire,\n    Holding a trencher, jesting merrily?\n    You put our page out. Go, you are allow'd;\n    Die when you will, a smock shall be your shroud.\n    You leer upon me, do you? There's an eye\n    Wounds like a leaden sword.\n  BOYET. Full merrily\n    Hath this brave manage, this career, been run.\n  BEROWNE. Lo, he is tilting straight! Peace; I have done.\n\n                          Enter COSTARD\n\n    Welcome, pure wit! Thou part'st a fair fray.\n  COSTARD. O Lord, sir, they would know\n     Whether the three Worthies shall come in or no?\n  BEROWNE. What, are there but three?\n  COSTARD. No, sir; but it is vara fine,\n    For every one pursents three.\n  BEROWNE. And three times thrice is nine.\n  COSTARD. Not so, sir; under correction, sir,\n    I hope it is not so.\n    You cannot beg us, sir, I can assure you, sir; we know what\nwe\n      know;\n    I hope, sir, three times thrice, sir-\n  BEROWNE. Is not nine.\n  COSTARD. Under correction, sir, we know whereuntil it doth\namount.\n  BEROWNE. By Jove, I always took three threes for nine.\n  COSTARD. O Lord, sir, it were pity you should get your living\nby\n    reck'ning, sir.\n  BEROWNE. How much is it?\n  COSTARD. O Lord, sir, the parties themselves, the actors, sir,\nwill\n    show whereuntil it doth amount. For mine own part, I am, as\nthey\n    say, but to parfect one man in one poor man, Pompion the\nGreat,\n    sir.\n  BEROWNE. Art thou one of the Worthies?\n  COSTARD. It pleased them to think me worthy of Pompey the\nGreat;\n    for mine own part, I know not the degree of the Worthy; but I\nam\n    to stand for him.\n  BEROWNE. Go, bid them prepare.\n  COSTARD. We will turn it finely off, sir; we will take some\ncare.\n                                                    Exit COSTARD\n  KING. Berowne, they will shame us; let them not approach.\n  BEROWNE. We are shame-proof, my lord, and 'tis some policy\n    To have one show worse than the King's and his company.\n  KING. I say they shall not come.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nay, my good lord, let me o'errule you now.\n    That sport best pleases that doth least know how;\n    Where zeal strives to content, and the contents\n    Dies in the zeal of that which it presents.\n    Their form confounded makes most form in mirth,\n    When great things labouring perish in their birth.\n  BEROWNE. A right description of our sport, my lord.\n\n                        Enter ARMADO\n\n  ARMADO. Anointed, I implore so much expense of thy royal sweet\n    breath as will utter a brace of words.\n           [Converses apart with the KING, and delivers a paper]\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Doth this man serve God?\n  BEROWNE. Why ask you?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'A speaks not like a man of God his making.\n  ARMADO. That is all one, my fair, sweet, honey monarch; for, I\n    protest, the schoolmaster is exceeding fantastical; too too\nvain,\n    too too vain; but we will put it, as they say, to fortuna de\nla\n    guerra. I wish you the peace of mind, most royal couplement!\n                                                     Exit ARMADO\n  KING. Here is like to be a good presence of Worthies. He\npresents\n    Hector of Troy; the swain, Pompey the Great; the parish\ncurate,\n    Alexander; Arinado's page, Hercules; the pedant, Judas\n    Maccabaeus.\n    And if these four Worthies in their first show thrive,\n    These four will change habits and present the other five.\n  BEROWNE. There is five in the first show.\n  KING. You are deceived, 'tis not so.\n  BEROWNE. The pedant, the braggart, the hedge-priest, the fool,\nand\n    the boy:\n    Abate throw at novum, and the whole world again\n    Cannot pick out five such, take each one in his vein.\n  KING. The ship is under sail, and here she comes amain.\n\n                   Enter COSTARD, armed for POMPEY\n\n  COSTARD. I Pompey am-\n  BEROWNE. You lie, you are not he.\n  COSTARD. I Pompey am-\n  BOYET. With libbard's head on knee.\n  BEROWNE. Well said, old mocker; I must needs be friends with\nthee.\n  COSTARD. I Pompey am, Pompey surnam'd the Big-\n   DUMAIN. The Great.\n  COSTARD. It is Great, sir.\n    Pompey surnam'd the Great,\n    That oft in field, with targe and shield, did make my foe to\n      sweat;\n    And travelling along this coast, I bere am come by chance,\n    And lay my arms before the legs of this sweet lass of France.\n\n    If your ladyship would say 'Thanks, Pompey,' I had done.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Great thanks, great Pompey.\n  COSTARD. 'Tis not so much worth; but I hope I was perfect.\n    I made a little fault in Great.\n  BEROWNE. My hat to a halfpenny, Pompey proves the best Worthy.\n\n                 Enter SIR NATHANIEL, for ALEXANDER\n\n  NATHANIEL. When in the world I liv'd, I was the world's\ncommander;\n    By east, west, north, and south, I spread my conquering\nmight.\n    My scutcheon plain declares that I am Alisander-\n  BOYET. Your nose says, no, you are not; for it stands to right.\n\n  BEROWNE. Your nose smells 'no' in this, most tender-smelling\n    knight.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The conqueror is dismay'd. Proceed, good\n    Alexander.\n  NATHANIEL. When in the world I liv'd, I was the world's\ncommander-\n  BOYET. Most true, 'tis right, you were so, Alisander.\n  BEROWNE. Pompey the Great!\n  COSTARD. Your servant, and Costard.\n  BEROWNE. Take away the conqueror, take away Alisander.\n  COSTARD. [To Sir Nathaniel] O, Sir, you have overthrown\nAlisander\n    the conqueror! You will be scrap'd out of the painted cloth\nfor\n    this. Your lion, that holds his poleaxe sitting on a\nclose-stool,\n    will be given to Ajax. He will be the ninth Worthy. A\nconqueror\n    and afeard to speak! Run away for shame, Alisander.\n    [Sir Nathaniel retires] There, an't shall please you, a\nfoolish\n    mild man; an honest man, look you, and soon dash'd. He is a\n    marvellous good neighbour, faith, and a very good bowler; but\nfor\n    Alisander- alas! you see how 'tis- a little o'erparted. But\nthere\n    are Worthies a-coming will speak their mind in some other\nsort.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Stand aside, good Pompey.\n\n         Enter HOLOFERNES, for JUDAS; and MOTH, for HERCULES\n\n  HOLOFERNES. Great Hercules is presented by this imp,\n    Whose club kill'd Cerberus, that three-headed canus;\n    And when be was a babe, a child, a shrimp,\n    Thus did he strangle serpents in his manus.\n    Quoniam he seemeth in minority,\n    Ergo I come with this apology.\n    Keep some state in thy exit, and vanish.      [MOTH retires]\n    Judas I am-\n  DUMAIN. A Judas!\n  HOLOFERNES. Not Iscariot, sir.\n    Judas I am, ycliped Maccabaeus.\n  DUMAIN. Judas Maccabaeus clipt is plain Judas.\n  BEROWNE. A kissing traitor. How art thou prov'd Judas?\n  HOLOFERNES. Judas I am-\n  DUMAIN. The more shame for you, Judas!\n  HOLOFERNES. What mean you, sir?\n  BOYET. To make Judas hang himself.\n  HOLOFERNES. Begin, sir; you are my elder.\n  BEROWNE. Well followed: Judas was hanged on an elder.\n  HOLOFERNES. I will not be put out of countenance.\n  BEROWNE. Because thou hast no face.\n  HOLOFERNES. What is this?\n  BOYET. A cittern-head.\n  DUMAIN. The head of a bodkin.\n  BEROWNE. A death's face in a ring.\n  LONGAVILLE. The face of an old Roman coin, scarce seen.\n  BOYET. The pommel of Coesar's falchion.\n  DUMAIN. The carv'd-bone face on a flask.\n  BEROWNE. Saint George's half-cheek in a brooch.\n  DUMAIN. Ay, and in a brooch of lead.\n  BEROWNE. Ay, and worn in the cap of a tooth-drawer. And now,\n    forward; for we have put thee in countenance.\n  HOLOFERNES. You have put me out of countenance.\n  BEROWNE. False: we have given thee faces.\n  HOLOFERNES. But you have outfac'd them all.\n  BEROWNE. An thou wert a lion we would do so.\n  BOYET. Therefore, as he is an ass, let him go.\n    And so adieu, sweet Jude! Nay, why dost thou stay?\n  DUMAIN. For the latter end of his name.\n  BEROWNE. For the ass to the Jude; give it him- Jud-as, away.\n  HOLOFERNES. This is not generous, not gentle, not humble.\n  BOYET. A light for Monsieur Judas! It grows dark, he may\nstumble.\n                                            [HOLOFERNES retires]\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Alas, poor Maccabaeus, how hath he been\nbaited!\n\n                   Enter ARMADO, for HECTOR\n\n  BEROWNE. Hide thy head, Achilles; here comes Hector in arms.\n  DUMAIN. Though my mocks come home by me, I will now be merry.\n  KING. Hector was but a Troyan in respect of this.\n  BOYET. But is this Hector?\n  DUMAIN. I think Hector was not so clean-timber'd.\n  LONGAVILLE. His leg is too big for Hector's.\n  DUMAIN. More calf, certain.\n  BOYET. No; he is best indued in the small.\n  BEROWNE. This cannot be Hector.\n  DUMAIN. He's a god or a painter, for he makes faces.\n  ARMADO. The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,\n    Gave Hector a gift-\n  DUMAIN. A gilt nutmeg.\n  BEROWNE. A lemon.\n  LONGAVILLE. Stuck with cloves.\n  DUMAIN. No, cloven.\n  ARMADO. Peace!\n    The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,\n    Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion;\n    A man so breathed that certain he would fight ye,\n    From morn till night out of his pavilion.\n    I am that flower-\n  DUMAIN. That mint.\n  LONGAVILLE. That columbine.\n  ARMADO. Sweet Lord Longaville, rein thy tongue.\n  LONGAVILLE. I must rather give it the rein, for it runs against\n    Hector.\n  DUMAIN. Ay, and Hector's a greyhound.\n  ARMADO. The sweet war-man is dead and rotten; sweet chucks,\nbeat\n    not the bones of the buried; when he breathed, he was a man.\nBut\n    I will forward with my device. [To the PRINCESS] Sweet\nroyalty,\n    bestow on me the sense of hearing.\n\n          [BEROWNE steps forth, and speaks to COSTARD]\n\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Speak, brave Hector; we are much delighted.\n  ARMADO. I do adore thy sweet Grace's slipper.\n  BOYET. [Aside to DUMAIN] Loves her by the foot.\n  DUMAIN. [Aside to BOYET] He may not by the yard.\n  ARMADO. This Hector far surmounted Hannibal-\n  COSTARD. The party is gone, fellow Hector, she is gone; she is\ntwo\n    months on her way.\n  ARMADO. What meanest thou?\n  COSTARD. Faith, unless you play the honest Troyan, the poor\nwench\n    is cast away. She's quick; the child brags in her belly\nalready;\n    'tis yours.\n  ARMADO. Dost thou infamonize me among potentates? Thou shalt\ndie.\n  COSTARD. Then shall Hector be whipt for Jaquenetta that is\nquick by\n    him, and hang'd for Pompey that is dead by him.\n  DUMAIN. Most rare Pompey!\n  BOYET. Renowned Pompey!\n  BEROWNE. Greater than Great! Great, great, great Pompey! Pompey\nthe\n    Huge!\n  DUMAIN. Hector trembles.\n  BEROWNE. Pompey is moved. More Ates, more Ates! Stir them on!\nstir\n    them on!\n  DUMAIN. Hector will challenge him.\n  BEROWNE. Ay, if 'a have no more man's blood in his belly than\nwill\n    sup a flea.\n  ARMADO. By the North Pole, I do challenge thee.\n  COSTARD. I will not fight with a pole, like a Northern man;\nI'll\n    slash; I'll do it by the sword. I bepray you, let me borrow\nmy\n    arms again.\n  DUMAIN. Room for the incensed Worthies!\n  COSTARD. I'll do it in my shirt.\n  DUMAIN. Most resolute Pompey!\n  MOTH. Master, let me take you a buttonhole lower. Do you not\nsee\n    Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? You will\nlose\n    your reputation.\n  ARMADO. Gentlemen and soldiers, pardon me; I will not combat in\nmy\n    shirt.\n  DUMAIN. You may not deny it: Pompey hath made the challenge.\n  ARMADO. Sweet bloods, I both may and will.\n  BEROWNE. What reason have you for 't?\n  ARMADO. The naked truth of it is: I have no shirt; I go\nwoolward\n    for penance.\n  BOYET. True, and it was enjoined him in Rome for want of linen;\n    since when, I'll be sworn, he wore none but a dishclout of\n    Jaquenetta's, and that 'a wears next his heart for a favour.\n\n                 Enter as messenger, MONSIEUR MARCADE\n\n  MARCADE. God save you, madam!\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Welcome, Marcade;\n    But that thou interruptest our merriment.\n  MARCADE. I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring\n    Is heavy in my tongue. The King your father-\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Dead, for my life!\n  MARCADE. Even so; my tale is told.\n  BEROWNE. WOrthies away; the scene begins to cloud.\n  ARMADO. For mine own part, I breathe free breath. I have seen\nthe\n    day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I\nwill\n    right myself like a soldier.                 Exeunt WORTHIES\n  KING. How fares your Majesty?\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Boyet, prepare; I will away to-night.\n  KING. Madam, not so; I do beseech you stay.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Prepare, I say. I thank you, gracious\nlords,\n    For all your fair endeavours, and entreat,\n    Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe\n    In your rich wisdom to excuse or hide\n    The liberal opposition of our spirits,\n    If over-boldly we have borne ourselves\n    In the converse of breath- your gentleness\n    Was guilty of it. Farewell, worthy lord.\n    A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue.\n    Excuse me so, coming too short of thanks\n    For my great suit so easily obtain'd.\n  KING. The extreme parts of time extremely forms\n    All causes to the purpose of his speed;\n    And often at his very loose decides\n    That which long process could not arbitrate.\n    And though the mourning brow of progeny\n    Forbid the smiling courtesy of love\n    The holy suit which fain it would convince,\n    Yet, since love's argument was first on foot,\n    Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it\n    From what it purpos'd; since to wail friends lost\n    Is not by much so wholesome-profitable\n    As to rejoice at friends but newly found.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I understand you not; my griefs are double.\n  BEROWNE. Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;\n    And by these badges understand the King.\n    For your fair sakes have we neglected time,\n    Play'd foul play with our oaths; your beauty, ladies,\n    Hath much deformed us, fashioning our humours\n    Even to the opposed end of our intents;\n    And what in us hath seem'd ridiculous,\n    As love is full of unbefitting strains,\n    All wanton as a child, skipping and vain;\n    Form'd by the eye and therefore, like the eye,\n    Full of strange shapes, of habits, and of forms,\n    Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll\n    To every varied object in his glance;\n    Which parti-coated presence of loose love\n    Put on by us, if in your heavenly eyes\n    Have misbecom'd our oaths and gravities,\n    Those heavenly eyes that look into these faults\n    Suggested us to make. Therefore, ladies,\n    Our love being yours, the error that love makes\n    Is likewise yours. We to ourselves prove false,\n    By being once false for ever to be true\n    To those that make us both- fair ladies, you;\n    And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,\n    Thus purifies itself and turns to grace.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We have receiv'd your letters, full of\nlove;\n    Your favours, the ambassadors of love;\n    And, in our maiden council, rated them\n    At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy,\n    As bombast and as lining to the time;\n    But more devout than this in our respects\n    Have we not been; and therefore met your loves\n    In their own fashion, like a merriment.\n  DUMAIN. Our letters, madam, show'd much more than jest.\n  LONGAVILLE. So did our looks.\n  ROSALINE. We did not quote them so.\n  KING. Now, at the latest minute of the hour,\n    Grant us your loves.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. A time, methinks, too short\n    To make a world-without-end bargain in.\n    No, no, my lord, your Grace is perjur'd much,\n    Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this,\n    If for my love, as there is no such cause,\n    You will do aught- this shall you do for me:\n    Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed\n    To some forlorn and naked hermitage,\n    Remote from all the pleasures of the world;\n    There stay until the twelve celestial signs\n    Have brought about the annual reckoning.\n    If this austere insociable life\n    Change not your offer made in heat of blood,\n    If frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds,\n    Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,\n    But that it bear this trial, and last love,\n    Then, at the expiration of the year,\n    Come, challenge me, challenge me by these deserts;\n    And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine,\n    I will be thine; and, till that instant, shut\n    My woeful self up in a mournful house,\n    Raining the tears of lamentation\n    For the remembrance of my father's death.\n    If this thou do deny, let our hands part,\n    Neither intitled in the other's heart.\n  KING. If this, or more than this, I would deny,\n    To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,\n    The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!\n    Hence hermit then, my heart is in thy breast.\n  BEROWNE. And what to me, my love? and what to me?\n  ROSALINE. You must he purged too, your sins are rack'd;\n    You are attaint with faults and perjury;\n    Therefore, if you my favour mean to get,\n    A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,\n    But seek the weary beds of people sick.\n  DUMAIN. But what to me, my love? but what to me?\n    A wife?\n  KATHARINE. A beard, fair health, and honesty;\n    With threefold love I wish you all these three.\n  DUMAIN. O, shall I say I thank you, gentle wife?\n  KATHARINE. No so, my lord; a twelvemonth and a day\n    I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers say.\n    Come when the King doth to my lady come;\n    Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some.\n  DUMAIN. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then.\n  KATHARINE. Yet swear not, lest ye be forsworn again.\n  LONGAVILLE. What says Maria?\n  MARIA. At the twelvemonth's end\n    I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.\n  LONGAVILLE. I'll stay with patience; but the time is long.\n  MARIA. The liker you; few taller are so young.\n  BEROWNE. Studies my lady? Mistress, look on me;\n    Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,\n    What humble suit attends thy answer there.\n    Impose some service on me for thy love.\n  ROSALINE. Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Berowne,\n    Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue\n    Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks,\n    Full of comparisons and wounding flouts,\n    Which you on all estates will execute\n    That lie within the mercy of your wit.\n    To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,\n    And therewithal to win me, if you please,\n    Without the which I am not to be won,\n    You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day\n    Visit the speechless sick, and still converse\n    With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,\n    With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,\n    To enforce the pained impotent to smile.\n  BEROWNE. To move wild laughter in the throat of death?\n    It cannot be; it is impossible;\n    Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.\n  ROSALINE. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,\n    Whose influence is begot of that loose grace\n    Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.\n    A jest's prosperity lies in the ear\n    Of him that hears it, never in the tongue\n    Of him that makes it; then, if sickly ears,\n    Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,\n    Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,\n    And I will have you and that fault withal.\n    But if they will not, throw away that spirit,\n    And I shall find you empty of that fault,\n    Right joyful of your reformation.\n  BEROWNE. A twelvemonth? Well, befall what will befall,\n    I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. [ To the King] Ay, sweet my lord, and so I\ntake\n    my leave.\n  KING. No, madam; we will bring you on your way.\n  BEROWNE. Our wooing doth not end like an old play:\n    Jack hath not Jill. These ladies' courtesy\n    Might well have made our sport a comedy.\n  KING. Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth an' a day,\n    And then 'twill end.\n  BEROWNE. That's too long for a play.\n\n                          Re-enter ARMADO\n\n  ARMADO. Sweet Majesty, vouchsafe me-\n  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Was not that not Hector?\n  DUMAIN. The worthy knight of Troy.\n  ARMADO. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave. I am a\n    votary: I have vow'd to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her\n    sweet love three year. But, most esteemed greatness, will you\n    hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled in\n    praise of the Owl and the Cuckoo? It should have followed in\nthe\n    end of our show.\n  KING. Call them forth quickly; we will do so.\n  ARMADO. Holla! approach.\n\n                            Enter All\n\n    This side is Hiems, Winter; this Ver, the Spring- the one\n    maintained by the Owl, th' other by the Cuckoo. Ver, begin.\n\n                      SPRING\n         When daisies pied and violets blue\n         And lady-smocks all silver-white\n         And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue\n         Do paint the meadows with delight,\n         The cuckoo then on every tree\n         Mocks married men, for thus sings he:\n              'Cuckoo;\n         Cuckoo, cuckoo'- O word of fear,\n         Unpleasing to a married ear!\n\n         When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,\n         And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks;\n         When turtles tread, and rooks and daws,\n         And maidens bleach their summer smocks;\n         The cuckoo then on every tree\n         Mocks married men, for thus sings he:\n              'Cuckoo;\n         Cuckoo, cuckoo'- O word of fear,\n         Unpleasing to a married ear!\n\n\n                    WINTER\n\n         When icicles hang by the wall,\n         And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,\n         And Tom bears logs into the hall,\n         And milk comes frozen home in pail,\n         When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,\n         Then nightly sings the staring owl:\n              'Tu-who;\n         Tu-whit, Tu-who'- A merry note,\n         While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.\n\n         When all aloud the wind doth blow,\n         And coughing drowns the parson's saw,\n         And birds sit brooding in the snow,\n         And Marian's nose looks red and raw,\n         When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,\n         Then nightly sings the staring owl:\n              'Tu-who;\n         Tu-whit, To-who'- A merry note,\n         While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.\n\n  ARMADO. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of\nApollo.\n    You that way: we this way.                            Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nLove's Labour's Lost"}
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{"1110":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1597\n\nKING JOHN\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n    KING JOHN\n    PRINCE HENRY, his son\n    ARTHUR, DUKE OF BRITAINE, son of Geffrey, late Duke of\n      Britaine, the elder brother of King John\n    EARL OF PEMBROKE\n    EARL OF ESSEX\n    EARL OF SALISBURY\n    LORD BIGOT\n    HUBERT DE BURGH\n    ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, son to Sir Robert Faulconbridge\n    PHILIP THE BASTARD, his half-brother\n    JAMES GURNEY, servant to Lady Faulconbridge\n    PETER OF POMFRET, a prophet\n\n    KING PHILIP OF FRANCE\n    LEWIS, the Dauphin\n    LYMOGES, Duke of Austria\n    CARDINAL PANDULPH, the Pope's legate\n    MELUN, a French lord\n    CHATILLON, ambassador from France to King John\n\n    QUEEN ELINOR, widow of King Henry II and mother to\n      King John\n    CONSTANCE, Mother to Arthur\n    BLANCH OF SPAIN, daughter to the King of Castile\n      and niece to King John\n    LADY FAULCONBRIDGE, widow of Sir Robert Faulconbridge\n\n    Lords, Citizens of Angiers, Sheriff, Heralds, Officers,\n      Soldiers, Executioners, Messengers, Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland and France\n\n\n\nACT I. SCENE 1\n\nKING JOHN's palace\n\nEnter KING JOHN, QUEEN ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and\nothers,\nwith CHATILLON\n\n  KING JOHN. Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?\n  CHATILLON. Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France\n    In my behaviour to the majesty,\n    The borrowed majesty, of England here.\n  ELINOR. A strange beginning- 'borrowed majesty'!\n  KING JOHN. Silence, good mother; hear the embassy.\n  CHATILLON. Philip of France, in right and true behalf\n    Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son,\n    Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim\n    To this fair island and the territories,\n    To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,\n    Desiring thee to lay aside the sword\n    Which sways usurpingly these several titles,\n    And put the same into young Arthur's hand,\n    Thy nephew and right royal sovereign.\n  KING JOHN. What follows if we disallow of this?\n  CHATILLON. The proud control of fierce and bloody war,\n    To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.\n  KING JOHN. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood,\n    Controlment for controlment- so answer France.\n  CHATILLON. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth-\n    The farthest limit of my embassy.\n  KING JOHN. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace;\n    Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;\n    For ere thou canst report I will be there,\n    The thunder of my cannon shall be heard.\n    So hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath\n    And sullen presage of your own decay.\n    An honourable conduct let him have-\n    Pembroke, look to 't. Farewell, Chatillon.\n                                        Exeunt CHATILLON and\nPEMBROKE\n  ELINOR. What now, my son! Have I not ever said\n    How that ambitious Constance would not cease\n    Till she had kindled France and all the world\n    Upon the right and party of her son?\n    This might have been prevented and made whole\n    With very easy arguments of love,\n    Which now the manage of two kingdoms must\n    With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.\n  KING JOHN. Our strong possession and our right for us!\n  ELINOR. Your strong possession much more than your right,\n    Or else it must go wrong with you and me;\n    So much my conscience whispers in your ear,\n    Which none but heaven and you and I shall hear.\n\n                  Enter a SHERIFF\n\n  ESSEX. My liege, here is the strangest controversy\n    Come from the country to be judg'd by you\n    That e'er I heard. Shall I produce the men?\n  KING JOHN. Let them approach.                          Exit\nSHERIFF\n    Our abbeys and our priories shall pay\n    This expedition's charge.\n\n     Enter ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE and PHILIP, his bastard\n                     brother\n\n    What men are you?\n  BASTARD. Your faithful subject I, a gentleman\n    Born in Northamptonshire, and eldest son,\n    As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge-\n    A soldier by the honour-giving hand\n    Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field.\n  KING JOHN. What art thou?\n  ROBERT. The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge.\n  KING JOHN. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?\n    You came not of one mother then, it seems.\n  BASTARD. Most certain of one mother, mighty king-\n    That is well known- and, as I think, one father;\n    But for the certain knowledge of that truth\n    I put you o'er to heaven and to my mother.\n    Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.\n  ELINOR. Out on thee, rude man! Thou dost shame thy mother,\n    And wound her honour with this diffidence.\n  BASTARD. I, madam? No, I have no reason for it-\n    That is my brother's plea, and none of mine;\n    The which if he can prove, 'a pops me out\n    At least from fair five hundred pound a year.\n    Heaven guard my mother's honour and my land!\n  KING JOHN. A good blunt fellow. Why, being younger born,\n    Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?\n  BASTARD. I know not why, except to get the land.\n    But once he slander'd me with bastardy;\n    But whe'er I be as true begot or no,\n    That still I lay upon my mother's head;\n    But that I am as well begot, my liege-\n    Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!-\n    Compare our faces and be judge yourself.\n    If old Sir Robert did beget us both\n    And were our father, and this son like him-\n    O old Sir Robert, father, on my knee\n    I give heaven thanks I was not like to thee!\n  KING JOHN. Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here!\n  ELINOR. He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face;\n    The accent of his tongue affecteth him.\n    Do you not read some tokens of my son\n    In the large composition of this man?\n  KING JOHN. Mine eye hath well examined his parts\n    And finds them perfect Richard. Sirrah, speak,\n    What doth move you to claim your brother's land?\n  BASTARD. Because he hath a half-face, like my father.\n    With half that face would he have all my land:\n    A half-fac'd groat five hundred pound a year!\n  ROBERT. My gracious liege, when that my father liv'd,\n    Your brother did employ my father much-\n  BASTARD. Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land:\n    Your tale must be how he employ'd my mother.\n  ROBERT. And once dispatch'd him in an embassy\n    To Germany, there with the Emperor\n    To treat of high affairs touching that time.\n    Th' advantage of his absence took the King,\n    And in the meantime sojourn'd at my father's;\n    Where how he did prevail I shame to speak-\n    But truth is truth: large lengths of seas and shores\n    Between my father and my mother lay,\n    As I have heard my father speak himself,\n    When this same lusty gentleman was got.\n    Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd\n    His lands to me, and took it on his death\n    That this my mother's son was none of his;\n    And if he were, he came into the world\n    Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.\n    Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,\n    My father's land, as was my father's will.\n  KING JOHN. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate:\n    Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him,\n    And if she did play false, the fault was hers;\n    Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands\n    That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother,\n    Who, as you say, took pains to get this son,\n    Had of your father claim'd this son for his?\n    In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept\n    This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world;\n    In sooth, he might; then, if he were my brother's,\n    My brother might not claim him; nor your father,\n    Being none of his, refuse him. This concludes:\n    My mother's son did get your father's heir;\n    Your father's heir must have your father's land.\n  ROBERT. Shall then my father's will be of no force\n    To dispossess that child which is not his?\n  BASTARD. Of no more force to dispossess me, sir,\n    Than was his will to get me, as I think.\n  ELINOR. Whether hadst thou rather be a Faulconbridge,\n    And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land,\n    Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-lion,\n    Lord of thy presence and no land beside?\n  BASTARD. Madam, an if my brother had my shape\n    And I had his, Sir Robert's his, like him;\n    And if my legs were two such riding-rods,\n    My arms such eel-skins stuff'd, my face so thin\n    That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose\n    Lest men should say 'Look where three-farthings goes!'\n    And, to his shape, were heir to all this land-\n    Would I might never stir from off this place,\n    I would give it every foot to have this face!\n    I would not be Sir Nob in any case.\n  ELINOR. I like thee well. Wilt thou forsake thy fortune,\n    Bequeath thy land to him and follow me?\n    I am a soldier and now bound to France.\n  BASTARD. Brother, take you my land, I'll take my chance.\n    Your face hath got five hundred pound a year,\n    Yet sell your face for fivepence and 'tis dear.\n    Madam, I'll follow you unto the death.\n  ELINOR. Nay, I would have you go before me thither.\n  BASTARD. Our country manners give our betters way.\n  KING JOHN. What is thy name?\n  BASTARD. Philip, my liege, so is my name begun:\n    Philip, good old Sir Robert's wife's eldest son.\n  KING JOHN. From henceforth bear his name whose form thou\nbearest:\n    Kneel thou down Philip, but rise more great-\n    Arise Sir Richard and Plantagenet.\n  BASTARD. Brother by th' mother's side, give me your hand;\n    My father gave me honour, yours gave land.\n    Now blessed be the hour, by night or day,\n    When I was got, Sir Robert was away!\n  ELINOR. The very spirit of Plantagenet!\n    I am thy grandam, Richard: call me so.\n  BASTARD. Madam, by chance, but not by truth; what though?\n    Something about, a little from the right,\n    In at the window, or else o'er the hatch;\n    Who dares not stir by day must walk by night;\n    And have is have, however men do catch.\n    Near or far off, well won is still well shot;\n    And I am I, howe'er I was begot.\n  KING JOHN. Go, Faulconbridge; now hast thou thy desire:\n    A landless knight makes thee a landed squire.\n    Come, madam, and come, Richard, we must speed\n    For France, for France, for it is more than need.\n  BASTARD. Brother, adieu. Good fortune come to thee!\n    For thou wast got i' th' way of honesty.\n                                           Exeunt all but the\nBASTARD\n    A foot of honour better than I was;\n    But many a many foot of land the worse.\n    Well, now can I make any Joan a lady.\n    'Good den, Sir Richard!'-'God-a-mercy, fellow!'\n    And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter;\n    For new-made honour doth forget men's names:\n    'Tis too respective and too sociable\n    For your conversion. Now your traveller,\n    He and his toothpick at my worship's mess-\n    And when my knightly stomach is suffic'd,\n    Why then I suck my teeth and catechize\n    My picked man of countries: 'My dear sir,'\n    Thus leaning on mine elbow I begin\n    'I shall beseech you'-That is question now;\n    And then comes answer like an Absey book:\n    'O sir,' says answer 'at your best command,\n    At your employment, at your service, sir!'\n    'No, sir,' says question 'I, sweet sir, at yours.'\n    And so, ere answer knows what question would,\n    Saving in dialogue of compliment,\n    And talking of the Alps and Apennines,\n    The Pyrenean and the river Po-\n    It draws toward supper in conclusion so.\n    But this is worshipful society,\n    And fits the mounting spirit like myself;\n    For he is but a bastard to the time\n    That doth not smack of observation-\n    And so am I, whether I smack or no;\n    And not alone in habit and device,\n    Exterior form, outward accoutrement,\n    But from the inward motion to deliver\n    Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth;\n    Which, though I will not practise to deceive,\n    Yet, to avoid deceit, I mean to learn;\n    For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.\n    But who comes in such haste in riding-robes?\n    What woman-post is this? Hath she no husband\n    That will take pains to blow a horn before her?\n\n      Enter LADY FAULCONBRIDGE, and JAMES GURNEY\n\n    O me, 'tis my mother! How now, good lady!\n    What brings you here to court so hastily?\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Where is that slave, thy brother?\n      Where is he\n    That holds in chase mine honour up and down?\n  BASTARD. My brother Robert, old Sir Robert's son?\n    Colbrand the giant, that same mighty man?\n    Is it Sir Robert's son that you seek so?\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Sir Robert's son! Ay, thou unreverend boy,\n    Sir Robert's son! Why scorn'st thou at Sir Robert?\n    He is Sir Robert's son, and so art thou.\n  BASTARD. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave awhile?\n  GURNEY. Good leave, good Philip.\n  BASTARD. Philip-Sparrow! James,\n    There's toys abroad-anon I'll tell thee more.\n                                                          Exit\nGURNEY\n    Madam, I was not old Sir Robert's son;\n    Sir Robert might have eat his part in me\n    Upon Good Friday, and ne'er broke his fast.\n    Sir Robert could do: well-marry, to confess-\n    Could he get me? Sir Robert could not do it:\n    We know his handiwork. Therefore, good mother,\n    To whom am I beholding for these limbs?\n    Sir Robert never holp to make this leg.\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Hast thou conspired with thy brother too,\n    That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honour?\n    What means this scorn, thou most untoward knave?\n  BASTARD. Knight, knight, good mother, Basilisco-like.\n    What! I am dubb'd; I have it on my shoulder.\n    But, mother, I am not Sir Robert's son:\n    I have disclaim'd Sir Robert and my land;\n    Legitimation, name, and all is gone.\n    Then, good my mother, let me know my father-\n    Some proper man, I hope. Who was it, mother?\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Hast thou denied thyself a Faulconbridge?\n  BASTARD. As faithfully as I deny the devil.\n  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. King Richard Coeur-de-lion was thy father.\n    By long and vehement suit I was seduc'd\n    To make room for him in my husband's bed.\n    Heaven lay not my transgression to my charge!\n    Thou art the issue of my dear offence,\n    Which was so strongly urg'd past my defence.\n  BASTARD. Now, by this light, were I to get again,\n    Madam, I would not wish a better father.\n    Some sins do bear their privilege on earth,\n    And so doth yours: your fault was not your folly;\n    Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose,\n    Subjected tribute to commanding love,\n    Against whose fury and unmatched force\n    The aweless lion could not wage the fight\n    Nor keep his princely heart from Richard's hand.\n    He that perforce robs lions of their hearts\n    May easily win a woman's. Ay, my mother,\n    With all my heart I thank thee for my father!\n    Who lives and dares but say thou didst not well\n    When I was got, I'll send his soul to hell.\n    Come, lady, I will show thee to my kin;\n    And they shall say when Richard me begot,\n    If thou hadst said him nay, it had been sin.\n    Who says it was, he lies; I say 'twas not.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE 1\n\nFrance. Before Angiers\n\nEnter, on one side, AUSTRIA and forces; on the other, KING PHILIP\nOF FRANCE,\nLEWIS the Dauphin, CONSTANCE, ARTHUR, and forces\n\n  KING PHILIP. Before Angiers well met, brave Austria.\n    Arthur, that great forerunner of thy blood,\n    Richard, that robb'd the lion of his heart\n    And fought the holy wars in Palestine,\n    By this brave duke came early to his grave;\n    And for amends to his posterity,\n    At our importance hither is he come\n    To spread his colours, boy, in thy behalf;\n    And to rebuke the usurpation\n    Of thy unnatural uncle, English John.\n    Embrace him, love him, give him welcome hither.\n  ARTHUR. God shall forgive you Coeur-de-lion's death\n    The rather that you give his offspring life,\n    Shadowing their right under your wings of war.\n    I give you welcome with a powerless hand,\n    But with a heart full of unstained love;\n    Welcome before the gates of Angiers, Duke.\n  KING PHILIP. A noble boy! Who would not do thee right?\n  AUSTRIA. Upon thy cheek lay I this zealous kiss\n    As seal to this indenture of my love:\n    That to my home I will no more return\n    Till Angiers and the right thou hast in France,\n    Together with that pale, that white-fac'd shore,\n    Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides\n    And coops from other lands her islanders-\n    Even till that England, hedg'd in with the main,\n    That water-walled bulwark, still secure\n    And confident from foreign purposes-\n    Even till that utmost corner of the west\n    Salute thee for her king. Till then, fair boy,\n    Will I not think of home, but follow arms.\n  CONSTANCE. O, take his mother's thanks, a widow's thanks,\n    Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength\n    To make a more requital to your love!\n  AUSTRIA. The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords\n    In such a just and charitable war.\n  KING PHILIP. Well then, to work! Our cannon shall be bent\n    Against the brows of this resisting town;\n    Call for our chiefest men of discipline,\n    To cull the plots of best advantages.\n    We'll lay before this town our royal bones,\n    Wade to the market-place in Frenchmen's blood,\n    But we will make it subject to this boy.\n  CONSTANCE. Stay for an answer to your embassy,\n    Lest unadvis'd you stain your swords with blood;\n    My Lord Chatillon may from England bring\n    That right in peace which here we urge in war,\n    And then we shall repent each drop of blood\n    That hot rash haste so indirectly shed.\n\n                  Enter CHATILLON\n\n  KING PHILIP. A wonder, lady! Lo, upon thy wish,\n    Our messenger Chatillon is arriv'd.\n    What England says, say briefly, gentle lord;\n    We coldly pause for thee. Chatillon, speak.\n  CHATILLON. Then turn your forces from this paltry siege\n    And stir them up against a mightier task.\n    England, impatient of your just demands,\n    Hath put himself in arms. The adverse winds,\n    Whose leisure I have stay'd, have given him time\n    To land his legions all as soon as I;\n    His marches are expedient to this town,\n    His forces strong, his soldiers confident.\n    With him along is come the mother-queen,\n    An Ate, stirring him to blood and strife;\n    With her the Lady Blanch of Spain;\n    With them a bastard of the king's deceas'd;\n    And all th' unsettled humours of the land-\n    Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries,\n    With ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens-\n    Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,\n    Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,\n    To make a hazard of new fortunes here.\n    In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits\n    Than now the English bottoms have waft o'er\n    Did never float upon the swelling tide\n    To do offence and scathe in Christendom.             [Drum\nbeats]\n    The interruption of their churlish drums\n    Cuts off more circumstance: they are at hand;\n    To parley or to fight, therefore prepare.\n  KING PHILIP. How much unlook'd for is this expedition!\n  AUSTRIA. By how much unexpected, by so much\n    We must awake endeavour for defence,\n    For courage mounteth with occasion.\n    Let them be welcome then; we are prepar'd.\n\n       Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, BLANCH, the BASTARD,\n                 PEMBROKE, and others\n\n  KING JOHN. Peace be to France, if France in peace permit\n    Our just and lineal entrance to our own!\n    If not, bleed France, and peace ascend to heaven,\n    Whiles we, God's wrathful agent, do correct\n    Their proud contempt that beats His peace to heaven!\n  KING PHILIP. Peace be to England, if that war return\n    From France to England, there to live in peace!\n    England we love, and for that England's sake\n    With burden of our armour here we sweat.\n    This toil of ours should be a work of thine;\n    But thou from loving England art so far\n    That thou hast under-wrought his lawful king,\n    Cut off the sequence of posterity,\n    Outfaced infant state, and done a rape\n    Upon the maiden virtue of the crown.\n    Look here upon thy brother Geffrey's face:\n    These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his;\n    This little abstract doth contain that large\n    Which died in Geffrey, and the hand of time\n    Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume.\n    That Geffrey was thy elder brother born,\n    And this his son; England was Geffrey's right,\n    And this is Geffrey's. In the name of God,\n    How comes it then that thou art call'd a king,\n    When living blood doth in these temples beat\n    Which owe the crown that thou o'er-masterest?\n  KING JOHN. From whom hast thou this great commission, France,\n    To draw my answer from thy articles?\n  KING PHILIP. From that supernal judge that stirs good thoughts\n    In any breast of strong authority\n    To look into the blots and stains of right.\n    That judge hath made me guardian to this boy,\n    Under whose warrant I impeach thy wrong,\n    And by whose help I mean to chastise it.\n  KING JOHN. Alack, thou dost usurp authority.\n  KING PHILIP. Excuse it is to beat usurping down.\n  ELINOR. Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?\n  CONSTANCE. Let me make answer: thy usurping son.\n  ELINOR. Out, insolent! Thy bastard shall be king,\n    That thou mayst be a queen and check the world!\n  CONSTANCE. My bed was ever to thy son as true\n    As thine was to thy husband; and this boy\n    Liker in feature to his father Geffrey\n    Than thou and John in manners-being as Eke\n    As rain to water, or devil to his dam.\n    My boy a bastard! By my soul, I think\n    His father never was so true begot;\n    It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother.\n  ELINOR. There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father.\n  CONSTANCE. There's a good grandam, boy, that would blot thee.\n  AUSTRIA. Peace!\n  BASTARD. Hear the crier.\n  AUSTRIA. What the devil art thou?\n  BASTARD. One that will play the devil, sir, with you,\n    An 'a may catch your hide and you alone.\n    You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,\n    Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard;\n    I'll smoke your skin-coat an I catch you right;\n    Sirrah, look to 't; i' faith I will, i' faith.\n  BLANCH. O, well did he become that lion's robe\n    That did disrobe the lion of that robe!\n  BASTARD. It lies as sightly on the back of him\n    As great Alcides' shows upon an ass;\n    But, ass, I'll take that burden from your back,\n    Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack.\n  AUSTRIA. What cracker is this same that deafs our ears\n    With this abundance of superfluous breath?\n    King Philip, determine what we shall do straight.\n  KING PHILIP. Women and fools, break off your conference.\n    King John, this is the very sum of all:\n    England and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,\n    In right of Arthur, do I claim of thee;\n    Wilt thou resign them and lay down thy arms?\n  KING JOHN. My life as soon. I do defy thee, France.\n    Arthur of Britaine, yield thee to my hand,\n    And out of my dear love I'll give thee more\n    Than e'er the coward hand of France can win.\n    Submit thee, boy.\n  ELINOR. Come to thy grandam, child.\n  CONSTANCE. Do, child, go to it grandam, child;\n    Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will\n    Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig.\n    There's a good grandam!\n  ARTHUR. Good my mother, peace!\n    I would that I were low laid in my grave:\n    I am not worth this coil that's made for me.\n  ELINOR. His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.\n  CONSTANCE. Now shame upon you, whe'er she does or no!\n    His grandam's wrongs, and not his mother's shames,\n    Draws those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes,\n    Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee;\n    Ay, with these crystal beads heaven shall be brib'd\n    To do him justice and revenge on you.\n  ELINOR. Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth!\n  CONSTANCE. Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth,\n    Call not me slanderer! Thou and thine usurp\n    The dominations, royalties, and rights,\n    Of this oppressed boy; this is thy eldest son's son,\n    Infortunate in nothing but in thee.\n    Thy sins are visited in this poor child;\n    The canon of the law is laid on him,\n    Being but the second generation\n    Removed from thy sin-conceiving womb.\n  KING JOHN. Bedlam, have done.\n  CONSTANCE. I have but this to say-\n    That he is not only plagued for her sin,\n    But God hath made her sin and her the plague\n    On this removed issue, plagued for her\n    And with her plague; her sin his injury,\n    Her injury the beadle to her sin;\n    All punish'd in the person of this child,\n    And all for her-a plague upon her!\n  ELINOR. Thou unadvised scold, I can produce\n    A will that bars the title of thy son.\n  CONSTANCE. Ay, who doubts that? A will, a wicked will;\n    A woman's will; a cank'red grandam's will!\n  KING PHILIP. Peace, lady! pause, or be more temperate.\n    It ill beseems this presence to cry aim\n    To these ill-tuned repetitions.\n    Some trumpet summon hither to the walls\n    These men of Angiers; let us hear them speak\n    Whose title they admit, Arthur's or John's.\n\n      Trumpet sounds. Enter citizens upon the walls\n\n  CITIZEN. Who is it that hath warn'd us to the walls?\n  KING PHILIP. 'Tis France, for England.\n  KING JOHN. England for itself.\n    You men of Angiers, and my loving subjects-\n  KING PHILIP. You loving men of Angiers, Arthur's subjects,\n    Our trumpet call'd you to this gentle parle-\n  KING JOHN. For our advantage; therefore hear us first.\n    These flags of France, that are advanced here\n    Before the eye and prospect of your town,\n    Have hither march'd to your endamagement;\n    The cannons have their bowels full of wrath,\n    And ready mounted are they to spit forth\n    Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls;\n    All preparation for a bloody siege\n    And merciless proceeding by these French\n    Confront your city's eyes, your winking gates;\n    And but for our approach those sleeping stones\n    That as a waist doth girdle you about\n    By the compulsion of their ordinance\n    By this time from their fixed beds of lime\n    Had been dishabited, and wide havoc made\n    For bloody power to rush upon your peace.\n    But on the sight of us your lawful king,\n    Who painfully with much expedient march\n    Have brought a countercheck before your gates,\n    To save unscratch'd your city's threat'ned cheeks-\n    Behold, the French amaz'd vouchsafe a parle;\n    And now, instead of bullets wrapp'd in fire,\n    To make a shaking fever in your walls,\n    They shoot but calm words folded up in smoke,\n    To make a faithless error in your cars;\n    Which trust accordingly, kind citizens,\n    And let us in-your King, whose labour'd spirits,\n    Forwearied in this action of swift speed,\n    Craves harbourage within your city walls.\n  KING PHILIP. When I have said, make answer to us both.\n    Lo, in this right hand, whose protection\n    Is most divinely vow'd upon the right\n    Of him it holds, stands young Plantagenet,\n    Son to the elder brother of this man,\n    And king o'er him and all that he enjoys;\n    For this down-trodden equity we tread\n    In warlike march these greens before your town,\n    Being no further enemy to you\n    Than the constraint of hospitable zeal\n    In the relief of this oppressed child\n    Religiously provokes. Be pleased then\n    To pay that duty which you truly owe\n    To him that owes it, namely, this young prince;\n    And then our arms, like to a muzzled bear,\n    Save in aspect, hath all offence seal'd up;\n    Our cannons' malice vainly shall be spent\n    Against th' invulnerable clouds of heaven;\n    And with a blessed and unvex'd retire,\n    With unhack'd swords and helmets all unbruis'd,\n    We will bear home that lusty blood again\n    Which here we came to spout against your town,\n    And leave your children, wives, and you, in peace.\n    But if you fondly pass our proffer'd offer,\n    'Tis not the roundure of your old-fac'd walls\n    Can hide you from our messengers of war,\n    Though all these English and their discipline\n    Were harbour'd in their rude circumference.\n    Then tell us, shall your city call us lord\n    In that behalf which we have challeng'd it;\n    Or shall we give the signal to our rage,\n    And stalk in blood to our possession?\n  CITIZEN. In brief: we are the King of England's subjects;\n    For him, and in his right, we hold this town.\n  KING JOHN. Acknowledge then the King, and let me in.\n  CITIZEN. That can we not; but he that proves the King,\n    To him will we prove loyal. Till that time\n    Have we ramm'd up our gates against the world.\n  KING JOHN. Doth not the crown of England prove the King?\n    And if not that, I bring you witnesses:\n    Twice fifteen thousand hearts of England's breed-\n  BASTARD. Bastards and else.\n  KING JOHN. To verify our title with their lives.\n  KING PHILIP. As many and as well-born bloods as those-\n  BASTARD. Some bastards too.\n  KING PHILIP. Stand in his face to contradict his claim.\n  CITIZEN. Till you compound whose right is worthiest,\n    We for the worthiest hold the right from both.\n  KING JOHN. Then God forgive the sin of all those souls\n    That to their everlasting residence,\n    Before the dew of evening fall shall fleet\n    In dreadful trial of our kingdom's king!\n  KING PHILIP. Amen, Amen! Mount, chevaliers; to arms!\n  BASTARD. Saint George, that swing'd the dragon, and e'er since\n    Sits on's horse back at mine hostess' door,\n    Teach us some fence!  [To AUSTRIA]  Sirrah, were I at home,\n    At your den, sirrah, with your lioness,\n    I would set an ox-head to your lion's hide,\n    And make a monster of you.\n  AUSTRIA. Peace! no more.\n  BASTARD. O, tremble, for you hear the lion roar!\n  KING JOHN. Up higher to the plain, where we'll set forth\n    In best appointment all our regiments.\n  BASTARD. Speed then to take advantage of the field.\n  KING PHILIP. It shall be so; and at the other hill\n    Command the rest to stand. God and our right!\nExeunt\n\n    Here, after excursions, enter the HERALD OF FRANCE,\n              with trumpets, to the gates\n\n  FRENCH HERALD. You men of Angiers, open wide your gates\n    And let young Arthur, Duke of Britaine, in,\n    Who by the hand of France this day hath made\n    Much work for tears in many an English mother,\n    Whose sons lie scattered on the bleeding ground;\n    Many a widow's husband grovelling lies,\n    Coldly embracing the discoloured earth;\n    And victory with little loss doth play\n    Upon the dancing banners of the French,\n    Who are at hand, triumphantly displayed,\n    To enter conquerors, and to proclaim\n    Arthur of Britaine England's King and yours.\n\n         Enter ENGLISH HERALD, with trumpet\n\n  ENGLISH HERALD. Rejoice, you men of Angiers, ring your bells:\n    King John, your king and England's, doth approach,\n    Commander of this hot malicious day.\n    Their armours that march'd hence so silver-bright\n    Hither return all gilt with Frenchmen's blood.\n    There stuck no plume in any English crest\n    That is removed by a staff of France;\n    Our colours do return in those same hands\n    That did display them when we first march'd forth;\n    And like a jolly troop of huntsmen come\n    Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,\n    Dy'd in the dying slaughter of their foes.\n    Open your gates and give the victors way.\n  CITIZEN. Heralds, from off our tow'rs we might behold\n    From first to last the onset and retire\n    Of both your armies, whose equality\n    By our best eyes cannot be censured.\n    Blood hath bought blood, and blows have answer'd blows;\n    Strength match'd with strength, and power confronted power;\n    Both are alike, and both alike we like.\n    One must prove greatest. While they weigh so even,\n    We hold our town for neither, yet for both.\n\n    Enter the two KINGS, with their powers, at several doors\n\n  KING JOHN. France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away?\n    Say, shall the current of our right run on?\n    Whose passage, vex'd with thy impediment,\n    Shall leave his native channel and o'erswell\n    With course disturb'd even thy confining shores,\n    Unless thou let his silver water keep\n    A peaceful progress to the ocean.\n  KING PHILIP. England, thou hast not sav'd one drop of blood\n    In this hot trial more than we of France;\n    Rather, lost more. And by this hand I swear,\n    That sways the earth this climate overlooks,\n    Before we will lay down our just-borne arms,\n    We'll put thee down, 'gainst whom these arms we bear,\n    Or add a royal number to the dead,\n    Gracing the scroll that tells of this war's loss\n    With slaughter coupled to the name of kings.\n  BASTARD. Ha, majesty! how high thy glory tow'rs\n    When the rich blood of kings is set on fire!\n    O, now doth Death line his dead chaps with steel;\n    The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs;\n    And now he feasts, mousing the flesh of men,\n    In undetermin'd differences of kings.\n    Why stand these royal fronts amazed thus?\n    Cry 'havoc!' kings; back to the stained field,\n    You equal potents, fiery kindled spirits!\n    Then let confusion of one part confirm\n    The other's peace. Till then, blows, blood, and death!\n  KING JOHN. Whose party do the townsmen yet admit?\n  KING PHILIP. Speak, citizens, for England; who's your king?\n  CITIZEN. The King of England, when we know the King.\n  KING PHILIP. Know him in us that here hold up his right.\n  KING JOHN. In us that are our own great deputy\n    And bear possession of our person here,\n    Lord of our presence, Angiers, and of you.\n  CITIZEN. A greater pow'r than we denies all this;\n    And till it be undoubted, we do lock\n    Our former scruple in our strong-barr'd gates;\n    King'd of our fears, until our fears, resolv'd,\n    Be by some certain king purg'd and depos'd.\n  BASTARD. By heaven, these scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings,\n    And stand securely on their battlements\n    As in a theatre, whence they gape and point\n    At your industrious scenes and acts of death.\n    Your royal presences be rul'd by me:\n    Do like the mutines of Jerusalem,\n    Be friends awhile, and both conjointly bend\n    Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town.\n    By east and west let France and England mount\n    Their battering cannon, charged to the mouths,\n    Till their soul-fearing clamours have brawl'd down\n    The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city.\n    I'd play incessantly upon these jades,\n    Even till unfenced desolation\n    Leave them as naked as the vulgar air.\n    That done, dissever your united strengths\n    And part your mingled colours once again,\n    Turn face to face and bloody point to point;\n    Then in a moment Fortune shall cull forth\n    Out of one side her happy minion,\n    To whom in favour she shall give the day,\n    And kiss him with a glorious victory.\n    How like you this wild counsel, mighty states?\n    Smacks it not something of the policy?\n  KING JOHN. Now, by the sky that hangs above our heads,\n    I like it well. France, shall we knit our pow'rs\n    And lay this Angiers even with the ground;\n    Then after fight who shall be king of it?\n  BASTARD. An if thou hast the mettle of a king,\n    Being wrong'd as we are by this peevish town,\n    Turn thou the mouth of thy artillery,\n    As we will ours, against these saucy walls;\n    And when that we have dash'd them to the ground,\n    Why then defy each other, and pell-mell\n    Make work upon ourselves, for heaven or hell.\n  KING PHILIP. Let it be so. Say, where will you assault?\n  KING JOHN. We from the west will send destruction\n    Into this city's bosom.\n  AUSTRIA. I from the north.\n  KING PHILIP. Our thunder from the south\n    Shall rain their drift of bullets on this town.\n  BASTARD.  [Aside]  O prudent discipline! From north to south,\n    Austria and France shoot in each other's mouth.\n    I'll stir them to it.-Come, away, away!\n  CITIZEN. Hear us, great kings: vouchsafe awhile to stay,\n    And I shall show you peace and fair-fac'd league;\n    Win you this city without stroke or wound;\n    Rescue those breathing lives to die in beds\n    That here come sacrifices for the field.\n    Persever not, but hear me, mighty kings.\n  KING JOHN. Speak on with favour; we are bent to hear.\n  CITIZEN. That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch,\n    Is niece to England; look upon the years\n    Of Lewis the Dauphin and that lovely maid.\n    If lusty love should go in quest of beauty,\n    Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch?\n    If zealous love should go in search of virtue,\n    Where should he find it purer than in Blanch?\n    If love ambitious sought a match of birth,\n    Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanch?\n    Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth,\n    Is the young Dauphin every way complete-\n    If not complete of, say he is not she;\n    And she again wants nothing, to name want,\n    If want it be not that she is not he.\n    He is the half part of a blessed man,\n    Left to be finished by such as she;\n    And she a fair divided excellence,\n    Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.\n    O, two such silver currents, when they join,\n    Do glorify the banks that bound them in;\n    And two such shores to two such streams made one,\n    Two such controlling bounds, shall you be, Kings,\n    To these two princes, if you marry them.\n    This union shall do more than battery can\n    To our fast-closed gates; for at this match\n    With swifter spleen than powder can enforce,\n    The mouth of passage shall we fling wide ope\n    And give you entrance; but without this match,\n    The sea enraged is not half so deaf,\n    Lions more confident, mountains and rocks\n    More free from motion-no, not Death himself\n    In mortal fury half so peremptory\n    As we to keep this city.\n  BASTARD. Here's a stay\n    That shakes the rotten carcass of old Death\n    Out of his rags! Here's a large mouth, indeed,\n    That spits forth death and mountains, rocks and seas;\n    Talks as familiarly of roaring lions\n    As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs!\n    What cannoneer begot this lusty blood?\n    He speaks plain cannon-fire, and smoke and bounce;\n    He gives the bastinado with his tongue;\n    Our ears are cudgell'd; not a word of his\n    But buffets better than a fist of France.\n    Zounds! I was never so bethump'd with words\n    Since I first call'd my brother's father dad.\n  ELINOR. Son, list to this conjunction, make this match;\n    Give with our niece a dowry large enough;\n    For by this knot thou shalt so surely tie\n    Thy now unsur'd assurance to the crown\n    That yon green boy shall have no sun to ripe\n    The bloom that promiseth a mighty fruit.\n    I see a yielding in the looks of France;\n    Mark how they whisper. Urge them while their souls\n    Are capable of this ambition,\n    Lest zeal, now melted by the windy breath\n    Of soft petitions, pity, and remorse,\n    Cool and congeal again to what it was.\n  CITIZEN. Why answer not the double majesties\n    This friendly treaty of our threat'ned town?\n  KING PHILIP. Speak England first, that hath been forward first\n    To speak unto this city: what say you?\n  KING JOHN. If that the Dauphin there, thy princely son,\n    Can in this book of beauty read 'I love,'\n    Her dowry shall weigh equal with a queen;\n    For Anjou, and fair Touraine, Maine, Poictiers,\n    And all that we upon this side the sea-\n    Except this city now by us besieg'd-\n    Find liable to our crown and dignity,\n    Shall gild her bridal bed, and make her rich\n    In titles, honours, and promotions,\n    As she in beauty, education, blood,\n    Holds hand with any princess of the world.\n  KING PHILIP. What say'st thou, boy? Look in the lady's face.\n  LEWIS. I do, my lord, and in her eye I find\n    A wonder, or a wondrous miracle,\n    The shadow of myself form'd in her eye;\n    Which, being but the shadow of your son,\n    Becomes a sun, and makes your son a shadow.\n    I do protest I never lov'd myself\n    Till now infixed I beheld myself\n    Drawn in the flattering table of her eye.\n                                               [Whispers with\nBLANCH]\n  BASTARD.  [Aside]  Drawn in the flattering table of her eye,\n    Hang'd in the frowning wrinkle of her brow,\n    And quarter'd in her heart-he doth espy\n    Himself love's traitor. This is pity now,\n    That hang'd and drawn and quarter'd there should be\n    In such a love so vile a lout as he.\n  BLANCH. My uncle's will in this respect is mine.\n    If he see aught in you that makes him like,\n    That anything he sees which moves his liking\n    I can with ease translate it to my will;\n    Or if you will, to speak more properly,\n    I will enforce it eas'ly to my love.\n    Further I will not flatter you, my lord,\n    That all I see in you is worthy love,\n    Than this: that nothing do I see in you-\n    Though churlish thoughts themselves should be your judge-\n    That I can find should merit any hate.\n  KING JOHN. What say these young ones? What say you, my niece?\n  BLANCH. That she is bound in honour still to do\n    What you in wisdom still vouchsafe to say.\n  KING JOHN. Speak then, Prince Dauphin; can you love this lady?\n  LEWIS. Nay, ask me if I can refrain from love;\n    For I do love her most unfeignedly.\n  KING JOHN. Then do I give Volquessen, Touraine, Maine,\n    Poictiers, and Anjou, these five provinces,\n    With her to thee; and this addition more,\n    Full thirty thousand marks of English coin.\n    Philip of France, if thou be pleas'd withal,\n    Command thy son and daughter to join hands.\n  KING PHILIP. It likes us well; young princes, close your hands.\n  AUSTRIA. And your lips too; for I am well assur'd\n    That I did so when I was first assur'd.\n  KING PHILIP. Now, citizens of Angiers, ope your gates,\n    Let in that amity which you have made;\n    For at Saint Mary's chapel presently\n    The rites of marriage shall be solemniz'd.\n    Is not the Lady Constance in this troop?\n    I know she is not; for this match made up\n    Her presence would have interrupted much.\n    Where is she and her son? Tell me, who knows.\n  LEWIS. She is sad and passionate at your Highness' tent.\n  KING PHILIP. And, by my faith, this league that we have made\n    Will give her sadness very little cure.\n    Brother of England, how may we content\n    This widow lady? In her right we came;\n    Which we, God knows, have turn'd another way,\n    To our own vantage.\n  KING JOHN. We will heal up all,\n    For we'll create young Arthur Duke of Britaine,\n    And Earl of Richmond; and this rich fair town\n    We make him lord of. Call the Lady Constance;\n    Some speedy messenger bid her repair\n    To our solemnity. I trust we shall,\n    If not fill up the measure of her will,\n    Yet in some measure satisfy her so\n    That we shall stop her exclamation.\n    Go we as well as haste will suffer us\n    To this unlook'd-for, unprepared pomp.\n                                           Exeunt all but the\nBASTARD\n  BASTARD. Mad world! mad kings! mad composition!\n    John, to stop Arthur's tide in the whole,\n    Hath willingly departed with a part;\n    And France, whose armour conscience buckled on,\n    Whom zeal and charity brought to the field\n    As God's own soldier, rounded in the ear\n    With that same purpose-changer, that sly devil,\n    That broker that still breaks the pate of faith,\n    That daily break-vow, he that wins of all,\n    Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids,\n    Who having no external thing to lose\n    But the word 'maid,' cheats the poor maid of that;\n    That smooth-fac'd gentleman, tickling commodity,\n    Commodity, the bias of the world-\n    The world, who of itself is peised well,\n    Made to run even upon even ground,\n    Till this advantage, this vile-drawing bias,\n    This sway of motion, this commodity,\n    Makes it take head from all indifferency,\n    From all direction, purpose, course, intent-\n    And this same bias, this commodity,\n    This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word,\n    Clapp'd on the outward eye of fickle France,\n    Hath drawn him from his own determin'd aid,\n    From a resolv'd and honourable war,\n    To a most base and vile-concluded peace.\n    And why rail I on this commodity?\n    But for because he hath not woo'd me yet;\n    Not that I have the power to clutch my hand\n    When his fair angels would salute my palm,\n    But for my hand, as unattempted yet,\n    Like a poor beggar raileth on the rich.\n    Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail\n    And say there is no sin but to be rich;\n    And being rich, my virtue then shall be\n    To say there is no vice but beggary.\n    Since kings break faith upon commodity,\n    Gain, be my lord, for I will worship thee.\nExit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE 1.\n\nFrance. The FRENCH KING'S camp\n\nEnter CONSTANCE, ARTHUR, and SALISBURY\n\n  CONSTANCE. Gone to be married! Gone to swear a peace!\n    False blood to false blood join'd! Gone to be friends!\n    Shall Lewis have Blanch, and Blanch those provinces?\n    It is not so; thou hast misspoke, misheard;\n    Be well advis'd, tell o'er thy tale again.\n    It cannot be; thou dost but say 'tis so;\n    I trust I may not trust thee, for thy word\n    Is but the vain breath of a common man:\n    Believe me I do not believe thee, man;\n    I have a king's oath to the contrary.\n    Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me,\n    For I am sick and capable of fears,\n    Oppress'd with wrongs, and therefore full of fears;\n    A widow, husbandless, subject to fears;\n    A woman, naturally born to fears;\n    And though thou now confess thou didst but jest,\n    With my vex'd spirits I cannot take a truce,\n    But they will quake and tremble all this day.\n    What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head?\n    Why dost thou look so sadly on my son?\n    What means that hand upon that breast of thine?\n    Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum,\n    Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds?\n    Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words?\n    Then speak again-not all thy former tale,\n    But this one word, whether thy tale be true.\n  SALISBURY. As true as I believe you think them false\n    That give you cause to prove my saying true.\n  CONSTANCE. O, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow,\n    Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die;\n    And let belief and life encounter so\n    As doth the fury of two desperate men\n    Which in the very meeting fall and die!\n    Lewis marry Blanch! O boy, then where art thou?\n    France friend with England; what becomes of me?\n    Fellow, be gone: I cannot brook thy sight;\n    This news hath made thee a most ugly man.\n  SALISBURY. What other harm have I, good lady, done\n    But spoke the harm that is by others done?\n  CONSTANCE. Which harm within itself so heinous is\n    As it makes harmful all that speak of it.\n  ARTHUR. I do beseech you, madam, be content.\n  CONSTANCE. If thou that bid'st me be content wert grim,\n    Ugly, and sland'rous to thy mother's womb,\n    Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains,\n    Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,\n    Patch'd with foul moles and eye-offending marks,\n    I would not care, I then would be content;\n    For then I should not love thee; no, nor thou\n    Become thy great birth, nor deserve a crown.\n    But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy,\n    Nature and Fortune join'd to make thee great:\n    Of Nature's gifts thou mayst with lilies boast,\n    And with the half-blown rose; but Fortune, O!\n    She is corrupted, chang'd, and won from thee;\n    Sh' adulterates hourly with thine uncle John,\n    And with her golden hand hath pluck'd on France\n    To tread down fair respect of sovereignty,\n    And made his majesty the bawd to theirs.\n    France is a bawd to Fortune and King John-\n    That strumpet Fortune, that usurping John!\n    Tell me, thou fellow, is not France forsworn?\n    Envenom him with words, or get thee gone\n    And leave those woes alone which I alone\n    Am bound to under-bear.\n  SALISBURY. Pardon me, madam,\n    I may not go without you to the kings.\n  CONSTANCE. Thou mayst, thou shalt; I will not go with thee;\n    I will instruct my sorrows to be proud,\n    For grief is proud, and makes his owner stoop.\n    To me, and to the state of my great grief,\n    Let kings assemble; for my grief's so great\n    That no supporter but the huge firm earth\n    Can hold it up.                     [Seats herself on the\nground]\n    Here I and sorrows sit;\n    Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.\n\n       Enter KING JOHN, KING PHILIP, LEWIS, BLANCH,\n       ELINOR, the BASTARD, AUSTRIA, and attendants\n\n  KING PHILIP. 'Tis true, fair daughter, and this blessed day\n    Ever in France shall be kept festival.\n    To solemnize this day the glorious sun\n    Stays in his course and plays the alchemist,\n    Turning with splendour of his precious eye\n    The meagre cloddy earth to glittering gold.\n    The yearly course that brings this day about\n    Shall never see it but a holiday.\n  CONSTANCE.  [Rising]  A wicked day, and not a holy day!\n    What hath this day deserv'd? what hath it done\n    That it in golden letters should be set\n    Among the high tides in the calendar?\n    Nay, rather turn this day out of the week,\n    This day of shame, oppression, perjury;\n    Or, if it must stand still, let wives with child\n    Pray that their burdens may not fall this day,\n    Lest that their hopes prodigiously be cross'd;\n    But on this day let seamen fear no wreck;\n    No bargains break that are not this day made;\n    This day, all things begun come to ill end,\n    Yea, faith itself to hollow falsehood change!\n  KING PHILIP. By heaven, lady, you shall have no cause\n    To curse the fair proceedings of this day.\n    Have I not pawn'd to you my majesty?\n  CONSTANCE. You have beguil'd me with a counterfeit\n    Resembling majesty, which, being touch'd and tried,\n    Proves valueless; you are forsworn, forsworn;\n    You came in arms to spill mine enemies' blood,\n    But now in arms you strengthen it with yours.\n    The grappling vigour and rough frown of war\n    Is cold in amity and painted peace,\n    And our oppression hath made up this league.\n    Arm, arm, you heavens, against these perjur'd kings!\n    A widow cries: Be husband to me, heavens!\n    Let not the hours of this ungodly day\n    Wear out the day in peace; but, ere sunset,\n    Set armed discord 'twixt these perjur'd kings!\n    Hear me, O, hear me!\n  AUSTRIA. Lady Constance, peace!\n  CONSTANCE. War! war! no peace! Peace is to me a war.\n    O Lymoges! O Austria! thou dost shame\n    That bloody spoil. Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward!\n    Thou little valiant, great in villainy!\n    Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!\n    Thou Fortune's champion that dost never fight\n    But when her humorous ladyship is by\n    To teach thee safety! Thou art perjur'd too,\n    And sooth'st up greatness. What a fool art thou,\n    A ramping fool, to brag and stamp and swear\n    Upon my party! Thou cold-blooded slave,\n    Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side,\n    Been sworn my soldier, bidding me depend\n    Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength,\n    And dost thou now fall over to my foes?\n    Thou wear a lion's hide! Doff it for shame,\n    And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.\n  AUSTRIA. O that a man should speak those words to me!\n  BASTARD. And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.\n  AUSTRIA. Thou dar'st not say so, villain, for thy life.\n  BASTARD. And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.\n  KING JOHN. We like not this: thou dost forget thyself.\n\n                  Enter PANDULPH\n\n  KING PHILIP. Here comes the holy legate of the Pope.\n  PANDULPH. Hail, you anointed deputies of heaven!\n    To thee, King John, my holy errand is.\n    I Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal,\n    And from Pope Innocent the legate here,\n    Do in his name religiously demand\n    Why thou against the Church, our holy mother,\n    So wilfully dost spurn; and force perforce\n    Keep Stephen Langton, chosen Archbishop\n    Of Canterbury, from that holy see?\n    This, in our foresaid holy father's name,\n    Pope Innocent, I do demand of thee.\n  KING JOHN. What earthly name to interrogatories\n    Can task the free breath of a sacred king?\n    Thou canst not, Cardinal, devise a name\n    So slight, unworthy, and ridiculous,\n    To charge me to an answer, as the Pope.\n    Tell him this tale, and from the mouth of England\n    Add thus much more, that no Italian priest\n    Shall tithe or toll in our dominions;\n    But as we under heaven are supreme head,\n    So, under Him that great supremacy,\n    Where we do reign we will alone uphold,\n    Without th' assistance of a mortal hand.\n    So tell the Pope, all reverence set apart\n    To him and his usurp'd authority.\n  KING PHILIP. Brother of England, you blaspheme in this.\n  KING JOHN. Though you and all the kings of Christendom\n    Are led so grossly by this meddling priest,\n    Dreading the curse that money may buy out,\n    And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust,\n    Purchase corrupted pardon of a man,\n    Who in that sale sells pardon from himself-\n    Though you and all the rest, so grossly led,\n    This juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish;\n    Yet I alone, alone do me oppose\n    Against the Pope, and count his friends my foes.\n  PANDULPH. Then by the lawful power that I have\n    Thou shalt stand curs'd and excommunicate;\n    And blessed shall he be that doth revolt\n    From his allegiance to an heretic;\n    And meritorious shall that hand be call'd,\n    Canonized, and worshipp'd as a saint,\n    That takes away by any secret course\n    Thy hateful life.\n  CONSTANCE. O, lawful let it be\n    That I have room with Rome to curse awhile!\n    Good father Cardinal, cry thou 'amen'\n    To my keen curses; for without my wrong\n    There is no tongue hath power to curse him right.\n  PANDULPH. There's law and warrant, lady, for my curse.\n  CONSTANCE. And for mine too; when law can do no right,\n    Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong;\n    Law cannot give my child his kingdom here,\n    For he that holds his kingdom holds the law;\n    Therefore, since law itself is perfect wrong,\n    How can the law forbid my tongue to curse?\n  PANDULPH. Philip of France, on peril of a curse,\n    Let go the hand of that arch-heretic,\n    And raise the power of France upon his head,\n    Unless he do submit himself to Rome.\n  ELINOR. Look'st thou pale, France? Do not let go thy hand.\n  CONSTANCE. Look to that, devil, lest that France repent\n    And by disjoining hands hell lose a soul.\n  AUSTRIA. King Philip, listen to the Cardinal.\n  BASTARD. And hang a calf's-skin on his recreant limbs.\n  AUSTRIA. Well, ruffian, I must pocket up these wrongs,\n    Because-\n  BASTARD. Your breeches best may carry them.\n  KING JOHN. Philip, what say'st thou to the Cardinal?\n  CONSTANCE. What should he say, but as the Cardinal?\n  LEWIS. Bethink you, father; for the difference\n    Is purchase of a heavy curse from Rome\n    Or the light loss of England for a friend.\n    Forgo the easier.\n  BLANCH. That's the curse of Rome.\n  CONSTANCE. O Lewis, stand fast! The devil tempts thee here\n    In likeness of a new untrimmed bride.\n  BLANCH. The Lady Constance speaks not from her faith,\n    But from her need.\n  CONSTANCE. O, if thou grant my need,\n    Which only lives but by the death of faith,\n    That need must needs infer this principle-\n    That faith would live again by death of need.\n    O then, tread down my need, and faith mounts up:\n    Keep my need up, and faith is trodden down!\n  KING JOHN. The King is mov'd, and answers not to this.\n  CONSTANCE. O be remov'd from him, and answer well!\n  AUSTRIA. Do so, King Philip; hang no more in doubt.\n  BASTARD. Hang nothing but a calf's-skin, most sweet lout.\n  KING PHILIP. I am perplex'd and know not what to say.\n  PANDULPH. What canst thou say but will perplex thee more,\n    If thou stand excommunicate and curs'd?\n  KING PHILIP. Good reverend father, make my person yours,\n    And tell me how you would bestow yourself.\n    This royal hand and mine are newly knit,\n    And the conjunction of our inward souls\n    Married in league, coupled and link'd together\n    With all religious strength of sacred vows;\n    The latest breath that gave the sound of words\n    Was deep-sworn faith, peace, amity, true love,\n    Between our kingdoms and our royal selves;\n    And even before this truce, but new before,\n    No longer than we well could wash our hands,\n    To clap this royal bargain up of peace,\n    Heaven knows, they were besmear'd and overstain'd\n    With slaughter's pencil, where revenge did paint\n    The fearful difference of incensed kings.\n    And shall these hands, so lately purg'd of blood,\n    So newly join'd in love, so strong in both,\n    Unyoke this seizure and this kind regreet?\n    Play fast and loose with faith? so jest with heaven,\n    Make such unconstant children of ourselves,\n    As now again to snatch our palm from palm,\n    Unswear faith sworn, and on the marriage-bed\n    Of smiling peace to march a bloody host,\n    And make a riot on the gentle brow\n    Of true sincerity? O, holy sir,\n    My reverend father, let it not be so!\n    Out of your grace, devise, ordain, impose,\n    Some gentle order; and then we shall be blest\n    To do your pleasure, and continue friends.\n  PANDULPH. All form is formless, order orderless,\n    Save what is opposite to England's love.\n    Therefore, to arms! be champion of our church,\n    Or let the church, our mother, breathe her curse-\n    A mother's curse-on her revolting son.\n    France, thou mayst hold a serpent by the tongue,\n    A chafed lion by the mortal paw,\n    A fasting tiger safer by the tooth,\n    Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost hold.\n  KING PHILIP. I may disjoin my hand, but not my faith.\n  PANDULPH. So mak'st thou faith an enemy to faith;\n    And like. a civil war set'st oath to oath.\n    Thy tongue against thy tongue. O, let thy vow\n    First made to heaven, first be to heaven perform'd,\n    That is, to be the champion of our Church.\n    What since thou swor'st is sworn against thyself\n    And may not be performed by thyself,\n    For that which thou hast sworn to do amiss\n    Is not amiss when it is truly done;\n    And being not done, where doing tends to ill,\n    The truth is then most done not doing it;\n    The better act of purposes mistook\n    Is to mistake again; though indirect,\n    Yet indirection thereby grows direct,\n    And falsehood cures, as fire cools fire\n    Within the scorched veins of one new-burn'd.\n    It is religion that doth make vows kept;\n    But thou hast sworn against religion\n    By what thou swear'st against the thing thou swear'st,\n    And mak'st an oath the surety for thy truth\n    Against an oath; the truth thou art unsure\n    To swear swears only not to be forsworn;\n    Else what a mockery should it be to swear!\n    But thou dost swear only to be forsworn;\n    And most forsworn to keep what thou dost swear.\n    Therefore thy later vows against thy first\n    Is in thyself rebellion to thyself;\n    And better conquest never canst thou make\n    Than arm thy constant and thy nobler parts\n    Against these giddy loose suggestions;\n    Upon which better part our pray'rs come in,\n    If thou vouchsafe them. But if not, then know\n    The peril of our curses fight on thee\n    So heavy as thou shalt not shake them off,\n    But in despair die under the black weight.\n  AUSTRIA. Rebellion, flat rebellion!\n  BASTARD. Will't not be?\n    Will not a calf's-skin stop that mouth of thine?\n  LEWIS. Father, to arms!\n  BLANCH. Upon thy wedding-day?\n    Against the blood that thou hast married?\n    What, shall our feast be kept with slaughtered men?\n    Shall braying trumpets and loud churlish drums,\n    Clamours of hell, be measures to our pomp?\n    O husband, hear me! ay, alack, how new\n    Is 'husband' in my mouth! even for that name,\n    Which till this time my tongue did ne'er pronounce,\n    Upon my knee I beg, go not to arms\n    Against mine uncle.\n  CONSTANCE. O, upon my knee,\n    Made hard with kneeling, I do pray to thee,\n    Thou virtuous Dauphin, alter not the doom\n    Forethought by heaven!\n  BLANCH. Now shall I see thy love. What motive may\n    Be stronger with thee than the name of wife?\n  CONSTANCE. That which upholdeth him that thee upholds,\n    His honour. O, thine honour, Lewis, thine honour!\n  LEWIS. I muse your Majesty doth seem so cold,\n    When such profound respects do pull you on.\n  PANDULPH. I will denounce a curse upon his head.\n  KING PHILIP. Thou shalt not need. England, I will fall from\nthee.\n  CONSTANCE. O fair return of banish'd majesty!\n  ELINOR. O foul revolt of French inconstancy!\n  KING JOHN. France, thou shalt rue this hour within this hour.\n  BASTARD. Old Time the clock-setter, that bald sexton Time,\n    Is it as he will? Well then, France shall rue.\n  BLANCH. The sun's o'ercast with blood. Fair day, adieu!\n    Which is the side that I must go withal?\n    I am with both: each army hath a hand;\n    And in their rage, I having hold of both,\n    They whirl asunder and dismember me.\n    Husband, I cannot pray that thou mayst win;\n    Uncle, I needs must pray that thou mayst lose;\n    Father, I may not wish the fortune thine;\n    Grandam, I will not wish thy wishes thrive.\n    Whoever wins, on that side shall I lose:\n    Assured loss before the match be play'd.\n  LEWIS. Lady, with me, with me thy fortune lies.\n  BLANCH. There where my fortune lives, there my life dies.\n  KING JOHN. Cousin, go draw our puissance together.\n                                                         Exit\nBASTARD\n    France, I am burn'd up with inflaming wrath,\n    A rage whose heat hath this condition\n    That nothing can allay, nothing but blood,\n    The blood, and dearest-valu'd blood, of France.\n  KING PHILIP. Thy rage shall burn thee up, and thou shalt turn\n    To ashes, ere our blood shall quench that fire.\n    Look to thyself, thou art in jeopardy.\n  KING JOHN. No more than he that threats. To arms let's hie!\n                                                     Exeunt\nseverally\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nFrance. Plains near Angiers\n\nAlarums, excursions. Enter the BASTARD with AUSTRIA'S head\n\n  BASTARD. Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot;\n    Some airy devil hovers in the sky\n    And pours down mischief. Austria's head lie there,\n    While Philip breathes.\n\n          Enter KING JOHN, ARTHUR, and HUBERT\n\n  KING JOHN. Hubert, keep this boy. Philip, make up:\n    My mother is assailed in our tent,\n    And ta'en, I fear.\n  BASTARD. My lord, I rescued her;\n    Her Highness is in safety, fear you not;\n    But on, my liege, for very little pains\n    Will bring this labour to an happy end.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nFrance. Plains near Angiers\n\nAlarums, excursions, retreat. Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, ARTHUR,\nthe BASTARD, HUBERT, and LORDS\n\n  KING JOHN.  [To ELINOR]  So shall it be; your Grace shall stay\n      behind,\n    So strongly guarded.  [To ARTHUR]  Cousin, look not sad;\n    Thy grandam loves thee, and thy uncle will\n    As dear be to thee as thy father was.\n  ARTHUR. O, this will make my mother die with grief!\n  KING JOHN.  [To the BASTARD]  Cousin, away for England! haste\n      before,\n    And, ere our coming, see thou shake the bags\n    Of hoarding abbots; imprisoned angels\n    Set at liberty; the fat ribs of peace\n    Must by the hungry now be fed upon.\n    Use our commission in his utmost force.\n  BASTARD. Bell, book, and candle, shall not drive me back,\n    When gold and silver becks me to come on.\n    I leave your Highness. Grandam, I will pray,\n    If ever I remember to be holy,\n    For your fair safety. So, I kiss your hand.\n  ELINOR. Farewell, gentle cousin.\n  KING JOHN. Coz, farewell.\n                                                         Exit\nBASTARD\n  ELINOR. Come hither, little kinsman; hark, a word.\n  KING JOHN. Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert,\n    We owe thee much! Within this wall of flesh\n    There is a soul counts thee her creditor,\n    And with advantage means to pay thy love;\n    And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath\n    Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished.\n    Give me thy hand. I had a thing to say-\n    But I will fit it with some better time.\n    By heaven, Hubert, I am almost asham'd\n    To say what good respect I have of thee.\n  HUBERT. I am much bounden to your Majesty.\n  KING JOHN. Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet,\n    But thou shalt have; and creep time ne'er so slow,\n    Yet it shall come for me to do thee good.\n    I had a thing to say-but let it go:\n    The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day,\n    Attended with the pleasures of the world,\n    Is all too wanton and too full of gawds\n    To give me audience. If the midnight bell\n    Did with his iron tongue and brazen mouth\n    Sound on into the drowsy race of night;\n    If this same were a churchyard where we stand,\n    And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs;\n    Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,\n    Had bak'd thy blood and made it heavy-thick,\n    Which else runs tickling up and down the veins,\n    Making that idiot, laughter, keep men's eyes\n    And strain their cheeks to idle merriment,\n    A passion hateful to my purposes;\n    Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes,\n    Hear me without thine cars, and make reply\n    Without a tongue, using conceit alone,\n    Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words-\n    Then, in despite of brooded watchful day,\n    I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts.\n    But, ah, I will not! Yet I love thee well;\n    And, by my troth, I think thou lov'st me well.\n  HUBERT. So well that what you bid me undertake,\n    Though that my death were adjunct to my act,\n    By heaven, I would do it.\n  KING JOHN. Do not I know thou wouldst?\n    Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye\n    On yon young boy. I'll tell thee what, my friend,\n    He is a very serpent in my way;\n    And wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,\n    He lies before me. Dost thou understand me?\n    Thou art his keeper.\n  HUBERT. And I'll keep him so\n    That he shall not offend your Majesty.\n  KING JOHN. Death.\n  HUBERT. My lord?\n  KING JOHN. A grave.\n  HUBERT. He shall not live.\n  KING JOHN. Enough!\n    I could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee.\n    Well, I'll not say what I intend for thee.\n    Remember. Madam, fare you well;\n    I'll send those powers o'er to your Majesty.\n  ELINOR. My blessing go with thee!\n  KING JOHN.  [To ARTHUR]  For England, cousin, go;\n    Hubert shall be your man, attend on you\n    With all true duty. On toward Calais, ho!\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nFrance. The FRENCH KING's camp\n\nEnter KING PHILIP, LEWIS, PANDULPH, and attendants\n\n  KING PHILIP. So by a roaring tempest on the flood\n    A whole armado of convicted sail\n    Is scattered and disjoin'd from fellowship.\n  PANDULPH. Courage and comfort! All shall yet go well.\n  KING PHILIP. What can go well, when we have run so ill.\n    Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost?\n    Arthur ta'en prisoner? Divers dear friends slain?\n    And bloody England into England gone,\n    O'erbearing interruption, spite of France?\n  LEWIS. he hath won, that hath he fortified;\n    So hot a speed with such advice dispos'd,\n    Such temperate order in so fierce a cause,\n    Doth want example; who hath read or heard\n    Of any kindred action like to this?\n  KING PHILIP. Well could I bear that England had this praise,\n    So we could find some pattern of our shame.\n\n                   Enter CONSTANCE\n\n    Look who comes here! a grave unto a soul;\n    Holding th' eternal spirit, against her will,\n    In the vile prison of afflicted breath.\n    I prithee, lady, go away with me.\n  CONSTANCE. Lo now! now see the issue of your peace!\n  KING PHILIP. Patience, good lady! Comfort, gentle Constance!\n  CONSTANCE. No, I defy all counsel, all redress,\n    But that which ends all counsel, true redress-\n    Death, death; O amiable lovely death!\n    Thou odoriferous stench! sound rottenness!\n    Arise forth from the couch of lasting night,\n    Thou hate and terror to prosperity,\n    And I will kiss thy detestable bones,\n    And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows,\n    And ring these fingers with thy household worms,\n    And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust,\n    And be a carrion monster like thyself.\n    Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smil'st,\n    And buss thee as thy wife. Misery's love,\n    O, come to me!\n  KING PHILIP. O fair affliction, peace!\n  CONSTANCE. No, no, I will not, having breath to cry.\n    O that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth!\n    Then with a passion would I shake the world,\n    And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy\n    Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice,\n    Which scorns a modern invocation.\n  PANDULPH. Lady, you utter madness and not sorrow.\n  CONSTANCE. Thou art not holy to belie me so.\n    I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine;\n    My name is Constance; I was Geffrey's wife;\n    Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost.\n    I am not mad-I would to heaven I were!\n    For then 'tis like I should forget myself.\n    O, if I could, what grief should I forget!\n    Preach some philosophy to make me mad,\n    And thou shalt be canoniz'd, Cardinal;\n    For, being not mad, but sensible of grief,\n    My reasonable part produces reason\n    How I may be deliver'd of these woes,\n    And teaches me to kill or hang myself.\n    If I were mad I should forget my son,\n    Or madly think a babe of clouts were he.\n    I am not mad; too well, too well I feel\n    The different plague of each calamity.\n  KING PHILIP. Bind up those tresses. O, what love I note\n    In the fair multitude of those her hairs!\n    Where but by a chance a silver drop hath fall'n,\n    Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends\n    Do glue themselves in sociable grief,\n    Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,\n    Sticking together in calamity.\n  CONSTANCE. To England, if you will.\n  KING PHILIP. Bind up your hairs.\n  CONSTANCE. Yes, that I will; and wherefore will I do it?\n    I tore them from their bonds, and cried aloud\n    'O that these hands could so redeem my son,\n    As they have given these hairs their liberty!'\n    But now I envy at their liberty,\n    And will again commit them to their bonds,\n    Because my poor child is a prisoner.\n    And, father Cardinal, I have heard you say\n    That we shall see and know our friends in heaven;\n    If that be true, I shall see my boy again;\n    For since the birth of Cain, the first male child,\n    To him that did but yesterday suspire,\n    There was not such a gracious creature born.\n    But now will canker sorrow eat my bud\n    And chase the native beauty from his cheek,\n    And he will look as hollow as a ghost,\n    As dim and meagre as an ague's fit;\n    And so he'll die; and, rising so again,\n    When I shall meet him in the court of heaven\n    I shall not know him. Therefore never, never\n    Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.\n  PANDULPH. You hold too heinous a respect of grief.\n  CONSTANCE. He talks to me that never had a son.\n  KING PHILIP. You are as fond of grief as of your child.\n  CONSTANCE. Grief fills the room up of my absent child,\n    Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,\n    Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,\n    Remembers me of all his gracious parts,\n    Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;\n    Then have I reason to be fond of grief.\n    Fare you well; had you such a loss as I,\n    I could give better comfort than you do.\n    I will not keep this form upon my head,\n                                                   [Tearing her\nhair]\n    When there is such disorder in my wit.\n    O Lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!\n    My life, my joy, my food, my ail the world!\n    My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure!\nExit\n  KING PHILIP. I fear some outrage, and I'll follow her.\nExit\n  LEWIS. There's nothing in this world can make me joy.\n    Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale\n    Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man;\n    And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste,\n    That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.\n  PANDULPH. Before the curing of a strong disease,\n    Even in the instant of repair and health,\n    The fit is strongest; evils that take leave\n    On their departure most of all show evil;\n    What have you lost by losing of this day?\n  LEWIS. All days of glory, joy, and happiness.\n  PANDULPH. If you had won it, certainly you had.\n    No, no; when Fortune means to men most good,\n    She looks upon them with a threat'ning eye.\n    'Tis strange to think how much King John hath lost\n    In this which he accounts so clearly won.\n    Are not you griev'd that Arthur is his prisoner?\n  LEWIS. As heartily as he is glad he hath him.\n  PANDULPH. Your mind is all as youthful as your blood.\n    Now hear me speak with a prophetic spirit;\n    For even the breath of what I mean to speak\n    Shall blow each dust, each straw, each little rub,\n    Out of the path which shall directly lead\n    Thy foot to England's throne. And therefore mark:\n    John hath seiz'd Arthur; and it cannot be\n    That, whiles warm life plays in that infant's veins,\n    The misplac'd John should entertain an hour,\n    One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest.\n    A sceptre snatch'd with an unruly hand\n    Must be boisterously maintain'd as gain'd,\n    And he that stands upon a slipp'ry place\n    Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up;\n    That John may stand then, Arthur needs must fall;\n    So be it, for it cannot be but so.\n  LEWIS. But what shall I gain by young Arthur's fall?\n  PANDULPH. You, in the right of Lady Blanch your wife,\n    May then make all the claim that Arthur did.\n  LEWIS. And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did.\n  PANDULPH. How green you are and fresh in this old world!\n    John lays you plots; the times conspire with you;\n    For he that steeps his safety in true blood\n    Shall find but bloody safety and untrue.\n    This act, so evilly borne, shall cool the hearts\n    Of all his people and freeze up their zeal,\n    That none so small advantage shall step forth\n    To check his reign but they will cherish it;\n    No natural exhalation in the sky,\n    No scope of nature, no distemper'd day,\n    No common wind, no customed event,\n    But they will pluck away his natural cause\n    And call them meteors, prodigies, and signs,\n    Abortives, presages, and tongues of heaven,\n    Plainly denouncing vengeance upon John.\n  LEWIS. May be he will not touch young Arthur's life,\n    But hold himself safe in his prisonment.\n  PANDULPH. O, Sir, when he shall hear of your approach,\n    If that young Arthur be not gone already,\n    Even at that news he dies; and then the hearts\n    Of all his people shall revolt from him,\n    And kiss the lips of unacquainted change,\n    And pick strong matter of revolt and wrath\n    Out of the bloody fingers' ends of john.\n    Methinks I see this hurly all on foot;\n    And, O, what better matter breeds for you\n    Than I have nam'd! The bastard Faulconbridge\n    Is now in England ransacking the Church,\n    Offending charity; if but a dozen French\n    Were there in arms, they would be as a can\n    To train ten thousand English to their side;\n    Or as a little snow, tumbled about,\n    Anon becomes a mountain. O noble Dauphin,\n    Go with me to the King. 'Tis wonderful\n    What may be wrought out of their discontent,\n    Now that their souls are topful of offence.\n    For England go; I will whet on the King.\n  LEWIS. Strong reasons makes strong actions. Let us go;\n    If you say ay, the King will not say no.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\n\nEngland. A castle\n\nEnter HUBERT and EXECUTIONERS\n\n  HUBERT. Heat me these irons hot; and look thou stand\n    Within the arras. When I strike my foot\n    Upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth\n    And bind the boy which you shall find with me\n    Fast to the chair. Be heedful; hence, and watch.\n  EXECUTIONER. I hope your warrant will bear out the deed.\n  HUBERT. Uncleanly scruples! Fear not you. Look to't.\n                                                  Exeunt\nEXECUTIONERS\n    Young lad, come forth; I have to say with you.\n\n                    Enter ARTHUR\n\n  ARTHUR. Good morrow, Hubert.\n  HUBERT. Good morrow, little Prince.\n  ARTHUR. As little prince, having so great a tide\n    To be more prince, as may be. You are sad.\n  HUBERT. Indeed I have been merrier.\n  ARTHUR. Mercy on me!\n    Methinks no body should be sad but I;\n    Yet, I remember, when I was in France,\n    Young gentlemen would be as sad as night,\n    Only for wantonness. By my christendom,\n    So I were out of prison and kept sheep,\n    I should be as merry as the day is long;\n    And so I would be here but that I doubt\n    My uncle practises more harm to me;\n    He is afraid of me, and I of him.\n    Is it my fault that I was Geffrey's son?\n    No, indeed, ist not; and I would to heaven\n    I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert.\n  HUBERT.  [Aside]  If I talk to him, with his innocent prate\n    He will awake my mercy, which lies dead;\n    Therefore I will be sudden and dispatch.\n  ARTHUR. Are you sick, Hubert? You look pale to-day;\n    In sooth, I would you were a little sick,\n    That I might sit all night and watch with you.\n    I warrant I love you more than you do me.\n  HUBERT.  [Aside]  His words do take possession of my bosom.-\n    Read here, young Arthur.                        [Showing a\npaper]\n      [Aside]  How now, foolish rheum!\n    Turning dispiteous torture out of door!\n    I must be brief, lest resolution drop\n    Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears.-\n    Can you not read it? Is it not fair writ?\n  ARTHUR. Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect.\n    Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes?\n  HUBERT. Young boy, I must.\n  ARTHUR. And will you?\n  HUBERT. And I will.\n  ARTHUR. Have you the heart? When your head did but ache,\n    I knit my handkerchief about your brows-\n    The best I had, a princess wrought it me-\n    And I did never ask it you again;\n    And with my hand at midnight held your head;\n    And, like the watchful minutes to the hour,\n    Still and anon cheer'd up the heavy time,\n    Saying 'What lack you?' and 'Where lies your grief?'\n    Or 'What good love may I perform for you?'\n    Many a poor man's son would have lyen still,\n    And ne'er have spoke a loving word to you;\n    But you at your sick service had a prince.\n    Nay, you may think my love was crafty love,\n    And call it cunning. Do, an if you will.\n    If heaven be pleas'd that you must use me ill,\n    Why, then you must. Will you put out mine eyes,\n    These eyes that never did nor never shall\n    So much as frown on you?\n  HUBERT. I have sworn to do it;\n    And with hot irons must I burn them out.\n  ARTHUR. Ah, none but in this iron age would do it!\n    The iron of itself, though heat red-hot,\n    Approaching near these eyes would drink my tears,\n    And quench his fiery indignation\n    Even in the matter of mine innocence;\n    Nay, after that, consume away in rust\n    But for containing fire to harm mine eye.\n    Are you more stubborn-hard than hammer'd iron?\n    An if an angel should have come to me\n    And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes,\n    I would not have believ'd him-no tongue but Hubert's.\n  HUBERT.  [Stamps]  Come forth.\n\n     Re-enter EXECUTIONERS, With cord, irons, etc.\n\n    Do as I bid you do.\n  ARTHUR. O, save me, Hubert, save me! My eyes are out\n    Even with the fierce looks of these bloody men.\n  HUBERT. Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here.\n  ARTHUR. Alas, what need you be so boist'rous rough?\n    I will not struggle, I will stand stone-still.\n    For heaven sake, Hubert, let me not be bound!\n    Nay, hear me, Hubert! Drive these men away,\n    And I will sit as quiet as a lamb;\n    I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word,\n    Nor look upon the iron angrily;\n    Thrust but these men away, and I'll forgive you,\n    Whatever torment you do put me to.\n  HUBERT. Go, stand within; let me alone with him.\n  EXECUTIONER. I am best pleas'd to be from such a deed.\n                                                  Exeunt\nEXECUTIONERS\n  ARTHUR. Alas, I then have chid away my friend!\n    He hath a stern look but a gentle heart.\n    Let him come back, that his compassion may\n    Give life to yours.\n  HUBERT. Come, boy, prepare yourself.\n  ARTHUR. Is there no remedy?\n  HUBERT. None, but to lose your eyes.\n  ARTHUR. O heaven, that there were but a mote in yours,\n    A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair,\n    Any annoyance in that precious sense!\n    Then, feeling what small things are boisterous there,\n    Your vile intent must needs seem horrible.\n  HUBERT. Is this your promise? Go to, hold your tongue.\n  ARTHUR. Hubert, the utterance of a brace of tongues\n    Must needs want pleading for a pair of eyes.\n    Let me not hold my tongue, let me not, Hubert;\n    Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue,\n    So I may keep mine eyes. O, spare mine eyes,\n    Though to no use but still to look on you!\n    Lo, by my troth, the instrument is cold\n    And would not harm me.\n  HUBERT. I can heat it, boy.\n  ARTHUR. No, in good sooth; the fire is dead with grief,\n    Being create for comfort, to be us'd\n    In undeserved extremes. See else yourself:\n    There is no malice in this burning coal;\n    The breath of heaven hath blown his spirit out,\n    And strew'd repentant ashes on his head.\n  HUBERT. But with my breath I can revive it, boy.\n  ARTHUR. An if you do, you will but make it blush\n    And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert.\n    Nay, it perchance will sparkle in your eyes,\n    And, like a dog that is compell'd to fight,\n    Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on.\n    All things that you should use to do me wrong\n    Deny their office; only you do lack\n    That mercy which fierce fire and iron extends,\n    Creatures of note for mercy-lacking uses.\n  HUBERT. Well, see to live; I will not touch thine eye\n    For all the treasure that thine uncle owes.\n    Yet I am sworn, and I did purpose, boy,\n    With this same very iron to burn them out.\n  ARTHUR. O, now you look like Hubert! All this while\n    You were disguis'd.\n  HUBERT. Peace; no more. Adieu.\n    Your uncle must not know but you are dead:\n    I'll fill these dogged spies with false reports;\n    And, pretty child, sleep doubtless and secure\n    That Hubert, for the wealth of all the world,\n    Will not offend thee.\n  ARTHUR. O heaven! I thank you, Hubert.\n  HUBERT. Silence; no more. Go closely in with me.\n    Much danger do I undergo for thee.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\n\nEngland. KING JOHN'S palace\n\nEnter KING JOHN, PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and other LORDS\n\n  KING JOHN. Here once again we sit, once again crown'd,\n    And look'd upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.\n  PEMBROKE. This once again, but that your Highness pleas'd,\n    Was once superfluous: you were crown'd before,\n    And that high royalty was ne'er pluck'd off,\n    The faiths of men ne'er stained with revolt;\n    Fresh expectation troubled not the land\n    With any long'd-for change or better state.\n  SALISBURY. Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp,\n    To guard a title that was rich before,\n    To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,\n    To throw a perfume on the violet,\n    To smooth the ice, or add another hue\n    Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light\n    To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,\n    Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.\n  PEMBROKE. But that your royal pleasure must be done,\n    This act is as an ancient tale new told\n    And, in the last repeating, troublesome,\n    Being urged at a time unseasonable.\n  SALISBURY. In this the antique and well-noted face\n    Of plain old form is much disfigured;\n    And like a shifted wind unto a sail\n    It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about,\n    Startles and frights consideration,\n    Makes sound opinion sick, and truth suspected,\n    For putting on so new a fashion'd robe.\n  PEMBROKE. When workmen strive to do better than well,\n    They do confound their skill in covetousness;\n    And oftentimes excusing of a fault\n    Doth make the fault the worse by th' excuse,\n    As patches set upon a little breach\n    Discredit more in hiding of the fault\n    Than did the fault before it was so patch'd.\n  SALISBURY. To this effect, before you were new-crown'd,\n    We breath'd our counsel; but it pleas'd your Highness\n    To overbear it; and we are all well pleas'd,\n    Since all and every part of what we would\n    Doth make a stand at what your Highness will.\n  KING JOHN. Some reasons of this double coronation\n    I have possess'd you with, and think them strong;\n    And more, more strong, when lesser is my fear,\n    I shall indue you with. Meantime but ask\n    What you would have reform'd that is not well,\n    And well shall you perceive how willingly\n    I will both hear and grant you your requests.\n  PEMBROKE. Then I, as one that am the tongue of these,\n    To sound the purposes of all their hearts,\n    Both for myself and them- but, chief of all,\n    Your safety, for the which myself and them\n    Bend their best studies, heartily request\n    Th' enfranchisement of Arthur, whose restraint\n    Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent\n    To break into this dangerous argument:\n    If what in rest you have in right you hold,\n    Why then your fears-which, as they say, attend\n    The steps of wrong-should move you to mew up\n    Your tender kinsman, and to choke his days\n    With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth\n    The rich advantage of good exercise?\n    That the time's enemies may not have this\n    To grace occasions, let it be our suit\n    That you have bid us ask his liberty;\n    Which for our goods we do no further ask\n    Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,\n    Counts it your weal he have his liberty.\n  KING JOHN. Let it be so. I do commit his youth\n    To your direction.\n\n                     Enter HUBERT\n\n    [Aside]  Hubert, what news with you?\n  PEMBROKE. This is the man should do the bloody deed:\n    He show'd his warrant to a friend of mine;\n    The image of a wicked heinous fault\n    Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his\n    Doth show the mood of a much troubled breast,\n    And I do fearfully believe 'tis done\n    What we so fear'd he had a charge to do.\n  SALISBURY. The colour of the King doth come and go\n    Between his purpose and his conscience,\n    Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set.\n    His passion is so ripe it needs must break.\n  PEMBROKE. And when it breaks, I fear will issue thence\n    The foul corruption of a sweet child's death.\n  KING JOHN. We cannot hold mortality's strong hand.\n    Good lords, although my will to give is living,\n    The suit which you demand is gone and dead:\n    He tells us Arthur is deceas'd to-night.\n  SALISBURY. Indeed, we fear'd his sickness was past cure.\n  PEMBROKE. Indeed, we heard how near his death he was,\n    Before the child himself felt he was sick.\n    This must be answer'd either here or hence.\n  KING JOHN. Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?\n    Think you I bear the shears of destiny?\n    Have I commandment on the pulse of life?\n  SALISBURY. It is apparent foul-play; and 'tis shame\n    That greatness should so grossly offer it.\n    So thrive it in your game! and so, farewell.\n  PEMBROKE. Stay yet, Lord Salisbury, I'll go with thee\n    And find th' inheritance of this poor child,\n    His little kingdom of a forced grave.\n    That blood which ow'd the breadth of all this isle\n    Three foot of it doth hold-bad world the while!\n    This must not be thus borne: this will break out\n    To all our sorrows, and ere long I doubt.            Exeunt\nLORDS\n  KING JOHN. They burn in indignation. I repent.\n    There is no sure foundation set on blood,\n    No certain life achiev'd by others' death.\n\n                 Enter a MESSENGER\n\n    A fearful eye thou hast; where is that blood\n    That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks?\n    So foul a sky clears not without a storm.\n    Pour down thy weather-how goes all in France?\n  MESSENGER. From France to England. Never such a pow'r\n    For any foreign preparation\n    Was levied in the body of a land.\n    The copy of your speed is learn'd by them,\n    For when you should be told they do prepare,\n    The tidings comes that they are all arriv'd.\n  KING JOHN. O, where hath our intelligence been drunk?\n    Where hath it slept? Where is my mother's care,\n    That such an army could be drawn in France,\n    And she not hear of it?\n  MESSENGER. My liege, her ear\n    Is stopp'd with dust: the first of April died\n    Your noble mother; and as I hear, my lord,\n    The Lady Constance in a frenzy died\n    Three days before; but this from rumour's tongue\n    I idly heard-if true or false I know not.\n  KING JOHN. Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion!\n    O, make a league with me, till I have pleas'd\n    My discontented peers! What! mother dead!\n    How wildly then walks my estate in France!\n    Under whose conduct came those pow'rs of France\n    That thou for truth giv'st out are landed here?\n  MESSENGER. Under the Dauphin.\n  KING JOHN. Thou hast made me giddy\n    With these in tidings.\n\n         Enter the BASTARD and PETER OF POMFRET\n\n    Now! What says the world\n    To your proceedings? Do not seek to stuff\n    My head with more ill news, for it is fun.\n  BASTARD. But if you be afear'd to hear the worst,\n    Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head.\n  KING JOHN. Bear with me, cousin, for I was amaz'd\n    Under the tide; but now I breathe again\n    Aloft the flood, and can give audience\n    To any tongue, speak it of what it will.\n  BASTARD. How I have sped among the clergymen\n    The sums I have collected shall express.\n    But as I travell'd hither through the land,\n    I find the people strangely fantasied;\n    Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams.\n    Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear;\n    And here's a prophet that I brought with me\n    From forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found\n    With many hundreds treading on his heels;\n    To whom he sung, in rude harsh-sounding rhymes,\n    That, ere the next Ascension-day at noon,\n    Your Highness should deliver up your crown.\n  KING JOHN. Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so?\n  PETER. Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so.\n  KING JOHN. Hubert, away with him; imprison him;\n    And on that day at noon whereon he says\n    I shall yield up my crown let him be hang'd.\n    Deliver him to safety; and return,\n    For I must use thee.\n                                               Exit HUBERT with\nPETER\n    O my gentle cousin,\n    Hear'st thou the news abroad, who are arriv'd?\n  BASTARD. The French, my lord; men's mouths are full of it;\n    Besides, I met Lord Bigot and Lord Salisbury,\n    With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire,\n    And others more, going to seek the grave\n    Of Arthur, whom they say is kill'd to-night\n    On your suggestion.\n  KING JOHN. Gentle kinsman, go\n    And thrust thyself into their companies.\n    I have a way to will their loves again;\n    Bring them before me.\n  BASTARD. I Will seek them out.\n  KING JOHN. Nay, but make haste; the better foot before.\n    O, let me have no subject enemies\n    When adverse foreigners affright my towns\n    With dreadful pomp of stout invasion!\n    Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels,\n    And fly like thought from them to me again.\n  BASTARD. The spirit of the time shall teach me speed.\n  KING JOHN. Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman.\n                                                         Exit\nBASTARD\n    Go after him; for he perhaps shall need\n    Some messenger betwixt me and the peers;\n    And be thou he.\n  MESSENGER. With all my heart, my liege.\nExit\n  KING JOHN. My mother dead!\n\n                   Re-enter HUBERT\n\n  HUBERT. My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night;\n    Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about\n    The other four in wondrous motion.\n  KING JOHN. Five moons!\n  HUBERT. Old men and beldams in the streets\n    Do prophesy upon it dangerously;\n    Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths;\n    And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,\n    And whisper one another in the ear;\n    And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist,\n    Whilst he that hears makes fearful action\n    With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.\n    I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,\n    The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,\n    With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;\n    Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,\n    Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste\n    Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet,\n    Told of a many thousand warlike French\n    That were embattailed and rank'd in Kent.\n    Another lean unwash'd artificer\n    Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.\n  KING JOHN. Why seek'st thou to possess me with these fears?\n    Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur's death?\n    Thy hand hath murd'red him. I had a mighty cause\n    To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.\n  HUBERT. No had, my lord! Why, did you not provoke me?\n  KING JOHN. It is the curse of kings to be attended\n    By slaves that take their humours for a warrant\n    To break within the bloody house of life,\n    And on the winking of authority\n    To understand a law; to know the meaning\n    Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns\n    More upon humour than advis'd respect.\n  HUBERT. Here is your hand and seal for what I did.\n  KING JOHN. O, when the last account 'twixt heaven and earth\n    Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal\n    Witness against us to damnation!\n    How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds\n    Make deeds ill done! Hadst not thou been by,\n    A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,\n    Quoted and sign'd to do a deed of shame,\n    This murder had not come into my mind;\n    But, taking note of thy abhorr'd aspect,\n    Finding thee fit for bloody villainy,\n    Apt, liable to be employ'd in danger,\n    I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death;\n    And thou, to be endeared to a king,\n    Made it no conscience to destroy a prince.\n  HUBERT. My lord-\n  KING JOHN. Hadst thou but shook thy head or made pause,\n    When I spake darkly what I purposed,\n    Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face,\n    As bid me tell my tale in express words,\n    Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off,\n    And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me.\n    But thou didst understand me by my signs,\n    And didst in signs again parley with sin;\n    Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent,\n    And consequently thy rude hand to act\n    The deed which both our tongues held vile to name.\n    Out of my sight, and never see me more!\n    My nobles leave me; and my state is braved,\n    Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign pow'rs;\n    Nay, in the body of the fleshly land,\n    This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,\n    Hostility and civil tumult reigns\n    Between my conscience and my cousin's death.\n  HUBERT. Arm you against your other enemies,\n    I'll make a peace between your soul and you.\n    Young Arthur is alive. This hand of mine\n    Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,\n    Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.\n    Within this bosom never ent'red yet\n    The dreadful motion of a murderous thought\n    And you have slander'd nature in my form,\n    Which, howsoever rude exteriorly,\n    Is yet the cover of a fairer mind\n    Than to be butcher of an innocent child.\n  KING JOHN. Doth Arthur live? O, haste thee to the peers,\n    Throw this report on their incensed rage\n    And make them tame to their obedience!\n    Forgive the comment that my passion made\n    Upon thy feature; for my rage was blind,\n    And foul imaginary eyes of blood\n    Presented thee more hideous than thou art.\n    O, answer not; but to my closet bring\n    The angry lords with all expedient haste.\n    I conjure thee but slowly; run more fast.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nEngland. Before the castle\n\nEnter ARTHUR, on the walls\n\n  ARTHUR. The wall is high, and yet will I leap down.\n    Good ground, be pitiful and hurt me not!\n    There's few or none do know me; if they did,\n    This ship-boy's semblance hath disguis'd me quite.\n    I am afraid; and yet I'll venture it.\n    If I get down and do not break my limbs,\n    I'll find a thousand shifts to get away.\n    As good to die and go, as die and stay.              [Leaps\ndown]\n    O me! my uncle's spirit is in these stones.\n    Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones!\n    [Dies]\n\n          Enter PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and BIGOT\n\n  SALISBURY. Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmundsbury;\n    It is our safety, and we must embrace\n    This gentle offer of the perilous time.\n  PEMBROKE. Who brought that letter from the Cardinal?\n  SALISBURY. The Count Melun, a noble lord of France,\n    Whose private with me of the Dauphin's love\n    Is much more general than these lines import.\n  BIGOT. To-morrow morning let us meet him then.\n  SALISBURY. Or rather then set forward; for 'twill be\n    Two long days' journey, lords, or ere we meet.\n\n                 Enter the BASTARD\n\n  BASTARD. Once more to-day well met, distemper'd lords!\n    The King by me requests your presence straight.\n  SALISBURY. The King hath dispossess'd himself of us.\n    We will not line his thin bestained cloak\n    With our pure honours, nor attend the foot\n    That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks.\n    Return and tell him so. We know the worst.\n  BASTARD. Whate'er you think, good words, I think, were best.\n  SALISBURY. Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now.\n  BASTARD. But there is little reason in your grief;\n    Therefore 'twere reason you had manners now.\n  PEMBROKE. Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege.\n  BASTARD. 'Tis true-to hurt his master, no man else.\n  SALISBURY. This is the prison. What is he lies here?\n  PEMBROKE. O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!\n    The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.\n  SALISBURY. Murder, as hating what himself hath done,\n    Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.\n  BIGOT. Or, when he doom'd this beauty to a grave,\n    Found it too precious-princely for a grave.\n  SALISBURY. Sir Richard, what think you? Have you beheld,\n    Or have you read or heard, or could you think?\n    Or do you almost think, although you see,\n    That you do see? Could thought, without this object,\n    Form such another? This is the very top,\n    The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest,\n    Of murder's arms; this is the bloodiest shame,\n    The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke,\n    That ever wall-ey'd wrath or staring rage\n    Presented to the tears of soft remorse.\n  PEMBROKE. All murders past do stand excus'd in this;\n    And this, so sole and so unmatchable,\n    Shall give a holiness, a purity,\n    To the yet unbegotten sin of times,\n    And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest,\n    Exampled by this heinous spectacle.\n  BASTARD. It is a damned and a bloody work;\n    The graceless action of a heavy hand,\n    If that it be the work of any hand.\n  SALISBURY. If that it be the work of any hand!\n    We had a kind of light what would ensue.\n    It is the shameful work of Hubert's hand;\n    The practice and the purpose of the King;\n    From whose obedience I forbid my soul\n    Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life,\n    And breathing to his breathless excellence\n    The incense of a vow, a holy vow,\n    Never to taste the pleasures of the world,\n    Never to be infected with delight,\n    Nor conversant with ease and idleness,\n    Till I have set a glory to this hand\n    By giving it the worship of revenge.\n  PEMBROKE. and BIGOT. Our souls religiously confirm thy words.\n\n                     Enter HUBERT\n\n  HUBERT. Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you.\n    Arthur doth live; the King hath sent for you.\n  SALISBURY. O, he is bold, and blushes not at death!\n    Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone!\n  HUBERT. I am no villain.\n  SALISBURY. Must I rob the law?                  [Drawing his\nsword]\n  BASTARD. Your sword is bright, sir; put it up again.\n  SALISBURY. Not till I sheathe it in a murderer's skin.\n  HUBERT. Stand back, Lord Salisbury, stand back, I say;\n    By heaven, I think my sword's as sharp as yours.\n    I would not have you, lord, forget yourself,\n    Nor tempt the danger of my true defence;\n    Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget\n    Your worth, your greatness and nobility.\n  BIGOT. Out, dunghill! Dar'st thou brave a nobleman?\n  HUBERT. Not for my life; but yet I dare defend\n    My innocent life against an emperor.\n  SALISBURY. Thou art a murderer.\n  HUBERT. Do not prove me so.\n    Yet I am none. Whose tongue soe'er speaks false,\n    Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies.\n  PEMBROKE. Cut him to pieces.\n  BASTARD. Keep the peace, I say.\n  SALISBURY. Stand by, or I shall gall you, Faulconbridge.\n  BASTARD. Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury.\n    If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot,\n    Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame,\n    I'll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime;\n    Or I'll so maul you and your toasting-iron\n    That you shall think the devil is come from hell.\n  BIGOT. What wilt thou do, renowned Faulconbridge?\n    Second a villain and a murderer?\n  HUBERT. Lord Bigot, I am none.\n  BIGOT. Who kill'd this prince?\n  HUBERT. 'Tis not an hour since I left him well.\n    I honour'd him, I lov'd him, and will weep\n    My date of life out for his sweet life's loss.\n  SALISBURY. Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,\n    For villainy is not without such rheum;\n    And he, long traded in it, makes it seem\n    Like rivers of remorse and innocency.\n    Away with me, all you whose souls abhor\n    Th' uncleanly savours of a slaughter-house;\n    For I am stifled with this smell of sin.\n  BIGOT. Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there!\n  PEMBROKE. There tell the King he may inquire us out.\n                                                         Exeunt\nLORDS\n  BASTARD. Here's a good world! Knew you of this fair work?\n    Beyond the infinite and boundless reach\n    Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,\n    Art thou damn'd, Hubert.\n  HUBERT. Do but hear me, sir.\n  BASTARD. Ha! I'll tell thee what:\n    Thou'rt damn'd as black-nay, nothing is so black-\n    Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer;\n    There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell\n    As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.\n  HUBERT. Upon my soul-\n  BASTARD. If thou didst but consent\n    To this most cruel act, do but despair;\n    And if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread\n    That ever spider twisted from her womb\n    Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be a beam\n    To hang thee on; or wouldst thou drown thyself,\n    Put but a little water in a spoon\n    And it shall be as all the ocean,\n    Enough to stifle such a villain up\n    I do suspect thee very grievously.\n  HUBERT. If I in act, consent, or sin of thought,\n    Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath\n    Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,\n    Let hell want pains enough to torture me!\n    I left him well.\n  BASTARD. Go, bear him in thine arms.\n    I am amaz'd, methinks, and lose my way\n    Among the thorns and dangers of this world.\n    How easy dost thou take all England up!\n    From forth this morsel of dead royalty\n    The life, the right, and truth of all this realm\n    Is fled to heaven; and England now is left\n    To tug and scamble, and to part by th' teeth\n    The unowed interest of proud-swelling state.\n    Now for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty\n    Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest\n    And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace;\n    Now powers from home and discontents at home\n    Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits,\n    As doth a raven on a sick-fall'n beast,\n    The imminent decay of wrested pomp.\n    Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can\n    Hold out this tempest. Bear away that child,\n    And follow me with speed. I'll to the King;\n    A thousand businesses are brief in hand,\n    And heaven itself doth frown upon the land.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\nEngland. KING JOHN'S palace\n\nEnter KING JOHN, PANDULPH, and attendants\n\n  KING JOHN. Thus have I yielded up into your hand\n    The circle of my glory.\n  PANDULPH.  [Gives back the crown]  Take again\n    From this my hand, as holding of the Pope,\n    Your sovereign greatness and authority.\n  KING JOHN. Now keep your holy word; go meet the French;\n    And from his Holiness use all your power\n    To stop their marches fore we are inflam'd.\n    Our discontented counties do revolt;\n    Our people quarrel with obedience,\n    Swearing allegiance and the love of soul\n    To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.\n    This inundation of mistemp'red humour\n    Rests by you only to be qualified.\n    Then pause not; for the present time's so sick\n    That present med'cine must be minist'red\n    Or overthrow incurable ensues.\n  PANDULPH. It was my breath that blew this tempest up,\n    Upon your stubborn usage of the Pope;\n    But since you are a gentle convertite,\n    My tongue shall hush again this storm of war\n    And make fair weather in your blust'ring land.\n    On this Ascension-day, remember well,\n    Upon your oath of service to the Pope,\n    Go I to make the French lay down their arms.\nExit\n  KING JOHN. Is this Ascension-day? Did not the prophet\n    Say that before Ascension-day at noon\n    My crown I should give off? Even so I have.\n    I did suppose it should be on constraint;\n    But, heaven be thank'd, it is but voluntary.\n\n                 Enter the BASTARD\n\n  BASTARD. All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out\n    But Dover Castle. London hath receiv'd,\n    Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers.\n    Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone\n    To offer service to your enemy;\n    And wild amazement hurries up and down\n    The little number of your doubtful friends.\n  KING JOHN. Would not my lords return to me again\n    After they heard young Arthur was alive?\n    BASTARD. They found him dead, and cast into the streets,\n    An empty casket, where the jewel of life\n    By some damn'd hand was robbed and ta'en away.\n  KING JOHN. That villain Hubert told me he did live.\n  BASTARD. So, on my soul, he did, for aught he knew.\n    But wherefore do you droop? Why look you sad?\n    Be great in act, as you have been in thought;\n    Let not the world see fear and sad distrust\n    Govern the motion of a kingly eye.\n    Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;\n    Threaten the threat'ner, and outface the brow\n    Of bragging horror; so shall inferior eyes,\n    That borrow their behaviours from the great,\n    Grow great by your example and put on\n    The dauntless spirit of resolution.\n    Away, and glister like the god of war\n    When he intendeth to become the field;\n    Show boldness and aspiring confidence.\n    What, shall they seek the lion in his den,\n    And fright him there, and make him tremble there?\n    O, let it not be said! Forage, and run\n    To meet displeasure farther from the doors\n    And grapple with him ere he come so nigh.\n  KING JOHN. The legate of the Pope hath been with me,\n    And I have made a happy peace with him;\n    And he hath promis'd to dismiss the powers\n    Led by the Dauphin.\n  BASTARD. O inglorious league!\n    Shall we, upon the footing of our land,\n    Send fair-play orders, and make compromise,\n    Insinuation, parley, and base truce,\n    To arms invasive? Shall a beardless boy,\n    A cock'red silken wanton, brave our fields\n    And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,\n    Mocking the air with colours idly spread,\n    And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms.\n    Perchance the Cardinal cannot make your peace;\n    Or, if he do, let it at least be said\n    They saw we had a purpose of defence.\n  KING JOHN. Have thou the ordering of this present time.\n  BASTARD. Away, then, with good courage!\n    Yet, I know\n    Our party may well meet a prouder foe.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nEngland. The DAUPHIN'S camp at Saint Edmundsbury\n\nEnter, in arms, LEWIS, SALISBURY, MELUN, PEMBROKE, BIGOT, and\nsoldiers\n\n  LEWIS. My Lord Melun, let this be copied out\n    And keep it safe for our remembrance;\n    Return the precedent to these lords again,\n    That, having our fair order written down,\n    Both they and we, perusing o'er these notes,\n    May know wherefore we took the sacrament,\n    And keep our faiths firm and inviolable.\n  SALISBURY. Upon our sides it never shall be broken.\n    And, noble Dauphin, albeit we swear\n    A voluntary zeal and an unurg'd faith\n    To your proceedings; yet, believe me, Prince,\n    I am not glad that such a sore of time\n    Should seek a plaster by contemn'd revolt,\n    And heal the inveterate canker of one wound\n    By making many. O, it grieves my soul\n    That I must draw this metal from my side\n    To be a widow-maker! O, and there\n    Where honourable rescue and defence\n    Cries out upon the name of Salisbury!\n    But such is the infection of the time\n    That, for the health and physic of our right,\n    We cannot deal but with the very hand\n    Of stern injustice and confused wrong.\n    And is't not pity, O my grieved friends!\n    That we, the sons and children of this isle,\n    Were born to see so sad an hour as this;\n    Wherein we step after a stranger-march\n    Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up\n    Her enemies' ranks-I must withdraw and weep\n    Upon the spot of this enforced cause-\n    To grace the gentry of a land remote\n    And follow unacquainted colours here?\n    What, here? O nation, that thou couldst remove!\n    That Neptune's arms, who clippeth thee about,\n    Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself\n    And grapple thee unto a pagan shore,\n    Where these two Christian armies might combine\n    The blood of malice in a vein of league,\n    And not to spend it so unneighbourly!\n  LEWIS. A noble temper dost thou show in this;\n    And great affections wrestling in thy bosom\n    Doth make an earthquake of nobility.\n    O, what a noble combat hast thou fought\n    Between compulsion and a brave respect!\n    Let me wipe off this honourable dew\n    That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks.\n    My heart hath melted at a lady's tears,\n    Being an ordinary inundation;\n    But this effusion of such manly drops,\n    This show'r, blown up by tempest of the soul,\n    Startles mine eyes and makes me more amaz'd\n    Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven\n    Figur'd quite o'er with burning meteors.\n    Lift up thy brow, renowned Salisbury,\n    And with a great heart heave away this storm;\n    Commend these waters to those baby eyes\n    That never saw the giant world enrag'd,\n    Nor met with fortune other than at feasts,\n    Full of warm blood, of mirth, of gossiping.\n    Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deep\n    Into the purse of rich prosperity\n    As Lewis himself. So, nobles, shall you all,\n    That knit your sinews to the strength of mine.\n\n                Enter PANDULPH\n\n    And even there, methinks, an angel spake:\n    Look where the holy legate comes apace,\n    To give us warrant from the hand of heaven\n    And on our actions set the name of right\n    With holy breath.\n  PANDULPH. Hail, noble prince of France!\n    The next is this: King John hath reconcil'd\n    Himself to Rome; his spirit is come in,\n    That so stood out against the holy Church,\n    The great metropolis and see of Rome.\n    Therefore thy threat'ning colours now wind up\n    And tame the savage spirit of wild war,\n    That, like a lion fostered up at hand,\n    It may lie gently at the foot of peace\n    And be no further harmful than in show.\n  LEWIS. Your Grace shall pardon me, I will not back:\n    I am too high-born to be propertied,\n    To be a secondary at control,\n    Or useful serving-man and instrument\n    To any sovereign state throughout the world.\n    Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars\n    Between this chastis'd kingdom and myself\n    And brought in matter that should feed this fire;\n    And now 'tis far too huge to be blown out\n    With that same weak wind which enkindled it.\n    You taught me how to know the face of right,\n    Acquainted me with interest to this land,\n    Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart;\n    And come ye now to tell me John hath made\n    His peace with Rome? What is that peace to me?\n    I, by the honour of my marriage-bed,\n    After young Arthur, claim this land for mine;\n    And, now it is half-conquer'd, must I back\n    Because that John hath made his peace with Rome?\n    Am I Rome's slave? What penny hath Rome borne,\n    What men provided, what munition sent,\n    To underprop this action? Is 't not I\n    That undergo this charge? Who else but I,\n    And such as to my claim are liable,\n    Sweat in this business and maintain this war?\n    Have I not heard these islanders shout out\n    'Vive le roi!' as I have bank'd their towns?\n    Have I not here the best cards for the game\n    To will this easy match, play'd for a crown?\n    And shall I now give o'er the yielded set?\n    No, no, on my soul, it never shall be said.\n  PANDULPH. You look but on the outside of this work.\n  LEWIS. Outside or inside, I will not return\n    Till my attempt so much be glorified\n    As to my ample hope was promised\n    Before I drew this gallant head of war,\n    And cull'd these fiery spirits from the world\n    To outlook conquest, and to will renown\n    Even in the jaws of danger and of death.\n                                                     [Trumpet\nsounds]\n    What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?\n\n             Enter the BASTARD, attended\n\n  BASTARD. According to the fair play of the world,\n    Let me have audience: I am sent to speak.\n    My holy lord of Milan, from the King\n    I come, to learn how you have dealt for him;\n    And, as you answer, I do know the scope\n    And warrant limited unto my tongue.\n  PANDULPH. The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite,\n    And will not temporize with my entreaties;\n    He flatly says he'll not lay down his arms.\n  BASTARD. By all the blood that ever fury breath'd,\n    The youth says well. Now hear our English King;\n    For thus his royalty doth speak in me.\n    He is prepar'd, and reason too he should.\n    This apish and unmannerly approach,\n    This harness'd masque and unadvised revel\n    This unhair'd sauciness and boyish troops,\n    The King doth smile at; and is well prepar'd\n    To whip this dwarfish war, these pigmy arms,\n    From out the circle of his territories.\n    That hand which had the strength, even at your door.\n    To cudgel you and make you take the hatch,\n    To dive like buckets in concealed wells,\n    To crouch in litter of your stable planks,\n    To lie like pawns lock'd up in chests and trunks,\n    To hug with swine, to seek sweet safety out\n    In vaults and prisons, and to thrill and shake\n    Even at the crying of your nation's crow,\n    Thinking this voice an armed Englishman-\n    Shall that victorious hand be feebled here\n    That in your chambers gave you chastisement?\n    No. Know the gallant monarch is in arms\n    And like an eagle o'er his aery tow'rs\n    To souse annoyance that comes near his nest.\n    And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts,\n    You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb\n    Of your dear mother England, blush for shame;\n    For your own ladies and pale-visag'd maids,\n    Like Amazons, come tripping after drums,\n    Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change,\n    Their needles to lances, and their gentle hearts\n    To fierce and bloody inclination.\n  LEWIS. There end thy brave, and turn thy face in peace;\n    We grant thou canst outscold us. Fare thee well;\n    We hold our time too precious to be spent\n    With such a brabbler.\n  PANDULPH. Give me leave to speak.\n  BASTARD. No, I will speak.\n  LEWIS. We will attend to neither.\n    Strike up the drums; and let the tongue of war,\n    Plead for our interest and our being here.\n  BASTARD. Indeed, your drums, being beaten, will cry out;\n    And so shall you, being beaten. Do but start\n    And echo with the clamour of thy drum,\n    And even at hand a drum is ready brac'd\n    That shall reverberate all as loud as thine:\n    Sound but another, and another shall,\n    As loud as thine, rattle the welkin's ear\n    And mock the deep-mouth'd thunder; for at hand-\n    Not trusting to this halting legate here,\n    Whom he hath us'd rather for sport than need-\n    Is warlike John; and in his forehead sits\n    A bare-ribb'd death, whose office is this day\n    To feast upon whole thousands of the French.\n  LEWIS. Strike up our drums to find this danger out.\n  BASTARD. And thou shalt find it, Dauphin, do not doubt.\n    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\n\nEngland. The field of battle\n\nAlarums. Enter KING JOHN and HUBERT\n\n  KING JOHN. How goes the day with us? O, tell me, Hubert.\n  HUBERT. Badly, I fear. How fares your Majesty?\n  KING JOHN. This fever that hath troubled me so long\n    Lies heavy on me. O, my heart is sick!\n\n                  Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. My lord, your valiant kinsman, Faulconbridge,\n    Desires your Majesty to leave the field\n    And send him word by me which way you go.\n  KING JOHN. Tell him, toward Swinstead, to the abbey there.\n  MESSENGER. Be of good comfort; for the great supply\n    That was expected by the Dauphin here\n    Are wreck'd three nights ago on Goodwin Sands;\n    This news was brought to Richard but even now.\n    The French fight coldly, and retire themselves.\n  KING JOHN. Ay me, this tyrant fever burns me up\n    And will not let me welcome this good news.\n    Set on toward Swinstead; to my litter straight;\n    Weakness possesseth me, and I am faint.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\n\nEngland. Another part of the battlefield\n\nEnter SALISBURY, PEMBROKE, and BIGOT\n\n  SALISBURY. I did not think the King so stor'd with friends.\n  PEMBROKE. Up once again; put spirit in the French;\n    If they miscarry, we miscarry too.\n  SALISBURY. That misbegotten devil, Faulconbridge,\n    In spite of spite, alone upholds the day.\n  PEMBROKE. They say King John, sore sick, hath left the field.\n\n                 Enter MELUN, wounded\n\n  MELUN. Lead me to the revolts of England here.\n  SALISBURY. When we were happy we had other names.\n  PEMBROKE. It is the Count Melun.\n  SALISBURY. Wounded to death.\n  MELUN. Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold;\n    Unthread the rude eye of rebellion,\n    And welcome home again discarded faith.\n    Seek out King John, and fall before his feet;\n    For if the French be lords of this loud day,\n    He means to recompense the pains you take\n    By cutting off your heads. Thus hath he sworn,\n    And I with him, and many moe with me,\n    Upon the altar at Saint Edmundsbury;\n    Even on that altar where we swore to you\n    Dear amity and everlasting love.\n  SALISBURY. May this be possible? May this be true?\n  MELUN. Have I not hideous death within my view,\n    Retaining but a quantity of life,\n    Which bleeds away even as a form of wax\n    Resolveth from his figure 'gainst the fire?\n    What in the world should make me now deceive,\n    Since I must lose the use of all deceit?\n    Why should I then be false, since it is true\n    That I must die here, and live hence by truth?\n    I say again, if Lewis do will the day,\n    He is forsworn if e'er those eyes of yours\n    Behold another day break in the east;\n    But even this night, whose black contagious breath\n    Already smokes about the burning crest\n    Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun,\n    Even this ill night, your breathing shall expire,\n    Paying the fine of rated treachery\n    Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives.\n    If Lewis by your assistance win the day.\n    Commend me to one Hubert, with your King;\n    The love of him-and this respect besides,\n    For that my grandsire was an Englishman-\n    Awakes my conscience to confess all this.\n    In lieu whereof, I pray you, bear me hence\n    From forth the noise and rumour of the field,\n    Where I may think the remnant of my thoughts\n    In peace, and part this body and my soul\n    With contemplation and devout desires.\n  SALISBURY. We do believe thee; and beshrew my soul\n    But I do love the favour and the form\n    Of this most fair occasion, by the which\n    We will untread the steps of damned flight,\n    And like a bated and retired flood,\n    Leaving our rankness and irregular course,\n    Stoop low within those bounds we have o'erlook'd,\n    And calmly run on in obedience\n    Even to our ocean, to great King John.\n    My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence;\n    For I do see the cruel pangs of death\n    Right in thine eye. Away, my friends! New flight,\n    And happy newness, that intends old right.\n                                            Exeunt, leading off\nMELUN\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\n\nEngland. The French camp\n\nEnter LEWIS and his train\n\n  LEWIS. The sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set,\n    But stay'd and made the western welkin blush,\n    When English measure backward their own ground\n    In faint retire. O, bravely came we off,\n    When with a volley of our needless shot,\n    After such bloody toil, we bid good night;\n    And wound our tott'ring colours clearly up,\n    Last in the field and almost lords of it!\n\n                 Enter a MESSENGER\n\n  MESSENGER. Where is my prince, the Dauphin?\n  LEWIS. Here; what news?\n  MESSENGER. The Count Melun is slain; the English lords\n    By his persuasion are again fall'n off,\n    And your supply, which you have wish'd so long,\n    Are cast away and sunk on Goodwin Sands.\n  LEWIS. Ah, foul shrewd news! Beshrew thy very heart!\n    I did not think to be so sad to-night\n    As this hath made me. Who was he that said\n    King John did fly an hour or two before\n    The stumbling night did part our weary pow'rs?\n  MESSENGER. Whoever spoke it, it is true, my lord.\n  LEWIS. keep good quarter and good care to-night;\n    The day shall not be up so soon as I\n    To try the fair adventure of to-morrow.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 6.\n\nAn open place wear Swinstead Abbey\n\nEnter the BASTARD and HUBERT, severally\n\n  HUBERT. Who's there? Speak, ho! speak quickly, or I shoot.\n  BASTARD. A friend. What art thou?\n  HUBERT. Of the part of England.\n  BASTARD. Whither dost thou go?\n  HUBERT. What's that to thee? Why may I not demand\n    Of thine affairs as well as thou of mine?\n  BASTARD. Hubert, I think.\n  HUBERT. Thou hast a perfect thought.\n    I will upon all hazards well believe\n    Thou art my friend that know'st my tongue so well.\n    Who art thou?\n  BASTARD. Who thou wilt. And if thou please,\n    Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think\n    I come one way of the Plantagenets.\n  HUBERT. Unkind remembrance! thou and eyeless night\n    Have done me shame. Brave soldier, pardon me\n    That any accent breaking from thy tongue\n    Should scape the true acquaintance of mine ear.\n  BASTARD. Come, come; sans compliment, what news abroad?\n  HUBERT. Why, here walk I in the black brow of night\n    To find you out.\n  BASTARD. Brief, then; and what's the news?\n  HUBERT. O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night,\n    Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible.\n  BASTARD. Show me the very wound of this ill news;\n    I am no woman, I'll not swoon at it.\n  HUBERT. The King, I fear, is poison'd by a monk;\n    I left him almost speechless and broke out\n    To acquaint you with this evil, that you might\n    The better arm you to the sudden time\n    Than if you had at leisure known of this.\n  BASTARD. How did he take it; who did taste to him?\n  HUBERT. A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain,\n    Whose bowels suddenly burst out. The King\n    Yet speaks, and peradventure may recover.\n  BASTARD. Who didst thou leave to tend his Majesty?\n  HUBERT. Why, know you not? The lords are all come back,\n    And brought Prince Henry in their company;\n    At whose request the King hath pardon'd them,\n    And they are all about his Majesty.\n  BASTARD. Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven,\n    And tempt us not to bear above our power!\n    I'll tell thee, Hubert, half my power this night,\n    Passing these flats, are taken by the tide-\n    These Lincoln Washes have devoured them;\n    Myself, well-mounted, hardly have escap'd.\n    Away, before! conduct me to the King;\n    I doubt he will be dead or ere I come.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 7.\n\nThe orchard at Swinstead Abbey\n\nEnter PRINCE HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGOT\n\n  PRINCE HENRY. It is too late; the life of all his blood\n    Is touch'd corruptibly, and his pure brain.\n    Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house,\n    Doth by the idle comments that it makes\n    Foretell the ending of mortality.\n\n                   Enter PEMBROKE\n\n  PEMBROKE. His Highness yet doth speak, and holds belief\n    That, being brought into the open air,\n    It would allay the burning quality\n    Of that fell poison which assaileth him.\n  PRINCE HENRY. Let him be brought into the orchard here.\n    Doth he still rage?                                    Exit\nBIGOT\n  PEMBROKE. He is more patient\n    Than when you left him; even now he sung.\n  PRINCE HENRY. O vanity of sickness! Fierce extremes\n    In their continuance will not feel themselves.\n    Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts,\n    Leaves them invisible, and his siege is now\n    Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds\n    With many legions of strange fantasies,\n    Which, in their throng and press to that last hold,\n    Confound themselves. 'Tis strange that death should sing.\n    I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan\n    Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,\n    And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings\n    His soul and body to their lasting rest.\n  SALISBURY. Be of good comfort, Prince; for you are born\n    To set a form upon that indigest\n    Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.\n\n       Re-enter BIGOT and attendants, who bring in\n                KING JOHN in a chair\n\n  KING JOHN. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room;\n    It would not out at windows nor at doors.\n    There is so hot a summer in my bosom\n    That all my bowels crumble up to dust.\n    I am a scribbled form drawn with a pen\n    Upon a parchment, and against this fire\n    Do I shrink up.\n  PRINCE HENRY. How fares your Majesty?\n  KING JOHN. Poison'd-ill-fare! Dead, forsook, cast off;\n    And none of you will bid the winter come\n    To thrust his icy fingers in my maw,\n    Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course\n    Through my burn'd bosom, nor entreat the north\n    To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips\n    And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much;\n    I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait\n    And so ingrateful you deny me that.\n  PRINCE HENRY. O that there were some virtue in my tears,\n    That might relieve you!\n  KING JOHN. The salt in them is hot.\n    Within me is a hell; and there the poison\n    Is as a fiend confin'd to tyrannize\n    On unreprievable condemned blood.\n\n                 Enter the BASTARD\n\n  BASTARD. O, I am scalded with my violent motion\n    And spleen of speed to see your Majesty!\n  KING JOHN. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye!\n    The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burnt,\n    And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail\n    Are turned to one thread, one little hair;\n    My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,\n    Which holds but till thy news be uttered;\n    And then all this thou seest is but a clod\n    And module of confounded royalty.\n  BASTARD. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward,\n    Where God He knows how we shall answer him;\n    For in a night the best part of my pow'r,\n    As I upon advantage did remove,\n    Were in the Washes all unwarily\n    Devoured by the unexpected flood.                 [The KING\ndies]\n  SALISBURY. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.\n    My liege! my lord! But now a king-now thus.\n  PRINCE HENRY. Even so must I run on, and even so stop.\n    What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,\n    When this was now a king, and now is clay?\n  BASTARD. Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind\n    To do the office for thee of revenge,\n    And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven,\n    As it on earth hath been thy servant still.\n    Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres,\n    Where be your pow'rs? Show now your mended faiths,\n    And instantly return with me again\n    To push destruction and perpetual shame\n    Out of the weak door of our fainting land.\n    Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought;\n    The Dauphin rages at our very heels.\n  SALISBURY. It seems you know not, then, so much as we:\n    The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,\n    Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin,\n    And brings from him such offers of our peace\n    As we with honour and respect may take,\n    With purpose presently to leave this war.\n  BASTARD. He will the rather do it when he sees\n    Ourselves well sinewed to our defence.\n  SALISBURY. Nay, 'tis in a manner done already;\n    For many carriages he hath dispatch'd\n    To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel\n    To the disposing of the Cardinal;\n    With whom yourself, myself, and other lords,\n    If you think meet, this afternoon will post\n    To consummate this business happily.\n  BASTARD. Let it be so. And you, my noble Prince,\n    With other princes that may best be spar'd,\n    Shall wait upon your father's funeral.\n  PRINCE HENRY. At Worcester must his body be interr'd;\n    For so he will'd it.\n  BASTARD. Thither shall it, then;\n    And happily may your sweet self put on\n    The lineal state and glory of the land!\n    To whom, with all submission, on my knee\n    I do bequeath my faithful services\n    And true subjection everlastingly.\n  SALISBURY. And the like tender of our love we make,\n    To rest without a spot for evermore.\n  PRINCE HENRY. I have a kind soul that would give you thanks,\n    And knows not how to do it but with tears.\n  BASTARD. O, let us pay the time but needful woe,\n    Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.\n    This England never did, nor never shall,\n    Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,\n    But when it first did help to wound itself.\n    Now these her princes are come home again,\n    Come the three corners of the world in arms,\n    And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,\n    If England to itself do rest but true.\nExeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nKing John"}
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{"1111":"\n\n\n\n\n\n1596\n\nKING RICHARD THE SECOND\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  KING RICHARD THE SECOND\n  JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster - uncle to the King\n  EDMUND LANGLEY, Duke of York - uncle to the King\n  HENRY, surnamed BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford, son of\n    John of Gaunt, afterwards King Henry IV\n  DUKE OF AUMERLE, son of the Duke of York\n  THOMAS MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk\n  DUKE OF SURREY\n  EARL OF SALISBURY\n  EARL BERKELEY\n  BUSHY - favourites of King Richard\n  BAGOT -     \"      \"   \"     \"\n  GREEN -     \"      \"   \"     \"\n  EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND\n  HENRY PERCY, surnamed HOTSPUR, his son\n  LORD Ross                             LORD WILLOUGHBY\n  LORD FITZWATER                        BISHOP OF CARLISLE\n  ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER                  LORD MARSHAL\n  SIR STEPHEN SCROOP                    SIR PIERCE OF EXTON\n  CAPTAIN of a band of Welshmen         TWO GARDENERS\n\n  QUEEN to King Richard\n  DUCHESS OF YORK\n  DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER, widow of Thomas of Woodstock,\n    Duke of Gloucester\n  LADY attending on the Queen\n\n  Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Keeper, Messenger,\n    Groom, and other Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nEngland and Wales\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nLondon. The palace\n\nEnter RICHARD, JOHN OF GAUNT, with other NOBLES and attendants\n\n  KING RICHARD. Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,\n    Hast thou, according to thy oath and band,\n    Brought hither Henry Hereford, thy bold son,\n    Here to make good the boist'rous late appeal,\n    Which then our leisure would not let us hear,\n    Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?\n  GAUNT. I have, my liege.\n  KING RICHARD. Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him\n    If he appeal the Duke on ancient malice,\n    Or worthily, as a good subject should,\n    On some known ground of treachery in him?\n  GAUNT. As near as I could sift him on that argument,\n    On some apparent danger seen in him\n    Aim'd at your Highness-no inveterate malice.\n  KING RICHARD. Then call them to our presence: face to face\n    And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear\n    The accuser and the accused freely speak.\n    High-stomach'd are they both and full of ire,\n    In rage, deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.\n\n         Enter BOLINGBROKE and MOWBRAY\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Many years of happy days befall\n    My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!\n  MOWBRAY. Each day still better other's happiness\n    Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap,\n    Add an immortal title to your crown!\n  KING RICHARD. We thank you both; yet one but flatters us,\n    As well appeareth by the cause you come;\n    Namely, to appeal each other of high treason.\n    Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object\n    Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?\n  BOLINGBROKE. First-heaven be the record to my speech!\n    In the devotion of a subject's love,\n    Tend'ring the precious safety of my prince,\n    And free from other misbegotten hate,\n    Come I appellant to this princely presence.\n    Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,\n    And mark my greeting well; for what I speak\n    My body shall make good upon this earth,\n    Or my divine soul answer it in heaven-\n    Thou art a traitor and a miscreant,\n    Too good to be so, and too bad to live,\n    Since the more fair and crystal is the sky,\n    The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.\n    Once more, the more to aggravate the note,\n    With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;\n    And wish-so please my sovereign-ere I move,\n    What my tongue speaks, my right drawn sword may prove.\n  MOWBRAY. Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal.\n    'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,\n    The bitter clamour of two eager tongues,\n    Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain;\n    The blood is hot that must be cool'd for this.\n    Yet can I not of such tame patience boast\n    As to be hush'd and nought at an to say.\n    First, the fair reverence of your Highness curbs me\n    From giving reins and spurs to my free speech;\n    Which else would post until it had return'd\n    These terms of treason doubled down his throat.\n    Setting aside his high blood's royalty,\n    And let him be no kinsman to my liege,\n    I do defy him, and I spit at him,\n    Call him a slanderous coward and a villain;\n    Which to maintain, I would allow him odds\n    And meet him, were I tied to run afoot\n    Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,\n    Or any other ground inhabitable\n    Where ever Englishman durst set his foot.\n    Meantime let this defend my loyalty-\n    By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie\n  BOLINGBROKE. Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,\n    Disclaiming here the kindred of the King;\n    And lay aside my high blood's royalty,\n    Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.\n    If guilty dread have left thee so much strength\n    As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop.\n    By that and all the rites of knighthood else\n    Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,\n    What I have spoke or thou canst worst devise.\n  MOWBRAY. I take it up; and by that sword I swear\n    Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder\n    I'll answer thee in any fair degree\n    Or chivalrous design of knightly trial;\n    And when I mount, alive may I not light\n    If I be traitor or unjustly fight!\n  KING RICHARD. What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?\n    It must be great that can inherit us\n    So much as of a thought of ill in him.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Look what I speak, my life shall prove it true-\n    That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand nobles\n    In name of lendings for your Highness' soldiers,\n    The which he hath detain'd for lewd employments\n    Like a false traitor and injurious villain.\n    Besides, I say and will in battle prove-\n    Or here, or elsewhere to the furthest verge\n    That ever was survey'd by English eye-\n    That all the treasons for these eighteen years\n    Complotted and contrived in this land\n    Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.\n    Further I say, and further will maintain\n    Upon his bad life to make all this good,\n    That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death,\n    Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,\n    And consequently, like a traitor coward,\n    Sluic'd out his innocent soul through streams of blood;\n    Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,\n    Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,\n    To me for justice and rough chastisement;\n    And, by the glorious worth of my descent,\n    This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.\n  KING RICHARD. How high a pitch his resolution soars!\n    Thomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this?\n  MOWBRAY. O, let my sovereign turn away his face\n    And bid his ears a little while be deaf,\n    Till I have told this slander of his blood\n    How God and good men hate so foul a liar.\n  KING RICHARD. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and cars.\n    Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,\n    As he is but my father's brother's son,\n    Now by my sceptre's awe I make a vow,\n    Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood\n    Should nothing privilege him nor partialize\n    The unstooping firmness of my upright soul.\n    He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:\n    Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.\n  MOWBRAY. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,\n    Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.\n    Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais\n    Disburs'd I duly to his Highness' soldiers;\n    The other part reserv'd I by consent,\n    For that my sovereign liege was in my debt\n    Upon remainder of a dear account\n    Since last I went to France to fetch his queen:\n    Now swallow down that lie. For Gloucester's death-\n    I slew him not, but to my own disgrace\n    Neglected my sworn duty in that case.\n    For you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,\n    The honourable father to my foe,\n    Once did I lay an ambush for your life,\n    A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul;\n    But ere I last receiv'd the sacrament\n    I did confess it, and exactly begg'd\n    Your Grace's pardon; and I hope I had it.\n    This is my fault. As for the rest appeal'd,\n    It issues from the rancour of a villain,\n    A recreant and most degenerate traitor;\n    Which in myself I boldly will defend,\n    And interchangeably hurl down my gage\n    Upon this overweening traitor's foot\n    To prove myself a loyal gentleman\n    Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.\n    In haste whereof, most heartily I pray\n    Your Highness to assign our trial day.\n  KING RICHARD. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd by me;\n    Let's purge this choler without letting blood-\n    This we prescribe, though no physician;\n    Deep malice makes too deep incision.\n    Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed:\n    Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.\n    Good uncle, let this end where it begun;\n    We'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.\n  GAUNT. To be a make-peace shall become my age.\n    Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.\n  KING RICHARD. And, Norfolk, throw down his.\n  GAUNT. When, Harry, when?\n    Obedience bids I should not bid again.\n  KING RICHARD. Norfolk, throw down; we bid.\n    There is no boot.\n  MOWBRAY. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot;\n    My life thou shalt command, but not my shame:\n    The one my duty owes; but my fair name,\n    Despite of death, that lives upon my grave\n    To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.\n    I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffl'd here;\n    Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,\n    The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood\n    Which breath'd this poison.\n  KING RICHARD. Rage must be withstood:\n    Give me his gage-lions make leopards tame.\n  MOWBRAY. Yea, but not change his spots. Take but my shame,\n    And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,\n    The purest treasure mortal times afford\n    Is spotless reputation; that away,\n    Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.\n    A jewel in a ten-times barr'd-up chest\n    Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.\n    Mine honour is my life; both grow in one;\n    Take honour from me, and my life is done:\n    Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;\n    In that I live, and for that will I die.\n  KING RICHARD. Cousin, throw up your gage; do you begin.\n  BOLINGBROKE. O, God defend my soul from such deep sin!\n    Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father's sight?\n    Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height\n    Before this outdar'd dastard? Ere my tongue\n    Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong\n    Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear\n    The slavish motive of recanting fear,\n    And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace,\n    Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face.\n                                                      Exit GAUNT\n  KING RICHARD. We were not born to sue, but to command;\n    Which since we cannot do to make you friends,\n    Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,\n    At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day.\n    There shall your swords and lances arbitrate\n    The swelling difference of your settled hate;\n    Since we can not atone you, we shall see\n    Justice design the victor's chivalry.\n    Lord Marshal, command our officers-at-arms\n    Be ready to direct these home alarms.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nLondon. The DUKE OF LANCASTER'S palace\n\nEnter JOHN OF GAUNT with the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER\n\n  GAUNT. Alas, the part I had in Woodstock's blood\n    Doth more solicit me than your exclaims\n    To stir against the butchers of his life!\n    But since correction lieth in those hands\n    Which made the fault that we cannot correct,\n    Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven;\n    Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth,\n    Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.\n  DUCHESS. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?\n    Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?\n    Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,\n    Were as seven vials of his sacred blood,\n    Or seven fair branches springing from one root.\n    Some of those seven are dried by nature's course,\n    Some of those branches by the Destinies cut;\n    But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,\n    One vial full of Edward's sacred blood,\n    One flourishing branch of his most royal root,\n    Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt;\n    Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,\n    By envy's hand and murder's bloody axe.\n    Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! That bed, that womb,\n    That mettle, that self mould, that fashion'd thee,\n    Made him a man; and though thou livest and breathest,\n    Yet art thou slain in him. Thou dost consent\n    In some large measure to thy father's death\n    In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,\n    Who was the model of thy father's life.\n    Call it not patience, Gaunt-it is despair;\n    In suff'ring thus thy brother to be slaught'red,\n    Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life,\n    Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee.\n    That which in mean men we entitle patience\n    Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.\n    What shall I say? To safeguard thine own life\n    The best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.\n  GAUNT. God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,\n    His deputy anointed in His sight,\n    Hath caus'd his death; the which if wrongfully,\n    Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift\n    An angry arm against His minister.\n  DUCHESS. Where then, alas, may I complain myself?\n  GAUNT. To God, the widow's champion and defence.\n  DUCHESS. Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.\n    Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold\n    Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight.\n    O, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,\n    That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!\n    Or, if misfortune miss the first career,\n    Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom\n    That they may break his foaming courser's back\n    And throw the rider headlong in the lists,\n    A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!\n    Farewell, old Gaunt; thy sometimes brother's wife,\n    With her companion, Grief, must end her life.\n  GAUNT. Sister, farewell; I must to Coventry.\n    As much good stay with thee as go with me!\n  DUCHESS. Yet one word more- grief boundeth where it falls,\n    Not with the empty hollowness, but weight.\n    I take my leave before I have begun,\n    For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.\n    Commend me to thy brother, Edmund York.\n    Lo, this is all- nay, yet depart not so;\n    Though this be all, do not so quickly go;\n    I shall remember more. Bid him- ah, what?-\n    With all good speed at Plashy visit me.\n    Alack, and what shall good old York there see\n    But empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls,\n    Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones?\n    And what hear there for welcome but my groans?\n    Therefore commend me; let him not come there\n    To seek out sorrow that dwells every where.\n    Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die;\n    The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\nThe lists at Coventry\n\nEnter the LORD MARSHAL and the DUKE OF AUMERLE\n\n  MARSHAL. My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford arm'd?\n  AUMERLE. Yea, at all points; and longs to enter in.\n  MARSHAL. The Duke of Norfolk, spightfully and bold,\n    Stays but the summons of the appelant's trumpet.\n  AUMERLE. Why then, the champions are prepar'd, and stay\n    For nothing but his Majesty's approach.\n\n     The trumpets sound, and the KING enters with his nobles,\n     GAUNT, BUSHY, BAGOT, GREEN, and others. When they are set,\n     enter MOWBRAY, Duke of Nor folk, in arms, defendant, and\n     a HERALD\n\n  KING RICHARD. Marshal, demand of yonder champion\n    The cause of his arrival here in arms;\n    Ask him his name; and orderly proceed\n    To swear him in the justice of his cause.\n  MARSHAL. In God's name and the King's, say who thou art,\n    And why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms;\n    Against what man thou com'st, and what thy quarrel.\n    Speak truly on thy knighthood and thy oath;\n    As so defend thee heaven and thy valour!\n  MOWBRAY. My name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk;\n    Who hither come engaged by my oath-\n    Which God defend a knight should violate!-\n    Both to defend my loyalty and truth\n    To God, my King, and my succeeding issue,\n    Against the Duke of Hereford that appeals me;\n    And, by the grace of God and this mine arm,\n    To prove him, in defending of myself,\n    A traitor to my God, my King, and me.\n    And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!\n\n   The trumpets sound. Enter BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford,\n            appellant, in armour, and a HERALD\n\n  KING RICHARD. Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms,\n    Both who he is and why he cometh hither\n    Thus plated in habiliments of war;\n    And formally, according to our law,\n    Depose him in the justice of his cause.\n  MARSHAL. What is thy name? and wherefore com'st thou hither\n    Before King Richard in his royal lists?\n    Against whom comest thou? and what's thy quarrel?\n    Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!\n  BOLINGBROKE. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\n    Am I; who ready here do stand in arms\n    To prove, by God's grace and my body's valour,\n    In lists on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,\n    That he is a traitor, foul and dangerous,\n    To God of heaven, King Richard, and to me.\n    And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!\n  MARSHAL. On pain of death, no person be so bold\n    Or daring-hardy as to touch the lists,\n    Except the Marshal and such officers\n    Appointed to direct these fair designs.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Lord Marshal, let me kiss my sovereign's hand,\n    And bow my knee before his Majesty;\n    For Mowbray and myself are like two men\n    That vow a long and weary pilgrimage.\n    Then let us take a ceremonious leave\n    And loving farewell of our several friends.\n  MARSHAL. The appellant in all duty greets your Highness,\n    And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.\n  KING RICHARD. We will descend and fold him in our arms.\n    Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,\n    So be thy fortune in this royal fight!\n    Farewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed,\n    Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.\n  BOLINGBROKE. O, let no noble eye profane a tear\n    For me, if I be gor'd with Mowbray's spear.\n    As confident as is the falcon's flight\n    Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.\n    My loving lord, I take my leave of you;\n    Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;\n    Not sick, although I have to do with death,\n    But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.\n    Lo, as at English feasts, so I regreet\n    The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.\n    O thou, the earthly author of my blood,\n    Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,\n    Doth with a twofold vigour lift me up\n    To reach at victory above my head,\n    Add proof unto mine armour with thy prayers,\n    And with thy blessings steel my lance's point,\n    That it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat\n    And furbish new the name of John o' Gaunt,\n    Even in the lusty haviour of his son.\n  GAUNT. God in thy good cause make thee prosperous!\n    Be swift like lightning in the execution,\n    And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,\n    Fall like amazing thunder on the casque\n    Of thy adverse pernicious enemy.\n    Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant, and live.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Mine innocence and Saint George to thrive!\n  MOWBRAY. However God or fortune cast my lot,\n    There lives or dies, true to King Richard's throne,\n    A loyal, just, and upright gentleman.\n    Never did captive with a freer heart\n    Cast off his chains of bondage, and embrace\n    His golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,\n    More than my dancing soul doth celebrate\n    This feast of battle with mine adversary.\n    Most mighty liege, and my companion peers,\n    Take from my mouth the wish of happy years.\n    As gentle and as jocund as to jest\n    Go I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast.\n  KING RICHARD. Farewell, my lord, securely I espy\n    Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.\n    Order the trial, Marshal, and begin.\n  MARSHAL. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\n    Receive thy lance; and God defend the right!\n  BOLINGBROKE. Strong as a tower in hope, I cry amen.\n  MARSHAL. [To an officer] Go bear this lance to Thomas,\n      Duke of Norfolk.\n  FIRST HERALD. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\n    Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself,\n    On pain to be found false and recreant,\n    To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,\n    A traitor to his God, his King, and him;\n    And dares him to set forward to the fight.\n  SECOND HERALD. Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,\n    On pain to be found false and recreant,\n    Both to defend himself, and to approve\n    Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,\n    To God, his sovereign, and to him disloyal,\n    Courageously and with a free desire\n    Attending but the signal to begin.\n  MARSHAL. Sound trumpets; and set forward, combatants.\n                                           [A charge sounded]\n    Stay, the King hath thrown his warder down.\n  KING RICHARD. Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,\n    And both return back to their chairs again.\n    Withdraw with us; and let the trumpets sound\n    While we return these dukes what we decree.\n\n    A long flourish, while the KING consults his Council\n\n    Draw near,\n    And list what with our council we have done.\n    For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd\n    With that dear blood which it hath fostered;\n    And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect\n    Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' sword;\n    And for we think the eagle-winged pride\n    Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,\n    With rival-hating envy, set on you\n    To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle\n    Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;\n    Which so rous'd up with boist'rous untun'd drums,\n    With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,\n    And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,\n    Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace\n    And make us wade even in our kindred's blood-\n    Therefore we banish you our territories.\n    You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,\n    Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields\n    Shall not regreet our fair dominions,\n    But tread the stranger paths of banishment.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Your will be done. This must my comfort be-\n    That sun that warms you here shall shine on me,\n    And those his golden beams to you here lent\n    Shall point on me and gild my banishment.\n  KING RICHARD. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,\n    Which I with some unwillingness pronounce:\n    The sly slow hours shall not determinate\n    The dateless limit of thy dear exile;\n    The hopeless word of 'never to return'\n    Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.\n  MOWBRAY. A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,\n    And all unlook'd for from your Highness' mouth.\n    A dearer merit, not so deep a maim\n    As to be cast forth in the common air,\n    Have I deserved at your Highness' hands.\n    The language I have learnt these forty years,\n    My native English, now I must forgo;\n    And now my tongue's use is to me no more\n    Than an unstringed viol or a harp;\n    Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up\n    Or, being open, put into his hands\n    That knows no touch to tune the harmony.\n    Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,\n    Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;\n    And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance\n    Is made my gaoler to attend on me.\n    I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,\n    Too far in years to be a pupil now.\n    What is thy sentence, then, but speechless death,\n    Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?\n  KING RICHARD. It boots thee not to be compassionate;\n    After our sentence plaining comes too late.\n  MOWBRAY. Then thus I turn me from my countrv's light,\n    To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.\n  KING RICHARD. Return again, and take an oath with thee.\n    Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;\n    Swear by the duty that you owe to God,\n    Our part therein we banish with yourselves,\n    To keep the oath that we administer:\n    You never shall, so help you truth and God,\n    Embrace each other's love in banishment;\n    Nor never look upon each other's face;\n    Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile\n    This louring tempest of your home-bred hate;\n    Nor never by advised purpose meet\n    To plot, contrive, or complot any ill,\n    'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I swear.\n  MOWBRAY. And I, to keep all this.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy.\n    By this time, had the King permitted us,\n    One of our souls had wand'red in the air,\n    Banish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,\n    As now our flesh is banish'd from this land-\n    Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm;\n    Since thou hast far to go, bear not along\n    The clogging burden of a guilty soul.\n  MOWBRAY. No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor,\n    My name be blotted from the book of life,\n    And I from heaven banish'd as from hence!\n    But what thou art, God, thou, and I, do know;\n    And all too soon, I fear, the King shall rue.\n    Farewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray:\n    Save back to England, an the world's my way.            Exit\n  KING RICHARD. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes\n    I see thy grieved heart. Thy sad aspect\n    Hath from the number of his banish'd years\n    Pluck'd four away. [To BOLINGBROKE] Six frozen winters spent,\n    Return with welcome home from banishment.\n  BOLINGBROKE. How long a time lies in one little word!\n    Four lagging winters and four wanton springs\n    End in a word: such is the breath of Kings.\n  GAUNT. I thank my liege that in regard of me\n    He shortens four years of my son's exile;\n    But little vantage shall I reap thereby,\n    For ere the six years that he hath to spend\n    Can change their moons and bring their times about,\n    My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light\n    Shall be extinct with age and endless night;\n    My inch of taper will be burnt and done,\n    And blindfold death not let me see my son.\n  KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.\n  GAUNT. But not a minute, King, that thou canst give:\n    Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow\n    And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow;\n    Thou can'st help time to furrow me with age,\n    But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;\n    Thy word is current with him for my death,\n    But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.\n  KING RICHARD. Thy son is banish'd upon good advice,\n    Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave.\n    Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lour?\n  GAUNT. Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.\n    You urg'd me as a judge; but I had rather\n    You would have bid me argue like a father.\n    O, had it been a stranger, not my child,\n    To smooth his fault I should have been more mild.\n    A partial slander sought I to avoid,\n    And in the sentence my own life destroy'd.\n    Alas, I look'd when some of you should say\n    I was too strict to make mine own away;\n    But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue\n    Against my will to do myself this wrong.\n  KING RICHARD. Cousin, farewell; and, uncle, bid him so.\n    Six years we banish him, and he shall go.\n                                  Flourish. Exit KING with train\n  AUMERLE. Cousin, farewell; what presence must not know,\n    From where you do remain let paper show.\n  MARSHAL. My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride\n    As far as land will let me by your side.\n  GAUNT. O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,\n    That thou returnest no greeting to thy friends?\n  BOLINGBROKE. I have too few to take my leave of you,\n    When the tongue's office should be prodigal\n    To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.\n  GAUNT. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Joy absent, grief is present for that time.\n  GAUNT. What is six winters? They are quickly gone.\n  BOLINGBROKE. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.\n  GAUNT. Call it a travel that thou tak'st for pleasure.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,\n    Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.\n  GAUNT. The sullen passage of thy weary steps\n    Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set\n    The precious jewel of thy home return.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make\n    Will but remember me what a deal of world\n    I wander from the jewels that I love.\n    Must I not serve a long apprenticehood\n    To foreign passages; and in the end,\n    Having my freedom, boast of nothing else\n    But that I was a journeyman to grief?\n  GAUNT. All places that the eye of heaven visits\n    Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.\n    Teach thy necessity to reason thus:\n    There is no virtue like necessity.\n    Think not the King did banish thee,\n    But thou the King. Woe doth the heavier sit\n    Where it perceives it is but faintly home.\n    Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,\n    And not the King exil'd thee; or suppose\n    Devouring pestilence hangs in our air\n    And thou art flying to a fresher clime.\n    Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it\n    To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou com'st.\n    Suppose the singing birds musicians,\n    The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,\n    The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more\n    Than a delightful measure or a dance;\n    For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite\n    The man that mocks at it and sets it light.\n  BOLINGBROKE. O, who can hold a fire in his hand\n    By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?\n    Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite\n    By bare imagination of a feast?\n    Or wallow naked in December snow\n    By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?\n    O, no! the apprehension of the good\n    Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.\n    Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more\n    Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.\n  GAUNT. Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way.\n    Had I thy youtli and cause, I would not stay.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil,\nadieu;\n    My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!\n    Where'er I wander, boast of this I can:\n    Though banish'd, yet a trueborn English man.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\nLondon. The court\n\nEnter the KING, with BAGOT and GREEN, at one door;\nand the DUKE OF AUMERLE at another\n\n  KING RICHARD. We did observe. Cousin Aumerle,\n    How far brought you high Hereford on his way?\n  AUMERLE. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,\n    But to the next high way, and there I left him.\n  KING RICHARD. And say, what store of parting tears were shed?\n  AUMERLE. Faith, none for me; except the north-east wind,\n    Which then blew bitterly against our faces,\n    Awak'd the sleeping rheum, and so by chance\n    Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.\n  KING RICHARD. What said our cousin when you parted with him?\n  AUMERLE. 'Farewell.'\n    And, for my heart disdained that my tongue\n    Should so profane the word, that taught me craft\n    To counterfeit oppression of such grief\n    That words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.\n    Marry, would the word 'farewell' have length'ned hours\n    And added years to his short banishment,\n    He should have had a volume of farewells;\n    But since it would not, he had none of me.\n  KING RICHARD. He is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt,\n    When time shall call him home from banishment,\n    Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.\n    Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green,\n    Observ'd his courtship to the common people;\n    How he did seem to dive into their hearts\n    With humble and familiar courtesy;\n    What reverence he did throw away on slaves,\n    Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles\n    And patient underbearing of his fortune,\n    As 'twere to banish their affects with him.\n    Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;\n    A brace of draymen bid God speed him well\n    And had the tribute of his supple knee,\n    With 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends';\n    As were our England in reversion his,\n    And he our subjects' next degree in hope.\n  GREEN. Well, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts!\n    Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,\n    Expedient manage must be made, my liege,\n    Ere further leisure yicld them further means\n    For their advantage and your Highness' loss.\n  KING RICHARD. We will ourself in person to this war;\n    And, for our coffers, with too great a court\n    And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,\n    We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm;\n    The revenue whereof shall furnish us\n    For our affairs in hand. If that come short,\n    Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters;\n    Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,\n    They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold,\n    And send them after to supply our wants;\n    For we will make for Ireland presently.\n\n                     Enter BUSHY\n\n    Bushy, what news?\n  BUSHY. Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,\n    Suddenly taken; and hath sent poste-haste\n    To entreat your Majesty to visit him.\n  KING RICHARD. Where lies he?\n  BUSHY. At Ely House.\n  KING RICHARD. Now put it, God, in the physician's mind\n    To help him to his grave immediately!\n    The lining of his coffers shall make coats\n    To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.\n    Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him.\n    Pray God we may make haste, and come too late!\n  ALL. Amen.                                              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nLondon. Ely House\n\nEnter JOHN OF GAUNT, sick, with the DUKE OF YORK, etc.\n\n  GAUNT. Will the King come, that I may breathe my last\n    In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?\n  YORK. Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;\n    For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.\n  GAUNT. O, but they say the tongues of dying men\n    Enforce attention like deep harmony.\n    Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain;\n    For they breathe truth that breathe their words -in pain.\n    He that no more must say is listen'd more\n    Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;\n    More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before.\n    The setting sun, and music at the close,\n    As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,\n    Writ in remembrance more than things long past.\n    Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,\n    My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.\n  YORK. No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,\n    As praises, of whose taste the wise are fond,\n    Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound\n    The open ear of youth doth always listen;\n    Report of fashions in proud Italy,\n    Whose manners still our tardy apish nation\n    Limps after in base imitation.\n    Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity-\n    So it be new, there's no respect how vile-\n    That is not quickly buzz'd into his ears?\n    Then all too late comes counsel to be heard\n    Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.\n    Direct not him whose way himself will choose.\n    'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.\n  GAUNT. Methinks I am a prophet new inspir'd,\n    And thus expiring do foretell of him:\n    His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,\n    For violent fires soon burn out themselves;\n    Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;\n    He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;\n    With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder;\n    Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,\n    Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.\n    This royal throne of kings, this scept'red isle,\n    This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,\n    This other Eden, demi-paradise,\n    This fortress built by Nature for herself\n    Against infection and the hand of war,\n    This happy breed of men, this little world,\n    This precious stone set in the silver sea,\n    Which serves it in the office of a wall,\n    Or as a moat defensive to a house,\n    Against the envy of less happier lands;\n    This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,\n    This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,\n    Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth,\n    Renowned for their deeds as far from home,\n    For Christian service and true chivalry,\n    As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry\n    Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son;\n    This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,\n    Dear for her reputation through the world,\n    Is now leas'd out-I die pronouncing it-\n    Like to a tenement or pelting farm.\n    England, bound in with the triumphant sea,\n    Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege\n    Of wat'ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame,\n    With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds;\n    That England, that was wont to conquer others,\n    Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.\n    Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,\n    How happy then were my ensuing death!\n\n    Enter KING and QUEEN, AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT,\n                Ross, and WILLOUGHBY\n\n  YORK. The King is come; deal mildly with his youth,\n    For young hot colts being rag'd do rage the more.\n  QUEEN. How fares our noble uncle Lancaster?\n  KING RICHARD. What comfort, man? How is't with aged Gaunt?\n  GAUNT. O, how that name befits my composition!\n    Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old.\n    Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast;\n    And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?\n    For sleeping England long time have I watch'd;\n    Watching breeds leanness, leanness is an gaunt.\n    The pleasure that some fathers feed upon\n    Is my strict fast-I mean my children's looks;\n    And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt.\n    Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,\n    Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.\n  KING RICHARD. Can sick men play so nicely with their names?\n  GAUNT. No, misery makes sport to mock itself:\n    Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,\n    I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.\n  KING RICHARD. Should dying men flatter with those that live?\n  GAUNT. No, no; men living flatter those that die.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou, now a-dying, sayest thou flatterest me.\n  GAUNT. O, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.\n  KING RICHARD. I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.\n  GAUNT. Now He that made me knows I see thee ill;\n    Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.\n    Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land\n    Wherein thou liest in reputation sick;\n    And thou, too careless patient as thou art,\n    Commit'st thy anointed body to the cure\n    Of those physicians that first wounded thee:\n    A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,\n    Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;\n    And yet, incaged in so small a verge,\n    The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.\n    O, had thy grandsire with a prophet's eye\n    Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons,\n    From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,\n    Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd,\n    Which art possess'd now to depose thyself.\n    Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,\n    It were a shame to let this land by lease;\n    But for thy world enjoying but this land,\n    Is it not more than shame to shame it so?\n    Landlord of England art thou now, not King.\n    Thy state of law is bondslave to the law;\n    And thou-\n  KING RICHARD. A lunatic lean-witted fool,\n    Presuming on an ague's privilege,\n    Darest with thy frozen admonition\n    Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood\n    With fury from his native residence.\n    Now by my seat's right royal majesty,\n    Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son,\n    This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head\n    Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.\n  GAUNT. O, Spare me not, my brother Edward's son,\n    For that I was his father Edward's son;\n    That blood already, like the pelican,\n    Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd.\n    My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul-\n    Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls!-\n    May be a precedent and witness good\n    That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood.\n    Join with the present sickness that I have;\n    And thy unkindness be like crooked age,\n    To crop at once a too long withered flower.\n    Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!\n    These words hereafter thy tormentors be!\n    Convey me to my bed, then to my grave.\n    Love they to live that love and honour have.\n                               Exit, borne out by his attendants\n  KING RICHARD. And let them die that age and sullens have;\n    For both hast thou, and both become the grave.\n  YORK. I do beseech your Majesty impute his words\n    To wayward sickliness and age in him.\n    He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear\n    As Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.\n  KING RICHARD. Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;\n    As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.\n\n                Enter NORTHUMBERLAND\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your\nMajesty.\n  KING RICHARD. What says he?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Nay, nothing; all is said.\n    His tongue is now a stringless instrument;\n    Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.\n  YORK. Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!\n    Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.\n  KING RICHARD. The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he;\n    His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.\n    So much for that. Now for our Irish wars.\n    We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,\n    Which live like venom where no venom else\n    But only they have privilege to live.\n    And for these great affairs do ask some charge,\n    Towards our assistance we do seize to us\n    The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,\n    Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.\n  YORK. How long shall I be patient? Ah, how long\n    Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?\n    Not Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment,\n    Nor Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,\n    Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke\n    About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,\n    Have ever made me sour my patient cheek\n    Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.\n    I am the last of noble Edward's sons,\n    Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first.\n    In war was never lion rag'd more fierce,\n    In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,\n    Than was that young and princely gentleman.\n    His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,\n    Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;\n    But when he frown'd, it was against the French\n    And not against his friends. His noble hand\n    Did win what he did spend, and spent not that\n    Which his triumphant father's hand had won.\n    His hands were guilty of no kindred blood,\n    But bloody with the enemies of his kin.\n    O Richard! York is too far gone with grief,\n    Or else he never would compare between-\n  KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, what's the matter?\n  YORK. O my liege,\n    Pardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleas'd\n    Not to be pardoned, am content withal.\n    Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands\n    The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?\n    Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not Hereford live?\n    Was not Gaunt just? and is not Harry true?\n    Did not the one deserve to have an heir?\n    Is not his heir a well-deserving son?\n    Take Hereford's rights away, and take from Time\n    His charters and his customary rights;\n    Let not to-morrow then ensue to-day;\n    Be not thyself-for how art thou a king\n    But by fair sequence and succession?\n    Now, afore God-God forbid I say true!-\n    If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,\n    Call in the letters patents that he hath\n    By his attorneys-general to sue\n    His livery, and deny his off'red homage,\n    You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,\n    You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts,\n    And prick my tender patience to those thoughts\n    Which honour and allegiance cannot think.\n  KING RICHARD. Think what you will, we seize into our hands\n    His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.\n  YORK. I'll not be by the while. My liege, farewell.\n    What will ensue hereof there's none can tell;\n    But by bad courses may be understood\n    That their events can never fall out good.              Exit\n  KING RICHARD. Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight;\n    Bid him repair to us to Ely House\n    To see this business. To-morrow next\n    We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow.\n    And we create, in absence of ourself,\n    Our Uncle York Lord Governor of England;\n    For he is just, and always lov'd us well.\n    Come on, our queen; to-morrow must we part;\n    Be merry, for our time of stay is short.\n                   Flourish. Exeunt KING, QUEEN, BUSHY, AUMERLE,\n                                                GREEN, and BAGOT\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.\n    Ross. And living too; for now his son is Duke.\n  WILLOUGHBY. Barely in title, not in revenues.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Richly in both, if justice had her right.\n  ROSS. My heart is great; but it must break with silence,\n    Ere't be disburdened with a liberal tongue.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Nay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak\nmore\n    That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!\n  WILLOUGHBY. Tends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of\nHereford?\n    If it be so, out with it boldly, man;\n    Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.\n  ROSS. No good at all that I can do for him;\n    Unless you call it good to pity him,\n    Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Now, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are\nborne\n    In him, a royal prince, and many moe\n    Of noble blood in this declining land.\n    The King is not himself, but basely led\n    By flatterers; and what they will inform,\n    Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us an,\n    That will the King severely prosecute\n    'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.\n  ROSS. The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes;\n    And quite lost their hearts; the nobles hath he find\n    For ancient quarrels and quite lost their hearts.\n  WILLOUGHBY. And daily new exactions are devis'd,\n    As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what;\n    But what, a God's name, doth become of this?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Wars hath not wasted it, for warr'd he hath\nnot,\n    But basely yielded upon compromise\n    That which his noble ancestors achiev'd with blows.\n    More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.\n  ROSS. The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.\n  WILLOUGHBY. The King's grown bankrupt like a broken man.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him.\n  ROSS. He hath not money for these Irish wars,\n    His burdenous taxations notwithstanding,\n    But by the robbing of the banish'd Duke.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. His noble kinsman-most degenerate king!\n    But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,\n    Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm;\n    We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,\n    And yet we strike not, but securely perish.\n  ROSS. We see the very wreck that we must suffer;\n    And unavoided is the danger now\n    For suffering so the causes of our wreck.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Not so; even through the hollow eyes of death\n    I spy life peering; but I dare not say\n    How near the tidings of our comfort is.\n  WILLOUGHBY. Nay, let us share thy thoughts as thou dost ours.\n  ROSS. Be confident to speak, Northumberland.\n    We three are but thyself, and, speaking so,\n    Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore be bold.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Then thus: I have from Le Port Blanc, a bay\n    In Brittany, receiv'd intelligence\n    That Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham,\n    That late broke from the Duke of Exeter,\n    His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,\n    Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,\n    Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton, and Francis Quoint-\n    All these, well furnish'd by the Duke of Britaine,\n    With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,\n    Are making hither with all due expedience,\n    And shortly mean to touch our northern shore.\n    Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay\n    The first departing of the King for Ireland.\n    If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,\n    Imp out our drooping country's broken wing,\n    Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,\n    Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt,\n    And make high majesty look like itself,\n    Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh;\n    But if you faint, as fearing to do so,\n    Stay and be secret, and myself will go.\n  ROSS. To horse, to horse! Urge doubts to them that fear.\n  WILLOUGHBY. Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nWindsor Castle\n\nEnter QUEEN, BUSHY, and BAGOT\n\n  BUSHY. Madam, your Majesty is too much sad.\n    You promis'd, when you parted with the King,\n    To lay aside life-harming heaviness\n    And entertain a cheerful disposition.\n  QUEEN. To please the King, I did; to please myself\n    I cannot do it; yet I know no cause\n    Why I should welcome such a guest as grief,\n    Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest\n    As my sweet Richard. Yet again methinks\n    Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb,\n    Is coming towards me, and my inward soul\n    With nothing trembles. At some thing it grieves\n    More than with parting from my lord the King.\n  BUSHY. Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,\n    Which shows like grief itself, but is not so;\n    For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,\n    Divides one thing entire to many objects,\n    Like perspectives which, rightly gaz'd upon,\n    Show nothing but confusion-ey'd awry,\n    Distinguish form. So your sweet Majesty,\n    Looking awry upon your lord's departure,\n    Find shapes of grief more than himself to wail;\n    Which, look'd on as it is, is nought but shadows\n    Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious Queen,\n    More than your lord's departure weep not-more is not seen;\n    Or if it be, 'tis with false sorrow's eye,\n    Which for things true weeps things imaginary.\n  QUEEN. It may be so; but yet my inward soul\n    Persuades me it is otherwise. Howe'er it be,\n    I cannot but be sad; so heavy sad\n    As-though, on thinking, on no thought I think-\n    Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.\n  BUSHY. 'Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.\n  QUEEN. 'Tis nothing less: conceit is still deriv'd\n    From some forefather grief; mine is not so,\n    For nothing hath begot my something grief,\n    Or something hath the nothing that I grieve;\n    'Tis in reversion that I do possess-\n    But what it is that is not yet known what,\n    I cannot name; 'tis nameless woe, I wot.\n\n                   Enter GREEN\n\n  GREEN. God save your Majesty! and well met, gentlemen.\n    I hope the King is not yet shipp'd for Ireland.\n  QUEEN. Why hopest thou so? 'Tis better hope he is;\n    For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope.\n    Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipp'd?\n  GREEN. That he, our hope, might have retir'd his power\n    And driven into despair an enemy's hope\n    Who strongly hath set footing in this land.\n    The banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself,\n    And with uplifted arms is safe arriv'd\n    At Ravenspurgh.\n  QUEEN. Now God in heaven forbid!\n  GREEN. Ah, madam, 'tis too true; and that is worse,\n    The Lord Northumberland, his son young Henry Percy,\n    The Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby,\n    With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.\n  BUSHY. Why have you not proclaim'd Northumberland\n    And all the rest revolted faction traitors?\n  GREEN. We have; whereupon the Earl of Worcester\n    Hath broken his staff, resign'd his stewardship,\n    And all the household servants fled with him\n    To Bolingbroke.\n  QUEEN. So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe,\n    And Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir.\n    Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy;\n    And I, a gasping new-deliver'd mother,\n    Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join'd.\n  BUSHY. Despair not, madam.\n  QUEEN. Who shall hinder me?\n    I will despair, and be at enmity\n    With cozening hope-he is a flatterer,\n    A parasite, a keeper-back of death,\n    Who gently would dissolve the bands of life,\n    Which false hope lingers in extremity.\n\n                    Enter YORK\n\n  GREEN. Here comes the Duke of York.\n  QUEEN. With signs of war about his aged neck.\n    O, full of careful business are his looks!\n    Uncle, for God's sake, speak comfortable words.\n  YORK. Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts.\n    Comfort's in heaven; and we are on the earth,\n    Where nothing lives but crosses, cares, and grief.\n    Your husband, he is gone to save far off,\n    Whilst others come to make him lose at home.\n    Here am I left to underprop his land,\n    Who, weak with age, cannot support myself.\n    Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made;\n    Now shall he try his friends that flatter'd him.\n\n                   Enter a SERVINGMAN\n\n  SERVINGMAN. My lord, your son was gone before I came.\n  YORK. He was-why so go all which way it will!\n    The nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold\n    And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford's side.\n    Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester;\n    Bid her send me presently a thousand pound.\n    Hold, take my ring.\n  SERVINGMAN. My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship,\n    To-day, as I came by, I called there-\n    But I shall grieve you to report the rest.\n  YORK. What is't, knave?\n  SERVINGMAN. An hour before I came, the Duchess died.\n  YORK. God for his mercy! what a tide of woes\n    Comes rushing on this woeful land at once!\n    I know not what to do. I would to God,\n    So my untruth had not provok'd him to it,\n    The King had cut off my head with my brother's.\n    What, are there no posts dispatch'd for Ireland?\n    How shall we do for money for these wars?\n    Come, sister-cousin, I would say-pray, pardon me.\n    Go, fellow, get thee home, provide some carts,\n    And bring away the armour that is there.\n                                                 Exit SERVINGMAN\n    Gentlemen, will you go muster men?\n    If I know how or which way to order these affairs\n    Thus disorderly thrust into my hands,\n    Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen.\n    T'one is my sovereign, whom both my oath\n    And duty bids defend; t'other again\n    Is my kinsman, whom the King hath wrong'd,\n    Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right.\n    Well, somewhat we must do.-Come, cousin,\n    I'll dispose of you. Gentlemen, go muster up your men\n    And meet me presently at Berkeley.\n    I should to Plashy too,\n    But time will not permit. All is uneven,\n    And everything is left at six and seven.\n                                           Exeunt YORK and QUEEN\n  BUSHY. The wind sits fair for news to go to Ireland.\n    But none returns. For us to levy power\n    Proportionable to the enemy\n    Is all unpossible.\n  GREEN. Besides, our nearness to the King in love\n    Is near the hate of those love not the King.\n  BAGOT. And that is the wavering commons; for their love\n    Lies in their purses; and whoso empties them,\n    By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.\n  BUSHY. Wherein the King stands generally condemn'd.\n  BAGOT. If judgment lie in them, then so do we,\n    Because we ever have been near the King.\n  GREEN. Well, I will for refuge straight to Bristow Castle.\n    The Earl of Wiltshire is already there.\n  BUSHY. Thither will I with you; for little office\n    Will the hateful commons perform for us,\n    Except Eke curs to tear us all to pieces.\n    Will you go along with us?\n  BAGOT. No; I will to Ireland to his Majesty.\n    Farewell. If heart's presages be not vain,\n    We three here part that ne'er shall meet again.\n  BUSHY. That's as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke.\n  GREEN. Alas, poor Duke! the task he undertakes\n    Is numb'ring sands and drinking oceans dry.\n    Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly.\n    Farewell at once-for once, for all, and ever.\n  BUSHY. Well, we may meet again.\n  BAGOT. I fear me, never.                                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\nGloucestershire\n\nEnter BOLINGBROKE and NORTHUMBERLAND, forces\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. How far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Believe me, noble lord,\n    I am a stranger here in Gloucestershire.\n    These high wild hills and rough uneven ways\n    Draws out our miles, and makes them wearisome;\n    And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,\n    Making the hard way sweet and delectable.\n    But I bethink me what a weary way\n    From Ravenspurgh to Cotswold will be found\n    In Ross and Willoughby, wanting your company,\n    Which, I protest, hath very much beguil'd\n    The tediousness and process of my travel.\n    But theirs is sweet'ned with the hope to have\n    The present benefit which I possess;\n    And hope to joy is little less in joy\n    Than hope enjoy'd. By this the weary lords\n    Shall make their way seem short, as mine hath done\n    By sight of what I have, your noble company.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Of much less value is my company\n    Than your good words. But who comes here?\n\n                 Enter HARRY PERCY\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. It is my son, young Harry Percy,\n    Sent from my brother Worcester, whencesoever.\n    Harry, how fares your uncle?\n  PERCY. I had thought, my lord, to have learn'd his health of\nyou.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Why, is he not with the Queen?\n  PERCY. No, my good lord; he hath forsook the court,\n    Broken his staff of office, and dispers'd\n    The household of the King.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. What was his reason?\n    He was not so resolv'd when last we spake together.\n  PERCY. Because your lordship was proclaimed traitor.\n    But he, my lord, is gone to Ravenspurgh,\n    To offer service to the Duke of Hereford;\n    And sent me over by Berkeley, to discover\n    What power the Duke of York had levied there;\n    Then with directions to repair to Ravenspurgh.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Have you forgot the Duke of Hereford, boy?\n  PERCY. No, my good lord; for that is not forgot\n    Which ne'er I did remember; to my knowledge,\n    I never in my life did look on him.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Then learn to know him now; this is the Duke.\n  PERCY. My gracious lord, I tender you my service,\n    Such as it is, being tender, raw, and young;\n    Which elder days shall ripen, and confirm\n    To more approved service and desert.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I thank thee, gentle Percy; and be sure\n    I count myself in nothing else so happy\n    As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends;\n    And as my fortune ripens with thy love,\n    It shall be still thy true love's recompense.\n    My heart this covenant makes, my hand thus seals it.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. How far is it to Berkeley? And what stir\n    Keeps good old York there with his men of war?\n  PERCY. There stands the castle, by yon tuft of trees,\n    Mann'd with three hundred men, as I have heard;\n    And in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour-\n    None else of name and noble estimate.\n\n                  Enter Ross and WILLOUGHBY\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Here come the Lords of Ross and Willoughby,\n    Bloody with spurring, fiery-red with haste.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Welcome, my lords. I wot your love pursues\n    A banish'd traitor. All my treasury\n    Is yet but unfelt thanks, which, more enrich'd,\n    Shall be your love and labour's recompense.\n  ROSS. Your presence makes us rich, most noble lord.\n  WILLOUGHBY. And far surmounts our labour to attain it.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor;\n    Which, till my infant fortune comes to years,\n    Stands for my bounty. But who comes here?\n\n                     Enter BERKELEY\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. It is my Lord of Berkeley, as I guess.\n  BERKELEY. My Lord of Hereford, my message is to you.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My lord, my answer is-'to Lancaster';\n    And I am come to seek that name in England;\n    And I must find that title in your tongue\n    Before I make reply to aught you say.\n  BERKELEY. Mistake me not, my lord; 'tis not my meaning\n    To raze one title of your honour out.\n    To you, my lord, I come-what lord you will-\n    From the most gracious regent of this land,\n    The Duke of York, to know what pricks you on\n    To take advantage of the absent time,\n    And fright our native peace with self-borne arms.\n\n                 Enter YORK, attended\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. I shall not need transport my words by you;\n    Here comes his Grace in person. My noble uncle!\n                                                     [Kneels]\n  YORK. Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee,\n    Whose duty is deceivable and false.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My gracious uncle!-\n  YORK. Tut, tut!\n    Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.\n    I am no traitor's uncle; and that word 'grace'\n    In an ungracious mouth is but profane.\n    Why have those banish'd and forbidden legs\n    Dar'd once to touch a dust of England's ground?\n    But then more 'why?'-why have they dar'd to march\n    So many miles upon her peaceful bosom,\n    Frighting her pale-fac'd villages with war\n    And ostentation of despised arms?\n    Com'st thou because the anointed King is hence?\n    Why, foolish boy, the King is left behind,\n    And in my loyal bosom lies his power.\n    Were I but now lord of such hot youth\n    As when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself\n    Rescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men,\n    From forth the ranks of many thousand French,\n    O, then how quickly should this arm of mine,\n    Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise the\n    And minister correction to thy fault!\n  BOLINGBROKE My gracious uncle, let me know my fault;\n    On what condition stands it and wherein?\n  YORK. Even in condition of the worst degree-\n    In gross rebellion and detested treason.\n    Thou art a banish'd man, and here art come\n    Before the expiration of thy time,\n    In braving arms against thy sovereign.\n  BOLINGBROKE. As I was banish'd, I was banish'd Hereford;\n    But as I come, I come for Lancaster.\n    And, noble uncle, I beseech your Grace\n    Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye.\n    You are my father, for methinks in you\n    I see old Gaunt alive. O, then, my father,\n    Will you permit that I shall stand condemn'd\n    A wandering vagabond; my rights and royalties\n    Pluck'd from my arms perforce, and given away\n    To upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?\n    If that my cousin king be King in England,\n    It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.\n    You have a son, Aumerle, my noble cousin;\n    Had you first died, and he been thus trod down,\n    He should have found his uncle Gaunt a father\n    To rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.\n    I am denied to sue my livery here,\n    And yet my letters patents give me leave.\n    My father's goods are all distrain'd and sold;\n    And these and all are all amiss employ'd.\n    What would you have me do? I am a subject,\n    And I challenge law-attorneys are denied me;\n    And therefore personally I lay my claim\n    To my inheritance of free descent.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The noble Duke hath been too much abused.\n  ROSS. It stands your Grace upon to do him right.\n  WILLOUGHBY. Base men by his endowments are made great.\n  YORK. My lords of England, let me tell you this:\n    I have had feeling of my cousin's wrongs,\n    And labour'd all I could to do him right;\n    But in this kind to come, in braving arms,\n    Be his own carver and cut out his way,\n    To find out right with wrong-it may not be;\n    And you that do abet him in this kind\n    Cherish rebellion, and are rebels all.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The noble Duke hath sworn his coming is\n    But for his own; and for the right of that\n    We all have strongly sworn to give him aid;\n    And let him never see joy that breaks that oath!\n  YORK. Well, well, I see the issue of these arms.\n    I cannot mend it, I must needs confess,\n    Because my power is weak and all ill left;\n    But if I could, by Him that gave me life,\n    I would attach you all and make you stoop\n    Unto the sovereign mercy of the King;\n    But since I cannot, be it known unto you\n    I do remain as neuter. So, fare you well;\n    Unless you please to enter in the castle,\n    And there repose you for this night.\n  BOLINGBROKE. An offer, uncle, that we will accept.\n    But we must win your Grace to go with us\n    To Bristow Castle, which they say is held\n    By Bushy, Bagot, and their complices,\n    The caterpillars of the commonwealth,\n    Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.\n  YORK. It may be I will go with you; but yet I'll pause,\n    For I am loath to break our country's laws.\n    Nor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are.\n    Things past redress are now with me past care.        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\nA camp in Wales\n\nEnter EARL OF SALISBURY and a WELSH CAPTAIN\n\n  CAPTAIN. My Lord of Salisbury, we have stay'd ten days\n    And hardly kept our countrymen together,\n    And yet we hear no tidings from the King;\n    Therefore we will disperse ourselves. Farewell.\n  SALISBURY. Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman;\n    The King reposeth all his confidence in thee.\n  CAPTAIN. 'Tis thought the King is dead; we will not stay.\n    The bay trees in our country are all wither'd,\n    And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;\n    The pale-fac'd moon looks bloody on the earth,\n    And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;\n    Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap-\n    The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,\n    The other to enjoy by rage and war.\n    These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.\n    Farewell. Our countrymen are gone and fled,\n    As well assur'd Richard their King is dead.             Exit\n  SALISBURY. Ah, Richard, with the eyes of heavy mind,\n    I see thy glory like a shooting star\n    Fall to the base earth from the firmament!\n    The sun sets weeping in the lowly west,\n    Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest;\n    Thy friends are fled, to wait upon thy foes;\n    And crossly to thy good all fortune goes.               Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nBOLINGBROKE'S camp at Bristol\n\nEnter BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY, ROSS, WILLOUGHBY,\nBUSHY and GREEN, prisoners\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Bring forth these men.\n    Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls-\n    Since presently your souls must part your bodies-\n    With too much urging your pernicious lives,\n    For 'twere no charity; yet, to wash your blood\n    From off my hands, here in the view of men\n    I will unfold some causes of your deaths:\n    You have misled a prince, a royal king,\n    A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,\n    By you unhappied and disfigured clean;\n    You have in manner with your sinful hours\n    Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him;\n    Broke the possession of a royal bed,\n    And stain'd the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks\n    With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs;\n    Myself-a prince by fortune of my birth,\n    Near to the King in blood, and near in love\n    Till you did make him misinterpret me-\n    Have stoop'd my neck under your injuries\n    And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,\n    Eating the bitter bread of banishment,\n    Whilst you have fed upon my signories,\n    Dispark'd my parks and fell'd my forest woods,\n    From my own windows torn my household coat,\n    Raz'd out my imprese, leaving me no sign\n    Save men's opinions and my living blood\n    To show the world I am a gentleman.\n    This and much more, much more than twice all this,\n    Condemns you to the death. See them delivered over\n    To execution and the hand of death.\n  BUSHY. More welcome is the stroke of death to me\n    Than Bolingbroke to England. Lords, farewell.\n  GREEN. My comfort is that heaven will take our souls,\n    And plague injustice with the pains of hell.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My Lord Northumberland, see them dispatch'd.\n           Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, and others, with the prisoners\n    Uncle, you say the Queen is at your house;\n    For God's sake, fairly let her be entreated.\n    Tell her I send to her my kind commends;\n    Take special care my greetings be delivered.\n  YORK. A gentleman of mine I have dispatch'd\n    With letters of your love to her at large.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Thanks, gentle uncle. Come, lords, away,\n    To fight with Glendower and his complices.\n    Awhile to work, and after holiday.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nThe coast of Wales. A castle in view\n\nDrums. Flourish and colours. Enter the KING, the BISHOP OF\nCARLISLE,\nAUMERLE, and soldiers\n\n  KING RICHARD. Barkloughly Castle can they this at hand?\n  AUMERLE. Yea, my lord. How brooks your Grace the air\n    After your late tossing on the breaking seas?\n  KING RICHARD. Needs must I like it well. I weep for joy\n    To stand upon my kingdom once again.\n    Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,\n    Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs.\n    As a long-parted mother with her child\n    Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,\n    So weeping-smiling greet I thee, my earth,\n    And do thee favours with my royal hands.\n    Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,\n    Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense;\n    But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,\n    And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way,\n    Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet\n    Which with usurping steps do trample thee;\n    Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies;\n    And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,\n    Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder,\n    Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch\n    Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies.\n    Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords.\n    This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones\n    Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king\n    Shall falter under foul rebellion's arms.\n  CARLISLE. Fear not, my lord; that Power that made you king\n    Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.\n    The means that heaven yields must be embrac'd\n    And not neglected; else, if heaven would,\n    And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse,\n    The proffered means of succour and redress.\n  AUMERLE. He means, my lord, that we are too remiss;\n    Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,\n    Grows strong and great in substance and in power.\n  KING RICHARD. Discomfortable cousin! know'st thou not\n    That when the searching eye of heaven is hid,\n    Behind the globe, that lights the lower world,\n    Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen\n    In murders and in outrage boldly here;\n    But when from under this terrestrial ball\n    He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines\n    And darts his light through every guilty hole,\n    Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,\n    The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,\n    Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?\n    So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,\n    Who all this while hath revell'd in the night,\n    Whilst we were wand'ring with the Antipodes,\n    Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,\n    His treasons will sit blushing in his face,\n    Not able to endure the sight of day,\n    But self-affrighted tremble at his sin.\n    Not all the water in the rough rude sea\n    Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;\n    The breath of worldly men cannot depose\n    The deputy elected by the Lord.\n    For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd\n    To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,\n    God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay\n    A glorious angel. Then, if angels fight,\n    Weak men must fall; for heaven still guards the right.\n\n                 Enter SALISBURY\n\n    Welcome, my lord. How far off lies your power?\n  SALISBURY. Nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord,\n    Than this weak arm. Discomfort guides my tongue,\n    And bids me speak of nothing but despair.\n    One day too late, I fear me, noble lord,\n    Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth.\n    O, call back yesterday, bid time return,\n    And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men!\n    To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late,\n    O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state;\n    For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,\n    Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispers'd, and fled.\n  AUMERLE. Comfort, my liege, why looks your Grace so pale?\n  KING RICHARD. But now the blood of twenty thousand men\n    Did triumph in my face, and they are fled;\n    And, till so much blood thither come again,\n    Have I not reason to look pale and dead?\n    All souls that will be safe, fly from my side;\n    For time hath set a blot upon my pride.\n  AUMERLE. Comfort, my liege; remember who you are.\n  KING RICHARD. I had forgot myself; am I not King?\n    Awake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest.\n    Is not the King's name twenty thousand names?\n    Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes\n    At thy great glory. Look not to the ground,\n    Ye favourites of a king; are we not high?\n    High be our thoughts. I know my uncle York\n    Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?\n\n                   Enter SCROOP\n\n  SCROOP. More health and happiness betide my liege\n    Than can my care-tun'd tongue deliver him.\n  KING RICHARD. Mine ear is open and my heart prepar'd.\n    The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.\n    Say, is my kingdom lost? Why, 'twas my care,\n    And what loss is it to be rid of care?\n    Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?\n    Greater he shall not be; if he serve God,\n    We'll serve him too, and be his fellow so.\n    Revolt our subjects? That we cannot mend;\n    They break their faith to God as well as us.\n    Cry woe, destruction, ruin, and decay-\n    The worst is death, and death will have his day.\n  SCROOP. Glad am I that your Highness is so arm'd\n    To bear the tidings of calamity.\n    Like an unseasonable stormy day\n    Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,\n    As if the world were all dissolv'd to tears,\n    So high above his limits swells the rage\n    Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land\n    With hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.\n    White-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps\n    Against thy majesty; boys, with women's voices,\n    Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints\n    In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown;\n    Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows\n    Of double-fatal yew against thy state;\n    Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills\n    Against thy seat: both young and old rebel,\n    And all goes worse than I have power to tell.\n  KING RICHARD. Too well, too well thou tell'st a tale so in.\n    Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? Where is Bagot?\n    What is become of Bushy? Where is Green?\n    That they have let the dangerous enemy\n    Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?\n    If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.\n    I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.\n  SCROOP. Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.\n  KING RICHARD. O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption!\n    Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!\n    Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart!\n    Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!\n    Would they make peace? Terrible hell make war\n    Upon their spotted souls for this offence!\n  SCROOP. Sweet love, I see, changing his property,\n    Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate.\n    Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made\n    With heads, and not with hands; those whom you curse\n    Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound\n    And lie full low, grav'd in the hollow ground.\n  AUMERLE. Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?\n  SCROOP. Ay, all of them at Bristow lost their heads.\n  AUMERLE. Where is the Duke my father with his power?\n  KING RICHARD. No matter where-of comfort no man speak.\n    Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;\n    Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes\n    Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.\n    Let's choose executors and talk of wills;\n    And yet not so-for what can we bequeath\n    Save our deposed bodies to the ground?\n    Our lands, our lives, and an, are Bolingbroke's.\n    And nothing can we can our own but death\n    And that small model of the barren earth\n    Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.\n    For God's sake let us sit upon the ground\n    And tell sad stories of the death of kings:\n    How some have been depos'd, some slain in war,\n    Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd,\n    Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd,\n    All murder'd-for within the hollow crown\n    That rounds the mortal temples of a king\n    Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits,\n    Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp;\n    Allowing him a breath, a little scene,\n    To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks;\n    Infusing him with self and vain conceit,\n    As if this flesh which walls about our life\n    Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus,\n    Comes at the last, and with a little pin\n    Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king!\n    Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood\n    With solemn reverence; throw away respect,\n    Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty;\n    For you have but mistook me all this while.\n    I live with bread like you, feel want,\n    Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,\n    How can you say to me I am a king?\n  CARLISLE. My lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,\n    But presently prevent the ways to wail.\n    To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,\n    Gives, in your weakness, strength unto your foe,\n    And so your follies fight against yourself.\n    Fear and be slain-no worse can come to fight;\n    And fight and die is death destroying death,\n    Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.\n  AUMERLE. My father hath a power; inquire of him,\n    And learn to make a body of a limb.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou chid'st me well. Proud Bolingbroke, I come\n    To change blows with thee for our day of doom.\n    This ague fit of fear is over-blown;\n    An easy task it is to win our own.\n    Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?\n    Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.\n  SCROOP. Men judge by the complexion of the sky\n    The state in inclination of the day;\n    So may you by my dull and heavy eye,\n    My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.\n    I play the torturer, by small and small\n    To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:\n    Your uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke;\n    And all your northern castles yielded up,\n    And all your southern gentlemen in arms\n    Upon his party.\n  KING RICHARD. Thou hast said enough.\n      [To AUMERLE] Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me\nforth\n    Of that sweet way I was in to despair!\n    What say you now? What comfort have we now?\n    By heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly\n    That bids me be of comfort any more.\n    Go to Flint Castle; there I'll pine away;\n    A king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.\n    That power I have, discharge; and let them go\n    To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,\n    For I have none. Let no man speak again\n    To alter this, for counsel is but vain.\n  AUMERLE. My liege, one word.\n  KING RICHARD. He does me double wrong\n    That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.\n    Discharge my followers; let them hence away,\n    From Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\nWales. Before Flint Castle\n\nEnter, with drum and colours, BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND,\nand forces\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. So that by this intelligence we learn\n    The Welshmen are dispers'd; and Salisbury\n    Is gone to meet the King, who lately landed\n    With some few private friends upon this coast.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The news is very fair and good, my lord.\n    Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.\n  YORK. It would beseem the Lord Northumberland\n    To say 'King Richard.' Alack the heavy day\n    When such a sacred king should hide his head!\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Your Grace mistakes; only to be brief,\n    Left I his title out.\n  YORK. The time hath been,\n    Would you have been so brief with him, he would\n    Have been so brief with you to shorten you,\n    For taking so the head, your whole head's length.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.\n  YORK. Take not, good cousin, further than you should,\n    Lest you mistake. The heavens are over our heads.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I know it, uncle; and oppose not myself\n    Against their will. But who comes here?\n\n                    Enter PERCY\n\n    Welcome, Harry. What, will not this castle yield?\n  PIERCY. The castle royally is mann'd, my lord,\n    Against thy entrance.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Royally!\n    Why, it contains no king?\n  PERCY. Yes, my good lord,\n    It doth contain a king; King Richard lies\n    Within the limits of yon lime and stone;\n    And with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,\n    Sir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman\n    Of holy reverence; who, I cannot learn.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. O, belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.\n  BOLINGBROKE. [To NORTHUMBERLAND] Noble lord,\n    Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle;\n    Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley\n    Into his ruin'd ears, and thus deliver:\n    Henry Bolingbroke\n    On both his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand,\n    And sends allegiance and true faith of heart\n    To his most royal person; hither come\n    Even at his feet to lay my arms and power,\n    Provided that my banishment repeal'd\n    And lands restor'd again be freely granted;\n    If not, I'll use the advantage of my power\n    And lay the summer's dust with showers of blood\n    Rain'd from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen;\n    The which how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke\n    It is such crimson tempest should bedrench\n    The fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land,\n    My stooping duty tenderly shall show.\n    Go, signify as much, while here we march\n    Upon the grassy carpet of this plain.\n           [NORTHUMBERLAND advances to the Castle, with a\ntrumpet]\n    Let's march without the noise of threat'ning drum,\n    That from this castle's tottered battlements\n    Our fair appointments may be well perus'd.\n    Methinks King Richard and myself should meet\n    With no less terror than the elements\n    Of fire and water, when their thund'ring shock\n    At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.\n    Be he the fire, I'll be the yielding water;\n    The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain\n    My waters-on the earth, and not on him.\n    March on, and mark King Richard how he looks.\n\n      Parle without, and answer within; then a flourish.\n      Enter on the walls, the KING, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE,\n      AUMERLE, SCROOP, and SALISBURY\n\n    See, see, King Richard doth himself appear,\n    As doth the blushing discontented sun\n    From out the fiery portal of the east,\n    When he perceives the envious clouds are bent\n    To dim his glory and to stain the track\n    Of his bright passage to the occident.\n  YORK. Yet he looks like a king. Behold, his eye,\n    As bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth\n    Controlling majesty. Alack, alack, for woe,\n    That any harm should stain so fair a show!\n  KING RICHARD. [To NORTHUMBERLAND] We are amaz'd; and thus long\n      have we stood\n    To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,\n    Because we thought ourself thy lawful King;\n    And if we be, how dare thy joints forget\n    To pay their awful duty to our presence?\n    If we be not, show us the hand of God\n    That hath dismiss'd us from our stewardship;\n    For well we know no hand of blood and bone\n    Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,\n    Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.\n    And though you think that all, as you have done,\n    Have torn their souls by turning them from us,\n    And we are barren and bereft of friends,\n    Yet know-my master, God omnipotent,\n    Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf\n    Armies of pestilence; and they shall strike\n    Your children yet unborn and unbegot,\n    That lift your vassal hands against my head\n    And threat the glory of my precious crown.\n    Tell Bolingbroke, for yon methinks he stands,\n    That every stride he makes upon my land\n    Is dangerous treason; he is come to open\n    The purple testament of bleeding war;\n    But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,\n    Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons\n    Shall ill become the flower of England's face,\n    Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace\n    To scarlet indignation, and bedew\n    Her pastures' grass with faithful English blood.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The King of Heaven forbid our lord the King\n    Should so with civil and uncivil arms\n    Be rush'd upon! Thy thrice noble cousin,\n    Harry Bolingbroke, doth humbly kiss thy hand;\n    And by the honourable tomb he swears\n    That stands upon your royal grandsire's bones,\n    And by the royalties of both your bloods,\n    Currents that spring from one most gracious head,\n    And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,\n    And by the worth and honour of himself,\n    Comprising all that may be sworn or said,\n    His coming hither hath no further scope\n    Than for his lineal royalties, and to beg\n    Enfranchisement immediate on his knees;\n    Which on thy royal party granted once,\n    His glittering arms he will commend to rust,\n    His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart\n    To faithful service of your Majesty.\n    This swears he, as he is a prince, is just;\n    And as I am a gentleman I credit him.\n  KING RICHARD. Northumberland, say thus the King returns:\n    His noble cousin is right welcome hither;\n    And all the number of his fair demands\n    Shall be accomplish'd without contradiction.\n    With all the gracious utterance thou hast\n    Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends.\n    [To AUMERLE] We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not,\n    To look so poorly and to speak so fair?\n    Shall we call back Northumberland, and send\n    Defiance to the traitor, and so die?\n  AUMERLE. No, good my lord; let's fight with gentle words\n    Till time lend friends, and friends their helpful swords.\n  KING RICHARD. O God, O God! that e'er this tongue of mine\n    That laid the sentence of dread banishment\n    On yon proud man should take it off again\n    With words of sooth! O that I were as great\n    As is my grief, or lesser than my name!\n    Or that I could forget what I have been!\n    Or not remember what I must be now!\n    Swell'st thou, proud heart? I'll give thee scope to beat,\n    Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me.\n  AUMERLE. Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.\n  KING RICHARD. What must the King do now? Must he submit?\n    The King shall do it. Must he be depos'd?\n    The King shall be contented. Must he lose\n    The name of king? A God's name, let it go.\n    I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,\n    My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,\n    My gay apparel for an almsman's gown,\n    My figur'd goblets for a dish of wood,\n    My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff,\n    My subjects for a pair of carved saints,\n    And my large kingdom for a little grave,\n    A little little grave, an obscure grave-\n    Or I'll be buried in the king's high way,\n    Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet\n    May hourly trample on their sovereign's head;\n    For on my heart they tread now whilst I live,\n    And buried once, why not upon my head?\n    Aumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin!\n    We'll make foul weather with despised tears;\n    Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn\n    And make a dearth in this revolting land.\n    Or shall we play the wantons with our woes\n    And make some pretty match with shedding tears?\n    As thus: to drop them still upon one place\n    Till they have fretted us a pair of graves\n    Within the earth; and, therein laid-there lies\n    Two kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes.\n    Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see\n    I talk but idly, and you laugh at me.\n    Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,\n    What says King Bolingbroke? Will his Majesty\n    Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?\n    You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, in the base court he doth attend\n    To speak with you; may it please you to come down?\n  KING RICHARD. Down, down I come, like glist'ring Phaethon,\n    Wanting the manage of unruly jades.\n    In the base court? Base court, where kings grow base,\n    To come at traitors' calls, and do them grace.\n    In the base court? Come down? Down, court! down, king!\n    For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.\n                                               Exeunt from above\n  BOLINGBROKE. What says his Majesty?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Sorrow and grief of heart\n    Makes him speak fondly, like a frantic man;\n    Yet he is come.\n\n          Enter the KING, and his attendants, below\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Stand all apart,\n    And show fair duty to his Majesty.   [He kneels down]\n    My gracious lord-\n  KING RICHARD. Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee\n    To make the base earth proud with kissing it.\n    Me rather had my heart might feel your love\n    Than my unpleas'd eye see your courtesy.\n    Up, cousin, up; your heart is up, I know,\n    [Touching his own head] Thus high at least, although your\n      knee be low.\n  BOLINGBROKE. My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.\n  KING RICHARD. Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.\n  BOLINGBROKE. So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,\n    As my true service shall deserve your love.\n  KING RICHARD. Well you deserve. They well deserve to have\n    That know the strong'st and surest way to get.\n    Uncle, give me your hands; nay, dry your eyes:\n    Tears show their love, but want their remedies.\n    Cousin, I am too young to be your father,\n    Though you are old enough to be my heir.\n    What you will have, I'll give, and willing too;\n    For do we must what force will have us do.\n    Set on towards London. Cousin, is it so?\n  BOLINGBROKE. Yea, my good lord.\n  KING RICHARD. Then I must not say no.         Flourish. Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\nThe DUKE OF YORK's garden\n\nEnter the QUEEN and two LADIES\n\n  QUEEN. What sport shall we devise here in this garden\n    To drive away the heavy thought of care?\n  LADY. Madam, we'll play at bowls.\n  QUEEN. 'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs\n    And that my fortune runs against the bias.\n  LADY. Madam, we'll dance.\n  QUEEN. My legs can keep no measure in delight,\n    When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief;\n    Therefore no dancing, girl; some other sport.\n  LADY. Madam, we'll tell tales.\n  QUEEN. Of sorrow or of joy?\n  LADY. Of either, madam.\n  QUEEN. Of neither, girl;\n    For if of joy, being altogether wanting,\n    It doth remember me the more of sorrow;\n    Or if of grief, being altogether had,\n    It adds more sorrow to my want of joy;\n    For what I have I need not to repeat,\n    And what I want it boots not to complain.\n  LADY. Madam, I'll sing.\n  QUEEN. 'Tis well' that thou hast cause;\n    But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.\n  LADY. I could weep, madam, would it do you good.\n  QUEEN. And I could sing, would weeping do me good,\n    And never borrow any tear of thee.\n\n           Enter a GARDENER and two SERVANTS\n\n    But stay, here come the gardeners.\n    Let's step into the shadow of these trees.\n    My wretchedness unto a row of pins,\n    They will talk of state, for every one doth so\n    Against a change: woe is forerun with woe.\n                                       [QUEEN and LADIES retire]\n  GARDENER. Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,\n    Which, like unruly children, make their sire\n    Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight;\n    Give some supportance to the bending twigs.\n    Go thou, and Eke an executioner\n    Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays\n    That look too lofty in our commonwealth:\n    All must be even in our government.\n    You thus employ'd, I will go root away\n    The noisome weeds which without profit suck\n    The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.\n  SERVANT. Why should we, in the compass of a pale,\n    Keep law and form and due proportion,\n    Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,\n    When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,\n    Is full of weeds; her fairest flowers chok'd up,\n    Her fruit trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd,\n    Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs\n    Swarming with caterpillars?\n  GARDENER. Hold thy peace.\n    He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring\n    Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf;\n    The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,\n    That seem'd in eating him to hold him up,\n    Are pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke-\n    I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.\n  SERVANT. What, are they dead?\n  GARDENER. They are; and Bolingbroke\n    Hath seiz'd the wasteful King. O, what pity is it\n    That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land\n    As we this garden! We at time of year\n    Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees,\n    Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood,\n    With too much riches it confound itself;\n    Had he done so to great and growing men,\n    They might have Ev'd to bear, and he to taste\n    Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches\n    We lop away, that bearing boughs may live;\n    Had he done so, himself had home the crown,\n    Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.\n  SERVANT. What, think you the King shall be deposed?\n  GARDENER. Depress'd he is already, and depos'd\n    'Tis doubt he will be. Letters came last night\n    To a dear friend of the good Duke of York's\n    That tell black tidings.\n  QUEEN. O, I am press'd to death through want of speaking!\n                                                [Coming forward]\n    Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,\n    How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?\n    What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested the\n    To make a second fall of cursed man?\n    Why dost thou say King Richard is depos'd?\n    Dar'st thou, thou little better thing than earth,\n    Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,\n    Cam'st thou by this ill tidings? Speak, thou wretch.\n  GARDENER. Pardon me, madam; little joy have\n    To breathe this news; yet what I say is true.\n    King Richard, he is in the mighty hold\n    Of Bolingbroke. Their fortunes both are weigh'd.\n    In your lord's scale is nothing but himself,\n    And some few vanities that make him light;\n    But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,\n    Besides himself, are all the English peers,\n    And with that odds he weighs King Richard down.\n    Post you to London, and you will find it so;\n    I speak no more than every one doth know.\n  QUEEN. Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,\n    Doth not thy embassage belong to me,\n    And am I last that knows it? O, thou thinkest\n    To serve me last, that I may longest keep\n    Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go\n    To meet at London London's King in woe.\n    What, was I born to this, that my sad look\n    Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?\n    Gard'ner, for telling me these news of woe,\n    Pray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow!\n                                         Exeunt QUEEN and LADIES\n  GARDENER. Poor Queen, so that thy state might be no worse,\n    I would my skill were subject to thy curse.\n    Here did she fall a tear; here in this place\n    I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace.\n    Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,\n    In the remembrance of a weeping queen.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE 1.\nWestminster Hall\n\nEnter, as to the Parliament, BOLINGBROKE, AUMERLE,\nNORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY,\nFITZWATER, SURREY, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, the ABBOT OF\nWESTMINSTER,\nand others; HERALD, OFFICERS, and BAGOT\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Call forth Bagot.\n    Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind-\n    What thou dost know of noble Gloucester's death;\n    Who wrought it with the King, and who perform'd\n    The bloody office of his timeless end.\n  BAGOT. Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.\n  BAGOT. My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue\n    Scorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd.\n    In that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted\n    I heard you say 'Is not my arm of length,\n    That reacheth from the restful English Court\n    As far as Calais, to mine uncle's head?'\n    Amongst much other talk that very time\n    I heard you say that you had rather refuse\n    The offer of an hundred thousand crowns\n    Than Bolingbroke's return to England;\n    Adding withal, how blest this land would be\n    In this your cousin's death.\n  AUMERLE. Princes, and noble lords,\n    What answer shall I make to this base man?\n    Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars\n    On equal terms to give him chastisement?\n    Either I must, or have mine honour soil'd\n    With the attainder of his slanderous lips.\n    There is my gage, the manual seal of death\n    That marks thee out for hell. I say thou liest,\n    And will maintain what thou hast said is false\n    In thy heart-blood, through being all too base\n    To stain the temper of my knightly sword.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Bagot, forbear; thou shalt not take it up.\n  AUMERLE. Excepting one, I would he were the best\n    In all this presence that hath mov'd me so.\n  FITZWATER. If that thy valour stand on sympathy,\n    There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine.\n    By that fair sun which shows me where thou stand'st,\n    I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it,\n    That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester's death.\n    If thou deniest it twenty times, thou liest;\n    And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,\n    Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.\n  AUMERLE. Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see that day.\n  FITZWATER. Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.\n  AUMERLE. Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.\n  PERCY. Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true\n    In this appeal as thou art an unjust;\n    And that thou art so, there I throw my gage,\n    To prove it on thee to the extremest point\n    Of mortal breathing. Seize it, if thou dar'st.\n  AUMERLE. An if I do not, may my hands rot of\n    And never brandish more revengeful steel\n    Over the glittering helmet of my foe!\n  ANOTHER LORD. I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle;\n    And spur thee on with fun as many lies\n    As may be halloa'd in thy treacherous ear\n    From sun to sun. There is my honour's pawn;\n    Engage it to the trial, if thou darest.\n  AUMERLE. Who sets me else? By heaven, I'll throw at all!\n    I have a thousand spirits in one breast\n    To answer twenty thousand such as you.\n  SURREY. My Lord Fitzwater, I do remember well\n    The very time Aumerle and you did talk.\n  FITZWATER. 'Tis very true; you were in presence then,\n    And you can witness with me this is true.\n  SURREY. As false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.\n  FITZWATER. Surrey, thou liest.\n  SURREY. Dishonourable boy!\n    That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword\n    That it shall render vengeance and revenge\n    Till thou the lie-giver and that lie do he\n    In earth as quiet as thy father's skull.\n    In proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn;\n    Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st.\n  FITZWATER. How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse!\n    If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,\n    I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,\n    And spit upon him whilst I say he lies,\n    And lies, and lies. There is my bond of faith,\n    To tie thee to my strong correction.\n    As I intend to thrive in this new world,\n    Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal.\n    Besides, I heard the banish'd Norfolk say\n    That thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men\n    To execute the noble Duke at Calais.\n  AUMERLE. Some honest Christian trust me with a gage\n    That Norfolk lies. Here do I throw down this,\n    If he may be repeal'd to try his honour.\n  BOLINGBROKE. These differences shall all rest under gage\n    Till Norfolk be repeal'd-repeal'd he shall be\n    And, though mine enemy, restor'd again\n    To all his lands and signories. When he is return'd,\n    Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial.\n  CARLISLE. That honourable day shall never be seen.\n    Many a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought\n    For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,\n    Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross\n    Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens;\n    And, toil'd with works of war, retir'd himself\n    To Italy; and there, at Venice, gave\n    His body to that pleasant country's earth,\n    And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,\n    Under whose colours he had fought so long.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Why, Bishop, is Norfolk dead?\n  CARLISLE. As surely as I live, my lord.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom\n    Of good old Abraham! Lords appellants,\n    Your differences shall all rest under gage\n    Till we assign you to your days of trial\n\n                 Enter YORK, attended\n\n  YORK. Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to the\n    From plume-pluck'd Richard, who with willing soul\n    Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields\n    To the possession of thy royal hand.\n    Ascend his throne, descending now from him-\n    And long live Henry, fourth of that name!\n  BOLINGBROKE. In God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne.\n  CARLISLE. Marry, God forbid!\n    Worst in this royal presence may I speak,\n    Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth.\n    Would God that any in this noble presence\n    Were enough noble to be upright judge\n    Of noble Richard! Then true noblesse would\n    Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.\n    What subject can give sentence on his king?\n    And who sits here that is not Richard's subject?\n    Thieves are not judg'd but they are by to hear,\n    Although apparent guilt be seen in them;\n    And shall the figure of God's majesty,\n    His captain, steward, deputy elect,\n    Anointed, crowned, planted many years,\n    Be judg'd by subject and inferior breath,\n    And he himself not present? O, forfend it, God,\n    That in a Christian climate souls refin'd\n    Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!\n    I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,\n    Stirr'd up by God, thus boldly for his king.\n    My Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,\n    Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king;\n    And if you crown him, let me prophesy-\n    The blood of English shall manure the ground,\n    And future ages groan for this foul act;\n    Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,\n    And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars\n    Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound;\n    Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny,\n    Shall here inhabit, and this land be call'd\n    The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls.\n    O, if you raise this house against this house,\n    It will the woefullest division prove\n    That ever fell upon this cursed earth.\n    Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,\n    Lest child, child's children, cry against you woe.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Well have you argued, sir; and, for your pains,\n    Of capital treason we arrest you here.\n    My Lord of Westminster, be it your charge\n    To keep him safely till his day of trial.\n    May it please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit?\n  BOLINGBROKE. Fetch hither Richard, that in common view\n    He may surrender; so we shall proceed\n    Without suspicion.\n  YORK. I will be his conduct.                              Exit\n  BOLINGBROKE. Lords, you that here are under our arrest,\n    Procure your sureties for your days of answer.\n    Little are we beholding to your love,\n    And little look'd for at your helping hands.\n\n      Re-enter YORK, with KING RICHARD, and OFFICERS\n                bearing the regalia\n\n  KING RICHARD. Alack, why am I sent for to a king,\n    Before I have shook off the regal thoughts\n    Wherewith I reign'd? I hardly yet have learn'd\n    To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee.\n    Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me\n    To this submission. Yet I well remember\n    The favours of these men. Were they not mine?\n    Did they not sometime cry 'All hail!' to me?\n    So Judas did to Christ; but he, in twelve,\n    Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand, none.\n    God save the King! Will no man say amen?\n    Am I both priest and clerk? Well then, amen.\n    God save the King! although I be not he;\n    And yet, amen, if heaven do think him me.\n    To do what service am I sent for hither?\n  YORK. To do that office of thine own good will\n    Which tired majesty did make thee offer-\n    The resignation of thy state and crown\n    To Henry Bolingbroke.\n  KING RICHARD. Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown.\n    Here, cousin,\n    On this side my hand, and on that side thine.\n    Now is this golden crown like a deep well\n    That owes two buckets, filling one another;\n    The emptier ever dancing in the air,\n    The other down, unseen, and full of water.\n    That bucket down and fun of tears am I,\n    Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I thought you had been willing to resign.\n  KING RICHARD. My crown I am; but still my griefs are mine.\n    You may my glories and my state depose,\n    But not my griefs; still am I king of those.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Part of your cares you give me with your crown.\n  KING RICHARD. Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down.\n    My care is loss of care, by old care done;\n    Your care is gain of care, by new care won.\n    The cares I give I have, though given away;\n    They tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Are you contented to resign the crown?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be;\n    Therefore no no, for I resign to thee.\n    Now mark me how I will undo myself:\n    I give this heavy weight from off my head,\n    And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,\n    The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;\n    With mine own tears I wash away my balm,\n    With mine own hands I give away my crown,\n    With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,\n    With mine own breath release all duteous oaths;\n    All pomp and majesty I do forswear;\n    My manors, rents, revenues, I forgo;\n    My acts, decrees, and statutes, I deny.\n    God pardon all oaths that are broke to me!\n    God keep all vows unbroke are made to thee!\n    Make me, that nothing have, with nothing griev'd,\n    And thou with all pleas'd, that hast an achiev'd.\n    Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,\n    And soon lie Richard in an earthly pit.\n    God save King Henry, unking'd Richard says,\n    And send him many years of sunshine days!\n    What more remains?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. No more; but that you read\n    These accusations, and these grievous crimes\n    Committed by your person and your followers\n    Against the state and profit of this land;\n    That, by confessing them, the souls of men\n    May deem that you are worthily depos'd.\n  KING RICHARD. Must I do so? And must I ravel out\n    My weav'd-up follies? Gentle Northumberland,\n    If thy offences were upon record,\n    Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop\n    To read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst,\n    There shouldst thou find one heinous article,\n    Containing the deposing of a king\n    And cracking the strong warrant of an oath,\n    Mark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven.\n    Nay, all of you that stand and look upon me\n    Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,\n    Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands,\n    Showing an outward pity-yet you Pilates\n    Have here deliver'd me to my sour cross,\n    And water cannot wash away your sin.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, dispatch; read o'er these\n    articles.\n  KING RICHARD. Mine eyes are full of tears; I cannot see.\n    And yet salt water blinds them not so much\n    But they can see a sort of traitors here.\n    Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,\n    I find myself a traitor with the rest;\n    For I have given here my soul's consent\n    T'undeck the pompous body of a king;\n    Made glory base, and sovereignty a slave,\n    Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord-\n  KING RICHARD. No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man,\n    Nor no man's lord; I have no name, no tide-\n    No, not that name was given me at the font-\n    But 'tis usurp'd. Alack the heavy day,\n    That I have worn so many winters out,\n    And know not now what name to call myself!\n    O that I were a mockery king of snow,\n    Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke\n    To melt myself away in water drops!\n    Good king, great king, and yet not greatly good,\n    An if my word be sterling yet in England,\n    Let it command a mirror hither straight,\n    That it may show me what a face I have\n    Since it is bankrupt of his majesty.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Go some of you and fetch a looking-glass.\n                                               Exit an attendant\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. Read o'er this paper while the glass doth come.\n  KING RICHARD. Fiend, thou torments me ere I come to hell.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Urge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. The Commons will not, then, be satisfied.\n  KING RICHARD. They shall be satisfied. I'll read enough,\n    When I do see the very book indeed\n    Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself.\n\n                Re-enter attendant with glass\n\n    Give me that glass, and therein will I read.\n    No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck\n    So many blows upon this face of mine\n    And made no deeper wounds? O flatt'ring glass,\n    Like to my followers in prosperity,\n    Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face\n    That every day under his household roof\n    Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face\n    That like the sun did make beholders wink?\n    Is this the face which fac'd so many follies\n    That was at last out-fac'd by Bolingbroke?\n    A brittle glory shineth in this face;\n    As brittle as the glory is the face;\n                        [Dashes the glass against the ground]\n    For there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers.\n    Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport-\n    How soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face.\n  BOLINGBROKE. The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd\n    The shadow of your face.\n  KING RICHARD. Say that again.\n    The shadow of my sorrow? Ha! let's see.\n    'Tis very true: my grief lies all within;\n    And these external manner of laments\n    Are merely shadows to the unseen grief\n    That swells with silence in the tortur'd soul.\n    There lies the substance; and I thank thee, king,\n    For thy great bounty, that not only giv'st\n    Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way\n    How to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon,\n    And then be gone and trouble you no more.\n    Shall I obtain it?\n  BOLINGBROKE. Name it, fair cousin.\n  KING RICHARD. Fair cousin! I am greater than a king;\n    For when I was a king, my flatterers\n    Were then but subjects; being now a subject,\n    I have a king here to my flatterer.\n    Being so great, I have no need to beg.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Yet ask.\n  KING RICHARD. And shall I have?\n  BOLINGBROKE. You shall.\n  KING RICHARD. Then give me leave to go.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Whither?\n  KING RICHARD. Whither you will, so I were from your sights.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Go, some of you convey him to the Tower.\n  KING RICHARD. O, good! Convey! Conveyers are you all,\n    That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.\n                     Exeunt KING RICHARD, some Lords and a Guard\n  BOLINGBROKE. On Wednesday next we solemnly set down\n    Our coronation. Lords, prepare yourselves.\n                    Exeunt all but the ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER, the\n                                 BISHOP OF CARLISLE, and AUMERLE\n  ABBOT. A woeful pageant have we here beheld.\n  CARLISLE. The woe's to come; the children yet unborn\n    Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.\n  AUMERLE. You holy clergymen, is there no plot\n    To rid the realm of this pernicious blot?\n  ABBOT. My lord,\n    Before I freely speak my mind herein,\n    You shall not only take the sacrament\n    To bury mine intents, but also to effect\n    Whatever I shall happen to devise.\n    I see your brows are full of discontent,\n    Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears.\n    Come home with me to supper; I will lay\n    A plot shall show us all a merry day.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE 1.\nLondon. A street leading to the Tower\n\nEnter the QUEEN, with her attendants\n\n  QUEEN. This way the King will come; this is the way\n    To Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower,\n    To whose flint bosom my condemned lord\n    Is doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke.\n    Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth\n    Have any resting for her true King's queen.\n\n            Enter KING RICHARD and Guard\n\n    But soft, but see, or rather do not see,\n    My fair rose wither. Yet look up, behold,\n    That you in pity may dissolve to dew,\n    And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.\n    Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand;\n    Thou map of honour, thou King Richard's tomb,\n    And not King Richard; thou most beauteous inn,\n    Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee,\n    When triumph is become an alehouse guest?\n  KING RICHARD. Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,\n    To make my end too sudden. Learn, good soul,\n    To think our former state a happy dream;\n    From which awak'd, the truth of what we are\n    Shows us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,\n    To grim Necessity; and he and\n    Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,\n    And cloister thee in some religious house.\n    Our holy lives must win a new world's crown,\n    Which our profane hours here have thrown down.\n  QUEEN. What, is my Richard both in shape and mind\n    Transform'd and weak'ned? Hath Bolingbroke depos'd\n    Thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?\n    The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw\n    And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage\n    To be o'erpow'r'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,\n    Take the correction mildly, kiss the rod,\n    And fawn on rage with base humility,\n    Which art a lion and the king of beasts?\n  KING RICHARD. A king of beasts, indeed! If aught but beasts,\n    I had been still a happy king of men.\n    Good sometimes queen, prepare thee hence for France.\n    Think I am dead, and that even here thou takest,\n    As from my death-bed, thy last living leave.\n    In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire\n    With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales\n    Of woeful ages long ago betid;\n    And ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs\n    Tell thou the lamentable tale of me,\n    And send the hearers weeping to their beds;\n    For why, the senseless brands will sympathize\n    The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,\n    And in compassion weep the fire out;\n    And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,\n    For the deposing of a rightful king.\n\n             Enter NORTHUMBERLAND attended\n\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang'd;\n    You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.\n    And, madam, there is order ta'en for you:\n    With all swift speed you must away to France.\n  KING RICHARD. Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal\n    The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,\n    The time shall not be many hours of age\n    More than it is, ere foul sin gathering head\n    Shall break into corruption. Thou shalt think\n    Though he divide the realm and give thee half\n    It is too little, helping him to all;\n    And he shall think that thou, which knowest the way\n    To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,\n    Being ne'er so little urg'd, another way\n    To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.\n    The love of wicked men converts to fear;\n    That fear to hate; and hate turns one or both\n    To worthy danger and deserved death.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. My guilt be on my head, and there an end.\n    Take leave, and part; for you must part forthwith.\n  KING RICHARD. Doubly divorc'd! Bad men, you violate\n    A twofold marriage-'twixt my crown and me,\n    And then betwixt me and my married wife.\n    Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me;\n    And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.\n    Part us, Northumberland; I towards the north,\n    Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;\n    My wife to France, from whence set forth in pomp,\n    She came adorned hither like sweet May,\n    Sent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day.\n  QUEEN. And must we be divided? Must we part?\n  KING RICHARD. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from\nheart.\n  QUEEN. Banish us both, and send the King with me.\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. That were some love, but little policy.\n  QUEEN. Then whither he goes thither let me go.\n  KING RICHARD. So two, together weeping, make one woe.\n    Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here;\n    Better far off than near, be ne'er the near.\n    Go, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans.\n  QUEEN. So longest way shall have the longest moans.\n  KING RICHARD. Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being\nshort,\n    And piece the way out with a heavy heart.\n    Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief,\n    Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief.\n    One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;\n    Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.\n  QUEEN. Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part\n    To take on me to keep and kill thy heart.\n    So, now I have mine own again, be gone.\n    That I may strive to kill it with a groan.\n  KING RICHARD. We make woe wanton with this fond delay.\n    Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 2.\nThe DUKE OF YORK's palace\n\nEnter the DUKE OF YORK and the DUCHESS\n\n  DUCHESS. My Lord, you told me you would tell the rest,\n    When weeping made you break the story off,\n    Of our two cousins' coming into London.\n  YORK. Where did I leave?\n  DUCHESS. At that sad stop, my lord,\n    Where rude misgoverned hands from windows' tops\n    Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard's head.\n  YORK. Then, as I said, the Duke, great Bolingbroke,\n    Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed\n    Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know,\n    With slow but stately pace kept on his course,\n    Whilst all tongues cried 'God save thee, Bolingbroke!'\n    You would have thought the very windows spake,\n    So many greedy looks of young and old\n    Through casements darted their desiring eyes\n    Upon his visage; and that all the walls\n    With painted imagery had said at once\n    'Jesu preserve thee! Welcome, Bolingbroke!'\n    Whilst he, from the one side to the other turning,\n    Bareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck,\n    Bespake them thus, 'I thank you, countrymen.'\n    And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.\n  DUCHESS. Alack, poor Richard! where rode he the whilst?\n  YORK. As in a theatre the eyes of men\n    After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage\n    Are idly bent on him that enters next,\n    Thinking his prattle to be tedious;\n    Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes\n    Did scowl on gentle Richard; no man cried 'God save him!'\n    No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home;\n    But dust was thrown upon his sacred head;\n    Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,\n    His face still combating with tears and smiles,\n    The badges of his grief and patience,\n    That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd\n    The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,\n    And barbarism itself have pitied him.\n    But heaven hath a hand in these events,\n    To whose high will we bound our calm contents.\n    To Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now,\n    Whose state and honour I for aye allow.\n  DUCHESS. Here comes my son Aumerle.\n  YORK. Aumerle that was\n    But that is lost for being Richard's friend,\n    And madam, you must call him Rudand now.\n    I am in Parliament pledge for his truth\n    And lasting fealty to the new-made king.\n\n                  Enter AUMERLE\n\n  DUCHESS. Welcome, my son. Who are the violets now\n    That strew the green lap of the new come spring?\n  AUMERLE. Madam, I know not, nor I greatly care not.\n    God knows I had as lief be none as one.\n  YORK. Well, bear you well in this new spring of time,\n    Lest you be cropp'd before you come to prime.\n    What news from Oxford? Do these justs and triumphs hold?\n  AUMERLE. For aught I know, my lord, they do.\n  YORK. You will be there, I know.\n  AUMERLE. If God prevent not, I purpose so.\n  YORK. What seal is that that without thy bosom?\n    Yea, look'st thou pale? Let me see the writing.\n  AUMERLE. My lord, 'tis nothing.\n  YORK. No matter, then, who see it.\n    I will be satisfied; let me see the writing.\n  AUMERLE. I do beseech your Grace to pardon me;\n    It is a matter of small consequence\n    Which for some reasons I would not have seen.\n  YORK. Which for some reasons, sir, I mean to see.\n    I fear, I fear-\n  DUCHESS. What should you fear?\n    'Tis nothing but some bond that he is ent'red into\n    For gay apparel 'gainst the triumph-day.\n  YORK. Bound to himself! What doth he with a bond\n    That he is bound to? Wife, thou art a fool.\n    Boy, let me see the writing.\n  AUMERLE. I do beseech you, pardon me; I may not show it.\n  YORK. I will be satisfied; let me see it, I say.\n                [He plucks it out of his bosom, and reads it]\n    Treason, foul treason! Villain! traitor! slave!\n  DUCHESS. What is the matter, my lord?\n  YORK. Ho! who is within there?\n\n                    Enter a servant\n\n    Saddle my horse.\n    God for his mercy, what treachery is here!\n  DUCHESS. Why, York, what is it, my lord?\n  YORK. Give me my boots, I say; saddle my horse.\n                                                    Exit servant\n    Now, by mine honour, by my life, my troth,\n    I will appeach the villain.\n  DUCHESS. What is the matter?\n  YORK. Peace, foolish woman.\n  DUCHESS. I will not peace. What is the matter, Aumerle?\n  AUMERLE. Good mother, be content; it is no more\n    Than my poor life must answer.\n  DUCHESS. Thy life answer!\n  YORK. Bring me my boots. I will unto the King.\n\n              His man enters with his boots\n\n  DUCHESS. Strike him, Aumerle. Poor boy, thou art amaz'd.\n    Hence, villain! never more come in my sight.\n  YORK. Give me my boots, I say.\n  DUCHESS. Why, York, what wilt thou do?\n    Wilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own?\n    Have we more sons? or are we like to have?\n    Is not my teeming date drunk up with time?\n    And wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age\n    And rob me of a happy mother's name?\n    Is he not like thee? Is he not thine own?\n  YORK. Thou fond mad woman,\n    Wilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy?\n    A dozen of them here have ta'en the sacrament,\n    And interchangeably set down their hands\n    To kill the King at Oxford.\n  DUCHESS. He shall be none;\n    We'll keep him here. Then what is that to him?\n  YORK. Away, fond woman! were he twenty times my son\n    I would appeach him.\n  DUCHESS. Hadst thou groan'd for him\n    As I have done, thou wouldst be more pitiful.\n    But now I know thy mind: thou dost suspect\n    That I have been disloyal to thy bed\n    And that he is a bastard, not thy son.\n    Sweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind.\n    He is as like thee as a man may be\n    Not like to me, or any of my kin,\n    And yet I love him.\n  YORK. Make way, unruly woman!                             Exit\n  DUCHESS. After, Aumerle! Mount thee upon his horse;\n    Spur post, and get before him to the King,\n    And beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee.\n    I'll not be long behind; though I be old,\n    I doubt not but to ride as fast as York;\n    And never will I rise up from the ground\n    Till Bolingbroke have pardon'd thee. Away, be gone.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 3.\nWindsor Castle\n\nEnter BOLINGBROKE as King, PERCY, and other LORDS\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Can no man tell me of my unthrifty son?\n    'Tis full three months since I did see him last.\n    If any plague hang over us, 'tis he.\n    I would to God, my lords, he might be found.\n    Inquire at London, 'mongst the taverns there,\n    For there, they say, he daily doth frequent\n    With unrestrained loose companions,\n    Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes\n    And beat our watch and rob our passengers,\n    Which he, young wanton and effeminate boy,\n    Takes on the point of honour to support\n    So dissolute a crew.\n  PERCY. My lord, some two days since I saw the Prince,\n    And told him of those triumphs held at Oxford.\n  BOLINGBROKE. And what said the gallant?\n  PERCY. His answer was, he would unto the stews,\n    And from the common'st creature pluck a glove\n    And wear it as a favour; and with that\n    He would unhorse the lustiest challenger.\n  BOLINGBROKE. As dissolute as desperate; yet through both\n    I see some sparks of better hope, which elder years\n    May happily bring forth. But who comes here?\n\n                Enter AUMERLE amazed\n\n  AUMERLE. Where is the King?\n  BOLINGBROKE. What means our cousin that he stares and looks\n    So wildly?\n  AUMERLE. God save your Grace! I do beseech your Majesty,\n    To have some conference with your Grace alone.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Withdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.\n                                          Exeunt PERCY and LORDS\n    What is the matter with our cousin now?\n  AUMERLE. For ever may my knees grow to the earth,\n                                                    [Kneels]\n    My tongue cleave to my roof within my mouth,\n    Unless a pardon ere I rise or speak.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Intended or committed was this fault?\n    If on the first, how heinous e'er it be,\n    To win thy after-love I pardon thee.\n  AUMERLE. Then give me leave that I may turn the key,\n    That no man enter till my tale be done.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Have thy desire.\n            [The DUKE OF YORK knocks at the door and crieth]\n  YORK. [Within] My liege, beware; look to thyself;\n    Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there.\n  BOLINGBROKE. [Drawing] Villain, I'll make thee safe.\n  AUMERLE. Stay thy revengeful hand; thou hast no cause to fear.\n  YORK. [Within] Open the door, secure, foolhardy King.\n    Shall I, for love, speak treason to thy face?\n    Open the door, or I will break it open.\n\n                    Enter YORK\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. What is the matter, uncle? Speak;\n    Recover breath; tell us how near is danger,\n    That we may arm us to encounter it.\n  YORK. Peruse this writing here, and thou shalt know\n    The treason that my haste forbids me show.\n  AUMERLE. Remember, as thou read'st, thy promise pass'd.\n    I do repent me; read not my name there;\n    My heart is not confederate with my hand.\n  YORK. It was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down.\n    I tore it from the traitor's bosom, King;\n    Fear, and not love, begets his penitence.\n    Forget to pity him, lest thy pity prove\n    A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.\n  BOLINGBROKE. O heinous, strong, and bold conspiracy!\n    O loyal father of a treacherous son!\n    Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain,\n    From whence this stream through muddy passages\n    Hath held his current and defil'd himself!\n    Thy overflow of good converts to bad;\n    And thy abundant goodness shall excuse\n    This deadly blot in thy digressing son.\n  YORK. So shall my virtue be his vice's bawd;\n    And he shall spend mine honour with his shame,\n    As thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold.\n    Mine honour lives when his dishonour dies,\n    Or my sham'd life in his dishonour lies.\n    Thou kill'st me in his life; giving him breath,\n    The traitor lives, the true man's put to death.\n  DUCHESS. [Within] I What ho, my liege, for God's sake, let me\nin.\n  BOLINGBROKE. What shrill-voic'd suppliant makes this eager cry?\n  DUCHESS. [Within] A woman, and thine aunt, great King; 'tis I.\n    Speak with me, pity me, open the door.\n    A beggar begs that never begg'd before.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Our scene is alt'red from a serious thing,\n    And now chang'd to 'The Beggar and the King.'\n    My dangerous cousin, let your mother in.\n    I know she is come to pray for your foul sin.\n  YORK. If thou do pardon whosoever pray,\n    More sins for this forgiveness prosper may.\n    This fest'red joint cut off, the rest rest sound;\n    This let alone will all the rest confound.\n\n                 Enter DUCHESS\n\n  DUCHESS. O King, believe not this hard-hearted man!\n    Love loving not itself, none other can.\n  YORK. Thou frantic woman, what dost thou make here?\n    Shall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear?\n  DUCHESS. Sweet York, be patient. Hear me, gentle liege.\n                                                     [Kneels]\n  BOLINGBROKE. Rise up, good aunt.\n  DUCHESS. Not yet, I thee beseech.\n    For ever will I walk upon my knees,\n    And never see day that the happy sees\n    Till thou give joy; until thou bid me joy\n    By pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.\n  AUMERLE. Unto my mother's prayers I bend my knee.\n                                                     [Kneels]\n  YORK. Against them both, my true joints bended be.\n                                                     [Kneels]\n    Ill mayst thou thrive, if thou grant any grace!\n  DUCHESS. Pleads he in earnest? Look upon his face;\n    His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest;\n    His words come from his mouth, ours from our breast.\n    He prays but faintly and would be denied;\n    We pray with heart and soul, and all beside.\n    His weary joints would gladly rise, I know;\n    Our knees still kneel till to the ground they grow.\n    His prayers are full of false hypocrisy;\n    Ours of true zeal and deep integrity.\n    Our prayers do out-pray his; then let them have\n    That mercy which true prayer ought to have.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Good aunt, stand up.\n  DUCHESS. do not say 'stand up';\n    Say 'pardon' first, and afterwards 'stand up.'\n    An if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,\n    'Pardon' should be the first word of thy speech.\n    I never long'd to hear a word till now;\n    Say 'pardon,' King; let pity teach thee how.\n    The word is short, but not so short as sweet;\n    No word like 'pardon' for kings' mouths so meet.\n  YORK. Speak it in French, King, say 'pardonne moy.'\n  DUCHESS. Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?\n    Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,\n    That sets the word itself against the word!\n    Speak 'pardon' as 'tis current in our land;\n    The chopping French we do not understand.\n    Thine eye begins to speak, set thy tongue there;\n    Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear,\n    That hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,\n    Pity may move thee 'pardon' to rehearse.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Good aunt, stand up.\n  DUCHESS. I do not sue to stand;\n    Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.\n  BOLINGBROKE. I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.\n  DUCHESS. O happy vantage of a kneeling knee!\n    Yet am I sick for fear. Speak it again.\n    Twice saying 'pardon' doth not pardon twain,\n    But makes one pardon strong.\n  BOLINGBROKE. With all my heart\n    I pardon him.\n  DUCHESS. A god on earth thou art.\n  BOLINGBROKE. But for our trusty brother-in-law and the Abbot,\n    With all the rest of that consorted crew,\n    Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels.\n    Good uncle, help to order several powers\n    To Oxford, or where'er these traitors are.\n    They shall not live within this world, I swear,\n    But I will have them, if I once know where.\n    Uncle, farewell; and, cousin, adieu;\n    Your mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true.\n  DUCHESS. Come, my old son; I pray God make thee new.\nExeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 4.\nWindsor Castle\n\nEnter SIR PIERCE OF EXTON and a servant\n\n  EXTON. Didst thou not mark the King, what words he spake?\n    'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?'\n    Was it not so?\n  SERVANT. These were his very words.\n  EXTON. 'Have I no friend?' quoth he. He spake it twice\n    And urg'd it twice together, did he not?\n  SERVANT. He did.\n  EXTON. And, speaking it, he wishtly look'd on me,\n    As who should say 'I would thou wert the man\n    That would divorce this terror from my heart';\n    Meaning the King at Pomfret. Come, let's go.\n    I am the King's friend, and will rid his foe.         Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 5.\nPomfret Castle. The dungeon of the Castle\n\nEnter KING RICHARD\n\n  KING RICHARD. I have been studying how I may compare\n    This prison where I live unto the world\n    And, for because the world is populous\n    And here is not a creature but myself,\n    I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.\n    My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,\n    My soul the father; and these two beget\n    A generation of still-breeding thoughts,\n    And these same thoughts people this little world,\n    In humours like the people of this world,\n    For no thought is contented. The better sort,\n    As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd\n    With scruples, and do set the word itself\n    Against the word,\n    As thus: 'Come, little ones'; and then again,\n    'It is as hard to come as for a camel\n    To thread the postern of a small needle's eye.'\n    Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot\n    Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails\n    May tear a passage through the flinty ribs\n    Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;\n    And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.\n    Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves\n    That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,\n    Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars\n    Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame,\n    That many have and others must sit there;\n    And in this thought they find a kind of ease,\n    Bearing their own misfortunes on the back\n    Of such as have before endur'd the like.\n    Thus play I in one person many people,\n    And none contented. Sometimes am I king;\n    Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,\n    And so I am. Then crushing penury\n    Persuades me I was better when a king;\n    Then am I king'd again; and by and by\n    Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,\n    And straight am nothing. But whate'er I be,\n    Nor I, nor any man that but man is,\n    With nothing shall be pleas'd till he be eas'd\n    With being nothing.                    [The music plays]\n    Music do I hear?\n    Ha, ha! keep time. How sour sweet music is\n    When time is broke and no proportion kept!\n    So is it in the music of men's lives.\n    And here have I the daintiness of ear\n    To check time broke in a disorder'd string;\n    But, for the concord of my state and time,\n    Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.\n    I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;\n    For now hath time made me his numb'ring clock:\n    My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar\n    Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,\n    Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,\n    Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.\n    Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is\n    Are clamorous groans which strike upon my heart,\n    Which is the bell. So sighs, and tears, and groans,\n    Show minutes, times, and hours; but my time\n    Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,\n    While I stand fooling here, his Jack of the clock.\n    This music mads me. Let it sound no more;\n    For though it have holp madmen to their wits,\n    In me it seems it will make wise men mad.\n    Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me!\n    For 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard\n    Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.\n\n              Enter a GROOM of the stable\n\n  GROOM. Hail, royal Prince!\n  KING RICHARD. Thanks, noble peer!\n    The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.\n    What art thou? and how comest thou hither,\n    Where no man never comes but that sad dog\n    That brings me food to make misfortune live?\n  GROOM. I was a poor groom of thy stable, King,\n    When thou wert king; who, travelling towards York,\n    With much ado at length have gotten leave\n    To look upon my sometimes royal master's face.\n    O, how it ern'd my heart, when I beheld,\n    In London streets, that coronation-day,\n    When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary-\n    That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,\n    That horse that I so carefully have dress'd!\n  KING RICHARD. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,\n    How went he under him?\n  GROOM. So proudly as if he disdain'd the ground.\n  KING RICHARD. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!\n    That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;\n    This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.\n    Would he not stumble? would he not fall down,\n    Since pride must have a fall, and break the neck\n    Of that proud man that did usurp his back?\n    Forgiveness, horse! Why do I rail on thee,\n    Since thou, created to be aw'd by man,\n    Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse;\n    And yet I bear a burden like an ass,\n    Spurr'd, gall'd, and tir'd, by jauncing Bolingbroke.\n\n              Enter KEEPER with meat\n\n  KEEPER. Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay.\n  KING RICHARD. If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away.\n  GROOM. my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.\n Exit\n  KEEPER. My lord, will't please you to fall to?\n  KING RICHARD. Taste of it first as thou art wont to do.\n  KEEPER. My lord, I dare not. Sir Pierce of Exton,\n    Who lately came from the King, commands the contrary.\n  KING RICHARD. The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee!\n    Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.\n                                           [Beats the KEEPER]\n  KEEPER. Help, help, help!\n    The murderers, EXTON and servants, rush in, armed\n  KING RICHARD. How now! What means death in this rude assault?\n    Villain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument.\n                         [Snatching a weapon and killing one]\n    Go thou and fill another room in hell.\n              [He kills another, then EXTON strikes him down]\n    That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire\n    That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand\n    Hath with the King's blood stain'd the King's own land.\n    Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;\n    Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.\n                                                       [Dies]\n  EXTON. As full of valour as of royal blood.\n    Both have I spill'd. O, would the deed were good!\n    For now the devil, that told me I did well,\n    Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.\n    This dead King to the living King I'll bear.\n    Take hence the rest, and give them burial here.       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE 6.\nWindsor Castle\n\nFlourish. Enter BOLINGBROKE, the DUKE OF YORK, With other LORDS\nand attendants\n\n  BOLINGBROKE. Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear\n    Is that the rebels have consum'd with fire\n    Our town of Ciceter in Gloucestershire;\n    But whether they be ta'en or slain we hear not.\n\n              Enter NORTHUMBERLAND\n\n    Welcome, my lord. What is the news?\n  NORTHUMBERLAND. First, to thy sacred state wish I all\nhappiness.\n    The next news is, I have to London sent\n    The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent.\n    The manner of their taking may appear\n    At large discoursed in this paper here.\n  BOLINGBROKE. We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains;\n    And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.\n\n                  Enter FITZWATER\n\n  FITZWATER. My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London\n    The heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely;\n    Two of the dangerous consorted traitors\n    That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot;\n    Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.\n\n         Enter PERCY, With the BISHOP OF CARLISLE\n\n  PERCY. The grand conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,\n    With clog of conscience and sour melancholy,\n    Hath yielded up his body to the grave;\n    But here is Carlisle living, to abide\n    Thy kingly doom, and sentence of his pride.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Carlisle, this is your doom:\n    Choose out some secret place, some reverend room,\n    More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life;\n    So as thou liv'st in peace, die free from strife;\n    For though mine enemy thou hast ever been,\n    High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.\n\n      Enter EXTON, with attendants, hearing a coffin\n\n  EXTON. Great King, within this coffin I present\n    Thy buried fear. Herein all breathless lies\n    The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,\n    Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.\n  BOLINGBROKE. Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought\n    A deed of slander with thy fatal hand\n    Upon my head and all this famous land.\n  EXTON. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.\n  BOLINGBROKE. They love not poison that do poison need,\n    Nor do I thee. Though I did wish him dead,\n    I hate the murderer, love him murdered.\n    The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,\n    But neither my good word nor princely favour;\n    With Cain go wander thorough shades of night,\n    And never show thy head by day nor light.\n    Lords, I protest my soul is full of woe\n    That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow.\n    Come, mourn with me for what I do lament,\n    And put on sullen black incontinent.\n    I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land,\n    To wash this blood off from my guilty hand.\n    March sadly after; grace my mournings here\n    In weeping after this untimely bier.                  Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nKing Richard the Second"}
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{"1112":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n*Project Gutenberg is proud to cooperate with The World Library*\nin the presentation of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nfor your reading for education and entertainment.  HOWEVER, THIS\nIS NEITHER SHAREWARE NOR PUBLIC DOMAIN. . .AND UNDER THE LIBRARY\nOF THE FUTURE CONDITIONS OF THIS PRESENTATION. . .NO CHARGES MAY\nBE MADE FOR *ANY* ACCESS TO THIS MATERIAL.  YOU ARE ENCOURAGED!!\nTO GIVE IT AWAY TO ANYONE YOU LIKE, BUT NO CHARGES ARE ALLOWED!!\n\n\n\n\nThe Complete Works of William Shakespeare\n\nThe Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet\n\nThe Library of the Future Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nLibrary of the Future is a TradeMark (TM) of World Library Inc.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1595\n\nTHE TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  Chorus.\n\n\n  Escalus, Prince of Verona.\n\n  Paris, a young Count, kinsman to the Prince.\n\n  Montague, heads of two houses at variance with each other.\n\n  Capulet, heads of two houses at variance with each other.\n\n  An old Man, of the Capulet family.\n\n  Romeo, son to Montague.\n\n  Tybalt, nephew to Lady Capulet.\n\n  Mercutio, kinsman to the Prince and friend to Romeo.\n\n  Benvolio, nephew to Montague, and friend to Romeo\n\n  Tybalt, nephew to Lady Capulet.\n\n  Friar Laurence, Franciscan.\n\n  Friar John, Franciscan.\n\n  Balthasar, servant to Romeo.\n\n  Abram, servant to Montague.\n\n  Sampson, servant to Capulet.\n\n  Gregory, servant to Capulet.\n\n  Peter, servant to Juliet's nurse.\n\n  An Apothecary.\n\n  Three Musicians.\n\n  An Officer.\n\n\n  Lady Montague, wife to Montague.\n\n  Lady Capulet, wife to Capulet.\n\n  Juliet, daughter to Capulet.\n\n  Nurse to Juliet.\n\n\n  Citizens of Verona; Gentlemen and Gentlewomen of both houses;\n    Maskers, Torchbearers, Pages, Guards, Watchmen, Servants, and\n    Attendants.\n\n                            SCENE.--Verona; Mantua.\n\n\n\n                        THE PROLOGUE\n\n                        Enter Chorus.\n\n\n  Chor. Two households, both alike in dignity,\n    In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,\n    From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,\n    Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.\n    From forth the fatal loins of these two foes\n    A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;\n    Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows\n    Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.\n    The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,\n    And the continuance of their parents' rage,\n    Which, but their children's end, naught could remove,\n    Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;\n    The which if you with patient ears attend,\n    What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.\n                                                         [Exit.]\n\n\n\n\nACT I. Scene I.\nVerona. A public place.\n\nEnter Sampson and Gregory (with swords and bucklers) of the house\nof Capulet.\n\n\n  Samp. Gregory, on my word, we'll not carry coals.\n\n  Greg. No, for then we should be colliers.\n\n  Samp. I mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw.\n\n  Greg. Ay, while you live, draw your neck out of collar.\n\n  Samp. I strike quickly, being moved.\n\n  Greg. But thou art not quickly moved to strike.\n\n  Samp. A dog of the house of Montague moves me.\n\n  Greg. To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to stand.\n    Therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away.\n\n  Samp. A dog of that house shall move me to stand. I will take\n    the wall of any man or maid of Montague's.\n\n  Greg. That shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest goes to the\n    wall.\n\n  Samp. 'Tis true; and therefore women, being the weaker vessels,\n    are ever thrust to the wall. Therefore I will push Montague's men\n    from the wall and thrust his maids to the wall.\n\n  Greg. The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.\n\n  Samp. 'Tis all one. I will show myself a tyrant. When I have\n    fought with the men, I will be cruel with the maids- I will cut off\n    their heads.\n\n  Greg. The heads of the maids?\n\n  Samp. Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads.\n    Take it in what sense thou wilt.\n\n  Greg. They must take it in sense that feel it.\n\n  Samp. Me they shall feel while I am able to stand; and 'tis known I\n    am a pretty piece of flesh.\n\n  Greg. 'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst\n    been poor-John. Draw thy tool! Here comes two of the house of\n    Montagues.\n\n           Enter two other Servingmen [Abram and Balthasar].\n\n\n  Samp. My naked weapon is out. Quarrel! I will back thee.\n\n  Greg. How? turn thy back and run?\n\n  Samp. Fear me not.\n\n  Greg. No, marry. I fear thee!\n\n  Samp. Let us take the law of our sides; let them begin.\n\n  Greg. I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list.\n\n  Samp. Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them; which is\n    disgrace to them, if they bear it.\n\n  Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?\n\n  Samp. I do bite my thumb, sir.\n\n  Abr. Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?\n\n  Samp. [aside to Gregory] Is the law of our side if I say ay?\n\n  Greg. [aside to Sampson] No.\n\n  Samp. No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir; but I bite my\n    thumb, sir.\n\n  Greg. Do you quarrel, sir?\n\n  Abr. Quarrel, sir? No, sir.\n\n  Samp. But if you do, sir, am for you. I serve as good a man as\n    you.\n\n  Abr. No better.\n\n  Samp. Well, sir.\n\n                        Enter Benvolio.\n\n\n  Greg. [aside to Sampson] Say 'better.' Here comes one of my\n    master's kinsmen.\n\n  Samp. Yes, better, sir.\n\n  Abr. You lie.\n\n  Samp. Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.\n                                                     They fight.\n\n  Ben. Part, fools! [Beats down their swords.]\n    Put up your swords. You know not what you do.\n\n                          Enter Tybalt.\n\n\n  Tyb. What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?\n    Turn thee Benvolio! look upon thy death.\n\n  Ben. I do but keep the peace. Put up thy sword,\n    Or manage it to part these men with me.\n\n  Tyb. What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word\n    As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.\n    Have at thee, coward!                            They fight.\n\n     Enter an officer, and three or four Citizens with clubs or\n                          partisans.\n\n\n  Officer. Clubs, bills, and partisans! Strike! beat them down!\n\n  Citizens. Down with the Capulets! Down with the Montagues!\n\n           Enter Old Capulet in his gown, and his Wife.\n\n\n  Cap. What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!\n\n  Wife. A crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a sword?\n\n  Cap. My sword, I say! Old Montague is come\n    And flourishes his blade in spite of me.\n\n                 Enter Old Montague and his Wife.\n\n\n  Mon. Thou villain Capulet!- Hold me not, let me go.\n\n  M. Wife. Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe.\n\n                Enter Prince Escalus, with his Train.\n\n\n  Prince. Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,\n    Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel-\n    Will they not hear? What, ho! you men, you beasts,\n    That quench the fire of your pernicious rage\n    With purple fountains issuing from your veins!\n    On pain of torture, from those bloody hands\n    Throw your mistempered weapons to the ground\n    And hear the sentence of your moved prince.\n    Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word\n    By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,\n    Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets\n    And made Verona's ancient citizens\n    Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments\n    To wield old partisans, in hands as old,\n    Cank'red with peace, to part your cank'red hate.\n    If ever you disturb our streets again,\n    Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.\n    For this time all the rest depart away.\n    You, Capulet, shall go along with me;\n    And, Montague, come you this afternoon,\n    To know our farther pleasure in this case,\n    To old Freetown, our common judgment place.\n    Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.\n              Exeunt [all but Montague, his Wife, and Benvolio].\n\n  Mon. Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?\n    Speak, nephew, were you by when it began?\n\n  Ben. Here were the servants of your adversary\n    And yours, close fighting ere I did approach.\n    I drew to part them. In the instant came\n    The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepar'd;\n    Which, as he breath'd defiance to my ears,\n    He swung about his head and cut the winds,\n    Who, nothing hurt withal, hiss'd him in scorn.\n    While we were interchanging thrusts and blows,\n    Came more and more, and fought on part and part,\n    Till the Prince came, who parted either part.\n\n  M. Wife. O, where is Romeo? Saw you him to-day?\n    Right glad I am he was not at this fray.\n\n  Ben. Madam, an hour before the worshipp'd sun\n    Peer'd forth the golden window of the East,\n    A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad;\n    Where, underneath the grove of sycamore\n    That westward rooteth from the city's side,\n    So early walking did I see your son.\n    Towards him I made; but he was ware of me\n    And stole into the covert of the wood.\n    I- measuring his affections by my own,\n    Which then most sought where most might not be found,\n    Being one too many by my weary self-\n    Pursu'd my humour, not Pursuing his,\n    And gladly shunn'd who gladly fled from me.\n\n  Mon. Many a morning hath he there been seen,\n    With tears augmenting the fresh morning's dew,\n    Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;\n    But all so soon as the all-cheering sun\n    Should in the furthest East bean to draw\n    The shady curtains from Aurora's bed,\n    Away from light steals home my heavy son\n    And private in his chamber pens himself,\n    Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight\n    And makes himself an artificial night.\n    Black and portentous must this humour prove\n    Unless good counsel may the cause remove.\n\n  Ben. My noble uncle, do you know the cause?\n\n  Mon. I neither know it nor can learn of him\n\n  Ben. Have you importun'd him by any means?\n\n  Mon. Both by myself and many other friend;\n    But he, his own affections' counsellor,\n    Is to himself- I will not say how true-\n    But to himself so secret and so close,\n    So far from sounding and discovery,\n    As is the bud bit with an envious worm\n    Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air\n    Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.\n    Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow,\n    We would as willingly give cure as know.\n\n                       Enter Romeo.\n\n\n  Ben. See, where he comes. So please you step aside,\n    I'll know his grievance, or be much denied.\n\n  Mon. I would thou wert so happy by thy stay\n    To hear true shrift. Come, madam, let's away,\n                                     Exeunt [Montague and Wife].\n\n  Ben. Good morrow, cousin.\n\n  Rom. Is the day so young?\n\n  Ben. But new struck nine.\n\n  Rom. Ay me! sad hours seem long.\n    Was that my father that went hence so fast?\n\n  Ben. It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?\n\n  Rom. Not having that which having makes them short.\n\n  Ben. In love?\n\n  Rom. Out-\n\n  Ben. Of love?\n\n  Rom. Out of her favour where I am in love.\n\n  Ben. Alas that love, so gentle in his view,\n    Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!\n\n  Rom. Alas that love, whose view is muffled still,\n    Should without eyes see pathways to his will!\n    Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?\n    Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.\n    Here's much to do with hate, but more with love.\n    Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!\n    O anything, of nothing first create!\n    O heavy lightness! serious vanity!\n    Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!\n    Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!\n    Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is\n    This love feel I, that feel no love in this.\n    Dost thou not laugh?\n\n  Ben. No, coz, I rather weep.\n\n  Rom. Good heart, at what?\n\n  Ben. At thy good heart's oppression.\n\n  Rom. Why, such is love's transgression.\n    Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,\n    Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest\n    With more of thine. This love that thou hast shown\n    Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.\n    Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs;\n    Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;\n    Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears.\n    What is it else? A madness most discreet,\n    A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.\n    Farewell, my coz.\n\n  Ben. Soft! I will go along.\n    An if you leave me so, you do me wrong.\n\n  Rom. Tut! I have lost myself; I am not here:\n    This is not Romeo, he's some other where.\n\n  Ben. Tell me in sadness, who is that you love?\n\n  Rom. What, shall I groan and tell thee?\n\n  Ben. Groan? Why, no;\n    But sadly tell me who.\n\n  Rom. Bid a sick man in sadness make his will.\n    Ah, word ill urg'd to one that is so ill!\n    In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.\n\n  Ben. I aim'd so near when I suppos'd you lov'd.\n\n  Rom. A right good markman! And she's fair I love.\n\n  Ben. A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.\n\n  Rom. Well, in that hit you miss. She'll not be hit\n    With Cupid's arrow. She hath Dian's wit,\n    And, in strong proof of chastity well arm'd,\n    From Love's weak childish bow she lives unharm'd.\n    She will not stay the siege of loving terms,\n    Nor bide th' encounter of assailing eyes,\n    Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold.\n    O, she's rich in beauty; only poor\n    That, when she dies, with beauty dies her store.\n\n  Ben. Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?\n\n  Rom. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;\n    For beauty, starv'd with her severity,\n    Cuts beauty off from all posterity.\n    She is too fair, too wise, wisely too fair,\n    To merit bliss by making me despair.\n    She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow\n    Do I live dead that live to tell it now.\n\n  Ben. Be rul'd by me: forget to think of her.\n\n  Rom. O, teach me how I should forget to think!\n\n  Ben. By giving liberty unto thine eyes.\n    Examine other beauties.\n\n  Rom. 'Tis the way\n    To call hers (exquisite) in question more.\n    These happy masks that kiss fair ladies' brows,\n    Being black puts us in mind they hide the fair.\n    He that is strucken blind cannot forget\n    The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.\n    Show me a mistress that is passing fair,\n    What doth her beauty serve but as a note\n    Where I may read who pass'd that passing fair?\n    Farewell. Thou canst not teach me to forget.\n\n  Ben. I'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.      Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nA Street.\n\nEnter Capulet, County Paris, and [Servant] -the Clown.\n\n\n  Cap. But Montague is bound as well as I,\n    In penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think,\n    For men so old as we to keep the peace.\n\n  Par. Of honourable reckoning are you both,\n    And pity 'tis you liv'd at odds so long.\n    But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?\n\n  Cap. But saying o'er what I have said before:\n    My child is yet a stranger in the world,\n    She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;\n    Let two more summers wither in their pride\n    Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.\n\n  Par. Younger than she are happy mothers made.\n\n  Cap. And too soon marr'd are those so early made.\n    The earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she;\n    She is the hopeful lady of my earth.\n    But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart;\n    My will to her consent is but a part.\n    An she agree, within her scope of choice\n    Lies my consent and fair according voice.\n    This night I hold an old accustom'd feast,\n    Whereto I have invited many a guest,\n    Such as I love; and you among the store,\n    One more, most welcome, makes my number more.\n    At my poor house look to behold this night\n    Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light.\n    Such comfort as do lusty young men feel\n    When well apparell'd April on the heel\n    Of limping Winter treads, even such delight\n    Among fresh female buds shall you this night\n    Inherit at my house. Hear all, all see,\n    And like her most whose merit most shall be;\n    Which, on more view of many, mine, being one,\n    May stand in number, though in reck'ning none.\n    Come, go with me. [To Servant, giving him a paper] Go,\n    sirrah, trudge about\n    Through fair Verona; find those persons out\n    Whose names are written there, and to them say,\n    My house and welcome on their pleasure stay-\n                                     Exeunt [Capulet and Paris].\n\n  Serv. Find them out whose names are written here? It is written\n    that the shoemaker should meddle with his yard and the tailor\n    with his last, the fisher with his pencil and the painter\n    with his nets; but I am sent to find those persons whose names are\n    here writ, and can never find what names the writing person\n    hath here writ. I must to the learned. In good time!\n\n                   Enter Benvolio and Romeo.\n\n\n  Ben. Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning;\n    One pain is lessoned by another's anguish;\n    Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;\n    One desperate grief cures with another's languish.\n    Take thou some new infection to thy eye,\n    And the rank poison of the old will die.\n\n  Rom. Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.\n\n  Ben. For what, I pray thee?\n\n  Rom. For your broken shin.\n\n  Ben. Why, Romeo, art thou mad?\n\n  Rom. Not mad, but bound more than a madman is;\n    Shut up in Prison, kept without my food,\n    Whipp'd and tormented and- God-den, good fellow.\n\n  Serv. God gi' go-den. I pray, sir, can you read?\n\n  Rom. Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.\n\n  Serv. Perhaps you have learned it without book. But I pray, can\n    you read anything you see?\n\n  Rom. Ay, If I know the letters and the language.\n\n  Serv. Ye say honestly. Rest you merry!\n\n  Rom. Stay, fellow; I can read.                       He reads.\n\n      'Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;\n      County Anselmo and his beauteous sisters;\n      The lady widow of Vitruvio;\n      Signior Placentio and His lovely nieces;\n      Mercutio and his brother Valentine;\n      Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters;\n      My fair niece Rosaline and Livia;\n      Signior Valentio and His cousin Tybalt;\n      Lucio and the lively Helena.'\n\n    [Gives back the paper.] A fair assembly. Whither should they\n    come?\n\n  Serv. Up.\n\n  Rom. Whither?\n\n  Serv. To supper, to our house.\n\n  Rom. Whose house?\n\n  Serv. My master's.\n\n  Rom. Indeed I should have ask'd you that before.\n\n  Serv. Now I'll tell you without asking. My master is the great\n    rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray\n    come and crush a cup of wine. Rest you merry!               Exit.\n\n  Ben. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's\n    Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lov'st;\n    With all the admired beauties of Verona.\n    Go thither, and with unattainted eye\n    Compare her face with some that I shall show,\n    And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.\n\n  Rom. When the devout religion of mine eye\n    Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;\n    And these, who, often drown'd, could never die,\n    Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!\n    One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sun\n    Ne'er saw her match since first the world begun.\n\n  Ben. Tut! you saw her fair, none else being by,\n    Herself pois'd with herself in either eye;\n    But in that crystal scales let there be weigh'd\n    Your lady's love against some other maid\n    That I will show you shining at this feast,\n    And she shall scant show well that now seems best.\n\n  Rom. I'll go along, no such sight to be shown,\n    But to rejoice in splendour of my own.              [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nCapulet's house.\n\nEnter Capulet's Wife, and Nurse.\n\n\n  Wife. Nurse, where's my daughter? Call her forth to me.\n\n  Nurse. Now, by my maidenhead at twelve year old,\n    I bade her come. What, lamb! what ladybird!\n    God forbid! Where's this girl? What, Juliet!\n\n                         Enter Juliet.\n\n\n  Jul. How now? Who calls?\n\n  Nurse. Your mother.\n\n  Jul. Madam, I am here.\n    What is your will?\n\n  Wife. This is the matter- Nurse, give leave awhile,\n    We must talk in secret. Nurse, come back again;\n    I have rememb'red me, thou's hear our counsel.\n    Thou knowest my daughter's of a pretty age.\n\n  Nurse. Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.\n\n  Wife. She's not fourteen.\n\n  Nurse. I'll lay fourteen of my teeth-\n    And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four-\n    She is not fourteen. How long is it now\n    To Lammastide?\n\n  Wife. A fortnight and odd days.\n\n  Nurse. Even or odd, of all days in the year,\n    Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen.\n    Susan and she (God rest all Christian souls!)\n    Were of an age. Well, Susan is with God;\n    She was too good for me. But, as I said,\n    On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen;\n    That shall she, marry; I remember it well.\n    'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;\n    And she was wean'd (I never shall forget it),\n    Of all the days of the year, upon that day;\n    For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,\n    Sitting in the sun under the dovehouse wall.\n    My lord and you were then at Mantua.\n    Nay, I do bear a brain. But, as I said,\n    When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple\n    Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,\n    To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!\n    Shake, quoth the dovehouse! 'Twas no need, I trow,\n    To bid me trudge.\n    And since that time it is eleven years,\n    For then she could stand high-lone; nay, by th' rood,\n    She could have run and waddled all about;\n    For even the day before, she broke her brow;\n    And then my husband (God be with his soul!\n    'A was a merry man) took up the child.\n    'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?\n    Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;\n    Wilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidam,\n    The pretty wretch left crying, and said 'Ay.'\n    To see now how a jest shall come about!\n    I warrant, an I should live a thousand yeas,\n    I never should forget it. 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he,\n    And, pretty fool, it stinted, and said 'Ay.'\n\n  Wife. Enough of this. I pray thee hold thy peace.\n\n  Nurse. Yes, madam. Yet I cannot choose but laugh\n    To think it should leave crying and say 'Ay.'\n    And yet, I warrant, it bad upon it brow\n    A bump as big as a young cock'rel's stone;\n    A perilous knock; and it cried bitterly.\n    'Yea,' quoth my husband, 'fall'st upon thy face?\n    Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;\n    Wilt thou not, Jule?' It stinted, and said 'Ay.'\n\n  Jul. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I.\n\n  Nurse. Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace!\n    Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nurs'd.\n    An I might live to see thee married once, I have my wish.\n\n  Wife. Marry, that 'marry' is the very theme\n    I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,\n    How stands your disposition to be married?\n\n  Jul. It is an honour that I dream not of.\n\n  Nurse. An honour? Were not I thine only nurse,\n    I would say thou hadst suck'd wisdom from thy teat.\n\n  Wife. Well, think of marriage now. Younger than you,\n    Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,\n    Are made already mothers. By my count,\n    I was your mother much upon these years\n    That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:\n    The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.\n\n  Nurse. A man, young lady! lady, such a man\n    As all the world- why he's a man of wax.\n\n  Wife. Verona's summer hath not such a flower.\n\n  Nurse. Nay, he's a flower, in faith- a very flower.\n\n  Wife. What say you? Can you love the gentleman?\n    This night you shall behold him at our feast.\n    Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,\n    And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;\n    Examine every married lineament,\n    And see how one another lends content;\n    And what obscur'd in this fair volume lies\n    Find written in the margent of his eyes,\n    This precious book of love, this unbound lover,\n    To beautify him only lacks a cover.\n    The fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride\n    For fair without the fair within to hide.\n    That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,\n    That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;\n    So shall you share all that he doth possess,\n    By having him making yourself no less.\n\n  Nurse. No less? Nay, bigger! Women grow by men\n\n  Wife. Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love?\n\n  Jul. I'll look to like, if looking liking move;\n    But no more deep will I endart mine eye\n    Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.\n\n                        Enter Servingman.\n\n\n  Serv. Madam, the guests are come, supper serv'd up, you call'd,\n    my young lady ask'd for, the nurse curs'd in the pantry, and\n    everything in extremity. I must hence to wait. I beseech you\n    follow straight.\n\n  Wife. We follow thee.                       Exit [Servingman].\n    Juliet, the County stays.\n\n  Nurse. Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nA street.\n\nEnter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six other Maskers;\nTorchbearers.\n\n\n  Rom. What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?\n    Or shall we on without apology?\n\n  Ben. The date is out of such prolixity.\n    We'll have no Cupid hoodwink'd with a scarf,\n    Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,\n    Scaring the ladies like a crowkeeper;\n    Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke\n    After the prompter, for our entrance;\n    But, let them measure us by what they will,\n    We'll measure them a measure, and be gone.\n\n  Rom. Give me a torch. I am not for this ambling.\n    Being but heavy, I will bear the light.\n\n  Mer. Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.\n\n  Rom. Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes\n    With nimble soles; I have a soul of lead\n    So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.\n\n  Mer. You are a lover. Borrow Cupid's wings\n    And soar with them above a common bound.\n\n  Rom. I am too sore enpierced with his shaft\n    To soar with his light feathers; and so bound\n    I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe.\n    Under love's heavy burthen do I sink.\n\n  Mer. And, to sink in it, should you burthen love-\n    Too great oppression for a tender thing.\n\n  Rom. Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,\n    Too rude, too boist'rous, and it pricks like thorn.\n\n  Mer. If love be rough with you, be rough with love.\n    Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.\n    Give me a case to put my visage in.\n    A visor for a visor! What care I\n    What curious eye doth quote deformities?\n    Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me.\n\n  Ben. Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in\n    But every man betake him to his legs.\n\n  Rom. A torch for me! Let wantons light of heart\n    Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels;\n    For I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase,\n    I'll be a candle-holder and look on;\n    The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.\n\n  Mer. Tut! dun's the mouse, the constable's own word!\n    If thou art Dun, we'll draw thee from the mire\n    Of this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st\n    Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho!\n\n  Rom. Nay, that's not so.\n\n  Mer. I mean, sir, in delay\n    We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.\n    Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits\n    Five times in that ere once in our five wits.\n\n  Rom. And we mean well, in going to this masque;\n    But 'tis no wit to go.\n\n  Mer. Why, may one ask?\n\n  Rom. I dreamt a dream to-night.\n\n  Mer. And so did I.\n\n  Rom. Well, what was yours?\n\n  Mer. That dreamers often lie.\n\n  Rom. In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.\n\n  Mer. O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.\n    She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes\n    In shape no bigger than an agate stone\n    On the forefinger of an alderman,\n    Drawn with a team of little atomies\n    Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;\n    Her wagon spokes made of long spinners' legs,\n    The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;\n    Her traces, of the smallest spider's web;\n    Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams;\n    Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;\n    Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,\n    Not half so big as a round little worm\n    Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;\n    Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,\n    Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,\n    Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.\n    And in this state she 'gallops night by night\n    Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;\n    O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on cursies straight;\n    O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;\n    O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,\n    Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,\n    Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.\n    Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,\n    And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;\n    And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail\n    Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,\n    Then dreams he of another benefice.\n    Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,\n    And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,\n    Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,\n    Of healths five fadom deep; and then anon\n    Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,\n    And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two\n    And sleeps again. This is that very Mab\n    That plats the manes of horses in the night\n    And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish, hairs,\n    Which once untangled much misfortune bodes\n    This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,\n    That presses them and learns them first to bear,\n    Making them women of good carriage.\n    This is she-\n\n  Rom. Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!\n    Thou talk'st of nothing.\n\n  Mer. True, I talk of dreams;\n    Which are the children of an idle brain,\n    Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;\n    Which is as thin of substance as the air,\n    And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes\n    Even now the frozen bosom of the North\n    And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,\n    Turning his face to the dew-dropping South.\n\n  Ben. This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves.\n    Supper is done, and we shall come too late.\n\n  Rom. I fear, too early; for my mind misgives\n    Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,\n    Shall bitterly begin his fearful date\n    With this night's revels and expire the term\n    Of a despised life, clos'd in my breast,\n    By some vile forfeit of untimely death.\n    But he that hath the steerage of my course\n    Direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen!\n\n  Ben. Strike, drum.\n                           They march about the stage. [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nCapulet's house.\n\nServingmen come forth with napkins.\n\n  1. Serv. Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away?\n    He shift a trencher! he scrape a trencher!\n  2. Serv. When good manners shall lie all in one or two men's\n    hands, and they unwash'd too, 'tis a foul thing.\n  1. Serv. Away with the join-stools, remove the court-cubbert,\n    look to the plate. Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane and, as\n    thou loves me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and\nNell.\n    Anthony, and Potpan!\n  2. Serv. Ay, boy, ready.\n  1. Serv. You are look'd for and call'd for, ask'd for and\n    sought for, in the great chamber.\n  3. Serv. We cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys!\n    Be brisk awhile, and the longer liver take all.      Exeunt.\n\n    Enter the Maskers, Enter, [with Servants,] Capulet, his Wife,\n              Juliet, Tybalt, and all the Guests\n               and Gentlewomen to the Maskers.\n\n\n  Cap. Welcome, gentlemen! Ladies that have their toes\n    Unplagu'd with corns will have a bout with you.\n    Ah ha, my mistresses! which of you all\n    Will now deny to dance? She that makes dainty,\n    She I'll swear hath corns. Am I come near ye now?\n    Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day\n    That I have worn a visor and could tell\n    A whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,\n    Such as would please. 'Tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone!\n    You are welcome, gentlemen! Come, musicians, play.\n    A hall, a hall! give room! and foot it, girls.\n                                    Music plays, and they dance.\n    More light, you knaves! and turn the tables up,\n    And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.\n    Ah, sirrah, this unlook'd-for sport comes well.\n    Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet,\n    For you and I are past our dancing days.\n    How long is't now since last yourself and I\n    Were in a mask?\n  2. Cap. By'r Lady, thirty years.\n\n  Cap. What, man? 'Tis not so much, 'tis not so much!\n    'Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio,\n    Come Pentecost as quickly as it will,\n    Some five-and-twenty years, and then we mask'd.\n  2. Cap. 'Tis more, 'tis more! His son is elder, sir;\n    His son is thirty.\n\n  Cap. Will you tell me that?\n    His son was but a ward two years ago.\n\n  Rom. [to a Servingman] What lady's that, which doth enrich the\n    hand Of yonder knight?\n\n  Serv. I know not, sir.\n\n  Rom. O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!\n    It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night\n    Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear-\n    Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!\n    So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows\n    As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.\n    The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand\n    And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.\n    Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!\n    For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.\n\n  Tyb. This, by his voice, should be a Montague.\n    Fetch me my rapier, boy. What, dares the slave\n    Come hither, cover'd with an antic face,\n    To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?\n    Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,\n    To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.\n\n  Cap. Why, how now, kinsman? Wherefore storm you so?\n\n  Tyb. Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe;\n    A villain, that is hither come in spite\n    To scorn at our solemnity this night.\n\n  Cap. Young Romeo is it?\n\n  Tyb. 'Tis he, that villain Romeo.\n\n  Cap. Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone.\n    'A bears him like a portly gentleman,\n    And, to say truth, Verona brags of him\n    To be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth.\n    I would not for the wealth of all this town\n    Here in my house do him disparagement.\n    Therefore be patient, take no note of him.\n    It is my will; the which if thou respect,\n    Show a fair presence and put off these frowns,\n    An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.\n\n  Tyb. It fits when such a villain is a guest.\n    I'll not endure him.\n\n  Cap. He shall be endur'd.\n    What, goodman boy? I say he shall. Go to!\n    Am I the master here, or you? Go to!\n    You'll not endure him? God shall mend my soul!\n    You'll make a mutiny among my guests!\n    You will set cock-a-hoop! you'll be the man!\n\n  Tyb. Why, uncle, 'tis a shame.\n\n  Cap. Go to, go to!\n    You are a saucy boy. Is't so, indeed?\n    This trick may chance to scathe you. I know what.\n    You must contrary me! Marry, 'tis time.-\n    Well said, my hearts!- You are a princox- go!\n    Be quiet, or- More light, more light!- For shame!\n    I'll make you quiet; what!- Cheerly, my hearts!\n\n  Tyb. Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting\n    Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.\n    I will withdraw; but this intrusion shall,\n    Now seeming sweet, convert to bitt'rest gall.          Exit.\n\n  Rom. If I profane with my unworthiest hand\n    This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:\n    My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand\n    To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.\n\n  Jul. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,\n    Which mannerly devotion shows in this;\n    For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,\n    And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.\n\n  Rom. Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?\n\n  Jul. Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in pray'r.\n\n  Rom. O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do!\n    They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.\n\n  Jul. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.\n\n  Rom. Then move not while my prayer's effect I take.\n    Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purg'd.  [Kisses her.]\n\n  Jul. Then have my lips the sin that they have took.\n\n  Rom. Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg'd!\n    Give me my sin again.                          [Kisses her.]\n\n  Jul. You kiss by th' book.\n\n  Nurse. Madam, your mother craves a word with you.\n\n  Rom. What is her mother?\n\n  Nurse. Marry, bachelor,\n    Her mother is the lady of the house.\n    And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous.\n    I nurs'd her daughter that you talk'd withal.\n    I tell you, he that can lay hold of her\n    Shall have the chinks.\n\n  Rom. Is she a Capulet?\n    O dear account! my life is my foe's debt.\n\n  Ben. Away, be gone; the sport is at the best.\n\n  Rom. Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest.\n\n  Cap. Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone;\n    We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.\n    Is it e'en so? Why then, I thank you all.\n    I thank you, honest gentlemen. Good night.\n    More torches here! [Exeunt Maskers.] Come on then, let's to bed.\n    Ah, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late;\n    I'll to my rest.\n                              Exeunt [all but Juliet and Nurse].\n\n  Jul. Come hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman?\n\n  Nurse. The son and heir of old Tiberio.\n\n  Jul. What's he that now is going out of door?\n\n  Nurse. Marry, that, I think, be young Petruchio.\n\n  Jul. What's he that follows there, that would not dance?\n\n  Nurse. I know not.\n\n  Jul. Go ask his name.- If he be married,\n    My grave is like to be my wedding bed.\n\n  Nurse. His name is Romeo, and a Montague,\n    The only son of your great enemy.\n\n  Jul. My only love, sprung from my only hate!\n    Too early seen unknown, and known too late!\n    Prodigious birth of love it is to me\n    That I must love a loathed enemy.\n\n  Nurse. What's this? what's this?\n\n  Jul. A rhyme I learnt even now\n    Of one I danc'd withal.\n                                     One calls within, 'Juliet.'\n\n  Nurse. Anon, anon!\n    Come, let's away; the strangers all are gone.        Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nPROLOGUE\n\nEnter Chorus.\n\n\n  Chor. Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie,\n    And young affection gapes to be his heir;\n    That fair for which love groan'd for and would die,\n    With tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair.\n    Now Romeo is belov'd, and loves again,\n    Alike bewitched by the charm of looks;\n    But to his foe suppos'd he must complain,\n    And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks.\n    Being held a foe, he may not have access\n    To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear,\n    And she as much in love, her means much less\n    To meet her new beloved anywhere;\n    But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,\n    Temp'ring extremities with extreme sweet.\nExit.\n\n\n\n\nACT II. Scene I.\nA lane by the wall of Capulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Romeo alone.\n\n\n  Rom. Can I go forward when my heart is here?\n    Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.\n                     [Climbs the wall and leaps down within it.]\n\n                   Enter Benvolio with Mercutio.\n\n\n  Ben. Romeo! my cousin Romeo! Romeo!\n\n  Mer. He is wise,\n    And, on my life, hath stol'n him home to bed.\n\n  Ben. He ran this way, and leapt this orchard wall.\n    Call, good Mercutio.\n\n  Mer. Nay, I'll conjure too.\n    Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!\n    Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh;\n    Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied!\n    Cry but 'Ay me!' pronounce but 'love' and 'dove';\n    Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,\n    One nickname for her purblind son and heir,\n    Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim\n    When King Cophetua lov'd the beggar maid!\n    He heareth not, he stirreth not, be moveth not;\n    The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.\n    I conjure thee by Rosaline's bright eyes.\n    By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,\n    By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh,\n    And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,\n    That in thy likeness thou appear to us!\n\n  Ben. An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.\n\n  Mer. This cannot anger him. 'Twould anger him\n    To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle\n    Of some strange nature, letting it there stand\n    Till she had laid it and conjur'd it down.\n    That were some spite; my invocation\n    Is fair and honest: in his mistress' name,\n    I conjure only but to raise up him.\n\n  Ben. Come, he hath hid himself among these trees\n    To be consorted with the humorous night.\n    Blind is his love and best befits the dark.\n\n  Mer. If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.\n    Now will he sit under a medlar tree\n    And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit\n    As maids call medlars when they laugh alone.\n    O, Romeo, that she were, O that she were\n    An open et cetera, thou a pop'rin pear!\n    Romeo, good night. I'll to my truckle-bed;\n    This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep.\n    Come, shall we go?\n\n  Ben. Go then, for 'tis in vain\n    'To seek him here that means not to be found.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nCapulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Romeo.\n\n\n  Rom. He jests at scars that never felt a wound.\n\n                     Enter Juliet above at a window.\n\n    But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?\n    It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!\n    Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,\n    Who is already sick and pale with grief\n    That thou her maid art far more fair than she.\n    Be not her maid, since she is envious.\n    Her vestal livery is but sick and green,\n    And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off.\n    It is my lady; O, it is my love!\n    O that she knew she were!\n    She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?\n    Her eye discourses; I will answer it.\n    I am too bold; 'tis not to me she speaks.\n    Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,\n    Having some business, do entreat her eyes\n    To twinkle in their spheres till they return.\n    What if her eyes were there, they in her head?\n    The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars\n    As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven\n    Would through the airy region stream so bright\n    That birds would sing and think it were not night.\n    See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!\n    O that I were a glove upon that hand,\n    That I might touch that cheek!\n\n  Jul. Ay me!\n\n  Rom. She speaks.\n    O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art\n    As glorious to this night, being o'er my head,\n    As is a winged messenger of heaven\n    Unto the white-upturned wond'ring eyes\n    Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him\n    When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds\n    And sails upon the bosom of the air.\n\n  Jul. O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?\n    Deny thy father and refuse thy name!\n    Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,\n    And I'll no longer be a Capulet.\n\n  Rom. [aside] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?\n\n  Jul. 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy.\n    Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.\n    What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,\n    Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part\n    Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!\n    What's in a name? That which we call a rose\n    By any other name would smell as sweet.\n    So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,\n    Retain that dear perfection which he owes\n    Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;\n    And for that name, which is no part of thee,\n    Take all myself.\n\n  Rom. I take thee at thy word.\n    Call me but love, and I'll be new baptiz'd;\n    Henceforth I never will be Romeo.\n\n  Jul. What man art thou that, thus bescreen'd in night,\n    So stumblest on my counsel?\n\n  Rom. By a name\n    I know not how to tell thee who I am.\n    My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,\n    Because it is an enemy to thee.\n    Had I it written, I would tear the word.\n\n  Jul. My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words\n    Of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound.\n    Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?\n\n  Rom. Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.\n\n  Jul. How cam'st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?\n    The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,\n    And the place death, considering who thou art,\n    If any of my kinsmen find thee here.\n\n  Rom. With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls;\n    For stony limits cannot hold love out,\n    And what love can do, that dares love attempt.\n    Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.\n\n  Jul. If they do see thee, they will murther thee.\n\n  Rom. Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye\n    Than twenty of their swords! Look thou but sweet,\n    And I am proof against their enmity.\n\n  Jul. I would not for the world they saw thee here.\n\n  Rom. I have night's cloak to hide me from their sight;\n    And but thou love me, let them find me here.\n    My life were better ended by their hate\n    Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.\n\n  Jul. By whose direction found'st thou out this place?\n\n  Rom. By love, that first did prompt me to enquire.\n    He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes.\n    I am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far\n    As that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea,\n    I would adventure for such merchandise.\n\n  Jul. Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face;\n    Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek\n    For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night.\n    Fain would I dwell on form- fain, fain deny\n    What I have spoke; but farewell compliment!\n    Dost thou love me, I know thou wilt say 'Ay';\n    And I will take thy word. Yet, if thou swear'st,\n    Thou mayst prove false. At lovers' perjuries,\n    They say Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo,\n    If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully.\n    Or if thou thinkest I am too quickly won,\n    I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,\n    So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.\n    In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond,\n    And therefore thou mayst think my haviour light;\n    But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true\n    Than those that have more cunning to be strange.\n    I should have been more strange, I must confess,\n    But that thou overheard'st, ere I was ware,\n    My true-love passion. Therefore pardon me,\n    And not impute this yielding to light love,\n    Which the dark night hath so discovered.\n\n  Rom. Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear,\n    That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops-\n\n  Jul. O, swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon,\n    That monthly changes in her circled orb,\n    Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.\n\n  Rom. What shall I swear by?\n\n  Jul. Do not swear at all;\n    Or if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,\n    Which is the god of my idolatry,\n    And I'll believe thee.\n\n  Rom. If my heart's dear love-\n\n  Jul. Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee,\n    I have no joy of this contract to-night.\n    It is too rash, too unadvis'd, too sudden;\n    Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be\n    Ere one can say 'It lightens.' Sweet, good night!\n    This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,\n    May prove a beauteous flow'r when next we meet.\n    Good night, good night! As sweet repose and rest\n    Come to thy heart as that within my breast!\n\n  Rom. O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?\n\n  Jul. What satisfaction canst thou have to-night?\n\n  Rom. Th' exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.\n\n  Jul. I gave thee mine before thou didst request it;\n    And yet I would it were to give again.\n\n  Rom. Would'st thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?\n\n  Jul. But to be frank and give it thee again.\n    And yet I wish but for the thing I have.\n    My bounty is as boundless as the sea,\n    My love as deep; the more I give to thee,\n    The more I have, for both are infinite.\n    I hear some noise within. Dear love, adieu!\n                                           [Nurse] calls within.\n    Anon, good nurse! Sweet Montague, be true.\n    Stay but a little, I will come again.                [Exit.]\n\n  Rom. O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard,\n    Being in night, all this is but a dream,\n    Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.\n\n                       Enter Juliet above.\n\n\n  Jul. Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.\n    If that thy bent of love be honourable,\n    Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,\n    By one that I'll procure to come to thee,\n    Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite;\n    And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay\n    And follow thee my lord throughout the world.\n\n  Nurse. (within) Madam!\n\n  Jul. I come, anon.- But if thou meanest not well,\n    I do beseech thee-\n\n  Nurse. (within) Madam!\n\n  Jul. By-and-by I come.-\n    To cease thy suit and leave me to my grief.\n    To-morrow will I send.\n\n  Rom. So thrive my soul-\n\n  Jul. A thousand times good night!                        Exit.\n\n  Rom. A thousand times the worse, to want thy light!\n    Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books;\n    But love from love, towards school with heavy looks.\n\n                     Enter Juliet again, [above].\n\n\n  Jul. Hist! Romeo, hist! O for a falconer's voice\n    To lure this tassel-gentle back again!\n    Bondage is hoarse and may not speak aloud;\n    Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,\n    And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine\n    With repetition of my Romeo's name.\n    Romeo!\n\n  Rom. It is my soul that calls upon my name.\n    How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,\n    Like softest music to attending ears!\n\n  Jul. Romeo!\n\n  Rom. My dear?\n\n  Jul. At what o'clock to-morrow\n    Shall I send to thee?\n\n  Rom. By the hour of nine.\n\n  Jul. I will not fail. 'Tis twenty years till then.\n    I have forgot why I did call thee back.\n\n  Rom. Let me stand here till thou remember it.\n\n  Jul. I shall forget, to have thee still stand there,\n    Rememb'ring how I love thy company.\n\n  Rom. And I'll still stay, to have thee still forget,\n    Forgetting any other home but this.\n\n  Jul. 'Tis almost morning. I would have thee gone-\n    And yet no farther than a wanton's bird,\n    That lets it hop a little from her hand,\n    Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,\n    And with a silk thread plucks it back again,\n    So loving-jealous of his liberty.\n\n  Rom. I would I were thy bird.\n\n  Jul. Sweet, so would I.\n    Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.\n    Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,\n    That I shall say good night till it be morrow.\n                                                         [Exit.]\n\n  Rom. Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!\n    Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!\n    Hence will I to my ghostly father's cell,\n    His help to crave and my dear hap to tell.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nFriar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar, [Laurence] alone, with a basket.\n\n\n  Friar. The grey-ey'd morn smiles on the frowning night,\n    Check'ring the Eastern clouds with streaks of light;\n    And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels\n    From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels.\n    Non, ere the sun advance his burning eye\n    The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry,\n    I must up-fill this osier cage of ours\n    With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.\n    The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb.\n    What is her burying gave, that is her womb;\n    And from her womb children of divers kind\n    We sucking on her natural bosom find;\n    Many for many virtues excellent,\n    None but for some, and yet all different.\n    O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies\n    In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities;\n    For naught so vile that on the earth doth live\n    But to the earth some special good doth give;\n    Nor aught so good but, strain'd from that fair use,\n    Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.\n    Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,\n    And vice sometime's by action dignified.\n    Within the infant rind of this small flower\n    Poison hath residence, and medicine power;\n    For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;\n    Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.\n    Two such opposed kings encamp them still\n    In man as well as herbs- grace and rude will;\n    And where the worser is predominant,\n    Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.\n\n                        Enter Romeo.\n\n\n  Rom. Good morrow, father.\n\n  Friar. Benedicite!\n    What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?\n    Young son, it argues a distempered head\n    So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed.\n    Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,\n    And where care lodges sleep will never lie;\n    But where unbruised youth with unstuff'd brain\n    Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign.\n    Therefore thy earliness doth me assure\n    Thou art uprous'd with some distemp'rature;\n    Or if not so, then here I hit it right-\n    Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.\n\n  Rom. That last is true-the sweeter rest was mine.\n\n  Friar. God pardon sin! Wast thou with Rosaline?\n\n  Rom. With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No.\n    I have forgot that name, and that name's woe.\n\n  Friar. That's my good son! But where hast thou been then?\n\n  Rom. I'll tell thee ere thou ask it me again.\n    I have been feasting with mine enemy,\n    Where on a sudden one hath wounded me\n    That's by me wounded. Both our remedies\n    Within thy help and holy physic lies.\n    I bear no hatred, blessed man, for, lo,\n    My intercession likewise steads my foe.\n\n  Friar. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift\n    Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.\n\n  Rom. Then plainly know my heart's dear love is set\n    On the fair daughter of rich Capulet;\n    As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine,\n    And all combin'd, save what thou must combine\n    By holy marriage. When, and where, and how\n    We met, we woo'd, and made exchange of vow,\n    I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,\n    That thou consent to marry us to-day.\n\n  Friar. Holy Saint Francis! What a change is here!\n    Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear,\n    So soon forsaken? Young men's love then lies\n    Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.\n    Jesu Maria! What a deal of brine\n    Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!\n    How much salt water thrown away in waste,\n    To season love, that of it doth not taste!\n    The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,\n    Thy old groans ring yet in mine ancient ears.\n    Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit\n    Of an old tear that is not wash'd off yet.\n    If e'er thou wast thyself, and these woes thine,\n    Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline.\n    And art thou chang'd? Pronounce this sentence then:\n    Women may fall when there's no strength in men.\n\n  Rom. Thou chid'st me oft for loving Rosaline.\n\n  Friar. For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.\n\n  Rom. And bad'st me bury love.\n\n  Friar. Not in a grave\n    To lay one in, another out to have.\n\n  Rom. I pray thee chide not. She whom I love now\n    Doth grace for grace and love for love allow.\n    The other did not so.\n\n  Friar. O, she knew well\n    Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell.\n    But come, young waverer, come go with me.\n    In one respect I'll thy assistant be;\n    For this alliance may so happy prove\n    To turn your households' rancour to pure love.\n\n  Rom. O, let us hence! I stand on sudden haste.\n\n  Friar. Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nA street.\n\nEnter Benvolio and Mercutio.\n\n\n  Mer. Where the devil should this Romeo be?\n    Came he not home to-night?\n\n  Ben. Not to his father's. I spoke with his man.\n\n  Mer. Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline,\n    Torments him so that he will sure run mad.\n\n  Ben. Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet,\n    Hath sent a letter to his father's house.\n\n  Mer. A challenge, on my life.\n\n  Ben. Romeo will answer it.\n\n  Mer. Any man that can write may answer a letter.\n\n  Ben. Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he dares,\n    being dared.\n\n  Mer. Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead! stabb'd with a white\n    wench's black eye; shot through the ear with a love song; the\n    very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's\n    butt-shaft; and is he a man to encounter Tybalt?\n\n  Ben. Why, what is Tybalt?\n\n  Mer. More than Prince of Cats, I can tell you. O, he's the\n    courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you sing\n    pricksong-keeps time, distance, and proportion; rests me his\n    minim rest, one, two, and the third in your bosom! the very\n    butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist! a gentleman\n    of the very first house, of the first and second cause. Ah, the\n    immortal passado! the punto reverse! the hay.\n\n  Ben. The what?\n\n  Mer. The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes-\n    these new tuners of accent! 'By Jesu, a very good blade! a very\n    tall man! a very good whore!' Why, is not this a lamentable thing,\n    grandsir, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange\n    flies, these fashion-mongers, these pardona-mi's, who stand\n    so much on the new form that they cannot sit at ease on the old\n    bench? O, their bones, their bones!\n\n                               Enter Romeo.\n\n\n  Ben. Here comes Romeo! here comes Romeo!\n\n  Mer. Without his roe, like a dried herring. O flesh, flesh, how\n    art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch\n    flowed in. Laura, to his lady, was but a kitchen wench (marry, she\n    had a better love to berhyme her), Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gypsy,\n    Helen and Hero hildings and harlots, This be a gray eye or so,\n    but not to the purpose. Signior Romeo, bon jour! There's a French\n    salutation to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit\n    fairly last night.\n\n  Rom. Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?\n\n  Mer. The slip, sir, the slip. Can you not conceive?\n\n  Rom. Pardon, good Mercutio. My business was great, and in such a\n    case as mine a man may strain courtesy.\n\n  Mer. That's as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a\n    man to bow in the hams.\n\n  Rom. Meaning, to cursy.\n\n  Mer. Thou hast most kindly hit it.\n\n  Rom. A most courteous exposition.\n\n  Mer. Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.\n\n  Rom. Pink for flower.\n\n  Mer. Right.\n\n  Rom. Why, then is my pump well-flower'd.\n\n  Mer. Well said! Follow me this jest now till thou hast worn out\n    thy pump, that, when the single sole of it is worn, the jest may\n    remain, after the wearing, solely singular.\n\n  Rom. O single-sold jest, solely singular for the singleness!\n\n  Mer. Come between us, good Benvolio! My wits faint.\n\n  Rom. Swits and spurs, swits and spurs! or I'll cry a match.\n\n  Mer. Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done; for\n    thou hast more of the wild goose in one of thy wits than, I am\n    sure, I have in my whole five. Was I with you there for the goose?\n\n  Rom. Thou wast never with me for anything when thou wast not\n    there for the goose.\n\n  Mer. I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.\n\n  Rom. Nay, good goose, bite not!\n\n  Mer. Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce.\n\n  Rom. And is it not, then, well serv'd in to a sweet goose?\n\n  Mer. O, here's a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an inch\n    narrow to an ell broad!\n\n  Rom. I stretch it out for that word 'broad,' which, added to\n    the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.\n\n  Mer. Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? Now\n    art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by\n    art as well as by nature. For this drivelling love is like a\n    great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in\n    a hole.\n\n  Ben. Stop there, stop there!\n\n  Mer. Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.\n\n  Ben. Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.\n\n  Mer. O, thou art deceiv'd! I would have made it short; for I\n    was come to the whole depth of my tale, and meant indeed to\n    occupy the argument no longer.\n\n  Rom. Here's goodly gear!\n\n                      Enter Nurse and her Man [Peter].\n\n\n  Mer. A sail, a sail!\n\n  Ben. Two, two! a shirt and a smock.\n\n  Nurse. Peter!\n\n  Peter. Anon.\n\n  Nurse. My fan, Peter.\n\n  Mer. Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan's the fairer face of\n    the two.\n\n  Nurse. God ye good morrow, gentlemen.\n\n  Mer. God ye good-den, fair gentlewoman.\n\n  Nurse. Is it good-den?\n\n  Mer. 'Tis no less, I tell ye; for the bawdy hand of the dial is\n    now upon the prick of noon.\n\n  Nurse. Out upon you! What a man are you!\n\n  Rom. One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to mar.\n\n  Nurse. By my troth, it is well said. 'For himself to mar,'\n    quoth 'a? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I may find the\n    young Romeo?\n\n  Rom. I can tell you; but young Romeo will be older when you\n    have found him than he was when you sought him. I am the youngest\n    of that name, for fault of a worse.\n\n  Nurse. You say well.\n\n  Mer. Yea, is the worst well? Very well took, i' faith! wisely,\n    wisely.\n\n  Nurse. If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you.\n\n  Ben. She will endite him to some supper.\n\n  Mer. A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! So ho!\n\n  Rom. What hast thou found?\n\n  Mer. No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is\n    something stale and hoar ere it be spent\n                                     He walks by them and sings.\n\n                   An old hare hoar,\n                   And an old hare hoar,\n                Is very good meat in Lent;\n                   But a hare that is hoar\n                   Is too much for a score\n                When it hoars ere it be spent.\n\n    Romeo, will you come to your father's? We'll to dinner thither.\n\n  Rom. I will follow you.\n\n  Mer. Farewell, ancient lady. Farewell,\n    [sings] lady, lady, lady.\n                                      Exeunt Mercutio, Benvolio.\n\n  Nurse. Marry, farewell! I Pray you, Sir, what saucy merchant\n    was this that was so full of his ropery?\n\n  Rom. A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk and\n    will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.\n\n  Nurse. An 'a speak anything against me, I'll take him down, an\n'a\n    were lustier than he is, and twenty such jacks; and if I cannot,\n    I'll find those that shall. Scurvy knave! I am none of his\n    flirt-gills; I am none of his skains-mates. And thou must\n    stand by too, and suffer every knave to use me at his pleasure!\n\n  Peter. I saw no man use you at his pleasure. If I had, my\n    weapon should quickly have been out, I warrant you. I dare draw as\n    soon as another man, if I see occasion in a good quarrel, and the\n    law on my side.\n\n  Nurse. Now, afore God, I am so vexed that every part about me\n    quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word; and, as I told you,\n    my young lady bid me enquire you out. What she bid me say, I\n    will keep to myself; but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead\n    her into a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross kind of\n    behaviour, as they say; for the gentlewoman is young; and\n    therefore, if you should deal double with her, truly it were\n    an ill thing to be off'red to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.\n\n  Rom. Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I protest unto\n    thee-\n\n  Nurse. Good heart, and I faith I will tell her as much. Lord,\n    Lord! she will be a joyful woman.\n\n  Rom. What wilt thou tell her, nurse? Thou dost not mark me.\n\n  Nurse. I will tell her, sir, that you do protest, which, as I\n    take it, is a gentlemanlike offer.\n\n  Rom. Bid her devise\n    Some means to come to shrift this afternoon;\n    And there she shall at Friar Laurence' cell\n    Be shriv'd and married. Here is for thy pains.\n\n  Nurse. No, truly, sir; not a penny.\n\n  Rom. Go to! I say you shall.\n\n  Nurse. This afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there.\n\n  Rom. And stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall.\n    Within this hour my man shall be with thee\n    And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair,\n    Which to the high topgallant of my joy\n    Must be my convoy in the secret night.\n    Farewell. Be trusty, and I'll quit thy pains.\n    Farewell. Commend me to thy mistress.\n\n  Nurse. Now God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir.\n\n  Rom. What say'st thou, my dear nurse?\n\n  Nurse. Is your man secret? Did you ne'er hear say,\n    Two may keep counsel, putting one away?\n\n  Rom. I warrant thee my man's as true as steel.\n\n  Nurse. Well, sir, my mistress is the sweetest lady. Lord, Lord!\n    when 'twas a little prating thing- O, there is a nobleman in\n    town, one Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard; but she,\n    good soul, had as lieve see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I\n    anger her sometimes, and tell her that Paris is the properer man;\n    but I'll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as any\n    clout in the versal world. Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both\n    with a letter?\n\n  Rom. Ay, nurse; what of that? Both with an R.\n\n  Nurse. Ah, mocker! that's the dog's name. R is for the- No; I\n    know it begins with some other letter; and she hath the prettiest\n    sententious of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you\n    good to hear it.\n\n  Rom. Commend me to thy lady.\n\n  Nurse. Ay, a thousand times. [Exit Romeo.] Peter!\n\n  Peter. Anon.\n\n  Nurse. Peter, take my fan, and go before, and apace.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nCapulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Juliet.\n\n\n  Jul. The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse;\n    In half an hour she 'promis'd to return.\n    Perchance she cannot meet him. That's not so.\n    O, she is lame! Love's heralds should be thoughts,\n    Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams\n    Driving back shadows over low'ring hills.\n    Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw Love,\n    And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.\n    Now is the sun upon the highmost hill\n    Of this day's journey, and from nine till twelve\n    Is three long hours; yet she is not come.\n    Had she affections and warm youthful blood,\n    She would be as swift in motion as a ball;\n    My words would bandy her to my sweet love,\n    And his to me,\n    But old folks, many feign as they were dead-\n    Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.\n\n                      Enter Nurse [and Peter].\n\n    O God, she comes! O honey nurse, what news?\n    Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.\n\n  Nurse. Peter, stay at the gate.\n                                                   [Exit Peter.]\n\n  Jul. Now, good sweet nurse- O Lord, why look'st thou sad?\n    Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;\n    If good, thou shamest the music of sweet news\n    By playing it to me with so sour a face.\n\n  Nurse. I am aweary, give me leave awhile.\n    Fie, how my bones ache! What a jaunce have I had!\n\n  Jul. I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news.\n    Nay, come, I pray thee speak. Good, good nurse, speak.\n\n  Nurse. Jesu, what haste! Can you not stay awhile?\n    Do you not see that I am out of breath?\n\n  Jul. How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath\n    To say to me that thou art out of breath?\n    The excuse that thou dost make in this delay\n    Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.\n    Is thy news good or bad? Answer to that.\n    Say either, and I'll stay the circumstance.\n    Let me be satisfied, is't good or bad?\n\n  Nurse. Well, you have made a simple choice; you know not how to\n    choose a man. Romeo? No, not he. Though his face be better\n    than any man's, yet his leg excels all men's; and for a hand and a\n    foot, and a body, though they be not to be talk'd on, yet\n    they are past compare. He is not the flower of courtesy, but, I'll\n    warrant him, as gentle as a lamb. Go thy ways, wench; serve\nGod.\n    What, have you din'd at home?\n\n  Jul. No, no. But all this did I know before.\n    What says he of our marriage? What of that?\n\n  Nurse. Lord, how my head aches! What a head have I!\n    It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.\n    My back o' t' other side,- ah, my back, my back!\n    Beshrew your heart for sending me about\n    To catch my death with jauncing up and down!\n\n  Jul. I' faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.\n    Sweet, sweet, Sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?\n\n  Nurse. Your love says, like an honest gentleman, and a courteous,\n    and a kind, and a handsome; and, I warrant, a virtuous- Where\n    is your mother?\n\n  Jul. Where is my mother? Why, she is within.\n    Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest!\n    'Your love says, like an honest gentleman,\n    \"Where is your mother?\"'\n\n  Nurse. O God's Lady dear!\n    Are you so hot? Marry come up, I trow.\n    Is this the poultice for my aching bones?\n    Henceforward do your messages yourself.\n\n  Jul. Here's such a coil! Come, what says Romeo?\n\n  Nurse. Have you got leave to go to shrift to-day?\n\n  Jul. I have.\n\n  Nurse. Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence' cell;\n    There stays a husband to make you a wife.\n    Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks:\n    They'll be in scarlet straight at any news.\n    Hie you to church; I must another way,\n    To fetch a ladder, by the which your love\n    Must climb a bird's nest soon when it is dark.\n    I am the drudge, and toil in your delight;\n    But you shall bear the burthen soon at night.\n    Go; I'll to dinner; hie you to the cell.\n\n  Jul. Hie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene VI.\nFriar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar [Laurence] and Romeo.\n\n\n  Friar. So smile the heavens upon this holy act\n    That after-hours with sorrow chide us not!\n\n  Rom. Amen, amen! But come what sorrow can,\n    It cannot countervail the exchange of joy\n    That one short minute gives me in her sight.\n    Do thou but close our hands with holy words,\n    Then love-devouring death do what he dare-\n    It is enough I may but call her mine.\n\n  Friar. These violent delights have violent ends\n    And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,\n    Which, as they kiss, consume. The sweetest honey\n    Is loathsome in his own deliciousness\n    And in the taste confounds the appetite.\n    Therefore love moderately: long love doth so;\n    Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.\n\n                     Enter Juliet.\n\n    Here comes the lady. O, so light a foot\n    Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint.\n    A lover may bestride the gossamer\n    That idles in the wanton summer air,\n    And yet not fall; so light is vanity.\n\n  Jul. Good even to my ghostly confessor.\n\n  Friar. Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.\n\n  Jul. As much to him, else is his thanks too much.\n\n  Rom. Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy\n    Be heap'd like mine, and that thy skill be more\n    To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath\n    This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue\n    Unfold the imagin'd happiness that both\n    Receive in either by this dear encounter.\n\n  Jul. Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,\n    Brags of his substance, not of ornament.\n    They are but beggars that can count their worth;\n    But my true love is grown to such excess\n    cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.\n\n  Friar. Come, come with me, and we will make short work;\n    For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone\n    Till Holy Church incorporate two in one.\n                                                       [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nACT III. Scene I.\nA public place.\n\nEnter Mercutio, Benvolio, and Men.\n\n\n  Ben. I pray thee, good Mercutio, let's retire.\n    The day is hot, the Capulets abroad.\n    And if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl,\n    For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.\n\n  Mer. Thou art like one of these fellows that, when he enters\n    the confines of a tavern, claps me his sword upon the table and\n    says 'God send me no need of thee!' and by the operation of the\n    second cup draws him on the drawer, when indeed there is no need.\n\n  Ben. Am I like such a fellow?\n\n  Mer. Come, come, thou art as hot a jack in thy mood as any in\n    Italy; and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be\n    moved.\n\n  Ben. And what to?\n\n  Mer. Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly,\n    for one would kill the other. Thou! why, thou wilt quarrel with a\n    man that hath a hair more or a hair less in his beard than thou hast.\n    Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no\n    other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes. What eye but such an\n    eye would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is as full of quarrels\n    as an egg is full of meat; and yet thy head hath been beaten as\n    addle as an egg for quarrelling. Thou hast quarrell'd with a\n    man for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog\n    that hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall out with a\n    tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter, with\n    another for tying his new shoes with an old riband? And yet thou wilt\n    tutor me from quarrelling!\n\n  Ben. An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should\n    buy the fee simple of my life for an hour and a quarter.\n\n  Mer. The fee simple? O simple!\n\n                       Enter Tybalt and others.\n\n\n  Ben. By my head, here come the Capulets.\n\n  Mer. By my heel, I care not.\n\n  Tyb. Follow me close, for I will speak to them.\n    Gentlemen, good den. A word with one of you.\n\n  Mer. And but one word with one of us?\n    Couple it with something; make it a word and a blow.\n\n  Tyb. You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you will give me\n    occasion.\n\n  Mer. Could you not take some occasion without giving\n\n  Tyb. Mercutio, thou consortest with Romeo.\n\n  Mer. Consort? What, dost thou make us minstrels? An thou make\n    minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords. Here's my\n    fiddlestick; here's that shall make you dance. Zounds, consort!\n\n  Ben. We talk here in the public haunt of men.\n    Either withdraw unto some private place\n    And reason coldly of your grievances,\n    Or else depart. Here all eyes gaze on us.\n\n  Mer. Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze.\n    I will not budge for no man's pleasure,\n\n                        Enter Romeo.\n\n\n  Tyb. Well, peace be with you, sir. Here comes my man.\n\n  Mer. But I'll be hang'd, sir, if he wear your livery.\n    Marry, go before to field, he'll be your follower!\n    Your worship in that sense may call him man.\n\n  Tyb. Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford\n    No better term than this: thou art a villain.\n\n  Rom. Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee\n    Doth much excuse the appertaining rage\n    To such a greeting. Villain am I none.\n    Therefore farewell. I see thou knowest me not.\n\n  Tyb. Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries\n    That thou hast done me; therefore turn and draw.\n\n  Rom. I do protest I never injur'd thee,\n    But love thee better than thou canst devise\n    Till thou shalt know the reason of my love;\n    And so good Capulet, which name I tender\n    As dearly as mine own, be satisfied.\n\n  Mer. O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!\n    Alla stoccata carries it away.                      [Draws.]\n    Tybalt, you ratcatcher, will you walk?\n\n  Tyb. What wouldst thou have with me?\n\n  Mer. Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives.\nThat I\n    mean to make bold withal, and, as you shall use me hereafter,\n\n    dry-beat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out\n    of his pitcher by the ears? Make haste, lest mine be about your\n    ears ere it be out.\n\n  Tyb. I am for you.                                    [Draws.]\n\n  Rom. Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.\n\n  Mer. Come, sir, your passado!\n                                                   [They fight.]\n\n  Rom. Draw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.\n    Gentlemen, for shame! forbear this outrage!\n    Tybalt, Mercutio, the Prince expressly hath\n    Forbid this bandying in Verona streets.\n    Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio!\n         Tybalt under Romeo's arm thrusts Mercutio in, and flies\n                                           [with his Followers].\n\n  Mer. I am hurt.\n    A plague o' both your houses! I am sped.\n    Is he gone and hath nothing?\n\n  Ben. What, art thou hurt?\n\n  Mer. Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch. Marry, 'tis enough.\n    Where is my page? Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.\n                                                    [Exit Page.]\n\n  Rom. Courage, man. The hurt cannot be much.\n\n  Mer. No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door;\n    but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. Ask for me to-morrow, and you\n    shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this\n    world. A plague o' both your houses! Zounds, a dog, a rat, a\n    mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death! a braggart, a rogue,\na\n    villain, that fights by the book of arithmetic! Why the devil\n    came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.\n\n  Rom. I thought all for the best.\n\n  Mer. Help me into some house, Benvolio,\n    Or I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses!\n    They have made worms' meat of me. I have it,\n    And soundly too. Your houses!\n                                 [Exit. [supported by Benvolio].\n\n  Rom. This gentleman, the Prince's near ally,\n    My very friend, hath got this mortal hurt\n    In my behalf- my reputation stain'd\n    With Tybalt's slander- Tybalt, that an hour\n    Hath been my kinsman. O sweet Juliet,\n    Thy beauty hath made me effeminate\n    And in my temper soft'ned valour's steel\n\n                      Enter Benvolio.\n\n\n  Ben. O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio's dead!\n    That gallant spirit hath aspir'd the clouds,\n    Which too untimely here did scorn the earth.\n\n  Rom. This day's black fate on moe days doth depend;\n    This but begins the woe others must end.\n\n                       Enter Tybalt.\n\n\n  Ben. Here comes the furious Tybalt back again.\n\n  Rom. Alive in triumph, and Mercutio slain?\n    Away to heaven respective lenity,\n    And fire-ey'd fury be my conduct now!\n    Now, Tybalt, take the 'villain' back again\n    That late thou gavest me; for Mercutio's soul\n    Is but a little way above our heads,\n    Staying for thine to keep him company.\n    Either thou or I, or both, must go with him.\n\n  Tyb. Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here,\n    Shalt with him hence.\n\n  Rom. This shall determine that.\n                                       They fight. Tybalt falls.\n\n  Ben. Romeo, away, be gone!\n    The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.\n    Stand not amaz'd. The Prince will doom thee death\n    If thou art taken. Hence, be gone, away!\n\n  Rom. O, I am fortune's fool!\n\n  Ben. Why dost thou stay?\n                                                     Exit Romeo.\n                      Enter Citizens.\n\n\n  Citizen. Which way ran he that kill'd Mercutio?\n    Tybalt, that murtherer, which way ran he?\n\n  Ben. There lies that Tybalt.\n\n  Citizen. Up, sir, go with me.\n    I charge thee in the Prince's name obey.\n\n\n  Enter Prince [attended], Old Montague, Capulet, their Wives,\n                     and [others].\n\n\n  Prince. Where are the vile beginners of this fray?\n\n  Ben. O noble Prince. I can discover all\n    The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl.\n    There lies the man, slain by young Romeo,\n    That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.\n\n  Cap. Wife. Tybalt, my cousin! O my brother's child!\n    O Prince! O husband! O, the blood is spill'd\n    Of my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true,\n    For blood of ours shed blood of Montague.\n    O cousin, cousin!\n\n  Prince. Benvolio, who began this bloody fray?\n\n  Ben. Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo's hand did stay.\n    Romeo, that spoke him fair, bid him bethink\n    How nice the quarrel was, and urg'd withal\n    Your high displeasure. All this- uttered\n    With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow'd-\n    Could not take truce with the unruly spleen\n    Of Tybalt deaf to peace, but that he tilts\n    With piercing steel at bold Mercutio's breast;\n    Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point,\n    And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats\n    Cold death aside and with the other sends\n    It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity\n    Retorts it. Romeo he cries aloud,\n    'Hold, friends! friends, part!' and swifter than his tongue,\n    His agile arm beats down their fatal points,\n    And 'twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm\n    An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life\n    Of stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled;\n    But by-and-by comes back to Romeo,\n    Who had but newly entertain'd revenge,\n    And to't they go like lightning; for, ere I\n    Could draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain;\n    And, as he fell, did Romeo turn and fly.\n    This is the truth, or let Benvolio die.\n\n  Cap. Wife. He is a kinsman to the Montague;\n    Affection makes him false, he speaks not true.\n    Some twenty of them fought in this black strife,\n    And all those twenty could but kill one life.\n    I beg for justice, which thou, Prince, must give.\n    Romeo slew Tybalt; Romeo must not live.\n\n  Prince. Romeo slew him; he slew Mercutio.\n    Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?\n\n  Mon. Not Romeo, Prince; he was Mercutio's friend;\n    His fault concludes but what the law should end,\n    The life of Tybalt.\n\n  Prince. And for that offence\n    Immediately we do exile him hence.\n    I have an interest in your hate's proceeding,\n    My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding;\n    But I'll amerce you with so strong a fine\n    That you shall all repent the loss of mine.\n    I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;\n    Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses.\n    Therefore use none. Let Romeo hence in haste,\n    Else, when he is found, that hour is his last.\n    Bear hence this body, and attend our will.\n    Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nCapulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Juliet alone.\n\n\n  Jul. Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,\n    Towards Phoebus' lodging! Such a wagoner\n    As Phaeton would whip you to the West\n    And bring in cloudy night immediately.\n    Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,\n    That runaway eyes may wink, and Romeo\n    Leap to these arms untalk'd of and unseen.\n    Lovers can see to do their amorous rites\n    By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,\n    It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,\n    Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,\n    And learn me how to lose a winning match,\n    Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods.\n    Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks,\n    With thy black mantle till strange love, grown bold,\n    Think true love acted simple modesty.\n    Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;\n    For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night\n    Whiter than new snow upon a raven's back.\n    Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow'd night;\n    Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,\n    Take him and cut him out in little stars,\n    And he will make the face of heaven so fine\n    That all the world will be in love with night\n    And pay no worship to the garish sun.\n    O, I have bought the mansion of a love,\n    But not possess'd it; and though I am sold,\n    Not yet enjoy'd. So tedious is this day\n    As is the night before some festival\n    To an impatient child that hath new robes\n    And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,\n\n                Enter Nurse, with cords.\n\n    And she brings news; and every tongue that speaks\n    But Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence.\n    Now, nurse, what news? What hast thou there? the cords\n    That Romeo bid thee fetch?\n\n  Nurse. Ay, ay, the cords.\n                                             [Throws them down.]\n\n  Jul. Ay me! what news? Why dost thou wring thy hands\n\n  Nurse. Ah, weraday! he's dead, he's dead, he's dead!\n    We are undone, lady, we are undone!\n    Alack the day! he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead!\n\n  Jul. Can heaven be so envious?\n\n  Nurse. Romeo can,\n    Though heaven cannot. O Romeo, Romeo!\n    Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!\n\n  Jul. What devil art thou that dost torment me thus?\n    This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell.\n    Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but 'I,'\n    And that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more\n    Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.\n    I am not I, if there be such an 'I';\n    Or those eyes shut that make thee answer 'I.'\n    If he be slain, say 'I'; or if not, 'no.'\n    Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.\n\n  Nurse. I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,\n    (God save the mark!) here on his manly breast.\n    A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;\n    Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood,\n    All in gore-blood. I swounded at the sight.\n\n  Jul. O, break, my heart! poor bankrout, break at once!\n    To prison, eyes; ne'er look on liberty!\n    Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here,\n    And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!\n\n  Nurse. O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!\n    O courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman\n    That ever I should live to see thee dead!\n\n  Jul. What storm is this that blows so contrary?\n    Is Romeo slaught'red, and is Tybalt dead?\n    My dear-lov'd cousin, and my dearer lord?\n    Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!\n    For who is living, if those two are gone?\n\n  Nurse. Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;\n    Romeo that kill'd him, he is banished.\n\n  Jul. O God! Did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?\n\n  Nurse. It did, it did! alas the day, it did!\n\n  Jul. O serpent heart, hid with a flow'ring face!\n    Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?\n    Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!\n    Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!\n    Despised substance of divinest show!\n    Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st-\n    A damned saint, an honourable villain!\n    O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell\n    When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend\n    In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?\n    Was ever book containing such vile matter\n    So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell\n    In such a gorgeous palace!\n\n  Nurse. There's no trust,\n    No faith, no honesty in men; all perjur'd,\n    All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.\n    Ah, where's my man? Give me some aqua vitae.\n    These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.\n    Shame come to Romeo!\n\n  Jul. Blister'd be thy tongue\n    For such a wish! He was not born to shame.\n    Upon his brow shame is asham'd to sit;\n    For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'd\n    Sole monarch of the universal earth.\n    O, what a beast was I to chide at him!\n\n  Nurse. Will you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin?\n\n  Jul. Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?\n    Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name\n    When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?\n    But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?\n    That villain cousin would have kill'd my husband.\n    Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring!\n    Your tributary drops belong to woe,\n    Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.\n    My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;\n    And Tybalt's dead, that would have slain my husband.\n    All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?\n    Some word there was, worser than Tybalt's death,\n    That murd'red me. I would forget it fain;\n    But O, it presses to my memory\n    Like damned guilty deeds to sinners' minds!\n    'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo- banished.'\n    That 'banished,' that one word 'banished,'\n    Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt's death\n    Was woe enough, if it had ended there;\n    Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship\n    And needly will be rank'd with other griefs,\n    Why followed not, when she said 'Tybalt's dead,'\n    Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,\n    Which modern lamentation might have mov'd?\n    But with a rearward following Tybalt's death,\n    'Romeo is banished'- to speak that word\n    Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,\n    All slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished'-\n    There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,\n    In that word's death; no words can that woe sound.\n    Where is my father and my mother, nurse?\n\n  Nurse. Weeping and wailing over Tybalt's corse.\n    Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.\n\n  Jul. Wash they his wounds with tears? Mine shall be spent,\n    When theirs are dry, for Romeo's banishment.\n    Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are beguil'd,\n    Both you and I, for Romeo is exil'd.\n    He made you for a highway to my bed;\n    But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.\n    Come, cords; come, nurse. I'll to my wedding bed;\n    And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!\n\n  Nurse. Hie to your chamber. I'll find Romeo\n    To comfort you. I wot well where he is.\n    Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night.\n    I'll to him; he is hid at Laurence' cell.\n\n  Jul. O, find him! give this ring to my true knight\n    And bid him come to take his last farewell.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nFriar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar [Laurence].\n\n\n  Friar. Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man.\n    Affliction is enanmour'd of thy parts,\n    And thou art wedded to calamity.\n\n                         Enter Romeo.\n\n\n  Rom. Father, what news? What is the Prince's doom\n    What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand\n    That I yet know not?\n\n  Friar. Too familiar\n    Is my dear son with such sour company.\n    I bring thee tidings of the Prince's doom.\n\n  Rom. What less than doomsday is the Prince's doom?\n\n  Friar. A gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips-\n    Not body's death, but body's banishment.\n\n  Rom. Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say 'death';\n    For exile hath more terror in his look,\n    Much more than death. Do not say 'banishment.'\n\n  Friar. Hence from Verona art thou banished.\n    Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.\n\n  Rom. There is no world without Verona walls,\n    But purgatory, torture, hell itself.\n    Hence banished is banish'd from the world,\n    And world's exile is death. Then 'banishment'\n    Is death misterm'd. Calling death 'banishment,'\n    Thou cut'st my head off with a golden axe\n    And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.\n\n  Friar. O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!\n    Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind Prince,\n    Taking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law,\n    And turn'd that black word death to banishment.\n    This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.\n\n  Rom. 'Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here,\n    Where Juliet lives; and every cat and dog\n    And little mouse, every unworthy thing,\n    Live here in heaven and may look on her;\n    But Romeo may not. More validity,\n    More honourable state, more courtship lives\n    In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize\n    On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand\n    And steal immortal blessing from her lips,\n    Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,\n    Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin;\n    But Romeo may not- he is banished.\n    This may flies do, when I from this must fly;\n    They are free men, but I am banished.\n    And sayest thou yet that exile is not death?\n    Hadst thou no poison mix'd, no sharp-ground knife,\n    No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,\n    But 'banished' to kill me- 'banished'?\n    O friar, the damned use that word in hell;\n    Howling attends it! How hast thou the heart,\n    Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,\n    A sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd,\n    To mangle me with that word 'banished'?\n\n  Friar. Thou fond mad man, hear me a little speak.\n\n  Rom. O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.\n\n  Friar. I'll give thee armour to keep off that word;\n    Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy,\n    To comfort thee, though thou art banished.\n\n  Rom. Yet 'banished'? Hang up philosophy!\n    Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,\n    Displant a town, reverse a prince's doom,\n    It helps not, it prevails not. Talk no more.\n\n  Friar. O, then I see that madmen have no ears.\n\n  Rom. How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?\n\n  Friar. Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.\n\n  Rom. Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel.\n    Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,\n    An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,\n    Doting like me, and like me banished,\n    Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,\n    And fall upon the ground, as I do now,\n    Taking the measure of an unmade grave.\n                                                 Knock [within].\n\n  Friar. Arise; one knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyself.\n\n  Rom. Not I; unless the breath of heartsick groans,\n    Mist-like infold me from the search of eyes.          Knock.\n\n  Friar. Hark, how they knock! Who's there? Romeo, arise;\n    Thou wilt be taken.- Stay awhile!- Stand up;          Knock.\n    Run to my study.- By-and-by!- God's will,\n    What simpleness is this.- I come, I come!             Knock.\n    Who knocks so hard? Whence come you? What's your will\n\n  Nurse. [within] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand.\n    I come from Lady Juliet.\n\n  Friar. Welcome then.\n\n                       Enter Nurse.\n\n\n  Nurse. O holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar\n    Where is my lady's lord, where's Romeo?\n\n  Friar. There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.\n\n  Nurse. O, he is even in my mistress' case,\n    Just in her case!\n\n  Friar. O woeful sympathy!\n    Piteous predicament!\n\n  Nurse. Even so lies she,\n    Blubb'ring and weeping, weeping and blubbering.\n    Stand up, stand up! Stand, an you be a man.\n    For Juliet's sake, for her sake, rise and stand!\n    Why should you fall into so deep an O?\n\n  Rom. (rises) Nurse-\n\n  Nurse. Ah sir! ah sir! Well, death's the end of all.\n\n  Rom. Spakest thou of Juliet? How is it with her?\n    Doth not she think me an old murtherer,\n    Now I have stain'd the childhood of our joy\n    With blood remov'd but little from her own?\n    Where is she? and how doth she! and what says\n    My conceal'd lady to our cancell'd love?\n\n  Nurse. O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;\n    And now falls on her bed, and then starts up,\n    And Tybalt calls; and then on Romeo cries,\n    And then down falls again.\n\n  Rom. As if that name,\n    Shot from the deadly level of a gun,\n    Did murther her; as that name's cursed hand\n    Murder'd her kinsman. O, tell me, friar, tell me,\n    In what vile part of this anatomy\n    Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack\n    The hateful mansion.                     [Draws his dagger.]\n\n  Friar. Hold thy desperate hand.\n    Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art;\n    Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote\n    The unreasonable fury of a beast.\n    Unseemly woman in a seeming man!\n    Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!\n    Thou hast amaz'd me. By my holy order,\n    I thought thy disposition better temper'd.\n    Hast thou slain Tybalt? Wilt thou slay thyself?\n    And slay thy lady that in thy life lives,\n    By doing damned hate upon thyself?\n    Why railest thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?\n    Since birth and heaven and earth, all three do meet\n    In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.\n    Fie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit,\n    Which, like a usurer, abound'st in all,\n    And usest none in that true use indeed\n    Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.\n    Thy noble shape is but a form of wax\n    Digressing from the valour of a man;\n    Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,\n    Killing that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish;\n    Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,\n    Misshapen in the conduct of them both,\n    Like powder in a skilless soldier's flask,\n    is get afire by thine own ignorance,\n    And thou dismemb'red with thine own defence.\n    What, rouse thee, man! Thy Juliet is alive,\n    For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead.\n    There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,\n    But thou slewest Tybalt. There art thou happy too.\n    The law, that threat'ned death, becomes thy friend\n    And turns it to exile. There art thou happy.\n    A pack of blessings light upon thy back;\n    Happiness courts thee in her best array;\n    But, like a misbhav'd and sullen wench,\n    Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love.\n    Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.\n    Go get thee to thy love, as was decreed,\n    Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her.\n    But look thou stay not till the watch be set,\n    For then thou canst not pass to Mantua,\n    Where thou shalt live till we can find a time\n    To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,\n    Beg pardon of the Prince, and call thee back\n    With twenty hundred thousand times more joy\n    Than thou went'st forth in lamentation.\n    Go before, nurse. Commend me to thy lady,\n    And bid her hasten all the house to bed,\n    Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto.\n    Romeo is coming.\n\n  Nurse. O Lord, I could have stay'd here all the night\n    To hear good counsel. O, what learning is!\n    My lord, I'll tell my lady you will come.\n\n  Rom. Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.\n\n  Nurse. Here is a ring she bid me give you, sir.\n    Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.           Exit.\n\n  Rom. How well my comfort is reviv'd by this!\n\n  Friar. Go hence; good night; and here stands all your state:\n    Either be gone before the watch be set,\n    Or by the break of day disguis'd from hence.\n    Sojourn in Mantua. I'll find out your man,\n    And he shall signify from time to time\n    Every good hap to you that chances here.\n    Give me thy hand. 'Tis late. Farewell; good night.\n\n  Rom. But that a joy past joy calls out on me,\n    It were a grief so brief to part with thee.\n    Farewell.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nCapulet's house\n\nEnter Old Capulet, his Wife, and Paris.\n\n\n  Cap. Things have fall'n out, sir, so unluckily\n    That we have had no time to move our daughter.\n    Look you, she lov'd her kinsman Tybalt dearly,\n    And so did I. Well, we were born to die.\n    'Tis very late; she'll not come down to-night.\n    I promise you, but for your company,\n    I would have been abed an hour ago.\n\n  Par. These times of woe afford no tune to woo.\n    Madam, good night. Commend me to your daughter.\n\n  Lady. I will, and know her mind early to-morrow;\n    To-night she's mew'd up to her heaviness.\n\n  Cap. Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender\n    Of my child's love. I think she will be rul'd\n    In all respects by me; nay more, I doubt it not.\n    Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed;\n    Acquaint her here of my son Paris' love\n    And bid her (mark you me?) on Wednesday next-\n    But, soft! what day is this?\n\n  Par. Monday, my lord.\n\n  Cap. Monday! ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon.\n    Thursday let it be- a Thursday, tell her\n    She shall be married to this noble earl.\n    Will you be ready? Do you like this haste?\n    We'll keep no great ado- a friend or two;\n    For hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,\n    It may be thought we held him carelessly,\n    Being our kinsman, if we revel much.\n    Therefore we'll have some half a dozen friends,\n    And there an end. But what say you to Thursday?\n\n  Par. My lord, I would that Thursday were to-morrow.\n\n  Cap. Well, get you gone. A Thursday be it then.\n    Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed;\n    Prepare her, wife, against this wedding day.\n    Farewell, My lord.- Light to my chamber, ho!\n    Afore me, It is so very very late\n    That we may call it early by-and-by.\n    Good night.\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nCapulet's orchard.\n\nEnter Romeo and Juliet aloft, at the Window.\n\n\n  Jul. Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.\n    It was the nightingale, and not the lark,\n    That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear.\n    Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree.\n    Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.\n\n  Rom. It was the lark, the herald of the morn;\n    No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks\n    Do lace the severing clouds in yonder East.\n    Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day\n    Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.\n    I must be gone and live, or stay and die.\n\n  Jul. Yond light is not daylight; I know it, I.\n    It is some meteor that the sun exhales\n    To be to thee this night a torchbearer\n    And light thee on the way to Mantua.\n    Therefore stay yet; thou need'st not to be gone.\n\n  Rom. Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death.\n    I am content, so thou wilt have it so.\n    I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye,\n    'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow;\n    Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat\n    The vaulty heaven so high above our heads.\n    I have more care to stay than will to go.\n    Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.\n    How is't, my soul? Let's talk; it is not day.\n\n  Jul. It is, it is! Hie hence, be gone, away!\n    It is the lark that sings so out of tune,\n    Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.\n    Some say the lark makes sweet division;\n    This doth not so, for she divideth us.\n    Some say the lark and loathed toad chang'd eyes;\n    O, now I would they had chang'd voices too,\n    Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,\n    Hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day!\n    O, now be gone! More light and light it grows.\n\n  Rom. More light and light- more dark and dark our woes!\n\n                          Enter Nurse.\n\n\n  Nurse. Madam!\n\n  Jul. Nurse?\n\n  Nurse. Your lady mother is coming to your chamber.\n    The day is broke; be wary, look about.\n\n  Jul. Then, window, let day in, and let life out.\n                                                         [Exit.]\n\n  Rom. Farewell, farewell! One kiss, and I'll descend.\n                                                  He goeth down.\n\n  Jul. Art thou gone so, my lord, my love, my friend?\n    I must hear from thee every day in the hour,\n    For in a minute there are many days.\n    O, by this count I shall be much in years\n    Ere I again behold my Romeo!\n\n  Rom. Farewell!\n    I will omit no opportunity\n    That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.\n\n  Jul. O, think'st thou we shall ever meet again?\n\n  Rom. I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve\n    For sweet discourses in our time to come.\n\n  Jul. O God, I have an ill-divining soul!\n    Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,\n    As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.\n    Either my eyesight fails, or thou look'st pale.\n\n  Rom. And trust me, love, in my eye so do you.\n    Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!\nExit.\n\n  Jul. O Fortune, Fortune! all men call thee fickle.\n    If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him\n    That is renown'd for faith? Be fickle, Fortune,\n    For then I hope thou wilt not keep him long\n    But send him back.\n\n  Lady. [within] Ho, daughter! are you up?\n\n  Jul. Who is't that calls? It is my lady mother.\n    Is she not down so late, or up so early?\n    What unaccustom'd cause procures her hither?\n\n                       Enter Mother.\n\n\n  Lady. Why, how now, Juliet?\n\n  Jul. Madam, I am not well.\n\n  Lady. Evermore weeping for your cousin's death?\n    What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?\n    An if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live.\n    Therefore have done. Some grief shows much of love;\n    But much of grief shows still some want of wit.\n\n  Jul. Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.\n\n  Lady. So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend\n    Which you weep for.\n\n  Jul. Feeling so the loss,\n    I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.\n\n  Lady. Well, girl, thou weep'st not so much for his death\n    As that the villain lives which slaughter'd him.\n\n  Jul. What villain, madam?\n\n  Lady. That same villain Romeo.\n\n  Jul. [aside] Villain and he be many miles asunder.-\n    God pardon him! I do, with all my heart;\n    And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.\n\n  Lady. That is because the traitor murderer lives.\n\n  Jul. Ay, madam, from the reach of these my hands.\n    Would none but I might venge my cousin's death!\n\n  Lady. We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not.\n    Then weep no more. I'll send to one in Mantua,\n    Where that same banish'd runagate doth live,\n    Shall give him such an unaccustom'd dram\n    That he shall soon keep Tybalt company;\n    And then I hope thou wilt be satisfied.\n\n  Jul. Indeed I never shall be satisfied\n    With Romeo till I behold him- dead-\n    Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex'd.\n    Madam, if you could find out but a man\n    To bear a poison, I would temper it;\n    That Romeo should, upon receipt thereof,\n    Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors\n    To hear him nam'd and cannot come to him,\n    To wreak the love I bore my cousin Tybalt\n    Upon his body that hath slaughter'd him!\n\n  Lady. Find thou the means, and I'll find such a man.\n    But now I'll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.\n\n  Jul. And joy comes well in such a needy time.\n    What are they, I beseech your ladyship?\n\n  Lady. Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child;\n    One who, to put thee from thy heaviness,\n    Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy\n    That thou expects not nor I look'd not for.\n\n  Jul. Madam, in happy time! What day is that?\n\n  Lady. Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn\n    The gallant, young, and noble gentleman,\n    The County Paris, at Saint Peter's Church,\n    Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.\n\n  Jul. Now by Saint Peter's Church, and Peter too,\n    He shall not make me there a joyful bride!\n    I wonder at this haste, that I must wed\n    Ere he that should be husband comes to woo.\n    I pray you tell my lord and father, madam,\n    I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear\n    It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,\n    Rather than Paris. These are news indeed!\n\n  Lady. Here comes your father. Tell him so yourself,\n    And see how he will take it at your hands.\n\n                   Enter Capulet and Nurse.\n\n\n  Cap. When the sun sets the air doth drizzle dew,\n    But for the sunset of my brother's son\n    It rains downright.\n    How now? a conduit, girl? What, still in tears?\n    Evermore show'ring? In one little body\n    Thou counterfeit'st a bark, a sea, a wind:\n    For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,\n    Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is\n    Sailing in this salt flood; the winds, thy sighs,\n    Who, raging with thy tears and they with them,\n    Without a sudden calm will overset\n    Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife?\n    Have you delivered to her our decree?\n\n  Lady. Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.\n    I would the fool were married to her grave!\n\n  Cap. Soft! take me with you, take me with you, wife.\n    How? Will she none? Doth she not give us thanks?\n    Is she not proud? Doth she not count her blest,\n    Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought\n    So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?\n\n  Jul. Not proud you have, but thankful that you have.\n    Proud can I never be of what I hate,\n    But thankful even for hate that is meant love.\n\n  Cap. How, how, how, how, choplogic? What is this?\n    'Proud'- and 'I thank you'- and 'I thank you not'-\n    And yet 'not proud'? Mistress minion you,\n    Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,\n    But fettle your fine joints 'gainst Thursday next\n    To go with Paris to Saint Peter's Church,\n    Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.\n    Out, you green-sickness carrion I out, you baggage!\n    You tallow-face!\n\n  Lady. Fie, fie! what, are you mad?\n\n  Jul. Good father, I beseech you on my knees,\n    Hear me with patience but to speak a word.\n\n  Cap. Hang thee, young baggage! disobedient wretch!\n    I tell thee what- get thee to church a Thursday\n    Or never after look me in the face.\n    Speak not, reply not, do not answer me!\n    My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest\n    That God had lent us but this only child;\n    But now I see this one is one too much,\n    And that we have a curse in having her.\n    Out on her, hilding!\n\n  Nurse. God in heaven bless her!\n    You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.\n\n  Cap. And why, my Lady Wisdom? Hold your tongue,\n    Good Prudence. Smatter with your gossips, go!\n\n  Nurse. I speak no treason.\n\n  Cap. O, God-i-god-en!\n\n  Nurse. May not one speak?\n\n  Cap. Peace, you mumbling fool!\n    Utter your gravity o'er a gossip's bowl,\n    For here we need it not.\n\n  Lady. You are too hot.\n\n  Cap. God's bread I it makes me mad. Day, night, late, early,\n    At home, abroad, alone, in company,\n    Waking or sleeping, still my care hath been\n    To have her match'd; and having now provided\n    A gentleman of princely parentage,\n    Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,\n    Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,\n    Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man-\n    And then to have a wretched puling fool,\n    A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,\n    To answer 'I'll not wed, I cannot love;\n    I am too young, I pray you pardon me'!\n    But, an you will not wed, I'll pardon you.\n    Graze where you will, you shall not house with me.\n    Look to't, think on't; I do not use to jest.\n    Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise:\n    An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;\n    An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,\n    For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,\n    Nor what is mine shall never do thee good.\n    Trust to't. Bethink you. I'll not be forsworn.         Exit.\n\n  Jul. Is there no pity sitting in the clouds\n    That sees into the bottom of my grief?\n    O sweet my mother, cast me not away!\n    Delay this marriage for a month, a week;\n    Or if you do not, make the bridal bed\n    In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.\n\n  Lady. Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word.\n    Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.            Exit.\n\n  Jul. O God!- O nurse, how shall this be prevented?\n    My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven.\n    How shall that faith return again to earth\n    Unless that husband send it me from heaven\n    By leaving earth? Comfort me, counsel me.\n    Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems\n    Upon so soft a subject as myself!\n    What say'st thou? Hast thou not a word of joy?\n    Some comfort, nurse.\n\n  Nurse. Faith, here it is.\n    Romeo is banish'd; and all the world to nothing\n    That he dares ne'er come back to challenge you;\n    Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth.\n    Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,\n    I think it best you married with the County.\n    O, he's a lovely gentleman!\n    Romeo's a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam,\n    Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye\n    As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,\n    I think you are happy in this second match,\n    For it excels your first; or if it did not,\n    Your first is dead- or 'twere as good he were\n    As living here and you no use of him.\n\n  Jul. Speak'st thou this from thy heart?\n\n  Nurse. And from my soul too; else beshrew them both.\n\n  Jul. Amen!\n\n  Nurse. What?\n\n  Jul. Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.\n    Go in; and tell my lady I am gone,\n    Having displeas'd my father, to Laurence' cell,\n    To make confession and to be absolv'd.\n\n  Nurse. Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.           Exit.\n\n  Jul. Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!\n    Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,\n    Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue\n    Which she hath prais'd him with above compare\n    So many thousand times? Go, counsellor!\n    Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.\n    I'll to the friar to know his remedy.\n    If all else fail, myself have power to die.            Exit.\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. Scene I.\nFriar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar, [Laurence] and County Paris.\n\n\n  Friar. On Thursday, sir? The time is very short.\n\n  Par. My father Capulet will have it so,\n    And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.\n\n  Friar. You say you do not know the lady's mind.\n    Uneven is the course; I like it not.\n\n  Par. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,\n    And therefore have I little talk'd of love;\n    For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.\n    Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous\n    That she do give her sorrow so much sway,\n    And in his wisdom hastes our marriage\n    To stop the inundation of her tears,\n    Which, too much minded by herself alone,\n    May be put from her by society.\n    Now do you know the reason of this haste.\n\n  Friar. [aside] I would I knew not why it should be slow'd.-\n    Look, sir, here comes the lady toward my cell.\n\n                    Enter Juliet.\n\n\n  Par. Happily met, my lady and my wife!\n\n  Jul. That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.\n\n  Par. That may be must be, love, on Thursday next.\n\n  Jul. What must be shall be.\n\n  Friar. That's a certain text.\n\n  Par. Come you to make confession to this father?\n\n  Jul. To answer that, I should confess to you.\n\n  Par. Do not deny to him that you love me.\n\n  Jul. I will confess to you that I love him.\n\n  Par. So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.\n\n  Jul. If I do so, it will be of more price,\n    Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.\n\n  Par. Poor soul, thy face is much abus'd with tears.\n\n  Jul. The tears have got small victory by that,\n    For it was bad enough before their spite.\n\n  Par. Thou wrong'st it more than tears with that report.\n\n  Jul. That is no slander, sir, which is a truth;\n    And what I spake, I spake it to my face.\n\n  Par. Thy face is mine, and thou hast sland'red it.\n\n  Jul. It may be so, for it is not mine own.\n    Are you at leisure, holy father, now,\n    Or shall I come to you at evening mass\n\n  Friar. My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.\n    My lord, we must entreat the time alone.\n\n  Par. God shield I should disturb devotion!\n    Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye.\n    Till then, adieu, and keep this holy kiss.             Exit.\n\n  Jul. O, shut the door! and when thou hast done so,\n    Come weep with me- past hope, past cure, past help!\n\n  Friar. Ah, Juliet, I already know thy grief;\n    It strains me past the compass of my wits.\n    I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,\n    On Thursday next be married to this County.\n\n  Jul. Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,\n    Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it.\n    If in thy wisdom thou canst give no help,\n    Do thou but call my resolution wise\n    And with this knife I'll help it presently.\n    God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands;\n    And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo's seal'd,\n    Shall be the label to another deed,\n    Or my true heart with treacherous revolt\n    Turn to another, this shall slay them both.\n    Therefore, out of thy long-experienc'd time,\n    Give me some present counsel; or, behold,\n    'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife\n    Shall play the empire, arbitrating that\n    Which the commission of thy years and art\n    Could to no issue of true honour bring.\n    Be not so long to speak. I long to die\n    If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.\n\n  Friar. Hold, daughter. I do spy a kind of hope,\n    Which craves as desperate an execution\n    As that is desperate which we would prevent.\n    If, rather than to marry County Paris\n    Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,\n    Then is it likely thou wilt undertake\n    A thing like death to chide away this shame,\n    That cop'st with death himself to scape from it;\n    And, if thou dar'st, I'll give thee remedy.\n\n  Jul. O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,\n    From off the battlements of yonder tower,\n    Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk\n    Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears,\n    Or shut me nightly in a charnel house,\n    O'ercover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,\n    With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;\n    Or bid me go into a new-made grave\n    And hide me with a dead man in his shroud-\n    Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble-\n    And I will do it without fear or doubt,\n    To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.\n\n  Friar. Hold, then. Go home, be merry, give consent\n    To marry Paris. Wednesday is to-morrow.\n    To-morrow night look that thou lie alone;\n    Let not the nurse lie with thee in thy chamber.\n    Take thou this vial, being then in bed,\n    And this distilled liquor drink thou off;\n    When presently through all thy veins shall run\n    A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse\n    Shall keep his native progress, but surcease;\n    No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;\n    The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade\n    To paly ashes, thy eyes' windows fall\n    Like death when he shuts up the day of life;\n    Each part, depriv'd of supple government,\n    Shall, stiff and stark and cold, appear like death;\n    And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death\n    Thou shalt continue two-and-forty hours,\n    And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.\n    Now, when the bridegroom in the morning comes\n    To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead.\n    Then, as the manner of our country is,\n    In thy best robes uncovered on the bier\n    Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault\n    Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.\n    In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,\n    Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift;\n    And hither shall he come; and he and I\n    Will watch thy waking, and that very night\n    Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.\n    And this shall free thee from this present shame,\n    If no inconstant toy nor womanish fear\n    Abate thy valour in the acting it.\n\n  Jul. Give me, give me! O, tell not me of fear!\n\n  Friar. Hold! Get you gone, be strong and prosperous\n    In this resolve. I'll send a friar with speed\n    To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.\n\n  Jul. Love give me strength! and strength shall help afford.\n    Farewell, dear father.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nCapulet's house.\n\nEnter Father Capulet, Mother, Nurse, and Servingmen,\n                        two or three.\n\n\n  Cap. So many guests invite as here are writ.\n                                            [Exit a Servingman.]\n    Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.\n\n  Serv. You shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try if they can\n    lick their fingers.\n\n  Cap. How canst thou try them so?\n\n  Serv. Marry, sir, 'tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own\n    fingers. Therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not\n    with me.\n\n  Cap. Go, begone.\n                                                Exit Servingman.\n    We shall be much unfurnish'd for this time.\n    What, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?\n\n  Nurse. Ay, forsooth.\n\n  Cap. Well, be may chance to do some good on her.\n    A peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.\n\n                        Enter Juliet.\n\n\n  Nurse. See where she comes from shrift with merry look.\n\n  Cap. How now, my headstrong? Where have you been gadding?\n\n  Jul. Where I have learnt me to repent the sin\n    Of disobedient opposition\n    To you and your behests, and am enjoin'd\n    By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here\n    To beg your pardon. Pardon, I beseech you!\n    Henceforward I am ever rul'd by you.\n\n  Cap. Send for the County. Go tell him of this.\n    I'll have this knot knit up to-morrow morning.\n\n  Jul. I met the youthful lord at Laurence' cell\n    And gave him what becomed love I might,\n    Not stepping o'er the bounds of modesty.\n\n  Cap. Why, I am glad on't. This is well. Stand up.\n    This is as't should be. Let me see the County.\n    Ay, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither.\n    Now, afore God, this reverend holy friar,\n    All our whole city is much bound to him.\n\n  Jul. Nurse, will you go with me into my closet\n    To help me sort such needful ornaments\n    As you think fit to furnish me to-morrow?\n\n  Mother. No, not till Thursday. There is time enough.\n\n  Cap. Go, nurse, go with her. We'll to church to-morrow.\n                                        Exeunt Juliet and Nurse.\n\n  Mother. We shall be short in our provision.\n    'Tis now near night.\n\n  Cap. Tush, I will stir about,\n    And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife.\n    Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her.\n    I'll not to bed to-night; let me alone.\n    I'll play the housewife for this once. What, ho!\n    They are all forth; well, I will walk myself\n    To County Paris, to prepare him up\n    Against to-morrow. My heart is wondrous light,\n    Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim'd.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nJuliet's chamber.\n\nEnter Juliet and Nurse.\n\n\n  Jul. Ay, those attires are best; but, gentle nurse,\n    I pray thee leave me to myself to-night;\n    For I have need of many orisons\n    To move the heavens to smile upon my state,\n    Which, well thou knowest, is cross and full of sin.\n\n                          Enter Mother.\n\n\n  Mother. What, are you busy, ho? Need you my help?\n\n  Jul. No, madam; we have cull'd such necessaries\n    As are behooffull for our state to-morrow.\n    So please you, let me now be left alone,\n    And let the nurse this night sit up with you;\n    For I am sure you have your hands full all\n    In this so sudden business.\n\n  Mother. Good night.\n    Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.\n                                      Exeunt [Mother and Nurse.]\n\n  Jul. Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.\n    I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins\n    That almost freezes up the heat of life.\n    I'll call them back again to comfort me.\n    Nurse!- What should she do here?\n    My dismal scene I needs must act alone.\n    Come, vial.\n    What if this mixture do not work at all?\n    Shall I be married then to-morrow morning?\n    No, No! This shall forbid it. Lie thou there.\n                                             Lays down a dagger.\n    What if it be a poison which the friar\n    Subtilly hath minist'red to have me dead,\n    Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd\n    Because he married me before to Romeo?\n    I fear it is; and yet methinks it should not,\n    For he hath still been tried a holy man.\n    I will not entertain so bad a thought.\n    How if, when I am laid into the tomb,\n    I wake before the time that Romeo\n    Come to redeem me? There's a fearful point!\n    Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,\n    To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,\n    And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?\n    Or, if I live, is it not very like\n    The horrible conceit of death and night,\n    Together with the terror of the place-\n    As in a vault, an ancient receptacle\n    Where for this many hundred years the bones\n    Of all my buried ancestors are pack'd;\n    Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,\n    Lies fest'ring in his shroud; where, as they say,\n    At some hours in the night spirits resort-\n    Alack, alack, is it not like that I,\n    So early waking- what with loathsome smells,\n    And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,\n    That living mortals, hearing them, run mad-\n    O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,\n    Environed with all these hideous fears,\n    And madly play with my forefathers' joints,\n    And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud.,\n    And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone\n    As with a club dash out my desp'rate brains?\n    O, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost\n    Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body\n    Upon a rapier's point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!\n    Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.\n\n        She [drinks and] falls upon her bed within the curtains.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nCapulet's house.\n\nEnter Lady of the House and Nurse.\n\n\n  Lady. Hold, take these keys and fetch more spices, nurse.\n\n  Nurse. They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.\n\n                       Enter Old Capulet.\n\n\n  Cap. Come, stir, stir, stir! The second cock hath crow'd,\n    The curfew bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock.\n    Look to the bak'd meats, good Angelica;\n    Spare not for cost.\n\n  Nurse. Go, you cot-quean, go,\n    Get you to bed! Faith, you'll be sick to-morrow\n    For this night's watching.\n\n  Cap. No, not a whit. What, I have watch'd ere now\n    All night for lesser cause, and ne'er been sick.\n\n  Lady. Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time;\n    But I will watch you from such watching now.\n                                          Exeunt Lady and Nurse.\n\n  Cap. A jealous hood, a jealous hood!\n\n\n  Enter three or four [Fellows, with spits and logs and baskets.\n\n    What is there? Now, fellow,\n\n  Fellow. Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what.\n\n  Cap. Make haste, make haste. [Exit Fellow.] Sirrah, fetch drier\n      logs.\n    Call Peter; he will show thee where they are.\n\n  Fellow. I have a head, sir, that will find out logs\n    And never trouble Peter for the matter.\n\n  Cap. Mass, and well said; a merry whoreson, ha!\n    Thou shalt be loggerhead. [Exit Fellow.] Good faith, 'tis day.\n    The County will be here with music straight,\n    For so he said he would.                         Play music.\n    I hear him near.\n    Nurse! Wife! What, ho! What, nurse, I say!\n\n                              Enter Nurse.\n    Go waken Juliet; go and trim her up.\n    I'll go and chat with Paris. Hie, make haste,\n    Make haste! The bridegroom he is come already:\n    Make haste, I say.\n                                                       [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nJuliet's chamber.\n\n[Enter Nurse.]\n\n\n  Nurse. Mistress! what, mistress! Juliet! Fast, I warrant her, she.\n    Why, lamb! why, lady! Fie, you slug-abed!\n    Why, love, I say! madam! sweetheart! Why, bride!\n    What, not a word? You take your pennyworths now!\n    Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,\n    The County Paris hath set up his rest\n    That you shall rest but little. God forgive me!\n    Marry, and amen. How sound is she asleep!\n    I needs must wake her. Madam, madam, madam!\n    Ay, let the County take you in your bed!\n    He'll fright you up, i' faith. Will it not be?\n                                     [Draws aside the curtains.]\n    What, dress'd, and in your clothes, and down again?\n    I must needs wake you. Lady! lady! lady!\n    Alas, alas! Help, help! My lady's dead!\n    O weraday that ever I was born!\n    Some aqua-vitae, ho! My lord! my lady!\n\n                           Enter Mother.\n\n\n  Mother. What noise is here?\n\n  Nurse. O lamentable day!\n\n  Mother. What is the matter?\n\n  Nurse. Look, look! O heavy day!\n\n  Mother. O me, O me! My child, my only life!\n    Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!\n    Help, help! Call help.\n\n                            Enter Father.\n\n\n  Father. For shame, bring Juliet forth; her lord is come.\n\n  Nurse. She's dead, deceas'd; she's dead! Alack the day!\n\n  Mother. Alack the day, she's dead, she's dead, she's dead!\n\n  Cap. Ha! let me see her. Out alas! she's cold,\n    Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff;\n    Life and these lips have long been separated.\n    Death lies on her like an untimely frost\n    Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.\n\n  Nurse. O lamentable day!\n\n  Mother. O woful time!\n\n  Cap. Death, that hath ta'en her hence to make me wail,\n    Ties up my tongue and will not let me speak.\n\n\n  Enter Friar [Laurence] and the County [Paris], with Musicians.\n\n\n  Friar. Come, is the bride ready to go to church?\n\n  Cap. Ready to go, but never to return.\n    O son, the night before thy wedding day\n    Hath Death lain with thy wife. See, there she lies,\n    Flower as she was, deflowered by him.\n    Death is my son-in-law, Death is my heir;\n    My daughter he hath wedded. I will die\n    And leave him all. Life, living, all is Death's.\n\n  Par. Have I thought long to see this morning's face,\n    And doth it give me such a sight as this?\n\n  Mother. Accurs'd, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!\n    Most miserable hour that e'er time saw\n    In lasting labour of his pilgrimage!\n    But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,\n    But one thing to rejoice and solace in,\n    And cruel Death hath catch'd it from my sight!\n\n  Nurse. O woe? O woful, woful, woful day!\n    Most lamentable day, most woful day\n    That ever ever I did yet behold!\n    O day! O day! O day! O hateful day!\n    Never was seen so black a day as this.\n    O woful day! O woful day!\n\n  Par. Beguil'd, divorced, wronged, spited, slain!\n    Most detestable Death, by thee beguil'd,\n    By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!\n    O love! O life! not life, but love in death\n\n  Cap. Despis'd, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd!\n    Uncomfortable time, why cam'st thou now\n    To murther, murther our solemnity?\n    O child! O child! my soul, and not my child!\n    Dead art thou, dead! alack, my child is dead,\n    And with my child my joys are buried!\n\n  Friar. Peace, ho, for shame! Confusion's cure lives not\n    In these confusions. Heaven and yourself\n    Had part in this fair maid! now heaven hath all,\n    And all the better is it for the maid.\n    Your part in her you could not keep from death,\n    But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.\n    The most you sought was her promotion,\n    For 'twas your heaven she should be advanc'd;\n    And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc'd\n    Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?\n    O, in this love, you love your child so ill\n    That you run mad, seeing that she is well.\n    She's not well married that lives married long,\n    But she's best married that dies married young.\n    Dry up your tears and stick your rosemary\n    On this fair corse, and, as the custom is,\n    In all her best array bear her to church;\n    For though fond nature bids us all lament,\n    Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment.\n\n  Cap. All things that we ordained festival\n    Turn from their office to black funeral-\n    Our instruments to melancholy bells,\n    Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;\n    Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;\n    Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse;\n    And all things change them to the contrary.\n\n  Friar. Sir, go you in; and, madam, go with him;\n    And go, Sir Paris. Every one prepare\n    To follow this fair corse unto her grave.\n    The heavens do low'r upon you for some ill;\n    Move them no more by crossing their high will.\n                           Exeunt. Manent Musicians [and Nurse].\n  1. Mus. Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone.\n\n  Nurse. Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up!\n    For well you know this is a pitiful case.            [Exit.]\n  1. Mus. Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.\n\n                         Enter Peter.\n\n\n  Pet. Musicians, O, musicians, 'Heart's ease,' 'Heart's ease'!\n    O, an you will have me live, play 'Heart's ease.'\n  1. Mus. Why 'Heart's ease'',\n\n  Pet. O, musicians, because my heart itself plays 'My heart is\n    full of woe.' O, play me some merry dump to comfort me.\n  1. Mus. Not a dump we! 'Tis no time to play now.\n\n  Pet. You will not then?\n  1. Mus. No.\n\n  Pet. I will then give it you soundly.\n  1. Mus. What will you give us?\n\n  Pet. No money, on my faith, but the gleek. I will give you the\n     minstrel.\n  1. Mus. Then will I give you the serving-creature.\n\n  Pet. Then will I lay the serving-creature's dagger on your pate.\n    I will carry no crotchets. I'll re you, I'll fa you. Do you\n    note me?\n  1. Mus. An you re us and fa us, you note us.\n  2. Mus. Pray you put up your dagger, and put out your wit.\n\n  Pet. Then have at you with my wit! I will dry-beat you with an\n    iron wit, and put up my iron dagger. Answer me like men.\n\n           'When griping grief the heart doth wound,\n             And doleful dumps the mind oppress,\n           Then music with her silver sound'-\n\n    Why 'silver sound'? Why 'music with her silver sound'?\n    What say you, Simon Catling?\n  1. Mus. Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.\n\n  Pet. Pretty! What say You, Hugh Rebeck?\n  2. Mus. I say 'silver sound' because musicians sound for silver.\n\n  Pet. Pretty too! What say you, James Soundpost?\n  3. Mus. Faith, I know not what to say.\n\n  Pet. O, I cry you mercy! you are the singer. I will say for you. It\n    is 'music with her silver sound' because musicians have no\n    gold for sounding.\n\n           'Then music with her silver sound\n             With speedy help doth lend redress.'         [Exit.\n\n  1. Mus. What a pestilent knave is this same?\n  2. Mus. Hang him, Jack! Come, we'll in here, tarry for the\n    mourners, and stay dinner.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nACT V. Scene I.\nMantua. A street.\n\nEnter Romeo.\n\n\n  Rom. If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep\n    My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.\n    My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne,\n    And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit\n    Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.\n    I dreamt my lady came and found me dead\n    (Strange dream that gives a dead man leave to think!)\n    And breath'd such life with kisses in my lips\n    That I reviv'd and was an emperor.\n    Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess'd,\n    When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!\n\n                Enter Romeo's Man Balthasar, booted.\n\n    News from Verona! How now, Balthasar?\n    Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?\n    How doth my lady? Is my father well?\n    How fares my Juliet? That I ask again,\n    For nothing can be ill if she be well.\n\n  Man. Then she is well, and nothing can be ill.\n    Her body sleeps in Capel's monument,\n    And her immortal part with angels lives.\n    I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault\n    And presently took post to tell it you.\n    O, pardon me for bringing these ill news,\n    Since you did leave it for my office, sir.\n\n  Rom. Is it e'en so? Then I defy you, stars!\n    Thou knowest my lodging. Get me ink and paper\n    And hire posthorses. I will hence to-night.\n\n  Man. I do beseech you, sir, have patience.\n    Your looks are pale and wild and do import\n    Some misadventure.\n\n  Rom. Tush, thou art deceiv'd.\n    Leave me and do the thing I bid thee do.\n    Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?\n\n  Man. No, my good lord.\n\n  Rom. No matter. Get thee gone\n    And hire those horses. I'll be with thee straight.\n                                               Exit [Balthasar].\n    Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.\n    Let's see for means. O mischief, thou art swift\n    To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!\n    I do remember an apothecary,\n    And hereabouts 'a dwells, which late I noted\n    In tatt'red weeds, with overwhelming brows,\n    Culling of simples. Meagre were his looks,\n    Sharp misery had worn him to the bones;\n    And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,\n    An alligator stuff'd, and other skins\n    Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves\n    A beggarly account of empty boxes,\n    Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,\n    Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses\n    Were thinly scattered, to make up a show.\n    Noting this penury, to myself I said,\n    'An if a man did need a poison now\n    Whose sale is present death in Mantua,\n    Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.'\n    O, this same thought did but forerun my need,\n    And this same needy man must sell it me.\n    As I remember, this should be the house.\n    Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut. What, ho! apothecary!\n\n                        Enter Apothecary.\n\n\n  Apoth. Who calls so loud?\n\n  Rom. Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor.\n    Hold, there is forty ducats. Let me have\n    A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear\n    As will disperse itself through all the veins\n    That the life-weary taker mall fall dead,\n    And that the trunk may be discharg'd of breath\n    As violently as hasty powder fir'd\n    Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.\n\n  Apoth. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law\n    Is death to any he that utters them.\n\n  Rom. Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness\n    And fearest to die? Famine is in thy cheeks,\n    Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,\n    Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back:\n    The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law;\n    The world affords no law to make thee rich;\n    Then be not poor, but break it and take this.\n\n  Apoth. My poverty but not my will consents.\n\n  Rom. I pay thy poverty and not thy will.\n\n  Apoth. Put this in any liquid thing you will\n    And drink it off, and if you had the strength\n    Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.\n\n  Rom. There is thy gold- worse poison to men's souls,\n    Doing more murther in this loathsome world,\n    Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.\n    I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.\n    Farewell. Buy food and get thyself in flesh.\n    Come, cordial and not poison, go with me\n    To Juliet's grave; for there must I use thee.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nVerona. Friar Laurence's cell.\n\nEnter Friar John to Friar Laurence.\n\n\n  John. Holy Franciscan friar, brother, ho!\n\n                      Enter Friar Laurence.\n\n\n  Laur. This same should be the voice of Friar John.\n    Welcome from Mantua. What says Romeo?\n    Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.\n\n  John. Going to find a barefoot brother out,\n    One of our order, to associate me\n    Here in this city visiting the sick,\n    And finding him, the searchers of the town,\n    Suspecting that we both were in a house\n    Where the infectious pestilence did reign,\n    Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth,\n    So that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd.\n\n  Laur. Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo?\n\n  John. I could not send it- here it is again-\n    Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,\n    So fearful were they of infection.\n\n  Laur. Unhappy fortune! By my brotherhood,\n    The letter was not nice, but full of charge,\n    Of dear import; and the neglecting it\n    May do much danger. Friar John, go hence,\n    Get me an iron crow and bring it straight\n    Unto my cell.\n\n  John. Brother, I'll go and bring it thee.                 Exit.\n\n  Laur. Now, must I to the monument alone.\n    Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake.\n    She will beshrew me much that Romeo\n    Hath had no notice of these accidents;\n    But I will write again to Mantua,\n    And keep her at my cell till Romeo come-\n    Poor living corse, clos'd in a dead man's tomb!        Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nVerona. A churchyard; in it the monument of the Capulets.\n\nEnter Paris and his Page with flowers and [a torch].\n\n\n  Par. Give me thy torch, boy. Hence, and stand aloof.\n    Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.\n    Under yond yew tree lay thee all along,\n    Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground.\n    So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread\n    (Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves)\n    But thou shalt hear it. Whistle then to me,\n    As signal that thou hear'st something approach.\n    Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.\n\n  Page. [aside] I am almost afraid to stand alone\n    Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.     [Retires.]\n\n  Par. Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew\n    (O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones)\n    Which with sweet water nightly I will dew;\n    Or, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans.\n    The obsequies that I for thee will keep\n    Nightly shall be to strew, thy grave and weep.\n                                                    Whistle Boy.\n    The boy gives warning something doth approach.\n    What cursed foot wanders this way to-night\n    To cross my obsequies and true love's rite?\n    What, with a torch? Muffle me, night, awhile.     [Retires.]\n\n       Enter Romeo, and Balthasar with a torch, a mattock,\n                    and a crow of iron.\n\n\n  Rom. Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.\n    Hold, take this letter. Early in the morning\n    See thou deliver it to my lord and father.\n    Give me the light. Upon thy life I charge thee,\n    Whate'er thou hearest or seest, stand all aloof\n    And do not interrupt me in my course.\n    Why I descend into this bed of death\n    Is partly to behold my lady's face,\n    But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger\n    A precious ring- a ring that I must use\n    In dear employment. Therefore hence, be gone.\n    But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry\n    In what I farther shall intend to do,\n    By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint\n    And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs.\n    The time and my intents are savage-wild,\n    More fierce and more inexorable far\n    Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.\n\n  Bal. I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.\n\n  Rom. So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that.\n    Live, and be prosperous; and farewell, good fellow.\n\n  Bal. [aside] For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout.\n    His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.        [Retires.]\n\n  Rom. Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,\n    Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth,\n    Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,\n    And in despite I'll cram thee with more food.\n                                           Romeo opens the tomb.\n\n  Par. This is that banish'd haughty Montague\n    That murd'red my love's cousin- with which grief\n    It is supposed the fair creature died-\n    And here is come to do some villanous shame\n    To the dead bodies. I will apprehend him.\n    Stop thy unhallowed toil, vile Montague!\n    Can vengeance be pursu'd further than death?\n    Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee.\n    Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.\n\n  Rom. I must indeed; and therefore came I hither.\n    Good gentle youth, tempt not a desp'rate man.\n    Fly hence and leave me. Think upon these gone;\n    Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,\n    But not another sin upon my head\n    By urging me to fury. O, be gone!\n    By heaven, I love thee better than myself,\n    For I come hither arm'd against myself.\n    Stay not, be gone. Live, and hereafter say\n    A madman's mercy bid thee run away.\n\n  Par. I do defy thy, conjuration\n    And apprehend thee for a felon here.\n\n  Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy!\n                                                     They fight.\n\n  Page. O Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.\n                                            [Exit. Paris falls.]\n\n  Par. O, I am slain! If thou be merciful,\n    Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.                   [Dies.]\n\n  Rom. In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.\n    Mercutio's kinsman, noble County Paris!\n    What said my man when my betossed soul\n    Did not attend him as we rode? I think\n    He told me Paris should have married Juliet.\n    Said he not so? or did I dream it so?\n    Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet\n    To think it was so? O, give me thy hand,\n    One writ with me in sour misfortune's book!\n    I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave.\n    A grave? O, no, a lanthorn, slaught'red youth,\n    For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes\n    This vault a feasting presence full of light.\n    Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd.\n                                         [Lays him in the tomb.]\n    How oft when men are at the point of death\n    Have they been merry! which their keepers call\n    A lightning before death. O, how may I\n    Call this a lightning? O my love! my wife!\n    Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,\n    Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.\n    Thou art not conquer'd. Beauty's ensign yet\n    Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,\n    And death's pale flag is not advanced there.\n    Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?\n    O, what more favour can I do to thee\n    Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain\n    To sunder his that was thine enemy?\n    Forgive me, cousin.' Ah, dear Juliet,\n    Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe\n    That unsubstantial Death is amorous,\n    And that the lean abhorred monster keeps\n    Thee here in dark to be his paramour?\n    For fear of that I still will stay with thee\n    And never from this palace of dim night\n    Depart again. Here, here will I remain\n    With worms that are thy chambermaids. O, here\n    Will I set up my everlasting rest\n    And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars\n    From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!\n    Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you\n    The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss\n    A dateless bargain to engrossing death!\n    Come, bitter conduct; come, unsavoury guide!\n    Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on\n    The dashing rocks thy seasick weary bark!\n    Here's to my love! [Drinks.] O true apothecary!\n    Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.          Falls.\n\n    Enter Friar [Laurence], with lanthorn, crow, and spade.\n\n\n  Friar. Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night\n    Have my old feet stumbled at graves! Who's there?\n\n  Bal. Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.\n\n  Friar. Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend,\n    What torch is yond that vainly lends his light\n    To grubs and eyeless skulls? As I discern,\n    It burneth in the Capels' monument.\n\n  Bal. It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master,\n    One that you love.\n\n  Friar. Who is it?\n\n  Bal. Romeo.\n\n  Friar. How long hath he been there?\n\n  Bal. Full half an hour.\n\n  Friar. Go with me to the vault.\n\n  Bal. I dare not, sir.\n    My master knows not but I am gone hence,\n    And fearfully did menace me with death\n    If I did stay to look on his intents.\n\n  Friar. Stay then; I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me.\n    O, much I fear some ill unthrifty thing.\n\n  Bal. As I did sleep under this yew tree here,\n    I dreamt my master and another fought,\n    And that my master slew him.\n\n  Friar. Romeo!\n    Alack, alack, what blood is this which stains\n    The stony entrance of this sepulchre?\n    What mean these masterless and gory swords\n    To lie discolour'd by this place of peace? [Enters the tomb.]\n    Romeo! O, pale! Who else? What, Paris too?\n    And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour\n    Is guilty of this lamentable chance! The lady stirs.\n                                                   Juliet rises.\n\n  Jul. O comfortable friar! where is my lord?\n    I do remember well where I should be,\n    And there I am. Where is my Romeo?\n\n  Friar. I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest\n    Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep.\n    A greater power than we can contradict\n    Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.\n    Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;\n    And Paris too. Come, I'll dispose of thee\n    Among a sisterhood of holy nuns.\n    Stay not to question, for the watch is coming.\n    Come, go, good Juliet. I dare no longer stay.\n\n  Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.\n                                                   Exit [Friar].\n    What's here? A cup, clos'd in my true love's hand?\n    Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.\n    O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop\n    To help me after? I will kiss thy lips.\n    Haply some poison yet doth hang on them\n    To make me die with a restorative.             [Kisses him.]\n    Thy lips are warm!\n\n  Chief Watch. [within] Lead, boy. Which way?\n    Yea, noise? Then I'll be brief. O happy dagger!\n                                      [Snatches Romeo's dagger.]\n    This is thy sheath; there rest, and let me die.\n                  She stabs herself and falls [on Romeo's body].\n\n                Enter [Paris's] Boy and Watch.\n\n\n  Boy. This is the place. There, where the torch doth burn.\n\n  Chief Watch. 'the ground is bloody. Search about the churchyard.\n    Go, some of you; whoe'er you find attach.\n                                     [Exeunt some of the Watch.]\n    Pitiful sight! here lies the County slain;\n    And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,\n    Who here hath lain this two days buried.\n    Go, tell the Prince; run to the Capulets;\n    Raise up the Montagues; some others search.\n                                   [Exeunt others of the Watch.]\n    We see the ground whereon these woes do lie,\n    But the true ground of all these piteous woes\n    We cannot without circumstance descry.\n\n     Enter [some of the Watch,] with Romeo's Man [Balthasar].\n\n  2. Watch. Here's Romeo's man. We found him in the churchyard.\n\n  Chief Watch. Hold him in safety till the Prince come hither.\n\n          Enter Friar [Laurence] and another Watchman.\n\n  3. Watch. Here is a friar that trembles, sighs, and weeps.\n    We took this mattock and this spade from him\n    As he was coming from this churchyard side.\n\n  Chief Watch. A great suspicion! Stay the friar too.\n\n              Enter the Prince [and Attendants].\n\n\n  Prince. What misadventure is so early up,\n    That calls our person from our morning rest?\n\n            Enter Capulet and his Wife [with others].\n\n\n  Cap. What should it be, that they so shriek abroad?\n\n  Wife. The people in the street cry 'Romeo,'\n    Some 'Juliet,' and some 'Paris'; and all run,\n    With open outcry, toward our monument.\n\n  Prince. What fear is this which startles in our ears?\n\n  Chief Watch. Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain;\n    And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before,\n    Warm and new kill'd.\n\n  Prince. Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.\n\n  Chief Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man,\n    With instruments upon them fit to open\n    These dead men's tombs.\n\n  Cap. O heavens! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!\n    This dagger hath mista'en, for, lo, his house\n    Is empty on the back of Montague,\n    And it missheathed in my daughter's bosom!\n\n  Wife. O me! this sight of death is as a bell\n    That warns my old age to a sepulchre.\n\n               Enter Montague [and others].\n\n\n  Prince. Come, Montague; for thou art early up\n    To see thy son and heir more early down.\n\n  Mon. Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night!\n    Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath.\n    What further woe conspires against mine age?\n\n  Prince. Look, and thou shalt see.\n\n  Mon. O thou untaught! what manners is in this,\n    To press before thy father to a grave?\n\n  Prince. Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,\n    Till we can clear these ambiguities\n    And know their spring, their head, their true descent;\n    And then will I be general of your woes\n    And lead you even to death. Meantime forbear,\n    And let mischance be slave to patience.\n    Bring forth the parties of suspicion.\n\n  Friar. I am the greatest, able to do least,\n    Yet most suspected, as the time and place\n    Doth make against me, of this direful murther;\n    And here I stand, both to impeach and purge\n    Myself condemned and myself excus'd.\n\n  Prince. Then say it once what thou dost know in this.\n\n  Friar. I will be brief, for my short date of breath\n    Is not so long as is a tedious tale.\n    Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet;\n    And she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife.\n    I married them; and their stol'n marriage day\n    Was Tybalt's doomsday, whose untimely death\n    Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this city;\n    For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin'd.\n    You, to remove that siege of grief from her,\n    Betroth'd and would have married her perforce\n    To County Paris. Then comes she to me\n    And with wild looks bid me devise some mean\n    To rid her from this second marriage,\n    Or in my cell there would she kill herself.\n    Then gave I her (so tutored by my art)\n    A sleeping potion; which so took effect\n    As I intended, for it wrought on her\n    The form of death. Meantime I writ to Romeo\n    That he should hither come as this dire night\n    To help to take her from her borrowed grave,\n    Being the time the potion's force should cease.\n    But he which bore my letter, Friar John,\n    Was stay'd by accident, and yesternight\n    Return'd my letter back. Then all alone\n    At the prefixed hour of her waking\n    Came I to take her from her kindred's vault;\n    Meaning to keep her closely at my cell\n    Till I conveniently could send to Romeo.\n    But when I came, some minute ere the time\n    Of her awaking, here untimely lay\n    The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.\n    She wakes; and I entreated her come forth\n    And bear this work of heaven with patience;\n    But then a noise did scare me from the tomb,\n    And she, too desperate, would not go with me,\n    But, as it seems, did violence on herself.\n    All this I know, and to the marriage\n    Her nurse is privy; and if aught in this\n    Miscarried by my fault, let my old life\n    Be sacrific'd, some hour before his time,\n    Unto the rigour of severest law.\n\n  Prince. We still have known thee for a holy man.\n    Where's Romeo's man? What can he say in this?\n\n  Bal. I brought my master news of Juliet's death;\n    And then in post he came from Mantua\n    To this same place, to this same monument.\n    This letter he early bid me give his father,\n    And threat'ned me with death, going in the vault,\n    If I departed not and left him there.\n\n  Prince. Give me the letter. I will look on it.\n    Where is the County's page that rais'd the watch?\n    Sirrah, what made your master in this place?\n\n  Boy. He came with flowers to strew his lady's grave;\n    And bid me stand aloof, and so I did.\n    Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb;\n    And by-and-by my master drew on him;\n    And then I ran away to call the watch.\n\n  Prince. This letter doth make good the friar's words,\n    Their course of love, the tidings of her death;\n    And here he writes that he did buy a poison\n    Of a poor pothecary, and therewithal\n    Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.\n    Where be these enemies? Capulet, Montage,\n    See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,\n    That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!\n    And I, for winking at you, discords too,\n    Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punish'd.\n\n  Cap. O brother Montague, give me thy hand.\n    This is my daughter's jointure, for no more\n    Can I demand.\n\n  Mon. But I can give thee more;\n    For I will raise her Statue in pure gold,\n    That whiles Verona by that name is known,\n    There shall no figure at such rate be set\n    As that of true and faithful Juliet.\n\n  Cap. As rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie-\n    Poor sacrifices of our enmity!\n\n  Prince. A glooming peace this morning with it brings.\n    The sun for sorrow will not show his head.\n    Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;\n    Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished;\n    For never was a story of more woe\n    Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.\n                                                   Exeunt omnes.\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1113":"\n\n\n\n\n1596\n\nA MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  THESEUS, Duke of Athens\n  EGEUS, father to Hermia\n  LYSANDER, in love with Hermia\n  DEMETRIUS, in love with Hermia\n  PHILOSTRATE, Master of the Revels to Theseus\n  QUINCE, a carpenter\n  SNUG, a joiner\n  BOTTOM, a weaver\n  FLUTE, a bellows-mender\n  SNOUT, a tinker\n  STARVELING, a tailor\n\n  HIPPOLYTA, Queen of the Amazons, bethrothed to Theseus\n  HERMIA, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander\n  HELENA, in love with Demetrius\n\n  OBERON, King of the Fairies\n  TITANIA, Queen of the Fairies\n  PUCK, or ROBIN GOODFELLOW\n  PEASEBLOSSOM, fairy\n  COBWEB, fairy\n  MOTH, fairy\n  MUSTARDSEED, fairy\n\n  PROLOGUE, PYRAMUS, THISBY, WALL, MOONSHINE, LION are presented\nby:\n    QUINCE, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, STARVELING, AND SNUG\n\n  Other Fairies attending their King and Queen\n  Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nAthens and a wood near it\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nAthens. The palace of THESEUS\n\nEnter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  THESEUS. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour\n    Draws on apace; four happy days bring in\n    Another moon; but, O, methinks, how slow\n    This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires,\n    Like to a step-dame or a dowager,\n    Long withering out a young man's revenue.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;\n    Four nights will quickly dream away the time;\n    And then the moon, like to a silver bow\n    New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night\n    Of our solemnities.\n  THESEUS. Go, Philostrate,\n    Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;\n    Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;\n    Turn melancholy forth to funerals;\n    The pale companion is not for our pomp.     Exit PHILOSTRATE\n    Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,\n    And won thy love doing thee injuries;\n    But I will wed thee in another key,\n    With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.\n\n          Enter EGEUS, and his daughter HERMIA, LYSANDER,\n                           and DEMETRIUS\n\n  EGEUS. Happy be Theseus, our renowned Duke!\n  THESEUS. Thanks, good Egeus; what's the news with thee?\n  EGEUS. Full of vexation come I, with complaint\n    Against my child, my daughter Hermia.\n    Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,\n    This man hath my consent to marry her.\n    Stand forth, Lysander. And, my gracious Duke,\n    This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child.\n    Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,\n    And interchang'd love-tokens with my child;\n    Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,\n    With feigning voice, verses of feigning love,\n    And stol'n the impression of her fantasy\n    With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,\n    Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats- messengers\n    Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth;\n    With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart;\n    Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,\n    To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke,\n    Be it so she will not here before your Grace\n    Consent to marry with Demetrius,\n    I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:\n    As she is mine I may dispose of her;\n    Which shall be either to this gentleman\n    Or to her death, according to our law\n    Immediately provided in that case.\n  THESEUS. What say you, Hermia? Be advis'd, fair maid.\n    To you your father should be as a god;\n    One that compos'd your beauties; yea, and one\n    To whom you are but as a form in wax,\n    By him imprinted, and within his power\n    To leave the figure, or disfigure it.\n    Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.\n  HERMIA. So is Lysander.\n  THESEUS. In himself he is;\n    But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice,\n    The other must be held the worthier.\n  HERMIA. I would my father look'd but with my eyes.\n  THESEUS. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.\n  HERMIA. I do entreat your Grace to pardon me.\n    I know not by what power I am made bold,\n    Nor how it may concern my modesty\n    In such a presence here to plead my thoughts;\n    But I beseech your Grace that I may know\n    The worst that may befall me in this case,\n    If I refuse to wed Demetrius.\n  THESEUS. Either to die the death, or to abjure\n    For ever the society of men.\n    Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,\n    Know of your youth, examine well your blood,\n    Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,\n    You can endure the livery of a nun,\n    For aye to be shady cloister mew'd,\n    To live a barren sister all your life,\n    Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.\n    Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood\n    To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;\n    But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd\n    Than that which withering on the virgin thorn\n    Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.\n  HERMIA. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,\n    Ere I will yield my virgin patent up\n    Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke\n    My soul consents not to give sovereignty.\n  THESEUS. Take time to pause; and by the next new moon-\n    The sealing-day betwixt my love and me\n    For everlasting bond of fellowship-\n    Upon that day either prepare to die\n    For disobedience to your father's will,\n    Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would,\n    Or on Diana's altar to protest\n    For aye austerity and single life.\n  DEMETRIUS. Relent, sweet Hermia; and, Lysander, yield\n    Thy crazed title to my certain right.\n  LYSANDER. You have her father's love, Demetrius;\n    Let me have Hermia's; do you marry him.\n  EGEUS. Scornful Lysander, true, he hath my love;\n    And what is mine my love shall render him;\n    And she is mine; and all my right of her\n    I do estate unto Demetrius.\n  LYSANDER. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he,\n    As well possess'd; my love is more than his;\n    My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,\n    If not with vantage, as Demetrius';\n    And, which is more than all these boasts can be,\n    I am belov'd of beauteous Hermia.\n    Why should not I then prosecute my right?\n    Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,\n    Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,\n    And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,\n    Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,\n    Upon this spotted and inconstant man.\n  THESEUS. I must confess that I have heard so much,\n    And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;\n    But, being over-full of self-affairs,\n    My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;\n    And come, Egeus; you shall go with me;\n    I have some private schooling for you both.\n    For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself\n    To fit your fancies to your father's will,\n    Or else the law of Athens yields you up-\n    Which by no means we may extenuate-\n    To death, or to a vow of single life.\n    Come, my Hippolyta; what cheer, my love?\n    Demetrius, and Egeus, go along;\n    I must employ you in some business\n    Against our nuptial, and confer with you\n    Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.\n  EGEUS. With duty and desire we follow you.\n                              Exeunt all but LYSANDER and HERMIA\n  LYSANDER. How now, my love! Why is your cheek so pale?\n    How chance the roses there do fade so fast?\n  HERMIA. Belike for want of rain, which I could well\n    Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.\n  LYSANDER. Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,\n    Could ever hear by tale or history,\n    The course of true love never did run smooth;\n    But either it was different in blood-\n  HERMIA. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low.\n  LYSANDER. Or else misgraffed in respect of years-\n  HERMIA. O spite! too old to be engag'd to young.\n  LYSANDER. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends-\n  HERMIA. O hell! to choose love by another's eyes.\n  LYSANDER. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,\n    War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it,\n    Making it momentary as a sound,\n    Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,\n    Brief as the lightning in the collied night\n    That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,\n    And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'\n    The jaws of darkness do devour it up;\n    So quick bright things come to confusion.\n  HERMIA. If then true lovers have ever cross'd,\n    It stands as an edict in destiny.\n    Then let us teach our trial patience,\n    Because it is a customary cross,\n    As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,\n    Wishes and tears, poor Fancy's followers.\n  LYSANDER. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia.\n    I have a widow aunt, a dowager\n    Of great revenue, and she hath no child-\n    From Athens is her house remote seven leagues-\n    And she respects me as her only son.\n    There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;\n    And to that place the sharp Athenian law\n    Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,\n    Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;\n    And in the wood, a league without the town,\n    Where I did meet thee once with Helena\n    To do observance to a morn of May,\n    There will I stay for thee.\n  HERMIA. My good Lysander!\n    I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow,\n    By his best arrow, with the golden head,\n    By the simplicity of Venus' doves,\n    By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,\n    And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage Queen,\n    When the false Troyan under sail was seen,\n    By all the vows that ever men have broke,\n    In number more than ever women spoke,\n    In that same place thou hast appointed me,\n    To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.\n  LYSANDER. Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.\n\n                         Enter HELENA\n\n  HERMIA. God speed fair Helena! Whither away?\n  HELENA. Call you me fair? That fair again unsay.\n    Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!\n    Your eyes are lode-stars and your tongue's sweet air\n    More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,\n    When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.\n    Sickness is catching; O, were favour so,\n    Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go!\n    My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,\n    My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.\n    Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,\n    The rest I'd give to be to you translated.\n    O, teach me how you look, and with what art\n    You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart!\n  HERMIA. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.\n  HELENA. O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!\n  HERMIA. I give him curses, yet he gives me love.\n  HELENA. O that my prayers could such affection move!\n  HERMIA. The more I hate, the more he follows me.\n  HELENA. The more I love, the more he hateth me.\n  HERMIA. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.\n  HELENA. None, but your beauty; would that fault were mine!\n  HERMIA. Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;\n    Lysander and myself will fly this place.\n    Before the time I did Lysander see,\n    Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me.\n    O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,\n    That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!\n  LYSANDER. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:\n    To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold\n    Her silver visage in the wat'ry glass,\n    Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,\n    A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,\n    Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.\n  HERMIA. And in the wood where often you and I\n    Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,\n    Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,\n    There my Lysander and myself shall meet;\n    And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,\n    To seek new friends and stranger companies.\n    Farewell, sweet playfellow; pray thou for us,\n    And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!\n    Keep word, Lysander; we must starve our sight\n    From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.\n  LYSANDER. I will, my Hermia. [Exit HERMIA] Helena, adieu;\n    As you on him, Demetrius dote on you.                   Exit\n  HELENA. How happy some o'er other some can be!\n    Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.\n    But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;\n    He will not know what all but he do know.\n    And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,\n    So I, admiring of his qualities.\n    Things base and vile, holding no quantity,\n    Love can transpose to form and dignity.\n    Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;\n    And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.\n    Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;\n    Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste;\n    And therefore is Love said to be a child,\n    Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.\n    As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,\n    So the boy Love is perjur'd everywhere;\n    For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,\n    He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;\n    And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,\n    So he dissolv'd, and show'rs of oaths did melt.\n    I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight;\n    Then to the wood will he to-morrow night\n    Pursue her; and for this intelligence\n    If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.\n    But herein mean I to enrich my pain,\n    To have his sight thither and back again.               Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAthens. QUINCE'S house\n\nEnter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING\n\n  QUINCE. Is all our company here?\n  BOTTOM. You were best to call them generally, man by man,\naccording\n    to the scrip.\n  QUINCE. Here is the scroll of every man's name which is thought\n    fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the\nDuke\n    and the Duchess on his wedding-day at night.\n  BOTTOM. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on;\nthen\n    read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.\n  QUINCE. Marry, our play is 'The most Lamentable Comedy and most\n    Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisby.'\n  BOTTOM. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry.\nNow,\n    good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll.\nMasters,\n    spread yourselves.\n  QUINCE. Answer, as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.\n  BOTTOM. Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.\n  QUINCE. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.\n  BOTTOM. What is Pyramus? A lover, or a tyrant?\n  QUINCE. A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.\n  BOTTOM. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it.\nIf I\n    do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move\nstorms; I\n    will condole in some measure. To the rest- yet my chief\nhumour is\n    for a tyrant. I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a\ncat\n    in, to make all split.\n\n                 'The raging rocks\n                 And shivering shocks\n                 Shall break the locks\n                   Of prison gates;\n\n                 And Phibbus' car\n                 Shall shine from far,\n                 And make and mar\n                   The foolish Fates.'\n\n    This was lofty. Now name the rest of the players. This is\n    Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein: a lover is more condoling.\n  QUINCE. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.\n  FLUTE. Here, Peter Quince.\n  QUINCE. Flute, you must take Thisby on you.\n  FLUTE. What is Thisby? A wand'ring knight?\n  QUINCE. It is the lady that Pyramus must love.\n  FLUTE. Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard\ncoming.\n  QUINCE. That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you\nmay\n    speak as small as you will.\n  BOTTOM. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too.\n    I'll speak in a monstrous little voice: 'Thisne, Thisne!'\n    [Then speaking small] 'Ah Pyramus, my lover dear! Thy\n    Thisby dear, and lady dear!'\n  QUINCE. No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you Thisby.\n  BOTTOM. Well, proceed.\n  QUINCE. Robin Starveling, the tailor.\n  STARVELING. Here, Peter Quince.\n  QUINCE. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.\n    Tom Snout, the tinker.\n  SNOUT. Here, Peter Quince.\n  QUINCE. You, Pyramus' father; myself, Thisby's father; Snug,\nthe\n    joiner, you, the lion's part. And, I hope, here is a play\nfitted.\n  SNUG. Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be,\ngive it\n    me, for I am slow of study.\n  QUINCE. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.\n  BOTTOM. Let me play the lion too. I will roar that I will do\nany\n    man's heart good to hear me; I will roar that I will make the\n    Duke say 'Let him roar again, let him roar again.'\n  QUINCE. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the\n    Duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were\n    enough to hang us all.\n  ALL. That would hang us, every mother's son.\n  BOTTOM. I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies\nout\n    of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang\nus;\n    but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as\ngently\n    as any sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any\nnightingale.\n  QUINCE. You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a\n    sweet-fac'd man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's\n    day; a most lovely gentleman-like man; therefore you must\nneeds\n    play Pyramus.\n  BOTTOM. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to\nplay\n    it in?\n  QUINCE. Why, what you will.\n  BOTTOM. I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard,\nyour\n    orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your\n    French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.\n  QUINCE. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and\nthen\n    you will play bare-fac'd. But, masters, here are your parts;\nand\n    I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them\nby\n    to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile\nwithout\n    the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse; for if we\nmeet in\n    the city, we shall be dogg'd with company, and our devices\nknown.\n    In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, such as our\n    play wants. I pray you, fail me not.\n  BOTTOM. We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely\nand\n    courageously. Take pains; be perfect; adieu.\n  QUINCE. At the Duke's oak we meet.\n  BOTTOM. Enough; hold, or cut bow-strings.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nA wood near Athens\n\nEnter a FAIRY at One door, and PUCK at another\n\n  PUCK. How now, spirit! whither wander you?\n  FAIRY.      Over hill, over dale,\n                Thorough bush, thorough brier,\n              Over park, over pale,\n                Thorough flood, thorough fire,\n              I do wander every where,\n              Swifter than the moon's sphere;\n              And I serve the Fairy Queen,\n              To dew her orbs upon the green.\n              The cowslips tall her pensioners be;\n              In their gold coats spots you see;\n              Those be rubies, fairy favours,\n              In those freckles live their savours.\n\n    I must go seek some dewdrops here,\n    And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.\n    Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone.\n    Our Queen and all her elves come here anon.\n  PUCK. The King doth keep his revels here to-night;\n    Take heed the Queen come not within his sight;\n    For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,\n    Because that she as her attendant hath\n    A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king.\n    She never had so sweet a changeling;\n    And jealous Oberon would have the child\n    Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;\n    But she perforce withholds the loved boy,\n    Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy.\n    And now they never meet in grove or green,\n    By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,\n    But they do square, that all their elves for fear\n    Creep into acorn cups and hide them there.\n  FAIRY. Either I mistake your shape and making quite,\n    Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite\n    Call'd Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he\n    That frights the maidens of the villagery,\n    Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern,\n    And bootless make the breathless housewife churn,\n    And sometime make the drink to bear no barm,\n    Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?\n    Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,\n    You do their work, and they shall have good luck.\n    Are not you he?\n  PUCK. Thou speakest aright:\n    I am that merry wanderer of the night.\n    I jest to Oberon, and make him smile\n    When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,\n    Neighing in likeness of a filly foal;\n    And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl\n    In very likeness of a roasted crab,\n    And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,\n    And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.\n    The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,\n    Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;\n    Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,\n    And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;\n    And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,\n    And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear\n    A merrier hour was never wasted there.\n    But room, fairy, here comes Oberon.\n  FAIRY. And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!\n\n       Enter OBERON at one door, with his TRAIN, and TITANIA,\n                        at another, with hers\n\n  OBERON. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.\n  TITANIA. What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence;\n    I have forsworn his bed and company.\n  OBERON. Tarry, rash wanton; am not I thy lord?\n  TITANIA. Then I must be thy lady; but I know\n    When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,\n    And in the shape of Corin sat all day,\n    Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love\n    To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,\n    Come from the farthest steep of India,\n    But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,\n    Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,\n    To Theseus must be wedded, and you come\n    To give their bed joy and prosperity?\n  OBERON. How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,\n    Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,\n    Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?\n    Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night\n    From Perigouna, whom he ravished?\n    And make him with fair Aegles break his faith,\n    With Ariadne and Antiopa?\n  TITANIA. These are the forgeries of jealousy;\n    And never, since the middle summer's spring,\n    Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,\n    By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,\n    Or in the beached margent of the sea,\n    To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,\n    But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.\n    Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,\n    As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea\n    Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land,\n    Hath every pelting river made so proud\n    That they have overborne their continents.\n    The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,\n    The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn\n    Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;\n    The fold stands empty in the drowned field,\n    And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;\n    The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,\n    And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,\n    For lack of tread, are undistinguishable.\n    The human mortals want their winter here;\n    No night is now with hymn or carol blest;\n    Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,\n    Pale in her anger, washes all the air,\n    That rheumatic diseases do abound.\n    And thorough this distemperature we see\n    The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts\n    Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;\n    And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown\n    An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds\n    Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,\n    The childing autumn, angry winter, change\n    Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world,\n    By their increase, now knows not which is which.\n    And this same progeny of evils comes\n    From our debate, from our dissension;\n    We are their parents and original.\n  OBERON. Do you amend it, then; it lies in you.\n    Why should Titania cross her Oberon?\n    I do but beg a little changeling boy\n    To be my henchman.\n  TITANIA. Set your heart at rest;\n    The fairy land buys not the child of me.\n    His mother was a vot'ress of my order;\n    And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,\n    Full often hath she gossip'd by my side;\n    And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,\n    Marking th' embarked traders on the flood;\n    When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive,\n    And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;\n    Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait\n    Following- her womb then rich with my young squire-\n    Would imitate, and sail upon the land,\n    To fetch me trifles, and return again,\n    As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.\n    But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;\n    And for her sake do I rear up her boy;\n    And for her sake I will not part with him.\n  OBERON. How long within this wood intend you stay?\n  TITANIA. Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.\n    If you will patiently dance in our round,\n    And see our moonlight revels, go with us;\n    If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.\n  OBERON. Give me that boy and I will go with thee.\n  TITANIA. Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away.\n    We shall chide downright if I longer stay.\n                                     Exit TITANIA with her train\n  OBERON. Well, go thy way; thou shalt not from this grove\n    Till I torment thee for this injury.\n    My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememb'rest\n    Since once I sat upon a promontory,\n    And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back\n    Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath\n    That the rude sea grew civil at her song,\n    And certain stars shot madly from their spheres\n    To hear the sea-maid's music.\n  PUCK. I remember.\n  OBERON. That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,\n    Flying between the cold moon and the earth\n    Cupid, all arm'd; a certain aim he took\n    At a fair vestal, throned by the west,\n    And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,\n    As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;\n    But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft\n    Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon;\n    And the imperial vot'ress passed on,\n    In maiden meditation, fancy-free.\n    Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell.\n    It fell upon a little western flower,\n    Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,\n    And maidens call it Love-in-idleness.\n    Fetch me that flow'r, the herb I showed thee once.\n    The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid\n    Will make or man or woman madly dote\n    Upon the next live creature that it sees.\n    Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again\n    Ere the leviathan can swim a league.\n  PUCK. I'll put a girdle round about the earth\n    In forty minutes.                                  Exit PUCK\n  OBERON. Having once this juice,\n    I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,\n    And drop the liquor of it in her eyes;\n    The next thing then she waking looks upon,\n    Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,\n    On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,\n    She shall pursue it with the soul of love.\n    And ere I take this charm from off her sight,\n    As I can take it with another herb,\n    I'll make her render up her page to me.\n    But who comes here? I am invisible;\n    And I will overhear their conference.\n\n               Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him\n\n  DEMETRIUS. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.\n    Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?\n    The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.\n    Thou told'st me they were stol'n unto this wood,\n    And here am I, and wood within this wood,\n    Because I cannot meet my Hermia.\n    Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.\n  HELENA. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;\n    But yet you draw not iron, for my heart\n    Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,\n    And I shall have no power to follow you.\n  DEMETRIUS. Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?\n    Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth\n    Tell you I do not nor I cannot love you?\n  HELENA. And even for that do I love you the more.\n    I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,\n    The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.\n    Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,\n    Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,\n    Unworthy as I am, to follow you.\n    What worser place can I beg in your love,\n    And yet a place of high respect with me,\n    Than to be used as you use your dog?\n  DEMETRIUS. Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;\n    For I am sick when I do look on thee.\n  HELENA. And I am sick when I look not on you.\n  DEMETRIUS. You do impeach your modesty too much\n    To leave the city and commit yourself\n    Into the hands of one that loves you not;\n    To trust the opportunity of night,\n    And the ill counsel of a desert place,\n    With the rich worth of your virginity.\n  HELENA. Your virtue is my privilege for that:\n    It is not night when I do see your face,\n    Therefore I think I am not in the night;\n    Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,\n    For you, in my respect, are all the world.\n    Then how can it be said I am alone\n    When all the world is here to look on me?\n  DEMETRIUS. I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,\n    And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.\n  HELENA. The wildest hath not such a heart as you.\n    Run when you will; the story shall be chang'd:\n    Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;\n    The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind\n    Makes speed to catch the tiger- bootless speed,\n    When cowardice pursues and valour flies.\n  DEMETRIUS. I will not stay thy questions; let me go;\n    Or, if thou follow me, do not believe\n    But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.\n  HELENA. Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,\n    You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!\n    Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex.\n    We cannot fight for love as men may do;\n    We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo.\n                                                  Exit DEMETRIUS\n    I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,\n    To die upon the hand I love so well.             Exit HELENA\n  OBERON. Fare thee well, nymph; ere he do leave this grove,\n    Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.\n\n                            Re-enter PUCK\n\n    Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.\n  PUCK. Ay, there it is.\n  OBERON. I pray thee give it me.\n    I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,\n    Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,\n    Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,\n    With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine;\n    There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,\n    Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;\n    And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,\n    Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in;\n    And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,\n    And make her full of hateful fantasies.\n    Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:\n    A sweet Athenian lady is in love\n    With a disdainful youth; anoint his eyes;\n    But do it when the next thing he espies\n    May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man\n    By the Athenian garments he hath on.\n    Effect it with some care, that he may prove\n    More fond on her than she upon her love.\n    And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.\n  PUCK. Fear not, my lord; your servant shall do so.      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAnother part of the wood\n\nEnter TITANIA, with her train\n\n  TITANIA. Come now, a roundel and a fairy song;\n    Then, for the third part of a minute, hence:\n    Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds;\n    Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,\n    To make my small elves coats; and some keep back\n    The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders\n    At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;\n    Then to your offices, and let me rest.\n\n                          The FAIRIES Sing\n\n  FIRST FAIRY. You spotted snakes with double tongue,\n               Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;\n               Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,\n               Come not near our fairy Queen.\n  CHORUS.      Philomel with melody\n               Sing in our sweet lullaby.\n               Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby.\n               Never harm\n               Nor spell nor charm\n               Come our lovely lady nigh.\n               So good night, with lullaby.\n  SECOND FAIRY.  Weaving spiders, come not here;\n                 Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence.\n                 Beetles black, approach not near;\n                 Worm nor snail do no offence.\n  CHORUS.      Philomel with melody, etc.       [TITANIA Sleeps]\n  FIRST FAIRY. Hence away; now all is well.\n               One aloof stand sentinel.          Exeunt FAIRIES\n\n      Enter OBERON and squeezes the flower on TITANIA'S eyelids\n\n  OBERON. What thou seest when thou dost wake,\n    Do it for thy true-love take;\n    Love and languish for his sake.\n    Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,\n    Pard, or boar with bristled hair,\n    In thy eye that shall appear\n    When thou wak'st, it is thy dear.\n    Wake when some vile thing is near.                      Exit\n\n                     Enter LYSANDER and HERMIA\n\n  LYSANDER. Fair love, you faint with wand'ring in the wood;\n    And, to speak troth, I have forgot our way;\n    We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,\n    And tarry for the comfort of the day.\n  HERMIA. Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed,\n    For I upon this bank will rest my head.\n  LYSANDER. One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;\n    One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.\n  HERMIA. Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,\n    Lie further off yet; do not lie so near.\n  LYSANDER. O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!\n    Love takes the meaning in love's conference.\n    I mean that my heart unto yours is knit,\n    So that but one heart we can make of it;\n    Two bosoms interchained with an oath,\n    So then two bosoms and a single troth.\n    Then by your side no bed-room me deny,\n    For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.\n  HERMIA. Lysander riddles very prettily.\n    Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,\n    If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied!\n    But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy\n    Lie further off, in human modesty;\n    Such separation as may well be said\n    Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,\n    So far be distant; and good night, sweet friend.\n    Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!\n  LYSANDER. Amen, amen, to that fair prayer say I;\n    And then end life when I end loyalty!\n    Here is my bed; sleep give thee all his rest!\n  HERMIA. With half that wish the wisher's eyes be press'd!\n                                                    [They sleep]\n\n                          Enter PUCK\n\n  PUCK.      Through the forest have I gone,\n             But Athenian found I none\n             On whose eyes I might approve\n             This flower's force in stirring love.\n             Night and silence- Who is here?\n             Weeds of Athens he doth wear:\n             This is he, my master said,\n             Despised the Athenian maid;\n             And here the maiden, sleeping sound,\n             On the dank and dirty ground.\n             Pretty soul! she durst not lie\n             Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.\n             Churl, upon thy eyes I throw\n             All the power this charm doth owe:\n             When thou wak'st let love forbid\n             Sleep his seat on thy eyelid.\n             So awake when I am gone;\n             For I must now to Oberon.                      Exit\n\n               Enter DEMETRIUS and HELENA, running\n\n  HELENA. Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.\n  DEMETRIUS. I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.\n  HELENA. O, wilt thou darkling leave me? Do not so.\n  DEMETRIUS. Stay on thy peril; I alone will go.            Exit\n  HELENA. O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!\n    The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.\n    Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies,\n    For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.\n    How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears;\n    If so, my eyes are oft'ner wash'd than hers.\n    No, no, I am as ugly as a bear,\n    For beasts that meet me run away for fear;\n    Therefore no marvel though Demetrius\n    Do, as a monster, fly my presence thus.\n    What wicked and dissembling glass of mine\n    Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?\n    But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!\n    Dead, or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.\n    Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.\n  LYSANDER. [Waking] And run through fire I will for thy sweet\nsake.\n    Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,\n    That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.\n    Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word\n    Is that vile name to perish on my sword!\n  HELENA. Do not say so, Lysander; say not so.\n    What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?\n    Yet Hermia still loves you; then be content.\n  LYSANDER. Content with Hermia! No: I do repent\n    The tedious minutes I with her have spent.\n    Not Hermia but Helena I love:\n    Who will not change a raven for a dove?\n    The will of man is by his reason sway'd,\n    And reason says you are the worthier maid.\n    Things growing are not ripe until their season;\n    So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;\n    And touching now the point of human skill,\n    Reason becomes the marshal to my will,\n    And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook\n    Love's stories, written in Love's richest book.\n  HELENA. Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?\n    When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?\n    Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man,\n    That I did never, no, nor never can,\n    Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye,\n    But you must flout my insufficiency?\n    Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,\n    In such disdainful manner me to woo.\n    But fare you well; perforce I must confess\n    I thought you lord of more true gentleness.\n    O, that a lady of one man refus'd\n    Should of another therefore be abus'd!                  Exit\n  LYSANDER. She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there;\n    And never mayst thou come Lysander near!\n    For, as a surfeit of the sweetest things\n    The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,\n    Or as the heresies that men do leave\n    Are hated most of those they did deceive,\n    So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,\n    Of all be hated, but the most of me!\n    And, all my powers, address your love and might\n    To honour Helen, and to be her knight!                  Exit\n  HERMIA. [Starting] Help me, Lysander, help me; do thy best\n    To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast.\n    Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here!\n    Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.\n    Methought a serpent eat my heart away,\n    And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.\n    Lysander! What, remov'd? Lysander! lord!\n    What, out of hearing gone? No sound, no word?\n    Alack, where are you? Speak, an if you hear;\n    Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.\n    No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh.\n    Either death or you I'll find immediately.              Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nThe wood. TITANIA lying asleep\n\nEnter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING\n\n  BOTTOM. Are we all met?\n  QUINCE. Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place for\nour\n    rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn\n    brake our tiring-house; and we will do it in action, as we\nwill\n    do it before the Duke.\n  BOTTOM. Peter Quince!\n  QUINCE. What sayest thou, bully Bottom?\n  BOTTOM. There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby\nthat\n    will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill\n    himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?\n  SNOUT. By'r lakin, a parlous fear.\n  STARVELING. I believe we must leave the killing out, when all\nis\n    done.\n  BOTTOM. Not a whit; I have a device to make all well. Write me\na\n    prologue; and let the prologue seem to say we will do no harm\n    with our swords, and that Pyramus is not kill'd indeed; and\nfor\n    the more better assurance, tell them that I Pyramus am not\n    Pyramus but Bottom the weaver. This will put them out of\nfear.\n  QUINCE. Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be\nwritten\n    in eight and six.\n  BOTTOM. No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and\neight.\n  SNOUT. Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?\n  STARVELING. I fear it, I promise you.\n  BOTTOM. Masters, you ought to consider with yourself to bring\nin-\n    God shield us!- a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing;\nfor\n    there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living;\nand\n    we ought to look to't.\n  SNOUT. Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.\n  BOTTOM. Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be\nseen\n    through the lion's neck; and he himself must speak through,\n    saying thus, or to the same defect: 'Ladies,' or 'Fair\nladies, I\n    would wish you' or 'I would request you' or 'I would entreat\nyou\n    not to fear, not to tremble. My life for yours! If you think\nI\n    come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life. No, I am no\nsuch\n    thing; I am a man as other men are.' And there, indeed, let\nhim\n    name his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.\n  QUINCE. Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things-\nthat\n    is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber; for, you know,\nPyramus\n    and Thisby meet by moonlight.\n  SNOUT. Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?\n  BOTTOM. A calendar, a calendar! Look in the almanack; find out\n    moonshine, find out moonshine.\n  QUINCE. Yes, it doth shine that night.\n  BOTTOM. Why, then may you leave a casement of the great chamber\n    window, where we play, open; and the moon may shine in at the\n    casement.\n  QUINCE. Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and\na\n    lantern, and say he comes to disfigure or to present the\nperson\n    of Moonshine. Then there is another thing: we must have a\nwall in\n    the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby, says the story,\ndid\n    talk through the chink of a wall.\n  SNOUT. You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?\n  BOTTOM. Some man or other must present Wall; and let him have\nsome\n    plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to\nsignify\n    wall; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that\ncranny\n    shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.\n  QUINCE. If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every\n    mother's son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin;\nwhen\n    you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake; and so\nevery\n    one according to his cue.\n\n                          Enter PUCK behind\n\n  PUCK. What hempen homespuns have we swagg'ring here,\n    So near the cradle of the Fairy Queen?\n    What, a play toward! I'll be an auditor;\n    An actor too perhaps, if I see cause.\n  QUINCE. Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.\n  BOTTOM. Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet-\n  QUINCE. 'Odious'- odorous!\n  BOTTOM. -odours savours sweet;\n    So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.\n    But hark, a voice! Stay thou but here awhile,\n    And by and by I will to thee appear.                    Exit\n  PUCK. A stranger Pyramus than e'er played here!           Exit\n  FLUTE. Must I speak now?\n  QUINCE. Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he goes\nbut to\n    see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.\n  FLUTE. Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,\n    Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,\n    Most brisky juvenal, and eke most lovely Jew,\n    As true as truest horse, that would never tire,\n    I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.\n  QUINCE. 'Ninus' tomb,' man! Why, you must not speak that yet;\nthat\n    you answer to Pyramus. You speak all your part at once, cues,\nand\n    all. Pyramus enter: your cue is past; it is 'never tire.'\n  FLUTE. O- As true as truest horse, that y et would never tire.\n\n            Re-enter PUCK, and BOTTOM with an ass's head\n\n  BOTTOM. If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine.\n  QUINCE. O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Pray, masters!\nfly,\n    masters! Help!\n                                  Exeunt all but BOTTOM and PUCK\n  PUCK. I'll follow you; I'll lead you about a round,\n    Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier;\n    Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,\n    A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;\n    And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,\n    Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.\nExit\n  BOTTOM. Why do they run away? This is a knavery of them to make\nme\n    afeard.\n\n                          Re-enter SNOUT\n\n  SNOUT. O Bottom, thou art chang'd! What do I see on thee?\n  BOTTOM. What do you see? You see an ass-head of your own, do\nyou?\n                                                      Exit SNOUT\n\n                          Re-enter QUINCE\n\n  QUINCE. Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee! Thou art translated.\n Exit\n  BOTTOM. I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me; to\n    fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from this\nplace, do\n    what they can; I will walk up and down here, and will sing,\nthat\n    they shall hear I am not afraid.                     [Sings]\n\n          The ousel cock, so black of hue,\n            With orange-tawny bill,\n          The throstle with his note so true,\n            The wren with little quill.\n\n  TITANIA. What angel wakes me from my flow'ry bed?\n  BOTTOM. [Sings]\n          The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,\n            The plain-song cuckoo grey,\n          Whose note full many a man doth mark,\n            And dares not answer nay-\n    for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird?\n    Who would give a bird the he, though he cry 'cuckoo' never\nso?\n  TITANIA. I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again.\n    Mine ear is much enamoured of thy note;\n    So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;\n    And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me,\n    On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee.\n  BOTTOM. Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for\nthat.\n    And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little\ncompany\n    together now-a-days. The more the pity that some honest\n    neighbours will not make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon\n    occasion.\n  TITANIA. Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.\n  BOTTOM. Not so, neither; but if I had wit enough to get out of\nthis\n    wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.\n  TITANIA. Out of this wood do not desire to go;\n    Thou shalt remain here whether thou wilt or no.\n    I am a spirit of no common rate;\n    The summer still doth tend upon my state;\n    And I do love thee; therefore, go with me.\n    I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee;\n    And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,\n    And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep;\n    And I will purge thy mortal grossness so\n    That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.\n    Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed!\n\n       Enter PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, and MUSTARDSEED\n\n  PEASEBLOSSOM. Ready.\n  COBWEB. And I.\n  MOTH. And I.\n  MUSTARDSEED. And I.\n  ALL. Where shall we go?\n  TITANIA. Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;\n    Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;\n    Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,\n    With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;\n    The honey bags steal from the humble-bees,\n    And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs,\n    And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,\n    To have my love to bed and to arise;\n    And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,\n    To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.\n    Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.\n  PEASEBLOSSOM. Hail, mortal!\n  COBWEB. Hail!\n  MOTH. Hail!\n  MUSTARDSEED. Hail!\n  BOTTOM. I cry your worships mercy, heartily; I beseech your\n    worship's name.\n  COBWEB. Cobweb.\n  BOTTOM. I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master\n    Cobweb. If I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you. Your\n    name, honest gentleman?\n  PEASEBLOSSOM. Peaseblossom.\n  BOTTOM. I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash, your mother,\nand\n    to Master Peascod, your father. Good Master Peaseblossom, I\nshall\n    desire you of more acquaintance too. Your name, I beseech\nyou,\n    sir?\n  MUSTARDSEED. Mustardseed.\n  BOTTOM. Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience well.\nThat\n    same cowardly giant-like ox-beef hath devour'd many a\ngentleman\n    of your house. I promise you your kindred hath made my eyes\nwater\n    ere now. I desire you of more acquaintance, good Master\n    Mustardseed.\n  TITANIA. Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.\n    The moon, methinks, looks with a wat'ry eye;\n    And when she weeps, weeps every little flower;\n    Lamenting some enforced chastity.\n    Tie up my love's tongue, bring him silently.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAnother part of the wood\n\nEnter OBERON\n\n  OBERON. I wonder if Titania be awak'd;\n    Then, what it was that next came in her eye,\n    Which she must dote on in extremity.\n\n                          Enter PUCK\n\n    Here comes my messenger. How now, mad spirit!\n    What night-rule now about this haunted grove?\n  PUCK. My mistress with a monster is in love.\n    Near to her close and consecrated bower,\n    While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,\n    A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,\n    That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,\n    Were met together to rehearse a play\n    Intended for great Theseus' nuptial day.\n    The shallowest thickskin of that barren sort,\n    Who Pyramus presented, in their sport\n    Forsook his scene and ent'red in a brake;\n    When I did him at this advantage take,\n    An ass's nole I fixed on his head.\n    Anon his Thisby must be answered,\n    And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,\n    As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,\n    Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,\n    Rising and cawing at the gun's report,\n    Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky,\n    So at his sight away his fellows fly;\n    And at our stamp here, o'er and o'er one falls;\n    He murder cries, and help from Athens calls.\n    Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears thus strong,\n    Made senseless things begin to do them wrong,\n    For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;\n    Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders all things catch.\n    I led them on in this distracted fear,\n    And left sweet Pyramus translated there;\n    When in that moment, so it came to pass,\n    Titania wak'd, and straightway lov'd an ass.\n  OBERON. This falls out better than I could devise.\n    But hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes\n    With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do?\n  PUCK. I took him sleeping- that is finish'd too-\n    And the Athenian woman by his side;\n    That, when he wak'd, of force she must be ey'd.\n\n                 Enter DEMETRIUS and HERMIA\n\n  OBERON. Stand close; this is the same Athenian.\n  PUCK. This is the woman, but not this the man.\n  DEMETRIUS. O, why rebuke you him that loves you so?\n    Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.\n  HERMIA. Now I but chide, but I should use thee worse,\n    For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse.\n    If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,\n    Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep,\n    And kill me too.\n    The sun was not so true unto the day\n    As he to me. Would he have stolen away\n    From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon\n    This whole earth may be bor'd, and that the moon\n    May through the centre creep and so displease\n    Her brother's noontide with th' Antipodes.\n    It cannot be but thou hast murd'red him;\n    So should a murderer look- so dead, so grim.\n  DEMETRIUS. So should the murdered look; and so should I,\n    Pierc'd through the heart with your stern cruelty;\n    Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,\n    As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.\n  HERMIA. What's this to my Lysander? Where is he?\n    Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?\n  DEMETRIUS. I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.\n  HERMIA. Out, dog! out, cur! Thou driv'st me past the bounds\n    Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him, then?\n    Henceforth be never numb'red among men!\n    O, once tell true; tell true, even for my sake!\n    Durst thou have look'd upon him being awake,\n    And hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O brave touch!\n    Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?\n    An adder did it; for with doubler tongue\n    Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.\n  DEMETRIUS. You spend your passion on a mispris'd mood:\n    I am not guilty of Lysander's blood;\n    Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.\n  HERMIA. I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.\n  DEMETRIUS. An if I could, what should I get therefore?\n  HERMIA. A privilege never to see me more.\n    And from thy hated presence part I so;\n    See me no more whether he be dead or no.                Exit\n  DEMETRIUS. There is no following her in this fierce vein;\n    Here, therefore, for a while I will remain.\n    So sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow\n    For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe;\n    Which now in some slight measure it will pay,\n    If for his tender here I make some stay.         [Lies down]\n  OBERON. What hast thou done? Thou hast mistaken quite,\n    And laid the love-juice on some true-love's sight.\n    Of thy misprision must perforce ensue\n    Some true love turn'd, and not a false turn'd true.\n  PUCK. Then fate o'er-rules, that, one man holding troth,\n    A million fail, confounding oath on oath.\n  OBERON. About the wood go swifter than the wind,\n    And Helena of Athens look thou find;\n    All fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer,\n    With sighs of love that costs the fresh blood dear.\n    By some illusion see thou bring her here;\n    I'll charm his eyes against she do appear.\n  PUCK. I go, I go; look how I go,\n    Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow.               Exit\n  OBERON.       Flower of this purple dye,\n                Hit with Cupid's archery,\n                Sink in apple of his eye.\n                When his love he doth espy,\n                Let her shine as gloriously\n                As the Venus of the sky.\n                When thou wak'st, if she be by,\n                Beg of her for remedy.\n\n                       Re-enter PUCK\n\n  PUCK.         Captain of our fairy band,\n                Helena is here at hand,\n                And the youth mistook by me\n                Pleading for a lover's fee;\n                Shall we their fond pageant see?\n                Lord, what fools these mortals be!\n  OBERON.       Stand aside. The noise they make\n                Will cause Demetrius to awake.\n  PUCK.         Then will two at once woo one.\n                That must needs be sport alone;\n                And those things do best please me\n                That befall prepost'rously.\n\n                   Enter LYSANDER and HELENA\n\n  LYSANDER. Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?\n    Scorn and derision never come in tears.\n    Look when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,\n    In their nativity all truth appears.\n    How can these things in me seem scorn to you,\n    Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?\n  HELENA. You do advance your cunning more and more.\n    When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray!\n    These vows are Hermia's. Will you give her o'er?\n    Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh:\n    Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,\n    Will even weigh; and both as light as tales.\n  LYSANDER. I hod no judgment when to her I swore.\n  HELENA. Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er.\n  LYSANDER. Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.\n  DEMETRIUS. [Awaking] O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!\n    To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?\n    Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show\n    Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!\n    That pure congealed white, high Taurus' snow,\n    Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow\n    When thou hold'st up thy hand. O, let me kiss\n    This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!\n  HELENA. O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent\n    To set against me for your merriment.\n    If you were civil and knew courtesy,\n    You would not do me thus much injury.\n    Can you not hate me, as I know you do,\n    But you must join in souls to mock me too?\n    If you were men, as men you are in show,\n    You would not use a gentle lady so:\n    To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,\n    When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.\n    You both are rivals, and love Hermia;\n    And now both rivals, to mock Helena.\n    A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,\n    To conjure tears up in a poor maid's eyes\n    With your derision! None of noble sort\n    Would so offend a virgin, and extort\n    A poor soul's patience, all to make you sport.\n  LYSANDER. You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so;\n    For you love Hermia. This you know I know;\n    And here, with all good will, with all my heart,\n    In Hermia's love I yield you up my part;\n    And yours of Helena to me bequeath,\n    Whom I do love and will do till my death.\n  HELENA. Never did mockers waste more idle breath.\n  DEMETRIUS. Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none.\n    If e'er I lov'd her, all that love is gone.\n    My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn'd,\n    And now to Helen is it home return'd,\n    There to remain.\n  LYSANDER. Helen, it is not so.\n  DEMETRIUS. Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,\n    Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear.\n    Look where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear.\n\n                       Enter HERMIA\n\n  HERMIA. Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,\n    The ear more quick of apprehension makes;\n    Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,\n    It pays the hearing double recompense.\n    Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;\n    Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound.\n    But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?\n  LYSANDER. Why should he stay whom love doth press to go?\n  HERMIA. What love could press Lysander from my side?\n  LYSANDER. Lysander's love, that would not let him bide-\n    Fair Helena, who more engilds the night\n    Than all yon fiery oes and eyes of light.\n    Why seek'st thou me? Could not this make thee know\n    The hate I bare thee made me leave thee so?\n  HERMIA. You speak not as you think; it cannot be.\n  HELENA. Lo, she is one of this confederacy!\n    Now I perceive they have conjoin'd all three\n    To fashion this false sport in spite of me.\n    Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid!\n    Have you conspir'd, have you with these contriv'd,\n    To bait me with this foul derision?\n    Is all the counsel that we two have shar'd,\n    The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,\n    When we have chid the hasty-footed time\n    For parting us- O, is all forgot?\n    All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?\n    We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,\n    Have with our needles created both one flower,\n    Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,\n    Both warbling of one song, both in one key;\n    As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,\n    Had been incorporate. So we grew together,\n    Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,\n    But yet an union in partition,\n    Two lovely berries moulded on one stern;\n    So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;\n    Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,\n    Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.\n    And will you rent our ancient love asunder,\n    To join with men in scorning your poor friend?\n    It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly;\n    Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,\n    Though I alone do feel the injury.\n  HERMIA. I am amazed at your passionate words;\n    I scorn you not; it seems that you scorn me.\n  HELENA. Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,\n    To follow me and praise my eyes and face?\n    And made your other love, Demetrius,\n    Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,\n    To call me goddess, nymph, divine, and rare,\n    Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this\n    To her he hates? And wherefore doth Lysander\n    Deny your love, so rich within his soul,\n    And tender me, forsooth, affection,\n    But by your setting on, by your consent?\n    What though I be not so in grace as you,\n    So hung upon with love, so fortunate,\n    But miserable most, to love unlov'd?\n    This you should pity rather than despise.\n  HERMIA. I understand not what you mean by this.\n  HELENA. Ay, do- persever, counterfeit sad looks,\n    Make mouths upon me when I turn my back,\n    Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up;\n    This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.\n    If you have any pity, grace, or manners,\n    You would not make me such an argument.\n    But fare ye well; 'tis partly my own fault,\n    Which death, or absence, soon shall remedy.\n  LYSANDER. Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse;\n    My love, my life, my soul, fair Helena!\n  HELENA. O excellent!\n  HERMIA. Sweet, do not scorn her so.\n  DEMETRIUS. If she cannot entreat, I can compel.\n  LYSANDER. Thou canst compel no more than she entreat;\n    Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers\n    Helen, I love thee, by my life I do;\n    I swear by that which I will lose for thee\n    To prove him false that says I love thee not.\n  DEMETRIUS. I say I love thee more than he can do.\n  LYSANDER. If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too.\n  DEMETRIUS. Quick, come.\n  HERMIA. Lysander, whereto tends all this?\n  LYSANDER. Away, you Ethiope!\n  DEMETRIUS. No, no, he will\n    Seem to break loose- take on as you would follow,\n    But yet come not. You are a tame man; go!\n  LYSANDER. Hang off, thou cat, thou burr; vile thing, let loose,\n    Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent.\n  HERMIA. Why are you grown so rude? What change is this,\n    Sweet love?\n  LYSANDER. Thy love! Out, tawny Tartar, out!\n    Out, loathed med'cine! O hated potion, hence!\n  HERMIA. Do you not jest?\n  HELENA. Yes, sooth; and so do you.\n  LYSANDER. Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.\n  DEMETRIUS. I would I had your bond; for I perceive\n    A weak bond holds you; I'll not trust your word.\n  LYSANDER. What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?\n    Although I hate her, I'll not harm her so.\n  HERMIA. What! Can you do me greater harm than hate?\n    Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love?\n    Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?\n    I am as fair now as I was erewhile.\n    Since night you lov'd me; yet since night you left me.\n    Why then, you left me- O, the gods forbid!-\n    In earnest, shall I say?\n  LYSANDER. Ay, by my life!\n    And never did desire to see thee more.\n    Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt;\n    Be certain, nothing truer; 'tis no jest\n    That I do hate thee and love Helena.\n  HERMIA. O me! you juggler! you cankerblossom!\n    You thief of love! What! Have you come by night,\n    And stol'n my love's heart from him?\n  HELENA. Fine, i' faith!\n    Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,\n    No touch of bashfulness? What! Will you tear\n    Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?\n    Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet you!\n  HERMIA. 'Puppet!' why so? Ay, that way goes the game.\n    Now I perceive that she hath made compare\n    Between our statures; she hath urg'd her height;\n    And with her personage, her tall personage,\n    Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.\n    And are you grown so high in his esteem\n    Because I am so dwarfish and so low?\n    How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak.\n    How low am I? I am not yet so low\n    But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.\n  HELENA. I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,\n    Let her not hurt me. I was never curst;\n    I have no gift at all in shrewishness;\n    I am a right maid for my cowardice;\n    Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,\n    Because she is something lower than myself,\n    That I can match her.\n  HERMIA. 'Lower' hark, again.\n  HELENA. Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.\n    I evermore did love you, Hermia,\n    Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you;\n    Save that, in love unto Demetrius,\n    I told him of your stealth unto this wood.\n    He followed you; for love I followed him;\n    But he hath chid me hence, and threat'ned me\n    To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too;\n    And now, so you will let me quiet go,\n    To Athens will I bear my folly back,\n    And follow you no further. Let me go.\n    You see how simple and how fond I am.\n  HERMIA. Why, get you gone! Who is't that hinders you?\n  HELENA. A foolish heart that I leave here behind.\n  HERMIA. What! with Lysander?\n  HELENA. With Demetrius.\n  LYSANDER. Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena.\n  DEMETRIUS. No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.\n  HELENA. O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd;\n    She was a vixen when she went to school;\n    And, though she be but little, she is fierce.\n  HERMIA. 'Little' again! Nothing but 'low' and 'little'!\n    Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?\n    Let me come to her.\n  LYSANDER. Get you gone, you dwarf;\n    You minimus, of hind'ring knot-grass made;\n    You bead, you acorn.\n  DEMETRIUS. You are too officious\n    In her behalf that scorns your services.\n    Let her alone; speak not of Helena;\n    Take not her part; for if thou dost intend\n    Never so little show of love to her,\n    Thou shalt aby it.\n  LYSANDER. Now she holds me not.\n    Now follow, if thou dar'st, to try whose right,\n    Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.\n  DEMETRIUS. Follow! Nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jowl.\n                                   Exeunt LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS\n  HERMIA. You, mistress, all this coil is long of you.\n    Nay, go not back.\n  HELENA. I will not trust you, I;\n    Nor longer stay in your curst company.\n    Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray;\n    My legs are longer though, to run away.                 Exit\n  HERMIA. I am amaz'd, and know not what to say.            Exit\n  OBERON. This is thy negligence. Still thou mistak'st,\n    Or else committ'st thy knaveries wilfully.\n  PUCK. Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.\n    Did not you tell me I should know the man\n    By the Athenian garments he had on?\n    And so far blameless proves my enterprise\n    That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes;\n    And so far am I glad it so did sort,\n    As this their jangling I esteem a sport.\n  OBERON. Thou seest these lovers seek a place to fight.\n    Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;\n    The starry welkin cover thou anon\n    With drooping fog as black as Acheron,\n    And lead these testy rivals so astray\n    As one come not within another's way.\n    Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,\n    Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;\n    And sometime rail thou like Demetrius;\n    And from each other look thou lead them thus,\n    Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep\n    With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.\n    Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;\n    Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,\n    To take from thence all error with his might\n    And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.\n    When they next wake, all this derision\n    Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision;\n    And back to Athens shall the lovers wend\n    With league whose date till death shall never end.\n    Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,\n    I'll to my queen, and beg her Indian boy;\n    And then I will her charmed eye release\n    From monster's view, and all things shall be peace.\n  PUCK. My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,\n    For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast;\n    And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger,\n    At whose approach ghosts, wand'ring here and there,\n    Troop home to churchyards. Damned spirits all\n    That in cross-ways and floods have burial,\n    Already to their wormy beds are gone,\n    For fear lest day should look their shames upon;\n    They wilfully themselves exil'd from light,\n    And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night.\n  OBERON. But we are spirits of another sort:\n    I with the Morning's love have oft made sport;\n    And, like a forester, the groves may tread\n    Even till the eastern gate, all fiery red,\n    Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,\n    Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams.\n    But, notwithstanding, haste, make no delay;\n    We may effect this business yet ere day.         Exit OBERON\n  PUCK.      Up and down, up and down,\n             I will lead them up and down.\n             I am fear'd in field and town.\n             Goblin, lead them up and down.\n    Here comes one.\n\n                      Enter LYSANDER\n\n  LYSANDER. Where art thou, proud Demetrius? Speak thou now.\n  PUCK. Here, villain, drawn and ready. Where art thou?\n  LYSANDER. I will be with thee straight.\n  PUCK. Follow me, then,\n    To plainer ground.      Exit LYSANDER as following the voice\n\n                      Enter DEMETRIUS\n\n  DEMETRIUS. Lysander, speak again.\n    Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?\n    Speak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head?\n  PUCK. Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,\n    Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars,\n    And wilt not come? Come, recreant, come, thou child;\n    I'll whip thee with a rod. He is defil'd\n    That draws a sword on thee.\n  DEMETRIUS. Yea, art thou there?\n  PUCK. Follow my voice; we'll try no manhood here.       Exeunt\n\n                      Re-enter LYSANDER\n\n  LYSANDER. He goes before me, and still dares me on;\n    When I come where he calls, then he is gone.\n    The villain is much lighter heel'd than I.\n    I followed fast, but faster he did fly,\n    That fallen am I in dark uneven way,\n    And here will rest me. [Lies down] Come, thou gentle day.\n    For if but once thou show me thy grey light,\n    I'll find Demetrius, and revenge this spite.        [Sleeps]\n\n                 Re-enter PUCK and DEMETRIUS\n\n  PUCK. Ho, ho, ho! Coward, why com'st thou not?\n  DEMETRIUS. Abide me, if thou dar'st; for well I wot\n    Thou run'st before me, shifting every place,\n    And dar'st not stand, nor look me in the face.\n    Where art thou now?\n  PUCK. Come hither; I am here.\n  DEMETRIUS. Nay, then, thou mock'st me. Thou shalt buy this\ndear,\n    If ever I thy face by daylight see;\n    Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me\n    To measure out my length on this cold bed.\n    By day's approach look to be visited.\n                                          [Lies down and sleeps]\n\n                       Enter HELENA\n\n  HELENA. O weary night, O long and tedious night,\n    Abate thy hours! Shine comforts from the east,\n    That I may back to Athens by daylight,\n    From these that my poor company detest.\n    And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye,\n    Steal me awhile from mine own company.              [Sleeps]\n  PUCK.       Yet but three? Come one more;\n              Two of both kinds makes up four.\n              Here she comes, curst and sad.\n              Cupid is a knavish lad,\n              Thus to make poor females mad.\n\n                     Enter HERMIA\n\n  HERMIA. Never so weary, never so in woe,\n    Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briers,\n    I can no further crawl, no further go;\n    My legs can keep no pace with my desires.\n    Here will I rest me till the break of day.\n    Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray!\n                                          [Lies down and sleeps]\n  PUCK.          On the ground\n                 Sleep sound;\n                 I'll apply\n                 To your eye,\n          Gentle lover, remedy.\n                        [Squeezing the juice on LYSANDER'S eyes]\n                 When thou wak'st,\n                 Thou tak'st\n                 True delight\n                 In the sight\n          Of thy former lady's eye;\n          And the country proverb known,\n          That every man should take his own,\n          In your waking shall be shown:\n                 Jack shall have Jill;\n                 Nought shall go ill;\n    The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.\n Exit\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nThe wood. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA, lying asleep\n\nEnter TITANIA and Bottom; PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH,\nMUSTARDSEED,\nand other FAIRIES attending;\n                      OBERON behind, unseen\n\n  TITANIA. Come, sit thee down upon this flow'ry bed,\n    While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,\n    And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,\n    And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.\n  BOTTOM. Where's Peaseblossom?\n  PEASEBLOSSOM. Ready.\n  BOTTOM. Scratch my head, Peaseblossom.\n    Where's Mounsieur Cobweb?\n  COBWEB. Ready.\n  BOTTOM. Mounsieur Cobweb; good mounsieur, get you your weapons\nin\n    your hand and kill me a red-hipp'd humble-bee on the top of a\n    thistle; and, good mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not\nfret\n    yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and, good\nmounsieur,\n    have a care the honey-bag break not; I would be loath to have\nyou\n    overflown with a honey-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur\n    Mustardseed?\n  MUSTARDSEED. Ready.\n  BOTTOM. Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray you,\nleave\n    your curtsy, good mounsieur.\n  MUSTARDSEED. What's your will?\n  BOTTOM. Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb to\n    scratch. I must to the barber's, mounsieur; for methinks I am\n    marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a tender ass,\nif\n    my hair do but tickle me I must scratch.\n  TITANIA. What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?\n  BOTTOM. I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have the\ntongs\n    and the bones.\n  TITANIA. Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.\n  BOTTOM. Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry\n    oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay. Good\n    hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.\n  TITANIA. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek\n    The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.\n  BOTTOM. I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But,\nI\n    pray you, let none of your people stir me; I have an\nexposition\n    of sleep come upon me.\n  TITANIA. Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.\n    Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away.       Exeunt FAIRIES\n    So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle\n    Gently entwist; the female ivy so\n    Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.\n    O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!         [They sleep]\n\n                         Enter PUCK\n\n  OBERON. [Advancing] Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet\n      sight?\n    Her dotage now I do begin to pity;\n    For, meeting her of late behind the wood,\n    Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool,\n    I did upbraid her and fall out with her.\n    For she his hairy temples then had rounded\n    With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;\n    And that same dew which sometime on the buds\n    Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls\n    Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes,\n    Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.\n    When I had at my pleasure taunted her,\n    And she in mild terms begg'd my patience,\n    I then did ask of her her changeling child;\n    Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent\n    To bear him to my bower in fairy land.\n    And now I have the boy, I will undo\n    This hateful imperfection of her eyes.\n    And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp\n    From off the head of this Athenian swain,\n    That he awaking when the other do\n    May all to Athens back again repair,\n    And think no more of this night's accidents\n    But as the fierce vexation of a dream.\n    But first I will release the Fairy Queen.\n                                             [Touching her eyes]\n           Be as thou wast wont to be;\n           See as thou was wont to see.\n           Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower\n           Hath such force and blessed power.\n    Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.\n  TITANIA. My Oberon! What visions have I seen!\n    Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.\n  OBERON. There lies your love.\n  TITANIA. How came these things to pass?\n    O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!\n  OBERON. Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.\n    Titania, music call; and strike more dead\n    Than common sleep of all these five the sense.\n  TITANIA. Music, ho, music, such as charmeth sleep!\n  PUCK. Now when thou wak'st with thine own fool's eyes peep.\n  OBERON. Sound, music. Come, my Queen, take hands with me,\n                                                         [Music]\n    And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.\n    Now thou and I are new in amity,\n    And will to-morrow midnight solemnly\n    Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,\n    And bless it to all fair prosperity.\n    There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be\n    Wedded, with Theseus, an in jollity.\n  PUCK.       Fairy King, attend and mark;\n              I do hear the morning lark.\n  OBERON.     Then, my Queen, in silence sad,\n              Trip we after night's shade.\n              We the globe can compass soon,\n              Swifter than the wand'ring moon.\n  TITANIA.    Come, my lord; and in our flight,\n              Tell me how it came this night\n              That I sleeping here was found\n              With these mortals on the ground.           Exeunt\n\n        To the winding of horns, enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA,\n                      EGEUS, and train\n\n  THESEUS. Go, one of you, find out the forester;\n    For now our observation is perform'd,\n    And since we have the vaward of the day,\n    My love shall hear the music of my hounds.\n    Uncouple in the western valley; let them go.\n    Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.    Exit an ATTENDANT\n    We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain's top,\n    And mark the musical confusion\n    Of hounds and echo in conjunction.\n  HIPPOLYTA. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once\n    When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear\n    With hounds of Sparta; never did I hear\n    Such gallant chiding, for, besides the groves,\n    The skies, the fountains, every region near\n    Seem'd all one mutual cry. I never heard\n    So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.\n  THESEUS. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,\n    So flew'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung\n    With ears that sweep away the morning dew;\n    Crook-knee'd and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;\n    Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,\n    Each under each. A cry more tuneable\n    Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,\n    In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.\n    Judge when you hear. But, soft, what nymphs are these?\n  EGEUS. My lord, this is my daughter here asleep,\n    And this Lysander, this Demetrius is,\n    This Helena, old Nedar's Helena.\n    I wonder of their being here together.\n  THESEUS. No doubt they rose up early to observe\n    The rite of May; and, hearing our intent,\n    Came here in grace of our solemnity.\n    But speak, Egeus; is not this the day\n    That Hermia should give answer of her choice?\n  EGEUS. It is, my lord.\n  THESEUS. Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.\n                           [Horns and shout within. The sleepers\n                                     awake and kneel to THESEUS]\n    Good-morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past;\n    Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?\n  LYSANDER. Pardon, my lord.\n  THESEUS. I pray you all, stand up.\n    I know you two are rival enemies;\n    How comes this gentle concord in the world\n    That hatred is so far from jealousy\n    To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?\n  LYSANDER. My lord, I shall reply amazedly,\n    Half sleep, half waking; but as yet, I swear,\n    I cannot truly say how I came here,\n    But, as I think- for truly would I speak,\n    And now I do bethink me, so it is-\n    I came with Hermia hither. Our intent\n    Was to be gone from Athens, where we might,\n    Without the peril of the Athenian law-\n  EGEUS. Enough, enough, my Lord; you have enough;\n    I beg the law, the law upon his head.\n    They would have stol'n away, they would, Demetrius,\n    Thereby to have defeated you and me:\n    You of your wife, and me of my consent,\n    Of my consent that she should be your wife.\n  DEMETRIUS. My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,\n    Of this their purpose hither to this wood;\n    And I in fury hither followed them,\n    Fair Helena in fancy following me.\n    But, my good lord, I wot not by what power-\n    But by some power it is- my love to Hermia,\n    Melted as the snow, seems to me now\n    As the remembrance of an idle gaud\n    Which in my childhood I did dote upon;\n    And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,\n    The object and the pleasure of mine eye,\n    Is only Helena. To her, my lord,\n    Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia.\n    But, like a sickness, did I loathe this food;\n    But, as in health, come to my natural taste,\n    Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,\n    And will for evermore be true to it.\n  THESEUS. Fair lovers, you are fortunately met;\n    Of this discourse we more will hear anon.\n    Egeus, I will overbear your will;\n    For in the temple, by and by, with us\n    These couples shall eternally be knit.\n    And, for the morning now is something worn,\n    Our purpos'd hunting shall be set aside.\n    Away with us to Athens, three and three;\n    We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.\n    Come, Hippolyta.\n                     Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train\n  DEMETRIUS. These things seem small and undistinguishable,\n    Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.\n  HERMIA. Methinks I see these things with parted eye,\n    When every thing seems double.\n  HELENA. So methinks;\n    And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,\n    Mine own, and not mine own.\n  DEMETRIUS. Are you sure\n    That we are awake? It seems to me\n    That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think\n    The Duke was here, and bid us follow him?\n  HERMIA. Yea, and my father.\n  HELENA. And Hippolyta.\n  LYSANDER. And he did bid us follow to the temple.\n  DEMETRIUS. Why, then, we are awake; let's follow him;\n    And by the way let us recount our dreams.             Exeunt\n  BOTTOM. [Awaking] When my cue comes, call me, and I will\nanswer. My\n    next is 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho! Peter Quince! Flute,\nthe\n    bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God's my life,\n    stol'n hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare\nvision.\n    I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it\nwas.\n    Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream.\nMethought\n    I was- there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and\n    methought I had, but man is but a patch'd fool, if he will\noffer\n    to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard,\nthe\n    ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste,\nhis\n    tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream\nwas. I\n    will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It\nshall\n    be call'd 'Bottom's Dream,' because it hath no bottom; and I\nwill\n    sing it in the latter end of a play, before the Duke.\n    Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it\nat\n    her death.                                              Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nAthens. QUINCE'S house\n\nEnter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING\n\n  QUINCE. Have you sent to Bottom's house? Is he come home yet?\n  STARVELING. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is\ntransported.\n  FLUTE. If he come not, then the play is marr'd; it goes not\n    forward, doth it?\n  QUINCE. It is not possible. You have not a man in all Athens\nable\n    to discharge Pyramus but he.\n  FLUTE. No; he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in\n    Athens.\n  QUINCE. Yea, and the best person too; and he is a very paramour\nfor\n    a sweet voice.\n  FLUTE. You must say 'paragon.' A paramour is- God bless us!- A\n    thing of naught.\n\n                           Enter SNUG\n\n  SNUG. Masters, the Duke is coming from the temple; and there is\ntwo\n    or three lords and ladies more married. If our sport had gone\n\n    forward, we had all been made men.\n  FLUTE. O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day\n    during his life; he could not have scaped sixpence a day. An\nthe\n    Duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus,\nI'll\n    be hanged. He would have deserved it: sixpence a day in\nPyramus,\n    or nothing.\n\n                           Enter BOTTOM\n\n  BOTTOM. Where are these lads? Where are these hearts?\n  QUINCE. Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!\n  BOTTOM. Masters, I am to discourse wonders; but ask me not\nwhat;\n    for if I tell you, I am not true Athenian. I will tell you\n    everything, right as it fell out.\n  QUINCE. Let us hear, sweet Bottom.\n  BOTTOM. Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the\n    Duke hath dined. Get your apparel together; good strings to\nyour\n    beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the\npalace;\n    every man look o'er his part; for the short and the long is,\nour\n    play is preferr'd. In any case, let Thisby have clean linen;\nand\n    let not him that plays the lion pare his nails, for they\nshall\n    hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no\n    onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do\nnot\n    doubt but to hear them say it is a sweet comedy. No more\nwords.\n    Away, go, away!                                       Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nAthens. The palace of THESEUS\n\nEnter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, LORDS, and ATTENDANTS\n\n  HIPPOLYTA. 'Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak\nof.\n  THESEUS. More strange than true. I never may believe\n    These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.\n    Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,\n    Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend\n    More than cool reason ever comprehends.\n    The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,\n    Are of imagination all compact.\n    One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;\n    That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,\n    Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.\n    The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,\n    Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;\n    And as imagination bodies forth\n    The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen\n    Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing\n    A local habitation and a name.\n    Such tricks hath strong imagination\n    That, if it would but apprehend some joy,\n    It comprehends some bringer of that joy;\n    Or in the night, imagining some fear,\n    How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear?\n  HIPPOLYTA. But all the story of the night told over,\n    And all their minds transfigur'd so together,\n    More witnesseth than fancy's images,\n    And grows to something of great constancy,\n    But howsoever strange and admirable.\n\n          Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA\n\n  THESEUS. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.\n    Joy, gentle friends, joy and fresh days of love\n    Accompany your hearts!\n  LYSANDER. More than to us\n    Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!\n  THESEUS. Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,\n    To wear away this long age of three hours\n    Between our after-supper and bed-time?\n    Where is our usual manager of mirth?\n    What revels are in hand? Is there no play\n    To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?\n    Call Philostrate.\n  PHILOSTRATE. Here, mighty Theseus.\n  THESEUS. Say, what abridgment have you for this evening?\n    What masque? what music? How shall we beguile\n    The lazy time, if not with some delight?\n  PHILOSTRATE. There is a brief how many sports are ripe;\n    Make choice of which your Highness will see first.\n                                                [Giving a paper]\n  THESEUS. 'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung\n    By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.'\n    We'll none of that: that have I told my love,\n    In glory of my kinsman Hercules.\n    'The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,\n    Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.'\n    That is an old device, and it was play'd\n    When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.\n    'The thrice three Muses mourning for the death\n    Of Learning, late deceas'd in beggary.'\n    That is some satire, keen and critical,\n    Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.\n    'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus\n    And his love Thisby; very tragical mirth.'\n    Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!\n    That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow.\n    How shall we find the concord of this discord?\n  PHILOSTRATE. A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,\n    Which is as brief as I have known a play;\n    But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,\n    Which makes it tedious; for in all the play\n    There is not one word apt, one player fitted.\n    And tragical, my noble lord, it is;\n    For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.\n    Which when I saw rehears'd, I must confess,\n    Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears\n    The passion of loud laughter never shed.\n  THESEUS. What are they that do play it?\n  PHILOSTRATE. Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,\n    Which never labour'd in their minds till now;\n    And now have toil'd their unbreathed memories\n    With this same play against your nuptial.\n  THESEUS. And we will hear it.\n  PHILOSTRATE. No, my noble lord,\n    It is not for you. I have heard it over,\n    And it is nothing, nothing in the world;\n    Unless you can find sport in their intents,\n    Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain,\n    To do you service.\n  THESEUS. I will hear that play;\n    For never anything can be amiss\n    When simpleness and duty tender it.\n    Go, bring them in; and take your places, ladies.\n                                                Exit PHILOSTRATE\n  HIPPOLYTA. I love not to see wretchedness o'er-charged,\n    And duty in his service perishing.\n  THESEUS. Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.\n  HIPPOLYTA. He says they can do nothing in this kind.\n  THESEUS. The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.\n    Our sport shall be to take what they mistake;\n    And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect\n    Takes it in might, not merit.\n    Where I have come, great clerks have purposed\n    To greet me with premeditated welcomes;\n    Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,\n    Make periods in the midst of sentences,\n    Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears,\n    And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off,\n    Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,\n    Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome;\n    And in the modesty of fearful duty\n    I read as much as from the rattling tongue\n    Of saucy and audacious eloquence.\n    Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity\n    In least speak most to my capacity.\n\n                       Re-enter PHILOSTRATE\n\n  PHILOSTRATE. SO please your Grace, the Prologue is address'd.\n  THESEUS. Let him approach.              [Flourish of trumpets]\n\n                 Enter QUINCE as the PROLOGUE\n\n  PROLOGUE. If we offend, it is with our good will.\n    That you should think, we come not to offend,\n    But with good will. To show our simple skill,\n    That is the true beginning of our end.\n    Consider then, we come but in despite.\n    We do not come, as minding to content you,\n    Our true intent is. All for your delight\n    We are not here. That you should here repent you,\n    The actors are at band; and, by their show,\n    You shall know all, that you are like to know,\n  THESEUS. This fellow doth not stand upon points.\n  LYSANDER. He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows\nnot\n    the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not enough to speak,\nbut\n    to speak true.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Indeed he hath play'd on this prologue like a child\non a\n    recorder- a sound, but not in government.\n  THESEUS. His speech was like a tangled chain; nothing im\npaired,\n    but all disordered. Who is next?\n\n          Enter, with a trumpet before them, as in dumb show,\n            PYRAMUS and THISBY, WALL, MOONSHINE, and LION\n\n  PROLOGUE. Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;\n    But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.\n    This man is Pyramus, if you would know;\n    This beauteous lady Thisby is certain.\n    This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present\n    Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder;\n    And through Walls chink, poor souls, they are content\n    To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.\n    This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn,\n    Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know,\n    By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn\n    To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo.\n    This grisly beast, which Lion hight by name,\n    The trusty Thisby, coming first by night,\n    Did scare away, or rather did affright;\n    And as she fled, her mantle she did fall;\n    Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.\n    Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,\n    And finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain;\n    Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade,\n    He bravely broach'd his boiling bloody breast;\n    And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,\n    His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,\n    Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain,\n    At large discourse while here they do remain.\n                               Exeunt PROLOGUE, PYRAMUS, THISBY,\n                                             LION, and MOONSHINE\n  THESEUS. I wonder if the lion be to speak.\n  DEMETRIUS. No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses\ndo.\n  WALL. In this same interlude it doth befall\n    That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;\n    And such a wall as I would have you think\n    That had in it a crannied hole or chink,\n    Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby,\n    Did whisper often very secretly.\n    This loam, this rough-cast, and this stone, doth show\n    That I am that same wall; the truth is so;\n    And this the cranny is, right and sinister,\n    Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.\n  THESEUS. Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?\n  DEMETRIUS. It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard\n    discourse, my lord.\n\n                       Enter PYRAMUS\n\n  THESEUS. Pyramus draws near the wall; silence.\n  PYRAMUS. O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black!\n    O night, which ever art when day is not!\n    O night, O night, alack, alack, alack,\n    I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot!\n    And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,\n    That stand'st between her father's ground and mine;\n    Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,\n    Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne.\n                                     [WALL holds up his fingers]\n    Thanks, courteous wall. Jove shield thee well for this!\n    But what see what see I? No Thisby do I see.\n    O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss,\n    Curs'd he thy stones for thus deceiving me!\n  THESEUS. The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse\nagain.\n  PYRAMUS. No, in truth, sir, he should not. Deceiving me is\nThisby's\n    cue. She is to enter now, and I am to spy her through the\nwall.\n    You shall see it will fall pat as I told you; yonder she\ncomes.\n\n                          Enter THISBY\n\n  THISBY. O wall, full often hast thou beard my moans,\n    For parting my fair Pyramus and me!\n    My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones,\n    Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.\n  PYRAMUS. I see a voice; now will I to the chink,\n    To spy an I can hear my Thisby's face.\n    Thisby!\n  THISBY. My love! thou art my love, I think.\n  PYRAMUS. Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace;\n    And like Limander am I trusty still.\n  THISBY. And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.\n  PYRAMUS. Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.\n  THISBY. As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.\n  PYRAMUS. O, kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.\n  THISBY. I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.\n  PYRAMUS. Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?\n  THISBY. Tide life, tide death, I come without delay.\n                                       Exeunt PYRAMUS and THISBY\n  WALL. Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;\n    And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.           Exit WALL\n  THESEUS. Now is the moon used between the two neighbours.\n  DEMETRIUS. No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear\n    without warning.\n  HIPPOLYTA. This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.\n  THESEUS. The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst\nare\n    no worse, if imagination amend them.\n  HIPPOLYTA. It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.\n  THESEUS. If we imagine no worse of them than they of\nthemselves,\n    they may pass for excellent men. Here come two noble beasts\nin, a\n    man and a lion.\n\n                   Enter LION and MOONSHINE\n\n  LION. You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear\n    The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,\n    May now, perchance, both quake and tremble here,\n    When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.\n    Then know that I as Snug the joiner am\n    A lion fell, nor else no lion's dam;\n    For, if I should as lion come in strife\n    Into this place, 'twere pity on my life.\n  THESEUS. A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.\n  DEMETRIUS. The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw.\n  LYSANDER. This lion is a very fox for his valour.\n  THESEUS. True; and a goose for his discretion.\n  DEMETRIUS. Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his\n    discretion, and the fox carries the goose.\n  THESEUS. His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour;\nfor\n    the goose carries not the fox. It is well. Leave it to his\n    discretion, and let us listen to the Moon.\n  MOONSHINE. This lanthorn doth the horned moon present-\n  DEMETRIUS. He should have worn the horns on his head.\n  THESEUS. He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible within\nthe\n    circumference.\n  MOONSHINE. This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;\n    Myself the Man i' th' Moon do seem to be.\n  THESEUS. This is the greatest error of all the rest; the man\nshould\n    be put into the lantern. How is it else the man i' th' moon?\n  DEMETRIUS. He dares not come there for the candle; for, you\nsee, it\n    is already in snuff.\n  HIPPOLYTA. I am aweary of this moon. Would he would change!\n  THESEUS. It appears, by his small light of discretion, that he\nis\n    in the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we must\nstay\n    the time.\n  LYSANDER. Proceed, Moon.\n  MOON. All that I have to say is to tell you that the lanthorn\nis\n    the moon; I, the Man i' th' Moon; this thorn-bush, my\nthorn-bush;\n    and this dog, my dog.\n  DEMETRIUS. Why, all these should be in the lantern; for all\nthese\n    are in the moon. But silence; here comes Thisby.\n\n                        Re-enter THISBY\n\n  THISBY. This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love?\n  LION. [Roaring] O-                           [THISBY runs off]\n  DEMETRIUS. Well roar'd, Lion.\n  THESEUS. Well run, Thisby.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a good\n    grace.            [The LION tears THISBY'S Mantle, and exit]\n  THESEUS. Well mous'd, Lion.\n\n                        Re-enter PYRAMUS\n\n  DEMETRIUS. And then came Pyramus.\n  LYSANDER. And so the lion vanish'd.\n  PYRAMUS. Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;\n    I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;\n    For, by thy gracious golden, glittering gleams,\n    I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.\n             But stay, O spite!\n             But mark, poor knight,\n           What dreadful dole is here!\n             Eyes, do you see?\n             How can it he?\n           O dainty duck! O dear!\n             Thy mantle good,\n             What! stain'd with blood?\n           Approach, ye Furies fell.\n             O Fates! come, come;\n             Cut thread and thrum;\n           Quail, crush, conclude, and quell.\n  THESEUS. This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go\n    near to make a man look sad.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.\n  PYRAMUS. O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?\n    Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear;\n    Which is- no, no- which was the fairest dame\n    That liv'd, that lov'd, that lik'd, that look'd with cheer.\n             Come, tears, confound;\n             Out, sword, and wound\n           The pap of Pyramus;\n             Ay, that left pap,\n             Where heart doth hop.               [Stabs himself]\n           Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.\n             Now am I dead,\n             Now am I fled;\n           My soul is in the sky.\n             Tongue, lose thy light;\n             Moon, take thy flight.             [Exit MOONSHINE]\n           Now die, die, die, die, die.                   [Dies]\n  DEMETRIUS. No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one.\n  LYSANDER. Less than an ace, man; for he is dead; he is nothing.\n  THESEUS. With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover and\nyet\n    prove an ass.\n  HIPPOLYTA. How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisby comes\nback\n    and finds her lover?\n\n                       Re-enter THISBY\n\n  THESEUS. She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; and\nher\n    passion ends the play.\n  HIPPOLYTA. Methinks she should not use a long one for such a\n    Pyramus; I hope she will be brief.\n  DEMETRIUS. A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which\n    Thisby, is the better- he for a man, God warrant us: She for\na\n    woman, God bless us!\n  LYSANDER. She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.\n  DEMETRIUS. And thus she moans, videlicet:-\n  THISBY.      Asleep, my love?\n               What, dead, my dove?\n             O Pyramus, arise,\n               Speak, speak. Quite dumb?\n               Dead, dead? A tomb\n             Must cover thy sweet eyes.\n               These lily lips,\n               This cherry nose,\n             These yellow cowslip cheeks,\n               Are gone, are gone;\n               Lovers, make moan;\n             His eyes were green as leeks.\n               O Sisters Three,\n               Come, come to me,\n             With hands as pale as milk;\n               Lay them in gore,\n               Since you have shore\n             With shears his thread of silk.\n               Tongue, not a word.\n               Come, trusty sword;\n             Come, blade, my breast imbrue.      [Stabs herself]\n               And farewell, friends;\n               Thus Thisby ends;\n             Adieu, adieu, adieu.                         [Dies]\n  THESEUS. Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.\n  DEMETRIUS. Ay, and Wall too.\n  BOTTOM. [Starting up] No, I assure you; the wall is down that\n    parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the Epilogue,\nor\n    to hear a Bergomask dance between two of our company?\n  THESEUS. No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no\nexcuse.\n    Never excuse; for when the players are all dead there need\nnone\n    to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it had played Pyramus,\nand\n    hang'd himself in Thisby's garter, it would have been a fine\n    tragedy. And so it is, truly; and very notably discharg'd.\nBut\n    come, your Bergomask; let your epilogue alone.     [A dance]\n    The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.\n    Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.\n    I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn,\n    As much as we this night have overwatch'd.\n    This palpable-gross play hath well beguil'd\n    The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed.\n    A fortnight hold we this solemnity,\n    In nightly revels and new jollity.                    Exeunt\n\n                     Enter PUCK with a broom\n\n  PUCK.      Now the hungry lion roars,\n             And the wolf behowls the moon;\n             Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,\n             All with weary task fordone.\n             Now the wasted brands do glow,\n             Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,\n             Puts the wretch that lies in woe\n             In remembrance of a shroud.\n             Now it is the time of night\n             That the graves, all gaping wide,\n             Every one lets forth his sprite,\n             In the church-way paths to glide.\n             And we fairies, that do run\n             By the triple Hecate's team\n             From the presence of the sun,\n             Following darkness like a dream,\n             Now are frolic. Not a mouse\n             Shall disturb this hallowed house.\n             I am sent with broom before,\n             To sweep the dust behind the door.\n\n         Enter OBERON and TITANIA, with all their train\n\n  OBERON.    Through the house give glimmering light,\n             By the dead and drowsy fire;\n             Every elf and fairy sprite\n             Hop as light as bird from brier;\n             And this ditty, after me,\n             Sing and dance it trippingly.\n  TITANIA.      First, rehearse your song by rote,\n                To each word a warbling note;\n                Hand in hand, with fairy grace,\n                Will we sing, and bless this place.\n\n           [OBERON leading, the FAIRIES sing and dance]\n\n  OBERON.    Now, until the break of day,\n             Through this house each fairy stray.\n             To the best bride-bed will we,\n             Which by us shall blessed be;\n             And the issue there create\n             Ever shall be fortunate.\n             So shall all the couples three\n             Ever true in loving be;\n             And the blots of Nature's hand\n             Shall not in their issue stand;\n             Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,\n             Nor mark prodigious, such as are\n             Despised in nativity,\n             Shall upon their children be.\n             With this field-dew consecrate,\n             Every fairy take his gait,\n             And each several chamber bless,\n             Through this palace, with sweet peace;\n             And the owner of it blest\n             Ever shall in safety rest.\n             Trip away; make no stay;\n             Meet me all by break of day.    Exeunt all but PUCK\n  PUCK.      If we shadows have offended,\n             Think but this, and all is mended,\n             That you have but slumb'red here\n             While these visions did appear.\n             And this weak and idle theme,\n             No more yielding but a dream,\n             Gentles, do not reprehend.\n             If you pardon, we will mend.\n             And, as I am an honest Puck,\n             If we have unearned luck\n             Now to scape the serpent's tongue,\n             We will make amends ere long;\n             Else the Puck a liar call.\n             So, good night unto you all.\n             Give me your hands, if we be friends,\n             And Robin shall restore amends.                Exit\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nA Midsummer Night's Dream"}
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{"1114":"\n\n\n\n\n1597\n\nTHE MERCHANT OF VENICE\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\n  THE DUKE OF VENICE\n  THE PRINCE OF MOROCCO, suitor to Portia\n  THE PRINCE OF ARRAGON,    \"    \"    \"\n  ANTONIO, a merchant of Venice\n  BASSANIO, his friend, suitor to Portia\n  SOLANIO,   friend to Antonio and Bassanio\n  SALERIO,      \"    \"    \"     \"     \"\n  GRATIANO,     \"    \"    \"     \"     \"\n  LORENZO, in love with Jessica\n  SHYLOCK, a rich Jew\n  TUBAL, a Jew, his friend\n  LAUNCELOT GOBBO, a clown, servant to Shylock\n  OLD GOBBO, father to Launcelot\n  LEONARDO, servant to Bassanio\n  BALTHASAR, servant to Portia\n  STEPHANO,     \"     \"    \"\n\n  PORTIA, a rich heiress\n  NERISSA, her waiting-maid\n  JESSICA, daughter to Shylock\n\n  Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice,\n    Gaoler, Servants, and other Attendants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE:\nVenice, and PORTIA'S house at Belmont\n\n\nACT I. SCENE I.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter ANTONIO, SALERIO, and SOLANIO\n\n  ANTONIO. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.\n    It wearies me; you say it wearies you;\n    But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,\n    What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,\n    I am to learn;\n    And such a want-wit sadness makes of me\n    That I have much ado to know myself.\n  SALERIO. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;\n    There where your argosies, with portly sail-\n    Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,\n    Or as it were the pageants of the sea-\n    Do overpeer the petty traffickers,\n    That curtsy to them, do them reverence,\n    As they fly by them with their woven wings.\n  SOLANIO. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,\n    The better part of my affections would\n    Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still\n    Plucking the grass to know where sits the wind,\n    Peering in maps for ports, and piers, and roads;\n    And every object that might make me fear\n    Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt,\n    Would make me sad.\n  SALERIO. My wind, cooling my broth,\n    Would blow me to an ague when I thought\n    What harm a wind too great might do at sea.\n    I should not see the sandy hour-glass run\n    But I should think of shallows and of flats,\n    And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,\n    Vailing her high top lower than her ribs\n    To kiss her burial. Should I go to church\n    And see the holy edifice of stone,\n    And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,\n    Which, touching but my gentle vessel's side,\n    Would scatter all her spices on the stream,\n    Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks,\n    And, in a word, but even now worth this,\n    And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought\n    To think on this, and shall I lack the thought\n    That such a thing bechanc'd would make me sad?\n    But tell not me; I know Antonio\n    Is sad to think upon his merchandise.\n  ANTONIO. Believe me, no; I thank my fortune for it,\n    My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,\n    Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate\n    Upon the fortune of this present year;\n    Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.\n  SOLANIO. Why then you are in love.\n  ANTONIO. Fie, fie!\n  SOLANIO. Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad\n    Because you are not merry; and 'twere as easy\n    For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry,\n    Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,\n    Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time:\n    Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,\n    And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper;\n    And other of such vinegar aspect\n    That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile\n    Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.\n\n               Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO\n\n    Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,\n    Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well;\n    We leave you now with better company.\n  SALERIO. I would have stay'd till I had made you merry,\n    If worthier friends had not prevented me.\n  ANTONIO. Your worth is very dear in my regard.\n    I take it your own business calls on you,\n    And you embrace th' occasion to depart.\n  SALERIO. Good morrow, my good lords.\n  BASSANIO. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? Say when.\n    You grow exceeding strange; must it be so?\n  SALERIO. We'll make our leisures to attend on yours.\n                                      Exeunt SALERIO and SOLANIO\n  LORENZO. My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,\n    We two will leave you; but at dinner-time,\n    I pray you, have in mind where we must meet.\n  BASSANIO. I will not fail you.\n  GRATIANO. You look not well, Signior Antonio;\n    You have too much respect upon the world;\n    They lose it that do buy it with much care.\n    Believe me, you are marvellously chang'd.\n  ANTONIO. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano-\n    A stage, where every man must play a part,\n    And mine a sad one.\n  GRATIANO. Let me play the fool.\n    With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;\n    And let my liver rather heat with wine\n    Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.\n    Why should a man whose blood is warm within\n    Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster,\n    Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice\n    By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio-\n    I love thee, and 'tis my love that speaks-\n    There are a sort of men whose visages\n    Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,\n    And do a wilful stillness entertain,\n    With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion\n    Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;\n    As who should say 'I am Sir Oracle,\n    And when I ope my lips let no dog bark.'\n    O my Antonio, I do know of these\n    That therefore only are reputed wise\n    For saying nothing; when, I am very sure,\n    If they should speak, would almost damn those ears\n    Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.\n    I'll tell thee more of this another time.\n    But fish not with this melancholy bait\n    For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.\n    Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well awhile;\n    I'll end my exhortation after dinner.\n  LORENZO. Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time.\n    I must be one of these same dumb wise men,\n    For Gratiano never lets me speak.\n  GRATIANO. Well, keep me company but two years moe,\n    Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.\n  ANTONIO. Fare you well; I'll grow a talker for this gear.\n  GRATIANO. Thanks, i' faith, for silence is only commendable\n    In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible.\n                                     Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO\n  ANTONIO. Is that anything now?\n  BASSANIO. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more\nthan\n    any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat\nhid\n    in, two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find\n    them, and when you have them they are not worth the search.\n  ANTONIO. Well; tell me now what lady is the same\n    To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,\n    That you to-day promis'd to tell me of?\n  BASSANIO. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,\n    How much I have disabled mine estate\n    By something showing a more swelling port\n    Than my faint means would grant continuance;\n    Nor do I now make moan to be abridg'd\n    From such a noble rate; but my chief care\n    Is to come fairly off from the great debts\n    Wherein my time, something too prodigal,\n    Hath left me gag'd. To you, Antonio,\n    I owe the most, in money and in love;\n    And from your love I have a warranty\n    To unburden all my plots and purposes\n    How to get clear of all the debts I owe.\n  ANTONIO. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;\n    And if it stand, as you yourself still do,\n    Within the eye of honour, be assur'd\n    My purse, my person, my extremest means,\n    Lie all unlock'd to your occasions.\n  BASSANIO. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,\n    I shot his fellow of the self-same flight\n    The self-same way, with more advised watch,\n    To find the other forth; and by adventuring both\n    I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof,\n    Because what follows is pure innocence.\n    I owe you much; and, like a wilful youth,\n    That which I owe is lost; but if you please\n    To shoot another arrow that self way\n    Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,\n    As I will watch the aim, or to find both,\n    Or bring your latter hazard back again\n    And thankfully rest debtor for the first.\n  ANTONIO. You know me well, and herein spend but time\n    To wind about my love with circumstance;\n    And out of doubt you do me now more wrong\n    In making question of my uttermost\n    Than if you had made waste of all I have.\n    Then do but say to me what I should do\n    That in your knowledge may by me be done,\n    And I am prest unto it; therefore, speak.\n  BASSANIO. In Belmont is a lady richly left,\n    And she is fair and, fairer than that word,\n    Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes from her eyes\n    I did receive fair speechless messages.\n    Her name is Portia- nothing undervalu'd\n    To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia.\n    Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth;\n    For the four winds blow in from every coast\n    Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks\n    Hang on her temples like a golden fleece,\n    Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strond,\n    And many Jasons come in quest of her.\n    O my Antonio, had I but the means\n    To hold a rival place with one of them,\n    I have a mind presages me such thrift\n    That I should questionless be fortunate.\n  ANTONIO. Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea;\n    Neither have I money nor commodity\n    To raise a present sum; therefore go forth,\n    Try what my credit can in Venice do;\n    That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost,\n    To furnish thee to Belmont to fair Portia.\n    Go presently inquire, and so will I,\n    Where money is; and I no question make\n    To have it of my trust or for my sake.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter PORTIA with her waiting-woman, NERISSA\n\n  PORTIA. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this\n    great world.\n  NERISSA. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in\nthe\n    same abundance as your good fortunes are; and yet, for aught\nI\n    see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that\n    starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to\nbe\n    seated in the mean: superfluity come sooner by white hairs,\nbut\n    competency lives longer.\n  PORTIA. Good sentences, and well pronounc'd.\n  NERISSA. They would be better, if well followed.\n  PORTIA. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do,\n    chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes'\n    palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own\ninstructions; I\n    can easier teach twenty what were good to be done than to be\none\n    of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may\ndevise\n    laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold\ndecree;\n    such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of\ngood\n    counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion\nto\n    choose me a husband. O me, the word 'choose'! I may neither\n    choose who I would nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will\nof a\n    living daughter curb'd by the will of a dead father. Is it\nnot\n    hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none?\n  NERISSA. Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their\ndeath\n    have good inspirations; therefore the lott'ry that he hath\n    devised in these three chests, of gold, silver, and lead-\nwhereof\n    who chooses his meaning chooses you- will no doubt never be\n    chosen by any rightly but one who you shall rightly love. But\n    what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these\n    princely suitors that are already come?\n  PORTIA. I pray thee over-name them; and as thou namest them, I\nwill\n    describe them; and according to my description, level at my\n    affection.\n  NERISSA. First, there is the Neapolitan prince.\n  PORTIA. Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk\nof\n    his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own\ngood\n    parts that he can shoe him himself; I am much afear'd my lady\nhis\n    mother play'd false with a smith.\n  NERISSA. Then is there the County Palatine.\n  PORTIA. He doth nothing but frown, as who should say 'An you\nwill\n    not have me, choose.' He hears merry tales and smiles not. I\nfear\n    he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old,\nbeing so\n    full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be\nmarried\n    to a death's-head with a bone in his mouth than to either of\n    these. God defend me from these two!\n  NERISSA. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon?\n  PORTIA. God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In\n    truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but he- why, he\nhath a\n    horse better than the Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of\n    frowning than the Count Palatine; he is every man in no man.\nIf a\n    throstle sing he falls straight a-cap'ring; he will fence\nwith\n    his own shadow; if I should marry him, I should marry twenty\n    husbands. If he would despise me, I would forgive him; for if\nhe\n    love me to madness, I shall never requite him.\n  NERISSA. What say you then to Falconbridge, the young baron of\n    England?\n  PORTIA. You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not\nme,\n    nor I him: he hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian, and\nyou\n    will come into the court and swear that I have a poor\npennyworth\n    in the English. He is a proper man's picture; but alas, who\ncan\n    converse with a dumb-show? How oddly he is suited! I think he\n    bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his\nbonnet\n    in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.\n  NERISSA. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour?\n  PORTIA. That he hath a neighbourly charity in him, for he\nborrowed\n    a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay\nhim\n    again when he was able; I think the Frenchman became his\nsurety,\n    and seal'd under for another.\n  NERISSA. How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's\n    nephew?\n  PORTIA. Very vilely in the morning when he is sober; and most\n    vilely in the afternoon when he is drunk. When he is best, he\nis\n    a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little\n    better than a beast. An the worst fall that ever fell, I hope\nI\n    shall make shift to go without him.\n  NERISSA. If he should offer to choose, and choose the right\ncasket,\n    you should refuse to perform your father's will, if you\nshould\n    refuse to accept him.\n  PORTIA. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a\ndeep\n    glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket; for if the\ndevil be\n    within and that temptation without, I know he will choose it.\nI\n    will do anything, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge.\n  NERISSA. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these\nlords;\n    they have acquainted me with their determinations, which is\n    indeed to return to their home, and to trouble you with no\nmore\n    suit, unless you may be won by some other sort than your\nfather's\n    imposition, depending on the caskets.\n  PORTIA. If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste\nas\n    Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's\nwill. I\n    am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable; for there is\nnot\n    one among them but I dote on his very absence, and I pray God\n    grant them a fair departure.\n  NERISSA. Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a\n    Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither in\ncompany of\n    the Marquis of Montferrat?\n  PORTIA. Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, so was he\ncall'd.\n  NERISSA. True, madam; he, of all the men that ever my foolish\neyes\n    look'd upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.\n  PORTIA. I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy\n    praise.\n\n                         Enter a SERVINGMAN\n\n    How now! what news?\n  SERVINGMAN. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take\ntheir\n    leave; and there is a forerunner come from a fifth, the\nPrince of\n    Morocco, who brings word the Prince his master will be here\n    to-night.\n  PORTIA. If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart as\nI\n    can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his\n    approach; if he have the condition of a saint and the\ncomplexion\n    of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me.\n    Come, Nerissa. Sirrah, go before.\n    Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the\n      door.                                               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVenice. A public place\n\nEnter BASSANIO With SHYLOCK the Jew\n\n  SHYLOCK. Three thousand ducats- well.\n  BASSANIO. Ay, sir, for three months.\n  SHYLOCK. For three months- well.\n  BASSANIO. For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall be bound.\n  SHYLOCK. Antonio shall become bound- well.\n  BASSANIO. May you stead me? Will you pleasure me? Shall I know\nyour\n    answer?\n  SHYLOCK. Three thousand ducats for three months, and Antonio\nbound.\n  BASSANIO. Your answer to that.\n  SHYLOCK. Antonio is a good man.\n  BASSANIO. Have you heard any imputation to the contrary?\n  SHYLOCK. Ho, no, no, no, no; my meaning in saying he is a good\nman\n    is to have you understand me that he is sufficient; yet his\nmeans\n    are in supposition: he hath an argosy bound to Tripolis,\nanother\n    to the Indies; I understand, moreover, upon the Rialto, he\nhath a\n    third at Mexico, a fourth for England- and other ventures he\n    hath, squand'red abroad. But ships are but boards, sailors\nbut\n    men; there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and\n    land-thieves- I mean pirates; and then there is the peril of\n    waters, winds, and rocks. The man is, notwithstanding,\n    sufficient. Three thousand ducats- I think I may take his\nbond.\n  BASSANIO. Be assur'd you may.\n  SHYLOCK. I will be assur'd I may; and, that I may be assured, I\n    will bethink me. May I speak with Antonio?\n  BASSANIO. If it please you to dine with us.\n  SHYLOCK. Yes, to smell pork, to eat of the habitation which\nyour\n    prophet, the Nazarite, conjured the devil into! I will buy\nwith\n    you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so\n    following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor\npray\n    with you. What news on the Rialto? Who is he comes here?\n\n                            Enter ANTONIO\n\n  BASSANIO. This is Signior Antonio.\n  SHYLOCK.  [Aside]  How like a fawning publican he looks!\n    I hate him for he is a Christian;\n    But more for that in low simplicity\n    He lends out money gratis, and brings down\n    The rate of usance here with us in Venice.\n    If I can catch him once upon the hip,\n    I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.\n    He hates our sacred nation; and he rails,\n    Even there where merchants most do congregate,\n    On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,\n    Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe\n    If I forgive him!\n  BASSANIO. Shylock, do you hear?\n  SHYLOCK. I am debating of my present store,\n    And, by the near guess of my memory,\n    I cannot instantly raise up the gross\n    Of full three thousand ducats. What of that?\n    Tubal, a wealthy Hebrew of my tribe,\n    Will furnish me. But soft! how many months\n    Do you desire?  [To ANTONIO]  Rest you fair, good signior;\n    Your worship was the last man in our mouths.\n  ANTONIO. Shylock, albeit I neither lend nor borrow\n    By taking nor by giving of excess,\n    Yet, to supply the ripe wants of my friend,\n    I'll break a custom.  [To BASSANIO]  Is he yet possess'd\n    How much ye would?\n  SHYLOCK. Ay, ay, three thousand ducats.\n  ANTONIO. And for three months.\n  SHYLOCK. I had forgot- three months; you told me so.\n    Well then, your bond; and, let me see- but hear you,\n    Methoughts you said you neither lend nor borrow\n    Upon advantage.\n  ANTONIO. I do never use it.\n  SHYLOCK. When Jacob graz'd his uncle Laban's sheep-\n    This Jacob from our holy Abram was,\n    As his wise mother wrought in his behalf,\n    The third possessor; ay, he was the third-\n  ANTONIO. And what of him? Did he take interest?\n  SHYLOCK. No, not take interest; not, as you would say,\n    Directly int'rest; mark what Jacob did:\n    When Laban and himself were compromis'd\n    That all the eanlings which were streak'd and pied\n    Should fall as Jacob's hire, the ewes, being rank,\n    In end of autumn turned to the rams;\n    And when the work of generation was\n    Between these woolly breeders in the act,\n    The skilful shepherd pill'd me certain wands,\n    And, in the doing of the deed of kind,\n    He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes,\n    Who, then conceiving, did in eaning time\n    Fall parti-colour'd lambs, and those were Jacob's.\n    This was a way to thrive, and he was blest;\n    And thrift is blessing, if men steal it not.\n  ANTONIO. This was a venture, sir, that Jacob serv'd for;\n    A thing not in his power to bring to pass,\n    But sway'd and fashion'd by the hand of heaven.\n    Was this inserted to make interest good?\n    Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams?\n  SHYLOCK. I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast.\n    But note me, signior.\n  ANTONIO.  [Aside]  Mark you this, Bassanio,\n    The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.\n    An evil soul producing holy witness\n    Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,\n    A goodly apple rotten at the heart.\n    O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!\n  SHYLOCK. Three thousand ducats- 'tis a good round sum.\n    Three months from twelve; then let me see, the rate-\n  ANTONIO. Well, Shylock, shall we be beholding to you?\n  SHYLOCK. Signior Antonio, many a time and oft\n    In the Rialto you have rated me\n    About my moneys and my usances;\n    Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,\n    For suff'rance is the badge of all our tribe;\n    You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,\n    And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,\n    And all for use of that which is mine own.\n    Well then, it now appears you need my help;\n    Go to, then; you come to me, and you say\n    'Shylock, we would have moneys.' You say so-\n    You that did void your rheum upon my beard\n    And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur\n    Over your threshold; moneys is your suit.\n    What should I say to you? Should I not say\n    'Hath a dog money? Is it possible\n    A cur can lend three thousand ducats?' Or\n    Shall I bend low and, in a bondman's key,\n    With bated breath and whisp'ring humbleness,\n    Say this:\n    'Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last,\n    You spurn'd me such a day; another time\n    You call'd me dog; and for these courtesies\n    I'll lend you thus much moneys'?\n  ANTONIO. I am as like to call thee so again,\n    To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too.\n    If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not\n    As to thy friends- for when did friendship take\n    A breed for barren metal of his friend?-\n    But lend it rather to thine enemy,\n    Who if he break thou mayst with better face\n    Exact the penalty.\n  SHYLOCK. Why, look you, how you storm!\n    I would be friends with you, and have your love,\n    Forget the shames that you have stain'd me with,\n    Supply your present wants, and take no doit\n    Of usance for my moneys, and you'll not hear me.\n    This is kind I offer.\n  BASSANIO. This were kindness.\n  SHYLOCK. This kindness will I show.\n    Go with me to a notary, seal me there\n    Your single bond, and, in a merry sport,\n    If you repay me not on such a day,\n    In such a place, such sum or sums as are\n    Express'd in the condition, let the forfeit\n    Be nominated for an equal pound\n    Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken\n    In what part of your body pleaseth me.\n  ANTONIO. Content, in faith; I'll seal to such a bond,\n    And say there is much kindness in the Jew.\n  BASSANIO. You shall not seal to such a bond for me;\n    I'll rather dwell in my necessity.\n  ANTONIO. Why, fear not, man; I will not forfeit it;\n    Within these two months- that's a month before\n    This bond expires- I do expect return\n    Of thrice three times the value of this bond.\n  SHYLOCK. O father Abram, what these Christians are,\n    Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect\n    The thoughts of others! Pray you, tell me this:\n    If he should break his day, what should I gain\n    By the exaction of the forfeiture?\n    A pound of man's flesh taken from a man\n    Is not so estimable, profitable neither,\n    As flesh of muttons, beefs, or goats. I say,\n    To buy his favour, I extend this friendship;\n    If he will take it, so; if not, adieu;\n    And, for my love, I pray you wrong me not.\n  ANTONIO. Yes, Shylock, I will seal unto this bond.\n  SHYLOCK. Then meet me forthwith at the notary's;\n    Give him direction for this merry bond,\n    And I will go and purse the ducats straight,\n    See to my house, left in the fearful guard\n    Of an unthrifty knave, and presently\n    I'll be with you.\n  ANTONIO. Hie thee, gentle Jew.                    Exit SHYLOCK\n    The Hebrew will turn Christian: he grows kind.\n  BASSANIO. I like not fair terms and a villain's mind.\n  ANTONIO. Come on; in this there can be no dismay;\n    My ships come home a month before the day.            Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. SCENE I.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nFlourish of cornets. Enter the PRINCE of MOROCCO, a tawny Moor\nall in white,\nand three or four FOLLOWERS accordingly, with PORTIA, NERISSA,\nand train\n\n  PRINCE OF Morocco. Mislike me not for my complexion,\n    The shadowed livery of the burnish'd sun,\n    To whom I am a neighbour, and near bred.\n    Bring me the fairest creature northward born,\n    Where Phoebus' fire scarce thaws the icicles,\n    And let us make incision for your love\n    To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.\n    I tell thee, lady, this aspect of mine\n    Hath fear'd the valiant; by my love, I swear\n    The best-regarded virgins of our clime\n    Have lov'd it too. I would not change this hue,\n    Except to steal your thoughts, my gentle queen.\n  PORTIA. In terms of choice I am not solely led\n    By nice direction of a maiden's eyes;\n    Besides, the lott'ry of my destiny\n    Bars me the right of voluntary choosing.\n    But, if my father had not scanted me,\n    And hedg'd me by his wit to yield myself\n    His wife who wins me by that means I told you,\n    Yourself, renowned Prince, then stood as fair\n    As any comer I have look'd on yet\n    For my affection.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Even for that I thank you.\n    Therefore, I pray you, lead me to the caskets\n    To try my fortune. By this scimitar,\n    That slew the Sophy and a Persian prince,\n    That won three fields of Sultan Solyman,\n    I would o'erstare the sternest eyes that look,\n    Outbrave the heart most daring on the earth,\n    Pluck the young sucking cubs from the she-bear,\n    Yea, mock the lion when 'a roars for prey,\n    To win thee, lady. But, alas the while!\n    If Hercules and Lichas play at dice\n    Which is the better man, the greater throw\n    May turn by fortune from the weaker band.\n    So is Alcides beaten by his page;\n    And so may I, blind Fortune leading me,\n    Miss that which one unworthier may attain,\n    And die with grieving.\n  PORTIA. You must take your chance,\n    And either not attempt to choose at all,\n    Or swear before you choose, if you choose wrong,\n    Never to speak to lady afterward\n    In way of marriage; therefore be advis'd.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Nor will not; come, bring me unto my chance.\n  PORTIA. First, forward to the temple. After dinner\n    Your hazard shall be made.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Good fortune then,\n    To make me blest or cursed'st among men!\n                                           [Cornets, and exeunt]\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter LAUNCELOT GOBBO\n\n  LAUNCELOT. Certainly my conscience will serve me to run from\nthis\n    Jew my master. The fiend is at mine elbow and tempts me,\nsaying\n    to me 'Gobbo, Launcelot Gobbo, good Launcelot' or 'good\nGobbo' or\n    'good Launcelot Gobbo, use your legs, take the start, run\naway.'\n    My conscience says 'No; take heed, honest Launcelot, take\nheed,\n    honest Gobbo' or, as aforesaid, 'honest Launcelot Gobbo, do\nnot\n    run; scorn running with thy heels.' Well, the most courageous\n    fiend bids me pack. 'Via!' says the fiend; 'away!' says the\n    fiend. 'For the heavens, rouse up a brave mind' says the\nfiend\n    'and run.' Well, my conscience, hanging about the neck of my\n    heart, says very wisely to me 'My honest friend Launcelot,\nbeing\n    an honest man's son' or rather 'an honest woman's son'; for\n    indeed my father did something smack, something grow to, he\nhad a\n    kind of taste- well, my conscience says 'Launcelot, budge\nnot.'\n    'Budge,' says the fiend. 'Budge not,' says my conscience.\n    'Conscience,' say I, (you counsel well.' 'Fiend,' say I, 'you\n    counsel well.' To be rul'd by my conscience, I should stay\nwith\n    the Jew my master, who- God bless the mark!- is a kind of\ndevil;\n    and, to run away from the Jew, I should be ruled by the\nfiend,\n    who- saving your reverence!- is the devil himself. Certainly\nthe\n    Jew is the very devil incarnation; and, in my conscience, my\n    conscience is but a kind of hard conscience to offer to\ncounsel\n    me to stay with the Jew. The fiend gives the more friendly\n    counsel. I will run, fiend; my heels are at your commandment;\nI\n    will run.\n\n                     Enter OLD GOBBO, with a basket\n\n  GOBBO. Master young man, you, I pray you, which is the way to\n    master Jew's?\n  LAUNCELOT.  [Aside]  O heavens! This is my true-begotten\nfather,\n    who, being more than sand-blind, high-gravel blind, knows me\nnot.\n    I will try confusions with him.\n  GOBBO. Master young gentleman, I pray you, which is the way to\n    master Jew's?\n  LAUNCELOT. Turn up on your right hand at the next turning, but,\nat\n    the next turning of all, on your left; marry, at the very\nnext\n    turning, turn of no hand, but turn down indirectly to the\nJew's\n    house.\n  GOBBO. Be God's sonties, 'twill be a hard way to hit! Can you\ntell\n    me whether one Launcelot, that dwells with him, dwell with\nhim or\n    no?\n  LAUNCELOT. Talk you of young Master Launcelot?  [Aside]  Mark\nme\n    now; now will I raise the waters.- Talk you of young Master\n    Launcelot?\n  GOBBO. No master, sir, but a poor man's son; his father, though\nI\n    say't, is an honest exceeding poor man, and, God be thanked,\nwell\n    to live.\n  LAUNCELOT. Well, let his father be what 'a will, we talk of\nyoung\n    Master Launcelot.\n  GOBBO. Your worship's friend, and Launcelot, sir.\n  LAUNCELOT. But I pray you, ergo, old man, ergo, I beseech you,\ntalk\n    you of young Master Launcelot?\n  GOBBO. Of Launcelot, an't please your mastership.\n  LAUNCELOT. Ergo, Master Launcelot. Talk not of Master\nLauncelot,\n    father; for the young gentleman, according to Fates and\nDestinies\n    and such odd sayings, the Sisters Three and such branches of\n    learning, is indeed deceased; or, as you would say in plain\n    terms, gone to heaven.\n  GOBBO. Marry, God forbid! The boy was the very staff of my age,\nmy\n    very prop.\n  LAUNCELOT. Do I look like a cudgel or a hovel-post, a staff or\na\n    prop? Do you know me, father?\n  GOBBO. Alack the day, I know you not, young gentleman; but I\npray\n    you tell me, is my boy- God rest his soul!- alive or dead?\n  LAUNCELOT. Do you not know me, father?\n  GOBBO. Alack, sir, I am sand-blind; I know you not.\n  LAUNCELOT. Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of\nthe\n    knowing me: it is a wise father that knows his own child.\nWell,\n    old man, I will tell you news of your son. Give me your\nblessing;\n    truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man's\nson\n    may, but in the end truth will out.\n  GOBBO. Pray you, sir, stand up; I am sure you are not Launcelot\nmy\n    boy.\n  LAUNCELOT. Pray you, let's have no more fooling about it, but\ngive\n    me your blessing; I am Launcelot, your boy that was, your son\n    that is, your child that shall be.\n  GOBBO. I cannot think you are my son.\n  LAUNCELOT. I know not what I shall think of that; but I am\n    Launcelot, the Jew's man, and I am sure Margery your wife is\nmy\n    mother.\n  GOBBO. Her name is Margery, indeed. I'll be sworn, if thou be\n    Launcelot, thou art mine own flesh and blood. Lord worshipp'd\n    might he be, what a beard hast thou got! Thou hast got more\nhair\n    on thy chin than Dobbin my fill-horse has on his tail.\n  LAUNCELOT. It should seem, then, that Dobbin's tail grows\nbackward;\n    I am sure he had more hair of his tail than I have of my face\n    when I last saw him.\n  GOBBO. Lord, how art thou chang'd! How dost thou and thy master\n    agree? I have brought him a present. How 'gree you now?\n  LAUNCELOT. Well, well; but, for mine own part, as I have set up\nmy\n    rest to run away, so I will not rest till I have run some\nground.\n    My master's a very Jew. Give him a present! Give him a\nhalter. I\n    am famish'd in his service; you may tell every finger I have\nwith\n    my ribs. Father, I am glad you are come; give me your present\nto\n    one Master Bassanio, who indeed gives rare new liveries; if I\n    serve not him, I will run as far as God has any ground. O\nrare\n    fortune! Here comes the man. To him, father, for I am a Jew,\nif I\n    serve the Jew any longer.\n\n         Enter BASSANIO, with LEONARDO, with a FOLLOWER or two\n\n  BASSANIO. You may do so; but let it be so hasted that supper be\n    ready at the farthest by five of the clock. See these letters\n    delivered, put the liveries to making, and desire Gratiano to\n    come anon to my lodging.                      Exit a SERVANT\n  LAUNCELOT. To him, father.\n  GOBBO. God bless your worship!\n  BASSANIO. Gramercy; wouldst thou aught with me?\n  GOBBO. Here's my son, sir, a poor boy-\n  LAUNCELOT. Not a poor boy, sir, but the rich Jew's man, that\nwould,\n    sir, as my father shall specify-\n  GOBBO. He hath a great infection, sir, as one would say, to\nserve-\n  LAUNCELOT. Indeed the short and the long is, I serve the Jew,\nand\n    have a desire, as my father shall specify-\n  GOBBO. His master and he, saving your worship's reverence, are\n    scarce cater-cousins-\n  LAUNCELOT. To be brief, the very truth is that the Jew, having\ndone\n    me wrong, doth cause me, as my father, being I hope an old\nman,\n    shall frutify unto you-\n  GOBBO. I have here a dish of doves that I would bestow upon\nyour\n    worship; and my suit is-\n  LAUNCELOT. In very brief, the suit is impertinent to myself, as\n    your worship shall know by this honest old man; and, though I\nsay\n    it, though old man, yet poor man, my father.\n  BASSANIO. One speak for both. What would you?\n  LAUNCELOT. Serve you, sir.\n  GOBBO. That is the very defect of the matter, sir.\n  BASSANIO. I know thee well; thou hast obtain'd thy suit.\n    Shylock thy master spoke with me this day,\n    And hath preferr'd thee, if it be preferment\n    To leave a rich Jew's service to become\n    The follower of so poor a gentleman.\n  LAUNCELOT. The old proverb is very well parted between my\nmaster\n    Shylock and you, sir: you have the grace of God, sir, and he\nhath\n    enough.\n  BASSANIO. Thou speak'st it well. Go, father, with thy son.\n    Take leave of thy old master, and inquire\n    My lodging out.  [To a SERVANT]  Give him a livery\n    More guarded than his fellows'; see it done.\n  LAUNCELOT. Father, in. I cannot get a service, no! I have ne'er\na\n    tongue in my head!  [Looking on his palm]  Well; if any man\nin\n    Italy have a fairer table which doth offer to swear upon a\nbook- I\n    shall have good fortune. Go to, here's a simple line of life;\n    here's a small trifle of wives; alas, fifteen wives is\nnothing;\n    a'leven widows and nine maids is a simple coming-in for one\nman.\n    And then to scape drowning thrice, and to be in peril of my\nlife\n    with the edge of a feather-bed-here are simple scapes. Well,\nif\n    Fortune be a woman, she's a good wench for this gear. Father,\n    come; I'll take my leave of the Jew in the twinkling.\n                                  Exeunt LAUNCELOT and OLD GOBBO\n  BASSANIO. I pray thee, good Leonardo, think on this.\n    These things being bought and orderly bestowed,\n    Return in haste, for I do feast to-night\n    My best esteem'd acquaintance; hie thee, go.\n  LEONARDO. My best endeavours shall be done herein.\n\n                          Enter GRATIANO\n\n  GRATIANO. Where's your master?\n  LEONARDO. Yonder, sir, he walks.                          Exit\n  GRATIANO. Signior Bassanio!\n  BASSANIO. Gratiano!\n  GRATIANO. I have suit to you.\n  BASSANIO. You have obtain'd it.\n  GRATIANO. You must not deny me: I must go with you to Belmont.\n  BASSANIO. Why, then you must. But hear thee, Gratiano:\n    Thou art too wild, too rude, and bold of voice-\n    Parts that become thee happily enough,\n    And in such eyes as ours appear not faults;\n    But where thou art not known, why there they show\n    Something too liberal. Pray thee, take pain\n    To allay with some cold drops of modesty\n    Thy skipping spirit; lest through thy wild behaviour\n    I be misconst'red in the place I go to\n    And lose my hopes.\n  GRATIANO. Signior Bassanio, hear me:\n    If I do not put on a sober habit,\n    Talk with respect, and swear but now and then,\n    Wear prayer-books in my pocket, look demurely,\n    Nay more, while grace is saying hood mine eyes\n    Thus with my hat, and sigh, and say amen,\n    Use all the observance of civility\n    Like one well studied in a sad ostent\n    To please his grandam, never trust me more.\n  BASSANIO. Well, we shall see your bearing.\n  GRATIANO. Nay, but I bar to-night; you shall not gauge me\n    By what we do to-night.\n  BASSANIO. No, that were pity;\n    I would entreat you rather to put on\n    Your boldest suit of mirth, for we have friends\n    That purpose merriment. But fare you well;\n    I have some business.\n  GRATIANO. And I must to Lorenzo and the rest;\n    But we will visit you at supper-time.                 Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVenice. SHYLOCK'S house\n\nEnter JESSICA and LAUNCELOT\n\n  JESSICA. I am sorry thou wilt leave my father so.\n    Our house is hell; and thou, a merry devil,\n    Didst rob it of some taste of tediousness.\n    But fare thee well; there is a ducat for thee;\n    And, Launcelot, soon at supper shalt thou see\n    Lorenzo, who is thy new master's guest.\n    Give him this letter; do it secretly.\n    And so farewell. I would not have my father\n    See me in talk with thee.\n  LAUNCELOT. Adieu! tears exhibit my tongue. Most beautiful\npagan,\n    most sweet Jew! If a Christian do not play the knave and get\n    thee, I am much deceived. But, adieu! these foolish drops do\n    something drown my manly spirit; adieu!\n  JESSICA. Farewell, good Launcelot.              Exit LAUNCELOT\n    Alack, what heinous sin is it in me\n    To be asham'd to be my father's child!\n    But though I am a daughter to his blood,\n    I am not to his manners. O Lorenzo,\n    If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife,\n    Become a Christian and thy loving wife.                 Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter GRATIANO, LORENZO, SALERIO, and SOLANIO\n\n  LORENZO. Nay, we will slink away in suppertime,\n    Disguise us at my lodging, and return\n    All in an hour.\n  GRATIANO. We have not made good preparation.\n  SALERIO. We have not spoke us yet of torch-bearers.\n  SOLANIO. 'Tis vile, unless it may be quaintly ordered;\n    And better in my mind not undertook.\n  LORENZO. 'Tis now but four o'clock; we have two hours\n    To furnish us.\n\n                 Enter LAUNCELOT, With a letter\n\n    Friend Launcelot, what's the news?\n  LAUNCELOT. An it shall please you to break up this, it shall\nseem\n    to signify.\n  LORENZO. I know the hand; in faith, 'tis a fair hand,\n    And whiter than the paper it writ on\n    Is the fair hand that writ.\n  GRATIANO. Love-news, in faith!\n  LAUNCELOT. By your leave, sir.\n  LORENZO. Whither goest thou?\n  LAUNCELOT. Marry, sir, to bid my old master, the Jew, to sup\n    to-night with my new master, the Christian.\n  LORENZO. Hold, here, take this. Tell gentle Jessica\n    I will not fail her; speak it privately.\n    Go, gentlemen,                                Exit LAUNCELOT\n    Will you prepare you for this masque to-night?\n    I am provided of a torch-bearer.\n  SALERIO. Ay, marry, I'll be gone about it straight.\n  SOLANIO. And so will I.\n  LORENZO. Meet me and Gratiano\n    At Gratiano's lodging some hour hence.\n  SALERIO. 'Tis good we do so.        Exeunt SALERIO and SOLANIO\n  GRATIANO. Was not that letter from fair Jessica?\n  LORENZO. I must needs tell thee all. She hath directed\n    How I shall take her from her father's house;\n    What gold and jewels she is furnish'd with;\n    What page's suit she hath in readiness.\n    If e'er the Jew her father come to heaven,\n    It will be for his gentle daughter's sake;\n    And never dare misfortune cross her foot,\n    Unless she do it under this excuse,\n    That she is issue to a faithless Jew.\n    Come, go with me, peruse this as thou goest;\n    Fair Jessica shall be my torch-bearer.                Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nVenice. Before SHYLOCK'S house\n\nEnter SHYLOCK and LAUNCELOT\n\n  SHYLOCK. Well, thou shalt see; thy eyes shall be thy judge,\n    The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio.-\n    What, Jessica!- Thou shalt not gormandize\n    As thou hast done with me- What, Jessica!-\n    And sleep and snore, and rend apparel out-\n    Why, Jessica, I say!\n  LAUNCELOT. Why, Jessica!\n  SHYLOCK. Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call.\n  LAUNCELOT. Your worship was wont to tell me I could do nothing\n    without bidding.\n\n                          Enter JESSICA\n\n  JESSICA. Call you? What is your will?\n  SHYLOCK. I am bid forth to supper, Jessica;\n    There are my keys. But wherefore should I go?\n    I am not bid for love; they flatter me;\n    But yet I'll go in hate, to feed upon\n    The prodigal Christian. Jessica, my girl,\n    Look to my house. I am right loath to go;\n    There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,\n    For I did dream of money-bags to-night.\n  LAUNCELOT. I beseech you, sir, go; my young master doth expect\nyour\n    reproach.\n  SHYLOCK. So do I his.\n  LAUNCELOT. And they have conspired together; I will not say you\n    shall see a masque, but if you do, then it was not for\nnothing\n    that my nose fell a-bleeding on Black Monday last at six\no'clock\n    i' th' morning, falling out that year on Ash Wednesday was\nfour\n    year, in th' afternoon.\n  SHYLOCK. What, are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica:\n    Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum,\n    And the vile squealing of the wry-neck'd fife,\n    Clamber not you up to the casements then,\n    Nor thrust your head into the public street\n    To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces;\n    But stop my house's ears- I mean my casements;\n    Let not the sound of shallow fopp'ry enter\n    My sober house. By Jacob's staff, I swear\n    I have no mind of feasting forth to-night;\n    But I will go. Go you before me, sirrah;\n    Say I will come.\n  LAUNCELOT. I will go before, sir. Mistress, look out at window\nfor\n    all this.\n        There will come a Christian by\n        Will be worth a Jewess' eye.                        Exit\n  SHYLOCK. What says that fool of Hagar's offspring, ha?\n  JESSICA. His words were 'Farewell, mistress'; nothing else.\n  SHYLOCK. The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder,\n    Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day\n    More than the wild-cat; drones hive not with me,\n    Therefore I part with him; and part with him\n    To one that I would have him help to waste\n    His borrowed purse. Well, Jessica, go in;\n    Perhaps I will return immediately.\n    Do as I bid you, shut doors after you.\n    Fast bind, fast find-\n    A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.                  Exit\n  JESSICA. Farewell; and if my fortune be not crost,\n    I have a father, you a daughter, lost.                  Exit\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VI.\nVenice. Before SHYLOCK'S house\n\nEnter the maskers, GRATIANO and SALERIO\n\n  GRATIANO. This is the pent-house under which Lorenzo\n    Desired us to make stand.\n  SALERIO. His hour is almost past.\n  GRATIANO. And it is marvel he out-dwells his hour,\n    For lovers ever run before the clock.\n  SALERIO. O, ten times faster Venus' pigeons fly\n    To seal love's bonds new made than they are wont\n    To keep obliged faith unforfeited!\n  GRATIANO. That ever holds: who riseth from a feast\n    With that keen appetite that he sits down?\n    Where is the horse that doth untread again\n    His tedious measures with the unbated fire\n    That he did pace them first? All things that are\n    Are with more spirit chased than enjoyed.\n    How like a younker or a prodigal\n    The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,\n    Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind;\n    How like the prodigal doth she return,\n    With over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails,\n    Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet wind!\n\n                       Enter LORENZO\n\n  SALERIO. Here comes Lorenzo; more of this hereafter.\n  LORENZO. Sweet friends, your patience for my long abode!\n    Not I, but my affairs, have made you wait.\n    When you shall please to play the thieves for wives,\n    I'll watch as long for you then. Approach;\n    Here dwells my father Jew. Ho! who's within?\n\n           Enter JESSICA, above, in boy's clothes\n\n  JESSICA. Who are you? Tell me, for more certainty,\n    Albeit I'll swear that I do know your tongue.\n  LORENZO. Lorenzo, and thy love.\n  JESSICA. Lorenzo, certain; and my love indeed;\n    For who love I so much? And now who knows\n    But you, Lorenzo, whether I am yours?\n  LORENZO. Heaven and thy thoughts are witness that thou art.\n  JESSICA. Here, catch this casket; it is worth the pains.\n    I am glad 'tis night, you do not look on me,\n    For I am much asham'd of my exchange;\n    But love is blind, and lovers cannot see\n    The pretty follies that themselves commit,\n    For, if they could, Cupid himself would blush\n    To see me thus transformed to a boy.\n  LORENZO. Descend, for you must be my torch-bearer.\n  JESSICA. What! must I hold a candle to my shames?\n    They in themselves, good sooth, are too too light.\n    Why, 'tis an office of discovery, love,\n    And I should be obscur'd.\n  LORENZO. So are you, sweet,\n    Even in the lovely garnish of a boy.\n    But come at once,\n    For the close night doth play the runaway,\n    And we are stay'd for at Bassanio's feast.\n  JESSICA. I will make fast the doors, and gild myself\n    With some moe ducats, and be with you straight.\n                                                      Exit above\n\n  GRATIANO. Now, by my hood, a gentle, and no Jew.\n  LORENZO. Beshrew me, but I love her heartily,\n    For she is wise, if I can judge of her,\n    And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true,\n    And true she is, as she hath prov'd herself;\n    And therefore, like herself, wise, fair, and true,\n    Shall she be placed in my constant soul.\n\n                     Enter JESSICA, below\n\n    What, art thou come? On, gentlemen, away;\n    Our masquing mates by this time for us stay.\n                                   Exit with JESSICA and SALERIO\n\n                        Enter ANTONIO\n\n  ANTONIO. Who's there?\n  GRATIANO. Signior Antonio?\n  ANTONIO. Fie, fie, Gratiano, where are all the rest?\n    'Tis nine o'clock; our friends all stay for you;\n    No masque to-night; the wind is come about;\n    Bassanio presently will go aboard;\n    I have sent twenty out to seek for you.\n  GRATIANO. I am glad on't; I desire no more delight\n    Than to be under sail and gone to-night.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VII.\nBelmont. PORTIA's house\n\nFlourish of cornets. Enter PORTIA, with the PRINCE OF MOROCCO,\nand their trains\n\n  PORTIA. Go draw aside the curtains and discover\n    The several caskets to this noble Prince.\n    Now make your choice.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. The first, of gold, who this inscription\nbears:\n    'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'\n    The second, silver, which this promise carries:\n    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'\n    This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt:\n    'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'\n    How shall I know if I do choose the right?\n  PORTIA. The one of them contains my picture, Prince;\n    If you choose that, then I am yours withal.\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Some god direct my judgment! Let me see;\n    I will survey th' inscriptions back again.\n    What says this leaden casket?\n    'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'\n    Must give- for what? For lead? Hazard for lead!\n    This casket threatens; men that hazard all\n    Do it in hope of fair advantages.\n    A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross;\n    I'll then nor give nor hazard aught for lead.\n    What says the silver with her virgin hue?\n    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'\n    As much as he deserves! Pause there, Morocco,\n    And weigh thy value with an even hand.\n    If thou beest rated by thy estimation,\n    Thou dost deserve enough, and yet enough\n    May not extend so far as to the lady;\n    And yet to be afeard of my deserving\n    Were but a weak disabling of myself.\n    As much as I deserve? Why, that's the lady!\n    I do in birth deserve her, and in fortunes,\n    In graces, and in qualities of breeding;\n    But more than these, in love I do deserve.\n    What if I stray'd no farther, but chose here?\n    Let's see once more this saying grav'd in gold:\n    'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'\n    Why, that's the lady! All the world desires her;\n    From the four corners of the earth they come\n    To kiss this shrine, this mortal-breathing saint.\n    The Hyrcanian deserts and the vasty wilds\n    Of wide Arabia are as throughfares now\n    For princes to come view fair Portia.\n    The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head\n    Spits in the face of heaven, is no bar\n    To stop the foreign spirits, but they come\n    As o'er a brook to see fair Portia.\n    One of these three contains her heavenly picture.\n    Is't like that lead contains her? 'Twere damnation\n    To think so base a thought; it were too gross\n    To rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave.\n    Or shall I think in silver she's immur'd,\n    Being ten times undervalued to tried gold?\n    O sinful thought! Never so rich a gem\n    Was set in worse than gold. They have in England\n    A coin that bears the figure of an angel\n    Stamp'd in gold; but that's insculp'd upon.\n    But here an angel in a golden bed\n    Lies all within. Deliver me the key;\n    Here do I choose, and thrive I as I may!\n  PORTIA. There, take it, Prince, and if my form lie there,\n    Then I am yours.                [He opens the golden casket]\n  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. O hell! what have we here?\n    A carrion Death, within whose empty eye\n    There is a written scroll! I'll read the writing.\n         'All that glisters is not gold,\n         Often have you heard that told;\n         Many a man his life hath sold\n         But my outside to behold.\n         Gilded tombs do worms infold.\n         Had you been as wise as bold,\n         Young in limbs, in judgment old,\n         Your answer had not been inscroll'd.\n         Fare you well, your suit is cold.'\n      Cold indeed, and labour lost,\n      Then farewell, heat, and welcome, frost.\n    Portia, adieu! I have too griev'd a heart\n    To take a tedious leave; thus losers part.\n                        Exit with his train. Flourish of cornets\n  PORTIA. A gentle riddance. Draw the curtains, go.\n    Let all of his complexion choose me so.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE VIII.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter SALERIO and SOLANIO\n\n  SALERIO. Why, man, I saw Bassanio under sail;\n    With him is Gratiano gone along;\n    And in their ship I am sure Lorenzo is not.\n  SOLANIO. The villain Jew with outcries rais'd the Duke,\n    Who went with him to search Bassanio's ship.\n  SALERIO. He came too late, the ship was under sail;\n    But there the Duke was given to understand\n    That in a gondola were seen together\n    Lorenzo and his amorous Jessica;\n    Besides, Antonio certified the Duke\n    They were not with Bassanio in his ship.\n  SOLANIO. I never heard a passion so confus'd,\n    So strange, outrageous, and so variable,\n    As the dog Jew did utter in the streets.\n    'My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!\n    Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats!\n    Justice! the law! My ducats and my daughter!\n    A sealed bag, two sealed bags of ducats,\n    Of double ducats, stol'n from me by my daughter!\n    And jewels- two stones, two rich and precious stones,\n    Stol'n by my daughter! Justice! Find the girl;\n    She hath the stones upon her and the ducats.'\n  SALERIO. Why, all the boys in Venice follow him,\n    Crying, his stones, his daughter, and his ducats.\n  SOLANIO. Let good Antonio look he keep his day,\n    Or he shall pay for this.\n  SALERIO. Marry, well rememb'red;\n    I reason'd with a Frenchman yesterday,\n    Who told me, in the narrow seas that part\n    The French and English, there miscarried\n    A vessel of our country richly fraught.\n    I thought upon Antonio when he told me,\n    And wish'd in silence that it were not his.\n  SOLANIO. You were best to tell Antonio what you hear;\n    Yet do not suddenly, for it may grieve him.\n  SALERIO. A kinder gentleman treads not the earth.\n    I saw Bassanio and Antonio part.\n    Bassanio told him he would make some speed\n    Of his return. He answered 'Do not so;\n    Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio,\n    But stay the very riping of the time;\n    And for the Jew's bond which he hath of me,\n    Let it not enter in your mind of love;\n    Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts\n    To courtship, and such fair ostents of love\n    As shall conveniently become you there.'\n    And even there, his eye being big with tears,\n    Turning his face, he put his hand behind him,\n    And with affection wondrous sensible\n    He wrung Bassanio's hand; and so they parted.\n  SOLANIO. I think he only loves the world for him.\n    I pray thee, let us go and find him out,\n    And quicken his embraced heaviness\n    With some delight or other.\n  SALERIO. Do we so.                                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IX.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter NERISSA, and a SERVITOR\n\n  NERISSA. Quick, quick, I pray thee, draw the curtain straight;\n    The Prince of Arragon hath ta'en his oath,\n    And comes to his election presently.\n\n       Flourish of cornets. Enter the PRINCE OF ARRAGON,\n                    PORTIA, and their trains\n\n  PORTIA. Behold, there stand the caskets, noble Prince.\n    If you choose that wherein I am contain'd,\n    Straight shall our nuptial rites be solemniz'd;\n    But if you fail, without more speech, my lord,\n    You must be gone from hence immediately.\n  ARRAGON. I am enjoin'd by oath to observe three things:\n    First, never to unfold to any one\n    Which casket 'twas I chose; next, if I fail\n    Of the right casket, never in my life\n    To woo a maid in way of marriage;\n    Lastly,\n    If I do fail in fortune of my choice,\n    Immediately to leave you and be gone.\n  PORTIA. To these injunctions every one doth swear\n    That comes to hazard for my worthless self.\n  ARRAGON. And so have I address'd me. Fortune now\n    To my heart's hope! Gold, silver, and base lead.\n    'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'\n    You shall look fairer ere I give or hazard.\n    What says the golden chest? Ha! let me see:\n    'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'\n    What many men desire- that 'many' may be meant\n    By the fool multitude, that choose by show,\n    Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach;\n    Which pries not to th' interior, but, like the martlet,\n    Builds in the weather on the outward wall,\n    Even in the force and road of casualty.\n    I will not choose what many men desire,\n    Because I will not jump with common spirits\n    And rank me with the barbarous multitudes.\n    Why, then to thee, thou silver treasure-house!\n    Tell me once more what title thou dost bear.\n    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'\n    And well said too; for who shall go about\n    To cozen fortune, and be honourable\n    Without the stamp of merit? Let none presume\n    To wear an undeserved dignity.\n    O that estates, degrees, and offices,\n    Were not deriv'd corruptly, and that clear honour\n    Were purchas'd by the merit of the wearer!\n    How many then should cover that stand bare!\n    How many be commanded that command!\n    How much low peasantry would then be gleaned\n    From the true seed of honour! and how much honour\n    Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times,\n    To be new varnish'd! Well, but to my choice.\n    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'\n    I will assume desert. Give me a key for this,\n    And instantly unlock my fortunes here.\n                                    [He opens the silver casket]\n  PORTIA.  [Aside]  Too long a pause for that which you find\nthere.\n  ARRAGON. What's here? The portrait of a blinking idiot\n    Presenting me a schedule! I will read it.\n    How much unlike art thou to Portia!\n    How much unlike my hopes and my deservings!\n    'Who chooseth me shall have as much as he deserves.'\n    Did I deserve no more than a fool's head?\n    Is that my prize? Are my deserts no better?\n  PORTIA. To offend and judge are distinct offices\n    And of opposed natures.\n  ARRAGON. What is here?  [Reads]\n\n         'The fire seven times tried this;\n         Seven times tried that judgment is\n         That did never choose amiss.\n         Some there be that shadows kiss,\n         Such have but a shadow's bliss.\n         There be fools alive iwis\n         Silver'd o'er, and so was this.\n         Take what wife you will to bed,\n         I will ever be your head.\n         So be gone; you are sped.'\n\n         Still more fool I shall appear\n         By the time I linger here.\n         With one fool's head I came to woo,\n         But I go away with two.\n         Sweet, adieu! I'll keep my oath,\n         Patiently to bear my wroth.         Exit with his train\n\n  PORTIA. Thus hath the candle sing'd the moth.\n    O, these deliberate fools! When they do choose,\n    They have the wisdom by their wit to lose.\n  NERISSA. The ancient saying is no heresy:\n    Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.\n  PORTIA. Come, draw the curtain, Nerissa.\n\n                       Enter a SERVANT\n\n  SERVANT. Where is my lady?\n  PORTIA. Here; what would my lord?\n  SERVANT. Madam, there is alighted at your gate\n    A young Venetian, one that comes before\n    To signify th' approaching of his lord,\n    From whom he bringeth sensible regreets;\n    To wit, besides commends and courteous breath,\n    Gifts of rich value. Yet I have not seen\n    So likely an ambassador of love.\n    A day in April never came so sweet\n    To show how costly summer was at hand\n    As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.\n  PORTIA. No more, I pray thee; I am half afeard\n    Thou wilt say anon he is some kin to thee,\n    Thou spend'st such high-day wit in praising him.\n    Come, come, Nerissa, for I long to see\n    Quick Cupid's post that comes so mannerly.\n  NERISSA. Bassanio, Lord Love, if thy will it be!        Exeunt\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. SCENE I.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter SOLANIO and SALERIO\n\n  SOLANIO. Now, what news on the Rialto?\n  SALERIO. Why, yet it lives there uncheck'd that Antonio hath a\nship\n    of rich lading wreck'd on the narrow seas; the Goodwins I\nthink\n    they call the place, a very dangerous flat and fatal, where\nthe\n    carcases of many a tall ship lie buried, as they say, if my\n    gossip Report be an honest woman of her word.\n  SOLANIO. I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever\nknapp'd\n    ginger or made her neighbours believe she wept for the death\nof a\n    third husband. But it is true, without any slips of prolixity\nor\n    crossing the plain highway of talk, that the good Antonio,\nthe\n    honest Antonio- O that I had a title good enough to keep his\nname\n    company!-\n  SALERIO. Come, the full stop.\n  SOLANIO. Ha! What sayest thou? Why, the end is, he hath lost a\n    ship.\n  SALERIO. I would it might prove the end of his losses.\n  SOLANIO. Let me say amen betimes, lest the devil cross my\nprayer,\n    for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew.\n\n                             Enter SHYLOCK\n\n    How now, Shylock? What news among the merchants?\n  SHYLOCK. You knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my\n    daughter's flight.\n  SALERIO. That's certain; I, for my part, knew the tailor that\nmade\n    the wings she flew withal.\n  SOLANIO. And Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was\nflidge;\n    and then it is the complexion of them all to leave the dam.\n  SHYLOCK. She is damn'd for it.\n  SALERIO. That's certain, if the devil may be her judge.\n  SHYLOCK. My own flesh and blood to rebel!\n  SOLANIO. Out upon it, old carrion! Rebels it at these years?\n  SHYLOCK. I say my daughter is my flesh and my blood.\n  SALERIO. There is more difference between thy flesh and hers\nthan\n    between jet and ivory; more between your bloods than there is\n    between red wine and Rhenish. But tell us, do you hear\nwhether\n    Antonio have had any loss at sea or no?\n  SHYLOCK. There I have another bad match: a bankrupt, a\nprodigal,\n    who dare scarce show his head on the Rialto; a beggar, that\nwas\n    us'd to come so smug upon the mart. Let him look to his bond.\nHe\n    was wont to call me usurer; let him look to his bond. He was\nwont\n    to lend money for a Christian courtesy; let him look to his\nbond.\n  SALERIO. Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his\n    flesh. What's that good for?\n  SHYLOCK. To bait fish withal. If it will feed nothing else, it\nwill\n    feed my revenge. He hath disgrac'd me and hind'red me half a\n    million; laugh'd at my losses, mock'd at my gains, scorned my\n    nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine\n    enemies. And what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew\neyes?\n    Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections,\n    passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,\n    subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means,\nwarmed\n    and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?\nIf\n    you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not\nlaugh?\n    If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall\nwe\n    not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble\nyou\n    in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility?\n    Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his\nsufferance\n    be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach\nme\n    I will execute; and itshall go hard but I will better the\n    instruction.\n\n                    Enter a MAN from ANTONIO\n\n  MAN. Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house, and desires\nto\n    speak with you both.\n  SALERIO. We have been up and down to seek him.\n\n                          Enter TUBAL\n\n  SOLANIO. Here comes another of the tribe; a third cannot be\n    match'd, unless the devil himself turn Jew.\n                                Exeunt SOLANIO, SALERIO, and MAN\n  SHYLOCK. How now, Tubal, what news from Genoa? Hast thou found\nmy\n    daughter?\n  TUBAL. I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find\nher.\n  SHYLOCK. Why there, there, there, there! A diamond gone, cost\nme\n    two thousand ducats in Frankfort! The curse never fell upon\nour\n    nation till now; I never felt it till now. Two thousand\nducats in\n    that, and other precious, precious jewels. I would my\ndaughter\n    were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear; would she\nwere\n    hears'd at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin! No news of\n    them? Why, so- and I know not what's spent in the search.\nWhy,\n    thou- loss upon loss! The thief gone with so much, and so\nmuch to\n    find the thief; and no satisfaction, no revenge; nor no ill\nluck\n    stirring but what lights o' my shoulders; no sighs but o' my\n    breathing; no tears but o' my shedding!\n  TUBAL. Yes, other men have ill luck too: Antonio, as I heard in\n    Genoa-\n  SHYLOCK. What, what, what? Ill luck, ill luck?\n  TUBAL. Hath an argosy cast away coming from Tripolis.\n  SHYLOCK. I thank God, I thank God. Is it true, is it true?\n  TUBAL. I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck.\n  SHYLOCK. I thank thee, good Tubal. Good news, good news- ha,\nha!-\n    heard in Genoa.\n  TUBAL. Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one night,\n    fourscore ducats.\n  SHYLOCK. Thou stick'st a dagger in me- I shall never see my\ngold\n    again. Fourscore ducats at a sitting! Fourscore ducats!\n  TUBAL. There came divers of Antonio's creditors in my company\nto\n    Venice that swear he cannot choose but break.\n  SHYLOCK. I am very glad of it; I'll plague him, I'll torture\nhim; I\n    am glad of it.\n  TUBAL. One of them showed me a ring that he had of your\ndaughter\n    for a monkey.\n  SHYLOCK. Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my\n    turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor; I would\nnot\n    have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.\n  TUBAL. But Antonio is certainly undone.\n  SHYLOCK. Nay, that's true; that's very true. Go, Tubal, fee me\nan\n    officer; bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the\nheart of\n    him, if he forfeit; for, were he out of Venice, I can make\nwhat\n    merchandise I will. Go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue;\ngo,\n    good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal.                  Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter BASSANIO, PORTIA, GRATIANO, NERISSA, and all their trains\n\n  PORTIA. I pray you tarry; pause a day or two\n    Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong,\n    I lose your company; therefore forbear a while.\n    There's something tells me- but it is not love-\n    I would not lose you; and you know yourself\n    Hate counsels not in such a quality.\n    But lest you should not understand me well-\n    And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought-\n    I would detain you here some month or two\n    Before you venture for me. I could teach you\n    How to choose right, but then I am forsworn;\n    So will I never be; so may you miss me;\n    But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin,\n    That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes!\n    They have o'erlook'd me and divided me;\n    One half of me is yours, the other half yours-\n    Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,\n    And so all yours. O! these naughty times\n    Puts bars between the owners and their rights;\n    And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so,\n    Let fortune go to hell for it, not I.\n    I speak too long, but 'tis to peize the time,\n    To eke it, and to draw it out in length,\n    To stay you from election.\n  BASSANIO. Let me choose;\n    For as I am, I live upon the rack.\n  PORTIA. Upon the rack, Bassanio? Then confess\n    What treason there is mingled with your love.\n  BASSANIO. None but that ugly treason of mistrust\n    Which makes me fear th' enjoying of my love;\n    There may as well be amity and life\n    'Tween snow and fire as treason and my love.\n  PORTIA. Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,\n    Where men enforced do speak anything.\n  BASSANIO. Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth.\n  PORTIA. Well then, confess and live.\n  BASSANIO. 'Confess' and 'love'\n    Had been the very sum of my confession.\n    O happy torment, when my torturer\n    Doth teach me answers for deliverance!\n    But let me to my fortune and the caskets.\n  PORTIA. Away, then; I am lock'd in one of them.\n    If you do love me, you will find me out.\n    Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof;\n    Let music sound while he doth make his choice;\n    Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,\n    Fading in music. That the comparison\n    May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream\n    And wat'ry death-bed for him. He may win;\n    And what is music then? Then music is\n    Even as the flourish when true subjects bow\n    To a new-crowned monarch; such it is\n    As are those dulcet sounds in break of day\n    That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear\n    And summon him to marriage. Now he goes,\n    With no less presence, but with much more love,\n    Than young Alcides when he did redeem\n    The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy\n    To the sea-monster. I stand for sacrifice;\n    The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,\n    With bleared visages come forth to view\n    The issue of th' exploit. Go, Hercules!\n    Live thou, I live. With much much more dismay\n    I view the fight than thou that mak'st the fray.\n\n                            A SONG\n\n      the whilst BASSANIO comments on the caskets to himself\n\n                 Tell me where is fancy bred,\n                 Or in the heart or in the head,\n                 How begot, how nourished?\n                   Reply, reply.\n                 It is engend'red in the eyes,\n                 With gazing fed; and fancy dies\n                 In the cradle where it lies.\n                   Let us all ring fancy's knell:\n                   I'll begin it- Ding, dong, bell.\n  ALL.           Ding, dong, bell.\n\n  BASSANIO. So may the outward shows be least themselves;\n    The world is still deceiv'd with ornament.\n    In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt\n    But, being season'd with a gracious voice,\n    Obscures the show of evil? In religion,\n    What damned error but some sober brow\n    Will bless it, and approve it with a text,\n    Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?\n    There is no vice so simple but assumes\n    Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.\n    How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false\n    As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins\n    The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars;\n    Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk!\n    And these assume but valour's excrement\n    To render them redoubted. Look on beauty\n    And you shall see 'tis purchas'd by the weight,\n    Which therein works a miracle in nature,\n    Making them lightest that wear most of it;\n    So are those crisped snaky golden locks\n    Which make such wanton gambols with the wind\n    Upon supposed fairness often known\n    To be the dowry of a second head-\n    The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.\n    Thus ornament is but the guiled shore\n    To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf\n    Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,\n    The seeming truth which cunning times put on\n    To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold,\n    Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee;\n    Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge\n    'Tween man and man; but thou, thou meagre lead,\n    Which rather threaten'st than dost promise aught,\n    Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence,\n    And here choose I. Joy be the consequence!\n  PORTIA.  [Aside]  How all the other passions fleet to air,\n    As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac'd despair,\n    And shudd'ring fear, and green-ey'd jealousy!\n    O love, be moderate, allay thy ecstasy,\n    In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess!\n    I feel too much thy blessing. Make it less,\n    For fear I surfeit.\n  BASSANIO.  [Opening the leaden casket]  What find I here?\n    Fair Portia's counterfeit! What demi-god\n    Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?\n    Or whether riding on the balls of mine\n    Seem they in motion? Here are sever'd lips,\n    Parted with sugar breath; so sweet a bar\n    Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs\n    The painter plays the spider, and hath woven\n    A golden mesh t' entrap the hearts of men\n    Faster than gnats in cobwebs. But her eyes-\n    How could he see to do them? Having made one,\n    Methinks it should have power to steal both his,\n    And leave itself unfurnish'd. Yet look how far\n    The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow\n    In underprizing it, so far this shadow\n    Doth limp behind the substance. Here's the scroll,\n    The continent and summary of my fortune.\n         'You that choose not by the view,\n         Chance as fair and choose as true!\n         Since this fortune falls to you,\n         Be content and seek no new.\n         If you be well pleas'd with this,\n         And hold your fortune for your bliss,\n         Turn to where your lady is\n         And claim her with a loving kiss.'\n    A gentle scroll. Fair lady, by your leave;\n    I come by note, to give and to receive.\n    Like one of two contending in a prize,\n    That thinks he hath done well in people's eyes,\n    Hearing applause and universal shout,\n    Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt\n    Whether those peals of praise be his or no;\n    So, thrice-fair lady, stand I even so,\n    As doubtful whether what I see be true,\n    Until confirm'd, sign'd, ratified by you.\n  PORTIA. You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,\n    Such as I am. Though for myself alone\n    I would not be ambitious in my wish\n    To wish myself much better, yet for you\n    I would be trebled twenty times myself,\n    A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich,\n    That only to stand high in your account\n    I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,\n    Exceed account. But the full sum of me\n    Is sum of something which, to term in gross,\n    Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd;\n    Happy in this, she is not yet so old\n    But she may learn; happier than this,\n    She is not bred so dull but she can learn;\n    Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit\n    Commits itself to yours to be directed,\n    As from her lord, her governor, her king.\n    Myself and what is mine to you and yours\n    Is now converted. But now I was the lord\n    Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,\n    Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now,\n    This house, these servants, and this same myself,\n    Are yours- my lord's. I give them with this ring,\n    Which when you part from, lose, or give away,\n    Let it presage the ruin of your love,\n    And be my vantage to exclaim on you.\n  BASSANIO. Madam, you have bereft me of all words;\n    Only my blood speaks to you in my veins;\n    And there is such confusion in my powers\n    As, after some oration fairly spoke\n    By a beloved prince, there doth appear\n    Among the buzzing pleased multitude,\n    Where every something, being blent together,\n    Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy\n    Express'd and not express'd. But when this ring\n    Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence;\n    O, then be bold to say Bassanio's dead!\n  NERISSA. My lord and lady, it is now our time\n    That have stood by and seen our wishes prosper\n    To cry 'Good joy.' Good joy, my lord and lady!\n  GRATIANO. My Lord Bassanio, and my gentle lady,\n    I wish you all the joy that you can wish,\n    For I am sure you can wish none from me;\n    And, when your honours mean to solemnize\n    The bargain of your faith, I do beseech you\n    Even at that time I may be married too.\n  BASSANIO. With all my heart, so thou canst get a wife.\n  GRATIANO. I thank your lordship, you have got me one.\n    My eyes, my lord, can look as swift as yours:\n    You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid;\n    You lov'd, I lov'd; for intermission\n    No more pertains to me, my lord, than you.\n    Your fortune stood upon the caskets there,\n    And so did mine too, as the matter falls;\n    For wooing here until I sweat again,\n    And swearing till my very roof was dry\n    With oaths of love, at last- if promise last-\n    I got a promise of this fair one here\n    To have her love, provided that your fortune\n    Achiev'd her mistress.\n  PORTIA. Is this true, Nerissa?\n  NERISSA. Madam, it is, so you stand pleas'd withal.\n  BASSANIO. And do you, Gratiano, mean good faith?\n  GRATIANO. Yes, faith, my lord.\n  BASSANIO. Our feast shall be much honoured in your marriage.\n  GRATIANO. We'll play with them: the first boy for a thousand\n    ducats.\n  NERISSA. What, and stake down?\n  GRATIANO. No; we shall ne'er win at that sport, and stake down-\n    But who comes here? Lorenzo and his infidel?\n    What, and my old Venetian friend, Salerio!\n\n          Enter LORENZO, JESSICA, and SALERIO, a messenger\n                           from Venice\n\n  BASSANIO. Lorenzo and Salerio, welcome hither,\n    If that the youth of my new int'rest here\n    Have power to bid you welcome. By your leave,\n    I bid my very friends and countrymen,\n    Sweet Portia, welcome.\n  PORTIA. So do I, my lord;\n    They are entirely welcome.\n  LORENZO. I thank your honour. For my part, my lord,\n    My purpose was not to have seen you here;\n    But meeting with Salerio by the way,\n    He did entreat me, past all saying nay,\n    To come with him along.\n  SALERIO. I did, my lord,\n    And I have reason for it. Signior Antonio\n    Commends him to you.               [Gives BASSANIO a letter]\n  BASSANIO. Ere I ope his letter,\n    I pray you tell me how my good friend doth.\n  SALERIO. Not sick, my lord, unless it be in mind;\n    Nor well, unless in mind; his letter there\n    Will show you his estate.        [BASSANIO opens the letter]\n  GRATIANO. Nerissa, cheer yond stranger; bid her welcome.\n    Your hand, Salerio. What's the news from Venice?\n    How doth that royal merchant, good Antonio?\n    I know he will be glad of our success:\n    We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.\n  SALERIO. I would you had won the fleece that he hath lost.\n  PORTIA. There are some shrewd contents in yond same paper\n    That steals the colour from Bassanio's cheek:\n    Some dear friend dead, else nothing in the world\n    Could turn so much the constitution\n    Of any constant man. What, worse and worse!\n    With leave, Bassanio: I am half yourself,\n    And I must freely have the half of anything\n    That this same paper brings you.\n  BASSANIO. O sweet Portia,\n    Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words\n    That ever blotted paper! Gentle lady,\n    When I did first impart my love to you,\n    I freely told you all the wealth I had\n    Ran in my veins- I was a gentleman;\n    And then I told you true. And yet, dear lady,\n    Rating myself at nothing, you shall see\n    How much I was a braggart. When I told you\n    My state was nothing, I should then have told you\n    That I was worse than nothing; for indeed\n    I have engag'd myself to a dear friend,\n    Engag'd my friend to his mere enemy,\n    To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady,\n    The paper as the body of my friend,\n    And every word in it a gaping wound\n    Issuing life-blood. But is it true, Salerio?\n    Hath all his ventures fail'd? What, not one hit?\n    From Tripolis, from Mexico, and England,\n    From Lisbon, Barbary, and India,\n    And not one vessel scape the dreadful touch\n    Of merchant-marring rocks?\n  SALERIO. Not one, my lord.\n    Besides, it should appear that, if he had\n    The present money to discharge the Jew,\n    He would not take it. Never did I know\n    A creature that did bear the shape of man\n    So keen and greedy to confound a man.\n    He plies the Duke at morning and at night,\n    And doth impeach the freedom of the state,\n    If they deny him justice. Twenty merchants,\n    The Duke himself, and the magnificoes\n    Of greatest port, have all persuaded with him;\n    But none can drive him from the envious plea\n    Of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond.\n  JESSICA. When I was with him, I have heard him swear\n    To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen,\n    That he would rather have Antonio's flesh\n    Than twenty times the value of the sum\n    That he did owe him; and I know, my lord,\n    If law, authority, and power, deny not,\n    It will go hard with poor Antonio.\n  PORTIA. Is it your dear friend that is thus in trouble?\n  BASSANIO. The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,\n    The best condition'd and unwearied spirit\n    In doing courtesies; and one in whom\n    The ancient Roman honour more appears\n    Than any that draws breath in Italy.\n  PORTIA. What sum owes he the Jew?\n  BASSANIO. For me, three thousand ducats.\n  PORTIA. What! no more?\n    Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond;\n    Double six thousand, and then treble that,\n    Before a friend of this description\n    Shall lose a hair through Bassanio's fault.\n    First go with me to church and call me wife,\n    And then away to Venice to your friend;\n    For never shall you lie by Portia's side\n    With an unquiet soul. You shall have gold\n    To pay the petty debt twenty times over.\n    When it is paid, bring your true friend along.\n    My maid Nerissa and myself meantime\n    Will live as maids and widows. Come, away;\n    For you shall hence upon your wedding day.\n    Bid your friends welcome, show a merry cheer;\n    Since you are dear bought, I will love you dear.\n    But let me hear the letter of your friend.\n  BASSANIO.  [Reads]  'Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all\nmiscarried,\n    my creditors grow cruel, my estate is very low, my bond to\nthe\n    Jew is forfeit; and since, in paying it, it is impossible I\n    should live, all debts are clear'd between you and I, if I\nmight\n    but see you at my death. Notwithstanding, use your pleasure;\nif\n    your love do not persuade you to come, let not my letter.'\n  PORTIA. O love, dispatch all business and be gone!\n  BASSANIO. Since I have your good leave to go away,\n    I will make haste; but, till I come again,\n    No bed shall e'er be guilty of my stay,\n    Nor rest be interposer 'twixt us twain.               Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE III.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter SHYLOCK, SOLANIO, ANTONIO, and GAOLER\n\n  SHYLOCK. Gaoler, look to him. Tell not me of mercy-\n    This is the fool that lent out money gratis.\n    Gaoler, look to him.\n  ANTONIO. Hear me yet, good Shylock.\n  SHYLOCK. I'll have my bond; speak not against my bond.\n    I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond.\n    Thou call'dst me dog before thou hadst a cause,\n    But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs;\n    The Duke shall grant me justice. I do wonder,\n    Thou naughty gaoler, that thou art so fond\n    To come abroad with him at his request.\n  ANTONIO. I pray thee hear me speak.\n  SHYLOCK. I'll have my bond. I will not hear thee speak;\n    I'll have my bond; and therefore speak no more.\n    I'll not be made a soft and dull-ey'd fool,\n    To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield,\n    To Christian intercessors. Follow not;\n    I'll have no speaking; I will have my bond.             Exit\n  SOLANIO. It is the most impenetrable cur\n    That ever kept with men.\n  ANTONIO. Let him alone;\n    I'll follow him no more with bootless prayers.\n    He seeks my life; his reason well I know:\n    I oft deliver'd from his forfeitures\n    Many that have at times made moan to me;\n    Therefore he hates me.\n  SOLANIO. I am sure the Duke\n    Will never grant this forfeiture to hold.\n  ANTONIO. The Duke cannot deny the course of law;\n    For the commodity that strangers have\n    With us in Venice, if it be denied,\n    Will much impeach the justice of the state,\n    Since that the trade and profit of the city\n    Consisteth of all nations. Therefore, go;\n    These griefs and losses have so bated me\n    That I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh\n    To-morrow to my bloody creditor.\n    Well, gaoler, on; pray God Bassanio come\n    To see me pay his debt, and then I care not.          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE IV.\nBelmont. PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter PORTIA, NERISSA, LORENZO, JESSICA, and BALTHASAR\n\n  LORENZO. Madam, although I speak it in your presence,\n    You have a noble and a true conceit\n    Of godlike amity, which appears most strongly\n    In bearing thus the absence of your lord.\n    But if you knew to whom you show this honour,\n    How true a gentleman you send relief,\n    How dear a lover of my lord your husband,\n    I know you would be prouder of the work\n    Than customary bounty can enforce you.\n  PORTIA. I never did repent for doing good,\n    Nor shall not now; for in companions\n    That do converse and waste the time together,\n    Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,\n    There must be needs a like proportion\n    Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit,\n    Which makes me think that this Antonio,\n    Being the bosom lover of my lord,\n    Must needs be like my lord. If it be so,\n    How little is the cost I have bestowed\n    In purchasing the semblance of my soul\n    From out the state of hellish cruelty!\n    This comes too near the praising of myself;\n    Therefore, no more of it; hear other things.\n    Lorenzo, I commit into your hands\n    The husbandry and manage of my house\n    Until my lord's return; for mine own part,\n    I have toward heaven breath'd a secret vow\n    To live in prayer and contemplation,\n    Only attended by Nerissa here,\n    Until her husband and my lord's return.\n    There is a monastery two miles off,\n    And there we will abide. I do desire you\n    Not to deny this imposition,\n    The which my love and some necessity\n    Now lays upon you.\n  LORENZO. Madam, with all my heart\n    I shall obey you in an fair commands.\n  PORTIA. My people do already know my mind,\n    And will acknowledge you and Jessica\n    In place of Lord Bassanio and myself.\n    So fare you well till we shall meet again.\n  LORENZO. Fair thoughts and happy hours attend on you!\n  JESSICA. I wish your ladyship all heart's content.\n  PORTIA. I thank you for your wish, and am well pleas'd\n    To wish it back on you. Fare you well, Jessica.\n                                      Exeunt JESSICA and LORENZO\n    Now, Balthasar,\n    As I have ever found thee honest-true,\n    So let me find thee still. Take this same letter,\n    And use thou all th' endeavour of a man\n    In speed to Padua; see thou render this\n    Into my cousin's hands, Doctor Bellario;\n    And look what notes and garments he doth give thee,\n    Bring them, I pray thee, with imagin'd speed\n    Unto the traject, to the common ferry\n    Which trades to Venice. Waste no time in words,\n    But get thee gone; I shall be there before thee.\n  BALTHASAR. Madam, I go with all convenient speed.         Exit\n  PORTIA. Come on, Nerissa, I have work in hand\n    That you yet know not of; we'll see our husbands\n    Before they think of us.\n  NERISSA. Shall they see us?\n  PORTIA. They shall, Nerissa; but in such a habit\n    That they shall think we are accomplished\n    With that we lack. I'll hold thee any wager,\n    When we are both accoutred like young men,\n    I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two,\n    And wear my dagger with the braver grace,\n    And speak between the change of man and boy\n    With a reed voice; and turn two mincing steps\n    Into a manly stride; and speak of frays\n    Like a fine bragging youth; and tell quaint lies,\n    How honourable ladies sought my love,\n    Which I denying, they fell sick and died-\n    I could not do withal. Then I'll repent,\n    And wish for all that, that I had not kill'd them.\n    And twenty of these puny lies I'll tell,\n    That men shall swear I have discontinued school\n    About a twelvemonth. I have within my mind\n    A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks,\n    Which I will practise.\n  NERISSA. Why, shall we turn to men?\n  PORTIA. Fie, what a question's that,\n    If thou wert near a lewd interpreter!\n    But come, I'll tell thee all my whole device\n    When I am in my coach, which stays for us\n    At the park gate; and therefore haste away,\n    For we must measure twenty miles to-day.              Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE V.\nBelmont. The garden\n\nEnter LAUNCELOT and JESSICA\n\n  LAUNCELOT. Yes, truly; for, look you, the sins of the father\nare to\n    be laid upon the children; therefore, I promise you, I fear\nyou.\n    I was always plain with you, and so now I speak my agitation\nof\n    the matter; therefore be o' good cheer, for truly I think you\nare\n    damn'd. There is but one hope in it that can do you any good,\nand\n    that is but a kind of bastard hope, neither.\n  JESSICA. And what hope is that, I pray thee?\n  LAUNCELOT. Marry, you may partly hope that your father got you\nnot-\n   that you are not the Jew's daughter.\n  JESSICA. That were a kind of bastard hope indeed; so the sins\nof my\n    mother should be visited upon me.\n  LAUNCELOT. Truly then I fear you are damn'd both by father and\n    mother; thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into\n    Charybdis, your mother; well, you are gone both ways.\n  JESSICA. I shall be sav'd by my husband; he hath made me a\n    Christian.\n  LAUNCELOT. Truly, the more to blame he; we were Christians enow\n\n    before, e'en as many as could well live one by another. This\n    making of Christians will raise the price of hogs; if we grow\nall\n    to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on the\n    coals for money.\n\n                             Enter LORENZO\n\n  JESSICA. I'll tell my husband, Launcelot, what you say; here he\n    comes.\n  LORENZO. I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Launcelot, if you\n    thus get my wife into corners.\n  JESSICA. Nay, you need nor fear us, Lorenzo; Launcelot and I\nare\n    out; he tells me flatly there's no mercy for me in heaven,\n    because I am a Jew's daughter; and he says you are no good\nmember\n    of the commonwealth, for in converting Jews to Christians you\n    raise the price of pork.\n  LORENZO. I shall answer that better to the commonwealth than\nyou\n    can the getting up of the negro's belly; the Moor is with\nchild\n    by you, Launcelot.\n  LAUNCELOT. It is much that the Moor should be more than reason;\nbut\n    if she be less than an honest woman, she is indeed more than\nI\n    took her for.\n  LORENZO. How every fool can play upon the word! I think the\nbest\n    grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse\ngrow\n    commendable in none only but parrots. Go in, sirrah; bid them\n    prepare for dinner.\n  LAUNCELOT. That is done, sir; they have all stomachs.\n  LORENZO. Goodly Lord, what a wit-snapper are you! Then bid them\n    prepare dinner.\n  LAUNCELOT. That is done too, sir, only 'cover' is the word.\n  LORENZO. Will you cover, then, sir?\n  LAUNCELOT. Not so, sir, neither; I know my duty.\n  LORENZO. Yet more quarrelling with occasion! Wilt thou show the\n    whole wealth of thy wit in an instant? I pray thee understand\na\n    plain man in his plain meaning: go to thy fellows, bid them\ncover\n    the table, serve in the meat, and we will come in to dinner.\n  LAUNCELOT. For the table, sir, it shall be serv'd in; for the\nmeat,\n    sir, it shall be cover'd; for your coming in to dinner, sir,\nwhy,\n    let it be as humours and conceits shall govern.\n Exit\n  LORENZO. O dear discretion, how his words are suited!\n    The fool hath planted in his memory\n    An army of good words; and I do know\n    A many fools that stand in better place,\n    Garnish'd like him, that for a tricksy word\n    Defy the matter. How cheer'st thou, Jessica?\n    And now, good sweet, say thy opinion,\n    How dost thou like the Lord Bassanio's wife?\n  JESSICA. Past all expressing. It is very meet\n    The Lord Bassanio live an upright life,\n    For, having such a blessing in his lady,\n    He finds the joys of heaven here on earth;\n    And if on earth he do not merit it,\n    In reason he should never come to heaven.\n    Why, if two gods should play some heavenly match,\n    And on the wager lay two earthly women,\n    And Portia one, there must be something else\n    Pawn'd with the other; for the poor rude world\n    Hath not her fellow.\n  LORENZO. Even such a husband\n    Hast thou of me as she is for a wife.\n  JESSICA. Nay, but ask my opinion too of that.\n  LORENZO. I will anon; first let us go to dinner.\n  JESSICA. Nay, let me praise you while I have a stomach.\n  LORENZO. No, pray thee, let it serve for table-talk;\n    Then howsome'er thou speak'st, 'mong other things\n    I shall digest it.\n  JESSICA. Well, I'll set you forth.                      Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. SCENE I.\nVenice. The court of justice\n\nEnter the DUKE, the MAGNIFICOES, ANTONIO, BASSANIO, GRATIANO,\nSALERIO,\nand OTHERS\n\n  DUKE OF VENICE. What, is Antonio here?\n  ANTONIO. Ready, so please your Grace.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. I am sorry for thee; thou art come to answer\n    A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch,\n    Uncapable of pity, void and empty\n    From any dram of mercy.\n  ANTONIO. I have heard\n    Your Grace hath ta'en great pains to qualify\n    His rigorous course; but since he stands obdurate,\n    And that no lawful means can carry me\n    Out of his envy's reach, I do oppose\n    My patience to his fury, and am arm'd\n    To suffer with a quietness of spirit\n    The very tyranny and rage of his.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Go one, and call the Jew into the court.\n  SALERIO. He is ready at the door; he comes, my lord.\n\n                          Enter SHYLOCK\n\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Make room, and let him stand before our face.\n    Shylock, the world thinks, and I think so too,\n    That thou but leadest this fashion of thy malice\n    To the last hour of act; and then, 'tis thought,\n    Thou'lt show thy mercy and remorse, more strange\n    Than is thy strange apparent cruelty;\n    And where thou now exacts the penalty,\n    Which is a pound of this poor merchant's flesh,\n    Thou wilt not only loose the forfeiture,\n    But, touch'd with human gentleness and love,\n    Forgive a moiety of the principal,\n    Glancing an eye of pity on his losses,\n    That have of late so huddled on his back-\n    Enow to press a royal merchant down,\n    And pluck commiseration of his state\n    From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint,\n    From stubborn Turks and Tartars, never train'd\n    To offices of tender courtesy.\n    We all expect a gentle answer, Jew.\n  SHYLOCK. I have possess'd your Grace of what I purpose,\n    And by our holy Sabbath have I sworn\n    To have the due and forfeit of my bond.\n    If you deny it, let the danger light\n    Upon your charter and your city's freedom.\n    You'll ask me why I rather choose to have\n    A weight of carrion flesh than to receive\n    Three thousand ducats. I'll not answer that,\n    But say it is my humour- is it answer'd?\n    What if my house be troubled with a rat,\n    And I be pleas'd to give ten thousand ducats\n    To have it ban'd? What, are you answer'd yet?\n    Some men there are love not a gaping pig;\n    Some that are mad if they behold a cat;\n    And others, when the bagpipe sings i' th' nose,\n    Cannot contain their urine; for affection,\n    Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood\n    Of what it likes or loathes. Now, for your answer:\n    As there is no firm reason to be rend'red\n    Why he cannot abide a gaping pig;\n    Why he, a harmless necessary cat;\n    Why he, a woollen bagpipe, but of force\n    Must yield to such inevitable shame\n    As to offend, himself being offended;\n    So can I give no reason, nor I will not,\n    More than a lodg'd hate and a certain loathing\n    I bear Antonio, that I follow thus\n    A losing suit against him. Are you answered?\n  BASSANIO. This is no answer, thou unfeeling man,\n    To excuse the current of thy cruelty.\n  SHYLOCK. I am not bound to please thee with my answers.\n  BASSANIO. Do all men kill the things they do not love?\n  SHYLOCK. Hates any man the thing he would not kill?\n  BASSANIO. Every offence is not a hate at first.\n  SHYLOCK. What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?\n  ANTONIO. I pray you, think you question with the Jew.\n    You may as well go stand upon the beach\n    And bid the main flood bate his usual height;\n    You may as well use question with the wolf,\n    Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb;\n    You may as well forbid the mountain pines\n    To wag their high tops and to make no noise\n    When they are fretten with the gusts of heaven;\n    You may as well do anything most hard\n    As seek to soften that- than which what's harder?-\n    His jewish heart. Therefore, I do beseech you,\n    Make no moe offers, use no farther means,\n    But with all brief and plain conveniency\n    Let me have judgment, and the Jew his will.\n  BASSANIO. For thy three thousand ducats here is six.\n  SHYLOCK. If every ducat in six thousand ducats\n    Were in six parts, and every part a ducat,\n    I would not draw them; I would have my bond.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. How shalt thou hope for mercy, rend'ring none?\n  SHYLOCK. What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?\n    You have among you many a purchas'd slave,\n    Which, fike your asses and your dogs and mules,\n    You use in abject and in slavish parts,\n    Because you bought them; shall I say to you\n    'Let them be free, marry them to your heirs-\n    Why sweat they under burdens?- let their beds\n    Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates\n    Be season'd with such viands'? You will answer\n    'The slaves are ours.' So do I answer you:\n    The pound of flesh which I demand of him\n    Is dearly bought, 'tis mine, and I will have it.\n    If you deny me, fie upon your law!\n    There is no force in the decrees of Venice.\n    I stand for judgment; answer; shall I have it?\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Upon my power I may dismiss this court,\n    Unless Bellario, a learned doctor,\n    Whom I have sent for to determine this,\n    Come here to-day.\n  SALERIO. My lord, here stays without\n    A messenger with letters from the doctor,\n    New come from Padua.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Bring us the letters; call the messenger.\n  BASSANIO. Good cheer, Antonio! What, man, courage yet!\n    The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones, and all,\n    Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood.\n  ANTONIO. I am a tainted wether of the flock,\n    Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit\n    Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me.\n    You cannot better be employ'd, Bassanio,\n    Than to live still, and write mine epitaph.\n\n           Enter NERISSA dressed like a lawyer's clerk\n\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Came you from Padua, from Bellario?\n  NERISSA. From both, my lord. Bellario greets your Grace.\n                                             [Presents a letter]\n  BASSANIO. Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?\n  SHYLOCK. To cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt there.\n  GRATIANO. Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew,\n    Thou mak'st thy knife keen; but no metal can,\n    No, not the hangman's axe, bear half the keenness\n    Of thy sharp envy. Can no prayers pierce thee?\n  SHYLOCK. No, none that thou hast wit enough to make.\n  GRATIANO. O, be thou damn'd, inexecrable dog!\n    And for thy life let justice be accus'd.\n    Thou almost mak'st me waver in my faith,\n    To hold opinion with Pythagoras\n    That souls of animals infuse themselves\n    Into the trunks of men. Thy currish spirit\n    Govern'd a wolf who, hang'd for human slaughter,\n    Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,\n    And, whilst thou layest in thy unhallowed dam,\n    Infus'd itself in thee; for thy desires\n    Are wolfish, bloody, starv'd and ravenous.\n  SHYLOCK. Till thou canst rail the seal from off my bond,\n    Thou but offend'st thy lungs to speak so loud;\n    Repair thy wit, good youth, or it will fall\n    To cureless ruin. I stand here for law.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. This letter from Bellario doth commend\n    A young and learned doctor to our court.\n    Where is he?\n  NERISSA. He attendeth here hard by\n    To know your answer, whether you'll admit him.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. With all my heart. Some three or four of you\n    Go give him courteous conduct to this place.\n    Meantime, the court shall hear Bellario's letter.\n  CLERK.  [Reads]  'Your Grace shall understand that at the\nreceipt\n    of your letter I am very sick; but in the instant that your\n    messenger came, in loving visitation was with me a young\ndoctor\n    of Rome- his name is Balthazar. I acquainted him with the\ncause\n    in controversy between the Jew and Antonio the merchant; we\n    turn'd o'er many books together; he is furnished with my\nopinion\n    which, bettered with his own learning-the greatness whereof I\n    cannot enough commend- comes with him at my importunity to\nfill\n    up your Grace's request in my stead. I beseech you let his\nlack\n    of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend\nestimation,\n    for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I leave\nhim\n    to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish\nhis\n    commendation.'\n\n      Enter PORTIA for BALTHAZAR, dressed like a Doctor of Laws\n\n  DUKE OF VENICE. YOU hear the learn'd Bellario, what he writes;\n    And here, I take it, is the doctor come.\n    Give me your hand; come you from old Bellario?\n  PORTIA. I did, my lord.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. You are welcome; take your place.\n    Are you acquainted with the difference\n    That holds this present question in the court?\n  PORTIA. I am informed throughly of the cause.\n    Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Antonio and old Shylock, both stand forth.\n  PORTIA. Is your name Shylock?\n  SHYLOCK. Shylock is my name.\n  PORTIA. Of a strange nature is the suit you follow;\n    Yet in such rule that the Venetian law\n    Cannot impugn you as you do proceed.\n    You stand within his danger, do you not?\n  ANTONIO. Ay, so he says.\n  PORTIA. Do you confess the bond?\n  ANTONIO. I do.\n  PORTIA. Then must the Jew be merciful.\n  SHYLOCK. On what compulsion must I? Tell me that.\n  PORTIA. The quality of mercy is not strain'd;\n    It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven\n    Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:\n    It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.\n    'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes\n    The throned monarch better than his crown;\n    His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,\n    The attribute to awe and majesty,\n    Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;\n    But mercy is above this sceptred sway,\n    It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,\n    It is an attribute to God himself;\n    And earthly power doth then show likest God's\n    When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,\n    Though justice be thy plea, consider this-\n    That in the course of justice none of us\n    Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy,\n    And that same prayer doth teach us all to render\n    The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much\n    To mitigate the justice of thy plea,\n    Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice\n    Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.\n  SHYLOCK. My deeds upon my head! I crave the law,\n    The penalty and forfeit of my bond.\n  BASSANIO. Yes; here I tender it for him in the court;\n    Yea, twice the sum; if that will not suffice,\n    I will be bound to pay it ten times o'er\n    On forfeit of my hands, my head, my heart;\n    If this will not suffice, it must appear\n    That malice bears down truth. And, I beseech you,\n    Wrest once the law to your authority;\n    To do a great right do a little wrong,\n    And curb this cruel devil of his will.\n  PORTIA. It must not be; there is no power in Venice\n    Can alter a decree established;\n    'Twill be recorded for a precedent,\n    And many an error, by the same example,\n    Will rush into the state; it cannot be.\n  SHYLOCK. A Daniel come to judgment! Yea, a Daniel!\n    O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!\n  PORTIA. I pray you, let me look upon the bond.\n  SHYLOCK. Here 'tis, most reverend Doctor; here it is.\n  PORTIA. Shylock, there's thrice thy money off'red thee.\n  SHYLOCK. An oath, an oath! I have an oath in heaven.\n    Shall I lay perjury upon my soul?\n    No, not for Venice.\n  PORTIA. Why, this bond is forfeit;\n    And lawfully by this the Jew may claim\n    A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off\n    Nearest the merchant's heart. Be merciful.\n    Take thrice thy money; bid me tear the bond.\n  SHYLOCK. When it is paid according to the tenour.\n    It doth appear you are a worthy judge;\n    You know the law; your exposition\n    Hath been most sound; I charge you by the law,\n    Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar,\n    Proceed to judgment. By my soul I swear\n    There is no power in the tongue of man\n    To alter me. I stay here on my bond.\n  ANTONIO. Most heartily I do beseech the court\n    To give the judgment.\n  PORTIA. Why then, thus it is:\n    You must prepare your bosom for his knife.\n  SHYLOCK. O noble judge! O excellent young man!\n  PORTIA. For the intent and purpose of the law\n    Hath full relation to the penalty,\n    Which here appeareth due upon the bond.\n  SHYLOCK. 'Tis very true. O wise and upright judge,\n    How much more elder art thou than thy looks!\n  PORTIA. Therefore, lay bare your bosom.\n  SHYLOCK. Ay, his breast-\n    So says the bond; doth it not, noble judge?\n    'Nearest his heart,' those are the very words.\n  PORTIA. It is so. Are there balance here to weigh\n    The flesh?\n  SHYLOCK. I have them ready.\n  PORTIA. Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge,\n    To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death.\n  SHYLOCK. Is it so nominated in the bond?\n  PORTIA. It is not so express'd, but what of that?\n    'Twere good you do so much for charity.\n  SHYLOCK. I cannot find it; 'tis not in the bond.\n  PORTIA. You, merchant, have you anything to say?\n  ANTONIO. But little: I am arm'd and well prepar'd.\n    Give me your hand, Bassanio; fare you well.\n    Grieve not that I am fall'n to this for you,\n    For herein Fortune shows herself more kind\n    Than is her custom. It is still her use\n    To let the wretched man outlive his wealth,\n    To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow\n    An age of poverty; from which ling'ring penance\n    Of such misery doth she cut me off.\n    Commend me to your honourable wife;\n    Tell her the process of Antonio's end;\n    Say how I lov'd you; speak me fair in death;\n    And, when the tale is told, bid her be judge\n    Whether Bassanio had not once a love.\n    Repent but you that you shall lose your friend,\n    And he repents not that he pays your debt;\n    For if the Jew do cut but deep enough,\n    I'll pay it instantly with all my heart.\n  BASSANIO. Antonio, I am married to a wife\n    Which is as dear to me as life itself;\n    But life itself, my wife, and all the world,\n    Are not with me esteem'd above thy life;\n    I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all\n    Here to this devil, to deliver you.\n  PORTIA. Your wife would give you little thanks for that,\n    If she were by to hear you make the offer.\n  GRATIANO. I have a wife who I protest I love;\n    I would she were in heaven, so she could\n    Entreat some power to change this currish Jew.\n  NERISSA. 'Tis well you offer it behind her back;\n    The wish would make else an unquiet house.\n  SHYLOCK.  [Aside]  These be the Christian husbands! I have a\n    daughter-\n    Would any of the stock of Barrabas\n    Had been her husband, rather than a Christian!-\n    We trifle time; I pray thee pursue sentence.\n  PORTIA. A pound of that same merchant's flesh is thine.\n    The court awards it and the law doth give it.\n  SHYLOCK. Most rightful judge!\n  PORTIA. And you must cut this flesh from off his breast.\n    The law allows it and the court awards it.\n  SHYLOCK. Most learned judge! A sentence! Come, prepare.\n  PORTIA. Tarry a little; there is something else.\n    This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood:\n    The words expressly are 'a pound of flesh.'\n    Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;\n    But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed\n    One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods\n    Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate\n    Unto the state of Venice.\n  GRATIANO. O upright judge! Mark, Jew. O learned judge!\n  SHYLOCK. Is that the law?\n  PORTIA. Thyself shalt see the act;\n    For, as thou urgest justice, be assur'd\n    Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desir'st.\n  GRATIANO. O learned judge! Mark, Jew. A learned judge!\n  SHYLOCK. I take this offer then: pay the bond thrice,\n    And let the Christian go.\n  BASSANIO. Here is the money.\n  PORTIA. Soft!\n    The Jew shall have all justice. Soft! No haste.\n    He shall have nothing but the penalty.\n  GRATIANO. O Jew! an upright judge, a learned judge!\n  PORTIA. Therefore, prepare thee to cut off the flesh.\n    Shed thou no blood, nor cut thou less nor more\n    But just a pound of flesh; if thou tak'st more\n    Or less than a just pound- be it but so much\n    As makes it light or heavy in the substance,\n    Or the division of the twentieth part\n    Of one poor scruple; nay, if the scale do turn\n    But in the estimation of a hair-\n    Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate.\n  GRATIANO. A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew!\n    Now, infidel, I have you on the hip.\n  PORTIA. Why doth the Jew pause? Take thy forfeiture.\n  SHYLOCK. Give me my principal, and let me go.\n  BASSANIO. I have it ready for thee; here it is.\n  PORTIA. He hath refus'd it in the open court;\n    He shall have merely justice, and his bond.\n  GRATIANO. A Daniel still say I, a second Daniel!\n    I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.\n  SHYLOCK. Shall I not have barely my principal?\n  PORTIA. Thou shalt have nothing but the forfeiture\n    To be so taken at thy peril, Jew.\n  SHYLOCK. Why, then the devil give him good of it!\n    I'll stay no longer question.\n  PORTIA. Tarry, Jew.\n    The law hath yet another hold on you.\n    It is enacted in the laws of Venice,\n    If it be proved against an alien\n    That by direct or indirect attempts\n    He seek the life of any citizen,\n    The party 'gainst the which he doth contrive\n    Shall seize one half his goods; the other half\n    Comes to the privy coffer of the state;\n    And the offender's life lies in the mercy\n    Of the Duke only, 'gainst all other voice.\n    In which predicament, I say, thou stand'st;\n    For it appears by manifest proceeding\n    That indirectly, and directly too,\n    Thou hast contrived against the very life\n    Of the defendant; and thou hast incurr'd\n    The danger formerly by me rehears'd.\n    Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the Duke.\n  GRATIANO. Beg that thou mayst have leave to hang thyself;\n    And yet, thy wealth being forfeit to the state,\n    Thou hast not left the value of a cord;\n    Therefore thou must be hang'd at the state's charge.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. That thou shalt see the difference of our\nspirit,\n    I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it.\n    For half thy wealth, it is Antonio's;\n    The other half comes to the general state,\n    Which humbleness may drive unto a fine.\n  PORTIA. Ay, for the state; not for Antonio.\n  SHYLOCK. Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that.\n    You take my house when you do take the prop\n    That doth sustain my house; you take my life\n    When you do take the means whereby I live.\n  PORTIA. What mercy can you render him, Antonio?\n  GRATIANO. A halter gratis; nothing else, for God's sake!\n  ANTONIO. So please my lord the Duke and all the court\n    To quit the fine for one half of his goods;\n    I am content, so he will let me have\n    The other half in use, to render it\n    Upon his death unto the gentleman\n    That lately stole his daughter-\n    Two things provided more; that, for this favour,\n    He presently become a Christian;\n    The other, that he do record a gift,\n    Here in the court, of all he dies possess'd\n    Unto his son Lorenzo and his daughter.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. He shall do this, or else I do recant\n    The pardon that I late pronounced here.\n  PORTIA. Art thou contented, Jew? What dost thou say?\n  SHYLOCK. I am content.\n  PORTIA. Clerk, draw a deed of gift.\n  SHYLOCK. I pray you, give me leave to go from hence;\n    I am not well; send the deed after me\n    And I will sign it.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Get thee gone, but do it.\n  GRATIANO. In christ'ning shalt thou have two god-fathers;\n    Had I been judge, thou shouldst have had ten more,\n    To bring thee to the gallows, not to the font.\n                                                    Exit SHYLOCK\n  DUKE OF VENICE. Sir, I entreat you home with me to dinner.\n  PORTIA. I humbly do desire your Grace of pardon;\n    I must away this night toward Padua,\n    And it is meet I presently set forth.\n  DUKE OF VENICE. I am sorry that your leisure serves you not.\n    Antonio, gratify this gentleman,\n    For in my mind you are much bound to him.\n                             Exeunt DUKE, MAGNIFICOES, and train\n  BASSANIO. Most worthy gentleman, I and my friend\n    Have by your wisdom been this day acquitted\n    Of grievous penalties; in lieu whereof\n    Three thousand ducats, due unto the Jew,\n    We freely cope your courteous pains withal.\n  ANTONIO. And stand indebted, over and above,\n    In love and service to you evermore.\n  PORTIA. He is well paid that is well satisfied,\n    And I, delivering you, am satisfied,\n    And therein do account myself well paid.\n    My mind was never yet more mercenary.\n    I pray you, know me when we meet again;\n    I wish you well, and so I take my leave.\n  BASSANIO. Dear sir, of force I must attempt you further;\n    Take some remembrance of us, as a tribute,\n    Not as fee. Grant me two things, I pray you,\n    Not to deny me, and to pardon me.\n  PORTIA. You press me far, and therefore I will yield.\n    [To ANTONIO]  Give me your gloves, I'll wear them for your\nsake.\n    [To BASSANIO]  And, for your love, I'll take this ring from\nyou.\n    Do not draw back your hand; I'll take no more,\n    And you in love shall not deny me this.\n  BASSANIO. This ring, good sir- alas, it is a trifle;\n    I will not shame myself to give you this.\n  PORTIA. I will have nothing else but only this;\n    And now, methinks, I have a mind to it.\n  BASSANIO.. There's more depends on this than on the value.\n    The dearest ring in Venice will I give you,\n    And find it out by proclamation;\n    Only for this, I pray you, pardon me.\n  PORTIA. I see, sir, you are liberal in offers;\n    You taught me first to beg, and now, methinks,\n    You teach me how a beggar should be answer'd.\n  BASSANIO. Good sir, this ring was given me by my wife;\n    And, when she put it on, she made me vow\n    That I should neither sell, nor give, nor lose it.\n  PORTIA. That 'scuse serves many men to save their gifts.\n    And if your wife be not a mad woman,\n    And know how well I have deserv'd this ring,\n    She would not hold out enemy for ever\n    For giving it to me. Well, peace be with you!\n                                       Exeunt PORTIA and NERISSA\n  ANTONIO. My Lord Bassanio, let him have the ring.\n    Let his deservings, and my love withal,\n    Be valued 'gainst your wife's commandment.\n  BASSANIO. Go, Gratiano, run and overtake him;\n    Give him the ring, and bring him, if thou canst,\n    Unto Antonio's house. Away, make haste.        Exit GRATIANO\n    Come, you and I will thither presently;\n    And in the morning early will we both\n    Fly toward Belmont. Come, Antonio.                    Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nSCENE II.\nVenice. A street\n\nEnter PORTIA and NERISSA\n\n  PORTIA. Inquire the Jew's house out, give him this deed,\n    And let him sign it; we'll away tonight,\n    And be a day before our husbands home.\n    This deed will be well welcome to Lorenzo.\n\n                          Enter GRATIANO\n\n  GRATIANO. Fair sir, you are well o'erta'en.\n    My Lord Bassanio, upon more advice,\n    Hath sent you here this ring, and doth entreat\n    Your company at dinner.\n  PORTIA. That cannot be.\n    His ring I do accept most thankfully,\n    And so, I pray you, tell him. Furthermore,\n    I pray you show my youth old Shylock's house.\n  GRATIANO. That will I do.\n  NERISSA. Sir, I would speak with you.\n    [Aside to PORTIA]  I'll See if I can get my husband's ring,\n    Which I did make him swear to keep for ever.\n  PORTIA.  [To NERISSA]  Thou Mayst, I warrant. We shall have old\n      swearing\n    That they did give the rings away to men;\n    But we'll outface them, and outswear them too.\n    [Aloud]  Away, make haste, thou know'st where I will tarry.\n  NERISSA. Come, good sir, will you show me to this house?\n                                                          Exeunt\n\n\n\n\nACT V. SCENE I.\nBelmont. The garden before PORTIA'S house\n\nEnter LORENZO and JESSICA\n\n  LORENZO. The moon shines bright. In such a night as this,\n    When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,\n    And they did make no noise- in such a night,\n    Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls,\n    And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents,\n    Where Cressid lay that night.\n  JESSICA. In such a night\n    Did Thisby fearfully o'ertrip the dew,\n    And saw the lion's shadow ere himself,\n    And ran dismayed away.\n  LORENZO. In such a night\n    Stood Dido with a willow in her hand\n    Upon the wild sea-banks, and waft her love\n    To come again to Carthage.\n  JESSICA. In such a night\n    Medea gathered the enchanted herbs\n    That did renew old AEson.\n LORENZO. In such a night\n    Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew,\n    And with an unthrift love did run from Venice\n    As far as Belmont.\n  JESSICA. In such a night\n    Did young Lorenzo swear he lov'd her well,\n    Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,\n    And ne'er a true one.\n  LORENZO. In such a night\n    Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew,\n    Slander her love, and he forgave it her.\n  JESSICA. I would out-night you, did no body come;\n    But, hark, I hear the footing of a man.\n\n                       Enter STEPHANO\n\n  LORENZO. Who comes so fast in silence of the night?\n  STEPHANO. A friend.\n  LORENZO. A friend! What friend? Your name, I pray you, friend?\n  STEPHANO. Stephano is my name, and I bring word\n    My mistress will before the break of day\n    Be here at Belmont; she doth stray about\n    By holy crosses, where she kneels and prays\n    For happy wedlock hours.\n  LORENZO. Who comes with her?\n  STEPHANO. None but a holy hermit and her maid.\n    I pray you, is my master yet return'd?\n  LORENZO. He is not, nor we have not heard from him.\n    But go we in, I pray thee, Jessica,\n    And ceremoniously let us prepare\n    Some welcome for the mistress of the house.\n\n                         Enter LAUNCELOT\n\n  LAUNCELOT. Sola, sola! wo ha, ho! sola, sola!\n  LORENZO. Who calls?\n  LAUNCELOT. Sola! Did you see Master Lorenzo? Master Lorenzo!\nSola,\n    sola!\n  LORENZO. Leave holloaing, man. Here!\n  LAUNCELOT. Sola! Where, where?\n  LORENZO. Here!\n  LAUNCELOT. Tell him there's a post come from my master with his\n    horn full of good news; my master will be here ere morning.\n Exit\n  LORENZO. Sweet soul, let's in, and there expect their coming.\n    And yet no matter- why should we go in?\n    My friend Stephano, signify, I pray you,\n    Within the house, your mistress is at hand;\n    And bring your music forth into the air.       Exit STEPHANO\n    How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!\n    Here will we sit and let the sounds of music\n    Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night\n    Become the touches of sweet harmony.\n    Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven\n    Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;\n    There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st\n    But in his motion like an angel sings,\n    Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubins;\n    Such harmony is in immortal souls,\n    But whilst this muddy vesture of decay\n    Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.\n\n                          Enter MUSICIANS\n\n    Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn;\n    With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear.\n    And draw her home with music.                        [Music]\n  JESSICA. I am never merry when I hear sweet music.\n  LORENZO. The reason is your spirits are attentive;\n    For do but note a wild and wanton herd,\n    Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,\n    Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,\n    Which is the hot condition of their blood-\n    If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,\n    Or any air of music touch their ears,\n    You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,\n    Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze\n    By the sweet power of music. Therefore the poet\n    Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;\n    Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,\n    But music for the time doth change his nature.\n    The man that hath no music in himself,\n    Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,\n    Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;\n    The motions of his spirit are dull:as night,\n    And his affections dark as Erebus.\n    Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.\n\n                    Enter PORTIA and NERISSA\n\n  PORTIA. That light we see is burning in my hall.\n    How far that little candle throws his beams!\n    So shines a good deed in a naughty world.\n  NERISSA. When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.\n  PORTIA. So doth the greater glory dim the less:\n    A substitute shines brightly as a king\n    Until a king be by, and then his state\n    Empties itself, as doth an inland brook\n    Into the main of waters. Music! hark!\n  NERISSA. It is your music, madam, of the house.\n  PORTIA. Nothing is good, I see, without respect;\n    Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.\n  NERISSA. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.\n  PORTIA. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark\n    When neither is attended; and I think\n    ne nightingale, if she should sing by day,\n    When every goose is cackling, would be thought\n    No better a musician than the wren.\n    How many things by season season'd are\n    To their right praise and true perfection!\n    Peace, ho! The moon sleeps with Endymion,\n    And would not be awak'd.                      [Music ceases]\n  LORENZO. That is the voice,\n    Or I am much deceiv'd, of Portia.\n  PORTIA. He knows me as the blind man knows the cuckoo,\n    By the bad voice.\n  LORENZO. Dear lady, welcome home.\n  PORTIA. We have been praying for our husbands' welfare,\n    Which speed, we hope, the better for our words.\n    Are they return'd?\n  LORENZO. Madam, they are not yet;\n    But there is come a messenger before,\n    To signify their coming.\n  PORTIA.. Go in, Nerissa;\n    Give order to my servants that they take\n    No note at all of our being absent hence;\n    Nor you, Lorenzo; Jessica, nor you.        [A tucket sounds]\n  LORENZO. Your husband is at hand; I hear his trumpet.\n    We are no tell-tales, madam, fear you not.\n  PORTIA. This night methinks is but the daylight sick;\n    It looks a little paler; 'tis a day\n    Such as the day is when the sun is hid.\n\n       Enter BASSANIO, ANTONIO, GRATIANO, and their followers\n\n  BASSANIO. We should hold day with the Antipodes,\n    If you would walk in absence of the sun.\n  PORTIA. Let me give light, but let me not be light,\n    For a light wife doth make a heavy husband,\n    And never be Bassanio so for me;\n    But God sort all! You are welcome home, my lord.\n  BASSANIO. I thank you, madam; give welcome to my friend.\n    This is the man, this is Antonio,\n    To whom I am so infinitely bound.\n  PORTIA. You should in all sense be much bound to him,\n    For, as I hear, he was much bound for you.\n  ANTONIO. No more than I am well acquitted of.\n  PORTIA. Sir, you are very welcome to our house.\n    It must appear in other ways than words,\n    Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy.\n  GRATIANO.  [To NERISSA]  By yonder moon I swear you do me\nwrong;\n    In faith, I gave it to the judge's clerk.\n    Would he were gelt that had it, for my part,\n    Since you do take it, love, so much at heart.\n  PORTIA. A quarrel, ho, already! What's the matter?\n  GRATIANO. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring\n    That she did give me, whose posy was\n    For all the world like cutler's poetry\n    Upon a knife, 'Love me, and leave me not.'\n  NERISSA. What talk you of the posy or the value?\n    You swore to me, when I did give it you,\n    That you would wear it till your hour of death,\n    And that it should lie with you in your grave;\n    Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths,\n    You should have been respective and have kept it.\n    Gave it a judge's clerk! No, God's my judge,\n    The clerk will ne'er wear hair on's face that had it.\n  GRATIANO. He will, an if he live to be a man.\n  NERISSA. Ay, if a woman live to be a man.\n  GRATIANO. Now by this hand I gave it to a youth,\n    A kind of boy, a little scrubbed boy\n    No higher than thyself, the judge's clerk;\n    A prating boy that begg'd it as a fee;\n    I could not for my heart deny it him.\n  PORTIA. You were to blame, I must be plain with you,\n    To part so slightly with your wife's first gift,\n    A thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger\n    And so riveted with faith unto your flesh.\n    I gave my love a ring, and made him swear\n    Never to part with it, and here he stands;\n    I dare be sworn for him he would not leave it\n    Nor pluck it from his finger for the wealth\n    That the world masters. Now, in faith, Gratiano,\n    You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief;\n    An 'twere to me, I should be mad at it.\n  BASSANIO.  [Aside]  Why, I were best to cut my left hand off,\n    And swear I lost the ring defending it.\n  GRATIANO. My Lord Bassanio gave his ring away\n    Unto the judge that begg'd it, and indeed\n    Deserv'd it too; and then the boy, his clerk,\n    That took some pains in writing, he begg'd mine;\n    And neither man nor master would take aught\n    But the two rings.\n  PORTIA. What ring gave you, my lord?\n    Not that, I hope, which you receiv'd of me.\n  BASSANIO. If I could add a lie unto a fault,\n    I would deny it; but you see my finger\n    Hath not the ring upon it; it is gone.\n  PORTIA. Even so void is your false heart of truth;\n    By heaven, I will ne'er come in your bed\n    Until I see the ring.\n  NERISSA. Nor I in yours\n    Till I again see mine.\n  BASSANIO. Sweet Portia,\n    If you did know to whom I gave the ring,\n    If you did know for whom I gave the ring,\n    And would conceive for what I gave the ring,\n    And how unwillingly I left the ring,\n    When nought would be accepted but the ring,\n    You would abate the strength of your displeasure.\n  PORTIA. If you had known the virtue of the ring,\n    Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,\n    Or your own honour to contain the ring,\n    You would not then have parted with the ring.\n    What man is there so much unreasonable,\n    If you had pleas'd to have defended it\n    With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty\n    To urge the thing held as a ceremony?\n    Nerissa teaches me what to believe:\n    I'll die for't but some woman had the ring.\n  BASSANIO. No, by my honour, madam, by my soul,\n    No woman had it, but a civil doctor,\n    Which did refuse three thousand ducats of me,\n    And begg'd the ring; the which I did deny him,\n    And suffer'd him to go displeas'd away-\n    Even he that had held up the very life\n    Of my dear friend. What should I say, sweet lady?\n    I was enforc'd to send it after him;\n    I was beset with shame and courtesy;\n    My honour would not let ingratitude\n    So much besmear it. Pardon me, good lady;\n    For by these blessed candles of the night,\n    Had you been there, I think you would have begg'd\n    The ring of me to give the worthy doctor.\n  PORTIA. Let not that doctor e'er come near my house;\n    Since he hath got the jewel that I loved,\n    And that which you did swear to keep for me,\n    I will become as liberal as you;\n    I'll not deny him anything I have,\n    No, not my body, nor my husband's bed.\n    Know him I shall, I am well sure of it.\n    Lie not a night from home; watch me like Argus;\n    If you do not, if I be left alone,\n    Now, by mine honour which is yet mine own,\n    I'll have that doctor for mine bedfellow.\n  NERISSA. And I his clerk; therefore be well advis'd\n    How you do leave me to mine own protection.\n  GRATIANO. Well, do you so, let not me take him then;\n    For, if I do, I'll mar the young clerk's pen.\n  ANTONIO. I am th' unhappy subject of these quarrels.\n  PORTIA. Sir, grieve not you; you are welcome not withstanding.\n  BASSANIO. Portia, forgive me this enforced wrong;\n    And in the hearing of these many friends\n    I swear to thee, even by thine own fair eyes,\n    Wherein I see myself-\n  PORTIA. Mark you but that!\n    In both my eyes he doubly sees himself,\n    In each eye one; swear by your double self,\n    And there's an oath of credit.\n  BASSANIO. Nay, but hear me.\n    Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear\n    I never more will break an oath with thee.\n  ANTONIO. I once did lend my body for his wealth,\n    Which, but for him that had your husband's ring,\n    Had quite miscarried; I dare be bound again,\n    My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord\n    Will never more break faith advisedly.\n  PORTIA. Then you shall be his surety. Give him this,\n    And bid him keep it better than the other.\n  ANTONIO. Here, Lord Bassanio, swear to keep this ring.\n  BASSANIO. By heaven, it is the same I gave the doctor!\n  PORTIA. I had it of him. Pardon me, Bassanio,\n    For, by this ring, the doctor lay with me.\n  NERISSA. And pardon me, my gentle Gratiano,\n    For that same scrubbed boy, the doctor's clerk,\n    In lieu of this, last night did lie with me.\n  GRATIANO. Why, this is like the mending of highways\n    In summer, where the ways are fair enough.\n    What, are we cuckolds ere we have deserv'd it?\n  PORTIA. Speak not so grossly. You are all amaz'd.\n    Here is a letter; read it at your leisure;\n    It comes from Padua, from Bellario;\n    There you shall find that Portia was the doctor,\n    Nerissa there her clerk. Lorenzo here\n    Shall witness I set forth as soon as you,\n    And even but now return'd; I have not yet\n    Enter'd my house. Antonio, you are welcome;\n    And I have better news in store for you\n    Than you expect. Unseal this letter soon;\n    There you shall find three of your argosies\n    Are richly come to harbour suddenly.\n    You shall not know by what strange accident\n    I chanced on this letter.\n  ANTONIO. I am dumb.\n  BASSANIO. Were you the doctor, and I knew you not?\n  GRATIANO. Were you the clerk that is to make me cuckold?\n  NERISSA. Ay, but the clerk that never means to do it,\n    Unless he live until he be a man.\n  BASSANIO. Sweet doctor, you shall be my bedfellow;\n    When I am absent, then lie with my wife.\n  ANTONIO. Sweet lady, you have given me life and living;\n    For here I read for certain that my ships\n    Are safely come to road.\n  PORTIA. How now, Lorenzo!\n    My clerk hath some good comforts too for you.\n  NERISSA. Ay, and I'll give them him without a fee.\n    There do I give to you and Jessica,\n    From the rich Jew, a special deed of gift,\n    After his death, of all he dies possess'd of.\n  LORENZO. Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way\n    Of starved people.\n  PORTIA. It is almost morning,\n    And yet I am sure you are not satisfied\n    Of these events at full. Let us go in,\n    And charge us there upon inter'gatories,\n    And we will answer all things faithfully.\n  GRATIANO. Let it be so. The first inter'gatory\n    That my Nerissa shall be sworn on is,\n    Whether till the next night she had rather stay,\n    Or go to bed now, being two hours to day.\n    But were the day come, I should wish it dark,\n    Till I were couching with the doctor's clerk.\n    Well, while I live, I'll fear no other thing\n    So sore as keeping safe Nerissa's ring.               Exeunt\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nThe Merchant of Venice"}
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{"1115":"\n\n\n\n\n1598\n\nTHE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH\n\n\nby William Shakespeare\n\n\n\nDramatis Personae\n\n  King Henry the Fourth.\n  Henry, Prince of Wales, son to the King.\n  Prince John of Lancaster, son to the King.\n  Earl of Westmoreland.\n  Sir Walter Blunt.\n  Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester.\n  Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland.\n  Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur, his son.\n  Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March.\n  Richard Scroop, Archbishop of York.\n  Archibald, Earl of Douglas.\n  Owen Glendower.\n  Sir Richard Vernon.\n  Sir John Falstaff.\n  Sir Michael, a friend to the Archbishop of York.\n  Poins.\n  Gadshill\n  Peto.\n  Bardolph.\n\n  Lady Percy, wife to Hotspur, and sister to Mortimer.\n  Lady Mortimer, daughter to Glendower, and wife to Mortimer.\n  Mistress Quickly, hostess of the Boar's Head in Eastcheap.\n\n  Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers, two\n    Carriers, Travellers, and Attendants.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSCENE.--England and Wales.\n\n\nACT I. Scene I.\nLondon. The Palace.\n\nEnter the King, Lord John of Lancaster, Earl of Westmoreland,\n[Sir Walter Blunt,] with others.\n\n  King. So shaken as we are, so wan with care,\n    Find we a time for frighted peace to pant\n    And breathe short-winded accents of new broils\n    To be commenc'd in stronds afar remote.\n    No more the thirsty entrance of this soil\n    Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood.\n    No more shall trenching war channel her fields,\n    Nor Bruise her flow'rets with the armed hoofs\n    Of hostile paces. Those opposed eyes\n    Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,\n    All of one nature, of one substance bred,\n    Did lately meet in the intestine shock\n    And furious close of civil butchery,\n    Shall now in mutual well-beseeming ranks\n    March all one way and be no more oppos'd\n    Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies.\n    The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,\n    No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,\n    As far as to the sepulchre of Christ-\n    Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross\n    We are impressed and engag'd to fight-\n    Forthwith a power of English shall we levy,\n    Whose arms were moulded in their mother's womb\n    To chase these pagans in those holy fields\n    Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet\n    Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd\n    For our advantage on the bitter cross.\n    But this our purpose now is twelvemonth old,\n    And bootless 'tis to tell you we will go.\n    Therefore we meet not now. Then let me hear\n    Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,\n    What yesternight our Council did decree\n    In forwarding this dear expedience.\n  West. My liege, this haste was hot in question\n    And many limits of the charge set down\n    But yesternight; when all athwart there came\n    A post from Wales, loaden with heavy news;\n    Whose worst was that the noble Mortimer,\n    Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight\n    Against the irregular and wild Glendower,\n    Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,\n    A thousand of his people butchered;\n    Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse,\n    Such beastly shameless transformation,\n    By those Welshwomen done as may not be\n    Without much shame retold or spoken of.\n  King. It seems then that the tidings of this broil\n    Brake off our business for the Holy Land.\n  West. This, match'd with other, did, my gracious lord;\n    For more uneven and unwelcome news\n    Came from the North, and thus it did import:\n    On Holy-rood Day the gallant Hotspur there,\n    Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald,\n    That ever-valiant and approved Scot,\n    At Holmedon met,\n    Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour;\n    As by discharge of their artillery\n    And shape of likelihood the news was told;\n    For he that brought them, in the very heat\n    And pride of their contention did take horse,\n    Uncertain of the issue any way.\n  King. Here is a dear, a true-industrious friend,\n    Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,\n    Stain'd with the variation of each soil\n    Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours,\n    And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.\n    The Earl of Douglas is discomfited;\n    Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights,\n    Balk'd in their own blood did Sir Walter see\n    On Holmedon's plains. Of prisoners, Hotspur took\n    Mordake Earl of Fife and eldest son\n    To beaten Douglas, and the Earl of Athol,\n    Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith.\n    And is not this an honourable spoil?\n    A gallant prize? Ha, cousin, is it not?\n  West. In faith,\n    It is a conquest for a prince to boast of.\n  King. Yea, there thou mak'st me sad, and mak'st me sin\n    In envy that my Lord Northumberland\n    Should be the father to so blest a son-\n    A son who is the theme of honour's tongue,\n    Amongst a grove the very straightest plant;\n    Who is sweet Fortune's minion and her pride;\n    Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,\n    See riot and dishonour stain the brow\n    Of my young Harry. O that it could be prov'd\n    That some night-tripping fairy had exchang'd\n    In cradle clothes our children where they lay,\n    And call'd mine Percy, his Plantagenet!\n    Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.\n    But let him from my thoughts. What think you, coz,\n    Of this young Percy's pride? The prisoners\n    Which he in this adventure hath surpris'd\n    To his own use he keeps, and sends me word\n    I shall have none but Mordake Earl of Fife.\n  West. This is his uncle's teaching, this Worcester,\n    Malevolent to you In all aspects,\n    Which makes him prune himself and bristle up\n    The crest of youth against your dignity.\n  King. But I have sent for him to answer this;\n    And for this cause awhile we must neglect\n    Our holy purpose to Jerusalem.\n    Cousin, on Wednesday next our council we\n    Will hold at Windsor. So inform the lords;\n    But come yourself with speed to us again;\n    For more is to be said and to be done\n    Than out of anger can be uttered.\n  West. I will my liege.                                 Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nLondon. An apartment of the Prince's.\n\nEnter Prince of Wales and Sir John Falstaff.\n\n  Fal. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?\n  Prince. Thou art so fat-witted with drinking of old sack, and\n    unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches\nafter\n    noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which\nthou\n    wouldest truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the\ntime\n    of the day, Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes\ncapons,\n    and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of\nleaping\n    houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in\n    flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be\nso\n    superfluous to demand the time of the day.\n  Fal. Indeed you come near me now, Hal; for we that take purses\ngo\n    by the moon And the seven stars, and not by Phoebus, he, that\n    wand'ring knight so fair. And I prithee, sweet wag, when thou\nart\n    king, as, God save thy Grace-Majesty I should say, for grace\nthou\n    wilt have none-\n  Prince. What, none?\n  Fal. No, by my troth; not so much as will serve to be prologue\nto\n    an egg and butter.\n  Prince. Well, how then? Come, roundly, roundly.\n  Fal. Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us\nthat\n    are squires of the night's body be called thieves of the\nday's\n    beauty. Let us be Diana's Foresters, Gentlemen of the Shade,\n    Minions of the Moon; and let men say we be men of good\n    government, being governed as the sea is, by our noble and\nchaste\n    mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.\n  Prince. Thou sayest well, and it holds well too; for the\nfortune of\n    us that are the moon's men doth ebb and flow like the sea,\nbeing\n    governed, as the sea is, by the moon. As, for proof now: a\npurse\n    of gold most resolutely snatch'd on Monday night and most\n    dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with swearing 'Lay\nby,'\n    and spent with crying 'Bring in'; now ill as low an ebb as\nthe\n    foot of the ladder, and by-and-by in as high a flow as the\nridge\n    of the gallows.\n  Fal. By the Lord, thou say'st true, lad- and is not my hostess\nof\n    the tavern a most sweet wench?\n  Prince. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle- and is\nnot\n    a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?\n  Fal. How now, how now, mad wag? What, in thy quips and thy\n    quiddities? What a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?\n  Prince. Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the\ntavern?\n  Fal. Well, thou hast call'd her to a reckoning many a time and\noft.\n  Prince. Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?\n  Fal. No; I'll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there.\n  Prince. Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch;\nand\n    where it would not, I have used my credit.\n  Fal. Yea, and so us'd it that, were it not here apparent that\nthou\n    art heir apparent- But I prithee, sweet wag, shall there be\n    gallows standing in England when thou art king? and\nresolution\n    thus fubb'd as it is with the rusty curb of old father antic\nthe\n    law? Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.\n  Prince. No; thou shalt.\n  Fal. Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I'll be a brave judge.\n  Prince. Thou judgest false already. I mean, thou shalt have the\n    hanging of the thieves and so become a rare hangman.\n  Fal. Well, Hal, well; and in some sort it jumps with my humour\nas\n    well as waiting in the court, I can tell you.\n  Prince. For obtaining of suits?\n  Fal. Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman hath no\nlean\n    wardrobe. 'Sblood, I am as melancholy as a gib-cat or a\nlugg'd\n    bear.\n  Prince. Or an old lion, or a lover's lute.\n  Fal. Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.\n  Prince. What sayest thou to a hare, or the melancholy of Moor\n    Ditch?\n  Fal. Thou hast the most unsavoury similes, and art indeed the\nmost\n    comparative, rascalliest, sweet young prince. But, Hal, I\nprithee\n    trouble me no more with vanity. I would to God thou and I\nknew\n    where a commodity of good names were to be bought. An old\nlord of\n    the Council rated me the other day in the street about you,\nsir,\n    but I mark'd him not; and yet he talked very wisely, but I\n    regarded him not; and yet he talk'd wisely, and in the street\n    too.\n  Prince. Thou didst well; for wisdom cries out in the streets,\nand\n    no man regards it.\n  Fal. O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to\n    corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon me, Hal- God\n    forgive thee for it! Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing;\nand\n    now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one\nof\n    the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it\nover!\n    By the Lord, an I do not, I am a villain! I'll be damn'd for\n    never a king's son in Christendom.\n  Prince. Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack?\n  Fal. Zounds, where thou wilt, lad! I'll make one. An I do not,\ncall\n    me villain and baffle me.\n  Prince. I see a good amendment of life in thee- from praying to\n    purse-taking.\n  Fal. Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation, Hal. 'Tis no sin for a man to\n    labour in his vocation.\n\n                             Enter Poins.\n\n    Poins! Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a match. O, if\nmen\n    were to be saved by merit, what hole in hell were hot enough\nfor\n    him? This is the most omnipotent villain that ever cried\n'Stand!'\n    to a true man.\n  Prince. Good morrow, Ned.\n  Poins. Good morrow, sweet Hal. What says Monsieur Remorse? What\n\n    says Sir John Sack and Sugar? Jack, how agrees the devil and\nthee\n    about thy soul, that thou soldest him on Good Friday last for\na\n    cup of Madeira and a cold capon's leg?\n  Prince. Sir John stands to his word, the devil shall have his\n    bargain; for he was never yet a breaker of proverbs. He will\ngive\n    the devil his due.\n  Poins. Then art thou damn'd for keeping thy word with the\ndevil.\n  Prince. Else he had been damn'd for cozening the devil.\n  Poins. But, my lads, my lads, to-morrow morning, by four\no'clock\n    early, at Gadshill! There are pilgrims gong to Canterbury\nwith\n    rich offerings, and traders riding to London with fat purses.\nI\n    have vizards for you all; you have horses for yourselves.\n    Gadshill lies to-night in Rochester. I have bespoke supper\n    to-morrow night in Eastcheap. We may do it as secure as\nsleep. If\n    you will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns; if you\nwill\n    not, tarry at home and be hang'd!\n  Fal. Hear ye, Yedward: if I tarry at home and go not, I'll hang\nyou\n    for going.\n  Poins. You will, chops?\n  Fal. Hal, wilt thou make one?\n  Prince. Who, I rob? I a thief? Not I, by my faith.\n  Fal. There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in\nthee,\n    nor thou cam'st not of the blood royal if thou darest not\nstand\n    for ten shillings.\n  Prince. Well then, once in my days I'll be a madcap.\n  Fal. Why, that's well said.\n  Prince. Well, come what will, I'll tarry at home.\n  Fal. By the Lord, I'll be a traitor then, when thou art king.\n  Prince. I care not.\n  Poins. Sir John, I prithee, leave the Prince and me alone. I\nwill\n    lay him down such reasons for this adventure that he shall\ngo.\n  Fal. Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion and him the\nears\n    of profiting, that what thou speakest may move and what he\nhears\n    may be believed, that the true prince may (for recreation\nsake)\n    prove a false thief; for the poor abuses of the time want\n    countenance. Farewell; you shall find me in Eastcheap.\n  Prince. Farewell, thou latter spring! farewell, All-hallown\nsummer!\n                                                  Exit Falstaff.\n  Poins. Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us to-morrow. I\n    have a jest to execute that I cannot manage alone. Falstaff,\n\n    Bardolph, Peto, and Gadshill shall rob those men that we have\n    already waylaid; yourself and I will not be there; and when\nthey\n    have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut this head\noff\n    from my shoulders.\n  Prince. How shall we part with them in setting forth?\n  Poins. Why, we will set forth before or after them and appoint\nthem\n    a place of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure to fail;\nand\n    then will they adventure upon the exploit themselves; which\nthey\n    shall have no sooner achieved, but we'll set upon them.\n  Prince. Yea, but 'tis like that they will know us by our\nhorses, by\n    our habits, and by every other appointment, to be ourselves.\n  Poins. Tut! our horses they shall not see- I'll tie them in the\n    wood; our wizards we will change after we leave them; and,\n    sirrah, I have cases of buckram for the nonce, to immask our\n    noted outward garments.\n  Prince. Yea, but I doubt they will be too hard for us.\n  Poins. Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true-bred\n    cowards as ever turn'd back; and for the third, if he fight\n    longer than he sees reason, I'll forswear arms. The virtue of\n    this jest will lie the incomprehensible lies that this same\nfat\n    rogue will tell us when we meet at supper: how thirty, at\nleast,\n    he fought with; what wards, what blows, what extremities he\n    endured; and in the reproof of this lies the jest.\n  Prince. Well, I'll go with thee. Provide us all things\nnecessary\n    and meet me to-night in Eastcheap. There I'll sup. Farewell.\n  Poins. Farewell, my lord.                                Exit.\n  Prince. I know you all, and will awhile uphold\n    The unyok'd humour of your idleness.\n    Yet herein will I imitate the sun,\n    Who doth permit the base contagious clouds\n    To smother up his beauty from the world,\n    That, when he please again to lie himself,\n    Being wanted, he may be more wond'red at\n    By breaking through the foul and ugly mists\n    Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.\n    If all the year were playing holidays,\n    To sport would be as tedious as to work;\n    But when they seldom come, they wish'd-for come,\n    And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.\n    So, when this loose behaviour I throw off\n    And pay the debt I never promised,\n    By how much better than my word I am,\n    By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;\n    And, like bright metal on a sullen ground,\n    My reformation, glitt'ring o'er my fault,\n    Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes\n    Than that which hath no foil to set it off.\n    I'll so offend to make offence a skill,\n    Redeeming time when men think least I will.            Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nLondon. The Palace.\n\nEnter the King, Northumberland, Worcester, Hotspur, Sir Walter\nBlunt,\nwith others.\n\n  King. My blood hath been too cold and temperate,\n    Unapt to stir at these indignities,\n    And you have found me, for accordingly\n    You tread upon my patience; but be sure\n    I will from henceforth rather be myself,\n    Mighty and to be fear'd, than my condition,\n    Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,\n    And therefore lost that title of respect\n    Which the proud soul ne'er pays but to the proud.\n  Wor. Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves\n    The scourge of greatness to be us'd on it-\n    And that same greatness too which our own hands\n    Have holp to make so portly.\n  North. My lord-\n  King. Worcester, get thee gone; for I do see\n    Danger and disobedience in thine eye.\n    O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,\n    And majesty might never yet endure\n    The moody frontier of a servant brow.\n    Tou have good leave to leave us. When we need\n    'Your use and counsel, we shall send for you.\n                                                 Exit Worcester.\n    You were about to speak.\n  North. Yea, my good lord.\n    Those prisoners in your Highness' name demanded\n    Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,\n    Were, as he says, not with such strength denied\n    As is delivered to your Majesty.\n    Either envy, therefore, or misprision\n    Is guilty of this fault, and not my son.\n  Hot. My liege, I did deny no prisoners.\n    But I remember, when the fight was done,\n    When I was dry with rage and extreme toll,\n    Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,\n    Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dress'd,\n    Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd\n    Show'd like a stubble land at harvest home.\n    He was perfumed like a milliner,\n    And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held\n    A pouncet box, which ever and anon\n    He gave his nose, and took't away again;\n    Who therewith angry, when it next came there,\n    Took it in snuff; and still he smil'd and talk'd;\n    And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,\n    He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,\n    To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse\n    Betwixt the wind and his nobility.\n    With many holiday and lady terms\n    He questioned me, amongst the rest demanded\n    My prisoners in your Majesty's behalf.\n    I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,\n    To be so pest'red with a popingay,\n    Out of my grief and my impatience\n    Answer'd neglectingly, I know not what-\n    He should, or he should not; for he made me mad\n    To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,\n    And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman\n    Of guns and drums and wounds- God save the mark!-\n    And telling me the sovereignest thing on earth\n    Was parmacity for an inward bruise;\n    And that it was great pity, so it was,\n    This villanous saltpetre should be digg'd\n    Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,\n    Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd\n    So cowardly; and but for these vile 'guns,\n    He would himself have been a soldier.\n    This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,\n    I answered indirectly, as I said,\n    And I beseech you, let not his report\n    Come current for an accusation\n    Betwixt my love and your high majesty.\n  Blunt. The circumstance considered, good my lord,\n    Whate'er Lord Harry Percy then had said\n    To such a person, and in such a place,\n    At such a time, with all the rest retold,\n    May reasonably die, and never rise\n    To do him wrong, or any way impeach\n    What then he said, so he unsay it now.\n  King. Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners,\n    But with proviso and exception,\n    That we at our own charge shall ransom straight\n    His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;\n    Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray'd\n    The lives of those that he did lead to fight\n    Against that great magician, damn'd Glendower,\n    Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March\n    Hath lately married. Shall our coffers, then,\n    Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?\n    Shall we buy treason? and indent with fears\n    When they have lost and forfeited themselves?\n    No, on the barren mountains let him starve!\n    For I shall never hold that man my friend\n    Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost\n    To ransom home revolted Mortimer.\n  Hot. Revolted Mortimer?\n    He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,\n    But by the chance of war. To prove that true\n    Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds,\n    Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took\n    When on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank,\n    In single opposition hand to hand,\n    He did confound the best part of an hour\n    In changing hardiment with great Glendower.\n    Three times they breath'd, and three times did they drink,\n    Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood;\n    Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,\n    Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds\n    And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank,\n    Bloodstained with these valiant cohabitants.\n    Never did base and rotten policy\n    Colour her working with such deadly wounds;\n    Nor never could the noble Mortimer\n    Receive so many, and all willingly.\n    Then let not him be slandered with revolt.\n  King. Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him!\n    He never did encounter with Glendower.\n    I tell thee\n    He durst as well have met the devil alone\n    As Owen Glendower for an enemy.\n    Art thou not asham'd? But, sirrah, henceforth\n    Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer.\n    Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,\n    Or you shall hear in such a kind from me\n    As will displease you. My Lord Northumberland,\n    We license your departure with your son.-\n    Send us your prisoners, or you will hear of it.\n                                 Exeunt King, [Blunt, and Train]\n  Hot. An if the devil come and roar for them,\n    I will not send them. I will after straight\n    And tell him so; for I will else my heart,\n    Albeit I make a hazard of my head.\n  North. What, drunk with choler? Stay, and pause awhile.\n    Here comes your uncle.\n\n                          Enter Worcester.\n\n  Hot. Speak of Mortimer?\n    Zounds, I will speak of him, and let my soul\n    Want mercy if I do not join with him!\n    Yea, on his part I'll empty all these veins,\n    And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust,\n    But I will lift the downtrod Mortimer\n    As high in the air as this unthankful king,\n    As this ingrate and cank'red Bolingbroke.\n  North. Brother, the King hath made your nephew mad.\n  Wor. Who struck this heat up after I was gone?\n  Hot. He will (forsooth) have all my prisoners;\n    And when I urg'd the ransom once again\n    Of my wive's brother, then his cheek look'd pale,\n    And on my face he turn'd an eye of death,\n    Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.\n  Wor. I cannot blame him. Was not he proclaim'd\n    By Richard that dead is, the next of blood?\n  North. He was; I heard the proclamation.\n    And then it was when the unhappy King\n    (Whose wrongs in us God pardon!) did set forth\n    Upon his Irish expedition;\n    From whence he intercepted did return\n    To be depos'd, and shortly murdered.\n  Wor. And for whose death we in the world's wide mouth\n    Live scandaliz'd and foully spoken of.\n  Hot. But soft, I pray you. Did King Richard then\n    Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer\n    Heir to the crown?\n  North. He did; myself did hear it.\n  Hot. Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin king,\n    That wish'd him on the barren mountains starve.\n    But shall it be that you, that set the crown\n    Upon the head of this forgetful man,\n    And for his sake wear the detested blot\n    Of murtherous subornation- shall it be\n    That you a world of curses undergo,\n    Being the agents or base second means,\n    The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather?\n    O, pardon me that I descend so low\n    To show the line and the predicament\n    Wherein you range under this subtile king!\n    Shall it for shame be spoken in these days,\n    Or fill up chronicles in time to come,\n    That men of your nobility and power\n    Did gage them both in an unjust behalf\n    (As both of you, God pardon it! have done)\n    To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,\n    And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke?\n    And shall it in more shame be further spoken\n    That you are fool'd, discarded, and shook off\n    By him for whom these shames ye underwent?\n    No! yet time serves wherein you may redeem\n    Your banish'd honours and restore yourselves\n    Into the good thoughts of the world again;\n    Revenge the jeering and disdain'd contempt\n    Of this proud king, who studies day and night\n    To answer all the debt he owes to you\n    Even with the bloody payment of your deaths.\n    Therefore I say-\n  Wor. Peace, cousin, say no more;\n    And now, I will unclasp a secret book,\n    And to your quick-conceiving discontents\n    I'll read you matter deep and dangerous,\n    As full of peril and adventurous spirit\n    As to o'erwalk a current roaring loud\n    On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.\n  Hot. If he fall in, good night, or sink or swim!\n    Send danger from the east unto the west,\n    So honour cross it from the north to south,\n    And let them grapple. O, the blood more stirs\n    To rouse a lion than to start a hare!\n  North. Imagination of some great exploit\n    Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.\n  Hot. By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap\n    To pluck bright honour from the pale-fac'd moon,\n    Or dive into the bottom of the deep,\n    Where fadom line could never touch the ground,\n    And pluck up drowned honour by the locks,\n    So he that doth redeem her thence might wear\n    Without corrival all her dignities;\n    But out upon this half-fac'd fellowship!\n  Wor. He apprehends a world of figures here,\n    But not the form of what he should attend.\n    Good cousin, give me audience for a while.\n  Hot. I cry you mercy.\n  Wor. Those same noble Scots\n    That are your prisoners-\n  Hot. I'll keep them all.\n    By God, he shall not have a Scot of them!\n    No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not.\n    I'll keep them, by this hand!\n  Wor. You start away.\n    And lend no ear unto my purposes.\n    Those prisoners you shall keep.\n  Hot. Nay, I will! That is flat!\n    He said he would not ransom Mortimer,\n    Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer,\n    But I will find him when he lies asleep,\n    And in his ear I'll holloa 'Mortimer.'\n    Nay;\n    I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak\n    Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him\n    To keep his anger still in motion.\n  Wor. Hear you, cousin, a word.\n  Hot. All studies here I solemnly defy\n    Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke;\n    And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales-\n    But that I think his father loves him not\n    And would be glad he met with some mischance,\n    I would have him poisoned with a pot of ale.\n  Wor. Farewell, kinsman. I will talk to you\n    When you are better temper'd to attend.\n  North. Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool\n    Art thou to break into this woman's mood,\n    Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own!\n  Hot. Why, look you, I am whipp'd and scourg'd with rods,\n    Nettled, and stung with pismires when I hear\n    Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke.\n    In Richard's time- what do you call the place-\n    A plague upon it! it is in GIoucestershire-\n    'Twas where the madcap Duke his uncle kept-\n    His uncle York- where I first bow'd my knee\n    Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke-\n    'S blood!\n    When you and he came back from Ravenspurgh-\n  North. At Berkeley Castle.\n  Hot. You say true.\n    Why, what a candy deal of courtesy\n    This fawning greyhound then did proffer me!\n    Look, 'when his infant fortune came to age,'\n    And 'gentle Harry Percy,' and 'kind cousin'-\n    O, the devil take such cozeners!- God forgive me!\n    Good uncle, tell your tale, for I have done.\n  Wor. Nay, if you have not, to it again.\n    We will stay your leisure.\n  Hot. I have done, i' faith.\n  Wor. Then once more to your Scottish prisoners.\n    Deliver them up without their ransom straight,\n    And make the Douglas' son your only mean\n    For powers In Scotland; which, for divers reasons\n    Which I shall send you written, be assur'd\n    Will easily be granted. [To Northumberland] You, my lord,\n    Your son in Scotland being thus employ'd,\n    Shall secretly into the bosom creep\n    Of that same noble prelate well-belov'd,\n    The Archbishop.\n  Hot. Of York, is it not?\n  Wor. True; who bears hard\n    His brother's death at Bristow, the Lord Scroop.\n    I speak not this in estimation,\n    As what I think might be, but what I know\n    Is ruminated, plotted, and set down,\n    And only stays but to behold the face\n    Of that occasion that shall bring it on.\n  Hot. I smell it. Upon my life, it will do well.\n  North. Before the game is afoot thou still let'st slip.\n  Hot. Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot.\n    And then the power of Scotland and of York\n    To join with Mortimer, ha?\n  Wor. And so they shall.\n  Hot. In faith, it is exceedingly well aim'd.\n  Wor. And 'tis no little reason bids us speed,\n    To save our heads by raising of a head;\n    For, bear ourselves as even as we can,\n    The King will always think him in our debt,\n    And think we think ourselves unsatisfied,\n    Till he hath found a time to pay us home.\n    And see already how he doth begin\n    To make us strangers to his looks of love.\n  Hot. He does, he does! We'll be reveng'd on him.\n  Wor. Cousin, farewell. No further go in this\n    Than I by letters shall direct your course.\n    When time is ripe, which will be suddenly,\n    I'll steal to Glendower and Lord Mortimer,\n    Where you and Douglas, and our pow'rs at once,\n    As I will fashion it, shall happily meet,\n    To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms,\n    Which now we hold at much uncertainty.\n  North. Farewell, good brother. We shall thrive, I trust.\n  Hot. Uncle, adieu. O, let the hours be short\n    Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport!\nExeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT II. Scene I.\nRochester. An inn yard.\n\nEnter a Carrier with a lantern in his hand.\n\n  1. Car. Heigh-ho! an it be not four by the day, I'll be hang'd.\n    Charles' wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not\n    pack'd.- What, ostler!\n  Ost. [within] Anon, anon.\n  1. Car. I prithee, Tom, beat Cut's saddle, put a few flocks in\nthe\n    point. Poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess.\n\n                        Enter another Carrier.\n\n  2. Car. Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is\nthe\n    next way to give poor jades the bots. This house is turned\nupside\n    down since Robin Ostler died.\n  1. Car. Poor fellow never joyed since the price of oats rose.\nIt\n    was the death of him.\n  2. Car. I think this be the most villanous house in all London\nroad\n    for fleas. I am stung like a tench.\n  1. Car. Like a tench I By the mass, there is ne'er a king\nchristen\n    could be better bit than I have been since the first cock.\n  2. Car. Why, they will allow us ne'er a jordan, and then we\nleak in\n    your chimney, and your chamber-lye breeds fleas like a loach.\n  1. Car. What, ostler! come away and be hang'd! come away!\n  2. Car. I have a gammon of bacon and two razes of ginger, to be\n    delivered as far as Charing Cross.\n  1. Car. God's body! the turkeys in my pannier are quite\nstarved.\n    What, ostler! A plague on thee! hast thou never an eye in thy\n    head? Canst not hear? An 'twere not as good deed as drink to\n    break the pate on thee, I am a very villain. Come, and be\nhang'd!\n    Hast no faith in thee?\n\n                           Enter Gadshill.\n\n  Gads. Good morrow, carriers. What's o'clock?\n  1. Car. I think it be two o'clock.\n  Gads. I prithee lend me this lantern to see my gelding in the\n    stable.\n  1. Car. Nay, by God, soft! I know a trick worth two of that,\n    i' faith.\n  Gads. I pray thee lend me thine.\n  2. Car. Ay, when? canst tell? Lend me thy lantern, quoth he?\nMarry,\n    I'll see thee hang'd first!\n  Gads. Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London?\n  2. Car. Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee.\n    Come, neighbour Mugs, we'll call up the gentlemen. They will\n    along with company, for they have great charge.\n                                              Exeunt [Carriers].\n  Gads. What, ho! chamberlain!\n\n                            Enter Chamberlain.\n\n  Cham. At hand, quoth pickpurse.\n  Gads. That's even as fair as- 'at hand, quoth the chamberlain';\nfor\n    thou variest no more from picking of purses than giving\ndirection\n    doth from labouring: thou layest the plot how.\n  Cham. Good morrow, Master Gadshill. It holds current that I\ntold\n    you yesternight. There's a franklin in the Wild of Kent hath\n    brought three hundred marks with him in gold. I heard him\ntell it\n    to one of his company last night at supper- a kind of\nauditor;\n    one that hath abundance of charge too, God knows what. They\nare\n    up already and call for eggs and butter. They will away\n    presently.\n  Gads. Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas' clerks,\nI'll\n    give thee this neck.\n  Cham. No, I'll none of it. I pray thee keep that for the\nhangman;\n    for I know thou worshippest Saint Nicholas as truly as a man\nof\n    falsehood may.\n  Gads. What talkest thou to me of the hangman? If I hang, I'll\nmake\n    a fat pair of gallows; for if I hang, old Sir John hangs with\nme,\n    and thou knowest he is no starveling. Tut! there are other\n    Troyans that thou dream'st not of, the which for sport sake\nare\n    content to do the profession some grace; that would (if\nmatters\n    should be look'd into) for their own credit sake make all\nwhole.\n    I am joined with no foot land-rakers, no long-staff sixpenny\n    strikers, none of these mad mustachio purple-hued maltworms;\nbut\n    with nobility, and tranquillity, burgomasters and great\noneyers,\n    such as can hold in, such as will strike sooner than speak,\nand\n    speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray; and yet,\n    zounds, I lie; for they pray continually to their saint, the\n\n    commonwealth, or rather, not pray to her, but prey on her,\nfor\n    they ride up and down on her and make her their boots.\n  Cham. What, the commonwealth their boots? Will she hold out\nwater\n    in foul way?\n  Gads. She will, she will! Justice hath liquor'd her. We steal\nas in\n    a castle, cocksure. We have the receipt of fernseed, we walk\n    invisible.\n  Cham. Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholding to the\nnight\n    than to fernseed for your walking invisible.\n  Gads. Give me thy hand. Thou shalt have a share in our\npurchase, as\n    I and a true man.\n  Cham. Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief.\n  Gads. Go to; 'homo' is a common name to all men. Bid the ostler\n    bring my gelding out of the stable. Farewell, you muddy\nknave.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nThe highway near Gadshill.\n\nEnter Prince and Poins.\n\n  Poins. Come, shelter, shelter! I have remov'd Falstaff's horse,\nand\n    he frets like a gumm'd velvet.\n  Prince. Stand close.                        [They step aside.]\n\n                             Enter Falstaff.\n\n  Fal. Poins! Poins, and be hang'd! Poins!\n  Prince. I comes forward I Peace, ye fat-kidney'd rascal! What a\n    brawling dost thou keep!\n  Fal. Where's Poins, Hal?\n  Prince. He is walk'd up to the top of the hill. I'll go seek\nhim.\n                                                  [Steps aside.]\n  Fal. I am accurs'd to rob in that thief's company. The rascal\nhath\n    removed my horse and tied him I know not where. If I travel\nbut\n    four foot by the squire further afoot, I shall break my wind.\n    Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I\n    scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn his\ncompany\n    hourly any time this two-and-twenty years, and yet I am\nbewitch'd\n    with the rogue's company. If the rascal have not given me\n    medicines to make me love him, I'll be hang'd. It could not\nbe\n    else. I have drunk medicines. Poins! Hal! A plague upon you\nboth!\n    Bardolph! Peto! I'll starve ere I'll rob a foot further. An\n    'twere not as good a deed as drink to turn true man and to\nleave\n    these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a\n    tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten\nmiles\n    afoot with me, and the stony-hearted villains know it well\n    enough. A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to\n    another! (They whistle.) Whew! A plague upon you all! Give me\nmy\n    horse, you rogues! give me my horse and be hang'd!\n  Prince. [comes forward] Peace, ye fat-guts! Lie down, lay thine\near\n    close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of\n    travellers.\n  Fal. Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down?\n'Sblood,\n    I'll not bear mine own flesh so far afoot again for all the\ncoin\n    in thy father's exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt me\nthus?\n  Prince. Thou liest; thou art not colted, thou art uncolted.\n  Fal. I prithee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, good\nking's\n    son.\n  Prince. Out, ye rogue! Shall I be your ostler?\n  Fal. Go hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters! If I\nbe\n    ta'en, I'll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you\n    all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my\npoison.\n    When a jest is so forward- and afoot too- I hate it.\n\n             Enter Gadshill, [Bardolph and Peto with him].\n\n  Gads. Stand!\n  Fal. So I do, against my will.\n  Poins. [comes fortward] O, 'tis our setter. I know his voice.\n    Bardolph, what news?\n  Bar. Case ye, case ye! On with your vizards! There's money of\nthe\n    King's coming down the hill; 'tis going to the King's\nexchequer.\n  Fal. You lie, ye rogue! 'Tis going to the King's tavern.\n  Gads. There's enough to make us all.\n  Fal. To be hang'd.\n  Prince. Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane; Ned\n    Poins and I will walk lower. If they scape from your\nencounter,\n    then they light on us.\n  Peto. How many be there of them?\n  Gads. Some eight or ten.\n  Fal. Zounds, will they not rob us?\n  Prince. What, a coward, Sir John Paunch?\n  Fal. Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather; but yet\nno\n    coward, Hal.\n  Prince. Well, we leave that to the proof.\n  Poins. Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge. When\nthou\n    need'st him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell and stand\nfast.\n  Fal. Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hang'd.\n  Prince. [aside to Poins] Ned, where are our disguises?\n  Poins. [aside to Prince] Here, hard by. Stand close.\n                                      [Exeunt Prince and Poins.]\n  Fal. Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I. Every man\nto\n    his business.\n\n                         Enter the Travellers.\n\n  Traveller. Come, neighbour.\n    The boy shall lead our horses down the hill;\n    We'll walk afoot awhile and ease our legs.\n  Thieves. Stand!\n  Traveller. Jesus bless us!\n  Fal. Strike! down with them! cut the villains' throats! Ah,\n    whoreson caterpillars! bacon-fed knaves! they hate us youth.\nDown\n    with them! fleece them!\n  Traveller. O, we are undone, both we and ours for ever!\n  Fal. Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone? No, ye fat\nchuffs;\n    I would your store were here! On, bacons on! What, ye knaves!\n    young men must live. You are grandjurors, are ye? We'll jure\nye,\n    faith!\n                            Here they rob and bind them. Exeunt.\n\n            Enter the Prince and Poins [in buckram suits].\n\n  Prince. The thieves have bound the true men. Now could thou and\nI\n    rob the thieves and go merrily to London, it would be\nargument\n    for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever.\n  Poins. Stand close! I hear them coming.\n                                             [They stand aside.]\n\n                       Enter the Thieves again.\n\n  Fal. Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse before\nday.\n    An the Prince and Poins be not two arrant cowards, there's no\n    equity stirring. There's no more valour in that Poins than in\na\n    wild duck.\n\n        [As they are sharing, the Prince and Poins set upon\n        them. THey all run away, and Falstaff, after a blow or\n        two, runs awasy too, leaving the booty behind them.]\n\n  Prince. Your money!\n  Poins. Villains!\n\n  Prince. Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse.\n    The thieves are scattered, and possess'd with fear\n    So strongly that they dare not meet each other.\n    Each takes his fellow for an officer.\n    Away, good Ned. Falstaff sweats to death\n    And lards the lean earth as he walks along.\n    Were't not for laughing, I should pity him.\n  Poins. How the rogue roar'd!                           Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nWarkworth Castle.\n\nEnter Hotspur solus, reading a letter.\n\n  Hot. 'But, for mine own part, my lord, I could be well\ncontented to\n    be there, in respect of the love I bear your house.' He could\nbe\n    contented- why is he not then? In respect of the love he\nbears\n    our house! He shows in this he loves his own barn better than\nhe\n    loves our house. Let me see some more. 'The purpose you\nundertake\n    is dangerous'- Why, that's certain! 'Tis dangerous to take a\n    cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out\nof\n    this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. 'The\npurpose\n    you undertake is dangerous, the friends you have named\nuncertain,\n    the time itself unsorted, and your whole plot too light for\nthe\n    counterpoise of so great an opposition.' Say you so, say you\nso?\n    I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and\nyou\n    lie. What a lack-brain is this! By the Lord, our plot is a\ngood\n    plot as ever was laid; our friends true and constant: a good\n    plot, good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent\nplot,\n    very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue is this! Why,\nmy\n    Lord of York commends the plot and the general course of the\n\n    action. Zounds, an I were now by this rascal, I could brain\nhim\n    with his lady's fan. Is there not my father, my uncle, and\n    myself; Lord Edmund Mortimer, my Lord of York, and Owen\n    Glendower? Is there not, besides, the Douglas? Have I not all\n    their letters to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next\nmonth,\n    and are they not some of them set forward already? What a\npagan\n    rascal is this! an infidel! Ha! you shall see now, in very\n    sincerity of fear and cold heart will he to the King and lay\nopen\n    all our proceedings. O, I could divide myself and go to\nbuffets\n    for moving such a dish of skim milk with so honourable an\naction!\n    Hang him, let him tell the King! we are prepared. I will set\n    forward to-night.\n\n                         Enter his Lady.\n\n    How now, Kate? I must leave you within these two hours.\n  Lady. O my good lord, why are you thus alone?\n    For what offence have I this fortnight been\n    A banish'd woman from my Harry's bed,\n    Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee\n    Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?\n    Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,\n    And start so often when thou sit'st alone?\n    Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks\n    And given my treasures and my rights of thee\n    To thick-ey'd musing and curs'd melancholy?\n    In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch'd,\n    And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars,\n    Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed,\n    Cry 'Courage! to the field!' And thou hast talk'd\n    Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tent,\n    Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,\n    Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,\n    Of prisoners' ransom, and of soldiers slain,\n    And all the currents of a heady fight.\n    Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,\n    And thus hath so bestirr'd thee in thy sleep,\n    That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow\n    Like bubbles ill a late-disturbed stream,\n    And in thy face strange motions have appear'd,\n    Such as we see when men restrain their breath\n    On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these?\n    Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,\n    And I must know it, else he loves me not.\n  Hot. What, ho!\n\n                    [Enter a Servant.]\n\n    Is Gilliams with the packet gone?\n  Serv. He is, my lord, an hour ago.\n  Hot. Hath Butler brought those horses from the sheriff?\n  Serv. One horse, my lord, he brought even now.\n  Hot. What horse? A roan, a crop-ear, is it not?\n  Serv. It is, my lord.\n  Hot. That roan shall be my throne.\n    Well, I will back him straight. O esperance!\n    Bid Butler lead him forth into the park.\n                                                 [Exit Servant.]\n  Lady. But hear you, my lord.\n  Hot. What say'st thou, my lady?\n  Lady. What is it carries you away?\n  Hot. Why, my horse, my love- my horse!\n  Lady. Out, you mad-headed ape!\n    A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen\n    As you are toss'd with. In faith,\n    I'll know your business, Harry; that I will!\n    I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir\n    About his title and hath sent for you\n    To line his enterprise; but if you go-\n  Hot. So far afoot, I shall be weary, love.\n  Lady. Come, come, you paraquito, answer me\n    Directly unto this question that I ask.\n    I'll break thy little finger, Harry,\n    An if thou wilt not tell my all things true.\n  Hot. Away.\n    Away, you trifler! Love? I love thee not;\n    I care not for thee, Kate. This is no world\n    To play with mammets and to tilt with lips.\n    We must have bloody noses and crack'd crowns,\n    And pass them current too. Gods me, my horse!\n    What say'st thou, Kate? What wouldst thou have with me?\n  Lady. Do you not love me? do you not indeed?\n    Well, do not then; for since you love me not,\n    I will not love myself. Do you not love me?\n    Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no.\n  Hot. Come, wilt thou see me ride?\n    And when I am a-horseback, I will swear\n    I love thee infinitely. But hark you. Kate:\n    I must not have you henceforth question me\n    Whither I go, nor reason whereabout.\n    Whither I must, I must; and to conclude,\n    This evening must I leave you, gentle Kate.\n    I know you wise; but yet no farther wise\n    Than Harry Percy's wife; constant you are,\n    But yet a woman; and for secrecy,\n    No lady closer, for I well believe\n    Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know,\n    And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate.\n  Lady. How? so far?\n  Hot. Not an inch further. But hark you, Kate:\n    Whither I go, thither shall you go too;\n    To-day will I set forth, to-morrow you.\n    Will this content you, Kate,?\n  Lady. It must of force.                                Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nEastcheap. The Boar's Head Tavern.\n\nEnter Prince and Poins.\n\n  Prince. Ned, prithee come out of that fat-room and lend me thy\nhand\n    to laugh a little.\n  Poins. Where hast been, Hal?\n    Prince,. With three or four loggerheads amongst three or\n    fourscore hogsheads. I have sounded the very bass-string of\n    humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers\nand\n    can call them all by their christen names, as Tom, Dick, and\n    Francis. They take it already upon their salvation that,\nthough\n    I be but Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy; and\ntell\n    me flatly I am no proud Jack like Falstaff, but a Corinthian,\na\n    lad of mettle, a good boy (by the Lord, so they call me!),\nand\n    when I am King of England I shall command all the good lads\n    Eastcheap. They call drinking deep, dying scarlet; and when\n    you breathe in your watering, they cry 'hem!' and bid you\nplay it\n    off. To conclude, I am so good a proficient in one quarter of\nan\n    hour that I can drink with any tinker in his own language\nduring\n    my life. I tell thee, Ned, thou hast lost much honour that\nthou\n    wert not with me in this action. But, sweet Ned- to sweeten\nwhich\n    name of Ned, I give thee this pennyworth of sugar, clapp'd\neven\n    now into my hand by an under-skinker, one that never spake\nother\n    English in his life than 'Eight shillings and sixpence,' and\n'You\n    are welcome,' with this shrill addition, 'Anon, anon, sir!\nScore\n    a pint of bastard in the Half-moon,' or so- but, Ned, to\ndrive\n    away the time till Falstaff come, I prithee do thou stand in\nsome\n    by-room while I question my puny drawer to what end be gave\nme\n    the sugar; and do thou never leave calling 'Francis!' that\nhis\n    tale to me may be nothing but 'Anon!' Step aside, and I'll\nshow\n    thee a precedent.\n  Poins. Francis!\n  Prince. Thou art perfect.\n  Poins. Francis!                                  [Exit Poins.]\n\n                    Enter [Francis, a] Drawer.\n\n  Fran. Anon, anon, sir.- Look down into the Pomgarnet, Ralph.\n  Prince. Come hither, Francis.\n  Fran. My lord?\n  Prince. How long hast thou to serve, Francis?\n  Fran. Forsooth, five years, and as much as to-\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Fran. Anon, anon, sir.\n  Prince. Five year! by'r Lady, a long lease for the clinking of\n    Pewter. But, Francis, darest thou be so valiant as to play\nthe\n    coward with thy indenture and show it a fair pair of heels\nand\n    run from it?\n  Fran. O Lord, sir, I'll be sworn upon all the books in England\nI\n    could find in my heart-\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Fran. Anon, sir.\n  Prince. How old art thou, Francis?\n  Fran. Let me see. About Michaelmas next I shall be-\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Fran. Anon, sir. Pray stay a little, my lord.\n  Prince. Nay, but hark you, Francis. For the sugar thou gavest\nme-\n    'twas a pennyworth, wast not?\n  Fran. O Lord! I would it had been two!\n  Prince. I will give thee for it a thousand pound. Ask me when\nthou\n    wilt, and, thou shalt have it.\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Fran. Anon, anon.\n  Prince. Anon, Francis? No, Francis; but to-morrow, Francis; or,\n    Francis, a Thursday; or indeed, Francis, when thou wilt. But\n    Francis-\n  Fran. My lord?\n  Prince. Wilt thou rob this leathern-jerkin, crystal-button,\n    not-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter,\n    smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch-\n  Fran. O Lord, sir, who do you mean?\n  Prince. Why then, your brown bastard is your only drink; for\nlook\n    you, Francis, your white canvas doublet will sully. In\nBarbary,\n    sir, it cannot come to so much.\n  Fran. What, sir?\n  Poins. [within] Francis!\n  Prince. Away, you rogue! Dost thou not hear them call?\n              Here they both call him. The Drawer stands amazed,\n                                    not knowing which way to go.\n\n                         Enter Vintner.\n\n  Vint. What, stand'st thou still, and hear'st such a calling?\nLook\n    to the guests within. [Exit Francis.] My lord, old Sir John,\nwith\n    half-a-dozen more, are at the door. Shall I let them in?\n  Prince. Let them alone awhile, and then open the door.\n                                                  [Exit Vintner.]\n    Poins!\n  Poins. [within] Anon, anon, sir.\n\n                          Enter Poins.\n\n  Prince. Sirrah, Falstaff and the rest of the thieves are at the\n    door. Shall we be merry?\n  Poins. As merry as crickets, my lad. But hark ye; what cunning\n    match have you made with this jest of the drawer? Come,\nwhat's\n    the issue?\n  Prince. I am now of all humours that have showed themselves\nhumours\n    since the old days of goodman Adam to the pupil age of this\n    present this twelve o'clock at midnight.\n\n                         [Enter Francis.]\n\n    What's o'clock, Francis?\n  Fran. Anon, anon, sir.                                 [Exit.]\n  Prince. That ever this fellow should have fewer words than a\n    parrot, and yet the son of a woman! His industry is upstairs\nand\n    downstairs, his eloquence the parcel of a reckoning. I am not\nyet\n    of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the North; he that kills me\nsome\n    six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands,\nand\n    says to his wife, 'Fie upon this quiet life! I want work.' 'O\nmy\n    sweet Harry,' says she, 'how many hast thou  kill'd to-day?'\n    'Give my roan horse a drench,' says he, and answers 'Some\n    fourteen,' an hour after, 'a trifle, a trifle.' I prithee\ncall in\n    Falstaff. I'll play Percy, and that damn'd brawn shall play\nDame\n    Mortimer his wife. 'Rivo!' says the drunkard. Call in ribs,\ncall\n    in tallow.\n\n           Enter Falstaff, [Gadshill, Bardolph, and Peto;\n                   Francis follows with wine].\n\n  Poins. Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been?\n  Fal. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too! Marry\nand\n    amen! Give me a cup of sack, boy. Ere I lead this life long,\nI'll\n    sew nether-stocks, and mend them and foot them too. A plague\nof\n    all cowards! Give me a cup of sack, rogue. Is there no virtue\n    extant?\n                                                    He drinketh.\n  Prince. Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter?\n    Pitiful-hearted butter, that melted at the sweet tale of the\nsun!\n    If thou didst, then behold that compound.\n  Fal. You rogue, here's lime in this sack too! There is nothing\nbut\n    roguery to be found in villanous man. Yet a coward is worse\nthan\n    a cup of sack with lime in it- a villanous coward! Go thy\nways,\n    old Jack, die when thou wilt; if manhood, good manhood, be\nnot\n    forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten\nherring.\n    There lives not three good men unhang'd in England; and one\nof\n    them is fat, and grows old. God help the while! A bad world,\nI\n    say. I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms or\nanything. A\n    plague of all cowards I say still!\n  Prince. How now, woolsack? What mutter you?\n  Fal. A king's son! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom\nwith a\n    dagger of lath and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a\nflock\n    of wild geese, I'll never wear hair on my face more. You\nPrince\n    of Wales?\n  Prince. Why, you whoreson round man, what's the matter?\n  Fal. Are not you a coward? Answer me to that- and Poins there?\n  Poins. Zounds, ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, by the\n    Lord, I'll stab thee.\n  Fal. I call thee coward? I'll see thee damn'd ere I call thee\n    coward, but I would give a thousand pound I could run as fast\nas\n    thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders; you\ncare\n    not who sees Your back. Call you that backing of your\nfriends? A\n    plague upon such backing! Give me them that will face me.\nGive me\n    a cup of sack. I am a rogue if I drunk to-day.\n  Prince. O villain! thy lips are scarce wip'd since thou\ndrunk'st\n    last.\n  Fal. All is one for that. (He drinketh.) A plague of all\ncowards\n    still say I.\n  Prince. What's the matter?\n  Fal. What's the matter? There be four of us here have ta'en a\n    thousand pound this day morning.\n  Prince. Where is it, Jack? Where is it?\n  Fal. Where is it, Taken from us it is. A hundred upon poor four\nof\n    us!\n  Prince. What, a hundred, man?\n  Fal. I am a rogue if I were not at half-sword with a dozen of\nthem\n    two hours together. I have scap'd by miracle. I am eight\ntimes\n    thrust through the doublet, four through the hose; my buckler\ncut\n    through and through; my sword hack'd like a handsaw- ecce\nsignum!\n    I never dealt better since I was a man. All would not do. A\n    plague of all cowards! Let them speak, If they speak more or\nless\n    than truth, they are villains and the sons of darkness.\n  Prince. Speak, sirs. How was it?\n  Gads. We four set upon some dozen-\n  Fal. Sixteen at least, my lord.\n  Gads. And bound them.\n  Peto. No, no, they were not bound.\n  Fal. You rogue, they were bound, every man of them, or I am a\nJew\n    else- an Ebrew Jew.\n  Gads. As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men sea upon\nus-\n  Fal. And unbound the rest, and then come in the other.\n  Prince. What, fought you with them all?\n  Fal. All? I know not what you call all, but if I fought not\nwith\n    fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish! If there were not two\nor\n    three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then am I no two-legg'd\n    creature.\n  Prince. Pray God you have not murd'red some of them.\n  Fal. Nay, that's past praying for. I have pepper'd two of them.\nTwo\n    I am sure I have paid, two rogues in buckram suits. I tell\nthee\n    what, Hal- if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me\nhorse.\n    Thou knowest my old ward. Here I lay, and thus I bore my\npoint.\n    Four rogues in buckram let drive at me.\n  Prince. What, four? Thou saidst but two even now.\n  Fal. Four, Hal. I told thee four.\n  Poins. Ay, ay, he said four.\n  Fal. These four came all afront and mainly thrust at me. I made\nme\n    no more ado but took all their seven points in my target,\nthus.\n  Prince. Seven? Why, there were but four even now.\n  Fal. In buckram?\n  Poins. Ay, four, in buckram suits.\n  Fal. Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else.\n  Prince. [aside to Poins] Prithee let him alone. We shall have\nmore\n    anon.\n  Fal. Dost thou hear me, Hal?\n  Prince. Ay, and mark thee too, Jack.\n  Fal. Do so, for it is worth the list'ning to. These nine in\nbuckram\n    that I told thee of-\n  Prince. So, two more already.\n  Fal. Their points being broken-\n  Poins. Down fell their hose.\n  Fal. Began to give me ground; but I followed me close, came in,\n    foot and hand, and with a thought seven of the eleven I paid.\n  Prince. O monstrous! Eleven buckram men grown out of two!\n  Fal. But, as the devil would have it, three misbegotten knaves\nin\n    Kendal green came at my back and let drive at me; for it was\nso\n    dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy hand.\n  Prince. These lies are like their father that begets them-\ngross as\n    a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou clay-brain'd guts, thou\n    knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch-\n  Fal. What, art thou mad? art thou mad? Is not the truth the\ntruth?\n  Prince. Why, how couldst thou know these men in Kendal green\nwhen\n    it was so dark thou couldst not see thy hand? Come, tell us\nyour\n    reason. What sayest thou to this?\n  Poins. Come, your reason, Jack, your reason.\n  Fal. What, upon compulsion? Zounds, an I were at the strappado\nor\n    all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on\ncompulsion.\n    Give you a reason on compulsion? If reasons were as plentiful\nas\n    blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion,\nI.\n  Prince. I'll be no longer guilty, of this sin; this sanguine\n    coward, this bed-presser, this horseback-breaker, this huge\nhill\n    of flesh-\n  Fal. 'Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried\n    neat's-tongue, you bull's sizzle, you stockfish- O for breath\nto\n    utter what is like thee!- you tailor's yard, you sheath, you\n    bowcase, you vile standing tuck!\n  Prince. Well, breathe awhile, and then to it again; and when\nthou\n    hast tired thyself in base comparisons, hear me speak but\nthis.\n  Poins. Mark, Jack.\n  Prince. We two saw you four set on four, and bound them and\nwere\n    masters of their wealth. Mark now how a plain tale shall put\nyou\n    down. Then did we two set on you four and, with a word,\noutfac'd\n    you from your prize, and have it; yea, and can show it you\nhere\n    in the house. And, Falstaff, you carried your guts away as\n    nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roar'd for mercy, and\nstill\n    run and roar'd, as ever I heard bullcalf. What a slave art\nthou\n    to hack thy sword as thou hast done, and then say it was in\n    fight! What trick, what device, what starting hole canst thou\nnow\n    find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?\n  Poins. Come, let's hear, Jack. What trick hast thou now?\n  Fal. By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he that made ye. Why,\nhear\n    you, my masters. Was it for me to kill the heir apparent?\nShould\n    I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest I am as\nvaliant as\n    Hercules; but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the\ntrue\n    prince. Instinct is a great matter. I was now a coward on\n    instinct. I shall think the better of myself, and thee,\nduring my\n    life- I for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince. But,\nby\n    the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the money. Hostess, clap\nto\n    the doors. Watch to-night, pray to-morrow. Gallants, lads,\nboys,\n    hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to\nyou!\n    What, shall we be merry? Shall we have a play extempore?\n  Prince. Content- and the argument shall be thy running away.\n  Fal. Ah, no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me!\n\n                             Enter Hostess.\n\n  Host. O Jesu, my lord the Prince!\n  Prince. How now, my lady the hostess? What say'st thou to me?\n  Host. Marry, my lord, there is a nobleman of the court at door\n    would speak with you. He says he comes from your father.\n  Prince. Give him as much as will make him a royal man, and send\nhim\n    back again to my mother.\n  Fal. What manner of man is he?\n  Host. An old man.\n  Fal. What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight? Shall I give\nhim\n    his answer?\n  Prince. Prithee do, Jack.\n  Fal. Faith, and I'll send him packing.\nExit.\n  Prince. Now, sirs. By'r Lady, you fought fair; so did you,\nPeto; so\n    did you, Bardolph. You are lions too, you ran away upon\ninstinct,\n    you will not touch the true prince; no- fie!\n  Bard. Faith, I ran when I saw others run.\n  Prince. Tell me now in earnest, how came Falstaff's sword so\n    hack'd?\n  Peto. Why, he hack'd it with his dagger, and said he would\nswear\n    truth out of England but he would make you believe it was\ndone in\n    fight, and persuaded us to do the like.\n  Bard. Yea, and to tickle our noses with speargrass to make them\n    bleed, and then to beslubber our garments with it and swear\nit\n    was the blood of true men. I did that I did not this seven\nyear\n    before- I blush'd to hear his monstrous devices.\n  Prince. O villain! thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years\nago\n    and wert taken with the manner, and ever since thou hast\nblush'd\n    extempore. Thou hadst fire and sword on thy side, and yet\nthou\n    ran'st away. What instinct hadst thou for it?\n  Bard. My lord, do you see these meteors? Do you behold these\n    exhalations?\n  Prince. I do.\n  Bard. What think you they portend?\n  Prince. Hot livers and cold purses.\n  Bard. Choler, my lord, if rightly taken.\n  Prince. No, if rightly taken, halter.\n\n                         Enter Falstaff.\n\n    Here comes lean Jack; here comes bare-bone. How now, my sweet\n    creature of bombast? How long is't ago, Jack, since thou\nsawest\n    thine own knee?\n  Fal. My own knee? When I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an\n    eagle's talent in the waist; I could have crept into any\n    alderman's thumb-ring. A plague of sighing and grief! It\nblows a\n    man up like a bladder. There's villanous news abroad. Here\nwas\n    Sir John Bracy from your father. You must to the court in the\n    morning. That same mad fellow of the North, Percy, and he of\n    Wales that gave Amamon the bastinado, and made Lucifer\ncuckold,\n    and swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a\nWelsh\n    hook- what a plague call you him?\n  Poins. O, Glendower.\n  Fal. Owen, Owen- the same; and his son-in-law Mortimer, and old\n    Northumberland, and that sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas,\nthat\n    runs a-horseback up a hill perpendicular-\n  Prince. He that rides at high speed and with his pistol kills a\n    sparrow flying.\n  Fal. You have hit it.\n  Prince. So did he never the sparrow.\n  Fal. Well, that rascal hath good metal in him; he will not run.\n  Prince. Why, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him so for\n    running!\n  Fal. A-horseback, ye cuckoo! but afoot he will not budge a\nfoot.\n  Prince. Yes, Jack, upon instinct.\n  Fal. I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one\n    Mordake, and a thousand bluecaps more. Worcester is stol'n\naway\n    to-night; thy father's beard is turn'd white with the news;\nyou\n    may buy land now as cheap as stinking mack'rel.\n  Prince. Why then, it is like, if there come a hot June, and\nthis\n    civil buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads as they buy\n    hobnails, by the hundreds.\n  Fal. By the mass, lad, thou sayest true; it is like we shall\nhave\n    good trading that way. But tell me, Hal, art not thou\nhorrible\n    afeard? Thou being heir apparent, could the world pick thee\nout\n    three such enemies again as that fiend Douglas, that spirit\n    Percy, and that devil Glendower? Art thou not horribly\nafraid?\n    Doth not thy blood thrill at it?\n  Prince. Not a whit, i' faith. I lack some of thy instinct.\n  Fal. Well, thou wilt be horribly chid to-morrow when thou\ncomest to\n    thy father. If thou love file, practise an answer.\n  Prince. Do thou stand for my father and examine me upon the\n    particulars of my life.\n  Fal. Shall I? Content. This chair shall be my state, this\ndagger my\n    sceptre, and this cushion my, crown.\n  Prince. Thy state is taken for a join'd-stool, thy golden\nsceptre\n    for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown for a\npitiful\n    bald crown.\n  Fal. Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now\nshalt\n    thou be moved. Give me a cup of sack to make my eyes look\nred,\n    that it may be thought I have wept; for I must speak in\npassion,\n    and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein.\n  Prince. Well, here is my leg.\n  Fal. And here is my speech. Stand aside, nobility.\n  Host. O Jesu, this is excellent sport, i' faith!\n  Fal. Weep not, sweet queen, for trickling tears are vain.\n  Host. O, the Father, how he holds his countenance!\n  Fal. For God's sake, lords, convey my tristful queen!\n    For tears do stop the floodgates of her eyes.\n  Host. O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry players\nas\n    ever I see!\n  Fal. Peace, good pintpot. Peace, good tickle-brain.- Harry, I\ndo\n    not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how\nthou\n    art accompanied. For though the camomile, the more it is\ntrodden\n    on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted,\nthe\n    sooner it wears. That thou art my son I have partly thy\nmother's\n    word, partly my own opinion, but chiefly a villanous trick of\n    thine eye and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip that doth\n    warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point:\nwhy,\n    being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed\nsun of\n    heaven prove a micher and eat blackberries? A question not to\nbe\n    ask'd. Shall the son of England prove a thief and take\npurses? A\n    question to be ask'd. There is a thing, Harry, which thou\nhast\n    often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the\nname\n    of pitch. This pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth\ndefile;\n    so doth the company thou keepest. For, Harry, now I do not\nspeak\n    to thee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in\npassion;\n    not in words only, but in woes also: and yet there is a\nvirtuous\n    man whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not\nhis\n    name.\n  Prince. What manner of man, an it like your Majesty?\n  Fal. A goodly portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent; of a\ncheerful\n    look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I\nthink,\n    his age some fifty, or, by'r Lady, inclining to threescore;\nand\n    now I remember me, his name is Falstaff. If that man should\nbe\n    lewdly, given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry, I see virtue in\nhis\n    looks. If then the tree may be known by the fruit, as the\nfruit\n    by the tree, then, peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue\nin\n    that Falstaff. Him keep with, the rest banish. And tell me\nnow,\n    thou naughty varlet, tell me where hast thou been this month?\n  Prince. Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and\nI'll\n    play my father.\n  Fal. Depose me? If thou dost it half so gravely, so\nmajestically,\n    both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a\n    rabbit-sucker or a poulter's hare.\n  Prince. Well, here I am set.\n  Fal. And here I stand. Judge, my masters.\n  Prince. Now, Harry, whence come you?\n  Fal. My noble lord, from Eastcheap.\n  Prince. The complaints I hear of thee are grievous.\n  Fal. 'Sblood, my lord, they are false! Nay, I'll tickle ye for\na\n    young prince, i' faith.\n  Prince. Swearest thou, ungracious boy? Henceforth ne'er look on\nme.\n    Thou art violently carried away from grace. There is a devil\n    haunts thee in the likeness of an old fat man; a tun of man\nis\n    thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of\nhumours,\n    that bolting hutch of beastliness, that swoll'n parcel of\n    dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuff'd cloakbag of\n    guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his\nbelly,\n    that reverend vice, that grey iniquity, that father ruffian,\nthat\n    vanity in years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and\ndrink\n    it? wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat\nit?\n    wherein cunning, but in craft? wherein crafty, but in\nvillany?\n    wherein villanous, but in all things? wherein worthy, but in\n    nothing?\n  Fal. I would your Grace would take me with you. Whom means your\n    Grace?\n  Prince. That villanous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff,\n    that old white-bearded Satan.\n  Fal. My lord, the man I know.\n  Prince. I know thou dost.\n  Fal. But to say I know more harm in him than in myself were to\nsay\n    more than I know. That he is old (the more the pity) his\nwhite\n    hairs do witness it; but that he is (saving your reverence) a\n    whoremaster, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a\nfault,\n    God help the wicked! If to be old and merry be a sin, then\nmany\n    an old host that I know is damn'd. If to be fat be to be\nhated,\n    then Pharaoh's lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord.\n    Banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins; but for sweet\nJack\n    Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant\nJack\n    Falstaff, and therefore more valiant being, as he is, old\nJack\n    Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry's company, banish not him\nthy\n    Harry's company. Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world!\n  Prince. I do, I will.                      [A knocking heard.]\n                        [Exeunt Hostess, Francis, and Bardolph.]\n\n\n                     Enter Bardolph, running.\n\n  Bard. O, my lord, my lord! the sheriff with a most monstrous\nwatch\n    is at the door.\n  Fal. Out, ye rogue! Play out the play. I have much to say in\nthe\n    behalf of that Falstaff.\n\n                       Enter the Hostess.\n\n  Host. O Jesu, my lord, my lord!\n  Prince. Heigh, heigh, the devil rides upon a fiddlestick!\n    What's the matter?\n  Host. The sheriff and all the watch are at the door. They are\ncome\n    to search the house. Shall I let them in?\n  Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? Never call a true piece of gold a\n    counterfeit. Thou art essentially mad without seeming so.\n  Prince. And thou a natural coward without instinct.\n  Fal. I deny your major. If you will deny the sheriff, so; if\nnot,\n    let him enter. If I become not a cart as well as another man,\na\n    plague on my bringing up! I hope I shall as soon be strangled\n    with a halter as another.\n  Prince. Go hide thee behind the arras. The rest walk, up above.\n    Now, my masters, for a true face and good conscience.\n  Fal. Both which I have had; but their date is out, and\ntherefore\n    I'll hide me.                                          Exit.\n  Prince. Call in the sheriff.\n                            [Exeunt Manent the Prince and Peto.]\n\n                    Enter Sheriff and the Carrier.\n\n    Now, Master Sheriff, what is your will with me?\n  Sher. First, pardon me, my lord. A hue and cry\n    Hath followed certain men unto this house.\n  Prince. What men?\n  Sher. One of them is well known, my gracious lord-\n    A gross fat man.\n  Carrier. As fat as butter.\n  Prince. The man, I do assure you, is not here,\n    For I myself at this time have employ'd him.\n    And, sheriff, I will engage my word to thee\n    That I will by to-morrow dinner time\n    Send him to answer thee, or any man,\n    For anything he shall be charg'd withal;\n    And so let me entreat you leave the house.\n  Sher. I will, my lord. There are two gentlemen\n    Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks.\n  Prince. It may be so. If he have robb'd these men,\n    He shall be answerable; and so farewell.\n  Sher. Good night, my noble lord.\n  Prince. I think it is good morrow, is it not?\n  Sher. Indeed, my lord, I think it be two o'clock.\n                                            Exit [with Carrier].\n  Prince. This oily rascal is known as well as Paul's. Go call\nhim\n    forth.\n  Peto. Falstaff! Fast asleep behind the arras, and snorting like\na\n    horse.\n  Prince. Hark how hard he fetches breath. Search his pockets.\n            He searcheth his pockets and findeth certain papers.\n    What hast thou found?\n  Peto. Nothing but papers, my lord.\n  Prince. Let's see whit they be. Read them.\n\n  Peto. [reads] 'Item. A capon. . . . . . . . . . . . .  ii s. ii\nd.\n                 Item, Sauce. . . . . . . . . . . . . .      iiii\nd.\n                 Item, Sack two gallons . . . . . . . . v s. viii\nd.\n                 Item, Anchovies and sack after supper.  ii s. vi\nd.\n                 Item, Bread. . . . . . . . . . . . . .\nob.'\n\n  Prince. O monstrous! but one halfpennyworth of bread to this\n    intolerable deal of sack! What there is else, keep close;\nwe'll\n    read it at more advantage. There let him sleep till day. I'll\nto\n    the court in the morning . We must all to the wars. and thy\nplace\n    shall be honourable. I'll procure this fat rogue a charge of\n    foot; and I know, his death will be a march of twelve score.\nThe\n    money shall be paid back again with advantage. Be with me\nbetimes\n    in the morning, and so good morrow, Peto.\n  Peto. Good morrow, good my lord.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT III. Scene I.\nBangor. The Archdeacon's house.\n\nEnter Hotspur, Worcester, Lord Mortimer, Owen Glendower.\n\n  Mort. These promises are fair, the parties sure,\n    And our induction full of prosperous hope.\n  Hot. Lord Mortimer, and cousin Glendower,\n    Will you sit down?\n    And uncle Worcester. A plague upon it!\n    I have forgot the map.\n  Glend. No, here it is.\n    Sit, cousin Percy; sit, good cousin Hotspur,\n    For by that name as oft as Lancaster\n    Doth speak of you, his cheek looks pale, and with\n    A rising sigh he wisheth you in heaven.\n  Hot. And you in hell, as oft as he hears\n    Owen Glendower spoke of.\n  Glend. I cannot blame him. At my nativity\n    The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes\n    Of burning cressets, and at my birth\n    The frame and huge foundation of the earth\n    Shak'd like a coward.\n  Hot. Why, so it would have done at the same season, if your\n    mother's cat had but kitten'd, though yourself had never been\n    born.\n  Glend. I say the earth did shake when I was born.\n  Hot. And I say the earth was not of my mind,\n    If you suppose as fearing you it shook.\n  Glend. The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble.\n  Hot. O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire,\n    And not in fear of your nativity.\n    Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth\n    In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth\n    Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd\n    By the imprisoning of unruly wind\n    Within her womb, which, for enlargement striving,\n    Shakes the old beldame earth and topples down\n    Steeples and mossgrown towers. At your birth\n    Our grandam earth, having this distemp'rature,\n    In passion shook.\n  Glend. Cousin, of many men\n    I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave\n    To tell you once again that at my birth\n    The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,\n    The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds\n    Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields.\n    These signs have mark'd me extraordinary,\n    And all the courses of my life do show\n    I am not in the roll of common men.\n    Where is he living, clipp'd in with the sea\n    That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales,\n    Which calls me pupil or hath read to me?\n    And bring him out that is but woman's son\n    Can trace me in the tedious ways of art\n    And hold me pace in deep experiments.\n  Hot. I think there's no man speaks better Welsh. I'll to\ndinner.\n  Mort. Peace, cousin Percy; you will make him mad.\n  Glend. I can call spirits from the vasty deep.\n  Hot. Why, so can I, or so can any man;\n    But will they come when you do call for them?\n  Glend. Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the devil.\n  Hot. And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil-\n    By telling truth. Tell truth and shame the devil.\n    If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither,\n    And I'll be sworn I have power to shame him hence.\n    O, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil!\n  Mort. Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat.\n  Glend. Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head\n    Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye\n    And sandy-bottom'd Severn have I sent him\n    Bootless home and weather-beaten back.\n  Hot. Home without boots, and in foul weather too?\n    How scapes he agues, in the devil's name\n  Glend. Come, here's the map. Shall we divide our right\n    According to our threefold order ta'en?\n  Mort. The Archdeacon hath divided it\n    Into three limits very equally.\n    England, from Trent and Severn hitherto,\n    By south and east is to my part assign'd;\n    All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore,\n    And all the fertile land within that bound,\n    To Owen Glendower; and, dear coz, to you\n    The remnant northward lying off from Trent.\n    And our indentures tripartite are drawn;\n    Which being sealed interchangeably\n    (A business that this night may execute),\n    To-morrow, cousin Percy, you and I\n    And my good Lord of Worcester will set forth\n    To meet your father and the Scottish bower,\n    As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury.\n    My father Glendower is not ready yet,\n    Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days.\n    [To Glend.] Within that space you may have drawn together\n    Your tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentlemen.\n  Glend. A shorter time shall send me to you, lords;\n    And in my conduct shall your ladies come,\n    From whom you now must steal and take no leave,\n    For there will be a world of water shed\n    Upon the parting of your wives and you.\n  Hot. Methinks my moiety, north from Burton here,\n    In quantity equals not one of yours.\n    See how this river comes me cranking in\n    And cuts me from the best of all my land\n    A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out.\n    I'll have the current ill this place damm'd up,\n    And here the smug and sliver Trent shall run\n    In a new channel fair and evenly.\n    It shall not wind with such a deep indent\n    To rob me of so rich a bottom here.\n  Glend. Not wind? It shall, it must! You see it doth.\n  Mort. Yea, but\n    Mark how he bears his course, and runs me up\n    With like advantage on the other side,\n    Gelding the opposed continent as much\n    As on the other side it takes from you.\n  Wor. Yea, but a little charge will trench him here\n    And on this north side win this cape of land;\n    And then he runs straight and even.\n  Hot. I'll have it so. A little charge will do it.\n  Glend. I will not have it alt'red.\n  Hot. Will not you?\n  Glend. No, nor you shall not.\n  Hot. Who shall say me nay?\n  Glend. No, that will I.\n  Hot. Let me not understand you then; speak it in Welsh.\n  Glend. I can speak English, lord, as well as you;\n    For I was train'd up in the English court,\n    Where, being but young, I framed to the harp\n    Many an English ditty lovely well,\n    And gave the tongue a helpful ornament-\n    A virtue that was never seen in you.\n  Hot. Marry,\n    And I am glad of it with all my heart!\n    I had rather be a kitten and cry mew\n    Than one of these same metre ballet-mongers.\n    I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd\n    Or a dry wheel grate on the axletree,\n    And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,\n    Nothing so much as mincing poetry.\n    'Tis like the forc'd gait of a shuffling nag,\n  Glend. Come, you shall have Trent turn'd.\n  Hot. I do not care. I'll give thrice so much land\n    To any well-deserving friend;\n    But in the way of bargain, mark ye me,\n    I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair\n    Are the indentures drawn? Shall we be gone?\n  Glend. The moon shines fair; you may away by night.\n    I'll haste the writer, and withal\n    Break with your wives of your departure hence.\n    I am afraid my daughter will run mad,\n    So much she doteth on her Mortimer.                    Exit.\n  Mort. Fie, cousin Percy! how you cross my father!\n  Hot. I cannot choose. Sometimes he angers me\n    With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant,\n    Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies,\n    And of a dragon and a finless fish,\n    A clip-wing'd griffin and a moulten raven,\n    A couching lion and a ramping cat,\n    And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff\n    As puts me from my faith. I tell you what-\n    He held me last night at least nine hours\n    In reckoning up the several devils' names\n    That were his lackeys. I cried 'hum,' and 'Well, go to!'\n    But mark'd him not a word. O, he is as tedious\n    As a tired horse, a railing wife;\n    Worse than a smoky house. I had rather live\n    With cheese and garlic in a windmill far\n    Than feed on cates and have him talk to me\n    In any summer house in Christendom).\n  Mort. In faith, he is a worthy gentleman,\n    Exceedingly well read, and profited\n    In strange concealments, valiant as a lion,\n    And wondrous affable, and as bountiful\n    As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin?\n    He holds your temper in a high respect\n    And curbs himself even of his natural scope\n    When you come 'cross his humour. Faith, he does.\n    I warrant you that man is not alive\n    Might so have tempted him as you have done\n    Without the taste of danger and reproof.\n    But do not use it oft, let me entreat you.\n  Wor. In faith, my lord, you are too wilful-blame,\n    And since your coming hither have done enough\n    To put him quite besides his patience.\n    You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault.\n    Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood-\n    And that's the dearest grace it renders you-\n    Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage,\n    Defect of manners, want of government,\n    Pride, haughtiness, opinion, and disdain;\n    The least of which haunting a nobleman\n    Loseth men's hearts, and leaves behind a stain\n    Upon the beauty of all parts besides,\n    Beguiling them of commendation.\n  Hot. Well, I am school'd. Good manners be your speed!\n    Here come our wives, and let us take our leave.\n\n            Enter Glendower with the Ladies.\n\n  Mort. This is the deadly spite that angers me-\n    My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh.\n  Glend. My daughter weeps; she will not part with you;\n    She'll be a soldier too, she'll to the wars.\n  Mort. Good father, tell her that she and my aunt Percy\n    Shall follow in your conduct speedily.\n               Glendower speaks to her in Welsh, and she answers\n                                                him in the same.\n  Glend. She is desperate here. A peevish self-will'd harlotry,\n    One that no persuasion can do good upon.\n                                       The Lady speaks in Welsh.\n  Mort. I understand thy looks. That pretty Welsh\n    Which thou pourest down from these swelling heavens\n    I am too perfect in; and, but for shame,\n    In such a Barley should I answer thee.\n                                        The Lady again in Welsh.\n    I understand thy kisses, and thou mine,\n    And that's a feeling disputation.\n    But I will never be a truant, love,\n    Till I have learnt thy language: for thy tongue\n    Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn'd,\n    Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bow'r,\n    With ravishing division, to her lute.\n  Glend. Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad.\n                                 The Lady speaks again in Welsh.\n  Mort. O, I am ignorance itself in this!\n  Glend. She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down\n    And rest your gentle head upon her lap,\n    And she will sing the song that pleaseth you\n    And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep,\n    Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness,\n    Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep\n    As is the difference betwixt day and night\n    The hour before the heavenly-harness'd team\n    Begins his golden progress in the East.\n  Mort. With all my heart I'll sit and hear her sing.\n    By that time will our book, I think, be drawn.\n  Glend. Do so,\n    And those musicians that shall play to you\n    Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence,\n    And straight they shall be here. Sit, and attend.\n  Hot. Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down. Come, quick,\n    quick, that I may lay my head in thy lap.\n  Lady P. Go, ye giddy goose.\n                                                The music plays.\n  Hot. Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh;\n    And 'tis no marvel, be is so humorous.\n    By'r Lady, he is a good musician.\n  Lady P. Then should you be nothing but musical; for you are\n    altogether govern'd by humours. Lie still, ye thief, and hear\nthe\n    lady sing in Welsh.\n  Hot. I had rather hear Lady, my brach, howl in Irish.\n  Lady P. Wouldst thou have thy head broken?\n  Hot. No.\n  Lady P. Then be still.\n  Hot. Neither! 'Tis a woman's fault.\n  Lady P. Now God help thee!\n  Hot. To the Welsh lady's bed.\n  Lady P. What's that?\n  Hot. Peace! she sings.\n                               Here the Lady sings a Welsh song.\n    Come, Kate, I'll have your song too.\n  Lady P. Not mine, in good sooth.\n  Hot. Not yours, in good sooth? Heart! you swear like a\n    comfit-maker's wife. 'Not you, in good sooth!' and 'as true\nas I\n    live!' and 'as God shall mend me!' and 'as sure as day!'\n    And givest such sarcenet surety for thy oaths\n    As if thou ne'er walk'st further than Finsbury.\n    Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art,\n    A good mouth-filling oath; and leave 'in sooth'\n    And such protest of pepper gingerbread\n    To velvet guards and Sunday citizens. Come, sing.\n  Lady P. I will not sing.\n  Hot. 'Tis the next way to turn tailor or be redbreast-teacher.\nAn\n    the indentures be drawn, I'll away within these two hours;\nand so\n    come in when ye will.                                  Exit.\n  Glend. Come, come, Lord Mortimer. You are as slow\n    As hot Lord Percy is on fire to go.\n    By this our book is drawn; we'll but seal,\n    And then to horse immediately.\n  Mort. With all my heart.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nLondon. The Palace.\n\nEnter the King, Prince of Wales, and others.\n\n  King. Lords, give us leave. The Prince of Wales and I\n    Must have some private conference; but be near at hand,\n    For we shall presently have need of you.\n                                                   Exeunt Lords.\n    I know not whether God will have it so,\n    For some displeasing service I have done,\n    That, in his secret doom, out of my blood\n    He'll breed revengement and a scourge for me;\n    But thou dost in thy passages of life\n    Make me believe that thou art only mark'd\n    For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven\n    To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else,\n    Could such inordinate and low desires,\n    Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean attempts,\n    Such barren pleasures, rude society,\n    As thou art match'd withal and grafted to,\n    Accompany the greatness of thy blood\n    And hold their level with thy princely heart?\n  Prince. So please your Majesty, I would I could\n    Quit all offences with as clear excuse\n    As well as I am doubtless I can purge\n    Myself of many I am charged withal.\n    Yet such extenuation let me beg\n    As, in reproof of many tales devis'd,\n    Which oft the ear of greatness needs must bear\n    By, smiling pickthanks and base newsmongers,\n    I may, for some things true wherein my youth\n    Hath faulty wand'red and irregular,\n    And pardon on lily true submission.\n  King. God pardon thee! Yet let me wonder, Harry,\n    At thy affections, which do hold a wing,\n    Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors.\n    Thy place in Council thou hast rudely lost,\n    Which by thy younger brother is supplied,\n    And art almost an alien to the hearts\n    Of all the court and princes of my blood.\n    The hope and expectation of thy time\n    Is ruin'd, and the soul of every man\n    Prophetically do forethink thy fall.\n    Had I so lavish of my presence been,\n    So common-hackney'd in the eyes of men,\n    So stale and cheap to vulgar company,\n    Opinion, that did help me to the crown,\n    Had still kept loyal to possession\n    And left me in reputeless banishment,\n    A fellow of no mark nor likelihood.\n    By being seldom seen, I could not stir\n    But, like a comet, I Was wond'red at;\n    That men would tell their children, 'This is he!'\n    Others would say, 'Where? Which is Bolingbroke?'\n    And then I stole all courtesy from heaven,\n    And dress'd myself in such humility\n    That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts,\n    Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths\n    Even in the presence of the crowned King.\n    Thus did I keep my person fresh and new,\n    My presence, like a robe pontifical,\n    Ne'er seen but wond'red at; and so my state,\n    Seldom but sumptuous, show'd like a feast\n    And won by rareness such solemnity.\n    The skipping King, he ambled up and down\n    With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits,\n    Soon kindled and soon burnt; carded his state;\n    Mingled his royalty with cap'ring fools;\n    Had his great name profaned with their scorns\n    And gave his countenance, against his name,\n    To laugh at gibing boys and stand the push\n    Of every beardless vain comparative;\n    Grew a companion to the common streets,\n    Enfeoff'd himself to popularity;\n    That, being dally swallowed by men's eyes,\n    They surfeited with honey and began\n    To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little\n    More than a little is by much too much.\n    So, when he had occasion to be seen,\n    He was but as the cuckoo is in June,\n    Heard, not regarded- seen, but with such eyes\n    As, sick and blunted with community,\n    Afford no extraordinary gaze,\n    Such as is bent on unlike majesty\n    When it shines seldom in admiring eyes;\n    But rather drows'd and hung their eyelids down,\n    Slept in his face, and rend'red such aspect\n    As cloudy men use to their adversaries,\n    Being with his presence glutted, gorg'd, and full.\n    And in that very line, Harry, standest thou;\n    For thou hast lost thy princely privilege\n    With vile participation. Not an eye\n    But is aweary of thy common sight,\n    Save mine, which hath desir'd to see thee more;\n    Which now doth that I would not have it do-\n    Make blind itself with foolish tenderness.\n  Prince. I shall hereafter, my thrice-gracious lord,\n    Be more myself.\n  King. For all the world,\n    As thou art to this hour, was Richard then\n    When I from France set foot at Ravenspurgh;\n    And even as I was then is Percy now.\n    Now, by my sceptre, and my soul to boot,\n    He hath more worthy interest to the state\n    Than thou, the shadow of succession;\n    For of no right, nor colour like to right,\n    He doth fill fields with harness in the realm,\n    Turns head against the lion's armed jaws,\n    And, Being no more in debt to years than thou,\n    Leads ancient lords and reverend Bishops on\n    To bloody battles and to bruising arms.\n    What never-dying honour hath he got\n    Against renowmed Douglas! whose high deeds,\n    Whose hot incursions and great name in arms\n    Holds from all soldiers chief majority\n    And military title capital\n    Through all the kingdoms that acknowledge Christ.\n    Thrice hath this Hotspur, Mars in swathling clothes,\n    This infant warrior, in his enterprises\n    Discomfited great Douglas; ta'en him once,\n    Enlarged him, and made a friend of him,\n    To fill the mouth of deep defiance up\n    And shake the peace and safety of our throne.\n    And what say you to this? Percy, Northumberland,\n    The Archbishop's Grace of York, Douglas, Mortimer\n    Capitulate against us and are up.\n    But wherefore do I tell these news to thee\n    Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes,\n    Which art my nearest and dearest enemy'\n    Thou that art like enough, through vassal fear,\n    Base inclination, and the start of spleen,\n    To fight against me under Percy's pay,\n    To dog his heels and curtsy at his frowns,\n    To show how much thou art degenerate.\n  Prince. Do not think so. You shall not find it so.\n    And God forgive them that so much have sway'd\n    Your Majesty's good thoughts away from me!\n    I will redeem all this on Percy's head\n    And, in the closing of some glorious day,\n    Be bold to tell you that I am your son,\n    When I will wear a garment all of blood,\n    And stain my favours in a bloody mask,\n    Which, wash'd away, shall scour my shame with it.\n    And that shall be the day, whene'er it lights,\n    That this same child of honour and renown,\n    This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight,\n    And your unthought of Harry chance to meet.\n    For every honour sitting on his helm,\n    Would they were multitudes, and on my head\n    My shames redoubled! For the time will come\n    That I shall make this Northern youth exchange\n    His glorious deeds for my indignities.\n    Percy is but my factor, good my lord,\n    To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf;\n    And I will call hall to so strict account\n    That he shall render every glory up,\n    Yea, even the slightest worship of his time,\n    Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart.\n    This in the name of God I promise here;\n    The which if he be pleas'd I shall perform,\n    I do beseech your Majesty may salve\n    The long-grown wounds of my intemperance.\n    If not, the end of life cancels all bands,\n    And I will die a hundred thousand deaths\n    Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.\n  King. A hundred thousand rebels die in this!\n    Thou shalt have charge and sovereign trust herein.\n\n                        Enter Blunt.\n\n    How now, good Blunt? Thy looks are full of speed.\n  Blunt. So hath the business that I come to speak of.\n    Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word\n    That Douglas and the English rebels met\n    The eleventh of this month at Shrewsbury.\n    A mighty and a fearful head they are,\n    If promises be kept oil every hand,\n    As ever off'red foul play in a state.\n  King. The Earl of Westmoreland set forth to-day;\n    With him my son, Lord John of Lancaster;\n    For this advertisement is five days old.\n    On Wednesday next, Harry, you shall set forward;\n    On Thursday we ourselves will march. Our meeting\n    Is Bridgenorth; and, Harry, you shall march\n    Through Gloucestershire; by which account,\n    Our business valued, some twelve days hence\n    Our general forces at Bridgenorth shall meet.\n    Our hands are full of business. Let's away.\n    Advantage feeds him fat while men delay.            Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nEastcheap. The Boar's Head Tavern.\n\nEnter Falstaff and Bardolph.\n\n  Fal. Bardolph, am I not fall'n away vilely since this last\naction?\n    Do I not bate? Do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me\nlike\n    an old lady's loose gown! I am withered like an old apple\nJohn.\n    Well, I'll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some\nliking.\n    I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no\n    strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside\nof a\n    church is made of, I am a peppercorn, a brewer's horse. The\n    inside of a church! Company, villanous company, hath been the\n    spoil of me.\n  Bard. Sir John, you are so fretful you cannot live long.\n  Fal. Why, there is it! Come, sing me a bawdy song; make me\nmerry. I\n    was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be, virtuous\n    enough: swore little, dic'd not above seven times a week,\nwent to\n    a bawdy house not above once in a quarter- of an hour, paid\nmoney\n    that I borrowed- three or four times, lived well, and in good\n    compass; and now I live out of all order, out of all compass.\n  Bard. Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out\nof\n    all compass- out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.\n  Fal. Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life. Thou art\nour\n    admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop- but 'tis in\nthe\n    nose of thee. Thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp.\n  Bard. Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.\n  Fal. No, I'll be sworn. I make as good use of it as many a man\ndoth\n    of a death's-head or a memento mori. I never see thy face but\nI\n    think upon hellfire and Dives that lived in purple; for there\nhe\n    is in his robes, burning, burning. if thou wert any way given\nto\n    virtue, I would swear by thy face; my oath should be 'By this\n    fire, that's God's angel.' But thou art altogether given\nover,\n    and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of\nutter\n    darkness. When thou ran'st up Gadshill in the night to catch\nmy\n    horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus or\na\n    ball of wildfire, there's no purchase in money. O, thou art a\n    perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast\nsaved\n    me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee\nin\n    the night betwixt tavern and tavern; but the sack that thou\nhast\n    drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the\ndearest\n    chandler's in Europe. I have maintained that salamander of\nyours\n    with fire any time this two-and-thirty years. God reward me\nfor\n    it!\n  Bard. 'Sblood, I would my face were in your belly!\n  Fal. God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heart-burn'd.\n\n                          Enter Hostess.\n\n    How now, Dame Partlet the hen? Have you enquir'd yet who\npick'd\n    my pocket?\n  Host. Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? Do you think\nI\n    keep thieves in my house? I have search'd, I have enquired,\nso\n    has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant.\nThe\n    tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before.\n  Fal. Ye lie, hostess. Bardolph was shav'd and lost many a hair,\nand\n    I'll be sworn my pocket was pick'd. Go to, you are a woman,\ngo!\n  Host. Who, I? No; I defy thee! God's light, I was never call'd\nso\n    in mine own house before!\n  Fal. Go to, I know you well enough.\n  Host. No, Sir John; you do not know me, Sir John. I know you,\nSir\n    John. You owe me money, Sir John, and now you pick a quarrel\nto\n    beguile me of it. I bought you a dozen of shirts to your\nback.\n  Fal. Dowlas, filthy dowlas! I have given them away to bakers'\n    wives; they have made bolters of them.\n  Host. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an\nell.\n    You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet and\n    by-drinkings, and money lent you, four-and-twenty pound.\n  Fal. He had his part of it; let him pay.\n  Host. He? Alas, he is poor; he hath nothing.\n  Fal. How? Poor? Look upon his face. What call you rich? Let\nthem\n    coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks. I'll not pay a\ndenier.\n    What, will you make a younker of me? Shall I not take mine\nease\n    in mine inn but I shall have my pocket pick'd? I have lost a\n    seal-ring of my grandfather's worth forty mark.\n  Host. O Jesu, I have heard the Prince tell him, I know not how\noft,\n    that that ring was copper!\n  Fal. How? the Prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup. 'Sblood, an he\nwere\n    here, I would cudgel him like a dog if he would say so.\n\n      Enter the Prince [and Poins], marching; and Falstaff meets\n          them, playing upon his truncheon like a fife.\n\n    How now, lad? Is the wind in that door, i' faith? Must we all\n    march?\n  Bard. Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion.\n  Host. My lord, I pray you hear me.\n  Prince. What say'st thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy\nhusband?\n    I love him well; he is an honest man.\n  Host. Good my lord, hear me.\n  Fal. Prithee let her alone and list to me.\n  Prince. What say'st thou, Jack?\n  Fal. The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras and\nhad my\n    pocket pick'd. This house is turn'd bawdy house; they pick\n    pockets.\n  Prince. What didst thou lose, Jack?\n  Fal. Wilt thou believe me, Hal? Three or four bonds of forty\npound\n    apiece and a seal-ring of my grandfather's.\n  Prince. A trifle, some eightpenny matter.\n  Host. So I told him, my lord, and I said I heard your Grace say\nso;\n    and, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a\nfoul-mouth'd\n    man as he is, and said he would cudgel you.\n  Prince. What! he did not?\n  Host. There's neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.\n  Fal. There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune, nor\nno\n    more truth in thee than in a drawn fox; and for woman-hood,\nMaid\n    Marian may be the deputy's wife of the ward to thee. Go, you\n    thing, go!\n  Host. Say, what thing? what thing?\n  Fal. What thing? Why, a thing to thank God on.\n  Host. I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou shouldst know\nit!\n    I am an honest man's wife, and, setting thy knight-hood\naside,\n    thou art a knave to call me so.\n  Fal. Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say\n    otherwise.\n  Host. Say, what beast, thou knave, thou?\n  Fal. What beast? Why, an otter.\n  Prince. An otter, Sir John? Why an otter?\n  Fal. Why, she's neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where\nto\n    have her.\n  Host. Thou art an unjust man in saying so. Thou or any man\nknows\n    where to have me, thou knave, thou!\n  Prince. Thou say'st true, hostess, and he slanders thee most\n    grossly.\n  Host. So he doth you, my lord, and said this other day you\nought\n    him a thousand pound.\n  Prince. Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?\n  Fal. A thousand pound, Hal? A million! Thy love is worth a\nmillion;\n    thou owest me thy love.\n  Host. Nay, my lord, he call'd you Jack and said he would cudgel\n    you.\n  Fal. Did I, Bardolph?\n  Bard. Indeed, Sir John, you said so.\n  Fal. Yea. if he said my ring was copper.\n  Prince. I say, 'tis copper. Darest thou be as good as thy word\nnow?\n  Fal. Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare; but\nas\n    thou art Prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the\nlion's\n    whelp.\n  Prince. And why not as the lion?\n  Fal. The King himself is to be feared as the lion. Dost thou\nthink\n    I'll fear thee as I fear thy father? Nay, an I do, I pray God\nmy\n    girdle break.\n  Prince. O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy\nknees!\n    But, sirrah, there's no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in\n    this bosom of thine. It is all fill'd up with guts and\nmidriff.\n    Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket? Why, thou\n    whoreson, impudent, emboss'd rascal, if there were anything\nin\n    thy pocket but tavern reckonings, memorandums of bawdy\nhouses,\n    and one poor pennyworth of sugar candy to make thee\nlong-winded-\n    if thy pocket were enrich'd with any other injuries but\nthese, I\n    am a villain. And yet you will stand to it; you will not\npocket\n    up wrong. Art thou not ashamed?\n  Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? Thou knowest in the state of\ninnocency\n    Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days\nof\n    villany? Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and\n    therefore more frailty. You confess then, you pick'd my\npocket?\n  Prince. It appears so by the story.\n  Fal. Hostess, I forgive thee. Go make ready breakfast. Love thy\n    husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests. Thou shalt\n    find me tractable to any honest reason. Thou seest I am\npacified.\n    -Still?- Nay, prithee be gone. [Exit Hostess.] Now, Hal, to\nthe\n    news at court. For the robbery, lad- how is that answered?\n  Prince. O my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee.\n    The money is paid back again.\n  Fal. O, I do not like that paying back! 'Tis a double labour.\n  Prince. I am good friends with my father, and may do anything.\n  Fal. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou doest, and do it\n    with unwash'd hands too.\n  Bard. Do, my lord.\n  Prince. I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot.\n  Fal. I would it had been of horse. Where shall I find one that\ncan\n    steal well? O for a fine thief of the age of two-and-twenty\nor\n    thereabouts! I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked\nfor\n    these rebels. They offend none but the virtuous. I laud them,\nI\n    praise them.\n  Prince. Bardolph!\n  Bard. My lord?\n  Prince. Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster,\n    To my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland.\n                                                [Exit Bardolph.]\n    Go, Poins, to horse, to horse; for thou and I\n    Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time.\n                                                   [Exit Poins.]\n    Jack, meet me to-morrow in the Temple Hall\n    At two o'clock in the afternoon.\n    There shalt thou know thy charge. and there receive\n    Money and order for their furniture.\n    The land is burning; Percy stands on high;\n    And either they or we must lower lie.                [Exit.]\n  Fal. Rare words! brave world! Hostess, my breakfast, come.\n    O, I could wish this tavern were my drum!\nExit.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT IV. Scene I.\nThe rebel camp near Shrewsbury.\n\nEnter Harry Hotspur, Worcester, and Douglas.\n\n  Hot. Well said, my noble Scot. If speaking truth\n    In this fine age were not thought flattery,\n    Such attribution should the Douglas have\n    As not a soldier of this season's stamp\n    Should go so general current through the world.\n    By God, I cannot flatter, I defy\n    The tongues of soothers! but a braver place\n    In my heart's love hath no man than yourself.\n    Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord.\n  Doug. Thou art the king of honour.\n    No man so potent breathes upon the ground\n    But I will beard him.\n\n                     Enter one with letters.\n\n  Hot. Do so, and 'tis well.-\n    What letters hast thou there?- I can but thank you.\n  Messenger. These letters come from your father.\n  Hot. Letters from him? Why comes he not himself?\n  Mess. He cannot come, my lord; he is grievous sick.\n  Hot. Zounds! how has he the leisure to be sick\n    In such a justling time? Who leads his power?\n    Under whose government come they along?\n  Mess. His letters bears his mind, not I, my lord.\n  Wor. I prithee tell me, doth he keep his bed?\n  Mess. He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth,\n    And at the time of my departure thence\n    He was much fear'd by his physicians.\n  Wor. I would the state of time had first been whole\n    Ere he by sickness had been visited.\n    His health was never better worth than now.\n  Hot. Sick now? droop now? This sickness doth infect\n    The very lifeblood of our enterprise.\n    'Tis catching hither, even to our camp.\n    He writes me here that inward sickness-\n    And that his friends by deputation could not\n    So soon be drawn; no did he think it meet\n    To lay so dangerous and dear a trust\n    On any soul remov'd but on his own.\n    Yet doth he give us bold advertisement,\n    That with our small conjunction we should on,\n    To see how fortune is dispos'd to us;\n    For, as he writes, there is no quailing now,\n    Because the King is certainly possess'd\n    Of all our purposes. What say you to it?\n  Wor. Your father's sickness is a maim to us.\n  Hot. A perilous gash, a very limb lopp'd off.\n    And yet, in faith, it is not! His present want\n    Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good\n    To set the exact wealth of all our states\n    All at one cast? to set so rich a man\n    On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour?\n    It were not good; for therein should we read\n    The very bottom and the soul of hope,\n    The very list, the very utmost bound\n    Of all our fortunes.\n  Doug. Faith, and so we should;\n    Where now remains a sweet reversion.\n    We may boldly spend upon the hope of what\n    Is to come in.\n    A comfort of retirement lives in this.\n  Hot. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto,\n    If that the devil and mischance look big\n    Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.\n  Wor. But yet I would your father had been here.\n    The quality and hair of our attempt\n    Brooks no division. It will be thought\n    By some that know not why he is away,\n    That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike\n    Of our proceedings kept the Earl from hence.\n    And think how such an apprehension\n    May turn the tide of fearful faction\n    And breed a kind of question in our cause.\n    For well you know we of the off'ring side\n    Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement,\n    And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence\n    The eye of reason may pry in upon us.\n    This absence of your father's draws a curtain\n    That shows the ignorant a kind of fear\n    Before not dreamt of.\n  Hot. You strain too far.\n    I rather of his absence make this use:\n    It lends a lustre and more great opinion,\n    A larger dare to our great enterprise,\n    Than if the Earl were here; for men must think,\n    If we, without his help, can make a head\n    To push against a kingdom, with his help\n    We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down.\n    Yet all goes well; yet all our joints are whole.\n  Doug. As heart can think. There is not such a word\n    Spoke of in Scotland as this term of fear.\n\n                 Enter Sir Richard Vernon.\n\n  Hot. My cousin Vernon! welcome, by my soul.\n  Ver. Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord.\n    The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong,\n    Is marching hitherwards; with him Prince John.\n  Hot. No harm. What more?\n  Ver. And further, I have learn'd\n    The King himself in person is set forth,\n    Or hitherwards intended speedily,\n    With strong and mighty preparation.\n  Hot. He shall be welcome too. Where is his son,\n    The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales,\n    And his comrades, that daff'd the world aside\n    And bid it pass?\n  Ver. All furnish'd, all in arms;\n    All plum'd like estridges that with the wind\n    Bated like eagles having lately bath'd;\n    Glittering in golden coats like images;\n    As full of spirit as the month of May\n    And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;\n    Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.\n    I saw young Harry with his beaver on\n    His cushes on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,\n    Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury,\n    And vaulted with such ease into his seat\n    As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds\n    To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus\n    And witch the world with noble horsemanship.\n  Hot. No more, no more! Worse than the sun in March,\n    This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come.\n    They come like sacrifices in their trim,\n    And to the fire-ey'd maid of smoky war\n    All hot and bleeding Will we offer them.\n    The mailed Mars Shall on his altar sit\n    Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire\n    To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,\n    And yet not ours. Come, let me taste my horse,\n    Who is to bear me like a thunderbolt\n    Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales.\n    Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse,\n    Meet, and ne'er part till one drop down a corse.\n    that Glendower were come!\n  Ver. There is more news.\n    I learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along,\n    He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.\n  Doug. That's the worst tidings that I hear of yet.\n  Wor. Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.\n  Hot. What may the King's whole battle reach unto?\n  Ver. To thirty thousand.\n  Hot. Forty let it be.\n    My father and Glendower being both away,\n    The powers of us may serve so great a day.\n    Come, let us take a muster speedily.\n    Doomsday is near. Die all, die merrily.\n  Doug. Talk not of dying. I am out of fear\n    Of death or death's hand for this one half-year.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nA public road near Coventry.\n\nEnter Falstaff and Bardolph.\n\n  Fal. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of\n    sack. Our soldiers shall march through. We'll to Sutton\nCo'fil'\n    to-night.\n  Bard. Will you give me money, Captain?\n  Fal. Lay out, lay out.\n  Bald. This bottle makes an angel.\n  Fal. An if it do, take it for thy labour; an if it make twenty,\n    take them all; I'll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant\nPeto\n    meet me at town's end.\n  Bard. I Will, Captain. Farewell.                         Exit.\n  Fal. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a sous'd gurnet.\nI\n    have misused the King's press damnably. I have got in\nexchange of\n    a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I\n    press me none but good householders, yeomen's sons; inquire\nme\n    out contracted bachelors, such as had been ask'd twice on the\n    banes- such a commodity of warm slaves as had as lieve hear\nthe\n    devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a caliver worse\nthan\n    a struck fowl or a hurt wild duck. I press'd me none but such\n    toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger\nthan\n    pins' heads, and they have bought out their services; and now\nmy\n    whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants,\n    gentlemen of companies- slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the\n    painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores; and\n    such as indeed were never soldiers, but discarded unjust\n    serving-men, younger sons to Younger brothers, revolted\ntapsters,\n    and ostlers trade-fall'n; the cankers of a calm world and a\nlong\n    peace; ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old fac'd\n    ancient; and such have I to fill up the rooms of them that\nhave\n    bought out their services that you would think that I had a\n    hundred and fifty tattered Prodigals lately come from\n    swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met\nme\n    on the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and\n    press'd the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows.\nI'll\n    not march through Coventry with them, that's flat. Nay, and\nthe\n    villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves\non;\n    for indeed I had the most of them out of prison. There's but\na\n    shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is two\n\n    napkins tack'd together and thrown over the shoulders like a\n    herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the\ntruth,\n    stol'n from my host at Saint Alban's, or the red-nose\ninnkeeper\n    of Daventry. But that's all one; they'll find linen enough on\n    every hedge.\n\n              Enter the Prince and the Lord of Westmoreland.\n\n  Prince. How now, blown Jack? How now, quilt?\n  Fal. What, Hal? How now, mad wag? What a devil dost thou in\n    Warwickshire? My good Lord of Westmoreland, I cry you mercy.\nI\n    thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury.\n  West. Faith, Sir John, 'tis more than time that I were there,\nand\n    you too; but my powers are there already. The King, I can\ntell\n    you, looks for us all. We must away all, to-night.\n  Fal. Tut, never fear me. I am as vigilant as a cat to steal\ncream.\n  Prince. I think, to steal cream indeed, for thy theft hath\nalready\n    made thee butter. But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these\nthat\n    come after?\n  Fal. Mine, Hal, mine.\n  Prince. I did never see such pitiful rascals.\n  Fal. Tut, tut! good enough to toss; food for powder, food for\n    powder. They'll fill a pit as well as better. Tush, man,\nmortal\n    men, mortal men.\n  West. Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and\nbare-\n    too beggarly.\n  Fal. Faith, for their poverty, I know, not where they had that;\nand\n    for their bareness, I am surd they never learn'd that of me.\n  Prince. No, I'll be sworn, unless you call three fingers on the\n    ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste. Percy 's already in the\n    field.\nExit.\n  Fal. What, is the King encamp'd?\n  West. He is, Sir John. I fear we shall stay too long.\n                                                         [Exit.]\n  Fal. Well,\n    To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast\n    Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.                  Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nThe rebel camp near Shrewsbury.\n\nEnter Hotspur, Worcester, Douglas, Vernon.\n\n  Hot. We'll fight with him to-night.\n  Wor. It may not be.\n  Doug. You give him then advantage.\n  Ver. Not a whit.\n  Hot. Why say you so? Looks he no for supply?\n  Ver. So do we.\n  Hot. His is certain, ours 's doubtful.\n  Wor. Good cousin, be advis'd; stir not to-night.\n  Ver. Do not, my lord.\n  Doug. You do not counsel well.\n    You speak it out of fear and cold heart.\n  Ver. Do me no slander, Douglas. By my life-\n    And I dare well maintain it with my life-\n    If well-respected honour bid me on\n    I hold as little counsel with weak fear\n    As you, my lord, or any Scot that this day lives.\n    Let it be seen to-morrow in the battle\n    Which of us fears.\n  Doug. Yea, or to-night.\n  Ver. Content.\n  Hot. To-night, say I.\n    Come, come, it may not be. I wonder much,\n    Being men of such great leading as you are,\n    That you foresee not what impediments\n    Drag back our expedition. Certain horse\n    Of my cousin Vernon's are not yet come up.\n    Your uncle Worcester's horse came but to-day;\n    And now their pride and mettle is asleep,\n    Their courage with hard labour tame and dull,\n    That not a horse is half the half of himself.\n  Hot. So are the horses of the enemy,\n    In general journey-bated and brought low.\n    The better part of ours are full of rest.\n  Wor. The number of the King exceedeth ours.\n    For God's sake, cousin, stay till all come in.\n\n              The trumpet sounds a parley.\n\n                 Enter Sir Walter Blunt.\n\n  Blunt. I come with gracious offers from the King,\n    If you vouchsafe me hearing and respect.\n  Hot. Welcome, Sir Walter Blunt, and would to God\n    You were of our determination!\n    Some of us love you well; and even those some\n    Envy your great deservings and good name,\n    Because you are not of our quality,\n    But stand against us like an enemy.\n  Blunt. And God defend but still I should stand so,\n    So long as out of limit and true rule\n    You stand against anointed majesty!\n    But to my charge. The King hath sent to know\n    The nature of your griefs; and whereupon\n    You conjure from the breast of civil peace\n    Such bold hostility, teaching his duteous land\n    Audacious cruelty. If that the King\n    Have any way your good deserts forgot,\n    Which he confesseth to be manifold,\n    He bids you name your griefs, and with all speed\n    You shall have your desires with interest,\n    And pardon absolute for yourself and these\n    Herein misled by your suggestion.\n  Hot. The King is kind; and well we know the King\n    Knows at what time to promise, when to pay.\n    My father and my uncle and myself\n    Did give him that same royalty he wears;\n    And when he was not six-and-twenty strong,\n    Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low,\n    A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home,\n    My father gave him welcome to the shore;\n    And when he heard him swear and vow to God\n    He came but to be Duke of Lancaster,\n    To sue his livery and beg his peace,\n    With tears of innocency and terms of zeal,\n    My father, in kind heart and pity mov'd,\n    Swore him assistance, and performed it too.\n    Now, when the lords and barons of the realm\n    Perceiv'd Northumberland did lean to him,\n    The more and less came in with cap and knee;\n    Met him on boroughs, cities, villages,\n    Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes,\n    Laid gifts before him, proffer'd him their oaths,\n    Give him their heirs as pages, followed him\n    Even at the heels in golden multitudes.\n    He presently, as greatness knows itself,\n    Steps me a little higher than his vow\n    Made to my father, while his blood was poor,\n    Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurgh;\n    And now, forsooth, takes on him to reform\n    Some certain edicts and some strait decrees\n    That lie too heavy on the commonwealth;\n    Cries out upon abuses, seems to weep\n    Over his country's wrongs; and by this face,\n    This seeming brow of justice, did he win\n    The hearts of all that he did angle for;\n    Proceeded further- cut me off the heads\n    Of all the favourites that the absent King\n    In deputation left behind him here\n    When he was personal in the Irish war.\n    But. Tut! I came not to hear this.\n  Hot. Then to the point.\n    In short time after lie depos'd the King;\n    Soon after that depriv'd him of his life;\n    And in the neck of that task'd the whole state;\n    To make that worse, suff'red his kinsman March\n    (Who is, if every owner were well placid,\n    Indeed his king) to be engag'd in Wales,\n    There without ransom to lie forfeited;\n    Disgrac'd me in my happy victories,\n    Sought to entrap me by intelligence;\n    Rated mine uncle from the Council board;\n    In rage dismiss'd my father from the court;\n    Broke an oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong;\n    And in conclusion drove us to seek out\n    This head of safety, and withal to pry\n    Into his title, the which we find\n    Too indirect for long continuance.\n  Blunt. Shall I return this answer to the King?\n  Hot. Not so, Sir Walter. We'll withdraw awhile.\n    Go to the King; and let there be impawn'd\n    Some surety for a safe return again,\n    And In the morning early shall mine uncle\n    Bring him our purposes; and so farewell.\n  Blunt. I would you would accept of grace and love.\n  Hot. And may be so we shall.\n  Blunt. Pray God you do.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nYork. The Archbishop's Palace.\n\nEnter the Archbishop of York and Sir Michael.\n\n  Arch. Hie, good Sir Michael; bear this sealed brief\n    With winged haste to the Lord Marshal;\n    This to my cousin Scroop; and all the rest\n    To whom they are directed. If you knew\n    How much they do import, you would make haste.\n  Sir M. My good lord,\n    I guess their tenour.\n  Arch. Like enough you do.\n    To-morrow, good Sir Michael, is a day\n    Wherein the fortune of ten thousand men\n    Must bide the touch; for, sir, at Shrewsbury,\n    As I am truly given to understand,\n    The King with mighty and quick-raised power\n    Meets with Lord Harry; and I fear, Sir Michael,\n    What with the sickness of Northumberland,\n    Whose power was in the first proportion,\n    And what with Owen Glendower's absence thence,\n    Who with them was a rated sinew too\n    And comes not in, overrul'd by prophecies-\n    I fear the power of Percy is too weak\n    To wage an instant trial with the King.\n  Sir M. Why, my good lord, you need not fear;\n    There is Douglas and Lord Mortimer.\n  Arch. No, Mortimer is not there.\n  Sir M. But there is Mordake, Vernon, Lord Harry Percy,\n    And there is my Lord of Worcester, and a head\n    Of gallant warriors, noble gentlemen.\n  Arch. And so there is; but yet the King hath drawn\n    The special head of all the land together-\n    The Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster,\n    The noble Westmoreland and warlike Blunt,\n    And many moe corrivals and dear men\n    Of estimation and command in arms.\n  Sir M. Doubt not, my lord, they shall be well oppos'd.\n  Arch. I hope no less, yet needful 'tis to fear;\n    And, to prevent the worst, Sir Michael, speed.\n    For if Lord Percy thrive not, ere the King\n    Dismiss his power, he means to visit us,\n    For he hath heard of our confederacy,\n    And 'tis but wisdom to make strong against him.\n    Therefore make haste. I must go write again\n    To other friends; and so farewell, Sir Michael.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nACT V. Scene I.\nThe King's camp near Shrewsbury.\n\nEnter the King, Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster, Sir\nWalter Blunt,\nFalstaff.\n\n  King. How bloodily the sun begins to peer\n    Above yon busky hill! The day looks pale\n    At his distemp'rature.\n  Prince. The southern wind\n    Doth play the trumpet to his purposes\n    And by his hollow whistling in the leaves\n    Foretells a tempest and a blust'ring day.\n  King. Theft with the losers let it sympathize,\n    For nothing can seem foul to those that win.\n\n     The trumpet sounds. Enter Worcester [and Vernon].\n\n    How, now, my Lord of Worcester? 'Tis not well\n    That you and I should meet upon such terms\n    As now we meet. You have deceiv'd our trust\n    And made us doff our easy robes of peace\n    To crush our old limbs in ungentle steel.\n    This is not well, my lord; this is not well.\n    What say you to it? Will you again unknit\n    This churlish knot of all-abhorred war,\n    And move in that obedient orb again\n    Where you did give a fair and natural light,\n    And be no more an exhal'd meteor,\n    A prodigy of fear, and a portent\n    Of broached mischief to the unborn times?\n  Wor. Hear me, my liege.\n    For mine own part, I could be well content\n    To entertain the lag-end of my life\n    With quiet hours; for I do protest\n    I have not sought the day of this dislike.\n  King. You have not sought it! How comes it then,\n  Fal. Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it.\n  Prince. Peace, chewet, peace!\n  Wor. It pleas'd your Majesty to turn your looks\n    Of favour from myself and all our house;\n    And yet I must remember you, my lord,\n    We were the first and dearest of your friends.\n    For you my staff of office did I break\n    In Richard's time, and posted day and night\n    To meet you on the way and kiss your hand\n    When yet you were in place and in account\n    Nothing so strong and fortunate as I.\n    It was myself, my brother, and his son\n    That brought you home and boldly did outdare\n    The dangers of the time. You swore to us,\n    And you did swear that oath at Doncaster,\n    That you did nothing purpose 'gainst the state,\n    Nor claim no further than your new-fall'n right,\n    The seat of Gaunt, dukedom of Lancaster.\n    To this we swore our aid. But in short space\n    It it rain'd down fortune show'ring on your head,\n    And such a flood of greatness fell on you-\n    What with our help, what with the absent King,\n    What with the injuries of a wanton time,\n    The seeming sufferances that you had borne,\n    And the contrarious winds that held the King\n    So long in his unlucky Irish wars\n    That all in England did repute him dead-\n    And from this swarm of fair advantages\n    You took occasion to be quickly woo'd\n    To gripe the general sway into your hand;\n    Forgot your oath to us at Doncaster;\n    And, being fed by us, you us'd us so\n    As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo's bird,\n    Useth the sparrow- did oppress our nest;\n    Grew, by our feeding to so great a bulk\n    That even our love thirst not come near your sight\n    For fear of swallowing; but with nimble wing\n    We were enforc'd for safety sake to fly\n    Out of your sight and raise this present head;\n    Whereby we stand opposed by such means\n    As you yourself have forg'd against yourself\n    By unkind usage, dangerous countenance,\n    And violation of all faith and troth\n    Sworn to tis in your younger enterprise.\n  King. These things, indeed, you have articulate,\n    Proclaim'd at market crosses, read in churches,\n    To face the garment of rebellion\n    With some fine colour that may please the eye\n    Of fickle changelings and poor discontents,\n    Which gape and rub the elbow at the news\n    Of hurlyburly innovation.\n    And never yet did insurrection want\n    Such water colours to impaint his cause,\n    Nor moody beggars, starving for a time\n    Of pell-mell havoc and confusion.\n  Prince. In both our armies there is many a soul\n    Shall pay full dearly for this encounter,\n    If once they join in trial. Tell your nephew\n    The Prince of Wales doth join with all the world\n    In praise of Henry Percy. By my hopes,\n    This present enterprise set off his head,\n    I do not think a braver gentleman,\n    More active-valiant or more valiant-young,\n    More daring or more bold, is now alive\n    To grace this latter age with noble deeds.\n    For my part, I may speak it to my shame,\n    I have a truant been to chivalry;\n    And so I hear he doth account me too.\n    Yet this before my father's Majesty-\n    I am content that he shall take the odds\n    Of his great name and estimation,\n    And will to save the blood on either side,\n    Try fortune with him in a single fight.\n  King. And, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture thee,\n    Albeit considerations infinite\n    Do make against it. No, good Worcester, no!\n    We love our people well; even those we love\n    That are misled upon your cousin's part;\n    And, will they take the offer of our grace,\n    Both he, and they, and you, yea, every man\n    Shall be my friend again, and I'll be his.\n    So tell your cousin, and bring me word\n    What he will do. But if he will not yield,\n    Rebuke and dread correction wait on us,\n    And they shall do their office. So be gone.\n    We will not now be troubled with reply.\n    We offer fair; take it advisedly.\n                                    Exit Worcester [with Vernon]\n  Prince. It will not be accepted, on my life.\n    The Douglas and the Hotspur both together\n    Are confident against the world in arms.\n  King. Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge;\n    For, on their answer, will we set on them,\n    And God befriend us as our cause is just!\n                                Exeunt. Manent Prince, Falstaff.\n  Fal. Hal, if thou see me down in the battle and bestride me,\nso!\n    'Tis a point of friendship.\n  Prince. Nothing but a Colossus can do thee that friendship.\n    Say thy prayers, and farewell.\n  Fal. I would 'twere bedtime, Hal, and all well.\n  Prince. Why, thou owest God a death.\nExit.\n  Fal. 'Tis not due yet. I would be loath to pay him before his\nday.\n    What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me?\nWell,\n    'tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour\nprick\n    me off when I come on? How then? Can honor set to a leg? No.\nOr\n    an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour\nhath no\n    skill in surgery then? No. What is honour? A word. What is\nthat\n    word honour? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died\na\n    Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth be bear it? No. 'Tis\n    insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with\nthe\n    living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore\nI'll\n    none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon- and so ends my\ncatechism.\nExit.\n\n\n\n\nScene II.\nThe rebel camp.\n\nEnter Worcester and Sir Richard Vernon.\n\n  Wor. O no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard,\n    The liberal and kind offer of the King.\n  Ver. 'Twere best he did.\n  Wor. Then are we all undone.\n    It is not possible, it cannot be\n    The King should keep his word in loving us.\n    He will suspect us still and find a time\n    To punish this offence in other faults.\n    Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes;\n    For treason is but trusted like the fox\n    Who, ne'er so tame, so cherish'd and lock'd up,\n    Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.\n    Look how we can, or sad or merrily,\n    Interpretation will misquote our looks,\n    And we shall feed like oxen at a stall,\n    The better cherish'd, still the nearer death.\n    My nephew's trespass may be well forgot;\n    It hath the excuse of youth and heat of blood,\n    And an adopted name of privilege-\n    A hare-brained Hotspur govern'd by a spleen.\n    All his offences live upon my head\n    And on his father's. We did train him on;\n    And, his corruption being taken from us,\n    We, as the spring of all, shall pay for all.\n    Therefore, good cousin, let not Harry know,\n    In any case, the offer of the King.\n\n               Enter Hotspur [and Douglas].\n\n  Ver. Deliver what you will, I'll say 'tis so.\n    Here comes your cousin.\n  Hot. My uncle is return'd.\n    Deliver up my Lord of Westmoreland.\n    Uncle, what news?\n  Wor. The King will bid you battle presently.\n  Doug. Defy him by the Lord Of Westmoreland.\n  Hot. Lord Douglas, go you and tell him so.\n  Doug. Marry, and shall, and very willingly.\nExit.\n  Wor. There is no seeming mercy in the King.\n  Hot. Did you beg any, God forbid!\n  Wor. I told him gently of our grievances,\n    Of his oath-breaking; which he mended thus,\n    By now forswearing that he is forsworn.\n    He calls us rebels, traitors, aid will scourge\n    With haughty arms this hateful name in us.\n\n                       Enter Douglas.\n\n  Doug. Arm, gentlemen! to arms! for I have thrown\n    A brave defiance in King Henry's teeth,\n    And Westmoreland, that was engag'd, did bear it;\n    Which cannot choose but bring him quickly on.\n  Wor. The Prince of Wales stepp'd forth before the King\n    And, nephew, challeng'd you to single fight.\n  Hot. O, would the quarrel lay upon our heads,\n    And that no man might draw short breath to-day\n    But I and Harry Monmouth! Tell me, tell me,\n    How show'd his tasking? Seem'd it in contempt?\n    No, by my soul. I never in my life\n    Did hear a challenge urg'd more modestly,\n    Unless a brother should a brother dare\n    To gentle exercise and proof of arms.\n    He gave you all the duties of a man;\n    Trimm'd up your praises with a princely tongue;\n    Spoke your deservings like a chronicle;\n    Making you ever better than his praise\n    By still dispraising praise valued with you;\n    And, which became him like a prince indeed,\n    He made a blushing cital of himself,\n    And chid his truant youth with such a grace\n    As if lie mast'red there a double spirit\n    Of teaching and of learning instantly.\n    There did he pause; but let me tell the world,\n    If he outlive the envy of this day,\n    England did never owe so sweet a hope,\n    So much misconstrued in his wantonness.\n  Hot. Cousin, I think thou art enamoured\n    Upon his follies. Never did I hear\n    Of any prince so wild a libertine.\n    But be he as he will, yet once ere night\n    I will embrace him with a soldier's arm,\n    That he shall shrink under my courtesy.\n    Arm, arm with speed! and, fellows, soldiers, friends,\n    Better consider what you have to do\n    Than I, that have not well the gift of tongue,\n    Can lift your blood up with persuasion.\n\n                       Enter a Messenger.\n\n  Mess. My lord, here are letters for you.\n  Hot. I cannot read them now.-\n    O gentlemen, the time of life is short!\n    To spend that shortness basely were too long\n    If life did ride upon a dial's point,\n    Still ending at the arrival of an hour.\n    An if we live, we live to tread on kings;\n    If die, brave death, when princes die with us!\n    Now for our consciences, the arms are fair,\n    When the intent of bearing them is just.\n\n                  Enter another Messenger.\n\n  Mess. My lord, prepare. The King comes on apace.\n  Hot. I thank him that he cuts me from my tale,\n    For I profess not talking. Only this-\n    Let each man do his best; and here draw I\n    A sword whose temper I intend to stain\n    With the best blood that I can meet withal\n    In the adventure of this perilous day.\n    Now, Esperance! Percy! and set on.\n    Sound all the lofty instruments of war,\n    And by that music let us all embrace;\n    For, heaven to earth, some of us never shall\n    A second time do such a courtesy.\n                          Here they embrace. The trumpets sound.\n                                                       [Exeunt.]\n\n\n\n\nScene III.\nPlain between the camps.\n\nThe King enters with his Power.  Alarum to the battle.  Then\nenter Douglas\nand Sir Walter Blunt.\n\n  Blunt. What is thy name, that in the battle thus\n    Thou crossest me? What honour dost thou seek\n    Upon my head?\n  Doug. Know then my name is Douglas,\n    And I do haunt thee in the battle thus\n    Because some tell me that thou art a king.\n  Blunt. They tell thee true.\n  Doug. The Lord of Stafford dear to-day hath bought\n    Thy likeness; for instead of thee, King Harry,\n    This sword hath ended him. So shall it thee,\n    Unless thou yield thee as my prisoner.\n  Blunt. I was not born a yielder, thou proud Scot;\n    And thou shalt find a king that will revenge\n    Lord Stafford's death.\n\n    They fight. Douglas kills Blunt. Then enter Hotspur.\n\n  Hot. O Douglas, hadst thou fought at Holmedon thus,\n    I never had triumph'd upon a Scot.\n  Doug. All's done, all's won. Here breathless lies the King.\n  Hot. Where?\n  Doug. Here.\n  Hot. This, Douglas? No. I know this face full well.\n    A gallant knight he was, his name was Blunt;\n    Semblably furnish'd like the King himself.\n  Doug. A fool go with thy soul, whither it goes!\n    A borrowed title hast thou bought too dear:\n    Why didst thou tell me that thou wert a king?\n  Hot. The King hath many marching in his coats.\n  Doug. Now, by my sword, I will kill all his coats;\n    I'll murder all his wardrop, piece by piece,\n    Until I meet the King.\n  Hot. Up and away!\n    Our soldiers stand full fairly for the day.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n                 Alarum. Enter Falstaff solus.\n\n  Fal. Though I could scape shot-free at London, I fear the shot\n    here. Here's no scoring but upon the pate. Soft! who are you?\n    Sir Walter Blunt. There's honour for you! Here's no vanity! I\nam\n    as hot as molten lead, and as heavy too. God keep lead out of\nme!\n    I need no more weight than mine own bowels. I have led my\n    rag-of-muffins where they are pepper'd. There's not three of\nmy\n    hundred and fifty left alive; and they are for the town's\nend, to\n    beg during life. But who comes here?\n\n                         Enter the Prince.\n\n  Prince. What, stand'st thou idle here? Lend me thy sword.\n    Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff\n    Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies,\n    Whose deaths are yet unreveng'd. I prithee\n    Rend me thy sword.\n  Fal. O Hal, I prithee give me leave to breathe awhile. Turk\nGregory\n    never did such deeds in arms as I have done this day. I have\npaid\n    Percy; I have made him sure.\n  Prince. He is indeed, and living to kill thee.\n    I prithee lend me thy sword.\n  Fal. Nay, before God, Hal, if Percy be alive, thou get'st not\nmy\n    sword; but take my pistol, if thou wilt.\n  Prince. Give it me. What, is it in the case?\n  Fal. Ay, Hal. 'Tis hot, 'tis hot. There's that will sack a\ncity.\n\n    The Prince draws it out and finds it to he a bottle of sack.\n\n    What, is it a time to jest and dally now?\n                              He throws the bottle at him. Exit.\n  Fal. Well, if Percy be alive, I'll pierce him. If he do come in\nmy\n    way, so; if he do not, if I come in his willingly, let him\nmake a\n    carbonado of me. I like not such grinning honour as Sir\nWalter\n    hath. Give me life; which if I can save, so; if not, honour\ncomes\n    unlook'd for, and there's an end.                      Exit.\n\n\n\n\nScene IV.\nAnother part of the field.\n\nAlarum. Excursions. Enter the King, the Prince, Lord John of\nLancaster,\nEarl of Westmoreland\n\n  King. I prithee,\n    Harry, withdraw thyself; thou bleedest too much.\n    Lord John of Lancaster, go you unto him.\n  John. Not I, my lord, unless I did bleed too.\n  Prince. I do beseech your Majesty make up,\n    Lest Your retirement do amaze your friends.\n  King. I will do so.\n    My Lord of Westmoreland, lead him to his tent.\n  West. Come, my lord, I'll lead you to your tent.\n  Prince. Lead me, my lord, I do not need your help;\n    And God forbid a shallow scratch should drive\n    The Prince of Wales from such a field as this,\n    Where stain'd nobility lies trodden on,\n    And rebels' arms triumph in massacres!\n  John. We breathe too long. Come, cousin Westmoreland,\n    Our duty this way lies. For God's sake, come.\n                          [Exeunt Prince John and Westmoreland.]\n  Prince. By God, thou hast deceiv'd me, Lancaster!\n    I did not think thee lord of such a spirit.\n    Before, I lov'd thee as a brother, John;\n    But now, I do respect thee as my soul.\n  King. I saw him hold Lord Percy at the point\n    With lustier maintenance than I did look for\n    Of such an ungrown warrior.\n  Prince. O, this boy\n    Lends mettle to us all!                                Exit.\n\n                         Enter Douglas.\n\n  Doug. Another king? They grow like Hydra's heads.\n    I am the Douglas, fatal to all those\n    That wear those colours on them. What art thou\n    That counterfeit'st the person of a king?\n  King. The King himself, who, Douglas, grieves at heart\n    So many of his shadows thou hast met,\n    And not the very King. I have two boys\n    Seek Percy and thyself about the field;\n    But, seeing thou fall'st on me so luckily,\n    I will assay thee. So defend thyself.\n  Doug. I fear thou art another counterfeit;\n    And yet, in faith, thou bearest thee like a king.\n    But mine I am sure thou art, whoe'er thou be,\n    And thus I win thee.\n\n   They fight. The King being in danger, enter Prince of Wales.\n\n  Prince. Hold up thy head, vile Scot, or thou art like\n    Never to hold it up again! The spirits\n    Of valiant Shirley, Stafford, Blunt are in my arms.\n    It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee,\n    Who never promiseth but he means to pay.\n                                     They fight. Douglas flieth.\n    Cheerly, my lord. How fares your Grace?\n    Sir Nicholas Gawsey hath for succour sent,\n    And so hath Clifton. I'll to Clifton straight.\n  King. Stay and breathe awhile.\n    Thou hast redeem'd thy lost opinion,\n    And show'd thou mak'st some tender of my life,\n    In this fair rescue thou hast brought to me.\n  Prince. O God! they did me too much injury\n    That ever said I heark'ned for your death.\n    If it were so, I might have let alone\n    The insulting hand of Douglas over you,\n    Which would have been as speedy in your end\n    As all the poisonous potions in the world,\n    And sav'd the treacherous labour of your son.\n  King. Make up to Clifton; I'll to Sir Nicholas Gawsey.\nExit.\n\n                      Enter Hotspur.\n\n  Hot. If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth.\n  Prince. Thou speak'st as if I would deny my name.\n  Hot. My name is Harry Percy.\n  Prince. Why, then I see\n    A very valiant rebel of the name.\n    I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy,\n    To share with me in glory any more.\n    Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere,\n    Nor can one England brook a double reign\n    Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.\n  Hot. Nor shall it, Harry; for the hour is come\n    To end the one of us and would to God\n    Thy name in arms were now as great as mine!\n  Prince. I'll make it greater ere I part from thee,\n    And all the budding honours on thy crest\n    I'll crop to make a garland for my head.\n  Hot. I can no longer brook thy vanities.\n                                                     They fight.\n\n                      Enter Falstaff.\n\n  Fal. Well said, Hal! to it, Hal! Nay, you shall find no boy's\nplay\n    here, I can tell you.\n\n   Enter Douglas. He fighteth with Falstaff, who falls down as if\n\n      he were dead. [Exit Douglas.] The Prince killeth Percy.\n\n  Hot. O Harry, thou hast robb'd me of my youth!\n    I better brook the loss of brittle life\n    Than those proud titles thou hast won of me.\n    They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh.\n    But thoughts the slave, of life, and life time's fool,\n    And time, that takes survey of all the world,\n    Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy,\n    But that the earthy and cold hand of death\n    Lies on my tongue. No, Percy, thou art dust,\n    And food for-                                        [Dies.]\n  Prince. For worms, brave Percy. Fare thee well, great heart!\n    Ill-weav'd ambition, how much art thou shrunk!\n    When that this body did contain a spirit,\n    A kingdom for it was too small a bound;\n    But now two paces of the vilest earth\n    Is room enough. This earth that bears thee dead\n    Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.\n    If thou wert sensible of courtesy,\n    I should not make so dear a show of zeal.\n    But let my favours hide thy mangled face;\n    And, even in thy behalf, I'll thank myself\n    For doing these fair rites of tenderness.\n    Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven!\n    Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave,\n    But not rememb'red in thy epitaph!\n                               He spieth Falstaff on the ground.\n    What, old acquaintance? Could not all this flesh\n    Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell!\n    I could have better spar'd a better man.\n    O, I should have a heavy miss of thee\n    If I were much in love with vanity!\n    Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day,\n    Though many dearer, in this bloody fray.\n    Embowell'd will I see thee by-and-by;\n    Till then in blood by noble Percy lie.                 Exit.\n\n                     Falstaff riseth up.\n\n  Fal. Embowell'd? If thou embowel me to-day, I'll give you leave\nto\n    powder me and eat me too to-morrow. 'Sblood, 'twas time to\n    counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and\nlot\n    too. Counterfeit? I lie; I am no counterfeit. To die is to be\na\n    counterfeit; for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath\nnot\n    the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying when a man\nthereby\n    liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect\nimage\n    of life indeed. The better part of valour is discretion; in\nthe\n    which better part I have saved my life. Zounds, I am afraid\nof\n    this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead. How if he should\n    counterfeit too, and rise? By my faith, I am afraid he would\n    prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I'll make him sure;\nyea,\n    and I'll swear I kill'd him. Why may not he rise as well as\nI?\n    Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore,\n    sirrah [stabs him], with a new wound in your thigh, come you\n    along with me.\n\n   He takes up Hotspur on his hack. [Enter Prince, and John of\n                            Lancaster.\n\n  Prince. Come, brother John; full bravely hast thou flesh'd\n    Thy maiden sword.\n  John. But, soft! whom have we here?\n    Did you not tell me this fat man was dead?\n  Prince. I did; I saw him dead,\n    Breathless and bleeding on the ground. Art thou alive,\n    Or is it fantasy that plays upon our eyesight?\n    I prithee speak. We will not trust our eyes\n    Without our ears. Thou art not what thou seem'st.\n  Fal. No, that's certain! I am not a double man; but if I be not\n    Jack Falstaff, then am I a Jack. There 's Percy. If your\nfather\n    will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next\nPercy\n    himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you.\n  Prince. Why, Percy I kill'd myself, and saw thee dead!\n  Fal. Didst thou? Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!\nI\n    grant you I was down, and out of breath, and so was he; but\nwe\n    rose both at an instant and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury\n    clock. If I may be believ'd, so; if not, let them that should\n    reward valour bear the sin upon their own heads. I'll take it\n    upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh. If the man\n\n    were alive and would deny it, zounds! I would make him eat a\n    piece of my sword.\n  John. This is the strangest tale that ever I beard.\n  Prince. This is the strangest fellow, brother John.\n    Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back.\n    For my part, if a lie may do thee grace,\n    I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have.\n                                           A retreat is sounded.\n    The trumpet sounds retreat; the day is ours.\n    Come, brother, let's to the highest of the field,\n    To see what friends are living, who are dead.\n                          Exeunt [Prince Henry and Prince John].\n  Fal. I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me,\nGod\n    reward him! If I do grow great, I'll grow less; for I'll\npurge,\n    and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.\n                                    Exit [bearing off the body].\n\n\n\n\nScene V.\nAnother part of the field.\n\nThe trumpets sound. [Enter the King, Prince of Wales, Lord John\nof Lancaster,\nEarl of Westmoreland, with Worcester and Vernon prisoners.\n\n  King. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.\n    Ill-spirited Worcester! did not we send grace,\n    Pardon, and terms of love to all of you?\n    And wouldst thou turn our offers contrary?\n    Misuse the tenour of thy kinsman's trust?\n    Three knights upon our party slain to-day,\n    A noble earl, and many a creature else\n    Had been alive this hour,\n    If like a Christian thou hadst truly borne\n    Betwixt our armies true intelligence.\n  Wor. What I have done my safety urg'd me to;\n    And I embrace this fortune patiently,\n    Since not to be avoided it fails on me.\n  King. Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too;\n    Other offenders we will pause upon.\n                         Exeunt Worcester and Vernon, [guarded].\n    How goes the field?\n  Prince. The noble Scot, Lord Douglas, when he saw\n    The fortune of the day quite turn'd from him,\n    The Noble Percy slain and all his men\n    Upon the foot of fear, fled with the rest;\n    And falling from a hill,he was so bruis'd\n    That the pursuers took him. At my tent\n    The Douglas is, and I beseech Your Grace\n    I may dispose of him.\n  King. With all my heart.\n  Prince. Then brother John of Lancaster, to you\n    This honourable bounty shall belong.\n    Go to the Douglas and deliver him\n    Up to his pleasure, ransomless and free.\n    His valour shown upon our crests today\n    Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds,\n    Even in the bosom of our adversaries.\n  John. I thank your Grace for this high courtesy,\n    Which I shall give away immediately.\n  King. Then this remains, that we divide our power.\n    You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland,\n    Towards York shall bend you with your dearest speed\n    To meet Northumberland and the prelate Scroop,\n    Who, as we hear, are busily in arms.\n    Myself and you, son Harry, will towards Wales\n    To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March.\n    Rebellion in this laud shall lose his sway,\n    Meeting the check of such another day;\n    And since this business so fair is done,\n    Let us not leave till all our own be won.\n                                                         Exeunt.\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of this Etext of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare\nTHE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH\n"}
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{"1023":"and revised by Thomas Berger and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.\n\n\n\nBLEAK HOUSE\n\nby\n\nCHARLES DICKENS\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n            Preface\n         I. In Chancery\n        II. In Fashion\n       III. A Progress\n        IV. Telescopic Philanthropy\n         V. A Morning Adventure\n        VI. Quite at Home\n       VII. The Ghost's Walk\n      VIII. Covering a Multitude of Sins\n        IX. Signs and Tokens\n         X. The Law-Writer\n        XI. Our Dear Brother\n       XII. On the Watch\n      XIII. Esther's Narrative\n       XIV. Deportment\n        XV. Bell Yard\n       XVI. Tom-all-Alone's\n      XVII. Esther's Narrative\n     XVIII. Lady Dedlock\n       XIX. Moving On\n        XX. A New Lodger\n       XXI. The Smallweed Family\n      XXII. Mr. Bucket\n     XXIII. Esther's Narrative\n      XXIV. An Appeal Case\n       XXV. Mrs. Snagsby Sees It All\n      XXVI. Sharpshooters\n     XXVII. More Old Soldiers Than One\n    XXVIII. The Ironmaster\n      XXIX. The Young Man\n       XXX. Esther's Narrative\n      XXXI. Nurse and Patient\n     XXXII. The Appointed Time\n    XXXIII. Interlopers\n     XXXIV. A Turn of the Screw\n      XXXV. Esther's Narrative\n     XXXVI. Chesney Wold\n    XXXVII. Jarndyce and Jarndyce\n   XXXVIII. A Struggle\n     XXXIX. Attorney and Client\n        XL. National and Domestic\n       XLI. In Mr. Tulkinghorn's Room\n      XLII. In Mr. Tulkinghorn's Chambers\n     XLIII. Esther's Narrative\n      XLIV. The Letter and the Answer\n       XLV. In Trust\n      XLVI. Stop Him!\n     XLVII. Jo's Will\n    XLVIII. Closing In\n      XLIX. Dutiful Friendship\n         L. Esther's Narrative\n        LI. Enlightened\n       LII. Obstinacy\n      LIII. The Track\n       LIV. Springing a Mine\n        LV. Flight\n       LVI. Pursuit\n      LVII. Esther's Narrative\n     LVIII. A Wintry Day and Night\n       LIX. Esther's Narrative\n        LX. Perspective\n       LXI. A Discovery\n      LXII. Another Discovery\n     LXIII. Steel and Iron\n   LXIV. Esther's Narrative\n   LXV. Beginning the World\n   LXVI. Down in Lincolnshire\n   LXVII. The Close of Esther's Narrative\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nA Chancery judge once had the kindness to inform me, as one of a\ncompany of some hundred and fifty men and women not labouring under\nany suspicions of lunacy, that the Court of Chancery, though the\nshining subject of much popular prejudice (at which point I thought\nthe judge's eye had a cast in my direction), was almost immaculate.\nThere had been, he admitted, a trivial blemish or so in its rate of\nprogress, but this was exaggerated and had been entirely owing to the\n\"parsimony of the public,\" which guilty public, it appeared, had been\nuntil lately bent in the most determined manner on by no means\nenlarging the number of Chancery judges appointed--I believe by\nRichard the Second, but any other king will do as well.\n\nThis seemed to me too profound a joke to be inserted in the body of\nthis book or I should have restored it to Conversation Kenge or to\nMr. Vholes, with one or other of whom I think it must have\noriginated. In such mouths I might have coupled it with an apt\nquotation from one of Shakespeare's sonnets:\n\n                     \"My nature is subdued\n   To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:\n   Pity me, then, and wish I were renewed!\"\n\nBut as it is wholesome that the parsimonious public should know what\nhas been doing, and still is doing, in this connexion, I mention here\nthat everything set forth in these pages concerning the Court of\nChancery is substantially true, and within the truth. The case of\nGridley is in no essential altered from one of actual occurrence,\nmade public by a disinterested person who was professionally\nacquainted with the whole of the monstrous wrong from beginning to\nend. At the present moment (August, 1853) there is a suit before the\ncourt which was commenced nearly twenty years ago, in which from\nthirty to forty counsel have been known to appear at one time, in\nwhich costs have been incurred to the amount of seventy thousand\npounds, which is A FRIENDLY SUIT, and which is (I am assured) no\nnearer to its termination now than when it was begun. There is\nanother well-known suit in Chancery, not yet decided, which was\ncommenced before the close of the last century and in which more than\ndouble the amount of seventy thousand pounds has been swallowed up in\ncosts. If I wanted other authorities for Jarndyce and Jarndyce, I\ncould rain them on these pages, to the shame of--a parsimonious\npublic.\n\nThere is only one other point on which I offer a word of remark. The\npossibility of what is called spontaneous combustion has been denied\nsince the death of Mr. Krook; and my good friend Mr. Lewes (quite\nmistaken, as he soon found, in supposing the thing to have been\nabandoned by all authorities) published some ingenious letters to me\nat the time when that event was chronicled, arguing that spontaneous\ncombustion could not possibly be. I have no need to observe that I do\nnot wilfully or negligently mislead my readers and that before I\nwrote that description I took pains to investigate the subject. There\nare about thirty cases on record, of which the most famous, that of\nthe Countess Cornelia de Baudi Cesenate, was minutely investigated\nand described by Giuseppe Bianchini, a prebendary of Verona,\notherwise distinguished in letters, who published an account of it at\nVerona in 1731, which he afterwards republished at Rome. The\nappearances, beyond all rational doubt, observed in that case are the\nappearances observed in Mr. Krook's case. The next most famous\ninstance happened at Rheims six years earlier, and the historian in\nthat case is Le Cat, one of the most renowned surgeons produced by\nFrance. The subject was a woman, whose husband was ignorantly\nconvicted of having murdered her; but on solemn appeal to a higher\ncourt, he was acquitted because it was shown upon the evidence that\nshe had died the death of which this name of spontaneous combustion\nis given. I do not think it necessary to add to these notable facts,\nand that general reference to the authorities which will be found at\npage 30, vol. ii.,* the recorded opinions and experiences of\ndistinguished medical professors, French, English, and Scotch, in\nmore modern days, contenting myself with observing that I shall not\nabandon the facts until there shall have been a considerable\nspontaneous combustion of the testimony on which human occurrences\nare usually received.**\n\nIn Bleak House I have purposely dwelt upon the romantic side of\nfamiliar things.\n\n\n1853\n\n\n   *Transcriber's note. This referred to a specific page in\n    the printed book. In this Project Gutenberg edition the\n    pertinent information is in Chapter XXX, paragraph 90.\n\n   ** Another case, very clearly described by a dentist,\n    occurred at the town of Columbus, in the United States\n    of America, quite recently. The subject was a German who\n    kept a liquor-shop and was an inveterate drunkard.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nIn Chancery\n\n\nLondon. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting\nin Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in\nthe streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of\nthe earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus,\nforty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn\nHill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black\ndrizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown\nsnowflakes--gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of\nthe sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better;\nsplashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one\nanother's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing\ntheir foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other\nfoot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke\n(if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust\nof mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and\naccumulating at compound interest.\n\nFog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and\nmeadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers\nof shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city.\nFog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping\ninto the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and\nhovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales\nof barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient\nGreenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog\nin the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper,\ndown in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of\nhis shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the\nbridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog\nall round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the\nmisty clouds.\n\nGas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as\nthe sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman\nand ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their\ntime--as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling\nlook.\n\nThe raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the\nmuddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction,\nappropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old\ncorporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn\nHall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in\nhis High Court of Chancery.\n\nNever can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire\ntoo deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which\nthis High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds\nthis day in the sight of heaven and earth.\n\nOn such an afternoon, if ever, the Lord High Chancellor ought to be\nsitting here--as here he is--with a foggy glory round his head,\nsoftly fenced in with crimson cloth and curtains, addressed by a\nlarge advocate with great whiskers, a little voice, and an\ninterminable brief, and outwardly directing his contemplation to the\nlantern in the roof, where he can see nothing but fog. On such an\nafternoon some score of members of the High Court of Chancery bar\nought to be--as here they are--mistily engaged in one of the ten\nthousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on\nslippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running\ntheir goat-hair and horsehair warded heads against walls of words and\nmaking a pretence of equity with serious faces, as players might. On\nsuch an afternoon the various solicitors in the cause, some two or\nthree of whom have inherited it from their fathers, who made a\nfortune by it, ought to be--as are they not?--ranged in a line, in a\nlong matted well (but you might look in vain for truth at the bottom\nof it) between the registrar's red table and the silk gowns, with\nbills, cross-bills, answers, rejoinders, injunctions, affidavits,\nissues, references to masters, masters' reports, mountains of costly\nnonsense, piled before them. Well may the court be dim, with wasting\ncandles here and there; well may the fog hang heavy in it, as if it\nwould never get out; well may the stained-glass windows lose their\ncolour and admit no light of day into the place; well may the\nuninitiated from the streets, who peep in through the glass panes in\nthe door, be deterred from entrance by its owlish aspect and by the\ndrawl, languidly echoing to the roof from the padded dais where the\nLord High Chancellor looks into the lantern that has no light in it\nand where the attendant wigs are all stuck in a fog-bank! This is the\nCourt of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted\nlands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every\nmadhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined\nsuitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and\nbegging through the round of every man's acquaintance, which gives to\nmonied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so\nexhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain\nand breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its\npractitioners who would not give--who does not often give--the\nwarning, \"Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come\nhere!\"\n\nWho happen to be in the Lord Chancellor's court this murky afternoon\nbesides the Lord Chancellor, the counsel in the cause, two or three\ncounsel who are never in any cause, and the well of solicitors before\nmentioned? There is the registrar below the judge, in wig and gown;\nand there are two or three maces, or petty-bags, or privy purses, or\nwhatever they may be, in legal court suits. These are all yawning,\nfor no crumb of amusement ever falls from Jarndyce and Jarndyce (the\ncause in hand), which was squeezed dry years upon years ago. The\nshort-hand writers, the reporters of the court, and the reporters of\nthe newspapers invariably decamp with the rest of the regulars when\nJarndyce and Jarndyce comes on. Their places are a blank. Standing on\na seat at the side of the hall, the better to peer into the curtained\nsanctuary, is a little mad old woman in a squeezed bonnet who is\nalways in court, from its sitting to its rising, and always expecting\nsome incomprehensible judgment to be given in her favour. Some say\nshe really is, or was, a party to a suit, but no one knows for\ncertain because no one cares. She carries some small litter in a\nreticule which she calls her documents, principally consisting of\npaper matches and dry lavender. A sallow prisoner has come up, in\ncustody, for the half-dozenth time to make a personal application \"to\npurge himself of his contempt,\" which, being a solitary surviving\nexecutor who has fallen into a state of conglomeration about accounts\nof which it is not pretended that he had ever any knowledge, he is\nnot at all likely ever to do. In the meantime his prospects in life\nare ended. Another ruined suitor, who periodically appears from\nShropshire and breaks out into efforts to address the Chancellor at\nthe close of the day's business and who can by no means be made to\nunderstand that the Chancellor is legally ignorant of his existence\nafter making it desolate for a quarter of a century, plants himself\nin a good place and keeps an eye on the judge, ready to call out \"My\nLord!\" in a voice of sonorous complaint on the instant of his rising.\nA few lawyers' clerks and others who know this suitor by sight linger\non the chance of his furnishing some fun and enlivening the dismal\nweather a little.\n\nJarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has, in\ncourse of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it\nmeans. The parties to it understand it least, but it has been\nobserved that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five\nminutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the\npremises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause;\ninnumerable young people have married into it; innumerable old people\nhave died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously found\nthemselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without knowing how\nor why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the\nsuit. The little plaintiff or defendant who was promised a new\nrocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled has grown\nup, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the\nother world. Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and\ngrandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and gone\nout; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere\nbills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth\nperhaps since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a\ncoffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags\nits dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless.\n\nJarndyce and Jarndyce has passed into a joke. That is the only good\nthat has ever come of it. It has been death to many, but it is a joke\nin the profession. Every master in Chancery has had a reference out\nof it. Every Chancellor was \"in it,\" for somebody or other, when he\nwas counsel at the bar. Good things have been said about it by\nblue-nosed, bulbous-shoed old benchers in select port-wine committee\nafter dinner in hall. Articled clerks have been in the habit of\nfleshing their legal wit upon it. The last Lord Chancellor handled it\nneatly, when, correcting Mr. Blowers, the eminent silk gown who said\nthat such a thing might happen when the sky rained potatoes, he\nobserved, \"or when we get through Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mr.\nBlowers\"--a pleasantry that particularly tickled the maces, bags, and\npurses.\n\nHow many people out of the suit Jarndyce and Jarndyce has stretched\nforth its unwholesome hand to spoil and corrupt would be a very wide\nquestion. From the master upon whose impaling files reams of dusty\nwarrants in Jarndyce and Jarndyce have grimly writhed into many\nshapes, down to the copying-clerk in the Six Clerks' Office who has\ncopied his tens of thousands of Chancery folio-pages under that\neternal heading, no man's nature has been made better by it. In\ntrickery, evasion, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, under\nfalse pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never\ncome to good. The very solicitors' boys who have kept the wretched\nsuitors at bay, by protesting time out of mind that Mr. Chizzle,\nMizzle, or otherwise was particularly engaged and had appointments\nuntil dinner, may have got an extra moral twist and shuffle into\nthemselves out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The receiver in the cause\nhas acquired a goodly sum of money by it but has acquired too a\ndistrust of his own mother and a contempt for his own kind. Chizzle,\nMizzle, and otherwise have lapsed into a habit of vaguely promising\nthemselves that they will look into that outstanding little matter\nand see what can be done for Drizzle--who was not well used--when\nJarndyce and Jarndyce shall be got out of the office. Shirking and\nsharking in all their many varieties have been sown broadcast by the\nill-fated cause; and even those who have contemplated its history\nfrom the outermost circle of such evil have been insensibly tempted\ninto a loose way of letting bad things alone to take their own bad\ncourse, and a loose belief that if the world go wrong it was in some\noff-hand manner never meant to go right.\n\nThus, in the midst of the mud and at the heart of the fog, sits the\nLord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.\n\n\"Mr. Tangle,\" says the Lord High Chancellor, latterly something\nrestless under the eloquence of that learned gentleman.\n\n\"Mlud,\" says Mr. Tangle. Mr. Tangle knows more of Jarndyce and\nJarndyce than anybody. He is famous for it--supposed never to have\nread anything else since he left school.\n\n\"Have you nearly concluded your argument?\"\n\n\"Mlud, no--variety of points--feel it my duty tsubmit--ludship,\" is\nthe reply that slides out of Mr. Tangle.\n\n\"Several members of the bar are still to be heard, I believe?\" says\nthe Chancellor with a slight smile.\n\nEighteen of Mr. Tangle's learned friends, each armed with a little\nsummary of eighteen hundred sheets, bob up like eighteen hammers in a\npianoforte, make eighteen bows, and drop into their eighteen places\nof obscurity.\n\n\"We will proceed with the hearing on Wednesday fortnight,\" says the\nChancellor. For the question at issue is only a question of costs, a\nmere bud on the forest tree of the parent suit, and really will come\nto a settlement one of these days.\n\nThe Chancellor rises; the bar rises; the prisoner is brought forward\nin a hurry; the man from Shropshire cries, \"My lord!\" Maces, bags,\nand purses indignantly proclaim silence and frown at the man from\nShropshire.\n\n\"In reference,\" proceeds the Chancellor, still on Jarndyce and\nJarndyce, \"to the young girl--\"\n\n\"Begludship's pardon--boy,\" says Mr. Tangle prematurely. \"In\nreference,\" proceeds the Chancellor with extra distinctness, \"to the\nyoung girl and boy, the two young people\"--Mr. Tangle crushed--\"whom\nI directed to be in attendance to-day and who are now in my private\nroom, I will see them and satisfy myself as to the expediency of\nmaking the order for their residing with their uncle.\"\n\nMr. Tangle on his legs again. \"Begludship's pardon--dead.\"\n\n\"With their\"--Chancellor looking through his double eye-glass at the\npapers on his desk--\"grandfather.\"\n\n\"Begludship's pardon--victim of rash action--brains.\"\n\nSuddenly a very little counsel with a terrific bass voice arises,\nfully inflated, in the back settlements of the fog, and says, \"Will\nyour lordship allow me? I appear for him. He is a cousin, several\ntimes removed. I am not at the moment prepared to inform the court in\nwhat exact remove he is a cousin, but he IS a cousin.\"\n\nLeaving this address (delivered like a sepulchral message) ringing in\nthe rafters of the roof, the very little counsel drops, and the fog\nknows him no more. Everybody looks for him. Nobody can see him.\n\n\"I will speak with both the young people,\" says the Chancellor anew,\n\"and satisfy myself on the subject of their residing with their\ncousin. I will mention the matter to-morrow morning when I take my\nseat.\"\n\nThe Chancellor is about to bow to the bar when the prisoner is\npresented. Nothing can possibly come of the prisoner's conglomeration\nbut his being sent back to prison, which is soon done. The man from\nShropshire ventures another remonstrative \"My lord!\" but the\nChancellor, being aware of him, has dexterously vanished. Everybody\nelse quickly vanishes too. A battery of blue bags is loaded with\nheavy charges of papers and carried off by clerks; the little mad old\nwoman marches off with her documents; the empty court is locked up.\nIf all the injustice it has committed and all the misery it has\ncaused could only be locked up with it, and the whole burnt away in a\ngreat funeral pyre--why so much the better for other parties than the\nparties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nIn Fashion\n\n\nIt is but a glimpse of the world of fashion that we want on this same\nmiry afternoon. It is not so unlike the Court of Chancery but that we\nmay pass from the one scene to the other, as the crow flies. Both the\nworld of fashion and the Court of Chancery are things of precedent\nand usage: oversleeping Rip Van Winkles who have played at strange\ngames through a deal of thundery weather; sleeping beauties whom the\nknight will wake one day, when all the stopped spits in the kitchen\nshall begin to turn prodigiously!\n\nIt is not a large world. Relatively even to this world of ours, which\nhas its limits too (as your Highness shall find when you have made\nthe tour of it and are come to the brink of the void beyond), it is a\nvery little speck. There is much good in it; there are many good and\ntrue people in it; it has its appointed place. But the evil of it is\nthat it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller's cotton and fine\nwool, and cannot hear the rushing of the larger worlds, and cannot\nsee them as they circle round the sun. It is a deadened world, and\nits growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air.\n\nMy Lady Dedlock has returned to her house in town for a few days\nprevious to her departure for Paris, where her ladyship intends to\nstay some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain. The\nfashionable intelligence says so for the comfort of the Parisians,\nand it knows all fashionable things. To know things otherwise were to\nbe unfashionable. My Lady Dedlock has been down at what she calls, in\nfamiliar conversation, her \"place\" in Lincolnshire. The waters are\nout in Lincolnshire. An arch of the bridge in the park has been\nsapped and sopped away. The adjacent low-lying ground for half a mile\nin breadth is a stagnant river with melancholy trees for islands in\nit and a surface punctured all over, all day long, with falling rain.\nMy Lady Dedlock's place has been extremely dreary. The weather for\nmany a day and night has been so wet that the trees seem wet through,\nand the soft loppings and prunings of the woodman's axe can make no\ncrash or crackle as they fall. The deer, looking soaked, leave\nquagmires where they pass. The shot of a rifle loses its sharpness in\nthe moist air, and its smoke moves in a tardy little cloud towards\nthe green rise, coppice-topped, that makes a background for the\nfalling rain. The view from my Lady Dedlock's own windows is\nalternately a lead-coloured view and a view in Indian ink. The vases\non the stone terrace in the foreground catch the rain all day; and\nthe heavy drops fall--drip, drip, drip--upon the broad flagged\npavement, called from old time the Ghost's Walk, all night. On\nSundays the little church in the park is mouldy; the oaken pulpit\nbreaks out into a cold sweat; and there is a general smell and taste\nas of the ancient Dedlocks in their graves. My Lady Dedlock (who is\nchildless), looking out in the early twilight from her boudoir at a\nkeeper's lodge and seeing the light of a fire upon the latticed\npanes, and smoke rising from the chimney, and a child, chased by a\nwoman, running out into the rain to meet the shining figure of a\nwrapped-up man coming through the gate, has been put quite out of\ntemper. My Lady Dedlock says she has been \"bored to death.\"\n\nTherefore my Lady Dedlock has come away from the place in\nLincolnshire and has left it to the rain, and the crows, and the\nrabbits, and the deer, and the partridges and pheasants. The pictures\nof the Dedlocks past and gone have seemed to vanish into the damp\nwalls in mere lowness of spirits, as the housekeeper has passed along\nthe old rooms shutting up the shutters. And when they will next come\nforth again, the fashionable intelligence--which, like the fiend, is\nomniscient of the past and present, but not the future--cannot yet\nundertake to say.\n\nSir Leicester Dedlock is only a baronet, but there is no mightier\nbaronet than he. His family is as old as the hills, and infinitely\nmore respectable. He has a general opinion that the world might get\non without hills but would be done up without Dedlocks. He would on\nthe whole admit nature to be a good idea (a little low, perhaps, when\nnot enclosed with a park-fence), but an idea dependent for its\nexecution on your great county families. He is a gentleman of strict\nconscience, disdainful of all littleness and meanness and ready on\nthe shortest notice to die any death you may please to mention rather\nthan give occasion for the least impeachment of his integrity. He is\nan honourable, obstinate, truthful, high-spirited, intensely\nprejudiced, perfectly unreasonable man.\n\nSir Leicester is twenty years, full measure, older than my Lady. He\nwill never see sixty-five again, nor perhaps sixty-six, nor yet\nsixty-seven. He has a twist of the gout now and then and walks a\nlittle stiffly. He is of a worthy presence, with his light-grey hair\nand whiskers, his fine shirt-frill, his pure-white waistcoat, and his\nblue coat with bright buttons always buttoned. He is ceremonious,\nstately, most polite on every occasion to my Lady, and holds her\npersonal attractions in the highest estimation. His gallantry to my\nLady, which has never changed since he courted her, is the one little\ntouch of romantic fancy in him.\n\nIndeed, he married her for love. A whisper still goes about that she\nhad not even family; howbeit, Sir Leicester had so much family that\nperhaps he had enough and could dispense with any more. But she had\nbeauty, pride, ambition, insolent resolve, and sense enough to\nportion out a legion of fine ladies. Wealth and station, added to\nthese, soon floated her upward, and for years now my Lady Dedlock has\nbeen at the centre of the fashionable intelligence and at the top of\nthe fashionable tree.\n\nHow Alexander wept when he had no more worlds to conquer, everybody\nknows--or has some reason to know by this time, the matter having\nbeen rather frequently mentioned. My Lady Dedlock, having conquered\nHER world, fell not into the melting, but rather into the freezing,\nmood. An exhausted composure, a worn-out placidity, an equanimity of\nfatigue not to be ruffled by interest or satisfaction, are the\ntrophies of her victory. She is perfectly well-bred. If she could be\ntranslated to heaven to-morrow, she might be expected to ascend\nwithout any rapture.\n\nShe has beauty still, and if it be not in its heyday, it is not yet\nin its autumn. She has a fine face--originally of a character that\nwould be rather called very pretty than handsome, but improved into\nclassicality by the acquired expression of her fashionable state. Her\nfigure is elegant and has the effect of being tall. Not that she is\nso, but that \"the most is made,\" as the Honourable Bob Stables has\nfrequently asserted upon oath, \"of all her points.\" The same\nauthority observes that she is perfectly got up and remarks in\ncommendation of her hair especially that she is the best-groomed\nwoman in the whole stud.\n\nWith all her perfections on her head, my Lady Dedlock has come up\nfrom her place in Lincolnshire (hotly pursued by the fashionable\nintelligence) to pass a few days at her house in town previous to her\ndeparture for Paris, where her ladyship intends to stay some weeks,\nafter which her movements are uncertain. And at her house in town,\nupon this muddy, murky afternoon, presents himself an old-fashioned\nold gentleman, attorney-at-law and eke solicitor of the High Court of\nChancery, who has the honour of acting as legal adviser of the\nDedlocks and has as many cast-iron boxes in his office with that name\noutside as if the present baronet were the coin of the conjuror's\ntrick and were constantly being juggled through the whole set. Across\nthe hall, and up the stairs, and along the passages, and through the\nrooms, which are very brilliant in the season and very dismal out of\nit--fairy-land to visit, but a desert to live in--the old gentleman\nis conducted by a Mercury in powder to my Lady's presence.\n\nThe old gentleman is rusty to look at, but is reputed to have made\ngood thrift out of aristocratic marriage settlements and aristocratic\nwills, and to be very rich. He is surrounded by a mysterious halo of\nfamily confidences, of which he is known to be the silent depository.\nThere are noble mausoleums rooted for centuries in retired glades of\nparks among the growing timber and the fern, which perhaps hold fewer\nnoble secrets than walk abroad among men, shut up in the breast of\nMr. Tulkinghorn. He is of what is called the old school--a phrase\ngenerally meaning any school that seems never to have been young--and\nwears knee-breeches tied with ribbons, and gaiters or stockings. One\npeculiarity of his black clothes and of his black stockings, be they\nsilk or worsted, is that they never shine. Mute, close, irresponsive\nto any glancing light, his dress is like himself. He never converses\nwhen not professionally consulted. He is found sometimes, speechless\nbut quite at home, at corners of dinner-tables in great country\nhouses and near doors of drawing-rooms, concerning which the\nfashionable intelligence is eloquent, where everybody knows him and\nwhere half the Peerage stops to say \"How do you do, Mr. Tulkinghorn?\"\nHe receives these salutations with gravity and buries them along with\nthe rest of his knowledge.\n\nSir Leicester Dedlock is with my Lady and is happy to see Mr.\nTulkinghorn. There is an air of prescription about him which is\nalways agreeable to Sir Leicester; he receives it as a kind of\ntribute. He likes Mr. Tulkinghorn's dress; there is a kind of tribute\nin that too. It is eminently respectable, and likewise, in a general\nway, retainer-like. It expresses, as it were, the steward of the\nlegal mysteries, the butler of the legal cellar, of the Dedlocks.\n\nHas Mr. Tulkinghorn any idea of this himself? It may be so, or it may\nnot, but there is this remarkable circumstance to be noted in\neverything associated with my Lady Dedlock as one of a class--as one\nof the leaders and representatives of her little world. She supposes\nherself to be an inscrutable Being, quite out of the reach and ken of\nordinary mortals--seeing herself in her glass, where indeed she looks\nso. Yet every dim little star revolving about her, from her maid to\nthe manager of the Italian Opera, knows her weaknesses, prejudices,\nfollies, haughtinesses, and caprices and lives upon as accurate a\ncalculation and as nice a measure of her moral nature as her\ndressmaker takes of her physical proportions. Is a new dress, a new\ncustom, a new singer, a new dancer, a new form of jewellery, a new\ndwarf or giant, a new chapel, a new anything, to be set up? There are\ndeferential people in a dozen callings whom my Lady Dedlock suspects\nof nothing but prostration before her, who can tell you how to manage\nher as if she were a baby, who do nothing but nurse her all their\nlives, who, humbly affecting to follow with profound subservience,\nlead her and her whole troop after them; who, in hooking one, hook\nall and bear them off as Lemuel Gulliver bore away the stately fleet\nof the majestic Lilliput. \"If you want to address our people, sir,\"\nsay Blaze and Sparkle, the jewellers--meaning by our people Lady\nDedlock and the rest--\"you must remember that you are not dealing\nwith the general public; you must hit our people in their weakest\nplace, and their weakest place is such a place.\" \"To make this\narticle go down, gentlemen,\" say Sheen and Gloss, the mercers, to\ntheir friends the manufacturers, \"you must come to us, because we\nknow where to have the fashionable people, and we can make it\nfashionable.\" \"If you want to get this print upon the tables of my\nhigh connexion, sir,\" says Mr. Sladdery, the librarian, \"or if you\nwant to get this dwarf or giant into the houses of my high connexion,\nsir, or if you want to secure to this entertainment the patronage of\nmy high connexion, sir, you must leave it, if you please, to me, for\nI have been accustomed to study the leaders of my high connexion,\nsir, and I may tell you without vanity that I can turn them round my\nfinger\"--in which Mr. Sladdery, who is an honest man, does not\nexaggerate at all.\n\nTherefore, while Mr. Tulkinghorn may not know what is passing in the\nDedlock mind at present, it is very possible that he may.\n\n\"My Lady's cause has been again before the Chancellor, has it, Mr.\nTulkinghorn?\" says Sir Leicester, giving him his hand.\n\n\"Yes. It has been on again to-day,\" Mr. Tulkinghorn replies, making\none of his quiet bows to my Lady, who is on a sofa near the fire,\nshading her face with a hand-screen.\n\n\"It would be useless to ask,\" says my Lady with the dreariness of the\nplace in Lincolnshire still upon her, \"whether anything has been\ndone.\"\n\n\"Nothing that YOU would call anything has been done to-day,\" replies\nMr. Tulkinghorn.\n\n\"Nor ever will be,\" says my Lady.\n\nSir Leicester has no objection to an interminable Chancery suit. It\nis a slow, expensive, British, constitutional kind of thing. To be\nsure, he has not a vital interest in the suit in question, her part\nin which was the only property my Lady brought him; and he has a\nshadowy impression that for his name--the name of Dedlock--to be in a\ncause, and not in the title of that cause, is a most ridiculous\naccident. But he regards the Court of Chancery, even if it should\ninvolve an occasional delay of justice and a trifling amount of\nconfusion, as a something devised in conjunction with a variety of\nother somethings by the perfection of human wisdom for the eternal\nsettlement (humanly speaking) of everything. And he is upon the whole\nof a fixed opinion that to give the sanction of his countenance to\nany complaints respecting it would be to encourage some person in the\nlower classes to rise up somewhere--like Wat Tyler.\n\n\"As a few fresh affidavits have been put upon the file,\" says Mr.\nTulkinghorn, \"and as they are short, and as I proceed upon the\ntroublesome principle of begging leave to possess my clients with any\nnew proceedings in a cause\"--cautious man Mr. Tulkinghorn, taking no\nmore responsibility than necessary--\"and further, as I see you are\ngoing to Paris, I have brought them in my pocket.\"\n\n(Sir Leicester was going to Paris too, by the by, but the delight of\nthe fashionable intelligence was in his Lady.)\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn takes out his papers, asks permission to place them\non a golden talisman of a table at my Lady's elbow, puts on his\nspectacles, and begins to read by the light of a shaded lamp.\n\n\"'In Chancery. Between John Jarndyce--'\"\n\nMy Lady interrupts, requesting him to miss as many of the formal\nhorrors as he can.\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn glances over his spectacles and begins again lower\ndown. My Lady carelessly and scornfully abstracts her attention. Sir\nLeicester in a great chair looks at the file and appears to have a\nstately liking for the legal repetitions and prolixities as ranging\namong the national bulwarks. It happens that the fire is hot where my\nLady sits and that the hand-screen is more beautiful than useful,\nbeing priceless but small. My Lady, changing her position, sees the\npapers on the table--looks at them nearer--looks at them nearer\nstill--asks impulsively, \"Who copied that?\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn stops short, surprised by my Lady's animation and her\nunusual tone.\n\n\"Is it what you people call law-hand?\" she asks, looking full at him\nin her careless way again and toying with her screen.\n\n\"Not quite. Probably\"--Mr. Tulkinghorn examines it as he speaks--\"the\nlegal character which it has was acquired after the original hand was\nformed. Why do you ask?\"\n\n\"Anything to vary this detestable monotony. Oh, go on, do!\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn reads again. The heat is greater; my Lady screens her\nface. Sir Leicester dozes, starts up suddenly, and cries, \"Eh? What\ndo you say?\"\n\n\"I say I am afraid,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, who had risen hastily,\n\"that Lady Dedlock is ill.\"\n\n\"Faint,\" my Lady murmurs with white lips, \"only that; but it is like\nthe faintness of death. Don't speak to me. Ring, and take me to my\nroom!\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn retires into another chamber; bells ring, feet\nshuffle and patter, silence ensues. Mercury at last begs Mr.\nTulkinghorn to return.\n\n\"Better now,\" quoth Sir Leicester, motioning the lawyer to sit down\nand read to him alone. \"I have been quite alarmed. I never knew my\nLady swoon before. But the weather is extremely trying, and she\nreally has been bored to death down at our place in Lincolnshire.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nA Progress\n\n\nI have a great deal of difficulty in beginning to write my portion of\nthese pages, for I know I am not clever. I always knew that. I can\nremember, when I was a very little girl indeed, I used to say to my\ndoll when we were alone together, \"Now, Dolly, I am not clever, you\nknow very well, and you must be patient with me, like a dear!\" And so\nshe used to sit propped up in a great arm-chair, with her beautiful\ncomplexion and rosy lips, staring at me--or not so much at me, I\nthink, as at nothing--while I busily stitched away and told her every\none of my secrets.\n\nMy dear old doll! I was such a shy little thing that I seldom dared\nto open my lips, and never dared to open my heart, to anybody else.\nIt almost makes me cry to think what a relief it used to be to me\nwhen I came home from school of a day to run upstairs to my room and\nsay, \"Oh, you dear faithful Dolly, I knew you would be expecting me!\"\nand then to sit down on the floor, leaning on the elbow of her great\nchair, and tell her all I had noticed since we parted. I had always\nrather a noticing way--not a quick way, oh, no!--a silent way of\nnoticing what passed before me and thinking I should like to\nunderstand it better. I have not by any means a quick understanding.\nWhen I love a person very tenderly indeed, it seems to brighten. But\neven that may be my vanity.\n\nI was brought up, from my earliest remembrance--like some of the\nprincesses in the fairy stories, only I was not charming--by my\ngodmother. At least, I only knew her as such. She was a good, good\nwoman! She went to church three times every Sunday, and to morning\nprayers on Wednesdays and Fridays, and to lectures whenever there\nwere lectures; and never missed. She was handsome; and if she had\never smiled, would have been (I used to think) like an angel--but she\nnever smiled. She was always grave and strict. She was so very good\nherself, I thought, that the badness of other people made her frown\nall her life. I felt so different from her, even making every\nallowance for the differences between a child and a woman; I felt so\npoor, so trifling, and so far off that I never could be unrestrained\nwith her--no, could never even love her as I wished. It made me very\nsorry to consider how good she was and how unworthy of her I was, and\nI used ardently to hope that I might have a better heart; and I\ntalked it over very often with the dear old doll, but I never loved\nmy godmother as I ought to have loved her and as I felt I must have\nloved her if I had been a better girl.\n\nThis made me, I dare say, more timid and retiring than I naturally\nwas and cast me upon Dolly as the only friend with whom I felt at\nease. But something happened when I was still quite a little thing\nthat helped it very much.\n\nI had never heard my mama spoken of. I had never heard of my papa\neither, but I felt more interested about my mama. I had never worn a\nblack frock, that I could recollect. I had never been shown my mama's\ngrave. I had never been told where it was. Yet I had never been\ntaught to pray for any relation but my godmother. I had more than\nonce approached this subject of my thoughts with Mrs. Rachael, our\nonly servant, who took my light away when I was in bed (another very\ngood woman, but austere to me), and she had only said, \"Esther, good\nnight!\" and gone away and left me.\n\nAlthough there were seven girls at the neighbouring school where I\nwas a day boarder, and although they called me little Esther\nSummerson, I knew none of them at home. All of them were older than\nI, to be sure (I was the youngest there by a good deal), but there\nseemed to be some other separation between us besides that, and\nbesides their being far more clever than I was and knowing much more\nthan I did. One of them in the first week of my going to the school\n(I remember it very well) invited me home to a little party, to my\ngreat joy. But my godmother wrote a stiff letter declining for me,\nand I never went. I never went out at all.\n\nIt was my birthday. There were holidays at school on other\nbirthdays--none on mine. There were rejoicings at home on other\nbirthdays, as I knew from what I heard the girls relate to one\nanother--there were none on mine. My birthday was the most melancholy\nday at home in the whole year.\n\nI have mentioned that unless my vanity should deceive me (as I know\nit may, for I may be very vain without suspecting it, though indeed I\ndon't), my comprehension is quickened when my affection is. My\ndisposition is very affectionate, and perhaps I might still feel such\na wound if such a wound could be received more than once with the\nquickness of that birthday.\n\nDinner was over, and my godmother and I were sitting at the table\nbefore the fire. The clock ticked, the fire clicked; not another\nsound had been heard in the room or in the house for I don't know how\nlong. I happened to look timidly up from my stitching, across the\ntable at my godmother, and I saw in her face, looking gloomily at me,\n\"It would have been far better, little Esther, that you had had no\nbirthday, that you had never been born!\"\n\nI broke out crying and sobbing, and I said, \"Oh, dear godmother, tell\nme, pray do tell me, did Mama die on my birthday?\"\n\n\"No,\" she returned. \"Ask me no more, child!\"\n\n\"Oh, do pray tell me something of her. Do now, at last, dear\ngodmother, if you please! What did I do to her? How did I lose her?\nWhy am I so different from other children, and why is it my fault,\ndear godmother? No, no, no, don't go away. Oh, speak to me!\"\n\nI was in a kind of fright beyond my grief, and I caught hold of her\ndress and was kneeling to her. She had been saying all the while,\n\"Let me go!\" But now she stood still.\n\nHer darkened face had such power over me that it stopped me in the\nmidst of my vehemence. I put up my trembling little hand to clasp\nhers or to beg her pardon with what earnestness I might, but withdrew\nit as she looked at me, and laid it on my fluttering heart. She\nraised me, sat in her chair, and standing me before her, said slowly\nin a cold, low voice--I see her knitted brow and pointed\nfinger--\"Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers.\nThe time will come--and soon enough--when you will understand this\nbetter and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can. I have\nforgiven her\"--but her face did not relent--\"the wrong she did to me,\nand I say no more of it, though it was greater than you will ever\nknow--than any one will ever know but I, the sufferer. For yourself,\nunfortunate girl, orphaned and degraded from the first of these evil\nanniversaries, pray daily that the sins of others be not visited upon\nyour head, according to what is written. Forget your mother and leave\nall other people to forget her who will do her unhappy child that\ngreatest kindness. Now, go!\"\n\nShe checked me, however, as I was about to depart from her--so frozen\nas I was!--and added this, \"Submission, self-denial, diligent work,\nare the preparations for a life begun with such a shadow on it. You\nare different from other children, Esther, because you were not born,\nlike them, in common sinfulness and wrath. You are set apart.\"\n\nI went up to my room, and crept to bed, and laid my doll's cheek\nagainst mine wet with tears, and holding that solitary friend upon my\nbosom, cried myself to sleep. Imperfect as my understanding of my\nsorrow was, I knew that I had brought no joy at any time to anybody's\nheart and that I was to no one upon earth what Dolly was to me.\n\nDear, dear, to think how much time we passed alone together\nafterwards, and how often I repeated to the doll the story of my\nbirthday and confided to her that I would try as hard as ever I could\nto repair the fault I had been born with (of which I confessedly felt\nguilty and yet innocent) and would strive as I grew up to be\nindustrious, contented, and kind-hearted and to do some good to some\none, and win some love to myself if I could. I hope it is not\nself-indulgent to shed these tears as I think of it. I am very\nthankful, I am very cheerful, but I cannot quite help their coming to\nmy eyes.\n\nThere! I have wiped them away now and can go on again properly.\n\nI felt the distance between my godmother and myself so much more\nafter the birthday, and felt so sensible of filling a place in her\nhouse which ought to have been empty, that I found her more difficult\nof approach, though I was fervently grateful to her in my heart, than\never. I felt in the same way towards my school companions; I felt in\nthe same way towards Mrs. Rachael, who was a widow; and oh, towards\nher daughter, of whom she was proud, who came to see her once a\nfortnight! I was very retired and quiet, and tried to be very\ndiligent.\n\nOne sunny afternoon when I had come home from school with my books\nand portfolio, watching my long shadow at my side, and as I was\ngliding upstairs to my room as usual, my godmother looked out of the\nparlour-door and called me back. Sitting with her, I found--which was\nvery unusual indeed--a stranger. A portly, important-looking\ngentleman, dressed all in black, with a white cravat, large gold\nwatch seals, a pair of gold eye-glasses, and a large seal-ring upon\nhis little finger.\n\n\"This,\" said my godmother in an undertone, \"is the child.\" Then she\nsaid in her naturally stern way of speaking, \"This is Esther, sir.\"\n\nThe gentleman put up his eye-glasses to look at me and said, \"Come\nhere, my dear!\" He shook hands with me and asked me to take off my\nbonnet, looking at me all the while. When I had complied, he said,\n\"Ah!\" and afterwards \"Yes!\" And then, taking off his eye-glasses and\nfolding them in a red case, and leaning back in his arm-chair,\nturning the case about in his two hands, he gave my godmother a nod.\nUpon that, my godmother said, \"You may go upstairs, Esther!\" And I\nmade him my curtsy and left him.\n\nIt must have been two years afterwards, and I was almost fourteen,\nwhen one dreadful night my godmother and I sat at the fireside. I was\nreading aloud, and she was listening. I had come down at nine o'clock\nas I always did to read the Bible to her, and was reading from St.\nJohn how our Saviour stooped down, writing with his finger in the\ndust, when they brought the sinful woman to him.\n\n\"So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said\nunto them, 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a\nstone at her!'\"\n\nI was stopped by my godmother's rising, putting her hand to her head,\nand crying out in an awful voice from quite another part of the book,\n\"'Watch ye, therefore, lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And\nwhat I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch!'\"\n\nIn an instant, while she stood before me repeating these words, she\nfell down on the floor. I had no need to cry out; her voice had\nsounded through the house and been heard in the street.\n\nShe was laid upon her bed. For more than a week she lay there, little\naltered outwardly, with her old handsome resolute frown that I so\nwell knew carved upon her face. Many and many a time, in the day and\nin the night, with my head upon the pillow by her that my whispers\nmight be plainer to her, I kissed her, thanked her, prayed for her,\nasked her for her blessing and forgiveness, entreated her to give me\nthe least sign that she knew or heard me. No, no, no. Her face was\nimmovable. To the very last, and even afterwards, her frown remained\nunsoftened.\n\nOn the day after my poor good godmother was buried, the gentleman in\nblack with the white neckcloth reappeared. I was sent for by Mrs.\nRachael, and found him in the same place, as if he had never gone\naway.\n\n\"My name is Kenge,\" he said; \"you may remember it, my child; Kenge\nand Carboy, Lincoln's Inn.\"\n\nI replied that I remembered to have seen him once before.\n\n\"Pray be seated--here near me. Don't distress yourself; it's of no\nuse. Mrs. Rachael, I needn't inform you who were acquainted with the\nlate Miss Barbary's affairs, that her means die with her and that\nthis young lady, now her aunt is dead--\"\n\n\"My aunt, sir!\"\n\n\"It is really of no use carrying on a deception when no object is to\nbe gained by it,\" said Mr. Kenge smoothly, \"Aunt in fact, though not\nin law. Don't distress yourself! Don't weep! Don't tremble! Mrs.\nRachael, our young friend has no doubt heard of--the--a--Jarndyce and\nJarndyce.\"\n\n\"Never,\" said Mrs. Rachael.\n\n\"Is it possible,\" pursued Mr. Kenge, putting up his eye-glasses,\n\"that our young friend--I BEG you won't distress yourself!--never\nheard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce!\"\n\nI shook my head, wondering even what it was.\n\n\"Not of Jarndyce and Jarndyce?\" said Mr. Kenge, looking over his\nglasses at me and softly turning the case about and about as if he\nwere petting something. \"Not of one of the greatest Chancery suits\nknown? Not of Jarndyce and Jarndyce--the--a--in itself a monument of\nChancery practice. In which (I would say) every difficulty, every\ncontingency, every masterly fiction, every form of procedure known\nin that court, is represented over and over again? It is a cause\nthat could not exist out of this free and great country. I should\nsay that the aggregate of costs in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mrs.\nRachael\"--I was afraid he addressed himself to her because I appeared\ninattentive\"--amounts at the present hour to from SIX-ty to SEVEN-ty\nTHOUSAND POUNDS!\" said Mr. Kenge, leaning back in his chair.\n\nI felt very ignorant, but what could I do? I was so entirely\nunacquainted with the subject that I understood nothing about it even\nthen.\n\n\"And she really never heard of the cause!\" said Mr. Kenge.\n\"Surprising!\"\n\n\"Miss Barbary, sir,\" returned Mrs. Rachael, \"who is now among the\nSeraphim--\"\n\n\"I hope so, I am sure,\" said Mr. Kenge politely.\n\n\"--Wished Esther only to know what would be serviceable to her. And\nshe knows, from any teaching she has had here, nothing more.\"\n\n\"Well!\" said Mr. Kenge. \"Upon the whole, very proper. Now to the\npoint,\" addressing me. \"Miss Barbary, your sole relation (in fact\nthat is, for I am bound to observe that in law you had none) being\ndeceased and it naturally not being to be expected that Mrs.\nRachael--\"\n\n\"Oh, dear no!\" said Mrs. Rachael quickly.\n\n\"Quite so,\" assented Mr. Kenge; \"--that Mrs. Rachael should charge\nherself with your maintenance and support (I beg you won't distress\nyourself), you are in a position to receive the renewal of an offer\nwhich I was instructed to make to Miss Barbary some two years ago and\nwhich, though rejected then, was understood to be renewable under the\nlamentable circumstances that have since occurred. Now, if I avow\nthat I represent, in Jarndyce and Jarndyce and otherwise, a highly\nhumane, but at the same time singular, man, shall I compromise myself\nby any stretch of my professional caution?\" said Mr. Kenge, leaning\nback in his chair again and looking calmly at us both.\n\nHe appeared to enjoy beyond everything the sound of his own voice. I\ncouldn't wonder at that, for it was mellow and full and gave great\nimportance to every word he uttered. He listened to himself with\nobvious satisfaction and sometimes gently beat time to his own music\nwith his head or rounded a sentence with his hand. I was very much\nimpressed by him--even then, before I knew that he formed himself on\nthe model of a great lord who was his client and that he was\ngenerally called Conversation Kenge.\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce,\" he pursued, \"being aware of the--I would say,\ndesolate--position of our young friend, offers to place her at a\nfirst-rate establishment where her education shall be completed,\nwhere her comfort shall be secured, where her reasonable wants shall\nbe anticipated, where she shall be eminently qualified to discharge\nher duty in that station of life unto which it has pleased--shall I\nsay Providence?--to call her.\"\n\nMy heart was filled so full, both by what he said and by his\naffecting manner of saying it, that I was not able to speak, though I\ntried.\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce,\" he went on, \"makes no condition beyond expressing his\nexpectation that our young friend will not at any time remove herself\nfrom the establishment in question without his knowledge and\nconcurrence. That she will faithfully apply herself to the\nacquisition of those accomplishments, upon the exercise of which she\nwill be ultimately dependent. That she will tread in the paths of\nvirtue and honour, and--the--a--so forth.\"\n\nI was still less able to speak than before.\n\n\"Now, what does our young friend say?\" proceeded Mr. Kenge. \"Take\ntime, take time! I pause for her reply. But take time!\"\n\nWhat the destitute subject of such an offer tried to say, I need not\nrepeat. What she did say, I could more easily tell, if it were worth\nthe telling. What she felt, and will feel to her dying hour, I could\nnever relate.\n\nThis interview took place at Windsor, where I had passed (as far as I\nknew) my whole life. On that day week, amply provided with all\nnecessaries, I left it, inside the stagecoach, for Reading.\n\nMrs. Rachael was too good to feel any emotion at parting, but I was\nnot so good, and wept bitterly. I thought that I ought to have known\nher better after so many years and ought to have made myself enough\nof a favourite with her to make her sorry then. When she gave me one\ncold parting kiss upon my forehead, like a thaw-drop from the stone\nporch--it was a very frosty day--I felt so miserable and\nself-reproachful that I clung to her and told her it was my fault, I\nknew, that she could say good-bye so easily!\n\n\"No, Esther!\" she returned. \"It is your misfortune!\"\n\nThe coach was at the little lawn-gate--we had not come out until we\nheard the wheels--and thus I left her, with a sorrowful heart. She\nwent in before my boxes were lifted to the coach-roof and shut the\ndoor. As long as I could see the house, I looked back at it from the\nwindow through my tears. My godmother had left Mrs. Rachael all the\nlittle property she possessed; and there was to be a sale; and an old\nhearth-rug with roses on it, which always seemed to me the first\nthing in the world I had ever seen, was hanging outside in the frost\nand snow. A day or two before, I had wrapped the dear old doll in her\nown shawl and quietly laid her--I am half ashamed to tell it--in the\ngarden-earth under the tree that shaded my old window. I had no\ncompanion left but my bird, and him I carried with me in his cage.\n\nWhen the house was out of sight, I sat, with my bird-cage in the\nstraw at my feet, forward on the low seat to look out of the high\nwindow, watching the frosty trees, that were like beautiful pieces of\nspar, and the fields all smooth and white with last night's snow, and\nthe sun, so red but yielding so little heat, and the ice, dark like\nmetal where the skaters and sliders had brushed the snow away. There\nwas a gentleman in the coach who sat on the opposite seat and looked\nvery large in a quantity of wrappings, but he sat gazing out of the\nother window and took no notice of me.\n\nI thought of my dead godmother, of the night when I read to her, of\nher frowning so fixedly and sternly in her bed, of the strange place\nI was going to, of the people I should find there, and what they\nwould be like, and what they would say to me, when a voice in the\ncoach gave me a terrible start.\n\nIt said, \"What the de-vil are you crying for?\"\n\nI was so frightened that I lost my voice and could only answer in a\nwhisper, \"Me, sir?\" For of course I knew it must have been the\ngentleman in the quantity of wrappings, though he was still looking\nout of his window.\n\n\"Yes, you,\" he said, turning round.\n\n\"I didn't know I was crying, sir,\" I faltered.\n\n\"But you are!\" said the gentleman. \"Look here!\" He came quite\nopposite to me from the other corner of the coach, brushed one of his\nlarge furry cuffs across my eyes (but without hurting me), and showed\nme that it was wet.\n\n\"There! Now you know you are,\" he said. \"Don't you?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" I said.\n\n\"And what are you crying for?\" said the gentleman, \"Don't you want to\ngo there?\"\n\n\"Where, sir?\"\n\n\"Where? Why, wherever you are going,\" said the gentleman.\n\n\"I am very glad to go there, sir,\" I answered.\n\n\"Well, then! Look glad!\" said the gentleman.\n\nI thought he was very strange, or at least that what I could see of\nhim was very strange, for he was wrapped up to the chin, and his face\nwas almost hidden in a fur cap with broad fur straps at the side of\nhis head fastened under his chin; but I was composed again, and not\nafraid of him. So I told him that I thought I must have been crying\nbecause of my godmother's death and because of Mrs. Rachael's not\nbeing sorry to part with me.\n\n\"Confound Mrs. Rachael!\" said the gentleman. \"Let her fly away in a\nhigh wind on a broomstick!\"\n\nI began to be really afraid of him now and looked at him with the\ngreatest astonishment. But I thought that he had pleasant eyes,\nalthough he kept on muttering to himself in an angry manner and\ncalling Mrs. Rachael names.\n\nAfter a little while he opened his outer wrapper, which appeared to\nme large enough to wrap up the whole coach, and put his arm down into\na deep pocket in the side.\n\n\"Now, look here!\" he said. \"In this paper,\" which was nicely folded,\n\"is a piece of the best plum-cake that can be got for money--sugar on\nthe outside an inch thick, like fat on mutton chops. Here's a little\npie (a gem this is, both for size and quality), made in France. And\nwhat do you suppose it's made of? Livers of fat geese. There's a pie!\nNow let's see you eat 'em.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir,\" I replied; \"thank you very much indeed, but I hope\nyou won't be offended--they are too rich for me.\"\n\n\"Floored again!\" said the gentleman, which I didn't at all\nunderstand, and threw them both out of window.\n\nHe did not speak to me any more until he got out of the coach a\nlittle way short of Reading, when he advised me to be a good girl and\nto be studious, and shook hands with me. I must say I was relieved by\nhis departure. We left him at a milestone. I often walked past it\nafterwards, and never for a long time without thinking of him and\nhalf expecting to meet him. But I never did; and so, as time went on,\nhe passed out of my mind.\n\nWhen the coach stopped, a very neat lady looked up at the window and\nsaid, \"Miss Donny.\"\n\n\"No, ma'am, Esther Summerson.\"\n\n\"That is quite right,\" said the lady, \"Miss Donny.\"\n\nI now understood that she introduced herself by that name, and begged\nMiss Donny's pardon for my mistake, and pointed out my boxes at her\nrequest. Under the direction of a very neat maid, they were put\noutside a very small green carriage; and then Miss Donny, the maid,\nand I got inside and were driven away.\n\n\"Everything is ready for you, Esther,\" said Miss Donny, \"and the\nscheme of your pursuits has been arranged in exact accordance with\nthe wishes of your guardian, Mr. Jarndyce.\"\n\n\"Of--did you say, ma'am?\"\n\n\"Of your guardian, Mr. Jarndyce,\" said Miss Donny.\n\nI was so bewildered that Miss Donny thought the cold had been too\nsevere for me and lent me her smelling-bottle.\n\n\"Do you know my--guardian, Mr. Jarndyce, ma'am?\" I asked after a good\ndeal of hesitation.\n\n\"Not personally, Esther,\" said Miss Donny; \"merely through his\nsolicitors, Messrs. Kenge and Carboy, of London. A very superior\ngentleman, Mr. Kenge. Truly eloquent indeed. Some of his periods\nquite majestic!\"\n\nI felt this to be very true but was too confused to attend to it. Our\nspeedy arrival at our destination, before I had time to recover\nmyself, increased my confusion, and I never shall forget the\nuncertain and the unreal air of everything at Greenleaf (Miss Donny's\nhouse) that afternoon!\n\nBut I soon became used to it. I was so adapted to the routine of\nGreenleaf before long that I seemed to have been there a great while\nand almost to have dreamed rather than really lived my old life at my\ngodmother's. Nothing could be more precise, exact, and orderly than\nGreenleaf. There was a time for everything all round the dial of the\nclock, and everything was done at its appointed moment.\n\nWe were twelve boarders, and there were two Miss Donnys, twins. It\nwas understood that I would have to depend, by and by, on my\nqualifications as a governess, and I was not only instructed in\neverything that was taught at Greenleaf, but was very soon engaged in\nhelping to instruct others. Although I was treated in every other\nrespect like the rest of the school, this single difference was made\nin my case from the first. As I began to know more, I taught more,\nand so in course of time I had plenty to do, which I was very fond of\ndoing because it made the dear girls fond of me. At last, whenever a\nnew pupil came who was a little downcast and unhappy, she was so\nsure--indeed I don't know why--to make a friend of me that all\nnew-comers were confided to my care. They said I was so gentle, but I\nam sure THEY were! I often thought of the resolution I had made on my\nbirthday to try to be industrious, contented, and true-hearted and to\ndo some good to some one and win some love if I could; and indeed,\nindeed, I felt almost ashamed to have done so little and have won so\nmuch.\n\nI passed at Greenleaf six happy, quiet years. I never saw in any face\nthere, thank heaven, on my birthday, that it would have been better\nif I had never been born. When the day came round, it brought me so\nmany tokens of affectionate remembrance that my room was beautiful\nwith them from New Year's Day to Christmas.\n\nIn those six years I had never been away except on visits at holiday\ntime in the neighbourhood. After the first six months or so I had\ntaken Miss Donny's advice in reference to the propriety of writing to\nMr. Kenge to say that I was happy and grateful, and with her approval\nI had written such a letter. I had received a formal answer\nacknowledging its receipt and saying, \"We note the contents thereof,\nwhich shall be duly communicated to our client.\" After that I\nsometimes heard Miss Donny and her sister mention how regular my\naccounts were paid, and about twice a year I ventured to write a\nsimilar letter. I always received by return of post exactly the same\nanswer in the same round hand, with the signature of Kenge and Carboy\nin another writing, which I supposed to be Mr. Kenge's.\n\nIt seems so curious to me to be obliged to write all this about\nmyself! As if this narrative were the narrative of MY life! But my\nlittle body will soon fall into the background now.\n\nSix quiet years (I find I am saying it for the second time) I had\npassed at Greenleaf, seeing in those around me, as it might be in a\nlooking-glass, every stage of my own growth and change there, when,\none November morning, I received this letter. I omit the date.\n\n\n   Old Square, Lincoln's Inn\n\n   Madam,\n\n   Jarndyce and Jarndyce\n\n   Our clt Mr. Jarndyce being abt to rece into his house,\n   under an Order of the Ct of Chy, a Ward of the Ct in this\n   cause, for whom he wishes to secure an elgble compn,\n   directs us to inform you that he will be glad of your\n   serces in the afsd capacity.\n\n   We have arrngd for your being forded, carriage free, pr\n   eight o'clock coach from Reading, on Monday morning next,\n   to White Horse Cellar, Piccadilly, London, where one of\n   our clks will be in waiting to convey you to our offe as\n   above.\n\n   We are, Madam, Your obedt Servts,\n\n   Kenge and Carboy\n\n   Miss Esther Summerson\n\n\nOh, never, never, never shall I forget the emotion this letter caused\nin the house! It was so tender in them to care so much for me, it was\nso gracious in that father who had not forgotten me to have made my\norphan way so smooth and easy and to have inclined so many youthful\nnatures towards me, that I could hardly bear it. Not that I would\nhave had them less sorry--I am afraid not; but the pleasure of it,\nand the pain of it, and the pride and joy of it, and the humble\nregret of it were so blended that my heart seemed almost breaking\nwhile it was full of rapture.\n\nThe letter gave me only five days' notice of my removal. When every\nminute added to the proofs of love and kindness that were given me in\nthose five days, and when at last the morning came and when they took\nme through all the rooms that I might see them for the last time, and\nwhen some cried, \"Esther, dear, say good-bye to me here at my\nbedside, where you first spoke so kindly to me!\" and when others\nasked me only to write their names, \"With Esther's love,\" and when\nthey all surrounded me with their parting presents and clung to me\nweeping and cried, \"What shall we do when dear, dear Esther's gone!\"\nand when I tried to tell them how forbearing and how good they had\nall been to me and how I blessed and thanked them every one, what a\nheart I had!\n\nAnd when the two Miss Donnys grieved as much to part with me as the\nleast among them, and when the maids said, \"Bless you, miss, wherever\nyou go!\" and when the ugly lame old gardener, who I thought had\nhardly noticed me in all those years, came panting after the coach to\ngive me a little nosegay of geraniums and told me I had been the\nlight of his eyes--indeed the old man said so!--what a heart I had\nthen!\n\nAnd could I help it if with all this, and the coming to the little\nschool, and the unexpected sight of the poor children outside waving\ntheir hats and bonnets to me, and of a grey-haired gentleman and lady\nwhose daughter I had helped to teach and at whose house I had visited\n(who were said to be the proudest people in all that country), caring\nfor nothing but calling out, \"Good-bye, Esther. May you be very\nhappy!\"--could I help it if I was quite bowed down in the coach by\nmyself and said \"Oh, I am so thankful, I am so thankful!\" many times\nover!\n\nBut of course I soon considered that I must not take tears where I\nwas going after all that had been done for me. Therefore, of course,\nI made myself sob less and persuaded myself to be quiet by saying\nvery often, \"Esther, now you really must! This WILL NOT do!\" I\ncheered myself up pretty well at last, though I am afraid I was\nlonger about it than I ought to have been; and when I had cooled my\neyes with lavender water, it was time to watch for London.\n\nI was quite persuaded that we were there when we were ten miles off,\nand when we really were there, that we should never get there.\nHowever, when we began to jolt upon a stone pavement, and\nparticularly when every other conveyance seemed to be running into\nus, and we seemed to be running into every other conveyance, I began\nto believe that we really were approaching the end of our journey.\nVery soon afterwards we stopped.\n\nA young gentleman who had inked himself by accident addressed me from\nthe pavement and said, \"I am from Kenge and Carboy's, miss, of\nLincoln's Inn.\"\n\n\"If you please, sir,\" said I.\n\nHe was very obliging, and as he handed me into a fly after\nsuperintending the removal of my boxes, I asked him whether there was\na great fire anywhere? For the streets were so full of dense brown\nsmoke that scarcely anything was to be seen.\n\n\"Oh, dear no, miss,\" he said. \"This is a London particular.\"\n\nI had never heard of such a thing.\n\n\"A fog, miss,\" said the young gentleman.\n\n\"Oh, indeed!\" said I.\n\nWe drove slowly through the dirtiest and darkest streets that ever\nwere seen in the world (I thought) and in such a distracting state of\nconfusion that I wondered how the people kept their senses, until we\npassed into sudden quietude under an old gateway and drove on through\na silent square until we came to an odd nook in a corner, where there\nwas an entrance up a steep, broad flight of stairs, like an entrance\nto a church. And there really was a churchyard outside under some\ncloisters, for I saw the gravestones from the staircase window.\n\nThis was Kenge and Carboy's. The young gentleman showed me through an\nouter office into Mr. Kenge's room--there was no one in it--and\npolitely put an arm-chair for me by the fire. He then called my\nattention to a little looking-glass hanging from a nail on one side\nof the chimney-piece.\n\n\"In case you should wish to look at yourself, miss, after the\njourney, as you're going before the Chancellor. Not that it's\nrequisite, I am sure,\" said the young gentleman civilly.\n\n\"Going before the Chancellor?\" I said, startled for a moment.\n\n\"Only a matter of form, miss,\" returned the young gentleman. \"Mr.\nKenge is in court now. He left his compliments, and would you partake\nof some refreshment\"--there were biscuits and a decanter of wine on a\nsmall table--\"and look over the paper,\" which the young gentleman\ngave me as he spoke. He then stirred the fire and left me.\n\nEverything was so strange--the stranger from its being night in the\nday-time, the candles burning with a white flame, and looking raw and\ncold--that I read the words in the newspaper without knowing what\nthey meant and found myself reading the same words repeatedly. As it\nwas of no use going on in that way, I put the paper down, took a peep\nat my bonnet in the glass to see if it was neat, and looked at the\nroom, which was not half lighted, and at the shabby, dusty tables,\nand at the piles of writings, and at a bookcase full of the most\ninexpressive-looking books that ever had anything to say for\nthemselves. Then I went on, thinking, thinking, thinking; and the\nfire went on, burning, burning, burning; and the candles went on\nflickering and guttering, and there were no snuffers--until the young\ngentleman by and by brought a very dirty pair--for two hours.\n\nAt last Mr. Kenge came. HE was not altered, but he was surprised to\nsee how altered I was and appeared quite pleased. \"As you are going\nto be the companion of the young lady who is now in the Chancellor's\nprivate room, Miss Summerson,\" he said, \"we thought it well that you\nshould be in attendance also. You will not be discomposed by the Lord\nChancellor, I dare say?\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" I said, \"I don't think I shall,\" really not seeing on\nconsideration why I should be.\n\nSo Mr. Kenge gave me his arm and we went round the corner, under a\ncolonnade, and in at a side door. And so we came, along a passage,\ninto a comfortable sort of room where a young lady and a young\ngentleman were standing near a great, loud-roaring fire. A screen was\ninterposed between them and it, and they were leaning on the screen,\ntalking.\n\nThey both looked up when I came in, and I saw in the young lady, with\nthe fire shining upon her, such a beautiful girl! With such rich\ngolden hair, such soft blue eyes, and such a bright, innocent,\ntrusting face!\n\n\"Miss Ada,\" said Mr. Kenge, \"this is Miss Summerson.\"\n\nShe came to meet me with a smile of welcome and her hand extended,\nbut seemed to change her mind in a moment and kissed me. In short,\nshe had such a natural, captivating, winning manner that in a few\nminutes we were sitting in the window-seat, with the light of the\nfire upon us, talking together as free and happy as could be.\n\nWhat a load off my mind! It was so delightful to know that she could\nconfide in me and like me! It was so good of her, and so encouraging\nto me!\n\nThe young gentleman was her distant cousin, she told me, and his name\nRichard Carstone. He was a handsome youth with an ingenuous face and\na most engaging laugh; and after she had called him up to where we\nsat, he stood by us, in the light of the fire, talking gaily, like a\nlight-hearted boy. He was very young, not more than nineteen then, if\nquite so much, but nearly two years older than she was. They were\nboth orphans and (what was very unexpected and curious to me) had\nnever met before that day. Our all three coming together for the\nfirst time in such an unusual place was a thing to talk about, and we\ntalked about it; and the fire, which had left off roaring, winked its\nred eyes at us--as Richard said--like a drowsy old Chancery lion.\n\nWe conversed in a low tone because a full-dressed gentleman in a bag\nwig frequently came in and out, and when he did so, we could hear a\ndrawling sound in the distance, which he said was one of the counsel\nin our case addressing the Lord Chancellor. He told Mr. Kenge that\nthe Chancellor would be up in five minutes; and presently we heard a\nbustle and a tread of feet, and Mr. Kenge said that the Court had\nrisen and his lordship was in the next room.\n\nThe gentleman in the bag wig opened the door almost directly and\nrequested Mr. Kenge to come in. Upon that, we all went into the next\nroom, Mr. Kenge first, with my darling--it is so natural to me now\nthat I can't help writing it; and there, plainly dressed in black and\nsitting in an arm-chair at a table near the fire, was his lordship,\nwhose robe, trimmed with beautiful gold lace, was thrown upon another\nchair. He gave us a searching look as we entered, but his manner was\nboth courtly and kind.\n\nThe gentleman in the bag wig laid bundles of papers on his lordship's\ntable, and his lordship silently selected one and turned over the\nleaves.\n\n\"Miss Clare,\" said the Lord Chancellor. \"Miss Ada Clare?\"\n\nMr. Kenge presented her, and his lordship begged her to sit down near\nhim. That he admired her and was interested by her even I could see\nin a moment. It touched me that the home of such a beautiful young\ncreature should be represented by that dry, official place. The Lord\nHigh Chancellor, at his best, appeared so poor a substitute for the\nlove and pride of parents.\n\n\"The Jarndyce in question,\" said the Lord Chancellor, still turning\nover leaves, \"is Jarndyce of Bleak House.\"\n\n\"Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord,\" said Mr. Kenge.\n\n\"A dreary name,\" said the Lord Chancellor.\n\n\"But not a dreary place at present, my lord,\" said Mr. Kenge.\n\n\"And Bleak House,\" said his lordship, \"is in--\"\n\n\"Hertfordshire, my lord.\"\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House is not married?\" said his lordship.\n\n\"He is not, my lord,\" said Mr. Kenge.\n\nA pause.\n\n\"Young Mr. Richard Carstone is present?\" said the Lord Chancellor,\nglancing towards him.\n\nRichard bowed and stepped forward.\n\n\"Hum!\" said the Lord Chancellor, turning over more leaves.\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord,\" Mr. Kenge observed in a low\nvoice, \"if I may venture to remind your lordship, provides a suitable\ncompanion for--\"\n\n\"For Mr. Richard Carstone?\" I thought (but I am not quite sure) I\nheard his lordship say in an equally low voice and with a smile.\n\n\"For Miss Ada Clare. This is the young lady. Miss Summerson.\"\n\nHis lordship gave me an indulgent look and acknowledged my curtsy\nvery graciously.\n\n\"Miss Summerson is not related to any party in the cause, I think?\"\n\n\"No, my lord.\"\n\nMr. Kenge leant over before it was quite said and whispered. His\nlordship, with his eyes upon his papers, listened, nodded twice or\nthrice, turned over more leaves, and did not look towards me again\nuntil we were going away.\n\nMr. Kenge now retired, and Richard with him, to where I was, near the\ndoor, leaving my pet (it is so natural to me that again I can't help\nit!) sitting near the Lord Chancellor, with whom his lordship spoke a\nlittle part, asking her, as she told me afterwards, whether she had\nwell reflected on the proposed arrangement, and if she thought she\nwould be happy under the roof of Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, and why\nshe thought so? Presently he rose courteously and released her, and\nthen he spoke for a minute or two with Richard Carstone, not seated,\nbut standing, and altogether with more ease and less ceremony, as if\nhe still knew, though he WAS Lord Chancellor, how to go straight to\nthe candour of a boy.\n\n\"Very well!\" said his lordship aloud. \"I shall make the order. Mr.\nJarndyce of Bleak House has chosen, so far as I may judge,\" and this\nwas when he looked at me, \"a very good companion for the young lady,\nand the arrangement altogether seems the best of which the\ncircumstances admit.\"\n\nHe dismissed us pleasantly, and we all went out, very much obliged to\nhim for being so affable and polite, by which he had certainly lost\nno dignity but seemed to us to have gained some.\n\nWhen we got under the colonnade, Mr. Kenge remembered that he must go\nback for a moment to ask a question and left us in the fog, with the\nLord Chancellor's carriage and servants waiting for him to come out.\n\n\"Well!\" said Richard Carstone. \"THAT'S over! And where do we go next,\nMiss Summerson?\"\n\n\"Don't you know?\" I said.\n\n\"Not in the least,\" said he.\n\n\"And don't YOU know, my love?\" I asked Ada.\n\n\"No!\" said she. \"Don't you?\"\n\n\"Not at all!\" said I.\n\nWe looked at one another, half laughing at our being like the\nchildren in the wood, when a curious little old woman in a squeezed\nbonnet and carrying a reticule came curtsying and smiling up to us\nwith an air of great ceremony.\n\n\"Oh!\" said she. \"The wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure, to\nhave the honour! It is a good omen for youth, and hope, and beauty\nwhen they find themselves in this place, and don't know what's to\ncome of it.\"\n\n\"Mad!\" whispered Richard, not thinking she could hear him.\n\n\"Right! Mad, young gentleman,\" she returned so quickly that he was\nquite abashed. \"I was a ward myself. I was not mad at that time,\"\ncurtsying low and smiling between every little sentence. \"I had youth\nand hope. I believe, beauty. It matters very little now. Neither of\nthe three served or saved me. I have the honour to attend court\nregularly. With my documents. I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the\nDay of Judgment. I have discovered that the sixth seal mentioned in\nthe Revelations is the Great Seal. It has been open a long time! Pray\naccept my blessing.\"\n\nAs Ada was a little frightened, I said, to humour the poor old lady,\nthat we were much obliged to her.\n\n\"Ye-es!\" she said mincingly. \"I imagine so. And here is Conversation\nKenge. With HIS documents! How does your honourable worship do?\"\n\n\"Quite well, quite well! Now don't be troublesome, that's a good\nsoul!\" said Mr. Kenge, leading the way back.\n\n\"By no means,\" said the poor old lady, keeping up with Ada and me.\n\"Anything but troublesome. I shall confer estates on both--which is\nnot being troublesome, I trust? I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the\nDay of Judgment. This is a good omen for you. Accept my blessing!\"\n\nShe stopped at the bottom of the steep, broad flight of stairs; but\nwe looked back as we went up, and she was still there, saying, still\nwith a curtsy and a smile between every little sentence, \"Youth. And\nhope. And beauty. And Chancery. And Conversation Kenge! Ha! Pray\naccept my blessing!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTelescopic Philanthropy\n\n\nWe were to pass the night, Mr. Kenge told us when we arrived in his\nroom, at Mrs. Jellyby's; and then he turned to me and said he took it\nfor granted I knew who Mrs. Jellyby was.\n\n\"I really don't, sir,\" I returned. \"Perhaps Mr. Carstone--or Miss\nClare--\"\n\nBut no, they knew nothing whatever about Mrs. Jellyby. \"In-deed! Mrs.\nJellyby,\" said Mr. Kenge, standing with his back to the fire and\ncasting his eyes over the dusty hearth-rug as if it were Mrs.\nJellyby's biography, \"is a lady of very remarkable strength of\ncharacter who devotes herself entirely to the public. She has devoted\nherself to an extensive variety of public subjects at various times\nand is at present (until something else attracts her) devoted to the\nsubject of Africa, with a view to the general cultivation of the\ncoffee berry--AND the natives--and the happy settlement, on the banks\nof the African rivers, of our superabundant home population. Mr.\nJarndyce, who is desirous to aid any work that is considered likely\nto be a good work and who is much sought after by philanthropists,\nhas, I believe, a very high opinion of Mrs. Jellyby.\"\n\nMr. Kenge, adjusting his cravat, then looked at us.\n\n\"And Mr. Jellyby, sir?\" suggested Richard.\n\n\"Ah! Mr. Jellyby,\" said Mr. Kenge, \"is--a--I don't know that I can\ndescribe him to you better than by saying that he is the husband of\nMrs. Jellyby.\"\n\n\"A nonentity, sir?\" said Richard with a droll look.\n\n\"I don't say that,\" returned Mr. Kenge gravely. \"I can't say that,\nindeed, for I know nothing whatever OF Mr. Jellyby. I never, to my\nknowledge, had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Jellyby. He may be a very\nsuperior man, but he is, so to speak, merged--merged--in the more\nshining qualities of his wife.\" Mr. Kenge proceeded to tell us that\nas the road to Bleak House would have been very long, dark, and\ntedious on such an evening, and as we had been travelling already,\nMr. Jarndyce had himself proposed this arrangement. A carriage would\nbe at Mrs. Jellyby's to convey us out of town early in the forenoon\nof to-morrow.\n\nHe then rang a little bell, and the young gentleman came in.\nAddressing him by the name of Guppy, Mr. Kenge inquired whether Miss\nSummerson's boxes and the rest of the baggage had been \"sent round.\"\nMr. Guppy said yes, they had been sent round, and a coach was waiting\nto take us round too as soon as we pleased.\n\n\"Then it only remains,\" said Mr. Kenge, shaking hands with us, \"for\nme to express my lively satisfaction in (good day, Miss Clare!) the\narrangement this day concluded and my (GOOD-bye to you, Miss\nSummerson!) lively hope that it will conduce to the happiness, the\n(glad to have had the honour of making your acquaintance, Mr.\nCarstone!) welfare, the advantage in all points of view, of all\nconcerned! Guppy, see the party safely there.\"\n\n\"Where IS 'there,' Mr. Guppy?\" said Richard as we went downstairs.\n\n\"No distance,\" said Mr. Guppy; \"round in Thavies Inn, you know.\"\n\n\"I can't say I know where it is, for I come from Winchester and am\nstrange in London.\"\n\n\"Only round the corner,\" said Mr. Guppy. \"We just twist up Chancery\nLane, and cut along Holborn, and there we are in four minutes' time,\nas near as a toucher. This is about a London particular NOW, ain't\nit, miss?\" He seemed quite delighted with it on my account.\n\n\"The fog is very dense indeed!\" said I.\n\n\"Not that it affects you, though, I'm sure,\" said Mr. Guppy, putting\nup the steps. \"On the contrary, it seems to do you good, miss,\njudging from your appearance.\"\n\nI knew he meant well in paying me this compliment, so I laughed at\nmyself for blushing at it when he had shut the door and got upon the\nbox; and we all three laughed and chatted about our inexperience and\nthe strangeness of London until we turned up under an archway to our\ndestination--a narrow street of high houses like an oblong cistern to\nhold the fog. There was a confused little crowd of people,\nprincipally children, gathered about the house at which we stopped,\nwhich had a tarnished brass plate on the door with the inscription\nJELLYBY.\n\n\"Don't be frightened!\" said Mr. Guppy, looking in at the\ncoach-window. \"One of the young Jellybys been and got his head\nthrough the area railings!\"\n\n\"Oh, poor child,\" said I; \"let me out, if you please!\"\n\n\"Pray be careful of yourself, miss. The young Jellybys are always up\nto something,\" said Mr. Guppy.\n\nI made my way to the poor child, who was one of the dirtiest little\nunfortunates I ever saw, and found him very hot and frightened and\ncrying loudly, fixed by the neck between two iron railings, while a\nmilkman and a beadle, with the kindest intentions possible, were\nendeavouring to drag him back by the legs, under a general impression\nthat his skull was compressible by those means. As I found (after\npacifying him) that he was a little boy with a naturally large head,\nI thought that perhaps where his head could go, his body could\nfollow, and mentioned that the best mode of extrication might be to\npush him forward. This was so favourably received by the milkman and\nbeadle that he would immediately have been pushed into the area if I\nhad not held his pinafore while Richard and Mr. Guppy ran down\nthrough the kitchen to catch him when he should be released. At last\nhe was happily got down without any accident, and then he began to\nbeat Mr. Guppy with a hoop-stick in quite a frantic manner.\n\nNobody had appeared belonging to the house except a person in\npattens, who had been poking at the child from below with a broom; I\ndon't know with what object, and I don't think she did. I therefore\nsupposed that Mrs. Jellyby was not at home, and was quite surprised\nwhen the person appeared in the passage without the pattens, and\ngoing up to the back room on the first floor before Ada and me,\nannounced us as, \"Them two young ladies, Missis Jellyby!\" We passed\nseveral more children on the way up, whom it was difficult to avoid\ntreading on in the dark; and as we came into Mrs. Jellyby's presence,\none of the poor little things fell downstairs--down a whole flight\n(as it sounded to me), with a great noise.\n\nMrs. Jellyby, whose face reflected none of the uneasiness which we\ncould not help showing in our own faces as the dear child's head\nrecorded its passage with a bump on every stair--Richard afterwards\nsaid he counted seven, besides one for the landing--received us with\nperfect equanimity. She was a pretty, very diminutive, plump woman of\nfrom forty to fifty, with handsome eyes, though they had a curious\nhabit of seeming to look a long way off. As if--I am quoting Richard\nagain--they could see nothing nearer than Africa!\n\n\"I am very glad indeed,\" said Mrs. Jellyby in an agreeable voice, \"to\nhave the pleasure of receiving you. I have a great respect for Mr.\nJarndyce, and no one in whom he is interested can be an object of\nindifference to me.\"\n\nWe expressed our acknowledgments and sat down behind the door, where\nthere was a lame invalid of a sofa. Mrs. Jellyby had very good hair\nbut was too much occupied with her African duties to brush it. The\nshawl in which she had been loosely muffled dropped onto her chair\nwhen she advanced to us; and as she turned to resume her seat, we\ncould not help noticing that her dress didn't nearly meet up the back\nand that the open space was railed across with a lattice-work of\nstay-lace--like a summer-house.\n\nThe room, which was strewn with papers and nearly filled by a great\nwriting-table covered with similar litter, was, I must say, not only\nvery untidy but very dirty. We were obliged to take notice of that\nwith our sense of sight, even while, with our sense of hearing, we\nfollowed the poor child who had tumbled downstairs: I think into the\nback kitchen, where somebody seemed to stifle him.\n\nBut what principally struck us was a jaded and unhealthy-looking\nthough by no means plain girl at the writing-table, who sat biting\nthe feather of her pen and staring at us. I suppose nobody ever was\nin such a state of ink. And from her tumbled hair to her pretty feet,\nwhich were disfigured with frayed and broken satin slippers trodden\ndown at heel, she really seemed to have no article of dress upon her,\nfrom a pin upwards, that was in its proper condition or its right\nplace.\n\n\"You find me, my dears,\" said Mrs. Jellyby, snuffing the two great\noffice candles in tin candlesticks, which made the room taste\nstrongly of hot tallow (the fire had gone out, and there was nothing\nin the grate but ashes, a bundle of wood, and a poker), \"you find me,\nmy dears, as usual, very busy; but that you will excuse. The African\nproject at present employs my whole time. It involves me in\ncorrespondence with public bodies and with private individuals\nanxious for the welfare of their species all over the country. I am\nhappy to say it is advancing. We hope by this time next year to have\nfrom a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating\ncoffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank\nof the Niger.\"\n\nAs Ada said nothing, but looked at me, I said it must be very\ngratifying.\n\n\"It IS gratifying,\" said Mrs. Jellyby. \"It involves the devotion of\nall my energies, such as they are; but that is nothing, so that it\nsucceeds; and I am more confident of success every day. Do you know,\nMiss Summerson, I almost wonder that YOU never turned your thoughts\nto Africa.\"\n\nThis application of the subject was really so unexpected to me that I\nwas quite at a loss how to receive it. I hinted that the climate--\n\n\"The finest climate in the world!\" said Mrs. Jellyby.\n\n\"Indeed, ma'am?\"\n\n\"Certainly. With precaution,\" said Mrs. Jellyby. \"You may go into\nHolborn, without precaution, and be run over. You may go into\nHolborn, with precaution, and never be run over. Just so with\nAfrica.\"\n\nI said, \"No doubt.\" I meant as to Holborn.\n\n\"If you would like,\" said Mrs. Jellyby, putting a number of papers\ntowards us, \"to look over some remarks on that head, and on the\ngeneral subject, which have been extensively circulated, while I\nfinish a letter I am now dictating to my eldest daughter, who is my\namanuensis--\"\n\nThe girl at the table left off biting her pen and made a return to\nour recognition, which was half bashful and half sulky.\n\n\"--I shall then have finished for the present,\" proceeded Mrs.\nJellyby with a sweet smile, \"though my work is never done. Where are\nyou, Caddy?\"\n\n\"'Presents her compliments to Mr. Swallow, and begs--'\" said Caddy.\n\n\"'And begs,'\" said Mrs. Jellyby, dictating, \"'to inform him, in\nreference to his letter of inquiry on the African project--' No,\nPeepy! Not on my account!\"\n\nPeepy (so self-named) was the unfortunate child who had fallen\ndownstairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting\nhimself, with a strip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his\nwounded knees, in which Ada and I did not know which to pity\nmost--the bruises or the dirt. Mrs. Jellyby merely added, with the\nserene composure with which she said everything, \"Go along, you\nnaughty Peepy!\" and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again.\n\nHowever, as she at once proceeded with her dictation, and as I\ninterrupted nothing by doing it, I ventured quietly to stop poor\nPeepy as he was going out and to take him up to nurse. He looked very\nmuch astonished at it and at Ada's kissing him, but soon fell fast\nasleep in my arms, sobbing at longer and longer intervals, until he\nwas quiet. I was so occupied with Peepy that I lost the letter in\ndetail, though I derived such a general impression from it of the\nmomentous importance of Africa, and the utter insignificance of all\nother places and things, that I felt quite ashamed to have thought so\nlittle about it.\n\n\"Six o'clock!\" said Mrs. Jellyby. \"And our dinner hour is nominally\n(for we dine at all hours) five! Caddy, show Miss Clare and Miss\nSummerson their rooms. You will like to make some change, perhaps?\nYou will excuse me, I know, being so much occupied. Oh, that very bad\nchild! Pray put him down, Miss Summerson!\"\n\nI begged permission to retain him, truly saying that he was not at\nall troublesome, and carried him upstairs and laid him on my bed. Ada\nand I had two upper rooms with a door of communication between. They\nwere excessively bare and disorderly, and the curtain to my window\nwas fastened up with a fork.\n\n\"You would like some hot water, wouldn't you?\" said Miss Jellyby,\nlooking round for a jug with a handle to it, but looking in vain.\n\n\"If it is not being troublesome,\" said we.\n\n\"Oh, it's not the trouble,\" returned Miss Jellyby; \"the question is,\nif there IS any.\"\n\nThe evening was so very cold and the rooms had such a marshy smell\nthat I must confess it was a little miserable, and Ada was half\ncrying. We soon laughed, however, and were busily unpacking when Miss\nJellyby came back to say that she was sorry there was no hot water,\nbut they couldn't find the kettle, and the boiler was out of order.\n\nWe begged her not to mention it and made all the haste we could to\nget down to the fire again. But all the little children had come up\nto the landing outside to look at the phenomenon of Peepy lying on my\nbed, and our attention was distracted by the constant apparition of\nnoses and fingers in situations of danger between the hinges of the\ndoors. It was impossible to shut the door of either room, for my\nlock, with no knob to it, looked as if it wanted to be wound up; and\nthough the handle of Ada's went round and round with the greatest\nsmoothness, it was attended with no effect whatever on the door.\nTherefore I proposed to the children that they should come in and be\nvery good at my table, and I would tell them the story of Little Red\nRiding Hood while I dressed; which they did, and were as quiet as\nmice, including Peepy, who awoke opportunely before the appearance of\nthe wolf.\n\nWhen we went downstairs we found a mug with \"A Present from Tunbridge\nWells\" on it lighted up in the staircase window with a floating wick,\nand a young woman, with a swelled face bound up in a flannel bandage\nblowing the fire of the drawing-room (now connected by an open door\nwith Mrs. Jellyby's room) and choking dreadfully. It smoked to that\ndegree, in short, that we all sat coughing and crying with the\nwindows open for half an hour, during which Mrs. Jellyby, with the\nsame sweetness of temper, directed letters about Africa. Her being so\nemployed was, I must say, a great relief to me, for Richard told us\nthat he had washed his hands in a pie-dish and that they had found\nthe kettle on his dressing-table, and he made Ada laugh so that they\nmade me laugh in the most ridiculous manner.\n\nSoon after seven o'clock we went down to dinner, carefully, by Mrs.\nJellyby's advice, for the stair-carpets, besides being very deficient\nin stair-wires, were so torn as to be absolute traps. We had a fine\ncod-fish, a piece of roast beef, a dish of cutlets, and a pudding; an\nexcellent dinner, if it had had any cooking to speak of, but it was\nalmost raw. The young woman with the flannel bandage waited, and\ndropped everything on the table wherever it happened to go, and never\nmoved it again until she put it on the stairs. The person I had seen\nin pattens, who I suppose to have been the cook, frequently came and\nskirmished with her at the door, and there appeared to be ill will\nbetween them.\n\nAll through dinner--which was long, in consequence of such accidents\nas the dish of potatoes being mislaid in the coal skuttle and the\nhandle of the corkscrew coming off and striking the young woman in\nthe chin--Mrs. Jellyby preserved the evenness of her disposition. She\ntold us a great deal that was interesting about Borrioboola-Gha and\nthe natives, and received so many letters that Richard, who sat by\nher, saw four envelopes in the gravy at once. Some of the letters\nwere proceedings of ladies' committees or resolutions of ladies'\nmeetings, which she read to us; others were applications from people\nexcited in various ways about the cultivation of coffee, and natives;\nothers required answers, and these she sent her eldest daughter from\nthe table three or four times to write. She was full of business and\nundoubtedly was, as she had told us, devoted to the cause.\n\nI was a little curious to know who a mild bald gentleman in\nspectacles was, who dropped into a vacant chair (there was no top or\nbottom in particular) after the fish was taken away and seemed\npassively to submit himself to Borrioboola-Gha but not to be actively\ninterested in that settlement. As he never spoke a word, he might\nhave been a native but for his complexion. It was not until we left\nthe table and he remained alone with Richard that the possibility of\nhis being Mr. Jellyby ever entered my head. But he WAS Mr. Jellyby;\nand a loquacious young man called Mr. Quale, with large shining knobs\nfor temples and his hair all brushed to the back of his head, who\ncame in the evening, and told Ada he was a philanthropist, also\ninformed her that he called the matrimonial alliance of Mrs. Jellyby\nwith Mr. Jellyby the union of mind and matter.\n\nThis young man, besides having a great deal to say for himself about\nAfrica and a project of his for teaching the coffee colonists to\nteach the natives to turn piano-forte legs and establish an export\ntrade, delighted in drawing Mrs. Jellyby out by saying, \"I believe\nnow, Mrs. Jellyby, you have received as many as from one hundred and\nfifty to two hundred letters respecting Africa in a single day, have\nyou not?\" or, \"If my memory does not deceive me, Mrs. Jellyby, you\nonce mentioned that you had sent off five thousand circulars from one\npost-office at one time?\"--always repeating Mrs. Jellyby's answer to\nus like an interpreter. During the whole evening, Mr. Jellyby sat in\na corner with his head against the wall as if he were subject to low\nspirits. It seemed that he had several times opened his mouth when\nalone with Richard after dinner, as if he had something on his mind,\nbut had always shut it again, to Richard's extreme confusion, without\nsaying anything.\n\nMrs. Jellyby, sitting in quite a nest of waste paper, drank coffee\nall the evening and dictated at intervals to her eldest daughter. She\nalso held a discussion with Mr. Quale, of which the subject seemed to\nbe--if I understood it--the brotherhood of humanity, and gave\nutterance to some beautiful sentiments. I was not so attentive an\nauditor as I might have wished to be, however, for Peepy and the\nother children came flocking about Ada and me in a corner of the\ndrawing-room to ask for another story; so we sat down among them and\ntold them in whispers \"Puss in Boots\" and I don't know what else\nuntil Mrs. Jellyby, accidentally remembering them, sent them to bed.\nAs Peepy cried for me to take him to bed, I carried him upstairs,\nwhere the young woman with the flannel bandage charged into the midst\nof the little family like a dragon and overturned them into cribs.\n\nAfter that I occupied myself in making our room a little tidy and in\ncoaxing a very cross fire that had been lighted to burn, which at\nlast it did, quite brightly. On my return downstairs, I felt that\nMrs. Jellyby looked down upon me rather for being so frivolous, and I\nwas sorry for it, though at the same time I knew that I had no higher\npretensions.\n\nIt was nearly midnight before we found an opportunity of going to\nbed, and even then we left Mrs. Jellyby among her papers drinking\ncoffee and Miss Jellyby biting the feather of her pen.\n\n\"What a strange house!\" said Ada when we got upstairs. \"How curious\nof my cousin Jarndyce to send us here!\"\n\n\"My love,\" said I, \"it quite confuses me. I want to understand it,\nand I can't understand it at all.\"\n\n\"What?\" asked Ada with her pretty smile.\n\n\"All this, my dear,\" said I. \"It MUST be very good of Mrs. Jellyby to\ntake such pains about a scheme for the benefit of natives--and\nyet--Peepy and the housekeeping!\"\n\nAda laughed and put her arm about my neck as I stood looking at the\nfire, and told me I was a quiet, dear, good creature and had won her\nheart. \"You are so thoughtful, Esther,\" she said, \"and yet so\ncheerful! And you do so much, so unpretendingly! You would make a\nhome out of even this house.\"\n\nMy simple darling! She was quite unconscious that she only praised\nherself and that it was in the goodness of her own heart that she\nmade so much of me!\n\n\"May I ask you a question?\" said I when we had sat before the fire a\nlittle while.\n\n\"Five hundred,\" said Ada.\n\n\"Your cousin, Mr. Jarndyce. I owe so much to him. Would you mind\ndescribing him to me?\"\n\nShaking her golden hair, Ada turned her eyes upon me with such\nlaughing wonder that I was full of wonder too, partly at her beauty,\npartly at her surprise.\n\n\"Esther!\" she cried.\n\n\"My dear!\"\n\n\"You want a description of my cousin Jarndyce?\"\n\n\"My dear, I never saw him.\"\n\n\"And I never saw him!\" returned Ada.\n\nWell, to be sure!\n\nNo, she had never seen him. Young as she was when her mama died, she\nremembered how the tears would come into her eyes when she spoke of\nhim and of the noble generosity of his character, which she had said\nwas to be trusted above all earthly things; and Ada trusted it. Her\ncousin Jarndyce had written to her a few months ago--\"a plain, honest\nletter,\" Ada said--proposing the arrangement we were now to enter on\nand telling her that \"in time it might heal some of the wounds made\nby the miserable Chancery suit.\" She had replied, gratefully\naccepting his proposal. Richard had received a similar letter and had\nmade a similar response. He HAD seen Mr. Jarndyce once, but only\nonce, five years ago, at Winchester school. He had told Ada, when\nthey were leaning on the screen before the fire where I found them,\nthat he recollected him as \"a bluff, rosy fellow.\" This was the\nutmost description Ada could give me.\n\nIt set me thinking so that when Ada was asleep, I still remained\nbefore the fire, wondering and wondering about Bleak House, and\nwondering and wondering that yesterday morning should seem so long\nago. I don't know where my thoughts had wandered when they were\nrecalled by a tap at the door.\n\nI opened it softly and found Miss Jellyby shivering there with a\nbroken candle in a broken candlestick in one hand and an egg-cup in\nthe other.\n\n\"Good night!\" she said very sulkily.\n\n\"Good night!\" said I.\n\n\"May I come in?\" she shortly and unexpectedly asked me in the same\nsulky way.\n\n\"Certainly,\" said I. \"Don't wake Miss Clare.\"\n\nShe would not sit down, but stood by the fire dipping her inky middle\nfinger in the egg-cup, which contained vinegar, and smearing it over\nthe ink stains on her face, frowning the whole time and looking very\ngloomy.\n\n\"I wish Africa was dead!\" she said on a sudden.\n\nI was going to remonstrate.\n\n\"I do!\" she said \"Don't talk to me, Miss Summerson. I hate it and\ndetest it. It's a beast!\"\n\nI told her she was tired, and I was sorry. I put my hand upon her\nhead, and touched her forehead, and said it was hot now but would be\ncool to-morrow. She still stood pouting and frowning at me, but\npresently put down her egg-cup and turned softly towards the bed\nwhere Ada lay.\n\n\"She is very pretty!\" she said with the same knitted brow and in the\nsame uncivil manner.\n\nI assented with a smile.\n\n\"An orphan. Ain't she?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"But knows a quantity, I suppose? Can dance, and play music, and\nsing? She can talk French, I suppose, and do geography, and globes,\nand needlework, and everything?\"\n\n\"No doubt,\" said I.\n\n\"I can't,\" she returned. \"I can't do anything hardly, except write.\nI'm always writing for Ma. I wonder you two were not ashamed of\nyourselves to come in this afternoon and see me able to do nothing\nelse. It was like your ill nature. Yet you think yourselves very\nfine, I dare say!\"\n\nI could see that the poor girl was near crying, and I resumed my\nchair without speaking and looked at her (I hope) as mildly as I felt\ntowards her.\n\n\"It's disgraceful,\" she said. \"You know it is. The whole house is\ndisgraceful. The children are disgraceful. I'M disgraceful. Pa's\nmiserable, and no wonder! Priscilla drinks--she's always drinking.\nIt's a great shame and a great story of you if you say you didn't\nsmell her to-day. It was as bad as a public-house, waiting at dinner;\nyou know it was!\"\n\n\"My dear, I don't know it,\" said I.\n\n\"You do,\" she said very shortly. \"You shan't say you don't. You do!\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear!\" said I. \"If you won't let me speak--\"\n\n\"You're speaking now. You know you are. Don't tell stories, Miss\nSummerson.\"\n\n\"My dear,\" said I, \"as long as you won't hear me out--\"\n\n\"I don't want to hear you out.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I think you do,\" said I, \"because that would be so very\nunreasonable. I did not know what you tell me because the servant did\nnot come near me at dinner; but I don't doubt what you tell me, and I\nam sorry to hear it.\"\n\n\"You needn't make a merit of that,\" said she.\n\n\"No, my dear,\" said I. \"That would be very foolish.\"\n\nShe was still standing by the bed, and now stooped down (but still\nwith the same discontented face) and kissed Ada. That done, she came\nsoftly back and stood by the side of my chair. Her bosom was heaving\nin a distressful manner that I greatly pitied, but I thought it\nbetter not to speak.\n\n\"I wish I was dead!\" she broke out. \"I wish we were all dead. It\nwould be a great deal better for us.\"\n\nIn a moment afterwards, she knelt on the ground at my side, hid her\nface in my dress, passionately begged my pardon, and wept. I\ncomforted her and would have raised her, but she cried no, no; she\nwanted to stay there!\n\n\"You used to teach girls,\" she said, \"If you could only have taught\nme, I could have learnt from you! I am so very miserable, and I like\nyou so much!\"\n\nI could not persuade her to sit by me or to do anything but move a\nragged stool to where she was kneeling, and take that, and still hold\nmy dress in the same manner. By degrees the poor tired girl fell\nasleep, and then I contrived to raise her head so that it should rest\non my lap, and to cover us both with shawls. The fire went out, and\nall night long she slumbered thus before the ashy grate. At first I\nwas painfully awake and vainly tried to lose myself, with my eyes\nclosed, among the scenes of the day. At length, by slow degrees, they\nbecame indistinct and mingled. I began to lose the identity of the\nsleeper resting on me. Now it was Ada, now one of my old Reading\nfriends from whom I could not believe I had so recently parted. Now\nit was the little mad woman worn out with curtsying and smiling, now\nsome one in authority at Bleak House. Lastly, it was no one, and I\nwas no one.\n\nThe purblind day was feebly struggling with the fog when I opened my\neyes to encounter those of a dirty-faced little spectre fixed upon\nme. Peepy had scaled his crib, and crept down in his bed-gown and\ncap, and was so cold that his teeth were chattering as if he had cut\nthem all.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nA Morning Adventure\n\n\nAlthough the morning was raw, and although the fog still seemed\nheavy--I say seemed, for the windows were so encrusted with dirt that\nthey would have made midsummer sunshine dim--I was sufficiently\nforewarned of the discomfort within doors at that early hour and\nsufficiently curious about London to think it a good idea on the part\nof Miss Jellyby when she proposed that we should go out for a walk.\n\n\"Ma won't be down for ever so long,\" she said, \"and then it's a\nchance if breakfast's ready for an hour afterwards, they dawdle so.\nAs to Pa, he gets what he can and goes to the office. He never has\nwhat you would call a regular breakfast. Priscilla leaves him out the\nloaf and some milk, when there is any, overnight. Sometimes there\nisn't any milk, and sometimes the cat drinks it. But I'm afraid you\nmust be tired, Miss Summerson, and perhaps you would rather go to\nbed.\"\n\n\"I am not at all tired, my dear,\" said I, \"and would much prefer to\ngo out.\"\n\n\"If you're sure you would,\" returned Miss Jellyby, \"I'll get my\nthings on.\"\n\nAda said she would go too, and was soon astir. I made a proposal to\nPeepy, in default of being able to do anything better for him, that\nhe should let me wash him and afterwards lay him down on my bed\nagain. To this he submitted with the best grace possible, staring at\nme during the whole operation as if he never had been, and never\ncould again be, so astonished in his life--looking very miserable\nalso, certainly, but making no complaint, and going snugly to sleep\nas soon as it was over. At first I was in two minds about taking such\na liberty, but I soon reflected that nobody in the house was likely\nto notice it.\n\nWhat with the bustle of dispatching Peepy and the bustle of getting\nmyself ready and helping Ada, I was soon quite in a glow. We found\nMiss Jellyby trying to warm herself at the fire in the writing-room,\nwhich Priscilla was then lighting with a smutty parlour candlestick,\nthrowing the candle in to make it burn better. Everything was just as\nwe had left it last night and was evidently intended to remain so.\nBelow-stairs the dinner-cloth had not been taken away, but had been\nleft ready for breakfast. Crumbs, dust, and waste-paper were all over\nthe house. Some pewter pots and a milk-can hung on the area railings;\nthe door stood open; and we met the cook round the corner coming out\nof a public-house, wiping her mouth. She mentioned, as she passed us,\nthat she had been to see what o'clock it was.\n\nBut before we met the cook, we met Richard, who was dancing up and\ndown Thavies Inn to warm his feet. He was agreeably surprised to see\nus stirring so soon and said he would gladly share our walk. So he\ntook care of Ada, and Miss Jellyby and I went first. I may mention\nthat Miss Jellyby had relapsed into her sulky manner and that I\nreally should not have thought she liked me much unless she had told\nme so.\n\n\"Where would you wish to go?\" she asked.\n\n\"Anywhere, my dear,\" I replied.\n\n\"Anywhere's nowhere,\" said Miss Jellyby, stopping perversely.\n\n\"Let us go somewhere at any rate,\" said I.\n\nShe then walked me on very fast.\n\n\"I don't care!\" she said. \"Now, you are my witness, Miss Summerson, I\nsay I don't care--but if he was to come to our house with his great,\nshining, lumpy forehead night after night till he was as old as\nMethuselah, I wouldn't have anything to say to him. Such ASSES as he\nand Ma make of themselves!\"\n\n\"My dear!\" I remonstrated, in allusion to the epithet and the\nvigorous emphasis Miss Jellyby set upon it. \"Your duty as a child--\"\n\n\"Oh! Don't talk of duty as a child, Miss Summerson; where's Ma's duty\nas a parent? All made over to the public and Africa, I suppose! Then\nlet the public and Africa show duty as a child; it's much more their\naffair than mine. You are shocked, I dare say! Very well, so am I\nshocked too; so we are both shocked, and there's an end of it!\"\n\nShe walked me on faster yet.\n\n\"But for all that, I say again, he may come, and come, and come, and\nI won't have anything to say to him. I can't bear him. If there's any\nstuff in the world that I hate and detest, it's the stuff he and Ma\ntalk. I wonder the very paving-stones opposite our house can have the\npatience to stay there and be a witness of such inconsistencies and\ncontradictions as all that sounding nonsense, and Ma's management!\"\n\nI could not but understand her to refer to Mr. Quale, the young\ngentleman who had appeared after dinner yesterday. I was saved the\ndisagreeable necessity of pursuing the subject by Richard and Ada\ncoming up at a round pace, laughing and asking us if we meant to run\na race. Thus interrupted, Miss Jellyby became silent and walked\nmoodily on at my side while I admired the long successions and\nvarieties of streets, the quantity of people already going to and\nfro, the number of vehicles passing and repassing, the busy\npreparations in the setting forth of shop windows and the sweeping\nout of shops, and the extraordinary creatures in rags secretly\ngroping among the swept-out rubbish for pins and other refuse.\n\n\"So, cousin,\" said the cheerful voice of Richard to Ada behind me.\n\"We are never to get out of Chancery! We have come by another way to\nour place of meeting yesterday, and--by the Great Seal, here's the\nold lady again!\"\n\nTruly, there she was, immediately in front of us, curtsying, and\nsmiling, and saying with her yesterday's air of patronage, \"The wards\nin Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure!\"\n\n\"You are out early, ma'am,\" said I as she curtsied to me.\n\n\"Ye-es! I usually walk here early. Before the court sits. It's\nretired. I collect my thoughts here for the business of the day,\"\nsaid the old lady mincingly. \"The business of the day requires a\ngreat deal of thought. Chancery justice is so ve-ry difficult to\nfollow.\"\n\n\"Who's this, Miss Summerson?\" whispered Miss Jellyby, drawing my arm\ntighter through her own.\n\nThe little old lady's hearing was remarkably quick. She answered for\nherself directly.\n\n\"A suitor, my child. At your service. I have the honour to attend\ncourt regularly. With my documents. Have I the pleasure of addressing\nanother of the youthful parties in Jarndyce?\" said the old lady,\nrecovering herself, with her head on one side, from a very low\ncurtsy.\n\nRichard, anxious to atone for his thoughtlessness of yesterday,\ngood-naturedly explained that Miss Jellyby was not connected with the\nsuit.\n\n\"Ha!\" said the old lady. \"She does not expect a judgment? She will\nstill grow old. But not so old. Oh, dear, no! This is the garden of\nLincoln's Inn. I call it my garden. It is quite a bower in the\nsummer-time. Where the birds sing melodiously. I pass the greater\npart of the long vacation here. In contemplation. You find the long\nvacation exceedingly long, don't you?\"\n\nWe said yes, as she seemed to expect us to say so.\n\n\"When the leaves are falling from the trees and there are no more\nflowers in bloom to make up into nosegays for the Lord Chancellor's\ncourt,\" said the old lady, \"the vacation is fulfilled and the sixth\nseal, mentioned in the Revelations, again prevails. Pray come and see\nmy lodging. It will be a good omen for me. Youth, and hope, and\nbeauty are very seldom there. It is a long, long time since I had a\nvisit from either.\"\n\nShe had taken my hand, and leading me and Miss Jellyby away, beckoned\nRichard and Ada to come too. I did not know how to excuse myself and\nlooked to Richard for aid. As he was half amused and half curious and\nall in doubt how to get rid of the old lady without offence, she\ncontinued to lead us away, and he and Ada continued to follow, our\nstrange conductress informing us all the time, with much smiling\ncondescension, that she lived close by.\n\nIt was quite true, as it soon appeared. She lived so close by that we\nhad not time to have done humouring her for a few moments before she\nwas at home. Slipping us out at a little side gate, the old lady\nstopped most unexpectedly in a narrow back street, part of some\ncourts and lanes immediately outside the wall of the inn, and said,\n\"This is my lodging. Pray walk up!\"\n\nShe had stopped at a shop over which was written KROOK, RAG AND\nBOTTLE WAREHOUSE. Also, in long thin letters, KROOK, DEALER IN MARINE\nSTORES. In one part of the window was a picture of a red paper mill\nat which a cart was unloading a quantity of sacks of old rags. In\nanother was the inscription BONES BOUGHT. In another, KITCHEN-STUFF\nBOUGHT. In another, OLD IRON BOUGHT. In another, WASTE-PAPER BOUGHT.\nIn another, LADIES' AND GENTLEMEN'S WARDROBES BOUGHT. Everything\nseemed to be bought and nothing to be sold there. In all parts of the\nwindow were quantities of dirty bottles--blacking bottles, medicine\nbottles, ginger-beer and soda-water bottles, pickle bottles, wine\nbottles, ink bottles; I am reminded by mentioning the latter that the\nshop had in several little particulars the air of being in a legal\nneighbourhood and of being, as it were, a dirty hanger-on and\ndisowned relation of the law. There were a great many ink bottles.\nThere was a little tottering bench of shabby old volumes outside the\ndoor, labelled \"Law Books, all at 9d.\" Some of the inscriptions I\nhave enumerated were written in law-hand, like the papers I had seen\nin Kenge and Carboy's office and the letters I had so long received\nfrom the firm. Among them was one, in the same writing, having\nnothing to do with the business of the shop, but announcing that a\nrespectable man aged forty-five wanted engrossing or copying to\nexecute with neatness and dispatch: Address to Nemo, care of Mr.\nKrook, within. There were several second-hand bags, blue and red,\nhanging up. A little way within the shop-door lay heaps of old\ncrackled parchment scrolls and discoloured and dog's-eared\nlaw-papers. I could have fancied that all the rusty keys, of which\nthere must have been hundreds huddled together as old iron, had once\nbelonged to doors of rooms or strong chests in lawyers' offices. The\nlitter of rags tumbled partly into and partly out of a one-legged\nwooden scale, hanging without any counterpoise from a beam, might\nhave been counsellors' bands and gowns torn up. One had only to\nfancy, as Richard whispered to Ada and me while we all stood looking\nin, that yonder bones in a corner, piled together and picked very\nclean, were the bones of clients, to make the picture complete.\n\nAs it was still foggy and dark, and as the shop was blinded besides\nby the wall of Lincoln's Inn, intercepting the light within a couple\nof yards, we should not have seen so much but for a lighted lantern\nthat an old man in spectacles and a hairy cap was carrying about in\nthe shop. Turning towards the door, he now caught sight of us. He was\nshort, cadaverous, and withered, with his head sunk sideways between\nhis shoulders and the breath issuing in visible smoke from his mouth\nas if he were on fire within. His throat, chin, and eyebrows were so\nfrosted with white hairs and so gnarled with veins and puckered skin\nthat he looked from his breast upward like some old root in a fall of\nsnow.\n\n\"Hi, hi!\" said the old man, coming to the door. \"Have you anything to\nsell?\"\n\nWe naturally drew back and glanced at our conductress, who had been\ntrying to open the house-door with a key she had taken from her\npocket, and to whom Richard now said that as we had had the pleasure\nof seeing where she lived, we would leave her, being pressed for\ntime. But she was not to be so easily left. She became so\nfantastically and pressingly earnest in her entreaties that we would\nwalk up and see her apartment for an instant, and was so bent, in her\nharmless way, on leading me in, as part of the good omen she desired,\nthat I (whatever the others might do) saw nothing for it but to\ncomply. I suppose we were all more or less curious; at any rate, when\nthe old man added his persuasions to hers and said, \"Aye, aye! Please\nher! It won't take a minute! Come in, come in! Come in through the\nshop if t'other door's out of order!\" we all went in, stimulated by\nRichard's laughing encouragement and relying on his protection.\n\n\"My landlord, Krook,\" said the little old lady, condescending to him\nfrom her lofty station as she presented him to us. \"He is called\namong the neighbours the Lord Chancellor. His shop is called the\nCourt of Chancery. He is a very eccentric person. He is very odd. Oh,\nI assure you he is very odd!\"\n\nShe shook her head a great many times and tapped her forehead with\nher finger to express to us that we must have the goodness to excuse\nhim, \"For he is a little--you know--M!\" said the old lady with great\nstateliness. The old man overheard, and laughed.\n\n\"It's true enough,\" he said, going before us with the lantern, \"that\nthey call me the Lord Chancellor and call my shop Chancery. And why\ndo you think they call me the Lord Chancellor and my shop Chancery?\"\n\n\"I don't know, I am sure!\" said Richard rather carelessly.\n\n\"You see,\" said the old man, stopping and turning round, \"they--Hi!\nHere's lovely hair! I have got three sacks of ladies' hair below, but\nnone so beautiful and fine as this. What colour, and what texture!\"\n\n\"That'll do, my good friend!\" said Richard, strongly disapproving of\nhis having drawn one of Ada's tresses through his yellow hand. \"You\ncan admire as the rest of us do without taking that liberty.\"\n\nThe old man darted at him a sudden look which even called my\nattention from Ada, who, startled and blushing, was so remarkably\nbeautiful that she seemed to fix the wandering attention of the\nlittle old lady herself. But as Ada interposed and laughingly said\nshe could only feel proud of such genuine admiration, Mr. Krook\nshrunk into his former self as suddenly as he had leaped out of it.\n\n\"You see, I have so many things here,\" he resumed, holding up the\nlantern, \"of so many kinds, and all as the neighbours think (but THEY\nknow nothing), wasting away and going to rack and ruin, that that's\nwhy they have given me and my place a christening. And I have so many\nold parchmentses and papers in my stock. And I have a liking for rust\nand must and cobwebs. And all's fish that comes to my net. And I\ncan't abear to part with anything I once lay hold of (or so my\nneighbours think, but what do THEY know?) or to alter anything, or to\nhave any sweeping, nor scouring, nor cleaning, nor repairing going on\nabout me. That's the way I've got the ill name of Chancery. I don't\nmind. I go to see my noble and learned brother pretty well every day,\nwhen he sits in the Inn. He don't notice me, but I notice him.\nThere's no great odds betwixt us. We both grub on in a muddle. Hi,\nLady Jane!\"\n\nA large grey cat leaped from some neighbouring shelf on his shoulder\nand startled us all.\n\n\"Hi! Show 'em how you scratch. Hi! Tear, my lady!\" said her master.\n\nThe cat leaped down and ripped at a bundle of rags with her tigerish\nclaws, with a sound that it set my teeth on edge to hear.\n\n\"She'd do as much for any one I was to set her on,\" said the old man.\n\"I deal in cat-skins among other general matters, and hers was\noffered to me. It's a very fine skin, as you may see, but I didn't\nhave it stripped off! THAT warn't like Chancery practice though, says\nyou!\"\n\nHe had by this time led us across the shop, and now opened a door in\nthe back part of it, leading to the house-entry. As he stood with his\nhand upon the lock, the little old lady graciously observed to him\nbefore passing out, \"That will do, Krook. You mean well, but are\ntiresome. My young friends are pressed for time. I have none to spare\nmyself, having to attend court very soon. My young friends are the\nwards in Jarndyce.\"\n\n\"Jarndyce!\" said the old man with a start.\n\n\"Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The great suit, Krook,\" returned his lodger.\n\n\"Hi!\" exclaimed the old man in a tone of thoughtful amazement and\nwith a wider stare than before. \"Think of it!\"\n\nHe seemed so rapt all in a moment and looked so curiously at us that\nRichard said, \"Why, you appear to trouble yourself a good deal about\nthe causes before your noble and learned brother, the other\nChancellor!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the old man abstractedly. \"Sure! YOUR name now will be--\"\n\n\"Richard Carstone.\"\n\n\"Carstone,\" he repeated, slowly checking off that name upon his\nforefinger; and each of the others he went on to mention upon a\nseparate finger. \"Yes. There was the name of Barbary, and the name of\nClare, and the name of Dedlock, too, I think.\"\n\n\"He knows as much of the cause as the real salaried Chancellor!\" said\nRichard, quite astonished, to Ada and me.\n\n\"Aye!\" said the old man, coming slowly out of his abstraction. \"Yes!\nTom Jarndyce--you'll excuse me, being related; but he was never known\nabout court by any other name, and was as well known there as--she is\nnow,\" nodding slightly at his lodger. \"Tom Jarndyce was often in\nhere. He got into a restless habit of strolling about when the cause\nwas on, or expected, talking to the little shopkeepers and telling\n'em to keep out of Chancery, whatever they did. 'For,' says he, 'it's\nbeing ground to bits in a slow mill; it's being roasted at a slow\nfire; it's being stung to death by single bees; it's being drowned by\ndrops; it's going mad by grains.' He was as near making away with\nhimself, just where the young lady stands, as near could be.\"\n\nWe listened with horror.\n\n\"He come in at the door,\" said the old man, slowly pointing an\nimaginary track along the shop, \"on the day he did it--the whole\nneighbourhood had said for months before that he would do it, of a\ncertainty sooner or later--he come in at the door that day, and\nwalked along there, and sat himself on a bench that stood there, and\nasked me (you'll judge I was a mortal sight younger then) to fetch\nhim a pint of wine. 'For,' says he, 'Krook, I am much depressed; my\ncause is on again, and I think I'm nearer judgment than I ever was.'\nI hadn't a mind to leave him alone; and I persuaded him to go to the\ntavern over the way there, t'other side my lane (I mean Chancery\nLane); and I followed and looked in at the window, and saw him,\ncomfortable as I thought, in the arm-chair by the fire, and company\nwith him. I hadn't hardly got back here when I heard a shot go\nechoing and rattling right away into the inn. I ran out--neighbours\nran out--twenty of us cried at once, 'Tom Jarndyce!'\"\n\nThe old man stopped, looked hard at us, looked down into the lantern,\nblew the light out, and shut the lantern up.\n\n\"We were right, I needn't tell the present hearers. Hi! To be sure,\nhow the neighbourhood poured into court that afternoon while the\ncause was on! How my noble and learned brother, and all the rest of\n'em, grubbed and muddled away as usual and tried to look as if they\nhadn't heard a word of the last fact in the case or as if they\nhad--Oh, dear me!--nothing at all to do with it if they had heard of\nit by any chance!\"\n\nAda's colour had entirely left her, and Richard was scarcely less\npale. Nor could I wonder, judging even from my emotions, and I was no\nparty in the suit, that to hearts so untried and fresh it was a shock\nto come into the inheritance of a protracted misery, attended in the\nminds of many people with such dreadful recollections. I had another\nuneasiness, in the application of the painful story to the poor\nhalf-witted creature who had brought us there; but, to my surprise,\nshe seemed perfectly unconscious of that and only led the way\nupstairs again, informing us with the toleration of a superior\ncreature for the infirmities of a common mortal that her landlord was\n\"a little M, you know!\"\n\nShe lived at the top of the house, in a pretty large room, from which\nshe had a glimpse of Lincoln's Inn Hall. This seemed to have been her\nprincipal inducement, originally, for taking up her residence there.\nShe could look at it, she said, in the night, especially in the\nmoonshine. Her room was clean, but very, very bare. I noticed the\nscantiest necessaries in the way of furniture; a few old prints from\nbooks, of Chancellors and barristers, wafered against the wall; and\nsome half-dozen reticles and work-bags, \"containing documents,\" as\nshe informed us. There were neither coals nor ashes in the grate, and\nI saw no articles of clothing anywhere, nor any kind of food. Upon a\nshelf in an open cupboard were a plate or two, a cup or two, and so\nforth, but all dry and empty. There was a more affecting meaning in\nher pinched appearance, I thought as I looked round, than I had\nunderstood before.\n\n\"Extremely honoured, I am sure,\" said our poor hostess with the\ngreatest suavity, \"by this visit from the wards in Jarndyce. And very\nmuch indebted for the omen. It is a retired situation. Considering. I\nam limited as to situation. In consequence of the necessity of\nattending on the Chancellor. I have lived here many years. I pass my\ndays in court, my evenings and my nights here. I find the nights\nlong, for I sleep but little and think much. That is, of course,\nunavoidable, being in Chancery. I am sorry I cannot offer chocolate.\nI expect a judgment shortly and shall then place my establishment on\na superior footing. At present, I don't mind confessing to the wards\nin Jarndyce (in strict confidence) that I sometimes find it difficult\nto keep up a genteel appearance. I have felt the cold here. I have\nfelt something sharper than cold. It matters very little. Pray excuse\nthe introduction of such mean topics.\"\n\nShe partly drew aside the curtain of the long, low garret window and\ncalled our attention to a number of bird-cages hanging there, some\ncontaining several birds. There were larks, linnets, and\ngoldfinches--I should think at least twenty.\n\n\"I began to keep the little creatures,\" she said, \"with an object\nthat the wards will readily comprehend. With the intention of\nrestoring them to liberty. When my judgment should be given. Ye-es!\nThey die in prison, though. Their lives, poor silly things, are so\nshort in comparison with Chancery proceedings that, one by one, the\nwhole collection has died over and over again. I doubt, do you know,\nwhether one of these, though they are all young, will live to be\nfree! Ve-ry mortifying, is it not?\"\n\nAlthough she sometimes asked a question, she never seemed to expect a\nreply, but rambled on as if she were in the habit of doing so when no\none but herself was present.\n\n\"Indeed,\" she pursued, \"I positively doubt sometimes, I do assure\nyou, whether while matters are still unsettled, and the sixth or\nGreat Seal still prevails, I may not one day be found lying stark and\nsenseless here, as I have found so many birds!\"\n\nRichard, answering what he saw in Ada's compassionate eyes, took the\nopportunity of laying some money, softly and unobserved, on the\nchimney-piece. We all drew nearer to the cages, feigning to examine\nthe birds.\n\n\"I can't allow them to sing much,\" said the little old lady, \"for\n(you'll think this curious) I find my mind confused by the idea that\nthey are singing while I am following the arguments in court. And my\nmind requires to be so very clear, you know! Another time, I'll tell\nyou their names. Not at present. On a day of such good omen, they\nshall sing as much as they like. In honour of youth,\" a smile and\ncurtsy, \"hope,\" a smile and curtsy, \"and beauty,\" a smile and curtsy.\n\"There! We'll let in the full light.\"\n\nThe birds began to stir and chirp.\n\n\"I cannot admit the air freely,\" said the little old lady--the room\nwas close, and would have been the better for it--\"because the cat\nyou saw downstairs, called Lady Jane, is greedy for their lives. She\ncrouches on the parapet outside for hours and hours. I have\ndiscovered,\" whispering mysteriously, \"that her natural cruelty is\nsharpened by a jealous fear of their regaining their liberty. In\nconsequence of the judgment I expect being shortly given. She is sly\nand full of malice. I half believe, sometimes, that she is no cat,\nbut the wolf of the old saying. It is so very difficult to keep her\nfrom the door.\"\n\nSome neighbouring bells, reminding the poor soul that it was\nhalf-past nine, did more for us in the way of bringing our visit to\nan end than we could easily have done for ourselves. She hurriedly\ntook up her little bag of documents, which she had laid upon the\ntable on coming in, and asked if we were also going into court. On\nour answering no, and that we would on no account detain her, she\nopened the door to attend us downstairs.\n\n\"With such an omen, it is even more necessary than usual that I\nshould be there before the Chancellor comes in,\" said she, \"for he\nmight mention my case the first thing. I have a presentiment that he\nWILL mention it the first thing this morning.\"\n\nShe stopped to tell us in a whisper as we were going down that the\nwhole house was filled with strange lumber which her landlord had\nbought piecemeal and had no wish to sell, in consequence of being a\nlittle M. This was on the first floor. But she had made a previous\nstoppage on the second floor and had silently pointed at a dark door\nthere.\n\n\"The only other lodger,\" she now whispered in explanation, \"a\nlaw-writer. The children in the lanes here say he has sold himself to\nthe devil. I don't know what he can have done with the money. Hush!\"\n\nShe appeared to mistrust that the lodger might hear her even there,\nand repeating \"Hush!\" went before us on tiptoe as though even the\nsound of her footsteps might reveal to him what she had said.\n\nPassing through the shop on our way out, as we had passed through it\non our way in, we found the old man storing a quantity of packets of\nwaste-paper in a kind of well in the floor. He seemed to be working\nhard, with the perspiration standing on his forehead, and had a piece\nof chalk by him, with which, as he put each separate package or\nbundle down, he made a crooked mark on the panelling of the wall.\n\nRichard and Ada, and Miss Jellyby, and the little old lady had gone\nby him, and I was going when he touched me on the arm to stay me, and\nchalked the letter J upon the wall--in a very curious manner,\nbeginning with the end of the letter and shaping it backward. It was\na capital letter, not a printed one, but just such a letter as any\nclerk in Messrs. Kenge and Carboy's office would have made.\n\n\"Can you read it?\" he asked me with a keen glance.\n\n\"Surely,\" said I. \"It's very plain.\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"J.\"\n\nWith another glance at me, and a glance at the door, he rubbed it out\nand turned an \"a\" in its place (not a capital letter this time), and\nsaid, \"What's that?\"\n\nI told him. He then rubbed that out and turned the letter \"r,\" and\nasked me the same question. He went on quickly until he had formed in\nthe same curious manner, beginning at the ends and bottoms of the\nletters, the word Jarndyce, without once leaving two letters on the\nwall together.\n\n\"What does that spell?\" he asked me.\n\nWhen I told him, he laughed. In the same odd way, yet with the same\nrapidity, he then produced singly, and rubbed out singly, the letters\nforming the words Bleak House. These, in some astonishment, I also\nread; and he laughed again.\n\n\"Hi!\" said the old man, laying aside the chalk. \"I have a turn for\ncopying from memory, you see, miss, though I can neither read nor\nwrite.\"\n\nHe looked so disagreeable and his cat looked so wickedly at me, as if\nI were a blood-relation of the birds upstairs, that I was quite\nrelieved by Richard's appearing at the door and saying, \"Miss\nSummerson, I hope you are not bargaining for the sale of your hair.\nDon't be tempted. Three sacks below are quite enough for Mr. Krook!\"\n\nI lost no time in wishing Mr. Krook good morning and joining my\nfriends outside, where we parted with the little old lady, who gave\nus her blessing with great ceremony and renewed her assurance of\nyesterday in reference to her intention of settling estates on Ada\nand me. Before we finally turned out of those lanes, we looked back\nand saw Mr. Krook standing at his shop-door, in his spectacles,\nlooking after us, with his cat upon his shoulder, and her tail\nsticking up on one side of his hairy cap like a tall feather.\n\n\"Quite an adventure for a morning in London!\" said Richard with a\nsigh. \"Ah, cousin, cousin, it's a weary word this Chancery!\"\n\n\"It is to me, and has been ever since I can remember,\" returned Ada.\n\"I am grieved that I should be the enemy--as I suppose I am--of a\ngreat number of relations and others, and that they should be my\nenemies--as I suppose they are--and that we should all be ruining one\nanother without knowing how or why and be in constant doubt and\ndiscord all our lives. It seems very strange, as there must be right\nsomewhere, that an honest judge in real earnest has not been able to\nfind out through all these years where it is.\"\n\n\"Ah, cousin!\" said Richard. \"Strange, indeed! All this wasteful,\nwanton chess-playing IS very strange. To see that composed court\nyesterday jogging on so serenely and to think of the wretchedness of\nthe pieces on the board gave me the headache and the heartache both\ntogether. My head ached with wondering how it happened, if men were\nneither fools nor rascals; and my heart ached to think they could\npossibly be either. But at all events, Ada--I may call you Ada?\"\n\n\"Of course you may, cousin Richard.\"\n\n\"At all events, Chancery will work none of its bad influences on US.\nWe have happily been brought together, thanks to our good kinsman,\nand it can't divide us now!\"\n\n\"Never, I hope, cousin Richard!\" said Ada gently.\n\nMiss Jellyby gave my arm a squeeze and me a very significant look. I\nsmiled in return, and we made the rest of the way back very\npleasantly.\n\nIn half an hour after our arrival, Mrs. Jellyby appeared; and in the\ncourse of an hour the various things necessary for breakfast\nstraggled one by one into the dining-room. I do not doubt that Mrs.\nJellyby had gone to bed and got up in the usual manner, but she\npresented no appearance of having changed her dress. She was greatly\noccupied during breakfast, for the morning's post brought a heavy\ncorrespondence relative to Borrioboola-Gha, which would occasion her\n(she said) to pass a busy day. The children tumbled about, and\nnotched memoranda of their accidents in their legs, which were\nperfect little calendars of distress; and Peepy was lost for an hour\nand a half, and brought home from Newgate market by a policeman. The\nequable manner in which Mrs. Jellyby sustained both his absence and\nhis restoration to the family circle surprised us all.\n\nShe was by that time perseveringly dictating to Caddy, and Caddy was\nfast relapsing into the inky condition in which we had found her. At\none o'clock an open carriage arrived for us, and a cart for our\nluggage. Mrs. Jellyby charged us with many remembrances to her good\nfriend Mr. Jarndyce; Caddy left her desk to see us depart, kissed me\nin the passage, and stood biting her pen and sobbing on the steps;\nPeepy, I am happy to say, was asleep and spared the pain of\nseparation (I was not without misgivings that he had gone to Newgate\nmarket in search of me); and all the other children got up behind the\nbarouche and fell off, and we saw them, with great concern, scattered\nover the surface of Thavies Inn as we rolled out of its precincts.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nQuite at Home\n\n\nThe day had brightened very much, and still brightened as we went\nwestward. We went our way through the sunshine and the fresh air,\nwondering more and more at the extent of the streets, the brilliancy\nof the shops, the great traffic, and the crowds of people whom the\npleasanter weather seemed to have brought out like many-coloured\nflowers. By and by we began to leave the wonderful city and to\nproceed through suburbs which, of themselves, would have made a\npretty large town in my eyes; and at last we got into a real country\nroad again, with windmills, rick-yards, milestones, farmers' waggons,\nscents of old hay, swinging signs, and horse troughs: trees, fields,\nand hedge-rows. It was delightful to see the green landscape before\nus and the immense metropolis behind; and when a waggon with a train\nof beautiful horses, furnished with red trappings and clear-sounding\nbells, came by us with its music, I believe we could all three have\nsung to the bells, so cheerful were the influences around.\n\n\"The whole road has been reminding me of my namesake Whittington,\"\nsaid Richard, \"and that waggon is the finishing touch. Halloa! What's\nthe matter?\"\n\nWe had stopped, and the waggon had stopped too. Its music changed as\nthe horses came to a stand, and subsided to a gentle tinkling, except\nwhen a horse tossed his head or shook himself and sprinkled off a\nlittle shower of bell-ringing.\n\n\"Our postilion is looking after the waggoner,\" said Richard, \"and the\nwaggoner is coming back after us. Good day, friend!\" The waggoner was\nat our coach-door. \"Why, here's an extraordinary thing!\" added\nRichard, looking closely at the man. \"He has got your name, Ada, in\nhis hat!\"\n\nHe had all our names in his hat. Tucked within the band were three\nsmall notes--one addressed to Ada, one to Richard, one to me. These\nthe waggoner delivered to each of us respectively, reading the name\naloud first. In answer to Richard's inquiry from whom they came, he\nbriefly answered, \"Master, sir, if you please\"; and putting on his\nhat again (which was like a soft bowl), cracked his whip, re-awakened\nhis music, and went melodiously away.\n\n\"Is that Mr. Jarndyce's waggon?\" said Richard, calling to our\npost-boy.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" he replied. \"Going to London.\"\n\nWe opened the notes. Each was a counterpart of the other and\ncontained these words in a solid, plain hand.\n\n\n   I look forward, my dear, to our meeting easily and\n   without constraint on either side. I therefore have to\n   propose that we meet as old friends and take the past for\n   granted. It will be a relief to you possibly, and to me\n   certainly, and so my love to you.\n\n   John Jarndyce\n\n\nI had perhaps less reason to be surprised than either of my\ncompanions, having never yet enjoyed an opportunity of thanking one\nwho had been my benefactor and sole earthly dependence through so\nmany years. I had not considered how I could thank him, my gratitude\nlying too deep in my heart for that; but I now began to consider how\nI could meet him without thanking him, and felt it would be very\ndifficult indeed.\n\nThe notes revived in Richard and Ada a general impression that they\nboth had, without quite knowing how they came by it, that their\ncousin Jarndyce could never bear acknowledgments for any kindness he\nperformed and that sooner than receive any he would resort to the\nmost singular expedients and evasions or would even run away. Ada\ndimly remembered to have heard her mother tell, when she was a very\nlittle child, that he had once done her an act of uncommon generosity\nand that on her going to his house to thank him, he happened to see\nher through a window coming to the door, and immediately escaped by\nthe back gate, and was not heard of for three months. This discourse\nled to a great deal more on the same theme, and indeed it lasted us\nall day, and we talked of scarcely anything else. If we did by any\nchance diverge into another subject, we soon returned to this, and\nwondered what the house would be like, and when we should get there,\nand whether we should see Mr. Jarndyce as soon as we arrived or after\na delay, and what he would say to us, and what we should say to him.\nAll of which we wondered about, over and over again.\n\nThe roads were very heavy for the horses, but the pathway was\ngenerally good, so we alighted and walked up all the hills, and liked\nit so well that we prolonged our walk on the level ground when we got\nto the top. At Barnet there were other horses waiting for us, but as\nthey had only just been fed, we had to wait for them too, and got a\nlong fresh walk over a common and an old battle-field before the\ncarriage came up. These delays so protracted the journey that the\nshort day was spent and the long night had closed in before we came\nto St. Albans, near to which town Bleak House was, we knew.\n\nBy that time we were so anxious and nervous that even Richard\nconfessed, as we rattled over the stones of the old street, to\nfeeling an irrational desire to drive back again. As to Ada and me,\nwhom he had wrapped up with great care, the night being sharp and\nfrosty, we trembled from head to foot. When we turned out of the\ntown, round a corner, and Richard told us that the post-boy, who had\nfor a long time sympathized with our heightened expectation, was\nlooking back and nodding, we both stood up in the carriage (Richard\nholding Ada lest she should be jolted down) and gazed round upon the\nopen country and the starlight night for our destination. There was a\nlight sparkling on the top of a hill before us, and the driver,\npointing to it with his whip and crying, \"That's Bleak House!\" put\nhis horses into a canter and took us forward at such a rate, uphill\nthough it was, that the wheels sent the road drift flying about our\nheads like spray from a water-mill. Presently we lost the light,\npresently saw it, presently lost it, presently saw it, and turned\ninto an avenue of trees and cantered up towards where it was beaming\nbrightly. It was in a window of what seemed to be an old-fashioned\nhouse with three peaks in the roof in front and a circular sweep\nleading to the porch. A bell was rung as we drew up, and amidst the\nsound of its deep voice in the still air, and the distant barking of\nsome dogs, and a gush of light from the opened door, and the smoking\nand steaming of the heated horses, and the quickened beating of our\nown hearts, we alighted in no inconsiderable confusion.\n\n\"Ada, my love, Esther, my dear, you are welcome. I rejoice to see\nyou! Rick, if I had a hand to spare at present, I would give it you!\"\n\nThe gentleman who said these words in a clear, bright, hospitable\nvoice had one of his arms round Ada's waist and the other round mine,\nand kissed us both in a fatherly way, and bore us across the hall\ninto a ruddy little room, all in a glow with a blazing fire. Here he\nkissed us again, and opening his arms, made us sit down side by side\non a sofa ready drawn out near the hearth. I felt that if we had been\nat all demonstrative, he would have run away in a moment.\n\n\"Now, Rick!\" said he. \"I have a hand at liberty. A word in earnest is\nas good as a speech. I am heartily glad to see you. You are at home.\nWarm yourself!\"\n\nRichard shook him by both hands with an intuitive mixture of respect\nand frankness, and only saying (though with an earnestness that\nrather alarmed me, I was so afraid of Mr. Jarndyce's suddenly\ndisappearing), \"You are very kind, sir! We are very much obliged to\nyou!\" laid aside his hat and coat and came up to the fire.\n\n\"And how did you like the ride? And how did you like Mrs. Jellyby, my\ndear?\" said Mr. Jarndyce to Ada.\n\nWhile Ada was speaking to him in reply, I glanced (I need not say\nwith how much interest) at his face. It was a handsome, lively, quick\nface, full of change and motion; and his hair was a silvered\niron-grey. I took him to be nearer sixty than fifty, but he was\nupright, hearty, and robust. From the moment of his first speaking to\nus his voice had connected itself with an association in my mind that\nI could not define; but now, all at once, a something sudden in his\nmanner and a pleasant expression in his eyes recalled the gentleman\nin the stagecoach six years ago on the memorable day of my journey to\nReading. I was certain it was he. I never was so frightened in my\nlife as when I made the discovery, for he caught my glance, and\nappearing to read my thoughts, gave such a look at the door that I\nthought we had lost him.\n\nHowever, I am happy to say he remained where he was, and asked me\nwhat I thought of Mrs. Jellyby.\n\n\"She exerts herself very much for Africa, sir,\" I said.\n\n\"Nobly!\" returned Mr. Jarndyce. \"But you answer like Ada.\" Whom I had\nnot heard. \"You all think something else, I see.\"\n\n\"We rather thought,\" said I, glancing at Richard and Ada, who\nentreated me with their eyes to speak, \"that perhaps she was a little\nunmindful of her home.\"\n\n\"Floored!\" cried Mr. Jarndyce.\n\nI was rather alarmed again.\n\n\"Well! I want to know your real thoughts, my dear. I may have sent\nyou there on purpose.\"\n\n\"We thought that, perhaps,\" said I, hesitating, \"it is right to begin\nwith the obligations of home, sir; and that, perhaps, while those are\noverlooked and neglected, no other duties can possibly be substituted\nfor them.\"\n\n\"The little Jellybys,\" said Richard, coming to my relief, \"are\nreally--I can't help expressing myself strongly, sir--in a devil of a\nstate.\"\n\n\"She means well,\" said Mr. Jarndyce hastily. \"The wind's in the\neast.\"\n\n\"It was in the north, sir, as we came down,\" observed Richard.\n\n\"My dear Rick,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, poking the fire, \"I'll take an\noath it's either in the east or going to be. I am always conscious of\nan uncomfortable sensation now and then when the wind is blowing in\nthe east.\"\n\n\"Rheumatism, sir?\" said Richard.\n\n\"I dare say it is, Rick. I believe it is. And so the little Jell--I\nhad my doubts about 'em--are in a--oh, Lord, yes, it's easterly!\"\nsaid Mr. Jarndyce.\n\nHe had taken two or three undecided turns up and down while uttering\nthese broken sentences, retaining the poker in one hand and rubbing\nhis hair with the other, with a good-natured vexation at once so\nwhimsical and so lovable that I am sure we were more delighted with\nhim than we could possibly have expressed in any words. He gave an\narm to Ada and an arm to me, and bidding Richard bring a candle, was\nleading the way out when he suddenly turned us all back again.\n\n\"Those little Jellybys. Couldn't you--didn't you--now, if it had\nrained sugar-plums, or three-cornered raspberry tarts, or anything of\nthat sort!\" said Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"Oh, cousin--\" Ada hastily began.\n\n\"Good, my pretty pet. I like cousin. Cousin John, perhaps, is\nbetter.\"\n\n\"Then, cousin John--\" Ada laughingly began again.\n\n\"Ha, ha! Very good indeed!\" said Mr. Jarndyce with great enjoyment.\n\"Sounds uncommonly natural. Yes, my dear?\"\n\n\"It did better than that. It rained Esther.\"\n\n\"Aye?\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"What did Esther do?\"\n\n\"Why, cousin John,\" said Ada, clasping her hands upon his arm and\nshaking her head at me across him--for I wanted her to be\nquiet--\"Esther was their friend directly. Esther nursed them, coaxed\nthem to sleep, washed and dressed them, told them stories, kept them\nquiet, bought them keepsakes\"--My dear girl! I had only gone out with\nPeepy after he was found and given him a little, tiny horse!--\"and,\ncousin John, she softened poor Caroline, the eldest one, so much and\nwas so thoughtful for me and so amiable! No, no, I won't be\ncontradicted, Esther dear! You know, you know, it's true!\"\n\nThe warm-hearted darling leaned across her cousin John and kissed me,\nand then looking up in his face, boldly said, \"At all events, cousin\nJohn, I WILL thank you for the companion you have given me.\" I felt\nas if she challenged him to run away. But he didn't.\n\n\"Where did you say the wind was, Rick?\" asked Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"In the north as we came down, sir.\"\n\n\"You are right. There's no east in it. A mistake of mine. Come,\ngirls, come and see your home!\"\n\nIt was one of those delightfully irregular houses where you go up and\ndown steps out of one room into another, and where you come upon more\nrooms when you think you have seen all there are, and where there is\na bountiful provision of little halls and passages, and where you\nfind still older cottage-rooms in unexpected places with lattice\nwindows and green growth pressing through them. Mine, which we\nentered first, was of this kind, with an up-and-down roof that had\nmore corners in it than I ever counted afterwards and a chimney\n(there was a wood fire on the hearth) paved all around with pure\nwhite tiles, in every one of which a bright miniature of the fire was\nblazing. Out of this room, you went down two steps into a charming\nlittle sitting-room looking down upon a flower-garden, which room was\nhenceforth to belong to Ada and me. Out of this you went up three\nsteps into Ada's bedroom, which had a fine broad window commanding a\nbeautiful view (we saw a great expanse of darkness lying underneath\nthe stars), to which there was a hollow window-seat, in which, with a\nspring-lock, three dear Adas might have been lost at once. Out of\nthis room you passed into a little gallery, with which the other best\nrooms (only two) communicated, and so, by a little staircase of\nshallow steps with a number of corner stairs in it, considering its\nlength, down into the hall. But if instead of going out at Ada's door\nyou came back into my room, and went out at the door by which you had\nentered it, and turned up a few crooked steps that branched off in an\nunexpected manner from the stairs, you lost yourself in passages,\nwith mangles in them, and three-cornered tables, and a native Hindu\nchair, which was also a sofa, a box, and a bedstead, and looked in\nevery form something between a bamboo skeleton and a great bird-cage,\nand had been brought from India nobody knew by whom or when. From\nthese you came on Richard's room, which was part library, part\nsitting-room, part bedroom, and seemed indeed a comfortable compound\nof many rooms. Out of that you went straight, with a little interval\nof passage, to the plain room where Mr. Jarndyce slept, all the year\nround, with his window open, his bedstead without any furniture\nstanding in the middle of the floor for more air, and his cold bath\ngaping for him in a smaller room adjoining. Out of that you came into\nanother passage, where there were back-stairs and where you could\nhear the horses being rubbed down outside the stable and being told\nto \"Hold up\" and \"Get over,\" as they slipped about very much on the\nuneven stones. Or you might, if you came out at another door (every\nroom had at least two doors), go straight down to the hall again by\nhalf-a-dozen steps and a low archway, wondering how you got back\nthere or had ever got out of it.\n\nThe furniture, old-fashioned rather than old, like the house, was as\npleasantly irregular. Ada's sleeping-room was all flowers--in chintz\nand paper, in velvet, in needlework, in the brocade of two stiff\ncourtly chairs which stood, each attended by a little page of a stool\nfor greater state, on either side of the fire-place. Our sitting-room\nwas green and had framed and glazed upon the walls numbers of\nsurprising and surprised birds, staring out of pictures at a real\ntrout in a case, as brown and shining as if it had been served with\ngravy; at the death of Captain Cook; and at the whole process of\npreparing tea in China, as depicted by Chinese artists. In my room\nthere were oval engravings of the months--ladies haymaking in short\nwaists and large hats tied under the chin, for June; smooth-legged\nnoblemen pointing with cocked-hats to village steeples, for October.\nHalf-length portraits in crayons abounded all through the house, but\nwere so dispersed that I found the brother of a youthful officer of\nmine in the china-closet and the grey old age of my pretty young\nbride, with a flower in her bodice, in the breakfast-room. As\nsubstitutes, I had four angels, of Queen Anne's reign, taking a\ncomplacent gentleman to heaven, in festoons, with some difficulty;\nand a composition in needlework representing fruit, a kettle, and an\nalphabet. All the movables, from the wardrobes to the chairs and\ntables, hangings, glasses, even to the pincushions and scent-bottles\non the dressing-tables, displayed the same quaint variety. They\nagreed in nothing but their perfect neatness, their display of the\nwhitest linen, and their storing-up, wheresoever the existence of a\ndrawer, small or large, rendered it possible, of quantities of\nrose-leaves and sweet lavender. Such, with its illuminated windows,\nsoftened here and there by shadows of curtains, shining out upon the\nstarlight night; with its light, and warmth, and comfort; with its\nhospitable jingle, at a distance, of preparations for dinner; with\nthe face of its generous master brightening everything we saw; and\njust wind enough without to sound a low accompaniment to everything\nwe heard, were our first impressions of Bleak House.\n\n\"I am glad you like it,\" said Mr. Jarndyce when he had brought us\nround again to Ada's sitting-room. \"It makes no pretensions, but it\nis a comfortable little place, I hope, and will be more so with such\nbright young looks in it. You have barely half an hour before dinner.\nThere's no one here but the finest creature upon earth--a child.\"\n\n\"More children, Esther!\" said Ada.\n\n\"I don't mean literally a child,\" pursued Mr. Jarndyce; \"not a child\nin years. He is grown up--he is at least as old as I am--but in\nsimplicity, and freshness, and enthusiasm, and a fine guileless\ninaptitude for all worldly affairs, he is a perfect child.\"\n\nWe felt that he must be very interesting.\n\n\"He knows Mrs. Jellyby,\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"He is a musical man, an\namateur, but might have been a professional. He is an artist too, an\namateur, but might have been a professional. He is a man of\nattainments and of captivating manners. He has been unfortunate in\nhis affairs, and unfortunate in his pursuits, and unfortunate in his\nfamily; but he don't care--he's a child!\"\n\n\"Did you imply that he has children of his own, sir?\" inquired\nRichard.\n\n\"Yes, Rick! Half-a-dozen. More! Nearer a dozen, I should think. But\nhe has never looked after them. How could he? He wanted somebody to\nlook after HIM. He is a child, you know!\" said Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"And have the children looked after themselves at all, sir?\" inquired\nRichard.\n\n\"Why, just as you may suppose,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, his countenance\nsuddenly falling. \"It is said that the children of the very poor are\nnot brought up, but dragged up. Harold Skimpole's children have\ntumbled up somehow or other. The wind's getting round again, I am\nafraid. I feel it rather!\"\n\nRichard observed that the situation was exposed on a sharp night.\n\n\"It IS exposed,\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"No doubt that's the cause. Bleak\nHouse has an exposed sound. But you are coming my way. Come along!\"\n\nOur luggage having arrived and being all at hand, I was dressed in a\nfew minutes and engaged in putting my worldly goods away when a maid\n(not the one in attendance upon Ada, but another, whom I had not\nseen) brought a basket into my room with two bunches of keys in it,\nall labelled.\n\n\"For you, miss, if you please,\" said she.\n\n\"For me?\" said I.\n\n\"The housekeeping keys, miss.\"\n\nI showed my surprise, for she added with some little surprise on her\nown part, \"I was told to bring them as soon as you was alone, miss.\nMiss Summerson, if I don't deceive myself?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said I. \"That is my name.\"\n\n\"The large bunch is the housekeeping, and the little bunch is the\ncellars, miss. Any time you was pleased to appoint to-morrow morning,\nI was to show you the presses and things they belong to.\"\n\nI said I would be ready at half-past six, and after she was gone,\nstood looking at the basket, quite lost in the magnitude of my trust.\nAda found me thus and had such a delightful confidence in me when I\nshowed her the keys and told her about them that it would have been\ninsensibility and ingratitude not to feel encouraged. I knew, to be\nsure, that it was the dear girl's kindness, but I liked to be so\npleasantly cheated.\n\nWhen we went downstairs, we were presented to Mr. Skimpole, who was\nstanding before the fire telling Richard how fond he used to be, in\nhis school-time, of football. He was a little bright creature with a\nrather large head, but a delicate face and a sweet voice, and there\nwas a perfect charm in him. All he said was so free from effort and\nspontaneous and was said with such a captivating gaiety that it was\nfascinating to hear him talk. Being of a more slender figure than Mr.\nJarndyce and having a richer complexion, with browner hair, he looked\nyounger. Indeed, he had more the appearance in all respects of a\ndamaged young man than a well-preserved elderly one. There was an\neasy negligence in his manner and even in his dress (his hair\ncarelessly disposed, and his neck-kerchief loose and flowing, as I\nhave seen artists paint their own portraits) which I could not\nseparate from the idea of a romantic youth who had undergone some\nunique process of depreciation. It struck me as being not at all like\nthe manner or appearance of a man who had advanced in life by the\nusual road of years, cares, and experiences.\n\nI gathered from the conversation that Mr. Skimpole had been educated\nfor the medical profession and had once lived, in his professional\ncapacity, in the household of a German prince. He told us, however,\nthat as he had always been a mere child in point of weights and\nmeasures and had never known anything about them (except that they\ndisgusted him), he had never been able to prescribe with the\nrequisite accuracy of detail. In fact, he said, he had no head for\ndetail. And he told us, with great humour, that when he was wanted to\nbleed the prince or physic any of his people, he was generally found\nlying on his back in bed, reading the newspapers or making\nfancy-sketches in pencil, and couldn't come. The prince, at last,\nobjecting to this, \"in which,\" said Mr. Skimpole, in the frankest\nmanner, \"he was perfectly right,\" the engagement terminated, and Mr.\nSkimpole having (as he added with delightful gaiety) \"nothing to live\nupon but love, fell in love, and married, and surrounded himself with\nrosy cheeks.\" His good friend Jarndyce and some other of his good\nfriends then helped him, in quicker or slower succession, to several\nopenings in life, but to no purpose, for he must confess to two of\nthe oldest infirmities in the world: one was that he had no idea of\ntime, the other that he had no idea of money. In consequence of which\nhe never kept an appointment, never could transact any business, and\nnever knew the value of anything! Well! So he had got on in life, and\nhere he was! He was very fond of reading the papers, very fond of\nmaking fancy-sketches with a pencil, very fond of nature, very fond\nof art. All he asked of society was to let him live. THAT wasn't\nmuch. His wants were few. Give him the papers, conversation, music,\nmutton, coffee, landscape, fruit in the season, a few sheets of\nBristol-board, and a little claret, and he asked no more. He was a\nmere child in the world, but he didn't cry for the moon. He said to\nthe world, \"Go your several ways in peace! Wear red coats, blue\ncoats, lawn sleeves; put pens behind your ears, wear aprons; go after\nglory, holiness, commerce, trade, any object you prefer; only--let\nHarold Skimpole live!\"\n\nAll this and a great deal more he told us, not only with the\nutmost brilliancy and enjoyment, but with a certain vivacious\ncandour--speaking of himself as if he were not at all his own affair,\nas if Skimpole were a third person, as if he knew that Skimpole had\nhis singularities but still had his claims too, which were the\ngeneral business of the community and must not be slighted. He was\nquite enchanting. If I felt at all confused at that early time in\nendeavouring to reconcile anything he said with anything I had\nthought about the duties and accountabilities of life (which I am far\nfrom sure of), I was confused by not exactly understanding why he was\nfree of them. That he WAS free of them, I scarcely doubted; he was so\nvery clear about it himself.\n\n\"I covet nothing,\" said Mr. Skimpole in the same light way.\n\"Possession is nothing to me. Here is my friend Jarndyce's excellent\nhouse. I feel obliged to him for possessing it. I can sketch it and\nalter it. I can set it to music. When I am here, I have sufficient\npossession of it and have neither trouble, cost, nor responsibility.\nMy steward's name, in short, is Jarndyce, and he can't cheat me. We\nhave been mentioning Mrs. Jellyby. There is a bright-eyed woman, of a\nstrong will and immense power of business detail, who throws herself\ninto objects with surprising ardour! I don't regret that I have not a\nstrong will and an immense power of business detail to throw myself\ninto objects with surprising ardour. I can admire her without envy. I\ncan sympathize with the objects. I can dream of them. I can lie down\non the grass--in fine weather--and float along an African river,\nembracing all the natives I meet, as sensible of the deep silence and\nsketching the dense overhanging tropical growth as accurately as if I\nwere there. I don't know that it's of any direct use my doing so, but\nit's all I can do, and I do it thoroughly. Then, for heaven's sake,\nhaving Harold Skimpole, a confiding child, petitioning you, the\nworld, an agglomeration of practical people of business habits, to\nlet him live and admire the human family, do it somehow or other,\nlike good souls, and suffer him to ride his rocking-horse!\"\n\nIt was plain enough that Mr. Jarndyce had not been neglectful of the\nadjuration. Mr. Skimpole's general position there would have rendered\nit so without the addition of what he presently said.\n\n\"It's only you, the generous creatures, whom I envy,\" said Mr.\nSkimpole, addressing us, his new friends, in an impersonal manner. \"I\nenvy you your power of doing what you do. It is what I should revel\nin myself. I don't feel any vulgar gratitude to you. I almost feel as\nif YOU ought to be grateful to ME for giving you the opportunity of\nenjoying the luxury of generosity. I know you like it. For anything I\ncan tell, I may have come into the world expressly for the purpose of\nincreasing your stock of happiness. I may have been born to be a\nbenefactor to you by sometimes giving you an opportunity of assisting\nme in my little perplexities. Why should I regret my incapacity for\ndetails and worldly affairs when it leads to such pleasant\nconsequences? I don't regret it therefore.\"\n\nOf all his playful speeches (playful, yet always fully meaning what\nthey expressed) none seemed to be more to the taste of Mr. Jarndyce\nthan this. I had often new temptations, afterwards, to wonder whether\nit was really singular, or only singular to me, that he, who was\nprobably the most grateful of mankind upon the least occasion, should\nso desire to escape the gratitude of others.\n\nWe were all enchanted. I felt it a merited tribute to the engaging\nqualities of Ada and Richard that Mr. Skimpole, seeing them for the\nfirst time, should be so unreserved and should lay himself out to be\nso exquisitely agreeable. They (and especially Richard) were\nnaturally pleased, for similar reasons, and considered it no common\nprivilege to be so freely confided in by such an attractive man. The\nmore we listened, the more gaily Mr. Skimpole talked. And what with\nhis fine hilarious manner and his engaging candour and his genial way\nof lightly tossing his own weaknesses about, as if he had said, \"I am\na child, you know! You are designing people compared with me\" (he\nreally made me consider myself in that light) \"but I am gay and\ninnocent; forget your worldly arts and play with me!\" the effect was\nabsolutely dazzling.\n\nHe was so full of feeling too and had such a delicate sentiment for\nwhat was beautiful or tender that he could have won a heart by that\nalone. In the evening, when I was preparing to make tea and Ada was\ntouching the piano in the adjoining room and softly humming a tune to\nher cousin Richard, which they had happened to mention, he came and\nsat down on the sofa near me and so spoke of Ada that I almost loved\nhim.\n\n\"She is like the morning,\" he said. \"With that golden hair, those\nblue eyes, and that fresh bloom on her cheek, she is like the summer\nmorning. The birds here will mistake her for it. We will not call\nsuch a lovely young creature as that, who is a joy to all mankind, an\norphan. She is the child of the universe.\"\n\nMr. Jarndyce, I found, was standing near us with his hands behind him\nand an attentive smile upon his face.\n\n\"The universe,\" he observed, \"makes rather an indifferent parent, I\nam afraid.\"\n\n\"Oh! I don't know!\" cried Mr. Skimpole buoyantly.\n\n\"I think I do know,\" said Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"Well!\" cried Mr. Skimpole. \"You know the world (which in your sense\nis the universe), and I know nothing of it, so you shall have your\nway. But if I had mine,\" glancing at the cousins, \"there should be no\nbrambles of sordid realities in such a path as that. It should be\nstrewn with roses; it should lie through bowers, where there was no\nspring, autumn, nor winter, but perpetual summer. Age or change\nshould never wither it. The base word money should never be breathed\nnear it!\"\n\nMr. Jarndyce patted him on the head with a smile, as if he had been\nreally a child, and passing a step or two on, and stopping a moment,\nglanced at the young cousins. His look was thoughtful, but had a\nbenignant expression in it which I often (how often!) saw again,\nwhich has long been engraven on my heart. The room in which they\nwere, communicating with that in which he stood, was only lighted by\nthe fire. Ada sat at the piano; Richard stood beside her, bending\ndown. Upon the wall, their shadows blended together, surrounded by\nstrange forms, not without a ghostly motion caught from the unsteady\nfire, though reflecting from motionless objects. Ada touched the\nnotes so softly and sang so low that the wind, sighing away to the\ndistant hills, was as audible as the music. The mystery of the future\nand the little clue afforded to it by the voice of the present seemed\nexpressed in the whole picture.\n\nBut it is not to recall this fancy, well as I remember it, that I\nrecall the scene. First, I was not quite unconscious of the contrast\nin respect of meaning and intention between the silent look directed\nthat way and the flow of words that had preceded it. Secondly, though\nMr. Jarndyce's glance as he withdrew it rested for but a moment on\nme, I felt as if in that moment he confided to me--and knew that he\nconfided to me and that I received the confidence--his hope that Ada\nand Richard might one day enter on a dearer relationship.\n\nMr. Skimpole could play on the piano and the violoncello, and he was\na composer--had composed half an opera once, but got tired of it--and\nplayed what he composed with taste. After tea we had quite a little\nconcert, in which Richard--who was enthralled by Ada's singing and\ntold me that she seemed to know all the songs that ever were\nwritten--and Mr. Jarndyce, and I were the audience. After a little\nwhile I missed first Mr. Skimpole and afterwards Richard, and while I\nwas thinking how could Richard stay away so long and lose so much,\nthe maid who had given me the keys looked in at the door, saying, \"If\nyou please, miss, could you spare a minute?\"\n\nWhen I was shut out with her in the hall, she said, holding up her\nhands, \"Oh, if you please, miss, Mr. Carstone says would you come\nupstairs to Mr. Skimpole's room. He has been took, miss!\"\n\n\"Took?\" said I.\n\n\"Took, miss. Sudden,\" said the maid.\n\nI was apprehensive that his illness might be of a dangerous kind, but\nof course I begged her to be quiet and not disturb any one and\ncollected myself, as I followed her quickly upstairs, sufficiently to\nconsider what were the best remedies to be applied if it should prove\nto be a fit. She threw open a door and I went into a chamber, where,\nto my unspeakable surprise, instead of finding Mr. Skimpole stretched\nupon the bed or prostrate on the floor, I found him standing before\nthe fire smiling at Richard, while Richard, with a face of great\nembarrassment, looked at a person on the sofa, in a white great-coat,\nwith smooth hair upon his head and not much of it, which he was\nwiping smoother and making less of with a pocket-handkerchief.\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" said Richard hurriedly, \"I am glad you are come.\nYou will be able to advise us. Our friend Mr. Skimpole--don't be\nalarmed!--is arrested for debt.\"\n\n\"And really, my dear Miss Summerson,\" said Mr. Skimpole with his\nagreeable candour, \"I never was in a situation in which that\nexcellent sense and quiet habit of method and usefulness, which\nanybody must observe in you who has the happiness of being a quarter\nof an hour in your society, was more needed.\"\n\nThe person on the sofa, who appeared to have a cold in his head, gave\nsuch a very loud snort that he startled me.\n\n\"Are you arrested for much, sir?\" I inquired of Mr. Skimpole.\n\n\"My dear Miss Summerson,\" said he, shaking his head pleasantly, \"I\ndon't know. Some pounds, odd shillings, and halfpence, I think, were\nmentioned.\"\n\n\"It's twenty-four pound, sixteen, and sevenpence ha'penny,\" observed\nthe stranger. \"That's wot it is.\"\n\n\"And it sounds--somehow it sounds,\" said Mr. Skimpole, \"like a small\nsum?\"\n\nThe strange man said nothing but made another snort. It was such a\npowerful one that it seemed quite to lift him out of his seat.\n\n\"Mr. Skimpole,\" said Richard to me, \"has a delicacy in applying to my\ncousin Jarndyce because he has lately--I think, sir, I understood you\nthat you had lately--\"\n\n\"Oh, yes!\" returned Mr. Skimpole, smiling. \"Though I forgot how much\nit was and when it was. Jarndyce would readily do it again, but I\nhave the epicure-like feeling that I would prefer a novelty in help,\nthat I would rather,\" and he looked at Richard and me, \"develop\ngenerosity in a new soil and in a new form of flower.\"\n\n\"What do you think will be best, Miss Summerson?\" said Richard,\naside.\n\nI ventured to inquire, generally, before replying, what would happen\nif the money were not produced.\n\n\"Jail,\" said the strange man, coolly putting his handkerchief into\nhis hat, which was on the floor at his feet. \"Or Coavinses.\"\n\n\"May I ask, sir, what is--\"\n\n\"Coavinses?\" said the strange man. \"A 'ouse.\"\n\nRichard and I looked at one another again. It was a most singular\nthing that the arrest was our embarrassment and not Mr. Skimpole's.\nHe observed us with a genial interest, but there seemed, if I may\nventure on such a contradiction, nothing selfish in it. He had\nentirely washed his hands of the difficulty, and it had become ours.\n\n\"I thought,\" he suggested, as if good-naturedly to help us out, \"that\nbeing parties in a Chancery suit concerning (as people say) a large\namount of property, Mr. Richard or his beautiful cousin, or both,\ncould sign something, or make over something, or give some sort of\nundertaking, or pledge, or bond? I don't know what the business name\nof it may be, but I suppose there is some instrument within their\npower that would settle this?\"\n\n\"Not a bit on it,\" said the strange man.\n\n\"Really?\" returned Mr. Skimpole. \"That seems odd, now, to one who is\nno judge of these things!\"\n\n\"Odd or even,\" said the stranger gruffly, \"I tell you, not a bit on\nit!\"\n\n\"Keep your temper, my good fellow, keep your temper!\" Mr. Skimpole\ngently reasoned with him as he made a little drawing of his head on\nthe fly-leaf of a book. \"Don't be ruffled by your occupation. We can\nseparate you from your office; we can separate the individual from\nthe pursuit. We are not so prejudiced as to suppose that in private\nlife you are otherwise than a very estimable man, with a great deal\nof poetry in your nature, of which you may not be conscious.\"\n\nThe stranger only answered with another violent snort, whether in\nacceptance of the poetry-tribute or in disdainful rejection of it, he\ndid not express to me.\n\n\"Now, my dear Miss Summerson, and my dear Mr. Richard,\" said Mr.\nSkimpole gaily, innocently, and confidingly as he looked at his\ndrawing with his head on one side, \"here you see me utterly incapable\nof helping myself, and entirely in your hands! I only ask to be free.\nThe butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold\nSkimpole what it concedes to the butterflies!\"\n\n\"My dear Miss Summerson,\" said Richard in a whisper, \"I have ten\npounds that I received from Mr. Kenge. I must try what that will do.\"\n\nI possessed fifteen pounds, odd shillings, which I had saved from my\nquarterly allowance during several years. I had always thought that\nsome accident might happen which would throw me suddenly, without any\nrelation or any property, on the world and had always tried to keep\nsome little money by me that I might not be quite penniless. I told\nRichard of my having this little store and having no present need of\nit, and I asked him delicately to inform Mr. Skimpole, while I should\nbe gone to fetch it, that we would have the pleasure of paying his\ndebt.\n\nWhen I came back, Mr. Skimpole kissed my hand and seemed quite\ntouched. Not on his own account (I was again aware of that perplexing\nand extraordinary contradiction), but on ours, as if personal\nconsiderations were impossible with him and the contemplation of our\nhappiness alone affected him. Richard, begging me, for the greater\ngrace of the transaction, as he said, to settle with Coavinses (as\nMr. Skimpole now jocularly called him), I counted out the money and\nreceived the necessary acknowledgment. This, too, delighted Mr.\nSkimpole.\n\nHis compliments were so delicately administered that I blushed less\nthan I might have done and settled with the stranger in the white\ncoat without making any mistakes. He put the money in his pocket and\nshortly said, \"Well, then, I'll wish you a good evening, miss.\n\n\"My friend,\" said Mr. Skimpole, standing with his back to the fire\nafter giving up the sketch when it was half finished, \"I should like\nto ask you something, without offence.\"\n\nI think the reply was, \"Cut away, then!\"\n\n\"Did you know this morning, now, that you were coming out on this\nerrand?\" said Mr. Skimpole.\n\n\"Know'd it yes'day aft'noon at tea-time,\" said Coavinses.\n\n\"It didn't affect your appetite? Didn't make you at all uneasy?\"\n\n\"Not a bit,\" said Coavinses. \"I know'd if you wos missed to-day, you\nwouldn't be missed to-morrow. A day makes no such odds.\"\n\n\"But when you came down here,\" proceeded Mr. Skimpole, \"it was a fine\nday. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, the lights and\nshadows were passing across the fields, the birds were singing.\"\n\n\"Nobody said they warn't, in MY hearing,\" returned Coavinses.\n\n\"No,\" observed Mr. Skimpole. \"But what did you think upon the road?\"\n\n\"Wot do you mean?\" growled Coavinses with an appearance of strong\nresentment. \"Think! I've got enough to do, and little enough to get\nfor it without thinking. Thinking!\" (with profound contempt).\n\n\"Then you didn't think, at all events,\" proceeded Mr. Skimpole, \"to\nthis effect: 'Harold Skimpole loves to see the sun shine, loves to\nhear the wind blow, loves to watch the changing lights and shadows,\nloves to hear the birds, those choristers in Nature's great\ncathedral. And does it seem to me that I am about to deprive Harold\nSkimpole of his share in such possessions, which are his only\nbirthright!' You thought nothing to that effect?\"\n\n\"I--certainly--did--NOT,\" said Coavinses, whose doggedness in utterly\nrenouncing the idea was of that intense kind that he could only give\nadequate expression to it by putting a long interval between each\nword, and accompanying the last with a jerk that might have\ndislocated his neck.\n\n\"Very odd and very curious, the mental process is, in you men of\nbusiness!\" said Mr. Skimpole thoughtfully. \"Thank you, my friend.\nGood night.\"\n\nAs our absence had been long enough already to seem strange\ndownstairs, I returned at once and found Ada sitting at work by the\nfireside talking to her cousin John. Mr. Skimpole presently appeared,\nand Richard shortly after him. I was sufficiently engaged during the\nremainder of the evening in taking my first lesson in backgammon from\nMr. Jarndyce, who was very fond of the game and from whom I wished of\ncourse to learn it as quickly as I could in order that I might be of\nthe very small use of being able to play when he had no better\nadversary. But I thought, occasionally, when Mr. Skimpole played some\nfragments of his own compositions or when, both at the piano and the\nvioloncello, and at our table, he preserved with an absence of all\neffort his delightful spirits and his easy flow of conversation, that\nRichard and I seemed to retain the transferred impression of having\nbeen arrested since dinner and that it was very curious altogether.\n\nIt was late before we separated, for when Ada was going at eleven\no'clock, Mr. Skimpole went to the piano and rattled hilariously that\nthe best of all ways to lengthen our days was to steal a few hours\nfrom night, my dear! It was past twelve before he took his candle and\nhis radiant face out of the room, and I think he might have kept us\nthere, if he had seen fit, until daybreak. Ada and Richard were\nlingering for a few moments by the fire, wondering whether Mrs.\nJellyby had yet finished her dictation for the day, when Mr.\nJarndyce, who had been out of the room, returned.\n\n\"Oh, dear me, what's this, what's this!\" he said, rubbing his head\nand walking about with his good-humoured vexation. \"What's this they\ntell me? Rick, my boy, Esther, my dear, what have you been doing? Why\ndid you do it? How could you do it? How much apiece was it? The\nwind's round again. I feel it all over me!\"\n\nWe neither of us quite knew what to answer.\n\n\"Come, Rick, come! I must settle this before I sleep. How much are\nyou out of pocket? You two made the money up, you know! Why did you?\nHow could you? Oh, Lord, yes, it's due east--must be!\"\n\n\"Really, sir,\" said Richard, \"I don't think it would be honourable in\nme to tell you. Mr. Skimpole relied upon us--\"\n\n\"Lord bless you, my dear boy! He relies upon everybody!\" said Mr.\nJarndyce, giving his head a great rub and stopping short.\n\n\"Indeed, sir?\"\n\n\"Everybody! And he'll be in the same scrape again next week!\" said\nMr. Jarndyce, walking again at a great pace, with a candle in his\nhand that had gone out. \"He's always in the same scrape. He was born\nin the same scrape. I verily believe that the announcement in the\nnewspapers when his mother was confined was 'On Tuesday last, at her\nresidence in Botheration Buildings, Mrs. Skimpole of a son in\ndifficulties.'\"\n\nRichard laughed heartily but added, \"Still, sir, I don't want to\nshake his confidence or to break his confidence, and if I submit to\nyour better knowledge again, that I ought to keep his secret, I hope\nyou will consider before you press me any more. Of course, if you do\npress me, sir, I shall know I am wrong and will tell you.\"\n\n\"Well!\" cried Mr. Jarndyce, stopping again, and making several absent\nendeavours to put his candlestick in his pocket. \"I--here! Take it\naway, my dear. I don't know what I am about with it; it's all the\nwind--invariably has that effect--I won't press you, Rick; you may be\nright. But really--to get hold of you and Esther--and to squeeze you\nlike a couple of tender young Saint Michael's oranges! It'll blow a\ngale in the course of the night!\"\n\nHe was now alternately putting his hands into his pockets as if he\nwere going to keep them there a long time, and taking them out again\nand vehemently rubbing them all over his head.\n\nI ventured to take this opportunity of hinting that Mr. Skimpole,\nbeing in all such matters quite a child--\n\n\"Eh, my dear?\" said Mr. Jarndyce, catching at the word.\n\n\"Being quite a child, sir,\" said I, \"and so different from other\npeople--\"\n\n\"You are right!\" said Mr. Jarndyce, brightening. \"Your woman's wit\nhits the mark. He is a child--an absolute child. I told you he was a\nchild, you know, when I first mentioned him.\"\n\nCertainly! Certainly! we said.\n\n\"And he IS a child. Now, isn't he?\" asked Mr. Jarndyce, brightening\nmore and more.\n\nHe was indeed, we said.\n\n\"When you come to think of it, it's the height of childishness in\nyou--I mean me--\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"to regard him for a moment as a\nman. You can't make HIM responsible. The idea of Harold Skimpole with\ndesigns or plans, or knowledge of consequences! Ha, ha, ha!\"\n\nIt was so delicious to see the clouds about his bright face clearing,\nand to see him so heartily pleased, and to know, as it was impossible\nnot to know, that the source of his pleasure was the goodness which\nwas tortured by condemning, or mistrusting, or secretly accusing any\none, that I saw the tears in Ada's eyes, while she echoed his laugh,\nand felt them in my own.\n\n\"Why, what a cod's head and shoulders I am,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"to\nrequire reminding of it! The whole business shows the child from\nbeginning to end. Nobody but a child would have thought of singling\nYOU two out for parties in the affair! Nobody but a child would have\nthought of YOUR having the money! If it had been a thousand pounds,\nit would have been just the same!\" said Mr. Jarndyce with his whole\nface in a glow.\n\nWe all confirmed it from our night's experience.\n\n\"To be sure, to be sure!\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"However, Rick, Esther,\nand you too, Ada, for I don't know that even your little purse is\nsafe from his inexperience--I must have a promise all round that\nnothing of this sort shall ever be done any more. No advances! Not\neven sixpences.\"\n\nWe all promised faithfully, Richard with a merry glance at me\ntouching his pocket as if to remind me that there was no danger of\nOUR transgressing.\n\n\"As to Skimpole,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"a habitable doll's house with\ngood board and a few tin people to get into debt with and borrow\nmoney of would set the boy up in life. He is in a child's sleep by\nthis time, I suppose; it's time I should take my craftier head to my\nmore worldly pillow. Good night, my dears. God bless you!\"\n\nHe peeped in again, with a smiling face, before we had lighted our\ncandles, and said, \"Oh! I have been looking at the weather-cock. I\nfind it was a false alarm about the wind. It's in the south!\" And\nwent away singing to himself.\n\nAda and I agreed, as we talked together for a little while upstairs,\nthat this caprice about the wind was a fiction and that he used the\npretence to account for any disappointment he could not conceal,\nrather than he would blame the real cause of it or disparage or\ndepreciate any one. We thought this very characteristic of his\neccentric gentleness and of the difference between him and those\npetulant people who make the weather and the winds (particularly that\nunlucky wind which he had chosen for such a different purpose) the\nstalking-horses of their splenetic and gloomy humours.\n\nIndeed, so much affection for him had been added in this one evening\nto my gratitude that I hoped I already began to understand him\nthrough that mingled feeling. Any seeming inconsistencies in Mr.\nSkimpole or in Mrs. Jellyby I could not expect to be able to\nreconcile, having so little experience or practical knowledge.\nNeither did I try, for my thoughts were busy when I was alone, with\nAda and Richard and with the confidence I had seemed to receive\nconcerning them. My fancy, made a little wild by the wind perhaps,\nwould not consent to be all unselfish, either, though I would have\npersuaded it to be so if I could. It wandered back to my godmother's\nhouse and came along the intervening track, raising up shadowy\nspeculations which had sometimes trembled there in the dark as to\nwhat knowledge Mr. Jarndyce had of my earliest history--even as to\nthe possibility of his being my father, though that idle dream was\nquite gone now.\n\nIt was all gone now, I remembered, getting up from the fire. It was\nnot for me to muse over bygones, but to act with a cheerful spirit\nand a grateful heart. So I said to myself, \"Esther, Esther, Esther!\nDuty, my dear!\" and gave my little basket of housekeeping keys such a\nshake that they sounded like little bells and rang me hopefully to\nbed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nThe Ghost's Walk\n\n\nWhile Esther sleeps, and while Esther wakes, it is still wet weather\ndown at the place in Lincolnshire. The rain is ever falling--drip,\ndrip, drip--by day and night upon the broad flagged terrace-pavement,\nthe Ghost's Walk. The weather is so very bad down in Lincolnshire\nthat the liveliest imagination can scarcely apprehend its ever being\nfine again. Not that there is any superabundant life of imagination\non the spot, for Sir Leicester is not here (and, truly, even if he\nwere, would not do much for it in that particular), but is in Paris\nwith my Lady; and solitude, with dusky wings, sits brooding upon\nChesney Wold.\n\nThere may be some motions of fancy among the lower animals at Chesney\nWold. The horses in the stables--the long stables in a barren,\nred-brick court-yard, where there is a great bell in a turret, and a\nclock with a large face, which the pigeons who live near it and who\nlove to perch upon its shoulders seem to be always consulting--THEY\nmay contemplate some mental pictures of fine weather on occasions,\nand may be better artists at them than the grooms. The old roan, so\nfamous for cross-country work, turning his large eyeball to the\ngrated window near his rack, may remember the fresh leaves that\nglisten there at other times and the scents that stream in, and may\nhave a fine run with the hounds, while the human helper, clearing out\nthe next stall, never stirs beyond his pitchfork and birch-broom. The\ngrey, whose place is opposite the door and who with an impatient\nrattle of his halter pricks his ears and turns his head so wistfully\nwhen it is opened, and to whom the opener says, \"Woa grey, then,\nsteady! Noabody wants you to-day!\" may know it quite as well as the\nman. The whole seemingly monotonous and uncompanionable half-dozen,\nstabled together, may pass the long wet hours when the door is shut\nin livelier communication than is held in the servants' hall or at\nthe Dedlock Arms, or may even beguile the time by improving (perhaps\ncorrupting) the pony in the loose-box in the corner.\n\nSo the mastiff, dozing in his kennel in the court-yard with his large\nhead on his paws, may think of the hot sunshine when the shadows of\nthe stable-buildings tire his patience out by changing and leave him\nat one time of the day no broader refuge than the shadow of his own\nhouse, where he sits on end, panting and growling short, and very\nmuch wanting something to worry besides himself and his chain. So\nnow, half-waking and all-winking, he may recall the house full of\ncompany, the coach-houses full of vehicles, the stables full of\nhorses, and the out-buildings full of attendants upon horses, until\nhe is undecided about the present and comes forth to see how it is.\nThen, with that impatient shake of himself, he may growl in the\nspirit, \"Rain, rain, rain! Nothing but rain--and no family here!\" as\nhe goes in again and lies down with a gloomy yawn.\n\nSo with the dogs in the kennel-buildings across the park, who have\ntheir restless fits and whose doleful voices when the wind has been\nvery obstinate have even made it known in the house itself--upstairs,\ndownstairs, and in my Lady's chamber. They may hunt the whole\ncountry-side, while the raindrops are pattering round their\ninactivity. So the rabbits with their self-betraying tails, frisking\nin and out of holes at roots of trees, may be lively with ideas of\nthe breezy days when their ears are blown about or of those seasons\nof interest when there are sweet young plants to gnaw. The turkey in\nthe poultry-yard, always troubled with a class-grievance (probably\nChristmas), may be reminiscent of that summer morning wrongfully\ntaken from him when he got into the lane among the felled trees,\nwhere there was a barn and barley. The discontented goose, who stoops\nto pass under the old gateway, twenty feet high, may gabble out, if\nwe only knew it, a waddling preference for weather when the gateway\ncasts its shadow on the ground.\n\nBe this as it may, there is not much fancy otherwise stirring at\nChesney Wold. If there be a little at any odd moment, it goes, like a\nlittle noise in that old echoing place, a long way and usually leads\noff to ghosts and mystery.\n\nIt has rained so hard and rained so long down in Lincolnshire that\nMrs. Rouncewell, the old housekeeper at Chesney Wold, has several\ntimes taken off her spectacles and cleaned them to make certain that\nthe drops were not upon the glasses. Mrs. Rouncewell might have been\nsufficiently assured by hearing the rain, but that she is rather\ndeaf, which nothing will induce her to believe. She is a fine old\nlady, handsome, stately, wonderfully neat, and has such a back and\nsuch a stomacher that if her stays should turn out when she dies to\nhave been a broad old-fashioned family fire-grate, nobody who knows\nher would have cause to be surprised. Weather affects Mrs. Rouncewell\nlittle. The house is there in all weathers, and the house, as she\nexpresses it, \"is what she looks at.\" She sits in her room (in a side\npassage on the ground floor, with an arched window commanding a\nsmooth quadrangle, adorned at regular intervals with smooth round\ntrees and smooth round blocks of stone, as if the trees were going to\nplay at bowls with the stones), and the whole house reposes on her\nmind. She can open it on occasion and be busy and fluttered, but it\nis shut up now and lies on the breadth of Mrs. Rouncewell's\niron-bound bosom in a majestic sleep.\n\nIt is the next difficult thing to an impossibility to imagine Chesney\nWold without Mrs. Rouncewell, but she has only been here fifty years.\nAsk her how long, this rainy day, and she shall answer \"fifty year,\nthree months, and a fortnight, by the blessing of heaven, if I live\ntill Tuesday.\" Mr. Rouncewell died some time before the decease of\nthe pretty fashion of pig-tails, and modestly hid his own (if he took\nit with him) in a corner of the churchyard in the park near the\nmouldy porch. He was born in the market-town, and so was his young\nwidow. Her progress in the family began in the time of the last Sir\nLeicester and originated in the still-room.\n\nThe present representative of the Dedlocks is an excellent master. He\nsupposes all his dependents to be utterly bereft of individual\ncharacters, intentions, or opinions, and is persuaded that he was\nborn to supersede the necessity of their having any. If he were to\nmake a discovery to the contrary, he would be simply stunned--would\nnever recover himself, most likely, except to gasp and die. But he is\nan excellent master still, holding it a part of his state to be so.\nHe has a great liking for Mrs. Rouncewell; he says she is a most\nrespectable, creditable woman. He always shakes hands with her when\nhe comes down to Chesney Wold and when he goes away; and if he were\nvery ill, or if he were knocked down by accident, or run over, or\nplaced in any situation expressive of a Dedlock at a disadvantage, he\nwould say if he could speak, \"Leave me, and send Mrs. Rouncewell\nhere!\" feeling his dignity, at such a pass, safer with her than with\nanybody else.\n\nMrs. Rouncewell has known trouble. She has had two sons, of whom the\nyounger ran wild, and went for a soldier, and never came back. Even\nto this hour, Mrs. Rouncewell's calm hands lose their composure when\nshe speaks of him, and unfolding themselves from her stomacher, hover\nabout her in an agitated manner as she says what a likely lad, what a\nfine lad, what a gay, good-humoured, clever lad he was! Her second\nson would have been provided for at Chesney Wold and would have been\nmade steward in due season, but he took, when he was a schoolboy, to\nconstructing steam-engines out of saucepans and setting birds to draw\ntheir own water with the least possible amount of labour, so\nassisting them with artful contrivance of hydraulic pressure that a\nthirsty canary had only, in a literal sense, to put his shoulder to\nthe wheel and the job was done. This propensity gave Mrs. Rouncewell\ngreat uneasiness. She felt it with a mother's anguish to be a move in\nthe Wat Tyler direction, well knowing that Sir Leicester had that\ngeneral impression of an aptitude for any art to which smoke and a\ntall chimney might be considered essential. But the doomed young\nrebel (otherwise a mild youth, and very persevering), showing no sign\nof grace as he got older but, on the contrary, constructing a model\nof a power-loom, she was fain, with many tears, to mention his\nbackslidings to the baronet. \"Mrs. Rouncewell,\" said Sir Leicester,\n\"I can never consent to argue, as you know, with any one on any\nsubject. You had better get rid of your boy; you had better get him\ninto some Works. The iron country farther north is, I suppose, the\ncongenial direction for a boy with these tendencies.\" Farther north\nhe went, and farther north he grew up; and if Sir Leicester Dedlock\never saw him when he came to Chesney Wold to visit his mother, or\never thought of him afterwards, it is certain that he only regarded\nhim as one of a body of some odd thousand conspirators, swarthy and\ngrim, who were in the habit of turning out by torchlight two or three\nnights in the week for unlawful purposes.\n\nNevertheless, Mrs. Rouncewell's son has, in the course of nature and\nart, grown up, and established himself, and married, and called unto\nhim Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson, who, being out of his apprenticeship,\nand home from a journey in far countries, whither he was sent to\nenlarge his knowledge and complete his preparations for the venture\nof this life, stands leaning against the chimney-piece this very day\nin Mrs. Rouncewell's room at Chesney Wold.\n\n\"And, again and again, I am glad to see you, Watt! And, once again, I\nam glad to see you, Watt!\" says Mrs. Rouncewell. \"You are a fine\nyoung fellow. You are like your poor uncle George. Ah!\" Mrs.\nRouncewell's hands unquiet, as usual, on this reference.\n\n\"They say I am like my father, grandmother.\"\n\n\"Like him, also, my dear--but most like your poor uncle George! And\nyour dear father.\" Mrs. Rouncewell folds her hands again. \"He is\nwell?\"\n\n\"Thriving, grandmother, in every way.\"\n\n\"I am thankful!\" Mrs. Rouncewell is fond of her son but has a\nplaintive feeling towards him, much as if he were a very honourable\nsoldier who had gone over to the enemy.\n\n\"He is quite happy?\" says she.\n\n\"Quite.\"\n\n\"I am thankful! So he has brought you up to follow in his ways and\nhas sent you into foreign countries and the like? Well, he knows\nbest. There may be a world beyond Chesney Wold that I don't\nunderstand. Though I am not young, either. And I have seen a quantity\nof good company too!\"\n\n\"Grandmother,\" says the young man, changing the subject, \"what a very\npretty girl that was I found with you just now. You called her Rosa?\"\n\n\"Yes, child. She is daughter of a widow in the village. Maids are so\nhard to teach, now-a-days, that I have put her about me young. She's\nan apt scholar and will do well. She shows the house already, very\npretty. She lives with me at my table here.\"\n\n\"I hope I have not driven her away?\"\n\n\"She supposes we have family affairs to speak about, I dare say. She\nis very modest. It is a fine quality in a young woman. And scarcer,\"\nsays Mrs. Rouncewell, expanding her stomacher to its utmost limits,\n\"than it formerly was!\"\n\nThe young man inclines his head in acknowledgment of the precepts of\nexperience. Mrs. Rouncewell listens.\n\n\"Wheels!\" says she. They have long been audible to the younger ears\nof her companion. \"What wheels on such a day as this, for gracious\nsake?\"\n\nAfter a short interval, a tap at the door. \"Come in!\" A dark-eyed,\ndark-haired, shy, village beauty comes in--so fresh in her rosy and\nyet delicate bloom that the drops of rain which have beaten on her\nhair look like the dew upon a flower fresh gathered.\n\n\"What company is this, Rosa?\" says Mrs. Rouncewell.\n\n\"It's two young men in a gig, ma'am, who want to see the house--yes,\nand if you please, I told them so!\" in quick reply to a gesture of\ndissent from the housekeeper. \"I went to the hall-door and told them\nit was the wrong day and the wrong hour, but the young man who was\ndriving took off his hat in the wet and begged me to bring this card\nto you.\"\n\n\"Read it, my dear Watt,\" says the housekeeper.\n\nRosa is so shy as she gives it to him that they drop it between them\nand almost knock their foreheads together as they pick it up. Rosa is\nshyer than before.\n\n\"Mr. Guppy\" is all the information the card yields.\n\n\"Guppy!\" repeats Mrs. Rouncewell, \"MR. Guppy! Nonsense, I never heard\nof him!\"\n\n\"If you please, he told ME that!\" says Rosa. \"But he said that he and\nthe other young gentleman came from London only last night by the\nmail, on business at the magistrates' meeting, ten miles off, this\nmorning, and that as their business was soon over, and they had heard\na great deal said of Chesney Wold, and really didn't know what to do\nwith themselves, they had come through the wet to see it. They are\nlawyers. He says he is not in Mr. Tulkinghorn's office, but he is\nsure he may make use of Mr. Tulkinghorn's name if necessary.\"\nFinding, now she leaves off, that she has been making quite a long\nspeech, Rosa is shyer than ever.\n\nNow, Mr. Tulkinghorn is, in a manner, part and parcel of the place,\nand besides, is supposed to have made Mrs. Rouncewell's will. The old\nlady relaxes, consents to the admission of the visitors as a favour,\nand dismisses Rosa. The grandson, however, being smitten by a sudden\nwish to see the house himself, proposes to join the party. The\ngrandmother, who is pleased that he should have that interest,\naccompanies him--though to do him justice, he is exceedingly\nunwilling to trouble her.\n\n\"Much obliged to you, ma'am!\" says Mr. Guppy, divesting himself of\nhis wet dreadnought in the hall. \"Us London lawyers don't often get\nan out, and when we do, we like to make the most of it, you know.\"\n\nThe old housekeeper, with a gracious severity of deportment, waves\nher hand towards the great staircase. Mr. Guppy and his friend follow\nRosa; Mrs. Rouncewell and her grandson follow them; a young gardener\ngoes before to open the shutters.\n\nAs is usually the case with people who go over houses, Mr. Guppy and\nhis friend are dead beat before they have well begun. They straggle\nabout in wrong places, look at wrong things, don't care for the right\nthings, gape when more rooms are opened, exhibit profound depression\nof spirits, and are clearly knocked up. In each successive chamber\nthat they enter, Mrs. Rouncewell, who is as upright as the house\nitself, rests apart in a window-seat or other such nook and listens\nwith stately approval to Rosa's exposition. Her grandson is so\nattentive to it that Rosa is shyer than ever--and prettier. Thus they\npass on from room to room, raising the pictured Dedlocks for a few\nbrief minutes as the young gardener admits the light, and\nreconsigning them to their graves as he shuts it out again. It\nappears to the afflicted Mr. Guppy and his inconsolable friend that\nthere is no end to the Dedlocks, whose family greatness seems to\nconsist in their never having done anything to distinguish themselves\nfor seven hundred years.\n\nEven the long drawing-room of Chesney Wold cannot revive Mr. Guppy's\nspirits. He is so low that he droops on the threshold and has hardly\nstrength of mind to enter. But a portrait over the chimney-piece,\npainted by the fashionable artist of the day, acts upon him like a\ncharm. He recovers in a moment. He stares at it with uncommon\ninterest; he seems to be fixed and fascinated by it.\n\n\"Dear me!\" says Mr. Guppy. \"Who's that?\"\n\n\"The picture over the fire-place,\" says Rosa, \"is the portrait of the\npresent Lady Dedlock. It is considered a perfect likeness, and the\nbest work of the master.\"\n\n\"Blest,\" says Mr. Guppy, staring in a kind of dismay at his friend,\n\"if I can ever have seen her. Yet I know her! Has the picture been\nengraved, miss?\"\n\n\"The picture has never been engraved. Sir Leicester has always\nrefused permission.\"\n\n\"Well!\" says Mr. Guppy in a low voice. \"I'll be shot if it ain't very\ncurious how well I know that picture! So that's Lady Dedlock, is it!\"\n\n\"The picture on the right is the present Sir Leicester Dedlock. The\npicture on the left is his father, the late Sir Leicester.\"\n\nMr. Guppy has no eyes for either of these magnates. \"It's\nunaccountable to me,\" he says, still staring at the portrait, \"how\nwell I know that picture! I'm dashed,\" adds Mr. Guppy, looking round,\n\"if I don't think I must have had a dream of that picture, you know!\"\n\nAs no one present takes any especial interest in Mr. Guppy's dreams,\nthe probability is not pursued. But he still remains so absorbed by\nthe portrait that he stands immovable before it until the young\ngardener has closed the shutters, when he comes out of the room in a\ndazed state that is an odd though a sufficient substitute for\ninterest and follows into the succeeding rooms with a confused stare,\nas if he were looking everywhere for Lady Dedlock again.\n\nHe sees no more of her. He sees her rooms, which are the last shown,\nas being very elegant, and he looks out of the windows from which she\nlooked out, not long ago, upon the weather that bored her to death.\nAll things have an end, even houses that people take infinite pains\nto see and are tired of before they begin to see them. He has come to\nthe end of the sight, and the fresh village beauty to the end of her\ndescription; which is always this: \"The terrace below is much\nadmired. It is called, from an old story in the family, the Ghost's\nWalk.\"\n\n\"No?\" says Mr. Guppy, greedily curious. \"What's the story, miss? Is\nit anything about a picture?\"\n\n\"Pray tell us the story,\" says Watt in a half whisper.\n\n\"I don't know it, sir.\" Rosa is shyer than ever.\n\n\"It is not related to visitors; it is almost forgotten,\" says the\nhousekeeper, advancing. \"It has never been more than a family\nanecdote.\"\n\n\"You'll excuse my asking again if it has anything to do with a\npicture, ma'am,\" observes Mr. Guppy, \"because I do assure you that\nthe more I think of that picture the better I know it, without\nknowing how I know it!\"\n\nThe story has nothing to do with a picture; the housekeeper can\nguarantee that. Mr. Guppy is obliged to her for the information and\nis, moreover, generally obliged. He retires with his friend, guided\ndown another staircase by the young gardener, and presently is heard\nto drive away. It is now dusk. Mrs. Rouncewell can trust to the\ndiscretion of her two young hearers and may tell THEM how the terrace\ncame to have that ghostly name.\n\nShe seats herself in a large chair by the fast-darkening window and\ntells them: \"In the wicked days, my dears, of King Charles the\nFirst--I mean, of course, in the wicked days of the rebels who\nleagued themselves against that excellent king--Sir Morbury Dedlock\nwas the owner of Chesney Wold. Whether there was any account of a\nghost in the family before those days, I can't say. I should think it\nvery likely indeed.\"\n\nMrs. Rouncewell holds this opinion because she considers that a\nfamily of such antiquity and importance has a right to a ghost. She\nregards a ghost as one of the privileges of the upper classes, a\ngenteel distinction to which the common people have no claim.\n\n\"Sir Morbury Dedlock,\" says Mrs. Rouncewell, \"was, I have no occasion\nto say, on the side of the blessed martyr. But it IS supposed that\nhis Lady, who had none of the family blood in her veins, favoured the\nbad cause. It is said that she had relations among King Charles's\nenemies, that she was in correspondence with them, and that she gave\nthem information. When any of the country gentlemen who followed his\nMajesty's cause met here, it is said that my Lady was always nearer\nto the door of their council-room than they supposed. Do you hear a\nsound like a footstep passing along the terrace, Watt?\"\n\nRosa draws nearer to the housekeeper.\n\n\"I hear the rain-drip on the stones,\" replies the young man, \"and I\nhear a curious echo--I suppose an echo--which is very like a halting\nstep.\"\n\nThe housekeeper gravely nods and continues: \"Partly on account of\nthis division between them, and partly on other accounts, Sir Morbury\nand his Lady led a troubled life. She was a lady of a haughty temper.\nThey were not well suited to each other in age or character, and they\nhad no children to moderate between them. After her favourite\nbrother, a young gentleman, was killed in the civil wars (by Sir\nMorbury's near kinsman), her feeling was so violent that she hated\nthe race into which she had married. When the Dedlocks were about to\nride out from Chesney Wold in the king's cause, she is supposed to\nhave more than once stolen down into the stables in the dead of night\nand lamed their horses; and the story is that once at such an hour,\nher husband saw her gliding down the stairs and followed her into the\nstall where his own favourite horse stood. There he seized her by the\nwrist, and in a struggle or in a fall or through the horse being\nfrightened and lashing out, she was lamed in the hip and from that\nhour began to pine away.\"\n\nThe housekeeper has dropped her voice to a little more than a\nwhisper.\n\n\"She had been a lady of a handsome figure and a noble carriage. She\nnever complained of the change; she never spoke to any one of being\ncrippled or of being in pain, but day by day she tried to walk upon\nthe terrace, and with the help of the stone balustrade, went up and\ndown, up and down, up and down, in sun and shadow, with greater\ndifficulty every day. At last, one afternoon her husband (to whom she\nhad never, on any persuasion, opened her lips since that night),\nstanding at the great south window, saw her drop upon the pavement.\nHe hastened down to raise her, but she repulsed him as he bent over\nher, and looking at him fixedly and coldly, said, 'I will die here\nwhere I have walked. And I will walk here, though I am in my grave. I\nwill walk here until the pride of this house is humbled. And when\ncalamity or when disgrace is coming to it, let the Dedlocks listen\nfor my step!'\"\n\nWatt looks at Rosa. Rosa in the deepening gloom looks down upon the\nground, half frightened and half shy.\n\n\"There and then she died. And from those days,\" says Mrs. Rouncewell,\n\"the name has come down--the Ghost's Walk. If the tread is an echo,\nit is an echo that is only heard after dark, and is often unheard for\na long while together. But it comes back from time to time; and so\nsure as there is sickness or death in the family, it will be heard\nthen.\"\n\n\"And disgrace, grandmother--\" says Watt.\n\n\"Disgrace never comes to Chesney Wold,\" returns the housekeeper.\n\nHer grandson apologizes with \"True. True.\"\n\n\"That is the story. Whatever the sound is, it is a worrying sound,\"\nsays Mrs. Rouncewell, getting up from her chair; \"and what is to be\nnoticed in it is that it MUST BE HEARD. My Lady, who is afraid of\nnothing, admits that when it is there, it must be heard. You cannot\nshut it out. Watt, there is a tall French clock behind you (placed\nthere, 'a purpose) that has a loud beat when it is in motion and can\nplay music. You understand how those things are managed?\"\n\n\"Pretty well, grandmother, I think.\"\n\n\"Set it a-going.\"\n\nWatt sets it a-going--music and all.\n\n\"Now, come hither,\" says the housekeeper. \"Hither, child, towards my\nLady's pillow. I am not sure that it is dark enough yet, but listen!\nCan you hear the sound upon the terrace, through the music, and the\nbeat, and everything?\"\n\n\"I certainly can!\"\n\n\"So my Lady says.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nCovering a Multitude of Sins\n\n\nIt was interesting when I dressed before daylight to peep out of\nwindow, where my candles were reflected in the black panes like\ntwo beacons, and finding all beyond still enshrouded in the\nindistinctness of last night, to watch how it turned out when the day\ncame on. As the prospect gradually revealed itself and disclosed the\nscene over which the wind had wandered in the dark, like my memory\nover my life, I had a pleasure in discovering the unknown objects\nthat had been around me in my sleep. At first they were faintly\ndiscernible in the mist, and above them the later stars still\nglimmered. That pale interval over, the picture began to enlarge and\nfill up so fast that at every new peep I could have found enough\nto look at for an hour. Imperceptibly my candles became the only\nincongruous part of the morning, the dark places in my room all\nmelted away, and the day shone bright upon a cheerful landscape,\nprominent in which the old Abbey Church, with its massive tower,\nthrew a softer train of shadow on the view than seemed compatible\nwith its rugged character. But so from rough outsides (I hope I have\nlearnt), serene and gentle influences often proceed.\n\nEvery part of the house was in such order, and every one was so\nattentive to me, that I had no trouble with my two bunches of keys,\nthough what with trying to remember the contents of each little\nstore-room drawer and cupboard; and what with making notes on a slate\nabout jams, and pickles, and preserves, and bottles, and glass, and\nchina, and a great many other things; and what with being generally a\nmethodical, old-maidish sort of foolish little person, I was so busy\nthat I could not believe it was breakfast-time when I heard the bell\nring. Away I ran, however, and made tea, as I had already been\ninstalled into the responsibility of the tea-pot; and then, as they\nwere all rather late and nobody was down yet, I thought I would take\na peep at the garden and get some knowledge of that too. I found it\nquite a delightful place--in front, the pretty avenue and drive by\nwhich we had approached (and where, by the by, we had cut up the\ngravel so terribly with our wheels that I asked the gardener to roll\nit); at the back, the flower-garden, with my darling at her window up\nthere, throwing it open to smile out at me, as if she would have\nkissed me from that distance. Beyond the flower-garden was a\nkitchen-garden, and then a paddock, and then a snug little rick-yard,\nand then a dear little farm-yard. As to the house itself, with its\nthree peaks in the roof; its various-shaped windows, some so large,\nsome so small, and all so pretty; its trellis-work, against the\nsouth-front for roses and honey-suckle, and its homely, comfortable,\nwelcoming look--it was, as Ada said when she came out to meet me with\nher arm through that of its master, worthy of her cousin John, a bold\nthing to say, though he only pinched her dear cheek for it.\n\nMr. Skimpole was as agreeable at breakfast as he had been overnight.\nThere was honey on the table, and it led him into a discourse about\nbees. He had no objection to honey, he said (and I should think he\nhad not, for he seemed to like it), but he protested against the\noverweening assumptions of bees. He didn't at all see why the busy\nbee should be proposed as a model to him; he supposed the bee liked\nto make honey, or he wouldn't do it--nobody asked him. It was not\nnecessary for the bee to make such a merit of his tastes. If every\nconfectioner went buzzing about the world banging against everything\nthat came in his way and egotistically calling upon everybody to take\nnotice that he was going to his work and must not be interrupted, the\nworld would be quite an unsupportable place. Then, after all, it was\na ridiculous position to be smoked out of your fortune with brimstone\nas soon as you had made it. You would have a very mean opinion of a\nManchester man if he spun cotton for no other purpose. He must say he\nthought a drone the embodiment of a pleasanter and wiser idea. The\ndrone said unaffectedly, \"You will excuse me; I really cannot attend\nto the shop! I find myself in a world in which there is so much to\nsee and so short a time to see it in that I must take the liberty of\nlooking about me and begging to be provided for by somebody who\ndoesn't want to look about him.\" This appeared to Mr. Skimpole to be\nthe drone philosophy, and he thought it a very good philosophy,\nalways supposing the drone to be willing to be on good terms with the\nbee, which, so far as he knew, the easy fellow always was, if the\nconsequential creature would only let him, and not be so conceited\nabout his honey!\n\nHe pursued this fancy with the lightest foot over a variety of ground\nand made us all merry, though again he seemed to have as serious a\nmeaning in what he said as he was capable of having. I left them\nstill listening to him when I withdrew to attend to my new duties.\nThey had occupied me for some time, and I was passing through the\npassages on my return with my basket of keys on my arm when Mr.\nJarndyce called me into a small room next his bed-chamber, which I\nfound to be in part a little library of books and papers and in part\nquite a little museum of his boots and shoes and hat-boxes.\n\n\"Sit down, my dear,\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"This, you must know, is the\ngrowlery. When I am out of humour, I come and growl here.\"\n\n\"You must be here very seldom, sir,\" said I.\n\n\"Oh, you don't know me!\" he returned. \"When I am deceived or\ndisappointed in--the wind, and it's easterly, I take refuge here. The\ngrowlery is the best-used room in the house. You are not aware of\nhalf my humours yet. My dear, how you are trembling!\"\n\nI could not help it; I tried very hard, but being alone with that\nbenevolent presence, and meeting his kind eyes, and feeling so happy\nand so honoured there, and my heart so full--I kissed his hand. I\ndon't know what I said, or even that I spoke. He was disconcerted and\nwalked to the window; I almost believed with an intention of jumping\nout, until he turned and I was reassured by seeing in his eyes what\nhe had gone there to hide. He gently patted me on the head, and I sat\ndown.\n\n\"There! There!\" he said. \"That's over. Pooh! Don't be foolish.\"\n\n\"It shall not happen again, sir,\" I returned, \"but at first it is\ndifficult--\"\n\n\"Nonsense!\" he said. \"It's easy, easy. Why not? I hear of a good\nlittle orphan girl without a protector, and I take it into my head to\nbe that protector. She grows up, and more than justifies my good\nopinion, and I remain her guardian and her friend. What is there in\nall this? So, so! Now, we have cleared off old scores, and I have\nbefore me thy pleasant, trusting, trusty face again.\"\n\nI said to myself, \"Esther, my dear, you surprise me! This really is\nnot what I expected of you!\" And it had such a good effect that I\nfolded my hands upon my basket and quite recovered myself. Mr.\nJarndyce, expressing his approval in his face, began to talk to me as\nconfidentially as if I had been in the habit of conversing with him\nevery morning for I don't know how long. I almost felt as if I had.\n\n\"Of course, Esther,\" he said, \"you don't understand this Chancery\nbusiness?\"\n\nAnd of course I shook my head.\n\n\"I don't know who does,\" he returned. \"The lawyers have twisted it\ninto such a state of bedevilment that the original merits of the case\nhave long disappeared from the face of the earth. It's about a will\nand the trusts under a will--or it was once. It's about nothing but\ncosts now. We are always appearing, and disappearing, and swearing,\nand interrogating, and filing, and cross-filing, and arguing, and\nsealing, and motioning, and referring, and reporting, and revolving\nabout the Lord Chancellor and all his satellites, and equitably\nwaltzing ourselves off to dusty death, about costs. That's the great\nquestion. All the rest, by some extraordinary means, has melted\naway.\"\n\n\"But it was, sir,\" said I, to bring him back, for he began to rub his\nhead, \"about a will?\"\n\n\"Why, yes, it was about a will when it was about anything,\" he\nreturned. \"A certain Jarndyce, in an evil hour, made a great fortune,\nand made a great will. In the question how the trusts under that will\nare to be administered, the fortune left by the will is squandered\naway; the legatees under the will are reduced to such a miserable\ncondition that they would be sufficiently punished if they had\ncommitted an enormous crime in having money left them, and the will\nitself is made a dead letter. All through the deplorable cause,\neverything that everybody in it, except one man, knows already is\nreferred to that only one man who don't know, it to find out--all\nthrough the deplorable cause, everybody must have copies, over and\nover again, of everything that has accumulated about it in the way of\ncartloads of papers (or must pay for them without having them, which\nis the usual course, for nobody wants them) and must go down the\nmiddle and up again through such an infernal country-dance of costs\nand fees and nonsense and corruption as was never dreamed of in the\nwildest visions of a witch's Sabbath. Equity sends questions to law,\nlaw sends questions back to equity; law finds it can't do this,\nequity finds it can't do that; neither can so much as say it can't\ndo anything, without this solicitor instructing and this counsel\nappearing for A, and that solicitor instructing and that counsel\nappearing for B; and so on through the whole alphabet, like the\nhistory of the apple pie. And thus, through years and years, and\nlives and lives, everything goes on, constantly beginning over and\nover again, and nothing ever ends. And we can't get out of the suit\non any terms, for we are made parties to it, and MUST BE parties to\nit, whether we like it or not. But it won't do to think of it! When\nmy great uncle, poor Tom Jarndyce, began to think of it, it was the\nbeginning of the end!\"\n\n\"The Mr. Jarndyce, sir, whose story I have heard?\"\n\nHe nodded gravely. \"I was his heir, and this was his house, Esther.\nWhen I came here, it was bleak indeed. He had left the signs of his\nmisery upon it.\"\n\n\"How changed it must be now!\" I said.\n\n\"It had been called, before his time, the Peaks. He gave it its\npresent name and lived here shut up, day and night poring over the\nwicked heaps of papers in the suit and hoping against hope to\ndisentangle it from its mystification and bring it to a close. In the\nmeantime, the place became dilapidated, the wind whistled through the\ncracked walls, the rain fell through the broken roof, the weeds\nchoked the passage to the rotting door. When I brought what remained\nof him home here, the brains seemed to me to have been blown out of\nthe house too, it was so shattered and ruined.\"\n\nHe walked a little to and fro after saying this to himself with a\nshudder, and then looked at me, and brightened, and came and sat down\nagain with his hands in his pockets.\n\n\"I told you this was the growlery, my dear. Where was I?\"\n\nI reminded him, at the hopeful change he had made in Bleak House.\n\n\"Bleak House; true. There is, in that city of London there, some\nproperty of ours which is much at this day what Bleak House was then;\nI say property of ours, meaning of the suit's, but I ought to call it\nthe property of costs, for costs is the only power on earth that will\never get anything out of it now or will ever know it for anything but\nan eyesore and a heartsore. It is a street of perishing blind houses,\nwith their eyes stoned out, without a pane of glass, without so much\nas a window-frame, with the bare blank shutters tumbling from their\nhinges and falling asunder, the iron rails peeling away in flakes of\nrust, the chimneys sinking in, the stone steps to every door (and\nevery door might be death's door) turning stagnant green, the very\ncrutches on which the ruins are propped decaying. Although Bleak\nHouse was not in Chancery, its master was, and it was stamped with\nthe same seal. These are the Great Seal's impressions, my dear, all\nover England--the children know them!\"\n\n\"How changed it is!\" I said again.\n\n\"Why, so it is,\" he answered much more cheerfully; \"and it is wisdom\nin you to keep me to the bright side of the picture.\" (The idea of my\nwisdom!) \"These are things I never talk about or even think about,\nexcepting in the growlery here. If you consider it right to mention\nthem to Rick and Ada,\" looking seriously at me, \"you can. I leave it\nto your discretion, Esther.\"\n\n\"I hope, sir--\" said I.\n\n\"I think you had better call me guardian, my dear.\"\n\nI felt that I was choking again--I taxed myself with it, \"Esther,\nnow, you know you are!\"--when he feigned to say this slightly, as if\nit were a whim instead of a thoughtful tenderness. But I gave the\nhousekeeping keys the least shake in the world as a reminder to\nmyself, and folding my hands in a still more determined manner on the\nbasket, looked at him quietly.\n\n\"I hope, guardian,\" said I, \"that you may not trust too much to my\ndiscretion. I hope you may not mistake me. I am afraid it will be a\ndisappointment to you to know that I am not clever, but it really is\nthe truth, and you would soon find it out if I had not the honesty to\nconfess it.\"\n\nHe did not seem at all disappointed; quite the contrary. He told me,\nwith a smile all over his face, that he knew me very well indeed and\nthat I was quite clever enough for him.\n\n\"I hope I may turn out so,\" said I, \"but I am much afraid of it,\nguardian.\"\n\n\"You are clever enough to be the good little woman of our lives here,\nmy dear,\" he returned playfully; \"the little old woman of the child's\n(I don't mean Skimpole's) rhyme:\n\n\n   \"'Little old woman, and whither so high?'\n    'To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky.'\n\n\n\"You will sweep them so neatly out of OUR sky in the course of your\nhousekeeping, Esther, that one of these days we shall have to abandon\nthe growlery and nail up the door.\"\n\nThis was the beginning of my being called Old Woman, and Little Old\nWoman, and Cobweb, and Mrs. Shipton, and Mother Hubbard, and Dame\nDurden, and so many names of that sort that my own name soon became\nquite lost among them.\n\n\"However,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"to return to our gossip. Here's Rick,\na fine young fellow full of promise. What's to be done with him?\"\n\nOh, my goodness, the idea of asking my advice on such a point!\n\n\"Here he is, Esther,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, comfortably putting his\nhands into his pockets and stretching out his legs. \"He must have a\nprofession; he must make some choice for himself. There will be a\nworld more wiglomeration about it, I suppose, but it must be done.\"\n\n\"More what, guardian?\" said I.\n\n\"More wiglomeration,\" said he. \"It's the only name I know for the\nthing. He is a ward in Chancery, my dear. Kenge and Carboy will have\nsomething to say about it; Master Somebody--a sort of ridiculous\nsexton, digging graves for the merits of causes in a back room at the\nend of Quality Court, Chancery Lane--will have something to say about\nit; counsel will have something to say about it; the Chancellor will\nhave something to say about it; the satellites will have something to\nsay about it; they will all have to be handsomely feed, all round,\nabout it; the whole thing will be vastly ceremonious, wordy,\nunsatisfactory, and expensive, and I call it, in general,\nwiglomeration. How mankind ever came to be afflicted with\nwiglomeration, or for whose sins these young people ever fell into a\npit of it, I don't know; so it is.\"\n\nHe began to rub his head again and to hint that he felt the wind. But\nit was a delightful instance of his kindness towards me that whether\nhe rubbed his head, or walked about, or did both, his face was sure\nto recover its benignant expression as it looked at mine; and he was\nsure to turn comfortable again and put his hands in his pockets and\nstretch out his legs.\n\n\"Perhaps it would be best, first of all,\" said I, \"to ask Mr. Richard\nwhat he inclines to himself.\"\n\n\"Exactly so,\" he returned. \"That's what I mean! You know, just\naccustom yourself to talk it over, with your tact and in your quiet\nway, with him and Ada, and see what you all make of it. We are sure\nto come at the heart of the matter by your means, little woman.\"\n\nI really was frightened at the thought of the importance I was\nattaining and the number of things that were being confided to me. I\nhad not meant this at all; I had meant that he should speak to\nRichard. But of course I said nothing in reply except that I would do\nmy best, though I feared (I really felt it necessary to repeat this)\nthat he thought me much more sagacious than I was. At which my\nguardian only laughed the pleasantest laugh I ever heard.\n\n\"Come!\" he said, rising and pushing back his chair. \"I think we may\nhave done with the growlery for one day! Only a concluding word.\nEsther, my dear, do you wish to ask me anything?\"\n\nHe looked so attentively at me that I looked attentively at him and\nfelt sure I understood him.\n\n\"About myself, sir?\" said I.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Guardian,\" said I, venturing to put my hand, which was suddenly\ncolder than I could have wished, in his, \"nothing! I am quite sure\nthat if there were anything I ought to know or had any need to know,\nI should not have to ask you to tell it to me. If my whole reliance\nand confidence were not placed in you, I must have a hard heart\nindeed. I have nothing to ask you, nothing in the world.\"\n\nHe drew my hand through his arm and we went away to look for Ada.\nFrom that hour I felt quite easy with him, quite unreserved, quite\ncontent to know no more, quite happy.\n\nWe lived, at first, rather a busy life at Bleak House, for we had to\nbecome acquainted with many residents in and out of the neighbourhood\nwho knew Mr. Jarndyce. It seemed to Ada and me that everybody knew\nhim who wanted to do anything with anybody else's money. It amazed us\nwhen we began to sort his letters and to answer some of them for him\nin the growlery of a morning to find how the great object of the\nlives of nearly all his correspondents appeared to be to form\nthemselves into committees for getting in and laying out money. The\nladies were as desperate as the gentlemen; indeed, I think they were\neven more so. They threw themselves into committees in the most\nimpassioned manner and collected subscriptions with a vehemence quite\nextraordinary. It appeared to us that some of them must pass their\nwhole lives in dealing out subscription-cards to the whole\npost-office directory--shilling cards, half-crown cards,\nhalf-sovereign cards, penny cards. They wanted everything. They\nwanted wearing apparel, they wanted linen rags, they wanted money,\nthey wanted coals, they wanted soup, they wanted interest, they\nwanted autographs, they wanted flannel, they wanted whatever Mr.\nJarndyce had--or had not. Their objects were as various as their\ndemands. They were going to raise new buildings, they were going to\npay off debts on old buildings, they were going to establish in a\npicturesque building (engraving of proposed west elevation attached)\nthe Sisterhood of Mediaeval Marys, they were going to give a\ntestimonial to Mrs. Jellyby, they were going to have their\nsecretary's portrait painted and presented to his mother-in-law,\nwhose deep devotion to him was well known, they were going to get up\neverything, I really believe, from five hundred thousand tracts to an\nannuity and from a marble monument to a silver tea-pot. They took a\nmultitude of titles. They were the Women of England, the Daughters of\nBritain, the Sisters of all the cardinal virtues separately, the\nFemales of America, the Ladies of a hundred denominations. They\nappeared to be always excited about canvassing and electing. They\nseemed to our poor wits, and according to their own accounts, to be\nconstantly polling people by tens of thousands, yet never bringing\ntheir candidates in for anything. It made our heads ache to think, on\nthe whole, what feverish lives they must lead.\n\nAmong the ladies who were most distinguished for this rapacious\nbenevolence (if I may use the expression) was a Mrs. Pardiggle, who\nseemed, as I judged from the number of her letters to Mr. Jarndyce,\nto be almost as powerful a correspondent as Mrs. Jellyby herself. We\nobserved that the wind always changed when Mrs. Pardiggle became the\nsubject of conversation and that it invariably interrupted Mr.\nJarndyce and prevented his going any farther, when he had remarked\nthat there were two classes of charitable people; one, the people who\ndid a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people\nwho did a great deal and made no noise at all. We were therefore\ncurious to see Mrs. Pardiggle, suspecting her to be a type of the\nformer class, and were glad when she called one day with her five\nyoung sons.\n\nShe was a formidable style of lady with spectacles, a prominent nose,\nand a loud voice, who had the effect of wanting a great deal of room.\nAnd she really did, for she knocked down little chairs with her\nskirts that were quite a great way off. As only Ada and I were at\nhome, we received her timidly, for she seemed to come in like cold\nweather and to make the little Pardiggles blue as they followed.\n\n\"These, young ladies,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle with great volubility\nafter the first salutations, \"are my five boys. You may have seen\ntheir names in a printed subscription list (perhaps more than one) in\nthe possession of our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce. Egbert, my eldest\n(twelve), is the boy who sent out his pocket-money, to the amount of\nfive and threepence, to the Tockahoopo Indians. Oswald, my second\n(ten and a half), is the child who contributed two and nine-pence to\nthe Great National Smithers Testimonial. Francis, my third (nine),\none and sixpence halfpenny; Felix, my fourth (seven), eightpence to\nthe Superannuated Widows; Alfred, my youngest (five), has voluntarily\nenrolled himself in the Infant Bonds of Joy, and is pledged never,\nthrough life, to use tobacco in any form.\"\n\nWe had never seen such dissatisfied children. It was not merely that\nthey were weazened and shrivelled--though they were certainly that\ntoo--but they looked absolutely ferocious with discontent. At the\nmention of the Tockahoopo Indians, I could really have supposed\nEgbert to be one of the most baleful members of that tribe, he gave\nme such a savage frown. The face of each child, as the amount of his\ncontribution was mentioned, darkened in a peculiarly vindictive\nmanner, but his was by far the worst. I must except, however, the\nlittle recruit into the Infant Bonds of Joy, who was stolidly and\nevenly miserable.\n\n\"You have been visiting, I understand,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle, \"at Mrs.\nJellyby's?\"\n\nWe said yes, we had passed one night there.\n\n\"Mrs. Jellyby,\" pursued the lady, always speaking in the same\ndemonstrative, loud, hard tone, so that her voice impressed my fancy\nas if it had a sort of spectacles on too--and I may take the\nopportunity of remarking that her spectacles were made the less\nengaging by her eyes being what Ada called \"choking eyes,\" meaning\nvery prominent--\"Mrs. Jellyby is a benefactor to society and deserves\na helping hand. My boys have contributed to the African\nproject--Egbert, one and six, being the entire allowance of nine\nweeks; Oswald, one and a penny halfpenny, being the same; the rest,\naccording to their little means. Nevertheless, I do not go with Mrs.\nJellyby in all things. I do not go with Mrs. Jellyby in her treatment\nof her young family. It has been noticed. It has been observed that\nher young family are excluded from participation in the objects to\nwhich she is devoted. She may be right, she may be wrong; but, right\nor wrong, this is not my course with MY young family. I take them\neverywhere.\"\n\nI was afterwards convinced (and so was Ada) that from the\nill-conditioned eldest child, these words extorted a sharp yell. He\nturned it off into a yawn, but it began as a yell.\n\n\"They attend matins with me (very prettily done) at half-past six\no'clock in the morning all the year round, including of course the\ndepth of winter,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle rapidly, \"and they are with me\nduring the revolving duties of the day. I am a School lady, I am a\nVisiting lady, I am a Reading lady, I am a Distributing lady; I am on\nthe local Linen Box Committee and many general committees; and my\ncanvassing alone is very extensive--perhaps no one's more so. But\nthey are my companions everywhere; and by these means they acquire\nthat knowledge of the poor, and that capacity of doing charitable\nbusiness in general--in short, that taste for the sort of\nthing--which will render them in after life a service to their\nneighbours and a satisfaction to themselves. My young family are not\nfrivolous; they expend the entire amount of their allowance in\nsubscriptions, under my direction; and they have attended as many\npublic meetings and listened to as many lectures, orations, and\ndiscussions as generally fall to the lot of few grown people. Alfred\n(five), who, as I mentioned, has of his own election joined the\nInfant Bonds of Joy, was one of the very few children who manifested\nconsciousness on that occasion after a fervid address of two hours\nfrom the chairman of the evening.\"\n\nAlfred glowered at us as if he never could, or would, forgive the\ninjury of that night.\n\n\"You may have observed, Miss Summerson,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle, \"in\nsome of the lists to which I have referred, in the possession of our\nesteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce, that the names of my young family are\nconcluded with the name of O. A. Pardiggle, F.R.S., one pound. That\nis their father. We usually observe the same routine. I put down my\nmite first; then my young family enrol their contributions, according\nto their ages and their little means; and then Mr. Pardiggle brings\nup the rear. Mr. Pardiggle is happy to throw in his limited donation,\nunder my direction; and thus things are made not only pleasant to\nourselves, but, we trust, improving to others.\"\n\nSuppose Mr. Pardiggle were to dine with Mr. Jellyby, and suppose Mr.\nJellyby were to relieve his mind after dinner to Mr. Pardiggle, would\nMr. Pardiggle, in return, make any confidential communication to Mr.\nJellyby? I was quite confused to find myself thinking this, but it\ncame into my head.\n\n\"You are very pleasantly situated here!\" said Mrs. Pardiggle.\n\nWe were glad to change the subject, and going to the window, pointed\nout the beauties of the prospect, on which the spectacles appeared to\nme to rest with curious indifference.\n\n\"You know Mr. Gusher?\" said our visitor.\n\nWe were obliged to say that we had not the pleasure of Mr. Gusher's\nacquaintance.\n\n\"The loss is yours, I assure you,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle with her\ncommanding deportment. \"He is a very fervid, impassioned\nspeaker--full of fire! Stationed in a waggon on this lawn, now,\nwhich, from the shape of the land, is naturally adapted to a public\nmeeting, he would improve almost any occasion you could mention for\nhours and hours! By this time, young ladies,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle,\nmoving back to her chair and overturning, as if by invisible agency,\na little round table at a considerable distance with my work-basket\non it, \"by this time you have found me out, I dare say?\"\n\nThis was really such a confusing question that Ada looked at me in\nperfect dismay. As to the guilty nature of my own consciousness after\nwhat I had been thinking, it must have been expressed in the colour\nof my cheeks.\n\n\"Found out, I mean,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle, \"the prominent point in my\ncharacter. I am aware that it is so prominent as to be discoverable\nimmediately. I lay myself open to detection, I know. Well! I freely\nadmit, I am a woman of business. I love hard work; I enjoy hard work.\nThe excitement does me good. I am so accustomed and inured to hard\nwork that I don't know what fatigue is.\"\n\nWe murmured that it was very astonishing and very gratifying, or\nsomething to that effect. I don't think we knew what it was either,\nbut this is what our politeness expressed.\n\n\"I do not understand what it is to be tired; you cannot tire me if\nyou try!\" said Mrs. Pardiggle. \"The quantity of exertion (which is no\nexertion to me), the amount of business (which I regard as nothing),\nthat I go through sometimes astonishes myself. I have seen my young\nfamily, and Mr. Pardiggle, quite worn out with witnessing it, when I\nmay truly say I have been as fresh as a lark!\"\n\nIf that dark-visaged eldest boy could look more malicious than he had\nalready looked, this was the time when he did it. I observed that he\ndoubled his right fist and delivered a secret blow into the crown of\nhis cap, which was under his left arm.\n\n\"This gives me a great advantage when I am making my rounds,\" said\nMrs. Pardiggle. \"If I find a person unwilling to hear what I have to\nsay, I tell that person directly, 'I am incapable of fatigue, my good\nfriend, I am never tired, and I mean to go on until I have done.' It\nanswers admirably! Miss Summerson, I hope I shall have your\nassistance in my visiting rounds immediately, and Miss Clare's very\nsoon.\"\n\nAt first I tried to excuse myself for the present on the general\nground of having occupations to attend to which I must not neglect.\nBut as this was an ineffectual protest, I then said, more\nparticularly, that I was not sure of my qualifications. That I was\ninexperienced in the art of adapting my mind to minds very\ndifferently situated, and addressing them from suitable points of\nview. That I had not that delicate knowledge of the heart which must\nbe essential to such a work. That I had much to learn, myself, before\nI could teach others, and that I could not confide in my good\nintentions alone. For these reasons I thought it best to be as useful\nas I could, and to render what kind services I could to those\nimmediately about me, and to try to let that circle of duty gradually\nand naturally expand itself. All this I said with anything but\nconfidence, because Mrs. Pardiggle was much older than I, and had\ngreat experience, and was so very military in her manners.\n\n\"You are wrong, Miss Summerson,\" said she, \"but perhaps you are not\nequal to hard work or the excitement of it, and that makes a vast\ndifference. If you would like to see how I go through my work, I am\nnow about--with my young family--to visit a brickmaker in the\nneighbourhood (a very bad character) and shall be glad to take you\nwith me. Miss Clare also, if she will do me the favour.\"\n\nAda and I interchanged looks, and as we were going out in any case,\naccepted the offer. When we hastily returned from putting on our\nbonnets, we found the young family languishing in a corner and Mrs.\nPardiggle sweeping about the room, knocking down nearly all the light\nobjects it contained. Mrs. Pardiggle took possession of Ada, and I\nfollowed with the family.\n\nAda told me afterwards that Mrs. Pardiggle talked in the same loud\ntone (that, indeed, I overheard) all the way to the brickmaker's\nabout an exciting contest which she had for two or three years waged\nagainst another lady relative to the bringing in of their rival\ncandidates for a pension somewhere. There had been a quantity of\nprinting, and promising, and proxying, and polling, and it appeared\nto have imparted great liveliness to all concerned, except the\npensioners--who were not elected yet.\n\nI am very fond of being confided in by children and am happy in being\nusually favoured in that respect, but on this occasion it gave me\ngreat uneasiness. As soon as we were out of doors, Egbert, with the\nmanner of a little footpad, demanded a shilling of me on the ground\nthat his pocket-money was \"boned\" from him. On my pointing out the\ngreat impropriety of the word, especially in connexion with his\nparent (for he added sulkily \"By her!\"), he pinched me and said, \"Oh,\nthen! Now! Who are you! YOU wouldn't like it, I think? What does she\nmake a sham for, and pretend to give me money, and take it away\nagain? Why do you call it my allowance, and never let me spend it?\"\nThese exasperating questions so inflamed his mind and the minds of\nOswald and Francis that they all pinched me at once, and in a\ndreadfully expert way--screwing up such little pieces of my arms that\nI could hardly forbear crying out. Felix, at the same time, stamped\nupon my toes. And the Bond of Joy, who on account of always having\nthe whole of his little income anticipated stood in fact pledged to\nabstain from cakes as well as tobacco, so swelled with grief and rage\nwhen we passed a pastry-cook's shop that he terrified me by becoming\npurple. I never underwent so much, both in body and mind, in the\ncourse of a walk with young people as from these unnaturally\nconstrained children when they paid me the compliment of being\nnatural.\n\nI was glad when we came to the brickmaker's house, though it was one\nof a cluster of wretched hovels in a brick-field, with pigsties close\nto the broken windows and miserable little gardens before the doors\ngrowing nothing but stagnant pools. Here and there an old tub was put\nto catch the droppings of rain-water from a roof, or they were banked\nup with mud into a little pond like a large dirt-pie. At the doors\nand windows some men and women lounged or prowled about, and took\nlittle notice of us except to laugh to one another or to say\nsomething as we passed about gentlefolks minding their own business\nand not troubling their heads and muddying their shoes with coming to\nlook after other people's.\n\nMrs. Pardiggle, leading the way with a great show of moral\ndetermination and talking with much volubility about the untidy\nhabits of the people (though I doubted if the best of us could have\nbeen tidy in such a place), conducted us into a cottage at the\nfarthest corner, the ground-floor room of which we nearly filled.\nBesides ourselves, there were in this damp, offensive room a woman\nwith a black eye, nursing a poor little gasping baby by the fire; a\nman, all stained with clay and mud and looking very dissipated, lying\nat full length on the ground, smoking a pipe; a powerful young man\nfastening a collar on a dog; and a bold girl doing some kind of\nwashing in very dirty water. They all looked up at us as we came in,\nand the woman seemed to turn her face towards the fire as if to hide\nher bruised eye; nobody gave us any welcome.\n\n\"Well, my friends,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle, but her voice had not a\nfriendly sound, I thought; it was much too business-like and\nsystematic. \"How do you do, all of you? I am here again. I told you,\nyou couldn't tire me, you know. I am fond of hard work, and am true\nto my word.\"\n\n\"There an't,\" growled the man on the floor, whose head rested on his\nhand as he stared at us, \"any more on you to come in, is there?\"\n\n\"No, my friend,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle, seating herself on one stool\nand knocking down another. \"We are all here.\"\n\n\"Because I thought there warn't enough of you, perhaps?\" said the\nman, with his pipe between his lips as he looked round upon us.\n\nThe young man and the girl both laughed. Two friends of the young\nman, whom we had attracted to the doorway and who stood there with\ntheir hands in their pockets, echoed the laugh noisily.\n\n\"You can't tire me, good people,\" said Mrs. Pardiggle to these\nlatter. \"I enjoy hard work, and the harder you make mine, the better\nI like it.\"\n\n\"Then make it easy for her!\" growled the man upon the floor. \"I wants\nit done, and over. I wants a end of these liberties took with my\nplace. I wants an end of being drawed like a badger. Now you're\na-going to poll-pry and question according to custom--I know what\nyou're a-going to be up to. Well! You haven't got no occasion to be\nup to it. I'll save you the trouble. Is my daughter a-washin? Yes,\nshe IS a-washin. Look at the water. Smell it! That's wot we drinks.\nHow do you like it, and what do you think of gin instead! An't my\nplace dirty? Yes, it is dirty--it's nat'rally dirty, and it's\nnat'rally onwholesome; and we've had five dirty and onwholesome\nchildren, as is all dead infants, and so much the better for them,\nand for us besides. Have I read the little book wot you left? No, I\nan't read the little book wot you left. There an't nobody here as\nknows how to read it; and if there wos, it wouldn't be suitable to\nme. It's a book fit for a babby, and I'm not a babby. If you was to\nleave me a doll, I shouldn't nuss it. How have I been conducting of\nmyself? Why, I've been drunk for three days; and I'da been drunk four\nif I'da had the money. Don't I never mean for to go to church? No, I\ndon't never mean for to go to church. I shouldn't be expected there,\nif I did; the beadle's too gen-teel for me. And how did my wife get\nthat black eye? Why, I give it her; and if she says I didn't, she's a\nlie!\"\n\nHe had pulled his pipe out of his mouth to say all this, and he now\nturned over on his other side and smoked again. Mrs. Pardiggle, who\nhad been regarding him through her spectacles with a forcible\ncomposure, calculated, I could not help thinking, to increase his\nantagonism, pulled out a good book as if it were a constable's staff\nand took the whole family into custody. I mean into religious\ncustody, of course; but she really did it as if she were an\ninexorable moral policeman carrying them all off to a station-house.\n\nAda and I were very uncomfortable. We both felt intrusive and out of\nplace, and we both thought that Mrs. Pardiggle would have got on\ninfinitely better if she had not had such a mechanical way of taking\npossession of people. The children sulked and stared; the family took\nno notice of us whatever, except when the young man made the dog\nbark, which he usually did when Mrs. Pardiggle was most emphatic. We\nboth felt painfully sensible that between us and these people there\nwas an iron barrier which could not be removed by our new friend. By\nwhom or how it could be removed, we did not know, but we knew that.\nEven what she read and said seemed to us to be ill-chosen for such\nauditors, if it had been imparted ever so modestly and with ever so\nmuch tact. As to the little book to which the man on the floor had\nreferred, we acquired a knowledge of it afterwards, and Mr. Jarndyce\nsaid he doubted if Robinson Crusoe could have read it, though he had\nhad no other on his desolate island.\n\nWe were much relieved, under these circumstances, when Mrs. Pardiggle\nleft off.\n\nThe man on the floor, then turning his head round again, said\nmorosely, \"Well! You've done, have you?\"\n\n\"For to-day, I have, my friend. But I am never fatigued. I shall come\nto you again in your regular order,\" returned Mrs. Pardiggle with\ndemonstrative cheerfulness.\n\n\"So long as you goes now,\" said he, folding his arms and shutting his\neyes with an oath, \"you may do wot you like!\"\n\nMrs. Pardiggle accordingly rose and made a little vortex in the\nconfined room from which the pipe itself very narrowly escaped.\nTaking one of her young family in each hand, and telling the others\nto follow closely, and expressing her hope that the brickmaker and\nall his house would be improved when she saw them next, she then\nproceeded to another cottage. I hope it is not unkind in me to say\nthat she certainly did make, in this as in everything else, a show\nthat was not conciliatory of doing charity by wholesale and of\ndealing in it to a large extent.\n\nShe supposed that we were following her, but as soon as the space was\nleft clear, we approached the woman sitting by the fire to ask if the\nbaby were ill.\n\nShe only looked at it as it lay on her lap. We had observed before\nthat when she looked at it she covered her discoloured eye with her\nhand, as though she wished to separate any association with noise and\nviolence and ill treatment from the poor little child.\n\nAda, whose gentle heart was moved by its appearance, bent down to\ntouch its little face. As she did so, I saw what happened and drew\nher back. The child died.\n\n\"Oh, Esther!\" cried Ada, sinking on her knees beside it. \"Look here!\nOh, Esther, my love, the little thing! The suffering, quiet, pretty\nlittle thing! I am so sorry for it. I am so sorry for the mother. I\nnever saw a sight so pitiful as this before! Oh, baby, baby!\"\n\nSuch compassion, such gentleness, as that with which she bent down\nweeping and put her hand upon the mother's might have softened any\nmother's heart that ever beat. The woman at first gazed at her in\nastonishment and then burst into tears.\n\nPresently I took the light burden from her lap, did what I could to\nmake the baby's rest the prettier and gentler, laid it on a shelf,\nand covered it with my own handkerchief. We tried to comfort the\nmother, and we whispered to her what Our Saviour said of children.\nShe answered nothing, but sat weeping--weeping very much.\n\nWhen I turned, I found that the young man had taken out the dog and\nwas standing at the door looking in upon us with dry eyes, but quiet.\nThe girl was quiet too and sat in a corner looking on the ground. The\nman had risen. He still smoked his pipe with an air of defiance, but\nhe was silent.\n\nAn ugly woman, very poorly clothed, hurried in while I was glancing\nat them, and coming straight up to the mother, said, \"Jenny! Jenny!\"\nThe mother rose on being so addressed and fell upon the woman's neck.\n\nShe also had upon her face and arms the marks of ill usage. She had\nno kind of grace about her, but the grace of sympathy; but when she\ncondoled with the woman, and her own tears fell, she wanted no\nbeauty. I say condoled, but her only words were \"Jenny! Jenny!\" All\nthe rest was in the tone in which she said them.\n\nI thought it very touching to see these two women, coarse and shabby\nand beaten, so united; to see what they could be to one another; to\nsee how they felt for one another, how the heart of each to each was\nsoftened by the hard trials of their lives. I think the best side of\nsuch people is almost hidden from us. What the poor are to the poor\nis little known, excepting to themselves and God.\n\nWe felt it better to withdraw and leave them uninterrupted. We stole\nout quietly and without notice from any one except the man. He was\nleaning against the wall near the door, and finding that there was\nscarcely room for us to pass, went out before us. He seemed to want\nto hide that he did this on our account, but we perceived that he\ndid, and thanked him. He made no answer.\n\nAda was so full of grief all the way home, and Richard, whom we found\nat home, was so distressed to see her in tears (though he said to me,\nwhen she was not present, how beautiful it was too!), that we\narranged to return at night with some little comforts and repeat our\nvisit at the brick-maker's house. We said as little as we could to\nMr. Jarndyce, but the wind changed directly.\n\nRichard accompanied us at night to the scene of our morning\nexpedition. On our way there, we had to pass a noisy drinking-house,\nwhere a number of men were flocking about the door. Among them, and\nprominent in some dispute, was the father of the little child. At a\nshort distance, we passed the young man and the dog, in congenial\ncompany. The sister was standing laughing and talking with some other\nyoung women at the corner of the row of cottages, but she seemed\nashamed and turned away as we went by.\n\nWe left our escort within sight of the brickmaker's dwelling and\nproceeded by ourselves. When we came to the door, we found the woman\nwho had brought such consolation with her standing there looking\nanxiously out.\n\n\"It's you, young ladies, is it?\" she said in a whisper. \"I'm\na-watching for my master. My heart's in my mouth. If he was to catch\nme away from home, he'd pretty near murder me.\"\n\n\"Do you mean your husband?\" said I.\n\n\"Yes, miss, my master. Jenny's asleep, quite worn out. She's scarcely\nhad the child off her lap, poor thing, these seven days and nights,\nexcept when I've been able to take it for a minute or two.\"\n\nAs she gave way for us, she went softly in and put what we had\nbrought near the miserable bed on which the mother slept. No effort\nhad been made to clean the room--it seemed in its nature almost\nhopeless of being clean; but the small waxen form from which so much\nsolemnity diffused itself had been composed afresh, and washed, and\nneatly dressed in some fragments of white linen; and on my\nhandkerchief, which still covered the poor baby, a little bunch of\nsweet herbs had been laid by the same rough, scarred hands, so\nlightly, so tenderly!\n\n\"May heaven reward you!\" we said to her. \"You are a good woman.\"\n\n\"Me, young ladies?\" she returned with surprise. \"Hush! Jenny, Jenny!\"\n\nThe mother had moaned in her sleep and moved. The sound of the\nfamiliar voice seemed to calm her again. She was quiet once more.\n\nHow little I thought, when I raised my handkerchief to look upon the\ntiny sleeper underneath and seemed to see a halo shine around the\nchild through Ada's drooping hair as her pity bent her head--how\nlittle I thought in whose unquiet bosom that handkerchief would come\nto lie after covering the motionless and peaceful breast! I only\nthought that perhaps the Angel of the child might not be all\nunconscious of the woman who replaced it with so compassionate a\nhand; not all unconscious of her presently, when we had taken leave,\nand left her at the door, by turns looking, and listening in terror\nfor herself, and saying in her old soothing manner, \"Jenny, Jenny!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nSigns and Tokens\n\n\nI don't know how it is I seem to be always writing about myself. I\nmean all the time to write about other people, and I try to think\nabout myself as little as possible, and I am sure, when I find myself\ncoming into the story again, I am really vexed and say, \"Dear, dear,\nyou tiresome little creature, I wish you wouldn't!\" but it is all of\nno use. I hope any one who may read what I write will understand that\nif these pages contain a great deal about me, I can only suppose it\nmust be because I have really something to do with them and can't be\nkept out.\n\nMy darling and I read together, and worked, and practised, and found\nso much employment for our time that the winter days flew by us like\nbright-winged birds. Generally in the afternoons, and always in the\nevenings, Richard gave us his company. Although he was one of the\nmost restless creatures in the world, he certainly was very fond of\nour society.\n\nHe was very, very, very fond of Ada. I mean it, and I had better say\nit at once. I had never seen any young people falling in love before,\nbut I found them out quite soon. I could not say so, of course, or\nshow that I knew anything about it. On the contrary, I was so demure\nand used to seem so unconscious that sometimes I considered within\nmyself while I was sitting at work whether I was not growing quite\ndeceitful.\n\nBut there was no help for it. All I had to do was to be quiet, and I\nwas as quiet as a mouse. They were as quiet as mice too, so far as\nany words were concerned, but the innocent manner in which they\nrelied more and more upon me as they took more and more to one\nanother was so charming that I had great difficulty in not showing\nhow it interested me.\n\n\"Our dear little old woman is such a capital old woman,\" Richard\nwould say, coming up to meet me in the garden early, with his\npleasant laugh and perhaps the least tinge of a blush, \"that I can't\nget on without her. Before I begin my harum-scarum day--grinding away\nat those books and instruments and then galloping up hill and down\ndale, all the country round, like a highwayman--it does me so much\ngood to come and have a steady walk with our comfortable friend, that\nhere I am again!\"\n\n\"You know, Dame Durden, dear,\" Ada would say at night, with her head\nupon my shoulder and the firelight shining in her thoughtful eyes, \"I\ndon't want to talk when we come upstairs here. Only to sit a little\nwhile thinking, with your dear face for company, and to hear the wind\nand remember the poor sailors at sea--\"\n\nAh! Perhaps Richard was going to be a sailor. We had talked it over\nvery often now, and there was some talk of gratifying the inclination\nof his childhood for the sea. Mr. Jarndyce had written to a relation\nof the family, a great Sir Leicester Dedlock, for his interest in\nRichard's favour, generally; and Sir Leicester had replied in a\ngracious manner that he would be happy to advance the prospects of\nthe young gentleman if it should ever prove to be within his power,\nwhich was not at all probable, and that my Lady sent her compliments\nto the young gentleman (to whom she perfectly remembered that she was\nallied by remote consanguinity) and trusted that he would ever do his\nduty in any honourable profession to which he might devote himself.\n\n\"So I apprehend it's pretty clear,\" said Richard to me, \"that I shall\nhave to work my own way. Never mind! Plenty of people have had to do\nthat before now, and have done it. I only wish I had the command of a\nclipping privateer to begin with and could carry off the Chancellor\nand keep him on short allowance until he gave judgment in our cause.\nHe'd find himself growing thin, if he didn't look sharp!\"\n\nWith a buoyancy and hopefulness and a gaiety that hardly ever\nflagged, Richard had a carelessness in his character that quite\nperplexed me, principally because he mistook it, in such a very odd\nway, for prudence. It entered into all his calculations about money\nin a singular manner which I don't think I can better explain than by\nreverting for a moment to our loan to Mr. Skimpole.\n\nMr. Jarndyce had ascertained the amount, either from Mr. Skimpole\nhimself or from Coavinses, and had placed the money in my hands with\ninstructions to me to retain my own part of it and hand the rest to\nRichard. The number of little acts of thoughtless expenditure which\nRichard justified by the recovery of his ten pounds, and the number\nof times he talked to me as if he had saved or realized that amount,\nwould form a sum in simple addition.\n\n\"My prudent Mother Hubbard, why not?\" he said to me when he wanted,\nwithout the least consideration, to bestow five pounds on the\nbrickmaker. \"I made ten pounds, clear, out of Coavinses' business.\"\n\n\"How was that?\" said I.\n\n\"Why, I got rid of ten pounds which I was quite content to get rid of\nand never expected to see any more. You don't deny that?\"\n\n\"No,\" said I.\n\n\"Very well! Then I came into possession of ten pounds--\"\n\n\"The same ten pounds,\" I hinted.\n\n\"That has nothing to do with it!\" returned Richard. \"I have got ten\npounds more than I expected to have, and consequently I can afford to\nspend it without being particular.\"\n\nIn exactly the same way, when he was persuaded out of the sacrifice\nof these five pounds by being convinced that it would do no good, he\ncarried that sum to his credit and drew upon it.\n\n\"Let me see!\" he would say. \"I saved five pounds out of the\nbrickmaker's affair, so if I have a good rattle to London and back in\na post-chaise and put that down at four pounds, I shall have saved\none. And it's a very good thing to save one, let me tell you: a penny\nsaved is a penny got!\"\n\nI believe Richard's was as frank and generous a nature as there\npossibly can be. He was ardent and brave, and in the midst of all his\nwild restlessness, was so gentle that I knew him like a brother in a\nfew weeks. His gentleness was natural to him and would have shown\nitself abundantly even without Ada's influence; but with it, he\nbecame one of the most winning of companions, always so ready to be\ninterested and always so happy, sanguine, and light-hearted. I am\nsure that I, sitting with them, and walking with them, and talking\nwith them, and noticing from day to day how they went on, falling\ndeeper and deeper in love, and saying nothing about it, and each\nshyly thinking that this love was the greatest of secrets, perhaps\nnot yet suspected even by the other--I am sure that I was scarcely\nless enchanted than they were and scarcely less pleased with the\npretty dream.\n\nWe were going on in this way, when one morning at breakfast Mr.\nJarndyce received a letter, and looking at the superscription, said,\n\"From Boythorn? Aye, aye!\" and opened and read it with evident\npleasure, announcing to us in a parenthesis when he was about\nhalf-way through, that Boythorn was \"coming down\" on a visit. Now who\nwas Boythorn, we all thought. And I dare say we all thought too--I am\nsure I did, for one--would Boythorn at all interfere with what was\ngoing forward?\n\n\"I went to school with this fellow, Lawrence Boythorn,\" said Mr.\nJarndyce, tapping the letter as he laid it on the table, \"more than\nfive and forty years ago. He was then the most impetuous boy in the\nworld, and he is now the most impetuous man. He was then the loudest\nboy in the world, and he is now the loudest man. He was then the\nheartiest and sturdiest boy in the world, and he is now the heartiest\nand sturdiest man. He is a tremendous fellow.\"\n\n\"In stature, sir?\" asked Richard.\n\n\"Pretty well, Rick, in that respect,\" said Mr. Jarndyce; \"being some\nten years older than I and a couple of inches taller, with his head\nthrown back like an old soldier, his stalwart chest squared, his\nhands like a clean blacksmith's, and his lungs! There's no simile for\nhis lungs. Talking, laughing, or snoring, they make the beams of the\nhouse shake.\"\n\nAs Mr. Jarndyce sat enjoying the image of his friend Boythorn, we\nobserved the favourable omen that there was not the least indication\nof any change in the wind.\n\n\"But it's the inside of the man, the warm heart of the man, the\npassion of the man, the fresh blood of the man, Rick--and Ada, and\nlittle Cobweb too, for you are all interested in a visitor--that I\nspeak of,\" he pursued. \"His language is as sounding as his voice. He\nis always in extremes, perpetually in the superlative degree. In his\ncondemnation he is all ferocity. You might suppose him to be an ogre\nfrom what he says, and I believe he has the reputation of one with\nsome people. There! I tell you no more of him beforehand. You must\nnot be surprised to see him take me under his protection, for he has\nnever forgotten that I was a low boy at school and that our\nfriendship began in his knocking two of my head tyrant's teeth out\n(he says six) before breakfast. Boythorn and his man,\" to me, \"will\nbe here this afternoon, my dear.\"\n\nI took care that the necessary preparations were made for Mr.\nBoythorn's reception, and we looked forward to his arrival with some\ncuriosity. The afternoon wore away, however, and he did not appear.\nThe dinner-hour arrived, and still he did not appear. The dinner was\nput back an hour, and we were sitting round the fire with no light\nbut the blaze when the hall-door suddenly burst open and the hall\nresounded with these words, uttered with the greatest vehemence and\nin a stentorian tone: \"We have been misdirected, Jarndyce, by a most\nabandoned ruffian, who told us to take the turning to the right\ninstead of to the left. He is the most intolerable scoundrel on the\nface of the earth. His father must have been a most consummate\nvillain, ever to have such a son. I would have had that fellow shot\nwithout the least remorse!\"\n\n\"Did he do it on purpose?\" Mr. Jarndyce inquired.\n\n\"I have not the slightest doubt that the scoundrel has passed his\nwhole existence in misdirecting travellers!\" returned the other. \"By\nmy soul, I thought him the worst-looking dog I had ever beheld when\nhe was telling me to take the turning to the right. And yet I stood\nbefore that fellow face to face and didn't knock his brains out!\"\n\n\"Teeth, you mean?\" said Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"Ha, ha, ha!\" laughed Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, really making the whole\nhouse vibrate. \"What, you have not forgotten it yet! Ha, ha, ha! And\nthat was another most consummate vagabond! By my soul, the\ncountenance of that fellow when he was a boy was the blackest image\nof perfidy, cowardice, and cruelty ever set up as a scarecrow in a\nfield of scoundrels. If I were to meet that most unparalleled despot\nin the streets to-morrow, I would fell him like a rotten tree!\"\n\n\"I have no doubt of it,\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"Now, will you come\nupstairs?\"\n\n\"By my soul, Jarndyce,\" returned his guest, who seemed to refer to\nhis watch, \"if you had been married, I would have turned back at the\ngarden-gate and gone away to the remotest summits of the Himalaya\nMountains sooner than I would have presented myself at this\nunseasonable hour.\"\n\n\"Not quite so far, I hope?\" said Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"By my life and honour, yes!\" cried the visitor. \"I wouldn't be\nguilty of the audacious insolence of keeping a lady of the house\nwaiting all this time for any earthly consideration. I would\ninfinitely rather destroy myself--infinitely rather!\"\n\nTalking thus, they went upstairs, and presently we heard him in his\nbedroom thundering \"Ha, ha, ha!\" and again \"Ha, ha, ha!\" until the\nflattest echo in the neighbourhood seemed to catch the contagion and\nto laugh as enjoyingly as he did or as we did when we heard him\nlaugh.\n\nWe all conceived a prepossession in his favour, for there was a\nsterling quality in this laugh, and in his vigorous, healthy voice,\nand in the roundness and fullness with which he uttered every word he\nspoke, and in the very fury of his superlatives, which seemed to go\noff like blank cannons and hurt nothing. But we were hardly prepared\nto have it so confirmed by his appearance when Mr. Jarndyce presented\nhim. He was not only a very handsome old gentleman--upright and\nstalwart as he had been described to us--with a massive grey head, a\nfine composure of face when silent, a figure that might have become\ncorpulent but for his being so continually in earnest that he gave it\nno rest, and a chin that might have subsided into a double chin but\nfor the vehement emphasis in which it was constantly required to\nassist; but he was such a true gentleman in his manner, so\nchivalrously polite, his face was lighted by a smile of so much\nsweetness and tenderness, and it seemed so plain that he had nothing\nto hide, but showed himself exactly as he was--incapable, as Richard\nsaid, of anything on a limited scale, and firing away with those\nblank great guns because he carried no small arms whatever--that\nreally I could not help looking at him with equal pleasure as he sat\nat dinner, whether he smilingly conversed with Ada and me, or was led\nby Mr. Jarndyce into some great volley of superlatives, or threw up\nhis head like a bloodhound and gave out that tremendous \"Ha, ha, ha!\"\n\n\"You have brought your bird with you, I suppose?\" said Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"By heaven, he is the most astonishing bird in Europe!\" replied the\nother. \"He IS the most wonderful creature! I wouldn't take ten\nthousand guineas for that bird. I have left an annuity for his sole\nsupport in case he should outlive me. He is, in sense and attachment,\na phenomenon. And his father before him was one of the most\nastonishing birds that ever lived!\"\n\nThe subject of this laudation was a very little canary, who was so\ntame that he was brought down by Mr. Boythorn's man, on his\nforefinger, and after taking a gentle flight round the room, alighted\non his master's head. To hear Mr. Boythorn presently expressing the\nmost implacable and passionate sentiments, with this fragile mite of\na creature quietly perched on his forehead, was to have a good\nillustration of his character, I thought.\n\n\"By my soul, Jarndyce,\" he said, very gently holding up a bit of\nbread to the canary to peck at, \"if I were in your place I would\nseize every master in Chancery by the throat to-morrow morning and\nshake him until his money rolled out of his pockets and his bones\nrattled in his skin. I would have a settlement out of somebody, by\nfair means or by foul. If you would empower me to do it, I would do\nit for you with the greatest satisfaction!\" (All this time the very\nsmall canary was eating out of his hand.)\n\n\"I thank you, Lawrence, but the suit is hardly at such a point at\npresent,\" returned Mr. Jarndyce, laughing, \"that it would be greatly\nadvanced even by the legal process of shaking the bench and the whole\nbar.\"\n\n\"There never was such an infernal cauldron as that Chancery on the\nface of the earth!\" said Mr. Boythorn. \"Nothing but a mine below it\non a busy day in term time, with all its records, rules, and\nprecedents collected in it and every functionary belonging to it\nalso, high and low, upward and downward, from its son the\nAccountant-General to its father the Devil, and the whole blown to\natoms with ten thousand hundredweight of gunpowder, would reform it\nin the least!\"\n\nIt was impossible not to laugh at the energetic gravity with which he\nrecommended this strong measure of reform. When we laughed, he threw\nup his head and shook his broad chest, and again the whole country\nseemed to echo to his \"Ha, ha, ha!\" It had not the least effect in\ndisturbing the bird, whose sense of security was complete and who\nhopped about the table with its quick head now on this side and now\non that, turning its bright sudden eye on its master as if he were no\nmore than another bird.\n\n\"But how do you and your neighbour get on about the disputed right of\nway?\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"You are not free from the toils of the law\nyourself!\"\n\n\"The fellow has brought actions against ME for trespass, and I have\nbrought actions against HIM for trespass,\" returned Mr. Boythorn. \"By\nheaven, he is the proudest fellow breathing. It is morally impossible\nthat his name can be Sir Leicester. It must be Sir Lucifer.\"\n\n\"Complimentary to our distant relation!\" said my guardian laughingly\nto Ada and Richard.\n\n\"I would beg Miss Clare's pardon and Mr. Carstone's pardon,\" resumed\nour visitor, \"if I were not reassured by seeing in the fair face of\nthe lady and the smile of the gentleman that it is quite unnecessary\nand that they keep their distant relation at a comfortable distance.\"\n\n\"Or he keeps us,\" suggested Richard.\n\n\"By my soul,\" exclaimed Mr. Boythorn, suddenly firing another volley,\n\"that fellow is, and his father was, and his grandfather was, the\nmost stiff-necked, arrogant imbecile, pig-headed numskull, ever, by\nsome inexplicable mistake of Nature, born in any station of life but\na walking-stick's! The whole of that family are the most solemnly\nconceited and consummate blockheads! But it's no matter; he should\nnot shut up my path if he were fifty baronets melted into one and\nliving in a hundred Chesney Wolds, one within another, like the ivory\nballs in a Chinese carving. The fellow, by his agent, or secretary,\nor somebody, writes to me 'Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, presents\nhis compliments to Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, and has to call his\nattention to the fact that the green pathway by the old\nparsonage-house, now the property of Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, is Sir\nLeicester's right of way, being in fact a portion of the park of\nChesney Wold, and that Sir Leicester finds it convenient to close up\nthe same.' I write to the fellow, 'Mr. Lawrence Boythorn presents his\ncompliments to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and has to call HIS\nattention to the fact that he totally denies the whole of Sir\nLeicester Dedlock's positions on every possible subject and has to\nadd, in reference to closing up the pathway, that he will be glad to\nsee the man who may undertake to do it.' The fellow sends a most\nabandoned villain with one eye to construct a gateway. I play upon\nthat execrable scoundrel with a fire-engine until the breath is\nnearly driven out of his body. The fellow erects a gate in the night.\nI chop it down and burn it in the morning. He sends his myrmidons to\ncome over the fence and pass and repass. I catch them in humane man\ntraps, fire split peas at their legs, play upon them with the\nengine--resolve to free mankind from the insupportable burden of the\nexistence of those lurking ruffians. He brings actions for trespass;\nI bring actions for trespass. He brings actions for assault and\nbattery; I defend them and continue to assault and batter. Ha, ha,\nha!\"\n\nTo hear him say all this with unimaginable energy, one might have\nthought him the angriest of mankind. To see him at the very same\ntime, looking at the bird now perched upon his thumb and softly\nsmoothing its feathers with his forefinger, one might have thought\nhim the gentlest. To hear him laugh and see the broad good nature of\nhis face then, one might have supposed that he had not a care in the\nworld, or a dispute, or a dislike, but that his whole existence was a\nsummer joke.\n\n\"No, no,\" he said, \"no closing up of my paths by any Dedlock! Though\nI willingly confess,\" here he softened in a moment, \"that Lady\nDedlock is the most accomplished lady in the world, to whom I would\ndo any homage that a plain gentleman, and no baronet with a head\nseven hundred years thick, may. A man who joined his regiment at\ntwenty and within a week challenged the most imperious and\npresumptuous coxcomb of a commanding officer that ever drew the\nbreath of life through a tight waist--and got broke for it--is not\nthe man to be walked over by all the Sir Lucifers, dead or alive,\nlocked or unlocked. Ha, ha, ha!\"\n\n\"Nor the man to allow his junior to be walked over either?\" said my\nguardian.\n\n\"Most assuredly not!\" said Mr. Boythorn, clapping him on the shoulder\nwith an air of protection that had something serious in it, though he\nlaughed. \"He will stand by the low boy, always. Jarndyce, you may\nrely upon him! But speaking of this trespass--with apologies to Miss\nClare and Miss Summerson for the length at which I have pursued so\ndry a subject--is there nothing for me from your men Kenge and\nCarboy?\"\n\n\"I think not, Esther?\" said Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"Nothing, guardian.\"\n\n\"Much obliged!\" said Mr. Boythorn. \"Had no need to ask, after even my\nslight experience of Miss Summerson's forethought for every one about\nher.\" (They all encouraged me; they were determined to do it.) \"I\ninquired because, coming from Lincolnshire, I of course have not yet\nbeen in town, and I thought some letters might have been sent down\nhere. I dare say they will report progress to-morrow morning.\"\n\nI saw him so often in the course of the evening, which passed very\npleasantly, contemplate Richard and Ada with an interest and a\nsatisfaction that made his fine face remarkably agreeable as he sat\nat a little distance from the piano listening to the music--and he\nhad small occasion to tell us that he was passionately fond of music,\nfor his face showed it--that I asked my guardian as we sat at the\nbackgammon board whether Mr. Boythorn had ever been married.\n\n\"No,\" said he. \"No.\"\n\n\"But he meant to be!\" said I.\n\n\"How did you find out that?\" he returned with a smile. \"Why,\nguardian,\" I explained, not without reddening a little at hazarding\nwhat was in my thoughts, \"there is something so tender in his manner,\nafter all, and he is so very courtly and gentle to us, and--\"\n\nMr. Jarndyce directed his eyes to where he was sitting as I have just\ndescribed him.\n\nI said no more.\n\n\"You are right, little woman,\" he answered. \"He was all but married\nonce. Long ago. And once.\"\n\n\"Did the lady die?\"\n\n\"No--but she died to him. That time has had its influence on all his\nlater life. Would you suppose him to have a head and a heart full of\nromance yet?\"\n\n\"I think, guardian, I might have supposed so. But it is easy to say\nthat when you have told me so.\"\n\n\"He has never since been what he might have been,\" said Mr. Jarndyce,\n\"and now you see him in his age with no one near him but his servant\nand his little yellow friend. It's your throw, my dear!\"\n\nI felt, from my guardian's manner, that beyond this point I could not\npursue the subject without changing the wind. I therefore forbore to\nask any further questions. I was interested, but not curious. I\nthought a little while about this old love story in the night, when I\nwas awakened by Mr. Boythorn's lusty snoring; and I tried to do that\nvery difficult thing, imagine old people young again and invested\nwith the graces of youth. But I fell asleep before I had succeeded,\nand dreamed of the days when I lived in my godmother's house. I am\nnot sufficiently acquainted with such subjects to know whether it is\nat all remarkable that I almost always dreamed of that period of my\nlife.\n\nWith the morning there came a letter from Messrs. Kenge and Carboy to\nMr. Boythorn informing him that one of their clerks would wait upon\nhim at noon. As it was the day of the week on which I paid the bills,\nand added up my books, and made all the household affairs as compact\nas possible, I remained at home while Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and Richard\ntook advantage of a very fine day to make a little excursion, Mr.\nBoythorn was to wait for Kenge and Carboy's clerk and then was to go\non foot to meet them on their return.\n\nWell! I was full of business, examining tradesmen's books, adding up\ncolumns, paying money, filing receipts, and I dare say making a great\nbustle about it when Mr. Guppy was announced and shown in. I had had\nsome idea that the clerk who was to be sent down might be the young\ngentleman who had met me at the coach-office, and I was glad to see\nhim, because he was associated with my present happiness.\n\nI scarcely knew him again, he was so uncommonly smart. He had an\nentirely new suit of glossy clothes on, a shining hat, lilac-kid\ngloves, a neckerchief of a variety of colours, a large hot-house\nflower in his button-hole, and a thick gold ring on his little\nfinger. Besides which, he quite scented the dining-room with\nbear's-grease and other perfumery. He looked at me with an attention\nthat quite confused me when I begged him to take a seat until the\nservant should return; and as he sat there crossing and uncrossing\nhis legs in a corner, and I asked him if he had had a pleasant ride,\nand hoped that Mr. Kenge was well, I never looked at him, but I found\nhim looking at me in the same scrutinizing and curious way.\n\nWhen the request was brought to him that he would go upstairs to Mr.\nBoythorn's room, I mentioned that he would find lunch prepared for\nhim when he came down, of which Mr. Jarndyce hoped he would partake.\nHe said with some embarrassment, holding the handle of the door,\n\"Shall I have the honour of finding you here, miss?\" I replied yes, I\nshould be there; and he went out with a bow and another look.\n\nI thought him only awkward and shy, for he was evidently much\nembarrassed; and I fancied that the best thing I could do would be to\nwait until I saw that he had everything he wanted and then to leave\nhim to himself. The lunch was soon brought, but it remained for some\ntime on the table. The interview with Mr. Boythorn was a long one,\nand a stormy one too, I should think, for although his room was at\nsome distance I heard his loud voice rising every now and then like a\nhigh wind, and evidently blowing perfect broadsides of denunciation.\n\nAt last Mr. Guppy came back, looking something the worse for the\nconference. \"My eye, miss,\" he said in a low voice, \"he's a Tartar!\"\n\n\"Pray take some refreshment, sir,\" said I.\n\nMr. Guppy sat down at the table and began nervously sharpening the\ncarving-knife on the carving-fork, still looking at me (as I felt\nquite sure without looking at him) in the same unusual manner. The\nsharpening lasted so long that at last I felt a kind of obligation on\nme to raise my eyes in order that I might break the spell under which\nhe seemed to labour, of not being able to leave off.\n\nHe immediately looked at the dish and began to carve.\n\n\"What will you take yourself, miss? You'll take a morsel of\nsomething?\"\n\n\"No, thank you,\" said I.\n\n\"Shan't I give you a piece of anything at all, miss?\" said Mr. Guppy,\nhurriedly drinking off a glass of wine.\n\n\"Nothing, thank you,\" said I. \"I have only waited to see that you\nhave everything you want. Is there anything I can order for you?\"\n\n\"No, I am much obliged to you, miss, I'm sure. I've everything that I\ncan require to make me comfortable--at least I--not comfortable--I'm\nnever that.\" He drank off two more glasses of wine, one after\nanother.\n\nI thought I had better go.\n\n\"I beg your pardon, miss!\" said Mr. Guppy, rising when he saw me\nrise. \"But would you allow me the favour of a minute's private\nconversation?\"\n\nNot knowing what to say, I sat down again.\n\n\"What follows is without prejudice, miss?\" said Mr. Guppy, anxiously\nbringing a chair towards my table.\n\n\"I don't understand what you mean,\" said I, wondering.\n\n\"It's one of our law terms, miss. You won't make any use of it to my\ndetriment at Kenge and Carboy's or elsewhere. If our conversation\nshouldn't lead to anything, I am to be as I was and am not to be\nprejudiced in my situation or worldly prospects. In short, it's in\ntotal confidence.\"\n\n\"I am at a loss, sir,\" said I, \"to imagine what you can have to\ncommunicate in total confidence to me, whom you have never seen but\nonce; but I should be very sorry to do you any injury.\"\n\n\"Thank you, miss. I'm sure of it--that's quite sufficient.\" All this\ntime Mr. Guppy was either planing his forehead with his handkerchief\nor tightly rubbing the palm of his left hand with the palm of his\nright. \"If you would excuse my taking another glass of wine, miss, I\nthink it might assist me in getting on without a continual choke that\ncannot fail to be mutually unpleasant.\"\n\nHe did so, and came back again. I took the opportunity of moving well\nbehind my table.\n\n\"You wouldn't allow me to offer you one, would you miss?\" said Mr.\nGuppy, apparently refreshed.\n\n\"Not any,\" said I.\n\n\"Not half a glass?\" said Mr. Guppy. \"Quarter? No! Then, to proceed.\nMy present salary, Miss Summerson, at Kenge and Carboy's, is two\npound a week. When I first had the happiness of looking upon you, it\nwas one fifteen, and had stood at that figure for a lengthened\nperiod. A rise of five has since taken place, and a further rise of\nfive is guaranteed at the expiration of a term not exceeding twelve\nmonths from the present date. My mother has a little property, which\ntakes the form of a small life annuity, upon which she lives in an\nindependent though unassuming manner in the Old Street Road. She is\neminently calculated for a mother-in-law. She never interferes, is\nall for peace, and her disposition easy. She has her failings--as who\nhas not?--but I never knew her do it when company was present, at\nwhich time you may freely trust her with wines, spirits, or malt\nliquors. My own abode is lodgings at Penton Place, Pentonville. It is\nlowly, but airy, open at the back, and considered one of the\n'ealthiest outlets. Miss Summerson! In the mildest language, I adore\nyou. Would you be so kind as to allow me (as I may say) to file a\ndeclaration--to make an offer!\"\n\nMr. Guppy went down on his knees. I was well behind my table and not\nmuch frightened. I said, \"Get up from that ridiculous position\nimmediately, sir, or you will oblige me to break my implied promise\nand ring the bell!\"\n\n\"Hear me out, miss!\" said Mr. Guppy, folding his hands.\n\n\"I cannot consent to hear another word, sir,\" I returned, \"Unless you\nget up from the carpet directly and go and sit down at the table as\nyou ought to do if you have any sense at all.\"\n\nHe looked piteously, but slowly rose and did so.\n\n\"Yet what a mockery it is, miss,\" he said with his hand upon his\nheart and shaking his head at me in a melancholy manner over the\ntray, \"to be stationed behind food at such a moment. The soul recoils\nfrom food at such a moment, miss.\"\n\n\"I beg you to conclude,\" said I; \"you have asked me to hear you out,\nand I beg you to conclude.\"\n\n\"I will, miss,\" said Mr. Guppy. \"As I love and honour, so likewise I\nobey. Would that I could make thee the subject of that vow before the\nshrine!\"\n\n\"That is quite impossible,\" said I, \"and entirely out of the\nquestion.\"\n\n\"I am aware,\" said Mr. Guppy, leaning forward over the tray and\nregarding me, as I again strangely felt, though my eyes were not\ndirected to him, with his late intent look, \"I am aware that in a\nworldly point of view, according to all appearances, my offer is a\npoor one. But, Miss Summerson! Angel! No, don't ring--I have been\nbrought up in a sharp school and am accustomed to a variety of\ngeneral practice. Though a young man, I have ferreted out evidence,\ngot up cases, and seen lots of life. Blest with your hand, what means\nmight I not find of advancing your interests and pushing your\nfortunes! What might I not get to know, nearly concerning you? I know\nnothing now, certainly; but what MIGHT I not if I had your\nconfidence, and you set me on?\"\n\nI told him that he addressed my interest or what he supposed to be my\ninterest quite as unsuccessfully as he addressed my inclination, and\nhe would now understand that I requested him, if he pleased, to go\naway immediately.\n\n\"Cruel miss,\" said Mr. Guppy, \"hear but another word! I think you\nmust have seen that I was struck with those charms on the day when I\nwaited at the Whytorseller. I think you must have remarked that I\ncould not forbear a tribute to those charms when I put up the steps\nof the 'ackney-coach. It was a feeble tribute to thee, but it was\nwell meant. Thy image has ever since been fixed in my breast. I have\nwalked up and down of an evening opposite Jellyby's house only to\nlook upon the bricks that once contained thee. This out of to-day,\nquite an unnecessary out so far as the attendance, which was its\npretended object, went, was planned by me alone for thee alone. If I\nspeak of interest, it is only to recommend myself and my respectful\nwretchedness. Love was before it, and is before it.\"\n\n\"I should be pained, Mr. Guppy,\" said I, rising and putting my hand\nupon the bell-rope, \"to do you or any one who was sincere the\ninjustice of slighting any honest feeling, however disagreeably\nexpressed. If you have really meant to give me a proof of your good\nopinion, though ill-timed and misplaced, I feel that I ought to thank\nyou. I have very little reason to be proud, and I am not proud. I\nhope,\" I think I added, without very well knowing what I said, \"that\nyou will now go away as if you had never been so exceedingly foolish\nand attend to Messrs. Kenge and Carboy's business.\"\n\n\"Half a minute, miss!\" cried Mr. Guppy, checking me as I was about to\nring. \"This has been without prejudice?\"\n\n\"I will never mention it,\" said I, \"unless you should give me future\noccasion to do so.\"\n\n\"A quarter of a minute, miss! In case you should think better at any\ntime, however distant--THAT'S no consequence, for my feelings can\nnever alter--of anything I have said, particularly what might I not\ndo, Mr. William Guppy, eighty-seven, Penton Place, or if removed, or\ndead (of blighted hopes or anything of that sort), care of Mrs.\nGuppy, three hundred and two, Old Street Road, will be sufficient.\"\n\nI rang the bell, the servant came, and Mr. Guppy, laying his written\ncard upon the table and making a dejected bow, departed. Raising my\neyes as he went out, I once more saw him looking at me after he had\npassed the door.\n\nI sat there for another hour or more, finishing my books and payments\nand getting through plenty of business. Then I arranged my desk, and\nput everything away, and was so composed and cheerful that I thought\nI had quite dismissed this unexpected incident. But, when I went\nupstairs to my own room, I surprised myself by beginning to laugh\nabout it and then surprised myself still more by beginning to cry\nabout it. In short, I was in a flutter for a little while and felt as\nif an old chord had been more coarsely touched than it ever had been\nsince the days of the dear old doll, long buried in the garden.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nThe Law-Writer\n\n\nOn the eastern borders of Chancery Lane, that is to say, more\nparticularly in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, Mr. Snagsby,\nlaw-stationer, pursues his lawful calling. In the shade of Cook's\nCourt, at most times a shady place, Mr. Snagsby has dealt in\nall sorts of blank forms of legal process; in skins and rolls\nof parchment; in paper--foolscap, brief, draft, brown, white,\nwhitey-brown, and blotting; in stamps; in office-quills, pens,\nink, India-rubber, pounce, pins, pencils, sealing-wax, and\nwafers; in red tape and green ferret; in pocket-books, almanacs,\ndiaries, and law lists; in string boxes, rulers, inkstands--glass\nand leaden--pen-knives, scissors, bodkins, and other small\noffice-cutlery; in short, in articles too numerous to mention, ever\nsince he was out of his time and went into partnership with Peffer.\nOn that occasion, Cook's Court was in a manner revolutionized by the\nnew inscription in fresh paint, PEFFER AND SNAGSBY, displacing the\ntime-honoured and not easily to be deciphered legend PEFFER only. For\nsmoke, which is the London ivy, had so wreathed itself round Peffer's\nname and clung to his dwelling-place that the affectionate parasite\nquite overpowered the parent tree.\n\nPeffer is never seen in Cook's Court now. He is not expected there,\nfor he has been recumbent this quarter of a century in the churchyard\nof St. Andrews, Holborn, with the waggons and hackney-coaches roaring\npast him all the day and half the night like one great dragon. If he\never steal forth when the dragon is at rest to air himself again in\nCook's Court until admonished to return by the crowing of the\nsanguine cock in the cellar at the little dairy in Cursitor Street,\nwhose ideas of daylight it would be curious to ascertain, since he\nknows from his personal observation next to nothing about it--if\nPeffer ever do revisit the pale glimpses of Cook's Court, which no\nlaw-stationer in the trade can positively deny, he comes invisibly,\nand no one is the worse or wiser.\n\nIn his lifetime, and likewise in the period of Snagsby's \"time\"\nof seven long years, there dwelt with Peffer in the same\nlaw-stationering premises a niece--a short, shrewd niece, something\ntoo violently compressed about the waist, and with a sharp nose like\na sharp autumn evening, inclining to be frosty towards the end. The\nCook's Courtiers had a rumour flying among them that the mother of\nthis niece did, in her daughter's childhood, moved by too jealous a\nsolicitude that her figure should approach perfection, lace her\nup every morning with her maternal foot against the bed-post for\na stronger hold and purchase; and further, that she exhibited\ninternally pints of vinegar and lemon-juice, which acids, they held,\nhad mounted to the nose and temper of the patient. With whichsoever\nof the many tongues of Rumour this frothy report originated, it\neither never reached or never influenced the ears of young Snagsby,\nwho, having wooed and won its fair subject on his arrival at man's\nestate, entered into two partnerships at once. So now, in Cook's\nCourt, Cursitor Street, Mr. Snagsby and the niece are one; and the\nniece still cherishes her figure, which, however tastes may differ,\nis unquestionably so far precious that there is mighty little of it.\n\nMr. and Mrs. Snagsby are not only one bone and one flesh, but, to the\nneighbours' thinking, one voice too. That voice, appearing to proceed\nfrom Mrs. Snagsby alone, is heard in Cook's Court very often. Mr.\nSnagsby, otherwise than as he finds expression through these dulcet\ntones, is rarely heard. He is a mild, bald, timid man with a shining\nhead and a scrubby clump of black hair sticking out at the back. He\ntends to meekness and obesity. As he stands at his door in Cook's\nCourt in his grey shop-coat and black calico sleeves, looking up at\nthe clouds, or stands behind a desk in his dark shop with a heavy\nflat ruler, snipping and slicing at sheepskin in company with his two\n'prentices, he is emphatically a retiring and unassuming man. From\nbeneath his feet, at such times, as from a shrill ghost unquiet in\nits grave, there frequently arise complainings and lamentations in\nthe voice already mentioned; and haply, on some occasions when these\nreach a sharper pitch than usual, Mr. Snagsby mentions to the\n'prentices, \"I think my little woman is a-giving it to Guster!\"\n\nThis proper name, so used by Mr. Snagsby, has before now sharpened\nthe wit of the Cook's Courtiers to remark that it ought to be the\nname of Mrs. Snagsby, seeing that she might with great force and\nexpression be termed a Guster, in compliment to her stormy character.\nIt is, however, the possession, and the only possession except fifty\nshillings per annum and a very small box indifferently filled with\nclothing, of a lean young woman from a workhouse (by some supposed to\nhave been christened Augusta) who, although she was farmed or\ncontracted for during her growing time by an amiable benefactor of\nhis species resident at Tooting, and cannot fail to have been\ndeveloped under the most favourable circumstances, \"has fits,\" which\nthe parish can't account for.\n\nGuster, really aged three or four and twenty, but looking a round ten\nyears older, goes cheap with this unaccountable drawback of fits, and\nis so apprehensive of being returned on the hands of her patron saint\nthat except when she is found with her head in the pail, or the sink,\nor the copper, or the dinner, or anything else that happens to be\nnear her at the time of her seizure, she is always at work. She is a\nsatisfaction to the parents and guardians of the 'prentices, who feel\nthat there is little danger of her inspiring tender emotions in the\nbreast of youth; she is a satisfaction to Mrs. Snagsby, who can\nalways find fault with her; she is a satisfaction to Mr. Snagsby, who\nthinks it a charity to keep her. The law-stationer's establishment\nis, in Guster's eyes, a temple of plenty and splendour. She believes\nthe little drawing-room upstairs, always kept, as one may say, with\nits hair in papers and its pinafore on, to be the most elegant\napartment in Christendom. The view it commands of Cook's Court at one\nend (not to mention a squint into Cursitor Street) and of Coavinses'\nthe sheriff's officer's backyard at the other she regards as a\nprospect of unequalled beauty. The portraits it displays in oil--and\nplenty of it too--of Mr. Snagsby looking at Mrs. Snagsby and of Mrs.\nSnagsby looking at Mr. Snagsby are in her eyes as achievements of\nRaphael or Titian. Guster has some recompenses for her many\nprivations.\n\nMr. Snagsby refers everything not in the practical mysteries of the\nbusiness to Mrs. Snagsby. She manages the money, reproaches the\ntax-gatherers, appoints the times and places of devotion on Sundays,\nlicenses Mr. Snagsby's entertainments, and acknowledges no\nresponsibility as to what she thinks fit to provide for dinner,\ninsomuch that she is the high standard of comparison among the\nneighbouring wives a long way down Chancery Lane on both sides, and\neven out in Holborn, who in any domestic passages of arms habitually\ncall upon their husbands to look at the difference between their (the\nwives') position and Mrs. Snagsby's, and their (the husbands')\nbehaviour and Mr. Snagsby's. Rumour, always flying bat-like about\nCook's Court and skimming in and out at everybody's windows, does say\nthat Mrs. Snagsby is jealous and inquisitive and that Mr. Snagsby is\nsometimes worried out of house and home, and that if he had the\nspirit of a mouse he wouldn't stand it. It is even observed that the\nwives who quote him to their self-willed husbands as a shining\nexample in reality look down upon him and that nobody does so with\ngreater superciliousness than one particular lady whose lord is more\nthan suspected of laying his umbrella on her as an instrument of\ncorrection. But these vague whisperings may arise from Mr. Snagsby's\nbeing in his way rather a meditative and poetical man, loving to walk\nin Staple Inn in the summer-time and to observe how countrified the\nsparrows and the leaves are, also to lounge about the Rolls Yard of a\nSunday afternoon and to remark (if in good spirits) that there were\nold times once and that you'd find a stone coffin or two now under\nthat chapel, he'll be bound, if you was to dig for it. He solaces his\nimagination, too, by thinking of the many Chancellors and Vices, and\nMasters of the Rolls who are deceased; and he gets such a flavour of\nthe country out of telling the two 'prentices how he HAS heard say\nthat a brook \"as clear as crystal\" once ran right down the middle of\nHolborn, when Turnstile really was a turnstile, leading slap away\ninto the meadows--gets such a flavour of the country out of this that\nhe never wants to go there.\n\nThe day is closing in and the gas is lighted, but is not yet fully\neffective, for it is not quite dark. Mr. Snagsby standing at his\nshop-door looking up at the clouds sees a crow who is out late skim\nwestward over the slice of sky belonging to Cook's Court. The crow\nflies straight across Chancery Lane and Lincoln's Inn Garden into\nLincoln's Inn Fields.\n\nHere, in a large house, formerly a house of state, lives Mr.\nTulkinghorn. It is let off in sets of chambers now, and in those\nshrunken fragments of its greatness, lawyers lie like maggots in\nnuts. But its roomy staircases, passages, and antechambers still\nremain; and even its painted ceilings, where Allegory, in Roman\nhelmet and celestial linen, sprawls among balustrades and pillars,\nflowers, clouds, and big-legged boys, and makes the head ache--as\nwould seem to be Allegory's object always, more or less. Here, among\nhis many boxes labelled with transcendent names, lives Mr.\nTulkinghorn, when not speechlessly at home in country-houses where\nthe great ones of the earth are bored to death. Here he is to-day,\nquiet at his table. An oyster of the old school whom nobody can open.\n\nLike as he is to look at, so is his apartment in the dusk of\nthe present afternoon. Rusty, out of date, withdrawing from\nattention, able to afford it. Heavy, broad-backed, old-fashioned,\nmahogany-and-horsehair chairs, not easily lifted; obsolete tables\nwith spindle-legs and dusty baize covers; presentation prints of the\nholders of great titles in the last generation or the last but one,\nenviron him. A thick and dingy Turkey-carpet muffles the floor where\nhe sits, attended by two candles in old-fashioned silver candlesticks\nthat give a very insufficient light to his large room. The titles on\nthe backs of his books have retired into the binding; everything that\ncan have a lock has got one; no key is visible. Very few loose papers\nare about. He has some manuscript near him, but is not referring\nto it. With the round top of an inkstand and two broken bits of\nsealing-wax he is silently and slowly working out whatever train of\nindecision is in his mind. Now the inkstand top is in the middle, now\nthe red bit of sealing-wax, now the black bit. That's not it. Mr.\nTulkinghorn must gather them all up and begin again.\n\nHere, beneath the painted ceiling, with foreshortened Allegory\nstaring down at his intrusion as if it meant to swoop upon him, and\nhe cutting it dead, Mr. Tulkinghorn has at once his house and office.\nHe keeps no staff, only one middle-aged man, usually a little out at\nelbows, who sits in a high pew in the hall and is rarely overburdened\nwith business. Mr. Tulkinghorn is not in a common way. He wants no\nclerks. He is a great reservoir of confidences, not to be so tapped.\nHis clients want HIM; he is all in all. Drafts that he requires to be\ndrawn are drawn by special-pleaders in the temple on mysterious\ninstructions; fair copies that he requires to be made are made at the\nstationers', expense being no consideration. The middle-aged man in\nthe pew knows scarcely more of the affairs of the peerage than any\ncrossing-sweeper in Holborn.\n\nThe red bit, the black bit, the inkstand top, the other inkstand top,\nthe little sand-box. So! You to the middle, you to the right, you to\nthe left. This train of indecision must surely be worked out now or\nnever. Now! Mr. Tulkinghorn gets up, adjusts his spectacles, puts on\nhis hat, puts the manuscript in his pocket, goes out, tells the\nmiddle-aged man out at elbows, \"I shall be back presently.\" Very\nrarely tells him anything more explicit.\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn goes, as the crow came--not quite so straight, but\nnearly--to Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. To Snagsby's,\nLaw-Stationer's, Deeds engrossed and copied, Law-Writing executed in\nall its branches, &c., &c., &c.\n\nIt is somewhere about five or six o'clock in the afternoon, and a\nbalmy fragrance of warm tea hovers in Cook's Court. It hovers about\nSnagsby's door. The hours are early there: dinner at half-past one\nand supper at half-past nine. Mr. Snagsby was about to descend into\nthe subterranean regions to take tea when he looked out of his door\njust now and saw the crow who was out late.\n\n\"Master at home?\"\n\nGuster is minding the shop, for the 'prentices take tea in the\nkitchen with Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby; consequently, the robe-maker's two\ndaughters, combing their curls at the two glasses in the two\nsecond-floor windows of the opposite house, are not driving the two\n'prentices to distraction as they fondly suppose, but are merely\nawakening the unprofitable admiration of Guster, whose hair won't\ngrow, and never would, and it is confidently thought, never will.\n\n\"Master at home?\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn.\n\nMaster is at home, and Guster will fetch him. Guster disappears, glad\nto get out of the shop, which she regards with mingled dread and\nveneration as a storehouse of awful implements of the great torture\nof the law--a place not to be entered after the gas is turned off.\n\nMr. Snagsby appears, greasy, warm, herbaceous, and chewing. Bolts a\nbit of bread and butter. Says, \"Bless my soul, sir! Mr. Tulkinghorn!\"\n\n\"I want half a word with you, Snagsby.\"\n\n\"Certainly, sir! Dear me, sir, why didn't you send your young man\nround for me? Pray walk into the back shop, sir.\" Snagsby has\nbrightened in a moment.\n\nThe confined room, strong of parchment-grease, is warehouse,\ncounting-house, and copying-office. Mr. Tulkinghorn sits, facing\nround, on a stool at the desk.\n\n\"Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Snagsby.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\" Mr. Snagsby turns up the gas and coughs behind his hand,\nmodestly anticipating profit. Mr. Snagsby, as a timid man, is\naccustomed to cough with a variety of expressions, and so to save\nwords.\n\n\"You copied some affidavits in that cause for me lately.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, we did.\"\n\n\"There was one of them,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, carelessly\nfeeling--tight, unopenable oyster of the old school!--in the wrong\ncoat-pocket, \"the handwriting of which is peculiar, and I rather\nlike. As I happened to be passing, and thought I had it about me, I\nlooked in to ask you--but I haven't got it. No matter, any other time\nwill do. Ah! here it is! I looked in to ask you who copied this.\"\n\n\"Who copied this, sir?\" says Mr. Snagsby, taking it, laying it flat\non the desk, and separating all the sheets at once with a twirl and a\ntwist of the left hand peculiar to lawstationers. \"We gave this out,\nsir. We were giving out rather a large quantity of work just at that\ntime. I can tell you in a moment who copied it, sir, by referring to\nmy book.\"\n\nMr. Snagsby takes his book down from the safe, makes another bolt of\nthe bit of bread and butter which seemed to have stopped short, eyes\nthe affidavit aside, and brings his right forefinger travelling down\na page of the book, \"Jewby--Packer--Jarndyce.\"\n\n\"Jarndyce! Here we are, sir,\" says Mr. Snagsby. \"To be sure! I might\nhave remembered it. This was given out, sir, to a writer who lodges\njust over on the opposite side of the lane.\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn has seen the entry, found it before the\nlaw-stationer, read it while the forefinger was coming down the hill.\n\n\"WHAT do you call him? Nemo?\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"Nemo, sir. Here\nit is. Forty-two folio. Given out on the Wednesday night at eight\no'clock, brought in on the Thursday morning at half after nine.\"\n\n\"Nemo!\" repeats Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"Nemo is Latin for no one.\"\n\n\"It must be English for some one, sir, I think,\" Mr. Snagsby submits\nwith his deferential cough. \"It is a person's name. Here it is, you\nsee, sir! Forty-two folio. Given out Wednesday night, eight o'clock;\nbrought in Thursday morning, half after nine.\"\n\nThe tail of Mr. Snagsby's eye becomes conscious of the head of Mrs.\nSnagsby looking in at the shop-door to know what he means by\ndeserting his tea. Mr. Snagsby addresses an explanatory cough to Mrs.\nSnagsby, as who should say, \"My dear, a customer!\"\n\n\"Half after nine, sir,\" repeats Mr. Snagsby. \"Our law-writers, who\nlive by job-work, are a queer lot; and this may not be his name, but\nit's the name he goes by. I remember now, sir, that he gives it in a\nwritten advertisement he sticks up down at the Rule Office, and the\nKing's Bench Office, and the Judges' Chambers, and so forth. You know\nthe kind of document, sir--wanting employ?\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn glances through the little window at the back of\nCoavinses', the sheriff's officer's, where lights shine in Coavinses'\nwindows. Coavinses' coffee-room is at the back, and the shadows of\nseveral gentlemen under a cloud loom cloudily upon the blinds. Mr.\nSnagsby takes the opportunity of slightly turning his head to glance\nover his shoulder at his little woman and to make apologetic motions\nwith his mouth to this effect: \"Tul-king-horn--rich--in-flu-en-tial!\"\n\n\"Have you given this man work before?\" asks Mr. Tulkinghorn.\n\n\"Oh, dear, yes, sir! Work of yours.\"\n\n\"Thinking of more important matters, I forget where you said he\nlived?\"\n\n\"Across the lane, sir. In fact, he lodges at a--\" Mr. Snagsby makes\nanother bolt, as if the bit of bread and butter were insurmountable\n\"--at a rag and bottle shop.\"\n\n\"Can you show me the place as I go back?\"\n\n\"With the greatest pleasure, sir!\"\n\nMr. Snagsby pulls off his sleeves and his grey coat, pulls on his\nblack coat, takes his hat from its peg. \"Oh! Here is my little\nwoman!\" he says aloud. \"My dear, will you be so kind as to tell one\nof the lads to look after the shop while I step across the lane with\nMr. Tulkinghorn? Mrs. Snagsby, sir--I shan't be two minutes, my\nlove!\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby bends to the lawyer, retires behind the counter, peeps\nat them through the window-blind, goes softly into the back office,\nrefers to the entries in the book still lying open. Is evidently\ncurious.\n\n\"You will find that the place is rough, sir,\" says Mr. Snagsby,\nwalking deferentially in the road and leaving the narrow pavement to\nthe lawyer; \"and the party is very rough. But they're a wild lot in\ngeneral, sir. The advantage of this particular man is that he never\nwants sleep. He'll go at it right on end if you want him to, as long\nas ever you like.\"\n\nIt is quite dark now, and the gas-lamps have acquired their full\neffect. Jostling against clerks going to post the day's letters, and\nagainst counsel and attorneys going home to dinner, and against\nplaintiffs and defendants and suitors of all sorts, and against the\ngeneral crowd, in whose way the forensic wisdom of ages has\ninterposed a million of obstacles to the transaction of the commonest\nbusiness of life; diving through law and equity, and through that\nkindred mystery, the street mud, which is made of nobody knows what\nand collects about us nobody knows whence or how--we only knowing in\ngeneral that when there is too much of it we find it necessary to\nshovel it away--the lawyer and the law-stationer come to a rag and\nbottle shop and general emporium of much disregarded merchandise,\nlying and being in the shadow of the wall of Lincoln's Inn, and kept,\nas is announced in paint, to all whom it may concern, by one Krook.\n\n\"This is where he lives, sir,\" says the law-stationer.\n\n\"This is where he lives, is it?\" says the lawyer unconcernedly.\n\"Thank you.\"\n\n\"Are you not going in, sir?\"\n\n\"No, thank you, no; I am going on to the Fields at present. Good\nevening. Thank you!\" Mr. Snagsby lifts his hat and returns to his\nlittle woman and his tea.\n\nBut Mr. Tulkinghorn does not go on to the Fields at present. He goes\na short way, turns back, comes again to the shop of Mr. Krook, and\nenters it straight. It is dim enough, with a blot-headed candle or so\nin the windows, and an old man and a cat sitting in the back part by\na fire. The old man rises and comes forward, with another blot-headed\ncandle in his hand.\n\n\"Pray is your lodger within?\"\n\n\"Male or female, sir?\" says Mr. Krook.\n\n\"Male. The person who does copying.\"\n\nMr. Krook has eyed his man narrowly. Knows him by sight. Has an\nindistinct impression of his aristocratic repute.\n\n\"Did you wish to see him, sir?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"It's what I seldom do myself,\" says Mr. Krook with a grin. \"Shall I\ncall him down? But it's a weak chance if he'd come, sir!\"\n\n\"I'll go up to him, then,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn.\n\n\"Second floor, sir. Take the candle. Up there!\" Mr. Krook, with his\ncat beside him, stands at the bottom of the staircase, looking after\nMr. Tulkinghorn. \"Hi-hi!\" he says when Mr. Tulkinghorn has nearly\ndisappeared. The lawyer looks down over the hand-rail. The cat\nexpands her wicked mouth and snarls at him.\n\n\"Order, Lady Jane! Behave yourself to visitors, my lady! You know\nwhat they say of my lodger?\" whispers Krook, going up a step or two.\n\n\"What do they say of him?\"\n\n\"They say he has sold himself to the enemy, but you and I know\nbetter--he don't buy. I'll tell you what, though; my lodger is so\nblack-humoured and gloomy that I believe he'd as soon make that\nbargain as any other. Don't put him out, sir. That's my advice!\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn with a nod goes on his way. He comes to the dark door\non the second floor. He knocks, receives no answer, opens it, and\naccidentally extinguishes his candle in doing so.\n\nThe air of the room is almost bad enough to have extinguished it if\nhe had not. It is a small room, nearly black with soot, and grease,\nand dirt. In the rusty skeleton of a grate, pinched at the middle as\nif poverty had gripped it, a red coke fire burns low. In the corner\nby the chimney stand a deal table and a broken desk, a wilderness\nmarked with a rain of ink. In another corner a ragged old portmanteau\non one of the two chairs serves for cabinet or wardrobe; no larger\none is needed, for it collapses like the cheeks of a starved man. The\nfloor is bare, except that one old mat, trodden to shreds of\nrope-yarn, lies perishing upon the hearth. No curtain veils the\ndarkness of the night, but the discoloured shutters are drawn\ntogether, and through the two gaunt holes pierced in them, famine\nmight be staring in--the banshee of the man upon the bed.\n\nFor, on a low bed opposite the fire, a confusion of dirty patchwork,\nlean-ribbed ticking, and coarse sacking, the lawyer, hesitating just\nwithin the doorway, sees a man. He lies there, dressed in shirt and\ntrousers, with bare feet. He has a yellow look in the spectral\ndarkness of a candle that has guttered down until the whole length of\nits wick (still burning) has doubled over and left a tower of\nwinding-sheet above it. His hair is ragged, mingling with his\nwhiskers and his beard--the latter, ragged too, and grown, like the\nscum and mist around him, in neglect. Foul and filthy as the room is,\nfoul and filthy as the air is, it is not easy to perceive what fumes\nthose are which most oppress the senses in it; but through the\ngeneral sickliness and faintness, and the odour of stale tobacco,\nthere comes into the lawyer's mouth the bitter, vapid taste of opium.\n\n\"Hallo, my friend!\" he cries, and strikes his iron candlestick\nagainst the door.\n\nHe thinks he has awakened his friend. He lies a little turned away,\nbut his eyes are surely open.\n\n\"Hallo, my friend!\" he cries again. \"Hallo! Hallo!\"\n\nAs he rattles on the door, the candle which has drooped so long goes\nout and leaves him in the dark, with the gaunt eyes in the shutters\nstaring down upon the bed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nOur Dear Brother\n\n\nA touch on the lawyer's wrinkled hand as he stands in the dark room,\nirresolute, makes him start and say, \"What's that?\"\n\n\"It's me,\" returns the old man of the house, whose breath is in his\near. \"Can't you wake him?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"What have you done with your candle?\"\n\n\"It's gone out. Here it is.\"\n\nKrook takes it, goes to the fire, stoops over the red embers, and\ntries to get a light. The dying ashes have no light to spare, and his\nendeavours are vain. Muttering, after an ineffectual call to his\nlodger, that he will go downstairs and bring a lighted candle from\nthe shop, the old man departs. Mr. Tulkinghorn, for some new reason\nthat he has, does not await his return in the room, but on the stairs\noutside.\n\nThe welcome light soon shines upon the wall, as Krook comes slowly up\nwith his green-eyed cat following at his heels. \"Does the man\ngenerally sleep like this?\" inquired the lawyer in a low voice. \"Hi!\nI don't know,\" says Krook, shaking his head and lifting his eyebrows.\n\"I know next to nothing of his habits except that he keeps himself\nvery close.\"\n\nThus whispering, they both go in together. As the light goes in, the\ngreat eyes in the shutters, darkening, seem to close. Not so the eyes\nupon the bed.\n\n\"God save us!\" exclaims Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"He is dead!\" Krook drops\nthe heavy hand he has taken up so suddenly that the arm swings over\nthe bedside.\n\nThey look at one another for a moment.\n\n\"Send for some doctor! Call for Miss Flite up the stairs, sir. Here's\npoison by the bed! Call out for Flite, will you?\" says Krook, with\nhis lean hands spread out above the body like a vampire's wings.\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn hurries to the landing and calls, \"Miss Flite! Flite!\nMake haste, here, whoever you are! Flite!\" Krook follows him with his\neyes, and while he is calling, finds opportunity to steal to the old\nportmanteau and steal back again.\n\n\"Run, Flite, run! The nearest doctor! Run!\" So Mr. Krook addresses a\ncrazy little woman who is his female lodger, who appears and vanishes\nin a breath, who soon returns accompanied by a testy medical man\nbrought from his dinner, with a broad, snuffy upper lip and a broad\nScotch tongue.\n\n\"Ey! Bless the hearts o' ye,\" says the medical man, looking up at\nthem after a moment's examination. \"He's just as dead as Phairy!\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn (standing by the old portmanteau) inquires if he has\nbeen dead any time.\n\n\"Any time, sir?\" says the medical gentleman. \"It's probable he wull\nhave been dead aboot three hours.\"\n\n\"About that time, I should say,\" observes a dark young man on the\nother side of the bed.\n\n\"Air you in the maydickle prayfession yourself, sir?\" inquires the\nfirst.\n\nThe dark young man says yes.\n\n\"Then I'll just tak' my depairture,\" replies the other, \"for I'm nae\ngude here!\" With which remark he finishes his brief attendance and\nreturns to finish his dinner.\n\nThe dark young surgeon passes the candle across and across the face\nand carefully examines the law-writer, who has established his\npretensions to his name by becoming indeed No one.\n\n\"I knew this person by sight very well,\" says he. \"He has purchased\nopium of me for the last year and a half. Was anybody present related\nto him?\" glancing round upon the three bystanders.\n\n\"I was his landlord,\" grimly answers Krook, taking the candle from\nthe surgeon's outstretched hand. \"He told me once I was the nearest\nrelation he had.\"\n\n\"He has died,\" says the surgeon, \"of an over-dose of opium, there is\nno doubt. The room is strongly flavoured with it. There is enough\nhere now,\" taking an old tea-pot from Mr. Krook, \"to kill a dozen\npeople.\"\n\n\"Do you think he did it on purpose?\" asks Krook.\n\n\"Took the over-dose?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" Krook almost smacks his lips with the unction of a horrible\ninterest.\n\n\"I can't say. I should think it unlikely, as he has been in the habit\nof taking so much. But nobody can tell. He was very poor, I suppose?\"\n\n\"I suppose he was. His room--don't look rich,\" says Krook, who might\nhave changed eyes with his cat, as he casts his sharp glance around.\n\"But I have never been in it since he had it, and he was too close to\nname his circumstances to me.\"\n\n\"Did he owe you any rent?\"\n\n\"Six weeks.\"\n\n\"He will never pay it!\" says the young man, resuming his examination.\n\"It is beyond a doubt that he is indeed as dead as Pharaoh; and to\njudge from his appearance and condition, I should think it a happy\nrelease. Yet he must have been a good figure when a youth, and I dare\nsay, good-looking.\" He says this, not unfeelingly, while sitting on\nthe bedstead's edge with his face towards that other face and his\nhand upon the region of the heart. \"I recollect once thinking there\nwas something in his manner, uncouth as it was, that denoted a fall\nin life. Was that so?\" he continues, looking round.\n\nKrook replies, \"You might as well ask me to describe the ladies whose\nheads of hair I have got in sacks downstairs. Than that he was my\nlodger for a year and a half and lived--or didn't live--by\nlaw-writing, I know no more of him.\"\n\nDuring this dialogue Mr. Tulkinghorn has stood aloof by the old\nportmanteau, with his hands behind him, equally removed, to all\nappearance, from all three kinds of interest exhibited near the\nbed--from the young surgeon's professional interest in death,\nnoticeable as being quite apart from his remarks on the deceased as\nan individual; from the old man's unction; and the little crazy\nwoman's awe. His imperturbable face has been as inexpressive as his\nrusty clothes. One could not even say he has been thinking all this\nwhile. He has shown neither patience nor impatience, nor attention\nnor abstraction. He has shown nothing but his shell. As easily might\nthe tone of a delicate musical instrument be inferred from its case,\nas the tone of Mr. Tulkinghorn from his case.\n\nHe now interposes, addressing the young surgeon in his unmoved,\nprofessional way.\n\n\"I looked in here,\" he observes, \"just before you, with the\nintention of giving this deceased man, whom I never saw alive, some\nemployment at his trade of copying. I had heard of him from my\nstationer--Snagsby of Cook's Court. Since no one here knows anything\nabout him, it might be as well to send for Snagsby. Ah!\" to the\nlittle crazy woman, who has often seen him in court, and whom he has\noften seen, and who proposes, in frightened dumb-show, to go for the\nlaw-stationer. \"Suppose you do!\"\n\nWhile she is gone, the surgeon abandons his hopeless investigation\nand covers its subject with the patchwork counterpane. Mr. Krook and\nhe interchange a word or two. Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing, but\nstands, ever, near the old portmanteau.\n\nMr. Snagsby arrives hastily in his grey coat and his black sleeves.\n\"Dear me, dear me,\" he says; \"and it has come to this, has it! Bless\nmy soul!\"\n\n\"Can you give the person of the house any information about this\nunfortunate creature, Snagsby?\" inquires Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"He was in\narrears with his rent, it seems. And he must be buried, you know.\"\n\n\"Well, sir,\" says Mr. Snagsby, coughing his apologetic cough behind\nhis hand, \"I really don't know what advice I could offer, except\nsending for the beadle.\"\n\n\"I don't speak of advice,\" returns Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"I could\nadvise--\"\n\n\"No one better, sir, I am sure,\" says Mr. Snagsby, with his\ndeferential cough.\n\n\"I speak of affording some clue to his connexions, or to where he\ncame from, or to anything concerning him.\"\n\n\"I assure you, sir,\" says Mr. Snagsby after prefacing his reply with\nhis cough of general propitiation, \"that I no more know where he came\nfrom than I know--\"\n\n\"Where he has gone to, perhaps,\" suggests the surgeon to help him\nout.\n\nA pause. Mr. Tulkinghorn looking at the law-stationer. Mr. Krook,\nwith his mouth open, looking for somebody to speak next.\n\n\"As to his connexions, sir,\" says Mr. Snagsby, \"if a person was to\nsay to me, 'Snagsby, here's twenty thousand pound down, ready for you\nin the Bank of England if you'll only name one of 'em,' I couldn't do\nit, sir! About a year and a half ago--to the best of my belief, at\nthe time when he first came to lodge at the present rag and bottle\nshop--\"\n\n\"That was the time!\" says Krook with a nod.\n\n\"About a year and a half ago,\" says Mr. Snagsby, strengthened, \"he\ncame into our place one morning after breakfast, and finding my\nlittle woman (which I name Mrs. Snagsby when I use that appellation)\nin our shop, produced a specimen of his handwriting and gave her to\nunderstand that he was in want of copying work to do and was, not to\nput too fine a point upon it,\" a favourite apology for plain speaking\nwith Mr. Snagsby, which he always offers with a sort of argumentative\nfrankness, \"hard up! My little woman is not in general partial to\nstrangers, particular--not to put too fine a point upon it--when they\nwant anything. But she was rather took by something about this\nperson, whether by his being unshaved, or by his hair being in want\nof attention, or by what other ladies' reasons, I leave you to judge;\nand she accepted of the specimen, and likewise of the address. My\nlittle woman hasn't a good ear for names,\" proceeds Mr. Snagsby after\nconsulting his cough of consideration behind his hand, \"and she\nconsidered Nemo equally the same as Nimrod. In consequence of which,\nshe got into a habit of saying to me at meals, 'Mr. Snagsby, you\nhaven't found Nimrod any work yet!' or 'Mr. Snagsby, why didn't you\ngive that eight and thirty Chancery folio in Jarndyce to Nimrod?' or\nsuch like. And that is the way he gradually fell into job-work at our\nplace; and that is the most I know of him except that he was a quick\nhand, and a hand not sparing of night-work, and that if you gave him\nout, say, five and forty folio on the Wednesday night, you would have\nit brought in on the Thursday morning. All of which--\" Mr. Snagsby\nconcludes by politely motioning with his hat towards the bed, as much\nas to add, \"I have no doubt my honourable friend would confirm if he\nwere in a condition to do it.\"\n\n\"Hadn't you better see,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn to Krook, \"whether he\nhad any papers that may enlighten you? There will be an inquest, and\nyou will be asked the question. You can read?\"\n\n\"No, I can't,\" returns the old man with a sudden grin.\n\n\"Snagsby,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, \"look over the room for him. He will\nget into some trouble or difficulty otherwise. Being here, I'll wait\nif you make haste, and then I can testify on his behalf, if it should\never be necessary, that all was fair and right. If you will hold the\ncandle for Mr. Snagsby, my friend, he'll soon see whether there is\nanything to help you.\"\n\n\"In the first place, here's an old portmanteau, sir,\" says Snagsby.\n\nAh, to be sure, so there is! Mr. Tulkinghorn does not appear to have\nseen it before, though he is standing so close to it, and though\nthere is very little else, heaven knows.\n\nThe marine-store merchant holds the light, and the law-stationer\nconducts the search. The surgeon leans against the corner of the\nchimney-piece; Miss Flite peeps and trembles just within the door.\nThe apt old scholar of the old school, with his dull black breeches\ntied with ribbons at the knees, his large black waistcoat, his\nlong-sleeved black coat, and his wisp of limp white neckerchief tied\nin the bow the peerage knows so well, stands in exactly the same\nplace and attitude.\n\nThere are some worthless articles of clothing in the old portmanteau;\nthere is a bundle of pawnbrokers' duplicates, those turnpike tickets\non the road of poverty; there is a crumpled paper, smelling of opium,\non which are scrawled rough memoranda--as, took, such a day, so many\ngrains; took, such another day, so many more--begun some time ago, as\nif with the intention of being regularly continued, but soon left\noff. There are a few dirty scraps of newspapers, all referring to\ncoroners' inquests; there is nothing else. They search the cupboard\nand the drawer of the ink-splashed table. There is not a morsel of an\nold letter or of any other writing in either. The young surgeon\nexamines the dress on the law-writer. A knife and some odd halfpence\nare all he finds. Mr. Snagsby's suggestion is the practical\nsuggestion after all, and the beadle must be called in.\n\nSo the little crazy lodger goes for the beadle, and the rest come out\nof the room. \"Don't leave the cat there!\" says the surgeon; \"that\nwon't do!\" Mr. Krook therefore drives her out before him, and she\ngoes furtively downstairs, winding her lithe tail and licking her\nlips.\n\n\"Good night!\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, and goes home to Allegory and\nmeditation.\n\nBy this time the news has got into the court. Groups of its\ninhabitants assemble to discuss the thing, and the outposts of the\narmy of observation (principally boys) are pushed forward to Mr.\nKrook's window, which they closely invest. A policeman has already\nwalked up to the room, and walked down again to the door, where he\nstands like a tower, only condescending to see the boys at his base\noccasionally; but whenever he does see them, they quail and fall\nback. Mrs. Perkins, who has not been for some weeks on speaking terms\nwith Mrs. Piper in consequence for an unpleasantness originating in\nyoung Perkins' having \"fetched\" young Piper \"a crack,\" renews her\nfriendly intercourse on this auspicious occasion. The potboy at the\ncorner, who is a privileged amateur, as possessing official knowledge\nof life and having to deal with drunken men occasionally, exchanges\nconfidential communications with the policeman and has the appearance\nof an impregnable youth, unassailable by truncheons and unconfinable\nin station-houses. People talk across the court out of window, and\nbare-headed scouts come hurrying in from Chancery Lane to know what's\nthe matter. The general feeling seems to be that it's a blessing Mr.\nKrook warn't made away with first, mingled with a little natural\ndisappointment that he was not. In the midst of this sensation, the\nbeadle arrives.\n\nThe beadle, though generally understood in the neighbourhood to be a\nridiculous institution, is not without a certain popularity for the\nmoment, if it were only as a man who is going to see the body. The\npoliceman considers him an imbecile civilian, a remnant of the\nbarbarous watchmen times, but gives him admission as something that\nmust be borne with until government shall abolish him. The sensation\nis heightened as the tidings spread from mouth to mouth that the\nbeadle is on the ground and has gone in.\n\nBy and by the beadle comes out, once more intensifying the sensation,\nwhich has rather languished in the interval. He is understood to be\nin want of witnesses for the inquest to-morrow who can tell the\ncoroner and jury anything whatever respecting the deceased. Is\nimmediately referred to innumerable people who can tell nothing\nwhatever. Is made more imbecile by being constantly informed that\nMrs. Green's son \"was a law-writer his-self and knowed him better\nthan anybody,\" which son of Mrs. Green's appears, on inquiry, to be\nat the present time aboard a vessel bound for China, three months\nout, but considered accessible by telegraph on application to the\nLords of the Admiralty. Beadle goes into various shops and parlours,\nexamining the inhabitants, always shutting the door first, and by\nexclusion, delay, and general idiotcy exasperating the public.\nPoliceman seen to smile to potboy. Public loses interest and\nundergoes reaction. Taunts the beadle in shrill youthful voices with\nhaving boiled a boy, choruses fragments of a popular song to that\neffect and importing that the boy was made into soup for the\nworkhouse. Policeman at last finds it necessary to support the law\nand seize a vocalist, who is released upon the flight of the rest on\ncondition of his getting out of this then, come, and cutting it--a\ncondition he immediately observes. So the sensation dies off for the\ntime; and the unmoved policeman (to whom a little opium, more or\nless, is nothing), with his shining hat, stiff stock, inflexible\ngreat-coat, stout belt and bracelet, and all things fitting, pursues\nhis lounging way with a heavy tread, beating the palms of his white\ngloves one against the other and stopping now and then at a\nstreet-corner to look casually about for anything between a lost\nchild and a murder.\n\nUnder cover of the night, the feeble-minded beadle comes flitting\nabout Chancery Lane with his summonses, in which every juror's name\nis wrongly spelt, and nothing rightly spelt but the beadle's own\nname, which nobody can read or wants to know. The summonses served\nand his witnesses forewarned, the beadle goes to Mr. Krook's to keep\na small appointment he has made with certain paupers, who, presently\narriving, are conducted upstairs, where they leave the great eyes in\nthe shutter something new to stare at, in that last shape which\nearthly lodgings take for No one--and for Every one.\n\nAnd all that night the coffin stands ready by the old portmanteau;\nand the lonely figure on the bed, whose path in life has lain through\nfive and forty years, lies there with no more track behind him that\nany one can trace than a deserted infant.\n\nNext day the court is all alive--is like a fair, as Mrs. Perkins,\nmore than reconciled to Mrs. Piper, says in amicable conversation\nwith that excellent woman. The coroner is to sit in the first-floor\nroom at the Sol's Arms, where the Harmonic Meetings take place twice\na week and where the chair is filled by a gentleman of professional\ncelebrity, faced by Little Swills, the comic vocalist, who hopes\n(according to the bill in the window) that his friends will rally\nround him and support first-rate talent. The Sol's Arms does a brisk\nstroke of business all the morning. Even children so require\nsustaining under the general excitement that a pieman who has\nestablished himself for the occasion at the corner of the court says\nhis brandy-balls go off like smoke. What time the beadle, hovering\nbetween the door of Mr. Krook's establishment and the door of the\nSol's Arms, shows the curiosity in his keeping to a few discreet\nspirits and accepts the compliment of a glass of ale or so in return.\n\nAt the appointed hour arrives the coroner, for whom the jurymen are\nwaiting and who is received with a salute of skittles from the good\ndry skittle-ground attached to the Sol's Arms. The coroner frequents\nmore public-houses than any man alive. The smell of sawdust, beer,\ntobacco-smoke, and spirits is inseparable in his vocation from death\nin its most awful shapes. He is conducted by the beadle and the\nlandlord to the Harmonic Meeting Room, where he puts his hat on the\npiano and takes a Windsor-chair at the head of a long table formed of\nseveral short tables put together and ornamented with glutinous rings\nin endless involutions, made by pots and glasses. As many of the jury\nas can crowd together at the table sit there. The rest get among the\nspittoons and pipes or lean against the piano. Over the coroner's\nhead is a small iron garland, the pendant handle of a bell, which\nrather gives the majesty of the court the appearance of going to be\nhanged presently.\n\nCall over and swear the jury! While the ceremony is in progress,\nsensation is created by the entrance of a chubby little man in a\nlarge shirt-collar, with a moist eye and an inflamed nose, who\nmodestly takes a position near the door as one of the general public,\nbut seems familiar with the room too. A whisper circulates that this\nis Little Swills. It is considered not unlikely that he will get up\nan imitation of the coroner and make it the principal feature of the\nHarmonic Meeting in the evening.\n\n\"Well, gentlemen--\" the coroner begins.\n\n\"Silence there, will you!\" says the beadle. Not to the coroner,\nthough it might appear so.\n\n\"Well, gentlemen,\" resumes the coroner. \"You are impanelled here to\ninquire into the death of a certain man. Evidence will be given\nbefore you as to the circumstances attending that death, and you will\ngive your verdict according to the--skittles; they must be stopped,\nyou know, beadle!--evidence, and not according to anything else. The\nfirst thing to be done is to view the body.\"\n\n\"Make way there!\" cries the beadle.\n\nSo they go out in a loose procession, something after the manner of a\nstraggling funeral, and make their inspection in Mr. Krook's back\nsecond floor, from which a few of the jurymen retire pale and\nprecipitately. The beadle is very careful that two gentlemen not very\nneat about the cuffs and buttons (for whose accommodation he has\nprovided a special little table near the coroner in the Harmonic\nMeeting Room) should see all that is to be seen. For they are the\npublic chroniclers of such inquiries by the line; and he is not\nsuperior to the universal human infirmity, but hopes to read in print\nwhat \"Mooney, the active and intelligent beadle of the district,\"\nsaid and did and even aspires to see the name of Mooney as familiarly\nand patronizingly mentioned as the name of the hangman is, according\nto the latest examples.\n\nLittle Swills is waiting for the coroner and jury on their return.\nMr. Tulkinghorn, also. Mr. Tulkinghorn is received with distinction\nand seated near the coroner between that high judicial officer, a\nbagatelle-board, and the coal-box. The inquiry proceeds. The jury\nlearn how the subject of their inquiry died, and learn no more about\nhim. \"A very eminent solicitor is in attendance, gentlemen,\" says the\ncoroner, \"who, I am informed, was accidentally present when discovery\nof the death was made, but he could only repeat the evidence you have\nalready heard from the surgeon, the landlord, the lodger, and the\nlaw-stationer, and it is not necessary to trouble him. Is anybody in\nattendance who knows anything more?\"\n\nMrs. Piper pushed forward by Mrs. Perkins. Mrs. Piper sworn.\n\nAnastasia Piper, gentlemen. Married woman. Now, Mrs. Piper, what have\nyou got to say about this?\n\nWhy, Mrs. Piper has a good deal to say, chiefly in parentheses and\nwithout punctuation, but not much to tell. Mrs. Piper lives in the\ncourt (which her husband is a cabinet-maker), and it has long been\nwell beknown among the neighbours (counting from the day next but one\nbefore the half-baptizing of Alexander James Piper aged eighteen\nmonths and four days old on accounts of not being expected to live\nsuch was the sufferings gentlemen of that child in his gums) as the\nplaintive--so Mrs. Piper insists on calling the deceased--was\nreported to have sold himself. Thinks it was the plaintive's air in\nwhich that report originatinin. See the plaintive often and\nconsidered as his air was feariocious and not to be allowed to go\nabout some children being timid (and if doubted hoping Mrs. Perkins\nmay be brought forard for she is here and will do credit to her\nhusband and herself and family). Has seen the plaintive wexed and\nworrited by the children (for children they will ever be and you\ncannot expect them specially if of playful dispositions to be\nMethoozellers which you was not yourself). On accounts of this and\nhis dark looks has often dreamed as she see him take a pick-axe from\nhis pocket and split Johnny's head (which the child knows not fear\nand has repeatually called after him close at his eels). Never\nhowever see the plaintive take a pick-axe or any other wepping far\nfrom it. Has seen him hurry away when run and called after as if not\npartial to children and never see him speak to neither child nor\ngrown person at any time (excepting the boy that sweeps the crossing\ndown the lane over the way round the corner which if he was here\nwould tell you that he has been seen a-speaking to him frequent).\n\nSays the coroner, is that boy here? Says the beadle, no, sir, he is\nnot here. Says the coroner, go and fetch him then. In the absence of\nthe active and intelligent, the coroner converses with Mr.\nTulkinghorn.\n\nOh! Here's the boy, gentlemen!\n\nHere he is, very muddy, very hoarse, very ragged. Now, boy! But stop\na minute. Caution. This boy must be put through a few preliminary\npaces.\n\nName, Jo. Nothing else that he knows on. Don't know that everybody\nhas two names. Never heerd of sich a think. Don't know that Jo is\nshort for a longer name. Thinks it long enough for HIM. HE don't find\nno fault with it. Spell it? No. HE can't spell it. No father, no\nmother, no friends. Never been to school. What's home? Knows a\nbroom's a broom, and knows it's wicked to tell a lie. Don't recollect\nwho told him about the broom or about the lie, but knows both. Can't\nexactly say what'll be done to him arter he's dead if he tells a lie\nto the gentlemen here, but believes it'll be something wery bad to\npunish him, and serve him right--and so he'll tell the truth.\n\n\"This won't do, gentlemen!\" says the coroner with a melancholy shake\nof the head.\n\n\"Don't you think you can receive his evidence, sir?\" asks an\nattentive juryman.\n\n\"Out of the question,\" says the coroner. \"You have heard the boy.\n'Can't exactly say' won't do, you know. We can't take THAT in a court\nof justice, gentlemen. It's terrible depravity. Put the boy aside.\"\n\nBoy put aside, to the great edification of the audience, especially\nof Little Swills, the comic vocalist.\n\nNow. Is there any other witness? No other witness.\n\nVery well, gentlemen! Here's a man unknown, proved to have been in\nthe habit of taking opium in large quantities for a year and a half,\nfound dead of too much opium. If you think you have any evidence to\nlead you to the conclusion that he committed suicide, you will come\nto that conclusion. If you think it is a case of accidental death,\nyou will find a verdict accordingly.\n\nVerdict accordingly. Accidental death. No doubt. Gentlemen, you are\ndischarged. Good afternoon.\n\nWhile the coroner buttons his great-coat, Mr. Tulkinghorn and he give\nprivate audience to the rejected witness in a corner.\n\nThat graceless creature only knows that the dead man (whom he\nrecognized just now by his yellow face and black hair) was sometimes\nhooted and pursued about the streets. That one cold winter night when\nhe, the boy, was shivering in a doorway near his crossing, the man\nturned to look at him, and came back, and having questioned him and\nfound that he had not a friend in the world, said, \"Neither have I.\nNot one!\" and gave him the price of a supper and a night's lodging.\nThat the man had often spoken to him since and asked him whether he\nslept sound at night, and how he bore cold and hunger, and whether he\never wished to die, and similar strange questions. That when the man\nhad no money, he would say in passing, \"I am as poor as you to-day,\nJo,\" but that when he had any, he had always (as the boy most\nheartily believes) been glad to give him some.\n\n\"He was wery good to me,\" says the boy, wiping his eyes with his\nwretched sleeve. \"Wen I see him a-layin' so stritched out just now, I\nwished he could have heerd me tell him so. He wos wery good to me, he\nwos!\"\n\nAs he shuffles downstairs, Mr. Snagsby, lying in wait for him, puts a\nhalf-crown in his hand. \"If you ever see me coming past your crossing\nwith my little woman--I mean a lady--\" says Mr. Snagsby with his\nfinger on his nose, \"don't allude to it!\"\n\nFor some little time the jurymen hang about the Sol's Arms\ncolloquially. In the sequel, half-a-dozen are caught up in a cloud of\npipe-smoke that pervades the parlour of the Sol's Arms; two stroll to\nHampstead; and four engage to go half-price to the play at night, and\ntop up with oysters. Little Swills is treated on several hands. Being\nasked what he thinks of the proceedings, characterizes them (his\nstrength lying in a slangular direction) as \"a rummy start.\" The\nlandlord of the Sol's Arms, finding Little Swills so popular,\ncommends him highly to the jurymen and public, observing that for a\nsong in character he don't know his equal and that that man's\ncharacter-wardrobe would fill a cart.\n\nThus, gradually the Sol's Arms melts into the shadowy night and then\nflares out of it strong in gas. The Harmonic Meeting hour arriving,\nthe gentleman of professional celebrity takes the chair, is faced\n(red-faced) by Little Swills; their friends rally round them and\nsupport first-rate talent. In the zenith of the evening, Little\nSwills says, \"Gentlemen, if you'll permit me, I'll attempt a short\ndescription of a scene of real life that came off here to-day.\" Is\nmuch applauded and encouraged; goes out of the room as Swills; comes\nin as the coroner (not the least in the world like him); describes\nthe inquest, with recreative intervals of piano-forte accompaniment,\nto the refrain: With his (the coroner's) tippy tol li doll, tippy tol\nlo doll, tippy tol li doll, Dee!\n\nThe jingling piano at last is silent, and the Harmonic friends rally\nround their pillows. Then there is rest around the lonely figure, now\nlaid in its last earthly habitation; and it is watched by the gaunt\neyes in the shutters through some quiet hours of night. If this\nforlorn man could have been prophetically seen lying here by the\nmother at whose breast he nestled, a little child, with eyes upraised\nto her loving face, and soft hand scarcely knowing how to close upon\nthe neck to which it crept, what an impossibility the vision would\nhave seemed! Oh, if in brighter days the now-extinguished fire within\nhim ever burned for one woman who held him in her heart, where is\nshe, while these ashes are above the ground!\n\nIt is anything but a night of rest at Mr. Snagsby's, in Cook's Court,\nwhere Guster murders sleep by going, as Mr. Snagsby himself\nallows--not to put too fine a point upon it--out of one fit into\ntwenty. The occasion of this seizure is that Guster has a tender\nheart and a susceptible something that possibly might have been\nimagination, but for Tooting and her patron saint. Be it what it may,\nnow, it was so direfully impressed at tea-time by Mr. Snagsby's\naccount of the inquiry at which he had assisted that at supper-time\nshe projected herself into the kitchen, preceded by a flying Dutch\ncheese, and fell into a fit of unusual duration, which she only came\nout of to go into another, and another, and so on through a chain of\nfits, with short intervals between, of which she has pathetically\navailed herself by consuming them in entreaties to Mrs. Snagsby not\nto give her warning \"when she quite comes to,\" and also in appeals to\nthe whole establishment to lay her down on the stones and go to bed.\nHence, Mr. Snagsby, at last hearing the cock at the little dairy in\nCursitor Street go into that disinterested ecstasy of his on the\nsubject of daylight, says, drawing a long breath, though the most\npatient of men, \"I thought you was dead, I am sure!\"\n\nWhat question this enthusiastic fowl supposes he settles when he\nstrains himself to such an extent, or why he should thus crow (so men\ncrow on various triumphant public occasions, however) about what\ncannot be of any moment to him, is his affair. It is enough that\ndaylight comes, morning comes, noon comes.\n\nThen the active and intelligent, who has got into the morning papers\nas such, comes with his pauper company to Mr. Krook's and bears off\nthe body of our dear brother here departed to a hemmed-in churchyard,\npestiferous and obscene, whence malignant diseases are communicated\nto the bodies of our dear brothers and sisters who have not departed,\nwhile our dear brothers and sisters who hang about official\nback-stairs--would to heaven they HAD departed!--are very complacent\nand agreeable. Into a beastly scrap of ground which a Turk would\nreject as a savage abomination and a Caffre would shudder at, they\nbring our dear brother here departed to receive Christian burial.\n\nWith houses looking on, on every side, save where a reeking little\ntunnel of a court gives access to the iron gate--with every villainy\nof life in action close on death, and every poisonous element of\ndeath in action close on life--here they lower our dear brother down\na foot or two, here sow him in corruption, to be raised in\ncorruption: an avenging ghost at many a sick-bedside, a shameful\ntestimony to future ages how civilization and barbarism walked this\nboastful island together.\n\nCome night, come darkness, for you cannot come too soon or stay too\nlong by such a place as this! Come, straggling lights into the\nwindows of the ugly houses; and you who do iniquity therein, do it at\nleast with this dread scene shut out! Come, flame of gas, burning so\nsullenly above the iron gate, on which the poisoned air deposits its\nwitch-ointment slimy to the touch! It is well that you should call to\nevery passerby, \"Look here!\"\n\nWith the night comes a slouching figure through the tunnel-court to\nthe outside of the iron gate. It holds the gate with its hands and\nlooks in between the bars, stands looking in for a little while.\n\nIt then, with an old broom it carries, softly sweeps the step and\nmakes the archway clean. It does so very busily and trimly, looks in\nagain a little while, and so departs.\n\nJo, is it thou? Well, well! Though a rejected witness, who \"can't\nexactly say\" what will be done to him in greater hands than men's,\nthou art not quite in outer darkness. There is something like a\ndistant ray of light in thy muttered reason for this: \"He wos wery\ngood to me, he wos!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nOn the Watch\n\n\nIt has left off raining down in Lincolnshire at last, and Chesney\nWold has taken heart. Mrs. Rouncewell is full of hospitable cares,\nfor Sir Leicester and my Lady are coming home from Paris. The\nfashionable intelligence has found it out and communicates the glad\ntidings to benighted England. It has also found out that they will\nentertain a brilliant and distinguished circle of the ELITE of the\nBEAU MONDE (the fashionable intelligence is weak in English, but a\ngiant refreshed in French) at the ancient and hospitable family seat\nin Lincolnshire.\n\nFor the greater honour of the brilliant and distinguished circle, and\nof Chesney Wold into the bargain, the broken arch of the bridge in\nthe park is mended; and the water, now retired within its proper\nlimits and again spanned gracefully, makes a figure in the prospect\nfrom the house. The clear, cold sunshine glances into the brittle\nwoods and approvingly beholds the sharp wind scattering the leaves\nand drying the moss. It glides over the park after the moving shadows\nof the clouds, and chases them, and never catches them, all day. It\nlooks in at the windows and touches the ancestral portraits with bars\nand patches of brightness never contemplated by the painters. Athwart\nthe picture of my Lady, over the great chimney-piece, it throws a\nbroad bend-sinister of light that strikes down crookedly into the\nhearth and seems to rend it.\n\nThrough the same cold sunshine and the same sharp wind, my Lady and\nSir Leicester, in their travelling chariot (my Lady's woman and Sir\nLeicester's man affectionate in the rumble), start for home. With a\nconsiderable amount of jingling and whip-cracking, and many plunging\ndemonstrations on the part of two bare-backed horses and two centaurs\nwith glazed hats, jack-boots, and flowing manes and tails, they\nrattle out of the yard of the Hotel Bristol in the Place Vendome and\ncanter between the sun-and-shadow-chequered colonnade of the Rue de\nRivoli and the garden of the ill-fated palace of a headless king and\nqueen, off by the Place of Concord, and the Elysian Fields, and the\nGate of the Star, out of Paris.\n\nSooth to say, they cannot go away too fast, for even here my Lady\nDedlock has been bored to death. Concert, assembly, opera, theatre,\ndrive, nothing is new to my Lady under the worn-out heavens. Only\nlast Sunday, when poor wretches were gay--within the walls playing\nwith children among the clipped trees and the statues in the Palace\nGarden; walking, a score abreast, in the Elysian Fields, made more\nElysian by performing dogs and wooden horses; between whiles\nfiltering (a few) through the gloomy Cathedral of Our Lady to say a\nword or two at the base of a pillar within flare of a rusty little\ngridiron-full of gusty little tapers; without the walls encompassing\nParis with dancing, love-making, wine-drinking, tobacco-smoking,\ntomb-visiting, billiard card and domino playing, quack-doctoring, and\nmuch murderous refuse, animate and inanimate--only last Sunday, my\nLady, in the desolation of Boredom and the clutch of Giant Despair,\nalmost hated her own maid for being in spirits.\n\nShe cannot, therefore, go too fast from Paris. Weariness of soul lies\nbefore her, as it lies behind--her Ariel has put a girdle of it round\nthe whole earth, and it cannot be unclasped--but the imperfect remedy\nis always to fly from the last place where it has been experienced.\nFling Paris back into the distance, then, exchanging it for endless\navenues and cross-avenues of wintry trees! And, when next beheld, let\nit be some leagues away, with the Gate of the Star a white speck\nglittering in the sun, and the city a mere mound in a plain--two dark\nsquare towers rising out of it, and light and shadow descending on it\naslant, like the angels in Jacob's dream!\n\nSir Leicester is generally in a complacent state, and rarely bored.\nWhen he has nothing else to do, he can always contemplate his own\ngreatness. It is a considerable advantage to a man to have so\ninexhaustible a subject. After reading his letters, he leans back in\nhis corner of the carriage and generally reviews his importance to\nsociety.\n\n\"You have an unusual amount of correspondence this morning?\" says my\nLady after a long time. She is fatigued with reading. Has almost read\na page in twenty miles.\n\n\"Nothing in it, though. Nothing whatever.\"\n\n\"I saw one of Mr. Tulkinghorn's long effusions, I think?\"\n\n\"You see everything,\" says Sir Leicester with admiration.\n\n\"Ha!\" sighs my Lady. \"He is the most tiresome of men!\"\n\n\"He sends--I really beg your pardon--he sends,\" says Sir Leicester,\nselecting the letter and unfolding it, \"a message to you. Our\nstopping to change horses as I came to his postscript drove it out of\nmy memory. I beg you'll excuse me. He says--\" Sir Leicester is so\nlong in taking out his eye-glass and adjusting it that my Lady looks\na little irritated. \"He says 'In the matter of the right of way--' I\nbeg your pardon, that's not the place. He says--yes! Here I have it!\nHe says, 'I beg my respectful compliments to my Lady, who, I hope,\nhas benefited by the change. Will you do me the favour to mention (as\nit may interest her) that I have something to tell her on her return\nin reference to the person who copied the affidavit in the Chancery\nsuit, which so powerfully stimulated her curiosity. I have seen\nhim.'\"\n\nMy Lady, leaning forward, looks out of her window.\n\n\"That's the message,\" observes Sir Leicester.\n\n\"I should like to walk a little,\" says my Lady, still looking out of\nher window.\n\n\"Walk?\" repeats Sir Leicester in a tone of surprise.\n\n\"I should like to walk a little,\" says my Lady with unmistakable\ndistinctness. \"Please to stop the carriage.\"\n\nThe carriage is stopped, the affectionate man alights from the\nrumble, opens the door, and lets down the steps, obedient to an\nimpatient motion of my Lady's hand. My Lady alights so quickly and\nwalks away so quickly that Sir Leicester, for all his scrupulous\npoliteness, is unable to assist her, and is left behind. A space of a\nminute or two has elapsed before he comes up with her. She smiles,\nlooks very handsome, takes his arm, lounges with him for a quarter of\na mile, is very much bored, and resumes her seat in the carriage.\n\nThe rattle and clatter continue through the greater part of three\ndays, with more or less of bell-jingling and whip-cracking, and more\nor less plunging of centaurs and bare-backed horses. Their courtly\npoliteness to each other at the hotels where they tarry is the theme\nof general admiration. Though my Lord IS a little aged for my Lady,\nsays Madame, the hostess of the Golden Ape, and though he might be\nher amiable father, one can see at a glance that they love each\nother. One observes my Lord with his white hair, standing, hat in\nhand, to help my Lady to and from the carriage. One observes my Lady,\nhow recognisant of my Lord's politeness, with an inclination of her\ngracious head and the concession of her so-genteel fingers! It is\nravishing!\n\nThe sea has no appreciation of great men, but knocks them about like\nthe small fry. It is habitually hard upon Sir Leicester, whose\ncountenance it greenly mottles in the manner of sage-cheese and in\nwhose aristocratic system it effects a dismal revolution. It is the\nRadical of Nature to him. Nevertheless, his dignity gets over it\nafter stopping to refit, and he goes on with my Lady for Chesney\nWold, lying only one night in London on the way to Lincolnshire.\n\nThrough the same cold sunlight, colder as the day declines, and\nthrough the same sharp wind, sharper as the separate shadows of bare\ntrees gloom together in the woods, and as the Ghost's Walk, touched\nat the western corner by a pile of fire in the sky, resigns itself to\ncoming night, they drive into the park. The rooks, swinging in their\nlofty houses in the elm-tree avenue, seem to discuss the question of\nthe occupancy of the carriage as it passes underneath, some agreeing\nthat Sir Leicester and my Lady are come down, some arguing with\nmalcontents who won't admit it, now all consenting to consider the\nquestion disposed of, now all breaking out again in violent debate,\nincited by one obstinate and drowsy bird who will persist in putting\nin a last contradictory croak. Leaving them to swing and caw, the\ntravelling chariot rolls on to the house, where fires gleam warmly\nthrough some of the windows, though not through so many as to give an\ninhabited expression to the darkening mass of front. But the\nbrilliant and distinguished circle will soon do that.\n\nMrs. Rouncewell is in attendance and receives Sir Leicester's\ncustomary shake of the hand with a profound curtsy.\n\n\"How do you do, Mrs. Rouncewell? I am glad to see you.\"\n\n\"I hope I have the honour of welcoming you in good health, Sir\nLeicester?\"\n\n\"In excellent health, Mrs. Rouncewell.\"\n\n\"My Lady is looking charmingly well,\" says Mrs. Rouncewell with\nanother curtsy.\n\nMy Lady signifies, without profuse expenditure of words, that she is\nas wearily well as she can hope to be.\n\nBut Rosa is in the distance, behind the housekeeper; and my Lady, who\nhas not subdued the quickness of her observation, whatever else she\nmay have conquered, asks, \"Who is that girl?\"\n\n\"A young scholar of mine, my Lady. Rosa.\"\n\n\"Come here, Rosa!\" Lady Dedlock beckons her, with even an appearance\nof interest. \"Why, do you know how pretty you are, child?\" she says,\ntouching her shoulder with her two forefingers.\n\nRosa, very much abashed, says, \"No, if you please, my Lady!\" and\nglances up, and glances down, and don't know where to look, but looks\nall the prettier.\n\n\"How old are you?\"\n\n\"Nineteen, my Lady.\"\n\n\"Nineteen,\" repeats my Lady thoughtfully. \"Take care they don't spoil\nyou by flattery.\"\n\n\"Yes, my Lady.\"\n\nMy Lady taps her dimpled cheek with the same delicate gloved fingers\nand goes on to the foot of the oak staircase, where Sir Leicester\npauses for her as her knightly escort. A staring old Dedlock in a\npanel, as large as life and as dull, looks as if he didn't know what\nto make of it, which was probably his general state of mind in the\ndays of Queen Elizabeth.\n\nThat evening, in the housekeeper's room, Rosa can do nothing but\nmurmur Lady Dedlock's praises. She is so affable, so graceful, so\nbeautiful, so elegant; has such a sweet voice and such a thrilling\ntouch that Rosa can feel it yet! Mrs. Rouncewell confirms all this,\nnot without personal pride, reserving only the one point of\naffability. Mrs. Rouncewell is not quite sure as to that. Heaven\nforbid that she should say a syllable in dispraise of any member of\nthat excellent family, above all, of my Lady, whom the whole world\nadmires; but if my Lady would only be \"a little more free,\" not quite\nso cold and distant, Mrs. Rouncewell thinks she would be more\naffable.\n\n\"'Tis almost a pity,\" Mrs. Rouncewell adds--only \"almost\" because it\nborders on impiety to suppose that anything could be better than it\nis, in such an express dispensation as the Dedlock affairs--\"that my\nLady has no family. If she had had a daughter now, a grown young\nlady, to interest her, I think she would have had the only kind of\nexcellence she wants.\"\n\n\"Might not that have made her still more proud, grandmother?\" says\nWatt, who has been home and come back again, he is such a good\ngrandson.\n\n\"More and most, my dear,\" returns the housekeeper with dignity, \"are\nwords it's not my place to use--nor so much as to hear--applied to\nany drawback on my Lady.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon, grandmother. But she is proud, is she not?\"\n\n\"If she is, she has reason to be. The Dedlock family have always\nreason to be.\"\n\n\"Well,\" says Watt, \"it's to be hoped they line out of their\nprayer-books a certain passage for the common people about pride and\nvainglory. Forgive me, grandmother! Only a joke!\"\n\n\"Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, my dear, are not fit subjects for\njoking.\"\n\n\"Sir Leicester is no joke by any means,\" says Watt, \"and I humbly ask\nhis pardon. I suppose, grandmother, that even with the family and\ntheir guests down here, there is no objection to my prolonging my\nstay at the Dedlock Arms for a day or two, as any other traveller\nmight?\"\n\n\"Surely, none in the world, child.\"\n\n\"I am glad of that,\" says Watt, \"because I have an inexpressible\ndesire to extend my knowledge of this beautiful neighbourhood.\"\n\nHe happens to glance at Rosa, who looks down and is very shy indeed.\nBut according to the old superstition, it should be Rosa's ears that\nburn, and not her fresh bright cheeks, for my Lady's maid is holding\nforth about her at this moment with surpassing energy.\n\nMy Lady's maid is a Frenchwoman of two and thirty, from somewhere in\nthe southern country about Avignon and Marseilles, a large-eyed brown\nwoman with black hair who would be handsome but for a certain feline\nmouth and general uncomfortable tightness of face, rendering the jaws\ntoo eager and the skull too prominent. There is something indefinably\nkeen and wan about her anatomy, and she has a watchful way of looking\nout of the corners of her eyes without turning her head which could\nbe pleasantly dispensed with, especially when she is in an ill humour\nand near knives. Through all the good taste of her dress and little\nadornments, these objections so express themselves that she seems to\ngo about like a very neat she-wolf imperfectly tamed. Besides being\naccomplished in all the knowledge appertaining to her post, she is\nalmost an Englishwoman in her acquaintance with the language;\nconsequently, she is in no want of words to shower upon Rosa for\nhaving attracted my Lady's attention, and she pours them out with\nsuch grim ridicule as she sits at dinner that her companion, the\naffectionate man, is rather relieved when she arrives at the spoon\nstage of that performance.\n\nHa, ha, ha! She, Hortense, been in my Lady's service since five years\nand always kept at the distance, and this doll, this puppet,\ncaressed--absolutely caressed--by my Lady on the moment of her\narriving at the house! Ha, ha, ha! \"And do you know how pretty you\nare, child?\" \"No, my Lady.\" You are right there! \"And how old are\nyou, child! And take care they do not spoil you by flattery, child!\"\nOh, how droll! It is the BEST thing altogether.\n\nIn short, it is such an admirable thing that Mademoiselle Hortense\ncan't forget it; but at meals for days afterwards, even among her\ncountrywomen and others attached in like capacity to the troop of\nvisitors, relapses into silent enjoyment of the joke--an enjoyment\nexpressed, in her own convivial manner, by an additional tightness of\nface, thin elongation of compressed lips, and sidewise look, which\nintense appreciation of humour is frequently reflected in my Lady's\nmirrors when my Lady is not among them.\n\nAll the mirrors in the house are brought into action now, many of\nthem after a long blank. They reflect handsome faces, simpering\nfaces, youthful faces, faces of threescore and ten that will not\nsubmit to be old; the entire collection of faces that have come to\npass a January week or two at Chesney Wold, and which the fashionable\nintelligence, a mighty hunter before the Lord, hunts with a keen\nscent, from their breaking cover at the Court of St. James's to their\nbeing run down to death. The place in Lincolnshire is all alive. By\nday guns and voices are heard ringing in the woods, horsemen and\ncarriages enliven the park roads, servants and hangers-on pervade the\nvillage and the Dedlock Arms. Seen by night from distant openings in\nthe trees, the row of windows in the long drawing-room, where my\nLady's picture hangs over the great chimney-piece, is like a row of\njewels set in a black frame. On Sunday the chill little church is\nalmost warmed by so much gallant company, and the general flavour of\nthe Dedlock dust is quenched in delicate perfumes.\n\nThe brilliant and distinguished circle comprehends within it no\ncontracted amount of education, sense, courage, honour, beauty, and\nvirtue. Yet there is something a little wrong about it in despite of\nits immense advantages. What can it be?\n\nDandyism? There is no King George the Fourth now (more the pity) to\nset the dandy fashion; there are no clear-starched jack-towel\nneckcloths, no short-waisted coats, no false calves, no stays. There\nare no caricatures, now, of effeminate exquisites so arrayed,\nswooning in opera boxes with excess of delight and being revived by\nother dainty creatures poking long-necked scent-bottles at their\nnoses. There is no beau whom it takes four men at once to shake into\nhis buckskins, or who goes to see all the executions, or who is\ntroubled with the self-reproach of having once consumed a pea. But is\nthere dandyism in the brilliant and distinguished circle\nnotwithstanding, dandyism of a more mischievous sort, that has got\nbelow the surface and is doing less harmless things than\njack-towelling itself and stopping its own digestion, to which no\nrational person need particularly object?\n\nWhy, yes. It cannot be disguised. There ARE at Chesney Wold this\nJanuary week some ladies and gentlemen of the newest fashion, who\nhave set up a dandyism--in religion, for instance. Who in mere\nlackadaisical want of an emotion have agreed upon a little dandy talk\nabout the vulgar wanting faith in things in general, meaning in the\nthings that have been tried and found wanting, as though a low fellow\nshould unaccountably lose faith in a bad shilling after finding it\nout! Who would make the vulgar very picturesque and faithful by\nputting back the hands upon the clock of time and cancelling a few\nhundred years of history.\n\nThere are also ladies and gentlemen of another fashion, not so new,\nbut very elegant, who have agreed to put a smooth glaze on the world\nand to keep down all its realities. For whom everything must be\nlanguid and pretty. Who have found out the perpetual stoppage. Who\nare to rejoice at nothing and be sorry for nothing. Who are not to be\ndisturbed by ideas. On whom even the fine arts, attending in powder\nand walking backward like the Lord Chamberlain, must array themselves\nin the milliners' and tailors' patterns of past generations and be\nparticularly careful not to be in earnest or to receive any impress\nfrom the moving age.\n\nThen there is my Lord Boodle, of considerable reputation with his\nparty, who has known what office is and who tells Sir Leicester\nDedlock with much gravity, after dinner, that he really does not see\nto what the present age is tending. A debate is not what a debate\nused to be; the House is not what the House used to be; even a\nCabinet is not what it formerly was. He perceives with astonishment\nthat supposing the present government to be overthrown, the limited\nchoice of the Crown, in the formation of a new ministry, would lie\nbetween Lord Coodle and Sir Thomas Doodle--supposing it to be\nimpossible for the Duke of Foodle to act with Goodle, which may be\nassumed to be the case in consequence of the breach arising out of\nthat affair with Hoodle. Then, giving the Home Department and the\nleadership of the House of Commons to Joodle, the Exchequer to\nKoodle, the Colonies to Loodle, and the Foreign Office to Moodle,\nwhat are you to do with Noodle? You can't offer him the Presidency of\nthe Council; that is reserved for Poodle. You can't put him in the\nWoods and Forests; that is hardly good enough for Quoodle. What\nfollows? That the country is shipwrecked, lost, and gone to pieces\n(as is made manifest to the patriotism of Sir Leicester Dedlock)\nbecause you can't provide for Noodle!\n\nOn the other hand, the Right Honourable William Buffy, M.P., contends\nacross the table with some one else that the shipwreck of the\ncountry--about which there is no doubt; it is only the manner of it\nthat is in question--is attributable to Cuffy. If you had done with\nCuffy what you ought to have done when he first came into Parliament,\nand had prevented him from going over to Duffy, you would have got\nhim into alliance with Fuffy, you would have had with you the weight\nattaching as a smart debater to Guffy, you would have brought to bear\nupon the elections the wealth of Huffy, you would have got in for\nthree counties Juffy, Kuffy, and Luffy, and you would have\nstrengthened your administration by the official knowledge and the\nbusiness habits of Muffy. All this, instead of being as you now are,\ndependent on the mere caprice of Puffy!\n\nAs to this point, and as to some minor topics, there are differences\nof opinion; but it is perfectly clear to the brilliant and\ndistinguished circle, all round, that nobody is in question but\nBoodle and his retinue, and Buffy and HIS retinue. These are the\ngreat actors for whom the stage is reserved. A People there are, no\ndoubt--a certain large number of supernumeraries, who are to be\noccasionally addressed, and relied upon for shouts and choruses, as\non the theatrical stage; but Boodle and Buffy, their followers and\nfamilies, their heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, are\nthe born first-actors, managers, and leaders, and no others can\nappear upon the scene for ever and ever.\n\nIn this, too, there is perhaps more dandyism at Chesney Wold than the\nbrilliant and distinguished circle will find good for itself in the\nlong run. For it is, even with the stillest and politest circles, as\nwith the circle the necromancer draws around him--very strange\nappearances may be seen in active motion outside. With this\ndifference, that being realities and not phantoms, there is the\ngreater danger of their breaking in.\n\nChesney Wold is quite full anyhow, so full that a burning sense of\ninjury arises in the breasts of ill-lodged ladies'-maids, and is not\nto be extinguished. Only one room is empty. It is a turret chamber of\nthe third order of merit, plainly but comfortably furnished and\nhaving an old-fashioned business air. It is Mr. Tulkinghorn's room,\nand is never bestowed on anybody else, for he may come at any time.\nHe is not come yet. It is his quiet habit to walk across the park\nfrom the village in fine weather, to drop into this room as if he had\nnever been out of it since he was last seen there, to request a\nservant to inform Sir Leicester that he is arrived in case he should\nbe wanted, and to appear ten minutes before dinner in the shadow of\nthe library-door. He sleeps in his turret with a complaining\nflag-staff over his head, and has some leads outside on which, any\nfine morning when he is down here, his black figure may be seen\nwalking before breakfast like a larger species of rook.\n\nEvery day before dinner, my Lady looks for him in the dusk of the\nlibrary, but he is not there. Every day at dinner, my Lady glances\ndown the table for the vacant place that would be waiting to receive\nhim if he had just arrived, but there is no vacant place. Every night\nmy Lady casually asks her maid, \"Is Mr. Tulkinghorn come?\"\n\nEvery night the answer is, \"No, my Lady, not yet.\"\n\nOne night, while having her hair undressed, my Lady loses herself in\ndeep thought after this reply until she sees her own brooding face in\nthe opposite glass, and a pair of black eyes curiously observing her.\n\n\"Be so good as to attend,\" says my Lady then, addressing the\nreflection of Hortense, \"to your business. You can contemplate your\nbeauty at another time.\"\n\n\"Pardon! It was your Ladyship's beauty.\"\n\n\"That,\" says my Lady, \"you needn't contemplate at all.\"\n\nAt length, one afternoon a little before sunset, when the bright\ngroups of figures which have for the last hour or two enlivened the\nGhost's Walk are all dispersed and only Sir Leicester and my Lady\nremain upon the terrace, Mr. Tulkinghorn appears. He comes towards\nthem at his usual methodical pace, which is never quickened, never\nslackened. He wears his usual expressionless mask--if it be a\nmask--and carries family secrets in every limb of his body and every\ncrease of his dress. Whether his whole soul is devoted to the great\nor whether he yields them nothing beyond the services he sells is his\npersonal secret. He keeps it, as he keeps the secrets of his clients;\nhe is his own client in that matter, and will never betray himself.\n\n\"How do you do, Mr. Tulkinghorn?\" says Sir Leicester, giving him his\nhand.\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn is quite well. Sir Leicester is quite well. My Lady\nis quite well. All highly satisfactory. The lawyer, with his hands\nbehind him, walks at Sir Leicester's side along the terrace. My Lady\nwalks upon the other side.\n\n\"We expected you before,\" says Sir Leicester. A gracious observation.\nAs much as to say, \"Mr. Tulkinghorn, we remember your existence when\nyou are not here to remind us of it by your presence. We bestow a\nfragment of our minds upon you, sir, you see!\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn, comprehending it, inclines his head and says he is\nmuch obliged.\n\n\"I should have come down sooner,\" he explains, \"but that I have been\nmuch engaged with those matters in the several suits between yourself\nand Boythorn.\"\n\n\"A man of a very ill-regulated mind,\" observes Sir Leicester with\nseverity. \"An extremely dangerous person in any community. A man of a\nvery low character of mind.\"\n\n\"He is obstinate,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn.\n\n\"It is natural to such a man to be so,\" says Sir Leicester, looking\nmost profoundly obstinate himself. \"I am not at all surprised to hear\nit.\"\n\n\"The only question is,\" pursues the lawyer, \"whether you will give up\nanything.\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" replies Sir Leicester. \"Nothing. I give up?\"\n\n\"I don't mean anything of importance. That, of course, I know you\nwould not abandon. I mean any minor point.\"\n\n\"Mr. Tulkinghorn,\" returns Sir Leicester, \"there can be no minor\npoint between myself and Mr. Boythorn. If I go farther, and observe\nthat I cannot readily conceive how ANY right of mine can be a minor\npoint, I speak not so much in reference to myself as an individual as\nin reference to the family position I have it in charge to maintain.\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn inclines his head again. \"I have now my\ninstructions,\" he says. \"Mr. Boythorn will give us a good deal of\ntrouble--\"\n\n\"It is the character of such a mind, Mr. Tulkinghorn,\" Sir Leicester\ninterrupts him, \"TO give trouble. An exceedingly ill-conditioned,\nlevelling person. A person who, fifty years ago, would probably have\nbeen tried at the Old Bailey for some demagogue proceeding, and\nseverely punished--if not,\" adds Sir Leicester after a moment's\npause, \"if not hanged, drawn, and quartered.\"\n\nSir Leicester appears to discharge his stately breast of a burden in\npassing this capital sentence, as if it were the next satisfactory\nthing to having the sentence executed.\n\n\"But night is coming on,\" says he, \"and my Lady will take cold. My\ndear, let us go in.\"\n\nAs they turn towards the hall-door, Lady Dedlock addresses Mr.\nTulkinghorn for the first time.\n\n\"You sent me a message respecting the person whose writing I happened\nto inquire about. It was like you to remember the circumstance; I had\nquite forgotten it. Your message reminded me of it again. I can't\nimagine what association I had with a hand like that, but I surely\nhad some.\"\n\n\"You had some?\" Mr. Tulkinghorn repeats.\n\n\"Oh, yes!\" returns my Lady carelessly. \"I think I must have had some.\nAnd did you really take the trouble to find out the writer of that\nactual thing--what is it!--affidavit?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"How very odd!\"\n\nThey pass into a sombre breakfast-room on the ground floor, lighted\nin the day by two deep windows. It is now twilight. The fire glows\nbrightly on the panelled wall and palely on the window-glass, where,\nthrough the cold reflection of the blaze, the colder landscape\nshudders in the wind and a grey mist creeps along, the only traveller\nbesides the waste of clouds.\n\nMy Lady lounges in a great chair in the chimney-corner, and Sir\nLeicester takes another great chair opposite. The lawyer stands\nbefore the fire with his hand out at arm's length, shading his face.\nHe looks across his arm at my Lady.\n\n\"Yes,\" he says, \"I inquired about the man, and found him. And, what\nis very strange, I found him--\"\n\n\"Not to be any out-of-the-way person, I am afraid!\" Lady Dedlock\nlanguidly anticipates.\n\n\"I found him dead.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear me!\" remonstrated Sir Leicester. Not so much shocked by the\nfact as by the fact of the fact being mentioned.\n\n\"I was directed to his lodging--a miserable, poverty-stricken\nplace--and I found him dead.\"\n\n\"You will excuse me, Mr. Tulkinghorn,\" observes Sir Leicester. \"I\nthink the less said--\"\n\n\"Pray, Sir Leicester, let me hear the story out\" (it is my Lady\nspeaking). \"It is quite a story for twilight. How very shocking!\nDead?\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn re-asserts it by another inclination of his head.\n\"Whether by his own hand--\"\n\n\"Upon my honour!\" cries Sir Leicester. \"Really!\"\n\n\"Do let me hear the story!\" says my Lady.\n\n\"Whatever you desire, my dear. But, I must say--\"\n\n\"No, you mustn't say! Go on, Mr. Tulkinghorn.\"\n\nSir Leicester's gallantry concedes the point, though he still feels\nthat to bring this sort of squalor among the upper classes is\nreally--really--\n\n\"I was about to say,\" resumes the lawyer with undisturbed calmness,\n\"that whether he had died by his own hand or not, it was beyond my\npower to tell you. I should amend that phrase, however, by saying\nthat he had unquestionably died of his own act, though whether by his\nown deliberate intention or by mischance can never certainly be\nknown. The coroner's jury found that he took the poison\naccidentally.\"\n\n\"And what kind of man,\" my Lady asks, \"was this deplorable creature?\"\n\n\"Very difficult to say,\" returns the lawyer, shaking his head. \"He\nhad lived so wretchedly and was so neglected, with his gipsy colour\nand his wild black hair and beard, that I should have considered him\nthe commonest of the common. The surgeon had a notion that he had\nonce been something better, both in appearance and condition.\"\n\n\"What did they call the wretched being?\"\n\n\"They called him what he had called himself, but no one knew his\nname.\"\n\n\"Not even any one who had attended on him?\"\n\n\"No one had attended on him. He was found dead. In fact, I found\nhim.\"\n\n\"Without any clue to anything more?\"\n\n\"Without any; there was,\" says the lawyer meditatively, \"an old\nportmanteau, but--No, there were no papers.\"\n\nDuring the utterance of every word of this short dialogue, Lady\nDedlock and Mr. Tulkinghorn, without any other alteration in their\ncustomary deportment, have looked very steadily at one another--as\nwas natural, perhaps, in the discussion of so unusual a subject. Sir\nLeicester has looked at the fire, with the general expression of the\nDedlock on the staircase. The story being told, he renews his stately\nprotest, saying that as it is quite clear that no association in my\nLady's mind can possibly be traceable to this poor wretch (unless he\nwas a begging-letter writer), he trusts to hear no more about a\nsubject so far removed from my Lady's station.\n\n\"Certainly, a collection of horrors,\" says my Lady, gathering up her\nmantles and furs, \"but they interest one for the moment! Have the\nkindness, Mr. Tulkinghorn, to open the door for me.\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn does so with deference and holds it open while she\npasses out. She passes close to him, with her usual fatigued manner\nand insolent grace. They meet again at dinner--again, next\nday--again, for many days in succession. Lady Dedlock is always the\nsame exhausted deity, surrounded by worshippers, and terribly liable\nto be bored to death, even while presiding at her own shrine. Mr.\nTulkinghorn is always the same speechless repository of noble\nconfidences, so oddly out of place and yet so perfectly at home. They\nappear to take as little note of one another as any two people\nenclosed within the same walls could. But whether each evermore\nwatches and suspects the other, evermore mistrustful of some great\nreservation; whether each is evermore prepared at all points for the\nother, and never to be taken unawares; what each would give to know\nhow much the other knows--all this is hidden, for the time, in their\nown hearts.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nWe held many consultations about what Richard was to be, first\nwithout Mr. Jarndyce, as he had requested, and afterwards with him,\nbut it was a long time before we seemed to make progress. Richard\nsaid he was ready for anything. When Mr. Jarndyce doubted whether he\nmight not already be too old to enter the Navy, Richard said he had\nthought of that, and perhaps he was. When Mr. Jarndyce asked him what\nhe thought of the Army, Richard said he had thought of that, too, and\nit wasn't a bad idea. When Mr. Jarndyce advised him to try and decide\nwithin himself whether his old preference for the sea was an ordinary\nboyish inclination or a strong impulse, Richard answered, Well he\nreally HAD tried very often, and he couldn't make out.\n\n\"How much of this indecision of character,\" Mr. Jarndyce said to me,\n\"is chargeable on that incomprehensible heap of uncertainty and\nprocrastination on which he has been thrown from his birth, I don't\npretend to say; but that Chancery, among its other sins, is\nresponsible for some of it, I can plainly see. It has engendered or\nconfirmed in him a habit of putting off--and trusting to this, that,\nand the other chance, without knowing what chance--and dismissing\neverything as unsettled, uncertain, and confused. The character of\nmuch older and steadier people may be even changed by the\ncircumstances surrounding them. It would be too much to expect that a\nboy's, in its formation, should be the subject of such influences and\nescape them.\"\n\nI felt this to be true; though if I may venture to mention what I\nthought besides, I thought it much to be regretted that Richard's\neducation had not counteracted those influences or directed his\ncharacter. He had been eight years at a public school and had learnt,\nI understood, to make Latin verses of several sorts in the most\nadmirable manner. But I never heard that it had been anybody's\nbusiness to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings\nlay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to HIM. HE had been adapted to\nthe verses and had learnt the art of making them to such perfection\nthat if he had remained at school until he was of age, I suppose he\ncould only have gone on making them over and over again unless he had\nenlarged his education by forgetting how to do it. Still, although I\nhad no doubt that they were very beautiful, and very improving, and\nvery sufficient for a great many purposes of life, and always\nremembered all through life, I did doubt whether Richard would not\nhave profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his\nstudying them quite so much.\n\nTo be sure, I knew nothing of the subject and do not even now know\nwhether the young gentlemen of classic Rome or Greece made verses to\nthe same extent--or whether the young gentlemen of any country ever\ndid.\n\n\"I haven't the least idea,\" said Richard, musing, \"what I had better\nbe. Except that I am quite sure I don't want to go into the Church,\nit's a toss-up.\"\n\n\"You have no inclination in Mr. Kenge's way?\" suggested Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"I don't know that, sir!\" replied Richard. \"I am fond of boating.\nArticled clerks go a good deal on the water. It's a capital\nprofession!\"\n\n\"Surgeon--\" suggested Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"That's the thing, sir!\" cried Richard.\n\nI doubt if he had ever once thought of it before.\n\n\"That's the thing, sir,\" repeated Richard with the greatest\nenthusiasm. \"We have got it at last. M.R.C.S.!\"\n\nHe was not to be laughed out of it, though he laughed at it heartily.\nHe said he had chosen his profession, and the more he thought of it,\nthe more he felt that his destiny was clear; the art of healing was\nthe art of all others for him. Mistrusting that he only came to this\nconclusion because, having never had much chance of finding out for\nhimself what he was fitted for and having never been guided to the\ndiscovery, he was taken by the newest idea and was glad to get rid of\nthe trouble of consideration, I wondered whether the Latin verses\noften ended in this or whether Richard's was a solitary case.\n\nMr. Jarndyce took great pains to talk with him seriously and to put\nit to his good sense not to deceive himself in so important a matter.\nRichard was a little grave after these interviews, but invariably\ntold Ada and me that it was all right, and then began to talk about\nsomething else.\n\n\"By heaven!\" cried Mr. Boythorn, who interested himself strongly in\nthe subject--though I need not say that, for he could do nothing\nweakly; \"I rejoice to find a young gentleman of spirit and gallantry\ndevoting himself to that noble profession! The more spirit there is\nin it, the better for mankind and the worse for those mercenary\ntask-masters and low tricksters who delight in putting that\nillustrious art at a disadvantage in the world. By all that is base\nand despicable,\" cried Mr. Boythorn, \"the treatment of surgeons\naboard ship is such that I would submit the legs--both legs--of every\nmember of the Admiralty Board to a compound fracture and render it a\ntransportable offence in any qualified practitioner to set them if\nthe system were not wholly changed in eight and forty hours!\"\n\n\"Wouldn't you give them a week?\" asked Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"No!\" cried Mr. Boythorn firmly. \"Not on any consideration! Eight and\nforty hours! As to corporations, parishes, vestry-boards, and similar\ngatherings of jolter-headed clods who assemble to exchange such\nspeeches that, by heaven, they ought to be worked in quicksilver\nmines for the short remainder of their miserable existence, if it\nwere only to prevent their detestable English from contaminating a\nlanguage spoken in the presence of the sun--as to those fellows, who\nmeanly take advantage of the ardour of gentlemen in the pursuit of\nknowledge to recompense the inestimable services of the best years of\ntheir lives, their long study, and their expensive education with\npittances too small for the acceptance of clerks, I would have the\nnecks of every one of them wrung and their skulls arranged in\nSurgeons' Hall for the contemplation of the whole profession in order\nthat its younger members might understand from actual measurement, in\nearly life, HOW thick skulls may become!\"\n\nHe wound up this vehement declaration by looking round upon us with a\nmost agreeable smile and suddenly thundering, \"Ha, ha, ha!\" over and\nover again, until anybody else might have been expected to be quite\nsubdued by the exertion.\n\nAs Richard still continued to say that he was fixed in his choice\nafter repeated periods for consideration had been recommended by Mr.\nJarndyce and had expired, and he still continued to assure Ada and me\nin the same final manner that it was \"all right,\" it became advisable\nto take Mr. Kenge into council. Mr. Kenge, therefore, came down to\ndinner one day, and leaned back in his chair, and turned his\neye-glasses over and over, and spoke in a sonorous voice, and did\nexactly what I remembered to have seen him do when I was a little\ngirl.\n\n\"Ah!\" said Mr. Kenge. \"Yes. Well! A very good profession, Mr.\nJarndyce, a very good profession.\"\n\n\"The course of study and preparation requires to be diligently\npursued,\" observed my guardian with a glance at Richard.\n\n\"Oh, no doubt,\" said Mr. Kenge. \"Diligently.\"\n\n\"But that being the case, more or less, with all pursuits that are\nworth much,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"it is not a special consideration\nwhich another choice would be likely to escape.\"\n\n\"Truly,\" said Mr. Kenge. \"And Mr. Richard Carstone, who has so\nmeritoriously acquitted himself in the--shall I say the classic\nshades?--in which his youth had been passed, will, no doubt, apply\nthe habits, if not the principles and practice, of versification in\nthat tongue in which a poet was said (unless I mistake) to be born,\nnot made, to the more eminently practical field of action on which he\nenters.\"\n\n\"You may rely upon it,\" said Richard in his off-hand manner, \"that I\nshall go at it and do my best.\"\n\n\"Very well, Mr. Jarndyce!\" said Mr. Kenge, gently nodding his head.\n\"Really, when we are assured by Mr. Richard that he means to go at it\nand to do his best,\" nodding feelingly and smoothly over those\nexpressions, \"I would submit to you that we have only to inquire into\nthe best mode of carrying out the object of his ambition. Now, with\nreference to placing Mr. Richard with some sufficiently eminent\npractitioner. Is there any one in view at present?\"\n\n\"No one, Rick, I think?\" said my guardian.\n\n\"No one, sir,\" said Richard.\n\n\"Quite so!\" observed Mr. Kenge. \"As to situation, now. Is there any\nparticular feeling on that head?\"\n\n\"N--no,\" said Richard.\n\n\"Quite so!\" observed Mr. Kenge again.\n\n\"I should like a little variety,\" said Richard; \"I mean a good range\nof experience.\"\n\n\"Very requisite, no doubt,\" returned Mr. Kenge. \"I think this may be\neasily arranged, Mr. Jarndyce? We have only, in the first place, to\ndiscover a sufficiently eligible practitioner; and as soon as we make\nour want--and shall I add, our ability to pay a premium?--known, our\nonly difficulty will be in the selection of one from a large number.\nWe have only, in the second place, to observe those little\nformalities which are rendered necessary by our time of life and our\nbeing under the guardianship of the court. We shall soon be--shall I\nsay, in Mr. Richard's own light-hearted manner, 'going at it'--to our\nheart's content. It is a coincidence,\" said Mr. Kenge with a tinge of\nmelancholy in his smile, \"one of those coincidences which may or may\nnot require an explanation beyond our present limited faculties, that\nI have a cousin in the medical profession. He might be deemed\neligible by you and might be disposed to respond to this proposal. I\ncan answer for him as little as for you, but he MIGHT!\"\n\nAs this was an opening in the prospect, it was arranged that Mr.\nKenge should see his cousin. And as Mr. Jarndyce had before proposed\nto take us to London for a few weeks, it was settled next day that we\nshould make our visit at once and combine Richard's business with it.\n\nMr. Boythorn leaving us within a week, we took up our abode at a\ncheerful lodging near Oxford Street over an upholsterer's shop.\nLondon was a great wonder to us, and we were out for hours and hours\nat a time, seeing the sights, which appeared to be less capable of\nexhaustion than we were. We made the round of the principal theatres,\ntoo, with great delight, and saw all the plays that were worth\nseeing. I mention this because it was at the theatre that I began to\nbe made uncomfortable again by Mr. Guppy.\n\nI was sitting in front of the box one night with Ada, and Richard was\nin the place he liked best, behind Ada's chair, when, happening to\nlook down into the pit, I saw Mr. Guppy, with his hair flattened down\nupon his head and woe depicted in his face, looking up at me. I felt\nall through the performance that he never looked at the actors but\nconstantly looked at me, and always with a carefully prepared\nexpression of the deepest misery and the profoundest dejection.\n\nIt quite spoiled my pleasure for that night because it was so very\nembarrassing and so very ridiculous. But from that time forth, we\nnever went to the play without my seeing Mr. Guppy in the pit, always\nwith his hair straight and flat, his shirt-collar turned down, and a\ngeneral feebleness about him. If he were not there when we went in,\nand I began to hope he would not come and yielded myself for a little\nwhile to the interest of the scene, I was certain to encounter his\nlanguishing eyes when I least expected it and, from that time, to be\nquite sure that they were fixed upon me all the evening.\n\nI really cannot express how uneasy this made me. If he would only\nhave brushed up his hair or turned up his collar, it would have been\nbad enough; but to know that that absurd figure was always gazing at\nme, and always in that demonstrative state of despondency, put such a\nconstraint upon me that I did not like to laugh at the play, or to\ncry at it, or to move, or to speak. I seemed able to do nothing\nnaturally. As to escaping Mr. Guppy by going to the back of the box,\nI could not bear to do that because I knew Richard and Ada relied on\nhaving me next them and that they could never have talked together so\nhappily if anybody else had been in my place. So there I sat, not\nknowing where to look--for wherever I looked, I knew Mr. Guppy's eyes\nwere following me--and thinking of the dreadful expense to which this\nyoung man was putting himself on my account.\n\nSometimes I thought of telling Mr. Jarndyce. Then I feared that the\nyoung man would lose his situation and that I might ruin him.\nSometimes I thought of confiding in Richard, but was deterred by the\npossibility of his fighting Mr. Guppy and giving him black eyes.\nSometimes I thought, should I frown at him or shake my head. Then I\nfelt I could not do it. Sometimes I considered whether I should write\nto his mother, but that ended in my being convinced that to open a\ncorrespondence would be to make the matter worse. I always came to\nthe conclusion, finally, that I could do nothing. Mr. Guppy's\nperseverance, all this time, not only produced him regularly at any\ntheatre to which we went, but caused him to appear in the crowd as we\nwere coming out, and even to get up behind our fly--where I am sure I\nsaw him, two or three times, struggling among the most dreadful\nspikes. After we got home, he haunted a post opposite our house. The\nupholsterer's where we lodged being at the corner of two streets, and\nmy bedroom window being opposite the post, I was afraid to go near\nthe window when I went upstairs, lest I should see him (as I did one\nmoonlight night) leaning against the post and evidently catching\ncold. If Mr. Guppy had not been, fortunately for me, engaged in the\ndaytime, I really should have had no rest from him.\n\nWhile we were making this round of gaieties, in which Mr. Guppy so\nextraordinarily participated, the business which had helped to bring\nus to town was not neglected. Mr. Kenge's cousin was a Mr. Bayham\nBadger, who had a good practice at Chelsea and attended a large\npublic institution besides. He was quite willing to receive Richard\ninto his house and to superintend his studies, and as it seemed that\nthose could be pursued advantageously under Mr. Badger's roof, and\nMr. Badger liked Richard, and as Richard said he liked Mr. Badger\n\"well enough,\" an agreement was made, the Lord Chancellor's consent\nwas obtained, and it was all settled.\n\nOn the day when matters were concluded between Richard and Mr.\nBadger, we were all under engagement to dine at Mr. Badger's house.\nWe were to be \"merely a family party,\" Mrs. Badger's note said; and\nwe found no lady there but Mrs. Badger herself. She was surrounded in\nthe drawing-room by various objects, indicative of her painting a\nlittle, playing the piano a little, playing the guitar a little,\nplaying the harp a little, singing a little, working a little,\nreading a little, writing poetry a little, and botanizing a little.\nShe was a lady of about fifty, I should think, youthfully dressed,\nand of a very fine complexion. If I add to the little list of her\naccomplishments that she rouged a little, I do not mean that there\nwas any harm in it.\n\nMr. Bayham Badger himself was a pink, fresh-faced, crisp-looking\ngentleman with a weak voice, white teeth, light hair, and surprised\neyes, some years younger, I should say, than Mrs. Bayham Badger. He\nadmired her exceedingly, but principally, and to begin with, on the\ncurious ground (as it seemed to us) of her having had three husbands.\nWe had barely taken our seats when he said to Mr. Jarndyce quite\ntriumphantly, \"You would hardly suppose that I am Mrs. Bayham\nBadger's third!\"\n\n\"Indeed?\" said Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"Her third!\" said Mr. Badger. \"Mrs. Bayham Badger has not the\nappearance, Miss Summerson, of a lady who has had two former\nhusbands?\"\n\nI said \"Not at all!\"\n\n\"And most remarkable men!\" said Mr. Badger in a tone of confidence.\n\"Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy, who was Mrs. Badger's first\nhusband, was a very distinguished officer indeed. The name of\nProfessor Dingo, my immediate predecessor, is one of European\nreputation.\"\n\nMrs. Badger overheard him and smiled.\n\n\"Yes, my dear!\" Mr. Badger replied to the smile, \"I was observing to\nMr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson that you had had two former\nhusbands--both very distinguished men. And they found it, as people\ngenerally do, difficult to believe.\"\n\n\"I was barely twenty,\" said Mrs. Badger, \"when I married Captain\nSwosser of the Royal Navy. I was in the Mediterranean with him; I am\nquite a sailor. On the twelfth anniversary of my wedding-day, I\nbecame the wife of Professor Dingo.\"\n\n\"Of European reputation,\" added Mr. Badger in an undertone.\n\n\"And when Mr. Badger and myself were married,\" pursued Mrs. Badger,\n\"we were married on the same day of the year. I had become attached\nto the day.\"\n\n\"So that Mrs. Badger has been married to three husbands--two of them\nhighly distinguished men,\" said Mr. Badger, summing up the facts,\n\"and each time upon the twenty-first of March at eleven in the\nforenoon!\"\n\nWe all expressed our admiration.\n\n\"But for Mr. Badger's modesty,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"I would take\nleave to correct him and say three distinguished men.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Mr. Jarndyce! What I always tell him!\" observed Mrs.\nBadger.\n\n\"And, my dear,\" said Mr. Badger, \"what do I always tell you? That\nwithout any affectation of disparaging such professional distinction\nas I may have attained (which our friend Mr. Carstone will have many\nopportunities of estimating), I am not so weak--no, really,\" said Mr.\nBadger to us generally, \"so unreasonable--as to put my reputation on\nthe same footing with such first-rate men as Captain Swosser and\nProfessor Dingo. Perhaps you may be interested, Mr. Jarndyce,\"\ncontinued Mr. Bayham Badger, leading the way into the next\ndrawing-room, \"in this portrait of Captain Swosser. It was taken on\nhis return home from the African station, where he had suffered from\nthe fever of the country. Mrs. Badger considers it too yellow. But\nit's a very fine head. A very fine head!\"\n\nWe all echoed, \"A very fine head!\"\n\n\"I feel when I look at it,\" said Mr. Badger, \"'That's a man I should\nlike to have seen!' It strikingly bespeaks the first-class man that\nCaptain Swosser pre-eminently was. On the other side, Professor\nDingo. I knew him well--attended him in his last illness--a speaking\nlikeness! Over the piano, Mrs. Bayham Badger when Mrs. Swosser. Over\nthe sofa, Mrs. Bayham Badger when Mrs. Dingo. Of Mrs. Bayham Badger\nIN ESSE, I possess the original and have no copy.\"\n\nDinner was now announced, and we went downstairs. It was a very\ngenteel entertainment, very handsomely served. But the captain and\nthe professor still ran in Mr. Badger's head, and as Ada and I had\nthe honour of being under his particular care, we had the full\nbenefit of them.\n\n\"Water, Miss Summerson? Allow me! Not in that tumbler, pray. Bring me\nthe professor's goblet, James!\"\n\nAda very much admired some artificial flowers under a glass.\n\n\"Astonishing how they keep!\" said Mr. Badger. \"They were presented to\nMrs. Bayham Badger when she was in the Mediterranean.\"\n\nHe invited Mr. Jarndyce to take a glass of claret.\n\n\"Not that claret!\" he said. \"Excuse me! This is an occasion, and ON\nan occasion I produce some very special claret I happen to have.\n(James, Captain Swosser's wine!) Mr. Jarndyce, this is a wine that\nwas imported by the captain, we will not say how many years ago. You\nwill find it very curious. My dear, I shall be happy to take some of\nthis wine with you. (Captain Swosser's claret to your mistress,\nJames!) My love, your health!\"\n\nAfter dinner, when we ladies retired, we took Mrs. Badger's first and\nsecond husband with us. Mrs. Badger gave us in the drawing-room a\nbiographical sketch of the life and services of Captain Swosser\nbefore his marriage and a more minute account of him dating from the\ntime when he fell in love with her at a ball on board the Crippler,\ngiven to the officers of that ship when she lay in Plymouth Harbour.\n\n\"The dear old Crippler!\" said Mrs. Badger, shaking her head. \"She was\na noble vessel. Trim, ship-shape, all a taunto, as Captain Swosser\nused to say. You must excuse me if I occasionally introduce a\nnautical expression; I was quite a sailor once. Captain Swosser loved\nthat craft for my sake. When she was no longer in commission, he\nfrequently said that if he were rich enough to buy her old hulk, he\nwould have an inscription let into the timbers of the quarter-deck\nwhere we stood as partners in the dance to mark the spot where he\nfell--raked fore and aft (Captain Swosser used to say) by the fire\nfrom my tops. It was his naval way of mentioning my eyes.\"\n\nMrs. Badger shook her head, sighed, and looked in the glass.\n\n\"It was a great change from Captain Swosser to Professor Dingo,\" she\nresumed with a plaintive smile. \"I felt it a good deal at first. Such\nan entire revolution in my mode of life! But custom, combined with\nscience--particularly science--inured me to it. Being the professor's\nsole companion in his botanical excursions, I almost forgot that I\nhad ever been afloat, and became quite learned. It is singular that\nthe professor was the antipodes of Captain Swosser and that Mr.\nBadger is not in the least like either!\"\n\nWe then passed into a narrative of the deaths of Captain Swosser and\nProfessor Dingo, both of whom seem to have had very bad complaints.\nIn the course of it, Mrs. Badger signified to us that she had never\nmadly loved but once and that the object of that wild affection,\nnever to be recalled in its fresh enthusiasm, was Captain Swosser.\nThe professor was yet dying by inches in the most dismal manner, and\nMrs. Badger was giving us imitations of his way of saying, with great\ndifficulty, \"Where is Laura? Let Laura give me my toast and water!\"\nwhen the entrance of the gentlemen consigned him to the tomb.\n\nNow, I observed that evening, as I had observed for some days past,\nthat Ada and Richard were more than ever attached to each other's\nsociety, which was but natural, seeing that they were going to be\nseparated so soon. I was therefore not very much surprised when we\ngot home, and Ada and I retired upstairs, to find Ada more silent\nthan usual, though I was not quite prepared for her coming into my\narms and beginning to speak to me, with her face hidden.\n\n\"My darling Esther!\" murmured Ada. \"I have a great secret to tell\nyou!\"\n\nA mighty secret, my pretty one, no doubt!\n\n\"What is it, Ada?\"\n\n\"Oh, Esther, you would never guess!\"\n\n\"Shall I try to guess?\" said I.\n\n\"Oh, no! Don't! Pray don't!\" cried Ada, very much startled by the\nidea of my doing so.\n\n\"Now, I wonder who it can be about?\" said I, pretending to consider.\n\n\"It's about--\" said Ada in a whisper. \"It's about--my cousin\nRichard!\"\n\n\"Well, my own!\" said I, kissing her bright hair, which was all I\ncould see. \"And what about him?\"\n\n\"Oh, Esther, you would never guess!\"\n\nIt was so pretty to have her clinging to me in that way, hiding her\nface, and to know that she was not crying in sorrow but in a little\nglow of joy, and pride, and hope, that I would not help her just yet.\n\n\"He says--I know it's very foolish, we are both so young--but he\nsays,\" with a burst of tears, \"that he loves me dearly, Esther.\"\n\n\"Does he indeed?\" said I. \"I never heard of such a thing! Why, my pet\nof pets, I could have told you that weeks and weeks ago!\"\n\nTo see Ada lift up her flushed face in joyful surprise, and hold me\nround the neck, and laugh, and cry, and blush, was so pleasant!\n\n\"Why, my darling,\" said I, \"what a goose you must take me for! Your\ncousin Richard has been loving you as plainly as he could for I don't\nknow how long!\"\n\n\"And yet you never said a word about it!\" cried Ada, kissing me.\n\n\"No, my love,\" said I. \"I waited to be told.\"\n\n\"But now I have told you, you don't think it wrong of me, do you?\"\nreturned Ada. She might have coaxed me to say no if I had been the\nhardest-hearted duenna in the world. Not being that yet, I said no\nvery freely.\n\n\"And now,\" said I, \"I know the worst of it.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's not quite the worst of it, Esther dear!\" cried Ada,\nholding me tighter and laying down her face again upon my breast.\n\n\"No?\" said I. \"Not even that?\"\n\n\"No, not even that!\" said Ada, shaking her head.\n\n\"Why, you never mean to say--\" I was beginning in joke.\n\nBut Ada, looking up and smiling through her tears, cried, \"Yes, I do!\nYou know, you know I do!\" And then sobbed out, \"With all my heart I\ndo! With all my whole heart, Esther!\"\n\nI told her, laughing, why I had known that, too, just as well as I\nhad known the other! And we sat before the fire, and I had all the\ntalking to myself for a little while (though there was not much of\nit); and Ada was soon quiet and happy.\n\n\"Do you think my cousin John knows, dear Dame Durden?\" she asked.\n\n\"Unless my cousin John is blind, my pet,\" said I, \"I should think my\ncousin John knows pretty well as much as we know.\"\n\n\"We want to speak to him before Richard goes,\" said Ada timidly, \"and\nwe wanted you to advise us, and to tell him so. Perhaps you wouldn't\nmind Richard's coming in, Dame Durden?\"\n\n\"Oh! Richard is outside, is he, my dear?\" said I.\n\n\"I am not quite certain,\" returned Ada with a bashful simplicity that\nwould have won my heart if she had not won it long before, \"but I\nthink he's waiting at the door.\"\n\nThere he was, of course. They brought a chair on either side of me,\nand put me between them, and really seemed to have fallen in love\nwith me instead of one another, they were so confiding, and so\ntrustful, and so fond of me. They went on in their own wild way for a\nlittle while--I never stopped them; I enjoyed it too much myself--and\nthen we gradually fell to considering how young they were, and how\nthere must be a lapse of several years before this early love could\ncome to anything, and how it could come to happiness only if it were\nreal and lasting and inspired them with a steady resolution to do\ntheir duty to each other, with constancy, fortitude, and\nperseverance, each always for the other's sake. Well! Richard said\nthat he would work his fingers to the bone for Ada, and Ada said that\nshe would work her fingers to the bone for Richard, and they called\nme all sorts of endearing and sensible names, and we sat there,\nadvising and talking, half the night. Finally, before we parted, I\ngave them my promise to speak to their cousin John to-morrow.\n\nSo, when to-morrow came, I went to my guardian after breakfast, in\nthe room that was our town-substitute for the growlery, and told him\nthat I had it in trust to tell him something.\n\n\"Well, little woman,\" said he, shutting up his book, \"if you have\naccepted the trust, there can be no harm in it.\"\n\n\"I hope not, guardian,\" said I. \"I can guarantee that there is no\nsecrecy in it. For it only happened yesterday.\"\n\n\"Aye? And what is it, Esther?\"\n\n\"Guardian,\" said I, \"you remember the happy night when first we came\ndown to Bleak House? When Ada was singing in the dark room?\"\n\nI wished to call to his remembrance the look he had given me then.\nUnless I am much mistaken, I saw that I did so.\n\n\"Because--\" said I with a little hesitation.\n\n\"Yes, my dear!\" said he. \"Don't hurry.\"\n\n\"Because,\" said I, \"Ada and Richard have fallen in love. And have\ntold each other so.\"\n\n\"Already!\" cried my guardian, quite astonished.\n\n\"Yes!\" said I. \"And to tell you the truth, guardian, I rather\nexpected it.\"\n\n\"The deuce you did!\" said he.\n\nHe sat considering for a minute or two, with his smile, at once so\nhandsome and so kind, upon his changing face, and then requested me\nto let them know that he wished to see them. When they came, he\nencircled Ada with one arm in his fatherly way and addressed himself\nto Richard with a cheerful gravity.\n\n\"Rick,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"I am glad to have won your confidence. I\nhope to preserve it. When I contemplated these relations between us\nfour which have so brightened my life and so invested it with new\ninterests and pleasures, I certainly did contemplate, afar off, the\npossibility of you and your pretty cousin here (don't be shy, Ada,\ndon't be shy, my dear!) being in a mind to go through life together.\nI saw, and do see, many reasons to make it desirable. But that was\nafar off, Rick, afar off!\"\n\n\"We look afar off, sir,\" returned Richard.\n\n\"Well!\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"That's rational. Now, hear me, my dears!\nI might tell you that you don't know your own minds yet, that a\nthousand things may happen to divert you from one another, that it is\nwell this chain of flowers you have taken up is very easily broken,\nor it might become a chain of lead. But I will not do that. Such\nwisdom will come soon enough, I dare say, if it is to come at all. I\nwill assume that a few years hence you will be in your hearts to one\nanother what you are to-day. All I say before speaking to you\naccording to that assumption is, if you DO change--if you DO come to\nfind that you are more commonplace cousins to each other as man and\nwoman than you were as boy and girl (your manhood will excuse me,\nRick!)--don't be ashamed still to confide in me, for there will be\nnothing monstrous or uncommon in it. I am only your friend and\ndistant kinsman. I have no power over you whatever. But I wish and\nhope to retain your confidence if I do nothing to forfeit it.\"\n\n\"I am very sure, sir,\" returned Richard, \"that I speak for Ada too\nwhen I say that you have the strongest power over us both--rooted in\nrespect, gratitude, and affection--strengthening every day.\"\n\n\"Dear cousin John,\" said Ada, on his shoulder, \"my father's place can\nnever be empty again. All the love and duty I could ever have\nrendered to him is transferred to you.\"\n\n\"Come!\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"Now for our assumption. Now we lift our\neyes up and look hopefully at the distance! Rick, the world is before\nyou; and it is most probable that as you enter it, so it will receive\nyou. Trust in nothing but in Providence and your own efforts. Never\nseparate the two, like the heathen waggoner. Constancy in love is a\ngood thing, but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy\nin every kind of effort. If you had the abilities of all the great\nmen, past and present, you could do nothing well without sincerely\nmeaning it and setting about it. If you entertain the supposition\nthat any real success, in great things or in small, ever was or could\nbe, ever will or can be, wrested from Fortune by fits and starts,\nleave that wrong idea here or leave your cousin Ada here.\"\n\n\"I will leave IT here, sir,\" replied Richard smiling, \"if I brought\nit here just now (but I hope I did not), and will work my way on to\nmy cousin Ada in the hopeful distance.\"\n\n\"Right!\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"If you are not to make her happy, why\nshould you pursue her?\"\n\n\"I wouldn't make her unhappy--no, not even for her love,\" retorted\nRichard proudly.\n\n\"Well said!\" cried Mr. Jarndyce. \"That's well said! She remains here,\nin her home with me. Love her, Rick, in your active life, no less\nthan in her home when you revisit it, and all will go well.\nOtherwise, all will go ill. That's the end of my preaching. I think\nyou and Ada had better take a walk.\"\n\nAda tenderly embraced him, and Richard heartily shook hands with him,\nand then the cousins went out of the room, looking back again\ndirectly, though, to say that they would wait for me.\n\nThe door stood open, and we both followed them with our eyes as they\npassed down the adjoining room, on which the sun was shining, and out\nat its farther end. Richard with his head bent, and her hand drawn\nthrough his arm, was talking to her very earnestly; and she looked up\nin his face, listening, and seemed to see nothing else. So young, so\nbeautiful, so full of hope and promise, they went on lightly through\nthe sunlight as their own happy thoughts might then be traversing the\nyears to come and making them all years of brightness. So they passed\naway into the shadow and were gone. It was only a burst of light that\nhad been so radiant. The room darkened as they went out, and the sun\nwas clouded over.\n\n\"Am I right, Esther?\" said my guardian when they were gone.\n\nHe was so good and wise to ask ME whether he was right!\n\n\"Rick may gain, out of this, the quality he wants. Wants, at the core\nof so much that is good!\" said Mr. Jarndyce, shaking his head. \"I\nhave said nothing to Ada, Esther. She has her friend and counsellor\nalways near.\" And he laid his hand lovingly upon my head.\n\nI could not help showing that I was a little moved, though I did all\nI could to conceal it.\n\n\"Tut tut!\" said he. \"But we must take care, too, that our little\nwoman's life is not all consumed in care for others.\"\n\n\"Care? My dear guardian, I believe I am the happiest creature in the\nworld!\"\n\n\"I believe so, too,\" said he. \"But some one may find out what Esther\nnever will--that the little woman is to be held in remembrance above\nall other people!\"\n\nI have omitted to mention in its place that there was some one else\nat the family dinner party. It was not a lady. It was a gentleman. It\nwas a gentleman of a dark complexion--a young surgeon. He was rather\nreserved, but I thought him very sensible and agreeable. At least,\nAda asked me if I did not, and I said yes.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nDeportment\n\n\nRichard left us on the very next evening to begin his new career, and\ncommitted Ada to my charge with great love for her and great trust in\nme. It touched me then to reflect, and it touches me now, more\nnearly, to remember (having what I have to tell) how they both\nthought of me, even at that engrossing time. I was a part of all\ntheir plans, for the present and the future. I was to write Richard\nonce a week, making my faithful report of Ada, who was to write to\nhim every alternate day. I was to be informed, under his own hand, of\nall his labours and successes; I was to observe how resolute and\npersevering he would be; I was to be Ada's bridesmaid when they were\nmarried; I was to live with them afterwards; I was to keep all the\nkeys of their house; I was to be made happy for ever and a day.\n\n\"And if the suit SHOULD make us rich, Esther--which it may, you\nknow!\" said Richard to crown all.\n\nA shade crossed Ada's face.\n\n\"My dearest Ada,\" asked Richard, \"why not?\"\n\n\"It had better declare us poor at once,\" said Ada.\n\n\"Oh! I don't know about that,\" returned Richard, \"but at all events,\nit won't declare anything at once. It hasn't declared anything in\nheaven knows how many years.\"\n\n\"Too true,\" said Ada.\n\n\"Yes, but,\" urged Richard, answering what her look suggested rather\nthan her words, \"the longer it goes on, dear cousin, the nearer it\nmust be to a settlement one way or other. Now, is not that\nreasonable?\"\n\n\"You know best, Richard. But I am afraid if we trust to it, it will\nmake us unhappy.\"\n\n\"But, my Ada, we are not going to trust to it!\" cried Richard gaily.\n\"We know it better than to trust to it. We only say that if it SHOULD\nmake us rich, we have no constitutional objection to being rich. The\ncourt is, by solemn settlement of law, our grim old guardian, and we\nare to suppose that what it gives us (when it gives us anything) is\nour right. It is not necessary to quarrel with our right.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Ada, \"but it may be better to forget all about it.\"\n\n\"Well, well,\" cried Richard, \"then we will forget all about it! We\nconsign the whole thing to oblivion. Dame Durden puts on her\napproving face, and it's done!\"\n\n\"Dame Durden's approving face,\" said I, looking out of the box in\nwhich I was packing his books, \"was not very visible when you called\nit by that name; but it does approve, and she thinks you can't do\nbetter.\"\n\nSo, Richard said there was an end of it, and immediately began, on no\nother foundation, to build as many castles in the air as would man\nthe Great Wall of China. He went away in high spirits. Ada and I,\nprepared to miss him very much, commenced our quieter career.\n\nOn our arrival in London, we had called with Mr. Jarndyce at Mrs.\nJellyby's but had not been so fortunate as to find her at home. It\nappeared that she had gone somewhere to a tea-drinking and had taken\nMiss Jellyby with her. Besides the tea-drinking, there was to be some\nconsiderable speech-making and letter-writing on the general merits\nof the cultivation of coffee, conjointly with natives, at the\nSettlement of Borrioboola-Gha. All this involved, no doubt,\nsufficient active exercise of pen and ink to make her daughter's part\nin the proceedings anything but a holiday.\n\nIt being now beyond the time appointed for Mrs. Jellyby's return, we\ncalled again. She was in town, but not at home, having gone to Mile\nEnd directly after breakfast on some Borrioboolan business, arising\nout of a society called the East London Branch Aid Ramification. As I\nhad not seen Peepy on the occasion of our last call (when he was not\nto be found anywhere, and when the cook rather thought he must have\nstrolled away with the dustman's cart), I now inquired for him again.\nThe oyster shells he had been building a house with were still in the\npassage, but he was nowhere discoverable, and the cook supposed that\nhe had \"gone after the sheep.\" When we repeated, with some surprise,\n\"The sheep?\" she said, Oh, yes, on market days he sometimes followed\nthem quite out of town and came back in such a state as never was!\n\nI was sitting at the window with my guardian on the following\nmorning, and Ada was busy writing--of course to Richard--when Miss\nJellyby was announced, and entered, leading the identical Peepy, whom\nshe had made some endeavours to render presentable by wiping the dirt\ninto corners of his face and hands and making his hair very wet and\nthen violently frizzling it with her fingers. Everything the dear\nchild wore was either too large for him or too small. Among his other\ncontradictory decorations he had the hat of a bishop and the little\ngloves of a baby. His boots were, on a small scale, the boots of a\nploughman, while his legs, so crossed and recrossed with scratches\nthat they looked like maps, were bare below a very short pair of\nplaid drawers finished off with two frills of perfectly different\npatterns. The deficient buttons on his plaid frock had evidently been\nsupplied from one of Mr. Jellyby's coats, they were so extremely\nbrazen and so much too large. Most extraordinary specimens of\nneedlework appeared on several parts of his dress, where it had been\nhastily mended, and I recognized the same hand on Miss Jellyby's. She\nwas, however, unaccountably improved in her appearance and looked\nvery pretty. She was conscious of poor little Peepy being but a\nfailure after all her trouble, and she showed it as she came in by\nthe way in which she glanced first at him and then at us.\n\n\"Oh, dear me!\" said my guardian. \"Due east!\"\n\nAda and I gave her a cordial welcome and presented her to Mr.\nJarndyce, to whom she said as she sat down, \"Ma's compliments, and\nshe hopes you'll excuse her, because she's correcting proofs of the\nplan. She's going to put out five thousand new circulars, and she\nknows you'll be interested to hear that. I have brought one of them\nwith me. Ma's compliments.\" With which she presented it sulkily\nenough.\n\n\"Thank you,\" said my guardian. \"I am much obliged to Mrs. Jellyby.\nOh, dear me! This is a very trying wind!\"\n\nWe were busy with Peepy, taking off his clerical hat, asking him if\nhe remembered us, and so on. Peepy retired behind his elbow at first,\nbut relented at the sight of sponge-cake and allowed me to take him\non my lap, where he sat munching quietly. Mr. Jarndyce then\nwithdrawing into the temporary growlery, Miss Jellyby opened a\nconversation with her usual abruptness.\n\n\"We are going on just as bad as ever in Thavies Inn,\" said she. \"I\nhave no peace of my life. Talk of Africa! I couldn't be worse off if\nI was a what's-his-name--man and a brother!\"\n\nI tried to say something soothing.\n\n\"Oh, it's of no use, Miss Summerson,\" exclaimed Miss Jellyby, \"though\nI thank you for the kind intention all the same. I know how I am\nused, and I am not to be talked over. YOU wouldn't be talked over if\nyou were used so. Peepy, go and play at Wild Beasts under the piano!\"\n\n\"I shan't!\" said Peepy.\n\n\"Very well, you ungrateful, naughty, hard-hearted boy!\" returned Miss\nJellyby with tears in her eyes. \"I'll never take pains to dress you\nany more.\"\n\n\"Yes, I will go, Caddy!\" cried Peepy, who was really a good child and\nwho was so moved by his sister's vexation that he went at once.\n\n\"It seems a little thing to cry about,\" said poor Miss Jellyby\napologetically, \"but I am quite worn out. I was directing the new\ncirculars till two this morning. I detest the whole thing so that\nthat alone makes my head ache till I can't see out of my eyes. And\nlook at that poor unfortunate child! Was there ever such a fright as\nhe is!\"\n\nPeepy, happily unconscious of the defects in his appearance, sat on\nthe carpet behind one of the legs of the piano, looking calmly out of\nhis den at us while he ate his cake.\n\n\"I have sent him to the other end of the room,\" observed Miss\nJellyby, drawing her chair nearer ours, \"because I don't want him to\nhear the conversation. Those little things are so sharp! I was going\nto say, we really are going on worse than ever. Pa will be a bankrupt\nbefore long, and then I hope Ma will be satisfied. There'll he nobody\nbut Ma to thank for it.\"\n\nWe said we hoped Mr. Jellyby's affairs were not in so bad a state as\nthat.\n\n\"It's of no use hoping, though it's very kind of you,\" returned Miss\nJellyby, shaking her head. \"Pa told me only yesterday morning (and\ndreadfully unhappy he is) that he couldn't weather the storm. I\nshould be surprised if he could. When all our tradesmen send into our\nhouse any stuff they like, and the servants do what they like with\nit, and I have no time to improve things if I knew how, and Ma don't\ncare about anything, I should like to make out how Pa is to weather\nthe storm. I declare if I was Pa, I'd run away.\"\n\n\"My dear!\" said I, smiling. \"Your papa, no doubt, considers his\nfamily.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, his family is all very fine, Miss Summerson,\" replied Miss\nJellyby; \"but what comfort is his family to him? His family is\nnothing but bills, dirt, waste, noise, tumbles downstairs, confusion,\nand wretchedness. His scrambling home, from week's end to week's end,\nis like one great washing-day--only nothing's washed!\"\n\nMiss Jellyby tapped her foot upon the floor and wiped her eyes.\n\n\"I am sure I pity Pa to that degree,\" she said, \"and am so angry with\nMa that I can't find words to express myself! However, I am not going\nto bear it, I am determined. I won't be a slave all my life, and I\nwon't submit to be proposed to by Mr. Quale. A pretty thing, indeed,\nto marry a philanthropist. As if I hadn't had enough of THAT!\" said\npoor Miss Jellyby.\n\nI must confess that I could not help feeling rather angry with Mrs.\nJellyby myself, seeing and hearing this neglected girl and knowing\nhow much of bitterly satirical truth there was in what she said.\n\n\"If it wasn't that we had been intimate when you stopped at our\nhouse,\" pursued Miss Jellyby, \"I should have been ashamed to come\nhere to-day, for I know what a figure I must seem to you two. But as\nit is, I made up my mind to call, especially as I am not likely to\nsee you again the next time you come to town.\"\n\nShe said this with such great significance that Ada and I glanced at\none another, foreseeing something more.\n\n\"No!\" said Miss Jellyby, shaking her head. \"Not at all likely! I know\nI may trust you two. I am sure you won't betray me. I am engaged.\"\n\n\"Without their knowledge at home?\" said I.\n\n\"Why, good gracious me, Miss Summerson,\" she returned, justifying\nherself in a fretful but not angry manner, \"how can it be otherwise?\nYou know what Ma is--and I needn't make poor Pa more miserable by\ntelling HIM.\"\n\n\"But would it not be adding to his unhappiness to marry without his\nknowledge or consent, my dear?\" said I.\n\n\"No,\" said Miss Jellyby, softening. \"I hope not. I should try to make\nhim happy and comfortable when he came to see me, and Peepy and the\nothers should take it in turns to come and stay with me, and they\nshould have some care taken of them then.\"\n\nThere was a good deal of affection in poor Caddy. She softened more\nand more while saying this and cried so much over the unwonted little\nhome-picture she had raised in her mind that Peepy, in his cave under\nthe piano, was touched, and turned himself over on his back with loud\nlamentations. It was not until I had brought him to kiss his sister,\nand had restored him to his place on my lap, and had shown him that\nCaddy was laughing (she laughed expressly for the purpose), that we\ncould recall his peace of mind; even then it was for some time\nconditional on his taking us in turns by the chin and smoothing our\nfaces all over with his hand. At last, as his spirits were not equal\nto the piano, we put him on a chair to look out of window; and Miss\nJellyby, holding him by one leg, resumed her confidence.\n\n\"It began in your coming to our house,\" she said.\n\nWe naturally asked how.\n\n\"I felt I was so awkward,\" she replied, \"that I made up my mind to be\nimproved in that respect at all events and to learn to dance. I told\nMa I was ashamed of myself, and I must be taught to dance. Ma looked\nat me in that provoking way of hers as if I wasn't in sight, but I\nwas quite determined to be taught to dance, and so I went to Mr.\nTurveydrop's Academy in Newman Street.\"\n\n\"And was it there, my dear--\" I began.\n\n\"Yes, it was there,\" said Caddy, \"and I am engaged to Mr. Turveydrop.\nThere are two Mr. Turveydrops, father and son. My Mr. Turveydrop is\nthe son, of course. I only wish I had been better brought up and was\nlikely to make him a better wife, for I am very fond of him.\"\n\n\"I am sorry to hear this,\" said I, \"I must confess.\"\n\n\"I don't know why you should be sorry,\" she retorted a little\nanxiously, \"but I am engaged to Mr. Turveydrop, whether or no, and he\nis very fond of me. It's a secret as yet, even on his side, because\nold Mr. Turveydrop has a share in the connexion and it might break\nhis heart or give him some other shock if he was told of it abruptly.\nOld Mr. Turveydrop is a very gentlemanly man indeed--very\ngentlemanly.\"\n\n\"Does his wife know of it?\" asked Ada.\n\n\"Old Mr. Turveydrop's wife, Miss Clare?\" returned Miss Jellyby,\nopening her eyes. \"There's no such person. He is a widower.\"\n\nWe were here interrupted by Peepy, whose leg had undergone so much on\naccount of his sister's unconsciously jerking it like a bell-rope\nwhenever she was emphatic that the afflicted child now bemoaned his\nsufferings with a very low-spirited noise. As he appealed to me for\ncompassion, and as I was only a listener, I undertook to hold him.\nMiss Jellyby proceeded, after begging Peepy's pardon with a kiss and\nassuring him that she hadn't meant to do it.\n\n\"That's the state of the case,\" said Caddy. \"If I ever blame myself,\nI still think it's Ma's fault. We are to be married whenever we can,\nand then I shall go to Pa at the office and write to Ma. It won't\nmuch agitate Ma; I am only pen and ink to HER. One great comfort is,\"\nsaid Caddy with a sob, \"that I shall never hear of Africa after I am\nmarried. Young Mr. Turveydrop hates it for my sake, and if old Mr.\nTurveydrop knows there is such a place, it's as much as he does.\"\n\n\"It was he who was very gentlemanly, I think!\" said I.\n\n\"Very gentlemanly indeed,\" said Caddy. \"He is celebrated almost\neverywhere for his deportment.\"\n\n\"Does he teach?\" asked Ada.\n\n\"No, he don't teach anything in particular,\" replied Caddy. \"But his\ndeportment is beautiful.\"\n\nCaddy went on to say with considerable hesitation and reluctance that\nthere was one thing more she wished us to know, and felt we ought to\nknow, and which she hoped would not offend us. It was that she had\nimproved her acquaintance with Miss Flite, the little crazy old lady,\nand that she frequently went there early in the morning and met her\nlover for a few minutes before breakfast--only for a few minutes. \"I\ngo there at other times,\" said Caddy, \"but Prince does not come then.\nYoung Mr. Turveydrop's name is Prince; I wish it wasn't, because it\nsounds like a dog, but of course he didn't christen himself. Old Mr.\nTurveydrop had him christened Prince in remembrance of the Prince\nRegent. Old Mr. Turveydrop adored the Prince Regent on account of his\ndeportment. I hope you won't think the worse of me for having made\nthese little appointments at Miss Flite's, where I first went with\nyou, because I like the poor thing for her own sake and I believe she\nlikes me. If you could see young Mr. Turveydrop, I am sure you would\nthink well of him--at least, I am sure you couldn't possibly think\nany ill of him. I am going there now for my lesson. I couldn't ask\nyou to go with me, Miss Summerson; but if you would,\" said Caddy, who\nhad said all this earnestly and tremblingly, \"I should be very\nglad--very glad.\"\n\nIt happened that we had arranged with my guardian to go to Miss\nFlite's that day. We had told him of our former visit, and our\naccount had interested him; but something had always happened to\nprevent our going there again. As I trusted that I might have\nsufficient influence with Miss Jellyby to prevent her taking any very\nrash step if I fully accepted the confidence she was so willing to\nplace in me, poor girl, I proposed that she and I and Peepy should go\nto the academy and afterwards meet my guardian and Ada at Miss\nFlite's, whose name I now learnt for the first time. This was on\ncondition that Miss Jellyby and Peepy should come back with us to\ndinner. The last article of the agreement being joyfully acceded to\nby both, we smartened Peepy up a little with the assistance of a few\npins, some soap and water, and a hair-brush, and went out, bending\nour steps towards Newman Street, which was very near.\n\nI found the academy established in a sufficiently dingy house at the\ncorner of an archway, with busts in all the staircase windows. In the\nsame house there were also established, as I gathered from the plates\non the door, a drawing-master, a coal-merchant (there was, certainly,\nno room for his coals), and a lithographic artist. On the plate\nwhich, in size and situation, took precedence of all the rest, I\nread, MR. TURVEYDROP. The door was open, and the hall was blocked up\nby a grand piano, a harp, and several other musical instruments in\ncases, all in progress of removal, and all looking rakish in the\ndaylight. Miss Jellyby informed me that the academy had been lent,\nlast night, for a concert.\n\nWe went upstairs--it had been quite a fine house once, when it was\nanybody's business to keep it clean and fresh, and nobody's business\nto smoke in it all day--and into Mr. Turveydrop's great room, which\nwas built out into a mews at the back and was lighted by a skylight.\nIt was a bare, resounding room smelling of stables, with cane forms\nalong the walls, and the walls ornamented at regular intervals with\npainted lyres and little cut-glass branches for candles, which seemed\nto be shedding their old-fashioned drops as other branches might shed\nautumn leaves. Several young lady pupils, ranging from thirteen or\nfourteen years of age to two or three and twenty, were assembled; and\nI was looking among them for their instructor when Caddy, pinching my\narm, repeated the ceremony of introduction. \"Miss Summerson, Mr.\nPrince Turveydrop!\"\n\nI curtsied to a little blue-eyed fair man of youthful appearance with\nflaxen hair parted in the middle and curling at the ends all round\nhis head. He had a little fiddle, which we used to call at school a\nkit, under his left arm, and its little bow in the same hand. His\nlittle dancing-shoes were particularly diminutive, and he had a\nlittle innocent, feminine manner which not only appealed to me in an\namiable way, but made this singular effect upon me, that I received\nthe impression that he was like his mother and that his mother had\nnot been much considered or well used.\n\n\"I am very happy to see Miss Jellyby's friend,\" he said, bowing low\nto me. \"I began to fear,\" with timid tenderness, \"as it was past the\nusual time, that Miss Jellyby was not coming.\"\n\n\"I beg you will have the goodness to attribute that to me, who have\ndetained her, and to receive my excuses, sir,\" said I.\n\n\"Oh, dear!\" said he.\n\n\"And pray,\" I entreated, \"do not allow me to be the cause of any more\ndelay.\"\n\nWith that apology I withdrew to a seat between Peepy (who, being well\nused to it, had already climbed into a corner place) and an old lady\nof a censorious countenance whose two nieces were in the class and\nwho was very indignant with Peepy's boots. Prince Turveydrop then\ntinkled the strings of his kit with his fingers, and the young ladies\nstood up to dance. Just then there appeared from a side-door old Mr.\nTurveydrop, in the full lustre of his deportment.\n\nHe was a fat old gentleman with a false complexion, false teeth,\nfalse whiskers, and a wig. He had a fur collar, and he had a padded\nbreast to his coat, which only wanted a star or a broad blue ribbon\nto be complete. He was pinched in, and swelled out, and got up, and\nstrapped down, as much as he could possibly bear. He had such a\nneckcloth on (puffing his very eyes out of their natural shape), and\nhis chin and even his ears so sunk into it, that it seemed as though\nhe must inevitably double up if it were cast loose. He had under his\narm a hat of great size and weight, shelving downward from the crown\nto the brim, and in his hand a pair of white gloves with which he\nflapped it as he stood poised on one leg in a high-shouldered,\nround-elbowed state of elegance not to be surpassed. He had a cane,\nhe had an eye-glass, he had a snuff-box, he had rings, he had\nwristbands, he had everything but any touch of nature; he was not\nlike youth, he was not like age, he was not like anything in the\nworld but a model of deportment.\n\n\"Father! A visitor. Miss Jellyby's friend, Miss Summerson.\"\n\n\"Distinguished,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, \"by Miss Summerson's presence.\"\nAs he bowed to me in that tight state, I almost believe I saw creases\ncome into the whites of his eyes.\n\n\"My father,\" said the son, aside, to me with quite an affecting\nbelief in him, \"is a celebrated character. My father is greatly\nadmired.\"\n\n\"Go on, Prince! Go on!\" said Mr. Turveydrop, standing with his back\nto the fire and waving his gloves condescendingly. \"Go on, my son!\"\n\nAt this command, or by this gracious permission, the lesson went on.\nPrince Turveydrop sometimes played the kit, dancing; sometimes played\nthe piano, standing; sometimes hummed the tune with what little\nbreath he could spare, while he set a pupil right; always\nconscientiously moved with the least proficient through every step\nand every part of the figure; and never rested for an instant. His\ndistinguished father did nothing whatever but stand before the fire,\na model of deportment.\n\n\"And he never does anything else,\" said the old lady of the\ncensorious countenance. \"Yet would you believe that it's HIS name on\nthe door-plate?\"\n\n\"His son's name is the same, you know,\" said I.\n\n\"He wouldn't let his son have any name if he could take it from him,\"\nreturned the old lady. \"Look at the son's dress!\" It certainly was\nplain--threadbare--almost shabby. \"Yet the father must be garnished\nand tricked out,\" said the old lady, \"because of his deportment. I'd\ndeport him! Transport him would be better!\"\n\nI felt curious to know more concerning this person. I asked, \"Does he\ngive lessons in deportment now?\"\n\n\"Now!\" returned the old lady shortly. \"Never did.\"\n\nAfter a moment's consideration, I suggested that perhaps fencing had\nbeen his accomplishment.\n\n\"I don't believe he can fence at all, ma'am,\" said the old lady.\n\nI looked surprised and inquisitive. The old lady, becoming more and\nmore incensed against the master of deportment as she dwelt upon the\nsubject, gave me some particulars of his career, with strong\nassurances that they were mildly stated.\n\nHe had married a meek little dancing-mistress, with a tolerable\nconnexion (having never in his life before done anything but deport\nhimself), and had worked her to death, or had, at the best, suffered\nher to work herself to death, to maintain him in those expenses which\nwere indispensable to his position. At once to exhibit his deportment\nto the best models and to keep the best models constantly before\nhimself, he had found it necessary to frequent all public places of\nfashionable and lounging resort, to be seen at Brighton and elsewhere\nat fashionable times, and to lead an idle life in the very best\nclothes. To enable him to do this, the affectionate little\ndancing-mistress had toiled and laboured and would have toiled and\nlaboured to that hour if her strength had lasted so long. For the\nmainspring of the story was that in spite of the man's absorbing\nselfishness, his wife (overpowered by his deportment) had, to the\nlast, believed in him and had, on her death-bed, in the most moving\nterms, confided him to their son as one who had an inextinguishable\nclaim upon him and whom he could never regard with too much pride and\ndeference. The son, inheriting his mother's belief, and having the\ndeportment always before him, had lived and grown in the same faith,\nand now, at thirty years of age, worked for his father twelve hours a\nday and looked up to him with veneration on the old imaginary\npinnacle.\n\n\"The airs the fellow gives himself!\" said my informant, shaking her\nhead at old Mr. Turveydrop with speechless indignation as he drew on\nhis tight gloves, of course unconscious of the homage she was\nrendering. \"He fully believes he is one of the aristocracy! And he is\nso condescending to the son he so egregiously deludes that you might\nsuppose him the most virtuous of parents. Oh!\" said the old lady,\napostrophizing him with infinite vehemence. \"I could bite you!\"\n\nI could not help being amused, though I heard the old lady out with\nfeelings of real concern. It was difficult to doubt her with the\nfather and son before me. What I might have thought of them without\nthe old lady's account, or what I might have thought of the old\nlady's account without them, I cannot say. There was a fitness of\nthings in the whole that carried conviction with it.\n\nMy eyes were yet wandering, from young Mr. Turveydrop working so\nhard, to old Mr. Turveydrop deporting himself so beautifully, when\nthe latter came ambling up to me and entered into conversation.\n\nHe asked me, first of all, whether I conferred a charm and a\ndistinction on London by residing in it? I did not think it necessary\nto reply that I was perfectly aware I should not do that, in any\ncase, but merely told him where I did reside.\n\n\"A lady so graceful and accomplished,\" he said, kissing his\nright glove and afterwards extending it towards the pupils,\n\"will look leniently on the deficiencies here. We do our best to\npolish--polish--polish!\"\n\nHe sat down beside me, taking some pains to sit on the form, I\nthought, in imitation of the print of his illustrious model on the\nsofa. And really he did look very like it.\n\n\"To polish--polish--polish!\" he repeated, taking a pinch of snuff and\ngently fluttering his fingers. \"But we are not, if I may say so to\none formed to be graceful both by Nature and Art--\" with the\nhigh-shouldered bow, which it seemed impossible for him to make\nwithout lifting up his eyebrows and shutting his eyes \"--we are not\nwhat we used to be in point of deportment.\"\n\n\"Are we not, sir?\" said I.\n\n\"We have degenerated,\" he returned, shaking his head, which he could\ndo to a very limited extent in his cravat. \"A levelling age is not\nfavourable to deportment. It develops vulgarity. Perhaps I speak with\nsome little partiality. It may not be for me to say that I have been\ncalled, for some years now, Gentleman Turveydrop, or that his Royal\nHighness the Prince Regent did me the honour to inquire, on my\nremoving my hat as he drove out of the Pavilion at Brighton (that\nfine building), 'Who is he? Who the devil is he? Why don't I know\nhim? Why hasn't he thirty thousand a year?' But these are little\nmatters of anecdote--the general property, ma'am--still repeated\noccasionally among the upper classes.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\" said I.\n\nHe replied with the high-shouldered bow. \"Where what is left among us\nof deportment,\" he added, \"still lingers. England--alas, my\ncountry!--has degenerated very much, and is degenerating every day.\nShe has not many gentlemen left. We are few. I see nothing to succeed\nus but a race of weavers.\"\n\n\"One might hope that the race of gentlemen would be perpetuated\nhere,\" said I.\n\n\"You are very good.\" He smiled with a high-shouldered bow again. \"You\nflatter me. But, no--no! I have never been able to imbue my poor boy\nwith that part of his art. Heaven forbid that I should disparage my\ndear child, but he has--no deportment.\"\n\n\"He appears to be an excellent master,\" I observed.\n\n\"Understand me, my dear madam, he IS an excellent master. All that\ncan be acquired, he has acquired. All that can be imparted, he can\nimpart. But there ARE things--\" He took another pinch of snuff and\nmade the bow again, as if to add, \"This kind of thing, for instance.\"\n\nI glanced towards the centre of the room, where Miss Jellyby's lover,\nnow engaged with single pupils, was undergoing greater drudgery than\never.\n\n\"My amiable child,\" murmured Mr. Turveydrop, adjusting his cravat.\n\n\"Your son is indefatigable,\" said I.\n\n\"It is my reward,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, \"to hear you say so. In some\nrespects, he treads in the footsteps of his sainted mother. She was a\ndevoted creature. But wooman, lovely wooman,\" said Mr. Turveydrop\nwith very disagreeable gallantry, \"what a sex you are!\"\n\nI rose and joined Miss Jellyby, who was by this time putting on her\nbonnet. The time allotted to a lesson having fully elapsed, there was\na general putting on of bonnets. When Miss Jellyby and the\nunfortunate Prince found an opportunity to become betrothed I don't\nknow, but they certainly found none on this occasion to exchange a\ndozen words.\n\n\"My dear,\" said Mr. Turveydrop benignly to his son, \"do you know the\nhour?\"\n\n\"No, father.\" The son had no watch. The father had a handsome gold\none, which he pulled out with an air that was an example to mankind.\n\n\"My son,\" said he, \"it's two o'clock. Recollect your school at\nKensington at three.\"\n\n\"That's time enough for me, father,\" said Prince. \"I can take a\nmorsel of dinner standing and be off.\"\n\n\"My dear boy,\" returned his father, \"you must be very quick. You will\nfind the cold mutton on the table.\"\n\n\"Thank you, father. Are YOU off now, father?\"\n\n\"Yes, my dear. I suppose,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, shutting his eyes and\nlifting up his shoulders with modest consciousness, \"that I must show\nmyself, as usual, about town.\"\n\n\"You had better dine out comfortably somewhere,\" said his son.\n\n\"My dear child, I intend to. I shall take my little meal, I think, at\nthe French house, in the Opera Colonnade.\"\n\n\"That's right. Good-bye, father!\" said Prince, shaking hands.\n\n\"Good-bye, my son. Bless you!\"\n\nMr. Turveydrop said this in quite a pious manner, and it seemed to do\nhis son good, who, in parting from him, was so pleased with him, so\ndutiful to him, and so proud of him that I almost felt as if it were\nan unkindness to the younger man not to be able to believe implicitly\nin the elder. The few moments that were occupied by Prince in taking\nleave of us (and particularly of one of us, as I saw, being in the\nsecret), enhanced my favourable impression of his almost childish\ncharacter. I felt a liking for him and a compassion for him as he put\nhis little kit in his pocket--and with it his desire to stay a little\nwhile with Caddy--and went away good-humouredly to his cold mutton\nand his school at Kensington, that made me scarcely less irate with\nhis father than the censorious old lady.\n\nThe father opened the room door for us and bowed us out in a manner,\nI must acknowledge, worthy of his shining original. In the same style\nhe presently passed us on the other side of the street, on his way to\nthe aristocratic part of the town, where he was going to show himself\namong the few other gentlemen left. For some moments, I was so lost\nin reconsidering what I had heard and seen in Newman Street that I\nwas quite unable to talk to Caddy or even to fix my attention on what\nshe said to me, especially when I began to inquire in my mind whether\nthere were, or ever had been, any other gentlemen, not in the dancing\nprofession, who lived and founded a reputation entirely on their\ndeportment. This became so bewildering and suggested the possibility\nof so many Mr. Turveydrops that I said, \"Esther, you must make up\nyour mind to abandon this subject altogether and attend to Caddy.\" I\naccordingly did so, and we chatted all the rest of the way to\nLincoln's Inn.\n\nCaddy told me that her lover's education had been so neglected that\nit was not always easy to read his notes. She said if he were not so\nanxious about his spelling and took less pains to make it clear, he\nwould do better; but he put so many unnecessary letters into short\nwords that they sometimes quite lost their English appearance. \"He\ndoes it with the best intention,\" observed Caddy, \"but it hasn't the\neffect he means, poor fellow!\" Caddy then went on to reason, how\ncould he be expected to be a scholar when he had passed his whole\nlife in the dancing-school and had done nothing but teach and fag,\nfag and teach, morning, noon, and night! And what did it matter? She\ncould write letters enough for both, as she knew to her cost, and it\nwas far better for him to be amiable than learned. \"Besides, it's not\nas if I was an accomplished girl who had any right to give herself\nairs,\" said Caddy. \"I know little enough, I am sure, thanks to Ma!\n\n\"There's another thing I want to tell you, now we are alone,\"\ncontinued Caddy, \"which I should not have liked to mention unless you\nhad seen Prince, Miss Summerson. You know what a house ours is. It's\nof no use my trying to learn anything that it would be useful for\nPrince's wife to know in OUR house. We live in such a state of muddle\nthat it's impossible, and I have only been more disheartened whenever\nI have tried. So I get a little practice with--who do you think? Poor\nMiss Flite! Early in the morning I help her to tidy her room and\nclean her birds, and I make her cup of coffee for her (of course she\ntaught me), and I have learnt to make it so well that Prince says\nit's the very best coffee he ever tasted, and would quite delight old\nMr. Turveydrop, who is very particular indeed about his coffee. I can\nmake little puddings too; and I know how to buy neck of mutton, and\ntea, and sugar, and butter, and a good many housekeeping things. I am\nnot clever at my needle, yet,\" said Caddy, glancing at the repairs on\nPeepy's frock, \"but perhaps I shall improve, and since I have been\nengaged to Prince and have been doing all this, I have felt\nbetter-tempered, I hope, and more forgiving to Ma. It rather put me\nout at first this morning to see you and Miss Clare looking so neat\nand pretty and to feel ashamed of Peepy and myself too, but on the\nwhole I hope I am better-tempered than I was and more forgiving to\nMa.\"\n\nThe poor girl, trying so hard, said it from her heart, and touched\nmine. \"Caddy, my love,\" I replied, \"I begin to have a great affection\nfor you, and I hope we shall become friends.\"\n\n\"Oh, do you?\" cried Caddy. \"How happy that would make me!\"\n\n\"My dear Caddy,\" said I, \"let us be friends from this time, and let\nus often have a chat about these matters and try to find the right\nway through them.\" Caddy was overjoyed. I said everything I could in\nmy old-fashioned way to comfort and encourage her, and I would not\nhave objected to old Mr. Turveydrop that day for any smaller\nconsideration than a settlement on his daughter-in-law.\n\nBy this time we were come to Mr. Krook's, whose private door stood\nopen. There was a bill, pasted on the door-post, announcing a room to\nlet on the second floor. It reminded Caddy to tell me as we proceeded\nupstairs that there had been a sudden death there and an inquest and\nthat our little friend had been ill of the fright. The door and\nwindow of the vacant room being open, we looked in. It was the room\nwith the dark door to which Miss Flite had secretly directed my\nattention when I was last in the house. A sad and desolate place it\nwas, a gloomy, sorrowful place that gave me a strange sensation of\nmournfulness and even dread. \"You look pale,\" said Caddy when we came\nout, \"and cold!\" I felt as if the room had chilled me.\n\nWe had walked slowly while we were talking, and my guardian and Ada\nwere here before us. We found them in Miss Flite's garret. They were\nlooking at the birds, while a medical gentleman who was so good as to\nattend Miss Flite with much solicitude and compassion spoke with her\ncheerfully by the fire.\n\n\"I have finished my professional visit,\" he said, coming forward.\n\"Miss Flite is much better and may appear in court (as her mind is\nset upon it) to-morrow. She has been greatly missed there, I\nunderstand.\"\n\nMiss Flite received the compliment with complacency and dropped a\ngeneral curtsy to us.\n\n\"Honoured, indeed,\" said she, \"by another visit from the wards in\nJarndyce! Ve-ry happy to receive Jarndyce of Bleak House beneath my\nhumble roof!\" with a special curtsy. \"Fitz-Jarndyce, my dear\"--she\nhad bestowed that name on Caddy, it appeared, and always called her\nby it--\"a double welcome!\"\n\n\"Has she been very ill?\" asked Mr. Jarndyce of the gentleman whom we\nhad found in attendance on her. She answered for herself directly,\nthough he had put the question in a whisper.\n\n\"Oh, decidedly unwell! Oh, very unwell indeed,\" she said\nconfidentially. \"Not pain, you know--trouble. Not bodily so much as\nnervous, nervous! The truth is,\" in a subdued voice and trembling,\n\"we have had death here. There was poison in the house. I am very\nsusceptible to such horrid things. It frightened me. Only Mr.\nWoodcourt knows how much. My physician, Mr. Woodcourt!\" with\ngreat stateliness. \"The wards in Jarndyce--Jarndyce of Bleak\nHouse--Fitz-Jarndyce!\"\n\n\"Miss Flite,\" said Mr. Woodcourt in a grave kind of voice, as if he\nwere appealing to her while speaking to us, and laying his hand\ngently on her arm, \"Miss Flite describes her illness with her usual\naccuracy. She was alarmed by an occurrence in the house which might\nhave alarmed a stronger person, and was made ill by the distress and\nagitation. She brought me here in the first hurry of the discovery,\nthough too late for me to be of any use to the unfortunate man. I\nhave compensated myself for that disappointment by coming here since\nand being of some small use to her.\"\n\n\"The kindest physician in the college,\" whispered Miss Flite to me.\n\"I expect a judgment. On the day of judgment. And shall then confer\nestates.\"\n\n\"She will be as well in a day or two,\" said Mr. Woodcourt, looking at\nher with an observant smile, \"as she ever will be. In other words,\nquite well of course. Have you heard of her good fortune?\"\n\n\"Most extraordinary!\" said Miss Flite, smiling brightly. \"You never\nheard of such a thing, my dear! Every Saturday, Conversation Kenge or\nGuppy (clerk to Conversation K.) places in my hand a paper of\nshillings. Shillings. I assure you! Always the same number in the\npaper. Always one for every day in the week. Now you know, really! So\nwell-timed, is it not? Ye-es! From whence do these papers come, you\nsay? That is the great question. Naturally. Shall I tell you what I\nthink? I think,\" said Miss Flite, drawing herself back with a very\nshrewd look and shaking her right forefinger in a most significant\nmanner, \"that the Lord Chancellor, aware of the length of time during\nwhich the Great Seal has been open (for it has been open a long\ntime!), forwards them. Until the judgment I expect is given. Now\nthat's very creditable, you know. To confess in that way that he IS a\nlittle slow for human life. So delicate! Attending court the other\nday--I attend it regularly, with my documents--I taxed him with it,\nand he almost confessed. That is, I smiled at him from my bench, and\nHE smiled at me from his bench. But it's great good fortune, is it\nnot? And Fitz-Jarndyce lays the money out for me to great advantage.\nOh, I assure you to the greatest advantage!\"\n\nI congratulated her (as she addressed herself to me) upon this\nfortunate addition to her income and wished her a long continuance of\nit. I did not speculate upon the source from which it came or wonder\nwhose humanity was so considerate. My guardian stood before me,\ncontemplating the birds, and I had no need to look beyond him.\n\n\"And what do you call these little fellows, ma'am?\" said he in his\npleasant voice. \"Have they any names?\"\n\n\"I can answer for Miss Flite that they have,\" said I, \"for she\npromised to tell us what they were. Ada remembers?\"\n\nAda remembered very well.\n\n\"Did I?\" said Miss Flite. \"Who's that at my door? What are you\nlistening at my door for, Krook?\"\n\nThe old man of the house, pushing it open before him, appeared there\nwith his fur cap in his hand and his cat at his heels.\n\n\"I warn't listening, Miss Flite,\" he said, \"I was going to give a rap\nwith my knuckles, only you're so quick!\"\n\n\"Make your cat go down. Drive her away!\" the old lady angrily\nexclaimed.\n\n\"Bah, bah! There ain't no danger, gentlefolks,\" said Mr. Krook,\nlooking slowly and sharply from one to another until he had looked at\nall of us; \"she'd never offer at the birds when I was here unless I\ntold her to it.\"\n\n\"You will excuse my landlord,\" said the old lady with a dignified\nair. \"M, quite M! What do you want, Krook, when I have company?\"\n\n\"Hi!\" said the old man. \"You know I am the Chancellor.\"\n\n\"Well?\" returned Miss Flite. \"What of that?\"\n\n\"For the Chancellor,\" said the old man with a chuckle, \"not to be\nacquainted with a Jarndyce is queer, ain't it, Miss Flite? Mightn't I\ntake the liberty? Your servant, sir. I know Jarndyce and Jarndyce\na'most as well as you do, sir. I knowed old Squire Tom, sir. I never\nto my knowledge see you afore though, not even in court. Yet, I go\nthere a mortal sight of times in the course of the year, taking one\nday with another.\"\n\n\"I never go there,\" said Mr. Jarndyce (which he never did on any\nconsideration). \"I would sooner go--somewhere else.\"\n\n\"Would you though?\" returned Krook, grinning. \"You're bearing hard\nupon my noble and learned brother in your meaning, sir, though\nperhaps it is but nat'ral in a Jarndyce. The burnt child, sir! What,\nyou're looking at my lodger's birds, Mr. Jarndyce?\" The old man had\ncome by little and little into the room until he now touched my\nguardian with his elbow and looked close up into his face with his\nspectacled eyes. \"It's one of her strange ways that she'll never tell\nthe names of these birds if she can help it, though she named 'em\nall.\" This was in a whisper. \"Shall I run 'em over, Flite?\" he asked\naloud, winking at us and pointing at her as she turned away,\naffecting to sweep the grate.\n\n\"If you like,\" she answered hurriedly.\n\nThe old man, looking up at the cages after another look at us, went\nthrough the list.\n\n\"Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin,\nDespair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags,\nSheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach. That's\nthe whole collection,\" said the old man, \"all cooped up together, by\nmy noble and learned brother.\"\n\n\"This is a bitter wind!\" muttered my guardian.\n\n\"When my noble and learned brother gives his judgment, they're to be\nlet go free,\" said Krook, winking at us again. \"And then,\" he added,\nwhispering and grinning, \"if that ever was to happen--which it\nwon't--the birds that have never been caged would kill 'em.\"\n\n\"If ever the wind was in the east,\" said my guardian, pretending to\nlook out of the window for a weathercock, \"I think it's there\nto-day!\"\n\nWe found it very difficult to get away from the house. It was not\nMiss Flite who detained us; she was as reasonable a little creature\nin consulting the convenience of others as there possibly could be.\nIt was Mr. Krook. He seemed unable to detach himself from Mr.\nJarndyce. If he had been linked to him, he could hardly have attended\nhim more closely. He proposed to show us his Court of Chancery and\nall the strange medley it contained; during the whole of our\ninspection (prolonged by himself) he kept close to Mr. Jarndyce and\nsometimes detained him under one pretence or other until we had\npassed on, as if he were tormented by an inclination to enter upon\nsome secret subject which he could not make up his mind to approach.\nI cannot imagine a countenance and manner more singularly expressive\nof caution and indecision, and a perpetual impulse to do something he\ncould not resolve to venture on, than Mr. Krook's was that day. His\nwatchfulness of my guardian was incessant. He rarely removed his eyes\nfrom his face. If he went on beside him, he observed him with the\nslyness of an old white fox. If he went before, he looked back. When\nwe stood still, he got opposite to him, and drawing his hand across\nand across his open mouth with a curious expression of a sense of\npower, and turning up his eyes, and lowering his grey eyebrows until\nthey appeared to be shut, seemed to scan every lineament of his face.\n\nAt last, having been (always attended by the cat) all over the house\nand having seen the whole stock of miscellaneous lumber, which was\ncertainly curious, we came into the back part of the shop. Here on\nthe head of an empty barrel stood on end were an ink-bottle, some old\nstumps of pens, and some dirty playbills; and against the wall were\npasted several large printed alphabets in several plain hands.\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" asked my guardian.\n\n\"Trying to learn myself to read and write,\" said Krook.\n\n\"And how do you get on?\"\n\n\"Slow. Bad,\" returned the old man impatiently. \"It's hard at my time\nof life.\"\n\n\"It would be easier to be taught by some one,\" said my guardian.\n\n\"Aye, but they might teach me wrong!\" returned the old man with a\nwonderfully suspicious flash of his eye. \"I don't know what I may\nhave lost by not being learned afore. I wouldn't like to lose\nanything by being learned wrong now.\"\n\n\"Wrong?\" said my guardian with his good-humoured smile. \"Who do you\nsuppose would teach you wrong?\"\n\n\"I don't know, Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House!\" replied the old man,\nturning up his spectacles on his forehead and rubbing his hands. \"I\ndon't suppose as anybody would, but I'd rather trust my own self than\nanother!\"\n\nThese answers and his manner were strange enough to cause my guardian\nto inquire of Mr. Woodcourt, as we all walked across Lincoln's Inn\ntogether, whether Mr. Krook were really, as his lodger represented\nhim, deranged. The young surgeon replied, no, he had seen no reason\nto think so. He was exceedingly distrustful, as ignorance usually\nwas, and he was always more or less under the influence of raw gin,\nof which he drank great quantities and of which he and his back-shop,\nas we might have observed, smelt strongly; but he did not think him\nmad as yet.\n\nOn our way home, I so conciliated Peepy's affections by buying him a\nwindmill and two flour-sacks that he would suffer nobody else to take\noff his hat and gloves and would sit nowhere at dinner but at my\nside. Caddy sat upon the other side of me, next to Ada, to whom we\nimparted the whole history of the engagement as soon as we got back.\nWe made much of Caddy, and Peepy too; and Caddy brightened\nexceedingly; and my guardian was as merry as we were; and we were all\nvery happy indeed until Caddy went home at night in a hackney-coach,\nwith Peepy fast asleep, but holding tight to the windmill.\n\nI have forgotten to mention--at least I have not mentioned--that Mr.\nWoodcourt was the same dark young surgeon whom we had met at Mr.\nBadger's. Or that Mr. Jarndyce invited him to dinner that day. Or\nthat he came. Or that when they were all gone and I said to Ada,\n\"Now, my darling, let us have a little talk about Richard!\" Ada\nlaughed and said--\n\nBut I don't think it matters what my darling said. She was always\nmerry.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nBell Yard\n\n\nWhile we were in London Mr. Jarndyce was constantly beset by the\ncrowd of excitable ladies and gentlemen whose proceedings had so much\nastonished us. Mr. Quale, who presented himself soon after our\narrival, was in all such excitements. He seemed to project those two\nshining knobs of temples of his into everything that went on and to\nbrush his hair farther and farther back, until the very roots were\nalmost ready to fly out of his head in inappeasable philanthropy. All\nobjects were alike to him, but he was always particularly ready for\nanything in the way of a testimonial to any one. His great power\nseemed to be his power of indiscriminate admiration. He would sit for\nany length of time, with the utmost enjoyment, bathing his temples in\nthe light of any order of luminary. Having first seen him perfectly\nswallowed up in admiration of Mrs. Jellyby, I had supposed her to be\nthe absorbing object of his devotion. I soon discovered my mistake\nand found him to be train-bearer and organ-blower to a whole\nprocession of people.\n\nMrs. Pardiggle came one day for a subscription to something, and with\nher, Mr. Quale. Whatever Mrs. Pardiggle said, Mr. Quale repeated to\nus; and just as he had drawn Mrs. Jellyby out, he drew Mrs. Pardiggle\nout. Mrs. Pardiggle wrote a letter of introduction to my guardian in\nbehalf of her eloquent friend Mr. Gusher. With Mr. Gusher appeared\nMr. Quale again. Mr. Gusher, being a flabby gentleman with a moist\nsurface and eyes so much too small for his moon of a face that they\nseemed to have been originally made for somebody else, was not at\nfirst sight prepossessing; yet he was scarcely seated before Mr.\nQuale asked Ada and me, not inaudibly, whether he was not a great\ncreature--which he certainly was, flabbily speaking, though Mr. Quale\nmeant in intellectual beauty--and whether we were not struck by his\nmassive configuration of brow. In short, we heard of a great many\nmissions of various sorts among this set of people, but nothing\nrespecting them was half so clear to us as that it was Mr. Quale's\nmission to be in ecstasies with everybody else's mission and that it\nwas the most popular mission of all.\n\nMr. Jarndyce had fallen into this company in the tenderness of his\nheart and his earnest desire to do all the good in his power; but\nthat he felt it to be too often an unsatisfactory company, where\nbenevolence took spasmodic forms, where charity was assumed as a\nregular uniform by loud professors and speculators in cheap\nnotoriety, vehement in profession, restless and vain in action,\nservile in the last degree of meanness to the great, adulatory of one\nanother, and intolerable to those who were anxious quietly to help\nthe weak from failing rather than with a great deal of bluster and\nself-laudation to raise them up a little way when they were down, he\nplainly told us. When a testimonial was originated to Mr. Quale by\nMr. Gusher (who had already got one, originated by Mr. Quale), and\nwhen Mr. Gusher spoke for an hour and a half on the subject to a\nmeeting, including two charity schools of small boys and girls, who\nwere specially reminded of the widow's mite, and requested to come\nforward with halfpence and be acceptable sacrifices, I think the wind\nwas in the east for three whole weeks.\n\nI mention this because I am coming to Mr. Skimpole again. It seemed\nto me that his off-hand professions of childishness and carelessness\nwere a great relief to my guardian, by contrast with such things, and\nwere the more readily believed in since to find one perfectly\nundesigning and candid man among many opposites could not fail to\ngive him pleasure. I should be sorry to imply that Mr. Skimpole\ndivined this and was politic; I really never understood him well\nenough to know. What he was to my guardian, he certainly was to the\nrest of the world.\n\nHe had not been very well; and thus, though he lived in London, we\nhad seen nothing of him until now. He appeared one morning in his\nusual agreeable way and as full of pleasant spirits as ever.\n\nWell, he said, here he was! He had been bilious, but rich men were\noften bilious, and therefore he had been persuading himself that he\nwas a man of property. So he was, in a certain point of view--in his\nexpansive intentions. He had been enriching his medical attendant in\nthe most lavish manner. He had always doubled, and sometimes\nquadrupled, his fees. He had said to the doctor, \"Now, my dear\ndoctor, it is quite a delusion on your part to suppose that you\nattend me for nothing. I am overwhelming you with money--in my\nexpansive intentions--if you only knew it!\" And really (he said) he\nmeant it to that degree that he thought it much the same as doing it.\nIf he had had those bits of metal or thin paper to which mankind\nattached so much importance to put in the doctor's hand, he would\nhave put them in the doctor's hand. Not having them, he substituted\nthe will for the deed. Very well! If he really meant it--if his will\nwere genuine and real, which it was--it appeared to him that it was\nthe same as coin, and cancelled the obligation.\n\n\"It may be, partly, because I know nothing of the value of money,\"\nsaid Mr. Skimpole, \"but I often feel this. It seems so reasonable! My\nbutcher says to me he wants that little bill. It's a part of the\npleasant unconscious poetry of the man's nature that he always calls\nit a 'little' bill--to make the payment appear easy to both of us. I\nreply to the butcher, 'My good friend, if you knew it, you are paid.\nYou haven't had the trouble of coming to ask for the little bill. You\nare paid. I mean it.'\"\n\n\"But, suppose,\" said my guardian, laughing, \"he had meant the meat in\nthe bill, instead of providing it?\"\n\n\"My dear Jarndyce,\" he returned, \"you surprise me. You take the\nbutcher's position. A butcher I once dealt with occupied that very\nground. Says he, 'Sir, why did you eat spring lamb at eighteen pence\na pound?' 'Why did I eat spring lamb at eighteen pence a pound, my\nhonest friend?' said I, naturally amazed by the question. 'I like\nspring lamb!' This was so far convincing. 'Well, sir,' says he, 'I\nwish I had meant the lamb as you mean the money!' 'My good fellow,'\nsaid I, 'pray let us reason like intellectual beings. How could that\nbe? It was impossible. You HAD got the lamb, and I have NOT got the\nmoney. You couldn't really mean the lamb without sending it in,\nwhereas I can, and do, really mean the money without paying it!' He\nhad not a word. There was an end of the subject.\"\n\n\"Did he take no legal proceedings?\" inquired my guardian.\n\n\"Yes, he took legal proceedings,\" said Mr. Skimpole. \"But in that he\nwas influenced by passion, not by reason. Passion reminds me of\nBoythorn. He writes me that you and the ladies have promised him a\nshort visit at his bachelor-house in Lincolnshire.\"\n\n\"He is a great favourite with my girls,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"and I\nhave promised for them.\"\n\n\"Nature forgot to shade him off, I think,\" observed Mr. Skimpole to\nAda and me. \"A little too boisterous--like the sea. A little too\nvehement--like a bull who has made up his mind to consider every\ncolour scarlet. But I grant a sledge-hammering sort of merit in him!\"\n\nI should have been surprised if those two could have thought very\nhighly of one another, Mr. Boythorn attaching so much importance to\nmany things and Mr. Skimpole caring so little for anything. Besides\nwhich, I had noticed Mr. Boythorn more than once on the point of\nbreaking out into some strong opinion when Mr. Skimpole was referred\nto. Of course I merely joined Ada in saying that we had been greatly\npleased with him.\n\n\"He has invited me,\" said Mr. Skimpole; \"and if a child may trust\nhimself in such hands--which the present child is encouraged to do,\nwith the united tenderness of two angels to guard him--I shall go. He\nproposes to frank me down and back again. I suppose it will cost\nmoney? Shillings perhaps? Or pounds? Or something of that sort? By\nthe by, Coavinses. You remember our friend Coavinses, Miss\nSummerson?\"\n\nHe asked me as the subject arose in his mind, in his graceful,\nlight-hearted manner and without the least embarrassment.\n\n\"Oh, yes!\" said I.\n\n\"Coavinses has been arrested by the Great Bailiff,\" said Mr.\nSkimpole. \"He will never do violence to the sunshine any more.\"\n\nIt quite shocked me to hear it, for I had already recalled with\nanything but a serious association the image of the man sitting on\nthe sofa that night wiping his head.\n\n\"His successor informed me of it yesterday,\" said Mr. Skimpole. \"His\nsuccessor is in my house now--in possession, I think he calls it. He\ncame yesterday, on my blue-eyed daughter's birthday. I put it to him,\n'This is unreasonable and inconvenient. If you had a blue-eyed\ndaughter you wouldn't like ME to come, uninvited, on HER birthday?'\nBut he stayed.\"\n\nMr. Skimpole laughed at the pleasant absurdity and lightly touched\nthe piano by which he was seated.\n\n\"And he told me,\" he said, playing little chords where I shall put\nfull stops, \"The Coavinses had left. Three children. No mother. And\nthat Coavinses' profession. Being unpopular. The rising Coavinses.\nWere at a considerable disadvantage.\"\n\nMr. Jarndyce got up, rubbing his head, and began to walk about. Mr.\nSkimpole played the melody of one of Ada's favourite songs. Ada and I\nboth looked at Mr. Jarndyce, thinking that we knew what was passing\nin his mind.\n\nAfter walking and stopping, and several times leaving off rubbing his\nhead, and beginning again, my guardian put his hand upon the keys and\nstopped Mr. Skimpole's playing. \"I don't like this, Skimpole,\" he\nsaid thoughtfully.\n\nMr. Skimpole, who had quite forgotten the subject, looked up\nsurprised.\n\n\"The man was necessary,\" pursued my guardian, walking backward and\nforward in the very short space between the piano and the end of the\nroom and rubbing his hair up from the back of his head as if a high\neast wind had blown it into that form. \"If we make such men necessary\nby our faults and follies, or by our want of worldly knowledge, or by\nour misfortunes, we must not revenge ourselves upon them. There was\nno harm in his trade. He maintained his children. One would like to\nknow more about this.\"\n\n\"Oh! Coavinses?\" cried Mr. Skimpole, at length perceiving what he\nmeant. \"Nothing easier. A walk to Coavinses' headquarters, and you\ncan know what you will.\"\n\nMr. Jarndyce nodded to us, who were only waiting for the signal.\n\"Come! We will walk that way, my dears. Why not that way as soon as\nanother!\" We were quickly ready and went out. Mr. Skimpole went with\nus and quite enjoyed the expedition. It was so new and so refreshing,\nhe said, for him to want Coavinses instead of Coavinses wanting him!\n\nHe took us, first, to Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, where there was\na house with barred windows, which he called Coavinses' Castle. On\nour going into the entry and ringing a bell, a very hideous boy came\nout of a sort of office and looked at us over a spiked wicket.\n\n\"Who did you want?\" said the boy, fitting two of the spikes into his\nchin.\n\n\"There was a follower, or an officer, or something, here,\" said Mr.\nJarndyce, \"who is dead.\"\n\n\"Yes?\" said the boy. \"Well?\"\n\n\"I want to know his name, if you please?\"\n\n\"Name of Neckett,\" said the boy.\n\n\"And his address?\"\n\n\"Bell Yard,\" said the boy. \"Chandler's shop, left hand side, name of\nBlinder.\"\n\n\"Was he--I don't know how to shape the question--\" murmured my\nguardian, \"industrious?\"\n\n\"Was Neckett?\" said the boy. \"Yes, wery much so. He was never tired\nof watching. He'd set upon a post at a street corner eight or ten\nhours at a stretch if he undertook to do it.\"\n\n\"He might have done worse,\" I heard my guardian soliloquize. \"He\nmight have undertaken to do it and not done it. Thank you. That's all\nI want.\"\n\nWe left the boy, with his head on one side and his arms on the gate,\nfondling and sucking the spikes, and went back to Lincoln's Inn,\nwhere Mr. Skimpole, who had not cared to remain nearer Coavinses,\nawaited us. Then we all went to Bell Yard, a narrow alley at a very\nshort distance. We soon found the chandler's shop. In it was a\ngood-natured-looking old woman with a dropsy, or an asthma, or\nperhaps both.\n\n\"Neckett's children?\" said she in reply to my inquiry. \"Yes, Surely,\nmiss. Three pair, if you please. Door right opposite the stairs.\" And\nshe handed me the key across the counter.\n\nI glanced at the key and glanced at her, but she took it for granted\nthat I knew what to do with it. As it could only be intended for the\nchildren's door, I came out without asking any more questions and led\nthe way up the dark stairs. We went as quietly as we could, but four\nof us made some noise on the aged boards, and when we came to the\nsecond story we found we had disturbed a man who was standing there\nlooking out of his room.\n\n\"Is it Gridley that's wanted?\" he said, fixing his eyes on me with an\nangry stare.\n\n\"No, sir,\" said I; \"I am going higher up.\"\n\nHe looked at Ada, and at Mr. Jarndyce, and at Mr. Skimpole, fixing\nthe same angry stare on each in succession as they passed and\nfollowed me. Mr. Jarndyce gave him good day. \"Good day!\" he said\nabruptly and fiercely. He was a tall, sallow man with a careworn head\non which but little hair remained, a deeply lined face, and prominent\neyes. He had a combative look and a chafing, irritable manner which,\nassociated with his figure--still large and powerful, though\nevidently in its decline--rather alarmed me. He had a pen in his\nhand, and in the glimpse I caught of his room in passing, I saw that\nit was covered with a litter of papers.\n\nLeaving him standing there, we went up to the top room. I tapped at\nthe door, and a little shrill voice inside said, \"We are locked in.\nMrs. Blinder's got the key!\"\n\nI applied the key on hearing this and opened the door. In a poor room\nwith a sloping ceiling and containing very little furniture was a\nmite of a boy, some five or six years old, nursing and hushing a\nheavy child of eighteen months. There was no fire, though the weather\nwas cold; both children were wrapped in some poor shawls and tippets\nas a substitute. Their clothing was not so warm, however, but that\ntheir noses looked red and pinched and their small figures shrunken\nas the boy walked up and down nursing and hushing the child with its\nhead on his shoulder.\n\n\"Who has locked you up here alone?\" we naturally asked.\n\n\"Charley,\" said the boy, standing still to gaze at us.\n\n\"Is Charley your brother?\"\n\n\"No. She's my sister, Charlotte. Father called her Charley.\"\n\n\"Are there any more of you besides Charley?\"\n\n\"Me,\" said the boy, \"and Emma,\" patting the limp bonnet of the child\nhe was nursing. \"And Charley.\"\n\n\"Where is Charley now?\"\n\n\"Out a-washing,\" said the boy, beginning to walk up and down again\nand taking the nankeen bonnet much too near the bedstead by trying to\ngaze at us at the same time.\n\nWe were looking at one another and at these two children when there\ncame into the room a very little girl, childish in figure but shrewd\nand older-looking in the face--pretty-faced too--wearing a womanly\nsort of bonnet much too large for her and drying her bare arms on a\nwomanly sort of apron. Her fingers were white and wrinkled with\nwashing, and the soap-suds were yet smoking which she wiped off her\narms. But for this, she might have been a child playing at washing\nand imitating a poor working-woman with a quick observation of the\ntruth.\n\nShe had come running from some place in the neighbourhood and had\nmade all the haste she could. Consequently, though she was very\nlight, she was out of breath and could not speak at first, as she\nstood panting, and wiping her arms, and looking quietly at us.\n\n\"Oh, here's Charley!\" said the boy.\n\nThe child he was nursing stretched forth its arms and cried out to be\ntaken by Charley. The little girl took it, in a womanly sort of\nmanner belonging to the apron and the bonnet, and stood looking at us\nover the burden that clung to her most affectionately.\n\n\"Is it possible,\" whispered my guardian as we put a chair for the\nlittle creature and got her to sit down with her load, the boy\nkeeping close to her, holding to her apron, \"that this child works\nfor the rest? Look at this! For God's sake, look at this!\"\n\nIt was a thing to look at. The three children close together, and two\nof them relying solely on the third, and the third so young and yet\nwith an air of age and steadiness that sat so strangely on the\nchildish figure.\n\n\"Charley, Charley!\" said my guardian. \"How old are you?\"\n\n\"Over thirteen, sir,\" replied the child.\n\n\"Oh! What a great age,\" said my guardian. \"What a great age,\nCharley!\"\n\nI cannot describe the tenderness with which he spoke to her, half\nplayfully yet all the more compassionately and mournfully.\n\n\"And do you live alone here with these babies, Charley?\" said my\nguardian.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" returned the child, looking up into his face with perfect\nconfidence, \"since father died.\"\n\n\"And how do you live, Charley? Oh! Charley,\" said my guardian,\nturning his face away for a moment, \"how do you live?\"\n\n\"Since father died, sir, I've gone out to work. I'm out washing\nto-day.\"\n\n\"God help you, Charley!\" said my guardian. \"You're not tall enough to\nreach the tub!\"\n\n\"In pattens I am, sir,\" she said quickly. \"I've got a high pair as\nbelonged to mother.\"\n\n\"And when did mother die? Poor mother!\"\n\n\"Mother died just after Emma was born,\" said the child, glancing at\nthe face upon her bosom. \"Then father said I was to be as good a\nmother to her as I could. And so I tried. And so I worked at home and\ndid cleaning and nursing and washing for a long time before I began\nto go out. And that's how I know how; don't you see, sir?\"\n\n\"And do you often go out?\"\n\n\"As often as I can,\" said Charley, opening her eyes and smiling,\n\"because of earning sixpences and shillings!\"\n\n\"And do you always lock the babies up when you go out?\"\n\n\"To keep 'em safe, sir, don't you see?\" said Charley. \"Mrs. Blinder\ncomes up now and then, and Mr. Gridley comes up sometimes, and\nperhaps I can run in sometimes, and they can play you know, and Tom\nan't afraid of being locked up, are you, Tom?\"\n\n\"No-o!\" said Tom stoutly.\n\n\"When it comes on dark, the lamps are lighted down in the court, and\nthey show up here quite bright--almost quite bright. Don't they,\nTom?\"\n\n\"Yes, Charley,\" said Tom, \"almost quite bright.\"\n\n\"Then he's as good as gold,\" said the little creature--Oh, in such a\nmotherly, womanly way! \"And when Emma's tired, he puts her to bed.\nAnd when he's tired he goes to bed himself. And when I come home and\nlight the candle and has a bit of supper, he sits up again and has it\nwith me. Don't you, Tom?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, Charley!\" said Tom. \"That I do!\" And either in this glimpse\nof the great pleasure of his life or in gratitude and love for\nCharley, who was all in all to him, he laid his face among the scanty\nfolds of her frock and passed from laughing into crying.\n\nIt was the first time since our entry that a tear had been shed among\nthese children. The little orphan girl had spoken of their father and\ntheir mother as if all that sorrow were subdued by the necessity of\ntaking courage, and by her childish importance in being able to work,\nand by her bustling busy way. But now, when Tom cried, although she\nsat quite tranquil, looking quietly at us, and did not by any\nmovement disturb a hair of the head of either of her little charges,\nI saw two silent tears fall down her face.\n\nI stood at the window with Ada, pretending to look at the housetops,\nand the blackened stack of chimneys, and the poor plants, and the\nbirds in little cages belonging to the neighbours, when I found that\nMrs. Blinder, from the shop below, had come in (perhaps it had taken\nher all this time to get upstairs) and was talking to my guardian.\n\n\"It's not much to forgive 'em the rent, sir,\" she said; \"who could\ntake it from them!\"\n\n\"Well, well!\" said my guardian to us two. \"It is enough that the time\nwill come when this good woman will find that it WAS much, and that\nforasmuch as she did it unto the least of these--This child,\" he\nadded after a few moments, \"could she possibly continue this?\"\n\n\"Really, sir, I think she might,\" said Mrs. Blinder, getting her\nheavy breath by painful degrees. \"She's as handy as it's possible to\nbe. Bless you, sir, the way she tended them two children after the\nmother died was the talk of the yard! And it was a wonder to see her\nwith him after he was took ill, it really was! 'Mrs. Blinder,' he\nsaid to me the very last he spoke--he was lying there--'Mrs.\nBlinder, whatever my calling may have been, I see a angel sitting in\nthis room last night along with my child, and I trust her to Our\nFather!'\"\n\n\"He had no other calling?\" said my guardian.\n\n\"No, sir,\" returned Mrs. Blinder, \"he was nothing but a follerers.\nWhen he first came to lodge here, I didn't know what he was, and I\nconfess that when I found out I gave him notice. It wasn't liked in\nthe yard. It wasn't approved by the other lodgers. It is NOT a\ngenteel calling,\" said Mrs. Blinder, \"and most people do object to\nit. Mr. Gridley objected to it very strong, and he is a good lodger,\nthough his temper has been hard tried.\"\n\n\"So you gave him notice?\" said my guardian.\n\n\"So I gave him notice,\" said Mrs. Blinder. \"But really when the time\ncame, and I knew no other ill of him, I was in doubts. He was\npunctual and diligent; he did what he had to do, sir,\" said Mrs.\nBlinder, unconsciously fixing Mr. Skimpole with her eye, \"and it's\nsomething in this world even to do that.\"\n\n\"So you kept him after all?\"\n\n\"Why, I said that if he could arrange with Mr. Gridley, I could\narrange it with the other lodgers and should not so much mind its\nbeing liked or disliked in the yard. Mr. Gridley gave his consent\ngruff--but gave it. He was always gruff with him, but he has been\nkind to the children since. A person is never known till a person is\nproved.\"\n\n\"Have many people been kind to the children?\" asked Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"Upon the whole, not so bad, sir,\" said Mrs. Blinder; \"but certainly\nnot so many as would have been if their father's calling had been\ndifferent. Mr. Coavins gave a guinea, and the follerers made up a\nlittle purse. Some neighbours in the yard that had always joked and\ntapped their shoulders when he went by came forward with a little\nsubscription, and--in general--not so bad. Similarly with Charlotte.\nSome people won't employ her because she was a follerer's child; some\npeople that do employ her cast it at her; some make a merit of having\nher to work for them, with that and all her draw-backs upon her, and\nperhaps pay her less and put upon her more. But she's patienter than\nothers would be, and is clever too, and always willing, up to the\nfull mark of her strength and over. So I should say, in general, not\nso bad, sir, but might be better.\"\n\nMrs. Blinder sat down to give herself a more favourable opportunity\nof recovering her breath, exhausted anew by so much talking before it\nwas fully restored. Mr. Jarndyce was turning to speak to us when his\nattention was attracted by the abrupt entrance into the room of the\nMr. Gridley who had been mentioned and whom we had seen on our way\nup.\n\n\"I don't know what you may be doing here, ladies and gentlemen,\" he\nsaid, as if he resented our presence, \"but you'll excuse my coming\nin. I don't come in to stare about me. Well, Charley! Well, Tom!\nWell, little one! How is it with us all to-day?\"\n\nHe bent over the group in a caressing way and clearly was regarded as\na friend by the children, though his face retained its stern\ncharacter and his manner to us was as rude as it could be. My\nguardian noticed it and respected it.\n\n\"No one, surely, would come here to stare about him,\" he said mildly.\n\n\"May be so, sir, may be so,\" returned the other, taking Tom upon his\nknee and waving him off impatiently. \"I don't want to argue with\nladies and gentlemen. I have had enough of arguing to last one man\nhis life.\"\n\n\"You have sufficient reason, I dare say,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"for\nbeing chafed and irritated--\"\n\n\"There again!\" exclaimed the man, becoming violently angry. \"I am of\na quarrelsome temper. I am irascible. I am not polite!\"\n\n\"Not very, I think.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said Gridley, putting down the child and going up to him as if\nhe meant to strike him, \"do you know anything of Courts of Equity?\"\n\n\"Perhaps I do, to my sorrow.\"\n\n\"To your sorrow?\" said the man, pausing in his wrath, \"if so, I beg\nyour pardon. I am not polite, I know. I beg your pardon! Sir,\" with\nrenewed violence, \"I have been dragged for five and twenty years over\nburning iron, and I have lost the habit of treading upon velvet. Go\ninto the Court of Chancery yonder and ask what is one of the standing\njokes that brighten up their business sometimes, and they will tell\nyou that the best joke they have is the man from Shropshire. I,\" he\nsaid, beating one hand on the other passionately, \"am the man from\nShropshire.\"\n\n\"I believe I and my family have also had the honour of furnishing\nsome entertainment in the same grave place,\" said my guardian\ncomposedly. \"You may have heard my name--Jarndyce.\"\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce,\" said Gridley with a rough sort of salutation, \"you\nbear your wrongs more quietly than I can bear mine. More than that, I\ntell you--and I tell this gentleman, and these young ladies, if they\nare friends of yours--that if I took my wrongs in any other way, I\nshould be driven mad! It is only by resenting them, and by revenging\nthem in my mind, and by angrily demanding the justice I never get,\nthat I am able to keep my wits together. It is only that!\" he said,\nspeaking in a homely, rustic way and with great vehemence. \"You may\ntell me that I over-excite myself. I answer that it's in my nature to\ndo it, under wrong, and I must do it. There's nothing between doing\nit, and sinking into the smiling state of the poor little mad woman\nthat haunts the court. If I was once to sit down under it, I should\nbecome imbecile.\"\n\nThe passion and heat in which he was, and the manner in which his\nface worked, and the violent gestures with which he accompanied what\nhe said, were most painful to see.\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce,\" he said, \"consider my case. As true as there is a\nheaven above us, this is my case. I am one of two brothers. My father\n(a farmer) made a will and left his farm and stock and so forth to my\nmother for her life. After my mother's death, all was to come to me\nexcept a legacy of three hundred pounds that I was then to pay my\nbrother. My mother died. My brother some time afterwards claimed his\nlegacy. I and some of my relations said that he had had a part of it\nalready in board and lodging and some other things. Now mind! That\nwas the question, and nothing else. No one disputed the will; no one\ndisputed anything but whether part of that three hundred pounds had\nbeen already paid or not. To settle that question, my brother filing\na bill, I was obliged to go into this accursed Chancery; I was forced\nthere because the law forced me and would let me go nowhere else.\nSeventeen people were made defendants to that simple suit! It first\ncame on after two years. It was then stopped for another two years\nwhile the master (may his head rot off!) inquired whether I was my\nfather's son, about which there was no dispute at all with any mortal\ncreature. He then found out that there were not defendants\nenough--remember, there were only seventeen as yet!--but that we must\nhave another who had been left out and must begin all over again. The\ncosts at that time--before the thing was begun!--were three times the\nlegacy. My brother would have given up the legacy, and joyful, to\nescape more costs. My whole estate, left to me in that will of my\nfather's, has gone in costs. The suit, still undecided, has fallen\ninto rack, and ruin, and despair, with everything else--and here I\nstand, this day! Now, Mr. Jarndyce, in your suit there are thousands\nand thousands involved, where in mine there are hundreds. Is mine\nless hard to bear or is it harder to bear, when my whole living was\nin it and has been thus shamefully sucked away?\"\n\nMr. Jarndyce said that he condoled with him with all his heart and\nthat he set up no monopoly himself in being unjustly treated by this\nmonstrous system.\n\n\"There again!\" said Mr. Gridley with no diminution of his rage. \"The\nsystem! I am told on all hands, it's the system. I mustn't look to\nindividuals. It's the system. I mustn't go into court and say, 'My\nLord, I beg to know this from you--is this right or wrong? Have you\nthe face to tell me I have received justice and therefore am\ndismissed?' My Lord knows nothing of it. He sits there to administer\nthe system. I mustn't go to Mr. Tulkinghorn, the solicitor in\nLincoln's Inn Fields, and say to him when he makes me furious by\nbeing so cool and satisfied--as they all do, for I know they gain by\nit while I lose, don't I?--I mustn't say to him, 'I will have\nsomething out of some one for my ruin, by fair means or foul!' HE is\nnot responsible. It's the system. But, if I do no violence to any of\nthem, here--I may! I don't know what may happen if I am carried\nbeyond myself at last! I will accuse the individual workers of that\nsystem against me, face to face, before the great eternal bar!\"\n\nHis passion was fearful. I could not have believed in such rage\nwithout seeing it.\n\n\"I have done!\" he said, sitting down and wiping his face. \"Mr.\nJarndyce, I have done! I am violent, I know. I ought to know it. I\nhave been in prison for contempt of court. I have been in prison for\nthreatening the solicitor. I have been in this trouble, and that\ntrouble, and shall be again. I am the man from Shropshire, and I\nsometimes go beyond amusing them, though they have found it amusing,\ntoo, to see me committed into custody and brought up in custody and\nall that. It would be better for me, they tell me, if I restrained\nmyself. I tell them that if I did restrain myself I should become\nimbecile. I was a good-enough-tempered man once, I believe. People in\nmy part of the country say they remember me so, but now I must have\nthis vent under my sense of injury or nothing could hold my wits\ntogether. It would be far better for you, Mr. Gridley,' the Lord\nChancellor told me last week, 'not to waste your time here, and to\nstay, usefully employed, down in Shropshire.' 'My Lord, my Lord, I\nknow it would,' said I to him, 'and it would have been far better for\nme never to have heard the name of your high office, but unhappily\nfor me, I can't undo the past, and the past drives me here!'\nBesides,\" he added, breaking fiercely out, \"I'll shame them. To the\nlast, I'll show myself in that court to its shame. If I knew when I\nwas going to die, and could be carried there, and had a voice to\nspeak with, I would die there, saying, 'You have brought me here and\nsent me from here many and many a time. Now send me out feet\nforemost!'\"\n\nHis countenance had, perhaps for years, become so set in its\ncontentious expression that it did not soften, even now when he was\nquiet.\n\n\"I came to take these babies down to my room for an hour,\" he said,\ngoing to them again, \"and let them play about. I didn't mean to say\nall this, but it don't much signify. You're not afraid of me, Tom,\nare you?\"\n\n\"No!\" said Tom. \"You ain't angry with ME.\"\n\n\"You are right, my child. You're going back, Charley? Aye? Come then,\nlittle one!\" He took the youngest child on his arm, where she was\nwilling enough to be carried. \"I shouldn't wonder if we found a\nginger-bread soldier downstairs. Let's go and look for him!\"\n\nHe made his former rough salutation, which was not deficient in a\ncertain respect, to Mr. Jarndyce, and bowing slightly to us, went\ndownstairs to his room.\n\nUpon that, Mr. Skimpole began to talk, for the first time since our\narrival, in his usual gay strain. He said, Well, it was really very\npleasant to see how things lazily adapted themselves to purposes.\nHere was this Mr. Gridley, a man of a robust will and surprising\nenergy--intellectually speaking, a sort of inharmonious\nblacksmith--and he could easily imagine that there Gridley was, years\nago, wandering about in life for something to expend his superfluous\ncombativeness upon--a sort of Young Love among the thorns--when the\nCourt of Chancery came in his way and accommodated him with the exact\nthing he wanted. There they were, matched, ever afterwards! Otherwise\nhe might have been a great general, blowing up all sorts of towns, or\nhe might have been a great politician, dealing in all sorts of\nparliamentary rhetoric; but as it was, he and the Court of Chancery\nhad fallen upon each other in the pleasantest way, and nobody was\nmuch the worse, and Gridley was, so to speak, from that hour provided\nfor. Then look at Coavinses! How delightfully poor Coavinses (father\nof these charming children) illustrated the same principle! He, Mr.\nSkimpole, himself, had sometimes repined at the existence of\nCoavinses. He had found Coavinses in his way. He could had dispensed\nwith Coavinses. There had been times when, if he had been a sultan,\nand his grand vizier had said one morning, \"What does the Commander\nof the Faithful require at the hands of his slave?\" he might have\neven gone so far as to reply, \"The head of Coavinses!\" But what\nturned out to be the case? That, all that time, he had been giving\nemployment to a most deserving man, that he had been a benefactor to\nCoavinses, that he had actually been enabling Coavinses to bring up\nthese charming children in this agreeable way, developing these\nsocial virtues! Insomuch that his heart had just now swelled and the\ntears had come into his eyes when he had looked round the room and\nthought, \"I was the great patron of Coavinses, and his little\ncomforts were MY work!\"\n\nThere was something so captivating in his light way of touching these\nfantastic strings, and he was such a mirthful child by the side of\nthe graver childhood we had seen, that he made my guardian smile even\nas he turned towards us from a little private talk with Mrs. Blinder.\nWe kissed Charley, and took her downstairs with us, and stopped\noutside the house to see her run away to her work. I don't know where\nshe was going, but we saw her run, such a little, little creature in\nher womanly bonnet and apron, through a covered way at the bottom of\nthe court and melt into the city's strife and sound like a dewdrop in\nan ocean.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nTom-all-Alone's\n\n\nMy Lady Dedlock is restless, very restless. The astonished\nfashionable intelligence hardly knows where to have her. To-day she\nis at Chesney Wold; yesterday she was at her house in town; to-morrow\nshe may be abroad, for anything the fashionable intelligence can with\nconfidence predict. Even Sir Leicester's gallantry has some trouble\nto keep pace with her. It would have more but that his other faithful\nally, for better and for worse--the gout--darts into the old oak\nbed-chamber at Chesney Wold and grips him by both legs.\n\nSir Leicester receives the gout as a troublesome demon, but still a\ndemon of the patrician order. All the Dedlocks, in the direct male\nline, through a course of time during and beyond which the memory of\nman goeth not to the contrary, have had the gout. It can be proved,\nsir. Other men's fathers may have died of the rheumatism or may have\ntaken base contagion from the tainted blood of the sick vulgar, but\nthe Dedlock family have communicated something exclusive even to the\nlevelling process of dying by dying of their own family gout. It has\ncome down through the illustrious line like the plate, or the\npictures, or the place in Lincolnshire. It is among their dignities.\nSir Leicester is perhaps not wholly without an impression, though he\nhas never resolved it into words, that the angel of death in the\ndischarge of his necessary duties may observe to the shades of the\naristocracy, \"My lords and gentlemen, I have the honour to present to\nyou another Dedlock certified to have arrived per the family gout.\"\n\nHence Sir Leicester yields up his family legs to the family disorder\nas if he held his name and fortune on that feudal tenure. He feels\nthat for a Dedlock to be laid upon his back and spasmodically\ntwitched and stabbed in his extremities is a liberty taken somewhere,\nbut he thinks, \"We have all yielded to this; it belongs to us; it has\nfor some hundreds of years been understood that we are not to make\nthe vaults in the park interesting on more ignoble terms; and I\nsubmit myself to the compromise.\"\n\nAnd a goodly show he makes, lying in a flush of crimson and gold in\nthe midst of the great drawing-room before his favourite picture of\nmy Lady, with broad strips of sunlight shining in, down the long\nperspective, through the long line of windows, and alternating with\nsoft reliefs of shadow. Outside, the stately oaks, rooted for ages in\nthe green ground which has never known ploughshare, but was still a\nchase when kings rode to battle with sword and shield and rode\na-hunting with bow and arrow, bear witness to his greatness. Inside,\nhis forefathers, looking on him from the walls, say, \"Each of us was\na passing reality here and left this coloured shadow of himself and\nmelted into remembrance as dreamy as the distant voices of the rooks\nnow lulling you to rest,\" and hear their testimony to his greatness\ntoo. And he is very great this day. And woe to Boythorn or other\ndaring wight who shall presumptuously contest an inch with him!\n\nMy Lady is at present represented, near Sir Leicester, by her\nportrait. She has flitted away to town, with no intention of\nremaining there, and will soon flit hither again, to the confusion of\nthe fashionable intelligence. The house in town is not prepared for\nher reception. It is muffled and dreary. Only one Mercury in powder\ngapes disconsolate at the hall-window; and he mentioned last night to\nanother Mercury of his acquaintance, also accustomed to good society,\nthat if that sort of thing was to last--which it couldn't, for a man\nof his spirits couldn't bear it, and a man of his figure couldn't be\nexpected to bear it--there would be no resource for him, upon his\nhonour, but to cut his throat!\n\nWhat connexion can there be between the place in Lincolnshire, the\nhouse in town, the Mercury in powder, and the whereabout of Jo the\noutlaw with the broom, who had that distant ray of light upon him\nwhen he swept the churchyard-step? What connexion can there have been\nbetween many people in the innumerable histories of this world who\nfrom opposite sides of great gulfs have, nevertheless, been very\ncuriously brought together!\n\nJo sweeps his crossing all day long, unconscious of the link, if any\nlink there be. He sums up his mental condition when asked a question\nby replying that he \"don't know nothink.\" He knows that it's hard to\nkeep the mud off the crossing in dirty weather, and harder still to\nlive by doing it. Nobody taught him even that much; he found it out.\n\nJo lives--that is to say, Jo has not yet died--in a ruinous place\nknown to the like of him by the name of Tom-all-Alone's. It is a\nblack, dilapidated street, avoided by all decent people, where the\ncrazy houses were seized upon, when their decay was far advanced, by\nsome bold vagrants who after establishing their own possession took\nto letting them out in lodgings. Now, these tumbling tenements\ncontain, by night, a swarm of misery. As on the ruined human wretch\nvermin parasites appear, so these ruined shelters have bred a crowd\nof foul existence that crawls in and out of gaps in walls and boards;\nand coils itself to sleep, in maggot numbers, where the rain drips\nin; and comes and goes, fetching and carrying fever and sowing more\nevil in its every footprint than Lord Coodle, and Sir Thomas Doodle,\nand the Duke of Foodle, and all the fine gentlemen in office, down to\nZoodle, shall set right in five hundred years--though born expressly\nto do it.\n\nTwice lately there has been a crash and a cloud of dust, like the\nspringing of a mine, in Tom-all-Alone's; and each time a house has\nfallen. These accidents have made a paragraph in the newspapers and\nhave filled a bed or two in the nearest hospital. The gaps remain,\nand there are not unpopular lodgings among the rubbish. As several\nmore houses are nearly ready to go, the next crash in Tom-all-Alone's\nmay be expected to be a good one.\n\nThis desirable property is in Chancery, of course. It would be an\ninsult to the discernment of any man with half an eye to tell him so.\nWhether \"Tom\" is the popular representative of the original plaintiff\nor defendant in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, or whether Tom lived here when\nthe suit had laid the street waste, all alone, until other settlers\ncame to join him, or whether the traditional title is a comprehensive\nname for a retreat cut off from honest company and put out of the\npale of hope, perhaps nobody knows. Certainly Jo don't know.\n\n\"For I don't,\" says Jo, \"I don't know nothink.\"\n\nIt must be a strange state to be like Jo! To shuffle through the\nstreets, unfamiliar with the shapes, and in utter darkness as to the\nmeaning, of those mysterious symbols, so abundant over the shops, and\nat the corners of streets, and on the doors, and in the windows! To\nsee people read, and to see people write, and to see the postmen\ndeliver letters, and not to have the least idea of all that\nlanguage--to be, to every scrap of it, stone blind and dumb! It must\nbe very puzzling to see the good company going to the churches on\nSundays, with their books in their hands, and to think (for perhaps\nJo DOES think at odd times) what does it all mean, and if it means\nanything to anybody, how comes it that it means nothing to me? To be\nhustled, and jostled, and moved on; and really to feel that it would\nappear to be perfectly true that I have no business here, or there,\nor anywhere; and yet to be perplexed by the consideration that I AM\nhere somehow, too, and everybody overlooked me until I became the\ncreature that I am! It must be a strange state, not merely to be told\nthat I am scarcely human (as in the case of my offering myself for a\nwitness), but to feel it of my own knowledge all my life! To see the\nhorses, dogs, and cattle go by me and to know that in ignorance I\nbelong to them and not to the superior beings in my shape, whose\ndelicacy I offend! Jo's ideas of a criminal trial, or a judge, or a\nbishop, or a government, or that inestimable jewel to him (if he only\nknew it) the Constitution, should be strange! His whole material and\nimmaterial life is wonderfully strange; his death, the strangest\nthing of all.\n\nJo comes out of Tom-all-Alone's, meeting the tardy morning which is\nalways late in getting down there, and munches his dirty bit of bread\nas he comes along. His way lying through many streets, and the houses\nnot yet being open, he sits down to breakfast on the door-step of the\nSociety for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts and gives\nit a brush when he has finished as an acknowledgment of the\naccommodation. He admires the size of the edifice and wonders what\nit's all about. He has no idea, poor wretch, of the spiritual\ndestitution of a coral reef in the Pacific or what it costs to look\nup the precious souls among the coco-nuts and bread-fruit.\n\nHe goes to his crossing and begins to lay it out for the day. The\ntown awakes; the great tee-totum is set up for its daily spin and\nwhirl; all that unaccountable reading and writing, which has been\nsuspended for a few hours, recommences. Jo and the other lower\nanimals get on in the unintelligible mess as they can. It is\nmarket-day. The blinded oxen, over-goaded, over-driven, never guided,\nrun into wrong places and are beaten out, and plunge red-eyed and\nfoaming at stone walls, and often sorely hurt the innocent, and often\nsorely hurt themselves. Very like Jo and his order; very, very like!\n\nA band of music comes and plays. Jo listens to it. So does a dog--a\ndrover's dog, waiting for his master outside a butcher's shop, and\nevidently thinking about those sheep he has had upon his mind for\nsome hours and is happily rid of. He seems perplexed respecting three\nor four, can't remember where he left them, looks up and down the\nstreet as half expecting to see them astray, suddenly pricks up his\nears and remembers all about it. A thoroughly vagabond dog,\naccustomed to low company and public-houses; a terrific dog to sheep,\nready at a whistle to scamper over their backs and tear out mouthfuls\nof their wool; but an educated, improved, developed dog who has been\ntaught his duties and knows how to discharge them. He and Jo listen\nto the music, probably with much the same amount of animal\nsatisfaction; likewise as to awakened association, aspiration, or\nregret, melancholy or joyful reference to things beyond the senses,\nthey are probably upon a par. But, otherwise, how far above the human\nlistener is the brute!\n\nTurn that dog's descendants wild, like Jo, and in a very few years\nthey will so degenerate that they will lose even their bark--but not\ntheir bite.\n\nThe day changes as it wears itself away and becomes dark and drizzly.\nJo fights it out at his crossing among the mud and wheels, the\nhorses, whips, and umbrellas, and gets but a scanty sum to pay for\nthe unsavoury shelter of Tom-all-Alone's. Twilight comes on; gas\nbegins to start up in the shops; the lamplighter, with his ladder,\nruns along the margin of the pavement. A wretched evening is\nbeginning to close in.\n\nIn his chambers Mr. Tulkinghorn sits meditating an application to the\nnearest magistrate to-morrow morning for a warrant. Gridley, a\ndisappointed suitor, has been here to-day and has been alarming. We\nare not to be put in bodily fear, and that ill-conditioned fellow\nshall be held to bail again. From the ceiling, foreshortened\nAllegory, in the person of one impossible Roman upside down, points\nwith the arm of Samson (out of joint, and an odd one) obtrusively\ntoward the window. Why should Mr. Tulkinghorn, for such no reason,\nlook out of window? Is the hand not always pointing there? So he does\nnot look out of window.\n\nAnd if he did, what would it be to see a woman going by? There are\nwomen enough in the world, Mr. Tulkinghorn thinks--too many; they are\nat the bottom of all that goes wrong in it, though, for the matter of\nthat, they create business for lawyers. What would it be to see a\nwoman going by, even though she were going secretly? They are all\nsecret. Mr. Tulkinghorn knows that very well.\n\nBut they are not all like the woman who now leaves him and his house\nbehind, between whose plain dress and her refined manner there is\nsomething exceedingly inconsistent. She should be an upper servant by\nher attire, yet in her air and step, though both are hurried and\nassumed--as far as she can assume in the muddy streets, which she\ntreads with an unaccustomed foot--she is a lady. Her face is veiled,\nand still she sufficiently betrays herself to make more than one of\nthose who pass her look round sharply.\n\nShe never turns her head. Lady or servant, she has a purpose in her\nand can follow it. She never turns her head until she comes to the\ncrossing where Jo plies with his broom. He crosses with her and begs.\nStill, she does not turn her head until she has landed on the other\nside. Then she slightly beckons to him and says, \"Come here!\"\n\nJo follows her a pace or two into a quiet court.\n\n\"Are you the boy I've read of in the papers?\" she asked behind her\nveil.\n\n\"I don't know,\" says Jo, staring moodily at the veil, \"nothink about\nno papers. I don't know nothink about nothink at all.\"\n\n\"Were you examined at an inquest?\"\n\n\"I don't know nothink about no--where I was took by the beadle, do\nyou mean?\" says Jo. \"Was the boy's name at the inkwhich Jo?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"That's me!\" says Jo.\n\n\"Come farther up.\"\n\n\"You mean about the man?\" says Jo, following. \"Him as wos dead?\"\n\n\"Hush! Speak in a whisper! Yes. Did he look, when he was living, so\nvery ill and poor?\"\n\n\"Oh, jist!\" says Jo.\n\n\"Did he look like--not like YOU?\" says the woman with abhorrence.\n\n\"Oh, not so bad as me,\" says Jo. \"I'm a reg'lar one I am! You didn't\nknow him, did you?\"\n\n\"How dare you ask me if I knew him?\"\n\n\"No offence, my lady,\" says Jo with much humility, for even he has\ngot at the suspicion of her being a lady.\n\n\"I am not a lady. I am a servant.\"\n\n\"You are a jolly servant!\" says Jo without the least idea of saying\nanything offensive, merely as a tribute of admiration.\n\n\"Listen and be silent. Don't talk to me, and stand farther from me!\nCan you show me all those places that were spoken of in the account I\nread? The place he wrote for, the place he died at, the place where\nyou were taken to, and the place where he was buried? Do you know the\nplace where he was buried?\"\n\nJo answers with a nod, having also nodded as each other place was\nmentioned.\n\n\"Go before me and show me all those dreadful places. Stop opposite to\neach, and don't speak to me unless I speak to you. Don't look back.\nDo what I want, and I will pay you well.\"\n\nJo attends closely while the words are being spoken; tells them off\non his broom-handle, finding them rather hard; pauses to consider\ntheir meaning; considers it satisfactory; and nods his ragged head.\n\n\"I'm fly,\" says Jo. \"But fen larks, you know. Stow hooking it!\"\n\n\"What does the horrible creature mean?\" exclaims the servant,\nrecoiling from him.\n\n\"Stow cutting away, you know!\" says Jo.\n\n\"I don't understand you. Go on before! I will give you more money\nthan you ever had in your life.\"\n\nJo screws up his mouth into a whistle, gives his ragged head a rub,\ntakes his broom under his arm, and leads the way, passing deftly with\nhis bare feet over the hard stones and through the mud and mire.\n\nCook's Court. Jo stops. A pause.\n\n\"Who lives here?\"\n\n\"Him wot give him his writing and give me half a bull,\" says Jo in a\nwhisper without looking over his shoulder.\n\n\"Go on to the next.\"\n\nKrook's house. Jo stops again. A longer pause.\n\n\"Who lives here?\"\n\n\"HE lived here,\" Jo answers as before.\n\nAfter a silence he is asked, \"In which room?\"\n\n\"In the back room up there. You can see the winder from this corner.\nUp there! That's where I see him stritched out. This is the\npublic-ouse where I was took to.\"\n\n\"Go on to the next!\"\n\nIt is a longer walk to the next, but Jo, relieved of his first\nsuspicions, sticks to the forms imposed upon him and does not look\nround. By many devious ways, reeking with offence of many kinds, they\ncome to the little tunnel of a court, and to the gas-lamp (lighted\nnow), and to the iron gate.\n\n\"He was put there,\" says Jo, holding to the bars and looking in.\n\n\"Where? Oh, what a scene of horror!\"\n\n\"There!\" says Jo, pointing. \"Over yinder. Among them piles of bones,\nand close to that there kitchin winder! They put him wery nigh the\ntop. They was obliged to stamp upon it to git it in. I could unkiver\nit for you with my broom if the gate was open. That's why they locks\nit, I s'pose,\" giving it a shake. \"It's always locked. Look at the\nrat!\" cries Jo, excited. \"Hi! Look! There he goes! Ho! Into the\nground!\"\n\nThe servant shrinks into a corner, into a corner of that hideous\narchway, with its deadly stains contaminating her dress; and putting\nout her two hands and passionately telling him to keep away from her,\nfor he is loathsome to her, so remains for some moments. Jo stands\nstaring and is still staring when she recovers herself.\n\n\"Is this place of abomination consecrated ground?\"\n\n\"I don't know nothink of consequential ground,\" says Jo, still\nstaring.\n\n\"Is it blessed?\"\n\n\"Which?\" says Jo, in the last degree amazed.\n\n\"Is it blessed?\"\n\n\"I'm blest if I know,\" says Jo, staring more than ever; \"but I\nshouldn't think it warn't. Blest?\" repeats Jo, something troubled in\nhis mind. \"It an't done it much good if it is. Blest? I should think\nit was t'othered myself. But I don't know nothink!\"\n\nThe servant takes as little heed of what he says as she seems to take\nof what she has said herself. She draws off her glove to get some\nmoney from her purse. Jo silently notices how white and small her\nhand is and what a jolly servant she must be to wear such sparkling\nrings.\n\nShe drops a piece of money in his hand without touching it, and\nshuddering as their hands approach. \"Now,\" she adds, \"show me the\nspot again!\"\n\nJo thrusts the handle of his broom between the bars of the gate, and\nwith his utmost power of elaboration, points it out. At length,\nlooking aside to see if he has made himself intelligible, he finds\nthat he is alone.\n\nHis first proceeding is to hold the piece of money to the gas-light\nand to be overpowered at finding that it is yellow--gold. His next is\nto give it a one-sided bite at the edge as a test of its quality.\nHis next, to put it in his mouth for safety and to sweep the\nstep and passage with great care. His job done, he sets off for\nTom-all-Alone's, stopping in the light of innumerable gas-lamps to\nproduce the piece of gold and give it another one-sided bite as a\nreassurance of its being genuine.\n\nThe Mercury in powder is in no want of society to-night, for my Lady\ngoes to a grand dinner and three or four balls. Sir Leicester is\nfidgety down at Chesney Wold, with no better company than the gout;\nhe complains to Mrs. Rouncewell that the rain makes such a monotonous\npattering on the terrace that he can't read the paper even by the\nfireside in his own snug dressing-room.\n\n\"Sir Leicester would have done better to try the other side of the\nhouse, my dear,\" says Mrs. Rouncewell to Rosa. \"His dressing-room is\non my Lady's side. And in all these years I never heard the step upon\nthe Ghost's Walk more distinct than it is to-night!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nRichard very often came to see us while we remained in London (though\nhe soon failed in his letter-writing), and with his quick abilities,\nhis good spirits, his good temper, his gaiety and freshness, was\nalways delightful. But though I liked him more and more the better I\nknew him, I still felt more and more how much it was to be regretted\nthat he had been educated in no habits of application and\nconcentration. The system which had addressed him in exactly the same\nmanner as it had addressed hundreds of other boys, all varying in\ncharacter and capacity, had enabled him to dash through his tasks,\nalways with fair credit and often with distinction, but in a fitful,\ndazzling way that had confirmed his reliance on those very qualities\nin himself which it had been most desirable to direct and train. They\nwere good qualities, without which no high place can be meritoriously\nwon, but like fire and water, though excellent servants, they were\nvery bad masters. If they had been under Richard's direction, they\nwould have been his friends; but Richard being under their direction,\nthey became his enemies.\n\nI write down these opinions not because I believe that this or any\nother thing was so because I thought so, but only because I did think\nso and I want to be quite candid about all I thought and did. These\nwere my thoughts about Richard. I thought I often observed besides\nhow right my guardian was in what he had said, and that the\nuncertainties and delays of the Chancery suit had imparted to his\nnature something of the careless spirit of a gamester who felt that\nhe was part of a great gaming system.\n\nMr. and Mrs. Bayham Badger coming one afternoon when my guardian was\nnot at home, in the course of conversation I naturally inquired after\nRichard.\n\n\"Why, Mr. Carstone,\" said Mrs. Badger, \"is very well and is, I assure\nyou, a great acquisition to our society. Captain Swosser used to say\nof me that I was always better than land a-head and a breeze a-starn\nto the midshipmen's mess when the purser's junk had become as tough\nas the fore-topsel weather earings. It was his naval way of\nmentioning generally that I was an acquisition to any society. I may\nrender the same tribute, I am sure, to Mr. Carstone. But I--you won't\nthink me premature if I mention it?\"\n\nI said no, as Mrs. Badger's insinuating tone seemed to require such\nan answer.\n\n\"Nor Miss Clare?\" said Mrs. Bayham Badger sweetly.\n\nAda said no, too, and looked uneasy.\n\n\"Why, you see, my dears,\" said Mrs. Badger, \"--you'll excuse me\ncalling you my dears?\"\n\nWe entreated Mrs. Badger not to mention it.\n\n\"Because you really are, if I may take the liberty of saying so,\"\npursued Mrs. Badger, \"so perfectly charming. You see, my dears, that\nalthough I am still young--or Mr. Bayham Badger pays me the\ncompliment of saying so--\"\n\n\"No,\" Mr. Badger called out like some one contradicting at a public\nmeeting. \"Not at all!\"\n\n\"Very well,\" smiled Mrs. Badger, \"we will say still young.\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly,\" said Mr. Badger.\n\n\"My dears, though still young, I have had many opportunities of\nobserving young men. There were many such on board the dear old\nCrippler, I assure you. After that, when I was with Captain Swosser\nin the Mediterranean, I embraced every opportunity of knowing and\nbefriending the midshipmen under Captain Swosser's command. YOU never\nheard them called the young gentlemen, my dears, and probably would\nnot understand allusions to their pipe-claying their weekly accounts,\nbut it is otherwise with me, for blue water has been a second home to\nme, and I have been quite a sailor. Again, with Professor Dingo.\"\n\n\"A man of European reputation,\" murmured Mr. Badger.\n\n\"When I lost my dear first and became the wife of my dear second,\"\nsaid Mrs. Badger, speaking of her former husbands as if they were\nparts of a charade, \"I still enjoyed opportunities of observing\nyouth. The class attendant on Professor Dingo's lectures was a large\none, and it became my pride, as the wife of an eminent scientific man\nseeking herself in science the utmost consolation it could impart, to\nthrow our house open to the students as a kind of Scientific\nExchange. Every Tuesday evening there was lemonade and a mixed\nbiscuit for all who chose to partake of those refreshments. And there\nwas science to an unlimited extent.\"\n\n\"Remarkable assemblies those, Miss Summerson,\" said Mr. Badger\nreverentially. \"There must have been great intellectual friction\ngoing on there under the auspices of such a man!\"\n\n\"And now,\" pursued Mrs. Badger, \"now that I am the wife of my dear\nthird, Mr. Badger, I still pursue those habits of observation which\nwere formed during the lifetime of Captain Swosser and adapted to new\nand unexpected purposes during the lifetime of Professor Dingo. I\ntherefore have not come to the consideration of Mr. Carstone as a\nneophyte. And yet I am very much of the opinion, my dears, that he\nhas not chosen his profession advisedly.\"\n\nAda looked so very anxious now that I asked Mrs. Badger on what she\nfounded her supposition.\n\n\"My dear Miss Summerson,\" she replied, \"on Mr. Carstone's character\nand conduct. He is of such a very easy disposition that probably he\nwould never think it worth-while to mention how he really feels, but\nhe feels languid about the profession. He has not that positive\ninterest in it which makes it his vocation. If he has any decided\nimpression in reference to it, I should say it was that it is a\ntiresome pursuit. Now, this is not promising. Young men like Mr.\nAllan Woodcourt who take it from a strong interest in all that it can\ndo will find some reward in it through a great deal of work for a\nvery little money and through years of considerable endurance and\ndisappointment. But I am quite convinced that this would never be the\ncase with Mr. Carstone.\"\n\n\"Does Mr. Badger think so too?\" asked Ada timidly.\n\n\"Why,\" said Mr. Badger, \"to tell the truth, Miss Clare, this view of\nthe matter had not occurred to me until Mrs. Badger mentioned it. But\nwhen Mrs. Badger put it in that light, I naturally gave great\nconsideration to it, knowing that Mrs. Badger's mind, in addition to\nits natural advantages, has had the rare advantage of being formed by\ntwo such very distinguished (I will even say illustrious) public men\nas Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy and Professor Dingo. The\nconclusion at which I have arrived is--in short, is Mrs. Badger's\nconclusion.\"\n\n\"It was a maxim of Captain Swosser's,\" said Mrs. Badger, \"speaking in\nhis figurative naval manner, that when you make pitch hot, you cannot\nmake it too hot; and that if you only have to swab a plank, you\nshould swab it as if Davy Jones were after you. It appears to me that\nthis maxim is applicable to the medical as well as to the nautical\nprofession.\n\n\"To all professions,\" observed Mr. Badger. \"It was admirably said by\nCaptain Swosser. Beautifully said.\"\n\n\"People objected to Professor Dingo when we were staying in the north\nof Devon after our marriage,\" said Mrs. Badger, \"that he disfigured\nsome of the houses and other buildings by chipping off fragments of\nthose edifices with his little geological hammer. But the professor\nreplied that he knew of no building save the Temple of Science. The\nprinciple is the same, I think?\"\n\n\"Precisely the same,\" said Mr. Badger. \"Finely expressed! The\nprofessor made the same remark, Miss Summerson, in his last illness,\nwhen (his mind wandering) he insisted on keeping his little hammer\nunder the pillow and chipping at the countenances of the attendants.\nThe ruling passion!\"\n\nAlthough we could have dispensed with the length at which Mr. and\nMrs. Badger pursued the conversation, we both felt that it was\ndisinterested in them to express the opinion they had communicated to\nus and that there was a great probability of its being sound. We\nagreed to say nothing to Mr. Jarndyce until we had spoken to Richard;\nand as he was coming next evening, we resolved to have a very serious\ntalk with him.\n\nSo after he had been a little while with Ada, I went in and found my\ndarling (as I knew she would be) prepared to consider him thoroughly\nright in whatever he said.\n\n\"And how do you get on, Richard?\" said I. I always sat down on the\nother side of him. He made quite a sister of me.\n\n\"Oh! Well enough!\" said Richard.\n\n\"He can't say better than that, Esther, can he?\" cried my pet\ntriumphantly.\n\nI tried to look at my pet in the wisest manner, but of course I\ncouldn't.\n\n\"Well enough?\" I repeated.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Richard, \"well enough. It's rather jog-trotty and\nhumdrum. But it'll do as well as anything else!\"\n\n\"Oh! My dear Richard!\" I remonstrated.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" said Richard.\n\n\"Do as well as anything else!\"\n\n\"I don't think there's any harm in that, Dame Durden,\" said Ada,\nlooking so confidingly at me across him; \"because if it will do as\nwell as anything else, it will do very well, I hope.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I hope so,\" returned Richard, carelessly tossing his hair\nfrom his forehead. \"After all, it may be only a kind of probation\ntill our suit is--I forgot though. I am not to mention the suit.\nForbidden ground! Oh, yes, it's all right enough. Let us talk about\nsomething else.\"\n\nAda would have done so willingly, and with a full persuasion that we\nhad brought the question to a most satisfactory state. But I thought\nit would be useless to stop there, so I began again.\n\n\"No, but Richard,\" said I, \"and my dear Ada! Consider how important\nit is to you both, and what a point of honour it is towards your\ncousin, that you, Richard, should be quite in earnest without any\nreservation. I think we had better talk about this, really, Ada. It\nwill be too late very soon.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes! We must talk about it!\" said Ada. \"But I think Richard is\nright.\"\n\nWhat was the use of my trying to look wise when she was so pretty,\nand so engaging, and so fond of him!\n\n\"Mr. and Mrs. Badger were here yesterday, Richard,\" said I, \"and they\nseemed disposed to think that you had no great liking for the\nprofession.\"\n\n\"Did they though?\" said Richard. \"Oh! Well, that rather alters the\ncase, because I had no idea that they thought so, and I should not\nhave liked to disappoint or inconvenience them. The fact is, I don't\ncare much about it. But, oh, it don't matter! It'll do as well as\nanything else!\"\n\n\"You hear him, Ada!\" said I.\n\n\"The fact is,\" Richard proceeded, half thoughtfully and half\njocosely, \"it is not quite in my way. I don't take to it. And I get\ntoo much of Mrs. Bayham Badger's first and second.\"\n\n\"I am sure THAT'S very natural!\" cried Ada, quite delighted. \"The\nvery thing we both said yesterday, Esther!\"\n\n\"Then,\" pursued Richard, \"it's monotonous, and to-day is too like\nyesterday, and to-morrow is too like to-day.\"\n\n\"But I am afraid,\" said I, \"this is an objection to all kinds of\napplication--to life itself, except under some very uncommon\ncircumstances.\"\n\n\"Do you think so?\" returned Richard, still considering. \"Perhaps! Ha!\nWhy, then, you know,\" he added, suddenly becoming gay again, \"we\ntravel outside a circle to what I said just now. It'll do as well as\nanything else. Oh, it's all right enough! Let us talk about something\nelse.\"\n\nBut even Ada, with her loving face--and if it had seemed innocent and\ntrusting when I first saw it in that memorable November fog, how much\nmore did it seem now when I knew her innocent and trusting\nheart--even Ada shook her head at this and looked serious. So I\nthought it a good opportunity to hint to Richard that if he were\nsometimes a little careless of himself, I was very sure he never\nmeant to be careless of Ada, and that it was a part of his\naffectionate consideration for her not to slight the importance of a\nstep that might influence both their lives. This made him almost\ngrave.\n\n\"My dear Mother Hubbard,\" he said, \"that's the very thing! I have\nthought of that several times and have been quite angry with myself\nfor meaning to be so much in earnest and--somehow--not exactly being\nso. I don't know how it is; I seem to want something or other to\nstand by. Even you have no idea how fond I am of Ada (my darling\ncousin, I love you, so much!), but I don't settle down to constancy\nin other things. It's such uphill work, and it takes such a time!\"\nsaid Richard with an air of vexation.\n\n\"That may be,\" I suggested, \"because you don't like what you have\nchosen.\"\n\n\"Poor fellow!\" said Ada. \"I am sure I don't wonder at it!\"\n\nNo. It was not of the least use my trying to look wise. I tried\nagain, but how could I do it, or how could it have any effect if I\ncould, while Ada rested her clasped hands upon his shoulder and while\nhe looked at her tender blue eyes, and while they looked at him!\n\n\"You see, my precious girl,\" said Richard, passing her golden curls\nthrough and through his hand, \"I was a little hasty perhaps; or I\nmisunderstood my own inclinations perhaps. They don't seem to lie in\nthat direction. I couldn't tell till I tried. Now the question is\nwhether it's worth-while to undo all that has been done. It seems\nlike making a great disturbance about nothing particular.\"\n\n\"My dear Richard,\" said I, \"how CAN you say about nothing\nparticular?\"\n\n\"I don't mean absolutely that,\" he returned. \"I mean that it MAY be\nnothing particular because I may never want it.\"\n\nBoth Ada and I urged, in reply, not only that it was decidedly\nworth-while to undo what had been done, but that it must be undone. I\nthen asked Richard whether he had thought of any more congenial\npursuit.\n\n\"There, my dear Mrs. Shipton,\" said Richard, \"you touch me home. Yes,\nI have. I have been thinking that the law is the boy for me.\"\n\n\"The law!\" repeated Ada as if she were afraid of the name.\n\n\"If I went into Kenge's office,\" said Richard, \"and if I were placed\nunder articles to Kenge, I should have my eye on the--hum!--the\nforbidden ground--and should be able to study it, and master it, and\nto satisfy myself that it was not neglected and was being properly\nconducted. I should be able to look after Ada's interests and my own\ninterests (the same thing!); and I should peg away at Blackstone and\nall those fellows with the most tremendous ardour.\"\n\nI was not by any means so sure of that, and I saw how his hankering\nafter the vague things yet to come of those long-deferred hopes cast\na shade on Ada's face. But I thought it best to encourage him in any\nproject of continuous exertion, and only advised him to be quite sure\nthat his mind was made up now.\n\n\"My dear Minerva,\" said Richard, \"I am as steady as you are. I made a\nmistake; we are all liable to mistakes; I won't do so any more, and\nI'll become such a lawyer as is not often seen. That is, you know,\"\nsaid Richard, relapsing into doubt, \"if it really is worth-while,\nafter all, to make such a disturbance about nothing particular!\"\n\nThis led to our saying again, with a great deal of gravity, all that\nwe had said already and to our coming to much the same conclusion\nafterwards. But we so strongly advised Richard to be frank and open\nwith Mr. Jarndyce, without a moment's delay, and his disposition was\nnaturally so opposed to concealment that he sought him out at once\n(taking us with him) and made a full avowal. \"Rick,\" said my\nguardian, after hearing him attentively, \"we can retreat with honour,\nand we will. But we must be careful--for our cousin's sake, Rick, for\nour cousin's sake--that we make no more such mistakes. Therefore, in\nthe matter of the law, we will have a good trial before we decide. We\nwill look before we leap, and take plenty of time about it.\"\n\nRichard's energy was of such an impatient and fitful kind that he\nwould have liked nothing better than to have gone to Mr. Kenge's\noffice in that hour and to have entered into articles with him on the\nspot. Submitting, however, with a good grace to the caution that we\nhad shown to be so necessary, he contented himself with sitting down\namong us in his lightest spirits and talking as if his one unvarying\npurpose in life from childhood had been that one which now held\npossession of him. My guardian was very kind and cordial with him,\nbut rather grave, enough so to cause Ada, when he had departed and we\nwere going upstairs to bed, to say, \"Cousin John, I hope you don't\nthink the worse of Richard?\"\n\n\"No, my love,\" said he.\n\n\"Because it was very natural that Richard should be mistaken in such\na difficult case. It is not uncommon.\"\n\n\"No, no, my love,\" said he. \"Don't look unhappy.\"\n\n\"Oh, I am not unhappy, cousin John!\" said Ada, smiling cheerfully,\nwith her hand upon his shoulder, where she had put it in bidding him\ngood night. \"But I should be a little so if you thought at all the\nworse of Richard.\"\n\n\"My dear,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"I should think the worse of him only\nif you were ever in the least unhappy through his means. I should be\nmore disposed to quarrel with myself even then, than with poor Rick,\nfor I brought you together. But, tut, all this is nothing! He has\ntime before him, and the race to run. I think the worse of him? Not\nI, my loving cousin! And not you, I swear!\"\n\n\"No, indeed, cousin John,\" said Ada, \"I am sure I could not--I am\nsure I would not--think any ill of Richard if the whole world did. I\ncould, and I would, think better of him then than at any other time!\"\n\nSo quietly and honestly she said it, with her hands upon his\nshoulders--both hands now--and looking up into his face, like the\npicture of truth!\n\n\"I think,\" said my guardian, thoughtfully regarding her, \"I think it\nmust be somewhere written that the virtues of the mothers shall\noccasionally be visited on the children, as well as the sins of the\nfather. Good night, my rosebud. Good night, little woman. Pleasant\nslumbers! Happy dreams!\"\n\nThis was the first time I ever saw him follow Ada with his eyes with\nsomething of a shadow on their benevolent expression. I well\nremembered the look with which he had contemplated her and Richard\nwhen she was singing in the firelight; it was but a very little while\nsince he had watched them passing down the room in which the sun was\nshining, and away into the shade; but his glance was changed, and\neven the silent look of confidence in me which now followed it once\nmore was not quite so hopeful and untroubled as it had originally\nbeen.\n\nAda praised Richard more to me that night than ever she had praised\nhim yet. She went to sleep with a little bracelet he had given her\nclasped upon her arm. I fancied she was dreaming of him when I kissed\nher cheek after she had slept an hour and saw how tranquil and happy\nshe looked.\n\nFor I was so little inclined to sleep myself that night that I sat up\nworking. It would not be worth mentioning for its own sake, but I was\nwakeful and rather low-spirited. I don't know why. At least I don't\nthink I know why. At least, perhaps I do, but I don't think it\nmatters.\n\nAt any rate, I made up my mind to be so dreadfully industrious that I\nwould leave myself not a moment's leisure to be low-spirited. For I\nnaturally said, \"Esther! You to be low-spirited. YOU!\" And it really\nwas time to say so, for I--yes, I really did see myself in the glass,\nalmost crying. \"As if you had anything to make you unhappy, instead\nof everything to make you happy, you ungrateful heart!\" said I.\n\nIf I could have made myself go to sleep, I would have done it\ndirectly, but not being able to do that, I took out of my basket some\nornamental work for our house (I mean Bleak House) that I was busy\nwith at that time and sat down to it with great determination. It was\nnecessary to count all the stitches in that work, and I resolved to\ngo on with it until I couldn't keep my eyes open, and then to go to\nbed.\n\nI soon found myself very busy. But I had left some silk downstairs in\na work-table drawer in the temporary growlery, and coming to a stop\nfor want of it, I took my candle and went softly down to get it. To\nmy great surprise, on going in I found my guardian still there, and\nsitting looking at the ashes. He was lost in thought, his book lay\nunheeded by his side, his silvered iron-grey hair was scattered\nconfusedly upon his forehead as though his hand had been wandering\namong it while his thoughts were elsewhere, and his face looked worn.\nAlmost frightened by coming upon him so unexpectedly, I stood still\nfor a moment and should have retired without speaking had he not, in\nagain passing his hand abstractedly through his hair, seen me and\nstarted.\n\n\"Esther!\"\n\nI told him what I had come for.\n\n\"At work so late, my dear?\"\n\n\"I am working late to-night,\" said I, \"because I couldn't sleep and\nwished to tire myself. But, dear guardian, you are late too, and look\nweary. You have no trouble, I hope, to keep you waking?\"\n\n\"None, little woman, that YOU would readily understand,\" said he.\n\nHe spoke in a regretful tone so new to me that I inwardly repeated,\nas if that would help me to his meaning, \"That I could readily\nunderstand!\"\n\n\"Remain a moment, Esther,\" said he, \"You were in my thoughts.\"\n\n\"I hope I was not the trouble, guardian?\"\n\nHe slightly waved his hand and fell into his usual manner. The change\nwas so remarkable, and he appeared to make it by dint of so much\nself-command, that I found myself again inwardly repeating, \"None\nthat I could understand!\"\n\n\"Little woman,\" said my guardian, \"I was thinking--that is, I have\nbeen thinking since I have been sitting here--that you ought to know\nof your own history all I know. It is very little. Next to nothing.\"\n\n\"Dear guardian,\" I replied, \"when you spoke to me before on that\nsubject--\"\n\n\"But since then,\" he gravely interposed, anticipating what I meant to\nsay, \"I have reflected that your having anything to ask me, and my\nhaving anything to tell you, are different considerations, Esther. It\nis perhaps my duty to impart to you the little I know.\"\n\n\"If you think so, guardian, it is right.\"\n\n\"I think so,\" he returned very gently, and kindly, and very\ndistinctly. \"My dear, I think so now. If any real disadvantage can\nattach to your position in the mind of any man or woman worth a\nthought, it is right that you at least of all the world should not\nmagnify it to yourself by having vague impressions of its nature.\"\n\nI sat down and said after a little effort to be as calm as I ought to\nbe, \"One of my earliest remembrances, guardian, is of these words:\n'Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. The time\nwill come, and soon enough, when you will understand this better, and\nwill feel it too, as no one save a woman can.'\" I had covered my face\nwith my hands in repeating the words, but I took them away now with a\nbetter kind of shame, I hope, and told him that to him I owed the\nblessing that I had from my childhood to that hour never, never,\nnever felt it. He put up his hand as if to stop me. I well knew that\nhe was never to be thanked, and said no more.\n\n\"Nine years, my dear,\" he said after thinking for a little while,\n\"have passed since I received a letter from a lady living in\nseclusion, written with a stern passion and power that rendered it\nunlike all other letters I have ever read. It was written to me (as\nit told me in so many words), perhaps because it was the writer's\nidiosyncrasy to put that trust in me, perhaps because it was mine to\njustify it. It told me of a child, an orphan girl then twelve years\nold, in some such cruel words as those which live in your\nremembrance. It told me that the writer had bred her in secrecy from\nher birth, had blotted out all trace of her existence, and that if\nthe writer were to die before the child became a woman, she would be\nleft entirely friendless, nameless, and unknown. It asked me to\nconsider if I would, in that case, finish what the writer had begun.\"\n\nI listened in silence and looked attentively at him.\n\n\"Your early recollection, my dear, will supply the gloomy medium\nthrough which all this was seen and expressed by the writer, and the\ndistorted religion which clouded her mind with impressions of the\nneed there was for the child to expiate an offence of which she was\nquite innocent. I felt concerned for the little creature, in her\ndarkened life, and replied to the letter.\"\n\nI took his hand and kissed it.\n\n\"It laid the injunction on me that I should never propose to see the\nwriter, who had long been estranged from all intercourse with the\nworld, but who would see a confidential agent if I would appoint one.\nI accredited Mr. Kenge. The lady said, of her own accord and not of\nhis seeking, that her name was an assumed one. That she was, if there\nwere any ties of blood in such a case, the child's aunt. That more\nthan this she would never (and he was well persuaded of the\nsteadfastness of her resolution) for any human consideration\ndisclose. My dear, I have told you all.\"\n\nI held his hand for a little while in mine.\n\n\"I saw my ward oftener than she saw me,\" he added, cheerily making\nlight of it, \"and I always knew she was beloved, useful, and happy.\nShe repays me twenty-thousandfold, and twenty more to that, every\nhour in every day!\"\n\n\"And oftener still,\" said I, \"she blesses the guardian who is a\nfather to her!\"\n\nAt the word father, I saw his former trouble come into his face. He\nsubdued it as before, and it was gone in an instant; but it had been\nthere and it had come so swiftly upon my words that I felt as if they\nhad given him a shock. I again inwardly repeated, wondering, \"That I\ncould readily understand. None that I could readily understand!\" No,\nit was true. I did not understand it. Not for many and many a day.\n\n\"Take a fatherly good night, my dear,\" said he, kissing me on the\nforehead, \"and so to rest. These are late hours for working and\nthinking. You do that for all of us, all day long, little\nhousekeeper!\"\n\nI neither worked nor thought any more that night. I opened my\ngrateful heart to heaven in thankfulness for its providence to me and\nits care of me, and fell asleep.\n\nWe had a visitor next day. Mr. Allan Woodcourt came. He came to take\nleave of us; he had settled to do so beforehand. He was going to\nChina and to India as a surgeon on board ship. He was to be away a\nlong, long time.\n\nI believe--at least I know--that he was not rich. All his widowed\nmother could spare had been spent in qualifying him for his\nprofession. It was not lucrative to a young practitioner, with very\nlittle influence in London; and although he was, night and day, at\nthe service of numbers of poor people and did wonders of gentleness\nand skill for them, he gained very little by it in money. He was\nseven years older than I. Not that I need mention it, for it hardly\nseems to belong to anything.\n\nI think--I mean, he told us--that he had been in practice three or\nfour years and that if he could have hoped to contend through three\nor four more, he would not have made the voyage on which he was\nbound. But he had no fortune or private means, and so he was going\naway. He had been to see us several times altogether. We thought it a\npity he should go away. Because he was distinguished in his art among\nthose who knew it best, and some of the greatest men belonging to it\nhad a high opinion of him.\n\nWhen he came to bid us good-bye, he brought his mother with him for\nthe first time. She was a pretty old lady, with bright black eyes,\nbut she seemed proud. She came from Wales and had had, a long time\nago, an eminent person for an ancestor, of the name of Morgan\nap-Kerrig--of some place that sounded like Gimlet--who was the most\nillustrious person that ever was known and all of whose relations\nwere a sort of royal family. He appeared to have passed his life\nin always getting up into mountains and fighting somebody; and\na bard whose name sounded like Crumlinwallinwer had sung his\npraises in a piece which was called, as nearly as I could catch it,\nMewlinnwillinwodd.\n\nMrs. Woodcourt, after expatiating to us on the fame of her great\nkinsman, said that no doubt wherever her son Allan went he would\nremember his pedigree and would on no account form an alliance below\nit. She told him that there were many handsome English ladies in\nIndia who went out on speculation, and that there were some to be\npicked up with property, but that neither charms nor wealth would\nsuffice for the descendant from such a line without birth, which must\never be the first consideration. She talked so much about birth that\nfor a moment I half fancied, and with pain--But what an idle fancy to\nsuppose that she could think or care what MINE was!\n\nMr. Woodcourt seemed a little distressed by her prolixity, but he was\ntoo considerate to let her see it and contrived delicately to bring\nthe conversation round to making his acknowledgments to my guardian\nfor his hospitality and for the very happy hours--he called them the\nvery happy hours--he had passed with us. The recollection of them, he\nsaid, would go with him wherever he went and would be always\ntreasured. And so we gave him our hands, one after another--at least,\nthey did--and I did; and so he put his lips to Ada's hand--and to\nmine; and so he went away upon his long, long voyage!\n\nI was very busy indeed all day and wrote directions home to the\nservants, and wrote notes for my guardian, and dusted his books and\npapers, and jingled my housekeeping keys a good deal, one way and\nanother. I was still busy between the lights, singing and working by\nthe window, when who should come in but Caddy, whom I had no\nexpectation of seeing!\n\n\"Why, Caddy, my dear,\" said I, \"what beautiful flowers!\"\n\nShe had such an exquisite little nosegay in her hand.\n\n\"Indeed, I think so, Esther,\" replied Caddy. \"They are the loveliest\nI ever saw.\"\n\n\"Prince, my dear?\" said I in a whisper.\n\n\"No,\" answered Caddy, shaking her head and holding them to me to\nsmell. \"Not Prince.\"\n\n\"Well, to be sure, Caddy!\" said I. \"You must have two lovers!\"\n\n\"What? Do they look like that sort of thing?\" said Caddy.\n\n\"Do they look like that sort of thing?\" I repeated, pinching her\ncheek.\n\nCaddy only laughed in return, and telling me that she had come for\nhalf an hour, at the expiration of which time Prince would be waiting\nfor her at the corner, sat chatting with me and Ada in the window,\nevery now and then handing me the flowers again or trying how they\nlooked against my hair. At last, when she was going, she took me into\nmy room and put them in my dress.\n\n\"For me?\" said I, surprised.\n\n\"For you,\" said Caddy with a kiss. \"They were left behind by\nsomebody.\"\n\n\"Left behind?\"\n\n\"At poor Miss Flite's,\" said Caddy. \"Somebody who has been very good\nto her was hurrying away an hour ago to join a ship and left these\nflowers behind. No, no! Don't take them out. Let the pretty little\nthings lie here,\" said Caddy, adjusting them with a careful hand,\n\"because I was present myself, and I shouldn't wonder if somebody\nleft them on purpose!\"\n\n\"Do they look like that sort of thing?\" said Ada, coming laughingly\nbehind me and clasping me merrily round the waist. \"Oh, yes, indeed\nthey do, Dame Durden! They look very, very like that sort of thing.\nOh, very like it indeed, my dear!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nLady Dedlock\n\n\nIt was not so easy as it had appeared at first to arrange for\nRichard's making a trial of Mr. Kenge's office. Richard himself was\nthe chief impediment. As soon as he had it in his power to leave Mr.\nBadger at any moment, he began to doubt whether he wanted to leave\nhim at all. He didn't know, he said, really. It wasn't a bad\nprofession; he couldn't assert that he disliked it; perhaps he liked\nit as well as he liked any other--suppose he gave it one more chance!\nUpon that, he shut himself up for a few weeks with some books and\nsome bones and seemed to acquire a considerable fund of information\nwith great rapidity. His fervour, after lasting about a month, began\nto cool, and when it was quite cooled, began to grow warm again. His\nvacillations between law and medicine lasted so long that midsummer\narrived before he finally separated from Mr. Badger and entered on an\nexperimental course of Messrs. Kenge and Carboy. For all his\nwaywardness, he took great credit to himself as being determined to\nbe in earnest \"this time.\" And he was so good-natured throughout, and\nin such high spirits, and so fond of Ada, that it was very difficult\nindeed to be otherwise than pleased with him.\n\n\"As to Mr. Jarndyce,\" who, I may mention, found the wind much given,\nduring this period, to stick in the east; \"As to Mr. Jarndyce,\"\nRichard would say to me, \"he is the finest fellow in the world,\nEsther! I must be particularly careful, if it were only for his\nsatisfaction, to take myself well to task and have a regular wind-up\nof this business now.\"\n\nThe idea of his taking himself well to task, with that laughing face\nand heedless manner and with a fancy that everything could catch and\nnothing could hold, was ludicrously anomalous. However, he told us\nbetween-whiles that he was doing it to such an extent that he\nwondered his hair didn't turn grey. His regular wind-up of the\nbusiness was (as I have said) that he went to Mr. Kenge's about\nmidsummer to try how he liked it.\n\nAll this time he was, in money affairs, what I have described him in\na former illustration--generous, profuse, wildly careless, but fully\npersuaded that he was rather calculating and prudent. I happened to\nsay to Ada, in his presence, half jestingly, half seriously, about\nthe time of his going to Mr. Kenge's, that he needed to have\nFortunatus' purse, he made so light of money, which he answered in\nthis way, \"My jewel of a dear cousin, you hear this old woman! Why\ndoes she say that? Because I gave eight pounds odd (or whatever it\nwas) for a certain neat waistcoat and buttons a few days ago. Now, if\nI had stayed at Badger's I should have been obliged to spend twelve\npounds at a blow for some heart-breaking lecture-fees. So I make four\npounds--in a lump--by the transaction!\"\n\nIt was a question much discussed between him and my guardian what\narrangements should be made for his living in London while he\nexperimented on the law, for we had long since gone back to Bleak\nHouse, and it was too far off to admit of his coming there oftener\nthan once a week. My guardian told me that if Richard were to settle\ndown at Mr. Kenge's he would take some apartments or chambers where\nwe too could occasionally stay for a few days at a time; \"but, little\nwoman,\" he added, rubbing his head very significantly, \"he hasn't\nsettled down there yet!\" The discussions ended in our hiring for him,\nby the month, a neat little furnished lodging in a quiet old house\nnear Queen Square. He immediately began to spend all the money he had\nin buying the oddest little ornaments and luxuries for this lodging;\nand so often as Ada and I dissuaded him from making any purchase that\nhe had in contemplation which was particularly unnecessary and\nexpensive, he took credit for what it would have cost and made out\nthat to spend anything less on something else was to save the\ndifference.\n\nWhile these affairs were in abeyance, our visit to Mr. Boythorn's was\npostponed. At length, Richard having taken possession of his lodging,\nthere was nothing to prevent our departure. He could have gone with\nus at that time of the year very well, but he was in the full novelty\nof his new position and was making most energetic attempts to unravel\nthe mysteries of the fatal suit. Consequently we went without him,\nand my darling was delighted to praise him for being so busy.\n\nWe made a pleasant journey down into Lincolnshire by the coach and\nhad an entertaining companion in Mr. Skimpole. His furniture had been\nall cleared off, it appeared, by the person who took possession of it\non his blue-eyed daughter's birthday, but he seemed quite relieved to\nthink that it was gone. Chairs and table, he said, were wearisome\nobjects; they were monotonous ideas, they had no variety of\nexpression, they looked you out of countenance, and you looked them\nout of countenance. How pleasant, then, to be bound to no particular\nchairs and tables, but to sport like a butterfly among all the\nfurniture on hire, and to flit from rosewood to mahogany, and from\nmahogany to walnut, and from this shape to that, as the humour took\none!\n\n\"The oddity of the thing is,\" said Mr. Skimpole with a quickened\nsense of the ludicrous, \"that my chairs and tables were not paid for,\nand yet my landlord walks off with them as composedly as possible.\nNow, that seems droll! There is something grotesque in it. The chair\nand table merchant never engaged to pay my landlord my rent. Why\nshould my landlord quarrel with HIM? If I have a pimple on my nose\nwhich is disagreeable to my landlord's peculiar ideas of beauty, my\nlandlord has no business to scratch my chair and table merchant's\nnose, which has no pimple on it. His reasoning seems defective!\"\n\n\"Well,\" said my guardian good-humouredly, \"it's pretty clear that\nwhoever became security for those chairs and tables will have to pay\nfor them.\"\n\n\"Exactly!\" returned Mr. Skimpole. \"That's the crowning point of\nunreason in the business! I said to my landlord, 'My good man, you\nare not aware that my excellent friend Jarndyce will have to pay for\nthose things that you are sweeping off in that indelicate manner.\nHave you no consideration for HIS property?' He hadn't the least.\"\n\n\"And refused all proposals,\" said my guardian.\n\n\"Refused all proposals,\" returned Mr. Skimpole. \"I made him business\nproposals. I had him into my room. I said, 'You are a man of\nbusiness, I believe?' He replied, 'I am,' 'Very well,' said I, 'now\nlet us be business-like. Here is an inkstand, here are pens and\npaper, here are wafers. What do you want? I have occupied your house\nfor a considerable period, I believe to our mutual satisfaction until\nthis unpleasant misunderstanding arose; let us be at once friendly\nand business-like. What do you want?' In reply to this, he made use\nof the figurative expression--which has something Eastern about\nit--that he had never seen the colour of my money. 'My amiable\nfriend,' said I, 'I never have any money. I never know anything about\nmoney.' 'Well, sir,' said he, 'what do you offer if I give you time?'\n'My good fellow,' said I, 'I have no idea of time; but you say you\nare a man of business, and whatever you can suggest to be done in a\nbusiness-like way with pen, and ink, and paper--and wafers--I am\nready to do. Don't pay yourself at another man's expense (which is\nfoolish), but be business-like!' However, he wouldn't be, and there\nwas an end of it.\"\n\nIf these were some of the inconveniences of Mr. Skimpole's childhood,\nit assuredly possessed its advantages too. On the journey he had a\nvery good appetite for such refreshment as came in our way (including\na basket of choice hothouse peaches), but never thought of paying for\nanything. So when the coachman came round for his fee, he pleasantly\nasked him what he considered a very good fee indeed, now--a liberal\none--and on his replying half a crown for a single passenger, said it\nwas little enough too, all things considered, and left Mr. Jarndyce\nto give it him.\n\nIt was delightful weather. The green corn waved so beautifully, the\nlarks sang so joyfully, the hedges were so full of wild flowers, the\ntrees were so thickly out in leaf, the bean-fields, with a light wind\nblowing over them, filled the air with such a delicious fragrance!\nLate in the afternoon we came to the market-town where we were to\nalight from the coach--a dull little town with a church-spire, and a\nmarketplace, and a market-cross, and one intensely sunny street, and\na pond with an old horse cooling his legs in it, and a very few men\nsleepily lying and standing about in narrow little bits of shade.\nAfter the rustling of the leaves and the waving of the corn all along\nthe road, it looked as still, as hot, as motionless a little town as\nEngland could produce.\n\nAt the inn we found Mr. Boythorn on horseback, waiting with an open\ncarriage to take us to his house, which was a few miles off. He was\noverjoyed to see us and dismounted with great alacrity.\n\n\"By heaven!\" said he after giving us a courteous greeting. \"This a\nmost infamous coach. It is the most flagrant example of an abominable\npublic vehicle that ever encumbered the face of the earth. It is\ntwenty-five minutes after its time this afternoon. The coachman ought\nto be put to death!\"\n\n\"IS he after his time?\" said Mr. Skimpole, to whom he happened to\naddress himself. \"You know my infirmity.\"\n\n\"Twenty-five minutes! Twenty-six minutes!\" replied Mr. Boythorn,\nreferring to his watch. \"With two ladies in the coach, this scoundrel\nhas deliberately delayed his arrival six and twenty minutes.\nDeliberately! It is impossible that it can be accidental! But his\nfather--and his uncle--were the most profligate coachmen that ever\nsat upon a box.\"\n\nWhile he said this in tones of the greatest indignation, he handed us\ninto the little phaeton with the utmost gentleness and was all smiles\nand pleasure.\n\n\"I am sorry, ladies,\" he said, standing bare-headed at the\ncarriage-door when all was ready, \"that I am obliged to conduct you\nnearly two miles out of the way. But our direct road lies through Sir\nLeicester Dedlock's park, and in that fellow's property I have sworn\nnever to set foot of mine, or horse's foot of mine, pending the\npresent relations between us, while I breathe the breath of life!\"\nAnd here, catching my guardian's eye, he broke into one of his\ntremendous laughs, which seemed to shake even the motionless little\nmarket-town.\n\n\"Are the Dedlocks down here, Lawrence?\" said my guardian as we drove\nalong and Mr. Boythorn trotted on the green turf by the roadside.\n\n\"Sir Arrogant Numskull is here,\" replied Mr. Boythorn. \"Ha ha ha! Sir\nArrogant is here, and I am glad to say, has been laid by the heels\nhere. My Lady,\" in naming whom he always made a courtly gesture as if\nparticularly to exclude her from any part in the quarrel, \"is\nexpected, I believe, daily. I am not in the least surprised that she\npostpones her appearance as long as possible. Whatever can have\ninduced that transcendent woman to marry that effigy and figure-head\nof a baronet is one of the most impenetrable mysteries that ever\nbaffled human inquiry. Ha ha ha ha!\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" said my guardian, laughing, \"WE may set foot in the park\nwhile we are here? The prohibition does not extend to us, does it?\"\n\n\"I can lay no prohibition on my guests,\" he said, bending his head to\nAda and me with the smiling politeness which sat so gracefully upon\nhim, \"except in the matter of their departure. I am only sorry that I\ncannot have the happiness of being their escort about Chesney Wold,\nwhich is a very fine place! But by the light of this summer day,\nJarndyce, if you call upon the owner while you stay with me, you are\nlikely to have but a cool reception. He carries himself like an\neight-day clock at all times, like one of a race of eight-day clocks\nin gorgeous cases that never go and never went--Ha ha ha!--but he\nwill have some extra stiffness, I can promise you, for the friends of\nhis friend and neighbour Boythorn!\"\n\n\"I shall not put him to the proof,\" said my guardian. \"He is as\nindifferent to the honour of knowing me, I dare say, as I am to the\nhonour of knowing him. The air of the grounds and perhaps such a view\nof the house as any other sightseer might get are quite enough for\nme.\"\n\n\"Well!\" said Mr. Boythorn. \"I am glad of it on the whole. It's in\nbetter keeping. I am looked upon about here as a second Ajax defying\nthe lightning. Ha ha ha ha! When I go into our little church on a\nSunday, a considerable part of the inconsiderable congregation expect\nto see me drop, scorched and withered, on the pavement under the\nDedlock displeasure. Ha ha ha ha! I have no doubt he is surprised\nthat I don't. For he is, by heaven, the most self-satisfied, and the\nshallowest, and the most coxcombical and utterly brainless ass!\"\n\nOur coming to the ridge of a hill we had been ascending enabled our\nfriend to point out Chesney Wold itself to us and diverted his\nattention from its master.\n\nIt was a picturesque old house in a fine park richly wooded. Among\nthe trees and not far from the residence he pointed out the spire of\nthe little church of which he had spoken. Oh, the solemn woods over\nwhich the light and shadow travelled swiftly, as if heavenly wings\nwere sweeping on benignant errands through the summer air; the smooth\ngreen slopes, the glittering water, the garden where the flowers were\nso symmetrically arranged in clusters of the richest colours, how\nbeautiful they looked! The house, with gable and chimney, and tower,\nand turret, and dark doorway, and broad terrace-walk, twining among\nthe balustrades of which, and lying heaped upon the vases, there was\none great flush of roses, seemed scarcely real in its light solidity\nand in the serene and peaceful hush that rested on all around it. To\nAda and to me, that above all appeared the pervading influence. On\neverything, house, garden, terrace, green slopes, water, old oaks,\nfern, moss, woods again, and far away across the openings in the\nprospect to the distance lying wide before us with a purple bloom\nupon it, there seemed to be such undisturbed repose.\n\nWhen we came into the little village and passed a small inn with the\nsign of the Dedlock Arms swinging over the road in front, Mr.\nBoythorn interchanged greetings with a young gentleman sitting on a\nbench outside the inn-door who had some fishing-tackle lying beside\nhim.\n\n\"That's the housekeeper's grandson, Mr. Rouncewell by name,\" said,\nhe, \"and he is in love with a pretty girl up at the house. Lady\nDedlock has taken a fancy to the pretty girl and is going to keep her\nabout her own fair person--an honour which my young friend himself\ndoes not at all appreciate. However, he can't marry just yet, even if\nhis Rosebud were willing; so he is fain to make the best of it. In\nthe meanwhile, he comes here pretty often for a day or two at a time\nto--fish. Ha ha ha ha!\"\n\n\"Are he and the pretty girl engaged, Mr. Boythorn?\" asked Ada.\n\n\"Why, my dear Miss Clare,\" he returned, \"I think they may perhaps\nunderstand each other; but you will see them soon, I dare say, and I\nmust learn from you on such a point--not you from me.\"\n\nAda blushed, and Mr. Boythorn, trotting forward on his comely grey\nhorse, dismounted at his own door and stood ready with extended arm\nand uncovered head to welcome us when we arrived.\n\nHe lived in a pretty house, formerly the parsonage house, with a lawn\nin front, a bright flower-garden at the side, and a well-stocked\norchard and kitchen-garden in the rear, enclosed with a venerable\nwall that had of itself a ripened ruddy look. But, indeed, everything\nabout the place wore an aspect of maturity and abundance. The old\nlime-tree walk was like green cloisters, the very shadows of the\ncherry-trees and apple-trees were heavy with fruit, the\ngooseberry-bushes were so laden that their branches arched and rested\non the earth, the strawberries and raspberries grew in like\nprofusion, and the peaches basked by the hundred on the wall. Tumbled\nabout among the spread nets and the glass frames sparkling and\nwinking in the sun there were such heaps of drooping pods, and\nmarrows, and cucumbers, that every foot of ground appeared a\nvegetable treasury, while the smell of sweet herbs and all kinds of\nwholesome growth (to say nothing of the neighbouring meadows where\nthe hay was carrying) made the whole air a great nosegay. Such\nstillness and composure reigned within the orderly precincts of the\nold red wall that even the feathers hung in garlands to scare the\nbirds hardly stirred; and the wall had such a ripening influence that\nwhere, here and there high up, a disused nail and scrap of list still\nclung to it, it was easy to fancy that they had mellowed with the\nchanging seasons and that they had rusted and decayed according to\nthe common fate.\n\nThe house, though a little disorderly in comparison with the garden,\nwas a real old house with settles in the chimney of the brick-floored\nkitchen and great beams across the ceilings. On one side of it was\nthe terrible piece of ground in dispute, where Mr. Boythorn\nmaintained a sentry in a smock-frock day and night, whose duty was\nsupposed to be, in cases of aggression, immediately to ring a large\nbell hung up there for the purpose, to unchain a great bull-dog\nestablished in a kennel as his ally, and generally to deal\ndestruction on the enemy. Not content with these precautions, Mr.\nBoythorn had himself composed and posted there, on painted boards to\nwhich his name was attached in large letters, the following solemn\nwarnings: \"Beware of the bull-dog. He is most ferocious. Lawrence\nBoythorn.\" \"The blunderbus is loaded with slugs. Lawrence Boythorn.\"\n\"Man-traps and spring-guns are set here at all times of the day and\nnight. Lawrence Boythorn.\" \"Take notice. That any person or persons\naudaciously presuming to trespass on this property will be punished\nwith the utmost severity of private chastisement and prosecuted with\nthe utmost rigour of the law. Lawrence Boythorn.\" These he showed us\nfrom the drawing-room window, while his bird was hopping about his\nhead, and he laughed, \"Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!\" to that extent as\nhe pointed them out that I really thought he would have hurt himself.\n\n\"But this is taking a good deal of trouble,\" said Mr. Skimpole in his\nlight way, \"when you are not in earnest after all.\"\n\n\"Not in earnest!\" returned Mr. Boythorn with unspeakable warmth. \"Not\nin earnest! If I could have hoped to train him, I would have bought a\nlion instead of that dog and would have turned him loose upon the\nfirst intolerable robber who should dare to make an encroachment on\nmy rights. Let Sir Leicester Dedlock consent to come out and decide\nthis question by single combat, and I will meet him with any weapon\nknown to mankind in any age or country. I am that much in earnest.\nNot more!\"\n\nWe arrived at his house on a Saturday. On the Sunday morning we all\nset forth to walk to the little church in the park. Entering the\npark, almost immediately by the disputed ground, we pursued a\npleasant footpath winding among the verdant turf and the beautiful\ntrees until it brought us to the church-porch.\n\nThe congregation was extremely small and quite a rustic one with the\nexception of a large muster of servants from the house, some of whom\nwere already in their seats, while others were yet dropping in. There\nwere some stately footmen, and there was a perfect picture of an old\ncoachman, who looked as if he were the official representative of all\nthe pomps and vanities that had ever been put into his coach. There\nwas a very pretty show of young women, and above them, the handsome\nold face and fine responsible portly figure of the housekeeper\ntowered pre-eminent. The pretty girl of whom Mr. Boythorn had told us\nwas close by her. She was so very pretty that I might have known her\nby her beauty even if I had not seen how blushingly conscious she was\nof the eyes of the young fisherman, whom I discovered not far off.\nOne face, and not an agreeable one, though it was handsome, seemed\nmaliciously watchful of this pretty girl, and indeed of every one and\neverything there. It was a Frenchwoman's.\n\nAs the bell was yet ringing and the great people were not yet come, I\nhad leisure to glance over the church, which smelt as earthy as a\ngrave, and to think what a shady, ancient, solemn little church it\nwas. The windows, heavily shaded by trees, admitted a subdued light\nthat made the faces around me pale, and darkened the old brasses in\nthe pavement and the time and damp-worn monuments, and rendered the\nsunshine in the little porch, where a monotonous ringer was working\nat the bell, inestimably bright. But a stir in that direction, a\ngathering of reverential awe in the rustic faces, and a blandly\nferocious assumption on the part of Mr. Boythorn of being resolutely\nunconscious of somebody's existence forewarned me that the great\npeople were come and that the service was going to begin.\n\n\"'Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in thy\nsight--'\"\n\nShall I ever forget the rapid beating at my heart, occasioned by the\nlook I met as I stood up! Shall I ever forget the manner in which\nthose handsome proud eyes seemed to spring out of their languor and\nto hold mine! It was only a moment before I cast mine down--released\nagain, if I may say so--on my book; but I knew the beautiful face\nquite well in that short space of time.\n\nAnd, very strangely, there was something quickened within me,\nassociated with the lonely days at my godmother's; yes, away even to\nthe days when I had stood on tiptoe to dress myself at my little\nglass after dressing my doll. And this, although I had never seen\nthis lady's face before in all my life--I was quite sure of\nit--absolutely certain.\n\nIt was easy to know that the ceremonious, gouty, grey-haired\ngentleman, the only other occupant of the great pew, was Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, and that the lady was Lady Dedlock. But why her\nface should be, in a confused way, like a broken glass to me, in\nwhich I saw scraps of old remembrances, and why I should be so\nfluttered and troubled (for I was still) by having casually met her\neyes, I could not think.\n\nI felt it to be an unmeaning weakness in me and tried to overcome it\nby attending to the words I heard. Then, very strangely, I seemed to\nhear them, not in the reader's voice, but in the well-remembered\nvoice of my godmother. This made me think, did Lady Dedlock's face\naccidentally resemble my godmother's? It might be that it did, a\nlittle; but the expression was so different, and the stern decision\nwhich had worn into my godmother's face, like weather into rocks, was\nso completely wanting in the face before me that it could not be that\nresemblance which had struck me. Neither did I know the loftiness and\nhaughtiness of Lady Dedlock's face, at all, in any one. And yet I--I,\nlittle Esther Summerson, the child who lived a life apart and on\nwhose birthday there was no rejoicing--seemed to arise before my own\neyes, evoked out of the past by some power in this fashionable lady,\nwhom I not only entertained no fancy that I had ever seen, but whom I\nperfectly well knew I had never seen until that hour.\n\nIt made me tremble so to be thrown into this unaccountable agitation\nthat I was conscious of being distressed even by the observation of\nthe French maid, though I knew she had been looking watchfully here,\nand there, and everywhere, from the moment of her coming into the\nchurch. By degrees, though very slowly, I at last overcame my strange\nemotion. After a long time, I looked towards Lady Dedlock again. It\nwas while they were preparing to sing, before the sermon. She took no\nheed of me, and the beating at my heart was gone. Neither did it\nrevive for more than a few moments when she once or twice afterwards\nglanced at Ada or at me through her glass.\n\nThe service being concluded, Sir Leicester gave his arm with much\ntaste and gallantry to Lady Dedlock--though he was obliged to walk by\nthe help of a thick stick--and escorted her out of church to the pony\ncarriage in which they had come. The servants then dispersed, and so\ndid the congregation, whom Sir Leicester had contemplated all along\n(Mr. Skimpole said to Mr. Boythorn's infinite delight) as if he were\na considerable landed proprietor in heaven.\n\n\"He believes he is!\" said Mr. Boythorn. \"He firmly believes it. So\ndid his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather!\"\n\n\"Do you know,\" pursued Mr. Skimpole very unexpectedly to Mr.\nBoythorn, \"it's agreeable to me to see a man of that sort.\"\n\n\"IS it!\" said Mr. Boythorn.\n\n\"Say that he wants to patronize me,\" pursued Mr. Skimpole. \"Very\nwell! I don't object.\"\n\n\"I do,\" said Mr. Boythorn with great vigour.\n\n\"Do you really?\" returned Mr. Skimpole in his easy light vein. \"But\nthat's taking trouble, surely. And why should you take trouble? Here\nam I, content to receive things childishly as they fall out, and I\nnever take trouble! I come down here, for instance, and I find a\nmighty potentate exacting homage. Very well! I say 'Mighty potentate,\nhere IS my homage! It's easier to give it than to withhold it. Here\nit is. If you have anything of an agreeable nature to show me, I\nshall be happy to see it; if you have anything of an agreeable nature\nto give me, I shall be happy to accept it.' Mighty potentate replies\nin effect, 'This is a sensible fellow. I find him accord with my\ndigestion and my bilious system. He doesn't impose upon me the\nnecessity of rolling myself up like a hedgehog with my points\noutward. I expand, I open, I turn my silver lining outward like\nMilton's cloud, and it's more agreeable to both of us.' That's my\nview of such things, speaking as a child!\"\n\n\"But suppose you went down somewhere else to-morrow,\" said Mr.\nBoythorn, \"where there was the opposite of that fellow--or of this\nfellow. How then?\"\n\n\"How then?\" said Mr. Skimpole with an appearance of the utmost\nsimplicity and candour. \"Just the same then! I should say, 'My\nesteemed Boythorn'--to make you the personification of our imaginary\nfriend--'my esteemed Boythorn, you object to the mighty potentate?\nVery good. So do I. I take it that my business in the social system\nis to be agreeable; I take it that everybody's business in the social\nsystem is to be agreeable. It's a system of harmony, in short.\nTherefore if you object, I object. Now, excellent Boythorn, let us go\nto dinner!'\"\n\n\"But excellent Boythorn might say,\" returned our host, swelling and\ngrowing very red, \"I'll be--\"\n\n\"I understand,\" said Mr. Skimpole. \"Very likely he would.\"\n\n\"--if I WILL go to dinner!\" cried Mr. Boythorn in a violent burst and\nstopping to strike his stick upon the ground. \"And he would probably\nadd, 'Is there such a thing as principle, Mr. Harold Skimpole?'\"\n\n\"To which Harold Skimpole would reply, you know,\" he returned in his\ngayest manner and with his most ingenuous smile, \"'Upon my life I\nhave not the least idea! I don't know what it is you call by that\nname, or where it is, or who possesses it. If you possess it and find\nit comfortable, I am quite delighted and congratulate you heartily.\nBut I know nothing about it, I assure you; for I am a mere child, and\nI lay no claim to it, and I don't want it!' So, you see, excellent\nBoythorn and I would go to dinner after all!\"\n\nThis was one of many little dialogues between them which I always\nexpected to end, and which I dare say would have ended under other\ncircumstances, in some violent explosion on the part of our host. But\nhe had so high a sense of his hospitable and responsible position as\nour entertainer, and my guardian laughed so sincerely at and with Mr.\nSkimpole, as a child who blew bubbles and broke them all day long,\nthat matters never went beyond this point. Mr. Skimpole, who always\nseemed quite unconscious of having been on delicate ground, then\nbetook himself to beginning some sketch in the park which he never\nfinished, or to playing fragments of airs on the piano, or to singing\nscraps of songs, or to lying down on his back under a tree and\nlooking at the sky--which he couldn't help thinking, he said, was\nwhat he was meant for; it suited him so exactly.\n\n\"Enterprise and effort,\" he would say to us (on his back), \"are\ndelightful to me. I believe I am truly cosmopolitan. I have the\ndeepest sympathy with them. I lie in a shady place like this and\nthink of adventurous spirits going to the North Pole or penetrating\nto the heart of the Torrid Zone with admiration. Mercenary creatures\nask, 'What is the use of a man's going to the North Pole? What good\ndoes it do?' I can't say; but, for anything I CAN say, he may go for\nthe purpose--though he don't know it--of employing my thoughts as I\nlie here. Take an extreme case. Take the case of the slaves on\nAmerican plantations. I dare say they are worked hard, I dare say\nthey don't altogether like it. I dare say theirs is an unpleasant\nexperience on the whole; but they people the landscape for me, they\ngive it a poetry for me, and perhaps that is one of the pleasanter\nobjects of their existence. I am very sensible of it, if it be, and I\nshouldn't wonder if it were!\"\n\nI always wondered on these occasions whether he ever thought of Mrs.\nSkimpole and the children, and in what point of view they presented\nthemselves to his cosmopolitan mind. So far as I could understand,\nthey rarely presented themselves at all.\n\nThe week had gone round to the Saturday following that beating of my\nheart in the church; and every day had been so bright and blue that\nto ramble in the woods, and to see the light striking down among the\ntransparent leaves and sparkling in the beautiful interlacings of the\nshadows of the trees, while the birds poured out their songs and the\nair was drowsy with the hum of insects, had been most delightful. We\nhad one favourite spot, deep in moss and last year's leaves, where\nthere were some felled trees from which the bark was all stripped\noff. Seated among these, we looked through a green vista supported by\nthousands of natural columns, the whitened stems of trees, upon a\ndistant prospect made so radiant by its contrast with the shade in\nwhich we sat and made so precious by the arched perspective through\nwhich we saw it that it was like a glimpse of the better land. Upon\nthe Saturday we sat here, Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and I, until we heard\nthunder muttering in the distance and felt the large raindrops rattle\nthrough the leaves.\n\nThe weather had been all the week extremely sultry, but the storm\nbroke so suddenly--upon us, at least, in that sheltered spot--that\nbefore we reached the outskirts of the wood the thunder and lightning\nwere frequent and the rain came plunging through the leaves as if\nevery drop were a great leaden bead. As it was not a time for\nstanding among trees, we ran out of the wood, and up and down the\nmoss-grown steps which crossed the plantation-fence like two\nbroad-staved ladders placed back to back, and made for a keeper's\nlodge which was close at hand. We had often noticed the dark beauty\nof this lodge standing in a deep twilight of trees, and how the ivy\nclustered over it, and how there was a steep hollow near, where we\nhad once seen the keeper's dog dive down into the fern as if it were\nwater.\n\nThe lodge was so dark within, now the sky was overcast, that we only\nclearly saw the man who came to the door when we took shelter there\nand put two chairs for Ada and me. The lattice-windows were all\nthrown open, and we sat just within the doorway watching the storm.\nIt was grand to see how the wind awoke, and bent the trees, and drove\nthe rain before it like a cloud of smoke; and to hear the solemn\nthunder and to see the lightning; and while thinking with awe of the\ntremendous powers by which our little lives are encompassed, to\nconsider how beneficent they are and how upon the smallest flower and\nleaf there was already a freshness poured from all this seeming rage\nwhich seemed to make creation new again.\n\n\"Is it not dangerous to sit in so exposed a place?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, Esther dear!\" said Ada quietly.\n\nAda said it to me, but I had not spoken.\n\nThe beating of my heart came back again. I had never heard the voice,\nas I had never seen the face, but it affected me in the same strange\nway. Again, in a moment, there arose before my mind innumerable\npictures of myself.\n\nLady Dedlock had taken shelter in the lodge before our arrival there\nand had come out of the gloom within. She stood behind my chair with\nher hand upon it. I saw her with her hand close to my shoulder when I\nturned my head.\n\n\"I have frightened you?\" she said.\n\nNo. It was not fright. Why should I be frightened!\n\n\"I believe,\" said Lady Dedlock to my guardian, \"I have the pleasure\nof speaking to Mr. Jarndyce.\"\n\n\"Your remembrance does me more honour than I had supposed it would,\nLady Dedlock,\" he returned.\n\n\"I recognized you in church on Sunday. I am sorry that any local\ndisputes of Sir Leicester's--they are not of his seeking, however, I\nbelieve--should render it a matter of some absurd difficulty to show\nyou any attention here.\"\n\n\"I am aware of the circumstances,\" returned my guardian with a smile,\n\"and am sufficiently obliged.\"\n\nShe had given him her hand in an indifferent way that seemed habitual\nto her and spoke in a correspondingly indifferent manner, though in a\nvery pleasant voice. She was as graceful as she was beautiful,\nperfectly self-possessed, and had the air, I thought, of being able\nto attract and interest any one if she had thought it worth her\nwhile. The keeper had brought her a chair on which she sat in the\nmiddle of the porch between us.\n\n\"Is the young gentleman disposed of whom you wrote to Sir Leicester\nabout and whose wishes Sir Leicester was sorry not to have it in his\npower to advance in any way?\" she said over her shoulder to my\nguardian.\n\n\"I hope so,\" said he.\n\nShe seemed to respect him and even to wish to conciliate him. There\nwas something very winning in her haughty manner, and it became more\nfamiliar--I was going to say more easy, but that could hardly be--as\nshe spoke to him over her shoulder.\n\n\"I presume this is your other ward, Miss Clare?\"\n\nHe presented Ada, in form.\n\n\"You will lose the disinterested part of your Don Quixote character,\"\nsaid Lady Dedlock to Mr. Jarndyce over her shoulder again, \"if you\nonly redress the wrongs of beauty like this. But present me,\" and she\nturned full upon me, \"to this young lady too!\"\n\n\"Miss Summerson really is my ward,\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"I am\nresponsible to no Lord Chancellor in her case.\"\n\n\"Has Miss Summerson lost both her parents?\" said my Lady.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"She is very fortunate in her guardian.\"\n\nLady Dedlock looked at me, and I looked at her and said I was indeed.\nAll at once she turned from me with a hasty air, almost expressive of\ndispleasure or dislike, and spoke to him over her shoulder again.\n\n\"Ages have passed since we were in the habit of meeting, Mr.\nJarndyce.\"\n\n\"A long time. At least I thought it was a long time, until I saw you\nlast Sunday,\" he returned.\n\n\"What! Even you are a courtier, or think it necessary to become one\nto me!\" she said with some disdain. \"I have achieved that reputation,\nI suppose.\"\n\n\"You have achieved so much, Lady Dedlock,\" said my guardian, \"that\nyou pay some little penalty, I dare say. But none to me.\"\n\n\"So much!\" she repeated, slightly laughing. \"Yes!\"\n\nWith her air of superiority, and power, and fascination, and I know\nnot what, she seemed to regard Ada and me as little more than\nchildren. So, as she slightly laughed and afterwards sat looking at\nthe rain, she was as self-possessed and as free to occupy herself\nwith her own thoughts as if she had been alone.\n\n\"I think you knew my sister when we were abroad together better than\nyou know me?\" she said, looking at him again.\n\n\"Yes, we happened to meet oftener,\" he returned.\n\n\"We went our several ways,\" said Lady Dedlock, \"and had little in\ncommon even before we agreed to differ. It is to be regretted, I\nsuppose, but it could not be helped.\"\n\nLady Dedlock again sat looking at the rain. The storm soon began to\npass upon its way. The shower greatly abated, the lightning ceased,\nthe thunder rolled among the distant hills, and the sun began to\nglisten on the wet leaves and the falling rain. As we sat there,\nsilently, we saw a little pony phaeton coming towards us at a merry\npace.\n\n\"The messenger is coming back, my Lady,\" said the keeper, \"with the\ncarriage.\"\n\nAs it drove up, we saw that there were two people inside. There\nalighted from it, with some cloaks and wrappers, first the\nFrenchwoman whom I had seen in church, and secondly the pretty girl,\nthe Frenchwoman with a defiant confidence, the pretty girl confused\nand hesitating.\n\n\"What now?\" said Lady Dedlock. \"Two!\"\n\n\"I am your maid, my Lady, at the present,\" said the Frenchwoman. \"The\nmessage was for the attendant.\"\n\n\"I was afraid you might mean me, my Lady,\" said the pretty girl.\n\n\"I did mean you, child,\" replied her mistress calmly. \"Put that shawl\non me.\"\n\nShe slightly stooped her shoulders to receive it, and the pretty girl\nlightly dropped it in its place. The Frenchwoman stood unnoticed,\nlooking on with her lips very tightly set.\n\n\"I am sorry,\" said Lady Dedlock to Mr. Jarndyce, \"that we are not\nlikely to renew our former acquaintance. You will allow me to send\nthe carriage back for your two wards. It shall be here directly.\"\n\nBut as he would on no account accept this offer, she took a graceful\nleave of Ada--none of me--and put her hand upon his proffered arm,\nand got into the carriage, which was a little, low, park carriage\nwith a hood.\n\n\"Come in, child,\" she said to the pretty girl; \"I shall want you. Go\non!\"\n\nThe carriage rolled away, and the Frenchwoman, with the wrappers she\nhad brought hanging over her arm, remained standing where she had\nalighted.\n\nI suppose there is nothing pride can so little bear with as pride\nitself, and that she was punished for her imperious manner. Her\nretaliation was the most singular I could have imagined. She remained\nperfectly still until the carriage had turned into the drive, and\nthen, without the least discomposure of countenance, slipped off her\nshoes, left them on the ground, and walked deliberately in the same\ndirection through the wettest of the wet grass.\n\n\"Is that young woman mad?\" said my guardian.\n\n\"Oh, no, sir!\" said the keeper, who, with his wife, was looking after\nher. \"Hortense is not one of that sort. She has as good a head-piece\nas the best. But she's mortal high and passionate--powerful high and\npassionate; and what with having notice to leave, and having others\nput above her, she don't take kindly to it.\"\n\n\"But why should she walk shoeless through all that water?\" said my\nguardian.\n\n\"Why, indeed, sir, unless it is to cool her down!\" said the man.\n\n\"Or unless she fancies it's blood,\" said the woman. \"She'd as soon\nwalk through that as anything else, I think, when her own's up!\"\n\nWe passed not far from the house a few minutes afterwards. Peaceful\nas it had looked when we first saw it, it looked even more so now,\nwith a diamond spray glittering all about it, a light wind blowing,\nthe birds no longer hushed but singing strongly, everything refreshed\nby the late rain, and the little carriage shining at the doorway like\na fairy carriage made of silver. Still, very steadfastly and quietly\nwalking towards it, a peaceful figure too in the landscape, went\nMademoiselle Hortense, shoeless, through the wet grass.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nMoving On\n\n\nIt is the long vacation in the regions of Chancery Lane. The good\nships Law and Equity, those teak-built, copper-bottomed,\niron-fastened, brazen-faced, and not by any means fast-sailing\nclippers are laid up in ordinary. The Flying Dutchman, with a crew of\nghostly clients imploring all whom they may encounter to peruse their\npapers, has drifted, for the time being, heaven knows where. The\ncourts are all shut up; the public offices lie in a hot sleep.\nWestminster Hall itself is a shady solitude where nightingales might\nsing, and a tenderer class of suitors than is usually found there,\nwalk.\n\nThe Temple, Chancery Lane, Serjeants' Inn, and Lincoln's Inn even\nunto the Fields are like tidal harbours at low water, where stranded\nproceedings, offices at anchor, idle clerks lounging on lop-sided\nstools that will not recover their perpendicular until the current of\nTerm sets in, lie high and dry upon the ooze of the long vacation.\nOuter doors of chambers are shut up by the score, messages and\nparcels are to be left at the Porter's Lodge by the bushel. A crop of\ngrass would grow in the chinks of the stone pavement outside\nLincoln's Inn Hall, but that the ticket-porters, who have nothing to\ndo beyond sitting in the shade there, with their white aprons over\ntheir heads to keep the flies off, grub it up and eat it\nthoughtfully.\n\nThere is only one judge in town. Even he only comes twice a week to\nsit in chambers. If the country folks of those assize towns on his\ncircuit could see him now! No full-bottomed wig, no red petticoats,\nno fur, no javelin-men, no white wands. Merely a close-shaved\ngentleman in white trousers and a white hat, with sea-bronze on the\njudicial countenance, and a strip of bark peeled by the solar rays\nfrom the judicial nose, who calls in at the shell-fish shop as he\ncomes along and drinks iced ginger-beer!\n\nThe bar of England is scattered over the face of the earth. How\nEngland can get on through four long summer months without its\nbar--which is its acknowledged refuge in adversity and its only\nlegitimate triumph in prosperity--is beside the question; assuredly\nthat shield and buckler of Britannia are not in present wear. The\nlearned gentleman who is always so tremendously indignant at the\nunprecedented outrage committed on the feelings of his client by the\nopposite party that he never seems likely to recover it is doing\ninfinitely better than might be expected in Switzerland. The learned\ngentleman who does the withering business and who blights all\nopponents with his gloomy sarcasm is as merry as a grig at a French\nwatering-place. The learned gentleman who weeps by the pint on the\nsmallest provocation has not shed a tear these six weeks. The very\nlearned gentleman who has cooled the natural heat of his gingery\ncomplexion in pools and fountains of law until he has become great in\nknotty arguments for term-time, when he poses the drowsy bench with\nlegal \"chaff,\" inexplicable to the uninitiated and to most of the\ninitiated too, is roaming, with a characteristic delight in aridity\nand dust, about Constantinople. Other dispersed fragments of the same\ngreat palladium are to be found on the canals of Venice, at the\nsecond cataract of the Nile, in the baths of Germany, and sprinkled\non the sea-sand all over the English coast. Scarcely one is to be\nencountered in the deserted region of Chancery Lane. If such a lonely\nmember of the bar do flit across the waste and come upon a prowling\nsuitor who is unable to leave off haunting the scenes of his anxiety,\nthey frighten one another and retreat into opposite shades.\n\nIt is the hottest long vacation known for many years. All the young\nclerks are madly in love, and according to their various degrees,\npine for bliss with the beloved object, at Margate, Ramsgate, or\nGravesend. All the middle-aged clerks think their families too large.\nAll the unowned dogs who stray into the Inns of Court and pant about\nstaircases and other dry places seeking water give short howls of\naggravation. All the blind men's dogs in the streets draw their\nmasters against pumps or trip them over buckets. A shop with a\nsun-blind, and a watered pavement, and a bowl of gold and silver fish\nin the window, is a sanctuary. Temple Bar gets so hot that it is, to\nthe adjacent Strand and Fleet Street, what a heater is in an urn, and\nkeeps them simmering all night.\n\nThere are offices about the Inns of Court in which a man might be\ncool, if any coolness were worth purchasing at such a price in\ndullness; but the little thoroughfares immediately outside those\nretirements seem to blaze. In Mr. Krook's court, it is so hot that\nthe people turn their houses inside out and sit in chairs upon the\npavement--Mr. Krook included, who there pursues his studies, with his\ncat (who never is too hot) by his side. The Sol's Arms has\ndiscontinued the Harmonic Meetings for the season, and Little Swills\nis engaged at the Pastoral Gardens down the river, where he comes out\nin quite an innocent manner and sings comic ditties of a juvenile\ncomplexion calculated (as the bill says) not to wound the feelings of\nthe most fastidious mind.\n\nOver all the legal neighbourhood there hangs, like some great veil of\nrust or gigantic cobweb, the idleness and pensiveness of the long\nvacation. Mr. Snagsby, law-stationer of Cook's Court, Cursitor\nStreet, is sensible of the influence not only in his mind as a\nsympathetic and contemplative man, but also in his business as a\nlaw-stationer aforesaid. He has more leisure for musing in Staple Inn\nand in the Rolls Yard during the long vacation than at other seasons,\nand he says to the two 'prentices, what a thing it is in such hot\nweather to think that you live in an island with the sea a-rolling\nand a-bowling right round you.\n\nGuster is busy in the little drawing-room on this present afternoon\nin the long vacation, when Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby have it in\ncontemplation to receive company. The expected guests are rather\nselect than numerous, being Mr. and Mrs. Chadband and no more. From\nMr. Chadband's being much given to describe himself, both verbally\nand in writing, as a vessel, he is occasionally mistaken by strangers\nfor a gentleman connected with navigation, but he is, as he expresses\nit, \"in the ministry.\" Mr. Chadband is attached to no particular\ndenomination and is considered by his persecutors to have nothing so\nvery remarkable to say on the greatest of subjects as to render his\nvolunteering, on his own account, at all incumbent on his conscience;\nbut he has his followers, and Mrs. Snagsby is of the number. Mrs.\nSnagsby has but recently taken a passage upward by the vessel,\nChadband; and her attention was attracted to that Bark A 1, when she\nwas something flushed by the hot weather.\n\n\"My little woman,\" says Mr. Snagsby to the sparrows in Staple Inn,\n\"likes to have her religion rather sharp, you see!\"\n\nSo Guster, much impressed by regarding herself for the time as the\nhandmaid of Chadband, whom she knows to be endowed with the gift of\nholding forth for four hours at a stretch, prepares the little\ndrawing-room for tea. All the furniture is shaken and dusted, the\nportraits of Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are touched up with a wet cloth,\nthe best tea-service is set forth, and there is excellent provision\nmade of dainty new bread, crusty twists, cool fresh butter, thin\nslices of ham, tongue, and German sausage, and delicate little rows\nof anchovies nestling in parsley, not to mention new-laid eggs, to be\nbrought up warm in a napkin, and hot buttered toast. For Chadband is\nrather a consuming vessel--the persecutors say a gorging vessel--and\ncan wield such weapons of the flesh as a knife and fork remarkably\nwell.\n\nMr. Snagsby in his best coat, looking at all the preparations when\nthey are completed and coughing his cough of deference behind his\nhand, says to Mrs. Snagsby, \"At what time did you expect Mr. and Mrs.\nChadband, my love?\"\n\n\"At six,\" says Mrs. Snagsby.\n\nMr. Snagsby observes in a mild and casual way that \"it's gone that.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you'd like to begin without them,\" is Mrs. Snagsby's\nreproachful remark.\n\nMr. Snagsby does look as if he would like it very much, but he says,\nwith his cough of mildness, \"No, my dear, no. I merely named the\ntime.\"\n\n\"What's time,\" says Mrs. Snagsby, \"to eternity?\"\n\n\"Very true, my dear,\" says Mr. Snagsby. \"Only when a person lays in\nvictuals for tea, a person does it with a view--perhaps--more to\ntime. And when a time is named for having tea, it's better to come up\nto it.\"\n\n\"To come up to it!\" Mrs. Snagsby repeats with severity. \"Up to it! As\nif Mr. Chadband was a fighter!\"\n\n\"Not at all, my dear,\" says Mr. Snagsby.\n\nHere, Guster, who had been looking out of the bedroom window, comes\nrustling and scratching down the little staircase like a popular\nghost, and falling flushed into the drawing-room, announces that Mr.\nand Mrs. Chadband have appeared in the court. The bell at the inner\ndoor in the passage immediately thereafter tinkling, she is\nadmonished by Mrs. Snagsby, on pain of instant reconsignment to her\npatron saint, not to omit the ceremony of announcement. Much\ndiscomposed in her nerves (which were previously in the best order)\nby this threat, she so fearfully mutilates that point of state as to\nannounce \"Mr. and Mrs. Cheeseming, least which, Imeantersay,\nwhatsername!\" and retires conscience-stricken from the presence.\n\nMr. Chadband is a large yellow man with a fat smile and a general\nappearance of having a good deal of train oil in his system. Mrs.\nChadband is a stern, severe-looking, silent woman. Mr. Chadband moves\nsoftly and cumbrously, not unlike a bear who has been taught to walk\nupright. He is very much embarrassed about the arms, as if they were\ninconvenient to him and he wanted to grovel, is very much in a\nperspiration about the head, and never speaks without first putting\nup his great hand, as delivering a token to his hearers that he is\ngoing to edify them.\n\n\"My friends,\" says Mr. Chadband, \"peace be on this house! On the\nmaster thereof, on the mistress thereof, on the young maidens, and on\nthe young men! My friends, why do I wish for peace? What is peace? Is\nit war? No. Is it strife? No. Is it lovely, and gentle, and\nbeautiful, and pleasant, and serene, and joyful? Oh, yes! Therefore,\nmy friends, I wish for peace, upon you and upon yours.\"\n\nIn consequence of Mrs. Snagsby looking deeply edified, Mr. Snagsby\nthinks it expedient on the whole to say amen, which is well received.\n\n\"Now, my friends,\" proceeds Mr. Chadband, \"since I am upon this\ntheme--\"\n\nGuster presents herself. Mrs. Snagsby, in a spectral bass voice and\nwithout removing her eyes from Chadband, says with dreadful\ndistinctness, \"Go away!\"\n\n\"Now, my friends,\" says Chadband, \"since I am upon this theme, and in\nmy lowly path improving it--\"\n\nGuster is heard unaccountably to murmur \"one thousing seven hundred\nand eighty-two.\" The spectral voice repeats more solemnly, \"Go away!\"\n\n\"Now, my friends,\" says Mr. Chadband, \"we will inquire in a spirit of\nlove--\"\n\nStill Guster reiterates \"one thousing seven hundred and eighty-two.\"\n\nMr. Chadband, pausing with the resignation of a man accustomed to be\npersecuted and languidly folding up his chin into his fat smile,\nsays, \"Let us hear the maiden! Speak, maiden!\"\n\n\"One thousing seven hundred and eighty-two, if you please, sir. Which\nhe wish to know what the shilling ware for,\" says Guster, breathless.\n\n\"For?\" returns Mrs. Chadband. \"For his fare!\"\n\nGuster replied that \"he insistes on one and eightpence or on\nsummonsizzing the party.\" Mrs. Snagsby and Mrs. Chadband are\nproceeding to grow shrill in indignation when Mr. Chadband quiets the\ntumult by lifting up his hand.\n\n\"My friends,\" says he, \"I remember a duty unfulfilled yesterday. It\nis right that I should be chastened in some penalty. I ought not to\nmurmur. Rachael, pay the eightpence!\"\n\nWhile Mrs. Snagsby, drawing her breath, looks hard at Mr. Snagsby, as\nwho should say, \"You hear this apostle!\" and while Mr. Chadband glows\nwith humility and train oil, Mrs. Chadband pays the money. It is Mr.\nChadband's habit--it is the head and front of his pretensions\nindeed--to keep this sort of debtor and creditor account in the\nsmallest items and to post it publicly on the most trivial occasions.\n\n\"My friends,\" says Chadband, \"eightpence is not much; it might justly\nhave been one and fourpence; it might justly have been half a crown.\nO let us be joyful, joyful! O let us be joyful!\"\n\nWith which remark, which appears from its sound to be an extract in\nverse, Mr. Chadband stalks to the table, and before taking a chair,\nlifts up his admonitory hand.\n\n\"My friends,\" says he, \"what is this which we now behold as being\nspread before us? Refreshment. Do we need refreshment then, my\nfriends? We do. And why do we need refreshment, my friends? Because\nwe are but mortal, because we are but sinful, because we are but of\nthe earth, because we are not of the air. Can we fly, my friends? We\ncannot. Why can we not fly, my friends?\"\n\nMr. Snagsby, presuming on the success of his last point, ventures to\nobserve in a cheerful and rather knowing tone, \"No wings.\" But is\nimmediately frowned down by Mrs. Snagsby.\n\n\"I say, my friends,\" pursues Mr. Chadband, utterly rejecting and\nobliterating Mr. Snagsby's suggestion, \"why can we not fly? Is it\nbecause we are calculated to walk? It is. Could we walk, my friends,\nwithout strength? We could not. What should we do without strength,\nmy friends? Our legs would refuse to bear us, our knees would double\nup, our ankles would turn over, and we should come to the ground.\nThen from whence, my friends, in a human point of view, do we derive\nthe strength that is necessary to our limbs? Is it,\" says Chadband,\nglancing over the table, \"from bread in various forms, from butter\nwhich is churned from the milk which is yielded unto us by the cow,\nfrom the eggs which are laid by the fowl, from ham, from tongue, from\nsausage, and from such like? It is. Then let us partake of the good\nthings which are set before us!\"\n\nThe persecutors denied that there was any particular gift in Mr.\nChadband's piling verbose flights of stairs, one upon another, after\nthis fashion. But this can only be received as a proof of their\ndetermination to persecute, since it must be within everybody's\nexperience that the Chadband style of oratory is widely received and\nmuch admired.\n\nMr. Chadband, however, having concluded for the present, sits down at\nMr. Snagsby's table and lays about him prodigiously. The conversion\nof nutriment of any sort into oil of the quality already mentioned\nappears to be a process so inseparable from the constitution of this\nexemplary vessel that in beginning to eat and drink, he may be\ndescribed as always becoming a kind of considerable oil mills or\nother large factory for the production of that article on a wholesale\nscale. On the present evening of the long vacation, in Cook's Court,\nCursitor Street, he does such a powerful stroke of business that the\nwarehouse appears to be quite full when the works cease.\n\nAt this period of the entertainment, Guster, who has never recovered\nher first failure, but has neglected no possible or impossible means\nof bringing the establishment and herself into contempt--among which\nmay be briefly enumerated her unexpectedly performing clashing\nmilitary music on Mr. Chadband's head with plates, and afterwards\ncrowning that gentleman with muffins--at which period of the\nentertainment, Guster whispers Mr. Snagsby that he is wanted.\n\n\"And being wanted in the--not to put too fine a point upon it--in the\nshop,\" says Mr. Snagsby, rising, \"perhaps this good company will\nexcuse me for half a minute.\"\n\nMr. Snagsby descends and finds the two 'prentices intently\ncontemplating a police constable, who holds a ragged boy by the arm.\n\n\"Why, bless my heart,\" says Mr. Snagsby, \"what's the matter!\"\n\n\"This boy,\" says the constable, \"although he's repeatedly told to,\nwon't move on--\"\n\n\"I'm always a-moving on, sar,\" cries the boy, wiping away his grimy\ntears with his arm. \"I've always been a-moving and a-moving on, ever\nsince I was born. Where can I possibly move to, sir, more nor I do\nmove!\"\n\n\"He won't move on,\" says the constable calmly, with a slight\nprofessional hitch of his neck involving its better settlement in his\nstiff stock, \"although he has been repeatedly cautioned, and\ntherefore I am obliged to take him into custody. He's as obstinate a\nyoung gonoph as I know. He WON'T move on.\"\n\n\"Oh, my eye! Where can I move to!\" cries the boy, clutching quite\ndesperately at his hair and beating his bare feet upon the floor of\nMr. Snagsby's passage.\n\n\"Don't you come none of that or I shall make blessed short work of\nyou!\" says the constable, giving him a passionless shake. \"My\ninstructions are that you are to move on. I have told you so five\nhundred times.\"\n\n\"But where?\" cries the boy.\n\n\"Well! Really, constable, you know,\" says Mr. Snagsby wistfully, and\ncoughing behind his hand his cough of great perplexity and doubt,\n\"really, that does seem a question. Where, you know?\"\n\n\"My instructions don't go to that,\" replies the constable. \"My\ninstructions are that this boy is to move on.\"\n\nDo you hear, Jo? It is nothing to you or to any one else that the\ngreat lights of the parliamentary sky have failed for some few years\nin this business to set you the example of moving on. The one grand\nrecipe remains for you--the profound philosophical prescription--the\nbe-all and the end-all of your strange existence upon earth. Move on!\nYou are by no means to move off, Jo, for the great lights can't at\nall agree about that. Move on!\n\nMr. Snagsby says nothing to this effect, says nothing at all indeed,\nbut coughs his forlornest cough, expressive of no thoroughfare in any\ndirection. By this time Mr. and Mrs. Chadband and Mrs. Snagsby,\nhearing the altercation, have appeared upon the stairs. Guster having\nnever left the end of the passage, the whole household are assembled.\n\n\"The simple question is, sir,\" says the constable, \"whether you know\nthis boy. He says you do.\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby, from her elevation, instantly cries out, \"No he don't!\"\n\n\"My lit-tle woman!\" says Mr. Snagsby, looking up the staircase. \"My\nlove, permit me! Pray have a moment's patience, my dear. I do know\nsomething of this lad, and in what I know of him, I can't say that\nthere's any harm; perhaps on the contrary, constable.\" To whom the\nlaw-stationer relates his Joful and woeful experience, suppressing\nthe half-crown fact.\n\n\"Well!\" says the constable, \"so far, it seems, he had grounds for\nwhat he said. When I took him into custody up in Holborn, he said you\nknew him. Upon that, a young man who was in the crowd said he was\nacquainted with you, and you were a respectable housekeeper, and if\nI'd call and make the inquiry, he'd appear. The young man don't seem\ninclined to keep his word, but--Oh! Here IS the young man!\"\n\nEnter Mr. Guppy, who nods to Mr. Snagsby and touches his hat with the\nchivalry of clerkship to the ladies on the stairs.\n\n\"I was strolling away from the office just now when I found this row\ngoing on,\" says Mr. Guppy to the law-stationer, \"and as your name was\nmentioned, I thought it was right the thing should be looked into.\"\n\n\"It was very good-natured of you, sir,\" says Mr. Snagsby, \"and I am\nobliged to you.\" And Mr. Snagsby again relates his experience, again\nsuppressing the half-crown fact.\n\n\"Now, I know where you live,\" says the constable, then, to Jo. \"You\nlive down in Tom-all-Alone's. That's a nice innocent place to live\nin, ain't it?\"\n\n\"I can't go and live in no nicer place, sir,\" replies Jo. \"They\nwouldn't have nothink to say to me if I wos to go to a nice innocent\nplace fur to live. Who ud go and let a nice innocent lodging to such\na reg'lar one as me!\"\n\n\"You are very poor, ain't you?\" says the constable.\n\n\"Yes, I am indeed, sir, wery poor in gin'ral,\" replies Jo. \"I leave\nyou to judge now! I shook these two half-crowns out of him,\" says the\nconstable, producing them to the company, \"in only putting my hand\nupon him!\"\n\n\"They're wot's left, Mr. Snagsby,\" says Jo, \"out of a sov-ring as wos\ngive me by a lady in a wale as sed she wos a servant and as come to\nmy crossin one night and asked to be showd this 'ere ouse and the\nouse wot him as you giv the writin to died at, and the berrin-ground\nwot he's berrid in. She ses to me she ses 'are you the boy at the\ninkwhich?' she ses. I ses 'yes' I ses. She ses to me she ses 'can you\nshow me all them places?' I ses 'yes I can' I ses. And she ses to me\n'do it' and I dun it and she giv me a sov'ring and hooked it. And I\nan't had much of the sov'ring neither,\" says Jo, with dirty tears,\n\"fur I had to pay five bob, down in Tom-all-Alone's, afore they'd\nsquare it fur to give me change, and then a young man he thieved\nanother five while I was asleep and another boy he thieved ninepence\nand the landlord he stood drains round with a lot more on it.\"\n\n\"You don't expect anybody to believe this, about the lady and the\nsovereign, do you?\" says the constable, eyeing him aside with\nineffable disdain.\n\n\"I don't know as I do, sir,\" replies Jo. \"I don't expect nothink at\nall, sir, much, but that's the true hist'ry on it.\"\n\n\"You see what he is!\" the constable observes to the audience. \"Well,\nMr. Snagsby, if I don't lock him up this time, will you engage for\nhis moving on?\"\n\n\"No!\" cries Mrs. Snagsby from the stairs.\n\n\"My little woman!\" pleads her husband. \"Constable, I have no doubt\nhe'll move on. You know you really must do it,\" says Mr. Snagsby.\n\n\"I'm everyways agreeable, sir,\" says the hapless Jo.\n\n\"Do it, then,\" observes the constable. \"You know what you have got to\ndo. Do it! And recollect you won't get off so easy next time. Catch\nhold of your money. Now, the sooner you're five mile off, the better\nfor all parties.\"\n\nWith this farewell hint and pointing generally to the setting sun as\na likely place to move on to, the constable bids his auditors good\nafternoon and makes the echoes of Cook's Court perform slow music for\nhim as he walks away on the shady side, carrying his iron-bound hat\nin his hand for a little ventilation.\n\nNow, Jo's improbable story concerning the lady and the sovereign has\nawakened more or less the curiosity of all the company. Mr. Guppy,\nwho has an inquiring mind in matters of evidence and who has\nbeen suffering severely from the lassitude of the long vacation,\ntakes that interest in the case that he enters on a regular\ncross-examination of the witness, which is found so interesting by\nthe ladies that Mrs. Snagsby politely invites him to step upstairs\nand drink a cup of tea, if he will excuse the disarranged state of\nthe tea-table, consequent on their previous exertions. Mr. Guppy\nyielding his assent to this proposal, Jo is requested to follow into\nthe drawing-room doorway, where Mr. Guppy takes him in hand as a\nwitness, patting him into this shape, that shape, and the other shape\nlike a butterman dealing with so much butter, and worrying him\naccording to the best models. Nor is the examination unlike many such\nmodel displays, both in respect of its eliciting nothing and of its\nbeing lengthy, for Mr. Guppy is sensible of his talent, and Mrs.\nSnagsby feels not only that it gratifies her inquisitive disposition,\nbut that it lifts her husband's establishment higher up in the law.\nDuring the progress of this keen encounter, the vessel Chadband,\nbeing merely engaged in the oil trade, gets aground and waits to be\nfloated off.\n\n\"Well!\" says Mr. Guppy. \"Either this boy sticks to it like\ncobbler's-wax or there is something out of the common here that beats\nanything that ever came into my way at Kenge and Carboy's.\"\n\nMrs. Chadband whispers Mrs. Snagsby, who exclaims, \"You don't say\nso!\"\n\n\"For years!\" replied Mrs. Chadband.\n\n\"Has known Kenge and Carboy's office for years,\" Mrs. Snagsby\ntriumphantly explains to Mr. Guppy. \"Mrs. Chadband--this gentleman's\nwife--Reverend Mr. Chadband.\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed!\" says Mr. Guppy.\n\n\"Before I married my present husband,\" says Mrs. Chadband.\n\n\"Was you a party in anything, ma'am?\" says Mr. Guppy, transferring\nhis cross-examination.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"NOT a party in anything, ma'am?\" says Mr. Guppy.\n\nMrs. Chadband shakes her head.\n\n\"Perhaps you were acquainted with somebody who was a party in\nsomething, ma'am?\" says Mr. Guppy, who likes nothing better than to\nmodel his conversation on forensic principles.\n\n\"Not exactly that, either,\" replies Mrs. Chadband, humouring the joke\nwith a hard-favoured smile.\n\n\"Not exactly that, either!\" repeats Mr. Guppy. \"Very good. Pray,\nma'am, was it a lady of your acquaintance who had some transactions\n(we will not at present say what transactions) with Kenge and\nCarboy's office, or was it a gentleman of your acquaintance? Take\ntime, ma'am. We shall come to it presently. Man or woman, ma'am?\"\n\n\"Neither,\" says Mrs. Chadband as before.\n\n\"Oh! A child!\" says Mr. Guppy, throwing on the admiring Mrs. Snagsby\nthe regular acute professional eye which is thrown on British\njurymen. \"Now, ma'am, perhaps you'll have the kindness to tell us\nWHAT child.\"\n\n\"You have got it at last, sir,\" says Mrs. Chadband with another\nhard-favoured smile. \"Well, sir, it was before your time, most\nlikely, judging from your appearance. I was left in charge of a child\nnamed Esther Summerson, who was put out in life by Messrs. Kenge and\nCarboy.\"\n\n\"Miss Summerson, ma'am!\" cries Mr. Guppy, excited.\n\n\"I call her Esther Summerson,\" says Mrs. Chadband with austerity.\n\"There was no Miss-ing of the girl in my time. It was Esther.\n'Esther, do this! Esther, do that!' and she was made to do it.\"\n\n\"My dear ma'am,\" returns Mr. Guppy, moving across the small\napartment, \"the humble individual who now addresses you received that\nyoung lady in London when she first came here from the establishment\nto which you have alluded. Allow me to have the pleasure of taking\nyou by the hand.\"\n\nMr. Chadband, at last seeing his opportunity, makes his accustomed\nsignal and rises with a smoking head, which he dabs with his\npocket-handkerchief. Mrs. Snagsby whispers \"Hush!\"\n\n\"My friends,\" says Chadband, \"we have partaken in moderation\" (which\nwas certainly not the case so far as he was concerned) \"of the\ncomforts which have been provided for us. May this house live upon\nthe fatness of the land; may corn and wine be plentiful therein; may\nit grow, may it thrive, may it prosper, may it advance, may it\nproceed, may it press forward! But, my friends, have we partaken of\nanything else? We have. My friends, of what else have we partaken? Of\nspiritual profit? Yes. From whence have we derived that spiritual\nprofit? My young friend, stand forth!\"\n\nJo, thus apostrophized, gives a slouch backward, and another slouch\nforward, and another slouch to each side, and confronts the eloquent\nChadband with evident doubts of his intentions.\n\n\"My young friend,\" says Chadband, \"you are to us a pearl, you are to\nus a diamond, you are to us a gem, you are to us a jewel. And why, my\nyoung friend?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" replies Jo. \"I don't know nothink.\"\n\n\"My young friend,\" says Chadband, \"it is because you know nothing\nthat you are to us a gem and jewel. For what are you, my young\nfriend? Are you a beast of the field? No. A bird of the air? No. A\nfish of the sea or river? No. You are a human boy, my young friend. A\nhuman boy. O glorious to be a human boy! And why glorious, my young\nfriend? Because you are capable of receiving the lessons of wisdom,\nbecause you are capable of profiting by this discourse which I now\ndeliver for your good, because you are not a stick, or a staff, or a\nstock, or a stone, or a post, or a pillar.\n\n   O running stream of sparkling joy\n   To be a soaring human boy!\n\nAnd do you cool yourself in that stream now, my young friend? No.\nWhy do you not cool yourself in that stream now? Because you are in a\nstate of darkness, because you are in a state of obscurity, because\nyou are in a state of sinfulness, because you are in a state of\nbondage. My young friend, what is bondage? Let us, in a spirit of\nlove, inquire.\"\n\nAt this threatening stage of the discourse, Jo, who seems to have\nbeen gradually going out of his mind, smears his right arm over his\nface and gives a terrible yawn. Mrs. Snagsby indignantly expresses\nher belief that he is a limb of the arch-fiend.\n\n\"My friends,\" says Mr. Chadband with his persecuted chin folding\nitself into its fat smile again as he looks round, \"it is right that\nI should be humbled, it is right that I should be tried, it is right\nthat I should be mortified, it is right that I should be corrected. I\nstumbled, on Sabbath last, when I thought with pride of my three\nhours' improving. The account is now favourably balanced: my creditor\nhas accepted a composition. O let us be joyful, joyful! O let us be\njoyful!\"\n\nGreat sensation on the part of Mrs. Snagsby.\n\n\"My friends,\" says Chadband, looking round him in conclusion, \"I will\nnot proceed with my young friend now. Will you come to-morrow, my\nyoung friend, and inquire of this good lady where I am to be found to\ndeliver a discourse unto you, and will you come like the thirsty\nswallow upon the next day, and upon the day after that, and upon the\nday after that, and upon many pleasant days, to hear discourses?\"\n(This with a cow-like lightness.)\n\nJo, whose immediate object seems to be to get away on any terms,\ngives a shuffling nod. Mr. Guppy then throws him a penny, and Mrs.\nSnagsby calls to Guster to see him safely out of the house. But\nbefore he goes downstairs, Mr. Snagsby loads him with some broken\nmeats from the table, which he carries away, hugging in his arms.\n\nSo, Mr. Chadband--of whom the persecutors say that it is no wonder he\nshould go on for any length of time uttering such abominable\nnonsense, but that the wonder rather is that he should ever leave\noff, having once the audacity to begin--retires into private life\nuntil he invests a little capital of supper in the oil-trade. Jo\nmoves on, through the long vacation, down to Blackfriars Bridge,\nwhere he finds a baking stony corner wherein to settle to his repast.\n\nAnd there he sits, munching and gnawing, and looking up at the great\ncross on the summit of St. Paul's Cathedral, glittering above a\nred-and-violet-tinted cloud of smoke. From the boy's face one might\nsuppose that sacred emblem to be, in his eyes, the crowning confusion\nof the great, confused city--so golden, so high up, so far out of his\nreach. There he sits, the sun going down, the river running fast, the\ncrowd flowing by him in two streams--everything moving on to some\npurpose and to one end--until he is stirred up and told to \"move on\"\ntoo.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nA New Lodger\n\n\nThe long vacation saunters on towards term-time like an idle river\nvery leisurely strolling down a flat country to the sea. Mr. Guppy\nsaunters along with it congenially. He has blunted the blade of his\npenknife and broken the point off by sticking that instrument into\nhis desk in every direction. Not that he bears the desk any ill will,\nbut he must do something, and it must be something of an unexciting\nnature, which will lay neither his physical nor his intellectual\nenergies under too heavy contribution. He finds that nothing agrees\nwith him so well as to make little gyrations on one leg of his stool,\nand stab his desk, and gape.\n\nKenge and Carboy are out of town, and the articled clerk has taken\nout a shooting license and gone down to his father's, and Mr. Guppy's\ntwo fellow-stipendiaries are away on leave. Mr. Guppy and Mr. Richard\nCarstone divide the dignity of the office. But Mr. Carstone is for\nthe time being established in Kenge's room, whereat Mr. Guppy chafes.\nSo exceedingly that he with biting sarcasm informs his mother, in the\nconfidential moments when he sups with her off a lobster and lettuce\nin the Old Street Road, that he is afraid the office is hardly good\nenough for swells, and that if he had known there was a swell coming,\nhe would have got it painted.\n\nMr. Guppy suspects everybody who enters on the occupation of a stool\nin Kenge and Carboy's office of entertaining, as a matter of course,\nsinister designs upon him. He is clear that every such person wants\nto depose him. If he be ever asked how, why, when, or wherefore, he\nshuts up one eye and shakes his head. On the strength of these\nprofound views, he in the most ingenious manner takes infinite pains\nto counterplot when there is no plot, and plays the deepest games of\nchess without any adversary.\n\nIt is a source of much gratification to Mr. Guppy, therefore, to find\nthe new-comer constantly poring over the papers in Jarndyce and\nJarndyce, for he well knows that nothing but confusion and failure\ncan come of that. His satisfaction communicates itself to a third\nsaunterer through the long vacation in Kenge and Carboy's office, to\nwit, Young Smallweed.\n\nWhether Young Smallweed (metaphorically called Small and eke Chick\nWeed, as it were jocularly to express a fledgling) was ever a boy is\nmuch doubted in Lincoln's Inn. He is now something under fifteen and\nan old limb of the law. He is facetiously understood to entertain a\npassion for a lady at a cigar-shop in the neighbourhood of Chancery\nLane and for her sake to have broken off a contract with another\nlady, to whom he had been engaged some years. He is a town-made\narticle, of small stature and weazen features, but may be perceived\nfrom a considerable distance by means of his very tall hat. To become\na Guppy is the object of his ambition. He dresses at that gentleman\n(by whom he is patronized), talks at him, walks at him, founds\nhimself entirely on him. He is honoured with Mr. Guppy's particular\nconfidence and occasionally advises him, from the deep wells of his\nexperience, on difficult points in private life.\n\nMr. Guppy has been lolling out of window all the morning after trying\nall the stools in succession and finding none of them easy, and after\nseveral times putting his head into the iron safe with a notion of\ncooling it. Mr. Smallweed has been twice dispatched for effervescent\ndrinks, and has twice mixed them in the two official tumblers and\nstirred them up with the ruler. Mr. Guppy propounds for Mr.\nSmallweed's consideration the paradox that the more you drink the\nthirstier you are and reclines his head upon the window-sill in a\nstate of hopeless languor.\n\nWhile thus looking out into the shade of Old Square, Lincoln's Inn,\nsurveying the intolerable bricks and mortar, Mr. Guppy becomes\nconscious of a manly whisker emerging from the cloistered walk below\nand turning itself up in the direction of his face. At the same time,\na low whistle is wafted through the Inn and a suppressed voice cries,\n\"Hip! Gup-py!\"\n\n\"Why, you don't mean it!\" says Mr. Guppy, aroused. \"Small! Here's\nJobling!\" Small's head looks out of window too and nods to Jobling.\n\n\"Where have you sprung up from?\" inquires Mr. Guppy.\n\n\"From the market-gardens down by Deptford. I can't stand it any\nlonger. I must enlist. I say! I wish you'd lend me half a crown. Upon\nmy soul, I'm hungry.\"\n\nJobling looks hungry and also has the appearance of having run to\nseed in the market-gardens down by Deptford.\n\n\"I say! Just throw out half a crown if you have got one to spare. I\nwant to get some dinner.\"\n\n\"Will you come and dine with me?\" says Mr. Guppy, throwing out the\ncoin, which Mr. Jobling catches neatly.\n\n\"How long should I have to hold out?\" says Jobling.\n\n\"Not half an hour. I am only waiting here till the enemy goes,\nreturns Mr. Guppy, butting inward with his head.\n\n\"What enemy?\"\n\n\"A new one. Going to be articled. Will you wait?\"\n\n\"Can you give a fellow anything to read in the meantime?\" says Mr.\nJobling.\n\nSmallweed suggests the law list. But Mr. Jobling declares with much\nearnestness that he \"can't stand it.\"\n\n\"You shall have the paper,\" says Mr. Guppy. \"He shall bring it down.\nBut you had better not be seen about here. Sit on our staircase and\nread. It's a quiet place.\"\n\nJobling nods intelligence and acquiescence. The sagacious Smallweed\nsupplies him with the newspaper and occasionally drops his eye upon\nhim from the landing as a precaution against his becoming disgusted\nwith waiting and making an untimely departure. At last the enemy\nretreats, and then Smallweed fetches Mr. Jobling up.\n\n\"Well, and how are you?\" says Mr. Guppy, shaking hands with him.\n\n\"So, so. How are you?\"\n\nMr. Guppy replying that he is not much to boast of, Mr. Jobling\nventures on the question, \"How is SHE?\" This Mr. Guppy resents as a\nliberty, retorting, \"Jobling, there ARE chords in the human mind--\"\nJobling begs pardon.\n\n\"Any subject but that!\" says Mr. Guppy with a gloomy enjoyment of his\ninjury. \"For there ARE chords, Jobling--\"\n\nMr. Jobling begs pardon again.\n\nDuring this short colloquy, the active Smallweed, who is of the\ndinner party, has written in legal characters on a slip of paper,\n\"Return immediately.\" This notification to all whom it may concern,\nhe inserts in the letter-box, and then putting on the tall hat at the\nangle of inclination at which Mr. Guppy wears his, informs his patron\nthat they may now make themselves scarce.\n\nAccordingly they betake themselves to a neighbouring dining-house, of\nthe class known among its frequenters by the denomination slap-bang,\nwhere the waitress, a bouncing young female of forty, is supposed to\nhave made some impression on the susceptible Smallweed, of whom it\nmay be remarked that he is a weird changeling to whom years are\nnothing. He stands precociously possessed of centuries of owlish\nwisdom. If he ever lay in a cradle, it seems as if he must have lain\nthere in a tail-coat. He has an old, old eye, has Smallweed; and he\ndrinks and smokes in a monkeyish way; and his neck is stiff in his\ncollar; and he is never to be taken in; and he knows all about it,\nwhatever it is. In short, in his bringing up he has been so nursed by\nLaw and Equity that he has become a kind of fossil imp, to account\nfor whose terrestrial existence it is reported at the public offices\nthat his father was John Doe and his mother the only female member of\nthe Roe family, also that his first long-clothes were made from a\nblue bag.\n\nInto the dining-house, unaffected by the seductive show in the window\nof artificially whitened cauliflowers and poultry, verdant baskets of\npeas, coolly blooming cucumbers, and joints ready for the spit, Mr.\nSmallweed leads the way. They know him there and defer to him. He has\nhis favourite box, he bespeaks all the papers, he is down upon bald\npatriarchs, who keep them more than ten minutes afterwards. It is of\nno use trying him with anything less than a full-sized \"bread\" or\nproposing to him any joint in cut unless it is in the very best cut.\nIn the matter of gravy he is adamant.\n\nConscious of his elfin power and submitting to his dread experience,\nMr. Guppy consults him in the choice of that day's banquet, turning\nan appealing look towards him as the waitress repeats the catalogue\nof viands and saying \"What do YOU take, Chick?\" Chick, out of the\nprofundity of his artfulness, preferring \"veal and ham and French\nbeans--and don't you forget the stuffing, Polly\" (with an unearthly\ncock of his venerable eye), Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling give the like\norder. Three pint pots of half-and-half are superadded. Quickly the\nwaitress returns bearing what is apparently a model of the Tower of\nBabel but what is really a pile of plates and flat tin dish-covers.\nMr. Smallweed, approving of what is set before him, conveys\nintelligent benignity into his ancient eye and winks upon her. Then,\namid a constant coming in, and going out, and running about, and a\nclatter of crockery, and a rumbling up and down of the machine which\nbrings the nice cuts from the kitchen, and a shrill crying for more\nnice cuts down the speaking-pipe, and a shrill reckoning of the cost\nof nice cuts that have been disposed of, and a general flush and\nsteam of hot joints, cut and uncut, and a considerably heated\natmosphere in which the soiled knives and tablecloths seem to break\nout spontaneously into eruptions of grease and blotches of beer, the\nlegal triumvirate appease their appetites.\n\nMr. Jobling is buttoned up closer than mere adornment might require.\nHis hat presents at the rims a peculiar appearance of a glistening\nnature, as if it had been a favourite snail-promenade. The same\nphenomenon is visible on some parts of his coat, and particularly at\nthe seams. He has the faded appearance of a gentleman in embarrassed\ncircumstances; even his light whiskers droop with something of a\nshabby air.\n\nHis appetite is so vigorous that it suggests spare living for some\nlittle time back. He makes such a speedy end of his plate of veal and\nham, bringing it to a close while his companions are yet midway in\ntheirs, that Mr. Guppy proposes another. \"Thank you, Guppy,\" says Mr.\nJobling, \"I really don't know but what I WILL take another.\"\n\nAnother being brought, he falls to with great goodwill.\n\nMr. Guppy takes silent notice of him at intervals until he is half\nway through this second plate and stops to take an enjoying pull at\nhis pint pot of half-and-half (also renewed) and stretches out his\nlegs and rubs his hands. Beholding him in which glow of contentment,\nMr. Guppy says, \"You are a man again, Tony!\"\n\n\"Well, not quite yet,\" says Mr. Jobling. \"Say, just born.\"\n\n\"Will you take any other vegetables? Grass? Peas? Summer cabbage?\"\n\n\"Thank you, Guppy,\" says Mr. Jobling. \"I really don't know but what I\nWILL take summer cabbage.\"\n\nOrder given; with the sarcastic addition (from Mr. Smallweed) of\n\"Without slugs, Polly!\" And cabbage produced.\n\n\"I am growing up, Guppy,\" says Mr. Jobling, plying his knife and fork\nwith a relishing steadiness.\n\n\"Glad to hear it.\"\n\n\"In fact, I have just turned into my teens,\" says Mr. Jobling.\n\nHe says no more until he has performed his task, which he achieves as\nMessrs. Guppy and Smallweed finish theirs, thus getting over the\nground in excellent style and beating those two gentlemen easily by a\nveal and ham and a cabbage.\n\n\"Now, Small,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"what would you recommend about\npastry?\"\n\n\"Marrow puddings,\" says Mr. Smallweed instantly.\n\n\"Aye, aye!\" cries Mr. Jobling with an arch look. \"You're there, are\nyou? Thank you, Mr. Guppy, I don't know but what I WILL take a marrow\npudding.\"\n\nThree marrow puddings being produced, Mr. Jobling adds in a pleasant\nhumour that he is coming of age fast. To these succeed, by command of\nMr. Smallweed, \"three Cheshires,\" and to those \"three small rums.\"\nThis apex of the entertainment happily reached, Mr. Jobling puts up\nhis legs on the carpeted seat (having his own side of the box to\nhimself), leans against the wall, and says, \"I am grown up now,\nGuppy. I have arrived at maturity.\"\n\n\"What do you think, now,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"about--you don't mind\nSmallweed?\"\n\n\"Not the least in the world. I have the pleasure of drinking his good\nhealth.\"\n\n\"Sir, to you!\" says Mr. Smallweed.\n\n\"I was saying, what do you think NOW,\" pursues Mr. Guppy, \"of\nenlisting?\"\n\n\"Why, what I may think after dinner,\" returns Mr. Jobling, \"is one\nthing, my dear Guppy, and what I may think before dinner is another\nthing. Still, even after dinner, I ask myself the question, What am I\nto do? How am I to live? Ill fo manger, you know,\" says Mr. Jobling,\npronouncing that word as if he meant a necessary fixture in an\nEnglish stable. \"Ill fo manger. That's the French saying, and\nmangering is as necessary to me as it is to a Frenchman. Or more so.\"\n\nMr. Smallweed is decidedly of opinion \"much more so.\"\n\n\"If any man had told me,\" pursues Jobling, \"even so lately as when\nyou and I had the frisk down in Lincolnshire, Guppy, and drove over\nto see that house at Castle Wold--\"\n\nMr. Smallweed corrects him--Chesney Wold.\n\n\"Chesney Wold. (I thank my honourable friend for that cheer.) If any\nman had told me then that I should be as hard up at the present time\nas I literally find myself, I should have--well, I should have\npitched into him,\" says Mr. Jobling, taking a little rum-and-water\nwith an air of desperate resignation; \"I should have let fly at his\nhead.\"\n\n\"Still, Tony, you were on the wrong side of the post then,\"\nremonstrates Mr. Guppy. \"You were talking about nothing else in the\ngig.\"\n\n\"Guppy,\" says Mr. Jobling, \"I will not deny it. I was on the wrong\nside of the post. But I trusted to things coming round.\"\n\nThat very popular trust in flat things coming round! Not in their\nbeing beaten round, or worked round, but in their \"coming\" round! As\nthough a lunatic should trust in the world's \"coming\" triangular!\n\n\"I had confident expectations that things would come round and be all\nsquare,\" says Mr. Jobling with some vagueness of expression and\nperhaps of meaning too. \"But I was disappointed. They never did. And\nwhen it came to creditors making rows at the office and to people\nthat the office dealt with making complaints about dirty trifles of\nborrowed money, why there was an end of that connexion. And of any\nnew professional connexion too, for if I was to give a reference\nto-morrow, it would be mentioned and would sew me up. Then what's a\nfellow to do? I have been keeping out of the way and living cheap\ndown about the market-gardens, but what's the use of living cheap\nwhen you have got no money? You might as well live dear.\"\n\n\"Better,\" Mr. Smallweed thinks.\n\n\"Certainly. It's the fashionable way; and fashion and whiskers have\nbeen my weaknesses, and I don't care who knows it,\" says Mr. Jobling.\n\"They are great weaknesses--Damme, sir, they are great. Well,\"\nproceeds Mr. Jobling after a defiant visit to his rum-and-water,\n\"what can a fellow do, I ask you, BUT enlist?\"\n\nMr. Guppy comes more fully into the conversation to state what, in\nhis opinion, a fellow can do. His manner is the gravely impressive\nmanner of a man who has not committed himself in life otherwise than\nas he has become the victim of a tender sorrow of the heart.\n\n\"Jobling,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"myself and our mutual friend Smallweed--\"\n\nMr. Smallweed modestly observes, \"Gentlemen both!\" and drinks.\n\n\"--Have had a little conversation on this matter more than once since\nyou--\"\n\n\"Say, got the sack!\" cries Mr. Jobling bitterly. \"Say it, Guppy. You\nmean it.\"\n\n\"No-o-o! Left the Inn,\" Mr. Smallweed delicately suggests.\n\n\"Since you left the Inn, Jobling,\" says Mr. Guppy; \"and I have\nmentioned to our mutual friend Smallweed a plan I have lately thought\nof proposing. You know Snagsby the stationer?\"\n\n\"I know there is such a stationer,\" returns Mr. Jobling. \"He was not\nours, and I am not acquainted with him.\"\n\n\"He IS ours, Jobling, and I AM acquainted with him,\" Mr. Guppy\nretorts. \"Well, sir! I have lately become better acquainted with him\nthrough some accidental circumstances that have made me a visitor of\nhis in private life. Those circumstances it is not necessary to offer\nin argument. They may--or they may not--have some reference to a\nsubject which may--or may not--have cast its shadow on my existence.\"\n\nAs it is Mr. Guppy's perplexing way with boastful misery to tempt his\nparticular friends into this subject, and the moment they touch it,\nto turn on them with that trenchant severity about the chords in the\nhuman mind, both Mr. Jobling and Mr. Smallweed decline the pitfall by\nremaining silent.\n\n\"Such things may be,\" repeats Mr. Guppy, \"or they may not be. They\nare no part of the case. It is enough to mention that both Mr. and\nMrs. Snagsby are very willing to oblige me and that Snagsby has, in\nbusy times, a good deal of copying work to give out. He has all\nTulkinghorn's, and an excellent business besides. I believe if our\nmutual friend Smallweed were put into the box, he could prove this?\"\n\nMr. Smallweed nods and appears greedy to be sworn.\n\n\"Now, gentlemen of the jury,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"--I mean, now,\nJobling--you may say this is a poor prospect of a living. Granted.\nBut it's better than nothing, and better than enlistment. You want\ntime. There must be time for these late affairs to blow over. You\nmight live through it on much worse terms than by writing for\nSnagsby.\"\n\nMr. Jobling is about to interrupt when the sagacious Smallweed checks\nhim with a dry cough and the words, \"Hem! Shakspeare!\"\n\n\"There are two branches to this subject, Jobling,\" says Mr. Guppy.\n\"That is the first. I come to the second. You know Krook, the\nChancellor, across the lane. Come, Jobling,\" says Mr. Guppy in his\nencouraging cross-examination-tone, \"I think you know Krook, the\nChancellor, across the lane?\"\n\n\"I know him by sight,\" says Mr. Jobling.\n\n\"You know him by sight. Very well. And you know little Flite?\"\n\n\"Everybody knows her,\" says Mr. Jobling.\n\n\"Everybody knows her. VERY well. Now it has been one of my duties of\nlate to pay Flite a certain weekly allowance, deducting from it the\namount of her weekly rent, which I have paid (in consequence of\ninstructions I have received) to Krook himself, regularly in her\npresence. This has brought me into communication with Krook and into\na knowledge of his house and his habits. I know he has a room to let.\nYou may live there at a very low charge under any name you like, as\nquietly as if you were a hundred miles off. He'll ask no questions\nand would accept you as a tenant at a word from me--before the clock\nstrikes, if you chose. And I tell you another thing, Jobling,\" says\nMr. Guppy, who has suddenly lowered his voice and become familiar\nagain, \"he's an extraordinary old chap--always rummaging among a\nlitter of papers and grubbing away at teaching himself to read and\nwrite, without getting on a bit, as it seems to me. He is a most\nextraordinary old chap, sir. I don't know but what it might be worth\na fellow's while to look him up a bit.\"\n\n\"You don't mean--\" Mr. Jobling begins.\n\n\"I mean,\" returns Mr. Guppy, shrugging his shoulders with becoming\nmodesty, \"that I can't make him out. I appeal to our mutual friend\nSmallweed whether he has or has not heard me remark that I can't make\nhim out.\"\n\nMr. Smallweed bears the concise testimony, \"A few!\"\n\n\"I have seen something of the profession and something of life,\nTony,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"and it's seldom I can't make a man out, more\nor less. But such an old card as this, so deep, so sly, and secret\n(though I don't believe he is ever sober), I never came across. Now,\nhe must be precious old, you know, and he has not a soul about him,\nand he is reported to be immensely rich; and whether he is a\nsmuggler, or a receiver, or an unlicensed pawnbroker, or a\nmoney-lender--all of which I have thought likely at different\ntimes--it might pay you to knock up a sort of knowledge of him. I\ndon't see why you shouldn't go in for it, when everything else\nsuits.\"\n\nMr. Jobling, Mr. Guppy, and Mr. Smallweed all lean their elbows on\nthe table and their chins upon their hands, and look at the ceiling.\nAfter a time, they all drink, slowly lean back, put their hands in\ntheir pockets, and look at one another.\n\n\"If I had the energy I once possessed, Tony!\" says Mr. Guppy with a\nsigh. \"But there are chords in the human mind--\"\n\nExpressing the remainder of the desolate sentiment in rum-and-water,\nMr. Guppy concludes by resigning the adventure to Tony Jobling and\ninforming him that during the vacation and while things are slack,\nhis purse, \"as far as three or four or even five pound goes,\" will be\nat his disposal. \"For never shall it be said,\" Mr. Guppy adds with\nemphasis, \"that William Guppy turned his back upon his friend!\"\n\nThe latter part of the proposal is so directly to the purpose that\nMr. Jobling says with emotion, \"Guppy, my trump, your fist!\" Mr.\nGuppy presents it, saying, \"Jobling, my boy, there it is!\" Mr.\nJobling returns, \"Guppy, we have been pals now for some years!\" Mr.\nGuppy replies, \"Jobling, we have.\"\n\nThey then shake hands, and Mr. Jobling adds in a feeling manner,\n\"Thank you, Guppy, I don't know but what I WILL take another glass\nfor old acquaintance sake.\"\n\n\"Krook's last lodger died there,\" observes Mr. Guppy in an incidental\nway.\n\n\"Did he though!\" says Mr. Jobling.\n\n\"There was a verdict. Accidental death. You don't mind that?\"\n\n\"No,\" says Mr. Jobling, \"I don't mind it; but he might as well have\ndied somewhere else. It's devilish odd that he need go and die at MY\nplace!\" Mr. Jobling quite resents this liberty, several times\nreturning to it with such remarks as, \"There are places enough to die\nin, I should think!\" or, \"He wouldn't have liked my dying at HIS\nplace, I dare say!\"\n\nHowever, the compact being virtually made, Mr. Guppy proposes to\ndispatch the trusty Smallweed to ascertain if Mr. Krook is at home,\nas in that case they may complete the negotiation without delay. Mr.\nJobling approving, Smallweed puts himself under the tall hat and\nconveys it out of the dining-rooms in the Guppy manner. He soon\nreturns with the intelligence that Mr. Krook is at home and that he\nhas seen him through the shop-door, sitting in the back premises,\nsleeping \"like one o'clock.\"\n\n\"Then I'll pay,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"and we'll go and see him. Small,\nwhat will it be?\"\n\nMr. Smallweed, compelling the attendance of the waitress with one\nhitch of his eyelash, instantly replies as follows: \"Four veals and\nhams is three, and four potatoes is three and four, and one summer\ncabbage is three and six, and three marrows is four and six, and six\nbreads is five, and three Cheshires is five and three, and four\nhalf-pints of half-and-half is six and three, and four small rums is\neight and three, and three Pollys is eight and six. Eight and six in\nhalf a sovereign, Polly, and eighteenpence out!\"\n\nNot at all excited by these stupendous calculations, Smallweed\ndismisses his friends with a cool nod and remains behind to take a\nlittle admiring notice of Polly, as opportunity may serve, and to\nread the daily papers, which are so very large in proportion to\nhimself, shorn of his hat, that when he holds up the Times to run his\neye over the columns, he seems to have retired for the night and to\nhave disappeared under the bedclothes.\n\nMr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling repair to the rag and bottle shop, where\nthey find Krook still sleeping like one o'clock, that is to say,\nbreathing stertorously with his chin upon his breast and quite\ninsensible to any external sounds or even to gentle shaking. On the\ntable beside him, among the usual lumber, stand an empty gin-bottle\nand a glass. The unwholesome air is so stained with this liquor that\neven the green eyes of the cat upon her shelf, as they open and shut\nand glimmer on the visitors, look drunk.\n\n\"Hold up here!\" says Mr. Guppy, giving the relaxed figure of the old\nman another shake. \"Mr. Krook! Halloa, sir!\"\n\nBut it would seem as easy to wake a bundle of old clothes with a\nspirituous heat smouldering in it. \"Did you ever see such a stupor as\nhe falls into, between drink and sleep?\" says Mr. Guppy.\n\n\"If this is his regular sleep,\" returns Jobling, rather alarmed,\n\"it'll last a long time one of these days, I am thinking.\"\n\n\"It's always more like a fit than a nap,\" says Mr. Guppy, shaking him\nagain. \"Halloa, your lordship! Why, he might be robbed fifty times\nover! Open your eyes!\"\n\nAfter much ado, he opens them, but without appearing to see his\nvisitors or any other objects. Though he crosses one leg on another,\nand folds his hands, and several times closes and opens his parched\nlips, he seems to all intents and purposes as insensible as before.\n\n\"He is alive, at any rate,\" says Mr. Guppy. \"How are you, my Lord\nChancellor. I have brought a friend of mine, sir, on a little matter\nof business.\"\n\nThe old man still sits, often smacking his dry lips without the least\nconsciousness. After some minutes he makes an attempt to rise. They\nhelp him up, and he staggers against the wall and stares at them.\n\n\"How do you do, Mr. Krook?\" says Mr. Guppy in some discomfiture. \"How\ndo you do, sir? You are looking charming, Mr. Krook. I hope you are\npretty well?\"\n\nThe old man, in aiming a purposeless blow at Mr. Guppy, or at\nnothing, feebly swings himself round and comes with his face against\nthe wall. So he remains for a minute or two, heaped up against it,\nand then staggers down the shop to the front door. The air, the\nmovement in the court, the lapse of time, or the combination of these\nthings recovers him. He comes back pretty steadily, adjusting his fur\ncap on his head and looking keenly at them.\n\n\"Your servant, gentlemen; I've been dozing. Hi! I am hard to wake,\nodd times.\"\n\n\"Rather so, indeed, sir,\" responds Mr. Guppy.\n\n\"What? You've been a-trying to do it, have you?\" says the suspicious\nKrook.\n\n\"Only a little,\" Mr. Guppy explains.\n\nThe old man's eye resting on the empty bottle, he takes it up,\nexamines it, and slowly tilts it upside down.\n\n\"I say!\" he cries like the hobgoblin in the story. \"Somebody's been\nmaking free here!\"\n\n\"I assure you we found it so,\" says Mr. Guppy. \"Would you allow me to\nget it filled for you?\"\n\n\"Yes, certainly I would!\" cries Krook in high glee. \"Certainly I\nwould! Don't mention it! Get it filled next door--Sol's Arms--the\nLord Chancellor's fourteenpenny. Bless you, they know ME!\"\n\nHe so presses the empty bottle upon Mr. Guppy that that gentleman,\nwith a nod to his friend, accepts the trust and hurries out and\nhurries in again with the bottle filled. The old man receives it in\nhis arms like a beloved grandchild and pats it tenderly.\n\n\"But, I say,\" he whispers, with his eyes screwed up, after tasting\nit, \"this ain't the Lord Chancellor's fourteenpenny. This is\neighteenpenny!\"\n\n\"I thought you might like that better,\" says Mr. Guppy.\n\n\"You're a nobleman, sir,\" returns Krook with another taste, and his\nhot breath seems to come towards them like a flame. \"You're a baron\nof the land.\"\n\nTaking advantage of this auspicious moment, Mr. Guppy presents his\nfriend under the impromptu name of Mr. Weevle and states the object\nof their visit. Krook, with his bottle under his arm (he never gets\nbeyond a certain point of either drunkenness or sobriety), takes time\nto survey his proposed lodger and seems to approve of him. \"You'd\nlike to see the room, young man?\" he says. \"Ah! It's a good room!\nBeen whitewashed. Been cleaned down with soft soap and soda. Hi! It's\nworth twice the rent, letting alone my company when you want it and\nsuch a cat to keep the mice away.\"\n\nCommending the room after this manner, the old man takes them\nupstairs, where indeed they do find it cleaner than it used to be and\nalso containing some old articles of furniture which he has dug up\nfrom his inexhaustible stores. The terms are easily concluded--for\nthe Lord Chancellor cannot be hard on Mr. Guppy, associated as he is\nwith Kenge and Carboy, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, and other famous claims\non his professional consideration--and it is agreed that Mr. Weevle\nshall take possession on the morrow. Mr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy then\nrepair to Cook's Court, Cursitor Street, where the personal\nintroduction of the former to Mr. Snagsby is effected and (more\nimportant) the vote and interest of Mrs. Snagsby are secured. They\nthen report progress to the eminent Smallweed, waiting at the office\nin his tall hat for that purpose, and separate, Mr. Guppy explaining\nthat he would terminate his little entertainment by standing treat at\nthe play but that there are chords in the human mind which would\nrender it a hollow mockery.\n\nOn the morrow, in the dusk of evening, Mr. Weevle modestly appears at\nKrook's, by no means incommoded with luggage, and establishes himself\nin his new lodging, where the two eyes in the shutters stare at him\nin his sleep, as if they were full of wonder. On the following day\nMr. Weevle, who is a handy good-for-nothing kind of young fellow,\nborrows a needle and thread of Miss Flite and a hammer of his\nlandlord and goes to work devising apologies for window-curtains, and\nknocking up apologies for shelves, and hanging up his two teacups,\nmilkpot, and crockery sundries on a pennyworth of little hooks, like\na shipwrecked sailor making the best of it.\n\nBut what Mr. Weevle prizes most of all his few possessions (next\nafter his light whiskers, for which he has an attachment that only\nwhiskers can awaken in the breast of man) is a choice collection of\ncopper-plate impressions from that truly national work The Divinities\nof Albion, or Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty, representing ladies\nof title and fashion in every variety of smirk that art, combined\nwith capital, is capable of producing. With these magnificent\nportraits, unworthily confined in a band-box during his seclusion\namong the market-gardens, he decorates his apartment; and as the\nGalaxy Gallery of British Beauty wears every variety of fancy dress,\nplays every variety of musical instrument, fondles every variety of\ndog, ogles every variety of prospect, and is backed up by every\nvariety of flower-pot and balustrade, the result is very imposing.\n\nBut fashion is Mr. Weevle's, as it was Tony Jobling's, weakness. To\nborrow yesterday's paper from the Sol's Arms of an evening and read\nabout the brilliant and distinguished meteors that are shooting\nacross the fashionable sky in every direction is unspeakable\nconsolation to him. To know what member of what brilliant and\ndistinguished circle accomplished the brilliant and distinguished\nfeat of joining it yesterday or contemplates the no less brilliant\nand distinguished feat of leaving it to-morrow gives him a thrill of\njoy. To be informed what the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty is\nabout, and means to be about, and what Galaxy marriages are on the\ntapis, and what Galaxy rumours are in circulation, is to become\nacquainted with the most glorious destinies of mankind. Mr. Weevle\nreverts from this intelligence to the Galaxy portraits implicated,\nand seems to know the originals, and to be known of them.\n\nFor the rest he is a quiet lodger, full of handy shifts and devices\nas before mentioned, able to cook and clean for himself as well as to\ncarpenter, and developing social inclinations after the shades of\nevening have fallen on the court. At those times, when he is not\nvisited by Mr. Guppy or by a small light in his likeness quenched in\na dark hat, he comes out of his dull room--where he has inherited the\ndeal wilderness of desk bespattered with a rain of ink--and talks to\nKrook or is \"very free,\" as they call it in the court, commendingly,\nwith any one disposed for conversation. Wherefore, Mrs. Piper, who\nleads the court, is impelled to offer two remarks to Mrs. Perkins:\nfirstly, that if her Johnny was to have whiskers, she could wish 'em\nto be identically like that young man's; and secondly, \"Mark my\nwords, Mrs. Perkins, ma'am, and don't you be surprised, Lord bless\nyou, if that young man comes in at last for old Krook's money!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\nThe Smallweed Family\n\n\nIn a rather ill-favoured and ill-savoured neighbourhood, though one\nof its rising grounds bears the name of Mount Pleasant, the Elfin\nSmallweed, christened Bartholomew and known on the domestic hearth as\nBart, passes that limited portion of his time on which the office and\nits contingencies have no claim. He dwells in a little narrow street,\nalways solitary, shady, and sad, closely bricked in on all sides like\na tomb, but where there yet lingers the stump of an old forest tree\nwhose flavour is about as fresh and natural as the Smallweed smack of\nyouth.\n\nThere has been only one child in the Smallweed family for several\ngenerations. Little old men and women there have been, but no child,\nuntil Mr. Smallweed's grandmother, now living, became weak in her\nintellect and fell (for the first time) into a childish state. With\nsuch infantine graces as a total want of observation, memory,\nunderstanding, and interest, and an eternal disposition to fall\nasleep over the fire and into it, Mr. Smallweed's grandmother has\nundoubtedly brightened the family.\n\nMr. Smallweed's grandfather is likewise of the party. He is in a\nhelpless condition as to his lower, and nearly so as to his upper,\nlimbs, but his mind is unimpaired. It holds, as well as it ever held,\nthe first four rules of arithmetic and a certain small collection of\nthe hardest facts. In respect of ideality, reverence, wonder, and\nother such phrenological attributes, it is no worse off than it used\nto be. Everything that Mr. Smallweed's grandfather ever put away in\nhis mind was a grub at first, and is a grub at last. In all his life\nhe has never bred a single butterfly.\n\nThe father of this pleasant grandfather, of the neighbourhood of\nMount Pleasant, was a horny-skinned, two-legged, money-getting\nspecies of spider who spun webs to catch unwary flies and retired\ninto holes until they were entrapped. The name of this old pagan's\ngod was Compound Interest. He lived for it, married it, died of it.\nMeeting with a heavy loss in an honest little enterprise in which all\nthe loss was intended to have been on the other side, he broke\nsomething--something necessary to his existence, therefore it\ncouldn't have been his heart--and made an end of his career. As his\ncharacter was not good, and he had been bred at a charity school in a\ncomplete course, according to question and answer, of those ancient\npeople the Amorites and Hittites, he was frequently quoted as an\nexample of the failure of education.\n\nHis spirit shone through his son, to whom he had always preached of\n\"going out\" early in life and whom he made a clerk in a sharp\nscrivener's office at twelve years old. There the young gentleman\nimproved his mind, which was of a lean and anxious character, and\ndeveloping the family gifts, gradually elevated himself into the\ndiscounting profession. Going out early in life and marrying late, as\nhis father had done before him, he too begat a lean and\nanxious-minded son, who in his turn, going out early in life and\nmarrying late, became the father of Bartholomew and Judith Smallweed,\ntwins. During the whole time consumed in the slow growth of this\nfamily tree, the house of Smallweed, always early to go out and late\nto marry, has strengthened itself in its practical character, has\ndiscarded all amusements, discountenanced all story-books,\nfairy-tales, fictions, and fables, and banished all levities\nwhatsoever. Hence the gratifying fact that it has had no child born\nto it and that the complete little men and women whom it has produced\nhave been observed to bear a likeness to old monkeys with something\ndepressing on their minds.\n\nAt the present time, in the dark little parlour certain feet below\nthe level of the street--a grim, hard, uncouth parlour, only\nornamented with the coarsest of baize table-covers, and the hardest\nof sheet-iron tea-trays, and offering in its decorative character no\nbad allegorical representation of Grandfather Smallweed's\nmind--seated in two black horsehair porter's chairs, one on each side\nof the fire-place, the superannuated Mr. and Mrs. Smallweed while\naway the rosy hours. On the stove are a couple of trivets for the\npots and kettles which it is Grandfather Smallweed's usual occupation\nto watch, and projecting from the chimney-piece between them is a\nsort of brass gallows for roasting, which he also superintends when\nit is in action. Under the venerable Mr. Smallweed's seat and guarded\nby his spindle legs is a drawer in his chair, reported to contain\nproperty to a fabulous amount. Beside him is a spare cushion with\nwhich he is always provided in order that he may have something to\nthrow at the venerable partner of his respected age whenever she\nmakes an allusion to money--a subject on which he is particularly\nsensitive.\n\n\"And where's Bart?\" Grandfather Smallweed inquires of Judy, Bart's\ntwin sister.\n\n\"He an't come in yet,\" says Judy.\n\n\"It's his tea-time, isn't it?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"How much do you mean to say it wants then?\"\n\n\"Ten minutes.\"\n\n\"Hey?\"\n\n\"Ten minutes.\" (Loud on the part of Judy.)\n\n\"Ho!\" says Grandfather Smallweed. \"Ten minutes.\"\n\nGrandmother Smallweed, who has been mumbling and shaking her head at\nthe trivets, hearing figures mentioned, connects them with money and\nscreeches like a horrible old parrot without any plumage, \"Ten\nten-pound notes!\"\n\nGrandfather Smallweed immediately throws the cushion at her.\n\n\"Drat you, be quiet!\" says the good old man.\n\nThe effect of this act of jaculation is twofold. It not only doubles\nup Mrs. Smallweed's head against the side of her porter's chair and\ncauses her to present, when extricated by her granddaughter, a highly\nunbecoming state of cap, but the necessary exertion recoils on Mr.\nSmallweed himself, whom it throws back into HIS porter's chair like a\nbroken puppet. The excellent old gentleman being at these times a\nmere clothes-bag with a black skull-cap on the top of it, does not\npresent a very animated appearance until he has undergone the two\noperations at the hands of his granddaughter of being shaken up like\na great bottle and poked and punched like a great bolster. Some\nindication of a neck being developed in him by these means, he and\nthe sharer of his life's evening again fronting one another in their\ntwo porter's chairs, like a couple of sentinels long forgotten on\ntheir post by the Black Serjeant, Death.\n\nJudy the twin is worthy company for these associates. She is so\nindubitably sister to Mr. Smallweed the younger that the two kneaded\ninto one would hardly make a young person of average proportions,\nwhile she so happily exemplifies the before-mentioned family likeness\nto the monkey tribe that attired in a spangled robe and cap she might\nwalk about the table-land on the top of a barrel-organ without\nexciting much remark as an unusual specimen. Under existing\ncircumstances, however, she is dressed in a plain, spare gown of\nbrown stuff.\n\nJudy never owned a doll, never heard of Cinderella, never played at\nany game. She once or twice fell into children's company when she was\nabout ten years old, but the children couldn't get on with Judy, and\nJudy couldn't get on with them. She seemed like an animal of another\nspecies, and there was instinctive repugnance on both sides. It is\nvery doubtful whether Judy knows how to laugh. She has so rarely seen\nthe thing done that the probabilities are strong the other way. Of\nanything like a youthful laugh, she certainly can have no conception.\nIf she were to try one, she would find her teeth in her way,\nmodelling that action of her face, as she has unconsciously modelled\nall its other expressions, on her pattern of sordid age. Such is\nJudy.\n\nAnd her twin brother couldn't wind up a top for his life. He knows no\nmore of Jack the Giant Killer or of Sinbad the Sailor than he knows\nof the people in the stars. He could as soon play at leap-frog or at\ncricket as change into a cricket or a frog himself. But he is so much\nthe better off than his sister that on his narrow world of fact an\nopening has dawned into such broader regions as lie within the ken of\nMr. Guppy. Hence his admiration and his emulation of that shining\nenchanter.\n\nJudy, with a gong-like clash and clatter, sets one of the sheet-iron\ntea-trays on the table and arranges cups and saucers. The bread she\nputs on in an iron basket, and the butter (and not much of it) in a\nsmall pewter plate. Grandfather Smallweed looks hard after the tea as\nit is served out and asks Judy where the girl is.\n\n\"Charley, do you mean?\" says Judy.\n\n\"Hey?\" from Grandfather Smallweed.\n\n\"Charley, do you mean?\"\n\nThis touches a spring in Grandmother Smallweed, who, chuckling as\nusual at the trivets, cries, \"Over the water! Charley over the water,\nCharley over the water, over the water to Charley, Charley over the\nwater, over the water to Charley!\" and becomes quite energetic about\nit. Grandfather looks at the cushion but has not sufficiently\nrecovered his late exertion.\n\n\"Ha!\" he says when there is silence. \"If that's her name. She eats a\ndeal. It would be better to allow her for her keep.\"\n\nJudy, with her brother's wink, shakes her head and purses up her\nmouth into no without saying it.\n\n\"No?\" returns the old man. \"Why not?\"\n\n\"She'd want sixpence a day, and we can do it for less,\" says Judy.\n\n\"Sure?\"\n\nJudy answers with a nod of deepest meaning and calls, as she scrapes\nthe butter on the loaf with every precaution against waste and cuts\nit into slices, \"You, Charley, where are you?\" Timidly obedient to\nthe summons, a little girl in a rough apron and a large bonnet, with\nher hands covered with soap and water and a scrubbing brush in one of\nthem, appears, and curtsys.\n\n\"What work are you about now?\" says Judy, making an ancient snap at\nher like a very sharp old beldame.\n\n\"I'm a-cleaning the upstairs back room, miss,\" replies Charley.\n\n\"Mind you do it thoroughly, and don't loiter. Shirking won't do for\nme. Make haste! Go along!\" cries Judy with a stamp upon the ground.\n\"You girls are more trouble than you're worth, by half.\"\n\nOn this severe matron, as she returns to her task of scraping the\nbutter and cutting the bread, falls the shadow of her brother,\nlooking in at the window. For whom, knife and loaf in hand, she opens\nthe street-door.\n\n\"Aye, aye, Bart!\" says Grandfather Smallweed. \"Here you are, hey?\"\n\n\"Here I am,\" says Bart.\n\n\"Been along with your friend again, Bart?\"\n\nSmall nods.\n\n\"Dining at his expense, Bart?\"\n\nSmall nods again.\n\n\"That's right. Live at his expense as much as you can, and take\nwarning by his foolish example. That's the use of such a friend. The\nonly use you can put him to,\" says the venerable sage.\n\nHis grandson, without receiving this good counsel as dutifully as he\nmight, honours it with all such acceptance as may lie in a slight\nwink and a nod and takes a chair at the tea-table. The four old faces\nthen hover over teacups like a company of ghastly cherubim, Mrs.\nSmallweed perpetually twitching her head and chattering at the\ntrivets and Mr. Smallweed requiring to be repeatedly shaken up like a\nlarge black draught.\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" says the good old gentleman, reverting to his lesson of\nwisdom. \"That's such advice as your father would have given you,\nBart. You never saw your father. More's the pity. He was my true\nson.\" Whether it is intended to be conveyed that he was particularly\npleasant to look at, on that account, does not appear.\n\n\"He was my true son,\" repeats the old gentleman, folding his bread\nand butter on his knee, \"a good accountant, and died fifteen years\nago.\"\n\nMrs. Smallweed, following her usual instinct, breaks out with\n\"Fifteen hundred pound. Fifteen hundred pound in a black box, fifteen\nhundred pound locked up, fifteen hundred pound put away and hid!\" Her\nworthy husband, setting aside his bread and butter, immediately\ndischarges the cushion at her, crushes her against the side of her\nchair, and falls back in his own, overpowered. His appearance, after\nvisiting Mrs. Smallweed with one of these admonitions, is\nparticularly impressive and not wholly prepossessing, firstly because\nthe exertion generally twists his black skull-cap over one eye and\ngives him an air of goblin rakishness, secondly because he mutters\nviolent imprecations against Mrs. Smallweed, and thirdly because the\ncontrast between those powerful expressions and his powerless figure\nis suggestive of a baleful old malignant who would be very wicked if\nhe could. All this, however, is so common in the Smallweed family\ncircle that it produces no impression. The old gentleman is merely\nshaken and has his internal feathers beaten up, the cushion is\nrestored to its usual place beside him, and the old lady, perhaps\nwith her cap adjusted and perhaps not, is planted in her chair again,\nready to be bowled down like a ninepin.\n\nSome time elapses in the present instance before the old gentleman is\nsufficiently cool to resume his discourse, and even then he mixes it\nup with several edifying expletives addressed to the unconscious\npartner of his bosom, who holds communication with nothing on earth\nbut the trivets. As thus: \"If your father, Bart, had lived longer, he\nmight have been worth a deal of money--you brimstone chatterer!--but\njust as he was beginning to build up the house that he had been\nmaking the foundations for, through many a year--you jade of a\nmagpie, jackdaw, and poll-parrot, what do you mean!--he took ill and\ndied of a low fever, always being a sparing and a spare man, full of\nbusiness care--I should like to throw a cat at you instead of a\ncushion, and I will too if you make such a confounded fool of\nyourself!--and your mother, who was a prudent woman as dry as a chip,\njust dwindled away like touchwood after you and Judy were born--you\nare an old pig. You are a brimstone pig. You're a head of swine!\"\n\nJudy, not interested in what she has often heard, begins to collect\nin a basin various tributary streams of tea, from the bottoms of cups\nand saucers and from the bottom of the tea-pot for the little\ncharwoman's evening meal. In like manner she gets together, in the\niron bread-basket, as many outside fragments and worn-down heels of\nloaves as the rigid economy of the house has left in existence.\n\n\"But your father and me were partners, Bart,\" says the old gentleman,\n\"and when I am gone, you and Judy will have all there is. It's rare\nfor you both that you went out early in life--Judy to the flower\nbusiness, and you to the law. You won't want to spend it. You'll get\nyour living without it, and put more to it. When I am gone, Judy will\ngo back to the flower business and you'll still stick to the law.\"\n\nOne might infer from Judy's appearance that her business rather lay\nwith the thorns than the flowers, but she has in her time been\napprenticed to the art and mystery of artificial flower-making. A\nclose observer might perhaps detect both in her eye and her\nbrother's, when their venerable grandsire anticipates his being gone,\nsome little impatience to know when he may be going, and some\nresentful opinion that it is time he went.\n\n\"Now, if everybody has done,\" says Judy, completing her preparations,\n\"I'll have that girl in to her tea. She would never leave off if she\ntook it by herself in the kitchen.\"\n\nCharley is accordingly introduced, and under a heavy fire of eyes,\nsits down to her basin and a Druidical ruin of bread and butter. In\nthe active superintendence of this young person, Judy Smallweed\nappears to attain a perfectly geological age and to date from the\nremotest periods. Her systematic manner of flying at her and pouncing\non her, with or without pretence, whether or no, is wonderful,\nevincing an accomplishment in the art of girl-driving seldom reached\nby the oldest practitioners.\n\n\"Now, don't stare about you all the afternoon,\" cries Judy, shaking\nher head and stamping her foot as she happens to catch the glance\nwhich has been previously sounding the basin of tea, \"but take your\nvictuals and get back to your work.\"\n\n\"Yes, miss,\" says Charley.\n\n\"Don't say yes,\" returns Miss Smallweed, \"for I know what you girls\nare. Do it without saying it, and then I may begin to believe you.\"\n\nCharley swallows a great gulp of tea in token of submission and so\ndisperses the Druidical ruins that Miss Smallweed charges her not to\ngormandize, which \"in you girls,\" she observes, is disgusting.\nCharley might find some more difficulty in meeting her views on the\ngeneral subject of girls but for a knock at the door.\n\n\"See who it is, and don't chew when you open it!\" cries Judy.\n\nThe object of her attentions withdrawing for the purpose, Miss\nSmallweed takes that opportunity of jumbling the remainder of the\nbread and butter together and launching two or three dirty tea-cups\ninto the ebb-tide of the basin of tea as a hint that she considers\nthe eating and drinking terminated.\n\n\"Now! Who is it, and what's wanted?\" says the snappish Judy.\n\nIt is one Mr. George, it appears. Without other announcement or\nceremony, Mr. George walks in.\n\n\"Whew!\" says Mr. George. \"You are hot here. Always a fire, eh? Well!\nPerhaps you do right to get used to one.\" Mr. George makes the latter\nremark to himself as he nods to Grandfather Smallweed.\n\n\"Ho! It's you!\" cries the old gentleman. \"How de do? How de do?\"\n\n\"Middling,\" replies Mr. George, taking a chair. \"Your granddaughter I\nhave had the honour of seeing before; my service to you, miss.\"\n\n\"This is my grandson,\" says Grandfather Smallweed. \"You ha'n't seen\nhim before. He is in the law and not much at home.\"\n\n\"My service to him, too! He is like his sister. He is very like his\nsister. He is devilish like his sister,\" says Mr. George, laying a\ngreat and not altogether complimentary stress on his last adjective.\n\n\"And how does the world use you, Mr. George?\" Grandfather Smallweed\ninquires, slowly rubbing his legs.\n\n\"Pretty much as usual. Like a football.\"\n\nHe is a swarthy brown man of fifty, well made, and good looking, with\ncrisp dark hair, bright eyes, and a broad chest. His sinewy and\npowerful hands, as sunburnt as his face, have evidently been used to\na pretty rough life. What is curious about him is that he sits\nforward on his chair as if he were, from long habit, allowing space\nfor some dress or accoutrements that he has altogether laid aside.\nHis step too is measured and heavy and would go well with a weighty\nclash and jingle of spurs. He is close-shaved now, but his mouth is\nset as if his upper lip had been for years familiar with a great\nmoustache; and his manner of occasionally laying the open palm of his\nbroad brown hand upon it is to the same effect. Altogether one might\nguess Mr. George to have been a trooper once upon a time.\n\nA special contrast Mr. George makes to the Smallweed family. Trooper\nwas never yet billeted upon a household more unlike him. It is a\nbroadsword to an oyster-knife. His developed figure and their stunted\nforms, his large manner filling any amount of room and their little\nnarrow pinched ways, his sounding voice and their sharp spare tones,\nare in the strongest and the strangest opposition. As he sits in the\nmiddle of the grim parlour, leaning a little forward, with his hands\nupon his thighs and his elbows squared, he looks as though, if he\nremained there long, he would absorb into himself the whole family\nand the whole four-roomed house, extra little back-kitchen and all.\n\n\"Do you rub your legs to rub life into 'em?\" he asks of Grandfather\nSmallweed after looking round the room.\n\n\"Why, it's partly a habit, Mr. George, and--yes--it partly helps the\ncirculation,\" he replies.\n\n\"The cir-cu-la-tion!\" repeats Mr. George, folding his arms upon his\nchest and seeming to become two sizes larger. \"Not much of that, I\nshould think.\"\n\n\"Truly I'm old, Mr. George,\" says Grandfather Smallweed. \"But I can\ncarry my years. I'm older than HER,\" nodding at his wife, \"and see\nwhat she is? You're a brimstone chatterer!\" with a sudden revival of\nhis late hostility.\n\n\"Unlucky old soul!\" says Mr. George, turning his head in that\ndirection. \"Don't scold the old lady. Look at her here, with her poor\ncap half off her head and her poor hair all in a muddle. Hold up,\nma'am. That's better. There we are! Think of your mother, Mr.\nSmallweed,\" says Mr. George, coming back to his seat from assisting\nher, \"if your wife an't enough.\"\n\n\"I suppose you were an excellent son, Mr. George?\" the old man hints\nwith a leer.\n\nThe colour of Mr. George's face rather deepens as he replies, \"Why\nno. I wasn't.\"\n\n\"I am astonished at it.\"\n\n\"So am I. I ought to have been a good son, and I think I meant to\nhave been one. But I wasn't. I was a thundering bad son, that's the\nlong and the short of it, and never was a credit to anybody.\"\n\n\"Surprising!\" cries the old man.\n\n\"However,\" Mr. George resumes, \"the less said about it, the better\nnow. Come! You know the agreement. Always a pipe out of the two\nmonths' interest! (Bosh! It's all correct. You needn't be afraid to\norder the pipe. Here's the new bill, and here's the two months'\ninterest-money, and a devil-and-all of a scrape it is to get it\ntogether in my business.)\"\n\nMr. George sits, with his arms folded, consuming the family and the\nparlour while Grandfather Smallweed is assisted by Judy to two black\nleathern cases out of a locked bureau, in one of which he secures the\ndocument he has just received, and from the other takes another\nsimilar document which he hands to Mr. George, who twists it up for a\npipelight. As the old man inspects, through his glasses, every\nup-stroke and down-stroke of both documents before he releases them\nfrom their leathern prison, and as he counts the money three times\nover and requires Judy to say every word she utters at least twice,\nand is as tremulously slow of speech and action as it is possible to\nbe, this business is a long time in progress. When it is quite\nconcluded, and not before, he disengages his ravenous eyes and\nfingers from it and answers Mr. George's last remark by saying,\n\"Afraid to order the pipe? We are not so mercenary as that, sir.\nJudy, see directly to the pipe and the glass of cold brandy-and-water\nfor Mr. George.\"\n\nThe sportive twins, who have been looking straight before them all\nthis time except when they have been engrossed by the black leathern\ncases, retire together, generally disdainful of the visitor, but\nleaving him to the old man as two young cubs might leave a traveller\nto the parental bear.\n\n\"And there you sit, I suppose, all the day long, eh?\" says Mr. George\nwith folded arms.\n\n\"Just so, just so,\" the old man nods.\n\n\"And don't you occupy yourself at all?\"\n\n\"I watch the fire--and the boiling and the roasting--\"\n\n\"When there is any,\" says Mr. George with great expression.\n\n\"Just so. When there is any.\"\n\n\"Don't you read or get read to?\"\n\nThe old man shakes his head with sharp sly triumph. \"No, no. We have\nnever been readers in our family. It don't pay. Stuff. Idleness.\nFolly. No, no!\"\n\n\"There's not much to choose between your two states,\" says the\nvisitor in a key too low for the old man's dull hearing as he looks\nfrom him to the old woman and back again. \"I say!\" in a louder voice.\n\n\"I hear you.\"\n\n\"You'll sell me up at last, I suppose, when I am a day in arrear.\"\n\n\"My dear friend!\" cries Grandfather Smallweed, stretching out both\nhands to embrace him. \"Never! Never, my dear friend! But my friend in\nthe city that I got to lend you the money--HE might!\"\n\n\"Oh! You can't answer for him?\" says Mr. George, finishing the\ninquiry in his lower key with the words \"You lying old rascal!\"\n\n\"My dear friend, he is not to be depended on. I wouldn't trust him.\nHe will have his bond, my dear friend.\"\n\n\"Devil doubt him,\" says Mr. George. Charley appearing with a\ntray, on which are the pipe, a small paper of tobacco, and the\nbrandy-and-water, he asks her, \"How do you come here! You haven't got\nthe family face.\"\n\n\"I goes out to work, sir,\" returns Charley.\n\nThe trooper (if trooper he be or have been) takes her bonnet off,\nwith a light touch for so strong a hand, and pats her on the head.\n\"You give the house almost a wholesome look. It wants a bit of youth\nas much as it wants fresh air.\" Then he dismisses her, lights his\npipe, and drinks to Mr. Smallweed's friend in the city--the one\nsolitary flight of that esteemed old gentleman's imagination.\n\n\"So you think he might be hard upon me, eh?\"\n\n\"I think he might--I am afraid he would. I have known him do it,\"\nsays Grandfather Smallweed incautiously, \"twenty times.\"\n\nIncautiously, because his stricken better-half, who has been dozing\nover the fire for some time, is instantly aroused and jabbers \"Twenty\nthousand pounds, twenty twenty-pound notes in a money-box, twenty\nguineas, twenty million twenty per cent, twenty--\" and is then cut\nshort by the flying cushion, which the visitor, to whom this singular\nexperiment appears to be a novelty, snatches from her face as it\ncrushes her in the usual manner.\n\n\"You're a brimstone idiot. You're a scorpion--a brimstone scorpion!\nYou're a sweltering toad. You're a chattering clattering broomstick\nwitch that ought to be burnt!\" gasps the old man, prostrate in his\nchair. \"My dear friend, will you shake me up a little?\"\n\nMr. George, who has been looking first at one of them and then at the\nother, as if he were demented, takes his venerable acquaintance by\nthe throat on receiving this request, and dragging him upright in his\nchair as easily as if he were a doll, appears in two minds whether or\nno to shake all future power of cushioning out of him and shake him\ninto his grave. Resisting the temptation, but agitating him violently\nenough to make his head roll like a harlequin's, he puts him smartly\ndown in his chair again and adjusts his skull-cap with such a rub\nthat the old man winks with both eyes for a minute afterwards.\n\n\"O Lord!\" gasps Mr. Smallweed. \"That'll do. Thank you, my dear\nfriend, that'll do. Oh, dear me, I'm out of breath. O Lord!\" And Mr.\nSmallweed says it not without evident apprehensions of his dear\nfriend, who still stands over him looming larger than ever.\n\nThe alarming presence, however, gradually subsides into its chair and\nfalls to smoking in long puffs, consoling itself with the\nphilosophical reflection, \"The name of your friend in the city begins\nwith a D, comrade, and you're about right respecting the bond.\"\n\n\"Did you speak, Mr. George?\" inquires the old man.\n\nThe trooper shakes his head, and leaning forward with his right elbow\non his right knee and his pipe supported in that hand, while his\nother hand, resting on his left leg, squares his left elbow in a\nmartial manner, continues to smoke. Meanwhile he looks at Mr.\nSmallweed with grave attention and now and then fans the cloud of\nsmoke away in order that he may see him the more clearly.\n\n\"I take it,\" he says, making just as much and as little change in his\nposition as will enable him to reach the glass to his lips with a\nround, full action, \"that I am the only man alive (or dead either)\nthat gets the value of a pipe out of YOU?\"\n\n\"Well,\" returns the old man, \"it's true that I don't see company, Mr.\nGeorge, and that I don't treat. I can't afford to it. But as you, in\nyour pleasant way, made your pipe a condition--\"\n\n\"Why, it's not for the value of it; that's no great thing. It was a\nfancy to get it out of you. To have something in for my money.\"\n\n\"Ha! You're prudent, prudent, sir!\" cries Grandfather Smallweed,\nrubbing his legs.\n\n\"Very. I always was.\" Puff. \"It's a sure sign of my prudence that I\never found the way here.\" Puff. \"Also, that I am what I am.\" Puff. \"I\nam well known to be prudent,\" says Mr. George, composedly smoking. \"I\nrose in life that way.\"\n\n\"Don't be down-hearted, sir. You may rise yet.\"\n\nMr. George laughs and drinks.\n\n\"Ha'n't you no relations, now,\" asks Grandfather Smallweed with a\ntwinkle in his eyes, \"who would pay off this little principal or who\nwould lend you a good name or two that I could persuade my friend in\nthe city to make you a further advance upon? Two good names would be\nsufficient for my friend in the city. Ha'n't you no such relations,\nMr. George?\"\n\nMr. George, still composedly smoking, replies, \"If I had, I shouldn't\ntrouble them. I have been trouble enough to my belongings in my day.\nIt MAY be a very good sort of penitence in a vagabond, who has wasted\nthe best time of his life, to go back then to decent people that he\nnever was a credit to and live upon them, but it's not my sort. The\nbest kind of amends then for having gone away is to keep away, in my\nopinion.\"\n\n\"But natural affection, Mr. George,\" hints Grandfather Smallweed.\n\n\"For two good names, hey?\" says Mr. George, shaking his head and\nstill composedly smoking. \"No. That's not my sort either.\"\n\nGrandfather Smallweed has been gradually sliding down in his chair\nsince his last adjustment and is now a bundle of clothes with a voice\nin it calling for Judy. That houri, appearing, shakes him up in the\nusual manner and is charged by the old gentleman to remain near him.\nFor he seems chary of putting his visitor to the trouble of repeating\nhis late attentions.\n\n\"Ha!\" he observes when he is in trim again. \"If you could have traced\nout the captain, Mr. George, it would have been the making of you. If\nwhen you first came here, in consequence of our advertisement in the\nnewspapers--when I say 'our,' I'm alluding to the advertisements of\nmy friend in the city, and one or two others who embark their capital\nin the same way, and are so friendly towards me as sometimes to give\nme a lift with my little pittance--if at that time you could have\nhelped us, Mr. George, it would have been the making of you.\"\n\n\"I was willing enough to be 'made,' as you call it,\" says Mr. George,\nsmoking not quite so placidly as before, for since the entrance of\nJudy he has been in some measure disturbed by a fascination, not of\nthe admiring kind, which obliges him to look at her as she stands by\nher grandfather's chair, \"but on the whole, I am glad I wasn't now.\"\n\n\"Why, Mr. George? In the name of--of brimstone, why?\" says\nGrandfather Smallweed with a plain appearance of exasperation.\n(Brimstone apparently suggested by his eye lighting on Mrs. Smallweed\nin her slumber.)\n\n\"For two reasons, comrade.\"\n\n\"And what two reasons, Mr. George? In the name of the--\"\n\n\"Of our friend in the city?\" suggests Mr. George, composedly\ndrinking.\n\n\"Aye, if you like. What two reasons?\"\n\n\"In the first place,\" returns Mr. George, but still looking at Judy\nas if she being so old and so like her grandfather it is indifferent\nwhich of the two he addresses, \"you gentlemen took me in. You\nadvertised that Mr. Hawdon (Captain Hawdon, if you hold to the saying\n'Once a captain, always a captain') was to hear of something to his\nadvantage.\"\n\n\"Well?\" returns the old man shrilly and sharply.\n\n\"Well!\" says Mr. George, smoking on. \"It wouldn't have been much to\nhis advantage to have been clapped into prison by the whole bill and\njudgment trade of London.\"\n\n\"How do you know that? Some of his rich relations might have paid his\ndebts or compounded for 'em. Besides, he had taken US in. He owed us\nimmense sums all round. I would sooner have strangled him than had no\nreturn. If I sit here thinking of him,\" snarls the old man, holding\nup his impotent ten fingers, \"I want to strangle him now.\" And in a\nsudden access of fury, he throws the cushion at the unoffending Mrs.\nSmallweed, but it passes harmlessly on one side of her chair.\n\n\"I don't need to be told,\" returns the trooper, taking his pipe from\nhis lips for a moment and carrying his eyes back from following the\nprogress of the cushion to the pipe-bowl which is burning low, \"that\nhe carried on heavily and went to ruin. I have been at his right hand\nmany a day when he was charging upon ruin full-gallop. I was with him\nwhen he was sick and well, rich and poor. I laid this hand upon him\nafter he had run through everything and broken down everything\nbeneath him--when he held a pistol to his head.\"\n\n\"I wish he had let it off,\" says the benevolent old man, \"and blown\nhis head into as many pieces as he owed pounds!\"\n\n\"That would have been a smash indeed,\" returns the trooper coolly;\n\"any way, he had been young, hopeful, and handsome in the days gone\nby, and I am glad I never found him, when he was neither, to lead to\na result so much to his advantage. That's reason number one.\"\n\n\"I hope number two's as good?\" snarls the old man.\n\n\"Why, no. It's more of a selfish reason. If I had found him, I must\nhave gone to the other world to look. He was there.\"\n\n\"How do you know he was there?\"\n\n\"He wasn't here.\"\n\n\"How do you know he wasn't here?\"\n\n\"Don't lose your temper as well as your money,\" says Mr. George,\ncalmly knocking the ashes out of his pipe. \"He was drowned long\nbefore. I am convinced of it. He went over a ship's side. Whether\nintentionally or accidentally, I don't know. Perhaps your friend in\nthe city does. Do you know what that tune is, Mr. Smallweed?\" he adds\nafter breaking off to whistle one, accompanied on the table with the\nempty pipe.\n\n\"Tune!\" replied the old man. \"No. We never have tunes here.\"\n\n\"That's the Dead March in Saul. They bury soldiers to it,\nso it's the natural end of the subject. Now, if your pretty\ngranddaughter--excuse me, miss--will condescend to take care of this\npipe for two months, we shall save the cost of one next time. Good\nevening, Mr. Smallweed!\"\n\n\"My dear friend!\" the old man gives him both his hands.\n\n\"So you think your friend in the city will be hard upon me if I fall\nin a payment?\" says the trooper, looking down upon him like a giant.\n\n\"My dear friend, I am afraid he will,\" returns the old man, looking\nup at him like a pygmy.\n\nMr. George laughs, and with a glance at Mr. Smallweed and a parting\nsalutation to the scornful Judy, strides out of the parlour, clashing\nimaginary sabres and other metallic appurtenances as he goes.\n\n\"You're a damned rogue,\" says the old gentleman, making a hideous\ngrimace at the door as he shuts it. \"But I'll lime you, you dog, I'll\nlime you!\"\n\nAfter this amiable remark, his spirit soars into those enchanting\nregions of reflection which its education and pursuits have opened to\nit, and again he and Mrs. Smallweed while away the rosy hours, two\nunrelieved sentinels forgotten as aforesaid by the Black Serjeant.\n\nWhile the twain are faithful to their post, Mr. George strides\nthrough the streets with a massive kind of swagger and a grave-enough\nface. It is eight o'clock now, and the day is fast drawing in. He\nstops hard by Waterloo Bridge and reads a playbill, decides to go to\nAstley's Theatre. Being there, is much delighted with the horses and\nthe feats of strength; looks at the weapons with a critical eye;\ndisapproves of the combats as giving evidences of unskilful\nswordsmanship; but is touched home by the sentiments. In the last\nscene, when the Emperor of Tartary gets up into a cart and\ncondescends to bless the united lovers by hovering over them with the\nUnion Jack, his eyelashes are moistened with emotion.\n\nThe theatre over, Mr. George comes across the water again and makes\nhis way to that curious region lying about the Haymarket and\nLeicester Square which is a centre of attraction to indifferent\nforeign hotels and indifferent foreigners, racket-courts,\nfighting-men, swordsmen, footguards, old china, gaming-houses,\nexhibitions, and a large medley of shabbiness and shrinking out of\nsight. Penetrating to the heart of this region, he arrives by a court\nand a long whitewashed passage at a great brick building composed of\nbare walls, floors, roof-rafters, and skylights, on the front of\nwhich, if it can be said to have any front, is painted GEORGE'S\nSHOOTING GALLERY, &c.\n\nInto George's Shooting Gallery, &c., he goes; and in it there are\ngaslights (partly turned off now), and two whitened targets for\nrifle-shooting, and archery accommodation, and fencing appliances,\nand all necessaries for the British art of boxing. None of these\nsports or exercises being pursued in George's Shooting Gallery\nto-night, which is so devoid of company that a little grotesque man\nwith a large head has it all to himself and lies asleep upon the\nfloor.\n\nThe little man is dressed something like a gunsmith, in a green-baize\napron and cap; and his face and hands are dirty with gunpowder and\nbegrimed with the loading of guns. As he lies in the light before a\nglaring white target, the black upon him shines again. Not far off is\nthe strong, rough, primitive table with a vice upon it at which he\nhas been working. He is a little man with a face all crushed\ntogether, who appears, from a certain blue and speckled appearance\nthat one of his cheeks presents, to have been blown up, in the way of\nbusiness, at some odd time or times.\n\n\"Phil!\" says the trooper in a quiet voice.\n\n\"All right!\" cries Phil, scrambling to his feet.\n\n\"Anything been doing?\"\n\n\"Flat as ever so much swipes,\" says Phil. \"Five dozen rifle and a\ndozen pistol. As to aim!\" Phil gives a howl at the recollection.\n\n\"Shut up shop, Phil!\"\n\nAs Phil moves about to execute this order, it appears that he is\nlame, though able to move very quickly. On the speckled side of his\nface he has no eyebrow, and on the other side he has a bushy black\none, which want of uniformity gives him a very singular and rather\nsinister appearance. Everything seems to have happened to his hands\nthat could possibly take place consistently with the retention of all\nthe fingers, for they are notched, and seamed, and crumpled all over.\nHe appears to be very strong and lifts heavy benches about as if he\nhad no idea what weight was. He has a curious way of limping round\nthe gallery with his shoulder against the wall and tacking off at\nobjects he wants to lay hold of instead of going straight to them,\nwhich has left a smear all round the four walls, conventionally\ncalled \"Phil's mark.\"\n\nThis custodian of George's Gallery in George's absence concludes his\nproceedings, when he has locked the great doors and turned out all\nthe lights but one, which he leaves to glimmer, by dragging out from\na wooden cabin in a corner two mattresses and bedding. These being\ndrawn to opposite ends of the gallery, the trooper makes his own bed\nand Phil makes his.\n\n\"Phil!\" says the master, walking towards him without his coat and\nwaistcoat, and looking more soldierly than ever in his braces. \"You\nwere found in a doorway, weren't you?\"\n\n\"Gutter,\" says Phil. \"Watchman tumbled over me.\"\n\n\"Then vagabondizing came natural to YOU from the beginning.\"\n\n\"As nat'ral as possible,\" says Phil.\n\n\"Good night!\"\n\n\"Good night, guv'ner.\"\n\nPhil cannot even go straight to bed, but finds it necessary to\nshoulder round two sides of the gallery and then tack off at his\nmattress. The trooper, after taking a turn or two in the\nrifle-distance and looking up at the moon now shining through the\nskylights, strides to his own mattress by a shorter route and goes to\nbed too.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\nMr. Bucket\n\n\nAllegory looks pretty cool in Lincoln's Inn Fields, though the\nevening is hot, for both Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows are wide open, and\nthe room is lofty, gusty, and gloomy. These may not be desirable\ncharacteristics when November comes with fog and sleet or January\nwith ice and snow, but they have their merits in the sultry long\nvacation weather. They enable Allegory, though it has cheeks like\npeaches, and knees like bunches of blossoms, and rosy swellings for\ncalves to its legs and muscles to its arms, to look tolerably cool\nto-night.\n\nPlenty of dust comes in at Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows, and plenty more\nhas generated among his furniture and papers. It lies thick\neverywhere. When a breeze from the country that has lost its way\ntakes fright and makes a blind hurry to rush out again, it flings as\nmuch dust in the eyes of Allegory as the law--or Mr. Tulkinghorn, one\nof its trustiest representatives--may scatter, on occasion, in the\neyes of the laity.\n\nIn his lowering magazine of dust, the universal article into which\nhis papers and himself, and all his clients, and all things of earth,\nanimate and inanimate, are resolving, Mr. Tulkinghorn sits at one of\nthe open windows enjoying a bottle of old port. Though a hard-grained\nman, close, dry, and silent, he can enjoy old wine with the best. He\nhas a priceless bin of port in some artful cellar under the Fields,\nwhich is one of his many secrets. When he dines alone in chambers, as\nhe has dined to-day, and has his bit of fish and his steak or chicken\nbrought in from the coffee-house, he descends with a candle to the\nechoing regions below the deserted mansion, and heralded by a remote\nreverberation of thundering doors, comes gravely back encircled by an\nearthy atmosphere and carrying a bottle from which he pours a radiant\nnectar, two score and ten years old, that blushes in the glass to\nfind itself so famous and fills the whole room with the fragrance of\nsouthern grapes.\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn, sitting in the twilight by the open window, enjoys\nhis wine. As if it whispered to him of its fifty years of silence and\nseclusion, it shuts him up the closer. More impenetrable than ever,\nhe sits, and drinks, and mellows as it were in secrecy, pondering at\nthat twilight hour on all the mysteries he knows, associated with\ndarkening woods in the country, and vast blank shut-up houses in\ntown, and perhaps sparing a thought or two for himself, and his\nfamily history, and his money, and his will--all a mystery to every\none--and that one bachelor friend of his, a man of the same mould and\na lawyer too, who lived the same kind of life until he was\nseventy-five years old, and then suddenly conceiving (as it is\nsupposed) an impression that it was too monotonous, gave his gold\nwatch to his hair-dresser one summer evening and walked leisurely\nhome to the Temple and hanged himself.\n\nBut Mr. Tulkinghorn is not alone to-night to ponder at his usual\nlength. Seated at the same table, though with his chair modestly and\nuncomfortably drawn a little way from it, sits a bald, mild, shining\nman who coughs respectfully behind his hand when the lawyer bids him\nfill his glass.\n\n\"Now, Snagsby,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, \"to go over this odd story\nagain.\"\n\n\"If you please, sir.\"\n\n\"You told me when you were so good as to step round here last\nnight--\"\n\n\"For which I must ask you to excuse me if it was a liberty, sir; but\nI remember that you had taken a sort of an interest in that person,\nand I thought it possible that you might--just--wish--to--\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn is not the man to help him to any conclusion or to\nadmit anything as to any possibility concerning himself. So Mr.\nSnagsby trails off into saying, with an awkward cough, \"I must ask\nyou to excuse the liberty, sir, I am sure.\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"You told me, Snagsby, that you\nput on your hat and came round without mentioning your intention to\nyour wife. That was prudent I think, because it's not a matter of\nsuch importance that it requires to be mentioned.\"\n\n\"Well, sir,\" returns Mr. Snagsby, \"you see, my little woman is--not\nto put too fine a point upon it--inquisitive. She's inquisitive. Poor\nlittle thing, she's liable to spasms, and it's good for her to have\nher mind employed. In consequence of which she employs it--I should\nsay upon every individual thing she can lay hold of, whether it\nconcerns her or not--especially not. My little woman has a very\nactive mind, sir.\"\n\nMr. Snagsby drinks and murmurs with an admiring cough behind his\nhand, \"Dear me, very fine wine indeed!\"\n\n\"Therefore you kept your visit to yourself last night?\" says Mr.\nTulkinghorn. \"And to-night too?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, and to-night, too. My little woman is at present in--not\nto put too fine a point on it--in a pious state, or in what she\nconsiders such, and attends the Evening Exertions (which is the name\nthey go by) of a reverend party of the name of Chadband. He has a\ngreat deal of eloquence at his command, undoubtedly, but I am not\nquite favourable to his style myself. That's neither here nor there.\nMy little woman being engaged in that way made it easier for me to\nstep round in a quiet manner.\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn assents. \"Fill your glass, Snagsby.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir, I am sure,\" returns the stationer with his cough of\ndeference. \"This is wonderfully fine wine, sir!\"\n\n\"It is a rare wine now,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"It is fifty years\nold.\"\n\n\"Is it indeed, sir? But I am not surprised to hear it, I am sure. It\nmight be--any age almost.\" After rendering this general tribute to\nthe port, Mr. Snagsby in his modesty coughs an apology behind his\nhand for drinking anything so precious.\n\n\"Will you run over, once again, what the boy said?\" asks Mr.\nTulkinghorn, putting his hands into the pockets of his rusty\nsmallclothes and leaning quietly back in his chair.\n\n\"With pleasure, sir.\"\n\nThen, with fidelity, though with some prolixity, the law-stationer\nrepeats Jo's statement made to the assembled guests at his house. On\ncoming to the end of his narrative, he gives a great start and breaks\noff with, \"Dear me, sir, I wasn't aware there was any other gentleman\npresent!\"\n\nMr. Snagsby is dismayed to see, standing with an attentive face\nbetween himself and the lawyer at a little distance from the table, a\nperson with a hat and stick in his hand who was not there when he\nhimself came in and has not since entered by the door or by either of\nthe windows. There is a press in the room, but its hinges have not\ncreaked, nor has a step been audible upon the floor. Yet this third\nperson stands there with his attentive face, and his hat and stick in\nhis hands, and his hands behind him, a composed and quiet listener.\nHe is a stoutly built, steady-looking, sharp-eyed man in black, of\nabout the middle-age. Except that he looks at Mr. Snagsby as if he\nwere going to take his portrait, there is nothing remarkable about\nhim at first sight but his ghostly manner of appearing.\n\n\"Don't mind this gentleman,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his quiet way.\n\"This is only Mr. Bucket.\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed, sir?\" returns the stationer, expressing by a cough that\nhe is quite in the dark as to who Mr. Bucket may be.\n\n\"I wanted him to hear this story,\" says the lawyer, \"because I have\nhalf a mind (for a reason) to know more of it, and he is very\nintelligent in such things. What do you say to this, Bucket?\"\n\n\"It's very plain, sir. Since our people have moved this boy on, and\nhe's not to be found on his old lay, if Mr. Snagsby don't object to\ngo down with me to Tom-all-Alone's and point him out, we can have him\nhere in less than a couple of hours' time. I can do it without Mr.\nSnagsby, of course, but this is the shortest way.\"\n\n\"Mr. Bucket is a detective officer, Snagsby,\" says the lawyer in\nexplanation.\n\n\"Is he indeed, sir?\" says Mr. Snagsby with a strong tendency in his\nclump of hair to stand on end.\n\n\"And if you have no real objection to accompany Mr. Bucket to the\nplace in question,\" pursues the lawyer, \"I shall feel obliged to you\nif you will do so.\"\n\nIn a moment's hesitation on the part of Mr. Snagsby, Bucket dips down\nto the bottom of his mind.\n\n\"Don't you be afraid of hurting the boy,\" he says. \"You won't do\nthat. It's all right as far as the boy's concerned. We shall only\nbring him here to ask him a question or so I want to put to him, and\nhe'll be paid for his trouble and sent away again. It'll be a good\njob for him. I promise you, as a man, that you shall see the boy sent\naway all right. Don't you be afraid of hurting him; you an't going to\ndo that.\"\n\n\"Very well, Mr. Tulkinghorn!\" cries Mr. Snagsby cheerfully. And\nreassured, \"Since that's the case--\"\n\n\"Yes! And lookee here, Mr. Snagsby,\" resumes Bucket, taking him aside\nby the arm, tapping him familiarly on the breast, and speaking in a\nconfidential tone. \"You're a man of the world, you know, and a man of\nbusiness, and a man of sense. That's what YOU are.\"\n\n\"I am sure I am much obliged to you for your good opinion,\" returns\nthe stationer with his cough of modesty, \"but--\"\n\n\"That's what YOU are, you know,\" says Bucket. \"Now, it an't necessary\nto say to a man like you, engaged in your business, which is a\nbusiness of trust and requires a person to be wide awake and have his\nsenses about him and his head screwed on tight (I had an uncle in\nyour business once)--it an't necessary to say to a man like you that\nit's the best and wisest way to keep little matters like this quiet.\nDon't you see? Quiet!\"\n\n\"Certainly, certainly,\" returns the other.\n\n\"I don't mind telling YOU,\" says Bucket with an engaging appearance\nof frankness, \"that as far as I can understand it, there seems to be\na doubt whether this dead person wasn't entitled to a little\nproperty, and whether this female hasn't been up to some games\nrespecting that property, don't you see?\"\n\n\"Oh!\" says Mr. Snagsby, but not appearing to see quite distinctly.\n\n\"Now, what YOU want,\" pursues Bucket, again tapping Mr. Snagsby on\nthe breast in a comfortable and soothing manner, \"is that every\nperson should have their rights according to justice. That's what YOU\nwant.\"\n\n\"To be sure,\" returns Mr. Snagsby with a nod.\n\n\"On account of which, and at the same time to oblige a--do you call\nit, in your business, customer or client? I forget how my uncle used\nto call it.\"\n\n\"Why, I generally say customer myself,\" replies Mr. Snagsby.\n\n\"You're right!\" returns Mr. Bucket, shaking hands with him quite\naffectionately. \"--On account of which, and at the same time to\noblige a real good customer, you mean to go down with me, in\nconfidence, to Tom-all-Alone's and to keep the whole thing quiet ever\nafterwards and never mention it to any one. That's about your\nintentions, if I understand you?\"\n\n\"You are right, sir. You are right,\" says Mr. Snagsby.\n\n\"Then here's your hat,\" returns his new friend, quite as intimate\nwith it as if he had made it; \"and if you're ready, I am.\"\n\nThey leave Mr. Tulkinghorn, without a ruffle on the surface of his\nunfathomable depths, drinking his old wine, and go down into the\nstreets.\n\n\"You don't happen to know a very good sort of person of the name of\nGridley, do you?\" says Bucket in friendly converse as they descend\nthe stairs.\n\n\"No,\" says Mr. Snagsby, considering, \"I don't know anybody of that\nname. Why?\"\n\n\"Nothing particular,\" says Bucket; \"only having allowed his temper to\nget a little the better of him and having been threatening some\nrespectable people, he is keeping out of the way of a warrant I have\ngot against him--which it's a pity that a man of sense should do.\"\n\nAs they walk along, Mr. Snagsby observes, as a novelty, that however\nquick their pace may be, his companion still seems in some\nundefinable manner to lurk and lounge; also, that whenever he is\ngoing to turn to the right or left, he pretends to have a fixed\npurpose in his mind of going straight ahead, and wheels off, sharply,\nat the very last moment. Now and then, when they pass a\npolice-constable on his beat, Mr. Snagsby notices that both the\nconstable and his guide fall into a deep abstraction as they come\ntowards each other, and appear entirely to overlook each other, and\nto gaze into space. In a few instances, Mr. Bucket, coming behind\nsome under-sized young man with a shining hat on, and his sleek hair\ntwisted into one flat curl on each side of his head, almost without\nglancing at him touches him with his stick, upon which the young man,\nlooking round, instantly evaporates. For the most part Mr. Bucket\nnotices things in general, with a face as unchanging as the great\nmourning ring on his little finger or the brooch, composed of not\nmuch diamond and a good deal of setting, which he wears in his shirt.\n\nWhen they come at last to Tom-all-Alone's, Mr. Bucket stops for a\nmoment at the corner and takes a lighted bull's-eye from the\nconstable on duty there, who then accompanies him with his own\nparticular bull's-eye at his waist. Between his two conductors, Mr.\nSnagsby passes along the middle of a villainous street, undrained,\nunventilated, deep in black mud and corrupt water--though the roads\nare dry elsewhere--and reeking with such smells and sights that he,\nwho has lived in London all his life, can scarce believe his senses.\nBranching from this street and its heaps of ruins are other streets\nand courts so infamous that Mr. Snagsby sickens in body and mind and\nfeels as if he were going every moment deeper down into the infernal\ngulf.\n\n\"Draw off a bit here, Mr. Snagsby,\" says Bucket as a kind of shabby\npalanquin is borne towards them, surrounded by a noisy crowd. \"Here's\nthe fever coming up the street!\"\n\nAs the unseen wretch goes by, the crowd, leaving that object of\nattraction, hovers round the three visitors like a dream of horrible\nfaces and fades away up alleys and into ruins and behind walls, and\nwith occasional cries and shrill whistles of warning, thenceforth\nflits about them until they leave the place.\n\n\"Are those the fever-houses, Darby?\" Mr. Bucket coolly asks as he\nturns his bull's-eye on a line of stinking ruins.\n\nDarby replies that \"all them are,\" and further that in all, for\nmonths and months, the people \"have been down by dozens\" and have\nbeen carried out dead and dying \"like sheep with the rot.\" Bucket\nobserving to Mr. Snagsby as they go on again that he looks a little\npoorly, Mr. Snagsby answers that he feels as if he couldn't breathe\nthe dreadful air.\n\nThere is inquiry made at various houses for a boy named Jo. As few\npeople are known in Tom-all-Alone's by any Christian sign, there is\nmuch reference to Mr. Snagsby whether he means Carrots, or the\nColonel, or Gallows, or Young Chisel, or Terrier Tip, or Lanky, or\nthe Brick. Mr. Snagsby describes over and over again. There are\nconflicting opinions respecting the original of his picture. Some\nthink it must be Carrots, some say the Brick. The Colonel is\nproduced, but is not at all near the thing. Whenever Mr. Snagsby and\nhis conductors are stationary, the crowd flows round, and from its\nsqualid depths obsequious advice heaves up to Mr. Bucket. Whenever\nthey move, and the angry bull's-eyes glare, it fades away and flits\nabout them up the alleys, and in the ruins, and behind the walls, as\nbefore.\n\nAt last there is a lair found out where Toughy, or the Tough Subject,\nlays him down at night; and it is thought that the Tough Subject may\nbe Jo. Comparison of notes between Mr. Snagsby and the proprietress\nof the house--a drunken face tied up in a black bundle, and flaring\nout of a heap of rags on the floor of a dog-hutch which is her\nprivate apartment--leads to the establishment of this conclusion.\nToughy has gone to the doctor's to get a bottle of stuff for a sick\nwoman but will be here anon.\n\n\"And who have we got here to-night?\" says Mr. Bucket, opening another\ndoor and glaring in with his bull's-eye. \"Two drunken men, eh? And\ntwo women? The men are sound enough,\" turning back each sleeper's arm\nfrom his face to look at him. \"Are these your good men, my dears?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" returns one of the women. \"They are our husbands.\"\n\n\"Brickmakers, eh?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"What are you doing here? You don't belong to London.\"\n\n\"No, sir. We belong to Hertfordshire.\"\n\n\"Whereabouts in Hertfordshire?\"\n\n\"Saint Albans.\"\n\n\"Come up on the tramp?\"\n\n\"We walked up yesterday. There's no work down with us at present, but\nwe have done no good by coming here, and shall do none, I expect.\"\n\n\"That's not the way to do much good,\" says Mr. Bucket, turning his\nhead in the direction of the unconscious figures on the ground.\n\n\"It an't indeed,\" replies the woman with a sigh. \"Jenny and me knows\nit full well.\"\n\nThe room, though two or three feet higher than the door, is so low\nthat the head of the tallest of the visitors would touch the\nblackened ceiling if he stood upright. It is offensive to every\nsense; even the gross candle burns pale and sickly in the polluted\nair. There are a couple of benches and a higher bench by way of\ntable. The men lie asleep where they stumbled down, but the women sit\nby the candle. Lying in the arms of the woman who has spoken is a\nvery young child.\n\n\"Why, what age do you call that little creature?\" says Bucket. \"It\nlooks as if it was born yesterday.\" He is not at all rough about it;\nand as he turns his light gently on the infant, Mr. Snagsby is\nstrangely reminded of another infant, encircled with light, that he\nhas seen in pictures.\n\n\"He is not three weeks old yet, sir,\" says the woman.\n\n\"Is he your child?\"\n\n\"Mine.\"\n\nThe other woman, who was bending over it when they came in, stoops\ndown again and kisses it as it lies asleep.\n\n\"You seem as fond of it as if you were the mother yourself,\" says Mr.\nBucket.\n\n\"I was the mother of one like it, master, and it died.\"\n\n\"Ah, Jenny, Jenny!\" says the other woman to her. \"Better so. Much\nbetter to think of dead than alive, Jenny! Much better!\"\n\n\"Why, you an't such an unnatural woman, I hope,\" returns Bucket\nsternly, \"as to wish your own child dead?\"\n\n\"God knows you are right, master,\" she returns. \"I am not. I'd stand\nbetween it and death with my own life if I could, as true as any\npretty lady.\"\n\n\"Then don't talk in that wrong manner,\" says Mr. Bucket, mollified\nagain. \"Why do you do it?\"\n\n\"It's brought into my head, master,\" returns the woman, her eyes\nfilling with tears, \"when I look down at the child lying so. If it\nwas never to wake no more, you'd think me mad, I should take on so. I\nknow that very well. I was with Jenny when she lost hers--warn't I,\nJenny?--and I know how she grieved. But look around you at this\nplace. Look at them,\" glancing at the sleepers on the ground. \"Look\nat the boy you're waiting for, who's gone out to do me a good turn.\nThink of the children that your business lays with often and often,\nand that YOU see grow up!\"\n\n\"Well, well,\" says Mr. Bucket, \"you train him respectable, and he'll\nbe a comfort to you, and look after you in your old age, you know.\"\n\n\"I mean to try hard,\" she answers, wiping her eyes. \"But I have been\na-thinking, being over-tired to-night and not well with the ague, of\nall the many things that'll come in his way. My master will be\nagainst it, and he'll be beat, and see me beat, and made to fear his\nhome, and perhaps to stray wild. If I work for him ever so much, and\never so hard, there's no one to help me; and if he should be turned\nbad 'spite of all I could do, and the time should come when I should\nsit by him in his sleep, made hard and changed, an't it likely I\nshould think of him as he lies in my lap now and wish he had died as\nJenny's child died!\"\n\n\"There, there!\" says Jenny. \"Liz, you're tired and ill. Let me take\nhim.\"\n\nIn doing so, she displaces the mother's dress, but quickly readjusts\nit over the wounded and bruised bosom where the baby has been lying.\n\n\"It's my dead child,\" says Jenny, walking up and down as she nurses,\n\"that makes me love this child so dear, and it's my dead child that\nmakes her love it so dear too, as even to think of its being taken\naway from her now. While she thinks that, I think what fortune would\nI give to have my darling back. But we mean the same thing, if we\nknew how to say it, us two mothers does in our poor hearts!\"\n\nAs Mr. Snagsby blows his nose and coughs his cough of sympathy, a\nstep is heard without. Mr. Bucket throws his light into the doorway\nand says to Mr. Snagsby, \"Now, what do you say to Toughy? Will HE\ndo?\"\n\n\"That's Jo,\" says Mr. Snagsby.\n\nJo stands amazed in the disk of light, like a ragged figure in a\nmagic-lantern, trembling to think that he has offended against the\nlaw in not having moved on far enough. Mr. Snagsby, however, giving\nhim the consolatory assurance, \"It's only a job you will be paid for,\nJo,\" he recovers; and on being taken outside by Mr. Bucket for a\nlittle private confabulation, tells his tale satisfactorily, though\nout of breath.\n\n\"I have squared it with the lad,\" says Mr. Bucket, returning, \"and\nit's all right. Now, Mr. Snagsby, we're ready for you.\"\n\nFirst, Jo has to complete his errand of good nature by handing over\nthe physic he has been to get, which he delivers with the laconic\nverbal direction that \"it's to be all took d'rectly.\" Secondly, Mr.\nSnagsby has to lay upon the table half a crown, his usual panacea for\nan immense variety of afflictions. Thirdly, Mr. Bucket has to take Jo\nby the arm a little above the elbow and walk him on before him,\nwithout which observance neither the Tough Subject nor any other\nSubject could be professionally conducted to Lincoln's Inn Fields.\nThese arrangements completed, they give the women good night and come\nout once more into black and foul Tom-all-Alone's.\n\nBy the noisome ways through which they descended into that pit, they\ngradually emerge from it, the crowd flitting, and whistling, and\nskulking about them until they come to the verge, where restoration\nof the bull's-eyes is made to Darby. Here the crowd, like a concourse\nof imprisoned demons, turns back, yelling, and is seen no more.\nThrough the clearer and fresher streets, never so clear and fresh to\nMr. Snagsby's mind as now, they walk and ride until they come to Mr.\nTulkinghorn's gate.\n\nAs they ascend the dim stairs (Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers being on\nthe first floor), Mr. Bucket mentions that he has the key of the\nouter door in his pocket and that there is no need to ring. For a man\nso expert in most things of that kind, Bucket takes time to open the\ndoor and makes some noise too. It may be that he sounds a note of\npreparation.\n\nHowbeit, they come at last into the hall, where a lamp is burning,\nand so into Mr. Tulkinghorn's usual room--the room where he drank his\nold wine to-night. He is not there, but his two old-fashioned\ncandlesticks are, and the room is tolerably light.\n\nMr. Bucket, still having his professional hold of Jo and appearing to\nMr. Snagsby to possess an unlimited number of eyes, makes a little\nway into this room, when Jo starts and stops.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" says Bucket in a whisper.\n\n\"There she is!\" cries Jo.\n\n\"Who!\"\n\n\"The lady!\"\n\nA female figure, closely veiled, stands in the middle of the room,\nwhere the light falls upon it. It is quite still and silent. The\nfront of the figure is towards them, but it takes no notice of their\nentrance and remains like a statue.\n\n\"Now, tell me,\" says Bucket aloud, \"how you know that to be the\nlady.\"\n\n\"I know the wale,\" replies Jo, staring, \"and the bonnet, and the\ngownd.\"\n\n\"Be quite sure of what you say, Tough,\" returns Bucket, narrowly\nobservant of him. \"Look again.\"\n\n\"I am a-looking as hard as ever I can look,\" says Jo with starting\neyes, \"and that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd.\"\n\n\"What about those rings you told me of?\" asks Bucket.\n\n\"A-sparkling all over here,\" says Jo, rubbing the fingers of his left\nhand on the knuckles of his right without taking his eyes from the\nfigure.\n\nThe figure removes the right-hand glove and shows the hand.\n\n\"Now, what do you say to that?\" asks Bucket.\n\nJo shakes his head. \"Not rings a bit like them. Not a hand like\nthat.\"\n\n\"What are you talking of?\" says Bucket, evidently pleased though, and\nwell pleased too.\n\n\"Hand was a deal whiter, a deal delicater, and a deal smaller,\"\nreturns Jo.\n\n\"Why, you'll tell me I'm my own mother next,\" says Mr. Bucket. \"Do\nyou recollect the lady's voice?\"\n\n\"I think I does,\" says Jo.\n\nThe figure speaks. \"Was it at all like this? I will speak as long as\nyou like if you are not sure. Was it this voice, or at all like this\nvoice?\"\n\nJo looks aghast at Mr. Bucket. \"Not a bit!\"\n\n\"Then, what,\" retorts that worthy, pointing to the figure, \"did you\nsay it was the lady for?\"\n\n\"Cos,\" says Jo with a perplexed stare but without being at all shaken\nin his certainty, \"cos that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the\ngownd. It is her and it an't her. It an't her hand, nor yet her\nrings, nor yet her woice. But that there's the wale, the bonnet, and\nthe gownd, and they're wore the same way wot she wore 'em, and it's\nher height wot she wos, and she giv me a sov'ring and hooked it.\"\n\n\"Well!\" says Mr. Bucket slightly, \"we haven't got much good out of\nYOU. But, however, here's five shillings for you. Take care how you\nspend it, and don't get yourself into trouble.\" Bucket stealthily\ntells the coins from one hand into the other like counters--which is\na way he has, his principal use of them being in these games of\nskill--and then puts them, in a little pile, into the boy's hand and\ntakes him out to the door, leaving Mr. Snagsby, not by any means\ncomfortable under these mysterious circumstances, alone with the\nveiled figure. But on Mr. Tulkinghorn's coming into the room, the\nveil is raised and a sufficiently good-looking Frenchwoman is\nrevealed, though her expression is something of the intensest.\n\n\"Thank you, Mademoiselle Hortense,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn with his\nusual equanimity. \"I will give you no further trouble about this\nlittle wager.\"\n\n\"You will do me the kindness to remember, sir, that I am not at\npresent placed?\" says mademoiselle.\n\n\"Certainly, certainly!\"\n\n\"And to confer upon me the favour of your distinguished\nrecommendation?\"\n\n\"By all means, Mademoiselle Hortense.\"\n\n\"A word from Mr. Tulkinghorn is so powerful.\"\n\n\"It shall not be wanting, mademoiselle.\"\n\n\"Receive the assurance of my devoted gratitude, dear sir.\"\n\n\"Good night.\"\n\nMademoiselle goes out with an air of native gentility; and Mr.\nBucket, to whom it is, on an emergency, as natural to be groom of the\nceremonies as it is to be anything else, shows her downstairs, not\nwithout gallantry.\n\n\"Well, Bucket?\" quoth Mr. Tulkinghorn on his return.\n\n\"It's all squared, you see, as I squared it myself, sir. There an't a\ndoubt that it was the other one with this one's dress on. The boy was\nexact respecting colours and everything. Mr. Snagsby, I promised you\nas a man that he should be sent away all right. Don't say it wasn't\ndone!\"\n\n\"You have kept your word, sir,\" returns the stationer; \"and if I can\nbe of no further use, Mr. Tulkinghorn, I think, as my little woman\nwill be getting anxious--\"\n\n\"Thank you, Snagsby, no further use,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"I am\nquite indebted to you for the trouble you have taken already.\"\n\n\"Not at all, sir. I wish you good night.\"\n\n\"You see, Mr. Snagsby,\" says Mr. Bucket, accompanying him to the door\nand shaking hands with him over and over again, \"what I like in you\nis that you're a man it's of no use pumping; that's what YOU are.\nWhen you know you have done a right thing, you put it away, and it's\ndone with and gone, and there's an end of it. That's what YOU do.\"\n\n\"That is certainly what I endeavour to do, sir,\" returns Mr. Snagsby.\n\n\"No, you don't do yourself justice. It an't what you endeavour to\ndo,\" says Mr. Bucket, shaking hands with him and blessing him in the\ntenderest manner, \"it's what you DO. That's what I estimate in a man\nin your way of business.\"\n\nMr. Snagsby makes a suitable response and goes homeward so confused\nby the events of the evening that he is doubtful of his being awake\nand out--doubtful of the reality of the streets through which he\ngoes--doubtful of the reality of the moon that shines above him. He\nis presently reassured on these subjects by the unchallengeable\nreality of Mrs. Snagsby, sitting up with her head in a perfect\nbeehive of curl-papers and night-cap, who has dispatched Guster to\nthe police-station with official intelligence of her husband's being\nmade away with, and who within the last two hours has passed through\nevery stage of swooning with the greatest decorum. But as the little\nwoman feelingly says, many thanks she gets for it!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nWe came home from Mr. Boythorn's after six pleasant weeks. We were\noften in the park and in the woods and seldom passed the lodge where\nwe had taken shelter without looking in to speak to the keeper's\nwife; but we saw no more of Lady Dedlock, except at church on\nSundays. There was company at Chesney Wold; and although several\nbeautiful faces surrounded her, her face retained the same influence\non me as at first. I do not quite know even now whether it was\npainful or pleasurable, whether it drew me towards her or made me\nshrink from her. I think I admired her with a kind of fear, and I\nknow that in her presence my thoughts always wandered back, as they\nhad done at first, to that old time of my life.\n\nI had a fancy, on more than one of these Sundays, that what this lady\nso curiously was to me, I was to her--I mean that I disturbed her\nthoughts as she influenced mine, though in some different way. But\nwhen I stole a glance at her and saw her so composed and distant and\nunapproachable, I felt this to be a foolish weakness. Indeed, I felt\nthe whole state of my mind in reference to her to be weak and\nunreasonable, and I remonstrated with myself about it as much as I\ncould.\n\nOne incident that occurred before we quitted Mr. Boythorn's house, I\nhad better mention in this place.\n\nI was walking in the garden with Ada when I was told that some one\nwished to see me. Going into the breakfast-room where this person was\nwaiting, I found it to be the French maid who had cast off her shoes\nand walked through the wet grass on the day when it thundered and\nlightened.\n\n\"Mademoiselle,\" she began, looking fixedly at me with her too-eager\neyes, though otherwise presenting an agreeable appearance and\nspeaking neither with boldness nor servility, \"I have taken a great\nliberty in coming here, but you know how to excuse it, being so\namiable, mademoiselle.\"\n\n\"No excuse is necessary,\" I returned, \"if you wish to speak to me.\"\n\n\"That is my desire, mademoiselle. A thousand thanks for the\npermission. I have your leave to speak. Is it not?\" she said in a\nquick, natural way.\n\n\"Certainly,\" said I.\n\n\"Mademoiselle, you are so amiable! Listen then, if you please. I have\nleft my Lady. We could not agree. My Lady is so high, so very high.\nPardon! Mademoiselle, you are right!\" Her quickness anticipated what\nI might have said presently but as yet had only thought. \"It is not\nfor me to come here to complain of my Lady. But I say she is so high,\nso very high. I will not say a word more. All the world knows that.\"\n\n\"Go on, if you please,\" said I.\n\n\"Assuredly; mademoiselle, I am thankful for your politeness.\nMademoiselle, I have an inexpressible desire to find service with a\nyoung lady who is good, accomplished, beautiful. You are good,\naccomplished, and beautiful as an angel. Ah, could I have the honour\nof being your domestic!\"\n\n\"I am sorry--\" I began.\n\n\"Do not dismiss me so soon, mademoiselle!\" she said with an\ninvoluntary contraction of her fine black eyebrows. \"Let me hope a\nmoment! Mademoiselle, I know this service would be more retired than\nthat which I have quitted. Well! I wish that. I know this service\nwould be less distinguished than that which I have quitted. Well! I\nwish that, I know that I should win less, as to wages here. Good. I\nam content.\"\n\n\"I assure you,\" said I, quite embarrassed by the mere idea of having\nsuch an attendant, \"that I keep no maid--\"\n\n\"Ah, mademoiselle, but why not? Why not, when you can have one so\ndevoted to you! Who would be enchanted to serve you; who would be so\ntrue, so zealous, and so faithful every day! Mademoiselle, I wish\nwith all my heart to serve you. Do not speak of money at present.\nTake me as I am. For nothing!\"\n\nShe was so singularly earnest that I drew back, almost afraid of her.\nWithout appearing to notice it, in her ardour she still pressed\nherself upon me, speaking in a rapid subdued voice, though always\nwith a certain grace and propriety.\n\n\"Mademoiselle, I come from the South country where we are quick and\nwhere we like and dislike very strong. My Lady was too high for me; I\nwas too high for her. It is done--past--finished! Receive me as your\ndomestic, and I will serve you well. I will do more for you than you\nfigure to yourself now. Chut! Mademoiselle, I will--no matter, I will\ndo my utmost possible in all things. If you accept my service, you\nwill not repent it. Mademoiselle, you will not repent it, and I will\nserve you well. You don't know how well!\"\n\nThere was a lowering energy in her face as she stood looking at me\nwhile I explained the impossibility of my engaging her (without\nthinking it necessary to say how very little I desired to do so),\nwhich seemed to bring visibly before me some woman from the streets\nof Paris in the reign of terror.\n\nShe heard me out without interruption and then said with her pretty\naccent and in her mildest voice, \"Hey, mademoiselle, I have received\nmy answer! I am sorry of it. But I must go elsewhere and seek what I\nhave not found here. Will you graciously let me kiss your hand?\"\n\nShe looked at me more intently as she took it, and seemed to take\nnote, with her momentary touch, of every vein in it. \"I fear I\nsurprised you, mademoiselle, on the day of the storm?\" she said with\na parting curtsy.\n\nI confessed that she had surprised us all.\n\n\"I took an oath, mademoiselle,\" she said, smiling, \"and I wanted to\nstamp it on my mind so that I might keep it faithfully. And I will!\nAdieu, mademoiselle!\"\n\nSo ended our conference, which I was very glad to bring to a close. I\nsupposed she went away from the village, for I saw her no more; and\nnothing else occurred to disturb our tranquil summer pleasures until\nsix weeks were out and we returned home as I began just now by\nsaying.\n\nAt that time, and for a good many weeks after that time, Richard was\nconstant in his visits. Besides coming every Saturday or Sunday and\nremaining with us until Monday morning, he sometimes rode out on\nhorseback unexpectedly and passed the evening with us and rode back\nagain early next day. He was as vivacious as ever and told us he was\nvery industrious, but I was not easy in my mind about him. It\nappeared to me that his industry was all misdirected. I could not\nfind that it led to anything but the formation of delusive hopes in\nconnexion with the suit already the pernicious cause of so much\nsorrow and ruin. He had got at the core of that mystery now, he told\nus, and nothing could be plainer than that the will under which he\nand Ada were to take I don't know how many thousands of pounds must\nbe finally established if there were any sense or justice in the\nCourt of Chancery--but oh, what a great IF that sounded in my\nears--and that this happy conclusion could not be much longer\ndelayed. He proved this to himself by all the weary arguments on that\nside he had read, and every one of them sunk him deeper in the\ninfatuation. He had even begun to haunt the court. He told us how he\nsaw Miss Flite there daily, how they talked together, and how he did\nher little kindnesses, and how, while he laughed at her, he pitied\nher from his heart. But he never thought--never, my poor, dear,\nsanguine Richard, capable of so much happiness then, and with such\nbetter things before him--what a fatal link was riveting between his\nfresh youth and her faded age, between his free hopes and her caged\nbirds, and her hungry garret, and her wandering mind.\n\nAda loved him too well to mistrust him much in anything he said or\ndid, and my guardian, though he frequently complained of the east\nwind and read more than usual in the growlery, preserved a strict\nsilence on the subject. So I thought one day when I went to London to\nmeet Caddy Jellyby, at her solicitation, I would ask Richard to be in\nwaiting for me at the coach-office, that we might have a little talk\ntogether. I found him there when I arrived, and we walked away arm in\narm.\n\n\"Well, Richard,\" said I as soon as I could begin to be grave with\nhim, \"are you beginning to feel more settled now?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, my dear!\" returned Richard. \"I'm all right enough.\"\n\n\"But settled?\" said I.\n\n\"How do you mean, settled?\" returned Richard with his gay laugh.\n\n\"Settled in the law,\" said I.\n\n\"Oh, aye,\" replied Richard, \"I'm all right enough.\"\n\n\"You said that before, my dear Richard.\"\n\n\"And you don't think it's an answer, eh? Well! Perhaps it's not.\nSettled? You mean, do I feel as if I were settling down?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Why, no, I can't say I am settling down,\" said Richard, strongly\nemphasizing \"down,\" as if that expressed the difficulty, \"because one\ncan't settle down while this business remains in such an unsettled\nstate. When I say this business, of course I mean the--forbidden\nsubject.\"\n\n\"Do you think it will ever be in a settled state?\" said I.\n\n\"Not the least doubt of it,\" answered Richard.\n\nWe walked a little way without speaking, and presently Richard\naddressed me in his frankest and most feeling manner, thus: \"My dear\nEsther, I understand you, and I wish to heaven I were a more constant\nsort of fellow. I don't mean constant to Ada, for I love her\ndearly--better and better every day--but constant to myself.\n(Somehow, I mean something that I can't very well express, but you'll\nmake it out.) If I were a more constant sort of fellow, I should have\nheld on either to Badger or to Kenge and Carboy like grim death, and\nshould have begun to be steady and systematic by this time, and\nshouldn't be in debt, and--\"\n\n\"ARE you in debt, Richard?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Richard, \"I am a little so, my dear. Also, I have taken\nrather too much to billiards and that sort of thing. Now the murder's\nout; you despise me, Esther, don't you?\"\n\n\"You know I don't,\" said I.\n\n\"You are kinder to me than I often am to myself,\" he returned. \"My\ndear Esther, I am a very unfortunate dog not to be more settled, but\nhow CAN I be more settled? If you lived in an unfinished house, you\ncouldn't settle down in it; if you were condemned to leave everything\nyou undertook unfinished, you would find it hard to apply yourself to\nanything; and yet that's my unhappy case. I was born into this\nunfinished contention with all its chances and changes, and it began\nto unsettle me before I quite knew the difference between a suit at\nlaw and a suit of clothes; and it has gone on unsettling me ever\nsince; and here I am now, conscious sometimes that I am but a\nworthless fellow to love my confiding cousin Ada.\"\n\nWe were in a solitary place, and he put his hands before his eyes and\nsobbed as he said the words.\n\n\"Oh, Richard!\" said I. \"Do not be so moved. You have a noble nature,\nand Ada's love may make you worthier every day.\"\n\n\"I know, my dear,\" he replied, pressing my arm, \"I know all that. You\nmustn't mind my being a little soft now, for I have had all this upon\nmy mind for a long time, and have often meant to speak to you, and\nhave sometimes wanted opportunity and sometimes courage. I know what\nthe thought of Ada ought to do for me, but it doesn't do it. I am too\nunsettled even for that. I love her most devotedly, and yet I do her\nwrong, in doing myself wrong, every day and hour. But it can't last\nfor ever. We shall come on for a final hearing and get judgment in\nour favour, and then you and Ada shall see what I can really be!\"\n\nIt had given me a pang to hear him sob and see the tears start out\nbetween his fingers, but that was infinitely less affecting to me\nthan the hopeful animation with which he said these words.\n\n\"I have looked well into the papers, Esther. I have been deep in them\nfor months,\" he continued, recovering his cheerfulness in a moment,\n\"and you may rely upon it that we shall come out triumphant. As to\nyears of delay, there has been no want of them, heaven knows! And\nthere is the greater probability of our bringing the matter to a\nspeedy close; in fact, it's on the paper now. It will be all right at\nlast, and then you shall see!\"\n\nRecalling how he had just now placed Messrs. Kenge and Carboy in the\nsame category with Mr. Badger, I asked him when he intended to be\narticled in Lincoln's Inn.\n\n\"There again! I think not at all, Esther,\" he returned with an\neffort. \"I fancy I have had enough of it. Having worked at Jarndyce\nand Jarndyce like a galley slave, I have slaked my thirst for the law\nand satisfied myself that I shouldn't like it. Besides, I find it\nunsettles me more and more to be so constantly upon the scene of\naction. So what,\" continued Richard, confident again by this time,\n\"do I naturally turn my thoughts to?\"\n\n\"I can't imagine,\" said I.\n\n\"Don't look so serious,\" returned Richard, \"because it's the best\nthing I can do, my dear Esther, I am certain. It's not as if I wanted\na profession for life. These proceedings will come to a termination,\nand then I am provided for. No. I look upon it as a pursuit which is\nin its nature more or less unsettled, and therefore suited to my\ntemporary condition--I may say, precisely suited. What is it that I\nnaturally turn my thoughts to?\"\n\nI looked at him and shook my head.\n\n\"What,\" said Richard, in a tone of perfect conviction, \"but the\narmy!\"\n\n\"The army?\" said I.\n\n\"The army, of course. What I have to do is to get a commission;\nand--there I am, you know!\" said Richard.\n\nAnd then he showed me, proved by elaborate calculations in his\npocket-book, that supposing he had contracted, say, two hundred\npounds of debt in six months out of the army; and that he contracted\nno debt at all within a corresponding period in the army--as to which\nhe had quite made up his mind; this step must involve a saving of\nfour hundred pounds in a year, or two thousand pounds in five years,\nwhich was a considerable sum. And then he spoke so ingenuously and\nsincerely of the sacrifice he made in withdrawing himself for a time\nfrom Ada, and of the earnestness with which he aspired--as in thought\nhe always did, I know full well--to repay her love, and to ensure her\nhappiness, and to conquer what was amiss in himself, and to acquire\nthe very soul of decision, that he made my heart ache keenly, sorely.\nFor, I thought, how would this end, how could this end, when so soon\nand so surely all his manly qualities were touched by the fatal\nblight that ruined everything it rested on!\n\nI spoke to Richard with all the earnestness I felt, and all the hope\nI could not quite feel then, and implored him for Ada's sake not to\nput any trust in Chancery. To all I said, Richard readily assented,\nriding over the court and everything else in his easy way and drawing\nthe brightest pictures of the character he was to settle into--alas,\nwhen the grievous suit should loose its hold upon him! We had a long\ntalk, but it always came back to that, in substance.\n\nAt last we came to Soho Square, where Caddy Jellyby had appointed to\nwait for me, as a quiet place in the neighbourhood of Newman Street.\nCaddy was in the garden in the centre and hurried out as soon as I\nappeared. After a few cheerful words, Richard left us together.\n\n\"Prince has a pupil over the way, Esther,\" said Caddy, \"and got the\nkey for us. So if you will walk round and round here with me, we can\nlock ourselves in and I can tell you comfortably what I wanted to see\nyour dear good face about.\"\n\n\"Very well, my dear,\" said I. \"Nothing could be better.\" So Caddy,\nafter affectionately squeezing the dear good face as she called it,\nlocked the gate, and took my arm, and we began to walk round the\ngarden very cosily.\n\n\"You see, Esther,\" said Caddy, who thoroughly enjoyed a little\nconfidence, \"after you spoke to me about its being wrong to marry\nwithout Ma's knowledge, or even to keep Ma long in the dark\nrespecting our engagement--though I don't believe Ma cares much for\nme, I must say--I thought it right to mention your opinions to\nPrince. In the first place because I want to profit by everything you\ntell me, and in the second place because I have no secrets from\nPrince.\"\n\n\"I hope he approved, Caddy?\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear! I assure you he would approve of anything you could\nsay. You have no idea what an opinion he has of you!\"\n\n\"Indeed!\"\n\n\"Esther, it's enough to make anybody but me jealous,\" said Caddy,\nlaughing and shaking her head; \"but it only makes me joyful, for you\nare the first friend I ever had, and the best friend I ever can have,\nand nobody can respect and love you too much to please me.\"\n\n\"Upon my word, Caddy,\" said I, \"you are in the general conspiracy to\nkeep me in a good humour. Well, my dear?\"\n\n\"Well! I am going to tell you,\" replied Caddy, crossing her hands\nconfidentially upon my arm. \"So we talked a good deal about it, and\nso I said to Prince, 'Prince, as Miss Summerson--'\"\n\n\"I hope you didn't say 'Miss Summerson'?\"\n\n\"No. I didn't!\" cried Caddy, greatly pleased and with the brightest\nof faces. \"I said, 'Esther.' I said to Prince, 'As Esther is\ndecidedly of that opinion, Prince, and has expressed it to me, and\nalways hints it when she writes those kind notes, which you are so\nfond of hearing me read to you, I am prepared to disclose the truth\nto Ma whenever you think proper. And I think, Prince,' said I, 'that\nEsther thinks that I should be in a better, and truer, and more\nhonourable position altogether if you did the same to your papa.'\"\n\n\"Yes, my dear,\" said I. \"Esther certainly does think so.\"\n\n\"So I was right, you see!\" exclaimed Caddy. \"Well! This troubled\nPrince a good deal, not because he had the least doubt about it, but\nbecause he is so considerate of the feelings of old Mr. Turveydrop;\nand he had his apprehensions that old Mr. Turveydrop might break his\nheart, or faint away, or be very much overcome in some affecting\nmanner or other if he made such an announcement. He feared old Mr.\nTurveydrop might consider it undutiful and might receive too great a\nshock. For old Mr. Turveydrop's deportment is very beautiful, you\nknow, Esther,\" said Caddy, \"and his feelings are extremely\nsensitive.\"\n\n\"Are they, my dear?\"\n\n\"Oh, extremely sensitive. Prince says so. Now, this has caused my\ndarling child--I didn't mean to use the expression to you, Esther,\"\nCaddy apologized, her face suffused with blushes, \"but I generally\ncall Prince my darling child.\"\n\nI laughed; and Caddy laughed and blushed, and went on.\n\n\"This has caused him, Esther--\"\n\n\"Caused whom, my dear?\"\n\n\"Oh, you tiresome thing!\" said Caddy, laughing, with her pretty face\non fire. \"My darling child, if you insist upon it! This has caused\nhim weeks of uneasiness and has made him delay, from day to day, in a\nvery anxious manner. At last he said to me, 'Caddy, if Miss\nSummerson, who is a great favourite with my father, could be\nprevailed upon to be present when I broke the subject, I think I\ncould do it.' So I promised I would ask you. And I made up my mind,\nbesides,\" said Caddy, looking at me hopefully but timidly, \"that if\nyou consented, I would ask you afterwards to come with me to Ma. This\nis what I meant when I said in my note that I had a great favour and\na great assistance to beg of you. And if you thought you could grant\nit, Esther, we should both be very grateful.\"\n\n\"Let me see, Caddy,\" said I, pretending to consider. \"Really, I think\nI could do a greater thing than that if the need were pressing. I am\nat your service and the darling child's, my dear, whenever you like.\"\n\nCaddy was quite transported by this reply of mine, being, I believe,\nas susceptible to the least kindness or encouragement as any tender\nheart that ever beat in this world; and after another turn or two\nround the garden, during which she put on an entirely new pair of\ngloves and made herself as resplendent as possible that she might do\nno avoidable discredit to the Master of Deportment, we went to Newman\nStreet direct.\n\nPrince was teaching, of course. We found him engaged with a not very\nhopeful pupil--a stubborn little girl with a sulky forehead, a deep\nvoice, and an inanimate, dissatisfied mama--whose case was certainly\nnot rendered more hopeful by the confusion into which we threw her\npreceptor. The lesson at last came to an end, after proceeding as\ndiscordantly as possible; and when the little girl had changed her\nshoes and had had her white muslin extinguished in shawls, she was\ntaken away. After a few words of preparation, we then went in search\nof Mr. Turveydrop, whom we found, grouped with his hat and gloves, as\na model of deportment, on the sofa in his private apartment--the only\ncomfortable room in the house. He appeared to have dressed at his\nleisure in the intervals of a light collation, and his dressing-case,\nbrushes, and so forth, all of quite an elegant kind, lay about.\n\n\"Father, Miss Summerson; Miss Jellyby.\"\n\n\"Charmed! Enchanted!\" said Mr. Turveydrop, rising with his\nhigh-shouldered bow. \"Permit me!\" Handing chairs. \"Be seated!\"\nKissing the tips of his left fingers. \"Overjoyed!\" Shutting his eyes\nand rolling. \"My little retreat is made a paradise.\" Recomposing\nhimself on the sofa like the second gentleman in Europe.\n\n\"Again you find us, Miss Summerson,\" said he, \"using our little arts\nto polish, polish! Again the sex stimulates us and rewards us by the\ncondescension of its lovely presence. It is much in these times (and\nwe have made an awfully degenerating business of it since the days of\nhis Royal Highness the Prince Regent--my patron, if I may presume to\nsay so) to experience that deportment is not wholly trodden under\nfoot by mechanics. That it can yet bask in the smile of beauty, my\ndear madam.\"\n\nI said nothing, which I thought a suitable reply; and he took a pinch\nof snuff.\n\n\"My dear son,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, \"you have four schools this\nafternoon. I would recommend a hasty sandwich.\"\n\n\"Thank you, father,\" returned Prince, \"I will be sure to be punctual.\nMy dear father, may I beg you to prepare your mind for what I am\ngoing to say?\"\n\n\"Good heaven!\" exclaimed the model, pale and aghast as Prince and\nCaddy, hand in hand, bent down before him. \"What is this? Is this\nlunacy! Or what is this?\"\n\n\"Father,\" returned Prince with great submission, \"I love this young\nlady, and we are engaged.\"\n\n\"Engaged!\" cried Mr. Turveydrop, reclining on the sofa and shutting\nout the sight with his hand. \"An arrow launched at my brain by my own\nchild!\"\n\n\"We have been engaged for some time, father,\" faltered Prince, \"and\nMiss Summerson, hearing of it, advised that we should declare the\nfact to you and was so very kind as to attend on the present\noccasion. Miss Jellyby is a young lady who deeply respects you,\nfather.\"\n\nMr. Turveydrop uttered a groan.\n\n\"No, pray don't! Pray don't, father,\" urged his son. \"Miss Jellyby is\na young lady who deeply respects you, and our first desire is to\nconsider your comfort.\"\n\nMr. Turveydrop sobbed.\n\n\"No, pray don't, father!\" cried his son.\n\n\"Boy,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, \"it is well that your sainted mother is\nspared this pang. Strike deep, and spare not. Strike home, sir,\nstrike home!\"\n\n\"Pray don't say so, father,\" implored Prince, in tears. \"It goes to\nmy heart. I do assure you, father, that our first wish and intention\nis to consider your comfort. Caroline and I do not forget our\nduty--what is my duty is Caroline's, as we have often said\ntogether--and with your approval and consent, father, we will devote\nourselves to making your life agreeable.\"\n\n\"Strike home,\" murmured Mr. Turveydrop. \"Strike home!\" But he seemed\nto listen, I thought, too.\n\n\"My dear father,\" returned Prince, \"we well know what little comforts\nyou are accustomed to and have a right to, and it will always be our\nstudy and our pride to provide those before anything. If you will\nbless us with your approval and consent, father, we shall not think\nof being married until it is quite agreeable to you; and when we ARE\nmarried, we shall always make you--of course--our first\nconsideration. You must ever be the head and master here, father; and\nwe feel how truly unnatural it would be in us if we failed to know it\nor if we failed to exert ourselves in every possible way to please\nyou.\"\n\nMr. Turveydrop underwent a severe internal struggle and came upright\non the sofa again with his cheeks puffing over his stiff cravat, a\nperfect model of parental deportment.\n\n\"My son!\" said Mr. Turveydrop. \"My children! I cannot resist your\nprayer. Be happy!\"\n\nHis benignity as he raised his future daughter-in-law and stretched\nout his hand to his son (who kissed it with affectionate respect and\ngratitude) was the most confusing sight I ever saw.\n\n\"My children,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, paternally encircling Caddy with\nhis left arm as she sat beside him, and putting his right hand\ngracefully on his hip. \"My son and daughter, your happiness shall be\nmy care. I will watch over you. You shall always live with\nme\"--meaning, of course, I will always live with you--\"this house is\nhenceforth as much yours as mine; consider it your home. May you long\nlive to share it with me!\"\n\nThe power of his deportment was such that they really were as much\novercome with thankfulness as if, instead of quartering himself upon\nthem for the rest of his life, he were making some munificent\nsacrifice in their favour.\n\n\"For myself, my children,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, \"I am falling into\nthe sear and yellow leaf, and it is impossible to say how long the\nlast feeble traces of gentlemanly deportment may linger in this\nweaving and spinning age. But, so long, I will do my duty to society\nand will show myself, as usual, about town. My wants are few and\nsimple. My little apartment here, my few essentials for the toilet,\nmy frugal morning meal, and my little dinner will suffice. I charge\nyour dutiful affection with the supply of these requirements, and I\ncharge myself with all the rest.\"\n\nThey were overpowered afresh by his uncommon generosity.\n\n\"My son,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, \"for those little points in which you\nare deficient--points of deportment, which are born with a man, which\nmay be improved by cultivation, but can never be originated--you may\nstill rely on me. I have been faithful to my post since the days of\nhis Royal Highness the Prince Regent, and I will not desert it now.\nNo, my son. If you have ever contemplated your father's poor position\nwith a feeling of pride, you may rest assured that he will do nothing\nto tarnish it. For yourself, Prince, whose character is different (we\ncannot be all alike, nor is it advisable that we should), work, be\nindustrious, earn money, and extend the connexion as much as\npossible.\"\n\n\"That you may depend I will do, dear father, with all my heart,\"\nreplied Prince.\n\n\"I have no doubt of it,\" said Mr. Turveydrop. \"Your qualities are not\nshining, my dear child, but they are steady and useful. And to both\nof you, my children, I would merely observe, in the spirit of a\nsainted wooman on whose path I had the happiness of casting, I\nbelieve, SOME ray of light, take care of the establishment, take care\nof my simple wants, and bless you both!\"\n\nOld Mr. Turveydrop then became so very gallant, in honour of the\noccasion, that I told Caddy we must really go to Thavies Inn at once\nif we were to go at all that day. So we took our departure after a\nvery loving farewell between Caddy and her betrothed, and during our\nwalk she was so happy and so full of old Mr. Turveydrop's praises\nthat I would not have said a word in his disparagement for any\nconsideration.\n\nThe house in Thavies Inn had bills in the windows announcing that it\nwas to let, and it looked dirtier and gloomier and ghastlier than\never. The name of poor Mr. Jellyby had appeared in the list of\nbankrupts but a day or two before, and he was shut up in the\ndining-room with two gentlemen and a heap of blue bags,\naccount-books, and papers, making the most desperate endeavours to\nunderstand his affairs. They appeared to me to be quite beyond his\ncomprehension, for when Caddy took me into the dining-room by mistake\nand we came upon Mr. Jellyby in his spectacles, forlornly fenced into\na corner by the great dining-table and the two gentlemen, he seemed\nto have given up the whole thing and to be speechless and insensible.\n\nGoing upstairs to Mrs. Jellyby's room (the children were all\nscreaming in the kitchen, and there was no servant to be seen), we\nfound that lady in the midst of a voluminous correspondence, opening,\nreading, and sorting letters, with a great accumulation of torn\ncovers on the floor. She was so preoccupied that at first she did not\nknow me, though she sat looking at me with that curious, bright-eyed,\nfar-off look of hers.\n\n\"Ah! Miss Summerson!\" she said at last. \"I was thinking of something\nso different! I hope you are well. I am happy to see you. Mr.\nJarndyce and Miss Clare quite well?\"\n\nI hoped in return that Mr. Jellyby was quite well.\n\n\"Why, not quite, my dear,\" said Mrs. Jellyby in the calmest manner.\n\"He has been unfortunate in his affairs and is a little out of\nspirits. Happily for me, I am so much engaged that I have no time to\nthink about it. We have, at the present moment, one hundred and\nseventy families, Miss Summerson, averaging five persons in each,\neither gone or going to the left bank of the Niger.\"\n\nI thought of the one family so near us who were neither gone nor\ngoing to the left bank of the Niger, and wondered how she could be so\nplacid.\n\n\"You have brought Caddy back, I see,\" observed Mrs. Jellyby with a\nglance at her daughter. \"It has become quite a novelty to see her\nhere. She has almost deserted her old employment and in fact obliges\nme to employ a boy.\"\n\n\"I am sure, Ma--\" began Caddy.\n\n\"Now you know, Caddy,\" her mother mildly interposed, \"that I DO\nemploy a boy, who is now at his dinner. What is the use of your\ncontradicting?\"\n\n\"I was not going to contradict, Ma,\" returned Caddy. \"I was only\ngoing to say that surely you wouldn't have me be a mere drudge all my\nlife.\"\n\n\"I believe, my dear,\" said Mrs. Jellyby, still opening her letters,\ncasting her bright eyes smilingly over them, and sorting them as she\nspoke, \"that you have a business example before you in your mother.\nBesides. A mere drudge? If you had any sympathy with the destinies of\nthe human race, it would raise you high above any such idea. But you\nhave none. I have often told you, Caddy, you have no such sympathy.\"\n\n\"Not if it's Africa, Ma, I have not.\"\n\n\"Of course you have not. Now, if I were not happily so much engaged,\nMiss Summerson,\" said Mrs. Jellyby, sweetly casting her eyes for a\nmoment on me and considering where to put the particular letter she\nhad just opened, \"this would distress and disappoint me. But I have\nso much to think of, in connexion with Borrioboola-Gha and it is so\nnecessary I should concentrate myself that there is my remedy, you\nsee.\"\n\nAs Caddy gave me a glance of entreaty, and as Mrs. Jellyby was\nlooking far away into Africa straight through my bonnet and head, I\nthought it a good opportunity to come to the subject of my visit and\nto attract Mrs. Jellyby's attention.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" I began, \"you will wonder what has brought me here to\ninterrupt you.\"\n\n\"I am always delighted to see Miss Summerson,\" said Mrs. Jellyby,\npursuing her employment with a placid smile. \"Though I wish,\" and she\nshook her head, \"she was more interested in the Borrioboolan\nproject.\"\n\n\"I have come with Caddy,\" said I, \"because Caddy justly thinks she\nought not to have a secret from her mother and fancies I shall\nencourage and aid her (though I am sure I don't know how) in\nimparting one.\"\n\n\"Caddy,\" said Mrs. Jellyby, pausing for a moment in her occupation\nand then serenely pursuing it after shaking her head, \"you are going\nto tell me some nonsense.\"\n\nCaddy untied the strings of her bonnet, took her bonnet off, and\nletting it dangle on the floor by the strings, and crying heartily,\nsaid, \"Ma, I am engaged.\"\n\n\"Oh, you ridiculous child!\" observed Mrs. Jellyby with an abstracted\nair as she looked over the dispatch last opened; \"what a goose you\nare!\"\n\n\"I am engaged, Ma,\" sobbed Caddy, \"to young Mr. Turveydrop, at the\nacademy; and old Mr. Turveydrop (who is a very gentlemanly man\nindeed) has given his consent, and I beg and pray you'll give us\nyours, Ma, because I never could be happy without it. I never, never\ncould!\" sobbed Caddy, quite forgetful of her general complainings and\nof everything but her natural affection.\n\n\"You see again, Miss Summerson,\" observed Mrs. Jellyby serenely,\n\"what a happiness it is to be so much occupied as I am and to have\nthis necessity for self-concentration that I have. Here is Caddy\nengaged to a dancing-master's son--mixed up with people who have no\nmore sympathy with the destinies of the human race than she has\nherself! This, too, when Mr. Quale, one of the first philanthropists\nof our time, has mentioned to me that he was really disposed to be\ninterested in her!\"\n\n\"Ma, I always hated and detested Mr. Quale!\" sobbed Caddy.\n\n\"Caddy, Caddy!\" returned Mrs. Jellyby, opening another letter with\nthe greatest complacency. \"I have no doubt you did. How could you do\notherwise, being totally destitute of the sympathies with which he\noverflows! Now, if my public duties were not a favourite child to me,\nif I were not occupied with large measures on a vast scale, these\npetty details might grieve me very much, Miss Summerson. But can I\npermit the film of a silly proceeding on the part of Caddy (from whom\nI expect nothing else) to interpose between me and the great African\ncontinent? No. No,\" repeated Mrs. Jellyby in a calm clear voice, and\nwith an agreeable smile, as she opened more letters and sorted them.\n\"No, indeed.\"\n\nI was so unprepared for the perfect coolness of this reception,\nthough I might have expected it, that I did not know what to say.\nCaddy seemed equally at a loss. Mrs. Jellyby continued to open and\nsort letters and to repeat occasionally in quite a charming tone of\nvoice and with a smile of perfect composure, \"No, indeed.\"\n\n\"I hope, Ma,\" sobbed poor Caddy at last, \"you are not angry?\"\n\n\"Oh, Caddy, you really are an absurd girl,\" returned Mrs. Jellyby,\n\"to ask such questions after what I have said of the preoccupation of\nmy mind.\"\n\n\"And I hope, Ma, you give us your consent and wish us well?\" said\nCaddy.\n\n\"You are a nonsensical child to have done anything of this kind,\"\nsaid Mrs. Jellyby; \"and a degenerate child, when you might have\ndevoted yourself to the great public measure. But the step is taken,\nand I have engaged a boy, and there is no more to be said. Now, pray,\nCaddy,\" said Mrs. Jellyby, for Caddy was kissing her, \"don't delay me\nin my work, but let me clear off this heavy batch of papers before\nthe afternoon post comes in!\"\n\nI thought I could not do better than take my leave; I was detained\nfor a moment by Caddy's saying, \"You won't object to my bringing him\nto see you, Ma?\"\n\n\"Oh, dear me, Caddy,\" cried Mrs. Jellyby, who had relapsed into that\ndistant contemplation, \"have you begun again? Bring whom?\"\n\n\"Him, Ma.\"\n\n\"Caddy, Caddy!\" said Mrs. Jellyby, quite weary of such little\nmatters. \"Then you must bring him some evening which is not a Parent\nSociety night, or a Branch night, or a Ramification night. You must\naccommodate the visit to the demands upon my time. My dear Miss\nSummerson, it was very kind of you to come here to help out this\nsilly chit. Good-bye! When I tell you that I have fifty-eight new\nletters from manufacturing families anxious to understand the details\nof the native and coffee-cultivation question this morning, I need\nnot apologize for having very little leisure.\"\n\nI was not surprised by Caddy's being in low spirits when we went\ndownstairs, or by her sobbing afresh on my neck, or by her saying she\nwould far rather have been scolded than treated with such\nindifference, or by her confiding to me that she was so poor in\nclothes that how she was ever to be married creditably she didn't\nknow. I gradually cheered her up by dwelling on the many things she\nwould do for her unfortunate father and for Peepy when she had a home\nof her own; and finally we went downstairs into the damp dark\nkitchen, where Peepy and his little brothers and sisters were\ngrovelling on the stone floor and where we had such a game of play\nwith them that to prevent myself from being quite torn to pieces I\nwas obliged to fall back on my fairy-tales. From time to time I heard\nloud voices in the parlour overhead, and occasionally a violent\ntumbling about of the furniture. The last effect I am afraid was\ncaused by poor Mr. Jellyby's breaking away from the dining-table and\nmaking rushes at the window with the intention of throwing himself\ninto the area whenever he made any new attempt to understand his\naffairs.\n\nAs I rode quietly home at night after the day's bustle, I thought a\ngood deal of Caddy's engagement and felt confirmed in my hopes (in\nspite of the elder Mr. Turveydrop) that she would be the happier and\nbetter for it. And if there seemed to be but a slender chance of her\nand her husband ever finding out what the model of deportment really\nwas, why that was all for the best too, and who would wish them to be\nwiser? I did not wish them to be any wiser and indeed was half\nashamed of not entirely believing in him myself. And I looked up at\nthe stars, and thought about travellers in distant countries and the\nstars THEY saw, and hoped I might always be so blest and happy as to\nbe useful to some one in my small way.\n\nThey were so glad to see me when I got home, as they always were,\nthat I could have sat down and cried for joy if that had not been a\nmethod of making myself disagreeable. Everybody in the house, from\nthe lowest to the highest, showed me such a bright face of welcome,\nand spoke so cheerily, and was so happy to do anything for me, that I\nsuppose there never was such a fortunate little creature in the\nworld.\n\nWe got into such a chatty state that night, through Ada and my\nguardian drawing me out to tell them all about Caddy, that I went on\nprose, prose, prosing for a length of time. At last I got up to my\nown room, quite red to think how I had been holding forth, and then I\nheard a soft tap at my door. So I said, \"Come in!\" and there came in\na pretty little girl, neatly dressed in mourning, who dropped a\ncurtsy.\n\n\"If you please, miss,\" said the little girl in a soft voice, \"I am\nCharley.\"\n\n\"Why, so you are,\" said I, stooping down in astonishment and giving\nher a kiss. \"How glad am I to see you, Charley!\"\n\n\"If you please, miss,\" pursued Charley in the same soft voice, \"I'm\nyour maid.\"\n\n\"Charley?\"\n\n\"If you please, miss, I'm a present to you, with Mr. Jarndyce's\nlove.\"\n\nI sat down with my hand on Charley's neck and looked at Charley.\n\n\"And oh, miss,\" says Charley, clapping her hands, with the tears\nstarting down her dimpled cheeks, \"Tom's at school, if you please,\nand learning so good! And little Emma, she's with Mrs. Blinder, miss,\na-being took such care of! And Tom, he would have been at school--and\nEmma, she would have been left with Mrs. Blinder--and me, I should\nhave been here--all a deal sooner, miss; only Mr. Jarndyce thought\nthat Tom and Emma and me had better get a little used to parting\nfirst, we was so small. Don't cry, if you please, miss!\"\n\n\"I can't help it, Charley.\"\n\n\"No, miss, nor I can't help it,\" says Charley. \"And if you please,\nmiss, Mr. Jarndyce's love, and he thinks you'll like to teach me now\nand then. And if you please, Tom and Emma and me is to see each other\nonce a month. And I'm so happy and so thankful, miss,\" cried Charley\nwith a heaving heart, \"and I'll try to be such a good maid!\"\n\n\"Oh, Charley dear, never forget who did all this!\"\n\n\"No, miss, I never will. Nor Tom won't. Nor yet Emma. It was all you,\nmiss.\"\n\n\"I have known nothing of it. It was Mr. Jarndyce, Charley.\"\n\n\"Yes, miss, but it was all done for the love of you and that you\nmight be my mistress. If you please, miss, I am a little present with\nhis love, and it was all done for the love of you. Me and Tom was to\nbe sure to remember it.\"\n\nCharley dried her eyes and entered on her functions, going in her\nmatronly little way about and about the room and folding up\neverything she could lay her hands upon. Presently Charley came\ncreeping back to my side and said, \"Oh, don't cry, if you please,\nmiss.\"\n\nAnd I said again, \"I can't help it, Charley.\"\n\nAnd Charley said again, \"No, miss, nor I can't help it.\" And so,\nafter all, I did cry for joy indeed, and so did she.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV\n\nAn Appeal Case\n\n\nAs soon as Richard and I had held the conversation of which I have\ngiven an account, Richard communicated the state of his mind to Mr.\nJarndyce. I doubt if my guardian were altogether taken by surprise\nwhen he received the representation, though it caused him much\nuneasiness and disappointment. He and Richard were often closeted\ntogether, late at night and early in the morning, and passed whole\ndays in London, and had innumerable appointments with Mr. Kenge, and\nlaboured through a quantity of disagreeable business. While they were\nthus employed, my guardian, though he underwent considerable\ninconvenience from the state of the wind and rubbed his head so\nconstantly that not a single hair upon it ever rested in its right\nplace, was as genial with Ada and me as at any other time, but\nmaintained a steady reserve on these matters. And as our utmost\nendeavours could only elicit from Richard himself sweeping assurances\nthat everything was going on capitally and that it really was all\nright at last, our anxiety was not much relieved by him.\n\nWe learnt, however, as the time went on, that a new application was\nmade to the Lord Chancellor on Richard's behalf as an infant and a\nward, and I don't know what, and that there was a quantity of\ntalking, and that the Lord Chancellor described him in open court as\na vexatious and capricious infant, and that the matter was adjourned\nand readjourned, and referred, and reported on, and petitioned about\nuntil Richard began to doubt (as he told us) whether, if he entered\nthe army at all, it would not be as a veteran of seventy or eighty\nyears of age. At last an appointment was made for him to see the Lord\nChancellor again in his private room, and there the Lord Chancellor\nvery seriously reproved him for trifling with time and not knowing\nhis mind--\"a pretty good joke, I think,\" said Richard, \"from that\nquarter!\"--and at last it was settled that his application should be\ngranted. His name was entered at the Horse Guards as an applicant for\nan ensign's commission; the purchase-money was deposited at an\nagent's; and Richard, in his usual characteristic way, plunged into a\nviolent course of military study and got up at five o'clock every\nmorning to practise the broadsword exercise.\n\nThus, vacation succeeded term, and term succeeded vacation. We\nsometimes heard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce as being in the paper or out\nof the paper, or as being to be mentioned, or as being to be spoken\nto; and it came on, and it went off. Richard, who was now in a\nprofessor's house in London, was able to be with us less frequently\nthan before; my guardian still maintained the same reserve; and so\ntime passed until the commission was obtained and Richard received\ndirections with it to join a regiment in Ireland.\n\nHe arrived post-haste with the intelligence one evening, and had a\nlong conference with my guardian. Upwards of an hour elapsed before\nmy guardian put his head into the room where Ada and I were sitting\nand said, \"Come in, my dears!\" We went in and found Richard, whom we\nhad last seen in high spirits, leaning on the chimney-piece looking\nmortified and angry.\n\n\"Rick and I, Ada,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"are not quite of one mind.\nCome, come, Rick, put a brighter face upon it!\"\n\n\"You are very hard with me, sir,\" said Richard. \"The harder because\nyou have been so considerate to me in all other respects and have\ndone me kindnesses that I can never acknowledge. I never could have\nbeen set right without you, sir.\"\n\n\"Well, well!\" said Mr. Jarndyce. \"I want to set you more right yet. I\nwant to set you more right with yourself.\"\n\n\"I hope you will excuse my saying, sir,\" returned Richard in a fiery\nway, but yet respectfully, \"that I think I am the best judge about\nmyself.\"\n\n\"I hope you will excuse my saying, my dear Rick,\" observed Mr.\nJarndyce with the sweetest cheerfulness and good humour, \"that it's\nquite natural in you to think so, but I don't think so. I must do my\nduty, Rick, or you could never care for me in cool blood; and I hope\nyou will always care for me, cool and hot.\"\n\nAda had turned so pale that he made her sit down in his reading-chair\nand sat beside her.\n\n\"It's nothing, my dear,\" he said, \"it's nothing. Rick and I have only\nhad a friendly difference, which we must state to you, for you are\nthe theme. Now you are afraid of what's coming.\"\n\n\"I am not indeed, cousin John,\" replied Ada with a smile, \"if it is\nto come from you.\"\n\n\"Thank you, my dear. Do you give me a minute's calm attention,\nwithout looking at Rick. And, little woman, do you likewise. My dear\ngirl,\" putting his hand on hers as it lay on the side of the\neasy-chair, \"you recollect the talk we had, we four when the little\nwoman told me of a little love affair?\"\n\n\"It is not likely that either Richard or I can ever forget your\nkindness that day, cousin John.\"\n\n\"I can never forget it,\" said Richard.\n\n\"And I can never forget it,\" said Ada.\n\n\"So much the easier what I have to say, and so much the easier for us\nto agree,\" returned my guardian, his face irradiated by the\ngentleness and honour of his heart. \"Ada, my bird, you should know\nthat Rick has now chosen his profession for the last time. All that\nhe has of certainty will be expended when he is fully equipped. He\nhas exhausted his resources and is bound henceforward to the tree he\nhas planted.\"\n\n\"Quite true that I have exhausted my present resources, and I am\nquite content to know it. But what I have of certainty, sir,\" said\nRichard, \"is not all I have.\"\n\n\"Rick, Rick!\" cried my guardian with a sudden terror in his manner,\nand in an altered voice, and putting up his hands as if he would have\nstopped his ears. \"For the love of God, don't found a hope or\nexpectation on the family curse! Whatever you do on this side the\ngrave, never give one lingering glance towards the horrible phantom\nthat has haunted us so many years. Better to borrow, better to beg,\nbetter to die!\"\n\nWe were all startled by the fervour of this warning. Richard bit his\nlip and held his breath, and glanced at me as if he felt, and knew\nthat I felt too, how much he needed it.\n\n\"Ada, my dear,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, recovering his cheerfulness,\n\"these are strong words of advice, but I live in Bleak House and have\nseen a sight here. Enough of that. All Richard had to start him in\nthe race of life is ventured. I recommend to him and you, for his\nsake and your own, that he should depart from us with the\nunderstanding that there is no sort of contract between you. I must\ngo further. I will be plain with you both. You were to confide freely\nin me, and I will confide freely in you. I ask you wholly to\nrelinquish, for the present, any tie but your relationship.\"\n\n\"Better to say at once, sir,\" returned Richard, \"that you renounce\nall confidence in me and that you advise Ada to do the same.\"\n\n\"Better to say nothing of the sort, Rick, because I don't mean it.\"\n\n\"You think I have begun ill, sir,\" retorted Richard. \"I HAVE, I\nknow.\"\n\n\"How I hoped you would begin, and how go on, I told you when we spoke\nof these things last,\" said Mr. Jarndyce in a cordial and encouraging\nmanner. \"You have not made that beginning yet, but there is a time\nfor all things, and yours is not gone by; rather, it is just now\nfully come. Make a clear beginning altogether. You two (very young,\nmy dears) are cousins. As yet, you are nothing more. What more may\ncome must come of being worked out, Rick, and no sooner.\"\n\n\"You are very hard with me, sir,\" said Richard. \"Harder than I could\nhave supposed you would be.\"\n\n\"My dear boy,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"I am harder with myself when I do\nanything that gives you pain. You have your remedy in your own hands.\nAda, it is better for him that he should be free and that there\nshould be no youthful engagement between you. Rick, it is better for\nher, much better; you owe it to her. Come! Each of you will do what\nis best for the other, if not what is best for yourselves.\"\n\n\"Why is it best, sir?\" returned Richard hastily. \"It was not when we\nopened our hearts to you. You did not say so then.\"\n\n\"I have had experience since. I don't blame you, Rick, but I have had\nexperience since.\"\n\n\"You mean of me, sir.\"\n\n\"Well! Yes, of both of you,\" said Mr. Jarndyce kindly. \"The time is\nnot come for your standing pledged to one another. It is not right,\nand I must not recognize it. Come, come, my young cousins, begin\nafresh! Bygones shall be bygones, and a new page turned for you to\nwrite your lives in.\"\n\nRichard gave an anxious glance at Ada but said nothing.\n\n\"I have avoided saying one word to either of you or to Esther,\" said\nMr. Jarndyce, \"until now, in order that we might be open as the day,\nand all on equal terms. I now affectionately advise, I now most\nearnestly entreat, you two to part as you came here. Leave all else\nto time, truth, and steadfastness. If you do otherwise, you will do\nwrong, and you will have made me do wrong in ever bringing you\ntogether.\"\n\nA long silence succeeded.\n\n\"Cousin Richard,\" said Ada then, raising her blue eyes tenderly to\nhis face, \"after what our cousin John has said, I think no choice is\nleft us. Your mind may be quite at ease about me, for you will leave\nme here under his care and will be sure that I can have nothing to\nwish for--quite sure if I guide myself by his advice. I--I don't\ndoubt, cousin Richard,\" said Ada, a little confused, \"that you are\nvery fond of me, and I--I don't think you will fall in love with\nanybody else. But I should like you to consider well about it too, as\nI should like you to be in all things very happy. You may trust in\nme, cousin Richard. I am not at all changeable; but I am not\nunreasonable, and should never blame you. Even cousins may be sorry\nto part; and in truth I am very, very sorry, Richard, though I know\nit's for your welfare. I shall always think of you affectionately,\nand often talk of you with Esther, and--and perhaps you will\nsometimes think a little of me, cousin Richard. So now,\" said Ada,\ngoing up to him and giving him her trembling hand, \"we are only\ncousins again, Richard--for the time perhaps--and I pray for a\nblessing on my dear cousin, wherever he goes!\"\n\nIt was strange to me that Richard should not be able to forgive my\nguardian for entertaining the very same opinion of him which he\nhimself had expressed of himself in much stronger terms to me. But it\nwas certainly the case. I observed with great regret that from this\nhour he never was as free and open with Mr. Jarndyce as he had been\nbefore. He had every reason given him to be so, but he was not; and\nsolely on his side, an estrangement began to arise between them.\n\nIn the business of preparation and equipment he soon lost himself,\nand even his grief at parting from Ada, who remained in Hertfordshire\nwhile he, Mr. Jarndyce, and I went up to London for a week. He\nremembered her by fits and starts, even with bursts of tears, and at\nsuch times would confide to me the heaviest self-reproaches. But in a\nfew minutes he would recklessly conjure up some undefinable means by\nwhich they were both to be made rich and happy for ever, and would\nbecome as gay as possible.\n\nIt was a busy time, and I trotted about with him all day long, buying\na variety of things of which he stood in need. Of the things he would\nhave bought if he had been left to his own ways I say nothing. He was\nperfectly confidential with me, and often talked so sensibly and\nfeelingly about his faults and his vigorous resolutions, and dwelt so\nmuch upon the encouragement he derived from these conversations that\nI could never have been tired if I had tried.\n\nThere used, in that week, to come backward and forward to our lodging\nto fence with Richard a person who had formerly been a cavalry\nsoldier; he was a fine bluff-looking man, of a frank free bearing,\nwith whom Richard had practised for some months. I heard so much\nabout him, not only from Richard, but from my guardian too, that I\nwas purposely in the room with my work one morning after breakfast\nwhen he came.\n\n\"Good morning, Mr. George,\" said my guardian, who happened to be\nalone with me. \"Mr. Carstone will be here directly. Meanwhile, Miss\nSummerson is very happy to see you, I know. Sit down.\"\n\nHe sat down, a little disconcerted by my presence, I thought, and\nwithout looking at me, drew his heavy sunburnt hand across and across\nhis upper lip.\n\n\"You are as punctual as the sun,\" said Mr. Jarndyce.\n\n\"Military time, sir,\" he replied. \"Force of habit. A mere habit in\nme, sir. I am not at all business-like.\"\n\n\"Yet you have a large establishment, too, I am told?\" said Mr.\nJarndyce.\n\n\"Not much of a one, sir. I keep a shooting gallery, but not much of a\none.\"\n\n\"And what kind of a shot and what kind of a swordsman do you make of\nMr. Carstone?\" said my guardian.\n\n\"Pretty good, sir,\" he replied, folding his arms upon his broad chest\nand looking very large. \"If Mr. Carstone was to give his full mind to\nit, he would come out very good.\"\n\n\"But he don't, I suppose?\" said my guardian.\n\n\"He did at first, sir, but not afterwards. Not his full mind. Perhaps\nhe has something else upon it--some young lady, perhaps.\" His bright\ndark eyes glanced at me for the first time.\n\n\"He has not me upon his mind, I assure you, Mr. George,\" said I,\nlaughing, \"though you seem to suspect me.\"\n\nHe reddened a little through his brown and made me a trooper's bow.\n\"No offence, I hope, miss. I am one of the roughs.\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" said I. \"I take it as a compliment.\"\n\nIf he had not looked at me before, he looked at me now in three or\nfour quick successive glances. \"I beg your pardon, sir,\" he said to\nmy guardian with a manly kind of diffidence, \"but you did me the\nhonour to mention the young lady's name--\"\n\n\"Miss Summerson.\"\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" he repeated, and looked at me again.\n\n\"Do you know the name?\" I asked.\n\n\"No, miss. To my knowledge I never heard it. I thought I had seen you\nsomewhere.\"\n\n\"I think not,\" I returned, raising my head from my work to look at\nhim; and there was something so genuine in his speech and manner that\nI was glad of the opportunity. \"I remember faces very well.\"\n\n\"So do I, miss!\" he returned, meeting my look with the fullness of\nhis dark eyes and broad forehead. \"Humph! What set me off, now, upon\nthat!\"\n\nHis once more reddening through his brown and being disconcerted by\nhis efforts to remember the association brought my guardian to his\nrelief.\n\n\"Have you many pupils, Mr. George?\"\n\n\"They vary in their number, sir. Mostly they're but a small lot to\nlive by.\"\n\n\"And what classes of chance people come to practise at your gallery?\"\n\n\"All sorts, sir. Natives and foreigners. From gentlemen to\n'prentices. I have had Frenchwomen come, before now, and show\nthemselves dabs at pistol-shooting. Mad people out of number, of\ncourse, but THEY go everywhere where the doors stand open.\"\n\n\"People don't come with grudges and schemes of finishing their\npractice with live targets, I hope?\" said my guardian, smiling.\n\n\"Not much of that, sir, though that HAS happened. Mostly they come\nfor skill--or idleness. Six of one, and half-a-dozen of the other. I\nbeg your pardon,\" said Mr. George, sitting stiffly upright and\nsquaring an elbow on each knee, \"but I believe you're a Chancery\nsuitor, if I have heard correct?\"\n\n\"I am sorry to say I am.\"\n\n\"I have had one of YOUR compatriots in my time, sir.\"\n\n\"A Chancery suitor?\" returned my guardian. \"How was that?\"\n\n\"Why, the man was so badgered and worried and tortured by being\nknocked about from post to pillar, and from pillar to post,\" said Mr.\nGeorge, \"that he got out of sorts. I don't believe he had any idea of\ntaking aim at anybody, but he was in that condition of resentment and\nviolence that he would come and pay for fifty shots and fire away\ntill he was red hot. One day I said to him when there was nobody by\nand he had been talking to me angrily about his wrongs, 'If this\npractice is a safety-valve, comrade, well and good; but I don't\naltogether like your being so bent upon it in your present state of\nmind; I'd rather you took to something else.' I was on my guard for a\nblow, he was that passionate; but he received it in very good part\nand left off directly. We shook hands and struck up a sort of\nfriendship.\"\n\n\"What was that man?\" asked my guardian in a new tone of interest.\n\n\"Why, he began by being a small Shropshire farmer before they made a\nbaited bull of him,\" said Mr. George.\n\n\"Was his name Gridley?\"\n\n\"It was, sir.\"\n\nMr. George directed another succession of quick bright glances at me\nas my guardian and I exchanged a word or two of surprise at the\ncoincidence, and I therefore explained to him how we knew the name.\nHe made me another of his soldierly bows in acknowledgment of what he\ncalled my condescension.\n\n\"I don't know,\" he said as he looked at me, \"what it is that sets me\noff again--but--bosh! What's my head running against!\" He passed one\nof his heavy hands over his crisp dark hair as if to sweep the broken\nthoughts out of his mind and sat a little forward, with one arm\nakimbo and the other resting on his leg, looking in a brown study at\nthe ground.\n\n\"I am sorry to learn that the same state of mind has got this Gridley\ninto new troubles and that he is in hiding,\" said my guardian.\n\n\"So I am told, sir,\" returned Mr. George, still musing and looking on\nthe ground. \"So I am told.\"\n\n\"You don't know where?\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" returned the trooper, lifting up his eyes and coming out\nof his reverie. \"I can't say anything about him. He will be worn out\nsoon, I expect. You may file a strong man's heart away for a good\nmany years, but it will tell all of a sudden at last.\"\n\nRichard's entrance stopped the conversation. Mr. George rose, made me\nanother of his soldierly bows, wished my guardian a good day, and\nstrode heavily out of the room.\n\nThis was the morning of the day appointed for Richard's departure. We\nhad no more purchases to make now; I had completed all his packing\nearly in the afternoon; and our time was disengaged until night, when\nhe was to go to Liverpool for Holyhead. Jarndyce and Jarndyce being\nagain expected to come on that day, Richard proposed to me that we\nshould go down to the court and hear what passed. As it was his last\nday, and he was eager to go, and I had never been there, I gave my\nconsent and we walked down to Westminster, where the court was then\nsitting. We beguiled the way with arrangements concerning the letters\nthat Richard was to write to me and the letters that I was to write\nto him and with a great many hopeful projects. My guardian knew where\nwe were going and therefore was not with us.\n\nWhen we came to the court, there was the Lord Chancellor--the same\nwhom I had seen in his private room in Lincoln's Inn--sitting in\ngreat state and gravity on the bench, with the mace and seals on a\nred table below him and an immense flat nosegay, like a little\ngarden, which scented the whole court. Below the table, again, was a\nlong row of solicitors, with bundles of papers on the matting at\ntheir feet; and then there were the gentlemen of the bar in wigs and\ngowns--some awake and some asleep, and one talking, and nobody paying\nmuch attention to what he said. The Lord Chancellor leaned back in\nhis very easy chair with his elbow on the cushioned arm and his\nforehead resting on his hand; some of those who were present dozed;\nsome read the newspapers; some walked about or whispered in groups:\nall seemed perfectly at their ease, by no means in a hurry, very\nunconcerned, and extremely comfortable.\n\nTo see everything going on so smoothly and to think of the roughness\nof the suitors' lives and deaths; to see all that full dress and\nceremony and to think of the waste, and want, and beggared misery it\nrepresented; to consider that while the sickness of hope deferred was\nraging in so many hearts this polite show went calmly on from day to\nday, and year to year, in such good order and composure; to behold\nthe Lord Chancellor and the whole array of practitioners under him\nlooking at one another and at the spectators as if nobody had ever\nheard that all over England the name in which they were assembled was\na bitter jest, was held in universal horror, contempt, and\nindignation, was known for something so flagrant and bad that little\nshort of a miracle could bring any good out of it to any one--this\nwas so curious and self-contradictory to me, who had no experience of\nit, that it was at first incredible, and I could not comprehend it. I\nsat where Richard put me, and tried to listen, and looked about me;\nbut there seemed to be no reality in the whole scene except poor\nlittle Miss Flite, the madwoman, standing on a bench and nodding at\nit.\n\nMiss Flite soon espied us and came to where we sat. She gave me a\ngracious welcome to her domain and indicated, with much gratification\nand pride, its principal attractions. Mr. Kenge also came to speak to\nus and did the honours of the place in much the same way, with the\nbland modesty of a proprietor. It was not a very good day for a\nvisit, he said; he would have preferred the first day of term; but it\nwas imposing, it was imposing.\n\nWhen we had been there half an hour or so, the case in progress--if I\nmay use a phrase so ridiculous in such a connexion--seemed to die out\nof its own vapidity, without coming, or being by anybody expected to\ncome, to any result. The Lord Chancellor then threw down a bundle of\npapers from his desk to the gentlemen below him, and somebody said,\n\"Jarndyce and Jarndyce.\" Upon this there was a buzz, and a laugh, and\na general withdrawal of the bystanders, and a bringing in of great\nheaps, and piles, and bags and bags full of papers.\n\nI think it came on \"for further directions\"--about some bill of\ncosts, to the best of my understanding, which was confused enough.\nBut I counted twenty-three gentlemen in wigs who said they were \"in\nit,\" and none of them appeared to understand it much better than I.\nThey chatted about it with the Lord Chancellor, and contradicted and\nexplained among themselves, and some of them said it was this way,\nand some of them said it was that way, and some of them jocosely\nproposed to read huge volumes of affidavits, and there was more\nbuzzing and laughing, and everybody concerned was in a state of idle\nentertainment, and nothing could be made of it by anybody. After an\nhour or so of this, and a good many speeches being begun and cut\nshort, it was \"referred back for the present,\" as Mr. Kenge said, and\nthe papers were bundled up again before the clerks had finished\nbringing them in.\n\nI glanced at Richard on the termination of these hopeless proceedings\nand was shocked to see the worn look of his handsome young face. \"It\ncan't last for ever, Dame Durden. Better luck next time!\" was all he\nsaid.\n\nI had seen Mr. Guppy bringing in papers and arranging them for Mr.\nKenge; and he had seen me and made me a forlorn bow, which rendered\nme desirous to get out of the court. Richard had given me his arm and\nwas taking me away when Mr. Guppy came up.\n\n\"I beg your pardon, Mr. Carstone,\" said he in a whisper, \"and Miss\nSummerson's also, but there's a lady here, a friend of mine, who\nknows her and wishes to have the pleasure of shaking hands.\" As he\nspoke, I saw before me, as if she had started into bodily shape from\nmy remembrance, Mrs. Rachael of my godmother's house.\n\n\"How do you do, Esther?\" said she. \"Do you recollect me?\"\n\nI gave her my hand and told her yes and that she was very little\naltered.\n\n\"I wonder you remember those times, Esther,\" she returned with her\nold asperity. \"They are changed now. Well! I am glad to see you, and\nglad you are not too proud to know me.\" But indeed she seemed\ndisappointed that I was not.\n\n\"Proud, Mrs. Rachael!\" I remonstrated.\n\n\"I am married, Esther,\" she returned, coldly correcting me, \"and am\nMrs. Chadband. Well! I wish you good day, and I hope you'll do well.\"\n\nMr. Guppy, who had been attentive to this short dialogue, heaved a\nsigh in my ear and elbowed his own and Mrs. Rachael's way through the\nconfused little crowd of people coming in and going out, which we\nwere in the midst of and which the change in the business had brought\ntogether. Richard and I were making our way through it, and I was yet\nin the first chill of the late unexpected recognition when I saw,\ncoming towards us, but not seeing us, no less a person than Mr.\nGeorge. He made nothing of the people about him as he tramped on,\nstaring over their heads into the body of the court.\n\n\"George!\" said Richard as I called his attention to him.\n\n\"You are well met, sir,\" he returned. \"And you, miss. Could you point\na person out for me, I want? I don't understand these places.\"\n\nTurning as he spoke and making an easy way for us, he stopped when we\nwere out of the press in a corner behind a great red curtain.\n\n\"There's a little cracked old woman,\" he began, \"that--\"\n\nI put up my finger, for Miss Flite was close by me, having kept\nbeside me all the time and having called the attention of several of\nher legal acquaintance to me (as I had overheard to my confusion) by\nwhispering in their ears, \"Hush! Fitz Jarndyce on my left!\"\n\n\"Hem!\" said Mr. George. \"You remember, miss, that we passed some\nconversation on a certain man this morning? Gridley,\" in a low\nwhisper behind his hand.\n\n\"Yes,\" said I.\n\n\"He is hiding at my place. I couldn't mention it. Hadn't his\nauthority. He is on his last march, miss, and has a whim to see her.\nHe says they can feel for one another, and she has been almost as\ngood as a friend to him here. I came down to look for her, for when I\nsat by Gridley this afternoon, I seemed to hear the roll of the\nmuffled drums.\"\n\n\"Shall I tell her?\" said I.\n\n\"Would you be so good?\" he returned with a glance of something like\napprehension at Miss Flite. \"It's a providence I met you, miss; I\ndoubt if I should have known how to get on with that lady.\" And he\nput one hand in his breast and stood upright in a martial attitude as\nI informed little Miss Flite, in her ear, of the purport of his kind\nerrand.\n\n\"My angry friend from Shropshire! Almost as celebrated as myself!\"\nshe exclaimed. \"Now really! My dear, I will wait upon him with the\ngreatest pleasure.\"\n\n\"He is living concealed at Mr. George's,\" said I. \"Hush! This is Mr.\nGeorge.\"\n\n\"In--deed!\" returned Miss Flite. \"Very proud to have the honour! A\nmilitary man, my dear. You know, a perfect general!\" she whispered to\nme.\n\nPoor Miss Flite deemed it necessary to be so courtly and polite, as a\nmark of her respect for the army, and to curtsy so very often that it\nwas no easy matter to get her out of the court. When this was at last\ndone, and addressing Mr. George as \"General,\" she gave him her arm,\nto the great entertainment of some idlers who were looking on, he was\nso discomposed and begged me so respectfully \"not to desert him\" that\nI could not make up my mind to do it, especially as Miss Flite was\nalways tractable with me and as she too said, \"Fitz Jarndyce, my\ndear, you will accompany us, of course.\" As Richard seemed quite\nwilling, and even anxious, that we should see them safely to their\ndestination, we agreed to do so. And as Mr. George informed us that\nGridley's mind had run on Mr. Jarndyce all the afternoon after\nhearing of their interview in the morning, I wrote a hasty note in\npencil to my guardian to say where we were gone and why. Mr. George\nsealed it at a coffee-house, that it might lead to no discovery, and\nwe sent it off by a ticket-porter.\n\nWe then took a hackney-coach and drove away to the neighbourhood of\nLeicester Square. We walked through some narrow courts, for which Mr.\nGeorge apologized, and soon came to the shooting gallery, the door of\nwhich was closed. As he pulled a bell-handle which hung by a chain to\nthe door-post, a very respectable old gentleman with grey hair,\nwearing spectacles, and dressed in a black spencer and gaiters and a\nbroad-brimmed hat, and carrying a large gold-beaded cane, addressed\nhim.\n\n\"I ask your pardon, my good friend,\" said he, \"but is this George's\nShooting Gallery?\"\n\n\"It is, sir,\" returned Mr. George, glancing up at the great letters\nin which that inscription was painted on the whitewashed wall.\n\n\"Oh! To be sure!\" said the old gentleman, following his eyes. \"Thank\nyou. Have you rung the bell?\"\n\n\"My name is George, sir, and I have rung the bell.\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed?\" said the old gentleman. \"Your name is George? Then I am\nhere as soon as you, you see. You came for me, no doubt?\"\n\n\"No, sir. You have the advantage of me.\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed?\" said the old gentleman. \"Then it was your young man who\ncame for me. I am a physician and was requested--five minutes ago--to\ncome and visit a sick man at George's Shooting Gallery.\"\n\n\"The muffled drums,\" said Mr. George, turning to Richard and me and\ngravely shaking his head. \"It's quite correct, sir. Will you please\nto walk in.\"\n\nThe door being at that moment opened by a very singular-looking\nlittle man in a green-baize cap and apron, whose face and hands and\ndress were blackened all over, we passed along a dreary passage into\na large building with bare brick walls where there were targets, and\nguns, and swords, and other things of that kind. When we had all\narrived here, the physician stopped, and taking off his hat, appeared\nto vanish by magic and to leave another and quite a different man in\nhis place.\n\n\"Now lookee here, George,\" said the man, turning quickly round upon\nhim and tapping him on the breast with a large forefinger. \"You know\nme, and I know you. You're a man of the world, and I'm a man of the\nworld. My name's Bucket, as you are aware, and I have got a\npeace-warrant against Gridley. You have kept him out of the way a\nlong time, and you have been artful in it, and it does you credit.\"\n\nMr. George, looking hard at him, bit his lip and shook his head.\n\n\"Now, George,\" said the other, keeping close to him, \"you're a\nsensible man and a well-conducted man; that's what YOU are, beyond a\ndoubt. And mind you, I don't talk to you as a common character,\nbecause you have served your country and you know that when duty\ncalls we must obey. Consequently you're very far from wanting to give\ntrouble. If I required assistance, you'd assist me; that's what YOU'D\ndo. Phil Squod, don't you go a-sidling round the gallery like\nthat\"--the dirty little man was shuffling about with his shoulder\nagainst the wall, and his eyes on the intruder, in a manner that\nlooked threatening--\"because I know you and won't have it.\"\n\n\"Phil!\" said Mr. George.\n\n\"Yes, guv'ner.\"\n\n\"Be quiet.\"\n\nThe little man, with a low growl, stood still.\n\n\"Ladies and gentlemen,\" said Mr. Bucket, \"you'll excuse anything that\nmay appear to be disagreeable in this, for my name's Inspector Bucket\nof the Detective, and I have a duty to perform. George, I know where\nmy man is because I was on the roof last night and saw him through\nthe skylight, and you along with him. He is in there, you know,\"\npointing; \"that's where HE is--on a sofy. Now I must see my man, and\nI must tell my man to consider himself in custody; but you know me,\nand you know I don't want to take any uncomfortable measures. You\ngive me your word, as from one man to another (and an old soldier,\nmind you, likewise), that it's honourable between us two, and I'll\naccommodate you to the utmost of my power.\"\n\n\"I give it,\" was the reply. \"But it wasn't handsome in you, Mr.\nBucket.\"\n\n\"Gammon, George! Not handsome?\" said Mr. Bucket, tapping him on his\nbroad breast again and shaking hands with him. \"I don't say it wasn't\nhandsome in you to keep my man so close, do I? Be equally\ngood-tempered to me, old boy! Old William Tell, Old Shaw, the Life\nGuardsman! Why, he's a model of the whole British army in himself,\nladies and gentlemen. I'd give a fifty-pun' note to be such a figure\nof a man!\"\n\nThe affair being brought to this head, Mr. George, after a little\nconsideration, proposed to go in first to his comrade (as he called\nhim), taking Miss Flite with him. Mr. Bucket agreeing, they went away\nto the further end of the gallery, leaving us sitting and standing by\na table covered with guns. Mr. Bucket took this opportunity of\nentering into a little light conversation, asking me if I were afraid\nof fire-arms, as most young ladies were; asking Richard if he were a\ngood shot; asking Phil Squod which he considered the best of those\nrifles and what it might be worth first-hand, telling him in return\nthat it was a pity he ever gave way to his temper, for he was\nnaturally so amiable that he might have been a young woman, and\nmaking himself generally agreeable.\n\nAfter a time he followed us to the further end of the gallery, and\nRichard and I were going quietly away when Mr. George came after us.\nHe said that if we had no objection to see his comrade, he would take\na visit from us very kindly. The words had hardly passed his lips\nwhen the bell was rung and my guardian appeared, \"on the chance,\" he\nslightly observed, \"of being able to do any little thing for a poor\nfellow involved in the same misfortune as himself.\" We all four went\nback together and went into the place where Gridley was.\n\nIt was a bare room, partitioned off from the gallery with unpainted\nwood. As the screening was not more than eight or ten feet high and\nonly enclosed the sides, not the top, the rafters of the high gallery\nroof were overhead, and the skylight through which Mr. Bucket had\nlooked down. The sun was low--near setting--and its light came redly\nin above, without descending to the ground. Upon a plain\ncanvas-covered sofa lay the man from Shropshire, dressed much as we\nhad seen him last, but so changed that at first I recognized no\nlikeness in his colourless face to what I recollected.\n\nHe had been still writing in his hiding-place, and still dwelling on\nhis grievances, hour after hour. A table and some shelves were\ncovered with manuscript papers and with worn pens and a medley of\nsuch tokens. Touchingly and awfully drawn together, he and the little\nmad woman were side by side and, as it were, alone. She sat on a\nchair holding his hand, and none of us went close to them.\n\nHis voice had faded, with the old expression of his face, with his\nstrength, with his anger, with his resistance to the wrongs that had\nat last subdued him. The faintest shadow of an object full of form\nand colour is such a picture of it as he was of the man from\nShropshire whom we had spoken with before.\n\nHe inclined his head to Richard and me and spoke to my guardian.\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce, it is very kind of you to come to see me. I am not\nlong to be seen, I think. I am very glad to take your hand, sir. You\nare a good man, superior to injustice, and God knows I honour you.\"\n\nThey shook hands earnestly, and my guardian said some words of\ncomfort to him.\n\n\"It may seem strange to you, sir,\" returned Gridley; \"I should not\nhave liked to see you if this had been the first time of our meeting.\nBut you know I made a fight for it, you know I stood up with my\nsingle hand against them all, you know I told them the truth to the\nlast, and told them what they were, and what they had done to me; so\nI don't mind your seeing me, this wreck.\"\n\n\"You have been courageous with them many and many a time,\" returned\nmy guardian.\n\n\"Sir, I have been,\" with a faint smile. \"I told you what would come\nof it when I ceased to be so, and see here! Look at us--look at us!\"\nHe drew the hand Miss Flite held through her arm and brought her\nsomething nearer to him.\n\n\"This ends it. Of all my old associations, of all my old pursuits and\nhopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul alone\ncomes natural to me, and I am fit for. There is a tie of many\nsuffering years between us two, and it is the only tie I ever had on\nearth that Chancery has not broken.\"\n\n\"Accept my blessing, Gridley,\" said Miss Flite in tears. \"Accept my\nblessing!\"\n\n\"I thought, boastfully, that they never could break my heart, Mr.\nJarndyce. I was resolved that they should not. I did believe that I\ncould, and would, charge them with being the mockery they were until\nI died of some bodily disorder. But I am worn out. How long I have\nbeen wearing out, I don't know; I seemed to break down in an hour. I\nhope they may never come to hear of it. I hope everybody here will\nlead them to believe that I died defying them, consistently and\nperseveringly, as I did through so many years.\"\n\nHere Mr. Bucket, who was sitting in a corner by the door,\ngood-naturedly offered such consolation as he could administer.\n\n\"Come, come!\" he said from his corner. \"Don't go on in that way, Mr.\nGridley. You are only a little low. We are all of us a little low\nsometimes. I am. Hold up, hold up! You'll lose your temper with the\nwhole round of 'em, again and again; and I shall take you on a score\nof warrants yet, if I have luck.\"\n\nHe only shook his head.\n\n\"Don't shake your head,\" said Mr. Bucket. \"Nod it; that's what I want\nto see you do. Why, Lord bless your soul, what times we have had\ntogether! Haven't I seen you in the Fleet over and over again for\ncontempt? Haven't I come into court, twenty afternoons for no other\npurpose than to see you pin the Chancellor like a bull-dog? Don't you\nremember when you first began to threaten the lawyers, and the peace\nwas sworn against you two or three times a week? Ask the little old\nlady there; she has been always present. Hold up, Mr. Gridley, hold\nup, sir!\"\n\n\"What are you going to do about him?\" asked George in a low voice.\n\n\"I don't know yet,\" said Bucket in the same tone. Then resuming his\nencouragement, he pursued aloud: \"Worn out, Mr. Gridley? After\ndodging me for all these weeks and forcing me to climb the roof here\nlike a tom cat and to come to see you as a doctor? That ain't like\nbeing worn out. I should think not! Now I tell you what you want. You\nwant excitement, you know, to keep YOU up; that's what YOU want.\nYou're used to it, and you can't do without it. I couldn't myself.\nVery well, then; here's this warrant got by Mr. Tulkinghorn of\nLincoln's Inn Fields, and backed into half-a-dozen counties since.\nWhat do you say to coming along with me, upon this warrant, and\nhaving a good angry argument before the magistrates? It'll do you\ngood; it'll freshen you up and get you into training for another turn\nat the Chancellor. Give in? Why, I am surprised to hear a man of your\nenergy talk of giving in. You mustn't do that. You're half the fun of\nthe fair in the Court of Chancery. George, you lend Mr. Gridley a\nhand, and let's see now whether he won't be better up than down.\"\n\n\"He is very weak,\" said the trooper in a low voice.\n\n\"Is he?\" returned Bucket anxiously. \"I only want to rouse him. I\ndon't like to see an old acquaintance giving in like this. It would\ncheer him up more than anything if I could make him a little waxy\nwith me. He's welcome to drop into me, right and left, if he likes. I\nshall never take advantage of it.\"\n\nThe roof rang with a scream from Miss Flite, which still rings in my\nears.\n\n\"Oh, no, Gridley!\" she cried as he fell heavily and calmly back from\nbefore her. \"Not without my blessing. After so many years!\"\n\nThe sun was down, the light had gradually stolen from the roof, and\nthe shadow had crept upward. But to me the shadow of that pair, one\nliving and one dead, fell heavier on Richard's departure than the\ndarkness of the darkest night. And through Richard's farewell words I\nheard it echoed: \"Of all my old associations, of all my old pursuits\nand hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul\nalone comes natural to me, and I am fit for. There is a tie of many\nsuffering years between us two, and it is the only tie I ever had on\nearth that Chancery has not broken!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\n\nMrs. Snagsby Sees It All\n\n\nThere is disquietude in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. Black\nsuspicion hides in that peaceful region. The mass of Cook's Courtiers\nare in their usual state of mind, no better and no worse; but Mr.\nSnagsby is changed, and his little woman knows it.\n\nFor Tom-all-Alone's and Lincoln's Inn Fields persist in harnessing\nthemselves, a pair of ungovernable coursers, to the chariot of Mr.\nSnagsby's imagination; and Mr. Bucket drives; and the passengers are\nJo and Mr. Tulkinghorn; and the complete equipage whirls though the\nlaw-stationery business at wild speed all round the clock. Even in\nthe little front kitchen where the family meals are taken, it rattles\naway at a smoking pace from the dinner-table, when Mr. Snagsby pauses\nin carving the first slice of the leg of mutton baked with potatoes\nand stares at the kitchen wall.\n\nMr. Snagsby cannot make out what it is that he has had to do with.\nSomething is wrong somewhere, but what something, what may come of\nit, to whom, when, and from which unthought of and unheard of quarter\nis the puzzle of his life. His remote impressions of the robes and\ncoronets, the stars and garters, that sparkle through the\nsurface-dust of Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers; his veneration for the\nmysteries presided over by that best and closest of his customers,\nwhom all the Inns of Court, all Chancery Lane, and all the legal\nneighbourhood agree to hold in awe; his remembrance of Detective Mr.\nBucket with his forefinger and his confidential manner, impossible to\nbe evaded or declined, persuade him that he is a party to some\ndangerous secret without knowing what it is. And it is the fearful\npeculiarity of this condition that, at any hour of his daily life, at\nany opening of the shop-door, at any pull of the bell, at any\nentrance of a messenger, or any delivery of a letter, the secret may\ntake air and fire, explode, and blow up--Mr. Bucket only knows whom.\n\nFor which reason, whenever a man unknown comes into the shop (as many\nmen unknown do) and says, \"Is Mr. Snagsby in?\" or words to that\ninnocent effect, Mr. Snagsby's heart knocks hard at his guilty\nbreast. He undergoes so much from such inquiries that when they are\nmade by boys he revenges himself by flipping at their ears over the\ncounter and asking the young dogs what they mean by it and why they\ncan't speak out at once? More impracticable men and boys persist in\nwalking into Mr. Snagsby's sleep and terrifying him with\nunaccountable questions, so that often when the cock at the little\ndairy in Cursitor Street breaks out in his usual absurd way about the\nmorning, Mr. Snagsby finds himself in a crisis of nightmare, with his\nlittle woman shaking him and saying \"What's the matter with the man!\"\n\nThe little woman herself is not the least item in his difficulty. To\nknow that he is always keeping a secret from her, that he has under\nall circumstances to conceal and hold fast a tender double tooth,\nwhich her sharpness is ever ready to twist out of his head, gives Mr.\nSnagsby, in her dentistical presence, much of the air of a dog who\nhas a reservation from his master and will look anywhere rather than\nmeet his eye.\n\nThese various signs and tokens, marked by the little woman, are not\nlost upon her. They impel her to say, \"Snagsby has something on his\nmind!\" And thus suspicion gets into Cook's Court, Cursitor Street.\nFrom suspicion to jealousy, Mrs. Snagsby finds the road as natural\nand short as from Cook's Court to Chancery Lane. And thus jealousy\ngets into Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. Once there (and it was\nalways lurking thereabout), it is very active and nimble in Mrs.\nSnagsby's breast, prompting her to nocturnal examinations of Mr.\nSnagsby's pockets; to secret perusals of Mr. Snagsby's letters; to\nprivate researches in the day book and ledger, till, cash-box, and\niron safe; to watchings at windows, listenings behind doors, and a\ngeneral putting of this and that together by the wrong end.\n\nMrs. Snagsby is so perpetually on the alert that the house becomes\nghostly with creaking boards and rustling garments. The 'prentices\nthink somebody may have been murdered there in bygone times. Guster\nholds certain loose atoms of an idea (picked up at Tooting, where\nthey were found floating among the orphans) that there is buried\nmoney underneath the cellar, guarded by an old man with a white\nbeard, who cannot get out for seven thousand years because he said\nthe Lord's Prayer backwards.\n\n\"Who was Nimrod?\" Mrs. Snagsby repeatedly inquires of herself. \"Who\nwas that lady--that creature? And who is that boy?\" Now, Nimrod being\nas dead as the mighty hunter whose name Mrs. Snagsby has\nappropriated, and the lady being unproducible, she directs her mental\neye, for the present, with redoubled vigilance to the boy. \"And who,\"\nquoth Mrs. Snagsby for the thousand and first time, \"is that boy? Who\nis that--!\" And there Mrs. Snagsby is seized with an inspiration.\n\nHe has no respect for Mr. Chadband. No, to be sure, and he wouldn't\nhave, of course. Naturally he wouldn't, under those contagious\ncircumstances. He was invited and appointed by Mr. Chadband--why,\nMrs. Snagsby heard it herself with her own ears!--to come back, and\nbe told where he was to go, to be addressed by Mr. Chadband; and he\nnever came! Why did he never come? Because he was told not to come.\nWho told him not to come? Who? Ha, ha! Mrs. Snagsby sees it all.\n\nBut happily (and Mrs. Snagsby tightly shakes her head and tightly\nsmiles) that boy was met by Mr. Chadband yesterday in the streets;\nand that boy, as affording a subject which Mr. Chadband desires to\nimprove for the spiritual delight of a select congregation, was\nseized by Mr. Chadband and threatened with being delivered over to\nthe police unless he showed the reverend gentleman where he lived and\nunless he entered into, and fulfilled, an undertaking to appear in\nCook's Court to-morrow night, \"to--mor--row--night,\" Mrs. Snagsby\nrepeats for mere emphasis with another tight smile and another tight\nshake of her head; and to-morrow night that boy will be here, and\nto-morrow night Mrs. Snagsby will have her eye upon him and upon some\none else; and oh, you may walk a long while in your secret ways (says\nMrs. Snagsby with haughtiness and scorn), but you can't blind ME!\n\nMrs. Snagsby sounds no timbrel in anybody's ears, but holds her\npurpose quietly, and keeps her counsel. To-morrow comes, the savoury\npreparations for the Oil Trade come, the evening comes. Comes Mr.\nSnagsby in his black coat; come the Chadbands; come (when the gorging\nvessel is replete) the 'prentices and Guster, to be edified; comes at\nlast, with his slouching head, and his shuffle backward, and his\nshuffle forward, and his shuffle to the right, and his shuffle to the\nleft, and his bit of fur cap in his muddy hand, which he picks as if\nit were some mangy bird he had caught and was plucking before eating\nraw, Jo, the very, very tough subject Mr. Chadband is to improve.\n\nMrs. Snagsby screws a watchful glance on Jo as he is brought into the\nlittle drawing-room by Guster. He looks at Mr. Snagsby the moment he\ncomes in. Aha! Why does he look at Mr. Snagsby? Mr. Snagsby looks at\nhim. Why should he do that, but that Mrs. Snagsby sees it all? Why\nelse should that look pass between them, why else should Mr. Snagsby\nbe confused and cough a signal cough behind his hand? It is as clear\nas crystal that Mr. Snagsby is that boy's father.\n\n\"Peace, my friends,\" says Chadband, rising and wiping the oily\nexudations from his reverend visage. \"Peace be with us! My friends,\nwhy with us? Because,\" with his fat smile, \"it cannot be against us,\nbecause it must be for us; because it is not hardening, because it is\nsoftening; because it does not make war like the hawk, but comes home\nunto us like the dove. Therefore, my friends, peace be with us! My\nhuman boy, come forward!\"\n\nStretching forth his flabby paw, Mr. Chadband lays the same on Jo's\narm and considers where to station him. Jo, very doubtful of his\nreverend friend's intentions and not at all clear but that something\npractical and painful is going to be done to him, mutters, \"You let\nme alone. I never said nothink to you. You let me alone.\"\n\n\"No, my young friend,\" says Chadband smoothly, \"I will not let you\nalone. And why? Because I am a harvest-labourer, because I am a\ntoiler and a moiler, because you are delivered over unto me and are\nbecome as a precious instrument in my hands. My friends, may I so\nemploy this instrument as to use it to your advantage, to your\nprofit, to your gain, to your welfare, to your enrichment! My young\nfriend, sit upon this stool.\"\n\nJo, apparently possessed by an impression that the reverend gentleman\nwants to cut his hair, shields his head with both arms and is got\ninto the required position with great difficulty and every possible\nmanifestation of reluctance.\n\nWhen he is at last adjusted like a lay-figure, Mr. Chadband, retiring\nbehind the table, holds up his bear's-paw and says, \"My friends!\"\nThis is the signal for a general settlement of the audience. The\n'prentices giggle internally and nudge each other. Guster falls into\na staring and vacant state, compounded of a stunned admiration of Mr.\nChadband and pity for the friendless outcast whose condition touches\nher nearly. Mrs. Snagsby silently lays trains of gunpowder. Mrs.\nChadband composes herself grimly by the fire and warms her knees,\nfinding that sensation favourable to the reception of eloquence.\n\nIt happens that Mr. Chadband has a pulpit habit of fixing some member\nof his congregation with his eye and fatly arguing his points with\nthat particular person, who is understood to be expected to be moved\nto an occasional grunt, groan, gasp, or other audible expression of\ninward working, which expression of inward working, being echoed by\nsome elderly lady in the next pew and so communicated like a game of\nforfeits through a circle of the more fermentable sinners present,\nserves the purpose of parliamentary cheering and gets Mr. Chadband's\nsteam up. From mere force of habit, Mr. Chadband in saying \"My\nfriends!\" has rested his eye on Mr. Snagsby and proceeds to make that\nill-starred stationer, already sufficiently confused, the immediate\nrecipient of his discourse.\n\n\"We have here among us, my friends,\" says Chadband, \"a Gentile and a\nheathen, a dweller in the tents of Tom-all-Alone's and a mover-on\nupon the surface of the earth. We have here among us, my friends,\"\nand Mr. Chadband, untwisting the point with his dirty thumb-nail,\nbestows an oily smile on Mr. Snagsby, signifying that he will throw\nhim an argumentative back-fall presently if he be not already down,\n\"a brother and a boy. Devoid of parents, devoid of relations, devoid\nof flocks and herds, devoid of gold and silver and of precious\nstones. Now, my friends, why do I say he is devoid of these\npossessions? Why? Why is he?\" Mr. Chadband states the question as if\nhe were propounding an entirely new riddle of much ingenuity and\nmerit to Mr. Snagsby and entreating him not to give it up.\n\nMr. Snagsby, greatly perplexed by the mysterious look he received\njust now from his little woman--at about the period when Mr. Chadband\nmentioned the word parents--is tempted into modestly remarking, \"I\ndon't know, I'm sure, sir.\" On which interruption Mrs. Chadband\nglares and Mrs. Snagsby says, \"For shame!\"\n\n\"I hear a voice,\" says Chadband; \"is it a still small voice, my\nfriends? I fear not, though I fain would hope so--\"\n\n\"Ah--h!\" from Mrs. Snagsby.\n\n\"Which says, 'I don't know.' Then I will tell you why. I say this\nbrother present here among us is devoid of parents, devoid of\nrelations, devoid of flocks and herds, devoid of gold, of silver, and\nof precious stones because he is devoid of the light that shines in\nupon some of us. What is that light? What is it? I ask you, what is\nthat light?\"\n\nMr. Chadband draws back his head and pauses, but Mr. Snagsby is not\nto be lured on to his destruction again. Mr. Chadband, leaning\nforward over the table, pierces what he has got to follow directly\ninto Mr. Snagsby with the thumb-nail already mentioned.\n\n\"It is,\" says Chadband, \"the ray of rays, the sun of suns, the moon\nof moons, the star of stars. It is the light of Terewth.\"\n\nMr. Chadband draws himself up again and looks triumphantly at Mr.\nSnagsby as if he would be glad to know how he feels after that.\n\n\"Of Terewth,\" says Mr. Chadband, hitting him again. \"Say not to me\nthat it is NOT the lamp of lamps. I say to you it is. I say to you, a\nmillion of times over, it is. It is! I say to you that I will\nproclaim it to you, whether you like it or not; nay, that the less\nyou like it, the more I will proclaim it to you. With a\nspeaking-trumpet! I say to you that if you rear yourself against it,\nyou shall fall, you shall be bruised, you shall be battered, you\nshall be flawed, you shall be smashed.\"\n\nThe present effect of this flight of oratory--much admired for its\ngeneral power by Mr. Chadband's followers--being not only to make Mr.\nChadband unpleasantly warm, but to represent the innocent Mr. Snagsby\nin the light of a determined enemy to virtue, with a forehead of\nbrass and a heart of adamant, that unfortunate tradesman becomes yet\nmore disconcerted and is in a very advanced state of low spirits and\nfalse position when Mr. Chadband accidentally finishes him.\n\n\"My friends,\" he resumes after dabbing his fat head for some\ntime--and it smokes to such an extent that he seems to light his\npocket-handkerchief at it, which smokes, too, after every dab--\"to\npursue the subject we are endeavouring with our lowly gifts to\nimprove, let us in a spirit of love inquire what is that Terewth to\nwhich I have alluded. For, my young friends,\" suddenly addressing the\n'prentices and Guster, to their consternation, \"if I am told by the\ndoctor that calomel or castor-oil is good for me, I may naturally ask\nwhat is calomel, and what is castor-oil. I may wish to be informed of\nthat before I dose myself with either or with both. Now, my young\nfriends, what is this Terewth then? Firstly (in a spirit of love),\nwhat is the common sort of Terewth--the working clothes--the\nevery-day wear, my young friends? Is it deception?\"\n\n\"Ah--h!\" from Mrs. Snagsby.\n\n\"Is it suppression?\"\n\nA shiver in the negative from Mrs. Snagsby.\n\n\"Is it reservation?\"\n\nA shake of the head from Mrs. Snagsby--very long and very tight.\n\n\"No, my friends, it is neither of these. Neither of these names\nbelongs to it. When this young heathen now among us--who is now, my\nfriends, asleep, the seal of indifference and perdition being set\nupon his eyelids; but do not wake him, for it is right that I should\nhave to wrestle, and to combat and to struggle, and to conquer, for\nhis sake--when this young hardened heathen told us a story of a cock,\nand of a bull, and of a lady, and of a sovereign, was THAT the\nTerewth? No. Or if it was partly, was it wholly and entirely? No, my\nfriends, no!\"\n\nIf Mr. Snagsby could withstand his little woman's look as it enters\nat his eyes, the windows of his soul, and searches the whole\ntenement, he were other than the man he is. He cowers and droops.\n\n\"Or, my juvenile friends,\" says Chadband, descending to the level of\ntheir comprehension with a very obtrusive demonstration in his\ngreasily meek smile of coming a long way downstairs for the purpose,\n\"if the master of this house was to go forth into the city and there\nsee an eel, and was to come back, and was to call unto him the\nmistress of this house, and was to say, 'Sarah, rejoice with me, for\nI have seen an elephant!' would THAT be Terewth?\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby in tears.\n\n\"Or put it, my juvenile friends, that he saw an elephant, and\nreturning said 'Lo, the city is barren, I have seen but an eel,'\nwould THAT be Terewth?\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby sobbing loudly.\n\n\"Or put it, my juvenile friends,\" said Chadband, stimulated by the\nsound, \"that the unnatural parents of this slumbering heathen--for\nparents he had, my juvenile friends, beyond a doubt--after casting\nhim forth to the wolves and the vultures, and the wild dogs and the\nyoung gazelles, and the serpents, went back to their dwellings and\nhad their pipes, and their pots, and their flutings and their\ndancings, and their malt liquors, and their butcher's meat and\npoultry, would THAT be Terewth?\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby replies by delivering herself a prey to spasms, not an\nunresisting prey, but a crying and a tearing one, so that Cook's\nCourt re-echoes with her shrieks. Finally, becoming cataleptic, she\nhas to be carried up the narrow staircase like a grand piano. After\nunspeakable suffering, productive of the utmost consternation, she is\npronounced, by expresses from the bedroom, free from pain, though\nmuch exhausted, in which state of affairs Mr. Snagsby, trampled and\ncrushed in the piano-forte removal, and extremely timid and feeble,\nventures to come out from behind the door in the drawing-room.\n\nAll this time Jo has been standing on the spot where he woke up, ever\npicking his cap and putting bits of fur in his mouth. He spits them\nout with a remorseful air, for he feels that it is in his nature to\nbe an unimprovable reprobate and that it's no good HIS trying to keep\nawake, for HE won't never know nothink. Though it may be, Jo, that\nthere is a history so interesting and affecting even to minds as near\nthe brutes as thine, recording deeds done on this earth for common\nmen, that if the Chadbands, removing their own persons from the\nlight, would but show it thee in simple reverence, would but leave it\nunimproved, would but regard it as being eloquent enough without\ntheir modest aid--it might hold thee awake, and thou might learn from\nit yet!\n\nJo never heard of any such book. Its compilers and the Reverend\nChadband are all one to him, except that he knows the Reverend\nChadband and would rather run away from him for an hour than hear him\ntalk for five minutes. \"It an't no good my waiting here no longer,\"\nthinks Jo. \"Mr. Snagsby an't a-going to say nothink to me to-night.\"\nAnd downstairs he shuffles.\n\nBut downstairs is the charitable Guster, holding by the handrail of\nthe kitchen stairs and warding off a fit, as yet doubtfully, the same\nhaving been induced by Mrs. Snagsby's screaming. She has her own\nsupper of bread and cheese to hand to Jo, with whom she ventures to\ninterchange a word or so for the first time.\n\n\"Here's something to eat, poor boy,\" says Guster.\n\n\"Thank'ee, mum,\" says Jo.\n\n\"Are you hungry?\"\n\n\"Jist!\" says Jo.\n\n\"What's gone of your father and your mother, eh?\"\n\nJo stops in the middle of a bite and looks petrified. For this orphan\ncharge of the Christian saint whose shrine was at Tooting has patted\nhim on the shoulder, and it is the first time in his life that any\ndecent hand has been so laid upon him.\n\n\"I never know'd nothink about 'em,\" says Jo.\n\n\"No more didn't I of mine,\" cries Guster. She is repressing symptoms\nfavourable to the fit when she seems to take alarm at something and\nvanishes down the stairs.\n\n\"Jo,\" whispers the law-stationer softly as the boy lingers on the\nstep.\n\n\"Here I am, Mr. Snagsby!\"\n\n\"I didn't know you were gone--there's another half-crown, Jo. It was\nquite right of you to say nothing about the lady the other night when\nwe were out together. It would breed trouble. You can't be too quiet,\nJo.\"\n\n\"I am fly, master!\"\n\nAnd so, good night.\n\nA ghostly shade, frilled and night-capped, follows the law-stationer\nto the room he came from and glides higher up. And henceforth he\nbegins, go where he will, to be attended by another shadow than his\nown, hardly less constant than his own, hardly less quiet than his\nown. And into whatsoever atmosphere of secrecy his own shadow may\npass, let all concerned in the secrecy beware! For the watchful Mrs.\nSnagsby is there too--bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, shadow of\nhis shadow.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI\n\nSharpshooters\n\n\nWintry morning, looking with dull eyes and sallow face upon the\nneighbourhood of Leicester Square, finds its inhabitants unwilling to\nget out of bed. Many of them are not early risers at the brightest of\ntimes, being birds of night who roost when the sun is high and are\nwide awake and keen for prey when the stars shine out. Behind dingy\nblind and curtain, in upper story and garret, skulking more or less\nunder false names, false hair, false titles, false jewellery, and\nfalse histories, a colony of brigands lie in their first sleep.\nGentlemen of the green-baize road who could discourse from personal\nexperience of foreign galleys and home treadmills; spies of strong\ngovernments that eternally quake with weakness and miserable fear,\nbroken traitors, cowards, bullies, gamesters, shufflers, swindlers,\nand false witnesses; some not unmarked by the branding-iron beneath\ntheir dirty braid; all with more cruelty in them than was in Nero,\nand more crime than is in Newgate. For howsoever bad the devil can be\nin fustian or smock-frock (and he can be very bad in both), he is a\nmore designing, callous, and intolerable devil when he sticks a pin\nin his shirt-front, calls himself a gentleman, backs a card or\ncolour, plays a game or so of billiards, and knows a little about\nbills and promissory notes than in any other form he wears. And in\nsuch form Mr. Bucket shall find him, when he will, still pervading\nthe tributary channels of Leicester Square.\n\nBut the wintry morning wants him not and wakes him not. It wakes Mr.\nGeorge of the shooting gallery and his familiar. They arise, roll up\nand stow away their mattresses. Mr. George, having shaved himself\nbefore a looking-glass of minute proportions, then marches out,\nbare-headed and bare-chested, to the pump in the little yard and anon\ncomes back shining with yellow soap, friction, drifting rain, and\nexceedingly cold water. As he rubs himself upon a large jack-towel,\nblowing like a military sort of diver just come up, his hair curling\ntighter and tighter on his sunburnt temples the more he rubs it so\nthat it looks as if it never could be loosened by any less coercive\ninstrument than an iron rake or a curry-comb--as he rubs, and puffs,\nand polishes, and blows, turning his head from side to side the more\nconveniently to excoriate his throat, and standing with his body well\nbent forward to keep the wet from his martial legs, Phil, on his\nknees lighting a fire, looks round as if it were enough washing for\nhim to see all that done, and sufficient renovation for one day to\ntake in the superfluous health his master throws off.\n\nWhen Mr. George is dry, he goes to work to brush his head with two\nhard brushes at once, to that unmerciful degree that Phil,\nshouldering his way round the gallery in the act of sweeping it,\nwinks with sympathy. This chafing over, the ornamental part of Mr.\nGeorge's toilet is soon performed. He fills his pipe, lights it, and\nmarches up and down smoking, as his custom is, while Phil, raising a\npowerful odour of hot rolls and coffee, prepares breakfast. He smokes\ngravely and marches in slow time. Perhaps this morning's pipe is\ndevoted to the memory of Gridley in his grave.\n\n\"And so, Phil,\" says George of the shooting gallery after several\nturns in silence, \"you were dreaming of the country last night?\"\n\nPhil, by the by, said as much in a tone of surprise as he scrambled\nout of bed.\n\n\"Yes, guv'ner.\"\n\n\"What was it like?\"\n\n\"I hardly know what it was like, guv'ner,\" said Phil, considering.\n\n\"How did you know it was the country?\"\n\n\"On account of the grass, I think. And the swans upon it,\" says Phil\nafter further consideration.\n\n\"What were the swans doing on the grass?\"\n\n\"They was a-eating of it, I expect,\" says Phil.\n\nThe master resumes his march, and the man resumes his preparation of\nbreakfast. It is not necessarily a lengthened preparation, being\nlimited to the setting forth of very simple breakfast requisites for\ntwo and the broiling of a rasher of bacon at the fire in the rusty\ngrate; but as Phil has to sidle round a considerable part of the\ngallery for every object he wants, and never brings two objects at\nonce, it takes time under the circumstances. At length the breakfast\nis ready. Phil announcing it, Mr. George knocks the ashes out of his\npipe on the hob, stands his pipe itself in the chimney corner, and\nsits down to the meal. When he has helped himself, Phil follows suit,\nsitting at the extreme end of the little oblong table and taking his\nplate on his knees. Either in humility, or to hide his blackened\nhands, or because it is his natural manner of eating.\n\n\"The country,\" says Mr. George, plying his knife and fork; \"why, I\nsuppose you never clapped your eyes on the country, Phil?\"\n\n\"I see the marshes once,\" says Phil, contentedly eating his\nbreakfast.\n\n\"What marshes?\"\n\n\"THE marshes, commander,\" returns Phil.\n\n\"Where are they?\"\n\n\"I don't know where they are,\" says Phil; \"but I see 'em, guv'ner.\nThey was flat. And miste.\"\n\nGovernor and commander are interchangeable terms with Phil,\nexpressive of the same respect and deference and applicable to nobody\nbut Mr. George.\n\n\"I was born in the country, Phil.\"\n\n\"Was you indeed, commander?\"\n\n\"Yes. And bred there.\"\n\nPhil elevates his one eyebrow, and after respectfully staring at his\nmaster to express interest, swallows a great gulp of coffee, still\nstaring at him.\n\n\"There's not a bird's note that I don't know,\" says Mr. George. \"Not\nmany an English leaf or berry that I couldn't name. Not many a tree\nthat I couldn't climb yet if I was put to it. I was a real country\nboy, once. My good mother lived in the country.\"\n\n\"She must have been a fine old lady, guv'ner,\" Phil observes.\n\n\"Aye! And not so old either, five and thirty years ago,\" says Mr.\nGeorge. \"But I'll wager that at ninety she would be near as upright\nas me, and near as broad across the shoulders.\"\n\n\"Did she die at ninety, guv'ner?\" inquires Phil.\n\n\"No. Bosh! Let her rest in peace, God bless her!\" says the\ntrooper. \"What set me on about country boys, and runaways, and\ngood-for-nothings? You, to be sure! So you never clapped your eyes\nupon the country--marshes and dreams excepted. Eh?\"\n\nPhil shakes his head.\n\n\"Do you want to see it?\"\n\n\"N-no, I don't know as I do, particular,\" says Phil.\n\n\"The town's enough for you, eh?\"\n\n\"Why, you see, commander,\" says Phil, \"I ain't acquainted with\nanythink else, and I doubt if I ain't a-getting too old to take to\nnovelties.\"\n\n\"How old ARE you, Phil?\" asks the trooper, pausing as he conveys his\nsmoking saucer to his lips.\n\n\"I'm something with a eight in it,\" says Phil. \"It can't be eighty.\nNor yet eighteen. It's betwixt 'em, somewheres.\"\n\nMr. George, slowly putting down his saucer without tasting its\ncontents, is laughingly beginning, \"Why, what the deuce, Phil--\" when\nhe stops, seeing that Phil is counting on his dirty fingers.\n\n\"I was just eight,\" says Phil, \"agreeable to the parish calculation,\nwhen I went with the tinker. I was sent on a errand, and I see him\na-sittin under a old buildin with a fire all to himself wery\ncomfortable, and he says, 'Would you like to come along a me, my\nman?' I says 'Yes,' and him and me and the fire goes home to\nClerkenwell together. That was April Fool Day. I was able to count up\nto ten; and when April Fool Day come round again, I says to myself,\n'Now, old chap, you're one and a eight in it.' April Fool Day after\nthat, I says, 'Now, old chap, you're two and a eight in it.' In\ncourse of time, I come to ten and a eight in it; two tens and a eight\nin it. When it got so high, it got the upper hand of me, but this is\nhow I always know there's a eight in it.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" says Mr. George, resuming his breakfast. \"And where's the\ntinker?\"\n\n\"Drink put him in the hospital, guv'ner, and the hospital put him--in\na glass-case, I HAVE heerd,\" Phil replies mysteriously.\n\n\"By that means you got promotion? Took the business, Phil?\"\n\n\"Yes, commander, I took the business. Such as it was. It wasn't much\nof a beat--round Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, Clerkenwell, Smiffeld,\nand there--poor neighbourhood, where they uses up the kettles till\nthey're past mending. Most of the tramping tinkers used to come and\nlodge at our place; that was the best part of my master's earnings.\nBut they didn't come to me. I warn't like him. He could sing 'em a\ngood song. I couldn't! He could play 'em a tune on any sort of pot\nyou please, so as it was iron or block tin. I never could do nothing\nwith a pot but mend it or bile it--never had a note of music in me.\nBesides, I was too ill-looking, and their wives complained of me.\"\n\n\"They were mighty particular. You would pass muster in a crowd,\nPhil!\" says the trooper with a pleasant smile.\n\n\"No, guv'ner,\" returns Phil, shaking his head. \"No, I shouldn't. I\nwas passable enough when I went with the tinker, though nothing to\nboast of then; but what with blowing the fire with my mouth when I\nwas young, and spileing my complexion, and singeing my hair off, and\nswallering the smoke, and what with being nat'rally unfort'nate in\nthe way of running against hot metal and marking myself by sich\nmeans, and what with having turn-ups with the tinker as I got older,\nalmost whenever he was too far gone in drink--which was almost\nalways--my beauty was queer, wery queer, even at that time. As to\nsince, what with a dozen years in a dark forge where the men was\ngiven to larking, and what with being scorched in a accident at a\ngas-works, and what with being blowed out of winder case-filling at\nthe firework business, I am ugly enough to be made a show on!\"\n\nResigning himself to which condition with a perfectly satisfied\nmanner, Phil begs the favour of another cup of coffee. While drinking\nit, he says, \"It was after the case-filling blow-up when I first see\nyou, commander. You remember?\"\n\n\"I remember, Phil. You were walking along in the sun.\"\n\n\"Crawling, guv'ner, again a wall--\"\n\n\"True, Phil--shouldering your way on--\"\n\n\"In a night-cap!\" exclaims Phil, excited.\n\n\"In a night-cap--\"\n\n\"And hobbling with a couple of sticks!\" cries Phil, still more\nexcited.\n\n\"With a couple of sticks. When--\"\n\n\"When you stops, you know,\" cries Phil, putting down his cup and\nsaucer and hastily removing his plate from his knees, \"and says to\nme, 'What, comrade! You have been in the wars!' I didn't say much to\nyou, commander, then, for I was took by surprise that a person so\nstrong and healthy and bold as you was should stop to speak to such a\nlimping bag of bones as I was. But you says to me, says you,\ndelivering it out of your chest as hearty as possible, so that it was\nlike a glass of something hot, 'What accident have you met with? You\nhave been badly hurt. What's amiss, old boy? Cheer up, and tell us\nabout it!' Cheer up! I was cheered already! I says as much to you,\nyou says more to me, I says more to you, you says more to me, and\nhere I am, commander! Here I am, commander!\" cries Phil, who has\nstarted from his chair and unaccountably begun to sidle away. \"If a\nmark's wanted, or if it will improve the business, let the customers\ntake aim at me. They can't spoil MY beauty. I'M all right. Come on!\nIf they want a man to box at, let 'em box at me. Let 'em knock me\nwell about the head. I don't mind. If they want a light-weight to be\nthrowed for practice, Cornwall, Devonshire, or Lancashire, let 'em\nthrow me. They won't hurt ME. I have been throwed, all sorts of\nstyles, all my life!\"\n\nWith this unexpected speech, energetically delivered and accompanied\nby action illustrative of the various exercises referred to, Phil\nSquod shoulders his way round three sides of the gallery, and\nabruptly tacking off at his commander, makes a butt at him with his\nhead, intended to express devotion to his service. He then begins to\nclear away the breakfast.\n\nMr. George, after laughing cheerfully and clapping him on the\nshoulder, assists in these arrangements and helps to get the gallery\ninto business order. That done, he takes a turn at the dumb-bells,\nand afterwards weighing himself and opining that he is getting \"too\nfleshy,\" engages with great gravity in solitary broadsword practice.\nMeanwhile Phil has fallen to work at his usual table, where he screws\nand unscrews, and cleans, and files, and whistles into small\napertures, and blackens himself more and more, and seems to do and\nundo everything that can be done and undone about a gun.\n\nMaster and man are at length disturbed by footsteps in the passage,\nwhere they make an unusual sound, denoting the arrival of unusual\ncompany. These steps, advancing nearer and nearer to the gallery,\nbring into it a group at first sight scarcely reconcilable with any\nday in the year but the fifth of November.\n\nIt consists of a limp and ugly figure carried in a chair by two\nbearers and attended by a lean female with a face like a pinched\nmask, who might be expected immediately to recite the popular verses\ncommemorative of the time when they did contrive to blow Old England\nup alive but for her keeping her lips tightly and defiantly closed as\nthe chair is put down. At which point the figure in it gasping, \"O\nLord! Oh, dear me! I am shaken!\" adds, \"How de do, my dear friend,\nhow de do?\" Mr. George then descries, in the procession, the\nvenerable Mr. Smallweed out for an airing, attended by his\ngranddaughter Judy as body-guard.\n\n\"Mr. George, my dear friend,\" says Grandfather Smallweed, removing\nhis right arm from the neck of one of his bearers, whom he has nearly\nthrottled coming along, \"how de do? You're surprised to see me, my\ndear friend.\"\n\n\"I should hardly have been more surprised to have seen your friend in\nthe city,\" returns Mr. George.\n\n\"I am very seldom out,\" pants Mr. Smallweed. \"I haven't been out for\nmany months. It's inconvenient--and it comes expensive. But I longed\nso much to see you, my dear Mr. George. How de do, sir?\"\n\n\"I am well enough,\" says Mr. George. \"I hope you are the same.\"\n\n\"You can't be too well, my dear friend.\" Mr. Smallweed takes him by\nboth hands. \"I have brought my granddaughter Judy. I couldn't keep\nher away. She longed so much to see you.\"\n\n\"Hum! She bears it calmly!\" mutters Mr. George.\n\n\"So we got a hackney-cab, and put a chair in it, and just round the\ncorner they lifted me out of the cab and into the chair, and carried\nme here that I might see my dear friend in his own establishment!\nThis,\" says Grandfather Smallweed, alluding to the bearer, who has\nbeen in danger of strangulation and who withdraws adjusting his\nwindpipe, \"is the driver of the cab. He has nothing extra. It is by\nagreement included in his fare. This person,\" the other bearer, \"we\nengaged in the street outside for a pint of beer. Which is twopence.\nJudy, give the person twopence. I was not sure you had a workman of\nyour own here, my dear friend, or we needn't have employed this\nperson.\"\n\nGrandfather Smallweed refers to Phil with a glance of considerable\nterror and a half-subdued \"O Lord! Oh, dear me!\" Nor in his\napprehension, on the surface of things, without some reason, for\nPhil, who has never beheld the apparition in the black-velvet cap\nbefore, has stopped short with a gun in his hand with much of the air\nof a dead shot intent on picking Mr. Smallweed off as an ugly old\nbird of the crow species.\n\n\"Judy, my child,\" says Grandfather Smallweed, \"give the person his\ntwopence. It's a great deal for what he has done.\"\n\nThe person, who is one of those extraordinary specimens of human\nfungus that spring up spontaneously in the western streets of London,\nready dressed in an old red jacket, with a \"mission\" for holding\nhorses and calling coaches, received his twopence with anything but\ntransport, tosses the money into the air, catches it over-handed, and\nretires.\n\n\"My dear Mr. George,\" says Grandfather Smallweed, \"would you be so\nkind as help to carry me to the fire? I am accustomed to a fire, and\nI am an old man, and I soon chill. Oh, dear me!\"\n\nHis closing exclamation is jerked out of the venerable gentleman by\nthe suddenness with which Mr. Squod, like a genie, catches him up,\nchair and all, and deposits him on the hearth-stone.\n\n\"O Lord!\" says Mr. Smallweed, panting. \"Oh, dear me! Oh, my stars! My\ndear friend, your workman is very strong--and very prompt. O Lord, he\nis very prompt! Judy, draw me back a little. I'm being scorched in\nthe legs,\" which indeed is testified to the noses of all present by\nthe smell of his worsted stockings.\n\nThe gentle Judy, having backed her grandfather a little way from the\nfire, and having shaken him up as usual, and having released his\novershadowed eye from its black-velvet extinguisher, Mr. Smallweed\nagain says, \"Oh, dear me! O Lord!\" and looking about and meeting Mr.\nGeorge's glance, again stretches out both hands.\n\n\"My dear friend! So happy in this meeting! And this is your\nestablishment? It's a delightful place. It's a picture! You never\nfind that anything goes off here accidentally, do you, my dear\nfriend?\" adds Grandfather Smallweed, very ill at ease.\n\n\"No, no. No fear of that.\"\n\n\"And your workman. He--Oh, dear me!--he never lets anything off\nwithout meaning it, does he, my dear friend?\"\n\n\"He has never hurt anybody but himself,\" says Mr. George, smiling.\n\n\"But he might, you know. He seems to have hurt himself a good deal,\nand he might hurt somebody else,\" the old gentleman returns. \"He\nmightn't mean it--or he even might. Mr. George, will you order him to\nleave his infernal fire-arms alone and go away?\"\n\nObedient to a nod from the trooper, Phil retires, empty-handed, to\nthe other end of the gallery. Mr. Smallweed, reassured, falls to\nrubbing his legs.\n\n\"And you're doing well, Mr. George?\" he says to the trooper, squarely\nstanding faced about towards him with his broadsword in his hand.\n\"You are prospering, please the Powers?\"\n\nMr. George answers with a cool nod, adding, \"Go on. You have not come\nto say that, I know.\"\n\n\"You are so sprightly, Mr. George,\" returns the venerable\ngrandfather. \"You are such good company.\"\n\n\"Ha ha! Go on!\" says Mr. George.\n\n\"My dear friend! But that sword looks awful gleaming and sharp. It\nmight cut somebody, by accident. It makes me shiver, Mr. George.\nCurse him!\" says the excellent old gentleman apart to Judy as the\ntrooper takes a step or two away to lay it aside. \"He owes me money,\nand might think of paying off old scores in this murdering place. I\nwish your brimstone grandmother was here, and he'd shave her head\noff.\"\n\nMr. George, returning, folds his arms, and looking down at the old\nman, sliding every moment lower and lower in his chair, says quietly,\n\"Now for it!\"\n\n\"Ho!\" cries Mr. Smallweed, rubbing his hands with an artful chuckle.\n\"Yes. Now for it. Now for what, my dear friend?\"\n\n\"For a pipe,\" says Mr. George, who with great composure sets his\nchair in the chimney-corner, takes his pipe from the grate, fills it\nand lights it, and falls to smoking peacefully.\n\nThis tends to the discomfiture of Mr. Smallweed, who finds it so\ndifficult to resume his object, whatever it may be, that he becomes\nexasperated and secretly claws the air with an impotent\nvindictiveness expressive of an intense desire to tear and rend the\nvisage of Mr. George. As the excellent old gentleman's nails are long\nand leaden, and his hands lean and veinous, and his eyes green and\nwatery; and, over and above this, as he continues, while he claws, to\nslide down in his chair and to collapse into a shapeless bundle, he\nbecomes such a ghastly spectacle, even in the accustomed eyes of\nJudy, that that young virgin pounces at him with something more than\nthe ardour of affection and so shakes him up and pats and pokes him\nin divers parts of his body, but particularly in that part which the\nscience of self-defence would call his wind, that in his grievous\ndistress he utters enforced sounds like a paviour's rammer.\n\nWhen Judy has by these means set him up again in his chair, with a\nwhite face and a frosty nose (but still clawing), she stretches out\nher weazen forefinger and gives Mr. George one poke in the back. The\ntrooper raising his head, she makes another poke at her esteemed\ngrandfather, and having thus brought them together, stares rigidly at\nthe fire.\n\n\"Aye, aye! Ho, ho! U--u--u--ugh!\" chatters Grandfather Smallweed,\nswallowing his rage. \"My dear friend!\" (still clawing).\n\n\"I tell you what,\" says Mr. George. \"If you want to converse with me,\nyou must speak out. I am one of the roughs, and I can't go about and\nabout. I haven't the art to do it. I am not clever enough. It don't\nsuit me. When you go winding round and round me,\" says the trooper,\nputting his pipe between his lips again, \"damme, if I don't feel as\nif I was being smothered!\"\n\nAnd he inflates his broad chest to its utmost extent as if to assure\nhimself that he is not smothered yet.\n\n\"If you have come to give me a friendly call,\" continues Mr. George,\n\"I am obliged to you; how are you? If you have come to see whether\nthere's any property on the premises, look about you; you are\nwelcome. If you want to out with something, out with it!\"\n\nThe blooming Judy, without removing her gaze from the fire, gives her\ngrandfather one ghostly poke.\n\n\"You see! It's her opinion too. And why the devil that young woman\nwon't sit down like a Christian,\" says Mr. George with his eyes\nmusingly fixed on Judy, \"I can't comprehend.\"\n\n\"She keeps at my side to attend to me, sir,\" says Grandfather\nSmallweed. \"I am an old man, my dear Mr. George, and I need some\nattention. I can carry my years; I am not a brimstone poll-parrot\"\n(snarling and looking unconsciously for the cushion), \"but I need\nattention, my dear friend.\"\n\n\"Well!\" returns the trooper, wheeling his chair to face the old man.\n\"Now then?\"\n\n\"My friend in the city, Mr. George, has done a little business with a\npupil of yours.\"\n\n\"Has he?\" says Mr. George. \"I am sorry to hear it.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\" Grandfather Smallweed rubs his legs. \"He is a fine young\nsoldier now, Mr. George, by the name of Carstone. Friends came\nforward and paid it all up, honourable.\"\n\n\"Did they?\" returns Mr. George. \"Do you think your friend in the city\nwould like a piece of advice?\"\n\n\"I think he would, my dear friend. From you.\"\n\n\"I advise him, then, to do no more business in that quarter. There's\nno more to be got by it. The young gentleman, to my knowledge, is\nbrought to a dead halt.\"\n\n\"No, no, my dear friend. No, no, Mr. George. No, no, no, sir,\"\nremonstrates Grandfather Smallweed, cunningly rubbing his spare legs.\n\"Not quite a dead halt, I think. He has good friends, and he is good\nfor his pay, and he is good for the selling price of his commission,\nand he is good for his chance in a lawsuit, and he is good for his\nchance in a wife, and--oh, do you know, Mr. George, I think my friend\nwould consider the young gentleman good for something yet?\" says\nGrandfather Smallweed, turning up his velvet cap and scratching his\near like a monkey.\n\nMr. George, who has put aside his pipe and sits with an arm on his\nchair-back, beats a tattoo on the ground with his right foot as if he\nwere not particularly pleased with the turn the conversation has\ntaken.\n\n\"But to pass from one subject to another,\" resumes Mr. Smallweed.\n\"'To promote the conversation,' as a joker might say. To pass, Mr.\nGeorge, from the ensign to the captain.\"\n\n\"What are you up to, now?\" asks Mr. George, pausing with a frown in\nstroking the recollection of his moustache. \"What captain?\"\n\n\"Our captain. The captain we know of. Captain Hawdon.\"\n\n\"Oh! That's it, is it?\" says Mr. George with a low whistle as he sees\nboth grandfather and granddaughter looking hard at him. \"You are\nthere! Well? What about it? Come, I won't be smothered any more.\nSpeak!\"\n\n\"My dear friend,\" returns the old man, \"I was applied--Judy, shake me\nup a little!--I was applied to yesterday about the captain, and my\nopinion still is that the captain is not dead.\"\n\n\"Bosh!\" observes Mr. George.\n\n\"What was your remark, my dear friend?\" inquires the old man with his\nhand to his ear.\n\n\"Bosh!\"\n\n\"Ho!\" says Grandfather Smallweed. \"Mr. George, of my opinion you can\njudge for yourself according to the questions asked of me and the\nreasons given for asking 'em. Now, what do you think the lawyer\nmaking the inquiries wants?\"\n\n\"A job,\" says Mr. George.\n\n\"Nothing of the kind!\"\n\n\"Can't be a lawyer, then,\" says Mr. George, folding his arms with an\nair of confirmed resolution.\n\n\"My dear friend, he is a lawyer, and a famous one. He wants to see\nsome fragment in Captain Hawdon's writing. He don't want to keep it.\nHe only wants to see it and compare it with a writing in his\npossession.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Well, Mr. George. Happening to remember the advertisement concerning\nCaptain Hawdon and any information that could be given respecting\nhim, he looked it up and came to me--just as you did, my dear friend.\nWILL you shake hands? So glad you came that day! I should have missed\nforming such a friendship if you hadn't come!\"\n\n\"Well, Mr. Smallweed?\" says Mr. George again after going through the\nceremony with some stiffness.\n\n\"I had no such thing. I have nothing but his signature. Plague\npestilence and famine, battle murder and sudden death upon him,\" says\nthe old man, making a curse out of one of his few remembrances of a\nprayer and squeezing up his velvet cap between his angry hands, \"I\nhave half a million of his signatures, I think! But you,\"\nbreathlessly recovering his mildness of speech as Judy re-adjusts the\ncap on his skittle-ball of a head, \"you, my dear Mr. George, are\nlikely to have some letter or paper that would suit the purpose.\nAnything would suit the purpose, written in the hand.\"\n\n\"Some writing in that hand,\" says the trooper, pondering; \"may be, I\nhave.\"\n\n\"My dearest friend!\"\n\n\"May be, I have not.\"\n\n\"Ho!\" says Grandfather Smallweed, crest-fallen.\n\n\"But if I had bushels of it, I would not show as much as would make a\ncartridge without knowing why.\"\n\n\"Sir, I have told you why. My dear Mr. George, I have told you why.\"\n\n\"Not enough,\" says the trooper, shaking his head. \"I must know more,\nand approve it.\"\n\n\"Then, will you come to the lawyer? My dear friend, will you come and\nsee the gentleman?\" urges Grandfather Smallweed, pulling out a lean\nold silver watch with hands like the leg of a skeleton. \"I told him\nit was probable I might call upon him between ten and eleven this\nforenoon, and it's now half after ten. Will you come and see the\ngentleman, Mr. George?\"\n\n\"Hum!\" says he gravely. \"I don't mind that. Though why this should\nconcern you so much, I don't know.\"\n\n\"Everything concerns me that has a chance in it of bringing anything\nto light about him. Didn't he take us all in? Didn't he owe us\nimmense sums, all round? Concern me? Who can anything about him\nconcern more than me? Not, my dear friend,\" says Grandfather\nSmallweed, lowering his tone, \"that I want YOU to betray anything.\nFar from it. Are you ready to come, my dear friend?\"\n\n\"Aye! I'll come in a moment. I promise nothing, you know.\"\n\n\"No, my dear Mr. George; no.\"\n\n\"And you mean to say you're going to give me a lift to this place,\nwherever it is, without charging for it?\" Mr. George inquires,\ngetting his hat and thick wash-leather gloves.\n\nThis pleasantry so tickles Mr. Smallweed that he laughs, long and\nlow, before the fire. But ever while he laughs, he glances over his\nparalytic shoulder at Mr. George and eagerly watches him as he\nunlocks the padlock of a homely cupboard at the distant end of the\ngallery, looks here and there upon the higher shelves, and ultimately\ntakes something out with a rustling of paper, folds it, and puts it\nin his breast. Then Judy pokes Mr. Smallweed once, and Mr. Smallweed\npokes Judy once.\n\n\"I am ready,\" says the trooper, coming back. \"Phil, you can carry\nthis old gentleman to his coach, and make nothing of him.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear me! O Lord! Stop a moment!\" says Mr. Smallweed. \"He's so\nvery prompt! Are you sure you can do it carefully, my worthy man?\"\n\nPhil makes no reply, but seizing the chair and its load, sidles away,\ntightly hugged by the now speechless Mr. Smallweed, and bolts along\nthe passage as if he had an acceptable commission to carry the old\ngentleman to the nearest volcano. His shorter trust, however,\nterminating at the cab, he deposits him there; and the fair Judy\ntakes her place beside him, and the chair embellishes the roof, and\nMr. George takes the vacant place upon the box.\n\nMr. George is quite confounded by the spectacle he beholds from time\nto time as he peeps into the cab through the window behind him, where\nthe grim Judy is always motionless, and the old gentleman with his\ncap over one eye is always sliding off the seat into the straw and\nlooking upward at him out of his other eye with a helpless expression\nof being jolted in the back.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII\n\nMore Old Soldiers Than One\n\n\nMr. George has not far to ride with folded arms upon the box, for\ntheir destination is Lincoln's Inn Fields. When the driver stops his\nhorses, Mr. George alights, and looking in at the window, says,\n\"What, Mr. Tulkinghorn's your man, is he?\"\n\n\"Yes, my dear friend. Do you know him, Mr. George?\"\n\n\"Why, I have heard of him--seen him too, I think. But I don't know\nhim, and he don't know me.\"\n\nThere ensues the carrying of Mr. Smallweed upstairs, which is done to\nperfection with the trooper's help. He is borne into Mr.\nTulkinghorn's great room and deposited on the Turkey rug before the\nfire. Mr. Tulkinghorn is not within at the present moment but will be\nback directly. The occupant of the pew in the hall, having said thus\nmuch, stirs the fire and leaves the triumvirate to warm themselves.\n\nMr. George is mightily curious in respect of the room. He looks up at\nthe painted ceiling, looks round at the old law-books, contemplates\nthe portraits of the great clients, reads aloud the names on the\nboxes.\n\n\"'Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,'\" Mr. George reads thoughtfully.\n\"Ha! 'Manor of Chesney Wold.' Humph!\" Mr. George stands looking at\nthese boxes a long while--as if they were pictures--and comes back to\nthe fire repeating, \"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and Manor of\nChesney Wold, hey?\"\n\n\"Worth a mint of money, Mr. George!\" whispers Grandfather Smallweed,\nrubbing his legs. \"Powerfully rich!\"\n\n\"Who do you mean? This old gentleman, or the Baronet?\"\n\n\"This gentleman, this gentleman.\"\n\n\"So I have heard; and knows a thing or two, I'll hold a wager. Not\nbad quarters, either,\" says Mr. George, looking round again. \"See the\nstrong-box yonder!\"\n\nThis reply is cut short by Mr. Tulkinghorn's arrival. There is no\nchange in him, of course. Rustily drest, with his spectacles in his\nhand, and their very case worn threadbare. In manner, close and dry.\nIn voice, husky and low. In face, watchful behind a blind; habitually\nnot uncensorious and contemptuous perhaps. The peerage may have\nwarmer worshippers and faithfuller believers than Mr. Tulkinghorn,\nafter all, if everything were known.\n\n\"Good morning, Mr. Smallweed, good morning!\" he says as he comes in.\n\"You have brought the sergeant, I see. Sit down, sergeant.\"\n\nAs Mr. Tulkinghorn takes off his gloves and puts them in his hat, he\nlooks with half-closed eyes across the room to where the trooper\nstands and says within himself perchance, \"You'll do, my friend!\"\n\n\"Sit down, sergeant,\" he repeats as he comes to his table, which is\nset on one side of the fire, and takes his easy-chair. \"Cold and raw\nthis morning, cold and raw!\" Mr. Tulkinghorn warms before the bars,\nalternately, the palms and knuckles of his hands and looks (from\nbehind that blind which is always down) at the trio sitting in a\nlittle semicircle before him.\n\n\"Now, I can feel what I am about\" (as perhaps he can in two senses),\n\"Mr. Smallweed.\" The old gentleman is newly shaken up by Judy to bear\nhis part in the conversation. \"You have brought our good friend the\nsergeant, I see.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" returns Mr. Smallweed, very servile to the lawyer's\nwealth and influence.\n\n\"And what does the sergeant say about this business?\"\n\n\"Mr. George,\" says Grandfather Smallweed with a tremulous wave of his\nshrivelled hand, \"this is the gentleman, sir.\"\n\nMr. George salutes the gentleman but otherwise sits bolt upright and\nprofoundly silent--very forward in his chair, as if the full\ncomplement of regulation appendages for a field-day hung about him.\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn proceeds, \"Well, George--I believe your name is\nGeorge?\"\n\n\"It is so, Sir.\"\n\n\"What do you say, George?\"\n\n\"I ask your pardon, sir,\" returns the trooper, \"but I should wish to\nknow what YOU say?\"\n\n\"Do you mean in point of reward?\"\n\n\"I mean in point of everything, sir.\"\n\nThis is so very trying to Mr. Smallweed's temper that he suddenly\nbreaks out with \"You're a brimstone beast!\" and as suddenly asks\npardon of Mr. Tulkinghorn, excusing himself for this slip of the\ntongue by saying to Judy, \"I was thinking of your grandmother, my\ndear.\"\n\n\"I supposed, sergeant,\" Mr. Tulkinghorn resumes as he leans on one\nside of his chair and crosses his legs, \"that Mr. Smallweed might\nhave sufficiently explained the matter. It lies in the smallest\ncompass, however. You served under Captain Hawdon at one time, and\nwere his attendant in illness, and rendered him many little services,\nand were rather in his confidence, I am told. That is so, is it not?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, that is so,\" says Mr. George with military brevity.\n\n\"Therefore you may happen to have in your possession\nsomething--anything, no matter what; accounts, instructions, orders,\na letter, anything--in Captain Hawdon's writing. I wish to compare\nhis writing with some that I have. If you can give me the\nopportunity, you shall be rewarded for your trouble. Three, four,\nfive, guineas, you would consider handsome, I dare say.\"\n\n\"Noble, my dear friend!\" cries Grandfather Smallweed, screwing up his\neyes.\n\n\"If not, say how much more, in your conscience as a soldier, you can\ndemand. There is no need for you to part with the writing, against\nyour inclination--though I should prefer to have it.\"\n\nMr. George sits squared in exactly the same attitude, looks at the\npainted ceiling, and says never a word. The irascible Mr. Smallweed\nscratches the air.\n\n\"The question is,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his methodical, subdued,\nuninterested way, \"first, whether you have any of Captain Hawdon's\nwriting?\"\n\n\"First, whether I have any of Captain Hawdon's writing, sir,\" repeats\nMr. George.\n\n\"Secondly, what will satisfy you for the trouble of producing it?\"\n\n\"Secondly, what will satisfy me for the trouble of producing it,\nsir,\" repeats Mr. George.\n\n\"Thirdly, you can judge for yourself whether it is at all like that,\"\nsays Mr. Tulkinghorn, suddenly handing him some sheets of written\npaper tied together.\n\n\"Whether it is at all like that, sir. Just so,\" repeats Mr. George.\n\nAll three repetitions Mr. George pronounces in a mechanical manner,\nlooking straight at Mr. Tulkinghorn; nor does he so much as glance at\nthe affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, that has been given to him\nfor his inspection (though he still holds it in his hand), but\ncontinues to look at the lawyer with an air of troubled meditation.\n\n\"Well?\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"What do you say?\"\n\n\"Well, sir,\" replies Mr. George, rising erect and looking immense, \"I\nwould rather, if you'll excuse me, have nothing to do with this.\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn, outwardly quite undisturbed, demands, \"Why not?\"\n\n\"Why, sir,\" returns the trooper. \"Except on military compulsion, I am\nnot a man of business. Among civilians I am what they call in\nScotland a ne'er-do-weel. I have no head for papers, sir. I can stand\nany fire better than a fire of cross questions. I mentioned to Mr.\nSmallweed, only an hour or so ago, that when I come into things of\nthis kind I feel as if I was being smothered. And that is my\nsensation,\" says Mr. George, looking round upon the company, \"at the\npresent moment.\"\n\nWith that, he takes three strides forward to replace the papers on\nthe lawyer's table and three strides backward to resume his former\nstation, where he stands perfectly upright, now looking at the ground\nand now at the painted ceiling, with his hands behind him as if to\nprevent himself from accepting any other document whatever.\n\nUnder this provocation, Mr. Smallweed's favourite adjective of\ndisparagement is so close to his tongue that he begins the words \"my\ndear friend\" with the monosyllable \"brim,\" thus converting the\npossessive pronoun into brimmy and appearing to have an impediment in\nhis speech. Once past this difficulty, however, he exhorts his dear\nfriend in the tenderest manner not to be rash, but to do what so\neminent a gentleman requires, and to do it with a good grace,\nconfident that it must be unobjectionable as well as profitable. Mr.\nTulkinghorn merely utters an occasional sentence, as, \"You are the\nbest judge of your own interest, sergeant.\" \"Take care you do no harm\nby this.\" \"Please yourself, please yourself.\" \"If you know what you\nmean, that's quite enough.\" These he utters with an appearance of\nperfect indifference as he looks over the papers on his table and\nprepares to write a letter.\n\nMr. George looks distrustfully from the painted ceiling to the\nground, from the ground to Mr. Smallweed, from Mr. Smallweed to Mr.\nTulkinghorn, and from Mr. Tulkinghorn to the painted ceiling again,\noften in his perplexity changing the leg on which he rests.\n\n\"I do assure you, sir,\" says Mr. George, \"not to say it offensively,\nthat between you and Mr. Smallweed here, I really am being smothered\nfifty times over. I really am, sir. I am not a match for you\ngentlemen. Will you allow me to ask why you want to see the captain's\nhand, in the case that I could find any specimen of it?\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn quietly shakes his head. \"No. If you were a man of\nbusiness, sergeant, you would not need to be informed that there are\nconfidential reasons, very harmless in themselves, for many such\nwants in the profession to which I belong. But if you are afraid of\ndoing any injury to Captain Hawdon, you may set your mind at rest\nabout that.\"\n\n\"Aye! He is dead, sir.\"\n\n\"IS he?\" Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly sits down to write.\n\n\"Well, sir,\" says the trooper, looking into his hat after another\ndisconcerted pause, \"I am sorry not to have given you more\nsatisfaction. If it would be any satisfaction to any one that I\nshould be confirmed in my judgment that I would rather have nothing\nto do with this by a friend of mine who has a better head for\nbusiness than I have, and who is an old soldier, I am willing to\nconsult with him. I--I really am so completely smothered myself at\npresent,\" says Mr. George, passing his hand hopelessly across his\nbrow, \"that I don't know but what it might be a satisfaction to me.\"\n\nMr. Smallweed, hearing that this authority is an old soldier, so\nstrongly inculcates the expediency of the trooper's taking counsel\nwith him, and particularly informing him of its being a question of\nfive guineas or more, that Mr. George engages to go and see him. Mr.\nTulkinghorn says nothing either way.\n\n\"I'll consult my friend, then, by your leave, sir,\" says the trooper,\n\"and I'll take the liberty of looking in again with the final answer\nin the course of the day. Mr. Smallweed, if you wish to be carried\ndownstairs--\"\n\n\"In a moment, my dear friend, in a moment. Will you first let me\nspeak half a word with this gentleman in private?\"\n\n\"Certainly, sir. Don't hurry yourself on my account.\" The trooper\nretires to a distant part of the room and resumes his curious\ninspection of the boxes, strong and otherwise.\n\n\"If I wasn't as weak as a brimstone baby, sir,\" whispers Grandfather\nSmallweed, drawing the lawyer down to his level by the lapel of his\ncoat and flashing some half-quenched green fire out of his angry\neyes, \"I'd tear the writing away from him. He's got it buttoned in\nhis breast. I saw him put it there. Judy saw him put it there. Speak\nup, you crabbed image for the sign of a walking-stick shop, and say\nyou saw him put it there!\"\n\nThis vehement conjuration the old gentleman accompanies with such a\nthrust at his granddaughter that it is too much for his strength, and\nhe slips away out of his chair, drawing Mr. Tulkinghorn with him,\nuntil he is arrested by Judy, and well shaken.\n\n\"Violence will not do for me, my friend,\" Mr. Tulkinghorn then\nremarks coolly.\n\n\"No, no, I know, I know, sir. But it's chafing and\ngalling--it's--it's worse than your smattering chattering magpie of a\ngrandmother,\" to the imperturbable Judy, who only looks at the fire,\n\"to know he has got what's wanted and won't give it up. He, not to\ngive it up! HE! A vagabond! But never mind, sir, never mind. At the\nmost, he has only his own way for a little while. I have him\nperiodically in a vice. I'll twist him, sir. I'll screw him, sir. If\nhe won't do it with a good grace, I'll make him do it with a bad one,\nsir! Now, my dear Mr. George,\" says Grandfather Smallweed, winking at\nthe lawyer hideously as he releases him, \"I am ready for your kind\nassistance, my excellent friend!\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn, with some shadowy sign of amusement manifesting\nitself through his self-possession, stands on the hearth-rug with his\nback to the fire, watching the disappearance of Mr. Smallweed and\nacknowledging the trooper's parting salute with one slight nod.\n\nIt is more difficult to get rid of the old gentleman, Mr. George\nfinds, than to bear a hand in carrying him downstairs, for when he is\nreplaced in his conveyance, he is so loquacious on the subject of the\nguineas and retains such an affectionate hold of his button--having,\nin truth, a secret longing to rip his coat open and rob him--that\nsome degree of force is necessary on the trooper's part to effect a\nseparation. It is accomplished at last, and he proceeds alone in\nquest of his adviser.\n\nBy the cloisterly Temple, and by Whitefriars (there, not without a\nglance at Hanging-Sword Alley, which would seem to be something in\nhis way), and by Blackfriars Bridge, and Blackfriars Road, Mr. George\nsedately marches to a street of little shops lying somewhere in that\nganglion of roads from Kent and Surrey, and of streets from the\nbridges of London, centring in the far-famed elephant who has lost\nhis castle formed of a thousand four-horse coaches to a stronger iron\nmonster than he, ready to chop him into mince-meat any day he dares.\nTo one of the little shops in this street, which is a musician's\nshop, having a few fiddles in the window, and some Pan's pipes and a\ntambourine, and a triangle, and certain elongated scraps of music,\nMr. George directs his massive tread. And halting at a few paces from\nit, as he sees a soldierly looking woman, with her outer skirts\ntucked up, come forth with a small wooden tub, and in that tub\ncommence a-whisking and a-splashing on the margin of the pavement,\nMr. George says to himself, \"She's as usual, washing greens. I never\nsaw her, except upon a baggage-waggon, when she wasn't washing\ngreens!\"\n\nThe subject of this reflection is at all events so occupied in\nwashing greens at present that she remains unsuspicious of Mr.\nGeorge's approach until, lifting up herself and her tub together when\nshe has poured the water off into the gutter, she finds him standing\nnear her. Her reception of him is not flattering.\n\n\"George, I never see you but I wish you was a hundred mile away!\"\n\nThe trooper, without remarking on this welcome, follows into the\nmusical-instrument shop, where the lady places her tub of greens upon\nthe counter, and having shaken hands with him, rests her arms upon\nit.\n\n\"I never,\" she says, \"George, consider Matthew Bagnet safe a minute\nwhen you're near him. You are that restless and that roving--\"\n\n\"Yes! I know I am, Mrs. Bagnet. I know I am.\"\n\n\"You know you are!\" says Mrs. Bagnet. \"What's the use of that? WHY\nare you?\"\n\n\"The nature of the animal, I suppose,\" returns the trooper\ngood-humouredly.\n\n\"Ah!\" cries Mrs. Bagnet, something shrilly. \"But what satisfaction\nwill the nature of the animal be to me when the animal shall have\ntempted my Mat away from the musical business to New Zealand or\nAustraley?\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet is not at all an ill-looking woman. Rather large-boned, a\nlittle coarse in the grain, and freckled by the sun and wind which\nhave tanned her hair upon the forehead, but healthy, wholesome, and\nbright-eyed. A strong, busy, active, honest-faced woman of from\nforty-five to fifty. Clean, hardy, and so economically dressed\n(though substantially) that the only article of ornament of which she\nstands possessed appear's to be her wedding-ring, around which her\nfinger has grown to be so large since it was put on that it will\nnever come off again until it shall mingle with Mrs. Bagnet's dust.\n\n\"Mrs. Bagnet,\" says the trooper, \"I am on my parole with you. Mat\nwill get no harm from me. You may trust me so far.\"\n\n\"Well, I think I may. But the very looks of you are unsettling,\" Mrs.\nBagnet rejoins. \"Ah, George, George! If you had only settled down and\nmarried Joe Pouch's widow when he died in North America, SHE'D have\ncombed your hair for you.\"\n\n\"It was a chance for me, certainly,\" returns the trooper half\nlaughingly, half seriously, \"but I shall never settle down into a\nrespectable man now. Joe Pouch's widow might have done me good--there\nwas something in her, and something of her--but I couldn't make up my\nmind to it. If I had had the luck to meet with such a wife as Mat\nfound!\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet, who seems in a virtuous way to be under little reserve\nwith a good sort of fellow, but to be another good sort of fellow\nherself for that matter, receives this compliment by flicking Mr.\nGeorge in the face with a head of greens and taking her tub into the\nlittle room behind the shop.\n\n\"Why, Quebec, my poppet,\" says George, following, on invitation, into\nthat department. \"And little Malta, too! Come and kiss your Bluffy!\"\n\nThese young ladies--not supposed to have been actually christened by\nthe names applied to them, though always so called in the family from\nthe places of their birth in barracks--are respectively employed on\nthree-legged stools, the younger (some five or six years old) in\nlearning her letters out of a penny primer, the elder (eight or nine\nperhaps) in teaching her and sewing with great assiduity. Both hail\nMr. George with acclamations as an old friend and after some kissing\nand romping plant their stools beside him.\n\n\"And how's young Woolwich?\" says Mr. George.\n\n\"Ah! There now!\" cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning about from her saucepans\n(for she is cooking dinner) with a bright flush on her face. \"Would\nyou believe it? Got an engagement at the theayter, with his father,\nto play the fife in a military piece.\"\n\n\"Well done, my godson!\" cries Mr. George, slapping his thigh.\n\n\"I believe you!\" says Mrs. Bagnet. \"He's a Briton. That's what\nWoolwich is. A Briton!\"\n\n\"And Mat blows away at his bassoon, and you're respectable civilians\none and all,\" says Mr. George. \"Family people. Children growing up.\nMat's old mother in Scotland, and your old father somewhere else,\ncorresponded with, and helped a little, and--well, well! To be sure,\nI don't know why I shouldn't be wished a hundred mile away, for I\nhave not much to do with all this!\"\n\nMr. George is becoming thoughtful, sitting before the fire in the\nwhitewashed room, which has a sanded floor and a barrack smell and\ncontains nothing superfluous and has not a visible speck of dirt or\ndust in it, from the faces of Quebec and Malta to the bright tin pots\nand pannikins upon the dresser shelves--Mr. George is becoming\nthoughtful, sitting here while Mrs. Bagnet is busy, when Mr. Bagnet\nand young Woolwich opportunely come home. Mr. Bagnet is an\nex-artilleryman, tall and upright, with shaggy eyebrows and whiskers\nlike the fibres of a coco-nut, not a hair upon his head, and a torrid\ncomplexion. His voice, short, deep, and resonant, is not at all\nunlike the tones of the instrument to which he is devoted. Indeed\nthere may be generally observed in him an unbending, unyielding,\nbrass-bound air, as if he were himself the bassoon of the human\norchestra. Young Woolwich is the type and model of a young drummer.\n\nBoth father and son salute the trooper heartily. He saying, in due\nseason, that he has come to advise with Mr. Bagnet, Mr. Bagnet\nhospitably declares that he will hear of no business until after\ndinner and that his friend shall not partake of his counsel without\nfirst partaking of boiled pork and greens. The trooper yielding to\nthis invitation, he and Mr. Bagnet, not to embarrass the domestic\npreparations, go forth to take a turn up and down the little street,\nwhich they promenade with measured tread and folded arms, as if it\nwere a rampart.\n\n\"George,\" says Mr. Bagnet. \"You know me. It's my old girl that\nadvises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her.\nDiscipline must be maintained. Wait till the greens is off her mind.\nThen we'll consult. Whatever the old girl says, do--do it!\"\n\n\"I intend to, Mat,\" replies the other. \"I would sooner take her\nopinion than that of a college.\"\n\n\"College,\" returns Mr. Bagnet in short sentences, bassoon-like. \"What\ncollege could you leave--in another quarter of the world--with\nnothing but a grey cloak and an umbrella--to make its way home to\nEurope? The old girl would do it to-morrow. Did it once!\"\n\n\"You are right,\" says Mr. George.\n\n\"What college,\" pursues Bagnet, \"could you set up in life--with two\npenn'orth of white lime--a penn'orth of fuller's earth--a ha'porth of\nsand--and the rest of the change out of sixpence in money? That's\nwhat the old girl started on. In the present business.\"\n\n\"I am rejoiced to hear it's thriving, Mat.\"\n\n\"The old girl,\" says Mr. Bagnet, acquiescing, \"saves. Has a stocking\nsomewhere. With money in it. I never saw it. But I know she's got it.\nWait till the greens is off her mind. Then she'll set you up.\"\n\n\"She is a treasure!\" exclaims Mr. George.\n\n\"She's more. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be\nmaintained. It was the old girl that brought out my musical\nabilities. I should have been in the artillery now but for the old\ngirl. Six years I hammered at the fiddle. Ten at the flute. The old\ngirl said it wouldn't do; intention good, but want of flexibility;\ntry the bassoon. The old girl borrowed a bassoon from the bandmaster\nof the Rifle Regiment. I practised in the trenches. Got on, got\nanother, get a living by it!\"\n\nGeorge remarks that she looks as fresh as a rose and as sound as an\napple.\n\n\"The old girl,\" says Mr. Bagnet in reply, \"is a thoroughly fine\nwoman. Consequently she is like a thoroughly fine day. Gets finer as\nshe gets on. I never saw the old girl's equal. But I never own to it\nbefore her. Discipline must be maintained!\"\n\nProceeding to converse on indifferent matters, they walk up and down\nthe little street, keeping step and time, until summoned by Quebec\nand Malta to do justice to the pork and greens, over which Mrs.\nBagnet, like a military chaplain, says a short grace. In the\ndistribution of these comestibles, as in every other household duty,\nMrs. Bagnet developes an exact system, sitting with every dish before\nher, allotting to every portion of pork its own portion of\npot-liquor, greens, potatoes, and even mustard, and serving it out\ncomplete. Having likewise served out the beer from a can and thus\nsupplied the mess with all things necessary, Mrs. Bagnet proceeds to\nsatisfy her own hunger, which is in a healthy state. The kit of the\nmess, if the table furniture may be so denominated, is chiefly\ncomposed of utensils of horn and tin that have done duty in several\nparts of the world. Young Woolwich's knife, in particular, which is\nof the oyster kind, with the additional feature of a strong\nshutting-up movement which frequently balks the appetite of that\nyoung musician, is mentioned as having gone in various hands the\ncomplete round of foreign service.\n\nThe dinner done, Mrs. Bagnet, assisted by the younger branches (who\npolish their own cups and platters, knives and forks), makes all the\ndinner garniture shine as brightly as before and puts it all away,\nfirst sweeping the hearth, to the end that Mr. Bagnet and the visitor\nmay not be retarded in the smoking of their pipes. These household\ncares involve much pattening and counter-pattening in the backyard\nand considerable use of a pail, which is finally so happy as to\nassist in the ablutions of Mrs. Bagnet herself. That old girl\nreappearing by and by, quite fresh, and sitting down to her\nneedlework, then and only then--the greens being only then to be\nconsidered as entirely off her mind--Mr. Bagnet requests the trooper\nto state his case.\n\nThis Mr. George does with great discretion, appearing to address\nhimself to Mr. Bagnet, but having an eye solely on the old girl all\nthe time, as Bagnet has himself. She, equally discreet, busies\nherself with her needlework. The case fully stated, Mr. Bagnet\nresorts to his standard artifice for the maintenance of discipline.\n\n\"That's the whole of it, is it, George?\" says he.\n\n\"That's the whole of it.\"\n\n\"You act according to my opinion?\"\n\n\"I shall be guided,\" replies George, \"entirely by it.\"\n\n\"Old girl,\" says Mr. Bagnet, \"give him my opinion. You know it. Tell\nhim what it is.\"\n\nIt is that he cannot have too little to do with people who are too\ndeep for him and cannot be too careful of interference with matters\nhe does not understand--that the plain rule is to do nothing in the\ndark, to be a party to nothing underhanded or mysterious, and never\nto put his foot where he cannot see the ground. This, in effect, is\nMr. Bagnet's opinion, as delivered through the old girl, and it so\nrelieves Mr. George's mind by confirming his own opinion and\nbanishing his doubts that he composes himself to smoke another pipe\non that exceptional occasion and to have a talk over old times with\nthe whole Bagnet family, according to their various ranges of\nexperience.\n\nThrough these means it comes to pass that Mr. George does not again\nrise to his full height in that parlour until the time is drawing on\nwhen the bassoon and fife are expected by a British public at the\ntheatre; and as it takes time even then for Mr. George, in his\ndomestic character of Bluffy, to take leave of Quebec and Malta and\ninsinuate a sponsorial shilling into the pocket of his godson with\nfelicitations on his success in life, it is dark when Mr. George\nagain turns his face towards Lincoln's Inn Fields.\n\n\"A family home,\" he ruminates as he marches along, \"however small it\nis, makes a man like me look lonely. But it's well I never made that\nevolution of matrimony. I shouldn't have been fit for it. I am such a\nvagabond still, even at my present time of life, that I couldn't hold\nto the gallery a month together if it was a regular pursuit or if I\ndidn't camp there, gipsy fashion. Come! I disgrace nobody and cumber\nnobody; that's something. I have not done that for many a long year!\"\n\nSo he whistles it off and marches on.\n\nArrived in Lincoln's Inn Fields and mounting Mr. Tulkinghorn's stair,\nhe finds the outer door closed and the chambers shut, but the trooper\nnot knowing much about outer doors, and the staircase being dark\nbesides, he is yet fumbling and groping about, hoping to discover a\nbell-handle or to open the door for himself, when Mr. Tulkinghorn\ncomes up the stairs (quietly, of course) and angrily asks, \"Who is\nthat? What are you doing there?\"\n\n\"I ask your pardon, sir. It's George. The sergeant.\"\n\n\"And couldn't George, the sergeant, see that my door was locked?\"\n\n\"Why, no, sir, I couldn't. At any rate, I didn't,\" says the trooper,\nrather nettled.\n\n\"Have you changed your mind? Or are you in the same mind?\" Mr.\nTulkinghorn demands. But he knows well enough at a glance.\n\n\"In the same mind, sir.\"\n\n\"I thought so. That's sufficient. You can go. So you are the man,\"\nsays Mr. Tulkinghorn, opening his door with the key, \"in whose\nhiding-place Mr. Gridley was found?\"\n\n\"Yes, I AM the man,\" says the trooper, stopping two or three stairs\ndown. \"What then, sir?\"\n\n\"What then? I don't like your associates. You should not have seen\nthe inside of my door this morning if I had thought of your being\nthat man. Gridley? A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow.\"\n\nWith these words, spoken in an unusually high tone for him, the\nlawyer goes into his rooms and shuts the door with a thundering\nnoise.\n\nMr. George takes his dismissal in great dudgeon, the greater because\na clerk coming up the stairs has heard the last words of all and\nevidently applies them to him. \"A pretty character to bear,\" the\ntrooper growls with a hasty oath as he strides downstairs. \"A\nthreatening, murderous, dangerous fellow!\" And looking up, he sees\nthe clerk looking down at him and marking him as he passes a lamp.\nThis so intensifies his dudgeon that for five minutes he is in an ill\nhumour. But he whistles that off like the rest of it and marches home\nto the shooting gallery.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII\n\nThe Ironmaster\n\n\nSir Leicester Dedlock has got the better, for the time being, of the\nfamily gout and is once more, in a literal no less than in a\nfigurative point of view, upon his legs. He is at his place in\nLincolnshire; but the waters are out again on the low-lying grounds,\nand the cold and damp steal into Chesney Wold, though well defended,\nand eke into Sir Leicester's bones. The blazing fires of faggot and\ncoal--Dedlock timber and antediluvian forest--that blaze upon the\nbroad wide hearths and wink in the twilight on the frowning woods,\nsullen to see how trees are sacrificed, do not exclude the enemy. The\nhot-water pipes that trail themselves all over the house, the\ncushioned doors and windows, and the screens and curtains fail to\nsupply the fires' deficiencies and to satisfy Sir Leicester's need.\nHence the fashionable intelligence proclaims one morning to the\nlistening earth that Lady Dedlock is expected shortly to return to\ntown for a few weeks.\n\nIt is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor\nrelations. Indeed great men have often more than their fair share of\npoor relations, inasmuch as very red blood of the superior quality,\nlike inferior blood unlawfully shed, WILL cry aloud and WILL be\nheard. Sir Leicester's cousins, in the remotest degree, are so many\nmurders in the respect that they \"will out.\" Among whom there are\ncousins who are so poor that one might almost dare to think it would\nhave been the happier for them never to have been plated links upon\nthe Dedlock chain of gold, but to have been made of common iron at\nfirst and done base service.\n\nService, however (with a few limited reservations, genteel but not\nprofitable), they may not do, being of the Dedlock dignity. So they\nvisit their richer cousins, and get into debt when they can, and live\nbut shabbily when they can't, and find--the women no husbands, and\nthe men no wives--and ride in borrowed carriages, and sit at feasts\nthat are never of their own making, and so go through high life. The\nrich family sum has been divided by so many figures, and they are the\nsomething over that nobody knows what to do with.\n\nEverybody on Sir Leicester Dedlock's side of the question and of his\nway of thinking would appear to be his cousin more or less. From my\nLord Boodle, through the Duke of Foodle, down to Noodle, Sir\nLeicester, like a glorious spider, stretches his threads of\nrelationship. But while he is stately in the cousinship of the\nEverybodys, he is a kind and generous man, according to his dignified\nway, in the cousinship of the Nobodys; and at the present time, in\ndespite of the damp, he stays out the visit of several such cousins\nat Chesney Wold with the constancy of a martyr.\n\nOf these, foremost in the front rank stands Volumnia Dedlock, a young\nlady (of sixty) who is doubly highly related, having the honour to be\na poor relation, by the mother's side, to another great family. Miss\nVolumnia, displaying in early life a pretty talent for cutting\nornaments out of coloured paper, and also for singing to the guitar\nin the Spanish tongue, and propounding French conundrums in country\nhouses, passed the twenty years of her existence between twenty and\nforty in a sufficiently agreeable manner. Lapsing then out of date\nand being considered to bore mankind by her vocal performances in the\nSpanish language, she retired to Bath, where she lives slenderly on\nan annual present from Sir Leicester and whence she makes occasional\nresurrections in the country houses of her cousins. She has an\nextensive acquaintance at Bath among appalling old gentlemen with\nthin legs and nankeen trousers, and is of high standing in that\ndreary city. But she is a little dreaded elsewhere in consequence of\nan indiscreet profusion in the article of rouge and persistency in an\nobsolete pearl necklace like a rosary of little bird's-eggs.\n\nIn any country in a wholesome state, Volumnia would be a clear case\nfor the pension list. Efforts have been made to get her on it, and\nwhen William Buffy came in, it was fully expected that her name would\nbe put down for a couple of hundred a year. But William Buffy somehow\ndiscovered, contrary to all expectation, that these were not the\ntimes when it could be done, and this was the first clear indication\nSir Leicester Dedlock had conveyed to him that the country was going\nto pieces.\n\nThere is likewise the Honourable Bob Stables, who can make warm\nmashes with the skill of a veterinary surgeon and is a better shot\nthan most gamekeepers. He has been for some time particularly\ndesirous to serve his country in a post of good emoluments,\nunaccompanied by any trouble or responsibility. In a well-regulated\nbody politic this natural desire on the part of a spirited young\ngentleman so highly connected would be speedily recognized, but\nsomehow William Buffy found when he came in that these were not times\nin which he could manage that little matter either, and this was the\nsecond indication Sir Leicester Dedlock had conveyed to him that the\ncountry was going to pieces.\n\nThe rest of the cousins are ladies and gentlemen of various ages and\ncapacities, the major part amiable and sensible and likely to have\ndone well enough in life if they could have overcome their\ncousinship; as it is, they are almost all a little worsted by it, and\nlounge in purposeless and listless paths, and seem to be quite as\nmuch at a loss how to dispose of themselves as anybody else can be\nhow to dispose of them.\n\nIn this society, and where not, my Lady Dedlock reigns supreme.\nBeautiful, elegant, accomplished, and powerful in her little world\n(for the world of fashion does not stretch ALL the way from pole to\npole), her influence in Sir Leicester's house, however haughty and\nindifferent her manner, is greatly to improve it and refine it. The\ncousins, even those older cousins who were paralysed when Sir\nLeicester married her, do her feudal homage; and the Honourable Bob\nStables daily repeats to some chosen person between breakfast and\nlunch his favourite original remark, that she is the best-groomed\nwoman in the whole stud.\n\nSuch the guests in the long drawing-room at Chesney Wold this dismal\nnight when the step on the Ghost's Walk (inaudible here, however)\nmight be the step of a deceased cousin shut out in the cold. It is\nnear bed-time. Bedroom fires blaze brightly all over the house,\nraising ghosts of grim furniture on wall and ceiling. Bedroom\ncandlesticks bristle on the distant table by the door, and cousins\nyawn on ottomans. Cousins at the piano, cousins at the soda-water\ntray, cousins rising from the card-table, cousins gathered round the\nfire. Standing on one side of his own peculiar fire (for there are\ntwo), Sir Leicester. On the opposite side of the broad hearth, my\nLady at her table. Volumnia, as one of the more privileged cousins,\nin a luxurious chair between them. Sir Leicester glancing, with\nmagnificent displeasure, at the rouge and the pearl necklace.\n\n\"I occasionally meet on my staircase here,\" drawls Volumnia, whose\nthoughts perhaps are already hopping up it to bed, after a long\nevening of very desultory talk, \"one of the prettiest girls, I think,\nthat I ever saw in my life.\"\n\n\"A PROTEGEE of my Lady's,\" observes Sir Leicester.\n\n\"I thought so. I felt sure that some uncommon eye must have picked\nthat girl out. She really is a marvel. A dolly sort of beauty\nperhaps,\" says Miss Volumnia, reserving her own sort, \"but in its\nway, perfect; such bloom I never saw!\"\n\nSir Leicester, with his magnificent glance of displeasure at the\nrouge, appears to say so too.\n\n\"Indeed,\" remarks my Lady languidly, \"if there is any uncommon eye in\nthe case, it is Mrs. Rouncewell's, and not mine. Rosa is her\ndiscovery.\"\n\n\"Your maid, I suppose?\"\n\n\"No. My anything; pet--secretary--messenger--I don't know what.\"\n\n\"You like to have her about you, as you would like to have a flower,\nor a bird, or a picture, or a poodle--no, not a poodle, though--or\nanything else that was equally pretty?\" says Volumnia, sympathizing.\n\"Yes, how charming now! And how well that delightful old soul Mrs.\nRouncewell is looking. She must be an immense age, and yet she is as\nactive and handsome! She is the dearest friend I have, positively!\"\n\nSir Leicester feels it to be right and fitting that the housekeeper\nof Chesney Wold should be a remarkable person. Apart from that, he\nhas a real regard for Mrs. Rouncewell and likes to hear her praised.\nSo he says, \"You are right, Volumnia,\" which Volumnia is extremely\nglad to hear.\n\n\"She has no daughter of her own, has she?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Rouncewell? No, Volumnia. She has a son. Indeed, she had two.\"\n\nMy Lady, whose chronic malady of boredom has been sadly aggravated by\nVolumnia this evening, glances wearily towards the candlesticks and\nheaves a noiseless sigh.\n\n\"And it is a remarkable example of the confusion into which the\npresent age has fallen; of the obliteration of landmarks, the opening\nof floodgates, and the uprooting of distinctions,\" says Sir Leicester\nwith stately gloom, \"that I have been informed by Mr. Tulkinghorn\nthat Mrs. Rouncewell's son has been invited to go into Parliament.\"\n\nMiss Volumnia utters a little sharp scream.\n\n\"Yes, indeed,\" repeats Sir Leicester. \"Into Parliament.\"\n\n\"I never heard of such a thing! Good gracious, what is the man?\"\nexclaims Volumnia.\n\n\"He is called, I believe--an--ironmaster.\" Sir Leicester says it\nslowly and with gravity and doubt, as not being sure but that he is\ncalled a lead-mistress or that the right word may be some other word\nexpressive of some other relationship to some other metal.\n\nVolumnia utters another little scream.\n\n\"He has declined the proposal, if my information from Mr. Tulkinghorn\nbe correct, as I have no doubt it is. Mr. Tulkinghorn being always\ncorrect and exact; still that does not,\" says Sir Leicester, \"that\ndoes not lessen the anomaly, which is fraught with strange\nconsiderations--startling considerations, as it appears to me.\"\n\nMiss Volumnia rising with a look candlestick-wards, Sir Leicester\npolitely performs the grand tour of the drawing-room, brings one, and\nlights it at my Lady's shaded lamp.\n\n\"I must beg you, my Lady,\" he says while doing so, \"to remain a few\nmoments, for this individual of whom I speak arrived this evening\nshortly before dinner and requested in a very becoming note\"--Sir\nLeicester, with his habitual regard to truth, dwells upon it--\"I am\nbound to say, in a very becoming and well-expressed note, the favour\nof a short interview with yourself and MYself on the subject of this\nyoung girl. As it appeared that he wished to depart to-night, I\nreplied that we would see him before retiring.\"\n\nMiss Volumnia with a third little scream takes flight, wishing her\nhosts--O Lud!--well rid of the--what is it?--ironmaster!\n\nThe other cousins soon disperse, to the last cousin there. Sir\nLeicester rings the bell, \"Make my compliments to Mr. Rouncewell, in\nthe housekeeper's apartments, and say I can receive him now.\"\n\nMy Lady, who has heard all this with slight attention outwardly,\nlooks towards Mr. Rouncewell as he comes in. He is a little over\nfifty perhaps, of a good figure, like his mother, and has a clear\nvoice, a broad forehead from which his dark hair has retired, and a\nshrewd though open face. He is a responsible-looking gentleman\ndressed in black, portly enough, but strong and active. Has a\nperfectly natural and easy air and is not in the least embarrassed by\nthe great presence into which he comes.\n\n\"Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, as I have already apologized for\nintruding on you, I cannot do better than be very brief. I thank you,\nSir Leicester.\"\n\nThe head of the Dedlocks has motioned towards a sofa between himself\nand my Lady. Mr. Rouncewell quietly takes his seat there.\n\n\"In these busy times, when so many great undertakings are in\nprogress, people like myself have so many workmen in so many places\nthat we are always on the flight.\"\n\nSir Leicester is content enough that the ironmaster should feel that\nthere is no hurry there; there, in that ancient house, rooted in that\nquiet park, where the ivy and the moss have had time to mature, and\nthe gnarled and warted elms and the umbrageous oaks stand deep in the\nfern and leaves of a hundred years; and where the sun-dial on the\nterrace has dumbly recorded for centuries that time which was as much\nthe property of every Dedlock--while he lasted--as the house and\nlands. Sir Leicester sits down in an easy-chair, opposing his repose\nand that of Chesney Wold to the restless flights of ironmasters.\n\n\"Lady Dedlock has been so kind,\" proceeds Mr. Rouncewell with a\nrespectful glance and a bow that way, \"as to place near her a young\nbeauty of the name of Rosa. Now, my son has fallen in love with Rosa\nand has asked my consent to his proposing marriage to her and to\ntheir becoming engaged if she will take him--which I suppose she\nwill. I have never seen Rosa until to-day, but I have some confidence\nin my son's good sense--even in love. I find her what he represents\nher, to the best of my judgment; and my mother speaks of her with\ngreat commendation.\"\n\n\"She in all respects deserves it,\" says my Lady.\n\n\"I am happy, Lady Dedlock, that you say so, and I need not comment on\nthe value to me of your kind opinion of her.\"\n\n\"That,\" observes Sir Leicester with unspeakable grandeur, for he\nthinks the ironmaster a little too glib, \"must be quite unnecessary.\"\n\n\"Quite unnecessary, Sir Leicester. Now, my son is a very young man,\nand Rosa is a very young woman. As I made my way, so my son must make\nhis; and his being married at present is out of the question. But\nsupposing I gave my consent to his engaging himself to this pretty\ngirl, if this pretty girl will engage herself to him, I think it a\npiece of candour to say at once--I am sure, Sir Leicester and Lady\nDedlock, you will understand and excuse me--I should make it a\ncondition that she did not remain at Chesney Wold. Therefore, before\ncommunicating further with my son, I take the liberty of saying that\nif her removal would be in any way inconvenient or objectionable, I\nwill hold the matter over with him for any reasonable time and leave\nit precisely where it is.\"\n\nNot remain at Chesney Wold! Make it a condition! All Sir Leicester's\nold misgivings relative to Wat Tyler and the people in the iron\ndistricts who do nothing but turn out by torchlight come in a shower\nupon his head, the fine grey hair of which, as well as of his\nwhiskers, actually stirs with indignation.\n\n\"Am I to understand, sir,\" says Sir Leicester, \"and is my Lady to\nunderstand\"--he brings her in thus specially, first as a point of\ngallantry, and next as a point of prudence, having great reliance on\nher sense--\"am I to understand, Mr. Rouncewell, and is my Lady to\nunderstand, sir, that you consider this young woman too good for\nChesney Wold or likely to be injured by remaining here?\"\n\n\"Certainly not, Sir Leicester,\"\n\n\"I am glad to hear it.\" Sir Leicester very lofty indeed.\n\n\"Pray, Mr. Rouncewell,\" says my Lady, warning Sir Leicester off with\nthe slightest gesture of her pretty hand, as if he were a fly,\n\"explain to me what you mean.\"\n\n\"Willingly, Lady Dedlock. There is nothing I could desire more.\"\n\nAddressing her composed face, whose intelligence, however, is too\nquick and active to be concealed by any studied impassiveness,\nhowever habitual, to the strong Saxon face of the visitor, a picture\nof resolution and perseverance, my Lady listens with attention,\noccasionally slightly bending her head.\n\n\"I am the son of your housekeeper, Lady Dedlock, and passed my\nchildhood about this house. My mother has lived here half a\ncentury and will die here I have no doubt. She is one of those\nexamples--perhaps as good a one as there is--of love, and attachment,\nand fidelity in such a nation, which England may well be proud of,\nbut of which no order can appropriate the whole pride or the whole\nmerit, because such an instance bespeaks high worth on two sides--on\nthe great side assuredly, on the small one no less assuredly.\"\n\nSir Leicester snorts a little to hear the law laid down in this way,\nbut in his honour and his love of truth, he freely, though silently,\nadmits the justice of the ironmaster's proposition.\n\n\"Pardon me for saying what is so obvious, but I wouldn't have it\nhastily supposed,\" with the least turn of his eyes towards Sir\nLeicester, \"that I am ashamed of my mother's position here, or\nwanting in all just respect for Chesney Wold and the family.\nI certainly may have desired--I certainly have desired, Lady\nDedlock--that my mother should retire after so many years and end\nher days with me. But as I have found that to sever this strong bond\nwould be to break her heart, I have long abandoned that idea.\"\n\nSir Leicester very magnificent again at the notion of Mrs. Rouncewell\nbeing spirited off from her natural home to end her days with an\nironmaster.\n\n\"I have been,\" proceeds the visitor in a modest, clear way, \"an\napprentice and a workman. I have lived on workman's wages, years and\nyears, and beyond a certain point have had to educate myself. My wife\nwas a foreman's daughter, and plainly brought up. We have three\ndaughters besides this son of whom I have spoken, and being\nfortunately able to give them greater advantages than we have had\nourselves, we have educated them well, very well. It has been one of\nour great cares and pleasures to make them worthy of any station.\"\n\nA little boastfulness in his fatherly tone here, as if he added in\nhis heart, \"even of the Chesney Wold station.\" Not a little more\nmagnificence, therefore, on the part of Sir Leicester.\n\n\"All this is so frequent, Lady Dedlock, where I live, and among the\nclass to which I belong, that what would be generally called unequal\nmarriages are not of such rare occurrence with us as elsewhere. A son\nwill sometimes make it known to his father that he has fallen in\nlove, say, with a young woman in the factory. The father, who once\nworked in a factory himself, will be a little disappointed at first\nvery possibly. It may be that he had other views for his son.\nHowever, the chances are that having ascertained the young woman to\nbe of unblemished character, he will say to his son, 'I must be quite\nsure you are in earnest here. This is a serious matter for both of\nyou. Therefore I shall have this girl educated for two years,' or it\nmay be, 'I shall place this girl at the same school with your sisters\nfor such a time, during which you will give me your word and honour\nto see her only so often. If at the expiration of that time, when she\nhas so far profited by her advantages as that you may be upon a fair\nequality, you are both in the same mind, I will do my part to make\nyou happy.' I know of several cases such as I describe, my Lady, and\nI think they indicate to me my own course now.\"\n\nSir Leicester's magnificence explodes. Calmly, but terribly.\n\n\"Mr. Rouncewell,\" says Sir Leicester with his right hand in the\nbreast of his blue coat, the attitude of state in which he is painted\nin the gallery, \"do you draw a parallel between Chesney Wold and a--\"\nHere he resists a disposition to choke, \"a factory?\"\n\n\"I need not reply, Sir Leicester, that the two places are very\ndifferent; but for the purposes of this case, I think a parallel may\nbe justly drawn between them.\"\n\nSir Leicester directs his majestic glance down one side of the long\ndrawing-room and up the other before he can believe that he is awake.\n\n\"Are you aware, sir, that this young woman whom my Lady--my Lady--has\nplaced near her person was brought up at the village school outside\nthe gates?\"\n\n\"Sir Leicester, I am quite aware of it. A very good school it is, and\nhandsomely supported by this family.\"\n\n\"Then, Mr. Rouncewell,\" returns Sir Leicester, \"the application of\nwhat you have said is, to me, incomprehensible.\"\n\n\"Will it be more comprehensible, Sir Leicester, if I say,\" the\nironmaster is reddening a little, \"that I do not regard the village\nschool as teaching everything desirable to be known by my son's\nwife?\"\n\nFrom the village school of Chesney Wold, intact as it is this minute,\nto the whole framework of society; from the whole framework of\nsociety, to the aforesaid framework receiving tremendous cracks in\nconsequence of people (iron-masters, lead-mistresses, and what not)\nnot minding their catechism, and getting out of the station unto\nwhich they are called--necessarily and for ever, according to Sir\nLeicester's rapid logic, the first station in which they happen to\nfind themselves; and from that, to their educating other people out\nof THEIR stations, and so obliterating the landmarks, and opening the\nfloodgates, and all the rest of it; this is the swift progress of the\nDedlock mind.\n\n\"My Lady, I beg your pardon. Permit me, for one moment!\" She has\ngiven a faint indication of intending to speak. \"Mr. Rouncewell, our\nviews of duty, and our views of station, and our views of education,\nand our views of--in short, ALL our views--are so diametrically\nopposed, that to prolong this discussion must be repellent to your\nfeelings and repellent to my own. This young woman is honoured with\nmy Lady's notice and favour. If she wishes to withdraw herself from\nthat notice and favour or if she chooses to place herself under the\ninfluence of any one who may in his peculiar opinions--you will allow\nme to say, in his peculiar opinions, though I readily admit that he\nis not accountable for them to me--who may, in his peculiar opinions,\nwithdraw her from that notice and favour, she is at any time at\nliberty to do so. We are obliged to you for the plainness with which\nyou have spoken. It will have no effect of itself, one way or other,\non the young woman's position here. Beyond this, we can make no\nterms; and here we beg--if you will be so good--to leave the\nsubject.\"\n\nThe visitor pauses a moment to give my Lady an opportunity, but she\nsays nothing. He then rises and replies, \"Sir Leicester and Lady\nDedlock, allow me to thank you for your attention and only to observe\nthat I shall very seriously recommend my son to conquer his present\ninclinations. Good night!\"\n\n\"Mr. Rouncewell,\" says Sir Leicester with all the nature of a\ngentleman shining in him, \"it is late, and the roads are dark. I hope\nyour time is not so precious but that you will allow my Lady and\nmyself to offer you the hospitality of Chesney Wold, for to-night at\nleast.\"\n\n\"I hope so,\" adds my Lady.\n\n\"I am much obliged to you, but I have to travel all night in order to\nreach a distant part of the country punctually at an appointed time\nin the morning.\"\n\nTherewith the ironmaster takes his departure, Sir Leicester ringing\nthe bell and my Lady rising as he leaves the room.\n\nWhen my Lady goes to her boudoir, she sits down thoughtfully by the\nfire, and inattentive to the Ghost's Walk, looks at Rosa, writing in\nan inner room. Presently my Lady calls her.\n\n\"Come to me, child. Tell me the truth. Are you in love?\"\n\n\"Oh! My Lady!\"\n\nMy Lady, looking at the downcast and blushing face, says smiling,\n\"Who is it? Is it Mrs. Rouncewell's grandson?\"\n\n\"Yes, if you please, my Lady. But I don't know that I am in love with\nhim--yet.\"\n\n\"Yet, you silly little thing! Do you know that he loves YOU, yet?\"\n\n\"I think he likes me a little, my Lady.\" And Rosa bursts into tears.\n\nIs this Lady Dedlock standing beside the village beauty, smoothing\nher dark hair with that motherly touch, and watching her with eyes so\nfull of musing interest? Aye, indeed it is!\n\n\"Listen to me, child. You are young and true, and I believe you are\nattached to me.\"\n\n\"Indeed I am, my Lady. Indeed there is nothing in the world I\nwouldn't do to show how much.\"\n\n\"And I don't think you would wish to leave me just yet, Rosa, even\nfor a lover?\"\n\n\"No, my Lady! Oh, no!\" Rosa looks up for the first time, quite\nfrightened at the thought.\n\n\"Confide in me, my child. Don't fear me. I wish you to be happy, and\nwill make you so--if I can make anybody happy on this earth.\"\n\nRosa, with fresh tears, kneels at her feet and kisses her hand. My\nLady takes the hand with which she has caught it, and standing with\nher eyes fixed on the fire, puts it about and about between her own\ntwo hands, and gradually lets it fall. Seeing her so absorbed, Rosa\nsoftly withdraws; but still my Lady's eyes are on the fire.\n\nIn search of what? Of any hand that is no more, of any hand that\nnever was, of any touch that might have magically changed her life?\nOr does she listen to the Ghost's Walk and think what step does it\nmost resemble? A man's? A woman's? The pattering of a little child's\nfeet, ever coming on--on--on? Some melancholy influence is upon her,\nor why should so proud a lady close the doors and sit alone upon the\nhearth so desolate?\n\nVolumnia is away next day, and all the cousins are scattered before\ndinner. Not a cousin of the batch but is amazed to hear from Sir\nLeicester at breakfast-time of the obliteration of landmarks, and\nopening of floodgates, and cracking of the framework of society,\nmanifested through Mrs. Rouncewell's son. Not a cousin of the batch\nbut is really indignant, and connects it with the feebleness of\nWilliam Buffy when in office, and really does feel deprived of a\nstake in the country--or the pension list--or something--by fraud and\nwrong. As to Volumnia, she is handed down the great staircase by Sir\nLeicester, as eloquent upon the theme as if there were a general\nrising in the north of England to obtain her rouge-pot and pearl\nnecklace. And thus, with a clatter of maids and valets--for it is one\nappurtenance of their cousinship that however difficult they may find\nit to keep themselves, they MUST keep maids and valets--the cousins\ndisperse to the four winds of heaven; and the one wintry wind that\nblows to-day shakes a shower from the trees near the deserted house,\nas if all the cousins had been changed into leaves.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX\n\nThe Young Man\n\n\nChesney Wold is shut up, carpets are rolled into great scrolls in\ncorners of comfortless rooms, bright damask does penance in brown\nholland, carving and gilding puts on mortification, and the Dedlock\nancestors retire from the light of day again. Around and around the\nhouse the leaves fall thick, but never fast, for they come circling\ndown with a dead lightness that is sombre and slow. Let the gardener\nsweep and sweep the turf as he will, and press the leaves into full\nbarrows, and wheel them off, still they lie ankle-deep. Howls the\nshrill wind round Chesney Wold; the sharp rain beats, the windows\nrattle, and the chimneys growl. Mists hide in the avenues, veil the\npoints of view, and move in funeral-wise across the rising grounds.\nOn all the house there is a cold, blank smell like the smell of a\nlittle church, though something dryer, suggesting that the dead and\nburied Dedlocks walk there in the long nights and leave the flavour\nof their graves behind them.\n\nBut the house in town, which is rarely in the same mind as Chesney\nWold at the same time, seldom rejoicing when it rejoices or mourning\nwhen it mourns, excepting when a Dedlock dies--the house in town\nshines out awakened. As warm and bright as so much state may be, as\ndelicately redolent of pleasant scents that bear no trace of winter\nas hothouse flowers can make it, soft and hushed so that the ticking\nof the clocks and the crisp burning of the fires alone disturb the\nstillness in the rooms, it seems to wrap those chilled bones of Sir\nLeicester's in rainbow-coloured wool. And Sir Leicester is glad to\nrepose in dignified contentment before the great fire in the library,\ncondescendingly perusing the backs of his books or honouring the fine\narts with a glance of approbation. For he has his pictures, ancient\nand modern. Some of the Fancy Ball School in which art occasionally\ncondescends to become a master, which would be best catalogued like\nthe miscellaneous articles in a sale. As \"Three high-backed chairs, a\ntable and cover, long-necked bottle (containing wine), one flask, one\nSpanish female's costume, three-quarter face portrait of Miss Jogg\nthe model, and a suit of armour containing Don Quixote.\" Or \"One\nstone terrace (cracked), one gondola in distance, one Venetian\nsenator's dress complete, richly embroidered white satin costume with\nprofile portrait of Miss Jogg the model, one Scimitar superbly\nmounted in gold with jewelled handle, elaborate Moorish dress (very\nrare), and Othello.\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn comes and goes pretty often, there being estate\nbusiness to do, leases to be renewed, and so on. He sees my Lady\npretty often, too; and he and she are as composed, and as\nindifferent, and take as little heed of one another, as ever. Yet it\nmay be that my Lady fears this Mr. Tulkinghorn and that he knows it.\nIt may be that he pursues her doggedly and steadily, with no touch of\ncompunction, remorse, or pity. It may be that her beauty and all the\nstate and brilliancy surrounding her only gives him the greater zest\nfor what he is set upon and makes him the more inflexible in it.\nWhether he be cold and cruel, whether immovable in what he has made\nhis duty, whether absorbed in love of power, whether determined\nto have nothing hidden from him in ground where he has burrowed\namong secrets all his life, whether he in his heart despises the\nsplendour of which he is a distant beam, whether he is always\ntreasuring up slights and offences in the affability of his gorgeous\nclients--whether he be any of this, or all of this, it may be that my\nLady had better have five thousand pairs of fashionable eyes upon\nher, in distrustful vigilance, than the two eyes of this rusty lawyer\nwith his wisp of neckcloth and his dull black breeches tied with\nribbons at the knees.\n\nSir Leicester sits in my Lady's room--that room in which Mr.\nTulkinghorn read the affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce--particularly\ncomplacent. My Lady, as on that day, sits before the fire with her\nscreen in her hand. Sir Leicester is particularly complacent because\nhe has found in his newspaper some congenial remarks bearing directly\non the floodgates and the framework of society. They apply so happily\nto the late case that Sir Leicester has come from the library to my\nLady's room expressly to read them aloud. \"The man who wrote this\narticle,\" he observes by way of preface, nodding at the fire as if he\nwere nodding down at the man from a mount, \"has a well-balanced\nmind.\"\n\nThe man's mind is not so well balanced but that he bores my Lady,\nwho, after a languid effort to listen, or rather a languid\nresignation of herself to a show of listening, becomes distraught and\nfalls into a contemplation of the fire as if it were her fire at\nChesney Wold, and she had never left it. Sir Leicester, quite\nunconscious, reads on through his double eye-glass, occasionally\nstopping to remove his glass and express approval, as \"Very true\nindeed,\" \"Very properly put,\" \"I have frequently made the same remark\nmyself,\" invariably losing his place after each observation, and\ngoing up and down the column to find it again.\n\nSir Leicester is reading with infinite gravity and state when the\ndoor opens, and the Mercury in powder makes this strange\nannouncement, \"The young man, my Lady, of the name of Guppy.\"\n\nSir Leicester pauses, stares, repeats in a killing voice, \"The young\nman of the name of Guppy?\"\n\nLooking round, he beholds the young man of the name of Guppy, much\ndiscomfited and not presenting a very impressive letter of\nintroduction in his manner and appearance.\n\n\"Pray,\" says Sir Leicester to Mercury, \"what do you mean by\nannouncing with this abruptness a young man of the name of Guppy?\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon, Sir Leicester, but my Lady said she would see the\nyoung man whenever he called. I was not aware that you were here, Sir\nLeicester.\"\n\nWith this apology, Mercury directs a scornful and indignant look at\nthe young man of the name of Guppy which plainly says, \"What do you\ncome calling here for and getting ME into a row?\"\n\n\"It's quite right. I gave him those directions,\" says my Lady. \"Let\nthe young man wait.\"\n\n\"By no means, my Lady. Since he has your orders to come, I will not\ninterrupt you.\" Sir Leicester in his gallantry retires, rather\ndeclining to accept a bow from the young man as he goes out and\nmajestically supposing him to be some shoemaker of intrusive\nappearance.\n\nLady Dedlock looks imperiously at her visitor when the servant has\nleft the room, casting her eyes over him from head to foot. She\nsuffers him to stand by the door and asks him what he wants.\n\n\"That your ladyship would have the kindness to oblige me with a\nlittle conversation,\" returns Mr. Guppy, embarrassed.\n\n\"You are, of course, the person who has written me so many letters?\"\n\n\"Several, your ladyship. Several before your ladyship condescended to\nfavour me with an answer.\"\n\n\"And could you not take the same means of rendering a Conversation\nunnecessary? Can you not still?\"\n\nMr. Guppy screws his mouth into a silent \"No!\" and shakes his head.\n\n\"You have been strangely importunate. If it should appear, after all,\nthat what you have to say does not concern me--and I don't know how\nit can, and don't expect that it will--you will allow me to cut you\nshort with but little ceremony. Say what you have to say, if you\nplease.\"\n\nMy Lady, with a careless toss of her screen, turns herself towards\nthe fire again, sitting almost with her back to the young man of the\nname of Guppy.\n\n\"With your ladyship's permission, then,\" says the young man, \"I will\nnow enter on my business. Hem! I am, as I told your ladyship in my\nfirst letter, in the law. Being in the law, I have learnt the habit\nof not committing myself in writing, and therefore I did not mention\nto your ladyship the name of the firm with which I am connected and\nin which my standing--and I may add income--is tolerably good. I may\nnow state to your ladyship, in confidence, that the name of that firm\nis Kenge and Carboy, of Lincoln's Inn, which may not be altogether\nunknown to your ladyship in connexion with the case in Chancery of\nJarndyce and Jarndyce.\"\n\nMy Lady's figure begins to be expressive of some attention. She has\nceased to toss the screen and holds it as if she were listening.\n\n\"Now, I may say to your ladyship at once,\" says Mr. Guppy, a little\nemboldened, \"it is no matter arising out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce\nthat made me so desirous to speak to your ladyship, which conduct I\nhave no doubt did appear, and does appear, obtrusive--in fact, almost\nblackguardly.\"\n\nAfter waiting for a moment to receive some assurance to the contrary,\nand not receiving any, Mr. Guppy proceeds, \"If it had been Jarndyce\nand Jarndyce, I should have gone at once to your ladyship's\nsolicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, of the Fields. I have the pleasure of\nbeing acquainted with Mr. Tulkinghorn--at least we move when we meet\none another--and if it had been any business of that sort, I should\nhave gone to him.\"\n\nMy Lady turns a little round and says, \"You had better sit down.\"\n\n\"Thank your ladyship.\" Mr. Guppy does so. \"Now, your ladyship\"--Mr.\nGuppy refers to a little slip of paper on which he has made small\nnotes of his line of argument and which seems to involve him in the\ndensest obscurity whenever he looks at it--\"I--Oh, yes!--I place\nmyself entirely in your ladyship's hands. If your ladyship was to\nmake any complaint to Kenge and Carboy or to Mr. Tulkinghorn of the\npresent visit, I should be placed in a very disagreeable situation.\nThat, I openly admit. Consequently, I rely upon your ladyship's\nhonour.\"\n\nMy Lady, with a disdainful gesture of the hand that holds the screen,\nassures him of his being worth no complaint from her.\n\n\"Thank your ladyship,\" says Mr. Guppy; \"quite satisfactory.\nNow--I--dash it!--The fact is that I put down a head or two here of\nthe order of the points I thought of touching upon, and they're\nwritten short, and I can't quite make out what they mean. If your\nladyship will excuse me taking it to the window half a moment, I--\"\n\nMr. Guppy, going to the window, tumbles into a pair of love-birds, to\nwhom he says in his confusion, \"I beg your pardon, I am sure.\" This\ndoes not tend to the greater legibility of his notes. He murmurs,\ngrowing warm and red and holding the slip of paper now close to his\neyes, now a long way off, \"C.S. What's C.S. for? Oh! C.S.! Oh, I\nknow! Yes, to be sure!\" And comes back enlightened.\n\n\"I am not aware,\" says Mr. Guppy, standing midway between my Lady and\nhis chair, \"whether your ladyship ever happened to hear of, or to\nsee, a young lady of the name of Miss Esther Summerson.\"\n\nMy Lady's eyes look at him full. \"I saw a young lady of that name not\nlong ago. This past autumn.\"\n\n\"Now, did it strike your ladyship that she was like anybody?\" asks\nMr. Guppy, crossing his arms, holding his head on one side, and\nscratching the corner of his mouth with his memoranda.\n\nMy Lady removes her eyes from him no more.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Not like your ladyship's family?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"I think your ladyship,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"can hardly remember Miss\nSummerson's face?\"\n\n\"I remember the young lady very well. What has this to do with me?\"\n\n\"Your ladyship, I do assure you that having Miss Summerson's image\nimprinted on my 'eart--which I mention in confidence--I found, when I\nhad the honour of going over your ladyship's mansion of Chesney Wold\nwhile on a short out in the county of Lincolnshire with a friend,\nsuch a resemblance between Miss Esther Summerson and your ladyship's\nown portrait that it completely knocked me over, so much so that I\ndidn't at the moment even know what it WAS that knocked me over. And\nnow I have the honour of beholding your ladyship near (I have often,\nsince that, taken the liberty of looking at your ladyship in your\ncarriage in the park, when I dare say you was not aware of me, but I\nnever saw your ladyship so near), it's really more surprising than I\nthought it.\"\n\nYoung man of the name of Guppy! There have been times, when ladies\nlived in strongholds and had unscrupulous attendants within call,\nwhen that poor life of yours would NOT have been worth a minute's\npurchase, with those beautiful eyes looking at you as they look at\nthis moment.\n\nMy Lady, slowly using her little hand-screen as a fan, asks him again\nwhat he supposes that his taste for likenesses has to do with her.\n\n\"Your ladyship,\" replies Mr. Guppy, again referring to his paper, \"I\nam coming to that. Dash these notes! Oh! 'Mrs. Chadband.' Yes.\" Mr.\nGuppy draws his chair a little forward and seats himself again. My\nLady reclines in her chair composedly, though with a trifle less of\ngraceful ease than usual perhaps, and never falters in her steady\ngaze. \"A--stop a minute, though!\" Mr. Guppy refers again. \"E.S.\ntwice? Oh, yes! Yes, I see my way now, right on.\"\n\nRolling up the slip of paper as an instrument to point his speech\nwith, Mr. Guppy proceeds.\n\n\"Your ladyship, there is a mystery about Miss Esther Summerson's\nbirth and bringing up. I am informed of that fact because--which I\nmention in confidence--I know it in the way of my profession at Kenge\nand Carboy's. Now, as I have already mentioned to your ladyship, Miss\nSummerson's image is imprinted on my 'eart. If I could clear this\nmystery for her, or prove her to be well related, or find that having\nthe honour to be a remote branch of your ladyship's family she had a\nright to be made a party in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, why, I might make\na sort of a claim upon Miss Summerson to look with an eye of more\ndedicated favour on my proposals than she has exactly done as yet. In\nfact, as yet she hasn't favoured them at all.\"\n\nA kind of angry smile just dawns upon my Lady's face.\n\n\"Now, it's a very singular circumstance, your ladyship,\" says Mr.\nGuppy, \"though one of those circumstances that do fall in the way of\nus professional men--which I may call myself, for though not\nadmitted, yet I have had a present of my articles made to me by Kenge\nand Carboy, on my mother's advancing from the principal of her little\nincome the money for the stamp, which comes heavy--that I have\nencountered the person who lived as servant with the lady who brought\nMiss Summerson up before Mr. Jarndyce took charge of her. That lady\nwas a Miss Barbary, your ladyship.\"\n\nIs the dead colour on my Lady's face reflected from the screen which\nhas a green silk ground and which she holds in her raised hand as if\nshe had forgotten it, or is it a dreadful paleness that has fallen on\nher?\n\n\"Did your ladyship,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"ever happen to hear of Miss\nBarbary?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I think so. Yes.\"\n\n\"Was Miss Barbary at all connected with your ladyship's family?\"\n\nMy Lady's lips move, but they utter nothing. She shakes her head.\n\n\"NOT connected?\" says Mr. Guppy. \"Oh! Not to your ladyship's\nknowledge, perhaps? Ah! But might be? Yes.\" After each of these\ninterrogatories, she has inclined her head. \"Very good! Now, this\nMiss Barbary was extremely close--seems to have been extraordinarily\nclose for a female, females being generally (in common life at least)\nrather given to conversation--and my witness never had an idea\nwhether she possessed a single relative. On one occasion, and only\none, she seems to have been confidential to my witness on a single\npoint, and she then told her that the little girl's real name was not\nEsther Summerson, but Esther Hawdon.\"\n\n\"My God!\"\n\nMr. Guppy stares. Lady Dedlock sits before him looking him through,\nwith the same dark shade upon her face, in the same attitude even to\nthe holding of the screen, with her lips a little apart, her brow a\nlittle contracted, but for the moment dead. He sees her consciousness\nreturn, sees a tremor pass across her frame like a ripple over water,\nsees her lips shake, sees her compose them by a great effort, sees\nher force herself back to the knowledge of his presence and of what\nhe has said. All this, so quickly, that her exclamation and her dead\ncondition seem to have passed away like the features of those\nlong-preserved dead bodies sometimes opened up in tombs, which,\nstruck by the air like lightning, vanish in a breath.\n\n\"Your ladyship is acquainted with the name of Hawdon?\"\n\n\"I have heard it before.\"\n\n\"Name of any collateral or remote branch of your ladyship's family?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Now, your ladyship,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"I come to the last point of\nthe case, so far as I have got it up. It's going on, and I shall\ngather it up closer and closer as it goes on. Your ladyship must\nknow--if your ladyship don't happen, by any chance, to know\nalready--that there was found dead at the house of a person named\nKrook, near Chancery Lane, some time ago, a law-writer in great\ndistress. Upon which law-writer there was an inquest, and which\nlaw-writer was an anonymous character, his name being unknown. But,\nyour ladyship, I have discovered very lately that that law-writer's\nname was Hawdon.\"\n\n\"And what is THAT to me?\"\n\n\"Aye, your ladyship, that's the question! Now, your ladyship, a queer\nthing happened after that man's death. A lady started up, a disguised\nlady, your ladyship, who went to look at the scene of action and went\nto look at his grave. She hired a crossing-sweeping boy to show it\nher. If your ladyship would wish to have the boy produced in\ncorroboration of this statement, I can lay my hand upon him at any\ntime.\"\n\nThe wretched boy is nothing to my Lady, and she does NOT wish to have\nhim produced.\n\n\"Oh, I assure your ladyship it's a very queer start indeed,\" says Mr.\nGuppy. \"If you was to hear him tell about the rings that sparkled on\nher fingers when she took her glove off, you'd think it quite\nromantic.\"\n\nThere are diamonds glittering on the hand that holds the screen. My\nLady trifles with the screen and makes them glitter more, again with\nthat expression which in other times might have been so dangerous to\nthe young man of the name of Guppy.\n\n\"It was supposed, your ladyship, that he left no rag or scrap behind\nhim by which he could be possibly identified. But he did. He left a\nbundle of old letters.\"\n\nThe screen still goes, as before. All this time her eyes never once\nrelease him.\n\n\"They were taken and secreted. And to-morrow night, your ladyship,\nthey will come into my possession.\"\n\n\"Still I ask you, what is this to me?\"\n\n\"Your ladyship, I conclude with that.\" Mr. Guppy rises. \"If you think\nthere's enough in this chain of circumstances put together--in the\nundoubted strong likeness of this young lady to your ladyship, which\nis a positive fact for a jury; in her having been brought up by Miss\nBarbary; in Miss Barbary stating Miss Summerson's real name to be\nHawdon; in your ladyship's knowing both these names VERY WELL; and in\nHawdon's dying as he did--to give your ladyship a family interest in\ngoing further into the case, I will bring these papers here. I don't\nknow what they are, except that they are old letters: I have never\nhad them in my possession yet. I will bring those papers here as soon\nas I get them and go over them for the first time with your ladyship.\nI have told your ladyship my object. I have told your ladyship that I\nshould be placed in a very disagreeable situation if any complaint\nwas made, and all is in strict confidence.\"\n\nIs this the full purpose of the young man of the name of Guppy, or\nhas he any other? Do his words disclose the length, breadth, depth,\nof his object and suspicion in coming here; or if not, what do they\nhide? He is a match for my Lady there. She may look at him, but he\ncan look at the table and keep that witness-box face of his from\ntelling anything.\n\n\"You may bring the letters,\" says my Lady, \"if you choose.\"\n\n\"Your ladyship is not very encouraging, upon my word and honour,\"\nsays Mr. Guppy, a little injured.\n\n\"You may bring the letters,\" she repeats in the same tone, \"if\nyou--please.\"\n\n\"It shall be done. I wish your ladyship good day.\"\n\nOn a table near her is a rich bauble of a casket, barred and clasped\nlike an old strong-chest. She, looking at him still, takes it to her\nand unlocks it.\n\n\"Oh! I assure your ladyship I am not actuated by any motives of that\nsort,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"and I couldn't accept anything of the kind. I\nwish your ladyship good day, and am much obliged to you all the\nsame.\"\n\nSo the young man makes his bow and goes downstairs, where the\nsupercilious Mercury does not consider himself called upon to leave\nhis Olympus by the hall-fire to let the young man out.\n\nAs Sir Leicester basks in his library and dozes over his newspaper,\nis there no influence in the house to startle him, not to say to make\nthe very trees at Chesney Wold fling up their knotted arms, the very\nportraits frown, the very armour stir?\n\nNo. Words, sobs, and cries are but air, and air is so shut in and\nshut out throughout the house in town that sounds need be uttered\ntrumpet-tongued indeed by my Lady in her chamber to carry any faint\nvibration to Sir Leicester's ears; and yet this cry is in the house,\ngoing upward from a wild figure on its knees.\n\n\"O my child, my child! Not dead in the first hours of her life, as my\ncruel sister told me, but sternly nurtured by her, after she had\nrenounced me and my name! O my child, O my child!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nRichard had been gone away some time when a visitor came to pass a\nfew days with us. It was an elderly lady. It was Mrs. Woodcourt, who,\nhaving come from Wales to stay with Mrs. Bayham Badger and having\nwritten to my guardian, \"by her son Allan's desire,\" to report that\nshe had heard from him and that he was well \"and sent his kind\nremembrances to all of us,\" had been invited by my guardian to make a\nvisit to Bleak House. She stayed with us nearly three weeks. She took\nvery kindly to me and was extremely confidential, so much so that\nsometimes she almost made me uncomfortable. I had no right, I knew\nvery well, to be uncomfortable because she confided in me, and I felt\nit was unreasonable; still, with all I could do, I could not quite\nhelp it.\n\nShe was such a sharp little lady and used to sit with her hands\nfolded in each other looking so very watchful while she talked to me\nthat perhaps I found that rather irksome. Or perhaps it was her being\nso upright and trim, though I don't think it was that, because I\nthought that quaintly pleasant. Nor can it have been the general\nexpression of her face, which was very sparkling and pretty for an\nold lady. I don't know what it was. Or at least if I do now, I\nthought I did not then. Or at least--but it don't matter.\n\nOf a night when I was going upstairs to bed, she would invite me\ninto her room, where she sat before the fire in a great chair;\nand, dear me, she would tell me about Morgan ap-Kerrig until I\nwas quite low-spirited! Sometimes she recited a few verses from\nCrumlinwallinwer and the Mewlinnwillinwodd (if those are the right\nnames, which I dare say they are not), and would become quite fiery\nwith the sentiments they expressed. Though I never knew what they\nwere (being in Welsh), further than that they were highly eulogistic\nof the lineage of Morgan ap-Kerrig.\n\n\"So, Miss Summerson,\" she would say to me with stately triumph,\n\"this, you see, is the fortune inherited by my son. Wherever my son\ngoes, he can claim kindred with Ap-Kerrig. He may not have money, but\nhe always has what is much better--family, my dear.\"\n\nI had my doubts of their caring so very much for Morgan ap-Kerrig in\nIndia and China, but of course I never expressed them. I used to say\nit was a great thing to be so highly connected.\n\n\"It IS, my dear, a great thing,\" Mrs. Woodcourt would reply. \"It has\nits disadvantages; my son's choice of a wife, for instance, is\nlimited by it, but the matrimonial choice of the royal family is\nlimited in much the same manner.\"\n\nThen she would pat me on the arm and smooth my dress, as much as to\nassure me that she had a good opinion of me, the distance between us\nnotwithstanding.\n\n\"Poor Mr. Woodcourt, my dear,\" she would say, and always with some\nemotion, for with her lofty pedigree she had a very affectionate\nheart, \"was descended from a great Highland family, the MacCoorts of\nMacCoort. He served his king and country as an officer in the Royal\nHighlanders, and he died on the field. My son is one of the last\nrepresentatives of two old families. With the blessing of heaven he\nwill set them up again and unite them with another old family.\"\n\nIt was in vain for me to try to change the subject, as I used to try,\nonly for the sake of novelty or perhaps because--but I need not be so\nparticular. Mrs. Woodcourt never would let me change it.\n\n\"My dear,\" she said one night, \"you have so much sense and you look\nat the world in a quiet manner so superior to your time of life that\nit is a comfort to me to talk to you about these family matters of\nmine. You don't know much of my son, my dear; but you know enough of\nhim, I dare say, to recollect him?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am. I recollect him.\"\n\n\"Yes, my dear. Now, my dear, I think you are a judge of character,\nand I should like to have your opinion of him.\"\n\n\"Oh, Mrs. Woodcourt,\" said I, \"that is so difficult!\"\n\n\"Why is it so difficult, my dear?\" she returned. \"I don't see it\nmyself.\"\n\n\"To give an opinion--\"\n\n\"On so slight an acquaintance, my dear. THAT'S true.\"\n\nI didn't mean that, because Mr. Woodcourt had been at our house a\ngood deal altogether and had become quite intimate with my guardian.\nI said so, and added that he seemed to be very clever in his\nprofession--we thought--and that his kindness and gentleness to Miss\nFlite were above all praise.\n\n\"You do him justice!\" said Mrs. Woodcourt, pressing my hand. \"You\ndefine him exactly. Allan is a dear fellow, and in his profession\nfaultless. I say it, though I am his mother. Still, I must confess he\nis not without faults, love.\"\n\n\"None of us are,\" said I.\n\n\"Ah! But his really are faults that he might correct, and ought to\ncorrect,\" returned the sharp old lady, sharply shaking her head. \"I\nam so much attached to you that I may confide in you, my dear, as a\nthird party wholly disinterested, that he is fickleness itself.\"\n\nI said I should have thought it hardly possible that he could have\nbeen otherwise than constant to his profession and zealous in the\npursuit of it, judging from the reputation he had earned.\n\n\"You are right again, my dear,\" the old lady retorted, \"but I don't\nrefer to his profession, look you.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said I.\n\n\"No,\" said she. \"I refer, my dear, to his social conduct. He is\nalways paying trivial attentions to young ladies, and always has\nbeen, ever since he was eighteen. Now, my dear, he has never really\ncared for any one of them and has never meant in doing this to do any\nharm or to express anything but politeness and good nature. Still,\nit's not right, you know; is it?\"\n\n\"No,\" said I, as she seemed to wait for me.\n\n\"And it might lead to mistaken notions, you see, my dear.\"\n\nI supposed it might.\n\n\"Therefore, I have told him many times that he really should be more\ncareful, both in justice to himself and in justice to others. And he\nhas always said, 'Mother, I will be; but you know me better than\nanybody else does, and you know I mean no harm--in short, mean\nnothing.' All of which is very true, my dear, but is no\njustification. However, as he is now gone so far away and for an\nindefinite time, and as he will have good opportunities and\nintroductions, we may consider this past and gone. And you, my dear,\"\nsaid the old lady, who was now all nods and smiles, \"regarding your\ndear self, my love?\"\n\n\"Me, Mrs. Woodcourt?\"\n\n\"Not to be always selfish, talking of my son, who has gone to seek\nhis fortune and to find a wife--when do you mean to seek YOUR fortune\nand to find a husband, Miss Summerson? Hey, look you! Now you blush!\"\n\nI don't think I did blush--at all events, it was not important if I\ndid--and I said my present fortune perfectly contented me and I had\nno wish to change it.\n\n\"Shall I tell you what I always think of you and the fortune yet to\ncome for you, my love?\" said Mrs. Woodcourt.\n\n\"If you believe you are a good prophet,\" said I.\n\n\"Why, then, it is that you will marry some one very rich and very\nworthy, much older--five and twenty years, perhaps--than yourself.\nAnd you will be an excellent wife, and much beloved, and very happy.\"\n\n\"That is a good fortune,\" said I. \"But why is it to be mine?\"\n\n\"My dear,\" she returned, \"there's suitability in it--you are so busy,\nand so neat, and so peculiarly situated altogether that there's\nsuitability in it, and it will come to pass. And nobody, my love,\nwill congratulate you more sincerely on such a marriage than I\nshall.\"\n\nIt was curious that this should make me uncomfortable, but I think it\ndid. I know it did. It made me for some part of that night\nuncomfortable. I was so ashamed of my folly that I did not like to\nconfess it even to Ada, and that made me more uncomfortable still. I\nwould have given anything not to have been so much in the bright old\nlady's confidence if I could have possibly declined it. It gave me\nthe most inconsistent opinions of her. At one time I thought she was\na story-teller, and at another time that she was the pink of truth.\nNow I suspected that she was very cunning, next moment I believed her\nhonest Welsh heart to be perfectly innocent and simple. And after\nall, what did it matter to me, and why did it matter to me? Why could\nnot I, going up to bed with my basket of keys, stop to sit down by\nher fire and accommodate myself for a little while to her, at least\nas well as to anybody else, and not trouble myself about the harmless\nthings she said to me? Impelled towards her, as I certainly was, for\nI was very anxious that she should like me and was very glad indeed\nthat she did, why should I harp afterwards, with actual distress and\npain, on every word she said and weigh it over and over again in\ntwenty scales? Why was it so worrying to me to have her in our house,\nand confidential to me every night, when I yet felt that it was\nbetter and safer somehow that she should be there than anywhere else?\nThese were perplexities and contradictions that I could not account\nfor. At least, if I could--but I shall come to all that by and by,\nand it is mere idleness to go on about it now.\n\nSo when Mrs. Woodcourt went away, I was sorry to lose her but was\nrelieved too. And then Caddy Jellyby came down, and Caddy brought\nsuch a packet of domestic news that it gave us abundant occupation.\n\nFirst Caddy declared (and would at first declare nothing else) that I\nwas the best adviser that ever was known. This, my pet said, was no\nnews at all; and this, I said, of course, was nonsense. Then Caddy\ntold us that she was going to be married in a month and that if Ada\nand I would be her bridesmaids, she was the happiest girl in the\nworld. To be sure, this was news indeed; and I thought we never\nshould have done talking about it, we had so much to say to Caddy,\nand Caddy had so much to say to us.\n\nIt seemed that Caddy's unfortunate papa had got over his\nbankruptcy--\"gone through the Gazette,\" was the expression Caddy\nused, as if it were a tunnel--with the general clemency and\ncommiseration of his creditors, and had got rid of his affairs in\nsome blessed manner without succeeding in understanding them, and had\ngiven up everything he possessed (which was not worth much, I should\nthink, to judge from the state of the furniture), and had satisfied\nevery one concerned that he could do no more, poor man. So, he had\nbeen honourably dismissed to \"the office\" to begin the world again.\nWhat he did at the office, I never knew; Caddy said he was a\n\"custom-house and general agent,\" and the only thing I ever\nunderstood about that business was that when he wanted money more\nthan usual he went to the docks to look for it, and hardly ever found\nit.\n\nAs soon as her papa had tranquillized his mind by becoming this shorn\nlamb, and they had removed to a furnished lodging in Hatton Garden\n(where I found the children, when I afterwards went there, cutting\nthe horse hair out of the seats of the chairs and choking themselves\nwith it), Caddy had brought about a meeting between him and old Mr.\nTurveydrop; and poor Mr. Jellyby, being very humble and meek, had\ndeferred to Mr. Turveydrop's deportment so submissively that they had\nbecome excellent friends. By degrees, old Mr. Turveydrop, thus\nfamiliarized with the idea of his son's marriage, had worked up his\nparental feelings to the height of contemplating that event as being\nnear at hand and had given his gracious consent to the young couple\ncommencing housekeeping at the academy in Newman Street when they\nwould.\n\n\"And your papa, Caddy. What did he say?\"\n\n\"Oh! Poor Pa,\" said Caddy, \"only cried and said he hoped we might get\non better than he and Ma had got on. He didn't say so before Prince,\nhe only said so to me. And he said, 'My poor girl, you have not been\nvery well taught how to make a home for your husband, but unless you\nmean with all your heart to strive to do it, you had better murder\nhim than marry him--if you really love him.'\"\n\n\"And how did you reassure him, Caddy?\"\n\n\"Why, it was very distressing, you know, to see poor Pa so low and\nhear him say such terrible things, and I couldn't help crying myself.\nBut I told him that I DID mean it with all my heart and that I hoped\nour house would be a place for him to come and find some comfort in\nof an evening and that I hoped and thought I could be a better\ndaughter to him there than at home. Then I mentioned Peepy's coming\nto stay with me, and then Pa began to cry again and said the children\nwere Indians.\"\n\n\"Indians, Caddy?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Caddy, \"wild Indians. And Pa said\"--here she began to\nsob, poor girl, not at all like the happiest girl in the world--\"that\nhe was sensible the best thing that could happen to them was their\nbeing all tomahawked together.\"\n\nAda suggested that it was comfortable to know that Mr. Jellyby did\nnot mean these destructive sentiments.\n\n\"No, of course I know Pa wouldn't like his family to be weltering in\ntheir blood,\" said Caddy, \"but he means that they are very\nunfortunate in being Ma's children and that he is very unfortunate in\nbeing Ma's husband; and I am sure that's true, though it seems\nunnatural to say so.\"\n\nI asked Caddy if Mrs. Jellyby knew that her wedding-day was fixed.\n\n\"Oh! You know what Ma is, Esther,\" she returned. \"It's impossible to\nsay whether she knows it or not. She has been told it often enough;\nand when she IS told it, she only gives me a placid look, as if I was\nI don't know what--a steeple in the distance,\" said Caddy with a\nsudden idea; \"and then she shakes her head and says 'Oh, Caddy,\nCaddy, what a tease you are!' and goes on with the Borrioboola\nletters.\"\n\n\"And about your wardrobe, Caddy?\" said I. For she was under no\nrestraint with us.\n\n\"Well, my dear Esther,\" she returned, drying her eyes, \"I must do the\nbest I can and trust to my dear Prince never to have an unkind\nremembrance of my coming so shabbily to him. If the question\nconcerned an outfit for Borrioboola, Ma would know all about it and\nwould be quite excited. Being what it is, she neither knows nor\ncares.\"\n\nCaddy was not at all deficient in natural affection for her mother,\nbut mentioned this with tears as an undeniable fact, which I am\nafraid it was. We were sorry for the poor dear girl and found so much\nto admire in the good disposition which had survived under such\ndiscouragement that we both at once (I mean Ada and I) proposed a\nlittle scheme that made her perfectly joyful. This was her staying\nwith us for three weeks, my staying with her for one, and our all\nthree contriving and cutting out, and repairing, and sewing, and\nsaving, and doing the very best we could think of to make the most of\nher stock. My guardian being as pleased with the idea as Caddy was,\nwe took her home next day to arrange the matter and brought her out\nagain in triumph with her boxes and all the purchases that could be\nsqueezed out of a ten-pound note, which Mr. Jellyby had found in the\ndocks I suppose, but which he at all events gave her. What my\nguardian would not have given her if we had encouraged him, it would\nbe difficult to say, but we thought it right to compound for no more\nthan her wedding-dress and bonnet. He agreed to this compromise, and\nif Caddy had ever been happy in her life, she was happy when we sat\ndown to work.\n\nShe was clumsy enough with her needle, poor girl, and pricked her\nfingers as much as she had been used to ink them. She could not help\nreddening a little now and then, partly with the smart and partly\nwith vexation at being able to do no better, but she soon got over\nthat and began to improve rapidly. So day after day she, and my\ndarling, and my little maid Charley, and a milliner out of the town,\nand I, sat hard at work, as pleasantly as possible.\n\nOver and above this, Caddy was very anxious \"to learn housekeeping,\"\nas she said. Now, mercy upon us! The idea of her learning\nhousekeeping of a person of my vast experience was such a joke that I\nlaughed, and coloured up, and fell into a comical confusion when she\nproposed it. However, I said, \"Caddy, I am sure you are very welcome\nto learn anything that you can learn of ME, my dear,\" and I showed\nher all my books and methods and all my fidgety ways. You would have\nsupposed that I was showing her some wonderful inventions, by her\nstudy of them; and if you had seen her, whenever I jingled my\nhousekeeping keys, get up and attend me, certainly you might have\nthought that there never was a greater imposter than I with a blinder\nfollower than Caddy Jellyby.\n\nSo what with working and housekeeping, and lessons to Charley, and\nbackgammon in the evening with my guardian, and duets with Ada, the\nthree weeks slipped fast away. Then I went home with Caddy to see\nwhat could be done there, and Ada and Charley remained behind to take\ncare of my guardian.\n\nWhen I say I went home with Caddy, I mean to the furnished lodging in\nHatton Garden. We went to Newman Street two or three times, where\npreparations were in progress too--a good many, I observed, for\nenhancing the comforts of old Mr. Turveydrop, and a few for putting\nthe newly married couple away cheaply at the top of the house--but\nour great point was to make the furnished lodging decent for the\nwedding-breakfast and to imbue Mrs. Jellyby beforehand with some\nfaint sense of the occasion.\n\nThe latter was the more difficult thing of the two because Mrs.\nJellyby and an unwholesome boy occupied the front sitting-room (the\nback one was a mere closet), and it was littered down with\nwaste-paper and Borrioboolan documents, as an untidy stable might be\nlittered with straw. Mrs. Jellyby sat there all day drinking strong\ncoffee, dictating, and holding Borrioboolan interviews by\nappointment. The unwholesome boy, who seemed to me to be going into a\ndecline, took his meals out of the house. When Mr. Jellyby came home,\nhe usually groaned and went down into the kitchen. There he got\nsomething to eat if the servant would give him anything, and then,\nfeeling that he was in the way, went out and walked about Hatton\nGarden in the wet. The poor children scrambled up and tumbled down\nthe house as they had always been accustomed to do.\n\nThe production of these devoted little sacrifices in any presentable\ncondition being quite out of the question at a week's notice, I\nproposed to Caddy that we should make them as happy as we could on\nher marriage morning in the attic where they all slept, and should\nconfine our greatest efforts to her mama and her mama's room, and a\nclean breakfast. In truth Mrs. Jellyby required a good deal of\nattention, the lattice-work up her back having widened considerably\nsince I first knew her and her hair looking like the mane of a\ndustman's horse.\n\nThinking that the display of Caddy's wardrobe would be the best means\nof approaching the subject, I invited Mrs. Jellyby to come and look\nat it spread out on Caddy's bed in the evening after the unwholesome\nboy was gone.\n\n\"My dear Miss Summerson,\" said she, rising from her desk with her\nusual sweetness of temper, \"these are really ridiculous preparations,\nthough your assisting them is a proof of your kindness. There is\nsomething so inexpressibly absurd to me in the idea of Caddy being\nmarried! Oh, Caddy, you silly, silly, silly puss!\"\n\nShe came upstairs with us notwithstanding and looked at the clothes\nin her customary far-off manner. They suggested one distinct idea to\nher, for she said with her placid smile, and shaking her head, \"My\ngood Miss Summerson, at half the cost, this weak child might have\nbeen equipped for Africa!\"\n\nOn our going downstairs again, Mrs. Jellyby asked me whether this\ntroublesome business was really to take place next Wednesday. And on\nmy replying yes, she said, \"Will my room be required, my dear Miss\nSummerson? For it's quite impossible that I can put my papers away.\"\n\nI took the liberty of saying that the room would certainly be wanted\nand that I thought we must put the papers away somewhere. \"Well, my\ndear Miss Summerson,\" said Mrs. Jellyby, \"you know best, I dare say.\nBut by obliging me to employ a boy, Caddy has embarrassed me to that\nextent, overwhelmed as I am with public business, that I don't know\nwhich way to turn. We have a Ramification meeting, too, on Wednesday\nafternoon, and the inconvenience is very serious.\"\n\n\"It is not likely to occur again,\" said I, smiling. \"Caddy will be\nmarried but once, probably.\"\n\n\"That's true,\" Mrs. Jellyby replied; \"that's true, my dear. I suppose\nwe must make the best of it!\"\n\nThe next question was how Mrs. Jellyby should be dressed on the\noccasion. I thought it very curious to see her looking on serenely\nfrom her writing-table while Caddy and I discussed it, occasionally\nshaking her head at us with a half-reproachful smile like a superior\nspirit who could just bear with our trifling.\n\nThe state in which her dresses were, and the extraordinary confusion\nin which she kept them, added not a little to our difficulty; but at\nlength we devised something not very unlike what a common-place\nmother might wear on such an occasion. The abstracted manner in which\nMrs. Jellyby would deliver herself up to having this attire tried on\nby the dressmaker, and the sweetness with which she would then\nobserve to me how sorry she was that I had not turned my thoughts to\nAfrica, were consistent with the rest of her behaviour.\n\nThe lodging was rather confined as to space, but I fancied that if\nMrs. Jellyby's household had been the only lodgers in Saint Paul's or\nSaint Peter's, the sole advantage they would have found in the size\nof the building would have been its affording a great deal of room to\nbe dirty in. I believe that nothing belonging to the family which it\nhad been possible to break was unbroken at the time of those\npreparations for Caddy's marriage, that nothing which it had been\npossible to spoil in any way was unspoilt, and that no domestic\nobject which was capable of collecting dirt, from a dear child's knee\nto the door-plate, was without as much dirt as could well accumulate\nupon it.\n\nPoor Mr. Jellyby, who very seldom spoke and almost always sat when he\nwas at home with his head against the wall, became interested when he\nsaw that Caddy and I were attempting to establish some order among\nall this waste and ruin and took off his coat to help. But such\nwonderful things came tumbling out of the closets when they were\nopened--bits of mouldy pie, sour bottles, Mrs. Jellyby's caps,\nletters, tea, forks, odd boots and shoes of children, firewood,\nwafers, saucepan-lids, damp sugar in odds and ends of paper bags,\nfootstools, blacklead brushes, bread, Mrs. Jellyby's bonnets, books\nwith butter sticking to the binding, guttered candle ends put out\nby being turned upside down in broken candlesticks, nutshells,\nheads and tails of shrimps, dinner-mats, gloves, coffee-grounds,\numbrellas--that he looked frightened, and left off again. But he came\nregularly every evening and sat without his coat, with his head\nagainst the wall, as though he would have helped us if he had known\nhow.\n\n\"Poor Pa!\" said Caddy to me on the night before the great day, when\nwe really had got things a little to rights. \"It seems unkind to\nleave him, Esther. But what could I do if I stayed! Since I first\nknew you, I have tidied and tidied over and over again, but it's\nuseless. Ma and Africa, together, upset the whole house directly. We\nnever have a servant who don't drink. Ma's ruinous to everything.\"\n\nMr. Jellyby could not hear what she said, but he seemed very low\nindeed and shed tears, I thought.\n\n\"My heart aches for him; that it does!\" sobbed Caddy. \"I can't help\nthinking to-night, Esther, how dearly I hope to be happy with Prince,\nand how dearly Pa hoped, I dare say, to be happy with Ma. What a\ndisappointed life!\"\n\n\"My dear Caddy!\" said Mr. Jellyby, looking slowly round from the\nwail. It was the first time, I think, I ever heard him say three\nwords together.\n\n\"Yes, Pa!\" cried Caddy, going to him and embracing him\naffectionately.\n\n\"My dear Caddy,\" said Mr. Jellyby. \"Never have--\"\n\n\"Not Prince, Pa?\" faltered Caddy. \"Not have Prince?\"\n\n\"Yes, my dear,\" said Mr. Jellyby. \"Have him, certainly. But, never\nhave--\"\n\nI mentioned in my account of our first visit in Thavies Inn that\nRichard described Mr. Jellyby as frequently opening his mouth after\ndinner without saying anything. It was a habit of his. He opened his\nmouth now a great many times and shook his head in a melancholy\nmanner.\n\n\"What do you wish me not to have? Don't have what, dear Pa?\" asked\nCaddy, coaxing him, with her arms round his neck.\n\n\"Never have a mission, my dear child.\"\n\nMr. Jellyby groaned and laid his head against the wall again, and\nthis was the only time I ever heard him make any approach to\nexpressing his sentiments on the Borrioboolan question. I suppose he\nhad been more talkative and lively once, but he seemed to have been\ncompletely exhausted long before I knew him.\n\nI thought Mrs. Jellyby never would have left off serenely looking\nover her papers and drinking coffee that night. It was twelve o'clock\nbefore we could obtain possession of the room, and the clearance it\nrequired then was so discouraging that Caddy, who was almost tired\nout, sat down in the middle of the dust and cried. But she soon\ncheered up, and we did wonders with it before we went to bed.\n\nIn the morning it looked, by the aid of a few flowers and a quantity\nof soap and water and a little arrangement, quite gay. The plain\nbreakfast made a cheerful show, and Caddy was perfectly charming. But\nwhen my darling came, I thought--and I think now--that I never had\nseen such a dear face as my beautiful pet's.\n\nWe made a little feast for the children upstairs, and we put Peepy at\nthe head of the table, and we showed them Caddy in her bridal dress,\nand they clapped their hands and hurrahed, and Caddy cried to think\nthat she was going away from them and hugged them over and over again\nuntil we brought Prince up to fetch her away--when, I am sorry to\nsay, Peepy bit him. Then there was old Mr. Turveydrop downstairs, in\na state of deportment not to be expressed, benignly blessing Caddy\nand giving my guardian to understand that his son's happiness was his\nown parental work and that he sacrificed personal considerations to\nensure it. \"My dear sir,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, \"these young people\nwill live with me; my house is large enough for their accommodation,\nand they shall not want the shelter of my roof. I could have\nwished--you will understand the allusion, Mr. Jarndyce, for you\nremember my illustrious patron the Prince Regent--I could have\nwished that my son had married into a family where there was more\ndeportment, but the will of heaven be done!\"\n\nMr. and Mrs. Pardiggle were of the party--Mr. Pardiggle, an\nobstinate-looking man with a large waistcoat and stubbly hair, who\nwas always talking in a loud bass voice about his mite, or Mrs.\nPardiggle's mite, or their five boys' mites. Mr. Quale, with his hair\nbrushed back as usual and his knobs of temples shining very much, was\nalso there, not in the character of a disappointed lover, but as the\naccepted of a young--at least, an unmarried--lady, a Miss Wisk, who\nwas also there. Miss Wisk's mission, my guardian said, was to show\nthe world that woman's mission was man's mission and that the only\ngenuine mission of both man and woman was to be always moving\ndeclaratory resolutions about things in general at public meetings.\nThe guests were few, but were, as one might expect at Mrs. Jellyby's,\nall devoted to public objects only. Besides those I have mentioned,\nthere was an extremely dirty lady with her bonnet all awry and the\nticketed price of her dress still sticking on it, whose neglected\nhome, Caddy told me, was like a filthy wilderness, but whose church\nwas like a fancy fair. A very contentious gentleman, who said it was\nhis mission to be everybody's brother but who appeared to be on terms\nof coolness with the whole of his large family, completed the party.\n\nA party, having less in common with such an occasion, could hardly\nhave been got together by any ingenuity. Such a mean mission as the\ndomestic mission was the very last thing to be endured among them;\nindeed, Miss Wisk informed us, with great indignation, before we sat\ndown to breakfast, that the idea of woman's mission lying chiefly in\nthe narrow sphere of home was an outrageous slander on the part of\nher tyrant, man. One other singularity was that nobody with a\nmission--except Mr. Quale, whose mission, as I think I have formerly\nsaid, was to be in ecstasies with everybody's mission--cared at all\nfor anybody's mission. Mrs. Pardiggle being as clear that the only\none infallible course was her course of pouncing upon the poor and\napplying benevolence to them like a strait-waistcoat; as Miss Wisk\nwas that the only practical thing for the world was the emancipation\nof woman from the thraldom of her tyrant, man. Mrs. Jellyby, all the\nwhile, sat smiling at the limited vision that could see anything but\nBorrioboola-Gha.\n\nBut I am anticipating now the purport of our conversation on the ride\nhome instead of first marrying Caddy. We all went to church, and Mr.\nJellyby gave her away. Of the air with which old Mr. Turveydrop, with\nhis hat under his left arm (the inside presented at the clergyman\nlike a cannon) and his eyes creasing themselves up into his wig,\nstood stiff and high-shouldered behind us bridesmaids during the\nceremony, and afterwards saluted us, I could never say enough to do\nit justice. Miss Wisk, whom I cannot report as prepossessing in\nappearance, and whose manner was grim, listened to the proceedings,\nas part of woman's wrongs, with a disdainful face. Mrs. Jellyby, with\nher calm smile and her bright eyes, looked the least concerned of all\nthe company.\n\nWe duly came back to breakfast, and Mrs. Jellyby sat at the head of\nthe table and Mr. Jellyby at the foot. Caddy had previously stolen\nupstairs to hug the children again and tell them that her name was\nTurveydrop. But this piece of information, instead of being an\nagreeable surprise to Peepy, threw him on his back in such transports\nof kicking grief that I could do nothing on being sent for but accede\nto the proposal that he should be admitted to the breakfast table. So\nhe came down and sat in my lap; and Mrs. Jellyby, after saying, in\nreference to the state of his pinafore, \"Oh, you naughty Peepy, what\na shocking little pig you are!\" was not at all discomposed. He was\nvery good except that he brought down Noah with him (out of an ark I\nhad given him before we went to church) and WOULD dip him head first\ninto the wine-glasses and then put him in his mouth.\n\nMy guardian, with his sweet temper and his quick perception and his\namiable face, made something agreeable even out of the ungenial\ncompany. None of them seemed able to talk about anything but his, or\nher, own one subject, and none of them seemed able to talk about even\nthat as part of a world in which there was anything else; but my\nguardian turned it all to the merry encouragement of Caddy and the\nhonour of the occasion, and brought us through the breakfast nobly.\nWhat we should have done without him, I am afraid to think, for all\nthe company despising the bride and bridegroom and old Mr.\nTurveydrop--and old Mr. Thurveydrop, in virtue of his deportment,\nconsidering himself vastly superior to all the company--it was a very\nunpromising case.\n\nAt last the time came when poor Caddy was to go and when all her\nproperty was packed on the hired coach and pair that was to take her\nand her husband to Gravesend. It affected us to see Caddy clinging,\nthen, to her deplorable home and hanging on her mother's neck with\nthe greatest tenderness.\n\n\"I am very sorry I couldn't go on writing from dictation, Ma,\" sobbed\nCaddy. \"I hope you forgive me now.\"\n\n\"Oh, Caddy, Caddy!\" said Mrs. Jellyby. \"I have told you over and over\nagain that I have engaged a boy, and there's an end of it.\"\n\n\"You are sure you are not the least angry with me, Ma? Say you are\nsure before I go away, Ma?\"\n\n\"You foolish Caddy,\" returned Mrs. Jellyby, \"do I look angry, or have\nI inclination to be angry, or time to be angry? How CAN you?\"\n\n\"Take a little care of Pa while I am gone, Mama!\"\n\nMrs. Jellyby positively laughed at the fancy. \"You romantic child,\"\nsaid she, lightly patting Caddy's back. \"Go along. I am excellent\nfriends with you. Now, good-bye, Caddy, and be very happy!\"\n\nThen Caddy hung upon her father and nursed his cheek against hers as\nif he were some poor dull child in pain. All this took place in the\nhall. Her father released her, took out his pocket handkerchief, and\nsat down on the stairs with his head against the wall. I hope he\nfound some consolation in walls. I almost think he did.\n\nAnd then Prince took her arm in his and turned with great emotion and\nrespect to his father, whose deportment at that moment was\noverwhelming.\n\n\"Thank you over and over again, father!\" said Prince, kissing his\nhand. \"I am very grateful for all your kindness and consideration\nregarding our marriage, and so, I can assure you, is Caddy.\"\n\n\"Very,\" sobbed Caddy. \"Ve-ry!\"\n\n\"My dear son,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, \"and dear daughter, I have done\nmy duty. If the spirit of a sainted wooman hovers above us and looks\ndown on the occasion, that, and your constant affection, will be my\nrecompense. You will not fail in YOUR duty, my son and daughter, I\nbelieve?\"\n\n\"Dear father, never!\" cried Prince.\n\n\"Never, never, dear Mr. Turveydrop!\" said Caddy.\n\n\"This,\" returned Mr. Turveydrop, \"is as it should be. My children, my\nhome is yours, my heart is yours, my all is yours. I will never leave\nyou; nothing but death shall part us. My dear son, you contemplate an\nabsence of a week, I think?\"\n\n\"A week, dear father. We shall return home this day week.\"\n\n\"My dear child,\" said Mr. Turveydrop, \"let me, even under the present\nexceptional circumstances, recommend strict punctuality. It is highly\nimportant to keep the connexion together; and schools, if at all\nneglected, are apt to take offence.\"\n\n\"This day week, father, we shall be sure to be home to dinner.\"\n\n\"Good!\" said Mr. Turveydrop. \"You will find fires, my dear Caroline,\nin your own room, and dinner prepared in my apartment. Yes, yes,\nPrince!\" anticipating some self-denying objection on his son's part\nwith a great air. \"You and our Caroline will be strange in the upper\npart of the premises and will, therefore, dine that day in my\napartment. Now, bless ye!\"\n\nThey drove away, and whether I wondered most at Mrs. Jellyby or at\nMr. Turveydrop, I did not know. Ada and my guardian were in the same\ncondition when we came to talk it over. But before we drove away too,\nI received a most unexpected and eloquent compliment from Mr.\nJellyby. He came up to me in the hall, took both my hands, pressed\nthem earnestly, and opened his mouth twice. I was so sure of his\nmeaning that I said, quite flurried, \"You are very welcome, sir. Pray\ndon't mention it!\"\n\n\"I hope this marriage is for the best, guardian,\" said I when we\nthree were on our road home.\n\n\"I hope it is, little woman. Patience. We shall see.\"\n\n\"Is the wind in the east to-day?\" I ventured to ask him.\n\nHe laughed heartily and answered, \"No.\"\n\n\"But it must have been this morning, I think,\" said I.\n\nHe answered \"No\" again, and this time my dear girl confidently\nanswered \"No\" too and shook the lovely head which, with its blooming\nflowers against the golden hair, was like the very spring. \"Much YOU\nknow of east winds, my ugly darling,\" said I, kissing her in my\nadmiration--I couldn't help it.\n\nWell! It was only their love for me, I know very well, and it is a\nlong time ago. I must write it even if I rub it out again, because it\ngives me so much pleasure. They said there could be no east wind\nwhere Somebody was; they said that wherever Dame Durden went, there\nwas sunshine and summer air.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI\n\nNurse and Patient\n\n\nI had not been at home again many days when one evening I went\nupstairs into my own room to take a peep over Charley's shoulder and\nsee how she was getting on with her copy-book. Writing was a trying\nbusiness to Charley, who seemed to have no natural power over a pen,\nbut in whose hand every pen appeared to become perversely animated,\nand to go wrong and crooked, and to stop, and splash, and sidle into\ncorners like a saddle-donkey. It was very odd to see what old letters\nCharley's young hand had made, they so wrinkled, and shrivelled, and\ntottering, it so plump and round. Yet Charley was uncommonly expert\nat other things and had as nimble little fingers as I ever watched.\n\n\"Well, Charley,\" said I, looking over a copy of the letter O in which\nit was represented as square, triangular, pear-shaped, and collapsed\nin all kinds of ways, \"we are improving. If we only get to make it\nround, we shall be perfect, Charley.\"\n\nThen I made one, and Charley made one, and the pen wouldn't join\nCharley's neatly, but twisted it up into a knot.\n\n\"Never mind, Charley. We shall do it in time.\"\n\nCharley laid down her pen, the copy being finished, opened and shut\nher cramped little hand, looked gravely at the page, half in pride\nand half in doubt, and got up, and dropped me a curtsy.\n\n\"Thank you, miss. If you please, miss, did you know a poor person of\nthe name of Jenny?\"\n\n\"A brickmaker's wife, Charley? Yes.\"\n\n\"She came and spoke to me when I was out a little while ago, and said\nyou knew her, miss. She asked me if I wasn't the young lady's little\nmaid--meaning you for the young lady, miss--and I said yes, miss.\"\n\n\"I thought she had left this neighbourhood altogether, Charley.\"\n\n\"So she had, miss, but she's come back again to where she used to\nlive--she and Liz. Did you know another poor person of the name of\nLiz, miss?\"\n\n\"I think I do, Charley, though not by name.\"\n\n\"That's what she said!\" returned Charley. \"They have both come back,\nmiss, and have been tramping high and low.\"\n\n\"Tramping high and low, have they, Charley?\"\n\n\"Yes, miss.\" If Charley could only have made the letters in her copy\nas round as the eyes with which she looked into my face, they would\nhave been excellent. \"And this poor person came about the house three\nor four days, hoping to get a glimpse of you, miss--all she wanted,\nshe said--but you were away. That was when she saw me. She saw me\na-going about, miss,\" said Charley with a short laugh of the greatest\ndelight and pride, \"and she thought I looked like your maid!\"\n\n\"Did she though, really, Charley?\"\n\n\"Yes, miss!\" said Charley. \"Really and truly.\" And Charley, with\nanother short laugh of the purest glee, made her eyes very round\nagain and looked as serious as became my maid. I was never tired of\nseeing Charley in the full enjoyment of that great dignity, standing\nbefore me with her youthful face and figure, and her steady manner,\nand her childish exultation breaking through it now and then in the\npleasantest way.\n\n\"And where did you see her, Charley?\" said I.\n\nMy little maid's countenance fell as she replied, \"By the doctor's\nshop, miss.\" For Charley wore her black frock yet.\n\nI asked if the brickmaker's wife were ill, but Charley said no. It\nwas some one else. Some one in her cottage who had tramped down to\nSaint Albans and was tramping he didn't know where. A poor boy,\nCharley said. No father, no mother, no any one. \"Like as Tom might\nhave been, miss, if Emma and me had died after father,\" said Charley,\nher round eyes filling with tears.\n\n\"And she was getting medicine for him, Charley?\"\n\n\"She said, miss,\" returned Charley, \"how that he had once done as\nmuch for her.\"\n\nMy little maid's face was so eager and her quiet hands were folded so\nclosely in one another as she stood looking at me that I had no great\ndifficulty in reading her thoughts. \"Well, Charley,\" said I, \"it\nappears to me that you and I can do no better than go round to\nJenny's and see what's the matter.\"\n\nThe alacrity with which Charley brought my bonnet and veil, and\nhaving dressed me, quaintly pinned herself into her warm shawl and\nmade herself look like a little old woman, sufficiently expressed her\nreadiness. So Charley and I, without saying anything to any one, went\nout.\n\nIt was a cold, wild night, and the trees shuddered in the wind. The\nrain had been thick and heavy all day, and with little intermission\nfor many days. None was falling just then, however. The sky had\npartly cleared, but was very gloomy--even above us, where a few stars\nwere shining. In the north and north-west, where the sun had set\nthree hours before, there was a pale dead light both beautiful and\nawful; and into it long sullen lines of cloud waved up like a sea\nstricken immovable as it was heaving. Towards London a lurid glare\noverhung the whole dark waste, and the contrast between these two\nlights, and the fancy which the redder light engendered of an\nunearthly fire, gleaming on all the unseen buildings of the city and\non all the faces of its many thousands of wondering inhabitants, was\nas solemn as might be.\n\nI had no thought that night--none, I am quite sure--of what was soon\nto happen to me. But I have always remembered since that when we had\nstopped at the garden-gate to look up at the sky, and when we went\nupon our way, I had for a moment an undefinable impression of myself\nas being something different from what I then was. I know it was then\nand there that I had it. I have ever since connected the feeling with\nthat spot and time and with everything associated with that spot and\ntime, to the distant voices in the town, the barking of a dog, and\nthe sound of wheels coming down the miry hill.\n\nIt was Saturday night, and most of the people belonging to the place\nwhere we were going were drinking elsewhere. We found it quieter than\nI had previously seen it, though quite as miserable. The kilns were\nburning, and a stifling vapour set towards us with a pale-blue glare.\n\nWe came to the cottage, where there was a feeble candle in the\npatched window. We tapped at the door and went in. The mother of the\nlittle child who had died was sitting in a chair on one side of the\npoor fire by the bed; and opposite to her, a wretched boy, supported\nby the chimney-piece, was cowering on the floor. He held under his\narm, like a little bundle, a fragment of a fur cap; and as he tried\nto warm himself, he shook until the crazy door and window shook. The\nplace was closer than before and had an unhealthy and a very peculiar\nsmell.\n\nI had not lifted my veil when I first spoke to the woman, which was\nat the moment of our going in. The boy staggered up instantly and\nstared at me with a remarkable expression of surprise and terror.\n\nHis action was so quick and my being the cause of it was so evident\nthat I stood still instead of advancing nearer.\n\n\"I won't go no more to the berryin ground,\" muttered the boy; \"I\nain't a-going there, so I tell you!\"\n\nI lifted my veil and spoke to the woman. She said to me in a low\nvoice, \"Don't mind him, ma'am. He'll soon come back to his head,\" and\nsaid to him, \"Jo, Jo, what's the matter?\"\n\n\"I know wot she's come for!\" cried the boy.\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"The lady there. She's come to get me to go along with her to the\nberryin ground. I won't go to the berryin ground. I don't like the\nname on it. She might go a-berryin ME.\" His shivering came on again,\nand as he leaned against the wall, he shook the hovel.\n\n\"He has been talking off and on about such like all day, ma'am,\" said\nJenny softly. \"Why, how you stare! This is MY lady, Jo.\"\n\n\"Is it?\" returned the boy doubtfully, and surveying me with his arm\nheld out above his burning eyes. \"She looks to me the t'other one. It\nain't the bonnet, nor yet it ain't the gownd, but she looks to me the\nt'other one.\"\n\nMy little Charley, with her premature experience of illness and\ntrouble, had pulled off her bonnet and shawl and now went quietly up\nto him with a chair and sat him down in it like an old sick nurse.\nExcept that no such attendant could have shown him Charley's youthful\nface, which seemed to engage his confidence.\n\n\"I say!\" said the boy. \"YOU tell me. Ain't the lady the t'other\nlady?\"\n\nCharley shook her head as she methodically drew his rags about him\nand made him as warm as she could.\n\n\"Oh!\" the boy muttered. \"Then I s'pose she ain't.\"\n\n\"I came to see if I could do you any good,\" said I. \"What is the\nmatter with you?\"\n\n\"I'm a-being froze,\" returned the boy hoarsely, with his haggard gaze\nwandering about me, \"and then burnt up, and then froze, and then\nburnt up, ever so many times in a hour. And my head's all sleepy, and\nall a-going mad-like--and I'm so dry--and my bones isn't half so much\nbones as pain.\n\n\"When did he come here?\" I asked the woman.\n\n\"This morning, ma'am, I found him at the corner of the town. I had\nknown him up in London yonder. Hadn't I, Jo?\"\n\n\"Tom-all-Alone's,\" the boy replied.\n\nWhenever he fixed his attention or his eyes, it was only for a very\nlittle while. He soon began to droop his head again, and roll it\nheavily, and speak as if he were half awake.\n\n\"When did he come from London?\" I asked.\n\n\"I come from London yes'day,\" said the boy himself, now flushed and\nhot. \"I'm a-going somewheres.\"\n\n\"Where is he going?\" I asked.\n\n\"Somewheres,\" repeated the boy in a louder tone. \"I have been moved\non, and moved on, more nor ever I was afore, since the t'other one\ngive me the sov'ring. Mrs. Snagsby, she's always a-watching, and\na-driving of me--what have I done to her?--and they're all a-watching\nand a-driving of me. Every one of 'em's doing of it, from the time\nwhen I don't get up, to the time when I don't go to bed. And I'm\na-going somewheres. That's where I'm a-going. She told me, down in\nTom-all-Alone's, as she came from Stolbuns, and so I took the\nStolbuns Road. It's as good as another.\"\n\nHe always concluded by addressing Charley.\n\n\"What is to be done with him?\" said I, taking the woman aside. \"He\ncould not travel in this state even if he had a purpose and knew\nwhere he was going!\"\n\n\"I know no more, ma'am, than the dead,\" she replied, glancing\ncompassionately at him. \"Perhaps the dead know better, if they could\nonly tell us. I've kept him here all day for pity's sake, and I've\ngiven him broth and physic, and Liz has gone to try if any one will\ntake him in (here's my pretty in the bed--her child, but I call it\nmine); but I can't keep him long, for if my husband was to come home\nand find him here, he'd be rough in putting him out and might do him\na hurt. Hark! Here comes Liz back!\"\n\nThe other woman came hurriedly in as she spoke, and the boy got up\nwith a half-obscured sense that he was expected to be going. When the\nlittle child awoke, and when and how Charley got at it, took it out\nof bed, and began to walk about hushing it, I don't know. There she\nwas, doing all this in a quiet motherly manner as if she were living\nin Mrs. Blinder's attic with Tom and Emma again.\n\nThe friend had been here and there, and had been played about from\nhand to hand, and had come back as she went. At first it was too\nearly for the boy to be received into the proper refuge, and at last\nit was too late. One official sent her to another, and the other sent\nher back again to the first, and so backward and forward, until it\nappeared to me as if both must have been appointed for their skill in\nevading their duties instead of performing them. And now, after all,\nshe said, breathing quickly, for she had been running and was\nfrightened too, \"Jenny, your master's on the road home, and mine's\nnot far behind, and the Lord help the boy, for we can do no more for\nhim!\" They put a few halfpence together and hurried them into his\nhand, and so, in an oblivious, half-thankful, half-insensible way, he\nshuffled out of the house.\n\n\"Give me the child, my dear,\" said its mother to Charley, \"and thank\nyou kindly too! Jenny, woman dear, good night! Young lady, if my\nmaster don't fall out with me, I'll look down by the kiln by and by,\nwhere the boy will be most like, and again in the morning!\" She\nhurried off, and presently we passed her hushing and singing to her\nchild at her own door and looking anxiously along the road for her\ndrunken husband.\n\nI was afraid of staying then to speak to either woman, lest I should\nbring her into trouble. But I said to Charley that we must not leave\nthe boy to die. Charley, who knew what to do much better than I did,\nand whose quickness equalled her presence of mind, glided on before\nme, and presently we came up with Jo, just short of the brick-kiln.\n\nI think he must have begun his journey with some small bundle under\nhis arm and must have had it stolen or lost it. For he still carried\nhis wretched fragment of fur cap like a bundle, though he went\nbare-headed through the rain, which now fell fast. He stopped when we\ncalled to him and again showed a dread of me when I came up, standing\nwith his lustrous eyes fixed upon me, and even arrested in his\nshivering fit.\n\nI asked him to come with us, and we would take care that he had some\nshelter for the night.\n\n\"I don't want no shelter,\" he said; \"I can lay amongst the warm\nbricks.\"\n\n\"But don't you know that people die there?\" replied Charley.\n\n\"They dies everywheres,\" said the boy. \"They dies in their\nlodgings--she knows where; I showed her--and they dies down in\nTom-all-Alone's in heaps. They dies more than they lives, according\nto what I see.\" Then he hoarsely whispered Charley, \"If she ain't the\nt'other one, she ain't the forrenner. Is there THREE of 'em then?\"\n\nCharley looked at me a little frightened. I felt half frightened at\nmyself when the boy glared on me so.\n\nBut he turned and followed when I beckoned to him, and finding that\nhe acknowledged that influence in me, I led the way straight home. It\nwas not far, only at the summit of the hill. We passed but one man. I\ndoubted if we should have got home without assistance, the boy's\nsteps were so uncertain and tremulous. He made no complaint, however,\nand was strangely unconcerned about himself, if I may say so strange\na thing.\n\nLeaving him in the hall for a moment, shrunk into the corner of the\nwindow-seat and staring with an indifference that scarcely could be\ncalled wonder at the comfort and brightness about him, I went into\nthe drawing-room to speak to my guardian. There I found Mr. Skimpole,\nwho had come down by the coach, as he frequently did without notice,\nand never bringing any clothes with him, but always borrowing\neverything he wanted.\n\nThey came out with me directly to look at the boy. The servants had\ngathered in the hall too, and he shivered in the window-seat with\nCharley standing by him, like some wounded animal that had been found\nin a ditch.\n\n\"This is a sorrowful case,\" said my guardian after asking him a\nquestion or two and touching him and examining his eyes. \"What do you\nsay, Harold?\"\n\n\"You had better turn him out,\" said Mr. Skimpole.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" inquired my guardian, almost sternly.\n\n\"My dear Jarndyce,\" said Mr. Skimpole, \"you know what I am: I am a\nchild. Be cross to me if I deserve it. But I have a constitutional\nobjection to this sort of thing. I always had, when I was a medical\nman. He's not safe, you know. There's a very bad sort of fever about\nhim.\"\n\nMr. Skimpole had retreated from the hall to the drawing-room again\nand said this in his airy way, seated on the music-stool as we stood\nby.\n\n\"You'll say it's childish,\" observed Mr. Skimpole, looking gaily at\nus. \"Well, I dare say it may be; but I AM a child, and I never\npretend to be anything else. If you put him out in the road, you only\nput him where he was before. He will be no worse off than he was, you\nknow. Even make him better off, if you like. Give him sixpence, or\nfive shillings, or five pound ten--you are arithmeticians, and I am\nnot--and get rid of him!\"\n\n\"And what is he to do then?\" asked my guardian.\n\n\"Upon my life,\" said Mr. Skimpole, shrugging his shoulders with his\nengaging smile, \"I have not the least idea what he is to do then. But\nI have no doubt he'll do it.\"\n\n\"Now, is it not a horrible reflection,\" said my guardian, to whom I\nhad hastily explained the unavailing efforts of the two women, \"is it\nnot a horrible reflection,\" walking up and down and rumpling his\nhair, \"that if this wretched creature were a convicted prisoner, his\nhospital would be wide open to him, and he would be as well taken\ncare of as any sick boy in the kingdom?\"\n\n\"My dear Jarndyce,\" returned Mr. Skimpole, \"you'll pardon the\nsimplicity of the question, coming as it does from a creature who is\nperfectly simple in worldly matters, but why ISN'T he a prisoner\nthen?\"\n\nMy guardian stopped and looked at him with a whimsical mixture of\namusement and indignation in his face.\n\n\"Our young friend is not to be suspected of any delicacy, I should\nimagine,\" said Mr. Skimpole, unabashed and candid. \"It seems to me\nthat it would be wiser, as well as in a certain kind of way more\nrespectable, if he showed some misdirected energy that got him into\nprison. There would be more of an adventurous spirit in it, and\nconsequently more of a certain sort of poetry.\"\n\n\"I believe,\" returned my guardian, resuming his uneasy walk, \"that\nthere is not such another child on earth as yourself.\"\n\n\"Do you really?\" said Mr. Skimpole. \"I dare say! But I confess I\ndon't see why our young friend, in his degree, should not seek to\ninvest himself with such poetry as is open to him. He is no doubt\nborn with an appetite--probably, when he is in a safer state of\nhealth, he has an excellent appetite. Very well. At our young\nfriend's natural dinner hour, most likely about noon, our young\nfriend says in effect to society, 'I am hungry; will you have the\ngoodness to produce your spoon and feed me?' Society, which has taken\nupon itself the general arrangement of the whole system of spoons and\nprofesses to have a spoon for our young friend, does NOT produce that\nspoon; and our young friend, therefore, says 'You really must excuse\nme if I seize it.' Now, this appears to me a case of misdirected\nenergy, which has a certain amount of reason in it and a certain\namount of romance; and I don't know but what I should be more\ninterested in our young friend, as an illustration of such a case,\nthan merely as a poor vagabond--which any one can be.\"\n\n\"In the meantime,\" I ventured to observe, \"he is getting worse.\"\n\n\"In the meantime,\" said Mr. Skimpole cheerfully, \"as Miss Summerson,\nwith her practical good sense, observes, he is getting worse.\nTherefore I recommend your turning him out before he gets still\nworse.\"\n\nThe amiable face with which he said it, I think I shall never forget.\n\n\"Of course, little woman,\" observed my guardian, turning to me, \"I\ncan ensure his admission into the proper place by merely going there\nto enforce it, though it's a bad state of things when, in his\ncondition, that is necessary. But it's growing late, and is a very\nbad night, and the boy is worn out already. There is a bed in the\nwholesome loft-room by the stable; we had better keep him there till\nmorning, when he can be wrapped up and removed. We'll do that.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Mr. Skimpole, with his hands upon the keys of the piano as\nwe moved away. \"Are you going back to our young friend?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said my guardian.\n\n\"How I envy you your constitution, Jarndyce!\" returned Mr. Skimpole\nwith playful admiration. \"You don't mind these things; neither does\nMiss Summerson. You are ready at all times to go anywhere, and do\nanything. Such is will! I have no will at all--and no won't--simply\ncan't.\"\n\n\"You can't recommend anything for the boy, I suppose?\" said my\nguardian, looking back over his shoulder half angrily; only half\nangrily, for he never seemed to consider Mr. Skimpole an accountable\nbeing.\n\n\"My dear Jarndyce, I observed a bottle of cooling medicine in his\npocket, and it's impossible for him to do better than take it. You\ncan tell them to sprinkle a little vinegar about the place where he\nsleeps and to keep it moderately cool and him moderately warm. But it\nis mere impertinence in me to offer any recommendation. Miss\nSummerson has such a knowledge of detail and such a capacity for the\nadministration of detail that she knows all about it.\"\n\nWe went back into the hall and explained to Jo what we proposed to\ndo, which Charley explained to him again and which he received with\nthe languid unconcern I had already noticed, wearily looking on at\nwhat was done as if it were for somebody else. The servants\ncompassionating his miserable state and being very anxious to help,\nwe soon got the loft-room ready; and some of the men about the house\ncarried him across the wet yard, well wrapped up. It was pleasant to\nobserve how kind they were to him and how there appeared to be a\ngeneral impression among them that frequently calling him \"Old Chap\"\nwas likely to revive his spirits. Charley directed the operations and\nwent to and fro between the loft-room and the house with such little\nstimulants and comforts as we thought it safe to give him. My\nguardian himself saw him before he was left for the night and\nreported to me when he returned to the growlery to write a letter on\nthe boy's behalf, which a messenger was charged to deliver at\nday-light in the morning, that he seemed easier and inclined to\nsleep. They had fastened his door on the outside, he said, in case of\nhis being delirious, but had so arranged that he could not make any\nnoise without being heard.\n\nAda being in our room with a cold, Mr. Skimpole was left alone all\nthis time and entertained himself by playing snatches of pathetic\nairs and sometimes singing to them (as we heard at a distance) with\ngreat expression and feeling. When we rejoined him in the\ndrawing-room he said he would give us a little ballad which had come\ninto his head \"apropos of our young friend,\" and he sang one about a\npeasant boy,\n\n   \"Thrown on the wide world, doomed to wander and roam,\n    Bereft of his parents, bereft of a home.\"\n\nquite exquisitely. It was a song that always made him cry, he told\nus.\n\nHe was extremely gay all the rest of the evening, for he absolutely\nchirped--those were his delighted words--when he thought by what a\nhappy talent for business he was surrounded. He gave us, in his glass\nof negus, \"Better health to our young friend!\" and supposed and gaily\npursued the case of his being reserved like Whittington to become\nLord Mayor of London. In that event, no doubt, he would establish the\nJarndyce Institution and the Summerson Almshouses, and a little\nannual Corporation Pilgrimage to St. Albans. He had no doubt, he\nsaid, that our young friend was an excellent boy in his way, but his\nway was not the Harold Skimpole way; what Harold Skimpole was, Harold\nSkimpole had found himself, to his considerable surprise, when he\nfirst made his own acquaintance; he had accepted himself with all his\nfailings and had thought it sound philosophy to make the best of the\nbargain; and he hoped we would do the same.\n\nCharley's last report was that the boy was quiet. I could see, from\nmy window, the lantern they had left him burning quietly; and I went\nto bed very happy to think that he was sheltered.\n\nThere was more movement and more talking than usual a little before\ndaybreak, and it awoke me. As I was dressing, I looked out of my\nwindow and asked one of our men who had been among the active\nsympathizers last night whether there was anything wrong about the\nhouse. The lantern was still burning in the loft-window.\n\n\"It's the boy, miss,\" said he.\n\n\"Is he worse?\" I inquired.\n\n\"Gone, miss.\n\n\"Dead!\"\n\n\"Dead, miss? No. Gone clean off.\"\n\nAt what time of the night he had gone, or how, or why, it seemed\nhopeless ever to divine. The door remaining as it had been left, and\nthe lantern standing in the window, it could only be supposed that he\nhad got out by a trap in the floor which communicated with an empty\ncart-house below. But he had shut it down again, if that were so; and\nit looked as if it had not been raised. Nothing of any kind was\nmissing. On this fact being clearly ascertained, we all yielded to\nthe painful belief that delirium had come upon him in the night and\nthat, allured by some imaginary object or pursued by some imaginary\nhorror, he had strayed away in that worse than helpless state; all of\nus, that is to say, but Mr. Skimpole, who repeatedly suggested, in\nhis usual easy light style, that it had occurred to our young friend\nthat he was not a safe inmate, having a bad kind of fever upon him,\nand that he had with great natural politeness taken himself off.\n\nEvery possible inquiry was made, and every place was searched. The\nbrick-kilns were examined, the cottages were visited, the two women\nwere particularly questioned, but they knew nothing of him, and\nnobody could doubt that their wonder was genuine. The weather had for\nsome time been too wet and the night itself had been too wet to admit\nof any tracing by footsteps. Hedge and ditch, and wall, and rick and\nstack, were examined by our men for a long distance round, lest the\nboy should be lying in such a place insensible or dead; but nothing\nwas seen to indicate that he had ever been near. From the time when\nhe was left in the loft-room, he vanished.\n\nThe search continued for five days. I do not mean that it ceased even\nthen, but that my attention was then diverted into a current very\nmemorable to me.\n\nAs Charley was at her writing again in my room in the evening, and as\nI sat opposite to her at work, I felt the table tremble. Looking up,\nI saw my little maid shivering from head to foot.\n\n\"Charley,\" said I, \"are you so cold?\"\n\n\"I think I am, miss,\" she replied. \"I don't know what it is. I can't\nhold myself still. I felt so yesterday at about this same time, miss.\nDon't be uneasy, I think I'm ill.\"\n\nI heard Ada's voice outside, and I hurried to the door of\ncommunication between my room and our pretty sitting-room, and locked\nit. Just in time, for she tapped at it while my hand was yet upon the\nkey.\n\nAda called to me to let her in, but I said, \"Not now, my dearest. Go\naway. There's nothing the matter; I will come to you presently.\" Ah!\nIt was a long, long time before my darling girl and I were companions\nagain.\n\nCharley fell ill. In twelve hours she was very ill. I moved her to my\nroom, and laid her in my bed, and sat down quietly to nurse her. I\ntold my guardian all about it, and why I felt it was necessary that I\nshould seclude myself, and my reason for not seeing my darling above\nall. At first she came very often to the door, and called to me, and\neven reproached me with sobs and tears; but I wrote her a long letter\nsaying that she made me anxious and unhappy and imploring her, as she\nloved me and wished my mind to be at peace, to come no nearer than\nthe garden. After that she came beneath the window even oftener than\nshe had come to the door, and if I had learnt to love her dear sweet\nvoice before when we were hardly ever apart, how did I learn to love\nit then, when I stood behind the window-curtain listening and\nreplying, but not so much as looking out! How did I learn to love it\nafterwards, when the harder time came!\n\nThey put a bed for me in our sitting-room; and by keeping the door\nwide open, I turned the two rooms into one, now that Ada had vacated\nthat part of the house, and kept them always fresh and airy. There\nwas not a servant in or about the house but was so good that they\nwould all most gladly have come to me at any hour of the day or night\nwithout the least fear or unwillingness, but I thought it best to\nchoose one worthy woman who was never to see Ada and whom I could\ntrust to come and go with all precaution. Through her means I got out\nto take the air with my guardian when there was no fear of meeting\nAda, and wanted for nothing in the way of attendance, any more than\nin any other respect.\n\nAnd thus poor Charley sickened and grew worse, and fell into heavy\ndanger of death, and lay severely ill for many a long round of day\nand night. So patient she was, so uncomplaining, and inspired by such\na gentle fortitude that very often as I sat by Charley holding her\nhead in my arms--repose would come to her, so, when it would come to\nher in no other attitude--I silently prayed to our Father in heaven\nthat I might not forget the lesson which this little sister taught\nme.\n\nI was very sorrowful to think that Charley's pretty looks would\nchange and be disfigured, even if she recovered--she was such a child\nwith her dimpled face--but that thought was, for the greater part,\nlost in her greater peril. When she was at the worst, and her mind\nrambled again to the cares of her father's sick bed and the little\nchildren, she still knew me so far as that she would be quiet in my\narms when she could lie quiet nowhere else, and murmur out the\nwanderings of her mind less restlessly. At those times I used to\nthink, how should I ever tell the two remaining babies that the baby\nwho had learned of her faithful heart to be a mother to them in their\nneed was dead!\n\nThere were other times when Charley knew me well and talked to me,\ntelling me that she sent her love to Tom and Emma and that she was\nsure Tom would grow up to be a good man. At those times Charley would\nspeak to me of what she had read to her father as well as she could\nto comfort him, of that young man carried out to be buried who was\nthe only son of his mother and she was a widow, of the ruler's\ndaughter raised up by the gracious hand upon her bed of death. And\nCharley told me that when her father died she had kneeled down and\nprayed in her first sorrow that he likewise might be raised up and\ngiven back to his poor children, and that if she should never get\nbetter and should die too, she thought it likely that it might come\ninto Tom's mind to offer the same prayer for her. Then would I show\nTom how these people of old days had been brought back to life on\nearth, only that we might know our hope to be restored to heaven!\n\nBut of all the various times there were in Charley's illness, there\nwas not one when she lost the gentle qualities I have spoken of. And\nthere were many, many when I thought in the night of the last high\nbelief in the watching angel, and the last higher trust in God, on\nthe part of her poor despised father.\n\nAnd Charley did not die. She flutteringly and slowly turned the\ndangerous point, after long lingering there, and then began to mend.\nThe hope that never had been given, from the first, of Charley being\nin outward appearance Charley any more soon began to be encouraged;\nand even that prospered, and I saw her growing into her old childish\nlikeness again.\n\nIt was a great morning when I could tell Ada all this as she stood\nout in the garden; and it was a great evening when Charley and I at\nlast took tea together in the next room. But on that same evening, I\nfelt that I was stricken cold.\n\nHappily for both of us, it was not until Charley was safe in bed\nagain and placidly asleep that I began to think the contagion of her\nillness was upon me. I had been able easily to hide what I felt at\ntea-time, but I was past that already now, and I knew that I was\nrapidly following in Charley's steps.\n\nI was well enough, however, to be up early in the morning, and to\nreturn my darling's cheerful blessing from the garden, and to talk\nwith her as long as usual. But I was not free from an impression that\nI had been walking about the two rooms in the night, a little beside\nmyself, though knowing where I was; and I felt confused at\ntimes--with a curious sense of fullness, as if I were becoming too\nlarge altogether.\n\nIn the evening I was so much worse that I resolved to prepare\nCharley, with which view I said, \"You're getting quite strong,\nCharley, are you not?'\n\n\"Oh, quite!\" said Charley.\n\n\"Strong enough to be told a secret, I think, Charley?\"\n\n\"Quite strong enough for that, miss!\" cried Charley. But Charley's\nface fell in the height of her delight, for she saw the secret in MY\nface; and she came out of the great chair, and fell upon my bosom,\nand said \"Oh, miss, it's my doing! It's my doing!\" and a great deal\nmore out of the fullness of her grateful heart.\n\n\"Now, Charley,\" said I after letting her go on for a little while,\n\"if I am to be ill, my great trust, humanly speaking, is in you. And\nunless you are as quiet and composed for me as you always were for\nyourself, you can never fulfil it, Charley.\"\n\n\"If you'll let me cry a little longer, miss,\" said Charley. \"Oh, my\ndear, my dear! If you'll only let me cry a little longer. Oh, my\ndear!\"--how affectionately and devotedly she poured this out as she\nclung to my neck, I never can remember without tears--\"I'll be good.\"\n\nSo I let Charley cry a little longer, and it did us both good.\n\n\"Trust in me now, if you please, miss,\" said Charley quietly. \"I am\nlistening to everything you say.\"\n\n\"It's very little at present, Charley. I shall tell your doctor\nto-night that I don't think I am well and that you are going to nurse\nme.\"\n\nFor that the poor child thanked me with her whole heart. \"And in the\nmorning, when you hear Miss Ada in the garden, if I should not be\nquite able to go to the window-curtain as usual, do you go, Charley,\nand say I am asleep--that I have rather tired myself, and am asleep.\nAt all times keep the room as I have kept it, Charley, and let no one\ncome.\"\n\nCharley promised, and I lay down, for I was very heavy. I saw the\ndoctor that night and asked the favour of him that I wished to ask\nrelative to his saying nothing of my illness in the house as yet. I\nhave a very indistinct remembrance of that night melting into day,\nand of day melting into night again; but I was just able on the first\nmorning to get to the window and speak to my darling.\n\nOn the second morning I heard her dear voice--Oh, how dear\nnow!--outside; and I asked Charley, with some difficulty (speech\nbeing painful to me), to go and say I was asleep. I heard her answer\nsoftly, \"Don't disturb her, Charley, for the world!\"\n\n\"How does my own Pride look, Charley?\" I inquired.\n\n\"Disappointed, miss,\" said Charley, peeping through the curtain.\n\n\"But I know she is very beautiful this morning.\"\n\n\"She is indeed, miss,\" answered Charley, peeping. \"Still looking up\nat the window.\"\n\nWith her blue clear eyes, God bless them, always loveliest when\nraised like that!\n\nI called Charley to me and gave her her last charge.\n\n\"Now, Charley, when she knows I am ill, she will try to make her way\ninto the room. Keep her out, Charley, if you love me truly, to the\nlast! Charley, if you let her in but once, only to look upon me for\none moment as I lie here, I shall die.\"\n\n\"I never will! I never will!\" she promised me.\n\n\"I believe it, my dear Charley. And now come and sit beside me for a\nlittle while, and touch me with your hand. For I cannot see you,\nCharley; I am blind.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII\n\nThe Appointed Time\n\n\nIt is night in Lincoln's Inn--perplexed and troublous valley of the\nshadow of the law, where suitors generally find but little day--and\nfat candles are snuffed out in offices, and clerks have rattled down\nthe crazy wooden stairs and dispersed. The bell that rings at nine\no'clock has ceased its doleful clangour about nothing; the gates are\nshut; and the night-porter, a solemn warder with a mighty power of\nsleep, keeps guard in his lodge. From tiers of staircase windows\nclogged lamps like the eyes of Equity, bleared Argus with a\nfathomless pocket for every eye and an eye upon it, dimly blink at\nthe stars. In dirty upper casements, here and there, hazy little\npatches of candlelight reveal where some wise draughtsman and\nconveyancer yet toils for the entanglement of real estate in meshes\nof sheep-skin, in the average ratio of about a dozen of sheep to an\nacre of land. Over which bee-like industry these benefactors of their\nspecies linger yet, though office-hours be past, that they may give,\nfor every day, some good account at last.\n\nIn the neighbouring court, where the Lord Chancellor of the rag and\nbottle shop dwells, there is a general tendency towards beer and\nsupper. Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins, whose respective sons, engaged\nwith a circle of acquaintance in the game of hide and seek, have been\nlying in ambush about the by-ways of Chancery Lane for some hours and\nscouring the plain of the same thoroughfare to the confusion of\npassengers--Mrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins have but now exchanged\ncongratulations on the children being abed, and they still linger on\na door-step over a few parting words. Mr. Krook and his lodger, and\nthe fact of Mr. Krook's being \"continually in liquor,\" and the\ntestamentary prospects of the young man are, as usual, the staple of\ntheir conversation. But they have something to say, likewise, of the\nHarmonic Meeting at the Sol's Arms, where the sound of the piano\nthrough the partly opened windows jingles out into the court, and\nwhere Little Swills, after keeping the lovers of harmony in a roar\nlike a very Yorick, may now be heard taking the gruff line in a\nconcerted piece and sentimentally adjuring his friends and patrons to\n\"Listen, listen, listen, tew the wa-ter fall!\" Mrs. Perkins and Mrs.\nPiper compare opinions on the subject of the young lady of\nprofessional celebrity who assists at the Harmonic Meetings and who\nhas a space to herself in the manuscript announcement in the window,\nMrs. Perkins possessing information that she has been married a year\nand a half, though announced as Miss M. Melvilleson, the noted siren,\nand that her baby is clandestinely conveyed to the Sol's Arms every\nnight to receive its natural nourishment during the entertainments.\n\"Sooner than which, myself,\" says Mrs. Perkins, \"I would get my\nliving by selling lucifers.\" Mrs. Piper, as in duty bound, is of the\nsame opinion, holding that a private station is better than public\napplause, and thanking heaven for her own (and, by implication, Mrs.\nPerkins') respectability. By this time the pot-boy of the Sol's Arms\nappearing with her supper-pint well frothed, Mrs. Piper accepts that\ntankard and retires indoors, first giving a fair good night to Mrs.\nPerkins, who has had her own pint in her hand ever since it was\nfetched from the same hostelry by young Perkins before he was sent to\nbed. Now there is a sound of putting up shop-shutters in the court\nand a smell as of the smoking of pipes; and shooting stars are seen\nin upper windows, further indicating retirement to rest. Now, too,\nthe policeman begins to push at doors; to try fastenings; to be\nsuspicious of bundles; and to administer his beat, on the hypothesis\nthat every one is either robbing or being robbed.\n\nIt is a close night, though the damp cold is searching too, and there\nis a laggard mist a little way up in the air. It is a fine steaming\nnight to turn the slaughter-houses, the unwholesome trades, the\nsewerage, bad water, and burial-grounds to account, and give the\nregistrar of deaths some extra business. It may be something in the\nair--there is plenty in it--or it may be something in himself that is\nin fault; but Mr. Weevle, otherwise Jobling, is very ill at ease. He\ncomes and goes between his own room and the open street door twenty\ntimes an hour. He has been doing so ever since it fell dark. Since\nthe Chancellor shut up his shop, which he did very early to-night,\nMr. Weevle has been down and up, and down and up (with a cheap tight\nvelvet skull-cap on his head, making his whiskers look out of all\nproportion), oftener than before.\n\nIt is no phenomenon that Mr. Snagsby should be ill at ease too, for\nhe always is so, more or less, under the oppressive influence of the\nsecret that is upon him. Impelled by the mystery of which he is a\npartaker and yet in which he is not a sharer, Mr. Snagsby haunts what\nseems to be its fountain-head--the rag and bottle shop in the court.\nIt has an irresistible attraction for him. Even now, coming round by\nthe Sol's Arms with the intention of passing down the court, and out\nat the Chancery Lane end, and so terminating his unpremeditated\nafter-supper stroll of ten minutes' long from his own door and back\nagain, Mr. Snagsby approaches.\n\n\"What, Mr. Weevle?\" says the stationer, stopping to speak. \"Are YOU\nthere?\"\n\n\"Aye!\" says Weevle, \"Here I am, Mr. Snagsby.\"\n\n\"Airing yourself, as I am doing, before you go to bed?\" the stationer\ninquires.\n\n\"Why, there's not much air to be got here; and what there is, is not\nvery freshening,\" Weevle answers, glancing up and down the court.\n\n\"Very true, sir. Don't you observe,\" says Mr. Snagsby, pausing to\nsniff and taste the air a little, \"don't you observe, Mr. Weevle,\nthat you're--not to put too fine a point upon it--that you're rather\ngreasy here, sir?\"\n\n\"Why, I have noticed myself that there is a queer kind of flavour in\nthe place to-night,\" Mr. Weevle rejoins. \"I suppose it's chops at the\nSol's Arms.\"\n\n\"Chops, do you think? Oh! Chops, eh?\" Mr. Snagsby sniffs and tastes\nagain. \"Well, sir, I suppose it is. But I should say their cook at\nthe Sol wanted a little looking after. She has been burning 'em, sir!\nAnd I don't think\"--Mr. Snagsby sniffs and tastes again and then\nspits and wipes his mouth--\"I don't think--not to put too fine a\npoint upon it--that they were quite fresh when they were shown the\ngridiron.\"\n\n\"That's very likely. It's a tainting sort of weather.\"\n\n\"It IS a tainting sort of weather,\" says Mr. Snagsby, \"and I find it\nsinking to the spirits.\"\n\n\"By George! I find it gives me the horrors,\" returns Mr. Weevle.\n\n\"Then, you see, you live in a lonesome way, and in a lonesome room,\nwith a black circumstance hanging over it,\" says Mr. Snagsby, looking\nin past the other's shoulder along the dark passage and then falling\nback a step to look up at the house. \"I couldn't live in that room\nalone, as you do, sir. I should get so fidgety and worried of an\nevening, sometimes, that I should be driven to come to the door and\nstand here sooner than sit there. But then it's very true that you\ndidn't see, in your room, what I saw there. That makes a difference.\"\n\n\"I know quite enough about it,\" returns Tony.\n\n\"It's not agreeable, is it?\" pursues Mr. Snagsby, coughing his cough\nof mild persuasion behind his hand. \"Mr. Krook ought to consider it\nin the rent. I hope he does, I am sure.\"\n\n\"I hope he does,\" says Tony. \"But I doubt it.\"\n\n\"You find the rent too high, do you, sir?\" returns the stationer.\n\"Rents ARE high about here. I don't know how it is exactly, but the\nlaw seems to put things up in price. Not,\" adds Mr. Snagsby with his\napologetic cough, \"that I mean to say a word against the profession I\nget my living by.\"\n\nMr. Weevle again glances up and down the court and then looks at the\nstationer. Mr. Snagsby, blankly catching his eye, looks upward for a\nstar or so and coughs a cough expressive of not exactly seeing his\nway out of this conversation.\n\n\"It's a curious fact, sir,\" he observes, slowly rubbing his hands,\n\"that he should have been--\"\n\n\"Who's he?\" interrupts Mr. Weevle.\n\n\"The deceased, you know,\" says Mr. Snagsby, twitching his head and\nright eyebrow towards the staircase and tapping his acquaintance on\nthe button.\n\n\"Ah, to be sure!\" returns the other as if he were not over-fond of\nthe subject. \"I thought we had done with him.\"\n\n\"I was only going to say it's a curious fact, sir, that he should\nhave come and lived here, and been one of my writers, and then that\nyou should come and live here, and be one of my writers too. Which\nthere is nothing derogatory, but far from it in the appellation,\"\nsays Mr. Snagsby, breaking off with a mistrust that he may have\nunpolitely asserted a kind of proprietorship in Mr. Weevle, \"because\nI have known writers that have gone into brewers' houses and done\nreally very respectable indeed. Eminently respectable, sir,\" adds Mr.\nSnagsby with a misgiving that he has not improved the matter.\n\n\"It's a curious coincidence, as you say,\" answers Weevle, once more\nglancing up and down the court.\n\n\"Seems a fate in it, don't there?\" suggests the stationer.\n\n\"There does.\"\n\n\"Just so,\" observes the stationer with his confirmatory cough. \"Quite\na fate in it. Quite a fate. Well, Mr. Weevle, I am afraid I must bid\nyou good night\"--Mr. Snagsby speaks as if it made him desolate to go,\nthough he has been casting about for any means of escape ever since\nhe stopped to speak--\"my little woman will be looking for me else.\nGood night, sir!\"\n\nIf Mr. Snagsby hastens home to save his little woman the trouble of\nlooking for him, he might set his mind at rest on that score. His\nlittle woman has had her eye upon him round the Sol's Arms all this\ntime and now glides after him with a pocket handkerchief wrapped over\nher head, honouring Mr. Weevle and his doorway with a searching\nglance as she goes past.\n\n\"You'll know me again, ma'am, at all events,\" says Mr. Weevle to\nhimself; \"and I can't compliment you on your appearance, whoever you\nare, with your head tied up in a bundle. Is this fellow NEVER\ncoming!\"\n\nThis fellow approaches as he speaks. Mr. Weevle softly holds up his\nfinger, and draws him into the passage, and closes the street door.\nThen they go upstairs, Mr. Weevle heavily, and Mr. Guppy (for it is\nhe) very lightly indeed. When they are shut into the back room, they\nspeak low.\n\n\"I thought you had gone to Jericho at least instead of coming here,\"\nsays Tony.\n\n\"Why, I said about ten.\"\n\n\"You said about ten,\" Tony repeats. \"Yes, so you did say about ten.\nBut according to my count, it's ten times ten--it's a hundred\no'clock. I never had such a night in my life!\"\n\n\"What has been the matter?\"\n\n\"That's it!\" says Tony. \"Nothing has been the matter. But here have I\nbeen stewing and fuming in this jolly old crib till I have had the\nhorrors falling on me as thick as hail. THERE'S a blessed-looking\ncandle!\" says Tony, pointing to the heavily burning taper on his\ntable with a great cabbage head and a long winding-sheet.\n\n\"That's easily improved,\" Mr. Guppy observes as he takes the snuffers\nin hand.\n\n\"IS it?\" returns his friend. \"Not so easily as you think. It has been\nsmouldering like that ever since it was lighted.\"\n\n\"Why, what's the matter with you, Tony?\" inquires Mr. Guppy, looking\nat him, snuffers in hand, as he sits down with his elbow on the\ntable.\n\n\"William Guppy,\" replies the other, \"I am in the downs. It's this\nunbearably dull, suicidal room--and old Boguey downstairs, I\nsuppose.\" Mr. Weevle moodily pushes the snuffers-tray from him with\nhis elbow, leans his head on his hand, puts his feet on the fender,\nand looks at the fire. Mr. Guppy, observing him, slightly tosses his\nhead and sits down on the other side of the table in an easy\nattitude.\n\n\"Wasn't that Snagsby talking to you, Tony?\"\n\n\"Yes, and he--yes, it was Snagsby,\" said Mr. Weevle, altering the\nconstruction of his sentence.\n\n\"On business?\"\n\n\"No. No business. He was only sauntering by and stopped to prose.\"\n\n\"I thought it was Snagsby,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"and thought it as well\nthat he shouldn't see me, so I waited till he was gone.\"\n\n\"There we go again, William G.!\" cried Tony, looking up for an\ninstant. \"So mysterious and secret! By George, if we were going to\ncommit a murder, we couldn't have more mystery about it!\"\n\nMr. Guppy affects to smile, and with the view of changing the\nconversation, looks with an admiration, real or pretended, round the\nroom at the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty, terminating his survey\nwith the portrait of Lady Dedlock over the mantelshelf, in which she\nis represented on a terrace, with a pedestal upon the terrace, and a\nvase upon the pedestal, and her shawl upon the vase, and a prodigious\npiece of fur upon the shawl, and her arm on the prodigious piece of\nfur, and a bracelet on her arm.\n\n\"That's very like Lady Dedlock,\" says Mr. Guppy. \"It's a speaking\nlikeness.\"\n\n\"I wish it was,\" growls Tony, without changing his position. \"I\nshould have some fashionable conversation, here, then.\"\n\nFinding by this time that his friend is not to be wheedled into a\nmore sociable humour, Mr. Guppy puts about upon the ill-used tack and\nremonstrates with him.\n\n\"Tony,\" says he, \"I can make allowances for lowness of spirits, for\nno man knows what it is when it does come upon a man better than I\ndo, and no man perhaps has a better right to know it than a man who\nhas an unrequited image imprinted on his 'eart. But there are bounds\nto these things when an unoffending party is in question, and I will\nacknowledge to you, Tony, that I don't think your manner on the\npresent occasion is hospitable or quite gentlemanly.\"\n\n\"This is strong language, William Guppy,\" returns Mr. Weevle.\n\n\"Sir, it may be,\" retorts Mr. William Guppy, \"but I feel strongly\nwhen I use it.\"\n\nMr. Weevle admits that he has been wrong and begs Mr. William Guppy\nto think no more about it. Mr. William Guppy, however, having got the\nadvantage, cannot quite release it without a little more injured\nremonstrance.\n\n\"No! Dash it, Tony,\" says that gentleman, \"you really ought to be\ncareful how you wound the feelings of a man who has an unrequited\nimage imprinted on his 'eart and who is NOT altogether happy in those\nchords which vibrate to the tenderest emotions. You, Tony, possess in\nyourself all that is calculated to charm the eye and allure the\ntaste. It is not--happily for you, perhaps, and I may wish that I\ncould say the same--it is not your character to hover around one\nflower. The ole garden is open to you, and your airy pinions carry\nyou through it. Still, Tony, far be it from me, I am sure, to wound\neven your feelings without a cause!\"\n\nTony again entreats that the subject may be no longer pursued, saying\nemphatically, \"William Guppy, drop it!\" Mr. Guppy acquiesces, with\nthe reply, \"I never should have taken it up, Tony, of my own accord.\"\n\n\"And now,\" says Tony, stirring the fire, \"touching this same bundle\nof letters. Isn't it an extraordinary thing of Krook to have\nappointed twelve o'clock to-night to hand 'em over to me?\"\n\n\"Very. What did he do it for?\"\n\n\"What does he do anything for? HE don't know. Said to-day was his\nbirthday and he'd hand 'em over to-night at twelve o'clock. He'll\nhave drunk himself blind by that time. He has been at it all day.\"\n\n\"He hasn't forgotten the appointment, I hope?\"\n\n\"Forgotten? Trust him for that. He never forgets anything. I saw him\nto-night, about eight--helped him to shut up his shop--and he had got\nthe letters then in his hairy cap. He pulled it off and showed 'em\nme. When the shop was closed, he took them out of his cap, hung his\ncap on the chair-back, and stood turning them over before the fire. I\nheard him a little while afterwards, through the floor here, humming\nlike the wind, the only song he knows--about Bibo, and old Charon,\nand Bibo being drunk when he died, or something or other. He has been\nas quiet since as an old rat asleep in his hole.\"\n\n\"And you are to go down at twelve?\"\n\n\"At twelve. And as I tell you, when you came it seemed to me a\nhundred.\"\n\n\"Tony,\" says Mr. Guppy after considering a little with his legs\ncrossed, \"he can't read yet, can he?\"\n\n\"Read! He'll never read. He can make all the letters separately, and\nhe knows most of them separately when he sees them; he has got on\nthat much, under me; but he can't put them together. He's too old to\nacquire the knack of it now--and too drunk.\"\n\n\"Tony,\" says Mr. Guppy, uncrossing and recrossing his legs, \"how do\nyou suppose he spelt out that name of Hawdon?\"\n\n\"He never spelt it out. You know what a curious power of eye he has\nand how he has been used to employ himself in copying things by eye\nalone. He imitated it, evidently from the direction of a letter, and\nasked me what it meant.\"\n\n\"Tony,\" says Mr. Guppy, uncrossing and recrossing his legs again,\n\"should you say that the original was a man's writing or a woman's?\"\n\n\"A woman's. Fifty to one a lady's--slopes a good deal, and the end of\nthe letter 'n,' long and hasty.\"\n\nMr. Guppy has been biting his thumb-nail during this dialogue,\ngenerally changing the thumb when he has changed the cross leg. As he\nis going to do so again, he happens to look at his coat-sleeve. It\ntakes his attention. He stares at it, aghast.\n\n\"Why, Tony, what on earth is going on in this house to-night? Is\nthere a chimney on fire?\"\n\n\"Chimney on fire!\"\n\n\"Ah!\" returns Mr. Guppy. \"See how the soot's falling. See here, on my\narm! See again, on the table here! Confound the stuff, it won't blow\noff--smears like black fat!\"\n\nThey look at one another, and Tony goes listening to the door, and a\nlittle way upstairs, and a little way downstairs. Comes back and says\nit's all right and all quiet, and quotes the remark he lately made to\nMr. Snagsby about their cooking chops at the Sol's Arms.\n\n\"And it was then,\" resumes Mr. Guppy, still glancing with remarkable\naversion at the coat-sleeve, as they pursue their conversation before\nthe fire, leaning on opposite sides of the table, with their heads\nvery near together, \"that he told you of his having taken the bundle\nof letters from his lodger's portmanteau?\"\n\n\"That was the time, sir,\" answers Tony, faintly adjusting his\nwhiskers. \"Whereupon I wrote a line to my dear boy, the Honourable\nWilliam Guppy, informing him of the appointment for to-night and\nadvising him not to call before, Boguey being a slyboots.\"\n\nThe light vivacious tone of fashionable life which is usually assumed\nby Mr. Weevle sits so ill upon him to-night that he abandons that and\nhis whiskers together, and after looking over his shoulder, appears\nto yield himself up a prey to the horrors again.\n\n\"You are to bring the letters to your room to read and compare, and\nto get yourself into a position to tell him all about them. That's\nthe arrangement, isn't it, Tony?\" asks Mr. Guppy, anxiously biting\nhis thumb-nail.\n\n\"You can't speak too low. Yes. That's what he and I agreed.\"\n\n\"I tell you what, Tony--\"\n\n\"You can't speak too low,\" says Tony once more. Mr. Guppy nods his\nsagacious head, advances it yet closer, and drops into a whisper.\n\n\"I tell you what. The first thing to be done is to make another\npacket like the real one so that if he should ask to see the real one\nwhile it's in my possession, you can show him the dummy.\"\n\n\"And suppose he detects the dummy as soon as he sees it, which with\nhis biting screw of an eye is about five hundred times more likely\nthan not,\" suggests Tony.\n\n\"Then we'll face it out. They don't belong to him, and they never\ndid. You found that, and you placed them in my hands--a legal friend\nof yours--for security. If he forces us to it, they'll be producible,\nwon't they?\"\n\n\"Ye-es,\" is Mr. Weevle's reluctant admission.\n\n\"Why, Tony,\" remonstrates his friend, \"how you look! You don't doubt\nWilliam Guppy? You don't suspect any harm?\"\n\n\"I don't suspect anything more than I know, William,\" returns the\nother gravely.\n\n\"And what do you know?\" urges Mr. Guppy, raising his voice a little;\nbut on his friend's once more warning him, \"I tell you, you can't\nspeak too low,\" he repeats his question without any sound at all,\nforming with his lips only the words, \"What do you know?\"\n\n\"I know three things. First, I know that here we are whispering in\nsecrecy, a pair of conspirators.\"\n\n\"Well!\" says Mr. Guppy. \"And we had better be that than a pair of\nnoodles, which we should be if we were doing anything else, for it's\nthe only way of doing what we want to do. Secondly?\"\n\n\"Secondly, it's not made out to me how it's likely to be profitable,\nafter all.\"\n\nMr. Guppy casts up his eyes at the portrait of Lady Dedlock over the\nmantelshelf and replies, \"Tony, you are asked to leave that to the\nhonour of your friend. Besides its being calculated to serve that\nfriend in those chords of the human mind which--which need not be\ncalled into agonizing vibration on the present occasion--your friend\nis no fool. What's that?\"\n\n\"It's eleven o'clock striking by the bell of Saint Paul's. Listen and\nyou'll hear all the bells in the city jangling.\"\n\nBoth sit silent, listening to the metal voices, near and distant,\nresounding from towers of various heights, in tones more various than\ntheir situations. When these at length cease, all seems more\nmysterious and quiet than before. One disagreeable result of\nwhispering is that it seems to evoke an atmosphere of silence,\nhaunted by the ghosts of sound--strange cracks and tickings, the\nrustling of garments that have no substance in them, and the tread of\ndreadful feet that would leave no mark on the sea-sand or the winter\nsnow. So sensitive the two friends happen to be that the air is full\nof these phantoms, and the two look over their shoulders by one\nconsent to see that the door is shut.\n\n\"Yes, Tony?\" says Mr. Guppy, drawing nearer to the fire and biting\nhis unsteady thumb-nail. \"You were going to say, thirdly?\"\n\n\"It's far from a pleasant thing to be plotting about a dead man in\nthe room where he died, especially when you happen to live in it.\"\n\n\"But we are plotting nothing against him, Tony.\"\n\n\"May be not, still I don't like it. Live here by yourself and see how\nYOU like it.\"\n\n\"As to dead men, Tony,\" proceeds Mr. Guppy, evading this proposal,\n\"there have been dead men in most rooms.\"\n\n\"I know there have, but in most rooms you let them alone, and--and\nthey let you alone,\" Tony answers.\n\nThe two look at each other again. Mr. Guppy makes a hurried remark to\nthe effect that they may be doing the deceased a service, that he\nhopes so. There is an oppressive blank until Mr. Weevle, by stirring\nthe fire suddenly, makes Mr. Guppy start as if his heart had been\nstirred instead.\n\n\"Fah! Here's more of this hateful soot hanging about,\" says he. \"Let\nus open the window a bit and get a mouthful of air. It's too close.\"\n\nHe raises the sash, and they both rest on the window-sill, half in\nand half out of the room. The neighbouring houses are too near to\nadmit of their seeing any sky without craning their necks and looking\nup, but lights in frowsy windows here and there, and the rolling of\ndistant carriages, and the new expression that there is of the stir\nof men, they find to be comfortable. Mr. Guppy, noiselessly tapping\non the window-sill, resumes his whispering in quite a light-comedy\ntone.\n\n\"By the by, Tony, don't forget old Smallweed,\" meaning the younger of\nthat name. \"I have not let him into this, you know. That grandfather\nof his is too keen by half. It runs in the family.\"\n\n\"I remember,\" says Tony. \"I am up to all that.\"\n\n\"And as to Krook,\" resumes Mr. Guppy. \"Now, do you suppose he really\nhas got hold of any other papers of importance, as he has boasted to\nyou, since you have been such allies?\"\n\nTony shakes his head. \"I don't know. Can't Imagine. If we get through\nthis business without rousing his suspicions, I shall be better\ninformed, no doubt. How can I know without seeing them, when he don't\nknow himself? He is always spelling out words from them, and chalking\nthem over the table and the shop-wall, and asking what this is and\nwhat that is; but his whole stock from beginning to end may easily be\nthe waste-paper he bought it as, for anything I can say. It's a\nmonomania with him to think he is possessed of documents. He has been\ngoing to learn to read them this last quarter of a century, I should\njudge, from what he tells me.\"\n\n\"How did he first come by that idea, though? That's the question,\"\nMr. Guppy suggests with one eye shut, after a little forensic\nmeditation. \"He may have found papers in something he bought, where\npapers were not supposed to be, and may have got it into his shrewd\nhead from the manner and place of their concealment that they are\nworth something.\"\n\n\"Or he may have been taken in, in some pretended bargain. Or he may\nhave been muddled altogether by long staring at whatever he HAS got,\nand by drink, and by hanging about the Lord Chancellor's Court and\nhearing of documents for ever,\" returns Mr. Weevle.\n\nMr. Guppy sitting on the window-sill, nodding his head and balancing\nall these possibilities in his mind, continues thoughtfully to tap\nit, and clasp it, and measure it with his hand, until he hastily\ndraws his hand away.\n\n\"What, in the devil's name,\" he says, \"is this! Look at my fingers!\"\n\nA thick, yellow liquor defiles them, which is offensive to the touch\nand sight and more offensive to the smell. A stagnant, sickening oil\nwith some natural repulsion in it that makes them both shudder.\n\n\"What have you been doing here? What have you been pouring out of\nwindow?\"\n\n\"I pouring out of window! Nothing, I swear! Never, since I have been\nhere!\" cries the lodger.\n\nAnd yet look here--and look here! When he brings the candle here,\nfrom the corner of the window-sill, it slowly drips and creeps away\ndown the bricks, here lies in a little thick nauseous pool.\n\n\"This is a horrible house,\" says Mr. Guppy, shutting down the window.\n\"Give me some water or I shall cut my hand off.\"\n\nHe so washes, and rubs, and scrubs, and smells, and washes, that he\nhas not long restored himself with a glass of brandy and stood\nsilently before the fire when Saint Paul's bell strikes twelve and\nall those other bells strike twelve from their towers of various\nheights in the dark air, and in their many tones. When all is quiet\nagain, the lodger says, \"It's the appointed time at last. Shall I\ngo?\"\n\nMr. Guppy nods and gives him a \"lucky touch\" on the back, but not\nwith the washed hand, though it is his right hand.\n\nHe goes downstairs, and Mr. Guppy tries to compose himself before the\nfire for waiting a long time. But in no more than a minute or two the\nstairs creak and Tony comes swiftly back.\n\n\"Have you got them?\"\n\n\"Got them! No. The old man's not there.\"\n\nHe has been so horribly frightened in the short interval that his\nterror seizes the other, who makes a rush at him and asks loudly,\n\"What's the matter?\"\n\n\"I couldn't make him hear, and I softly opened the door and looked\nin. And the burning smell is there--and the soot is there, and the\noil is there--and he is not there!\" Tony ends this with a groan.\n\nMr. Guppy takes the light. They go down, more dead than alive, and\nholding one another, push open the door of the back shop. The cat has\nretreated close to it and stands snarling, not at them, at something\non the ground before the fire. There is a very little fire left in\nthe grate, but there is a smouldering, suffocating vapour in the room\nand a dark, greasy coating on the walls and ceiling. The chairs and\ntable, and the bottle so rarely absent from the table, all stand as\nusual. On one chair-back hang the old man's hairy cap and coat.\n\n\"Look!\" whispers the lodger, pointing his friend's attention to these\nobjects with a trembling finger. \"I told you so. When I saw him last,\nhe took his cap off, took out the little bundle of old letters, hung\nhis cap on the back of the chair--his coat was there already, for he\nhad pulled that off before he went to put the shutters up--and I left\nhim turning the letters over in his hand, standing just where that\ncrumbled black thing is upon the floor.\"\n\nIs he hanging somewhere? They look up. No.\n\n\"See!\" whispers Tony. \"At the foot of the same chair there lies a\ndirty bit of thin red cord that they tie up pens with. That went\nround the letters. He undid it slowly, leering and laughing at me,\nbefore he began to turn them over, and threw it there. I saw it\nfall.\"\n\n\"What's the matter with the cat?\" says Mr. Guppy. \"Look at her!\"\n\n\"Mad, I think. And no wonder in this evil place.\"\n\nThey advance slowly, looking at all these things. The cat remains\nwhere they found her, still snarling at the something on the ground\nbefore the fire and between the two chairs. What is it? Hold up the\nlight.\n\nHere is a small burnt patch of flooring; here is the tinder from a\nlittle bundle of burnt paper, but not so light as usual, seeming to\nbe steeped in something; and here is--is it the cinder of a small\ncharred and broken log of wood sprinkled with white ashes, or is it\ncoal? Oh, horror, he IS here! And this from which we run away,\nstriking out the light and overturning one another into the street,\nis all that represents him.\n\nHelp, help, help! Come into this house for heaven's sake! Plenty will\ncome in, but none can help. The Lord Chancellor of that court, true\nto his title in his last act, has died the death of all lord\nchancellors in all courts and of all authorities in all places under\nall names soever, where false pretences are made, and where injustice\nis done. Call the death by any name your Highness will, attribute\nit to whom you will, or say it might have been prevented how you\nwill, it is the same death eternally--inborn, inbred, engendered\nin the corrupted humours of the vicious body itself, and that\nonly--spontaneous combustion, and none other of all the deaths that\ncan be died.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII\n\nInterlopers\n\n\nNow do those two gentlemen not very neat about the cuffs and buttons\nwho attended the last coroner's inquest at the Sol's Arms reappear in\nthe precincts with surprising swiftness (being, in fact, breathlessly\nfetched by the active and intelligent beadle), and institute\nperquisitions through the court, and dive into the Sol's parlour, and\nwrite with ravenous little pens on tissue-paper. Now do they note\ndown, in the watches of the night, how the neighbourhood of Chancery\nLane was yesterday, at about midnight, thrown into a state of the\nmost intense agitation and excitement by the following alarming and\nhorrible discovery. Now do they set forth how it will doubtless be\nremembered that some time back a painful sensation was created in the\npublic mind by a case of mysterious death from opium occurring in the\nfirst floor of the house occupied as a rag, bottle, and general\nmarine store shop, by an eccentric individual of intemperate habits,\nfar advanced in life, named Krook; and how, by a remarkable\ncoincidence, Krook was examined at the inquest, which it may be\nrecollected was held on that occasion at the Sol's Arms, a\nwell-conducted tavern immediately adjoining the premises in question\non the west side and licensed to a highly respectable landlord, Mr.\nJames George Bogsby. Now do they show (in as many words as possible)\nhow during some hours of yesterday evening a very peculiar smell was\nobserved by the inhabitants of the court, in which the tragical\noccurrence which forms the subject of that present account\ntranspired; and which odour was at one time so powerful that Mr.\nSwills, a comic vocalist professionally engaged by Mr. J. G. Bogsby,\nhas himself stated to our reporter that he mentioned to Miss M.\nMelvilleson, a lady of some pretensions to musical ability, likewise\nengaged by Mr. J. G. Bogsby to sing at a series of concerts called\nHarmonic Assemblies, or Meetings, which it would appear are held at\nthe Sol's Arms under Mr. Bogsby's direction pursuant to the Act of\nGeorge the Second, that he (Mr. Swills) found his voice seriously\naffected by the impure state of the atmosphere, his jocose expression\nat the time being that he was like an empty post-office, for he\nhadn't a single note in him. How this account of Mr. Swills is\nentirely corroborated by two intelligent married females residing in\nthe same court and known respectively by the names of Mrs. Piper and\nMrs. Perkins, both of whom observed the foetid effluvia and regarded\nthem as being emitted from the premises in the occupation of Krook,\nthe unfortunate deceased. All this and a great deal more the two\ngentlemen who have formed an amicable partnership in the melancholy\ncatastrophe write down on the spot; and the boy population of the\ncourt (out of bed in a moment) swarm up the shutters of the Sol's\nArms parlour, to behold the tops of their heads while they are about\nit.\n\nThe whole court, adult as well as boy, is sleepless for that night,\nand can do nothing but wrap up its many heads, and talk of the\nill-fated house, and look at it. Miss Flite has been bravely rescued\nfrom her chamber, as if it were in flames, and accommodated with a\nbed at the Sol's Arms. The Sol neither turns off its gas nor shuts\nits door all night, for any kind of public excitement makes good for\nthe Sol and causes the court to stand in need of comfort. The house\nhas not done so much in the stomachic article of cloves or in\nbrandy-and-water warm since the inquest. The moment the pot-boy heard\nwhat had happened, he rolled up his shirt-sleeves tight to his\nshoulders and said, \"There'll be a run upon us!\" In the first outcry,\nyoung Piper dashed off for the fire-engines and returned in triumph\nat a jolting gallop perched up aloft on the Phoenix and holding on to\nthat fabulous creature with all his might in the midst of helmets and\ntorches. One helmet remains behind after careful investigation of all\nchinks and crannies and slowly paces up and down before the house in\ncompany with one of the two policemen who have likewise been left in\ncharge thereof. To this trio everybody in the court possessed of\nsixpence has an insatiate desire to exhibit hospitality in a liquid\nform.\n\nMr. Weevle and his friend Mr. Guppy are within the bar at the Sol and\nare worth anything to the Sol that the bar contains if they will only\nstay there. \"This is not a time,\" says Mr. Bogsby, \"to haggle about\nmoney,\" though he looks something sharply after it, over the counter;\n\"give your orders, you two gentlemen, and you're welcome to whatever\nyou put a name to.\"\n\nThus entreated, the two gentlemen (Mr. Weevle especially) put names\nto so many things that in course of time they find it difficult to\nput a name to anything quite distinctly, though they still relate to\nall new-comers some version of the night they have had of it, and of\nwhat they said, and what they thought, and what they saw. Meanwhile,\none or other of the policemen often flits about the door, and pushing\nit open a little way at the full length of his arm, looks in from\nouter gloom. Not that he has any suspicions, but that he may as well\nknow what they are up to in there.\n\nThus night pursues its leaden course, finding the court still out of\nbed through the unwonted hours, still treating and being treated,\nstill conducting itself similarly to a court that has had a little\nmoney left it unexpectedly. Thus night at length with slow-retreating\nsteps departs, and the lamp-lighter going his rounds, like an\nexecutioner to a despotic king, strikes off the little heads of fire\nthat have aspired to lessen the darkness. Thus the day cometh,\nwhether or no.\n\nAnd the day may discern, even with its dim London eye, that the court\nhas been up all night. Over and above the faces that have fallen\ndrowsily on tables and the heels that lie prone on hard floors\ninstead of beds, the brick and mortar physiognomy of the very court\nitself looks worn and jaded. And now the neighbourhood, waking up and\nbeginning to hear of what has happened, comes streaming in, half\ndressed, to ask questions; and the two policemen and the helmet (who\nare far less impressible externally than the court) have enough to do\nto keep the door.\n\n\"Good gracious, gentlemen!\" says Mr. Snagsby, coming up. \"What's this\nI hear!\"\n\n\"Why, it's true,\" returns one of the policemen. \"That's what it is.\nNow move on here, come!\"\n\n\"Why, good gracious, gentlemen,\" says Mr. Snagsby, somewhat promptly\nbacked away, \"I was at this door last night betwixt ten and eleven\no'clock in conversation with the young man who lodges here.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\" returns the policeman. \"You will find the young man next\ndoor then. Now move on here, some of you.\"\n\n\"Not hurt, I hope?\" says Mr. Snagsby.\n\n\"Hurt? No. What's to hurt him!\"\n\nMr. Snagsby, wholly unable to answer this or any question in his\ntroubled mind, repairs to the Sol's Arms and finds Mr. Weevle\nlanguishing over tea and toast with a considerable expression on him\nof exhausted excitement and exhausted tobacco-smoke.\n\n\"And Mr. Guppy likewise!\" quoth Mr. Snagsby. \"Dear, dear, dear! What\na fate there seems in all this! And my lit--\"\n\nMr. Snagsby's power of speech deserts him in the formation of the\nwords \"my little woman.\" For to see that injured female walk into the\nSol's Arms at that hour of the morning and stand before the\nbeer-engine, with her eyes fixed upon him like an accusing spirit,\nstrikes him dumb.\n\n\"My dear,\" says Mr. Snagsby when his tongue is loosened, \"will you\ntake anything? A little--not to put too fine a point upon it--drop of\nshrub?\"\n\n\"No,\" says Mrs. Snagsby.\n\n\"My love, you know these two gentlemen?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" says Mrs. Snagsby, and in a rigid manner acknowledges their\npresence, still fixing Mr. Snagsby with her eye.\n\nThe devoted Mr. Snagsby cannot bear this treatment. He takes Mrs.\nSnagsby by the hand and leads her aside to an adjacent cask.\n\n\"My little woman, why do you look at me in that way? Pray don't do\nit.\"\n\n\"I can't help my looks,\" says Mrs. Snagsby, \"and if I could I\nwouldn't.\"\n\nMr. Snagsby, with his cough of meekness, rejoins, \"Wouldn't you\nreally, my dear?\" and meditates. Then coughs his cough of trouble and\nsays, \"This is a dreadful mystery, my love!\" still fearfully\ndisconcerted by Mrs. Snagsby's eye.\n\n\"It IS,\" returns Mrs. Snagsby, shaking her head, \"a dreadful\nmystery.\"\n\n\"My little woman,\" urges Mr. Snagsby in a piteous manner, \"don't for\ngoodness' sake speak to me with that bitter expression and look at me\nin that searching way! I beg and entreat of you not to do it. Good\nLord, you don't suppose that I would go spontaneously combusting any\nperson, my dear?\"\n\n\"I can't say,\" returns Mrs. Snagsby.\n\nOn a hasty review of his unfortunate position, Mr. Snagsby \"can't\nsay\" either. He is not prepared positively to deny that he may have\nhad something to do with it. He has had something--he don't know\nwhat--to do with so much in this connexion that is mysterious that it\nis possible he may even be implicated, without knowing it, in the\npresent transaction. He faintly wipes his forehead with his\nhandkerchief and gasps.\n\n\"My life,\" says the unhappy stationer, \"would you have any objections\nto mention why, being in general so delicately circumspect in your\nconduct, you come into a wine-vaults before breakfast?\"\n\n\"Why do YOU come here?\" inquires Mrs. Snagsby.\n\n\"My dear, merely to know the rights of the fatal accident which has\nhappened to the venerable party who has been--combusted.\" Mr. Snagsby\nhas made a pause to suppress a groan. \"I should then have related\nthem to you, my love, over your French roll.\"\n\n\"I dare say you would! You relate everything to me, Mr. Snagsby.\"\n\n\"Every--my lit--\"\n\n\"I should be glad,\" says Mrs. Snagsby after contemplating his\nincreased confusion with a severe and sinister smile, \"if you would\ncome home with me; I think you may be safer there, Mr. Snagsby, than\nanywhere else.\"\n\n\"My love, I don't know but what I may be, I am sure. I am ready to\ngo.\"\n\nMr. Snagsby casts his eye forlornly round the bar, gives Messrs.\nWeevle and Guppy good morning, assures them of the satisfaction with\nwhich he sees them uninjured, and accompanies Mrs. Snagsby from the\nSol's Arms. Before night his doubt whether he may not be responsible\nfor some inconceivable part in the catastrophe which is the talk of\nthe whole neighbourhood is almost resolved into certainty by Mrs.\nSnagsby's pertinacity in that fixed gaze. His mental sufferings are\nso great that he entertains wandering ideas of delivering himself up\nto justice and requiring to be cleared if innocent and punished with\nthe utmost rigour of the law if guilty.\n\nMr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy, having taken their breakfast, step into\nLincoln's Inn to take a little walk about the square and clear as\nmany of the dark cobwebs out of their brains as a little walk may.\n\n\"There can be no more favourable time than the present, Tony,\" says\nMr. Guppy after they have broodingly made out the four sides of the\nsquare, \"for a word or two between us upon a point on which we must,\nwith very little delay, come to an understanding.\"\n\n\"Now, I tell you what, William G.!\" returns the other, eyeing his\ncompanion with a bloodshot eye. \"If it's a point of conspiracy, you\nneedn't take the trouble to mention it. I have had enough of that,\nand I ain't going to have any more. We shall have YOU taking fire\nnext or blowing up with a bang.\"\n\nThis supposititious phenomenon is so very disagreeable to Mr. Guppy\nthat his voice quakes as he says in a moral way, \"Tony, I should have\nthought that what we went through last night would have been a lesson\nto you never to be personal any more as long as you lived.\" To which\nMr. Weevle returns, \"William, I should have thought it would have\nbeen a lesson to YOU never to conspire any more as long as you\nlived.\" To which Mr. Guppy says, \"Who's conspiring?\" To which Mr.\nJobling replies, \"Why, YOU are!\" To which Mr. Guppy retorts, \"No, I\nam not.\" To which Mr. Jobling retorts again, \"Yes, you are!\" To which\nMr. Guppy retorts, \"Who says so?\" To which Mr. Jobling retorts, \"I\nsay so!\" To which Mr. Guppy retorts, \"Oh, indeed?\" To which Mr.\nJobling retorts, \"Yes, indeed!\" And both being now in a heated state,\nthey walk on silently for a while to cool down again.\n\n\"Tony,\" says Mr. Guppy then, \"if you heard your friend out instead of\nflying at him, you wouldn't fall into mistakes. But your temper is\nhasty and you are not considerate. Possessing in yourself, Tony, all\nthat is calculated to charm the eye--\"\n\n\"Oh! Blow the eye!\" cries Mr. Weevle, cutting him short. \"Say what\nyou have got to say!\"\n\nFinding his friend in this morose and material condition, Mr. Guppy\nonly expresses the finer feelings of his soul through the tone of\ninjury in which he recommences, \"Tony, when I say there is a point on\nwhich we must come to an understanding pretty soon, I say so quite\napart from any kind of conspiring, however innocent. You know it is\nprofessionally arranged beforehand in all cases that are tried what\nfacts the witnesses are to prove. Is it or is it not desirable that\nwe should know what facts we are to prove on the inquiry into the\ndeath of this unfortunate old mo--gentleman?\" (Mr. Guppy was going to\nsay \"mogul,\" but thinks \"gentleman\" better suited to the\ncircumstances.)\n\n\"What facts? THE facts.\"\n\n\"The facts bearing on that inquiry. Those are\"--Mr. Guppy tells them\noff on his fingers--\"what we knew of his habits, when you saw him\nlast, what his condition was then, the discovery that we made, and\nhow we made it.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" says Mr. Weevle. \"Those are about the facts.\"\n\n\"We made the discovery in consequence of his having, in his eccentric\nway, an appointment with you at twelve o'clock at night, when you\nwere to explain some writing to him as you had often done before on\naccount of his not being able to read. I, spending the evening with\nyou, was called down--and so forth. The inquiry being only into the\ncircumstances touching the death of the deceased, it's not necessary\nto go beyond these facts, I suppose you'll agree?\"\n\n\"No!\" returns Mr. Weevle. \"I suppose not.\"\n\n\"And this is not a conspiracy, perhaps?\" says the injured Guppy.\n\n\"No,\" returns his friend; \"if it's nothing worse than this, I\nwithdraw the observation.\"\n\n\"Now, Tony,\" says Mr. Guppy, taking his arm again and walking him\nslowly on, \"I should like to know, in a friendly way, whether you\nhave yet thought over the many advantages of your continuing to live\nat that place?\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" says Tony, stopping.\n\n\"Whether you have yet thought over the many advantages of your\ncontinuing to live at that place?\" repeats Mr. Guppy, walking him on\nagain.\n\n\"At what place? THAT place?\" pointing in the direction of the rag and\nbottle shop.\n\nMr. Guppy nods.\n\n\"Why, I wouldn't pass another night there for any consideration that\nyou could offer me,\" says Mr. Weevle, haggardly staring.\n\n\"Do you mean it though, Tony?\"\n\n\"Mean it! Do I look as if I mean it? I feel as if I do; I know that,\"\nsays Mr. Weevle with a very genuine shudder.\n\n\"Then the possibility or probability--for such it must be\nconsidered--of your never being disturbed in possession of those\neffects lately belonging to a lone old man who seemed to have no\nrelation in the world, and the certainty of your being able to find\nout what he really had got stored up there, don't weigh with you at\nall against last night, Tony, if I understand you?\" says Mr. Guppy,\nbiting his thumb with the appetite of vexation.\n\n\"Certainly not. Talk in that cool way of a fellow's living there?\"\ncries Mr. Weevle indignantly. \"Go and live there yourself.\"\n\n\"Oh! I, Tony!\" says Mr. Guppy, soothing him. \"I have never lived\nthere and couldn't get a lodging there now, whereas you have got\none.\"\n\n\"You are welcome to it,\" rejoins his friend, \"and--ugh!--you may make\nyourself at home in it.\"\n\n\"Then you really and truly at this point,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"give up\nthe whole thing, if I understand you, Tony?\"\n\n\"You never,\" returns Tony with a most convincing steadfastness, \"said\na truer word in all your life. I do!\"\n\nWhile they are so conversing, a hackney-coach drives into the square,\non the box of which vehicle a very tall hat makes itself manifest to\nthe public. Inside the coach, and consequently not so manifest to the\nmultitude, though sufficiently so to the two friends, for the coach\nstops almost at their feet, are the venerable Mr. Smallweed and Mrs.\nSmallweed, accompanied by their granddaughter Judy.\n\nAn air of haste and excitement pervades the party, and as the tall\nhat (surmounting Mr. Smallweed the younger) alights, Mr. Smallweed\nthe elder pokes his head out of window and bawls to Mr. Guppy, \"How\nde do, sir! How de do!\"\n\n\"What do Chick and his family want here at this time of the morning,\nI wonder!\" says Mr. Guppy, nodding to his familiar.\n\n\"My dear sir,\" cries Grandfather Smallweed, \"would you do me a\nfavour? Would you and your friend be so very obleeging as to carry me\ninto the public-house in the court, while Bart and his sister bring\ntheir grandmother along? Would you do an old man that good turn,\nsir?\"\n\nMr. Guppy looks at his friend, repeating inquiringly, \"The\npublic-house in the court?\" And they prepare to bear the venerable\nburden to the Sol's Arms.\n\n\"There's your fare!\" says the patriarch to the coachman with a fierce\ngrin and shaking his incapable fist at him. \"Ask me for a penny more,\nand I'll have my lawful revenge upon you. My dear young men, be easy\nwith me, if you please. Allow me to catch you round the neck. I won't\nsqueeze you tighter than I can help. Oh, Lord! Oh, dear me! Oh, my\nbones!\"\n\nIt is well that the Sol is not far off, for Mr. Weevle presents an\napoplectic appearance before half the distance is accomplished. With\nno worse aggravation of his symptoms, however, than the utterance of\ndivers croaking sounds expressive of obstructed respiration, he\nfulfils his share of the porterage and the benevolent old gentleman\nis deposited by his own desire in the parlour of the Sol's Arms.\n\n\"Oh, Lord!\" gasps Mr. Smallweed, looking about him, breathless, from\nan arm-chair. \"Oh, dear me! Oh, my bones and back! Oh, my aches and\npains! Sit down, you dancing, prancing, shambling, scrambling\npoll-parrot! Sit down!\"\n\nThis little apostrophe to Mrs. Smallweed is occasioned by a\npropensity on the part of that unlucky old lady whenever she finds\nherself on her feet to amble about and \"set\" to inanimate objects,\naccompanying herself with a chattering noise, as in a witch dance. A\nnervous affection has probably as much to do with these\ndemonstrations as any imbecile intention in the poor old woman, but\non the present occasion they are so particularly lively in connexion\nwith the Windsor arm-chair, fellow to that in which Mr. Smallweed is\nseated, that she only quite desists when her grandchildren have held\nher down in it, her lord in the meanwhile bestowing upon her, with\ngreat volubility, the endearing epithet of \"a pig-headed jackdaw,\"\nrepeated a surprising number of times.\n\n\"My dear sir,\" Grandfather Smallweed then proceeds, addressing Mr.\nGuppy, \"there has been a calamity here. Have you heard of it, either\nof you?\"\n\n\"Heard of it, sir! Why, we discovered it.\"\n\n\"You discovered it. You two discovered it! Bart, THEY discovered it!\"\n\nThe two discoverers stare at the Smallweeds, who return the\ncompliment.\n\n\"My dear friends,\" whines Grandfather Smallweed, putting out both his\nhands, \"I owe you a thousand thanks for discharging the melancholy\noffice of discovering the ashes of Mrs. Smallweed's brother.\"\n\n\"Eh?\" says Mr. Guppy.\n\n\"Mrs. Smallweed's brother, my dear friend--her only relation. We were\nnot on terms, which is to be deplored now, but he never WOULD be on\nterms. He was not fond of us. He was eccentric--he was very\neccentric. Unless he has left a will (which is not at all likely) I\nshall take out letters of administration. I have come down to look\nafter the property; it must be sealed up, it must be protected. I\nhave come down,\" repeats Grandfather Smallweed, hooking the air\ntowards him with all his ten fingers at once, \"to look after the\nproperty.\"\n\n\"I think, Small,\" says the disconsolate Mr. Guppy, \"you might have\nmentioned that the old man was your uncle.\"\n\n\"You two were so close about him that I thought you would like me to\nbe the same,\" returns that old bird with a secretly glistening eye.\n\"Besides, I wasn't proud of him.\"\n\n\"Besides which, it was nothing to you, you know, whether he was or\nnot,\" says Judy. Also with a secretly glistening eye.\n\n\"He never saw me in his life to know me,\" observed Small; \"I don't\nknow why I should introduce HIM, I am sure!\"\n\n\"No, he never communicated with us, which is to be deplored,\" the old\ngentleman strikes in, \"but I have come to look after the property--to\nlook over the papers, and to look after the property. We shall make\ngood our title. It is in the hands of my solicitor. Mr. Tulkinghorn,\nof Lincoln's Inn Fields, over the way there, is so good as to act as\nmy solicitor; and grass don't grow under HIS feet, I can tell ye.\nKrook was Mrs. Smallweed's only brother; she had no relation but\nKrook, and Krook had no relation but Mrs. Smallweed. I am speaking of\nyour brother, you brimstone black-beetle, that was seventy-six years\nof age.\"\n\nMrs. Smallweed instantly begins to shake her head and pipe up,\n\"Seventy-six pound seven and sevenpence! Seventy-six thousand bags of\nmoney! Seventy-six hundred thousand million of parcels of\nbank-notes!\"\n\n\"Will somebody give me a quart pot?\" exclaims her exasperated\nhusband, looking helplessly about him and finding no missile within\nhis reach. \"Will somebody obleege me with a spittoon? Will somebody\nhand me anything hard and bruising to pelt at her? You hag, you cat,\nyou dog, you brimstone barker!\" Here Mr. Smallweed, wrought up to the\nhighest pitch by his own eloquence, actually throws Judy at her\ngrandmother in default of anything else, by butting that young virgin\nat the old lady with such force as he can muster and then dropping\ninto his chair in a heap.\n\n\"Shake me up, somebody, if you'll be so good,\" says the voice from\nwithin the faintly struggling bundle into which he has collapsed. \"I\nhave come to look after the property. Shake me up, and call in the\npolice on duty at the next house to be explained to about the\nproperty. My solicitor will be here presently to protect the\nproperty. Transportation or the gallows for anybody who shall touch\nthe property!\" As his dutiful grandchildren set him up, panting, and\nputting him through the usual restorative process of shaking and\npunching, he still repeats like an echo, \"The--the property! The\nproperty! Property!\"\n\nMr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy look at each other, the former as having\nrelinquished the whole affair, the latter with a discomfited\ncountenance as having entertained some lingering expectations yet.\nBut there is nothing to be done in opposition to the Smallweed\ninterest. Mr. Tulkinghorn's clerk comes down from his official pew in\nthe chambers to mention to the police that Mr. Tulkinghorn is\nanswerable for its being all correct about the next of kin and that\nthe papers and effects will be formally taken possession of in due\ntime and course. Mr. Smallweed is at once permitted so far to assert\nhis supremacy as to be carried on a visit of sentiment into the next\nhouse and upstairs into Miss Flite's deserted room, where he looks\nlike a hideous bird of prey newly added to her aviary.\n\nThe arrival of this unexpected heir soon taking wind in the court\nstill makes good for the Sol and keeps the court upon its mettle.\nMrs. Piper and Mrs. Perkins think it hard upon the young man if there\nreally is no will, and consider that a handsome present ought to be\nmade him out of the estate. Young Piper and young Perkins, as members\nof that restless juvenile circle which is the terror of the\nfoot-passengers in Chancery Lane, crumble into ashes behind the pump\nand under the archway all day long, where wild yells and hootings\ntake place over their remains. Little Swills and Miss M. Melvilleson\nenter into affable conversation with their patrons, feeling that\nthese unusual occurrences level the barriers between professionals\nand non-professionals. Mr. Bogsby puts up \"The popular song of King\nDeath, with chorus by the whole strength of the company,\" as the\ngreat Harmonic feature of the week and announces in the bill that \"J.\nG. B. is induced to do so at a considerable extra expense in\nconsequence of a wish which has been very generally expressed at the\nbar by a large body of respectable individuals and in homage to a\nlate melancholy event which has aroused so much sensation.\" There is\none point connected with the deceased upon which the court is\nparticularly anxious, namely, that the fiction of a full-sized coffin\nshould be preserved, though there is so little to put in it. Upon the\nundertaker's stating in the Sol's bar in the course of the day that\nhe has received orders to construct \"a six-footer,\" the general\nsolicitude is much relieved, and it is considered that Mr.\nSmallweed's conduct does him great honour.\n\nOut of the court, and a long way out of it, there is considerable\nexcitement too, for men of science and philosophy come to look, and\ncarriages set down doctors at the corner who arrive with the same\nintent, and there is more learned talk about inflammable gases and\nphosphuretted hydrogen than the court has ever imagined. Some of\nthese authorities (of course the wisest) hold with indignation that\nthe deceased had no business to die in the alleged manner; and being\nreminded by other authorities of a certain inquiry into the evidence\nfor such deaths reprinted in the sixth volume of the Philosophical\nTransactions; and also of a book not quite unknown on English medical\njurisprudence; and likewise of the Italian case of the Countess\nCornelia Baudi as set forth in detail by one Bianchini, prebendary of\nVerona, who wrote a scholarly work or so and was occasionally heard\nof in his time as having gleams of reason in him; and also of the\ntestimony of Messrs. Fodere and Mere, two pestilent Frenchmen who\nWOULD investigate the subject; and further, of the corroborative\ntestimony of Monsieur Le Cat, a rather celebrated French surgeon once\nupon a time, who had the unpoliteness to live in a house where such a\ncase occurred and even to write an account of it--still they regard\nthe late Mr. Krook's obstinacy in going out of the world by any such\nby-way as wholly unjustifiable and personally offensive. The less the\ncourt understands of all this, the more the court likes it, and the\ngreater enjoyment it has in the stock in trade of the Sol's Arms.\nThen there comes the artist of a picture newspaper, with a foreground\nand figures ready drawn for anything from a wreck on the Cornish\ncoast to a review in Hyde Park or a meeting in Manchester, and in\nMrs. Perkins' own room, memorable evermore, he then and there throws\nin upon the block Mr. Krook's house, as large as life; in fact,\nconsiderably larger, making a very temple of it. Similarly, being\npermitted to look in at the door of the fatal chamber, he depicts\nthat apartment as three-quarters of a mile long by fifty yards high,\nat which the court is particularly charmed. All this time the two\ngentlemen before mentioned pop in and out of every house and assist\nat the philosophical disputations--go everywhere and listen to\neverybody--and yet are always diving into the Sol's parlour and\nwriting with the ravenous little pens on the tissue-paper.\n\nAt last come the coroner and his inquiry, like as before, except that\nthe coroner cherishes this case as being out of the common way and\ntells the gentlemen of the jury, in his private capacity, that \"that\nwould seem to be an unlucky house next door, gentlemen, a destined\nhouse; but so we sometimes find it, and these are mysteries we can't\naccount for!\" After which the six-footer comes into action and is\nmuch admired.\n\nIn all these proceedings Mr. Guppy has so slight a part, except when\nhe gives his evidence, that he is moved on like a private individual\nand can only haunt the secret house on the outside, where he has the\nmortification of seeing Mr. Smallweed padlocking the door, and of\nbitterly knowing himself to be shut out. But before these proceedings\ndraw to a close, that is to say, on the night next after the\ncatastrophe, Mr. Guppy has a thing to say that must be said to Lady\nDedlock.\n\nFor which reason, with a sinking heart and with that hang-dog sense\nof guilt upon him which dread and watching enfolded in the Sol's Arms\nhave produced, the young man of the name of Guppy presents himself at\nthe town mansion at about seven o'clock in the evening and requests\nto see her ladyship. Mercury replies that she is going out to dinner;\ndon't he see the carriage at the door? Yes, he does see the carriage\nat the door; but he wants to see my Lady too.\n\nMercury is disposed, as he will presently declare to a\nfellow-gentleman in waiting, \"to pitch into the young man\"; but his\ninstructions are positive. Therefore he sulkily supposes that the\nyoung man must come up into the library. There he leaves the young\nman in a large room, not over-light, while he makes report of him.\n\nMr. Guppy looks into the shade in all directions, discovering\neverywhere a certain charred and whitened little heap of coal or\nwood. Presently he hears a rustling. Is it--? No, it's no ghost, but\nfair flesh and blood, most brilliantly dressed.\n\n\"I have to beg your ladyship's pardon,\" Mr. Guppy stammers, very\ndowncast. \"This is an inconvenient time--\"\n\n\"I told you, you could come at any time.\" She takes a chair, looking\nstraight at him as on the last occasion.\n\n\"Thank your ladyship. Your ladyship is very affable.\"\n\n\"You can sit down.\" There is not much affability in her tone.\n\n\"I don't know, your ladyship, that it's worth while my sitting down\nand detaining you, for I--I have not got the letters that I mentioned\nwhen I had the honour of waiting on your ladyship.\"\n\n\"Have you come merely to say so?\"\n\n\"Merely to say so, your ladyship.\" Mr. Guppy besides being depressed,\ndisappointed, and uneasy, is put at a further disadvantage by the\nsplendour and beauty of her appearance.\n\nShe knows its influence perfectly, has studied it too well to miss a\ngrain of its effect on any one. As she looks at him so steadily and\ncoldly, he not only feels conscious that he has no guide in the least\nperception of what is really the complexion of her thoughts, but also\nthat he is being every moment, as it were, removed further and\nfurther from her.\n\nShe will not speak, it is plain. So he must.\n\n\"In short, your ladyship,\" says Mr. Guppy like a meanly penitent\nthief, \"the person I was to have had the letters of, has come to a\nsudden end, and--\" He stops. Lady Dedlock calmly finishes the\nsentence.\n\n\"And the letters are destroyed with the person?\"\n\nMr. Guppy would say no if he could--as he is unable to hide.\n\n\"I believe so, your ladyship.\"\n\nIf he could see the least sparkle of relief in her face now? No, he\ncould see no such thing, even if that brave outside did not utterly\nput him away, and he were not looking beyond it and about it.\n\nHe falters an awkward excuse or two for his failure.\n\n\"Is this all you have to say?\" inquires Lady Dedlock, having heard\nhim out--or as nearly out as he can stumble.\n\nMr. Guppy thinks that's all.\n\n\"You had better be sure that you wish to say nothing more to me, this\nbeing the last time you will have the opportunity.\"\n\nMr. Guppy is quite sure. And indeed he has no such wish at present,\nby any means.\n\n\"That is enough. I will dispense with excuses. Good evening to you!\"\nAnd she rings for Mercury to show the young man of the name of Guppy\nout.\n\nBut in that house, in that same moment, there happens to be an old\nman of the name of Tulkinghorn. And that old man, coming with his\nquiet footstep to the library, has his hand at that moment on the\nhandle of the door--comes in--and comes face to face with the young\nman as he is leaving the room.\n\nOne glance between the old man and the lady, and for an instant the\nblind that is always down flies up. Suspicion, eager and sharp, looks\nout. Another instant, close again.\n\n\"I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. I beg your pardon a thousand times.\nIt is so very unusual to find you here at this hour. I supposed the\nroom was empty. I beg your pardon!\"\n\n\"Stay!\" She negligently calls him back. \"Remain here, I beg. I am\ngoing out to dinner. I have nothing more to say to this young man!\"\n\nThe disconcerted young man bows, as he goes out, and cringingly hopes\nthat Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields is well.\n\n\"Aye, aye?\" says the lawyer, looking at him from under his bent\nbrows, though he has no need to look again--not he. \"From Kenge and\nCarboy's, surely?\"\n\n\"Kenge and Carboy's, Mr. Tulkinghorn. Name of Guppy, sir.\"\n\n\"To be sure. Why, thank you, Mr. Guppy, I am very well!\"\n\n\"Happy to hear it, sir. You can't be too well, sir, for the credit of\nthe profession.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Mr. Guppy!\"\n\nMr. Guppy sneaks away. Mr. Tulkinghorn, such a foil in his\nold-fashioned rusty black to Lady Dedlock's brightness, hands her\ndown the staircase to her carriage. He returns rubbing his chin, and\nrubs it a good deal in the course of the evening.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV\n\nA Turn of the Screw\n\n\n\"Now, what,\" says Mr. George, \"may this be? Is it blank cartridge or\nball? A flash in the pan or a shot?\"\n\nAn open letter is the subject of the trooper's speculations, and it\nseems to perplex him mightily. He looks at it at arm's length, brings\nit close to him, holds it in his right hand, holds it in his left\nhand, reads it with his head on this side, with his head on that\nside, contracts his eyebrows, elevates them, still cannot satisfy\nhimself. He smooths it out upon the table with his heavy palm, and\nthoughtfully walking up and down the gallery, makes a halt before it\nevery now and then to come upon it with a fresh eye. Even that won't\ndo. \"Is it,\" Mr. George still muses, \"blank cartridge or ball?\"\n\nPhil Squod, with the aid of a brush and paint-pot, is employed in the\ndistance whitening the targets, softly whistling in quick-march time\nand in drum-and-fife manner that he must and will go back again to\nthe girl he left behind him.\n\n\"Phil!\" The trooper beckons as he calls him.\n\nPhil approaches in his usual way, sidling off at first as if he were\ngoing anywhere else and then bearing down upon his commander like a\nbayonet-charge. Certain splashes of white show in high relief upon\nhis dirty face, and he scrapes his one eyebrow with the handle of the\nbrush.\n\n\"Attention, Phil! Listen to this.\"\n\n\"Steady, commander, steady.\"\n\n\"'Sir. Allow me to remind you (though there is no legal necessity for\nmy doing so, as you are aware) that the bill at two months' date\ndrawn on yourself by Mr. Matthew Bagnet, and by you accepted, for the\nsum of ninety-seven pounds four shillings and ninepence, will become\ndue to-morrow, when you will please be prepared to take up the same\non presentation. Yours, Joshua Smallweed.' What do you make of that,\nPhil?\"\n\n\"Mischief, guv'ner.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"I think,\" replies Phil after pensively tracing out a cross-wrinkle\nin his forehead with the brush-handle, \"that mischeevious\nconsequences is always meant when money's asked for.\"\n\n\"Lookye, Phil,\" says the trooper, sitting on the table. \"First and\nlast, I have paid, I may say, half as much again as this principal in\ninterest and one thing and another.\"\n\nPhil intimates by sidling back a pace or two, with a very\nunaccountable wrench of his wry face, that he does not regard the\ntransaction as being made more promising by this incident.\n\n\"And lookye further, Phil,\" says the trooper, staying his premature\nconclusions with a wave of his hand. \"There has always been an\nunderstanding that this bill was to be what they call renewed. And it\nhas been renewed no end of times. What do you say now?\"\n\n\"I say that I think the times is come to a end at last.\"\n\n\"You do? Humph! I am much of the same mind myself.\"\n\n\"Joshua Smallweed is him that was brought here in a chair?\"\n\n\"The same.\"\n\n\"Guv'ner,\" says Phil with exceeding gravity, \"he's a leech in his\ndispositions, he's a screw and a wice in his actions, a snake in his\ntwistings, and a lobster in his claws.\"\n\nHaving thus expressively uttered his sentiments, Mr. Squod, after\nwaiting a little to ascertain if any further remark be expected of\nhim, gets back by his usual series of movements to the target he has\nin hand and vigorously signifies through his former musical medium\nthat he must and he will return to that ideal young lady. George,\nhaving folded the letter, walks in that direction.\n\n\"There IS a way, commander,\" says Phil, looking cunningly at him, \"of\nsettling this.\"\n\n\"Paying the money, I suppose? I wish I could.\"\n\nPhil shakes his head. \"No, guv'ner, no; not so bad as that. There IS\na way,\" says Phil with a highly artistic turn of his brush; \"what I'm\na-doing at present.\"\n\n\"Whitewashing.\"\n\nPhil nods.\n\n\"A pretty way that would be! Do you know what would become of the\nBagnets in that case? Do you know they would be ruined to pay off my\nold scores? YOU'RE a moral character,\" says the trooper, eyeing him\nin his large way with no small indignation; \"upon my life you are,\nPhil!\"\n\nPhil, on one knee at the target, is in course of protesting\nearnestly, though not without many allegorical scoops of his brush\nand smoothings of the white surface round the rim with his thumb,\nthat he had forgotten the Bagnet responsibility and would not so much\nas injure a hair of the head of any member of that worthy family when\nsteps are audible in the long passage without, and a cheerful voice\nis heard to wonder whether George is at home. Phil, with a look at\nhis master, hobbles up, saying, \"Here's the guv'ner, Mrs. Bagnet!\nHere he is!\" and the old girl herself, accompanied by Mr. Bagnet,\nappears.\n\nThe old girl never appears in walking trim, in any season of the\nyear, without a grey cloth cloak, coarse and much worn but very\nclean, which is, undoubtedly, the identical garment rendered so\ninteresting to Mr. Bagnet by having made its way home to Europe from\nanother quarter of the globe in company with Mrs. Bagnet and an\numbrella. The latter faithful appendage is also invariably a part of\nthe old girl's presence out of doors. It is of no colour known in\nthis life and has a corrugated wooden crook for a handle, with a\nmetallic object let into its prow, or beak, resembling a little model\nof a fanlight over a street door or one of the oval glasses out of a\npair of spectacles, which ornamental object has not that tenacious\ncapacity of sticking to its post that might be desired in an article\nlong associated with the British army. The old girl's umbrella is of\na flabby habit of waist and seems to be in need of stays--an\nappearance that is possibly referable to its having served through a\nseries of years at home as a cupboard and on journeys as a carpet\nbag. She never puts it up, having the greatest reliance on her\nwell-proved cloak with its capacious hood, but generally uses the\ninstrument as a wand with which to point out joints of meat or\nbunches of greens in marketing or to arrest the attention of\ntradesmen by a friendly poke. Without her market-basket, which is a\nsort of wicker well with two flapping lids, she never stirs abroad.\nAttended by these her trusty companions, therefore, her honest\nsunburnt face looking cheerily out of a rough straw bonnet, Mrs.\nBagnet now arrives, fresh-coloured and bright, in George's Shooting\nGallery.\n\n\"Well, George, old fellow,\" says she, \"and how do YOU do, this\nsunshiny morning?\"\n\nGiving him a friendly shake of the hand, Mrs. Bagnet draws a long\nbreath after her walk and sits down to enjoy a rest. Having a\nfaculty, matured on the tops of baggage-waggons and in other such\npositions, of resting easily anywhere, she perches on a rough bench,\nunties her bonnet-strings, pushes back her bonnet, crosses her arms,\nand looks perfectly comfortable.\n\nMr. Bagnet in the meantime has shaken hands with his old comrade and\nwith Phil, on whom Mrs. Bagnet likewise bestows a good-humoured nod\nand smile.\n\n\"Now, George,\" said Mrs. Bagnet briskly, \"here we are, Lignum and\nmyself\"--she often speaks of her husband by this appellation, on\naccount, as it is supposed, of Lignum Vitae having been his old\nregimental nickname when they first became acquainted, in compliment\nto the extreme hardness and toughness of his physiognomy--\"just\nlooked in, we have, to make it all correct as usual about that\nsecurity. Give him the new bill to sign, George, and he'll sign it\nlike a man.\"\n\n\"I was coming to you this morning,\" observes the trooper reluctantly.\n\n\"Yes, we thought you'd come to us this morning, but we turned out\nearly and left Woolwich, the best of boys, to mind his sisters and\ncame to you instead--as you see! For Lignum, he's tied so close now,\nand gets so little exercise, that a walk does him good. But what's\nthe matter, George?\" asks Mrs. Bagnet, stopping in her cheerful talk.\n\"You don't look yourself.\"\n\n\"I am not quite myself,\" returns the trooper; \"I have been a little\nput out, Mrs. Bagnet.\"\n\nHer bright quick eye catches the truth directly. \"George!\" holding up\nher forefinger. \"Don't tell me there's anything wrong about that\nsecurity of Lignum's! Don't do it, George, on account of the\nchildren!\"\n\nThe trooper looks at her with a troubled visage.\n\n\"George,\" says Mrs. Bagnet, using both her arms for emphasis and\noccasionally bringing down her open hands upon her knees. \"If you\nhave allowed anything wrong to come to that security of Lignum's, and\nif you have let him in for it, and if you have put us in danger of\nbeing sold up--and I see sold up in your face, George, as plain as\nprint--you have done a shameful action and have deceived us cruelly.\nI tell you, cruelly, George. There!\"\n\nMr. Bagnet, otherwise as immovable as a pump or a lamp-post, puts his\nlarge right hand on the top of his bald head as if to defend it from\na shower-bath and looks with great uneasiness at Mrs. Bagnet.\n\n\"George,\" says that old girl, \"I wonder at you! George, I am ashamed\nof you! George, I couldn't have believed you would have done it! I\nalways knew you to be a rolling stone that gathered no moss, but I\nnever thought you would have taken away what little moss there was\nfor Bagnet and the children to lie upon. You know what a\nhard-working, steady-going chap he is. You know what Quebec and Malta\nand Woolwich are, and I never did think you would, or could, have had\nthe heart to serve us so. Oh, George!\" Mrs. Bagnet gathers up her\ncloak to wipe her eyes on in a very genuine manner, \"How could you do\nit?\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet ceasing, Mr. Bagnet removes his hand from his head as if\nthe shower-bath were over and looks disconsolately at Mr. George, who\nhas turned quite white and looks distressfully at the grey cloak and\nstraw bonnet.\n\n\"Mat,\" says the trooper in a subdued voice, addressing him but still\nlooking at his wife, \"I am sorry you take it so much to heart,\nbecause I do hope it's not so bad as that comes to. I certainly have,\nthis morning, received this letter\"--which he reads aloud--\"but I\nhope it may be set right yet. As to a rolling stone, why, what you\nsay is true. I AM a rolling stone, and I never rolled in anybody's\nway, I fully believe, that I rolled the least good to. But it's\nimpossible for an old vagabond comrade to like your wife and family\nbetter than I like 'em, Mat, and I trust you'll look upon me as\nforgivingly as you can. Don't think I've kept anything from you. I\nhaven't had the letter more than a quarter of an hour.\"\n\n\"Old girl,\" murmurs Mr. Bagnet after a short silence, \"will you tell\nhim my opinion?\"\n\n\"Oh! Why didn't he marry,\" Mrs. Bagnet answers, half laughing and\nhalf crying, \"Joe Pouch's widder in North America? Then he wouldn't\nhave got himself into these troubles.\"\n\n\"The old girl,\" says Mr. Bagnet, \"puts it correct--why didn't you?\"\n\n\"Well, she has a better husband by this time, I hope,\" returns the\ntrooper. \"Anyhow, here I stand, this present day, NOT married to Joe\nPouch's widder. What shall I do? You see all I have got about me.\nIt's not mine; it's yours. Give the word, and I'll sell off every\nmorsel. If I could have hoped it would have brought in nearly the sum\nwanted, I'd have sold all long ago. Don't believe that I'll leave you\nor yours in the lurch, Mat. I'd sell myself first. I only wish,\" says\nthe trooper, giving himself a disparaging blow in the chest, \"that I\nknew of any one who'd buy such a second-hand piece of old stores.\"\n\n\"Old girl,\" murmurs Mr. Bagnet, \"give him another bit of my mind.\"\n\n\"George,\" says the old girl, \"you are not so much to be blamed, on\nfull consideration, except for ever taking this business without the\nmeans.\"\n\n\"And that was like me!\" observes the penitent trooper, shaking his\nhead. \"Like me, I know.\"\n\n\"Silence! The old girl,\" says Mr. Bagnet, \"is correct--in her way of\ngiving my opinions--hear me out!\"\n\n\"That was when you never ought to have asked for the security,\nGeorge, and when you never ought to have got it, all things\nconsidered. But what's done can't be undone. You are always an\nhonourable and straightforward fellow, as far as lays in your power,\nthough a little flighty. On the other hand, you can't admit but what\nit's natural in us to be anxious with such a thing hanging over our\nheads. So forget and forgive all round, George. Come! Forget and\nforgive all round!\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet, giving him one of her honest hands and giving her\nhusband the other, Mr. George gives each of them one of his and holds\nthem while he speaks.\n\n\"I do assure you both, there's nothing I wouldn't do to discharge\nthis obligation. But whatever I have been able to scrape together has\ngone every two months in keeping it up. We have lived plainly enough\nhere, Phil and I. But the gallery don't quite do what was expected of\nit, and it's not--in short, it's not the mint. It was wrong in me to\ntake it? Well, so it was. But I was in a manner drawn into that step,\nand I thought it might steady me, and set me up, and you'll try to\noverlook my having such expectations, and upon my soul, I am very\nmuch obliged to you, and very much ashamed of myself.\" With these\nconcluding words, Mr. George gives a shake to each of the hands he\nholds, and relinquishing them, backs a pace or two in a\nbroad-chested, upright attitude, as if he had made a final confession\nand were immediately going to be shot with all military honours.\n\n\"George, hear me out!\" says Mr. Bagnet, glancing at his wife. \"Old\ngirl, go on!\"\n\nMr. Bagnet, being in this singular manner heard out, has merely to\nobserve that the letter must be attended to without any delay, that\nit is advisable that George and he should immediately wait on Mr.\nSmallweed in person, and that the primary object is to save and hold\nharmless Mr. Bagnet, who had none of the money. Mr. George, entirely\nassenting, puts on his hat and prepares to march with Mr. Bagnet to\nthe enemy's camp.\n\n\"Don't you mind a woman's hasty word, George,\" says Mrs. Bagnet,\npatting him on the shoulder. \"I trust my old Lignum to you, and I am\nsure you'll bring him through it.\"\n\nThe trooper returns that this is kindly said and that he WILL bring\nLignum through it somehow. Upon which Mrs. Bagnet, with her cloak,\nbasket, and umbrella, goes home, bright-eyed again, to the rest of\nher family, and the comrades sally forth on the hopeful errand of\nmollifying Mr. Smallweed.\n\nWhether there are two people in England less likely to come\nsatisfactorily out of any negotiation with Mr. Smallweed than Mr.\nGeorge and Mr. Matthew Bagnet may be very reasonably questioned.\nAlso, notwithstanding their martial appearance, broad square\nshoulders, and heavy tread, whether there are within the same limits\ntwo more simple and unaccustomed children in all the Smallweedy\naffairs of life. As they proceed with great gravity through the\nstreets towards the region of Mount Pleasant, Mr. Bagnet, observing\nhis companion to be thoughtful, considers it a friendly part to refer\nto Mrs. Bagnet's late sally.\n\n\"George, you know the old girl--she's as sweet and as mild as milk.\nBut touch her on the children--or myself--and she's off like\ngunpowder.\"\n\n\"It does her credit, Mat!\"\n\n\"George,\" says Mr. Bagnet, looking straight before him, \"the old\ngirl--can't do anything--that don't do her credit. More or less. I\nnever say so. Discipline must be maintained.\"\n\n\"She's worth her weight in gold,\" says the trooper.\n\n\"In gold?\" says Mr. Bagnet. \"I'll tell you what. The old girl's\nweight--is twelve stone six. Would I take that weight--in any\nmetal--for the old girl? No. Why not? Because the old girl's metal is\nfar more precious--than the preciousest metal. And she's ALL metal!\"\n\n\"You are right, Mat!\"\n\n\"When she took me--and accepted of the ring--she 'listed under me and\nthe children--heart and head, for life. She's that earnest,\" says Mr.\nBagnet, \"and true to her colours--that, touch us with a finger--and\nshe turns out--and stands to her arms. If the old girl fires\nwide--once in a way--at the call of duty--look over it, George. For\nshe's loyal!\"\n\n\"Why, bless her, Mat,\" returns the trooper, \"I think the higher of\nher for it!\"\n\n\"You are right!\" says Mr. Bagnet with the warmest enthusiasm, though\nwithout relaxing the rigidity of a single muscle. \"Think as high of\nthe old girl--as the rock of Gibraltar--and still you'll be thinking\nlow--of such merits. But I never own to it before her. Discipline\nmust be maintained.\"\n\nThese encomiums bring them to Mount Pleasant and to Grandfather\nSmallweed's house. The door is opened by the perennial Judy, who,\nhaving surveyed them from top to toe with no particular favour, but\nindeed with a malignant sneer, leaves them standing there while she\nconsults the oracle as to their admission. The oracle may be inferred\nto give consent from the circumstance of her returning with the words\non her honey lips that they can come in if they want to it. Thus\nprivileged, they come in and find Mr. Smallweed with his feet in the\ndrawer of his chair as if it were a paper foot-bath and Mrs.\nSmallweed obscured with the cushion like a bird that is not to sing.\n\n\"My dear friend,\" says Grandfather Smallweed with those two lean\naffectionate arms of his stretched forth. \"How de do? How de do? Who\nis our friend, my dear friend?\"\n\n\"Why this,\" returns George, not able to be very conciliatory at\nfirst, \"is Matthew Bagnet, who has obliged me in that matter of ours,\nyou know.\"\n\n\"Oh! Mr. Bagnet? Surely!\" The old man looks at him under his hand.\n\n\"Hope you're well, Mr. Bagnet? Fine man, Mr. George! Military air,\nsir!\"\n\nNo chairs being offered, Mr. George brings one forward for Bagnet and\none for himself. They sit down, Mr. Bagnet as if he had no power of\nbending himself, except at the hips, for that purpose.\n\n\"Judy,\" says Mr. Smallweed, \"bring the pipe.\"\n\n\"Why, I don't know,\" Mr. George interposes, \"that the young woman\nneed give herself that trouble, for to tell you the truth, I am not\ninclined to smoke it to-day.\"\n\n\"Ain't you?\" returns the old man. \"Judy, bring the pipe.\"\n\n\"The fact is, Mr. Smallweed,\" proceeds George, \"that I find myself in\nrather an unpleasant state of mind. It appears to me, sir, that your\nfriend in the city has been playing tricks.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear no!\" says Grandfather Smallweed. \"He never does that!\"\n\n\"Don't he? Well, I am glad to hear it, because I thought it might be\nHIS doing. This, you know, I am speaking of. This letter.\"\n\nGrandfather Smallweed smiles in a very ugly way in recognition of the\nletter.\n\n\"What does it mean?\" asks Mr. George.\n\n\"Judy,\" says the old man. \"Have you got the pipe? Give it to me. Did\nyou say what does it mean, my good friend?\"\n\n\"Aye! Now, come, come, you know, Mr. Smallweed,\" urges the trooper,\nconstraining himself to speak as smoothly and confidentially as he\ncan, holding the open letter in one hand and resting the broad\nknuckles of the other on his thigh, \"a good lot of money has passed\nbetween us, and we are face to face at the present moment, and are\nboth well aware of the understanding there has always been. I am\nprepared to do the usual thing which I have done regularly and to\nkeep this matter going. I never got a letter like this from you\nbefore, and I have been a little put about by it this morning,\nbecause here's my friend Matthew Bagnet, who, you know, had none of\nthe money--\"\n\n\"I DON'T know it, you know,\" says the old man quietly.\n\n\"Why, con-found you--it, I mean--I tell you so, don't I?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, you tell me so,\" returns Grandfather Smallweed. \"But I\ndon't know it.\"\n\n\"Well!\" says the trooper, swallowing his fire. \"I know it.\"\n\nMr. Smallweed replies with excellent temper, \"Ah! That's quite\nanother thing!\" And adds, \"But it don't matter. Mr. Bagnet's\nsituation is all one, whether or no.\"\n\nThe unfortunate George makes a great effort to arrange the affair\ncomfortably and to propitiate Mr. Smallweed by taking him upon his\nown terms.\n\n\"That's just what I mean. As you say, Mr. Smallweed, here's Matthew\nBagnet liable to be fixed whether or no. Now, you see, that makes his\ngood lady very uneasy in her mind, and me too, for whereas I'm a\nharum-scarum sort of a good-for-nought that more kicks than halfpence\ncome natural to, why he's a steady family man, don't you see? Now,\nMr. Smallweed,\" says the trooper, gaining confidence as he proceeds\nin his soldierly mode of doing business, \"although you and I are good\nfriends enough in a certain sort of a way, I am well aware that I\ncan't ask you to let my friend Bagnet off entirely.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear, you are too modest. You can ASK me anything, Mr. George.\"\n(There is an ogreish kind of jocularity in Grandfather Smallweed\nto-day.)\n\n\"And you can refuse, you mean, eh? Or not you so much, perhaps, as\nyour friend in the city? Ha ha ha!\"\n\n\"Ha ha ha!\" echoes Grandfather Smallweed. In such a very hard manner\nand with eyes so particularly green that Mr. Bagnet's natural gravity\nis much deepened by the contemplation of that venerable man.\n\n\"Come!\" says the sanguine George. \"I am glad to find we can be\npleasant, because I want to arrange this pleasantly. Here's my friend\nBagnet, and here am I. We'll settle the matter on the spot, if you\nplease, Mr. Smallweed, in the usual way. And you'll ease my friend\nBagnet's mind, and his family's mind, a good deal if you'll just\nmention to him what our understanding is.\"\n\nHere some shrill spectre cries out in a mocking manner, \"Oh, good\ngracious! Oh!\" Unless, indeed, it be the sportive Judy, who is found\nto be silent when the startled visitors look round, but whose chin\nhas received a recent toss, expressive of derision and contempt. Mr.\nBagnet's gravity becomes yet more profound.\n\n\"But I think you asked me, Mr. George\"--old Smallweed, who all this\ntime has had the pipe in his hand, is the speaker now--\"I think you\nasked me, what did the letter mean?\"\n\n\"Why, yes, I did,\" returns the trooper in his off-hand way, \"but I\ndon't care to know particularly, if it's all correct and pleasant.\"\n\nMr. Smallweed, purposely balking himself in an aim at the trooper's\nhead, throws the pipe on the ground and breaks it to pieces.\n\n\"That's what it means, my dear friend. I'll smash you. I'll crumble\nyou. I'll powder you. Go to the devil!\"\n\nThe two friends rise and look at one another. Mr. Bagnet's gravity\nhas now attained its profoundest point.\n\n\"Go to the devil!\" repeats the old man. \"I'll have no more of your\npipe-smokings and swaggerings. What? You're an independent dragoon,\ntoo! Go to my lawyer (you remember where; you have been there before)\nand show your independence now, will you? Come, my dear friend,\nthere's a chance for you. Open the street door, Judy; put these\nblusterers out! Call in help if they don't go. Put 'em out!\"\n\nHe vociferates this so loudly that Mr. Bagnet, laying his hands on\nthe shoulders of his comrade before the latter can recover from his\namazement, gets him on the outside of the street door, which is\ninstantly slammed by the triumphant Judy. Utterly confounded, Mr.\nGeorge awhile stands looking at the knocker. Mr. Bagnet, in a perfect\nabyss of gravity, walks up and down before the little parlour window\nlike a sentry and looks in every time he passes, apparently revolving\nsomething in his mind.\n\n\"Come, Mat,\" says Mr. George when he has recovered himself, \"we must\ntry the lawyer. Now, what do you think of this rascal?\"\n\nMr. Bagnet, stopping to take a farewell look into the parlour,\nreplies with one shake of his head directed at the interior, \"If my\nold girl had been here--I'd have told him!\" Having so discharged\nhimself of the subject of his cogitations, he falls into step and\nmarches off with the trooper, shoulder to shoulder.\n\nWhen they present themselves in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Mr. Tulkinghorn\nis engaged and not to be seen. He is not at all willing to see them,\nfor when they have waited a full hour, and the clerk, on his bell\nbeing rung, takes the opportunity of mentioning as much, he brings\nforth no more encouraging message than that Mr. Tulkinghorn has\nnothing to say to them and they had better not wait. They do wait,\nhowever, with the perseverance of military tactics, and at last the\nbell rings again and the client in possession comes out of Mr.\nTulkinghorn's room.\n\nThe client is a handsome old lady, no other than Mrs. Rouncewell,\nhousekeeper at Chesney Wold. She comes out of the sanctuary with a\nfair old-fashioned curtsy and softly shuts the door. She is treated\nwith some distinction there, for the clerk steps out of his pew to\nshow her through the outer office and to let her out. The old lady is\nthanking him for his attention when she observes the comrades in\nwaiting.\n\n\"I beg your pardon, sir, but I think those gentlemen are military?\"\n\nThe clerk referring the question to them with his eye, and Mr. George\nnot turning round from the almanac over the fire-place. Mr. Bagnet\ntakes upon himself to reply, \"Yes, ma'am. Formerly.\"\n\n\"I thought so. I was sure of it. My heart warms, gentlemen, at the\nsight of you. It always does at the sight of such. God bless you,\ngentlemen! You'll excuse an old woman, but I had a son once who went\nfor a soldier. A fine handsome youth he was, and good in his bold\nway, though some people did disparage him to his poor mother. I ask\nyour pardon for troubling you, sir. God bless you, gentlemen!\"\n\n\"Same to you, ma'am!\" returns Mr. Bagnet with right good will.\n\nThere is something very touching in the earnestness of the old lady's\nvoice and in the tremble that goes through her quaint old figure. But\nMr. George is so occupied with the almanac over the fire-place\n(calculating the coming months by it perhaps) that he does not look\nround until she has gone away and the door is closed upon her.\n\n\"George,\" Mr. Bagnet gruffly whispers when he does turn from the\nalmanac at last. \"Don't be cast down! 'Why, soldiers, why--should we\nbe melancholy, boys?' Cheer up, my hearty!\"\n\nThe clerk having now again gone in to say that they are still there\nand Mr. Tulkinghorn being heard to return with some irascibility,\n\"Let 'em come in then!\" they pass into the great room with the\npainted ceiling and find him standing before the fire.\n\n\"Now, you men, what do you want? Sergeant, I told you the last time I\nsaw you that I don't desire your company here.\"\n\nSergeant replies--dashed within the last few minutes as to his usual\nmanner of speech, and even as to his usual carriage--that he has\nreceived this letter, has been to Mr. Smallweed about it, and has\nbeen referred there.\n\n\"I have nothing to say to you,\" rejoins Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"If you get\ninto debt, you must pay your debts or take the consequences. You have\nno occasion to come here to learn that, I suppose?\"\n\nSergeant is sorry to say that he is not prepared with the money.\n\n\"Very well! Then the other man--this man, if this is he--must pay it\nfor you.\"\n\nSergeant is sorry to add that the other man is not prepared with the\nmoney either.\n\n\"Very well! Then you must pay it between you or you must both be sued\nfor it and both suffer. You have had the money and must refund it.\nYou are not to pocket other people's pounds, shillings, and pence and\nescape scot-free.\"\n\nThe lawyer sits down in his easy-chair and stirs the fire. Mr. George\nhopes he will have the goodness to--\"I tell you, sergeant, I have\nnothing to say to you. I don't like your associates and don't want\nyou here. This matter is not at all in my course of practice and is\nnot in my office. Mr. Smallweed is good enough to offer these affairs\nto me, but they are not in my way. You must go to Melchisedech's in\nClifford's Inn.\"\n\n\"I must make an apology to you, sir,\" says Mr. George, \"for pressing\nmyself upon you with so little encouragement--which is almost as\nunpleasant to me as it can be to you--but would you let me say a\nprivate word to you?\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn rises with his hands in his pockets and walks into\none of the window recesses. \"Now! I have no time to waste.\" In the\nmidst of his perfect assumption of indifference, he directs a sharp\nlook at the trooper, taking care to stand with his own back to the\nlight and to have the other with his face towards it.\n\n\"Well, sir,\" says Mr. George, \"this man with me is the other party\nimplicated in this unfortunate affair--nominally, only nominally--and\nmy sole object is to prevent his getting into trouble on my account.\nHe is a most respectable man with a wife and family, formerly in the\nRoyal Artillery--\"\n\n\"My friend, I don't care a pinch of snuff for the whole Royal\nArtillery establishment--officers, men, tumbrils, waggons, horses,\nguns, and ammunition.\"\n\n\"'Tis likely, sir. But I care a good deal for Bagnet and his wife and\nfamily being injured on my account. And if I could bring them through\nthis matter, I should have no help for it but to give up without any\nother consideration what you wanted of me the other day.\"\n\n\"Have you got it here?\"\n\n\"I have got it here, sir.\"\n\n\"Sergeant,\" the lawyer proceeds in his dry passionless manner, far\nmore hopeless in the dealing with than any amount of vehemence, \"make\nup your mind while I speak to you, for this is final. After I have\nfinished speaking I have closed the subject, and I won't re-open it.\nUnderstand that. You can leave here, for a few days, what you say you\nhave brought here if you choose; you can take it away at once if you\nchoose. In case you choose to leave it here, I can do this for you--I\ncan replace this matter on its old footing, and I can go so far\nbesides as to give you a written undertaking that this man Bagnet\nshall never be troubled in any way until you have been proceeded\nagainst to the utmost, that your means shall be exhausted before the\ncreditor looks to his. This is in fact all but freeing him. Have you\ndecided?\"\n\nThe trooper puts his hand into his breast and answers with a long\nbreath, \"I must do it, sir.\"\n\nSo Mr. Tulkinghorn, putting on his spectacles, sits down and writes\nthe undertaking, which he slowly reads and explains to Bagnet, who\nhas all this time been staring at the ceiling and who puts his hand\non his bald head again, under this new verbal shower-bath, and seems\nexceedingly in need of the old girl through whom to express his\nsentiments. The trooper then takes from his breast-pocket a folded\npaper, which he lays with an unwilling hand at the lawyer's elbow.\n\"'Tis only a letter of instructions, sir. The last I ever had from\nhim.\"\n\nLook at a millstone, Mr. George, for some change in its expression,\nand you will find it quite as soon as in the face of Mr. Tulkinghorn\nwhen he opens and reads the letter! He refolds it and lays it in his\ndesk with a countenance as unperturbable as death.\n\nNor has he anything more to say or do but to nod once in the same\nfrigid and discourteous manner and to say briefly, \"You can go. Show\nthese men out, there!\" Being shown out, they repair to Mr. Bagnet's\nresidence to dine.\n\nBoiled beef and greens constitute the day's variety on the former\nrepast of boiled pork and greens, and Mrs. Bagnet serves out the meal\nin the same way and seasons it with the best of temper, being that\nrare sort of old girl that she receives Good to her arms without a\nhint that it might be Better and catches light from any little spot\nof darkness near her. The spot on this occasion is the darkened brow\nof Mr. George; he is unusually thoughtful and depressed. At first\nMrs. Bagnet trusts to the combined endearments of Quebec and Malta to\nrestore him, but finding those young ladies sensible that their\nexisting Bluffy is not the Bluffy of their usual frolicsome\nacquaintance, she winks off the light infantry and leaves him to\ndeploy at leisure on the open ground of the domestic hearth.\n\nBut he does not. He remains in close order, clouded and depressed.\nDuring the lengthy cleaning up and pattening process, when he and Mr.\nBagnet are supplied with their pipes, he is no better than he was at\ndinner. He forgets to smoke, looks at the fire and ponders, lets his\npipe out, fills the breast of Mr. Bagnet with perturbation and dismay\nby showing that he has no enjoyment of tobacco.\n\nTherefore when Mrs. Bagnet at last appears, rosy from the\ninvigorating pail, and sits down to her work, Mr. Bagnet growls, \"Old\ngirl!\" and winks monitions to her to find out what's the matter.\n\n\"Why, George!\" says Mrs. Bagnet, quietly threading her needle. \"How\nlow you are!\"\n\n\"Am I? Not good company? Well, I am afraid I am not.\"\n\n\"He ain't at all like Bluffy, mother!\" cries little Malta.\n\n\"Because he ain't well, I think, mother,\" adds Quebec.\n\n\"Sure that's a bad sign not to be like Bluffy, too!\" returns the\ntrooper, kissing the young damsels. \"But it's true,\" with a sigh,\n\"true, I am afraid. These little ones are always right!\"\n\n\"George,\" says Mrs. Bagnet, working busily, \"if I thought you cross\nenough to think of anything that a shrill old soldier's wife--who\ncould have bitten her tongue off afterwards and ought to have done it\nalmost--said this morning, I don't know what I shouldn't say to you\nnow.\"\n\n\"My kind soul of a darling,\" returns the trooper. \"Not a morsel of\nit.\"\n\n\"Because really and truly, George, what I said and meant to say was\nthat I trusted Lignum to you and was sure you'd bring him through it.\nAnd you HAVE brought him through it, noble!\"\n\n\"Thankee, my dear!\" says George. \"I am glad of your good opinion.\"\n\nIn giving Mrs. Bagnet's hand, with her work in it, a friendly\nshake--for she took her seat beside him--the trooper's attention is\nattracted to her face. After looking at it for a little while as she\nplies her needle, he looks to young Woolwich, sitting on his stool in\nthe corner, and beckons that fifer to him.\n\n\"See there, my boy,\" says George, very gently smoothing the mother's\nhair with his hand, \"there's a good loving forehead for you! All\nbright with love of you, my boy. A little touched by the sun and the\nweather through following your father about and taking care of you,\nbut as fresh and wholesome as a ripe apple on a tree.\"\n\nMr. Bagnet's face expresses, so far as in its wooden material lies,\nthe highest approbation and acquiescence.\n\n\"The time will come, my boy,\" pursues the trooper, \"when this hair of\nyour mother's will be grey, and this forehead all crossed and\nre-crossed with wrinkles, and a fine old lady she'll be then. Take\ncare, while you are young, that you can think in those days, 'I never\nwhitened a hair of her dear head--I never marked a sorrowful line in\nher face!' For of all the many things that you can think of when you\nare a man, you had better have THAT by you, Woolwich!\"\n\nMr. George concludes by rising from his chair, seating the boy beside\nhis mother in it, and saying, with something of a hurry about him,\nthat he'll smoke his pipe in the street a bit.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXV\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nI lay ill through several weeks, and the usual tenor of my life\nbecame like an old remembrance. But this was not the effect of time\nso much as of the change in all my habits made by the helplessness\nand inaction of a sick-room. Before I had been confined to it many\ndays, everything else seemed to have retired into a remote distance\nwhere there was little or no separation between the various stages of\nmy life which had been really divided by years. In falling ill, I\nseemed to have crossed a dark lake and to have left all my\nexperiences, mingled together by the great distance, on the healthy\nshore.\n\nMy housekeeping duties, though at first it caused me great anxiety to\nthink that they were unperformed, were soon as far off as the oldest\nof the old duties at Greenleaf or the summer afternoons when I went\nhome from school with my portfolio under my arm, and my childish\nshadow at my side, to my godmother's house. I had never known before\nhow short life really was and into how small a space the mind could\nput it.\n\nWhile I was very ill, the way in which these divisions of time became\nconfused with one another distressed my mind exceedingly. At once a\nchild, an elder girl, and the little woman I had been so happy as, I\nwas not only oppressed by cares and difficulties adapted to each\nstation, but by the great perplexity of endlessly trying to reconcile\nthem. I suppose that few who have not been in such a condition can\nquite understand what I mean or what painful unrest arose from this\nsource.\n\nFor the same reason I am almost afraid to hint at that time in my\ndisorder--it seemed one long night, but I believe there were both\nnights and days in it--when I laboured up colossal staircases, ever\nstriving to reach the top, and ever turned, as I have seen a worm in\na garden path, by some obstruction, and labouring again. I knew\nperfectly at intervals, and I think vaguely at most times, that I was\nin my bed; and I talked with Charley, and felt her touch, and knew\nher very well; yet I would find myself complaining, \"Oh, more of\nthese never-ending stairs, Charley--more and more--piled up to the\nsky', I think!\" and labouring on again.\n\nDare I hint at that worse time when, strung together somewhere in\ngreat black space, there was a flaming necklace, or ring, or starry\ncircle of some kind, of which I was one of the beads! And when my\nonly prayer was to be taken off from the rest and when it was such\ninexplicable agony and misery to be a part of the dreadful thing?\n\nPerhaps the less I say of these sick experiences, the less tedious\nand the more intelligible I shall be. I do not recall them to make\nothers unhappy or because I am now the least unhappy in remembering\nthem. It may be that if we knew more of such strange afflictions we\nmight be the better able to alleviate their intensity.\n\nThe repose that succeeded, the long delicious sleep, the blissful\nrest, when in my weakness I was too calm to have any care for myself\nand could have heard (or so I think now) that I was dying, with no\nother emotion than with a pitying love for those I left behind--this\nstate can be perhaps more widely understood. I was in this state when\nI first shrunk from the light as it twinkled on me once more, and\nknew with a boundless joy for which no words are rapturous enough\nthat I should see again.\n\nI had heard my Ada crying at the door, day and night; I had heard her\ncalling to me that I was cruel and did not love her; I had heard her\npraying and imploring to be let in to nurse and comfort me and to\nleave my bedside no more; but I had only said, when I could speak,\n\"Never, my sweet girl, never!\" and I had over and over again reminded\nCharley that she was to keep my darling from the room whether I lived\nor died. Charley had been true to me in that time of need, and with\nher little hand and her great heart had kept the door fast.\n\nBut now, my sight strengthening and the glorious light coming every\nday more fully and brightly on me, I could read the letters that my\ndear wrote to me every morning and evening and could put them to my\nlips and lay my cheek upon them with no fear of hurting her. I could\nsee my little maid, so tender and so careful, going about the two\nrooms setting everything in order and speaking cheerfully to Ada from\nthe open window again. I could understand the stillness in the house\nand the thoughtfulness it expressed on the part of all those who had\nalways been so good to me. I could weep in the exquisite felicity of\nmy heart and be as happy in my weakness as ever I had been in my\nstrength.\n\nBy and by my strength began to be restored. Instead of lying, with so\nstrange a calmness, watching what was done for me, as if it were done\nfor some one else whom I was quietly sorry for, I helped it a little,\nand so on to a little more and much more, until I became useful to\nmyself, and interested, and attached to life again.\n\nHow well I remember the pleasant afternoon when I was raised in bed\nwith pillows for the first time to enjoy a great tea-drinking with\nCharley! The little creature--sent into the world, surely, to\nminister to the weak and sick--was so happy, and so busy, and stopped\nso often in her preparations to lay her head upon my bosom, and\nfondle me, and cry with joyful tears she was so glad, she was so\nglad, that I was obliged to say, \"Charley, if you go on in this way,\nI must lie down again, my darling, for I am weaker than I thought I\nwas!\" So Charley became as quiet as a mouse and took her bright face\nhere and there across and across the two rooms, out of the shade into\nthe divine sunshine, and out of the sunshine into the shade, while I\nwatched her peacefully. When all her preparations were concluded and\nthe pretty tea-table with its little delicacies to tempt me, and its\nwhite cloth, and its flowers, and everything so lovingly and\nbeautifully arranged for me by Ada downstairs, was ready at the\nbedside, I felt sure I was steady enough to say something to Charley\nthat was not new to my thoughts.\n\nFirst I complimented Charley on the room, and indeed it was so fresh\nand airy, so spotless and neat, that I could scarce believe I had\nbeen lying there so long. This delighted Charley, and her face was\nbrighter than before.\n\n\"Yet, Charley,\" said I, looking round, \"I miss something, surely,\nthat I am accustomed to?\"\n\nPoor little Charley looked round too and pretended to shake her head\nas if there were nothing absent.\n\n\"Are the pictures all as they used to be?\" I asked her.\n\n\"Every one of them, miss,\" said Charley.\n\n\"And the furniture, Charley?\"\n\n\"Except where I have moved it about to make more room, miss.\"\n\n\"And yet,\" said I, \"I miss some familiar object. Ah, I know what it\nis, Charley! It's the looking-glass.\"\n\nCharley got up from the table, making as if she had forgotten\nsomething, and went into the next room; and I heard her sob there.\n\nI had thought of this very often. I was now certain of it. I could\nthank God that it was not a shock to me now. I called Charley back,\nand when she came--at first pretending to smile, but as she drew\nnearer to me, looking grieved--I took her in my arms and said, \"It\nmatters very little, Charley. I hope I can do without my old face\nvery well.\"\n\nI was presently so far advanced as to be able to sit up in a great\nchair and even giddily to walk into the adjoining room, leaning on\nCharley. The mirror was gone from its usual place in that room too,\nbut what I had to bear was none the harder to bear for that.\n\nMy guardian had throughout been earnest to visit me, and there was\nnow no good reason why I should deny myself that happiness. He came\none morning, and when he first came in, could only hold me in his\nembrace and say, \"My dear, dear girl!\" I had long known--who could\nknow better?--what a deep fountain of affection and generosity his\nheart was; and was it not worth my trivial suffering and change to\nfill such a place in it? \"Oh, yes!\" I thought. \"He has seen me, and\nhe loves me better than he did; he has seen me and is even fonder of\nme than he was before; and what have I to mourn for!\"\n\nHe sat down by me on the sofa, supporting me with his arm. For a\nlittle while he sat with his hand over his face, but when he removed\nit, fell into his usual manner. There never can have been, there\nnever can be, a pleasanter manner.\n\n\"My little woman,\" said he, \"what a sad time this has been. Such an\ninflexible little woman, too, through all!\"\n\n\"Only for the best, guardian,\" said I.\n\n\"For the best?\" he repeated tenderly. \"Of course, for the best. But\nhere have Ada and I been perfectly forlorn and miserable; here has\nyour friend Caddy been coming and going late and early; here has\nevery one about the house been utterly lost and dejected; here has\neven poor Rick been writing--to ME too--in his anxiety for you!\"\n\nI had read of Caddy in Ada's letters, but not of Richard. I told him\nso.\n\n\"Why, no, my dear,\" he replied. \"I have thought it better not to\nmention it to her.\"\n\n\"And you speak of his writing to YOU,\" said I, repeating his\nemphasis. \"As if it were not natural for him to do so, guardian; as\nif he could write to a better friend!\"\n\n\"He thinks he could, my love,\" returned my guardian, \"and to many a\nbetter. The truth is, he wrote to me under a sort of protest while\nunable to write to you with any hope of an answer--wrote coldly,\nhaughtily, distantly, resentfully. Well, dearest little woman, we\nmust look forbearingly on it. He is not to blame. Jarndyce and\nJarndyce has warped him out of himself and perverted me in his eyes.\nI have known it do as bad deeds, and worse, many a time. If two\nangels could be concerned in it, I believe it would change their\nnature.\"\n\n\"It has not changed yours, guardian.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, it has, my dear,\" he said laughingly. \"It has made the\nsouth wind easterly, I don't know how often. Rick mistrusts and\nsuspects me--goes to lawyers, and is taught to mistrust and suspect\nme. Hears I have conflicting interests, claims clashing against his\nand what not. Whereas, heaven knows that if I could get out of the\nmountains of wiglomeration on which my unfortunate name has been so\nlong bestowed (which I can't) or could level them by the extinction\nof my own original right (which I can't either, and no human power\never can, anyhow, I believe, to such a pass have we got), I would do\nit this hour. I would rather restore to poor Rick his proper nature\nthan be endowed with all the money that dead suitors, broken, heart\nand soul, upon the wheel of Chancery, have left unclaimed with the\nAccountant-General--and that's money enough, my dear, to be cast into\na pyramid, in memory of Chancery's transcendent wickedness.\"\n\n\"IS it possible, guardian,\" I asked, amazed, \"that Richard can be\nsuspicious of you?\"\n\n\"Ah, my love, my love,\" he said, \"it is in the subtle poison of such\nabuses to breed such diseases. His blood is infected, and objects\nlose their natural aspects in his sight. It is not HIS fault.\"\n\n\"But it is a terrible misfortune, guardian.\"\n\n\"It is a terrible misfortune, little woman, to be ever drawn within\nthe influences of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. I know none greater. By\nlittle and little he has been induced to trust in that rotten reed,\nand it communicates some portion of its rottenness to everything\naround him. But again I say with all my soul, we must be patient with\npoor Rick and not blame him. What a troop of fine fresh hearts like\nhis have I seen in my time turned by the same means!\"\n\nI could not help expressing something of my wonder and regret that\nhis benevolent, disinterested intentions had prospered so little.\n\n\"We must not say so, Dame Durden,\" he cheerfully replied; \"Ada is the\nhappier, I hope, and that is much. I did think that I and both these\nyoung creatures might be friends instead of distrustful foes and that\nwe might so far counter-act the suit and prove too strong for it. But\nit was too much to expect. Jarndyce and Jarndyce was the curtain of\nRick's cradle.\"\n\n\"But, guardian, may we not hope that a little experience will teach\nhim what a false and wretched thing it is?\"\n\n\"We WILL hope so, my Esther,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"and that it may not\nteach him so too late. In any case we must not be hard on him. There\nare not many grown and matured men living while we speak, good men\ntoo, who if they were thrown into this same court as suitors would\nnot be vitally changed and depreciated within three years--within\ntwo--within one. How can we stand amazed at poor Rick? A young man so\nunfortunate,\" here he fell into a lower tone, as if he were thinking\naloud, \"cannot at first believe (who could?) that Chancery is what it\nis. He looks to it, flushed and fitfully, to do something with his\ninterests and bring them to some settlement. It procrastinates,\ndisappoints, tries, tortures him; wears out his sanguine hopes and\npatience, thread by thread; but he still looks to it, and hankers\nafter it, and finds his whole world treacherous and hollow. Well,\nwell, well! Enough of this, my dear!\"\n\nHe had supported me, as at first, all this time, and his tenderness\nwas so precious to me that I leaned my head upon his shoulder and\nloved him as if he had been my father. I resolved in my own mind in\nthis little pause, by some means, to see Richard when I grew strong\nand try to set him right.\n\n\"There are better subjects than these,\" said my guardian, \"for such a\njoyful time as the time of our dear girl's recovery. And I had a\ncommission to broach one of them as soon as I should begin to talk.\nWhen shall Ada come to see you, my love?\"\n\nI had been thinking of that too. A little in connexion with the\nabsent mirrors, but not much, for I knew my loving girl would be\nchanged by no change in my looks.\n\n\"Dear guardian,\" said I, \"as I have shut her out so long--though\nindeed, indeed, she is like the light to me--\"\n\n\"I know it well, Dame Durden, well.\"\n\nHe was so good, his touch expressed such endearing compassion and\naffection, and the tone of his voice carried such comfort into my\nheart that I stopped for a little while, quite unable to go on. \"Yes,\nyes, you are tired,\" said he. \"Rest a little.\"\n\n\"As I have kept Ada out so long,\" I began afresh after a short while,\n\"I think I should like to have my own way a little longer, guardian.\nIt would be best to be away from here before I see her. If Charley\nand I were to go to some country lodging as soon as I can move, and\nif I had a week there in which to grow stronger and to be revived by\nthe sweet air and to look forward to the happiness of having Ada with\nme again, I think it would be better for us.\"\n\nI hope it was not a poor thing in me to wish to be a little more used\nto my altered self before I met the eyes of the dear girl I longed so\nardently to see, but it is the truth. I did. He understood me, I was\nsure; but I was not afraid of that. If it were a poor thing, I knew\nhe would pass it over.\n\n\"Our spoilt little woman,\" said my guardian, \"shall have her own way\neven in her inflexibility, though at the price, I know, of tears\ndownstairs. And see here! Here is Boythorn, heart of chivalry,\nbreathing such ferocious vows as never were breathed on paper before,\nthat if you don't go and occupy his whole house, he having already\nturned out of it expressly for that purpose, by heaven and by earth\nhe'll pull it down and not leave one brick standing on another!\"\n\nAnd my guardian put a letter in my hand, without any ordinary\nbeginning such as \"My dear Jarndyce,\" but rushing at once into the\nwords, \"I swear if Miss Summerson do not come down and take\npossession of my house, which I vacate for her this day at one\no'clock, P.M.,\" and then with the utmost seriousness, and in the most\nemphatic terms, going on to make the extraordinary declaration he had\nquoted. We did not appreciate the writer the less for laughing\nheartily over it, and we settled that I should send him a letter of\nthanks on the morrow and accept his offer. It was a most agreeable\none to me, for all the places I could have thought of, I should have\nliked to go to none so well as Chesney Wold.\n\n\"Now, little housewife,\" said my guardian, looking at his watch, \"I\nwas strictly timed before I came upstairs, for you must not be tired\ntoo soon; and my time has waned away to the last minute. I have one\nother petition. Little Miss Flite, hearing a rumour that you were\nill, made nothing of walking down here--twenty miles, poor soul, in a\npair of dancing shoes--to inquire. It was heaven's mercy we were at\nhome, or she would have walked back again.\"\n\nThe old conspiracy to make me happy! Everybody seemed to be in it!\n\n\"Now, pet,\" said my guardian, \"if it would not be irksome to you to\nadmit the harmless little creature one afternoon before you save\nBoythorn's otherwise devoted house from demolition, I believe you\nwould make her prouder and better pleased with herself than I--though\nmy eminent name is Jarndyce--could do in a lifetime.\"\n\nI have no doubt he knew there would be something in the simple image\nof the poor afflicted creature that would fall like a gentle lesson\non my mind at that time. I felt it as he spoke to me. I could not\ntell him heartily enough how ready I was to receive her. I had always\npitied her, never so much as now. I had always been glad of my little\npower to soothe her under her calamity, but never, never, half so\nglad before.\n\nWe arranged a time for Miss Flite to come out by the coach and share\nmy early dinner. When my guardian left me, I turned my face away upon\nmy couch and prayed to be forgiven if I, surrounded by such\nblessings, had magnified to myself the little trial that I had to\nundergo. The childish prayer of that old birthday when I had aspired\nto be industrious, contented, and true-hearted and to do good to some\none and win some love to myself if I could came back into my mind\nwith a reproachful sense of all the happiness I had since enjoyed and\nall the affectionate hearts that had been turned towards me. If I\nwere weak now, what had I profited by those mercies? I repeated the\nold childish prayer in its old childish words and found that its old\npeace had not departed from it.\n\nMy guardian now came every day. In a week or so more I could walk\nabout our rooms and hold long talks with Ada from behind the\nwindow-curtain. Yet I never saw her, for I had not as yet the courage\nto look at the dear face, though I could have done so easily without\nher seeing me.\n\nOn the appointed day Miss Flite arrived. The poor little creature ran\ninto my room quite forgetful of her usual dignity, and crying from\nher very heart of hearts, \"My dear Fitz Jarndyce!\" fell upon my neck\nand kissed me twenty times.\n\n\"Dear me!\" said she, putting her hand into her reticule, \"I have\nnothing here but documents, my dear Fitz Jarndyce; I must borrow a\npocket handkerchief.\"\n\nCharley gave her one, and the good creature certainly made use of it,\nfor she held it to her eyes with both hands and sat so, shedding\ntears for the next ten minutes.\n\n\"With pleasure, my dear Fitz Jarndyce,\" she was careful to explain.\n\"Not the least pain. Pleasure to see you well again. Pleasure at\nhaving the honour of being admitted to see you. I am so much fonder\nof you, my love, than of the Chancellor. Though I DO attend court\nregularly. By the by, my dear, mentioning pocket handkerchiefs--\"\n\nMiss Flite here looked at Charley, who had been to meet her at the\nplace where the coach stopped. Charley glanced at me and looked\nunwilling to pursue the suggestion.\n\n\"Ve-ry right!\" said Miss Flite, \"Ve-ry correct. Truly! Highly\nindiscreet of me to mention it; but my dear Miss Fitz Jarndyce, I am\nafraid I am at times (between ourselves, you wouldn't think it) a\nlittle--rambling you know,\" said Miss Flite, touching her forehead.\n\"Nothing more.\"\n\n\"What were you going to tell me?\" said I, smiling, for I saw she\nwanted to go on. \"You have roused my curiosity, and now you must\ngratify it.\"\n\nMiss Flite looked at Charley for advice in this important crisis, who\nsaid, \"If you please, ma'am, you had better tell then,\" and therein\ngratified Miss Flite beyond measure.\n\n\"So sagacious, our young friend,\" said she to me in her mysterious\nway. \"Diminutive. But ve-ry sagacious! Well, my dear, it's a pretty\nanecdote. Nothing more. Still I think it charming. Who should follow\nus down the road from the coach, my dear, but a poor person in a very\nungenteel bonnet--\"\n\n\"Jenny, if you please, miss,\" said Charley.\n\n\"Just so!\" Miss Flite acquiesced with the greatest suavity. \"Jenny.\nYe-es! And what does she tell our young friend but that there has\nbeen a lady with a veil inquiring at her cottage after my dear Fitz\nJarndyce's health and taking a handkerchief away with her as a little\nkeepsake merely because it was my amiable Fitz Jarndyce's! Now, you\nknow, so very prepossessing in the lady with the veil!\"\n\n\"If you please, miss,\" said Charley, to whom I looked in some\nastonishment, \"Jenny says that when her baby died, you left a\nhandkerchief there, and that she put it away and kept it with the\nbaby's little things. I think, if you please, partly because it was\nyours, miss, and partly because it had covered the baby.\"\n\n\"Diminutive,\" whispered Miss Flite, making a variety of motions about\nher own forehead to express intellect in Charley. \"But exceedingly\nsagacious! And so dear! My love, she's clearer than any counsel I\never heard!\"\n\n\"Yes, Charley,\" I returned. \"I remember it. Well?\"\n\n\"Well, miss,\" said Charley, \"and that's the handkerchief the lady\ntook. And Jenny wants you to know that she wouldn't have made away\nwith it herself for a heap of money but that the lady took it and\nleft some money instead. Jenny don't know her at all, if you please,\nmiss!\"\n\n\"Why, who can she be?\" said I.\n\n\"My love,\" Miss Flite suggested, advancing her lips to my ear with\nher most mysterious look, \"in MY opinion--don't mention this to our\ndiminutive friend--she's the Lord Chancellor's wife. He's married,\nyou know. And I understand she leads him a terrible life. Throws his\nlordship's papers into the fire, my dear, if he won't pay the\njeweller!\"\n\nI did not think very much about this lady then, for I had an\nimpression that it might be Caddy. Besides, my attention was diverted\nby my visitor, who was cold after her ride and looked hungry and who,\nour dinner being brought in, required some little assistance in\narraying herself with great satisfaction in a pitiable old scarf and\na much-worn and often-mended pair of gloves, which she had brought\ndown in a paper parcel. I had to preside, too, over the\nentertainment, consisting of a dish of fish, a roast fowl, a\nsweetbread, vegetables, pudding, and Madeira; and it was so pleasant\nto see how she enjoyed it, and with what state and ceremony she did\nhonour to it, that I was soon thinking of nothing else.\n\nWhen we had finished and had our little dessert before us,\nembellished by the hands of my dear, who would yield the\nsuperintendence of everything prepared for me to no one, Miss Flite\nwas so very chatty and happy that I thought I would lead her to her\nown history, as she was always pleased to talk about herself. I began\nby saying \"You have attended on the Lord Chancellor many years, Miss\nFlite?\"\n\n\"Oh, many, many, many years, my dear. But I expect a judgment.\nShortly.\"\n\nThere was an anxiety even in her hopefulness that made me doubtful if\nI had done right in approaching the subject. I thought I would say no\nmore about it.\n\n\"My father expected a judgment,\" said Miss Flite. \"My brother. My\nsister. They all expected a judgment. The same that I expect.\"\n\n\"They are all--\"\n\n\"Ye-es. Dead of course, my dear,\" said she.\n\nAs I saw she would go on, I thought it best to try to be serviceable\nto her by meeting the theme rather than avoiding it.\n\n\"Would it not be wiser,\" said I, \"to expect this judgment no more?\"\n\n\"Why, my dear,\" she answered promptly, \"of course it would!\"\n\n\"And to attend the court no more?\"\n\n\"Equally of course,\" said she. \"Very wearing to be always in\nexpectation of what never comes, my dear Fitz Jarndyce! Wearing, I\nassure you, to the bone!\"\n\nShe slightly showed me her arm, and it was fearfully thin indeed.\n\n\"But, my dear,\" she went on in her mysterious way, \"there's a\ndreadful attraction in the place. Hush! Don't mention it to our\ndiminutive friend when she comes in. Or it may frighten her. With\ngood reason. There's a cruel attraction in the place. You CAN'T leave\nit. And you MUST expect.\"\n\nI tried to assure her that this was not so. She heard me patiently\nand smilingly, but was ready with her own answer.\n\n\"Aye, aye, aye! You think so because I am a little rambling. Ve-ry\nabsurd, to be a little rambling, is it not? Ve-ry confusing, too. To\nthe head. I find it so. But, my dear, I have been there many years,\nand I have noticed. It's the mace and seal upon the table.\"\n\nWhat could they do, did she think? I mildly asked her.\n\n\"Draw,\" returned Miss Flite. \"Draw people on, my dear. Draw peace out\nof them. Sense out of them. Good looks out of them. Good qualities\nout of them. I have felt them even drawing my rest away in the night.\nCold and glittering devils!\"\n\nShe tapped me several times upon the arm and nodded good-humouredly\nas if she were anxious I should understand that I had no cause to\nfear her, though she spoke so gloomily, and confided these awful\nsecrets to me.\n\n\"Let me see,\" said she. \"I'll tell you my own case. Before they ever\ndrew me--before I had ever seen them--what was it I used to do?\nTambourine playing? No. Tambour work. I and my sister worked at\ntambour work. Our father and our brother had a builder's business.\nWe all lived together. Ve-ry respectably, my dear! First, our father\nwas drawn--slowly. Home was drawn with him. In a few years he\nwas a fierce, sour, angry bankrupt without a kind word or a kind\nlook for any one. He had been so different, Fitz Jarndyce. He was\ndrawn to a debtors' prison. There he died. Then our brother was\ndrawn--swiftly--to drunkenness. And rags. And death. Then my sister\nwas drawn. Hush! Never ask to what! Then I was ill and in misery, and\nheard, as I had often heard before, that this was all the work of\nChancery. When I got better, I went to look at the monster. And then\nI found out how it was, and I was drawn to stay there.\"\n\nHaving got over her own short narrative, in the delivery of which she\nhad spoken in a low, strained voice, as if the shock were fresh upon\nher, she gradually resumed her usual air of amiable importance.\n\n\"You don't quite credit me, my dear! Well, well! You will, some day.\nI am a little rambling. But I have noticed. I have seen many new\nfaces come, unsuspicious, within the influence of the mace and seal\nin these many years. As my father's came there. As my brother's. As\nmy sister's. As my own. I hear Conversation Kenge and the rest of\nthem say to the new faces, 'Here's little Miss Flite. Oh, you are new\nhere; and you must come and be presented to little Miss Flite!' Ve-ry\ngood. Proud I am sure to have the honour! And we all laugh. But, Fitz\nJarndyce, I know what will happen. I know, far better than they do,\nwhen the attraction has begun. I know the signs, my dear. I saw them\nbegin in Gridley. And I saw them end. Fitz Jarndyce, my love,\"\nspeaking low again, \"I saw them beginning in our friend the ward in\nJarndyce. Let some one hold him back. Or he'll be drawn to ruin.\"\n\nShe looked at me in silence for some moments, with her face gradually\nsoftening into a smile. Seeming to fear that she had been too gloomy,\nand seeming also to lose the connexion in her mind, she said politely\nas she sipped her glass of wine, \"Yes, my dear, as I was saying, I\nexpect a judgment shortly. Then I shall release my birds, you know,\nand confer estates.\"\n\nI was much impressed by her allusion to Richard and by the sad\nmeaning, so sadly illustrated in her poor pinched form, that made its\nway through all her incoherence. But happily for her, she was quite\ncomplacent again now and beamed with nods and smiles.\n\n\"But, my dear,\" she said, gaily, reaching another hand to put it upon\nmine. \"You have not congratulated me on my physician. Positively not\nonce, yet!\"\n\nI was obliged to confess that I did not quite know what she meant.\n\n\"My physician, Mr. Woodcourt, my dear, who was so exceedingly\nattentive to me. Though his services were rendered quite\ngratuitously. Until the Day of Judgment. I mean THE judgment that\nwill dissolve the spell upon me of the mace and seal.\"\n\n\"Mr. Woodcourt is so far away, now,\" said I, \"that I thought the time\nfor such congratulation was past, Miss Flite.\"\n\n\"But, my child,\" she returned, \"is it possible that you don't know\nwhat has happened?\"\n\n\"No,\" said I.\n\n\"Not what everybody has been talking of, my beloved Fitz Jarndyce!\"\n\n\"No,\" said I. \"You forget how long I have been here.\"\n\n\"True! My dear, for the moment--true. I blame myself. But my memory\nhas been drawn out of me, with everything else, by what I mentioned.\nVe-ry strong influence, is it not? Well, my dear, there has been a\nterrible shipwreck over in those East Indian seas.\"\n\n\"Mr. Woodcourt shipwrecked!\"\n\n\"Don't be agitated, my dear. He is safe. An awful scene. Death in all\nshapes. Hundreds of dead and dying. Fire, storm, and darkness.\nNumbers of the drowning thrown upon a rock. There, and through it\nall, my dear physician was a hero. Calm and brave through everything.\nSaved many lives, never complained in hunger and thirst, wrapped\nnaked people in his spare clothes, took the lead, showed them what to\ndo, governed them, tended the sick, buried the dead, and brought the\npoor survivors safely off at last! My dear, the poor emaciated\ncreatures all but worshipped him. They fell down at his feet when\nthey got to the land and blessed him. The whole country rings with\nit. Stay! Where's my bag of documents? I have got it there, and you\nshall read it, you shall read it!\"\n\nAnd I DID read all the noble history, though very slowly and\nimperfectly then, for my eyes were so dimmed that I could not see the\nwords, and I cried so much that I was many times obliged to lay down\nthe long account she had cut out of the newspaper. I felt so\ntriumphant ever to have known the man who had done such generous and\ngallant deeds, I felt such glowing exultation in his renown, I so\nadmired and loved what he had done, that I envied the storm-worn\npeople who had fallen at his feet and blessed him as their preserver.\nI could myself have kneeled down then, so far away, and blessed him\nin my rapture that he should be so truly good and brave. I felt that\nno one--mother, sister, wife--could honour him more than I. I did,\nindeed!\n\nMy poor little visitor made me a present of the account, and when as\nthe evening began to close in she rose to take her leave, lest she\nshould miss the coach by which she was to return, she was still full\nof the shipwreck, which I had not yet sufficiently composed myself to\nunderstand in all its details.\n\n\"My dear,\" said she as she carefully folded up her scarf and gloves,\n\"my brave physician ought to have a title bestowed upon him. And no\ndoubt he will. You are of that opinion?\"\n\nThat he well deserved one, yes. That he would ever have one, no.\n\n\"Why not, Fitz Jarndyce?\" she asked rather sharply.\n\nI said it was not the custom in England to confer titles on men\ndistinguished by peaceful services, however good and great, unless\noccasionally when they consisted of the accumulation of some very\nlarge amount of money.\n\n\"Why, good gracious,\" said Miss Flite, \"how can you say that? Surely\nyou know, my dear, that all the greatest ornaments of England in\nknowledge, imagination, active humanity, and improvement of every\nsort are added to its nobility! Look round you, my dear, and\nconsider. YOU must be rambling a little now, I think, if you don't\nknow that this is the great reason why titles will always last in the\nland!\"\n\nI am afraid she believed what she said, for there were moments when\nshe was very mad indeed.\n\nAnd now I must part with the little secret I have thus far tried to\nkeep. I had thought, sometimes, that Mr. Woodcourt loved me and that\nif he had been richer he would perhaps have told me that he loved me\nbefore he went away. I had thought, sometimes, that if he had done\nso, I should have been glad of it. But how much better it was now\nthat this had never happened! What should I have suffered if I had\nhad to write to him and tell him that the poor face he had known as\nmine was quite gone from me and that I freely released him from his\nbondage to one whom he had never seen!\n\nOh, it was so much better as it was! With a great pang mercifully\nspared me, I could take back to my heart my childish prayer to be all\nhe had so brightly shown himself; and there was nothing to be undone:\nno chain for me to break or for him to drag; and I could go, please\nGod, my lowly way along the path of duty, and he could go his nobler\nway upon its broader road; and though we were apart upon the journey,\nI might aspire to meet him, unselfishly, innocently, better far than\nhe had thought me when I found some favour in his eyes, at the\njourney's end.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVI\n\nChesney Wold\n\n\nCharley and I did not set off alone upon our expedition into\nLincolnshire. My guardian had made up his mind not to lose sight of\nme until I was safe in Mr. Boythorn's house, so he accompanied us,\nand we were two days upon the road. I found every breath of air, and\nevery scent, and every flower and leaf and blade of grass, and every\npassing cloud, and everything in nature, more beautiful and wonderful\nto me than I had ever found it yet. This was my first gain from my\nillness. How little I had lost, when the wide world was so full of\ndelight for me.\n\nMy guardian intending to go back immediately, we appointed, on our\nway down, a day when my dear girl should come. I wrote her a letter,\nof which he took charge, and he left us within half an hour of our\narrival at our destination, on a delightful evening in the early\nsummer-time.\n\nIf a good fairy had built the house for me with a wave of her wand,\nand I had been a princess and her favoured god-child, I could not\nhave been more considered in it. So many preparations were made for\nme and such an endearing remembrance was shown of all my little\ntastes and likings that I could have sat down, overcome, a dozen\ntimes before I had revisited half the rooms. I did better than that,\nhowever, by showing them all to Charley instead. Charley's delight\ncalmed mine; and after we had had a walk in the garden, and Charley\nhad exhausted her whole vocabulary of admiring expressions, I was as\ntranquilly happy as I ought to have been. It was a great comfort to\nbe able to say to myself after tea, \"Esther, my dear, I think you are\nquite sensible enough to sit down now and write a note of thanks to\nyour host.\" He had left a note of welcome for me, as sunny as his own\nface, and had confided his bird to my care, which I knew to be his\nhighest mark of confidence. Accordingly I wrote a little note to him\nin London, telling him how all his favourite plants and trees were\nlooking, and how the most astonishing of birds had chirped the\nhonours of the house to me in the most hospitable manner, and how,\nafter singing on my shoulder, to the inconceivable rapture of my\nlittle maid, he was then at roost in the usual corner of his cage,\nbut whether dreaming or no I could not report. My note finished and\nsent off to the post, I made myself very busy in unpacking and\narranging; and I sent Charley to bed in good time and told her I\nshould want her no more that night.\n\nFor I had not yet looked in the glass and had never asked to have my\nown restored to me. I knew this to be a weakness which must be\novercome, but I had always said to myself that I would begin afresh\nwhen I got to where I now was. Therefore I had wanted to be alone,\nand therefore I said, now alone, in my own room, \"Esther, if you are\nto be happy, if you are to have any right to pray to be true-hearted,\nyou must keep your word, my dear.\" I was quite resolved to keep it,\nbut I sat down for a little while first to reflect upon all my\nblessings. And then I said my prayers and thought a little more.\n\nMy hair had not been cut off, though it had been in danger more than\nonce. It was long and thick. I let it down, and shook it out, and\nwent up to the glass upon the dressing-table. There was a little\nmuslin curtain drawn across it. I drew it back and stood for a moment\nlooking through such a veil of my own hair that I could see nothing\nelse. Then I put my hair aside and looked at the reflection in the\nmirror, encouraged by seeing how placidly it looked at me. I was very\nmuch changed--oh, very, very much. At first my face was so strange to\nme that I think I should have put my hands before it and started back\nbut for the encouragement I have mentioned. Very soon it became more\nfamiliar, and then I knew the extent of the alteration in it better\nthan I had done at first. It was not like what I had expected, but I\nhad expected nothing definite, and I dare say anything definite would\nhave surprised me.\n\nI had never been a beauty and had never thought myself one, but I had\nbeen very different from this. It was all gone now. Heaven was so\ngood to me that I could let it go with a few not bitter tears and\ncould stand there arranging my hair for the night quite thankfully.\n\nOne thing troubled me, and I considered it for a long time before I\nwent to sleep. I had kept Mr. Woodcourt's flowers. When they were\nwithered I had dried them and put them in a book that I was fond of.\nNobody knew this, not even Ada. I was doubtful whether I had a right\nto preserve what he had sent to one so different--whether it was\ngenerous towards him to do it. I wished to be generous to him, even\nin the secret depths of my heart, which he would never know, because\nI could have loved him--could have been devoted to him. At last I\ncame to the conclusion that I might keep them if I treasured them\nonly as a remembrance of what was irrevocably past and gone, never to\nbe looked back on any more, in any other light. I hope this may not\nseem trivial. I was very much in earnest.\n\nI took care to be up early in the morning and to be before the glass\nwhen Charley came in on tiptoe.\n\n\"Dear, dear, miss!\" cried Charley, starting. \"Is that you?\"\n\n\"Yes, Charley,\" said I, quietly putting up my hair. \"And I am very\nwell indeed, and very happy.\"\n\nI saw it was a weight off Charley's mind, but it was a greater weight\noff mine. I knew the worst now and was composed to it. I shall not\nconceal, as I go on, the weaknesses I could not quite conquer, but\nthey always passed from me soon and the happier frame of mind stayed\nby me faithfully.\n\nWishing to be fully re-established in my strength and my good spirits\nbefore Ada came, I now laid down a little series of plans with\nCharley for being in the fresh air all day long. We were to be out\nbefore breakfast, and were to dine early, and were to be out again\nbefore and after dinner, and were to talk in the garden after tea,\nand were to go to rest betimes, and were to climb every hill and\nexplore every road, lane, and field in the neighbourhood. As to\nrestoratives and strengthening delicacies, Mr. Boythorn's good\nhousekeeper was for ever trotting about with something to eat or\ndrink in her hand; I could not even be heard of as resting in the\npark but she would come trotting after me with a basket, her cheerful\nface shining with a lecture on the importance of frequent\nnourishment. Then there was a pony expressly for my riding, a chubby\npony with a short neck and a mane all over his eyes who could\ncanter--when he would--so easily and quietly that he was a treasure.\nIn a very few days he would come to me in the paddock when I called\nhim, and eat out of my hand, and follow me about. We arrived at such\na capital understanding that when he was jogging with me lazily, and\nrather obstinately, down some shady lane, if I patted his neck and\nsaid, \"Stubbs, I am surprised you don't canter when you know how much\nI like it; and I think you might oblige me, for you are only getting\nstupid and going to sleep,\" he would give his head a comical shake or\ntwo and set off directly, while Charley would stand still and laugh\nwith such enjoyment that her laughter was like music. I don't know\nwho had given Stubbs his name, but it seemed to belong to him as\nnaturally as his rough coat. Once we put him in a little chaise and\ndrove him triumphantly through the green lanes for five miles; but\nall at once, as we were extolling him to the skies, he seemed to take\nit ill that he should have been accompanied so far by the circle of\ntantalizing little gnats that had been hovering round and round his\nears the whole way without appearing to advance an inch, and stopped\nto think about it. I suppose he came to the decision that it was not\nto be borne, for he steadily refused to move until I gave the reins\nto Charley and got out and walked, when he followed me with a sturdy\nsort of good humour, putting his head under my arm and rubbing his\near against my sleeve. It was in vain for me to say, \"Now, Stubbs, I\nfeel quite sure from what I know of you that you will go on if I ride\na little while,\" for the moment I left him, he stood stock still\nagain. Consequently I was obliged to lead the way, as before; and in\nthis order we returned home, to the great delight of the village.\n\nCharley and I had reason to call it the most friendly of villages, I\nam sure, for in a week's time the people were so glad to see us go\nby, though ever so frequently in the course of a day, that there were\nfaces of greeting in every cottage. I had known many of the grown\npeople before and almost all the children, but now the very steeple\nbegan to wear a familiar and affectionate look. Among my new friends\nwas an old old woman who lived in such a little thatched and\nwhitewashed dwelling that when the outside shutter was turned up on\nits hinges, it shut up the whole house-front. This old lady had a\ngrandson who was a sailor, and I wrote a letter to him for her and\ndrew at the top of it the chimney-corner in which she had brought him\nup and where his old stool yet occupied its old place. This was\nconsidered by the whole village the most wonderful achievement in the\nworld, but when an answer came back all the way from Plymouth, in\nwhich he mentioned that he was going to take the picture all the way\nto America, and from America would write again, I got all the credit\nthat ought to have been given to the post-office and was invested\nwith the merit of the whole system.\n\nThus, what with being so much in the air, playing with so many\nchildren, gossiping with so many people, sitting on invitation in so\nmany cottages, going on with Charley's education, and writing long\nletters to Ada every day, I had scarcely any time to think about that\nlittle loss of mine and was almost always cheerful. If I did think of\nit at odd moments now and then, I had only to be busy and forget it.\nI felt it more than I had hoped I should once when a child said,\n\"Mother, why is the lady not a pretty lady now like she used to be?\"\nBut when I found the child was not less fond of me, and drew its soft\nhand over my face with a kind of pitying protection in its touch,\nthat soon set me up again. There were many little occurrences which\nsuggested to me, with great consolation, how natural it is to gentle\nhearts to be considerate and delicate towards any inferiority. One of\nthese particularly touched me. I happened to stroll into the little\nchurch when a marriage was just concluded, and the young couple had\nto sign the register.\n\nThe bridegroom, to whom the pen was handed first, made a rude cross\nfor his mark; the bride, who came next, did the same. Now, I had\nknown the bride when I was last there, not only as the prettiest girl\nin the place, but as having quite distinguished herself in the\nschool, and I could not help looking at her with some surprise. She\ncame aside and whispered to me, while tears of honest love and\nadmiration stood in her bright eyes, \"He's a dear good fellow, miss;\nbut he can't write yet--he's going to learn of me--and I wouldn't\nshame him for the world!\" Why, what had I to fear, I thought, when\nthere was this nobility in the soul of a labouring man's daughter!\n\nThe air blew as freshly and revivingly upon me as it had ever blown,\nand the healthy colour came into my new face as it had come into my\nold one. Charley was wonderful to see, she was so radiant and so\nrosy; and we both enjoyed the whole day and slept soundly the whole\nnight.\n\nThere was a favourite spot of mine in the park-woods of Chesney Wold\nwhere a seat had been erected commanding a lovely view. The wood had\nbeen cleared and opened to improve this point of sight, and the\nbright sunny landscape beyond was so beautiful that I rested there at\nleast once every day. A picturesque part of the Hall, called the\nGhost's Walk, was seen to advantage from this higher ground; and the\nstartling name, and the old legend in the Dedlock family which I had\nheard from Mr. Boythorn accounting for it, mingled with the view and\ngave it something of a mysterious interest in addition to its real\ncharms. There was a bank here, too, which was a famous one for\nviolets; and as it was a daily delight of Charley's to gather wild\nflowers, she took as much to the spot as I did.\n\nIt would be idle to inquire now why I never went close to the house\nor never went inside it. The family were not there, I had heard on my\narrival, and were not expected. I was far from being incurious or\nuninterested about the building; on the contrary, I often sat in this\nplace wondering how the rooms ranged and whether any echo like a\nfootstep really did resound at times, as the story said, upon the\nlonely Ghost's Walk. The indefinable feeling with which Lady Dedlock\nhad impressed me may have had some influence in keeping me from the\nhouse even when she was absent. I am not sure. Her face and figure\nwere associated with it, naturally; but I cannot say that they\nrepelled me from it, though something did. For whatever reason or no\nreason, I had never once gone near it, down to the day at which my\nstory now arrives.\n\nI was resting at my favourite point after a long ramble, and Charley\nwas gathering violets at a little distance from me. I had been\nlooking at the Ghost's Walk lying in a deep shade of masonry afar off\nand picturing to myself the female shape that was said to haunt it\nwhen I became aware of a figure approaching through the wood. The\nperspective was so long and so darkened by leaves, and the shadows of\nthe branches on the ground made it so much more intricate to the eye,\nthat at first I could not discern what figure it was. By little and\nlittle it revealed itself to be a woman's--a lady's--Lady Dedlock's.\nShe was alone and coming to where I sat with a much quicker step, I\nobserved to my surprise, than was usual with her.\n\nI was fluttered by her being unexpectedly so near (she was almost\nwithin speaking distance before I knew her) and would have risen to\ncontinue my walk. But I could not. I was rendered motionless. Not so\nmuch by her hurried gesture of entreaty, not so much by her quick\nadvance and outstretched hands, not so much by the great change in\nher manner and the absence of her haughty self-restraint, as by a\nsomething in her face that I had pined for and dreamed of when I was\na little child, something I had never seen in any face, something I\nhad never seen in hers before.\n\nA dread and faintness fell upon me, and I called to Charley. Lady\nDedlock stopped upon the instant and changed back almost to what I\nhad known her.\n\n\"Miss Summerson, I am afraid I have startled you,\" she said, now\nadvancing slowly. \"You can scarcely be strong yet. You have been very\nill, I know. I have been much concerned to hear it.\"\n\nI could no more have removed my eyes from her pale face than I could\nhave stirred from the bench on which I sat. She gave me her hand, and\nits deadly coldness, so at variance with the enforced composure of\nher features, deepened the fascination that overpowered me. I cannot\nsay what was in my whirling thoughts.\n\n\"You are recovering again?\" she asked kindly.\n\n\"I was quite well but a moment ago, Lady Dedlock.\"\n\n\"Is this your young attendant?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Will you send her on before and walk towards your house with me?\"\n\n\"Charley,\" said I, \"take your flowers home, and I will follow you\ndirectly.\"\n\nCharley, with her best curtsy, blushingly tied on her bonnet and went\nher way. When she was gone, Lady Dedlock sat down on the seat beside\nme.\n\nI cannot tell in any words what the state of my mind was when I saw\nin her hand my handkerchief with which I had covered the dead baby.\n\nI looked at her, but I could not see her, I could not hear her, I\ncould not draw my breath. The beating of my heart was so violent and\nwild that I felt as if my life were breaking from me. But when she\ncaught me to her breast, kissed me, wept over me, compassionated me,\nand called me back to myself; when she fell down on her knees and\ncried to me, \"Oh, my child, my child, I am your wicked and unhappy\nmother! Oh, try to forgive me!\"--when I saw her at my feet on the\nbare earth in her great agony of mind, I felt, through all my tumult\nof emotion, a burst of gratitude to the providence of God that I was\nso changed as that I never could disgrace her by any trace of\nlikeness, as that nobody could ever now look at me and look at her\nand remotely think of any near tie between us.\n\nI raised my mother up, praying and beseeching her not to stoop before\nme in such affliction and humiliation. I did so in broken, incoherent\nwords, for besides the trouble I was in, it frightened me to see her\nat MY feet. I told her--or I tried to tell her--that if it were for\nme, her child, under any circumstances to take upon me to forgive\nher, I did it, and had done it, many, many years. I told her that my\nheart overflowed with love for her, that it was natural love which\nnothing in the past had changed or could change. That it was not for\nme, then resting for the first time on my mother's bosom, to take her\nto account for having given me life, but that my duty was to bless\nher and receive her, though the whole world turned from her, and that\nI only asked her leave to do it. I held my mother in my embrace, and\nshe held me in hers, and among the still woods in the silence of the\nsummer day there seemed to be nothing but our two troubled minds that\nwas not at peace.\n\n\"To bless and receive me,\" groaned my mother, \"it is far too late. I\nmust travel my dark road alone, and it will lead me where it will.\nFrom day to day, sometimes from hour to hour, I do not see the way\nbefore my guilty feet. This is the earthly punishment I have brought\nupon myself. I bear it, and I hide it.\"\n\nEven in the thinking of her endurance, she drew her habitual air of\nproud indifference about her like a veil, though she soon cast it off\nagain.\n\n\"I must keep this secret, if by any means it can be kept, not wholly\nfor myself. I have a husband, wretched and dishonouring creature that\nI am!\"\n\nThese words she uttered with a suppressed cry of despair, more\nterrible in its sound than any shriek. Covering her face with her\nhands, she shrank down in my embrace as if she were unwilling that I\nshould touch her; nor could I, by my utmost persuasions or by any\nendearments I could use, prevail upon her to rise. She said, no, no,\nno, she could only speak to me so; she must be proud and disdainful\neverywhere else; she would be humbled and ashamed there, in the only\nnatural moments of her life.\n\nMy unhappy mother told me that in my illness she had been nearly\nfrantic. She had but then known that her child was living. She could\nnot have suspected me to be that child before. She had followed me\ndown here to speak to me but once in all her life. We never could\nassociate, never could communicate, never probably from that time\nforth could interchange another word on earth. She put into my hands\na letter she had written for my reading only and said when I had read\nit and destroyed it--but not so much for her sake, since she asked\nnothing, as for her husband's and my own--I must evermore consider\nher as dead. If I could believe that she loved me, in this agony in\nwhich I saw her, with a mother's love, she asked me to do that, for\nthen I might think of her with a greater pity, imagining what she\nsuffered. She had put herself beyond all hope and beyond all help.\nWhether she preserved her secret until death or it came to be\ndiscovered and she brought dishonour and disgrace upon the name she\nhad taken, it was her solitary struggle always; and no affection\ncould come near her, and no human creature could render her any aid.\n\n\"But is the secret safe so far?\" I asked. \"Is it safe now, dearest\nmother?\"\n\n\"No,\" replied my mother. \"It has been very near discovery. It was\nsaved by an accident. It may be lost by another accident--to-morrow,\nany day.\"\n\n\"Do you dread a particular person?\"\n\n\"Hush! Do not tremble and cry so much for me. I am not worthy of\nthese tears,\" said my mother, kissing my hands. \"I dread one person\nvery much.\"\n\n\"An enemy?\"\n\n\"Not a friend. One who is too passionless to be either. He is Sir\nLeicester Dedlock's lawyer, mechanically faithful without attachment,\nand very jealous of the profit, privilege, and reputation of being\nmaster of the mysteries of great houses.\"\n\n\"Has he any suspicions?\"\n\n\"Many.\"\n\n\"Not of you?\" I said alarmed.\n\n\"Yes! He is always vigilant and always near me. I may keep him at a\nstandstill, but I can never shake him off.\"\n\n\"Has he so little pity or compunction?\"\n\n\"He has none, and no anger. He is indifferent to everything but his\ncalling. His calling is the acquisition of secrets and the holding\npossession of such power as they give him, with no sharer or opponent\nin it.\"\n\n\"Could you trust in him?\"\n\n\"I shall never try. The dark road I have trodden for so many years\nwill end where it will. I follow it alone to the end, whatever the\nend be. It may be near, it may be distant; while the road lasts,\nnothing turns me.\"\n\n\"Dear mother, are you so resolved?\"\n\n\"I AM resolved. I have long outbidden folly with folly, pride with\npride, scorn with scorn, insolence with insolence, and have outlived\nmany vanities with many more. I will outlive this danger, and outdie\nit, if I can. It has closed around me almost as awfully as if these\nwoods of Chesney Wold had closed around the house, but my course\nthrough it is the same. I have but one; I can have but one.\"\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce--\" I was beginning when my mother hurriedly inquired,\n\"Does HE suspect?\"\n\n\"No,\" said I. \"No, indeed! Be assured that he does not!\" And I told\nher what he had related to me as his knowledge of my story. \"But he\nis so good and sensible,\" said I, \"that perhaps if he knew--\"\n\nMy mother, who until this time had made no change in her position,\nraised her hand up to my lips and stopped me.\n\n\"Confide fully in him,\" she said after a little while. \"You have my\nfree consent--a small gift from such a mother to her injured\nchild!--but do not tell me of it. Some pride is left in me even yet.\"\n\nI explained, as nearly as I could then, or can recall now--for my\nagitation and distress throughout were so great that I scarcely\nunderstood myself, though every word that was uttered in the mother's\nvoice, so unfamiliar and so melancholy to me, which in my childhood I\nhad never learned to love and recognize, had never been sung to sleep\nwith, had never heard a blessing from, had never had a hope inspired\nby, made an enduring impression on my memory--I say I explained, or\ntried to do it, how I had only hoped that Mr. Jarndyce, who had been\nthe best of fathers to me, might be able to afford some counsel and\nsupport to her. But my mother answered no, it was impossible; no one\ncould help her. Through the desert that lay before her, she must go\nalone.\n\n\"My child, my child!\" she said. \"For the last time! These kisses for\nthe last time! These arms upon my neck for the last time! We shall\nmeet no more. To hope to do what I seek to do, I must be what I have\nbeen so long. Such is my reward and doom. If you hear of Lady\nDedlock, brilliant, prosperous, and flattered, think of your wretched\nmother, conscience-stricken, underneath that mask! Think that the\nreality is in her suffering, in her useless remorse, in her murdering\nwithin her breast the only love and truth of which it is capable! And\nthen forgive her if you can, and cry to heaven to forgive her, which\nit never can!\"\n\nWe held one another for a little space yet, but she was so firm that\nshe took my hands away, and put them back against my breast, and with\na last kiss as she held them there, released them, and went from me\ninto the wood. I was alone, and calm and quiet below me in the sun\nand shade lay the old house, with its terraces and turrets, on which\nthere had seemed to me to be such complete repose when I first saw\nit, but which now looked like the obdurate and unpitying watcher of\nmy mother's misery.\n\nStunned as I was, as weak and helpless at first as I had ever been in\nmy sick chamber, the necessity of guarding against the danger of\ndiscovery, or even of the remotest suspicion, did me service. I took\nsuch precautions as I could to hide from Charley that I had been\ncrying, and I constrained myself to think of every sacred obligation\nthat there was upon me to be careful and collected. It was not a\nlittle while before I could succeed or could even restrain bursts of\ngrief, but after an hour or so I was better and felt that I might\nreturn. I went home very slowly and told Charley, whom I found at the\ngate looking for me, that I had been tempted to extend my walk after\nLady Dedlock had left me and that I was over-tired and would lie\ndown. Safe in my own room, I read the letter. I clearly derived from\nit--and that was much then--that I had not been abandoned by my\nmother. Her elder and only sister, the godmother of my childhood,\ndiscovering signs of life in me when I had been laid aside as dead,\nhad in her stern sense of duty, with no desire or willingness that I\nshould live, reared me in rigid secrecy and had never again beheld my\nmother's face from within a few hours of my birth. So strangely did I\nhold my place in this world that until within a short time back I had\nnever, to my own mother's knowledge, breathed--had been buried--had\nnever been endowed with life--had never borne a name. When she had\nfirst seen me in the church she had been startled and had thought of\nwhat would have been like me if it had ever lived, and had lived on,\nbut that was all then.\n\nWhat more the letter told me needs not to be repeated here. It has\nits own times and places in my story.\n\nMy first care was to burn what my mother had written and to consume\neven its ashes. I hope it may not appear very unnatural or bad in me\nthat I then became heavily sorrowful to think I had ever been reared.\nThat I felt as if I knew it would have been better and happier for\nmany people if indeed I had never breathed. That I had a terror of\nmyself as the danger and the possible disgrace of my own mother and\nof a proud family name. That I was so confused and shaken as to be\npossessed by a belief that it was right and had been intended that I\nshould die in my birth, and that it was wrong and not intended that I\nshould be then alive.\n\nThese are the real feelings that I had. I fell asleep worn out, and\nwhen I awoke I cried afresh to think that I was back in the world\nwith my load of trouble for others. I was more than ever frightened\nof myself, thinking anew of her against whom I was a witness, of the\nowner of Chesney Wold, of the new and terrible meaning of the old\nwords now moaning in my ear like a surge upon the shore, \"Your\nmother, Esther, was your disgrace, and you are hers. The time will\ncome--and soon enough--when you will understand this better, and will\nfeel it too, as no one save a woman can.\" With them, those other\nwords returned, \"Pray daily that the sins of others be not visited\nupon your head.\" I could not disentangle all that was about me, and I\nfelt as if the blame and the shame were all in me, and the visitation\nhad come down.\n\nThe day waned into a gloomy evening, overcast and sad, and I still\ncontended with the same distress. I went out alone, and after walking\na little in the park, watching the dark shades falling on the trees\nand the fitful flight of the bats, which sometimes almost touched me,\nwas attracted to the house for the first time. Perhaps I might not\nhave gone near it if I had been in a stronger frame of mind. As it\nwas, I took the path that led close by it.\n\nI did not dare to linger or to look up, but I passed before the\nterrace garden with its fragrant odours, and its broad walks, and its\nwell-kept beds and smooth turf; and I saw how beautiful and grave it\nwas, and how the old stone balustrades and parapets, and wide flights\nof shallow steps, were seamed by time and weather; and how the\ntrained moss and ivy grew about them, and around the old stone\npedestal of the sun-dial; and I heard the fountain falling. Then the\nway went by long lines of dark windows diversified by turreted towers\nand porches of eccentric shapes, where old stone lions and grotesque\nmonsters bristled outside dens of shadow and snarled at the evening\ngloom over the escutcheons they held in their grip. Thence the path\nwound underneath a gateway, and through a court-yard where the\nprincipal entrance was (I hurried quickly on), and by the stables\nwhere none but deep voices seemed to be, whether in the murmuring of\nthe wind through the strong mass of ivy holding to a high red wall,\nor in the low complaining of the weathercock, or in the barking of\nthe dogs, or in the slow striking of a clock. So, encountering\npresently a sweet smell of limes, whose rustling I could hear, I\nturned with the turning of the path to the south front, and there\nabove me were the balustrades of the Ghost's Walk and one lighted\nwindow that might be my mother's.\n\nThe way was paved here, like the terrace overhead, and my footsteps\nfrom being noiseless made an echoing sound upon the flags. Stopping\nto look at nothing, but seeing all I did see as I went, I was passing\nquickly on, and in a few moments should have passed the lighted\nwindow, when my echoing footsteps brought it suddenly into my mind\nthat there was a dreadful truth in the legend of the Ghost's Walk,\nthat it was I who was to bring calamity upon the stately house and\nthat my warning feet were haunting it even then. Seized with an\naugmented terror of myself which turned me cold, I ran from myself\nand everything, retraced the way by which I had come, and never\npaused until I had gained the lodge-gate, and the park lay sullen and\nblack behind me.\n\nNot before I was alone in my own room for the night and had again\nbeen dejected and unhappy there did I begin to know how wrong and\nthankless this state was. But from my darling who was coming on the\nmorrow, I found a joyful letter, full of such loving anticipation\nthat I must have been of marble if it had not moved me; from my\nguardian, too, I found another letter, asking me to tell Dame Durden,\nif I should see that little woman anywhere, that they had moped most\npitiably without her, that the housekeeping was going to rack and\nruin, that nobody else could manage the keys, and that everybody in\nand about the house declared it was not the same house and was\nbecoming rebellious for her return. Two such letters together made me\nthink how far beyond my deserts I was beloved and how happy I ought\nto be. That made me think of all my past life; and that brought me,\nas it ought to have done before, into a better condition.\n\nFor I saw very well that I could not have been intended to die, or I\nshould never have lived; not to say should never have been reserved\nfor such a happy life. I saw very well how many things had worked\ntogether for my welfare, and that if the sins of the fathers were\nsometimes visited upon the children, the phrase did not mean what I\nhad in the morning feared it meant. I knew I was as innocent of my\nbirth as a queen of hers and that before my Heavenly Father I should\nnot be punished for birth nor a queen rewarded for it. I had had\nexperience, in the shock of that very day, that I could, even thus\nsoon, find comforting reconcilements to the change that had fallen on\nme. I renewed my resolutions and prayed to be strengthened in them,\npouring out my heart for myself and for my unhappy mother and feeling\nthat the darkness of the morning was passing away. It was not upon my\nsleep; and when the next day's light awoke me, it was gone.\n\nMy dear girl was to arrive at five o'clock in the afternoon. How to\nhelp myself through the intermediate time better than by taking a\nlong walk along the road by which she was to come, I did not know; so\nCharley and I and Stubbs--Stubbs saddled, for we never drove him\nafter the one great occasion--made a long expedition along that road\nand back. On our return, we held a great review of the house and\ngarden and saw that everything was in its prettiest condition, and\nhad the bird out ready as an important part of the establishment.\n\nThere were more than two full hours yet to elapse before she could\ncome, and in that interval, which seemed a long one, I must confess I\nwas nervously anxious about my altered looks. I loved my darling so\nwell that I was more concerned for their effect on her than on any\none. I was not in this slight distress because I at all repined--I am\nquite certain I did not, that day--but, I thought, would she be\nwholly prepared? When she first saw me, might she not be a little\nshocked and disappointed? Might it not prove a little worse than she\nexpected? Might she not look for her old Esther and not find her?\nMight she not have to grow used to me and to begin all over again?\n\nI knew the various expressions of my sweet girl's face so well, and\nit was such an honest face in its loveliness, that I was sure\nbeforehand she could not hide that first look from me. And I\nconsidered whether, if it should signify any one of these meanings,\nwhich was so very likely, could I quite answer for myself?\n\nWell, I thought I could. After last night, I thought I could. But to\nwait and wait, and expect and expect, and think and think, was such\nbad preparation that I resolved to go along the road again and meet\nher.\n\nSo I said to Charley, \"Charley, I will go by myself and walk along\nthe road until she comes.\" Charley highly approving of anything that\npleased me, I went and left her at home.\n\nBut before I got to the second milestone, I had been in so many\npalpitations from seeing dust in the distance (though I knew it was\nnot, and could not, be the coach yet) that I resolved to turn back\nand go home again. And when I had turned, I was in such fear of the\ncoach coming up behind me (though I still knew that it neither would,\nnor could, do any such thing) that I ran the greater part of the way\nto avoid being overtaken.\n\nThen, I considered, when I had got safe back again, this was a nice\nthing to have done! Now I was hot and had made the worst of it\ninstead of the best.\n\nAt last, when I believed there was at least a quarter of an hour more\nyet, Charley all at once cried out to me as I was trembling in the\ngarden, \"Here she comes, miss! Here she is!\"\n\nI did not mean to do it, but I ran upstairs into my room and hid\nmyself behind the door. There I stood trembling, even when I heard my\ndarling calling as she came upstairs, \"Esther, my dear, my love,\nwhere are you? Little woman, dear Dame Durden!\"\n\nShe ran in, and was running out again when she saw me. Ah, my angel\ngirl! The old dear look, all love, all fondness, all affection.\nNothing else in it--no, nothing, nothing!\n\nOh, how happy I was, down upon the floor, with my sweet beautiful\ngirl down upon the floor too, holding my scarred face to her lovely\ncheek, bathing it with tears and kisses, rocking me to and fro like a\nchild, calling me by every tender name that she could think of, and\npressing me to her faithful heart.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVII\n\nJarndyce and Jarndyce\n\n\nIf the secret I had to keep had been mine, I must have confided it to\nAda before we had been long together. But it was not mine, and I did\nnot feel that I had a right to tell it, even to my guardian, unless\nsome great emergency arose. It was a weight to bear alone; still my\npresent duty appeared to be plain, and blest in the attachment of my\ndear, I did not want an impulse and encouragement to do it. Though\noften when she was asleep and all was quiet, the remembrance of my\nmother kept me waking and made the night sorrowful, I did not yield\nto it at another time; and Ada found me what I used to be--except, of\ncourse, in that particular of which I have said enough and which I\nhave no intention of mentioning any more just now, if I can help it.\n\nThe difficulty that I felt in being quite composed that first evening\nwhen Ada asked me, over our work, if the family were at the house,\nand when I was obliged to answer yes, I believed so, for Lady Dedlock\nhad spoken to me in the woods the day before yesterday, was great.\nGreater still when Ada asked me what she had said, and when I replied\nthat she had been kind and interested, and when Ada, while admitting\nher beauty and elegance, remarked upon her proud manner and her\nimperious chilling air. But Charley helped me through, unconsciously,\nby telling us that Lady Dedlock had only stayed at the house two\nnights on her way from London to visit at some other great house in\nthe next county and that she had left early on the morning after we\nhad seen her at our view, as we called it. Charley verified the adage\nabout little pitchers, I am sure, for she heard of more sayings and\ndoings in a day than would have come to my ears in a month.\n\nWe were to stay a month at Mr. Boythorn's. My pet had scarcely been\nthere a bright week, as I recollect the time, when one evening after\nwe had finished helping the gardener in watering his flowers, and\njust as the candles were lighted, Charley, appearing with a very\nimportant air behind Ada's chair, beckoned me mysteriously out of the\nroom.\n\n\"Oh! If you please, miss,\" said Charley in a whisper, with her eyes\nat their roundest and largest. \"You're wanted at the Dedlock Arms.\"\n\n\"Why, Charley,\" said I, \"who can possibly want me at the\npublic-house?\"\n\n\"I don't know, miss,\" returned Charley, putting her head forward and\nfolding her hands tight upon the band of her little apron, which she\nalways did in the enjoyment of anything mysterious or confidential,\n\"but it's a gentleman, miss, and his compliments, and will you please\nto come without saying anything about it.\"\n\n\"Whose compliments, Charley?\"\n\n\"His'n, miss,\" returned Charley, whose grammatical education was\nadvancing, but not very rapidly.\n\n\"And how do you come to be the messenger, Charley?\"\n\n\"I am not the messenger, if you please, miss,\" returned my little\nmaid. \"It was W. Grubble, miss.\"\n\n\"And who is W. Grubble, Charley?\"\n\n\"Mister Grubble, miss,\" returned Charley. \"Don't you know, miss? The\nDedlock Arms, by W. Grubble,\" which Charley delivered as if she were\nslowly spelling out the sign.\n\n\"Aye? The landlord, Charley?\"\n\n\"Yes, miss. If you please, miss, his wife is a beautiful woman, but\nshe broke her ankle, and it never joined. And her brother's the\nsawyer that was put in the cage, miss, and they expect he'll drink\nhimself to death entirely on beer,\" said Charley.\n\nNot knowing what might be the matter, and being easily apprehensive\nnow, I thought it best to go to this place by myself. I bade Charley\nbe quick with my bonnet and veil and my shawl, and having put them\non, went away down the little hilly street, where I was as much at\nhome as in Mr. Boythorn's garden.\n\nMr. Grubble was standing in his shirt-sleeves at the door of his very\nclean little tavern waiting for me. He lifted off his hat with both\nhands when he saw me coming, and carrying it so, as if it were an\niron vessel (it looked as heavy), preceded me along the sanded\npassage to his best parlour, a neat carpeted room with more plants in\nit than were quite convenient, a coloured print of Queen Caroline,\nseveral shells, a good many tea-trays, two stuffed and dried fish in\nglass cases, and either a curious egg or a curious pumpkin (but I\ndon't know which, and I doubt if many people did) hanging from his\nceiling. I knew Mr. Grubble very well by sight, from his often\nstanding at his door. A pleasant-looking, stoutish, middle-aged man\nwho never seemed to consider himself cozily dressed for his own\nfire-side without his hat and top-boots, but who never wore a coat\nexcept at church.\n\nHe snuffed the candle, and backing away a little to see how it\nlooked, backed out of the room--unexpectedly to me, for I was going\nto ask him by whom he had been sent. The door of the opposite parlour\nbeing then opened, I heard some voices, familiar in my ears I\nthought, which stopped. A quick light step approached the room in\nwhich I was, and who should stand before me but Richard!\n\n\"My dear Esther!\" he said. \"My best friend!\" And he really was so\nwarm-hearted and earnest that in the first surprise and pleasure of\nhis brotherly greeting I could scarcely find breath to tell him that\nAda was well.\n\n\"Answering my very thoughts--always the same dear girl!\" said\nRichard, leading me to a chair and seating himself beside me.\n\nI put my veil up, but not quite.\n\n\"Always the same dear girl!\" said Richard just as heartily as before.\n\nI put up my veil altogether, and laying my hand on Richard's sleeve\nand looking in his face, told him how much I thanked him for his kind\nwelcome and how greatly I rejoiced to see him, the more so because of\nthe determination I had made in my illness, which I now conveyed to\nhim.\n\n\"My love,\" said Richard, \"there is no one with whom I have a greater\nwish to talk than you, for I want you to understand me.\"\n\n\"And I want you, Richard,\" said I, shaking my head, \"to understand\nsome one else.\"\n\n\"Since you refer so immediately to John Jarndyce,\" said Richard, \"--I\nsuppose you mean him?\"\n\n\"Of course I do.\"\n\n\"Then I may say at once that I am glad of it, because it is on that\nsubject that I am anxious to be understood. By you, mind--you, my\ndear! I am not accountable to Mr. Jarndyce or Mr. Anybody.\"\n\nI was pained to find him taking this tone, and he observed it.\n\n\"Well, well, my dear,\" said Richard, \"we won't go into that now. I\nwant to appear quietly in your country-house here, with you under my\narm, and give my charming cousin a surprise. I suppose your loyalty\nto John Jarndyce will allow that?\"\n\n\"My dear Richard,\" I returned, \"you know you would be heartily\nwelcome at his house--your home, if you will but consider it so; and\nyou are as heartily welcome here!\"\n\n\"Spoken like the best of little women!\" cried Richard gaily.\n\nI asked him how he liked his profession.\n\n\"Oh, I like it well enough!\" said Richard. \"It's all right. It does\nas well as anything else, for a time. I don't know that I shall care\nabout it when I come to be settled, but I can sell out then\nand--however, never mind all that botheration at present.\"\n\nSo young and handsome, and in all respects so perfectly the opposite\nof Miss Flite! And yet, in the clouded, eager, seeking look that\npassed over him, so dreadfully like her!\n\n\"I am in town on leave just now,\" said Richard.\n\n\"Indeed?\"\n\n\"Yes. I have run over to look after my--my Chancery interests before\nthe long vacation,\" said Richard, forcing a careless laugh. \"We are\nbeginning to spin along with that old suit at last, I promise you.\"\n\nNo wonder that I shook my head!\n\n\"As you say, it's not a pleasant subject.\" Richard spoke with the\nsame shade crossing his face as before. \"Let it go to the four winds\nfor to-night. Puff! Gone! Who do you suppose is with me?\"\n\n\"Was it Mr. Skimpole's voice I heard?\"\n\n\"That's the man! He does me more good than anybody. What a\nfascinating child it is!\"\n\nI asked Richard if any one knew of their coming down together. He\nanswered, no, nobody. He had been to call upon the dear old\ninfant--so he called Mr. Skimpole--and the dear old infant had told\nhim where we were, and he had told the dear old infant he was bent on\ncoming to see us, and the dear old infant had directly wanted to come\ntoo; and so he had brought him. \"And he is worth--not to say his\nsordid expenses--but thrice his weight in gold,\" said Richard. \"He is\nsuch a cheery fellow. No worldliness about him. Fresh and\ngreen-hearted!\"\n\nI certainly did not see the proof of Mr. Skimpole's worldliness in\nhis having his expenses paid by Richard, but I made no remark about\nthat. Indeed, he came in and turned our conversation. He was charmed\nto see me, said he had been shedding delicious tears of joy and\nsympathy at intervals for six weeks on my account, had never been so\nhappy as in hearing of my progress, began to understand the mixture\nof good and evil in the world now, felt that he appreciated health\nthe more when somebody else was ill, didn't know but what it might be\nin the scheme of things that A should squint to make B happier in\nlooking straight or that C should carry a wooden leg to make D better\nsatisfied with his flesh and blood in a silk stocking.\n\n\"My dear Miss Summerson, here is our friend Richard,\" said Mr.\nSkimpole, \"full of the brightest visions of the future, which he\nevokes out of the darkness of Chancery. Now that's delightful, that's\ninspiriting, that's full of poetry! In old times the woods and\nsolitudes were made joyous to the shepherd by the imaginary piping\nand dancing of Pan and the nymphs. This present shepherd, our\npastoral Richard, brightens the dull Inns of Court by making Fortune\nand her train sport through them to the melodious notes of a judgment\nfrom the bench. That's very pleasant, you know! Some ill-conditioned\ngrowling fellow may say to me, 'What's the use of these legal and\nequitable abuses? How do you defend them?' I reply, 'My growling\nfriend, I DON'T defend them, but they are very agreeable to me. There\nis a shepherd--youth, a friend of mine, who transmutes them into\nsomething highly fascinating to my simplicity. I don't say it is for\nthis that they exist--for I am a child among you worldly grumblers,\nand not called upon to account to you or myself for anything--but it\nmay be so.'\"\n\nI began seriously to think that Richard could scarcely have found a\nworse friend than this. It made me uneasy that at such a time when he\nmost required some right principle and purpose he should have this\ncaptivating looseness and putting-off of everything, this airy\ndispensing with all principle and purpose, at his elbow. I thought I\ncould understand how such a nature as my guardian's, experienced in\nthe world and forced to contemplate the miserable evasions and\ncontentions of the family misfortune, found an immense relief in Mr.\nSkimpole's avowal of his weaknesses and display of guileless candour;\nbut I could not satisfy myself that it was as artless as it seemed or\nthat it did not serve Mr. Skimpole's idle turn quite as well as any\nother part, and with less trouble.\n\nThey both walked back with me, and Mr. Skimpole leaving us at the\ngate, I walked softly in with Richard and said, \"Ada, my love, I have\nbrought a gentleman to visit you.\" It was not difficult to read the\nblushing, startled face. She loved him dearly, and he knew it, and I\nknew it. It was a very transparent business, that meeting as cousins\nonly.\n\nI almost mistrusted myself as growing quite wicked in my suspicions,\nbut I was not so sure that Richard loved her dearly. He admired her\nvery much--any one must have done that--and I dare say would have\nrenewed their youthful engagement with great pride and ardour but\nthat he knew how she would respect her promise to my guardian. Still\nI had a tormenting idea that the influence upon him extended even\nhere, that he was postponing his best truth and earnestness in this\nas in all things until Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be off his mind.\nAh me! What Richard would have been without that blight, I never\nshall know now!\n\nHe told Ada, in his most ingenuous way, that he had not come to make\nany secret inroad on the terms she had accepted (rather too\nimplicitly and confidingly, he thought) from Mr. Jarndyce, that he\nhad come openly to see her and to see me and to justify himself for\nthe present terms on which he stood with Mr. Jarndyce. As the dear\nold infant would be with us directly, he begged that I would make an\nappointment for the morning, when he might set himself right through\nthe means of an unreserved conversation with me. I proposed to walk\nwith him in the park at seven o'clock, and this was arranged. Mr.\nSkimpole soon afterwards appeared and made us merry for an hour. He\nparticularly requested to see little Coavinses (meaning Charley) and\ntold her, with a patriarchal air, that he had given her late father\nall the business in his power and that if one of her little brothers\nwould make haste to get set up in the same profession, he hoped he\nshould still be able to put a good deal of employment in his way.\n\n\"For I am constantly being taken in these nets,\" said Mr. Skimpole,\nlooking beamingly at us over a glass of wine-and-water, \"and am\nconstantly being bailed out--like a boat. Or paid off--like a ship's\ncompany. Somebody always does it for me. I can't do it, you know, for\nI never have any money. But somebody does it. I get out by somebody's\nmeans; I am not like the starling; I get out. If you were to ask me\nwho somebody is, upon my word I couldn't tell you. Let us drink to\nsomebody. God bless him!\"\n\nRichard was a little late in the morning, but I had not to wait for\nhim long, and we turned into the park. The air was bright and dewy\nand the sky without a cloud. The birds sang delightfully; the\nsparkles in the fern, the grass, and trees, were exquisite to see;\nthe richness of the woods seemed to have increased twenty-fold since\nyesterday, as if, in the still night when they had looked so\nmassively hushed in sleep, Nature, through all the minute details of\nevery wonderful leaf, had been more wakeful than usual for the glory\nof that day.\n\n\"This is a lovely place,\" said Richard, looking round. \"None of the\njar and discord of law-suits here!\"\n\nBut there was other trouble.\n\n\"I tell you what, my dear girl,\" said Richard, \"when I get affairs in\ngeneral settled, I shall come down here, I think, and rest.\"\n\n\"Would it not be better to rest now?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh, as to resting NOW,\" said Richard, \"or as to doing anything very\ndefinite NOW, that's not easy. In short, it can't be done; I can't do\nit at least.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" said I.\n\n\"You know why not, Esther. If you were living in an unfinished house,\nliable to have the roof put on or taken off--to be from top to bottom\npulled down or built up--to-morrow, next day, next week, next month,\nnext year--you would find it hard to rest or settle. So do I. Now?\nThere's no now for us suitors.\"\n\nI could almost have believed in the attraction on which my poor\nlittle wandering friend had expatiated when I saw again the darkened\nlook of last night. Terrible to think it had in it also a shade of\nthat unfortunate man who had died.\n\n\"My dear Richard,\" said I, \"this is a bad beginning of our\nconversation.\"\n\n\"I knew you would tell me so, Dame Durden.\"\n\n\"And not I alone, dear Richard. It was not I who cautioned you once\nnever to found a hope or expectation on the family curse.\"\n\n\"There you come back to John Jarndyce!\" said Richard impatiently.\n\"Well! We must approach him sooner or later, for he is the staple of\nwhat I have to say, and it's as well at once. My dear Esther, how can\nyou be so blind? Don't you see that he is an interested party and\nthat it may be very well for him to wish me to know nothing of the\nsuit, and care nothing about it, but that it may not be quite so well\nfor me?\"\n\n\"Oh, Richard,\" I remonstrated, \"is it possible that you can ever have\nseen him and heard him, that you can ever have lived under his roof\nand known him, and can yet breathe, even to me in this solitary place\nwhere there is no one to hear us, such unworthy suspicions?\"\n\nHe reddened deeply, as if his natural generosity felt a pang of\nreproach. He was silent for a little while before he replied in a\nsubdued voice, \"Esther, I am sure you know that I am not a mean\nfellow and that I have some sense of suspicion and distrust being\npoor qualities in one of my years.\"\n\n\"I know it very well,\" said I. \"I am not more sure of anything.\"\n\n\"That's a dear girl,\" retorted Richard, \"and like you, because it\ngives me comfort. I had need to get some scrap of comfort out of all\nthis business, for it's a bad one at the best, as I have no occasion\nto tell you.\"\n\n\"I know perfectly,\" said I. \"I know as well, Richard--what shall I\nsay? as well as you do--that such misconstructions are foreign to\nyour nature. And I know, as well as you know, what so changes it.\"\n\n\"Come, sister, come,\" said Richard a little more gaily, \"you will be\nfair with me at all events. If I have the misfortune to be under that\ninfluence, so has he. If it has a little twisted me, it may have a\nlittle twisted him too. I don't say that he is not an honourable man,\nout of all this complication and uncertainty; I am sure he is. But it\ntaints everybody. You know it taints everybody. You have heard him\nsay so fifty times. Then why should HE escape?\"\n\n\"Because,\" said I, \"his is an uncommon character, and he has\nresolutely kept himself outside the circle, Richard.\"\n\n\"Oh, because and because!\" replied Richard in his vivacious way. \"I\nam not sure, my dear girl, but that it may be wise and specious to\npreserve that outward indifference. It may cause other parties\ninterested to become lax about their interests; and people may die\noff, and points may drag themselves out of memory, and many things\nmay smoothly happen that are convenient enough.\"\n\nI was so touched with pity for Richard that I could not reproach him\nany more, even by a look. I remembered my guardian's gentleness\ntowards his errors and with what perfect freedom from resentment he\nhad spoken of them.\n\n\"Esther,\" Richard resumed, \"you are not to suppose that I have come\nhere to make underhanded charges against John Jarndyce. I have only\ncome to justify myself. What I say is, it was all very well and we\ngot on very well while I was a boy, utterly regardless of this same\nsuit; but as soon as I began to take an interest in it and to look\ninto it, then it was quite another thing. Then John Jarndyce\ndiscovers that Ada and I must break off and that if I don't amend\nthat very objectionable course, I am not fit for her. Now, Esther, I\ndon't mean to amend that very objectionable course: I will not hold\nJohn Jarndyce's favour on those unfair terms of compromise, which he\nhas no right to dictate. Whether it pleases him or displeases him, I\nmust maintain my rights and Ada's. I have been thinking about it a\ngood deal, and this is the conclusion I have come to.\"\n\nPoor dear Richard! He had indeed been thinking about it a good deal.\nHis face, his voice, his manner, all showed that too plainly.\n\n\"So I tell him honourably (you are to know I have written to him\nabout all this) that we are at issue and that we had better be at\nissue openly than covertly. I thank him for his goodwill and his\nprotection, and he goes his road, and I go mine. The fact is, our\nroads are not the same. Under one of the wills in dispute, I should\ntake much more than he. I don't mean to say that it is the one to be\nestablished, but there it is, and it has its chance.\"\n\n\"I have not to learn from you, my dear Richard,\" said I, \"of your\nletter. I had heard of it already without an offended or angry word.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\" replied Richard, softening. \"I am glad I said he was an\nhonourable man, out of all this wretched affair. But I always say\nthat and have never doubted it. Now, my dear Esther, I know these\nviews of mine appear extremely harsh to you, and will to Ada when you\ntell her what has passed between us. But if you had gone into the\ncase as I have, if you had only applied yourself to the papers as I\ndid when I was at Kenge's, if you only knew what an accumulation of\ncharges and counter-charges, and suspicions and cross-suspicions,\nthey involve, you would think me moderate in comparison.\"\n\n\"Perhaps so,\" said I. \"But do you think that, among those many\npapers, there is much truth and justice, Richard?\"\n\n\"There is truth and justice somewhere in the case, Esther--\"\n\n\"Or was once, long ago,\" said I.\n\n\"Is--is--must be somewhere,\" pursued Richard impetuously, \"and must\nbe brought out. To allow Ada to be made a bribe and hush-money of is\nnot the way to bring it out. You say the suit is changing me; John\nJarndyce says it changes, has changed, and will change everybody who\nhas any share in it. Then the greater right I have on my side when I\nresolve to do all I can to bring it to an end.\"\n\n\"All you can, Richard! Do you think that in these many years no\nothers have done all they could? Has the difficulty grown easier\nbecause of so many failures?\"\n\n\"It can't last for ever,\" returned Richard with a fierceness kindling\nin him which again presented to me that last sad reminder. \"I am\nyoung and earnest, and energy and determination have done wonders\nmany a time. Others have only half thrown themselves into it. I\ndevote myself to it. I make it the object of my life.\"\n\n\"Oh, Richard, my dear, so much the worse, so much the worse!\"\n\n\"No, no, no, don't you be afraid for me,\" he returned affectionately.\n\"You're a dear, good, wise, quiet, blessed girl; but you have your\nprepossessions. So I come round to John Jarndyce. I tell you, my good\nEsther, when he and I were on those terms which he found so\nconvenient, we were not on natural terms.\"\n\n\"Are division and animosity your natural terms, Richard?\"\n\n\"No, I don't say that. I mean that all this business puts us on\nunnatural terms, with which natural relations are incompatible. See\nanother reason for urging it on! I may find out when it's over that I\nhave been mistaken in John Jarndyce. My head may be clearer when I am\nfree of it, and I may then agree with what you say to-day. Very well.\nThen I shall acknowledge it and make him reparation.\"\n\nEverything postponed to that imaginary time! Everything held in\nconfusion and indecision until then!\n\n\"Now, my best of confidantes,\" said Richard, \"I want my cousin Ada to\nunderstand that I am not captious, fickle, and wilful about John\nJarndyce, but that I have this purpose and reason at my back. I wish\nto represent myself to her through you, because she has a great\nesteem and respect for her cousin John; and I know you will soften\nthe course I take, even though you disapprove of it; and--and in\nshort,\" said Richard, who had been hesitating through these words,\n\"I--I don't like to represent myself in this litigious, contentious,\ndoubting character to a confiding girl like Ada.\"\n\nI told him that he was more like himself in those latter words than\nin anything he had said yet.\n\n\"Why,\" acknowledged Richard, \"that may be true enough, my love. I\nrather feel it to be so. But I shall be able to give myself fair-play\nby and by. I shall come all right again, then, don't you be afraid.\"\n\nI asked him if this were all he wished me to tell Ada.\n\n\"Not quite,\" said Richard. \"I am bound not to withhold from her that\nJohn Jarndyce answered my letter in his usual manner, addressing me\nas 'My dear Rick,' trying to argue me out of my opinions, and telling\nme that they should make no difference in him. (All very well of\ncourse, but not altering the case.) I also want Ada to know that if I\nsee her seldom just now, I am looking after her interests as well as\nmy own--we two being in the same boat exactly--and that I hope she\nwill not suppose from any flying rumours she may hear that I am at\nall light-headed or imprudent; on the contrary, I am always looking\nforward to the termination of the suit, and always planning in that\ndirection. Being of age now and having taken the step I have taken, I\nconsider myself free from any accountability to John Jarndyce; but\nAda being still a ward of the court, I don't yet ask her to renew our\nengagement. When she is free to act for herself, I shall be myself\nonce more and we shall both be in very different worldly\ncircumstances, I believe. If you tell her all this with the advantage\nof your considerate way, you will do me a very great and a very kind\nservice, my dear Esther; and I shall knock Jarndyce and Jarndyce on\nthe head with greater vigour. Of course I ask for no secrecy at Bleak\nHouse.\"\n\n\"Richard,\" said I, \"you place great confidence in me, but I fear you\nwill not take advice from me?\"\n\n\"It's impossible that I can on this subject, my dear girl. On any\nother, readily.\"\n\nAs if there were any other in his life! As if his whole career and\ncharacter were not being dyed one colour!\n\n\"But I may ask you a question, Richard?\"\n\n\"I think so,\" said he, laughing. \"I don't know who may not, if you\nmay not.\"\n\n\"You say, yourself, you are not leading a very settled life.\"\n\n\"How can I, my dear Esther, with nothing settled!\"\n\n\"Are you in debt again?\"\n\n\"Why, of course I am,\" said Richard, astonished at my simplicity.\n\n\"Is it of course?\"\n\n\"My dear child, certainly. I can't throw myself into an object so\ncompletely without expense. You forget, or perhaps you don't know,\nthat under either of the wills Ada and I take something. It's only a\nquestion between the larger sum and the smaller. I shall be within\nthe mark any way. Bless your heart, my excellent girl,\" said Richard,\nquite amused with me, \"I shall be all right! I shall pull through, my\ndear!\"\n\nI felt so deeply sensible of the danger in which he stood that I\ntried, in Ada's name, in my guardian's, in my own, by every fervent\nmeans that I could think of, to warn him of it and to show him some\nof his mistakes. He received everything I said with patience and\ngentleness, but it all rebounded from him without taking the least\neffect. I could not wonder at this after the reception his\npreoccupied mind had given to my guardian's letter, but I determined\nto try Ada's influence yet.\n\nSo when our walk brought us round to the village again, and I went\nhome to breakfast, I prepared Ada for the account I was going to give\nher and told her exactly what reason we had to dread that Richard was\nlosing himself and scattering his whole life to the winds. It made\nher very unhappy, of course, though she had a far, far greater\nreliance on his correcting his errors than I could have--which was so\nnatural and loving in my dear!--and she presently wrote him this\nlittle letter:\n\n\n   My dearest cousin,\n\n   Esther has told me all you said to her this morning. I\n   write this to repeat most earnestly for myself all that\n   she said to you and to let you know how sure I am that\n   you will sooner or later find our cousin John a pattern\n   of truth, sincerity, and goodness, when you will deeply,\n   deeply grieve to have done him (without intending it) so\n   much wrong.\n\n   I do not quite know how to write what I wish to say next,\n   but I trust you will understand it as I mean it. I have\n   some fears, my dearest cousin, that it may be partly for\n   my sake you are now laying up so much unhappiness for\n   yourself--and if for yourself, for me. In case this should\n   be so, or in case you should entertain much thought of me\n   in what you are doing, I most earnestly entreat and beg\n   you to desist. You can do nothing for my sake that will\n   make me half so happy as for ever turning your back upon\n   the shadow in which we both were born. Do not be angry\n   with me for saying this. Pray, pray, dear Richard, for my\n   sake, and for your own, and in a natural repugnance for\n   that source of trouble which had its share in making us\n   both orphans when we were very young, pray, pray, let it\n   go for ever. We have reason to know by this time that\n   there is no good in it and no hope, that there is nothing\n   to be got from it but sorrow.\n\n   My dearest cousin, it is needless for me to say that you\n   are quite free and that it is very likely you may find\n   some one whom you will love much better than your first\n   fancy. I am quite sure, if you will let me say so, that\n   the object of your choice would greatly prefer to follow\n   your fortunes far and wide, however moderate or poor, and\n   see you happy, doing your duty and pursuing your chosen\n   way, than to have the hope of being, or even to be, very\n   rich with you (if such a thing were possible) at the cost\n   of dragging years of procrastination and anxiety and of\n   your indifference to other aims. You may wonder at my\n   saying this so confidently with so little knowledge or\n   experience, but I know it for a certainty from my own\n   heart.\n\n   Ever, my dearest cousin, your most affectionate\n\n   Ada\n\n\nThis note brought Richard to us very soon, but it made little change\nin him if any. We would fairly try, he said, who was right and who\nwas wrong--he would show us--we should see! He was animated and\nglowing, as if Ada's tenderness had gratified him; but I could only\nhope, with a sigh, that the letter might have some stronger effect\nupon his mind on re-perusal than it assuredly had then.\n\nAs they were to remain with us that day and had taken their places to\nreturn by the coach next morning, I sought an opportunity of speaking\nto Mr. Skimpole. Our out-of-door life easily threw one in my way, and\nI delicately said that there was a responsibility in encouraging\nRichard.\n\n\"Responsibility, my dear Miss Summerson?\" he repeated, catching at\nthe word with the pleasantest smile. \"I am the last man in the world\nfor such a thing. I never was responsible in my life--I can't be.\"\n\n\"I am afraid everybody is obliged to be,\" said I timidly enough, he\nbeing so much older and more clever than I.\n\n\"No, really?\" said Mr. Skimpole, receiving this new light with a most\nagreeable jocularity of surprise. \"But every man's not obliged to be\nsolvent? I am not. I never was. See, my dear Miss Summerson,\" he took\na handful of loose silver and halfpence from his pocket, \"there's so\nmuch money. I have not an idea how much. I have not the power of\ncounting. Call it four and ninepence--call it four pound nine. They\ntell me I owe more than that. I dare say I do. I dare say I owe as\nmuch as good-natured people will let me owe. If they don't stop, why\nshould I? There you have Harold Skimpole in little. If that's\nresponsibility, I am responsible.\"\n\nThe perfect ease of manner with which he put the money up again and\nlooked at me with a smile on his refined face, as if he had been\nmentioning a curious little fact about somebody else, almost made me\nfeel as if he really had nothing to do with it.\n\n\"Now, when you mention responsibility,\" he resumed, \"I am disposed to\nsay that I never had the happiness of knowing any one whom I should\nconsider so refreshingly responsible as yourself. You appear to me\nto be the very touchstone of responsibility. When I see you, my\ndear Miss Summerson, intent upon the perfect working of the whole\nlittle orderly system of which you are the centre, I feel inclined\nto say to myself--in fact I do say to myself very often--THAT'S\nresponsibility!\"\n\nIt was difficult, after this, to explain what I meant; but I\npersisted so far as to say that we all hoped he would check and not\nconfirm Richard in the sanguine views he entertained just then.\n\n\"Most willingly,\" he retorted, \"if I could. But, my dear Miss\nSummerson, I have no art, no disguise. If he takes me by the hand and\nleads me through Westminster Hall in an airy procession after\nfortune, I must go. If he says, 'Skimpole, join the dance!' I must\njoin it. Common sense wouldn't, I know, but I have NO common sense.\"\n\nIt was very unfortunate for Richard, I said.\n\n\"Do you think so!\" returned Mr. Skimpole. \"Don't say that, don't say\nthat. Let us suppose him keeping company with Common Sense--an\nexcellent man--a good deal wrinkled--dreadfully practical--change for\na ten-pound note in every pocket--ruled account-book in his\nhand--say, upon the whole, resembling a tax-gatherer. Our dear\nRichard, sanguine, ardent, overleaping obstacles, bursting with\npoetry like a young bud, says to this highly respectable companion,\n'I see a golden prospect before me; it's very bright, it's very\nbeautiful, it's very joyous; here I go, bounding over the landscape\nto come at it!' The respectable companion instantly knocks him down\nwith the ruled account-book; tells him in a literal, prosaic way that\nhe sees no such thing; shows him it's nothing but fees, fraud,\nhorsehair wigs, and black gowns. Now you know that's a painful\nchange--sensible in the last degree, I have no doubt, but\ndisagreeable. I can't do it. I haven't got the ruled account-book, I\nhave none of the tax-gathering elements in my composition, I am not\nat all respectable, and I don't want to be. Odd perhaps, but so it\nis!\"\n\nIt was idle to say more, so I proposed that we should join Ada and\nRichard, who were a little in advance, and I gave up Mr. Skimpole in\ndespair. He had been over the Hall in the course of the morning and\nwhimsically described the family pictures as we walked. There were\nsuch portentous shepherdesses among the Ladies Dedlock dead and gone,\nhe told us, that peaceful crooks became weapons of assault in their\nhands. They tended their flocks severely in buckram and powder and\nput their sticking-plaster patches on to terrify commoners as the\nchiefs of some other tribes put on their war-paint. There was a Sir\nSomebody Dedlock, with a battle, a sprung-mine, volumes of smoke,\nflashes of lightning, a town on fire, and a stormed fort, all in full\naction between his horse's two hind legs, showing, he supposed, how\nlittle a Dedlock made of such trifles. The whole race he represented\nas having evidently been, in life, what he called \"stuffed people\"--a\nlarge collection, glassy eyed, set up in the most approved manner on\ntheir various twigs and perches, very correct, perfectly free from\nanimation, and always in glass cases.\n\nI was not so easy now during any reference to the name but that I\nfelt it a relief when Richard, with an exclamation of surprise,\nhurried away to meet a stranger whom he first descried coming slowly\ntowards us.\n\n\"Dear me!\" said Mr. Skimpole. \"Vholes!\"\n\nWe asked if that were a friend of Richard's.\n\n\"Friend and legal adviser,\" said Mr. Skimpole. \"Now, my dear Miss\nSummerson, if you want common sense, responsibility, and\nrespectability, all united--if you want an exemplary man--Vholes is\nTHE man.\"\n\nWe had not known, we said, that Richard was assisted by any gentleman\nof that name.\n\n\"When he emerged from legal infancy,\" returned Mr. Skimpole, \"he\nparted from our conversational friend Kenge and took up, I believe,\nwith Vholes. Indeed, I know he did, because I introduced him to\nVholes.\"\n\n\"Had you known him long?\" asked Ada.\n\n\"Vholes? My dear Miss Clare, I had had that kind of acquaintance with\nhim which I have had with several gentlemen of his profession. He had\ndone something or other in a very agreeable, civil manner--taken\nproceedings, I think, is the expression--which ended in the\nproceeding of his taking ME. Somebody was so good as to step in and\npay the money--something and fourpence was the amount; I forget the\npounds and shillings, but I know it ended with fourpence, because it\nstruck me at the time as being so odd that I could owe anybody\nfourpence--and after that I brought them together. Vholes asked me\nfor the introduction, and I gave it. Now I come to think of it,\" he\nlooked inquiringly at us with his frankest smile as he made the\ndiscovery, \"Vholes bribed me, perhaps? He gave me something and\ncalled it commission. Was it a five-pound note? Do you know, I think\nit MUST have been a five-pound note!\"\n\nHis further consideration of the point was prevented by Richard's\ncoming back to us in an excited state and hastily representing Mr.\nVholes--a sallow man with pinched lips that looked as if they were\ncold, a red eruption here and there upon his face, tall and thin,\nabout fifty years of age, high-shouldered, and stooping. Dressed in\nblack, black-gloved, and buttoned to the chin, there was nothing so\nremarkable in him as a lifeless manner and a slow, fixed way he had\nof looking at Richard.\n\n\"I hope I don't disturb you, ladies,\" said Mr. Vholes, and now I\nobserved that he was further remarkable for an inward manner of\nspeaking. \"I arranged with Mr. Carstone that he should always know\nwhen his cause was in the Chancellor's paper, and being informed by\none of my clerks last night after post time that it stood, rather\nunexpectedly, in the paper for to-morrow, I put myself into the coach\nearly this morning and came down to confer with him.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Richard, flushed, and looking triumphantly at Ada and me,\n\"we don't do these things in the old slow way now. We spin along now!\nMr. Vholes, we must hire something to get over to the post town in,\nand catch the mail to-night, and go up by it!\"\n\n\"Anything you please, sir,\" returned Mr. Vholes. \"I am quite at your\nservice.\"\n\n\"Let me see,\" said Richard, looking at his watch. \"If I run down to\nthe Dedlock, and get my portmanteau fastened up, and order a gig, or\na chaise, or whatever's to be got, we shall have an hour then before\nstarting. I'll come back to tea. Cousin Ada, will you and Esther take\ncare of Mr. Vholes when I am gone?\"\n\nHe was away directly, in his heat and hurry, and was soon lost in the\ndusk of evening. We who were left walked on towards the house.\n\n\"Is Mr. Carstone's presence necessary to-morrow, Sir?\" said I. \"Can\nit do any good?\"\n\n\"No, miss,\" Mr. Vholes replied. \"I am not aware that it can.\"\n\nBoth Ada and I expressed our regret that he should go, then, only to\nbe disappointed.\n\n\"Mr. Carstone has laid down the principle of watching his own\ninterests,\" said Mr. Vholes, \"and when a client lays down his own\nprinciple, and it is not immoral, it devolves upon me to carry it\nout. I wish in business to be exact and open. I am a widower with\nthree daughters--Emma, Jane, and Caroline--and my desire is so to\ndischarge the duties of life as to leave them a good name. This\nappears to be a pleasant spot, miss.\"\n\nThe remark being made to me in consequence of my being next him as we\nwalked, I assented and enumerated its chief attractions.\n\n\"Indeed?\" said Mr. Vholes. \"I have the privilege of supporting an\naged father in the Vale of Taunton--his native place--and I admire\nthat country very much. I had no idea there was anything so\nattractive here.\"\n\nTo keep up the conversation, I asked Mr. Vholes if he would like to\nlive altogether in the country.\n\n\"There, miss,\" said he, \"you touch me on a tender string. My health\nis not good (my digestion being much impaired), and if I had only\nmyself to consider, I should take refuge in rural habits, especially\nas the cares of business have prevented me from ever coming much into\ncontact with general society, and particularly with ladies' society,\nwhich I have most wished to mix in. But with my three daughters,\nEmma, Jane, and Caroline--and my aged father--I cannot afford to be\nselfish. It is true I have no longer to maintain a dear grandmother\nwho died in her hundred and second year, but enough remains to render\nit indispensable that the mill should be always going.\"\n\nIt required some attention to hear him on account of his inward\nspeaking and his lifeless manner.\n\n\"You will excuse my having mentioned my daughters,\" he said. \"They\nare my weak point. I wish to leave the poor girls some little\nindependence, as well as a good name.\"\n\nWe now arrived at Mr. Boythorn's house, where the tea-table, all\nprepared, was awaiting us. Richard came in restless and hurried\nshortly afterwards, and leaning over Mr. Vholes's chair, whispered\nsomething in his ear. Mr. Vholes replied aloud--or as nearly aloud I\nsuppose as he had ever replied to anything--\"You will drive me, will\nyou, sir? It is all the same to me, sir. Anything you please. I am\nquite at your service.\"\n\nWe understood from what followed that Mr. Skimpole was to be left\nuntil the morning to occupy the two places which had been already\npaid for. As Ada and I were both in low spirits concerning Richard\nand very sorry so to part with him, we made it as plain as we\npolitely could that we should leave Mr. Skimpole to the Dedlock Arms\nand retire when the night-travellers were gone.\n\nRichard's high spirits carrying everything before them, we all went\nout together to the top of the hill above the village, where he had\nordered a gig to wait and where we found a man with a lantern\nstanding at the head of the gaunt pale horse that had been harnessed\nto it.\n\nI never shall forget those two seated side by side in the lantern's\nlight, Richard all flush and fire and laughter, with the reins in his\nhand; Mr. Vholes quite still, black-gloved, and buttoned up, looking\nat him as if he were looking at his prey and charming it. I have\nbefore me the whole picture of the warm dark night, the summer\nlightning, the dusty track of road closed in by hedgerows and high\ntrees, the gaunt pale horse with his ears pricked up, and the driving\naway at speed to Jarndyce and Jarndyce.\n\nMy dear girl told me that night how Richard's being thereafter\nprosperous or ruined, befriended or deserted, could only make this\ndifference to her, that the more he needed love from one unchanging\nheart, the more love that unchanging heart would have to give him;\nhow he thought of her through his present errors, and she would think\nof him at all times--never of herself if she could devote herself to\nhim, never of her own delights if she could minister to his.\n\nAnd she kept her word?\n\nI look along the road before me, where the distance already shortens\nand the journey's end is growing visible; and true and good above the\ndead sea of the Chancery suit and all the ashy fruit it cast ashore,\nI think I see my darling.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVIII\n\nA Struggle\n\n\nWhen our time came for returning to Bleak House again, we were\npunctual to the day and were received with an overpowering welcome. I\nwas perfectly restored to health and strength, and finding my\nhousekeeping keys laid ready for me in my room, rang myself in as if\nI had been a new year, with a merry little peal. \"Once more, duty,\nduty, Esther,\" said I; \"and if you are not overjoyed to do it, more\nthan cheerfully and contentedly, through anything and everything, you\nought to be. That's all I have to say to you, my dear!\"\n\nThe first few mornings were mornings of so much bustle and business,\ndevoted to such settlements of accounts, such repeated journeys to\nand fro between the growlery and all other parts of the house, so\nmany rearrangements of drawers and presses, and such a general new\nbeginning altogether, that I had not a moment's leisure. But when\nthese arrangements were completed and everything was in order, I paid\na visit of a few hours to London, which something in the letter I had\ndestroyed at Chesney Wold had induced me to decide upon in my own\nmind.\n\nI made Caddy Jellyby--her maiden name was so natural to me that I\nalways called her by it--the pretext for this visit and wrote her a\nnote previously asking the favour of her company on a little business\nexpedition. Leaving home very early in the morning, I got to London\nby stage-coach in such good time that I got to Newman Street with the\nday before me.\n\nCaddy, who had not seen me since her wedding-day, was so glad and so\naffectionate that I was half inclined to fear I should make her\nhusband jealous. But he was, in his way, just as bad--I mean as good;\nand in short it was the old story, and nobody would leave me any\npossibility of doing anything meritorious.\n\nThe elder Mr. Turveydrop was in bed, I found, and Caddy was\nmilling his chocolate, which a melancholy little boy who was an\napprentice--it seemed such a curious thing to be apprenticed to the\ntrade of dancing--was waiting to carry upstairs. Her father-in-law\nwas extremely kind and considerate, Caddy told me, and they lived\nmost happily together. (When she spoke of their living together, she\nmeant that the old gentleman had all the good things and all the good\nlodging, while she and her husband had what they could get, and were\npoked into two corner rooms over the Mews.)\n\n\"And how is your mama, Caddy?\" said I.\n\n\"Why, I hear of her, Esther,\" replied Caddy, \"through Pa, but I see\nvery little of her. We are good friends, I am glad to say, but Ma\nthinks there is something absurd in my having married a\ndancing-master, and she is rather afraid of its extending to her.\"\n\nIt struck me that if Mrs. Jellyby had discharged her own natural\nduties and obligations before she swept the horizon with a telescope\nin search of others, she would have taken the best precautions\nagainst becoming absurd, but I need scarcely observe that I kept this\nto myself.\n\n\"And your papa, Caddy?\"\n\n\"He comes here every evening,\" returned Caddy, \"and is so fond of\nsitting in the corner there that it's a treat to see him.\"\n\nLooking at the corner, I plainly perceived the mark of Mr. Jellyby's\nhead against the wall. It was consolatory to know that he had found\nsuch a resting-place for it.\n\n\"And you, Caddy,\" said I, \"you are always busy, I'll be bound?\"\n\n\"Well, my dear,\" returned Caddy, \"I am indeed, for to tell you a\ngrand secret, I am qualifying myself to give lessons. Prince's health\nis not strong, and I want to be able to assist him. What with\nschools, and classes here, and private pupils, AND the apprentices,\nhe really has too much to do, poor fellow!\"\n\nThe notion of the apprentices was still so odd to me that I asked\nCaddy if there were many of them.\n\n\"Four,\" said Caddy. \"One in-door, and three out. They are\nvery good children; only when they get together they WILL\nplay--children-like--instead of attending to their work. So the\nlittle boy you saw just now waltzes by himself in the empty kitchen,\nand we distribute the others over the house as well as we can.\"\n\n\"That is only for their steps, of course?\" said I.\n\n\"Only for their steps,\" said Caddy. \"In that way they practise, so\nmany hours at a time, whatever steps they happen to be upon. They\ndance in the academy, and at this time of year we do figures at five\nevery morning.\"\n\n\"Why, what a laborious life!\" I exclaimed.\n\n\"I assure you, my dear,\" returned Caddy, smiling, \"when the out-door\napprentices ring us up in the morning (the bell rings into our room,\nnot to disturb old Mr. Turveydrop), and when I put up the window and\nsee them standing on the door-step with their little pumps under\ntheir arms, I am actually reminded of the Sweeps.\"\n\nAll this presented the art to me in a singular light, to be sure.\nCaddy enjoyed the effect of her communication and cheerfully\nrecounted the particulars of her own studies.\n\n\"You see, my dear, to save expense I ought to know something of the\npiano, and I ought to know something of the kit too, and consequently\nI have to practise those two instruments as well as the details of\nour profession. If Ma had been like anybody else, I might have had\nsome little musical knowledge to begin upon. However, I hadn't any;\nand that part of the work is, at first, a little discouraging, I must\nallow. But I have a very good ear, and I am used to drudgery--I have\nto thank Ma for that, at all events--and where there's a will there's\na way, you know, Esther, the world over.\" Saying these words, Caddy\nlaughingly sat down at a little jingling square piano and really\nrattled off a quadrille with great spirit. Then she good-humouredly\nand blushingly got up again, and while she still laughed herself,\nsaid, \"Don't laugh at me, please; that's a dear girl!\"\n\nI would sooner have cried, but I did neither. I encouraged her and\npraised her with all my heart. For I conscientiously believed,\ndancing-master's wife though she was, and dancing-mistress though in\nher limited ambition she aspired to be, she had struck out a natural,\nwholesome, loving course of industry and perseverance that was quite\nas good as a mission.\n\n\"My dear,\" said Caddy, delighted, \"you can't think how you cheer me.\nI shall owe you, you don't know how much. What changes, Esther, even\nin my small world! You recollect that first night, when I was so\nunpolite and inky? Who would have thought, then, of my ever teaching\npeople to dance, of all other possibilities and impossibilities!\"\n\nHer husband, who had left us while we had this chat, now coming back,\npreparatory to exercising the apprentices in the ball-room, Caddy\ninformed me she was quite at my disposal. But it was not my time yet,\nI was glad to tell her, for I should have been vexed to take her away\nthen. Therefore we three adjourned to the apprentices together, and I\nmade one in the dance.\n\nThe apprentices were the queerest little people. Besides the\nmelancholy boy, who, I hoped, had not been made so by waltzing alone\nin the empty kitchen, there were two other boys and one dirty little\nlimp girl in a gauzy dress. Such a precocious little girl, with such\na dowdy bonnet on (that, too, of a gauzy texture), who brought her\nsandalled shoes in an old threadbare velvet reticule. Such mean\nlittle boys, when they were not dancing, with string, and marbles,\nand cramp-bones in their pockets, and the most untidy legs and\nfeet--and heels particularly.\n\nI asked Caddy what had made their parents choose this profession for\nthem. Caddy said she didn't know; perhaps they were designed for\nteachers, perhaps for the stage. They were all people in humble\ncircumstances, and the melancholy boy's mother kept a ginger-beer\nshop.\n\nWe danced for an hour with great gravity, the melancholy child doing\nwonders with his lower extremities, in which there appeared to be\nsome sense of enjoyment though it never rose above his waist. Caddy,\nwhile she was observant of her husband and was evidently founded upon\nhim, had acquired a grace and self-possession of her own, which,\nunited to her pretty face and figure, was uncommonly agreeable. She\nalready relieved him of much of the instruction of these young\npeople, and he seldom interfered except to walk his part in the\nfigure if he had anything to do in it. He always played the tune. The\naffectation of the gauzy child, and her condescension to the boys,\nwas a sight. And thus we danced an hour by the clock.\n\nWhen the practice was concluded, Caddy's husband made himself ready\nto go out of town to a school, and Caddy ran away to get ready to go\nout with me. I sat in the ball-room in the interval, contemplating\nthe apprentices. The two out-door boys went upon the staircase to put\non their half-boots and pull the in-door boy's hair, as I judged from\nthe nature of his objections. Returning with their jackets buttoned\nand their pumps stuck in them, they then produced packets of cold\nbread and meat and bivouacked under a painted lyre on the wall. The\nlittle gauzy child, having whisked her sandals into the reticule and\nput on a trodden-down pair of shoes, shook her head into the dowdy\nbonnet at one shake, and answering my inquiry whether she liked\ndancing by replying, \"Not with boys,\" tied it across her chin, and\nwent home contemptuous.\n\n\"Old Mr. Turveydrop is so sorry,\" said Caddy, \"that he has not\nfinished dressing yet and cannot have the pleasure of seeing you\nbefore you go. You are such a favourite of his, Esther.\"\n\nI expressed myself much obliged to him, but did not think it\nnecessary to add that I readily dispensed with this attention.\n\n\"It takes him a long time to dress,\" said Caddy, \"because he is very\nmuch looked up to in such things, you know, and has a reputation to\nsupport. You can't think how kind he is to Pa. He talks to Pa of an\nevening about the Prince Regent, and I never saw Pa so interested.\"\n\nThere was something in the picture of Mr. Turveydrop bestowing his\ndeportment on Mr. Jellyby that quite took my fancy. I asked Caddy if\nhe brought her papa out much.\n\n\"No,\" said Caddy, \"I don't know that he does that, but he talks to\nPa, and Pa greatly admires him, and listens, and likes it. Of course\nI am aware that Pa has hardly any claims to deportment, but they get\non together delightfully. You can't think what good companions they\nmake. I never saw Pa take snuff before in my life, but he takes one\npinch out of Mr. Turveydrop's box regularly and keeps putting it to\nhis nose and taking it away again all the evening.\"\n\nThat old Mr. Turveydrop should ever, in the chances and changes of\nlife, have come to the rescue of Mr. Jellyby from Borrioboola-Gha\nappeared to me to be one of the pleasantest of oddities.\n\n\"As to Peepy,\" said Caddy with a little hesitation, \"whom I was most\nafraid of--next to having any family of my own, Esther--as an\ninconvenience to Mr. Turveydrop, the kindness of the old gentleman to\nthat child is beyond everything. He asks to see him, my dear! He lets\nhim take the newspaper up to him in bed; he gives him the crusts of\nhis toast to eat; he sends him on little errands about the house; he\ntells him to come to me for sixpences. In short,\" said Caddy\ncheerily, \"and not to prose, I am a very fortunate girl and ought to\nbe very grateful. Where are we going, Esther?\"\n\n\"To the Old Street Road,\" said I, \"where I have a few words to say to\nthe solicitor's clerk who was sent to meet me at the coach-office on\nthe very day when I came to London and first saw you, my dear. Now I\nthink of it, the gentleman who brought us to your house.\"\n\n\"Then, indeed, I seem to be naturally the person to go with you,\"\nreturned Caddy.\n\nTo the Old Street Road we went and there inquired at Mrs. Guppy's\nresidence for Mrs. Guppy. Mrs. Guppy, occupying the parlours and\nhaving indeed been visibly in danger of cracking herself like a nut\nin the front-parlour door by peeping out before she was asked for,\nimmediately presented herself and requested us to walk in. She was an\nold lady in a large cap, with rather a red nose and rather an\nunsteady eye, but smiling all over. Her close little sitting-room was\nprepared for a visit, and there was a portrait of her son in it\nwhich, I had almost written here, was more like than life: it\ninsisted upon him with such obstinacy, and was so determined not to\nlet him off.\n\nNot only was the portrait there, but we found the original there too.\nHe was dressed in a great many colours and was discovered at a table\nreading law-papers with his forefinger to his forehead.\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" said Mr. Guppy, rising, \"this is indeed an oasis.\nMother, will you be so good as to put a chair for the other lady and\nget out of the gangway.\"\n\nMrs. Guppy, whose incessant smiling gave her quite a waggish\nappearance, did as her son requested and then sat down in a corner,\nholding her pocket handkerchief to her chest, like a fomentation,\nwith both hands.\n\nI presented Caddy, and Mr. Guppy said that any friend of mine was\nmore than welcome. I then proceeded to the object of my visit.\n\n\"I took the liberty of sending you a note, sir,\" said I.\n\nMr. Guppy acknowledged the receipt by taking it out of his\nbreast-pocket, putting it to his lips, and returning it to his pocket\nwith a bow. Mr. Guppy's mother was so diverted that she rolled her\nhead as she smiled and made a silent appeal to Caddy with her elbow.\n\n\"Could I speak to you alone for a moment?\" said I.\n\nAnything like the jocoseness of Mr. Guppy's mother just now, I think\nI never saw. She made no sound of laughter, but she rolled her head,\nand shook it, and put her handkerchief to her mouth, and appealed to\nCaddy with her elbow, and her hand, and her shoulder, and was so\nunspeakably entertained altogether that it was with some difficulty\nshe could marshal Caddy through the little folding-door into her\nbedroom adjoining.\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" said Mr. Guppy, \"you will excuse the waywardness of\na parent ever mindful of a son's appiness. My mother, though highly\nexasperating to the feelings, is actuated by maternal dictates.\"\n\nI could hardly have believed that anybody could in a moment have\nturned so red or changed so much as Mr. Guppy did when I now put up\nmy veil.\n\n\"I asked the favour of seeing you for a few moments here,\" said I,\n\"in preference to calling at Mr. Kenge's because, remembering what\nyou said on an occasion when you spoke to me in confidence, I feared\nI might otherwise cause you some embarrassment, Mr. Guppy.\"\n\nI caused him embarrassment enough as it was, I am sure. I never saw\nsuch faltering, such confusion, such amazement and apprehension.\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" stammered Mr. Guppy, \"I--I--beg your pardon, but in\nour profession--we--we--find it necessary to be explicit. You have\nreferred to an occasion, miss, when I--when I did myself the honour\nof making a declaration which--\"\n\nSomething seemed to rise in his throat that he could not possibly\nswallow. He put his hand there, coughed, made faces, tried again to\nswallow it, coughed again, made faces again, looked all round the\nroom, and fluttered his papers.\n\n\"A kind of giddy sensation has come upon me, miss,\" he explained,\n\"which rather knocks me over. I--er--a little subject to this sort of\nthing--er--by George!\"\n\nI gave him a little time to recover. He consumed it in putting his\nhand to his forehead and taking it away again, and in backing his\nchair into the corner behind him.\n\n\"My intention was to remark, miss,\" said Mr. Guppy, \"dear\nme--something bronchial, I think--hem!--to remark that you was so\ngood on that occasion as to repel and repudiate that declaration.\nYou--you wouldn't perhaps object to admit that? Though no witnesses\nare present, it might be a satisfaction to--to your mind--if you was\nto put in that admission.\"\n\n\"There can be no doubt,\" said I, \"that I declined your proposal\nwithout any reservation or qualification whatever, Mr. Guppy.\"\n\n\"Thank you, miss,\" he returned, measuring the table with his troubled\nhands. \"So far that's satisfactory, and it does you credit. Er--this\nis certainly bronchial!--must be in the tubes--er--you wouldn't\nperhaps be offended if I was to mention--not that it's necessary, for\nyour own good sense or any person's sense must show 'em that--if I\nwas to mention that such declaration on my part was final, and there\nterminated?\"\n\n\"I quite understand that,\" said I.\n\n\"Perhaps--er--it may not be worth the form, but it might be a\nsatisfaction to your mind--perhaps you wouldn't object to admit that,\nmiss?\" said Mr. Guppy.\n\n\"I admit it most fully and freely,\" said I.\n\n\"Thank you,\" returned Mr. Guppy. \"Very honourable, I am sure. I\nregret that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over\nwhich I have no control, will put it out of my power ever to fall\nback upon that offer or to renew it in any shape or form whatever,\nbut it will ever be a retrospect entwined--er--with friendship's\nbowers.\" Mr. Guppy's bronchitis came to his relief and stopped his\nmeasurement of the table.\n\n\"I may now perhaps mention what I wished to say to you?\" I began.\n\n\"I shall be honoured, I am sure,\" said Mr. Guppy. \"I am so persuaded\nthat your own good sense and right feeling, miss, will--will keep you\nas square as possible--that I can have nothing but pleasure, I am\nsure, in hearing any observations you may wish to offer.\"\n\n\"You were so good as to imply, on that occasion--\"\n\n\"Excuse me, miss,\" said Mr. Guppy, \"but we had better not travel out\nof the record into implication. I cannot admit that I implied\nanything.\"\n\n\"You said on that occasion,\" I recommenced, \"that you might possibly\nhave the means of advancing my interests and promoting my fortunes by\nmaking discoveries of which I should be the subject. I presume that\nyou founded that belief upon your general knowledge of my being an\norphan girl, indebted for everything to the benevolence of Mr.\nJarndyce. Now, the beginning and the end of what I have come to beg\nof you is, Mr. Guppy, that you will have the kindness to relinquish\nall idea of so serving me. I have thought of this sometimes, and I\nhave thought of it most lately--since I have been ill. At length I\nhave decided, in case you should at any time recall that purpose and\nact upon it in any way, to come to you and assure you that you are\naltogether mistaken. You could make no discovery in reference to me\nthat would do me the least service or give me the least pleasure. I\nam acquainted with my personal history, and I have it in my power to\nassure you that you never can advance my welfare by such means. You\nmay, perhaps, have abandoned this project a long time. If so, excuse\nmy giving you unnecessary trouble. If not, I entreat you, on the\nassurance I have given you, henceforth to lay it aside. I beg you to\ndo this, for my peace.\"\n\n\"I am bound to confess,\" said Mr. Guppy, \"that you express yourself,\nmiss, with that good sense and right feeling for which I gave you\ncredit. Nothing can be more satisfactory than such right feeling, and\nif I mistook any intentions on your part just now, I am prepared to\ntender a full apology. I should wish to be understood, miss, as\nhereby offering that apology--limiting it, as your own good sense and\nright feeling will point out the necessity of, to the present\nproceedings.\"\n\nI must say for Mr. Guppy that the snuffling manner he had had upon\nhim improved very much. He seemed truly glad to be able to do\nsomething I asked, and he looked ashamed.\n\n\"If you will allow me to finish what I have to say at once so that I\nmay have no occasion to resume,\" I went on, seeing him about to\nspeak, \"you will do me a kindness, sir. I come to you as privately as\npossible because you announced this impression of yours to me in a\nconfidence which I have really wished to respect--and which I always\nhave respected, as you remember. I have mentioned my illness. There\nreally is no reason why I should hesitate to say that I know very\nwell that any little delicacy I might have had in making a request to\nyou is quite removed. Therefore I make the entreaty I have now\npreferred, and I hope you will have sufficient consideration for me\nto accede to it.\"\n\nI must do Mr. Guppy the further justice of saying that he had looked\nmore and more ashamed and that he looked most ashamed and very\nearnest when he now replied with a burning face, \"Upon my word and\nhonour, upon my life, upon my soul, Miss Summerson, as I am a living\nman, I'll act according to your wish! I'll never go another step in\nopposition to it. I'll take my oath to it if it will be any\nsatisfaction to you. In what I promise at this present time touching\nthe matters now in question,\" continued Mr. Guppy rapidly, as if he\nwere repeating a familiar form of words, \"I speak the truth, the\nwhole truth, and nothing but the truth, so--\"\n\n\"I am quite satisfied,\" said I, rising at this point, \"and I thank\nyou very much. Caddy, my dear, I am ready!\"\n\nMr. Guppy's mother returned with Caddy (now making me the recipient\nof her silent laughter and her nudges), and we took our leave. Mr.\nGuppy saw us to the door with the air of one who was either\nimperfectly awake or walking in his sleep; and we left him there,\nstaring.\n\nBut in a minute he came after us down the street without any hat, and\nwith his long hair all blown about, and stopped us, saying fervently,\n\"Miss Summerson, upon my honour and soul, you may depend upon me!\"\n\n\"I do,\" said I, \"quite confidently.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon, miss,\" said Mr. Guppy, going with one leg and\nstaying with the other, \"but this lady being present--your own\nwitness--it might be a satisfaction to your mind (which I should wish\nto set at rest) if you was to repeat those admissions.\"\n\n\"Well, Caddy,\" said I, turning to her, \"perhaps you will not be\nsurprised when I tell you, my dear, that there never has been any\nengagement--\"\n\n\"No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever,\" suggested Mr. Guppy.\n\n\"No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever,\" said I, \"between\nthis gentleman--\"\n\n\"William Guppy, of Penton Place, Pentonville, in the county of\nMiddlesex,\" he murmured.\n\n\"Between this gentleman, Mr. William Guppy, of Penton Place,\nPentonville, in the county of Middlesex, and myself.\"\n\n\"Thank you, miss,\" said Mr. Guppy. \"Very full--er--excuse me--lady's\nname, Christian and surname both?\"\n\nI gave them.\n\n\"Married woman, I believe?\" said Mr. Guppy. \"Married woman. Thank\nyou. Formerly Caroline Jellyby, spinster, then of Thavies Inn, within\nthe city of London, but extra-parochial; now of Newman Street, Oxford\nStreet. Much obliged.\"\n\nHe ran home and came running back again.\n\n\"Touching that matter, you know, I really and truly am very sorry\nthat my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over which\nI have no control, should prevent a renewal of what was wholly\nterminated some time back,\" said Mr. Guppy to me forlornly and\ndespondently, \"but it couldn't be. Now COULD it, you know! I only put\nit to you.\"\n\nI replied it certainly could not. The subject did not admit of a\ndoubt. He thanked me and ran to his mother's again--and back again.\n\n\"It's very honourable of you, miss, I am sure,\" said Mr. Guppy. \"If\nan altar could be erected in the bowers of friendship--but, upon my\nsoul, you may rely upon me in every respect save and except the\ntender passion only!\"\n\nThe struggle in Mr. Guppy's breast and the numerous oscillations it\noccasioned him between his mother's door and us were sufficiently\nconspicuous in the windy street (particularly as his hair wanted\ncutting) to make us hurry away. I did so with a lightened heart; but\nwhen we last looked back, Mr. Guppy was still oscillating in the same\ntroubled state of mind.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIX\n\nAttorney and Client\n\n\nThe name of Mr. Vholes, preceded by the legend Ground-Floor, is\ninscribed upon a door-post in Symond's Inn, Chancery Lane--a little,\npale, wall-eyed, woebegone inn like a large dust-binn of two\ncompartments and a sifter. It looks as if Symond were a sparing man\nin his way and constructed his inn of old building materials which\ntook kindly to the dry rot and to dirt and all things decaying and\ndismal, and perpetuated Symond's memory with congenial shabbiness.\nQuartered in this dingy hatchment commemorative of Symond are the\nlegal bearings of Mr. Vholes.\n\nMr. Vholes's office, in disposition retiring and in situation\nretired, is squeezed up in a corner and blinks at a dead wall. Three\nfeet of knotty-floored dark passage bring the client to Mr. Vholes's\njet-black door, in an angle profoundly dark on the brightest\nmidsummer morning and encumbered by a black bulk-head of cellarage\nstaircase against which belated civilians generally strike their\nbrows. Mr. Vholes's chambers are on so small a scale that one clerk\ncan open the door without getting off his stool, while the other who\nelbows him at the same desk has equal facilities for poking the fire.\nA smell as of unwholesome sheep blending with the smell of must and\ndust is referable to the nightly (and often daily) consumption of\nmutton fat in candles and to the fretting of parchment forms and\nskins in greasy drawers. The atmosphere is otherwise stale and close.\nThe place was last painted or whitewashed beyond the memory of man,\nand the two chimneys smoke, and there is a loose outer surface of\nsoot everywhere, and the dull cracked windows in their heavy frames\nhave but one piece of character in them, which is a determination to\nbe always dirty and always shut unless coerced. This accounts for the\nphenomenon of the weaker of the two usually having a bundle of\nfirewood thrust between its jaws in hot weather.\n\nMr. Vholes is a very respectable man. He has not a large business,\nbut he is a very respectable man. He is allowed by the greater\nattorneys who have made good fortunes or are making them to be a most\nrespectable man. He never misses a chance in his practice, which is a\nmark of respectability. He never takes any pleasure, which is another\nmark of respectability. He is reserved and serious, which is another\nmark of respectability. His digestion is impaired, which is highly\nrespectable. And he is making hay of the grass which is flesh, for\nhis three daughters. And his father is dependent on him in the Vale\nof Taunton.\n\nThe one great principle of the English law is to make business for\nitself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and\nconsistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by\nthis light it becomes a coherent scheme and not the monstrous maze\nthe laity are apt to think it. Let them but once clearly perceive\nthat its grand principle is to make business for itself at their\nexpense, and surely they will cease to grumble.\n\nBut not perceiving this quite plainly--only seeing it by halves in a\nconfused way--the laity sometimes suffer in peace and pocket, with a\nbad grace, and DO grumble very much. Then this respectability of Mr.\nVholes is brought into powerful play against them. \"Repeal this\nstatute, my good sir?\" says Mr. Kenge to a smarting client. \"Repeal\nit, my dear sir? Never, with my consent. Alter this law, sir, and\nwhat will be the effect of your rash proceeding on a class of\npractitioners very worthily represented, allow me to say to you, by\nthe opposite attorney in the case, Mr. Vholes? Sir, that class of\npractitioners would be swept from the face of the earth. Now you\ncannot afford--I will say, the social system cannot afford--to lose\nan order of men like Mr. Vholes. Diligent, persevering, steady, acute\nin business. My dear sir, I understand your present feelings against\nthe existing state of things, which I grant to be a little hard in\nyour case; but I can never raise my voice for the demolition of a\nclass of men like Mr. Vholes.\" The respectability of Mr. Vholes has\neven been cited with crushing effect before Parliamentary committees,\nas in the following blue minutes of a distinguished attorney's\nevidence. \"Question (number five hundred and seventeen thousand eight\nhundred and sixty-nine): If I understand you, these forms of practice\nindisputably occasion delay? Answer: Yes, some delay. Question: And\ngreat expense? Answer: Most assuredly they cannot be gone through for\nnothing. Question: And unspeakable vexation? Answer: I am not\nprepared to say that. They have never given ME any vexation; quite\nthe contrary. Question: But you think that their abolition would\ndamage a class of practitioners? Answer: I have no doubt of it.\nQuestion: Can you instance any type of that class? Answer: Yes. I\nwould unhesitatingly mention Mr. Vholes. He would be ruined.\nQuestion: Mr. Vholes is considered, in the profession, a respectable\nman? Answer:\"--which proved fatal to the inquiry for ten years--\"Mr.\nVholes is considered, in the profession, a MOST respectable man.\"\n\nSo in familiar conversation, private authorities no less\ndisinterested will remark that they don't know what this age is\ncoming to, that we are plunging down precipices, that now here is\nsomething else gone, that these changes are death to people like\nVholes--a man of undoubted respectability, with a father in the Vale\nof Taunton, and three daughters at home. Take a few steps more in\nthis direction, say they, and what is to become of Vholes's father?\nIs he to perish? And of Vholes's daughters? Are they to be\nshirt-makers, or governesses? As though, Mr. Vholes and his relations\nbeing minor cannibal chiefs and it being proposed to abolish\ncannibalism, indignant champions were to put the case thus: Make\nman-eating unlawful, and you starve the Vholeses!\n\nIn a word, Mr. Vholes, with his three daughters and his father in the\nVale of Taunton, is continually doing duty, like a piece of timber,\nto shore up some decayed foundation that has become a pitfall and a\nnuisance. And with a great many people in a great many instances, the\nquestion is never one of a change from wrong to right (which is quite\nan extraneous consideration), but is always one of injury or\nadvantage to that eminently respectable legion, Vholes.\n\nThe Chancellor is, within these ten minutes, \"up\" for the long\nvacation. Mr. Vholes, and his young client, and several blue bags\nhastily stuffed out of all regularity of form, as the larger sort of\nserpents are in their first gorged state, have returned to the\nofficial den. Mr. Vholes, quiet and unmoved, as a man of so much\nrespectability ought to be, takes off his close black gloves as if he\nwere skinning his hands, lifts off his tight hat as if he were\nscalping himself, and sits down at his desk. The client throws his\nhat and gloves upon the ground--tosses them anywhere, without looking\nafter them or caring where they go; flings himself into a chair, half\nsighing and half groaning; rests his aching head upon his hand and\nlooks the portrait of young despair.\n\n\"Again nothing done!\" says Richard. \"Nothing, nothing done!\"\n\n\"Don't say nothing done, sir,\" returns the placid Vholes. \"That is\nscarcely fair, sir, scarcely fair!\"\n\n\"Why, what IS done?\" says Richard, turning gloomily upon him.\n\n\"That may not be the whole question,\" returns Vholes, \"The question\nmay branch off into what is doing, what is doing?\"\n\n\"And what is doing?\" asks the moody client.\n\nVholes, sitting with his arms on the desk, quietly bringing the tips\nof his five right fingers to meet the tips of his five left fingers,\nand quietly separating them again, and fixedly and slowly looking at\nhis client, replies, \"A good deal is doing, sir. We have put our\nshoulders to the wheel, Mr. Carstone, and the wheel is going round.\"\n\n\"Yes, with Ixion on it. How am I to get through the next four or five\naccursed months?\" exclaims the young man, rising from his chair and\nwalking about the room.\n\n\"Mr. C.,\" returns Vholes, following him close with his eyes wherever\nhe goes, \"your spirits are hasty, and I am sorry for it on your\naccount. Excuse me if I recommend you not to chafe so much, not to be\nso impetuous, not to wear yourself out so. You should have more\npatience. You should sustain yourself better.\"\n\n\"I ought to imitate you, in fact, Mr. Vholes?\" says Richard, sitting\ndown again with an impatient laugh and beating the devil's tattoo\nwith his boot on the patternless carpet.\n\n\"Sir,\" returns Vholes, always looking at the client as if he were\nmaking a lingering meal of him with his eyes as well as with his\nprofessional appetite. \"Sir,\" returns Vholes with his inward manner\nof speech and his bloodless quietude, \"I should not have had the\npresumption to propose myself as a model for your imitation or any\nman's. Let me but leave the good name to my three daughters, and that\nis enough for me; I am not a self-seeker. But since you mention me so\npointedly, I will acknowledge that I should like to impart to you a\nlittle of my--come, sir, you are disposed to call it insensibility,\nand I am sure I have no objection--say insensibility--a little of my\ninsensibility.\"\n\n\"Mr. Vholes,\" explains the client, somewhat abashed, \"I had no\nintention to accuse you of insensibility.\"\n\n\"I think you had, sir, without knowing it,\" returns the equable\nVholes. \"Very naturally. It is my duty to attend to your interests\nwith a cool head, and I can quite understand that to your excited\nfeelings I may appear, at such times as the present, insensible. My\ndaughters may know me better; my aged father may know me better. But\nthey have known me much longer than you have, and the confiding eye\nof affection is not the distrustful eye of business. Not that I\ncomplain, sir, of the eye of business being distrustful; quite the\ncontrary. In attending to your interests, I wish to have all possible\nchecks upon me; it is right that I should have them; I court inquiry.\nBut your interests demand that I should be cool and methodical, Mr.\nCarstone; and I cannot be otherwise--no, sir, not even to please\nyou.\"\n\nMr. Vholes, after glancing at the official cat who is patiently\nwatching a mouse's hole, fixes his charmed gaze again on his young\nclient and proceeds in his buttoned-up, half-audible voice as if\nthere were an unclean spirit in him that will neither come out nor\nspeak out, \"What are you to do, sir, you inquire, during the\nvacation. I should hope you gentlemen of the army may find many means\nof amusing yourselves if you give your minds to it. If you had asked\nme what I was to do during the vacation, I could have answered you\nmore readily. I am to attend to your interests. I am to be found\nhere, day by day, attending to your interests. That is my duty, Mr.\nC., and term-time or vacation makes no difference to me. If you wish\nto consult me as to your interests, you will find me here at all\ntimes alike. Other professional men go out of town. I don't. Not that\nI blame them for going; I merely say I don't go. This desk is your\nrock, sir!\"\n\nMr. Vholes gives it a rap, and it sounds as hollow as a coffin. Not\nto Richard, though. There is encouragement in the sound to him.\nPerhaps Mr. Vholes knows there is.\n\n\"I am perfectly aware, Mr. Vholes,\" says Richard, more familiarly and\ngood-humouredly, \"that you are the most reliable fellow in the world\nand that to have to do with you is to have to do with a man of\nbusiness who is not to be hoodwinked. But put yourself in my case,\ndragging on this dislocated life, sinking deeper and deeper into\ndifficulty every day, continually hoping and continually\ndisappointed, conscious of change upon change for the worse in\nmyself, and of no change for the better in anything else, and you\nwill find it a dark-looking case sometimes, as I do.\"\n\n\"You know,\" says Mr. Vholes, \"that I never give hopes, sir. I told\nyou from the first, Mr. C., that I never give hopes. Particularly in\na case like this, where the greater part of the costs comes out of\nthe estate, I should not be considerate of my good name if I gave\nhopes. It might seem as if costs were my object. Still, when you say\nthere is no change for the better, I must, as a bare matter of fact,\ndeny that.\"\n\n\"Aye?\" returns Richard, brightening. \"But how do you make it out?\"\n\n\"Mr. Carstone, you are represented by--\"\n\n\"You said just now--a rock.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" says Mr. Vholes, gently shaking his head and rapping the\nhollow desk, with a sound as if ashes were falling on ashes, and dust\non dust, \"a rock. That's something. You are separately represented,\nand no longer hidden and lost in the interests of others. THAT'S\nsomething. The suit does not sleep; we wake it up, we air it, we walk\nit about. THAT'S something. It's not all Jarndyce, in fact as well as\nin name. THAT'S something. Nobody has it all his own way now, sir.\nAnd THAT'S something, surely.\"\n\nRichard, his face flushing suddenly, strikes the desk with his\nclenched hand.\n\n\"Mr. Vholes! If any man had told me when I first went to John\nJarndyce's house that he was anything but the disinterested friend he\nseemed--that he was what he has gradually turned out to be--I could\nhave found no words strong enough to repel the slander; I could not\nhave defended him too ardently. So little did I know of the world!\nWhereas now I do declare to you that he becomes to me the embodiment\nof the suit; that in place of its being an abstraction, it is John\nJarndyce; that the more I suffer, the more indignant I am with him;\nthat every new delay and every new disappointment is only a new\ninjury from John Jarndyce's hand.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" says Vholes. \"Don't say so. We ought to have patience, all\nof us. Besides, I never disparage, sir. I never disparage.\"\n\n\"Mr. Vholes,\" returns the angry client. \"You know as well as I that\nhe would have strangled the suit if he could.\"\n\n\"He was not active in it,\" Mr. Vholes admits with an appearance of\nreluctance. \"He certainly was not active in it. But however, but\nhowever, he might have had amiable intentions. Who can read the\nheart, Mr. C.!\"\n\n\"You can,\" returns Richard.\n\n\"I, Mr. C.?\"\n\n\"Well enough to know what his intentions were. Are or are not our\ninterests conflicting? Tell--me--that!\" says Richard, accompanying\nhis last three words with three raps on his rock of trust.\n\n\"Mr. C.,\" returns Vholes, immovable in attitude and never winking his\nhungry eyes, \"I should be wanting in my duty as your professional\nadviser, I should be departing from my fidelity to your interests, if\nI represented those interests as identical with the interests of Mr.\nJarndyce. They are no such thing, sir. I never impute motives; I both\nhave and am a father, and I never impute motives. But I must not\nshrink from a professional duty, even if it sows dissensions in\nfamilies. I understand you to be now consulting me professionally as\nto your interests? You are so? I reply, then, they are not identical\nwith those of Mr. Jarndyce.\"\n\n\"Of course they are not!\" cries Richard. \"You found that out long\nago.\"\n\n\"Mr. C.,\" returns Vholes, \"I wish to say no more of any third party\nthan is necessary. I wish to leave my good name unsullied, together\nwith any little property of which I may become possessed through\nindustry and perseverance, to my daughters Emma, Jane, and Caroline.\nI also desire to live in amity with my professional brethren. When\nMr. Skimpole did me the honour, sir--I will not say the very high\nhonour, for I never stoop to flattery--of bringing us together in\nthis room, I mentioned to you that I could offer no opinion or advice\nas to your interests while those interests were entrusted to another\nmember of the profession. And I spoke in such terms as I was bound to\nspeak of Kenge and Carboy's office, which stands high. You, sir,\nthought fit to withdraw your interests from that keeping nevertheless\nand to offer them to me. You brought them with clean hands, sir, and\nI accepted them with clean hands. Those interests are now paramount\nin this office. My digestive functions, as you may have heard me\nmention, are not in a good state, and rest might improve them; but I\nshall not rest, sir, while I am your representative. Whenever you\nwant me, you will find me here. Summon me anywhere, and I will come.\nDuring the long vacation, sir, I shall devote my leisure to studying\nyour interests more and more closely and to making arrangements for\nmoving heaven and earth (including, of course, the Chancellor) after\nMichaelmas term; and when I ultimately congratulate you, sir,\" says\nMr. Vholes with the severity of a determined man, \"when I ultimately\ncongratulate you, sir, with all my heart, on your accession to\nfortune--which, but that I never give hopes, I might say something\nfurther about--you will owe me nothing beyond whatever little balance\nmay be then outstanding of the costs as between solicitor and client\nnot included in the taxed costs allowed out of the estate. I pretend\nto no claim upon you, Mr. C., but for the zealous and active\ndischarge--not the languid and routine discharge, sir: that much\ncredit I stipulate for--of my professional duty. My duty prosperously\nended, all between us is ended.\"\n\nVholes finally adds, by way of rider to this declaration of his\nprinciples, that as Mr. Carstone is about to rejoin his regiment,\nperhaps Mr. C. will favour him with an order on his agent for twenty\npounds on account.\n\n\"For there have been many little consultations and attendances of\nlate, sir,\" observes Vholes, turning over the leaves of his diary,\n\"and these things mount up, and I don't profess to be a man of\ncapital. When we first entered on our present relations I stated to\nyou openly--it is a principle of mine that there never can be too\nmuch openness between solicitor and client--that I was not a man of\ncapital and that if capital was your object you had better leave your\npapers in Kenge's office. No, Mr. C., you will find none of the\nadvantages or disadvantages of capital here, sir. This,\" Vholes gives\nthe desk one hollow blow again, \"is your rock; it pretends to be\nnothing more.\"\n\nThe client, with his dejection insensibly relieved and his vague\nhopes rekindled, takes pen and ink and writes the draft, not without\nperplexed consideration and calculation of the date it may bear,\nimplying scant effects in the agent's hands. All the while, Vholes,\nbuttoned up in body and mind, looks at him attentively. All the\nwhile, Vholes's official cat watches the mouse's hole.\n\nLastly, the client, shaking hands, beseeches Mr. Vholes, for heaven's\nsake and earth's sake, to do his utmost to \"pull him through\" the\nCourt of Chancery. Mr. Vholes, who never gives hopes, lays his palm\nupon the client's shoulder and answers with a smile, \"Always here,\nsir. Personally, or by letter, you will always find me here, sir,\nwith my shoulder to the wheel.\" Thus they part, and Vholes, left\nalone, employs himself in carrying sundry little matters out of his\ndiary into his draft bill book for the ultimate behoof of his three\ndaughters. So might an industrious fox or bear make up his account of\nchickens or stray travellers with an eye to his cubs, not to\ndisparage by that word the three raw-visaged, lank, and buttoned-up\nmaidens who dwell with the parent Vholes in an earthy cottage\nsituated in a damp garden at Kennington.\n\nRichard, emerging from the heavy shade of Symond's Inn into the\nsunshine of Chancery Lane--for there happens to be sunshine there\nto-day--walks thoughtfully on, and turns into Lincoln's Inn, and\npasses under the shadow of the Lincoln's Inn trees. On many such\nloungers have the speckled shadows of those trees often fallen; on\nthe like bent head, the bitten nail, the lowering eye, the lingering\nstep, the purposeless and dreamy air, the good consuming and\nconsumed, the life turned sour. This lounger is not shabby yet, but\nthat may come. Chancery, which knows no wisdom but in precedent, is\nvery rich in such precedents; and why should one be different from\nten thousand?\n\nYet the time is so short since his depreciation began that as he\nsaunters away, reluctant to leave the spot for some long months\ntogether, though he hates it, Richard himself may feel his own case\nas if it were a startling one. While his heart is heavy with\ncorroding care, suspense, distrust, and doubt, it may have room for\nsome sorrowful wonder when he recalls how different his first visit\nthere, how different he, how different all the colours of his mind.\nBut injustice breeds injustice; the fighting with shadows and being\ndefeated by them necessitates the setting up of substances to combat;\nfrom the impalpable suit which no man alive can understand, the time\nfor that being long gone by, it has become a gloomy relief to turn to\nthe palpable figure of the friend who would have saved him from this\nruin and make HIM his enemy. Richard has told Vholes the truth. Is he\nin a hardened or a softened mood, he still lays his injuries equally\nat that door; he was thwarted, in that quarter, of a set purpose, and\nthat purpose could only originate in the one subject that is\nresolving his existence into itself; besides, it is a justification\nto him in his own eyes to have an embodied antagonist and oppressor.\n\nIs Richard a monster in all this, or would Chancery be found rich in\nsuch precedents too if they could be got for citation from the\nRecording Angel?\n\nTwo pairs of eyes not unused to such people look after him, as,\nbiting his nails and brooding, he crosses the square and is swallowed\nup by the shadow of the southern gateway. Mr. Guppy and Mr. Weevle\nare the possessors of those eyes, and they have been leaning in\nconversation against the low stone parapet under the trees. He passes\nclose by them, seeing nothing but the ground.\n\n\"William,\" says Mr. Weevle, adjusting his whiskers, \"there's\ncombustion going on there! It's not a case of spontaneous, but it's\nsmouldering combustion it is.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" says Mr. Guppy. \"He wouldn't keep out of Jarndyce, and I\nsuppose he's over head and ears in debt. I never knew much of him. He\nwas as high as the monument when he was on trial at our place. A good\nriddance to me, whether as clerk or client! Well, Tony, that as I was\nmentioning is what they're up to.\"\n\nMr. Guppy, refolding his arms, resettles himself against the parapet,\nas resuming a conversation of interest.\n\n\"They are still up to it, sir,\" says Mr. Guppy, \"still taking stock,\nstill examining papers, still going over the heaps and heaps of\nrubbish. At this rate they'll be at it these seven years.\"\n\n\"And Small is helping?\"\n\n\"Small left us at a week's notice. Told Kenge his grandfather's\nbusiness was too much for the old gentleman and he could better\nhimself by undertaking it. There had been a coolness between myself\nand Small on account of his being so close. But he said you and I\nbegan it, and as he had me there--for we did--I put our acquaintance\non the old footing. That's how I come to know what they're up to.\"\n\n\"You haven't looked in at all?\"\n\n\"Tony,\" says Mr. Guppy, a little disconcerted, \"to be unreserved with\nyou, I don't greatly relish the house, except in your company, and\ntherefore I have not; and therefore I proposed this little\nappointment for our fetching away your things. There goes the hour by\nthe clock! Tony\"--Mr. Guppy becomes mysteriously and tenderly\neloquent--\"it is necessary that I should impress upon your mind once\nmore that circumstances over which I have no control have made a\nmelancholy alteration in my most cherished plans and in that\nunrequited image which I formerly mentioned to you as a friend. That\nimage is shattered, and that idol is laid low. My only wish now in\nconnexion with the objects which I had an idea of carrying out in the\ncourt with your aid as a friend is to let 'em alone and bury 'em in\noblivion. Do you think it possible, do you think it at all likely (I\nput it to you, Tony, as a friend), from your knowledge of that\ncapricious and deep old character who fell a prey to the--spontaneous\nelement, do you, Tony, think it at all likely that on second thoughts\nhe put those letters away anywhere, after you saw him alive, and that\nthey were not destroyed that night?\"\n\nMr. Weevle reflects for some time. Shakes his head. Decidedly thinks\nnot.\n\n\"Tony,\" says Mr. Guppy as they walk towards the court, \"once again\nunderstand me, as a friend. Without entering into further\nexplanations, I may repeat that the idol is down. I have no purpose\nto serve now but burial in oblivion. To that I have pledged myself. I\nowe it to myself, and I owe it to the shattered image, as also to the\ncircumstances over which I have no control. If you was to express to\nme by a gesture, by a wink, that you saw lying anywhere in your late\nlodgings any papers that so much as looked like the papers in\nquestion, I would pitch them into the fire, sir, on my own\nresponsibility.\"\n\nMr. Weevle nods. Mr. Guppy, much elevated in his own opinion by\nhaving delivered these observations, with an air in part forensic and\nin part romantic--this gentleman having a passion for conducting\nanything in the form of an examination, or delivering anything in the\nform of a summing up or a speech--accompanies his friend with dignity\nto the court.\n\nNever since it has been a court has it had such a Fortunatus' purse\nof gossip as in the proceedings at the rag and bottle shop.\nRegularly, every morning at eight, is the elder Mr. Smallweed brought\ndown to the corner and carried in, accompanied by Mrs. Smallweed,\nJudy, and Bart; and regularly, all day, do they all remain there\nuntil nine at night, solaced by gipsy dinners, not abundant in\nquantity, from the cook's shop, rummaging and searching, digging,\ndelving, and diving among the treasures of the late lamented. What\nthose treasures are they keep so secret that the court is maddened.\nIn its delirium it imagines guineas pouring out of tea-pots,\ncrown-pieces overflowing punch-bowls, old chairs and mattresses\nstuffed with Bank of England notes. It possesses itself of the\nsixpenny history (with highly coloured folding frontispiece) of Mr.\nDaniel Dancer and his sister, and also of Mr. Elwes, of Suffolk, and\ntransfers all the facts from those authentic narratives to Mr. Krook.\nTwice when the dustman is called in to carry off a cartload of old\npaper, ashes, and broken bottles, the whole court assembles and pries\ninto the baskets as they come forth. Many times the two gentlemen who\nwrite with the ravenous little pens on the tissue-paper are seen\nprowling in the neighbourhood--shy of each other, their late\npartnership being dissolved. The Sol skilfully carries a vein of the\nprevailing interest through the Harmonic nights. Little Swills, in\nwhat are professionally known as \"patter\" allusions to the subject,\nis received with loud applause; and the same vocalist \"gags\" in the\nregular business like a man inspired. Even Miss M. Melvilleson, in\nthe revived Caledonian melody of \"We're a-Nodding,\" points the\nsentiment that \"the dogs love broo\" (whatever the nature of that\nrefreshment may be) with such archness and such a turn of the head\ntowards next door that she is immediately understood to mean Mr.\nSmallweed loves to find money, and is nightly honoured with a double\nencore. For all this, the court discovers nothing; and as Mrs. Piper\nand Mrs. Perkins now communicate to the late lodger whose appearance\nis the signal for a general rally, it is in one continual ferment to\ndiscover everything, and more.\n\nMr. Weevle and Mr. Guppy, with every eye in the court's head upon\nthem, knock at the closed door of the late lamented's house, in a\nhigh state of popularity. But being contrary to the court's\nexpectation admitted, they immediately become unpopular and are\nconsidered to mean no good.\n\nThe shutters are more or less closed all over the house, and the\nground-floor is sufficiently dark to require candles. Introduced into\nthe back shop by Mr. Smallweed the younger, they, fresh from the\nsunlight, can at first see nothing save darkness and shadows; but\nthey gradually discern the elder Mr. Smallweed seated in his chair\nupon the brink of a well or grave of waste-paper, the virtuous Judy\ngroping therein like a female sexton, and Mrs. Smallweed on the level\nground in the vicinity snowed up in a heap of paper fragments, print,\nand manuscript which would appear to be the accumulated compliments\nthat have been sent flying at her in the course of the day. The whole\nparty, Small included, are blackened with dust and dirt and present a\nfiendish appearance not relieved by the general aspect of the room.\nThere is more litter and lumber in it than of old, and it is dirtier\nif possible; likewise, it is ghostly with traces of its dead\ninhabitant and even with his chalked writing on the wall.\n\nOn the entrance of visitors, Mr. Smallweed and Judy simultaneously\nfold their arms and stop in their researches.\n\n\"Aha!\" croaks the old gentleman. \"How de do, gentlemen, how de do!\nCome to fetch your property, Mr. Weevle? That's well, that's well.\nHa! Ha! We should have been forced to sell you up, sir, to pay your\nwarehouse room if you had left it here much longer. You feel quite at\nhome here again, I dare say? Glad to see you, glad to see you!\"\n\nMr. Weevle, thanking him, casts an eye about. Mr. Guppy's eye follows\nMr. Weevle's eye. Mr. Weevle's eye comes back without any new\nintelligence in it. Mr. Guppy's eye comes back and meets Mr.\nSmallweed's eye. That engaging old gentleman is still murmuring, like\nsome wound-up instrument running down, \"How de do, sir--how\nde--how--\" And then having run down, he lapses into grinning silence,\nas Mr. Guppy starts at seeing Mr. Tulkinghorn standing in the\ndarkness opposite with his hands behind him.\n\n\"Gentleman so kind as to act as my solicitor,\" says Grandfather\nSmallweed. \"I am not the sort of client for a gentleman of such note,\nbut he is so good!\"\n\nMr. Guppy, slightly nudging his friend to take another look, makes a\nshuffling bow to Mr. Tulkinghorn, who returns it with an easy nod.\nMr. Tulkinghorn is looking on as if he had nothing else to do and\nwere rather amused by the novelty.\n\n\"A good deal of property here, sir, I should say,\" Mr. Guppy observes\nto Mr. Smallweed.\n\n\"Principally rags and rubbish, my dear friend! Rags and rubbish! Me\nand Bart and my granddaughter Judy are endeavouring to make out an\ninventory of what's worth anything to sell. But we haven't come to\nmuch as yet; we--haven't--come--to--hah!\"\n\nMr. Smallweed has run down again, while Mr. Weevle's eye, attended by\nMr. Guppy's eye, has again gone round the room and come back.\n\n\"Well, sir,\" says Mr. Weevle. \"We won't intrude any longer if you'll\nallow us to go upstairs.\"\n\n\"Anywhere, my dear sir, anywhere! You're at home. Make yourself so,\npray!\"\n\nAs they go upstairs, Mr. Guppy lifts his eyebrows inquiringly and\nlooks at Tony. Tony shakes his head. They find the old room very dull\nand dismal, with the ashes of the fire that was burning on that\nmemorable night yet in the discoloured grate. They have a great\ndisinclination to touch any object, and carefully blow the dust from\nit first. Nor are they desirous to prolong their visit, packing the\nfew movables with all possible speed and never speaking above a\nwhisper.\n\n\"Look here,\" says Tony, recoiling. \"Here's that horrible cat coming\nin!\"\n\nMr. Guppy retreats behind a chair. \"Small told me of her. She went\nleaping and bounding and tearing about that night like a dragon, and\ngot out on the house-top, and roamed about up there for a fortnight,\nand then came tumbling down the chimney very thin. Did you ever see\nsuch a brute? Looks as if she knew all about it, don't she? Almost\nlooks as if she was Krook. Shoohoo! Get out, you goblin!\"\n\nLady Jane, in the doorway, with her tiger snarl from ear to ear and\nher club of a tail, shows no intention of obeying; but Mr.\nTulkinghorn stumbling over her, she spits at his rusty legs, and\nswearing wrathfully, takes her arched back upstairs. Possibly to roam\nthe house-tops again and return by the chimney.\n\n\"Mr. Guppy,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, \"could I have a word with you?\"\n\nMr. Guppy is engaged in collecting the Galaxy Gallery of British\nBeauty from the wall and depositing those works of art in their old\nignoble band-box. \"Sir,\" he returns, reddening, \"I wish to act with\ncourtesy towards every member of the profession, and especially, I am\nsure, towards a member of it so well known as yourself--I will truly\nadd, sir, so distinguished as yourself. Still, Mr. Tulkinghorn, sir,\nI must stipulate that if you have any word with me, that word is\nspoken in the presence of my friend.\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed?\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn.\n\n\"Yes, sir. My reasons are not of a personal nature at all, but they\nare amply sufficient for myself.\"\n\n\"No doubt, no doubt.\" Mr. Tulkinghorn is as imperturbable as the\nhearthstone to which he has quietly walked. \"The matter is not of\nthat consequence that I need put you to the trouble of making any\nconditions, Mr. Guppy.\" He pauses here to smile, and his smile is as\ndull and rusty as his pantaloons. \"You are to be congratulated, Mr.\nGuppy; you are a fortunate young man, sir.\"\n\n\"Pretty well so, Mr. Tulkinghorn; I don't complain.\"\n\n\"Complain? High friends, free admission to great houses, and access\nto elegant ladies! Why, Mr. Guppy, there are people in London who\nwould give their ears to be you.\"\n\nMr. Guppy, looking as if he would give his own reddening and still\nreddening ears to be one of those people at present instead of\nhimself, replies, \"Sir, if I attend to my profession and do what is\nright by Kenge and Carboy, my friends and acquaintances are of no\nconsequence to them nor to any member of the profession, not\nexcepting Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields. I am not under any\nobligation to explain myself further; and with all respect for you,\nsir, and without offence--I repeat, without offence--\"\n\n\"Oh, certainly!\"\n\n\"--I don't intend to do it.\"\n\n\"Quite so,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn with a calm nod. \"Very good; I see\nby these portraits that you take a strong interest in the fashionable\ngreat, sir?\"\n\nHe addresses this to the astounded Tony, who admits the soft\nimpeachment.\n\n\"A virtue in which few Englishmen are deficient,\" observes Mr.\nTulkinghorn. He has been standing on the hearthstone with his back to\nthe smoked chimney-piece, and now turns round with his glasses to his\neyes. \"Who is this? 'Lady Dedlock.' Ha! A very good likeness in its\nway, but it wants force of character. Good day to you, gentlemen;\ngood day!\"\n\nWhen he has walked out, Mr. Guppy, in a great perspiration, nerves\nhimself to the hasty completion of the taking down of the Galaxy\nGallery, concluding with Lady Dedlock.\n\n\"Tony,\" he says hurriedly to his astonished companion, \"let us be\nquick in putting the things together and in getting out of this\nplace. It were in vain longer to conceal from you, Tony, that between\nmyself and one of the members of a swan-like aristocracy whom I now\nhold in my hand, there has been undivulged communication and\nassociation. The time might have been when I might have revealed it\nto you. It never will be more. It is due alike to the oath I have\ntaken, alike to the shattered idol, and alike to circumstances over\nwhich I have no control, that the whole should be buried in oblivion.\nI charge you as a friend, by the interest you have ever testified in\nthe fashionable intelligence, and by any little advances with which I\nmay have been able to accommodate you, so to bury it without a word\nof inquiry!\"\n\nThis charge Mr. Guppy delivers in a state little short of forensic\nlunacy, while his friend shows a dazed mind in his whole head of hair\nand even in his cultivated whiskers.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XL\n\nNational and Domestic\n\n\nEngland has been in a dreadful state for some weeks. Lord Coodle\nwould go out, Sir Thomas Doodle wouldn't come in, and there being\nnobody in Great Britain (to speak of) except Coodle and Doodle, there\nhas been no government. It is a mercy that the hostile meeting\nbetween those two great men, which at one time seemed inevitable, did\nnot come off, because if both pistols had taken effect, and Coodle\nand Doodle had killed each other, it is to be presumed that England\nmust have waited to be governed until young Coodle and young Doodle,\nnow in frocks and long stockings, were grown up. This stupendous\nnational calamity, however, was averted by Lord Coodle's making the\ntimely discovery that if in the heat of debate he had said that he\nscorned and despised the whole ignoble career of Sir Thomas Doodle,\nhe had merely meant to say that party differences should never induce\nhim to withhold from it the tribute of his warmest admiration; while\nit as opportunely turned out, on the other hand, that Sir Thomas\nDoodle had in his own bosom expressly booked Lord Coodle to go down\nto posterity as the mirror of virtue and honour. Still England has\nbeen some weeks in the dismal strait of having no pilot (as was well\nobserved by Sir Leicester Dedlock) to weather the storm; and the\nmarvellous part of the matter is that England has not appeared to\ncare very much about it, but has gone on eating and drinking and\nmarrying and giving in marriage as the old world did in the days\nbefore the flood. But Coodle knew the danger, and Doodle knew the\ndanger, and all their followers and hangers-on had the clearest\npossible perception of the danger. At last Sir Thomas Doodle has not\nonly condescended to come in, but has done it handsomely, bringing in\nwith him all his nephews, all his male cousins, and all his\nbrothers-in-law. So there is hope for the old ship yet.\n\nDoodle has found that he must throw himself upon the country, chiefly\nin the form of sovereigns and beer. In this metamorphosed state he is\navailable in a good many places simultaneously and can throw himself\nupon a considerable portion of the country at one time. Britannia\nbeing much occupied in pocketing Doodle in the form of sovereigns,\nand swallowing Doodle in the form of beer, and in swearing herself\nblack in the face that she does neither--plainly to the advancement\nof her glory and morality--the London season comes to a sudden end,\nthrough all the Doodleites and Coodleites dispersing to assist\nBritannia in those religious exercises.\n\nHence Mrs. Rouncewell, housekeeper at Chesney Wold, foresees, though\nno instructions have yet come down, that the family may shortly be\nexpected, together with a pretty large accession of cousins and\nothers who can in any way assist the great Constitutional work. And\nhence the stately old dame, taking Time by the forelock, leads him up\nand down the staircases, and along the galleries and passages, and\nthrough the rooms, to witness before he grows any older that\neverything is ready, that floors are rubbed bright, carpets spread,\ncurtains shaken out, beds puffed and patted, still-room and kitchen\ncleared for action--all things prepared as beseems the Dedlock\ndignity.\n\nThis present summer evening, as the sun goes down, the preparations\nare complete. Dreary and solemn the old house looks, with so many\nappliances of habitation and with no inhabitants except the pictured\nforms upon the walls. So did these come and go, a Dedlock in\npossession might have ruminated passing along; so did they see this\ngallery hushed and quiet, as I see it now; so think, as I think, of\nthe gap that they would make in this domain when they were gone; so\nfind it, as I find it, difficult to believe that it could be without\nthem; so pass from my world, as I pass from theirs, now closing the\nreverberating door; so leave no blank to miss them, and so die.\n\nThrough some of the fiery windows beautiful from without, and set, at\nthis sunset hour, not in dull-grey stone but in a glorious house of\ngold, the light excluded at other windows pours in rich, lavish,\noverflowing like the summer plenty in the land. Then do the frozen\nDedlocks thaw. Strange movements come upon their features as the\nshadows of leaves play there. A dense justice in a corner is beguiled\ninto a wink. A staring baronet, with a truncheon, gets a dimple in\nhis chin. Down into the bosom of a stony shepherdess there steals a\nfleck of light and warmth that would have done it good a hundred\nyears ago. One ancestress of Volumnia, in high-heeled shoes, very\nlike her--casting the shadow of that virgin event before her full two\ncenturies--shoots out into a halo and becomes a saint. A maid of\nhonour of the court of Charles the Second, with large round eyes (and\nother charms to correspond), seems to bathe in glowing water, and it\nripples as it glows.\n\nBut the fire of the sun is dying. Even now the floor is dusky, and\nshadow slowly mounts the walls, bringing the Dedlocks down like age\nand death. And now, upon my Lady's picture over the great\nchimney-piece, a weird shade falls from some old tree, that turns it\npale, and flutters it, and looks as if a great arm held a veil or\nhood, watching an opportunity to draw it over her. Higher and darker\nrises shadow on the wall--now a red gloom on the ceiling--now the\nfire is out.\n\nAll that prospect, which from the terrace looked so near, has moved\nsolemnly away and changed--not the first nor the last of beautiful\nthings that look so near and will so change--into a distant phantom.\nLight mists arise, and the dew falls, and all the sweet scents in the\ngarden are heavy in the air. Now the woods settle into great masses\nas if they were each one profound tree. And now the moon rises to\nseparate them, and to glimmer here and there in horizontal lines\nbehind their stems, and to make the avenue a pavement of light among\nhigh cathedral arches fantastically broken.\n\nNow the moon is high; and the great house, needing habitation more\nthan ever, is like a body without life. Now it is even awful,\nstealing through it, to think of the live people who have slept in\nthe solitary bedrooms, to say nothing of the dead. Now is the time\nfor shadow, when every corner is a cavern and every downward step a\npit, when the stained glass is reflected in pale and faded hues upon\nthe floors, when anything and everything can be made of the heavy\nstaircase beams excepting their own proper shapes, when the armour\nhas dull lights upon it not easily to be distinguished from stealthy\nmovement, and when barred helmets are frightfully suggestive of heads\ninside. But of all the shadows in Chesney Wold, the shadow in the\nlong drawing-room upon my Lady's picture is the first to come, the\nlast to be disturbed. At this hour and by this light it changes into\nthreatening hands raised up and menacing the handsome face with every\nbreath that stirs.\n\n\"She is not well, ma'am,\" says a groom in Mrs. Rouncewell's\naudience-chamber.\n\n\"My Lady not well! What's the matter?\"\n\n\"Why, my Lady has been but poorly, ma'am, since she was last here--I\ndon't mean with the family, ma'am, but when she was here as a bird of\npassage like. My Lady has not been out much, for her, and has kept\nher room a good deal.\"\n\n\"Chesney Wold, Thomas,\" rejoins the housekeeper with proud\ncomplacency, \"will set my Lady up! There is no finer air and no\nhealthier soil in the world!\"\n\nThomas may have his own personal opinions on this subject, probably\nhints them in his manner of smoothing his sleek head from the nape of\nhis neck to his temples, but he forbears to express them further and\nretires to the servants' hall to regale on cold meat-pie and ale.\n\nThis groom is the pilot-fish before the nobler shark. Next evening,\ndown come Sir Leicester and my Lady with their largest retinue, and\ndown come the cousins and others from all the points of the compass.\nThenceforth for some weeks backward and forward rush mysterious men\nwith no names, who fly about all those particular parts of the\ncountry on which Doodle is at present throwing himself in an\nauriferous and malty shower, but who are merely persons of a restless\ndisposition and never do anything anywhere.\n\nOn these national occasions Sir Leicester finds the cousins useful. A\nbetter man than the Honourable Bob Stables to meet the Hunt at\ndinner, there could not possibly be. Better got up gentlemen than the\nother cousins to ride over to polling-booths and hustings here and\nthere, and show themselves on the side of England, it would be hard\nto find. Volumnia is a little dim, but she is of the true descent;\nand there are many who appreciate her sprightly conversation, her\nFrench conundrums so old as to have become in the cycles of time\nalmost new again, the honour of taking the fair Dedlock in to dinner,\nor even the privilege of her hand in the dance. On these national\noccasions dancing may be a patriotic service, and Volumnia is\nconstantly seen hopping about for the good of an ungrateful and\nunpensioning country.\n\nMy Lady takes no great pains to entertain the numerous guests, and\nbeing still unwell, rarely appears until late in the day. But at all\nthe dismal dinners, leaden lunches, basilisk balls, and other\nmelancholy pageants, her mere appearance is a relief. As to Sir\nLeicester, he conceives it utterly impossible that anything can be\nwanting, in any direction, by any one who has the good fortune to be\nreceived under that roof; and in a state of sublime satisfaction, he\nmoves among the company, a magnificent refrigerator.\n\nDaily the cousins trot through dust and canter over roadside turf,\naway to hustings and polling-booths (with leather gloves and\nhunting-whips for the counties and kid gloves and riding-canes for\nthe boroughs), and daily bring back reports on which Sir Leicester\nholds forth after dinner. Daily the restless men who have no\noccupation in life present the appearance of being rather busy. Daily\nVolumnia has a little cousinly talk with Sir Leicester on the state\nof the nation, from which Sir Leicester is disposed to conclude that\nVolumnia is a more reflecting woman than he had thought her.\n\n\"How are we getting on?\" says Miss Volumnia, clasping her hands. \"ARE\nwe safe?\"\n\nThe mighty business is nearly over by this time, and Doodle will\nthrow himself off the country in a few days more. Sir Leicester has\njust appeared in the long drawing-room after dinner, a bright\nparticular star surrounded by clouds of cousins.\n\n\"Volumnia,\" replies Sir Leicester, who has a list in his hand, \"we\nare doing tolerably.\"\n\n\"Only tolerably!\"\n\nAlthough it is summer weather, Sir Leicester always has his own\nparticular fire in the evening. He takes his usual screened seat near\nit and repeats with much firmness and a little displeasure, as who\nshould say, I am not a common man, and when I say tolerably, it must\nnot be understood as a common expression, \"Volumnia, we are doing\ntolerably.\"\n\n\"At least there is no opposition to YOU,\" Volumnia asserts with\nconfidence.\n\n\"No, Volumnia. This distracted country has lost its senses in many\nrespects, I grieve to say, but--\"\n\n\"It is not so mad as that. I am glad to hear it!\"\n\nVolumnia's finishing the sentence restores her to favour. Sir\nLeicester, with a gracious inclination of his head, seems to say to\nhimself, \"A sensible woman this, on the whole, though occasionally\nprecipitate.\"\n\nIn fact, as to this question of opposition, the fair Dedlock's\nobservation was superfluous, Sir Leicester on these occasions always\ndelivering in his own candidateship, as a kind of handsome wholesale\norder to be promptly executed. Two other little seats that belong to\nhim he treats as retail orders of less importance, merely sending\ndown the men and signifying to the tradespeople, \"You will have the\ngoodness to make these materials into two members of Parliament and\nto send them home when done.\"\n\n\"I regret to say, Volumnia, that in many places the people have shown\na bad spirit, and that this opposition to the government has been of\na most determined and most implacable description.\"\n\n\"W-r-retches!\" says Volumnia.\n\n\"Even,\" proceeds Sir Leicester, glancing at the circumjacent cousins\non sofas and ottomans, \"even in many--in fact, in most--of those\nplaces in which the government has carried it against a faction--\"\n\n(Note, by the way, that the Coodleites are always a faction with the\nDoodleites, and that the Doodleites occupy exactly the same position\ntowards the Coodleites.)\n\n\"--Even in them I am shocked, for the credit of Englishmen, to be\nconstrained to inform you that the party has not triumphed without\nbeing put to an enormous expense. Hundreds,\" says Sir Leicester,\neyeing the cousins with increasing dignity and swelling indignation,\n\"hundreds of thousands of pounds!\"\n\nIf Volumnia have a fault, it is the fault of being a trifle too\ninnocent, seeing that the innocence which would go extremely well\nwith a sash and tucker is a little out of keeping with the rouge and\npearl necklace. Howbeit, impelled by innocence, she asks, \"What for?\"\n\n\"Volumnia,\" remonstrates Sir Leicester with his utmost severity.\n\"Volumnia!\"\n\n\"No, no, I don't mean what for,\" cries Volumnia with her favourite\nlittle scream. \"How stupid I am! I mean what a pity!\"\n\n\"I am glad,\" returns Sir Leicester, \"that you do mean what a pity.\"\n\nVolumnia hastens to express her opinion that the shocking people\nought to be tried as traitors and made to support the party.\n\n\"I am glad, Volumnia,\" repeats Sir Leicester, unmindful of these\nmollifying sentiments, \"that you do mean what a pity. It is\ndisgraceful to the electors. But as you, though inadvertently and\nwithout intending so unreasonable a question, asked me 'what for?'\nlet me reply to you. For necessary expenses. And I trust to your good\nsense, Volumnia, not to pursue the subject, here or elsewhere.\"\n\nSir Leicester feels it incumbent on him to observe a crushing aspect\ntowards Volumnia because it is whispered abroad that these necessary\nexpenses will, in some two hundred election petitions, be\nunpleasantly connected with the word bribery, and because some\ngraceless jokers have consequently suggested the omission from the\nChurch service of the ordinary supplication in behalf of the High\nCourt of Parliament and have recommended instead that the prayers of\nthe congregation be requested for six hundred and fifty-eight\ngentlemen in a very unhealthy state.\n\n\"I suppose,\" observes Volumnia, having taken a little time to recover\nher spirits after her late castigation, \"I suppose Mr. Tulkinghorn\nhas been worked to death.\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" says Sir Leicester, opening his eyes, \"why Mr.\nTulkinghorn should be worked to death. I don't know what Mr.\nTulkinghorn's engagements may be. He is not a candidate.\"\n\nVolumnia had thought he might have been employed. Sir Leicester could\ndesire to know by whom, and what for. Volumnia, abashed again,\nsuggests, by somebody--to advise and make arrangements. Sir Leicester\nis not aware that any client of Mr. Tulkinghorn has been in need of\nhis assistance.\n\nLady Dedlock, seated at an open window with her arm upon its\ncushioned ledge and looking out at the evening shadows falling on the\npark, has seemed to attend since the lawyer's name was mentioned.\n\nA languid cousin with a moustache in a state of extreme debility now\nobserves from his couch that man told him ya'as'dy that Tulkinghorn\nhad gone down t' that iron place t' give legal 'pinion 'bout\nsomething, and that contest being over t' day, 'twould be highly\njawlly thing if Tulkinghorn should 'pear with news that Coodle man\nwas floored.\n\nMercury in attendance with coffee informs Sir Leicester, hereupon,\nthat Mr. Tulkinghorn has arrived and is taking dinner. My Lady turns\nher head inward for the moment, then looks out again as before.\n\nVolumnia is charmed to hear that her delight is come. He is so\noriginal, such a stolid creature, such an immense being for knowing\nall sorts of things and never telling them! Volumnia is persuaded\nthat he must be a Freemason. Is sure he is at the head of a lodge,\nand wears short aprons, and is made a perfect idol of with\ncandlesticks and trowels. These lively remarks the fair Dedlock\ndelivers in her youthful manner, while making a purse.\n\n\"He has not been here once,\" she adds, \"since I came. I really had\nsome thoughts of breaking my heart for the inconstant creature. I had\nalmost made up my mind that he was dead.\"\n\nIt may be the gathering gloom of evening, or it may be the darker\ngloom within herself, but a shade is on my Lady's face, as if she\nthought, \"I would he were!\"\n\n\"Mr. Tulkinghorn,\" says Sir Leicester, \"is always welcome here and\nalways discreet wheresoever he is. A very valuable person, and\ndeservedly respected.\"\n\nThe debilitated cousin supposes he is \"'normously rich fler.\"\n\n\"He has a stake in the country,\" says Sir Leicester, \"I have no\ndoubt. He is, of course, handsomely paid, and he associates almost on\na footing of equality with the highest society.\"\n\nEverybody starts. For a gun is fired close by.\n\n\"Good gracious, what's that?\" cries Volumnia with her little withered\nscream.\n\n\"A rat,\" says my Lady. \"And they have shot him.\"\n\nEnter Mr. Tulkinghorn, followed by Mercuries with lamps and candles.\n\n\"No, no,\" says Sir Leicester, \"I think not. My Lady, do you object to\nthe twilight?\"\n\nOn the contrary, my Lady prefers it.\n\n\"Volumnia?\"\n\nOh! Nothing is so delicious to Volumnia as to sit and talk in the\ndark.\n\n\"Then take them away,\" says Sir Leicester. \"Tulkinghorn, I beg your\npardon. How do you do?\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn with his usual leisurely ease advances, renders his\npassing homage to my Lady, shakes Sir Leicester's hand, and subsides\ninto the chair proper to him when he has anything to communicate, on\nthe opposite side of the Baronet's little newspaper-table. Sir\nLeicester is apprehensive that my Lady, not being very well, will\ntake cold at that open window. My Lady is obliged to him, but would\nrather sit there for the air. Sir Leicester rises, adjusts her scarf\nabout her, and returns to his seat. Mr. Tulkinghorn in the meanwhile\ntakes a pinch of snuff.\n\n\"Now,\" says Sir Leicester. \"How has that contest gone?\"\n\n\"Oh, hollow from the beginning. Not a chance. They have brought in\nboth their people. You are beaten out of all reason. Three to one.\"\n\nIt is a part of Mr. Tulkinghorn's policy and mastery to have no\npolitical opinions; indeed, NO opinions. Therefore he says \"you\" are\nbeaten, and not \"we.\"\n\nSir Leicester is majestically wroth. Volumnia never heard of such a\nthing. 'The debilitated cousin holds that it's sort of thing that's\nsure tapn slongs votes--giv'n--Mob.\n\n\"It's the place, you know,\" Mr. Tulkinghorn goes on to say in the\nfast-increasing darkness when there is silence again, \"where they\nwanted to put up Mrs. Rouncewell's son.\"\n\n\"A proposal which, as you correctly informed me at the time, he had\nthe becoming taste and perception,\" observes Sir Leicester, \"to\ndecline. I cannot say that I by any means approve of the sentiments\nexpressed by Mr. Rouncewell when he was here for some half-hour in\nthis room, but there was a sense of propriety in his decision which I\nam glad to acknowledge.\"\n\n\"Ha!\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. \"It did not prevent him from being very\nactive in this election, though.\"\n\nSir Leicester is distinctly heard to gasp before speaking. \"Did I\nunderstand you? Did you say that Mr. Rouncewell had been very active\nin this election?\"\n\n\"Uncommonly active.\"\n\n\"Against--\"\n\n\"Oh, dear yes, against you. He is a very good speaker. Plain and\nemphatic. He made a damaging effect, and has great influence. In the\nbusiness part of the proceedings he carried all before him.\"\n\nIt is evident to the whole company, though nobody can see him, that\nSir Leicester is staring majestically.\n\n\"And he was much assisted,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn as a wind-up, \"by\nhis son.\"\n\n\"By his son, sir?\" repeats Sir Leicester with awful politeness.\n\n\"By his son.\"\n\n\"The son who wished to marry the young woman in my Lady's service?\"\n\n\"That son. He has but one.\"\n\n\"Then upon my honour,\" says Sir Leicester after a terrific pause\nduring which he has been heard to snort and felt to stare, \"then\nupon my honour, upon my life, upon my reputation and principles,\nthe floodgates of society are burst open, and the waters\nhave--a--obliterated the landmarks of the framework of the cohesion\nby which things are held together!\"\n\nGeneral burst of cousinly indignation. Volumnia thinks it is\nreally high time, you know, for somebody in power to step in\nand do something strong. Debilitated cousin thinks--country's\ngoing--Dayvle--steeple-chase pace.\n\n\"I beg,\" says Sir Leicester in a breathless condition, \"that we may\nnot comment further on this circumstance. Comment is superfluous. My\nLady, let me suggest in reference to that young woman--\"\n\n\"I have no intention,\" observes my Lady from her window in a low but\ndecided tone, \"of parting with her.\"\n\n\"That was not my meaning,\" returns Sir Leicester. \"I am glad to hear\nyou say so. I would suggest that as you think her worthy of your\npatronage, you should exert your influence to keep her from these\ndangerous hands. You might show her what violence would be done in\nsuch association to her duties and principles, and you might preserve\nher for a better fate. You might point out to her that she probably\nwould, in good time, find a husband at Chesney Wold by whom she would\nnot be--\" Sir Leicester adds, after a moment's consideration,\n\"dragged from the altars of her forefathers.\"\n\nThese remarks he offers with his unvarying politeness and deference\nwhen he addresses himself to his wife. She merely moves her head in\nreply. The moon is rising, and where she sits there is a little\nstream of cold pale light, in which her head is seen.\n\n\"It is worthy of remark,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, \"however, that these\npeople are, in their way, very proud.\"\n\n\"Proud?\" Sir Leicester doubts his hearing.\n\n\"I should not be surprised if they all voluntarily abandoned the\ngirl--yes, lover and all--instead of her abandoning them, supposing\nshe remained at Chesney Wold under such circumstances.\"\n\n\"Well!\" says Sir Leicester tremulously. \"Well! You should know, Mr.\nTulkinghorn. You have been among them.\"\n\n\"Really, Sir Leicester,\" returns the lawyer, \"I state the fact. Why,\nI could tell you a story--with Lady Dedlock's permission.\"\n\nHer head concedes it, and Volumnia is enchanted. A story! Oh, he is\ngoing to tell something at last! A ghost in it, Volumnia hopes?\n\n\"No. Real flesh and blood.\" Mr. Tulkinghorn stops for an instant and\nrepeats with some little emphasis grafted upon his usual monotony,\n\"Real flesh and blood, Miss Dedlock. Sir Leicester, these particulars\nhave only lately become known to me. They are very brief. They\nexemplify what I have said. I suppress names for the present. Lady\nDedlock will not think me ill-bred, I hope?\"\n\nBy the light of the fire, which is low, he can be seen looking\ntowards the moonlight. By the light of the moon Lady Dedlock can be\nseen, perfectly still.\n\n\"A townsman of this Mrs. Rouncewell, a man in exactly parallel\ncircumstances as I am told, had the good fortune to have a daughter\nwho attracted the notice of a great lady. I speak of really a great\nlady, not merely great to him, but married to a gentleman of your\ncondition, Sir Leicester.\"\n\nSir Leicester condescendingly says, \"Yes, Mr. Tulkinghorn,\" implying\nthat then she must have appeared of very considerable moral\ndimensions indeed in the eyes of an iron-master.\n\n\"The lady was wealthy and beautiful, and had a liking for the girl,\nand treated her with great kindness, and kept her always near her.\nNow this lady preserved a secret under all her greatness, which she\nhad preserved for many years. In fact, she had in early life been\nengaged to marry a young rake--he was a captain in the army--nothing\nconnected with whom came to any good. She never did marry him, but\nshe gave birth to a child of which he was the father.\"\n\nBy the light of the fire he can be seen looking towards the\nmoonlight. By the moonlight, Lady Dedlock can be seen in profile,\nperfectly still.\n\n\"The captain in the army being dead, she believed herself safe; but a\ntrain of circumstances with which I need not trouble you led to\ndiscovery. As I received the story, they began in an imprudence on\nher own part one day when she was taken by surprise, which shows how\ndifficult it is for the firmest of us (she was very firm) to be\nalways guarded. There was great domestic trouble and amazement, you\nmay suppose; I leave you to imagine, Sir Leicester, the husband's\ngrief. But that is not the present point. When Mr. Rouncewell's\ntownsman heard of the disclosure, he no more allowed the girl to be\npatronized and honoured than he would have suffered her to be trodden\nunderfoot before his eyes. Such was his pride, that he indignantly\ntook her away, as if from reproach and disgrace. He had no sense of\nthe honour done him and his daughter by the lady's condescension; not\nthe least. He resented the girl's position, as if the lady had been\nthe commonest of commoners. That is the story. I hope Lady Dedlock\nwill excuse its painful nature.\"\n\nThere are various opinions on the merits, more or less conflicting\nwith Volumnia's. That fair young creature cannot believe there ever\nwas any such lady and rejects the whole history on the threshold. The\nmajority incline to the debilitated cousin's sentiment, which is in\nfew words--\"no business--Rouncewell's fernal townsman.\" Sir Leicester\ngenerally refers back in his mind to Wat Tyler and arranges a\nsequence of events on a plan of his own.\n\nThere is not much conversation in all, for late hours have been kept\nat Chesney Wold since the necessary expenses elsewhere began, and\nthis is the first night in many on which the family have been alone.\nIt is past ten when Sir Leicester begs Mr. Tulkinghorn to ring for\ncandles. Then the stream of moonlight has swelled into a lake, and\nthen Lady Dedlock for the first time moves, and rises, and comes\nforward to a table for a glass of water. Winking cousins, bat-like in\nthe candle glare, crowd round to give it; Volumnia (always ready for\nsomething better if procurable) takes another, a very mild sip of\nwhich contents her; Lady Dedlock, graceful, self-possessed, looked\nafter by admiring eyes, passes away slowly down the long perspective\nby the side of that nymph, not at all improving her as a question of\ncontrast.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLI\n\nIn Mr. Tulkinghorn's Room\n\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn arrives in his turret-room a little breathed by the\njourney up, though leisurely performed. There is an expression on his\nface as if he had discharged his mind of some grave matter and were,\nin his close way, satisfied. To say of a man so severely and strictly\nself-repressed that he is triumphant would be to do him as great an\ninjustice as to suppose him troubled with love or sentiment or any\nromantic weakness. He is sedately satisfied. Perhaps there is a\nrather increased sense of power upon him as he loosely grasps one of\nhis veinous wrists with his other hand and holding it behind his back\nwalks noiselessly up and down.\n\nThere is a capacious writing-table in the room on which is a pretty\nlarge accumulation of papers. The green lamp is lighted, his\nreading-glasses lie upon the desk, the easy-chair is wheeled up to\nit, and it would seem as though he had intended to bestow an hour or\nso upon these claims on his attention before going to bed. But he\nhappens not to be in a business mind. After a glance at the documents\nawaiting his notice--with his head bent low over the table, the old\nman's sight for print or writing being defective at night--he opens\nthe French window and steps out upon the leads. There he again walks\nslowly up and down in the same attitude, subsiding, if a man so cool\nmay have any need to subside, from the story he has related\ndownstairs.\n\nThe time was once when men as knowing as Mr. Tulkinghorn would walk\non turret-tops in the starlight and look up into the sky to read\ntheir fortunes there. Hosts of stars are visible to-night, though\ntheir brilliancy is eclipsed by the splendour of the moon. If he be\nseeking his own star as he methodically turns and turns upon the\nleads, it should be but a pale one to be so rustily represented\nbelow. If he be tracing out his destiny, that may be written in other\ncharacters nearer to his hand.\n\nAs he paces the leads with his eyes most probably as high above his\nthoughts as they are high above the earth, he is suddenly stopped in\npassing the window by two eyes that meet his own. The ceiling of his\nroom is rather low; and the upper part of the door, which is opposite\nthe window, is of glass. There is an inner baize door, too, but the\nnight being warm he did not close it when he came upstairs. These\neyes that meet his own are looking in through the glass from the\ncorridor outside. He knows them well. The blood has not flushed into\nhis face so suddenly and redly for many a long year as when he\nrecognizes Lady Dedlock.\n\nHe steps into the room, and she comes in too, closing both the doors\nbehind her. There is a wild disturbance--is it fear or anger?--in her\neyes. In her carriage and all else she looks as she looked downstairs\ntwo hours ago.\n\nIs it fear or is it anger now? He cannot be sure. Both might be as\npale, both as intent.\n\n\"Lady Dedlock?\"\n\nShe does not speak at first, nor even when she has slowly dropped\ninto the easy-chair by the table. They look at each other, like two\npictures.\n\n\"Why have you told my story to so many persons?\"\n\n\"Lady Dedlock, it was necessary for me to inform you that I knew it.\"\n\n\"How long have you known it?\"\n\n\"I have suspected it a long while--fully known it a little while.\"\n\n\"Months?\"\n\n\"Days.\"\n\nHe stands before her with one hand on a chair-back and the other in\nhis old-fashioned waistcoat and shirt-frill, exactly as he has stood\nbefore her at any time since her marriage. The same formal\npoliteness, the same composed deference that might as well be\ndefiance; the whole man the same dark, cold object, at the same\ndistance, which nothing has ever diminished.\n\n\"Is this true concerning the poor girl?\"\n\nHe slightly inclines and advances his head as not quite understanding\nthe question.\n\n\"You know what you related. Is it true? Do her friends know my story\nalso? Is it the town-talk yet? Is it chalked upon the walls and cried\nin the streets?\"\n\nSo! Anger, and fear, and shame. All three contending. What power this\nwoman has to keep these raging passions down! Mr. Tulkinghorn's\nthoughts take such form as he looks at her, with his ragged grey\neyebrows a hair's breadth more contracted than usual under her gaze.\n\n\"No, Lady Dedlock. That was a hypothetical case, arising out of Sir\nLeicester's unconsciously carrying the matter with so high a hand.\nBut it would be a real case if they knew--what we know.\"\n\n\"Then they do not know it yet?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Can I save the poor girl from injury before they know it?\"\n\n\"Really, Lady Dedlock,\" Mr. Tulkinghorn replies, \"I cannot give a\nsatisfactory opinion on that point.\"\n\nAnd he thinks, with the interest of attentive curiosity, as he\nwatches the struggle in her breast, \"The power and force of this\nwoman are astonishing!\"\n\n\"Sir,\" she says, for the moment obliged to set her lips with all the\nenergy she has, that she may speak distinctly, \"I will make it\nplainer. I do not dispute your hypothetical case. I anticipated it,\nand felt its truth as strongly as you can do, when I saw Mr.\nRouncewell here. I knew very well that if he could have had the power\nof seeing me as I was, he would consider the poor girl tarnished by\nhaving for a moment been, although most innocently, the subject of my\ngreat and distinguished patronage. But I have an interest in her, or\nI should rather say--no longer belonging to this place--I had, and if\nyou can find so much consideration for the woman under your foot as\nto remember that, she will be very sensible of your mercy.\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn, profoundly attentive, throws this off with a shrug\nof self-depreciation and contracts his eyebrows a little more.\n\n\"You have prepared me for my exposure, and I thank you for that too.\nIs there anything that you require of me? Is there any claim that I\ncan release or any charge or trouble that I can spare my husband in\nobtaining HIS release by certifying to the exactness of your\ndiscovery? I will write anything, here and now, that you will\ndictate. I am ready to do it.\"\n\nAnd she would do it, thinks the lawyer, watchful of the firm hand\nwith which she takes the pen!\n\n\"I will not trouble you, Lady Dedlock. Pray spare yourself.\"\n\n\"I have long expected this, as you know. I neither wish to spare\nmyself nor to be spared. You can do nothing worse to me than you have\ndone. Do what remains now.\"\n\n\"Lady Dedlock, there is nothing to be done. I will take leave to say\na few words when you have finished.\"\n\nTheir need for watching one another should be over now, but they do\nit all this time, and the stars watch them both through the opened\nwindow. Away in the moonlight lie the woodland fields at rest, and\nthe wide house is as quiet as the narrow one. The narrow one! Where\nare the digger and the spade, this peaceful night, destined to add\nthe last great secret to the many secrets of the Tulkinghorn\nexistence? Is the man born yet, is the spade wrought yet? Curious\nquestions to consider, more curious perhaps not to consider, under\nthe watching stars upon a summer night.\n\n\"Of repentance or remorse or any feeling of mine,\" Lady Dedlock\npresently proceeds, \"I say not a word. If I were not dumb, you would\nbe deaf. Let that go by. It is not for your ears.\"\n\nHe makes a feint of offering a protest, but she sweeps it away with\nher disdainful hand.\n\n\"Of other and very different things I come to speak to you. My jewels\nare all in their proper places of keeping. They will be found there.\nSo, my dresses. So, all the valuables I have. Some ready money I had\nwith me, please to say, but no large amount. I did not wear my own\ndress, in order that I might avoid observation. I went to be\nhenceforward lost. Make this known. I leave no other charge with\nyou.\"\n\n\"Excuse me, Lady Dedlock,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, quite unmoved. \"I am\nnot sure that I understand you. You want--\"\n\n\"To be lost to all here. I leave Chesney Wold to-night. I go this\nhour.\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn shakes his head. She rises, but he, without moving\nhand from chair-back or from old-fashioned waistcoat and shirt-frill,\nshakes his head.\n\n\"What? Not go as I have said?\"\n\n\"No, Lady Dedlock,\" he very calmly replies.\n\n\"Do you know the relief that my disappearance will be? Have you\nforgotten the stain and blot upon this place, and where it is, and\nwho it is?\"\n\n\"No, Lady Dedlock, not by any means.\"\n\nWithout deigning to rejoin, she moves to the inner door and has it in\nher hand when he says to her, without himself stirring hand or foot\nor raising his voice, \"Lady Dedlock, have the goodness to stop and\nhear me, or before you reach the staircase I shall ring the\nalarm-bell and rouse the house. And then I must speak out before\nevery guest and servant, every man and woman, in it.\"\n\nHe has conquered her. She falters, trembles, and puts her hand\nconfusedly to her head. Slight tokens these in any one else, but when\nso practised an eye as Mr. Tulkinghorn's sees indecision for a moment\nin such a subject, he thoroughly knows its value.\n\nHe promptly says again, \"Have the goodness to hear me, Lady Dedlock,\"\nand motions to the chair from which she has risen. She hesitates, but\nhe motions again, and she sits down.\n\n\"The relations between us are of an unfortunate description, Lady\nDedlock; but as they are not of my making, I will not apologize for\nthem. The position I hold in reference to Sir Leicester is so well\nknown to you that I can hardly imagine but that I must long have\nappeared in your eyes the natural person to make this discovery.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" she returns without looking up from the ground on which her\neyes are now fixed, \"I had better have gone. It would have been far\nbetter not to have detained me. I have no more to say.\"\n\n\"Excuse me, Lady Dedlock, if I add a little more to hear.\"\n\n\"I wish to hear it at the window, then. I can't breathe where I am.\"\n\nHis jealous glance as she walks that way betrays an instant's\nmisgiving that she may have it in her thoughts to leap over, and\ndashing against ledge and cornice, strike her life out upon the\nterrace below. But a moment's observation of her figure as she stands\nin the window without any support, looking out at the stars--not\nup--gloomily out at those stars which are low in the heavens,\nreassures him. By facing round as she has moved, he stands a little\nbehind her.\n\n\"Lady Dedlock, I have not yet been able to come to a decision\nsatisfactory to myself on the course before me. I am not clear what\nto do or how to act next. I must request you, in the meantime, to\nkeep your secret as you have kept it so long and not to wonder that I\nkeep it too.\"\n\nHe pauses, but she makes no reply.\n\n\"Pardon me, Lady Dedlock. This is an important subject. You are\nhonouring me with your attention?\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\n\"Thank you. I might have known it from what I have seen of your\nstrength of character. I ought not to have asked the question, but I\nhave the habit of making sure of my ground, step by step, as I go on.\nThe sole consideration in this unhappy case is Sir Leicester.\"\n\n\"Then why,\" she asks in a low voice and without removing her gloomy\nlook from those distant stars, \"do you detain me in his house?\"\n\n\"Because he IS the consideration. Lady Dedlock, I have no occasion to\ntell you that Sir Leicester is a very proud man, that his reliance\nupon you is implicit, that the fall of that moon out of the sky would\nnot amaze him more than your fall from your high position as his\nwife.\"\n\nShe breathes quickly and heavily, but she stands as unflinchingly as\never he has seen her in the midst of her grandest company.\n\n\"I declare to you, Lady Dedlock, that with anything short of this\ncase that I have, I would as soon have hoped to root up by means of\nmy own strength and my own hands the oldest tree on this estate as to\nshake your hold upon Sir Leicester and Sir Leicester's trust and\nconfidence in you. And even now, with this case, I hesitate. Not that\nhe could doubt (that, even with him, is impossible), but that nothing\ncan prepare him for the blow.\"\n\n\"Not my flight?\" she returned. \"Think of it again.\"\n\n\"Your flight, Lady Dedlock, would spread the whole truth, and a\nhundred times the whole truth, far and wide. It would be impossible\nto save the family credit for a day. It is not to be thought of.\"\n\nThere is a quiet decision in his reply which admits of no\nremonstrance.\n\n\"When I speak of Sir Leicester being the sole consideration, he and\nthe family credit are one. Sir Leicester and the baronetcy, Sir\nLeicester and Chesney Wold, Sir Leicester and his ancestors and his\npatrimony\"--Mr. Tulkinghorn very dry here--\"are, I need not say to\nyou, Lady Dedlock, inseparable.\"\n\n\"Go on!\"\n\n\"Therefore,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, pursuing his case in his jog-trot\nstyle, \"I have much to consider. This is to be hushed up if it can\nbe. How can it be, if Sir Leicester is driven out of his wits or laid\nupon a death-bed? If I inflicted this shock upon him to-morrow\nmorning, how could the immediate change in him be accounted for? What\ncould have caused it? What could have divided you? Lady Dedlock, the\nwall-chalking and the street-crying would come on directly, and you\nare to remember that it would not affect you merely (whom I cannot at\nall consider in this business) but your husband, Lady Dedlock, your\nhusband.\"\n\nHe gets plainer as he gets on, but not an atom more emphatic or\nanimated.\n\n\"There is another point of view,\" he continues, \"in which the case\npresents itself. Sir Leicester is devoted to you almost to\ninfatuation. He might not be able to overcome that infatuation, even\nknowing what we know. I am putting an extreme case, but it might be\nso. If so, it were better that he knew nothing. Better for common\nsense, better for him, better for me. I must take all this into\naccount, and it combines to render a decision very difficult.\"\n\nShe stands looking out at the same stars without a word. They are\nbeginning to pale, and she looks as if their coldness froze her.\n\n\"My experience teaches me,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, who has by this\ntime got his hands in his pockets and is going on in his business\nconsideration of the matter like a machine. \"My experience teaches\nme, Lady Dedlock, that most of the people I know would do far better\nto leave marriage alone. It is at the bottom of three fourths of\ntheir troubles. So I thought when Sir Leicester married, and so I\nalways have thought since. No more about that. I must now be guided\nby circumstances. In the meanwhile I must beg you to keep your own\ncounsel, and I will keep mine.\"\n\n\"I am to drag my present life on, holding its pains at your pleasure,\nday by day?\" she asks, still looking at the distant sky.\n\n\"Yes, I am afraid so, Lady Dedlock.\"\n\n\"It is necessary, you think, that I should be so tied to the stake?\"\n\n\"I am sure that what I recommend is necessary.\"\n\n\"I am to remain on this gaudy platform on which my miserable\ndeception has been so long acted, and it is to fall beneath me when\nyou give the signal?\" she said slowly.\n\n\"Not without notice, Lady Dedlock. I shall take no step without\nforewarning you.\"\n\nShe asks all her questions as if she were repeating them from memory\nor calling them over in her sleep.\n\n\"We are to meet as usual?\"\n\n\"Precisely as usual, if you please.\"\n\n\"And I am to hide my guilt, as I have done so many years?\"\n\n\"As you have done so many years. I should not have made that\nreference myself, Lady Dedlock, but I may now remind you that your\nsecret can be no heavier to you than it was, and is no worse and no\nbetter than it was. I know it certainly, but I believe we have never\nwholly trusted each other.\"\n\nShe stands absorbed in the same frozen way for some little time\nbefore asking, \"Is there anything more to be said to-night?\"\n\n\"Why,\" Mr. Tulkinghorn returns methodically as he softly rubs his\nhands, \"I should like to be assured of your acquiescence in my\narrangements, Lady Dedlock.\"\n\n\"You may be assured of it.\"\n\n\"Good. And I would wish in conclusion to remind you, as a business\nprecaution, in case it should be necessary to recall the fact in any\ncommunication with Sir Leicester, that throughout our interview I\nhave expressly stated my sole consideration to be Sir Leicester's\nfeelings and honour and the family reputation. I should have been\nhappy to have made Lady Dedlock a prominent consideration, too, if\nthe case had admitted of it; but unfortunately it does not.\"\n\n\"I can attest your fidelity, sir.\"\n\nBoth before and after saying it she remains absorbed, but at length\nmoves, and turns, unshaken in her natural and acquired presence,\ntowards the door. Mr. Tulkinghorn opens both the doors exactly as he\nwould have done yesterday, or as he would have done ten years ago,\nand makes his old-fashioned bow as she passes out. It is not an\nordinary look that he receives from the handsome face as it goes into\nthe darkness, and it is not an ordinary movement, though a very\nslight one, that acknowledges his courtesy. But as he reflects when\nhe is left alone, the woman has been putting no common constraint\nupon herself.\n\nHe would know it all the better if he saw the woman pacing her own\nrooms with her hair wildly thrown from her flung-back face, her hands\nclasped behind her head, her figure twisted as if by pain. He would\nthink so all the more if he saw the woman thus hurrying up and down\nfor hours, without fatigue, without intermission, followed by the\nfaithful step upon the Ghost's Walk. But he shuts out the now chilled\nair, draws the window-curtain, goes to bed, and falls asleep. And\ntruly when the stars go out and the wan day peeps into the\nturret-chamber, finding him at his oldest, he looks as if the digger\nand the spade were both commissioned and would soon be digging.\n\nThe same wan day peeps in at Sir Leicester pardoning the repentant\ncountry in a majestically condescending dream; and at the cousins\nentering on various public employments, principally receipt of\nsalary; and at the chaste Volumnia, bestowing a dower of fifty\nthousand pounds upon a hideous old general with a mouth of false\nteeth like a pianoforte too full of keys, long the admiration of Bath\nand the terror of every other community. Also into rooms high in the\nroof, and into offices in court-yards, and over stables, where\nhumbler ambition dreams of bliss, in keepers' lodges, and in holy\nmatrimony with Will or Sally. Up comes the bright sun, drawing\neverything up with it--the Wills and Sallys, the latent vapour in the\nearth, the drooping leaves and flowers, the birds and beasts and\ncreeping things, the gardeners to sweep the dewy turf and unfold\nemerald velvet where the roller passes, the smoke of the great\nkitchen fire wreathing itself straight and high into the lightsome\nair. Lastly, up comes the flag over Mr. Tulkinghorn's unconscious\nhead cheerfully proclaiming that Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock are\nin their happy home and that there is hospitality at the place in\nLincolnshire.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLII\n\nIn Mr. Tulkinghorn's Chambers\n\n\nFrom the verdant undulations and the spreading oaks of the Dedlock\nproperty, Mr. Tulkinghorn transfers himself to the stale heat and\ndust of London. His manner of coming and going between the two places\nis one of his impenetrabilities. He walks into Chesney Wold as if it\nwere next door to his chambers and returns to his chambers as if he\nhad never been out of Lincoln's Inn Fields. He neither changes his\ndress before the journey nor talks of it afterwards. He melted out of\nhis turret-room this morning, just as now, in the late twilight, he\nmelts into his own square.\n\nLike a dingy London bird among the birds at roost in these pleasant\nfields, where the sheep are all made into parchment, the goats into\nwigs, and the pasture into chaff, the lawyer, smoke-dried and faded,\ndwelling among mankind but not consorting with them, aged without\nexperience of genial youth, and so long used to make his cramped nest\nin holes and corners of human nature that he has forgotten its\nbroader and better range, comes sauntering home. In the oven made by\nthe hot pavements and hot buildings, he has baked himself dryer than\nusual; and he has in his thirsty mind his mellowed port-wine half a\ncentury old.\n\nThe lamplighter is skipping up and down his ladder on Mr.\nTulkinghorn's side of the Fields when that high-priest of noble\nmysteries arrives at his own dull court-yard. He ascends the\ndoor-steps and is gliding into the dusky hall when he encounters, on\nthe top step, a bowing and propitiatory little man.\n\n\"Is that Snagsby?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I hope you are well, sir. I was just giving you up, sir,\nand going home.\"\n\n\"Aye? What is it? What do you want with me?\"\n\n\"Well, sir,\" says Mr. Snagsby, holding his hat at the side of his\nhead in his deference towards his best customer, \"I was wishful to\nsay a word to you, sir.\"\n\n\"Can you say it here?\"\n\n\"Perfectly, sir.\"\n\n\"Say it then.\" The lawyer turns, leans his arms on the iron railing\nat the top of the steps, and looks at the lamplighter lighting the\ncourt-yard.\n\n\"It is relating,\" says Mr. Snagsby in a mysterious low voice, \"it is\nrelating--not to put too fine a point upon it--to the foreigner,\nsir!\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn eyes him with some surprise. \"What foreigner?\"\n\n\"The foreign female, sir. French, if I don't mistake? I am not\nacquainted with that language myself, but I should judge from her\nmanners and appearance that she was French; anyways, certainly\nforeign. Her that was upstairs, sir, when Mr. Bucket and me had the\nhonour of waiting upon you with the sweeping-boy that night.\"\n\n\"Oh! Yes, yes. Mademoiselle Hortense.\"\n\n\"Indeed, sir?\" Mr. Snagsby coughs his cough of submission behind his\nhat. \"I am not acquainted myself with the names of foreigners in\ngeneral, but I have no doubt it WOULD be that.\" Mr. Snagsby appears\nto have set out in this reply with some desperate design of repeating\nthe name, but on reflection coughs again to excuse himself.\n\n\"And what can you have to say, Snagsby,\" demands Mr. Tulkinghorn,\n\"about her?\"\n\n\"Well, sir,\" returns the stationer, shading his communication with\nhis hat, \"it falls a little hard upon me. My domestic happiness is\nvery great--at least, it's as great as can be expected, I'm sure--but\nmy little woman is rather given to jealousy. Not to put too fine a\npoint upon it, she is very much given to jealousy. And you see, a\nforeign female of that genteel appearance coming into the shop, and\nhovering--I should be the last to make use of a strong expression if\nI could avoid it, but hovering, sir--in the court--you know it\nis--now ain't it? I only put it to yourself, sir.\"\n\nMr. Snagsby, having said this in a very plaintive manner, throws in a\ncough of general application to fill up all the blanks.\n\n\"Why, what do you mean?\" asks Mr. Tulkinghorn.\n\n\"Just so, sir,\" returns Mr. Snagsby; \"I was sure you would feel it\nyourself and would excuse the reasonableness of MY feelings when\ncoupled with the known excitableness of my little woman. You see, the\nforeign female--which you mentioned her name just now, with quite a\nnative sound I am sure--caught up the word Snagsby that night, being\nuncommon quick, and made inquiry, and got the direction and come at\ndinner-time. Now Guster, our young woman, is timid and has fits, and\nshe, taking fright at the foreigner's looks--which are fierce--and at\na grinding manner that she has of speaking--which is calculated to\nalarm a weak mind--gave way to it, instead of bearing up against it,\nand tumbled down the kitchen stairs out of one into another, such\nfits as I do sometimes think are never gone into, or come out of, in\nany house but ours. Consequently there was by good fortune ample\noccupation for my little woman, and only me to answer the shop. When\nshe DID say that Mr. Tulkinghorn, being always denied to her by his\nemployer (which I had no doubt at the time was a foreign mode of\nviewing a clerk), she would do herself the pleasure of continually\ncalling at my place until she was let in here. Since then she has\nbeen, as I began by saying, hovering, hovering, sir\"--Mr. Snagsby\nrepeats the word with pathetic emphasis--\"in the court. The effects\nof which movement it is impossible to calculate. I shouldn't wonder\nif it might have already given rise to the painfullest mistakes even\nin the neighbours' minds, not mentioning (if such a thing was\npossible) my little woman. Whereas, goodness knows,\" says Mr.\nSnagsby, shaking his head, \"I never had an idea of a foreign female,\nexcept as being formerly connected with a bunch of brooms and a baby,\nor at the present time with a tambourine and earrings. I never had, I\ndo assure you, sir!\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn had listened gravely to this complaint and inquires\nwhen the stationer has finished, \"And that's all, is it, Snagsby?\"\n\n\"Why yes, sir, that's all,\" says Mr. Snagsby, ending with a cough\nthat plainly adds, \"and it's enough too--for me.\"\n\n\"I don't know what Mademoiselle Hortense may want or mean, unless she\nis mad,\" says the lawyer.\n\n\"Even if she was, you know, sir,\" Mr. Snagsby pleads, \"it wouldn't be\na consolation to have some weapon or another in the form of a foreign\ndagger planted in the family.\"\n\n\"No,\" says the other. \"Well, well! This shall be stopped. I am sorry\nyou have been inconvenienced. If she comes again, send her here.\"\n\nMr. Snagsby, with much bowing and short apologetic coughing, takes\nhis leave, lightened in heart. Mr. Tulkinghorn goes upstairs, saying\nto himself, \"These women were created to give trouble the whole earth\nover. The mistress not being enough to deal with, here's the maid\nnow! But I will be short with THIS jade at least!\"\n\nSo saying, he unlocks his door, gropes his way into his murky rooms,\nlights his candles, and looks about him. It is too dark to see much\nof the Allegory overhead there, but that importunate Roman, who is\nfor ever toppling out of the clouds and pointing, is at his old work\npretty distinctly. Not honouring him with much attention, Mr.\nTulkinghorn takes a small key from his pocket, unlocks a drawer in\nwhich there is another key, which unlocks a chest in which there is\nanother, and so comes to the cellar-key, with which he prepares to\ndescend to the regions of old wine. He is going towards the door with\na candle in his hand when a knock comes.\n\n\"Who's this? Aye, aye, mistress, it's you, is it? You appear at a\ngood time. I have just been hearing of you. Now! What do you want?\"\n\nHe stands the candle on the chimney-piece in the clerk's hall and\ntaps his dry cheek with the key as he addresses these words of\nwelcome to Mademoiselle Hortense. That feline personage, with her\nlips tightly shut and her eyes looking out at him sideways, softly\ncloses the door before replying.\n\n\"I have had great deal of trouble to find you, sir.\"\n\n\"HAVE you!\"\n\n\"I have been here very often, sir. It has always been said to me, he\nis not at home, he is engage, he is this and that, he is not for\nyou.\"\n\n\"Quite right, and quite true.\"\n\n\"Not true. Lies!\"\n\nAt times there is a suddenness in the manner of Mademoiselle Hortense\nso like a bodily spring upon the subject of it that such subject\ninvoluntarily starts and fails back. It is Mr. Tulkinghorn's case at\npresent, though Mademoiselle Hortense, with her eyes almost shut up\n(but still looking out sideways), is only smiling contemptuously and\nshaking her head.\n\n\"Now, mistress,\" says the lawyer, tapping the key hastily upon the\nchimney-piece. \"If you have anything to say, say it, say it.\"\n\n\"Sir, you have not use me well. You have been mean and shabby.\"\n\n\"Mean and shabby, eh?\" returns the lawyer, rubbing his nose with the\nkey.\n\n\"Yes. What is it that I tell you? You know you have. You have\nattrapped me--catched me--to give you information; you have asked me\nto show you the dress of mine my Lady must have wore that night, you\nhave prayed me to come in it here to meet that boy. Say! Is it not?\"\nMademoiselle Hortense makes another spring.\n\n\"You are a vixen, a vixen!\" Mr. Tulkinghorn seems to meditate as he\nlooks distrustfully at her, then he replies, \"Well, wench, well. I\npaid you.\"\n\n\"You paid me!\" she repeats with fierce disdain. \"Two sovereign! I\nhave not change them, I re-fuse them, I des-pise them, I throw them\nfrom me!\" Which she literally does, taking them out of her bosom as\nshe speaks and flinging them with such violence on the floor that\nthey jerk up again into the light before they roll away into corners\nand slowly settle down there after spinning vehemently.\n\n\"Now!\" says Mademoiselle Hortense, darkening her large eyes again.\n\"You have paid me? Eh, my God, oh yes!\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn rubs his head with the key while she entertains\nherself with a sarcastic laugh.\n\n\"You must be rich, my fair friend,\" he composedly observes, \"to throw\nmoney about in that way!\"\n\n\"I AM rich,\" she returns. \"I am very rich in hate. I hate my Lady, of\nall my heart. You know that.\"\n\n\"Know it? How should I know it?\"\n\n\"Because you have known it perfectly before you prayed me to give you\nthat information. Because you have known perfectly that I was\nen-r-r-r-raged!\" It appears impossible for mademoiselle to roll the\nletter \"r\" sufficiently in this word, notwithstanding that she\nassists her energetic delivery by clenching both her hands and\nsetting all her teeth.\n\n\"Oh! I knew that, did I?\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, examining the wards\nof the key.\n\n\"Yes, without doubt. I am not blind. You have made sure of me because\nyou knew that. You had reason! I det-est her.\" Mademoiselle Hortense folds her\narms and throws this last remark at him over one of her shoulders.\n\n\"Having said this, have you anything else to say, mademoiselle?\"\n\n\"I am not yet placed. Place me well. Find me a good condition! If you\ncannot, or do not choose to do that, employ me to pursue her, to\nchase her, to disgrace and to dishonour her. I will help you well,\nand with a good will. It is what YOU do. Do I not know that?\"\n\n\"You appear to know a good deal,\" Mr. Tulkinghorn retorts.\n\n\"Do I not? Is it that I am so weak as to believe, like a child, that\nI come here in that dress to rec-eive that boy only to decide a\nlittle bet, a wager? Eh, my God, oh yes!\" In this reply, down to the\nword \"wager\" inclusive, mademoiselle has been ironically polite and\ntender, then as suddenly dashed into the bitterest and most defiant\nscorn, with her black eyes in one and the same moment very nearly\nshut and staringly wide open.\n\n\"Now, let us see,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, tapping his chin with the\nkey and looking imperturbably at her, \"how this matter stands.\"\n\n\"Ah! Let us see,\" mademoiselle assents, with many angry and tight\nnods of her head.\n\n\"You come here to make a remarkably modest demand, which you have\njust stated, and it not being conceded, you will come again.\"\n\n\"And again,\" says mademoiselle with more tight and angry nods. \"And\nyet again. And yet again. And many times again. In effect, for ever!\"\n\n\"And not only here, but you will go to Mr. Snagsby's too, perhaps?\nThat visit not succeeding either, you will go again perhaps?\"\n\n\"And again,\" repeats mademoiselle, cataleptic with determination.\n\"And yet again. And yet again. And many times again. In effect, for\never!\"\n\n\"Very well. Now, Mademoiselle Hortense, let me recommend you to take\nthe candle and pick up that money of yours. I think you will find it\nbehind the clerk's partition in the corner yonder.\"\n\nShe merely throws a laugh over her shoulder and stands her ground\nwith folded arms.\n\n\"You will not, eh?\"\n\n\"No, I will not!\"\n\n\"So much the poorer you; so much the richer I! Look, mistress, this\nis the key of my wine-cellar. It is a large key, but the keys of\nprisons are larger. In this city there are houses of correction\n(where the treadmills are, for women), the gates of which are very\nstrong and heavy, and no doubt the keys too. I am afraid a lady of\nyour spirit and activity would find it an inconvenience to have one\nof those keys turned upon her for any length of time. What do you\nthink?\"\n\n\"I think,\" mademoiselle replies without any action and in a clear,\nobliging voice, \"that you are a miserable wretch.\"\n\n\"Probably,\" returns Mr. Tulkinghorn, quietly blowing his nose. \"But I\ndon't ask what you think of myself; I ask what you think of the\nprison.\"\n\n\"Nothing. What does it matter to me?\"\n\n\"Why, it matters this much, mistress,\" says the lawyer, deliberately\nputting away his handkerchief and adjusting his frill; \"the law is so\ndespotic here that it interferes to prevent any of our good English\ncitizens from being troubled, even by a lady's visits against his\ndesire. And on his complaining that he is so troubled, it takes hold\nof the troublesome lady and shuts her up in prison under hard\ndiscipline. Turns the key upon her, mistress.\" Illustrating with the\ncellar-key.\n\n\"Truly?\" returns mademoiselle in the same pleasant voice. \"That is\ndroll! But--my faith!--still what does it matter to me?\"\n\n\"My fair friend,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, \"make another visit here, or\nat Mr. Snagsby's, and you shall learn.\"\n\n\"In that case you will send me to the prison, perhaps?\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\"\n\nIt would be contradictory for one in mademoiselle's state of\nagreeable jocularity to foam at the mouth, otherwise a tigerish\nexpansion thereabouts might look as if a very little more would make\nher do it.\n\n\"In a word, mistress,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, \"I am sorry to be\nunpolite, but if you ever present yourself uninvited here--or\nthere--again, I will give you over to the police. Their gallantry is\ngreat, but they carry troublesome people through the streets in an\nignominious manner, strapped down on a board, my good wench.\"\n\n\"I will prove you,\" whispers mademoiselle, stretching out her hand,\n\"I will try if you dare to do it!\"\n\n\"And if,\" pursues the lawyer without minding her, \"I place you in\nthat good condition of being locked up in jail, it will be some time\nbefore you find yourself at liberty again.\"\n\n\"I will prove you,\" repeats mademoiselle in her former whisper.\n\n\"And now,\" proceeds the lawyer, still without minding her, \"you had\nbetter go. Think twice before you come here again.\"\n\n\"Think you,\" she answers, \"twice two hundred times!\"\n\n\"You were dismissed by your lady, you know,\" Mr. Tulkinghorn\nobserves, following her out upon the staircase, \"as the most\nimplacable and unmanageable of women. Now turn over a new leaf and\ntake warning by what I say to you. For what I say, I mean; and what I\nthreaten, I will do, mistress.\"\n\nShe goes down without answering or looking behind her. When she is\ngone, he goes down too, and returning with his cobweb-covered bottle,\ndevotes himself to a leisurely enjoyment of its contents, now and\nthen, as he throws his head back in his chair, catching sight of the\npertinacious Roman pointing from the ceiling.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIII\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nIt matters little now how much I thought of my living mother who had\ntold me evermore to consider her dead. I could not venture to\napproach her or to communicate with her in writing, for my sense of\nthe peril in which her life was passed was only to be equalled by my\nfears of increasing it. Knowing that my mere existence as a living\ncreature was an unforeseen danger in her way, I could not always\nconquer that terror of myself which had seized me when I first knew\nthe secret. At no time did I dare to utter her name. I felt as if I\ndid not even dare to hear it. If the conversation anywhere, when I\nwas present, took that direction, as it sometimes naturally did, I\ntried not to hear: I mentally counted, repeated something that I\nknew, or went out of the room. I am conscious now that I often did\nthese things when there can have been no danger of her being spoken\nof, but I did them in the dread I had of hearing anything that might\nlead to her betrayal, and to her betrayal through me.\n\nIt matters little now how often I recalled the tones of my mother's\nvoice, wondered whether I should ever hear it again as I so longed to\ndo, and thought how strange and desolate it was that it should be so\nnew to me. It matters little that I watched for every public mention\nof my mother's name; that I passed and repassed the door of her house\nin town, loving it, but afraid to look at it; that I once sat in the\ntheatre when my mother was there and saw me, and when we were so wide\nasunder before the great company of all degrees that any link or\nconfidence between us seemed a dream. It is all, all over. My lot has\nbeen so blest that I can relate little of myself which is not a story\nof goodness and generosity in others. I may well pass that little and\ngo on.\n\nWhen we were settled at home again, Ada and I had many conversations\nwith my guardian of which Richard was the theme. My dear girl was\ndeeply grieved that he should do their kind cousin so much wrong, but\nshe was so faithful to Richard that she could not bear to blame him\neven for that. My guardian was assured of it, and never coupled his\nname with a word of reproof. \"Rick is mistaken, my dear,\" he would\nsay to her. \"Well, well! We have all been mistaken over and over\nagain. We must trust to you and time to set him right.\"\n\nWe knew afterwards what we suspected then, that he did not trust to\ntime until he had often tried to open Richard's eyes. That he had\nwritten to him, gone to him, talked with him, tried every gentle and\npersuasive art his kindness could devise. Our poor devoted Richard\nwas deaf and blind to all. If he were wrong, he would make amends\nwhen the Chancery suit was over. If he were groping in the dark,\nhe could not do better than do his utmost to clear away those\nclouds in which so much was confused and obscured. Suspicion and\nmisunderstanding were the fault of the suit? Then let him work the\nsuit out and come through it to his right mind. This was his\nunvarying reply. Jarndyce and Jarndyce had obtained such possession\nof his whole nature that it was impossible to place any consideration\nbefore him which he did not, with a distorted kind of reason, make a\nnew argument in favour of his doing what he did. \"So that it is even\nmore mischievous,\" said my guardian once to me, \"to remonstrate with\nthe poor dear fellow than to leave him alone.\"\n\nI took one of these opportunities of mentioning my doubts of Mr.\nSkimpole as a good adviser for Richard.\n\n\"Adviser!\" returned my guardian, laughing, \"My dear, who would advise\nwith Skimpole?\"\n\n\"Encourager would perhaps have been a better word,\" said I.\n\n\"Encourager!\" returned my guardian again. \"Who could be encouraged by\nSkimpole?\"\n\n\"Not Richard?\" I asked.\n\n\"No,\" he replied. \"Such an unworldly, uncalculating, gossamer\ncreature is a relief to him and an amusement. But as to advising or\nencouraging or occupying a serious station towards anybody or\nanything, it is simply not to be thought of in such a child as\nSkimpole.\"\n\n\"Pray, cousin John,\" said Ada, who had just joined us and now looked\nover my shoulder, \"what made him such a child?\"\n\n\"What made him such a child?\" inquired my guardian, rubbing his head,\na little at a loss.\n\n\"Yes, cousin John.\"\n\n\"Why,\" he slowly replied, roughening his head more and more, \"he is\nall sentiment, and--and susceptibility, and--and sensibility,\nand--and imagination. And these qualities are not regulated in him,\nsomehow. I suppose the people who admired him for them in his youth\nattached too much importance to them and too little to any training\nthat would have balanced and adjusted them, and so he became what he\nis. Hey?\" said my guardian, stopping short and looking at us\nhopefully. \"What do you think, you two?\"\n\nAda, glancing at me, said she thought it was a pity he should be an\nexpense to Richard.\n\n\"So it is, so it is,\" returned my guardian hurriedly. \"That must not\nbe. We must arrange that. I must prevent it. That will never do.\"\n\nAnd I said I thought it was to be regretted that he had ever\nintroduced Richard to Mr. Vholes for a present of five pounds.\n\n\"Did he?\" said my guardian with a passing shade of vexation on his\nface. \"But there you have the man. There you have the man! There is\nnothing mercenary in that with him. He has no idea of the value of\nmoney. He introduces Rick, and then he is good friends with Mr.\nVholes and borrows five pounds of him. He means nothing by it and\nthinks nothing of it. He told you himself, I'll be bound, my dear?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes!\" said I.\n\n\"Exactly!\" cried my guardian, quite triumphant. \"There you have the\nman! If he had meant any harm by it or was conscious of any harm in\nit, he wouldn't tell it. He tells it as he does it in mere\nsimplicity. But you shall see him in his own home, and then you'll\nunderstand him better. We must pay a visit to Harold Skimpole and\ncaution him on these points. Lord bless you, my dears, an infant, an\ninfant!\"\n\nIn pursuance of this plan, we went into London on an early day and\npresented ourselves at Mr. Skimpole's door.\n\nHe lived in a place called the Polygon, in Somers Town, where there\nwere at that time a number of poor Spanish refugees walking about in\ncloaks, smoking little paper cigars. Whether he was a better tenant\nthan one might have supposed, in consequence of his friend Somebody\nalways paying his rent at last, or whether his inaptitude for\nbusiness rendered it particularly difficult to turn him out, I don't\nknow; but he had occupied the same house some years. It was in a\nstate of dilapidation quite equal to our expectation. Two or three of\nthe area railings were gone, the water-butt was broken, the knocker\nwas loose, the bell-handle had been pulled off a long time to judge\nfrom the rusty state of the wire, and dirty footprints on the steps\nwere the only signs of its being inhabited.\n\nA slatternly full-blown girl who seemed to be bursting out at the\nrents in her gown and the cracks in her shoes like an over-ripe berry\nanswered our knock by opening the door a very little way and stopping\nup the gap with her figure. As she knew Mr. Jarndyce (indeed Ada and\nI both thought that she evidently associated him with the receipt of\nher wages), she immediately relented and allowed us to pass in. The\nlock of the door being in a disabled condition, she then applied\nherself to securing it with the chain, which was not in good action\neither, and said would we go upstairs?\n\nWe went upstairs to the first floor, still seeing no other furniture\nthan the dirty footprints. Mr. Jarndyce without further ceremony\nentered a room there, and we followed. It was dingy enough and not at\nall clean, but furnished with an odd kind of shabby luxury, with a\nlarge footstool, a sofa, and plenty of cushions, an easy-chair, and\nplenty of pillows, a piano, books, drawing materials, music,\nnewspapers, and a few sketches and pictures. A broken pane of glass\nin one of the dirty windows was papered and wafered over, but there\nwas a little plate of hothouse nectarines on the table, and there was\nanother of grapes, and another of sponge-cakes, and there was a\nbottle of light wine. Mr. Skimpole himself reclined upon the sofa in\na dressing-gown, drinking some fragrant coffee from an old china\ncup--it was then about mid-day--and looking at a collection of\nwallflowers in the balcony.\n\nHe was not in the least disconcerted by our appearance, but rose and\nreceived us in his usual airy manner.\n\n\"Here I am, you see!\" he said when we were seated, not without some\nlittle difficulty, the greater part of the chairs being broken. \"Here\nI am! This is my frugal breakfast. Some men want legs of beef and\nmutton for breakfast; I don't. Give me my peach, my cup of coffee,\nand my claret; I am content. I don't want them for themselves, but\nthey remind me of the sun. There's nothing solar about legs of beef\nand mutton. Mere animal satisfaction!\"\n\n\"This is our friend's consulting-room (or would be, if he ever\nprescribed), his sanctum, his studio,\" said my guardian to us.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mr. Skimpole, turning his bright face about, \"this is the\nbird's cage. This is where the bird lives and sings. They pluck his\nfeathers now and then and clip his wings, but he sings, he sings!\"\n\nHe handed us the grapes, repeating in his radiant way, \"He sings! Not\nan ambitious note, but still he sings.\"\n\n\"These are very fine,\" said my guardian. \"A present?\"\n\n\"No,\" he answered. \"No! Some amiable gardener sells them. His man\nwanted to know, when he brought them last evening, whether he should\nwait for the money. 'Really, my friend,' I said, 'I think not--if\nyour time is of any value to you.' I suppose it was, for he went\naway.\"\n\nMy guardian looked at us with a smile, as though he asked us, \"Is it\npossible to be worldly with this baby?\"\n\n\"This is a day,\" said Mr. Skimpole, gaily taking a little claret in a\ntumbler, \"that will ever be remembered here. We shall call it Saint\nClare and Saint Summerson day. You must see my daughters. I have a\nblue-eyed daughter who is my Beauty daughter, I have a Sentiment\ndaughter, and I have a Comedy daughter. You must see them all.\nThey'll be enchanted.\"\n\nHe was going to summon them when my guardian interposed and asked him\nto pause a moment, as he wished to say a word to him first. \"My dear\nJarndyce,\" he cheerfully replied, going back to his sofa, \"as many\nmoments as you please. Time is no object here. We never know what\no'clock it is, and we never care. Not the way to get on in life,\nyou'll tell me? Certainly. But we DON'T get on in life. We don't\npretend to do it.\"\n\nMy guardian looked at us again, plainly saying, \"You hear him?\"\n\n\"Now, Harold,\" he began, \"the word I have to say relates to Rick.\"\n\n\"The dearest friend I have!\" returned Mr. Skimpole cordially. \"I\nsuppose he ought not to be my dearest friend, as he is not on terms\nwith you. But he is, I can't help it; he is full of youthful poetry,\nand I love him. If you don't like it, I can't help it. I love him.\"\n\nThe engaging frankness with which he made this declaration really had\na disinterested appearance and captivated my guardian, if not, for\nthe moment, Ada too.\n\n\"You are welcome to love him as much as you like,\" returned Mr.\nJarndyce, \"but we must save his pocket, Harold.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Mr. Skimpole. \"His pocket? Now you are coming to what I\ndon't understand.\" Taking a little more claret and dipping one of the\ncakes in it, he shook his head and smiled at Ada and me with an\ningenuous foreboding that he never could be made to understand.\n\n\"If you go with him here or there,\" said my guardian plainly, \"you\nmust not let him pay for both.\"\n\n\"My dear Jarndyce,\" returned Mr. Skimpole, his genial face irradiated\nby the comicality of this idea, \"what am I to do? If he takes me\nanywhere, I must go. And how can I pay? I never have any money. If I\nhad any money, I don't know anything about it. Suppose I say to a\nman, how much? Suppose the man says to me seven and sixpence? I know\nnothing about seven and sixpence. It is impossible for me to pursue\nthe subject with any consideration for the man. I don't go about\nasking busy people what seven and sixpence is in Moorish--which I\ndon't understand. Why should I go about asking them what seven and\nsixpence is in Money--which I don't understand?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said my guardian, by no means displeased with this artless\nreply, \"if you come to any kind of journeying with Rick, you must\nborrow the money of me (never breathing the least allusion to that\ncircumstance), and leave the calculation to him.\"\n\n\"My dear Jarndyce,\" returned Mr. Skimpole, \"I will do anything to\ngive you pleasure, but it seems an idle form--a superstition.\nBesides, I give you my word, Miss Clare and my dear Miss Summerson, I\nthought Mr. Carstone was immensely rich. I thought he had only to\nmake over something, or to sign a bond, or a draft, or a cheque, or a\nbill, or to put something on a file somewhere, to bring down a shower\nof money.\"\n\n\"Indeed it is not so, sir,\" said Ada. \"He is poor.\"\n\n\"No, really?\" returned Mr. Skimpole with his bright smile. \"You\nsurprise me.\n\n\"And not being the richer for trusting in a rotten reed,\" said my\nguardian, laying his hand emphatically on the sleeve of Mr.\nSkimpole's dressing-gown, \"be you very careful not to encourage him\nin that reliance, Harold.\"\n\n\"My dear good friend,\" returned Mr. Skimpole, \"and my dear Miss\nSimmerson, and my dear Miss Clare, how can I do that? It's business,\nand I don't know business. It is he who encourages me. He emerges\nfrom great feats of business, presents the brightest prospects before\nme as their result, and calls upon me to admire them. I do admire\nthem--as bright prospects. But I know no more about them, and I tell\nhim so.\"\n\nThe helpless kind of candour with which he presented this before us,\nthe light-hearted manner in which he was amused by his innocence, the\nfantastic way in which he took himself under his own protection and\nargued about that curious person, combined with the delightful ease\nof everything he said exactly to make out my guardian's case. The\nmore I saw of him, the more unlikely it seemed to me, when he was\npresent, that he could design, conceal, or influence anything; and\nyet the less likely that appeared when he was not present, and the\nless agreeable it was to think of his having anything to do with any\none for whom I cared.\n\nHearing that his examination (as he called it) was now over, Mr.\nSkimpole left the room with a radiant face to fetch his daughters\n(his sons had run away at various times), leaving my guardian quite\ndelighted by the manner in which he had vindicated his childish\ncharacter. He soon came back, bringing with him the three young\nladies and Mrs. Skimpole, who had once been a beauty but was now a\ndelicate high-nosed invalid suffering under a complication of\ndisorders.\n\n\"This,\" said Mr. Skimpole, \"is my Beauty daughter, Arethusa--plays\nand sings odds and ends like her father. This is my Sentiment\ndaughter, Laura--plays a little but don't sing. This is my Comedy\ndaughter, Kitty--sings a little but don't play. We all draw a little\nand compose a little, and none of us have any idea of time or money.\"\n\nMrs. Skimpole sighed, I thought, as if she would have been glad to\nstrike out this item in the family attainments. I also thought that\nshe rather impressed her sigh upon my guardian and that she took\nevery opportunity of throwing in another.\n\n\"It is pleasant,\" said Mr. Skimpole, turning his sprightly eyes from\none to the other of us, \"and it is whimsically interesting to trace\npeculiarities in families. In this family we are all children, and I\nam the youngest.\"\n\nThe daughters, who appeared to be very fond of him, were amused by\nthis droll fact, particularly the Comedy daughter.\n\n\"My dears, it is true,\" said Mr. Skimpole, \"is it not? So it is, and\nso it must be, because like the dogs in the hymn, 'it is our nature\nto.' Now, here is Miss Summerson with a fine administrative capacity\nand a knowledge of details perfectly surprising. It will sound very\nstrange in Miss Summerson's ears, I dare say, that we know nothing\nabout chops in this house. But we don't, not the least. We can't cook\nanything whatever. A needle and thread we don't know how to use. We\nadmire the people who possess the practical wisdom we want, but we\ndon't quarrel with them. Then why should they quarrel with us? Live\nand let live, we say to them. Live upon your practical wisdom, and\nlet us live upon you!\"\n\nHe laughed, but as usual seemed quite candid and really to mean what\nhe said.\n\n\"We have sympathy, my roses,\" said Mr. Skimpole, \"sympathy for\neverything. Have we not?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, papa!\" cried the three daughters.\n\n\"In fact, that is our family department,\" said Mr. Skimpole, \"in this\nhurly-burly of life. We are capable of looking on and of being\ninterested, and we DO look on, and we ARE interested. What more can\nwe do? Here is my Beauty daughter, married these three years. Now I\ndare say her marrying another child, and having two more, was all\nwrong in point of political economy, but it was very agreeable. We\nhad our little festivities on those occasions and exchanged social\nideas. She brought her young husband home one day, and they and their\nyoung fledglings have their nest upstairs. I dare say at some time or\nother Sentiment and Comedy will bring THEIR husbands home and have\nTHEIR nests upstairs too. So we get on, we don't know how, but\nsomehow.\"\n\nShe looked very young indeed to be the mother of two children, and I\ncould not help pitying both her and them. It was evident that the\nthree daughters had grown up as they could and had had just as little\nhaphazard instruction as qualified them to be their father's\nplaythings in his idlest hours. His pictorial tastes were consulted,\nI observed, in their respective styles of wearing their hair, the\nBeauty daughter being in the classic manner, the Sentiment daughter\nluxuriant and flowing, and the Comedy daughter in the arch style,\nwith a good deal of sprightly forehead, and vivacious little curls\ndotted about the corners of her eyes. They were dressed to\ncorrespond, though in a most untidy and negligent way.\n\nAda and I conversed with these young ladies and found them\nwonderfully like their father. In the meanwhile Mr. Jarndyce (who had\nbeen rubbing his head to a great extent, and hinted at a change in\nthe wind) talked with Mrs. Skimpole in a corner, where we could not\nhelp hearing the chink of money. Mr. Skimpole had previously\nvolunteered to go home with us and had withdrawn to dress himself for\nthe purpose.\n\n\"My roses,\" he said when he came back, \"take care of mama. She is\npoorly to-day. By going home with Mr. Jarndyce for a day or two, I\nshall hear the larks sing and preserve my amiability. It has been\ntried, you know, and would be tried again if I remained at home.\"\n\n\"That bad man!\" said the Comedy daughter.\n\n\"At the very time when he knew papa was lying ill by his wallflowers,\nlooking at the blue sky,\" Laura complained.\n\n\"And when the smell of hay was in the air!\" said Arethusa.\n\n\"It showed a want of poetry in the man,\" Mr. Skimpole assented, but\nwith perfect good humour. \"It was coarse. There was an absence of the\nfiner touches of humanity in it! My daughters have taken great\noffence,\" he explained to us, \"at an honest man--\"\n\n\"Not honest, papa. Impossible!\" they all three protested.\n\n\"At a rough kind of fellow--a sort of human hedgehog rolled up,\" said\nMr. Skimpole, \"who is a baker in this neighbourhood and from whom we\nborrowed a couple of arm-chairs. We wanted a couple of arm-chairs,\nand we hadn't got them, and therefore of course we looked to a man\nwho HAD got them, to lend them. Well! This morose person lent them,\nand we wore them out. When they were worn out, he wanted them back.\nHe had them back. He was contented, you will say. Not at all. He\nobjected to their being worn. I reasoned with him, and pointed out\nhis mistake. I said, 'Can you, at your time of life, be so\nheadstrong, my friend, as to persist that an arm-chair is a thing to\nput upon a shelf and look at? That it is an object to contemplate, to\nsurvey from a distance, to consider from a point of sight? Don't you\nKNOW that these arm-chairs were borrowed to be sat upon?' He was\nunreasonable and unpersuadable and used intemperate language. Being\nas patient as I am at this minute, I addressed another appeal to him.\nI said, 'Now, my good man, however our business capacities may vary,\nwe are all children of one great mother, Nature. On this blooming\nsummer morning here you see me' (I was on the sofa) 'with flowers\nbefore me, fruit upon the table, the cloudless sky above me, the air\nfull of fragrance, contemplating Nature. I entreat you, by our common\nbrotherhood, not to interpose between me and a subject so sublime,\nthe absurd figure of an angry baker!' But he did,\" said Mr. Skimpole,\nraising his laughing eyes in playful astonishment; \"he did interpose\nthat ridiculous figure, and he does, and he will again. And therefore\nI am very glad to get out of his way and to go home with my friend\nJarndyce.\"\n\nIt seemed to escape his consideration that Mrs. Skimpole and the\ndaughters remained behind to encounter the baker, but this was so old\na story to all of them that it had become a matter of course. He took\nleave of his family with a tenderness as airy and graceful as any\nother aspect in which he showed himself and rode away with us in\nperfect harmony of mind. We had an opportunity of seeing through some\nopen doors, as we went downstairs, that his own apartment was a\npalace to the rest of the house.\n\nI could have no anticipation, and I had none, that something very\nstartling to me at the moment, and ever memorable to me in what\nensued from it, was to happen before this day was out. Our guest was\nin such spirits on the way home that I could do nothing but listen to\nhim and wonder at him; nor was I alone in this, for Ada yielded to\nthe same fascination. As to my guardian, the wind, which had\nthreatened to become fixed in the east when we left Somers Town,\nveered completely round before we were a couple of miles from it.\n\nWhether of questionable childishness or not in any other matters, Mr.\nSkimpole had a child's enjoyment of change and bright weather. In no\nway wearied by his sallies on the road, he was in the drawing-room\nbefore any of us; and I heard him at the piano while I was yet\nlooking after my housekeeping, singing refrains of barcaroles and\ndrinking songs, Italian and German, by the score.\n\nWe were all assembled shortly before dinner, and he was still at the\npiano idly picking out in his luxurious way little strains of music,\nand talking between whiles of finishing some sketches of the ruined\nold Verulam wall to-morrow, which he had begun a year or two ago and\nhad got tired of, when a card was brought in and my guardian read\naloud in a surprised voice, \"Sir Leicester Dedlock!\"\n\nThe visitor was in the room while it was yet turning round with me\nand before I had the power to stir. If I had had it, I should have\nhurried away. I had not even the presence of mind, in my giddiness,\nto retire to Ada in the window, or to see the window, or to know\nwhere it was. I heard my name and found that my guardian was\npresenting me before I could move to a chair.\n\n\"Pray be seated, Sir Leicester.\"\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce,\" said Sir Leicester in reply as he bowed and seated\nhimself, \"I do myself the honour of calling here--\"\n\n\"You do ME the honour, Sir Leicester.\"\n\n\"Thank you--of calling here on my road from Lincolnshire to express\nmy regret that any cause of complaint, however strong, that I may\nhave against a gentleman who--who is known to you and has been your\nhost, and to whom therefore I will make no farther reference, should\nhave prevented you, still more ladies under your escort and charge,\nfrom seeing whatever little there may be to gratify a polite and\nrefined taste at my house, Chesney Wold.\"\n\n\"You are exceedingly obliging, Sir Leicester, and on behalf of those\nladies (who are present) and for myself, I thank you very much.\"\n\n\"It is possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that the gentleman to whom, for the\nreasons I have mentioned, I refrain from making further allusion--it\nis possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that that gentleman may have done me the\nhonour so far to misapprehend my character as to induce you to\nbelieve that you would not have been received by my local\nestablishment in Lincolnshire with that urbanity, that courtesy,\nwhich its members are instructed to show to all ladies and gentlemen\nwho present themselves at that house. I merely beg to observe, sir,\nthat the fact is the reverse.\"\n\nMy guardian delicately dismissed this remark without making any\nverbal answer.\n\n\"It has given me pain, Mr. Jarndyce,\" Sir Leicester weightily\nproceeded. \"I assure you, sir, it has given--me--pain--to learn from\nthe housekeeper at Chesney Wold that a gentleman who was in your\ncompany in that part of the county, and who would appear to possess a\ncultivated taste for the fine arts, was likewise deterred by some\nsuch cause from examining the family pictures with that leisure, that\nattention, that care, which he might have desired to bestow upon them\nand which some of them might possibly have repaid.\" Here he produced\na card and read, with much gravity and a little trouble, through his\neye-glass, \"Mr. Hirrold--Herald--Harold--Skampling--Skumpling--I beg\nyour pardon--Skimpole.\"\n\n\"This is Mr. Harold Skimpole,\" said my guardian, evidently surprised.\n\n\"Oh!\" exclaimed Sir Leicester, \"I am happy to meet Mr. Skimpole and\nto have the opportunity of tendering my personal regrets. I hope,\nsir, that when you again find yourself in my part of the county, you\nwill be under no similar sense of restraint.\"\n\n\"You are very obliging, Sir Leicester Dedlock. So encouraged, I shall\ncertainly give myself the pleasure and advantage of another visit to\nyour beautiful house. The owners of such places as Chesney Wold,\"\nsaid Mr. Skimpole with his usual happy and easy air, \"are public\nbenefactors. They are good enough to maintain a number of delightful\nobjects for the admiration and pleasure of us poor men; and not to\nreap all the admiration and pleasure that they yield is to be\nungrateful to our benefactors.\"\n\nSir Leicester seemed to approve of this sentiment highly. \"An artist,\nsir?\"\n\n\"No,\" returned Mr. Skimpole. \"A perfectly idle man. A mere amateur.\"\n\nSir Leicester seemed to approve of this even more. He hoped he might\nhave the good fortune to be at Chesney Wold when Mr. Skimpole next\ncame down into Lincolnshire. Mr. Skimpole professed himself much\nflattered and honoured.\n\n\"Mr. Skimpole mentioned,\" pursued Sir Leicester, addressing himself\nagain to my guardian, \"mentioned to the housekeeper, who, as he may\nhave observed, is an old and attached retainer of the family--\"\n\n(\"That is, when I walked through the house the other day, on the\noccasion of my going down to visit Miss Summerson and Miss Clare,\"\nMr. Skimpole airily explained to us.)\n\n\"--That the friend with whom he had formerly been staying there was\nMr. Jarndyce.\" Sir Leicester bowed to the bearer of that name. \"And\nhence I became aware of the circumstance for which I have professed\nmy regret. That this should have occurred to any gentleman, Mr.\nJarndyce, but especially a gentleman formerly known to Lady Dedlock,\nand indeed claiming some distant connexion with her, and for whom (as\nI learn from my Lady herself) she entertains a high respect, does, I\nassure you, give--me--pain.\"\n\n\"Pray say no more about it, Sir Leicester,\" returned my guardian. \"I\nam very sensible, as I am sure we all are, of your consideration.\nIndeed the mistake was mine, and I ought to apologize for it.\"\n\nI had not once looked up. I had not seen the visitor and had not even\nappeared to myself to hear the conversation. It surprises me to find\nthat I can recall it, for it seemed to make no impression on me as it\npassed. I heard them speaking, but my mind was so confused and my\ninstinctive avoidance of this gentleman made his presence so\ndistressing to me that I thought I understood nothing, through the\nrushing in my head and the beating of my heart.\n\n\"I mentioned the subject to Lady Dedlock,\" said Sir Leicester,\nrising, \"and my Lady informed me that she had had the pleasure of\nexchanging a few words with Mr. Jarndyce and his wards on the\noccasion of an accidental meeting during their sojourn in the\nvicinity. Permit me, Mr. Jarndyce, to repeat to yourself, and to\nthese ladies, the assurance I have already tendered to Mr. Skimpole.\nCircumstances undoubtedly prevent my saying that it would afford me\nany gratification to hear that Mr. Boythorn had favoured my house\nwith his presence, but those circumstances are confined to that\ngentleman himself and do not extend beyond him.\"\n\n\"You know my old opinion of him,\" said Mr. Skimpole, lightly\nappealing to us. \"An amiable bull who is determined to make every\ncolour scarlet!\"\n\nSir Leicester Dedlock coughed as if he could not possibly hear\nanother word in reference to such an individual and took his leave\nwith great ceremony and politeness. I got to my own room with all\npossible speed and remained there until I had recovered my\nself-command. It had been very much disturbed, but I was thankful to\nfind when I went downstairs again that they only rallied me for\nhaving been shy and mute before the great Lincolnshire baronet.\n\nBy that time I had made up my mind that the period was come when I\nmust tell my guardian what I knew. The possibility of my being\nbrought into contact with my mother, of my being taken to her house,\neven of Mr. Skimpole's, however distantly associated with me,\nreceiving kindnesses and obligations from her husband, was so painful\nthat I felt I could no longer guide myself without his assistance.\n\nWhen we had retired for the night, and Ada and I had had our usual\ntalk in our pretty room, I went out at my door again and sought my\nguardian among his books. I knew he always read at that hour, and as\nI drew near I saw the light shining out into the passage from his\nreading-lamp.\n\n\"May I come in, guardian?\"\n\n\"Surely, little woman. What's the matter?\"\n\n\"Nothing is the matter. I thought I would like to take this quiet\ntime of saying a word to you about myself.\"\n\nHe put a chair for me, shut his book, and put it by, and turned his\nkind attentive face towards me. I could not help observing that it\nwore that curious expression I had observed in it once before--on\nthat night when he had said that he was in no trouble which I could\nreadily understand.\n\n\"What concerns you, my dear Esther,\" said he, \"concerns us all. You\ncannot be more ready to speak than I am to hear.\"\n\n\"I know that, guardian. But I have such need of your advice and\nsupport. Oh! You don't know how much need I have to-night.\"\n\nHe looked unprepared for my being so earnest, and even a little\nalarmed.\n\n\"Or how anxious I have been to speak to you,\" said I, \"ever since the\nvisitor was here to-day.\"\n\n\"The visitor, my dear! Sir Leicester Dedlock?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nHe folded his arms and sat looking at me with an air of the\nprofoundest astonishment, awaiting what I should say next. I did not\nknow how to prepare him.\n\n\"Why, Esther,\" said he, breaking into a smile, \"our visitor and you\nare the two last persons on earth I should have thought of connecting\ntogether!\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, guardian, I know it. And I too, but a little while ago.\"\n\nThe smile passed from his face, and he became graver than before. He\ncrossed to the door to see that it was shut (but I had seen to that)\nand resumed his seat before me.\n\n\"Guardian,\" said I, \"do you remember, when we were overtaken by the\nthunder-storm, Lady Dedlock's speaking to you of her sister?\"\n\n\"Of course. Of course I do.\"\n\n\"And reminding you that she and her sister had differed, had gone\ntheir several ways?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"Why did they separate, guardian?\"\n\nHis face quite altered as he looked at me. \"My child, what questions\nare these! I never knew. No one but themselves ever did know, I\nbelieve. Who could tell what the secrets of those two handsome and\nproud women were! You have seen Lady Dedlock. If you had ever seen\nher sister, you would know her to have been as resolute and haughty\nas she.\"\n\n\"Oh, guardian, I have seen her many and many a time!\"\n\n\"Seen her?\"\n\nHe paused a little, biting his lip. \"Then, Esther, when you spoke to\nme long ago of Boythorn, and when I told you that he was all but\nmarried once, and that the lady did not die, but died to him, and\nthat that time had had its influence on his later life--did you know\nit all, and know who the lady was?\"\n\n\"No, guardian,\" I returned, fearful of the light that dimly broke\nupon me. \"Nor do I know yet.\"\n\n\"Lady Dedlock's sister.\"\n\n\"And why,\" I could scarcely ask him, \"why, guardian, pray tell me why\nwere THEY parted?\"\n\n\"It was her act, and she kept its motives in her inflexible heart. He\nafterwards did conjecture (but it was mere conjecture) that some\ninjury which her haughty spirit had received in her cause of quarrel\nwith her sister had wounded her beyond all reason, but she wrote him\nthat from the date of that letter she died to him--as in literal\ntruth she did--and that the resolution was exacted from her by her\nknowledge of his proud temper and his strained sense of honour, which\nwere both her nature too. In consideration for those master points in\nhim, and even in consideration for them in herself, she made the\nsacrifice, she said, and would live in it and die in it. She did\nboth, I fear; certainly he never saw her, never heard of her from\nthat hour. Nor did any one.\"\n\n\"Oh, guardian, what have I done!\" I cried, giving way to my grief;\n\"what sorrow have I innocently caused!\"\n\n\"You caused, Esther?\"\n\n\"Yes, guardian. Innocently, but most surely. That secluded sister is\nmy first remembrance.\"\n\n\"No, no!\" he cried, starting.\n\n\"Yes, guardian, yes! And HER sister is my mother!\"\n\nI would have told him all my mother's letter, but he would not hear\nit then. He spoke so tenderly and wisely to me, and he put so plainly\nbefore me all I had myself imperfectly thought and hoped in my better\nstate of mind, that, penetrated as I had been with fervent gratitude\ntowards him through so many years, I believed I had never loved him\nso dearly, never thanked him in my heart so fully, as I did that\nnight. And when he had taken me to my room and kissed me at the door,\nand when at last I lay down to sleep, my thought was how could I ever\nbe busy enough, how could I ever be good enough, how in my little way\ncould I ever hope to be forgetful enough of myself, devoted enough to\nhim, and useful enough to others, to show him how I blessed and\nhonoured him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIV\n\nThe Letter and the Answer\n\n\nMy guardian called me into his room next morning, and then I told him\nwhat had been left untold on the previous night. There was nothing to\nbe done, he said, but to keep the secret and to avoid another such\nencounter as that of yesterday. He understood my feeling and entirely\nshared it. He charged himself even with restraining Mr. Skimpole from\nimproving his opportunity. One person whom he need not name to me, it\nwas not now possible for him to advise or help. He wished it were,\nbut no such thing could be. If her mistrust of the lawyer whom she\nhad mentioned were well-founded, which he scarcely doubted, he\ndreaded discovery. He knew something of him, both by sight and by\nreputation, and it was certain that he was a dangerous man. Whatever\nhappened, he repeatedly impressed upon me with anxious affection and\nkindness, I was as innocent of as himself and as unable to influence.\n\n\"Nor do I understand,\" said he, \"that any doubts tend towards you, my\ndear. Much suspicion may exist without that connexion.\"\n\n\"With the lawyer,\" I returned. \"But two other persons have come into\nmy mind since I have been anxious. Then I told him all about Mr.\nGuppy, who I feared might have had his vague surmises when I little\nunderstood his meaning, but in whose silence after our last interview\nI expressed perfect confidence.\n\n\"Well,\" said my guardian. \"Then we may dismiss him for the present.\nWho is the other?\"\n\nI called to his recollection the French maid and the eager offer of\nherself she had made to me.\n\n\"Ha!\" he returned thoughtfully. \"That is a more alarming person than\nthe clerk. But after all, my dear, it was but seeking for a new\nservice. She had seen you and Ada a little while before, and it was\nnatural that you should come into her head. She merely proposed\nherself for your maid, you know. She did nothing more.\"\n\n\"Her manner was strange,\" said I.\n\n\"Yes, and her manner was strange when she took her shoes off and\nshowed that cool relish for a walk that might have ended in her\ndeath-bed,\" said my guardian. \"It would be useless self-distress and\ntorment to reckon up such chances and possibilities. There are very\nfew harmless circumstances that would not seem full of perilous\nmeaning, so considered. Be hopeful, little woman. You can be nothing\nbetter than yourself; be that, through this knowledge, as you were\nbefore you had it. It is the best you can do for everybody's sake. I,\nsharing the secret with you--\"\n\n\"And lightening it, guardian, so much,\" said I.\n\n\"--will be attentive to what passes in that family, so far as I can\nobserve it from my distance. And if the time should come when I can\nstretch out a hand to render the least service to one whom it is\nbetter not to name even here, I will not fail to do it for her dear\ndaughter's sake.\"\n\nI thanked him with my whole heart. What could I ever do but thank\nhim! I was going out at the door when he asked me to stay a moment.\nQuickly turning round, I saw that same expression on his face again;\nand all at once, I don't know how, it flashed upon me as a new and\nfar-off possibility that I understood it.\n\n\"My dear Esther,\" said my guardian, \"I have long had something in my\nthoughts that I have wished to say to you.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\"\n\n\"I have had some difficulty in approaching it, and I still have. I\nshould wish it to be so deliberately said, and so deliberately\nconsidered. Would you object to my writing it?\"\n\n\"Dear guardian, how could I object to your writing anything for ME to\nread?\"\n\n\"Then see, my love,\" said he with his cheery smile, \"am I at this\nmoment quite as plain and easy--do I seem as open, as honest and\nold-fashioned--as I am at any time?\"\n\nI answered in all earnestness, \"Quite.\" With the strictest truth, for\nhis momentary hesitation was gone (it had not lasted a minute), and\nhis fine, sensible, cordial, sterling manner was restored.\n\n\"Do I look as if I suppressed anything, meant anything but what I\nsaid, had any reservation at all, no matter what?\" said he with his\nbright clear eyes on mine.\n\nI answered, most assuredly he did not.\n\n\"Can you fully trust me, and thoroughly rely on what I profess,\nEsther?\"\n\n\"Most thoroughly,\" said I with my whole heart.\n\n\"My dear girl,\" returned my guardian, \"give me your hand.\"\n\nHe took it in his, holding me lightly with his arm, and looking down\ninto my face with the same genuine freshness and faithfulness of\nmanner--the old protecting manner which had made that house my home\nin a moment--said, \"You have wrought changes in me, little woman,\nsince the winter day in the stage-coach. First and last you have done\nme a world of good since that time.\"\n\n\"Ah, guardian, what have you done for me since that time!\"\n\n\"But,\" said he, \"that is not to be remembered now.\"\n\n\"It never can be forgotten.\"\n\n\"Yes, Esther,\" said he with a gentle seriousness, \"it is to be\nforgotten now, to be forgotten for a while. You are only to remember\nnow that nothing can change me as you know me. Can you feel quite\nassured of that, my dear?\"\n\n\"I can, and I do,\" I said.\n\n\"That's much,\" he answered. \"That's everything. But I must not take\nthat at a word. I will not write this something in my thoughts until\nyou have quite resolved within yourself that nothing can change me as\nyou know me. If you doubt that in the least degree, I will never\nwrite it. If you are sure of that, on good consideration, send\nCharley to me this night week--'for the letter.' But if you are not\nquite certain, never send. Mind, I trust to your truth, in this thing\nas in everything. If you are not quite certain on that one point,\nnever send!\"\n\n\"Guardian,\" said I, \"I am already certain, I can no more be changed\nin that conviction than you can be changed towards me. I shall send\nCharley for the letter.\"\n\nHe shook my hand and said no more. Nor was any more said in reference\nto this conversation, either by him or me, through the whole week.\nWhen the appointed night came, I said to Charley as soon as I was\nalone, \"Go and knock at Mr. Jarndyce's door, Charley, and say you\nhave come from me--'for the letter.'\" Charley went up the stairs, and\ndown the stairs, and along the passages--the zig-zag way about the\nold-fashioned house seemed very long in my listening ears that\nnight--and so came back, along the passages, and down the stairs, and\nup the stairs, and brought the letter. \"Lay it on the table,\nCharley,\" said I. So Charley laid it on the table and went to bed,\nand I sat looking at it without taking it up, thinking of many\nthings.\n\nI began with my overshadowed childhood, and passed through those\ntimid days to the heavy time when my aunt lay dead, with her resolute\nface so cold and set, and when I was more solitary with Mrs. Rachael\nthan if I had had no one in the world to speak to or to look at. I\npassed to the altered days when I was so blest as to find friends in\nall around me, and to be beloved. I came to the time when I first saw\nmy dear girl and was received into that sisterly affection which was\nthe grace and beauty of my life. I recalled the first bright gleam of\nwelcome which had shone out of those very windows upon our expectant\nfaces on that cold bright night, and which had never paled. I lived\nmy happy life there over again, I went through my illness and\nrecovery, I thought of myself so altered and of those around me so\nunchanged; and all this happiness shone like a light from one central\nfigure, represented before me by the letter on the table.\n\nI opened it and read it. It was so impressive in its love for me, and\nin the unselfish caution it gave me, and the consideration it showed\nfor me in every word, that my eyes were too often blinded to read\nmuch at a time. But I read it through three times before I laid it\ndown. I had thought beforehand that I knew its purport, and I did. It\nasked me, would I be the mistress of Bleak House.\n\nIt was not a love letter, though it expressed so much love, but was\nwritten just as he would at any time have spoken to me. I saw his\nface, and heard his voice, and felt the influence of his kind\nprotecting manner in every line. It addressed me as if our places\nwere reversed, as if all the good deeds had been mine and all the\nfeelings they had awakened his. It dwelt on my being young, and he\npast the prime of life; on his having attained a ripe age, while I\nwas a child; on his writing to me with a silvered head, and knowing\nall this so well as to set it in full before me for mature\ndeliberation. It told me that I would gain nothing by such a marriage\nand lose nothing by rejecting it, for no new relation could enhance\nthe tenderness in which he held me, and whatever my decision was, he\nwas certain it would be right. But he had considered this step anew\nsince our late confidence and had decided on taking it, if it only\nserved to show me through one poor instance that the whole world\nwould readily unite to falsify the stern prediction of my childhood.\nI was the last to know what happiness I could bestow upon him, but of\nthat he said no more, for I was always to remember that I owed him\nnothing and that he was my debtor, and for very much. He had often\nthought of our future, and foreseeing that the time must come, and\nfearing that it might come soon, when Ada (now very nearly of age)\nwould leave us, and when our present mode of life must be broken up,\nhad become accustomed to reflect on this proposal. Thus he made it.\nIf I felt that I could ever give him the best right he could have to\nbe my protector, and if I felt that I could happily and justly become\nthe dear companion of his remaining life, superior to all lighter\nchances and changes than death, even then he could not have me bind\nmyself irrevocably while this letter was yet so new to me, but even\nthen I must have ample time for reconsideration. In that case, or in\nthe opposite case, let him be unchanged in his old relation, in his\nold manner, in the old name by which I called him. And as to his\nbright Dame Durden and little housekeeper, she would ever be the\nsame, he knew.\n\nThis was the substance of the letter, written throughout with a\njustice and a dignity as if he were indeed my responsible guardian\nimpartially representing the proposal of a friend against whom in his\nintegrity he stated the full case.\n\nBut he did not hint to me that when I had been better looking he had\nhad this same proceeding in his thoughts and had refrained from it.\nThat when my old face was gone from me, and I had no attractions, he\ncould love me just as well as in my fairer days. That the discovery\nof my birth gave him no shock. That his generosity rose above my\ndisfigurement and my inheritance of shame. That the more I stood in\nneed of such fidelity, the more firmly I might trust in him to the\nlast.\n\nBut I knew it, I knew it well now. It came upon me as the close of\nthe benignant history I had been pursuing, and I felt that I had but\none thing to do. To devote my life to his happiness was to thank him\npoorly, and what had I wished for the other night but some new means\nof thanking him?\n\nStill I cried very much, not only in the fullness of my heart after\nreading the letter, not only in the strangeness of the prospect--for\nit was strange though I had expected the contents--but as if\nsomething for which there was no name or distinct idea were\nindefinitely lost to me. I was very happy, very thankful, very\nhopeful; but I cried very much.\n\nBy and by I went to my old glass. My eyes were red and swollen, and I\nsaid, \"Oh, Esther, Esther, can that be you!\" I am afraid the face in\nthe glass was going to cry again at this reproach, but I held up my\nfinger at it, and it stopped.\n\n\"That is more like the composed look you comforted me with, my dear,\nwhen you showed me such a change!\" said I, beginning to let down my\nhair. \"When you are mistress of Bleak House, you are to be as\ncheerful as a bird. In fact, you are always to be cheerful; so let us\nbegin for once and for all.\"\n\nI went on with my hair now, quite comfortably. I sobbed a little\nstill, but that was because I had been crying, not because I was\ncrying then.\n\n\"And so Esther, my dear, you are happy for life. Happy with your best\nfriends, happy in your old home, happy in the power of doing a great\ndeal of good, and happy in the undeserved love of the best of men.\"\n\nI thought, all at once, if my guardian had married some one else, how\nshould I have felt, and what should I have done! That would have been\na change indeed. It presented my life in such a new and blank form\nthat I rang my housekeeping keys and gave them a kiss before I laid\nthem down in their basket again.\n\nThen I went on to think, as I dressed my hair before the glass, how\noften had I considered within myself that the deep traces of my\nillness and the circumstances of my birth were only new reasons why I\nshould be busy, busy, busy--useful, amiable, serviceable, in all\nhonest, unpretending ways. This was a good time, to be sure, to sit\ndown morbidly and cry! As to its seeming at all strange to me at\nfirst (if that were any excuse for crying, which it was not) that I\nwas one day to be the mistress of Bleak House, why should it seem\nstrange? Other people had thought of such things, if I had not.\n\"Don't you remember, my plain dear,\" I asked myself, looking at the\nglass, \"what Mrs. Woodcourt said before those scars were there about\nyour marrying--\"\n\nPerhaps the name brought them to my remembrance. The dried remains of\nthe flowers. It would be better not to keep them now. They had only\nbeen preserved in memory of something wholly past and gone, but it\nwould be better not to keep them now.\n\nThey were in a book, and it happened to be in the next room--our\nsitting-room, dividing Ada's chamber from mine. I took a candle and\nwent softly in to fetch it from its shelf. After I had it in my hand,\nI saw my beautiful darling, through the open door, lying asleep, and\nI stole in to kiss her.\n\nIt was weak in me, I know, and I could have no reason for crying; but\nI dropped a tear upon her dear face, and another, and another. Weaker\nthan that, I took the withered flowers out and put them for a moment\nto her lips. I thought about her love for Richard, though, indeed,\nthe flowers had nothing to do with that. Then I took them into my own\nroom and burned them at the candle, and they were dust in an instant.\n\nOn entering the breakfast-room next morning, I found my guardian just\nas usual, quite as frank, as open, and free. There being not the\nleast constraint in his manner, there was none (or I think there was\nnone) in mine. I was with him several times in the course of the\nmorning, in and out, when there was no one there, and I thought it\nnot unlikely that he might speak to me about the letter, but he did\nnot say a word.\n\nSo, on the next morning, and the next, and for at least a week, over\nwhich time Mr. Skimpole prolonged his stay. I expected, every day,\nthat my guardian might speak to me about the letter, but he never\ndid.\n\nI thought then, growing uneasy, that I ought to write an answer. I\ntried over and over again in my own room at night, but I could not\nwrite an answer that at all began like a good answer, so I thought\neach night I would wait one more day. And I waited seven more days,\nand he never said a word.\n\nAt last, Mr. Skimpole having departed, we three were one afternoon\ngoing out for a ride; and I, being dressed before Ada and going down,\ncame upon my guardian, with his back towards me, standing at the\ndrawing-room window looking out.\n\nHe turned on my coming in and said, smiling, \"Aye, it's you, little\nwoman, is it?\" and looked out again.\n\nI had made up my mind to speak to him now. In short, I had come down\non purpose. \"Guardian,\" I said, rather hesitating and trembling,\n\"when would you like to have the answer to the letter Charley came\nfor?\"\n\n\"When it's ready, my dear,\" he replied.\n\n\"I think it is ready,\" said I.\n\n\"Is Charley to bring it?\" he asked pleasantly.\n\n\"No. I have brought it myself, guardian,\" I returned.\n\nI put my two arms round his neck and kissed him, and he said was this\nthe mistress of Bleak House, and I said yes; and it made no\ndifference presently, and we all went out together, and I said\nnothing to my precious pet about it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLV\n\nIn Trust\n\n\nOne morning when I had done jingling about with my baskets of keys,\nas my beauty and I were walking round and round the garden I happened\nto turn my eyes towards the house and saw a long thin shadow going in\nwhich looked like Mr. Vholes. Ada had been telling me only that\nmorning of her hopes that Richard might exhaust his ardour in the\nChancery suit by being so very earnest in it; and therefore, not to\ndamp my dear girl's spirits, I said nothing about Mr. Vholes's\nshadow.\n\nPresently came Charley, lightly winding among the bushes and tripping\nalong the paths, as rosy and pretty as one of Flora's attendants\ninstead of my maid, saying, \"Oh, if you please, miss, would you step\nand speak to Mr. Jarndyce!\"\n\nIt was one of Charley's peculiarities that whenever she was charged\nwith a message she always began to deliver it as soon as she beheld,\nat any distance, the person for whom it was intended. Therefore I saw\nCharley asking me in her usual form of words to \"step and speak\" to\nMr. Jarndyce long before I heard her. And when I did hear her, she\nhad said it so often that she was out of breath.\n\nI told Ada I would make haste back and inquired of Charley as we went\nin whether there was not a gentleman with Mr. Jarndyce. To which\nCharley, whose grammar, I confess to my shame, never did any credit\nto my educational powers, replied, \"Yes, miss. Him as come down in\nthe country with Mr. Richard.\"\n\nA more complete contrast than my guardian and Mr. Vholes I suppose\nthere could not be. I found them looking at one another across a\ntable, the one so open and the other so close, the one so broad and\nupright and the other so narrow and stooping, the one giving out what\nhe had to say in such a rich ringing voice and the other keeping it\nin in such a cold-blooded, gasping, fish-like manner that I thought I\nnever had seen two people so unmatched.\n\n\"You know Mr. Vholes, my dear,\" said my guardian. Not with the\ngreatest urbanity, I must say.\n\nMr. Vholes rose, gloved and buttoned up as usual, and seated himself\nagain, just as he had seated himself beside Richard in the gig. Not\nhaving Richard to look at, he looked straight before him.\n\n\"Mr. Vholes,\" said my guardian, eyeing his black figure as if he were\na bird of ill omen, \"has brought an ugly report of our most\nunfortunate Rick.\" Laying a marked emphasis on \"most unfortunate\" as\nif the words were rather descriptive of his connexion with Mr.\nVholes.\n\nI sat down between them; Mr. Vholes remained immovable, except that\nhe secretly picked at one of the red pimples on his yellow face with\nhis black glove.\n\n\"And as Rick and you are happily good friends, I should like to\nknow,\" said my guardian, \"what you think, my dear. Would you be so\ngood as to--as to speak up, Mr. Vholes?\"\n\nDoing anything but that, Mr. Vholes observed, \"I have been saying\nthat I have reason to know, Miss Summerson, as Mr. C.'s professional\nadviser, that Mr. C.'s circumstances are at the present moment in an\nembarrassed state. Not so much in point of amount as owing to the\npeculiar and pressing nature of liabilities Mr. C. has incurred and\nthe means he has of liquidating or meeting the same. I have staved\noff many little matters for Mr. C., but there is a limit to staving\noff, and we have reached it. I have made some advances out of pocket\nto accommodate these unpleasantnesses, but I necessarily look to\nbeing repaid, for I do not pretend to be a man of capital, and I have\na father to support in the Vale of Taunton, besides striving to\nrealize some little independence for three dear girls at home. My\napprehension is, Mr. C.'s circumstances being such, lest it should\nend in his obtaining leave to part with his commission, which at all\nevents is desirable to be made known to his connexions.\"\n\nMr. Vholes, who had looked at me while speaking, here emerged into\nthe silence he could hardly be said to have broken, so stifled was\nhis tone, and looked before him again.\n\n\"Imagine the poor fellow without even his present resource,\" said my\nguardian to me. \"Yet what can I do? You know him, Esther. He would\nnever accept of help from me now. To offer it or hint at it would be\nto drive him to an extremity, if nothing else did.\"\n\nMr. Vholes hereupon addressed me again.\n\n\"What Mr. Jarndyce remarks, miss, is no doubt the case, and is the\ndifficulty. I do not see that anything is to be done. I do not say\nthat anything is to be done. Far from it. I merely come down here\nunder the seal of confidence and mention it in order that everything\nmay be openly carried on and that it may not be said afterwards that\neverything was not openly carried on. My wish is that everything\nshould be openly carried on. I desire to leave a good name behind me.\nIf I consulted merely my own interests with Mr. C., I should not be\nhere. So insurmountable, as you must well know, would be his\nobjections. This is not a professional attendance. This can he\ncharged to nobody. I have no interest in it except as a member of\nsociety and a father--AND a son,\" said Mr. Vholes, who had nearly\nforgotten that point.\n\nIt appeared to us that Mr. Vholes said neither more nor less than the\ntruth in intimating that he sought to divide the responsibility, such\nas it was, of knowing Richard's situation. I could only suggest that\nI should go down to Deal, where Richard was then stationed, and see\nhim, and try if it were possible to avert the worst. Without\nconsulting Mr. Vholes on this point, I took my guardian aside to\npropose it, while Mr. Vholes gauntly stalked to the fire and warmed\nhis funeral gloves.\n\nThe fatigue of the journey formed an immediate objection on my\nguardian's part, but as I saw he had no other, and as I was only too\nhappy to go, I got his consent. We had then merely to dispose of Mr.\nVholes.\n\n\"Well, sir,\" said Mr. Jarndyce, \"Miss Summerson will communicate with\nMr. Carstone, and you can only hope that his position may be yet\nretrievable. You will allow me to order you lunch after your journey,\nsir.\"\n\n\"I thank you, Mr. Jarndyce,\" said Mr. Vholes, putting out his long\nblack sleeve to check the ringing of the bell, \"not any. I thank you,\nno, not a morsel. My digestion is much impaired, and I am but a poor\nknife and fork at any time. If I was to partake of solid food at this\nperiod of the day, I don't know what the consequences might be.\nEverything having been openly carried on, sir, I will now with your\npermission take my leave.\"\n\n\"And I would that you could take your leave, and we could all take\nour leave, Mr. Vholes,\" returned my guardian bitterly, \"of a cause\nyou know of.\"\n\nMr. Vholes, whose black dye was so deep from head to foot that it had\nquite steamed before the fire, diffusing a very unpleasant perfume,\nmade a short one-sided inclination of his head from the neck and\nslowly shook it.\n\n\"We whose ambition it is to be looked upon in the light of\nrespectable practitioners, sir, can but put our shoulders to the\nwheel. We do it, sir. At least, I do it myself; and I wish to think\nwell of my professional brethren, one and all. You are sensible of an\nobligation not to refer to me, miss, in communicating with Mr. C.?\"\n\nI said I would be careful not to do it.\n\n\"Just so, miss. Good morning. Mr. Jarndyce, good morning, sir.\" Mr.\nVholes put his dead glove, which scarcely seemed to have any hand in\nit, on my fingers, and then on my guardian's fingers, and took his\nlong thin shadow away. I thought of it on the outside of the coach,\npassing over all the sunny landscape between us and London, chilling\nthe seed in the ground as it glided along.\n\nOf course it became necessary to tell Ada where I was going and why I\nwas going, and of course she was anxious and distressed. But she was\ntoo true to Richard to say anything but words of pity and words of\nexcuse, and in a more loving spirit still--my dear devoted girl!--she\nwrote him a long letter, of which I took charge.\n\nCharley was to be my travelling companion, though I am sure I wanted\nnone and would willingly have left her at home. We all went to London\nthat afternoon, and finding two places in the mail, secured them. At\nour usual bed-time, Charley and I were rolling away seaward with the\nKentish letters.\n\nIt was a night's journey in those coach times, but we had the mail to\nourselves and did not find the night very tedious. It passed with me\nas I suppose it would with most people under such circumstances. At\none while my journey looked hopeful, and at another hopeless. Now I\nthought I should do some good, and now I wondered how I could ever\nhave supposed so. Now it seemed one of the most reasonable things in\nthe world that I should have come, and now one of the most\nunreasonable. In what state I should find Richard, what I should say\nto him, and what he would say to me occupied my mind by turns with\nthese two states of feeling; and the wheels seemed to play one tune\n(to which the burden of my guardian's letter set itself) over and\nover again all night.\n\nAt last we came into the narrow streets of Deal, and very gloomy they\nwere upon a raw misty morning. The long flat beach, with its little\nirregular houses, wooden and brick, and its litter of capstans, and\ngreat boats, and sheds, and bare upright poles with tackle and\nblocks, and loose gravelly waste places overgrown with grass and\nweeds, wore as dull an appearance as any place I ever saw. The sea\nwas heaving under a thick white fog; and nothing else was moving but\na few early ropemakers, who, with the yarn twisted round their\nbodies, looked as if, tired of their present state of existence, they\nwere spinning themselves into cordage.\n\nBut when we got into a warm room in an excellent hotel and sat down,\ncomfortably washed and dressed, to an early breakfast (for it was too\nlate to think of going to bed), Deal began to look more cheerful. Our\nlittle room was like a ship's cabin, and that delighted Charley very\nmuch. Then the fog began to rise like a curtain, and numbers of ships\nthat we had had no idea were near appeared. I don't know how many\nsail the waiter told us were then lying in the downs. Some of these\nvessels were of grand size--one was a large Indiaman just come home;\nand when the sun shone through the clouds, making silvery pools in\nthe dark sea, the way in which these ships brightened, and shadowed,\nand changed, amid a bustle of boats pulling off from the shore to\nthem and from them to the shore, and a general life and motion in\nthemselves and everything around them, was most beautiful.\n\nThe large Indiaman was our great attraction because she had come into\nthe downs in the night. She was surrounded by boats, and we said how\nglad the people on board of her must be to come ashore. Charley was\ncurious, too, about the voyage, and about the heat in India, and the\nserpents and the tigers; and as she picked up such information much\nfaster than grammar, I told her what I knew on those points. I told\nher, too, how people in such voyages were sometimes wrecked and cast\non rocks, where they were saved by the intrepidity and humanity of\none man. And Charley asking how that could be, I told her how we knew\nat home of such a case.\n\nI had thought of sending Richard a note saying I was there, but it\nseemed so much better to go to him without preparation. As he lived\nin barracks I was a little doubtful whether this was feasible, but we\nwent out to reconnoitre. Peeping in at the gate of the barrack-yard,\nwe found everything very quiet at that time in the morning, and I\nasked a sergeant standing on the guardhouse-steps where he lived. He\nsent a man before to show me, who went up some bare stairs, and\nknocked with his knuckles at a door, and left us.\n\n\"Now then!\" cried Richard from within. So I left Charley in the\nlittle passage, and going on to the half-open door, said, \"Can I come\nin, Richard? It's only Dame Durden.\"\n\nHe was writing at a table, with a great confusion of clothes, tin\ncases, books, boots, brushes, and portmanteaus strewn all about the\nfloor. He was only half dressed--in plain clothes, I observed, not in\nuniform--and his hair was unbrushed, and he looked as wild as his\nroom. All this I saw after he had heartily welcomed me and I was\nseated near him, for he started upon hearing my voice and caught me\nin his arms in a moment. Dear Richard! He was ever the same to me.\nDown to--ah, poor poor fellow!--to the end, he never received me but\nwith something of his old merry boyish manner.\n\n\"Good heaven, my dear little woman,\" said he, \"how do you come here?\nWho could have thought of seeing you! Nothing the matter? Ada is\nwell?\"\n\n\"Quite well. Lovelier than ever, Richard!\"\n\n\"Ah!\" he said, leaning back in his chair. \"My poor cousin! I was\nwriting to you, Esther.\"\n\nSo worn and haggard as he looked, even in the fullness of his\nhandsome youth, leaning back in his chair and crushing the closely\nwritten sheet of paper in his hand!\n\n\"Have you been at the trouble of writing all that, and am I not to\nread it after all?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh, my dear,\" he returned with a hopeless gesture. \"You may read it\nin the whole room. It is all over here.\"\n\nI mildly entreated him not to be despondent. I told him that I had\nheard by chance of his being in difficulty and had come to consult\nwith him what could best be done.\n\n\"Like you, Esther, but useless, and so NOT like you!\" said he with a\nmelancholy smile. \"I am away on leave this day--should have been gone\nin another hour--and that is to smooth it over, for my selling out.\nWell! Let bygones be bygones. So this calling follows the rest. I\nonly want to have been in the church to have made the round of all\nthe professions.\"\n\n\"Richard,\" I urged, \"it is not so hopeless as that?\"\n\n\"Esther,\" he returned, \"it is indeed. I am just so near disgrace as\nthat those who are put in authority over me (as the catechism goes)\nwould far rather be without me than with me. And they are right.\nApart from debts and duns and all such drawbacks, I am not fit even\nfor this employment. I have no care, no mind, no heart, no soul, but\nfor one thing. Why, if this bubble hadn't broken now,\" he said,\ntearing the letter he had written into fragments and moodily casting\nthem away, by driblets, \"how could I have gone abroad? I must have\nbeen ordered abroad, but how could I have gone? How could I, with my\nexperience of that thing, trust even Vholes unless I was at his\nback!\"\n\nI suppose he knew by my face what I was about to say, but he caught\nthe hand I had laid upon his arm and touched my own lips with it to\nprevent me from going on.\n\n\"No, Dame Durden! Two subjects I forbid--must forbid. The first is\nJohn Jarndyce. The second, you know what. Call it madness, and I tell\nyou I can't help it now, and can't be sane. But it is no such thing;\nit is the one object I have to pursue. It is a pity I ever was\nprevailed upon to turn out of my road for any other. It would be\nwisdom to abandon it now, after all the time, anxiety, and pains I\nhave bestowed upon it! Oh, yes, true wisdom. It would be very\nagreeable, too, to some people; but I never will.\"\n\nHe was in that mood in which I thought it best not to increase his\ndetermination (if anything could increase it) by opposing him. I took\nout Ada's letter and put it in his hand.\n\n\"Am I to read it now?\" he asked.\n\nAs I told him yes, he laid it on the table, and resting his head upon\nhis hand, began. He had not read far when he rested his head upon his\ntwo hands--to hide his face from me. In a little while he rose as if\nthe light were bad and went to the window. He finished reading it\nthere, with his back towards me, and after he had finished and had\nfolded it up, stood there for some minutes with the letter in his\nhand. When he came back to his chair, I saw tears in his eyes.\n\n\"Of course, Esther, you know what she says here?\" He spoke in a\nsoftened voice and kissed the letter as he asked me.\n\n\"Yes, Richard.\"\n\n\"Offers me,\" he went on, tapping his foot upon the floor, \"the little\ninheritance she is certain of so soon--just as little and as much as\nI have wasted--and begs and prays me to take it, set myself right\nwith it, and remain in the service.\"\n\n\"I know your welfare to be the dearest wish of her heart,\" said I.\n\"And, oh, my dear Richard, Ada's is a noble heart.\"\n\n\"I am sure it is. I--I wish I was dead!\"\n\nHe went back to the window, and laying his arm across it, leaned his\nhead down on his arm. It greatly affected me to see him so, but I\nhoped he might become more yielding, and I remained silent. My\nexperience was very limited; I was not at all prepared for his\nrousing himself out of this emotion to a new sense of injury.\n\n\"And this is the heart that the same John Jarndyce, who is not\notherwise to be mentioned between us, stepped in to estrange from\nme,\" said he indignantly. \"And the dear girl makes me this generous\noffer from under the same John Jarndyce's roof, and with the same\nJohn Jarndyce's gracious consent and connivance, I dare say, as a new\nmeans of buying me off.\"\n\n\"Richard!\" I cried out, rising hastily. \"I will not hear you say such\nshameful words!\" I was very angry with him indeed, for the first time\nin my life, but it only lasted a moment. When I saw his worn young\nface looking at me as if he were sorry, I put my hand on his shoulder\nand said, \"If you please, my dear Richard, do not speak in such a\ntone to me. Consider!\"\n\nHe blamed himself exceedingly and told me in the most generous manner\nthat he had been very wrong and that he begged my pardon a thousand\ntimes. At that I laughed, but trembled a little too, for I was rather\nfluttered after being so fiery.\n\n\"To accept this offer, my dear Esther,\" said he, sitting down beside\nme and resuming our conversation, \"--once more, pray, pray forgive\nme; I am deeply grieved--to accept my dearest cousin's offer is, I\nneed not say, impossible. Besides, I have letters and papers that I\ncould show you which would convince you it is all over here. I have\ndone with the red coat, believe me. But it is some satisfaction, in\nthe midst of my troubles and perplexities, to know that I am pressing\nAda's interests in pressing my own. Vholes has his shoulder to the\nwheel, and he cannot help urging it on as much for her as for me,\nthank God!\"\n\nHis sanguine hopes were rising within him and lighting up his\nfeatures, but they made his face more sad to me than it had been\nbefore.\n\n\"No, no!\" cried Richard exultingly. \"If every farthing of Ada's\nlittle fortune were mine, no part of it should be spent in retaining\nme in what I am not fit for, can take no interest in, and am weary\nof. It should be devoted to what promises a better return, and should\nbe used where she has a larger stake. Don't be uneasy for me! I shall\nnow have only one thing on my mind, and Vholes and I will work it. I\nshall not be without means. Free of my commission, I shall be able to\ncompound with some small usurers who will hear of nothing but their\nbond now--Vholes says so. I should have a balance in my favour\nanyway, but that would swell it. Come, come! You shall carry a letter\nto Ada from me, Esther, and you must both of you be more hopeful of\nme and not believe that I am quite cast away just yet, my dear.\"\n\nI will not repeat what I said to Richard. I know it was tiresome, and\nnobody is to suppose for a moment that it was at all wise. It only\ncame from my heart. He heard it patiently and feelingly, but I saw\nthat on the two subjects he had reserved it was at present hopeless\nto make any representation to him. I saw too, and had experienced in\nthis very interview, the sense of my guardian's remark that it was\neven more mischievous to use persuasion with him than to leave him as\nhe was.\n\nTherefore I was driven at last to asking Richard if he would mind\nconvincing me that it really was all over there, as he had said, and\nthat it was not his mere impression. He showed me without hesitation\na correspondence making it quite plain that his retirement was\narranged. I found, from what he told me, that Mr. Vholes had copies\nof these papers and had been in consultation with him throughout.\nBeyond ascertaining this, and having been the bearer of Ada's letter,\nand being (as I was going to be) Richard's companion back to London,\nI had done no good by coming down. Admitting this to myself with a\nreluctant heart, I said I would return to the hotel and wait until he\njoined me there, so he threw a cloak over his shoulders and saw me to\nthe gate, and Charley and I went back along the beach.\n\nThere was a concourse of people in one spot, surrounding some naval\nofficers who were landing from a boat, and pressing about them with\nunusual interest. I said to Charley this would be one of the great\nIndiaman's boats now, and we stopped to look.\n\nThe gentlemen came slowly up from the waterside, speaking\ngood-humouredly to each other and to the people around and glancing\nabout them as if they were glad to be in England again. \"Charley,\nCharley,\" said I, \"come away!\" And I hurried on so swiftly that my\nlittle maid was surprised.\n\nIt was not until we were shut up in our cabin-room and I had had time\nto take breath that I began to think why I had made such haste. In\none of the sunburnt faces I had recognized Mr. Allan Woodcourt, and I\nhad been afraid of his recognizing me. I had been unwilling that he\nshould see my altered looks. I had been taken by surprise, and my\ncourage had quite failed me.\n\nBut I knew this would not do, and I now said to myself, \"My dear,\nthere is no reason--there is and there can be no reason at all--why\nit should be worse for you now than it ever has been. What you were\nlast month, you are to-day; you are no worse, you are no better. This\nis not your resolution; call it up, Esther, call it up!\" I was in a\ngreat tremble--with running--and at first was quite unable to calm\nmyself; but I got better, and I was very glad to know it.\n\nThe party came to the hotel. I heard them speaking on the staircase.\nI was sure it was the same gentlemen because I knew their voices\nagain--I mean I knew Mr. Woodcourt's. It would still have been a\ngreat relief to me to have gone away without making myself known, but\nI was determined not to do so. \"No, my dear, no. No, no, no!\"\n\nI untied my bonnet and put my veil half up--I think I mean half down,\nbut it matters very little--and wrote on one of my cards that I\nhappened to be there with Mr. Richard Carstone, and I sent it in to\nMr. Woodcourt. He came immediately. I told him I was rejoiced to be\nby chance among the first to welcome him home to England. And I saw\nthat he was very sorry for me.\n\n\"You have been in shipwreck and peril since you left us, Mr.\nWoodcourt,\" said I, \"but we can hardly call that a misfortune which\nenabled you to be so useful and so brave. We read of it with the\ntruest interest. It first came to my knowledge through your old\npatient, poor Miss Flite, when I was recovering from my severe\nillness.\"\n\n\"Ah! Little Miss Flite!\" he said. \"She lives the same life yet?\"\n\n\"Just the same.\"\n\nI was so comfortable with myself now as not to mind the veil and to\nbe able to put it aside.\n\n\"Her gratitude to you, Mr. Woodcourt, is delightful. She is a most\naffectionate creature, as I have reason to say.\"\n\n\"You--you have found her so?\" he returned. \"I--I am glad of that.\" He\nwas so very sorry for me that he could scarcely speak.\n\n\"I assure you,\" said I, \"that I was deeply touched by her sympathy\nand pleasure at the time I have referred to.\"\n\n\"I was grieved to hear that you had been very ill.\"\n\n\"I was very ill.\"\n\n\"But you have quite recovered?\"\n\n\"I have quite recovered my health and my cheerfulness,\" said I. \"You\nknow how good my guardian is and what a happy life we lead, and I\nhave everything to be thankful for and nothing in the world to\ndesire.\"\n\nI felt as if he had greater commiseration for me than I had ever had\nfor myself. It inspired me with new fortitude and new calmness to\nfind that it was I who was under the necessity of reassuring him. I\nspoke to him of his voyage out and home, and of his future plans, and\nof his probable return to India. He said that was very doubtful. He\nhad not found himself more favoured by fortune there than here. He\nhad gone out a poor ship's surgeon and had come home nothing better.\nWhile we were talking, and when I was glad to believe that I had\nalleviated (if I may use such a term) the shock he had had in seeing\nme, Richard came in. He had heard downstairs who was with me, and\nthey met with cordial pleasure.\n\nI saw that after their first greetings were over, and when they spoke\nof Richard's career, Mr. Woodcourt had a perception that all was not\ngoing well with him. He frequently glanced at his face as if there\nwere something in it that gave him pain, and more than once he looked\ntowards me as though he sought to ascertain whether I knew what the\ntruth was. Yet Richard was in one of his sanguine states and in good\nspirits and was thoroughly pleased to see Mr. Woodcourt again, whom\nhe had always liked.\n\nRichard proposed that we all should go to London together; but Mr.\nWoodcourt, having to remain by his ship a little longer, could not\njoin us. He dined with us, however, at an early hour, and became so\nmuch more like what he used to be that I was still more at peace to\nthink I had been able to soften his regrets. Yet his mind was not\nrelieved of Richard. When the coach was almost ready and Richard ran\ndown to look after his luggage, he spoke to me about him.\n\nI was not sure that I had a right to lay his whole story open, but I\nreferred in a few words to his estrangement from Mr Jarndyce and to\nhis being entangled in the ill-fated Chancery suit. Mr. Woodcourt\nlistened with interest and expressed his regret.\n\n\"I saw you observe him rather closely,\" said I, \"Do you think him so\nchanged?\"\n\n\"He is changed,\" he returned, shaking his head.\n\nI felt the blood rush into my face for the first time, but it was\nonly an instantaneous emotion. I turned my head aside, and it was\ngone.\n\n\"It is not,\" said Mr. Woodcourt, \"his being so much younger or older,\nor thinner or fatter, or paler or ruddier, as there being upon his\nface such a singular expression. I never saw so remarkable a look in\na young person. One cannot say that it is all anxiety or all\nweariness; yet it is both, and like ungrown despair.\"\n\n\"You do not think he is ill?\" said I.\n\nNo. He looked robust in body.\n\n\"That he cannot be at peace in mind, we have too much reason to\nknow,\" I proceeded. \"Mr. Woodcourt, you are going to London?\"\n\n\"To-morrow or the next day.\"\n\n\"There is nothing Richard wants so much as a friend. He always liked\nyou. Pray see him when you get there. Pray help him sometimes with\nyour companionship if you can. You do not know of what service it\nmight be. You cannot think how Ada, and Mr. Jarndyce, and even I--how\nwe should all thank you, Mr. Woodcourt!\"\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" he said, more moved than he had been from the\nfirst, \"before heaven, I will be a true friend to him! I will accept\nhim as a trust, and it shall be a sacred one!\"\n\n\"God bless you!\" said I, with my eyes filling fast; but I thought\nthey might, when it was not for myself. \"Ada loves him--we all love\nhim, but Ada loves him as we cannot. I will tell her what you say.\nThank you, and God bless you, in her name!\"\n\nRichard came back as we finished exchanging these hurried words and\ngave me his arm to take me to the coach.\n\n\"Woodcourt,\" he said, unconscious with what application, \"pray let us\nmeet in London!\"\n\n\"Meet?\" returned the other. \"I have scarcely a friend there now but\nyou. Where shall I find you?\"\n\n\"Why, I must get a lodging of some sort,\" said Richard, pondering.\n\"Say at Vholes's, Symond's Inn.\"\n\n\"Good! Without loss of time.\"\n\nThey shook hands heartily. When I was seated in the coach and Richard\nwas yet standing in the street, Mr. Woodcourt laid his friendly hand\non Richard's shoulder and looked at me. I understood him and waved\nmine in thanks.\n\nAnd in his last look as we drove away, I saw that he was very sorry\nfor me. I was glad to see it. I felt for my old self as the dead may\nfeel if they ever revisit these scenes. I was glad to be tenderly\nremembered, to be gently pitied, not to be quite forgotten.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVI\n\nStop Him!\n\n\nDarkness rests upon Tom-All-Alone's. Dilating and dilating since the\nsun went down last night, it has gradually swelled until it fills\nevery void in the place. For a time there were some dungeon lights\nburning, as the lamp of life hums in Tom-all-Alone's, heavily,\nheavily, in the nauseous air, and winking--as that lamp, too, winks\nin Tom-all-Alone's--at many horrible things. But they are blotted\nout. The moon has eyed Tom with a dull cold stare, as admitting some\npuny emulation of herself in his desert region unfit for life and\nblasted by volcanic fires; but she has passed on and is gone. The\nblackest nightmare in the infernal stables grazes on Tom-all-Alone's,\nand Tom is fast asleep.\n\nMuch mighty speech-making there has been, both in and out of\nParliament, concerning Tom, and much wrathful disputation how Tom\nshall be got right. Whether he shall be put into the main road by\nconstables, or by beadles, or by bell-ringing, or by force of\nfigures, or by correct principles of taste, or by high church, or by\nlow church, or by no church; whether he shall be set to splitting\ntrusses of polemical straws with the crooked knife of his mind or\nwhether he shall be put to stone-breaking instead. In the midst of\nwhich dust and noise there is but one thing perfectly clear, to wit,\nthat Tom only may and can, or shall and will, be reclaimed according\nto somebody's theory but nobody's practice. And in the hopeful\nmeantime, Tom goes to perdition head foremost in his old determined\nspirit.\n\nBut he has his revenge. Even the winds are his messengers, and they\nserve him in these hours of darkness. There is not a drop of Tom's\ncorrupted blood but propagates infection and contagion somewhere. It\nshall pollute, this very night, the choice stream (in which chemists\non analysis would find the genuine nobility) of a Norman house, and\nhis Grace shall not be able to say nay to the infamous alliance.\nThere is not an atom of Tom's slime, not a cubic inch of any\npestilential gas in which he lives, not one obscenity or degradation\nabout him, not an ignorance, not a wickedness, not a brutality of his\ncommitting, but shall work its retribution through every order of\nsociety up to the proudest of the proud and to the highest of the\nhigh. Verily, what with tainting, plundering, and spoiling, Tom has\nhis revenge.\n\nIt is a moot point whether Tom-all-Alone's be uglier by day or by\nnight, but on the argument that the more that is seen of it the more\nshocking it must be, and that no part of it left to the imagination\nis at all likely to be made so bad as the reality, day carries it.\nThe day begins to break now; and in truth it might be better for the\nnational glory even that the sun should sometimes set upon the\nBritish dominions than that it should ever rise upon so vile a wonder\nas Tom.\n\nA brown sunburnt gentleman, who appears in some inaptitude for sleep\nto be wandering abroad rather than counting the hours on a restless\npillow, strolls hitherward at this quiet time. Attracted by\ncuriosity, he often pauses and looks about him, up and down the\nmiserable by-ways. Nor is he merely curious, for in his bright dark\neye there is compassionate interest; and as he looks here and there,\nhe seems to understand such wretchedness and to have studied it\nbefore.\n\nOn the banks of the stagnant channel of mud which is the main street\nof Tom-all-Alone's, nothing is to be seen but the crazy houses, shut\nup and silent. No waking creature save himself appears except in one\ndirection, where he sees the solitary figure of a woman sitting on a\ndoor-step. He walks that way. Approaching, he observes that she has\njourneyed a long distance and is footsore and travel-stained. She\nsits on the door-step in the manner of one who is waiting, with her\nelbow on her knee and her head upon her hand. Beside her is a canvas\nbag, or bundle, she has carried. She is dozing probably, for she\ngives no heed to his steps as he comes toward her.\n\nThe broken footway is so narrow that when Allan Woodcourt comes to\nwhere the woman sits, he has to turn into the road to pass her.\nLooking down at her face, his eye meets hers, and he stops.\n\n\"What is the matter?\"\n\n\"Nothing, sir.\"\n\n\"Can't you make them hear? Do you want to be let in?\"\n\n\"I'm waiting till they get up at another house--a lodging-house--not\nhere,\" the woman patiently returns. \"I'm waiting here because there\nwill be sun here presently to warm me.\"\n\n\"I am afraid you are tired. I am sorry to see you sitting in the\nstreet.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir. It don't matter.\"\n\nA habit in him of speaking to the poor and of avoiding patronage or\ncondescension or childishness (which is the favourite device, many\npeople deeming it quite a subtlety to talk to them like little\nspelling books) has put him on good terms with the woman easily.\n\n\"Let me look at your forehead,\" he says, bending down. \"I am a\ndoctor. Don't be afraid. I wouldn't hurt you for the world.\"\n\nHe knows that by touching her with his skilful and accustomed hand he\ncan soothe her yet more readily. She makes a slight objection,\nsaying, \"It's nothing\"; but he has scarcely laid his fingers on the\nwounded place when she lifts it up to the light.\n\n\"Aye! A bad bruise, and the skin sadly broken. This must be very\nsore.\"\n\n\"It do ache a little, sir,\" returns the woman with a started tear\nupon her cheek.\n\n\"Let me try to make it more comfortable. My handkerchief won't hurt\nyou.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear no, sir, I'm sure of that!\"\n\nHe cleanses the injured place and dries it, and having carefully\nexamined it and gently pressed it with the palm of his hand, takes a\nsmall case from his pocket, dresses it, and binds it up. While he is\nthus employed, he says, after laughing at his establishing a surgery\nin the street, \"And so your husband is a brickmaker?\"\n\n\"How do you know that, sir?\" asks the woman, astonished.\n\n\"Why, I suppose so from the colour of the clay upon your bag and on\nyour dress. And I know brickmakers go about working at piecework in\ndifferent places. And I am sorry to say I have known them cruel to\ntheir wives too.\"\n\nThe woman hastily lifts up her eyes as if she would deny that her\ninjury is referable to such a cause. But feeling the hand upon her\nforehead, and seeing his busy and composed face, she quietly drops\nthem again.\n\n\"Where is he now?\" asks the surgeon.\n\n\"He got into trouble last night, sir; but he'll look for me at the\nlodging-house.\"\n\n\"He will get into worse trouble if he often misuses his large and\nheavy hand as he has misused it here. But you forgive him, brutal as\nhe is, and I say no more of him, except that I wish he deserved it.\nYou have no young child?\"\n\nThe woman shakes her head. \"One as I calls mine, sir, but it's\nLiz's.\"\n\n\"Your own is dead. I see! Poor little thing!\"\n\nBy this time he has finished and is putting up his case. \"I suppose\nyou have some settled home. Is it far from here?\" he asks,\ngood-humouredly making light of what he has done as she gets up and\ncurtsys.\n\n\"It's a good two or three and twenty mile from here, sir. At Saint\nAlbans. You know Saint Albans, sir? I thought you gave a start like,\nas if you did.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know something of it. And now I will ask you a question in\nreturn. Have you money for your lodging?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" she says, \"really and truly.\" And she shows it. He tells\nher, in acknowledgment of her many subdued thanks, that she is very\nwelcome, gives her good day, and walks away. Tom-all-Alone's is still\nasleep, and nothing is astir.\n\nYes, something is! As he retraces his way to the point from which he\ndescried the woman at a distance sitting on the step, he sees a\nragged figure coming very cautiously along, crouching close to the\nsoiled walls--which the wretchedest figure might as well avoid--and\nfurtively thrusting a hand before it. It is the figure of a youth\nwhose face is hollow and whose eyes have an emaciated glare. He is so\nintent on getting along unseen that even the apparition of a stranger\nin whole garments does not tempt him to look back. He shades his face\nwith his ragged elbow as he passes on the other side of the way, and\ngoes shrinking and creeping on with his anxious hand before him and\nhis shapeless clothes hanging in shreds. Clothes made for what\npurpose, or of what material, it would be impossible to say. They\nlook, in colour and in substance, like a bundle of rank leaves of\nswampy growth that rotted long ago.\n\nAllan Woodcourt pauses to look after him and note all this, with a\nshadowy belief that he has seen the boy before. He cannot recall how\nor where, but there is some association in his mind with such a form.\nHe imagines that he must have seen it in some hospital or refuge,\nstill, cannot make out why it comes with any special force on his\nremembrance.\n\nHe is gradually emerging from Tom-all-Alone's in the morning light,\nthinking about it, when he hears running feet behind him, and looking\nround, sees the boy scouring towards him at great speed, followed by\nthe woman.\n\n\"Stop him, stop him!\" cries the woman, almost breathless. \"Stop him,\nsir!\"\n\nHe darts across the road into the boy's path, but the boy is quicker\nthan he, makes a curve, ducks, dives under his hands, comes up\nhalf-a-dozen yards beyond him, and scours away again. Still the woman\nfollows, crying, \"Stop him, sir, pray stop him!\" Allan, not knowing\nbut that he has just robbed her of her money, follows in chase and\nruns so hard that he runs the boy down a dozen times, but each time\nhe repeats the curve, the duck, the dive, and scours away again. To\nstrike at him on any of these occasions would be to fell and disable\nhim, but the pursuer cannot resolve to do that, and so the grimly\nridiculous pursuit continues. At last the fugitive, hard-pressed,\ntakes to a narrow passage and a court which has no thoroughfare.\nHere, against a hoarding of decaying timber, he is brought to bay and\ntumbles down, lying gasping at his pursuer, who stands and gasps at\nhim until the woman comes up.\n\n\"Oh, you, Jo!\" cries the woman. \"What? I have found you at last!\"\n\n\"Jo,\" repeats Allan, looking at him with attention, \"Jo! Stay. To be\nsure! I recollect this lad some time ago being brought before the\ncoroner.\"\n\n\"Yes, I see you once afore at the inkwhich,\" whimpers Jo. \"What of\nthat? Can't you never let such an unfortnet as me alone? An't I\nunfortnet enough for you yet? How unfortnet do you want me fur to be?\nI've been a-chivied and a-chivied, fust by one on you and nixt by\nanother on you, till I'm worritted to skins and bones. The inkwhich\nwarn't MY fault. I done nothink. He wos wery good to me, he wos; he\nwos the only one I knowed to speak to, as ever come across my\ncrossing. It ain't wery likely I should want him to be inkwhiched. I\nonly wish I wos, myself. I don't know why I don't go and make a hole\nin the water, I'm sure I don't.\"\n\nHe says it with such a pitiable air, and his grimy tears appear so\nreal, and he lies in the corner up against the hoarding so like a\ngrowth of fungus or any unwholesome excrescence produced there in\nneglect and impurity, that Allan Woodcourt is softened towards him.\nHe says to the woman, \"Miserable creature, what has he done?\"\n\nTo which she only replies, shaking her head at the prostrate figure\nmore amazedly than angrily, \"Oh, you Jo, you Jo. I have found you at\nlast!\"\n\n\"What has he done?\" says Allan. \"Has he robbed you?\"\n\n\"No, sir, no. Robbed me? He did nothing but what was kind-hearted by\nme, and that's the wonder of it.\"\n\nAllan looks from Jo to the woman, and from the woman to Jo, waiting\nfor one of them to unravel the riddle.\n\n\"But he was along with me, sir,\" says the woman. \"Oh, you Jo! He was\nalong with me, sir, down at Saint Albans, ill, and a young lady, Lord\nbless her for a good friend to me, took pity on him when I durstn't,\nand took him home--\"\n\nAllan shrinks back from him with a sudden horror.\n\n\"Yes, sir, yes. Took him home, and made him comfortable, and like a\nthankless monster he ran away in the night and never has been seen or\nheard of since till I set eyes on him just now. And that young lady\nthat was such a pretty dear caught his illness, lost her beautiful\nlooks, and wouldn't hardly be known for the same young lady now if it\nwasn't for her angel temper, and her pretty shape, and her sweet\nvoice. Do you know it? You ungrateful wretch, do you know that this\nis all along of you and of her goodness to you?\" demands the woman,\nbeginning to rage at him as she recalls it and breaking into\npassionate tears.\n\nThe boy, in rough sort stunned by what he hears, falls to smearing\nhis dirty forehead with his dirty palm, and to staring at the ground,\nand to shaking from head to foot until the crazy hoarding against\nwhich he leans rattles.\n\nAllan restrains the woman, merely by a quiet gesture, but\neffectually.\n\n\"Richard told me--\" He falters. \"I mean, I have heard of this--don't\nmind me for a moment, I will speak presently.\"\n\nHe turns away and stands for a while looking out at the covered\npassage. When he comes back, he has recovered his composure, except\nthat he contends against an avoidance of the boy, which is so very\nremarkable that it absorbs the woman's attention.\n\n\"You hear what she says. But get up, get up!\"\n\nJo, shaking and chattering, slowly rises and stands, after the manner\nof his tribe in a difficulty, sideways against the hoarding, resting\none of his high shoulders against it and covertly rubbing his right\nhand over his left and his left foot over his right.\n\n\"You hear what she says, and I know it's true. Have you been here\never since?\"\n\n\"Wishermaydie if I seen Tom-all-Alone's till this blessed morning,\"\nreplies Jo hoarsely.\n\n\"Why have you come here now?\"\n\nJo looks all round the confined court, looks at his questioner no\nhigher than the knees, and finally answers, \"I don't know how to do\nnothink, and I can't get nothink to do. I'm wery poor and ill, and I\nthought I'd come back here when there warn't nobody about, and lay\ndown and hide somewheres as I knows on till arter dark, and then go\nand beg a trifle of Mr. Snagsby. He wos allus willin fur to give me\nsomethink he wos, though Mrs. Snagsby she was allus a-chivying on\nme--like everybody everywheres.\"\n\n\"Where have you come from?\"\n\nJo looks all round the court again, looks at his questioner's knees\nagain, and concludes by laying his profile against the hoarding in a\nsort of resignation.\n\n\"Did you hear me ask you where you have come from?\"\n\n\"Tramp then,\" says Jo.\n\n\"Now tell me,\" proceeds Allan, making a strong effort to overcome his\nrepugnance, going very near to him, and leaning over him with an\nexpression of confidence, \"tell me how it came about that you left\nthat house when the good young lady had been so unfortunate as to\npity you and take you home.\"\n\nJo suddenly comes out of his resignation and excitedly declares,\naddressing the woman, that he never known about the young lady, that\nhe never heern about it, that he never went fur to hurt her, that he\nwould sooner have hurt his own self, that he'd sooner have had his\nunfortnet ed chopped off than ever gone a-nigh her, and that she wos\nwery good to him, she wos. Conducting himself throughout as if in his\npoor fashion he really meant it, and winding up with some very\nmiserable sobs.\n\nAllan Woodcourt sees that this is not a sham. He constrains himself\nto touch him. \"Come, Jo. Tell me.\"\n\n\"No. I dustn't,\" says Jo, relapsing into the profile state. \"I\ndustn't, or I would.\"\n\n\"But I must know,\" returns the other, \"all the same. Come, Jo.\"\n\nAfter two or three such adjurations, Jo lifts up his head again,\nlooks round the court again, and says in a low voice, \"Well, I'll\ntell you something. I was took away. There!\"\n\n\"Took away? In the night?\"\n\n\"Ah!\" Very apprehensive of being overheard, Jo looks about him and\neven glances up some ten feet at the top of the hoarding and through\nthe cracks in it lest the object of his distrust should be looking\nover or hidden on the other side.\n\n\"Who took you away?\"\n\n\"I dustn't name him,\" says Jo. \"I dustn't do it, sir.\n\n\"But I want, in the young lady's name, to know. You may trust me. No\none else shall hear.\"\n\n\"Ah, but I don't know,\" replies Jo, shaking his head fearfully, \"as\nhe DON'T hear.\"\n\n\"Why, he is not in this place.\"\n\n\"Oh, ain't he though?\" says Jo. \"He's in all manner of places, all at\nwanst.\"\n\nAllan looks at him in perplexity, but discovers some real meaning and\ngood faith at the bottom of this bewildering reply. He patiently\nawaits an explicit answer; and Jo, more baffled by his patience than\nby anything else, at last desperately whispers a name in his ear.\n\n\"Aye!\" says Allan. \"Why, what had you been doing?\"\n\n\"Nothink, sir. Never done nothink to get myself into no trouble,\n'sept in not moving on and the inkwhich. But I'm a-moving on now. I'm\na-moving on to the berryin ground--that's the move as I'm up to.\"\n\n\"No, no, we will try to prevent that. But what did he do with you?\"\n\n\"Put me in a horsepittle,\" replied Jo, whispering, \"till I was\ndischarged, then giv me a little money--four half-bulls, wot you may\ncall half-crowns--and ses 'Hook it! Nobody wants you here,' he ses.\n'You hook it. You go and tramp,' he ses. 'You move on,' he ses.\n'Don't let me ever see you nowheres within forty mile of London, or\nyou'll repent it.' So I shall, if ever he doos see me, and he'll see\nme if I'm above ground,\" concludes Jo, nervously repeating all his\nformer precautions and investigations.\n\nAllan considers a little, then remarks, turning to the woman but\nkeeping an encouraging eye on Jo, \"He is not so ungrateful as you\nsupposed. He had a reason for going away, though it was an\ninsufficient one.\"\n\n\"Thankee, sir, thankee!\" exclaims Jo. \"There now! See how hard you\nwos upon me. But ony you tell the young lady wot the genlmn ses, and\nit's all right. For YOU wos wery good to me too, and I knows it.\"\n\n\"Now, Jo,\" says Allan, keeping his eye upon him, \"come with me and I\nwill find you a better place than this to lie down and hide in. If I\ntake one side of the way and you the other to avoid observation, you\nwill not run away, I know very well, if you make me a promise.\"\n\n\"I won't, not unless I wos to see HIM a-coming, sir.\"\n\n\"Very well. I take your word. Half the town is getting up by this\ntime, and the whole town will be broad awake in another hour. Come\nalong. Good day again, my good woman.\"\n\n\"Good day again, sir, and I thank you kindly many times again.\"\n\nShe has been sitting on her bag, deeply attentive, and now rises and\ntakes it up. Jo, repeating, \"Ony you tell the young lady as I never\nwent fur to hurt her and wot the genlmn ses!\" nods and shambles and\nshivers, and smears and blinks, and half laughs and half cries, a\nfarewell to her, and takes his creeping way along after Allan\nWoodcourt, close to the houses on the opposite side of the street. In\nthis order, the two come up out of Tom-all-Alone's into the broad\nrays of the sunlight and the purer air.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVII\n\nJo's Will\n\n\nAs Allan Woodcourt and Jo proceed along the streets where the high\nchurch spires and the distances are so near and clear in the morning\nlight that the city itself seems renewed by rest, Allan revolves in\nhis mind how and where he shall bestow his companion. \"It surely is a\nstrange fact,\" he considers, \"that in the heart of a civilized world\nthis creature in human form should be more difficult to dispose of\nthan an unowned dog.\" But it is none the less a fact because of its\nstrangeness, and the difficulty remains.\n\nAt first he looks behind him often to assure himself that Jo is still\nreally following. But look where he will, he still beholds him close\nto the opposite houses, making his way with his wary hand from brick\nto brick and from door to door, and often, as he creeps along,\nglancing over at him watchfully. Soon satisfied that the last thing\nin his thoughts is to give him the slip, Allan goes on, considering\nwith a less divided attention what he shall do.\n\nA breakfast-stall at a street-corner suggests the first thing to be\ndone. He stops there, looks round, and beckons Jo. Jo crosses and\ncomes halting and shuffling up, slowly scooping the knuckles of his\nright hand round and round in the hollowed palm of his left, kneading\ndirt with a natural pestle and mortar. What is a dainty repast to Jo\nis then set before him, and he begins to gulp the coffee and to gnaw\nthe bread and butter, looking anxiously about him in all directions\nas he eats and drinks, like a scared animal.\n\nBut he is so sick and miserable that even hunger has abandoned him.\n\"I thought I was amost a-starvin, sir,\" says Jo, soon putting down\nhis food, \"but I don't know nothink--not even that. I don't care for\neating wittles nor yet for drinking on 'em.\" And Jo stands shivering\nand looking at the breakfast wonderingly.\n\nAllan Woodcourt lays his hand upon his pulse and on his chest. \"Draw\nbreath, Jo!\" \"It draws,\" says Jo, \"as heavy as a cart.\" He might add,\n\"And rattles like it,\" but he only mutters, \"I'm a-moving on, sir.\"\n\nAllan looks about for an apothecary's shop. There is none at hand,\nbut a tavern does as well or better. He obtains a little measure of\nwine and gives the lad a portion of it very carefully. He begins to\nrevive almost as soon as it passes his lips. \"We may repeat that\ndose, Jo,\" observes Allan after watching him with his attentive face.\n\"So! Now we will take five minutes' rest, and then go on again.\"\n\nLeaving the boy sitting on the bench of the breakfast-stall, with his\nback against an iron railing, Allan Woodcourt paces up and down in\nthe early sunshine, casting an occasional look towards him without\nappearing to watch him. It requires no discernment to perceive that\nhe is warmed and refreshed. If a face so shaded can brighten, his\nface brightens somewhat; and by little and little he eats the slice\nof bread he had so hopelessly laid down. Observant of these signs of\nimprovement, Allan engages him in conversation and elicits to his no\nsmall wonder the adventure of the lady in the veil, with all its\nconsequences. Jo slowly munches as he slowly tells it. When he has\nfinished his story and his bread, they go on again.\n\nIntending to refer his difficulty in finding a temporary place of\nrefuge for the boy to his old patient, zealous little Miss Flite,\nAllan leads the way to the court where he and Jo first foregathered.\nBut all is changed at the rag and bottle shop; Miss Flite no longer\nlodges there; it is shut up; and a hard-featured female, much\nobscured by dust, whose age is a problem, but who is indeed no other\nthan the interesting Judy, is tart and spare in her replies. These\nsufficing, however, to inform the visitor that Miss Flite and her\nbirds are domiciled with a Mrs. Blinder, in Bell Yard, he repairs to\nthat neighbouring place, where Miss Flite (who rises early that she\nmay be punctual at the divan of justice held by her excellent friend\nthe Chancellor) comes running downstairs with tears of welcome and\nwith open arms.\n\n\"My dear physician!\" cries Miss Flite. \"My meritorious,\ndistinguished, honourable officer!\" She uses some odd expressions,\nbut is as cordial and full of heart as sanity itself can be--more so\nthan it often is. Allan, very patient with her, waits until she has\nno more raptures to express, then points out Jo, trembling in a\ndoorway, and tells her how he comes there.\n\n\"Where can I lodge him hereabouts for the present? Now, you have a\nfund of knowledge and good sense and can advise me.\"\n\nMiss Flite, mighty proud of the compliment, sets herself to consider;\nbut it is long before a bright thought occurs to her. Mrs. Blinder is\nentirely let, and she herself occupies poor Gridley's room.\n\"Gridley!\" exclaims Miss Flite, clapping her hands after a twentieth\nrepetition of this remark. \"Gridley! To be sure! Of course! My dear\nphysician! General George will help us out.\"\n\nIt is hopeless to ask for any information about General George, and\nwould be, though Miss Flite had not already run upstairs to put on\nher pinched bonnet and her poor little shawl and to arm herself with\nher reticule of documents. But as she informs her physician in her\ndisjointed manner on coming down in full array that General George,\nwhom she often calls upon, knows her dear Fitz Jarndyce and takes a\ngreat interest in all connected with her, Allan is induced to think\nthat they may be in the right way. So he tells Jo, for his\nencouragement, that this walking about will soon be over now; and\nthey repair to the general's. Fortunately it is not far.\n\nFrom the exterior of George's Shooting Gallery, and the long entry,\nand the bare perspective beyond it, Allan Woodcourt augurs well. He\nalso descries promise in the figure of Mr. George himself, striding\ntowards them in his morning exercise with his pipe in his mouth, no\nstock on, and his muscular arms, developed by broadsword and\ndumbbell, weightily asserting themselves through his light\nshirt-sleeves.\n\n\"Your servant, sir,\" says Mr. George with a military salute.\nGood-humouredly smiling all over his broad forehead up into his crisp\nhair, he then defers to Miss Flite, as, with great stateliness, and\nat some length, she performs the courtly ceremony of presentation. He\nwinds it up with another \"Your servant, sir!\" and another salute.\n\n\"Excuse me, sir. A sailor, I believe?\" says Mr. George.\n\n\"I am proud to find I have the air of one,\" returns Allan; \"but I am\nonly a sea-going doctor.\"\n\n\"Indeed, sir! I should have thought you was a regular blue-jacket\nmyself.\"\n\nAllan hopes Mr. George will forgive his intrusion the more readily on\nthat account, and particularly that he will not lay aside his pipe,\nwhich, in his politeness, he has testified some intention of doing.\n\"You are very good, sir,\" returns the trooper. \"As I know by\nexperience that it's not disagreeable to Miss Flite, and since it's\nequally agreeable to yourself--\" and finishes the sentence by putting\nit between his lips again. Allan proceeds to tell him all he knows\nabout Jo, unto which the trooper listens with a grave face.\n\n\"And that's the lad, sir, is it?\" he inquires, looking along the\nentry to where Jo stands staring up at the great letters on the\nwhitewashed front, which have no meaning in his eyes.\n\n\"That's he,\" says Allan. \"And, Mr. George, I am in this difficulty\nabout him. I am unwilling to place him in a hospital, even if I could\nprocure him immediate admission, because I foresee that he would not\nstay there many hours if he could be so much as got there. The same\nobjection applies to a workhouse, supposing I had the patience to be\nevaded and shirked, and handed about from post to pillar in trying to\nget him into one, which is a system that I don't take kindly to.\"\n\n\"No man does, sir,\" returns Mr. George.\n\n\"I am convinced that he would not remain in either place, because he\nis possessed by an extraordinary terror of this person who ordered\nhim to keep out of the way; in his ignorance, he believes this person\nto be everywhere, and cognizant of everything.\"\n\n\"I ask your pardon, sir,\" says Mr. George. \"But you have not\nmentioned that party's name. Is it a secret, sir?\"\n\n\"The boy makes it one. But his name is Bucket.\"\n\n\"Bucket the detective, sir?\"\n\n\"The same man.\"\n\n\"The man is known to me, sir,\" returns the trooper after blowing out\na cloud of smoke and squaring his chest, \"and the boy is so far\ncorrect that he undoubtedly is a--rum customer.\" Mr. George smokes\nwith a profound meaning after this and surveys Miss Flite in silence.\n\n\"Now, I wish Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson at least to know that\nthis Jo, who tells so strange a story, has reappeared, and to have it\nin their power to speak with him if they should desire to do so.\nTherefore I want to get him, for the present moment, into any poor\nlodging kept by decent people where he would be admitted. Decent\npeople and Jo, Mr. George,\" says Allan, following the direction of\nthe trooper's eyes along the entry, \"have not been much acquainted,\nas you see. Hence the difficulty. Do you happen to know any one in\nthis neighbourhood who would receive him for a while on my paying for\nhim beforehand?\"\n\nAs he puts the question, he becomes aware of a dirty-faced little man\nstanding at the trooper's elbow and looking up, with an oddly twisted\nfigure and countenance, into the trooper's face. After a few more\npuffs at his pipe, the trooper looks down askant at the little man,\nand the little man winks up at the trooper.\n\n\"Well, sir,\" says Mr. George, \"I can assure you that I would\nwillingly be knocked on the head at any time if it would be at all\nagreeable to Miss Summerson, and consequently I esteem it a privilege\nto do that young lady any service, however small. We are naturally in\nthe vagabond way here, sir, both myself and Phil. You see what the\nplace is. You are welcome to a quiet corner of it for the boy if the\nsame would meet your views. No charge made, except for rations. We\nare not in a flourishing state of circumstances here, sir. We are\nliable to be tumbled out neck and crop at a moment's notice. However,\nsir, such as the place is, and so long as it lasts, here it is at\nyour service.\"\n\nWith a comprehensive wave of his pipe, Mr. George places the whole\nbuilding at his visitor's disposal.\n\n\"I take it for granted, sir,\" he adds, \"you being one of the medical\nstaff, that there is no present infection about this unfortunate\nsubject?\"\n\nAllan is quite sure of it.\n\n\"Because, sir,\" says Mr. George, shaking his head sorrowfully, \"we\nhave had enough of that.\"\n\nHis tone is no less sorrowfully echoed by his new acquaintance.\n\"Still I am bound to tell you,\" observes Allan after repeating his\nformer assurance, \"that the boy is deplorably low and reduced and\nthat he may be--I do not say that he is--too far gone to recover.\"\n\n\"Do you consider him in present danger, sir?\" inquires the trooper.\n\n\"Yes, I fear so.\"\n\n\"Then, sir,\" returns the trooper in a decisive manner, \"it appears to\nme--being naturally in the vagabond way myself--that the sooner he\ncomes out of the street, the better. You, Phil! Bring him in!\"\n\nMr. Squod tacks out, all on one side, to execute the word of command;\nand the trooper, having smoked his pipe, lays it by. Jo is brought\nin. He is not one of Mrs. Pardiggle's Tockahoopo Indians; he is not\none of Mrs. Jellyby's lambs, being wholly unconnected with\nBorrioboola-Gha; he is not softened by distance and unfamiliarity; he\nis not a genuine foreign-grown savage; he is the ordinary home-made\narticle. Dirty, ugly, disagreeable to all the senses, in body a\ncommon creature of the common streets, only in soul a heathen. Homely\nfilth begrimes him, homely parasites devour him, homely sores are in\nhim, homely rags are on him; native ignorance, the growth of English\nsoil and climate, sinks his immortal nature lower than the beasts\nthat perish. Stand forth, Jo, in uncompromising colours! From the\nsole of thy foot to the crown of thy head, there is nothing\ninteresting about thee.\n\nHe shuffles slowly into Mr. George's gallery and stands huddled\ntogether in a bundle, looking all about the floor. He seems to know\nthat they have an inclination to shrink from him, partly for what he\nis and partly for what he has caused. He, too, shrinks from them. He\nis not of the same order of things, not of the same place in\ncreation. He is of no order and no place, neither of the beasts nor\nof humanity.\n\n\"Look here, Jo!\" says Allan. \"This is Mr. George.\"\n\nJo searches the floor for some time longer, then looks up for a\nmoment, and then down again.\n\n\"He is a kind friend to you, for he is going to give you lodging room\nhere.\"\n\nJo makes a scoop with one hand, which is supposed to be a bow. After\na little more consideration and some backing and changing of the foot\non which he rests, he mutters that he is \"wery thankful.\"\n\n\"You are quite safe here. All you have to do at present is to be\nobedient and to get strong. And mind you tell us the truth here,\nwhatever you do, Jo.\"\n\n\"Wishermaydie if I don't, sir,\" says Jo, reverting to his favourite\ndeclaration. \"I never done nothink yit, but wot you knows on, to get\nmyself into no trouble. I never was in no other trouble at all, sir,\n'sept not knowin' nothink and starwation.\"\n\n\"I believe it, now attend to Mr. George. I see he is going to speak\nto you.\"\n\n\"My intention merely was, sir,\" observes Mr. George, amazingly broad\nand upright, \"to point out to him where he can lie down and get a\nthorough good dose of sleep. Now, look here.\" As the trooper speaks,\nhe conducts them to the other end of the gallery and opens one of the\nlittle cabins. \"There you are, you see! Here is a mattress, and here\nyou may rest, on good behaviour, as long as Mr., I ask your pardon,\nsir\"--he refers apologetically to the card Allan has given him--\"Mr.\nWoodcourt pleases. Don't you be alarmed if you hear shots; they'll be\naimed at the target, and not you. Now, there's another thing I would\nrecommend, sir,\" says the trooper, turning to his visitor. \"Phil,\ncome here!\"\n\nPhil bears down upon them according to his usual tactics. \"Here is a\nman, sir, who was found, when a baby, in the gutter. Consequently, it\nis to be expected that he takes a natural interest in this poor\ncreature. You do, don't you, Phil?\"\n\n\"Certainly and surely I do, guv'ner,\" is Phil's reply.\n\n\"Now I was thinking, sir,\" says Mr. George in a martial sort of\nconfidence, as if he were giving his opinion in a council of war at a\ndrum-head, \"that if this man was to take him to a bath and was to lay\nout a few shillings in getting him one or two coarse articles--\"\n\n\"Mr. George, my considerate friend,\" returns Allan, taking out his\npurse, \"it is the very favour I would have asked.\"\n\nPhil Squod and Jo are sent out immediately on this work of\nimprovement. Miss Flite, quite enraptured by her success, makes the\nbest of her way to court, having great fears that otherwise her\nfriend the Chancellor may be uneasy about her or may give the\njudgment she has so long expected in her absence, and observing\n\"which you know, my dear physician, and general, after so many years,\nwould be too absurdly unfortunate!\" Allan takes the opportunity of\ngoing out to procure some restorative medicines, and obtaining them\nnear at hand, soon returns to find the trooper walking up and down\nthe gallery, and to fall into step and walk with him.\n\n\"I take it, sir,\" says Mr. George, \"that you know Miss Summerson\npretty well?\"\n\nYes, it appears.\n\n\"Not related to her, sir?\"\n\nNo, it appears.\n\n\"Excuse the apparent curiosity,\" says Mr. George. \"It seemed to me\nprobable that you might take more than a common interest in this poor\ncreature because Miss Summerson had taken that unfortunate interest\nin him. 'Tis MY case, sir, I assure you.\"\n\n\"And mine, Mr. George.\"\n\nThe trooper looks sideways at Allan's sunburnt cheek and bright dark\neye, rapidly measures his height and build, and seems to approve of\nhim.\n\n\"Since you have been out, sir, I have been thinking that I\nunquestionably know the rooms in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where Bucket\ntook the lad, according to his account. Though he is not acquainted\nwith the name, I can help you to it. It's Tulkinghorn. That's what it\nis.\"\n\nAllan looks at him inquiringly, repeating the name.\n\n\"Tulkinghorn. That's the name, sir. I know the man, and know him to\nhave been in communication with Bucket before, respecting a deceased\nperson who had given him offence. I know the man, sir. To my sorrow.\"\n\nAllan naturally asks what kind of man he is.\n\n\"What kind of man! Do you mean to look at?\"\n\n\"I think I know that much of him. I mean to deal with. Generally,\nwhat kind of man?\"\n\n\"Why, then I'll tell you, sir,\" returns the trooper, stopping short\nand folding his arms on his square chest so angrily that his face\nfires and flushes all over; \"he is a confoundedly bad kind of man. He\nis a slow-torturing kind of man. He is no more like flesh and blood\nthan a rusty old carbine is. He is a kind of man--by George!--that\nhas caused me more restlessness, and more uneasiness, and more\ndissatisfaction with myself than all other men put together. That's\nthe kind of man Mr. Tulkinghorn is!\"\n\n\"I am sorry,\" says Allan, \"to have touched so sore a place.\"\n\n\"Sore?\" The trooper plants his legs wider apart, wets the palm of his\nbroad right hand, and lays it on the imaginary moustache. \"It's no\nfault of yours, sir; but you shall judge. He has got a power over me.\nHe is the man I spoke of just now as being able to tumble me out of\nthis place neck and crop. He keeps me on a constant see-saw. He won't\nhold off, and he won't come on. If I have a payment to make him, or\ntime to ask him for, or anything to go to him about, he don't see me,\ndon't hear me--passes me on to Melchisedech's in Clifford's Inn,\nMelchisedech's in Clifford's Inn passes me back again to him--he\nkeeps me prowling and dangling about him as if I was made of the same\nstone as himself. Why, I spend half my life now, pretty well,\nloitering and dodging about his door. What does he care? Nothing.\nJust as much as the rusty old carbine I have compared him to. He\nchafes and goads me till--Bah! Nonsense! I am forgetting myself. Mr.\nWoodcourt,\" the trooper resumes his march, \"all I say is, he is an\nold man; but I am glad I shall never have the chance of setting spurs\nto my horse and riding at him in a fair field. For if I had that\nchance, in one of the humours he drives me into--he'd go down, sir!\"\n\nMr. George has been so excited that he finds it necessary to wipe his\nforehead on his shirt-sleeve. Even while he whistles his impetuosity\naway with the national anthem, some involuntary shakings of his head\nand heavings of his chest still linger behind, not to mention an\noccasional hasty adjustment with both hands of his open shirt-collar,\nas if it were scarcely open enough to prevent his being troubled by a\nchoking sensation. In short, Allan Woodcourt has not much doubt about\nthe going down of Mr. Tulkinghorn on the field referred to.\n\nJo and his conductor presently return, and Jo is assisted to his\nmattress by the careful Phil, to whom, after due administration of\nmedicine by his own hands, Allan confides all needful means and\ninstructions. The morning is by this time getting on apace. He\nrepairs to his lodgings to dress and breakfast, and then, without\nseeking rest, goes away to Mr. Jarndyce to communicate his discovery.\n\nWith him Mr. Jarndyce returns alone, confidentially telling him that\nthere are reasons for keeping this matter very quiet indeed and\nshowing a serious interest in it. To Mr. Jarndyce, Jo repeats in\nsubstance what he said in the morning, without any material\nvariation. Only that cart of his is heavier to draw, and draws with a\nhollower sound.\n\n\"Let me lay here quiet and not be chivied no more,\" falters Jo, \"and\nbe so kind any person as is a-passin nigh where I used fur to sleep,\nas jist to say to Mr. Sangsby that Jo, wot he known once, is a-moving\non right forards with his duty, and I'll be wery thankful. I'd be\nmore thankful than I am aready if it wos any ways possible for an\nunfortnet to be it.\"\n\nHe makes so many of these references to the law-stationer in the\ncourse of a day or two that Allan, after conferring with Mr.\nJarndyce, good-naturedly resolves to call in Cook's Court, the\nrather, as the cart seems to be breaking down.\n\nTo Cook's Court, therefore, he repairs. Mr. Snagsby is behind his\ncounter in his grey coat and sleeves, inspecting an indenture of\nseveral skins which has just come in from the engrosser's, an immense\ndesert of law-hand and parchment, with here and there a resting-place\nof a few large letters to break the awful monotony and save the\ntraveller from despair. Mr Snagsby puts up at one of these inky wells\nand greets the stranger with his cough of general preparation for\nbusiness.\n\n\"You don't remember me, Mr. Snagsby?\"\n\nThe stationer's heart begins to thump heavily, for his old\napprehensions have never abated. It is as much as he can do to\nanswer, \"No, sir, I can't say I do. I should have considered--not to\nput too fine a point upon it--that I never saw you before, sir.\"\n\n\"Twice before,\" says Allan Woodcourt. \"Once at a poor bedside, and\nonce--\"\n\n\"It's come at last!\" thinks the afflicted stationer, as recollection\nbreaks upon him. \"It's got to a head now and is going to burst!\" But\nhe has sufficient presence of mind to conduct his visitor into the\nlittle counting-house and to shut the door.\n\n\"Are you a married man, sir?\"\n\n\"No, I am not.\"\n\n\"Would you make the attempt, though single,\" says Mr. Snagsby in a\nmelancholy whisper, \"to speak as low as you can? For my little woman\nis a-listening somewheres, or I'll forfeit the business and five\nhundred pound!\"\n\nIn deep dejection Mr. Snagsby sits down on his stool, with his back\nagainst his desk, protesting, \"I never had a secret of my own, sir. I\ncan't charge my memory with ever having once attempted to deceive my\nlittle woman on my own account since she named the day. I wouldn't\nhave done it, sir. Not to put too fine a point upon it, I couldn't\nhave done it, I dursn't have done it. Whereas, and nevertheless, I\nfind myself wrapped round with secrecy and mystery, till my life is a\nburden to me.\"\n\nHis visitor professes his regret to hear it and asks him does he\nremember Jo. Mr. Snagsby answers with a suppressed groan, oh, don't\nhe!\n\n\"You couldn't name an individual human being--except myself--that my\nlittle woman is more set and determined against than Jo,\" says Mr.\nSnagsby.\n\nAllan asks why.\n\n\"Why?\" repeats Mr. Snagsby, in his desperation clutching at the clump\nof hair at the back of his bald head. \"How should I know why? But you\nare a single person, sir, and may you long be spared to ask a married\nperson such a question!\"\n\nWith this beneficent wish, Mr. Snagsby coughs a cough of dismal\nresignation and submits himself to hear what the visitor has to\ncommunicate.\n\n\"There again!\" says Mr. Snagsby, who, between the earnestness of his\nfeelings and the suppressed tones of his voice is discoloured in the\nface. \"At it again, in a new direction! A certain person charges me,\nin the solemnest way, not to talk of Jo to any one, even my little\nwoman. Then comes another certain person, in the person of yourself,\nand charges me, in an equally solemn way, not to mention Jo to that\nother certain person above all other persons. Why, this is a private\nasylum! Why, not to put too fine a point upon it, this is Bedlam,\nsir!\" says Mr. Snagsby.\n\nBut it is better than he expected after all, being no explosion of\nthe mine below him or deepening of the pit into which he has fallen.\nAnd being tender-hearted and affected by the account he hears of Jo's\ncondition, he readily engages to \"look round\" as early in the evening\nas he can manage it quietly. He looks round very quietly when the\nevening comes, but it may turn out that Mrs. Snagsby is as quiet a\nmanager as he.\n\nJo is very glad to see his old friend and says, when they are left\nalone, that he takes it uncommon kind as Mr. Sangsby should come so\nfar out of his way on accounts of sich as him. Mr. Snagsby, touched\nby the spectacle before him, immediately lays upon the table half a\ncrown, that magic balsam of his for all kinds of wounds.\n\n\"And how do you find yourself, my poor lad?\" inquires the stationer\nwith his cough of sympathy.\n\n\"I am in luck, Mr. Sangsby, I am,\" returns Jo, \"and don't want for\nnothink. I'm more cumfbler nor you can't think. Mr. Sangsby! I'm wery\nsorry that I done it, but I didn't go fur to do it, sir.\"\n\nThe stationer softly lays down another half-crown and asks him what\nit is that he is sorry for having done.\n\n\"Mr. Sangsby,\" says Jo, \"I went and giv a illness to the lady as wos\nand yit as warn't the t'other lady, and none of 'em never says\nnothink to me for having done it, on accounts of their being ser good\nand my having been s'unfortnet. The lady come herself and see me\nyesday, and she ses, 'Ah, Jo!' she ses. 'We thought we'd lost you,\nJo!' she ses. And she sits down a-smilin so quiet, and don't pass a\nword nor yit a look upon me for having done it, she don't, and I\nturns agin the wall, I doos, Mr. Sangsby. And Mr. Jarnders, I see him\na-forced to turn away his own self. And Mr. Woodcot, he come fur to\ngiv me somethink fur to ease me, wot he's allus a-doin' on day and\nnight, and wen he come a-bending over me and a-speakin up so bold, I\nsee his tears a-fallin, Mr. Sangsby.\"\n\nThe softened stationer deposits another half-crown on the table.\nNothing less than a repetition of that infallible remedy will relieve\nhis feelings.\n\n\"Wot I was a-thinkin on, Mr. Sangsby,\" proceeds Jo, \"wos, as you wos\nable to write wery large, p'raps?\"\n\n\"Yes, Jo, please God,\" returns the stationer.\n\n\"Uncommon precious large, p'raps?\" says Jo with eagerness.\n\n\"Yes, my poor boy.\"\n\nJo laughs with pleasure. \"Wot I wos a-thinking on then, Mr. Sangsby,\nwos, that when I wos moved on as fur as ever I could go and couldn't\nbe moved no furder, whether you might be so good p'raps as to write\nout, wery large so that any one could see it anywheres, as that I wos\nwery truly hearty sorry that I done it and that I never went fur to\ndo it, and that though I didn't know nothink at all, I knowd as Mr.\nWoodcot once cried over it and wos allus grieved over it, and that I\nhoped as he'd be able to forgive me in his mind. If the writin could\nbe made to say it wery large, he might.\"\n\n\"It shall say it, Jo. Very large.\"\n\nJo laughs again. \"Thankee, Mr. Sangsby. It's wery kind of you, sir,\nand it makes me more cumfbler nor I was afore.\"\n\nThe meek little stationer, with a broken and unfinished cough, slips\ndown his fourth half-crown--he has never been so close to a case\nrequiring so many--and is fain to depart. And Jo and he, upon this\nlittle earth, shall meet no more. No more.\n\nFor the cart so hard to draw is near its journey's end and drags over\nstony ground. All round the clock it labours up the broken steps,\nshattered and worn. Not many times can the sun rise and behold it\nstill upon its weary road.\n\nPhil Squod, with his smoky gunpowder visage, at once acts as nurse\nand works as armourer at his little table in a corner, often looking\nround and saying with a nod of his green-baize cap and an encouraging\nelevation of his one eyebrow, \"Hold up, my boy! Hold up!\" There, too,\nis Mr. Jarndyce many a time, and Allan Woodcourt almost always, both\nthinking, much, how strangely fate has entangled this rough outcast\nin the web of very different lives. There, too, the trooper is a\nfrequent visitor, filling the doorway with his athletic figure and,\nfrom his superfluity of life and strength, seeming to shed down\ntemporary vigour upon Jo, who never fails to speak more robustly in\nanswer to his cheerful words.\n\nJo is in a sleep or in a stupor to-day, and Allan Woodcourt, newly\narrived, stands by him, looking down upon his wasted form. After a\nwhile he softly seats himself upon the bedside with his face towards\nhim--just as he sat in the law-writer's room--and touches his chest\nand heart. The cart had very nearly given up, but labours on a little\nmore.\n\nThe trooper stands in the doorway, still and silent. Phil has stopped\nin a low clinking noise, with his little hammer in his hand. Mr.\nWoodcourt looks round with that grave professional interest and\nattention on his face, and glancing significantly at the trooper,\nsigns to Phil to carry his table out. When the little hammer is next\nused, there will be a speck of rust upon it.\n\n\"Well, Jo! What is the matter? Don't be frightened.\"\n\n\"I thought,\" says Jo, who has started and is looking round, \"I\nthought I was in Tom-all-Alone's agin. Ain't there nobody here but\nyou, Mr. Woodcot?\"\n\n\"Nobody.\"\n\n\"And I ain't took back to Tom-all-Alone's. Am I, sir?\"\n\n\"No.\" Jo closes his eyes, muttering, \"I'm wery thankful.\"\n\nAfter watching him closely a little while, Allan puts his mouth very\nnear his ear and says to him in a low, distinct voice, \"Jo! Did you\never know a prayer?\"\n\n\"Never knowd nothink, sir.\"\n\n\"Not so much as one short prayer?\"\n\n\"No, sir. Nothink at all. Mr. Chadbands he wos a-prayin wunst at Mr.\nSangsby's and I heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a-speakin to\nhisself, and not to me. He prayed a lot, but I couldn't make out\nnothink on it. Different times there was other genlmen come down\nTom-all-Alone's a-prayin, but they all mostly sed as the t'other\n'wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a-talking to\ntheirselves, or a-passing blame on the t'others, and not a-talkin to\nus. WE never knowd nothink. I never knowd what it wos all about.\"\n\nIt takes him a long time to say this, and few but an experienced and\nattentive listener could hear, or, hearing, understand him. After a\nshort relapse into sleep or stupor, he makes, of a sudden, a strong\neffort to get out of bed.\n\n\"Stay, Jo! What now?\"\n\n\"It's time for me to go to that there berryin ground, sir,\" he\nreturns with a wild look.\n\n\"Lie down, and tell me. What burying ground, Jo?\"\n\n\"Where they laid him as wos wery good to me, wery good to me indeed,\nhe wos. It's time fur me to go down to that there berryin ground,\nsir, and ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there and be\nberried. He used fur to say to me, 'I am as poor as you to-day, Jo,'\nhe ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now and have\ncome there to be laid along with him.\"\n\n\"By and by, Jo. By and by.\"\n\n\"Ah! P'raps they wouldn't do it if I wos to go myself. But will you\npromise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?\"\n\n\"I will, indeed.\"\n\n\"Thankee, sir. Thankee, sir. They'll have to get the key of the gate\nafore they can take me in, for it's allus locked. And there's a step\nthere, as I used for to clean with my broom. It's turned wery dark,\nsir. Is there any light a-comin?\"\n\n\"It is coming fast, Jo.\"\n\nFast. The cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is very\nnear its end.\n\n\"Jo, my poor fellow!\"\n\n\"I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I'm a-gropin--a-gropin--let me\ncatch hold of your hand.\"\n\n\"Jo, can you say what I say?\"\n\n\"I'll say anythink as you say, sir, for I knows it's good.\"\n\n\"Our Father.\"\n\n\"Our Father! Yes, that's wery good, sir.\"\n\n\"Which art in heaven.\"\n\n\"Art in heaven--is the light a-comin, sir?\"\n\n\"It is close at hand. Hallowed be thy name!\"\n\n\"Hallowed be--thy--\"\n\nThe light is come upon the dark benighted way. Dead!\n\nDead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right\nreverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women,\nborn with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around\nus every day.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVIII\n\nClosing In\n\n\nThe place in Lincolnshire has shut its many eyes again, and the house\nin town is awake. In Lincolnshire the Dedlocks of the past doze in\ntheir picture-frames, and the low wind murmurs through the long\ndrawing-room as if they were breathing pretty regularly. In town the\nDedlocks of the present rattle in their fire-eyed carriages through\nthe darkness of the night, and the Dedlock Mercuries, with ashes (or\nhair-powder) on their heads, symptomatic of their great humility,\nloll away the drowsy mornings in the little windows of the hall. The\nfashionable world--tremendous orb, nearly five miles round--is in\nfull swing, and the solar system works respectfully at its appointed\ndistances.\n\nWhere the throng is thickest, where the lights are brightest, where\nall the senses are ministered to with the greatest delicacy and\nrefinement, Lady Dedlock is. From the shining heights she has scaled\nand taken, she is never absent. Though the belief she of old reposed\nin herself as one able to reserve whatsoever she would under\nher mantle of pride is beaten down, though she has no assurance\nthat what she is to those around her she will remain another day,\nit is not in her nature when envious eyes are looking on to\nyield or to droop. They say of her that she has lately grown\nmore handsome and more haughty. The debilitated cousin says of\nher that she's beauty nough--tsetup shopofwomen--but rather\nlarming kind--remindingmanfact--inconvenient woman--who WILL\ngetoutofbedandbawthstahlishment--Shakespeare.\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn says nothing, looks nothing. Now, as heretofore, he\nis to be found in doorways of rooms, with his limp white cravat\nloosely twisted into its old-fashioned tie, receiving patronage from\nthe peerage and making no sign. Of all men he is still the last who\nmight be supposed to have any influence upon my Lady. Of all women\nshe is still the last who might be supposed to have any dread of him.\n\nOne thing has been much on her mind since their late interview in his\nturret-room at Chesney Wold. She is now decided, and prepared to\nthrow it off.\n\nIt is morning in the great world, afternoon according to the little\nsun. The Mercuries, exhausted by looking out of window, are reposing\nin the hall and hang their heavy heads, the gorgeous creatures, like\noverblown sunflowers. Like them, too, they seem to run to a deal of\nseed in their tags and trimmings. Sir Leicester, in the library, has\nfallen asleep for the good of the country over the report of a\nParliamentary committee. My Lady sits in the room in which she gave\naudience to the young man of the name of Guppy. Rosa is with her and\nhas been writing for her and reading to her. Rosa is now at work upon\nembroidery or some such pretty thing, and as she bends her head over\nit, my Lady watches her in silence. Not for the first time to-day.\n\n\"Rosa.\"\n\nThe pretty village face looks brightly up. Then, seeing how serious\nmy Lady is, looks puzzled and surprised.\n\n\"See to the door. Is it shut?\"\n\nYes. She goes to it and returns, and looks yet more surprised.\n\n\"I am about to place confidence in you, child, for I know I may trust\nyour attachment, if not your judgment. In what I am going to do, I\nwill not disguise myself to you at least. But I confide in you. Say\nnothing to any one of what passes between us.\"\n\nThe timid little beauty promises in all earnestness to be\ntrustworthy.\n\n\"Do you know,\" Lady Dedlock asks her, signing to her to bring her\nchair nearer, \"do you know, Rosa, that I am different to you from\nwhat I am to any one?\"\n\n\"Yes, my Lady. Much kinder. But then I often think I know you as you\nreally are.\"\n\n\"You often think you know me as I really am? Poor child, poor child!\"\n\nShe says it with a kind of scorn--though not of Rosa--and sits\nbrooding, looking dreamily at her.\n\n\"Do you think, Rosa, you are any relief or comfort to me? Do you\nsuppose your being young and natural, and fond of me and grateful to\nme, makes it any pleasure to me to have you near me?\"\n\n\"I don't know, my Lady; I can scarcely hope so. But with all my\nheart, I wish it was so.\"\n\n\"It is so, little one.\"\n\nThe pretty face is checked in its flush of pleasure by the dark\nexpression on the handsome face before it. It looks timidly for an\nexplanation.\n\n\"And if I were to say to-day, 'Go! Leave me!' I should say what would\ngive me great pain and disquiet, child, and what would leave me very\nsolitary.\"\n\n\"My Lady! Have I offended you?\"\n\n\"In nothing. Come here.\"\n\nRosa bends down on the footstool at my Lady's feet. My Lady, with\nthat motherly touch of the famous ironmaster night, lays her hand\nupon her dark hair and gently keeps it there.\n\n\"I told you, Rosa, that I wished you to be happy and that I would\nmake you so if I could make anybody happy on this earth. I cannot.\nThere are reasons now known to me, reasons in which you have no part,\nrendering it far better for you that you should not remain here. You\nmust not remain here. I have determined that you shall not. I have\nwritten to the father of your lover, and he will be here to-day. All\nthis I have done for your sake.\"\n\nThe weeping girl covers her hand with kisses and says what shall she\ndo, what shall she do, when they are separated! Her mistress kisses\nher on the cheek and makes no other answer.\n\n\"Now, be happy, child, under better circumstances. Be beloved and\nhappy!\"\n\n\"Ah, my Lady, I have sometimes thought--forgive my being so\nfree--that YOU are not happy.\"\n\n\"I!\"\n\n\"Will you be more so when you have sent me away? Pray, pray, think\nagain. Let me stay a little while!\"\n\n\"I have said, my child, that what I do, I do for your sake, not my\nown. It is done. What I am towards you, Rosa, is what I am now--not\nwhat I shall be a little while hence. Remember this, and keep my\nconfidence. Do so much for my sake, and thus all ends between us!\"\n\nShe detaches herself from her simple-hearted companion and leaves the\nroom. Late in the afternoon, when she next appears upon the\nstaircase, she is in her haughtiest and coldest state. As indifferent\nas if all passion, feeling, and interest had been worn out in the\nearlier ages of the world and had perished from its surface with its\nother departed monsters.\n\nMercury has announced Mr. Rouncewell, which is the cause of her\nappearance. Mr. Rouncewell is not in the library, but she repairs to\nthe library. Sir Leicester is there, and she wishes to speak to him\nfirst.\n\n\"Sir Leicester, I am desirous--but you are engaged.\"\n\nOh, dear no! Not at all. Only Mr. Tulkinghorn.\n\nAlways at hand. Haunting every place. No relief or security from him\nfor a moment.\n\n\"I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. Will you allow me to retire?\"\n\nWith a look that plainly says, \"You know you have the power to remain\nif you will,\" she tells him it is not necessary and moves towards a\nchair. Mr. Tulkinghorn brings it a little forward for her with his\nclumsy bow and retires into a window opposite. Interposed between her\nand the fading light of day in the now quiet street, his shadow falls\nupon her, and he darkens all before her. Even so does he darken her\nlife.\n\nIt is a dull street under the best conditions, where the two long\nrows of houses stare at each other with that severity that\nhalf-a-dozen of its greatest mansions seem to have been slowly stared\ninto stone rather than originally built in that material. It is a\nstreet of such dismal grandeur, so determined not to condescend to\nliveliness, that the doors and windows hold a gloomy state of their\nown in black paint and dust, and the echoing mews behind have a dry\nand massive appearance, as if they were reserved to stable the stone\nchargers of noble statues. Complicated garnish of iron-work entwines\nitself over the flights of steps in this awful street, and from these\npetrified bowers, extinguishers for obsolete flambeaux gasp at the\nupstart gas. Here and there a weak little iron hoop, through which\nbold boys aspire to throw their friends' caps (its only present use),\nretains its place among the rusty foliage, sacred to the memory of\ndeparted oil. Nay, even oil itself, yet lingering at long intervals\nin a little absurd glass pot, with a knob in the bottom like an\noyster, blinks and sulks at newer lights every night, like its high\nand dry master in the House of Lords.\n\nTherefore there is not much that Lady Dedlock, seated in her chair,\ncould wish to see through the window in which Mr. Tulkinghorn stands.\nAnd yet--and yet--she sends a look in that direction as if it were\nher heart's desire to have that figure moved out of the way.\n\nSir Leicester begs his Lady's pardon. She was about to say?\n\n\"Only that Mr. Rouncewell is here (he has called by my appointment)\nand that we had better make an end of the question of that girl. I am\ntired to death of the matter.\"\n\n\"What can I do--to--assist?\" demands Sir Leicester in some\nconsiderable doubt.\n\n\"Let us see him here and have done with it. Will you tell them to\nsend him up?\"\n\n\"Mr. Tulkinghorn, be so good as to ring. Thank you. Request,\" says\nSir Leicester to Mercury, not immediately remembering the business\nterm, \"request the iron gentleman to walk this way.\"\n\nMercury departs in search of the iron gentleman, finds, and produces\nhim. Sir Leicester receives that ferruginous person graciously.\n\n\"I hope you are well, Mr. Rouncewell. Be seated. (My solicitor, Mr.\nTulkinghorn.) My Lady was desirous, Mr. Rouncewell,\" Sir Leicester\nskilfully transfers him with a solemn wave of his hand, \"was desirous\nto speak with you. Hem!\"\n\n\"I shall be very happy,\" returns the iron gentleman, \"to give my best\nattention to anything Lady Dedlock does me the honour to say.\"\n\nAs he turns towards her, he finds that the impression she makes upon\nhim is less agreeable than on the former occasion. A distant\nsupercilious air makes a cold atmosphere about her, and there is\nnothing in her bearing, as there was before, to encourage openness.\n\n\"Pray, sir,\" says Lady Dedlock listlessly, \"may I be allowed to\ninquire whether anything has passed between you and your son\nrespecting your son's fancy?\"\n\nIt is almost too troublesome to her languid eyes to bestow a look\nupon him as she asks this question.\n\n\"If my memory serves me, Lady Dedlock, I said, when I had the\npleasure of seeing you before, that I should seriously advise my son\nto conquer that--fancy.\" The ironmaster repeats her expression with a\nlittle emphasis.\n\n\"And did you?\"\n\n\"Oh! Of course I did.\"\n\nSir Leicester gives a nod, approving and confirmatory. Very proper.\nThe iron gentleman, having said that he would do it, was bound to do\nit. No difference in this respect between the base metals and the\nprecious. Highly proper.\n\n\"And pray has he done so?\"\n\n\"Really, Lady Dedlock, I cannot make you a definite reply. I fear\nnot. Probably not yet. In our condition of life, we sometimes couple\nan intention with our--our fancies which renders them not altogether\neasy to throw off. I think it is rather our way to be in earnest.\"\n\nSir Leicester has a misgiving that there may be a hidden Wat Tylerish\nmeaning in this expression, and fumes a little. Mr. Rouncewell is\nperfectly good-humoured and polite, but within such limits, evidently\nadapts his tone to his reception.\n\n\"Because,\" proceeds my Lady, \"I have been thinking of the subject,\nwhich is tiresome to me.\"\n\n\"I am very sorry, I am sure.\"\n\n\"And also of what Sir Leicester said upon it, in which I quite\nconcur\"--Sir Leicester flattered--\"and if you cannot give us the\nassurance that this fancy is at an end, I have come to the conclusion\nthat the girl had better leave me.\"\n\n\"I can give no such assurance, Lady Dedlock. Nothing of the kind.\"\n\n\"Then she had better go.\"\n\n\"Excuse me, my Lady,\" Sir Leicester considerately interposes, \"but\nperhaps this may be doing an injury to the young woman which she has\nnot merited. Here is a young woman,\" says Sir Leicester,\nmagnificently laying out the matter with his right hand like a\nservice of plate, \"whose good fortune it is to have attracted the\nnotice and favour of an eminent lady and to live, under the\nprotection of that eminent lady, surrounded by the various advantages\nwhich such a position confers, and which are unquestionably very\ngreat--I believe unquestionably very great, sir--for a young woman in\nthat station of life. The question then arises, should that young\nwoman be deprived of these many advantages and that good fortune\nsimply because she has\"--Sir Leicester, with an apologetic but\ndignified inclination of his head towards the ironmaster, winds up\nhis sentence--\"has attracted the notice of Mr Rouncewell's son? Now,\nhas she deserved this punishment? Is this just towards her? Is this\nour previous understanding?\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" interposes Mr. Rouncewell's son's father. \"Sir\nLeicester, will you allow me? I think I may shorten the subject. Pray\ndismiss that from your consideration. If you remember anything so\nunimportant--which is not to be expected--you would recollect that my\nfirst thought in the affair was directly opposed to her remaining\nhere.\"\n\nDismiss the Dedlock patronage from consideration? Oh! Sir Leicester\nis bound to believe a pair of ears that have been handed down to him\nthrough such a family, or he really might have mistrusted their\nreport of the iron gentleman's observations.\n\n\"It is not necessary,\" observes my Lady in her coldest manner before\nhe can do anything but breathe amazedly, \"to enter into these matters\non either side. The girl is a very good girl; I have nothing whatever\nto say against her, but she is so far insensible to her many\nadvantages and her good fortune that she is in love--or supposes she\nis, poor little fool--and unable to appreciate them.\"\n\nSir Leicester begs to observe that wholly alters the case. He might\nhave been sure that my Lady had the best grounds and reasons in\nsupport of her view. He entirely agrees with my Lady. The young woman\nhad better go.\n\n\"As Sir Leicester observed, Mr. Rouncewell, on the last occasion when\nwe were fatigued by this business,\" Lady Dedlock languidly proceeds,\n\"we cannot make conditions with you. Without conditions, and under\npresent circumstances, the girl is quite misplaced here and had\nbetter go. I have told her so. Would you wish to have her sent back\nto the village, or would you like to take her with you, or what would\nyou prefer?\"\n\n\"Lady Dedlock, if I may speak plainly--\"\n\n\"By all means.\"\n\n\"--I should prefer the course which will the soonest relieve you of\nthe incumbrance and remove her from her present position.\"\n\n\"And to speak as plainly,\" she returns with the same studied\ncarelessness, \"so should I. Do I understand that you will take her\nwith you?\"\n\nThe iron gentleman makes an iron bow.\n\n\"Sir Leicester, will you ring?\" Mr. Tulkinghorn steps forward from\nhis window and pulls the bell. \"I had forgotten you. Thank you.\" He\nmakes his usual bow and goes quietly back again. Mercury,\nswift-responsive, appears, receives instructions whom to produce,\nskims away, produces the aforesaid, and departs.\n\nRosa has been crying and is yet in distress. On her coming in, the\nironmaster leaves his chair, takes her arm in his, and remains with\nher near the door ready to depart.\n\n\"You are taken charge of, you see,\" says my Lady in her weary manner,\n\"and are going away well protected. I have mentioned that you are a\nvery good girl, and you have nothing to cry for.\"\n\n\"She seems after all,\" observes Mr. Tulkinghorn, loitering a little\nforward with his hands behind him, \"as if she were crying at going\naway.\"\n\n\"Why, she is not well-bred, you see,\" returns Mr. Rouncewell with\nsome quickness in his manner, as if he were glad to have the lawyer\nto retort upon, \"and she is an inexperienced little thing and knows\nno better. If she had remained here, sir, she would have improved, no\ndoubt.\"\n\n\"No doubt,\" is Mr. Tulkinghorn's composed reply.\n\nRosa sobs out that she is very sorry to leave my Lady, and that she\nwas happy at Chesney Wold, and has been happy with my Lady, and that\nshe thanks my Lady over and over again. \"Out, you silly little puss!\"\nsays the ironmaster, checking her in a low voice, though not angrily.\n\"Have a spirit, if you're fond of Watt!\" My Lady merely waves her off\nwith indifference, saying, \"There, there, child! You are a good girl.\nGo away!\" Sir Leicester has magnificently disengaged himself from the\nsubject and retired into the sanctuary of his blue coat. Mr.\nTulkinghorn, an indistinct form against the dark street now dotted\nwith lamps, looms in my Lady's view, bigger and blacker than before.\n\n\"Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock,\" says Mr. Rouncewell after a pause\nof a few moments, \"I beg to take my leave, with an apology for having\nagain troubled you, though not of my own act, on this tiresome\nsubject. I can very well understand, I assure you, how tiresome so\nsmall a matter must have become to Lady Dedlock. If I am doubtful of\nmy dealing with it, it is only because I did not at first quietly\nexert my influence to take my young friend here away without\ntroubling you at all. But it appeared to me--I dare say magnifying\nthe importance of the thing--that it was respectful to explain to you\nhow the matter stood and candid to consult your wishes and\nconvenience. I hope you will excuse my want of acquaintance with the\npolite world.\"\n\nSir Leicester considers himself evoked out of the sanctuary by these\nremarks. \"Mr. Rouncewell,\" he returns, \"do not mention it.\nJustifications are unnecessary, I hope, on either side.\"\n\n\"I am glad to hear it, Sir Leicester; and if I may, by way of a last\nword, revert to what I said before of my mother's long connexion with\nthe family and the worth it bespeaks on both sides, I would point out\nthis little instance here on my arm who shows herself so affectionate\nand faithful in parting and in whom my mother, I dare say, has done\nsomething to awaken such feelings--though of course Lady Dedlock, by\nher heartfelt interest and her genial condescension, has done much\nmore.\"\n\nIf he mean this ironically, it may be truer than he thinks. He points\nit, however, by no deviation from his straightforward manner of\nspeech, though in saying it he turns towards that part of the dim\nroom where my Lady sits. Sir Leicester stands to return his parting\nsalutation, Mr. Tulkinghorn again rings, Mercury takes another\nflight, and Mr. Rouncewell and Rosa leave the house.\n\nThen lights are brought in, discovering Mr. Tulkinghorn still\nstanding in his window with his hands behind him and my Lady still\nsitting with his figure before her, closing up her view of the night\nas well as of the day. She is very pale. Mr. Tulkinghorn, observing\nit as she rises to retire, thinks, \"Well she may be! The power of\nthis woman is astonishing. She has been acting a part the whole\ntime.\" But he can act a part too--his one unchanging character--and\nas he holds the door open for this woman, fifty pairs of eyes, each\nfifty times sharper than Sir Leicester's pair, should find no flaw in\nhim.\n\nLady Dedlock dines alone in her own room to-day. Sir Leicester is\nwhipped in to the rescue of the Doodle Party and the discomfiture of\nthe Coodle Faction. Lady Dedlock asks on sitting down to dinner,\nstill deadly pale (and quite an illustration of the debilitated\ncousin's text), whether he is gone out? Yes. Whether Mr. Tulkinghorn\nis gone yet? No. Presently she asks again, is he gone YET? No. What\nis he doing? Mercury thinks he is writing letters in the library.\nWould my Lady wish to see him? Anything but that.\n\nBut he wishes to see my Lady. Within a few more minutes he is\nreported as sending his respects, and could my Lady please to receive\nhim for a word or two after her dinner? My Lady will receive him now.\nHe comes now, apologizing for intruding, even by her permission,\nwhile she is at table. When they are alone, my Lady waves her hand to\ndispense with such mockeries.\n\n\"What do you want, sir?\"\n\n\"Why, Lady Dedlock,\" says the lawyer, taking a chair at a little\ndistance from her and slowly rubbing his rusty legs up and down, up\nand down, up and down, \"I am rather surprised by the course you have\ntaken.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\"\n\n\"Yes, decidedly. I was not prepared for it. I consider it a departure\nfrom our agreement and your promise. It puts us in a new position,\nLady Dedlock. I feel myself under the necessity of saying that I\ndon't approve of it.\"\n\nHe stops in his rubbing and looks at her, with his hands on his\nknees. Imperturbable and unchangeable as he is, there is still an\nindefinable freedom in his manner which is new and which does not\nescape this woman's observation.\n\n\"I do not quite understand you.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes you do, I think. I think you do. Come, come, Lady Dedlock,\nwe must not fence and parry now. You know you like this girl.\"\n\n\"Well, sir?\"\n\n\"And you know--and I know--that you have not sent her away for the\nreasons you have assigned, but for the purpose of separating her as\nmuch as possible from--excuse my mentioning it as a matter of\nbusiness--any reproach and exposure that impend over yourself.\"\n\n\"Well, sir?\"\n\n\"Well, Lady Dedlock,\" returns the lawyer, crossing his legs and\nnursing the uppermost knee. \"I object to that. I consider that a\ndangerous proceeding. I know it to be unnecessary and calculated to\nawaken speculation, doubt, rumour, I don't know what, in the house.\nBesides, it is a violation of our agreement. You were to be exactly\nwhat you were before. Whereas, it must be evident to yourself, as it\nis to me, that you have been this evening very different from what\nyou were before. Why, bless my soul, Lady Dedlock, transparently so!\"\n\n\"If, sir,\" she begins, \"in my knowledge of my secret--\" But he\ninterrupts her.\n\n\"Now, Lady Dedlock, this is a matter of business, and in a matter of\nbusiness the ground cannot be kept too clear. It is no longer your\nsecret. Excuse me. That is just the mistake. It is my secret, in\ntrust for Sir Leicester and the family. If it were your secret, Lady\nDedlock, we should not be here holding this conversation.\"\n\n\"That is very true. If in my knowledge of THE secret I do what I can\nto spare an innocent girl (especially, remembering your own reference\nto her when you told my story to the assembled guests at Chesney\nWold) from the taint of my impending shame, I act upon a resolution I\nhave taken. Nothing in the world, and no one in the world, could\nshake it or could move me.\" This she says with great deliberation and\ndistinctness and with no more outward passion than himself. As for\nhim, he methodically discusses his matter of business as if she were\nany insensible instrument used in business.\n\n\"Really? Then you see, Lady Dedlock,\" he returns, \"you are not to be\ntrusted. You have put the case in a perfectly plain way, and\naccording to the literal fact; and that being the case, you are not\nto be trusted.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you may remember that I expressed some anxiety on this same\npoint when we spoke at night at Chesney Wold?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, coolly getting up and standing on the\nhearth. \"Yes. I recollect, Lady Dedlock, that you certainly referred\nto the girl, but that was before we came to our arrangement, and both\nthe letter and the spirit of our arrangement altogether precluded any\naction on your part founded upon my discovery. There can be no doubt\nabout that. As to sparing the girl, of what importance or value is\nshe? Spare! Lady Dedlock, here is a family name compromised. One\nmight have supposed that the course was straight on--over everything,\nneither to the right nor to the left, regardless of all\nconsiderations in the way, sparing nothing, treading everything under\nfoot.\"\n\nShe has been looking at the table. She lifts up her eyes and looks at\nhim. There is a stern expression on her face and a part of her lower\nlip is compressed under her teeth. \"This woman understands me,\" Mr.\nTulkinghorn thinks as she lets her glance fall again. \"SHE cannot be\nspared. Why should she spare others?\"\n\nFor a little while they are silent. Lady Dedlock has eaten no dinner,\nbut has twice or thrice poured out water with a steady hand and drunk\nit. She rises from table, takes a lounging-chair, and reclines in it,\nshading her face. There is nothing in her manner to express weakness\nor excite compassion. It is thoughtful, gloomy, concentrated. \"This\nwoman,\" thinks Mr. Tulkinghorn, standing on the hearth, again a dark\nobject closing up her view, \"is a study.\"\n\nHe studies her at his leisure, not speaking for a time. She too\nstudies something at her leisure. She is not the first to speak,\nappearing indeed so unlikely to be so, though he stood there until\nmidnight, that even he is driven upon breaking silence.\n\n\"Lady Dedlock, the most disagreeable part of this business interview\nremains, but it is business. Our agreement is broken. A lady of your\nsense and strength of character will be prepared for my now declaring\nit void and taking my own course.\"\n\n\"I am quite prepared.\"\n\nMr. Tulkinghorn inclines his head. \"That is all I have to trouble you\nwith, Lady Dedlock.\"\n\nShe stops him as he is moving out of the room by asking, \"This is the\nnotice I was to receive? I wish not to misapprehend you.\"\n\n\"Not exactly the notice you were to receive, Lady Dedlock, because\nthe contemplated notice supposed the agreement to have been observed.\nBut virtually the same, virtually the same. The difference is merely\nin a lawyer's mind.\"\n\n\"You intend to give me no other notice?\"\n\n\"You are right. No.\"\n\n\"Do you contemplate undeceiving Sir Leicester to-night?\"\n\n\"A home question!\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn with a slight smile and\ncautiously shaking his head at the shaded face. \"No, not to-night.\"\n\n\"To-morrow?\"\n\n\"All things considered, I had better decline answering that question,\nLady Dedlock. If I were to say I don't know when, exactly, you would\nnot believe me, and it would answer no purpose. It may be to-morrow.\nI would rather say no more. You are prepared, and I hold out no\nexpectations which circumstances might fail to justify. I wish you\ngood evening.\"\n\nShe removes her hand, turns her pale face towards him as he walks\nsilently to the door, and stops him once again as he is about to open\nit.\n\n\"Do you intend to remain in the house any time? I heard you were\nwriting in the library. Are you going to return there?\"\n\n\"Only for my hat. I am going home.\"\n\nShe bows her eyes rather than her head, the movement is so slight and\ncurious, and he withdraws. Clear of the room he looks at his watch\nbut is inclined to doubt it by a minute or thereabouts. There is a\nsplendid clock upon the staircase, famous, as splendid clocks not\noften are, for its accuracy. \"And what do YOU say,\" Mr. Tulkinghorn\ninquires, referring to it. \"What do you say?\"\n\nIf it said now, \"Don't go home!\" What a famous clock, hereafter, if\nit said to-night of all the nights that it has counted off, to this\nold man of all the young and old men who have ever stood before it,\n\"Don't go home!\" With its sharp clear bell it strikes three quarters\nafter seven and ticks on again. \"Why, you are worse than I thought\nyou,\" says Mr. Tulkinghorn, muttering reproof to his watch. \"Two\nminutes wrong? At this rate you won't last my time.\" What a watch to\nreturn good for evil if it ticked in answer, \"Don't go home!\"\n\nHe passes out into the streets and walks on, with his hands behind\nhim, under the shadow of the lofty houses, many of whose mysteries,\ndifficulties, mortgages, delicate affairs of all kinds, are treasured\nup within his old black satin waistcoat. He is in the confidence of\nthe very bricks and mortar. The high chimney-stacks telegraph family\nsecrets to him. Yet there is not a voice in a mile of them to\nwhisper, \"Don't go home!\"\n\nThrough the stir and motion of the commoner streets; through the roar\nand jar of many vehicles, many feet, many voices; with the blazing\nshop-lights lighting him on, the west wind blowing him on, and the\ncrowd pressing him on, he is pitilessly urged upon his way, and\nnothing meets him murmuring, \"Don't go home!\" Arrived at last in his\ndull room to light his candles, and look round and up, and see the\nRoman pointing from the ceiling, there is no new significance in the\nRoman's hand to-night or in the flutter of the attendant groups to\ngive him the late warning, \"Don't come here!\"\n\nIt is a moonlight night, but the moon, being past the full, is only\nnow rising over the great wilderness of London. The stars are shining\nas they shone above the turret-leads at Chesney Wold. This woman, as\nhe has of late been so accustomed to call her, looks out upon them.\nHer soul is turbulent within her; she is sick at heart and restless.\nThe large rooms are too cramped and close. She cannot endure their\nrestraint and will walk alone in a neighbouring garden.\n\nToo capricious and imperious in all she does to be the cause of much\nsurprise in those about her as to anything she does, this woman,\nloosely muffled, goes out into the moonlight. Mercury attends with\nthe key. Having opened the garden-gate, he delivers the key into his\nLady's hands at her request and is bidden to go back. She will walk\nthere some time to ease her aching head. She may be an hour, she may\nbe more. She needs no further escort. The gate shuts upon its spring\nwith a clash, and he leaves her passing on into the dark shade of\nsome trees.\n\nA fine night, and a bright large moon, and multitudes of stars. Mr.\nTulkinghorn, in repairing to his cellar and in opening and shutting\nthose resounding doors, has to cross a little prison-like yard. He\nlooks up casually, thinking what a fine night, what a bright large\nmoon, what multitudes of stars! A quiet night, too.\n\nA very quiet night. When the moon shines very brilliantly, a solitude\nand stillness seem to proceed from her that influence even crowded\nplaces full of life. Not only is it a still night on dusty high roads\nand on hill-summits, whence a wide expanse of country may be seen in\nrepose, quieter and quieter as it spreads away into a fringe of trees\nagainst the sky with the grey ghost of a bloom upon them; not only is\nit a still night in gardens and in woods, and on the river where the\nwater-meadows are fresh and green, and the stream sparkles on among\npleasant islands, murmuring weirs, and whispering rushes; not only\ndoes the stillness attend it as it flows where houses cluster thick,\nwhere many bridges are reflected in it, where wharves and shipping\nmake it black and awful, where it winds from these disfigurements\nthrough marshes whose grim beacons stand like skeletons washed\nashore, where it expands through the bolder region of rising grounds,\nrich in cornfield wind-mill and steeple, and where it mingles with\nthe ever-heaving sea; not only is it a still night on the deep, and\non the shore where the watcher stands to see the ship with her spread\nwings cross the path of light that appears to be presented to only\nhim; but even on this stranger's wilderness of London there is some\nrest. Its steeples and towers and its one great dome grow more\nethereal; its smoky house-tops lose their grossness in the pale\neffulgence; the noises that arise from the streets are fewer and are\nsoftened, and the footsteps on the pavements pass more tranquilly\naway. In these fields of Mr. Tulkinghorn's inhabiting, where the\nshepherds play on Chancery pipes that have no stop, and keep their\nsheep in the fold by hook and by crook until they have shorn them\nexceeding close, every noise is merged, this moonlight night, into a\ndistant ringing hum, as if the city were a vast glass, vibrating.\n\nWhat's that? Who fired a gun or pistol? Where was it?\n\nThe few foot-passengers start, stop, and stare about them. Some\nwindows and doors are opened, and people come out to look. It was a\nloud report and echoed and rattled heavily. It shook one house, or so\na man says who was passing. It has aroused all the dogs in the\nneighbourhood, who bark vehemently. Terrified cats scamper across the\nroad. While the dogs are yet barking and howling--there is one dog\nhowling like a demon--the church-clocks, as if they were startled\ntoo, begin to strike. The hum from the streets, likewise, seems to\nswell into a shout. But it is soon over. Before the last clock begins\nto strike ten, there is a lull. When it has ceased, the fine night,\nthe bright large moon, and multitudes of stars, are left at peace\nagain.\n\nHas Mr. Tulkinghorn been disturbed? His windows are dark and quiet,\nand his door is shut. It must be something unusual indeed to bring\nhim out of his shell. Nothing is heard of him, nothing is seen of\nhim. What power of cannon might it take to shake that rusty old man\nout of his immovable composure?\n\nFor many years the persistent Roman has been pointing, with no\nparticular meaning, from that ceiling. It is not likely that he has\nany new meaning in him to-night. Once pointing, always pointing--like\nany Roman, or even Briton, with a single idea. There he is, no doubt,\nin his impossible attitude, pointing, unavailingly, all night long.\nMoonlight, darkness, dawn, sunrise, day. There he is still, eagerly\npointing, and no one minds him.\n\nBut a little after the coming of the day come people to clean the\nrooms. And either the Roman has some new meaning in him, not\nexpressed before, or the foremost of them goes wild, for looking up\nat his outstretched hand and looking down at what is below it, that\nperson shrieks and flies. The others, looking in as the first one\nlooked, shriek and fly too, and there is an alarm in the street.\n\nWhat does it mean? No light is admitted into the darkened chamber,\nand people unaccustomed to it enter, and treading softly but heavily,\ncarry a weight into the bedroom and lay it down. There is whispering\nand wondering all day, strict search of every corner, careful tracing\nof steps, and careful noting of the disposition of every article of\nfurniture. All eyes look up at the Roman, and all voices murmur, \"If\nhe could only tell what he saw!\"\n\nHe is pointing at a table with a bottle (nearly full of wine) and a\nglass upon it and two candles that were blown out suddenly soon after\nbeing lighted. He is pointing at an empty chair and at a stain upon\nthe ground before it that might be almost covered with a hand. These\nobjects lie directly within his range. An excited imagination might\nsuppose that there was something in them so terrific as to drive the\nrest of the composition, not only the attendant big-legged boys, but\nthe clouds and flowers and pillars too--in short, the very body and\nsoul of Allegory, and all the brains it has--stark mad. It happens\nsurely that every one who comes into the darkened room and looks at\nthese things looks up at the Roman and that he is invested in all\neyes with mystery and awe, as if he were a paralysed dumb witness.\n\nSo it shall happen surely, through many years to come, that ghostly\nstories shall be told of the stain upon the floor, so easy to be\ncovered, so hard to be got out, and that the Roman, pointing from the\nceiling shall point, so long as dust and damp and spiders spare him,\nwith far greater significance than he ever had in Mr. Tulkinghorn's\ntime, and with a deadly meaning. For Mr. Tulkinghorn's time is over\nfor evermore, and the Roman pointed at the murderous hand uplifted\nagainst his life, and pointed helplessly at him, from night to\nmorning, lying face downward on the floor, shot through the heart.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIX\n\nDutiful Friendship\n\n\nA great annual occasion has come round in the establishment of Mr.\nMatthew Bagnet, otherwise Lignum Vitae, ex-artilleryman and present\nbassoon-player. An occasion of feasting and festival. The celebration\nof a birthday in the family.\n\nIt is not Mr. Bagnet's birthday. Mr. Bagnet merely distinguishes that\nepoch in the musical instrument business by kissing the children with\nan extra smack before breakfast, smoking an additional pipe after\ndinner, and wondering towards evening what his poor old mother is\nthinking about it--a subject of infinite speculation, and rendered so\nby his mother having departed this life twenty years. Some men rarely\nrevert to their father, but seem, in the bank-books of their\nremembrance, to have transferred all the stock of filial affection\ninto their mother's name. Mr. Bagnet is one of these. Perhaps his\nexalted appreciation of the merits of the old girl causes him usually\nto make the noun-substantive \"goodness\" of the feminine gender.\n\nIt is not the birthday of one of the three children. Those occasions\nare kept with some marks of distinction, but they rarely overleap the\nbounds of happy returns and a pudding. On young Woolwich's last\nbirthday, Mr. Bagnet certainly did, after observing on his growth and\ngeneral advancement, proceed, in a moment of profound reflection on\nthe changes wrought by time, to examine him in the catechism,\naccomplishing with extreme accuracy the questions number one and two,\n\"What is your name?\" and \"Who gave you that name?\" but there failing\nin the exact precision of his memory and substituting for number\nthree the question \"And how do you like that name?\" which he\npropounded with a sense of its importance, in itself so edifying and\nimproving as to give it quite an orthodox air. This, however, was a\nspeciality on that particular birthday, and not a general solemnity.\n\nIt is the old girl's birthday, and that is the greatest holiday and\nreddest-letter day in Mr. Bagnet's calendar. The auspicious event is\nalways commemorated according to certain forms settled and prescribed\nby Mr. Bagnet some years since. Mr. Bagnet, being deeply convinced\nthat to have a pair of fowls for dinner is to attain the highest\npitch of imperial luxury, invariably goes forth himself very early in\nthe morning of this day to buy a pair; he is, as invariably, taken in\nby the vendor and installed in the possession of the oldest\ninhabitants of any coop in Europe. Returning with these triumphs of\ntoughness tied up in a clean blue and white cotton handkerchief\n(essential to the arrangements), he in a casual manner invites Mrs.\nBagnet to declare at breakfast what she would like for dinner. Mrs.\nBagnet, by a coincidence never known to fail, replying fowls, Mr.\nBagnet instantly produces his bundle from a place of concealment\namidst general amazement and rejoicing. He further requires that the\nold girl shall do nothing all day long but sit in her very best gown\nand be served by himself and the young people. As he is not\nillustrious for his cookery, this may be supposed to be a matter of\nstate rather than enjoyment on the old girl's part, but she keeps her\nstate with all imaginable cheerfulness.\n\nOn this present birthday, Mr. Bagnet has accomplished the usual\npreliminaries. He has bought two specimens of poultry, which, if\nthere be any truth in adages, were certainly not caught with chaff,\nto be prepared for the spit; he has amazed and rejoiced the family by\ntheir unlooked-for production; he is himself directing the roasting\nof the poultry; and Mrs. Bagnet, with her wholesome brown fingers\nitching to prevent what she sees going wrong, sits in her gown of\nceremony, an honoured guest.\n\nQuebec and Malta lay the cloth for dinner, while Woolwich, serving,\nas beseems him, under his father, keeps the fowls revolving. To these\nyoung scullions Mrs. Bagnet occasionally imparts a wink, or a shake\nof the head, or a crooked face, as they made mistakes.\n\n\"At half after one.\" Says Mr. Bagnet. \"To the minute. They'll be\ndone.\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet, with anguish, beholds one of them at a standstill before\nthe fire and beginning to burn.\n\n\"You shall have a dinner, old girl,\" says Mr. Bagnet. \"Fit for a\nqueen.\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet shows her white teeth cheerfully, but to the perception\nof her son, betrays so much uneasiness of spirit that he is impelled\nby the dictates of affection to ask her, with his eyes, what is the\nmatter, thus standing, with his eyes wide open, more oblivious of the\nfowls than before, and not affording the least hope of a return to\nconsciousness. Fortunately his elder sister perceives the cause of\nthe agitation in Mrs. Bagnet's breast and with an admonitory poke\nrecalls him. The stopped fowls going round again, Mrs. Bagnet closes\nher eyes in the intensity of her relief.\n\n\"George will look us up,\" says Mr. Bagnet. \"At half after four. To\nthe moment. How many years, old girl. Has George looked us up. This\nafternoon?\"\n\n\"Ah, Lignum, Lignum, as many as make an old woman of a young one, I\nbegin to think. Just about that, and no less,\" returns Mrs. Bagnet,\nlaughing and shaking her head.\n\n\"Old girl,\" says Mr. Bagnet, \"never mind. You'd be as young as ever\nyou was. If you wasn't younger. Which you are. As everybody knows.\"\n\nQuebec and Malta here exclaim, with clapping of hands, that Bluffy is\nsure to bring mother something, and begin to speculate on what it\nwill be.\n\n\"Do you know, Lignum,\" says Mrs. Bagnet, casting a glance on the\ntable-cloth, and winking \"salt!\" at Malta with her right eye, and\nshaking the pepper away from Quebec with her head, \"I begin to think\nGeorge is in the roving way again.\n\n\"George,\" returns Mr. Bagnet, \"will never desert. And leave his old\ncomrade. In the lurch. Don't be afraid of it.\"\n\n\"No, Lignum. No. I don't say he will. I don't think he will. But if\nhe could get over this money trouble of his, I believe he would be\noff.\"\n\nMr. Bagnet asks why.\n\n\"Well,\" returns his wife, considering, \"George seems to me to be\ngetting not a little impatient and restless. I don't say but what\nhe's as free as ever. Of course he must be free or he wouldn't be\nGeorge, but he smarts and seems put out.\"\n\n\"He's extra-drilled,\" says Mr. Bagnet. \"By a lawyer. Who would put\nthe devil out.\"\n\n\"There's something in that,\" his wife assents; \"but so it is,\nLignum.\"\n\nFurther conversation is prevented, for the time, by the necessity\nunder which Mr. Bagnet finds himself of directing the whole force of\nhis mind to the dinner, which is a little endangered by the dry\nhumour of the fowls in not yielding any gravy, and also by the made\ngravy acquiring no flavour and turning out of a flaxen complexion.\nWith a similar perverseness, the potatoes crumble off forks in the\nprocess of peeling, upheaving from their centres in every direction,\nas if they were subject to earthquakes. The legs of the fowls, too,\nare longer than could be desired, and extremely scaly. Overcoming\nthese disadvantages to the best of his ability, Mr. Bagnet at last\ndishes and they sit down at table, Mrs. Bagnet occupying the guest's\nplace at his right hand.\n\nIt is well for the old girl that she has but one birthday in a year,\nfor two such indulgences in poultry might be injurious. Every kind of\nfiner tendon and ligament that is in the nature of poultry to possess\nis developed in these specimens in the singular form of\nguitar-strings. Their limbs appear to have struck roots into their\nbreasts and bodies, as aged trees strike roots into the earth. Their\nlegs are so hard as to encourage the idea that they must have devoted\nthe greater part of their long and arduous lives to pedestrian\nexercises and the walking of matches. But Mr. Bagnet, unconscious of\nthese little defects, sets his heart on Mrs. Bagnet eating a most\nsevere quantity of the delicacies before her; and as that good old\ngirl would not cause him a moment's disappointment on any day, least\nof all on such a day, for any consideration, she imperils her\ndigestion fearfully. How young Woolwich cleans the drum-sticks\nwithout being of ostrich descent, his anxious mother is at a loss to\nunderstand.\n\nThe old girl has another trial to undergo after the conclusion of the\nrepast in sitting in state to see the room cleared, the hearth swept,\nand the dinner-service washed up and polished in the backyard. The\ngreat delight and energy with which the two young ladies apply\nthemselves to these duties, turning up their skirts in imitation of\ntheir mother and skating in and out on little scaffolds of pattens,\ninspire the highest hopes for the future, but some anxiety for the\npresent. The same causes lead to confusion of tongues, a clattering\nof crockery, a rattling of tin mugs, a whisking of brooms, and an\nexpenditure of water, all in excess, while the saturation of the\nyoung ladies themselves is almost too moving a spectacle for Mrs.\nBagnet to look upon with the calmness proper to her position. At last\nthe various cleansing processes are triumphantly completed; Quebec\nand Malta appear in fresh attire, smiling and dry; pipes, tobacco,\nand something to drink are placed upon the table; and the old girl\nenjoys the first peace of mind she ever knows on the day of this\ndelightful entertainment.\n\nWhen Mr. Bagnet takes his usual seat, the hands of the clock are very\nnear to half-past four; as they mark it accurately, Mr. Bagnet\nannounces, \"George! Military time.\"\n\nIt is George, and he has hearty congratulations for the old girl\n(whom he kisses on the great occasion), and for the children, and for\nMr. Bagnet. \"Happy returns to all!\" says Mr. George.\n\n\"But, George, old man!\" cries Mrs. Bagnet, looking at him curiously.\n\"What's come to you?\"\n\n\"Come to me?\"\n\n\"Ah! You are so white, George--for you--and look so shocked. Now\ndon't he, Lignum?\"\n\n\"George,\" says Mr. Bagnet, \"tell the old girl. What's the matter.\"\n\n\"I didn't know I looked white,\" says the trooper, passing his hand\nover his brow, \"and I didn't know I looked shocked, and I'm sorry I\ndo. But the truth is, that boy who was taken in at my place died\nyesterday afternoon, and it has rather knocked me over.\"\n\n\"Poor creetur!\" says Mrs. Bagnet with a mother's pity. \"Is he gone?\nDear, dear!\"\n\n\"I didn't mean to say anything about it, for it's not birthday talk,\nbut you have got it out of me, you see, before I sit down. I should\nhave roused up in a minute,\" says the trooper, making himself speak\nmore gaily, \"but you're so quick, Mrs. Bagnet.\"\n\n\"You're right. The old girl,\" says Mr. Bagnet. \"Is as quick. As\npowder.\"\n\n\"And what's more, she's the subject of the day, and we'll stick to\nher,\" cries Mr. George. \"See here, I have brought a little brooch\nalong with me. It's a poor thing, you know, but it's a keepsake.\nThat's all the good it is, Mrs. Bagnet.\"\n\nMr. George produces his present, which is greeted with admiring\nleapings and clappings by the young family, and with a species of\nreverential admiration by Mr. Bagnet. \"Old girl,\" says Mr. Bagnet.\n\"Tell him my opinion of it.\"\n\n\"Why, it's a wonder, George!\" Mrs. Bagnet exclaims. \"It's the\nbeautifullest thing that ever was seen!\"\n\n\"Good!\" says Mr. Bagnet. \"My opinion.\"\n\n\"It's so pretty, George,\" cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning it on all sides\nand holding it out at arm's length, \"that it seems too choice for\nme.\"\n\n\"Bad!\" says Mr. Bagnet. \"Not my opinion.\"\n\n\"But whatever it is, a hundred thousand thanks, old fellow,\" says\nMrs. Bagnet, her eyes sparkling with pleasure and her hand stretched\nout to him; \"and though I have been a crossgrained soldier's wife to\nyou sometimes, George, we are as strong friends, I am sure, in\nreality, as ever can be. Now you shall fasten it on yourself, for\ngood luck, if you will, George.\"\n\nThe children close up to see it done, and Mr. Bagnet looks over young\nWoolwich's head to see it done with an interest so maturely wooden,\nyet pleasantly childish, that Mrs. Bagnet cannot help laughing in her\nairy way and saying, \"Oh, Lignum, Lignum, what a precious old chap\nyou are!\" But the trooper fails to fasten the brooch. His hand\nshakes, he is nervous, and it falls off. \"Would any one believe\nthis?\" says he, catching it as it drops and looking round. \"I am so\nout of sorts that I bungle at an easy job like this!\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet concludes that for such a case there is no remedy like a\npipe, and fastening the brooch herself in a twinkling, causes the\ntrooper to be inducted into his usual snug place and the pipes to be\ngot into action. \"If that don't bring you round, George,\" says she,\n\"just throw your eye across here at your present now and then, and\nthe two together MUST do it.\"\n\n\"You ought to do it of yourself,\" George answers; \"I know that very\nwell, Mrs. Bagnet. I'll tell you how, one way and another, the blues\nhave got to be too many for me. Here was this poor lad. 'Twas dull\nwork to see him dying as he did, and not be able to help him.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, George? You did help him. You took him under your\nroof.\"\n\n\"I helped him so far, but that's little. I mean, Mrs. Bagnet, there\nhe was, dying without ever having been taught much more than to know\nhis right hand from his left. And he was too far gone to be helped\nout of that.\"\n\n\"Ah, poor creetur!\" says Mrs. Bagnet.\n\n\"Then,\" says the trooper, not yet lighting his pipe, and passing his\nheavy hand over his hair, \"that brought up Gridley in a man's mind.\nHis was a bad case too, in a different way. Then the two got mixed up\nin a man's mind with a flinty old rascal who had to do with both. And\nto think of that rusty carbine, stock and barrel, standing up on end\nin his corner, hard, indifferent, taking everything so evenly--it\nmade flesh and blood tingle, I do assure you.\"\n\n\"My advice to you,\" returns Mrs. Bagnet, \"is to light your pipe and\ntingle that way. It's wholesomer and comfortabler, and better for the\nhealth altogether.\"\n\n\"You're right,\" says the trooper, \"and I'll do it.\"\n\nSo he does it, though still with an indignant gravity that impresses\nthe young Bagnets, and even causes Mr. Bagnet to defer the ceremony\nof drinking Mrs. Bagnet's health, always given by himself on these\noccasions in a speech of exemplary terseness. But the young ladies\nhaving composed what Mr. Bagnet is in the habit of calling \"the\nmixtur,\" and George's pipe being now in a glow, Mr. Bagnet considers\nit his duty to proceed to the toast of the evening. He addresses the\nassembled company in the following terms.\n\n\"George. Woolwich. Quebec. Malta. This is her birthday. Take a day's\nmarch. And you won't find such another. Here's towards her!\"\n\nThe toast having been drunk with enthusiasm, Mrs. Bagnet returns\nthanks in a neat address of corresponding brevity. This model\ncomposition is limited to the three words \"And wishing yours!\" which\nthe old girl follows up with a nod at everybody in succession and a\nwell-regulated swig of the mixture. This she again follows up, on the\npresent occasion, by the wholly unexpected exclamation, \"Here's a\nman!\"\n\nHere IS a man, much to the astonishment of the little company,\nlooking in at the parlour-door. He is a sharp-eyed man--a quick keen\nman--and he takes in everybody's look at him, all at once,\nindividually and collectively, in a manner that stamps him a\nremarkable man.\n\n\"George,\" says the man, nodding, \"how do you find yourself?\"\n\n\"Why, it's Bucket!\" cries Mr. George.\n\n\"Yes,\" says the man, coming in and closing the door. \"I was going\ndown the street here when I happened to stop and look in at the\nmusical instruments in the shop-window--a friend of mine is in want\nof a second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone--and I saw a party\nenjoying themselves, and I thought it was you in the corner; I\nthought I couldn't be mistaken. How goes the world with you, George,\nat the present moment? Pretty smooth? And with you, ma'am? And with\nyou, governor? And Lord,\" says Mr. Bucket, opening his arms, \"here's\nchildren too! You may do anything with me if you only show me\nchildren. Give us a kiss, my pets. No occasion to inquire who YOUR\nfather and mother is. Never saw such a likeness in my life!\"\n\nMr. Bucket, not unwelcome, has sat himself down next to Mr. George\nand taken Quebec and Malta on his knees. \"You pretty dears,\" says Mr.\nBucket, \"give us another kiss; it's the only thing I'm greedy in.\nLord bless you, how healthy you look! And what may be the ages of\nthese two, ma'am? I should put 'em down at the figures of about eight\nand ten.\"\n\n\"You're very near, sir,\" says Mrs. Bagnet.\n\n\"I generally am near,\" returns Mr. Bucket, \"being so fond of\nchildren. A friend of mine has had nineteen of 'em, ma'am, all by one\nmother, and she's still as fresh and rosy as the morning. Not so much\nso as yourself, but, upon my soul, she comes near you! And what do\nyou call these, my darling?\" pursues Mr. Bucket, pinching Malta's\ncheeks. \"These are peaches, these are. Bless your heart! And what do\nyou think about father? Do you think father could recommend a\nsecond-hand wiolinceller of a good tone for Mr. Bucket's friend, my\ndear? My name's Bucket. Ain't that a funny name?\"\n\nThese blandishments have entirely won the family heart. Mrs. Bagnet\nforgets the day to the extent of filling a pipe and a glass for Mr.\nBucket and waiting upon him hospitably. She would be glad to receive\nso pleasant a character under any circumstances, but she tells him\nthat as a friend of George's she is particularly glad to see him this\nevening, for George has not been in his usual spirits.\n\n\"Not in his usual spirits?\" exclaims Mr. Bucket. \"Why, I never heard\nof such a thing! What's the matter, George? You don't intend to tell\nme you've been out of spirits. What should you be out of spirits for?\nYou haven't got anything on your mind, you know.\"\n\n\"Nothing particular,\" returns the trooper.\n\n\"I should think not,\" rejoins Mr. Bucket. \"What could you have on\nyour mind, you know! And have these pets got anything on THEIR minds,\neh? Not they, but they'll be upon the minds of some of the young\nfellows, some of these days, and make 'em precious low-spirited. I\nain't much of a prophet, but I can tell you that, ma'am.\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet, quite charmed, hopes Mr. Bucket has a family of his own.\n\n\"There, ma'am!\" says Mr. Bucket. \"Would you believe it? No, I\nhaven't. My wife and a lodger constitute my family. Mrs. Bucket is as\nfond of children as myself and as wishful to have 'em, but no. So it\nis. Worldly goods are divided unequally, and man must not repine.\nWhat a very nice backyard, ma'am! Any way out of that yard, now?\"\n\nThere is no way out of that yard.\n\n\"Ain't there really?\" says Mr. Bucket. \"I should have thought there\nmight have been. Well, I don't know as I ever saw a backyard that\ntook my fancy more. Would you allow me to look at it? Thank you. No,\nI see there's no way out. But what a very good-proportioned yard it\nis!\"\n\nHaving cast his sharp eye all about it, Mr. Bucket returns to his\nchair next his friend Mr. George and pats Mr. George affectionately\non the shoulder.\n\n\"How are your spirits now, George?\"\n\n\"All right now,\" returns the trooper.\n\n\"That's your sort!\" says Mr. Bucket. \"Why should you ever have been\notherwise? A man of your fine figure and constitution has no right to\nbe out of spirits. That ain't a chest to be out of spirits, is it,\nma'am? And you haven't got anything on your mind, you know, George;\nwhat could you have on your mind!\"\n\nSomewhat harping on this phrase, considering the extent and variety\nof his conversational powers, Mr. Bucket twice or thrice repeats it\nto the pipe he lights, and with a listening face that is particularly\nhis own. But the sun of his sociality soon recovers from this brief\neclipse and shines again.\n\n\"And this is brother, is it, my dears?\" says Mr. Bucket, referring to\nQuebec and Malta for information on the subject of young Woolwich.\n\"And a nice brother he is--half-brother I mean to say. For he's too\nold to be your boy, ma'am.\"\n\n\"I can certify at all events that he is not anybody else's,\" returns\nMrs. Bagnet, laughing.\n\n\"Well, you do surprise me! Yet he's like you, there's no denying.\nLord, he's wonderfully like you! But about what you may call the\nbrow, you know, THERE his father comes out!\" Mr. Bucket compares the\nfaces with one eye shut up, while Mr. Bagnet smokes in stolid\nsatisfaction.\n\nThis is an opportunity for Mrs. Bagnet to inform him that the boy is\nGeorge's godson.\n\n\"George's godson, is he?\" rejoins Mr. Bucket with extreme cordiality.\n\"I must shake hands over again with George's godson. Godfather and\ngodson do credit to one another. And what do you intend to make of\nhim, ma'am? Does he show any turn for any musical instrument?\"\n\nMr. Bagnet suddenly interposes, \"Plays the fife. Beautiful.\"\n\n\"Would you believe it, governor,\" says Mr. Bucket, struck by the\ncoincidence, \"that when I was a boy I played the fife myself? Not in\na scientific way, as I expect he does, but by ear. Lord bless you!\n'British Grenadiers'--there's a tune to warm an Englishman up! COULD\nyou give us 'British Grenadiers,' my fine fellow?\"\n\nNothing could be more acceptable to the little circle than this call\nupon young Woolwich, who immediately fetches his fife and performs\nthe stirring melody, during which performance Mr. Bucket, much\nenlivened, beats time and never fails to come in sharp with the\nburden, \"British Gra-a-anadeers!\" In short, he shows so much musical\ntaste that Mr. Bagnet actually takes his pipe from his lips to\nexpress his conviction that he is a singer. Mr. Bucket receives the\nharmonious impeachment so modestly, confessing how that he did once\nchaunt a little, for the expression of the feelings of his own bosom,\nand with no presumptuous idea of entertaining his friends, that he is\nasked to sing. Not to be behindhand in the sociality of the evening,\nhe complies and gives them \"Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young\nCharms.\" This ballad, he informs Mrs. Bagnet, he considers to have\nbeen his most powerful ally in moving the heart of Mrs. Bucket when a\nmaiden, and inducing her to approach the altar--Mr. Bucket's own\nwords are \"to come up to the scratch.\"\n\nThis sparkling stranger is such a new and agreeable feature in the\nevening that Mr. George, who testified no great emotions of pleasure\non his entrance, begins, in spite of himself, to be rather proud of\nhim. He is so friendly, is a man of so many resources, and so easy to\nget on with, that it is something to have made him known there. Mr.\nBagnet becomes, after another pipe, so sensible of the value of his\nacquaintance that he solicits the honour of his company on the old\ngirl's next birthday. If anything can more closely cement and\nconsolidate the esteem which Mr. Bucket has formed for the family, it\nis the discovery of the nature of the occasion. He drinks to Mrs.\nBagnet with a warmth approaching to rapture, engages himself for that\nday twelvemonth more than thankfully, makes a memorandum of the day\nin a large black pocket-book with a girdle to it, and breathes a hope\nthat Mrs. Bucket and Mrs. Bagnet may before then become, in a manner,\nsisters. As he says himself, what is public life without private\nties? He is in his humble way a public man, but it is not in that\nsphere that he finds happiness. No, it must be sought within the\nconfines of domestic bliss.\n\nIt is natural, under these circumstances, that he, in his turn,\nshould remember the friend to whom he is indebted for so promising an\nacquaintance. And he does. He keeps very close to him. Whatever the\nsubject of the conversation, he keeps a tender eye upon him. He waits\nto walk home with him. He is interested in his very boots and\nobserves even them attentively as Mr. George sits smoking\ncross-legged in the chimney-corner.\n\nAt length Mr. George rises to depart. At the same moment Mr. Bucket,\nwith the secret sympathy of friendship, also rises. He dotes upon the\nchildren to the last and remembers the commission he has undertaken\nfor an absent friend.\n\n\"Respecting that second-hand wiolinceller, governor--could you\nrecommend me such a thing?\"\n\n\"Scores,\" says Mr. Bagnet.\n\n\"I am obliged to you,\" returns Mr. Bucket, squeezing his hand.\n\"You're a friend in need. A good tone, mind you! My friend is a\nregular dab at it. Ecod, he saws away at Mozart and Handel and the\nrest of the big-wigs like a thorough workman. And you needn't,\" says\nMr. Bucket in a considerate and private voice, \"you needn't commit\nyourself to too low a figure, governor. I don't want to pay too large\na price for my friend, but I want you to have your proper percentage\nand be remunerated for your loss of time. That is but fair. Every man\nmust live, and ought to it.\"\n\nMr. Bagnet shakes his head at the old girl to the effect that they\nhave found a jewel of price.\n\n\"Suppose I was to give you a look in, say, at half arter ten\nto-morrow morning. Perhaps you could name the figures of a few\nwiolincellers of a good tone?\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\nNothing easier. Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet both engage to have the requisite\ninformation ready and even hint to each other at the practicability\nof having a small stock collected there for approval.\n\n\"Thank you,\" says Mr. Bucket, \"thank you. Good night, ma'am. Good\nnight, governor. Good night, darlings. I am much obliged to you for\none of the pleasantest evenings I ever spent in my life.\"\n\nThey, on the contrary, are much obliged to him for the pleasure he\nhas given them in his company; and so they part with many expressions\nof goodwill on both sides. \"Now George, old boy,\" says Mr. Bucket,\ntaking his arm at the shop-door, \"come along!\" As they go down the\nlittle street and the Bagnets pause for a minute looking after them,\nMrs. Bagnet remarks to the worthy Lignum that Mr. Bucket \"almost\nclings to George like, and seems to be really fond of him.\"\n\nThe neighbouring streets being narrow and ill-paved, it is a little\ninconvenient to walk there two abreast and arm in arm. Mr. George\ntherefore soon proposes to walk singly. But Mr. Bucket, who cannot\nmake up his mind to relinquish his friendly hold, replies, \"Wait half\na minute, George. I should wish to speak to you first.\" Immediately\nafterwards, he twists him into a public-house and into a parlour,\nwhere he confronts him and claps his own back against the door.\n\n\"Now, George,\" says Mr. Bucket, \"duty is duty, and friendship is\nfriendship. I never want the two to clash if I can help it. I have\nendeavoured to make things pleasant to-night, and I put it to you\nwhether I have done it or not. You must consider yourself in custody,\nGeorge.\"\n\n\"Custody? What for?\" returns the trooper, thunderstruck.\n\n\"Now, George,\" says Mr. Bucket, urging a sensible view of the case\nupon him with his fat forefinger, \"duty, as you know very well, is\none thing, and conversation is another. It's my duty to inform you\nthat any observations you may make will be liable to be used against\nyou. Therefore, George, be careful what you say. You don't happen to\nhave heard of a murder?\"\n\n\"Murder!\"\n\n\"Now, George,\" says Mr. Bucket, keeping his forefinger in an\nimpressive state of action, \"bear in mind what I've said to you. I\nask you nothing. You've been in low spirits this afternoon. I say,\nyou don't happen to have heard of a murder?\"\n\n\"No. Where has there been a murder?\"\n\n\"Now, George,\" says Mr. Bucket, \"don't you go and commit yourself.\nI'm a-going to tell you what I want you for. There has been a murder\nin Lincoln's Inn Fields--gentleman of the name of Tulkinghorn. He was\nshot last night. I want you for that.\"\n\nThe trooper sinks upon a seat behind him, and great drops start out\nupon his forehead, and a deadly pallor overspreads his face.\n\n\"Bucket! It's not possible that Mr. Tulkinghorn has been killed and\nthat you suspect ME?\"\n\n\"George,\" returns Mr. Bucket, keeping his forefinger going, \"it is\ncertainly possible, because it's the case. This deed was done last\nnight at ten o'clock. Now, you know where you were last night at ten\no'clock, and you'll be able to prove it, no doubt.\"\n\n\"Last night! Last night?\" repeats the trooper thoughtfully. Then it\nflashes upon him. \"Why, great heaven, I was there last night!\"\n\n\"So I have understood, George,\" returns Mr. Bucket with great\ndeliberation. \"So I have understood. Likewise you've been very often\nthere. You've been seen hanging about the place, and you've been\nheard more than once in a wrangle with him, and it's possible--I\ndon't say it's certainly so, mind you, but it's possible--that he may\nhave been heard to call you a threatening, murdering, dangerous\nfellow.\"\n\nThe trooper gasps as if he would admit it all if he could speak.\n\n\"Now, George,\" continues Mr. Bucket, putting his hat upon the table\nwith an air of business rather in the upholstery way than otherwise,\n\"my wish is, as it has been all the evening, to make things pleasant.\nI tell you plainly there's a reward out, of a hundred guineas,\noffered by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. You and me have always\nbeen pleasant together; but I have got a duty to discharge; and if\nthat hundred guineas is to be made, it may as well be made by me as\nany other man. On all of which accounts, I should hope it was clear\nto you that I must have you, and that I'm damned if I don't have you.\nAm I to call in any assistance, or is the trick done?\"\n\nMr. George has recovered himself and stands up like a soldier.\n\"Come,\" he says; \"I am ready.\"\n\n\"George,\" continues Mr. Bucket, \"wait a bit!\" With his upholsterer\nmanner, as if the trooper were a window to be fitted up, he takes\nfrom his pocket a pair of handcuffs. \"This is a serious charge,\nGeorge, and such is my duty.\"\n\nThe trooper flushes angrily and hesitates a moment, but holds out his\ntwo hands, clasped together, and says, \"There! Put them on!\"\n\nMr. Bucket adjusts them in a moment. \"How do you find them? Are they\ncomfortable? If not, say so, for I wish to make things as pleasant as\nis consistent with my duty, and I've got another pair in my pocket.\"\nThis remark he offers like a most respectable tradesman anxious to\nexecute an order neatly and to the perfect satisfaction of his\ncustomer. \"They'll do as they are? Very well! Now, you see,\nGeorge\"--he takes a cloak from a corner and begins adjusting it about\nthe trooper's neck--\"I was mindful of your feelings when I come out,\nand brought this on purpose. There! Who's the wiser?\"\n\n\"Only I,\" returns the trooper, \"but as I know it, do me one more good\nturn and pull my hat over my eyes.\"\n\n\"Really, though! Do you mean it? Ain't it a pity? It looks so.\"\n\n\"I can't look chance men in the face with these things on,\" Mr.\nGeorge hurriedly replies. \"Do, for God's sake, pull my hat forward.\"\n\nSo strongly entreated, Mr. Bucket complies, puts his own hat on, and\nconducts his prize into the streets, the trooper marching on as\nsteadily as usual, though with his head less erect, and Mr. Bucket\nsteering him with his elbow over the crossings and up the turnings.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER L\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nIt happened that when I came home from Deal I found a note from Caddy\nJellyby (as we always continued to call her), informing me that her\nhealth, which had been for some time very delicate, was worse and\nthat she would be more glad than she could tell me if I would go to\nsee her. It was a note of a few lines, written from the couch on\nwhich she lay and enclosed to me in another from her husband, in\nwhich he seconded her entreaty with much solicitude. Caddy was now\nthe mother, and I the godmother, of such a poor little baby--such a\ntiny old-faced mite, with a countenance that seemed to be scarcely\nanything but cap-border, and a little lean, long-fingered hand,\nalways clenched under its chin. It would lie in this attitude all\nday, with its bright specks of eyes open, wondering (as I used to\nimagine) how it came to be so small and weak. Whenever it was moved\nit cried, but at all other times it was so patient that the sole\ndesire of its life appeared to be to lie quiet and think. It had\ncurious little dark veins in its face and curious little dark marks\nunder its eyes like faint remembrances of poor Caddy's inky days, and\naltogether, to those who were not used to it, it was quite a piteous\nlittle sight.\n\nBut it was enough for Caddy that SHE was used to it. The projects\nwith which she beguiled her illness, for little Esther's education,\nand little Esther's marriage, and even for her own old age as the\ngrandmother of little Esther's little Esthers, was so prettily\nexpressive of devotion to this pride of her life that I should be\ntempted to recall some of them but for the timely remembrance that I\nam getting on irregularly as it is.\n\nTo return to the letter. Caddy had a superstition about me which had\nbeen strengthening in her mind ever since that night long ago when\nshe had lain asleep with her head in my lap. She almost--I think I\nmust say quite--believed that I did her good whenever I was near her.\nNow although this was such a fancy of the affectionate girl's that I\nam almost ashamed to mention it, still it might have all the force of\na fact when she was really ill. Therefore I set off to Caddy, with my\nguardian's consent, post-haste; and she and Prince made so much of me\nthat there never was anything like it.\n\nNext day I went again to sit with her, and next day I went again. It\nwas a very easy journey, for I had only to rise a little earlier in\nthe morning, and keep my accounts, and attend to housekeeping matters\nbefore leaving home.\n\nBut when I had made these three visits, my guardian said to me, on my\nreturn at night, \"Now, little woman, little woman, this will never\ndo. Constant dropping will wear away a stone, and constant coaching\nwill wear out a Dame Durden. We will go to London for a while and\ntake possession of our old lodgings.\"\n\n\"Not for me, dear guardian,\" said I, \"for I never feel tired,\" which\nwas strictly true. I was only too happy to be in such request.\n\n\"For me then,\" returned my guardian, \"or for Ada, or for both of us.\nIt is somebody's birthday to-morrow, I think.\"\n\n\"Truly I think it is,\" said I, kissing my darling, who would be\ntwenty-one to-morrow.\n\n\"Well,\" observed my guardian, half pleasantly, half seriously,\n\"that's a great occasion and will give my fair cousin some necessary\nbusiness to transact in assertion of her independence, and will make\nLondon a more convenient place for all of us. So to London we will\ngo. That being settled, there is another thing--how have you left\nCaddy?\"\n\n\"Very unwell, guardian. I fear it will be some time before she\nregains her health and strength.\"\n\n\"What do you call some time, now?\" asked my guardian thoughtfully.\n\n\"Some weeks, I am afraid.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" He began to walk about the room with his hands in his pockets,\nshowing that he had been thinking as much. \"Now, what do you say\nabout her doctor? Is he a good doctor, my love?\"\n\nI felt obliged to confess that I knew nothing to the contrary but\nthat Prince and I had agreed only that evening that we would like his\nopinion to be confirmed by some one.\n\n\"Well, you know,\" returned my guardian quickly, \"there's Woodcourt.\"\n\nI had not meant that, and was rather taken by surprise. For a moment\nall that I had had in my mind in connexion with Mr. Woodcourt seemed\nto come back and confuse me.\n\n\"You don't object to him, little woman?\"\n\n\"Object to him, guardian? Oh no!\"\n\n\"And you don't think the patient would object to him?\"\n\nSo far from that, I had no doubt of her being prepared to have a\ngreat reliance on him and to like him very much. I said that he was\nno stranger to her personally, for she had seen him often in his kind\nattendance on Miss Flite.\n\n\"Very good,\" said my guardian. \"He has been here to-day, my dear, and\nI will see him about it to-morrow.\"\n\nI felt in this short conversation--though I did not know how, for she\nwas quiet, and we interchanged no look--that my dear girl well\nremembered how merrily she had clasped me round the waist when no\nother hands than Caddy's had brought me the little parting token.\nThis caused me to feel that I ought to tell her, and Caddy too, that\nI was going to be the mistress of Bleak House and that if I avoided\nthat disclosure any longer I might become less worthy in my own eyes\nof its master's love. Therefore, when we went upstairs and had waited\nlistening until the clock struck twelve in order that only I might be\nthe first to wish my darling all good wishes on her birthday and to\ntake her to my heart, I set before her, just as I had set before\nmyself, the goodness and honour of her cousin John and the happy life\nthat was in store for me. If ever my darling were fonder of me at\none time than another in all our intercourse, she was surely fondest\nof me that night. And I was so rejoiced to know it and so comforted\nby the sense of having done right in casting this last idle\nreservation away that I was ten times happier than I had been before.\nI had scarcely thought it a reservation a few hours ago, but now that\nit was gone I felt as if I understood its nature better.\n\nNext day we went to London. We found our old lodging vacant, and in\nhalf an hour were quietly established there, as if we had never gone\naway. Mr. Woodcourt dined with us to celebrate my darling's birthday,\nand we were as pleasant as we could be with the great blank among us\nthat Richard's absence naturally made on such an occasion. After that\nday I was for some weeks--eight or nine as I remember--very much with\nCaddy, and thus it fell out that I saw less of Ada at this time than\nany other since we had first come together, except the time of my own\nillness. She often came to Caddy's, but our function there was to\namuse and cheer her, and we did not talk in our usual confidential\nmanner. Whenever I went home at night we were together, but Caddy's\nrest was broken by pain, and I often remained to nurse her.\n\nWith her husband and her poor little mite of a baby to love and their\nhome to strive for, what a good creature Caddy was! So self-denying,\nso uncomplaining, so anxious to get well on their account, so afraid\nof giving trouble, and so thoughtful of the unassisted labours of her\nhusband and the comforts of old Mr. Turveydrop; I had never known the\nbest of her until now. And it seemed so curious that her pale face\nand helpless figure should be lying there day after day where dancing\nwas the business of life, where the kit and the apprentices began\nearly every morning in the ball-room, and where the untidy little boy\nwaltzed by himself in the kitchen all the afternoon.\n\nAt Caddy's request I took the supreme direction of her apartment,\ntrimmed it up, and pushed her, couch and all, into a lighter and more\nairy and more cheerful corner than she had yet occupied; then, every\nday, when we were in our neatest array, I used to lay my small small\nnamesake in her arms and sit down to chat or work or read to her. It\nwas at one of the first of these quiet times that I told Caddy about\nBleak House.\n\nWe had other visitors besides Ada. First of all we had Prince, who in\nhis hurried intervals of teaching used to come softly in and sit\nsoftly down, with a face of loving anxiety for Caddy and the very\nlittle child. Whatever Caddy's condition really was, she never failed\nto declare to Prince that she was all but well--which I, heaven\nforgive me, never failed to confirm. This would put Prince in such\ngood spirits that he would sometimes take the kit from his pocket and\nplay a chord or two to astonish the baby, which I never knew it to do\nin the least degree, for my tiny namesake never noticed it at all.\n\nThen there was Mrs. Jellyby. She would come occasionally, with her\nusual distraught manner, and sit calmly looking miles beyond her\ngrandchild as if her attention were absorbed by a young Borrioboolan\non its native shores. As bright-eyed as ever, as serene, and as\nuntidy, she would say, \"Well, Caddy, child, and how do you do\nto-day?\" And then would sit amiably smiling and taking no notice of\nthe reply or would sweetly glide off into a calculation of the number\nof letters she had lately received and answered or of the\ncoffee-bearing power of Borrioboola-Gha. This she would always do\nwith a serene contempt for our limited sphere of action, not to be\ndisguised.\n\nThen there was old Mr. Turveydrop, who was from morning to night and\nfrom night to morning the subject of innumerable precautions. If the\nbaby cried, it was nearly stifled lest the noise should make him\nuncomfortable. If the fire wanted stirring in the night, it was\nsurreptitiously done lest his rest should be broken. If Caddy\nrequired any little comfort that the house contained, she first\ncarefully discussed whether he was likely to require it too. In\nreturn for this consideration he would come into the room once a day,\nall but blessing it--showing a condescension, and a patronage, and a\ngrace of manner in dispensing the light of his high-shouldered\npresence from which I might have supposed him (if I had not known\nbetter) to have been the benefactor of Caddy's life.\n\n\"My Caroline,\" he would say, making the nearest approach that he\ncould to bending over her. \"Tell me that you are better to-day.\"\n\n\"Oh, much better, thank you, Mr. Turveydrop,\" Caddy would reply.\n\n\"Delighted! Enchanted! And our dear Miss Summerson. She is not quite\nprostrated by fatigue?\" Here he would crease up his eyelids and kiss\nhis fingers to me, though I am happy to say he had ceased to be\nparticular in his attentions since I had been so altered.\n\n\"Not at all,\" I would assure him.\n\n\"Charming! We must take care of our dear Caroline, Miss Summerson. We\nmust spare nothing that will restore her. We must nourish her. My\ndear Caroline\"--he would turn to his daughter-in-law with infinite\ngenerosity and protection--\"want for nothing, my love. Frame a wish\nand gratify it, my daughter. Everything this house contains,\neverything my room contains, is at your service, my dear. Do not,\" he\nwould sometimes add in a burst of deportment, \"even allow my simple\nrequirements to be considered if they should at any time interfere\nwith your own, my Caroline. Your necessities are greater than mine.\"\n\nHe had established such a long prescriptive right to this deportment\n(his son's inheritance from his mother) that I several times knew\nboth Caddy and her husband to be melted to tears by these\naffectionate self-sacrifices.\n\n\"Nay, my dears,\" he would remonstrate; and when I saw Caddy's thin\narm about his fat neck as he said it, I would be melted too, though\nnot by the same process. \"Nay, nay! I have promised never to leave\nye. Be dutiful and affectionate towards me, and I ask no other\nreturn. Now, bless ye! I am going to the Park.\"\n\nHe would take the air there presently and get an appetite for his\nhotel dinner. I hope I do old Mr. Turveydrop no wrong, but I never\nsaw any better traits in him than these I faithfully record, except\nthat he certainly conceived a liking for Peepy and would take the\nchild out walking with great pomp, always on those occasions sending\nhim home before he went to dinner himself, and occasionally with a\nhalfpenny in his pocket. But even this disinterestedness was attended\nwith no inconsiderable cost, to my knowledge, for before Peepy was\nsufficiently decorated to walk hand in hand with the professor of\ndeportment, he had to be newly dressed, at the expense of Caddy and\nher husband, from top to toe.\n\nLast of our visitors, there was Mr. Jellyby. Really when he used to\ncome in of an evening, and ask Caddy in his meek voice how she was,\nand then sit down with his head against the wall, and make no attempt\nto say anything more, I liked him very much. If he found me bustling\nabout doing any little thing, he sometimes half took his coat off, as\nif with an intention of helping by a great exertion; but he never got\nany further. His sole occupation was to sit with his head against the\nwall, looking hard at the thoughtful baby; and I could not quite\ndivest my mind of a fancy that they understood one another.\n\nI have not counted Mr. Woodcourt among our visitors because he was\nnow Caddy's regular attendant. She soon began to improve under his\ncare, but he was so gentle, so skilful, so unwearying in the pains he\ntook that it is not to be wondered at, I am sure. I saw a good deal\nof Mr. Woodcourt during this time, though not so much as might be\nsupposed, for knowing Caddy to be safe in his hands, I often slipped\nhome at about the hours when he was expected. We frequently met,\nnotwithstanding. I was quite reconciled to myself now, but I still\nfelt glad to think that he was sorry for me, and he still WAS sorry\nfor me I believed. He helped Mr. Badger in his professional\nengagements, which were numerous, and had as yet no settled projects\nfor the future.\n\nIt was when Caddy began to recover that I began to notice a change in\nmy dear girl. I cannot say how it first presented itself to me,\nbecause I observed it in many slight particulars which were nothing\nin themselves and only became something when they were pieced\ntogether. But I made it out, by putting them together, that Ada was\nnot so frankly cheerful with me as she used to be. Her tenderness for\nme was as loving and true as ever; I did not for a moment doubt that;\nbut there was a quiet sorrow about her which she did not confide to\nme, and in which I traced some hidden regret.\n\nNow, I could not understand this, and I was so anxious for the\nhappiness of my own pet that it caused me some uneasiness and set me\nthinking often. At length, feeling sure that Ada suppressed this\nsomething from me lest it should make me unhappy too, it came into my\nhead that she was a little grieved--for me--by what I had told her\nabout Bleak House.\n\nHow I persuaded myself that this was likely, I don't know. I had no\nidea that there was any selfish reference in my doing so. I was not\ngrieved for myself: I was quite contented and quite happy. Still,\nthat Ada might be thinking--for me, though I had abandoned all such\nthoughts--of what once was, but was now all changed, seemed so easy\nto believe that I believed it.\n\nWhat could I do to reassure my darling (I considered then) and show\nher that I had no such feelings? Well! I could only be as brisk and\nbusy as possible, and that I had tried to be all along. However, as\nCaddy's illness had certainly interfered, more or less, with my home\nduties--though I had always been there in the morning to make my\nguardian's breakfast, and he had a hundred times laughed and said\nthere must be two little women, for his little woman was never\nmissing--I resolved to be doubly diligent and gay. So I went about\nthe house humming all the tunes I knew, and I sat working and working\nin a desperate manner, and I talked and talked, morning, noon, and\nnight.\n\nAnd still there was the same shade between me and my darling.\n\n\"So, Dame Trot,\" observed my guardian, shutting up his book one night\nwhen we were all three together, \"so Woodcourt has restored Caddy\nJellyby to the full enjoyment of life again?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said; \"and to be repaid by such gratitude as hers is to be\nmade rich, guardian.\"\n\n\"I wish it was,\" he returned, \"with all my heart.\"\n\nSo did I too, for that matter. I said so.\n\n\"Aye! We would make him as rich as a Jew if we knew how. Would we\nnot, little woman?\"\n\nI laughed as I worked and replied that I was not sure about that, for\nit might spoil him, and he might not be so useful, and there might be\nmany who could ill spare him. As Miss Flite, and Caddy herself, and\nmany others.\n\n\"True,\" said my guardian. \"I had forgotten that. But we would agree\nto make him rich enough to live, I suppose? Rich enough to work with\ntolerable peace of mind? Rich enough to have his own happy home and\nhis own household gods--and household goddess, too, perhaps?\"\n\nThat was quite another thing, I said. We must all agree in that.\n\n\"To be sure,\" said my guardian. \"All of us. I have a great regard for\nWoodcourt, a high esteem for him; and I have been sounding him\ndelicately about his plans. It is difficult to offer aid to an\nindependent man with that just kind of pride which he possesses. And\nyet I would be glad to do it if I might or if I knew how. He seems\nhalf inclined for another voyage. But that appears like casting such\na man away.\"\n\n\"It might open a new world to him,\" said I.\n\n\"So it might, little woman,\" my guardian assented. \"I doubt if he\nexpects much of the old world. Do you know I have fancied that he\nsometimes feels some particular disappointment or misfortune\nencountered in it. You never heard of anything of that sort?\"\n\nI shook my head.\n\n\"Humph,\" said my guardian. \"I am mistaken, I dare say.\" As there was\na little pause here, which I thought, for my dear girl's\nsatisfaction, had better be filled up, I hummed an air as I worked\nwhich was a favourite with my guardian.\n\n\"And do you think Mr. Woodcourt will make another voyage?\" I asked\nhim when I had hummed it quietly all through.\n\n\"I don't quite know what to think, my dear, but I should say it was\nlikely at present that he will give a long trip to another country.\"\n\n\"I am sure he will take the best wishes of all our hearts with him\nwherever he goes,\" said I; \"and though they are not riches, he will\nnever be the poorer for them, guardian, at least.\"\n\n\"Never, little woman,\" he replied.\n\nI was sitting in my usual place, which was now beside my guardian's\nchair. That had not been my usual place before the letter, but it was\nnow. I looked up to Ada, who was sitting opposite, and I saw, as she\nlooked at me, that her eyes were filled with tears and that tears\nwere falling down her face. I felt that I had only to be placid and\nmerry once for all to undeceive my dear and set her loving heart at\nrest. I really was so, and I had nothing to do but to be myself.\n\nSo I made my sweet girl lean upon my shoulder--how little thinking\nwhat was heavy on her mind!--and I said she was not quite well, and\nput my arm about her, and took her upstairs. When we were in our own\nroom, and when she might perhaps have told me what I was so\nunprepared to hear, I gave her no encouragement to confide in me; I\nnever thought she stood in need of it.\n\n\"Oh, my dear good Esther,\" said Ada, \"if I could only make up my mind\nto speak to you and my cousin John when you are together!\"\n\n\"Why, my love!\" I remonstrated. \"Ada, why should you not speak to\nus!\"\n\nAda only dropped her head and pressed me closer to her heart.\n\n\"You surely don't forget, my beauty,\" said I, smiling, \"what quiet,\nold-fashioned people we are and how I have settled down to be the\ndiscreetest of dames? You don't forget how happily and peacefully my\nlife is all marked out for me, and by whom? I am certain that you\ndon't forget by what a noble character, Ada. That can never be.\"\n\n\"No, never, Esther.\"\n\n\"Why then, my dear,\" said I, \"there can be nothing amiss--and why\nshould you not speak to us?\"\n\n\"Nothing amiss, Esther?\" returned Ada. \"Oh, when I think of all these\nyears, and of his fatherly care and kindness, and of the old\nrelations among us, and of you, what shall I do, what shall I do!\"\n\nI looked at my child in some wonder, but I thought it better not to\nanswer otherwise than by cheering her, and so I turned off into many\nlittle recollections of our life together and prevented her from\nsaying more. When she lay down to sleep, and not before, I returned\nto my guardian to say good night, and then I came back to Ada and sat\nnear her for a little while.\n\nShe was asleep, and I thought as I looked at her that she was a\nlittle changed. I had thought so more than once lately. I could not\ndecide, even looking at her while she was unconscious, how she was\nchanged, but something in the familiar beauty of her face looked\ndifferent to me. My guardian's old hopes of her and Richard arose\nsorrowfully in my mind, and I said to myself, \"She has been anxious\nabout him,\" and I wondered how that love would end.\n\nWhen I had come home from Caddy's while she was ill, I had often\nfound Ada at work, and she had always put her work away, and I had\nnever known what it was. Some of it now lay in a drawer near her,\nwhich was not quite closed. I did not open the drawer, but I still\nrather wondered what the work could be, for it was evidently nothing\nfor herself.\n\nAnd I noticed as I kissed my dear that she lay with one hand under\nher pillow so that it was hidden.\n\nHow much less amiable I must have been than they thought me, how much\nless amiable than I thought myself, to be so preoccupied with my own\ncheerfulness and contentment as to think that it only rested with me\nto put my dear girl right and set her mind at peace!\n\nBut I lay down, self-deceived, in that belief. And I awoke in it next\nday to find that there was still the same shade between me and my\ndarling.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LI\n\nEnlightened\n\n\nWhen Mr. Woodcourt arrived in London, he went, that very same day, to\nMr. Vholes's in Symond's Inn. For he never once, from the moment when\nI entreated him to be a friend to Richard, neglected or forgot his\npromise. He had told me that he accepted the charge as a sacred\ntrust, and he was ever true to it in that spirit.\n\nHe found Mr. Vholes in his office and informed Mr. Vholes of his\nagreement with Richard that he should call there to learn his\naddress.\n\n\"Just so, sir,\" said Mr. Vholes. \"Mr. C.'s address is not a hundred\nmiles from here, sir, Mr. C.'s address is not a hundred miles from\nhere. Would you take a seat, sir?\"\n\nMr. Woodcourt thanked Mr. Vholes, but he had no business with him\nbeyond what he had mentioned.\n\n\"Just so, sir. I believe, sir,\" said Mr. Vholes, still quietly\ninsisting on the seat by not giving the address, \"that you have\ninfluence with Mr. C. Indeed I am aware that you have.\"\n\n\"I was not aware of it myself,\" returned Mr. Woodcourt; \"but I\nsuppose you know best.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" rejoined Mr. Vholes, self-contained as usual, voice and all,\n\"it is a part of my professional duty to know best. It is a part of\nmy professional duty to study and to understand a gentleman who\nconfides his interests to me. In my professional duty I shall not be\nwanting, sir, if I know it. I may, with the best intentions, be\nwanting in it without knowing it; but not if I know it, sir.\"\n\nMr. Woodcourt again mentioned the address.\n\n\"Give me leave, sir,\" said Mr. Vholes. \"Bear with me for a moment.\nSir, Mr. C. is playing for a considerable stake, and cannot play\nwithout--need I say what?\"\n\n\"Money, I presume?\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said Mr. Vholes, \"to be honest with you (honesty being my\ngolden rule, whether I gain by it or lose, and I find that I\ngenerally lose), money is the word. Now, sir, upon the chances of Mr.\nC.'s game I express to you no opinion, NO opinion. It might be highly\nimpolitic in Mr. C., after playing so long and so high, to leave off;\nit might be the reverse; I say nothing. No, sir,\" said Mr. Vholes,\nbringing his hand flat down upon his desk in a positive manner,\n\"nothing.\"\n\n\"You seem to forget,\" returned Mr. Woodcourt, \"that I ask you to say\nnothing and have no interest in anything you say.\"\n\n\"Pardon me, sir!\" retorted Mr. Vholes. \"You do yourself an injustice.\nNo, sir! Pardon me! You shall not--shall not in my office, if I know\nit--do yourself an injustice. You are interested in anything, and in\neverything, that relates to your friend. I know human nature much\nbetter, sir, than to admit for an instant that a gentleman of your\nappearance is not interested in whatever concerns his friend.\"\n\n\"Well,\" replied Mr. Woodcourt, \"that may be. I am particularly\ninterested in his address.\"\n\n\"The number, sir,\" said Mr. Vholes parenthetically, \"I believe I have\nalready mentioned. If Mr. C. is to continue to play for this\nconsiderable stake, sir, he must have funds. Understand me! There are\nfunds in hand at present. I ask for nothing; there are funds in hand.\nBut for the onward play, more funds must be provided, unless Mr. C.\nis to throw away what he has already ventured, which is wholly and\nsolely a point for his consideration. This, sir, I take the\nopportunity of stating openly to you as the friend of Mr. C. Without\nfunds I shall always be happy to appear and act for Mr. C. to the\nextent of all such costs as are safe to be allowed out of the estate,\nnot beyond that. I could not go beyond that, sir, without wronging\nsome one. I must either wrong my three dear girls or my venerable\nfather, who is entirely dependent on me, in the Vale of Taunton; or\nsome one. Whereas, sir, my resolution is (call it weakness or folly\nif you please) to wrong no one.\"\n\nMr. Woodcourt rather sternly rejoined that he was glad to hear it.\n\n\"I wish, sir,\" said Mr. Vholes, \"to leave a good name behind me.\nTherefore I take every opportunity of openly stating to a friend of\nMr. C. how Mr. C. is situated. As to myself, sir, the labourer is\nworthy of his hire. If I undertake to put my shoulder to the wheel, I\ndo it, and I earn what I get. I am here for that purpose. My name is\npainted on the door outside, with that object.\"\n\n\"And Mr. Carstone's address, Mr. Vholes?\"\n\n\"Sir,\" returned Mr. Vholes, \"as I believe I have already mentioned,\nit is next door. On the second story you will find Mr. C.'s\napartments. Mr. C. desires to be near his professional adviser, and I\nam far from objecting, for I court inquiry.\"\n\nUpon this Mr. Woodcourt wished Mr. Vholes good day and went in search\nof Richard, the change in whose appearance he began to understand now\nbut too well.\n\nHe found him in a dull room, fadedly furnished, much as I had found\nhim in his barrack-room but a little while before, except that he was\nnot writing but was sitting with a book before him, from which his\neyes and thoughts were far astray. As the door chanced to be standing\nopen, Mr. Woodcourt was in his presence for some moments without\nbeing perceived, and he told me that he never could forget the\nhaggardness of his face and the dejection of his manner before he was\naroused from his dream.\n\n\"Woodcourt, my dear fellow,\" cried Richard, starting up with extended\nhands, \"you come upon my vision like a ghost.\"\n\n\"A friendly one,\" he replied, \"and only waiting, as they say ghosts\ndo, to be addressed. How does the mortal world go?\" They were seated\nnow, near together.\n\n\"Badly enough, and slowly enough,\" said Richard, \"speaking at least\nfor my part of it.\"\n\n\"What part is that?\"\n\n\"The Chancery part.\"\n\n\"I never heard,\" returned Mr. Woodcourt, shaking his head, \"of its\ngoing well yet.\"\n\n\"Nor I,\" said Richard moodily. \"Who ever did?\" He brightened again in\na moment and said with his natural openness, \"Woodcourt, I should be\nsorry to be misunderstood by you, even if I gained by it in your\nestimation. You must know that I have done no good this long time. I\nhave not intended to do much harm, but I seem to have been capable of\nnothing else. It may be that I should have done better by keeping out\nof the net into which my destiny has worked me, but I think not,\nthough I dare say you will soon hear, if you have not already heard,\na very different opinion. To make short of a long story, I am afraid\nI have wanted an object; but I have an object now--or it has me--and\nit is too late to discuss it. Take me as I am, and make the best of\nme.\"\n\n\"A bargain,\" said Mr. Woodcourt. \"Do as much by me in return.\"\n\n\"Oh! You,\" returned Richard, \"you can pursue your art for its own\nsake, and can put your hand upon the plough and never turn, and can\nstrike a purpose out of anything. You and I are very different\ncreatures.\"\n\nHe spoke regretfully and lapsed for a moment into his weary\ncondition.\n\n\"Well, well!\" he cried, shaking it off. \"Everything has an end. We\nshall see! So you will take me as I am, and make the best of me?\"\n\n\"Aye! Indeed I will.\" They shook hands upon it laughingly, but in\ndeep earnestness. I can answer for one of them with my heart of\nhearts.\n\n\"You come as a godsend,\" said Richard, \"for I have seen nobody here\nyet but Vholes. Woodcourt, there is one subject I should like to\nmention, for once and for all, in the beginning of our treaty. You\ncan hardly make the best of me if I don't. You know, I dare say, that\nI have an attachment to my cousin Ada?\"\n\nMr. Woodcourt replied that I had hinted as much to him. \"Now pray,\"\nreturned Richard, \"don't think me a heap of selfishness. Don't\nsuppose that I am splitting my head and half breaking my heart over\nthis miserable Chancery suit for my own rights and interests alone.\nAda's are bound up with mine; they can't be separated; Vholes works\nfor both of us. Do think of that!\"\n\nHe was so very solicitous on this head that Mr. Woodcourt gave him\nthe strongest assurances that he did him no injustice.\n\n\"You see,\" said Richard, with something pathetic in his manner of\nlingering on the point, though it was off-hand and unstudied, \"to an\nupright fellow like you, bringing a friendly face like yours here, I\ncannot bear the thought of appearing selfish and mean. I want to see\nAda righted, Woodcourt, as well as myself; I want to do my utmost to\nright her, as well as myself; I venture what I can scrape together to\nextricate her, as well as myself. Do, I beseech you, think of that!\"\n\nAfterwards, when Mr. Woodcourt came to reflect on what had passed, he\nwas so very much impressed by the strength of Richard's anxiety on\nthis point that in telling me generally of his first visit to\nSymond's Inn he particularly dwelt upon it. It revived a fear I had\nhad before that my dear girl's little property would be absorbed by\nMr. Vholes and that Richard's justification to himself would be\nsincerely this. It was just as I began to take care of Caddy that the\ninterview took place, and I now return to the time when Caddy had\nrecovered and the shade was still between me and my darling.\n\nI proposed to Ada that morning that we should go and see Richard. It\na little surprised me to find that she hesitated and was not so\nradiantly willing as I had expected.\n\n\"My dear,\" said I, \"you have not had any difference with Richard\nsince I have been so much away?\"\n\n\"No, Esther.\"\n\n\"Not heard of him, perhaps?\" said I.\n\n\"Yes, I have heard of him,\" said Ada.\n\nSuch tears in her eyes, and such love in her face. I could not make\nmy darling out. Should I go to Richard's by myself? I said. No, Ada\nthought I had better not go by myself. Would she go with me? Yes, Ada\nthought she had better go with me. Should we go now? Yes, let us go\nnow. Well, I could not understand my darling, with the tears in her\neyes and the love in her face!\n\nWe were soon equipped and went out. It was a sombre day, and drops of\nchill rain fell at intervals. It was one of those colourless days\nwhen everything looks heavy and harsh. The houses frowned at us, the\ndust rose at us, the smoke swooped at us, nothing made any compromise\nabout itself or wore a softened aspect. I fancied my beautiful girl\nquite out of place in the rugged streets, and I thought there were\nmore funerals passing along the dismal pavements than I had ever seen\nbefore.\n\nWe had first to find out Symond's Inn. We were going to inquire in a\nshop when Ada said she thought it was near Chancery Lane. \"We are not\nlikely to be far out, my love, if we go in that direction,\" said I.\nSo to Chancery Lane we went, and there, sure enough, we saw it\nwritten up. Symond's Inn.\n\nWe had next to find out the number. \"Or Mr. Vholes's office will do,\"\nI recollected, \"for Mr. Vholes's office is next door.\" Upon which Ada\nsaid, perhaps that was Mr. Vholes's office in the corner there. And\nit really was.\n\nThen came the question, which of the two next doors? I was going for\nthe one, and my darling was going for the other; and my darling was\nright again. So up we went to the second story, when we came to\nRichard's name in great white letters on a hearse-like panel.\n\nI should have knocked, but Ada said perhaps we had better turn the\nhandle and go in. Thus we came to Richard, poring over a table\ncovered with dusty bundles of papers which seemed to me like dusty\nmirrors reflecting his own mind. Wherever I looked I saw the ominous\nwords that ran in it repeated. Jarndyce and Jarndyce.\n\nHe received us very affectionately, and we sat down. \"If you had come\na little earlier,\" he said, \"you would have found Woodcourt here.\nThere never was such a good fellow as Woodcourt is. He finds time to\nlook in between-whiles, when anybody else with half his work to do\nwould be thinking about not being able to come. And he is so cheery,\nso fresh, so sensible, so earnest, so--everything that I am not, that\nthe place brightens whenever he comes, and darkens whenever he goes\nagain.\"\n\n\"God bless him,\" I thought, \"for his truth to me!\"\n\n\"He is not so sanguine, Ada,\" continued Richard, casting his dejected\nlook over the bundles of papers, \"as Vholes and I are usually, but he\nis only an outsider and is not in the mysteries. We have gone into\nthem, and he has not. He can't be expected to know much of such a\nlabyrinth.\"\n\nAs his look wandered over the papers again and he passed his two\nhands over his head, I noticed how sunken and how large his eyes\nappeared, how dry his lips were, and how his finger-nails were all\nbitten away.\n\n\"Is this a healthy place to live in, Richard, do you think?\" said I.\n\n\"Why, my dear Minerva,\" answered Richard with his old gay laugh, \"it\nis neither a rural nor a cheerful place; and when the sun shines\nhere, you may lay a pretty heavy wager that it is shining brightly in\nan open spot. But it's well enough for the time. It's near the\noffices and near Vholes.\"\n\n\"Perhaps,\" I hinted, \"a change from both--\"\n\n\"Might do me good?\" said Richard, forcing a laugh as he finished the\nsentence. \"I shouldn't wonder! But it can only come in one way\nnow--in one of two ways, I should rather say. Either the suit must be\nended, Esther, or the suitor. But it shall be the suit, my dear girl,\nthe suit, my dear girl!\"\n\nThese latter words were addressed to Ada, who was sitting nearest to\nhim. Her face being turned away from me and towards him, I could not\nsee it.\n\n\"We are doing very well,\" pursued Richard. \"Vholes will tell you so.\nWe are really spinning along. Ask Vholes. We are giving them no rest.\nVholes knows all their windings and turnings, and we are upon them\neverywhere. We have astonished them already. We shall rouse up that\nnest of sleepers, mark my words!\"\n\nHis hopefulness had long been more painful to me than his\ndespondency; it was so unlike hopefulness, had something so fierce in\nits determination to be it, was so hungry and eager, and yet so\nconscious of being forced and unsustainable that it had long touched\nme to the heart. But the commentary upon it now indelibly written in\nhis handsome face made it far more distressing than it used to be. I\nsay indelibly, for I felt persuaded that if the fatal cause could\nhave been for ever terminated, according to his brightest visions, in\nthat same hour, the traces of the premature anxiety, self-reproach,\nand disappointment it had occasioned him would have remained upon his\nfeatures to the hour of his death.\n\n\"The sight of our dear little woman,\" said Richard, Ada still\nremaining silent and quiet, \"is so natural to me, and her\ncompassionate face is so like the face of old days--\"\n\nAh! No, no. I smiled and shook my head.\n\n\"--So exactly like the face of old days,\" said Richard in his cordial\nvoice, and taking my hand with the brotherly regard which nothing\never changed, \"that I can't make pretences with her. I fluctuate a\nlittle; that's the truth. Sometimes I hope, my dear, and sometimes\nI--don't quite despair, but nearly. I get,\" said Richard,\nrelinquishing my hand gently and walking across the room, \"so tired!\"\n\nHe took a few turns up and down and sunk upon the sofa. \"I get,\" he\nrepeated gloomily, \"so tired. It is such weary, weary work!\"\n\nHe was leaning on his arm saying these words in a meditative voice\nand looking at the ground when my darling rose, put off her bonnet,\nkneeled down beside him with her golden hair falling like sunlight on\nhis head, clasped her two arms round his neck, and turned her face to\nme. Oh, what a loving and devoted face I saw!\n\n\"Esther, dear,\" she said very quietly, \"I am not going home again.\"\n\nA light shone in upon me all at once.\n\n\"Never any more. I am going to stay with my dear husband. We have\nbeen married above two months. Go home without me, my own Esther; I\nshall never go home any more!\" With those words my darling drew his\nhead down on her breast and held it there. And if ever in my life I\nsaw a love that nothing but death could change, I saw it then before\nme.\n\n\"Speak to Esther, my dearest,\" said Richard, breaking the silence\npresently. \"Tell her how it was.\"\n\nI met her before she could come to me and folded her in my arms. We\nneither of us spoke, but with her cheek against my own I wanted to\nhear nothing. \"My pet,\" said I. \"My love. My poor, poor girl!\" I\npitied her so much. I was very fond of Richard, but the impulse that\nI had upon me was to pity her so much.\n\n\"Esther, will you forgive me? Will my cousin John forgive me?\"\n\n\"My dear,\" said I, \"to doubt it for a moment is to do him a great\nwrong. And as to me!\" Why, as to me, what had I to forgive!\n\nI dried my sobbing darling's eyes and sat beside her on the sofa, and\nRichard sat on my other side; and while I was reminded of that so\ndifferent night when they had first taken me into their confidence\nand had gone on in their own wild happy way, they told me between\nthem how it was.\n\n\"All I had was Richard's,\" Ada said; \"and Richard would not take it,\nEsther, and what could I do but be his wife when I loved him dearly!\"\n\n\"And you were so fully and so kindly occupied, excellent Dame\nDurden,\" said Richard, \"that how could we speak to you at such a\ntime! And besides, it was not a long-considered step. We went out one\nmorning and were married.\"\n\n\"And when it was done, Esther,\" said my darling, \"I was always\nthinking how to tell you and what to do for the best. And sometimes I\nthought you ought to know it directly, and sometimes I thought you\nought not to know it and keep it from my cousin John; and I could not\ntell what to do, and I fretted very much.\"\n\nHow selfish I must have been not to have thought of this before! I\ndon't know what I said now. I was so sorry, and yet I was so fond of\nthem and so glad that they were fond of me; I pitied them so much,\nand yet I felt a kind of pride in their loving one another. I never\nhad experienced such painful and pleasurable emotion at one time, and\nin my own heart I did not know which predominated. But I was not\nthere to darken their way; I did not do that.\n\nWhen I was less foolish and more composed, my darling took her\nwedding-ring from her bosom, and kissed it, and put it on. Then I\nremembered last night and told Richard that ever since her marriage\nshe had worn it at night when there was no one to see. Then Ada\nblushingly asked me how did I know that, my dear. Then I told Ada how\nI had seen her hand concealed under her pillow and had little thought\nwhy, my dear. Then they began telling me how it was all over again,\nand I began to be sorry and glad again, and foolish again, and to\nhide my plain old face as much as I could lest I should put them out\nof heart.\n\nThus the time went on until it became necessary for me to think of\nreturning. When that time arrived it was the worst of all, for then\nmy darling completely broke down. She clung round my neck, calling me\nby every dear name she could think of and saying what should she do\nwithout me! Nor was Richard much better; and as for me, I should have\nbeen the worst of the three if I had not severely said to myself,\n\"Now Esther, if you do, I'll never speak to you again!\"\n\n\"Why, I declare,\" said I, \"I never saw such a wife. I don't think she\nloves her husband at all. Here, Richard, take my child, for goodness'\nsake.\" But I held her tight all the while, and could have wept over\nher I don't know how long.\n\n\"I give this dear young couple notice,\" said I, \"that I am only going\naway to come back to-morrow and that I shall be always coming\nbackwards and forwards until Symond's Inn is tired of the sight of\nme. So I shall not say good-bye, Richard. For what would be the use\nof that, you know, when I am coming back so soon!\"\n\nI had given my darling to him now, and I meant to go; but I lingered\nfor one more look of the precious face which it seemed to rive my\nheart to turn from.\n\nSo I said (in a merry, bustling manner) that unless they gave me some\nencouragement to come back, I was not sure that I could take that\nliberty, upon which my dear girl looked up, faintly smiling through\nher tears, and I folded her lovely face between my hands, and gave it\none last kiss, and laughed, and ran away.\n\nAnd when I got downstairs, oh, how I cried! It almost seemed to me\nthat I had lost my Ada for ever. I was so lonely and so blank without\nher, and it was so desolate to be going home with no hope of seeing\nher there, that I could get no comfort for a little while as I walked\nup and down in a dim corner sobbing and crying.\n\nI came to myself by and by, after a little scolding, and took a coach\nhome. The poor boy whom I had found at St. Albans had reappeared a\nshort time before and was lying at the point of death; indeed, was\nthen dead, though I did not know it. My guardian had gone out to\ninquire about him and did not return to dinner. Being quite alone, I\ncried a little again, though on the whole I don't think I behaved so\nvery, very ill.\n\nIt was only natural that I should not be quite accustomed to the loss\nof my darling yet. Three or four hours were not a long time after\nyears. But my mind dwelt so much upon the uncongenial scene in which\nI had left her, and I pictured it as such an overshadowed\nstony-hearted one, and I so longed to be near her and taking some\nsort of care of her, that I determined to go back in the evening only\nto look up at her windows.\n\nIt was foolish, I dare say, but it did not then seem at all so to me,\nand it does not seem quite so even now. I took Charley into my\nconfidence, and we went out at dusk. It was dark when we came to the\nnew strange home of my dear girl, and there was a light behind the\nyellow blinds. We walked past cautiously three or four times, looking\nup, and narrowly missed encountering Mr. Vholes, who came out of his\noffice while we were there and turned his head to look up too before\ngoing home. The sight of his lank black figure and the lonesome air\nof that nook in the dark were favourable to the state of my mind. I\nthought of the youth and love and beauty of my dear girl, shut up in\nsuch an ill-assorted refuge, almost as if it were a cruel place.\n\nIt was very solitary and very dull, and I did not doubt that I might\nsafely steal upstairs. I left Charley below and went up with a light\nfoot, not distressed by any glare from the feeble oil lanterns on the\nway. I listened for a few moments, and in the musty rotting silence\nof the house believed that I could hear the murmur of their young\nvoices. I put my lips to the hearse-like panel of the door as a kiss\nfor my dear and came quietly down again, thinking that one of these\ndays I would confess to the visit.\n\nAnd it really did me good, for though nobody but Charley and I knew\nanything about it, I somehow felt as if it had diminished the\nseparation between Ada and me and had brought us together again for\nthose moments. I went back, not quite accustomed yet to the change,\nbut all the better for that hovering about my darling.\n\nMy guardian had come home and was standing thoughtfully by the dark\nwindow. When I went in, his face cleared and he came to his seat, but\nhe caught the light upon my face as I took mine.\n\n\"Little woman,\" said he, \"You have been crying.\"\n\n\"Why, yes, guardian,\" said I, \"I am afraid I have been, a little. Ada\nhas been in such distress, and is so very sorry, guardian.\"\n\nI put my arm on the back of his chair, and I saw in his glance that\nmy words and my look at her empty place had prepared him.\n\n\"Is she married, my dear?\"\n\nI told him all about it and how her first entreaties had referred to\nhis forgiveness.\n\n\"She has no need of it,\" said he. \"Heaven bless her and her husband!\"\nBut just as my first impulse had been to pity her, so was his. \"Poor\ngirl, poor girl! Poor Rick! Poor Ada!\"\n\nNeither of us spoke after that, until he said with a sigh, \"Well,\nwell, my dear! Bleak House is thinning fast.\"\n\n\"But its mistress remains, guardian.\" Though I was timid about saying\nit, I ventured because of the sorrowful tone in which he had spoken.\n\"She will do all she can to make it happy,\" said I.\n\n\"She will succeed, my love!\"\n\nThe letter had made no difference between us except that the seat by\nhis side had come to be mine; it made none now. He turned his old\nbright fatherly look upon me, laid his hand on my hand in his old\nway, and said again, \"She will succeed, my dear. Nevertheless, Bleak\nHouse is thinning fast, O little woman!\"\n\nI was sorry presently that this was all we said about that. I was\nrather disappointed. I feared I might not quite have been all I had\nmeant to be since the letter and the answer.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LII\n\nObstinacy\n\n\nBut one other day had intervened when, early in the morning as we\nwere going to breakfast, Mr. Woodcourt came in haste with the\nastounding news that a terrible murder had been committed for which\nMr. George had been apprehended and was in custody. When he told us\nthat a large reward was offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock for the\nmurderer's apprehension, I did not in my first consternation\nunderstand why; but a few more words explained to me that the\nmurdered person was Sir Leicester's lawyer, and immediately my\nmother's dread of him rushed into my remembrance.\n\nThis unforeseen and violent removal of one whom she had long watched\nand distrusted and who had long watched and distrusted her, one for\nwhom she could have had few intervals of kindness, always dreading in\nhim a dangerous and secret enemy, appeared so awful that my first\nthoughts were of her. How appalling to hear of such a death and be\nable to feel no pity! How dreadful to remember, perhaps, that she had\nsometimes even wished the old man away who was so swiftly hurried out\nof life!\n\nSuch crowding reflections, increasing the distress and fear I always\nfelt when the name was mentioned, made me so agitated that I could\nscarcely hold my place at the table. I was quite unable to follow the\nconversation until I had had a little time to recover. But when I\ncame to myself and saw how shocked my guardian was and found that\nthey were earnestly speaking of the suspected man and recalling every\nfavourable impression we had formed of him out of the good we had\nknown of him, my interest and my fears were so strongly aroused in\nhis behalf that I was quite set up again.\n\n\"Guardian, you don't think it possible that he is justly accused?\"\n\n\"My dear, I CAN'T think so. This man whom we have seen so\nopen-hearted and compassionate, who with the might of a giant has the\ngentleness of a child, who looks as brave a fellow as ever lived and\nis so simple and quiet with it, this man justly accused of such a\ncrime? I can't believe it. It's not that I don't or I won't. I\ncan't!\"\n\n\"And I can't,\" said Mr. Woodcourt. \"Still, whatever we believe or\nknow of him, we had better not forget that some appearances are\nagainst him. He bore an animosity towards the deceased gentleman. He\nhas openly mentioned it in many places. He is said to have expressed\nhimself violently towards him, and he certainly did about him, to my\nknowledge. He admits that he was alone on the scene of the murder\nwithin a few minutes of its commission. I sincerely believe him to be\nas innocent of any participation in it as I am, but these are all\nreasons for suspicion falling upon him.\"\n\n\"True,\" said my guardian. And he added, turning to me, \"It would be\ndoing him a very bad service, my dear, to shut our eyes to the truth\nin any of these respects.\"\n\nI felt, of course, that we must admit, not only to ourselves but to\nothers, the full force of the circumstances against him. Yet I knew\nwithal (I could not help saying) that their weight would not induce\nus to desert him in his need.\n\n\"Heaven forbid!\" returned my guardian. \"We will stand by him, as he\nhimself stood by the two poor creatures who are gone.\" He meant Mr.\nGridley and the boy, to both of whom Mr. George had given shelter.\n\nMr. Woodcourt then told us that the trooper's man had been with him\nbefore day, after wandering about the streets all night like a\ndistracted creature. That one of the trooper's first anxieties was\nthat we should not suppose him guilty. That he had charged his\nmessenger to represent his perfect innocence with every solemn\nassurance he could send us. That Mr. Woodcourt had only quieted the\nman by undertaking to come to our house very early in the morning\nwith these representations. He added that he was now upon his way to\nsee the prisoner himself.\n\nMy guardian said directly he would go too. Now, besides that I liked\nthe retired soldier very much and that he liked me, I had that secret\ninterest in what had happened which was only known to my guardian. I\nfelt as if it came close and near to me. It seemed to become\npersonally important to myself that the truth should be discovered\nand that no innocent people should be suspected, for suspicion, once\nrun wild, might run wilder.\n\nIn a word, I felt as if it were my duty and obligation to go with\nthem. My guardian did not seek to dissuade me, and I went.\n\nIt was a large prison with many courts and passages so like one\nanother and so uniformly paved that I seemed to gain a new\ncomprehension, as I passed along, of the fondness that solitary\nprisoners, shut up among the same staring walls from year to year,\nhave had--as I have read--for a weed or a stray blade of grass. In an\narched room by himself, like a cellar upstairs, with walls so\nglaringly white that they made the massive iron window-bars and\niron-bound door even more profoundly black than they were, we found\nthe trooper standing in a corner. He had been sitting on a bench\nthere and had risen when he heard the locks and bolts turn.\n\nWhen he saw us, he came forward a step with his usual heavy tread,\nand there stopped and made a slight bow. But as I still advanced,\nputting out my hand to him, he understood us in a moment.\n\n\"This is a load off my mind, I do assure you, miss and gentlemen,\"\nsaid he, saluting us with great heartiness and drawing a long breath.\n\"And now I don't so much care how it ends.\"\n\nHe scarcely seemed to be the prisoner. What with his coolness and his\nsoldierly bearing, he looked far more like the prison guard.\n\n\"This is even a rougher place than my gallery to receive a lady in,\"\nsaid Mr. George, \"but I know Miss Summerson will make the best of\nit.\" As he handed me to the bench on which he had been sitting, I sat\ndown, which seemed to give him great satisfaction.\n\n\"I thank you, miss,\" said he.\n\n\"Now, George,\" observed my guardian, \"as we require no new assurances\non your part, so I believe we need give you none on ours.\"\n\n\"Not at all, sir. I thank you with all my heart. If I was not\ninnocent of this crime, I couldn't look at you and keep my secret to\nmyself under the condescension of the present visit. I feel the\npresent visit very much. I am not one of the eloquent sort, but I\nfeel it, Miss Summerson and gentlemen, deeply.\"\n\nHe laid his hand for a moment on his broad chest and bent his head to\nus. Although he squared himself again directly, he expressed a great\namount of natural emotion by these simple means.\n\n\"First,\" said my guardian, \"can we do anything for your personal\ncomfort, George?\"\n\n\"For which, sir?\" he inquired, clearing his throat.\n\n\"For your personal comfort. Is there anything you want that would\nlessen the hardship of this confinement?\"\n\n\"Well, sir,\" replied George, after a little cogitation, \"I am equally\nobliged to you, but tobacco being against the rules, I can't say that\nthere is.\"\n\n\"You will think of many little things perhaps, by and by. Whenever\nyou do, George, let us know.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir. Howsoever,\" observed Mr. George with one of his\nsunburnt smiles, \"a man who has been knocking about the world in a\nvagabond kind of a way as long as I have gets on well enough in a\nplace like the present, so far as that goes.\"\n\n\"Next, as to your case,\" observed my guardian.\n\n\"Exactly so, sir,\" returned Mr. George, folding his arms upon his\nbreast with perfect self-possession and a little curiosity.\n\n\"How does it stand now?\"\n\n\"Why, sir, it is under remand at present. Bucket gives me to\nunderstand that he will probably apply for a series of remands from\ntime to time until the case is more complete. How it is to be made\nmore complete I don't myself see, but I dare say Bucket will manage\nit somehow.\"\n\n\"Why, heaven save us, man,\" exclaimed my guardian, surprised into his\nold oddity and vehemence, \"you talk of yourself as if you were\nsomebody else!\"\n\n\"No offence, sir,\" said Mr. George. \"I am very sensible of your\nkindness. But I don't see how an innocent man is to make up his mind\nto this kind of thing without knocking his head against the walls\nunless he takes it in that point of view.\n\n\"That is true enough to a certain extent,\" returned my guardian,\nsoftened. \"But my good fellow, even an innocent man must take\nordinary precautions to defend himself.\"\n\n\"Certainly, sir. And I have done so. I have stated to the\nmagistrates, 'Gentlemen, I am as innocent of this charge as\nyourselves; what has been stated against me in the way of facts is\nperfectly true; I know no more about it.' I intend to continue\nstating that, sir. What more can I do? It's the truth.\"\n\n\"But the mere truth won't do,\" rejoined my guardian.\n\n\"Won't it indeed, sir? Rather a bad look-out for me!\" Mr. George\ngood-humouredly observed.\n\n\"You must have a lawyer,\" pursued my guardian. \"We must engage a good\none for you.\"\n\n\"I ask your pardon, sir,\" said Mr. George with a step backward. \"I am\nequally obliged. But I must decidedly beg to be excused from anything\nof that sort.\"\n\n\"You won't have a lawyer?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\" Mr. George shook his head in the most emphatic manner. \"I\nthank you all the same, sir, but--no lawyer!\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"I don't take kindly to the breed,\" said Mr. George. \"Gridley didn't.\nAnd--if you'll excuse my saying so much--I should hardly have thought\nyou did yourself, sir.\"\n\n\"That's equity,\" my guardian explained, a little at a loss; \"that's\nequity, George.\"\n\n\"Is it, indeed, sir?\" returned the trooper in his off-hand manner. \"I\nam not acquainted with those shades of names myself, but in a general\nway I object to the breed.\"\n\nUnfolding his arms and changing his position, he stood with one\nmassive hand upon the table and the other on his hip, as complete a\npicture of a man who was not to be moved from a fixed purpose as ever\nI saw. It was in vain that we all three talked to him and endeavoured\nto persuade him; he listened with that gentleness which went so well\nwith his bluff bearing, but was evidently no more shaken by our\nrepresentations that his place of confinement was.\n\n\"Pray think, once more, Mr. George,\" said I. \"Have you no wish in\nreference to your case?\"\n\n\"I certainly could wish it to be tried, miss,\" he returned, \"by\ncourt-martial; but that is out of the question, as I am well aware.\nIf you will be so good as to favour me with your attention for a\ncouple of minutes, miss, not more, I'll endeavour to explain myself\nas clearly as I can.\"\n\nHe looked at us all three in turn, shook his head a little as if he\nwere adjusting it in the stock and collar of a tight uniform, and\nafter a moment's reflection went on.\n\n\"You see, miss, I have been handcuffed and taken into custody and\nbrought here. I am a marked and disgraced man, and here I am. My\nshooting gallery is rummaged, high and low, by Bucket; such property\nas I have--'tis small--is turned this way and that till it don't know\nitself; and (as aforesaid) here I am! I don't particular complain of\nthat. Though I am in these present quarters through no immediately\npreceding fault of mine, I can very well understand that if I hadn't\ngone into the vagabond way in my youth, this wouldn't have happened.\nIt HAS happened. Then comes the question how to meet it.\"\n\nHe rubbed his swarthy forehead for a moment with a good-humoured look\nand said apologetically, \"I am such a short-winded talker that I must\nthink a bit.\" Having thought a bit, he looked up again and resumed.\n\n\"How to meet it. Now, the unfortunate deceased was himself a lawyer\nand had a pretty tight hold of me. I don't wish to rake up his ashes,\nbut he had, what I should call if he was living, a devil of a tight\nhold of me. I don't like his trade the better for that. If I had kept\nclear of his trade, I should have kept outside this place. But that's\nnot what I mean. Now, suppose I had killed him. Suppose I really had\ndischarged into his body any one of those pistols recently fired off\nthat Bucket has found at my place, and dear me, might have found\nthere any day since it has been my place. What should I have done as\nsoon as I was hard and fast here? Got a lawyer.\"\n\nHe stopped on hearing some one at the locks and bolts and did not\nresume until the door had been opened and was shut again. For what\npurpose opened, I will mention presently.\n\n\"I should have got a lawyer, and he would have said (as I have often\nread in the newspapers), 'My client says nothing, my client reserves\nhis defence': my client this, that, and t'other. Well, 'tis not the\ncustom of that breed to go straight, according to my opinion, or to\nthink that other men do. Say I am innocent and I get a lawyer. He\nwould be as likely to believe me guilty as not; perhaps more. What\nwould he do, whether or not? Act as if I was--shut my mouth up, tell\nme not to commit myself, keep circumstances back, chop the evidence\nsmall, quibble, and get me off perhaps! But, Miss Summerson, do I\ncare for getting off in that way; or would I rather be hanged in my\nown way--if you'll excuse my mentioning anything so disagreeable to a\nlady?\"\n\nHe had warmed into his subject now, and was under no further\nnecessity to wait a bit.\n\n\"I would rather be hanged in my own way. And I mean to be! I don't\nintend to say,\" looking round upon us with his powerful arms akimbo\nand his dark eyebrows raised, \"that I am more partial to being hanged\nthan another man. What I say is, I must come off clear and full or\nnot at all. Therefore, when I hear stated against me what is true, I\nsay it's true; and when they tell me, 'whatever you say will be\nused,' I tell them I don't mind that; I mean it to be used. If they\ncan't make me innocent out of the whole truth, they are not likely to\ndo it out of anything less, or anything else. And if they are, it's\nworth nothing to me.\"\n\nTaking a pace or two over the stone floor, he came back to the table\nand finished what he had to say.\n\n\"I thank you, miss and gentlemen both, many times for your attention,\nand many times more for your interest. That's the plain state of the\nmatter as it points itself out to a mere trooper with a blunt\nbroadsword kind of a mind. I have never done well in life beyond my\nduty as a soldier, and if the worst comes after all, I shall reap\npretty much as I have sown. When I got over the first crash of being\nseized as a murderer--it don't take a rover who has knocked about so\nmuch as myself so very long to recover from a crash--I worked my way\nround to what you find me now. As such I shall remain. No relations\nwill be disgraced by me or made unhappy for me, and--and that's all\nI've got to say.\"\n\nThe door had been opened to admit another soldier-looking man of less\nprepossessing appearance at first sight and a weather-tanned,\nbright-eyed wholesome woman with a basket, who, from her entrance,\nhad been exceedingly attentive to all Mr. George had said. Mr. George\nhad received them with a familiar nod and a friendly look, but\nwithout any more particular greeting in the midst of his address. He\nnow shook them cordially by the hand and said, \"Miss Summerson and\ngentlemen, this is an old comrade of mine, Matthew Bagnet. And this\nis his wife, Mrs. Bagnet.\"\n\nMr. Bagnet made us a stiff military bow, and Mrs. Bagnet dropped us a\ncurtsy.\n\n\"Real good friends of mine, they are,\" sald Mr. George. \"It was at\ntheir house I was taken.\"\n\n\"With a second-hand wiolinceller,\" Mr. Bagnet put in, twitching his\nhead angrily. \"Of a good tone. For a friend. That money was no object\nto.\"\n\n\"Mat,\" said Mr. George, \"you have heard pretty well all I have been\nsaying to this lady and these two gentlemen. I know it meets your\napproval?\"\n\nMr. Bagnet, after considering, referred the point to his wife. \"Old\ngirl,\" said he. \"Tell him. Whether or not. It meets my approval.\"\n\n\"Why, George,\" exclaimed Mrs. Bagnet, who had been unpacking her\nbasket, in which there was a piece of cold pickled pork, a little tea\nand sugar, and a brown loaf, \"you ought to know it don't. You ought\nto know it's enough to drive a person wild to hear you. You won't be\ngot off this way, and you won't be got off that way--what do you mean\nby such picking and choosing? It's stuff and nonsense, George.\"\n\n\"Don't be severe upon me in my misfortunes, Mrs. Bagnet,\" said the\ntrooper lightly.\n\n\"Oh! Bother your misfortunes,\" cried Mrs. Bagnet, \"if they don't make\nyou more reasonable than that comes to. I never was so ashamed in my\nlife to hear a man talk folly as I have been to hear you talk this\nday to the present company. Lawyers? Why, what but too many cooks\nshould hinder you from having a dozen lawyers if the gentleman\nrecommended them to you.\"\n\n\"This is a very sensible woman,\" said my guardian. \"I hope you will\npersuade him, Mrs. Bagnet.\"\n\n\"Persuade him, sir?\" she returned. \"Lord bless you, no. You don't\nknow George. Now, there!\" Mrs. Bagnet left her basket to point him\nout with both her bare brown hands. \"There he stands! As self-willed\nand as determined a man, in the wrong way, as ever put a human\ncreature under heaven out of patience! You could as soon take up and\nshoulder an eight and forty pounder by your own strength as turn that\nman when he has got a thing into his head and fixed it there. Why,\ndon't I know him!\" cried Mrs. Bagnet. \"Don't I know you, George! You\ndon't mean to set up for a new character with ME after all these\nyears, I hope?\"\n\nHer friendly indignation had an exemplary effect upon her husband,\nwho shook his head at the trooper several times as a silent\nrecommendation to him to yield. Between whiles, Mrs. Bagnet looked at\nme; and I understood from the play of her eyes that she wished me to\ndo something, though I did not comprehend what.\n\n\"But I have given up talking to you, old fellow, years and years,\"\nsaid Mrs. Bagnet as she blew a little dust off the pickled pork,\nlooking at me again; \"and when ladies and gentlemen know you as well\nas I do, they'll give up talking to you too. If you are not too\nheadstrong to accept of a bit of dinner, here it is.\"\n\n\"I accept it with many thanks,\" returned the trooper.\n\n\"Do you though, indeed?\" said Mrs. Bagnet, continuing to grumble on\ngood-humouredly. \"I'm sure I'm surprised at that. I wonder you don't\nstarve in your own way also. It would only be like you. Perhaps\nyou'll set your mind upon THAT next.\" Here she again looked at me,\nand I now perceived from her glances at the door and at me, by turns,\nthat she wished us to retire and to await her following us outside\nthe prison. Communicating this by similar means to my guardian and\nMr. Woodcourt, I rose.\n\n\"We hope you will think better of it, Mr. George,\" said I, \"and we\nshall come to see you again, trusting to find you more reasonable.\"\n\n\"More grateful, Miss Summerson, you can't find me,\" he returned.\n\n\"But more persuadable we can, I hope,\" said I. \"And let me entreat\nyou to consider that the clearing up of this mystery and the\ndiscovery of the real perpetrator of this deed may be of the last\nimportance to others besides yourself.\"\n\nHe heard me respectfully but without much heeding these words, which\nI spoke a little turned from him, already on my way to the door; he\nwas observing (this they afterwards told me) my height and figure,\nwhich seemed to catch his attention all at once.\n\n\"'Tis curious,\" said he. \"And yet I thought so at the time!\"\n\nMy guardian asked him what he meant.\n\n\"Why, sir,\" he answered, \"when my ill fortune took me to the dead\nman's staircase on the night of his murder, I saw a shape so like\nMiss Summerson's go by me in the dark that I had half a mind to speak\nto it.\"\n\nFor an instant I felt such a shudder as I never felt before or since\nand hope I shall never feel again.\n\n\"It came downstairs as I went up,\" said the trooper, \"and crossed the\nmoonlighted window with a loose black mantle on; I noticed a deep\nfringe to it. However, it has nothing to do with the present subject,\nexcepting that Miss Summerson looked so like it at the moment that it\ncame into my head.\"\n\nI cannot separate and define the feelings that arose in me after\nthis; it is enough that the vague duty and obligation I had felt upon\nme from the first of following the investigation was, without my\ndistinctly daring to ask myself any question, increased, and that I\nwas indignantly sure of there being no possibility of a reason for my\nbeing afraid.\n\nWe three went out of the prison and walked up and down at some short\ndistance from the gate, which was in a retired place. We had not\nwaited long when Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet came out too and quickly joined\nus.\n\nThere was a tear in each of Mrs. Bagnet's eyes, and her face was\nflushed and hurried. \"I didn't let George see what I thought about\nit, you know, miss,\" was her first remark when she came up, \"but he's\nin a bad way, poor old fellow!\"\n\n\"Not with care and prudence and good help,\" said my guardian.\n\n\"A gentleman like you ought to know best, sir,\" returned Mrs. Bagnet,\nhurriedly drying her eyes on the hem of her grey cloak, \"but I am\nuneasy for him. He has been so careless and said so much that he\nnever meant. The gentlemen of the juries might not understand him as\nLignum and me do. And then such a number of circumstances have\nhappened bad for him, and such a number of people will be brought\nforward to speak against him, and Bucket is so deep.\"\n\n\"With a second-hand wiolinceller. And said he played the fife. When a\nboy,\" Mr. Bagnet added with great solemnity.\n\n\"Now, I tell you, miss,\" said Mrs. Bagnet; \"and when I say miss, I\nmean all! Just come into the corner of the wall and I'll tell you!\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet hurried us into a more secluded place and was at first\ntoo breathless to proceed, occasioning Mr. Bagnet to say, \"Old girl!\nTell 'em!\"\n\n\"Why, then, miss,\" the old girl proceeded, untying the strings of her\nbonnet for more air, \"you could as soon move Dover Castle as move\nGeorge on this point unless you had got a new power to move him with.\nAnd I have got it!\"\n\n\"You are a jewel of a woman,\" said my guardian. \"Go on!\"\n\n\"Now, I tell you, miss,\" she proceeded, clapping her hands in her\nhurry and agitation a dozen times in every sentence, \"that what he\nsays concerning no relations is all bosh. They don't know of him, but\nhe does know of them. He has said more to me at odd times than to\nanybody else, and it warn't for nothing that he once spoke to my\nWoolwich about whitening and wrinkling mothers' heads. For fifty\npounds he had seen his mother that day. She's alive and must be\nbrought here straight!\"\n\nInstantly Mrs. Bagnet put some pins into her mouth and began pinning\nup her skirts all round a little higher than the level of her grey\ncloak, which she accomplished with surpassing dispatch and dexterity.\n\n\"Lignum,\" said Mrs. Bagnet, \"you take care of the children, old man,\nand give me the umbrella! I'm away to Lincolnshire to bring that old\nlady here.\"\n\n\"But, bless the woman,\" cried my guardian with his hand in his\npocket, \"how is she going? What money has she got?\"\n\nMrs. Bagnet made another application to her skirts and brought forth\na leathern purse in which she hastily counted over a few shillings\nand which she then shut up with perfect satisfaction.\n\n\"Never you mind for me, miss. I'm a soldier's wife and accustomed to\ntravel my own way. Lignum, old boy,\" kissing him, \"one for yourself,\nthree for the children. Now I'm away into Lincolnshire after George's\nmother!\"\n\nAnd she actually set off while we three stood looking at one another\nlost in amazement. She actually trudged away in her grey cloak at a\nsturdy pace, and turned the corner, and was gone.\n\n\"Mr. Bagnet,\" said my guardian. \"Do you mean to let her go in that\nway?\"\n\n\"Can't help it,\" he returned. \"Made her way home once from another\nquarter of the world. With the same grey cloak. And same umbrella.\nWhatever the old girl says, do. Do it! Whenever the old girl says,\nI'LL do it. She does it.\"\n\n\"Then she is as honest and genuine as she looks,\" rejoined my\nguardian, \"and it is impossible to say more for her.\"\n\n\"She's Colour-Sergeant of the Nonpareil battalion,\" said Mr. Bagnet,\nlooking at us over his shoulder as he went his way also. \"And there's\nnot such another. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must\nbe maintained.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LIII\n\nThe Track\n\n\nMr. Bucket and his fat forefinger are much in consultation together\nunder existing circumstances. When Mr. Bucket has a matter of this\npressing interest under his consideration, the fat forefinger seems\nto rise, to the dignity of a familiar demon. He puts it to his ears,\nand it whispers information; he puts it to his lips, and it enjoins\nhim to secrecy; he rubs it over his nose, and it sharpens his scent;\nhe shakes it before a guilty man, and it charms him to his\ndestruction. The Augurs of the Detective Temple invariably predict\nthat when Mr. Bucket and that finger are in much conference, a\nterrible avenger will be heard of before long.\n\nOtherwise mildly studious in his observation of human nature, on the\nwhole a benignant philosopher not disposed to be severe upon the\nfollies of mankind, Mr. Bucket pervades a vast number of houses and\nstrolls about an infinity of streets, to outward appearance rather\nlanguishing for want of an object. He is in the friendliest condition\ntowards his species and will drink with most of them. He is free with\nhis money, affable in his manners, innocent in his conversation--but\nthrough the placid stream of his life there glides an under-current\nof forefinger.\n\nTime and place cannot bind Mr. Bucket. Like man in the abstract, he\nis here to-day and gone to-morrow--but, very unlike man indeed, he is\nhere again the next day. This evening he will be casually looking\ninto the iron extinguishers at the door of Sir Leicester Dedlock's\nhouse in town; and to-morrow morning he will be walking on the leads\nat Chesney Wold, where erst the old man walked whose ghost is\npropitiated with a hundred guineas. Drawers, desks, pockets, all\nthings belonging to him, Mr. Bucket examines. A few hours afterwards,\nhe and the Roman will be alone together comparing forefingers.\n\nIt is likely that these occupations are irreconcilable with home\nenjoyment, but it is certain that Mr. Bucket at present does not go\nhome. Though in general he highly appreciates the society of Mrs.\nBucket--a lady of a natural detective genius, which if it had been\nimproved by professional exercise, might have done great things, but\nwhich has paused at the level of a clever amateur--he holds himself\naloof from that dear solace. Mrs. Bucket is dependent on their lodger\n(fortunately an amiable lady in whom she takes an interest) for\ncompanionship and conversation.\n\nA great crowd assembles in Lincoln's Inn Fields on the day of the\nfuneral. Sir Leicester Dedlock attends the ceremony in person;\nstrictly speaking, there are only three other human followers, that\nis to say, Lord Doodle, William Buffy, and the debilitated cousin\n(thrown in as a make-weight), but the amount of inconsolable\ncarriages is immense. The peerage contributes more four-wheeled\naffliction than has ever been seen in that neighbourhood. Such is the\nassemblage of armorial bearings on coach panels that the Herald's\nCollege might be supposed to have lost its father and mother at a\nblow. The Duke of Foodle sends a splendid pile of dust and ashes,\nwith silver wheel-boxes, patent axles, all the last improvements, and\nthree bereaved worms, six feet high, holding on behind, in a bunch of\nwoe. All the state coachmen in London seem plunged into mourning; and\nif that dead old man of the rusty garb be not beyond a taste in\nhorseflesh (which appears impossible), it must be highly gratified\nthis day.\n\nQuiet among the undertakers and the equipages and the calves of so\nmany legs all steeped in grief, Mr. Bucket sits concealed in one of\nthe inconsolable carriages and at his ease surveys the crowd through\nthe lattice blinds. He has a keen eye for a crowd--as for what\nnot?--and looking here and there, now from this side of the carriage,\nnow from the other, now up at the house windows, now along the\npeople's heads, nothing escapes him.\n\n\"And there you are, my partner, eh?\" says Mr. Bucket to himself,\napostrophizing Mrs. Bucket, stationed, by his favour, on the steps of\nthe deceased's house. \"And so you are. And so you are! And very well\nindeed you are looking, Mrs. Bucket!\"\n\nThe procession has not started yet, but is waiting for the cause of\nits assemblage to be brought out. Mr. Bucket, in the foremost\nemblazoned carriage, uses his two fat forefingers to hold the lattice\na hair's breadth open while he looks.\n\nAnd it says a great deal for his attachment, as a husband, that he is\nstill occupied with Mrs. B. \"There you are, my partner, eh?\" he\nmurmuringly repeats. \"And our lodger with you. I'm taking notice of\nyou, Mrs. Bucket; I hope you're all right in your health, my dear!\"\n\nNot another word does Mr. Bucket say, but sits with most attentive\neyes until the sacked depository of noble secrets is brought\ndown--Where are all those secrets now? Does he keep them yet? Did\nthey fly with him on that sudden journey?--and until the procession\nmoves, and Mr. Bucket's view is changed. After which he composes\nhimself for an easy ride and takes note of the fittings of the\ncarriage in case he should ever find such knowledge useful.\n\nContrast enough between Mr. Tulkinghorn shut up in his dark carriage\nand Mr. Bucket shut up in HIS. Between the immeasurable track of\nspace beyond the little wound that has thrown the one into the fixed\nsleep which jolts so heavily over the stones of the streets, and the\nnarrow track of blood which keeps the other in the watchful state\nexpressed in every hair of his head! But it is all one to both;\nneither is troubled about that.\n\nMr. Bucket sits out the procession in his own easy manner and glides\nfrom the carriage when the opportunity he has settled with himself\narrives. He makes for Sir Leicester Dedlock's, which is at present a\nsort of home to him, where he comes and goes as he likes at all\nhours, where he is always welcome and made much of, where he knows\nthe whole establishment, and walks in an atmosphere of mysterious\ngreatness.\n\nNo knocking or ringing for Mr. Bucket. He has caused himself to be\nprovided with a key and can pass in at his pleasure. As he is\ncrossing the hall, Mercury informs him, \"Here's another letter for\nyou, Mr. Bucket, come by post,\" and gives it him.\n\n\"Another one, eh?\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\nIf Mercury should chance to be possessed by any lingering curiosity\nas to Mr. Bucket's letters, that wary person is not the man to\ngratify it. Mr. Bucket looks at him as if his face were a vista of\nsome miles in length and he were leisurely contemplating the same.\n\n\"Do you happen to carry a box?\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\nUnfortunately Mercury is no snuff-taker.\n\n\"Could you fetch me a pinch from anywheres?\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\"Thankee. It don't matter what it is; I'm not particular as to the\nkind. Thankee!\"\n\nHaving leisurely helped himself from a canister borrowed from\nsomebody downstairs for the purpose, and having made a considerable\nshow of tasting it, first with one side of his nose and then with the\nother, Mr. Bucket, with much deliberation, pronounces it of the right\nsort and goes on, letter in hand.\n\nNow although Mr. Bucket walks upstairs to the little library within\nthe larger one with the face of a man who receives some scores of\nletters every day, it happens that much correspondence is not\nincidental to his life. He is no great scribe, rather handling his\npen like the pocket-staff he carries about with him always convenient\nto his grasp, and discourages correspondence with himself in others\nas being too artless and direct a way of doing delicate business.\nFurther, he often sees damaging letters produced in evidence and has\noccasion to reflect that it was a green thing to write them. For\nthese reasons he has very little to do with letters, either as sender\nor receiver. And yet he has received a round half-dozen within the\nlast twenty-four hours.\n\n\"And this,\" says Mr. Bucket, spreading it out on the table, \"is in\nthe same hand, and consists of the same two words.\"\n\nWhat two words?\n\nHe turns the key in the door, ungirdles his black pocket-book (book\nof fate to many), lays another letter by it, and reads, boldly\nwritten in each, \"Lady Dedlock.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" says Mr. Bucket. \"But I could have made the money without\nthis anonymous information.\"\n\nHaving put the letters in his book of fate and girdled it up again,\nhe unlocks the door just in time to admit his dinner, which is\nbrought upon a goodly tray with a decanter of sherry. Mr. Bucket\nfrequently observes, in friendly circles where there is no restraint,\nthat he likes a toothful of your fine old brown East Inder sherry\nbetter than anything you can offer him. Consequently he fills and\nempties his glass with a smack of his lips and is proceeding with his\nrefreshment when an idea enters his mind.\n\nMr. Bucket softly opens the door of communication between that room\nand the next and looks in. The library is deserted, and the fire is\nsinking low. Mr. Bucket's eye, after taking a pigeon-flight round the\nroom, alights upon a table where letters are usually put as they\narrive. Several letters for Sir Leicester are upon it. Mr. Bucket\ndraws near and examines the directions. \"No,\" he says, \"there's none\nin that hand. It's only me as is written to. I can break it to Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, Baronet, to-morrow.\"\n\nWith that he returns to finish his dinner with a good appetite, and\nafter a light nap, is summoned into the drawing-room. Sir Leicester\nhas received him there these several evenings past to know whether he\nhas anything to report. The debilitated cousin (much exhausted by the\nfuneral) and Volumnia are in attendance.\n\nMr. Bucket makes three distinctly different bows to these three\npeople. A bow of homage to Sir Leicester, a bow of gallantry to\nVolumnia, and a bow of recognition to the debilitated Cousin, to whom\nit airily says, \"You are a swell about town, and you know me, and I\nknow you.\" Having distributed these little specimens of his tact, Mr.\nBucket rubs his hands.\n\n\"Have you anything new to communicate, officer?\" inquires Sir\nLeicester. \"Do you wish to hold any conversation with me in private?\"\n\n\"Why--not to-night, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.\"\n\n\"Because my time,\" pursues Sir Leicester, \"is wholly at your disposal\nwith a view to the vindication of the outraged majesty of the law.\"\n\nMr. Bucket coughs and glances at Volumnia, rouged and necklaced, as\nthough he would respectfully observe, \"I do assure you, you're a\npretty creetur. I've seen hundreds worse looking at your time of\nlife, I have indeed.\"\n\nThe fair Volumnia, not quite unconscious perhaps of the humanizing\ninfluence of her charms, pauses in the writing of cocked-hat notes\nand meditatively adjusts the pearl necklace. Mr. Bucket prices that\ndecoration in his mind and thinks it as likely as not that Volumnia\nis writing poetry.\n\n\"If I have not,\" pursues Sir Leicester, \"in the most emphatic manner,\nadjured you, officer, to exercise your utmost skill in this atrocious\ncase, I particularly desire to take the present opportunity of\nrectifying any omission I may have made. Let no expense be a\nconsideration. I am prepared to defray all charges. You can incur\nnone in pursuit of the object you have undertaken that I shall\nhesitate for a moment to bear.\"\n\nMr. Bucket made Sir Leicester's bow again as a response to this\nliberality.\n\n\"My mind,\" Sir Leicester adds with a generous warmth, \"has not, as\nmay be easily supposed, recovered its tone since the late diabolical\noccurrence. It is not likely ever to recover its tone. But it is full\nof indignation to-night after undergoing the ordeal of consigning to\nthe tomb the remains of a faithful, a zealous, a devoted adherent.\"\n\nSir Leicester's voice trembles and his grey hair stirs upon his head.\nTears are in his eyes; the best part of his nature is aroused.\n\n\"I declare,\" he says, \"I solemnly declare that until this crime is\ndiscovered and, in the course of justice, punished, I almost feel as\nif there were a stain upon my name. A gentleman who has devoted a\nlarge portion of his life to me, a gentleman who has devoted the last\nday of his life to me, a gentleman who has constantly sat at my table\nand slept under my roof, goes from my house to his own, and is struck\ndown within an hour of his leaving my house. I cannot say but that he\nmay have been followed from my house, watched at my house, even first\nmarked because of his association with my house--which may have\nsuggested his possessing greater wealth and being altogether of\ngreater importance than his own retiring demeanour would have\nindicated. If I cannot with my means and influence and my position\nbring all the perpetrators of such a crime to light, I fail in the\nassertion of my respect for that gentleman's memory and of my\nfidelity towards one who was ever faithful to me.\"\n\nWhile he makes this protestation with great emotion and earnestness,\nlooking round the room as if he were addressing an assembly, Mr.\nBucket glances at him with an observant gravity in which there might\nbe, but for the audacity of the thought, a touch of compassion.\n\n\"The ceremony of to-day,\" continues Sir Leicester, \"strikingly\nillustrative of the respect in which my deceased friend\"--he lays a\nstress upon the word, for death levels all distinctions--\"was held by\nthe flower of the land, has, I say, aggravated the shock I have\nreceived from this most horrible and audacious crime. If it were my\nbrother who had committed it, I would not spare him.\"\n\nMr. Bucket looks very grave. Volumnia remarks of the deceased that he\nwas the trustiest and dearest person!\n\n\"You must feel it as a deprivation to you, miss,\" replies Mr. Bucket\nsoothingly, \"no doubt. He was calculated to BE a deprivation, I'm\nsure he was.\"\n\nVolumnia gives Mr. Bucket to understand, in reply, that her sensitive\nmind is fully made up never to get the better of it as long as she\nlives, that her nerves are unstrung for ever, and that she has not\nthe least expectation of ever smiling again. Meanwhile she folds up a\ncocked hat for that redoubtable old general at Bath, descriptive of\nher melancholy condition.\n\n\"It gives a start to a delicate female,\" says Mr. Bucket\nsympathetically, \"but it'll wear off.\"\n\nVolumnia wishes of all things to know what is doing? Whether they are\ngoing to convict, or whatever it is, that dreadful soldier? Whether\nhe had any accomplices, or whatever the thing is called in the law?\nAnd a great deal more to the like artless purpose.\n\n\"Why you see, miss,\" returns Mr. Bucket, bringing the finger into\npersuasive action--and such is his natural gallantry that he had\nalmost said \"my dear\"--\"it ain't easy to answer those questions at\nthe present moment. Not at the present moment. I've kept myself on\nthis case, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,\" whom Mr. Bucket takes\ninto the conversation in right of his importance, \"morning, noon, and\nnight. But for a glass or two of sherry, I don't think I could have\nhad my mind so much upon the stretch as it has been. I COULD answer\nyour questions, miss, but duty forbids it. Sir Leicester Dedlock,\nBaronet, will very soon be made acquainted with all that has been\ntraced. And I hope that he may find it\"--Mr. Bucket again looks\ngrave--\"to his satisfaction.\"\n\nThe debilitated cousin only hopes some fler'll be executed--zample.\nThinks more interest's wanted--get man hanged presentime--than get\nman place ten thousand a year. Hasn't a doubt--zample--far better\nhang wrong fler than no fler.\n\n\"YOU know life, you know, sir,\" says Mr. Bucket with a complimentary\ntwinkle of his eye and crook of his finger, \"and you can confirm what\nI've mentioned to this lady. YOU don't want to be told that from\ninformation I have received I have gone to work. You're up to what a\nlady can't be expected to be up to. Lord! Especially in your elevated\nstation of society, miss,\" says Mr. Bucket, quite reddening at\nanother narrow escape from \"my dear.\"\n\n\"The officer, Volumnia,\" observes Sir Leicester, \"is faithful to his\nduty, and perfectly right.\"\n\nMr. Bucket murmurs, \"Glad to have the honour of your approbation, Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, Baronet.\"\n\n\"In fact, Volumnia,\" proceeds Sir Leicester, \"it is not holding up a\ngood model for imitation to ask the officer any such questions as you\nhave put to him. He is the best judge of his own responsibility; he\nacts upon his responsibility. And it does not become us, who assist\nin making the laws, to impede or interfere with those who carry them\ninto execution. Or,\" says Sir Leicester somewhat sternly, for\nVolumnia was going to cut in before he had rounded his sentence, \"or\nwho vindicate their outraged majesty.\"\n\nVolumnia with all humility explains that she had not merely the plea\nof curiosity to urge (in common with the giddy youth of her sex in\ngeneral) but that she is perfectly dying with regret and interest for\nthe darling man whose loss they all deplore.\n\n\"Very well, Volumnia,\" returns Sir Leicester. \"Then you cannot be too\ndiscreet.\"\n\nMr. Bucket takes the opportunity of a pause to be heard again.\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I have no objections to telling this\nlady, with your leave and among ourselves, that I look upon the case\nas pretty well complete. It is a beautiful case--a beautiful\ncase--and what little is wanting to complete it, I expect to be able\nto supply in a few hours.\"\n\n\"I am very glad indeed to hear it,\" says Sir Leicester. \"Highly\ncreditable to you.\"\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,\" returns Mr. Bucket very seriously,\n\"I hope it may at one and the same time do me credit and prove\nsatisfactory to all. When I depict it as a beautiful case, you see,\nmiss,\" Mr. Bucket goes on, glancing gravely at Sir Leicester, \"I mean\nfrom my point of view. As considered from other points of view, such\ncases will always involve more or less unpleasantness. Very strange\nthings comes to our knowledge in families, miss; bless your heart,\nwhat you would think to be phenomenons, quite.\"\n\nVolumnia, with her innocent little scream, supposes so.\n\n\"Aye, and even in gen-teel families, in high families, in great\nfamilies,\" says Mr. Bucket, again gravely eyeing Sir Leicester aside.\n\"I have had the honour of being employed in high families before, and\nyou have no idea--come, I'll go so far as to say not even YOU have\nany idea, sir,\" this to the debilitated cousin, \"what games goes on!\"\n\nThe cousin, who has been casting sofa-pillows on his head, in a\nprostration of boredom yawns, \"Vayli,\" being the used-up for \"very\nlikely.\"\n\nSir Leicester, deeming it time to dismiss the officer, here\nmajestically interposes with the words, \"Very good. Thank you!\" and\nalso with a wave of his hand, implying not only that there is an end\nof the discourse, but that if high families fall into low habits they\nmust take the consequences. \"You will not forget, officer,\" he adds\nwith condescension, \"that I am at your disposal when you please.\"\n\nMr. Bucket (still grave) inquires if to-morrow morning, now, would\nsuit, in case he should be as for'ard as he expects to be. Sir\nLeicester replies, \"All times are alike to me.\" Mr. Bucket makes his\nthree bows and is withdrawing when a forgotten point occurs to him.\n\n\"Might I ask, by the by,\" he says in a low voice, cautiously\nreturning, \"who posted the reward-bill on the staircase.\"\n\n\"I ordered it to be put up there,\" replies Sir Leicester.\n\n\"Would it be considered a liberty, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, if\nI was to ask you why?\"\n\n\"Not at all. I chose it as a conspicuous part of the house. I think\nit cannot be too prominently kept before the whole establishment. I\nwish my people to be impressed with the enormity of the crime, the\ndetermination to punish it, and the hopelessness of escape. At the\nsame time, officer, if you in your better knowledge of the subject\nsee any objection--\"\n\nMr. Bucket sees none now; the bill having been put up, had better not\nbe taken down. Repeating his three bows he withdraws, closing the\ndoor on Volumnia's little scream, which is a preliminary to her\nremarking that that charmingly horrible person is a perfect Blue\nChamber.\n\nIn his fondness for society and his adaptability to all grades, Mr.\nBucket is presently standing before the hall-fire--bright and warm on\nthe early winter night--admiring Mercury.\n\n\"Why, you're six foot two, I suppose?\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\n\"Three,\" says Mercury.\n\n\"Are you so much? But then, you see, you're broad in proportion and\ndon't look it. You're not one of the weak-legged ones, you ain't. Was\nyou ever modelled now?\" Mr. Bucket asks, conveying the expression of\nan artist into the turn of his eye and head.\n\nMercury never was modelled.\n\n\"Then you ought to be, you know,\" says Mr. Bucket; \"and a friend of\nmine that you'll hear of one day as a Royal Academy sculptor would\nstand something handsome to make a drawing of your proportions for\nthe marble. My Lady's out, ain't she?\"\n\n\"Out to dinner.\"\n\n\"Goes out pretty well every day, don't she?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Not to be wondered at!\" says Mr. Bucket. \"Such a fine woman as her,\nso handsome and so graceful and so elegant, is like a fresh lemon on\na dinner-table, ornamental wherever she goes. Was your father in the\nsame way of life as yourself?\"\n\nAnswer in the negative.\n\n\"Mine was,\" says Mr. Bucket. \"My father was first a page, then a\nfootman, then a butler, then a steward, then an inn-keeper. Lived\nuniversally respected, and died lamented. Said with his last breath\nthat he considered service the most honourable part of his career,\nand so it was. I've a brother in service, AND a brother-in-law. My\nLady a good temper?\"\n\nMercury replies, \"As good as you can expect.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" says Mr. Bucket. \"A little spoilt? A little capricious? Lord!\nWhat can you anticipate when they're so handsome as that? And we like\n'em all the better for it, don't we?\"\n\nMercury, with his hands in the pockets of his bright peach-blossom\nsmall-clothes, stretches his symmetrical silk legs with the air of a\nman of gallantry and can't deny it. Come the roll of wheels and a\nviolent ringing at the bell. \"Talk of the angels,\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\"Here she is!\"\n\nThe doors are thrown open, and she passes through the hall. Still\nvery pale, she is dressed in slight mourning and wears two beautiful\nbracelets. Either their beauty or the beauty of her arms is\nparticularly attractive to Mr. Bucket. He looks at them with an eager\neye and rattles something in his pocket--halfpence perhaps.\n\nNoticing him at his distance, she turns an inquiring look on the\nother Mercury who has brought her home.\n\n\"Mr. Bucket, my Lady.\"\n\nMr. Bucket makes a leg and comes forward, passing his familiar demon\nover the region of his mouth.\n\n\"Are you waiting to see Sir Leicester?\"\n\n\"No, my Lady, I've seen him!\"\n\n\"Have you anything to say to me?\"\n\n\"Not just at present, my Lady.\"\n\n\"Have you made any new discoveries?\"\n\n\"A few, my Lady.\"\n\nThis is merely in passing. She scarcely makes a stop, and sweeps\nupstairs alone. Mr. Bucket, moving towards the staircase-foot,\nwatches her as she goes up the steps the old man came down to his\ngrave, past murderous groups of statuary repeated with their shadowy\nweapons on the wall, past the printed bill, which she looks at going\nby, out of view.\n\n\"She's a lovely woman, too, she really is,\" says Mr. Bucket, coming\nback to Mercury. \"Don't look quite healthy though.\"\n\nIs not quite healthy, Mercury informs him. Suffers much from\nheadaches.\n\nReally? That's a pity! Walking, Mr. Bucket would recommend for that.\nWell, she tries walking, Mercury rejoins. Walks sometimes for two\nhours when she has them bad. By night, too.\n\n\"Are you sure you're quite so much as six foot three?\" asks Mr.\nBucket. \"Begging your pardon for interrupting you a moment?\"\n\nNot a doubt about it.\n\n\"You're so well put together that I shouldn't have thought it. But\nthe household troops, though considered fine men, are built so\nstraggling. Walks by night, does she? When it's moonlight, though?\"\n\nOh, yes. When it's moonlight! Of course. Oh, of course!\nConversational and acquiescent on both sides.\n\n\"I suppose you ain't in the habit of walking yourself?\" says Mr.\nBucket. \"Not much time for it, I should say?\"\n\nBesides which, Mercury don't like it. Prefers carriage exercise.\n\n\"To be sure,\" says Mr. Bucket. \"That makes a difference. Now I think\nof it,\" says Mr. Bucket, warming his hands and looking pleasantly at\nthe blaze, \"she went out walking the very night of this business.\"\n\n\"To be sure she did! I let her into the garden over the way.\"\n\n\"And left her there. Certainly you did. I saw you doing it.\"\n\n\"I didn't see YOU,\" says Mercury.\n\n\"I was rather in a hurry,\" returns Mr. Bucket, \"for I was going to\nvisit a aunt of mine that lives at Chelsea--next door but two to the\nold original Bun House--ninety year old the old lady is, a single\nwoman, and got a little property. Yes, I chanced to be passing at the\ntime. Let's see. What time might it be? It wasn't ten.\"\n\n\"Half-past nine.\"\n\n\"You're right. So it was. And if I don't deceive myself, my Lady was\nmuffled in a loose black mantle, with a deep fringe to it?\"\n\n\"Of course she was.\"\n\nOf course she was. Mr. Bucket must return to a little work he has to\nget on with upstairs, but he must shake hands with Mercury in\nacknowledgment of his agreeable conversation, and will he--this is\nall he asks--will he, when he has a leisure half-hour, think of\nbestowing it on that Royal Academy sculptor, for the advantage of\nboth parties?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LIV\n\nSpringing a Mine\n\n\nRefreshed by sleep, Mr. Bucket rises betimes in the morning and\nprepares for a field-day. Smartened up by the aid of a clean shirt\nand a wet hairbrush, with which instrument, on occasions of ceremony,\nhe lubricates such thin locks as remain to him after his life of\nsevere study, Mr. Bucket lays in a breakfast of two mutton chops as a\nfoundation to work upon, together with tea, eggs, toast, and\nmarmalade on a corresponding scale. Having much enjoyed these\nstrengthening matters and having held subtle conference with his\nfamiliar demon, he confidently instructs Mercury \"just to mention\nquietly to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, that whenever he's ready\nfor me, I'm ready for him.\" A gracious message being returned that\nSir Leicester will expedite his dressing and join Mr. Bucket in the\nlibrary within ten minutes, Mr. Bucket repairs to that apartment and\nstands before the fire with his finger on his chin, looking at the\nblazing coals.\n\nThoughtful Mr. Bucket is, as a man may be with weighty work to do,\nbut composed, sure, confident. From the expression of his face he\nmight be a famous whist-player for a large stake--say a hundred\nguineas certain--with the game in his hand, but with a high\nreputation involved in his playing his hand out to the last card in a\nmasterly way. Not in the least anxious or disturbed is Mr. Bucket\nwhen Sir Leicester appears, but he eyes the baronet aside as he comes\nslowly to his easy-chair with that observant gravity of yesterday in\nwhich there might have been yesterday, but for the audacity of the\nidea, a touch of compassion.\n\n\"I am sorry to have kept you waiting, officer, but I am rather later\nthan my usual hour this morning. I am not well. The agitation and the\nindignation from which I have recently suffered have been too much\nfor me. I am subject to--gout\"--Sir Leicester was going to say\nindisposition and would have said it to anybody else, but Mr. Bucket\npalpably knows all about it--\"and recent circumstances have brought\nit on.\"\n\nAs he takes his seat with some difficulty and with an air of pain,\nMr. Bucket draws a little nearer, standing with one of his large\nhands on the library-table.\n\n\"I am not aware, officer,\" Sir Leicester observes; raising his eyes\nto his face, \"whether you wish us to be alone, but that is entirely\nas you please. If you do, well and good. If not, Miss Dedlock would\nbe interested--\"\n\n\"Why, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,\" returns Mr. Bucket with his\nhead persuasively on one side and his forefinger pendant at one ear\nlike an earring, \"we can't be too private just at present. You will\npresently see that we can't be too private. A lady, under the\ncircumstances, and especially in Miss Dedlock's elevated station of\nsociety, can't but be agreeable to me, but speaking without a view to\nmyself, I will take the liberty of assuring you that I know we can't\nbe too private.\"\n\n\"That is enough.\"\n\n\"So much so, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,\" Mr. Bucket resumes,\n\"that I was on the point of asking your permission to turn the key in\nthe door.\"\n\n\"By all means.\" Mr. Bucket skilfully and softly takes that\nprecaution, stooping on his knee for a moment from mere force of\nhabit so to adjust the key in the lock as that no one shall peep in\nfrom the outerside.\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I mentioned yesterday evening that I\nwanted but a very little to complete this case. I have now completed\nit and collected proof against the person who did this crime.\"\n\n\"Against the soldier?\"\n\n\"No, Sir Leicester Dedlock; not the soldier.\"\n\nSir Leicester looks astounded and inquires, \"Is the man in custody?\"\n\nMr. Bucket tells him, after a pause, \"It was a woman.\"\n\nSir Leicester leans back in his chair, and breathlessly ejaculates,\n\"Good heaven!\"\n\n\"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,\" Mr. Bucket begins, standing\nover him with one hand spread out on the library-table and the\nforefinger of the other in impressive use, \"it's my duty to prepare\nyou for a train of circumstances that may, and I go so far as to say\nthat will, give you a shock. But Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, you\nare a gentleman, and I know what a gentleman is and what a gentleman\nis capable of. A gentleman can bear a shock when it must come, boldly\nand steadily. A gentleman can make up his mind to stand up against\nalmost any blow. Why, take yourself, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.\nIf there's a blow to be inflicted on you, you naturally think of your\nfamily. You ask yourself, how would all them ancestors of yours, away\nto Julius Caesar--not to go beyond him at present--have borne that\nblow; you remember scores of them that would have borne it well; and\nyou bear it well on their accounts, and to maintain the family\ncredit. That's the way you argue, and that's the way you act, Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, Baronet.\"\n\nSir Leicester, leaning back in his chair and grasping the elbows,\nsits looking at him with a stony face.\n\n\"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock,\" proceeds Mr. Bucket, \"thus preparing\nyou, let me beg of you not to trouble your mind for a moment as to\nanything having come to MY knowledge. I know so much about so many\ncharacters, high and low, that a piece of information more or less\ndon't signify a straw. I don't suppose there's a move on the board\nthat would surprise ME, and as to this or that move having taken\nplace, why my knowing it is no odds at all, any possible move\nwhatever (provided it's in a wrong direction) being a probable move\naccording to my experience. Therefore, what I say to you, Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, Baronet, is, don't you go and let yourself be put\nout of the way because of my knowing anything of your family\naffairs.\"\n\n\"I thank you for your preparation,\" returns Sir Leicester after a\nsilence, without moving hand, foot, or feature, \"which I hope is not\nnecessary; though I give it credit for being well intended. Be so\ngood as to go on. Also\"--Sir Leicester seems to shrink in the shadow\nof his figure--\"also, to take a seat, if you have no objection.\"\n\nNone at all. Mr. Bucket brings a chair and diminishes his shadow.\n\"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, with this short preface I come\nto the point. Lady Dedlock--\"\n\nSir Leicester raises himself in his seat and stares at him fiercely.\nMr. Bucket brings the finger into play as an emollient.\n\n\"Lady Dedlock, you see she's universally admired. That's what her\nladyship is; she's universally admired,\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\n\"I would greatly prefer, officer,\" Sir Leicester returns stiffly, \"my\nLady's name being entirely omitted from this discussion.\"\n\n\"So would I, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, but--it's impossible.\"\n\n\"Impossible?\"\n\nMr. Bucket shakes his relentless head.\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it's altogether impossible. What I\nhave got to say is about her ladyship. She is the pivot it all turns\non.\"\n\n\"Officer,\" retorts Sir Leicester with a fiery eye and a quivering\nlip, \"you know your duty. Do your duty, but be careful not to\noverstep it. I would not suffer it. I would not endure it. You bring\nmy Lady's name into this communication upon your responsibility--upon\nyour responsibility. My Lady's name is not a name for common persons\nto trifle with!\"\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I say what I must say, and no more.\"\n\n\"I hope it may prove so. Very well. Go on. Go on, sir!\" Glancing at\nthe angry eyes which now avoid him and at the angry figure trembling\nfrom head to foot, yet striving to be still, Mr. Bucket feels his way\nwith his forefinger and in a low voice proceeds.\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it becomes my duty to tell you that\nthe deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn long entertained mistrusts and\nsuspicions of Lady Dedlock.\"\n\n\"If he had dared to breathe them to me, sir--which he never did--I\nwould have killed him myself!\" exclaims Sir Leicester, striking his\nhand upon the table. But in the very heat and fury of the act he\nstops, fixed by the knowing eyes of Mr. Bucket, whose forefinger is\nslowly going and who, with mingled confidence and patience, shakes\nhis head.\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn was deep and\nclose, and what he fully had in his mind in the very beginning I\ncan't quite take upon myself to say. But I know from his lips that he\nlong ago suspected Lady Dedlock of having discovered, through the\nsight of some handwriting--in this very house, and when you yourself,\nSir Leicester Dedlock, were present--the existence, in great poverty,\nof a certain person who had been her lover before you courted her and\nwho ought to have been her husband.\" Mr. Bucket stops and\ndeliberately repeats, \"Ought to have been her husband, not a doubt\nabout it. I know from his lips that when that person soon afterwards\ndied, he suspected Lady Dedlock of visiting his wretched lodging and\nhis wretched grave, alone and in secret. I know from my own inquiries\nand through my eyes and ears that Lady Dedlock did make such visit in\nthe dress of her own maid, for the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn employed\nme to reckon up her ladyship--if you'll excuse my making use of the\nterm we commonly employ--and I reckoned her up, so far, completely. I\nconfronted the maid in the chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields with a\nwitness who had been Lady Dedlock's guide, and there couldn't be the\nshadow of a doubt that she had worn the young woman's dress, unknown\nto her. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I did endeavour to pave the\nway a little towards these unpleasant disclosures yesterday by saying\nthat very strange things happened even in high families sometimes.\nAll this, and more, has happened in your own family, and to and\nthrough your own Lady. It's my belief that the deceased Mr.\nTulkinghorn followed up these inquiries to the hour of his death and\nthat he and Lady Dedlock even had bad blood between them upon the\nmatter that very night. Now, only you put that to Lady Dedlock, Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, Baronet, and ask her ladyship whether, even after\nhe had left here, she didn't go down to his chambers with the\nintention of saying something further to him, dressed in a loose\nblack mantle with a deep fringe to it.\"\n\nSir Leicester sits like a statue, gazing at the cruel finger that is\nprobing the life-blood of his heart.\n\n\"You put that to her ladyship, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, from\nme, Inspector Bucket of the Detective. And if her ladyship makes any\ndifficulty about admitting of it, you tell her that it's no use, that\nInspector Bucket knows it and knows that she passed the soldier as\nyou called him (though he's not in the army now) and knows that she\nknows she passed him on the staircase. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock,\nBaronet, why do I relate all this?\"\n\nSir Leicester, who has covered his face with his hands, uttering a\nsingle groan, requests him to pause for a moment. By and by he takes\nhis hands away, and so preserves his dignity and outward calmness,\nthough there is no more colour in his face than in his white hair,\nthat Mr. Bucket is a little awed by him. Something frozen and fixed\nis upon his manner, over and above its usual shell of haughtiness,\nand Mr. Bucket soon detects an unusual slowness in his speech, with\nnow and then a curious trouble in beginning, which occasions him to\nutter inarticulate sounds. With such sounds he now breaks silence,\nsoon, however, controlling himself to say that he does not comprehend\nwhy a gentleman so faithful and zealous as the late Mr. Tulkinghorn\nshould have communicated to him nothing of this painful, this\ndistressing, this unlooked-for, this overwhelming, this incredible\nintelligence.\n\n\"Again, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,\" returns Mr. Bucket, \"put it\nto her ladyship to clear that up. Put it to her ladyship, if you\nthink it right, from Inspector Bucket of the Detective. You'll find,\nor I'm much mistaken, that the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn had the\nintention of communicating the whole to you as soon as he considered\nit ripe, and further, that he had given her ladyship so to\nunderstand. Why, he might have been going to reveal it the very\nmorning when I examined the body! You don't know what I'm going to\nsay and do five minutes from this present time, Sir Leicester\nDedlock, Baronet; and supposing I was to be picked off now, you might\nwonder why I hadn't done it, don't you see?\"\n\nTrue. Sir Leicester, avoiding, with some trouble those obtrusive\nsounds, says, \"True.\" At this juncture a considerable noise of voices\nis heard in the hall. Mr. Bucket, after listening, goes to the\nlibrary-door, softly unlocks and opens it, and listens again. Then he\ndraws in his head and whispers hurriedly but composedly, \"Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, Baronet, this unfortunate family affair has taken\nair, as I expected it might, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn being cut\ndown so sudden. The chance to hush it is to let in these people now\nin a wrangle with your footmen. Would you mind sitting quiet--on the\nfamily account--while I reckon 'em up? And would you just throw in a\nnod when I seem to ask you for it?\"\n\nSir Leicester indistinctly answers, \"Officer. The best you can, the\nbest you can!\" and Mr. Bucket, with a nod and a sagacious crook of\nthe forefinger, slips down into the hall, where the voices quickly\ndie away. He is not long in returning; a few paces ahead of Mercury\nand a brother deity also powdered and in peach-blossomed smalls, who\nbear between them a chair in which is an incapable old man. Another\nman and two women come behind. Directing the pitching of the chair in\nan affable and easy manner, Mr. Bucket dismisses the Mercuries and\nlocks the door again. Sir Leicester looks on at this invasion of the\nsacred precincts with an icy stare.\n\n\"Now, perhaps you may know me, ladies and gentlemen,\" says Mr. Bucket\nin a confidential voice. \"I am Inspector Bucket of the Detective, I\nam; and this,\" producing the tip of his convenient little staff from\nhis breast-pocket, \"is my authority. Now, you wanted to see Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, Baronet. Well! You do see him, and mind you, it\nain't every one as is admitted to that honour. Your name, old\ngentleman, is Smallweed; that's what your name is; I know it well.\"\n\n\"Well, and you never heard any harm of it!\" cries Mr. Smallweed in a\nshrill loud voice.\n\n\"You don't happen to know why they killed the pig, do you?\" retorts\nMr. Bucket with a steadfast look, but without loss of temper.\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Why, they killed him,\" says Mr. Bucket, \"on account of his having so\nmuch cheek. Don't YOU get into the same position, because it isn't\nworthy of you. You ain't in the habit of conversing with a deaf\nperson, are you?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" snarls Mr. Smallweed, \"my wife's deaf.\"\n\n\"That accounts for your pitching your voice so high. But as she ain't\nhere; just pitch it an octave or two lower, will you, and I'll not\nonly be obliged to you, but it'll do you more credit,\" says Mr.\nBucket. \"This other gentleman is in the preaching line, I think?\"\n\n\"Name of Chadband,\" Mr. Smallweed puts in, speaking henceforth in a\nmuch lower key.\n\n\"Once had a friend and brother serjeant of the same name,\" says Mr.\nBucket, offering his hand, \"and consequently feel a liking for it.\nMrs. Chadband, no doubt?\"\n\n\"And Mrs. Snagsby,\" Mr. Smallweed introduces.\n\n\"Husband a law-stationer and a friend of my own,\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\"Love him like a brother! Now, what's up?\"\n\n\"Do you mean what business have we come upon?\" Mr. Smallweed asks, a\nlittle dashed by the suddenness of this turn.\n\n\"Ah! You know what I mean. Let us hear what it's all about in\npresence of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Come.\"\n\nMr. Smallweed, beckoning Mr. Chadband, takes a moment's counsel with\nhim in a whisper. Mr. Chadband, expressing a considerable amount of\noil from the pores of his forehead and the palms of his hands, says\naloud, \"Yes. You first!\" and retires to his former place.\n\n\"I was the client and friend of Mr. Tulkinghorn,\" pipes Grandfather\nSmallweed then; \"I did business with him. I was useful to him, and he\nwas useful to me. Krook, dead and gone, was my brother-in-law. He was\nown brother to a brimstone magpie--leastways Mrs. Smallweed. I come\ninto Krook's property. I examined all his papers and all his effects.\nThey was all dug out under my eyes. There was a bundle of letters\nbelonging to a dead and gone lodger as was hid away at the back of a\nshelf in the side of Lady Jane's bed--his cat's bed. He hid all\nmanner of things away, everywheres. Mr. Tulkinghorn wanted 'em and\ngot 'em, but I looked 'em over first. I'm a man of business, and I\ntook a squint at 'em. They was letters from the lodger's sweetheart,\nand she signed Honoria. Dear me, that's not a common name, Honoria,\nis it? There's no lady in this house that signs Honoria is there? Oh,\nno, I don't think so! Oh, no, I don't think so! And not in the same\nhand, perhaps? Oh, no, I don't think so!\"\n\nHere Mr. Smallweed, seized with a fit of coughing in the midst of his\ntriumph, breaks off to ejaculate, \"Oh, dear me! Oh, Lord! I'm shaken\nall to pieces!\"\n\n\"Now, when you're ready,\" says Mr. Bucket after awaiting his\nrecovery, \"to come to anything that concerns Sir Leicester Dedlock,\nBaronet, here the gentleman sits, you know.\"\n\n\"Haven't I come to it, Mr. Bucket?\" cries Grandfather Smallweed.\n\"Isn't the gentleman concerned yet? Not with Captain Hawdon, and his\never affectionate Honoria, and their child into the bargain? Come,\nthen, I want to know where those letters are. That concerns me, if it\ndon't concern Sir Leicester Dedlock. I will know where they are. I\nwon't have 'em disappear so quietly. I handed 'em over to my friend\nand solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, not to anybody else.\"\n\n\"Why, he paid you for them, you know, and handsome too,\" says Mr.\nBucket.\n\n\"I don't care for that. I want to know who's got 'em. And I tell you\nwhat we want--what we all here want, Mr. Bucket. We want more\npainstaking and search-making into this murder. We know where the\ninterest and the motive was, and you have not done enough. If George\nthe vagabond dragoon had any hand in it, he was only an accomplice,\nand was set on. You know what I mean as well as any man.\"\n\n\"Now I tell you what,\" says Mr. Bucket, instantaneously altering his\nmanner, coming close to him, and communicating an extraordinary\nfascination to the forefinger, \"I am damned if I am a-going to have\nmy case spoilt, or interfered with, or anticipated by so much as half\na second of time by any human being in creation. YOU want more\npainstaking and search-making! YOU do? Do you see this hand, and do\nyou think that I don't know the right time to stretch it out and put\nit on the arm that fired that shot?\"\n\nSuch is the dread power of the man, and so terribly evident it is\nthat he makes no idle boast, that Mr. Smallweed begins to apologize.\nMr. Bucket, dismissing his sudden anger, checks him.\n\n\"The advice I give you is, don't you trouble your head about the\nmurder. That's my affair. You keep half an eye on the newspapers, and\nI shouldn't wonder if you was to read something about it before long,\nif you look sharp. I know my business, and that's all I've got to say\nto you on that subject. Now about those letters. You want to know\nwho's got 'em. I don't mind telling you. I have got 'em. Is that the\npacket?\"\n\nMr. Smallweed looks, with greedy eyes, at the little bundle Mr.\nBucket produces from a mysterious part of his coat, and identifies it\nas the same.\n\n\"What have you got to say next?\" asks Mr. Bucket. \"Now, don't open\nyour mouth too wide, because you don't look handsome when you do it.\"\n\n\"I want five hundred pound.\"\n\n\"No, you don't; you mean fifty,\" says Mr. Bucket humorously.\n\nIt appears, however, that Mr. Smallweed means five hundred.\n\n\"That is, I am deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to consider\n(without admitting or promising anything) this bit of business,\" says\nMr. Bucket--Sir Leicester mechanically bows his head--\"and you ask me\nto consider a proposal of five hundred pounds. Why, it's an\nunreasonable proposal! Two fifty would be bad enough, but better than\nthat. Hadn't you better say two fifty?\"\n\nMr. Smallweed is quite clear that he had better not.\n\n\"Then,\" says Mr. Bucket, \"let's hear Mr. Chadband. Lord! Many a time\nI've heard my old fellow-serjeant of that name; and a moderate man he\nwas in all respects, as ever I come across!\"\n\nThus invited, Mr. Chadband steps forth, and after a little sleek\nsmiling and a little oil-grinding with the palms of his hands,\ndelivers himself as follows, \"My friends, we are now--Rachael, my\nwife, and I--in the mansions of the rich and great. Why are we now in\nthe mansions of the rich and great, my friends? Is it because we are\ninvited? Because we are bidden to feast with them, because we are\nbidden to rejoice with them, because we are bidden to play the lute\nwith them, because we are bidden to dance with them? No. Then why are\nwe here, my friends? Air we in possession of a sinful secret, and do\nwe require corn, and wine, and oil, or what is much the same thing,\nmoney, for the keeping thereof? Probably so, my friends.\"\n\n\"You're a man of business, you are,\" returns Mr. Bucket, very\nattentive, \"and consequently you're going on to mention what the\nnature of your secret is. You are right. You couldn't do better.\"\n\n\"Let us then, my brother, in a spirit of love,\" says Mr. Chadband\nwith a cunning eye, \"proceed unto it. Rachael, my wife, advance!\"\n\nMrs. Chadband, more than ready, so advances as to jostle her husband\ninto the background and confronts Mr. Bucket with a hard, frowning\nsmile.\n\n\"Since you want to know what we know,\" says she, \"I'll tell you. I\nhelped to bring up Miss Hawdon, her ladyship's daughter. I was in the\nservice of her ladyship's sister, who was very sensitive to the\ndisgrace her ladyship brought upon her, and gave out, even to her\nladyship, that the child was dead--she WAS very nearly so--when she\nwas born. But she's alive, and I know her.\" With these words, and a\nlaugh, and laying a bitter stress on the word \"ladyship,\" Mrs.\nChadband folds her arms and looks implacably at Mr. Bucket.\n\n\"I suppose now,\" returns that officer, \"YOU will be expecting a\ntwenty-pound note or a present of about that figure?\"\n\nMrs. Chadband merely laughs and contemptuously tells him he can\n\"offer\" twenty pence.\n\n\"My friend the law-stationer's good lady, over there,\" says Mr.\nBucket, luring Mrs. Snagsby forward with the finger. \"What may YOUR\ngame be, ma'am?\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby is at first prevented, by tears and lamentations, from\nstating the nature of her game, but by degrees it confusedly comes to\nlight that she is a woman overwhelmed with injuries and wrongs, whom\nMr. Snagsby has habitually deceived, abandoned, and sought to keep in\ndarkness, and whose chief comfort, under her afflictions, has been\nthe sympathy of the late Mr. Tulkinghorn, who showed so much\ncommiseration for her on one occasion of his calling in Cook's Court\nin the absence of her perjured husband that she has of late\nhabitually carried to him all her woes. Everybody it appears, the\npresent company excepted, has plotted against Mrs. Snagsby's peace.\nThere is Mr. Guppy, clerk to Kenge and Carboy, who was at first as\nopen as the sun at noon, but who suddenly shut up as close as\nmidnight, under the influence--no doubt--of Mr. Snagsby's suborning\nand tampering. There is Mr. Weevle, friend of Mr. Guppy, who lived\nmysteriously up a court, owing to the like coherent causes. There was\nKrook, deceased; there was Nimrod, deceased; and there was Jo,\ndeceased; and they were \"all in it.\" In what, Mrs. Snagsby does not\nwith particularity express, but she knows that Jo was Mr. Snagsby's\nson, \"as well as if a trumpet had spoken it,\" and she followed Mr.\nSnagsby when he went on his last visit to the boy, and if he was not\nhis son why did he go? The one occupation of her life has been, for\nsome time back, to follow Mr. Snagsby to and fro, and up and down,\nand to piece suspicious circumstances together--and every\ncircumstance that has happened has been most suspicious; and in this\nway she has pursued her object of detecting and confounding her false\nhusband, night and day. Thus did it come to pass that she brought the\nChadbands and Mr. Tulkinghorn together, and conferred with Mr.\nTulkinghorn on the change in Mr. Guppy, and helped to turn up the\ncircumstances in which the present company are interested, casually,\nby the wayside, being still and ever on the great high road that is\nto terminate in Mr. Snagsby's full exposure and a matrimonial\nseparation. All this, Mrs. Snagsby, as an injured woman, and the\nfriend of Mrs. Chadband, and the follower of Mr. Chadband, and the\nmourner of the late Mr. Tulkinghorn, is here to certify under the\nseal of confidence, with every possible confusion and involvement\npossible and impossible, having no pecuniary motive whatever, no\nscheme or project but the one mentioned, and bringing here, and\ntaking everywhere, her own dense atmosphere of dust, arising from the\nceaseless working of her mill of jealousy.\n\nWhile this exordium is in hand--and it takes some time--Mr. Bucket,\nwho has seen through the transparency of Mrs. Snagsby's vinegar at a\nglance, confers with his familiar demon and bestows his shrewd\nattention on the Chadbands and Mr. Smallweed. Sir Leicester Dedlock\nremains immovable, with the same icy surface upon him, except that he\nonce or twice looks towards Mr. Bucket, as relying on that officer\nalone of all mankind.\n\n\"Very good,\" says Mr. Bucket. \"Now I understand you, you know, and\nbeing deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to look into this\nlittle matter,\" again Sir Leicester mechanically bows in confirmation\nof the statement, \"can give it my fair and full attention. Now I\nwon't allude to conspiring to extort money or anything of that sort,\nbecause we are men and women of the world here, and our object is to\nmake things pleasant. But I tell you what I DO wonder at; I am\nsurprised that you should think of making a noise below in the hall.\nIt was so opposed to your interests. That's what I look at.\"\n\n\"We wanted to get in,\" pleads Mr. Smallweed.\n\n\"Why, of course you wanted to get in,\" Mr. Bucket asserts with\ncheerfulness; \"but for a old gentleman at your time of life--what I\ncall truly venerable, mind you!--with his wits sharpened, as I have\nno doubt they are, by the loss of the use of his limbs, which\noccasions all his animation to mount up into his head, not to\nconsider that if he don't keep such a business as the present as\nclose as possible it can't be worth a mag to him, is so curious! You\nsee your temper got the better of you; that's where you lost ground,\"\nsays Mr. Bucket in an argumentative and friendly way.\n\n\"I only said I wouldn't go without one of the servants came up to Sir\nLeicester Dedlock,\" returns Mr. Smallweed.\n\n\"That's it! That's where your temper got the better of you. Now, you\nkeep it under another time and you'll make money by it. Shall I ring\nfor them to carry you down?\"\n\n\"When are we to hear more of this?\" Mrs. Chadband sternly demands.\n\n\"Bless your heart for a true woman! Always curious, your delightful\nsex is!\" replies Mr. Bucket with gallantry. \"I shall have the\npleasure of giving you a call to-morrow or next day--not forgetting\nMr. Smallweed and his proposal of two fifty.\"\n\n\"Five hundred!\" exclaims Mr. Smallweed.\n\n\"All right! Nominally five hundred.\" Mr. Bucket has his hand on the\nbell-rope. \"SHALL I wish you good day for the present on the part of\nmyself and the gentleman of the house?\" he asks in an insinuating\ntone.\n\nNobody having the hardihood to object to his doing so, he does it,\nand the party retire as they came up. Mr. Bucket follows them to the\ndoor, and returning, says with an air of serious business, \"Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, Baronet, it's for you to consider whether or not\nto buy this up. I should recommend, on the whole, it's being bought\nup myself; and I think it may be bought pretty cheap. You see, that\nlittle pickled cowcumber of a Mrs. Snagsby has been used by all sides\nof the speculation and has done a deal more harm in bringing odds and\nends together than if she had meant it. Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, he\nheld all these horses in his hand and could have drove 'em his own\nway, I haven't a doubt; but he was fetched off the box head-foremost,\nand now they have got their legs over the traces, and are all\ndragging and pulling their own ways. So it is, and such is life. The\ncat's away, and the mice they play; the frost breaks up, and the\nwater runs. Now, with regard to the party to be apprehended.\"\n\nSir Leicester seems to wake, though his eyes have been wide open, and\nhe looks intently at Mr. Bucket as Mr. Bucket refers to his watch.\n\n\"The party to be apprehended is now in this house,\" proceeds Mr.\nBucket, putting up his watch with a steady hand and with rising\nspirits, \"and I'm about to take her into custody in your presence.\nSir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, don't you say a word nor yet stir.\nThere'll be no noise and no disturbance at all. I'll come back in the\ncourse of the evening, if agreeable to you, and endeavour to meet\nyour wishes respecting this unfortunate family matter and the\nnobbiest way of keeping it quiet. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock,\nBaronet, don't you be nervous on account of the apprehension at\npresent coming off. You shall see the whole case clear, from first to\nlast.\"\n\nMr. Bucket rings, goes to the door, briefly whispers Mercury, shuts\nthe door, and stands behind it with his arms folded. After a suspense\nof a minute or two the door slowly opens and a Frenchwoman enters.\nMademoiselle Hortense.\n\nThe moment she is in the room Mr. Bucket claps the door to and puts\nhis back against it. The suddenness of the noise occasions her to\nturn, and then for the first time she sees Sir Leicester Dedlock in\nhis chair.\n\n\"I ask you pardon,\" she mutters hurriedly. \"They tell me there was no\none here.\"\n\nHer step towards the door brings her front to front with Mr. Bucket.\nSuddenly a spasm shoots across her face and she turns deadly pale.\n\n\"This is my lodger, Sir Leicester Dedlock,\" says Mr. Bucket, nodding\nat her. \"This foreign young woman has been my lodger for some weeks\nback.\"\n\n\"What do Sir Leicester care for that, you think, my angel?\" returns\nmademoiselle in a jocular strain.\n\n\"Why, my angel,\" returns Mr. Bucket, \"we shall see.\"\n\nMademoiselle Hortense eyes him with a scowl upon her tight face,\nwhich gradually changes into a smile of scorn, \"You are very\nmysterieuse. Are you drunk?\"\n\n\"Tolerable sober, my angel,\" returns Mr. Bucket.\n\n\"I come from arriving at this so detestable house with your wife.\nYour wife have left me since some minutes. They tell me downstairs\nthat your wife is here. I come here, and your wife is not here. What\nis the intention of this fool's play, say then?\" mademoiselle\ndemands, with her arms composedly crossed, but with something in her\ndark cheek beating like a clock.\n\nMr. Bucket merely shakes the finger at her.\n\n\"Ah, my God, you are an unhappy idiot!\" cries mademoiselle with a\ntoss of her head and a laugh. \"Leave me to pass downstairs, great\npig.\" With a stamp of her foot and a menace.\n\n\"Now, mademoiselle,\" says Mr. Bucket in a cool determined way, \"you\ngo and sit down upon that sofy.\"\n\n\"I will not sit down upon nothing,\" she replies with a shower of\nnods.\n\n\"Now, mademoiselle,\" repeats Mr. Bucket, making no demonstration\nexcept with the finger, \"you sit down upon that sofy.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because I take you into custody on a charge of murder, and you don't\nneed to be told it. Now, I want to be polite to one of your sex and a\nforeigner if I can. If I can't, I must be rough, and there's rougher\nones outside. What I am to be depends on you. So I recommend you, as\na friend, afore another half a blessed moment has passed over your\nhead, to go and sit down upon that sofy.\"\n\nMademoiselle complies, saying in a concentrated voice while that\nsomething in her cheek beats fast and hard, \"You are a devil.\"\n\n\"Now, you see,\" Mr. Bucket proceeds approvingly, \"you're comfortable\nand conducting yourself as I should expect a foreign young woman of\nyour sense to do. So I'll give you a piece of advice, and it's this,\ndon't you talk too much. You're not expected to say anything here,\nand you can't keep too quiet a tongue in your head. In short, the\nless you PARLAY, the better, you know.\" Mr. Bucket is very complacent\nover this French explanation.\n\nMademoiselle, with that tigerish expansion of the mouth and her black\neyes darting fire upon him, sits upright on the sofa in a rigid\nstate, with her hands clenched--and her feet too, one might\nsuppose--muttering, \"Oh, you Bucket, you are a devil!\"\n\n\"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,\" says Mr. Bucket, and from this\ntime forth the finger never rests, \"this young woman, my lodger, was\nher ladyship's maid at the time I have mentioned to you; and this\nyoung woman, besides being extraordinary vehement and passionate\nagainst her ladyship after being discharged--\"\n\n\"Lie!\" cries mademoiselle. \"I discharge myself.\"\n\n\"Now, why don't you take my advice?\" returns Mr. Bucket in an\nimpressive, almost in an imploring, tone. \"I'm surprised at the\nindiscreetness you commit. You'll say something that'll be used\nagainst you, you know. You're sure to come to it. Never you mind what\nI say till it's given in evidence. It is not addressed to you.\"\n\n\"Discharge, too,\" cries mademoiselle furiously, \"by her ladyship! Eh,\nmy faith, a pretty ladyship! Why, I r-r-r-ruin my character by\nremaining with a ladyship so infame!\"\n\n\"Upon my soul I wonder at you!\" Mr. Bucket remonstrates. \"I thought\nthe French were a polite nation, I did, really. Yet to hear a female\ngoing on like that before Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet!\"\n\n\"He is a poor abused!\" cries mademoiselle. \"I spit upon his house,\nupon his name, upon his imbecility,\" all of which she makes the\ncarpet represent. \"Oh, that he is a great man! Oh, yes, superb! Oh,\nheaven! Bah!\"\n\n\"Well, Sir Leicester Dedlock,\" proceeds Mr. Bucket, \"this intemperate\nforeigner also angrily took it into her head that she had established\na claim upon Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, by attending on the occasion\nI told you of at his chambers, though she was liberally paid for her\ntime and trouble.\"\n\n\"Lie!\" cries mademoiselle. \"I ref-use his money all togezzer.\"\n\n\"If you WILL PARLAY, you know,\" says Mr. Bucket parenthetically, \"you\nmust take the consequences. Now, whether she became my lodger, Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, with any deliberate intention then of doing this\ndeed and blinding me, I give no opinion on; but she lived in my house\nin that capacity at the time that she was hovering about the chambers\nof the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn with a view to a wrangle, and\nlikewise persecuting and half frightening the life out of an\nunfortunate stationer.\"\n\n\"Lie!\" cries mademoiselle. \"All lie!\"\n\n\"The murder was committed, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and you\nknow under what circumstances. Now, I beg of you to follow me close\nwith your attention for a minute or two. I was sent for, and the case\nwas entrusted to me. I examined the place, and the body, and the\npapers, and everything. From information I received (from a clerk in\nthe same house) I took George into custody as having been seen\nhanging about there on the night, and at very nigh the time of the\nmurder, also as having been overheard in high words with the deceased\non former occasions--even threatening him, as the witness made out.\nIf you ask me, Sir Leicester Dedlock, whether from the first I\nbelieved George to be the murderer, I tell you candidly no, but he\nmight be, notwithstanding, and there was enough against him to make\nit my duty to take him and get him kept under remand. Now, observe!\"\n\nAs Mr. Bucket bends forward in some excitement--for him--and\ninaugurates what he is going to say with one ghostly beat of his\nforefinger in the air, Mademoiselle Hortense fixes her black eyes\nupon him with a dark frown and sets her dry lips closely and firmly\ntogether.\n\n\"I went home, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, at night and found this\nyoung woman having supper with my wife, Mrs. Bucket. She had made a\nmighty show of being fond of Mrs. Bucket from her first offering\nherself as our lodger, but that night she made more than ever--in\nfact, overdid it. Likewise she overdid her respect, and all that, for\nthe lamented memory of the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn. By the living\nLord it flashed upon me, as I sat opposite to her at the table and\nsaw her with a knife in her hand, that she had done it!\"\n\nMademoiselle is hardly audible in straining through her teeth and\nlips the words, \"You are a devil.\"\n\n\"Now where,\" pursues Mr. Bucket, \"had she been on the night of the\nmurder? She had been to the theayter. (She really was there, I have\nsince found, both before the deed and after it.) I knew I had an\nartful customer to deal with and that proof would be very difficult;\nand I laid a trap for her--such a trap as I never laid yet, and such\na venture as I never made yet. I worked it out in my mind while I was\ntalking to her at supper. When I went upstairs to bed, our house\nbeing small and this young woman's ears sharp, I stuffed the sheet\ninto Mrs. Bucket's mouth that she shouldn't say a word of surprise\nand told her all about it. My dear, don't you give your mind to that\nagain, or I shall link your feet together at the ankles.\" Mr. Bucket,\nbreaking off, has made a noiseless descent upon mademoiselle and laid\nhis heavy hand upon her shoulder.\n\n\"What is the matter with you now?\" she asks him.\n\n\"Don't you think any more,\" returns Mr. Bucket with admonitory\nfinger, \"of throwing yourself out of window. That's what's the matter\nwith me. Come! Just take my arm. You needn't get up; I'll sit down by\nyou. Now take my arm, will you? I'm a married man, you know; you're\nacquainted with my wife. Just take my arm.\"\n\nVainly endeavouring to moisten those dry lips, with a painful sound\nshe struggles with herself and complies.\n\n\"Now we're all right again. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this case\ncould never have been the case it is but for Mrs. Bucket, who is a\nwoman in fifty thousand--in a hundred and fifty thousand! To throw\nthis young woman off her guard, I have never set foot in our house\nsince, though I've communicated with Mrs. Bucket in the baker's\nloaves and in the milk as often as required. My whispered words to\nMrs. Bucket when she had the sheet in her mouth were, 'My dear, can\nyou throw her off continually with natural accounts of my suspicions\nagainst George, and this, and that, and t'other? Can you do without\nrest and keep watch upon her night and day? Can you undertake to say,\n'She shall do nothing without my knowledge, she shall be my prisoner\nwithout suspecting it, she shall no more escape from me than from\ndeath, and her life shall be my life, and her soul my soul, till I\nhave got her, if she did this murder?' Mrs. Bucket says to me, as\nwell as she could speak on account of the sheet, 'Bucket, I can!' And\nshe has acted up to it glorious!\"\n\n\"Lies!\" mademoiselle interposes. \"All lies, my friend!\"\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, how did my calculations come out\nunder these circumstances? When I calculated that this impetuous\nyoung woman would overdo it in new directions, was I wrong or right?\nI was right. What does she try to do? Don't let it give you a turn?\nTo throw the murder on her ladyship.\"\n\nSir Leicester rises from his chair and staggers down again.\n\n\"And she got encouragement in it from hearing that I was always here,\nwhich was done a-purpose. Now, open that pocket-book of mine, Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, if I may take the liberty of throwing it towards\nyou, and look at the letters sent to me, each with the two words\n'Lady Dedlock' in it. Open the one directed to yourself, which I\nstopped this very morning, and read the three words 'Lady Dedlock,\nMurderess' in it. These letters have been falling about like a shower\nof lady-birds. What do you say now to Mrs. Bucket, from her spy-place\nhaving seen them all 'written by this young woman? What do you say to\nMrs. Bucket having, within this half-hour, secured the corresponding\nink and paper, fellow half-sheets and what not? What do you say to\nMrs. Bucket having watched the posting of 'em every one by this young\nwoman, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet?\" Mr. Bucket asks, triumphant\nin his admiration of his lady's genius.\n\nTwo things are especially observable as Mr. Bucket proceeds to a\nconclusion. First, that he seems imperceptibly to establish a\ndreadful right of property in mademoiselle. Secondly, that the very\natmosphere she breathes seems to narrow and contract about her as if\na close net or a pall were being drawn nearer and yet nearer around\nher breathless figure.\n\n\"There is no doubt that her ladyship was on the spot at the eventful\nperiod,\" says Mr. Bucket, \"and my foreign friend here saw her, I\nbelieve, from the upper part of the staircase. Her ladyship and\nGeorge and my foreign friend were all pretty close on one another's\nheels. But that don't signify any more, so I'll not go into it. I\nfound the wadding of the pistol with which the deceased Mr.\nTulkinghorn was shot. It was a bit of the printed description of your\nhouse at Chesney Wold. Not much in that, you'll say, Sir Leicester\nDedlock, Baronet. No. But when my foreign friend here is so\nthoroughly off her guard as to think it a safe time to tear up the\nrest of that leaf, and when Mrs. Bucket puts the pieces together and\nfinds the wadding wanting, it begins to look like Queer Street.\"\n\n\"These are very long lies,\" mademoiselle interposes. \"You prose great\ndeal. Is it that you have almost all finished, or are you speaking\nalways?\"\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,\" proceeds Mr. Bucket, who delights\nin a full title and does violence to himself when he dispenses with\nany fragment of it, \"the last point in the case which I am now going\nto mention shows the necessity of patience in our business, and never\ndoing a thing in a hurry. I watched this young woman yesterday\nwithout her knowledge when she was looking at the funeral, in company\nwith my wife, who planned to take her there; and I had so much to\nconvict her, and I saw such an expression in her face, and my mind so\nrose against her malice towards her ladyship, and the time was\naltogether such a time for bringing down what you may call\nretribution upon her, that if I had been a younger hand with less\nexperience, I should have taken her, certain. Equally, last night,\nwhen her ladyship, as is so universally admired I am sure, come home\nlooking--why, Lord, a man might almost say like Venus rising from the\nocean--it was so unpleasant and inconsistent to think of her being\ncharged with a murder of which she was innocent that I felt quite to\nwant to put an end to the job. What should I have lost? Sir Leicester\nDedlock, Baronet, I should have lost the weapon. My prisoner here\nproposed to Mrs. Bucket, after the departure of the funeral, that\nthey should go per bus a little ways into the country and take tea at\na very decent house of entertainment. Now, near that house of\nentertainment there's a piece of water. At tea, my prisoner got up to\nfetch her pocket handkercher from the bedroom where the bonnets was;\nshe was rather a long time gone and came back a little out of wind.\nAs soon as they came home this was reported to me by Mrs. Bucket,\nalong with her observations and suspicions. I had the piece of water\ndragged by moonlight, in presence of a couple of our men, and the\npocket pistol was brought up before it had been there half-a-dozen\nhours. Now, my dear, put your arm a little further through mine, and\nhold it steady, and I shan't hurt you!\"\n\nIn a trice Mr. Bucket snaps a handcuff on her wrist. \"That's one,\"\nsays Mr. Bucket. \"Now the other, darling. Two, and all told!\"\n\nHe rises; she rises too. \"Where,\" she asks him, darkening her large\neyes until their drooping lids almost conceal them--and yet they\nstare, \"where is your false, your treacherous, and cursed wife?\"\n\n\"She's gone forrard to the Police Office,\" returns Mr. Bucket.\n\"You'll see her there, my dear.\"\n\n\"I would like to kiss her!\" exclaims Mademoiselle Hortense, panting\ntigress-like.\n\n\"You'd bite her, I suspect,\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\n\"I would!\" making her eyes very large. \"I would love to tear her limb\nfrom limb.\"\n\n\"Bless you, darling,\" says Mr. Bucket with the greatest composure,\n\"I'm fully prepared to hear that. Your sex have such a surprising\nanimosity against one another when you do differ. You don't mind me\nhalf so much, do you?\"\n\n\"No. Though you are a devil still.\"\n\n\"Angel and devil by turns, eh?\" cries Mr. Bucket. \"But I am in my\nregular employment, you must consider. Let me put your shawl tidy.\nI've been lady's maid to a good many before now. Anything wanting to\nthe bonnet? There's a cab at the door.\"\n\nMademoiselle Hortense, casting an indignant eye at the glass, shakes\nherself perfectly neat in one shake and looks, to do her justice,\nuncommonly genteel.\n\n\"Listen then, my angel,\" says she after several sarcastic nods. \"You\nare very spiritual. But can you restore him back to life?\"\n\nMr. Bucket answers, \"Not exactly.\"\n\n\"That is droll. Listen yet one time. You are very spiritual. Can you\nmake a honourable lady of her?\"\n\n\"Don't be so malicious,\" says Mr. Bucket.\n\n\"Or a haughty gentleman of HIM?\" cries mademoiselle, referring to Sir\nLeicester with ineffable disdain. \"Eh! Oh, then regard him! The poor\ninfant! Ha! Ha! Ha!\"\n\n\"Come, come, why this is worse PARLAYING than the other,\" says Mr.\nBucket. \"Come along!\"\n\n\"You cannot do these things? Then you can do as you please with me.\nIt is but the death, it is all the same. Let us go, my angel. Adieu,\nyou old man, grey. I pity you, and I despise you!\"\n\nWith these last words she snaps her teeth together as if her mouth\nclosed with a spring. It is impossible to describe how Mr. Bucket\ngets her out, but he accomplishes that feat in a manner so peculiar\nto himself, enfolding and pervading her like a cloud, and hovering\naway with her as if he were a homely Jupiter and she the object of\nhis affections.\n\nSir Leicester, left alone, remains in the same attitude, as though he\nwere still listening and his attention were still occupied. At length\nhe gazes round the empty room, and finding it deserted, rises\nunsteadily to his feet, pushes back his chair, and walks a few steps,\nsupporting himself by the table. Then he stops, and with more of\nthose inarticulate sounds, lifts up his eyes and seems to stare at\nsomething.\n\nHeaven knows what he sees. The green, green woods of Chesney Wold,\nthe noble house, the pictures of his forefathers, strangers defacing\nthem, officers of police coarsely handling his most precious\nheirlooms, thousands of fingers pointing at him, thousands of faces\nsneering at him. But if such shadows flit before him to his\nbewilderment, there is one other shadow which he can name with\nsomething like distinctness even yet and to which alone he addresses\nhis tearing of his white hair and his extended arms.\n\nIt is she in association with whom, saving that she has been for\nyears a main fibre of the root of his dignity and pride, he has never\nhad a selfish thought. It is she whom he has loved, admired,\nhonoured, and set up for the world to respect. It is she who, at the\ncore of all the constrained formalities and conventionalities of his\nlife, has been a stock of living tenderness and love, susceptible as\nnothing else is of being struck with the agony he feels. He sees her,\nalmost to the exclusion of himself, and cannot bear to look upon her\ncast down from the high place she has graced so well.\n\nAnd even to the point of his sinking on the ground, oblivious of his\nsuffering, he can yet pronounce her name with something like\ndistinctness in the midst of those intrusive sounds, and in a tone of\nmourning and compassion rather than reproach.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LV\n\nFlight\n\n\nInspector Bucket of the Detective has not yet struck his great blow,\nas just now chronicled, but is yet refreshing himself with sleep\npreparatory to his field-day, when through the night and along the\nfreezing wintry roads a chaise and pair comes out of Lincolnshire,\nmaking its way towards London.\n\nRailroads shall soon traverse all this country, and with a rattle and\na glare the engine and train shall shoot like a meteor over the wide\nnight-landscape, turning the moon paler; but as yet such things are\nnon-existent in these parts, though not wholly unexpected.\nPreparations are afoot, measurements are made, ground is staked out.\nBridges are begun, and their not yet united piers desolately look at\none another over roads and streams like brick and mortar couples with\nan obstacle to their union; fragments of embankments are thrown up\nand left as precipices with torrents of rusty carts and barrows\ntumbling over them; tripods of tall poles appear on hilltops, where\nthere are rumours of tunnels; everything looks chaotic and abandoned\nin full hopelessness. Along the freezing roads, and through the\nnight, the post-chaise makes its way without a railroad on its mind.\n\nMrs. Rouncewell, so many years housekeeper at Chesney Wold, sits\nwithin the chaise; and by her side sits Mrs. Bagnet with her grey\ncloak and umbrella. The old girl would prefer the bar in front, as\nbeing exposed to the weather and a primitive sort of perch more in\naccordance with her usual course of travelling, but Mrs. Rouncewell\nis too thoughtful of her comfort to admit of her proposing it. The\nold lady cannot make enough of the old girl. She sits, in her stately\nmanner, holding her hand, and regardless of its roughness, puts it\noften to her lips. \"You are a mother, my dear soul,\" says she many\ntimes, \"and you found out my George's mother!\"\n\n\"Why, George,\" returns Mrs. Bagnet, \"was always free with me, ma'am,\nand when he said at our house to my Woolwich that of all the things\nmy Woolwich could have to think of when he grew to be a man, the\ncomfortablest would be that he had never brought a sorrowful line\ninto his mother's face or turned a hair of her head grey, then I felt\nsure, from his way, that something fresh had brought his own mother\ninto his mind. I had often known him say to me, in past times, that\nhe had behaved bad to her.\"\n\n\"Never, my dear!\" returns Mrs. Rouncewell, bursting into tears. \"My\nblessing on him, never! He was always fond of me, and loving to me,\nwas my George! But he had a bold spirit, and he ran a little wild and\nwent for a soldier. And I know he waited at first, in letting us know\nabout himself, till he should rise to be an officer; and when he\ndidn't rise, I know he considered himself beneath us, and wouldn't be\na disgrace to us. For he had a lion heart, had my George, always from\na baby!\"\n\nThe old lady's hands stray about her as of yore, while she recalls,\nall in a tremble, what a likely lad, what a fine lad, what a gay\ngood-humoured clever lad he was; how they all took to him down at\nChesney Wold; how Sir Leicester took to him when he was a young\ngentleman; how the dogs took to him; how even the people who had been\nangry with him forgave him the moment he was gone, poor boy. And now\nto see him after all, and in a prison too! And the broad stomacher\nheaves, and the quaint upright old-fashioned figure bends under its\nload of affectionate distress.\n\nMrs. Bagnet, with the instinctive skill of a good warm heart, leaves\nthe old housekeeper to her emotions for a little while--not without\npassing the back of her hand across her own motherly eyes--and\npresently chirps up in her cheery manner, \"So I says to George when I\ngoes to call him in to tea (he pretended to be smoking his pipe\noutside), 'What ails you this afternoon, George, for gracious sake? I\nhave seen all sorts, and I have seen you pretty often in season and\nout of season, abroad and at home, and I never see you so melancholy\npenitent.' 'Why, Mrs. Bagnet,' says George, 'it's because I AM\nmelancholy and penitent both, this afternoon, that you see me so.'\n'What have you done, old fellow?' I says. 'Why, Mrs. Bagnet,' says\nGeorge, shaking his head, 'what I have done has been done this many a\nlong year, and is best not tried to be undone now. If I ever get to\nheaven it won't be for being a good son to a widowed mother; I say no\nmore.' Now, ma'am, when George says to me that it's best not tried to\nbe undone now, I have my thoughts as I have often had before, and I\ndraw it out of George how he comes to have such things on him that\nafternoon. Then George tells me that he has seen by chance, at the\nlawyer's office, a fine old lady that has brought his mother plain\nbefore him, and he runs on about that old lady till he quite forgets\nhimself and paints her picture to me as she used to be, years upon\nyears back. So I says to George when he has done, who is this old\nlady he has seen? And George tells me it's Mrs. Rouncewell,\nhousekeeper for more than half a century to the Dedlock family down\nat Chesney Wold in Lincolnshire. George has frequently told me before\nthat he's a Lincolnshire man, and I says to my old Lignum that night,\n'Lignum, that's his mother for five and for-ty pound!'\"\n\nAll this Mrs. Bagnet now relates for the twentieth time at least\nwithin the last four hours. Trilling it out like a kind of bird, with\na pretty high note, that it may be audible to the old lady above the\nhum of the wheels.\n\n\"Bless you, and thank you,\" says Mrs. Rouncewell. \"Bless you, and\nthank you, my worthy soul!\"\n\n\"Dear heart!\" cries Mrs. Bagnet in the most natural manner. \"No\nthanks to me, I am sure. Thanks to yourself, ma'am, for being so\nready to pay 'em! And mind once more, ma'am, what you had best do\non finding George to be your own son is to make him--for your\nsake--have every sort of help to put himself in the right and clear\nhimself of a charge of which he is as innocent as you or me. It won't\ndo to have truth and justice on his side; he must have law and\nlawyers,\" exclaims the old girl, apparently persuaded that the latter\nform a separate establishment and have dissolved partnership with\ntruth and justice for ever and a day.\n\n\"He shall have,\" says Mrs. Rouncewell, \"all the help that can be got\nfor him in the world, my dear. I will spend all I have, and\nthankfully, to procure it. Sir Leicester will do his best, the whole\nfamily will do their best. I--I know something, my dear; and will\nmake my own appeal, as his mother parted from him all these years,\nand finding him in a jail at last.\"\n\nThe extreme disquietude of the old housekeeper's manner in saying\nthis, her broken words, and her wringing of her hands make a powerful\nimpression on Mrs. Bagnet and would astonish her but that she refers\nthem all to her sorrow for her son's condition. And yet Mrs. Bagnet\nwonders too why Mrs. Rouncewell should murmur so distractedly, \"My\nLady, my Lady, my Lady!\" over and over again.\n\nThe frosty night wears away, and the dawn breaks, and the post-chaise\ncomes rolling on through the early mist like the ghost of a chaise\ndeparted. It has plenty of spectral company in ghosts of trees and\nhedges, slowly vanishing and giving place to the realities of day.\nLondon reached, the travellers alight, the old housekeeper in great\ntribulation and confusion, Mrs. Bagnet quite fresh and collected--as\nshe would be if her next point, with no new equipage and outfit, were\nthe Cape of Good Hope, the Island of Ascension, Hong Kong, or any\nother military station.\n\nBut when they set out for the prison where the trooper is\nconfined, the old lady has managed to draw about her, with her\nlavender-coloured dress, much of the staid calmness which is its\nusual accompaniment. A wonderfully grave, precise, and handsome piece\nof old china she looks, though her heart beats fast and her stomacher\nis ruffled more than even the remembrance of this wayward son has\nruffled it these many years.\n\nApproaching the cell, they find the door opening and a warder in the\nact of coming out. The old girl promptly makes a sign of entreaty to\nhim to say nothing; assenting with a nod, he suffers them to enter as\nhe shuts the door.\n\nSo George, who is writing at his table, supposing himself to be\nalone, does not raise his eyes, but remains absorbed. The old\nhousekeeper looks at him, and those wandering hands of hers are quite\nenough for Mrs. Bagnet's confirmation, even if she could see the\nmother and the son together, knowing what she knows, and doubt their\nrelationship.\n\nNot a rustle of the housekeeper's dress, not a gesture, not a word\nbetrays her. She stands looking at him as he writes on, all\nunconscious, and only her fluttering hands give utterance to her\nemotions. But they are very eloquent, very, very eloquent. Mrs.\nBagnet understands them. They speak of gratitude, of joy, of grief,\nof hope; of inextinguishable affection, cherished with no return\nsince this stalwart man was a stripling; of a better son loved less,\nand this son loved so fondly and so proudly; and they speak in such\ntouching language that Mrs. Bagnet's eyes brim up with tears and they\nrun glistening down her sun-brown face.\n\n\"George Rouncewell! Oh, my dear child, turn and look at me!\"\n\nThe trooper starts up, clasps his mother round the neck, and falls\ndown on his knees before her. Whether in a late repentance, whether\nin the first association that comes back upon him, he puts his hands\ntogether as a child does when it says its prayers, and raising them\ntowards her breast, bows down his head, and cries.\n\n\"My George, my dearest son! Always my favourite, and my favourite\nstill, where have you been these cruel years and years? Grown such a\nman too, grown such a fine strong man. Grown so like what I knew he\nmust be, if it pleased God he was alive!\"\n\nShe can ask, and he can answer, nothing connected for a time. All\nthat time the old girl, turned away, leans one arm against the\nwhitened wall, leans her honest forehead upon it, wipes her eyes with\nher serviceable grey cloak, and quite enjoys herself like the best of\nold girls as she is.\n\n\"Mother,\" says the trooper when they are more composed, \"forgive me\nfirst of all, for I know my need of it.\"\n\nForgive him! She does it with all her heart and soul. She always has\ndone it. She tells him how she has had it written in her will, these\nmany years, that he was her beloved son George. She has never\nbelieved any ill of him, never. If she had died without this\nhappiness--and she is an old woman now and can't look to live very\nlong--she would have blessed him with her last breath, if she had had\nher senses, as her beloved son George.\n\n\"Mother, I have been an undutiful trouble to you, and I have my\nreward; but of late years I have had a kind of glimmering of a\npurpose in me too. When I left home I didn't care much, mother--I am\nafraid not a great deal--for leaving; and went away and 'listed,\nharum-scarum, making believe to think that I cared for nobody, no not\nI, and that nobody cared for me.\"\n\nThe trooper has dried his eyes and put away his handkerchief, but\nthere is an extraordinary contrast between his habitual manner of\nexpressing himself and carrying himself and the softened tone in\nwhich he speaks, interrupted occasionally by a half-stifled sob.\n\n\"So I wrote a line home, mother, as you too well know, to say I had\n'listed under another name, and I went abroad. Abroad, at one time I\nthought I would write home next year, when I might be better off; and\nwhen that year was out, I thought I would write home next year, when\nI might be better off; and when that year was out again, perhaps I\ndidn't think much about it. So on, from year to year, through a\nservice of ten years, till I began to get older, and to ask myself\nwhy should I ever write.\"\n\n\"I don't find any fault, child--but not to ease my mind, George? Not\na word to your loving mother, who was growing older too?\"\n\nThis almost overturns the trooper afresh, but he sets himself up with\na great, rough, sounding clearance of his throat.\n\n\"Heaven forgive me, mother, but I thought there would be small\nconsolation then in hearing anything about me. There were you,\nrespected and esteemed. There was my brother, as I read in chance\nNorth Country papers now and then, rising to be prosperous and\nfamous. There was I a dragoon, roving, unsettled, not self-made like\nhim, but self-unmade--all my earlier advantages thrown away, all my\nlittle learning unlearnt, nothing picked up but what unfitted me for\nmost things that I could think of. What business had I to make myself\nknown? After letting all that time go by me, what good could come of\nit? The worst was past with you, mother. I knew by that time (being a\nman) how you had mourned for me, and wept for me, and prayed for me;\nand the pain was over, or was softened down, and I was better in your\nmind as it was.\"\n\nThe old lady sorrowfully shakes her head, and taking one of his\npowerful hands, lays it lovingly upon her shoulder.\n\n\"No, I don't say that it was so, mother, but that I made it out to be\nso. I said just now, what good could come of it? Well, my dear\nmother, some good might have come of it to myself--and there was the\nmeanness of it. You would have sought me out; you would have\npurchased my discharge; you would have taken me down to Chesney Wold;\nyou would have brought me and my brother and my brother's family\ntogether; you would all have considered anxiously how to do something\nfor me and set me up as a respectable civilian. But how could any of\nyou feel sure of me when I couldn't so much as feel sure of myself?\nHow could you help regarding as an incumbrance and a discredit to you\nan idle dragooning chap who was an incumbrance and a discredit to\nhimself, excepting under discipline? How could I look my brother's\nchildren in the face and pretend to set them an example--I, the\nvagabond boy who had run away from home and been the grief and\nunhappiness of my mother's life? 'No, George.' Such were my words,\nmother, when I passed this in review before me: 'You have made your\nbed. Now, lie upon it.'\"\n\nMrs. Rouncewell, drawing up her stately form, shakes her head at the\nold girl with a swelling pride upon her, as much as to say, \"I told\nyou so!\" The old girl relieves her feelings and testifies her\ninterest in the conversation by giving the trooper a great poke\nbetween the shoulders with her umbrella; this action she afterwards\nrepeats, at intervals, in a species of affectionate lunacy, never\nfailing, after the administration of each of these remonstrances, to\nresort to the whitened wall and the grey cloak again.\n\n\"This was the way I brought myself to think, mother, that my best\namends was to lie upon that bed I had made, and die upon it. And I\nshould have done it (though I have been to see you more than once\ndown at Chesney Wold, when you little thought of me) but for my old\ncomrade's wife here, who I find has been too many for me. But I thank\nher for it. I thank you for it, Mrs. Bagnet, with all my heart and\nmight.\"\n\nTo which Mrs. Bagnet responds with two pokes.\n\nAnd now the old lady impresses upon her son George, her own dear\nrecovered boy, her joy and pride, the light of her eyes, the happy\nclose of her life, and every fond name she can think of, that he must\nbe governed by the best advice obtainable by money and influence,\nthat he must yield up his case to the greatest lawyers that can be\ngot, that he must act in this serious plight as he shall be advised\nto act and must not be self-willed, however right, but must promise\nto think only of his poor old mother's anxiety and suffering until he\nis released, or he will break her heart.\n\n\"Mother, 'tis little enough to consent to,\" returns the trooper,\nstopping her with a kiss; \"tell me what I shall do, and I'll make a\nlate beginning and do it. Mrs. Bagnet, you'll take care of my mother,\nI know?\"\n\nA very hard poke from the old girl's umbrella.\n\n\"If you'll bring her acquainted with Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson,\nshe will find them of her way of thinking, and they will give her the\nbest advice and assistance.\"\n\n\"And, George,\" says the old lady, \"we must send with all haste for\nyour brother. He is a sensible sound man as they tell me--out in the\nworld beyond Chesney Wold, my dear, though I don't know much of it\nmyself--and will be of great service.\"\n\n\"Mother,\" returns the trooper, \"is it too soon to ask a favour?\"\n\n\"Surely not, my dear.\"\n\n\"Then grant me this one great favour. Don't let my brother know.\"\n\n\"Not know what, my dear?\"\n\n\"Not know of me. In fact, mother, I can't bear it; I can't make up my\nmind to it. He has proved himself so different from me and has done\nso much to raise himself while I've been soldiering that I haven't\nbrass enough in my composition to see him in this place and under\nthis charge. How could a man like him be expected to have any\npleasure in such a discovery? It's impossible. No, keep my secret\nfrom him, mother; do me a greater kindness than I deserve and keep my\nsecret from my brother, of all men.\"\n\n\"But not always, dear George?\"\n\n\"Why, mother, perhaps not for good and all--though I may come to ask\nthat too--but keep it now, I do entreat you. If it's ever broke to\nhim that his rip of a brother has turned up, I could wish,\" says the\ntrooper, shaking his head very doubtfully, \"to break it myself and be\ngoverned as to advancing or retreating by the way in which he seems\nto take it.\"\n\nAs he evidently has a rooted feeling on this point, and as the depth\nof it is recognized in Mrs. Bagnet's face, his mother yields her\nimplicit assent to what he asks. For this he thanks her kindly.\n\n\"In all other respects, my dear mother, I'll be as tractable and\nobedient as you can wish; on this one alone, I stand out. So now I am\nready even for the lawyers. I have been drawing up,\" he glances at\nhis writing on the table, \"an exact account of what I knew of the\ndeceased and how I came to be involved in this unfortunate affair.\nIt's entered, plain and regular, like an orderly-book; not a word in\nit but what's wanted for the facts. I did intend to read it, straight\non end, whensoever I was called upon to say anything in my defence. I\nhope I may be let to do it still; but I have no longer a will of my\nown in this case, and whatever is said or done, I give my promise not\nto have any.\"\n\nMatters being brought to this so far satisfactory pass, and time\nbeing on the wane, Mrs. Bagnet proposes a departure. Again and again\nthe old lady hangs upon her son's neck, and again and again the\ntrooper holds her to his broad chest.\n\n\"Where are you going to take my mother, Mrs. Bagnet?\"\n\n\"I am going to the town house, my dear, the family house. I have some\nbusiness there that must be looked to directly,\" Mrs. Rouncewell\nanswers.\n\n\"Will you see my mother safe there in a coach, Mrs. Bagnet? But of\ncourse I know you will. Why should I ask it!\"\n\nWhy indeed, Mrs. Bagnet expresses with the umbrella.\n\n\"Take her, my old friend, and take my gratitude along with you.\nKisses to Quebec and Malta, love to my godson, a hearty shake of the\nhand to Lignum, and this for yourself, and I wish it was ten thousand\npound in gold, my dear!\" So saying, the trooper puts his lips to the\nold girl's tanned forehead, and the door shuts upon him in his cell.\n\nNo entreaties on the part of the good old housekeeper will induce\nMrs. Bagnet to retain the coach for her own conveyance home. Jumping\nout cheerfully at the door of the Dedlock mansion and handing Mrs.\nRouncewell up the steps, the old girl shakes hands and trudges off,\narriving soon afterwards in the bosom of the Bagnet family and\nfalling to washing the greens as if nothing had happened.\n\nMy Lady is in that room in which she held her last conference with\nthe murdered man, and is sitting where she sat that night, and is\nlooking at the spot where he stood upon the hearth studying her so\nleisurely, when a tap comes at the door. Who is it? Mrs. Rouncewell.\nWhat has brought Mrs. Rouncewell to town so unexpectedly?\n\n\"Trouble, my Lady. Sad trouble. Oh, my Lady, may I beg a word with\nyou?\"\n\nWhat new occurrence is it that makes this tranquil old woman tremble\nso? Far happier than her Lady, as her Lady has often thought, why\ndoes she falter in this manner and look at her with such strange\nmistrust?\n\n\"What is the matter? Sit down and take your breath.\"\n\n\"Oh, my Lady, my Lady. I have found my son--my youngest, who went\naway for a soldier so long ago. And he is in prison.\"\n\n\"For debt?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, my Lady; I would have paid any debt, and joyful.\"\n\n\"For what is he in prison then?\"\n\n\"Charged with a murder, my Lady, of which he is as innocent as--as I\nam. Accused of the murder of Mr. Tulkinghorn.\"\n\nWhat does she mean by this look and this imploring gesture? Why does\nshe come so close? What is the letter that she holds?\n\n\"Lady Dedlock, my dear Lady, my good Lady, my kind Lady! You must\nhave a heart to feel for me, you must have a heart to forgive me. I\nwas in this family before you were born. I am devoted to it. But\nthink of my dear son wrongfully accused.\"\n\n\"I do not accuse him.\"\n\n\"No, my Lady, no. But others do, and he is in prison and in danger.\nOh, Lady Dedlock, if you can say but a word to help to clear him, say\nit!\"\n\nWhat delusion can this be? What power does she suppose is in the\nperson she petitions to avert this unjust suspicion, if it be unjust?\nHer Lady's handsome eyes regard her with astonishment, almost with\nfear.\n\n\"My Lady, I came away last night from Chesney Wold to find my son in\nmy old age, and the step upon the Ghost's Walk was so constant and so\nsolemn that I never heard the like in all these years. Night after\nnight, as it has fallen dark, the sound has echoed through your\nrooms, but last night it was awfullest. And as it fell dark last\nnight, my Lady, I got this letter.\"\n\n\"What letter is it?\"\n\n\"Hush! Hush!\" The housekeeper looks round and answers in a frightened\nwhisper, \"My Lady, I have not breathed a word of it, I don't believe\nwhat's written in it, I know it can't be true, I am sure and certain\nthat it is not true. But my son is in danger, and you must have a\nheart to pity me. If you know of anything that is not known to\nothers, if you have any suspicion, if you have any clue at all, and\nany reason for keeping it in your own breast, oh, my dear Lady, think\nof me, and conquer that reason, and let it be known! This is the most\nI consider possible. I know you are not a hard lady, but you go your\nown way always without help, and you are not familiar with your\nfriends; and all who admire you--and all do--as a beautiful and\nelegant lady, know you to be one far away from themselves who can't\nbe approached close. My Lady, you may have some proud or angry\nreasons for disdaining to utter something that you know; if so, pray,\noh, pray, think of a faithful servant whose whole life has been\npassed in this family which she dearly loves, and relent, and help to\nclear my son! My Lady, my good Lady,\" the old housekeeper pleads with\ngenuine simplicity, \"I am so humble in my place and you are by nature\nso high and distant that you may not think what I feel for my child,\nbut I feel so much that I have come here to make so bold as to beg\nand pray you not to be scornful of us if you can do us any right or\njustice at this fearful time!\"\n\nLady Dedlock raises her without one word, until she takes the letter\nfrom her hand.\n\n\"Am I to read this?\"\n\n\"When I am gone, my Lady, if you please, and then remembering the\nmost that I consider possible.\"\n\n\"I know of nothing I can do. I know of nothing I reserve that can\naffect your son. I have never accused him.\"\n\n\"My Lady, you may pity him the more under a false accusation after\nreading the letter.\"\n\nThe old housekeeper leaves her with the letter in her hand. In truth\nshe is not a hard lady naturally, and the time has been when the\nsight of the venerable figure suing to her with such strong\nearnestness would have moved her to great compassion. But so long\naccustomed to suppress emotion and keep down reality, so long\nschooled for her own purposes in that destructive school which shuts\nup the natural feelings of the heart like flies in amber and spreads\none uniform and dreary gloss over the good and bad, the feeling and\nthe unfeeling, the sensible and the senseless, she had subdued even\nher wonder until now.\n\nShe opens the letter. Spread out upon the paper is a printed account\nof the discovery of the body as it lay face downward on the floor,\nshot through the heart; and underneath is written her own name, with\nthe word \"murderess\" attached.\n\nIt falls out of her hand. How long it may have lain upon the ground\nshe knows not, but it lies where it fell when a servant stands before\nher announcing the young man of the name of Guppy. The words have\nprobably been repeated several times, for they are ringing in her\nhead before she begins to understand them.\n\n\"Let him come in!\"\n\nHe comes in. Holding the letter in her hand, which she has taken from\nthe floor, she tries to collect her thoughts. In the eyes of Mr.\nGuppy she is the same Lady Dedlock, holding the same prepared, proud,\nchilling state.\n\n\"Your ladyship may not be at first disposed to excuse this visit from\none who has never been welcome to your ladyship\"--which he don't\ncomplain of, for he is bound to confess that there never has been any\nparticular reason on the face of things why he should be--\"but I hope\nwhen I mention my motives to your ladyship you will not find fault\nwith me,\" says Mr. Guppy.\n\n\"Do so.\"\n\n\"Thank your ladyship. I ought first to explain to your ladyship,\" Mr.\nGuppy sits on the edge of a chair and puts his hat on the carpet at\nhis feet, \"that Miss Summerson, whose image, as I formerly mentioned\nto your ladyship, was at one period of my life imprinted on my 'eart\nuntil erased by circumstances over which I had no control,\ncommunicated to me, after I had the pleasure of waiting on your\nladyship last, that she particularly wished me to take no steps\nwhatever in any manner at all relating to her. And Miss Summerson's\nwishes being to me a law (except as connected with circumstances over\nwhich I have no control), I consequently never expected to have the\ndistinguished honour of waiting on your ladyship again.\"\n\nAnd yet he is here now, Lady Dedlock moodily reminds him.\n\n\"And yet I am here now,\" Mr. Guppy admits. \"My object being to\ncommunicate to your ladyship, under the seal of confidence, why I am\nhere.\"\n\nHe cannot do so, she tells him, too plainly or too briefly. \"Nor can\nI,\" Mr. Guppy returns with a sense of injury upon him, \"too\nparticularly request your ladyship to take particular notice that\nit's no personal affair of mine that brings me here. I have no\ninterested views of my own to serve in coming here. If it was not for\nmy promise to Miss Summerson and my keeping of it sacred--I, in point\nof fact, shouldn't have darkened these doors again, but should have\nseen 'em further first.\"\n\nMr. Guppy considers this a favourable moment for sticking up his hair\nwith both hands.\n\n\"Your ladyship will remember when I mention it that the last time I\nwas here I run against a party very eminent in our profession and\nwhose loss we all deplore. That party certainly did from that time\napply himself to cutting in against me in a way that I will call\nsharp practice, and did make it, at every turn and point, extremely\ndifficult for me to be sure that I hadn't inadvertently led up to\nsomething contrary to Miss Summerson's wishes. Self-praise is no\nrecommendation, but I may say for myself that I am not so bad a man\nof business neither.\"\n\nLady Dedlock looks at him in stern inquiry. Mr. Guppy immediately\nwithdraws his eyes from her face and looks anywhere else.\n\n\"Indeed, it has been made so hard,\" he goes on, \"to have any idea\nwhat that party was up to in combination with others that until the\nloss which we all deplore I was gravelled--an expression which your\nladyship, moving in the higher circles, will be so good as to\nconsider tantamount to knocked over. Small likewise--a name by which\nI refer to another party, a friend of mine that your ladyship is not\nacquainted with--got to be so close and double-faced that at times it\nwasn't easy to keep one's hands off his 'ead. However, what with the\nexertion of my humble abilities, and what with the help of a mutual\nfriend by the name of Mr. Tony Weevle (who is of a high aristocratic\nturn and has your ladyship's portrait always hanging up in his room),\nI have now reasons for an apprehension as to which I come to put your\nladyship upon your guard. First, will your ladyship allow me to ask\nyou whether you have had any strange visitors this morning? I don't\nmean fashionable visitors, but such visitors, for instance, as Miss\nBarbary's old servant, or as a person without the use of his lower\nextremities, carried upstairs similarly to a guy?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Then I assure your ladyship that such visitors have been here and\nhave been received here. Because I saw them at the door, and waited\nat the corner of the square till they came out, and took half an\nhour's turn afterwards to avoid them.\"\n\n\"What have I to do with that, or what have you? I do not understand\nyou. What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Your ladyship, I come to put you on your guard. There may be no\noccasion for it. Very well. Then I have only done my best to keep my\npromise to Miss Summerson. I strongly suspect (from what Small has\ndropped, and from what we have corkscrewed out of him) that those\nletters I was to have brought to your ladyship were not destroyed\nwhen I supposed they were. That if there was anything to be blown\nupon, it IS blown upon. That the visitors I have alluded to have been\nhere this morning to make money of it. And that the money is made, or\nmaking.\"\n\nMr. Guppy picks up his hat and rises.\n\n\"Your ladyship, you know best whether there's anything in what I say\nor whether there's nothing. Something or nothing, I have acted up to\nMiss Summerson's wishes in letting things alone and in undoing what I\nhad begun to do, as far as possible; that's sufficient for me. In\ncase I should be taking a liberty in putting your ladyship on your\nguard when there's no necessity for it, you will endeavour, I should\nhope, to outlive my presumption, and I shall endeavour to outlive\nyour disapprobation. I now take my farewell of your ladyship, and\nassure you that there's no danger of your ever being waited on by me\nagain.\"\n\nShe scarcely acknowledges these parting words by any look, but when\nhe has been gone a little while, she rings her bell.\n\n\"Where is Sir Leicester?\"\n\nMercury reports that he is at present shut up in the library alone.\n\n\"Has Sir Leicester had any visitors this morning?\"\n\nSeveral, on business. Mercury proceeds to a description of them,\nwhich has been anticipated by Mr. Guppy. Enough; he may go.\n\nSo! All is broken down. Her name is in these many mouths, her husband\nknows his wrongs, her shame will be published--may be spreading while\nshe thinks about it--and in addition to the thunderbolt so long\nforeseen by her, so unforeseen by him, she is denounced by an\ninvisible accuser as the murderess of her enemy.\n\nHer enemy he was, and she has often, often, often wished him dead.\nHer enemy he is, even in his grave. This dreadful accusation comes\nupon her like a new torment at his lifeless hand. And when she\nrecalls how she was secretly at his door that night, and how she may\nbe represented to have sent her favourite girl away so soon before\nmerely to release herself from observation, she shudders as if the\nhangman's hands were at her neck.\n\nShe has thrown herself upon the floor and lies with her hair all\nwildly scattered and her face buried in the cushions of a couch. She\nrises up, hurries to and fro, flings herself down again, and rocks\nand moans. The horror that is upon her is unutterable. If she really\nwere the murderess, it could hardly be, for the moment, more intense.\n\nFor as her murderous perspective, before the doing of the deed,\nhowever subtle the precautions for its commission, would have been\nclosed up by a gigantic dilatation of the hateful figure, preventing\nher from seeing any consequences beyond it; and as those consequences\nwould have rushed in, in an unimagined flood, the moment the figure\nwas laid low--which always happens when a murder is done; so, now she\nsees that when he used to be on the watch before her, and she used to\nthink, \"if some mortal stroke would but fall on this old man and take\nhim from my way!\" it was but wishing that all he held against her in\nhis hand might be flung to the winds and chance-sown in many places.\nSo, too, with the wicked relief she has felt in his death. What was\nhis death but the key-stone of a gloomy arch removed, and now the\narch begins to fall in a thousand fragments, each crushing and\nmangling piecemeal!\n\nThus, a terrible impression steals upon and overshadows her that from\nthis pursuer, living or dead--obdurate and imperturbable before her\nin his well-remembered shape, or not more obdurate and imperturbable\nin his coffin-bed--there is no escape but in death. Hunted, she\nflies. The complication of her shame, her dread, remorse, and misery,\noverwhelms her at its height; and even her strength of self-reliance\nis overturned and whirled away like a leaf before a mighty wind.\n\nShe hurriedly addresses these lines to her husband, seals, and leaves\nthem on her table:\n\n\n   If I am sought for, or accused of, his murder, believe\n   that I am wholly innocent. Believe no other good of me,\n   for I am innocent of nothing else that you have heard,\n   or will hear, laid to my charge. He prepared me, on that\n   fatal night, for his disclosure of my guilt to you. After\n   he had left me, I went out on pretence of walking in the\n   garden where I sometimes walk, but really to follow him\n   and make one last petition that he would not protract the\n   dreadful suspense on which I have been racked by him, you\n   do not know how long, but would mercifully strike next\n   morning.\n\n   I found his house dark and silent. I rang twice at his\n   door, but there was no reply, and I came home.\n\n   I have no home left. I will encumber you no more. May\n   you, in your just resentment, be able to forget the\n   unworthy woman on whom you have wasted a most generous\n   devotion--who avoids you only with a deeper shame than\n   that with which she hurries from herself--and who writes\n   this last adieu.\n\n\nShe veils and dresses quickly, leaves all her jewels and her money,\nlistens, goes downstairs at a moment when the hall is empty, opens\nand shuts the great door, flutters away in the shrill frosty wind.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LVI\n\nPursuit\n\n\nImpassive, as behoves its high breeding, the Dedlock town house\nstares at the other houses in the street of dismal grandeur and gives\nno outward sign of anything going wrong within. Carriages rattle,\ndoors are battered at, the world exchanges calls; ancient charmers\nwith skeleton throats and peachy cheeks that have a rather ghastly\nbloom upon them seen by daylight, when indeed these fascinating\ncreatures look like Death and the Lady fused together, dazzle the\neyes of men. Forth from the frigid mews come easily swinging\ncarriages guided by short-legged coachmen in flaxen wigs, deep sunk\ninto downy hammercloths, and up behind mount luscious Mercuries\nbearing sticks of state and wearing cocked hats broadwise, a\nspectacle for the angels.\n\nThe Dedlock town house changes not externally, and hours pass before\nits exalted dullness is disturbed within. But Volumnia the fair,\nbeing subject to the prevalent complaint of boredom and finding that\ndisorder attacking her spirits with some virulence, ventures at\nlength to repair to the library for change of scene. Her gentle\ntapping at the door producing no response, she opens it and peeps in;\nseeing no one there, takes possession.\n\nThe sprightly Dedlock is reputed, in that grass-grown city of the\nancients, Bath, to be stimulated by an urgent curiosity which impels\nher on all convenient and inconvenient occasions to sidle about with\na golden glass at her eye, peering into objects of every description.\nCertain it is that she avails herself of the present opportunity of\nhovering over her kinsman's letters and papers like a bird, taking a\nshort peck at this document and a blink with her head on one side at\nthat document, and hopping about from table to table with her glass\nat her eye in an inquisitive and restless manner. In the course of\nthese researches she stumbles over something, and turning her glass\nin that direction, sees her kinsman lying on the ground like a felled\ntree.\n\nVolumnia's pet little scream acquires a considerable augmentation of\nreality from this surprise, and the house is quickly in commotion.\nServants tear up and down stairs, bells are violently rung, doctors\nare sent for, and Lady Dedlock is sought in all directions, but not\nfound. Nobody has seen or heard her since she last rang her bell. Her\nletter to Sir Leicester is discovered on her table, but it is\ndoubtful yet whether he has not received another missive from another\nworld requiring to be personally answered, and all the living\nlanguages, and all the dead, are as one to him.\n\nThey lay him down upon his bed, and chafe, and rub, and fan, and put\nice to his head, and try every means of restoration. Howbeit, the day\nhas ebbed away, and it is night in his room before his stertorous\nbreathing lulls or his fixed eyes show any consciousness of the\ncandle that is occasionally passed before them. But when this change\nbegins, it goes on; and by and by he nods or moves his eyes or even\nhis hand in token that he hears and comprehends.\n\nHe fell down, this morning, a handsome stately gentleman, somewhat\ninfirm, but of a fine presence, and with a well-filled face. He lies\nupon his bed, an aged man with sunken cheeks, the decrepit shadow of\nhimself. His voice was rich and mellow and he had so long been\nthoroughly persuaded of the weight and import to mankind of any word\nhe said that his words really had come to sound as if there were\nsomething in them. But now he can only whisper, and what he whispers\nsounds like what it is--mere jumble and jargon.\n\nHis favourite and faithful housekeeper stands at his bedside. It is\nthe first act he notices, and he clearly derives pleasure from it.\nAfter vainly trying to make himself understood in speech, he makes\nsigns for a pencil. So inexpressively that they cannot at first\nunderstand him; it is his old housekeeper who makes out what he wants\nand brings in a slate.\n\nAfter pausing for some time, he slowly scrawls upon it in a hand that\nis not his, \"Chesney Wold?\"\n\nNo, she tells him; he is in London. He was taken ill in the library\nthis morning. Right thankful she is that she happened to come to\nLondon and is able to attend upon him.\n\n\"It is not an illness of any serious consequence, Sir Leicester. You\nwill be much better to-morrow, Sir Leicester. All the gentlemen say\nso.\" This, with the tears coursing down her fair old face.\n\nAfter making a survey of the room and looking with particular\nattention all round the bed where the doctors stand, he writes, \"My\nLady.\"\n\n\"My Lady went out, Sir Leicester, before you were taken ill, and\ndon't know of your illness yet.\"\n\nHe points again, in great agitation, at the two words. They all try\nto quiet him, but he points again with increased agitation. On their\nlooking at one another, not knowing what to say, he takes the slate\nonce more and writes \"My Lady. For God's sake, where?\" And makes an\nimploring moan.\n\nIt is thought better that his old housekeeper should give him Lady\nDedlock's letter, the contents of which no one knows or can surmise.\nShe opens it for him and puts it out for his perusal. Having read it\ntwice by a great effort, he turns it down so that it shall not be\nseen and lies moaning. He passes into a kind of relapse or into a\nswoon, and it is an hour before he opens his eyes, reclining on his\nfaithful and attached old servant's arm. The doctors know that he is\nbest with her, and when not actively engaged about him, stand aloof.\n\nThe slate comes into requisition again, but the word he wants to\nwrite he cannot remember. His anxiety, his eagerness, and affliction\nat this pass are pitiable to behold. It seems as if he must go mad in\nthe necessity he feels for haste and the inability under which he\nlabours of expressing to do what or to fetch whom. He has written the\nletter B, and there stopped. Of a sudden, in the height of his\nmisery, he puts Mr. before it. The old housekeeper suggests Bucket.\nThank heaven! That's his meaning.\n\nMr. Bucket is found to be downstairs, by appointment. Shall he come\nup?\n\nThere is no possibility of misconstruing Sir Leicester's burning wish\nto see him or the desire he signifies to have the room cleared of\nevery one but the housekeeper. It is speedily done, and Mr. Bucket\nappears. Of all men upon earth, Sir Leicester seems fallen from his\nhigh estate to place his sole trust and reliance upon this man.\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I'm sorry to see you like this. I\nhope you'll cheer up. I'm sure you will, on account of the family\ncredit.\"\n\nSir Leicester puts her letter in his hands and looks intently in his\nface while he reads it. A new intelligence comes into Mr. Bucket's\neye as he reads on; with one hook of his finger, while that eye is\nstill glancing over the words, he indicates, \"Sir Leicester Dedlock,\nBaronet, I understand you.\"\n\nSir Leicester writes upon the slate. \"Full forgiveness. Find--\" Mr.\nBucket stops his hand.\n\n\"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I'll find her. But my search after\nher must be begun out of hand. Not a minute must be lost.\"\n\nWith the quickness of thought, he follows Sir Leicester Dedlock's\nlook towards a little box upon a table.\n\n\"Bring it here, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet? Certainly. Open it\nwith one of these here keys? Certainly. The littlest key? TO be sure.\nTake the notes out? So I will. Count 'em? That's soon done. Twenty\nand thirty's fifty, and twenty's seventy, and fifty's one twenty, and\nforty's one sixty. Take 'em for expenses? That I'll do, and render an\naccount of course. Don't spare money? No I won't.\"\n\nThe velocity and certainty of Mr. Bucket's interpretation on all\nthese heads is little short of miraculous. Mrs. Rouncewell, who holds\nthe light, is giddy with the swiftness of his eyes and hands as he\nstarts up, furnished for his journey.\n\n\"You're George's mother, old lady; that's about what you are, I\nbelieve?\" says Mr. Bucket aside, with his hat already on and\nbuttoning his coat.\n\n\"Yes, sir, I am his distressed mother.\"\n\n\"So I thought, according to what he mentioned to me just now. Well,\nthen, I'll tell you something. You needn't be distressed no more.\nYour son's all right. Now, don't you begin a-crying, because what\nyou've got to do is to take care of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,\nand you won't do that by crying. As to your son, he's all right, I\ntell you; and he sends his loving duty, and hoping you're the same.\nHe's discharged honourable; that's about what HE is; with no more\nimputation on his character than there is on yours, and yours is a\ntidy one, I'LL bet a pound. You may trust me, for I took your son. He\nconducted himself in a game way, too, on that occasion; and he's a\nfine-made man, and you're a fine-made old lady, and you're a mother\nand son, the pair of you, as might be showed for models in a caravan.\nSir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, what you've trusted to me I'll go\nthrough with. Don't you be afraid of my turning out of my way, right\nor left, or taking a sleep, or a wash, or a shave till I have found\nwhat I go in search of. Say everything as is kind and forgiving on\nyour part? Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I will. And I wish you\nbetter, and these family affairs smoothed over--as, Lord, many other\nfamily affairs equally has been, and equally will be, to the end of\ntime.\"\n\nWith this peroration, Mr. Bucket, buttoned up, goes quietly out,\nlooking steadily before him as if he were already piercing the night\nin quest of the fugitive.\n\nHis first step is to take himself to Lady Dedlock's rooms and look\nall over them for any trifling indication that may help him. The\nrooms are in darkness now; and to see Mr. Bucket with a wax-light in\nhis hand, holding it above his head and taking a sharp mental\ninventory of the many delicate objects so curiously at variance with\nhimself, would be to see a sight--which nobody DOES see, as he is\nparticular to lock himself in.\n\n\"A spicy boudoir, this,\" says Mr. Bucket, who feels in a manner\nfurbished up in his French by the blow of the morning. \"Must have\ncost a sight of money. Rum articles to cut away from, these; she must\nhave been hard put to it!\"\n\nOpening and shutting table-drawers and looking into caskets and\njewel-cases, he sees the reflection of himself in various mirrors,\nand moralizes thereon.\n\n\"One might suppose I was a-moving in the fashionable circles and\ngetting myself up for almac's,\" says Mr. Bucket. \"I begin to think I\nmust be a swell in the Guards without knowing it.\"\n\nEver looking about, he has opened a dainty little chest in an inner\ndrawer. His great hand, turning over some gloves which it can\nscarcely feel, they are so light and soft within it, comes upon a\nwhite handkerchief.\n\n\"Hum! Let's have a look at YOU,\" says Mr. Bucket, putting down the\nlight. \"What should YOU be kept by yourself for? What's YOUR motive?\nAre you her ladyship's property, or somebody else's? You've got a\nmark upon you somewheres or another, I suppose?\"\n\nHe finds it as he speaks, \"Esther Summerson.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" says Mr. Bucket, pausing, with his finger at his ear. \"Come,\nI'll take YOU.\"\n\nHe completes his observations as quietly and carefully as he has\ncarried them on, leaves everything else precisely as he found it,\nglides away after some five minutes in all, and passes into the\nstreet. With a glance upward at the dimly lighted windows of Sir\nLeicester's room, he sets off, full-swing, to the nearest\ncoach-stand, picks out the horse for his money, and directs to be\ndriven to the shooting gallery. Mr. Bucket does not claim to be a\nscientific judge of horses, but he lays out a little money on the\nprincipal events in that line, and generally sums up his knowledge of\nthe subject in the remark that when he sees a horse as can go, he\nknows him.\n\nHis knowledge is not at fault in the present instance. Clattering\nover the stones at a dangerous pace, yet thoughtfully bringing his\nkeen eyes to bear on every slinking creature whom he passes in the\nmidnight streets, and even on the lights in upper windows where\npeople are going or gone to bed, and on all the turnings that he\nrattles by, and alike on the heavy sky, and on the earth where the\nsnow lies thin--for something may present itself to assist him,\nanywhere--he dashes to his destination at such a speed that when he\nstops the horse half smothers him in a cloud of steam.\n\n\"Unbear him half a moment to freshen him up, and I'll be back.\"\n\nHe runs up the long wooden entry and finds the trooper smoking his\npipe.\n\n\"I thought I should, George, after what you have gone through, my\nlad. I haven't a word to spare. Now, honour! All to save a woman.\nMiss Summerson that was here when Gridley died--that was the name, I\nknow--all right--where does she live?\"\n\nThe trooper has just come from there and gives him the address, near\nOxford Street.\n\n\"You won't repent it, George. Good night!\"\n\nHe is off again, with an impression of having seen Phil sitting by\nthe frosty fire staring at him open-mouthed, and gallops away again,\nand gets out in a cloud of steam again.\n\nMr. Jarndyce, the only person up in the house, is just going to bed,\nrises from his book on hearing the rapid ringing at the bell, and\ncomes down to the door in his dressing-gown.\n\n\"Don't be alarmed, sir.\" In a moment his visitor is confidential with\nhim in the hall, has shut the door, and stands with his hand upon the\nlock. \"I've had the pleasure of seeing you before. Inspector Bucket.\nLook at that handkerchief, sir, Miss Esther Summerson's. Found it\nmyself put away in a drawer of Lady Dedlock's, quarter of an hour\nago. Not a moment to lose. Matter of life or death. You know Lady\nDedlock?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"There has been a discovery there to-day. Family affairs have come\nout. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, has had a fit--apoplexy or\nparalysis--and couldn't be brought to, and precious time has been\nlost. Lady Dedlock disappeared this afternoon and left a letter for\nhim that looks bad. Run your eye over it. Here it is!\"\n\nMr. Jarndyce, having read it, asks him what he thinks.\n\n\"I don't know. It looks like suicide. Anyways, there's more and more\ndanger, every minute, of its drawing to that. I'd give a hundred\npound an hour to have got the start of the present time. Now, Mr.\nJarndyce, I am employed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to follow\nher and find her, to save her and take her his forgiveness. I have\nmoney and full power, but I want something else. I want Miss\nSummerson.\"\n\nMr. Jarndyce in a troubled voice repeats, \"Miss Summerson?\"\n\n\"Now, Mr. Jarndyce\"--Mr. Bucket has read his face with the greatest\nattention all along--\"I speak to you as a gentleman of a humane\nheart, and under such pressing circumstances as don't often happen.\nIf ever delay was dangerous, it's dangerous now; and if ever you\ncouldn't afterwards forgive yourself for causing it, this is the\ntime. Eight or ten hours, worth, as I tell you, a hundred pound\napiece at least, have been lost since Lady Dedlock disappeared. I am\ncharged to find her. I am Inspector Bucket. Besides all the rest\nthat's heavy on her, she has upon her, as she believes, suspicion of\nmurder. If I follow her alone, she, being in ignorance of what Sir\nLeicester Dedlock, Baronet, has communicated to me, may be driven to\ndesperation. But if I follow her in company with a young lady,\nanswering to the description of a young lady that she has a\ntenderness for--I ask no question, and I say no more than that--she\nwill give me credit for being friendly. Let me come up with her and\nbe able to have the hold upon her of putting that young lady for'ard,\nand I'll save her and prevail with her if she is alive. Let me come\nup with her alone--a hard matter--and I'll do my best, but I don't\nanswer for what the best may be. Time flies; it's getting on for one\no'clock. When one strikes, there's another hour gone, and it's worth\na thousand pound now instead of a hundred.\"\n\nThis is all true, and the pressing nature of the case cannot be\nquestioned. Mr. Jarndyce begs him to remain there while he speaks to\nMiss Summerson. Mr. Bucket says he will, but acting on his usual\nprinciple, does no such thing, following upstairs instead and keeping\nhis man in sight. So he remains, dodging and lurking about in the\ngloom of the staircase while they confer. In a very little time Mr.\nJarndyce comes down and tells him that Miss Summerson will join him\ndirectly and place herself under his protection to accompany him\nwhere he pleases. Mr. Bucket, satisfied, expresses high approval and\nawaits her coming at the door.\n\nThere he mounts a high tower in his mind and looks out far and wide.\nMany solitary figures he perceives creeping through the streets; many\nsolitary figures out on heaths, and roads, and lying under haystacks.\nBut the figure that he seeks is not among them. Other solitaries he\nperceives, in nooks of bridges, looking over; and in shadowed places\ndown by the river's level; and a dark, dark, shapeless object\ndrifting with the tide, more solitary than all, clings with a\ndrowning hold on his attention.\n\nWhere is she? Living or dead, where is she? If, as he folds the\nhandkerchief and carefully puts it up, it were able with an enchanted\npower to bring before him the place where she found it and the\nnight-landscape near the cottage where it covered the little child,\nwould he descry her there? On the waste where the brick-kilns are\nburning with a pale blue flare, where the straw-roofs of the wretched\nhuts in which the bricks are made are being scattered by the wind,\nwhere the clay and water are hard frozen and the mill in which the\ngaunt blind horse goes round all day looks like an instrument of\nhuman torture--traversing this deserted, blighted spot there is a\nlonely figure with the sad world to itself, pelted by the snow and\ndriven by the wind, and cast out, it would seem, from all\ncompanionship. It is the figure of a woman, too; but it is miserably\ndressed, and no such clothes ever came through the hall and out at\nthe great door of the Dedlock mansion.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LVII\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nI had gone to bed and fallen asleep when my guardian knocked at the\ndoor of my room and begged me to get up directly. On my hurrying to\nspeak to him and learn what had happened, he told me, after a word or\ntwo of preparation, that there had been a discovery at Sir Leicester\nDedlock's. That my mother had fled, that a person was now at our door\nwho was empowered to convey to her the fullest assurances of\naffectionate protection and forgiveness if he could possibly find\nher, and that I was sought for to accompany him in the hope that my\nentreaties might prevail upon her if his failed. Something to this\ngeneral purpose I made out, but I was thrown into such a tumult of\nalarm, and hurry and distress, that in spite of every effort I could\nmake to subdue my agitation, I did not seem, to myself, fully to\nrecover my right mind until hours had passed.\n\nBut I dressed and wrapped up expeditiously without waking Charley or\nany one and went down to Mr. Bucket, who was the person entrusted\nwith the secret. In taking me to him my guardian told me this, and\nalso explained how it was that he had come to think of me. Mr.\nBucket, in a low voice, by the light of my guardian's candle, read to\nme in the hall a letter that my mother had left upon her table; and I\nsuppose within ten minutes of my having been aroused I was sitting\nbeside him, rolling swiftly through the streets.\n\nHis manner was very keen, and yet considerate when he explained to me\nthat a great deal might depend on my being able to answer, without\nconfusion, a few questions that he wished to ask me. These were,\nchiefly, whether I had had much communication with my mother (to whom\nhe only referred as Lady Dedlock), when and where I had spoken with\nher last, and how she had become possessed of my handkerchief. When I\nhad satisfied him on these points, he asked me particularly to\nconsider--taking time to think--whether within my knowledge there was\nany one, no matter where, in whom she might be at all likely to\nconfide under circumstances of the last necessity. I could think of\nno one but my guardian. But by and by I mentioned Mr. Boythorn. He\ncame into my mind as connected with his old chivalrous manner of\nmentioning my mother's name and with what my guardian had informed me\nof his engagement to her sister and his unconscious connexion with\nher unhappy story.\n\nMy companion had stopped the driver while we held this conversation,\nthat we might the better hear each other. He now told him to go on\nagain and said to me, after considering within himself for a few\nmoments, that he had made up his mind how to proceed. He was quite\nwilling to tell me what his plan was, but I did not feel clear enough\nto understand it.\n\nWe had not driven very far from our lodgings when we stopped in a\nby-street at a public-looking place lighted up with gas. Mr. Bucket\ntook me in and sat me in an arm-chair by a bright fire. It was now\npast one, as I saw by the clock against the wall. Two police\nofficers, looking in their perfectly neat uniform not at all like\npeople who were up all night, were quietly writing at a desk; and the\nplace seemed very quiet altogether, except for some beating and\ncalling out at distant doors underground, to which nobody paid any\nattention.\n\nA third man in uniform, whom Mr. Bucket called and to whom he\nwhispered his instructions, went out; and then the two others advised\ntogether while one wrote from Mr. Bucket's subdued dictation. It was\na description of my mother that they were busy with, for Mr. Bucket\nbrought it to me when it was done and read it in a whisper. It was\nvery accurate indeed.\n\nThe second officer, who had attended to it closely, then copied it\nout and called in another man in uniform (there were several in an\nouter room), who took it up and went away with it. All this was done\nwith the greatest dispatch and without the waste of a moment; yet\nnobody was at all hurried. As soon as the paper was sent out upon its\ntravels, the two officers resumed their former quiet work of writing\nwith neatness and care. Mr. Bucket thoughtfully came and warmed the\nsoles of his boots, first one and then the other, at the fire.\n\n\"Are you well wrapped up, Miss Summerson?\" he asked me as his eyes\nmet mine. \"It's a desperate sharp night for a young lady to be out\nin.\"\n\nI told him I cared for no weather and was warmly clothed.\n\n\"It may be a long job,\" he observed; \"but so that it ends well, never\nmind, miss.\"\n\n\"I pray to heaven it may end well!\" said I.\n\nHe nodded comfortingly. \"You see, whatever you do, don't you go and\nfret yourself. You keep yourself cool and equal for anything that may\nhappen, and it'll be the better for you, the better for me, the\nbetter for Lady Dedlock, and the better for Sir Leicester Dedlock,\nBaronet.\"\n\nHe was really very kind and gentle, and as he stood before the fire\nwarming his boots and rubbing his face with his forefinger, I felt a\nconfidence in his sagacity which reassured me. It was not yet a\nquarter to two when I heard horses' feet and wheels outside. \"Now,\nMiss Summerson,\" said he, \"we are off, if you please!\"\n\nHe gave me his arm, and the two officers courteously bowed me out,\nand we found at the door a phaeton or barouche with a postilion and\npost horses. Mr. Bucket handed me in and took his own seat on the\nbox. The man in uniform whom he had sent to fetch this equipage then\nhanded him up a dark lantern at his request, and when he had given a\nfew directions to the driver, we rattled away.\n\nI was far from sure that I was not in a dream. We rattled with great\nrapidity through such a labyrinth of streets that I soon lost all\nidea where we were, except that we had crossed and re-crossed the\nriver, and still seemed to be traversing a low-lying, waterside,\ndense neighbourhood of narrow thoroughfares chequered by docks and\nbasins, high piles of warehouses, swing-bridges, and masts of ships.\nAt length we stopped at the corner of a little slimy turning, which\nthe wind from the river, rushing up it, did not purify; and I saw my\ncompanion, by the light of his lantern, in conference with several\nmen who looked like a mixture of police and sailors. Against the\nmouldering wall by which they stood, there was a bill, on which I\ncould discern the words, \"Found Drowned\"; and this and an inscription\nabout drags possessed me with the awful suspicion shadowed forth in\nour visit to that place.\n\nI had no need to remind myself that I was not there by the indulgence\nof any feeling of mine to increase the difficulties of the search, or\nto lessen its hopes, or enhance its delays. I remained quiet, but\nwhat I suffered in that dreadful spot I never can forget. And still\nit was like the horror of a dream. A man yet dark and muddy, in long\nswollen sodden boots and a hat like them, was called out of a boat\nand whispered with Mr. Bucket, who went away with him down some\nslippery steps--as if to look at something secret that he had to\nshow. They came back, wiping their hands upon their coats, after\nturning over something wet; but thank God it was not what I feared!\n\nAfter some further conference, Mr. Bucket (whom everybody seemed to\nknow and defer to) went in with the others at a door and left me in\nthe carriage, while the driver walked up and down by his horses to\nwarm himself. The tide was coming in, as I judged from the sound it\nmade, and I could hear it break at the end of the alley with a little\nrush towards me. It never did so--and I thought it did so, hundreds\nof times, in what can have been at the most a quarter of an hour, and\nprobably was less--but the thought shuddered through me that it would\ncast my mother at the horses' feet.\n\nMr. Bucket came out again, exhorting the others to be vigilant,\ndarkened his lantern, and once more took his seat. \"Don't you be\nalarmed, Miss Summerson, on account of our coming down here,\" he\nsaid, turning to me. \"I only want to have everything in train and to\nknow that it is in train by looking after it myself. Get on, my lad!\"\n\nWe appeared to retrace the way we had come. Not that I had taken note\nof any particular objects in my perturbed state of mind, but judging\nfrom the general character of the streets. We called at another\noffice or station for a minute and crossed the river again. During\nthe whole of this time, and during the whole search, my companion,\nwrapped up on the box, never relaxed in his vigilance a single\nmoment; but when we crossed the bridge he seemed, if possible, to be\nmore on the alert than before. He stood up to look over the parapet,\nhe alighted and went back after a shadowy female figure that flitted\npast us, and he gazed into the profound black pit of water with a\nface that made my heart die within me. The river had a fearful look,\nso overcast and secret, creeping away so fast between the low flat\nlines of shore--so heavy with indistinct and awful shapes, both of\nsubstance and shadow; so death-like and mysterious. I have seen it\nmany times since then, by sunlight and by moonlight, but never free\nfrom the impressions of that journey. In my memory the lights upon\nthe bridge are always burning dim, the cutting wind is eddying round\nthe homeless woman whom we pass, the monotonous wheels are whirling\non, and the light of the carriage-lamps reflected back looks palely\nin upon me--a face rising out of the dreaded water.\n\nClattering and clattering through the empty streets, we came at\nlength from the pavement on to dark smooth roads and began to leave\nthe houses behind us. After a while I recognized the familiar way to\nSaint Albans. At Barnet fresh horses were ready for us, and we\nchanged and went on. It was very cold indeed, and the open country\nwas white with snow, though none was falling then.\n\n\"An old acquaintance of yours, this road, Miss Summerson,\" said Mr.\nBucket cheerfully.\n\n\"Yes,\" I returned. \"Have you gathered any intelligence?\"\n\n\"None that can be quite depended on as yet,\" he answered, \"but it's\nearly times as yet.\"\n\nHe had gone into every late or early public-house where there\nwas a light (they were not a few at that time, the road being\nthen much frequented by drovers) and had got down to talk to the\nturnpike-keepers. I had heard him ordering drink, and chinking money,\nand making himself agreeable and merry everywhere; but whenever he\ntook his seat upon the box again, his face resumed its watchful\nsteady look, and he always said to the driver in the same business\ntone, \"Get on, my lad!\"\n\nWith all these stoppages, it was between five and six o'clock and we\nwere yet a few miles short of Saint Albans when he came out of one of\nthese houses and handed me in a cup of tea.\n\n\"Drink it, Miss Summerson, it'll do you good. You're beginning to get\nmore yourself now, ain't you?\"\n\nI thanked him and said I hoped so.\n\n\"You was what you may call stunned at first,\" he returned; \"and Lord,\nno wonder! Don't speak loud, my dear. It's all right. She's on\nahead.\"\n\nI don't know what joyful exclamation I made or was going to make, but\nhe put up his finger and I stopped myself.\n\n\"Passed through here on foot this evening about eight or nine. I\nheard of her first at the archway toll, over at Highgate, but\ncouldn't make quite sure. Traced her all along, on and off. Picked\nher up at one place, and dropped her at another; but she's before us\nnow, safe. Take hold of this cup and saucer, ostler. Now, if you\nwasn't brought up to the butter trade, look out and see if you can\ncatch half a crown in your t'other hand. One, two, three, and there\nyou are! Now, my lad, try a gallop!\"\n\nWe were soon in Saint Albans and alighted a little before day, when I\nwas just beginning to arrange and comprehend the occurrences of the\nnight and really to believe that they were not a dream. Leaving the\ncarriage at the posting-house and ordering fresh horses to be ready,\nmy companion gave me his arm, and we went towards home.\n\n\"As this is your regular abode, Miss Summerson, you see,\" he\nobserved, \"I should like to know whether you've been asked for by any\nstranger answering the description, or whether Mr. Jarndyce has. I\ndon't much expect it, but it might be.\"\n\nAs we ascended the hill, he looked about him with a sharp eye--the\nday was now breaking--and reminded me that I had come down it one\nnight, as I had reason for remembering, with my little servant and\npoor Jo, whom he called Toughey.\n\nI wondered how he knew that.\n\n\"When you passed a man upon the road, just yonder, you know,\" said\nMr. Bucket.\n\nYes, I remembered that too, very well.\n\n\"That was me,\" said Mr. Bucket.\n\nSeeing my surprise, he went on, \"I drove down in a gig that afternoon\nto look after that boy. You might have heard my wheels when you came\nout to look after him yourself, for I was aware of you and your\nlittle maid going up when I was walking the horse down. Making an\ninquiry or two about him in the town, I soon heard what company he\nwas in and was coming among the brick-fields to look for him when I\nobserved you bringing him home here.\"\n\n\"Had he committed any crime?\" I asked.\n\n\"None was charged against him,\" said Mr. Bucket, coolly lifting off\nhis hat, \"but I suppose he wasn't over-particular. No. What I wanted\nhim for was in connexion with keeping this very matter of Lady\nDedlock quiet. He had been making his tongue more free than welcome\nas to a small accidental service he had been paid for by the deceased\nMr. Tulkinghorn; and it wouldn't do, at any sort of price, to have\nhim playing those games. So having warned him out of London, I made\nan afternoon of it to warn him to keep out of it now he WAS away, and\ngo farther from it, and maintain a bright look-out that I didn't\ncatch him coming back again.\"\n\n\"Poor creature!\" said I.\n\n\"Poor enough,\" assented Mr. Bucket, \"and trouble enough, and well\nenough away from London, or anywhere else. I was regularly turned on\nmy back when I found him taken up by your establishment, I do assure\nyou.\"\n\nI asked him why. \"Why, my dear?\" said Mr. Bucket. \"Naturally there\nwas no end to his tongue then. He might as well have been born with a\nyard and a half of it, and a remnant over.\"\n\nAlthough I remember this conversation now, my head was in confusion\nat the time, and my power of attention hardly did more than enable me\nto understand that he entered into these particulars to divert me.\nWith the same kind intention, manifestly, he often spoke to me of\nindifferent things, while his face was busy with the one object that\nwe had in view. He still pursued this subject as we turned in at the\ngarden-gate.\n\n\"Ah!\" said Mr. Bucket. \"Here we are, and a nice retired place it is.\nPuts a man in mind of the country house in the Woodpecker-tapping,\nthat was known by the smoke which so gracefully curled. They're early\nwith the kitchen fire, and that denotes good servants. But what\nyou've always got to be careful of with servants is who comes to see\n'em; you never know what they're up to if you don't know that. And\nanother thing, my dear. Whenever you find a young man behind the\nkitchen-door, you give that young man in charge on suspicion of being\nsecreted in a dwelling-house with an unlawful purpose.\"\n\nWe were now in front of the house; he looked attentively and closely\nat the gravel for footprints before he raised his eyes to the\nwindows.\n\n\"Do you generally put that elderly young gentleman in the same room\nwhen he's on a visit here, Miss Summerson?\" he inquired, glancing at\nMr. Skimpole's usual chamber.\n\n\"You know Mr. Skimpole!\" said I.\n\n\"What do you call him again?\" returned Mr. Bucket, bending down his\near. \"Skimpole, is it? I've often wondered what his name might be.\nSkimpole. Not John, I should say, nor yet Jacob?\"\n\n\"Harold,\" I told him.\n\n\"Harold. Yes. He's a queer bird is Harold,\" said Mr. Bucket, eyeing\nme with great expression.\n\n\"He is a singular character,\" said I.\n\n\"No idea of money,\" observed Mr. Bucket. \"He takes it, though!\"\n\nI involuntarily returned for answer that I perceived Mr. Bucket knew\nhim.\n\n\"Why, now I'll tell you, Miss Summerson,\" he replied. \"Your mind will\nbe all the better for not running on one point too continually, and\nI'll tell you for a change. It was him as pointed out to me where\nToughey was. I made up my mind that night to come to the door and ask\nfor Toughey, if that was all; but willing to try a move or so first,\nif any such was on the board, I just pitched up a morsel of gravel at\nthat window where I saw a shadow. As soon as Harold opens it and I\nhave had a look at him, thinks I, you're the man for me. So I\nsmoothed him down a bit about not wanting to disturb the family after\nthey was gone to bed and about its being a thing to be regretted that\ncharitable young ladies should harbour vagrants; and then, when I\npretty well understood his ways, I said I should consider a fypunnote\nwell bestowed if I could relieve the premises of Toughey without\ncausing any noise or trouble. Then says he, lifting up his eyebrows\nin the gayest way, 'It's no use mentioning a fypunnote to me, my\nfriend, because I'm a mere child in such matters and have no idea of\nmoney.' Of course I understood what his taking it so easy meant; and\nbeing now quite sure he was the man for me, I wrapped the note round\na little stone and threw it up to him. Well! He laughs and beams, and\nlooks as innocent as you like, and says, 'But I don't know the value\nof these things. What am I to DO with this?' 'Spend it, sir,' says I.\n'But I shall be taken in,' he says, 'they won't give me the right\nchange, I shall lose it, it's no use to me.' Lord, you never saw such\na face as he carried it with! Of course he told me where to find\nToughey, and I found him.\"\n\nI regarded this as very treacherous on the part of Mr. Skimpole\ntowards my guardian and as passing the usual bounds of his childish\ninnocence.\n\n\"Bounds, my dear?\" returned Mr. Bucket. \"Bounds? Now, Miss Summerson,\nI'll give you a piece of advice that your husband will find useful\nwhen you are happily married and have got a family about you.\nWhenever a person says to you that they are as innocent as can be in\nall concerning money, look well after your own money, for they are\ndead certain to collar it if they can. Whenever a person proclaims to\nyou 'In worldly matters I'm a child,' you consider that that person\nis only a-crying off from being held accountable and that you have\ngot that person's number, and it's Number One. Now, I am not a\npoetical man myself, except in a vocal way when it goes round a\ncompany, but I'm a practical one, and that's my experience. So's this\nrule. Fast and loose in one thing, fast and loose in everything. I\nnever knew it fail. No more will you. Nor no one. With which caution\nto the unwary, my dear, I take the liberty of pulling this here bell,\nand so go back to our business.\"\n\nI believe it had not been for a moment out of his mind, any more than\nit had been out of my mind, or out of his face. The whole household\nwere amazed to see me, without any notice, at that time in the\nmorning, and so accompanied; and their surprise was not diminished by\nmy inquiries. No one, however, had been there. It could not be\ndoubted that this was the truth.\n\n\"Then, Miss Summerson,\" said my companion, \"we can't be too soon at\nthe cottage where those brickmakers are to be found. Most inquiries\nthere I leave to you, if you'll be so good as to make 'em. The\nnaturalest way is the best way, and the naturalest way is your own\nway.\"\n\nWe set off again immediately. On arriving at the cottage, we found it\nshut up and apparently deserted, but one of the neighbours who knew\nme and who came out when I was trying to make some one hear informed\nme that the two women and their husbands now lived together in\nanother house, made of loose rough bricks, which stood on the margin\nof the piece of ground where the kilns were and where the long rows\nof bricks were drying. We lost no time in repairing to this place,\nwhich was within a few hundred yards; and as the door stood ajar, I\npushed it open.\n\nThere were only three of them sitting at breakfast, the child lying\nasleep on a bed in the corner. It was Jenny, the mother of the dead\nchild, who was absent. The other woman rose on seeing me; and the\nmen, though they were, as usual, sulky and silent, each gave me a\nmorose nod of recognition. A look passed between them when Mr. Bucket\nfollowed me in, and I was surprised to see that the woman evidently\nknew him.\n\nI had asked leave to enter of course. Liz (the only name by which I\nknew her) rose to give me her own chair, but I sat down on a stool\nnear the fire, and Mr. Bucket took a corner of the bedstead. Now that\nI had to speak and was among people with whom I was not familiar, I\nbecame conscious of being hurried and giddy. It was very difficult to\nbegin, and I could not help bursting into tears.\n\n\"Liz,\" said I, \"I have come a long way in the night and through the\nsnow to inquire after a lady--\"\n\n\"Who has been here, you know,\" Mr. Bucket struck in, addressing the\nwhole group with a composed propitiatory face; \"that's the lady the\nyoung lady means. The lady that was here last night, you know.\"\n\n\"And who told YOU as there was anybody here?\" inquired Jenny's\nhusband, who had made a surly stop in his eating to listen and now\nmeasured him with his eye.\n\n\"A person of the name of Michael Jackson, with a blue welveteen\nwaistcoat with a double row of mother of pearl buttons,\" Mr. Bucket\nimmediately answered.\n\n\"He had as good mind his own business, whoever he is,\" growled the\nman.\n\n\"He's out of employment, I believe,\" said Mr. Bucket apologetically\nfor Michael Jackson, \"and so gets talking.\"\n\nThe woman had not resumed her chair, but stood faltering with her\nhand upon its broken back, looking at me. I thought she would have\nspoken to me privately if she had dared. She was still in this\nattitude of uncertainty when her husband, who was eating with a lump\nof bread and fat in one hand and his clasp-knife in the other, struck\nthe handle of his knife violently on the table and told her with an\noath to mind HER own business at any rate and sit down.\n\n\"I should like to have seen Jenny very much,\" said I, \"for I am sure\nshe would have told me all she could about this lady, whom I am very\nanxious indeed--you cannot think how anxious--to overtake. Will Jenny\nbe here soon? Where is she?\"\n\nThe woman had a great desire to answer, but the man, with another\noath, openly kicked at her foot with his heavy boot. He left it to\nJenny's husband to say what he chose, and after a dogged silence the\nlatter turned his shaggy head towards me.\n\n\"I'm not partial to gentlefolks coming into my place, as you've heerd\nme say afore now, I think, miss. I let their places be, and it's\ncurious they can't let my place be. There'd be a pretty shine made if\nI was to go a-wisitin THEM, I think. Howsoever, I don't so much\ncomplain of you as of some others, and I'm agreeable to make you a\ncivil answer, though I give notice that I'm not a-going to be drawed\nlike a badger. Will Jenny be here soon? No she won't. Where is she?\nShe's gone up to Lunnun.\"\n\n\"Did she go last night?\" I asked.\n\n\"Did she go last night? Ah! She went last night,\" he answered with a\nsulky jerk of his head.\n\n\"But was she here when the lady came? And what did the lady say to\nher? And where is the lady gone? I beg and pray you to be so kind as\nto tell me,\" said I, \"for I am in great distress to know.\"\n\n\"If my master would let me speak, and not say a word of harm--\" the\nwoman timidly began.\n\n\"Your master,\" said her husband, muttering an imprecation with slow\nemphasis, \"will break your neck if you meddle with wot don't concern\nyou.\"\n\nAfter another silence, the husband of the absent woman, turning to me\nagain, answered me with his usual grumbling unwillingness.\n\n\"Wos Jenny here when the lady come? Yes, she wos here when the lady\ncome. Wot did the lady say to her? Well, I'll tell you wot the lady\nsaid to her. She said, 'You remember me as come one time to talk to\nyou about the young lady as had been a-wisiting of you? You remember\nme as give you somethink handsome for a handkercher wot she had\nleft?' Ah, she remembered. So we all did. Well, then, wos that young\nlady up at the house now? No, she warn't up at the house now. Well,\nthen, lookee here. The lady was upon a journey all alone, strange as\nwe might think it, and could she rest herself where you're a setten\nfor a hour or so. Yes she could, and so she did. Then she went--it\nmight be at twenty minutes past eleven, and it might be at twenty\nminutes past twelve; we ain't got no watches here to know the time\nby, nor yet clocks. Where did she go? I don't know where she go'd.\nShe went one way, and Jenny went another; one went right to Lunnun,\nand t'other went right from it. That's all about it. Ask this man. He\nheerd it all, and see it all. He knows.\"\n\nThe other man repeated, \"That's all about it.\"\n\n\"Was the lady crying?\" I inquired.\n\n\"Devil a bit,\" returned the first man. \"Her shoes was the worse, and\nher clothes was the worse, but she warn't--not as I see.\"\n\nThe woman sat with her arms crossed and her eyes upon the ground. Her\nhusband had turned his seat a little so as to face her and kept his\nhammer-like hand upon the table as if it were in readiness to execute\nhis threat if she disobeyed him.\n\n\"I hope you will not object to my asking your wife,\" said I, \"how the\nlady looked.\"\n\n\"Come, then!\" he gruffly cried to her. \"You hear what she says. Cut\nit short and tell her.\"\n\n\"Bad,\" replied the woman. \"Pale and exhausted. Very bad.\"\n\n\"Did she speak much?\"\n\n\"Not much, but her voice was hoarse.\"\n\nShe answered, looking all the while at her husband for leave.\n\n\"Was she faint?\" said I. \"Did she eat or drink here?\"\n\n\"Go on!\" said the husband in answer to her look. \"Tell her and cut it\nshort.\"\n\n\"She had a little water, miss, and Jenny fetched her some bread and\ntea. But she hardly touched it.\"\n\n\"And when she went from here,\" I was proceeding, when Jenny's husband\nimpatiently took me up.\n\n\"When she went from here, she went right away nor'ard by the high\nroad. Ask on the road if you doubt me, and see if it warn't so. Now,\nthere's the end. That's all about it.\"\n\nI glanced at my companion, and finding that he had already risen and\nwas ready to depart, thanked them for what they had told me, and took\nmy leave. The woman looked full at Mr. Bucket as he went out, and he\nlooked full at her.\n\n\"Now, Miss Summerson,\" he said to me as we walked quickly away.\n\"They've got her ladyship's watch among 'em. That's a positive fact.\"\n\n\"You saw it?\" I exclaimed.\n\n\"Just as good as saw it,\" he returned. \"Else why should he talk about\nhis 'twenty minutes past' and about his having no watch to tell the\ntime by? Twenty minutes! He don't usually cut his time so fine as\nthat. If he comes to half-hours, it's as much as HE does. Now, you\nsee, either her ladyship gave him that watch or he took it. I think\nshe gave it him. Now, what should she give it him for? What should\nshe give it him for?\"\n\nHe repeated this question to himself several times as we hurried on,\nappearing to balance between a variety of answers that arose in his\nmind.\n\n\"If time could be spared,\" said Mr. Bucket, \"which is the only thing\nthat can't be spared in this case, I might get it out of that woman;\nbut it's too doubtful a chance to trust to under present\ncircumstances. They are up to keeping a close eye upon her, and any\nfool knows that a poor creetur like her, beaten and kicked and\nscarred and bruised from head to foot, will stand by the husband that\nill uses her through thick and thin. There's something kept back.\nIt's a pity but what we had seen the other woman.\"\n\nI regretted it exceedingly, for she was very grateful, and I felt\nsure would have resisted no entreaty of mine.\n\n\"It's possible, Miss Summerson,\" said Mr. Bucket, pondering on it,\n\"that her ladyship sent her up to London with some word for you, and\nit's possible that her husband got the watch to let her go. It don't\ncome out altogether so plain as to please me, but it's on the cards.\nNow, I don't take kindly to laying out the money of Sir Leicester\nDedlock, Baronet, on these roughs, and I don't see my way to the\nusefulness of it at present. No! So far our road, Miss Summerson, is\nfor'ard--straight ahead--and keeping everything quiet!\"\n\nWe called at home once more that I might send a hasty note to my\nguardian, and then we hurried back to where we had left the carriage.\nThe horses were brought out as soon as we were seen coming, and we\nwere on the road again in a few minutes.\n\nIt had set in snowing at daybreak, and it now snowed hard. The air\nwas so thick with the darkness of the day and the density of the fall\nthat we could see but a very little way in any direction. Although it\nwas extremely cold, the snow was but partially frozen, and it\nchurned--with a sound as if it were a beach of small shells--under\nthe hoofs of the horses into mire and water. They sometimes slipped\nand floundered for a mile together, and we were obliged to come to a\nstandstill to rest them. One horse fell three times in this first\nstage, and trembled so and was so shaken that the driver had to\ndismount from his saddle and lead him at last.\n\nI could eat nothing and could not sleep, and I grew so nervous under\nthose delays and the slow pace at which we travelled that I had an\nunreasonable desire upon me to get out and walk. Yielding to my\ncompanion's better sense, however, I remained where I was. All this\ntime, kept fresh by a certain enjoyment of the work in which he was\nengaged, he was up and down at every house we came to, addressing\npeople whom he had never beheld before as old acquaintances, running\nin to warm himself at every fire he saw, talking and drinking and\nshaking hands at every bar and tap, friendly with every waggoner,\nwheelwright, blacksmith, and toll-taker, yet never seeming to lose\ntime, and always mounting to the box again with his watchful, steady\nface and his business-like \"Get on, my lad!\"\n\nWhen we were changing horses the next time, he came from the\nstable-yard, with the wet snow encrusted upon him and dropping off\nhim--plashing and crashing through it to his wet knees as he had been\ndoing frequently since we left Saint Albans--and spoke to me at the\ncarriage side.\n\n\"Keep up your spirits. It's certainly true that she came on here,\nMiss Summerson. There's not a doubt of the dress by this time, and\nthe dress has been seen here.\"\n\n\"Still on foot?\" said I.\n\n\"Still on foot. I think the gentleman you mentioned must be the point\nshe's aiming at, and yet I don't like his living down in her own part\nof the country neither.\"\n\n\"I know so little,\" said I. \"There may be some one else nearer here,\nof whom I never heard.\"\n\n\"That's true. But whatever you do, don't you fall a-crying, my dear;\nand don't you worry yourself no more than you can help. Get on, my\nlad!\"\n\nThe sleet fell all that day unceasingly, a thick mist came on early,\nand it never rose or lightened for a moment. Such roads I had never\nseen. I sometimes feared we had missed the way and got into the\nploughed grounds or the marshes. If I ever thought of the time I had\nbeen out, it presented itself as an indefinite period of great\nduration, and I seemed, in a strange way, never to have been free\nfrom the anxiety under which I then laboured.\n\nAs we advanced, I began to feel misgivings that my companion lost\nconfidence. He was the same as before with all the roadside people,\nbut he looked graver when he sat by himself on the box. I saw his\nfinger uneasily going across and across his mouth during the whole of\none long weary stage. I overheard that he began to ask the drivers of\ncoaches and other vehicles coming towards us what passengers they had\nseen in other coaches and vehicles that were in advance. Their\nreplies did not encourage him. He always gave me a reassuring beck of\nhis finger and lift of his eyelid as he got upon the box again, but\nhe seemed perplexed now when he said, \"Get on, my lad!\"\n\nAt last, when we were changing, he told me that he had lost the track\nof the dress so long that he began to be surprised. It was nothing,\nhe said, to lose such a track for one while, and to take it up for\nanother while, and so on; but it had disappeared here in an\nunaccountable manner, and we had not come upon it since. This\ncorroborated the apprehensions I had formed, when he began to look at\ndirection-posts, and to leave the carriage at cross roads for a\nquarter of an hour at a time while he explored them. But I was not to\nbe down-hearted, he told me, for it was as likely as not that the\nnext stage might set us right again.\n\nThe next stage, however, ended as that one ended; we had no new clue.\nThere was a spacious inn here, solitary, but a comfortable\nsubstantial building, and as we drove in under a large gateway before\nI knew it, where a landlady and her pretty daughters came to the\ncarriage-door, entreating me to alight and refresh myself while the\nhorses were making ready, I thought it would be uncharitable to\nrefuse. They took me upstairs to a warm room and left me there.\n\nIt was at the corner of the house, I remember, looking two ways. On\none side to a stable-yard open to a by-road, where the ostlers were\nunharnessing the splashed and tired horses from the muddy carriage,\nand beyond that to the by-road itself, across which the sign was\nheavily swinging; on the other side to a wood of dark pine-trees.\nTheir branches were encumbered with snow, and it silently dropped off\nin wet heaps while I stood at the window. Night was setting in, and\nits bleakness was enhanced by the contrast of the pictured fire\nglowing and gleaming in the window-pane. As I looked among the stems\nof the trees and followed the discoloured marks in the snow where the\nthaw was sinking into it and undermining it, I thought of the\nmotherly face brightly set off by daughters that had just now\nwelcomed me and of MY mother lying down in such a wood to die.\n\nI was frightened when I found them all about me, but I remembered\nthat before I fainted I tried very hard not to do it; and that was\nsome little comfort. They cushioned me up on a large sofa by the\nfire, and then the comely landlady told me that I must travel no\nfurther to-night, but must go to bed. But this put me into such a\ntremble lest they should detain me there that she soon recalled her\nwords and compromised for a rest of half an hour.\n\nA good endearing creature she was. She and her three fair girls, all\nso busy about me. I was to take hot soup and broiled fowl, while Mr.\nBucket dried himself and dined elsewhere; but I could not do it when\na snug round table was presently spread by the fireside, though I was\nvery unwilling to disappoint them. However, I could take some toast\nand some hot negus, and as I really enjoyed that refreshment, it made\nsome recompense.\n\nPunctual to the time, at the half-hour's end the carriage came\nrumbling under the gateway, and they took me down, warmed, refreshed,\ncomforted by kindness, and safe (I assured them) not to faint any\nmore. After I had got in and had taken a grateful leave of them all,\nthe youngest daughter--a blooming girl of nineteen, who was to be the\nfirst married, they had told me--got upon the carriage step, reached\nin, and kissed me. I have never seen her, from that hour, but I think\nof her to this hour as my friend.\n\nThe transparent windows with the fire and light, looking so bright\nand warm from the cold darkness out of doors, were soon gone, and\nagain we were crushing and churning the loose snow. We went on with\ntoil enough, but the dismal roads were not much worse than they had\nbeen, and the stage was only nine miles. My companion smoking on the\nbox--I had thought at the last inn of begging him to do so when I saw\nhim standing at a great fire in a comfortable cloud of tobacco--was\nas vigilant as ever and as quickly down and up again when we came to\nany human abode or any human creature. He had lighted his little dark\nlantern, which seemed to be a favourite with him, for we had lamps to\nthe carriage; and every now and then he turned it upon me to see that\nI was doing well. There was a folding-window to the carriage-head,\nbut I never closed it, for it seemed like shutting out hope.\n\nWe came to the end of the stage, and still the lost trace was not\nrecovered. I looked at him anxiously when we stopped to change, but I\nknew by his yet graver face as he stood watching the ostlers that he\nhad heard nothing. Almost in an instant afterwards, as I leaned back\nin my seat, he looked in, with his lighted lantern in his hand, an\nexcited and quite different man.\n\n\"What is it?\" said I, starting. \"Is she here?\"\n\n\"No, no. Don't deceive yourself, my dear. Nobody's here. But I've got\nit!\"\n\nThe crystallized snow was in his eyelashes, in his hair, lying in\nridges on his dress. He had to shake it from his face and get his\nbreath before he spoke to me.\n\n\"Now, Miss Summerson,\" said he, beating his finger on the apron,\n\"don't you be disappointed at what I'm a-going to do. You know me.\nI'm Inspector Bucket, and you can trust me. We've come a long way;\nnever mind. Four horses out there for the next stage up! Quick!\"\n\nThere was a commotion in the yard, and a man came running out of the\nstables to know if he meant up or down.\n\n\"Up, I tell you! Up! Ain't it English? Up!\"\n\n\"Up?\" said I, astonished. \"To London! Are we going back?\"\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" he answered, \"back. Straight back as a die. You\nknow me. Don't be afraid. I'll follow the other, by G----\"\n\n\"The other?\" I repeated. \"Who?\"\n\n\"You called her Jenny, didn't you? I'll follow her. Bring those two\npair out here for a crown a man. Wake up, some of you!\"\n\n\"You will not desert this lady we are in search of; you will not\nabandon her on such a night and in such a state of mind as I know her\nto be in!\" said I, in an agony, and grasping his hand.\n\n\"You are right, my dear, I won't. But I'll follow the other. Look\nalive here with them horses. Send a man for'ard in the saddle to the\nnext stage, and let him send another for'ard again, and order four\non, up, right through. My darling, don't you be afraid!\"\n\nThese orders and the way in which he ran about the yard urging them\ncaused a general excitement that was scarcely less bewildering to me\nthan the sudden change. But in the height of the confusion, a mounted\nman galloped away to order the relays, and our horses were put to\nwith great speed.\n\n\"My dear,\" said Mr. Bucket, jumping to his seat and looking in again,\n\"--you'll excuse me if I'm too familiar--don't you fret and worry\nyourself no more than you can help. I say nothing else at present;\nbut you know me, my dear; now, don't you?\"\n\nI endeavoured to say that I knew he was far more capable than I of\ndeciding what we ought to do, but was he sure that this was right?\nCould I not go forward by myself in search of--I grasped his hand\nagain in my distress and whispered it to him--of my own mother.\n\n\"My dear,\" he answered, \"I know, I know, and would I put you wrong,\ndo you think? Inspector Bucket. Now you know me, don't you?\"\n\nWhat could I say but yes!\n\n\"Then you keep up as good a heart as you can, and you rely upon me\nfor standing by you, no less than by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.\nNow, are you right there?\"\n\n\"All right, sir!\"\n\n\"Off she goes, then. And get on, my lads!\"\n\nWe were again upon the melancholy road by which we had come, tearing\nup the miry sleet and thawing snow as if they were torn up by a\nwaterwheel.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LVIII\n\nA Wintry Day and Night\n\n\nStill impassive, as behoves its breeding, the Dedlock town house\ncarries itself as usual towards the street of dismal grandeur. There\nare powdered heads from time to time in the little windows of the\nhall, looking out at the untaxed powder falling all day from the sky;\nand in the same conservatory there is peach blossom turning itself\nexotically to the great hall fire from the nipping weather out of\ndoors. It is given out that my Lady has gone down into Lincolnshire,\nbut is expected to return presently.\n\nRumour, busy overmuch, however, will not go down into Lincolnshire.\nIt persists in flitting and chattering about town. It knows that that\npoor unfortunate man, Sir Leicester, has been sadly used. It hears,\nmy dear child, all sorts of shocking things. It makes the world of\nfive miles round quite merry. Not to know that there is something\nwrong at the Dedlocks' is to augur yourself unknown. One of the\npeachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats is already apprised\nof all the principal circumstances that will come out before the\nLords on Sir Leicester's application for a bill of divorce.\n\nAt Blaze and Sparkle's the jewellers and at Sheen and Gloss's the\nmercers, it is and will be for several hours the topic of the age,\nthe feature of the century. The patronesses of those establishments,\nalbeit so loftily inscrutable, being as nicely weighed and measured\nthere as any other article of the stock-in-trade, are perfectly\nunderstood in this new fashion by the rawest hand behind the counter.\n\"Our people, Mr. Jones,\" said Blaze and Sparkle to the hand in\nquestion on engaging him, \"our people, sir, are sheep--mere sheep.\nWhere two or three marked ones go, all the rest follow. Keep those\ntwo or three in your eye, Mr. Jones, and you have the flock.\" So,\nlikewise, Sheen and Gloss to THEIR Jones, in reference to knowing\nwhere to have the fashionable people and how to bring what they\n(Sheen and Gloss) choose into fashion. On similar unerring\nprinciples, Mr. Sladdery the librarian, and indeed the great farmer\nof gorgeous sheep, admits this very day, \"Why yes, sir, there\ncertainly ARE reports concerning Lady Dedlock, very current indeed\namong my high connexion, sir. You see, my high connexion must talk\nabout something, sir; and it's only to get a subject into vogue with\none or two ladies I could name to make it go down with the whole.\nJust what I should have done with those ladies, sir, in the case of\nany novelty you had left to me to bring in, they have done of\nthemselves in this case through knowing Lady Dedlock and being\nperhaps a little innocently jealous of her too, sir. You'll find,\nsir, that this topic will be very popular among my high connexion. If\nit had been a speculation, sir, it would have brought money. And when\nI say so, you may trust to my being right, sir, for I have made it my\nbusiness to study my high connexion and to be able to wind it up like\na clock, sir.\"\n\nThus rumour thrives in the capital, and will not go down into\nLincolnshire. By half-past five, post meridian, Horse Guards' time,\nit has even elicited a new remark from the Honourable Mr. Stables,\nwhich bids fair to outshine the old one, on which he has so long\nrested his colloquial reputation. This sparkling sally is to the\neffect that although he always knew she was the best-groomed woman in\nthe stud, he had no idea she was a bolter. It is immensely received\nin turf-circles.\n\nAt feasts and festivals also, in firmaments she has often graced, and\namong constellations she outshone but yesterday, she is still the\nprevalent subject. What is it? Who is it? When was it? Where was it?\nHow was it? She is discussed by her dear friends with all the\ngenteelest slang in vogue, with the last new word, the last new\nmanner, the last new drawl, and the perfection of polite\nindifference. A remarkable feature of the theme is that it is found\nto be so inspiring that several people come out upon it who never\ncame out before--positively say things! William Buffy carries one of\nthese smartnesses from the place where he dines down to the House,\nwhere the Whip for his party hands it about with his snuff-box to\nkeep men together who want to be off, with such effect that the\nSpeaker (who has had it privately insinuated into his own ear under\nthe corner of his wig) cries, \"Order at the bar!\" three times without\nmaking an impression.\n\nAnd not the least amazing circumstance connected with her being\nvaguely the town talk is that people hovering on the confines of Mr.\nSladdery's high connexion, people who know nothing and ever did know\nnothing about her, think it essential to their reputation to pretend\nthat she is their topic too, and to retail her at second-hand with\nthe last new word and the last new manner, and the last new drawl,\nand the last new polite indifference, and all the rest of it, all at\nsecond-hand but considered equal to new in inferior systems and to\nfainter stars. If there be any man of letters, art, or science among\nthese little dealers, how noble in him to support the feeble sisters\non such majestic crutches!\n\nSo goes the wintry day outside the Dedlock mansion. How within it?\n\nSir Leicester, lying in his bed, can speak a little, though with\ndifficulty and indistinctness. He is enjoined to silence and to rest,\nand they have given him some opiate to lull his pain, for his old\nenemy is very hard with him. He is never asleep, though sometimes he\nseems to fall into a dull waking doze. He caused his bedstead to be\nmoved out nearer to the window when he heard it was such inclement\nweather, and his head to be so adjusted that he could see the driving\nsnow and sleet. He watches it as it falls, throughout the whole\nwintry day.\n\nUpon the least noise in the house, which is kept hushed, his hand is\nat the pencil. The old housekeeper, sitting by him, knows what he\nwould write and whispers, \"No, he has not come back yet, Sir\nLeicester. It was late last night when he went. He has been but a\nlittle time gone yet.\"\n\nHe withdraws his hand and falls to looking at the sleet and snow\nagain until they seem, by being long looked at, to fall so thick and\nfast that he is obliged to close his eyes for a minute on the giddy\nwhirl of white flakes and icy blots.\n\nHe began to look at them as soon as it was light. The day is not yet\nfar spent when he conceives it to be necessary that her rooms should\nbe prepared for her. It is very cold and wet. Let there be good\nfires. Let them know that she is expected. Please see to it yourself.\nHe writes to this purpose on his slate, and Mrs. Rouncewell with a\nheavy heart obeys.\n\n\"For I dread, George,\" the old lady says to her son, who waits below\nto keep her company when she has a little leisure, \"I dread, my dear,\nthat my Lady will never more set foot within these walls.\"\n\n\"That's a bad presentiment, mother.\"\n\n\"Nor yet within the walls of Chesney Wold, my dear.\"\n\n\"That's worse. But why, mother?\"\n\n\"When I saw my Lady yesterday, George, she looked to me--and I may\nsay at me too--as if the step on the Ghost's Walk had almost walked\nher down.\"\n\n\"Come, come! You alarm yourself with old-story fears, mother.\"\n\n\"No I don't, my dear. No I don't. It's going on for sixty year that I\nhave been in this family, and I never had any fears for it before.\nBut it's breaking up, my dear; the great old Dedlock family is\nbreaking up.\"\n\n\"I hope not, mother.\"\n\n\"I am thankful I have lived long enough to be with Sir Leicester in\nthis illness and trouble, for I know I am not too old nor too useless\nto be a welcomer sight to him than anybody else in my place would be.\nBut the step on the Ghost's Walk will walk my Lady down, George; it\nhas been many a day behind her, and now it will pass her and go on.\"\n\n\"Well, mother dear, I say again, I hope not.\"\n\n\"Ah, so do I, George,\" the old lady returns, shaking her head and\nparting her folded hands. \"But if my fears come true, and he has to\nknow it, who will tell him!\"\n\n\"Are these her rooms?\"\n\n\"These are my Lady's rooms, just as she left them.\"\n\n\"Why, now,\" says the trooper, glancing round him and speaking in a\nlower voice, \"I begin to understand how you come to think as you do\nthink, mother. Rooms get an awful look about them when they are\nfitted up, like these, for one person you are used to see in them,\nand that person is away under any shadow, let alone being God knows\nwhere.\"\n\nHe is not far out. As all partings foreshadow the great final one,\nso, empty rooms, bereft of a familiar presence, mournfully whisper\nwhat your room and what mine must one day be. My Lady's state has a\nhollow look, thus gloomy and abandoned; and in the inner apartment,\nwhere Mr. Bucket last night made his secret perquisition, the traces\nof her dresses and her ornaments, even the mirrors accustomed to\nreflect them when they were a portion of herself, have a desolate and\nvacant air. Dark and cold as the wintry day is, it is darker and\ncolder in these deserted chambers than in many a hut that will barely\nexclude the weather; and though the servants heap fires in the grates\nand set the couches and the chairs within the warm glass screens that\nlet their ruddy light shoot through to the furthest corners, there is\na heavy cloud upon the rooms which no light will dispel.\n\nThe old housekeeper and her son remain until the preparations are\ncomplete, and then she returns upstairs. Volumnia has taken Mrs.\nRouncewell's place in the meantime, though pearl necklaces and rouge\npots, however calculated to embellish Bath, are but indifferent\ncomforts to the invalid under present circumstances. Volumnia, not\nbeing supposed to know (and indeed not knowing) what is the matter,\nhas found it a ticklish task to offer appropriate observations and\nconsequently has supplied their place with distracting smoothings of\nthe bed-linen, elaborate locomotion on tiptoe, vigilant peeping at\nher kinsman's eyes, and one exasperating whisper to herself of, \"He\nis asleep.\" In disproof of which superfluous remark Sir Leicester has\nindignantly written on the slate, \"I am not.\"\n\nYielding, therefore, the chair at the bedside to the quaint old\nhousekeeper, Volumnia sits at a table a little removed,\nsympathetically sighing. Sir Leicester watches the sleet and snow and\nlistens for the returning steps that he expects. In the ears of his\nold servant, looking as if she had stepped out of an old\npicture-frame to attend a summoned Dedlock to another world, the\nsilence is fraught with echoes of her own words, \"Who will tell him!\"\n\nHe has been under his valet's hands this morning to be made\npresentable and is as well got up as the circumstances will allow. He\nis propped with pillows, his grey hair is brushed in its usual\nmanner, his linen is arranged to a nicety, and he is wrapped in a\nresponsible dressing-gown. His eye-glass and his watch are ready to\nhis hand. It is necessary--less to his own dignity now perhaps than\nfor her sake--that he should be seen as little disturbed and as much\nhimself as may be. Women will talk, and Volumnia, though a Dedlock,\nis no exceptional case. He keeps her here, there is little doubt, to\nprevent her talking somewhere else. He is very ill, but he makes his\npresent stand against distress of mind and body most courageously.\n\nThe fair Volumnia, being one of those sprightly girls who cannot long\ncontinue silent without imminent peril of seizure by the dragon\nBoredom, soon indicates the approach of that monster with a series of\nundisguisable yawns. Finding it impossible to suppress those yawns by\nany other process than conversation, she compliments Mrs. Rouncewell\non her son, declaring that he positively is one of the finest figures\nshe ever saw and as soldierly a looking person, she should think, as\nwhat's his name, her favourite Life Guardsman--the man she dotes on,\nthe dearest of creatures--who was killed at Waterloo.\n\nSir Leicester hears this tribute with so much surprise and stares\nabout him in such a confused way that Mrs. Rouncewell feels it\nnecessary to explain.\n\n\"Miss Dedlock don't speak of my eldest son, Sir Leicester, but my\nyoungest. I have found him. He has come home.\"\n\nSir Leicester breaks silence with a harsh cry. \"George? Your son\nGeorge come home, Mrs. Rouncewell?\"\n\nThe old housekeeper wipes her eyes. \"Thank God. Yes, Sir Leicester.\"\n\nDoes this discovery of some one lost, this return of some one so long\ngone, come upon him as a strong confirmation of his hopes? Does he\nthink, \"Shall I not, with the aid I have, recall her safely after\nthis, there being fewer hours in her case than there are years in\nhis?\"\n\nIt is of no use entreating him; he is determined to speak now, and he\ndoes. In a thick crowd of sounds, but still intelligibly enough to be\nunderstood.\n\n\"Why did you not tell me, Mrs. Rouncewell?\"\n\n\"It happened only yesterday, Sir Leicester, and I doubted your being\nwell enough to be talked to of such things.\"\n\nBesides, the giddy Volumnia now remembers with her little scream that\nnobody was to have known of his being Mrs. Rouncewell's son and that\nshe was not to have told. But Mrs. Rouncewell protests, with warmth\nenough to swell the stomacher, that of course she would have told Sir\nLeicester as soon as he got better.\n\n\"Where is your son George, Mrs. Rouncewell?\" asks Sir Leicester,\n\nMrs. Rouncewell, not a little alarmed by his disregard of the\ndoctor's injunctions, replies, in London.\n\n\"Where in London?\"\n\nMrs. Rouncewell is constrained to admit that he is in the house.\n\n\"Bring him here to my room. Bring him directly.\"\n\nThe old lady can do nothing but go in search of him. Sir Leicester,\nwith such power of movement as he has, arranges himself a little to\nreceive him. When he has done so, he looks out again at the falling\nsleet and snow and listens again for the returning steps. A quantity\nof straw has been tumbled down in the street to deaden the noises\nthere, and she might be driven to the door perhaps without his\nhearing wheels.\n\nHe is lying thus, apparently forgetful of his newer and minor\nsurprise, when the housekeeper returns, accompanied by her trooper\nson. Mr. George approaches softly to the bedside, makes his bow,\nsquares his chest, and stands, with his face flushed, very heartily\nashamed of himself.\n\n\"Good heaven, and it is really George Rouncewell!\" exclaims Sir\nLeicester. \"Do you remember me, George?\"\n\nThe trooper needs to look at him and to separate this sound from that\nsound before he knows what he has said, but doing this and being a\nlittle helped by his mother, he replies, \"I must have a very bad\nmemory, indeed, Sir Leicester, if I failed to remember you.\"\n\n\"When I look at you, George Rouncewell,\" Sir Leicester observes with\ndifficulty, \"I see something of a boy at Chesney Wold--I remember\nwell--very well.\"\n\nHe looks at the trooper until tears come into his eyes, and then he\nlooks at the sleet and snow again.\n\n\"I ask your pardon, Sir Leicester,\" says the trooper, \"but would you\naccept of my arms to raise you up? You would lie easier, Sir\nLeicester, if you would allow me to move you.\"\n\n\"If you please, George Rouncewell; if you will be so good.\"\n\nThe trooper takes him in his arms like a child, lightly raises him,\nand turns him with his face more towards the window. \"Thank you. You\nhave your mother's gentleness,\" returns Sir Leicester, \"and your own\nstrength. Thank you.\"\n\nHe signs to him with his hand not to go away. George quietly remains\nat the bedside, waiting to be spoken to.\n\n\"Why did you wish for secrecy?\" It takes Sir Leicester some time to\nask this.\n\n\"Truly I am not much to boast of, Sir Leicester, and I--I should\nstill, Sir Leicester, if you was not so indisposed--which I hope you\nwill not be long--I should still hope for the favour of being allowed\nto remain unknown in general. That involves explanations not very\nhard to be guessed at, not very well timed here, and not very\ncreditable to myself. However opinions may differ on a variety of\nsubjects, I should think it would be universally agreed, Sir\nLeicester, that I am not much to boast of.\"\n\n\"You have been a soldier,\" observes Sir Leicester, \"and a faithful\none.\"\n\nGeorge makes his military bow. \"As far as that goes, Sir Leicester, I\nhave done my duty under discipline, and it was the least I could do.\"\n\n\"You find me,\" says Sir Leicester, whose eyes are much attracted\ntowards him, \"far from well, George Rouncewell.\"\n\n\"I am very sorry both to hear it and to see it, Sir Leicester.\"\n\n\"I am sure you are. No. In addition to my older malady, I have had a\nsudden and bad attack. Something that deadens,\" making an endeavour\nto pass one hand down one side, \"and confuses,\" touching his lips.\n\nGeorge, with a look of assent and sympathy, makes another bow. The\ndifferent times when they were both young men (the trooper much the\nyounger of the two) and looked at one another down at Chesney Wold\narise before them both and soften both.\n\nSir Leicester, evidently with a great determination to say, in his\nown manner, something that is on his mind before relapsing into\nsilence, tries to raise himself among his pillows a little more.\nGeorge, observant of the action, takes him in his arms again and\nplaces him as he desires to be. \"Thank you, George. You are another\nself to me. You have often carried my spare gun at Chesney Wold,\nGeorge. You are familiar to me in these strange circumstances, very\nfamiliar.\" He has put Sir Leicester's sounder arm over his shoulder\nin lifting him up, and Sir Leicester is slow in drawing it away again\nas he says these words.\n\n\"I was about to add,\" he presently goes on, \"I was about to add,\nrespecting this attack, that it was unfortunately simultaneous with a\nslight misunderstanding between my Lady and myself. I do not mean\nthat there was any difference between us (for there has been none),\nbut that there was a misunderstanding of certain circumstances\nimportant only to ourselves, which deprives me, for a little while,\nof my Lady's society. She has found it necessary to make a journey--I\ntrust will shortly return. Volumnia, do I make myself intelligible?\nThe words are not quite under my command in the manner of pronouncing\nthem.\"\n\nVolumnia understands him perfectly, and in truth he delivers himself\nwith far greater plainness than could have been supposed possible a\nminute ago. The effort by which he does so is written in the anxious\nand labouring expression of his face. Nothing but the strength of his\npurpose enables him to make it.\n\n\"Therefore, Volumnia, I desire to say in your presence--and in the\npresence of my old retainer and friend, Mrs. Rouncewell, whose truth\nand fidelity no one can question, and in the presence of her son\nGeorge, who comes back like a familiar recollection of my youth in\nthe home of my ancestors at Chesney Wold--in case I should relapse,\nin case I should not recover, in case I should lose both my speech\nand the power of writing, though I hope for better things--\"\n\nThe old housekeeper weeping silently; Volumnia in the greatest\nagitation, with the freshest bloom on her cheeks; the trooper with\nhis arms folded and his head a little bent, respectfully attentive.\n\n\"Therefore I desire to say, and to call you all to\nwitness--beginning, Volumnia, with yourself, most solemnly--that I am\non unaltered terms with Lady Dedlock. That I assert no cause whatever\nof complaint against her. That I have ever had the strongest\naffection for her, and that I retain it undiminished. Say this to\nherself, and to every one. If you ever say less than this, you will\nbe guilty of deliberate falsehood to me.\"\n\nVolumnia tremblingly protests that she will observe his injunctions\nto the letter.\n\n\"My Lady is too high in position, too handsome, too accomplished, too\nsuperior in most respects to the best of those by whom she is\nsurrounded, not to have her enemies and traducers, I dare say. Let it\nbe known to them, as I make it known to you, that being of sound\nmind, memory, and understanding, I revoke no disposition I have made\nin her favour. I abridge nothing I have ever bestowed upon her. I am\non unaltered terms with her, and I recall--having the full power to\ndo it if I were so disposed, as you see--no act I have done for her\nadvantage and happiness.\"\n\nHis formal array of words might have at any other time, as it has\noften had, something ludicrous in it, but at this time it is serious\nand affecting. His noble earnestness, his fidelity, his gallant\nshielding of her, his generous conquest of his own wrong and his own\npride for her sake, are simply honourable, manly, and true. Nothing\nless worthy can be seen through the lustre of such qualities in the\ncommonest mechanic, nothing less worthy can be seen in the best-born\ngentleman. In such a light both aspire alike, both rise alike, both\nchildren of the dust shine equally.\n\nOverpowered by his exertions, he lays his head back on his pillows\nand closes his eyes for not more than a minute, when he again resumes\nhis watching of the weather and his attention to the muffled sounds.\nIn the rendering of those little services, and in the manner of their\nacceptance, the trooper has become installed as necessary to him.\nNothing has been said, but it is quite understood. He falls a step or\ntwo backward to be out of sight and mounts guard a little behind his\nmother's chair.\n\nThe day is now beginning to decline. The mist and the sleet into\nwhich the snow has all resolved itself are darker, and the blaze\nbegins to tell more vividly upon the room walls and furniture. The\ngloom augments; the bright gas springs up in the streets; and the\npertinacious oil lamps which yet hold their ground there, with their\nsource of life half frozen and half thawed, twinkle gaspingly like\nfiery fish out of water--as they are. The world, which has been\nrumbling over the straw and pulling at the bell, \"to inquire,\" begins\nto go home, begins to dress, to dine, to discuss its dear friend with\nall the last new modes, as already mentioned.\n\nNow does Sir Leicester become worse, restless, uneasy, and in great\npain. Volumnia, lighting a candle (with a predestined aptitude for\ndoing something objectionable), is bidden to put it out again, for it\nis not yet dark enough. Yet it is very dark too, as dark as it will\nbe all night. By and by she tries again. No! Put it out. It is not\ndark enough yet.\n\nHis old housekeeper is the first to understand that he is striving to\nuphold the fiction with himself that it is not growing late.\n\n\"Dear Sir Leicester, my honoured master,\" she softly whispers, \"I\nmust, for your own good, and my duty, take the freedom of begging and\npraying that you will not lie here in the lone darkness watching and\nwaiting and dragging through the time. Let me draw the curtains, and\nlight the candles, and make things more comfortable about you. The\nchurch-clocks will strike the hours just the same, Sir Leicester, and\nthe night will pass away just the same. My Lady will come back, just\nthe same.\"\n\n\"I know it, Mrs. Rouncewell, but I am weak--and she has been so long\ngone.\"\n\n\"Not so very long, Sir Leicester. Not twenty-four hours yet.\"\n\n\"But that is a long time. Oh, it is a long time!\"\n\nHe says it with a groan that wrings her heart.\n\nShe knows that this is not a period for bringing the rough light upon\nhim; she thinks his tears too sacred to be seen, even by her.\nTherefore she sits in the darkness for a while without a word, then\ngently begins to move about, now stirring the fire, now standing at\nthe dark window looking out. Finally he tells her, with recovered\nself-command, \"As you say, Mrs. Rouncewell, it is no worse for being\nconfessed. It is getting late, and they are not come. Light the\nroom!\" When it is lighted and the weather shut out, it is only left\nto him to listen.\n\nBut they find that however dejected and ill he is, he brightens when\na quiet pretence is made of looking at the fires in her rooms and\nbeing sure that everything is ready to receive her. Poor pretence as\nit is, these allusions to her being expected keep up hope within him.\n\nMidnight comes, and with it the same blank. The carriages in the\nstreets are few, and other late sounds in that neighbourhood there\nare none, unless a man so very nomadically drunk as to stray into the\nfrigid zone goes brawling and bellowing along the pavement. Upon this\nwintry night it is so still that listening to the intense silence is\nlike looking at intense darkness. If any distant sound be audible in\nthis case, it departs through the gloom like a feeble light in that,\nand all is heavier than before.\n\nThe corporation of servants are dismissed to bed (not unwilling to\ngo, for they were up all last night), and only Mrs. Rouncewell and\nGeorge keep watch in Sir Leicester's room. As the night lags tardily\non--or rather when it seems to stop altogether, at between two and\nthree o'clock--they find a restless craving on him to know more about\nthe weather, now he cannot see it. Hence George, patrolling regularly\nevery half-hour to the rooms so carefully looked after, extends his\nmarch to the hall-door, looks about him, and brings back the best\nreport he can make of the worst of nights, the sleet still falling\nand even the stone footways lying ankle-deep in icy sludge.\n\nVolumnia, in her room up a retired landing on the staircase--the\nsecond turning past the end of the carving and gilding, a cousinly\nroom containing a fearful abortion of a portrait of Sir Leicester\nbanished for its crimes, and commanding in the day a solemn yard\nplanted with dried-up shrubs like antediluvian specimens of black\ntea--is a prey to horrors of many kinds. Not last nor least among\nthem, possibly, is a horror of what may befall her little income in\nthe event, as she expresses it, \"of anything happening\" to Sir\nLeicester. Anything, in this sense, meaning one thing only; and that\nthe last thing that can happen to the consciousness of any baronet in\nthe known world.\n\nAn effect of these horrors is that Volumnia finds she cannot go to\nbed in her own room or sit by the fire in her own room, but must come\nforth with her fair head tied up in a profusion of shawl, and her\nfair form enrobed in drapery, and parade the mansion like a ghost,\nparticularly haunting the rooms, warm and luxurious, prepared for one\nwho still does not return. Solitude under such circumstances being\nnot to be thought of, Volumnia is attended by her maid, who,\nimpressed from her own bed for that purpose, extremely cold, very\nsleepy, and generally an injured maid as condemned by circumstances\nto take office with a cousin, when she had resolved to be maid to\nnothing less than ten thousand a year, has not a sweet expression of\ncountenance.\n\nThe periodical visits of the trooper to these rooms, however, in the\ncourse of his patrolling is an assurance of protection and company\nboth to mistress and maid, which renders them very acceptable in the\nsmall hours of the night. Whenever he is heard advancing, they both\nmake some little decorative preparation to receive him; at other\ntimes they divide their watches into short scraps of oblivion and\ndialogues not wholly free from acerbity, as to whether Miss Dedlock,\nsitting with her feet upon the fender, was or was not falling into\nthe fire when rescued (to her great displeasure) by her guardian\ngenius the maid.\n\n\"How is Sir Leicester now, Mr. George?\" inquires Volumnia, adjusting\nher cowl over her head.\n\n\"Why, Sir Leicester is much the same, miss. He is very low and ill,\nand he even wanders a little sometimes.\"\n\n\"Has he asked for me?\" inquires Volumnia tenderly.\n\n\"Why, no, I can't say he has, miss. Not within my hearing, that is to\nsay.\"\n\n\"This is a truly sad time, Mr. George.\"\n\n\"It is indeed, miss. Hadn't you better go to bed?\"\n\n\"You had a deal better go to bed, Miss Dedlock,\" quoth the maid\nsharply.\n\nBut Volumnia answers No! No! She may be asked for, she may be wanted\nat a moment's notice. She never should forgive herself \"if anything\nwas to happen\" and she was not on the spot. She declines to enter on\nthe question, mooted by the maid, how the spot comes to be there, and\nnot in her room (which is nearer to Sir Leicester's), but staunchly\ndeclares that on the spot she will remain. Volumnia further makes a\nmerit of not having \"closed an eye\"--as if she had twenty or\nthirty--though it is hard to reconcile this statement with her having\nmost indisputably opened two within five minutes.\n\nBut when it comes to four o'clock, and still the same blank,\nVolumnia's constancy begins to fail her, or rather it begins to\nstrengthen, for she now considers that it is her duty to be ready for\nthe morrow, when much may be expected of her, that, in fact,\nhowsoever anxious to remain upon the spot, it may be required of her,\nas an act of self-devotion, to desert the spot. So when the trooper\nreappears with his, \"Hadn't you better go to bed, miss?\" and when the\nmaid protests, more sharply than before, \"You had a deal better go to\nbed, Miss Dedlock!\" she meekly rises and says, \"Do with me what you\nthink best!\"\n\nMr. George undoubtedly thinks it best to escort her on his arm to the\ndoor of her cousinly chamber, and the maid as undoubtedly thinks it\nbest to hustle her into bed with mighty little ceremony. Accordingly,\nthese steps are taken; and now the trooper, in his rounds, has the\nhouse to himself.\n\nThere is no improvement in the weather. From the portico, from the\neaves, from the parapet, from every ledge and post and pillar, drips\nthe thawed snow. It has crept, as if for shelter, into the lintels of\nthe great door--under it, into the corners of the windows, into every\nchink and crevice of retreat, and there wastes and dies. It is\nfalling still; upon the roof, upon the skylight, even through the\nskylight, and drip, drip, drip, with the regularity of the Ghost's\nWalk, on the stone floor below.\n\nThe trooper, his old recollections awakened by the solitary grandeur\nof a great house--no novelty to him once at Chesney Wold--goes up the\nstairs and through the chief rooms, holding up his light at arm's\nlength. Thinking of his varied fortunes within the last few weeks,\nand of his rustic boyhood, and of the two periods of his life so\nstrangely brought together across the wide intermediate space;\nthinking of the murdered man whose image is fresh in his mind;\nthinking of the lady who has disappeared from these very rooms and\nthe tokens of whose recent presence are all here; thinking of the\nmaster of the house upstairs and of the foreboding, \"Who will tell\nhim!\" he looks here and looks there, and reflects how he MIGHT see\nsomething now, which it would tax his boldness to walk up to, lay his\nhand upon, and prove to be a fancy. But it is all blank, blank as the\ndarkness above and below, while he goes up the great staircase again,\nblank as the oppressive silence.\n\n\"All is still in readiness, George Rouncewell?\"\n\n\"Quite orderly and right, Sir Leicester.\"\n\n\"No word of any kind?\"\n\nThe trooper shakes his head.\n\n\"No letter that can possibly have been overlooked?\"\n\nBut he knows there is no such hope as that and lays his head down\nwithout looking for an answer.\n\nVery familiar to him, as he said himself some hours ago, George\nRouncewell lifts him into easier positions through the long remainder\nof the blank wintry night, and equally familiar with his unexpressed\nwish, extinguishes the light and undraws the curtains at the first\nlate break of day. The day comes like a phantom. Cold, colourless,\nand vague, it sends a warning streak before it of a deathlike hue, as\nif it cried out, \"Look what I am bringing you who watch there! Who\nwill tell him!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LIX\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nIt was three o'clock in the morning when the houses outside London\ndid at last begin to exclude the country and to close us in with\nstreets. We had made our way along roads in a far worse condition\nthan when we had traversed them by daylight, both the fall and the\nthaw having lasted ever since; but the energy of my companion never\nslackened. It had only been, as I thought, of less assistance than\nthe horses in getting us on, and it had often aided them. They had\nstopped exhausted half-way up hills, they had been driven through\nstreams of turbulent water, they had slipped down and become\nentangled with the harness; but he and his little lantern had been\nalways ready, and when the mishap was set right, I had never heard\nany variation in his cool, \"Get on, my lads!\"\n\nThe steadiness and confidence with which he had directed our journey\nback I could not account for. Never wavering, he never even stopped\nto make an inquiry until we were within a few miles of London. A very\nfew words, here and there, were then enough for him; and thus we\ncame, at between three and four o'clock in the morning, into\nIslington.\n\nI will not dwell on the suspense and anxiety with which I reflected\nall this time that we were leaving my mother farther and farther\nbehind every minute. I think I had some strong hope that he must be\nright and could not fail to have a satisfactory object in following\nthis woman, but I tormented myself with questioning it and discussing\nit during the whole journey. What was to ensue when we found her and\nwhat could compensate us for this loss of time were questions also\nthat I could not possibly dismiss; my mind was quite tortured by long\ndwelling on such reflections when we stopped.\n\nWe stopped in a high-street where there was a coach-stand. My\ncompanion paid our two drivers, who were as completely covered with\nsplashes as if they had been dragged along the roads like the\ncarriage itself, and giving them some brief direction where to take\nit, lifted me out of it and into a hackney-coach he had chosen from\nthe rest.\n\n\"Why, my dear!\" he said as he did this. \"How wet you are!\"\n\nI had not been conscious of it. But the melted snow had found its way\ninto the carriage, and I had got out two or three times when a fallen\nhorse was plunging and had to be got up, and the wet had penetrated\nmy dress. I assured him it was no matter, but the driver, who knew\nhim, would not be dissuaded by me from running down the street to his\nstable, whence he brought an armful of clean dry straw. They shook it\nout and strewed it well about me, and I found it warm and\ncomfortable.\n\n\"Now, my dear,\" said Mr. Bucket, with his head in at the window after\nI was shut up. \"We're a-going to mark this person down. It may take a\nlittle time, but you don't mind that. You're pretty sure that I've\ngot a motive. Ain't you?\"\n\nI little thought what it was, little thought in how short a time I\nshould understand it better, but I assured him that I had confidence\nin him.\n\n\"So you may have, my dear,\" he returned. \"And I tell you what! If you\nonly repose half as much confidence in me as I repose in you after\nwhat I've experienced of you, that'll do. Lord! You're no trouble at\nall. I never see a young woman in any station of society--and I've\nseen many elevated ones too--conduct herself like you have conducted\nyourself since you was called out of your bed. You're a pattern, you\nknow, that's what you are,\" said Mr. Bucket warmly; \"you're a\npattern.\"\n\nI told him I was very glad, as indeed I was, to have been no\nhindrance to him, and that I hoped I should be none now.\n\n\"My dear,\" he returned, \"when a young lady is as mild as she's game,\nand as game as she's mild, that's all I ask, and more than I expect.\nShe then becomes a queen, and that's about what you are yourself.\"\n\nWith these encouraging words--they really were encouraging to me\nunder those lonely and anxious circumstances--he got upon the box,\nand we once more drove away. Where we drove I neither knew then nor\nhave ever known since, but we appeared to seek out the narrowest and\nworst streets in London. Whenever I saw him directing the driver, I\nwas prepared for our descending into a deeper complication of such\nstreets, and we never failed to do so.\n\nSometimes we emerged upon a wider thoroughfare or came to a larger\nbuilding than the generality, well lighted. Then we stopped at\noffices like those we had visited when we began our journey, and I\nsaw him in consultation with others. Sometimes he would get down by\nan archway or at a street corner and mysteriously show the light of\nhis little lantern. This would attract similar lights from various\ndark quarters, like so many insects, and a fresh consultation would\nbe held. By degrees we appeared to contract our search within\nnarrower and easier limits. Single police-officers on duty could now\ntell Mr. Bucket what he wanted to know and point to him where to go.\nAt last we stopped for a rather long conversation between him and one\nof these men, which I supposed to be satisfactory from his manner of\nnodding from time to time. When it was finished he came to me looking\nvery busy and very attentive.\n\n\"Now, Miss Summerson,\" he said to me, \"you won't be alarmed whatever\ncomes off, I know. It's not necessary for me to give you any further\ncaution than to tell you that we have marked this person down and\nthat you may be of use to me before I know it myself. I don't like to\nask such a thing, my dear, but would you walk a little way?\"\n\nOf course I got out directly and took his arm.\n\n\"It ain't so easy to keep your feet,\" said Mr. Bucket, \"but take\ntime.\"\n\nAlthough I looked about me confusedly and hurriedly as we crossed the\nstreet, I thought I knew the place. \"Are we in Holborn?\" I asked him.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mr. Bucket. \"Do you know this turning?\"\n\n\"It looks like Chancery Lane.\"\n\n\"And was christened so, my dear,\" said Mr. Bucket.\n\nWe turned down it, and as we went shuffling through the sleet, I\nheard the clocks strike half-past five. We passed on in silence and\nas quickly as we could with such a foot-hold, when some one coming\ntowards us on the narrow pavement, wrapped in a cloak, stopped and\nstood aside to give me room. In the same moment I heard an\nexclamation of wonder and my own name from Mr. Woodcourt. I knew his\nvoice very well.\n\nIt was so unexpected and so--I don't know what to call it, whether\npleasant or painful--to come upon it after my feverish wandering\njourney, and in the midst of the night, that I could not keep back\nthe tears from my eyes. It was like hearing his voice in a strange\ncountry.\n\n\"My dear Miss Summerson, that you should be out at this hour, and in\nsuch weather!\"\n\nHe had heard from my guardian of my having been called away on some\nuncommon business and said so to dispense with any explanation. I\ntold him that we had but just left a coach and were going--but then I\nwas obliged to look at my companion.\n\n\"Why, you see, Mr. Woodcourt\"--he had caught the name from me--\"we\nare a-going at present into the next street. Inspector Bucket.\"\n\nMr. Woodcourt, disregarding my remonstrances, had hurriedly taken off\nhis cloak and was putting it about me. \"That's a good move, too,\"\nsaid Mr. Bucket, assisting, \"a very good move.\"\n\n\"May I go with you?\" said Mr. Woodcourt. I don't know whether to me\nor to my companion.\n\n\"Why, Lord!\" exclaimed Mr. Bucket, taking the answer on himself. \"Of\ncourse you may.\"\n\nIt was all said in a moment, and they took me between them, wrapped\nin the cloak.\n\n\"I have just left Richard,\" said Mr. Woodcourt. \"I have been sitting\nwith him since ten o'clock last night.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear me, he is ill!\"\n\n\"No, no, believe me; not ill, but not quite well. He was depressed\nand faint--you know he gets so worried and so worn sometimes--and Ada\nsent to me of course; and when I came home I found her note and came\nstraight here. Well! Richard revived so much after a little while,\nand Ada was so happy and so convinced of its being my doing, though\nGod knows I had little enough to do with it, that I remained with him\nuntil he had been fast asleep some hours. As fast asleep as she is\nnow, I hope!\"\n\nHis friendly and familiar way of speaking of them, his unaffected\ndevotion to them, the grateful confidence with which I knew he had\ninspired my darling, and the comfort he was to her; could I separate\nall this from his promise to me? How thankless I must have been if it\nhad not recalled the words he said to me when he was so moved by the\nchange in my appearance: \"I will accept him as a trust, and it shall\nbe a sacred one!\"\n\nWe now turned into another narrow street. \"Mr. Woodcourt,\" said Mr.\nBucket, who had eyed him closely as we came along, \"our business\ntakes us to a law-stationer's here, a certain Mr. Snagsby's. What,\nyou know him, do you?\" He was so quick that he saw it in an instant.\n\n\"Yes, I know a little of him and have called upon him at this place.\"\n\n\"Indeed, sir?\" said Mr. Bucket. \"Then you will be so good as to let\nme leave Miss Summerson with you for a moment while I go and have\nhalf a word with him?\"\n\nThe last police-officer with whom he had conferred was standing\nsilently behind us. I was not aware of it until he struck in on my\nsaying I heard some one crying.\n\n\"Don't be alarmed, miss,\" he returned. \"It's Snagsby's servant.\"\n\n\"Why, you see,\" said Mr. Bucket, \"the girl's subject to fits, and has\n'em bad upon her to-night. A most contrary circumstance it is, for I\nwant certain information out of that girl, and she must be brought to\nreason somehow.\"\n\n\"At all events, they wouldn't be up yet if it wasn't for her, Mr.\nBucket,\" said the other man. \"She's been at it pretty well all night,\nsir.\"\n\n\"Well, that's true,\" he returned. \"My light's burnt out. Show yours a\nmoment.\"\n\nAll this passed in a whisper a door or two from the house in which I\ncould faintly hear crying and moaning. In the little round of light\nproduced for the purpose, Mr. Bucket went up to the door and knocked.\nThe door was opened after he had knocked twice, and he went in,\nleaving us standing in the street.\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" said Mr. Woodcourt, \"if without obtruding myself on\nyour confidence I may remain near you, pray let me do so.\"\n\n\"You are truly kind,\" I answered. \"I need wish to keep no secret of\nmy own from you; if I keep any, it is another's.\"\n\n\"I quite understand. Trust me, I will remain near you only so long as\nI can fully respect it.\"\n\n\"I trust implicitly to you,\" I said. \"I know and deeply feel how\nsacredly you keep your promise.\"\n\nAfter a short time the little round of light shone out again, and Mr.\nBucket advanced towards us in it with his earnest face. \"Please to\ncome in, Miss Summerson,\" he said, \"and sit down by the fire. Mr.\nWoodcourt, from information I have received I understand you are a\nmedical man. Would you look to this girl and see if anything can be\ndone to bring her round. She has a letter somewhere that I\nparticularly want. It's not in her box, and I think it must be about\nher; but she is so twisted and clenched up that she is difficult to\nhandle without hurting.\"\n\nWe all three went into the house together; although it was cold and\nraw, it smelt close too from being up all night. In the passage\nbehind the door stood a scared, sorrowful-looking little man in a\ngrey coat who seemed to have a naturally polite manner and spoke\nmeekly.\n\n\"Downstairs, if you please, Mr. Bucket,\" said he. \"The lady will\nexcuse the front kitchen; we use it as our workaday sitting-room. The\nback is Guster's bedroom, and in it she's a-carrying on, poor thing,\nto a frightful extent!\"\n\nWe went downstairs, followed by Mr. Snagsby, as I soon found the\nlittle man to be. In the front kitchen, sitting by the fire, was Mrs.\nSnagsby, with very red eyes and a very severe expression of face.\n\n\"My little woman,\" said Mr. Snagsby, entering behind us, \"to\nwave--not to put too fine a point upon it, my dear--hostilities for\none single moment in the course of this prolonged night, here is\nInspector Bucket, Mr. Woodcourt, and a lady.\"\n\nShe looked very much astonished, as she had reason for doing, and\nlooked particularly hard at me.\n\n\"My little woman,\" said Mr. Snagsby, sitting down in the remotest\ncorner by the door, as if he were taking a liberty, \"it is not\nunlikely that you may inquire of me why Inspector Bucket, Mr.\nWoodcourt, and a lady call upon us in Cook's Court, Cursitor Street,\nat the present hour. I don't know. I have not the least idea. If I\nwas to be informed, I should despair of understanding, and I'd rather\nnot be told.\"\n\nHe appeared so miserable, sitting with his head upon his hand, and I\nappeared so unwelcome, that I was going to offer an apology when Mr.\nBucket took the matter on himself.\n\n\"Now, Mr. Snagsby,\" said he, \"the best thing you can do is to go\nalong with Mr. Woodcourt to look after your Guster--\"\n\n\"My Guster, Mr. Bucket!\" cried Mr. Snagsby. \"Go on, sir, go on. I\nshall be charged with that next.\"\n\n\"And to hold the candle,\" pursued Mr. Bucket without correcting\nhimself, \"or hold her, or make yourself useful in any way you're\nasked. Which there's not a man alive more ready to do, for you're a\nman of urbanity and suavity, you know, and you've got the sort of\nheart that can feel for another. Mr. Woodcourt, would you be so good\nas see to her, and if you can get that letter from her, to let me\nhave it as soon as ever you can?\"\n\nAs they went out, Mr. Bucket made me sit down in a corner by the fire\nand take off my wet shoes, which he turned up to dry upon the fender,\ntalking all the time.\n\n\"Don't you be at all put out, miss, by the want of a hospitable look\nfrom Mrs. Snagsby there, because she's under a mistake altogether.\nShe'll find that out sooner than will be agreeable to a lady of her\ngenerally correct manner of forming her thoughts, because I'm a-going\nto explain it to her.\" Here, standing on the hearth with his wet hat\nand shawls in his hand, himself a pile of wet, he turned to Mrs.\nSnagsby. \"Now, the first thing that I say to you, as a married woman\npossessing what you may call charms, you know--'Believe Me, if All\nThose Endearing,' and cetrer--you're well acquainted with the song,\nbecause it's in vain for you to tell me that you and good society are\nstrangers--charms--attractions, mind you, that ought to give you\nconfidence in yourself--is, that you've done it.\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby looked rather alarmed, relented a little and faltered,\nwhat did Mr. Bucket mean.\n\n\"What does Mr. Bucket mean?\" he repeated, and I saw by his face that\nall the time he talked he was listening for the discovery of the\nletter, to my own great agitation, for I knew then how important it\nmust be; \"I'll tell you what he means, ma'am. Go and see Othello\nacted. That's the tragedy for you.\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby consciously asked why.\n\n\"Why?\" said Mr. Bucket. \"Because you'll come to that if you don't\nlook out. Why, at the very moment while I speak, I know what your\nmind's not wholly free from respecting this young lady. But shall I\ntell you who this young lady is? Now, come, you're what I call an\nintellectual woman--with your soul too large for your body, if you\ncome to that, and chafing it--and you know me, and you recollect\nwhere you saw me last, and what was talked of in that circle. Don't\nyou? Yes! Very well. This young lady is that young lady.\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby appeared to understand the reference better than I did\nat the time.\n\n\"And Toughey--him as you call Jo--was mixed up in the same business,\nand no other; and the law-writer that you know of was mixed up in the\nsame business, and no other; and your husband, with no more knowledge\nof it than your great grandfather, was mixed up (by Mr. Tulkinghorn,\ndeceased, his best customer) in the same business, and no other; and\nthe whole bileing of people was mixed up in the same business, and no\nother. And yet a married woman, possessing your attractions, shuts\nher eyes (and sparklers too), and goes and runs her delicate-formed\nhead against a wall. Why, I am ashamed of you! (I expected Mr.\nWoodcourt might have got it by this time.)\"\n\nMrs. Snagsby shook her head and put her handkerchief to her eyes.\n\n\"Is that all?\" said Mr. Bucket excitedly. \"No. See what happens.\nAnother person mixed up in that business and no other, a person in a\nwretched state, comes here to-night and is seen a-speaking to your\nmaid-servant; and between her and your maid-servant there passes\na paper that I would give a hundred pound for, down. What do\nyou do? You hide and you watch 'em, and you pounce upon that\nmaid-servant--knowing what she's subject to and what a little thing\nwill bring 'em on--in that surprising manner and with that severity\nthat, by the Lord, she goes off and keeps off, when a life may be\nhanging upon that girl's words!\"\n\nHe so thoroughly meant what he said now that I involuntarily clasped\nmy hands and felt the room turning away from me. But it stopped. Mr.\nWoodcourt came in, put a paper into his hand, and went away again.\n\n\"Now, Mrs. Snagsby, the only amends you can make,\" said Mr. Bucket,\nrapidly glancing at it, \"is to let me speak a word to this young lady\nin private here. And if you know of any help that you can give to\nthat gentleman in the next kitchen there or can think of any one\nthing that's likelier than another to bring the girl round, do your\nswiftest and best!\" In an instant she was gone, and he had shut the\ndoor. \"Now my dear, you're steady and quite sure of yourself?\"\n\n\"Quite,\" said I.\n\n\"Whose writing is that?\"\n\nIt was my mother's. A pencil-writing, on a crushed and torn piece of\npaper, blotted with wet. Folded roughly like a letter, and directed\nto me at my guardian's.\n\n\"You know the hand,\" he said, \"and if you are firm enough to read it\nto me, do! But be particular to a word.\"\n\nIt had been written in portions, at different times. I read what\nfollows:\n\n\n   I came to the cottage with two objects. First, to see the\n   dear one, if I could, once more--but only to see her--not\n   to speak to her or let her know that I was near. The other\n   object, to elude pursuit and to be lost. Do not blame the\n   mother for her share. The assistance that she rendered me,\n   she rendered on my strongest assurance that it was for the\n   dear one's good. You remember her dead child. The men's\n   consent I bought, but her help was freely given.\n\n\n\"'I came.' That was written,\" said my companion, \"when she rested\nthere. It bears out what I made of it. I was right.\"\n\nThe next was written at another time:\n\n\n   I have wandered a long distance, and for many hours, and\n   I know that I must soon die. These streets! I have no\n   purpose but to die. When I left, I had a worse, but I am\n   saved from adding that guilt to the rest. Cold, wet, and\n   fatigue are sufficient causes for my being found dead, but\n   I shall die of others, though I suffer from these. It was\n   right that all that had sustained me should give way at\n   once and that I should die of terror and my conscience.\n\n\n\"Take courage,\" said Mr. Bucket. \"There's only a few words more.\"\n\nThose, too, were written at another time. To all appearance, almost\nin the dark:\n\n\n   I have done all I could do to be lost. I shall be soon\n   forgotten so, and shall disgrace him least. I have nothing\n   about me by which I can be recognized. This paper I part\n   with now. The place where I shall lie down, if I can get\n   so far, has been often in my mind. Farewell. Forgive.\n\n\nMr. Bucket, supporting me with his arm, lowered me gently into my\nchair. \"Cheer up! Don't think me hard with you, my dear, but as soon\nas ever you feel equal to it, get your shoes on and be ready.\"\n\nI did as he required, but I was left there a long time, praying for\nmy unhappy mother. They were all occupied with the poor girl, and I\nheard Mr. Woodcourt directing them and speaking to her often. At\nlength he came in with Mr. Bucket and said that as it was important\nto address her gently, he thought it best that I should ask her for\nwhatever information we desired to obtain. There was no doubt that\nshe could now reply to questions if she were soothed and not alarmed.\nThe questions, Mr. Bucket said, were how she came by the letter, what\npassed between her and the person who gave her the letter, and where\nthe person went. Holding my mind as steadily as I could to these\npoints, I went into the next room with them. Mr. Woodcourt would have\nremained outside, but at my solicitation went in with us.\n\nThe poor girl was sitting on the floor where they had laid her down.\nThey stood around her, though at a little distance, that she might\nhave air. She was not pretty and looked weak and poor, but she had a\nplaintive and a good face, though it was still a little wild. I\nkneeled on the ground beside her and put her poor head upon my\nshoulder, whereupon she drew her arm round my neck and burst into\ntears.\n\n\"My poor girl,\" said I, laying my face against her forehead, for\nindeed I was crying too, and trembling, \"it seems cruel to trouble\nyou now, but more depends on our knowing something about this letter\nthan I could tell you in an hour.\"\n\nShe began piteously declaring that she didn't mean any harm, she\ndidn't mean any harm, Mrs. Snagsby!\n\n\"We are all sure of that,\" said I. \"But pray tell me how you got it.\"\n\n\"Yes, dear lady, I will, and tell you true. I'll tell true, indeed,\nMrs. Snagsby.\"\n\n\"I am sure of that,\" said I. \"And how was it?\"\n\n\"I had been out on an errand, dear lady--long after it was\ndark--quite late; and when I came home, I found a common-looking\nperson, all wet and muddy, looking up at our house. When she saw me\ncoming in at the door, she called me back and said did I live here.\nAnd I said yes, and she said she knew only one or two places about\nhere, but had lost her way and couldn't find them. Oh, what shall I\ndo, what shall I do! They won't believe me! She didn't say any harm\nto me, and I didn't say any harm to her, indeed, Mrs. Snagsby!\"\n\nIt was necessary for her mistress to comfort her--which she did, I\nmust say, with a good deal of contrition--before she could be got\nbeyond this.\n\n\"She could not find those places,\" said I.\n\n\"No!\" cried the girl, shaking her head. \"No! Couldn't find them. And\nshe was so faint, and lame, and miserable, Oh so wretched, that if\nyou had seen her, Mr. Snagsby, you'd have given her half a crown, I\nknow!\"\n\n\"Well, Guster, my girl,\" said he, at first not knowing what to say.\n\"I hope I should.\"\n\n\"And yet she was so well spoken,\" said the girl, looking at me with\nwide open eyes, \"that it made a person's heart bleed. And so she said\nto me, did I know the way to the burying ground? And I asked her\nwhich burying ground. And she said, the poor burying ground. And so I\ntold her I had been a poor child myself, and it was according to\nparishes. But she said she meant a poor burying ground not very far\nfrom here, where there was an archway, and a step, and an iron gate.\"\n\nAs I watched her face and soothed her to go on, I saw that Mr. Bucket\nreceived this with a look which I could not separate from one of\nalarm.\n\n\"Oh, dear, dear!\" cried the girl, pressing her hair back with her\nhands. \"What shall I do, what shall I do! She meant the burying\nground where the man was buried that took the sleeping-stuff--that\nyou came home and told us of, Mr. Snagsby--that frightened me so,\nMrs. Snagsby. Oh, I am frightened again. Hold me!\"\n\n\"You are so much better now,\" sald I. \"Pray, pray tell me more.\"\n\n\"Yes I will, yes I will! But don't be angry with me, that's a dear\nlady, because I have been so ill.\"\n\nAngry with her, poor soul!\n\n\"There! Now I will, now I will. So she said, could I tell her how to\nfind it, and I said yes, and I told her; and she looked at me with\neyes like almost as if she was blind, and herself all waving back.\nAnd so she took out the letter, and showed it me, and said if she was\nto put that in the post-office, it would be rubbed out and not minded\nand never sent; and would I take it from her, and send it, and the\nmessenger would be paid at the house. And so I said yes, if it was no\nharm, and she said no--no harm. And so I took it from her, and she\nsaid she had nothing to give me, and I said I was poor myself and\nconsequently wanted nothing. And so she said God bless you, and\nwent.\"\n\n\"And did she go--\"\n\n\"Yes,\" cried the girl, anticipating the inquiry. \"Yes! She went the\nway I had shown her. Then I came in, and Mrs. Snagsby came behind me\nfrom somewhere and laid hold of me, and I was frightened.\"\n\nMr. Woodcourt took her kindly from me. Mr. Bucket wrapped me up, and\nimmediately we were in the street. Mr. Woodcourt hesitated, but I\nsaid, \"Don't leave me now!\" and Mr. Bucket added, \"You'll be better\nwith us, we may want you; don't lose time!\"\n\nI have the most confused impressions of that walk. I recollect that\nit was neither night nor day, that morning was dawning but the\nstreet-lamps were not yet put out, that the sleet was still falling\nand that all the ways were deep with it. I recollect a few chilled\npeople passing in the streets. I recollect the wet house-tops, the\nclogged and bursting gutters and water-spouts, the mounds of\nblackened ice and snow over which we passed, the narrowness of the\ncourts by which we went. At the same time I remember that the poor\ngirl seemed to be yet telling her story audibly and plainly in my\nhearing, that I could feel her resting on my arm, that the stained\nhouse-fronts put on human shapes and looked at me, that great\nwater-gates seemed to be opening and closing in my head or in the\nair, and that the unreal things were more substantial than the real.\n\nAt last we stood under a dark and miserable covered way, where one\nlamp was burning over an iron gate and where the morning faintly\nstruggled in. The gate was closed. Beyond it was a burial ground--a\ndreadful spot in which the night was very slowly stirring, but where\nI could dimly see heaps of dishonoured graves and stones, hemmed in\nby filthy houses with a few dull lights in their windows and on whose\nwalls a thick humidity broke out like a disease. On the step at the\ngate, drenched in the fearful wet of such a place, which oozed and\nsplashed down everywhere, I saw, with a cry of pity and horror, a\nwoman lying--Jenny, the mother of the dead child.\n\nI ran forward, but they stopped me, and Mr. Woodcourt entreated me\nwith the greatest earnestness, even with tears, before I went up to\nthe figure to listen for an instant to what Mr. Bucket said. I did\nso, as I thought. I did so, as I am sure.\n\n\"Miss Summerson, you'll understand me, if you think a moment. They\nchanged clothes at the cottage.\"\n\nThey changed clothes at the cottage. I could repeat the words in my\nmind, and I knew what they meant of themselves, but I attached no\nmeaning to them in any other connexion.\n\n\"And one returned,\" said Mr. Bucket, \"and one went on. And the one\nthat went on only went on a certain way agreed upon to deceive and\nthen turned across country and went home. Think a moment!\"\n\nI could repeat this in my mind too, but I had not the least idea what\nit meant. I saw before me, lying on the step, the mother of the dead\nchild. She lay there with one arm creeping round a bar of the iron\ngate and seeming to embrace it. She lay there, who had so lately\nspoken to my mother. She lay there, a distressed, unsheltered,\nsenseless creature. She who had brought my mother's letter, who could\ngive me the only clue to where my mother was; she, who was to guide\nus to rescue and save her whom we had sought so far, who had come to\nthis condition by some means connected with my mother that I could\nnot follow, and might be passing beyond our reach and help at that\nmoment; she lay there, and they stopped me! I saw but did not\ncomprehend the solemn and compassionate look in Mr. Woodcourt's face.\nI saw but did not comprehend his touching the other on the breast to\nkeep him back. I saw him stand uncovered in the bitter air, with a\nreverence for something. But my understanding for all this was gone.\n\nI even heard it said between them, \"Shall she go?\"\n\n\"She had better go. Her hands should be the first to touch her. They\nhave a higher right than ours.\"\n\nI passed on to the gate and stooped down. I lifted the heavy head,\nput the long dank hair aside, and turned the face. And it was my\nmother, cold and dead.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LX\n\nPerspective\n\n\nI proceed to other passages of my narrative. From the goodness of all\nabout me I derived such consolation as I can never think of unmoved.\nI have already said so much of myself, and so much still remains,\nthat I will not dwell upon my sorrow. I had an illness, but it was\nnot a long one; and I would avoid even this mention of it if I could\nquite keep down the recollection of their sympathy.\n\nI proceed to other passages of my narrative.\n\nDuring the time of my illness, we were still in London, where Mrs.\nWoodcourt had come, on my guardian's invitation, to stay with us.\nWhen my guardian thought me well and cheerful enough to talk with him\nin our old way--though I could have done that sooner if he would have\nbelieved me--I resumed my work and my chair beside his. He had\nappointed the time himself, and we were alone.\n\n\"Dame Trot,\" said he, receiving me with a kiss, \"welcome to the\ngrowlery again, my dear. I have a scheme to develop, little woman. I\npropose to remain here, perhaps for six months, perhaps for a longer\ntime--as it may be. Quite to settle here for a while, in short.\"\n\n\"And in the meanwhile leave Bleak House?\" said I.\n\n\"Aye, my dear? Bleak House,\" he returned, \"must learn to take care of\nitself.\"\n\nI thought his tone sounded sorrowful, but looking at him, I saw his\nkind face lighted up by its pleasantest smile.\n\n\"Bleak House,\" he repeated--and his tone did NOT sound sorrowful, I\nfound--\"must learn to take care of itself. It is a long way from Ada,\nmy dear, and Ada stands much in need of you.\"\n\n\"It's like you, guardian,\" said I, \"to have been taking that into\nconsideration for a happy surprise to both of us.\"\n\n\"Not so disinterested either, my dear, if you mean to extol me for\nthat virtue, since if you were generally on the road, you could be\nseldom with me. And besides, I wish to hear as much and as often of\nAda as I can in this condition of estrangement from poor Rick. Not of\nher alone, but of him too, poor fellow.\"\n\n\"Have you seen Mr. Woodcourt, this morning, guardian?\"\n\n\"I see Mr. Woodcourt every morning, Dame Durden.\"\n\n\"Does he still say the same of Richard?\"\n\n\"Just the same. He knows of no direct bodily illness that he has; on\nthe contrary, he believes that he has none. Yet he is not easy about\nhim; who CAN be?\"\n\nMy dear girl had been to see us lately every day, some times twice in\na day. But we had foreseen, all along, that this would only last\nuntil I was quite myself. We knew full well that her fervent heart\nwas as full of affection and gratitude towards her cousin John as it\nhad ever been, and we acquitted Richard of laying any injunctions\nupon her to stay away; but we knew on the other hand that she felt it\na part of her duty to him to be sparing of her visits at our house.\nMy guardian's delicacy had soon perceived this and had tried to\nconvey to her that he thought she was right.\n\n\"Dear, unfortunate, mistaken Richard,\" said I. \"When will he awake\nfrom his delusion!\"\n\n\"He is not in the way to do so now, my dear,\" replied my guardian.\n\"The more he suffers, the more averse he will be to me, having made\nme the principal representative of the great occasion of his\nsuffering.\"\n\nI could not help adding, \"So unreasonably!\"\n\n\"Ah, Dame Trot, Dame Trot,\" returned my guardian, \"what shall we find\nreasonable in Jarndyce and Jarndyce! Unreason and injustice at the\ntop, unreason and injustice at the heart and at the bottom, unreason\nand injustice from beginning to end--if it ever has an end--how\nshould poor Rick, always hovering near it, pluck reason out of it? He\nno more gathers grapes from thorns or figs from thistles than older\nmen did in old times.\"\n\nHis gentleness and consideration for Richard whenever we spoke of him\ntouched me so that I was always silent on this subject very soon.\n\n\"I suppose the Lord Chancellor, and the Vice Chancellors, and the\nwhole Chancery battery of great guns would be infinitely astonished\nby such unreason and injustice in one of their suitors,\" pursued my\nguardian. \"When those learned gentlemen begin to raise moss-roses\nfrom the powder they sow in their wigs, I shall begin to be\nastonished too!\"\n\nHe checked himself in glancing towards the window to look where the\nwind was and leaned on the back of my chair instead.\n\n\"Well, well, little woman! To go on, my dear. This rock we must leave\nto time, chance, and hopeful circumstance. We must not shipwreck Ada\nupon it. She cannot afford, and he cannot afford, the remotest chance\nof another separation from a friend. Therefore I have particularly\nbegged of Woodcourt, and I now particularly beg of you, my dear, not\nto move this subject with Rick. Let it rest. Next week, next month,\nnext year, sooner or later, he will see me with clearer eyes. I can\nwait.\"\n\nBut I had already discussed it with him, I confessed; and so, I\nthought, had Mr. Woodcourt.\n\n\"So he tells me,\" returned my guardian. \"Very good. He has made his\nprotest, and Dame Durden has made hers, and there is nothing more to\nbe said about it. Now I come to Mrs. Woodcourt. How do you like her,\nmy dear?\"\n\nIn answer to this question, which was oddly abrupt, I said I liked\nher very much and thought she was more agreeable than she used to be.\n\n\"I think so too,\" said my guardian. \"Less pedigree? Not so much of\nMorgan ap--what's his name?\"\n\nThat was what I meant, I acknowledged, though he was a very harmless\nperson, even when we had had more of him.\n\n\"Still, upon the whole, he is as well in his native mountains,\" said\nmy guardian. \"I agree with you. Then, little woman, can I do better\nfor a time than retain Mrs. Woodcourt here?\"\n\nNo. And yet--\n\nMy guardian looked at me, waiting for what I had to say.\n\nI had nothing to say. At least I had nothing in my mind that I could\nsay. I had an undefined impression that it might have been better if\nwe had had some other inmate, but I could hardly have explained why\neven to myself. Or, if to myself, certainly not to anybody else.\n\n\"You see,\" said my guardian, \"our neighbourhood is in Woodcourt's\nway, and he can come here to see her as often as he likes, which is\nagreeable to them both; and she is familiar to us and fond of you.\"\n\nYes. That was undeniable. I had nothing to say against it. I could\nnot have suggested a better arrangement, but I was not quite easy in\nmy mind. Esther, Esther, why not? Esther, think!\n\n\"It is a very good plan indeed, dear guardian, and we could not do\nbetter.\"\n\n\"Sure, little woman?\"\n\nQuite sure. I had had a moment's time to think, since I had urged\nthat duty on myself, and I was quite sure.\n\n\"Good,\" said my guardian. \"It shall be done. Carried unanimously.\"\n\n\"Carried unanimously,\" I repeated, going on with my work.\n\nIt was a cover for his book-table that I happened to be ornamenting.\nIt had been laid by on the night preceding my sad journey and never\nresumed. I showed it to him now, and he admired it highly. After I\nhad explained the pattern to him and all the great effects that were\nto come out by and by, I thought I would go back to our last theme.\n\n\"You said, dear guardian, when we spoke of Mr. Woodcourt before Ada\nleft us, that you thought he would give a long trial to another\ncountry. Have you been advising him since?\"\n\n\"Yes, little woman, pretty often.\"\n\n\"Has he decided to do so?\"\n\n\"I rather think not.\"\n\n\"Some other prospect has opened to him, perhaps?\" said I.\n\n\"Why--yes--perhaps,\" returned my guardian, beginning his answer in a\nvery deliberate manner. \"About half a year hence or so, there is a\nmedical attendant for the poor to be appointed at a certain place in\nYorkshire. It is a thriving place, pleasantly situated--streams and\nstreets, town and country, mill and moor--and seems to present an\nopening for such a man. I mean a man whose hopes and aims may\nsometimes lie (as most men's sometimes do, I dare say) above the\nordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough\nafter all if it should prove to be a way of usefulness and good\nservice leading to no other. All generous spirits are ambitious, I\nsuppose, but the ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road,\ninstead of spasmodically trying to fly over it, is of the kind I care\nfor. It is Woodcourt's kind.\"\n\n\"And will he get this appointment?\" I asked.\n\n\"Why, little woman,\" returned my guardian, smiling, \"not being an\noracle, I cannot confidently say, but I think so. His reputation\nstands very high; there were people from that part of the country in\nthe shipwreck; and strange to say, I believe the best man has the\nbest chance. You must not suppose it to be a fine endowment. It is a\nvery, very commonplace affair, my dear, an appointment to a great\namount of work and a small amount of pay; but better things will\ngather about it, it may be fairly hoped.\"\n\n\"The poor of that place will have reason to bless the choice if it\nfalls on Mr. Woodcourt, guardian.\"\n\n\"You are right, little woman; that I am sure they will.\"\n\nWe said no more about it, nor did he say a word about the future of\nBleak House. But it was the first time I had taken my seat at his\nside in my mourning dress, and that accounted for it, I considered.\n\nI now began to visit my dear girl every day in the dull dark corner\nwhere she lived. The morning was my usual time, but whenever I found\nI had an hour or so to spare, I put on my bonnet and bustled off to\nChancery Lane. They were both so glad to see me at all hours, and\nused to brighten up so when they heard me opening the door and coming\nin (being quite at home, I never knocked), that I had no fear of\nbecoming troublesome just yet.\n\nOn these occasions I frequently found Richard absent. At other times\nhe would be writing or reading papers in the cause at that table of\nhis, so covered with papers, which was never disturbed. Sometimes I\nwould come upon him lingering at the door of Mr. Vholes's office.\nSometimes I would meet him in the neighbourhood lounging about and\nbiting his nails. I often met him wandering in Lincoln's Inn, near\nthe place where I had first seen him, oh how different, how\ndifferent!\n\nThat the money Ada brought him was melting away with the candles I\nused to see burning after dark in Mr. Vholes's office I knew very\nwell. It was not a large amount in the beginning, he had married in\ndebt, and I could not fail to understand, by this time, what was\nmeant by Mr. Vholes's shoulder being at the wheel--as I still heard\nit was. My dear made the best of housekeepers and tried hard to save,\nbut I knew that they were getting poorer and poorer every day.\n\nShe shone in the miserable corner like a beautiful star. She adorned\nand graced it so that it became another place. Paler than she had\nbeen at home, and a little quieter than I had thought natural when\nshe was yet so cheerful and hopeful, her face was so unshadowed that\nI half believed she was blinded by her love for Richard to his\nruinous career.\n\nI went one day to dine with them while I was under this impression.\nAs I turned into Symond's Inn, I met little Miss Flite coming out.\nShe had been to make a stately call upon the wards in Jarndyce, as\nshe still called them, and had derived the highest gratification from\nthat ceremony. Ada had already told me that she called every Monday\nat five o'clock, with one little extra white bow in her bonnet, which\nnever appeared there at any other time, and with her largest reticule\nof documents on her arm.\n\n\"My dear!\" she began. \"So delighted! How do you do! So glad to see\nyou. And you are going to visit our interesting Jarndyce wards? TO be\nsure! Our beauty is at home, my dear, and will be charmed to see\nyou.\"\n\n\"Then Richard is not come in yet?\" said I. \"I am glad of that, for I\nwas afraid of being a little late.\"\n\n\"No, he is not come in,\" returned Miss Flite. \"He has had a long day\nin court. I left him there with Vholes. You don't like Vholes, I\nhope? DON'T like Vholes. Dan-gerous man!\"\n\n\"I am afraid you see Richard oftener than ever now,\" said I.\n\n\"My dearest,\" returned Miss Flite, \"daily and hourly. You know what I\ntold you of the attraction on the Chancellor's table? My dear, next\nto myself he is the most constant suitor in court. He begins quite to\namuse our little party. Ve-ry friendly little party, are we not?\"\n\nIt was miserable to hear this from her poor mad lips, though it was\nno surprise.\n\n\"In short, my valued friend,\" pursued Miss Flite, advancing her lips\nto my ear with an air of equal patronage and mystery, \"I must tell\nyou a secret. I have made him my executor. Nominated, constituted,\nand appointed him. In my will. Ye-es.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\" said I.\n\n\"Ye-es,\" repeated Miss Flite in her most genteel accents, \"my\nexecutor, administrator, and assign. (Our Chancery phrases, my love.)\nI have reflected that if I should wear out, he will be able to watch\nthat judgment. Being so very regular in his attendance.\"\n\nIt made me sigh to think of him.\n\n\"I did at one time mean,\" said Miss Flite, echoing the sigh, \"to\nnominate, constitute, and appoint poor Gridley. Also very regular, my\ncharming girl. I assure you, most exemplary! But he wore out, poor\nman, so I have appointed his successor. Don't mention it. This is in\nconfidence.\"\n\nShe carefully opened her reticule a little way and showed me a folded\npiece of paper inside as the appointment of which she spoke.\n\n\"Another secret, my dear. I have added to my collection of birds.\"\n\n\"Really, Miss Flite?\" said I, knowing how it pleased her to have her\nconfidence received with an appearance of interest.\n\nShe nodded several times, and her face became overcast and gloomy.\n\"Two more. I call them the Wards in Jarndyce. They are caged up with\nall the others. With Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust,\nAshes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly,\nWords, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and\nSpinach!\"\n\nThe poor soul kissed me with the most troubled look I had ever seen\nin her and went her way. Her manner of running over the names of her\nbirds, as if she were afraid of hearing them even from her own lips,\nquite chilled me.\n\nThis was not a cheering preparation for my visit, and I could have\ndispensed with the company of Mr. Vholes, when Richard (who arrived\nwithin a minute or two after me) brought him to share our dinner.\nAlthough it was a very plain one, Ada and Richard were for some\nminutes both out of the room together helping to get ready what we\nwere to eat and drink. Mr. Vholes took that opportunity of holding a\nlittle conversation in a low voice with me. He came to the window\nwhere I was sitting and began upon Symond's Inn.\n\n\"A dull place, Miss Summerson, for a life that is not an official\none,\" said Mr. Vholes, smearing the glass with his black glove to\nmake it clearer for me.\n\n\"There is not much to see here,\" said I.\n\n\"Nor to hear, miss,\" returned Mr. Vholes. \"A little music does\noccasionally stray in, but we are not musical in the law and soon\neject it. I hope Mr. Jarndyce is as well as his friends could wish\nhim?\"\n\nI thanked Mr. Vholes and said he was quite well.\n\n\"I have not the pleasure to be admitted among the number of his\nfriends myself,\" said Mr. Vholes, \"and I am aware that the gentlemen\nof our profession are sometimes regarded in such quarters with an\nunfavourable eye. Our plain course, however, under good report and\nevil report, and all kinds of prejudice (we are the victims of\nprejudice), is to have everything openly carried on. How do you find\nMr. C. looking, Miss Summerson?\"\n\n\"He looks very ill. Dreadfully anxious.\"\n\n\"Just so,\" said Mr. Vholes.\n\nHe stood behind me with his long black figure reaching nearly to the\nceiling of those low rooms, feeling the pimples on his face as if\nthey were ornaments and speaking inwardly and evenly as though there\nwere not a human passion or emotion in his nature.\n\n\"Mr. Woodcourt is in attendance upon Mr. C., I believe?\" he resumed.\n\n\"Mr. Woodcourt is his disinterested friend,\" I answered.\n\n\"But I mean in professional attendance, medical attendance.\"\n\n\"That can do little for an unhappy mind,\" said I.\n\n\"Just so,\" said Mr. Vholes.\n\nSo slow, so eager, so bloodless and gaunt, I felt as if Richard were\nwasting away beneath the eyes of this adviser and there were\nsomething of the vampire in him.\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" said Mr. Vholes, very slowly rubbing his gloved\nhands, as if, to his cold sense of touch, they were much the same in\nblack kid or out of it, \"this was an ill-advised marriage of Mr.\nC.'s.\"\n\nI begged he would excuse me from discussing it. They had been engaged\nwhen they were both very young, I told him (a little indignantly) and\nwhen the prospect before them was much fairer and brighter. When\nRichard had not yielded himself to the unhappy influence which now\ndarkened his life.\n\n\"Just so,\" assented Mr. Vholes again. \"Still, with a view to\neverything being openly carried on, I will, with your permission,\nMiss Summerson, observe to you that I consider this a very\nill-advised marriage indeed. I owe the opinion not only to Mr. C.'s\nconnexions, against whom I should naturally wish to protect myself,\nbut also to my own reputation--dear to myself as a professional man\naiming to keep respectable; dear to my three girls at home, for whom\nI am striving to realize some little independence; dear, I will even\nsay, to my aged father, whom it is my privilege to support.\"\n\n\"It would become a very different marriage, a much happier and better\nmarriage, another marriage altogether, Mr. Vholes,\" said I, \"if\nRichard were persuaded to turn his back on the fatal pursuit in which\nyou are engaged with him.\"\n\nMr. Vholes, with a noiseless cough--or rather gasp--into one of his\nblack gloves, inclined his head as if he did not wholly dispute even\nthat.\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" he said, \"it may be so; and I freely admit that the\nyoung lady who has taken Mr. C.'s name upon herself in so ill-advised\na manner--you will I am sure not quarrel with me for throwing out\nthat remark again, as a duty I owe to Mr. C.'s connexions--is a\nhighly genteel young lady. Business has prevented me from mixing much\nwith general society in any but a professional character; still I\ntrust I am competent to perceive that she is a highly genteel young\nlady. As to beauty, I am not a judge of that myself, and I never did\ngive much attention to it from a boy, but I dare say the young lady\nis equally eligible in that point of view. She is considered so (I\nhave heard) among the clerks in the Inn, and it is a point more in\ntheir way than in mine. In reference to Mr. C.'s pursuit of his\ninterests--\"\n\n\"Oh! His interests, Mr. Vholes!\"\n\n\"Pardon me,\" returned Mr. Vholes, going on in exactly the same inward\nand dispassionate manner. \"Mr. C. takes certain interests under\ncertain wills disputed in the suit. It is a term we use. In reference\nto Mr. C,'s pursuit of his interests, I mentioned to you, Miss\nSummerson, the first time I had the pleasure of seeing you, in my\ndesire that everything should be openly carried on--I used those\nwords, for I happened afterwards to note them in my diary, which is\nproducible at any time--I mentioned to you that Mr. C. had laid down\nthe principle of watching his own interests, and that when a client\nof mine laid down a principle which was not of an immoral (that is to\nsay, unlawful) nature, it devolved upon me to carry it out. I HAVE\ncarried it out; I do carry it out. But I will not smooth things over\nto any connexion of Mr. C.'s on any account. As open as I was to Mr.\nJarndyce, I am to you. I regard it in the light of a professional\nduty to be so, though it can be charged to no one. I openly say,\nunpalatable as it may be, that I consider Mr. C.'s affairs in a very\nbad way, that I consider Mr. C. himself in a very bad way, and that I\nregard this as an exceedingly ill-advised marriage. Am I here, sir?\nYes, I thank you; I am here, Mr. C., and enjoying the pleasure of\nsome agreeable conversation with Miss Summerson, for which I have to\nthank you very much, sir!\"\n\nHe broke off thus in answer to Richard, who addressed him as he came\ninto the room. By this time I too well understood Mr. Vholes's\nscrupulous way of saving himself and his respectability not to feel\nthat our worst fears did but keep pace with his client's progress.\n\nWe sat down to dinner, and I had an opportunity of observing Richard,\nanxiously. I was not disturbed by Mr. Vholes (who took off his gloves\nto dine), though he sat opposite to me at the small table, for I\ndoubt if, looking up at all, he once removed his eyes from his host's\nface. I found Richard thin and languid, slovenly in his dress,\nabstracted in his manner, forcing his spirits now and then, and at\nother intervals relapsing into a dull thoughtfulness. About his large\nbright eyes that used to be so merry there was a wanness and a\nrestlessness that changed them altogether. I cannot use the\nexpression that he looked old. There is a ruin of youth which is not\nlike age, and into such a ruin Richard's youth and youthful beauty\nhad all fallen away.\n\nHe ate little and seemed indifferent what it was, showed himself to\nbe much more impatient than he used to be, and was quick even with\nAda. I thought at first that his old light-hearted manner was all\ngone, but it shone out of him sometimes as I had occasionally known\nlittle momentary glimpses of my own old face to look out upon me from\nthe glass. His laugh had not quite left him either, but it was like\nthe echo of a joyful sound, and that is always sorrowful.\n\nYet he was as glad as ever, in his old affectionate way, to have me\nthere, and we talked of the old times pleasantly. These did not\nappear to be interesting to Mr. Vholes, though he occasionally made a\ngasp which I believe was his smile. He rose shortly after dinner and\nsaid that with the permission of the ladies he would retire to his\noffice.\n\n\"Always devoted to business, Vholes!\" cried Richard.\n\n\"Yes, Mr. C.,\" he returned, \"the interests of clients are never to be\nneglected, sir. They are paramount in the thoughts of a professional\nman like myself, who wishes to preserve a good name among his\nfellow-practitioners and society at large. My denying myself the\npleasure of the present agreeable conversation may not be wholly\nirrespective of your own interests, Mr. C.\"\n\nRichard expressed himself quite sure of that and lighted Mr. Vholes\nout. On his return he told us, more than once, that Vholes was a good\nfellow, a safe fellow, a man who did what he pretended to do, a very\ngood fellow indeed! He was so defiant about it that it struck me he\nhad begun to doubt Mr. Vholes.\n\nThen he threw himself on the sofa, tired out; and Ada and I put\nthings to rights, for they had no other servant than the woman who\nattended to the chambers. My dear girl had a cottage piano there and\nquietly sat down to sing some of Richard's favourites, the lamp being\nfirst removed into the next room, as he complained of its hurting his\neyes.\n\nI sat between them, at my dear girl's side, and felt very melancholy\nlistening to her sweet voice. I think Richard did too; I think he\ndarkened the room for that reason. She had been singing some time,\nrising between whiles to bend over him and speak to him, when Mr.\nWoodcourt came in. Then he sat down by Richard and half playfully,\nhalf earnestly, quite naturally and easily, found out how he felt and\nwhere he had been all day. Presently he proposed to accompany him in\na short walk on one of the bridges, as it was a moonlight airy night;\nand Richard readily consenting, they went out together.\n\nThey left my dear girl still sitting at the piano and me still\nsitting beside her. When they were gone out, I drew my arm round her\nwaist. She put her left hand in mine (I was sitting on that side),\nbut kept her right upon the keys, going over and over them without\nstriking any note.\n\n\"Esther, my dearest,\" she said, breaking silence, \"Richard is never\nso well and I am never so easy about him as when he is with Allan\nWoodcourt. We have to thank you for that.\"\n\nI pointed out to my darling how this could scarcely be, because Mr.\nWoodcourt had come to her cousin John's house and had known us all\nthere, and because he had always liked Richard, and Richard had\nalways liked him, and--and so forth.\n\n\"All true,\" said Ada, \"but that he is such a devoted friend to us we\nowe to you.\"\n\nI thought it best to let my dear girl have her way and to say no more\nabout it. So I said as much. I said it lightly, because I felt her\ntrembling.\n\n\"Esther, my dearest, I want to be a good wife, a very, very good wife\nindeed. You shall teach me.\"\n\nI teach! I said no more, for I noticed the hand that was fluttering\nover the keys, and I knew that it was not I who ought to speak, that\nit was she who had something to say to me.\n\n\"When I married Richard I was not insensible to what was before him.\nI had been perfectly happy for a long time with you, and I had never\nknown any trouble or anxiety, so loved and cared for, but I\nunderstood the danger he was in, dear Esther.\"\n\n\"I know, I know, my darling.\"\n\n\"When we were married I had some little hope that I might be able to\nconvince him of his mistake, that he might come to regard it in a new\nway as my husband and not pursue it all the more desperately for my\nsake--as he does. But if I had not had that hope, I would have\nmarried him just the same, Esther. Just the same!\"\n\nIn the momentary firmness of the hand that was never still--a\nfirmness inspired by the utterance of these last words, and dying\naway with them--I saw the confirmation of her earnest tones.\n\n\"You are not to think, my dearest Esther, that I fail to see what you\nsee and fear what you fear. No one can understand him better than I\ndo. The greatest wisdom that ever lived in the world could scarcely\nknow Richard better than my love does.\"\n\nShe spoke so modestly and softly and her trembling hand expressed\nsuch agitation as it moved to and fro upon the silent notes! My dear,\ndear girl!\n\n\"I see him at his worst every day. I watch him in his sleep. I know\nevery change of his face. But when I married Richard I was quite\ndetermined, Esther, if heaven would help me, never to show him that I\ngrieved for what he did and so to make him more unhappy. I want him,\nwhen he comes home, to find no trouble in my face. I want him, when\nhe looks at me, to see what he loved in me. I married him to do this,\nand this supports me.\"\n\nI felt her trembling more. I waited for what was yet to come, and I\nnow thought I began to know what it was.\n\n\"And something else supports me, Esther.\"\n\nShe stopped a minute. Stopped speaking only; her hand was still in\nmotion.\n\n\"I look forward a little while, and I don't know what great aid may\ncome to me. When Richard turns his eyes upon me then, there may be\nsomething lying on my breast more eloquent than I have been, with\ngreater power than mine to show him his true course and win him\nback.\"\n\nHer hand stopped now. She clasped me in her arms, and I clasped her\nin mine.\n\n\"If that little creature should fail too, Esther, I still look\nforward. I look forward a long while, through years and years, and\nthink that then, when I am growing old, or when I am dead perhaps, a\nbeautiful woman, his daughter, happily married, may be proud of him\nand a blessing to him. Or that a generous brave man, as handsome as\nhe used to be, as hopeful, and far more happy, may walk in the\nsunshine with him, honouring his grey head and saying to himself, 'I\nthank God this is my father! Ruined by a fatal inheritance, and\nrestored through me!'\"\n\nOh, my sweet girl, what a heart was that which beat so fast against\nme!\n\n\"These hopes uphold me, my dear Esther, and I know they will. Though\nsometimes even they depart from me before a dread that arises when I\nlook at Richard.\"\n\nI tried to cheer my darling, and asked her what it was. Sobbing and\nweeping, she replied, \"That he may not live to see his child.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXI\n\nA Discovery\n\n\nThe days when I frequented that miserable corner which my dear girl\nbrightened can never fade in my remembrance. I never see it, and I\nnever wish to see it now; I have been there only once since, but in\nmy memory there is a mournful glory shining on the place which will\nshine for ever.\n\nNot a day passed without my going there, of course. At first I found\nMr. Skimpole there, on two or three occasions, idly playing the piano\nand talking in his usual vivacious strain. Now, besides my very much\nmistrusting the probability of his being there without making Richard\npoorer, I felt as if there were something in his careless gaiety too\ninconsistent with what I knew of the depths of Ada's life. I clearly\nperceived, too, that Ada shared my feelings. I therefore resolved,\nafter much thinking of it, to make a private visit to Mr. Skimpole\nand try delicately to explain myself. My dear girl was the great\nconsideration that made me bold.\n\nI set off one morning, accompanied by Charley, for Somers Town. As I\napproached the house, I was strongly inclined to turn back, for I\nfelt what a desperate attempt it was to make an impression on Mr.\nSkimpole and how extremely likely it was that he would signally\ndefeat me. However, I thought that being there, I would go through\nwith it. I knocked with a trembling hand at Mr. Skimpole's\ndoor--literally with a hand, for the knocker was gone--and after a\nlong parley gained admission from an Irishwoman, who was in the area\nwhen I knocked, breaking up the lid of a water-butt with a poker to\nlight the fire with.\n\nMr. Skimpole, lying on the sofa in his room, playing the flute a\nlittle, was enchanted to see me. Now, who should receive me, he\nasked. Who would I prefer for mistress of the ceremonies? Would I\nhave his Comedy daughter, his Beauty daughter, or his Sentiment\ndaughter? Or would I have all the daughters at once in a perfect\nnosegay?\n\nI replied, half defeated already, that I wished to speak to himself\nonly if he would give me leave.\n\n\"My dear Miss Summerson, most joyfully! Of course,\" he said, bringing\nhis chair nearer mine and breaking into his fascinating smile, \"of\ncourse it's not business. Then it's pleasure!\"\n\nI said it certainly was not business that I came upon, but it was not\nquite a pleasant matter.\n\n\"Then, my dear Miss Summerson,\" said he with the frankest gaiety,\n\"don't allude to it. Why should you allude to anything that is NOT a\npleasant matter? I never do. And you are a much pleasanter creature,\nin every point of view, than I. You are perfectly pleasant; I am\nimperfectly pleasant; then, if I never allude to an unpleasant\nmatter, how much less should you! So that's disposed of, and we will\ntalk of something else.\"\n\nAlthough I was embarrassed, I took courage to intimate that I still\nwished to pursue the subject.\n\n\"I should think it a mistake,\" said Mr. Skimpole with his airy laugh,\n\"if I thought Miss Summerson capable of making one. But I don't!\"\n\n\"Mr. Skimpole,\" said I, raising my eyes to his, \"I have so often\nheard you say that you are unacquainted with the common affairs of\nlife--\"\n\n\"Meaning our three banking-house friends, L, S, and who's the junior\npartner? D?\" said Mr. Skimpole, brightly. \"Not an idea of them!\"\n\n\"--That perhaps,\" I went on, \"you will excuse my boldness on that\naccount. I think you ought most seriously to know that Richard is\npoorer than he was.\"\n\n\"Dear me!\" said Mr. Skimpole. \"So am I, they tell me.\"\n\n\"And in very embarrassed circumstances.\"\n\n\"Parallel case, exactly!\" said Mr. Skimpole with a delighted\ncountenance.\n\n\"This at present naturally causes Ada much secret anxiety, and as I\nthink she is less anxious when no claims are made upon her by\nvisitors, and as Richard has one uneasiness always heavy on his mind,\nit has occurred to me to take the liberty of saying that--if you\nwould--not--\"\n\nI was coming to the point with great difficulty when he took me by\nboth hands and with a radiant face and in the liveliest way\nanticipated it.\n\n\"Not go there? Certainly not, my dear Miss Summerson, most assuredly\nnot. Why SHOULD I go there? When I go anywhere, I go for pleasure. I\ndon't go anywhere for pain, because I was made for pleasure. Pain\ncomes to ME when it wants me. Now, I have had very little pleasure at\nour dear Richard's lately, and your practical sagacity demonstrates\nwhy. Our young friends, losing the youthful poetry which was once so\ncaptivating in them, begin to think, 'This is a man who wants\npounds.' So I am; I always want pounds; not for myself, but because\ntradespeople always want them of me. Next, our young friends begin to\nthink, becoming mercenary, 'This is the man who HAD pounds, who\nborrowed them,' which I did. I always borrow pounds. So our young\nfriends, reduced to prose (which is much to be regretted), degenerate\nin their power of imparting pleasure to me. Why should I go to see\nthem, therefore? Absurd!\"\n\nThrough the beaming smile with which he regarded me as he reasoned\nthus, there now broke forth a look of disinterested benevolence quite\nastonishing.\n\n\"Besides,\" he said, pursuing his argument in his tone of\nlight-hearted conviction, \"if I don't go anywhere for pain--which\nwould be a perversion of the intention of my being, and a monstrous\nthing to do--why should I go anywhere to be the cause of pain? If I\nwent to see our young friends in their present ill-regulated state of\nmind, I should give them pain. The associations with me would be\ndisagreeable. They might say, 'This is the man who had pounds and who\ncan't pay pounds,' which I can't, of course; nothing could be more\nout of the question! Then kindness requires that I shouldn't go near\nthem--and I won't.\"\n\nHe finished by genially kissing my hand and thanking me. Nothing but\nMiss Summerson's fine tact, he said, would have found this out for\nhim.\n\nI was much disconcerted, but I reflected that if the main point were\ngained, it mattered little how strangely he perverted everything\nleading to it. I had determined to mention something else, however,\nand I thought I was not to be put off in that.\n\n\"Mr. Skimpole,\" said I, \"I must take the liberty of saying before I\nconclude my visit that I was much surprised to learn, on the best\nauthority, some little time ago, that you knew with whom that poor\nboy left Bleak House and that you accepted a present on that\noccasion. I have not mentioned it to my guardian, for I fear it would\nhurt him unnecessarily; but I may say to you that I was much\nsurprised.\"\n\n\"No? Really surprised, my dear Miss Summerson?\" he returned\ninquiringly, raising his pleasant eyebrows.\n\n\"Greatly surprised.\"\n\nHe thought about it for a little while with a highly agreeable and\nwhimsical expression of face, then quite gave it up and said in his\nmost engaging manner, \"You know what a child I am. Why surprised?\"\n\nI was reluctant to enter minutely into that question, but as he\nbegged I would, for he was really curious to know, I gave him to\nunderstand in the gentlest words I could use that his conduct seemed\nto involve a disregard of several moral obligations. He was much\namused and interested when he heard this and said, \"No, really?\" with\ningenuous simplicity.\n\n\"You know I don't intend to be responsible. I never could do it.\nResponsibility is a thing that has always been above me--or below\nme,\" said Mr. Skimpole. \"I don't even know which; but as I understand\nthe way in which my dear Miss Summerson (always remarkable for her\npractical good sense and clearness) puts this case, I should imagine\nit was chiefly a question of money, do you know?\"\n\nI incautiously gave a qualified assent to this.\n\n\"Ah! Then you see,\" said Mr. Skimpole, shaking his head, \"I am\nhopeless of understanding it.\"\n\nI suggested, as I rose to go, that it was not right to betray my\nguardian's confidence for a bribe.\n\n\"My dear Miss Summerson,\" he returned with a candid hilarity that was\nall his own, \"I can't be bribed.\"\n\n\"Not by Mr. Bucket?\" said I.\n\n\"No,\" said he. \"Not by anybody. I don't attach any value to money. I\ndon't care about it, I don't know about it, I don't want it, I don't\nkeep it--it goes away from me directly. How can I be bribed?\"\n\nI showed that I was of a different opinion, though I had not the\ncapacity for arguing the question.\n\n\"On the contrary,\" said Mr. Skimpole, \"I am exactly the man to be\nplaced in a superior position in such a case as that. I am above the\nrest of mankind in such a case as that. I can act with philosophy in\nsuch a case as that. I am not warped by prejudices, as an Italian\nbaby is by bandages. I am as free as the air. I feel myself as far\nabove suspicion as Caesar's wife.\"\n\nAnything to equal the lightness of his manner and the playful\nimpartiality with which he seemed to convince himself, as he tossed\nthe matter about like a ball of feathers, was surely never seen in\nanybody else!\n\n\"Observe the case, my dear Miss Summerson. Here is a boy received\ninto the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to.\nThe boy being in bed, a man arrives--like the house that Jack built.\nHere is the man who demands the boy who is received into the house\nand put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. Here is a\nbank-note produced by the man who demands the boy who is received\ninto the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to.\nHere is the Skimpole who accepts the bank-note produced by the man\nwho demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in\na state that I strongly object to. Those are the facts. Very well.\nShould the Skimpole have refused the note? WHY should the Skimpole\nhave refused the note? Skimpole protests to Bucket, 'What's this for?\nI don't understand it, it is of no use to me, take it away.' Bucket\nstill entreats Skimpole to accept it. Are there reasons why Skimpole,\nnot being warped by prejudices, should accept it? Yes. Skimpole\nperceives them. What are they? Skimpole reasons with himself, this is\na tamed lynx, an active police-officer, an intelligent man, a person\nof a peculiarly directed energy and great subtlety both of conception\nand execution, who discovers our friends and enemies for us when they\nrun away, recovers our property for us when we are robbed, avenges us\ncomfortably when we are murdered. This active police-officer and\nintelligent man has acquired, in the exercise of his art, a strong\nfaith in money; he finds it very useful to him, and he makes it very\nuseful to society. Shall I shake that faith in Bucket because I want\nit myself; shall I deliberately blunt one of Bucket's weapons; shall\nI positively paralyse Bucket in his next detective operation? And\nagain. If it is blameable in Skimpole to take the note, it is\nblameable in Bucket to offer the note--much more blameable in Bucket,\nbecause he is the knowing man. Now, Skimpole wishes to think well of\nBucket; Skimpole deems it essential, in its little place, to the\ngeneral cohesion of things, that he SHOULD think well of Bucket. The\nstate expressly asks him to trust to Bucket. And he does. And that's\nall he does!\"\n\nI had nothing to offer in reply to this exposition and therefore took\nmy leave. Mr. Skimpole, however, who was in excellent spirits, would\nnot hear of my returning home attended only by \"Little Coavinses,\"\nand accompanied me himself. He entertained me on the way with a\nvariety of delightful conversation and assured me, at parting, that\nhe should never forget the fine tact with which I had found that out\nfor him about our young friends.\n\nAs it so happened that I never saw Mr. Skimpole again, I may at once\nfinish what I know of his history. A coolness arose between him and\nmy guardian, based principally on the foregoing grounds and on his\nhaving heartlessly disregarded my guardian's entreaties (as we\nafterwards learned from Ada) in reference to Richard. His being\nheavily in my guardian's debt had nothing to do with their\nseparation. He died some five years afterwards and left a diary\nbehind him, with letters and other materials towards his life, which\nwas published and which showed him to have been the victim of a\ncombination on the part of mankind against an amiable child. It was\nconsidered very pleasant reading, but I never read more of it myself\nthan the sentence on which I chanced to light on opening the book. It\nwas this: \"Jarndyce, in common with most other men I have known, is\nthe incarnation of selfishness.\"\n\nAnd now I come to a part of my story touching myself very nearly\nindeed, and for which I was quite unprepared when the circumstance\noccurred. Whatever little lingerings may have now and then revived in\nmy mind associated with my poor old face had only revived as\nbelonging to a part of my life that was gone--gone like my infancy or\nmy childhood. I have suppressed none of my many weaknesses on that\nsubject, but have written them as faithfully as my memory has\nrecalled them. And I hope to do, and mean to do, the same down to the\nlast words of these pages, which I see now not so very far before me.\n\nThe months were gliding away, and my dear girl, sustained by the\nhopes she had confided in me, was the same beautiful star in the\nmiserable corner. Richard, more worn and haggard, haunted the court\nday after day, listlessly sat there the whole day long when he knew\nthere was no remote chance of the suit being mentioned, and became\none of the stock sights of the place. I wonder whether any of the\ngentlemen remembered him as he was when he first went there.\n\nSo completely was he absorbed in his fixed idea that he used to avow\nin his cheerful moments that he should never have breathed the fresh\nair now \"but for Woodcourt.\" It was only Mr. Woodcourt who could\noccasionally divert his attention for a few hours at a time and rouse\nhim, even when he sunk into a lethargy of mind and body that alarmed\nus greatly, and the returns of which became more frequent as the\nmonths went on. My dear girl was right in saying that he only pursued\nhis errors the more desperately for her sake. I have no doubt that\nhis desire to retrieve what he had lost was rendered the more intense\nby his grief for his young wife, and became like the madness of a\ngamester.\n\nI was there, as I have mentioned, at all hours. When I was there at\nnight, I generally went home with Charley in a coach; sometimes my\nguardian would meet me in the neighbourhood, and we would walk home\ntogether. One evening he had arranged to meet me at eight o'clock. I\ncould not leave, as I usually did, quite punctually at the time, for\nI was working for my dear girl and had a few stitches more to do to\nfinish what I was about; but it was within a few minutes of the hour\nwhen I bundled up my little work-basket, gave my darling my last kiss\nfor the night, and hurried downstairs. Mr. Woodcourt went with me, as\nit was dusk.\n\nWhen we came to the usual place of meeting--it was close by, and Mr.\nWoodcourt had often accompanied me before--my guardian was not there.\nWe waited half an hour, walking up and down, but there were no signs\nof him. We agreed that he was either prevented from coming or that he\nhad come and gone away, and Mr. Woodcourt proposed to walk home with\nme.\n\nIt was the first walk we had ever taken together, except that very\nshort one to the usual place of meeting. We spoke of Richard and Ada\nthe whole way. I did not thank him in words for what he had done--my\nappreciation of it had risen above all words then--but I hoped he\nmight not be without some understanding of what I felt so strongly.\n\nArriving at home and going upstairs, we found that my guardian was\nout and that Mrs. Woodcourt was out too. We were in the very same\nroom into which I had brought my blushing girl when her youthful\nlover, now her so altered husband, was the choice of her young heart,\nthe very same room from which my guardian and I had watched them\ngoing away through the sunlight in the fresh bloom of their hope and\npromise.\n\nWe were standing by the opened window looking down into the street\nwhen Mr. Woodcourt spoke to me. I learned in a moment that he loved\nme. I learned in a moment that my scarred face was all unchanged to\nhim. I learned in a moment that what I had thought was pity and\ncompassion was devoted, generous, faithful love. Oh, too late to know\nit now, too late, too late. That was the first ungrateful thought I\nhad. Too late.\n\n\"When I returned,\" he told me, \"when I came back, no richer than when\nI went away, and found you newly risen from a sick bed, yet so\ninspired by sweet consideration for others and so free from a selfish\nthought--\"\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Woodcourt, forbear, forbear!\" I entreated him. \"I do not\ndeserve your high praise. I had many selfish thoughts at that time,\nmany!\"\n\n\"Heaven knows, beloved of my life,\" said he, \"that my praise is not a\nlover's praise, but the truth. You do not know what all around you\nsee in Esther Summerson, how many hearts she touches and awakens,\nwhat sacred admiration and what love she wins.\"\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Woodcourt,\" cried I, \"it is a great thing to win love, it is\na great thing to win love! I am proud of it, and honoured by it; and\nthe hearing of it causes me to shed these tears of mingled joy and\nsorrow--joy that I have won it, sorrow that I have not deserved it\nbetter; but I am not free to think of yours.\"\n\nI said it with a stronger heart, for when he praised me thus and when\nI heard his voice thrill with his belief that what he said was true,\nI aspired to be more worthy of it. It was not too late for that.\nAlthough I closed this unforeseen page in my life to-night, I could\nbe worthier of it all through my life. And it was a comfort to me,\nand an impulse to me, and I felt a dignity rise up within me that was\nderived from him when I thought so.\n\nHe broke the silence.\n\n\"I should poorly show the trust that I have in the dear one who will\nevermore be as dear to me as now\"--and the deep earnestness with\nwhich he said it at once strengthened me and made me weep--\"if, after\nher assurance that she is not free to think of my love, I urged it.\nDear Esther, let me only tell you that the fond idea of you which I\ntook abroad was exalted to the heavens when I came home. I have\nalways hoped, in the first hour when I seemed to stand in any ray of\ngood fortune, to tell you this. I have always feared that I should\ntell it you in vain. My hopes and fears are both fulfilled to-night.\nI distress you. I have said enough.\"\n\nSomething seemed to pass into my place that was like the angel he\nthought me, and I felt so sorrowful for the loss he had sustained! I\nwished to help him in his trouble, as I had wished to do when he\nshowed that first commiseration for me.\n\n\"Dear Mr. Woodcourt,\" said I, \"before we part to-night, something is\nleft for me to say. I never could say it as I wish--I never\nshall--but--\"\n\nI had to think again of being more deserving of his love and his\naffliction before I could go on.\n\n\"--I am deeply sensible of your generosity, and I shall treasure its\nremembrance to my dying hour. I know full well how changed I am, I\nknow you are not unacquainted with my history, and I know what a\nnoble love that is which is so faithful. What you have said to me\ncould have affected me so much from no other lips, for there are none\nthat could give it such a value to me. It shall not be lost. It shall\nmake me better.\"\n\nHe covered his eyes with his hand and turned away his head. How could\nI ever be worthy of those tears?\n\n\"If, in the unchanged intercourse we shall have together--in tending\nRichard and Ada, and I hope in many happier scenes of life--you ever\nfind anything in me which you can honestly think is better than it\nused to be, believe that it will have sprung up from to-night and\nthat I shall owe it to you. And never believe, dear dear Mr.\nWoodcourt, never believe that I forget this night or that while my\nheart beats it can be insensible to the pride and joy of having been\nbeloved by you.\"\n\nHe took my hand and kissed it. He was like himself again, and I felt\nstill more encouraged.\n\n\"I am induced by what you said just now,\" said I, \"to hope that you\nhave succeeded in your endeavour.\"\n\n\"I have,\" he answered. \"With such help from Mr. Jarndyce as you who\nknow him so well can imagine him to have rendered me, I have\nsucceeded.\"\n\n\"Heaven bless him for it,\" said I, giving him my hand; \"and heaven\nbless you in all you do!\"\n\n\"I shall do it better for the wish,\" he answered; \"it will make me\nenter on these new duties as on another sacred trust from you.\"\n\n\"Ah! Richard!\" I exclaimed involuntarily, \"What will he do when you\nare gone!\"\n\n\"I am not required to go yet; I would not desert him, dear Miss\nSummerson, even if I were.\"\n\nOne other thing I felt it needful to touch upon before he left me. I\nknew that I should not be worthier of the love I could not take if I\nreserved it.\n\n\"Mr. Woodcourt,\" said I, \"you will be glad to know from my lips\nbefore I say good night that in the future, which is clear and bright\nbefore me, I am most happy, most fortunate, have nothing to regret or\ndesire.\"\n\nIt was indeed a glad hearing to him, he replied.\n\n\"From my childhood I have been,\" said I, \"the object of the untiring\ngoodness of the best of human beings, to whom I am so bound by every\ntie of attachment, gratitude, and love, that nothing I could do in\nthe compass of a life could express the feelings of a single day.\"\n\n\"I share those feelings,\" he returned. \"You speak of Mr. Jarndyce.\"\n\n\"You know his virtues well,\" said I, \"but few can know the greatness\nof his character as I know it. All its highest and best qualities\nhave been revealed to me in nothing more brightly than in the shaping\nout of that future in which I am so happy. And if your highest homage\nand respect had not been his already--which I know they are--they\nwould have been his, I think, on this assurance and in the feeling it\nwould have awakened in you towards him for my sake.\"\n\nHe fervently replied that indeed indeed they would have been. I gave\nhim my hand again.\n\n\"Good night,\" I said, \"Good-bye.\"\n\n\"The first until we meet to-morrow, the second as a farewell to this\ntheme between us for ever.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Good night; good-bye.\"\n\nHe left me, and I stood at the dark window watching the street. His\nlove, in all its constancy and generosity, had come so suddenly upon\nme that he had not left me a minute when my fortitude gave way again\nand the street was blotted out by my rushing tears.\n\nBut they were not tears of regret and sorrow. No. He had called me\nthe beloved of his life and had said I would be evermore as dear to\nhim as I was then, and I felt as if my heart would not hold the\ntriumph of having heard those words. My first wild thought had died\naway. It was not too late to hear them, for it was not too late to be\nanimated by them to be good, true, grateful, and contented. How easy\nmy path, how much easier than his!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXII\n\nAnother Discovery\n\n\nI had not the courage to see any one that night. I had not even the\ncourage to see myself, for I was afraid that my tears might a little\nreproach me. I went up to my room in the dark, and prayed in the\ndark, and lay down in the dark to sleep. I had no need of any light\nto read my guardian's letter by, for I knew it by heart. I took it\nfrom the place where I kept it, and repeated its contents by its own\nclear light of integrity and love, and went to sleep with it on my\npillow.\n\nI was up very early in the morning and called Charley to come for a\nwalk. We bought flowers for the breakfast-table, and came back and\narranged them, and were as busy as possible. We were so early that I\nhad a good time still for Charley's lesson before breakfast; Charley\n(who was not in the least improved in the old defective article of\ngrammar) came through it with great applause; and we were altogether\nvery notable. When my guardian appeared he said, \"Why, little woman,\nyou look fresher than your flowers!\" And Mrs. Woodcourt repeated and\ntranslated a passage from the Mewlinnwillinwodd expressive of my\nbeing like a mountain with the sun upon it.\n\nThis was all so pleasant that I hope it made me still more like the\nmountain than I had been before. After breakfast I waited my\nopportunity and peeped about a little until I saw my guardian in his\nown room--the room of last night--by himself. Then I made an excuse\nto go in with my housekeeping keys, shutting the door after me.\n\n\"Well, Dame Durden?\" said my guardian; the post had brought him\nseveral letters, and he was writing. \"You want money?\"\n\n\"No, indeed, I have plenty in hand.\"\n\n\"There never was such a Dame Durden,\" said my guardian, \"for making\nmoney last.\"\n\nHe had laid down his pen and leaned back in his chair looking at me.\nI have often spoken of his bright face, but I thought I had never\nseen it look so bright and good. There was a high happiness upon it\nwhich made me think, \"He has been doing some great kindness this\nmorning.\"\n\n\"There never was,\" said my guardian, musing as he smiled upon me,\n\"such a Dame Durden for making money last.\"\n\nHe had never yet altered his old manner. I loved it and him so much\nthat when I now went up to him and took my usual chair, which was\nalways put at his side--for sometimes I read to him, and sometimes I\ntalked to him, and sometimes I silently worked by him--I hardly liked\nto disturb it by laying my hand on his breast. But I found I did not\ndisturb it at all.\n\n\"Dear guardian,\" said I, \"I want to speak to you. Have I been remiss\nin anything?\"\n\n\"Remiss in anything, my dear!\"\n\n\"Have I not been what I have meant to be since--I brought the answer\nto your letter, guardian?\"\n\n\"You have been everything I could desire, my love.\"\n\n\"I am very glad indeed to hear that,\" I returned. \"You know, you said\nto me, was this the mistress of Bleak House. And I said, yes.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said my guardian, nodding his head. He had put his arm about\nme as if there were something to protect me from and looked in my\nface, smiling.\n\n\"Since then,\" said I, \"we have never spoken on the subject except\nonce.\"\n\n\"And then I said Bleak House was thinning fast; and so it was, my\ndear.\"\n\n\"And I said,\" I timidly reminded him, \"but its mistress remained.\"\n\nHe still held me in the same protecting manner and with the same\nbright goodness in his face.\n\n\"Dear guardian,\" said I, \"I know how you have felt all that has\nhappened, and how considerate you have been. As so much time has\npassed, and as you spoke only this morning of my being so well again,\nperhaps you expect me to renew the subject. Perhaps I ought to do so.\nI will be the mistress of Bleak House when you please.\"\n\n\"See,\" he returned gaily, \"what a sympathy there must be between us!\nI have had nothing else, poor Rick excepted--it's a large\nexception--in my mind. When you came in, I was full of it. When shall\nwe give Bleak House its mistress, little woman?\"\n\n\"When you please.\"\n\n\"Next month?\"\n\n\"Next month, dear guardian.\"\n\n\"The day on which I take the happiest and best step of my life--the\nday on which I shall be a man more exulting and more enviable than\nany other man in the world--the day on which I give Bleak House its\nlittle mistress--shall be next month then,\" said my guardian.\n\nI put my arms round his neck and kissed him just as I had done on the\nday when I brought my answer.\n\nA servant came to the door to announce Mr. Bucket, which was quite\nunnecessary, for Mr. Bucket was already looking in over the servant's\nshoulder. \"Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson,\" said he, rather out of\nbreath, \"with all apologies for intruding, WILL you allow me to order\nup a person that's on the stairs and that objects to being left there\nin case of becoming the subject of observations in his absence? Thank\nyou. Be so good as chair that there member in this direction, will\nyou?\" said Mr. Bucket, beckoning over the banisters.\n\nThis singular request produced an old man in a black skull-cap,\nunable to walk, who was carried up by a couple of bearers and\ndeposited in the room near the door. Mr. Bucket immediately got rid\nof the bearers, mysteriously shut the door, and bolted it.\n\n\"Now you see, Mr. Jarndyce,\" he then began, putting down his hat and\nopening his subject with a flourish of his well-remembered finger,\n\"you know me, and Miss Summerson knows me. This gentleman likewise\nknows me, and his name is Smallweed. The discounting line is his line\nprincipally, and he's what you may call a dealer in bills. That's\nabout what YOU are, you know, ain't you?\" said Mr. Bucket, stopping a\nlittle to address the gentleman in question, who was exceedingly\nsuspicious of him.\n\nHe seemed about to dispute this designation of himself when he was\nseized with a violent fit of coughing.\n\n\"Now, moral, you know!\" said Mr. Bucket, improving the accident.\n\"Don't you contradict when there ain't no occasion, and you won't be\ntook in that way. Now, Mr. Jarndyce, I address myself to you. I've\nbeen negotiating with this gentleman on behalf of Sir Leicester\nDedlock, Baronet, and one way and another I've been in and out and\nabout his premises a deal. His premises are the premises formerly\noccupied by Krook, marine store dealer--a relation of this\ngentleman's that you saw in his lifetime if I don't mistake?\"\n\nMy guardian replied, \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well! You are to understand,\" said Mr. Bucket, \"that this gentleman\nhe come into Krook's property, and a good deal of magpie property\nthere was. Vast lots of waste-paper among the rest. Lord bless you,\nof no use to nobody!\"\n\nThe cunning of Mr. Bucket's eye and the masterly manner in which he\ncontrived, without a look or a word against which his watchful\nauditor could protest, to let us know that he stated the case\naccording to previous agreement and could say much more of Mr.\nSmallweed if he thought it advisable, deprived us of any merit in\nquite understanding him. His difficulty was increased by Mr.\nSmallweed's being deaf as well as suspicious and watching his face\nwith the closest attention.\n\n\"Among them odd heaps of old papers, this gentleman, when he comes\ninto the property, naturally begins to rummage, don't you see?\" said\nMr. Bucket.\n\n\"To which? Say that again,\" cried Mr. Smallweed in a shrill, sharp\nvoice.\n\n\"To rummage,\" repeated Mr. Bucket. \"Being a prudent man and\naccustomed to take care of your own affairs, you begin to rummage\namong the papers as you have come into; don't you?\"\n\n\"Of course I do,\" cried Mr. Smallweed.\n\n\"Of course you do,\" said Mr. Bucket conversationally, \"and much to\nblame you would be if you didn't. And so you chance to find, you\nknow,\" Mr. Bucket went on, stooping over him with an air of cheerful\nraillery which Mr. Smallweed by no means reciprocated, \"and so you\nchance to find, you know, a paper with the signature of Jarndyce to\nit. Don't you?\"\n\nMr. Smallweed glanced with a troubled eye at us and grudgingly nodded\nassent.\n\n\"And coming to look at that paper at your full leisure and\nconvenience--all in good time, for you're not curious to read it, and\nwhy should you be?--what do you find it to be but a will, you see.\nThat's the drollery of it,\" said Mr. Bucket with the same lively air\nof recalling a joke for the enjoyment of Mr. Smallweed, who still had\nthe same crest-fallen appearance of not enjoying it at all; \"what do\nyou find it to be but a will?\"\n\n\"I don't know that it's good as a will or as anything else,\" snarled\nMr. Smallweed.\n\nMr. Bucket eyed the old man for a moment--he had slipped and shrunk\ndown in his chair into a mere bundle--as if he were much disposed to\npounce upon him; nevertheless, he continued to bend over him with the\nsame agreeable air, keeping the corner of one of his eyes upon us.\n\n\"Notwithstanding which,\" said Mr. Bucket, \"you get a little doubtful\nand uncomfortable in your mind about it, having a very tender mind of\nyour own.\"\n\n\"Eh? What do you say I have got of my own?\" asked Mr. Smallweed with\nhis hand to his ear.\n\n\"A very tender mind.\"\n\n\"Ho! Well, go on,\" said Mr. Smallweed.\n\n\"And as you've heard a good deal mentioned regarding a celebrated\nChancery will case of the same name, and as you know what a card\nKrook was for buying all manner of old pieces of furniter, and books,\nand papers, and what not, and never liking to part with 'em, and\nalways a-going to teach himself to read, you begin to think--and you\nnever was more correct in your born days--'Ecod, if I don't look\nabout me, I may get into trouble regarding this will.'\"\n\n\"Now, mind how you put it, Bucket,\" cried the old man anxiously with\nhis hand at his ear. \"Speak up; none of your brimstone tricks. Pick\nme up; I want to hear better. Oh, Lord, I am shaken to bits!\"\n\nMr. Bucket had certainly picked him up at a dart. However, as soon as\nhe could be heard through Mr. Smallweed's coughing and his vicious\nejaculations of \"Oh, my bones! Oh, dear! I've no breath in my body!\nI'm worse than the chattering, clattering, brimstone pig at home!\"\nMr. Bucket proceeded in the same convivial manner as before.\n\n\"So, as I happen to be in the habit of coming about your premises,\nyou take me into your confidence, don't you?\"\n\nI think it would be impossible to make an admission with more ill\nwill and a worse grace than Mr. Smallweed displayed when he admitted\nthis, rendering it perfectly evident that Mr. Bucket was the very\nlast person he would have thought of taking into his confidence if he\ncould by any possibility have kept him out of it.\n\n\"And I go into the business with you--very pleasant we are over it;\nand I confirm you in your well-founded fears that you will get\nyourself into a most precious line if you don't come out with that\nthere will,\" said Mr. Bucket emphatically; \"and accordingly you\narrange with me that it shall be delivered up to this present Mr.\nJarndyce, on no conditions. If it should prove to be valuable, you\ntrusting yourself to him for your reward; that's about where it is,\nain't it?\"\n\n\"That's what was agreed,\" Mr. Smallweed assented with the same bad\ngrace.\n\n\"In consequence of which,\" said Mr. Bucket, dismissing his agreeable\nmanner all at once and becoming strictly business-like, \"you've got\nthat will upon your person at the present time, and the only thing\nthat remains for you to do is just to out with it!\"\n\nHaving given us one glance out of the watching corner of his eye, and\nhaving given his nose one triumphant rub with his forefinger, Mr.\nBucket stood with his eyes fastened on his confidential friend and\nhis hand stretched forth ready to take the paper and present it to my\nguardian. It was not produced without much reluctance and many\ndeclarations on the part of Mr. Smallweed that he was a poor\nindustrious man and that he left it to Mr. Jarndyce's honour not to\nlet him lose by his honesty. Little by little he very slowly took\nfrom a breast-pocket a stained, discoloured paper which was much\nsinged upon the outside and a little burnt at the edges, as if it had\nlong ago been thrown upon a fire and hastily snatched off again. Mr.\nBucket lost no time in transferring this paper, with the dexterity of\na conjuror, from Mr. Smallweed to Mr. Jarndyce. As he gave it to my\nguardian, he whispered behind his fingers, \"Hadn't settled how to\nmake their market of it. Quarrelled and hinted about it. I laid out\ntwenty pound upon it. First the avaricious grandchildren split upon\nhim on account of their objections to his living so unreasonably\nlong, and then they split on one another. Lord! There ain't one of\nthe family that wouldn't sell the other for a pound or two, except\nthe old lady--and she's only out of it because she's too weak in her\nmind to drive a bargain.\"\n\n\"Mr Bucket,\" said my guardian aloud, \"whatever the worth of this\npaper may be to any one, my obligations are great to you; and if it\nbe of any worth, I hold myself bound to see Mr. Smallweed remunerated\naccordingly.\"\n\n\"Not according to your merits, you know,\" said Mr. Bucket in friendly\nexplanation to Mr. Smallweed. \"Don't you be afraid of that. According\nto its value.\"\n\n\"That is what I mean,\" said my guardian. \"You may observe, Mr.\nBucket, that I abstain from examining this paper myself. The plain\ntruth is, I have forsworn and abjured the whole business these many\nyears, and my soul is sick of it. But Miss Summerson and I will\nimmediately place the paper in the hands of my solicitor in the\ncause, and its existence shall be made known without delay to all\nother parties interested.\"\n\n\"Mr. Jarndyce can't say fairer than that, you understand,\" observed\nMr. Bucket to his fellow-visitor. \"And it being now made clear to you\nthat nobody's a-going to be wronged--which must be a great relief to\nYOUR mind--we may proceed with the ceremony of chairing you home\nagain.\"\n\nHe unbolted the door, called in the bearers, wished us good morning,\nand with a look full of meaning and a crook of his finger at parting\nwent his way.\n\nWe went our way too, which was to Lincoln's Inn, as quickly as\npossible. Mr. Kenge was disengaged, and we found him at his table in\nhis dusty room with the inexpressive-looking books and the piles of\npapers. Chairs having been placed for us by Mr. Guppy, Mr. Kenge\nexpressed the surprise and gratification he felt at the unusual sight\nof Mr. Jarndyce in his office. He turned over his double eye-glass as\nhe spoke and was more Conversation Kenge than ever.\n\n\"I hope,\" said Mr. Kenge, \"that the genial influence of Miss\nSummerson,\" he bowed to me, \"may have induced Mr. Jarndyce,\" he bowed\nto him, \"to forego some little of his animosity towards a cause and\ntowards a court which are--shall I say, which take their place in the\nstately vista of the pillars of our profession?\"\n\n\"I am inclined to think,\" returned my guardian, \"that Miss Summerson\nhas seen too much of the effects of the court and the cause to exert\nany influence in their favour. Nevertheless, they are a part of the\noccasion of my being here. Mr. Kenge, before I lay this paper on your\ndesk and have done with it, let me tell you how it has come into my\nhands.\"\n\nHe did so shortly and distinctly.\n\n\"It could not, sir,\" said Mr. Kenge, \"have been stated more plainly\nand to the purpose if it had been a case at law.\"\n\n\"Did you ever know English law, or equity either, plain and to the\npurpose?\" said my guardian.\n\n\"Oh, fie!\" said Mr. Kenge.\n\nAt first he had not seemed to attach much importance to the paper,\nbut when he saw it he appeared more interested, and when he had\nopened and read a little of it through his eye-glass, he became\namazed. \"Mr. Jarndyce,\" he said, looking off it, \"you have perused\nthis?\"\n\n\"Not I!\" returned my guardian.\n\n\"But, my dear sir,\" said Mr. Kenge, \"it is a will of later date than\nany in the suit. It appears to be all in the testator's handwriting.\nIt is duly executed and attested. And even if intended to be\ncancelled, as might possibly be supposed to be denoted by these marks\nof fire, it is NOT cancelled. Here it is, a perfect instrument!\"\n\n\"Well!\" said my guardian. \"What is that to me?\"\n\n\"Mr. Guppy!\" cried Mr. Kenge, raising his voice. \"I beg your pardon,\nMr. Jarndyce.\"\n\n\"Sir.\"\n\n\"Mr. Vholes of Symond's Inn. My compliments. Jarndyce and Jarndyce.\nGlad to speak with him.\"\n\nMr. Guppy disappeared.\n\n\"You ask me what is this to you, Mr. Jarndyce. If you had perused\nthis document, you would have seen that it reduces your interest\nconsiderably, though still leaving it a very handsome one, still\nleaving it a very handsome one,\" said Mr. Kenge, waving his hand\npersuasively and blandly. \"You would further have seen that the\ninterests of Mr. Richard Carstone and of Miss Ada Clare, now Mrs.\nRichard Carstone, are very materially advanced by it.\"\n\n\"Kenge,\" said my guardian, \"if all the flourishing wealth that the\nsuit brought into this vile court of Chancery could fall to my two\nyoung cousins, I should be well contented. But do you ask ME to\nbelieve that any good is to come of Jarndyce and Jarndyce?\"\n\n\"Oh, really, Mr. Jarndyce! Prejudice, prejudice. My dear sir, this is\na very great country, a very great country. Its system of equity is a\nvery great system, a very great system. Really, really!\"\n\nMy guardian said no more, and Mr. Vholes arrived. He was modestly\nimpressed by Mr. Kenge's professional eminence.\n\n\"How do you do, Mr. Vholes? Will you be so good as to take a chair\nhere by me and look over this paper?\"\n\nMr. Vholes did as he was asked and seemed to read it every word. He\nwas not excited by it, but he was not excited by anything. When he\nhad well examined it, he retired with Mr. Kenge into a window, and\nshading his mouth with his black glove, spoke to him at some length.\nI was not surprised to observe Mr. Kenge inclined to dispute what\nhe said before he had said much, for I knew that no two people ever\ndid agree about anything in Jarndyce and Jarndyce. But he seemed\nto get the better of Mr. Kenge too in a conversation that sounded\nas if it were almost composed of the words \"Receiver-General,\"\n\"Accountant-General,\" \"report,\" \"estate,\" and \"costs.\" When they had\nfinished, they came back to Mr. Kenge's table and spoke aloud.\n\n\"Well! But this is a very remarkable document, Mr. Vholes,\" said Mr.\nKenge.\n\nMr. Vholes said, \"Very much so.\"\n\n\"And a very important document, Mr. Vholes,\" said Mr. Kenge.\n\nAgain Mr. Vholes said, \"Very much so.\"\n\n\"And as you say, Mr. Vholes, when the cause is in the paper next\nterm, this document will be an unexpected and interesting feature in\nit,\" said Mr. Kenge, looking loftily at my guardian.\n\nMr. Vholes was gratified, as a smaller practitioner striving to keep\nrespectable, to be confirmed in any opinion of his own by such an\nauthority.\n\n\"And when,\" asked my guardian, rising after a pause, during which Mr.\nKenge had rattled his money and Mr. Vholes had picked his pimples,\n\"when is next term?\"\n\n\"Next term, Mr. Jarndyce, will be next month,\" said Mr. Kenge. \"Of\ncourse we shall at once proceed to do what is necessary with this\ndocument and to collect the necessary evidence concerning it; and of\ncourse you will receive our usual notification of the cause being in\nthe paper.\"\n\n\"To which I shall pay, of course, my usual attention.\"\n\n\"Still bent, my dear sir,\" said Mr. Kenge, showing us through the\nouter office to the door, \"still bent, even with your enlarged mind,\non echoing a popular prejudice? We are a prosperous community, Mr.\nJarndyce, a very prosperous community. We are a great country, Mr.\nJarndyce, we are a very great country. This is a great system, Mr.\nJarndyce, and would you wish a great country to have a little system?\nNow, really, really!\"\n\nHe said this at the stair-head, gently moving his right hand as if it\nwere a silver trowel with which to spread the cement of his words on\nthe structure of the system and consolidate it for a thousand ages.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXIII\n\nSteel and Iron\n\n\nGeorge's Shooting Gallery is to let, and the stock is sold off, and\nGeorge himself is at Chesney Wold attending on Sir Leicester in his\nrides and riding very near his bridle-rein because of the uncertain\nhand with which he guides his horse. But not to-day is George so\noccupied. He is journeying to-day into the iron country farther north\nto look about him.\n\nAs he comes into the iron country farther north, such fresh green\nwoods as those of Chesney Wold are left behind; and coal pits and\nashes, high chimneys and red bricks, blighted verdure, scorching\nfires, and a heavy never-lightening cloud of smoke become the\nfeatures of the scenery. Among such objects rides the trooper,\nlooking about him and always looking for something he has come to\nfind.\n\nAt last, on the black canal bridge of a busy town, with a clang of\niron in it, and more fires and more smoke than he has seen yet, the\ntrooper, swart with the dust of the coal roads, checks his horse and\nasks a workman does he know the name of Rouncewell thereabouts.\n\n\"Why, master,\" quoth the workman, \"do I know my own name?\"\n\n\"'Tis so well known here, is it, comrade?\" asks the trooper.\n\n\"Rouncewell's? Ah! You're right.\"\n\n\"And where might it be now?\" asks the trooper with a glance before\nhim.\n\n\"The bank, the factory, or the house?\" the workman wants to know.\n\n\"Hum! Rouncewell's is so great apparently,\" mutters the trooper,\nstroking his chin, \"that I have as good as half a mind to go back\nagain. Why, I don't know which I want. Should I find Mr. Rouncewell\nat the factory, do you think?\"\n\n\"Tain't easy to say where you'd find him--at this time of the day you\nmight find either him or his son there, if he's in town; but his\ncontracts take him away.\"\n\nAnd which is the factory? Why, he sees those chimneys--the tallest\nones! Yes, he sees THEM. Well! Let him keep his eye on those\nchimneys, going on as straight as ever he can, and presently he'll\nsee 'em down a turning on the left, shut in by a great brick wall\nwhich forms one side of the street. That's Rouncewell's.\n\nThe trooper thanks his informant and rides slowly on, looking about\nhim. He does not turn back, but puts up his horse (and is much\ndisposed to groom him too) at a public-house where some of\nRouncewell's hands are dining, as the ostler tells him. Some of\nRouncewell's hands have just knocked off for dinner-time and seem to\nbe invading the whole town. They are very sinewy and strong, are\nRouncewell's hands--a little sooty too.\n\nHe comes to a gateway in the brick wall, looks in, and sees a great\nperplexity of iron lying about in every stage and in a vast variety\nof shapes--in bars, in wedges, in sheets; in tanks, in boilers, in\naxles, in wheels, in cogs, in cranks, in rails; twisted and wrenched\ninto eccentric and perverse forms as separate parts of machinery;\nmountains of it broken up, and rusty in its age; distant furnaces of\nit glowing and bubbling in its youth; bright fireworks of it\nshowering about under the blows of the steam-hammer; red-hot iron,\nwhite-hot iron, cold-black iron; an iron taste, an iron smell, and a\nBabel of iron sounds.\n\n\"This is a place to make a man's head ache too!\" says the trooper,\nlooking about him for a counting-house. \"Who comes here? This is very\nlike me before I was set up. This ought to be my nephew, if\nlikenesses run in families. Your servant, sir.\"\n\n\"Yours, sir. Are you looking for any one?\"\n\n\"Excuse me. Young Mr. Rouncewell, I believe?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I was looking for your father, sir. I wish to have a word with him.\"\n\nThe young man, telling him he is fortunate in his choice of a time,\nfor his father is there, leads the way to the office where he is to\nbe found. \"Very like me before I was set up--devilish like me!\"\nthinks the trooper as he follows. They come to a building in the yard\nwith an office on an upper floor. At sight of the gentleman in the\noffice, Mr. George turns very red.\n\n\"What name shall I say to my father?\" asks the young man.\n\nGeorge, full of the idea of iron, in desperation answers \"Steel,\" and\nis so presented. He is left alone with the gentleman in the office,\nwho sits at a table with account-books before him and some sheets of\npaper blotted with hosts of figures and drawings of cunning shapes.\nIt is a bare office, with bare windows, looking on the iron view\nbelow. Tumbled together on the table are some pieces of iron,\npurposely broken to be tested at various periods of their service, in\nvarious capacities. There is iron-dust on everything; and the smoke\nis seen through the windows rolling heavily out of the tall chimneys\nto mingle with the smoke from a vaporous Babylon of other chimneys.\n\n\"I am at your service, Mr. Steel,\" says the gentleman when his\nvisitor has taken a rusty chair.\n\n\"Well, Mr. Rouncewell,\" George replies, leaning forward with his left\narm on his knee and his hat in his hand, and very chary of meeting\nhis brother's eye, \"I am not without my expectations that in the\npresent visit I may prove to be more free than welcome. I have served\nas a dragoon in my day, and a comrade of mine that I was once rather\npartial to was, if I don't deceive myself, a brother of yours. I\nbelieve you had a brother who gave his family some trouble, and ran\naway, and never did any good but in keeping away?\"\n\n\"Are you quite sure,\" returns the ironmaster in an altered voice,\n\"that your name is Steel?\"\n\nThe trooper falters and looks at him. His brother starts up, calls\nhim by his name, and grasps him by both hands.\n\n\"You are too quick for me!\" cries the trooper with the tears\nspringing out of his eyes. \"How do you do, my dear old fellow? I\nnever could have thought you would have been half so glad to see me\nas all this. How do you do, my dear old fellow, how do you do!\"\n\nThey shake hands and embrace each other over and over again, the\ntrooper still coupling his \"How do you do, my dear old fellow!\" with\nhis protestation that he never thought his brother would have been\nhalf so glad to see him as all this!\n\n\"So far from it,\" he declares at the end of a full account of what\nhas preceded his arrival there, \"I had very little idea of making\nmyself known. I thought if you took by any means forgivingly to my\nname I might gradually get myself up to the point of writing a\nletter. But I should not have been surprised, brother, if you had\nconsidered it anything but welcome news to hear of me.\"\n\n\"We will show you at home what kind of news we think it, George,\"\nreturns his brother. \"This is a great day at home, and you could not\nhave arrived, you bronzed old soldier, on a better. I make an\nagreement with my son Watt to-day that on this day twelvemonth he\nshall marry as pretty and as good a girl as you have seen in all your\ntravels. She goes to Germany to-morrow with one of your nieces for a\nlittle polishing up in her education. We make a feast of the event,\nand you will be made the hero of it.\"\n\nMr. George is so entirely overcome at first by this prospect that he\nresists the proposed honour with great earnestness. Being overborne,\nhowever, by his brother and his nephew--concerning whom he renews his\nprotestations that he never could have thought they would have been\nhalf so glad to see him--he is taken home to an elegant house in all\nthe arrangements of which there is to be observed a pleasant mixture\nof the originally simple habits of the father and mother with such as\nare suited to their altered station and the higher fortunes of their\nchildren. Here Mr. George is much dismayed by the graces and\naccomplishments of his nieces that are and by the beauty of Rosa, his\nniece that is to be, and by the affectionate salutations of these\nyoung ladies, which he receives in a sort of dream. He is sorely\ntaken aback, too, by the dutiful behaviour of his nephew and has a\nwoeful consciousness upon him of being a scapegrace. However, there\nis great rejoicing and a very hearty company and infinite enjoyment,\nand Mr. George comes bluff and martial through it all, and his pledge\nto be present at the marriage and give away the bride is received\nwith universal favour. A whirling head has Mr. George that night when\nhe lies down in the state-bed of his brother's house to think of all\nthese things and to see the images of his nieces (awful all the\nevening in their floating muslins) waltzing, after the German manner,\nover his counterpane.\n\nThe brothers are closeted next morning in the ironmaster's room,\nwhere the elder is proceeding, in his clear sensible way, to show how\nhe thinks he may best dispose of George in his business, when George\nsqueezes his hand and stops him.\n\n\"Brother, I thank you a million times for your more than brotherly\nwelcome, and a million times more to that for your more than\nbrotherly intentions. But my plans are made. Before I say a word as\nto them, I wish to consult you upon one family point. How,\" says the\ntrooper, folding his arms and looking with indomitable firmness at\nhis brother, \"how is my mother to be got to scratch me?\"\n\n\"I am not sure that I understand you, George,\" replies the\nironmaster.\n\n\"I say, brother, how is my mother to be got to scratch me? She must\nbe got to do it somehow.\"\n\n\"Scratch you out of her will, I think you mean?\"\n\n\"Of course I do. In short,\" says the trooper, folding his arms more\nresolutely yet, \"I mean--TO--scratch me!\"\n\n\"My dear George,\" returns his brother, \"is it so indispensable that\nyou should undergo that process?\"\n\n\"Quite! Absolutely! I couldn't be guilty of the meanness of coming\nback without it. I should never be safe not to be off again. I have\nnot sneaked home to rob your children, if not yourself, brother, of\nyour rights. I, who forfeited mine long ago! If I am to remain and\nhold up my head, I must be scratched. Come. You are a man of\ncelebrated penetration and intelligence, and you can tell me how it's\nto be brought about.\"\n\n\"I can tell you, George,\" replies the ironmaster deliberately, \"how\nit is not to be brought about, which I hope may answer the purpose as\nwell. Look at our mother, think of her, recall her emotion when she\nrecovered you. Do you believe there is a consideration in the world\nthat would induce her to take such a step against her favourite son?\nDo you believe there is any chance of her consent, to balance against\nthe outrage it would be to her (loving dear old lady!) to propose it?\nIf you do, you are wrong. No, George! You must make up your mind to\nremain UNscratched, I think.\" There is an amused smile on the\nironmaster's face as he watches his brother, who is pondering, deeply\ndisappointed. \"I think you may manage almost as well as if the thing\nwere done, though.\"\n\n\"How, brother?\"\n\n\"Being bent upon it, you can dispose by will of anything you have the\nmisfortune to inherit in any way you like, you know.\"\n\n\"That's true!\" says the trooper, pondering again. Then he wistfully\nasks, with his hand on his brother's, \"Would you mind mentioning\nthat, brother, to your wife and family?\"\n\n\"Not at all.\"\n\n\"Thank you. You wouldn't object to say, perhaps, that although an\nundoubted vagabond, I am a vagabond of the harum-scarum order, and\nnot of the mean sort?\"\n\nThe ironmaster, repressing his amused smile, assents.\n\n\"Thank you. Thank you. It's a weight off my mind,\" says the trooper\nwith a heave of his chest as he unfolds his arms and puts a hand on\neach leg, \"though I had set my heart on being scratched, too!\"\n\nThe brothers are very like each other, sitting face to face; but a\ncertain massive simplicity and absence of usage in the ways of the\nworld is all on the trooper's side.\n\n\"Well,\" he proceeds, throwing off his disappointment, \"next and last,\nthose plans of mine. You have been so brotherly as to propose to me\nto fall in here and take my place among the products of your\nperseverance and sense. I thank you heartily. It's more than\nbrotherly, as I said before, and I thank you heartily for it,\"\nshaking him a long time by the hand. \"But the truth is, brother, I am\na--I am a kind of a weed, and it's too late to plant me in a regular\ngarden.\"\n\n\"My dear George,\" returns the elder, concentrating his strong steady\nbrow upon him and smiling confidently, \"leave that to me, and let me\ntry.\"\n\nGeorge shakes his head. \"You could do it, I have not a doubt, if\nanybody could; but it's not to be done. Not to be done, sir! Whereas\nit so falls out, on the other hand, that I am able to be of some\ntrifle of use to Sir Leicester Dedlock since his illness--brought on\nby family sorrows--and that he would rather have that help from our\nmother's son than from anybody else.\"\n\n\"Well, my dear George,\" returns the other with a very slight shade\nupon his open face, \"if you prefer to serve in Sir Leicester\nDedlock's household brigade--\"\n\n\"There it is, brother,\" cries the trooper, checking him, with his\nhand upon his knee again; \"there it is! You don't take kindly to that\nidea; I don't mind it. You are not used to being officered; I am.\nEverything about you is in perfect order and discipline; everything\nabout me requires to be kept so. We are not accustomed to carry\nthings with the same hand or to look at 'em from the same point. I\ndon't say much about my garrison manners because I found myself\npretty well at my ease last night, and they wouldn't be noticed here,\nI dare say, once and away. But I shall get on best at Chesney Wold,\nwhere there's more room for a weed than there is here; and the dear\nold lady will be made happy besides. Therefore I accept of Sir\nLeicester Dedlock's proposals. When I come over next year to give\naway the bride, or whenever I come, I shall have the sense to keep\nthe household brigade in ambuscade and not to manoeuvre it on your\nground. I thank you heartily again and am proud to think of the\nRouncewells as they'll be founded by you.\"\n\n\"You know yourself, George,\" says the elder brother, returning the\ngrip of his hand, \"and perhaps you know me better than I know myself.\nTake your way. So that we don't quite lose one another again, take\nyour way.\"\n\n\"No fear of that!\" returns the trooper. \"Now, before I turn my\nhorse's head homewards, brother, I will ask you--if you'll be so\ngood--to look over a letter for me. I brought it with me to send from\nthese parts, as Chesney Wold might be a painful name just now to the\nperson it's written to. I am not much accustomed to correspondence\nmyself, and I am particular respecting this present letter because I\nwant it to be both straightforward and delicate.\"\n\nHerewith he hands a letter, closely written in somewhat pale ink but\nin a neat round hand, to the ironmaster, who reads as follows:\n\n\n   Miss Esther Summerson,\n\n   A communication having been made to me by Inspector Bucket\n   of a letter to myself being found among the papers of a\n   certain person, I take the liberty to make known to you\n   that it was but a few lines of instruction from abroad,\n   when, where, and how to deliver an enclosed letter to a\n   young and beautiful lady, then unmarried, in England. I\n   duly observed the same.\n\n   I further take the liberty to make known to you that it\n   was got from me as a proof of handwriting only and that\n   otherwise I would not have given it up, as appearing to\n   be the most harmless in my possession, without being\n   previously shot through the heart.\n\n   I further take the liberty to mention that if I could have\n   supposed a certain unfortunate gentleman to have been in\n   existence, I never could and never would have rested until\n   I had discovered his retreat and shared my last farthing\n   with him, as my duty and my inclination would have equally\n   been. But he was (officially) reported drowned, and\n   assuredly went over the side of a transport-ship at night\n   in an Irish harbour within a few hours of her arrival from\n   the West Indies, as I have myself heard both from officers\n   and men on board, and know to have been (officially)\n   confirmed.\n\n   I further take the liberty to state that in my humble\n   quality as one of the rank and file, I am, and shall ever\n   continue to be, your thoroughly devoted and admiring\n   servant and that I esteem the qualities you possess above\n   all others far beyond the limits of the present dispatch.\n\n   I have the honour to be,\n\n   GEORGE\n\n\n\"A little formal,\" observes the elder brother, refolding it with a\npuzzled face.\n\n\"But nothing that might not be sent to a pattern young lady?\" asks\nthe younger.\n\n\"Nothing at all.\"\n\nTherefore it is sealed and deposited for posting among the iron\ncorrespondence of the day. This done, Mr. George takes a hearty\nfarewell of the family party and prepares to saddle and mount. His\nbrother, however, unwilling to part with him so soon, proposes to\nride with him in a light open carriage to the place where he will\nbait for the night, and there remain with him until morning, a\nservant riding for so much of the journey on the thoroughbred old\ngrey from Chesney Wold. The offer, being gladly accepted, is followed\nby a pleasant ride, a pleasant dinner, and a pleasant breakfast, all\nin brotherly communion. Then they once more shake hands long and\nheartily and part, the ironmaster turning his face to the smoke and\nfires, and the trooper to the green country. Early in the afternoon\nthe subdued sound of his heavy military trot is heard on the turf in\nthe avenue as he rides on with imaginary clank and jingle of\naccoutrements under the old elm-trees.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXIV\n\nEsther's Narrative\n\n\nSoon after I had that conversation with my guardian, he put a sealed\npaper in my hand one morning and said, \"This is for next month, my\ndear.\" I found in it two hundred pounds.\n\nI now began very quietly to make such preparations as I thought were\nnecessary. Regulating my purchases by my guardian's taste, which I\nknew very well of course, I arranged my wardrobe to please him and\nhoped I should be highly successful. I did it all so quietly because\nI was not quite free from my old apprehension that Ada would be\nrather sorry and because my guardian was so quiet himself. I had no\ndoubt that under all the circumstances we should be married in the\nmost private and simple manner. Perhaps I should only have to say to\nAda, \"Would you like to come and see me married to-morrow, my pet?\"\nPerhaps our wedding might even be as unpretending as her own, and I\nmight not find it necessary to say anything about it until it was\nover. I thought that if I were to choose, I would like this best.\n\nThe only exception I made was Mrs. Woodcourt. I told her that I was\ngoing to be married to my guardian and that we had been engaged some\ntime. She highly approved. She could never do enough for me and was\nremarkably softened now in comparison with what she had been when we\nfirst knew her. There was no trouble she would not have taken to have\nbeen of use to me, but I need hardly say that I only allowed her to\ntake as little as gratified her kindness without tasking it.\n\nOf course this was not a time to neglect my guardian, and of course\nit was not a time for neglecting my darling. So I had plenty of\noccupation, which I was glad of; and as to Charley, she was\nabsolutely not to be seen for needlework. To surround herself with\ngreat heaps of it--baskets full and tables full--and do a little, and\nspend a great deal of time in staring with her round eyes at what\nthere was to do, and persuade herself that she was going to do it,\nwere Charley's great dignities and delights.\n\nMeanwhile, I must say, I could not agree with my guardian on the\nsubject of the will, and I had some sanguine hopes of Jarndyce and\nJarndyce. Which of us was right will soon appear, but I certainly did\nencourage expectations. In Richard, the discovery gave occasion for a\nburst of business and agitation that buoyed him up for a little time,\nbut he had lost the elasticity even of hope now and seemed to me to\nretain only its feverish anxieties. From something my guardian said\none day when we were talking about this, I understood that my\nmarriage would not take place until after the term-time we had been\ntold to look forward to; and I thought the more, for that, how\nrejoiced I should be if I could be married when Richard and Ada were\na little more prosperous.\n\nThe term was very near indeed when my guardian was called out of town\nand went down into Yorkshire on Mr. Woodcourt's business. He had told\nme beforehand that his presence there would be necessary. I had just\ncome in one night from my dear girl's and was sitting in the midst of\nall my new clothes, looking at them all around me and thinking, when\na letter from my guardian was brought to me. It asked me to join him\nin the country and mentioned by what stage-coach my place was taken\nand at what time in the morning I should have to leave town. It added\nin a postscript that I would not be many hours from Ada.\n\nI expected few things less than a journey at that time, but I was\nready for it in half an hour and set off as appointed early next\nmorning. I travelled all day, wondering all day what I could be\nwanted for at such a distance; now I thought it might be for this\npurpose, and now I thought it might be for that purpose, but I was\nnever, never, never near the truth.\n\nIt was night when I came to my journey's end and found my guardian\nwaiting for me. This was a great relief, for towards evening I had\nbegun to fear (the more so as his letter was a very short one) that\nhe might be ill. However, there he was, as well as it was possible to\nbe; and when I saw his genial face again at its brightest and best, I\nsaid to myself, he has been doing some other great kindness. Not that\nit required much penetration to say that, because I knew that his\nbeing there at all was an act of kindness.\n\nSupper was ready at the hotel, and when we were alone at table he\nsaid, \"Full of curiosity, no doubt, little woman, to know why I have\nbrought you here?\"\n\n\"Well, guardian,\" said I, \"without thinking myself a Fatima or you a\nBlue Beard, I am a little curious about it.\"\n\n\"Then to ensure your night's rest, my love,\" he returned gaily, \"I\nwon't wait until to-morrow to tell you. I have very much wished to\nexpress to Woodcourt, somehow, my sense of his humanity to poor\nunfortunate Jo, his inestimable services to my young cousins, and his\nvalue to us all. When it was decided that he should settle here, it\ncame into my head that I might ask his acceptance of some\nunpretending and suitable little place to lay his own head in. I\ntherefore caused such a place to be looked out for, and such a place\nwas found on very easy terms, and I have been touching it up for him\nand making it habitable. However, when I walked over it the day\nbefore yesterday and it was reported ready, I found that I was not\nhousekeeper enough to know whether things were all as they ought to\nbe. So I sent off for the best little housekeeper that could possibly\nbe got to come and give me her advice and opinion. And here she is,\"\nsaid my guardian, \"laughing and crying both together!\"\n\nBecause he was so dear, so good, so admirable. I tried to tell him\nwhat I thought of him, but I could not articulate a word.\n\n\"Tut, tut!\" said my guardian. \"You make too much of it, little woman.\nWhy, how you sob, Dame Durden, how you sob!\"\n\n\"It is with exquisite pleasure, guardian--with a heart full of\nthanks.\"\n\n\"Well, well,\" said he. \"I am delighted that you approve. I thought\nyou would. I meant it as a pleasant surprise for the little mistress\nof Bleak House.\"\n\nI kissed him and dried my eyes. \"I know now!\" said I. \"I have seen\nthis in your face a long while.\"\n\n\"No; have you really, my dear?\" said he. \"What a Dame Durden it is to\nread a face!\"\n\nHe was so quaintly cheerful that I could not long be otherwise, and\nwas almost ashamed of having been otherwise at all. When I went to\nbed, I cried. I am bound to confess that I cried; but I hope it was\nwith pleasure, though I am not quite sure it was with pleasure. I\nrepeated every word of the letter twice over.\n\nA most beautiful summer morning succeeded, and after breakfast we\nwent out arm in arm to see the house of which I was to give my mighty\nhousekeeping opinion. We entered a flower-garden by a gate in a side\nwall, of which he had the key, and the first thing I saw was that the\nbeds and flowers were all laid out according to the manner of my beds\nand flowers at home.\n\n\"You see, my dear,\" observed my guardian, standing still with a\ndelighted face to watch my looks, \"knowing there could be no better\nplan, I borrowed yours.\"\n\nWe went on by a pretty little orchard, where the cherries were\nnestling among the green leaves and the shadows of the apple-trees\nwere sporting on the grass, to the house itself--a cottage, quite a\nrustic cottage of doll's rooms; but such a lovely place, so tranquil\nand so beautiful, with such a rich and smiling country spread around\nit; with water sparkling away into the distance, here all overhung\nwith summer-growth, there turning a humming mill; at its nearest\npoint glancing through a meadow by the cheerful town, where\ncricket-players were assembling in bright groups and a flag was\nflying from a white tent that rippled in the sweet west wind. And\nstill, as we went through the pretty rooms, out at the little rustic\nverandah doors, and underneath the tiny wooden colonnades garlanded\nwith woodbine, jasmine, and honey-suckle, I saw in the papering on\nthe walls, in the colours of the furniture, in the arrangement of all\nthe pretty objects, MY little tastes and fancies, MY little methods\nand inventions which they used to laugh at while they praised them,\nmy odd ways everywhere.\n\nI could not say enough in admiration of what was all so beautiful,\nbut one secret doubt arose in my mind when I saw this, I thought, oh,\nwould he be the happier for it! Would it not have been better for his\npeace that I should not have been so brought before him? Because\nalthough I was not what he thought me, still he loved me very dearly,\nand it might remind him mournfully of what be believed he had lost. I\ndid not wish him to forget me--perhaps he might not have done so,\nwithout these aids to his memory--but my way was easier than his, and\nI could have reconciled myself even to that so that he had been the\nhappier for it.\n\n\"And now, little woman,\" said my guardian, whom I had never seen so\nproud and joyful as in showing me these things and watching my\nappreciation of them, \"now, last of all, for the name of this house.\"\n\n\"What is it called, dear guardian?\"\n\n\"My child,\" said he, \"come and see,\"\n\nHe took me to the porch, which he had hitherto avoided, and said,\npausing before we went out, \"My dear child, don't you guess the\nname?\"\n\n\"No!\" said I.\n\nWe went out of the porch and he showed me written over it, Bleak\nHouse.\n\nHe led me to a seat among the leaves close by, and sitting down\nbeside me and taking my hand in his, spoke to me thus, \"My darling\ngirl, in what there has been between us, I have, I hope, been really\nsolicitous for your happiness. When I wrote you the letter to which\nyou brought the answer,\" smiling as he referred to it, \"I had my own\ntoo much in view; but I had yours too. Whether, under different\ncircumstances, I might ever have renewed the old dream I sometimes\ndreamed when you were very young, of making you my wife one day, I\nneed not ask myself. I did renew it, and I wrote my letter, and you\nbrought your answer. You are following what I say, my child?\"\n\nI was cold, and I trembled violently, but not a word he uttered was\nlost. As I sat looking fixedly at him and the sun's rays descended,\nsoftly shining through the leaves upon his bare head, I felt as if\nthe brightness on him must be like the brightness of the angels.\n\n\"Hear me, my love, but do not speak. It is for me to speak now. When\nit was that I began to doubt whether what I had done would really\nmake you happy is no matter. Woodcourt came home, and I soon had no\ndoubt at all.\"\n\nI clasped him round the neck and hung my head upon his breast and\nwept. \"Lie lightly, confidently here, my child,\" said he, pressing me\ngently to him. \"I am your guardian and your father now. Rest\nconfidently here.\"\n\nSoothingly, like the gentle rustling of the leaves; and genially,\nlike the ripening weather; and radiantly and beneficently, like the\nsunshine, he went on.\n\n\"Understand me, my dear girl. I had no doubt of your being contented\nand happy with me, being so dutiful and so devoted; but I saw with\nwhom you would be happier. That I penetrated his secret when Dame\nDurden was blind to it is no wonder, for I knew the good that could\nnever change in her better far than she did. Well! I have long been\nin Allan Woodcourt's confidence, although he was not, until\nyesterday, a few hours before you came here, in mine. But I would not\nhave my Esther's bright example lost; I would not have a jot of my\ndear girl's virtues unobserved and unhonoured; I would not have her\nadmitted on sufferance into the line of Morgan ap-Kerrig, no, not for\nthe weight in gold of all the mountains in Wales!\"\n\nHe stopped to kiss me on the forehead, and I sobbed and wept afresh.\nFor I felt as if I could not bear the painful delight of his praise.\n\n\"Hush, little woman! Don't cry; this is to be a day of joy. I have\nlooked forward to it,\" he said exultingly, \"for months on months! A\nfew words more, Dame Trot, and I have said my say. Determined not to\nthrow away one atom of my Esther's worth, I took Mrs. Woodcourt into\na separate confidence. 'Now, madam,' said I, 'I clearly perceive--and\nindeed I know, to boot--that your son loves my ward. I am further\nvery sure that my ward loves your son, but will sacrifice her love to\na sense of duty and affection, and will sacrifice it so completely,\nso entirely, so religiously, that you should never suspect it though\nyou watched her night and day.' Then I told her all our\nstory--ours--yours and mine. 'Now, madam,' said I, 'come you, knowing\nthis, and live with us. Come you, and see my child from hour to hour;\nset what you see against her pedigree, which is this, and this'--for\nI scorned to mince it--'and tell me what is the true legitimacy when\nyou shall have quite made up your mind on that subject.' Why, honour\nto her old Welsh blood, my dear,\" cried my guardian with enthusiasm,\n\"I believe the heart it animates beats no less warmly, no less\nadmiringly, no less lovingly, towards Dame Durden than my own!\"\n\nHe tenderly raised my head, and as I clung to him, kissed me in his\nold fatherly way again and again. What a light, now, on the\nprotecting manner I had thought about!\n\n\"One more last word. When Allan Woodcourt spoke to you, my dear, he\nspoke with my knowledge and consent--but I gave him no encouragement,\nnot I, for these surprises were my great reward, and I was too\nmiserly to part with a scrap of it. He was to come and tell me all\nthat passed, and he did. I have no more to say. My dearest, Allan\nWoodcourt stood beside your father when he lay dead--stood beside\nyour mother. This is Bleak House. This day I give this house its\nlittle mistress; and before God, it is the brightest day in all my\nlife!\"\n\nHe rose and raised me with him. We were no longer alone. My\nhusband--I have called him by that name full seven happy years\nnow--stood at my side.\n\n\"Allan,\" said my guardian, \"take from me a willing gift, the best\nwife that ever man had. What more can I say for you than that I know\nyou deserve her! Take with her the little home she brings you. You\nknow what she will make it, Allan; you know what she has made its\nnamesake. Let me share its felicity sometimes, and what do I\nsacrifice? Nothing, nothing.\"\n\nHe kissed me once again, and now the tears were in his eyes as he\nsaid more softly, \"Esther, my dearest, after so many years, there is\na kind of parting in this too. I know that my mistake has caused you\nsome distress. Forgive your old guardian, in restoring him to his old\nplace in your affections; and blot it out of your memory. Allan, take\nmy dear.\"\n\nHe moved away from under the green roof of leaves, and stopping in\nthe sunlight outside and turning cheerfully towards us, said, \"I\nshall be found about here somewhere. It's a west wind, little woman,\ndue west! Let no one thank me any more, for I am going to revert to\nmy bachelor habits, and if anybody disregards this warning, I'll run\naway and never come back!\"\n\nWhat happiness was ours that day, what joy, what rest, what hope,\nwhat gratitude, what bliss! We were to be married before the month\nwas out, but when we were to come and take possession of our own\nhouse was to depend on Richard and Ada.\n\nWe all three went home together next day. As soon as we arrived in\ntown, Allan went straight to see Richard and to carry our joyful news\nto him and my darling. Late as it was, I meant to go to her for a few\nminutes before lying down to sleep, but I went home with my guardian\nfirst to make his tea for him and to occupy the old chair by his\nside, for I did not like to think of its being empty so soon.\n\nWhen we came home we found that a young man had called three times in\nthe course of that one day to see me and that having been told on the\noccasion of his third call that I was not expected to return before\nten o'clock at night, he had left word that he would call about then.\nHe had left his card three times. Mr. Guppy.\n\nAs I naturally speculated on the object of these visits, and as I\nalways associated something ludicrous with the visitor, it fell out\nthat in laughing about Mr. Guppy I told my guardian of his old\nproposal and his subsequent retraction. \"After that,\" said my\nguardian, \"we will certainly receive this hero.\" So instructions were\ngiven that Mr. Guppy should be shown in when he came again, and they\nwere scarcely given when he did come again.\n\nHe was embarrassed when he found my guardian with me, but recovered\nhimself and said, \"How de do, sir?\"\n\n\"How do you do, sir?\" returned my guardian.\n\n\"Thank you, sir, I am tolerable,\" returned Mr. Guppy. \"Will you allow\nme to introduce my mother, Mrs. Guppy of the Old Street Road, and my\nparticular friend, Mr. Weevle. That is to say, my friend has gone by\nthe name of Weevle, but his name is really and truly Jobling.\"\n\nMy guardian begged them to be seated, and they all sat down.\n\n\"Tony,\" said Mr. Guppy to his friend after an awkward silence. \"Will\nyou open the case?\"\n\n\"Do it yourself,\" returned the friend rather tartly.\n\n\"Well, Mr. Jarndyce, sir,\" Mr. Guppy, after a moment's consideration,\nbegan, to the great diversion of his mother, which she displayed by\nnudging Mr. Jobling with her elbow and winking at me in a most\nremarkable manner, \"I had an idea that I should see Miss Summerson by\nherself and was not quite prepared for your esteemed presence. But\nMiss Summerson has mentioned to you, perhaps, that something has\npassed between us on former occasions?\"\n\n\"Miss Summerson,\" returned my guardian, smiling, \"has made a\ncommunication to that effect to me.\"\n\n\"That,\" said Mr. Guppy, \"makes matters easier. Sir, I have come out\nof my articles at Kenge and Carboy's, and I believe with satisfaction\nto all parties. I am now admitted (after undergoing an examination\nthat's enough to badger a man blue, touching a pack of nonsense that\nhe don't want to know) on the roll of attorneys and have taken out my\ncertificate, if it would be any satisfaction to you to see it.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Mr. Guppy,\" returned my guardian. \"I am quite willing--I\nbelieve I use a legal phrase--to admit the certificate.\"\n\nMr. Guppy therefore desisted from taking something out of his pocket\nand proceeded without it.\n\n\"I have no capital myself, but my mother has a little property which\ntakes the form of an annuity\"--here Mr. Guppy's mother rolled her\nhead as if she never could sufficiently enjoy the observation, and\nput her handkerchief to her mouth, and again winked at me--\"and a few\npounds for expenses out of pocket in conducting business will never\nbe wanting, free of interest, which is an advantage, you know,\" said\nMr. Guppy feelingly.\n\n\"Certainly an advantage,\" returned my guardian.\n\n\"I HAVE some connexion,\" pursued Mr. Guppy, \"and it lays in the\ndirection of Walcot Square, Lambeth. I have therefore taken a 'ouse\nin that locality, which, in the opinion of my friends, is a hollow\nbargain (taxes ridiculous, and use of fixtures included in the rent),\nand intend setting up professionally for myself there forthwith.\"\n\nHere Mr. Guppy's mother fell into an extraordinary passion of rolling\nher head and smiling waggishly at anybody who would look at her.\n\n\"It's a six-roomer, exclusive of kitchens,\" said Mr. Guppy, \"and in\nthe opinion of my friends, a commodious tenement. When I mention my\nfriends, I refer principally to my friend Jobling, who I believe has\nknown me,\" Mr. Guppy looked at him with a sentimental air, \"from\nboyhood's hour.\"\n\nMr. Jobling confirmed this with a sliding movement of his legs.\n\n\"My friend Jobling will render me his assistance in the capacity of\nclerk and will live in the 'ouse,\" said Mr. Guppy. \"My mother will\nlikewise live in the 'ouse when her present quarter in the Old Street\nRoad shall have ceased and expired; and consequently there will be no\nwant of society. My friend Jobling is naturally aristocratic by\ntaste, and besides being acquainted with the movements of the upper\ncircles, fully backs me in the intentions I am now developing.\"\n\nMr. Jobling said \"Certainly\" and withdrew a little from the elbow of\nMr Guppy's mother.\n\n\"Now, I have no occasion to mention to you, sir, you being in the\nconfidence of Miss Summerson,\" said Mr. Guppy, \"(mother, I wish you'd\nbe so good as to keep still), that Miss Summerson's image was\nformerly imprinted on my 'eart and that I made her a proposal of\nmarriage.\"\n\n\"That I have heard,\" returned my guardian.\n\n\"Circumstances,\" pursued Mr. Guppy, \"over which I had no control, but\nquite the contrary, weakened the impression of that image for a time.\nAt which time Miss Summerson's conduct was highly genteel; I may even\nadd, magnanimous.\"\n\nMy guardian patted me on the shoulder and seemed much amused.\n\n\"Now, sir,\" said Mr. Guppy, \"I have got into that state of mind\nmyself that I wish for a reciprocity of magnanimous behaviour. I wish\nto prove to Miss Summerson that I can rise to a heighth of which\nperhaps she hardly thought me capable. I find that the image which I\ndid suppose had been eradicated from my 'eart is NOT eradicated. Its\ninfluence over me is still tremenjous, and yielding to it, I am\nwilling to overlook the circumstances over which none of us have had\nany control and to renew those proposals to Miss Summerson which I\nhad the honour to make at a former period. I beg to lay the 'ouse in\nWalcot Square, the business, and myself before Miss Summerson for her\nacceptance.\"\n\n\"Very magnanimous indeed, sir,\" observed my guardian.\n\n\"Well, sir,\" replied Mr. Guppy with candour, \"my wish is to BE\nmagnanimous. I do not consider that in making this offer to Miss\nSummerson I am by any means throwing myself away; neither is that the\nopinion of my friends. Still, there are circumstances which I submit\nmay be taken into account as a set off against any little drawbacks\nof mine, and so a fair and equitable balance arrived at.\"\n\n\"I take upon myself, sir,\" said my guardian, laughing as he rang the\nbell, \"to reply to your proposals on behalf of Miss Summerson. She is\nvery sensible of your handsome intentions, and wishes you good\nevening, and wishes you well.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Mr. Guppy with a blank look. \"Is that tantamount, sir, to\nacceptance, or rejection, or consideration?\"\n\n\"To decided rejection, if you please,\" returned my guardian.\n\nMr. Guppy looked incredulously at his friend, and at his mother, who\nsuddenly turned very angry, and at the floor, and at the ceiling.\n\n\"Indeed?\" said he. \"Then, Jobling, if you was the friend you\nrepresent yourself, I should think you might hand my mother out of\nthe gangway instead of allowing her to remain where she ain't\nwanted.\"\n\nBut Mrs. Guppy positively refused to come out of the gangway. She\nwouldn't hear of it. \"Why, get along with you,\" said she to my\nguardian, \"what do you mean? Ain't my son good enough for you? You\nought to be ashamed of yourself. Get out with you!\"\n\n\"My good lady,\" returned my guardian, \"it is hardly reasonable to ask\nme to get out of my own room.\"\n\n\"I don't care for that,\" said Mrs. Guppy. \"Get out with you. If we\nain't good enough for you, go and procure somebody that is good\nenough. Go along and find 'em.\"\n\nI was quite unprepared for the rapid manner in which Mrs. Guppy's\npower of jocularity merged into a power of taking the profoundest\noffence.\n\n\"Go along and find somebody that's good enough for you,\" repeated\nMrs. Guppy. \"Get out!\" Nothing seemed to astonish Mr. Guppy's mother\nso much and to make her so very indignant as our not getting out.\n\"Why don't you get out?\" said Mrs. Guppy. \"What are you stopping here\nfor?\"\n\n\"Mother,\" interposed her son, always getting before her and pushing\nher back with one shoulder as she sidled at my guardian, \"WILL you\nhold your tongue?\"\n\n\"No, William,\" she returned, \"I won't! Not unless he gets out, I\nwon't!\"\n\nHowever, Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling together closed on Mr. Guppy's\nmother (who began to be quite abusive) and took her, very much\nagainst her will, downstairs, her voice rising a stair higher every\ntime her figure got a stair lower, and insisting that we should\nimmediately go and find somebody who was good enough for us, and\nabove all things that we should get out.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXV\n\nBeginning the World\n\n\nThe term had commenced, and my guardian found an intimation from Mr.\nKenge that the cause would come on in two days. As I had sufficient\nhopes of the will to be in a flutter about it, Allan and I agreed to\ngo down to the court that morning. Richard was extremely agitated and\nwas so weak and low, though his illness was still of the mind, that\nmy dear girl indeed had sore occasion to be supported. But she looked\nforward--a very little way now--to the help that was to come to her,\nand never drooped.\n\nIt was at Westminster that the cause was to come on. It had come on\nthere, I dare say, a hundred times before, but I could not divest\nmyself of an idea that it MIGHT lead to some result now. We left home\ndirectly after breakfast to be at Westminster Hall in good time and\nwalked down there through the lively streets--so happily and\nstrangely it seemed!--together.\n\nAs we were going along, planning what we should do for Richard and\nAda, I heard somebody calling \"Esther! My dear Esther! Esther!\" And\nthere was Caddy Jellyby, with her head out of the window of a little\ncarriage which she hired now to go about in to her pupils (she had so\nmany), as if she wanted to embrace me at a hundred yards' distance. I\nhad written her a note to tell her of all that my guardian had done,\nbut had not had a moment to go and see her. Of course we turned back,\nand the affectionate girl was in that state of rapture, and was so\noverjoyed to talk about the night when she brought me the flowers,\nand was so determined to squeeze my face (bonnet and all) between her\nhands, and go on in a wild manner altogether, calling me all kinds of\nprecious names, and telling Allan I had done I don't know what for\nher, that I was just obliged to get into the little carriage and calm\nher down by letting her say and do exactly what she liked. Allan,\nstanding at the window, was as pleased as Caddy; and I was as pleased\nas either of them; and I wonder that I got away as I did, rather than\nthat I came off laughing, and red, and anything but tidy, and looking\nafter Caddy, who looked after us out of the coach-window as long as\nshe could see us.\n\nThis made us some quarter of an hour late, and when we came to\nWestminster Hall we found that the day's business was begun. Worse\nthan that, we found such an unusual crowd in the Court of Chancery\nthat it was full to the door, and we could neither see nor hear what\nwas passing within. It appeared to be something droll, for\noccasionally there was a laugh and a cry of \"Silence!\" It appeared to\nbe something interesting, for every one was pushing and striving to\nget nearer. It appeared to be something that made the professional\ngentlemen very merry, for there were several young counsellors in\nwigs and whiskers on the outside of the crowd, and when one of them\ntold the others about it, they put their hands in their pockets, and\nquite doubled themselves up with laughter, and went stamping about\nthe pavement of the Hall.\n\nWe asked a gentleman by us if he knew what cause was on. He told us\nJarndyce and Jarndyce. We asked him if he knew what was doing in it.\nHe said really, no he did not, nobody ever did, but as well as he\ncould make out, it was over. Over for the day? we asked him. No, he\nsaid, over for good.\n\nOver for good!\n\nWhen we heard this unaccountable answer, we looked at one another\nquite lost in amazement. Could it be possible that the will had set\nthings right at last and that Richard and Ada were going to be rich?\nIt seemed too good to be true. Alas it was!\n\nOur suspense was short, for a break-up soon took place in the crowd,\nand the people came streaming out looking flushed and hot and\nbringing a quantity of bad air with them. Still they were all\nexceedingly amused and were more like people coming out from a farce\nor a juggler than from a court of justice. We stood aside, watching\nfor any countenance we knew, and presently great bundles of paper\nbegan to be carried out--bundles in bags, bundles too large to be got\ninto any bags, immense masses of papers of all shapes and no shapes,\nwhich the bearers staggered under, and threw down for the time being,\nanyhow, on the Hall pavement, while they went back to bring out more.\nEven these clerks were laughing. We glanced at the papers, and seeing\nJarndyce and Jarndyce everywhere, asked an official-looking person\nwho was standing in the midst of them whether the cause was over.\nYes, he said, it was all up with it at last, and burst out laughing\ntoo.\n\nAt this juncture we perceived Mr. Kenge coming out of court with an\naffable dignity upon him, listening to Mr. Vholes, who was\ndeferential and carried his own bag. Mr. Vholes was the first to see\nus. \"Here is Miss Summerson, sir,\" he said. \"And Mr. Woodcourt.\"\n\n\"Oh, indeed! Yes. Truly!\" said Mr. Kenge, raising his hat to me with\npolished politeness. \"How do you do? Glad to see you. Mr. Jarndyce is\nnot here?\"\n\nNo. He never came there, I reminded him.\n\n\"Really,\" returned Mr. Kenge, \"it is as well that he is NOT here\nto-day, for his--shall I say, in my good friend's absence, his\nindomitable singularity of opinion?--might have been strengthened,\nperhaps; not reasonably, but might have been strengthened.\"\n\n\"Pray what has been done to-day?\" asked Allan.\n\n\"I beg your pardon?\" said Mr. Kenge with excessive urbanity.\n\n\"What has been done to-day?\"\n\n\"What has been done,\" repeated Mr. Kenge. \"Quite so. Yes. Why, not\nmuch has been done; not much. We have been checked--brought up\nsuddenly, I would say--upon the--shall I term it threshold?\"\n\n\"Is this will considered a genuine document, sir?\" said Allan. \"Will\nyou tell us that?\"\n\n\"Most certainly, if I could,\" said Mr. Kenge; \"but we have not gone\ninto that, we have not gone into that.\"\n\n\"We have not gone into that,\" repeated Mr. Vholes as if his low\ninward voice were an echo.\n\n\"You are to reflect, Mr. Woodcourt,\" observed Mr. Kenge, using his\nsilver trowel persuasively and smoothingly, \"that this has been a\ngreat cause, that this has been a protracted cause, that this has\nbeen a complex cause. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has been termed, not\ninaptly, a monument of Chancery practice.\"\n\n\"And patience has sat upon it a long time,\" said Allan.\n\n\"Very well indeed, sir,\" returned Mr. Kenge with a certain\ncondescending laugh he had. \"Very well! You are further to reflect,\nMr. Woodcourt,\" becoming dignified almost to severity, \"that on the\nnumerous difficulties, contingencies, masterly fictions, and forms of\nprocedure in this great cause, there has been expended study,\nability, eloquence, knowledge, intellect, Mr. Woodcourt, high\nintellect. For many years, the--a--I would say the flower of the bar,\nand the--a--I would presume to add, the matured autumnal fruits of\nthe woolsack--have been lavished upon Jarndyce and Jarndyce. If the\npublic have the benefit, and if the country have the adornment, of\nthis great grasp, it must be paid for in money or money's worth,\nsir.\"\n\n\"Mr. Kenge,\" said Allan, appearing enlightened all in a moment.\n\"Excuse me, our time presses. Do I understand that the whole estate\nis found to have been absorbed in costs?\"\n\n\"Hem! I believe so,\" returned Mr. Kenge. \"Mr. Vholes, what do YOU\nsay?\"\n\n\"I believe so,\" said Mr. Vholes.\n\n\"And that thus the suit lapses and melts away?\"\n\n\"Probably,\" returned Mr. Kenge. \"Mr. Vholes?\"\n\n\"Probably,\" said Mr. Vholes.\n\n\"My dearest life,\" whispered Allan, \"this will break Richard's\nheart!\"\n\nThere was such a shock of apprehension in his face, and he knew\nRichard so perfectly, and I too had seen so much of his gradual\ndecay, that what my dear girl had said to me in the fullness of her\nforeboding love sounded like a knell in my ears.\n\n\"In case you should be wanting Mr. C., sir,\" said Mr. Vholes, coming\nafter us, \"you'll find him in court. I left him there resting himself\na little. Good day, sir; good day, Miss Summerson.\" As he gave me\nthat slowly devouring look of his, while twisting up the strings of\nhis bag before he hastened with it after Mr. Kenge, the benignant\nshadow of whose conversational presence he seemed afraid to leave, he\ngave one gasp as if he had swallowed the last morsel of his client,\nand his black buttoned-up unwholesome figure glided away to the low\ndoor at the end of the Hall.\n\n\"My dear love,\" said Allan, \"leave to me, for a little while, the\ncharge you gave me. Go home with this intelligence and come to Ada's\nby and by!\"\n\nI would not let him take me to a coach, but entreated him to go to\nRichard without a moment's delay and leave me to do as he wished.\nHurrying home, I found my guardian and told him gradually with what\nnews I had returned. \"Little woman,\" said he, quite unmoved for\nhimself, \"to have done with the suit on any terms is a greater\nblessing than I had looked for. But my poor young cousins!\"\n\nWe talked about them all the morning and discussed what it was\npossible to do. In the afternoon my guardian walked with me to\nSymond's Inn and left me at the door. I went upstairs. When my\ndarling heard my footsteps, she came out into the small passage and\nthrew her arms round my neck, but she composed herself directly and\nsaid that Richard had asked for me several times. Allan had found him\nsitting in the corner of the court, she told me, like a stone figure.\nOn being roused, he had broken away and made as if he would have\nspoken in a fierce voice to the judge. He was stopped by his mouth\nbeing full of blood, and Allan had brought him home.\n\nHe was lying on a sofa with his eyes closed when I went in. There\nwere restoratives on the table; the room was made as airy as\npossible, and was darkened, and was very orderly and quiet. Allan\nstood behind him watching him gravely. His face appeared to me to be\nquite destitute of colour, and now that I saw him without his seeing\nme, I fully saw, for the first time, how worn away he was. But he\nlooked handsomer than I had seen him look for many a day.\n\nI sat down by his side in silence. Opening his eyes by and by, he\nsaid in a weak voice, but with his old smile, \"Dame Durden, kiss me,\nmy dear!\"\n\nIt was a great comfort and surprise to me to find him in his low\nstate cheerful and looking forward. He was happier, he said, in our\nintended marriage than he could find words to tell me. My husband had\nbeen a guardian angel to him and Ada, and he blessed us both and\nwished us all the joy that life could yield us. I almost felt as if\nmy own heart would have broken when I saw him take my husband's hand\nand hold it to his breast.\n\nWe spoke of the future as much as possible, and he said several times\nthat he must be present at our marriage if he could stand upon his\nfeet. Ada would contrive to take him, somehow, he said. \"Yes, surely,\ndearest Richard!\" But as my darling answered him thus hopefully, so\nserene and beautiful, with the help that was to come to her so\nnear--I knew--I knew!\n\nIt was not good for him to talk too much, and when he was silent, we\nwere silent too. Sitting beside him, I made a pretence of working for\nmy dear, as he had always been used to joke about my being busy. Ada\nleaned upon his pillow, holding his head upon her arm. He dozed\noften, and whenever he awoke without seeing him, said first of all,\n\"Where is Woodcourt?\"\n\nEvening had come on when I lifted up my eyes and saw my guardian\nstanding in the little hall. \"Who is that, Dame Durden?\" Richard\nasked me. The door was behind him, but he had observed in my face\nthat some one was there.\n\nI looked to Allan for advice, and as he nodded \"Yes,\" bent over\nRichard and told him. My guardian saw what passed, came softly by me\nin a moment, and laid his hand on Richard's. \"Oh, sir,\" said Richard,\n\"you are a good man, you are a good man!\" and burst into tears for\nthe first time.\n\nMy guardian, the picture of a good man, sat down in my place, keeping\nhis hand on Richard's.\n\n\"My dear Rick,\" said he, \"the clouds have cleared away, and it is\nbright now. We can see now. We were all bewildered, Rick, more or\nless. What matters! And how are you, my dear boy?\"\n\n\"I am very weak, sir, but I hope I shall be stronger. I have to begin\nthe world.\"\n\n\"Aye, truly; well said!\" cried my guardian.\n\n\"I will not begin it in the old way now,\" said Richard with a sad\nsmile. \"I have learned a lesson now, sir. It was a hard one, but you\nshall be assured, indeed, that I have learned it.\"\n\n\"Well, well,\" said my guardian, comforting him; \"well, well, well,\ndear boy!\"\n\n\"I was thinking, sir,\" resumed Richard, \"that there is nothing on\nearth I should so much like to see as their house--Dame Durden's and\nWoodcourt's house. If I could be removed there when I begin to\nrecover my strength, I feel as if I should get well there sooner than\nanywhere.\"\n\n\"Why, so have I been thinking too, Rick,\" said my guardian, \"and our\nlittle woman likewise; she and I have been talking of it this very\nday. I dare say her husband won't object. What do you think?\"\n\nRichard smiled and lifted up his arm to touch him as he stood behind\nthe head of the couch.\n\n\"I say nothing of Ada,\" said Richard, \"but I think of her, and have\nthought of her very much. Look at her! See her here, sir, bending\nover this pillow when she has so much need to rest upon it herself,\nmy dear love, my poor girl!\"\n\nHe clasped her in his arms, and none of us spoke. He gradually\nreleased her, and she looked upon us, and looked up to heaven, and\nmoved her lips.\n\n\"When I get down to Bleak House,\" said Richard, \"I shall have much to\ntell you, sir, and you will have much to show me. You will go, won't\nyou?\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly, dear Rick.\"\n\n\"Thank you; like you, like you,\" said Richard. \"But it's all like\nyou. They have been telling me how you planned it and how you\nremembered all Esther's familiar tastes and ways. It will be like\ncoming to the old Bleak House again.\"\n\n\"And you will come there too, I hope, Rick. I am a solitary man now,\nyou know, and it will be a charity to come to me. A charity to come\nto me, my love!\" he repeated to Ada as he gently passed his hand over\nher golden hair and put a lock of it to his lips. (I think he vowed\nwithin himself to cherish her if she were left alone.)\n\n\"It was a troubled dream?\" said Richard, clasping both my guardian's\nhands eagerly.\n\n\"Nothing more, Rick; nothing more.\"\n\n\"And you, being a good man, can pass it as such, and forgive and pity\nthe dreamer, and be lenient and encouraging when he wakes?\"\n\n\"Indeed I can. What am I but another dreamer, Rick?\"\n\n\"I will begin the world!\" said Richard with a light in his eyes.\n\nMy husband drew a little nearer towards Ada, and I saw him solemnly\nlift up his hand to warn my guardian.\n\n\"When shall I go from this place to that pleasant country where the\nold times are, where I shall have strength to tell what Ada has been\nto me, where I shall be able to recall my many faults and\nblindnesses, where I shall prepare myself to be a guide to my unborn\nchild?\" said Richard. \"When shall I go?\"\n\n\"Dear Rick, when you are strong enough,\" returned my guardian.\n\n\"Ada, my darling!\"\n\nHe sought to raise himself a little. Allan raised him so that she\ncould hold him on her bosom, which was what he wanted.\n\n\"I have done you many wrongs, my own. I have fallen like a poor stray\nshadow on your way, I have married you to poverty and trouble, I have\nscattered your means to the winds. You will forgive me all this, my\nAda, before I begin the world?\"\n\nA smile irradiated his face as she bent to kiss him. He slowly laid\nhis face down upon her bosom, drew his arms closer round her neck,\nand with one parting sob began the world. Not this world, oh, not\nthis! The world that sets this right.\n\nWhen all was still, at a late hour, poor crazed Miss Flite came\nweeping to me and told me she had given her birds their liberty.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXVI\n\nDown in Lincolnshire\n\n\nThere is a hush upon Chesney Wold in these altered days, as there is\nupon a portion of the family history. The story goes that Sir\nLeicester paid some who could have spoken out to hold their peace;\nbut it is a lame story, feebly whispering and creeping about, and any\nbrighter spark of life it shows soon dies away. It is known for\ncertain that the handsome Lady Dedlock lies in the mausoleum in the\npark, where the trees arch darkly overhead, and the owl is heard at\nnight making the woods ring; but whence she was brought home to be\nlaid among the echoes of that solitary place, or how she died, is all\nmystery. Some of her old friends, principally to be found among the\npeachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats, did once\noccasionally say, as they toyed in a ghastly manner with large\nfans--like charmers reduced to flirting with grim death, after losing\nall their other beaux--did once occasionally say, when the world\nassembled together, that they wondered the ashes of the Dedlocks,\nentombed in the mausoleum, never rose against the profanation of her\ncompany. But the dead-and-gone Dedlocks take it very calmly and have\nnever been known to object.\n\nUp from among the fern in the hollow, and winding by the bridle-road\namong the trees, comes sometimes to this lonely spot the sound of\nhorses' hoofs. Then may be seen Sir Leicester--invalided, bent, and\nalmost blind, but of worthy presence yet--riding with a stalwart man\nbeside him, constant to his bridle-rein. When they come to a certain\nspot before the mausoleum-door, Sir Leicester's accustomed horse\nstops of his own accord, and Sir Leicester, pulling off his hat, is\nstill for a few moments before they ride away.\n\nWar rages yet with the audacious Boythorn, though at uncertain\nintervals, and now hotly, and now coolly, flickering like an unsteady\nfire. The truth is said to be that when Sir Leicester came down to\nLincolnshire for good, Mr. Boythorn showed a manifest desire to\nabandon his right of way and do whatever Sir Leicester would, which\nSir Leicester, conceiving to be a condescension to his illness or\nmisfortune, took in such high dudgeon, and was so magnificently\naggrieved by, that Mr. Boythorn found himself under the necessity of\ncommitting a flagrant trespass to restore his neighbour to himself.\nSimilarly, Mr. Boythorn continues to post tremendous placards on the\ndisputed thoroughfare and (with his bird upon his head) to hold forth\nvehemently against Sir Leicester in the sanctuary of his own home;\nsimilarly, also, he defies him as of old in the little church by\ntestifying a bland unconsciousness of his existence. But it is\nwhispered that when he is most ferocious towards his old foe, he is\nreally most considerate, and that Sir Leicester, in the dignity of\nbeing implacable, little supposes how much he is humoured. As little\ndoes he think how near together he and his antagonist have suffered\nin the fortunes of two sisters, and his antagonist, who knows it now,\nis not the man to tell him. So the quarrel goes on to the\nsatisfaction of both.\n\nIn one of the lodges of the park--that lodge within sight of the\nhouse where, once upon a time, when the waters were out down in\nLincolnshire, my Lady used to see the keeper's child--the stalwart\nman, the trooper formerly, is housed. Some relics of his old calling\nhang upon the walls, and these it is the chosen recreation of a\nlittle lame man about the stable-yard to keep gleaming bright. A busy\nlittle man he always is, in the polishing at harness-house doors, of\nstirrup-irons, bits, curb-chains, harness bosses, anything in the way\nof a stable-yard that will take a polish, leading a life of friction.\nA shaggy little damaged man, withal, not unlike an old dog of some\nmongrel breed, who has been considerably knocked about. He answers to\nthe name of Phil.\n\nA goodly sight it is to see the grand old housekeeper (harder of\nhearing now) going to church on the arm of her son and to\nobserve--which few do, for the house is scant of company in these\ntimes--the relations of both towards Sir Leicester, and his towards\nthem. They have visitors in the high summer weather, when a grey\ncloak and umbrella, unknown to Chesney Wold at other periods, are\nseen among the leaves; when two young ladies are occasionally found\ngambolling in sequestered saw-pits and such nooks of the park; and\nwhen the smoke of two pipes wreathes away into the fragrant evening\nair from the trooper's door. Then is a fife heard trolling within the\nlodge on the inspiring topic of the \"British Grenadiers\"; and as the\nevening closes in, a gruff inflexible voice is heard to say, while\ntwo men pace together up and down, \"But I never own to it before the\nold girl. Discipline must be maintained.\"\n\nThe greater part of the house is shut up, and it is a show-house no\nlonger; yet Sir Leicester holds his shrunken state in the long\ndrawing-room for all that, and reposes in his old place before my\nLady's picture. Closed in by night with broad screens, and illumined\nonly in that part, the light of the drawing-room seems gradually\ncontracting and dwindling until it shall be no more. A little more,\nin truth, and it will be all extinguished for Sir Leicester; and the\ndamp door in the mausoleum which shuts so tight, and looks so\nobdurate, will have opened and received him.\n\nVolumnia, growing with the flight of time pinker as to the red in her\nface, and yellower as to the white, reads to Sir Leicester in the\nlong evenings and is driven to various artifices to conceal her\nyawns, of which the chief and most efficacious is the insertion of\nthe pearl necklace between her rosy lips. Long-winded treatises on\nthe Buffy and Boodle question, showing how Buffy is immaculate and\nBoodle villainous, and how the country is lost by being all Boodle\nand no Buffy, or saved by being all Buffy and no Boodle (it must be\none of the two, and cannot be anything else), are the staple of her\nreading. Sir Leicester is not particular what it is and does not\nappear to follow it very closely, further than that he always comes\nbroad awake the moment Volumnia ventures to leave off, and sonorously\nrepeating her last words, begs with some displeasure to know if she\nfinds herself fatigued. However, Volumnia, in the course of her\nbird-like hopping about and pecking at papers, has alighted on a\nmemorandum concerning herself in the event of \"anything happening\" to\nher kinsman, which is handsome compensation for an extensive course\nof reading and holds even the dragon Boredom at bay.\n\nThe cousins generally are rather shy of Chesney Wold in its dullness,\nbut take to it a little in the shooting season, when guns are heard\nin the plantations, and a few scattered beaters and keepers wait at\nthe old places of appointment for low-spirited twos and threes of\ncousins. The debilitated cousin, more debilitated by the dreariness\nof the place, gets into a fearful state of depression, groaning under\npenitential sofa-pillows in his gunless hours and protesting that\nsuch fernal old jail's--nough t'sew fler up--frever.\n\nThe only great occasions for Volumnia in this changed aspect of the\nplace in Lincolnshire are those occasions, rare and widely separated,\nwhen something is to be done for the county or the country in the way\nof gracing a public ball. Then, indeed, does the tuckered sylph come\nout in fairy form and proceed with joy under cousinly escort to the\nexhausted old assembly-room, fourteen heavy miles off, which, during\nthree hundred and sixty-four days and nights of every ordinary year,\nis a kind of antipodean lumber-room full of old chairs and tables\nupside down. Then, indeed, does she captivate all hearts by her\ncondescension, by her girlish vivacity, and by her skipping about as\nin the days when the hideous old general with the mouth too full of\nteeth had not cut one of them at two guineas each. Then does she\ntwirl and twine, a pastoral nymph of good family, through the mazes\nof the dance. Then do the swains appear with tea, with lemonade, with\nsandwiches, with homage. Then is she kind and cruel, stately and\nunassuming, various, beautifully wilful. Then is there a singular\nkind of parallel between her and the little glass chandeliers of\nanother age embellishing that assembly-room, which, with their meagre\nstems, their spare little drops, their disappointing knobs where no\ndrops are, their bare little stalks from which knobs and drops have\nboth departed, and their little feeble prismatic twinkling, all seem\nVolumnias.\n\nFor the rest, Lincolnshire life to Volumnia is a vast blank of\novergrown house looking out upon trees, sighing, wringing their\nhands, bowing their heads, and casting their tears upon the\nwindow-panes in monotonous depressions. A labyrinth of grandeur, less\nthe property of an old family of human beings and their ghostly\nlikenesses than of an old family of echoings and thunderings which\nstart out of their hundred graves at every sound and go resounding\nthrough the building. A waste of unused passages and staircases in\nwhich to drop a comb upon a bedroom floor at night is to send a\nstealthy footfall on an errand through the house. A place where few\npeople care to go about alone, where a maid screams if an ash drops\nfrom the fire, takes to crying at all times and seasons, becomes the\nvictim of a low disorder of the spirits, and gives warning and\ndeparts.\n\nThus Chesney Wold. With so much of itself abandoned to darkness and\nvacancy; with so little change under the summer shining or the wintry\nlowering; so sombre and motionless always--no flag flying now by day,\nno rows of lights sparkling by night; with no family to come and go,\nno visitors to be the souls of pale cold shapes of rooms, no stir of\nlife about it--passion and pride, even to the stranger's eye, have\ndied away from the place in Lincolnshire and yielded it to dull\nrepose.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXVII\n\nThe Close of Esther's Narrative\n\n\nFull seven happy years I have been the mistress of Bleak House. The\nfew words that I have to add to what I have written are soon penned;\nthen I and the unknown friend to whom I write will part for ever. Not\nwithout much dear remembrance on my side. Not without some, I hope,\non his or hers.\n\nThey gave my darling into my arms, and through many weeks I never\nleft her. The little child who was to have done so much was born\nbefore the turf was planted on its father's grave. It was a boy; and\nI, my husband, and my guardian gave him his father's name.\n\nThe help that my dear counted on did come to her, though it came, in\nthe eternal wisdom, for another purpose. Though to bless and restore\nhis mother, not his father, was the errand of this baby, its power\nwas mighty to do it. When I saw the strength of the weak little hand\nand how its touch could heal my darling's heart and raised hope\nwithin her, I felt a new sense of the goodness and the tenderness of\nGod.\n\nThey throve, and by degrees I saw my dear girl pass into my country\ngarden and walk there with her infant in her arms. I was married\nthen. I was the happiest of the happy.\n\nIt was at this time that my guardian joined us and asked Ada when she\nwould come home.\n\n\"Both houses are your home, my dear,\" said he, \"but the older Bleak\nHouse claims priority. When you and my boy are strong enough to do\nit, come and take possession of your home.\"\n\nAda called him \"her dearest cousin, John.\" But he said, no, it must\nbe guardian now. He was her guardian henceforth, and the boy's; and\nhe had an old association with the name. So she called him guardian,\nand has called him guardian ever since. The children know him by no\nother name. I say the children; I have two little daughters.\n\nIt is difficult to believe that Charley (round-eyed still, and not at\nall grammatical) is married to a miller in our neighbourhood; yet so\nit is; and even now, looking up from my desk as I write early in the\nmorning at my summer window, I see the very mill beginning to go\nround. I hope the miller will not spoil Charley; but he is very fond\nof her, and Charley is rather vain of such a match, for he is well to\ndo and was in great request. So far as my small maid is concerned, I\nmight suppose time to have stood for seven years as still as the mill\ndid half an hour ago, since little Emma, Charley's sister, is exactly\nwhat Charley used to be. As to Tom, Charley's brother, I am really\nafraid to say what he did at school in ciphering, but I think it was\ndecimals. He is apprenticed to the miller, whatever it was, and is a\ngood bashful fellow, always falling in love with somebody and being\nashamed of it.\n\nCaddy Jellyby passed her very last holidays with us and was a dearer\ncreature than ever, perpetually dancing in and out of the house with\nthe children as if she had never given a dancing-lesson in her life.\nCaddy keeps her own little carriage now instead of hiring one, and\nlives full two miles further westward than Newman Street. She works\nvery hard, her husband (an excellent one) being lame and able to do\nvery little. Still, she is more than contented and does all she has\nto do with all her heart. Mr. Jellyby spends his evenings at her new\nhouse with his head against the wall as he used to do in her old one.\nI have heard that Mrs. Jellyby was understood to suffer great\nmortification from her daughter's ignoble marriage and pursuits, but\nI hope she got over it in time. She has been disappointed in\nBorrioboola-Gha, which turned out a failure in consequence of the\nking of Borrioboola wanting to sell everybody--who survived the\nclimate--for rum, but she has taken up with the rights of women to\nsit in Parliament, and Caddy tells me it is a mission involving more\ncorrespondence than the old one. I had almost forgotten Caddy's poor\nlittle girl. She is not such a mite now, but she is deaf and dumb. I\nbelieve there never was a better mother than Caddy, who learns, in\nher scanty intervals of leisure, innumerable deaf and dumb arts to\nsoften the affliction of her child.\n\nAs if I were never to have done with Caddy, I am reminded here of\nPeepy and old Mr. Turveydrop. Peepy is in the Custom House, and doing\nextremely well. Old Mr. Turveydrop, very apoplectic, still exhibits\nhis deportment about town, still enjoys himself in the old manner, is\nstill believed in in the old way. He is constant in his patronage of\nPeepy and is understood to have bequeathed him a favourite French\nclock in his dressing-room--which is not his property.\n\nWith the first money we saved at home, we added to our pretty house\nby throwing out a little growlery expressly for my guardian, which we\ninaugurated with great splendour the next time he came down to see\nus. I try to write all this lightly, because my heart is full in\ndrawing to an end, but when I write of him, my tears will have their\nway.\n\nI never look at him but I hear our poor dear Richard calling him a\ngood man. To Ada and her pretty boy, he is the fondest father; to me\nhe is what he has ever been, and what name can I give to that? He is\nmy husband's best and dearest friend, he is our children's darling,\nhe is the object of our deepest love and veneration. Yet while I feel\ntowards him as if he were a superior being, I am so familiar with him\nand so easy with him that I almost wonder at myself. I have never\nlost my old names, nor has he lost his; nor do I ever, when he is\nwith us, sit in any other place than in my old chair at his side,\nDame Trot, Dame Durden, Little Woman--all just the same as ever; and\nI answer, \"Yes, dear guardian!\" just the same.\n\nI have never known the wind to be in the east for a single moment\nsince the day when he took me to the porch to read the name. I\nremarked to him once that the wind seemed never in the east now, and\nhe said, no, truly; it had finally departed from that quarter on that\nvery day.\n\nI think my darling girl is more beautiful than ever. The sorrow that\nhas been in her face--for it is not there now--seems to have purified\neven its innocent expression and to have given it a diviner quality.\nSometimes when I raise my eyes and see her in the black dress that\nshe still wears, teaching my Richard, I feel--it is difficult to\nexpress--as if it were so good to know that she remembers her dear\nEsther in her prayers.\n\nI call him my Richard! But he says that he has two mamas, and I am\none.\n\nWe are not rich in the bank, but we have always prospered, and we\nhave quite enough. I never walk out with my husband but I hear the\npeople bless him. I never go into a house of any degree but I hear\nhis praises or see them in grateful eyes. I never lie down at night\nbut I know that in the course of that day he has alleviated pain and\nsoothed some fellow-creature in the time of need. I know that from\nthe beds of those who were past recovery, thanks have often, often\ngone up, in the last hour, for his patient ministration. Is not this\nto be rich?\n\nThe people even praise me as the doctor's wife. The people even like\nme as I go about, and make so much of me that I am quite abashed. I\nowe it all to him, my love, my pride! They like me for his sake, as I\ndo everything I do in life for his sake.\n\nA night or two ago, after bustling about preparing for my darling and\nmy guardian and little Richard, who are coming to-morrow, I was\nsitting out in the porch of all places, that dearly memorable porch,\nwhen Allan came home. So he said, \"My precious little woman, what are\nyou doing here?\" And I said, \"The moon is shining so brightly, Allan,\nand the night is so delicious, that I have been sitting here\nthinking.\"\n\n\"What have you been thinking about, my dear?\" said Allan then.\n\n\"How curious you are!\" said I. \"I am almost ashamed to tell you, but\nI will. I have been thinking about my old looks--such as they were.\"\n\n\"And what have you been thinking about THEM, my busy bee?\" said\nAllan.\n\n\"I have been thinking that I thought it was impossible that you COULD\nhave loved me any better, even if I had retained them.\"\n\n\"'Such as they were'?\" said Allan, laughing.\n\n\"Such as they were, of course.\"\n\n\"My dear Dame Durden,\" said Allan, drawing my arm through his, \"do\nyou ever look in the glass?\"\n\n\"You know I do; you see me do it.\"\n\n\"And don't you know that you are prettier than you ever were?\"\n\n\"I did not know that; I am not certain that I know it now. But I know\nthat my dearest little pets are very pretty, and that my darling is\nvery beautiful, and that my husband is very handsome, and that my\nguardian has the brightest and most benevolent face that ever was\nseen, and that they can very well do without much beauty in me--even\nsupposing--.\"\n\n\n"}
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{"1289":"\n\n\n\n\nThree Ghost Stories by Charles Dickens\n\n\n\nContents:\n\nThe Signal-Man\nThe Haunted-House\nThe Trial For Murder\n\n\n\n\nTHE SIGNAL-MAN\n\n\n\n\n\"Halloa!  Below there!\"\n\nWhen he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the\ndoor of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short\npole.  One would have thought, considering the nature of the ground,\nthat he could not have doubted from what quarter the voice came; but\ninstead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep\ncutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about, and looked\ndown the Line.  There was something remarkable in his manner of\ndoing so, though I could not have said for my life what.  But I know\nit was remarkable enough to attract my notice, even though his\nfigure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the deep trench, and\nmine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset,\nthat I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all.\n\n\"Halloa!  Below!\"\n\nFrom looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and,\nraising his eyes, saw my figure high above him.\n\n\"Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?\"\n\nHe looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him\nwithout pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle question.\nJust then there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly\nchanging into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused\nme to start back, as though it had force to draw me down.  When such\nvapour as rose to my height from this rapid train had passed me, and\nwas skimming away over the landscape, I looked down again, and saw\nhim refurling the flag he had shown while the train went by.\n\nI repeated my inquiry.  After a pause, during which he seemed to\nregard me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up flag\ntowards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards\ndistant.  I called down to him, \"All right!\" and made for that\npoint.  There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough\nzigzag descending path notched out, which I followed.\n\nThe cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate.  It was\nmade through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I went\ndown.  For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give me\ntime to recall a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with which\nhe had pointed out the path.\n\nWhen I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him\nagain, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by\nwhich the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were\nwaiting for me to appear.  He had his left hand at his chin, and\nthat left elbow rested on his right hand, crossed over his breast.\nHis attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness that I\nstopped a moment, wondering at it.\n\nI resumed my downward way, and stepping out upon the level of the\nrailroad, and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark sallow\nman, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows.  His post was in\nas solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw.  On either side, a\ndripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of\nsky; the perspective one way only a crooked prolongation of this\ngreat dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other direction\nterminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier entrance to a\nblack tunnel, in whose massive architecture there was a barbarous,\ndepressing, and forbidding air.  So little sunlight ever found its\nway to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much\ncold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had\nleft the natural world.\n\nBefore he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched him.\nNot even then removing his eyes from mine, he stepped back one step,\nand lifted his hand.\n\nThis was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted my\nattention when I looked down from up yonder.  A visitor was a\nrarity, I should suppose; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped?  In me,\nhe merely saw a man who had been shut up within narrow limits all\nhis life, and who, being at last set free, had a newly-awakened\ninterest in these great works.  To such purpose I spoke to him; but\nI am far from sure of the terms I used; for, besides that I am not\nhappy in opening any conversation, there was something in the man\nthat daunted me.\n\nHe directed a most curious look towards the red light near the\ntunnel's mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were\nmissing from it, and then looked it me.\n\nThat light was part of his charge?  Was it not?\n\nHe answered in a low voice,--\"Don't you know it is?\"\n\nThe monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes\nand the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man.  I have\nspeculated since, whether there may have been infection in his mind.\n\nIn my turn, I stepped back.  But in making the action, I detected in\nhis eyes some latent fear of me.  This put the monstrous thought to\nflight.\n\n\"You look at me,\" I said, forcing a smile, \"as if you had a dread of\nme.\"\n\n\"I was doubtful,\" he returned, \"whether I had seen you before.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\nHe pointed to the red light he had looked at.\n\n\"There?\" I said.\n\nIntently watchful of me, he replied (but without sound), \"Yes.\"\n\n\"My good fellow, what should I do there?  However, be that as it\nmay, I never was there, you may swear.\"\n\n\"I think I may,\" he rejoined.  \"Yes; I am sure I may.\"\n\nHis manner cleared, like my own.  He replied to my remarks with\nreadiness, and in well-chosen words.  Had he much to do there?  Yes;\nthat was to say, he had enough responsibility to bear; but exactness\nand watchfulness were what was required of him, and of actual work--\nmanual labour--he had next to none.  To change that signal, to trim\nthose lights, and to turn this iron handle now and then, was all he\nhad to do under that head.  Regarding those many long and lonely\nhours of which I seemed to make so much, he could only say that the\nroutine of his life had shaped itself into that form, and he had\ngrown used to it.  He had taught himself a language down here,--if\nonly to know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude ideas of\nits pronunciation, could be called learning it.  He had also worked\nat fractions and decimals, and tried a little algebra; but he was,\nand had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures.  Was it necessary for\nhim when on duty always to remain in that channel of damp air, and\ncould he never rise into the sunshine from between those high stone\nwalls?  Why, that depended upon times and circumstances.  Under some\nconditions there would be less upon the Line than under others, and\nthe same held good as to certain hours of the day and night.  In\nbright weather, he did choose occasions for getting a little above\nthese lower shadows; but, being at all times liable to be called by\nhis electric bell, and at such times listening for it with redoubled\nanxiety, the relief was less than I would suppose.\n\nHe took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk for an\nofficial book in which he had to make certain entries, a telegraphic\ninstrument with its dial, face, and needles, and the little bell of\nwhich he had spoken.  On my trusting that he would excuse the remark\nthat he had been well educated, and (I hoped I might say without\noffence) perhaps educated above that station, he observed that\ninstances of slight incongruity in such wise would rarely be found\nwanting among large bodies of men; that he had heard it was so in\nworkhouses, in the police force, even in that last desperate\nresource, the army; and that he knew it was so, more or less, in any\ngreat railway staff.  He had been, when young (if I could believe\nit, sitting in that hut,--he scarcely could), a student of natural\nphilosophy, and had attended lectures; but he had run wild, misused\nhis opportunities, gone down, and never risen again.  He had no\ncomplaint to offer about that.  He had made his bed, and he lay upon\nit.  It was far too late to make another.\n\nAll that I have here condensed he said in a quiet manner, with his\ngrave dark regards divided between me and the fire.  He threw in the\nword, \"Sir,\" from time to time, and especially when he referred to\nhis youth,--as though to request me to understand that he claimed to\nbe nothing but what I found him.  He was several times interrupted\nby the little bell, and had to read off messages, and send replies.\nOnce he had to stand without the door, and display a flag as a train\npassed, and make some verbal communication to the driver.  In the\ndischarge of his duties, I observed him to be remarkably exact and\nvigilant, breaking off his discourse at a syllable, and remaining\nsilent until what he had to do was done.\n\nIn a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest of\nmen to be employed in that capacity, but for the circumstance that\nwhile he was speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen colour,\nturned his face towards the little bell when it did NOT ring, opened\nthe door of the hut (which was kept shut to exclude the unhealthy\ndamp), and looked out towards the red light near the mouth of the\ntunnel.  On both of those occasions, he came back to the fire with\nthe inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked, without being\nable to define, when we were so far asunder.\n\nSaid I, when I rose to leave him, \"You almost make me think that I\nhave met with a contented man.\"\n\n(I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said it to lead him on.)\n\n\"I believe I used to be so,\" he rejoined, in the low voice in which\nhe had first spoken; \"but I am troubled, sir, I am troubled.\"\n\nHe would have recalled the words if he could.  He had said them,\nhowever, and I took them up quickly.\n\n\"With what?  What is your trouble?\"\n\n\"It is very difficult to impart, sir.  It is very, very difficult to\nspeak of.  If ever you make me another visit, I will try to tell\nyou.\"\n\n\"But I expressly intend to make you another visit.  Say, when shall\nit be?\"\n\n\"I go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at ten to-\nmorrow night, sir.\"\n\n\"I will come at eleven.\"\n\nHe thanked me, and went out at the door with me.  \"I'll show my\nwhite light, sir,\" he said, in his peculiar low voice, \"till you\nhave found the way up.  When you have found it, don't call out!  And\nwhen you are at the top, don't call out!\"\n\nHis manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but I said\nno more than, \"Very well.\"\n\n\"And when you come down to-morrow night, don't call out!  Let me ask\nyou a parting question.  What made you cry, 'Halloa!  Below there!'\nto-night?\"\n\n\"Heaven knows,\" said I.  \"I cried something to that effect--\"\n\n\"Not to that effect, sir.  Those were the very words.  I know them\nwell.\"\n\n\"Admit those were the very words.  I said them, no doubt, because I\nsaw you below.\"\n\n\"For no other reason?\"\n\n\"What other reason could I possibly have?\"\n\n\"You had no feeling that they were conveyed to you in any\nsupernatural way?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nHe wished me good-night, and held up his light.  I walked by the\nside of the down Line of rails (with a very disagreeable sensation\nof a train coming behind me) until I found the path.  It was easier\nto mount than to descend, and I got back to my inn without any\nadventure.\n\nPunctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the first notch of\nthe zigzag next night, as the distant clocks were striking eleven.\nHe was waiting for me at the bottom, with his white light on.  \"I\nhave not called out,\" I said, when we came close together; \"may I\nspeak now?\"  \"By all means, sir.\"  \"Good-night, then, and here's my\nhand.\"  \"Good-night, sir, and here's mine.\"  With that we walked\nside by side to his box, entered it, closed the door, and sat down\nby the fire.\n\n\"I have made up my mind, sir,\" he began, bending forward as soon as\nwe were seated, and speaking in a tone but a little above a whisper,\n\"that you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles me.  I took\nyou for some one else yesterday evening.  That troubles me.\"\n\n\"That mistake?\"\n\n\"No.  That some one else.\"\n\n\"Who is it?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"Like me?\"\n\n\"I don't know.  I never saw the face.  The left arm is across the\nface, and the right arm is waved,--violently waved.  This way.\"\n\nI followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an arm\ngesticulating, with the utmost passion and vehemence, \"For God's\nsake, clear the way!\"\n\n\"One moonlight night,\" said the man, \"I was sitting here, when I\nheard a voice cry, 'Halloa!  Below there!'  I started up, looked\nfrom that door, and saw this Some one else standing by the red light\nnear the tunnel, waving as I just now showed you.  The voice seemed\nhoarse with shouting, and it cried, 'Look out!  Look out!'  And then\nattain, 'Halloa!  Below there!  Look out!'  I caught up my lamp,\nturned it on red, and ran towards the figure, calling, 'What's\nwrong?  What has happened?  Where?'  It stood just outside the\nblackness of the tunnel.  I advanced so close upon it that I\nwondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes.  I ran right up\nat it, and had my hand stretched out to pull the sleeve away, when\nit was gone.\"\n\n\"Into the tunnel?\" said I.\n\n\"No.  I ran on into the tunnel, five hundred yards.  I stopped, and\nheld my lamp above my head, and saw the figures of the measured\ndistance, and saw the wet stains stealing down the walls and\ntrickling through the arch.  I ran out again faster than I had run\nin (for I had a mortal abhorrence of the place upon me), and I\nlooked all round the red light with my own red light, and I went up\nthe iron ladder to the gallery atop of it, and I came down again,\nand ran back here.  I telegraphed both ways, 'An alarm has been\ngiven.  Is anything wrong?'  The answer came back, both ways, 'All\nwell.'\"\n\nResisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine, I\nshowed him how that this figure must be a deception of his sense of\nsight; and how that figures, originating in disease of the delicate\nnerves that minister to the functions of the eye, were known to have\noften troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious of the\nnature of their affliction, and had even proved it by experiments\nupon themselves.  \"As to an imaginary cry,\" said I, \"do but listen\nfor a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we speak so\nlow, and to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph wires.\"\n\nThat was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening for\na while, and he ought to know something of the wind and the wires,--\nhe who so often passed long winter nights there, alone and watching.\nBut he would beg to remark that he had not finished.\n\nI asked his pardon, and he slowly added these words, touching my\narm, -\n\n\"Within six hours after the Appearance, the memorable accident on\nthis Line happened, and within ten hours the dead and wounded were\nbrought along through the tunnel over the spot where the figure had\nstood.\"\n\nA disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best against it.\nIt was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this was a remarkable\ncoincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind.  But it was\nunquestionable that remarkable coincidences did continually occur,\nand they must be taken into account in dealing with such a subject.\nThough to be sure I must admit, I added (for I thought I saw that he\nwas going to bring the objection to bear upon me), men of common\nsense did not allow much for coincidences in making the ordinary\ncalculations of life.\n\nHe again begged to remark that he had not finished.\n\nI again begged his pardon for being betrayed into interruptions.\n\n\"This,\" he said, again laying his hand upon my arm, and glancing\nover his shoulder with hollow eyes, \"was just a year ago.  Six or\nseven months passed, and I had recovered from the surprise and\nshock, when one morning, as the day was breaking, I, standing at the\ndoor, looked towards the red light, and saw the spectre again.\"  He\nstopped, with a fixed look at me.\n\n\"Did it cry out?\"\n\n\"No.  It was silent.\"\n\n\"Did it wave its arm?\"\n\n\"No.  It leaned against the shaft of the light, with both hands\nbefore the face.  Like this.\"\n\nOnce more I followed his action with my eyes.  It was an action of\nmourning.  I have seen such an attitude in stone figures on tombs.\n\n\"Did you go up to it?\"\n\n\"I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts, partly\nbecause it had turned me faint.  When I went to the door again,\ndaylight was above me, and the ghost was gone.\"\n\n\"But nothing followed?  Nothing came of this?\"\n\nHe touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or thrice giving\na ghastly nod each time:-\n\n\"That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed, at a\ncarriage window on my side, what looked like a confusion of hands\nand heads, and something waved.  I saw it just in time to signal the\ndriver, Stop!  He shut off, and put his brake on, but the train\ndrifted past here a hundred and fifty yards or more.  I ran after\nit, and, as I went along, heard terrible screams and cries.  A\nbeautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one of the\ncompartments, and was brought in here, and laid down on this floor\nbetween us.\"\n\nInvoluntarily I pushed my chair back, as I looked from the boards at\nwhich he pointed to himself.\n\n\"True, sir.  True.  Precisely as it happened, so I tell it you.\"\n\nI could think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth was\nvery dry.  The wind and the wires took up the story with a long\nlamenting wail.\n\nHe resumed.  \"Now, sir, mark this, and judge how my mind is\ntroubled.  The spectre came back a week ago.  Ever since, it has\nbeen there, now and again, by fits and starts.\"\n\n\"At the light?\"\n\n\"At the Danger-light.\"\n\n\"What does it seem to do?\"\n\nHe repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence, that\nformer gesticulation of, \"For God's sake, clear the way!\"\n\nThen he went on.  \"I have no peace or rest for it.  It calls to me,\nfor many minutes together, in an agonised manner, 'Below there!\nLook out!  Look out!'  It stands waving to me.  It rings my little\nbell--\"\n\nI caught at that.  \"Did it ring your bell yesterday evening when I\nwas here, and you went to the door?\"\n\n\"Twice.\"\n\n\"Why, see,\" said I, \"how your imagination misleads you.  My eyes\nwere on the bell, and my ears were open to the bell, and if I am a\nliving man, it did NOT ring at those times.  No, nor at any other\ntime, except when it was rung in the natural course of physical\nthings by the station communicating with you.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"I have never made a mistake as to that yet, sir.\nI have never confused the spectre's ring with the man's.  The\nghost's ring is a strange vibration in the bell that it derives from\nnothing else, and I have not asserted that the bell stirs to the\neye.  I don't wonder that you failed to hear it.  But I heard it.\"\n\n\"And did the spectre seem to be there, when you looked out?\"\n\n\"It WAS there.\"'\n\n\"Both times?\"\n\nHe repeated firmly:  \"Both times.\"\n\n\"Will you come to the door with me, and look for it now?\"\n\nHe bit his under lip as though he were somewhat unwilling, but\narose.  I opened the door, and stood on the step, while he stood in\nthe doorway.  There was the Danger-light.  There was the dismal\nmouth of the tunnel.  There were the high, wet stone walls of the\ncutting.  There were the stars above them.\n\n\"Do you see it?\" I asked him, taking particular note of his face.\nHis eyes were prominent and strained, but not very much more so,\nperhaps, than my own had been when I had directed them earnestly\ntowards the same spot.\n\n\"No,\" he answered.  \"It is not there.\"\n\n\"Agreed,\" said I.\n\nWe went in again, shut the door, and resumed our seats.  I was\nthinking how best to improve this advantage, if it might be called\none, when he took up the conversation in such a matter-of-course\nway, so assuming that there could be no serious question of fact\nbetween us, that I felt myself placed in the weakest of positions.\n\n\"By this time you will fully understand, sir,\" he said, \"that what\ntroubles me so dreadfully is the question, What does the spectre\nmean?\"\n\nI was not sure, I told him, that I did fully understand.\n\n\"What is its warning against?\" he said, ruminating, with his eyes on\nthe fire, and only by times turning them on me.  \"What is the\ndanger?  Where is the danger?  There is danger overhanging somewhere\non the Line.  Some dreadful calamity will happen.  It is not to be\ndoubted this third time, after what has gone before.  But surely\nthis is a cruel haunting of me.  What can I do?\"\n\nHe pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped the drops from his heated\nforehead.\n\n\"If I telegraph Danger, on either side of me, or on both, I can give\nno reason for it,\" he went on, wiping the palms of his hands.  \"I\nshould get into trouble, and do no good.  They would think I was\nmad.  This is the way it would work,--Message:  'Danger!  Take\ncare!'  Answer:  'What Danger?  Where?'  Message:  'Don't know.\nBut, for God's sake, take care!'  They would displace me.  What else\ncould they do?\"\n\nHis pain of mind was most pitiable to see.  It was the mental\ntorture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an\nunintelligible responsibility involving life.\n\n\"When it first stood under the Danger-light,\" he went on, putting\nhis dark hair back from his head, and drawing his hands outward\nacross and across his temples in an extremity of feverish distress,\n\"why not tell me where that accident was to happen,--if it must\nhappen?  Why not tell me how it could be averted,--if it could have\nbeen averted?  When on its second coming it hid its face, why not\ntell me, instead, 'She is going to die.  Let them keep her at home'?\nIf it came, on those two occasions, only to show me that its\nwarnings were true, and so to prepare me for the third, why not warn\nme plainly now?  And I, Lord help me!  A mere poor signal-man on\nthis solitary station!  Why not go to somebody with credit to be\nbelieved, and power to act?\"\n\nWhen I saw him in this state, I saw that for the poor man's sake, as\nwell as for the public safety, what I had to do for the time was to\ncompose his mind.  Therefore, setting aside all question of reality\nor unreality between us, I represented to him that whoever\nthoroughly discharged his duty must do well, and that at least it\nwas his comfort that he understood his duty, though he did not\nunderstand these confounding Appearances.  In this effort I\nsucceeded far better than in the attempt to reason him out of his\nconviction.  He became calm; the occupations incidental to his post\nas the night advanced began to make larger demands on his attention:\nand I left him at two in the morning.  I had offered to stay through\nthe night, but he would not hear of it.\n\nThat I more than once looked back at the red light as I ascended the\npathway, that I did not like the red light, and that I should have\nslept but poorly if my bed had been under it, I see no reason to\nconceal.  Nor did I like the two sequences of the accident and the\ndead girl.  I see no reason to conceal that either.\n\nBut what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration how ought I\nto act, having become the recipient of this disclosure?  I had\nproved the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and exact;\nbut how long might he remain so, in his state of mind?  Though in a\nsubordinate position, still he held a most important trust, and\nwould I (for instance) like to stake my own life on the chances of\nhis continuing to execute it with precision?\n\nUnable to overcome a feeling that there would be something\ntreacherous in my communicating what he had told me to his superiors\nin the Company, without first being plain with himself and proposing\na middle course to him, I ultimately resolved to offer to accompany\nhim (otherwise keeping his secret for the present) to the wisest\nmedical practitioner we could hear of in those parts, and to take\nhis opinion.  A change in his time of duty would come round next\nnight, he had apprised me, and he would be off an hour or two after\nsunrise, and on again soon after sunset.  I had appointed to return\naccordingly.\n\nNext evening was a lovely evening, and I walked out early to enjoy\nit.  The sun was not yet quite down when I traversed the field-path\nnear the top of the deep cutting.  I would extend my walk for an\nhour, I said to myself, half an hour on and half an hour back, and\nit would then be time to go to my signal-man's box.\n\nBefore pursuing my stroll, I stepped to the brink, and mechanically\nlooked down, from the point from which I had first seen him.  I\ncannot describe the thrill that seized upon me, when, close at the\nmouth of the tunnel, I saw the appearance of a man, with his left\nsleeve across his eyes, passionately waving his right arm.\n\nThe nameless horror that oppressed me passed in a moment, for in a\nmoment I saw that this appearance of a man was a man indeed, and\nthat there was a little group of other men, standing at a short\ndistance, to whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made.\nThe Danger-light was not yet lighted.  Against its shaft, a little\nlow hut, entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden supports\nand tarpaulin.  It looked no bigger than a bed.\n\nWith an irresistible sense that something was wrong,--with a\nflashing self-reproachful fear that fatal mischief had come of my\nleaving the man there, and causing no one to be sent to overlook or\ncorrect what he did,--I descended the notched path with all the\nspeed I could make.\n\n\"What is the matter?\" I asked the men.\n\n\"Signal-man killed this morning, sir.\"\n\n\"Not the man belonging to that box?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Not the man I know?\"\n\n\"You will recognise him, sir, if you knew him,\" said the man who\nspoke for the others, solemnly uncovering his own head, and raising\nan end of the tarpaulin, \"for his face is quite composed.\"\n\n\"O, how did this happen, how did this happen?\" I asked, turning from\none to another as the hut closed in again.\n\n\"He was cut down by an engine, sir.  No man in England knew his work\nbetter.  But somehow he was not clear of the outer rail.  It was\njust at broad day.  He had struck the light, and had the lamp in his\nhand.  As the engine came out of the tunnel, his back was towards\nher, and she cut him down.  That man drove her, and was showing how\nit happened.  Show the gentleman, Tom.\"\n\nThe man, who wore a rough dark dress, stepped back to his former\nplace at the mouth of the tunnel.\n\n\"Coming round the curve in the tunnel, sir,\" he said, \"I saw him at\nthe end, like as if I saw him down a perspective-glass.  There was\nno time to check speed, and I knew him to be very careful.  As he\ndidn't seem to take heed of the whistle, I shut it off when we were\nrunning down upon him, and called to him as loud as I could call.\"\n\n\"What did you say?\"\n\n\"I said, 'Below there!  Look out!  Look out!  For God's sake, clear\nthe way!'\"\n\nI started.\n\n\"Ah! it was a dreadful time, sir.  I never left off calling to him.\nI put this arm before my eyes not to see, and I waved this arm to\nthe last; but it was no use.\"\n\n\nWithout prolonging the narrative to dwell on any one of its curious\ncircumstances more than on any other, I may, in closing it, point\nout the coincidence that the warning of the Engine-Driver included,\nnot only the words which the unfortunate Signal-man had repeated to\nme as haunting him, but also the words which I myself--not he--had\nattached, and that only in my own mind, to the gesticulation he had\nimitated.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HAUNTED HOUSE\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I--THE MORTALS IN THE HOUSE\n\n\n\nUnder none of the accredited ghostly circumstances, and environed by\nnone of the conventional ghostly surroundings, did I first make\nacquaintance with the house which is the subject of this Christmas\npiece.  I saw it in the daylight, with the sun upon it.  There was\nno wind, no rain, no lightning, no thunder, no awful or unwonted\ncircumstance, of any kind, to heighten its effect.  More than that:\nI had come to it direct from a railway station:  it was not more\nthan a mile distant from the railway station; and, as I stood\noutside the house, looking back upon the way I had come, I could see\nthe goods train running smoothly along the embankment in the valley.\nI will not say that everything was utterly commonplace, because I\ndoubt if anything can be that, except to utterly commonplace people-\n-and there my vanity steps in; but, I will take it on myself to say\nthat anybody might see the house as I saw it, any fine autumn\nmorning.\n\nThe manner of my lighting on it was this.\n\nI was travelling towards London out of the North, intending to stop\nby the way, to look at the house.  My health required a temporary\nresidence in the country; and a friend of mine who knew that, and\nwho had happened to drive past the house, had written to me to\nsuggest it as a likely place.  I had got into the train at midnight,\nand had fallen asleep, and had woke up and had sat looking out of\nwindow at the brilliant Northern Lights in the sky, and had fallen\nasleep again, and had woke up again to find the night gone, with the\nusual discontented conviction on me that I hadn't been to sleep at\nall;--upon which question, in the first imbecility of that\ncondition, I am ashamed to believe that I would have done wager by\nbattle with the man who sat opposite me.  That opposite man had had,\nthrough the night--as that opposite man always has--several legs too\nmany, and all of them too long.  In addition to this unreasonable\nconduct (which was only to be expected of him), he had had a pencil\nand a pocket-book, and had been perpetually listening and taking\nnotes.  It had appeared to me that these aggravating notes related\nto the jolts and bumps of the carriage, and I should have resigned\nmyself to his taking them, under a general supposition that he was\nin the civil-engineering way of life, if he had not sat staring\nstraight over my head whenever he listened.  He was a goggle-eyed\ngentleman of a perplexed aspect, and his demeanour became\nunbearable.\n\nIt was a cold, dead morning (the sun not being up yet), and when I\nhad out-watched the paling light of the fires of the iron country,\nand the curtain of heavy smoke that hung at once between me and the\nstars and between me and the day, I turned to my fellow-traveller\nand said:\n\n\"I BEG your pardon, sir, but do you observe anything particular in\nme\"?  For, really, he appeared to be taking down, either my\ntravelling-cap or my hair, with a minuteness that was a liberty.\n\nThe goggle-eyed gentleman withdrew his eyes from behind me, as if\nthe back of the carriage were a hundred miles off, and said, with a\nlofty look of compassion for my insignificance:\n\n\"In you, sir?--B.\"\n\n\"B, sir?\" said I, growing warm.\n\n\"I have nothing to do with you, sir,\" returned the gentleman; \"pray\nlet me listen--O.\"\n\nHe enunciated this vowel after a pause, and noted it down.\n\nAt first I was alarmed, for an Express lunatic and no communication\nwith the guard, is a serious position.  The thought came to my\nrelief that the gentleman might be what is popularly called a\nRapper:  one of a sect for (some of) whom I have the highest\nrespect, but whom I don't believe in.  I was going to ask him the\nquestion, when he took the bread out of my mouth.\n\n\"You will excuse me,\" said the gentleman contemptuously, \"if I am\ntoo much in advance of common humanity to trouble myself at all\nabout it.  I have passed the night--as indeed I pass the whole of my\ntime now--in spiritual intercourse.\"\n\n\"O!\" said I, somewhat snappishly.\n\n\"The conferences of the night began,\" continued the gentleman,\nturning several leaves of his note-book, \"with this message:  'Evil\ncommunications corrupt good manners.'\"\n\n\"Sound,\" said I; \"but, absolutely new?\"\n\n\"New from spirits,\" returned the gentleman.\n\nI could only repeat my rather snappish \"O!\" and ask if I might be\nfavoured with the last communication.\n\n\"'A bird in the hand,'\" said the gentleman, reading his last entry\nwith great solemnity, \"'is worth two in the Bosh.'\"\n\n\"Truly I am of the same opinion,\" said I; \"but shouldn't it be\nBush?\"\n\n\"It came to me, Bosh,\" returned the gentleman.\n\nThe gentleman then informed me that the spirit of Socrates had\ndelivered this special revelation in the course of the night.  \"My\nfriend, I hope you are pretty well.  There are two in this railway\ncarriage.  How do you do?  There are seventeen thousand four hundred\nand seventy-nine spirits here, but you cannot see them.  Pythagoras\nis here.  He is not at liberty to mention it, but hopes you like\ntravelling.\"  Galileo likewise had dropped in, with this scientific\nintelligence.  \"I am glad to see you, AMICO. COME STA?  Water will\nfreeze when it is cold enough.  ADDIO!\"  In the course of the night,\nalso, the following phenomena had occurred.  Bishop Butler had\ninsisted on spelling his name, \"Bubler,\" for which offence against\northography and good manners he had been dismissed as out of temper.\nJohn Milton (suspected of wilful mystification) had repudiated the\nauthorship of Paradise Lost, and had introduced, as joint authors of\nthat poem, two Unknown gentlemen, respectively named Grungers and\nScadgingtone.  And Prince Arthur, nephew of King John of England,\nhad described himself as tolerably comfortable in the seventh\ncircle, where he was learning to paint on velvet, under the\ndirection of Mrs. Trimmer and Mary Queen of Scots.\n\nIf this should meet the eye of the gentleman who favoured me with\nthese disclosures, I trust he will excuse my confessing that the\nsight of the rising sun, and the contemplation of the magnificent\nOrder of the vast Universe, made me impatient of them.  In a word, I\nwas so impatient of them, that I was mightily glad to get out at the\nnext station, and to exchange these clouds and vapours for the free\nair of Heaven.\n\nBy that time it was a beautiful morning.  As I walked away among\nsuch leaves as had already fallen from the golden, brown, and russet\ntrees; and as I looked around me on the wonders of Creation, and\nthought of the steady, unchanging, and harmonious laws by which they\nare sustained; the gentleman's spiritual intercourse seemed to me as\npoor a piece of journey-work as ever this world saw.  In which\nheathen state of mind, I came within view of the house, and stopped\nto examine it attentively.\n\nIt was a solitary house, standing in a sadly neglected garden:  a\npretty even square of some two acres.  It was a house of about the\ntime of George the Second; as stiff, as cold, as formal, and in as\nbad taste, as could possibly be desired by the most loyal admirer of\nthe whole quartet of Georges.  It was uninhabited, but had, within a\nyear or two, been cheaply repaired to render it habitable; I say\ncheaply, because the work had been done in a surface manner, and was\nalready decaying as to the paint and plaster, though the colours\nwere fresh.  A lop-sided board drooped over the garden wall,\nannouncing that it was \"to let on very reasonable terms, well\nfurnished.\"  It was much too closely and heavily shadowed by trees,\nand, in particular, there were six tall poplars before the front\nwindows, which were excessively melancholy, and the site of which\nhad been extremely ill chosen.\n\nIt was easy to see that it was an avoided house--a house that was\nshunned by the village, to which my eye was guided by a church spire\nsome half a mile off--a house that nobody would take.  And the\nnatural inference was, that it had the reputation of being a haunted\nhouse.\n\nNo period within the four-and-twenty hours of day and night is so\nsolemn to me, as the early morning.  In the summer-time, I often\nrise very early, and repair to my room to do a day's work before\nbreakfast, and I am always on those occasions deeply impressed by\nthe stillness and solitude around me.  Besides that there is\nsomething awful in the being surrounded by familiar faces asleep--in\nthe knowledge that those who are dearest to us and to whom we are\ndearest, are profoundly unconscious of us, in an impassive state,\nanticipative of that mysterious condition to which we are all\ntending--the stopped life, the broken threads of yesterday, the\ndeserted seat, the closed book, the unfinished but abandoned\noccupation, all are images of Death.  The tranquillity of the hour\nis the tranquillity of Death.  The colour and the chill have the\nsame association.  Even a certain air that familiar household\nobjects take upon them when they first emerge from the shadows of\nthe night into the morning, of being newer, and as they used to be\nlong ago, has its counterpart in the subsidence of the worn face of\nmaturity or age, in death, into the old youthful look.  Moreover, I\nonce saw the apparition of my father, at this hour.  He was alive\nand well, and nothing ever came of it, but I saw him in the\ndaylight, sitting with his back towards me, on a seat that stood\nbeside my bed.  His head was resting on his hand, and whether he was\nslumbering or grieving, I could not discern.  Amazed to see him\nthere, I sat up, moved my position, leaned out of bed, and watched\nhim.  As he did not move, I spoke to him more than once.  As he did\nnot move then, I became alarmed and laid my hand upon his shoulder,\nas I thought--and there was no such thing.\n\nFor all these reasons, and for others less easily and briefly\nstatable, I find the early morning to be my most ghostly time.  Any\nhouse would be more or less haunted, to me, in the early morning;\nand a haunted house could scarcely address me to greater advantage\nthan then.\n\nI walked on into the village, with the desertion of this house upon\nmy mind, and I found the landlord of the little inn, sanding his\ndoor-step.  I bespoke breakfast, and broached the subject of the\nhouse.\n\n\"Is it haunted?\" I asked.\n\nThe landlord looked at me, shook his head, and answered, \"I say\nnothing.\"\n\n\"Then it IS haunted?\"\n\n\"Well!\" cried the landlord, in an outburst of frankness that had the\nappearance of desperation--\"I wouldn't sleep in it.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"If I wanted to have all the bells in a house ring, with nobody to\nring 'em; and all the doors in a house bang, with nobody to bang\n'em; and all sorts of feet treading about, with no feet there; why,\nthen,\" said the landlord, \"I'd sleep in that house.\"\n\n\"Is anything seen there?\"\n\nThe landlord looked at me again, and then, with his former\nappearance of desperation, called down his stable-yard for \"Ikey!\"\n\nThe call produced a high-shouldered young fellow, with a round red\nface, a short crop of sandy hair, a very broad humorous mouth, a\nturned-up nose, and a great sleeved waistcoat of purple bars, with\nmother-of-pearl buttons, that seemed to be growing upon him, and to\nbe in a fair way--if it were not pruned--of covering his head and\noverunning his boots.\n\n\"This gentleman wants to know,\" said the landlord, \"if anything's\nseen at the Poplars.\"\n\n\"'Ooded woman with a howl,\" said Ikey, in a state of great\nfreshness.\n\n\"Do you mean a cry?\"\n\n\"I mean a bird, sir.\"\n\n\"A hooded woman with an owl.  Dear me!  Did you ever see her?\"\n\n\"I seen the howl.\"\n\n\"Never the woman?\"\n\n\"Not so plain as the howl, but they always keeps together.\"\n\n\"Has anybody ever seen the woman as plainly as the owl?\"\n\n\"Lord bless you, sir!  Lots.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Lord bless you, sir!  Lots.\"\n\n\"The general-dealer opposite, for instance, who is opening his\nshop?\"\n\n\"Perkins?  Bless you, Perkins wouldn't go a-nigh the place.  No!\"\nobserved the young man, with considerable feeling; \"he an't\noverwise, an't Perkins, but he an't such a fool as THAT.\"\n\n(Here, the landlord murmured his confidence in Perkins's knowing\nbetter.)\n\n\"Who is--or who was--the hooded woman with the owl?  Do you know?\"\n\n\"Well!\" said Ikey, holding up his cap with one hand while he\nscratched his head with the other, \"they say, in general, that she\nwas murdered, and the howl he 'ooted the while.\"\n\nThis very concise summary of the facts was all I could learn, except\nthat a young man, as hearty and likely a young man as ever I see,\nhad been took with fits and held down in 'em, after seeing the\nhooded woman.  Also, that a personage, dimly described as \"a hold\nchap, a sort of one-eyed tramp, answering to the name of Joby,\nunless you challenged him as Greenwood, and then he said, 'Why not?\nand even if so, mind your own business,'\" had encountered the hooded\nwoman, a matter of five or six times.  But, I was not materially\nassisted by these witnesses:  inasmuch as the first was in\nCalifornia, and the last was, as Ikey said (and he was confirmed by\nthe landlord), Anywheres.\n\nNow, although I regard with a hushed and solemn fear, the mysteries,\nbetween which and this state of existence is interposed the barrier\nof the great trial and change that fall on all the things that live;\nand although I have not the audacity to pretend that I know anything\nof them; I can no more reconcile the mere banging of doors, ringing\nof bells, creaking of boards, and such-like insignificances, with\nthe majestic beauty and pervading analogy of all the Divine rules\nthat I am permitted to understand, than I had been able, a little\nwhile before, to yoke the spiritual intercourse of my fellow-\ntraveller to the chariot of the rising sun.  Moreover, I had lived\nin two haunted houses--both abroad.  In one of these, an old Italian\npalace, which bore the reputation of being very badly haunted\nindeed, and which had recently been twice abandoned on that account,\nI lived eight months, most tranquilly and pleasantly:\nnotwithstanding that the house had a score of mysterious bedrooms,\nwhich were never used, and possessed, in one large room in which I\nsat reading, times out of number at all hours, and next to which I\nslept, a haunted chamber of the first pretensions.  I gently hinted\nthese considerations to the landlord.  And as to this particular\nhouse having a bad name, I reasoned with him, Why, how many things\nhad bad names undeservedly, and how easy it was to give bad names,\nand did he not think that if he and I were persistently to whisper\nin the village that any weird-looking old drunken tinker of the\nneighbourhood had sold himself to the Devil, he would come in time\nto be suspected of that commercial venture!  All this wise talk was\nperfectly ineffective with the landlord, I am bound to confess, and\nwas as dead a failure as ever I made in my life.\n\nTo cut this part of the story short, I was piqued about the haunted\nhouse, and was already half resolved to take it.  So, after\nbreakfast, I got the keys from Perkins's brother-in-law (a whip and\nharness maker, who keeps the Post Office, and is under submission to\na most rigorous wife of the Doubly Seceding Little Emmanuel\npersuasion), and went up to the house, attended by my landlord and\nby Ikey.\n\nWithin, I found it, as I had expected, transcendently dismal.  The\nslowly changing shadows waved on it from the heavy trees, were\ndoleful in the last degree; the house was ill-placed, ill-built,\nill-planned, and ill-fitted.  It was damp, it was not free from dry\nrot, there was a flavour of rats in it, and it was the gloomy victim\nof that indescribable decay which settles on all the work of man's\nhands whenever it's not turned to man's account.  The kitchens and\noffices were too large, and too remote from each other.  Above\nstairs and below, waste tracts of passage intervened between patches\nof fertility represented by rooms; and there was a mouldy old well\nwith a green growth upon it, hiding like a murderous trap, near the\nbottom of the back-stairs, under the double row of bells.  One of\nthese bells was labelled, on a black ground in faded white letters,\nMASTER B.  This, they told me, was the bell that rang the most.\n\n\"Who was Master B.?\" I asked.  \"Is it known what he did while the\nowl hooted?\"\n\n\"Rang the bell,\" said Ikey.\n\nI was rather struck by the prompt dexterity with which this young\nman pitched his fur cap at the bell, and rang it himself.  It was a\nloud, unpleasant bell, and made a very disagreeable sound.  The\nother bells were inscribed according to the names of the rooms to\nwhich their wires were conducted:  as \"Picture Room,\" \"Double Room,\"\n\"Clock Room,\" and the like.  Following Master B.'s bell to its\nsource I found that young gentleman to have had but indifferent\nthird-class accommodation in a triangular cabin under the cock-loft,\nwith a corner fireplace which Master B. must have been exceedingly\nsmall if he were ever able to warm himself at, and a corner chimney-\npiece like a pyramidal staircase to the ceiling for Tom Thumb.  The\npapering of one side of the room had dropped down bodily, with\nfragments of plaster adhering to it, and almost blocked up the door.\nIt appeared that Master B., in his spiritual condition, always made\na point of pulling the paper down.  Neither the landlord nor Ikey\ncould suggest why he made such a fool of himself.\n\nExcept that the house had an immensely large rambling loft at top, I\nmade no other discoveries.  It was moderately well furnished, but\nsparely.  Some of the furniture--say, a third--was as old as the\nhouse; the rest was of various periods within the last half-century.\nI was referred to a corn-chandler in the market-place of the county\ntown to treat for the house.  I went that day, and I took it for six\nmonths.\n\nIt was just the middle of October when I moved in with my maiden\nsister (I venture to call her eight-and-thirty, she is so very\nhandsome, sensible, and engaging).  We took with us, a deaf stable-\nman, my bloodhound Turk, two women servants, and a young person\ncalled an Odd Girl.  I have reason to record of the attendant last\nenumerated, who was one of the Saint Lawrence's Union Female\nOrphans, that she was a fatal mistake and a disastrous engagement.\n\nThe year was dying early, the leaves were falling fast, it was a raw\ncold day when we took possession, and the gloom of the house was\nmost depressing.  The cook (an amiable woman, but of a weak turn of\nintellect) burst into tears on beholding the kitchen, and requested\nthat her silver watch might be delivered over to her sister (2\nTuppintock's Gardens, Liggs's Walk, Clapham Rise), in the event of\nanything happening to her from the damp.  Streaker, the housemaid,\nfeigned cheerfulness, but was the greater martyr.  The Odd Girl, who\nhad never been in the country, alone was pleased, and made\narrangements for sowing an acorn in the garden outside the scullery\nwindow, and rearing an oak.\n\nWe went, before dark, through all the natural--as opposed to\nsupernatural--miseries incidental to our state.  Dispiriting reports\nascended (like the smoke) from the basement in volumes, and\ndescended from the upper rooms.  There was no rolling-pin, there was\nno salamander (which failed to surprise me, for I don't know what it\nis), there was nothing in the house, what there was, was broken, the\nlast people must have lived like pigs, what could the meaning of the\nlandlord be?  Through these distresses, the Odd Girl was cheerful\nand exemplary.  But within four hours after dark we had got into a\nsupernatural groove, and the Odd Girl had seen \"Eyes,\" and was in\nhysterics.\n\nMy sister and I had agreed to keep the haunting strictly to\nourselves, and my impression was, and still is, that I had not left\nIkey, when he helped to unload the cart, alone with the women, or\nany one of them, for one minute.  Nevertheless, as I say, the Odd\nGirl had \"seen Eyes\" (no other explanation could ever be drawn from\nher), before nine, and by ten o'clock had had as much vinegar\napplied to her as would pickle a handsome salmon.\n\nI leave a discerning public to judge of my feelings, when, under\nthese untoward circumstances, at about half-past ten o'clock Master\nB.'s bell began to ring in a most infuriated manner, and Turk howled\nuntil the house resounded with his lamentations!\n\nI hope I may never again be in a state of mind so unchristian as the\nmental frame in which I lived for some weeks, respecting the memory\nof Master B.  Whether his bell was rung by rats, or mice, or bats,\nor wind, or what other accidental vibration, or sometimes by one\ncause, sometimes another, and sometimes by collusion, I don't know;\nbut, certain it is, that it did ring two nights out of three, until\nI conceived the happy idea of twisting Master B.'s neck--in other\nwords, breaking his bell short off--and silencing that young\ngentleman, as to my experience and belief, for ever.\n\nBut, by that time, the Odd Girl had developed such improving powers\nof catalepsy, that she had become a shining example of that very\ninconvenient disorder.  She would stiffen, like a Guy Fawkes endowed\nwith unreason, on the most irrelevant occasions.  I would address\nthe servants in a lucid manner, pointing out to them that I had\npainted Master B.'s room and balked the paper, and taken Master B.'s\nbell away and balked the ringing, and if they could suppose that\nthat confounded boy had lived and died, to clothe himself with no\nbetter behaviour than would most unquestionably have brought him and\nthe sharpest particles of a birch-broom into close acquaintance in\nthe present imperfect state of existence, could they also suppose a\nmere poor human being, such as I was, capable by those contemptible\nmeans of counteracting and limiting the powers of the disembodied\nspirits of the dead, or of any spirits?--I say I would become\nemphatic and cogent, not to say rather complacent, in such an\naddress, when it would all go for nothing by reason of the Odd\nGirl's suddenly stiffening from the toes upward, and glaring among\nus like a parochial petrifaction.\n\nStreaker, the housemaid, too, had an attribute of a most\ndiscomfiting nature.  I am unable to say whether she was of an\nusually lymphatic temperament, or what else was the matter with her,\nbut this young woman became a mere Distillery for the production of\nthe largest and most transparent tears I ever met with.  Combined\nwith these characteristics, was a peculiar tenacity of hold in those\nspecimens, so that they didn't fall, but hung upon her face and\nnose.  In this condition, and mildly and deplorably shaking her\nhead, her silence would throw me more heavily than the Admirable\nCrichton could have done in a verbal disputation for a purse of\nmoney.  Cook, likewise, always covered me with confusion as with a\ngarment, by neatly winding up the session with the protest that the\nOuse was wearing her out, and by meekly repeating her last wishes\nregarding her silver watch.\n\nAs to our nightly life, the contagion of suspicion and fear was\namong us, and there is no such contagion under the sky.  Hooded\nwoman?  According to the accounts, we were in a perfect Convent of\nhooded women.  Noises?  With that contagion downstairs, I myself\nhave sat in the dismal parlour, listening, until I have heard so\nmany and such strange noises, that they would have chilled my blood\nif I had not warmed it by dashing out to make discoveries.  Try this\nin bed, in the dead of the night:  try this at your own comfortable\nfire-side, in the life of the night.  You can fill any house with\nnoises, if you will, until you have a noise for every nerve in your\nnervous system.\n\nI repeat; the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us, and\nthere is no such contagion under the sky.  The women (their noses in\na chronic state of excoriation from smelling-salts) were always\nprimed and loaded for a swoon, and ready to go off with hair-\ntriggers.  The two elder detached the Odd Girl on all expeditions\nthat were considered doubly hazardous, and she always established\nthe reputation of such adventures by coming back cataleptic.  If\nCook or Streaker went overhead after dark, we knew we should\npresently hear a bump on the ceiling; and this took place so\nconstantly, that it was as if a fighting man were engaged to go\nabout the house, administering a touch of his art which I believe is\ncalled The Auctioneer, to every domestic he met with.\n\nIt was in vain to do anything.  It was in vain to be frightened, for\nthe moment in one's own person, by a real owl, and then to show the\nowl.  It was in vain to discover, by striking an accidental discord\non the piano, that Turk always howled at particular notes and\ncombinations.  It was in vain to be a Rhadamanthus with the bells,\nand if an unfortunate bell rang without leave, to have it down\ninexorably and silence it.  It was in vain to fire up chimneys, let\ntorches down the well, charge furiously into suspected rooms and\nrecesses.  We changed servants, and it was no better.  The new set\nran away, and a third set came, and it was no better.  At last, our\ncomfortable housekeeping got to be so disorganised and wretched,\nthat I one night dejectedly said to my sister:  \"Patty, I begin to\ndespair of our getting people to go on with us here, and I think we\nmust give this up.\"\n\nMy sister, who is a woman of immense spirit, replied, \"No, John,\ndon't give it up.  Don't be beaten, John.  There is another way.\"\n\n\"And what is that?\" said I.\n\n\"John,\" returned my sister, \"if we are not to be driven out of this\nhouse, and that for no reason whatever, that is apparent to you or\nme, we must help ourselves and take the house wholly and solely into\nour own hands.\"\n\n\"But, the servants,\" said I.\n\n\"Have no servants,\" said my sister, boldly.\n\nLike most people in my grade of life, I had never thought of the\npossibility of going on without those faithful obstructions.  The\nnotion was so new to me when suggested, that I looked very doubtful.\n\"We know they come here to be frightened and infect one another, and\nwe know they are frightened and do infect one another,\" said my\nsister.\n\n\"With the exception of Bottles,\" I observed, in a meditative tone.\n\n(The deaf stable-man.  I kept him in my service, and still keep him,\nas a phenomenon of moroseness not to be matched in England.)\n\n\"To be sure, John,\" assented my sister; \"except Bottles.  And what\ndoes that go to prove?  Bottles talks to nobody, and hears nobody\nunless he is absolutely roared at, and what alarm has Bottles ever\ngiven, or taken!  None.\"\n\nThis was perfectly true; the individual in question having retired,\nevery night at ten o'clock, to his bed over the coach-house, with no\nother company than a pitchfork and a pail of water.  That the pail\nof water would have been over me, and the pitchfork through me, if I\nhad put myself without announcement in Bottles's way after that\nminute, I had deposited in my own mind as a fact worth remembering.\nNeither had Bottles ever taken the least notice of any of our many\nuproars.  An imperturbable and speechless man, he had sat at his\nsupper, with Streaker present in a swoon, and the Odd Girl marble,\nand had only put another potato in his cheek, or profited by the\ngeneral misery to help himself to beefsteak pie.\n\n\"And so,\" continued my sister, \"I exempt Bottles.  And considering,\nJohn, that the house is too large, and perhaps too lonely, to be\nkept well in hand by Bottles, you, and me, I propose that we cast\nabout among our friends for a certain selected number of the most\nreliable and willing--form a Society here for three months--wait\nupon ourselves and one another--live cheerfully and socially--and\nsee what happens.\"\n\nI was so charmed with my sister, that I embraced her on the spot,\nand went into her plan with the greatest ardour.\n\nWe were then in the third week of November; but, we took our\nmeasures so vigorously, and were so well seconded by the friends in\nwhom we confided, that there was still a week of the month\nunexpired, when our party all came down together merrily, and\nmustered in the haunted house.\n\nI will mention, in this place, two small changes that I made while\nmy sister and I were yet alone.  It occurring to me as not\nimprobable that Turk howled in the house at night, partly because he\nwanted to get out of it, I stationed him in his kennel outside, but\nunchained; and I seriously warned the village that any man who came\nin his way must not expect to leave him without a rip in his own\nthroat.  I then casually asked Ikey if he were a judge of a gun?  On\nhis saying, \"Yes, sir, I knows a good gun when I sees her,\" I begged\nthe favour of his stepping up to the house and looking at mine.\n\n\"SHE'S a true one, sir,\" said Ikey, after inspecting a double-\nbarrelled rifle that I bought in New York a few years ago.  \"No\nmistake about HER, sir.\"\n\n\"Ikey,\" said I, \"don't mention it; I have seen something in this\nhouse.\"\n\n\"No, sir?\" he whispered, greedily opening his eyes.  \"'Ooded lady,\nsir?\"\n\n\"Don't be frightened,\" said I.  \"It was a figure rather like you.\"\n\n\"Lord, sir?\"\n\n\"Ikey!\" said I, shaking hands with him warmly:  I may say\naffectionately; \"if there is any truth in these ghost-stories, the\ngreatest service I can do you, is, to fire at that figure.  And I\npromise you, by Heaven and earth, I will do it with this gun if I\nsee it again!\"\n\nThe young man thanked me, and took his leave with some little\nprecipitation, after declining a glass of liquor.  I imparted my\nsecret to him, because I had never quite forgotten his throwing his\ncap at the bell; because I had, on another occasion, noticed\nsomething very like a fur cap, lying not far from the bell, one\nnight when it had burst out ringing; and because I had remarked that\nwe were at our ghostliest whenever he came up in the evening to\ncomfort the servants.  Let me do Ikey no injustice.  He was afraid\nof the house, and believed in its being haunted; and yet he would\nplay false on the haunting side, so surely as he got an opportunity.\nThe Odd Girl's case was exactly similar.  She went about the house\nin a state of real terror, and yet lied monstrously and wilfully,\nand invented many of the alarms she spread, and made many of the\nsounds we heard.  I had had my eye on the two, and I know it.  It is\nnot necessary for me, here, to account for this preposterous state\nof mind; I content myself with remarking that it is familiarly known\nto every intelligent man who has had fair medical, legal, or other\nwatchful experience; that it is as well established and as common a\nstate of mind as any with which observers are acquainted; and that\nit is one of the first elements, above all others, rationally to be\nsuspected in, and strictly looked for, and separated from, any\nquestion of this kind.\n\nTo return to our party.  The first thing we did when we were all\nassembled, was, to draw lots for bedrooms.  That done, and every\nbedroom, and, indeed, the whole house, having been minutely examined\nby the whole body, we allotted the various household duties, as if\nwe had been on a gipsy party, or a yachting party, or a hunting\nparty, or were shipwrecked.  I then recounted the floating rumours\nconcerning the hooded lady, the owl, and Master B.:  with others,\nstill more filmy, which had floated about during our occupation,\nrelative to some ridiculous old ghost of the female gender who went\nup and down, carrying the ghost of a round table; and also to an\nimpalpable Jackass, whom nobody was ever able to catch.  Some of\nthese ideas I really believe our people below had communicated to\none another in some diseased way, without conveying them in words.\nWe then gravely called one another to witness, that we were not\nthere to be deceived, or to deceive--which we considered pretty much\nthe same thing--and that, with a serious sense of responsibility, we\nwould be strictly true to one another, and would strictly follow out\nthe truth.  The understanding was established, that any one who\nheard unusual noises in the night, and who wished to trace them,\nshould knock at my door; lastly, that on Twelfth Night, the last\nnight of holy Christmas, all our individual experiences since that\nthen present hour of our coming together in the haunted house,\nshould be brought to light for the good of all; and that we would\nhold our peace on the subject till then, unless on some remarkable\nprovocation to break silence.\n\nWe were, in number and in character, as follows:\n\nFirst--to get my sister and myself out of the way--there were we\ntwo.  In the drawing of lots, my sister drew her own room, and I\ndrew Master B.'s.  Next, there was our first cousin John Herschel,\nso called after the great astronomer:  than whom I suppose a better\nman at a telescope does not breathe.  With him, was his wife:  a\ncharming creature to whom he had been married in the previous\nspring.  I thought it (under the circumstances) rather imprudent to\nbring her, because there is no knowing what even a false alarm may\ndo at such a time; but I suppose he knew his own business best, and\nI must say that if she had been MY wife, I never could have left her\nendearing and bright face behind.  They drew the Clock Room.  Alfred\nStarling, an uncommonly agreeable young fellow of eight-and-twenty\nfor whom I have the greatest liking, was in the Double Room; mine,\nusually, and designated by that name from having a dressing-room\nwithin it, with two large and cumbersome windows, which no wedges I\nwas ever able to make, would keep from shaking, in any weather, wind\nor no wind.  Alfred is a young fellow who pretends to be \"fast\"\n(another word for loose, as I understand the term), but who is much\ntoo good and sensible for that nonsense, and who would have\ndistinguished himself before now, if his father had not\nunfortunately left him a small independence of two hundred a year,\non the strength of which his only occupation in life has been to\nspend six.  I am in hopes, however, that his Banker may break, or\nthat he may enter into some speculation guaranteed to pay twenty per\ncent.; for, I am convinced that if he could only be ruined, his\nfortune is made.  Belinda Bates, bosom friend of my sister, and a\nmost intellectual, amiable, and delightful girl, got the Picture\nRoom.  She has a fine genius for poetry, combined with real business\nearnestness, and \"goes in\"--to use an expression of Alfred's--for\nWoman's mission, Woman's rights, Woman's wrongs, and everything that\nis woman's with a capital W, or is not and ought to be, or is and\nought not to be.  \"Most praiseworthy, my dear, and Heaven prosper\nyou!\" I whispered to her on the first night of my taking leave of\nher at the Picture-Room door, \"but don't overdo it.  And in respect\nof the great necessity there is, my darling, for more employments\nbeing within the reach of Woman than our civilisation has as yet\nassigned to her, don't fly at the unfortunate men, even those men\nwho are at first sight in your way, as if they were the natural\noppressors of your sex; for, trust me, Belinda, they do sometimes\nspend their wages among wives and daughters, sisters, mothers,\naunts, and grandmothers; and the play is, really, not ALL Wolf and\nRed Riding-Hood, but has other parts in it.\"  However, I digress.\n\nBelinda, as I have mentioned, occupied the Picture Room.  We had but\nthree other chambers:  the Corner Room, the Cupboard Room, and the\nGarden Room.  My old friend, Jack Governor, \"slung his hammock,\" as\nhe called it, in the Corner Room.  I have always regarded Jack as\nthe finest-looking sailor that ever sailed.  He is gray now, but as\nhandsome as he was a quarter of a century ago--nay, handsomer.  A\nportly, cheery, well-built figure of a broad-shouldered man, with a\nfrank smile, a brilliant dark eye, and a rich dark eyebrow.  I\nremember those under darker hair, and they look all the better for\ntheir silver setting.  He has been wherever his Union namesake\nflies, has Jack, and I have met old shipmates of his, away in the\nMediterranean and on the other side of the Atlantic, who have beamed\nand brightened at the casual mention of his name, and have cried,\n\"You know Jack Governor?  Then you know a prince of men!\"  That he\nis!  And so unmistakably a naval officer, that if you were to meet\nhim coming out of an Esquimaux snow-hut in seal's skin, you would be\nvaguely persuaded he was in full naval uniform.\n\nJack once had that bright clear eye of his on my sister; but, it\nfell out that he married another lady and took her to South America,\nwhere she died.  This was a dozen years ago or more.  He brought\ndown with him to our haunted house a little cask of salt beef; for,\nhe is always convinced that all salt beef not of his own pickling,\nis mere carrion, and invariably, when he goes to London, packs a\npiece in his portmanteau.  He had also volunteered to bring with him\none \"Nat Beaver,\" an old comrade of his, captain of a merchantman.\nMr. Beaver, with a thick-set wooden face and figure, and apparently\nas hard as a block all over, proved to be an intelligent man, with a\nworld of watery experiences in him, and great practical knowledge.\nAt times, there was a curious nervousness about him, apparently the\nlingering result of some old illness; but, it seldom lasted many\nminutes.  He got the Cupboard Room, and lay there next to Mr.\nUndery, my friend and solicitor:  who came down, in an amateur\ncapacity, \"to go through with it,\" as he said, and who plays whist\nbetter than the whole Law List, from the red cover at the beginning\nto the red cover at the end.\n\nI never was happier in my life, and I believe it was the universal\nfeeling among us.  Jack Governor, always a man of wonderful\nresources, was Chief Cook, and made some of the best dishes I ever\nate, including unapproachable curries.  My sister was pastrycook and\nconfectioner.  Starling and I were Cook's Mate, turn and turn about,\nand on special occasions the chief cook \"pressed\" Mr. Beaver.  We\nhad a great deal of out-door sport and exercise, but nothing was\nneglected within, and there was no ill-humour or misunderstanding\namong us, and our evenings were so delightful that we had at least\none good reason for being reluctant to go to bed.\n\nWe had a few night alarms in the beginning.  On the first night, I\nwas knocked up by Jack with a most wonderful ship's lantern in his\nhand, like the gills of some monster of the deep, who informed me\nthat he \"was going aloft to the main truck,\" to have the weathercock\ndown.  It was a stormy night and I remonstrated; but Jack called my\nattention to its making a sound like a cry of despair, and said\nsomebody would be \"hailing a ghost\" presently, if it wasn't done.\nSo, up to the top of the house, where I could hardly stand for the\nwind, we went, accompanied by Mr. Beaver; and there Jack, lantern\nand all, with Mr. Beaver after him, swarmed up to the top of a\ncupola, some two dozen feet above the chimneys, and stood upon\nnothing particular, coolly knocking the weathercock off, until they\nboth got into such good spirits with the wind and the height, that I\nthought they would never come down.  Another night, they turned out\nagain, and had a chimney-cowl off.  Another night, they cut a\nsobbing and gulping water-pipe away.  Another night, they found out\nsomething else.  On several occasions, they both, in the coolest\nmanner, simultaneously dropped out of their respective bedroom\nwindows, hand over hand by their counterpanes, to \"overhaul\"\nsomething mysterious in the garden.\n\nThe engagement among us was faithfully kept, and nobody revealed\nanything.  All we knew was, if any one's room were haunted, no one\nlooked the worse for it.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II--THE GHOST IN MASTER B.'S ROOM\n\n\n\nWhen I established myself in the triangular garret which had gained\nso distinguished a reputation, my thoughts naturally turned to\nMaster B.  My speculations about him were uneasy and manifold.\nWhether his Christian name was Benjamin, Bissextile (from his having\nbeen born in Leap Year), Bartholomew, or Bill.  Whether the initial\nletter belonged to his family name, and that was Baxter, Black,\nBrown, Barker, Buggins, Baker, or Bird.  Whether he was a foundling,\nand had been baptized B.  Whether he was a lion-hearted boy, and B.\nwas short for Briton, or for Bull.  Whether he could possibly have\nbeen kith and kin to an illustrious lady who brightened my own\nchildhood, and had come of the blood of the brilliant Mother Bunch?\n\nWith these profitless meditations I tormented myself much.  I also\ncarried the mysterious letter into the appearance and pursuits of\nthe deceased; wondering whether he dressed in Blue, wore Boots (he\ncouldn't have been Bald), was a boy of Brains, liked Books, was good\nat Bowling, had any skill as a Boxer, even in his Buoyant Boyhood\nBathed from a Bathing-machine at Bognor, Bangor, Bournemouth,\nBrighton, or Broadstairs, like a Bounding Billiard Ball?\n\nSo, from the first, I was haunted by the letter B.\n\nIt was not long before I remarked that I never by any hazard had a\ndream of Master B., or of anything belonging to him.  But, the\ninstant I awoke from sleep, at whatever hour of the night, my\nthoughts took him up, and roamed away, trying to attach his initial\nletter to something that would fit it and keep it quiet.\n\nFor six nights, I had been worried this in Master B.'s room, when I\nbegan to perceive that things were going wrong.\n\nThe first appearance that presented itself was early in the morning\nwhen it was but just daylight and no more.  I was standing shaving\nat my glass, when I suddenly discovered, to my consternation and\namazement, that I was shaving--not myself--I am fifty--but a boy.\nApparently Master B.!\n\nI trembled and looked over my shoulder; nothing there.  I looked\nagain in the glass, and distinctly saw the features and expression\nof a boy, who was shaving, not to get rid of a beard, but to get\none.  Extremely troubled in my mind, I took a few turns in the room,\nand went back to the looking-glass, resolved to steady my hand and\ncomplete the operation in which I had been disturbed.  Opening my\neyes, which I had shut while recovering my firmness, I now met in\nthe glass, looking straight at me, the eyes of a young man of four\nor five and twenty.  Terrified by this new ghost, I closed my eyes,\nand made a strong effort to recover myself.  Opening them again, I\nsaw, shaving his cheek in the glass, my father, who has long been\ndead.  Nay, I even saw my grandfather too, whom I never did see in\nmy life.\n\nAlthough naturally much affected by these remarkable visitations, I\ndetermined to keep my secret, until the time agreed upon for the\npresent general disclosure.  Agitated by a multitude of curious\nthoughts, I retired to my room, that night, prepared to encounter\nsome new experience of a spectral character.  Nor was my preparation\nneedless, for, waking from an uneasy sleep at exactly two o'clock in\nthe morning, what were my feelings to find that I was sharing my bed\nwith the skeleton of Master B.!\n\nI sprang up, and the skeleton sprang up also.  I then heard a\nplaintive voice saying, \"Where am I?  What is become of me?\" and,\nlooking hard in that direction, perceived the ghost of Master B.\n\nThe young spectre was dressed in an obsolete fashion:  or rather,\nwas not so much dressed as put into a case of inferior pepper-and-\nsalt cloth, made horrible by means of shining buttons.  I observed\nthat these buttons went, in a double row, over each shoulder of the\nyoung ghost, and appeared to descend his back.  He wore a frill\nround his neck.  His right hand (which I distinctly noticed to be\ninky) was laid upon his stomach; connecting this action with some\nfeeble pimples on his countenance, and his general air of nausea, I\nconcluded this ghost to be the ghost of a boy who had habitually\ntaken a great deal too much medicine.\n\n\"Where am I?\" said the little spectre, in a pathetic voice.  \"And\nwhy was I born in the Calomel days, and why did I have all that\nCalomel given me?\"\n\nI replied, with sincere earnestness, that upon my soul I couldn't\ntell him.\n\n\"Where is my little sister,\" said the ghost, \"and where my angelic\nlittle wife, and where is the boy I went to school with?\"\n\nI entreated the phantom to be comforted, and above all things to\ntake heart respecting the loss of the boy he went to school with.  I\nrepresented to him that probably that boy never did, within human\nexperience, come out well, when discovered.  I urged that I myself\nhad, in later life, turned up several boys whom I went to school\nwith, and none of them had at all answered.  I expressed my humble\nbelief that that boy never did answer.  I represented that he was a\nmythic character, a delusion, and a snare.  I recounted how, the\nlast time I found him, I found him at a dinner party behind a wall\nof white cravat, with an inconclusive opinion on every possible\nsubject, and a power of silent boredom absolutely Titanic.  I\nrelated how, on the strength of our having been together at \"Old\nDoylance's,\" he had asked himself to breakfast with me (a social\noffence of the largest magnitude); how, fanning my weak embers of\nbelief in Doylance's boys, I had let him in; and how, he had proved\nto be a fearful wanderer about the earth, pursuing the race of Adam\nwith inexplicable notions concerning the currency, and with a\nproposition that the Bank of England should, on pain of being\nabolished, instantly strike off and circulate, God knows how many\nthousand millions of ten-and-sixpenny notes.\n\nThe ghost heard me in silence, and with a fixed stare.  \"Barber!\" it\napostrophised me when I had finished.\n\n\"Barber?\" I repeated--for I am not of that profession.\n\n\"Condemned,\" said the ghost, \"to shave a constant change of\ncustomers--now, me--now, a young man--now, thyself as thou art--now,\nthy father--now, thy grandfather; condemned, too, to lie down with a\nskeleton every night, and to rise with it every morning--\"\n\n(I shuddered on hearing this dismal announcement.)\n\n\"Barber!  Pursue me!\"\n\nI had felt, even before the words were uttered, that I was under a\nspell to pursue the phantom.  I immediately did so, and was in\nMaster B.'s room no longer.\n\nMost people know what long and fatiguing night journeys had been\nforced upon the witches who used to confess, and who, no doubt, told\nthe exact truth--particularly as they were always assisted with\nleading questions, and the Torture was always ready.  I asseverate\nthat, during my occupation of Master B.'s room, I was taken by the\nghost that haunted it, on expeditions fully as long and wild as any\nof those.  Assuredly, I was presented to no shabby old man with a\ngoat's horns and tail (something between Pan and an old clothesman),\nholding conventional receptions, as stupid as those of real life and\nless decent; but, I came upon other things which appeared to me to\nhave more meaning.\n\nConfident that I speak the truth and shall be believed, I declare\nwithout hesitation that I followed the ghost, in the first instance\non a broom-stick, and afterwards on a rocking-horse.  The very smell\nof the animal's paint--especially when I brought it out, by making\nhim warm--I am ready to swear to.  I followed the ghost, afterwards,\nin a hackney coach; an institution with the peculiar smell of which,\nthe present generation is unacquainted, but to which I am again\nready to swear as a combination of stable, dog with the mange, and\nvery old bellows.  (In this, I appeal to previous generations to\nconfirm or refute me.)  I pursued the phantom, on a headless donkey:\nat least, upon a donkey who was so interested in the state of his\nstomach that his head was always down there, investigating it; on\nponies, expressly born to kick up behind; on roundabouts and swings,\nfrom fairs; in the first cab--another forgotten institution where\nthe fare regularly got into bed, and was tucked up with the driver.\n\nNot to trouble you with a detailed account of all my travels in\npursuit of the ghost of Master B., which were longer and more\nwonderful than those of Sinbad the Sailor, I will confine myself to\none experience from which you may judge of many.\n\nI was marvellously changed.  I was myself, yet not myself.  I was\nconscious of something within me, which has been the same all\nthrough my life, and which I have always recognised under all its\nphases and varieties as never altering, and yet I was not the I who\nhad gone to bed in Master B.'s room.  I had the smoothest of faces\nand the shortest of legs, and I had taken another creature like\nmyself, also with the smoothest of faces and the shortest of legs,\nbehind a door, and was confiding to him a proposition of the most\nastounding nature.\n\nThis proposition was, that we should have a Seraglio.\n\nThe other creature assented warmly.  He had no notion of\nrespectability, neither had I.  It was the custom of the East, it\nwas the way of the good Caliph Haroun Alraschid (let me have the\ncorrupted name again for once, it is so scented with sweet\nmemories!), the usage was highly laudable, and most worthy of\nimitation.  \"O, yes!  Let us,\" said the other creature with a jump,\n\"have a Seraglio.\"\n\nIt was not because we entertained the faintest doubts of the\nmeritorious character of the Oriental establishment we proposed to\nimport, that we perceived it must be kept a secret from Miss\nGriffin.  It was because we knew Miss Griffin to be bereft of human\nsympathies, and incapable of appreciating the greatness of the great\nHaroun.  Mystery impenetrably shrouded from Miss Griffin then, let\nus entrust it to Miss Bule.\n\nWe were ten in Miss Griffin's establishment by Hampstead Ponds;\neight ladies and two gentlemen.  Miss Bule, whom I judge to have\nattained the ripe age of eight or nine, took the lead in society.  I\nopened the subject to her in the course of the day, and proposed\nthat she should become the Favourite.\n\nMiss Bule, after struggling with the diffidence so natural to, and\ncharming in, her adorable sex, expressed herself as flattered by the\nidea, but wished to know how it was proposed to provide for Miss\nPipson?  Miss Bule--who was understood to have vowed towards that\nyoung lady, a friendship, halves, and no secrets, until death, on\nthe Church Service and Lessons complete in two volumes with case and\nlock--Miss Bule said she could not, as the friend of Pipson,\ndisguise from herself, or me, that Pipson was not one of the common.\n\nNow, Miss Pipson, having curly hair and blue eyes (which was my idea\nof anything mortal and feminine that was called Fair), I promptly\nreplied that I regarded Miss Pipson in the light of a Fair\nCircassian.\n\n\"And what then?\" Miss Bule pensively asked.\n\nI replied that she must be inveigled by a Merchant, brought to me\nveiled, and purchased as a slave.\n\n[The other creature had already fallen into the second male place in\nthe State, and was set apart for Grand Vizier.  He afterwards\nresisted this disposal of events, but had his hair pulled until he\nyielded.]\n\n\"Shall I not be jealous?\" Miss Bule inquired, casting down her eyes.\n\n\"Zobeide, no,\" I replied; \"you will ever be the favourite Sultana;\nthe first place in my heart, and on my throne, will be ever yours.\"\n\nMiss Bule, upon that assurance, consented to propound the idea to\nher seven beautiful companions.  It occurring to me, in the course\nof the same day, that we knew we could trust a grinning and good-\nnatured soul called Tabby, who was the serving drudge of the house,\nand had no more figure than one of the beds, and upon whose face\nthere was always more or less black-lead, I slipped into Miss Bule's\nhand after supper, a little note to that effect; dwelling on the\nblack-lead as being in a manner deposited by the finger of\nProvidence, pointing Tabby out for Mesrour, the celebrated chief of\nthe Blacks of the Hareem.\n\nThere were difficulties in the formation of the desired institution,\nas there are in all combinations.  The other creature showed himself\nof a low character, and, when defeated in aspiring to the throne,\npretended to have conscientious scruples about prostrating himself\nbefore the Caliph; wouldn't call him Commander of the Faithful;\nspoke of him slightingly and inconsistently as a mere \"chap;\" said\nhe, the other creature, \"wouldn't play\"--Play!--and was otherwise\ncoarse and offensive.  This meanness of disposition was, however,\nput down by the general indignation of an united Seraglio, and I\nbecame blessed in the smiles of eight of the fairest of the\ndaughters of men.\n\nThe smiles could only be bestowed when Miss Griffin was looking\nanother way, and only then in a very wary manner, for there was a\nlegend among the followers of the Prophet that she saw with a little\nround ornament in the middle of the pattern on the back of her\nshawl.  But every day after dinner, for an hour, we were all\ntogether, and then the Favourite and the rest of the Royal Hareem\ncompeted who should most beguile the leisure of the Serene Haroun\nreposing from the cares of State--which were generally, as in most\naffairs of State, of an arithmetical character, the Commander of the\nFaithful being a fearful boggler at a sum.\n\nOn these occasions, the devoted Mesrour, chief of the Blacks of the\nHareem, was always in attendance (Miss Griffin usually ringing for\nthat officer, at the same time, with great vehemence), but never\nacquitted himself in a manner worthy of his historical reputation.\nIn the first place, his bringing a broom into the Divan of the\nCaliph, even when Haroun wore on his shoulders the red robe of anger\n(Miss Pipson's pelisse), though it might be got over for the moment,\nwas never to be quite satisfactorily accounted for.  In the second\nplace, his breaking out into grinning exclamations of \"Lork you\npretties!\" was neither Eastern nor respectful.  In the third place,\nwhen specially instructed to say \"Bismillah!\" he always said\n\"Hallelujah!\"  This officer, unlike his class, was too good-humoured\naltogether, kept his mouth open far too wide, expressed approbation\nto an incongruous extent, and even once--it was on the occasion of\nthe purchase of the Fair Circassian for five hundred thousand purses\nof gold, and cheap, too--embraced the Slave, the Favourite, and the\nCaliph, all round.  (Parenthetically let me say God bless Mesrour,\nand may there have been sons and daughters on that tender bosom,\nsoftening many a hard day since!)\n\nMiss Griffin was a model of propriety, and I am at a loss to imagine\nwhat the feelings of the virtuous woman would have been, if she had\nknown, when she paraded us down the Hampstead Road two and two, that\nshe was walking with a stately step at the head of Polygamy and\nMahomedanism.  I believe that a mysterious and terrible joy with\nwhich the contemplation of Miss Griffin, in this unconscious state,\ninspired us, and a grim sense prevalent among us that there was a\ndreadful power in our knowledge of what Miss Griffin (who knew all\nthings that could be learnt out of book) didn't know, were the main-\nspring of the preservation of our secret.  It was wonderfully kept,\nbut was once upon the verge of self-betrayal.  The danger and escape\noccurred upon a Sunday.  We were all ten ranged in a conspicuous\npart of the gallery at church, with Miss Griffin at our head--as we\nwere every Sunday--advertising the establishment in an unsecular\nsort of way--when the description of Solomon in his domestic glory\nhappened to be read.  The moment that monarch was thus referred to,\nconscience whispered me, \"Thou, too, Haroun!\"  The officiating\nminister had a cast in his eye, and it assisted conscience by giving\nhim the appearance of reading personally at me.  A crimson blush,\nattended by a fearful perspiration, suffused my features.  The Grand\nVizier became more dead than alive, and the whole Seraglio reddened\nas if the sunset of Bagdad shone direct upon their lovely faces.  At\nthis portentous time the awful Griffin rose, and balefully surveyed\nthe children of Islam.  My own impression was, that Church and State\nhad entered into a conspiracy with Miss Griffin to expose us, and\nthat we should all be put into white sheets, and exhibited in the\ncentre aisle.  But, so Westerly--if I may be allowed the expression\nas opposite to Eastern associations--was Miss Griffin's sense of\nrectitude, that she merely suspected Apples, and we were saved.\n\nI have called the Seraglio, united.  Upon the question, solely,\nwhether the Commander of the Faithful durst exercise a right of\nkissing in that sanctuary of the palace, were its peerless inmates\ndivided.  Zobeide asserted a counter-right in the Favourite to\nscratch, and the fair Circassian put her face, for refuge, into a\ngreen baize bag, originally designed for books.  On the other hand,\na young antelope of transcendent beauty from the fruitful plains of\nCamden Town (whence she had been brought, by traders, in the half-\nyearly caravan that crossed the intermediate desert after the\nholidays), held more liberal opinions, but stipulated for limiting\nthe benefit of them to that dog, and son of a dog, the Grand Vizier-\n-who had no rights, and was not in question.  At length, the\ndifficulty was compromised by the installation of a very youthful\nslave as Deputy.  She, raised upon a stool, officially received upon\nher cheeks the salutes intended by the gracious Haroun for other\nSultanas, and was privately rewarded from the coffers of the Ladies\nof the Hareem.\n\nAnd now it was, at the full height of enjoyment of my bliss, that I\nbecame heavily troubled.  I began to think of my mother, and what\nshe would say to my taking home at Midsummer eight of the most\nbeautiful of the daughters of men, but all unexpected.  I thought of\nthe number of beds we made up at our house, of my father's income,\nand of the baker, and my despondency redoubled.  The Seraglio and\nmalicious Vizier, divining the cause of their Lord's unhappiness,\ndid their utmost to augment it.  They professed unbounded fidelity,\nand declared that they would live and die with him.  Reduced to the\nutmost wretchedness by these protestations of attachment, I lay\nawake, for hours at a time, ruminating on my frightful lot.  In my\ndespair, I think I might have taken an early opportunity of falling\non my knees before Miss Griffin, avowing my resemblance to Solomon,\nand praying to be dealt with according to the outraged laws of my\ncountry, if an unthought-of means of escape had not opened before\nme.\n\nOne day, we were out walking, two and two--on which occasion the\nVizier had his usual instructions to take note of the boy at the\nturn-pike, and if he profanely gazed (which he always did) at the\nbeauties of the Hareem, to have him bowstrung in the course of the\nnight--and it happened that our hearts were veiled in gloom.  An\nunaccountable action on the part of the antelope had plunged the\nState into disgrace.  That charmer, on the representation that the\nprevious day was her birthday, and that vast treasures had been sent\nin a hamper for its celebration (both baseless assertions), had\nsecretly but most pressingly invited thirty-five neighbouring\nprinces and princesses to a ball and supper:  with a special\nstipulation that they were \"not to be fetched till twelve.\"  This\nwandering of the antelope's fancy, led to the surprising arrival at\nMiss Griffin's door, in divers equipages and under various escorts,\nof a great company in full dress, who were deposited on the top step\nin a flush of high expectancy, and who were dismissed in tears.  At\nthe beginning of the double knocks attendant on these ceremonies,\nthe antelope had retired to a back attic, and bolted herself in; and\nat every new arrival, Miss Griffin had gone so much more and more\ndistracted, that at last she had been seen to tear her front.\nUltimate capitulation on the part of the offender, had been followed\nby solitude in the linen-closet, bread and water and a lecture to\nall, of vindictive length, in which Miss Griffin had used\nexpressions:  Firstly, \"I believe you all of you knew of it;\"\nSecondly, \"Every one of you is as wicked as another;\" Thirdly, \"A\npack of little wretches.\"\n\nUnder these circumstances, we were walking drearily along; and I\nespecially, with my.  Moosulmaun responsibilities heavy on me, was\nin a very low state of mind; when a strange man accosted Miss\nGriffin, and, after walking on at her side for a little while and\ntalking with her, looked at me.  Supposing him to be a minion of the\nlaw, and that my hour was come, I instantly ran away, with the\ngeneral purpose of making for Egypt.\n\nThe whole Seraglio cried out, when they saw me making off as fast as\nmy legs would carry me (I had an impression that the first turning\non the left, and round by the public-house, would be the shortest\nway to the Pyramids), Miss Griffin screamed after me, the faithless\nVizier ran after me, and the boy at the turnpike dodged me into a\ncorner, like a sheep, and cut me off.  Nobody scolded me when I was\ntaken and brought back; Miss Griffin only said, with a stunning\ngentleness, This was very curious!  Why had I run away when the\ngentleman looked at me?\n\nIf I had had any breath to answer with, I dare say I should have\nmade no answer; having no breath, I certainly made none.  Miss\nGriffin and the strange man took me between them, and walked me back\nto the palace in a sort of state; but not at all (as I couldn't help\nfeeling, with astonishment) in culprit state.\n\nWhen we got there, we went into a room by ourselves, and Miss\nGriffin called in to her assistance, Mesrour, chief of the dusky\nguards of the Hareem.  Mesrour, on being whispered to, began to shed\ntears.  \"Bless you, my precious!\" said that officer, turning to me;\n\"your Pa's took bitter bad!\"\n\nI asked, with a fluttered heart, \"Is he very ill?\"\n\n\"Lord temper the wind to you, my lamb!\" said the good Mesrour,\nkneeling down, that I might have a comforting shoulder for my head\nto rest on, \"your Pa's dead!\"\n\nHaroun Alraschid took to flight at the words; the Seraglio vanished;\nfrom that moment, I never again saw one of the eight of the fairest\nof the daughters of men.\n\nI was taken home, and there was Debt at home as well as Death, and\nwe had a sale there.  My own little bed was so superciliously looked\nupon by a Power unknown to me, hazily called \"The Trade,\" that a\nbrass coal-scuttle, a roasting-jack, and a birdcage, were obliged to\nbe put into it to make a Lot of it, and then it went for a song.  So\nI heard mentioned, and I wondered what song, and thought what a\ndismal song it must have been to sing!\n\nThen, I was sent to a great, cold, bare, school of big boys; where\neverything to eat and wear was thick and clumpy, without being\nenough; where everybody, largo and small, was cruel; where the boys\nknew all about the sale, before I got there, and asked me what I had\nfetched, and who had bought me, and hooted at me, \"Going, going,\ngone!\"  I never whispered in that wretched place that I had been\nHaroun, or had had a Seraglio:  for, I knew that if I mentioned my\nreverses, I should be so worried, that I should have to drown myself\nin the muddy pond near the playground, which looked like the beer.\n\nAh me, ah me!  No other ghost has haunted the boy's room, my\nfriends, since I have occupied it, than the ghost of my own\nchildhood, the ghost of my own innocence, the ghost of my own airy\nbelief.  Many a time have I pursued the phantom:  never with this\nman's stride of mine to come up with it, never with these man's\nhands of mine to touch it, never more to this man's heart of mine to\nhold it in its purity.  And here you see me working out, as\ncheerfully and thankfully as I may, my doom of shaving in the glass\na constant change of customers, and of lying down and rising up with\nthe skeleton allotted to me for my mortal companion.\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRIAL FOR MURDER.\n\n\n\n\nI have always noticed a prevalent want of courage, even among\npersons of superior intelligence and culture, as to imparting their\nown psychological experiences when those have been of a strange\nsort.  Almost all men are afraid that what they could relate in such\nwise would find no parallel or response in a listener's internal\nlife, and might be suspected or laughed at.  A truthful traveller,\nwho should have seen some extraordinary creature in the likeness of\na sea-serpent, would have no fear of mentioning it; but the same\ntraveller, having had some singular presentiment, impulse, vagary of\nthought, vision (so-called), dream, or other remarkable mental\nimpression, would hesitate considerably before he would own to it.\nTo this reticence I attribute much of the obscurity in which such\nsubjects are involved.  We do not habitually communicate our\nexperiences of these subjective things as we do our experiences of\nobjective creation.  The consequence is, that the general stock of\nexperience in this regard appears exceptional, and really is so, in\nrespect of being miserably imperfect.\n\nIn what I am going to relate, I have no intention of setting up,\nopposing, or supporting, any theory whatever.  I know the history of\nthe Bookseller of Berlin, I have studied the case of the wife of a\nlate Astronomer Royal as related by Sir David Brewster, and I have\nfollowed the minutest details of a much more remarkable case of\nSpectral Illusion occurring within my private circle of friends.  It\nmay be necessary to state as to this last, that the sufferer (a\nlady) was in no degree, however distant, related to me.  A mistaken\nassumption on that head might suggest an explanation of a part of my\nown case,--but only a part,--which would be wholly without\nfoundation.  It cannot be referred to my inheritance of any\ndeveloped peculiarity, nor had I ever before any at all similar\nexperience, nor have I ever had any at all similar experience since.\n\nIt does not signify how many years ago, or how few, a certain murder\nwas committed in England, which attracted great attention.  We hear\nmore than enough of murderers as they rise in succession to their\natrocious eminence, and I would bury the memory of this particular\nbrute, if I could, as his body was buried, in Newgate Jail.  I\npurposely abstain from giving any direct clue to the criminal's\nindividuality.\n\nWhen the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fell--or I ought\nrather to say, for I cannot be too precise in my facts, it was\nnowhere publicly hinted that any suspicion fell--on the man who was\nafterwards brought to trial.  As no reference was at that time made\nto him in the newspapers, it is obviously impossible that any\ndescription of him can at that time have been given in the\nnewspapers.  It is essential that this fact be remembered.\n\nUnfolding at breakfast my morning paper, containing the account of\nthat first discovery, I found it to be deeply interesting, and I\nread it with close attention.  I read it twice, if not three times.\nThe discovery had been made in a bedroom, and, when I laid down the\npaper, I was aware of a flash--rush--flow--I do not know what to\ncall it,--no word I can find is satisfactorily descriptive,--in\nwhich I seemed to see that bedroom passing through my room, like a\npicture impossibly painted on a running river.  Though almost\ninstantaneous in its passing, it was perfectly clear; so clear that\nI distinctly, and with a sense of relief, observed the absence of\nthe dead body from the bed.\n\nIt was in no romantic place that I had this curious sensation, but\nin chambers in Piccadilly, very near to the corner of St. James's\nStreet.  It was entirely new to me.  I was in my easy-chair at the\nmoment, and the sensation was accompanied with a peculiar shiver\nwhich started the chair from its position.  (But it is to be noted\nthat the chair ran easily on castors.)  I went to one of the windows\n(there are two in the room, and the room is on the second floor) to\nrefresh my eyes with the moving objects down in Piccadilly.  It was\na bright autumn morning, and the street was sparkling and cheerful.\nThe wind was high.  As I looked out, it brought down from the Park a\nquantity of fallen leaves, which a gust took, and whirled into a\nspiral pillar.  As the pillar fell and the leaves dispersed, I saw\ntwo men on the opposite side of the way, going from West to East.\nThey were one behind the other.  The foremost man often looked back\nover his shoulder.  The second man followed him, at a distance of\nsome thirty paces, with his right hand menacingly raised.  First,\nthe singularity and steadiness of this threatening gesture in so\npublic a thoroughfare attracted my attention; and next, the more\nremarkable circumstance that nobody heeded it.  Both men threaded\ntheir way among the other passengers with a smoothness hardly\nconsistent even with the action of walking on a pavement; and no\nsingle creature, that I could see, gave them place, touched them, or\nlooked after them.  In passing before my windows, they both stared\nup at me.  I saw their two faces very distinctly, and I knew that I\ncould recognise them anywhere.  Not that I had consciously noticed\nanything very remarkable in either face, except that the man who\nwent first had an unusually lowering appearance, and that the face\nof the man who followed him was of the colour of impure wax.\n\nI am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my whole\nestablishment.  My occupation is in a certain Branch Bank, and I\nwish that my duties as head of a Department were as light as they\nare popularly supposed to be.  They kept me in town that autumn,\nwhen I stood in need of change.  I was not ill, but I was not well.\nMy reader is to make the most that can be reasonably made of my\nfeeling jaded, having a depressing sense upon me of a monotonous\nlife, and being \"slightly dyspeptic.\"  I am assured by my renowned\ndoctor that my real state of health at that time justifies no\nstronger description, and I quote his own from his written answer to\nmy request for it.\n\nAs the circumstances of the murder, gradually unravelling, took\nstronger and stronger possession of the public mind, I kept them\naway from mine by knowing as little about them as was possible in\nthe midst of the universal excitement.  But I knew that a verdict of\nWilful Murder had been found against the suspected murderer, and\nthat he had been committed to Newgate for trial.  I also knew that\nhis trial had been postponed over one Sessions of the Central\nCriminal Court, on the ground of general prejudice and want of time\nfor the preparation of the defence.  I may further have known, but I\nbelieve I did not, when, or about when, the Sessions to which his\ntrial stood postponed would come on.\n\nMy sitting-room, bedroom, and dressing-room, are all on one floor.\nWith the last there is no communication but through the bedroom.\nTrue, there is a door in it, once communicating with the staircase;\nbut a part of the fitting of my bath has been--and had then been for\nsome years--fixed across it.  At the same period, and as a part of\nthe same arrangement,--the door had been nailed up and canvased\nover.\n\nI was standing in my bedroom late one night, giving some directions\nto my servant before he went to bed.  My face was towards the only\navailable door of communication with the dressing-room, and it was\nclosed.  My servant's back was towards that door.  While I was\nspeaking to him, I saw it open, and a man look in, who very\nearnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me.  That man was the man who\nhad gone second of the two along Piccadilly, and whose face was of\nthe colour of impure wax.\n\nThe figure, having beckoned, drew back, and closed the door.  With\nno longer pause than was made by my crossing the bedroom, I opened\nthe dressing-room door, and looked in.  I had a lighted candle\nalready in my hand.  I felt no inward expectation of seeing the\nfigure in the dressing-room, and I did not see it there.\n\nConscious that my servant stood amazed, I turned round to him, and\nsaid:  \"Derrick, could you believe that in my cool senses I fancied\nI saw a--\"  As I there laid my hand upon his breast, with a sudden\nstart he trembled violently, and said, \"O Lord, yes, sir!  A dead\nman beckoning!\"\n\nNow I do not believe that this John Derrick, my trusty and attached\nservant for more than twenty years, had any impression whatever of\nhaving seen any such figure, until I touched him.  The change in him\nwas so startling, when I touched him, that I fully believe he\nderived his impression in some occult manner from me at that\ninstant.\n\nI bade John Derrick bring some brandy, and I gave him a dram, and\nwas glad to take one myself.  Of what had preceded that night's\nphenomenon, I told him not a single word.  Reflecting on it, I was\nabsolutely certain that I had never seen that face before, except on\nthe one occasion in Piccadilly.  Comparing its expression when\nbeckoning at the door with its expression when it had stared up at\nme as I stood at my window, I came to the conclusion that on the\nfirst occasion it had sought to fasten itself upon my memory, and\nthat on the second occasion it had made sure of being immediately\nremembered.\n\nI was not very comfortable that night, though I felt a certainty,\ndifficult to explain, that the figure would not return.  At daylight\nI fell into a heavy sleep, from which I was awakened by John\nDerrick's coming to my bedside with a paper in his hand.\n\nThis paper, it appeared, had been the subject of an altercation at\nthe door between its bearer and my servant.  It was a summons to me\nto serve upon a Jury at the forthcoming Sessions of the Central\nCriminal Court at the Old Bailey.  I had never before been summoned\non such a Jury, as John Derrick well knew.  He believed--I am not\ncertain at this hour whether with reason or otherwise--that that\nclass of Jurors were customarily chosen on a lower qualification\nthan mine, and he had at first refused to accept the summons.  The\nman who served it had taken the matter very coolly.  He had said\nthat my attendance or non-attendance was nothing to him; there the\nsummons was; and I should deal with it at my own peril, and not at\nhis.\n\nFor a day or two I was undecided whether to respond to this call, or\ntake no notice of it.  I was not conscious of the slightest\nmysterious bias, influence, or attraction, one way or other.  Of\nthat I am as strictly sure as of every other statement that I make\nhere.  Ultimately I decided, as a break in the monotony of my life,\nthat I would go.\n\nThe appointed morning was a raw morning in the month of November.\nThere was a dense brown fog in Piccadilly, and it became positively\nblack and in the last degree oppressive East of Temple Bar.  I found\nthe passages and staircases of the Court-House flaringly lighted\nwith gas, and the Court itself similarly illuminated.  I THINK that,\nuntil I was conducted by officers into the Old Court and saw its\ncrowded state, I did not know that the Murderer was to be tried that\nday.  I THINK that, until I was so helped into the Old Court with\nconsiderable difficulty, I did not know into which of the two Courts\nsitting my summons would take me.  But this must not be received as\na positive assertion, for I am not completely satisfied in my mind\non either point.\n\nI took my seat in the place appropriated to Jurors in waiting, and I\nlooked about the Court as well as I could through the cloud of fog\nand breath that was heavy in it.  I noticed the black vapour hanging\nlike a murky curtain outside the great windows, and I noticed the\nstifled sound of wheels on the straw or tan that was littered in the\nstreet; also, the hum of the people gathered there, which a shrill\nwhistle, or a louder song or hail than the rest, occasionally\npierced.  Soon afterwards the Judges, two in number, entered, and\ntook their seats.  The buzz in the Court was awfully hushed.  The\ndirection was given to put the Murderer to the bar.  He appeared\nthere.  And in that same instant I recognised in him the first of\nthe two men who had gone down Piccadilly.\n\nIf my name had been called then, I doubt if I could have answered to\nit audibly.  But it was called about sixth or eighth in the panel,\nand I was by that time able to say, \"Here!\"  Now, observe.  As I\nstepped into the box, the prisoner, who had been looking on\nattentively, but with no sign of concern, became violently agitated,\nand beckoned to his attorney.  The prisoner's wish to challenge me\nwas so manifest, that it occasioned a pause, during which the\nattorney, with his hand upon the dock, whispered with his client,\nand shook his head.  I afterwards had it from that gentleman, that\nthe prisoner's first affrighted words to him were, \"AT ALL HAZARDS,\nCHALLENGE THAT MAN!\"  But that, as he would give no reason for it,\nand admitted that he had not even known my name until he heard it\ncalled and I appeared, it was not done.\n\nBoth on the ground already explained, that I wish to avoid reviving\nthe unwholesome memory of that Murderer, and also because a detailed\naccount of his long trial is by no means indispensable to my\nnarrative, I shall confine myself closely to such incidents in the\nten days and nights during which we, the Jury, were kept together,\nas directly bear on my own curious personal experience.  It is in\nthat, and not in the Murderer, that I seek to interest my reader.\nIt is to that, and not to a page of the Newgate Calendar, that I beg\nattention.\n\nI was chosen Foreman of the Jury.  On the second morning of the\ntrial, after evidence had been taken for two hours (I heard the\nchurch clocks strike), happening to cast my eyes over my brother\njurymen, I found an inexplicable difficulty in counting them.  I\ncounted them several times, yet always with the same difficulty.  In\nshort, I made them one too many.\n\nI touched the brother jurymen whose place was next me, and I\nwhispered to him, \"Oblige me by counting us.\"  He looked surprised\nby the request, but turned his head and counted. \"Why,\" says he,\nsuddenly, \"we are Thirt-; but no, it's not possible.  No.  We are\ntwelve.\"\n\nAccording to my counting that day, we were always right in detail,\nbut in the gross we were always one too many.  There was no\nappearance--no figure--to account for it; but I had now an inward\nforeshadowing of the figure that was surely coming.\n\nThe Jury were housed at the London Tavern.  We all slept in one\nlarge room on separate tables, and we were constantly in the charge\nand under the eye of the officer sworn to hold us in safe-keeping.\nI see no reason for suppressing the real name of that officer.  He\nwas intelligent, highly polite, and obliging, and (I was glad to\nhear) much respected in the City.  He had an agreeable presence,\ngood eyes, enviable black whiskers, and a fine sonorous voice.  His\nname was Mr. Harker.\n\nWhen we turned into our twelve beds at night, Mr. Harker's bed was\ndrawn across the door.  On the night of the second day, not being\ndisposed to lie down, and seeing Mr. Harker sitting on his bed, I\nwent and sat beside him, and offered him a pinch of snuff.  As Mr.\nHarker's hand touched mine in taking it from my box, a peculiar\nshiver crossed him, and he said, \"Who is this?\"\n\nFollowing Mr. Harker's eyes, and looking along the room, I saw again\nthe figure I expected,--the second of the two men who had gone down\nPiccadilly.  I rose, and advanced a few steps; then stopped, and\nlooked round at Mr. Harker.  He was quite unconcerned, laughed, and\nsaid in a pleasant way, \"I thought for a moment we had a thirteenth\njuryman, without a bed.  But I see it is the moonlight.\"\n\nMaking no revelation to Mr. Harker, but inviting him to take a walk\nwith me to the end of the room, I watched what the figure did.  It\nstood for a few moments by the bedside of each of my eleven brother\njurymen, close to the pillow.  It always went to the right-hand side\nof the bed, and always passed out crossing the foot of the next bed.\nIt seemed, from the action of the head, merely to look down\npensively at each recumbent figure.  It took no notice of me, or of\nmy bed, which was that nearest to Mr. Harker's.  It seemed to go out\nwhere the moonlight came in, through a high window, as by an aerial\nflight of stairs.\n\nNext morning at breakfast, it appeared that everybody present had\ndreamed of the murdered man last night, except myself and Mr.\nHarker.\n\nI now felt as convinced that the second man who had gone down\nPiccadilly was the murdered man (so to speak), as if it had been\nborne into my comprehension by his immediate testimony.  But even\nthis took place, and in a manner for which I was not at all\nprepared.\n\nOn the fifth day of the trial, when the case for the prosecution was\ndrawing to a close, a miniature of the murdered man, missing from\nhis bedroom upon the discovery of the deed, and afterwards found in\na hiding-place where the Murderer had been seen digging, was put in\nevidence.  Having been identified by the witness under examination,\nit was handed up to the Bench, and thence handed down to be\ninspected by the Jury.  As an officer in a black gown was making his\nway with it across to me, the figure of the second man who had gone\ndown Piccadilly impetuously started from the crowd, caught the\nminiature from the officer, and gave it to me with his own hands, at\nthe same time saying, in a low and hollow tone,--before I saw the\nminiature, which was in a locket,--\"I WAS YOUNGER THEN, AND MY FACE\nWAS NOT THEN DRAINED OF BLOOD.\"  It also came between me and the\nbrother juryman to whom I would have given the miniature, and\nbetween him and the brother juryman to whom he would have given it,\nand so passed it on through the whole of our number, and back into\nmy possession.  Not one of them, however, detected this.\n\nAt table, and generally when we were shut up together in Mr.\nHarker's custody, we had from the first naturally discussed the\nday's proceedings a good deal.  On that fifth day, the case for the\nprosecution being closed, and we having that side of the question in\na completed shape before us, our discussion was more animated and\nserious.  Among our number was a vestryman,--the densest idiot I\nhave ever seen at large,--who met the plainest evidence with the\nmost preposterous objections, and who was sided with by two flabby\nparochial parasites; all the three impanelled from a district so\ndelivered over to Fever that they ought to have been upon their own\ntrial for five hundred Murders.  When these mischievous blockheads\nwere at their loudest, which was towards midnight, while some of us\nwere already preparing for bed, I again saw the murdered man.  He\nstood grimly behind them, beckoning to me.  On my going towards\nthem, and striking into the conversation, he immediately retired.\nThis was the beginning of a separate series of appearances, confined\nto that long room in which we were confined.  Whenever a knot of my\nbrother jurymen laid their heads together, I saw the head of the\nmurdered man among theirs.  Whenever their comparison of notes was\ngoing against him, he would solemnly and irresistibly beckon to me.\n\nIt will be borne in mind that down to the production of the\nminiature, on the fifth day of the trial, I had never seen the\nAppearance in Court.  Three changes occurred now that we entered on\nthe case for the defence.  Two of them I will mention together,\nfirst.  The figure was now in Court continually, and it never there\naddressed itself to me, but always to the person who was speaking at\nthe time.  For instance:  the throat of the murdered man had been\ncut straight across.  In the opening speech for the defence, it was\nsuggested that the deceased might have cut his own throat.  At that\nvery moment, the figure, with its throat in the dreadful condition\nreferred to (this it had concealed before), stood at the speaker's\nelbow, motioning across and across its windpipe, now with the right\nhand, now with the left, vigorously suggesting to the speaker\nhimself the impossibility of such a wound having been self-inflicted\nby either hand.  For another instance:  a witness to character, a\nwoman, deposed to the prisoner's being the most amiable of mankind.\nThe figure at that instant stood on the floor before her, looking\nher full in the face, and pointing out the prisoner's evil\ncountenance with an extended arm and an outstretched finger.\n\nThe third change now to be added impressed me strongly as the most\nmarked and striking of all.  I do not theorise upon it; I accurately\nstate it, and there leave it.  Although the Appearance was not\nitself perceived by those whom it addressed, its coming close to\nsuch persons was invariably attended by some trepidation or\ndisturbance on their part.  It seemed to me as if it were prevented,\nby laws to which I was not amenable, from fully revealing itself to\nothers, and yet as if it could invisibly, dumbly, and darkly\novershadow their minds.  When the leading counsel for the defence\nsuggested that hypothesis of suicide, and the figure stood at the\nlearned gentleman's elbow, frightfully sawing at its severed throat,\nit is undeniable that the counsel faltered in his speech, lost for a\nfew seconds the thread of his ingenious discourse, wiped his\nforehead with his handkerchief, and turned extremely pale.  When the\nwitness to character was confronted by the Appearance, her eyes most\ncertainly did follow the direction of its pointed finger, and rest\nin great hesitation and trouble upon the prisoner's face.  Two\nadditional illustrations will suffice.  On the eighth day of the\ntrial, after the pause which was every day made early in the\nafternoon for a few minutes' rest and refreshment, I came back into\nCourt with the rest of the Jury some little time before the return\nof the Judges.  Standing up in the box and looking about me, I\nthought the figure was not there, until, chancing to raise my eyes\nto the gallery, I saw it bending forward, and leaning over a very\ndecent woman, as if to assure itself whether the Judges had resumed\ntheir seats or not.  Immediately afterwards that woman screamed,\nfainted, and was carried out.  So with the venerable, sagacious, and\npatient Judge who conducted the trial.  When the case was over, and\nhe settled himself and his papers to sum up, the murdered man,\nentering by the Judges' door, advanced to his Lordship's desk, and\nlooked eagerly over his shoulder at the pages of his notes which he\nwas turning.  A change came over his Lordship's face; his hand\nstopped; the peculiar shiver, that I knew so well, passed over him;\nhe faltered, \"Excuse me, gentlemen, for a few moments.  I am\nsomewhat oppressed by the vitiated air;\" and did not recover until\nhe had drunk a glass of water.\n\nThrough all the monotony of six of those interminable ten days,--the\nsame Judges and others on the bench, the same Murderer in the dock,\nthe same lawyers at the table, the same tones of question and answer\nrising to the roof of the court, the same scratching of the Judge's\npen, the same ushers going in and out, the same lights kindled at\nthe same hour when there had been any natural light of day, the same\nfoggy curtain outside the great windows when it was foggy, the same\nrain pattering and dripping when it was rainy, the same footmarks of\nturnkeys and prisoner day after day on the same sawdust, the same\nkeys locking and unlocking the same heavy doors,--through all the\nwearisome monotony which made me feel as if I had been Foreman of\nthe Jury for a vast cried of time, and Piccadilly had flourished\ncoevally with Babylon, the murdered man never lost one trace of his\ndistinctness in my eyes, nor was he at any moment less distinct than\nanybody else.  I must not omit, as a matter of fact, that I never\nonce saw the Appearance which I call by the name of the murdered man\nlook at the Murderer.  Again and again I wondered, \"Why does he\nnot?\"  But he never did.\n\nNor did he look at me, after the production of the miniature, until\nthe last closing minutes of the trial arrived.  We retired to\nconsider, at seven minutes before ten at night.  The idiotic\nvestryman and his two parochial parasites gave us so much trouble\nthat we twice returned into Court to beg to have certain extracts\nfrom the Judge's notes re-read.  Nine of us had not the smallest\ndoubt about those passages, neither, I believe, had any one in the\nCourt; the dunder-headed triumvirate, having no idea but\nobstruction, disputed them for that very reason.  At length we\nprevailed, and finally the Jury returned into Court at ten minutes\npast twelve.\n\nThe murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the Jury-box,\non the other side of the Court.  As I took my place, his eyes rested\non me with great attention; he seemed satisfied, and slowly shook a\ngreat gray veil, which he carried on his arm for the first time,\nover his head and whole form.  As I gave in our verdict, \"Guilty,\"\nthe veil collapsed, all was gone, and his place was empty.\n\nThe Murderer, being asked by the Judge, according to usage, whether\nhe had anything to say before sentence of Death should be passed\nupon him, indistinctly muttered something which was described in the\nleading newspapers of the following day as \"a few rambling,\nincoherent, and half-audible words, in which he was understood to\ncomplain that he had not had a fair trial, because the Foreman of\nthe Jury was prepossessed against him.\"  The remarkable declaration\nthat he really made was this:  \"MY LORD, I KNEW I WAS A DOOMED MAN,\nWHEN THE FOREMAN OF MY JURY CAME INTO THE BOX.  MY LORD, I KNEW HE\nWOULD NEVER LET ME OFF, BECAUSE, BEFORE I WAS TAKEN, HE SOMEHOW GOT\nTO MY BEDSIDE IN THE NIGHT, WOKE ME, AND PUT A ROPE ROUND MY NECK.\"\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"13771":"by gallica (Biblioth\u00e8que nationale de France) at\nhttp://gallica.bnf.fr.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHARLES DICKENS\n\nAVENTURES\n\nDE MONSIEUR\n\nPICKWICK\n\nROMAN ANGLAIS\n\n\nTRADUIT AVEC L'AUTORISATION DE L'AUTEUR\n\nSOUS LA DIRECTION DE P. LORAIN\n\nPAR P. GROLIER\n\n\nTOME PREMIER\n\nPARIS\n\nLIBRAIRIE HACHETTE ET Cie 79, BOULEVARD SAINT-GERMAIN, 79\n\n1893\n\n\n\n\nAVENTURES\n\nDE\n\nM. PICKWICK.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE PREMIER.\n\nLes Pickwickiens.\n\n\nLe premier jet de lumi\u00e8re qui convertit en une clart\u00e9 brillante les\nt\u00e9n\u00e8bres dont paraissait envelopp\u00e9e l'apparition de l'immortel Pickwick\nsur l'horizon du monde savant, la premi\u00e8re mention officielle de cet\nhomme prodigieux, se trouve dans les statuts ins\u00e9r\u00e9s parmi les\nproc\u00e8s-verbaux du Pickwick-Club. L'\u00e9diteur du pr\u00e9sent ouvrage est\nheureux de pouvoir les mettre sous les yeux de ses lecteurs, comme une\npreuve de l'attention scrupuleuse, de l'infatigable assiduit\u00e9, de la\nsagacit\u00e9 investigatrice, avec lesquelles il a conduit ses recherches, au\nsein des nombreux documents confi\u00e9s \u00e0 ses soins.\n\n\u00ab_S\u00e9ance du 12 mai 1831, pr\u00e9sid\u00e9e par Joseph Smiggers, Esq.\nV.P.P.M.P.C.[1] a \u00e9t\u00e9 arr\u00eat\u00e9 ce qu'il suit \u00e0 l'unanimit\u00e9._\n\n[Footnote 1: \u00c9cuyer, vice-pr\u00e9sident perp\u00e9tuel, membre du Pickwick-Club.]\n\n\u00abL'ASSOCIATION a entendu lire avec un sentiment de satisfaction sans\nm\u00e9lange et avec une approbation absolue, les papiers communiqu\u00e9s par\nSamuel Pickwick, Esq. P.P.M.P.C.[2], et intitul\u00e9s _Recherches sur les\nsources des \u00e9tangs de Hampstead, suivies de quelques observations sur la\nth\u00e9orie des t\u00eatards_.\n\n[Footnote 2: \u00c9cuyer, pr\u00e9sident perp\u00e9tuel, membre du Pickwick-Club.]\n\n\u00abL'ASSOCIATION en offre ses remerc\u00eements les plus sinc\u00e8res audit Samu\u00ebl\nPickwick, Esq. P.P.M.P.C.\n\n\u00abL'ASSOCIATION, tout en appr\u00e9ciant au plus haut degr\u00e9 les avantages que\nla science doit retirer des ouvrages susmentionn\u00e9s, aussi bien que des\ninfatigables recherches de Samu\u00ebl Pickwick dans Hornsey, Highgate,\nBrixton et Camberwell[3], ne peut s'emp\u00eacher de reconna\u00eetre les\ninappr\u00e9ciables r\u00e9sultats dont on pourrait se flatter pour la diffusion\ndes connaissances utiles, et pour le perfectionnement de l'instruction,\nsi les travaux de cet homme illustre avaient lieu sur une plus vaste\n\u00e9chelle, c'est-\u00e0-dire si ses voyages \u00e9taient plus \u00e9tendus, aussi bien\nque la sph\u00e8re de ses observations.\n\n[Footnote 3: Villages aux environs de Londres.]\n\n\u00abDans ce but, l'ASSOCIATION a pris en s\u00e9rieuse consid\u00e9ration une\nproposition \u00e9manant du susdit Samu\u00ebl Pickwick, Esq. P. P.M.P.C., et de\ntrois autres pickwickiens ci-apr\u00e8s nomm\u00e9s, et tendant \u00e0 former une\nnouvelle branche de pickwickiens-unis, sous le titre de _Soci\u00e9t\u00e9\ncorrespondante_ du Pickwick-Club.\n\n\u00abLadite proposition ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 approuv\u00e9e et sanctionn\u00e9e par\nl'ASSOCIATION,\n\n\u00abLa _Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 correspondante_ du Pickwick-Club est par les pr\u00e9sentes\nconstitu\u00e9e; Samu\u00ebl Pickwick, Esq. P.P.M.P.C., Auguste Snodgrass, Esq.\nM.P.C., Tracy Tupman, Esq. M.P. C., et Nathaniel Winkle, Esq. M.P.C.,\nsont \u00e9galement, par les pr\u00e9sentes, choisis et nomm\u00e9s membres de ladite\n_Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 correspondante_, et charg\u00e9s d'adresser de temps en temps \u00e0\nl'ASSOCIATION DU PICKWICK-CLUB, \u00e0 Londres, des d\u00e9tails authentiques sur\nleurs voyages et leurs investigations; leurs observations sur les\ncaract\u00e8res et sur les moeurs; toutes leurs aventures enfin, aussi bien\nque les r\u00e9cits et autres opuscules auxquels pourraient donner lieu les\nsc\u00e8nes locales, ou les souvenirs qui s'y rattachent.\n\n\u00abL'ASSOCIATION reconna\u00eet cordialement ce principe que les membres de la\n_Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 correspondante_ doivent supporter eux-m\u00eames les d\u00e9penses de\nleurs voyages; et elle ne voit aucun inconv\u00e9nient \u00e0 ce que les membres\nde ladite soci\u00e9t\u00e9 poursuivent leurs recherches pendant tout le temps\nqu'il leur plaira, pourvu que ce soit aux m\u00eames conditions.\n\n\u00abEnfin les membres de la susdite soci\u00e9t\u00e9 sont par les pr\u00e9sentes inform\u00e9s\nque leur proposition de payer le port de leurs lettres et de leurs\nenvois a \u00e9t\u00e9 discut\u00e9e par l'ASSOCIATION; que l'ASSOCIATION consid\u00e8re\ncette offre comme digne des grands esprits dont elle \u00e9mane, et qu'elle\nlui donne sa compl\u00e8te approbation.\u00bb\n\nUn observateur superficiel, ajoute le secr\u00e9taire, dans les notes duquel\nnous puisons le r\u00e9cit suivant; un observateur superficiel n'aurait\npeut-\u00eatre rien trouv\u00e9 d'extraordinaire dans la t\u00eate chauve et dans les\nbesicles circulaires qui \u00e9taient invariablement tourn\u00e9es vers le visage\ndu secr\u00e9taire de l'Association, tandis qu'il lisait les statuts\nci-dessus rapport\u00e9s; mais c'\u00e9tait un spectacle v\u00e9ritablement remarquable\npour quiconque savait que le cerveau gigantesque de Pickwick travaillait\nsous ce front, et que les yeux expressifs de Pickwick \u00e9tincelaient\nderri\u00e8re ces verres de lunettes. En effet l'homme qui avait suivi\njusqu'\u00e0 leurs sources les vastes \u00e9tangs de Hampstead[4], l'homme qui\navait remu\u00e9 le monde scientifique par sa th\u00e9orie des t\u00eatards, \u00e9tait\nassis l\u00e0, aussi calme, aussi immuable que les eaux profondes de ces\n\u00e9tangs, par un jour de gel\u00e9e; ou plut\u00f4t comme un solitaire sp\u00e9cimen de\nces innocents t\u00eatards dans la profondeur caverneuse d'une jarre de\nterre.\n\n[Footnote 4: Hampstead, village tout pr\u00e8s de Londres.]\n\nMais combien ce spectacle devint plus int\u00e9ressant, quand aux cris\nr\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9s de Pickwick! Pickwick! qui s'\u00e9chappaient simultan\u00e9ment de la\nbouche de tous ses disciples, cet homme illustre se leva, plein de vie\net d'animation, monta lentement l'escabeau rustique sur lequel il \u00e9tait\nprimitivement assis, et adressa la parole au club que lui-m\u00eame avait\nfond\u00e9. Quelle \u00e9tude pour un artiste que cette sc\u00e8ne attachante!\nL'\u00e9loquent Pickwick \u00e9tait l\u00e0, une main gracieusement cach\u00e9e sous les\npans de son habit, tandis que l'autre s'agitait dans l'air pour donner\nplus de force \u00e0 sa d\u00e9clamation chaleureuse. Sa position \u00e9lev\u00e9e r\u00e9v\u00e9lait\nson pantalon collant et ses gu\u00eatres, auxquelles on n'aurait peut-\u00eatre\npas accord\u00e9 grande attention si elles avaient rev\u00eatu un autre homme,\nmais qui, par\u00e9es, illustr\u00e9es par le contact de Pickwick, s'il est permis\nd'employer cette expression, remplissaient involontairement les\nspectateurs d'un respect et d'une crainte religieuse. Il \u00e9tait entour\u00e9\npar ces hommes de coeur qui s'\u00e9taient offerts pour partager les p\u00e9rils de\nses voyages, et qui devaient partager aussi la gloire de ses\nd\u00e9couvertes. A sa droite, si\u00e9geait Tracy Tupman, le trop inflammable\nTupman, qui, \u00e0 la sagesse et \u00e0 l'exp\u00e9rience de l'\u00e2ge m\u00fbr, unissait\nl'enthousiasme et l'ardeur d'un jeune homme, dans la plus int\u00e9ressante\net la plus pardonnable des faiblesses humaines, l'amour!--le temps et la\nbonne ch\u00e8re avaient \u00e9paissi sa tournure, jadis si romantique; son gilet\nde soie noire \u00e9tait graduellement devenu plus arrondi, tandis que sa\ncha\u00eene d'or disparaissait pouce par pouce \u00e0 ses propres yeux; son large\nmenton d\u00e9bordait de plus en plus par-dessus sa cravate blanche; mais\nl'\u00e2me de Tupman n'avait point chang\u00e9; l'admiration pour le beau sexe\n\u00e9tait toujours sa passion dominante.--A gauche du ma\u00eetre, on voyait le\npo\u00e9tique Snodgrass, myst\u00e9rieusement envelopp\u00e9 d'un manteau bleu, fourr\u00e9\nd'une peau de chien. Aupr\u00e8s de lui, Winkle, le chasseur, \u00e9talait\ncomplaisamment sa veste de chasse toute neuve, sa cravate \u00e9cossaise, et\nson \u00e9troit pantalon de drap gris.\n\nLe discours de M. Pickwick et les d\u00e9bats qui s'\u00e9lev\u00e8rent \u00e0 cette\noccasion, sont rapport\u00e9s dans les proc\u00e8s-verbaux du club. Ils offrent\n\u00e9galement une ressemblance frappante avec les discussions des assembl\u00e9es\nles plus c\u00e9l\u00e8bres; et comme il est toujours curieux de comparer les\nfaits et gestes des grands hommes, nous allons transcrire le\nproc\u00e8s-verbal de cette s\u00e9ance m\u00e9morable.\n\n\u00abM. Pickwick fait observer, dit le secr\u00e9taire, que la gloire est ch\u00e8re\nau coeur de tous les hommes. La gloire po\u00e9tique est ch\u00e8re au coeur de son\nami Snodgrass; la gloire des conqu\u00eates est \u00e9galement ch\u00e8re \u00e0 son ami\nTupman; et le d\u00e9sir d'acqu\u00e9rir de la renomm\u00e9e dans tous les exercices du\ncorps, existe, au plus haut degr\u00e9 dans le sein de son ami Winkle. Il (M.\nPickwick) ne saurait nier l'influence qu'ont exerc\u00e9e sur lui-m\u00eame les\npassions humaines, les sentiments humains (_applaudissements_);\npeut-\u00eatre m\u00eame les faiblesses humaines (_violents cris de: non! non_).\nMais il dira ceci: que si jamais le feu de l'amour-propre s'alluma dans\nson sein, le d\u00e9sir d'\u00eatre utile \u00e0 l'esp\u00e8ce humaine l'\u00e9teignit\nenti\u00e8rement. Le d\u00e9sir d'obtenir l'estime du genre humain \u00e9tait son dada,\nla philanthropie son paratonnerre (_v\u00e9h\u00e9mente approbation_). Il a senti\nquelque orgueil, il l'avoue librement (et que ses ennemis s'emparent de\ncet aveu s'ils le veulent), il a senti quelque orgueil quand il a\npr\u00e9sent\u00e9 au monde sa th\u00e9orie des t\u00eatards. Cette th\u00e9orie peut \u00eatre\nc\u00e9l\u00e8bre, ou ne l'\u00eatre pas. (Une voix dit: _Elle l'est!--Grands\napplaudissements._) Il accepte l'assertion de l'honorable pickwickien\ndont la voix vient de se faire entendre. Sa th\u00e9orie est c\u00e9l\u00e8bre! Mais si\nla renomm\u00e9e de ce trait\u00e9 devait s'\u00e9tendre aux derni\u00e8res bornes du monde\nconnu, l'orgueil que l'auteur ressentirait de cette production ne serait\nrien aupr\u00e8s de celui qu'il \u00e9prouve en ce moment, le plus glorieux de son\nexistence (_acclamations_). Il n'est qu'un individu bien humble (_Non!\nnon!_); cependant il ne peut se dissimuler qu'il est choisi par\nl'Association pour un service d'une grande importance, et qui offre\nquelques risques, aujourd'hui surtout que le d\u00e9sordre r\u00e8gne sur les\ngrandes routes, et que les cochers sont d\u00e9moralis\u00e9s. Regardez sur le\ncontinent, et contemplez les sc\u00e8nes qui se passent chez toutes les\nnations. Les diligences versent de toutes parts; les chevaux prennent le\nmors aux dents; les bateaux chavirent, les chaudi\u00e8res \u00e9clatent!\n(_applaudissements.--Une voix crie, non!_) Non! (_applaudissements_) que\nl'honorable pickwickien qui a lanc\u00e9 un non si bruyant, s'avance et me\nd\u00e9mente s'il ose! Qui est-ce qui a cri\u00e9 non? (_Bruyantes acclamations._)\nSerait-ce l'amour-propre d\u00e9sappoint\u00e9 d'un homme... il ne veut pas dire\nd'un bonnetier (_vifs applaudissements_) qui, jaloux des louanges qu'on\na accord\u00e9es, peut-\u00eatre sans motif, aux recherches de l'orateur, et piqu\u00e9\npar les censures dont on a accabl\u00e9 les mis\u00e9rables tentatives sugg\u00e9r\u00e9es\npar l'envie, prend maintenant ce moyen vif et calomnieux....\n\n\u00abM. Blotton (d'Algate) se l\u00e8ve pour demander le rappel \u00e0 l'ordre.--Est-ce\n\u00e0 lui que l'honorable pickwickien faisait allusion? (_Cris \u00e0\nl'ordre!--Le pr\u00e9sident[5]:--Oui!--Non!--Continuez!--Assez!_--etc.)\n\n[Footnote 5: C'est par ce cri que les membres du parlement invitent le\npr\u00e9sident \u00e0 r\u00e9tablir l'ordre.]\n\n\u00abM. Pickwick ne se laissera pas intimider par des clameurs. Il a fait\nallusion \u00e0 l'honorable gentleman! (_Vive sensation._)\n\n\u00abDans ce cas, M. Blotton n'a que deux mots \u00e0 dire: il repousse avec un\nprofond m\u00e9pris l'accusation de l'honorable gentleman, comme fausse et\ndiffamatoire (_grands applaudissements_). L'honorable gentleman est un\nblagueur. (_Immense confusion. Grands cris de: Le pr\u00e9sident! \u00e0\nl'ordre!_)\n\n\u00abM. Snodgrass se l\u00e8ve pour demander le rappel \u00e0 l'ordre. Il en appelle\nau pr\u00e9sident. (_\u00c9coutez!_) Il demande si l'on n'arr\u00eatera pas cette\nhonteuse discussion entre deux membres du club. (_\u00c9coutez! \u00e9coutez!_)\n\n\u00abLe pr\u00e9sident est convaincu que l'honorable pickwickien retirera\nl'expression dont il vient de se servir.\n\n\u00abM. Blotton, avec tout le respect possible pour le pr\u00e9sident, affirme\nqu'il n'en fera rien.\n\n\u00abLe pr\u00e9sident regarde comme un devoir imp\u00e9ratif de demander \u00e0\nl'honorable gentleman s'il a employ\u00e9 l'expression qui vient de lui\n\u00e9chapper, suivant le sens qu'on lui donne commun\u00e9ment.\n\n\u00abM. Blotton n'h\u00e9site pas \u00e0 dire que non, et qu'il n'a employ\u00e9 ce mot\nque dans le sens pickwickien. (_\u00c9coutez! \u00c9coutez!_) Il est oblig\u00e9 de\nreconna\u00eetre que, personnellement, il professe la plus grande estime pour\nl'honorable gentleman en question. Il ne l'a consid\u00e9r\u00e9 comme un blagueur\nque sous un point de vue enti\u00e8rement pickwickien. (_\u00c9coutez! \u00e9coutez!_)\n\n\u00abM. Pickwick d\u00e9clare qu'il est compl\u00e9tement satisfait par l'explication\nnoble et candide de son honorable ami. Il d\u00e9sire qu'il soit bien entendu\nque ses propres observations n'ont d\u00fb \u00eatre comprises que dans leur sens\npurement pickwickien (_applaudissements._)\u00bb\n\nIci finit le proc\u00e8s-verbal, et en effet la discussion ne pouvait\ncontinuer, puisqu'on \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 une conclusion si satisfaisante, si\nclaire. Nous n'avons pas d'autorit\u00e9 officielle pour les faits que le\nlecteur trouvera dans le chapitre suivant, mais ils ont \u00e9t\u00e9 recueillis\nd'apr\u00e8s des lettres et d'autres pi\u00e8ces manuscrites, dont on ne peut\nmettre en question l'authenticit\u00e9.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE II.\n\nLe premier jour de voyage et la premi\u00e8re soir\u00e9e d'aventures, avec leurs\ncons\u00e9quences.\n\n\nLe soleil, ce ponctuel factotum de l'univers, venait de se lever et\ncommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 \u00e9clairer le matin du 13 mai 1831, quand M. Samu\u00ebl Pickwick,\nsemblable \u00e0 cet astre radieux, sortit des bras du sommeil, ouvrit la\ncrois\u00e9e de sa chambre, et laissa tomber ses regards sur le monde, qui\ns'agitait au-dessous de lui. La rue Goswell \u00e9tait \u00e0 ses pieds, la rue\nGoswell \u00e9tait \u00e0 sa droite, la rue Goswell \u00e9tait \u00e0 sa gauche, aussi loin\nque l'oeil pouvait s'\u00e9tendre, et en face de lui se trouvait encore la rue\nGoswell. \u00abTelles, pensa M. Pickwick, telles sont les vues \u00e9troites de\nces philosophes, qui, satisfaits d'examiner la surface des choses, ne\ncherchent point \u00e0 en \u00e9tudier les myst\u00e8res cach\u00e9s. Comme eux, je pourrais\nme contenter de regarder toujours sur la rue Goswell, sans faire aucun\neffort pour p\u00e9n\u00e9trer dans les contr\u00e9es inconnues qui l'environnent.\u00bb\nAyant laiss\u00e9 tomber cette pens\u00e9e sublime, M. Pickwick s'occupe de\ns'habiller et de serrer ses effets dans son portemanteau. Les grands\nhommes sont rarement tr\u00e8s-scrupuleux pour leur costume: aussi la barbe,\nla toilette, le d\u00e9jeuner se succ\u00e9d\u00e8rent-ils rapidement. Au bout d'une\nheure M. Pickwick \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 la place des voitures de Saint-Martin\nle Grand, ayant son portemanteau sous son bras, son t\u00e9lescope dans la\npoche de sa redingote, et dans celle de son gilet son m\u00e9morandum,\ntoujours pr\u00eat \u00e0 recevoir les d\u00e9couvertes dignes d'\u00eatre not\u00e9es.\n\n\u00abCocher! cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Voil\u00e0, monsieur! r\u00e9pondit un \u00e9trange sp\u00e9cimen du genre homme, lequel\navec son sarrau et son tablier de toile, portant au cou une plaque de\ncuivre num\u00e9rot\u00e9e, avait l'air d'\u00eatre catalogu\u00e9 dans quelque collection\nd'objets rares. C'\u00e9tait le gar\u00e7on de place. Voil\u00e0, monsieur. H\u00e9!\ncabriolet en t\u00eate!\u00bb Et le cocher \u00e9tant sorti de la taverne o\u00f9 il fumait\nsa pipe, M. Pickwick et son portemanteau furent hiss\u00e9s dans la voiture.\n\n--Golden-Cross, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Ce n'est qu'une m\u00e9chante course d'un shilling, Tom, cria le cocher\nd'un ton de mauvaise humeur, pour l'\u00e9dification du gar\u00e7on de place,\ncomme la voiture partait.\n\n--Quel \u00e2ge a cette b\u00eate-l\u00e0, mon ami? demanda M. Pickwick en se frottant\nle nez avec le shilling qu'il tenait tout pr\u00eat pour payer sa course.\n\n--Quarante-deux ans, r\u00e9pliqua le cocher, apr\u00e8s avoir lorgn\u00e9 M. Pickwick\ndu coin de l'oeil.\n\n--Quoi! s'\u00e9cria l'homme illustre en mettant la main sur son carnet.\u00bb\n\nLe cocher r\u00e9it\u00e9ra son assertion; M. Pickwick le regarda fixement au\nvisage; mais il ne d\u00e9couvrit aucune h\u00e9sitation dans ses traits, et nota\nle fait imm\u00e9diatement.\n\n\u00abEt combien de temps reste-t-il hors de l'\u00e9curie, continua M. Pickwick,\ncherchant toujours \u00e0 acqu\u00e9rir quelques notions utiles.\n\n--Deux ou trois semaines.\n\n--Deux ou trois semaines hors de l'\u00e9curie! dit le philosophe plein\nd'\u00e9tonnement; et il tira de nouveau son portefeuille.\n\n--Les \u00e9curies, r\u00e9pliqua froidement le cocher, sont \u00e0 Pentonville; mais\nil y entre rarement \u00e0 cause de sa faiblesse.\n\n--A cause de sa faiblesse? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick avec perplexit\u00e9.\n\n--Il tombe toujours quand on l'\u00f4te du cabriolet. Mais au contraire quand\nil y est bien attel\u00e9, nous tenons les guides courtes et il ne peut pas\nbroncher. Nous avons une paire de fameuses roues; aussi, pour peu qu'il\nbouge, elles roulent apr\u00e8s lui, et il faut bien qu'il marche. Il ne peut\npas s'en emp\u00eacher.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick enregistra chaque parole de ce r\u00e9cit, pour en faire part \u00e0\nson club, comme d'une singuli\u00e8re preuve de la vitalit\u00e9 des chevaux dans\nles circonstances les plus difficiles. Il achevait d'\u00e9crire, lorsque le\ncabriolet atteignit Golden-Cross. Aussit\u00f4t le cocher saute en bas, M.\nPickwick descend avec pr\u00e9caution, et MM. Tupman, Snodgrass et Winkle,\nqui attendaient avec anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 l'arriv\u00e9e de leur illustre chef,\ns'approchent de lui pour le f\u00e9liciter.\n\n\u00abTenez, cocher,\u00bb dit M. Pickwick en tendant le shilling \u00e0 son\nconducteur.\n\nMais quel fut l'\u00e9tonnement du savant personnage lorsque cet homme\ninconcevable, jetant l'argent sur le pav\u00e9, d\u00e9clara, en langage figur\u00e9,\nqu'il ne demandait d'autre payement que le plaisir de boxer avec M.\nPickwick tout son shilling.\n\n\u00abVous \u00eates fou, dit M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Ivre, reprit M. Winkle.\n\n--Tous les deux, ajouta M. Tupman.\n\n--Avancez! disait le cocher, lan\u00e7ant dans l'espace une multitude de\ncoups de poings pr\u00e9paratoires. Avancez tous les quatre!\n\n--En voil\u00e0 une bonne! s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent une demi-douzaine d'autres cochers: A\nla besogne, John! et ils se rang\u00e8rent en cercle avec une grande\nsatisfaction.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'y a, John? demanda un gentleman, porteur de manches de\ncalicot noir.\n\n--Ce qu'y a! r\u00e9pliqua le cocher. Ce vieux a pris mon num\u00e9ro!\n\n--Je n'ai pas pris votre num\u00e9ro, dit M. Pickwick d'un ton indign\u00e9.\n\n--Pourquoi l'avez-vous not\u00e9, alors? demanda le cocher.\n\n--Je ne l'ai pas not\u00e9! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, avec indignation.\n\n--Croiriez-vous, continua le cocher, en s'adressant \u00e0 la foule;\ncroiriez-vous que ce mouchard-l\u00e0 monte dans mon cabriolet, prend mon\nnum\u00e9ro, et couche sur le papier chaque parole que j'ai dite?\u00bb (Le\nm\u00e9morandum revint comme un trait de lumi\u00e8re dans la m\u00e9moire de M.\nPickwick.)\n\n\u00abIl a fait \u00e7a? cria un autre cocher.\n\n--Oui, il a fait \u00e7a. Apr\u00e8s m'avoir induit par ses vexations \u00e0\nl'attaquer, voil\u00e0 qu'il a trois t\u00e9moins tout pr\u00eats pour d\u00e9poser contre\nmoi. Mais il me le payera, quand je devrais en avoir pour six mois!\nAvancez donc.\u00bb Et dans son exasp\u00e9ration, avec un d\u00e9dain superbe pour ses\npropres effets, le cocher lan\u00e7a son chapeau sur le pav\u00e9, fit sauter les\nlunettes de M. Pickwick, envoya un coup de poing sous le nez de M.\nPickwick, un autre coup de poing dans la poitrine de M. Pickwick, un\ntroisi\u00e8me dans l'oeil de M. Snodgrass, un quatri\u00e8me pour varier dans le\ngilet de M. Tupman; puis s'en alla d'un saut au milieu de la rue, puis\nrevint sur le trottoir, et finalement enleva \u00e0 M. Winkle le peu d'air\nrespirable que renfermaient momentan\u00e9ment ses poumons, le tout en une\ndouzaine de secondes.\n\n\u00abO\u00f9 y a-t-il un constable? dit M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Mettez-les sous la pompe, sugg\u00e9ra un marchand de p\u00e2t\u00e9s chauds.\n\n--Vous me le payerez, dit M. Pickwick respirant avec difficult\u00e9.\n\n--Mouchards! cri\u00e8rent quelques voix dans la foule.\n\n--Avancez donc, beugla le cocher, qui pendant ce temps avait continu\u00e9 de\nlancer des coups de poings dans le vide.\u00bb\n\nJusqu'alors la populace avait contempl\u00e9 passivement cette sc\u00e8ne; mais le\nbruit que les pickwickiens \u00e9taient des mouchards s'\u00e9tant r\u00e9pandu de\nproche en proche, les assistants commenc\u00e8rent \u00e0 discuter avec beaucoup\nde chaleur s'il ne conviendrait pas de suivre la proposition de\nl'irascible marchand de p\u00e2t\u00e9s. On ne peut dire \u00e0 quelles voies de fait\nils se seraient port\u00e9s, si l'intervention d'un nouvel arrivant n'avait\ntermin\u00e9 inopin\u00e9ment la bagarre.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'il y a? demanda un grand jeune homme effil\u00e9, rev\u00eatu d'un\nhabit vert, et qui sortait du bureau des voitures.\n\n--Mouchards! hurla de nouveau la foule.\n\n--C'est faux! cria M. Pickwick avec un accent qui devait convaincre tout\nauditeur exempt de pr\u00e9jug\u00e9s.\n\n--Bien vrai? bien vrai?\u00bb demanda le jeune homme, en se faisant passage \u00e0\ntravers la multitude, par l'infaillible proc\u00e9d\u00e9 qui consiste \u00e0 donner\ndes coups de coude \u00e0 droite et \u00e0 gauche.\n\nM. Pickwick, en quelques phrases pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9es, lui expliqua le v\u00e9ritable\n\u00e9tat des choses.\n\n\u00abS'il en est ainsi, venez avec moi, dit l'habit vert, entra\u00eenant l'homme\nillustre et parlant tout le long du chemin. Ici, n\u00b0 924, prenez le prix\nde votre course, et allez vous-en. Respectable gentleman, je r\u00e9ponds de\nlui. Pas de sottises. Par ici, monsieur. O\u00f9 sont vos amis? Erreur \u00e0 ce\nque je vois. N'importe. Des accidents. \u00c7a arrive \u00e0 tout le monde.\nCourage! on n'en meurt pas; il faut faire contre fortune bon coeur.\nCitez-le devant le commissaire; qu'il mette cela dans sa poche si cela\nlui va. Damn\u00e9s coquins! et d\u00e9bitant avec une volubilit\u00e9 extraordinaire\nun long chapelet de sentences semblables, l'\u00e9tranger introduisit M.\nPickwick et ses disciples dans la chambre d'attente des voyageurs.\n\n--Gar\u00e7on! cria l'\u00e9tranger en tirant la sonnette avec une violence\nformidable, des verres pour tout le monde; du grog \u00e0 l'eau-de-vie chaud,\nfort sucr\u00e9, et qu'il y en ait beaucoup. L'oeil endommag\u00e9, monsieur?\nGar\u00e7on, un bifteck cru, pour l'oeil de monsieur. Rien comme le bifteck\ncru pour une contusion, monsieur. Un cand\u00e9labre \u00e0 gaz, excellent, mais\nincommode. Diablement dr\u00f4le de se tenir en pleine rue une demi-heure,\nl'oeil appuy\u00e9 sur un cand\u00e9labre \u00e0 gaz. La bonne plaisanterie, hein! Ha!\nha!\u00bb Et l'\u00e9tranger, sans s'arr\u00eater pour reprendre haleine, avala d'un\nseul trait une demi-pinte de grog br\u00fblant, puis il s'\u00e9tala sur une\nchaise, avec autant d'aisance que si rien de remarquable n'\u00e9tait arriv\u00e9.\n\nM. Pickwick eut le temps d'observer le costume et la tournure de cette\nnouvelle connaissance, tandis que ses trois compagnons \u00e9taient occup\u00e9s \u00e0\nlui offrir leurs remerciements.\n\nC'\u00e9tait un homme d'une taille moyenne; mais comme il avait le corps\nmince et les jambes tr\u00e8s-longues, il paraissait beaucoup plus grand\nqu'il ne l'\u00e9tait en r\u00e9alit\u00e9. Son habit vert avait \u00e9t\u00e9 un v\u00eatement\n\u00e9l\u00e9gant dans les beaux jours des habits \u00e0 queue de morue;\nmalheureusement, dans ce temps-l\u00e0, il avait sans doute \u00e9t\u00e9 fait pour un\nhomme beaucoup plus petit que l'\u00e9tranger, car les manches salies et\nfan\u00e9es lui descendaient \u00e0 peine aux poignets. Sans \u00e9gard pour l'\u00e2ge\nrespectable de cet habit, il l'avait boutonn\u00e9 jusqu'au menton, au hasard\nimminent d'en faire craquer le dos. Son cou \u00e9tait d\u00e9cor\u00e9 d'un vieux col\nnoir, mais on n'y apercevait aucun vestige d'un col de chemise. Son\n\u00e9troit pantalon \u00e9talait \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0 des places luisantes qui indiquaient de\nlongs services; il \u00e9tait fortement tendu par des sous-pieds sur des\nsouliers rapi\u00e9c\u00e9s, afin de cacher, sans doute, des bas, jadis blancs,\nqui se trahissaient encore malgr\u00e9 cette pr\u00e9caution inutile. De chaque\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 d'un chapeau \u00e0 bords retrouss\u00e9s tombaient en boucles n\u00e9glig\u00e9es les\nlongs cheveux noirs du personnage, et l'on entrevoyait la chair de ses\npoignets entre ses gants et les parements de son habit Enfin son visage\n\u00e9tait maigre et p\u00e2le, et dans toute sa personne r\u00e9gnait un air\nind\u00e9finissable d'impudence h\u00e2bleuse et d'aplomb imperturbable.\n\nTel \u00e9tait l'individu que M. Pickwick examinait \u00e0 travers ses lunettes\n(heureusement retrouv\u00e9es), et auquel il offrit, en termes choisis, ses\nremerc\u00eements, apr\u00e8s que ses trois amis eurent \u00e9puis\u00e9 les leurs.\n\n\u00abN'en parlons plus, dit l'\u00e9tranger, coupant court aux compliments, \u00e7a\nsuffit. Fameux gaillard, ce cocher, il jouait bien des poings, mais si\nj'avais \u00e9t\u00e9 votre ami \u00e0 l'habit de chasse vert, Dieu me damne! j'aurais\nbris\u00e9 la t\u00eate du cocher en moins de rien; celle du p\u00e2tissier aussi,\nparole d'honneur!\u00bb\n\nCe discours tout d'une haleine fut interrompu par le cocher de\nRochester, annon\u00e7ant que le _Commodore_ \u00e9tait pr\u00eat \u00e0 partir.\n\n\u00abCommodore! murmura l'\u00e9tranger en se levant: ma voiture, place retenue.\nPlace d'imp\u00e9riale. Payez l'eau-de-vie et l'eau; faudrait changer un\nbillet de cinq livres; il circule beaucoup de pi\u00e8ces fausses, monnaie de\nBirmingham; connu. Et il secoua la t\u00eate d'un air fin.\u00bb\n\nOr, M. Pickwick et ses trois compagnons avaient pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment projet\u00e9 de\nfaire leur premi\u00e8re halte \u00e0 Rochester. Ils d\u00e9clar\u00e8rent donc \u00e0 leur\nnouvelle connaissance qu'ils suivaient la m\u00eame route, et convinrent\nd'occuper le si\u00e9ge de derri\u00e8re de la voiture, o\u00f9 ils pourraient tenir\ntous les cinq.\n\n\u00abAllons! haut! dit l'\u00e9tranger, en aidant M. Pickwick \u00e0 grimper sur\nl'imp\u00e9riale, avec une pr\u00e9cipitation qui d\u00e9rangea mat\u00e9riellement la\ngravit\u00e9 ordinaire du philosophe.\n\n--Aucun bagage, monsieur? demanda le cocher.\n\n--Qui? moi? r\u00e9pliqua l'\u00e9tranger: Paquet de papier gris, voil\u00e0! le reste\nparti par eau; grosses caisses clou\u00e9es, grosses comme des maisons,\nlourdes, lourdes, diablement lourdes!\u00bb Et il enfon\u00e7a dans sa poche, le\nplus qu'il put, le paquet de papier gris, qui, \u00e0 en juger d'apr\u00e8s les\napparences paraissait contenir une chemise et un mouchoir.\n\n\u00abGare! gare les t\u00eates! cria le babillard \u00e9tranger, quand ils arriv\u00e8rent\nsous la vo\u00fbte, par laquelle entraient ou sortaient les voitures;\nterrible endroit, tr\u00e8s-dangereux; l'autre jour; cinq enfants; m\u00e8re;\ngrande femme, mangeant des sandwiches, oublie la vo\u00fbte; crac! les\nenfants se retournent; la t\u00eate de la m\u00e8re enlev\u00e9e! les sandwiches dans\nsa main; pas de bouche pour les mettre, le chef de la famille n'y \u00e9tait\nplus. Horrible! horrible! Vous regardez Whitehall, monsieur? beau\npalais, petite crois\u00e9e; la t\u00eate de quelqu'un tomb\u00e9e l\u00e0[6]... Eh! Il\nn'avait pas pris garde non plus! Eh! monsieur, eh!\n\n[Footnote 6: Charles Ier, d\u00e9capit\u00e9 sur un \u00e9chafaud, dress\u00e9 contre une\ndes fen\u00eatres du palais et par o\u00f9 il sortit.\n\n(_Note du traducteur._)]\n\n--Je ruminais, dit M. Pickwick, sur l'\u00e9trange mutabilit\u00e9 des choses de\nce monde.\n\n--Ah! je devine: on entre par la porte du palais un jour; on en sort par\nla fen\u00eatre le lendemain. Philosophe, monsieur?\n\n--Observateur de la nature humaine, monsieur.\n\n--Moi aussi, comme la plupart des hommes, quand ils n'ont pas\ngrand'chose \u00e0 faire, et encore moins \u00e0 gagner. Po\u00ebte, monsieur?\n\n--Mon ami, M. Snodgrass, a une disposition po\u00e9tique tr\u00e8s-prononc\u00e9e,\nr\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Moi aussi, reprit l'\u00e9tranger, po\u00ebme \u00e9pique; dix mille vers; r\u00e9volution\nde juillet; compos\u00e9 sur place; Mars le jour, Apollon la nuit;\nd\u00e9chargeant la fusil, pin\u00e7ant la lyre.\n\n--Vous \u00e9tiez pr\u00e9sent \u00e0 cette glorieuse sc\u00e8ne? demanda M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Pr\u00e9sent! un peu[7], j'ajustais un Suisse; j'ajustais un vers; j'entre\nchez un marchand de vin et je l'\u00e9cris; je retourne dans la rue, pouf!\npan! une autre id\u00e9e; je rentre dans la boutique, plume et encre; dans la\nrue, d'estoc et de taille. Noble temps, monsieur! Chasseur, monsieur? se\ntournant brusquement vers M. Winkle.\n\n[Footnote 7: Exemple remarquable de la force proph\u00e9tique de\nl'imagination de M. Jingle quand on pense que ce dialogue a lieu en 1827\net que la r\u00e9volution est de 1830.\n\n(_Note de l'auteur._)]\n\n--Un peu, r\u00e9pliqua celui-ci.\n\n--Belle occupation! belle occupation! des chiens?\n\n--Pas dans ce moment.\n\n--Ah! vous devriez en avoir. Noble animal, cr\u00e9ature intelligente! J'en\navais un jadis, chien d'arr\u00eat, instinct surprenant. Je chasse un jour,\nj'entre dans un enclos, je siffle, chien immobile; je siffle encore;\nPonto! Inutile: bouge pas. Ponto! Ponto! il ne remue pas. Chien\np\u00e9trifi\u00e9, en arr\u00eat devant un \u00e9criteau. Une inscription. _Les\ngardes-chasse ont ordre de tuer tous les chiens qu'ils trouveront dans\ncet enclos._ Il ne voulait pas avancer. Chien \u00e9tonnant. Fameuse b\u00eate,\noh! oui, fameuse!\n\n--Singuli\u00e8re circonstance, dit M. Pickwick. Voulez-vous me permettre\nd'en prendre note?\n\n--Certainement, monsieur, certainement; cent autres anecdotes du m\u00eame\nanimal. Jolie fille, monsieur! continua l'\u00e9tranger en s'adressant \u00e0 M.\nTracy Tupman, lequel s'occupait \u00e0 lancer des oeillades antipickwickiennes\n\u00e0 une jeune femme qui passait sur le bord de la route.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-jolie, r\u00e9pondit M. Tupman.\n\n--Les Anglaises ne valent pas les Espagnoles: nobles cr\u00e9atures; cheveux\nde jais, noires prunelles, formes s\u00e9duisantes; douces cr\u00e9atures,\ncharmantes!\n\n--Vous avez \u00e9t\u00e9 en Espagne, monsieur? demanda M. Tracy Tupman.\n\n--J'y ai v\u00e9cu des si\u00e8cles.\n\n--Vous avez fait beaucoup de conqu\u00eates?\n\n--Des conqu\u00eates? par milliers. Don Bolaro Fizzgig, grand d'Espagne;\nfille unique; do\u00f1a Christina, superbe cr\u00e9ature; elle m'aimait \u00e0 la\nfolie. P\u00e8re jaloux; fille passionn\u00e9e; bel Anglais; do\u00f1a Christina au\nd\u00e9sespoir; acide prussique; pompe stomacale dans mon portemanteau; je\npratique l'op\u00e9ration; vieux Bolaro en extase, consent \u00e0 notre union;\njoint nos mains, ruisseaux de pleurs; histoire romantique,\ntr\u00e8s-romantique.\n\n--Cette dame est-elle maintenant en Angleterre? reprit M. Tupman, sur\nlequel la description de tant de charmes avait produit une vive\nimpression.\n\n--Morte! monsieur, morte! r\u00e9pondit l'\u00e9tranger en appliquant \u00e0 son oeil\ndroit les tristes restes d'un mouchoir de batiste. Ne gu\u00e9rit jamais de\nla pompe stomacale, constitution d\u00e9truite, victime de l'amour.\n\n--Et le p\u00e8re? demanda le po\u00e9tique Snodgrass.\n\n--Saisi de remords, disparition subite, conversation de toute la ville.\nRecherches dans tous les coins, sans succ\u00e8s. Jet d'eau de la fontaine\npublique dans la grande place s'arr\u00eate subitement: le temps passe,\ntoujours point d'eau; les ouvriers s'y mettent: mon beau-p\u00e8re dans le\ngros tuyau, une confession compl\u00e8te dans sa botte droite. On le retire,\nla fontaine coule de plus belle.\n\n--Voulez-vous me permettre d'\u00e9crire ce petit roman? dit M. Snodgrass,\nprofond\u00e9ment affect\u00e9.\n\n--Certainement, monsieur, certainement. Cinquante autres \u00e0 votre\nservice. \u00c9trange histoire que la mienne, non pas extraordinaire, mais\ncurieuse.\u00bb\n\nDurant toute la route, l'\u00e9tranger continua \u00e0 parler de la sorte,\ns'interrompant seulement aux relais pour avaler un verre d'ale, en guise\nde ponctuation. Aussi, lorsque la voiture arriva au pont de Rochester,\nles carnets de MM. Pickwick et Snodgrass \u00e9taient compl\u00e9tement remplis\nd'un choix de ses aventures.\n\nLorsqu'on aper\u00e7ut le vieux ch\u00e2teau, M. Auguste Snodgrass s'\u00e9cria avec la\nferveur po\u00e9tique qui le distinguait: \u00abQuelles magnifiques ruines!\n\n--Quelle \u00e9tude pour un antiquaire! furent les propres paroles qui\ns'\u00e9chapp\u00e8rent de la bouche de M. Pickwick, tandis qu'il appliquait son\nt\u00e9lescope \u00e0 son oeil.\n\n--Ah! un bel endroit, r\u00e9pliqua l'\u00e9tranger. Superbe masse, sombres\nmurailles, arcades branlantes, noirs recoins, escaliers cro\u00fblants.\nVieille cath\u00e9drale aussi, odeur terreuse, les marches us\u00e9es par les\npieds des p\u00e8lerins, petites portes saxonnes, confessionnaux comme les\ngu\u00e9rites de ceux qui re\u00e7oivent l'argent au spectacle. Dr\u00f4les de gens que\nces moines, papes et tr\u00e9soriers, et toutes sortes de vieux gaillards,\navec des grosses faces rouges et des nez \u00e9corn\u00e9s, qu'on d\u00e9terre tous les\njours. Des pourpoints de buffle, des arquebuses \u00e0 m\u00e8che, sarcophages.\nBelle place, vieilles l\u00e9gendes, dr\u00f4les d'histoires, \u00e9tonnantes.\u00bb Et\nl'\u00e9tranger continua son soliloque jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 la voiture\ns'arr\u00eata, dans la grande rue, devant l'auberge du _Taureau_.\n\n--Allez-vous rester ici, monsieur, lui demanda M. Nathaniel Winkle.\n\n\u00abIci? non, monsieur. Mais vous ferez bien d'y s\u00e9journer, bonne maison,\nlits propres. L'h\u00f4tel _Wright_, \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9, tr\u00e8s-cher, une demi-couronne de\nplus sur votre compte, si vous regardez seulement le gar\u00e7on; fait payer\nplus cher si vous d\u00eenez en ville que si vous d\u00eeniez \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel: dr\u00f4les de\ngens, vraiment.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle s'approcha de M. Pickwick et lui dit quelques paroles \u00e0\nl'oreille. Un chuchotement passa de M. Pickwick \u00e0 M. Snodgrass, de M.\nSnodgrass \u00e0 M. Tupman, et des signes d'assentiment ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9chang\u00e9s,\nM. Pickwick s'adressa ainsi \u00e0 l'\u00e9tranger.\n\n\u00abVous nous avez rendu ce matin un important service, monsieur.\nPermettez-moi de vous offrir une l\u00e9g\u00e8re marque de notre reconnaissance,\nen vous priant de nous faire l'honneur de d\u00eener avec nous.\n\n--Grand plaisir. Ne me permettrai pas de dire mon go\u00fbt; volaille r\u00f4tie\net champignons, excellente chose; quelle heure?\n\n--Voyons, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, en tirant sa montre. Il est maintenant\npr\u00e8s de trois heures. A cinq heures, si vous voulez.\n\n--Convient parfaitement; cinq heures pr\u00e9cises, jusqu'alors prenez soin\nde vous.\u00bb\n\nAinsi parla l'\u00e9tranger, et il souleva de quelques pouces son chapeau \u00e0\nbords retrouss\u00e9s, le repla\u00e7a n\u00e9gligemment sur le coin de l'oreille,\ntraversa la cour d'un air d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9, et tourna dans la grande rue, ayant\ntoujours hors de sa poche la moiti\u00e9 du paquet de papier gris.\n\n\u00ab\u00c9videmment un grand voyageur dans divers climats et un profond\nobservateur des hommes et des choses, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--J'aimerais \u00e0 voir son po\u00ebme, reprit M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Et moi je voudrais avoir vu son chien,\u00bb ajouta M. Winkle.\n\nM. Tupman ne parla point, mais il pensa a do\u00f1a Christina, \u00e0 l'acide\nprussique, \u00e0 la fontaine, et ses yeux se remplirent de larmes.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir retenu une salle \u00e0 manger particuli\u00e8re, examin\u00e9 les lits,\ncommand\u00e9 le d\u00eener, nos voyageurs sortirent pour observer la ville et les\nenvirons.\n\nNous avons lu soigneusement les notes de M. Pickwick sur les quatre\nvilles de Stroud, Rochester, Chatham et Brompton, et nous n'avons pas\ntrouv\u00e9 que ses opinions diff\u00e9rassent mat\u00e9riellement de celles des autres\nsavants qui ont parcouru les m\u00eames lieux. On peut r\u00e9sumer ainsi sa\ndescription.\n\nLes principales productions de ces villes paraissent \u00eatre des soldats,\ndes matelote, des juifs, de la craie, des crevettes, des officiers et\ndes employ\u00e9s de la marine. Les principales marchandises \u00e9tal\u00e9es dans les\nrues sont des denr\u00e9es pour la marine, du caramel, des pommes, des\npoissons plats et des hu\u00eetres. Les rues ont un air vivant et anim\u00e9, qui\nprovient principalement de la bonne humeur des militaires. Quand ces\nvaillants hommes, sous l'influence d'un exc\u00e8s de gaiet\u00e9 et de\nspiritueux, font, en chantant, des zigzags dans les rues, ils offrent un\nspectacle vraiment d\u00e9licieux pour un esprit philanthropique, surtout si\nnous consid\u00e9rons quel amusement innocent et peu cher ils fournissent \u00e0\ntous les enfants de la ville, qui les suivent en plaisantent avec eux.\nRien (ajouta M. Pickwick), rien n'\u00e9gale leur bonne humeur. La veille de\nmon arriv\u00e9e, l'un d'eux avait \u00e9t\u00e9 grossi\u00e8rement insult\u00e9 dans une\nauberge. La fille avait refus\u00e9 de le laisser boire davantage. Sur quoi,\net par pur badinage, le soldat tira sa ba\u00efonnette et blessa la servante\n\u00e0 l'\u00e9paule: cependant, le lendemain, ce brave gar\u00e7on se rendit d\u00e8s le\nmatin \u00e0 l'auberge, et fut le premier \u00e0 promettre de ne conserver aucun\nressentiment, et d'oublier ce qui s'\u00e9tait pass\u00e9.\n\n\u00abLa consommation de tabac doit \u00eatre tr\u00e8s-grande dans cette ville,\ncontinue M. Pickwick; et l'odeur de ce v\u00e9g\u00e9tal, r\u00e9pandue dans toutes les\nrues, doit \u00eatre \u00e9tonnamment d\u00e9licieuse pour ceux qui aiment \u00e0 fumer. Un\nvoyageur superficiel critiquerait peut-\u00eatre les boues qui caract\u00e9risent\nleur viabilit\u00e9, mais elles offrent, au contraire, un v\u00e9ritable sujet de\njouissance \u00e0 ceux qui y d\u00e9couvrent un indice de mouvement et de\nprosp\u00e9rit\u00e9 commerciale.\u00bb\n\nCinq heures pr\u00e9cises amen\u00e8rent \u00e0 la fois le d\u00eener et l'\u00e9tranger. Il\ns'\u00e9tait d\u00e9barrass\u00e9 de son paquet de papier gris, mais il n'avait fait\naucun changement dans son costume et d\u00e9ployait toujours sa loquacit\u00e9\naccoutum\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que cela? demanda-t-il, comme le gar\u00e7on \u00f4tait une des cloches\nd'argent. Des soles! ha! fameux poisson; toutes soles viennent de\nLondres. Les entrepreneurs de diligences poussent aux d\u00eeners politiques\npour avoir le transport des soles; des paniers par douzaines; ils savent\nbien ce qu'ils font. Eh! eh! Un verre de vin avec moi, monsieur.\n\n--Avec plaisir,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick. Et l'\u00e9tranger prit du vin,\nd'abord avec lui, puis avec M. Snodgrass, puis avec M. Tupman, puis avec\nM. Winkle, puis enfin avec la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 collectivement; et le tout sans\ncesser un seul instant de discourir.\n\n\u00abDiable de bacchanale sur l'escalier! Banquettes qu'on monte,\ncharpentiers qui descendent, lampes, verres, harpe. Qu'y a-t-il donc,\ngar\u00e7on?\n\n--Un bal, monsieur.\n\n--Un bal par souscription?\n\n--Non, monsieur. Monsieur, un bal public au b\u00e9n\u00e9fice des pauvres,\nmonsieur.\n\n--Monsieur, dit M. Tupman avec un vif int\u00e9r\u00eat, savez-vous si les femmes\nsont bien dans cette ville?\n\n--Superbes, magnifiques. Kent, monsieur; tout le monde conna\u00eet le comt\u00e9\nde Kent, c\u00e9l\u00e8bre pour ses pommes, ses cerises, son houblon et ses\nfemmes. Un verre de vin, monsieur?\n\n--Avec grand plaisir, r\u00e9pondit M. Tupman; et l'\u00e9tranger emplit son\nverre, et le vida.\n\n--J'aimerais beaucoup aller \u00e0 ce bal, reprit M. Tupman, beaucoup.\n\n--Nous avons des billets au comptoir, monsieur. Une demi-guin\u00e9e chaque,\nmonsieur, dit le gar\u00e7on.\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman exprima de nouveau le d\u00e9sir d'\u00eatre pr\u00e9sent \u00e0 cette f\u00eate; mais\nne rencontrant aucune r\u00e9ponse dans l'oeil obscurci de M. Snodgrass, ni\ndans le regard distrait de M. Pickwick, il se rejeta, avec un nouvel\nint\u00e9r\u00eat, sur le vin de Porto et sur le dessert qu'on venait d'apporter.\nLe gar\u00e7on se retira, et nos cinq voyageurs continu\u00e8rent \u00e0 savourer les\ndeux heures d'abandon qui suivent le d\u00eener.\n\n\u00abPardon, monsieur, dit l'\u00e9tranger, la bouteille dort, faites-lui faire\nle tour comme le soleil, par la soute au pain, rubis sur l'ongle,\u00bb et il\nvida son verre qu'il avait rempli deux minutes auparavant, et s'en versa\nun autre avec l'aplomb d'un homme accoutum\u00e9 \u00e0 ce man\u00e8ge.\n\nLe vin fut bu, et l'on en demanda d'autre: le visiteur parla, les\npickwickiens \u00e9cout\u00e8rent; M. Tupman se sentait \u00e0 chaque instant plus de\ndisposition pour le bal; la figure de M. Pickwick brillait d'une\nexpression de philanthropie universelle; MM. Winkle et Snodgrass \u00e9taient\ntomb\u00e9s dans un profond sommeil.\n\n\u00abIls commencent l\u00e0 haut, dit l'\u00e9tranger; \u00e9coutez, on accorde les\nviolons, maintenant la harpe; les voil\u00e0 partis.\u00bb\n\nEn effet, les sons vari\u00e9s qui descendaient le long de l'escalier\nannon\u00e7aient le commencement du premier quadrille.\n\n\u00abJ'aimerais beaucoup aller \u00e0 ce bal, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Tupman.\n\n--Moi aussi; maudit bagage; bateau en retard: rien \u00e0 mettre; dr\u00f4le,\nhein?\u00bb\n\nUne bienveillance g\u00e9n\u00e9rale \u00e9tait le trait caract\u00e9ristique des\npickwickiens, et M. Tupman en \u00e9tait dou\u00e9 plus qu'aucun autre. En\nfeuilletant les proc\u00e8s-verbaux du club, on est \u00e9tonn\u00e9 de voir combien de\nfois cet excellent homme envoya chez les autres membres de l'Association\nles infortun\u00e9s qui s'adressaient \u00e0 lui, pour en obtenir de vieux\nv\u00eatements ou des secours p\u00e9cuniaires.\n\n\u00abJe serais heureux de vous pr\u00eater un habit pour cette occasion, dit-il\n\u00e0 l'\u00e9tranger; mais vous \u00eates assez mince, et je suis...\n\n--Assez gros. Bacchus sur le retour, descendu de son tonneau, les\npampres au diable, portant des culottes. Ah! ah! Passez le vin.\u00bb\n\nNous ne saurions dire si M. Tupman fut indign\u00e9 du ton p\u00e9remptoire avec\nlequel l'\u00e9tranger l'engageait \u00e0 passer le vin, qui passait en effet si\nvite par son gosier, ou s'il \u00e9tait justement scandalis\u00e9 de voir un\nmembre influent de Pickwick-Club compar\u00e9 ignominieusement \u00e0 un Bacchus\nd\u00e9mont\u00e9; mais, apr\u00e8s avoir pass\u00e9 le vin, il toussa deux fois et regarda\nl'\u00e9tranger, durant quelques secondes, avec une fixit\u00e9 s\u00e9v\u00e8re. Cependant,\ncet individu \u00e9tant demeur\u00e9 parfaitement calme et serein sous son regard\nscrutateur, il en diminua par degr\u00e9s l'intensit\u00e9 et recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 parler\ndu bal.\n\n\u00abJ'\u00e9tais sur le point d'observer, monsieur, lui dit-il, que si mes\nv\u00eatements doivent vous \u00eatre trop larges, ceux de mon ami, M. Winkle,\npourraient peut-\u00eatre vous aller mieux.\u00bb\n\nL'\u00e9tranger prit d'un coup d'oeil la mesure de M. Winkle et s'\u00e9cria avec\nsatisfaction: \u00abJustement ce qu'il me faut!\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman regarda autour de lui. Le vin, qui avait exerc\u00e9 son influence\nsomnif\u00e8re sur MM. Snodgrass et Winkle, avait aussi appesanti les sens de\nM. Pickwick. Ce gentleman avait parcouru successivement les diverses\nphases qui pr\u00e9c\u00e8dent la l\u00e9thargie produite par le d\u00eener et par le vin.\nIl avait subi les phases ordinaires depuis l'exc\u00e8s de la gaiet\u00e9 jusqu'\u00e0\nl'ab\u00eeme de la tristesse. Comme un bec de gaz, dans une rue, lorsque le\nvent a p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e9 dans le tuyau, il avait d\u00e9ploy\u00e9 par moments, une clart\u00e9\nextraordinaire, puis il \u00e9tait tomb\u00e9 si bas qu'on pouvait \u00e0 peine\nl'apercevoir; apr\u00e8s un court intervalle il avait fait jaillir de nouveau\nune \u00e9blouissante lumi\u00e8re, puis il avait oscill\u00e9 rapidement, et il\ns'\u00e9tait \u00e9teint tout \u00e0 fait. Sa t\u00eate \u00e9tait pench\u00e9e sur sa poitrine, et un\nronflement perp\u00e9tuel, accompagn\u00e9 parfois d'un sourd grognement, \u00e9taient\nles seules preuves auriculaires qui pussent attester encore la pr\u00e9sence\nde ce grand homme.\n\nM. Tupman \u00e9tait violemment tent\u00e9 d'aller au bal, pour porter son\njugement sur les beaut\u00e9s du comt\u00e9 de Kent; il \u00e9tait \u00e9galement tent\u00e9\nd'emmener avec lui l'\u00e9tranger; car il l'entendait parler des habitants\net de la ville comme s'il y avait v\u00e9cu depuis sa naissance, tandis que\nlui-m\u00eame se trouvait enti\u00e8rement d\u00e9pays\u00e9. M. Winkle dormait\nprofond\u00e9ment, et M. Tupman avait assez d'exp\u00e9rience de l'\u00e9tat o\u00f9 il le\nvoyait pour savoir que, suivant le cours ordinaire de la nature, son ami\nne songerait point \u00e0 autre chose, en s'\u00e9veillant, qu'\u00e0 se tra\u00eener\npesamment vers son lit. Cependant il restait encore dans l'ind\u00e9cision.\n\n\u00abRemplissez votre verre, et passez le vin;\u00bb dit l'infatigable visiteur.\n\nM. Tupman fit comme il lui \u00e9tait demand\u00e9, et le stimulant additionnel du\ndernier verre le d\u00e9termina.\n\n\u00abLa chambre \u00e0 coucher de Winkle, dit-il \u00e0 l'\u00e9tranger, ouvre dans la\nmienne; si je l'\u00e9veillais maintenant je ne pourrais pas lui faire\ncomprendre ce que je d\u00e9sire: mais je sais qu'il a un costume complet\ndans son sac de nuit. Supposez que vous le mettiez pour aller au bal et\nque vous l'\u00f4tiez en rentrant, je pourrais le replacer facilement, sans\nd\u00e9ranger notre ami le moins du monde.\n\n--Admirable! r\u00e9pondit l'\u00e9tranger; fameux plan! Damn\u00e9e position, bizarre,\nquatorze habits dans ma malle et oblig\u00e9 de mettre celui d'un autre.\nTr\u00e8s-dr\u00f4le! vraiment.\n\n--Il faut prendre nos billets, dit M. Tupman.\n\n--Pas la peine de changer une guin\u00e9e. Jouons qui payera les deux, jetez\nune pi\u00e8ce en l'air, moi je nomme, allez. Femme, femme, femme\nenchanteresse! et le souverain \u00e9tant tomb\u00e9 laissa voir sur sa face\nsup\u00e9rieure le dragon, appel\u00e9 par courtoisie, une femme. Condamn\u00e9 par le\nsort, M. Tupman tira la sonnette, prit les billets et demanda de la\nlumi\u00e8re. Au bout d'un quart d'heure l'\u00e9tranger \u00e9tait compl\u00e9tement par\u00e9\ndes d\u00e9pouilles de M. Nathaniel Winkle.\n\n--C'est un habit neuf, dit M. Tupman, tandis que l'\u00e9tranger se mirait\navec complaisance: c'est le premier qui soit orn\u00e9 des boutons de notre\nclub;\u00bb et il fit remarquer \u00e0 son compagnon les larges boutons dor\u00e9s, sur\nlesquels on voyait les lettres P.C. de chaque c\u00f4t\u00e9 du buste de M.\nPickwick.\n\n\u00abP.C. r\u00e9p\u00e9ta l'\u00e9tranger; dr\u00f4le de devise, le portrait du vieux bonhomme,\navec P.C. Qu'est-ce que P.C. signifie, portrait curieux, hein?\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman, avec une grande importance et une indignation mal comprim\u00e9e,\nexpliqua le symbole mystique du Pickwick-Club, tandis que l'\u00e9tranger se\ntordait pour apercevoir dans la glace le derri\u00e8re de l'habit dont la\ntaille lui montait au milieu du dos.\n\n\u00abUn peu court de taille, n'est-ce pas? Comme les vestes des facteurs:\ndr\u00f4les d'habits, ceux-l\u00e0, faits \u00e0 l'entreprise, sans mesures: voies\nmyst\u00e9rieuses de la providence, \u00e0 tous les petits hommes, de longs\nhabits; \u00e0 tous les grands, des habits courts.\u00bb\n\nEn babillant de cette mani\u00e8re, le nouveau compagnon de M. Tupman acheva\nd'ajuster son costume, ou plut\u00f4t celui de M. Winkle, et, bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s,\nles deux amateurs de f\u00eates mont\u00e8rent ensemble l'escalier.\n\n\u00abQuels noms, messieurs? dit l'homme qui se tenait \u00e0 la porte. M. Tupman\ns'avan\u00e7ait pour \u00e9noncer ses titres et qualit\u00e9s, quand l'\u00e9tranger\nl'arr\u00eata en disant:\n\n--Pas de nom du tout; et il murmura \u00e0 l'oreille de M. Tupman: \u00abLes noms\nne valent rien; inconnus, excellents noms dans leur genre, mais pas\nillustres; fameux noms dans une petite r\u00e9union, mais qui ne feraient pas\nd'effet dans une grande assembl\u00e9e. Incognito, voil\u00e0 la chose. Gentlemen\nde Londres, nobles \u00e9trangers, n'importe quoi.\u00bb\n\nLa porte s'ouvrit \u00e0 ces derniers mots prononc\u00e9s \u00e0 voix haute, et M.\nTupman entra dans la salle de bal avec l'\u00e9tranger.\n\nC'\u00e9tait une longue chambre garnie de banquettes cramoisies, et \u00e9clair\u00e9e\npar des bougies, plac\u00e9es dans des lustres de cristal. Les musiciens\n\u00e9taient soigneusement retranch\u00e9s sur une haute estrade, et trois ou\nquatre quadrilles se m\u00ealaient et se d\u00e9m\u00ealaient d'une mani\u00e8re\nscientifique. Dans une pi\u00e8ce voisine on apercevait deux tables \u00e0 jouer,\nsur lesquelles quatre vieilles dames, avec un pareil nombre de gros\nmessieurs, ex\u00e9cutaient gravement leur whist.\n\nLa finale termin\u00e9e, les danseurs se promen\u00e8rent dans la salle, et nos\ndeux compagnons se plant\u00e8rent dans un coin pour observer la compagnie.\n\n\u00abCharmantes femmes! soupira M. Tupman.\n\n--Attendez un instant. Vous allez voir tout \u00e0 l'heure. Les gros bonnets\npas encore venus. Dr\u00f4le d'endroit. Les employ\u00e9s sup\u00e9rieurs de la marine\nne parlent pas aux petits employ\u00e9s, les petits employ\u00e9s ne parlent pas \u00e0\nla bourgeoisie, la bourgeoisie ne parle pas aux marchands, le\ncommissaire du gouvernement ne parle \u00e0 personne.\n\n--Quel est ce petit gar\u00e7on aux cheveux blonds, aux yeux rouges, avec un\nhabit de fantaisie?\n\n--Silence, s'il vous pla\u00eet! yeux rouges, habit de fantaisie, petit\ngar\u00e7on, allons donc! Chut! chut! c'est un enseigne du 97e, l'honorable\nWilmot-B\u00e9casse. Grande famille, les B\u00e9casses, famille nombreuse.\n\n--Sir Thomas Clubber, lady Clubber et Mlles Clubber! cria d'une voix de\nstentor l'homme qui annon\u00e7ait.\u00bb\n\nUne profonde sensation se propagea dans toute la salle, \u00e0 l'entr\u00e9e d'un\n\u00e9norme gentleman, en habit bleu, avec des boutons brillants; d'une vaste\nlady en satin bleu, et de deux jeunes ladies taill\u00e9es sur le m\u00eame patron\net par\u00e9es de robes \u00e9l\u00e9gantes de la m\u00eame couleur.\n\n\u00abCommissaire du gouvernement, chef de la marine, grand homme,\nremarquablement grand! dit tout bas l'\u00e9tranger \u00e0 M. Tupman, pendant que\nles commissaires du bal conduisaient sir Thomas Clubber et sa famille\njusqu'au haut bout de la salle. L'honorable Wilmot-B\u00e9casse et les\nmeneurs de distinction s'empress\u00e8rent de pr\u00e9senter leurs hommages aux\ndemoiselles Clubber, et sir Thomas Clubber, droit comme un i,\ncontemplait majestueusement l'assembl\u00e9e du haut de sa cravate noire.\u00bb\n\nM. Smithie, Mme Smithie et mesdemoiselles Smithie, furent annonc\u00e9s\nimm\u00e9diatement apr\u00e8s.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que M. Smithie? demanda M. Tupman.\n\n--Quelque chose de la marine,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit l'\u00e9tranger.\n\nM. Smithie s'inclina avec d\u00e9f\u00e9rence devant sir Thomas Clubber, et sir\nThomas Clubber lui rendit son salut avec une condescendance marqu\u00e9e.\nLady Clubber examina \u00e0 travers son lorgnon Mme Smithie et sa famille; et\n\u00e0 son tour Mme Smithie regarda du haut en bas madame je ne sais qui,\ndont le mari n'\u00e9tait pas dans la marine.\n\n\u00abColonel Bulder, Mme Bulder et miss Bulder!\n\n--Chef de la garnison,\u00bb dit l'\u00e9tranger, en r\u00e9ponse \u00e0 un coup d'oeil\ninterrogateur de M. Tupman.\n\nMiss Bulder fut chaudement accueillie par les miss Clubber; les\nsalutations entre Mme Bulder et lady Clubber furent des plus\naffectueuses; le colonel Bulder et sir Thomas s'offrirent mutuellement\nune prise de tabac, et tous deux regard\u00e8rent autour d'eux comme une\npaire d'Alexandre Selkirk, monarques de tout ce qui les entourait.\n\nTandis que l'aristocratie de l'endroit, les Bulder, les Clubber et les\nB\u00e9casse conservaient ainsi leur dignit\u00e9 au haut bout de la salle, les\nautres classes de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 les imitaient, au bas bout, autant qu'il\nleur \u00e9tait possible. Les officiers les moins aristocratiques du 97e se\nd\u00e9vouaient aux familles des fonctionnaires les moins importants de la\nmarine; les femmes des avou\u00e9s et la femme du marchand de vin \u00e9taient \u00e0\nla t\u00eate d'une faction; la femme du brasseur visitait les Bulder; et Mme\nTomlinson, directrice du bureau de poste, semblait avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 choisie par\nun assentiment universel, pour diriger le parti marchand.\n\nUn des personnages les plus populaires dans son propre cercle \u00e9tait un\ngros petit homme, dont le cr\u00e2ne chauve \u00e9tait entour\u00e9 d'une couronne de\ncheveux noirs et roides; c'\u00e9tait le docteur Slammer, chirurgien du 97e.\nLe docteur Slammer prenait du tabac avec tout le monde, riait, dansait,\nplaisantait, jouait au whist, \u00e9tait partout, faisait tout. A ces\noccupations, toutes nombreuses qu'elles fussent d\u00e9j\u00e0, le docteur en\njoignait une autre, plus importante encore: il enveloppait des\nattentions les plus d\u00e9vou\u00e9es, les plus infatigables, une vieille petite\nveuve, dont la riche toilette et les nombreux bijoux annon\u00e7aient une\nfortune qui en faisait un parti fort d\u00e9sirable pour un homme d'un revenu\nlimit\u00e9.\n\nLes yeux de M. Tupman et de son compagnon avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 fix\u00e9s sur le\ndocteur et sur la veuve depuis quelque temps, lorsque l'\u00e9tranger rompit\nle silence.\n\n\u00abUn tas d'argent, vieille fille, le docteur fait sa t\u00eate, excellente\nid\u00e9e, bonne charge.\u00bb\n\nTandis que ces sentences peu intelligibles s'\u00e9chappaient de la bouche de\nl'\u00e9tranger, M. Tupman le regardait d'un air interrogateur.\n\n\u00abJe vais danser avec la veuve.\n\n--Qui est-elle?\n\n--N'en sais rien, jamais vue. Supplanter le docteur. En avant, marche!\u00bb\n\nEn achevant ces mots, l'\u00e9tranger traversa la pi\u00e8ce, s'appuya contre le\nmanteau de la chemin\u00e9e, et attacha ses regards, avec un air d'admiration\nrespectueuse et m\u00e9lancolique, sur la grosse figure de la vieille petite\ndame. M. Tupman regardait muet d'\u00e9tonnement. L'\u00e9tranger faisait\n\u00e9videmment des progr\u00e8s rapides: le docteur dansait avec une autre dame!\nLa veuve laissa tomber son \u00e9ventail; l'\u00e9tranger le releva, et le lui\nrendit avec empressement: un sourire, un salut, une r\u00e9v\u00e9rence, quelques\nparoles de conversation. L'\u00e9tranger retraversa hardiment la salle, pour\nchercher le ma\u00eetre des c\u00e9r\u00e9monies, retourna avec lui pr\u00e8s de la veuve,\net, apr\u00e8s quelques instants de pantomime introductrice, il saisit la\nmain de sa conqu\u00eate et prit place avec elle dans un quadrille.\n\nGrande fut la surprise de M. Tupman \u00e0 ce proc\u00e9d\u00e9 sommaire; mais\nl'\u00e9tonnement du petit docteur paraissait encore plus grand. L'\u00e9tranger\n\u00e9tait jeune; la veuve \u00e9tait flatt\u00e9e; elle ne prenait plus garde aux\nattentions du docteur, et l'indignation de celui-ci ne faisait aucune\nimpression sur son imperturbable rival. Le docteur Slammer resta\nparalys\u00e9. Lui, le docteur Slammer, du 97e, \u00eatre an\u00e9anti en un moment,\npar un homme que personne n'avait jamais vu, que personne ne\nconnaissait! Le docteur Slammer! le docteur Slammer, du 97e! Incroyable!\ncela ne se pouvait pas. Et pourtant cela \u00e9tait. Bon, voil\u00e0 que\nl'\u00e9tranger pr\u00e9sente son ami? Le docteur pouvait-il en croire ses yeux?\nIl regarda de nouveau et il se trouva dans la p\u00e9nible n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 de\nreconna\u00eetre la v\u00e9racit\u00e9 de ses nerfs optiques. Mme Budger dansait avec\nM. Tupman, il n'y avait pas moyen de s'y tromper. Sa veuve elle-m\u00eame est\nl\u00e0 devant lui, en chair et en os, bondissant avec une vigueur\ninaccoutum\u00e9e. L\u00e0 aussi \u00e9tait M. Tupman, sautant \u00e0 droite et \u00e0 gauche,\nd'un air plein de gravit\u00e9, et dansant (ce qui arrive \u00e0 beaucoup de\npersonnes) comme si la contredanse \u00e9tait une \u00e9preuve solennelle, et\nqu'il fall\u00fbt, pour s'en tirer, armer son moral d'une inflexible\nr\u00e9solution.\n\nSilencieusement et patiemment le docteur supporta tout ceci. Il vit\nl'\u00e9tranger offrir du vin chaud, remporter les verres, se pr\u00e9cipiter sur\ndes biscuits; il vit mille coquetteries \u00e9chang\u00e9es, et il ne dit rien:\nmais quelques secondes apr\u00e8s que l'\u00e9tranger eut disparu avec Mme Budger,\npour la conduire \u00e0 sa voiture, il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a hors de la chambre, et chaque\nparticule de sa col\u00e8re, longtemps contenue, sembla s'\u00e9chapper de son\nvisage en un ruisseau de sueur.\n\nL'\u00e9tranger revenait, il parlait \u00e0 voix basse \u00e0 M. Tupman, il riait, il\n\u00e9tait radieux, il avait triomph\u00e9. Le petit docteur eut soif de sa vie.\n\n\u00abMonsieur! dit-il d'une voix terrible, en montrant sa carte et en se\nretirant dans un angle du passage: mon nom est Slammer! Le docteur\nSlammer, monsieur! 97e r\u00e9giment, caserne de Chatham. Ma carte, monsieur!\nma carte! Il aurait voulu poursuivre, mais son indignation l'\u00e9touffait.\n\n--Ah! r\u00e9pliqua l'\u00e9tranger n\u00e9gligemment, Slammer, bien oblig\u00e9; merci,\nmerci de votre attention d\u00e9licate, pas malade maintenant, Slammer,\nquand je le serai, m'adresserai a vous.\n\n--Vous... vous \u00eates un intrigant... un poltron... un l\u00e2che... un\nmenteur... un... un.... Vous d\u00e9ciderez-vous \u00e0 me donner votre carte,\nmonsieur?\n\n--Ah! je vois, dit l'\u00e9tranger \u00e0 demi-voix, punch trop fort, h\u00f4te\nlib\u00e9ral. La limonade beaucoup meilleure, des chambres trop chaudes,\ngentlemen d'un certain \u00e2ge, s'en ressentent le lendemain, cruelles\nsouffrances.... et il fit quelques pas.\n\n--Vous demeurez dans cette maison, monsieur? cria le petit homme\nfurieux; vous \u00eates ivre maintenant, monsieur! Vous entendrez parler de\nmoi, monsieur! Je vous retrouverai, monsieur! je vous retrouverai!\n\n--Vous ferez bien d'abord de retrouver votre lit,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit l'impassible\n\u00e9tranger.\n\nLe docteur Slammer le regarda avec une f\u00e9rocit\u00e9 inexprimable, et en\ns'\u00e9loignant il enfon\u00e7a son chapeau sur sa t\u00eate d'une mani\u00e8re qui\nindiquait toute son indignation.\n\nCependant l'\u00e9tranger et M. Tupman mont\u00e8rent dans la chambre de celui-ci\npour restituer le plumage qu'ils avaient emprunt\u00e9 \u00e0 l'innocent M.\nWinkle. Ils le trouv\u00e8rent profond\u00e9ment endormi, et la restitution fut\nbient\u00f4t faite. L'\u00e9tranger \u00e9tait extr\u00eamement fac\u00e9tieux, et M. Tupman,\n\u00e9tourdi par le vin, par le punch, par les lumi\u00e8res, par la vue de tant\nde femmes, regardait toute cette affaire comme une excellente\nplaisanterie. Apr\u00e8s le d\u00e9part de son nouvel ami, il \u00e9prouva quelque\ndifficult\u00e9 \u00e0 d\u00e9couvrir l'ouverture de son bonnet de nuit: dans ses\nefforts pour le mettre sur sa t\u00eate, il renversa son flambeau, et ce fut\nseulement par une s\u00e9rie d \u00e9volutions tr\u00e8s-compliqu\u00e9es qu'il parvint \u00e0\nentrer dans son lit. Malgr\u00e9 ces petits accidents il ne tarda pas \u00e0\ntrouver le repos.\n\nLe lendemain matin, sept heures avaient \u00e0 peine cess\u00e9 de sonner, quand\nl'esprit universel de M. Pickwick fut tir\u00e9 de l'\u00e9tat de torpeur o\u00f9\nl'avait plong\u00e9 le sommeil, par des coups violents frapp\u00e9s \u00e0 sa porte.\n\n\u00abQui est la? cria-t-il, se dressant sur son s\u00e9ant.\n\n--Le gar\u00e7on, monsieur.\n\n--Que voulez-vous?\n\n--Pourriez-vous me dire, monsieur, quelle personne de votre soci\u00e9t\u00e9 a un\nhabit bleu \u00e0 boutons dor\u00e9s, avec P.C. dessus?\u00bb\n\nOn le lui aura donn\u00e9 pour le brosser, pensa M. Pickwick, et il a oubli\u00e9\n\u00e0 qui il appartient. \u00abM. Winkle, cria-t-il, la troisi\u00e8me chambre \u00e0\ndroite.\n\n--Merci, monsieur, dit le gar\u00e7on; et il passa.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que c'est? demanda M. Tupman, en entendant frapper\nviolemment \u00e0 sa porte.\n\n--Puis-je parler \u00e0 M. Winkle, monsieur? r\u00e9pliqua le gar\u00e7on du dehors.\n\n--Winkle! Winkle! cria M. Tupman.\n\n--Oh\u00e9! r\u00e9pondit une faible voix qui sortait du lit de la chambre\nint\u00e9rieure.\n\n--On vous demande.... Quelqu'un \u00e0 la porte; et ayant articul\u00e9 avec\neffort ces paroles, M. Tupman se retourna et se rendormit imm\u00e9diatement.\n\n--On me demande? dit M. Winkle en sautant hors de son lit et en\ns'habillant rapidement. A cette distance de Londres, qui diable peut me\ndemander?\n\n--Un gentleman, en bas, au caf\u00e9, monsieur. Il dit qu'il ne vous\nd\u00e9rangera qu'un instant, monsieur; mais il ne veut accepter aucun d\u00e9lai.\n\n--Fort \u00e9trange! r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle. Dites que je descends.\u00bb\n\nIl s'enveloppa d'une robe de chambre; mit un ch\u00e2le de voyage autour de\nson cou, et descendit. Une vieille femme et une couple de gar\u00e7ons\nbalayaient la salle du caf\u00e9. Aupr\u00e8s de la fen\u00eatre \u00e9tait un officier en\npetite tenue, qui se retourna en entendant entrer M. Winkle, le salua\nd'un air roide, fit retirer les domestiques, ferma soigneusement les\nportes, et dit: \u00abM. Winkle, je pr\u00e9sume.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, mon nom est Winkle.\n\n--Je viens, monsieur, de la part de mon ami, le docteur Slammer, du 97e.\nCela ne doit pas vous surprendre.\n\n--Le docteur Slammer! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Winkle.\n\n--Le docteur Slammer. Il m'a charg\u00e9 de vous dire de sa part que votre\nconduite d'hier au soir n'\u00e9tait pas celle d'un gentleman, et qu'un\ngentleman ne pouvait pas la supporter.\u00bb\n\nL'\u00e9tonnement de M. Winkle \u00e9tait trop r\u00e9el et trop \u00e9vident pour n'\u00eatre\npas remarqu\u00e9 par le d\u00e9put\u00e9 du docteur Slammer, c'est pourquoi il\npoursuivit ainsi: \u00abMon ami, le docteur Slammer, m'a paru fermement\nconvaincu que, pendant une partie de la soir\u00e9e vous \u00e9tiez gris, et\npeut-\u00eatre hors d'\u00e9tat de sentir l'\u00e9tendue de l'insulte dont vous vous\n\u00eates rendu coupable. Il m'a charg\u00e9 de vous dire que si vous plaidiez\ncette raison comme une excuse de votre conduite, il consentirait \u00e0\nrecevoir des excuses, \u00e9crites par vous sous ma dict\u00e9e.\n\n--Des excuses \u00e9crites! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta de nouveau M. Winkle avec le ton de la\nplus grande surprise.\n\n--Autrement, reprit froidement l'officier, vous connaissez\nl'alternative.\n\n--Avez-vous \u00e9t\u00e9 charg\u00e9 de ce message pour moi nominativement? demanda M.\nWinkle, dont l'intelligence \u00e9tait singuli\u00e8rement d\u00e9sorganis\u00e9e par cette\nconversation extraordinaire.\n\n--Je n'\u00e9tais pas pr\u00e9sent \u00e0 la sc\u00e8ne, et, en cons\u00e9quence de votre refus\nobstin\u00e9 de donner votre carte au docteur Slammer, j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 pri\u00e9 par lui\nde rechercher qui \u00e9tait porteur d'un habit tr\u00e8s-remarquable: un habit\nbleu clair avec des boutons dor\u00e9s, portant un buste, et les lettres\nP.C.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle chancela d'\u00e9tonnement, en entendant d\u00e9crire si minutieusement\nson propre costume. L'ami du docteur Slammer continua:\n\n\u00abJ'ai appris dans la maison que le propri\u00e9taire de l'habit en question\n\u00e9tait arriv\u00e9 ici hier avec trois messieurs. J'ai envoy\u00e9 aupr\u00e8s de celui\nqui paraissait \u00eatre le principal de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9, et c'est lui qui m'a\nadress\u00e9 \u00e0 vous.\u00bb\n\nSi la grosse tour du ch\u00e2teau de Rochester s'\u00e9tait soudainement d\u00e9tach\u00e9e\nde ses fondations, et \u00e9tait venue se placer en face de la fen\u00eatre, la\nsurprise de M. Winkle aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 peu de chose, compar\u00e9e avec celle qu'il\n\u00e9prouva en \u00e9coutant ce discours. Sa premi\u00e8re id\u00e9e fut qu'on avait pu lui\nvoler son habit, et il dit \u00e0 l'officier: \u00abVoulez-vous avoir la bont\u00e9 de\nm'attendre un instant?\n\n--Certainement;\u00bb r\u00e9pondit son h\u00f4te malencontreux.\n\nM. Winkle monta rapidement les escaliers; il ouvrit son sac de nuit\nd'une main tremblante, l'habit bleu s'y trouvait \u00e0 sa place habituelle;\nmais, en l'examinant avec soin, on voyait clairement qu'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9\nport\u00e9 la nuit pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente.\n\n\u00abC'est vrai, dit M. Winkle, en laissant tomber l'habit de ses mains.\nJ'ai bu trop de vin hier, apr\u00e8s d\u00eener, et j'ai une vague id\u00e9e d'avoir\nensuite march\u00e9 dans les rues, et d'avoir fum\u00e9 un cigare. Le fait est que\nj'\u00e9tais tout \u00e0 fait dedans. J'aurai chang\u00e9 d'habit; j'aurai \u00e9t\u00e9 quelque\npart; j'aurai insult\u00e9 quelqu'un: je n'en doute plus, et ce message en\nest le terrible r\u00e9sultat.\u00bb Tourment\u00e9 par ces id\u00e9es, il redescendit au\ncaf\u00e9 avec la sombre r\u00e9solution d'accepter le cartel du vaillant docteur\net d'en subir les cons\u00e9quences les plus funestes.\n\nIl \u00e9tait pouss\u00e9 \u00e0 cette d\u00e9termination par des consid\u00e9rations diverses.\nLa premi\u00e8re de toutes \u00e9tait le soin de sa r\u00e9putation aupr\u00e8s du club. Il\ny avait toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 regard\u00e9 comme une autorit\u00e9 imposante dans tous les\nexercices du corps, soit offensifs, soit d\u00e9fensifs, soit inoffensifs.\nS'il venait \u00e0 reculer, d\u00e8s la premi\u00e8re \u00e9preuve, sous les yeux de son\nchef, sa position dans l'association \u00e9tait perdue pour toujours. En\nsecond lieu, il se souvenait d'avoir entendu dire (par ceux qui ne sont\npoint initi\u00e9s \u00e0 ces myst\u00e8res) que les t\u00e9moins se concertent\nordinairement pour ne point mettre de balles dans les pistolets. Enfin,\nil pensait qu'en choisissant M. Snodgrass pour second et en lui\nd\u00e9peignant avec force le danger, ce gentleman pourrait bien en faire\npart \u00e0 M. Pickwick; lequel, assur\u00e9ment, s'empresserait d'informer les\nautorit\u00e9s locales, dans la crainte de voir tuer ou d\u00e9t\u00e9riorer son\ndisciple.\n\nAyant calcul\u00e9 toutes ces chances, il revint dans la salle du caf\u00e9 et\nd\u00e9clara qu'il acceptait le d\u00e9fi du docteur.\n\n--Voulez-vous m'indiquer un ami, pour r\u00e9gler l'heure et le lieu du\nrendez-vous, dit alors l'obligeant officier.\n\n--C'est tout \u00e0 fait inutile. Veuillez me les nommer, et j'am\u00e8nerai mon\nt\u00e9moin avec moi.\n\n--H\u00e9 bien! reprit l'officier d'un ton indiff\u00e9rent, ce soir, si cela vous\nconvient; au coucher du soleil.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle, pensant dans son coeur que c'\u00e9tait\ntr\u00e8s-mal.\n\n--Vous connaissez le fort Pitt?\n\n--Oui, je l'ai vu hier.\n\n--Prenez la peine d'entrer dans le champ qui borde le foss\u00e9; suivez le\nsentier \u00e0 gauche quand vous arriverez \u00e0 un angle des fortifications, et\nmarchez droit devant vous jusqu'\u00e0 ce que vous m'aperceviez; vous me\nsuivrez alors et je vous conduirai dans un endroit solitaire o\u00f9\nl'affaire pourra se terminer sans crainte d'interruption.\n\n--Crainte d'interruption! pensa M. Winkle.\n\n--Nous n'avons plus rien, je crois, \u00e0 arranger?\n\n--Pas que je sache.\n\n--Alors je vous salue.\n\n--Je vous salue.\u00bb Et l'officier s'en alla lestement en sifflant un air\nde contredanse.\n\nLe d\u00e9jeuner de ce jour-l\u00e0 se passa tristement pour nos voyageurs. M.\nTupman, apr\u00e8s les d\u00e9bauches inaccoutum\u00e9es de la nuit pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente, n'\u00e9tait\npoint en \u00e9tat de se lever; M. Snodgrass paraissait subir une po\u00e9tique\nd\u00e9pression d'esprit; M. Pickwick lui-m\u00eame montrait un attachement\ninaccoutum\u00e9 \u00e0 l'eau de seltz et au silence; quant \u00e0 M. Winkle il \u00e9piait\nsoigneusement une occasion de retenir son t\u00e9moin. Cette occasion ne\ntarda pas \u00e0 se pr\u00e9senter: M. Snodgrass proposa de visiter le ch\u00e2teau, et\ncomme M. Winkle \u00e9tait le seul membre de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 qui f\u00fbt dispos\u00e9 \u00e0\nfaire une promenade, ils sortirent ensemble.\n\n\u00abSnodgrass, dit M. Winkle, lorsqu'ils eurent tourn\u00e9 le coin de la rue,\nSnodgrass, mon cher ami, puis-je compter sur votre discr\u00e9tion? Et en\nparlant ainsi il d\u00e9sirait ardemment de n'y pouvoir point compter.\n\n--Vous le pouvez, r\u00e9pliqua M. Snodgrass. Je jure....\n\n--Non, non! interrompit M. Winkle, \u00e9pouvant\u00e9 par l'id\u00e9e que son\ncompagnon pouvait innocemment s'engager \u00e0 ne pas le d\u00e9noncer. Ne jurez\npas, ne jurez pas; cela n'est point n\u00e9cessaire.\u00bb\n\nM. Snodgrass laissa retomber la main qu'il avait po\u00e9tiquement lev\u00e9e vers\nles nuages, et prit une attitude attentive.\n\n\u00abMon cher ami, dit alors M. Winkle, j'ai besoin de votre assistance dans\nune affaire d'honneur.\n\n--Vous l'aurez, r\u00e9pliqua M. Snodgrass, en serrant la main de son\ncompagnon.\n\n--Avec un docteur, le docteur Slammer, du 97e, ajouta M. Winkle,\nd\u00e9sirant faire para\u00eetre la chose aussi solennelle que possible. Une\naffaire avec un officier, ayant pour t\u00e9moin un autre officier; ce soir,\nau coucher du soleil, dans un champ solitaire, au del\u00e0 du fort Pitt.\n\n--Comptez sur moi, r\u00e9pondit M. Snodgrass, avec \u00e9tonnement, mais sans\n\u00eatre autrement affect\u00e9. En effet, rien n'est plus remarquable que la\nfroideur avec laquelle on prend ces sortes d'affaires, quand on n'y est\npoint partie principale. M. Winkle avait oubli\u00e9 cela: il avait jug\u00e9 les\nsentiments de son ami d'apr\u00e8s les siens.\n\n--Les cons\u00e9quences peuvent \u00eatre terribles, reprit M. Winkle.\n\n--J'esp\u00e8re que non.\n\n--Le docteur est, je pense, un tr\u00e8s-bon tireur.\n\n--La plupart des militaires le sont, observa M. Snodgrass avec calme;\nmais ne l'\u00eates-vous point aussi?\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle r\u00e9pondit affirmativement, et s'apercevant qu'il n'avait point\nsuffisamment alarm\u00e9 son compagnon, il changea de batterie.\n\n\u00abSnodgrass, dit-il d'une voix tremblante d'\u00e9motion, si je succombe vous\ntrouverez dans mon portefeuille une lettre pour mon... pour mon p\u00e8re.\u00bb\n\nCette attaque ne r\u00e9ussit point davantage. M. Snodgrass fut touch\u00e9, mais\nil s'engagea \u00e0 remettre la lettre aussi facilement que s'il avait fait\ntoute sa vie le m\u00e9tier de facteur.\n\n\u00abSi je meurs, continua M. Winkle, ou si le docteur p\u00e9rit, vous, mon cher\nami, vous serez jug\u00e9 comme complice en pr\u00e9m\u00e9ditation. Faut-il donc que\nj'expose un ami \u00e0 la transportation? peut-\u00eatre pour toute sa vie!\u00bb\n\nPour le coup, M. Snodgrass h\u00e9sita; mais son h\u00e9ro\u00efsme fut invincible.\n\u00abDans la cause de l'amiti\u00e9, s'\u00e9cria-t-il avec ferveur, je braverai tous\nles dangers.\u00bb\n\nDieu sait combien notre duelliste maudit int\u00e9rieurement le d\u00e9vouement de\nson ami. Ils march\u00e8rent pendant quelque temps en silence, ensevelis tous\nles deux dans leurs m\u00e9ditations. La matin\u00e9e s'\u00e9coulait et M. Winkle\nsentait s'enfuir toute chance de salut.\n\n\u00abSnodgrass, dit-il en s'arr\u00eatant tout d'un coup, n'allez point me trahir\naupr\u00e8s des autorit\u00e9s locales; ne demandez point des constables pour\npr\u00e9venir le duel; ne vous assurez pas de ma personne, ou de celle du\ndocteur Slammer, du 97e, actuellement en garnison dans la caserne de\nChatham. Afin d'emp\u00eacher le duel, n'ayez point cette prudence, je vous\nen prie.\u00bb\n\nM. Snodgrass saisit avec chaleur la main de son compagnon et s'\u00e9cria,\nplein d'enthousiasme: \u00abNon! pour rien au monde.\u00bb\n\nUn frisson parcourut le corps de M. Winkle quand il vit qu'il n'avait\nrien \u00e0 esp\u00e9rer des craintes de son ami, et qu'il \u00e9tait irr\u00e9vocablement\ndestin\u00e9 \u00e0 devenir une cible vivante.\n\nLorsqu'il eut racont\u00e9 formellement \u00e0 M. Snodgrass les d\u00e9tails de son\naffaire, ils entr\u00e8rent tous deux chez un armurier; ils lou\u00e8rent une\nbo\u00eete de ces pistolets qui sont destin\u00e9s \u00e0 donner et \u00e0 obtenir\n_satisfaction_, ils y joignirent un assortiment _satisfaisant_ de\npoudre, de capsules et de balles; puis ils retourn\u00e8rent \u00e0 leur auberge,\nM. Winkle pour r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir sur la lutte qu'il avait \u00e0 soutenir; M.\nSnodgrass pour arranger les armes de guerre, et les mettre en \u00e9tat de\nservir imm\u00e9diatement.\n\nLorsqu'ils sortirent de nouveau pour leur d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able entreprise, le\nsoir s'approchait, triste et pesant. M. Winkle, de peur d'\u00eatre observ\u00e9,\ns'\u00e9tait envelopp\u00e9 dans un large manteau: M. Snodgrass portait sous le\nsien les instruments de destruction.\n\n\u00abAvez-vous pris tout ce qu'il faut? demanda M. Winkle, d'un ton agit\u00e9.\n\n--Tout ce qu'il faut. Quantit\u00e9 de munitions, dans le cas o\u00f9 les premiers\ncoups n'auraient point de r\u00e9sultats. Il y a un quarteron de poudre dans\nla botte, et j'ai deux journaux dans ma poche pour servir de bourre.\u00bb\n\nC'\u00e9taient l\u00e0 des preuves d'amiti\u00e9 dont il \u00e9tait impossible de n'\u00eatre\npoint reconnaissant. Il est probable que la gratitude de M. Winkle fut\ntrop vive pour qu'il p\u00fbt l'exprimer, car il ne dit rien, mais il\ncontinua de marcher, assez lentement.\n\n\u00abNous arrivons juste \u00e0 l'heure, dit M. Snodgrass en franchissant la haie\ndu premier champ; voil\u00e0 le soleil qui descend derri\u00e8re l'horizon.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle regarda le disque qui s'abaissait, et il pensa douloureusement\naux chances qu'il courait de ne jamais le revoir.\n\n\u00abVoici l'officier, s'\u00e9cria-t-il au bout de quelque temps.\n\n--O\u00f9? dit M. Snodgrass.\n\n--L\u00e0. Ce gentleman en manteau bleu.\u00bb\n\nLes yeux de M. Snodgrass suivirent le doigt de son compagnon, et\naper\u00e7urent une longue figure drap\u00e9e, qui fit un l\u00e9ger signe de la main,\net continua de marcher. Nos deux amis s'avanc\u00e8rent silencieusement \u00e0 sa\nsuite.\n\nDe moment en moment la soir\u00e9e devenait plus sombre. Un vent m\u00e9lancolique\nretentissait dans les champs d\u00e9serts: on e\u00fbt dit le sifflement lointain\nd'un g\u00e9ant, appelant son chien. La tristesse de cette sc\u00e8ne communiquait\nune teinte lugubre \u00e0 l'\u00e2me de M. Winkle. En passant l'angle du foss\u00e9, il\ntressaillit, il avait cru voir une tombe colossale.\n\nL'officier quitta tout \u00e0 coup le sentier, et apr\u00e8s avoir escalad\u00e9 une\npalissade et enjamb\u00e9 une haie, il entra dans un champ \u00e9cart\u00e9. Deux\nmessieurs l'y attendaient. L'un \u00e9tait un petit personnage gros et gras,\navec des cheveux noirs; l'autre, grand et bel homme, avec une redingote\ncouverte de brandebourgs, \u00e9tait assis sur un pliant avec une s\u00e9r\u00e9nit\u00e9\nparfaite.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 nos gens, avec un chirurgien, \u00e0 ce que je suppose dit M.\nSnodgrass. Prenez une goutte d'eau-de-vie.\u00bb M. Winkle saisit avidement\nla bouteille d'osier que lui tendait son compagnon et avala une longue\ngorg\u00e9e de ce liquide fortifiant.\n\n\u00abMon ami, M. Snodgrass,\u00bb dit M. Winkle \u00e0 l'officier qui s'approchait.\n\nLe second du docteur Slammer salua et produisit une bo\u00eete semblable \u00e0\ncelle que M. Snodgrass avait apport\u00e9e. \u00abJe pense que nous n'avons rien\nde plus \u00e0 nous dire, monsieur, remarqua-t-il froidement, en ouvrant sa\nbo\u00eete. Des excuses ont \u00e9t\u00e9 absolument refus\u00e9es.\n\n--Rien du tout, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit M. Snodgrass, qui commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 se\nsentir mal \u00e0 son aise.\n\n--Voulez-vous que nous mesurions le terrain? dit l'officier.\n\n--Certainement,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Snodgrass.\n\nLorsque le terrain eut \u00e9t\u00e9 mesur\u00e9 et les pr\u00e9liminaires arrang\u00e9s,\nl'officier dit \u00e0 M. Snodgrass: \u00abVous trouverez ces pistolets meilleurs\nque les v\u00f4tres, monsieur. Vous me les avez vu charger; vous opposez-vous\n\u00e0 ce qu'on en fasse usage?\n\n--Non, certainement, r\u00e9pondit M. Snodgrass. Cette offre le tirait d'un\ngrand embarras, car ses id\u00e9es sur la mani\u00e8re de charger un pistolet\n\u00e9taient tant soit peu vagues et ind\u00e9finies.\n\n--Alors je pense que nous pouvons placer nos hommes, continua\nl'officier, avec autant d'indiff\u00e9rence que s'il s'\u00e9tait agi d'une partie\nd'\u00e9checs.\n\n--Je pense que nous le pouvons,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Snodgrass, qui aurait\nconsenti \u00e0 toute autre proposition, vu qu'il n'entendait rien \u00e0 ces\nsortes d'affaires.\n\nL'officier alla vers le docteur Slammer, tandis que M. Snodgrass\ns'approchait de M. Winkle.\n\n\u00abTout est pr\u00eat, dit-il, en lui offrant le pistolet. Donnez-moi votre\nmanteau.\n\n--Vous avez mon portefeuille, mon cher ami, dit le pauvre Winkle.\n\n--Tout va bien. Soyez calme et visez tout bonnement \u00e0 l'\u00e9paule.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle trouva que cet avis ressemblait beaucoup \u00e0 celui que les\nspectateurs donnent invariablement au plus petit gamin dans les duels\ndes rues. \u00abMets-le dessous et tiens-le ferme.\u00bb Admirable conseil, si\nl'on savait seulement comment l'ex\u00e9cuter! Quoi qu'il en soit, il \u00f4ta son\nmanteau en silence (ce manteau \u00e9tait toujours tr\u00e8s-long \u00e0 d\u00e9faire); il\naccepta le pistolet: les seconds se retir\u00e8rent, le monsieur au pliant en\nfit autant, et les bellig\u00e9rants s'avanc\u00e8rent l'un vers l'autre.\n\nM. Winkle a toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 remarquable par son extr\u00eame humanit\u00e9. On\nsuppose que dans cette occasion la r\u00e9pugnance qu'il \u00e9prouvait \u00e0 nuire\nintentionnellement \u00e0 l'un de ses semblables, l'engagea \u00e0 fermer les yeux\nen arrivant \u00e0 l'endroit fatal, et que cette circonstance l'emp\u00eacha de\nremarquer la conduite inexplicable du docteur Slammer. Ce monsieur, en\ns'approchant de M. Winkle, tressaillit, ouvrit de grands yeux, recula,\nfrotta ses paupi\u00e8res, ouvrit de nouveau ses yeux, autant qu'il lui fut\npossible, et finalement s'\u00e9cria: \u00abArr\u00eatez! arr\u00eatez!\n\n--Qu'est-ce que cela veut dire? continua-t-il lorsque son ami et M.\nSnodgrass arriv\u00e8rent en courant. Ce n'est pas l\u00e0 mon homme.\n\n--Ce n'est pas votre homme! s'\u00e9cria le second du docteur Slammer.\n\n--Ce n'est pas son homme! dit M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Ce n'est pas son homme! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le monsieur qui tenait le pliant dans\nsa main.\n\n--Certainement non, reprit le petit docteur. \u00c7a n'est pas la personne\nqui m'a insult\u00e9 la nuit pass\u00e9e.\n\n--Fort extraordinaire! dit l'officier.\n\n--Fort extraordinaire! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le gentleman au pliant. Mais maintenant,\najouta-t-il, voici la question. Le monsieur se trouvant actuellement sur\nle terrain, ne doit-il pas \u00eatre consid\u00e9r\u00e9, pour la forme, comme \u00e9tant\nl'individu qui a insult\u00e9 hier soir notre ami, le docteur Slammer?\u00bb Ayant\nsugg\u00e9r\u00e9 cette id\u00e9e nouvelle d'un air sage et myst\u00e9rieux, l'homme au\npliant prit une \u00e9norme pinc\u00e9e de tabac, et regarda autour de lui, avec\nla profondeur de quelqu'un qui est habitu\u00e9 \u00e0 faire autorit\u00e9.\n\nOr, M. Winkle avait ouvert ses yeux et ses oreilles aussi, quand il\navait entendu son adversaire demander une cessation d'hostilit\u00e9s.\nS'apercevant par ce qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 dit ensuite qu'il y avait quelque\nerreur de personnes, il comprit tout d'un coup combien sa r\u00e9putation\npouvait s'accro\u00eetre s'il cachait les motifs r\u00e9els qui l'avaient\nd\u00e9termin\u00e9 \u00e0 se battre. Il s'avan\u00e7a donc hardiment et dit:\n\n\u00abJe sais bien que je ne suis pas l'adversaire de monsieur.\n\n--Alors, dit l'homme au pliant, ceci est un affront pour le docteur\nSlammer, et un motif suffisant de continuer.\n\n--Tenez-vous tranquille, Payne, interrompit le second du docteur; et\ns'adressant \u00e0 M. Winkle: Pourquoi ne m'avez-vous pas communiqu\u00e9 cela ce\nmatin, monsieur?\n\n--Assur\u00e9ment! assur\u00e9ment! s'\u00e9cria avec indignation l'homme au pliant.\n\n--Je vous supplie de vous tenir tranquille, Payne, reprit l'autre.\nPuis-je r\u00e9p\u00e9ter ma question, monsieur?\n\n--Parce que, r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle qui avait eu le temps de d\u00e9lib\u00e9rer sa\nr\u00e9ponse: parce que vous m'avez dit, monsieur, que l'individu en question\n\u00e9tait rev\u00eatu d'un habit que j'ai l'honneur, non-seulement de porter,\nmais d'avoir invent\u00e9. C'est l'uniforme projet\u00e9 du Pickwick-Club, \u00e0\nLondres. Je me crois oblig\u00e9 de soutenir l'honneur de cet uniforme, et\ndans cette vue, sans autres informations, j'ai accept\u00e9 le d\u00e9fi que vous\nme faisiez.\n\n--Mon cher monsieur, dit le bon petit docteur, en lui tendant la main,\nj'honore votre courage. Permettez-moi d'ajouter que j'admire extr\u00eamement\nvotre conduite, et que je regrette beaucoup de vous avoir fait d\u00e9ranger\ninutilement.\n\n--Je vous prie de ne point parler de cela, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle avec\npolitesse.\n\n--Je me trouverai honor\u00e9, monsieur, de faire votre connaissance,\npoursuivit le petit docteur.\n\n--Et moi, monsieur, j'\u00e9prouverai le plus grand plaisir \u00e0 vous\nconna\u00eetre,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Winkle. Et l\u00e0-dessus il donna une poign\u00e9e de\nmain au docteur, une poign\u00e9e de main \u00e0 son second, le lieutenant\nTappleton, une poign\u00e9e de main \u00e0 l'homme qui tenait le pliant, une\npoign\u00e9e de main, enfin, \u00e0 M. Snodgrass, dont l'admiration \u00e9tait\nexcessive pour la noble conduite de son h\u00e9ro\u00efque ami.\n\n\u00abJe pense que nous pouvons nous en retourner maintenant, dit le\nlieutenant Tappleton.\n\n--Certainement, r\u00e9pondit le docteur.\n\n--A moins, sugg\u00e9ra l'homme au pliant, \u00e0 moins que monsieur Winkle ne se\ntrouve offens\u00e9 par la provocation qu'il a re\u00e7ue. Si cela \u00e9tait, je\nconfesse qu'il aurait droit \u00e0 une satisfaction.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle, avec une grande abn\u00e9gation de son _moi_, d\u00e9clara qu'il \u00e9tait\nenti\u00e8rement satisfait.\n\n\u00abPeut-\u00eatre, reprit l'autre, peut-\u00eatre le t\u00e9moin du gentleman aura-t-il\n\u00e9t\u00e9 personnellement bless\u00e9 de quelques observations que j'ai faites au\ncommencement de cette rencontre. Dans ce cas, je serais heureux de lui\ndonner satisfaction imm\u00e9diatement.\u00bb\n\nM. Snodgrass se h\u00e2ta de d\u00e9clarer qu'il \u00e9tait bien oblig\u00e9 au gentleman de\nl'offre aimable qu'il lui faisait. La seule raison qui l'emp\u00each\u00e2t d'en\nprofiter, c'est qu'il \u00e9tait fort satisfait de la mani\u00e8re dont les choses\ns'\u00e9taient pass\u00e9es.\n\nL'affaire s'\u00e9tant ainsi termin\u00e9e heureusement, les t\u00e9moins arrang\u00e8rent\nleurs bo\u00eetes, et tous quitt\u00e8rent le terrain avec beaucoup plus de gaiet\u00e9\nqu'ils n'en laissaient voir en y arrivant.\n\n\u00abResterez-vous longtemps ici? demanda le docteur Slammer \u00e0 M. Winkle,\ntandis qu'ils marchaient amicalement c\u00f4te \u00e0 c\u00f4te.\n\n--Je crois que nous partirons apr\u00e8s-demain.\n\n--Je serais tr\u00e8s-heureux, apr\u00e8s ce ridicule quiproquo, si vous vouliez\nbien me faire l'honneur de venir ce soir chez moi, avec votre ami.\n\u00cates-vous engag\u00e9?\n\n--Nous avons plusieurs amis \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel du _Taureau_, et je ne voudrais\npoint les quitter aujourd'hui. Mais nous serions enchant\u00e9s si vous\nconsentiez \u00e0 amener ces messieurs pour passer la soir\u00e9e avec nous.\n\n--Avec grand plaisir. Ne sera-t-il point trop tard, \u00e0 dix heures, pour\nvous faire une petite visite d'une demi-heure?\n\n--Non certainement. Je serai fort heureux de vous pr\u00e9senter \u00e0 mes amis,\nM. Pickwick et M. Tupman.\n\n--J'en serai charm\u00e9, r\u00e9pliqua le petit docteur, ne soup\u00e7onnant gu\u00e8re\nqu'il connaissait d\u00e9j\u00e0 M. Tupman.\n\n--Vous viendrez sans faute? demanda M Snodgrass.\n\n--Oh! assur\u00e9ment.\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, ils \u00e9taient arriv\u00e9s sur la grande route. Les adieux se\nfirent avec cordialit\u00e9, et tandis que le docteur et ses amis se\nrendirent \u00e0 leur caserne, M. Winkle et M. Snodgrass rentr\u00e8rent\njoyeusement \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE III.\n\nUne nouvelle connaissance. Histoire d'un clown. Une interruption\nd\u00e9sagr\u00e9able et une rencontre f\u00e2cheuse.\n\n\nM. Pickwick avait ressenti quelque inqui\u00e9tude en voyant se prolonger\nl'absence de ses deux amis, et en se rappelant leur conduite myst\u00e9rieuse\npendant toute la matin\u00e9e. Ce fut donc avec un v\u00e9ritable plaisir qu'il se\nleva pour les recevoir, et avec un int\u00e9r\u00eat peu ordinaire qu'il leur\ndemanda ce qui avait pu les retenir si longtemps. En r\u00e9ponse \u00e0 cette\nquestion, M. Snodgrass allait faire l'historique des circonstances que\nnous venons de rapporter, lorsqu'il s'aper\u00e7ut qu'entre M. Tupman et\nleur compagnon de voyage il y avait dans la chambre un nouvel \u00e9tranger,\nd'une apparence \u00e9galement singuli\u00e8re. C'\u00e9tait un homme vieilli par les\nsoucis, dont la face creuse, aux pommettes pro\u00e9minentes, avec des yeux\n\u00e9tincelants quoique profond\u00e9ment encaiss\u00e9s, \u00e9tait rendue plus frappante\nencore par les cheveux noirs et lisses qui pendaient en d\u00e9sordre sur son\ncollet. Sa m\u00e2choire \u00e9tait si longue et si maigre qu'on aurait pu croire\nqu'il faisait expr\u00e8s de retirer ses joues, par une contraction des\nmuscles, si l'expression immobile de ses traits et de sa bouche\nentrouverte n'avait pas fait voir que c'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 sa physionomie\nhabituelle. Son cou \u00e9tait entour\u00e9 d'un ch\u00e2le vert, dont les larges\nbouts, descendant sur sa poitrine, \u00e9taient aper\u00e7us \u00e0 travers les\nboutonni\u00e8res us\u00e9es d'un vieux gilet. Enfin, il avait une longue\nredingote noire, un pantalon de gros drap et des bottes tombant en\nruines.\n\nLes yeux de M. Snodgrass s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent donc sur ce personnage mal l\u00e9ch\u00e9,\net M. Pickwick, qui s'en aper\u00e7ut, dit en \u00e9tendant la main de son c\u00f4t\u00e9:\n\u00abUn ami de notre nouvel ami. Nous avons d\u00e9couvert ce matin que notre ami\nest engag\u00e9 au th\u00e9\u00e2tre de cet endroit, quoiqu'il d\u00e9sire que cette\ncirconstance ne soit pas g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement connue. Ce gentleman est un membre\nde la m\u00eame profession, et il allait nous r\u00e9galer d'une petite anecdote\nlorsque vous \u00eates entr\u00e9s.\n\n--Masse d'anecdotes, dit l'\u00e9tranger du jour pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent, en s'approchant\nde M. Winkle et lui parlant \u00e0 voix basse: singulier gaillard, pas\nacteur, fait les utilit\u00e9s, homme \u00e9trange, toutes sortes de mis\u00e8res. Nous\nl'appelons Jemmy le Lugubre.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle et M. Snodgrass firent des politesses au gentleman qui portait\nce nom \u00e9l\u00e9gant, et s'\u00e9tant assis autour de la table demand\u00e8rent de l'eau\net de l'eau-de-vie, en imitation du reste de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, monsieur, dit M. Pickwick, voulez-vous nous faire le\nplaisir de commencer votre r\u00e9cit?\u00bb\n\nL'individu lugubre tira de sa poche un rouleau de papier malpropre, et\nse tournant vers M. Snodgrass qui venait d'aveindre son m\u00e9morandum, il\nlui dit d'une voix creuse, parfaitement en harmonie avec son ext\u00e9rieur:\n\n\u00ab\u00cates-vous le po\u00ebte?\n\n--Je... je m'exerce un peu dans ce genre, r\u00e9pondit M. Snodgrass,\nl\u00e9g\u00e8rement d\u00e9concert\u00e9 par la brusquerie de la question.\n\n--Ah! la po\u00e9sie est dans la vie ce que la lumi\u00e8re et la musique sont au\nth\u00e9\u00e2tre. D\u00e9pouillez celui-ci de ses faux embellissements et celle-l\u00e0 de\nses illusions, que reste-t-il de r\u00e9el et d'int\u00e9ressant dans tous les\ndeux?\n\n--Cela est bien vrai, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Assis devant les quinquets, vous faites partie du cercle royal; vous\nadmirez les v\u00eatements de soie de la foule brillante; vous tenez-vous, au\ncontraire, dans la coulisse, vous \u00eates le peuple qui fabrique ces beaux\nv\u00eatements; gens inconnus et m\u00e9pris\u00e9s qui peuvent tomber et se relever,\nvivre et mourir, comme il pla\u00eet \u00e0 la fortune, sans que personne s'en\ninqui\u00e8te.\n\n--Certainement, r\u00e9pondit M. Snodgrass, car l'oeil profond de l'homme\nlugubre \u00e9tait fix\u00e9 sur lui, et il sentait la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 de dire quelque\nchose.\n\n--Allons, Jemmy, dit le voyageur espagnol, soyons vifs, pas de\ncroassements, ayez l'air sociable.\n\n--Voulez-vous pr\u00e9parer un autre verre avant de commencer?\u00bb dit M.\nPickwick.\n\nL'homme lugubre accepta l'offre, m\u00e9langea un verre d'eau et\nd'eau-de-vie, en avala lentement la moiti\u00e9, d\u00e9veloppa son rouleau de\npapier et commen\u00e7a \u00e0 lire et \u00e0 raconter tour \u00e0 tour les \u00e9v\u00e9nements que\nl'on va lire, et que nous avons trouv\u00e9s inscrits dans les registres du\nclub sous le titre de: HISTOIRE D'UN CLOWN.\n\n\u00abVous ne trouverez rien de merveilleux dans le r\u00e9cit que je vais vous\nfaire. Besoins et maladie, ce sont des choses trop connues, dans\nbeaucoup d'existences, pour m\u00e9riter plus d'attention qu'on n'en accorde\naux vicissitudes journali\u00e8res de la vie humaine. J'ai rassembl\u00e9 ces\nnotes parce que celui qui en fait le sujet m'\u00e9tait connu depuis fort\nlongtemps. J'ai suivi pas \u00e0 pas sa descente dans l'ab\u00eeme, jusqu'au\nmoment o\u00f9 il atteignit le dernier degr\u00e9 de la mis\u00e8re, dont il ne s'est\njamais relev\u00e9 depuis.\n\n\u00abL'homme dont il s'agit \u00e9tait un acteur pantomime, et, comme beaucoup de\ngens de cet \u00e9tat, un ivrogne inv\u00e9t\u00e9r\u00e9. Dans ses beaux jours, avant\nd'\u00eatre affaibli par la d\u00e9bauche, il recevait un bon salaire, et s'il\navait \u00e9t\u00e9 rang\u00e9 et prudent, il aurait pu le toucher encore durant\nquelques ann\u00e9es; quelques ann\u00e9es seulement, car ceux qui font ce m\u00e9tier\nmeurent de bonne heure ou du moins perdent avant le temps l'\u00e9nergie\nphysique dont ils ont abus\u00e9, et qui \u00e9tait leur unique gagne-pain.\nCelui-ci se laissa abrutir si vite qu'il devint impossible de l'employer\ndans les r\u00f4les o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait r\u00e9ellement utile au th\u00e9\u00e2tre. Le cabaret avait\npour lui des charmes auxquels il ne pouvait r\u00e9sister. Les maladies, la\npauvret\u00e9 l'attendaient aussi s\u00fbrement que la mort s'il continuait le\nm\u00eame genre de vie, et cependant il le continua. Vous devinez ce qui dut\nen r\u00e9sulter. Il ne put obtenir d'engagement et il manqua de pain.\n\nTous ceux qui connaissent un peu le th\u00e9\u00e2tre savent quelle nu\u00e9e\nd'individus mis\u00e9rables, r\u00e2p\u00e9s, affam\u00e9s, entourent toujours un vaste\n\u00e9tablissement de ce genre. Ce ne sont pas des acteurs engag\u00e9s\nr\u00e9guli\u00e8rement, mais des comparses passagers, des figurants, des\npaillasses, etc., qui sont employ\u00e9s tant que dure une pantomime ou\nquelque f\u00e9erie de No\u00ebl et qui sont remerci\u00e9s ensuite, jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'une\nnouvelle pi\u00e8ce, exigeant un nombreux personnel, r\u00e9clame de nouveau leurs\nservices. Notre homme fut oblig\u00e9 d'avoir recours \u00e0 ce genre de vie, et\ncomme, en outre, il prit chaque soir le fauteuil dans un de ces caf\u00e9s\nchantants de bas \u00e9tage qui restent ouverts apr\u00e8s la fermeture des\nth\u00e9\u00e2tres, il gagna quelques shillings de plus par semaine, ce qui lui\npermit de se livrer \u00e0 ses vieux penchants. Mais cette ressource m\u00eame lui\nmanqua bient\u00f4t, son ivrognerie l'emp\u00eachant de m\u00e9riter la faible pitance\nqu'il aurait pu se procurer de cette mani\u00e8re. Il se trouva donc r\u00e9duit \u00e0\nla mis\u00e8re la plus absolue; toujours sur le point de mourir de faim, et\nn'\u00e9chappant \u00e0 cette destin\u00e9e qu'en recevant quelques secours d'un ancien\ncamarade, ou en obtenant d'\u00eatre employ\u00e9 par hasard \u00e0 l'un des plus\npetits spectacles. Encore, le peu qu'il attrapait ainsi \u00e9tait-il d\u00e9pens\u00e9\nsuivant le m\u00eame syst\u00e8me.\n\nVers cette \u00e9poque (il y avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 plus d'un an qu'il vivait ainsi, sans\nqu'on s\u00fbt de quelles ressources) je fus engag\u00e9 \u00e0 un des th\u00e9\u00e2tres situ\u00e9s\ndu c\u00f4t\u00e9 sud de la Tamise, et je revis cet homme que j'avais perdu de\nvue, car j'avais parcouru la province pendant qu'il fl\u00e2nait dans les\ncarrefours de Londres. La toile \u00e9tait tomb\u00e9e; je venais de me rhabiller,\net je traversais la sc\u00e8ne, quand il me frappa sur l'\u00e9paule. Non, jamais\nje n'oublierai la figure repoussante qui se pr\u00e9senta \u00e0 mes yeux lorsque\nje me retournai. Les personnages fantastiques de la danse des morts, les\nfigures les plus horribles, trac\u00e9es par les peintres les plus habiles,\nrien n'offrit jamais un aspect aussi s\u00e9pulcral. Il portait le costume\nridicule d'un paillasse; et son corps bouffi, ses jambes de squelette\n\u00e9taient rendus plus horribles encore par cet habit de mascarade. Ses\nyeux vitreux contrastaient affreusement avec la blancheur mate dont\ntoute sa face \u00e9tait couverte. Sa t\u00eate, grotesquement coiff\u00e9e et\ntremblante de paralysie, ses longues mains osseuses, frott\u00e9es de blanc\nd'Espagne, tout contribuait \u00e0 lui donner une apparence hideuse, hors de\nnature, qu'aucune description ne peut rendre, qu'aujourd'hui encore je\nne me rappelle qu'en fr\u00e9missant. Il me prit \u00e0 part, et d'une voix cass\u00e9e\net tremblante, il me raconta un long catalogue de maladies et de\nprivations, qu'il termina comme \u00e0 l'ordinaire en me suppliant de lui\npr\u00eater une bagatelle. Je mis quelque argent dans sa main, et, tandis que\nje m'\u00e9loignais, le rideau se leva et j'entendis les bruyants \u00e9clats de\nrire que causa sa premi\u00e8re culbute sur le th\u00e9\u00e2tre.\n\nQuelques jours apr\u00e8s, un petit gar\u00e7on m'apporta un morceau de papier\nmalpropre, par lequel j'\u00e9tais inform\u00e9 que cet homme \u00e9tait dangereusement\nmalade, et qu'il me priait de l'aller voir apr\u00e8s la com\u00e9die, dans une\nrue dont j'ai oubli\u00e9 le nom, mais qui n'\u00e9tait pas \u00e9loign\u00e9e du th\u00e9\u00e2tre.\nJe promis de m'y rendre aussit\u00f4t que je le pourrais, et quand la toile\nfut baiss\u00e9e je partis pour ce triste office.\n\nIl \u00e9tait tard, car j'avais jou\u00e9 dans la derni\u00e8re pi\u00e8ce, et comme c'\u00e9tait\nune repr\u00e9sentation \u00e0 b\u00e9n\u00e9fice, elle avait dur\u00e9 fort longtemps. La nuit\n\u00e9tait sombre et froide, un vent glacial fouettait violemment la pluie\ncontre les vitres des crois\u00e9es; des mares d'eau s'\u00e9taient amass\u00e9es dans\nces rues \u00e9troites et peu fr\u00e9quent\u00e9es; une partie des r\u00e9verb\u00e8res, assez\nrares en tout temps, avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9teints par la violence de la temp\u00eate,\net je n'\u00e9tais pas s\u00fbr de trouver la demeure qui m'appelait, dans des\ncirconstances bien faites pour attrister. Heureusement je ne m'\u00e9tais pas\ntromp\u00e9 de chemin et je d\u00e9couvris, quoique avec peine, la maison que je\ncherchais. Elle n'avait qu'un seul \u00e9tage, et l'infortun\u00e9 que je venais\nvoir gisait dans une esp\u00e8ce de grenier, au-dessus d'un hangar qui\nservait de magasin de charbon de terre.\n\nUne femme, \u00e0 l'air mis\u00e9rable, la femme du paillasse, me re\u00e7ut sur\nl'escalier, me dit qu'il venait de s'assoupir, et m'ayant introduit\ndoucement, me fit asseoir sur une chaise aupr\u00e8s de son lit. Il avait la\nt\u00eate tourn\u00e9e du c\u00f4t\u00e9 du mur, et, comme il ne s'aper\u00e7ut pas d'abord de ma\npr\u00e9sence, j'eus le temps d'examiner l'endroit o\u00f9 je me trouvais.\n\nAu chevet du grabat pr\u00e8s duquel j'\u00e9tais assis, on avait suspendu des\nlambeaux de couvertures pour pr\u00e9server le malade du vent qui p\u00e9n\u00e9trait,\npar mille crevasses, dans cette chambre d\u00e9sol\u00e9e, et qui, \u00e0 chaque\ninstant, agitait ce lourd rideau. Sur une grille rouill\u00e9e et descell\u00e9e,\nbr\u00fblait lentement du poussier de charbon de terre. A c\u00f4t\u00e9, sur une\nvieille table \u00e0 trois pieds, il y avait plusieurs fioles, un miroir\nbris\u00e9 et quelques autres ustensiles. Un enfant dormait sur un matelas\n\u00e9tendu par terre, et sa m\u00e8re \u00e9tait assise aupr\u00e8s de lui, sur une chaise\n\u00e0 moiti\u00e9 bris\u00e9e. Quelques assiettes, quelques tasses, quelques \u00e9cuelles,\n\u00e9taient plac\u00e9es sur une couple de tablettes: au-dessous on avait\naccroch\u00e9 des fleurets avec une paire de souliers de th\u00e9\u00e2tre, et ces\nobjets composaient seuls l'ameublement de la chambre, si l'on excepte\ndeux ou trois petits paquets de haillons, jet\u00e9s en d\u00e9sordre dans les\ncoins.\n\nTandis que je consid\u00e9rais cette sc\u00e8ne de d\u00e9solation et que je remarquais\nla respiration pesante, les soubresauts fi\u00e9vreux du mis\u00e9rable com\u00e9dien,\nil se tournait et se retournait sans cesse pour trouver une position\nmoins douloureuse. Une de ses mains sortit de son lit et me toucha: il\ntressaillit et me regarda avec des yeux hagards.\n\n\u00abJohn, lui dit sa femme, c'est M. Hutley que vous avez envoy\u00e9 cherch\u00e9 ce\nsoir, vous savez.\n\n--Ha! dit-il en passant sa main sur son front, Hutley! Hutley! voyons.\nPendant quelques secondes il parut s'efforcer de rassembler ses id\u00e9es,\net ensuite, me saisissant fortement par le poignet, il s'\u00e9cria: Oh! ne\nme quittez pas! ne me quittez pas, vieux camarade! Elle m'assassinera.\nJe sais qu'elle en a envie.\n\n--Y a-t-il longtemps qu'il est comme cela? demandai-je \u00e0 cette femme qui\npleurait.\n\n--Depuis hier soir, monsieur. John! John! ne me reconnaissez-vous pas?\u00bb\n\nEn disant ces mots elle se courbait vers son lit, mais il s'\u00e9cria avec\nun frisson d'effroi:\n\n\u00abNe la laissez pas approcher! Repoussez-la! Je ne peux pas la supporter\npr\u00e8s de moi! En parlant ainsi il la regardait d'un air \u00e9gar\u00e9 et plein\nd'une terreur mortelle, puis il me dit \u00e0 l'oreille: Je l'ai battue, Jem.\nJe l'ai battue hier, et bien d'autres fois auparavant. Je l'ai fait\nmourir de faim, et son enfant aussi; et maintenant que je suis faible et\nsans secours, elle va m'assassiner. Je sais qu'elle en a envie. Si comme\nmoi, aussi souvent que moi, vous l'aviez entendue g\u00e9mir et crier, vous\nn'en douteriez pas. \u00c9loignez-la!\u00bb\n\nEn achevant ces mots il l\u00e2cha ma main et retomba \u00e9puis\u00e9 sur son\noreiller.\n\nJe n'entendais que trop ce que cela signifiait. Si j'avais pu en douter\nun seul instant, il m'aurait suffi, pour le comprendre, d'un coup d'oeil\njet\u00e9 sur le visage p\u00e2le, sur les formes amaigries de sa malheureuse\nfemme. \u00abVous feriez mieux de vous retirer, dis-je \u00e0 cette pauvre\ncr\u00e9ature, vous ne pouvez pas lui faire de bien. Peut-\u00eatre sera-t-il plus\ncalme s'il ne vous voit pas.\u00bb Elle se recula hors de sa vue. Au bout de\nquelques secondes, il ouvrit les yeux et regarda avec anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 autour de\nlui, en demandant: \u00abEst-elle partie?\n\n--Oui, oui, lui dis-je, elle ne vous fera pas de mal.\n\n--Je vais vous dire ce qui en est, reprit-il d'une voix caverneuse. Elle\nme fait mal! il y a quelque chose dans ses yeux qui me remplit le coeur\nde crainte et qui me rend fou. Toute la nuit derni\u00e8re ses grands yeux\nfixes et son visage p\u00e2le ont \u00e9t\u00e9 devant moi. O\u00f9 je me tournais, elle se\ntournait. Quand je me r\u00e9veillais en sursaut, elle \u00e9tait-l\u00e0, tout aupr\u00e8s\nde mon lit, \u00e0 me regarder.\u00bb Il s'approcha plus pr\u00e8s de moi et ajouta\nd'une voix basse et tremblante: \u00abJem, il faut qu'elle soit mon mauvais\nange! un d\u00e9mon! Chut! j'en suis s\u00fbr. Si elle n'\u00e9tait qu'une femme, il y\na longtemps qu'elle serait morte. Aucune femme n'aurait pu endurer ce\nqu'elle a endur\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nJe me sentis fr\u00e9mir en pensant \u00e0 la longue s\u00e9rie de m\u00e9pris et de\ncruaut\u00e9s dont un tel homme devait s'\u00eatre rendu coupable, pour en\nconserver une telle impression. Je ne pus rien lui r\u00e9pondre, car quelle\nesp\u00e9rance, quelle consolation \u00e9tait-il possible d'offrir \u00e0 un \u00eatre aussi\nabject?\n\nJe restai l\u00e0 plus de deux heures, pendant lesquelles il se retourna cent\nfois de c\u00f4t\u00e9 et d'autre, jetant ses bras \u00e0 droite et \u00e0 gauche, et\nmurmurant des exclamations de douleur ou d'impatience. A la fin il tomba\ndans cet \u00e9tat d'oubli imparfait, o\u00f9 l'esprit erre p\u00e9niblement de place\nen place, de sc\u00e8ne en sc\u00e8ne, sans \u00eatre contr\u00f4l\u00e9 par la raison, mais sans\npouvoir se d\u00e9barrasser d'un vague sentiment de souffrances pr\u00e9sentes.\nJugeant alors que son mal ne s'aggraverait pas sur-le-champ, je le\nquittai en promettant \u00e0 sa femme que je viendrais le revoir le lendemain\nsoir, et que je passerais la nuit aupr\u00e8s de lui, si cela \u00e9tait\nn\u00e9cessaire.\n\nJe tins ma promesse. Les vingt-quatre heures qui s'\u00e9taient \u00e9coul\u00e9es\navaient produit en lui une alt\u00e9ration affreuse. Ses yeux, profond\u00e9ment\ncreus\u00e9s, brillaient d'un \u00e9clat effrayant; ses l\u00e8vres \u00e9taient dess\u00e9ch\u00e9es\net fendues en plusieurs endroits; sa peau luisait, s\u00e8che et br\u00fblante;\nenfin, on voyait sur son visage une expression d'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 farouche, qui\nindiquait encore plus fortement les ravages de la maladie, et qui ne\nsemblait d\u00e9j\u00e0 plus appartenir \u00e0 la terre. La fi\u00e8vre le d\u00e9vorait.\n\nJe pris le si\u00e9ge que j'avais occup\u00e9 la nuit pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente. Je savais, par\nce que j'avais entendu dire au m\u00e9decin, qu'il \u00e9tait \u00e0 son lit de mort;\net je restai l\u00e0, durant les longues heures de la nuit, pr\u00eatant l'oreille\n\u00e0 des sons capables d'\u00e9mouvoir les \u00e2mes les plus endurcies; c'\u00e9taient\nles r\u00eaveries myst\u00e9rieuses d'un agonisant.\n\nJe vis ses membres d\u00e9charn\u00e9s, qui peu d'heures auparavant se\ndisloquaient pour amuser une foule rieuse, je les vis se tordre sous les\ntortures d'une fi\u00e8vre ardente. J'entendis le rire aigu du paillasse se\nm\u00ealer aux murmures du moribond.\n\nC'est une chose touchante de suivre les pens\u00e9es qui ram\u00e8nent un malade\nvers les sc\u00e8nes ordinaires, vers les occupations de la vie active,\nlorsque son corps est \u00e9tendu sans force et sans mouvement devant vos\nyeux. Mais cette impression est infiniment plus forte quand ces\noccupations sont enti\u00e8rement oppos\u00e9es \u00e0 toute id\u00e9e grave et religieuse.\nLe th\u00e9\u00e2tre et le cabaret \u00e9taient les principaux sujets de divagation de\nce malheureux. Dans son d\u00e9lire, il s'imaginait qu'il avait un r\u00f4le \u00e0\njouer cette nuit m\u00eame, qu'il \u00e9tait tard et qu'il devait quitter la\nmaison sur-le-champ. Pourquoi le retenait-on? pourquoi l'emp\u00eachait-on de\npartir? Il allait perdre son salaire. Il fallait qu'il part\u00eet! Non; on\nle retenait! Il cachait son visage dans ses mains br\u00fblantes, et il\ng\u00e9missait sur sa faiblesse et sur la cruaut\u00e9 de ses pers\u00e9cuteurs. Une\ncourte pause, et il braillait quelques rimes burlesques, les derni\u00e8res\nqu'il eut apprises: tout d'un coup il se leva dans son lit, \u00e9tendit ses\nmembres de squelette et se posa d'une mani\u00e8re grotesque. Il \u00e9tait sur la\nsc\u00e8ne, il jouait son r\u00f4le. Encore un silence, et il murmura le refrain\nd'une autre chanson. Enfin, il avait regagn\u00e9 son caf\u00e9 chantant! Comme la\nsalle \u00e9tait chaude! Il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 malade, tr\u00e8s-malade; mais maintenant il\nallait bien, il \u00e9tait heureux! Remplissez mon verre! Qui est-ce qui le\nbrise entre mes l\u00e8vres? C'\u00e9tait le m\u00eame pers\u00e9cuteur qui l'avait\npoursuivi. Il retomba sur son oreiller et poussa de sourds g\u00e9missements.\nApr\u00e8s un court intervalle d'oubli, il se retrouva errant dans un\nlabyrinthe inextricable de chambres obscures, dont les vo\u00fbtes \u00e9taient si\nbasses qu'il lui fallait quelquefois se tra\u00eener sur ses mains et sur ses\ngenoux pour pouvoir avancer. Tout \u00e9tait r\u00e9tr\u00e9ci et mena\u00e7ant; et de\nquelque cot\u00e9 qu'il se tourn\u00e2t, un nouvel obstacle s'opposait \u00e0 son\npassage. Des reptiles immondes rampaient autour de lui; leurs yeux\nluisants dardaient des flammes au milieu des t\u00e9n\u00e8bres visibles qui\nl'entouraient; les murailles, les vo\u00fbtes, l'air m\u00eame, \u00e9taient\nempoisonn\u00e9s d'insectes d\u00e9go\u00fbtants. Tout \u00e0 coup les vo\u00fbtes s'agrandirent\net devinrent d'une \u00e9tendue effrayante; des spectres effroyables\nvoltigeaient de toutes parts, et parmi eux il voyait appara\u00eetre des\nvisages qu'il connaissait, et que rendaient difformes des grimaces, des\ncontorsions hideuses. Ces fant\u00f4mes s'empar\u00e8rent de lui; ils br\u00fbl\u00e8rent\nses chairs avec des fers rouges; ils serr\u00e8rent des cordes autour de ses\ntempes, jusqu'\u00e0 en faire jaillir le sang; et il se d\u00e9battit violemment\npour \u00e9chapper \u00e0 la mort qui le saisissait.\n\nA la fin d'un de ces paroxysmes, pendant lequel j'avais eu beaucoup de\npeine \u00e0 le retenir dans son lit, il se laissa retomber \u00e9puis\u00e9, et c\u00e9da\nbient\u00f4t \u00e0 une sorte d'assoupissement. Accabl\u00e9 de veilles et de fatigues,\nj'avais ferm\u00e9 les yeux depuis quelques minutes, lorsque je sentis une\nmain me saisir violemment par l'\u00e9paule: je me r\u00e9veillai aussit\u00f4t. Il\ns'\u00e9tait soulev\u00e9 et s'\u00e9tait assis dans son lit. Son visage \u00e9tait chang\u00e9\nd'une mani\u00e8re effrayante; cependant le d\u00e9lire avait cess\u00e9, car il \u00e9tait\n\u00e9vident qu'il me reconnaissait. L'enfant qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 si longtemps\ntroubl\u00e9 par les cris de son p\u00e8re, accourut vers lui en criant avec\nterreur, mais sa m\u00e8re le saisit promptement dans ses bras, craignant que\nJohn ne le bless\u00e2t dans la violence de ses transports, puis, en\nremarquant l'alt\u00e9ration de ses traits, elle resta effray\u00e9e et immobile\nau pied du lit. Lui, cependant, serrait convulsivement mon \u00e9paule, et\nfrappant de son autre main sa poitrine, il faisait d'horribles efforts\npour articuler: c'\u00e9tait en vain. Il \u00e9tendit les bras vers sa femme et\nvers son enfant; ses l\u00e8vres blanches s'agit\u00e8rent, mais elles ne purent\nproduire d'autre son qu'un r\u00e2lement sourd, un g\u00e9missement \u00e9touff\u00e9: ses\nyeux brill\u00e8rent un instant; et il retomba en arri\u00e8re, mort!\n\n\n\nNous \u00e9prouverions la satisfaction la plus vive si nous pouvions\ntransmettre au lecteur l'opinion de M. Pickwick sur l'anecdote que nous\nvenons de rapporter, et nous sommes presque certain que cela nous aurait\n\u00e9t\u00e9 possible, sans une circonstance malheureuse.\n\nM. Pickwick venait de replacer sur la table le verre qu'il avait tenu\ndans sa main pendant les derni\u00e8res phrases de ce r\u00e9cit; il s'\u00e9tait\nd\u00e9cid\u00e9 \u00e0 parler, et m\u00eame, si nous en croyons le m\u00e9morandum de M.\nSnodgrass, il avait ouvert la bouche; quand le gar\u00e7on entra dans la\nchambre, et dit: \u00abMonsieur, il y a l\u00e0 plusieurs gentleman.\u00bb\n\nLorsque M. Pickwick fut ainsi interrompu, il \u00e9tait sans doute sur le\npoint de prof\u00e9rer quelque sentence qui aurait illumin\u00e9 le monde, sinon\nla Tamise[8], car il examina le gar\u00e7on d'un air s\u00e9v\u00e8re, puis il regarda\nsuccessivement toute la compagnie, comme pour demander quels pouvaient\n\u00eatre ces interrupteurs.\n\n[Footnote 8: Allusion au proverbe: _Il ne mettra pas le feu \u00e0 la\nTamise_, qui \u00e9quivaut au fran\u00e7ais: _Il n'a pas invent\u00e9 la poudre_.]\n\n\u00abOh! fit M. Winkle, en se levant, ce sont quelques-uns de mes amis.\nFaites-les entrer; et quand le gar\u00e7on se fut retir\u00e9, il ajouta: des gens\nfort agr\u00e9ables, des officiers du 97e, dont j'ai fait tant\u00f4t la\nconnaissance d'une mani\u00e8re assez \u00e9trange; ils vous plairont beaucoup.\u00bb\n\nLa s\u00e9r\u00e9nit\u00e9 de M. Pickwick fut sur-le-champ restaur\u00e9e; le gar\u00e7on revint,\nintroduisant dans la chambre trois gentlemen, et M. Winkle prit la\nparole: \u00abLieutenant Tappleton, dit-il; M. Pickwick. Docteur Payne, M.\nPickwick... vous connaissez d\u00e9j\u00e0 M. Snodgrass... mon ami, M. Tupman.\nDocteur Slammer, M. Pickwick.... M. Tup....\u00bb\n\nIci M. Winkle s'arr\u00eata soudainement en remarquant l'\u00e9motion profonde qui\nse manifestait sur la contenance de M. Tupman et du docteur.\n\n\u00abJ'ai d\u00e9j\u00e0 rencontr\u00e9 ce gentleman dit le docteur avec \u00e9nergie.\n\n--Ha! ha! fit M. Winkle.\n\n--Et cet individu aussi, si je ne me trompe, reprit le docteur Slammer,\nen attachant un regard scrutateur sur l'\u00e9tranger \u00e0 l'habit vert. Je\npense que j'ai fait \u00e0 cet individu, la nuit derni\u00e8re, une invitation\ntr\u00e8s-pressante, qu'il a jug\u00e9 \u00e0 propos de refuser.\u00bb En disant ces mots le\ndocteur lan\u00e7a sur l'\u00e9tranger un regard plein d'indignation, et commen\u00e7a\n\u00e0 parler \u00e0 voix basse et avec chaleur \u00e0 son ami le lieutenant Tappleton.\n\nQuand il eut fini, celui-ci s'\u00e9cria: \u00abBah! vraiment?\u00bb\n\n--Oui, r\u00e9pondit le docteur Slammer.\n\n--Il faut l'assommer sur la place! dit avec le plus grand s\u00e9rieux le\npropri\u00e9taire du pliant.\n\n--Je vous en prie, Payne, tenez-vous tranquille,\u00bb interrompit le\nlieutenant. Puis s'adressant \u00e0 M. Pickwick, qui \u00e9tait singuli\u00e8rement\nintrigu\u00e9 de ces _a parte_ impolis, il continua en ces termes:\n\u00abVoulez-vous me permettre, monsieur, de vous demander si cette personne\nappartient \u00e0 votre soci\u00e9t\u00e9?\n\n--Non, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick. C'est seulement un de nos h\u00f4tes.\n\n--C'est, je pense, un membre de votre club?\n\n--Non, certainement.\n\n--Et il ne porte jamais l'uniforme du club?\n\n--Non, jamais,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick avec \u00e9tonnement.\n\nLe lieutenant Tappleton se retourna vers son ami, le docteur Slammer,\navec un l\u00e9ger mouvement d'\u00e9paules, qui semblait impliquer quelque doute\nde l'exactitude de ses souvenirs.\n\nLe docteur paraissait enrag\u00e9, mais confondu, et M. Payne consid\u00e9rait\navec une expression f\u00e9roce la contenance bienveillante de M. Pickwick.\n\n\u00abMonsieur, vous \u00e9tiez au bal la nuit derni\u00e8re,\u00bb dit tout d'un coup le\ndocteur \u00e0 M. Tupman, d'un ton qui le fit tressaillir aussi visiblement\nque si une \u00e9pingle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 ins\u00e9r\u00e9e m\u00e9chamment dans son mollet. Il\nr\u00e9pondit un faible \u00abOui;\u00bb mais sans cesser de regarder M. Pickwick.\n\n\u00abCette personne \u00e9tait avec vous,\u00bb continua le docteur en montrant\nl'immuable \u00e9tranger.\n\nM. Tupman admit le fait.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, monsieur, dit le docteur \u00e0 l'\u00e9tranger, je vous demande\nencore une fois, en pr\u00e9sence de ces gentlemen, si vous voulez me donner\nvotre carte et vous voir trait\u00e9 en gentleman, ou si vous voulez\nm'imposer la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 de vous ch\u00e2tier personnellement sur la place.\n\n--Arr\u00eatez, monsieur, interrompit M. Pickwick. Je ne puis r\u00e9ellement pas\nlaisser aller plus loin cette affaire sans quelques explications.\nTupman, racontez-en les circonstances.\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman, ainsi adjur\u00e9 solennellement, raconta le fait en peu de\nparoles, passa l\u00e9g\u00e8rement sur l'emprunt de l'habit, s'\u00e9tendit longuement\nsur ce que cela avait \u00e9t\u00e9 fait apr\u00e8s d\u00eener, exprima un peu de repentir\npour son compte, et laissa l'\u00e9tranger se tirer d'affaire comme il\npourrait.\n\nCelui-ci se disposait \u00e0 parler, quand le lieutenant Tappleton, qui\nl'avait examin\u00e9 avec une grande curiosit\u00e9, lui dit d'un ton d\u00e9daigneux:\n\n\u00abNe vous ai-je pas vu au th\u00e9\u00e2tre, monsieur?\n\n--Certainement, r\u00e9pliqua l'\u00e9tranger sans se laisser intimider.\n\n--C'est un com\u00e9dien ambulant, reprit le lieutenant avec m\u00e9pris; et en\nse tournant vers le docteur Slammer, il ajouta: Il joue dans la pi\u00e8ce\nque les officiels du 52e ont mont\u00e9e pour demain sur le th\u00e9\u00e2tre de\nRochester. Vous ne pouvez pas pousser cela plus loin, Slammer,\nimpossible.\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait impossible! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le hautain docteur Payne.\n\n--Je suis f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de vous avoir plac\u00e9 dans cette d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able situation,\ndit le lieutenant Tappleton \u00e0 M. Pickwick. Mais permettez-moi d'ajouter\nque le meilleur moyen d'\u00e9viter de semblables sc\u00e8nes, \u00e0 l'avenir, serait\nd'apporter plus de soin dans le choix de vos compagnons. Votre\nserviteur, monsieur. Et en disant ces mots le lieutenant s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a hors\nde la chambre.\n\n--Et permettez-moi de dire, monsieur, ajouta l'irascible docteur Payne,\nque si j'avais \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e0 la place de Tappleton, ou \u00e0 celle de Slammer, je\nvous aurais tir\u00e9 le nez, monsieur, et \u00e0 tous les individus pr\u00e9sents.\nOui, monsieur, \u00e0 tous les individus pr\u00e9sents. Payne est mon nom,\nmonsieur, le docteur Payne, du 43e. Bonsoir, monsieur.\u00bb Ayant termin\u00e9 ce\ndiscours, dont les derniers mots furent prononc\u00e9s d'une voix \u00e9lev\u00e9e, il\nmarcha majestueusement sur les traces de son ami, et fut suivi\nimm\u00e9diatement par le docteur Slammer, qui ne dit rien, mais qui soulagea\nsa bile en \u00e9crasant la compagnie d'un regard m\u00e9prisant.\n\nPendant ces longues provocations, un abasourdissement extr\u00eame, une rage\ntoujours croissante, avaient enfl\u00e9 le noble sein de M. Pickwick jusqu'au\npoint de faire crever son gilet. Il \u00e9tait rest\u00e9 p\u00e9trifi\u00e9, regardant\nencore la place que le docteur Payne avait occup\u00e9e, quand le bruit de la\nporte qui se fermait le rappela \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame. Il se pr\u00e9cipita, la fureur\npeinte sur le visage et lan\u00e7ant des flammes de ses yeux. Sa main \u00e9tait\nsur la serrure. Un instant plus tard elle aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e0 la gorge du\ndocteur Payne, du 43e si M. Snodgrass ne s'\u00e9tait empress\u00e9 de saisir son\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable mentor par le pan de son habit et de le tirer en arri\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abWinkle, Tupman, s'\u00e9cria-t-il en m\u00eame temps, avec l'accent du d\u00e9sespoir,\nretenez-le! Il ne doit pas risquer sa pr\u00e9cieuse vie dans une cause comme\ncelle-ci.\n\n--Laissez-moi! dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Tenez ferme, cria M. Snodgrass, et par les efforts r\u00e9unis de toute la\ncompagnie M. Pickwick fut assis dans un fauteuil.\n\n--Laissez-le, dit l'\u00e9tranger \u00e0 l'habit vert. Un verre de grog. Quel\nvieux gaillard, plein de courage! Avalez \u00e7a. Hein! fameuse boisson!\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi et apr\u00e8s avoir pr\u00e9alablement go\u00fbt\u00e9 la rasade fumante,\nl'\u00e9tranger appliqua le verre \u00e0 la bouche de M. Pickwick, et le reste de\nce qu'il contenait disparut, en peu de temps, dans le gosier du divin\nphilosophe. Il y eu une courte pause: le grog faisait son effet, et la\ncontenance aimable de M. Pickwick reprit rapidement son expression\naccoutum\u00e9e, tandis que l'\u00e9tranger lui disait: \u00abIls sont indignes de\nvotre attention....\n\n--Vous avez raison, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick. Ils n'en sont pas\ndignes. Je suis honteux de m'\u00eatre laiss\u00e9 entra\u00eener \u00e0 la chaleur de mes\nsentiments. Approchez votre chaise, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nLe com\u00e9dien ne se fit pas prier. On se r\u00e9unit en cercle autour de la\ntable, et l'harmonie r\u00e9gna de nouveau. M. Winkle lui seul paraissait\nconserver encore quelques restes d'irritabilit\u00e9. Cette disposition\n\u00e9tait-elle occasionn\u00e9e par la soustraction temporaire de son habit? Une\ncirconstance aussi futile pouvait-elle allumer un sentiment de col\u00e8re,\nm\u00eame passager dans un coeur pickwickien? Nous l'ignorons, mais \u00e0 cette\nexception pr\u00e8s, la bonne humeur \u00e9tait compl\u00e9tement r\u00e9tablie, et la\nsoir\u00e9e se termina avec toute la jovialit\u00e9 qui en avait signal\u00e9 le\ncommencement.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE IV.\n\nLa petite guerre.--De nouveaux amis.--Une invitation pour la campagne.\n\n\nBeaucoup d'auteurs \u00e9prouvent une r\u00e9pugnance ridicule et m\u00eame ind\u00e9licate\n\u00e0 r\u00e9v\u00e9ler les sources o\u00f9 ils ont puis\u00e9 leur sujet. Nous ne pensons point\nde la m\u00eame mani\u00e8re, et toujours nos efforts tendront simplement \u00e0 nous\nacquitter d'une fa\u00e7on honorable des devoirs que nous impose notre r\u00f4le\nd'\u00e9diteur. Malgr\u00e9 la juste ambition qui, dans d'autres circonstances,\naurait pu nous porter \u00e0 r\u00e9clamer la gloire d'avoir compos\u00e9 cet ouvrage,\nnos \u00e9gards pour la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 nous emp\u00eachent de pr\u00e9tendre \u00e0 d'autre m\u00e9rite\nqu'\u00e0 celui d'un arrangement judicieux et d'une impartiale narration. Les\npapiers du Pickwick-Club sont comme un immense r\u00e9servoir de faits\nimportants. Ce que nous avons \u00e0 faire, c'est de les distribuer\nsoigneusement \u00e0 l'univers, qui a soif de conna\u00eetre les pickwickiens.\n\nAgissant d'apr\u00e8s ces principes, et toujours d\u00e9termin\u00e9 a avouer nos\nobligations pour les autorit\u00e9s que nous avons consult\u00e9es, nous d\u00e9clarons\nfranchement que c'est au m\u00e9morandum de M. Snodgrass que nous devons les\nparticularit\u00e9s contenues dans ce chapitre et dans le suivant,\nparticularit\u00e9s que nous allons rapporter sans autre commentaire,\nmaintenant que nous avons soulag\u00e9 notre conscience.\n\nLe lendemain, tous les habitants de Rochester et des lieux environnants\nsortirent de leur lit de tr\u00e8s-bonne heure, dans un \u00e9tat d'excitation et\nd'empressement inaccoutum\u00e9s, car il s'agissait pour eux de voir les\ngrandes manoeuvres. Une demi-douzaine de r\u00e9giments devaient \u00eatre\ninspect\u00e9s par le regard d'aigle du commandant en chef; des\nfortifications temporaires avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9lev\u00e9es; la citadelle allait \u00eatre\nattaqu\u00e9e et emport\u00e9e d'assaut; enfin on devait faire jouer une mine.\n\nComme nos lecteurs ont pu le conclure, d'apr\u00e8s les notes de M. Pickwick\nsur la ville de Chatham, il \u00e9tait admirateur enthousiaste de l'arm\u00e9e.\nRien ne pouvait donc \u00eatre plus d\u00e9licieux pour lui et pour ses compagnons\nque la vue d'une petite guerre; aussi furent-ils bient\u00f4t debout. Ils se\ndirig\u00e8rent \u00e0 grands pas vers les fortifications, o\u00f9 se rendaient d\u00e9j\u00e0 de\ntous c\u00f4t\u00e9s une foule de curieux.\n\nTout annon\u00e7ait que la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie devait \u00eatre d'une importance et d'une\ngrandeur peu communes. On avait pos\u00e9 des sentinelles pour maintenir\nlibre le terrain n\u00e9cessaire aux manoeuvres; on avait plac\u00e9 des\ndomestiques dans les batteries afin de retenir des places pour les\ndames. Des sergents couraient de toutes parts, portant sous leurs bras\ndes registres reli\u00e9s en parchemin. Le colonel Bulder, en grand uniforme,\ngalopait d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9; puis, d'un autre, faisait reculer son cheval sur les\ncurieux; lui faisait faire des voltes, des courbettes, et criait avec\ntant de violence, que son visage en \u00e9tait tout rouge, sa voix tout\nenrou\u00e9e, sans que personne p\u00fbt comprendre quelle n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 il y avait \u00e0\ncela. Des officiers s'\u00e9lan\u00e7aient en avant, en arri\u00e8re; parlaient au\ncolonel Bulder, donnaient des ordres aux sergents, puis repartaient au\ngalop et disparaissaient. Enfin, les soldats eux-m\u00eames, sous leurs cols\nde cuir, avaient un air de solennit\u00e9 myst\u00e9rieuse qui indiquait\nsuffisamment la nature sp\u00e9ciale de la r\u00e9union.\n\nM. Pickwick et ses trois compagnons sa plac\u00e8rent sur le premier rang\ndes curieux, et attendirent patiemment la commencement des manoeuvres. La\nfoule augmentait constamment, et les efforts qu'ils \u00e9taient oblig\u00e9s de\nfaire pour conserver leur position, occup\u00e8rent suffisamment les deux\nheures qui s'\u00e9coul\u00e8rent dans l'attente. Quelquefois il se faisait par\nderri\u00e8re une pouss\u00e9e soudaine, et alors M. Pickwick \u00e9tait lanc\u00e9 en avant\navec une vitesse et une \u00e9lasticit\u00e9 peu conformes \u00e0 la gravit\u00e9 ordinaire\nde son maintien. D'autres fois les soldats engageaient les spectateurs \u00e0\nreculer, et laissaient tomber les crosses de leurs fusils sur les pieds\nde M. Pickwick, pour lui rappeler leur consigne, ou lui bourraient\nladite crosse dans la poitrine pour l'engager \u00e0 s'y conformer. Dans un\nautre instant, quelques gentlemen fac\u00e9tieux se pressant autour de M.\nSnodgrass, le r\u00e9duisaient \u00e0 sa plus simple expression, et apr\u00e8s lui\navoir fait endurer les tortures les plus aigu\u00ebs, lui demandaient\npourquoi il avait le toupet de pousser les gens de cette fa\u00e7on-l\u00e0. A\npeine M. Winkle avait-il achev\u00e9 d'exprimer l'indignation excessive que\nlui causait cette insulte non provoqu\u00e9e, et \u00e9puis\u00e9 son courroux, qu'un\nindividu plac\u00e9 par derri\u00e8re lui enfon\u00e7ait son chapeau sur les yeux, en\nle priant d'avoir la complaisance de mettre sa t\u00eate dans sa poche. Ces\nmystifications, jointes \u00e0 l'inqui\u00e9tude que leur causait la disparition\ninexplicable et subite de M. Tupman, rendaient, au total, leur situation\nplus incommode que d\u00e9licieuse.\n\nA la fin on entendit courir parmi la foule ce bruyant murmure qui\nannonce l'arriv\u00e9e de ce qu'elle a attendu pendant longtemps. Tous les\nyeux se tourn\u00e8rent vers le fort, et l'on vit bataillons apr\u00e8s bataillons\nse r\u00e9pandre dans la plaine, les drapeaux flottant gracieusement dans les\nairs, et les armes \u00e9tincelant au soleil. Les troupes firent halte et\nprirent position. Les cris inarticul\u00e9s du commandement coururent sur\ntoute la ligne; les armes furent pr\u00e9sent\u00e9es avec un cliquetis g\u00e9n\u00e9ral;\nle commandant en chef, le colonel Bulder et un nombreux \u00e9tat-major\npass\u00e8rent au petit galop en t\u00eate des troupes. Tout d'un coup la musique\nde tous les r\u00e9giments fit explosion; les chevaux se dress\u00e8rent sur deux\npieds, et recul\u00e8rent en fouettant leurs queues dans toutes les\ndirections; les chiens aboy\u00e8rent; la multitude cria; les troupes\nre\u00e7urent le commandement de fixe; et autant que les yeux pouvaient\ns'\u00e9tendre on ne vit plus rien \u00e0 droite et \u00e0 gauche qu'une longue\nperspective d'habits rouges et de pantalons blancs, immobiles, et comme\np\u00e9trifi\u00e9s.\n\nM. Pickwick avait \u00e9t\u00e9 si absorb\u00e9 par le soin de se reculer et de se\nd\u00e9gager d'entre les pieds des chevaux, qu'il n'avait pas eu le temps de\njouir de la sc\u00e8ne qui se d\u00e9roulait devant lui. Lorsqu'il lui fut enfin\npossible de se tenir d'aplomb sur ses jambes, les troupes avaient pris\nl'apparence inanim\u00e9e que nous venons de d\u00e9crire, et son admiration, ses\njouissances furent inexprimables.\n\n\u00abY a-t-il rien de plus beau, rien de plus d\u00e9licieux? dit-il \u00e0 M. Winkle.\n\n--Rien, assur\u00e9ment, r\u00e9pliqua ce dernier, qui pendant plus d'un quart\nd'heure avait port\u00e9 un petit homme sur chacun de ses pieds.\n\n--Oui! s'\u00e9cria M. Snodgrass, dans le sein duquel s'allumait rapidement\nune flamme po\u00e9tique, oui! c'est un noble et magnifique spectacle de voir\nainsi les vaillants d\u00e9fenseurs de la patrie se d\u00e9ployer en files\nbrillantes devant ses paisibles citoyens. Leur visage est empreint, non\nd'une f\u00e9rocit\u00e9 guerri\u00e8re, mais d'un esprit de civilisation; leurs yeux\nn'\u00e9tincellent pas du feu sauvage de la rapine et de la vengeance, mais\nde la douce lumi\u00e8re de l'intelligence et de l'humanit\u00e9!\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick s'unissait enti\u00e8rement \u00e0 ces \u00e9loges, quant \u00e0 l'esprit qui\nles dictait, mais il ne pouvait pas en approuver aussi compl\u00e9tement les\ntermes. En effet, _la douce lumi\u00e8re de l'intelligence_ brillait assez\nfaiblement, attendu que le commandement de \u00abyeux, front!\u00bb avait \u00e9t\u00e9\ndonn\u00e9, et que les spectateurs n'apercevaient pas autre chose que\nplusieurs milliers de prunelles, regardant directement devant elles, et\nenti\u00e8rement d\u00e9nu\u00e9es de toute expression quelconque.\n\nCependant la foule s'\u00e9tait \u00e9coul\u00e9e peu \u00e0 peu, et nos voyageurs se\ntrouvaient presque seuls dans cet endroit.\n\n\u00abNous sommes maintenant dans une excellente position, dit M. Pickwick,\nen regardant autour de lui.\n\n--Excellente: repartirent \u00e0 la fois MM. Winkle et Snodgrass.\n\n--Que font-ils maintenant? reprit M. Pickwick, en ajustant ses lunettes.\n\n--Il me.... Il me semble..., balbutia M. Winkle en changeant de couleur,\nil me semble qu'ils vont faire feu!\n\n--Allons donc! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick avec pr\u00e9cipitation.\n\n--Je crois.... je crois qu'il a raison, observa M. Snodgrass avec\nquelque alarme.\n\n--Impossible! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick.\u00bb Mais \u00e0 peine avait-il prononc\u00e9 ces\nmots, que les six r\u00e9giments, agissant comme un seul homme, et comme\ns'ils n'avaient eu qu'un seul point de mire, couch\u00e8rent en joue les\nmalheureux pickwickiens, et firent la plus effroyable d\u00e9charge qui ait\njamais \u00e9branl\u00e9 le centre de la terre ou le courage d'un gentleman un peu\nm\u00fbr.\n\nDans cette situation critique, expos\u00e9 \u00e0 un feu continuel de cartouches\nblanches, harrass\u00e9 par les op\u00e9rations des troupes, auxquelles un nouveau\nrenfort venait d'arriver, se d\u00e9veloppant derri\u00e8re M. Pickwick, il montra\ncet admirable sang-froid, compagnon n\u00e9cessaire d'un esprit sup\u00e9rieur.\nSaisissant M. Winkle par le bras, et se pla\u00e7ant entre lui et M.\nSnodgrass, il les engagea instamment a remarquer qu'except\u00e9 le danger\nd'\u00eatre assourdi par le bruit, il n'y avait aucun p\u00e9ril \u00e0 redouter.\n\n\u00abMais.... mais..., dit M. Winkle, en p\u00e2lissant, supposez que les soldats\naient quelques cartouches \u00e0 balles, par erreur? Je viens d'entendre un\nsifflement aigu, juste \u00e0 mon oreille.\n\n--Ne ferions-nous pas mieux de nous jeter \u00e0 plat-ventre? demanda M.\nSnodgrass?\n\n--Non, non, tout est fini maintenant, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\u00bb Et en\ndisant ces mots, ses l\u00e8vres pouvaient trembler, ses joues pouvaient\nblanchir, mais aucune expression de crainte ou d'inqui\u00e9tude ne s'\u00e9chappa\nde la bouche de cet homme immortel.\n\nM. Pickwick ne s'\u00e9tait pas tromp\u00e9; la fusillade \u00e9tait termin\u00e9e. Il ne\nsongeait donc plus qu'\u00e0 se f\u00e9liciter de la justesse de son hypoth\u00e8se,\nquand il aper\u00e7ut sur toute la ligne un mouvement rapide. Les cris de\ncommandement retentirent, et avant que nos voyageurs eussent en le temps\nde former une conjecture relativement \u00e0 cette nouvelle manoeuvre, les six\nr\u00e9giments tout entiers firent une charge \u00e0 la ba\u00efonnette au pas de\ncourse sur le lieu m\u00eame o\u00f9 M. Pickwick et ses amis \u00e9taient stationn\u00e9s.\n\nTout homme est mortel, et le courage humain a des bornes. Pendant un\ninstant M. Pickwick regarda \u00e0 travers ses lunettes la masse compacte qui\ns'avan\u00e7ait; puis il lui tourna le dos, et se mit... nous ne dirons pas\n_\u00e0 fuir_, premi\u00e8rement, parce que c'est une expression d\u00e9shonorante;\nsecondement, parce que la personne de M. Pickwick n'\u00e9tait nullement\nappropri\u00e9e \u00e0 ce genre de retraite. Il se mit \u00e0 trotter aussi vite que le\nlui permettaient le peu de longueur de ses jambes et la pesanteur de\nson corps; si vite, en effet, qu'il s'aper\u00e7ut trop tard de tous les\ndangers de sa situation.\n\nLes troupes, dont l'apparition sur ses derri\u00e8res avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 inqui\u00e9t\u00e9 M.\nPickwick quelques secondes auparavant, s'\u00e9taient d\u00e9ploy\u00e9es en bataille\npour repousser la feinte attaque des assi\u00e9geants fictifs de la\ncitadelle; de sorte que les trois amis se trouv\u00e8rent enferm\u00e9s entre deux\nlongues murailles de ba\u00efonnettes, dont l'une s'avan\u00e7ait rapidement,\ntandis que l'autre attendait avec fermet\u00e9 le choc \u00e9pouvantable.\n\n\u00abHoh\u00e9! hoh\u00e9! cri\u00e8rent les officiers de la colonne mouvante.\n\n--Otez-vous de l\u00e0! beugl\u00e8rent les officiers de la colonne stationnaire.\n\n--O\u00f9 pouvons-nous aller? s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent les pickwickiens pleins de trouble.\n\n--Hoh\u00e9! hoh\u00e9!\u00bb telle fut la seule r\u00e9ponse; puis il y eut un moment\nd'\u00e9garement inou\u00ef, un bruit lourd de pas cadenc\u00e9s, un choc violent, une\nconfusion de rires \u00e9touff\u00e9s, et les troupes se retrouv\u00e8rent \u00e0 cinq cents\ntoises de distance, et les semelles des bottes de M. Pickwick furent\naper\u00e7ues en l'air.\n\nM. Snodgrass et M. Winkle venaient d'ex\u00e9cuter, avec beaucoup de\nprestesse, une culbute oblig\u00e9e. M. Winkle, assis par terre, \u00e9tanchait,\navec un mouchoir de soie jaune, le sang qui s'\u00e9coulait de son nez, quand\nils virent leur v\u00e9n\u00e9rable chef courant, \u00e0 quelque distance, apr\u00e8s son\nchapeau, lequel s'\u00e9loignait en caracolant avec malice.\n\nIl y a peu d'instants dans l'existence d'un homme o\u00f9 il \u00e9prouve plus de\nd\u00e9tresse visible, o\u00f9 il excite moins de commis\u00e9ration que lorsqu'il\ndonne la chasse \u00e0 son propre chapeau. Il faut avoir une grande dose de\nsang-froid, un jugement bien s\u00fbr pour le pouvoir rattraper. Si l'on\ncourt trop vite, on passe par-dessus; si l'on se baisse trop lentement,\nau moment o\u00f9 l'on croit le saisir, il est d\u00e9j\u00e0 bien loin. La meilleure\nm\u00e9thode est de trotter parall\u00e8lement \u00e0 l'objet de votre poursuite,\nd'\u00eatre prudent et attentif, de bien guetter l'occasion, de gagner les\ndevants par degr\u00e9s, puis de plonger rapidement, de prendre votre chapeau\npar la forme, et de le planter solidement sur votre t\u00eate, en souriant\ngracieusement pendant tout ce temps, comme si vous trouviez la\nplaisanterie aussi bonne que tout le monde.\n\nIl faisait un petit vent frais, et le chapeau de M. Pickwick roulait\ncomme en se jouant devant lui. Le vent soufflait et M. Pickwick\ns'essoufflait; et le chapeau roulait, et roulait aussi gaiement qu'un\nmarsouin en belle humeur dans un courant rapide; il roulerait encore,\nbien au del\u00e0 de la port\u00e9e de M. Pickwick, s'il n'e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 arr\u00eat\u00e9 par un\nobstacle providentiel, au moment o\u00f9 notre voyageur allait l'abandonner \u00e0\nson malheureux sort.\n\nM. Pickwick, compl\u00e9tement \u00e9puis\u00e9, allait donc abandonner sa poursuite,\nquand le chapeau s'aplatit contre la roue d'un carrosse qui se trouvait\nrang\u00e9 en ligne avec une douzaine d'autres v\u00e9hicules. Le philosophe,\napercevant son avantage, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a vivement, s'empara de son couvre-chef,\nle pla\u00e7a sur sa t\u00eate, et s'arr\u00eata pour reprendre haleine. Il y avait une\ndemi-minute environ qu'il \u00e9tait l\u00e0, lorsqu'il entendit son nom\nchaleureusement prononc\u00e9 par une voix amie; il leva les yeux et\nd\u00e9couvrit un spectacle qui le remplit \u00e0 la fois de surprise et de\nplaisir.\n\nDans une cal\u00e8che d\u00e9couverte, dont les chevaux avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 retir\u00e9s \u00e0\ncause de la foule, se tenaient debout les personnes ci-apr\u00e8s d\u00e9sign\u00e9es:\nun vieux gentleman, gros et vigoureux, v\u00eatu d'un habit bleu \u00e0 boutons\nd'or, d'une culotte de velours et de bottes \u00e0 revers; deux jeunes\ndemoiselles, avec des \u00e9charpes et des plumes; un jeune homme,\napparemment amoureux d'une des jeunes demoiselles; une dame, d'un \u00e2ge\ndouteux, probablement tante desdites demoiselles; et enfin M. Tupman,\naussi tranquille, aussi \u00e0 son aise que s'il avait fait partie de la\nfamille depuis son enfance. Derri\u00e8re la voiture \u00e9tait attach\u00e9e une\nbourriche d'une vaste dimension, une de ces bourriches qui, par\nassociation d'id\u00e9es, \u00e9veillent toujours, dans un esprit contemplatif,\ndes pens\u00e9es de volailles froides, de langues fourr\u00e9es et de bouteilles\nde bon vin. Enfin, sur le si\u00e9ge de la cal\u00e8che, dans un \u00e9tat heureux de\nsomnolence, \u00e9tait assis un jeune gar\u00e7on, gros, rougeaud et joufflu,\nqu'un observateur sp\u00e9culatif ne pouvait regarder pendant quelques\nsecondes sans conclure qu'il devait \u00eatre le dispensateur officiel des\ntr\u00e9sors de la bourriche, lorsque le temps convenable pour leur\nconsommation serait arriv\u00e9.\n\nM. Pickwick avait \u00e0 peine jet\u00e9 un coup d'oeil rapide sur ces int\u00e9ressants\nobjets, quand il fut h\u00e9l\u00e9 de nouveau par son fid\u00e8le disciple.\n\n\u00abPickwick! Pickwick! lui disait-il! montez! montez vite!\n\n--Venez, monsieur, venez, je vous en prie, ajouta le vieux gentleman.\nJoe! Que le diable emporte ce gar\u00e7on! Il est encore \u00e0 dormir! Joe!\nabaissez le marchepied.\u00bb\n\nLa gros joufflu se laissa lentement glisser \u00e0 bas du si\u00e9ge, abaissa le\nmarchepied, et, d'une mani\u00e8re engageante, ouvrit la porti\u00e8re du\ncarrosse. M. Snodgrass et M. Winkle arriv\u00e8rent dans ce moment.\n\n\u00abIl y a de la place pour vous tous, messieurs, reprit le propri\u00e9taire de\nla voiture. Deux dedans, un dehors. Joe, faites de la place sur le si\u00e9ge\npour l'un de ces messieurs. Maintenant, monsieur, montez.\u00bb Et le vieux\ngentleman, \u00e9tendant le bras, hissa de vive force dans la cal\u00e8che,\nd'abord M. Pickwick, ensuite M. Snodgrass. M. Winkle monta sur le si\u00e9ge;\nle gros joufflu se percha pr\u00e8s de lui et se rendormit instantan\u00e9ment.\n\n\u00abJe suis charm\u00e9 de vous voir, messieurs, poursuivit le gentleman, je\nvous connais tr\u00e8s-bien, messieurs, quoique vous ne vous souveniez\npeut-\u00eatre pas de moi. J'ai pass\u00e9 plusieurs soir\u00e9es dans votre club,\nl'hiver dernier. Ce matin j'ai rencontr\u00e9 ici mon ami, M. Tupman, et j'ai\n\u00e9t\u00e9 enchant\u00e9 de le voir. H\u00e9 bien! monsieur, comment \u00e7a va-t-il? Tous\navez l'air tout \u00e0 fait bien portant, mais l\u00e0, tr\u00e8s-bien portant!\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick, \u00e0 qui ces derni\u00e8res paroles \u00e9taient adress\u00e9es, r\u00e9torqua le\ncompliment, et donna une vigoureuse poign\u00e9e de mains au vieux gentleman.\n\n\u00abEh bien! monsieur, comment \u00e7a va-t-il? continua celui-ci en regardant\nM. Snodgrass avec une sollicitude paternelle. A merveille, n'est-ce pas?\nAh! tant mieux, tant mieux! Et comment cela va-t-il, monsieur Winkle?\nBien? J'en suis charm\u00e9. Mes filles, messieurs. Et voil\u00e0 ma soeur Rachel\nWardle: c'est une demoiselle, sans que cela paraisse. N'est-ce pas,\nmonsieur? N'est-ce pas? ajouta-t-il en riant \u00e0 gorge d\u00e9ploy\u00e9e, et en\nins\u00e9rant plaisamment son coude entre les c\u00f4tes de M. Pickwick.\n\n--Mon Dieu! fr\u00e8re.... dit miss Wardle, avec un sourire suppliant.\n\n--Vrai, vrai, reprit le vieux gentleman, personne ne peut le nier,\nmessieurs, je vous pr\u00e9sente mon ami, M. Trundle. Et maintenant que vous\nvous connaissez tous, t\u00e2chons d'\u00eatre confortables et heureux, et voyons\nce qui se passe. Voil\u00e0 mon opinion.\u00bb Ayant ainsi parl\u00e9, il mit ses\nlunettes, tandis que M. Pickwick tirait son t\u00e9lescope; et chacun se tint\ndebout dans la voiture pour regarder les \u00e9volutions des militaires.\n\nC'\u00e9taient des manoeuvres \u00e9tonnantes. Un rang tirait par-dessus la t\u00eate\nd'un autre rang et se pr\u00e9cipitait aussit\u00f4t en arri\u00e8re, puis un autre\nrang tirait par-dessus la t\u00eate d'un autre rang et se pr\u00e9cipitait en\narri\u00e8re \u00e0 son tour; ensuite il y avait des formations de carr\u00e9s, avec\nles officiers dans le centre; des descentes dans la tranch\u00e9e avec des\n\u00e9chelles; de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 des ascensions par le m\u00eame moyen; pais on\nabattait des barricades de paniers; et tout cela se faisait avec un\ncourage sans pareil. Dans les batteries, les artilleurs fourraient de\ngros tampons dans les bouches d'effroyables canons, et il fallait tant\nde pr\u00e9paratifs pour les bourrer, et ils faisaient tant de bruit quand on\ny avait mis le feu, que l'air r\u00e9sonnait au loin des cris plaintifs des\nfemmes. Dans le carrosse, les jeunes miss Wardle \u00e9taient si effray\u00e9es\nque M. Trundle fut absolument oblig\u00e9 de soutenir l'une d'elles, tandis\nque M. Snodgrass supportait la seconde: et les nerfs de miss Rachel\nWardle \u00e9taient dans un \u00e9tat d'alarme si terrible que M. Tupman trouva\nindispensable de passer le bras autour de sa taille pour l'emp\u00eacher de\ntomber. Enfin tout le monde \u00e9prouvait une exaltation prodigieuse,\nexcept\u00e9 le groom joufflu, qui dormait au tonnerre du canon aussi\nprofond\u00e9ment que si \u00e7'avait \u00e9t\u00e9 la chanson habituelle de sa nourrice.\n\nLorsque la citadelle fut prise et qu'on servit \u00e0 d\u00eener au assi\u00e9geants et\naux assi\u00e9g\u00e9s, le vieux gentleman s'\u00e9cria: \u00abJoe! Joe! Damn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on, il\nest encore \u00e0 dormir! Soyez assez bon, monsieur, pour lui pincer la\njambe, s'il vous pla\u00eet, c'est le seul moyen de le r\u00e9veiller. Je vous\nremercie. Joe, d\u00e9faites la bourriche.\u00bb\n\nLe gros joufflu, qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 effectivement \u00e9veill\u00e9 par la compression\nd'une partie de son mollet, entre le pouce et l'index de M. Winkle, se\nlaissa de nouveau glisser \u00e0 bas du si\u00e9ge et s'occupa \u00e0 d\u00e9paqueter la\nbourriche, d'une mani\u00e8re plus exp\u00e9ditive qu'on n'aurait pu l'attendre de\nsa pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente inactivit\u00e9.\n\n\u00abMaintenant il faut nous asseoir serr\u00e9s,\u00bb dit le vieux gentleman. Apr\u00e8s\nbeaucoup de plaisanteries sur le froissement des manches des dames,\napr\u00e8s beaucoup de rougeur occasionn\u00e9e par la joyeuse proposition de les\nfaire asseoir sur les genoux des messieurs, la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 tout enti\u00e8re\nparvint \u00e0 s'empiler dans la cal\u00e8che, et le vieux gentleman s'occupa de\nfaire circuler les objets que le gros joufflu lui tendait de derri\u00e8re la\nvoiture o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait mont\u00e9.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, Joe, les couteaux, les fourchettes.\u00bb Les couteaux et les\nfourchettes furent pass\u00e9s. Les dames et les messieurs de l'int\u00e9rieur, et\nM. Winkle sur son si\u00e9ge, furent fournis de ces ustensiles n\u00e9cessaires.\n\n\u00abDes assiettes, Joe! des assiettes!\u00bb Les assiettes furent distribu\u00e9es\nde la m\u00eame mani\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, Joe, la volaille. Damn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on, il est encore \u00e0 dormir.\nJoe! Joe! Plusieurs coups de canne administr\u00e9s sur la t\u00eate du dormeur le\ntir\u00e8rent enfin de sa l\u00e9thargie. Allons passez-nous les comestibles.\u00bb\n\nIl y avait quelque chose, dans le son de ce dernier mot, qui r\u00e9veilla\nenti\u00e8rement le gros dormeur. Il tressaillit, et ses yeux plomb\u00e9s, \u00e0\nmoiti\u00e9 cach\u00e9s par ses joues bouffies, lorgn\u00e8rent amoureusement les\ncomestibles \u00e0 mesure qu'il les d\u00e9ballait.\n\n\u00abAllons, d\u00e9p\u00eachons,\u00bb dit H. Wardle, car le gros joufflu d\u00e9vorait du\nregard un chapon, dont il paraissait ne pas pouvoir se s\u00e9parer. Il\nsoupira profond\u00e9ment, jeta un coup d'oeil d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9 sur la volaille\ndodue, et la remit tristement \u00e0 son ma\u00eetre.\n\n\u00abBon! Un peu de vivacit\u00e9! Maintenant la langue. Maintenant le p\u00e2t\u00e9 de\npigeons! Prenez garde au veau et au jambon. Attention aux \u00e9crevisses.\nOtez la salade de la serviette. Passez-moi l'assaisonnement.\u00bb Tout en\ndonnant ces ordres pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9s, M. Wardle distribuait dans l'int\u00e9rieur de\nla voiture les articles qu'il nommait, et pla\u00e7ait des plats sans nombre\ndans les mains et sur les genoux de chacun.\n\nLorsque l'oeuvre de destruction fut commenc\u00e9e, le joyeux h\u00f4te demanda \u00e0\nses convives: \u00abEh bien! n'est-ce pas d\u00e9licieux?\n\n--D\u00e9licieux! r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle, qui d\u00e9coupait une volaille sur le\nsi\u00e9ge.\n\n--Un verre de vin?\n\n--Avec le plus grand plaisir.\n\n--Ne feriez-vous pas mieux d'avoir une bouteille pour vous, l\u00e0-haut?\n\n--Tous \u00eates bien bon.\n\n--Joe!\n\n--Oui, monsieur. (Il n'\u00e9tait point endormi, cette fois, \u00e9tant parvenu \u00e0\nsoustraire un petit p\u00e2t\u00e9 de veau.)\n\n--Une bouteille de vin au gentleman sur le si\u00e9ge. Je suis charm\u00e9 de vous\nvoir, monsieur.\n\n--Bien oblig\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle, en pla\u00e7ant la bouteille \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de\nlui.\n\n--Voulez-vous me permettre de prendre un verre de vin avec vous? dit M.\nTrundle \u00e0 M. Winkle.\n\n--Avec grand plaisir,\u00bb repartit celui-ci; et les deux gentlemen prirent\ndu vin ensemble; et tous les assistants, m\u00eame les dames, suivirent leur\njudicieux exemple.\n\n\u00abComme notre ch\u00e8re \u00c9mily coquette avec ce jeune homme, observa tout bas\n\u00e0 M. Wardle la tante demoiselle, avec toute l'envie convenable \u00e0 une\ntante demoiselle.\n\n--Bah! r\u00e9pliqua le brave homme de p\u00e8re. \u00c7a n'a rien d'extraordinaire.\nC'est fort naturel. M. Pickwick, un verre de vin?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick, interrompant pour un instant les profondes recherches qu'il\nfaisait dans l'int\u00e9rieur du p\u00e2t\u00e9 de pigeons, accepta en rendant gr\u00e2ce.\n\n\u00ab\u00c9mily, ma ch\u00e8re, dit la tante demoiselle avec un air de chaperon; ne\nparlez pas si haut, mon amour.\n\n--Pla\u00eet-il, ma tante?\n\n--Il para\u00eet que ma tante et le vieux petit monsieur voudraient qu'il n'y\nen e\u00fbt que peur eux, chuchota miss Isabella Wardle \u00e0 sa soeur \u00c9mily. Puis\nles deux jeunes demoiselles se mirent \u00e0 rire de tout leur coeur, et la\nvieille demoiselle s'effor\u00e7a de prendre une physionomie aimable, mais\nelle ne put en venir \u00e0 bout.\n\n\u00abLes jeunes filles ont tant de gaiet\u00e9! observa-t-elle \u00e0 M. Tupman avec\nun air de tendre commis\u00e9ration, comme si la gaiet\u00e9 e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 marchandise\nde contrebande, et comme si c'e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 un crime que d'en porter sur soi\nsans avoir un laissez-passer; mais M. Tupman ne fit pas exactement la\nr\u00e9ponse d\u00e9sir\u00e9e.\n\n--Vous avez bien raison, dit-il; c'est tout \u00e0 fait charmant!\n\n--Hem! fit miss Wardle d'un ton dubitatif.\n\n--Voulez-vous me permettre, reprit M. Tupman, de la mani\u00e8re la plus\ninsinuante, en touchant de la main gauche le poignet de la s\u00e9duisante\nRachel, tandis que de la main droite il levait tout doucement une\nbouteille. Voulez-vous me permettre?...\n\n--Oh! monsieur!\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman prit un air encore plus persuasif, et miss Rachel exprima la\ncrainte qu'on ne tir\u00e2t encore des coups de canon, ce qui aurait\nnaturellement oblig\u00e9 son cavalier \u00e0 la soutenir.\n\n\u00abTrouvez-vous mes ni\u00e8ces jolies? murmura ensuite la tante affectueuse \u00e0\nl'oreille de M. Tupman.\n\n--Je les trouverais jolies si leur tante n'\u00e9tait pas ici, r\u00e9pondit le\ngalant pickwickien, avec un regard passionn\u00e9.\n\n--Oh! le m\u00e9chant homme! Mais r\u00e9ellement, si elles avaient un peu de\nfra\u00eecheur, ne trouvez-vous pas qu'elles feraient de l'effet.... \u00e0 la\nlumi\u00e8re?\n\n--Oui,... je le crois, r\u00e9pliqua M. Tupman d'un air indiff\u00e9rent.\n\n--Oh! moqueur! Je sais ce que vous alliez dire.\n\n--Quoi donc? demanda M. Tupman, qui n'\u00e9tait pas bien d\u00e9cid\u00e9 \u00e0 dire\nquelque chose.\n\n--Vous alliez dire qu'Isabelle est vo\u00fbt\u00e9e. Je sais que vous l'alliez\ndire. Les hommes sont de si bons observateurs! Eh bien! c'est vrai; je\nne puis pas le nier! Et certainement s'il y a quelque chose de vilain\npour une jeune personne, c'est d'\u00eatre vo\u00fbt\u00e9e. Je le lui dis souvent, et\nqu'elle deviendra tout \u00e0 fait effroyable quand elle sera un peu plus\nvieille. Je vois que vous avez l'esprit malin.\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman, charm\u00e9 d'obtenir cette r\u00e9putation \u00e0 si bon march\u00e9, s'effor\u00e7a\nde prendre un air fin, et sourit myst\u00e9rieusement.\n\n\u00abQuel sourire sarcastique! s'\u00e9cria l'inflammable Rachel. Je vous assure\nque vous m'effrayez.\n\n--Je vous effraye?\n\n--Oh! vous ne pouvez rien me cacher. Je sais ce que ce sourire signifie.\n\n--H\u00e9 bien? dit M. Tupman, qui lui-m\u00eame n'en avait pas la plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re\nid\u00e9e.\n\n--Vous voulez dire, poursuivit l'aimable tante, en parlant encore plus\nbas, vous voulez dire que la tournure d'Isabelle vous d\u00e9pla\u00eet encore\nmoins que l'effronterie d'\u00c9mily. C'est vrai, elle est effront\u00e9e. Vous ne\npouvez croire combien cela me rend parfois malheureuse. Je suis s\u00fbre que\nj'en ai pleur\u00e9 pendant des heures enti\u00e8res. Mon cher fr\u00e8re est si bon,\nsi peu soup\u00e7onneux, qu'il n'en voit rien. S'il le voyait, je suis\ncertaine que cela lui briserait le coeur. Je voudrais pouvoir me\npersuader qu'il n'y a pas de mal au fond. Je le d\u00e9sire si vivement! (Ici\nl'affectueuse parente poussa un profond soupir, et secoua tristement la\nt\u00eate.)\n\n--Je suis s\u00fbre que ma tante parle de nous, dit tout bas miss \u00c9mily\nWardle \u00e0 sa soeur. J'en suis tout \u00e0 fait s\u00fbre: elle a pris son air\nmalicieux.\n\n--Tu crois, r\u00e9pondit Isabelle. Hem! tante, ch\u00e8re tante!\n\n--Oui, mon cher amour.\n\n--J'ai bien peur que vous ne vous enrhumiez, ma tante: mettez donc un\nmouchoir de soie autour de votre bonne vieille t\u00eate. Vous devriez\nprendre plus soin de vous, \u00e0 votre \u00e2ge.\u00bb\n\nQuoique cette revanche fut bien motiv\u00e9e, elle \u00e9tait tellement poignante\nqu'il est impossible d'imaginer de quelle mani\u00e8re se serait exhal\u00e9 le\ncourroux de la tante, si M. Wardle n'avait pas fait diversion, sans y\npenser, en criant d'une voix forte:\n\n\u00abJoe! Damn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on! il est encore \u00e0 dormir!\n\n--Voil\u00e0 un jeune homme bien extraordinaire, dit M. Pickwick. Est-ce\nqu'il est toujours assoupi comme cela?\n\n--Assoupi! Il dort toujours. Il fait mes commissions en dormant; et\nquand il sert \u00e0 table, il ronfle.\n\n--Bien extraordinaire! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick.\n\n--Ha! extraordinaire en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, reprit le vieux gentleman. Je suis\norgueilleux de ce gar\u00e7on. Je ne voudrais m'en s\u00e9parer \u00e0 aucun prix, sur\nmon \u00e2me. C'est une curiosit\u00e9 naturelle. H\u00e9! Joe! Joe! \u00f4tez tout cela, et\nd\u00e9bouchez une autre bouteille, m'entendez-vous?\u00bb\n\nLe gros joufflu ouvrit les yeux, avala l'\u00e9norme morceau de p\u00e2t\u00e9 qu'il\n\u00e9tait en train de mastiquer lorsqu'il s'\u00e9tait endormi, et tout en\nex\u00e9cutant les ordres de son ma\u00eetre, il lorgnait languissamment les\nd\u00e9bris de la f\u00eate, \u00e0 mesure qu'il les remettait dans la bourriche. La\nnouvelle bouteille fut d\u00e9bouch\u00e9e et vid\u00e9e rapidement: la bourriche fut\nrattach\u00e9e \u00e0 son ancienne place, le gros joufflu remonta sur le si\u00e9ge;\nles besicles et les lunettes d'approche furent braqu\u00e9es sur nouveaux\nfrais, et les \u00e9volutions des soldats recommenc\u00e8rent. Il y eut encore un\ngrand tapage de canons et de grandes terreurs de femmes; puis on fit\njouer une mine \u00e0 l'immense satisfaction de tout le monde; et quand la\nmine eut parti, les troupes et les spectateurs suivirent son exemple, et\npartirent aussi.\n\nA la fin d'une conversation interrompue par les d\u00e9charges, le vieux\ngentleman dit \u00e0 M. Pickwick, en lui secouant la main:\n\n\u00abSouvenez-vous que vous venez tous nous voir demain matin.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-certainement, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick.\n\n--Vous avez l'adresse?\n\n--Manoir-ferme, Dingley-Dell, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick en consultant son\nm\u00e9morandum.\n\n--C'est cela; et songez bien que je vous garde au moins une semaine. Je\nme charge de vous faire voir tout ce qu'il y a de curieux aux environs,\net puisque vous voulez \u00e9tudier la vie champ\u00eatre, venez chez moi, je vous\nen donnerai, en veux-tu, en voil\u00e0. Joe! Damn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on! il est encore \u00e0\ndormir. Joe, aidez Tom \u00e0 mettre les chevaux.\u00bb\n\nLes chevaux furent mis; le cocher monta sur son si\u00e9ge, le gros joufflu\ngrimpa \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui; les adieux furent \u00e9chang\u00e9s, et le carrosse roula.\nAu moment o\u00f9 les pickwickiens se retourn\u00e8rent pour l'apercevoir encore\nune fois, le soleil couchant jetait une teinte chaleureuse sur le visage\nde leur h\u00f4te, et faisait ressortir l'attitude somnolente du gros\njoufflu: il avait laissa tomber sa t\u00eate sur sa poitrine, et il \u00e9tait\nencore \u00e0 dormir!\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE V.\n\nFaisant voir entre autres choses comment M. Pickwick entreprit de\nconduire une voiture, et M. Winkle de monter un cheval; et comment l'un\net l'autre en vinrent \u00e0 bout.\n\n\nLe ciel \u00e9tait brillant et calme; l'air semblait embaum\u00e9; tous les objets\nde la cr\u00e9ation \u00e9taient remplis d'un charme inexprimable, et M. Pickwick,\nappuy\u00e9 sur le parapet du pont de Rochester, contemplait la nature, et\nattendait l'heure du d\u00e9jeuner.\n\nLa sc\u00e8ne qui se d\u00e9roulait \u00e0 ses regards aurait pu charmer un esprit bien\nmoins admirateur des beaut\u00e9s champ\u00eatres. A sa gauche s'\u00e9tendait une\nantique muraille, \u00e9boul\u00e9e dans beaucoup d'endroits, mais qui, dans\nd'autres, dominait de sa masse sombre, les rives verdoyantes de la\nMedway. Des touffes de lierre couronnaient tristement les noirs\ncr\u00e9neaux, tandis que des festons de plantes marines, suspendues aux\npierres dentel\u00e9es, tremblaient au souffle du vent. Derri\u00e8re ces ruines\ns'\u00e9levait le vieux ch\u00e2teau, dont les tours sans toiture, dont les\nmurailles croulantes attestaient encore l'ancienne grandeur, lorsque le\nbruit des armes ou les chants de f\u00eate retentissaient sous ses vo\u00fbtes\nsplendides. De chaque c\u00f4t\u00e9, aussi loin que la vue pouvait s'\u00e9tendre, on\napercevait les bords de la rivi\u00e8re couverts de prairies et de champs de\nbl\u00e9, au milieu desquels se d\u00e9tachaient \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0 des moulins et des\n\u00e9glises; paysage riche et vari\u00e9, que rendaient plus admirable encore les\nombres errantes des l\u00e9gers nuages qui flottaient dans la lumi\u00e8re du\nsoleil matinal. La Medway, r\u00e9fl\u00e9chissant l'azur argent\u00e9 du ciel, coulait\nsilencieusement en nappes brillantes; et parfois, avec un l\u00e9ger\nmurmure, elle \u00e9tincelait sous les rames des p\u00eacheurs, qui suivaient\nlentement le courant, dans leurs bateaux lourds mais pittoresques.\n\nLa vue de ce riant tableau avait plong\u00e9 M. Pickwick dans une agr\u00e9able\nr\u00eaverie. Il en fut tir\u00e9 par un profond soupir qu'il entendit aupr\u00e8s de\nlui, et par un l\u00e9ger coup frapp\u00e9 sur son \u00e9paule. Il se retourna et\nreconnut l'homme lugubre.\n\n\u00abVous contempliez cette sc\u00e8ne? lui dit celui-ci d'une voix grave.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick.\n\n--Et vous vous f\u00e9licitiez d'\u00eatre lev\u00e9 de si bonne heure?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick fit un signe d'assentiment.\n\n\u00abAh! il faut se lever de bonne heure en effet, pour voir le soleil dans\nsa splendeur, car son \u00e9clat dure rarement pendant toute la journ\u00e9e. Le\ncommencement du jour et le matin de la vie ne sont, h\u00e9las! que trop\nsemblables!\n\n--Vous avez raison, monsieur.\n\n--On dit souvent, continua l'homme lugubre, on dit souvent: le temps est\ntrop beau ce matin, cela ne durera pas. Avec quelle justesse cette\nr\u00e9flexion s'applique \u00e0 notre existence! Que ne donnerais-je pas pour\nrevoir les jours de mon enfance, ou pour les oublier \u00e0 jamais!\n\n--Vous avez eu beaucoup de chagrins? demanda M. Pickwick avec\ncompassion.\n\n--Oui certes, r\u00e9pliqua l'homme lugubre d'une voix saccad\u00e9e; plus qu'on\nne pourrait le croire en me voyant aujourd'hui. Il s'arr\u00eata une minute\net reprit brusquement: Avez-vous jamais pens\u00e9, par une matin\u00e9e comme\ncelle-ci, que ce serait une chose douce et d\u00e9licieuse de se noyer?\n\n--Non! que Dieu me prot\u00e8ge! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, en se reculant un peu,\ndans la crainte que l'\u00e9tranger n'e\u00fbt envie de le pousser par-dessus le\nparapet pour faire une exp\u00e9rience.\n\n--Moi, je l'ai souvent pens\u00e9, poursuivit l'homme lugubre sans avoir\nl'air de remarquer ce mouvement: cette eau froide et tranquille semble\nm'inviter, en murmurant, \u00e0 y chercher le repos et l'oubli. On saute...\npouf!... on se d\u00e9bat un instant... l'onde s'\u00e9l\u00e8ve par-dessus votre\nt\u00eate... le tourbillon s'efface... l'eau redevient claire... et vos\ndouleurs sont \u00e0 jamais termin\u00e9es!\u00bb\n\nL'oeil caverneux de l'homme lugubre lan\u00e7ait des flammes tandis qu'il\nparlait ainsi. Mais cette excitation momentan\u00e9e s'apaisa bient\u00f4t; il se\nd\u00e9tourna d'un air calme, et dit:\n\n\u00abEn voil\u00e0 assez sur ce sujet: je voulais vous parler d'autre chose.\nVous m'avez invit\u00e9 hier soir \u00e0 vous lire une anecdote, et vous l'avez\n\u00e9cout\u00e9e attentivement....\n\n--Oui certainement, dit M. Pickwick, et je pensais....\n\n--Je ne vous ai pas demand\u00e9 votre opinion, interrompit l'homme lugubre,\net je n'en ai pas besoin. Vous voyagez pour vous amuser et pour vous\ninstruire; supposez que je vous adresse un manuscrit curieux.... Faites\nattention;--non pas improbable ni extraordinaire, mais curieux comme une\npage du roman de la vie r\u00e9elle;--le communiqueriez-vous au club dont\nvous m'avez parl\u00e9 si souvent?\n\n--Certainement, si vous le d\u00e9sirez; et nous le ferons ins\u00e9rer dans les\nm\u00e9moires du club.\n\n--Vous l'aurez donc, r\u00e9pliqua l'homme lugubre. Votre adresse?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick lui ayant communiqu\u00e9 son itin\u00e9raire probable, l'homme\nlugubre le nota soigneusement dans un portefeuille assez gros, ramena le\nsavant gentleman \u00e0 son h\u00f4tel, et refusant le d\u00e9jeuner qu'il lui offrait,\ns'\u00e9loigna d'un pas lent et sombre.\n\nLes trois compagnons de M. Pickwick l'attendaient pour attaquer le\nd\u00e9jeuner qui \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 dispos\u00e9 sur la table d'une fa\u00e7on fort\ns\u00e9duisante. Ils s'assirent avec lui, et le jambon grill\u00e9, les oeufs, le\ncaf\u00e9, le th\u00e9 et le reste, commenc\u00e8rent \u00e0 dispara\u00eetre avec une rapidit\u00e9\nqui t\u00e9moignait, \u00e0 la fois, en faveur de la bonne ch\u00e8re et de l'app\u00e9tit\ndes voyageurs.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, dit M. Pickwick, il s'agit de savoir comment nous irons \u00e0\nManoir-ferme.\n\n--Nous ferions peut-\u00eatre bien de consulter le gar\u00e7on, sugg\u00e9ra M. Tupman;\net ce judicieux conseil ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 accueilli comme il le m\u00e9ritait, le\ngar\u00e7on fut appel\u00e9 et consult\u00e9.\n\n--Dingley-Dell, monsieur? Quinze milles, monsieur; chemin de traverse,\nmauvaise route.... Une chaise de poste, monsieur?\n\n--Une chaise de poste ne tient que deux, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\n--C'est vrai, monsieur, cependant je vous demande pardon, monsieur: nous\navons une tr\u00e8s-jolie chaise \u00e0 quatre roues: deux places au fond, un\nsi\u00e9ge pour le gentleman qui conduit.... Oh! je vous demande pardon,\nmonsieur, elle ne peut tenir que trois.\n\n--Comment donc ferons-nous? dit M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Peut-\u00eatre qu'un de ces messieurs aimerait \u00e0 faire la route \u00e0 cheval,\ndit le gar\u00e7on en regardant M. Winkle. Nous avons de tr\u00e8s-bons chevaux de\nselle, monsieur. Les gens de M. Wardle, en venant \u00e0 Rochester,\npourraient les ramener, monsieur.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 notre affaire, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, Winkle, voulez-vous faire la\nroute \u00e0 cheval?\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle \u00e9prouvait, dans les plus secrets replis de son coeur, des\ndoutes accablants sur sa science \u00e9questre; mais, comme il n'aurait voulu\nles laisser soup\u00e7onner \u00e0 aucun prix, il r\u00e9pondit sur-le-champ avec une\nnoble hardiesse: \u00abCertainement, j'en serai charm\u00e9!\u00bb Il s'\u00e9tait pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9\nlui-m\u00eame au-devant de sa destin\u00e9e: il n'y avait plus \u00e0 reculer.\n\n\u00abAmenez-les \u00e0 onze heures, dit alors M. Pickwick au gar\u00e7on.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua celui-ci, et il sortit.\n\nLe d\u00e9jeuner achev\u00e9, les voyageurs mont\u00e8rent dans leurs chambres pour\npr\u00e9parer les effets qu'ils voulaient emporter avec eux.\n\nM. Pickwick avait termin\u00e9 ses arrangements pr\u00e9liminaires, et regardait\ndans la rue par-dessus les stores du caf\u00e9, lorsque le gar\u00e7on entra, et\nannon\u00e7a que la chaise \u00e9tait pr\u00eate, ce qui fut confirm\u00e9 par l'apparition\nde ladite chaise derri\u00e8re les susdits stores.\n\nC'\u00e9tait une petite bo\u00eete verte, pos\u00e9e sur quatre roues; sur le devant\ns'\u00e9levait une esp\u00e8ce de perchoir pour le cocher; sur le derri\u00e8re se\ntrouvait un banc r\u00e9tr\u00e9ci, pour deux patients. Cette curieuse machine\n\u00e9tait mise en mouvement par un immense cheval brun, sur lequel on\npouvait \u00e9tudier l'ost\u00e9ologie avec beaucoup de facilit\u00e9. Un valet\nd'\u00e9curie tenait par la bride, pour M. Winkle, un autre cheval immense,\napparemment parent tr\u00e8s-proche de l'animal du cabriolet.\n\n\u00abDieu nous prot\u00e8ge! dit M. Pickwick, tandis qu'on mettait leurs paquets\ndans la voiture; Dieu nous prot\u00e8ge! Qui est-ce qui va conduire? Je n'y\navais point song\u00e9.\n\n--Vous naturellement, repartit M. Tupman.\n\n--Naturellement, ajouta M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Moi! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Il n'y a pas le plus petit danger, monsieur, insinua le valet\nd'\u00e9curie. Je vous le garantis pour la douceur: un enfant au maillot le\nconduirait.\n\n--Il n'est pas ombrageux, hein?\n\n--Ombrageux? il ne broncherait pas quand il verrait passer une charret\u00e9e\nde singes, avec la queue en feu.\u00bb\n\nCette derni\u00e8re recommandation \u00e9tait convaincante. M. Tupman et M.\nSnodgrass furent pr\u00e9cieusement enferm\u00e9s dans la caisse. M. Pickwick\nmonta sur son perchoir, et appuya ses pieds sur une planche rev\u00eatue d'un\ntapis de toile cir\u00e9e qu'il supposa \u00eatre destin\u00e9e \u00e0 cet usage.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, brillant William, dit le valet d'\u00e9curie \u00e0 son adjoint;\ndonne les rubans au gentleman.\u00bb\n\nBrillant William, ainsi d\u00e9nomm\u00e9 sans doute \u00e0 cause de ses cheveux gras\net de sa figure huileuse, pla\u00e7a les guides dans la main gauche de M.\nPickwick, tandis que son sup\u00e9rieur insinuait le fouet dans la main\ndroite du philosophe.\n\n\u00abTout beau! cria M. Pickwick, car le grand quadrup\u00e8de t\u00e9moignait une\ninclination d\u00e9cid\u00e9e \u00e0 reculer dans la fen\u00eatre du caf\u00e9.\n\n--Tout beau! r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e8rent MM. Tupman et Snodgrass, de leur caisse.\n\n--Il s'amuse un peu, messieurs, voil\u00e0 tout, dit le premier gar\u00e7on\nd'\u00e9curie d'un ton encourageant. Tenez-le un instant, William.\u00bb\n\nLe substitut restreignit l'imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9 de l'animal, et l'\u00e9cuyer en chef\ncourut aider M. Winkle \u00e0 monter en selle.\n\n\u00abDe l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9, monsieur, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\n\n--J'veux et' pendu, si le gentleman n'allait pas monter \u00e0 l'envers!\u00bb dit\nun postillon grima\u00e7ant, au gar\u00e7on de l'h\u00f4tel, qui paraissait go\u00fbter une\nsatisfaction indicible.\n\nM. Winkle ayant re\u00e7u cet avis se hissa sur sa selle, avec autant de\ndifficult\u00e9s, \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s, qu'il en aurait \u00e9prouv\u00e9 pour monter sur un\nvaisseau de guerre.\n\n\u00abTout va-t-il bien? demanda M. Pickwick, tourment\u00e9 par un sentiment\nintuitif que tout allait mal.\n\n--Tout va bien, r\u00e9pondit faiblement M. Winkle.\n\n--En route! cria le valet d'\u00e9curie. Tenez-le bien, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nEt parmi les \u00e9clats de rire de tous les assistants, la voiture et le\ncheval de selle d\u00e9camp\u00e8rent, M. Pickwick sur le si\u00e9ge de l'un, et M.\nWinkle sur le dos de l'autre.\n\n\u00abPourquoi donc va-t-il ainsi de travers? demanda M. Snodgrass, de dedans\nsa bo\u00eete, \u00e0 M. Winkle sur sa selle.\n\n--Je n'y comprends rien du tout,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua le pauvre cavalier, dont le\ncheval, en effet, s'avan\u00e7ait d'une mani\u00e8re excentrique, un de ses flancs\nen avant, la t\u00eate d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la rue, la queue de l'autre.\n\nM. Pickwick n'avait point le loisir d'observer ce qui se passait\nderri\u00e8re lui, car il \u00e9tait oblig\u00e9 de concentrer toutes ses facult\u00e9s\nratiocinantes sur la conduite de l'animal attach\u00e9 \u00e0 la voiture. Celui-ci\nd\u00e9ployait des singularit\u00e9s, fort amusantes pour un spectateur\nd\u00e9sint\u00e9ress\u00e9, mais fort peu rassurantes pour ceux qui se trouvaient\nentra\u00een\u00e9s \u00e0 sa suite. Secouant sans cesse sa t\u00eate d'une mani\u00e8re aussi\nd\u00e9plaisante qu'incommode, il pesait sur les guides avec tant de force\nque M. Pickwick avait beaucoup de peine \u00e0 le soutenir, et pour comble\nd'infortune il \u00e9prouvait un \u00e9trange plaisir \u00e0 se jeter tout d'un coup\nsur un c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la route. L\u00e0 il s'arr\u00eatait court; puis il repartait\npendant quelques minutes avec une v\u00e9locit\u00e9 qu'il \u00e9tait physiquement\nimpossible de mod\u00e9rer.\n\nIl venait d'ex\u00e9cuter cette manoeuvre pour la vingti\u00e8me fois, lorsque M.\nSnodgrass dit \u00e0 son compagnon:\n\n\u00abQu'a donc ce cheval?\n\n--Je n'en sais rien, r\u00e9pondit M. Tupman. N'est-ce pas qu'il serait\nombrageux? Cela m'en a bien l'air.\u00bb\n\nM. Snodgrass allait r\u00e9pliquer, quand il fut interrompu par un cri de M.\nPickwick.\n\n\u00abOh! disait-il. J'ai laiss\u00e9 tomber mon fouet!\u00bb\n\nDans ce moment, M. Winkle, avec son chapeau enfonc\u00e9 sur ses oreilles,\narrivait en trottant sur l'\u00e9norme cheval, qui le secouait avec tant de\nviolence qu'il semblait devoir le mettre en pi\u00e8ces.\n\n\u00abWinkle, lui cria M. Snodgrass. Vous qui \u00eates un bon gar\u00e7on, ramassez\ndonc le fouet.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle, se penchant en arri\u00e8re, tira la bride avec tant d'efforts que\nson visage en devint tout noir. Lorsqu'il fut parvenu \u00e0 arr\u00eater son\ngrand coursier, il descendit, tendit le fouet \u00e0 M. Pickwick, et,\nsaisissant les r\u00eanes, se pr\u00e9para \u00e0 remonter.\n\nNous ne saurions dire, et on le comprendra facilement, si le grand\ncheval, dans l'innocente gaiet\u00e9 de son coeur, voulut s'amuser un peu avec\nM. Winkle; on s'il s'imagina qu'il trouverait plus de plaisir \u00e0 faire la\nroute sans cavalier; mais, quels que fussent ses motifs d\u00e9terminants, le\nfait est que M. Winkle avait \u00e0 peine touch\u00e9 les r\u00eanes, lorsque l'animal,\nbaissant la t\u00eate, les fit glisser par-dessus, et s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a en arri\u00e8re de\ntoute leur longueur.\n\n\u00abBonne b\u00eate, dit M. Winkle d'une voix insinuante; bon vieux cheval!\u00bb\n\nMais la bonne b\u00eate \u00e9tait \u00e0 l'\u00e9preuve de la flatterie, et plus M. Winkle\ns'effor\u00e7ait de l'approcher, plus elle avait soin de se tenir \u00e0 distance:\ntellement qu'au bout de dix minutes, et malgr\u00e9 toutes sortes de\ncajoleries et de ruses, M. Winkle et le grand cheval, apr\u00e8s avoir\ncontinuellement tourn\u00e9 l'un autour de l'autre se retrouvaient exactement\ndans la m\u00eame position. C'\u00e9tait une situation fort d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able en toutes\ncirconstances, et principalement sur une route d\u00e9serte, o\u00f9 l'on ne\npouvait se procurer aucun secours.\n\nCe man\u00e8ge s'\u00e9tant prolong\u00e9 encore quelque temps, M. Winkle cria \u00e0 ses\ncompagnons:\n\n\u00abComment vais-je faire? Je ne puis pas monter dessus?\n\n--Vous ferez bien de le conduire ainsi jusqu'\u00e0 ce que nous arrivions \u00e0\nune barri\u00e8re; r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick de son si\u00e9ge.\n\n--Mais il ne veut pas avancer! s'\u00e9cria M. Winkle, venez, je vous en\nprie, me le tenir un peu.\n\nM. Pickwick \u00e9tait la personnification de l'obligeance et de l'humanit\u00e9.\nIl jeta les guides sur le dos de son cheval, descendit du si\u00e9ge,\nconduisit soigneusement la voiture le long de la haie, afin de ne point\nembarrasser la route, et retourna vers son compagnon pour soulager sa\nd\u00e9tresse, laissant dans la voiture M. Tupman et M. Snodgrass.\n\nAussit\u00f4t que le cheval vit M. Pickwick s'avancer vers lui avec son grand\nfouet dans sa main, il fit succ\u00e9der au mouvement de rotation dont il\ns'\u00e9tait amus\u00e9 jusqu'alors un mouvement r\u00e9trograde si d\u00e9cid\u00e9, qu'il for\u00e7a\nM. Winkle, qui ne voulait pas l\u00e2cher le bout de la bride, \u00e0 marcher\nd'une vitesse extr\u00eame du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de Rochester. M. Pickwick courut \u00e0 son\nsecours; mais plus M. Pickwick courait en avant, plus le cheval courait\nen arri\u00e8re. Ses pieds sonnaient sur la route; la poussi\u00e8re volait autour\nde lui, et, \u00e0 la fin, M. Winkle, dont les bras \u00e9taient presque\nd\u00e9mantibul\u00e9s, fut oblig\u00e9 de laisser aller la bride. Le cheval s'arr\u00eata,\nregarda autour de lui d'un air \u00e9tonn\u00e9, se retourna, et se mit \u00e0 trotter\ntranquillement vers son \u00e9curie, laissant l\u00e0 M. Winkle et M. Pickwick,\nqui \u00e9chang\u00e8rent entre eux des regards de d\u00e9sappointement. Tout \u00e0 coup le\nroulement d'une voiture \u00e0 peu de distance attira leur attention; ils\ntourn\u00e8rent la t\u00eate: \u00abIl ne manquait plus que cela! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick\navec d\u00e9sespoir; voil\u00e0 l'autre cheval qui s'en va aussi!\u00bb\n\nCela n'\u00e9tait que trop vrai. Le buc\u00e9phale de la chaise avait \u00e9t\u00e9 effray\u00e9\npar le bruit que faisait son compagnon; il avait la bride sur le cou, et\nl'on peut sans peine imaginer le r\u00e9sultat!\n\nIl s'\u00e9chappa, entra\u00eenant avec rapidit\u00e9 MM. Tupman et Snodgrass. H\u00e9las!\nleur carri\u00e8re ne fut pas longue. M. Tupman, hors de lui-m\u00eame, se jeta\ndans la haie, et M. Snodgrass suivit instinctivement son exemple. Le\ncheval brisa la voiture contre un pont de bois, s\u00e9para les roues du\nbrancard, le brancard de la caisse, et, finalement, resta immobile \u00e0\ncontempler les ruines qu'il avait faites.\n\nLe premier soin des deux amis intacts fut d'extraire les deux amis\nnaufrag\u00e9s de leur lit d'\u00e9pines. Quand ils y furent parvenus, ils\ns'aper\u00e7urent avec une satisfaction inexprimable que ceux-ci n'avaient\npas souffert de dommage s\u00e9rieux, et qu'ils en \u00e9taient quittes pour de\nnombreuses d\u00e9chirures dans leurs v\u00eatements et dans leur peau. Tous\nensemble, ils s'occup\u00e8rent alors \u00e0 d\u00e9barrasser le cheval des d\u00e9bris de\nla chaise; et lorsque cette op\u00e9ration compliqu\u00e9e fut termin\u00e9e, ils le\nplac\u00e8rent au milieu d'eux, et poursuivirent lentement leur chemin,\nabandonnant les restes de la voiture \u00e0 leur triste destin\u00e9e.\n\nUne heure de marche amena nos voyageurs aupr\u00e8s d'une petite auberge\nplant\u00e9e entre deux ormes sur le bord de la route. On voyait par-devant\nune grande auge et une \u00e9norme enseigne; par derri\u00e8re, une ou deux meules\nd\u00e9form\u00e9es; sur le c\u00f4t\u00e9, un jardin potager; et tout autour, entass\u00e9s dans\nune \u00e9trange confusion, des hangars ruin\u00e9s et des appentis couverts de\nmousse. Un paysan, porteur d'une t\u00eate rousse, travaillait dans le\njardin. M. Pickwick l'aper\u00e7ut et lui cria: \u00abOh\u00e9, l\u00e0 bas!\u00bb Le paysan se\nreleva lentement, abrita ses yeux avec ses mains, et examina froidement\nM. Pickwick et ses compagnons.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9, l\u00e0 bas! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick.\n\n--Oh\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit la t\u00eate rousse.\n\n--Combien y a-t-il d'ici \u00e0 Dingley-Dell?\n\n--Sept bons milles.\n\n--La route est-elle bonne?\n\n--Non!\u00bb r\u00e9torqua bri\u00e8vement le paysan. Puis, ayant fait subir \u00e0 nos\nvoyageurs un nouvel examen, il se remit \u00e0 travailler, sans s'occuper\nd'eux davantage.\n\n\u00abNous voudrions laisser ce cheval ici, reprit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Laisser le cheval ici? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta l'homme en s'appuyant sur sa b\u00eache.\n\n--Pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, qui s'\u00e9tait avanc\u00e9 avec son\ncoursier jusqu'\u00e0 la porte de la palissade du jardin.\n\n--Ma\u00eetresse! beugla l'homme \u00e0 la t\u00eate rousse, en sortant du potager et\nen regardant le cheval d'un air soup\u00e7onneux; ma\u00eetresse!\u00bb\n\nUne grande femme osseuse et toute droite du haut en bas r\u00e9pondit \u00e0 cet\nappel. Elle \u00e9tait couverte d'un gros sarrau bleu, et sa taille se\ntrouvait \u00e0 un pouce ou deux de ses aisselles.\n\n\u00abMa bonne femme, dit M. Pickwick en s'approchant et en faisant usage de\nsa voix la plus insinuante, pouvons-nous laisser ce cheval ici?\u00bb\n\nLe paysan dit quelque chose \u00e0 l'oreille de la grande femme. Celle-ci\nregarda toute la caravane du haut en bas, et, apr\u00e8s un instant de\nr\u00e9flexion, r\u00e9pondit: \u00abNon, je n'en avons pas le coeur!\n\n--Le coeur! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick; qu'est-ce qu'elle parle de son coeur?\n\n--J'avons \u00e9t\u00e9 inqui\u00e9t\u00e9e pour \u00e7a l'autre fois, dit la femme, en rentrant\ndans la maison, et je ne voulons pu rien y voir.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 la chose la plus extraordinaire qui me soit jamais arriv\u00e9e dans\ntous mes voyages, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, rempli d'\u00e9tonnement.\n\n--Je crois.... je crois r\u00e9ellement, murmura M. Winkle \u00e0 ses amis, je\ncrois qu'ils nous soup\u00e7onnent d'avoir d\u00e9rob\u00e9 ce cheval.\n\n--Comment! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, avec une explosion d'indignation. M.\nWinkle r\u00e9p\u00e9ta modestement l'opinion qu'il venait d'\u00e9mettre.\n\n--Oh\u00e9! l'homme! cria M. Pickwick, irrit\u00e9, pensez-vous donc que nous\navons vol\u00e9 ce cheval?\n\n--Je ne le crois pas, j'en suis s\u00fbr! r\u00e9pondit l'homme \u00e0 la t\u00eate rouge,\navec une esp\u00e8ce de sourire qui agita toute sa physionomie de l'une \u00e0\nl'autre oreille; et en parlant ainsi, il entra dans la maison, dont il\nferma soigneusement la porte.\n\n--C'est comme un r\u00eave! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, un hideux cauchemar! O ciel!\nimaginez-vous un homme marchant toute une journ\u00e9e, poursuivi par un\ncheval \u00e9pouvantable, dont il ne peut pas se d\u00e9barrasser!\n\nLes pickwickiens abattus se remirent tristement en route, l'\u00e9norme\nquadrup\u00e8de, pour qui ils ressentaient le plus profond d\u00e9go\u00fbt, marchant\nlentement sur leurs talons.\n\nL'apr\u00e8s-midi \u00e9tait fort avanc\u00e9e lorsque nos quatre amis, toujours suivis\ndu malencontreux animal, arriv\u00e8rent enfin dans la ruelle qui conduisait\n\u00e0 Manoir-ferme. Mais quoiqu'ils touchassent au terme de leurs fatigues,\nleur satisfaction \u00e9tait prodigieusement amortie par l'absurde\nsingularit\u00e9 de leur apparence; des habits d\u00e9chir\u00e9s, des visages\n\u00e9gratign\u00e9s, des souliers sales, des figures ext\u00e9nu\u00e9es; et par-dessus\ntout, l'affreux cheval. Oh! combien M. Pickwick le maudissait! De temps\nen temps il jetait sur lui des regards o\u00f9 se peignaient la haine et le\nd\u00e9sir d'une \u00e9pouvantable vengeance. Plus d'une fois, il avait calcul\u00e9 le\nmontant probable de ce qu'il faudrait payer pour avoir la satisfaction\nde lui couper la gorge; et maintenant la tentation de l'assassiner ou de\nl'abandonner dans les champs d\u00e9serts se pr\u00e9sentait \u00e0 son esprit avec dix\nfois plus de violence. Cependant il avan\u00e7ait toujours, et \u00e0 l'un des\nd\u00e9tours de la ruelle, il fut distrait de ses horribles pens\u00e9es par\nl'apparition soudaine de deux personnages. C'\u00e9taient M. Wardle et son\nfid\u00e8le serviteur, le gros gar\u00e7on rougeaud.\n\n\u00abEh bien! o\u00f9 donc avez-vous \u00e9t\u00e9? demanda le gentleman hospitalier. Je\nvous ai attendu toute la journ\u00e9e. Vous avez l'air fatigu\u00e9s. Quoi! des\n\u00e9gratignures! pas de blessures, j'esp\u00e8re?... Non... j'en suis bien aise.\nVous avez vers\u00e9? N'y pensez plus, c'est un accident commun dans ce\npays-ci.--Joe, damn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on, il est encore \u00e0 dormir! Joe, prenez ce\ncheval et conduisez-le dans l'\u00e9curie.\u00bb\n\nLe gros joufflu tenant en bride le fatal coursier, se tra\u00eena d'un pas\nparesseux derri\u00e8re la compagnie, tandis que le vieux gentleman\ns'effor\u00e7ait de consoler ses h\u00f4tes de la partie de leurs aventures qu'ils\njug\u00e8rent \u00e0 propos de lui communiquer.\n\nArriv\u00e9s \u00e0 Manoir-ferme, il commen\u00e7a par les faire entrer dans la cuisine\nen leur disant: \u00abNous allons tout r\u00e9parer ici, et ensuite je vous\nintroduirai dans le salon.--Emma, apportez l'eau-de-vie de\ncerises.--Maintenant, Jane, une aiguille et du fil.--Mary, des\nserviettes et de l'eau. Allons vite, mes filles, d\u00e9p\u00eachons.\u00bb\n\nTrois ou quatre grosses r\u00e9jouies se dispers\u00e8rent rapidement pour aller\nchercher les articles demand\u00e9s, tandis qu'un couple de domestiques\nm\u00e2les, aux t\u00eates rondes et aux larges visages, se lev\u00e8rent des si\u00e9ges\nqu'ils occupaient aupr\u00e8s de la chemin\u00e9e comme s'ils avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e0 No\u00ebl,\nse plong\u00e8rent dans l'obscurit\u00e9 de divers recoins, et en ressortirent\nbient\u00f4t, arm\u00e9s d'une bouteille de cirage et d'une demi-douzaine de\nbrosses.\n\n\u00abAllons, vite!\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le vieux gentleman. Mais c'\u00e9tait une exhortation\ntout \u00e0 fait inutile, car l'une des servantes versait l'eau-de-vie,\nl'autre apportait les serviettes, et l'un des hommes saisissant\nsoudainement M. Pickwick par la jambe, au hasard imminent de lui faire\nperdre l'\u00e9quilibre, brossait ses bottes avec tant d'ardeur que ses cors\nen rougirent au blanc. Dans le m\u00eame temps, un second domestique frottait\nM. Winkle avec une \u00e9norme brosse, tout en produisant avec sa bouche\ncette esp\u00e8ce de sifflement que les gar\u00e7ons d'\u00e9curie ont l'habitude de\nfaire entendre quand ils \u00e9trillent un cheval.\n\nQuant \u00e0 M. Snodgrass, apr\u00e8s avoir termin\u00e9 ses ablutions, il tourna son\ndos au feu, et savourant avec d\u00e9lices son eau-de-vie, il se mit \u00e0\nexaminer la pi\u00e8ce o\u00f9 il se trouvait.\n\nD'apr\u00e8s la description qu'il en a faite, c'\u00e9tait une vaste chambre pav\u00e9e\nde briques rouges. La chemin\u00e9e paraissait immense; le plafond s'honorait\nd'une garniture de bottes d'oignons, de jambons et de lard; les murs\n\u00e9taient d\u00e9cor\u00e9s de plusieurs cravaches, de deux ou trois brides, d'une\nselle et d'une vieille espingole rouill\u00e9e. Au-dessous de celle-ci, on\nlisait en gros caract\u00e8re: CHARG\u00c9E, et elle devait l'\u00eatre depuis plus\nd'un demi-si\u00e8cle, s'il fallait en croire son apparence et celle de\nl'inscription. Un vieux coucou, au mouvement tranquille et solennel,\ntictaquait gravement dans un coin, tandis qu'une montre d'argent, d'une\n\u00e9gale antiquit\u00e9, se dandinait \u00e0 l'un des nombreux crochets dont la\nmuraille \u00e9tait sem\u00e9e.\n\n\u00ab\u00cates-vous pr\u00eats? demanda le vieux gentleman \u00e0 ses h\u00f4tes, quand il les\nvit bien lav\u00e9s, bien recousus, bien bross\u00e9s, bien restaur\u00e9s.\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Alors, venez avec moi.\u00bb Trois des voyageurs le suivirent \u00e0 travers\nplusieurs corridors sombres, ils furent rejoints \u00e0 la porte du salon par\nM. Tupman, qui \u00e9tait rest\u00e9 derri\u00e8re pour d\u00e9rober un baiser \u00e0 Emma, mais\nqui n'avait obtenu, pour toute r\u00e9compense, qu'un certain nombre de\nbourrades et d'\u00e9gratignures. Cependant le vieillard les introduisit en\ndisant: \u00abGentlemen, soyez les bienvenus \u00e0 Manoir-ferme.\u00bb\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE VI.\n\nUne soir\u00e9e d'autrefois. Histoire racont\u00e9e par un eccl\u00e9siastique.\n\n\nPlusieurs visites r\u00e9unies dans le salon se lev\u00e8rent pour recevoir les\nnouveaux venus, et pendant qu'on accomplissait les formalit\u00e9s\nc\u00e9r\u00e9monieuses des introductions, M. Pickwick eut le loisir d'examiner la\nfigure des assistants et de sp\u00e9culer sur leur caract\u00e8re et sur leurs\noccupations. C'\u00e9tait un genre d'amusement auquel il se livrait\nvolontiers, ainsi que beaucoup d'autres grands hommes.\n\nUne tr\u00e8s-vieille dame, avec un \u00e9norme bonnet et une robe de soie fan\u00e9e,\noccupait le poste d'honneur \u00e0 l'angle droit de la chemin\u00e9e. Ce n'\u00e9tait\npas un moindre personnage que la m\u00e8re de M. Wardle. Plusieurs\ncertificats, prouvant qu'elle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 bien \u00e9lev\u00e9e et n'avait pas\nquitt\u00e9 la bonne route en vieillissant, \u00e9taient appendus aux murailles,\nsous la forme d'antiques paysages en tapisserie, d'alphabets en point de\nmarque, non moins antiques, et de poign\u00e9es \u00e0 bouilloires en soie\ncramoisie, d'une plus r\u00e9cente p\u00e9riode. La tante demoiselle, les deux\njeunes filles et M. Wardle, group\u00e9s autour de la vieille dame,\nsemblaient disputer \u00e0 qui lui t\u00e9moignerait les attentions les plus\ninfatigables. L'une tenait son cornet acoustique, l'autre une orange, la\ntroisi\u00e8me un flacon d'odeurs, tandis que M. Wardle tamponnait\nsoigneusement les coussins qui la supportaient. De l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la\nchemin\u00e9e \u00e9tait assis un vieux gentleman, dou\u00e9 d'une contenance\nbienveillante et d'une t\u00eate chauve c'\u00e9tait le vicaire de Dingley-Dell;\naupr\u00e8s de lui se trouvait sa femme, bonne vieille dame dont la\nphysionomie robuste et le teint anim\u00e9 semblaient annoncer que, si elle\n\u00e9tait savante dans la confection de tous les cordiaux fabriqu\u00e9s par une\nbonne m\u00e9nag\u00e8re, elle savait aussi se les administrer \u00e0 propos. Un petit\nhomme, porteur d'une t\u00eate semblable \u00e0 une pomme de reinette, causait\ndans un coin avec un gentleman vieux et gros, tandis que deux ou trois\nautres vieillards et tout autant de vieilles ladies \u00e9taient assis,\nroides et immobiles sur leurs chaises, consid\u00e9rant impitoyablement M.\nPickwick et ses compagnons de voyage.\n\n\u00abMa m\u00e8re!\u00bb dit M. Wardle, de toute l'\u00e9tendue de sa voix, M. Pickwick!\n\n--Oh! fit la vieille lady, en secouant la t\u00eate, je ne vous entends pas.\n\n--M. Pickwick! grand'maman! cri\u00e8rent ensemble les deux jeunes\ndemoiselles.\n\n--Ah! reprit la vieille dame, c'est bon; cela ne fait pas grand'chose.\nIl ne se soucie gu\u00e8re d'une vieille femme comme moi, j'en suis certaine.\n\n--Je vous assure, madame, dit M. Pickwick, en saisissant la main de la\nvieille lady, et en parlant tellement fort, que sa bienveillante figure\nen devint \u00e9carlate, je vous assure, madame, que rien ne me charme autant\nque de voir, \u00e0 la t\u00eate d'une si belle famille, une personne de votre\n\u00e2ge, paraissant aussi jeune et aussi bien portante.\n\n--Ah! reprit la vieille dame, apr\u00e8s une courte pose, tout cela est fort\njoli, j'en suis s\u00fbre; mais je ne peux pas l'entendre.\n\n--Grand'maman est mal dispos\u00e9e maintenant, dit doucement miss Isabella\nWardle, mais elle vous parlera tout \u00e0 l'heure.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick exprima par un signe son empressement \u00e0 se pr\u00eater aux\ninfirmit\u00e9s de l'\u00e2ge; et, se retournant, il prit part \u00e0 la conversation\ng\u00e9n\u00e9rale.\n\n\u00abCharmante habitation! situation d\u00e9licieuse! dit-il.\n\n--D\u00e9licieuse! r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e8rent MM. Snodgrass, Tupman et Winkle.\n\n--Oui, je m'en flatte, repondit M. Wardle.\n\n--Monsieur, dit l'homme \u00e0 la t\u00eate de pomme de reinette, il n'y a pas un\nmeilleur morceau de terre dans tout le comt\u00e9 de Kent; il n'y en a pas,\nen v\u00e9rit\u00e9, monsieur. Je suis s\u00fbr qu'il n'y en a pas!\u00bb Et il regarda\nautour de lui d'un air triomphant, comme s'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 violemment\ncontredit par quelqu'un, et qu'il f\u00fbt parvenu \u00e0 lui imposer silence.\n\n\u00abIl n'y a pas un meilleur morceau de terre dans tout le comt\u00e9 de Kent,\nr\u00e9p\u00e9ta l'homme \u00e0 la t\u00eate de pomme de reinette, apr\u00e8s une pause.\n\n--Except\u00e9 le pr\u00e9 de Mullins, articula solennellement le gros gentleman.\n\n--Le pr\u00e9 de Mullins! s'\u00e9cria l'autre avec un profond m\u00e9pris.\n\n--C'est une excellente terre, insinua un second gros homme.\n\n--Oui, assur\u00e9ment, dit un troisi\u00e8me gros homme.\n\n--Tout le monde sait cela,\u00bb poursuivit l'h\u00f4te corpulent.\n\nL'homme \u00e0 t\u00eate de pomme de reinette regarda dubitativement autour de\nlui; mais, se trouvant d\u00e9cid\u00e9ment en minorit\u00e9, il prit un air de\nsup\u00e9riorit\u00e9 compatissante, et n'ajouta plus rien.\n\n\u00abDe quoi parle-t-on? demanda la vieille dame \u00e0 l'une de ses\npetites-filles d'un son de voix tr\u00e8s-\u00e9lev\u00e9; car, suivant l'usage des\nsourds, elle ne semblait pas imaginer que d'autres pussent entendre ce\nqu'elle-m\u00eame disait.\n\n--On parle de la terre, grand'maman.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'on dit de la terre? Est-ce qu'il est arriv\u00e9 quelque\nchose?\n\n--Non, non. M. Miller disait que notre terre est meilleure que le pr\u00e9 de\nMullins.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il en sait? demanda la vieille dame avec indignation.\nMiller est un fat impertinent, et vous pouvez le lui dire de ma part.\u00bb\nAyant prof\u00e9r\u00e9 cette sentence, la vieille dame se redressa, et regarda le\nd\u00e9linquant d'un air s\u00e9v\u00e8re, sans se douter un seul instant qu'elle avait\nparl\u00e9 de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 \u00eatre entendue de tout le monde.\n\n--Allons! allons! fit M. Wardle en s'empressant avec une anxi\u00e9t\u00e9\nnaturelle de changer la conversation; que dites-vous d'un whist,\nmonsieur Pickwick?\n\n--Je l'aimerais par-dessus toute chose; mais, je vous prie, ne le faites\npas \u00e0 cause de moi.\n\n--Oh! je vous assure que ma m\u00e8re aime beaucoup \u00e0 faire son whist.\nN'est-ce pas vrai, ma m\u00e8re?\u00bb\n\nLa vieille dame, qui \u00e9tait beaucoup moins sourde sur ce sujet que sur\ntout autre, r\u00e9pondit affirmativement.\n\n\u00abJoe! Joe! cria le vieux gentleman, Joe! damn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on.... Ah! le voil\u00e0!\nDressez les tables de jeu.\u00bb\n\nLe l\u00e9thargique jeune homme vint \u00e0 bout de dresser, sans autre stimulant,\ndeux tables de jeu: l'une pour faire le whist, l'autre pour jouer \u00e0 la\npapesse Jeanne. Les joueurs de whist \u00e9taient: M. Pickwick et la vieille\nlady, M. Miller et le gros gentleman. L'autre jeu comprenait le reste de\nla soci\u00e9t\u00e9.\n\nLe whist fut conduit avec tout le s\u00e9rieux, avec toute la gravit\u00e9\nqu'exige cet acte solennel, auquel, suivant nous, on a mal \u00e0 propos et\navec irr\u00e9v\u00e9rence donn\u00e9 le nom de jeu. Mais, \u00e0 la table ronde, on faisait\n\u00e9clater une gaiet\u00e9 si bruyante, qu'elle nuisait notablement aux\nr\u00e9flexions de M. Miller. Ce malheureux personnage n'\u00e9tant pas aussi\nabsorb\u00e9 par son jeu qu'il aurait d\u00fb l'\u00eatre, tombait dans des fautes,\ndans des crimes impardonnables, qui excitaient au plus haut degr\u00e9 la\nrage du gros gentleman, et \u00e9veillaient proportionnellement la bonne\nhumeur de la vieille lady.\n\n\u00abAh! ah! fit le criminel Miller d'un ton victorieux en prenant la\nsepti\u00e8me lev\u00e9e. Je ne pouvais pas mieux jouer, j'esp\u00e8re; il \u00e9tait\nimpossible de faire un trick de plus.\u00bb\n\nLa vieille dame ne le laissa pas longtemps dans cette heureuse situation\nd'esprit. \u00abMiller aurait d\u00fb couper le carreau, dit-elle; n'est-il pas\nvrai, monsieur?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick salua affirmativement.\n\nLe joueur infortun\u00e9 fit un appel \u00e0 la g\u00e9n\u00e9rosit\u00e9 de son partner en\ndisant d'un ton dubitatif: \u00abDevais-je r\u00e9ellement le couper?\n\n--Certainement, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit s\u00e8chement le gros gentleman.\n\n--J'en suis d\u00e9sol\u00e9, r\u00e9pliqua Miller avec abattement.\n\n--Il est bien temps! grommela son partner.\n\n--Deux d'honneurs. Cela nous fait huit,\u00bb dit M. Pickwick.\n\nOn redonna des cartes.\n\n\u00abPouvez-vous en faire encore une? demanda la vieille dame.\n\n--Oui, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick. Double, simple; et le rob.\n\n--On n'a jamais vu une pareille chance! fit observer M. Miller.\n\n--Ni d'aussi vilaines cartes!\u00bb ajouta le gros gentleman.\n\nUn silence solennel s'ensuivit. M. Pickwick \u00e9tait enjou\u00e9, la vieille\ndame attentive, le gros gentleman querelleur, et M. Miller craintif.\n\n\u00abEncore une partie double! s'\u00e9cria la vieille dame triomphante, en\npla\u00e7ant sous le flambeau une pi\u00e8ce de six pence et un demi-penny, sans\nempreinte, comme m\u00e9morandum du fait.\n\n--Encore une partie double, monsieur, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Je le sais bien, monsieur,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua le gros gentleman avec aigreur.\n\nDans le courant d'une autre partie, dont le r\u00e9sultat fut le m\u00eame, M.\nMiller eut le malheur de faire une renonce. Aussi, le gros gentleman ne\nfut plus ma\u00eetre de contenir son irritation. La vieille dame, au\ncontraire, entendait de mieux en mieux, tandis que l'infortun\u00e9 Miller\nparaissait aussi peu dans son \u00e9l\u00e9ment qu'un dauphin dans une gu\u00e9rite.\nQuand le whist fut termin\u00e9, le gros gentleman se retint dans un coin et\nresta parfaitement muet durant une heure vingt-sept minutes: alors\nseulement, sortant de sa retraite, il offrit \u00e0 M. Pickwick une prise de\ntabac, avec l'air g\u00e9n\u00e9reux d'un homme que la charit\u00e9 chr\u00e9tienne engage \u00e0\npardonner les injures qu'il a re\u00e7ues.\n\nPendant ces \u00e9v\u00e9nements, le jeu de la table ronde continuait avec gaiet\u00e9.\nIsabelle Wardle s'\u00e9tait associ\u00e9e avec M. Trundle, \u00c9mily Wardle avec M.\nSnodgrass, et qui plus est, M. Tupman et la tante demoiselle avaient\naussi form\u00e9 une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de fiches et de galanteries. Le vieux M. Wardle\n\u00e9tait au comble de la joie; il conduisait une banque avec tant d'astuce,\nles dames montraient tant d'\u00e2pret\u00e9 au gain, qu'un tonnerre d'\u00e9clats de\nrire retentissait continuellement autour de la table. Il y avait une\nvieille lady qui \u00e9tait toujours oblig\u00e9e de payer pour une demi-douzaine\nde cartes. Tout le monde en riait r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement \u00e0 chaque tour, et quand\nla vieille lady avait l'air vex\u00e9 de payer, on riait encore plus fort:\nalors son visage s'\u00e9panouissait par degr\u00e9s, et elle finissait par faire\nchorus avec les autres. Quand la tante demoiselle faisait un _mariage_,\nles jeunes personnes \u00e9clataient de nouveau et la tante demoiselle\ndevenait de tr\u00e8s-mauvaise humeur; mais elle sentait la main de M. Tupman\nqui saisissait la sienne par-dessous la table, et son visage\ns'\u00e9panouissait aussi, puis elle prenait un air \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s malin, comme\nsi le mariage n'avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 aussi loin de la question qu'on le\nsupposait. Alors tout le monde recommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 rire, surtout le vieux\nWardle qui s'amusait d'une plaisanterie au moins autant que les plus\njeunes. Cependant, M. Snodgrass murmurait continuellement dans l'oreille\nde sa partner des sentiments po\u00e9tiques, qui faisaient faire \u00e0 un vieux\ngentleman sur les associations pour les cartes et sur les associations\npour la vie, des remarques fac\u00e9tieuses et malignes, accompagn\u00e9es de\ncoups d'oeil, de coups de coude et de sourires. L'hilarit\u00e9 de la\ncompagnie en \u00e9tait redoubl\u00e9e, et sp\u00e9cialement celle de l'\u00e9pouse du\nsusdit vieux gentleman. De temps en temps M. Winkle \u00e9ditait des bons\nmots, fort connus dans la ville, mais qui ne l'\u00e9taient pas encore dans\nla province; et comme tout le monde en riait de tr\u00e8s-bon coeur et les\ntrouvait excellente, M. Winkle \u00e9tait resplendissant d'honneur et de\ngloire. Quant au bienveillant eccl\u00e9siastique, il regardait cette sc\u00e8ne\nd'un air satisfait, car le bon vieillard \u00e9tait heureux de voir des\nvisages heureux autour de lui; et, quoique la joie f\u00fbt assez bruyante,\nelle venait du coeur, non des l\u00e8vres, c'est-\u00e0-dire que c'\u00e9tait la\nv\u00e9ritable joie, apr\u00e8s tout.\n\nLa soir\u00e9e s'\u00e9coula rapidement au sein de ces r\u00e9cr\u00e9ations. Apr\u00e8s un\nsouper simple et substantiel, un cercle sociable fut form\u00e9 autour du\nfeu, et M. Pickwick d\u00e9clara que jamais de sa vie il n'avait ressenti\nplus de vrai bonheur et n'avait \u00e9t\u00e9 mieux dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 jouir du pr\u00e9sent\nh\u00e9las! trop fugitif.\n\nLe vieillard hospitalier \u00e9tait assis en c\u00e9r\u00e9monie aupr\u00e8s du fauteuil de\nsa m\u00e8re, et tenait une de ses mains dans les siennes: \u00abVoil\u00e0 pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment\nce que j'aime, disait-il. Les plus heureux instants de mon existence se\nsont pass\u00e9s aupr\u00e8s de ce vieux foyer, et je trouve du plaisir \u00e0 y faire\nflamber du feu jusqu'\u00e0 ce que la chaleur devienne insupportable.\nVoyez-vous... ma pauvre vieille m\u00e8re que voil\u00e0, s'asseyait dans cette\nchemin\u00e9e sur ce petit tabouret, quand elle \u00e9tait enfant. N'est-il pas\nvrai, ma m\u00e8re?\u00bb\n\nLa vieille lady secoua la t\u00eate avec un sourire m\u00e9lancolique, et l'on vit\ncouler lentement sur ses joues ces larmes involontaires qui s'\u00e9veillent\nau souvenir des anciens temps et du bonheur \u00e9coul\u00e9 depuis de longues\nann\u00e9es.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Pickwick, continua leur h\u00f4te apr\u00e8s un court silence, vous\nm'excuserez si je parle souvent de cet endroit, car je l'aime\npassionn\u00e9ment, et je n'en connais pas d'autre. La vieille maison et les\nchamps m\u00eames semblent \u00eatre pour moi d'anciens amis. J'en dis autant de\nnotre petite \u00e9glise garnie d'une \u00e9paisse tenture de lierre, sur lequel,\npar parenth\u00e8se, notre excellent ami que voil\u00e0 a fait une chanson \u00e0 son\narriv\u00e9e ici. Monsieur Snodgrass, il me semble que votre verre est vide.\n\n--Je vous demande pardon, r\u00e9pliqua ce gentleman, dont la curiosit\u00e9\npo\u00e9tique avait \u00e9t\u00e9 grandement excit\u00e9e par la derni\u00e8re phrase de son\nh\u00f4te. Vous parliez ce me semble d'une chanson sur le lierre?\n\n--C'est \u00e0 notre ami qu'il faut vous adresser \u00e0 ce sujet, dit M. Wardle\nen indiquant l'eccl\u00e9siastique par un signe.\n\n--Oserais-je vous prier, monsieur, de nous faire conna\u00eetre cette\ncomposition? dit alors M. Snodgrass.\n\n--V\u00e9ritablement, r\u00e9pondit le v\u00e9n\u00e9rable eccl\u00e9siastique, c'est fort peu de\nchose et ma seule excuse pour m'en \u00eatre rendu coupable, c'est que\nj'\u00e9tais tr\u00e8s-jeune dans ce temps-l\u00e0. Telle qu'elle est, toutefois, vous\nallez l'entendre, si vous le d\u00e9sirez.\u00bb\n\nUn murmure de curiosit\u00e9 fut naturellement la r\u00e9plique, et le vieil\neccl\u00e9siastique, souffl\u00e9 de temps en temps par sa femme, commen\u00e7a \u00e0\nr\u00e9citer la pi\u00e8ce de vers en question. \u00abJe l'appelle,\u00bb dit-il:\n\n    LE LIERRE.\n\n    Oh! quelle plante singuli\u00e8re\n    Que ce vieux gourmand de lierre,\n    Qui rampe sur d'anciens d\u00e9bris!\n    Il lui faut l'antique poussi\u00e8re\n    Que les si\u00e8cles seuls ont pu faire,\n    Pour contenter ses app\u00e9tits.\n    Oh! quelle plante singuli\u00e8re\n    Que ce vieux gourmand de lierre!\n\n    Dans son domaine solitaire,\n    Tant\u00f4t il s'\u00e9tend sur la terre,\n    Rongeant la pierre des tombeaux;\n    Et tant\u00f4t, relevant la t\u00eate,\n    Il grimpe, d'un air de conqu\u00eate,\n    Au sommet des plus grands ormeaux.\n    Oh! quelle plante singuli\u00e8re\n    Que ce vieux gourmand de lierre!\n\n    Par le cours fatal des ann\u00e9es,\n    Les nations sont ruin\u00e9es,\n    Mais lui, rien ne peut le fl\u00e9trir.\n    Les plus grands monuments de l'homme,\n    A quoi donc servent-ils, en somme?\n    A l'abriter, \u00e0 le nourrir.\n    Oh! quelle plante singuli\u00e8re\n    Que ce vieux gourmand de lierre!\n\nTandis que le bienveillant eccl\u00e9siastique r\u00e9p\u00e9tait ses vers une seconde\nfois pour permettre \u00e0 M. Snodgrass d'en prendre note, M. Pickwick\n\u00e9tudiait avec un grand int\u00e9r\u00eat l'expression de sa physionomie. Il prit\nensuite la parole et dit au vicaire:\n\n\u00abVoulez-vous me permettre, monsieur, malgr\u00e9 la nouveaut\u00e9 de notre\nconnaissance, de vous demander si, dans le cours de votre carri\u00e8re,\ncomme ministre de l'\u00e9vangile, vous n'avez pas observ\u00e9 beaucoup\nd'\u00e9v\u00e9nements dignes d'\u00eatre conserv\u00e9s dans la m\u00e9moire des hommes?\n\n--Effectivement, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua le ministre; j'ai observ\u00e9 beaucoup\nd'\u00e9v\u00e9nements, mais dans une sph\u00e8re \u00e9troite; et ils ont toujours \u00e9t\u00e9\nd'une nature simple et ordinaire.\n\n--Vous avez r\u00e9uni, je pense, quelques notes sur John Edmunds?\u00bb reprit\nM. Wardle, qui d\u00e9sirait mettre son ami en \u00e9vidence, pour l'\u00e9dification\nde ses nouveaux h\u00f4tes.\n\nLa vicaire fit un l\u00e9ger signe d'assentiment et se pr\u00e9parait \u00e0 changer le\nsujet de la conversation, lorsque M. Pickwick lui dit: \u00abPardonnez-moi,\nmonsieur; mais je vous serais oblig\u00e9 de m'apprendre qui \u00e9tait ce John\nEdmunds?\n\n--C'est pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment ce que j'allais demander; ajouta M. Snodgrass avec\nvivacit\u00e9.\n\n--Vous \u00eates pris, s'\u00e9cria le joyeux h\u00f4te. Il faudra, t\u00f4t ou tard, que\nvous satisfassiez la curiosit\u00e9 de ces messieurs; ainsi, vous feriez\nmieux de profiter de l'occasion et d'en finir sur-le-champ.\u00bb\n\nLe vieux ministre sourit avec bonhomie et rapprocha sa chaise de la\nchemin\u00e9e. Les autres membres se serr\u00e8rent aussi, principalement M.\nTupman et la tante demoiselle, qui avaient peut-\u00eatre l'ou\u00efe un peu dure.\nLe cornet de la vieille lady fut ajust\u00e9 soigneusement; M. Miller, qui\ns'\u00e9tait endormi, fut r\u00e9veill\u00e9 par son ex-partner, au moyen d'un pin\u00e7on\nmonitoire, administr\u00e9 par-dessous la table, et le ministre, sans autre\npr\u00e9face, commen\u00e7a le r\u00e9cit suivant, auquel nous avons pris la libert\u00e9 de\ndonner pour titre:\n\nLE RETOUR DU CONVICT.\n\n\u00abLorsque je fus nomm\u00e9 vicaire de ce village, il y a juste vingt-cinq\nans, j'y trouvai, parmi mes paroissiens, un certain Edmunds qui tenait \u00e0\nbail une petite ferme du voisinage. C'\u00e9tait un m\u00e9chant homme, paresseux\net dissolu par habitude, morose et f\u00e9roce par disposition. Except\u00e9\nquelques vagabonds abandonn\u00e9s qui fl\u00e2naient avec lui dans les champs ou\nqui s'abrutissaient \u00e0 la taverne, il n'avait pas un seul ami, pas m\u00eame\nune connaissance. En g\u00e9n\u00e9ral on l'\u00e9vitait, car personne ne se souciait\nde parler \u00e0 un individu redout\u00e9 par plusieurs, d\u00e9test\u00e9 par tous.\n\nCet homme avait une femme et un fils \u00e2g\u00e9 d'environ douze ans. Je vous\nattristerais sans n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 en vous d\u00e9peignant les souffrances qu'avait\nendur\u00e9es sa femme, et tout ce que je pourrais vous dire ne suffirait pas\npour appr\u00e9cier suffisamment la douceur et la r\u00e9signation qu'elle\nd\u00e9ployait dans les circonstances les plus d\u00e9licates, ni la sollicitude\npleine de tendresse et de douleur avec laquelle elle \u00e9levait son enfant.\nQue Dieu me pardonne ce que je vais dire, si c'est un soup\u00e7on peu\ncharitable, mais, dans mon \u00e2me et conscience, je crois que son mari\nessaya syst\u00e9matiquement, pendant plusieurs ann\u00e9es, de la faire mourir de\nchagrin. Elle supporta tout, cependant, pour l'amour de son fils; et\nm\u00eame, quoique cela puisse para\u00eetre \u00e9trange \u00e0 bien des gens, pour l'amour\nde son mari. Elle l'avait aim\u00e9 autrefois, et malgr\u00e9 ses brutalit\u00e9s,\nmalgr\u00e9 la cruaut\u00e9 qu'il lui t\u00e9moignait, le souvenir de ce qu'il avait\n\u00e9t\u00e9 pour elle \u00e9veillait encore dans son sein des sentiments de douce\nindulgence, auxquels, except\u00e9 la femme, toutes les autres cr\u00e9atures de\nDieu sont \u00e9trang\u00e8res.\n\nIls \u00e9taient pauvres: la conduite du mari ne permettait pas qu'il en f\u00fbt\nautrement; mais le travail obstin\u00e9, incessant de la femme, les\nmaintenait au-dessus du besoin. Cependant ses efforts \u00e9taient bien mal\nr\u00e9compens\u00e9s. Les gens qui passaient aupr\u00e8s de leur maison, le soir,\nentendaient souvent les pleurs, les g\u00e9missements de la malheureuse\nfemme, et le bruit des coups qu'elle recevait. Plus d'une fois, apr\u00e8s\nminuit, l'enfant vint frapper doucement \u00e0 la porte de quelque maison\nvoisine, o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait envoy\u00e9 par sa m\u00e8re, pour \u00e9chapper \u00e0 l'ivresse\nfurieuse du p\u00e8re d\u00e9natur\u00e9.\n\nPendant tout ce temps, et quoique la pauvre cr\u00e9ature port\u00e2t souvent des\nmarques de mauvais traitements, qu'elle ne pouvait pas enti\u00e8rement\ncacher, elle assistait r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement au service divin. Chaque dimanche,\nmatin et soir, elle occupait avec son fils le m\u00eame banc dans notre\npetite \u00e9glise; et quoique la m\u00e8re et l'enfant fussent tous deux\npauvrement habill\u00e9s (plus pauvrement m\u00eame que beaucoup de leurs voisins\nqui se trouvaient dans une position encore plus pr\u00e9caire), leur toilette\n\u00e9tait toujours d\u00e9cente et propre. Chacun avait un signe amical et une\nparole bienveillante pour cette _pauvre madame Edmunds_, et parfois\nquand, au sortir de l'\u00e9glise, elle s'arr\u00eatait sous les ormes qui\nconduisaient au porche, pour \u00e9changer quelques mots avec un voisin; ou\nquand elle ralentissait le pas pour regarder, avec l'orgueil et la\ntendresse d'une m\u00e8re, son enfant, rose et bien portant, qui jouait\ndevant elle avec quelques petits camarades, sa figure fatigu\u00e9e\ns'\u00e9clairait d'une expression de gratitude profond\u00e9ment ressentie, et\nelle paraissait \u00eatre sinon heureuse ou gaie, du moins r\u00e9sign\u00e9e et\ntranquille.\n\nCinq ou six ans s'\u00e9coul\u00e8rent: l'enfant \u00e9tait devenu un jeune homme\nrobuste et bien b\u00e2ti, mais le temps, qui avait renforc\u00e9 ses membres\nd\u00e9licats, avait courb\u00e9 la taille de sa m\u00e8re et affaibli sa d\u00e9marche; et\ncependant le bras qui aurait d\u00fb la supporter n'\u00e9tait plus encha\u00een\u00e9 sous\nle sien, le visage qui aurait d\u00fb la r\u00e9jouir ne la regardait plus en\nsouriant. Elle occupait toujours le m\u00eame banc, mais il y avait une place\nvacante \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 d'elle; sa bible \u00e9tait toujours tenue avec autant de\nsoin, elle y faisait des signets pour l'ouvrir aux diff\u00e9rentes lectures;\nmais il n'y avait plus personne pour la lire avec elle, et ses larmes\ncoulaient sur son livre, et d\u00e9robaient \u00e0 ses yeux le texte sacr\u00e9. Ses\nvoisins \u00e9taient encore aussi bienveillants qu'autrefois, mais maintenant\nelle d\u00e9tournait la t\u00eate pour \u00e9viter leur salut; elle ne s'arr\u00eatait plus\nsous les vieux ormes, et elle n'enfermait plus dans son coeur des tr\u00e9sors\nde bonheur et d'esp\u00e9rance. Dans sa d\u00e9solation elle enfon\u00e7ait sa coiffe\nsur son visage et elle s'\u00e9loignait d'un pas pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9. Faut-il vous le\ndire? Ce jeune homme qui aurait d\u00fb conserver pieusement dans sa m\u00e9moire\nle souvenir des privations volontaires, des mauvais traitements que sa\nm\u00e8re avait endur\u00e9s pour lui; oubliant au contraire tout ce qu'il lui\ndevait, et m\u00e9prisant cruellement les angoisses de son coeur bris\u00e9,\ns'\u00e9tait li\u00e9 avec les hommes les plus d\u00e9prav\u00e9s, les plus abandonn\u00e9s de\nDieu, et suivait une carri\u00e8re de vices et de crimes, qui devait aboutir\n\u00e0 la mort pour lui, \u00e0 la honte pour elle. H\u00e9las! pauvre nature humaine!\nVous avez d\u00e9j\u00e0 devin\u00e9 cela depuis longtemps.\n\nLa malheureuse femme \u00e9tait sur le point de voir compl\u00e9ter la mesure de\nses infortunes. Des d\u00e9lits nombreux avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 commis dans le\nvoisinage. Les coupables \u00e9taient rest\u00e9s impunis, et leur audace s'en\naugmentait. Un vol nocturne, accompagn\u00e9 de circonstances aggravantes,\noccasionna des poursuites actives, des recherches s\u00e9v\u00e8res, auxquelles il\n\u00e9tait impossible d'\u00e9chapper. Le jeune Edmunds fut soup\u00e7onn\u00e9, ainsi que\ntrois de ses compagnons; il fut arr\u00eat\u00e9, jug\u00e9 et condamn\u00e9 \u00e0 mort.\n\nLe cri per\u00e7ant et \u00e9gar\u00e9, le cri maternel qui effraya l'audience quand le\njugement solennel fut prononc\u00e9, retentit encore \u00e0 mon oreille. Ce cri\nfrappa de terreur le coeur du coupable, que le jugement, la condamnation,\nl'approche de la mort m\u00eame n'avaient pu \u00e9branler. Ses l\u00e8vres,\njusqu'alors comprim\u00e9es avec une sombre obstination, trembl\u00e8rent et se\ns\u00e9par\u00e8rent involontairement. Son visage devint p\u00e2le, une sueur froide\nmouilla son front, ses membres vigoureux frissonn\u00e8rent, et il chancela\nsur son banc.\n\nDans le premier transport de ses angoisses, la m\u00e8re d\u00e9sol\u00e9e se jeta \u00e0\ngenoux, et supplia douloureusement l'\u00catre infini, qui l'avait soutenue\njusqu'alors dans ses \u00e9preuves, de la d\u00e9livrer de ce monde de mis\u00e8re, et\nd'\u00e9pargner la vie de son unique enfant. A cette pri\u00e8re succ\u00e9da une\nexplosion de pleurs, une agonie de d\u00e9sespoir, telles que j'esp\u00e8re bien\nn'en revoir jamais de semblables. D\u00e8s cet instant, je fus convaincu que\nla douleur abr\u00e9gerait sa vie, mais je n'entendis plus une seule plainte,\nun seul murmure s'\u00e9chapper de ses l\u00e8vres.\n\nC'\u00e9tait un d\u00e9chirant spectacle de voir de jour en jour, dans la cour de\nla prison, cette malheureuse m\u00e8re qui s'effor\u00e7ait avec ferveur de\ntoucher par l'affection, par les pri\u00e8res, le coeur p\u00e9trifi\u00e9 de son fils.\nCe fut en vain: il resta sombre, farouche, imp\u00e9nitent. La commutation\ninesp\u00e9r\u00e9e de sa peine, en celle de la transportation pour quatorze ans,\nne put pas m\u00eame adoucir pour un seul instant son endurcissement obstin\u00e9.\n\nL'esprit de r\u00e9signation qui avait si longtemps soutenu sa m\u00e8re ne\npouvait plus lutter contre la faiblesse et la maladie. Pourtant elle\nvoulut revoir son fils encore une fois. Elle d\u00e9roba \u00e0 son lit de\nsouffrances ses membres chancelants; mais ses forces la trahirent, et\nelle tomba presque inanim\u00e9e sur le carreau.\n\nC'est alors que l'indiff\u00e9rence et le sto\u00efcisme tant vant\u00e9s du coupable\nfurent mis \u00e0 une rude \u00e9preuve. Un jour se passa sans qu'il v\u00eet sa m\u00e8re.\nUn second jour s'\u00e9coula, et elle ne vint pas. Un troisi\u00e8me soir arriva,\net sa m\u00e8re n'avait pas paru. Et dans vingt-quatre heures il devait \u00eatre\ns\u00e9par\u00e9 d'elle peut-\u00eatre pour toujours!\n\nCe nouveau ch\u00e2timent, qui tombait si pesamment sur lui, le rendit\npresque fou. Oh! comme les pens\u00e9es longtemps oubli\u00e9es de son enfance\nrevinrent en foule dans son esprit, tandis qu'il arpentait l'\u00e9troite\ncour d'un pas rapide, comme si la rapidit\u00e9 de sa course e\u00fbt pu h\u00e2ter\nl'arriv\u00e9e des nouvelles attendues; comme le sentiment de sa mis\u00e8re et de\nson abandon s'empara am\u00e8rement de lui, lorsqu'il apprit la v\u00e9rit\u00e9\nfatale! Sa m\u00e8re, la seule personne qui l'e\u00fbt jamais aim\u00e9, sa m\u00e8re \u00e9tait\nmalade, peut-\u00eatre mourante, \u00e0 une demi-lieue de lui; quelques minutes\nauraient pu le porter pr\u00e8s de son lit, s'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 libre, mais il ne\ndevait plus la revoir. Il se pr\u00e9cipita sur la grille, et saisissant les\nbarreaux de fer avec l'\u00e9nergie du d\u00e9sespoir, il la secoua et la fit\ntrembler; il s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a contre les murailles \u00e9paisses comme s'il avait\nvoulu les briser. Mais la prison solide bravait ses efforts insens\u00e9s, et\nil se mit \u00e0 pleurer comme un faible enfant, en se tordant les mains.\n\nJe portai au fils emprisonn\u00e9 les paroles de pardon et les b\u00e9n\u00e9dictions\nde sa m\u00e8re, mais sans lui dire jusqu'\u00e0 quel point son \u00e9tat \u00e9tait grave:\nje rapportai au lit de la mourante ses solennelles assurances de\nrepentir et ses supplications ferventes pour obtenir ce pardon.\nJ'\u00e9coutai avec une triste compassion les mille projets que le coupable\nrepentant faisait d\u00e9j\u00e0 pour soutenir sa m\u00e8re, pour la rendre heureuse\nquand il reviendrait de son exil. Et je savais que longtemps avant qu'il\ne\u00fbt atteint le but de son voyage elle ne serait plus de ce monde!\n\nIl fut emmen\u00e9 pendant la nuit. Peu de semaines apr\u00e8s, l'\u00e2me de la pauvre\nfemme prit son vol, et, comme je le crois avec confiance, pour une\nr\u00e9gion de paix et de bonheur \u00e9ternel. J'accomplis moi-m\u00eame le service\nfun\u00e8bre sur ses restes, qui reposent maintenant dans notre petit\ncimeti\u00e8re: il n'y a point de pierre \u00e0 la t\u00eate de sa tombe, \u00e0 quoi bon?\nSes chagrins \u00e9taient connus aux hommes et ses vertus \u00e0 Dieu.\n\nIl avait \u00e9t\u00e9 convenu, avant le d\u00e9part du condamn\u00e9, qu'il \u00e9crirait \u00e0 sa\nm\u00e8re aussit\u00f4t qu'il en pourrait obtenir la permission, et que ses\nlettres me seraient adress\u00e9es, car son p\u00e8re avait positivement refus\u00e9 de\nle voir, depuis le moment de son arrestation, et se souciait peu qu'il\nf\u00fbt mort ou vivant. Nombre d'ann\u00e9es s'\u00e9coul\u00e8rent sans que je re\u00e7usse de\nses nouvelles; et lorsque la moiti\u00e9 de son temps fut pass\u00e9e, j'en\nconclus qu'il n'existait plus, et en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, je le souhaitais presque.\n\nJe me trompais cependant. A son arriv\u00e9e \u00e0 Botany-Bay[9], il avait \u00e9t\u00e9\nenvoy\u00e9 dans l'int\u00e9rieur des terres, et ce fut apparemment pour cela\nqu'aucune de ses lettres ne me parvint. Il resta au m\u00eame endroit pendant\nquatorze ann\u00e9es, pers\u00e9v\u00e9rant constamment dans ses bonnes r\u00e9solutions, et\nfid\u00e8le aux promesses qu'il avait faites \u00e0 sa m\u00e8re. Quand son temps fut\nfini, il surmonta d'\u00e9normes difficult\u00e9s pour regagner l'Angleterre, et\nrevint \u00e0 pied au lieu de sa naissance.\n\n[Footnote 9: Colonie p\u00e9nitentiaire.]\n\nPar une belle soir\u00e9e du mois d'ao\u00fbt, John Edmunds rentra dans le village\ndont il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 honteusement emmen\u00e9 dix-sept ann\u00e9es auparavant. Le\nchemin qu'il suivait passait au milieu du cimeti\u00e8re, et son coeur se\ngonfla en le traversant, les rayons du soleil couchant se jouaient \u00e0\ntravers les branches gigantesques des vieux ormes qui r\u00e9veillaient dans\nl'esprit du lib\u00e9r\u00e9 les souvenirs de son jeune \u00e2ge; il se rappelait le\ntemps o\u00f9, s'attachant \u00e0 la main de sa m\u00e8re, il se rendait gaiement \u00e0\nl'\u00e9glise avec elle; il croyait voir encore son p\u00e2le visage; il croyait\nsentir les larmes br\u00fblantes qui tombaient sur son front lorsqu'elle se\nbaissait pour l'embrasser, et qui le faisaient pleurer aussi, quoiqu'il\nne s\u00fbt gu\u00e8re alors combien ces larmes \u00e9taient remplies d'amertume. Il se\nrappelait encore combien de fois il avait couru joyeusement dans ce m\u00eame\nsentier avec quelques-uns de ses petits camarades, se retournant de\ntemps en temps pour apercevoir le sourire de sa m\u00e8re, ou pour entendre\nsa douce voix; et alors il lui sembla qu'un rideau se tirait dans sa\nm\u00e9moire; et mille souvenirs de tendresse m\u00e9connue et d'avertissements\nm\u00e9pris\u00e9s, de promesses oubli\u00e9es, vinrent se presser dans son cerveau et\nd\u00e9chirer son coeur.\n\nIl entra dans l'\u00e9glise, car c'\u00e9tait un dimanche, et quoique le service\ndu soir f\u00fbt fini et que les assistants fussent dispers\u00e9s, la vieille\nporte de ch\u00eane, aux larges clous, n'\u00e9tait point encore ferm\u00e9e. Les pas\ndu convict retentirent sous la vo\u00fbte, et dans le calme religieux qui\nr\u00e9gnait autour de lui, il se trouva si isol\u00e9 qu'il eut presque peur. Il\nregarda les objets qui l'entouraient: rien n'\u00e9tait chang\u00e9. L'\u00e9glise lui\nparaissait plus petite que dans son enfance, mais elle renfermait\ntoujours les vieux monuments qu'il avait contempl\u00e9s mille fois avec une\ncrainte enfantine. L\u00e0 se trouvait la petite chaire, orn\u00e9e du coussin\nfan\u00e9 o\u00f9 le ministre posait sa bible, et o\u00f9 il avait entendu pr\u00eacher la\nparole de Dieu; ici la table de communion, devant laquelle il avait si\nsouvent r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9, dans son enfance, les commandements qu'il avait oubli\u00e9s\nquand il \u00e9tait devenu homme. Il s'approcha de l'ancien banc de sa m\u00e8re;\nle coussin avait \u00e9t\u00e9 retir\u00e9, la bible n'y \u00e9tait point. Il pensa que\npeut-\u00eatre Mme Edmunds occupait maintenant un si\u00e9ge plus pauvre, ou que\npeut-\u00eatre elle \u00e9tait devenue infirme et ne pouvait plus aller seule\njusqu'\u00e0 l'\u00e9glise. Il n'osait pas arr\u00eater son esprit sur une autre\nsupposition. Une sensation de froid s'empara de lui, et il tremblait de\ntous ses membres en se d\u00e9tournant pour sortir.\n\nComme il arrivait sous le porche, il y vit entrer un homme vieux et\ncass\u00e9. Il tressaillit, car il le reconnaissait: souvent il l'avait vu\ncreuser des fosses dans le cimeti\u00e8re derri\u00e8re l'\u00e9glise: et maintenant\nqu'est-ce que l'honn\u00eate sacristain allait dire au convict lib\u00e9r\u00e9? Le\nvieillard leva les yeux, le regarda un instant, lui souhaita le bonsoir,\net s'\u00e9loigna avec lenteur. Il ne l'avait pas reconnu.\n\nEdmunds descendit la colline et traversa le village. La saison \u00e9tait\nchaude, et les habitants, assis \u00e0 leur porte ou se promenant dans leur\npetit jardin, jouissaient de la fra\u00eecheur du soir et des douceurs du\nrepos, apr\u00e8s les fatigues de la journ\u00e9e. Beaucoup de regards se\ndirig\u00e8rent vers l'\u00e9tranger, et il jeta \u00e0 droite et \u00e0 gauche bien des\ncoups d'oeil inquiets, pour voir si on se souvenait de lui et si on\nl'\u00e9vitait. Il y avait des figures nouvelles dans presque toutes les\nmaisons; \u00e0 la porte de quelques-unes il reconnaissait la physionomie\nd'un camarade d'\u00e9cole, un bambin lorsqu'il l'avait quitt\u00e9, et maintenant\nenvironn\u00e9 de ses joyeux enfants: devant d'autres chaumi\u00e8res il voyait,\nassis dans un fauteuil, un vieillard faible et infirme, qu'il se\nrappelait avoir connu encore jeune et vigoureux. Tous l'avaient oubli\u00e9\net il passa sans que personne lui adress\u00e2t une parole.\n\nLes derniers et doux rayons du soleil avaient jet\u00e9 sur la terre une\nriche teinte de pourpre, donnant un \u00e9clat dor\u00e9 aux \u00e9pis jaunis et\nallongeant l'ombre des arbres, lorsqu'il arriva devant la vieille\nmaison, la maison de son enfance, apr\u00e8s laquelle son coeur avait soupir\u00e9\nsi souvent, si ardemment, durant de longues et p\u00e9nibles ann\u00e9es de\ncaptivit\u00e9 et de douleur. La palissade \u00e9tait basse, quoiqu'il se rappel\u00e2t\nle temps o\u00f9 elle lui paraissait gigantesque; il regarda par-dessus dans\nle jardin. Il y vit beaucoup plus de fleurs qu'il n'y en avait\nautrefois, mais les vieux arbres y \u00e9taient encore. Il reconnut celui\nsous lequel il s'\u00e9tait couch\u00e9 mille fois lorsqu'il \u00e9tait fatigu\u00e9 de\njouer au soleil, laissant doucement aller ses sens au l\u00e9ger sommeil\nd'une enfance heureuse. Il entendit des voix dans l'int\u00e9rieur de la\nmaison, mais elles affect\u00e8rent p\u00e9niblement son oreille, car il ne les\nconnaissait point, et elles exprimaient la gaiet\u00e9. Or il savait bien que\nsa pauvre vieille m\u00e8re ne pouvait pas \u00eatre gaie, lui absent. La porte\ns'ouvrit et il en vit sortir une troupe de petits enfante riant et\ngambadant.\n\nLe p\u00e8re, avec un marmot dans ses bras, parut sur le seuil et les enfants\nse press\u00e8rent autour de lui, frappant joyeusement des mains, et le\ntirant de toutes leurs forces pour lui faire prendre part \u00e0 leurs jeux.\nLe convict se rappela combien de fois, \u00e0 la m\u00eame place, il s'\u00e9tait\nd\u00e9rob\u00e9 aux regards de son p\u00e8re; il se rappela combien de fois il avait\ncach\u00e9 sous ses draps sa t\u00eate tremblante, en entendant les sanglote\n\u00e9touff\u00e9s de sa malheureuse m\u00e8re quand elle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 injuri\u00e9e et battue\npar son mari furieux. Il se d\u00e9tourna, et ses poings \u00e9taient crisp\u00e9s,\nses dents \u00e9taient serr\u00e9es avec rage, lorsqu'il s'\u00e9loigna de la maison\npaternelle.\n\nTel \u00e9tait donc le retour qui avait occup\u00e9 son esprit pendant un si grand\nnombre d'ann\u00e9es p\u00e9nibles, et pour lequel il avait support\u00e9 tant de\nsouffrances! Pas un visage ami, pas un regard de pardon, pas une main\npour l'aider, pas une maison pour l'accueillir; et cela dans le village\no\u00f9 il \u00e9tait n\u00e9! Quel abandon! quelle solitude! plus am\u00e8re mille fois que\ncelle des contr\u00e9es sauvages o\u00f9 il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 exil\u00e9!\n\nIl reconnut alors que, sur la terre lointaine de l'infamie et de la\nservitude, il s'\u00e9tait repr\u00e9sent\u00e9 les lieux de sa naissance tels qu'il\nles avait laiss\u00e9s, non pas tels qu'il devait les retrouver. La triste\nr\u00e9alit\u00e9 se d\u00e9voila tout d'un coup \u00e0 son esprit, et abattit son courage.\nIl n'eut pas la force de prendre des informations ni de se pr\u00e9senter \u00e0\nla seule personne qui devait le recevoir avec compassion. Il marcha\nlentement devant lui, \u00e9vitant la grande route, comme un coupable, entra\ndans une prairie qu'il avait parcourue jadis dans tous les sens, couvrit\nson visage de ses mains, et se laissa tomber sur l'herbe.\n\nUn homme, qu'Edmunds n'avait point aper\u00e7u, \u00e9tait assis tout aupr\u00e8s de\nlui sur la terre. Il se retourna pour regarder le nouveau venu, et\nEdmunds entendant le fr\u00f4lement de ses habits releva la t\u00eate.\n\nCet homme portait le costume du Work-House; son corps \u00e9tait courb\u00e9, sa\nface jaune et rid\u00e9e. Il paraissait tr\u00e8s-vieux, mais plut\u00f4t par l'effet\ndestructeur de l'intemp\u00e9rance et des maladies que par le r\u00e9sultat\ngraduel des ann\u00e9es. Ses yeux \u00e9taient lourds et ternes, mais quand ils\neurent contempl\u00e9 Edmunds pendant quelques instants, ils s'anim\u00e8rent\nd'une \u00e9trange expression d'alarme, et s'ouvrirent si horriblement qu'ils\nsemblaient pr\u00e8s de sortir de leur orbite.\n\nLe convict, se levant peu \u00e0 peu sur ses genoux, examinait avec une\nanxi\u00e9t\u00e9 toujours croissante le visage du vieillard. Ils s'observ\u00e8rent\nainsi en silence durant assez longtemps.\n\nTout \u00e0 coup le vieillard tressaillit, devint affreusement p\u00e2le, se leva\nen chancelant et recula quelques pas, en voyant qu'Edmunds se levait\naussi.\n\n\u00abParlez-moi! que j'entende le son de votre voix! s'\u00e9cria le lib\u00e9r\u00e9\npalpitant d'\u00e9motion.\n\n--N'avance pas!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria le vieillard en blasph\u00e9mant.\n\nMais Edmunds ne l'\u00e9coutait point et continuait \u00e0 s'approcher de lui.\n\n\u00abN'avance pas! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta-t-il en fr\u00e9missant de rage et de terreur; et en\nm\u00eame temps, levant son b\u00e2ton, il en frappa violemment le lib\u00e9r\u00e9 au\nvisage.\n\n--Mon p\u00e8re!... Mis\u00e9rable!...\u00bb murmura celui-ci entre ses dents serr\u00e9es;\npuis, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ant avec fureur, il saisit le vieillard \u00e0 la gorge; mais il\nse souvint que c'\u00e9tait son p\u00e8re, et ses mains retomb\u00e8rent sans force \u00e0\nses c\u00f4t\u00e9s.\n\nLe vieillard jeta un cri per\u00e7ant, qui retentit \u00e0 travers les champs\nd\u00e9serts comme les hurlements d'un mauvais esprit. Sa face devint livide,\nle sang jaillit de sa bouche et de son nez, il chancela et tomba en\narri\u00e8re. Il s'\u00e9tait rompu un vaisseau, et lorsque son fils le releva de\nla mare de sang noir et \u00e9pais qu'il avait vomie, il \u00e9tait mort.\n\nDans un coin de notre cimeti\u00e8re, repose un homme que j'ai employ\u00e9 \u00e0 mon\nservice pendant trois ann\u00e9es, apr\u00e8s cet \u00e9v\u00e9nement. Il \u00e9tait r\u00e9ellement\nrepentant et corrig\u00e9. Personne n'a su durant sa vie qui il \u00e9tait, ni\nd'o\u00f9 il venait. C'\u00e9tait Edmunds le convict lib\u00e9r\u00e9.\u00bb\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE VII.\n\nComment M. Winkle, au lieu de tirer le pigeon et de tuer la corneille,\ntira la corneille et blessa le pigeon. Comment le club de la Crosse de\nDingley-Dell lutta contre celui de Muggleton, et comment Muggleton d\u00eena\naux d\u00e9pens de Dingley-Dell. Avec diverses autres mati\u00e8res \u00e9galement\ninstructives et int\u00e9ressantes.\n\n\nLes fatigantes aventures de la journ\u00e9e, ou peut-\u00eatre l'influence\nsomnif\u00e8re de l'histoire racont\u00e9e par le ministre, op\u00e9r\u00e8rent si fortement\nsur les nerfs de M. Pickwick qu'il \u00e9tait \u00e0 peine au lit depuis cinq\nminutes, lorsqu'il s'endormit d'un sommeil profond. Il n'en fut tir\u00e9 que\nle lendemain matin par les brillants rayons du soleil levant, qui\np\u00e9n\u00e9traient dans sa chambre, et qui semblaient lui adresser des\nreproches.\n\nM. Pickwick n'\u00e9tait pas paresseux: comme un vaillant guerrier, il\ns'\u00e9lan\u00e7a hors de sa tente... je veux dire \u00e0 bas de son lit.\n\n\u00abQuel d\u00e9licieux pays! s'\u00e9cria-t-il avec enthousiasme en ouvrant sa\njalousie. Ah! lorsqu'on a senti l'influence d'un semblable paysage,\npourrait-on consentir \u00e0 vivre pour n'apercevoir chaque jour que des\nbriques et des ardoises? Pourrait-on continuer d'exister dans un lieu o\u00f9\nl'on ne voit pas de foin, except\u00e9 dans les \u00e9curies; pas de plantes\nfleuries except\u00e9 des joubarbes sur les toits; pas de vaches, except\u00e9\ncelles de l'imp\u00e9riale des voitures? Rien qui rappelle le dieu Pan,\nexcept\u00e9 des pans de muraille. Pourrait-on consentir \u00e0 tra\u00eener sa vie\ndans un tel s\u00e9jour? je le demande, pourrait-on endurer une semblable\nexistence?\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir ainsi, durant longtemps, interrog\u00e9 la solitude, suivant\nl'usage des plus grands po\u00ebtes, M. Pickwick allongea la t\u00eate hors de la\ncrois\u00e9e, et regarda autour de lui.\n\nLa douce et p\u00e9n\u00e9trante odeur des foins qu'on venait de faucher montait\njusqu'\u00e0 lui. Les mille parfums des petites fleurs au jardin embaumaient\nl'air d'alentour; la verte prairie brillait sous la ros\u00e9e matinale, et\nchaque brin d'herbe \u00e9tincelait agit\u00e9 par un doux z\u00e9phyr. Enfin les\noiseaux chantaient, comme si chacune des larmes de l'aurore avait \u00e9t\u00e9\npour eux une source d'inspiration. En contemplant ce spectacle, M.\nPickwick tomba dans une douce et myst\u00e9rieuse r\u00eaverie.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9!\u00bb tels furent les sons qui le rappel\u00e8rent \u00e0 la vie r\u00e9elle.\n\nSa vue se porta rapidement sur la droite; mais il ne d\u00e9couvrit personne.\nSes yeux s'\u00e9gar\u00e8rent vers la gauche et perc\u00e8rent en vain l'\u00e9tendue. Il\nmesura d'un regard audacieux le firmament; mais ce n'\u00e9tait point de l\u00e0\nqu'on l'appelait; enfin il fit ce qu'un esprit vulgaire aurait fait du\npremier coup, il regarda dans le jardin et y vit M. Wardle.\n\n\u00abComment \u00e7a va-t-il? lui demanda son joyeux h\u00f4te. Belle matin\u00e9e,\nn'est-ce pas? Charm\u00e9 de vous voir lev\u00e9 de si bonne heure. D\u00e9p\u00eachez-vous\nde descendre, je vous attendrai ici.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick n'eut pas besoin d'une seconde invitation. Dix minutes lui\nsuffirent pour compl\u00e9ter sa toilette, et \u00e0 l'expiration de ce terme, il\n\u00e9tait \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 du vieux gentleman.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'il y a? demanda M. Pickwick en voyant que son h\u00f4te \u00e9tait\narm\u00e9 d'un fusil et qu'il y en avait un second pr\u00e8s de lui, sur le gazon.\n\n--Votre ami et moi, r\u00e9pliqua M. Wardle, nous allons tirer des corneilles\navant d\u00e9jeuner. Il est tr\u00e8s-bon tireur, n'est-il pas vrai?\n\n--Je le lui ai entendu dire, mais je ne lui ai jamais vu ajuster la\nmoindre chose.\n\n--Je voudrais bien qu'il se d\u00e9p\u00each\u00e2t, murmura M. Wardle; et il appela:\nJoe! Joe!\u00bb\n\nPeu de temps apr\u00e8s on vit sortir de la maison le gros joufflu, qui,\ngr\u00e2ce \u00e0 l'influence excitante de la matin\u00e9e, n'\u00e9tait gu\u00e8re assoupi\nqu'aux trois quarts.\n\n\u00abAllez appeler le gentleman, lui dit son ma\u00eetre, et pr\u00e9venez-le qu'il me\ntrouvera avec M. Pickwick, dans le bois. Vous lui montrerez le chemin,\nentendez-vous?\u00bb\n\nJoe s'\u00e9loigna pour ex\u00e9cuter cette commission, et M. Wardle, portant les\ndeux fusils, conduisit M. Pickwick hors du jardin.\n\n\u00abVoici la place,\u00bb dit-il au bout de quelques minutes en s'arr\u00eatant dans\nune avenue d'arbres. C'\u00e9tait un avertissement inutile, car le\ncroassement continuel des pauvres corneilles indiquait suffisamment leur\ndomicile.\n\nLe vieux gentleman posa l'un des fusils sur la terre et chargea l'autre.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 nos gens, dit M. Pickwick. Et en effet on aper\u00e7ut au loin M.\nTupman, M. Snodgrass et M. Winkle, car Joe ne sachant pas, au juste,\nlequel de ces messieurs il devait amener, avait jug\u00e9, dans sa sagacit\u00e9\nprofonde, que pour pr\u00e9venir toute erreur, le meilleur moyen \u00e9tait de les\nconvoquer tous les trois.\n\n\u00abArrivez! arrivez! cria le vieux gentleman \u00e0 M. Winkle. Un fameux tireur\ncomme vous aurait d\u00fb \u00eatre pr\u00eat depuis longtemps, m\u00eame pour si peu de\nchose.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle r\u00e9pondit par un sourire contraint, et ramassa le fusil qui lui\n\u00e9tait destin\u00e9, avec l'expression de physionomie qui aurait pu convenir \u00e0\nune corneille m\u00e9taphysicienne, tourment\u00e9e par le pressentiment d'une\nmort prochaine et violente. C'\u00e9tait peut-\u00eatre de l'indiff\u00e9rence, mais\ncela ressemblait prodigieusement \u00e0 de l'abattement.\n\nLe vieux gentleman fit un signe, et deux gamins d\u00e9guenill\u00e9s commenc\u00e8rent\n\u00e0 grimper lestement sur deux arbres.\n\n\u00abPourquoi faire ces enfants?\u00bb demanda brusquement M. Pickwick.\n\nSon bon coeur s'\u00e9tait alarm\u00e9, car il avait tant entendu parler de la\nd\u00e9tresse des laboureurs, qu'il n'\u00e9tait pas \u00e9loign\u00e9 de croire que leurs\nenfants pussent \u00eatre forc\u00e9s par la mis\u00e8re, \u00e0 s'offrir eux-m\u00eames pour but\naux chasseurs, afin d'assurer ainsi \u00e0 leurs parents une ch\u00e9tive\nsubsistance.\n\n\u00abSeulement pour faire lever le gibier, r\u00e9pondit en riant M. Wardle.\n\n--Pour faire quoi?\n\n--Pour effrayer les corneilles.\n\n--Ah! voil\u00e0 tout?\n\n--Oui. Vous voil\u00e0 enti\u00e8rement tranquille?\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien! Commencerai-je? ajouta le vieux gentleman en s'adressant \u00e0\nM. Winkle.\n\n--Oui, s'il vous pla\u00eet, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci, enchant\u00e9 d'avoir un moment de\nr\u00e9pit.\n\n--Reculez-vous un peu. Allons! voil\u00e0 le moment!\u00bb\n\nL'un des enfants cria en secouant une branche, sur laquelle \u00e9tait un\nnid, et aussit\u00f4t une douzaine de jeunes corneilles, interrompues au\nmilieu d'une tr\u00e8s-bruyante conversation, s'\u00e9lanc\u00e8rent au dehors pour\ndemander de quoi il s'agissait. Le vieux gentleman fit feu, par mani\u00e8re\nde r\u00e9plique. L'un des oiseaux tomba et les autres s'envol\u00e8rent.\n\n--Ramassez-le Joe,\u00bb dit le vieux gentleman.\n\nLe corpulent jeune homme s'avan\u00e7a, et ses traits s'\u00e9panouirent en guise\nde sourire: des visions indistinctes de p\u00e2t\u00e9s de corneilles flottaient\ndevant son imagination. En emportant l'oiseau, il riait, car la victime\n\u00e9tait grasse et tendre.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, \u00e0 votre tour, monsieur Winkle, dit le vieux gentleman en\nrechargeant son fusil. Allons! tirez!\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle s'avan\u00e7a, et \u00e9paula son fusil. M. Pickwick et ses compagnons\nse recul\u00e8rent involontairement, pour \u00e9viter la pluie de corneilles\nqu'ils \u00e9taient s\u00fbrs de voir tomber sous le plomb d\u00e9vastateur de leur\nami. Il y eut une pose solennelle, un grand cri, un battement d'ailes,\nun l\u00e9ger clic....\n\n\u00abOh! oh! fit le vieux gentleman.\n\n--Il ne veut pas partir? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Il a rat\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle, qui \u00e9tait fort p\u00e2le, probablement de\nd\u00e9sappointement.\n\n--C'est \u00e9trange, dit le vieux gentleman en prenant le fusil. Cela ne lui\nest jamais arriv\u00e9.\n\n--Comment? je ne vois aucun reste de la capsule.\n\n--En v\u00e9rit\u00e9? r\u00e9partit M. Winkle: j'aurai compl\u00e9tement oubli\u00e9 la\ncapsule.\u00bb\n\nCette l\u00e9g\u00e8re omission fut r\u00e9par\u00e9e; M. Pickwick s'abrita de nouveau, et\nM. Tupman se mit derri\u00e8re un arbre. M. Winkle fit un pas en avant, d'un\nair d\u00e9termin\u00e9, en tenant son fusil \u00e0 deux mains. L'enfant cria; quatre\noiseaux s'envol\u00e8rent; M. Winkle leva son arme; on entendit une\nexplosion, puis un cri d'angoisse; mais ce n'\u00e9tait pas le cri d'une\ncorneille. M. Tupman avait sauv\u00e9 la vie \u00e0 beaucoup d'innocents oiseaux,\nen recevant dans son bras gauche une partie de la charge.\n\nIl serait impossible d'exprimer la confusion qui s'en suivit; de dire\ncomment M. Pickwick, dans les premiers transports de son \u00e9motion, appela\nM. Winkle, mis\u00e9rable! comment M. Tupman \u00e9tait \u00e9tendu sur le gazon;\ncomment M. Winkle, frapp\u00e9 d'horreur, s'\u00e9tait agenouill\u00e9 aupr\u00e8s de lui;\ncomment M. Tupman, dans le d\u00e9lire, invoquait plusieurs noms de bapt\u00eame\nf\u00e9minins, puis ouvrait un oeil, puis l'autre, et retombait en arri\u00e8re, en\nles fermant tous les deux. Une telle sc\u00e8ne serait aussi difficile \u00e0\nd\u00e9crire, qu'il le serait de peindre le malheureux bless\u00e9 revenant\ngraduellement \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame, voyant bander ses plaies avec des mouchoirs,\net regagnant lentement la maison, appuy\u00e9 sur ses amis inquiets.\n\nLes dames \u00e9taient sur le seuil de la porte, attendant le retour de ces\nmessieurs pour d\u00e9jeuner. La tante demoiselle brillait entre toutes; elle\nsourit et leur fit signe de venir plus vite. Il \u00e9tait \u00e9vident qu'elle ne\nsavait point l'accident arriv\u00e9. Pauvre cr\u00e9ature! Il y a des moments o\u00f9\nl'ignorance est v\u00e9ritablement un bienfait.\n\nOn approchait de plus en plus.\n\n\u00abQu'est-il donc arriv\u00e9 au vieux petit monsieur? dit \u00e0 demi-voix miss\nIsabella Wardle. La tante demoiselle ne fit pas attention \u00e0 cette\nremarque. Elle crut qu'il s'agissait de M. Pickwick; car \u00e0 ses yeux,\nTracy Tupman \u00e9tait un jeune homme: elle voyait ses ann\u00e9es \u00e0 travers un\nverre rapetissant.\n\n--Ne vous effrayez point! cria M. Wardle \u00e0 ses filles; et la petite\ntroupe \u00e9tait tellement press\u00e9e autour de M. Tupman, qu'on ne pouvait pas\nencore distinguer clairement la nature de l'\u00e9v\u00e9nement.\n\n--Ne vous effrayez point, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Wardle quelques pas plus loin.\n\n--Qu'y a-t-il donc! s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent les dames horriblement alarm\u00e9es par\ncette pr\u00e9caution.\n\n--IL est arriv\u00e9 un petit accident \u00e0 M. Tupman; voil\u00e0 tout.\u00bb\n\nLa tante demoiselle poussa un cri per\u00e7ant, ferma les yeux et se laissa\ntomber \u00e0 la renverse dans les bras des deux jeunes personnes.\n\n\u00abJetez-lui de l'eau froide au visage, s'\u00e9cria le vieux gentleman.\n\n--Non! Non! murmura la tante demoiselle. Je suis mieux maintenant,\nBella.... \u00c9mily.... Un chirurgien.... Est-il bless\u00e9? est-il mort?\nest-il.... Ah! ah! ah!...\u00bb Et la tante demoiselle, poussant de nouveaux\ncris, eut une attaque de nerfs n\u00b0 2.\n\n\u00abCalmez-vous, dit M. Tupman affect\u00e9 presque jusqu'aux larmes de cette\nexpression de sympathie pour ses souffrances. Ch\u00e8re demoiselle,\ncalmez-vous!\n\n--C'est sa voix! s'\u00e9cria la tante demoiselle; et de violents sympt\u00f4mes\nd'une attaque n\u00b0 3 se manifest\u00e8rent aussit\u00f4t.\n\n--Ne vous tourmentez pas, je vous en supplie, tr\u00e8s-ch\u00e8re demoiselle,\nreprit M. Tupman d'une voix consolante. Je suis fort peu bless\u00e9, je vous\nassure.\n\n--Vous n'\u00eates donc pas mort? s'\u00e9cria la nerveuse personne. Oh! dites que\nvous n'\u00eates pas mort.\n\n--Ne faites pas la folle, Rachel, interrompit M. Wardle, d'une mani\u00e8re\nplus brusque que ne semblait le comporter la nature po\u00e9tique de cette\nsc\u00e8ne. Quelle diable de n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 y a-t-il, qu'il vous dise lui-m\u00eame\nqu'il n'est pas mort?\n\n--Non! je ne le suis pas, reprit M. Tupman; je n'ai pas besoin d'autres\nsecours que les v\u00f4tres. Laissez-moi m'appuyer sur votre bras....\u00bb Et il\najouta \u00e0 son oreille: \u00abO miss Rachel!\u00bb Pleine d'agitation, la dame de\nses pens\u00e9es s'avan\u00e7a et lui offrit son bras. Ils entr\u00e8rent ensemble dans\nle salon. M. Tracy Tupman pressa doucement sur ses l\u00e8vres une main qu'on\nlui abandonna, et se laissa tomber ensuite sur un canap\u00e9.\n\n\u00abVous trouvez-vous mal? demanda Rachel avec anxi\u00e9t\u00e9.\n\n--Non, ce n'est rien; je serai mieux dans un instant, r\u00e9pondit M. Tupman\nen fermant les yeux.\n\n--Il dort! murmura la tante demoiselle (il avait clos ses paupi\u00e8res\ndepuis pr\u00e8s de vingt secondes). Il dort! cher M. Tupman!\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman sauta sur ses pieds. Oh! r\u00e9p\u00e9tez ces paroles! s'\u00e9cria-t-il.\n\nLa dame tressaillit. \u00abS\u00fbrement vous ne les avez pas entendues, dit-elle\navec pudeur.\n\n--Oh! si, je les ai entendues, r\u00e9pliqua chaleureusement M. Tupman.\nR\u00e9p\u00e9tez ces paroles, si vous voulez que je gu\u00e9risse! r\u00e9p\u00e9tez-les.\n\n--Silence! dit la dame! voil\u00e0 mon fr\u00e8re!\u00bb\n\nM. Tracy Tupman reprit sa premi\u00e8re position, et M. Wardle entra dans la\nchambre, accompagn\u00e9 d'un chirurgien.\n\nLe bras fut examin\u00e9; la blessure pans\u00e9e, et d\u00e9clar\u00e9e fort l\u00e9g\u00e8re; et\nl'esprit des assistants se trouvant ainsi rassur\u00e9 ils proc\u00e9d\u00e8rent \u00e0\nsatisfaire leur app\u00e9tit. La gaiet\u00e9 brillait de nouveau sur leurs\nvisages. M. Pickwick seul restait silencieux et r\u00e9serv\u00e9; la doute et la\nm\u00e9fiance se peignaient sur sa physionomie expressive, car sa confiance\nen M. Winkle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9branl\u00e9e, grandement \u00e9branl\u00e9e par les aventures\ndu matin.\n\n\u00abJouez-vous \u00e0 la crosse? demanda M. Wardle au chasseur.\n\nDans tout autre temps M. Winkle aurait r\u00e9pondu d'une mani\u00e8re\naffirmative, mais il sentit la d\u00e9licatesse de sa position, et r\u00e9pliqua\nmodestement: \u00abNon monsieur.\n\n--Et vous, monsieur? demanda M. Snodgrass au joyeux vieillard.\n\n--J'y jouais autrefois, r\u00e9pliqua celui-ci; mais j'y ai renonc\u00e9\nd\u00e9sormais. Cependant je souscris au club, quoique je ne joue plus.\n\n--N'est-ce pas aujourd'hui qu'a lieu la grande partie entre les camps\noppos\u00e9s de Muggleton et de Dingley-Dell? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Oui, r\u00e9pliqua leur h\u00f4te: vous y viendrez, n'est-ce pas?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick: j'ai grand plaisir \u00e0 voir des\nexercices auxquels on peut se livrer sans danger, et dans lesquels la\nmaladresse des gens ne met pas en p\u00e9ril la vie de leurs semblables.\u00bb En\npronon\u00e7ant ces mots M. Pickwick fit une pause expressive, et regarda\nfixement M. Winkle, qui ne put soutenir sans fr\u00e9mir le coup d'oeil\np\u00e9n\u00e9trant de son mentor. Celui-ci ajouta alors: \u00abNe serait-il pas\nconvenable de confier notre ami bless\u00e9 aux soins de ces dames?\n\n--Vous ne pouvez pas me placer dans de meilleures mains, murmura M\nTupman.\n\n--Ce serait impossible,\u00bb ajouta M. Snodgrass.\n\nIl fut donc convenu que M. Tupman resterait \u00e0 la maison sous la\nsurveillance des dames, et que la portion masculine de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9,\nconduite par M. Wardle, irait juger des coups dans ce combat d'habilet\u00e9\nqui avait tir\u00e9 Muggleton de sa torpeur, et inocul\u00e9 \u00e0 Dingley-Dell une\nexcitation f\u00e9brile.\n\nIl n'y avait gu\u00e8re qu'une demi-lieue de distance \u00e0 parcourir, et le\nsentier couvert de mousse passait par des all\u00e9es ombrag\u00e9es. La\nconversation roula principalement sur les d\u00e9licieux paysages qui se\nd\u00e9couvraient tour \u00e0 tour, et M. Pickwick regretta presque d'avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 si\nvite, lorsqu'il se trouva dans la grande rue de Muggleton.\n\nToutes les personnes dont le g\u00e9nie est dou\u00e9 de la moindre propension\ng\u00e9ographique savent, n\u00e9cessairement, que la ville de Muggleton jouit\nd'une corporation, qu'elle poss\u00e8de un maire, des bourgeois, des\n\u00e9lecteurs: et quiconque consultera les Adresses du maire aux _freemen_,\nou celles des _freemen_ au maire, ou celles du maire et des _freemen_ \u00e0\nla corporation, ou celles du maire, des _freemen_ et de la corporation\nau Parlement, apprendra par l\u00e0 ce qu'il aurait d\u00fb conna\u00eetre auparavant:\n\u00e0 savoir, que Muggleton est un _bourg_ ancien et loyal, unissant une\nferveur z\u00e9l\u00e9e pour les principes du christianisme \u00e0 un attachement\nsolide aux droits commerciaux. En preuve de quoi, le maire, la\ncorporation et divers habitants, ont pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 \u00e0 diff\u00e9rentes reprises\nsoixante-huit p\u00e9titions pour qu'on permit la vente des b\u00e9n\u00e9fices dans\nl'\u00e9glise, quatre-vingt-six p\u00e9titions pour qu'on d\u00e9fend\u00eet la vente dans\nles rues le dimanche, mille quatre cent vingt p\u00e9titions contre la traite\ndes noirs en Am\u00e9rique, avec un nombre \u00e9gal de p\u00e9titions contre toute\nesp\u00e8ce d'intervention l\u00e9gislative, au sujet du travail exag\u00e9r\u00e9 des\nenfants, dans les manufactures anglaises.\n\nLorsque M. Pickwick se trouva dans la grande rue de cet illustre bourg,\nil contempla la sc\u00e8ne qui s'offrit \u00e0 ses yeux avec une curiosit\u00e9\nm\u00e9lang\u00e9e d'int\u00e9r\u00eat.\n\nLa place du march\u00e9 avait la forme d'un carr\u00e9 au centre duquel s'\u00e9tait\n\u00e9rig\u00e9e une vaste auberge. Son enseigne \u00e9norme \u00e9talait un objet fort\ncommun dans les arts, mais qu'on rencontre rarement dans la nature,\nc'est-\u00e0-dire un lion bleu, ayant trois pattes en l'air et se balan\u00e7ant\nsur l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de l'ongle central de la quatri\u00e8me. On voyait aux\nenvirons un bureau d'assurance contre l'incendie et celui d'un\ncommissaire-priseur, les magasins d'un marchand de bl\u00e9 et d'un marchand\nde toile, les boutiques d'un sellier, d'un distillateur, d'un \u00e9picier et\nd'un cordonnier, lequel cordonnier faisait \u00e9galement servir son local \u00e0\nla diffusion des chapeaux, des bonnets, des hardes de toute esp\u00e8ce, des\nparapluies et des connaissances utiles. Il y avait en outre une petite\nmaison de briques rouges, pr\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9e d'une sorte de cour pav\u00e9e, et que\ntout le monde, \u00e0 la premi\u00e8re vue, reconnaissait pour appartenir \u00e0 un\navou\u00e9. Il y avait encore une autre maison en briques rouges sur la porte\nde laquelle s'\u00e9talait une large plaque de cuivre annon\u00e7ant, en\ncaract\u00e8res tr\u00e8s-lisibles, que cette maison appartenait \u00e0 un chirurgien.\nQuelques jeunes gens se dirigeaient vers le jeu de crosse, et deux ou\ntrois boutiquiers, se tenant debout sur le pav\u00e9 de leur porte, avaient\nl'air fort d\u00e9sireux de se rendre au m\u00eame endroit, comme ils auraient pu\nle faire, selon toutes les apparences, sans perdre un grand nombre de\nchalands.\n\nM. Pickwick s'\u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 arr\u00eat\u00e9 pour faire ces observations qu'il se\nproposait de noter \u00e0 son aise, mais comme ses amis avaient quitt\u00e9 la\ngrande rue, il se h\u00e2ta de les rejoindre et les retrouva en vue du champ\nde bataille.\n\nLes barres que les joueurs doivent conqu\u00e9rir ou d\u00e9fendre \u00e9taient d\u00e9j\u00e0\nplac\u00e9es, aussi bien qu'une couple de tentes pour servir au repos et au\nrafra\u00eechissement des parties bellig\u00e9rantes. Mais le jeu n'\u00e9tait pas\nencore commenc\u00e9. Deux ou trois Dingley-Dellois ou Muggletoniens\ns'amusaient d'un air majestueux \u00e0 jeter n\u00e9gligemment leur balle d'une\nmain dans l'autre. Ils avaient des chapeaux de paille, des jaquettes de\nflanelle et des pantalons blancs, ce qui leur donnait tout \u00e0 fait la\ntournure d'amateurs tailleurs de pierre. Quelques autres gentlemen,\nv\u00eatus de la m\u00eame mani\u00e8re, \u00e9taient \u00e9parpill\u00e9s autour des tentes, vers\nl'une desquelles M. Wardle conduisit sa soci\u00e9t\u00e9.\n\nPlusieurs douzaines de \u00abComment vous portez-vous?\u00bb salu\u00e8rent l'arriv\u00e9e\ndu vieux gentleman, et il y eut un soul\u00e8vement g\u00e9n\u00e9ral de chapeaux de\npaille, avec une inclinaison contagieuse de gilets de flanelle,\nlorsqu'il introduisit ses h\u00f4tes comme des gentlemen de Londres, qui\nd\u00e9siraient vivement assister aux agr\u00e9ables divertissements de la\njourn\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abJe crois, monsieur, que vous feriez mieux d'entrer dans la marquise,\ndit un tr\u00e8s-volumineux gentleman, dont le corps paraissait \u00eatre la\nmoiti\u00e9 d'une gigantesque pi\u00e8ce de flanelle, perch\u00e9e sur une couple de\ntraversins.\n\n--Vous y seriez beaucoup mieux, monsieur, ajouta un autre gentleman\naussi volumineux que le pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent, et qui ressemblait \u00e0 l'autre moiti\u00e9\nde la susdite pi\u00e8ce de flanelle.\n\n--Vous \u00eates bien bon, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Par ici, reprit le premier gentleman; c'est ici que l'on marque, c'est\nla place la meilleure;\u00bb et il les pr\u00e9c\u00e9da en soufflant comme un cheval\npoussif.\n\nJeu superbe,--noble occupation,--bel exercice,--charmant! Telles furent\nles paroles qui frapp\u00e8rent les oreilles de M. Pickwick en entrant dans\nla tente, et le premier objet qui s'offrit \u00e0 ses regards fut son ami de\nla voiture de Rochester. Il \u00e9tait en train de p\u00e9rorer, \u00e0 la grande\nsatisfaction d'un cercle choisi des joueurs \u00e9lus par la ville de\nMuggleton. Son costume s'\u00e9tait l\u00e9g\u00e8rement am\u00e9lior\u00e9. Il avait des bottes\nneuves, mais il \u00e9tait impossible de le m\u00e9conna\u00eetre.\n\nL'\u00e9tranger reconnut imm\u00e9diatement ses amis. Avec son imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9\nordinaire et en parlant continuellement, il se pr\u00e9cipita vers M.\nPickwick, le saisit par la main et le tira vers un si\u00e9ge, comme si tous\nles arrangements du jeu avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 sp\u00e9cialement sous sa direction.\n\n\u00abPar ici!--par ici!--\u00e7a sera fi\u00e8rement amusant,--muids de\nbi\u00e8re,--monceaux de boeuf,--tonneaux de moutarde,--glorieuse\njourn\u00e9e,--asseyez-vous,--mettez-vous \u00e0 votre aise,--charm\u00e9 de vous voir,\ntr\u00e8s-charm\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick s'assit comme on le lui disait, et MM. Winkle et Snodgrass\nsuivirent \u00e9galement les indications de leur myst\u00e9rieux ami. M. Wardle\nl'examinait avec un \u00e9tonnement silencieux.\n\n--M. Wardle, un de mes amis, dit M. Pickwick \u00e0 l'\u00e9tranger.\n\n--Un de vos amis? s'\u00e9cria celui-ci. Mon cher monsieur, comment vous\nportez-vous?--Les amis de nos amis sont....--Votre main, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nEn enfilant ces phrases, l'\u00e9tranger saisit la main de M. Wardle avec\ntoute la chaleur d'une vieille intimit\u00e9, puis se recula de deux ou trois\npas, comme pour mieux voir son visage et sa tournure, puis secoua sa\nmain de nouveau plus chaudement encore que la premi\u00e8re fois, s'il est\npossible.\n\n\u00abEt comment \u00eates-vous venu ici? demanda M. Pickwick avec un sourire o\u00f9\nla bienveillance luttait contre la surprise.\n\n--Venu?--Je loge \u00e0 l'auberge de la Couronne, \u00e0 Muggleton.--Rencontr\u00e9 une\nsoci\u00e9t\u00e9.--Jaquettes de flanelle,--pantalons blancs,--sandwiches aux\nanchois,--rognons brais\u00e9s,--fameux gaillards,--charmant!\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick connaissait assez le syst\u00e8me st\u00e9nographique de l'\u00e9tranger\npour conclure de cette communication rapide et disloqu\u00e9e que, d'une\nmani\u00e8re ou d'une autre, il avait fait connaissance avec les\nMuggletoniens, et que, par un proc\u00e9d\u00e9 qui lui \u00e9tait particulier, il\n\u00e9tait parvenu \u00e0 en extraire une invitation g\u00e9n\u00e9rale. La curiosit\u00e9 de M.\nPickwick ainsi satisfaite, il ajusta ses lunettes et se pr\u00e9para \u00e0\nconsid\u00e9rer le jeu qui venait de commencer.\n\nLes deux joueurs les plus renomm\u00e9s du fameux club de Muggleton, M.\nDumkins et M. Podder, tenant leurs crosses \u00e0 la main, se port\u00e8rent\nsolennellement vers leurs guichets respectifs. M. Luffey, le plus noble\nornement de Dingley-Dell, fut choisi pour _bouler_ contre le redoutable\nDumkins, et M. Struggles fut \u00e9lu pour rendre le m\u00eame office \u00e0\nl'invincible Podder. Plusieurs joueurs furent plac\u00e9s pour _guetter_ les\nballes en diff\u00e9rents endroits de la plaine, et chacun d'eux se mit dans\nl'attitude convenable, en appuyant une main sur chaque genou et en se\ncourbant, comme s'il avait voulu offrir un dos favorable \u00e0 quelque\napprenti _saute-mouton_. Tous les joueurs classiques se posent ainsi, et\nm\u00eame on pense g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement qu'il serait impossible de bien voir venir\nune balle dans une autre attitude.\n\nLes arbitres se plac\u00e8rent derri\u00e8re les guichets et les compteurs se\npr\u00e9par\u00e8rent \u00e0 noter les points. Il se fit alors un profond silence. M.\nLuffey se retira quelques pas en arri\u00e8re du guichet de l'immuable\nPodder, et, durant quelques secondes, il appliqua sa balle \u00e0 son oeil\ndroit. Dumkins, les yeux fix\u00e9s sur chaque mouvement de Luffey, attendait\nl'arriv\u00e9e de la balle avec une noble confiance.\n\n\u00abAttention, s'\u00e9cria soudain le _bouleur_, et en m\u00eame temps la balle\ns'\u00e9chappe de sa main, rapide comme l'\u00e9clair, et se dirige vers le centre\ndu guichet. Le prudent Dumkins \u00e9tait sur ses gardes; il re\u00e7ut la balle\nsur le bout de sa crosse et la fit voler au loin par-dessus les\n\u00e9claireurs, qui s'\u00e9taient baiss\u00e9s justement assez pour la laisser passer\nau-dessus de leur t\u00eate.\n\n--Courez! courez!--Une autre balle!--Maintenant!\n--Allons!--Jetez-la!--Allons!--Arr\u00eatez-la!--Une autre!\n--Non!--Oui!--Non!--Jetez-la!--Jetez-la.\u00bb Telles furent les acclamations\nqui suivirent ce coup, \u00e0 la conclusion duquel Muggleton avait gagn\u00e9 deux\npoints.\n\nCependant Podder n'\u00e9tait pas moins actif \u00e0 se couvrir de lauriers, dont\nl'\u00e9clat rejaillissait \u00e9galement sur Muggleton. Il bloquait les balles\ndouteuses, laissait passer les mauvaises, prenait les bonnes et les\nfaisait voler dans tous les coins de la plaine. Les coureurs \u00e9taient sur\nles dents. Les _bouleurs_ furent chang\u00e9s et d'autres _boul\u00e8rent_ jusqu'\u00e0\nce que leur bras en devinssent roides; mais Dumkins et Podder rest\u00e8rent\ninvaincus. Vainement la balle \u00e9tait lanc\u00e9e droit au centre du guichet,\nils y arrivaient avant elle et la repoussaient au loin. Un gentleman\nd'un certain \u00e2ge s'effor\u00e7ait-il d'arr\u00eater son mouvement, elle roulait\nentre ses jambes ou glissait entre ses doigts; un mince gentleman\nessayait-il de l'attraper, elle lui choquait le nez et rebondissait\nplaisamment avec une nouvelle force, pendant que les yeux du joueur\nmaladroit se remplissaient de larmes et que son corps se tordait par la\nviolence de ses angoisses. Enfin, quand on fit le compte de Dumkins et\nde Podder, Muggleton avait marqu\u00e9 cinquante-quatre points, tandis que la\nmarque des Dingley-Dellois \u00e9tait aussi blanche que leurs visages.\nL'avantage \u00e9tait trop grand pour \u00eatre reconquis. Vainement l'imp\u00e9tueux\nLuffey, vainement l'enthousiaste Struggles firent-ils tout ce que\nl'exp\u00e9rience et le savoir pouvaient leur sugg\u00e9rer pour regagner le\nterrain perdu par Dingley-Dell, tout fut inutile, et bient\u00f4t\nDingley-Dell fut oblig\u00e9 de reconna\u00eetre Muggleton pour son vainqueur.\n\nCependant l'\u00e9tranger \u00e0 l'habit vert n'avait fait que boire, manger et\nparler \u00e0 la fois et sans interruption. A chaque coup bien jou\u00e9, il\nexprimait son approbation d'une mani\u00e8re pleine de condescendance et qui\nne pouvait manquer d'\u00eatre singuli\u00e8rement flatteuse pour les joueurs qui\nla m\u00e9ritaient. Mais aussi, chaque fois qu'un joueur ne pouvait saisir la\nballe ou l'arr\u00eater, il fulminait contre le maladroit. Ah!\nstupide!--Allons, maladroit!--Imb\u00e9cile!--Cruche! etc. Exclamations au\nmoyen desquelles il se posait aux yeux des assistants, comme un juge\nexcellent, infaillible dans tous les myst\u00e8res du noble jeu de la crosse.\n\n\u00abFameuse partie! bien jou\u00e9e! Certains coups admirables! dit l'\u00e9tranger \u00e0\nla fin du jeu, au moment o\u00f9 les deux partis se pressaient dans la tente.\n\n--Vous y jouez, monsieur? demanda M. Wardle qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 amus\u00e9 par sa\nloquacit\u00e9.\n\n--Jou\u00e9? parbleu! Mille fois. Pas ici; aux Indes occidentales. Jeu\nentra\u00eenant! chaude besogne, tr\u00e8s-chaude!\n\n--Ce jeu doit \u00eatre bien \u00e9chauffant dans un pareil climat! fit observer\nM. Pickwick.\n\n--\u00c9chauffant? Dites br\u00fblant! grillant! d\u00e9vorant! Un jour, je jouais un\nseul guichet contre mon ami le colonel sir Thomas Blazo, \u00e0 qui ferait le\nplus de points. Jouant \u00e0 pile ou face qui commencera, je gagne: sept\nheures du matin: six indig\u00e8nes pour ramasser les balles. Je commence. Je\nrenvoie toutes les balles du colonel. Chaleur intense! Les indig\u00e8nes se\ntrouvent mal. On les emporte. Une autre demi-douzaine les remplace; ils\nse trouvent mal de m\u00eame. Blazo joue, soutenu par deux indig\u00e8nes. Moi,\ninfatigable, je lui renvoie toujours ses balles. Blazo se trouve mal\naussi. Enfonc\u00e9 le colonel! Moi, je ne veut pas cesser. Quanko Samba\nrestait seul. Le soleil \u00e9tait rouge, les crosses br\u00fblaient comme des\ncharbons ardents, les balles avaient des boutons de chaleur. Cinq cent\nsoixante-dix points! Je n'en pouvais plus. Quanko recueille un reste de\nforce. Sa balle renverse mon guichet; mais je prends un bain, et vais\nd\u00eener.\n\n--Et que devint ce monsieur... Chose? demanda un vieux gentleman.\n\n--Qui? Le colonel Blazo?\n\n--Non, l'autre gentleman.\n\n--Quanko Samba?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Pauvre Quanko! n'en releva jamais, quitta le jeu, quitta la vie,\nmourut, monsieur!\u00bb En pronon\u00e7ant ces mots, l'\u00e9tranger ensevelit son\nvisage dans un pot d'ale. Mais \u00e9tait-ce pour en savourer le contenu, ou\npour cacher son \u00e9motion? C'est ce que nous n'avons jamais pu \u00e9claircir.\nNous savons seulement qu'il s'arr\u00eata tout \u00e0 coup, qu'il poussa un long\net profond soupir, et qu'il regarda avec anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 deux des principaux\nmembres du club de Dingley-Dell qui s'approchaient de M. Pickwick, et\nqui lui disaient:\n\n\u00abNous allons faire un modeste repas au _Lion bleu_. Nous esp\u00e9rons,\nmonsieur, que vous voudrez bien y prendre part, avec vos amis.\n\n--Et naturellement, dit M. Wardle, parmi nos amis nous comptons\nmonsieur..., et il se tourna vers l'\u00e9tranger.\n\n--Jingle, r\u00e9pondit cet universel personnage. Alfred Jingle, esquire, de\nSansterre.\n\n--J'accepte avec grand plaisir, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Et moi aussi, cria M. Alfred Jingle en prenant d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9 le bras de M.\nWardle, et, de l'autre, celui de M. Pickwick, et en murmurant \u00e0\nl'oreille de celui-ci:\n\n--Fameux d\u00eener! froid, mais bon. J'ai lorgn\u00e9 dans la chambre, ce matin:\nvolailles et p\u00e2t\u00e9s, et le reste. Charmantes gens, et polis par-dessus le\nmarch\u00e9, tr\u00e8s-polis.\u00bb\n\nComme il n'y avait point d'autres pr\u00e9liminaires \u00e0 arranger, la compagnie\ntraversa le bourg en petits groupes, et un quart d'heure apr\u00e8s elle\n\u00e9tait tout enti\u00e8re assise dans la grande salle du _Lion bleu_ de\nMuggleton.\n\nM. Dumkins remplit les fonctions de pr\u00e9sident, et M. Luffey celles de\nvice-pr\u00e9sident.\n\nIl y eut un grand cliquetis de paroles et d'assiettes, de fourchettes\net de couteaux. Trois gar\u00e7ons couraient de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, et les mets\nsubstantiels disparaissaient rapidement. Le fac\u00e9tieux M. Jingle\ncontribuait, au moins comme une demi-douzaine d'hommes ordinaires, \u00e0\nchacune de ces causes de confusion. Lorsque tous les convives eurent\nmang\u00e9 autant qu'ils purent, la nappe fut enlev\u00e9e; des bouteilles, des\nverres et le dessert furent plac\u00e9s sur la table, et les gar\u00e7ons se\nretir\u00e8rent pour d\u00e9barrasser, en d'autres termes pour s'approprier tous\nles restes mangeables ou buvables sur lesquels il leur fut possible de\nmettre la main.\n\nBient\u00f4t on n'entendit plus dans la salle qu'un vaste murmure de\nconversations et d'\u00e9clats de rire. Il se trouvait l\u00e0 un petit homme\nbouffi, qui avait un air de \u00abne-me-dites-rien, ou-je-vous-contredirai,\u00bb\net qui jusqu'alors \u00e9tait demeur\u00e9 fort tranquille. Seulement, lorsque,\npar accident, la conversation se ralentissait, il regardait autour de\nlui, comme s'il avait eu envie de dire quelque chose de remarquable, et\nde temps en temps il faisait entendre une sorte de toux s\u00e8che d'une\ninexprimable dignit\u00e9. A la fin, pendant un instant de silence\ncomparatif, le petit homme s'\u00e9cria d'une voix haute et solennelle:\n\u00abMonsieur Luffey!\u00bb\n\nTout le monde se tut, et l'individu interpell\u00e9 r\u00e9pliqua, au milieu d'un\nprofond silence: \u00abMonsieur?\u00bb\n\n\u00abJe d\u00e9sire vous adresser quelques paroles, monsieur, si vous voulez\nengager ces messieurs \u00e0 remplir leurs verres.\u00bb\n\nM. Jingle, d'un ton protecteur, s'\u00e9cria: \u00ab\u00c9coutez! \u00e9coutez!\u00bb et ces\nparoles furent r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9es en choeur par toute la compagnie. Le\nvice-pr\u00e9sident prit un air de gravit\u00e9 attentive et dit: \u00abMonsieur\nStaple?\u00bb\n\n\u00abMonsieur! dit le petit homme en se levant, je d\u00e9sire adresser ce que\nj'ai \u00e0 dire \u00e0 vous et non pas \u00e0 notre digne pr\u00e9sident, parce que notre\ndigne pr\u00e9sident est en quelque sorte, et je puis dire en grande partie,\nle sujet de ce que j'ai \u00e0 dire, et je puis dire \u00e0... \u00e0...\n\n--A d\u00e9montrer, sugg\u00e9ra M. Jingle.\n\n--Oui, \u00e0 d\u00e9montrer, reprit le petit homme; je remercie mon honorable\nami, s'il veut me permettre de l'appeler ainsi (quatre _\u00e9coutez!_ et un\n_certainement_ de M. Jingle) pour la suggestion. Monsieur, je suis un\nDellois, un Dingley-Dellois. (Applaudissements.) Je ne puis r\u00e9clamer\nl'honneur d'ajouter une unit\u00e9 au chiffre de la population de Muggleton.\nEt je l'avouerai franchement, monsieur, je ne d\u00e9sire point cet honneur.\nJe vous dirai pourquoi, monsieur. (\u00c9coutez!) Je reconna\u00eetrai volontiers\n\u00e0 Muggleton toutes les distinctions, tous les honneurs qu'il peut\nr\u00e9clamer; ils sont trop nombreux et trop bien connus pour qu'il soit\nn\u00e9cessaire que je les r\u00e9capitule. Mais, monsieur, tandis que nous nous\nrappelons que Muggleton a donn\u00e9 naissance \u00e0 un Dumkins, \u00e0 un Podder,\nn'oublions jamais que Dingley-Dell peut se vanter d'avoir produit un\nLuffey et un Struggles! (Applaudissements tumultueux.) Qu'on ne me croie\npas d\u00e9sireux d'obscurcir la gloire des gentlemen que j'ai nomm\u00e9s en\npremier lieu, monsieur, je leur envie les jouissances qu'ils ont d\u00fb\nressentir dans cette m\u00e9morable journ\u00e9e. (Applaudissements.) Vous\nconnaissez tous, messieurs, la r\u00e9plique faite \u00e0 l'empereur Alexandre par\nun individu qui, pour me servir d'une expression vulgaire, faisait sa\nt\u00eate dans un tonneau: _Si je n'\u00e9tais pas Diog\u00e8ne, je voudrais \u00eatre\nAlexandre_. Je m'imagine que ces messieurs doivent dire: Si je n'\u00e9tais\npas Dumkins, je voudrais \u00eatre Luffey; si je n'\u00e9tais pas Podder, je\nvoudrais \u00eatre Struggles! (Enthousiasme.) Mais, gentlemen de Muggleton,\nest-ce seulement \u00e0 la crosse que vos compatriotes sont remarquables?\nN'avez-vous jamais entendu citer Dumkins comme un exemple de\npers\u00e9v\u00e9rance? N'avez-vous jamais appris \u00e0 associer Podder et la\npropri\u00e9t\u00e9? (Grands applaudissements.) En luttant pour vos droits, pour\nvotre libert\u00e9, pour vos privil\u00e8ges, n'avez-vous jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9duits, ne\nf\u00fbt-ce que pour un instant, au doute et au d\u00e9sespoir? et, quand vous\n\u00e9tiez ainsi d\u00e9courag\u00e9s, le nom de Dumkins n'a-t-il pas ranim\u00e9 dans votre\ncoeur le feu de l'esp\u00e9rance? Une seule parole de cet homme colossal ne\nl'a-t-elle pas fait briller avec plus d'\u00e9clat que s'il ne s'\u00e9tait jamais\n\u00e9teint? (Grands applaudissements.) Gentlemen, je vous prie d'entourer\nd'une riche aur\u00e9ole d'applaudissements fr\u00e9n\u00e9tiques les noms unis de\nDumkins et de Podder!\u00bb\n\nIci le petit homme se tut, et la compagnie commen\u00e7a un tapage de cris,\nde coups frapp\u00e9s sur la table, qui dura, avec peu d'interruptions,\npendant le reste de la soir\u00e9e. D'autres toasts furent port\u00e9s. M. Luffey\net M. Struggles, M. Pickwick et M. Jingle, furent, chacun \u00e0 son tour, le\nsujet d'\u00e9loges sans m\u00e9lange; et chacun \u00e0 son tour exprima ses\nremerc\u00eements pour cet honneur.\n\nEnthousiaste comme nous le sommes pour la noble entreprise \u00e0 laquelle\nnous nous sommes d\u00e9vou\u00e9, nous aurions \u00e9prouv\u00e9 une inexprimable sensation\nd'orgueil, nous nous serions cru certain de l'immortalit\u00e9 dont nous\nsommes priv\u00e9 actuellement, si nous avions pu mettre sous les yeux de nos\nardents lecteurs le plus faible compte rendu de ces discours. Comme \u00e0\nl'ordinaire, M. Snodgrass prit une grande quantit\u00e9 de notes, et sans\ndoute nous y aurions puis\u00e9 les renseignements les plus importants, si\nl'\u00e9loquence br\u00fblante des orateurs ou l'influence f\u00e9brile du vin n'avait\npoint fait trembler la main du gentleman, au point de rendre son\n\u00e9criture presque inintelligible et son style compl\u00e9tement obscur. A\nforce de patience, nous sommes parvenu \u00e0 reconna\u00eetre quelques caract\u00e8res\nqui ont une faible ressemblance avec les noms des orateurs. Nous avons\npu distinguer aussi le squelette d'une chanson (probablement chant\u00e9e par\nM. Jingle), dans laquelle les mots _vin_ et _divin_, _rubis_ et _ravis_,\nsont r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9s \u00e0 de courts intervalles. Nous nous imaginons aussi pouvoir\nd\u00e9chiffrer \u00e0 la fin de ces notes quelques allusions \u00e0 des restes de\ngigot ou de volaille brais\u00e9e. Puis ensuite nous distinguons les mots de\ngrog froid et d'ale; mais comme les hypoth\u00e8ses que nous pourrions b\u00e2tir\nsur ces indices n'auraient jamais d'autre fondement que nos conjectures,\nnous ne voulons nous permettre d'exprimer aucune des suppositions\nnombreuses qui se pr\u00e9sentent \u00e0 notre esprit.\n\nC'est pourquoi nous allons retourner \u00e0 M. Tupman, nous contentant\nd'ajouter que, peu de minutes avant minuit, les sommit\u00e9s r\u00e9unies de\nDingley-Dell et de Muggleton furent entendues, chantant avec\nenthousiasme cet air si po\u00e9tique et si national:\n\n    Nous ne rentrerons que demain matin,\n    Nous n'irons coucher qu'au jour!\n    Nous ne rentrerons que demain matin,\n    Nous n'irons coucher qu'au jour!\n    Demain matin au point du jour,\n    Nous n'irons coucher qu'au jour![10]\n\n[Footnote 10: Refrain d'une chanson bachique.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE VIII.\n\nFaisant voir clairement que la route du v\u00e9ritable amour n'est aussi unie\nqu'un chemin de fer.\n\n\nLa tranquille solitude de Dingley-Dell, la pr\u00e9sence de tant de personnes\ndu beau sexe, la sollicitude et l'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 qu'elles t\u00e9moignaient \u00e0 M.\nTupman, \u00e9taient autant de circonstances favorables \u00e0 la germination et \u00e0\nla croissance des doux sentiments que la nature avait sem\u00e9s dans son\nsein, et qui paraissaient maintenant se concentrer sur un aimable objet.\nLes jeunes demoiselles \u00e9taient jolies, leurs mani\u00e8res engageantes, leur\ncaract\u00e8re aussi aimable que possible, mais \u00e0 leur \u00e2ge elles ne pouvaient\npr\u00e9tendre \u00e0 la dignit\u00e9 de la d\u00e9marche, au _noli me tangere_ (ne me\ntouchez pas) du maintien, \u00e0 la majest\u00e9 du regard, qui, aux yeux de M.\nTupman, distinguaient la tante demoiselle de toutes les femmes qu'il\navait jamais lorgn\u00e9es. Il \u00e9tait \u00e9vident que leurs \u00e2mes \u00e9taient parentes,\nqu'il y avait un je ne sais quoi sympathique dans leur nature, une\nmyst\u00e9rieuse ressemblance dans leurs sentiments. Son nom fut le premier\nqui s'\u00e9chappa des l\u00e8vres de M. Tupman, lorsqu'il \u00e9tait \u00e9tendu bless\u00e9 sur\nla terre; le cri d\u00e9chirant de miss Wardle fut le premier qui frappa\nl'oreille de M. Tupman, lorsqu'il fut rapport\u00e9 \u00e0 la maison. Mais cette\nagitation avait-elle \u00e9t\u00e9 caus\u00e9e par une sensibilit\u00e9 aimable et f\u00e9minine,\nqui se serait \u00e9galement manifest\u00e9e pour tout autre; ou bien avait-elle\n\u00e9t\u00e9 enfant\u00e9e par un sentiment plus passionn\u00e9, plus ardent, que lui seul,\nparmi tous les mortels, pouvait \u00e9veiller dans son coeur? Tels \u00e9taient les\ndoutes qui tourmentaient l'esprit de M. Tupman, tandis qu'il gisait\n\u00e9tendu sur le sofa; tels \u00e9taient les doutes qu'il se d\u00e9cida \u00e0 r\u00e9soudre\nsur-le-champ et pour toujours.\n\nLe soleil venait de terminer sa carri\u00e8re: MM. Pickwick, Winkle et\nSnodgrass \u00e9taient all\u00e9s avec leur joyeux h\u00f4te assister \u00e0 la f\u00eate voisine\nde Muggleton; Isabella et \u00c9mily se promenaient avec M. Trundle; la\nvieille dame sourde s'\u00e9tait endormie dans sa berg\u00e8re; le ronflement du\ngros joufflu arrivait, lent et monotone, de la cuisine lointaine. Les\nservantes r\u00e9jouies, fl\u00e2nant sur le pas de la porte, jouissaient des\ncharmes de la brune, et du plaisir de coqueter, d'une fa\u00e7on toute\nprimitive, avec certains animaux lourds et gauches attach\u00e9s \u00e0 la ferme.\nLe couple int\u00e9ressant \u00e9tait assis dans le salon, n\u00e9glig\u00e9s de tout le\nmonde, ne se souciant de personne, et r\u00eavant seulement d'eux-m\u00eames. Ils\nressemblaient, en un mot, \u00e0 une paire de gants d'agneau, repli\u00e9s l'un\ndans l'autre et soigneusement serr\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abJ'ai oubli\u00e9 mes pauvres fleurs, murmura la tante demoiselle.\n\n--Arrosez-les maintenant, r\u00e9pliqua M. Tupman avec l'accent de la\npersuasion.\n\n--L'air du soir vous refroidirait peut-\u00eatre, chuchota tendrement miss\nRachel.\n\n--Non, non, s'\u00e9cria M. Tupman en se levant, cela me fera du bien au\ncontraire. Laissez-moi vous accompagner.\u00bb\n\nL'int\u00e9ressante lady ajusta soigneusement l'\u00e9charpe qui soutenait le bras\ngauche du jouvenceau, et, prenant son bras droit, elle le conduisit dans\nle jardin.\n\nA l'une des extr\u00e9mit\u00e9s, on voyait un berceau de ch\u00e8vrefeuille, de jasmin\net d'autres plantes odorif\u00e9rantes; une de ces douces retraites que les\npropri\u00e9taires compatissants \u00e9l\u00e8vent pour la satisfaction des araign\u00e9es.\n\nLa tante demoiselle y prit, dans un coin, un grand arrosoir de cuivre\nrouge, et se disposa \u00e0 quitter le berceau. M. Tupman la retint et\nl'attira sur un si\u00e9ge \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui.\n\n\u00abMiss Wardle,\u00bb soupira-t-il.\n\nLa tante demoiselle fut saisie d'un tremblement si fort que les\ncailloux, qui se trouvaient par hasard dans l'arrosoir, se heurt\u00e8rent\ncontre les parois de zinc, et produisirent un bruit semblable \u00e0 celui\nque ferait entendre le hochet d'un enfant.\n\n\u00abMiss Wardle, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Tupman, vous \u00eates un ange.\n\n--Monsieur Tupman? s'\u00e9cria Rachel en devenant aussi rouge que son\narrosoir.\n\n--Oui, poursuivit l'\u00e9loquent pickwickien. Je le sais trop... pour mon\nmalheur!\n\n--Toutes les dames sont des anges, \u00e0 ce que disent les messieurs,\nr\u00e9torqua Rachel d'un ton enjou\u00e9.\n\n--Qu'est-ce donc que vous pouvez \u00eatre alors; \u00e0 quoi puis-je vous\ncomparer? O\u00f9 serait-il possible de rencontrer une femme qui vous\nressembl\u00e2t? O\u00f9 pourrais-je trouver une aussi rare combinaison\nd'excellence et de beaut\u00e9? O\u00f9 pourrais-je aller chercher.... Oh!\u00bb Ici\nM. Tupman s'arr\u00eata et serra la blanche main qui tenait l'anse de\nl'heureux arrosoir.\n\nLa timide h\u00e9ro\u00efne d\u00e9tourna un peu la t\u00eate. \u00abLes hommes sont de si grands\ntrompeurs, objecta-t-elle faiblement.\n\n--Oui, vous avez raison, exclama M. Tupman; mais ils ne le sont pas\ntous.... Il existe au moins un \u00eatre qui ne changera jamais! Un \u00eatre qui\nserait heureux de d\u00e9vouer toute son existence \u00e0 votre bonheur! Un \u00eatre\nqui ne vit que dans vos yeux, qui ne respire que dans votre sourire! Un\n\u00eatre qui ne supporte que pour vous seule le pesant fardeau de la vie!\n\n--Si l'on pouvait trouver un \u00eatre semblable....\n\n--Mais il est trouv\u00e9! interrompit l'ardent Tupman. Il est trouv\u00e9! Il est\nici, miss Wardle! Et avant que la dame p\u00fbt deviner ses intentions, il se\nprosterna \u00e0 ses pieds.\n\n--Monsieur Tupman, levez-vous! s'\u00e9cria Rachel.\n\n--Jamais! r\u00e9pliqua-t-il bravement. Oh! Rachel! Il saisit sa main\ncomplaisante, qui laissa tomber l'arrosoir, et il la pressa sur ses\nl\u00e8vres. Oh! Rachel! dites que vous m'aimez!\n\n--Monsieur Tupman, murmura la ci-devant jeune personne en tournant la\nt\u00eate, j'ose \u00e0 peine vous r\u00e9pondre.... mais.... vous ne m'\u00eates pas tout \u00e0\nfait indiff\u00e9rent.\u00bb\n\nAussit\u00f4t que M. Tupman eut entendu ce doux aveu, il s'empressa de faire\nce que lui inspirait son \u00e9motion enthousiaste, et ce que tout le monde\nfait dans les m\u00eames circonstances (\u00e0 ce que nous croyons du moins, car\nnous sommes peu familiaris\u00e9 avec ces sortes de choses), il se leva\npr\u00e9cipitamment, jeta ses bras autour du cou de la tendre demoiselle, et\nimprima sur ses l\u00e8vres de nombreux baisers. Apr\u00e8s une r\u00e9sistance\nconvenable, elle se soumit \u00e0 les recevoir si passivement qu'on ne\nsaurait dire combien M. Tupman lui en aurait donn\u00e9, si elle n'avait pas\ntressailli tout d'un coup, sans aucune affectation, cette fois, et ne\ns'\u00e9tait pas \u00e9cri\u00e9e d'une voix effray\u00e9e: \u00abMonsieur Tupman! on nous voit!\nNous sommes perdus!\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman se retourna. Le gros joufflu \u00e9tait derri\u00e8re lui, parfaitement\nimmobile, braquant sur le berceau ses gros yeux circulaires, nais avec\nun visage si d\u00e9nu\u00e9 d'expression, que le plus habile physionomiste\nn'aurait pu y d\u00e9couvrir de traces d'\u00e9tonnement, de curiosit\u00e9, ni\nd'aucune des passions connues qui agitent le coeur humain. M. Tupman\nregarda le gros joufflu, et le gros joufflu regarda M. Tupman; et plus\nM. Tupman \u00e9tudiait la compl\u00e8te torpeur de sa physionomie, plus il\ndemeurait convaincu que le somnolent jeune homme n'avait pas vu ou\nn'avait pas compris ce qui s'\u00e9tait pass\u00e9. Dans cette persuasion il lui\ndit avec une grande fermet\u00e9: \u00abQue venez-vous faire ici?\n\n--Le souper est pr\u00eat, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Joe sans h\u00e9siter.\n\n--Arrivez-vous \u00e0 l'instant? lui demanda M. Tupman, en le transper\u00e7ant du\nregard.\n\n--A l'instant,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit-il.\n\nM. Tupman le consid\u00e9ra de nouveau tr\u00e8s-fixement, mais ses yeux ne\nclign\u00e8rent pas; il n'y avait pas un pli sur son visage.\n\nM. Tupman prit le bras de la tante demoiselle, et marcha avec elle vers\nla maison; le jeune homme les suivit par derri\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abIl ne sait rien de ce qui vient de se passer, dit tout bas l'heureux\npickwickien.\n\n--Rien,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua la dame.\n\nUn bruit se fit entendre derri\u00e8re eux, semblable \u00e0 un ricanement\n\u00e9touff\u00e9. M. Tupman se retourna vivement. Non... ce ne pouvait pas \u00eatre\nle gros joufflu: on ne distinguait pas sur son visage le moindre rayon\nde gaiet\u00e9; on n'y voyait que de la gloutonnerie.\n\n\u00abIl dormait sans doute tout en marchant, chuchota M. Tupman.\n\n--Je n'en ai pas le moindre doute,\u00bb r\u00e9partit la tante demoiselle; et\nalors ils se mirent \u00e0 rire tous les deux.\n\nIls se trompaient, cependant. Une fois en sa vie le l\u00e9thargique jeune\nhomme n'\u00e9tait pas endormi. Il \u00e9tait \u00e9veill\u00e9, bien \u00e9veill\u00e9, et il avait\ntout remarqu\u00e9.\n\nLe souper se passa sans que personne fit aucun effort pour rendre la\nconversation g\u00e9n\u00e9rale. La vieille lady \u00e9tait all\u00e9e se coucher; Isabella\nWardle se d\u00e9vouait exclusivement \u00e0 M. Trundle; les attentions de sa\ntante \u00e9taient r\u00e9serv\u00e9es pour M. Tupman, et les pens\u00e9es d'\u00c9mily\nparaissaient occup\u00e9es de quelque objet lointain; peut-\u00eatre \u00e9taient-elles\nerrantes autour de M. Snodgrass.\n\nOnze heures, minuit, une heure avaient sonn\u00e9 successivement, et les\ngentlemen n'\u00e9taient pas revenus de Muggleton. La consternation \u00e9tait\npeinte sur tous les visages. Avaient-ils \u00e9t\u00e9 attaqu\u00e9s et vol\u00e9s?\nFallait-il envoyer des hommes et des lanternes sur tous les chemins\nqu'ils avaient pu prendre? Fallait-il.... \u00c9coutez.... Les voil\u00e0!--Qui\npeut les avoir tant attard\u00e9s?--Une voix \u00e9trang\u00e8re? \u00e0 qui peut-elle\nappartenir? Tout le monde se pr\u00e9cipita dans la cuisine o\u00f9 les truands\n\u00e9taient d\u00e9barqu\u00e9s, et l'on reconnut au premier coup d'oeil le v\u00e9ritable\n\u00e9tat des choses.\n\nM. Pickwick, avec ses mains dans ses poches et son chapeau compl\u00e9tement\nenfonc\u00e9 sur un oeil, \u00e9tait appuy\u00e9 contre le buffet, et, balan\u00e7ant sa t\u00eate\nde droite \u00e0 gauche, produisait une constante succession de sourires, les\nplus doux, les plus bienveillants du monde, mais sans aucune cause ou\npr\u00e9texte appr\u00e9ciable. Le vieux M. Wardle, dont le visage \u00e9tait\nprodigieusement enflamm\u00e9, serrait les mains d'un visiteur \u00e9tranger en\nb\u00e9gayant des protestations d'amiti\u00e9 \u00e9ternelle. M. Winkle, se soutenant \u00e0\nla bo\u00eete d'une horloge \u00e0 poids, appelait, d'une voix faible, les\nvengeances du ciel sur tout membre de la famille qui lui conseillerait\nd'aller se coucher. Enfin M. Snodgrass s'\u00e9tait affaiss\u00e9 sur une chaise,\net chaque trait de son visage expressif portait l'empreinte de la mis\u00e8re\nla plus abjecte et la plus profonde que se puisse figurer l'esprit\nhumain.\n\n\u00abEst-il arriv\u00e9 quelque chose? demand\u00e8rent les trois dames.\n\n--Rien du tout, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick. Nous... sommes... tous... en bon\n\u00e9tat.... Dites donc.... Wardle.... nous sommes... tous... en bon\n\u00e9tat.... N'est-ce pas?\n\n--Un peu, r\u00e9pliqua le joyeux h\u00f4te. Mes ch\u00e9ries... voici mon ami, M.\nJingle... l'ami de M. Pickwick.... M. Jingle... venu... pour une petite\nvisite....\n\n--Monsieur, demanda \u00c9mily avec anxi\u00e9t\u00e9, est-il arriv\u00e9 quelque chose \u00e0 M.\nSnodgrass?\n\n--Rien du tout, madame, r\u00e9pliqua l'\u00e9tranger. D\u00eener de Club,--joyeuse\ncompagnie,--chansons admirables,--vieux porto,--vin de\nBordeaux,--bon,--tr\u00e8s-bon.--C'est le vin, madame, le vin.\n\n--Ce n'est pas le vin, b\u00e9gaya M. Snodgrass d'un ton grave. C'est le\nsaumon. (Remarquez qu'en pareille circonstance ce n'est jamais le vin.)\n\n--Ne feraient-ils pas mieux d'aller se coucher, madame? demanda Emma.\nDeux des gens pourraient porter ces messieurs dans leur chambre.\n\n--Je n'irai pas me coucher! s'\u00e9cria M. Winkle avec fermet\u00e9.\n\n--Aucun homme vivant ne me portera! dit intr\u00e9pidement M. Pickwick; et il\ncontinua de sourire comme auparavant.\n\n--Hourra! balbutia faiblement M. Winkle.\n\n--Hourra! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick, et prenant son chapeau il l'aplatit sur la\nterre, saisit ses lunettes et les fit voler \u00e0 travers la cuisine; puis,\nayant accompli cette heureuse plaisanterie, il recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 rire comme\nun insens\u00e9.\n\n--Apportez-nous une... une autre... bouteille! cria M. Winkle en\ncommen\u00e7ant sur un ton tr\u00e8s-\u00e9lev\u00e9 et finissant sur un ton tr\u00e8s-bas. Mais\npeu apr\u00e8s sa t\u00eate tomba sur sa poitrine; il murmura encore son\ninvincible d\u00e9termination de ne pas s'aller coucher, b\u00e9gaya un regret\nsanguinaire de n'avoir pas, dans la matin\u00e9e, _fait l'affaire du vieux\nTupman_, puis il s'endormit profond\u00e9ment. En cet \u00e9tat il fut transport\u00e9\ndans sa chambre par deux jeunes g\u00e9ants, sous la surveillance imm\u00e9diate\ndu gros joufflu. Bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s M. Snodgrass confia sa personne aux soins\nprotecteurs du jeune somnambule. M. Pickwick accepta le bras de M.\nTupman et disparut tranquillement, en souriant plus que jamais. M.\nWardle fit ses adieux \u00e0 toute sa famille d'une mani\u00e8re aussi tendre,\naussi path\u00e9tique, que s'il l'avait quitt\u00e9e pour monter sur l'\u00e9chafaud,\naccorda \u00e0 M. Trundle l'honneur de lui faire gravir les escaliers, et\ns'\u00e9loigna en faisant d'inutiles efforts pour prendre un air digne et\nsolennel.\n\n\u00abQuelle sc\u00e8ne choquante! s'\u00e9cria la tante demoiselle.\n\n--D\u00e9go\u00fbtante! r\u00e9pondirent les deux jeunes ladies.\n\n--Terrible! terrible! dit M. Jingle d'un air tr\u00e8s-grave. (Il \u00e9tait en\navance sur tous ses compagnons d'au moins une bouteille et demie.)\nHorrible spectacle! Tr\u00e8s-horrible.\n\n--Quel aimable homme! dit tout bas la tante demoiselle \u00e0 M. Tupman.\n\n--Et joli gar\u00e7on par-dessus le march\u00e9, murmura \u00c9mily Wardle.\n\n--Oh! tout \u00e0 fait, observa la tante demoiselle.\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman pensa \u00e0 la petite veuve de Rochester, et son esprit fut\ntroubl\u00e9. La demi-heure de conversation qui suivit n'\u00e9tait pas de nature\n\u00e0 le rassurer. Le nouveau visiteur parla beaucoup, et le nombre de ses\nanecdotes fut pourtant moins grand que celui de ses politesses. M.\nTupman sentit que sa faveur d\u00e9croissait \u00e0 mesure que celle de M. Jingle\ndevenait plus grande. Son rire \u00e9tait forc\u00e9, sa gaiet\u00e9 \u00e9tait feinte, et\nlorsqu'\u00e0 la fin il posa sur son oreiller ses tempes br\u00fblantes, il pensa,\navec une horrible satisfaction, au plaisir qu'il aurait \u00e0 tenir en ce\nmoment la t\u00eate de M. Jingle entre son lit de plumes et son matelas.\n\nL'infatigable \u00e9tranger se leva le lendemain de bonne heure, et tandis\nque ses compagnons demeuraient dans leur lit, accabl\u00e9s par les\nd\u00e9bauches de la nuit pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente, il s'employa avec succ\u00e8s \u00e0 \u00e9gayer le\nd\u00e9jeuner. Ses efforts, \u00e0 cet \u00e9gard, furent tellement heureux que la\nvieille dame sourde se fit r\u00e9p\u00e9ter, \u00e0 travers son cornet, deux ou trois\nde ses meilleures plaisanteries, et poussa m\u00eame la condescendance\njusqu'\u00e0 dire tout haut \u00e0 la tante demoiselle que c'\u00e9tait un charmant\nmauvais sujet. Les autres membres pr\u00e9sents de la famille partageaient\ncompl\u00e9tement cette opinion.\n\nDans les belles matin\u00e9es d'\u00e9t\u00e9, la vieille dame avait l'habitude de se\nrendre sous le berceau o\u00f9 M. Tupman s'\u00e9tait si bien signal\u00e9. Les choses\nse passaient ainsi: d'abord le gros joufflu prenait sur un champignon,\ndans la chambre \u00e0 coucher de la vieille lady, un chapeau ou plut\u00f4t un\ncapuchon de satin noir, un ch\u00e2le de coton bien chaud, puis une solide\ncanne, orn\u00e9e d'une poign\u00e9e commode. Ensuite, la vieille dame ayant mis\npos\u00e9ment le capuchon et le ch\u00e2le, s'appuyait d'une main sur la canne, de\nl'autre sur l'\u00e9paule de son page bouffi, et marchait lentement jusqu'au\nberceau, o\u00f9 Joe la laissait jouir de la fra\u00eecheur de l'air pendant une\ndemi-heure: apr\u00e8s quoi il retournait la chercher et la ramenait \u00e0 la\nmaison.\n\nLa vieille dame aimait la pr\u00e9cision et la r\u00e9gularit\u00e9, et, comme depuis\ntrois \u00e9t\u00e9s successifs cette c\u00e9r\u00e9monie s'\u00e9tait accomplie sans la plus\nl\u00e9g\u00e8re infraction aux r\u00e8gles \u00e9tablies, elle ne fut pas l\u00e9g\u00e8rement\nsurprise, dans la matin\u00e9e en question, lorsqu'elle vit le gros joufflu,\nau lieu de quitter le berceau d'un pas lourd, en faire le tour avec\npr\u00e9caution, regarder soigneusement de tous cot\u00e9s, et se rapprocher\nd'elle sur la pointe du pied, avec l'air du plus profond myst\u00e8re.\n\nLa vieille dame \u00e9tait poltronne;--presque toutes les vieilles dames le\nsont;--sa premi\u00e8re pens\u00e9e fut que l'enfl\u00e9 personnage allait lui faire\nquelque atroce violence pour s'emparer de la menue monnaie qu'elle\npouvait avoir sur elle. Elle aurait voulu crier au secours, mais l'\u00e2ge\net l'infirmit\u00e9 l'avaient depuis longtemps priv\u00e9e de la facult\u00e9 de crier.\nElle se contenta donc d'\u00e9pier les mouvements de son page avec une\nterreur profonde, qui ne fut nullement diminu\u00e9e lorsqu'il s'approcha\ntout pr\u00e8s d'elle, et lui cria dans l'oreille d'une voix agit\u00e9e, et qui\nlui parut mena\u00e7ante: \u00abMa\u00eetresse!\u00bb\n\nOr il arriva par hasard que M. Jingle se promenait dans le jardin pr\u00e8s\ndu berceau, dans ce m\u00eame moment. Lui aussi entendit crier \u00abMa\u00eetresse!\u00bb\net il s'arr\u00eata pour en entendre davantage. Il avait trois raisons pour\nagir ainsi. Premi\u00e8rement, il \u00e9tait inoccup\u00e9 et curieux; secondement, il\nn'avait aucune esp\u00e8ce de scrupule; troisi\u00e8mement, il \u00e9tait cach\u00e9 par\nquelques buissons. Il s'arr\u00eata donc, et \u00e9couta.\n\n\u00abMa\u00eetresse! cria le gros joufflu.\n\n--Eh bien, Joe! dit la vieille dame toute tremblante. Vous savez que\nj'ai toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 une bien bonne ma\u00eetresse pour vous. Vous avez toujours\n\u00e9t\u00e9 bien trait\u00e9, Joe. Vous n'avez jamais eu grand'chose \u00e0 faire, et vous\navez toujours eu suffisamment \u00e0 manger.\u00bb\n\nCet habile discours ayant fait vibrer les cordes les plus intimes du\ngros gar\u00e7on, il r\u00e9pondit avec expression: \u00abJe sais \u00e7a.\n\n--Alors, pourquoi m'effrayer ainsi? Que voulez-vous me faire? continua\nla vieille dame en reprenant courage.\n\n--Je veux vous faire frissonner!\u00bb\n\nC'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 une cruelle mani\u00e8re de prouver sa gratitude, et, comme la\nvieille dame ne comprenait pas bien clairement comment ce r\u00e9sultat\nserait obtenu, elle sentit rena\u00eetre toutes ses terreurs.\n\n\u00abSavez-vous ce que j'ai vu dans ce berceau, hier au soir? demanda le\ngros joufflu.\n\n--Dieu nous b\u00e9nisse! Quoi donc? s'\u00e9cria la vieille lady, alarm\u00e9e par\nl'air solennel du corpulent jeune homme.\n\n--Le gentleman au bras en \u00e9charpe qui embrassait....\n\n--Qui? Joe, qui? aucune des servantes, j'esp\u00e8re?\n\n--Pire que \u00e7a!\u00bb cria le jeune homme dans l'oreille de la vieille dame.\n\n--Aucune de mes petites-filles?\n\n--Pire que \u00e7a!\n\n--Pire que cela, Joe! s'\u00e9cria la vieille dame, qui avait pens\u00e9 que\nc'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 la plus grande des atrocit\u00e9s humaines. Qui \u00e9tait-ce, Joe? Je\nveux absolument le savoir.\u00bb\n\nLe d\u00e9lateur regarda soigneusement autour de lui, et, ayant termin\u00e9 son\ninspection, cria dans l'oreille de la vieille lady:\n\n\u00abMiss Rachel!\n\n--Quoi? dit-elle d'une voix aigu\u00eb. Parlez plus haut!\n\n--Miss Rachel! hurla le gros joufflu.\n\n--Ma fille!\u00bb\n\nJoe r\u00e9pondit par une succession de signes affirmatifs, qui imprim\u00e8rent \u00e0\nses joues un mouvement ondulatoire semblable \u00e0 celui d'un plat de\nblanc-manger.\n\n\u00abEt elle l'a souffert! s'\u00e9cria la vieille dame.\n\n--Elle l'a embrass\u00e9 \u00e0 son tour! Je l'ai vue!\u00bb r\u00e9pondu le gros joufflu\nen ricanant.\n\nSi M. Jingle, de sa cachette, avait pu voir l'expression du visage de la\nvieille dame, \u00e0 cette communication, il est probable qu'un soudain \u00e9clat\nde rire aurait trahi sa pr\u00e9sence aupr\u00e8s du berceau. Mais il recueillit\nseulement des fragments de phrases irrit\u00e9es, telles que:\n\n\u00abSans ma permission!... A son \u00e2ge!... Mis\u00e9rable vieille que je suis!...\nElle aurait pu attendre que je fusse morte!...\u00bb\n\nPuis, ensuite, il entendit les pas pesants du gros gar\u00e7on qui\ns'\u00e9loignait et laissait la vieille lady toute seule.\n\nC'est un fait remarquable, peut-\u00eatre, mais n\u00e9anmoins c'est un fait, que\nM. Jingle, cinq minutes apr\u00e8s son arriv\u00e9e \u00e0 Manoir-ferme, avait r\u00e9solu,\ndans son for int\u00e9rieur, d'assi\u00e9ger sans d\u00e9lai le coeur de la tante\ndemoiselle. Il \u00e9tait assez bon observateur pour avoir remarqu\u00e9 que ses\nmani\u00e8res d\u00e9gag\u00e9es ne d\u00e9plaisaient nullement au bel objet de ses\nattaques, et il la soup\u00e7onnait fortement de poss\u00e9der la plus d\u00e9sirable\nde toutes les perfections: une petite fortune ind\u00e9pendante. L'imp\u00e9rative\nn\u00e9cessit\u00e9 de d\u00e9busquer son rival d'une mani\u00e8re ou d'une autre s'offrit\ndonc imm\u00e9diatement \u00e0 son esprit, et il r\u00e9solut de prendre sans d\u00e9lai des\nmesures \u00e0 cet \u00e9gard. Fielding nous dit quo l'homme est de feu, que la\nfemme est d'\u00e9toupe, et que le prince des t\u00e9n\u00e8bres se pla\u00eet \u00e0 les\nrapprocher. M. Jingle savait que les jeunes gens sont aux tantes\ndemoiselles comme le gaz enflamm\u00e9 \u00e0 la poudre fulminante, et il se\nd\u00e9termina \u00e0 essayer sur-le-champ l'effet d'une explosion.\n\nTout en r\u00e9fl\u00e9chissant aux moyens d'ex\u00e9cuter cette importante r\u00e9solution,\nil se glissa hors de sa cachette, et, prot\u00e9g\u00e9 par les buissons\nsusmentionn\u00e9s, regagna la maison sans \u00eatre aper\u00e7u. La fortune semblait\nd\u00e9termin\u00e9e \u00e0 favoriser ses desseins. Il vit de loin M. Tupman et les\nautres gentlemen s'enfoncer dans le jardin; il savait que les jeunes\ndemoiselles \u00e9taient sorties ensemble apr\u00e8s le d\u00e9jeuner: la c\u00f4te \u00e9tait\ndonc libre.\n\nLa porte du salon se trouvant entr'ouverte, M. Jingle allongea la t\u00eate\net regarda. La tante demoiselle \u00e9tait en train de tricoter. Il toussa,\nelle leva les yeux et sourit. Il n'existait aucune dose d'h\u00e9sitation\ndans le caract\u00e8re de M. Jingle; il posa myst\u00e9rieusement son doigt sur sa\nbouche, entra dans la chambre et ferma la porte.\n\n\u00abMiss Wardle, dit-il avec une chaleur affect\u00e9e, pardonnez cette\nt\u00e9m\u00e9rit\u00e9... courte connaissance... pas de temps pour la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie....\nTout est d\u00e9couvert.\n\n--Monsieur! s'\u00e9cria la tante demoiselle fort \u00e9tonn\u00e9e, et doutant presque\nque M. Jingle f\u00fbt dans son bon sens.\n\n--Silence! dit M. Jingle d'une voix th\u00e9\u00e2trale. Gros enfl\u00e9... face de\npoupard... les yeux ronds... canaille!...\u00bb\n\nIci il secoua la t\u00eate d'une mani\u00e8re expressive, et la tante demoiselle\ndevint toute tremblante d'agitation.\n\n\u00abJe pr\u00e9sume que vous voulez parler de Joseph, monsieur? dit-elle en\nfaisant effort pour para\u00eetre calme.\n\n--Oui, madame. Damnation sur votre Joe!... Chien de tra\u00eetre que ce\nJoe!... A instruit la vieille dame... la vieille dame furieuse...\nenrag\u00e9e... d\u00e9lirante!... Berceau... Tupman... caresses... baisers et\ntout le reste.... Eh! madame, eh!\n\n--M. Jingle, s'\u00e9cria la tante demoiselle, si vous \u00eates venu ici pour\nm'insulter....\n\n--Pas du tout; pas le moins du monde. Entendu l'histoire, venu pour vous\navertir du danger, offrir mes services, pr\u00e9venir les cancans. Tout est\ndit. Vous prenez cela pour une insulte... je quitte la place....\u00bb\n\nEt il tourna sur ses talons comme pour ex\u00e9cuter cette menace.\n\n\u00abQue dois-je faire? s'\u00e9cria la pauvre demoiselle, en fondant en larmes.\nMon fr\u00e8re sera furieux!\n\n--Naturellement. Enrag\u00e9!\n\n--Oh! monsieur Jingle, que puis-je faire?\n\n--Dites qu'il a r\u00eav\u00e9, r\u00e9pliqua M. Jingle avec aplomb.\u00bb\n\nUn rayon de consolation \u00e9claira l'esprit de la tante demoiselle \u00e0 cette\nsuggestion. M. Jingle s'en aper\u00e7ut et poursuivit son avantage.\n\n\u00abBah! bah! rien de plus ais\u00e9: gar\u00e7on mauvais sujet, femme aimable, gros\ngar\u00e7on fustig\u00e9. Vous toujours crue; terminaison de l'affaire... tout\ns'arrange.\u00bb\n\nSoit que la probabilit\u00e9 d'\u00e9chapper aux cons\u00e9quences de cette\nmalencontreuse d\u00e9couverte f\u00fbt d\u00e9licieuse pour les sentiments de la tante\ndemoiselle, soit que l'\u00e2cret\u00e9 de son chagrin f\u00fbt adoucie en s'entendant\nappeler femme aimable, elle tourna vers M. Jingle son visage\nreconnaissant et couvert d'une l\u00e9g\u00e8re rougeur.\n\nL'insinuant gentleman soupira profond\u00e9ment, attacha ses regards pendant\nquelques minutes sur la figure de la tante demoiselle, puis tressaillit\nm\u00e9lodramatiquement, et d\u00e9tourna ses yeux avec pr\u00e9cipitation.\n\n\u00abVous paraissez malheureux, monsieur Jingle, dit la dame d'une voix\nplaintive. Puis-je vous t\u00e9moigner ma reconnaissance en vous demandant la\ncause de vos chagrins, afin de t\u00e2cher de les all\u00e9ger?\n\n--Ah! s'\u00e9cria M. Jingle avec un autre tressaillement, soulager! les\nall\u00e9ger! quand votre amour s'est r\u00e9pandu sur un homme indigne d'une\ntelle b\u00e9n\u00e9diction! qui maintenant m\u00eame a l'inf\u00e2me dessein de captiver la\nni\u00e8ce d'un ange.... Mais non! il est mon ami et je ne veux pas d\u00e9voiler\nses vices. Miss Wardle, adieu!\u00bb\n\nEn terminant ce discours, le plus suivi qu'on lui e\u00fbt jamais entendu\nprof\u00e9rer, M. Jingle appliqua sur ses yeux le reste du mouchoir dont nous\navons d\u00e9j\u00e0 parl\u00e9, et se dirigea vers la porte.\n\n\u00abArr\u00eatez, monsieur Jingle, dit avec force la tante demoiselle. Vous avez\nfait une allusion \u00e0 M. Tupman; expliquez-la.\n\n--Jamais! s'\u00e9cria M. Jingle d'un air th\u00e9\u00e2tral, jamais!\u00bb\n\nEt, pour montrer qu'il ne voulait pas \u00eatre questionn\u00e9 davantage, il prit\nune chaise et s'assit tout aupr\u00e8s de la tante demoiselle.\n\n\u00abM. Jingle, reprit-elle, je vous implore, je vous supplie de me r\u00e9v\u00e9ler\nl'affreux myst\u00e8re qui enveloppe M. Tupman.\n\n--Ah! repartit M. Jingle en fixant ses yeux sur le visage de la tante,\npuis-je voir... charmante cr\u00e9ature... sacrifi\u00e9e \u00e0 l'autel? Avarice\nsordide!\u00bb\n\nIl parut lutter pendant quelques secondes contre des \u00e9motions de toute\nnature; puis il dit d'une voix basse et profonde:\n\n\u00abTupman n'aime que votre argent.\n\n--Le mis\u00e9rable!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria la demoiselle avec une \u00e9nergique indignation.\n\nLes doutes de M. Jingle \u00e9taient r\u00e9solus: elle avait de l'argent.\n\n\u00abBien plus, ajouta-t-il, il en aime une autre....\n\n--Une autre! balbutia la tante. Et qui?\n\n--Petite jeune fille... les yeux noirs... ni\u00e8ce \u00c9mily.\u00bb\n\nIl y eut un silence; car s'il existait dans tout l'univers un individu\nfemelle pour qui Rachel ressentit une jalousie mortelle, inv\u00e9t\u00e9r\u00e9e,\nc'\u00e9tait pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment cette ni\u00e8ce. Le rouge lui monta au visage et au col,\net elle secoua silencieusement sa t\u00eate avec une expression d'ineffable\nd\u00e9dain.\n\nA la fin, mordant sa l\u00e8vre mince et se redressant un peu, elle dit\nd'une voix aigrelette;\n\n\u00abCela ne se peut pas. Je ne veux pas le croire.\n\n--\u00c9piez-les, r\u00e9pliqua M. Jingle.\n\n--Je le ferai.\n\n--\u00c9piez les regards de Tupman.\n\n--Je le ferai.\n\n--Ses chuchotements.\n\n--Je le ferai!\n\n--Il ira s'asseoir aupr\u00e8s d'elle \u00e0 d\u00eener.\n\n--Nous verrons.\n\n--Il lui fera des compliments.\n\n--Nous verrons.\n\n--Et il vous plantera l\u00e0.\n\n--Me planter l\u00e0! cria-t-elle en tremblant de rage. Me planter l\u00e0!\n\n--Avez-vous des yeux pour vous en convaincre? reprit M. Jingle.\n\n--Oui.\n\n--Montrerez-vous du caract\u00e8re?\n\n--Oui.\n\n--L'\u00e9couterez-vous ensuite?\n\n--Jamais!\n\n--Prendrez-vous un autre amant?\n\n--Oui.\n\n--Ce sera moi?\u00bb\n\nEt M. Jingle tomba sur ses genoux et y resta pendant cinq minutes. Quand\nil se releva, il \u00e9tait l'amant accept\u00e9 de la tante demoiselle,\nconditionnellement, toutefois, et pourvu que l'infid\u00e9lit\u00e9 de M. Tupman\nf\u00fbt rendue manifeste.\n\nM. Jingle devait en fournir des preuves, et elles arriv\u00e8rent d\u00e8s le\nd\u00eener. Miss Rachel pouvait \u00e0 peine en croire ses yeux. M. Tracy Tupman\n\u00e9tait assis \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 d'\u00c9mily, lorgnant, souriant, parlant bas, en rivalit\u00e9\navec M. Snodgrass. Pas un mot, pas un regard, pas un signe n'\u00e9taient\ndirig\u00e9s vers celle qui, le soir pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent, \u00e9tait l'orgueil de son coeur.\n\n\u00abDamn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on! pensa le vieux Wardle, qui avait appris de sa m\u00e8re toute\nl'histoire; damn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on! Il \u00e9tait endormi. C'est pure imagination!\n\n--Sc\u00e9l\u00e9rat! pensait la tante demoiselle. Cher monsieur Jingle, vous ne\nme trompiez pas. Oh! que je d\u00e9teste le mis\u00e9rable!\u00bb\n\nL'inexplicable changement que semblait annoncer la conduite de M.\nTupman sera expliqu\u00e9 \u00e0 nos lecteurs par la conversation suivante.\n\nC'\u00e9tait le soir du m\u00eame jour, et la sc\u00e8ne se passait dans le jardin.\nDeux personnages marchaient dans une all\u00e9e \u00e9cart\u00e9e. L'un \u00e9tait assez\ngros et assez court, l'autre assez long et assez gr\u00eale. L'un \u00e9tait M.\nTupman, l'autre, M. Jingle.\n\nLe gros personnage commen\u00e7a le dialogue en demandant:\n\n\u00abM'en suis-je bien tir\u00e9?\n\n--Superbe! fameux! N'aurais pas mieux jou\u00e9 le r\u00f4le moi-m\u00eame. Il faut\nrecommencer demain, tous les jours, jusqu'\u00e0 nouvel ordre.\n\n--Rachel le d\u00e9sire encore?\n\n--Cela ne l'amuse pas, naturellement; mais il le faut bien. Le fr\u00e8re est\nterrible; elle a peur. On ne peut faire autrement. Dans quelques jours,\nles soup\u00e7ons d\u00e9truits, les vieilles gens d\u00e9rout\u00e9s, elle couronnera votre\nbonheur.\n\n--Vous n'avez pas d'autre message?\n\n--L'amour, le plus tendre amour, les plus doux sentiments, une affection\ninalt\u00e9rable. Puis-je dire quelque chose pour vous?\n\n--Mon cher, r\u00e9pondit l'innocent M. Tupman en serrant chaleureusement la\nmain de son ami, portez-lui mes plus vives tendresses. Dites-lui combien\nj'ai de peine \u00e0 dissimuler. Dites tout ce qu'on peut dire d'aimable;\nmais ajoutez que je reconnais la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 du r\u00f4le qu'elle m'a impos\u00e9 ce\nmatin par votre conseil. Dites que j'applaudis \u00e0 sa sagesse et que\nj'admire sa discr\u00e9tion.\n\n--Je le lui dirai. Est-ce tout?\n\n--Oui. Ajoutez seulement que je soupire ardemment apr\u00e8s l'\u00e9poque o\u00f9 elle\nm'appartiendra, o\u00f9 toute dissimulation deviendra inutile.\n\n--Certainement, certainement. Est-ce tout?\n\n--Oh! mon ami! dit le pauvre M. Tupman en pressant de nouveau la main de\nson compagnon, oh! mon ami, recevez mes remerc\u00eements les plus sinc\u00e8res\npour votre bont\u00e9 d\u00e9sint\u00e9ress\u00e9e, et pardonnez-moi si, m\u00eame en\nimagination, je vous ai jamais fait l'injustice de supposer que vous\npourriez me nuire. Mon cher ami, pourrai-je jamais reconna\u00eetre un tel\nservice?\n\n--Ne parlez pas de \u00e7a, r\u00e9pliqua M. Jingle, ne par....\u00bb\n\nEt il s'interrompit, comme s'il s'\u00e9tait rappel\u00e9 tout d'un coup quelque\nchose.\n\n\u00abA propos, reprit-il, vous ne pourriez pas me pr\u00eater dix guin\u00e9es, hein?\nAffaire tr\u00e8s-urgente. Vous rendrai \u00e7a dans trois jours.\n\n--Je crois que je puis vous obliger, r\u00e9pondit M. Tupman dans la\npl\u00e9nitude de son coeur. Dans trois jours, dites-vous?\n\n--Rien que trois jours; tout fini, alors, plus de difficult\u00e9s.\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman compta les dix guin\u00e9es dans la main de son compagnon, et\ncelui-ci les insinua dans son gousset, pi\u00e8ce par pi\u00e8ce, tout en\nregagnant la maison.\n\n\u00abAttention! dit M. Jingle, pas un regard.\n\n--Pas un coup d'oeil, repartit M. Tupman.\n\n--Pas un mot!\n\n--Pas une syllabe.\n\n--Toutes vos cajoleries pour la ni\u00e8ce; plut\u00f4t brutal qu'autre chose\nenvers la tante, seul moyen de tromper les envieux....\n\n--Je ne m'oublierai pas, r\u00e9pondit tout haut M. Tupman.\n\n--Et je ne m'oublierai pas non plus,\u00bb dit tout bas M. Jingle.\n\nIls entraient alors dans la maison.\n\nLa sc\u00e8ne du d\u00eener fut r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9e le soir m\u00eame et pendant trois autres\nd\u00eeners et trois soir\u00e9es subs\u00e9quentes. Le quatri\u00e8me soir, le vieux Wardle\nparaissait fort satisfait, car il s'\u00e9tait convaincu que M. Tupman avait\n\u00e9t\u00e9 faussement accus\u00e9; celui-ci \u00e9tait \u00e9galement joyeux, car M. Jingle\nlui avait dit que son affaire serait bient\u00f4t termin\u00e9e; M. Pickwick se\ntrouvait tr\u00e8s-heureux, car c'\u00e9tait son \u00e9tat habituel; M. Snodgrass ne\nl'\u00e9tait pas, car il devenait jaloux de M. Tupman; la vieille lady \u00e9tait\nde fort bonne humeur, car elle gagnait au whist; enfin M. Jingle et miss\nWardle \u00e9taient enchant\u00e9s, pour des raisons tellement importantes dans\ncette v\u00e9ridiques histoire, qu'elles seront racont\u00e9es dans un autre\nchapitre.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE IX.\n\nLa d\u00e9couverte et la poursuite.\n\n\nLe souper \u00e9tait servi, les chaises \u00e9taient plac\u00e9es autour de la table;\ndes bouteilles, des pots et des verres \u00e9taient rang\u00e9s sur le buffet;\ntout enfin annon\u00e7ait l'approche du moment le plus sociable des\nvingt-quatre heures, c'est-\u00e0-dire le moment du souper.\n\n\u00abO\u00f9 est Rachel? demanda M. Wardle.\n\n--Et Jingle, ajouta M. Pickwick.\n\n--Tiens! reprit son h\u00f4te, comment ne nous sommes-nous pas aper\u00e7us plus\nt\u00f4t de son absence? Il y a au moins deux heures que je n'ai entendu sa\nvoix. \u00c9mily, ma ch\u00e8re, tirez la sonnette.\u00bb\n\nLa sonnette retentit et le gros joufflu parut.\n\n\u00abO\u00f9 est miss Rachel?\u00bb\n\nIl n'en savait rien.\n\n--O\u00f9 est M. Jingle, alors?\u00bb\n\nIl ne pouvait le dire.\n\nTout le monde parut surpris. Il \u00e9tait tard: onze heures pass\u00e9es. M.\nTupman riait dans sa barbe, car ils devaient \u00eatre dans quelque coin \u00e0\nparler de lui.\n\n\u00abDr\u00f4le de farce, ha! ha!\n\n--Cela ne fait rien, dit M. Wardle apr\u00e8s une courte pause. Je suis s\u00fbr\nqu'ils vont revenir \u00e0 l'instant. Je n'attends jamais personne, au\nsouper.\n\n--Excellente r\u00e8gle! repartit M. Pickwick. Admirable!\n\n--Je vous en prie, asseyez-vous, poursuivit son h\u00f4te.\n\n--Certainement,\u00bb dit M. Pickwick.\n\nEt ils s'assirent.\n\nIl y avait sur la table une gigantesque pi\u00e8ce de boeuf froid, et M.\nPickwick en avait re\u00e7u une abondante portion. Il avait port\u00e9 la\nfourchette vers ses l\u00e8vres et \u00e9tait sur le point d'ouvrir la bouche pour\ny introduire un morceau convenable, quand un grand bruit de voix s'\u00e9leva\ntout \u00e0 coup dans la cuisine. M. Pickwick leva la t\u00eate et abaissa sa\nfourchette; M. Wardle cessa de d\u00e9couper, et insensiblement l\u00e2cha le\ncouteau, qui resta ins\u00e9r\u00e9 dans la morceau de boeuf. Il regarda M.\nPickwick, et M. Pickwick le regarda.\n\nDes pas lourds retentirent dans le passage. La porte de la salle \u00e0\nmanger s'ouvrit tout \u00e0 coup, et l'homme qui avait nettoy\u00e9 les bottes de\nM. Pickwick le jour de son arriv\u00e9e, se pr\u00e9cipita dans la chambre, suivi\ndu gros joufflu et de tous les autres domestiques.\n\n\u00abQue diable cela veut-il dire? s'\u00e9cria l'amphytrion.\n\n--Est-ce que le feu est dans la chemin\u00e9e de la cuisine? demanda la\nvieille lady.\n\n--Non! grand'maman! cri\u00e8rent les deux jeunes personnes.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?\u00bb reprit le ma\u00eetre de la maison.\n\nL'homme respira profond\u00e9ment, et dit d'une voix essouffl\u00e9e:\n\n\u00abIls sont partis, monsieur; partis sans tambour, ni trompette,\nmonsieur!\u00bb\n\nDans ce moment, on remarqua que M. Tupman posait sa fourchette et son\ncouteau et devenait excessivement p\u00e2le.\n\n\u00abQui est-ce qui est parti? demanda M. Wardle avec col\u00e8re.\n\n--M. Jingle et miss Rachel, dans une chaise de poste du _Lion Bleu_, \u00e0\nMuggleton! J'\u00e9tais l\u00e0, mais je n'ai pas pu les arr\u00eater; alors, je suis\naccouru pour vous dire....\n\n--J'ai pay\u00e9 ses frais! s'\u00e9cria M. Tupman en se dressant sur ses pieds\nd'un air fr\u00e9n\u00e9tique. Il m'a attrap\u00e9 dix guin\u00e9es! arr\u00eatez-le! Il m'a\nfilout\u00e9! C'est trop fort! Je me vengerai, Pickwick! Je ne le souffrirai\npas!\u00bb\n\nEt, tout en prof\u00e9rant mille exclamations incoh\u00e9rentes de cette nature,\nle malheureux gentleman tournait tout autour de la chambre dans un\ntransport de fureur.\n\n\u00abLe seigneur nous prot\u00e8ge! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick en regardant avec une\nsurprise m\u00eal\u00e9e de crainte les gestes extraordinaires de son ami. Il est\ndevenu fou! qu'allons-nous faire?\n\n--Ce que nous allons faire! repartit le vigoureux vieillard, qui ne\npr\u00eata d'attention qu'aux derniers mots de son convive; mettez le cheval\nau cabriolet; je vais prendre une chaise au _Lion Bleu_, et les\npoursuivre sur-le-champ! O\u00f9 est ce sc\u00e9l\u00e9rat de Joe?\n\n--Me voici, mais je ne suis pas un sc\u00e9l\u00e9rat! r\u00e9pliqua une voix, c'\u00e9tait\ncelle du gros joufflu.\n\n--Laissez-moi l'attraper, Pickwick! cria M. Wardle en se pr\u00e9cipitant\nvers le malencontreux jeune homme. Il a \u00e9t\u00e9 pay\u00e9 par ce fripon de Jingle\npour me faire perdre la trace en me contant des balivernes sur ma soeur\net sur votre ami Tupman. (Ici M. Tupman se laissa tomber sur une\nchaise.) Laissez-moi l'attraper!\n\n--Retenez-le! s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent toutes les femmes; et par-dessus leurs voix\neffray\u00e9es, on entendait distinctement les sanglots du gros gar\u00e7on.\n\n--Je ne veux pas qu'on me retienne! b\u00e9gayait le col\u00e9rique vieillard. M.\nWinkle, \u00f4tez vos mains! M. Pickwick! L\u00e2chez-moi, monsieur!\u00bb\n\nDans ce moment de tourmente et de confusion, c'\u00e9tait un beau spectacle\nde voir l'attitude calme et philosophique de M. Pickwick. Une\ntranquillit\u00e9 majestueuse r\u00e9gnait sur sa figure quoiqu'elle f\u00fbt un peu\nenflamm\u00e9e par les efforts qu'il faisait pour mod\u00e9rer les passions\nimp\u00e9tueuses de son h\u00f4te, dont il avait fortement embrass\u00e9 la vaste\nceinture. Pendant ce temps, Joe \u00e9tait \u00e9gratign\u00e9, tir\u00e9, bouscul\u00e9, pouss\u00e9\nhors de la chambre par toutes les femmes qui s'y trouvaient rassembl\u00e9es.\nApr\u00e8s sa disparition, M. Wardle fut rel\u00e2ch\u00e9, et dans le m\u00eame instant, on\nvint annoncer que le cabriolet \u00e9tait pr\u00eat.\n\n\u00abNe le laissez pas aller seul, cri\u00e8rent les femmes, il tuera quelqu'un.\n\n--J'irai avec lui, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Vous \u00eates un bon gar\u00e7on, Pickwick, repartit M. Wardle en lui serrant\nla main. Emma, donnez un ch\u00e2le \u00e0 M. Pickwick pour attacher autour de son\ncou. D\u00e9p\u00eachez! Soignez votre grand-m\u00e8re, enfants, elle se trouve mal.\nAllons, \u00eates-vous pr\u00eat?\u00bb\n\nLa bouche et le menton de M. Pickwick ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 rapidement envelopp\u00e9s\nd'un ch\u00e2le, son chapeau ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 enfonc\u00e9 sur sa t\u00eate, et son pardessus\njet\u00e9 sur son bras, il r\u00e9pliqua affirmativement.\n\nLorsque nos deux amis furent mont\u00e9s dans le cabriolet:\n\n\u00abL\u00e2chez-lui la bride, Tom,\u00bb cria le vieillard. Et la voiture partit \u00e0\ntravers les ruelles \u00e9troites, tombant dans les orni\u00e8res et fr\u00f4lant les\nhaies, au hasard de se briser \u00e0 chaque instant.\n\n\u00abOnt-ils beaucoup d'avance?... cria M. Wardle en arrivant \u00e0 la porte du\n_Lion Bleu_ autour de laquelle, malgr\u00e9 l'heure avanc\u00e9e, il s'\u00e9tait form\u00e9\nun groupe de causeurs.\n\n--Pas plus de trois quarts d'heure; r\u00e9pondirent tous les assistants \u00e0 la\nfois.\n\n--Une chaise et quatre chevaux! sur-le-champ. Allons! Allons! Vous\nrentrerez le cabriolet apr\u00e8s.\n\n--Allons, enfants! cria l'aubergiste, une chaise et quatre chevaux.\nAlerte! Alerte!\u00bb\n\nSans retard s'empress\u00e8rent valets et postillons. Les lanternes\nbrill\u00e8rent, les hommes coururent \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, les fers des chevaux\nretentirent sur les pav\u00e9s in\u00e9gaux de la cour, le roulement de la chaise\nse fit entendre comme on la tirait de la remise: tout \u00e9tait bruit et\nmouvement.\n\n\u00abAllons donc! cette chaise viendra-t-elle cette nuit? cria M. Wardle.\n\n--La voil\u00e0 dans la cour, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit l'aubergiste.\u00bb\n\nLa chaise sortit en effet; les chevaux y furent attel\u00e9s; les postillons\nmont\u00e8rent sur ceux-ci, les voyageurs dans celle-l\u00e0.\n\n--Postillon! cria M. Wardle, les sept milles de ce relai en moins d'une\ndemi-heure!\n\n--En route!\u00bb\n\nLes postillons appliqu\u00e8rent le fouet et l'\u00e9peron; les gar\u00e7ons salu\u00e8rent;\nles palefreniers cri\u00e8rent, et ils partirent d'un train furieux.\n\n\u00abJolie situation! pensa M. Pickwick quand il eut le loisir de la\nr\u00e9flexion. Jolie situation pour le pr\u00e9sident perp\u00e9tuel du Pickwick-Club!\nUne chaise humide, des chevaux enrag\u00e9s, quinze milles \u00e0 l'heure et\nminuit pass\u00e9!\u00bb\n\nPendant les trois ou quatre premiers milles, les deux amis, ensevelis\ndans leurs r\u00e9flexions, n'\u00e9chang\u00e8rent pas une seule parole, mais lorsque\nles chevaux, qui s'\u00e9taient \u00e9chauff\u00e9s, commenc\u00e8rent \u00e0 d\u00e9vorer le terrain,\nM. Pickwick devint trop anim\u00e9 par la rapidit\u00e9 du mouvement pour\ncontinuer \u00e0 rester enti\u00e8rement muet.\n\n\u00abNous sommes s\u00fbrs de les attraper, je pense? commen\u00e7a-t-il.\n\n--Je l'esp\u00e8re, r\u00e9pliqua son compagnon.\n\n--Une belle nuit! continua M. Pickwick en regardant la lune qui brillait\npaisiblement.\n\n--Tant pis, car ils ont eu l'avantage du clair de lune pour prendre\nl'avance, et nous allons en \u00eatre priv\u00e9s. Elle sera couch\u00e9e dans une\nheure.\n\n--Il sera assez d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able d'aller de ce train-l\u00e0 dans l'obscurit\u00e9,\nn'est-il pas vrai?\n\n--Certainement,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua s\u00e8chement M. Wardle.\n\nL'excitation temporaire de M. Pickwick commen\u00e7a \u00e0 se calmer un peu,\nlorsqu'il r\u00e9fl\u00e9chit aux inconv\u00e9nients et aux dangers de l'exp\u00e9dition\ndans laquelle il s'\u00e9tait embarqu\u00e9 si l\u00e9g\u00e8rement. Il fut tir\u00e9 de ces\npens\u00e9es d\u00e9plaisantes par les clameurs des postillons.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! cria le premier postillon.\n\n--Oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! hurla le second postillon.\n\n--Oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! vocif\u00e9ra le vieux Wardle lui-m\u00eame en mettant\nla moiti\u00e9 de son corps hors de la porti\u00e8re.\n\n--Oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9! oh\u00e9!\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick, en s'unissant au\nrefrain, sans avoir la plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re id\u00e9e de ce qu'il signifiait.\n\nAu milieu de ces cris pouss\u00e9s par tous les quatre \u00e0 la fois, la chaise\ns'arr\u00eata.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qui nous arrive? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Il y a une barri\u00e8re ici, r\u00e9pondit le vieux Wardle, et nous aurons des\nnouvelles des fugitifs.\u00bb\n\nAu bout de cinq minutes consomm\u00e9es \u00e0 frapper et \u00e0 crier sans rel\u00e2che, un\nvieux bonhomme, n'ayant que sa chemise et son pantalon, sortit de la\nmaison du _Turnpike_ et ouvrit la barri\u00e8re[11].\n\n[Footnote 11: En Angleterre l'entretien des routes se fait au moyen d'un\np\u00e9age, qui est per\u00e7u de distance en distance.\n\n(_Note du traducteur_)]\n\n\u00abCombien y a-t-il qu'une chaise est pass\u00e9e ici? demanda M. Wardle.\n\n--Combien y a?\n\n--Oui.\n\n--Ma foi je n'en sais trop rien. N'y a pas trop longtemps, ni trop peu\nnon plus. Juste entre les deux peut-\u00eatre.\n\n--Est-il pass\u00e9 une chaise, seulement.\n\n--Ah! mais oui, il est pass\u00e9 une chaise.\n\n--Combien y a-t-il de temps, mon ami? dit M. Pickwick en s'interposant.\nUne heure?\n\n--Ah! cela se pourrait bien, r\u00e9pliqua l'homme.\n\n--Ou deux heures? demanda le premier postillon.\n\n--Je n'en serais pas bien \u00e9tonn\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit l'homme d'un air de doute.\n\n--En route, postillons! s'\u00e9cria M. Wardle irrit\u00e9; voil\u00e0 assez de temps\nde perdu avec ce vieil idiot.\n\n--Idiot! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le vieux, en contemplant avec un ricanement la chaise\nqui diminuait rapidement \u00e0 mesure que la distance augmentait. Non! Pas\nsi idiot que vous croyez. Vous avez perdu dix minutes ici, et vous \u00eates\njuste aussi savant qu'auparavant. Si tous les camarades sur la route\nre\u00e7oivent une guin\u00e9e et la gagnent moiti\u00e9 aussi bien, vous ne\nrattraperez pas l'autre chaise avant la Saint-Michel, mon gros\ncourtaud!\u00bb\n\nAyant fait suivre son discours d'un ricanement prolong\u00e9, le vieux\nbonhomme ferma la barri\u00e8re, rentra dans sa maison, et barricada la porte\napr\u00e8s lui.\n\nCependant nos voyageurs poursuivaient leur route sans aucun\nralentissement. La lune, comme M. Wardle l'avait pr\u00e9dit, d\u00e9clinait avec\nrapidit\u00e9; de sombres et pesants nuages, qui depuis quelques temps\ns'\u00e9taient graduellement \u00e9tendus dans le ciel, venaient de se r\u00e9unir au\nz\u00e9nith en une masse noire et compacte. De larges gouttes de pluie\nfouettaient de temps en temps les glaces de la chaise, et semblaient\navertir les voyageurs de l'approche rapide d'une temp\u00eate. Le vent qui\nsoufflait directement contre eux, s'engouffrait en tourbillon furieux\ndans la route \u00e9troite, et g\u00e9missait tristement \u00e0 travers les arbres. M.\nPickwick resserra plus soigneusement sa redingote, s'\u00e9tablit plus\ncommod\u00e9ment dans son coin, et tomba dans un profond sommeil, dont il fut\ntir\u00e9 bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s par la cessation de tout mouvement, par le bruit\nd'une sonnette, et par ce cri r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e0 voix haute:\n\n\u00abDes chevaux sur-le-champ!\u00bb\n\nMais ici il arriva un autre d\u00e9lai. Les postillons dormaient d'un sommeil\nsi myst\u00e9rieusement profond, qu'il fallut plus de cinq minutes pour\n\u00e9veiller chacun d'eux. Le palefrenier avait perdu la clef de l'\u00e9curie,\net quand \u00e0 la fin elle fut trouv\u00e9e, deux gar\u00e7ons endormis transpos\u00e8rent\nles harnais des chevaux, et il fallut recommencer toute l'op\u00e9ration du\nharnachement. Si M. Pickwick avait \u00e9t\u00e9 seul, ces obstacles multipli\u00e9s\nauraient bient\u00f4t mis un terme \u00e0 la poursuite; mais le vieux Wardle\nn'\u00e9tait pas d\u00e9mont\u00e9 si ais\u00e9ment. Il s'employa avec tant de bonne\nvolont\u00e9, poussant l'un, bousculant l'autre, prenant une cha\u00eene par-ci,\nattachant une boucle par-l\u00e0, que la chaise fut pr\u00eate \u00e0 rouler en un\nespace de temps beaucoup plus court qu'on n'aurait pu l'esp\u00e9rer\nraisonnablement, sous l'influence de tant de difficult\u00e9s.\n\nIls recommenc\u00e8rent donc leur voyage, et certainement avec une\nperspective fort peu engageante. Le relai \u00e9tait de 15 milles, la nuit\nsombre, le vent violent, la pluie battante. Il \u00e9tait impossible de faire\nbeaucoup de chemin en luttant contre tant d'obstacles, aussi ne\nfallut-il gu\u00e8re moins de deux heures pour arriver au relai suivant. Mais\nici, se pr\u00e9senta \u00e0 leurs yeux un objet qui r\u00e9veilla leur courage et\nranima leurs esprits abattus.\n\n\u00abQuand cette chaise est-elle arriv\u00e9e? s'\u00e9cria le vieux Wardle, en\nsautant hors de sa voiture et montrant une autre chaise couverte d'une\nboue encore humide, qui \u00e9tait rest\u00e9e dans la cour.\n\n--Il n'y a pas un quart d'heure, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua le valet d'\u00e9curie \u00e0\nqui cette question \u00e9tait adress\u00e9e.\n\n--Une dame et un gentleman? demanda Wardle, pantelant d'impatience.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Grand homme en habit, longues jambes, le corps mince?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Une dame d'un certain \u00e2ge, le visage maigre, rien que la peau sur les\nos, hein?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Pardieu! Pickwick, ce sont eux! s'\u00e9cria le vieux gentleman.\n\n--Ils auraient \u00e9t\u00e9 ici plus t\u00f4t, poursuivit le palefrenier; mais un de\nleurs traits s'est cass\u00e9.\n\n--Ce sont eux, reprit Wardle. Ce sont eux, par Jupiter! Une chaise et\nquatre chevaux, \u00e0 l'instant! Nous les attraperons avant l'autre relai.\nAllons, postillons! de l'activit\u00e9. Une guin\u00e9e chacun, postillons!\nVivement; d\u00e9p\u00eachons, mes enfants, en route!\u00bb\n\nTout en prof\u00e9rant ces exhortations, le vieux gentleman courait \u00e0 droite\net \u00e0 gauche, et s'occupait de tous les d\u00e9tails avec une excitation qui\nse communiqua \u00e0 M. Pickwick. Sous cette influence contagieuse, celui-ci\ns'emp\u00eatra les jambes dans les harnais, se fourra au milieu des chevaux,\nse fit comprimer l'abdomen par les roues de la chaise, s'imaginant et\ncroyant fermement qu'en faisant tout cela il acc\u00e9l\u00e9rait mat\u00e9riellement\nles pr\u00e9paratifs de leur d\u00e9part.\n\n\u00abGrimpez, grimpez vite! s'\u00e9cria le vieux Wardle en montant dans la\nchaise, relevant le marchepied, et fermant la porti\u00e8re apr\u00e8s lui. Allons\ndonc! d\u00e9p\u00eachez-vous.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick \u00e9tait de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la voiture, et avant qu'il p\u00fbt\nsavoir pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment de quoi il s'agissait, il se sentit soulever par le\nvieux gentleman, pousser par le valet d'\u00e9curie; et en route! ils \u00e9taient\npartis au grand galop.\n\n\u00abAh! voil\u00e0 qui s'appelle marcher maintenant! dit M. Wardle avec\ncomplaisance.\u00bb\n\nEt en effet, ils _marchaient_, comme le t\u00e9moignaient suffisamment \u00e0 M.\nPickwick ses constantes collisions avec les durs panneaux de la voiture\nou avec son compagnon.\n\n\u00abTenez-vous ferme, dit le robuste vieillard au philosophe, qui venait de\npiquer une t\u00eate au beau milieu de l'immense gilet de son compagnon de\nvoyage.\n\n--Je n'ai jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 aussi cahot\u00e9 de ma vie; r\u00e9pondit-il.\n\n--Ne faites pas attention, reprit son camarade. Ce sera bient\u00f4t fini.\nFerme! ferme!\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick se planta dans son coin aussi solidement qu'il le put, et la\nchaise roula plus vite que jamais.\n\nIls avaient br\u00fbl\u00e9 de cette mani\u00e8re environ trois milles, quand M. Wardle\nqui, depuis quelques minutes, tenait sa t\u00eate hors de la porti\u00e8re, la\nretira toute couverte d'\u00e9claboussures, et s'\u00e9cria, haletant\nd'impatience: \u00abLes voil\u00e0!\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick mit aussit\u00f4t la t\u00eate \u00e0 l'autre porti\u00e8re et vit, \u00e0 peu de\ndistance devant eux, une voiture qui d\u00e9talait au grand galop.\n\n\u00abEn avant! en avant!\u00bb vocif\u00e9ra le vieux gentleman. \u00abDeux guin\u00e9es,\npostillons! Rattrapez-les! rattrapez-les!\u00bb\n\nLes chevaux de la premi\u00e8re chaise repartirent de toute leur vitesse, et\nceux de M. Wardle galopp\u00e8rent avec fureur apr\u00e8s eux.\n\n\u00abJe vois sa t\u00eate!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria le col\u00e9rique vieillard. \u00abDieu me damne! je\nvois sa t\u00eate!\n\n--Et moi aussi,\u00bb dit M. Pickwick. \u00abC'est lui-m\u00eame.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick ne se trompait point. On apercevait clairement \u00e0 la porti\u00e8re\nde la chaise la figure de M. Jingle, compl\u00e9tement couverte par la boue\nque lan\u00e7aient les roues de sa voiture. Le mouvement de ses bras qu'il\nagitait violemment vers les postillons d\u00e9notait qu'il les encourageait \u00e0\nredoubler leurs efforts.\n\nL'int\u00e9r\u00eat devint immense. Les champs, les arbres, les haies semblaient\ntourbillonner autour d'eux. Ils arriv\u00e8rent tout aupr\u00e8s de la premi\u00e8re\nchaise; ils entendaient, par-dessus le bruit des roues, la voix de M.\nJingle qui gourmandait ses postillons. Le vieux Wardle \u00e9cumait de rage\net d'excitation; il rugissait par douzaine des \u00abcoquin!\u00bb des \u00absc\u00e9l\u00e9rat!\u00bb\nIl brandissait son poing et en mena\u00e7ait l'objet de son indignation; mais\nM. Jingle ne r\u00e9pondait \u00e0 ces outrages que par un sourire moqueur, puis\npar un cri de triomphe et de d\u00e9rision, lorsque ses chevaux, ob\u00e9issant \u00e0\nl'\u00e9nergie croissante du fouet et de l'\u00e9peron, redoubl\u00e8rent de vitesse et\nlaiss\u00e8rent en arri\u00e8re ceux qui les poursuivaient.\n\nM. Pickwick venait de retirer sa t\u00eate de la porti\u00e8re, et M. Wardle,\nfatigu\u00e9 de crier, en avait fait autant, quand une secousse terrible les\njeta tous les deux sur le devant de la voiture. Un craquement violent se\nfit entendre, une roue se d\u00e9tacha, et la chaise versa sur le flanc.\n\nApr\u00e8s quelques secondes de confusion o\u00f9 l'on ne pouvait rien discerner\nque le tr\u00e9pignement des chevaux et le brisement des glaces, M. Pickwick\nse sentit tirer violemment des d\u00e9combres, et, aussit\u00f4t qu'il fut\nd'aplomb sur ses pieds et qu'il eut d\u00e9gag\u00e9 sa t\u00eate du collet de sa\nredingote, par lequel se trouvaient notablement obstru\u00e9es les fonctions\nde ses besicles, il reconnut toute l'\u00e9tendue de leur d\u00e9sastre. Le jour\nvenait de para\u00eetre, et la sc\u00e8ne \u00e9tait parfaitement \u00e9clair\u00e9e par la grise\nlumi\u00e8re du matin.\n\nLe vieux Wardle \u00e9tait debout, \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui, sans chapeau, les habits\nd\u00e9chir\u00e9s. A ses pieds gisaient les d\u00e9bris de la voiture. Les postillons,\nd\u00e9figur\u00e9s par la boue et par une course violente \u00e9taient parvenus \u00e0\ncouper les traits et se tenaient \u00e0 la t\u00eate de leurs chevaux. A une\ncentaine de pas en avant, on voyait l'autre chaise qui s'\u00e9tait arr\u00eat\u00e9e\nen entendant le bruit de leur naufrage. Les postillons, dont la figure\n\u00e9tait contourn\u00e9e par un ricanement f\u00e9roce, contemplaient du haut de leur\nselle leurs adversaires d\u00e9mont\u00e9s, tandis que M. Jingle, \u00e0 la porti\u00e8re,\nexaminait, avec une \u00e9vidente satisfaction la ruine de ses pers\u00e9cuteurs.\n\n--Oh\u00e9? cria l'effront\u00e9 com\u00e9dien; personne d'endommag\u00e9?--Gentlemen d'un\ncertain \u00e2ge,--assez lourds,--dangereux,--tr\u00e8s-dangereux.\n\n--Canaille! vocif\u00e9ra M. Wardle.\n\n--Ah! ah! ah!\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua Jingle; et ensuite il ajouta, en clignant de\nl'oeil d'un air malin, et en d\u00e9signant avec son pouce l'int\u00e9rieur de la\nchaise: \u00abElle va tr\u00e8s-bien,--vous offre ses compliments,--vous prie de\nne pas vous d\u00e9ranger. Des amiti\u00e9s \u00e0 _Tuppy_.--Ne voulez-vous pas monter\nderri\u00e8re?--En route, postillons!\u00bb\n\nLes postillons se remirent en selle; la chaise recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 rouler, et\nM. Jingle, \u00e9tendant son bras hors de la porti\u00e8re, agitait, par d\u00e9rision,\nun mouchoir blanc.\n\nRien, dans toute cette aventure, n'avait pu troubler l'humeur \u00e9gale et\ntranquille de M, Pickwick, pas m\u00eame la culbute de sa voiture et de sa\npersonne. Mais il ne put supporter patiemment l'infamie de celui qui,\napr\u00e8s avoir emprunt\u00e9 de l'argent \u00e0 son fid\u00e8le disciple, se permettait\nd'abr\u00e9ger son nom en celui de Tuppy. Il devint rouge jusqu'au bord de\nses lunettes, et, ayant respir\u00e9 fortement, il dit d'une voix lente et\nemphatique: \u00abSi jamais je rencontre cet homme, je veux....\n\n--Oui, oui, interrompit M. Wardle, tout cela est fort bien, mais, tandis\nque nous restons l\u00e0 \u00e0 parler, ils obtiendront une licence et seront\nmari\u00e9s \u00e0 Londres.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick s'arr\u00eata et renferma sa vengeance au fond de son coeur.\n\n\u00abCombien y a-t-il d'ici au premier relai! demanda M. Wardle \u00e0 l'un des\npostillons.\n\n--Six milles, n'est-ce pas, Tom?\n\n--Un peu plus.\n\n--Un peu plus de six milles, monsieur.\n\n--Il n'y a pas de rem\u00e8de, il faut les faire \u00e0 pied, Pickwick.\n\n--Il n'y a pas de rem\u00e8de,\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta cet homme vraiment grand.\n\nPar l'ordre de M. Wardle, l'un des postillons partit devant, \u00e0 cheval,\npour faire atteler une nouvelle chaise, et l'autre resta en arri\u00e8re pour\nprendre soin de celle qui \u00e9tait bris\u00e9e. En m\u00eame temps, M. Pickwick et le\nvieux gentleman se mettaient courageusement en marche, apr\u00e8s avoir\nsoigneusement attach\u00e9 leurs ch\u00e2les autour de leur cou et avoir enfonc\u00e9\nleur chapeau sur leurs oreilles, pour \u00e9viter autant que possible le\nd\u00e9luge de pluie qui recommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 tomber.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE X.\n\nDestin\u00e9 \u00e0 dissiper tous les doutes qui pourraient exister sur le\nd\u00e9sint\u00e9ressement de M. Jingle.\n\n\nIl y a dans Londres plusieurs vieilles auberges qui servaient de\nquartier g\u00e9n\u00e9ral aux coches les plus c\u00e9l\u00e8bres, dans le temps o\u00f9 les\ncoches accomplissaient leurs voyages d'une mani\u00e8re grave et solennelle;\nmais ces auberges ont d\u00e9g\u00e9n\u00e9r\u00e9 peu \u00e0 peu, et n'abritent plus gu\u00e8re que\ndes voitures de roulage. Le lecteur chercherait en vain quelqu'une de\nces anciennes h\u00f4telleries parmi les _Bouches d'or_, les _Croix d'or_,\nles _Taureaux d'or_ qui l\u00e8vent leur front superbe dans les belles rues\nde Londres. S'il veut en \u00e9tudier les restes, il fera bien de diriger ses\npas vers les quartiers les plus obscurs de la ville, et l\u00e0, dans quelque\ncoin retir\u00e9, il en trouvera un certain nombre qui restent encore debout,\navec une sombre obstination, au milieu des innovations modernes.\n\nDans le _Borough_[12] surtout, il reste encore une demi-douzaine de ces\nanciennes maisons, qui ont conserv\u00e9 sans changement leur singuli\u00e8re\nphysionomie, et qui ont \u00e9galement \u00e9chapp\u00e9 \u00e0 la rage des am\u00e9liorations\npubliques et des sp\u00e9culations priv\u00e9es. Ce sont d'\u00e9tranges b\u00e2timents,\navec des galeries, des corridors, des escaliers sans nombre, et assez\nantiques, assez vastes pour fournir des mat\u00e9riaux \u00e0 mille histoires de\nrevenants, si nous sommes jamais r\u00e9duits \u00e0 la lamentable n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 d'en\ninventer quelques-unes, et si le monde dure assez longtemps pour \u00e9puiser\nles innombrables et v\u00e9ridiques l\u00e9gendes qui se rattachent au vieux pont\nde Londres et \u00e0 ses environs.\n\n[Footnote 12: Faubourg de Londres, situ\u00e9 au midi de la Tamise. (_Note du\ntraducteur._)]\n\nDans la cour du _Blanc-Cerf_, l'une des plus c\u00e9l\u00e8bres entre ces auberges\ngothiques, et de bonne heure dans la matin\u00e9e qui suivit les \u00e9v\u00e9nements\nfunestes racont\u00e9s dans le pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent chapitre, un homme s'occupait\nactivement \u00e0 enlever la boue d'une paire de bottes. Cet homme avait un\ngilet ray\u00e9, orn\u00e9 de manches de calicot noir et de boutons de verre bleu,\nune culotte de gros drap et des gu\u00eatres. Autour de son cou s'enroulait\nn\u00e9gligemment un mouchoir d'un rouge \u00e9clatant; un vieux chapeau blanc\n\u00e9tait pos\u00e9 sans fa\u00e7on sur le c\u00f4t\u00e9 gauche de sa t\u00eate. Il y avait devant\nce personnage deux rang\u00e9es de bottes, les unes propres, les autres\ncrott\u00e9es, et, \u00e0 chaque addition qu'il faisait aux bottes nettoy\u00e9es, il\ns'arr\u00eatait un instant pour contempler son ouvrage avec une satisfaction\n\u00e9vidente.\n\nLa cour n'offrait aucun indice de ce tapage, de ce mouvement qui\ncaract\u00e9risent les h\u00f4tels o\u00f9 s'arr\u00eatent les diligences. Deux ou trois\ncabriolets, deux ou trois chaises de poste s'abritaient sous diff\u00e9rents\npetits toits en appentis. Trois ou quatre voitures de roulage, charg\u00e9es\nd'une montagne de marchandises aussi \u00e9lev\u00e9e que le second \u00e9tage d'une\nmaison ordinaire, restaient immobiles \u00e0 l'ombre d'un \u00e9norme hangar\nsuspendu sur un des c\u00f4t\u00e9s de la cour, tandis qu'un autre camion, qui\nprobablement devait commencer son voyage dans la matin\u00e9e, \u00e9tait tir\u00e9\ndans la partie d\u00e9couverte. Les b\u00e2timents qui bordaient deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s du\nparall\u00e9logramme \u00e9taient garnis d'une double rang\u00e9e de galeries, orn\u00e9es\nd'\u00e9normes garde-fous en bois, et sur lesquelles deux files de chambres \u00e0\ncoucher venaient s'ouvrir. Deux lignes de sonnettes, qui leur\ncorrespondaient, se dandinaient au-dessus de la porte d'entr\u00e9e,\nrecouverte par un petit toit en ardoise. Enfin, de temps en temps, le\npi\u00e9tinement pesant d'un cheval de charge, ou le cliquetis d'une cha\u00eene,\nannon\u00e7ait, \u00e0 ceux qui s'en inqui\u00e9taient, que les \u00e9curies \u00e9taient au bout\nde la cour. Si nous ajoutons \u00e0 ce tableau quelques hommes en blouse,\ndormant sur des ballots; quelques sacs de laine et autres articles de ce\ngenre, r\u00e9pandus sur des monceaux de foin, nous aurons d\u00e9crit, autant\nqu'il est n\u00e9cessaire, l'apparence que pr\u00e9sentait, dans la matin\u00e9e dont\nil s'agit, la cour du _Blanc-Cerf_, grande rue du Borough.\n\nLe carillon d'une des sonnettes fut suivi de l'apparition d'une servante\ncoquette, dans l'une des galeries du second \u00e9tage. Elle frappa \u00e0 l'une\ndes portes, et, ayant re\u00e7u une requ\u00eate de l'int\u00e9rieur, elle cria\npar-dessus la balustrade: Sam!\u00bb\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0! r\u00e9pliqua l'homme au chapeau blanc.\n\n--Le n\u00b022 demande ses bottes sur-le-champ.\n\n--Eh bien! demandes-y s'il veut les avoir de suite, ou bien attendre\nqu'on les lui porte cir\u00e9es.\n\n--Allons, Sam! pas de b\u00eatises! reprit la jeune fille d'un air engageant;\nle gentleman a besoin de ses bottes sur-le-champ.\n\n--Parole d'honneur! vous \u00eates bonne l\u00e0! repartit le d\u00e9crotteur.\nRegardez-moi un peu ces bottes. Onze paires de bottes, et un soulier qui\nappartient au n\u00b0 6, avec une jambe de bois. Les bottes doivent \u00eatre\nlivr\u00e9es \u00e0 huit heures et demie, et le soulier \u00e0 neuf. Qu'est-ce que\nc'est que le n\u00b0 22, pour monter sur le dos \u00e0 tous les autres? Non! non!\nchacun son tour! comme disait Jack Ketch \u00e0 des particuliers qu'il avait\n\u00e0 pendre. F\u00e2ch\u00e9 de vous faire attendre, monsieur; mais je ferai vot'\naffaire tout \u00e0 l'heure.\u00bb\n\nParlant ainsi, l'homme au chapeau blanc se remit \u00e0 travailler sur une\nbotte \u00e0 revers, avec une vitesse acc\u00e9l\u00e9r\u00e9e.\n\nOn entendit un autre carillon, et la vieille aubergiste du _Blanc-Cerf_\nparut d'un air affair\u00e9 dans la galerie oppos\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abSam! cria l'h\u00f4tesse. O\u00f9 est-il, ce paresseux, ce fain\u00e9ant, ce.... Oh!\nvous voil\u00e0 donc, Sam! Pourquoi ne r\u00e9pondiez-vous pas?\n\n--\u00c7a serait-y gentil de r\u00e9pondre avant que vous eussiez fini de parler?\nr\u00e9pliqua Sam un peu brusquement.\n\n--Tenez, cirez ces souliers pour le n\u00b0 17, sur-le-champ, et portez-les \u00e0\nla salle \u00e0 manger particuli\u00e8re, n\u00b0 5, au rez-de-chauss\u00e9e. Ayant ainsi\nparl\u00e9, l'aubergiste jeta dans la cour des souliers de femme, et\ns'\u00e9loigna en trottinant.\n\n--N\u00b0 5, dit Sam en ramassant les souliers et tirant un morceau de craie\nde sa poche, pour noter leur destination sous la semelle: Souliers de\nfemme et salle \u00e0 manger particuli\u00e8re, je parie bien qu'elle n'est pas\nvenue en charrette, celle-l\u00e0!\n\n--Elle est venue de bonne heure ce matin, cria la servante, qui \u00e9tait\nencore appuy\u00e9e sur la balustrade de la galerie, dans un fiacre, avec un\ngentleman, et c'est lui qui demande ses bottes, que vous feriez mieux de\nlui donner: voil\u00e0 l'histoire.\n\n--Pourquoi ne m'avez-vous pas dit \u00e7a d'abord? s'\u00e9cria Sam avec une\ngrande indignation, en choisissant les bottes en question parmi toutes\ncelles qui \u00e9taient devant lui. Je croyais que c'\u00e9tait une de nos\npratiques \u00e0 trois pence. Salle \u00e0 manger particuli\u00e8re! et une lady\nencore! S'il y a dans sa peau un peu du v\u00e9ritable gentleman, il me\nvaudra au moins un shilling par jour, sans compter les commissions.\u00bb\n\nStimul\u00e9 par cette r\u00e9flexion consolante, M. Samuel brossa avec tant de\nbonne volont\u00e9, qu'au bout de peu de minutes, il avait donn\u00e9 aux souliers\net aux bottes un luisant qui aurait rempli de jalousie l'\u00e2me de\nl'aimable M. _Warenn_; car, au _Blanc-Cerf_, on employait le cirage de\nMM. Day et Martin.\n\nArriv\u00e9 \u00e0 la porte du n\u00b0 5, Sam frappa respectueusement.\n\n\u00abEntrez!\u00bb r\u00e9pondit une voix d'homme.\n\nSam fit son plus beau salut, et parut en pr\u00e9sence d'une dame et d'un\ngentleman qui \u00e9taient en train de d\u00e9jeuner. Ayant officieusement d\u00e9pos\u00e9\nles bottes de droite et de gauche aux pieds respectifs du gentleman, et\nles souliers de droite et de gauche \u00e0 ceux de la dame, il se retira vers\nla porte.\n\n\u00abGar\u00e7on! dit le gentleman.\n\n--Monsieur! r\u00e9pondit Sam en fermant la porte et tenant la main sur le\nbouton de la serrure.\n\n--Connaissez-vous... comment cela s'appelle-t-il? _Doctors Commons_?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--O\u00f9 est-ce?\n\n--_Paul's church-yards_, monsieur. Une arcade basse; un libraire d'un\nc\u00f4t\u00e9, un h\u00f4tel de l'autre, et deux commissionnaires qui se chargent\nd'obtenir des permis de mariage pour ceux qui en ont besoin.\n\n--Des permis de mariage? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le gentleman.\n\n--Oui, des permis de mariage! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Sam. Deux individus en tablier\nblanc touchent leurs chapeaux quand vous entrez: \u00abUn permis, monsieur,\nun permis?\u00bb Dr\u00f4les de gens, et leurs ma\u00eetres aussi! Ils ne valent pas\nmieux que les procureurs que consultent les plaideurs de la Cour\nd'assises.\n\n--Et que font-ils? demanda le gentleman.\n\n--Ce qu'ils font? Ils vous mettent dedans, monsieur! Et ce n'est pas\ntout: ils fourrent dans la t\u00eate des vieilles gens des choses comme ils\nn'en auraient jamais r\u00eav\u00e9. Mon p\u00e8re, monsieur, \u00e9tait un cocher, un\ncocher veuf, monsieur, et assez gros pour \u00eatre capable de tout;\n\u00e9tonnamment gros, mon p\u00e8re. Sa ch\u00e8re \u00e9pouse d\u00e9c\u00e8de, et lui laisse quatre\ncents guin\u00e9es. Bien! Il s'en va aux _Commons_ pour voir l'homme de loi,\net toucher le quibus. Fameuse tournure, mon p\u00e8re! Bottes \u00e0 revers,\nbouquet \u00e0 la boutonni\u00e8re, chapeau \u00e0 grands bords, ch\u00e2le vert, gentleman\nfini! Il passe sous l'arcade, pensant o\u00f9 il placerait son argent. Bon!\narrive le commissionnaire. Il touche son chapeau: \u00abUn permis,\nmonsieur?--Quoi qu'c'est? dit mon p\u00e8re.--Permis de mariage,\ndit-il.--Dieu me damne! dit mon p\u00e8re, je n'y avais jamais\npens\u00e9.--J'imagine qu'il vous en faut un, monsieur,\u00bb dit le\ncommissionnaire. Mon p\u00e8re s'arr\u00eate et r\u00e9fl\u00e9chit un brin. \u00abNon! dit-il,\ndiable m'emporte! Je suis trop vieux. D'ailleurs, je suis beaucoup trop\ngros, dit-il.--Allons donc, monsieur! dit l'autre.--Vous croyez? dit mon\np\u00e8re.--J'en suis s\u00fbr, qu'il dit. Nous avons mari\u00e9 un gentleman deux fois\nvot' corporence lundi pass\u00e9.--Vrai? dit mon p\u00e8re.--Bien vrai! dit\nl'autre; vous n'\u00eates qu'un gringalet aupr\u00e8s. Par ici, monsieur, par\nici.\u00bb Et ne voil\u00e0-t-il pas mon p\u00e8re qui marche apr\u00e8s lui, comme un singe\napprivois\u00e9 derri\u00e8re un orgue, dans un petit bureau noir, o\u00f9s qu'il y\navait un gaillard avec des papiers crasseux et des bo\u00eetes d'\u00e9tain, qui\ntravaillait \u00e0 faire croire qu'il \u00e9tait bien occup\u00e9. \u00abAsseyez-vous,\nmonsieur, pendant que je vas faire le certificat, dit l'homme de\nloi.--Merci, monsieur!\u00bb dit mon p\u00e8re; et il s'assoit et il examine de\ntous ses yeux, et avec sa bouche ouverte les noms qu'il y avait sur les\nbo\u00eetes. \u00abComment vous appelez-vous, monsieur? dit l'homme de loi.--Tony\nWeller, dit mon p\u00e8re. --Votre paroisse? dit l'autre.--_La\nBelle-Sauvage_, dit mon p\u00e8re, car il s'arr\u00eatait \u00e0 cet h\u00f4tel-l\u00e0 quand il\nconduisait, et il ne connaissait rien aux paroisses.--Et comment\ns'appelle la dame?\u00bb dit l'homme de loi. Voil\u00e0 mon p\u00e8re qui n'y est plus\ndu tout. \u00abDiable m'emporte si j'en sais rien! qu'il dit.--Vous n'en\nsavez rien? dit l'autre.--Pas plus que vous, dit mon p\u00e8re. Pourrais-je\npas ajouter le nom plus tard? dit-il.--Impossible! dit l'autre.--Tr\u00e8s-bien,\ndit mon p\u00e8re, apr\u00e8s avoir r\u00e9fl\u00e9chi un instant. Mettez Mme Clarke.--Clarke\nquoi? dit l'homme de loi en trempant sa plume dans l'encrier.--Suzanne\nClarke, \u00e0 l'enseigne du _Marquis de Granby, Dorking_, dit mon p\u00e8re. Je\ncrois bien qu'elle me prendra, si je la demande. Je n'y en ai jamais\ntouch\u00e9 un mot; mais elle me prendra, je le sais.\u00bb Comme \u00e7a, le permis\nfut enregistr\u00e9. Et bien s\u00fbr qu'elle l'a pris; et ce qu'il y a de pire,\nc'est qu'elle le tient encore au jour d'aujourd'hui, et moi je n'ai pas\nseulement vu la couleur des quatre cents guin\u00e9es. Pas de chance! Je vous\ndemande excuse, monsieur, ajouta Sam, \u00e0 la fin de son r\u00e9cit; mais quand\nje commence sur c'te dol\u00e9ance-l\u00e0, je ne peux pas plus m'arr\u00eater qu'une\nbrouette neuve qui a une roue bien graiss\u00e9e.\u00bb Ayant tout dit, et ayant\nattendu un instant pour voir si l'on n'avait pas besoin de lui, il\nsortit de la chambre.\n\n\u00abNeuf heures et demie! C'est l'heure; en route! dit alors le gentleman\nque nous pouvons nous dispenser d'introduire comme \u00e9tant M. Jingle.\n\n--L'heure de quoi? demanda la tante demoiselle avec coquetterie.\n\n--Du permis, ange ch\u00e9ri; apr\u00e8s, il faudra avertir \u00e0 l'\u00e9glise. Demain\nmatin, vous serez \u00e0 moi, r\u00e9pondit M. Jingle en serrant la main de la\ntante demoiselle.\n\n--Le permis! soupira Rachel en rougissant.\n\n--Le permis, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Jingle:\n\n    _Au galop! au galop! je cours le chercher.\n    Au galop! et flonflon! je reviens pr\u00e8s de vous!_\n\n--Comme vous allez vite! dit Rachel.\n\n--Vite! Vous verrez comme iront les heures, jours, semaines, mois,\nann\u00e9es, quand nous serons unis. Vite! Tonnerre, \u00e9clairs, locomotive,\nforce de mille chevaux, rien n'ira si vite!\n\n--Ne pourrions-nous pas... ne pourrions-nous pas \u00eatre mari\u00e9s avant\ndemain matin? demanda Rachel.\n\n--Impossible! Ne se peut pas! Il faut avertir l'\u00e9glise, laisser le\npermis aujourd'hui, c\u00e9r\u00e9monie demain!\n\n--J'ai une si grande frayeur que mon fr\u00e8re ne nous d\u00e9couvre!\n\n--Nous d\u00e9couvre! Folie! Trop secou\u00e9 par sa culbute! D'ailleurs, extr\u00eame\npr\u00e9caution: quitt\u00e9 la chaise de poste, march\u00e9, pris une voiture, venus\nici, la derni\u00e8re place o\u00f9 il nous cherchera. Eh! eh! fameuse id\u00e9e!\n\n--Ne soyez pas longtemps, dit la tante demoiselle avec affection,\nlorsqu'elle vit M. Jingle enfoncer son chapeau r\u00e2p\u00e9 sur sa t\u00eate.\n\n--Longtemps loin de vous! beaut\u00e9 cruelle! Et M. Jingle s'avan\u00e7a d'un air\nenjou\u00e9 vers Rachel, imprima un chaste baiser sur ses l\u00e8vres, et sortit\nen dansant de la chambre.\n\n--Cher amant! dit la demoiselle, tandis qu'il fermait la porte.\n\n--Dr\u00f4le de vieille folle!\u00bb pensa Jingle en arpentant les corridors.\n\nIl est p\u00e9nible de s'appesantir sur la perfidie de notre esp\u00e8ce, et nous\nne suivrons pas le fil des m\u00e9ditations de M. Jingle pendant son trajet\naux _Doctors' Commons_. Il suffira de dire qu'il \u00e9chappa aux emb\u00fbches\ndes gens en tablier blanc qui gardent la porte de cette r\u00e9gion\nenchant\u00e9e, et qu'il atteignit en s\u00fbret\u00e9 le bureau du vicaire g\u00e9n\u00e9ral.\nL\u00e0, il se procura une gracieuse \u00e9p\u00eetre de l'archev\u00eaque de Cantorb\u00e9ry: \u00abA\nses am\u00e9s et f\u00e9aux Alfred Jingle et Rachel Wardle, salut.\u00bb Il d\u00e9posa\nsoigneusement dans sa poche le document mystique, et retourna au\nBorough, en triomphe.\n\nIl \u00e9tait encore en chemin, lorsque deux gentlemen puissants et un\ngentleman maigre entr\u00e8rent dans la cour du _Blanc-Cerf_, et cherch\u00e8rent\ndes yeux quelque personne \u00e0 laquelle ils pussent adresser un certain\nnombre de questions. M. Samuel Weller, d\u00e9crotteur attitr\u00e9 du\n_Blanc-Cerf_, \u00e9tait en ce moment occup\u00e9 \u00e0 brunir une paire de bottes. Ce\nfut vers lui que se dirigea le gentleman maigre.\n\n\u00abMon ami! dit-il.\n\n--Il para\u00eet que celui-l\u00e0 aime les consultations gratuites; autrement, il\nne serait pas si amoureux de moi du premier coup, pensa le sagace\ngar\u00e7on; mais il se contenta de dire: \u00abEh bien! monsieur?\u00bb\n\n--Mon ami! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le maigre gentleman avec un _hem!_ conciliateur,\navez-vous beaucoup de voyageurs en ce moment? hein? Bien occup\u00e9,\nn'est-ce pas?\u00bb\n\nSam examina l'interrogateur. C'\u00e9tait un petit homme, \u00e0 l'air affair\u00e9, au\nvisage brun et anguleux, dont les deux petits yeux toujours clignotants\net scintillants de chaque c\u00f4t\u00e9 d'un nez mince et inquisitif, semblaient\nfaire une perp\u00e9tuelle partie de cache-cache au moyen de cet organe. Son\nhabit noir faisait ressortir la blancheur de sa chemise et de son\n\u00e9troite cravate; sur son pantalon noir se d\u00e9tachait une cha\u00eene avec des\nbreloques d'or, et ses bottes \u00e9taient aussi luisantes que ses yeux. Il\ntenait \u00e0 la main ses gants de chevreau noir; et en parlant il fourrait\nses poignets sous les pans de son habit, de l'air d'un homme qui est\nhabitu\u00e9 \u00e0 poser des questions l\u00e9gales.\n\n\u00abBien occup\u00e9, hein? dit le petit homme.\n\n--Pas mal comme \u00e7a, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam. Nous ne ferons pas\nbanqueroute, ni fortune non plus. Nous mangeons not' mouton bouilli sans\nc\u00e2pres, et nous nous battons l'oeil du raifort, quand nous pouvons\nattraper du boeuf.\n\n--Ah! dit le petit homme, vous \u00eates un farceur, n'est-ce pas?...\n\n--Mon fr\u00e8re a\u00een\u00e9 \u00e9tait afflig\u00e9 de cette maladie-l\u00e0, r\u00e9pondit Sam. Nous\ncouchions ensemble, et \u00e7a s'attrape peut-\u00eatre....\n\n--Oh! la dr\u00f4le de vieille maison que voil\u00e0! reprit le petit homme en\nregardant autour de lui.\n\n--Fallait faire pr\u00e9venir de votre arriv\u00e9e, on lui aurait fait des\nr\u00e9parations, r\u00e9torqua le d\u00e9crotteur imperturbable.\u00bb\n\nSon interlocuteur parut un peu d\u00e9concert\u00e9 de ces rebuffades successives.\nUne courte consultation eut lieu entre lui et les deux gros gentlemen;\nensuite il prit une prise de tabac dans une \u00e9troite tabati\u00e8re d'argent,\net il paraissait se disposer \u00e0 renouveler la conversation, quand l'un de\nses compagnons, qui, outre une contenance bienveillante, \u00e9tait porteur\nd'une paire de lunettes et d'une paire de gu\u00eatres noires, s'avan\u00e7a et\ndit en montrant l'autre gros gentleman.\n\n\u00abLe fait est que mon ami vous donnera une demi-guin\u00e9e, si vous voulez\nr\u00e9pondre \u00e0 une ou deux....\u00bb\n\n--Eh! mon cher monsieur! mon cher monsieur! interrompit le petit homme.\nPermettez, je vous prie, mon cher monsieur. Le premier principe \u00e0\nobserver dans des cas semblables, est celui-ci: Si vous mettez la chose\nentre les mains d'un homme d'affaires, vous ne devez plus vous en m\u00ealer\naucunement. Vous devez reposer en lui une enti\u00e8re confiance. R\u00e9ellement,\nmonsieur...\u00bb Il se tourna vers l'autre gros gentleman en lui disant:\n\u00abJ'ai oubli\u00e9 le nom de votre ami.\n\n--Pickwick, r\u00e9pondit M. Wardle, car c'\u00e9tait ce joyeux personnage\nlui-m\u00eame.\n\n--Ah! Pickwick. R\u00e9ellement, monsieur Pickwick, mon cher monsieur,\nexcusez-moi: Je serai heureux de recevoir vos avis en particulier, comme\n_amicus curiae_: mais vous devez voir l'inconvenance de votre\nintervention en ce moment, surtout par un argument _ad captandum_, tel\nque l'offre d'une demi-guin\u00e9e. R\u00e9ellement, mon cher monsieur,\nr\u00e9ellement... et le petit homme prit un air profond et une prise de\ntabac argumentative.\n\n--Mon seul d\u00e9sir, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, \u00e9tait d'amener \u00e0 fin,\naussi vite que possible, cette d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able affaire.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, tr\u00e8s-bien, dit le petit homme.\n\n--C'est pourquoi, continua M. Pickwick, j'ai fait usage de l'argument\nque mon exp\u00e9rience des hommes m'a fait reconna\u00eetre comme le meilleur\ndans tous les cas.\n\n--Oui, oui, dit le petit homme: tr\u00e8s-bon! tr\u00e8s-bon! c'est vrai. Mais\nvous auriez d\u00fb me sugg\u00e9rer cela \u00e0 moi. Vous savez, j'en suis s\u00fbr, quelle\nconfiance sans bornes on doit placer dans son homme d'affaires. S'il\n\u00e9tait besoin d'une autorit\u00e9 \u00e0 ce sujet, permettez-moi, mon cher\nmonsieur, de vous r\u00e9f\u00e9rer \u00e0 un cas bien connu dans Barnwell....\n\n--Ne vous alambiquez pas de George Barnevelt, interrompit Sam, qui \u00e9tait\nrest\u00e9 fort \u00e9tonn\u00e9 de ce dialogue. Tout le monde conna\u00eet son histoire,\net, voyez-vous, j'ai toujours imagin\u00e9 que la jeune femme m\u00e9ritait\nbeaucoup mieux que lui d'\u00eatre pendue[13]. Mais c'est \u00e9gal; \u00e7a n'a rien \u00e0\nvoir ici. Vous voulez que j'accepte une demi-guin\u00e9e. Tr\u00e8s-bien, \u00e7a me\nva; je ne puis pas parler mieux que \u00e7a. Pas vrai, monsieur? (M. Pickwick\nsourit.) Alors il ne s'agit plus que de savoir ce que diable vous me\nvoulez, comme dit c't autre quand il vit le revenant.\n\n[Footnote 13: Allusion \u00e0 une cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre.]\n\n--Nous voulons savoir.... dit M. Wardle.\n\n--Eh! mon cher monsieur! mon cher monsieur! interrompit le petit homme \u00e0\nl'air affair\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nM. Wardle leva les \u00e9paules, et se tut.\n\n\u00abNous voulons savoir, reprit solennellement le petit homme, et nous vous\nadressons cette question pour ne pas \u00e9veiller d'inutiles appr\u00e9hensions\ndans l'auberge; nous voulons savoir ce qui s'y trouve actuellement.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il y a dans la maison? Il y a une paire de bottes\nhongroises, au n\u00b0 13, r\u00e9pondit Sam, dans l'esprit duquel les logeurs\n\u00e9taient repr\u00e9sent\u00e9s par la partie de leur costume qui se trouvait sous\nsa direction imm\u00e9diate. Il y a une jambe de bois au n\u00b0 6; deux paires de\ndemi-bottes dans la salle du commerce. Il y a ces bottes \u00e0 revers ici,\nau rez-de-chauss\u00e9e, et cinq autres paires dans le caf\u00e9.\n\n--Pas davantage? dit le petit homme.\n\n--Attendez un brin, reprit Sam, en cherchant \u00e0 se rappeler; oui, il y a\nune paire de bottes \u00e0 la Wellington, pas mal us\u00e9es, et des souliers de\ndame, au n\u00b0 5.\n\n--Quelle sorte de souliers? demanda avec empressement M. Wardle, qui,\nainsi que M. Pickwick, s'\u00e9tait perdu dans ce singulier catalogue de\nchalands.\n\n--Souliers de province.\n\n--Y a-t-il le nom du cordonnier?\n\n--Brown.\n\n--D'o\u00f9 cela?\n\n--Muggleton.\n\n--Ce sont eux! s'\u00e9cria Wardle. Par le ciel nous les avons trouv\u00e9s.\n\n--Chut! dit Sam: Les Wellington sont all\u00e9s aux _Doctors' Commons_.\n\n--Bah! fit le petit homme.\n\n--Oui, pour un permis.\n\n--Nous arrivons \u00e0 temps, s'\u00e9cria Wardle. Montrez-nous la chambre; il n'y\na pas un moment \u00e0 perdre.\n\n--Je vous en prie, mon cher monsieur, je vous en prie, dit le petit\nhomme. De la prudence; de la prudence!\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, il tira de sa poche une bourse de soie rouge, dont il\naveignit un souverain, en regardant fixement Sam. Celui-ci sourit d'une\nmani\u00e8re expressive.\n\n\u00abMontrez-nous la chambre, tout d'un coup, sans nous annoncer, dit le\npetit homme; et il est \u00e0 vous.\u00bb\n\nSam jeta la botte \u00e0 revers dans un coin, et conduisit nos gens \u00e0 travers\nun corridor sombre et un large escalier. Arriv\u00e9 dans un second corridor,\nil fit halte et tendit la main.\n\n\u00abLe voil\u00e0,\u00bb dit tout bas l'avou\u00e9 en d\u00e9posant le souverain dans la main\nde leur guide.\n\nSam fit encore quelques pas, et s'arr\u00eata devant une porte.\n\n\u00abC'est ici? demanda le petit homme.\u00bb\n\nSam fit signe que oui.\n\nLe vieux Wardle ouvrit la porte, et tous les trois p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e8rent dans la\nchambre, juste au moment o\u00f9 M. Jingle, qui venait de rentrer, montrait\nle permis \u00e0 la tante demoiselle.\n\nRachel jeta un grand cri, et se renversant sur une chaise, se couvrit le\nvisage avec les mains. M. Jingle chiffonna le permis, et le fourra dans\nsa poche. Les visiteurs intempestifs s'avanc\u00e8rent au milieu de la\nchambre.\n\n\u00abVous \u00eates un joli coquin! s'\u00e9cria le vieux Wardle, haletant de col\u00e8re.\nVous \u00eates...\n\n--Mon cher monsieur! mon cher monsieur! interrompit le petit homme, en\nposant son chapeau sur la table. Je vous en prie, faites attention.\n_Scandalum magnatum_... diffamation... action pour dommages...\nCalmez-vous, mon cher monsieur, je vous en prie.\n\n--Comment osez-vous enlever ma soeur de ma maison? reprit M. Wardle.\n\n--Oui, tr\u00e8s-bien, dit le petit gentleman. Vous pouvez lui demander cela.\nComment osez-vous enlever sa soeur, eh! monsieur?\n\n--Qui diable \u00eates-vous! s'\u00e9cria M. Jingle d'un ton si violent que le\npetit homme en recula involontairement un pas ou deux.\n\n--Qui il est? coquin! C'est mon avou\u00e9, M. Perker. Perker, je veux\npoursuivre ce gueux-l\u00e0! je veux le faire empoigner! Je veux... Je\nveux... Dieu me damne! je veux le ruiner.--Et vous, continua M. Wardle\nen se tournant brusquement vers sa soeur; vous Rachel, \u00e0 votre \u00e2ge! quand\nvous devriez conna\u00eetre le monde! A quoi pensez-vous de vous enfuir avec\nun vagabond? de d\u00e9shonorer votre famille, de vous rendre vous-m\u00eame\nmis\u00e9rable! Mettez votre chapeau, et venez avec moi.--Faites venir une\nvoiture et apportez la note de cette dame. Entendez-vous? entendez-vous?\n\n--Voil\u00e0, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam, en r\u00e9pondant au violent coup de\nsonnette de M. Wardle avec une c\u00e9l\u00e9rit\u00e9 merveilleuse, pour quiconque ne\nsavait pas que son oeil avait \u00e9t\u00e9 appliqu\u00e9 au trou de la serrure, pendant\ntoute l'entrevue.\n\n--Mettez votre chapeau! reprit Wardle.\n\n--N'en faites rien, s'\u00e9cria Jingle. Quittez cette chambre, monsieur! Pas\nd'affaires ici. Dame libre et ma\u00eetresse de ses actions. Plus de vingt et\nun ans.\n\n--Plus de vingt et un ans! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Wardle avec m\u00e9pris. Plus de\n_quarante_ et un ans!\n\n--Ce n'est pas vrai! s'\u00e9cria la tante demoiselle, son indignation\nl'emportant sur son d\u00e9sir de se trouver mal.\n\n--C'est vrai, r\u00e9pliqua M. Wardle. Vous avez cinquante ans, comme un\njour!\u00bb\n\nLa tante demoiselle poussa un cri aigre, et perdit connaissance.\n\nM. Pickwick, avec son am\u00e9nit\u00e9 accoutum\u00e9e appela l'h\u00f4tesse, et lui\ndemanda un verre d'eau.\n\n\u00abUn verre d'eau! repartit le col\u00e9rique vieillard; apportez-en un baquet\net jetez-le sur elle. Cela lui fera du bien, et elle le m\u00e9rite\nrichement.\n\n--Fi! brute que vous \u00eates!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria la compatissante h\u00f4tesse. Puis, avec\ndiverses exclamations de: \u00abpauvre ch\u00e8re dame! Allons, allons, pauvre\nch\u00e9rie! buvez un peu de \u00e7a; \u00e7a vous fera du bien; ne vous laissez pas\nabattre comme \u00e7a; pauvre amour!\u00bb etc., etc. L'h\u00f4tesse, assist\u00e9e par une\nservante commen\u00e7a \u00e0 humecter le front, \u00e0 frapper dans les mains, \u00e0\nchatouiller le nez, \u00e0 d\u00e9lacer le corset de la tante demoiselle, et \u00e0 lui\nadministrer enfin tous les calmants appliqu\u00e9s ordinairement par les\nsensibles matrones aux dames qui s'efforcent de se donner des attaques\nde nerfs.\n\n\u00abLa voiture est pr\u00eate, monsieur, dit Sam, en paraissant \u00e0 la porte.\n\n--Allons! venez, reprit M. Wardle. Je vais la porter dans la voiture.\u00bb\n\nA cette proposition les attaques de nerfs recommenc\u00e8rent avec une\nnouvelle fureur.\n\nL'h\u00f4tesse \u00e9tait sur le point de protester violemment contre ce proc\u00e9d\u00e9,\net avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 demand\u00e9 avec indignation si M. Wardle se croyait seigneur\nde la cr\u00e9ation, lorsque M. Jingle s'interposa.\n\n\u00abGar\u00e7on, dit-il, amenez-moi un constable.\n\n--Attendez! attendez! dit le petit Perker. Consid\u00e9rez, monsieur,\nconsid\u00e9rez.\n\n--Je ne veux rien consid\u00e9rer, r\u00e9pliqua Jingle. Elle est sa ma\u00eetresse.\nVoyons qui osera l'emmener, sans son consentement.\n\n--Je ne veux pas \u00eatre emmen\u00e9e, murmura la dame \u00e9vanouie. Je n'y consens\npas. (Ici il y eut une rechute effrayante.)\n\n--Mon cher monsieur, dit le petit avou\u00e9, en prenant \u00e0 part M. Wardle et\nM. Pickwick; mon cher monsieur, nous sommes dans une situation bien\nembarrassante. C'est un cas d\u00e9solant; je n'en ai jamais connu de plus\nd\u00e9solant, mais, r\u00e9ellement, mon cher monsieur, nous n'avons aucun\npouvoir pour contr\u00f4ler les actions de cette dame. Je vous ai pr\u00e9venu\navant de venir, mon cher monsieur, qu'il n'y avait pas d'autre rem\u00e8de\nqu'un accommodement.\n\n--Quelle esp\u00e8ce d'accommodement voudriez-vous faire? demanda M.\nPickwick.\n\n--Voyez-vous, mon cher monsieur, votre ami est dans une position\ntr\u00e8s-d\u00e9plaisante, excessivement d\u00e9plaisante. Il faut qu'il consente \u00e0\nsubir quelques pertes p\u00e9cuniaires.\n\n--Je d\u00e9penserai tout ce qu'il faudra plut\u00f4t que de supporter ce\nd\u00e9shonneur, plut\u00f4t que de souffrir, toute folle qu'elle est, qu'elle se\nrende mis\u00e9rable pour sa vie enti\u00e8re.\n\n--Je suppose que cela pourra s'arranger, dit le petit homme affair\u00e9. M.\nJingle, voulez-vous venir avec nous, pour un instant, dans la chambre \u00e0\nc\u00f4t\u00e9?\u00bb\n\nM. Jingle y consentit et le quatuor passa dans une pi\u00e8ce voisine.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, monsieur, dit le petit homme en fermant soigneusement la\nporte, n'y a-t-il aucun moyen d'accommoder cette affaire? Venez par ici,\nmonsieur, dans cette embrasure de crois\u00e9e, o\u00f9 nous serons en\nt\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate. L\u00e0, monsieur, l\u00e0! Asseyez-vous s'il vous pla\u00eet, monsieur.\nMaintenant, mon cher monsieur, entre vous et moi, nous savons tr\u00e8s-bien,\nmon cher monsieur, que vous avez enlev\u00e9 cette dame pour l'amour de son\nargent. Ne froncez pas le sourcil, monsieur, c'est inutile: je vous dis,\nentre vous et moi, que _nous_ savons cela. Nous sommes tous les deux des\nhommes du monde, et _nous_ savons tr\u00e8s-bien que nos amis ici n'en sont\npas. N'est-ce pas, monsieur?\u00bb\n\nLe visage de M. Jingle s'\u00e9claircit graduellement pendant ce discours, et\nquelque chose qui ressemblait \u00e0 un clignement d'oeil trembla, pendant un\ninstant, dans sa paupi\u00e8re gauche.\n\n\u00abTr\u00e8s-bien! tr\u00e8s-bien! poursuivit M. Perker, observant l'impression\nqu'il avait faite. Maintenant, le fait est que la dame n'a rien, ou peu\nde chose, jusqu'\u00e0 la mort de sa m\u00e8re.... Une personne bien constitu\u00e9e,\nmon cher monsieur.\n\n--Vieille! dit M. Jingle laconiquement, mais avec \u00e9nergie.\n\n--Oui, c'est vrai, reprit l'avou\u00e9 avec une l\u00e9g\u00e8re toux; vous avez\nraison, mon cher monsieur, elle est assez vieille. Mais elle vient d'une\nvieille famille, mon cher monsieur; vieille dans toutes les acceptions\ndu mot. Le fondateur de cette famille arriva dans le comt\u00e9 de Kent, lors\nde l'invasion de Jules-C\u00e9sar, et depuis ce temps-l\u00e0 il n'y a qu'un seul\nde ses membres qui n'ait pas v\u00e9cu jusqu'\u00e0 quatre-vingt-cinq ans, encore\na-t-il \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9capit\u00e9 par ordre d'un des Henry. La vieille dame n'a pas\nsoixante-treize ans, mon cher monsieur.\u00bb\n\nLe petit homme s'arr\u00eata et prit une prise de tabac.\n\n\u00abEh bien? fit M. Jingle.\n\n--Eh bien! mon cher monsieur.... Vous ne prenez pas de tabac? Vous avez\nraison, c'est une habitude co\u00fbteuse. Eh bien! mon cher monsieur, vous\n\u00eates un joli gar\u00e7on, un homme du monde, capable de pousser votre\nfortune, si vous aviez un capital, hein?\n\n--Eh bien! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Jingle.\n\n--Vous ne me comprenez pas?\n\n--Pas tout \u00e0 fait.\n\n--Ne pensez-vous pas... Je viens au fait, mon cher monsieur. Ne\npensez-vous pas que cinquante guin\u00e9es et la libert\u00e9 seraient plus\nagr\u00e9ables que miss Wardle et des esp\u00e9rances?\n\n--Impossible! dit M. Jingle en se levant. Pas assez, de moiti\u00e9!\n\n--Non! non! mon cher monsieur, reprit le petit avou\u00e9 en l'arr\u00eatant par\nun bouton. Bonne somme ronde. Un homme comme vous pourrait la tripler en\nun rien de temps. On peut faire bien des choses avec cinquante gain\u00e9es,\nmon cher monsieur.\n\n--Bien plus avec cent cinquante, r\u00e9pliqua Jingle froidement.\n\n--Allons, mon cher monsieur, nous ne perdrons pas notre temps \u00e0 couper\nun cheveu en quatre. Disons... disons quatre-vingts....\n\n--Impossible!\n\n--Restez, mon cher monsieur. Dites-moi ce que vous voulez.\n\n--Affaire co\u00fbteuse, d\u00e9bours\u00e9s, chevaux de poste, neuf guin\u00e9es; licence,\ntrois guin\u00e9es, douze guin\u00e9es; compensation, cent guin\u00e9es, cent douze.\nPerte d'honneur et perte de la dame....\n\n--Allons! mon cher monsieur, allons! interrompit l'homme d'affaires d'un\nair malin. Ne parlons pas des deux derniers articles. Cela fait cent\ndouze guin\u00e9es. Mettons cent, allons!\n\n--Cent vingt[14].\n\n[Footnote 14: 3000 francs.]\n\n--Allons! allons! je vais vous \u00e9crire un mandat, reprit le petit homme\nen s'asseyant pr\u00e8s d'une table, et commen\u00e7ant \u00e0 \u00e9crire. Je le ferai\npayable pour apr\u00e8s demain et nous pouvons emmener la dame d'ici l\u00e0?\u00bb\najouta-t-il en interrogeant M. Wardle du regard.\n\nCelui-ci fit un sombre signe d'assentiment.\n\n\u00abCent, dit le petit homme.\n\n--Et vingt, ajouta Jingle.\n\n--Mon cher monsieur! reprit l'avou\u00e9.\n\n--Donnez-les lui, interrompit M. Wardle. Et qu'il s'en aille au diable\navec!\u00bb\n\nLe mandat fut donc \u00e9crit par le petit gentleman, et empoch\u00e9 par M.\nJingle.\n\n\u00abMaintenant quittez cette maison sur-le-champ! dit M. Wardle, en se\nlevant.\n\n--Mon cher monsieur... observa l'homme d'affaires.\n\n--Et sachez, continua M. Wardle sans s'occuper de l'interrupteur, sachez\nque rien au monde, pas m\u00eame l'honneur de ma famille, n'aurait pu me\nfaire consentir \u00e0 cet arrangement, si je n'\u00e9tais pas convaincu que vous\ndeviendrez la proie du diable d'autant plus vite que vous aurez plus\nd'argent.\n\n--Mon cher monsieur, repr\u00e9senta de nouveau le petit homme.\n\n--Tenez-vous tranquille, Perker, lui r\u00e9pondit son col\u00e8re client. Quittez\ncette chambre, monsieur!\n\n--En route sur-le-champ, r\u00e9pliqua l'impassible Jingle. Adieu Pickwick.\u00bb\n\nSi quelque spectateur d\u00e9sint\u00e9ress\u00e9 avait pu contempler, pendant la fin\nde cette conversation, la contenance de l'homme illustre dont le nom\nd\u00e9core notre titre, il aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9tonn\u00e9 que le feu de l'indignation qui\njaillissait de ses yeux ne fit pas fondre les verres de ses lunettes.\nSes narines s'enfl\u00e8rent, ses poings se ferm\u00e8rent involontairement, quand\nil s'entendit nommer famili\u00e8rement par le mis\u00e9rable. Mais il se contint;\nil ne le pulv\u00e9risa point.\n\n\u00abTenez, continua le sc\u00e9l\u00e9rat endurci, en jetant la licence aux pieds de\nM. Pickwick. Changez les noms, emmenez la dame,--fera l'affaire de\nTuppy.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick \u00e9tait un philosophe. Mais, apr\u00e8s tout, les philosophes ne\nsont que des hommes rev\u00eatus d'une armure de sagesse. Le trait mordant\np\u00e9n\u00e9tra \u00e0 travers le harnais philosophique de notre h\u00e9ros et d\u00e9chira\nprofond\u00e9ment son coeur. Dans un acc\u00e8s de rage il lan\u00e7a, au hasard,\nl'encrier qui avait servi \u00e0 M. Perker, et se pr\u00e9cipita dans la m\u00eame\ndirection. Mais son adversaire \u00e9tait disparu et il se trouva arr\u00eat\u00e9 dans\nles bras de Sam.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9! dit cet excentrique fonctionnaire. Le mobilier n'est pas cher dans\nvot' pays, vieux gentleman. Voil\u00e0 une encre qui \u00e9crit toute seule, hein?\nElle vient d'\u00e9crire vot' nom sur ce mur. Laissez donc monsieur; \u00e0 quoi\nbon courir apr\u00e8s un homme qui est, \u00e0 pr\u00e9sent, \u00e0 l'autre bout du\nBorough?\u00bb\n\nL'esprit de M. Pickwick, comme celui de tous les hommes vraiment grands,\n\u00e9tait ouvert \u00e0 la persuasion, et comme il raisonnait puissamment et\nrapidement, un seul instant de r\u00e9flexion suffit pour le convaincre de\nl'inutilit\u00e9 de son courroux. Il s'apaisa aussi vite qu'il s'\u00e9tait\nenlev\u00e9, respira fortement, et jeta un regard b\u00e9nin sur ses amis.\n\nRapporterons-nous les lamentations de miss Wardle quand elle apprit de\nquelle mani\u00e8re son infid\u00e8le amant l'abandonnait? Imprimerons-nous les\nd\u00e9tails de cette sc\u00e8ne d\u00e9chirante, si admirablement d\u00e9crite par M.\nPickwick? Son livre de notes est ouvert devant nous; une l\u00e9g\u00e8re\nmoisissure indique encore combien de larmes lui arracha l'humanit\u00e9\nsympathisante. Un seul mot, et ces notes seront entre les mains de\nl'imprimeur. Mais non! nous r\u00e9sisterons \u00e0 cette pens\u00e9e! nous ne\nd\u00e9solerons pas le coeur du publie par la peinture de ces affreuses\nsouffrances.\n\nLe lendemain, la lourde voiture de Muggleton ramena, lentement et\ntristement, les deux amis avec la dame d\u00e9laiss\u00e9e. Les ombres de la nuit\n\u00e9taient tomb\u00e9es depuis bien longtemps sur toute la nature, quand ils\narriv\u00e8rent \u00e0 la porte de Manoir-ferme.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XI.\n\nContenant un autre voyage et une d\u00e9couverte d'antiquit\u00e9: annon\u00e7ant la\nr\u00e9solution de M. Pickwick d'assister \u00e0 une \u00e9lection, et renfermant un\nmanuscrit donn\u00e9 par le vieil eccl\u00e9siastique.\n\n\nUne nuit de repos et de tranquillit\u00e9 dans le profond silence de\nDingley-Dell, et, le lendemain matin, une heure d'immersion dans l'air\nfrais et parfum\u00e9 de la campagne, effac\u00e8rent compl\u00e9tement, chez M.\nPickwick, les traces de la fatigue que son corps avait support\u00e9e et de\nl'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 qui avait agit\u00e9 son esprit. Depuis deux jours cet homme\nillustre \u00e9tait s\u00e9par\u00e9 de ses amis, de ses sectateurs, et lorsqu'au\nretour de sa promenade matinale il rencontra M. Winkle et M. Snodgrass,\nce fut avec un sentiment de d\u00e9lices qui peut \u00e0 peine \u00eatre compris par\nune imagination vulgaire, qu'il s'avan\u00e7a au-devant d'eux pour leur dire\nbonjour. Le plaisir fut mutuel. Qui pourrait, en effet, contempler, sans\nen \u00e9prouver, le visage rayonnant de M. Pickwick? Et cependant un nuage\nsemblait obscurcir le front de ses disciples. Ils avaient un air\nmyst\u00e9rieux, aussi alarmant qu'extraordinaire. Le grand homme s'en\naper\u00e7ut et ne put en deviner la cause.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir serr\u00e9 les mains des deux jeunes gens, et prof\u00e9r\u00e9 de chaudes\nexpressions de bienvenue, M. Pickwick leur dit: \u00abComment va Tupman?\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle, \u00e0 qui cette question \u00e9tait plus particuli\u00e8rement adress\u00e9e, ne\nfit point de r\u00e9ponse. Il d\u00e9tourna la t\u00eate et parut absorb\u00e9 dans de\nm\u00e9lancoliques r\u00e9flexions.\n\n\u00abSnodgrass, reprit M. Pickwick avec vivacit\u00e9, comment va notre ami?\nEst-il malade?\n\n--Non! r\u00e9pliqua M. Snodgrass; et une larme trembla sur sa paupi\u00e8re\nsentimentale, comme une goutte de pluie sur le bord d'une crois\u00e9e. Non!\nil n'est pas malade!\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick contempla tour \u00e0 tour chacun de ses amis.\n\n\u00abWinkle! Snodgrass! leur dit-il quand il les eut suffisamment\ncontempl\u00e9s, que signifie cela? O\u00f9 est notre ami? Qu'est-il arriv\u00e9?\nParlez, je vous en supplie, je vous en conjure! Que dis-je? je vous le\ncommande, parlez!\u00bb\n\nIl y avait dans le maintien et dans l'accent de M. Pickwick une dignit\u00e9,\nune solennit\u00e9 \u00e0 laquelle il \u00e9tait impossible de r\u00e9sister. \u00abIl nous a\nquitt\u00e9s, r\u00e9pondit M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Quitt\u00e9s! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Quitt\u00e9s, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Snodgrass.\n\n--O\u00f9 est-il? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Nous pouvons seulement le soup\u00e7onner d'apr\u00e8s cet \u00e9crit, r\u00e9pliqua M.\nSnodgrass en tirant une lettre de sa poche et la pla\u00e7ant entre les mains\nde son ami. Hier matin, quand nous avons re\u00e7u une lettre de M. Wardle,\nqui nous annon\u00e7ait pour la nuit le retour de sa soeur, nous avons\nremarqu\u00e9 que la m\u00e9lancolie qui assombrissait l'\u00e2me de notre ami,\nsemblait s'accro\u00eetre encore. Peu de temps apr\u00e8s il disparut. Nous le\ncherch\u00e2mes vainement durant tout le jour; et, dans la soir\u00e9e, cette\nlettre nous fut apport\u00e9e par le palefrenier de la _Couronne_, \u00e0\nMuggleton. Notre ami la lui avait laiss\u00e9e d\u00e8s le matin, en lui\nrecommandant bien de ne nous la remettre que lorsque les ombres de la\nnuit auraient obscurci la nature.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick ouvrit la lettre. Elle \u00e9tait de l'\u00e9criture de M. Tupman, et\ncontenait ce qui suit;\n\n     \u00abMon cher Pickwick,\n\n\u00abVous qui \u00eates plac\u00e9s dans une r\u00e9gion sup\u00e9rieure aux faiblesses\nhumaines, vous ignorez quel coup fatal on re\u00e7oit lorsqu'on est abandonn\u00e9\npar une charmante, par une fascinante cr\u00e9ature; et lorsqu'on devient la\nvictime d'un monstre qui cachait la ruse et le vice hideux sous le\nmasque de l'amiti\u00e9. Ah! puissiez-vous ne l'apprendre jamais!\n\n\u00abLes lettres qui me seront adress\u00e9es \u00e0 la _Bouteille de cuir_, \u00e0\nCobham-Kent, me seront transmises, suppos\u00e9 que j'existe encore. Je\nm'\u00e9loigne d'une partie du monde qui m'est devenue odieuse. Si je quitte\nle monde tout entier, plaignez-moi, pardonnez-moi. La vie, mon cher ami,\nm'est devenue insupportable! La flamme qui br\u00fble au dedans de nous est\ncomme les crochets d'un porteur, sur lesquels repose l'\u00e9norme poids des\nsoins et des soucis du monde; quand cette flamme nous manque, le fardeau\ndevient trop pesant pour que nous puissions le supporter et nous tombons\naccabl\u00e9s sur la terre. Vous pouvez dire \u00e0 Rachel.... Ah! ce nom!... Quel\nsouvenir!...\n\n     \u00abTRACY TUPMAN.\u00bb\n\n\u00abNous allons partir sur-le-champ, dit M. Pickwick en refermant cette\nlettre. Nous n'aurions pu, dans aucune circonstance, rester d\u00e9cemment\nici apr\u00e8s les \u00e9v\u00e9nements qui s'y sont pass\u00e9s; mais maintenant, c'est un\ndevoir pour nous d'aller \u00e0 la recherche de notre ami.\u00bb En pronon\u00e7ant ces\nnobles paroles, M. Pickwick prit le chemin de la maison.\n\nSes intentions furent promptement communiqu\u00e9es \u00e0 ses h\u00f4tes. Leurs\npri\u00e8res pour le retenir furent instantes, mais inutiles. \u00abD'importantes\naffaires, leur dit-il, rendent mon d\u00e9part indispensable.\u00bb\n\nLe vieil eccl\u00e9siastique \u00e9tait pr\u00e9sent.\n\n\u00abVous \u00eates donc d\u00e9cid\u00e9 \u00e0 nous quitter?\u00bb dit-il \u00e0 M. Pickwick, en le\nprenant \u00e0 part; et sur sa r\u00e9ponse affirmative, il ajouta: \u00abS'il en est\nainsi, voil\u00e0 un petit manuscrit que j'esp\u00e9rais avoir le plaisir de vous\nlire moi-m\u00eame. Ayant perdu un de mes amis, qui \u00e9tait m\u00e9decin de notre\nh\u00f4pital des fous, j'ai trouv\u00e9 ce manuscrit parmi beaucoup d'autres\npapiers qu'il m'avait charg\u00e9 de br\u00fbler ou de conserver, \u00e0 mon choix. Il\nn'est point de la main de mon ami, et j'ai peine \u00e0 croire qu'il ne soit\npas apocryphe: lisez-le, mon cher monsieur, et jugez par vous-m\u00eame, s'il\na \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9ellement \u00e9crit par un maniaque, ou, ce qui me para\u00eet plus\nprobable, si les r\u00eaveries d'un de ces infortun\u00e9s ont \u00e9t\u00e9 recueillies par\nune autre personne.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick re\u00e7ut le manuscrit, et se s\u00e9para du bienveillant vieillard\navec mille expressions d'estime et d'affection.\n\nC'\u00e9tait une t\u00e2che bien plus difficile de prendre cong\u00e9 des habitants de\nManoir-ferme, o\u00f9 nos voyageurs avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 re\u00e7us avec tant\nd'hospitalit\u00e9, avec des attentions si d\u00e9licates. M. Pickwick embrassa\nles jeunes ladies. Nous allions dire, _comme si elles avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 ses\npropres filles_, mais la comparaison pourrait bien n'\u00eatre pas\nenti\u00e8rement exacte, car peut-\u00eatre y mit-il un peu plus de chaleur. Il\nembrassa la vieille lady avec une tendresse filiale, et en glissant dans\nla main des servantes quelques preuves substantielles de sa\nbienveillance, il tapota leurs joues ros\u00e9es, d'une mani\u00e8re toute\npatriarcale. Ensuite, des protestations bien plus cordiales encore, bien\nplus prolong\u00e9es, furent \u00e9chang\u00e9es avec leur excellent amphytrion et avec\nM. Trundle. Cependant M. Snodgrass \u00e9tait disparu; et il fallut l'appeler\nplusieurs fois avant de le d\u00e9terminer \u00e0 sortir de certains corridors\nsombres.\n\nMiss \u00c9mily rentra bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s, et ses yeux, ordinairement si\nbrillants, paraissaient ternes et battus. Enfin les trois amis\ns'arrach\u00e8rent des bras de leurs aimables h\u00f4tes, et tout en s'\u00e9loignant\nlentement de la ferme, ils jet\u00e8rent en arri\u00e8re bien des regards\nattendris. On pr\u00e9tend m\u00eame que M. Snodgrass lan\u00e7a d'innombrables baisers\ndans les airs, en reconnaissance de quelque chose de blanch\u00e2tre qui\ncontinua \u00e0 s'agiter \u00e0 une des crois\u00e9es de la maison, jusqu'au moment o\u00f9\nun d\u00e9tour du chemin leur cacha la vieille demeure: ce quelque chose\nressemblait beaucoup \u00e0 un mouchoir de femme.\n\nA Muggleton nos voyageurs prirent la voiture de Rochester, et lorsqu'ils\narriv\u00e8rent dans ce dernier endroit, leur douleur s'\u00e9tait suffisamment\napais\u00e9e pour leur permettre de faire un excellent d\u00eener. Quelque temps\napr\u00e8s, ayant pris les informations n\u00e9cessaires concernant le chemin\nqu'ils devaient suivre, ils se dirig\u00e8rent, en se promenant, vers Cobham.\n\nC'\u00e9tait par une charmante soir\u00e9e du mois de juin. La route, qui\nserpentait \u00e0 l'ombre d'un bois, \u00e9tait \u00e9gay\u00e9e par le chant des oiseaux,\net rafra\u00eechie par l'haleine du z\u00e9phir; le lierre grimpant et les mousses\npendantes ornaient le tronc des vieux arbres; la terre \u00e9tait rev\u00eatue\nd'un vert gazon, aussi d\u00e9licat qu'un tapis de soie. En sortant du bois,\nnos voyageurs se trouv\u00e8rent dans un parc ouvert, au milieu duquel\ns'\u00e9levait un ancien ch\u00e2teau construit dans le style pittoresque et\nsingulier du temps d'\u00c9lisabeth. De longs points de vue s'\u00e9tendaient de\ntous les c\u00f4t\u00e9s, au milieu des ch\u00eanes et des ormes gigantesques; de\nnombreux troupeaux de daims paissaient l'herbe fra\u00eeche, et de temps en\ntemps une biche effray\u00e9e traversait le chemin, l\u00e9g\u00e8re comme l'ombre des\nnuages qui glisse rapidement sur un paysage inond\u00e9 par la chaude lumi\u00e8re\ndu soleil.\n\n\u00abSi tous ceux qui sont attaqu\u00e9s de la maladie de notre ami se retiraient\ndans cette contr\u00e9e, dit M. Pickwick, en regardant autour de lui, je\nm'imagine que leur vieil attachement pour le monde rena\u00eetrait bient\u00f4t.\n\n--Je le pense aussi, dit M. Winkle.\n\n--Et r\u00e9ellement, ajouta M. Pickwick, lorsqu'une demi-heure de marche les\neut amen\u00e9s dans le village, r\u00e9ellement, quoique choisi par un\nmisanthrope, cet endroit me semble le plus joli et le plus s\u00e9duisant que\nj'aie jamais rencontr\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle et M. Snodgrass s'associ\u00e8rent sans restriction \u00e0 ces louanges.\n\nBient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s, ayant demand\u00e9 _la Bouteille de cuir_, nos voyageurs\nfurent dirig\u00e9s vers une auberge d'assez bonne apparence, pour une\nauberge de village, et s'enquirent s'il s'y trouvait un gentleman nomm\u00e9\nTupman.\n\n\u00abTom, dit l'h\u00f4tesse, menez ces messieurs, dans la salle.\u00bb\n\nSous la conduite d'un vigoureux paysan, les trois amis entr\u00e8rent dans\nune chambre longue et basse, dont les murailles \u00e9taient embellies d'une\nribambelle de vieux portraits et d'images grossi\u00e8rement colori\u00e9es, et\ndont le plancher \u00e9tait sem\u00e9 d'une multitude de chaises de cuir, d'une\nforme fantastique, au dos gigantesque. A l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de la salle une\ntable se faisait remarquer par la blancheur \u00e9blouissante de sa nappe.\nElle \u00e9tait d\u00e9cor\u00e9e d'une volaille dodue, d'un jambon app\u00e9tissant, d'un\npot d'ale fra\u00eeche, etc. Et c'est \u00e0 cette table s\u00e9duisante qu'\u00e9tait assis\nM. Tupman, n'ayant en aucune fa\u00e7on l'air d'un homme qui a pris cong\u00e9 de\nce monde.\n\nA l'arriv\u00e9e de ses amis, il posa son couteau, sa fourchette, et s'avan\u00e7a\nau-devant d'eux d'un air sombre.\n\n\u00abJe ne m'attendais pas \u00e0 vous voir ici, dit-il en saisissant la main de\nM. Pickwick. C'est bien aimable.\n\n--Ah! fit M. Pickwick, en s'asseyant et en essuyant sur son front la\nsueur caus\u00e9e par sa promenade. Finissez votre d\u00eener et venez dehors avec\nmoi. Je d\u00e9sire vous parler, \u00e0 vous seul.\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman fit comme il lui \u00e9tait enjoint, et M. Pickwick s'\u00e9tant\nrafra\u00eechi d'un copieux coup d'ale, attendit le loisir de son ami. En\nmoins d'une heure le d\u00eener fut d\u00e9p\u00each\u00e9, et ils sortirent ensemble.\n\nPendant une demi-heure on put les voir passer et repasser dans le\ncimeti\u00e8re, tandis que M. Pickwick combattait la r\u00e9solution de M. Tupman.\nIl serait inutile de r\u00e9p\u00e9ter ses arguments, car quel langage pourrait\nrendre l'\u00e9nergie que leur communiquait l'action de ce grand orateur? Il\nn'est pas davantage n\u00e9cessaire de savoir si M. Tupman \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 fatigu\u00e9\nde la solitude, ou s'il lui fut impossible de r\u00e9sister \u00e0 l'\u00e9loquent\nappel qui lui fut adress\u00e9. En fait, il n'y r\u00e9sista pas.\n\n\u00abIl lui importait peu, dit-il, o\u00f9 il tra\u00eenerait les mis\u00e9rables restes de\nson existence; et puisque ses amis attachaient tant d'importance \u00e0 son\nhumble coop\u00e9ration, il consentait \u00e0 partager leurs travaux.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick sourit, une poign\u00e9e de main fut \u00e9chang\u00e9e, et ils\nretourn\u00e8rent aupr\u00e8s de leurs compagnons.\n\nC'est en ce moment que M. Pickwick fit l'immortelle d\u00e9couverte qui sera\n\u00e0 jamais un sujet d'orgueil pour ses amis, un sujet d'envie pour tous\nles antiquaires des quatre parties du monde. Ils avaient d\u00e9pass\u00e9 la\nporte de leur auberge, et ne se rappelant pas o\u00f9 elle \u00e9tait situ\u00e9e, ils\navaient \u00e9t\u00e9 un peu plus loin dans le village. Comme ils revenaient sur\nleurs pas, les yeux de M. Pickwick tomb\u00e8rent sur une petite pierre\nbris\u00e9e et \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 ensevelie dans la terre, sur le devant d'une\nchaumine.\n\nM. Pickwick s'arr\u00eata.\n\n\u00abCeci est fort \u00e9trange! dit-il.\n\n--Qu'y a-t-il d'\u00e9trange? demanda M. Tupman, en regardant avec\nempressement tous les objets qui l'entouraient, except\u00e9 celui dont il\n\u00e9tait question. Eh! mais de quoi s'agit-il donc?\u00bb\n\nCette derni\u00e8re exclamation lui \u00e9tait arrach\u00e9e par la vue de M. Pickwick\nqui, dans son enthousiasme pour sa d\u00e9couverte, se jetait \u00e0 genoux devant\nla petite pierre, et en balayait la poussi\u00e8re avec son mouchoir.\n\n\u00abIl y a une inscription ici! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Est-il possible? dit H. Tupman.\n\n--Je puis distinguer, continua M. Pickwick, en frottant de toutes ses\nforces, et en regardant attentivement \u00e0 travers ses lunettes, je puis\ndistinguer, une croix, et un _B_, et ensuite un _T_. Ceci est\ntr\u00e8s-important! poursuivit M. Pickwick en se relevant. C'est une\ninscription fort ancienne, et qui existait peut-\u00eatre longtemps avant\nles antiques _Alms houses_[15] de cette petite ville. Il ne faut pas\nlaisser \u00e9chapper cette trouvaille.\u00bb\n\n[Footnote 15: Petites maisons o\u00f9 les vieillards pauvres sont log\u00e9s\ngratuitement.]\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, M. Pickwick frappa \u00e0 la porte de la chaumi\u00e8re. Un\nlaboureur l'ouvrit.\n\n\u00abMon ami, lui demanda le philosophe d'un ton bienveillant, savez-vous\ncomment cette pierre est venue ici?\n\n--Nein, m'sieu, j'n'en savons rin, r\u00e9pondit l'homme civilement. All'\n\u00e9tait l\u00e0 ben du temps avant moi, et avant l'pus ancien du village itou.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick regarda son compagnon avec triomphe.\n\n\u00abVous... vous n'y \u00eates pas bien attach\u00e9, j'imagine, poursuivit-il, en\ntremblant d'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9. Vous ne seriez pas f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de la vendre?\n\n--Ah! ben oui! qui voudrait l'acheter? r\u00e9pondit l'homme avec une\nexpression de visage qu'il s'imaginait probablement rendre tr\u00e8s-rus\u00e9e.\n\n--Je vous en donnerai une demi-guin\u00e9e sur-le-champ, reprit M. Pickwick,\nsi vous voulez la retirer de terre.\u00bb\n\nLorsque la petite pierre eut \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9racin\u00e9e, moyennant quelques coups de\nb\u00eache, M. Pickwick l'enleva de ses propres mains, \u00e0 grand'peine, et au\ngrand \u00e9tonnement de tout le village. Il la porta dans l'auberge, et\napr\u00e8s l'avoir soigneusement lav\u00e9e, il la d\u00e9posa sur la table.\n\nLes transports de joie des pickwickiens ne connurent plus de bornes\nquand ils virent couronner de succ\u00e8s leur patience et leur assiduit\u00e9,\nleurs lavages et leurs grattages. La pierre \u00e9tait anguleuse et bris\u00e9e,\nles lettres mal align\u00e9es et peu r\u00e9guli\u00e8res, mais cependant on pouvait\nd\u00e9chiffrer le fragment suivant d'inscription:\n\n[Illustration: Croix]\nBIL\nSTUM\nPS\nSAMA\nRK\n\nLes prunelles de M. Pickwick \u00e9tincel\u00e8rent de d\u00e9lice lorsqu'il s'assit\naupr\u00e8s de la table, en couvant des yeux le tr\u00e9sor qu'il avait d\u00e9terr\u00e9.\nIl avait atteint le plus grand objet de son ambition. Dans un comt\u00e9\nconnu pour \u00eatre couvert par des restes de l'antiquit\u00e9, dans un village\no\u00f9 il existait encore quelques gages des anciens temps, lui, le\npr\u00e9sident du Pickwick-Club, avait d\u00e9couvert une \u00e9trange et curieuse\ninscription, d'une antiquit\u00e9 incontestable, et qui avait enti\u00e8rement\n\u00e9chapp\u00e9 aux observations de tous les savants hommes qui l'avaient\npr\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9. Il pouvait \u00e0 peine en croire l'\u00e9vidence de ses sens.\n\n\u00abCeci, dit-il, ceci me d\u00e9termine. Mous retournerons \u00e0 la ville d\u00e8s\ndemain.\n\n--Demain! s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent ses disciples pleins d'admiration.\n\n--Demain, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick. Ce tr\u00e9sor doit \u00eatre d\u00e9pos\u00e9 sur-le-champ\ndans un endroit o\u00f9 il puisse \u00eatre compl\u00e9tement \u00e9tudi\u00e9 et convenablement\ncompris. J'ai une autre raison pour cette d\u00e9marche. Dans quelques jours\nune \u00e9lection doit avoir lieu pour le bourg d'Eatanswill. Un gentleman\nque j'ai rencontr\u00e9 derni\u00e8rement, M. Perker, est l'agent d'un des\ncandidats. Nous contemplerons, nous \u00e9tudierons minutieusement une sc\u00e8ne\nint\u00e9ressante pour quiconque est Anglais.\n\n--Nous vous suivrons!\u00bb s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent en m\u00eame temps trois voix, qui\nsemblaient n'en former qu'une.\n\nM. Pickwick promena ses regards autour de lui. L'attachement, la ferveur\nde ses disciples allum\u00e8rent dans son sein le feu de l'enthousiasme. Il\n\u00e9tait leur ma\u00eetre, et il le sentit.\n\n\u00abC\u00e9l\u00e9brons, reprit-il, c\u00e9l\u00e9brons cette r\u00e9union fortun\u00e9e par des\nlibations amicales.\u00bb Cette nouvelle proposition ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9galement\naccueillie par des applaudissements unanimes, M. Pickwick d\u00e9posa\nl'importante pierre dans une petite bo\u00eete de sapin, qu'il eut le bonheur\nd'obtenir de l'h\u00f4tesse; puis il se pla\u00e7a dans un fauteuil au haut bout\nde la table, et la soir\u00e9e tout enti\u00e8re fut consacr\u00e9e \u00e0 la gaiet\u00e9 et \u00e0 la\nconversation.\n\nIl \u00e9tait onze heures pass\u00e9es, heure indue pour le petit village de\nCobham, lorsque M. Pickwick se retira dans la chambre \u00e0 coucher qui lui\navait \u00e9t\u00e9 pr\u00e9par\u00e9e. Il leva la jalousie, et, posant sa lumi\u00e8re sur la\ntable, il se laissa aller \u00e0 de profondes m\u00e9ditations sur les nombreux\n\u00e9v\u00e9nements des deux journ\u00e9es pr\u00e9c\u00e9dentes.\n\nL'heure et l'endroit \u00e9taient favorables \u00e0 la contemplation et M.\nPickwick n'en fut tir\u00e9 que par le bruit de l'horloge de l'\u00e9glise, qui\nfrappait lentement minuit. Le premier coup de la cloche retentit \u00e0 son\noreille d'une mani\u00e8re solennelle et lugubre \u00e0 la fois; mais quand elle\ncessa de tinter, le silence lui parut insupportable. Il lui semblait\nqu'il venait de perdre un compagnon ch\u00e9ri. Son syst\u00e8me nerveux \u00e9tait\nexcit\u00e9 et d\u00e9rang\u00e9; il le sentit et, s'\u00e9tant d\u00e9shabill\u00e9 rapidement, il\npla\u00e7a sa lumi\u00e8re dans la chemin\u00e9e et entra dans son lit.\n\nTout le monde a \u00e9prouv\u00e9 cet \u00e9tat d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able dans lequel une sensation\nde lassitude corporelle lutte vainement contre l'insomnie: telle \u00e9tait\nla situation de M. Pickwick en ce moment. Il se tourna sur un c\u00f4t\u00e9, puis\nsur l'autre; il tint ses yeux ferm\u00e9s avec pers\u00e9v\u00e9rance, comme pour\ns'engager \u00e0 dormir: mais ce fut en vain. Soit que cela provint de la\nfatigue inaccoutum\u00e9e qu'il avait soufferte, ou de la chaleur, ou du\ngrog, ou du changement de lit, le sommeil s'enfuyait loin de ses\npaupi\u00e8res. Ses pens\u00e9es se reportaient malgr\u00e9 lui et avec une obstination\np\u00e9nible sur les peintures effrayantes qu'il avait vues dans la salle\nd'en bas, sur les vieilles l\u00e9gendes qui avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 racont\u00e9es dans le\ncours de la soir\u00e9e. Apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre vainement agit\u00e9 pendant une demi-heure,\nil arriva \u00e0 la triste conviction qu'il ne pourrait pas parvenir \u00e0\ns'endormir. Il se rhabilla donc en partie, regardant comme la pire des\nsituations d'\u00eatre \u00e9tendu dans son lit \u00e0 imaginer toutes sortes\nd'horreurs. Une fois habill\u00e9, il mit la t\u00eate \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre; le temps\n\u00e9tait affreusement sombre: il se promena dans sa chambre; elle \u00e9tait\nd\u00e9plorablement solitaire.\n\nIl avait fait quelques promenades de la porte \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre et de la\nfen\u00eatre \u00e0 la porte, lorsque le manuscrit du vieux ministre lui revint \u00e0\nla m\u00e9moire. C'\u00e9tait une bonne pens\u00e9e. Si ce manuscrit ne l'int\u00e9ressait\npas, il pourrait toujours l'endormir. Notre philosophe le tira donc de\nla poche de sa redingote, approcha une petite table de son lit, moucha\nla chandelle, mit ses lunettes et s'arrangea pour lire. L'\u00e9criture \u00e9tait\n\u00e9trange; le papier froiss\u00e9 et tach\u00e9. Le titre du manuscrit fit courir un\nfrisson dans tous les membres de M. Pickwick, et il ne put s'emp\u00eacher de\njeter un regard inquiet autour de sa chambre. Cependant, r\u00e9fl\u00e9chissant \u00e0\nl'absurdit\u00e9 de c\u00e9der \u00e0 de semblables id\u00e9es, il moucha de nouveau sa\nchandelle, et lut ce qui suit:\n\nMANUSCRIT D'UN FOU.\n\n\u00abOui, d'un fou!--Comme ces mots m'auraient glac\u00e9 jusqu'au fond du coeur,\nil y a quelques ann\u00e9es! Comme ils auraient r\u00e9veill\u00e9 cet effroi qui\nfaisait bourdonner et bouillonner mon sang dans mes veines, jusqu'\u00e0 ce\nque mon front se couvr\u00eet de larges gouttes d'une sueur froide, jusqu'\u00e0\nce que mes genoux s'entre-choquassent d'\u00e9pouvante! Et pourtant j'aime\nce nom maintenant, c'est un beau nom! Montrez-moi le monarque dont le\nfront courrouc\u00e9 ait jamais caus\u00e9 autant de peur que le regard brillant\nd'un fou; dont la hache et la corde aient fait la besogne aussi s\u00fbrement\nque les serres d'un fou. Oh! oh! c'est une grande chose d'\u00eatre fou,\nd'\u00eatre regard\u00e9 comme un lion sauvage \u00e0 travers des barreaux, de grincer\ndes dents et de hurler pendant les longues nuits silencieuses, et de se\nrouler sur la paille, aux sons joyeux d'une lourde cha\u00eene. Hourra pour\nla maison des fous! C'est un charmant endroit.\n\n\u00abJe me rappelle le temps o\u00f9 j'avais peur de devenir fou; o\u00f9 je\nm'\u00e9veillais en sursaut, pour tomber sur mes genoux, et demander au ciel\nde me d\u00e9livrer du fl\u00e9au de toute ma race; o\u00f9 je fuyais la vue de la\ngaiet\u00e9 et du bonheur pour me cacher dans un coin solitaire, et consumer\nles heures pesantes \u00e0 guetter les progr\u00e8s de la fi\u00e8vre qui devait\nd\u00e9vorer mon cerveau. Je savais que la folie \u00e9tait m\u00eal\u00e9e dans mon sang\nm\u00eame, et jusque dans la moelle de mes os; qu'une g\u00e9n\u00e9ration avait pass\u00e9\nsans qu'elle repar\u00fbt dans ma famille, et que j'\u00e9tais le premier chez qui\nelle devait revivre. Je savais que cela devait \u00eatre ainsi, que cela\navait toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 et devait toujours \u00eatre de m\u00eame; et quand je\nm'isolais dans l'angle d'un salon plein de monde, quand je voyais les\ninvit\u00e9s parler bas et tourner les yeux vers moi, je savais qu'ils\ns'entretenaient du fou pr\u00e9destin\u00e9. Je m'enfuyais alors et j'allais me\nnourrir de mes tristes pens\u00e9es dans la solitude.\n\n\u00abJ'ai fait cela pendant des ann\u00e9es, de longues, de p\u00e9nibles ann\u00e9es. Les\nnuits sont longues ici quelquefois, tr\u00e8s-longues; mais ce n'est rien\naupr\u00e8s des nuits sans repos, des r\u00eaves \u00e9pouvantables, qui me\ntourmentaient dans ce temps-l\u00e0. J'ai froid quand j'y pense. De grandes\nfigures sombres rampaient dans tous les coins de ma chambre; et pendant\nla nuit leurs visages grima\u00e7ants et moqueurs se penchaient sur ma\ncouche, pour me faire perdre l'esprit. Ils me disaient, en murmurant\ntout bas, que le plancher de notre vieille maison \u00e9tait souill\u00e9 du sang\nde mon grand p\u00e8re, vers\u00e9 par ses propres mains, dans un acc\u00e8s de fureur.\nJ'enfon\u00e7ais mes doigts dans mes oreilles, de peur de les entendre, mais\nleurs voix s'\u00e9levaient comme la temp\u00eate, et elles me criaient que la\nfolie avait sommeill\u00e9 pendant une g\u00e9n\u00e9ration avant mon grand-p\u00e8re, et\nque son grand-p\u00e8re, \u00e0 lui, avait v\u00e9cu pendant des ann\u00e9es, avec ses mains\nencha\u00een\u00e9es \u00e0 la terre, pour l'emp\u00eacher de se d\u00e9chirer lui-m\u00eame. Je\nsavais que c'\u00e9tait la v\u00e9rit\u00e9; je le savais bien, je l'avais d\u00e9couvert\nnombre d'ann\u00e9es auparavant, quoiqu'on s'effor\u00e7\u00e2t de me le cacher. Ah!\nah! j'\u00e9tais trop malin pour eux, quoiqu'ils me crussent fou.\n\n\u00abA la fin la folie vint sur moi, et je m'\u00e9tonnai de l'avoir jamais\nredout\u00e9e. Je pouvais aller dans le monde, et rire, et plaisanter, avec\nles plus brillants d'entre eux. Je savais que j'\u00e9tais fou, mais eux ils\nne s'en doutaient pas. Comme je jouissais, en moi-m\u00eame, du tour que je\nleur jouais, apr\u00e8s tous leurs chuchotements et tous leurs airs effray\u00e9s,\nlorsque je n'\u00e9tais pas fou, lorsque je craignais seulement de le\ndevenir! Comme je riais, quand j'\u00e9tais seul, en pensant que je gardais\nsi bien mon secret; en pensant \u00e0 la terreur de mes bons amis, s'ils\navaient seulement soup\u00e7onn\u00e9 la v\u00e9rit\u00e9! Lorsque je d\u00eenais en t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate\navec quelque beau gar\u00e7on tapageur, j'aurais pu hurler de d\u00e9lice, en\nsongeant comme il serait devenu p\u00e2le et comme il se serait enfui, s'il\navait su que ce cher ami, assis pr\u00e8s de lui et qui aiguisait un couteau\neffil\u00e9, \u00e9tait un fou, avec la puissance et presque la volont\u00e9 de lui\nplonger sa lame dans le coeur. Oh! c'\u00e9tait une joyeuse vie.\n\n\u00abD'immenses richesses devinrent mon partage, et je m'enivrai de plaisirs\nqui \u00e9taient rehauss\u00e9s mille fois par la conscience du secret que je\ngardais si bien. J'h\u00e9ritai d'un ch\u00e2teau; la loi aux yeux de lynx, la loi\nelle-m\u00eame fut d\u00e9\u00e7ue; elle remit entre les mains d'un fou une fortune\nprodigieuse et contest\u00e9e. O\u00f9 donc \u00e9tait l'esprit des hommes sages et\nclairvoyants? O\u00f9 \u00e9tait la dext\u00e9rit\u00e9 des hommes de loi, si habiles \u00e0\nd\u00e9couvrir le moindre vice de forme? La malice d'un fou les avait tous\nabus\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abJ'avais de l'argent: comme j'\u00e9tais courtis\u00e9! Je le d\u00e9pensais largement:\ncomme j'\u00e9tais lou\u00e9! comme ces trois fr\u00e8res orgueilleux s'humiliaient\ndevant moi! Le vieux p\u00e8re aussi, avec sa t\u00eate blanche! Tant de\nd\u00e9f\u00e9rence, tant de respect, tant d'amiti\u00e9 d\u00e9vou\u00e9e! V\u00e9ritablement ils\nm'idol\u00e2traient. Le vieux homme avait une fille; les jeunes gens avaient\nune soeur; et tous les cinq \u00e9taient pauvres, et j'\u00e9tais riche, et quand\nj'\u00e9pousai la jeune fille, je vis un sourire de triomphe sur le visage de\nses avides parents. Ils pensaient \u00e0 leur plan, si bien conduit, \u00e0 la\nbonne prise qu'ils avaient faite: c'\u00e9tait \u00e0 moi de sourire... de\nsourire?... De rire aux \u00e9clats, et de me rouler sur la terre, en\nm'arrachant les cheveux avec des cris de joie! Ils ne se doutaient gu\u00e8re\nqu'ils l'avaient mari\u00e9e \u00e0 un fou.\n\n\u00abUn moment.... S'ils l'avaient su, aurait-elle \u00e9t\u00e9 sauv\u00e9? La bonheur\nd'une soeur contre l'or de son mari? Le plus l\u00e9ger duvet qui vole dans\nl'air contre la superbe cha\u00eene qui orne mon corps!\n\n\u00abSur un point, cependant, je fus tromp\u00e9, malgr\u00e9 toute ma malice. Si je\nn'avais pas \u00e9t\u00e9 fou... car, nous autres fous, quoique nous soyons assez\nrus\u00e9s, nous nous embrouillons quelquefois... si je n'avais pas \u00e9t\u00e9 fou,\nje me serais aper\u00e7u que la jeune fille aurait mieux aim\u00e9 \u00eatre plac\u00e9e,\nroide et froide, dans un cercueil de plomb, que d'\u00eatre amen\u00e9e, riche et\nnoble mari\u00e9e, dans ma maison fastueuse. J'aurais su que son coeur \u00e9tait\navec le jeune homme aux yeux noirs, dont je lui ai entendu murmurer le\nnom pendant son sommeil agit\u00e9; j'aurais su qu'elle m'\u00e9tait sacrifi\u00e9e\npour secourir la pauvret\u00e9 de son p\u00e8re aux cheveux blancs, et de ses\nfr\u00e8res orgueilleux.\n\n\u00abJe ne me rappelle plus les visages maintenant, mais je sais que la\njeune fille \u00e9tait belle. Je le sais, car pendant les nuits o\u00f9 la lune\nbrille, quand je me r\u00e9veille en sursaut et que tout est tranquille\nautour de moi, je vois dans un coin de cette cellule une figure maigre\net blanche, qui se tient immobile et silencieuse. Ses longs cheveux\nnoirs, \u00e9pars sur ses \u00e9paules, ne sont jamais agit\u00e9s par le vent. Ses\nyeux, qui fixent sur moi leur regard br\u00fblant, ne clignent jamais, et ne\nse ferment jamais.... Silence! mon sang se g\u00e8le dans mon coeur, en\n\u00e9crivant ceci. Cette figure, c'est elle!... Son visage est tr\u00e8s-p\u00e2le et\nses prunelles sont vitreuses; mais je la connais bien.... Cette figure\nne bouge jamais, elle ne fronce point ses sourcils, elle ne grince pas\ndes dents comme les autres fant\u00f4mes qui peuplent souvent ma cellule; et\ncependant elle est bien plus affreuse pour moi que tous les autres; elle\nest plus affreuse que les esprits qui me tentaient jadis; elle sort de\nsa tombe, et la mort est sur son visage.\n\n\u00abPendant pr\u00e8s d'un an je vis les couleurs de ses joues se ternir de jour\nen jour; pendant pr\u00e8s d'un an je vis des larmes silencieuses couler de\nses yeux battus. Je n'en savais pas la cause, mais je la d\u00e9couvris \u00e0 la\nfin. Ils ne purent pas me la cacher plus longtemps. Elle ne m'avait\njamais aim\u00e9; je n'avais pas pens\u00e9 qu'elle m'aim\u00e2t. Elle m\u00e9prisait mes\nrichesses, et d\u00e9testait la splendeur o\u00f9 elle vivait; je ne m'\u00e9tais pas\nattendu \u00e0 cela. Elle en aimait un autre; cette id\u00e9e ne m'\u00e9tait pas\nentr\u00e9e dans la t\u00eate. D'\u00e9tranges sentiments s'empar\u00e8rent de moi; des\npens\u00e9es inspir\u00e9es par quelque pouvoir secret boulevers\u00e8rent ma\ncervelle. Je ne la ha\u00efssais pas, quoique je ha\u00efsse le jeune homme\nqu'elle pleurait encore. J'avais piti\u00e9... oui, j'avais piti\u00e9 de la vie\nmis\u00e9rable \u00e0 laquelle ses \u00e9go\u00efstes parents l'avaient condamn\u00e9e. Je savais\nqu'elle ne vivrait pas longtemps, mais la pens\u00e9e qu'avant sa mort elle\npouvait donner naissance \u00e0 un \u00eatre infortun\u00e9 destin\u00e9 \u00e0 transmettre la\nfolie \u00e0 ses enfants.... Cette pens\u00e9e me d\u00e9termina.... Je r\u00e9solus de la\ntuer.\n\n\u00abPendant plusieurs semaines je voulus la noyer; puis je songeai au\npoison, puis au feu. Quel beau spectacle, de voir la grande maison tout\nen flammes, et la femme du fou r\u00e9duite en cendres! Quelle bonne charge\nde promettre, pour la sauver, une grande r\u00e9compense, et ensuite de faire\npendre, comme incendiaire, quelque homme sage et innocent! et tout cela\npar la malice d'un fou. J'y r\u00eavais souvent, mais j'y renon\u00e7ai \u00e0 la fin.\nOh! quel plaisir de repasser tous les jours le rasoir, d'essayer comme\nil \u00e9tait bien affil\u00e9 et de penser \u00e0 l'entaille que pourrait faire un\nseul coup de cette lame brillante!\n\n\u00abA la fin les esprits qui avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 si souvent avec moi auparavant,\nchuchot\u00e8rent dans mon oreille que le temps \u00e9tait venu. Ils me mirent un\nrasoir tout ouvert dans la main; je le serrai avec force; je me levai\ndoucement du lit et me penchai sur ma femme endormie. Son visage \u00e9tait\ncach\u00e9 dans ses mains; je les \u00e9cartai doucement, et elles tomb\u00e8rent\nnonchalamment sur son sein. Elle avait pleur\u00e9, les traces de ses larmes\n\u00e9taient encore visibles sur ses joues p\u00e2les; cependant son visage \u00e9tait\ncalme et heureux, et tandis que je la regardais, un tranquille sourire\n\u00e9clairait ses traits amaigris. Je posai doucement ma main sur son\n\u00e9paule; elle tressaillit, mais sans entr'ouvrir ses longues paupi\u00e8res.\nJe la touchai de nouveau: elle poussa un cri et s'\u00e9veilla.\n\n\u00abUn mouvement de ma main, et elle n'aurait jamais fait entendre un autre\nson; mais je fus surpris, et je reculai. Ses yeux \u00e9taient fix\u00e9s sur les\nmiens. Je ne sais pas comment cela se fit, ils m'intimid\u00e8rent, j'\u00e9tais\ndompt\u00e9 par ce regard. Elle se leva de son lit, en me regardant fixement\net continuellement. Je tremblai, le rasoir \u00e9tait dans ma main, mais je\nne pouvais faire aucun mouvement. Elle se dirigea vers la porte. Quand\nelle en fut proche elle se d\u00e9tourna, et retira ses yeux de dessus moi.\nLe charme \u00e9tait bris\u00e9: je fis un bond et je la saisis par le bras; elle\ntomba par terre en poussant des cris d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abAlors j'aurais pu la tuer sans r\u00e9sistance, mais la maison \u00e9tait\nalarm\u00e9e, j'entendais des pas sur l'escalier; je remis le rasoir \u00e0 sa\nplace, j'ouvris la porte et j'appelai moi-m\u00eame du secours.\n\n\u00abOn vint, on la releva, on la pla\u00e7a sur le lit. Elle resta sans\nconnaissance pendant plusieurs heures, et quand elle recouvra la vie et\nla parole, elle avait perdu l'esprit, elle d\u00e9lirait avec des transports\nfurieux.\n\n\u00abDes m\u00e9decins furent appel\u00e9s, de savants hommes qui roulaient jusqu'\u00e0 ma\nporte dans d'excellents carrosses, avec des domestiques rev\u00eatus d'une\nlivr\u00e9e brillante. Ils rest\u00e8rent pr\u00e8s de son lit pendant des semaines. Il\ny eut une grande consultation, et ils conf\u00e9r\u00e8rent ensemble d'une voix\nsolennelle. J'\u00e9tais dans la pi\u00e8ce voisine; l'un des plus c\u00e9l\u00e8bres, parmi\neux, vint m'y trouver, me prit \u00e0 part, et, me disant de me pr\u00e9parer \u00e0 la\nplus funeste nouvelle, m'apprit \u00e0 moi, le fou! que ma femme \u00e9tait folle.\nLe docteur \u00e9tait seul avec moi, tout aupr\u00e8s d'une fen\u00eatre ouverte, ses\nyeux fix\u00e9s sur mon visage, sa main pos\u00e9e sur mon bras. D'un seul effort\nj'aurais pu le pr\u00e9cipiter dans la rue, \u00e7'aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 une fameuse farce!\nmais mon secret \u00e9tait en jeu et je le laissai partir. Quelques jours\napr\u00e8s, on me dit que je devrais la faire surveiller, lui choisir un\ngardien, _moi!_ Je m'en allai dans la campagne o\u00f9 personne ne pouvait\nm'entendre, et je poussai des \u00e9clats de rire, qui retentissaient au\nloin.\n\n\u00abElle mourut le lendemain. Le vieillard aux cheveux blancs suivit son\ncercueil, et les fr\u00e8res orgueilleux laiss\u00e8rent tomber des larmes sur le\ncorps insensible de celle dont ils avaient contempl\u00e9 la souffrance avec\ndes muscles d'airain. Tout cela nourrissait ma gaiet\u00e9 secr\u00e8te et, en\nretournant \u00e0 la maison, je riais derri\u00e8re le mouchoir blanc que je\ntenais sur mon visage, je riais tant que les larmes m'en venaient aux\nyeux.\n\n\u00abMais quoique j'eusse atteint mon but en la tuant, j'\u00e9tais inquiet et\nagit\u00e9; je sentais que mon secret devait m'\u00e9chapper avant longtemps. Je\nne pouvais cacher la joie sauvage qui bouillonnait dans mon sang; et\nqui, lorsque j'\u00e9tais seul \u00e0 la maison, me faisait sauter et battre des\nmains, et danser, et tourner, et rugir comme un lion. Quand je sortais\net que je voyais la foule affair\u00e9e se presser dans les rues ou au\nth\u00e9\u00e2tre, quand j'entendais les sons de la musique, quand je regardais\nles danseurs, je ressentais des transports si joyeux, que j'\u00e9tais tent\u00e9\nde me pr\u00e9cipiter au milieu d'eux et d'arracher leurs membres pi\u00e8ce \u00e0\npi\u00e8ce, et de hurler avec les instruments. Mais alors, je grin\u00e7ais des\ndents, je frappais du pied sur le plancher, j'enfon\u00e7ais mes ongles aigus\ndans mes mains, je ma\u00eetrisais la folie et personne ne se doutait encore\nque j'\u00e9tais un fou.\n\n\u00abJe me rappelle... quoique ce soit une des derni\u00e8res choses que je\npuisse me rappeler... car maintenant je m\u00eale mes r\u00eaves avec les faits\nr\u00e9els, et j'ai tant de choses \u00e0 faire ici et je sais si press\u00e9 que je\nn'ai pas le temps de mettre un peu d'ordre dans cette \u00e9trange\nconfusion... je me rappelle comment cela \u00e9clata \u00e0 la fin. Ha! ha! il me\nsemble que je vois encore leurs regards effray\u00e9s! Avec quelle facilit\u00e9\nje les rejetai loin de moi; comme je meurtrissais leur visage avec mes\npoings ferm\u00e9s, et comme je m'enfuis avec la vitesse du vent, les\nlaissant huer et crier bien loin derri\u00e8re moi. La force d'un g\u00e9ant\nrena\u00eet en moi, lorsque j'y pense. L\u00e0! voyez comme cette barre de fer\nploie sous mon \u00e9treinte furieuse! Je pourrais la briser comme un roseau;\nmais il y a ici de longues galeries, avec beaucoup de portes, je crois\nque je ne pourrais pas y trouver mon chemin, et m\u00eame si je pouvais le\ntrouver, il y a en bas des grilles de fer qu'ils tiennent soigneusement\nferm\u00e9es, car ils savent quel fou malin j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9, et ils sont fiers de\nm'avoir pour me montrer aux visiteurs.\n\n\u00abVoyons... oui c'est cela... j'\u00e9tais all\u00e9 dehors; la nuit \u00e9tait avanc\u00e9e\nquand je rentrai \u00e0 la maison, et je trouvai le plus orgueilleux des\ntrois orgueilleux fr\u00e8res, qui m'attendait pour me voir. Affaire\npressante disait-il: je me le rappelle bien. Je ha\u00efssais cet homme avec\ntoute la haine d'un fou; souvent, bien souvent, mes mains avaient br\u00fbl\u00e9\nde le mettre en pi\u00e8ces. On m'apprit qu'il \u00e9tait l\u00e0; je montai rapidement\nl'escalier. Il avait un mot \u00e0 me dire; je renvoyai les domestiques.\n\n\u00abIl \u00e9tait tard et nous \u00e9tions seuls ensemble, _pour la premi\u00e8re fois_!\n\n\u00abD'abord je d\u00e9tournai soigneusement les yeux de dessus lui, car je\nsavais, ce qu'il n'imaginait gu\u00e8re, et je me glorifiais de le savoir...\nque le feu de la folie brillait dans mes yeux comme une fournaise.--Nous\nrest\u00e2mes assis en silence pendant quelques minutes. Il parla \u00e0 la fin.\nMes dissipations r\u00e9centes et d'\u00e9tranges remarques, faites aussit\u00f4t apr\u00e8s\nla mort de sa soeur, \u00e9taient une insulte \u00e0 sa m\u00e9moire. Rassemblant\nbeaucoup de circonstances qui avaient d'abord \u00e9chapp\u00e9 \u00e0 ses\nobservations, il pensait que je n'avais pas bien trait\u00e9 la d\u00e9funte, il\nd\u00e9sirait savoir s'il devait en conclura que je voulais jeter quelques\nreproches sur elle, et manquer de respect d\u00fb \u00e0 sa famille. Il devait \u00e0\nl'uniforme qu'il portait de me demander cette explication.\n\n\u00abCet homme avait une commission dans l'arm\u00e9e; une commission achet\u00e9e\navec mon argent, avec la mis\u00e8re de sa soeur! C'\u00e9tait lui qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 le\nplus acharn\u00e9 dans le complot pour m'enlacer et pour s'approprier ma\nfortune. C'\u00e9tait pour lui surtout, et par lui, que sa soeur avait \u00e9t\u00e9\nforc\u00e9e de m'\u00e9pouser, quoiqu'il sut bien qu'elle avait donn\u00e9 son coeur \u00e0\nce jeune homme sentimental.--_Il devait \u00e0 son uniforme!_--Son uniforme!\nLa livr\u00e9e de sa d\u00e9gradation! Je tournai mes yeux vers lui, je ne pus pas\nm'en emp\u00eacher, mais je ne dis pas un mot.\n\n\u00abJe vis le changement soudain que mon regard produisit dans sa\ncontenance. C'\u00e9tait un homme hardi, et pourtant son visage devint\nblafard. Il recula sa chaise, je rapprochai la mienne plus pr\u00e8s de lui,\net comme je me mis \u00e0 rire (j'\u00e9tais tr\u00e8s-gai alors), je le vis\ntressaillir. Je sentis que la folie s'emparait de moi: lui, il avait\npeur.\n\n\u00abVous aimiez beaucoup votre soeur quand elle vivait, lui dis-je. Vous\nl'aimiez beaucoup?\u00bb\n\n\u00abIl regarda avec inqui\u00e9tude autour de lui, et je vis que sa main droite\nserrait le dos de sa chaise; cependant il ne r\u00e9pondit rien.\n\n\u00abMis\u00e9rable! m'\u00e9criai-je, je vous ai devin\u00e9! J'ai d\u00e9couvert votre complot\ninfernal contre moi. Je sais que son coeur \u00e9tait avec un autre lorsque\nvous l'avez forc\u00e9e de m'\u00e9pouser. Je le sais, je le sais!\u00bb\n\n\u00abIl se leva brusquement, brandit sa chaise devant lui et me cria de\nreculer; car je m'\u00e9tais approch\u00e9 de lui, tout en parlant.\n\n\u00abJe hurlais plut\u00f4t que je ne parlais, et je sentais bouillonner dans mes\nveines le tumulte des passions; j'entendais le vieux chuchotement des\nesprits qui me d\u00e9fiaient d'arracher son coeur.\n\n\u00abDamnation! m'\u00e9criai-je en me pr\u00e9cipitant sur lui. J'ai tu\u00e9 ta soeur! Je\nsuis fou! Mort! Mort! Du sang, du sang! J'aurai ton sang!\u00bb\n\n\u00abJe d\u00e9tournai la chaise, qu'il me lan\u00e7a dans sa terreur; je l'empoignai\ncorps \u00e0 corps, et nous roul\u00e2mes tous les deux sur le plancher.\n\n\u00abCe fut une belle lutte, car il \u00e9tait grand et fort; il combattait pour\nsa vie, et moi j'\u00e9tais un fou puissant, alt\u00e9r\u00e9 de vengeance. Je savais\nqu'aucune force humaine ne pouvait \u00e9galer la mienne, et j'avais raison,\nraison, raison! quoique fou! Sa r\u00e9sistance s'affaiblit; je m'agenouillai\nsur sa poitrine, je serrai fortement avec mes deux mains son cou\nmusculeux; son visage devint violet, les yeux lui sortaient de la t\u00eate,\net il tirait la langue comme s'il voulait se moquer. Je serrais toujours\nplus fort.\n\n\u00abTout \u00e0 coup la porte s'ouvrit avec un grand bruit; beaucoup de gens se\npr\u00e9cipit\u00e8rent dans la chambre en criant: \u00abArr\u00eatez le fou! Mon secret\n\u00e9tait d\u00e9couvert; il fallait lutter maintenant pour la libert\u00e9; je fus\nsur mes pieds avant que personne p\u00fbt me saisir; je m'\u00e9lan\u00e7ai parmi les\nassaillants, et je m'ouvris un passage d'un bras vigoureux. Ils\ntombaient tous devant moi comme si je les avais frapp\u00e9s avec une massue.\nJe gagnai la porte, je sautai par-dessus la rampe; en un instant j'\u00e9tais\ndans la rue.\n\n\u00abJe courus devant moi, droit et roide, et personne n'osait m'arr\u00eater.\nJ'entendais le bruit des pas derri\u00e8re moi, et je redoublais de vitesse.\nCe bruit devenait de plus en plus faible, \u00e0 mesure que je m'\u00e9loignais,\net enfin il s'\u00e9teignit enti\u00e8rement. Moi, je bondissais toujours\npar-dessus les ruisseaux et les mares, par-dessus les murs et les\nfoss\u00e9s, en poussant des cris sauvages, qui d\u00e9chiraient les airs et qui\n\u00e9taient r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9s par les \u00eatres \u00e9tranges dont j'\u00e9tais entour\u00e9. Les d\u00e9mons\nm'emportaient dans leurs bras, au milieu d'un ouragan qui renversait en\npassant les haies et les arbres; ils m'emportaient en tourbillonnant, et\nje ne voyais plus rien autour de moi, tant j'\u00e9tais \u00e9tourdi par la fracas\net la rapidit\u00e9 de leur course. A la fin, ils me lanc\u00e8rent loin d'eux, et\nje tombai pesamment sur la terre.\n\n\u00abQuand je me r\u00e9veillai, je me trouvai ici... ici dans cette gaie\ncellule, ou les rayons du soleil viennent rarement, o\u00f9 les rayons de la\nlune, quand ils s'y glissent, ne servent qu'\u00e0 me faire mieux voir les\nombres mena\u00e7antes qui m'entourent, et cette figure silencieuse, toujours\ndebout dans ce coin. Quand je suis \u00e9veill\u00e9, je puis entendre quelquefois\ndes cris \u00e9tranges, des g\u00e9missements affreux, qui retentissent dans ces\ngrands b\u00e2timents antiques. Ce que c'est, je l'ignore; mais ils ne\nviennent pas de cette p\u00e2le figure et n'ont aucun rapport avec elle, car\ndepuis les premi\u00e8res ombres du cr\u00e9puscule jusqu'aux lueurs matinales de\nl'aurore, elle reste immobile \u00e0 la m\u00eame place, \u00e9coutant l'harmonie de\nmes cha\u00eenes de fer, et contemplant mes gambades sur mon lit de paille.\u00bb\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nA la fin du manuscrit la note suivante \u00e9tait \u00e9crite d'une autre main.\n\n\u00abL'infortun\u00e9 dont on vient de lire les r\u00eaveries est un triste exemple du\nr\u00e9sultat que peuvent avoir des passions effr\u00e9n\u00e9es et des exc\u00e8s\nprolong\u00e9s, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que leurs cons\u00e9quences deviennent irr\u00e9parables. La\ndissipation, les d\u00e9bauches r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9es de sa jeunesse, amen\u00e8rent la fi\u00e8vre\net le d\u00e9lire. Le premier effet de celui-ci fut, l'\u00e9trange illusion par\nlaquelle il se persuada qu'une folie h\u00e9r\u00e9ditaire existait dans sa\nfamille. Cette id\u00e9e, fond\u00e9e sur une th\u00e9orie m\u00e9dicale bien connue, mais\ncontest\u00e9e aussi vivement qu'elle est appuy\u00e9e, produisit chez lui une\nhumeur atrabilaire qui, avec le temps, d\u00e9g\u00e9n\u00e9ra en folie, et se termina\nenfin par la fureur. J'ai lieu de croire que les \u00e9v\u00e9nements racont\u00e9s par\nlui sont r\u00e9ellement arriv\u00e9s, quoiqu'ils aient \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9figur\u00e9s par son\nimagination malade. Ce qui doit \u00e9tonner davantage ceux qui ont eu\nconnaissance des vices de sa jeunesse, c'est que ses passions,\nlorsqu'elles n'ont plus \u00e9t\u00e9 contr\u00f4l\u00e9es par la raison, ne l'aient point\npouss\u00e9 \u00e0 commettre des crimes encore plus effroyables.\u00bb\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLa chandelle de M. Pickwick s'enfon\u00e7ait dans la bob\u00e8che, pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment au\nmoment o\u00f9 il achevait de lire le manuscrit du vieil eccl\u00e9siastique; et\ncomme la lumi\u00e8re s'\u00e9teignit tout d'un coup, sans m\u00eame avoir vacill\u00e9,\nl'obscurit\u00e9 soudaine fit une impression profonde sur ses nerfs d\u00e9j\u00e0\nexcit\u00e9s. Il tressaillit et ses dents claqu\u00e8rent de terreur. Otant donc\navec vivacit\u00e9 les v\u00eatements qu'il avait mis pour se relever, il jeta\nautour de la chambre un regard craintif et se fourra promptement entre\nses draps, o\u00f9 il ne tarda pas \u00e0 s'endormir.\n\nLorsqu'il se r\u00e9veilla, le soleil faisait resplendir tous les objets dans\nsa chambre et la matin\u00e9e \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 avanc\u00e9e. La tristesse qui l'avait\naccabl\u00e9 le soir pr\u00e9c\u00e9dant s'\u00e9tait dissip\u00e9e avec les ombres qui\nobscurcissaient le paysage; toutes ses pens\u00e9es, toutes ses sensations\n\u00e9taient aussi gaies et aussi gracieuses que le matin lui-m\u00eame. Apr\u00e8s un\nsolide d\u00e9jeuner, les quatre philosophes, suivis par un homme qui portait\nla pierre dans sa bo\u00eete de sapin, se dirig\u00e8rent \u00e0 pied vers Gravesend,\no\u00f9 leur bagage avait \u00e9t\u00e9 exp\u00e9di\u00e9 de Rochester. Ils atteignirent\nGravesend vers une heure, et ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 assez heureux pour trouver des\nplaces sur l'imp\u00e9riale de la voiture de Londres, ils y arriv\u00e8rent, sains\net saufs, dans la soir\u00e9e.\n\nTrois ou quatre jours subs\u00e9quents furent remplis par les pr\u00e9paratifs\nn\u00e9cessaires pour leur voyage au bourg d'Eatanswill; mais comme cette\nimportante entreprise exige un chapitre s\u00e9par\u00e9, nous emploierons le\npetit nombre de lignes qui nous restent \u00e0 raconter, avec une grande\nbri\u00e8vet\u00e9, l'histoire de l'antiquit\u00e9 rapport\u00e9e par M. Pickwick.\n\nIl r\u00e9sulte des m\u00e9moires du club, que M. Pickwick parla sur sa\nd\u00e9couverte, dans une r\u00e9union g\u00e9n\u00e9rale qui eut lieu le lendemain de son\narriv\u00e9e, et promena l'esprit charm\u00e9 de ses auditeurs sur une multitude\nde sp\u00e9culations ing\u00e9nieuses et \u00e9rudites, concernant le sens de\nl'inscription. Il para\u00eet aussi qu'un artiste habile en ex\u00e9cuta le\ndessin, qui fut grav\u00e9 sur pierre et pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 \u00e0 la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 royale des\nantiquaires de Londres et aux autres soci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes; que des\njalousies et des rivalit\u00e9s sans nombre naquirent des opinions \u00e9mises \u00e0\nce sujet; que M. Pickwick lui-m\u00eame \u00e9crivit un pamphlet de\nquatre-vingt-seize pages, en tr\u00e8s-petits caract\u00e8res, o\u00f9 l'on trouvait\nvingt-sept versions diff\u00e9rentes de l'inscription; que trois vieux\ngentlemen, dont les fils ain\u00e9s avaient os\u00e9 mettre en doute son\nantiquit\u00e9, les priv\u00e8rent de leur succession, et qu'un individu\nenthousiaste fit ouvrir pr\u00e9matur\u00e9ment la sienne, par d\u00e9sespoir de n'en\navoir pu sonder la profondeur; que M. Pickwick fut \u00e9lu membre de\ndix-sept soci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes, tant nationales qu'\u00e9trang\u00e8res, pour avoir\nfait cette d\u00e9couverte; qu'aucune des dix-sept soci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes ne put\nen tirer la moindre chose, mais que toutes les dix-sept s'accord\u00e8rent\npour reconna\u00eetre que rien n'\u00e9tait plus curieux.\n\nIl est vrai que M. Blotton, et son nom sera d\u00e9vou\u00e9 au m\u00e9pris \u00e9ternel de\ntous ceux qui cultivent le myst\u00e9rieux et le sublime; M. Blotton,\ndisons-nous, v\u00e9tilleux et m\u00e9fiant, comme le sont les esprits vulgaires,\nse permit de consid\u00e9rer la chose sous un point de vue aussi d\u00e9gradant\nque ridicule. M. Blotton, dans le vil dessein de ternir le nom \u00e9clatant\nde Pickwick, entreprit en personne le voyage de Cobham. A son retour, il\nd\u00e9clara ironiquement au club, qu'il avait vu l'homme dont la pierre\navait \u00e9t\u00e9 achet\u00e9e; que cet individu la croyait ancienne, mais qu'il\nniait solennellement l'anciennet\u00e9 de l'inscription, et assurait avoir\ngrav\u00e9 lui-m\u00eame, dans un instant de d\u00e9soeuvrement, ces lettres grossi\u00e8res,\nqui signifiaient tout bonnement: _Bill Stumps, sa marque_. M. Blotton\najoutait que M. Stumps ayant peu l'habitude de la composition, et se\nlaissant guider par le son des mots plut\u00f4t que par les r\u00e8gles s\u00e9v\u00e8res de\nl'orthographe, n'avait mis qu'un _l_ \u00e0 la fin de son pr\u00e9nom, et avait\nremplac\u00e9 par un _k_ les lettres _qu_ et _e_ du nom marque.\n\nLes illustres membres du Pickwick-Club, comme on pouvait l'attendre\nd'une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 aussi savante, re\u00e7urent cette histoire avec le m\u00e9pris\nqu'elle m\u00e9ritait, chass\u00e8rent de leur sein l'ignorant et pr\u00e9somptueux\nBlotton, et vot\u00e8rent \u00e0 M. Pickwick une paire de besicles en or, comme un\ngage de leur admiration et de leur confiance. Pour reconna\u00eetre cette\nmarque d'approbation, M. Pickwick se fit peindre en pied, et fit\nsuspendre son portrait dans la salle de r\u00e9union du club, portrait que,\npar parenth\u00e8se, il n'eut aucune envie de voir dispara\u00eetre lorsqu'il fut\nmoins jeune qu'on ne l'y repr\u00e9sentait.\n\nM. Blotton \u00e9tait expuls\u00e9, mais il ne se tenait pas pour battu. Il\nadressa aux dix-sept soci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes un pamphlet dans lequel il\nr\u00e9p\u00e9tait l'histoire qu'il avait \u00e9mise, et laissait apercevoir assez\nclairement qu'il regardait comme des gobe-mouches les membres des\ndix-sept soci\u00e9t\u00e9s susdites.\n\nA cette proposition malsonnante, les dix-sept soci\u00e9t\u00e9s furent remplies\nd'indignation. Il parut plusieurs pamphlets nouveaux. Les soci\u00e9t\u00e9s\nsavantes \u00e9trang\u00e8res correspondirent avec les soci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes\nnationales; les soci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes nationales traduisirent en anglais les\npamphlets des soci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes \u00e9trang\u00e8res; les soci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes\n\u00e9trang\u00e8res traduisirent dans toutes sortes de langages les pamphlets des\nsoci\u00e9t\u00e9s savantes nationales, et ainsi, commen\u00e7a cette lutte\nscientifique, si connue de tout l'univers sous le nom de _Controverse\npickwickienne_.\n\nCependant les efforts calomnieux destin\u00e9s \u00e0 perdre M. Pickwick\nretomb\u00e8rent sur la t\u00eate de leur m\u00e9prisable auteur. Les dix-sept soci\u00e9t\u00e9s\nsavantes vot\u00e8rent unanimement que le pr\u00e9somptueux Blotton n'\u00e9tait qu'un\ntatillon ignorant, et \u00e9crivirent contre lui des opuscules sans nombre;\nenfin la pierre elle-m\u00eame subsiste encore aujourd'hui, monument\nillisible de la grandeur de M. Pickwick et de la petitesse de ses\nd\u00e9tracteurs.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XII.\n\nQui contient une tr\u00e8s-importante d\u00e9termination de M. Pickwick, laquelle\nfait \u00e9poque dans sa vie non moins que dans cette v\u00e9ridique histoire.\n\n\nQuoique l'appartement de M. Pickwick dans la rue Goswell f\u00fbt d'une\n\u00e9tendue restreinte, il \u00e9tait propre et confortable, et surtout en\nparfaite harmonie avec son g\u00e9nie observateur. Son parloir \u00e9tait au\nrez-de-chauss\u00e9e sur le devant, sa chambre \u00e0 coucher sur le devant, au\npremier \u00e9tage; et ainsi, soit qu'il f\u00fbt assis \u00e0 son bureau, soit qu'il\nse t\u00eent debout devant son miroir \u00e0 barbe, il pouvait \u00e9galement\ncontempler toutes les phases de la nature humaine dans la rue Goswell,\nqui est presque aussi populeuse que populaire. Son h\u00f4tesse, Mme Bardell,\nveuve et seule ex\u00e9cutrice testamentaire d'un douanier, \u00e9tait une femme\ngrassouillette, aux mani\u00e8res affair\u00e9es, \u00e0 la physionomie avenante. A ces\navantages physiques, elle joignait de pr\u00e9cieuses qualit\u00e9s morales: par\nune heureuse \u00e9tude, par une longue pratique, elle avait converti en un\ntalent exquis le don particulier qu'elle avait re\u00e7u de la nature pour\ntout ce qui concernait la cuisine. Il n'y avait dans la maison ni\nbambins, ni volatiles, ni domestiques. Un grand homme et un petit gar\u00e7on\nen compl\u00e9taient le personnel. Le premier \u00e9tait notre h\u00e9ros, le second\nune production de Mme Bardell. Le grand homme \u00e9tait rentr\u00e9 chaque soir\npr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment \u00e0 dix heures, et peu de temps apr\u00e8s il se condensait dans un\npetit lit fran\u00e7ais, plac\u00e9 dans un \u00e9troit parloir sur le derri\u00e8re. Quant\nau jeune master Bardell, ses yeux enfantins et ses exercices\ngymnastiques \u00e9taient soigneusement restreints aux trottoirs et aux\nruisseaux du voisinage. La propret\u00e9, la tranquillit\u00e9 r\u00e9gnaient donc dans\ntout l'\u00e9difice, et la volont\u00e9 de M. Pickwick y faisait loi.\n\nLa veille du d\u00e9part projet\u00e9 pour Eatanswill, vers le milieu de la\nmatin\u00e9e, la conduite de notre philosophe devait para\u00eetre singuli\u00e8rement\nmyst\u00e9rieuse et inexplicable, pour quiconque connaissait son admirable\n\u00e9galit\u00e9 d'esprit et l'\u00e9conomie domestique de son \u00e9tablissement. Il se\npromenait dans sa chambre d'un pas pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9. De trois minutes en trois\nminutes, il mettait la t\u00eate \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre, il regardait constamment \u00e0 sa\nmontre et laissait \u00e9chapper divers autres sympt\u00f4mes d'impatience, fort\nextraordinaires chez lui. Il \u00e9tait \u00e9vident qu'il y avait en l'air\nquelque chose d'une grande importance; mais ce que ce pouvait \u00eatre, Mme\nBardell elle-m\u00eame n'avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 capable de le deviner.\n\n\u00abMadame Bardell? dit \u00e0 la fin M. Pickwick, lorsque cette aimable dame\nfut sur le point de terminer l'\u00e9poussetage, longtemps prolong\u00e9, de sa\nchambre.\n\n--Monsieur? r\u00e9pondit Mme Bardell.\n\n--Votre petit gar\u00e7on est bien longtemps dehors.\n\n--Vraiment, monsieur, c'est qu'il y a une bonne course d'ici au Borough.\n\n--Ah! cela est juste,\u00bb repartit M. Pickwick, et il retomba dans le\nsilence.\n\nMme Bardell recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 \u00e9pousseter avec le m\u00eame soin.\n\n\u00abMadame Bardell? reprit M. Pickwick au bout de quelques minutes.\n\n--Monsieur?\n\n--Pensez-vous que la d\u00e9pense soit beaucoup plus grande pour deux\npersonnes que pour une seule?\n\n--L\u00e0! monsieur Pickwick! r\u00e9pliqua Mme Bardell en rougissant jusqu'\u00e0 la\ngarniture de son bonnet, car elle croyait avoir aper\u00e7u dans les yeux de\nson locataire un certain clignotement matrimonial. L\u00e0! monsieur\nPickwick, quelle question!\n\n--H\u00e9 bien! qu'en pensez-vous?\n\n--Cela d\u00e9pend! repartit Mme Bardell en approchant son plumeau pr\u00e8s du\ncoude de M. Pickwick; cela d\u00e9pend beaucoup de la personne, vous savez,\nmonsieur Pickwick; et si c'est une personne soigneuse et \u00e9conome.\n\n--Cela est tr\u00e8s-vrai; mais la personne que j'ai en vue (ici il regarda\nfixement Mme Bardell) poss\u00e8de, je pense, ces qualit\u00e9s. Elle a de plus\nune grande connaissance du monde, et beaucoup de finesse, madame\nBardell. Cela me sera infiniment utile.\n\n--L\u00e0! monsieur Pickwick! murmura Mme Bardell, en rougissant de nouveau.\n\n--J'en suis persuad\u00e9! continua le philosophe avec une \u00e9nergie toujours\ncroissante, comme c'\u00e9tait son habitude quand il pariait sur un sujet\nint\u00e9ressant; j'en suis persuad\u00e9, et pour vous dire la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, madame\nBardell, c'est un parti pris.\n\n--Seigneur Dieu! s'\u00e9cria Mme Bardell.\n\n--Vous trouverez peut-\u00eatre \u00e9trange, poursuivit l'aimable M. Pickwick, en\njetant \u00e0 sa compagne un regard de bonne humeur; vous trouverez peut-\u00eatre\n\u00e9trange que je ne vous aie pas consult\u00e9e \u00e0 ce sujet, et que je ne vous\nen aie m\u00eame jamais parl\u00e9, jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 j'ai envoy\u00e9 votre petit\ngar\u00e7on dehors?\u00bb\n\nMme Bardell ne put r\u00e9pondre que par un regard. Elle avait longtemps\nador\u00e9 M. Pickwick comme une divinit\u00e9 dont il ne lui \u00e9tait pas permis\nd'approcher, et voil\u00e0 que tout d'un coup la divinit\u00e9 descendait de son\npi\u00e9destal et la prenait dans ses bras. M. Pickwick lui faisait des\npropositions directement, par suite d'un plan d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9, car il avait\nenvoy\u00e9 son petit gar\u00e7on au Borough pour rester seul avec elle. Quelle\nd\u00e9licatesse! quelle attention!\n\n\u00abH\u00e9 bien! dit le philosophe, qu'en pensez-vous?\n\n--Ah! monsieur Pickwick! r\u00e9pondit Mme Bardell toute tremblante\nd'\u00e9motion, vous \u00eates vraiment bien bon, monsieur!\n\n--Cela vous \u00e9pargnera beaucoup de peines, n'est-il pas vrai?\n\n--Oh! je n'ai jamais pens\u00e9 \u00e0 la peine, et naturellement j'en prendrai\nplus que jamais pour vous plaire. Mais vous \u00eates si bon, monsieur\nPickwick, d'avoir song\u00e9 \u00e0 ma solitude.\n\n--Ah! certainement. Je n'avais pas pens\u00e9 \u00e0 cela.... Quand je serai en\nville, vous aurez toujours quelqu'un pour causer avec vous. C'est, ma\nfoi, vrai.\n\n--Il est s\u00fbr que je dois me regarder comme une femme bien heureuse!\n\n--Et votre fils?\n\n--Que Dieu b\u00e9nisse le cher petit! interrompit Mme Bardell avec des\ntransports maternels.\n\n--Lui aussi aura un compagnon, poursuivit M. Pickwick en souriant\ngracieusement; un joyeux compagnon qui, j'en suis s\u00fbr, lui enseignera\nplus de tours, en une semaine, qu'il n'en aurait appris tout seul en un\nan.\n\n--Oh! cher, excellent homme!\u00bb murmura Mme Bardell.\n\nM. Pickwick tressaillit.\n\n\u00abOh! cher et tendre ami!\u00bb Et sans plus de c\u00e9r\u00e9monies, la dame se leva de\nsa chaise et jeta ses bras au cou de M. Pickwick, avec un d\u00e9luge de\npleurs et une temp\u00eate de sanglots.\n\n\u00abLe ciel me prot\u00e8ge! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick plein d'\u00e9tonnement; madame\nBardell! ma bonne dame! Bont\u00e9 divine, quelle situation! Faites\nattention, je vous en prie! Laissez-moi, madame Bardell, si quelqu'un\nvenait!\n\n--Eh! que m'importe? r\u00e9pondit Mme Bardell avec \u00e9garement; je ne vous\nquitterai jamais! Cher homme! excellent coeur! Et en pronon\u00e7ant ces\nparoles elle s'attachait \u00e0 M. Pickwick aussi fortement que la vigne \u00e0\nl'ormeau.\n\n--Le Seigneur ait piti\u00e9 de moi! dit M. Pickwick en se d\u00e9battant de\ntoutes ses forces; j'entends du monde sur l'escalier. Laissez-moi, ma\nbonne dame; je vous en supplie, laissez-moi!\u00bb\n\nMais les pri\u00e8res, les remontrances \u00e9taient \u00e9galement inutiles, car la\ndame s'\u00e9tait \u00e9vanouie dans les bras du philosophe, et avant qu'il e\u00fbt eu\nle temps de la d\u00e9poser sur une chaise, master Bardell introduisit dans\nla chambre MM. Tupman, Winkle et Snodgrass.\n\nM. Pickwick demeura p\u00e9trifi\u00e9. Il \u00e9tait debout, avec son aimable fardeau\ndans ses bras, et il regardait ses amis d'un air h\u00e9b\u00e9t\u00e9, sans leur faire\nun signe d'amiti\u00e9, sans songer \u00e0 leur donner une explication. Eux, \u00e0\nleur tour, le consid\u00e9raient avec \u00e9tonnement, et master Bardell, plein\nd'inqui\u00e9tude, examinait tout le monde, sans savoir ce que cela voulait\ndire.\n\nLa surprise des pickwickiens \u00e9tait si \u00e9tourdissante, et la perplexit\u00e9 de\nM. Pickwick si terrible, qu'ils auraient pu demeurer exactement dans la\nm\u00eame situation relative jusqu'\u00e0 ce que la dame \u00e9vanouie eut repris ses\nsens, si son tendre fils n'avait pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9 le d\u00e9no\u00fbment par une belle et\ntouchante \u00e9bullition d'affection filiale. Ce jeune enfant, v\u00eatu d'un\ncostume de velours ray\u00e9, orn\u00e9 de gros boutons de cuivre, \u00e9tait d'abord\ndemeur\u00e9, incertain et confus, sur le pas de la porte; mais, par degr\u00e9s,\nl'id\u00e9e que sa m\u00e8re avait souffert quelque dommage personnel s'empara de\nson esprit \u00e0 demi-d\u00e9velopp\u00e9. Consid\u00e9rant M. Pickwick comme l'agresseur,\nil poussa un cri sauvage, et se pr\u00e9cipitant t\u00eate baiss\u00e9e, il commen\u00e7a \u00e0\nassaillir cet immortel gentleman aux environs du dos et des jambes, le\npin\u00e7ant et le frappant aussi vigoureusement que le lui permettaient la\nforce de son bras et la violence de son emportement.\n\n\u00abOtez-moi ce petit coquin! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick dans une agonie de\nd\u00e9sespoir; il est enrag\u00e9!\n\n--Qu'est-il donc arriv\u00e9? demand\u00e8rent les trois pickwickiens stup\u00e9faits.\n\n--Je n'en sais rien, r\u00e9pondit le Mentor avec d\u00e9pit; \u00f4tez-moi cet\nenfant!\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle porta \u00e0 l'autre bout de l'appartement l'int\u00e9ressant gar\u00e7on,\nqui criait et se d\u00e9battait de toutes ses forces.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, poursuivit M. Pickwick, aidez-moi \u00e0 faire descendre cette\nfemme.\n\n--Ah! je suis mieux maintenant, soupira faiblement Mme Bardell.\n\n--Permettez-moi de vous offrir mon bras, dit M. Tupman, toujours galant.\n\n--Merci, monsieur, merci!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria la dame d'une voix hyst\u00e9rique, et\nelle fut conduite en bas, accompagn\u00e9e de son affectionn\u00e9 fils.\n\n--Je ne puis concevoir, reprit M. Pickwick quand ses amis furent\nrevenus, je ne puis concevoir ce qui est arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 cette femme. Je venais\nsimplement de lui annoncer que je vais prendre un domestique,\nlorsqu'elle est tomb\u00e9e dans le singulier paroxysme o\u00f9 vous l'avez\ntrouv\u00e9e. C'est fort extraordinaire!\n\n--Il est vrai, dirent ses trois amis.\n\n--Elle m'a plac\u00e9 dans une situation bien embarrassante, continua le\nphilosophe.\n\n--Il est vrai,\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e8rent ses disciples, en toussant l\u00e9g\u00e8rement et en\nse regardant l'un l'autre d'un air dubitatif.\n\nCette conduite n'\u00e9chappa pas \u00e0 M. Pickwick. Il remarqua leur\nincr\u00e9dulit\u00e9; son innocence \u00e9tait \u00e9videmment soup\u00e7onn\u00e9e.\n\nApr\u00e8s quelques instants de silence, M. Tupman prit la parole et dit:\n\n\u00abIl y a un homme en bas, dans le vestibule.\n\n--C'est celui dont je vous ai parl\u00e9, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick; je l'ai\nenvoy\u00e9 chercher au bourg. Ayez la bont\u00e9 de le faire monter, Snodgrass.\u00bb\n\nM. Snodgrass ex\u00e9cuta cette commission, et M. Samuel Weller se pr\u00e9senta\nimm\u00e9diatement.\n\n\u00abHa! ha! vous me reconnaissez, je suppose? lui dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Un peu! r\u00e9pliqua Sam avec un clin d'oeil protecteur. Dr\u00f4le de gaillard,\ncelui-l\u00e0! Trop malin pour vous, hein? il vous a l\u00e9g\u00e8rement enfonc\u00e9,\nn'est-ce pas?\n\n--Il ne s'agit point de cela maintenant, reprit vivement le philosophe;\nj'ai \u00e0 vous parler d'autre chose. Asseyez-vous.\n\n--Merci, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Sam, et il s'assit sans autre c\u00e9r\u00e9monie,\nayant pr\u00e9alablement d\u00e9pos\u00e9 son vieux chapeau blanc sur le carr\u00e9. \u00c7a\nn'est pas fameux, disait-il en parlant de son couvre-chef, et en\nsouriant agr\u00e9ablement aux pickwickiens assembl\u00e9s, mais c'est \u00e9tonnant \u00e0\nl'user. Quand il avait des bords, c'\u00e9tait un beau bolivar; depuis qu'il\nn'en a plus, il est plus l\u00e9ger; c'est quelque chose: et puis chaque trou\nlaisse entrer de l'air; c'est encore quelque chose. J'appelle \u00e7a un\nfeutre ventilateur.\n\n--Maintenant, reprit M. Pickwick, il s'agit de l'affaire pour laquelle\nje vous ai envoy\u00e9 chercher, avec l'assentiment de ces messieurs.\n\n--C'est \u00e7a, monsieur, accouchons, comme dit c't autre \u00e0 son enfant qui\navait aval\u00e9 un liard.\n\n--Nous d\u00e9sirons savoir, en premier lieu, si vous avez quelque raison\nd'\u00eatre m\u00e9content de votre condition pr\u00e9sente.\n\n--Avant de satisfaire cette question ici, je d\u00e9sirerais savoir, en\npremier lieu, si vous en avez une meilleure \u00e0 me donner.\u00bb\n\nUn rayon de calme bienveillance illumina les traits de M. Pickwick\nlorsqu'il r\u00e9pondit: \u00abJ'ai quelque envie de vous prendre \u00e0 mon service.\n\n--Vrai?\u00bb demanda Sam.\n\nM. Pickwick fit un geste affirmatif.\n\n--Gages?\n\n--Douze guin\u00e9es par an.\n\n--Habits?\n\n--Deux habillements.\n\n--L'ouvrage?\n\n--Me servir et voyager avec moi et ces gentlemen.\n\n--Otez l'\u00e9criteau! s'\u00e9cria Sam avec emphase. Je suis lou\u00e9 \u00e0 un gentleman\nseul, et le terme est convenu.\n\n--Vous acceptez ma proposition?\n\n--Certainement. Si les habits me prennent la taille moiti\u00e9 aussi bien\nque la place, \u00e7a ira.\n\n--Naturellement, vous pouvez fournir de bons certificats?\n\n--Demandez \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tesse du _Blanc-Cerf_, elle vous dira \u00e7a, monsieur.\n\n--Pouvez-vous venir ce soir?\n\n--Je vas endosser l'habit \u00e0 l'instant m\u00eame, s'il est ici, s'\u00e9cria Sam\navec une grande all\u00e9gresse.\n\n--Revenez ce soir, \u00e0 huit heures, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, et si les\nrenseignements sont satisfaisants, nous verrons \u00e0 vous faire habiller.\u00bb\n\nSauf une aimable indiscr\u00e9tion, dont s'\u00e9tait en m\u00eame temps rendue\ncoupable une des servantes de l'h\u00f4tel, la conduite de M. Weller avait\ntoujours \u00e9t\u00e9 tr\u00e8s-m\u00e9ritoire. M. Pickwick n'h\u00e9sita donc pas \u00e0 le prendre\n\u00e0 son service, et avec la promptitude et l'\u00e9nergie qui caract\u00e9risaient\nnon seulement la conduite publique, mais toutes les actions priv\u00e9es de\ncet homme extraordinaire, il conduisit imm\u00e9diatement son nouveau\nserviteur dans un de ces commodes _emporiums_, o\u00f9 l'on peut se procurer\ndes habits confectionn\u00e9s ou d'occasion, et o\u00f9 l'on se dispense de la\nformalit\u00e9 inconnue de prendre mesure. Avant la chute du jour, M. Weller\n\u00e9tait rev\u00eatu d'un habit gris avec des boutons P.C., d'un chapeau noir\navec une cocarde, d'un gilet ray\u00e9, de culottes et de gu\u00eatres, et d'une\nquantit\u00e9 d'autres objets trop nombreux pour que nous prenions la peine\nde les r\u00e9capituler.\n\nLorsque, le lendemain matin, cet individu, si soudainement transform\u00e9,\nprit sa place \u00e0 l'ext\u00e9rieur de la voiture d'Eatanswill: \u00abMa foi, se\ndit-il, je ne sais point si je vas \u00eatre un valet de pied, ou un groom,\nou un garde-chasse; j'ai la philosomie mitoyenne entre tout \u00e7a; mais\nc'est \u00e9gal, \u00e7a va me changer d'air; y'a du pays \u00e0 voir, et pas\ngrand'chose \u00e0 faire, \u00e7a va fameusement \u00e0 ma maladie: ainsi donc vive\nPickwick, que je dis!\u00bb\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XIII.\n\nNotice sur Eatanswill, sur les partis qui le divisent, et sur l'\u00e9lection\nd'un membre du parlement par ce bourg ancien, loyal et patriote.\n\n\nNous confessons franchement que nous n'avions jamais entendu parler\nd'Eatanswill, jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 nous nous sommes plong\u00e9 dans les\nvolumineux papiers du Pickwick-Club. Nous reconnaissons, avec une \u00e9gale\ncandeur, que nous avons cherch\u00e9 en vain des preuves de l'existence\nactuelle de cet endroit. Sachant bien quelle profonde confiance on doit\nplacer dans toutes les notes de M. Pickwick, et ne nous permettant pas\nd'opposer nos souvenirs aux \u00e9nonciations de ce grand homme, nous avons\nconsult\u00e9, relativement \u00e0 ce sujet, toutes les autorit\u00e9s auxquelles il\nnous a \u00e9t\u00e9 possible de recourir. Nous avons examin\u00e9 tous les noms\ncontenus dans les tables A et B[16], sans trouver celui d'Eatanswill;\nnous avons minutieusement collationn\u00e9 toutes les cartes des comt\u00e9s,\npubli\u00e9es, dans l'int\u00e9r\u00eat de la science, par nos plus distingu\u00e9s\n\u00e9diteurs, et le m\u00eame r\u00e9sultat a suivi nos investigations.\n\n[Footnote 16: C'est-\u00e0-dire dans la loi sur les \u00e9lections.\n\n(_Note du traducteur_.)]\n\nNous avons donc \u00e9t\u00e9 conduit \u00e0 supposer que, dans la crainte obligeante\nde blesser quelqu'un, et par un sentiment de d\u00e9licatesse dont M.\nPickwick \u00e9tait si \u00e9minemment dou\u00e9, il avait, de propos d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9,\nsubstitu\u00e9 un nom fictif au nom r\u00e9el de l'endroit o\u00f9 il avait fait ses\nobservations. Nous sommes confirm\u00e9 dans cette opinion par une\ncirconstance qui peut sembler l\u00e9g\u00e8re et frivole en elle-m\u00eame, mais qui,\nconsid\u00e9r\u00e9e sous ce point de vue, n'est point indigne d'\u00eatre not\u00e9e. Dans\nle m\u00e9morandum de M. Pickwick, nous pouvons encore d\u00e9couvrir que sa place\net celles de ses disciples furent retenues dans la voiture de Norwich;\nmais cette note fut ensuite ray\u00e9e, apparemment pour ne point indiquer\ndans quelle direction est situ\u00e9 le bourg dont il s'agit. Nous ne\nhasarderons donc point de conjectures \u00e0 ce sujet, et nous allons\npoursuivre notre histoire sans autre digression.\n\nIl para\u00eet que les habitants d'Eatanswill, comme ceux de beaucoup\nd'autres petits endroits, se croyaient d'une grande, d'une immense\nimportance dans l'\u00c9tat; et chaque individu ayant la conscience du poids\nattach\u00e9 \u00e0 son exemple, se faisait une obligation de s'unir corps et \u00e2me\n\u00e0 l'un des deux grands partis qui divisaient la cit\u00e9, les _bleus_ et les\n_jaunes_. Or, les bleus ne laissaient \u00e9chapper aucune occasion de\ncontrecarrer les jaunes, et les jaunes ne laissaient \u00e9chapper aucune\noccasion de contrecarrer les bleus; de sorte que quand les jaunes et les\nbleus se trouvaient face \u00e0 face dans quelque r\u00e9union publique, \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel\nde ville, dans une foire, dans un march\u00e9, des gros mots et des disputes\ns'\u00e9levaient entre eux. Il est superflu d'ajouter que dans Eatanswill\ntoutes choses devenaient une question de parti. Si les jaunes\nproposaient de recouvrir la place du march\u00e9, les bleus tenaient des\nassembl\u00e9es publiques o\u00f9 ils d\u00e9molissaient cette mesure. Si les bleus\nproposaient d'\u00e9riger une nouvelle pompe dans la grande rue, les jaunes\nse levaient comme un seul homme et d\u00e9blat\u00e9raient contre une aussi inf\u00e2me\nmotion. Il y avait des boutiques bleues et des boutiques jaunes, des\nauberges bleues et des auberges jaunes; il y avait une aile bleue et une\naile jaune dans l'\u00e9glise elle-m\u00eame.\n\nChacun de ces puissants partis devait n\u00e9cessairement avoir un organe\navou\u00e9, et, en effet, il paraissait deux feuilles publiques dans la\nville, la _Gazette d'Eatanswill_ et l'_Ind\u00e9pendant d'Eatanswill_. La\npremi\u00e8re soutenait les principes bleus, le second se posait sur un\nterrain d\u00e9cid\u00e9ment jaune. C'\u00e9taient d'admirables journaux. Quels beaux\narticles politiques! quelle pol\u00e9mique spirituelle et courageuse. \u00abLa\n_Gazette_, notre ignoble antagoniste....--L'_Ind\u00e9pendant_, ce m\u00e9prisable\net d\u00e9go\u00fbtant journal....--La _Gazette_, cette feuille menteuse et\norduri\u00e8re....--L'_Ind\u00e9pendant_, ce vil et scandaleux calomniateur....\u00bb\nTelles \u00e9taient les r\u00e9criminations int\u00e9ressantes qui assaisonnaient les\ncolonnes de chaque num\u00e9ro, et qui excitaient dans le sein des habitants\nde l'endroit les sentiments les plus chaleureux de plaisir ou\nd'indignation.\n\nM. Pickwick, avec sa pr\u00e9voyance et sa sagacit\u00e9 ordinaires, avait choisi,\npour visiter ce bourg, une \u00e9poque singuli\u00e8rement remarquable. Jamais il\nn'y avait eu une telle lutte. L'honorable Samuel Slumkey, de\nSlumkey-Hall[17], \u00e9tait le candidat bleu; Horatio Fizkin, esquire, de\nFizkin-Loge, pr\u00e8s d'Eatanswill, avait c\u00e9d\u00e9 aux instances de ses amis, et\ns'\u00e9tait laiss\u00e9 porter pour soutenir les int\u00e9r\u00eats jaunes. La _Gazette_\navertit les \u00e9lecteurs d'Eatanswill que les regards, non-seulement de\nl'Angleterre, mais du monde civilis\u00e9 tout entier, \u00e9taient fix\u00e9s sur eux.\nL'_Ind\u00e9pendant_ demanda d'un ton p\u00e9remptoire si les \u00e9lecteurs\nd'Eatanswill m\u00e9ritaient encore la renomm\u00e9e qu'ils avaient acquise d'\u00eatre\nde grands, de g\u00e9n\u00e9reux citoyens, ou s'ils \u00e9taient devenus de serviles\ninstruments du despotisme, indignes \u00e9galement du nom d'Anglais et des\nbienfaits de la libert\u00e9. Jamais une commotion aussi profonde n'avait\nencore \u00e9branl\u00e9 la ville.\n\n[Footnote 17: _Hall, ch\u00e2teau._]\n\nLa soir\u00e9e \u00e9tait avanc\u00e9e quand M. Pickwick et ses compagnons, assist\u00e9s\npar Sam Weller, quitt\u00e8rent l'imp\u00e9riale de la voiture d'Eatanswill. De\ngrands drapeaux bleus flottaient aux fen\u00eatres de l'auberge des _Armes de\nla ville_, et des \u00e9criteaux, plac\u00e9s derri\u00e8re les vitres, indiquaient en\ncaract\u00e8res gigantesques que le comit\u00e9 de l'honorable Samuel Slumkey, y\ntenait ses s\u00e9ances. Un groupe de fl\u00e2neurs, assembl\u00e9s devant la porte de\nl'auberge, regardaient un homme enrou\u00e9, plac\u00e9 sur le balcon de\nl'auberge, et qui paraissait parler en faveur de M. Samuel Slumkey, avec\ntant de chaleur que son visage en devenait tout rouge. Mais la force et\nla beaut\u00e9 de ses arguments \u00e9taient l\u00e9g\u00e8rement infirm\u00e9es par le\nroulement perp\u00e9tuel de quatre \u00e9normes tambours, pos\u00e9s au coin de la rue\npar le comit\u00e9 de M. Fizkin. Quoi qu'il en soit, un petit homme affair\u00e9,\nqui se tenait aupr\u00e8s de l'orateur, \u00f4tait de temps en temps son chapeau\net faisait signe \u00e0 la foule d'applaudir. La foule applaudissait alors\nr\u00e9guli\u00e8rement et avec beaucoup d'enthousiasme; et comme l'homme enrou\u00e9\nallait toujours parlant, quoique son visage devint de plus en plus\nrouge, on pouvait croire que son but \u00e9tait atteint, aussi bien que si\nl'on avait pu l'entendre.\n\nAussit\u00f4t que les pickwickiens furent descendus de leur voiture, ils se\nvirent entour\u00e9s par une partie de la populace, qui, sur-le-champ, poussa\ntrois acclamations assourdissantes. Ces acclamations, r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9es par le\nrassemblement principal (car la foule n'a nullement besoin de savoir\npourquoi elle crie), s'enfl\u00e8rent en un rugissement de triomphe si\neffroyable, que l'homme au rouge visage en resta court sur son balcon.\n\n\u00abHourra! hurla le peuple pour terminer.\n\n--Encore une acclamation! s'\u00e9cria le petit homme affair\u00e9 sur le balcon.\u00bb\nEt la multitude de rugir aussit\u00f4t, comme si elle avait eu un larynx de\nfonte et des poumons d'acier tremp\u00e9.\n\n\u00abVive Slumkey! beugla la multitude.\n\n--Vive Slumkey! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick en \u00f4tant son chapeau.\n\n--A bas Fizkin! vocif\u00e9ra la foule.\n\n--Oui, assur\u00e9ment! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Hourra!\u00bb Et alors un autre rugissement s'\u00e9leva, semblable \u00e0 celui de\ntoute une m\u00e9nagerie quand l'\u00e9l\u00e9phant a sonn\u00e9 l'heure du repas.\n\n\u00abQuel est ce Slumkey? demanda tout bas M. Tupman.\n\n--Je n'en sais rien, reprit M. Pickwick sur le m\u00eame ton. Silence! ne\nfaites point de question. Dans ces occasions, il faut faire comme la\nfoule.\n\n--Mais supposez qu'il y ait deux partis, fit observer M. Snodgrass.\n\n--Criez avec les plus forts.\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick.\n\nDes volumes n'auraient pu en dire davantage.\n\nIls entr\u00e8rent dans la maison, la populace s'ouvrant \u00e0 droite et \u00e0 gauche\npour les laisser passer et poussant des acclamations bruyantes. Ce qu'il\ny avait \u00e0 faire, en premier lieu, c'\u00e9tait de s'assurer un logement pour\nla nuit.\n\n\u00abPouvons-nous avoir des lits ici? demanda M. Pickwick au gar\u00e7on.\n\n--Je n'en sais rien, m'sieu. J'ai peur qu'ils ne soient tous pris,\nm'sieu. Je vais m'informer, m'sieu.\u00bb\n\nIl s'\u00e9loigna, mais revenant aussit\u00f4t, demanda si les gentlemen \u00e9taient\n_bleus_.\n\nComme M. Pickwick et ses compagnons ne prenaient gu\u00e8re d'int\u00e9r\u00eat \u00e0 la\ncause des candidats, la question \u00e9tait difficile \u00e0 r\u00e9soudre. Dans ce\ndilemme, M. Pickwick pensa \u00e0 son nouvel ami, M. Perker.\n\n--Connaissez-vous, dit-il, un gentleman nomm\u00e9 Perker?\n\n--Certainement, m'sieu; l'agent de l'honorable M. Samuel Slumkey.\n\n--Il est bleu, je pense?\n\n--Oh! oui, m'sieu.\n\n--Alors nous sommes bleus,\u00bb dit M. Pickwick; mais remarquant que le\ngar\u00e7on recevait d'un air dubitatif cette profession de foi accommodante,\nil lui donna sa carte en lui disant de la remettre sur-le-champ \u00e0 M.\nPerker, s'il \u00e9tait dans la maison. Le gar\u00e7on disparut, mais il reparut\nbient\u00f4t, pria M. Pickwick de le suivre, et le conduisit dans une grande\nsalle, o\u00f9 M. Perker \u00e9tait assis \u00e0 une longue table, derri\u00e8re un monceau\nde livres et de papiers.\n\n\u00abHa! ha! mon cher monsieur, dit le petit homme en s'avan\u00e7ant pour\nrecevoir M. Pickwick. Tr\u00e8s-heureux de vous voir, mon cher monsieur.\nAsseyez-vous, je vous prie. Ainsi vous avez ex\u00e9cut\u00e9 votre projet? Vous\n\u00eates venu pour assister \u00e0 l'\u00e9lection, n'est-ce pas?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick r\u00e9pondit affirmativement.\n\n\u00abUne \u00e9lection bien disput\u00e9e, mon cher monsieur.\n\n--J'en suis charm\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick en se frottant les mains.\nJ'aime \u00e0 voir cette chaleur patriotique, n'importe pour quel parti:\nc'est donc une \u00e9lection disput\u00e9e?\n\n--Oh! oui, singuli\u00e8rement. Nous avons retenu toutes les auberges de\nl'endroit et n'avons laiss\u00e9 \u00e0 nos adversaires que les boutiques de\nbi\u00e8re. C'est un coup de ma\u00eetre, mon cher monsieur, qu'en dites-vous?\u00bb\n\nLe petit homme, en parlant ainsi, souriait complaisamment et ins\u00e9rait\ndans ses narines une large prise de tabac.\n\n\u00abEt quel est le r\u00e9sultat probable de l'\u00e9lection?\n\n--Douteux, mon cher monsieur, douteux jusqu'\u00e0 pr\u00e9sent. Les gens de\nFizkin ont trente-trois votante dans les remises du _Blanc-Cerf_.\n\n--Dans les remises! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, singuli\u00e8rement \u00e9tonn\u00e9 par cet\nautre coup de ma\u00eetre.\n\n--Ils les y tiennent enferm\u00e9s jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 ils en auront besoin,\nafin de nous emp\u00eacher, comme vous vous en doutez bien, d'arriver jusqu'\u00e0\neux. Mais quand m\u00eame nous pourrions leur parler, cela ne nous servirait\npas \u00e0 grand'chose, car ils les maintiennent expr\u00e8s constamment gris. Un\nhabile homme, l'agent de Fizkin! Un habile homme, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9!\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick ouvrit de grands yeux, mais il ne dit rien.\n\n\u00abMalgr\u00e9 cela, poursuivit M. Perker en baissant la voix, malgr\u00e9 cela,\nnous avons bonne esp\u00e9rance. Nous avons donn\u00e9 un th\u00e9 ici, la nuit\nderni\u00e8re. Quarante-cinq femmes, mon cher monsieur, et lorsqu'elles sont\nparties, nous avons offert \u00e0 chacune d'elles un parasol vert.\n\n--Un parasol! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Oui, mon cher monsieur, oui, quarante-cinq parasols verts, \u00e0 sept\nshillings et six pence la pi\u00e8ce. Toutes les femmes sont coquettes: ces\nparasols ont produit un effet incroyable; assur\u00e9 tous les maris et la\nmoiti\u00e9 des fr\u00e8res; enfonc\u00e9 les bas, la flanelle et toutes ces sortes de\nchoses. Id\u00e9e de moi, mon cher monsieur, enti\u00e8rement de moi. Gr\u00eale,\npluie, soleil, vous ne pouvez pas faire quinze pas dans la ville, sans\nrencontrer une demi-douzaine de parasols verts.\u00bb\n\nIci le petit avou\u00e9 se laissa aller \u00e0 des convulsions de gaiet\u00e9 qui ne\nfurent interrompues que par l'entr\u00e9e en sc\u00e8ne d'un troisi\u00e8me\ninterlocuteur.\n\nC'\u00e9tait un homme long et fluet. Sa t\u00eate, d'un roux ardent, paraissait\ninclin\u00e9e \u00e0 devenir chauve; sur son visage se peignaient une importance\nsolennelle, une profondeur incommensurable. Il \u00e9tait rev\u00eatu d'une longue\nredingote brune, d'un gilet et d'un pantalon de drap noir. Un double\nlorgnon se dandinait sur sa poitrine; sur sa t\u00eate il portait un chapeau\ndont la forme \u00e9tait \u00e9tonnamment basse et les bords \u00e9tonnamment larges.\nCe nouveau venu fut pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 \u00e0 M. Pickwick comme M. Pott, \u00e9diteur de la\n_Gazette d'Eatanswill_.\n\nApr\u00e8s quelques remarques pr\u00e9liminaires, M. Pott se tourna vers M.\nPickwick et lui dit avec solennit\u00e9:\n\n\u00abCette \u00e9lection excite un grand int\u00e9r\u00eat dans la m\u00e9tropole, monsieur.\n\n--Je le pense, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Auquel je puis me flatter, continua M. Pott en regardant M. Perker de\nmani\u00e8re \u00e0 faire confirmer ses paroles, auquel je puis me flatter\nd'avoir contribu\u00e9 en quelque chose par mon article de samedi dernier.\n\n--Sans aucun doute, assura le petit homme.\n\n--Monsieur, poursuivit M. Pott, la presse est un puissant engin.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick donna un assentiment complet \u00e0 cette proposition.\n\n\u00abMais je me flatte, monsieur, que je n'ai jamais abus\u00e9 de l'\u00e9norme\npouvoir que je poss\u00e8de. Je me flatte, monsieur, que je n'ai jamais\ndirig\u00e9 le noble instrument plac\u00e9 entre mes mains par la Providence,\ncontre le sanctuaire inviolable de la vie priv\u00e9e, contre la r\u00e9putation\ndes individus, cette fleur tendre et fragile. Je me flatte, monsieur,\nque j'ai d\u00e9vou\u00e9 toute mon \u00e9nergie \u00e0... \u00e0 des efforts... faibles\npeut-\u00eatre, oui, j'en conviens, \u00e0 de faibles efforts, pour inculquer ces\nprincipes que... dont... pour lesquels....\u00bb\n\nL'\u00e9diteur de la _Gazette d'Eatanswill_ paraissant s'embrouiller, M.\nPickwick vint \u00e0 son secours en lui disant:\n\n\u00abCertainement, monsieur.\n\n--Et permettez-moi de vous demander, monsieur, de vous demander comme \u00e0\nun homme impartial ce que le public de Londres pense de ma pol\u00e9mique\navec l'_Ind\u00e9pendant_?\u00bb\n\nM. Perker s'interposa et dit avec un sourire malicieux qui n'\u00e9tait pas\ntout \u00e0 fait accidentel:\n\n\u00abLe public de Londres s'y int\u00e9resse beaucoup, sans aucun doute.\n\n--Cette pol\u00e9mique, poursuivit le journaliste, sera continu\u00e9e aussi\nlongtemps qu'il me restera un peu de sant\u00e9 et de force, un peu de ces\ntalents que j'ai re\u00e7us de la nature. A cette pol\u00e9mique, monsieur,\nquoiqu'elle puisse d\u00e9ranger l'esprit des hommes, exasp\u00e9rer leurs\nopinions et les rendre incapables de s'occuper des devoirs prosa\u00efques de\nla vie ordinaire; \u00e0 cette pol\u00e9mique, monsieur, je consacrerai toute mon\nexistence, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que j'aie broy\u00e9 sous mon pied l'_Ind\u00e9pendant\nd'Eatanswill_. Je d\u00e9sire, monsieur, que le peuple de Londres, que le\npeuple de mon pays sache qu'il peut compter sur moi, que je ne\nl'abandonnerai point, que je suis r\u00e9solu, monsieur, \u00e0 demeurer son\nchampion jusqu'\u00e0 la fin.\n\n--Votre conduite est tr\u00e8s-noble, monsieur, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, et il\nsecoua chaleureusement la main du magnanime \u00e9diteur.\n\n--Je m'aper\u00e7ois, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci, tout essouffl\u00e9 par la\nv\u00e9h\u00e9mence de sa d\u00e9claration patriotique; je m'aper\u00e7ois que vous \u00eates un\nhomme de sens et de talent. Je suis tr\u00e8s-heureux, monsieur, de faire la\nconnaissance d'un tel homme.\n\n--Et moi, monsieur, r\u00e9torqua M, Pickwick, je me sens profond\u00e9ment honor\u00e9\npar cette expression de votre opinion. Permettez-moi, monsieur, de vous\npr\u00e9senter mes compagnons de voyage, les autres membres correspondants du\nclub que je suis orgueilleux d'avoir fond\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nM. Pott ayant d\u00e9clar\u00e9 qu'il en serait enchant\u00e9, M. Pickwick alla\nchercher ses trois amis, et les pr\u00e9senta formellement \u00e0 l'\u00e9diteur de la\n_Gazette d'Eatanswill_.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, mon cher Pott, dit le petit M. Perker, la question est de\nsavoir ce que nous ferons de nos amis ici pr\u00e9sents.\n\n--Nous pouvons rester dans cette maison, je suppose? dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Pas un lit de reste, monsieur, pas un seul lit.\n\n--Extr\u00eamement embarrassant! reprit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Extr\u00eamement, r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e8rent ses acolytes.\n\n--J'ai \u00e0 ce sujet, dit M. Pott, une id\u00e9e qui, je l'esp\u00e8re, peut \u00eatre\nadopt\u00e9e avec beaucoup de succ\u00e8s. Il y a deux lits au _Paon d'argent_, et\nje puis dire hardiment, au nom de Mme Pott, qu'elle sera enchant\u00e9e de\ndonner l'hospitalit\u00e9 \u00e0 M. Pickwick et \u00e0 l'un de ses compagnons, si les\ndeux autres gentlemen et leur domestique consentent \u00e0 s'arranger de leur\nmieux au _Paon d'argent_.\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s des instances r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9es de M. Pott, et des protestations nombreuses\nde M. Pickwick, qu'il ne pouvait pas consentir \u00e0 d\u00e9ranger l'aimable\n\u00e9pouse de l'\u00e9diteur, il fut d\u00e9cid\u00e9 que c'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 le seul arrangement\nex\u00e9cutable; aussi fut-il ex\u00e9cut\u00e9. Apr\u00e8s avoir d\u00een\u00e9 ensemble aux _Armes\nde la ville_, et \u00eatre convenus de se r\u00e9unir le lendemain matin dans le\nm\u00eame lieu pour accompagner la procession de l'honorable Samuel Slumkey,\nnos amis se s\u00e9par\u00e8rent, M. Tupman et M. Snodgrass se retirant au _Paon\nd'argent_, M. Pickwick et M. Winkle se r\u00e9fugiant sous le toit\nhospitalier de M. Pott.\n\nLe cercle domestique de M. Pott se composait de lui-m\u00eame et de sa femme.\nTous les hommes qu'un puissant g\u00e9nie a \u00e9lev\u00e9s \u00e0 un poste \u00e9minent dans le\nmonde, ont ordinairement quelque petite faiblesse, qui n'en para\u00eet que\nplus remarquable par le contraste qu'elle forme avec leur caract\u00e8re\npublic. Si M. Pott avait une faiblesse, c'\u00e9tait apparemment d'\u00eatre un\npeu trop soumis \u00e0 la domination l\u00e9g\u00e8rement m\u00e9prisante de son \u00e9pouse.\nCependant noua n'avons pas le droit d'insister sur ce fait, car, dans la\ncirconstance actuelle, toutes les mani\u00e8res les plus engageantes de Mme\nPott furent employ\u00e9es \u00e0 recevoir les deux gentlemen amen\u00e9s par son mari.\n\n\u00abCh\u00e8re amie, dit M. Pott, M. Pickwick, M. Pickwick de Londres.\u00bb\n\nMme Pott re\u00e7ut avec une douceur enchanteresse le serrement de main\npaternel de M. Pickwick, tandis que M. Winkle, qui n'avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9\nannonc\u00e9 du tout, salua et se glissa dans un coin obscur.\n\n\u00abMon cher, dit la dame.\n\n--Ch\u00e8re amie, r\u00e9pondit l'\u00e9diteur.\n\n--Pr\u00e9sentez l'autre gentleman.\n\n--Je vous demande un million de pardons, dit M. Pott. Permettez-moi....\nMadame Pott, monsieur....\n\n--Winkle, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Winkle, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pott; et la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie de l'introduction fut\ncompl\u00e8te.\n\n--Nous vous devons beaucoup d'excuses, madame, reprit M. Pickwick, pour\navoir ainsi troubl\u00e9 vos arrangements domestiques.\n\n--Je vous prie de n'en point parler, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua avec vivacit\u00e9 la\nmoiti\u00e9 f\u00e9minine de Pott. C'est, je vous assure, un grand plaisir pour\nmoi d'apercevoir de nouveaux visages, vivant comme je le fais de jour en\njour, de semaine en semaine, dans ce triste endroit, et sans voir\npersonne.\n\n--Personne! ma ch\u00e8re? s'\u00e9cria M. Pott, avec finesse.\n\n--Personne que vous, r\u00e9torqua son \u00e9pouse avec asp\u00e9rit\u00e9.\n\n--En effet, monsieur Pickwick, reprit leur h\u00f4te pour expliquer les\nlamentations de sa femme; en effet, nous sommes priv\u00e9s de beaucoup de\nplaisirs que nous devrions partager. Ma position comme \u00e9diteur de la\n_Gazette d'Eatanswill_, le rang que cette feuille occupe dans le pays,\nmon immersion constante dans le tourbillon de la politique....\u00bb\n\nMme Pott interrompit son \u00e9poux. \u00abMon cher, dit-elle.\n\n--Ch\u00e8re amie, r\u00e9pondit l'\u00e9diteur.\n\n--Je d\u00e9sirerais que vous voulussiez bien trouver un autre sujet de\nconversation, afin que ces messieurs puissent y prendre quelque int\u00e9r\u00eat.\n\n--Mais, mon amour, dit M. Pott avec humilit\u00e9, M. Pickwick y prend grand\nint\u00e9r\u00eat.\n\n--C'est fort heureux pour lui! Mais _moi_ je suis lasse, \u00e0 mourir, de\nvotre politique, de vos querelles avec l'_Ind\u00e9pendant_, et de toutes ces\nsottises. Je suis tout \u00e0 fait \u00e9tonn\u00e9e, Pott, que vous donniez ainsi en\nspectacle vos absurdit\u00e9s.\n\n--Mais, ch\u00e8re amie, murmura le malheureux \u00e9poux.\n\n--Sottises! ne me parlez pas. Jouez-vous \u00e0 l'\u00e9cart\u00e9, monsieur?\n\n--Je serai enchant\u00e9, madame, d'apprendre avec vous, r\u00e9pondit galamment\nM. Winkle.\n\n--Eh bien! alors, tirez cette table aupr\u00e8s de la fen\u00eatre, pour que je\nn'entende plus cette \u00e9ternelle politique.\n\n--Jane, dit M. Pott \u00e0 la servante, qui apportait de la lumi\u00e8re,\ndescendez dans le bureau, et montez-moi la collection des gazettes pour\nl'ann\u00e9e 1830. Je vais vous lire, continua-t-il en se tournant vers M.\nPickwick, je vais vous lire quelques-uns des articles de fond que j'ai\n\u00e9crits, \u00e0 cette \u00e9poque, sur la conspiration des jaunes pour faire nommer\nun nouveau p\u00e9ager \u00e0 notre Turnpike. Je me flatte qu'ils vous amuseront.\n\n--Je serai v\u00e9ritablement charm\u00e9 de vous entendre,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\nSon voeu fut bient\u00f4t exauc\u00e9. La servante revint avec une collection de\ngazettes, et l'\u00e9diteur s'\u00e9tant assis aupr\u00e8s de son h\u00f4te, se mit \u00e0 lire\nimm\u00e9diatement.\n\nNous avons feuillet\u00e9 le m\u00e9morandum de M. Pickwick, dans l'espoir de\nretrouver au moins un sommaire de ces magnifiques compositions; mais ce\nfut vainement. Nous avons cependant des raisons de croire que la vigueur\net la fra\u00eecheur du style le ravirent enti\u00e8rement, car M. Winkle a not\u00e9\nque ses yeux, comme par un exc\u00e8s de plaisir, rest\u00e8rent ferm\u00e9s pendant\ntoute la dur\u00e9e de la lecture.\n\nL'annonce que le souper \u00e9tait servi mit un terme au jeu d'\u00e9cart\u00e9 et \u00e0 la\nr\u00e9capitulation des beaut\u00e9s de la _Gazette_. M. Winkle avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 fait\ndes progr\u00e8s consid\u00e9rables dans les bonnes gr\u00e2ces de Mme Pott. Elle \u00e9tait\nd'une humeur charmante, et n'h\u00e9sita pas \u00e0 l'informer confidentiellement\nque M. Pickwick \u00e9tait un vieux bonhomme tout \u00e0 fait aimable. Il y a dans\nces expressions une familiarit\u00e9 que ne se serait permise aucun de ceux\nqui connaissaient intimement l'esprit colossal de ce philosophe.\nCependant nous les avons conserv\u00e9es parce qu'elles prouvent d'une\nmani\u00e8re touchante et convaincante la facilit\u00e9 avec laquelle il gagnait\ntous les coeurs, et le cas immense que faisaient de lui toutes les\nclasses de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9.\n\nLa nuit \u00e9tait avanc\u00e9e, M. Tupman et M. Snodgrass dormaient depuis\nlongtemps sous l'aile du _Paon d'argent_, lorsque nos deux amis se\nretir\u00e8rent dans leurs chambres. Le sommeil s'empara bient\u00f4t de leurs\nsens, mais, quoiqu'il e\u00fbt rendu M. Winkle insensible \u00e0 tous les objets\nterrestres, le visage et la tournure de l'agr\u00e9able Mme Pott se\npr\u00e9sent\u00e8rent, pendant longtemps encore, \u00e0 sa fantaisie excit\u00e9e.\n\nLe mouvement et le bruit de la matin\u00e9e suivante \u00e9taient suffisants pour\nchasser de l'imagination la plus romantique toute autre id\u00e9e que celle\nde l'\u00e9lection. Le roulement des tambours, le son des cornes et des\ntrompettes, les cris de la populace, le pi\u00e9tinement des chevaux,\nretentissaient dans les rues depuis le point du jour; et de temps en\ntemps une escarmouche entre les enfants perdus des deux partis \u00e9gayait\net diversifiait les pr\u00e9paratifs de la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie.\n\nSam parut \u00e0 la porte de la chambre \u00e0 coucher de M. Pickwick, justement\ncomme il terminait sa toilette. H\u00e9! bien, Sam, lui dit-il, tout le monde\nest en mouvement, aujourd'hui?\n\n\u00abOh! personne ne caponne, monsieur. Nos particuliers sont rassembl\u00e9s aux\n_Armes de la ville_, et ils ont tant cri\u00e9 d\u00e9j\u00e0 qu'ils en sont tout\nenrouill\u00e9s.\n\n--Ah! ont-ils l'air d\u00e9vou\u00e9 \u00e0 leur parti, Sam?\n\n--Je n'ai jamais vu de d\u00e9vouement comme \u00e7a, monsieur.\n\n--\u00c9nergique, n'est-ce pas?\n\n--Je crois bien. Je n'ai jamais vu boire ni b\u00e2frer si \u00e9nergiquement. Il\npourrait bien en crever quelques-uns, voil\u00e0 tout.\n\n--Cela vient de la g\u00e9n\u00e9rosit\u00e9 malentendue des bourgeois de cette ville.\n\n--C'est fort probable, r\u00e9pondit Sam d'un ton bref.\n\n--Ha! dit M. Pickwick, en regardant par la fen\u00eatre, de beaux gaillards,\nbien vigoureux, bien frais.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-frais, pour s\u00fbr. Les deux gar\u00e7ons du _Paon d'argent_ et moi, nous\navons pomp\u00e9 sur tous les \u00e9lecteurs qui y ont soup\u00e9 hier.\n\n--Pomp\u00e9 sur des \u00e9lecteurs ind\u00e9pendants!\n\n--Oui, monsieur. Ils ont ronfl\u00e9 cette nuit o\u00f9s qu'ils \u00e9taient tomb\u00e9s\nivres-morts hier soir. Ce matin, nous les avons insinu\u00e9s, l'un apr\u00e8s\nl'autre, sous la pompe, et voil\u00e0! Ils sont tous en bon \u00e9tat maintenant.\nLe comit\u00e9 nous a donn\u00e9 un shilling par t\u00eate pour ce service-l\u00e0!...\n\n--Est-il possible qu'on fasse des choses semblables! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick\nplein d'\u00e9tonnement.\n\n--Bah! monsieur, \u00e7a n'est rien, rien du tout.\n\n--Rien?\n\n--Rien du tout, monsieur. La nuit d'avant le dernier jour de la derni\u00e8re\n\u00e9lection, ici, l'autre parti a gagn\u00e9 la servante des _Armes de la ville_\npour \u00e9picer le grog de quatorze \u00e9lecteurs qui restaient dans la maison,\net qui n'avaient pas encore vot\u00e9.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous entendez par _\u00e9picer_ du grog?\n\n--Mettre de l'eau d'\u00e2non dedans, monsieur. Que le bon Dieu m'emporte si\n\u00e7a ne les a pas fait roupiller douze heures apr\u00e8s l'\u00e9lection. Ils en ont\nport\u00e9 un sur un brancard, tout endormi, pour essayer, mais bernique! le\nmaire n'a pas voulu de son vote; ainsi ils l'ont rapport\u00e9 et replant\u00e9\ndans son lit.\n\n--Quel \u00e9trange exp\u00e9dient! murmura M. Pickwick, moiti\u00e9 pour lui-m\u00eame,\nmoiti\u00e9 pour son domestique.\n\n--Pas si farce qu'une histoire qu'est arriv\u00e9e \u00e0 mon p\u00e8re, en temps\nd'\u00e9lection, \u00e0 ce m\u00eame endroit ici, monsieur.\n\n--Contez-moi cela, Sam.\n\n--Voil\u00e0, monsieur. Il conduisait une mail-coach[18] de Londres ici, dans\nce temps-l\u00e0. L'\u00e9lection arrive, et il est retenu par un parti pour\ncharrier des voteurs de Londres. La veille du jour o\u00f9 il allait se\nmettre en route, le comit\u00e9 de l'autre parti l'envoie chercher tout\ntranquillement. Il s'en va avec le commissionnaire, qui le fait entrer\ndans une grande chambre. Tas de gentlemen, montagnes de papiers, plumes\net le reste. \u00abAh! monsieur Weller, dit le pr\u00e9sident, charm\u00e9 de vous\nvoir. Comment \u00e7a va-t-il? qu'il dit.--Tr\u00e8s-bien, mossieur, merci, dit\nmon p\u00e8re. J'esp\u00e8re que vous ne maigrissez pas, non plus, qu'il\ndit.--Merci, \u00e7a ne va pas mal, dit le gentleman. Asseyez-vous, monsieur,\nje vous en prie.\u00bb Ainsi mon p\u00e8re s'asseoit, et le gentleman et lui se\nregardent fisquement leurs deux boules. \u00abVous ne me reconnaissez pas?\ndit l'autre.--Peux pas dire que je vous aie jamais vu, r\u00e9pond mon\np\u00e8re.--Oh! moi je vous connais, dit l'autre. Je vous ai connu tout\npetit, dit-il.--C'est \u00e9gal, je ne vous remets pas du tout, dit mon\np\u00e8re.--C'est fort dr\u00f4le, dit l'autre.--Joliment, dit mon p\u00e8re.--Faut qu'\nvous ayez une mauvaise m\u00e9moire, monsieur Weller, dit l'autre.--C'est\nvrai qu'a n'est pas fameuse, dit mon p\u00e8re.--Je m'en avais dout\u00e9, dit\nl'autre.\u00bb Comme \u00e7a, il lui verse un verre de vin, et il le chatouille\nsur sa mani\u00e8re de conduire, et il le met dans une bonne humeur soign\u00e9e,\net \u00e0 la fin il lui montre une banknote de vingt livres sterling[19].\n\u00abC'est une mauvaise route d'ici \u00e0 Londres? qu'il lui dit.--Par-ci par-l\u00e0\ny a de vilains endroits, dit mon p\u00e8re.--Et surtout pr\u00e8s du canal, je\ncrois? dit le gentleman.--Pour un vilain endroit, c'est un vilain\nendroit, dit mon p\u00e8re.--H\u00e9 bien! monsieur Weller, dit l'autre, vous \u00eates\nun excellent cocher, et vous pouvez faire tout ce que vous voulez avec\nvos chevaux, on sait \u00e7a. Nous avons tous bien de l'amiti\u00e9 pour vous,\nmonsieur Weller. Ainsi, dans le cas qu'il vous arriverait _par hasard_\nun accident quand vous am\u00e8nerez les \u00e9lecteurs ici, dans le cas que vous\nles verseriez dans le canal, sans leur faire aucun mal, ceci est pour\nvous, qu'il dit.--Mossieur, vous \u00eates extr\u00eamement bon, dit mon p\u00e8re, et\nje vais boire \u00e0 vot' sant\u00e9 un autre verre de vin, dit-il.\u00bb Alors il\nboit, empoche la monnaie, et il salue son monde. H\u00e9 bien! monsieur,\ncontinua Sam en regardant son ma\u00eetre avec un air d'impudence\ninexprimable, croiriez-vous que, justement le jour o\u00f9 il menait ces\nm\u00eames \u00e9lecteurs, sa voiture fut vers\u00e9e pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment dans cet endroit-l\u00e0,\net tous les voyageurs lanc\u00e9s dans le canal?\n\n[Footnote 18: Sorte de diligence.]\n\n[Footnote 19: 500 francs.]\n\n--Et retir\u00e9s sur-le-champ? demanda vivement M. Pickwick.\n\n--Pour \u00e7a, r\u00e9pliqua Sam tr\u00e8s-lentement, on dit qu'il y manquait un vieux\ngentleman. Je sais bien qu'on a rep\u00each\u00e9 son chapeau, mais je ne suis pas\nbien certain si sa boule \u00e9tait dedans, oui-z-ou non. Mais ce que je\nregarde, c'est la hextraordinaire co\u00efncidence que la voiture de mon p\u00e8re\ns'est vers\u00e9e, juste au m\u00eame endroit et le m\u00eame jour, apr\u00e8s ce que le\ngentleman lui avait dit.\n\n--Sans aucun doute, c'est un hasard bien extraordinaire, r\u00e9pondit M.\nPickwick; mais brossez mon chapeau, Sam, car j'entends M. Winkle qui\nm'appelle pour d\u00e9jeuner.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick descendit dans le parloir, o\u00f9 il trouva le d\u00e9jeuner servi et\nla famille d\u00e9j\u00e0 rassembl\u00e9e. Le repas disparut rapidement; les chapeaux\ndes gentlemen furent d\u00e9cor\u00e9s d'\u00e9normes cocardes bleues, faites par les\nbelles mains de Mme Pott elle-m\u00eame; et M. Winkle se chargea\nd'accompagner cette dame sur le toit d'une maison voisine des\n_hustings_, tandis que M. Pickwick se rendrait avec M. Pott aux _Armes\nde la ville_. Un membre du comit\u00e9 de M. Slumkey haranguait, d'une des\nfen\u00eatres de cet h\u00f4tel, six petits gar\u00e7ons et une jeune fille, qu'il\nappelait pompeusement \u00e0 tout bout de champ: _hommes d'Eatanswill_; sur\nquoi les six petits gar\u00e7ons susmentionn\u00e9s applaudissaient\nprodigieusement.\n\nLa cour de l'h\u00f4tel offrait des sympt\u00f4mes moins \u00e9quivoques de la gloire\net de la puissance des bleus d'Eatanswill. Il y avait une arm\u00e9e enti\u00e8re\nde banni\u00e8res et de drapeaux, \u00e9talant des devises appropri\u00e9es \u00e0 la\ncirconstance, en caract\u00e8res d'or, de quatre pieds de haut et d'une\nlargeur proportionn\u00e9e. Il y avait une bande de trompettes, de bassons et\nde tambours, rang\u00e9s sur quatre de front et gagnant leur argent en\nconscience, principalement les tambours, qui \u00e9taient fort musculeux. Il\ny avait des troupes de constables, avec des b\u00e2tons bleus, vingt membres\ndu comit\u00e9 avec des \u00e9charpes bleues, et tout un monde d'\u00e9lecteurs, avec\ndes cocardes bleues. Il y avait des \u00e9lecteurs \u00e0 cheval et des \u00e9lecteurs\n\u00e0 pied. Il y avait un carrosse d\u00e9couvert, \u00e0 quatre chevaux, pour\nl'honorable Samuel Slumkey. Et les drapeaux flottaient, et les musiciens\njouaient, et les constables juraient, et les vingt membres du comit\u00e9\nharanguaient, et la foule braillait, et les chevaux piaffaient et\nreculaient, et les postillons suaient; et toutes les choses, tous les\nindividus r\u00e9unis en cet endroit, s'y trouvaient pour l'avantage, pour\nl'honneur, pour la renomm\u00e9e, pour l'usage sp\u00e9cial de l'honorable Samuel\nSlumkey, de Slumkey-Hall, l'un des candidats pour la repr\u00e9sentation du\nbourg d'Eatanswill, dans la chambre des communes du parlement du\nRoyaume-Uni.\n\nLongues et bruyantes furent les acclamations, et l'un des drapeaux\nbleus, portant ces mots: LIBERT\u00c9 DE LA PRESSE, s'agita convulsivement\nquand la t\u00eate rousse de M. Pott fut aper\u00e7ue par la foule \u00e0 l'une des\nfen\u00eatres. Mais l'enthousiasme fut \u00e9pouvantable quand l'honorable Samuel\nSlumkey lui-m\u00eame, en bottes \u00e0 revers et en cravate bleue, s'avan\u00e7a,\nsaisit la main dudit Pott, et t\u00e9moigna \u00e0 la multitude par des gestes\nm\u00e9lodramatiques, sa reconnaissance ineffa\u00e7able des services que lui\navait rendus la _Gazette d'Eatanswill_.\n\n\u00abTom est-il pr\u00eat? demanda ensuite l'honorable Samuel Slumkey \u00e0 M.\nPerker.\n\n--Oui, mon cher monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua le petit homme.\n\n--On n'a rien oubli\u00e9, j'esp\u00e8re?\n\n--Rien du tout, mon cher monsieur; pas la moindre chose. Il y a vingt\nhommes, bien lav\u00e9s, \u00e0 qui vous donnerez des poign\u00e9es de main, \u00e0 la\nporte; et six enfants, dans les bras de leurs m\u00e8res, que vous caresserez\nsur la t\u00eate et dont vous demanderez l'\u00e2ge. Surtout ne n\u00e9gligez pas les\nenfants, mon cher monsieur. Ces sortes de choses produisent toujours un\nbon effet.\n\n--J'y penserai, dit l'honorable Samuel Slumkey.\n\n--Et, peut-\u00eatre, mon cher monsieur, ajouta le pr\u00e9voyant petit homme, si\nvous pouviez... je ne dis pas que cela soit indispensable... mais si\nvous pouviez prendre sur vous de baiser un des bambins, cela produirait\nune grande impression sur la foule.\n\n--L'effet ne serait-il pas le m\u00eame si vous vous chargiez de la besogne?\ndemanda M. Samuel Slumkey.\n\n--J'ai peur que non, mon cher monsieur. Mais si vous le faisiez\nvous-m\u00eame, je pense que cela vous rendrait tr\u00e8s-populaire.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, dit l'honorable Samuel Slumkey d'un air r\u00e9sign\u00e9, il faut en\npasser par l\u00e0, voil\u00e0 tout.\n\n--Arrangez la procession!\u00bb cri\u00e8rent les vingt membres du comit\u00e9.\n\nAu milieu des acclamations de la multitude, musiciens, constables,\nmembres du comit\u00e9, \u00e9lecteurs, cavaliers, carrosses prirent leurs places.\nChacune des voitures \u00e0 deux chevaux contenait autant de gentlemen\nempil\u00e9s et debout qu'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 possible d'en faire tenir. Celle qui\n\u00e9tait assign\u00e9e \u00e0 M. Perker renfermait M. Pickwick, M. Tupman, M.\nSnodgrass et une demi-douzaine de membres du comit\u00e9.\n\nIl y eut un moment de silence solennel, lorsque la procession attendit\nque l'honorable Samuel Slumkey mont\u00e2t dans son carrosse.\n\nTout d'un coup la foule poussa une acclamation.\n\n\u00abIl est sorti!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria le petit Perker, d'autant plus \u00e9mu que sa\nposition ne lui permettait pas de voir ce qui se passait en avant.\n\nUne autre acclamation, plus forte:\n\n\u00abIl a donn\u00e9 des poign\u00e9es de main aux hommes!\u00bb dit le petit agent.\n\nUne autre acclamation, beaucoup plus violente:\n\n\u00abIl a caress\u00e9 les bambins sur la t\u00eate!\u00bb continua M. Perker tremblant\nd'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9.\n\nUn tonnerre d'applaudissements qui d\u00e9chirent les airs:\n\n\u00abIl en a bais\u00e9 un!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria le petit homme enchant\u00e9.\n\nUn second tonnerre:\n\n\u00abIl en a bais\u00e9 un autre!\u00bb\n\nUn troisi\u00e8me tonnerre, assourdissant:\n\n\u00abIl les baise tous!\u00bb vocif\u00e9ra l'enthousiaste petit gentleman, et au\nm\u00eame instant la procession se mit en marche, salu\u00e9e par les acclamations\nretentissantes de la multitude.\n\nComment et par quelle cause les deux processions se heurt\u00e8rent, et\ncomment la confusion qui s'ensuivit fut enfin termin\u00e9e, c'est ce que\nnous ne pouvons entreprendre de d\u00e9crire: car au commencement de la\nbagarre le chapeau de M. Pickwick fut enfonc\u00e9 sur ses yeux, sur son nez\net sur sa bouche, par l'application d'un drapeau jaune. D'apr\u00e8s ce que\ncet illustre philosophe put conclure du petit nombre de rayons visuels\nqui passaient entre ses joues et son feutre, il se repr\u00e9sente comme\nentour\u00e9 de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s par des physionomies irrit\u00e9es et f\u00e9roces, par un\nvaste nuage de poussi\u00e8re et par une foule \u00e9paisse de combattants. Il\nraconte qu'il fut arrach\u00e9 de sa voiture par un pouvoir invisible, et\nqu'il prit part personnellement \u00e0 des exercices pugilastiques; mais avec\nqui, ou comment, ou pourquoi, c'est ce qu'il lui est absolument\nimpossible d'\u00e9tablir. Ensuite il fut pouss\u00e9 sur des gradins de bois par\nles personnes qui \u00e9taient derri\u00e8re lui, et, en retirant son chapeau, il\nse trouva environn\u00e9 de ses amis, sur le premier rang du c\u00f4t\u00e9 gauche des\n_hustings_. Le c\u00f4t\u00e9 droit \u00e9tait r\u00e9serv\u00e9 pour le parti jaune; le centre\npour le maire et ses assistants. L'un de ceux-ci, le gros crieur\nd'Eatanswill, secouait une \u00e9norme cloche, ing\u00e9nieux moyen de faire faire\nsilence. Cependant M. Horatio Fizkin et l'honorable Samuel Slumkey, leur\nmain droite pos\u00e9e sur leur coeur, s'occupaient \u00e0 saluer, avec la plus\ngrande affabilit\u00e9, la mer orageuse de t\u00eates qui inondait la place et de\nlaquelle s'\u00e9levait une temp\u00eate de g\u00e9missements, d'acclamations, de\nsifflements, de hurlements, qui aurait fait honneur \u00e0 un tremblement de\nterre.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 Winkle, dit M. Tupman \u00e0 son illustre ami, en le tirant par la\nmanche.\n\n--O\u00f9? demanda M. Pickwick en ajustant sur son nez ses lunettes, qu'il\navait heureusement gard\u00e9es jusque-l\u00e0 dans sa poche.\n\n--L\u00e0, r\u00e9pondit M. Tupman, sur le toit de cette maison.\u00bb\n\nEt en effet, dans une large goutti\u00e8re de plomb, M. Winkle et Mme Pott\n\u00e9taient confortablement assis sur une couple de chaises, agitant leurs\nmouchoirs pour se faire mieux reconna\u00eetre.\n\nM. Pickwick r\u00e9torqua ce compliment en envoyant un baiser de sa main \u00e0 la\ndame.\n\nL'\u00e9lection n'avait pas encore commenc\u00e9, et comme une multitude inactive\nest g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement dispos\u00e9e \u00e0 \u00eatre fac\u00e9tieuse, cette innocente action fut\nsuffisante pour faire na\u00eetre mille plaisanteries.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9! l\u00e0-haut! vieux renard! C'est-il beau de faire des galanteries aux\nfilles?\n\n--Oh! le v\u00e9n\u00e9rable p\u00e9cheur!\n\n--Il met ses besicles pour lorgner les femmes mari\u00e9es.\n\n--Le sc\u00e9l\u00e9rat! Il lui fait les yeux doux, \u00e0 travers ses carreaux.\n\n--Surveillez votre femme, Pott!\u00bb Et ces lazzis furent suivis de grands\n\u00e9clats de rire.\n\nComme ces brocards \u00e9taient accompagn\u00e9s d'odieuses comparaisons entre M.\nPickwick et un vieux bouc, ainsi que d'autres traits d'esprit du m\u00eame\ngenre, et comme elles tendaient, en outre, \u00e0 entacher l'honneur d'une\ninnocente dame, l'indignation de notre h\u00e9ros fut excessive: mais le\nsilence \u00e9tant proclam\u00e9 dans cet instant, il se contenta de jeter \u00e0 la\npopulace un regard de m\u00e9pris et de piti\u00e9, qui la fit rire plus\nbruyamment que jamais.\n\n\u00abSilence! beugl\u00e8rent les acolytes du maire.\n\n--Whiffin, proclamez le silence! dit le maire d'un air pompeux, qui\nconvenait \u00e0 sa position \u00e9lev\u00e9e. Le crieur, pour ob\u00e9ir \u00e0 cet ordre,\nex\u00e9cuta un autre concerto sur sa sonnette, apr\u00e8s quoi un gentleman de la\nfoule cria, de toutes ses forces, _Fifine!_ ce qui occasiona d'autres\n\u00e9clats de rire.\n\n--Gentlemen! dit le maire, en donnant toute l'\u00e9tendue possible \u00e0 sa\nvoix. Gentlemen, fr\u00e8res \u00e9lecteurs du bourg d'Eatanswill, nous sommes\nassembl\u00e9s aujourd'hui pour \u00e9lire un repr\u00e9sentant \u00e0 la place de notre\ndernier....\u00bb\n\nIci, le maire fut interrompu car une voix qui criait dans la foule:\n\n\u00abBonne chance \u00e0 M. le maire! et qu'il reste toujours dans les clous et\nles casseroles qu'ils y ont fait sa fortune.\u00bb\n\nCette allusion aux entreprises commerciales de l'orateur excita un\nouragan de gaiet\u00e9 qui, avec son accompagnement de sonnette, emp\u00eacha\nd'entendre un seul mot de la harangue du maire, \u00e0 l'exception,\ncependant, de la derni\u00e8re phrase, par laquelle il remerciait ses\nauditeurs de l'attention bienveillante qu'ils lui avaient pr\u00eat\u00e9e. Cette\nexpression de gratitude fut accueillie par une autre explosion de joie,\nqui dura environ un quart d'heure.\n\nUn grand gentleman efflanqu\u00e9, dont le cou \u00e9tait comprim\u00e9 par une\ncravate blanche tr\u00e8s-roide, parut alors en sc\u00e8ne, au milieu des\ninterruptions fr\u00e9quentes de la foule, qui l'engageait \u00e0 envoyer\nquelqu'un chez lui pour voir s'il n'avait pas oubli\u00e9 sa voix sous son\ntraversin. Il demanda la permission de pr\u00e9senter une personne propre et\nconvenable, pour repr\u00e9senter au parlement les \u00e9lecteurs d'Eatanswill, et\nquand il d\u00e9clara que c'\u00e9tait Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, de Fizkin-Loge,\npr\u00e8s Eatanswill, les fizkiniens applaudirent et les slumk\u00e9\u00efens\ngrogn\u00e8rent, si longtemps et si bruyamment, que le parrain du candidat,\nau lieu de parler, aurait pu chanter des chansons bachiques sans que\npersonne s'en f\u00fbt dout\u00e9.\n\nLes amis d'Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, ayant joui de leur primaut\u00e9, un\npetit homme, au visage col\u00e9rique et rouge comme un oeillet, s'avan\u00e7a afin\nde nommer une autre personne propre et convenable, pour repr\u00e9senter au\nparlement les \u00e9lecteurs d'Eatanswill; mais la nature de cet individu\n\u00e9tait trop irritable pour lui permettre de cheminer tranquillement parmi\nles forces de la multitude. Apr\u00e8s quelques sentences d'\u00e9loquence\nfigurative, le gentleman col\u00e9rique se mit \u00e0 tonner contre les\ninterrupteurs; puis il \u00e9changea des provocations avec les gentlemen\nplac\u00e9s sur les hustings. Alors il se leva de toutes parts un tapage qui\nl'obligea d'exprimer ses sentiments par une pantomime s\u00e9rieuse, au bout\nde laquelle il c\u00e9da la place \u00e0 l'orateur charg\u00e9 de seconder sa motion.\nCelui-ci, pendant une bonne demi-heure, psalmodia un discours \u00e9crit,\nqu'aucun tumulte ne put lui faire interrompre; car il l'avait envoy\u00e9\nd'avance \u00e0 la _Gazette d'Eatanswill_, qui devait l'imprimer mot pour\nmot.\n\nEnfin, Fizkin, Esquire de Fizkin-Loge, pr\u00e8s d'Eatanswill, se pr\u00e9senta\npour parler aux \u00e9lecteurs, mais aussit\u00f4t les bandes de musiciens\nemploy\u00e9es par l'honorable Samuel Slumkey, commenc\u00e8rent \u00e0 ex\u00e9cuter une\nfanfare avec une vigueur toute nouvelle. En \u00e9change de cette attention,\nla multitude jaune se mit \u00e0 caresser la t\u00eate et les \u00e9paules de la\nmultitude bleue; la multitude bleue voulut se d\u00e9barrasser de l'incommode\nvoisinage de la multitude jaune, et il s'ensuivit une sc\u00e8ne de\nbousculades, de luttes, de combats, que nous d\u00e9sesp\u00e9rons de pouvoir\nrepr\u00e9senter. Le maire s'effor\u00e7a vainement d'y mettre fin; vainement il\nordonna d'un ton imp\u00e9ratif \u00e0 douze constables de saisir les principaux\nmeneurs, qui pouvaient \u00eatre au nombre de deux cent cinquante; le tumulte\ncontinua. Durant l'\u00e9meute, Horatio Fizkin, Esquire de Fiskin-Loge et ses\namis devinrent de plus en plus furieux; enfin, Horatio Fiskin demanda,\nd'un ton p\u00e9remptoire, \u00e0 son adversaire l'honorable Samuel Slumkey, de\nSlumkey-Hall, si ces musiciens jouaient par son ordre. L'honorable\nSamuel Slumkey, de Slumkey-Hall, refusant de r\u00e9pondre \u00e0 cette question,\nHoratio Fizkin, Esquire, de Fizkin Loge, montra le poing \u00e0 l'honorable\nSamuel Slumkey-Hall: sur quoi, le sang de l'honorable Samuel Slumkey\ns'\u00e9tant \u00e9chauff\u00e9, il provoqua, en combat mortel, Horatio Fizkin,\nEsquire. Quand le maire entendit cette violation de toutes les r\u00e8gles\nconnues et de tous les pr\u00e9c\u00e9dents, il ordonna une nouvelle fantaisie sur\nla sonnette, et d\u00e9clara que son devoir l'obligeait \u00e0 faire compara\u00eetre\ndevant lui, Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, de Fizkin-Loge, et l'honorable\nSamuel Slumkey, de Slumkey-Hall, pour leur faire pr\u00eater serment de ne\npoint troubler la paix de Sa Majest\u00e9. A cette menace terrible, les amis\ndes deux candidats s'interpos\u00e8rent, et lorsque les deux partis se furent\nquerell\u00e9s, deux \u00e0 deux, pendant trois quarts d'heure, Horatio Fizkin,\nEsquire, mit la main \u00e0 son chapeau, en regardant l'honorable Samuel\nSlumkey; l'honorable Samuel Slumkey mit la main \u00e0 son chapeau en\nregardant Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, les musiciens furent interrompus; la\nmultitude s'apaisa en partie, et Horatio Fizkin, Esquire, put continuer\nsa harangue.\n\nLes discours des deux candidats, quoique diff\u00e9rents sous tous les autres\nrapports, s'accordaient pour offrir un tribut touchant au m\u00e9rite et \u00e0 la\nnoblesse d'\u00e2me des \u00e9lecteurs d'Eatanswill. Chacun exprima son intime\nconviction, qu'il n'avait jamais exist\u00e9, sur la terre, une r\u00e9union\nd'hommes plus ind\u00e9pendants, plus \u00e9clair\u00e9s, plus patriotes, plus\nvertueux, plus d\u00e9sint\u00e9ress\u00e9s que ceux qui avaient promis de voter pour\n_lui_: chacun fit entendre obscur\u00e9ment qu'il soup\u00e7onnait les \u00e9lecteurs\nde l'autre parti d'\u00eatre influenc\u00e9s par de honteux motifs, d'\u00eatre adonn\u00e9s\n\u00e0 d'ignobles habitudes d'ivrognerie, qui les rendaient tout \u00e0 fait\nindignes d'exercer les importantes fonctions confi\u00e9es \u00e0 leur honneur\npour le bonheur de la patrie. Fizkin exprima son empressement \u00e0 faire\ntout ce qui lui serait propos\u00e9[20]; Slumkey, sa d\u00e9termination de ne\njamais rien accorder de ce qui lui serait demand\u00e9. L'un et l'autre\nmirent en fait, que l'agriculture, les manufactures, le commerce, la\nprosp\u00e9rit\u00e9 d'Eatanswill, seraient toujours plus chers \u00e0 leur coeur que\ntous les autres objets terrestres. Chacun d'eux, enfin, \u00e9tait heureux\nde pouvoir d\u00e9clarer que, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 sa confiance dans le discernement des\n\u00e9lecteurs, il \u00e9tait s\u00fbr que c'\u00e9tait lui qui serait nomm\u00e9.\n\n[Footnote 20: Le minist\u00e8re \u00e9tait apparemment lib\u00e9ral.\n\n(_Note du traducteur._)]\n\nA la suite de ce discours, on proc\u00e9da par main lev\u00e9e; le maire d\u00e9cida en\nfaveur de l'honorable Samuel Slumkey, de Slumkey-Hall; Horatio Fizkin,\nEsquire, de Fizkin-Loge, demanda un scrutin: et en cons\u00e9quence un\nscrutin fut d\u00e9cr\u00e9t\u00e9. Ensuite on vota des remerciements au maire, pour\nson admirable fa\u00e7on de pr\u00e9sider, et le maire remercia l'assembl\u00e9e, en\nsouhaitant de tout son coeur que _le fauteuil de la pr\u00e9sidence_ n'e\u00fbt pas\n\u00e9t\u00e9 un vain mot, car il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 debout pendant toute la dur\u00e9e de\nl'op\u00e9ration. Les processions se reform\u00e8rent; les voitures roul\u00e8rent\nlentement \u00e0 travers la foule, et celle-ci applaudit ou siffla, suivant\nce que lui dictaient ses affections ou ses caprices.\n\nPendant toute la dur\u00e9e du scrutin, la ville enti\u00e8re sembla agit\u00e9e d'une\nfi\u00e8vre d'enthousiasme. Tout se passait de la mani\u00e8re la plus lib\u00e9rale et\nla plus d\u00e9licieuse. Les spiritueux \u00e9taient remarquablement bon march\u00e9,\nchez tous les d\u00e9bitants. Des brancards parcouraient les rues pour la\ncommodit\u00e9 des \u00e9lecteurs qui se trouvaient incommod\u00e9s d'\u00e9tourdissements\npassagers; car, durant toute la lutte \u00e9lectorale, cette esp\u00e8ce\nd'indisposition \u00e9pid\u00e9mique s'\u00e9tant d\u00e9velopp\u00e9e chez les votants avec une\nrapidit\u00e9 singuli\u00e8re et tout \u00e0 fait alarmante, on les voyait souvent\n\u00e9tendus sur le pav\u00e9 des rues, dans un \u00e9tat d'insensibilit\u00e9 compl\u00e8te. Le\ndernier jour il y avait encore un petit nombre d'\u00e9lecteurs qui n'avaient\npoint vot\u00e9. C'\u00e9taient des individus r\u00e9fl\u00e9chis, calculateurs, qui\nn'\u00e9taient pas suffisamment convaincus par les raisons de l'un ou l'autre\nparti, quoiqu'ils eussent eu de nombreuses conf\u00e9rences avec tous les\ndeux. Une heure avant la fermeture du scrutin, M. Perker sollicita\nl'honneur d'avoir une entrevue priv\u00e9e avec ces nobles, ces intelligents\npatriotes. Les arguments qu'il employa furent brefs, mais convaincants.\nLes retardataires all\u00e8rent en troupe au scrutin, et quand ils en\nsortirent, l'honorable Samuel Slumkey, de Slumkey-Hall, \u00e9tait sorti d\u00e9j\u00e0\nde l'urne \u00e9lectorale.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XIV.\n\nContenant une courte description de la compagnie assembl\u00e9e au _Paon\nd'argent_, et de plus une histoire racont\u00e9e par un commis-voyageur.\n\n\nC'est avec un plaisir toujours nouveau, qu'apr\u00e8s avoir contempl\u00e9 les\ntourments et les combats de la vie politique, on ram\u00e8ne son attention\nsur la tranquillit\u00e9 de la vie priv\u00e9e. Quoique en r\u00e9alit\u00e9, M. Pickwick ne\ntint pas beaucoup \u00e0 l'un ou \u00e0 l'autre parti, il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 assez enflamm\u00e9\npar l'enthousiasme de Pott, pour appliquer ses immenses facult\u00e9s\nintellectuelles aux op\u00e9rations que nous venons de raconter, d'apr\u00e8s son\nm\u00e9morandum. Pendant qu'il \u00e9tait ainsi occup\u00e9, M. Winkle ne restait pas\noisif, mais il d\u00e9vouait tout son temps \u00e0 d'agr\u00e9ables promenades, \u00e0 de\npetites excursions romantiques avec Mme Pott; car, lorsque l'occasion\ns'en pr\u00e9sentait, cette aimable dame ne manquait jamais de chercher\nquelque soulagement \u00e0 l'ennuyeuse monotonie dont elle se plaignait avec\ntant d'amertume. M. Pickwick et M. Winkle, \u00e9tant ainsi compl\u00e9tement\nacclimat\u00e9s dans la maison de l'\u00e9diteur, M. Tupman et M. Snodgrass, se\ntrouv\u00e8rent en grande partie r\u00e9duits \u00e0 leurs propres ressources. Prenant\npeu d'int\u00e9r\u00eat aux affaires publiques, ils eurent recours, pour charmer\nleurs loisirs, aux amusements que pouvait offrir le _Paon d'argent_. Ces\namusements se composaient d'un jeu de bagatelle, au premier \u00e9tage, et\nd'un solitaire jeu de quilles, dans l'arri\u00e8re-cour. Gr\u00e2ce au d\u00e9vouement\nde Sam, nos voyageurs furent graduellement initi\u00e9s dans les myst\u00e8res de\nces passe-temps, beaucoup plus abstraits que ne le supposent les hommes\nordinaires. C'est ainsi qu'ils parvinrent \u00e0 charmer la lenteur des\nheures paresseuses, quoiqu'ils fussent en grande partie desh\u00e9rit\u00e9s de la\nsoci\u00e9t\u00e9 de M. Pickwick.\n\nC'\u00e9tait principalement le soir que le _Paon d'argent_ offrait, aux deux\namis, des attractions qui leur permettaient de r\u00e9sister aux invitations\npressantes de l'\u00e9loquent, quoique verbeux, journaliste. C'\u00e9tait le soir\nque le caf\u00e9 de l'h\u00f4tel se remplissait d'un cercle d'originaux, dont les\ncaract\u00e8res et les mani\u00e8res pr\u00e9sentaient \u00e0 M. Tupman des observations\nd\u00e9licieuses et dont les discours et les actions \u00e9taient habituellement\nnot\u00e9s par M. Snodgrass.\n\nOn sait ce que sont ordinairement les caf\u00e9s o\u00f9 se rassemblent messieurs\nles commis voyageurs. Celui du _Paon d'argent_ ne sortait point de la\nr\u00e8gle commune. C'\u00e9tait une vaste pi\u00e8ce toute nue, dont le maigre\nameublement avait, sans aucun doute, \u00e9t\u00e9 meilleur lorsqu'il \u00e9tait plus\nneuf. Une curieuse collection de chaises, aux formes grotesques et\nvari\u00e9es, \u00e9tait distribu\u00e9e autour d'une grande table plac\u00e9e au centre de\nla salle, et d'une infinit\u00e9 de petites tables rondes, carr\u00e9es ou\ntriangulaires, qui en occupaient tous les coins. Un vieux tapis de\nTurquie faisait, sur le plancher, l'effet d'un petit mouchoir de femme\nsur le plancher d'une gu\u00e9rite. Les murs \u00e9taient garnis de deux ou trois\ngrandes cartes g\u00e9ographiques, et de plusieurs grosses houppelandes, qui\npendaient \u00e0 une rang\u00e9e de champignons. On voyait, sur la chemin\u00e9e, un\nlivre de poste; une histoire du Comt\u00e9, moins la couverture; les restes\nmortels d'une truite, contenus dans un cercueil de verre; un encrier de\nbois, contenant un tron\u00e7on de plume, avec la moiti\u00e9 d'un pain \u00e0\ncacheter. Le buffet s'honorait de porter une quantit\u00e9 d'objets divers,\nparmi lesquels se faisaient remarquer principalement, une burette fort\nnuageuse; deux ou trois fouets; autant de ch\u00e2les de voyage; un\nassortiment de couteaux et de fourchettes, et surtout la moutarde.\nEnfin, l'atmosph\u00e8re, \u00e9paissie par la fum\u00e9e de tabac, avait communiqu\u00e9\nune teinte de bistre \u00e0 tous les objets, et principalement \u00e0 des rideaux\nrouges et poussi\u00e9reux, qui pendaient tristement aux crois\u00e9es.\n\nC'est l\u00e0 que MM. Tupman et Snodgrass buvaient et fumaient, dans la\nsoir\u00e9e qui suivit l'\u00e9lection, avec plusieurs autres habitants\ntemporaires de l'h\u00f4tel.\n\n\u00abAllons! messieurs, dit _ex abrupto_, un grand et vigoureux personnage,\nqui ne poss\u00e9dait qu'un seul oeil, mais un petit oeil noir \u00e9tincelant,\ncomme quatre, de malice et de bonne humeur. Allons! messieurs, \u00e0 nos\nnobles sant\u00e9s! Je propose toujours ce toast-l\u00e0 \u00e0 la compagnie, mais dans\nmon for int\u00e9rieur je bois \u00e0 la sant\u00e9 de Mary. Pas vrai, Mary?...\n\n--Laissez-moi, monstre! r\u00e9pondit la servante, qui, toutefois, \u00e9tait\n\u00e9videmment flatt\u00e9e du compliment.\n\n--Ne vous en allez pas, Mary, reprit l'homme \u00e0 l'oeil noir.\n\n--Laissez-moi tranquille, impertinent!\n\n--Ne pleurez pas d'\u00eatre oblig\u00e9e de me quitter, Mary, poursuivit le\npersonnage \u00e0 l'oeil unique, tandis que la jeune fille quittait la\nchambre; j'irai vous retrouver tout \u00e0 l'heure, ne vous chagrinez pas, ma\nch\u00e8re! En disant ces mots il cligna son oeil solitaire du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la\ncompagnie, \u00e0 la grande satisfaction d'un personnage assez fig\u00e9, qui\navait une pipe de terre et un visage \u00e9galement _culott\u00e9s_.\n\n--Les femmes, c'est des dr\u00f4les de cr\u00e9atures, dit l'homme au visage\nculott\u00e9, apr\u00e8s une pause.\n\n--Ah! c'est fameusement vrai!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria, derri\u00e8re son cigare, un second\nmonsieur au visage couperos\u00e9.\n\nApr\u00e8s ce petit bout de philosophie, il y eut une autre pause.\n\n\u00abMalgr\u00e9 cela, voyez-vous, il y a dans ce monde des choses plus dr\u00f4les\nque les femmes, reprit l'homme \u00e0 l'oeil noir, en remplissant gravement\nune pipe hollandaise d'une \u00e9norme dimension.\n\n--\u00cates-vous mari\u00e9? demanda le visage culott\u00e9.\n\n--Pas que je sache.\n\n--Je m'en avais dout\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, l'homme au visage culott\u00e9 tomba dans une extase de\njoie, occasionn\u00e9e par sa propre r\u00e9partie; ce en quoi il fut imit\u00e9 par un\nindividu \u00e0 la voix douce, au visage pacifique, qui avait pour principe\nd'\u00eatre toujours d'accord avec tout le monde.\n\n\u00abApr\u00e8s tout, gentlemen, dit l'enthousiaste M. Snodgrass, les femmes sont\nle charme et la consolation de notre existence.\n\n--Cela est vrai, r\u00e9pliqua le personnage \u00e0 l'air doucereux.\n\n--Quand elles sont de bonne humeur, ajouta le visage culott\u00e9.\n\n--Oh! cela est tr\u00e8s-vrai, dit le gentleman pacifique.\n\n--Je repousse cette restriction! reprit M. Snodgrass dont la pens\u00e9e\nretournait rapidement vers \u00c9mily Wardle. Je la repousse avec d\u00e9dain.\nMontrez-moi l'homme qui prof\u00e8re quelque chose contre les femmes, en tant\nque femmes, et je d\u00e9clare hardiment qu'il n'est pas un homme. En\npronon\u00e7ant ces mots, M. Snodgrass \u00f4ta son cigare de sa bouche, et frappa\nviolemment sur la table avec son poing ferm\u00e9.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 un bon argument, dit l'homme pacifique.\n\n--Contenant une assertion que je nie, interrompit le visage culott\u00e9.\n\n--Et il y a certainement aussi beaucoup de v\u00e9rit\u00e9 dans ce que vous\nobservez, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua le pacifique.\n\n--Votre sant\u00e9, monsieur, reprit le commis voyageur, \u00e0 l'oeil unique, en\nle dirigeant amicalement vers M. Snodgrass.\n\nLe pickwickien r\u00e9pondit \u00e0 cette politesse comme il convenait.\n\n\u00abJ'aime toujours \u00e0 entendre un bon argument, continua le commis\nvoyageur; un argument frappant comme celui-ci. C'est fort instructif.\nMais cette petite discussion sur les femmes m'a fait souvenir d'une\nhistoire que j'ai entendu raconter \u00e0 mon oncle. C'est ce qui m'a fait\ndire tout \u00e0 l'heure qu'il y a des choses plus dr\u00f4les que les femmes.\n\n--Je voudrais bien entendre cette histoire-l\u00e0, dit l'homme au cigare et\nau visage rouge.\n\n--Votre parole d'honneur? r\u00e9pliqua laconiquement le commis voyageur; et\nil continua \u00e0 fumer avec grande v\u00e9h\u00e9mence.\n\n--Et moi aussi, ajouta M. Tupman, qui parlait pour la premi\u00e8re fois, et\nqui \u00e9tait toujours d\u00e9sireux d'augmenter son bagage d'exp\u00e9rience.\n\n--Et vous aussi? Eh bien! je vais vous la raconter. Pourtant ce n'est\npas trop la peine; je suis s\u00fbr que vous ne la croirez pas.\u00bb\n\nEt pendant que le commis voyageur parlait ainsi, son oeil solitaire\nclignait d'une fa\u00e7on singuli\u00e8rement malicieuse.\n\n\u00abSi vous m'assurez que l'histoire est vraie, je la croirai certainement,\ndit M. Tupman.\n\n--Moyennant cette condition, je vais vous la raconter. Avez-vous entendu\nparler de la maison Bilson et Slum? Au reste, que vous en ayez entendu\nparler ou non, cela ne fait pas grand'chose, puisqu'ils sont retir\u00e9s du\ncommerce depuis longtemps. Il y a quatre-vingts ans que l'histoire en\nquestion arriva \u00e0 un commis voyageur de cette maison; il \u00e9tait ami\nintime avec mon oncle, et mon oncle m'a racont\u00e9 l'histoire \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s\ncomme vous allez l'entendre. Il l'appelait\n\nL'HISTOIRE DE TOM SMART, LE COMMIS VOYAGEUR.\n\nPar une soir\u00e9e d'hiver, au moment o\u00f9 l'obscurit\u00e9 commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 tomber, on\naurait pu voir sur la route qui traverse le plateau de Marlborough, une\ncarriole, et dans cette carriole un homme qui pressait son cheval\nfatigu\u00e9. Je dis _qu'on aurait pu voir_, et je n'ai pas le moindre doute\nqu'on aurait vu, s'il \u00e9tait pass\u00e9 par l\u00e0 quelque personne qui n'e\u00fbt pas\n\u00e9t\u00e9 aveugle. Mais la saison \u00e9tait si froide et la nuit si pluvieuse,\nqu'except\u00e9 l'eau qui tombait il n'y avait pas un chat dehors. Si un\ncommis voyageur de cette \u00e9poque avait rencontr\u00e9 ce casse-cou de petite\ncarriole, avec sa caisse grise, ses roues \u00e9carlates, et sa jument baie \u00e0\nl'allure allong\u00e9e, un caract\u00e8re capricieux, qui avait l'air de descendre\nd'un cheval de boucher et d'une rosse de la petite poste, il aurait\nconclu du premier coup, que le conducteur de la carriole \u00e9tait\nn\u00e9cessairement Tom Smart, de la grande maison Bilson et Slum, de\nCateaton-Street, dans la Cit\u00e9; mais comme il ne se trouvait l\u00e0 aucun\ncommis voyageur, personne ne se doutait de l'affaire, et Tom Smart, sa\ncarriole grise, ses roues \u00e9carlates et sa jument capricieuse, gardaient\nmutuellement leur secret, en cheminant de compagnie.\n\nM\u00eame dans ce triste monde, il y a bien des endroits plus agr\u00e9ables que\nla plaine de Marlborough, quand le vent souffle violemment. Si vous y\njoignez une sombre soir\u00e9e d'hiver, une route d\u00e9fonc\u00e9e et fangeuse, une\npluie froide et battante, et que vous en fassiez l'exp\u00e9rience sur votre\npropre individu, vous comprendrez toute la force de cette observation.\n\nLe vent ne soufflait pas en face, ni par derri\u00e8re, quoique ce soit assez\nmauvais, mais il venait en travers de la route, poussait la pluie\nobliquement, comme les lignes qu'on tra\u00e7ait dans nos cahiers d'\u00e9criture\npour nous apprendre \u00e0 bien pencher nos lettres: il s'apaisait par\ninstants, et le voyageur commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 se flatter qu'\u00e9puis\u00e9 par sa furie,\nil s'\u00e9tait enfin endormi. Mais pfffouh! il recommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 hurler et \u00e0\nsiffler au loin; il arrivait en roulant par-dessus les collines; il\nbalayait la plaine, et s'approchant avec une violence toujours\ncroissante, il tourbillonnait autour de l'homme et du cheval; il\nfouettait dans leurs yeux, dans leurs oreilles, des bouff\u00e9es d'une pluie\nfroide et piquante; il soufflait son haleine humide et glac\u00e9e jusque\ndans la moelle de leurs os; puis, quand il les avait d\u00e9pass\u00e9s il\ntemp\u00eatait au loin avec des mugissements \u00e9tourdissants, comme s'il avait\nvoulu se moquer de leur faiblesse, et se glorifier de sa puissance.\n\nLa jument baie pataugeait dans la boue, les oreilles pendantes, et de\ntemps en temps secouait la t\u00eate, comme pour exprimer le d\u00e9go\u00fbt que lui\ninspirait la conduite inconvenante des \u00e9l\u00e9ments. Cependant elle allait\ntoujours d'un bon pas, quand tout \u00e0 coup, entendant venir un tourbillon,\nplus furieux que tous les autres, elle s'arr\u00eata court, \u00e9carta ses quatre\npieds, et les planta solidement sur la terre. Ce fut par une gr\u00e2ce\nsp\u00e9ciale de la Providence qu'elle agit ainsi, car la carriole \u00e9tait si\nl\u00e9g\u00e8re, Tom-Smart si mince, et la jument capricieuse si efflanqu\u00e9e,\nqu'une fois enlev\u00e9e par l'ouragan, tous les trois auraient\ninfailliblement roul\u00e9, l'un par-dessus l'autre, jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'ils\neussent atteint les bornes de la terre, o\u00f9 jusqu'\u00e0 ce que le vent se f\u00fbt\napais\u00e9. Or, dans l'une comme dans l'autre hypoth\u00e8se, il est probable que\nni la jument capricieuse, ni Tom Smart, ni la carriole grise aux roues\n\u00e9carlates, n'auraient jamais pu \u00eatre remis en \u00e9tat de service.\n\n\u00abPar mes sous-pieds et mes favoris! s'\u00e9cria Tom Smart (Il avait parfois\nla mauvaise habitude de jurer); par mes sous-pieds et mes favoris!\ns'\u00e9cria Tom, voil\u00e0 un temps gracieux, que le diable m'\u00e9vente!\u00bb\n\nOn me demandera probablement pourquoi Tom Smart exprimait le voeu d'\u00eatre\n\u00e9vent\u00e9 sur nouveaux frais, lorsqu'il \u00e9tait soumis \u00e0 ce genre de\ntraitement depuis si longtemps. Je n'en sais rien: seulement je sais que\nTom Smart parla de la sorte, ou du moins raconta \u00e0 mon oncle, qu'il\navait ainsi parl\u00e9; ce qui revient au m\u00eame.\n\n\u00abQue le diable m'\u00e9vente!\u00bb dit Tom Smart; et la jument renifla comme si\nelle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment du m\u00eame avis.\n\n\u00abAllons! ma vieille fille, reprit Tom, en lui caressant le cou avec le\nbout de son fouet; il n'y a pas moyen d'avancer cette nuit. Nous\nresterons \u00e0 la premi\u00e8re auberge. Ainsi plus tu iras vite, plus vite \u00e7a\nsera fini. Oh! oh! bellement! bellement!\u00bb\n\nLa jument capricieuse \u00e9tait-elle assez habitu\u00e9e \u00e0 la voix de son ma\u00eetre\npour comprendre sa pens\u00e9e, ou trouvait-elle qu'il faisait plus froid \u00e0\nrester en place qu'\u00e0 marcher, c'est ce que je ne saurais dire; mais ce\nqu'il y a de s\u00fbr, c'est que Tom avait \u00e0 peine cess\u00e9 de parler, qu'elle\nreleva ses oreilles et recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 trotter. Elle allait grand train et\nsecouait si bien la carriole grise, que Tom s'attendait \u00e0 chaque instant\n\u00e0 voir les rayons rouges de ses roues voler \u00e0 droite et \u00e0 gauche, et\ns'enfoncer dans le sol humide. Tout bon conducteur qu'il \u00e9tait, Tom ne\nput ralentir sa course jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 la courageuse b\u00eate s'arr\u00eata\nd'elle-m\u00eame devant une auberge, \u00e0 main droite de la route, \u00e0 environ\ndeux milles des collines de Marlborough.\n\nLe voyageur d\u00e9posa son fouet, et jeta les r\u00eanes au valet d'\u00e9curie, tout\nen examinant la maison. C'\u00e9tait un dr\u00f4le de vieux b\u00e2timent, construit\navec une sorte de cailloutage et des poutres entre-crois\u00e9es. Les\nfen\u00eatres, surmont\u00e9es d'un petit toit pointu, s'avan\u00e7aient sur la route;\nla porte \u00e9tait basse, et pour entrer dans la maison, il fallait\ndescendre deux marches assez raides, sous un porche obscur, au lieu de\nmonter au perron ext\u00e9rieur, comme c'est l'usage moderne. Cependant\nl'auberge avait l'air confortable; il s'\u00e9chappait de la fen\u00eatre de la\nsalle commune une lumi\u00e8re r\u00e9jouissante, qui rayonnait sur la route et\njusque sur la haie oppos\u00e9e. Une seconde clart\u00e9, tant\u00f4t vacillante et\nfaible, tant\u00f4t vive et ardente, per\u00e7ait \u00e0 travers les rideaux ferm\u00e9s\nd'une crois\u00e9e de la m\u00eame salle, indice flatteur de l'excellent feu qui\nflambait dans l'int\u00e9rieur. Remarquant ces petits sympt\u00f4mes avec l'oeil\nd'un voyageur exp\u00e9riment\u00e9, Tom descendit aussi agilement que le lui\npermirent ses membres \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 gel\u00e9s, et s'empressa d'entrer dans la\nmaison.\n\nEn moins de cinq minutes, il \u00e9tait \u00e9tabli dans la salle (c'\u00e9tait bien\ncelle qu'il avait r\u00eav\u00e9e), en face du comptoir, et non loin d'un feu\nsubstantiel, compos\u00e9 d'\u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s un boisseau de charbon de terre et\nd'assez de broussailles pour former une douzaine de buissons fort\nd\u00e9cents. Ces combustibles \u00e9taient empil\u00e9s jusqu'\u00e0 la moiti\u00e9 de la\nchemin\u00e9e, et ronflaient, en p\u00e9tillant, avec un bruit qui aurait suffi\npour r\u00e9chauffer le coeur de tout homme raisonnable. Cela \u00e9tait\nconfortable, mais ce n'\u00e9tait pas tout; car une piquante jeune fille, \u00e0\nl'oeil brillant, au pied fin, \u00e0 la mise coquette, mettait sur la table\nune nappe parfaitement blanche. De plus, Tom, ses pieds dans ses\npantoufles et ses pantoufles sur le garde-feu, le dos tourn\u00e9 \u00e0 la porte\nouverte, voyait, par r\u00e9flexion dans la glace de la chemin\u00e9e, la\ncharmante perspective du comptoir, avec ses d\u00e9licieuses rang\u00e9es de\nfromages, de jambons bouillis, de boeuf fum\u00e9, de bouteilles portant des\ninscriptions d'or, de pots de marinades et de conserves; le tout dispos\u00e9\nsur des tablettes d'une mani\u00e8re s\u00e9duisante. Eh bien! cela \u00e9tait\nconfortable; mais cela n'\u00e9tait pas encore tout, car dans le comptoir une\nveuve app\u00e9tissante \u00e9tait assise pour prendre le th\u00e9, \u00e0 la plus jolie\npetite table possible, pr\u00e8s du plus brillant petit feu imaginable, et\ncette veuve, qui avait \u00e0 peine quarante-huit ans et dont le visage \u00e9tait\naussi confortable que le comptoir, \u00e9tait \u00e9videmment la dame et ma\u00eetresse\nde l'auberge, l'autocrate supr\u00eame de toutes ces agr\u00e9ables possessions.\nMalheureusement il y avait une vilaine ombre \u00e0 ce charmant tableau:\nc'\u00e9tait un grand homme, un homme tr\u00e8s-grand, en habit brun \u00e0 \u00e9normes\nboutons de m\u00e9tal, avec des moustaches noires et des cheveux noirs\nboucl\u00e9s. Il prenait le th\u00e9 \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la veuve, et, comme on pouvait le\ndeviner sans grande p\u00e9n\u00e9tration, il \u00e9tait en beau chemin de prendre la\nveuve elle-m\u00eame, en lui persuadant de confier \u00e0 Sa Grandeur le\nprivil\u00e8ge de s'asseoir dans ce comptoir, \u00e0 perp\u00e9tuit\u00e9.\n\nLe caract\u00e8re de Tom Smart n'\u00e9tait nullement irritable ni envieux, et\npourtant, d'une mani\u00e8re ou d'une autre, le grand homme \u00e0 l'habit brun\nfit fermenter le peu d'humeur qui entrait dans sa composition. Ce qui le\nvexait surtout, c'\u00e9tait d'observer de temps en temps dans la glace\ncertaines petites familiarit\u00e9s innocentes, mais affectueuses, qui\ns'\u00e9changeaient entre la veuve et le grand homme, et qui le posaient\n\u00e9videmment comme le favori de la dame. Tom aimait le grog chaud--je puis\nm\u00eame dire qu'il l'aimait beaucoup;--aussi, apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre assur\u00e9 que sa\njument avait de bonne avoine et de bonne liti\u00e8re, apr\u00e8s avoir savour\u00e9,\nsans en laisser une bouch\u00e9e, l'excellent petit d\u00eener que la veuve avait\nappr\u00eat\u00e9 pour lui de ses propres mains, Tom demanda un verre de grog, par\nmani\u00e8re d'essai. Or, s'il y avait une chose que la veuve sut fabriquer\nmieux qu'une autre, parmi toutes les branches de l'art culinaire,\nc'\u00e9tait pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment cet article-l\u00e0. Le premier verre se trouva donc\nadapt\u00e9 si heureusement au go\u00fbt de Tom, qu'il ne tarda pas \u00e0 en ordonner\nun second. Le punch chaud est une chose fort agr\u00e9able, gentlemen, une\nchose fort agr\u00e9able dans toutes les circonstances; mais dans ce vieux\nparloir si propre, devant ce feu si p\u00e9tillant, au bruit du vent qui\nrugissait en dehors \u00e0 faire craquer tous les ais de la vieille maison,\nTom trouva son punch absolument d\u00e9licieux. Il en demanda un troisi\u00e8me\nverre, puis un quatri\u00e8me, puis un cinqui\u00e8me; je ne sais pas trop s'il\nn'en ordonna pas encore un autre apr\u00e8s celui-l\u00e0. Quoi qu'il en soit,\nplus il buvait de punch, plus il s'irritait contre le grand homme.\n\n\u00abLe diable confonde son impudence! pensa Tom Smart en lui-m\u00eame;\nqu'a-t-il \u00e0 faire dans ce charmant comptoir, ce vilain museau? Si la\nveuve avait un peu de go\u00fbt, elle pourrait assur\u00e9ment ramasser un\ngaillard mieux tourn\u00e9 que cela.\u00bb Ici les yeux de Tom quitt\u00e8rent la glace\net tomb\u00e8rent sur son verre de punch. Il le vida, car il devenait\nsentimental, et il en ordonna encore un.\n\nTom Smart, gentlemen, avait toujours ressenti le noble d\u00e9sir de servir\nle public. Il avait longtemps ambitionn\u00e9 d'\u00eatre \u00e9tabli dans un comptoir\nqui lui appart\u00eent, avec une grande redingote verte, en culottes de\nvelours \u00e0 c\u00f4tes et des bottes \u00e0 revers. Il se faisait une haute id\u00e9e de\npr\u00e9sider \u00e0 des repas de corps; il s'imaginait qu'il parlerait joliment\ndans une salle \u00e0 manger qui serait \u00e0 lui, et qu'il donnerait de fameux\nexemples \u00e0 ses pratiques, en buvant avec intr\u00e9pidit\u00e9. Toutes ces choses\npass\u00e8rent rapidement dans l'esprit de Tom, pendant qu'il sirotait son\npunch, aupr\u00e8s du feu jovial, et il se sentit justement indign\u00e9 contre le\ngrand homme, qui paraissait sur le point d'acqu\u00e9rir cette excellente\nmaison, tandis que lui, Tom Smart, en \u00e9tait aussi \u00e9loign\u00e9 que jamais. En\ncons\u00e9quence, apr\u00e8s s'\u00eatre demand\u00e9, pendant ses deux derniers verres,\ns'il n'avait pas le droit de chercher querelle au grand homme pour\ns'\u00eatre insinu\u00e9 dans les bonnes gr\u00e2ces de l'app\u00e9tissante veuve, Tom Smart\narriva finalement \u00e0 cette conclusion peu satisfaisante, qu'il \u00e9tait un\npauvre homme fort maltrait\u00e9, fort pers\u00e9cut\u00e9, et qu'il ferait mieux de\ns'aller jeter sur son lit.\n\nLa jolie fille pr\u00e9c\u00e9da Tom dans un large et vieil escalier: elle\nabritait sa chandelle avec sa main, pour la prot\u00e9ger contre les courants\nd'air qui, dans un vieux b\u00e2timent aussi peu r\u00e9gulier que celui-l\u00e0,\nauraient certainement pu trouver mille recoins pour prendre leurs \u00e9bats,\nsans venir pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment souffler la lumi\u00e8re. Ils la souffl\u00e8rent\ncependant, et donn\u00e8rent ainsi aux ennemis de Tom une occasion d'assurer\nque c'\u00e9tait _lui_, et non pas le vent, qui avait \u00e9teint la chandelle, et\nque, tandis qu'il pr\u00e9tendait souffler dessus pour la rallumer, il\nembrassait effectivement la servante. Quoi qu'il en soit, la chandelle\nfut rallum\u00e9e, et Tom fut conduit, \u00e0 travers un labyrinthe de corridors,\ndans l'appartement qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 pr\u00e9par\u00e9 pour sa r\u00e9ception. La jeune\nfille lui souhaita une bonne nuit, et le laissa seul.\n\nIl se trouvait dans une grande chambre, accompagn\u00e9e de placards \u00e9normes;\nle lit aurait pu servir pour un bataillon tout entier; les deux\narmoires, en ch\u00eane bruni par le temps, auraient contenu le bagage d'une\npetite arm\u00e9e: mais ce qui frappa le plus l'attention de Tom, ce fut un\n\u00e9trange fauteuil, au dos \u00e9lev\u00e9, \u00e0 l'air refrogn\u00e9, sculpt\u00e9 de la mani\u00e8re\nla plus bizarre, couvert d'un damas \u00e0 grands ramages, et dont les pieds\n\u00e9taient soigneusement envelopp\u00e9s dans de petits sacs rouges, comme s'ils\navaient eu la goutte dans les talons. De tout autre fauteuil singulier,\nTom aurait pens\u00e9 simplement que c'\u00e9tait un singulier fauteuil; mais il y\navait dans ce fauteuil-l\u00e0 quelque chose,--il lui aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 impossible\nde dire quoi,--quelque chose qu'il n'avait jamais remarqu\u00e9 dans aucune\nautre pi\u00e8ce d'ameublement, quelque chose qui semblait le fasciner. Il\ns'assit aupr\u00e8s du feu et il regarda de tous ses yeux le vieux fauteuil,\npendant plus d'une demi-heure. Damnation sur ce fauteuil! C'\u00e9tait une\nvieillerie si \u00e9trange, qu'il n'en pouvait pas d\u00e9tacher ses regards.\n\n\u00abSur ma foi! dit Tom en se d\u00e9shabillant lentement et en consid\u00e9rant\ntoujours le vieux fauteuil, qui se tenait d'un air myst\u00e9rieux aupr\u00e8s du\nlit, je n'ai jamais vu rien de si dr\u00f4le de ma vie ni de mes jours;\nfarcement dr\u00f4le! dit Tom, qui, gr\u00e2ce au punch, \u00e9tait devenu\nsinguli\u00e8rement penseur. Farcement dr\u00f4le!\u00bb Il secoua la t\u00eate avec un air\nde profonde sagesse et regarda le fauteuil sur nouveaux frais; mais il\neut beau regarder, il n'y pouvait rien comprendre. Ainsi, il se fourra\ndans son lit, se couvrit chaudement, et s'endormit.\n\nAu bout d'une demi-heure, Tom s'\u00e9veilla en sursaut au milieu d'un r\u00eave\nconfus de grands hommes et de verres de punch. Le premier objet qui\ns'offrit \u00e0 son imagination engourdie, ce fut l'\u00e9trange fauteuil.\n\n\u00abJe ne veux plus le regarder,\u00bb se dit Tom \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame, en fermant\nsolidement ses paupi\u00e8res; et il t\u00e2cha de se persuader qu'il allait se\nrendormir. Impossible! une quantit\u00e9 de fauteuils bizarres dansaient\ndevant ses yeux, battaient des entrechats avec leurs pieds, jouaient \u00e0\nsaute-mouton et faisaient toutes sortes de bamboches.\n\n\u00abAutant voir un fauteuil r\u00e9el que deux ou trois douzaines de fauteuils\nimaginaires,\u00bb pensa Tom, en sortant sa t\u00eate de dessous la couverture.\n\nL'objet de son \u00e9tonnement \u00e9tait toujours l\u00e0, fantastiquement \u00e9clair\u00e9 par\nla lumi\u00e8re vacillante du feu.\n\nTom le contemplait fixement, lorsque soudain il le vit changer de\nfigure. Les sculptures du dossier prirent graduellement les traits et\nl'expression d'une face humaine, vieillotte et rid\u00e9e; le damas \u00e0 ramages\ndevint un antique gilet flamboyant; les pieds s'allong\u00e8rent, enfonc\u00e9s\ndans des pantoufles rouges; et le fauteuil, enfin, offrit l'apparence\nd'un tr\u00e8s-vieux et tr\u00e8s-vilain bourgeois du si\u00e8cle pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent, qui se\nserait camp\u00e9 l\u00e0, les poings sur les hanches. Tom s'assit sur son lit et\nse frotta les yeux, pour chasser cette illusion. Mais non! le fauteuil\n\u00e9tait bien r\u00e9ellement un vieux gentleman; et qui plus est, il commen\u00e7a \u00e0\ncligner de l'oeil en regardant Tom Smart.\n\nTom \u00e9tait naturellement un gaillard audacieux, et par-dessus le march\u00e9\nil avait dans l'estomac cinq verres de punch. Quoiqu'il e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 d'abord\nun peu d\u00e9moralis\u00e9, il sentit que sa bile s'\u00e9chauffait en voyant\nl'antique gentleman le lorgner ainsi d'un air impudent. A la fin, il\nr\u00e9solut de ne pas le souffrir et comme la vieille face continuait \u00e0\ncligner de l'oeil aussi vite qu'un oeil peut cligner, Tom lui dit d'un ton\ncourrouc\u00e9:\n\n\u00abPourquoi diantre me faites-vous toutes ces grimaces-l\u00e0?\n\n--Parce que cela me pla\u00eet, Tom Smart,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit le fauteuil, ou le vieux\ngentleman, comme vous voudrez l'appeler. Cependant il cessa de cligner\nde l'oeil, mais il se mit \u00e0 ricaner en montrant ses dents, comme un vieux\nsinge d\u00e9cr\u00e9pit.\n\n\u00abComment savez-vous mon nom, vieille face de casse-noisettes? demanda\nTom un peu \u00e9branl\u00e9, quoiqu'il voul\u00fbt avoir l'air de faire bonne\ncontenance.\n\n--Allons! allons! Tom, ce n'est pas comme cela qu'on doit parler \u00e0 de\nl'acajou massif. Dieu me damne! on ne traiterait pas ainsi le plus mince\nplaqu\u00e9.\u00bb En disant ces mots, le vieux gentleman avait l'air si f\u00e9roce,\nque Tom commen\u00e7a \u00e0 s'effrayer.\n\n\u00abJe n'avais pas l'intention de vous manquer de respect, monsieur,\nr\u00e9pondit-il d'un ton beaucoup plus humble.\n\n--Bien! bien! reprit le bonhomme; je le crois, je le crois. Tom?\n\n--Monsieur?\n\n--Je sais toute votre histoire, Tom; toute votre histoire. Vous n'\u00eates\npas riche, Tom.\n\n--C'est vrai; mais comment savez-vous...?\n\n--Cela n'y fait rien. \u00c9coutez-moi, Tom: Vous aimez trop le punch.\u00bb\n\nTom \u00e9tait sur le point de protester qu'il n'en avait pas t\u00e2t\u00e9 une goutte\ndepuis le dernier anniversaire de sa f\u00eate, lorsque ses yeux\nrencontr\u00e8rent ceux du fauteuil. Il avait l'air si malin, que Tom rougit,\net garda le silence.\n\n\u00abTom! la veuve est une belle femme: une femme bien app\u00e9tissante! eh!\nTom?\u00bb En parlant ainsi, le vieil amateur tourna la prunelle, fit claquer\nses l\u00e8vres, et releva une de ses petites jambes gr\u00eales d'un air si rou\u00e9,\nque Tom prit en d\u00e9go\u00fbt la l\u00e9g\u00e8ret\u00e9 de ses mani\u00e8res, \u00e0 son \u00e2ge surtout.\n\n\u00abTom! reprit le vieux gentleman, je suis son tuteur.\n\n--Vraiment?\n\n--J'ai connu sa m\u00e8re, Tom, et sa grand'm\u00e8re aussi. Elle \u00e9tait folle de\nmoi. C'est elle qui m'a fait ce gilet-l\u00e0, Tom.\n\n--Oui-da!\n\n--Et ces pantoufles-l\u00e0, continua le vieux camarade en levant un de ses\n\u00e9chalas. Mais n'en parlez pas, Tom; je ne voudrais pas qu'on s\u00fbt\ncombien elle m'\u00e9tait attach\u00e9e; cela pourrait occasionner quelques\nd\u00e9sagr\u00e9ments dans sa famille.\u00bb En disant ces mots, le vieux d\u00e9bauch\u00e9\navait l'air si impertinent, que Tom a d\u00e9clar\u00e9 depuis qu'il aurait pu\ns'asseoir dessus sans le moindre remords.\n\n\u00abJ'\u00e9tais la coqueluche des femmes dans mon temps. J'ai tenu bien des\njolies femmes sur mes genoux pendant des heures enti\u00e8res! Eh! Tom, qu'en\ndites-vous?\u00bb Le vieux farceur allait poursuivre et raconter sans doute\nquelque exploit de sa jeunesse, lorsqu'il lui prit un si violent acc\u00e8s\nde craquements qu'il lui fut impossible de continuer.\n\n\u00abC'est bien fait, vieux libertin! pensa Tom. Mais il ne dit rien.\n\n--Ah! reprit son \u00e9trange interlocuteur, cette maladie m'incommode\nbeaucoup maintenant. Je deviens vieux, Tom, et j'ai perdu presque tous\nmes b\u00e2tons. On m'a fait derni\u00e8rement une vilaine op\u00e9ration: on m'a mis\ndans le dos une petite pi\u00e8ce. C'\u00e9tait une \u00e9preuve terrible, Tom.\n\n--Je le crois, monsieur.\n\n--Mais il ne s'agit point de cela, Tom; je veux vous marier \u00e0 la veuve.\n\n--Moi! monsieur?\n\n--Vous.\n\n--Que Dieu b\u00e9nisse vos cheveux blancs! (le fauteuil conservait encore\nune partie de ses crins). Elle ne voudrait pas de moi! Et Tom soupira\ninvolontairement, car il songeait au comptoir.\n\n--Allons donc! dit le vieux gentleman avec fermet\u00e9.\n\n--Non, non. Il y a un autre vent qui souffle: un damn\u00e9 coquin, d'une\ntaille superbe, avec des favoris noirs!\n\n--Tom! reprit le vieillard solennellement, il ne l'\u00e9pousera jamais!\n\n--Ah! si vous aviez \u00e9t\u00e9 dans le comptoir, vieux gentleman, vous\nconteriez un autre conte.\n\n--Bah! bah! je sais toute cette histoire-l\u00e0....\n\n--Quelle histoire?\n\n--Les baisers d\u00e9rob\u00e9s derri\u00e8re la porte, et caetera,\u00bb dit le vieillard\navec un regard impudent qui fit bouillonner le sang de Tom; car, je vous\nle demande, messieurs, y a-t-il rien de plus vexant que d'entendre\nparler de la sorte un homme de cet \u00e2ge, qui devrait s'occuper de choses\nplus convenables.\n\n\u00abJe sais tout cela, Tom; j'en ai vu faire autant \u00e0 bien d'autres, que\nje ne veux pas nommer; mais, apr\u00e8s tout, il n'en est rien r\u00e9sult\u00e9.\n\n--Vous devez avoir vu de dr\u00f4les de choses dans votre temps?\u00bb\n\n--Vous pouvez en jurer, Tom, r\u00e9pondit le vieillard avec une grimace fort\ncompliqu\u00e9e. Puis il ajouta en poussant un profond soupir: h\u00e9las! je suis\nle dernier de ma famille.\n\n--\u00c9tait-elle nombreuse?\n\n--Nous \u00e9tions douze gaillards solidement b\u00e2tis, nous tenant droits comme\ndes i. Quelle diff\u00e9rence avec vos avortons modernes! Et nous avions re\u00e7u\nun si beau poli (quoique je ne dusse peut-\u00eatre pas le dire moi-m\u00eame), un\nsi beau poli, qu'il vous aurait r\u00e9joui le coeur.\n\n--Et que sont devenus les autres, monsieur?\u00bb\n\nLe vieux gentleman appliqua son coude \u00e0 son oeil, et r\u00e9pondit tristement:\n\u00abD\u00e9funts! Tom, d\u00e9funts! Nous avons fait un rude service, et ils\nn'avaient pas tous ma constitution. Ils ont attrap\u00e9 des rhumatismes dans\nles pieds et dans les bras, si bien qu'on les a rel\u00e9gu\u00e9s \u00e0 la cuisine et\ndans d'autres h\u00f4pitaux. L'un d'eux, par suite de longs services et de\nmauvais traitements, devint si disloqu\u00e9, si branlant, qu'on prit le\nparti de le mettre au feu. Une fin bien rude, Tom!\n\n--\u00c9pouvantable!\u00bb\n\nLe pauvre vieux bonhomme fit une pause. Il luttait contre la violence de\nses \u00e9motions. Enfin, il continua en ces termes:\n\n\u00abIl ne s'agit point de cela, Tom. Ce grand homme est un coquin\nd'aventurier. Aussit\u00f4t qu'il aurait \u00e9pous\u00e9 la veuve, il vendrait tout le\nmobilier, et il s'en irait. Qu'arriverait-il ensuite? Elle serait\nabandonn\u00e9e, ruin\u00e9e, et moi je mourrais de froid dans la boutique de\nquelque brocanteur.\n\n--Oui, mais....\n\n--Ne m'interrompez pas, Tom. J'ai de vous une opinion bien diff\u00e9rente.\nJe sais que si une fois vous \u00e9tiez \u00e9tabli dans une taverne vous ne la\nquitteriez jamais, tant qu'il y resterait quelque chose \u00e0 boire.\n\n--Je vous suis tr\u00e8s-oblig\u00e9 de votre bonne opinion, monsieur.\n\n--C'est pourquoi, reprit le vieux gentleman d'un ton doctoral, c'est\npourquoi vous l'\u00e9pouserez et il ne l'\u00e9pousera point.\n\n--Et qui l'en emp\u00eachera? demanda Tom avec vivacit\u00e9.\n\n--Une petite circonstance: il est d\u00e9j\u00e0 mari\u00e9.\n\n--Comment pourrai-je le prouver? s'\u00e9cria Tom, en sautant \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 de\nson lit.\n\n--Il ne se doute gu\u00e8re qu'il a laiss\u00e9 dans le gousset droit d'un\npantalon enferm\u00e9 dans cette armoire, une lettre de sa malheureuse femme,\nqui le supplie de revenir pour donner du pain \u00e0 ses six,... remarquez\nbien, Tom, \u00e0 ses six enfants, tous en bas \u00e2ge.\u00bb\n\nLorsque le vieux gentleman eut prononc\u00e9 ces mots avec solennit\u00e9, ses\ntraits devinrent de moins en moins distincts et sa personne plus\nvaporeuse; un voile semblait s'\u00e9tendre sur les yeux de Tom; l'antique\ngilet du vieillard se r\u00e9solut en un coussin de damas; ses pantoufles\nrouges devinrent de petites enveloppes: toute sa personne, enfin, reprit\nl'apparence d'un vieux fauteuil. Alors la lumi\u00e8re du feu s'\u00e9teignit, et\nTom Smart, retombant sur son oreiller, s'endormit profond\u00e9ment.\n\nLe matin le tira du sommeil l\u00e9thargique qui s'\u00e9tait empar\u00e9 de lui, apr\u00e8s\nla disparition du vieil homme. Il s'assit sur son lit, et, pendant\nquelques minutes, il s'effor\u00e7a vainement de se rappeler les \u00e9v\u00e9nements\nde la soir\u00e9e pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente. Tout d'un coup ils lui revinrent \u00e0 la m\u00e9moire.\nIl regarda le fauteuil; c'\u00e9tait certainement un meuble gothique, sombre,\nfantastique, mais il aurait fallu une imagination plus ing\u00e9nieuse que\ncelle de Tom pour y d\u00e9couvrir quelque ressemblance avec un vieillard.\n\n\u00abComment \u00e7a va-t-il, vieux gar\u00e7on?\u00bb dit Tom, car il se trouvait plus\nbrave \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re, comme il arrive \u00e0 la plupart des hommes.\n\nLe fauteuil resta immobile et ne r\u00e9pondit pas un seul mot.\n\n\u00abVilaine matin\u00e9e!\u00bb continua Tom.\n\nMotus. Le fauteuil ne voulait pas se laisser entra\u00eener \u00e0 causer.\n\n\u00abQuelle armoire m'avez-vous montr\u00e9e? poursuivit Tom. Vous pouvez bien me\ndire cela?\u00bb\n\nM\u00eame rengaine, le fauteuil ne consentait pas \u00e0 souffler un seul mot.\n\n\u00abQuoi qu'il en soit, il n'est pas bien difficile de l'ouvrir\u00bb, pensa\nTom. Il sortit du lit r\u00e9solument et s'approcha d'une des armoires. La\nclef \u00e9tait \u00e0 la serrure; il la tourna et ouvrit la porte. Il y avait\ndans l'armoire un pantalon; Tom fourra sa main dans la poche et en tira\nla lettre m\u00eame, dont le vieux gentleman avait parl\u00e9.\n\n\u00abDr\u00f4le d'histoire, dit Tom en regardant d'abord le fauteuil, ensuite\nl'armoire, puis la lettre, et en revenant enfin au fauteuil. Dr\u00f4le\nd'histoire!\u00bb Mais il avait beau regarder, cela n'en devenait pas plus\nclair et il pensa qu'il ferait aussi bien de s'habiller et de terminer\nl'affaire du grand homme, simplement pour ne pas le laisser en suspens.\n\nEn descendant au parloir il examina les localit\u00e9s avec l'oeil scrutateur\ndu ma\u00eetre, pensant qu'il n'\u00e9tait pas impossible que toutes ces chambres,\navec leur contenu, devinssent avant peu sa propri\u00e9t\u00e9. Le grand homme\n\u00e9tait debout dans le s\u00e9duisant comptoir, ses mains derri\u00e8re son dos,\ncomme chez lui. Il sourit \u00e0 Tom, d'un air distrait. Un observateur\nsuperficiel aurait pu supposer qu'il n'agissait ainsi que pour montrer\nses dents blanches, mais Tom pensa qu'un sentiment de triomphe remuait\nl'endroit o\u00f9 aurait d\u00fb \u00eatre l'esprit du grand homme, si toutefois il en\navait. Tom lui rit au nez et appela l'h\u00f4tesse.\n\n\u00abBonjour, madame, dit Tom Smart, en fermant la porte du petit parloir,\napr\u00e8s que la veuve fut entr\u00e9e.\n\n--Bonjour, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit la veuve, que voulez-vous prendre pour\nd\u00e9jeuner, monsieur?\u00bb\n\nTom ne r\u00e9pondit point, car il cherchait de quelle mani\u00e8re il devait\nentamer l'affaire.\n\n\u00abIl y a un excellent jambon, reprit la veuve, et une excellente volaille\nfroide. Vous les enverrai-je, monsieur?\u00bb\n\nCes mots firent cesser les r\u00e9flexions de Tom, et son admiration pour la\nveuve s'en augmenta. Soigneuse cr\u00e9ature! pr\u00e9voyante! confortable!\n\n\u00abMadame, demanda-t-il, qui est ce monsieur dans le comptoir?\n\n--Il s'appelle Jinkins, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit la veuve en rougissant un\npeu.\n\n--C'est un grand homme.\n\n--C'est un tr\u00e8s-bel homme, monsieur, et un gentleman fort distingu\u00e9.\n\n--Hum! fit le voyageur.\n\n--D\u00e9sirez-vous quelque chose, monsieur, reprit la veuve un peu\nembarrass\u00e9e par les mani\u00e8res de son interlocuteur.\n\n--Mais oui, vraiment, r\u00e9pliqua-t-il. Ma ch\u00e8re dame voulez-vous avoir la\nbont\u00e9 de vous asseoir un instant?\u00bb\n\nLa veuve parut fort \u00e9tonn\u00e9e, mais elle s'assit, et Tom s'assit aupr\u00e8s\nd'elle. Je ne sais pas comment cela se fit, gentlemen, et mon oncle\navait coutume de dire que Tom Smart ne savait pas lui-m\u00eame comment cela\ns'\u00e9tait fait; mais d'une mani\u00e8re ou d'une autre, la paume de sa main\ntomba sur le dos de la main de la veuve et y resta tout le temps de la\nconf\u00e9rence.\n\n\u00abMa ch\u00e8re dame, dit Tom, car il savait fort bien se rendre aimable; ma\nch\u00e8re dame, vous m\u00e9ritez un excellent mari, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9.\n\n--Seigneur! monsieur! s'\u00e9cria la veuve; et elle n'avait pas tort: cette\nmani\u00e8re d'entamer la conversation \u00e9tait assez inusit\u00e9e, pour ne pas dire\nplus, surtout si l'on consid\u00e8re qu'elle n'avait jamais vu Tom avant la\nsoir\u00e9e pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente. Seigneur! monsieur!\n\n--Je ne suis point un flatteur, ma ch\u00e8re dame. Vous m\u00e9ritez un mari\nparfait et ce sera un homme bien heureux.\u00bb\n\nTandis que Tom parlait ainsi, ses yeux s'\u00e9garaient involontairement du\nvisage de la veuve sur les objets confortables qui l'environnaient.\n\nLa veuve eut l'air plus embarrass\u00e9 que jamais; elle fit un mouvement\npour se lever; mais Tom pressa doucement sa main comme pour la retenir\net elle resta sur son si\u00e9ge. Les veuves, messieurs, sont rarement\ncraintives, comme disait mon oncle.\n\n\u00abVraiment, monsieur, je vous suis bien oblig\u00e9e, de votre bonne opinion,\ndit-elle en riant \u00e0 moiti\u00e9; et si jamais je me marie....\n\n--Si? interrompit Tom en la regardant tr\u00e8s-malignement du coin droit de\nson oeil gauche.\n\n--Eh bien! _quand_ je me marierai, j'esp\u00e8re que j'aurai un aussi bon\nmari que vous le dites.\n\n--C'est-\u00e0-dire Jinkins?\n\n--Seigneur! monsieur!\n\n--Allons! ne m'en parlez point, je le connais....\n\n--Je suis s\u00fbre que ceux qui le connaissent ne connaissent pas de mal de\nlui, reprit la dame un peu piqu\u00e9e par l'air myst\u00e9rieux du voyageur.\n\n--Hum!\u00bb fit Tom.\n\nLa veuve commen\u00e7a \u00e0 croire qu'il \u00e9tait temps de pleurer. Elle tira donc\nson mouchoir et elle demanda si Tom voulait l'insulter; s'il croyait que\nc'\u00e9tait l'action d'un gentleman de dire du mal d'un autre gentleman, en\narri\u00e8re; pourquoi, s'il avait quelque chose \u00e0 dire, il ne l'avait pas\ndit \u00e0 son homme, comme un homme, au lieu d'effrayer une pauvre faible\nfemme de cette mani\u00e8re, etc., etc.\n\n\u00abJe ne tarderai pas \u00e0 lui dire deux mots \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame, r\u00e9pondit Tom.\nSeulement je d\u00e9sire que vous m'entendiez auparavant.\n\n--Eh bien! dites, demanda la veuve en le regardant avec attention.\n\n--Je vais vous \u00e9tonner, r\u00e9pliqua-t-il, en mettant la main dans sa poche.\n\n--Si c'est qu'il n'a pas d'argent, je sais cela d\u00e9j\u00e0 et ce n'est pas la\npeine de vous d\u00e9ranger.\n\n--Pouh! cela n'est rien. _Moi non plus_, je n'ai point d'argent! Ce\nn'est pas \u00e7a.\n\n--Oh! mon Dieu! qu'est-ce que c'est donc? s'\u00e9cria la pauvre femme.\n\n--Ne vous effrayez pas, reprit Tom en tirant la lettre. Et ne criez pas:\npoursuivit-il en d\u00e9pliant lentement le papier.\n\n--Non! non! laissez-moi voir.\n\n--Vous n'allez pas vous trouver mal ni vous livrer \u00e0 d'autres\nd\u00e9monstrations de ce genre?\n\n--Non, je vous le promets.\n\n--Ni vous pr\u00e9cipiter vers la salle commune pour lui dire son affaire?\najouta Tom; car, voyez-vous, je ferai tout \u00e7a pour vous: ce n'est donc\npas la peine de vous agiter.\n\n--Allons, allons, fit la veuve, laissez-moi lire.\n\n--Voil\u00e0,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua Tom Smart, qui pla\u00e7a la lettre dans les mains de la\nveuve.\n\nLes lamentations de la pauvre femme, quand elle en eut pris lecture,\nauraient perc\u00e9 un coeur de pierre. Tom avait toujours eu le coeur\ntr\u00e8s-tendre, aussi fut-il perc\u00e9 de part en part. La veuve se roulait sur\nsa chaise en se tordant les mains.\n\n\u00abOh! la trahison! oh! la sc\u00e9l\u00e9ratesse des hommes! s'\u00e9criait-elle.\n\n--Effroyables, ma ch\u00e8re dame; mais calmez-vous.\n\n--Non! Je ne veux pas me calmer! sanglotait la veuve. Je ne trouverai\njamais personne que je puisse aimer comme lui.\n\n--Si, si, oh! si, ma ch\u00e8re dame!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria Tom Smart en laissant tomber\nune pluie d'\u00e9normes larmes sur les infortunes de la veuve. Il avait\npass\u00e9 un bras autour de sa taille, dans l'\u00e9nergie de sa compassion; et\nla veuve, dans son transport de chagrin, avait serr\u00e9 la main de Tom.\nElle regarda le visage du voyageur et elle sourit \u00e0 travers ses larmes:\nTom se pencha vers elle, il contempla ses traits, et il sourit aussi \u00e0\ntravers ses pleurs.\n\nJe n'ai jamais pu d\u00e9couvrir si Tom embrassa la veuve dans ce moment-l\u00e0.\nIl disait souvent \u00e0 mon oncle qu'il n'en avait rien fait, mais j'ai des\ndoutes l\u00e0-dessus. Entre nous, messieurs, je m'imagine qu'il l'embrassa.\n\nQuoi qu'il en soit, Tom jeta le grand homme \u00e0 la porte, et il \u00e9pousa la\nveuve dans le mois. On le voyait souvent se promener aux environs avec\nsa jument capricieuse, qui tra\u00eenait lestement la carriole grise aux\nroues \u00e9carlates. Apr\u00e8s beaucoup d'ann\u00e9es il se retira des affaires et\ns'en alla en France avec sa femme. L'antique maison fut alors abattue.\n\nUn vieux gentleman curieux prit la parole apr\u00e8s le commis voyageur.\n\n\u00abVoulez-vous me permettre, lui dit-il, de vous demander ce que devint le\nfauteuil?\n\n--On remarqua qu'il craquait beaucoup le jour de la noce, mais Tom Smart\nne pouvait pas dire positivement si c'\u00e9tait de plaisir ou par suite de\nsouffrances corporelles. Cependant il pensait plut\u00f4t que c'\u00e9tait pour la\nderni\u00e8re cause, car il ne l'entendit plus parler depuis.\n\n--Et tout le monde crut cette histoire-l\u00e0, hein? demanda le visage\nculott\u00e9 en remplissant sa pipe.\n\n--Tout le monde, except\u00e9 les ennemis de Tom. Ceux-ci disaient que\nc'\u00e9tait une _blague_. D'autres pr\u00e9tendirent qu'il \u00e9tait gris, qu'il\navait r\u00eav\u00e9 tout cela et qu'il s'\u00e9tait tromp\u00e9 de culotte. Mais personne\nne s'arr\u00eata \u00e0 ce qu'ils disaient.\n\n--Tom Smart soutint que tout \u00e9tait vrai?\n\n--Chaque mot.\n\n--Et votre oncle?\n\n--Chaque lettre.\n\n--\u00c7a devait faire deux jolis gaillards tous les deux.\n\n--Oui, deux fameux gaillards, r\u00e9pondit le commis voyageur. Deux fameux\ngaillards, v\u00e9ritablement.\u00bb\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XV.\n\nDans lequel se trouva un portrait fid\u00e8le de deux personnes distingu\u00e9es,\net une description exacte d'un grand d\u00e9jeuner qui eut lieu dans leur\nmaison et domaine. Ledit d\u00e9jeuner am\u00e8ne la rencontre d'une vieille\nconnaissance, et le commencement d'un autre chapitre.\n\n\nLa conscience de M. Pickwick lui reprochait d'avoir un peu n\u00e9glig\u00e9 ses\namis du _Paon d'argent_, et dans la matin\u00e9e du troisi\u00e8me jour apr\u00e8s\nl'\u00e9lection, il allait sortir pour les visiter, lorsque son fid\u00e8le\ndomestique remit entre ses mains une carte de visite, sur laquelle \u00e9tait\ngrav\u00e9e l'inscription suivante, en lettres gothiques.\n\n     MADAME CHASSE-LION.\n\n     _La Caverne. Eatanswill._\n\n--La personne attend, dit Sam.\n\n--C'est bien moi qu'elle demande?\n\n--C'est vous particuli\u00e8rement et sans remplacement, comme dit le\nsecr\u00e9taire priv\u00e9 du diable quand il vint emporter le docteur Faust.\nC'est bien vous qu'il demande.\n\n--_Il?_ c'est donc un gentleman?\n\n--Si \u00e7a n'en est pas un, c'en est une imitation soign\u00e9e.\n\n--Mais c'est la carte d'une dame.\n\n--Je l'ai re\u00e7ue d'un monsieur, malgr\u00e9 \u00e7a. Il attend dans le salon et il\ndit qu'il attendra toute la journ\u00e9e plut\u00f4t que de ne pas vous voir.\u00bb\n\nAyant appris cette d\u00e9termination, M. Pickwick descendit au parloir. Un\nhomme grave y \u00e9tait assis. Il se leva promptement en voyant entrer notre\nphilosophe, et dit avec un air de profond respect:\n\n\u00abMonsieur Pickwick? je pr\u00e9sume.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Permettez-moi, monsieur, d'avoir l'honneur de presser votre main.\nPermettez-moi de la secouer.\n\n--Avec plaisir,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\nL'\u00e9tranger secoua la main qui lui \u00e9tait offerte, et continua ainsi.\n\n\u00abMonsieur la renomm\u00e9e nous a parl\u00e9 de vous comme d'un savant antiquaire.\nLe bruit de vos d\u00e9couvertes a frapp\u00e9 l'oreille de Mme Chasselion, ma\nfemme, monsieur; _moi_, je suis M. Chasselion.\u00bb\n\nIci l'homme grave s'arr\u00eata, comme s'il avait cru que M. Pickwick devait\n\u00eatre \u00e9tourdi par cette communication; mais voyant que le philosophe\ndemeurait parfaitement calme, il poursuivit en ces termes:\n\n--Ma femme, monsieur, mistress Chasselion, est fi\u00e8re de compter parmi\nses connaissances tous ceux qui se sont illustr\u00e9s par leurs ouvrages et\npar leurs talents. Permettez-moi, monsieur, de placer dans cette liste\nle nom de M. Pickwick, et celui de ses confr\u00e8res du club qu'il a fond\u00e9.\n\n--Je serai tr\u00e8s-heureux, monsieur, de faire la connaissance d'une dame\naussi distingu\u00e9e.\n\n--Vous la ferez, monsieur. Demain matin, nous donnons un grand d\u00e9jeuner,\nune f\u00eate champ\u00eatre, \u00e0 un nombre consid\u00e9rable de ceux qui se sont rendus\nc\u00e9l\u00e8bres par leurs ouvrages et par leurs talents. Accordez \u00e0 Mme\nChasselion la satisfaction de vous voir \u00e0 la Caverne.\n\n--Avec grand plaisir.\n\n--Mme Chasselion donne beaucoup de ces d\u00e9jeuners, monsieur; _galas de la\nraison, effluves de l'\u00e2me_[21], comme l'observe avec un sentiment plein\nd'originalit\u00e9 quelqu'un qui a adress\u00e9 un sonnet \u00e0 Mme Chasselion, sur\nces d\u00e9jeuners.\n\n[Footnote 21: _Feast of reason, flow of soul_ est une citation de je ne\nsais quel po\u00ebte, devenue proverbiale pour se moquer des r\u00e9unions o\u00f9 il\nn'y a rien \u00e0 boire ni \u00e0 manger.]\n\n--\u00c9tait-il c\u00e9l\u00e8bre par ses ouvrages et par ses talents? demanda M.\nPickwick.\n\n--Certainement, monsieur. Toutes les connaissances de Mme Chasselion\nsont c\u00e9l\u00e8bres: c'est son ambition, monsieur, de n'avoir pas d'autres\nconnaissances.\n\n--C'est une tr\u00e8s-noble ambition.\n\n--Quand j'informerai Mme Chasselion que cette remarque est tomb\u00e9e de vos\nl\u00e8vres, monsieur, elle en sera fi\u00e8re, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Vous avez avec vous,\nmonsieur, un gentleman qui, je crois, a produit quelques petits po\u00ebmes\nd'une grande beaut\u00e9?\n\n--Mon ami, M. Snodgrass, a beaucoup de go\u00fbt pour la po\u00e9sie.\n\n--C'est comme Mme Chasselion, monsieur. Elle adore la po\u00e9sie, monsieur;\nelle en est folle. Je puis dire que toute son \u00e2me et tout son esprit\nsont p\u00e9tris de po\u00e9sie. Elle-m\u00eame a produit quelques pi\u00e8ces d\u00e9licieuses,\nmonsieur. Vous pouvez avoir rencontr\u00e9 son ode _A une grenouille\nexpirante_.\n\n--Je ne le crois pas.\n\n--Vous m'\u00e9tonnez. Elle a fait une immense sensation. Elle a paru\noriginairement dans le _Magasin des dames_, et \u00e9tait sign\u00e9e d'un _C_ et\nde neuf \u00e9toiles. Elle commen\u00e7ait ainsi:\n\n    Puis-je te voir sanglante et pantelante,\n    Sur ton ventre, sans soupirer?\n    Puis-je sans pleurs te contempler mourante,\n    Sur un rocher,\n    Grenouille expirante?\n\n--Charmant! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Beau, dit l'homme grave. Si simple!\n\n--Sublime!\n\n--La strophe suivante est plus touchante encore. Voulez-vous que je la\nr\u00e9p\u00e8te?\n\n--S'il vous pla\u00eet.\n\n--- La voici, continua l'homme grave, d'un ton encore plus grave.\n\n    Dis-moi si des d\u00e9mons avec leur voix hurlante,\n    Sous la figure de gamins,\n    Loin des marais t'auraient chass\u00e9e, errante,\n    Avec des chiens,\n    Grenouille expirante!\n\n--Joliment exprim\u00e9, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--C'est un diamant, monsieur. Mais vous entendrez Mme Chasselion vous\nr\u00e9citer cette ode. _Elle_ seule peut la faire valoir. Demain matin,\nmonsieur, elle la r\u00e9citera en costume.\n\n--En costume!\n\n--Sous la figure de Minerve.... Mais j'oubliais... c'est un d\u00e9jeuner\ncostum\u00e9.\n\n--Eh! mais, eh mais! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, en jetant un coup d'oeil sur sa\npersonne: Je ne puis vraiment pas me travestir.\n\n--Pourquoi pas, monsieur? pourquoi pas? Salomon Lucas, le juif, dans la\ngrande rue, a mille habillements de fantaisie. Voyez, monsieur, combien\nde caract\u00e8res convenables vous pouvez choisir: Platon, Z\u00e9non, Epicure,\nPythagore, tous fondateurs de clubs.\n\n--Je le sais bien, mais comme je ne puis me comparer \u00e0 ces grands\nhommes, je ne saurais me permettre de porter leur habit.\u00bb\n\nL'homme grave m\u00e9dita profond\u00e9ment, pendant quelques minutes, et dit\nensuite.\n\n\u00abEn y r\u00e9fl\u00e9chissant, monsieur, je ne sais pas si Mme Chasselion ne sera\npas charm\u00e9e de faire voir \u00e0 ses h\u00f4tes une personne de votre c\u00e9l\u00e9brit\u00e9,\ndans le costume qui lui est habituel, plut\u00f4t que sous une enveloppe\n\u00e9trang\u00e8re. Je crois pouvoir prendre sur moi de vous promettre, au nom de\nmistress Chasselion, qu'elle fera une exception en votre faveur. Oui,\nmonsieur, je suis tout \u00e0 fait certain que je puis me le permettre.\n\n--En ce cas, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, j'aurai grand plaisir \u00e0 me rendre \u00e0\nvotre invitation.\n\n--Mais je vous fais perdre votre temps, monsieur, dit soudainement\nl'homme grave, d'un ton p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e9. J'en connais la valeur, monsieur, et je\nne veux pas vous retenir plus longtemps. Je dirai donc \u00e0 Mme Chasselion\nqu'elle peut vous attendre avec confiance, ainsi que vos illustres amis.\nAdieu monsieur. Je suis fier d'avoir vu un personnage aussi \u00e9minent. Pas\nun pas, monsieur; pas une parole.\u00bb Et sans donner \u00e0 M. Pickwick le temps\nde lui r\u00e9pondre, M. Chasselion s'\u00e9loigna gravement.\n\nLe philosophe prit son chapeau et se rendit au _Paon d'argent_. M.\nWinkle y avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 parl\u00e9 du bal d\u00e9guis\u00e9.\n\n\u00abMme Pott y va, furent les premi\u00e8res paroles dont il salua son mentor.\n\n--Ah! ah! fit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Sous la figure d'Apollon. Seulement Pott s'oppose \u00e0 la tunique.\n\n--Il a raison! il a parfaitement raison! dit le savant homme avec\nemphase.\n\n--Oui; aussi elle portera une robe de satin blanc, avec des paillettes\nd'or.\n\n--N'aura-t-on pas de la peine \u00e0 reconna\u00eetre son personnage? demanda M.\nSnodgrass.\n\n--Par exemple! riposta M. Winkle avec indignation. Est-ce qu'on ne verra\npas sa lyre?\n\n--C'est vrai: je n'avais pas pens\u00e9 \u00e0 la lyre.\n\n--Et moi, dit alors M. Tupman, j'irai en bandit.\n\n--Quoi? s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick en faisant un soubresaut.\n\n--En bandit, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Tupman avec douceur.\n\n--Vous ne pr\u00e9tendez pas, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick, en examinant son ami avec\nune s\u00e9v\u00e9rit\u00e9 solennelle, vous ne pr\u00e9tendez pas, monsieur Tupman, que\nc'est votre intention de porter une veste de velours vert avec des pans\nlongs de deux doigts?\n\n--C'est pourtant mon intention, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit avec chaleur M.\nTupman; et pourquoi pas s'il vous pla\u00eet?\n\n--Parce que, dit M. Pickwick, consid\u00e9rablement excit\u00e9, parce que vous\n\u00eates trop vieux, monsieur!\n\n--Trop vieux! s'\u00e9cria M. Tupman.\n\n--Et s'il est besoin d'une autre raison, parce que vous \u00eates trop gras,\nmonsieur!...\u00bb\n\nLa figure de M. Tupman devint pourpre.\n\n\u00abMonsieur! cria-t-il, ceci est une insulte....\n\n--Monsieur! r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick, sur le m\u00eame ton, si vous paraissiez\ndevant moi avec une veste de velours vert et des pans longs de deux\ndoigts, ce serait pour moi une insulte beaucoup plus grave.\n\n--Monsieur! vous \u00eates un impertinent!\n\n--Monsieur! vous en \u00eates un autre!\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman s'avan\u00e7a d'un pas ou deux et jeta \u00e0 M. Pickwick un regard de\nd\u00e9fi. M. Pickwick lui renvoya un regard semblable, concentr\u00e9 en un foyer\nd\u00e9vorant par le moyen de ses lunettes. M. Snodgrass et M. Winkle\ndemeuraient immobiles, p\u00e9trifi\u00e9s de voir une telle sc\u00e8ne entre de tels\nhommes.\n\nApr\u00e8s une courte pause, M. Tupman reprit sur un ton plus bas, mais\nprofond\u00e9ment accentu\u00e9: \u00abVous m'avez appel\u00e9 vieux monsieur!\n\n--Oui.\n\n--Et gras.\n\n--Je le r\u00e9p\u00e8te.\n\n--Et impertinent.\n\n--C'est vrai.\u00bb\n\nIl y eut un instant de silence \u00e9pouvantable.\n\n\u00abMon attachement \u00e0 votre personne, monsieur, repartit M. Tupman, en\nparlant d'une voix tremblante d'\u00e9motion, et en relevant en m\u00eame temps\nses manchettes; mon attachement \u00e0 votre personne est grand, tr\u00e8s-grand;\nmais il faut que je prenne sur cette m\u00eame personne une vengeance\nsommaire.\n\n--Avancez, monsieur,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick.\n\nStimul\u00e9 par la nature excitante de ce dialogue, l'homme immortel prit\nimm\u00e9diatement une attitude de paralytique, persuad\u00e9 sans aucun doute,\ncomme le suppos\u00e8rent les deux t\u00e9moins de cette sc\u00e8ne, que c'\u00e9tait une\nposture d\u00e9fensive.\n\nHeureusement que M. Snodgrass se pr\u00e9cipita entre les deux combattants,\nau hasard imminent de recevoir sur les tempes un coup de poing de chacun\nd'eux.\n\n\u00abQuoi! s'\u00e9cria-t-il, recouvrant tout \u00e0 coup le don de la parole, que\nl'exc\u00e8s de son \u00e9tonnement lui avait ravi jusqu'alors. Quoi! monsieur\nPickwick, vous! sur qui les yeux de l'univers sont attach\u00e9s! Monsieur\nTupman! vous qui \u00eates illumin\u00e9, comme nous tous, par l'\u00e9clat divin de\nson nom! Quelle honte, messieurs, quelle honte!\u00bb\n\nDe m\u00eame que les traces de la mine de plomb c\u00e8dent \u00e0 la douce influence\nde la gomme \u00e9lastique, de m\u00eame les sillons inaccoutum\u00e9s imprim\u00e9s par une\ncol\u00e8re passag\u00e8re sur le front lisse et ouvert de M. Pickwick,\ns'effac\u00e8rent graduellement pendant le discours de son jeune ami.\nCelui-ci parlait encore, et d\u00e9j\u00e0 la physionomie du philosophe avait\nrepris son expression habituelle de b\u00e9nignit\u00e9.\n\n\u00abJ'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 trop vif, dit M. Pickwick: beaucoup trop vif. Tupman, votre\nmain.\u00bb\n\nUn nuage sombre qui couvrait la figure de M. Tupman se dissipa \u00e0 ces\nmots, et il pressa chaleureusement la main de son ami en r\u00e9pondant: J'ai\n\u00e9t\u00e9 trop vif aussi.\u00bb\n\n--Non, non, reprit pr\u00e9cipitamment M. Pickwick, c'est moi qui ai tort:\nvous mettrez la veste de velours vert.\n\n--Pas du tout, pas du tout.\n\n--Pour m'obliger, vous la mettrez....\n\n--Eh! bien, eh! bien, je la mettrai donc.\u00bb\n\nIl fut en cons\u00e9quence d\u00e9cid\u00e9 que M. Tupman, M. Winkle et M. Snodgrass\nporteraient des costumes de fantaisie, et c'est ainsi que M. Pickwick\nfut entra\u00een\u00e9, par la chaleur de ses sentiments, \u00e0 approuver une conduite\ndont son excellent jugement l'e\u00fbt d\u00e9tourn\u00e9. On ne pourrait trouver une\npreuve plus frappante de son aimable caract\u00e8re, quand m\u00eame les\n\u00e9v\u00e9nements racont\u00e9s dans ce volume seraient enti\u00e8rement le produit de\nl'imagination.\n\nM. Chasselion n'avait pas exag\u00e9r\u00e9 les ressources de M. Salomon Lucas.\nSes costumes \u00e9taient nombreux, innombrables: non pas strictement\nclassiques, peut-\u00eatre; pas enti\u00e8rement neufs, et ne repr\u00e9sentant\npr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment les modes d'aucun \u00e2ge ni d'aucun pays; mais ils \u00e9taient tous\nplus ou moins paillet\u00e9s; et qu'y a-t-il de plus joli que des paillettes?\nOn peut objecter qu'elles ne font point d'effet \u00e0 la clart\u00e9 du soleil;\nmais tout le monde sait qu'elles \u00e9tincelleraient s'il y avait des\nbougies; or, quand on veut donner des bals d\u00e9guis\u00e9s pendant le jour, si\nles costumes ne brillent pas comme ils auraient brill\u00e9 \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re, la\nfaute n'en est nullement au paillettes, elle est enti\u00e8rement aux gens\nqui donnent des bals dans la matin\u00e9e. Tels furent les raisonnements\nconvaincants de M. Salomon Lucas, et sous leur influence, MM. Tupman,\nWinkle et Snodgrass s'engag\u00e8rent \u00e0 porter les d\u00e9guisements que son go\u00fbt\net son exp\u00e9rience lui firent recommander comme admirablement appropri\u00e9s\n\u00e0 l'occasion.\n\nUne cal\u00e8che fut lou\u00e9e par les pickwickiens, dans leur h\u00f4tel: un coup\u00e9,\ntir\u00e9 du m\u00eame endroit, devait transporter M. et Mme Pott sur le domaine\nde Mme Chasselion. Comme un remerciement d\u00e9licat de l'invitation qu'il\navait re\u00e7ue, M. Pott avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 pr\u00e9dit avec confiance, dans la _Gazette\nd'Eatanswill_, que la Caverne offrirait une sc\u00e8ne d'enchantement aussi\nvari\u00e9e que d\u00e9licieuse, un \u00e9blouissant foyer de beaut\u00e9s et de talents, un\nspectacle touchant d'hospitalit\u00e9 abondante et prodigue, et surtout un\ndegr\u00e9 de splendeur, adouci par le go\u00fbt le plus d\u00e9licieux; un luxe\nembelli par une parfaite harmonie et par le plus exquis bon ton, et\naupr\u00e8s duquel les merveilles fabuleuses des _Mille et une Nuits_\npara\u00eetraient rev\u00eatues de couleurs aussi lugubres et aussi sombres que\ndoit l'\u00eatre l'esprit de l'\u00eatre atrabilaire et grossier qui oserait\nsouiller du venin de l'envie les pr\u00e9paratifs faits par l'illustre et\nvertueuse dame, \u00e0 l'autel de laquelle est offert cet humble tribut\nd'admiration. Cette derni\u00e8re phrase \u00e9tait un mordant sarcasme dirig\u00e9\ncontre l'_Ind\u00e9pendant_, qui n'ayant pas \u00e9t\u00e9 invit\u00e9 \u00e0 la f\u00eate, avait\naffect\u00e9, dans ses quatre derniers num\u00e9ros, de la tourner en ridicule; et\nqui avait imprim\u00e9 ses plaisanteries \u00e0 ce sujet avec ses plus gros\ncaract\u00e8res, en \u00e9crivant, qui pis est, tous les adjectifs en lettres\nmajuscules.\n\nLe matin arriva. C'\u00e9tait un s\u00e9duisant spectacle de voir M. Tupman, en\ncostume complet de brigand, avec une veste tellement serr\u00e9e qu'elle en\n\u00e9tait pliss\u00e9e sur son dos et sur ses \u00e9paules. La portion sup\u00e9rieure de\nses jambes se trouvait comprim\u00e9e dans une culotte de velours, et la\npartie inf\u00e9rieure \u00e9tait enlac\u00e9e dans les bandages compliqu\u00e9s, pour\nlesquels tous les brigands ont un attachement si inconcevable. C'\u00e9tait\nplaisir de voir ses moustaches retrouss\u00e9es et son col de chemise ouvert,\nd'o\u00f9 sortait un visage plus ouvert encore; c'\u00e9tait plaisir de contempler\nson chapeau en pain de sucre d\u00e9cor\u00e9 de rubans de toutes couleurs, et que\nle brigand \u00e9tait oblig\u00e9 de porter sur ses genoux, car nul mortel ne\nsaurait mettre un semblable chapeau sur sa t\u00eate, dans une voiture\nferm\u00e9e. L'apparence de M. Snodgrass \u00e9tait \u00e9galement agr\u00e9able et\nr\u00e9jouissante: il avait des chausses de satin bleu, des souliers de satin\net de soie; sa t\u00eate \u00e9tait ombrag\u00e9e d'un casque grec; et, comme tout le\nmonde le sait, comme l'affirmait M. Salomon Lucas, il poss\u00e9dait ainsi le\ncostume journalier, authentique, des troubadours, depuis les temps les\nplus recul\u00e9s jusqu'\u00e0 l'\u00e9poque o\u00f9 ils disparurent finalement de la\nsurface de la terre.\n\nLa cal\u00e8che qui transportait le brigand et le troubadour s'arr\u00eata\nderri\u00e8re le coup\u00e9 de M. Pott, lequel coup\u00e9 lui-m\u00eame s'\u00e9tait arr\u00eat\u00e9 \u00e0 la\nporte de M. Pott, laquelle porte s'ouvrit, et parmi les cris de la\npopulace laissa voir le grand journaliste, accoutr\u00e9 comme un officier\nde justice russe, et tenant dans sa main un terrible knout, symbole\n\u00e9l\u00e9gant du redoutable pouvoir que poss\u00e9dait la _Gazette d'Eatanswill_,\net des flagellations effrayantes qu'elle infligeait aux coupables\npolitiques.\n\n\u00abBravo! s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent M. Tupman et M. Snodgrass en voyant cette all\u00e9gorie\nmarchante.\n\n--Bravo! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta la voix de M. Pickwick du fond du couloir.\n\n--Hou! hou! Pott! oh\u00e9! Pott!\u00bb beugla la populace.\n\nPendant ces salutations, l'\u00e9diteur montait dans le coup\u00e9, tout en\nsouriant avec une sorte de dignit\u00e9 gracieuse, qui t\u00e9moignait\nsuffisamment qu'il sentait son pouvoir et savait comment l'exercer.\n\nApr\u00e8s lui on vit sortir de la maison Mme Pott, qui aurait parfaitement\nressembl\u00e9 \u00e0 Apollon, si elle n'avait pas eu de robe. Elle \u00e9tait conduite\npar M. Winkle, et celui-ci, avec son petit habit rouge, se serait fait\nn\u00e9cessairement reconna\u00eetre pour un chasseur, s'il n'avait point\n\u00e9galement ressembl\u00e9 \u00e0 un facteur de Londres. Enfin parut M. Pickwick, et\nil fut applaudi par les gamins, aussi bruyamment que les autres,\nprobablement parce que sa culotte et ses gu\u00eatres passaient \u00e0 leurs yeux\npour quelque reste de l'antiquit\u00e9.\n\nLes deux voitures se dirig\u00e8rent ensemble vers la demeure de Mme\nChasselion: celle qui contenait M. Pickwick, portait aussi sur le si\u00e9ge\nSam Weller, qui devait aider au service.\n\nTous les individus, hommes et femmes, gar\u00e7ons et filles, bambins et\nvieillards, qui \u00e9taient assembl\u00e9s pour voir les visiteurs dans leurs\ncostumes, se p\u00e2m\u00e8rent de d\u00e9lice quand ils aper\u00e7urent M. Pickwick donnant\nle bras d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9 au brigand, de l'autre au troubadour: mais lorsque M.\nTupman, pour faire son entr\u00e9e dans le bon style, s'effor\u00e7a de fixer sur\nsa t\u00eate son chapeau pointu, des cris tumultueux s'\u00e9lev\u00e8rent, tels qu'on\nn'en avait jamais entendu auparavant.\n\nLes immenses et somptueux pr\u00e9paratifs de la f\u00eate r\u00e9alisaient\ncompl\u00e9tement les proph\u00e9tiques louanges de Pott, _sur les merveilles\nfabuleuses des Mille et une Nuits_, et contredisaient, du m\u00eame coup, les\ninsinuations perfides du venimeux _Ind\u00e9pendant_. Le jardin, qui avait\nplus d'une acre d'\u00e9tendue, \u00e9tait rempli de monde. Jamais on n'avait vu\nun tel foyer de beaut\u00e9, d'\u00e9l\u00e9gance et de litt\u00e9rature. La jeune lady, qui\n_faisait_ la po\u00e9sie dans la _Gazette d'Eatanswill_, s'\u00e9tait rev\u00eatue ou\nplut\u00f4t d\u00e9v\u00eatue d'un costume d'odalisque. Elle s'appuyait sur le bras du\njeune gentleman, qui _faisait_ la critique, et qui portait fort\nconvenablement un uniforme de feld-mar\u00e9chal, moins les bottes. Il y\navait une arm\u00e9e de g\u00e9nies de la m\u00eame force, et toute personne\nraisonnable aurait regard\u00e9 comme un honneur suffisant de se rencontrer\nl\u00e0 avec eux; mais il y avait mieux encore, il y avait une demi-douzaine\nde _lions_ de Londres,--des auteurs, des auteurs r\u00e9els, qui avaient\n\u00e9crit des livres tout entiers, et qui les avaient fait imprimer. On\npouvait les voir, marchant comme des hommes ordinaires, souriant,\nparlant, oui, et disant m\u00eame pas mal de sottises, sans doute dans\nl'intention b\u00e9nigne de se rendre intelligibles aux gens vulgaires qui\nles entouraient. Il y avait en outre une bande de musiciens en chapeaux\nde carton dor\u00e9; quatre chanteurs, soi-disant italiens, dans leur costume\nnational, et une douzaine de domestiques de louage, aussi dans leur\ncostume national, costume fort mal propre, par parenth\u00e8se. Enfin, et\npar-dessus tout, il y avait Mme Chasselion, en Minerve, recevant la\ncompagnie, et laissant d\u00e9border l'orgueil et le plaisir qu'elle\n\u00e9prouvait \u00e0 voir rassembl\u00e9s autour d'elle tant d'individus distingu\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abM. Pickwick, madame,\u00bb dit un domestique; et cet illustre personnage\ns'approcha de la divinit\u00e9 pr\u00e9sidente, ayant ses deux bras pass\u00e9s dans\nceux du brigand et du troubadour, et tenant son chapeau \u00e0 sa main.\n\n\u00abQuoi! o\u00f9? s'\u00e9cria Mme Chasselion, en tressaillant avec un ravissement\nimmense.\n\n--Ici, madame, dit M. Pickwick d'une voix douce.\n\n--Est-il possible que j'aie r\u00e9ellement la satisfaction de voir M.\nPickwick lui-m\u00eame!!!\n\n--En personne, madame, r\u00e9pliqua le philosophe, en saluant tr\u00e8s-bas.\nPermettez-moi de pr\u00e9senter mes amis, M. Tupman, M. Winkle, M. Snodgrass,\n\u00e0 l'auteur de _la Grenouille expirante_.\u00bb\n\nPeu de personnes, \u00e0 moins de l'avoir essay\u00e9 savent combien il est\ndifficile de saluer avec d'\u00e9troites culottes de velours vert, une veste\nserr\u00e9e et un chapeau en pain de sucre; ou bien avec un justaucorps de\nsatin bleu et des bas de soie, o\u00f9 bien avec des jarreti\u00e8res et des\nbottes \u00e0 la russe; surtout quand toutes ces choses n'ont point \u00e9t\u00e9\nfaites pour celui qui les porte, et ont \u00e9t\u00e9 fix\u00e9es sur lui sans la plus\nl\u00e9g\u00e8re attention aux dimensions respectives de l'habillement et de\nl'habill\u00e9. Jamais on ne vit de contorsions semblables \u00e0 celles que\nfaisait M. Tupman pour para\u00eetre \u00e0 son aise et gracieux; jamais on ne vit\nde postures aussi ing\u00e9nieuses que celles de ses compagnons de\nd\u00e9guisement.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Pickwick, dit Mme Chasselion, il faut que vous me promettiez\nde rester aupr\u00e8s de moi durant toute la journ\u00e9e. Il y a ici des\ncentaines de personnes que je dois absolument vous pr\u00e9senter.\n\n--Vous \u00eates bien bonne, madame, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\n\n--En premier lieu voici mes fillettes; je les avais presque oubli\u00e9es,\u00bb\ndit Minerve, en montrant d'un air n\u00e9gligent deux demoiselles\nparfaitement d\u00e9velopp\u00e9es, qui pouvaient avoir de vingt \u00e0 vingt-deux ans,\net qui portaient l'une et l'autre des costumes enfantins. \u00c9tait-ce pour\nles faire para\u00eetre plus modestes, o\u00f9 pour faire para\u00eetre leur maman plus\njeune? M. Pickwick ne nous en informe pas clairement.\n\n\u00abElles sont charmantes, dit M. Pickwick, lorsque ces aimables enfants se\nretir\u00e8rent, apr\u00e8s lui avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 pr\u00e9sent\u00e9es.\n\n--Monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pott avec un air de majest\u00e9, c'est qu'elles\nressemblent comme deux gouttes d'eau \u00e0 leur maman.\n\n--Taisez-vous, m\u00e9chant homme! s'\u00e9cria gaiement Mme Chasselion, en\nfrappant de l'\u00e9ventail le bras de l'\u00e9diteur. (Minerve avec un \u00e9ventail!)\n\n--Certainement, ma ch\u00e8re madame Chasselion, reprit M. Pott, qui \u00e9tait le\ntrompette attitr\u00e9 de la Caverne. Vous savez bien que l'ann\u00e9e derni\u00e8re,\nquand votre portrait \u00e9tait \u00e0 l'exposition, tout le monde demandait si\nc'\u00e9tait le v\u00f4tre ou celui de votre plus jeune fille; car vous vous\nressembliez tant qu'il n'y avait pas moyen de faire la diff\u00e9rence.\n\n--Eh bien! quand cela serait, qu'est-ce que vous avez besoin de le\nr\u00e9p\u00e9ter devant des \u00e9trangers? r\u00e9pliqua Minerve en accordant un autre\ncoup d'\u00e9ventail au lion endormi de _la Gazette d'Eatanswill_.\n\n--Comte! comte! cria tout \u00e0 coup Mme Chasselion \u00e0 un individu qui\npassait \u00e0 port\u00e9e de sa voix, et qui avait un uniforme \u00e9tranger, surmont\u00e9\nd'\u00e9normes moustaches.\n\n--Ah! fous fouloir te moi, dit le comte en se retournant.\n\n--Je veux pr\u00e9senter l'un \u00e0 l'autre deux hommes fort spirituels. Monsieur\nPickwick, je suis heureuse de vous pr\u00e9senter le comte Smorltork.\u00bb Mme\nChasselion ajouta \u00e0 l'oreille du philosophe: \u00abLe fameux \u00e9tranger qui\nrassemble des mat\u00e9riaux pour son ouvrage sur l'Angleterre, vous\nsavez?--Le comte Smorltork, monsieur Pickwick.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick salua le comte avec toute la r\u00e9v\u00e9rence due \u00e0 un si grand\nhomme, et le comte tira ses tablettes.\n\n\u00abComment fous tire, madame Ch\u00e2sse-long? demanda le comte en souriant\ngracieusement \u00e0 la dame enchant\u00e9e. Monsieur Pigwig, h\u00e9? ou Bigwig...\nun... avocat, n'est-ce pas? Je vois, c'est \u00e7a, j'inscris monsieur\nBigwig[22].\u00bb\n\n[Footnote 22: _Big-wig_, grosse perruque, sobriquet par lequel on\nd\u00e9signe les avocats.]\n\nLe comte allait enregistrer M. Pickwick sur ses tablettes comme un\ngentleman qui se chargeait de faire les affaires des autres, et dont le\nnom \u00e9tait d\u00e9riv\u00e9 de sa profession, lorsque Mme Chasselion l'arr\u00eata en\ndisant:\n\n\u00abNon, non! comte. Pick-wick.\n\n--Ha! ha! je vois. Pique, nom de bapt\u00eame; Figue, nom de famille.\nTr\u00e8s-fort bien, tr\u00e8s-fort bien. Comment portez-fous, Figue?\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, je vous remercie, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, avec son affabilit\u00e9\naccoutum\u00e9e. Y a-t-il longtemps que vous \u00eates en Angleterre?\n\n--Long, tr\u00e8s-fort longtemps. Quinzaine... plus....\n\n--Resterez-vous encore longtemps?\n\n--Ein semaine.\n\n--Vous avez beaucoup \u00e0 faire, poursuivit M. Pickwick en souriant, pour\nrassembler en aussi peu de temps tous les mat\u00e9riaux dont vous avez\nbesoin.\n\n--Eh! elles sont rassembler, dit le comte.\n\n--En v\u00e9rit\u00e9! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Elles sont l\u00e0, ajouta le comte en se frappant le front d'un air\nsignificatif. Dans mon patrie... fort livre... combl\u00e9 de notes...\nmousique, science, po\u00e9sie, politique, tout....\n\n--Le mot _politique_, monsieur, comprend en soi-m\u00eame une \u00e9tude difficile\net d'une immense \u00e9tendue.\n\n--Ah! s'\u00e9cria le comte en tirant ses tablettes; tr\u00e8s-fort bon! Beaux\nparoles pour commencer une capitle. Capitle sept et quarante: _Le mot\npolitique surprend_ en soi-m\u00eame....\u00bb Et la remarque de M. Pickwick fut\nnot\u00e9e dans les tablettes du comte Smorltork, avec les additions et\nvariantes occasionn\u00e9es par son imagination ardente et sa connaissance\nimparfaite de la langue.\n\n\u00abComte! dit Mme Chasselion.\n\n--Madame Ch\u00e2sse? r\u00e9pondit le comte.\n\n--Voici M. Snodgrass, un ami de M. Pickwick, et un po\u00ebte.\n\n--Attendez! s'\u00e9cria le comte en tirant ses tablettes sur nouveaux\nfrais. Lifre, poisie; capitle, amis litt\u00e9raires; nom, l'Homme-grasse.\nTr\u00e8s-fort bien. Pr\u00e9sent\u00e9 \u00e0 l'Homme-grasse, ami de Pique-Figue, par\nmadame Ch\u00e2sse, qui d'autres d\u00e9licats poimes a produits. Comment\ns'appelle? Grenouille.... Grenouille soupirante. Tr\u00e8s-fort bien.\u00bb Et le\ncomte referma ses tablettes, fit mille r\u00e9v\u00e9rences, mille remerc\u00eements,\net s'\u00e9loigna, persuad\u00e9 qu'il venait d'ajouter \u00e0 ses connaissances sur\nl'Angleterre, les plus importantes et les plus utiles observations.\n\n\u00abC'est un homme bien \u00e9tonnant! s'\u00e9cria Minerve.\n\n--Un philosophe profond! ajouta Pott.\n\n--Un esprit fort et p\u00e9n\u00e9trant!\u00bb continua M. Snodgrass.\n\nUn choeur d'invit\u00e9s relev\u00e8rent les louanges du comte Smorltork, en\nsecouant gravement leur t\u00eate et en disant d'une voix unanime:\n\u00ab\u00c9tonnant!!!\u00bb\n\nComme l'enthousiasme en faveur du comte Smorltork s'allumait de plus en\nplus, ses louanges auraient pu \u00eatre c\u00e9l\u00e9br\u00e9es jusqu'\u00e0 la fin de la f\u00eate,\nsi les quatre soi-disant chanteurs italiens, rang\u00e9s autour d'un petit\npommier, pour produire un effet pittoresque, ne s'\u00e9taient pas mis \u00e0\nd\u00e9rouler leurs chansons nationales. Il faut avouer qu'elles ne\nparaissaient point d'une ex\u00e9cution bien difficile, et tout le secret\nsemblait consister \u00e0 ce que trois des soi-disant chanteurs italiens\ngrognaient, tandis que le quatri\u00e8me miaulait. Cet int\u00e9ressant morceau\n\u00e9tant termin\u00e9, aux applaudissements de toute la compagnie, un jeune\ngar\u00e7on commen\u00e7a \u00e0 se faufiler entre les b\u00e2tons d'une chaise, et \u00e0 sauter\npar-dessus, et \u00e0 ramper par-dessous, et \u00e0 se culbuter avec, et \u00e0 en\nfaire toutes les choses imaginables, except\u00e9 de s'asseoir dessus.\nEnsuite il se fit une cravate de ses jambes et les attacha autour de son\ncou; puis il fit voir avec quelle facilit\u00e9 une cr\u00e9ature humaine peut\nprendre l'apparence d'un crapaud. Les nombreux spectateurs \u00e9taient\ntransport\u00e9s de jouissance et d'admiration. Bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s on entendit\ngazouiller faiblement: c'\u00e9tait la voix de Mme Pott, et ses auditeurs\npleins de courtoisie s'imagin\u00e8rent entendre une chanson parfaitement\nclassique, une vraie chanson de caract\u00e8re, car Apollon \u00e9tait un\ncompositeur, et les compositeurs chantent tr\u00e8s-rarement leurs propres\noeuvres, et pas davantage celles d'autrui. Enfin Mme Chasselion s'avan\u00e7a\net r\u00e9cita son ode immortelle \u00e0 une Grenouille expirante. Des _bravo_,\ndes _brava_, des _bravi_, des _encore_ se firent entendre; et elle la\nr\u00e9cita une seconde fois. Elle allait la r\u00e9citer une troisi\u00e8me, mais la\nmajorit\u00e9 de ses h\u00f4tes, pensant qu'il \u00e9tait bien temps de manger quelque\nchose, s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent que c'\u00e9tait une honte d'abuser de la complaisance de\nMme Chasselion. Vainement Mme Chasselion protesta qu'elle \u00e9tait tout \u00e0\nfait dispos\u00e9e \u00e0 r\u00e9citer son ode sur nouveaux frais; ses amis \u00e9taient\ntrop polis, trop discrets, trop soigneux de sa sant\u00e9, pour consentir \u00e0\nl'entendre encore, sous aucun pr\u00e9texte. La salle des rafra\u00eechissements\nfut donc ouverte, et tous ceux qui \u00e9taient d\u00e9j\u00e0 venus chez Mme\nChasselion se pr\u00e9cipit\u00e8rent en tumulte, pour y arriver les premiers. Ils\nsavaient, en effet, que l'habitude de cette illustre dame \u00e9tait de faire\nfaire un d\u00e9jeuner pour cinquante et des invitations pour trois cents;\nou, en d'autres termes, de nourrir les _lions_ les plus remarquables, et\nde laisser les petits animaux se tirer d'affaire comme ils pouvaient.\n\n\u00abO\u00f9 donc est monsieur Pott? demanda Mme Chasselion en s'occupant de\nplacer les susdits lions autour d'elle.\n\n--Me voici! s'\u00e9cria l'\u00e9diteur du bout le plus recul\u00e9 de la chambre, hors\nde toute esp\u00e9rance de nourriture, \u00e0 moins que son h\u00f4tesse ne fit quelque\nchose d'extraordinaire pour lui.\n\n--Voulez-vous venir par ici? lui cria-t-elle.\n\n--Oh! je vous en prie, ne vous tourmentez pas pour lui, interrompit Mme\nPott de sa voix la plus obligeante. Vous vous donnez beaucoup trop de\npeine, madame Chasselion. Il est tr\u00e8s-bien l\u00e0-bas. N'est-ce pas, mon\ncher, que vous \u00eates tr\u00e8s-bien l\u00e0-bas?\n\n--Certainement, mon amour,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua l'infortun\u00e9 Pott avec un triste\nsourire. H\u00e9las! \u00e0 quoi lui servait son knout? Le bras nerveux qui le\nfaisait tomber sur les hommes publics avec une vigueur gigantesque,\n\u00e9tait paralys\u00e9 par un coup d'oeil de l'imp\u00e9rieuse Mme Pott.\n\nMme Chasselion regarda autour d'elle avec triomphe. Le comte Smorltork\n\u00e9tait activement occup\u00e9 \u00e0 prendre note de ce que contenaient les plats;\nM. Tupman, avec plus de gr\u00e2ce que n'en avaient jamais d\u00e9ploy\u00e9 tous les\nbrigands de l'Italie, faisait \u00e0 diverses lionnes les honneurs d'une\nsalade de homard; M. Snodgrass, ayant supplant\u00e9 le jeune gentleman\ncharg\u00e9 des _\u00e9reintements_ dans la _Gazette d'Eatanswill_, \u00e9tait enfonc\u00e9\ndans une dissertation passionn\u00e9e avec la jeune lady qui _faisait_ la\npo\u00e9sie; et M. Pickwick, enfin, se rendait universellement agr\u00e9able: rien\nne semblait manquer \u00e0 ce cercle choisi, lorsque M. Chasselion, dont le\nd\u00e9partement, dans ces occasions, \u00e9tait de se tenir debout pr\u00e8s de la\nporte, et de parler aux gens les moins importants, cria de toutes ses\nforces \u00e0 Minerve:\n\n\u00abMa ch\u00e8re, voici M. Charles Fitz-Marshall.\n\n--Enfin! s'\u00e9cria Mme Chasselion. Avec quelle anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 je l'ai attendu!\nMessieurs, je vous prie, laissez passer M. Fitz-Marshall. Mon cher,\ndites \u00e0 M. Fitz-Marshall de venir me trouver sur-le-champ, pour que je\nle gronde d'\u00eatre arriv\u00e9 si tard.\n\n--Voil\u00e0, ma ch\u00e8re dame, dit une voix claire. Aussi vite que\npossible,--foule \u00e9tonnante,--chambre comble,--fort difficile\nd'approcher, tr\u00e8s-difficile.\u00bb\n\nLe couteau et la fourchette de M. Pickwick lui tomb\u00e8rent des mains. Il\nregarda M. Tupman, qui avait aussi laiss\u00e9 tomber sa fourchette et son\ncouteau, et qui paraissait pr\u00eat \u00e0 s'ab\u00eemer sous terre.\n\n\u00abAh!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria la voix, tandis que son possesseur s'ouvrait un passage \u00e0\ntravers une vingtaine de Turcs, d'officiers, de cavaliers et de Charles\nII, qui formaient une derni\u00e8re barricade entre lui et la table.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 mes v\u00eatements tout cylindr\u00e9s,--brevet d'invention,--pas un pli\ndans mon habit,--joliment press\u00e9!--Pas besoin de faire repasser mon\nlinge, ha! ha!--la bonne id\u00e9e,--dr\u00f4le de chose, malgr\u00e9 \u00e7a, de faire\ncylindrer son linge sur soi,--op\u00e9ration fatigante, tr\u00e8s-fatigante.\u00bb\n\nEn pronon\u00e7ant ces phrases bris\u00e9es, un jeune homme, v\u00eatu en officier de\nmarine, parvint \u00e0 s'approcher de la table, et pr\u00e9senta aux regards\n\u00e9tonn\u00e9s des pickwickiens la tournure et les traits identiques de M.\nAlfred Jingle.\n\nIl avait \u00e0 peine eu le temps de prendre la main que lui tendait Mme\nChasselion, lorsque ses yeux rencontr\u00e8rent les orbes indign\u00e9s de M.\nPickwick.\n\n\u00abTiens! tiens! s'\u00e9cria le coupable; oubli\u00e9,--pas d'ordre aux\npostillons,--j'y vais moi-m\u00eame,--revenu dans un instant.\n\n--Le domestique, ou bien M. Chasselion, donnera vos ordres, monsieur\nFitz-Marshall, dit la ma\u00eetresse de la maison.\n\n--Non! non!--moi-m\u00eame, ne serai pas long,--revenu dans un clin d'oeil,\u00bb\nr\u00e9pliqua Jingle, et il disparut dans la foule.\n\nM. Pickwick se leva plein d'indignation.\n\n\u00abMadame, dit-il, permettez-moi de vous demander qui est ce jeune homme,\net o\u00f9 il r\u00e9side?\n\n--C'est un gentleman d'une grande fortune, monsieur Pickwick, \u00e0 qui je\nmeurs d'envie de vous pr\u00e9senter. Le comte aussi sera enchant\u00e9 de le\nconna\u00eetre.\n\n--Oui, oui, comptez l\u00e0-dessus, dit M. Pickwick avec vivacit\u00e9. Il\ndemeure?\n\n--A Bury, h\u00f4tel de l'Ange.\n\n--A Bury?\n\n--A Bury Saint-Edmunds, \u00e0 quelques milles d'ici.... Mais, mon Dieu!\nmonsieur Pickwick, vous n'allez pas nous quitter. Vous ne pouvez pas,\nmonsieur Pickwick, songer \u00e0 vous en aller sit\u00f4t.\u00bb\n\nLongtemps avant que Mme Chasselion eut prononc\u00e9 ces paroles, M. Pickwick\ns'\u00e9tait plong\u00e9 dans la foule et avait atteint le jardin. Il y fut\nbient\u00f4t rejoint par M. Tupman, qui l'avait suivi de pr\u00e8s et qui lui dit:\n\n\u00abCela est inutile, il est parti.\n\n--Je le sais, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, avec chaleur, et je le suivrai!\n\n--Vous le suivrez! Ou donc?\n\n--A Bury, h\u00f4tel de l'Ange. Comment savons-nous s'il n'abuse point\nquelqu'un dans cet endroit? Il a tromp\u00e9 une fois un digne homme, et nous\nen \u00e9tions la cause innocente: cela n'arrivera plus, si je puis\nl'emp\u00eacher! Je veux le d\u00e9masquer.--Sam! o\u00f9 est mon domestique?\n\n--Voil\u00e0! ici, monsieur, dit Sam, en sortant d'un endroit \u00e9cart\u00e9, o\u00f9 il\n\u00e9tait occup\u00e9 \u00e0 examiner une bouteille de vin de Mad\u00e8re, qu'il avait\nenlev\u00e9e sur la table une heure ou deux auparavant. Voil\u00e0 vot' serviteur,\nmonsieur, et fier du titre encore, comme disait au public l'esquelette\nvivant qu'on faisait voir pour trois pence.\n\n--Suivez-moi sur-le-champ! reprit M. Pickwick.--Tupman, si je reste \u00e0\nBury, vous pourrez m'y rejoindre quand je vous \u00e9crirai. Jusque-l\u00e0,\nadieu!\u00bb\n\nLes remontrances devenaient inutiles: M. Pickwick \u00e9tait anim\u00e9, et sa\nr\u00e9solution \u00e9tait prise. M. Tupman retourna vers ses compagnons, et, une\nheure apr\u00e8s, il avait noy\u00e9 tout souvenir de M. Alfred Jingle, ou de M.\nCharles Fitz-Marshall, au moyen d'une bouteille de vin de Champagne et\nd'une contredanse, \u00e9galement p\u00e9tillantes.\n\nPendant ce temps, M. Pickwick et Sam Weller, perch\u00e9s \u00e0 l'ext\u00e9rieur d'une\nvoiture publique, voyaient de minute en minute diminuer la distance qui\nles s\u00e9parait de la bonne ville de Bury Saint-Edmunds.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XVI.\n\nTrop plein d'aventures pour qu'on puisse les r\u00e9sumer bri\u00e8vement.\n\n\nIl n'y a pas, dans toute l'ann\u00e9e, de mois o\u00f9 la nature ait un plus joli\nvisage que durant le mois d'ao\u00fbt. Le printemps a bien des charmes, et\nmai, certainement, est frais et joli, et son \u00e9clat est rehauss\u00e9 par le\ncontraste des frimas qui viennent de finir. Ao\u00fbt n'a pas de semblables\navantages: lorsqu'il arrive, nos sens sont accoutum\u00e9s \u00e0 la puret\u00e9 du\nciel, au verdoiement des prairies, au parfum embaum\u00e9 des fleurs; le\nbrouillard, le givre, la neige et les glaces sont effac\u00e9s de notre\nm\u00e9moire, comme de la surface de la terre. Et cependant, quelle saison\ncharmante! Les champs, les vergers, sont anim\u00e9s par la voix, par la\npr\u00e9sence des travailleurs; les arbres, charg\u00e9s de fruits, inclinent\nleurs branches jusqu'\u00e0 terre; les bl\u00e9s, r\u00e9unis en gerbes gracieuses ou\nse balan\u00e7ant au souffle du z\u00e9phir comme pour agacer la faucille,\ncouvrent le paysage d'une teinte dor\u00e9e; une douce langueur semble\nr\u00e9pandue sur toute la nature, et l'on dirait m\u00eame que la molle influence\nde la saison s'\u00e9tend jusque sur les charrettes dont l'oeil aper\u00e7oit le\nmouvement uniforme \u00e0 travers les champs moissonn\u00e9s, sans que l'oreille\nsoit d\u00e9chir\u00e9e par aucun bruit inharmonieux.\n\nPendant que la voiture publique roule rapidement \u00e0 travers les champs et\nles vergers qui bordent la route, des groupes de femmes et d'enfants,\nempilant des fruits dans des corbeilles ou recueillant les \u00e9pis de bl\u00e9\ndispers\u00e9s, suspendent un instant leur travail, abritent leurs visages\nbrunis par le soleil avec une main plus brune encore, et suivent les\nvoyageurs d'un regard curieux; quelque vigoureux bambin, trop jeune pour\ntravailler, mais trop turbulent pour \u00eatre laiss\u00e9 \u00e0 la maison, se hisse\nsur le bord du grand panier o\u00f9 il a \u00e9t\u00e9 emprisonn\u00e9, et gigotte et\nbraille avec d\u00e9lices; le moissonneur arr\u00eate sa faucille, se redresse,\ncroise les bras et contemple la voiture qui passe aupr\u00e8s de lui comme un\ntourbillon; les lourds chevaux de son char rustique suivent l'attelage\nbrillant et anim\u00e9 d'un regard endormi, qui dit aussi clairement que le\npeut dire un regard de cheval: \u00abTout cela est fort joli \u00e0 regarder,\nmais marcher lentement dans une terre pesante vaut encore mieux, apr\u00e8s\ntout, que de galoper si chaudement sur une route pleine de poussi\u00e8re!\u00bb\nCependant les voyageurs volent, et, profitant d'un d\u00e9tour, jettent un\ndernier coup d'oeil derri\u00e8re eux: les femmes et les enfants ont repris\nleur travail; le moissonneur s'est courb\u00e9 de nouveau sur sa faucille;\nles chevaux de labour poursuivent leur marche mesur\u00e9e; et tout se\nmontre, comme tout \u00e0 l'heure, plein de vie et de mouvement.\n\nUne semblable sc\u00e8ne ne pouvait manquer d'influer sur l'esprit d\u00e9licat et\nbien r\u00e9gl\u00e9 de M. Pickwick. Pr\u00e9occup\u00e9 de la r\u00e9solution qu'il avait form\u00e9e\nde d\u00e9masquer le v\u00e9ritable caract\u00e8re de Jingle, en quelque lieu qu'il p\u00fbt\nle d\u00e9couvrir, il \u00e9tait demeur\u00e9 d'abord taciturne et r\u00eaveur,\nr\u00e9fl\u00e9chissant aux moyens qu'il devait employer pour r\u00e9ussir dans son\nprojet; mais peu \u00e0 peu son attention fut attir\u00e9e par les objets\nenvironnants, et \u00e0 la fin il y prit autant de plaisir que s'il avait\nentrepris ce voyage pour la cause la plus agr\u00e9able du monde.\n\n\u00abD\u00e9licieux paysage, Sam! dit-il \u00e0 son domestique.\n\n--Enfonce les toits et les chemin\u00e9es, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci en\ntouchant son chapeau.\n\n--En effet, reprit M. Pickwick avec un sourire, je suppose que vous\nn'avez gu\u00e8re vu, toute votre vie, que des toits et des chemin\u00e9es, du\nmortier et des briques.\n\n--Je n'ai pas toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 valet d'auberge, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam en\nsecouant la t\u00eate. J'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 autrefois gar\u00e7on de roulier.\n\n--Quand cela?\n\n--Quand j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 jet\u00e9 la t\u00eate la premi\u00e8re dans le monde pour jouer \u00e0\nsaute-mouton avec ses soucis. Donc, pour commencer, j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 gar\u00e7on d'un\ncharretier, et puis ensuite d'un roulier, et puis ensuite\ncommissionnaire, et puis ensuite valet d'auberge. A pr\u00e9sent v'l\u00e0 que je\nsuis domestique d'un gentleman. Je serai peut-\u00eatre un gentleman moi-m\u00eame\nun de ces jours, avec ma pipe dans ma bouche et un berceau dans mon\njardin. Qui sait? je n'en serais pas surpris, moi.\n\n--Vous \u00eates un v\u00e9ritable philosophe, Sam.\n\n--Je crois que \u00e7a court dans la famille, monsieur. Mon p\u00e8re est dans\ncette profession-l\u00e0 maintenant. Quand ma belle-m\u00e8re le tarabuste, il se\nmet \u00e0 siffler; elle s'enl\u00e8ve comme une soupe au lait, et elle lui casse\nsa pipe: il s'en va pacifiquement, et il en rapporte une autre; alors\nelle braille tant qu'elle peut, et elle tombe dans des attaques de\nnerfs: il ne bouge pas, il fume confortablement jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'elle\nrevienne. C'est \u00e7a de la philosophie, monsieur!...\n\n--Ou du moins un tr\u00e8s-bon \u00e9quivalent, r\u00e9pondit en riant M. Pickwick.\nCela doit vous avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 fort utile dans votre vie errante, Sam.\n\n--Utile, monsieur! vous pouvez bien le dire. Apr\u00e8s que je me suis sauv\u00e9\nd'avec le charretier et avant que j'aie rentr\u00e9 avec le roulier, j'ai\ncouch\u00e9 pendant une quinzaine dans un appartement sans meubles.\n\n--Un appartement sans meubles!\n\n--Oui, les arches \u00e0 sec du pont de Waterloo. Jolie chambre \u00e0 coucher; \u00e0\ndix minutes du centre des affaires. Seulement s'il y a quelque chose \u00e0\nlui reprocher, c'est qu'elle est un peu a\u00e9r\u00e9e. J'ai vu l\u00e0 des dr\u00f4les de\nspectacles.\n\n--Ha! je le suppose, dit M. Pickwick d'un air plein d'int\u00e9r\u00eat.\n\n--Des spectacles qui perceraient votre tendre coeur, monsieur, et qui\nressortiraient de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9. On n'y trouve pas les mendiants\nr\u00e9guliers; vous pouvez vous fier \u00e0 ceux-l\u00e0 pour savoir se tirer\nd'affaire. De jeunes mendiants, m\u00e2les et femelles, qui n'ont pas encore\nfait leur chemin dans la profession, s'y logent quelquefois; mais c'est\ng\u00e9n\u00e9ralement les pauvres cr\u00e9atures sans asile, \u00e9reint\u00e9es, mourant de\nfaim, qui se roulent dans les coins sombres de ces tristes places; les\npauvres cr\u00e9atures qui ne peuvent pas se repasser la corde de deux pence.\n\n--Dites-moi, Sam, qu'est-ce que c'est que la corde de deux pence?\n\n--C'est une auberge, monsieur, o\u00f9 les lits co\u00fbtent deux pence par\nnuit....\n\n--Pourquoi donnent-ils aux lits le nom de _cordes_?\n\n--Que vous \u00eates donc jeune, monsieur! Quand les ladies et les gentlemen\nqui tiennent ces h\u00f4tels-l\u00e0 ont ouvert leur bazar, ils faisaient les lits\nsur le plancher, mais ils ne faisaient pas leurs affaires. Au lieu de\nprendre un somme raisonnable pour deux pence, les logeurs s'y vautraient\nla moiti\u00e9 de la journ\u00e9e. Aussi, maintenant, ils ont deux cordes,\n\u00e9loign\u00e9es d'\u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s six pieds, et \u00e0 trois pieds du plancher, qui vont\ntout du long de la chambre, et les lits sont faits avec des grosses\ntoiles tendues en travers.\n\n--Eh bien?\n\n--Eh bien! l'avantage du plan est visible. Tous les matins, \u00e0 six\nheures, ils laissent aller une des cordes, et patatra, v'l\u00e0 tous les\nlogeurs par terre. \u00c7a les r\u00e9veille fameusement, ils se rel\u00e8vent de bonne\nhumeur, et ils s'en vont comme des jolis gar\u00e7ons.... Demande pardon,\nmonsieur, dit Sam, en interrompant tout \u00e0 coup son verbeux discours,\nc'est-il Bury Saint-Edmunds qu'est l\u00e0-bas?\n\n--Pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick.\u00bb\n\nBient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s la voiture roula dans les rues propres et bien pav\u00e9es\nd'une jolie petite ville, et s'arr\u00eata devant une auberge situ\u00e9e au\nmilieu de la grande route, presque en face de l'antique abbaye.\n\n\u00abVoici l'Ange, dit M. Pickwick, en regardant l'enseigne. Nous descendons\nici, Sam. Mais il faut prendre quelques pr\u00e9cautions. Demandez une\nchambre particuli\u00e8re et ne mentionnez pas mon nom; vous comprenez.\n\n--Compris! monsieur,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit Sam, avec un clin d'oeil intelligent. Il\ntira le portemanteau du coffre de derri\u00e8re, o\u00f9 il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 jet\u00e9 \u00e0\nEatanswill, et disparut pour faire sa commission. Une chambre\nparticuli\u00e8re fut facilement retenue, et M. Pickwick y fut introduit sans\nd\u00e9lai.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, Sam, dit M. Pickwick, la premi\u00e8re chose \u00e0 faire....\n\n--C'est de commander le d\u00eener, monsieur, sugg\u00e9ra Sam: il est fort tard,\nmonsieur.\n\n--Ah! c'est vrai, r\u00e9pliqua le philosophe en regardant sa montre. Vous\navez raison, Sam.\n\n--Et si c'\u00e9tait moi, monsieur, je voudrais prendre juste une bonne nuit\nde repos avant de demander des renseignements sur ce finaud. Il n'y a\nrien pour rafra\u00eechir l'esprit comme un bon somme, monsieur, comme dit la\nservante avant d'avaler son petit verre de l'eau d'\u00e2non.\n\n--Je crois que vous avez raison, Sam; mais je veux d'abord m'assurer\nqu'il est dans cet h\u00f4tel et qu'il ne m'\u00e9chappera point.\n\n--Laissez-moi c'te affaire-l\u00e0, monsieur. Je vas vous ordonner un joli\npetit d\u00eener et faire une enqu\u00eate en bas, pendant qu'on l'appr\u00eatera. Je\ntirerai tous les secrets du d\u00e9crotteur, en cinq minutes.\n\n--A la bonne heure,\u00bb dit M. Pickwick, et Sam se retira.\n\nAu bout d'une demi-heure M. Pickwick \u00e9tait assis devant un d\u00eener\ntr\u00e8s-satisfaisant, et un quart d'heure plus tard, Sam lui rapportait\nl'assurance que M. Charles Fitz-Marshall avait retenu, jusqu'\u00e0 nouvel\nordre, sa chambre particuli\u00e8re; il \u00e9tait all\u00e9 passer la soir\u00e9e dans une\nmaison du voisinage, avait ordonn\u00e9 au gar\u00e7on de l'attendre et avait\nemmen\u00e9 son domestique avec lui.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, monsieur, continua Sam, apr\u00e8s avoir fait son rapport, si je\npuis causer un brin avec ce domestique ici, il me contera toutes les\naffaires de son ma\u00eetre.\n\n--Comment savez-vous cela? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Que vous \u00eates donc jeune monsieur! Tous les domestiques en font\nautant.\n\n--Oh! oh! fit le philosophe, j'avais oubli\u00e9 cela: c'est bon.\n\n--Alors, vous verrez ce qu'il y a de mieux \u00e0 faire, monsieur, nous\nagirons en cons\u00e9quence.\u00bb\n\nComme cet arrangement paraissait le meilleur possible, il fut finalement\nadopt\u00e9. Sam se retira, avec la permission de son ma\u00eetre, pour passer la\nsoir\u00e9e comme il l'entendrait. Il dirigea ses pas vers la buvette de la\nmaison, et peu de temps apr\u00e8s, fut \u00e9lev\u00e9 au fauteuil par la voix unanime\nde l'assembl\u00e9e. Une fois parvenu \u00e0 ce poste honorable, il fit \u00e9clater\ntant de m\u00e9rite, que les \u00e9clats de rire des gentlemen habitu\u00e9s, et les\nmarques bruyantes de leur satisfaction, parvinrent jusqu'\u00e0 la chambre \u00e0\ncoucher de M. Pickwick, et raccourcirent, de plus de trois heures, la\ndur\u00e9e naturelle de son sommeil.\n\nLe lendemain, d\u00e8s le matin, Sam Weller s'occupa de calmer l'agitation\nfi\u00e9vreuse qui lui restait de la veille, par l'application d'une douche\nd'un penny; c'est-\u00e0-dire que, moyennant cette pi\u00e8ce de monnaie, il\nengagea un jeune gentleman du d\u00e9partement de l'\u00e9curie \u00e0 faire jouer la\npompe sur sa t\u00eate et sur sa face, jusqu'\u00e0 l'enti\u00e8re restauration de ses\nfacult\u00e9s intellectuelles. Tandis qu'il subissait ce traitement m\u00e9dical,\nson attention fut attir\u00e9e par un jeune homme, assis sur un banc, dans la\ncour. Il \u00e9tait v\u00eatu d'une livr\u00e9e violette, et lisait dans un livre\nd'hymnes, avec un air d'abstraction profonde, qui ne l'emp\u00eachait\ncependant pas de jeter de temps en temps un coup d'oeil vers Sam, comme\ns'il avait pris grand int\u00e9r\u00eat \u00e0 l'op\u00e9ration qu'il se faisait faire.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 un dr\u00f4le de corps, pensa celui-ci, la premi\u00e8re fois que ses yeux\nrencontr\u00e8rent ceux de l'\u00e9tranger en livr\u00e9e violette. Et, en effet, avec\nson p\u00e2le visage, large et plat, avec ses yeux enfonc\u00e9s et sa t\u00eate\n\u00e9norme, d'o\u00f9 pendaient plusieurs m\u00e8ches de cheveux noirs et lisses,\nl'\u00e9tranger pouvait passer pour un dr\u00f4le de corps. \u00abVoil\u00e0 un dr\u00f4le de\ncorps,\u00bb pensa donc Sam Weller, et apr\u00e8s avoir pens\u00e9 cela, il continua de\nse laver, et n'y pensa pas davantage.\n\nCependant l'homme en livr\u00e9e violette continuait \u00e0 regarder Sam et son\nlivre d'hymnes, son livre d'hymnes et Sam, comme s'il avait eu envie\nd'entamer la conversation. A la fin, pour lui en fournir l'occasion, Sam\nlui dit, avec un signe de t\u00eate familier: \u00abComment \u00e7a va-t-il, mon\nbonhomme?\n\n--Je suis heureux de pouvoir dire que je vais assez bien, monsieur,\nr\u00e9pondit l'homme violet d'une voix mesur\u00e9e et en fermant son livre avec\npr\u00e9caution. J'esp\u00e8re que vous allez de m\u00eame, monsieur?\n\n--Eh! eh! je serais plus solide sur mes jambes si je ne me sentais pas\ncomme une bouteille d'eau-de-vie ambulante; mais vous, mon vieux,\nrestez-vous dans cette maison ici?\u00bb\n\nL'homme violet r\u00e9pondit affirmativement.\n\n\u00abComment se fait-il donc que vous n'\u00e9tiez pas avec nous hier soir?\ndemanda Sam, en se frottant la face avec un essuie-mains. Vous me faites\nl'effet d'un bon vivant, l'air aussi gaillard qu'une truite dans un\npanier plein de chaux, ajouta-t-il d'un ton un peu plus bas.\n\n--J'\u00e9tais sorti avec mon ma\u00eetre, r\u00e9pondit l'\u00e9tranger.\n\n--Comment s'appelle-t-il? demanda vivement Sam Weller, dont le visage\ndevint tout rouge par l'effet combin\u00e9 de la surprise et du frottement de\nson essuie-mains.\n\n--Fitz-Marshall, r\u00e9pliqua l'homme violet.\n\n--Donnez-moi la patte, dit Sam en s'avan\u00e7ant vers lui. J'ai envie de\nvous conna\u00eetre, votre philosomie me va, mon fiston.\n\n--Eh bien! voil\u00e0 qui est tr\u00e8s-extraordinaire, r\u00e9torqua l'homme violet,\navec une grande simplicit\u00e9 de mani\u00e8res. La v\u00f4tre m'a plus si fort, que\nj'ai eu envie de vous parler, d\u00e8s le premier moment o\u00f9 je vous ai vu\nsous la pompe.\n\n--C'est-il vrai.\n\n--Sur mon honneur! Cela n'est-il pas curieux, hein?\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-curieux, r\u00e9pondu Sam, en se congratulant int\u00e9rieurement sur la\nbonhomie de l'\u00e9tranger. Comment nous appelons-nous, mon patriarche?\n\n--Job.\n\n--Et c'est un fameux nom. Le seul nom, \u00e0 ma connaissance, qui n'a pas\nre\u00e7u une abr\u00e9viation. Et l'autre nom?\n\n--Trotter, dit l'\u00e9tranger. Et le v\u00f4tre?\u00bb\n\nSam se rappela les ordres de son ma\u00eetre et r\u00e9pondit: \u00abMon nom est\nWalker, le nom de mon ma\u00eetre est Wilkins. Voulez-vous prendre une goutte\nde quelque chose ce matin, M. Trotter?\u00bb\n\nM. Trotter donna son complet assentiment \u00e0 cette agr\u00e9able proposition,\net ayant d\u00e9pos\u00e9 son livre dans la poche de son habit, il accompagna M.\nWalker \u00e0 la buvette. L\u00e0, ils s'occup\u00e8rent \u00e0 discuter le m\u00e9rite d'un\nagr\u00e9able m\u00e9lange, contenu dans un vase d'\u00e9tain et compos\u00e9 de l'essence\nparfum\u00e9e du clou de girofle et d'une certaine quantit\u00e9 de geni\u00e8vre de\nHollande, fabriqu\u00e9 en Angleterre.\n\n\u00abEt c'est-il une bonne place que vous avez? demanda Sam, en remplissant\npour la seconde fois le verre de son compagnon.\n\n--Mauvaise, r\u00e9pondit Job, en se l\u00e9chant les l\u00e8vres, tr\u00e8s-mauvaise.\n\n--Vrai?\n\n--Oui, s\u00fbr; et pire que cela; mon ma\u00eetre va se marier.\n\n--Pas possible!\n\n--Si, et pire que cela. Il va enlever une grosse h\u00e9riti\u00e8re dans une\npension.\n\n--Quel dragon! dit Sam, en remplissant encore le verre de son camarade.\nC'est quelque pension de cette ville, je suppose?\u00bb\n\nCette question fut faite du ton le plus indiff\u00e9rent qu'on puisse\nimaginer. Cependant M. Job Trotter montra clairement, par ses mani\u00e8res,\nqu'il remarquait avec quelle anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 son nouvel ami attendait sa\nr\u00e9ponse. Il vida son verre, regarda myst\u00e9rieusement Sam Weller, cligna\nl'un apr\u00e8s l'autre chacun de ses petits yeux, et finalement fit avec sa\nmain le geste de manier une pompe imaginaire, donnant \u00e0 entendre par l\u00e0\nqu'il consid\u00e9rait son compagnon comme trop d\u00e9sireux de pomper ses\nsecrets.\n\n\u00abNon, non, observa-t-il, en conclusion. Cela ne se dit pas \u00e0 tout le\nmonde. C'est un secret; un grand secret, M. Walker.\u00bb\n\nEn pronon\u00e7ant ces paroles, l'homme violet retourna son verre sens dessus\ndessous, afin de faire remarquer ing\u00e9nieusement \u00e0 son compagnon qu'il\nn'y restait plus rien pour assouvir sa soif. Sam comprit l'apologue; il\nen appr\u00e9cia la d\u00e9licatesse, et ordonna de remplir, sur nouveaux frais,\nle vase d'\u00e9tain. Cet ordre fit briller de plaisir les petits yeux de\nl'homme violet.\n\n\u00abAinsi donc, c'est un secret? reprit Sam.\n\n--Je l'imagine comme cela, r\u00e9pliqua l'autre en sirotant sa liqueur avec\ncomplaisance.\n\n--Je suppose que votre ma\u00eetre est un richard?\u00bb\n\nM. Trotter sourit, et, tenant son verre de la main gauche, il donna,\navec sa main droite, quatre tapes distinctes sur le gousset de sa\nculotte violette, comme pour faire entendre que son ma\u00eetre aurait pu\nagir de m\u00eame sans alarmer personne par le bruit de son argent.\n\n\u00abAh! reprit Sam, voil\u00e0 l'histoire?\u00bb\n\nL'homme violet baissa la t\u00eate d'une mani\u00e8re significative.\n\n\u00abEt est-ce que vous n'imaginez pas, mon vieux, que vous seriez une\nfameuse canaille si vous laissiez votre ma\u00eetre empoigner cette jeune\ndemoiselle?\n\n--Je sais cela, r\u00e9pliqua Job Trotter, en soupirant profond\u00e9ment et en\ntournant vers son interlocuteur un visage plein de contrition. Je sais\ncela, et c'est ce qui p\u00e8se sur mon esprit; mais qu'est-ce que je peux\nfaire?\n\n--Faire? s'\u00e9cria Sam, chanter \u00e0 la ma\u00eetresse et enfoncer votre ma\u00eetre.\n\n--Qui est-ce qui me croirait? La jeune lady est regard\u00e9e comme un mod\u00e8le\nde prudence et de discr\u00e9tion; elle dirait que non, et mon ma\u00eetre aussi.\nQui est-ce qui me croirait? Je perdrais ma place et je me verrais\npoursuivi comme diffamateur ou quelque chose comme \u00e7a. Voil\u00e0 tout ce que\nj'y gagnerais.\n\n--Il y a du vrai, dit Sam en ruminant; il y a du vrai dans ce que vous\ndites l\u00e0.\n\n--Si je connaissais quelque respectable gentleman qui voul\u00fbt se charger\nde l'affaire, je pourrais esp\u00e9rer d'emp\u00eacher l'enl\u00e8vement. Mais il y a\nla m\u00eame difficult\u00e9, monsieur Walker; juste la m\u00eame. Je ne connais pas de\ngentleman respectable en ce pays, et si j'en connaissais un, il y a dix\n\u00e0 parier contre un qu'il ne croirait pas mon r\u00e9cit.\n\n--Venez par ici, cria Sam, en se levant tout d'un coup et en saisissant\nson compagnon par le bras. Mon ma\u00eetre est l'homme qu'il vous faut.\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s une l\u00e9g\u00e8re r\u00e9sistance, Job Trotter fut conduit dans l'appartement\nde M. Pickwick, et lui fut pr\u00e9sent\u00e9, avec un court sommaire du dialogue\nque nous venons de rapporter.\n\n\u00abJe suis bien f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de trahir mon ma\u00eetre, monsieur, dit Job Trotter, en\nappliquant \u00e0 son oeil un mouchoir rouge d'environ trois pouces carr\u00e9s.\n\n--Ce sentiment vous fait beaucoup d'honneur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick.\nMais, cependant, c'est votre devoir....\n\n--Je sais que c'est mon devoir, monsieur, reprit Job avec une grande\n\u00e9motion. Nous devons tous nous efforcer de remplir nos devoirs,\nmonsieur, et je m'efforce humblement de remplir les miens, monsieur.\nMais c'est une dure \u00e9preuve de trahir un ma\u00eetre, monsieur, dont vous\nportez les habits, dont vous mangez le pain, m\u00eame quand c'est un coquin,\nmonsieur.\n\n--Vous \u00eates un brave gar\u00e7on, dit M. Pickwick fort affect\u00e9, un honn\u00eate\ngar\u00e7on.\n\n--Allons! allons! observa Sam, qui avait vu avec beaucoup d'impatience\nles larmes de M. Trotter; assez d'arrosage comme \u00e7a; \u00e7a n'est bon \u00e0\nrien.\n\n--Sam, reprit M. Pickwick d'un ton de reproche, je suis f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de voir\nque vous ayez si peu de respect pour les sentiments de ce jeune homme.\n\n--Ses sentiments sont tr\u00e8s-beaux, monsieur, et m\u00eames si beaux que c'est\nune piti\u00e9 qu'il les perde comme \u00e7a; et je pense qu'il ferait mieux de\nles garder dans son estomac que de les laisser \u00e9vaporiser en eau chaude,\nesp\u00e9cialement comme \u00e7a ne sert \u00e0 rien. Des larmes, \u00e7a n'a jamais servi \u00e0\nremonter une horloge ni \u00e0 faire marcher une machine. La premi\u00e8re fois\nque vous irez dans le monde, fourrez-vous \u00e7a dans la caboche, mon vieux;\net pour le pr\u00e9sent introduisez ce morceau de guingamp rouge dans votre\npoche. Il n'est pas assez beau pour le secouer comme \u00e7a en l'air, comme\nsi vous \u00e9tiez un danseur de corde.\n\n--Sam a raison, remarqua M. Pickwick, en s'adressant \u00e0 Job: Sam a\nraison, quoique sa mani\u00e8re de s'exprimer soit un peu commune et\nquelquefois incompr\u00e9hensible.\n\n--Il a tout \u00e0 fait raison, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua M. Trotter, et je ne\nc\u00e9derai pas davantage \u00e0 cette faiblesse.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, reprit notre sage; et maintenant, o\u00f9 est cette pension de\ndemoiselles?\n\n--C'est une vieille maison de briques rouges, tout juste en dehors de la\nville, monsieur.\n\n--Et quand ce perfide dessein sera-t-il ex\u00e9cut\u00e9? Quand est-ce que\nl'enl\u00e8vement doit avoir lieu?\n\n--Cette nuit, monsieur.\n\n--Cette nuit?\n\n--Cette nuit m\u00eame, monsieur. C'est ce qui me f\u00e2che tant.\n\n--Il faut prendre des mesures instantan\u00e9es. Je vais voir imm\u00e9diatement\nla dame qui dirige l'\u00e9tablissement.\n\n--Je vous demande pardon, monsieur, mais cela ne servira \u00e0 rien.\n\n--Pourquoi donc?\n\n--Mon ma\u00eetre, monsieur, est un homme tr\u00e8s-artificieux.\n\n--Je le sais bien.\n\n--Et il s'est si bien entortill\u00e9 autour du coeur de la vieille dame\nqu'elle ne croirait rien \u00e0 son pr\u00e9judice, quand vous en feriez serment\nsur vos deux genoux. D'ailleurs vous n'avez pas d'autre preuve que la\nparole d'un domestique; mon ma\u00eetre ne manquera pas de dire qu'il m'a\nrenvoy\u00e9 pour quelque chose, et que je fais cela afin de me venger.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que nous pourrions donc faire, alors?\n\n--Rien ne pourra convaincre la vieille dame, monsieur, si elle ne le\nprend pas sur le fait de l'enl\u00e8vement.\n\n--Ces vieilles mules-l\u00e0, interposa Sam, en guise de parenth\u00e8se, ces\nvieilles mules-l\u00e0, s'obstinent \u00e0 prendre des vessies pour des lanternes.\n\n--Mais, fit observer M. Pickwick, j'ai peur qu'il ne soit infiniment\ndifficile de le prendre sur le fait.\n\n--Je ne sais pas, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Job apr\u00e8s un instant de r\u00e9flexion;\nil me semble que cela pourrait se faire tr\u00e8s-ais\u00e9ment.\n\n--Comment cela?\n\n--Voyez-vous, mon ma\u00eetre a gagn\u00e9 les deux servantes, et elles doivent\nnous introduire dans la cuisine, ce soir, \u00e0 dix heures. Quand toute la\nmaison se sera retir\u00e9e pour dormir, nous sortirons de la cuisine, et\nalors la jeune personne descendra de sa chambre; il y aura une chaise de\nposte, et en route!\n\n--Eh bien? fit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Eh bien! monsieur; je crois que si vous nous attendiez dans le jardin,\ntout seul....\n\n--Tout seul! Pourquoi tout seul?\n\n--Je pensais que la vieille demoiselle n'aimerait pas qu'une d\u00e9couverte\naussi d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able se f\u00eet devant beaucoup de monde; et puis la jeune\nlady, monsieur, consid\u00e9rez sa confusion!...\n\n--Vous avez tout \u00e0 fait raison. Cette r\u00e9flexion montre une grande\nd\u00e9licatesse de sentiments. Poursuivez; vous avez raison....\n\n--Eh bien! monsieur; je pensais donc que si vous attendiez tout seul\ndans le jardin, je pourrais vous introduire dans la maison, \u00e0 onze\nheures et demie pr\u00e9cises, et qu'alors vous vous trouveriez juste \u00e0 temps\npour m'aider \u00e0 d\u00e9monter les projets de ce m\u00e9chant homme, par qui j'ai eu\nle malheur d'\u00eatre s\u00e9duit.\u00bb\n\nIci. M. Trotter soupira profond\u00e9ment.\n\n\u00abNe vous tourmentez pas de cela, dit M. Pickwick; s'il avait un grain de\nla probit\u00e9 qui vous distingue, malgr\u00e9 votre humble condition, je ne\nd\u00e9sesp\u00e9rerais pas de lui.\u00bb\n\nJob salua tr\u00e8s-bas, et, en d\u00e9pit des pr\u00e9c\u00e9dentes remontrances de Sam,\nses yeux se remplirent de larmes.\n\n\u00abJe n'ai jamais vu un pleurard comme \u00e7a, dit Sam. Dieu me pardonne, s'il\nn'a pas un robinet toujours ouvert dans la t\u00eate!\n\n--Sam! dit M. Pickwick avec une grande s\u00e9v\u00e9rit\u00e9, retenez votre langue.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Je n'aime pas ce plan, poursuivit notre philosophe apr\u00e8s une profonde\nm\u00e9ditation. Pourquoi ne pas communiquer avec les amis de la jeune\npersonne?\n\n--Parce qu'ils habitent \u00e0 cinquante lieues d'ici, monsieur.\n\n--Il n'y a rien \u00e0 r\u00e9pondre \u00e0 \u00e7a, remarqua Sam, \u00e0 part.\n\n--Ensuite, ce jardin, reprit M. Pickwick, comment y entrerai-je?\n\n--Le mur est tr\u00e8s-bas, monsieur, et votre domestique vous fera la courte\n\u00e9chelle.\n\n--Mon domestique me fera la courte \u00e9chelle, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta machinalement M.\nPickwick, et vous ne manquerez pas de m'ouvrir la porte de la maison?...\n\n--Vous ne pouvez pas vous tromper, monsieur. Il n'y a qu'une porte dans\nle jardin; tapez-y quand vous entendrez sonner l'horloge, et je vous\nouvrirai sur-le-champ.\n\n--Je n'aime pas ce plan, redit M. Pickwick; mais il faut bien l'adopter,\ncar je n'en vois pas d'autre, et il s'agit du bonheur de cette jeune\npersonne, pour toute sa vie. J'y irai, soyez-en s\u00fbr.\u00bb\n\nAinsi, pour la seconde fois, la bont\u00e9 naturelle de M. Pickwick\nl'entra\u00eena dans une entreprise, dont son excellent jugement l'aurait\nd\u00e9tourn\u00e9.\n\n\u00abComment s'appelle la maison? demanda-t-il.\n\n--Westgate-House, monsieur. Vous tournez un peu \u00e0 droite quand vous\narrivez au bout de la ville; la maison est isol\u00e9e, \u00e0 une petite distance\nde la route, et son nom est sur une plaque de cuivre, sur la porte.\n\n--Je le sais r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick; j'avais remarqu\u00e9 cette maison la\npremi\u00e8re fois que j'ai visit\u00e9 cette ville. Vous pouvez compter sur moi.\u00bb\n\nM. Trotter salua et se d\u00e9tourna pour partir. M. Pickwick lui mit une\ngain\u00e9e dans la main.\n\n\u00abVous \u00eates un brave gar\u00e7on, lui dit-il, et j'admire la bont\u00e9 de votre\ncoeur. Pas de remerc\u00eements. Souvenez-vous: onze heures et demie.\n\n--Il n'y a pas de danger que je l'oublie, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Job\nTrotter, et il quitta la chambre.\n\n--Camarade, lui dit Sam, qui l'avait suivi, ce n'est pas une mauvaise\nchose, cette pleurnicherie. Je voudrais pleurer comme une goutti\u00e8re dans\nune averse, \u00e0 ce prix-l\u00e0. Comment donc que vous faites?\n\n--Cela vient du coeur, monsieur Walker, r\u00e9pondit Job solennellement. Je\nvous souhaite le bonjour.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 un gaillard facile \u00e0 \u00e9mouvoir, pensa Sam Weller en le voyant\ns'\u00e9loigner. C'est \u00e9gal, nous lui avons tir\u00e9 les vers du nez, toujours.\u00bb\n\nNous ne pouvons pas dire pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment quelles \u00e9taient les pens\u00e9es qui\noccupaient l'esprit de M. Trotter, attendu que nous n'en savons rien du\ntout.\n\nCependant le jour s'\u00e9coula, le soir vint, et, un peu avant dix heures,\nSam rapporta \u00e0 son ma\u00eetre que M. Jingle et Job \u00e9taient sortis ensemble,\nque leurs bagages \u00e9taient empaquet\u00e9s, et qu'ils avaient command\u00e9 une\nchaise. Le complot \u00e9tait \u00e9videmment en voie d'ex\u00e9cution, comme M.\nTrotter l'avait pr\u00e9dit.\n\nDix heures et demie arriv\u00e8rent. C'\u00e9tait l'instant o\u00f9 M. Pickwick devait\npartir pour sa d\u00e9licate entreprise. Afin de ne pas \u00eatre embarrass\u00e9 pour\nescalader le mur, il refusa le pardessus que lui offrait Sam, et sortit,\nsuivi de ce fid\u00e8le serviteur.\n\nLa lune \u00e9tait sur l'horizon, mais cach\u00e9e derri\u00e8re des nuages, la nuit\n\u00e9tait belle et s\u00e8che, mais singuli\u00e8rement sombre; les sentiers, les\nhaies, les champs, les maisons et les arbres \u00e9taient envelopp\u00e9s d'une\nombre \u00e9paisse; l'atmosph\u00e8re \u00e9tait lourde et br\u00fblante; des \u00e9clairs de\nchaleur illuminaient de temps en temps les nuages, et c'\u00e9tait la seule\nchose qui anim\u00e2t un peu la triste obscurit\u00e9 dont la terre \u00e9tait\ncouverte; aucun son ne se faisait entendre, except\u00e9 l'aboiement \u00e9loign\u00e9\nde quelque chien inquiet.\n\nNos aventuriers trouv\u00e8rent la maison, reconnurent l'inscription de\ncuivre, firent le tour du mur, et s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent vers le fond du jardin.\n\n\u00abSam, dit M. Pickwick, vous retournerez \u00e0 l'auberge quand vous m'aurez\naid\u00e9 \u00e0 monter par-dessus le mur.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur.\n\n--Et vous m'attendrez.\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\n\n--Prenez ma jambe, et quand je dirai: _haut!_ \u00e9levez-moi doucement.\n\n--Me voil\u00e0 pr\u00eat, monsieur....\u00bb\n\nAyant arrang\u00e9 ces pr\u00e9liminaires, M. Pickwick empoigna le sommet du mur,\net donna la mot _haut!_ qui fut ob\u00e9i tr\u00e8s-litt\u00e9ralement; car, soit que\nson corps particip\u00e2t en quelque degr\u00e9 de l'\u00e9lasticit\u00e9 de son esprit,\nsoit que les id\u00e9es de Sam sur une _douce \u00e9l\u00e9vation_ ne fussent pas\nexactement les m\u00eames que celles de son ma\u00eetre, l'effet imm\u00e9diat de son\nassistance fut de le jeter par-dessus le mur. Apr\u00e8s avoir \u00e9cras\u00e9 trois\nframboisiers et un rosier, cet immortel gentleman descendit enfin de\ntoute sa longueur sur la terre.\n\n\u00abVous ne vous \u00eates pas bless\u00e9, monsieur? demanda Sam, aussit\u00f4t qu'il fut\nrevenu de la surprise que lui avait caus\u00e9e la myst\u00e9rieuse disparition du\nphilosophe.\n\n--Non, certainement, je ne me suis pas bless\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci, de\nl'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 du mur. Je croirais plut\u00f4t que c'est vous qui m'avez\nbless\u00e9, Sam.\n\n--J'esp\u00e8re que non, monsieur!\n\n--Ne vous tourmentez point, reprit notre sage en se relevant; ce n'est\nrien... quelques \u00e9gratignures.... Allez vous-en, car nous serions\nentendus.\n\n--Bonne chance, monsieur.\n\n--Bonsoir.\u00bb\n\nSam s'\u00e9loigna donc doucement, laissant M. Pickwick seul dans le jardin.\n\nDes lumi\u00e8res se montraient de temps en temps aux diff\u00e9rentes fen\u00eatres du\nb\u00e2timent, ou passaient dans les escaliers, comme pour indiquer que les\npensionnaires se retiraient dans leurs chambres. N'ayant nulle envie\nd'approcher de la porte avant l'heure fix\u00e9e, M. Pickwick se blottit dans\nun angle du mur pour attendre qu'elle arriv\u00e2t.\n\nIl \u00e9tait alors dans une position qui aurait abattu l'audace de bien des\nh\u00e9ros, et cependant il ne ressentit ni inqui\u00e9tude ni d\u00e9couragement: il\nsavait que son dessein \u00e9tait honorable, et il se confiait, sans nulle\nh\u00e9sitation, aux nobles sentiments de Job Trotter. La situation \u00e9tait\ntriste certainement, pour ne pas dire accablante; mais un esprit\ncontemplatif peut toujours se distraire par la m\u00e9ditation. A force de\nm\u00e9diter, M. Pickwick \u00e9tait tomb\u00e9 dans une sorte d'assoupissement,\nlorsqu'il en fut tir\u00e9 par l'horloge de l'\u00e9glise voisine, qui sonnaient\nonze heures et demie.\n\n\u00abVoici le moment,\u00bb pensa-t-il, en se mettant avec pr\u00e9caution sur ses\npieds. Il examina la maison: les lumi\u00e8res avaient disparu, les volets\n\u00e9taient ferm\u00e9s; tout le monde \u00e9tait au lit, sans aucun doute. Il\ns'avan\u00e7a \u00e0 pas de loup vers la porte, et frappa doucement. Deux ou trois\nminutes s'\u00e9taient pass\u00e9es sans r\u00e9ponse, il frappa un autre coup plus\nfort, puis un autre plus fort encore.\n\nA la fin, un bruit de pas se fit entendre dans l'escalier; la lumi\u00e8re\nd'une chandelle brilla \u00e0 travers le trou de la serrure; des barres, des\nverrous furent tir\u00e9s, et la porte s'ouvrit lentement.\n\nLa porte s'ouvrit lentement, et \u00e0 mesure qu'elle s'ouvrait de plus en\nplus, M. Pickwick se retirait de plus en plus derri\u00e8re elle. Il allongea\nla t\u00eate avec pr\u00e9caution pour reconna\u00eetre la personne qui s'avan\u00e7ait;\nmais quel fut son \u00e9tonnement lorsqu'il aper\u00e7ut, au lieu de Job Trotter,\nune servante inconnue, qui tenait une chandelle dans sa main. M.\nPickwick retira sa t\u00eate avec la vivacit\u00e9 d\u00e9ploy\u00e9e par Polichinelle, cet\nadmirable com\u00e9dien, quand il craint d'\u00eatre d\u00e9couvert par le commissaire.\n\n\u00abSarah, dit la servante en s'adressant \u00e0 quelqu'un dans la maison, c'est\napparemment le chat. Minet! minet! petit! petit! petit!\u00bb\n\nAucun animal n'ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 attir\u00e9 par ces incantations, la servante\nreferma lentement la porte, et la reverrouilla, laissant M. Pickwick\naplati contre le mur.\n\n\u00abCeci est fort \u00e9trange, pensa-t-il avec tristesse. Elles veillent, \u00e0 ce\nque je suppose, plus tard qu'\u00e0 l'ordinaire. Il est bien malheureux\nqu'elles aient choisi pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment cette nuit-ci, extr\u00eamement\nmalheureux!\u00bb Tout en faisant ces r\u00e9flexions, M. Pickwick se retirait\navec pr\u00e9caution dans l'angle du mur, o\u00f9 il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 originairement\ncach\u00e9, r\u00e9solu d'attendre l\u00e0 assez longtemps pour pouvoir r\u00e9p\u00e9ter, sans\ndanger, son signal.\n\nIl y \u00e9tait \u00e0 peine depuis cinq minutes, lorsque la lueur \u00e9blouissante\nd'un \u00e9clair fut imm\u00e9diatement suivie d'un violent coup de tonnerre, qui\nfit retentir les cieux d'un \u00e9pouvantable roulement puis vint un autre\n\u00e9clair plus \u00e9blouissant que le premier; puis un autre coup de tonnerre,\nplus \u00e9pouvantable que le pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent; puis enfin arriva la pluie, plus\nterrible encore que les uns et les autres.\n\nM. Pickwick savait parfaitement qu'un arbre est un tr\u00e8s-dangereux voisin\npendant un orage: or, il avait un arbre \u00e0 sa droite, un autre \u00e0 sa\ngauche, un troisi\u00e8me devant lui, un quatri\u00e8me derri\u00e8re. S'il restait o\u00f9\nil \u00e9tait, il risquait d'\u00eatre foudroy\u00e9; s'il se montrait au milieu du\njardin, il pouvait \u00eatre saisi et livr\u00e9 aux constables. Une ou deux fois\nil essaya d'escalader le mur; mais, n'ayant alors aucun aide, le seul\nr\u00e9sultat de ses efforts fut de mettre toute sa personne dans un \u00e9tat de\ntranspiration abondante, et d'op\u00e9rer sur ses genoux et sur les os de ses\njambes une infinit\u00e9 d'\u00e9gratignures.\n\n\u00abQuelle \u00e9pouvantable situation!\u00bb se dit-il \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame, en s'arr\u00eatant\napr\u00e8s cet exercice pour essuyer son front et pour frotter ses genoux. En\nm\u00eame temps, il regardait vers la maison, et n'y voyant plus de lumi\u00e8re,\nil se flatta que tout le monde serait couch\u00e9; il r\u00e9solut donc de r\u00e9p\u00e9ter\nson signal.\n\nIl marche sur la pointe du pied, dans le sable humide; il frappe \u00e0 la\nporte; il retient son haleine; il \u00e9coute \u00e0 travers le trou de la\nserrure. Pas de r\u00e9ponse. C'est singulier. Un autre coup. Il \u00e9coute de\nnouveau; un chuchotement se fait entendre dans l'int\u00e9rieur, et une voix\ncrie ensuite:\n\n\u00abQui va l\u00e0?\n\n--Ce n'est pas Job, pensa M. Pickwick en s'aplatissant contre le mur.\nC'est une voix de femme.\u00bb\n\nA peine \u00e9tait-il arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 cette conclusion, qu'une fen\u00eatre du premier\n\u00e9tage s'ouvrit, et trois ou quatre voix de femmes r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e8rent la\nquestion: \u00abQui est l\u00e0?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick n'osa pas bouger. Il \u00e9tait clair que toute la maison \u00e9tait\nr\u00e9veill\u00e9e. Il r\u00e9solut de rester o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait jusqu'\u00e0 ce que l'alarme f\u00fbt\napais\u00e9e, et ensuite de faire un effort surnaturel, d'escalader le mur,\nou de p\u00e9rir dans cette noble entreprise.\n\nComme toutes les r\u00e9solutions de M. Pickwick, celle-ci \u00e9tait la meilleure\nqu'il p\u00fbt prendre dans les circonstances donn\u00e9es; mais malheureusement\nelle \u00e9tait fond\u00e9e sur l'hypoth\u00e8se que les habitants de la maison\nn'oseraient point rouvrir la porte. Quel fut donc son d\u00e9sappointement\nlorsqu'il entendit tirer barres et verrous, et lorsqu'il vit la porte\ns'entre-b\u00e2iller lentement, mais de plus en plus. Il fit retraite, pas \u00e0\npas, jusqu'aupr\u00e8s des gonds; mais ce fut en vain qu'il s'effa\u00e7a contre\nle mur: l'interposition de sa personne emp\u00eachait la porte de s'ouvrir\ntout \u00e0 fait.\n\n\u00abQui est l\u00e0?\u00bb s'\u00e9cria, de l'escalier, un choeur nombreux de voix de\nsoprano. C'\u00e9taient la vieille demoiselle, ma\u00eetresse de l'\u00e9tablissement,\ntrois sous-ma\u00eetresses, cinq domestiques femelles, et trente\npensionnaires, toutes \u00e0 demi-v\u00eatues, toutes ombrag\u00e9es d'une for\u00eat de\npapillotes.\n\nComme on s'en doute bien, M. Pickwick ne r\u00e9pondit point _qui \u00e9tait l\u00e0_,\net alors le refrain du choeur fut chang\u00e9 en celui-ci: \u00abMon Dieu! mon\nDieu! comme j'ai peur!\n\n--Cuisini\u00e8re, dit la vieille demoiselle, qui avait pris soin de rester\nau haut de l'escalier, la derni\u00e8re du groupe; cuisini\u00e8re, pourquoi\nn'avancez-vous pas dans le jardin?\n\n--Si vous pla\u00eet, ma'ame, je n'en avons pas envie.\n\n--Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! que cette cuisini\u00e8re est stupide! s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent les\ntrente pensionnaires.\n\n--Cuisini\u00e8re! reprit la vieille demoiselle avec grande dignit\u00e9, ne me\nraisonnez pas, s'il vous pla\u00eet. Je vous ordonne de regarder dans le\njardin, sur-le-champ.\u00bb\n\nIci la cuisini\u00e8re commen\u00e7a \u00e0 pleurer: la servante dit que c'\u00e9tait une\nhonte de la traiter ainsi, et pour cet acte de r\u00e9bellion elle re\u00e7ut son\ncong\u00e9 sur la place.\n\n\u00abCuisini\u00e8re! entendez-vous? cria la vieille demoiselle en frappant du\npied avec col\u00e8re.\n\n--Cuisini\u00e8re! entendez-vous votre ma\u00eetresse? cri\u00e8rent les trois\nsous-ma\u00eetresses.\n\n--Cette cuisini\u00e8re est-elle impudente!\u00bb cri\u00e8rent les trente\npensionnaires.\n\nL'infortun\u00e9e cuisini\u00e8re, ainsi pouss\u00e9e en avant, fit un pas ou deux en\nayant soin de tenir sa chandelle de mani\u00e8re qu'il lui f\u00fbt impossible de\nrien apercevoir. Elle d\u00e9clara donc qu'elle ne voyait rien dans le\njardin, et que ce devait \u00eatre le vent.\n\nLa porte allait se refermer, en cons\u00e9quence, lorsqu'une pensionnaire\ncurieuse s'\u00e9tant hasard\u00e9e \u00e0 regarder entre les gonds, jeta un cri\neffroyable qui fit rentrer en un clin d'oeil la cuisini\u00e8re, la servante\net les plus aventureuses.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qui est donc arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 miss Smithers? demanda la vieille\ndemoiselle, tandis que ladite miss Smithers tombait dans une attaque de\nnerfs de la puissance de quatre jeunes ladies.\n\n--Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! ch\u00e8re miss Smithers! dirent les vingt-neuf autres\npensionnaires.\n\n--Oh! l'homme! l'homme derri\u00e8re la porte!\u00bb cria miss Smithers d'une\nvoix entrecoup\u00e9e.\n\nAussit\u00f4t que la vieille demoiselle eut entendu ces mots effrayants, elle\nbattit en retraite jusque dans sa chambre \u00e0 coucher, ferma la porta \u00e0\ndouble tour, et se trouva mal tout \u00e0 son aise. Cependant les\npensionnaires, les sous-ma\u00eetresses, les servantes se pr\u00e9cipitaient sur\nl'escalier, les unes par-dessus les autres; et jamais on n'avait vu tant\nde bousculades, tant d'\u00e9vanouissements, tant de cris. Au milieu du\ntumulte, M. Pickwick sortit de sa cachette et se pr\u00e9senta devant ces\ncolombes effarouch\u00e9es.\n\n\u00abLadies! ch\u00e8res ladies! leur dit-il.\n\n--Oh! Il nous appelle _ch\u00e8res_, cria la plus laide et la plus vieille\ndes sous-ma\u00eetresses. Dieux! le mis\u00e9rable!\n\n--Ladies! vocif\u00e9ra M. Pickwick, devenu d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9 par le danger de sa\nsituation. \u00c9coutez-moi! je ne suis point un voleur! Tout ce que je veux,\nc'est la ma\u00eetresse de la maison!\n\n--Oh! quel monstre f\u00e9roce! s'\u00e9cria une autre sous-ma\u00eetresse. Il en veut\n\u00e0 miss Tomkins!\u00bb\n\nIci les g\u00e9missements devinrent universels.\n\n--Sonnez la cloche d'alarme! dirent une douzaine de voix.\n\n--Non! non! cria M. Pickwick, regardez-moi! ai-je l'air d'un voleur? Mes\nch\u00e8res dames, vous pouvez m'attacher, m'enfermer, pieds et poings li\u00e9s,\ndans un cabinet, si cela vous fait plaisir. Seulement \u00e9coutez ce que\nj'ai \u00e0 dire! seulement \u00e9coutez-moi!\n\n--Comment \u00eates-vous entr\u00e9 dans notre jardin? balbutia la servante.\n\n--Appelez la ma\u00eetresse de la maison, et je lui dirai tout, tout!\ncontinua M. Pickwick de toutes les forces de ses poumons. Appelez-la\ndonc; seulement soyez calmes, et appelez-la: vous entendrez tout!\u00bb\n\n\u00c9tait-ce gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 la figure de M. Pickwick, ou \u00e0 son \u00e9loquence, ou \u00e0 la\ntentation irr\u00e9sistible pour des esprits f\u00e9minins d'entendre quelque\nchose de myst\u00e9rieux? nous l'ignorons; mais les femelles les plus\nraisonnables de l'\u00e9tablissement, au nombre d'environ quatre ou cinq,\nparvinrent enfin \u00e0 recouvrer une tranquillit\u00e9 comparative. Elles\npropos\u00e8rent \u00e0 M. Pickwick de se soumettre imm\u00e9diatement \u00e0 une contrainte\npersonnelle, afin de prouver sa sinc\u00e9rit\u00e9: il y consentit, et, pour\nobtenir de conf\u00e9rer avec miss Tomkins, il entra spontan\u00e9ment dans le\ncabinet o\u00f9 les externes pendaient leurs bonnets et leurs sacs durant\nles classes. Lorsqu'il y fut soigneusement renferm\u00e9, les brebis\neffray\u00e9es commenc\u00e8rent peu \u00e0 peu \u00e0 reprendre courage. Miss Tomkins fut\ntir\u00e9e de son \u00e9vanouissement et de sa chambre; ses acolytes l'apport\u00e8rent\nau rez-de-chauss\u00e9e, et la conf\u00e9rence commen\u00e7a.\n\n\u00abEh bien! l'homme, dit miss Tomkins d'une voix faible, que faisiez-vous\ndans mon jardin?\n\n--Je venais pour vous avertir qu'une de vos jeunes demoiselles doit\ns'\u00e9chapper cette nuit, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick de l'int\u00e9rieur du cabinet.\n\n--S'\u00e9chapper! s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent miss Tomkins, les trois sous-ma\u00eetresses et les\ntrente pensionnaires. Et avec qui?\n\n--Avec votre ami, M. Charles Fitz-Marshall.\n\n--_Mon_ ami! je ne connais personne de ce nom.\n\n--Eh bien! M. Jingle alors.\n\n--Je n'ai jamais entendu ce nom de ma vie.\n\n--Alors j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 tromp\u00e9! abus\u00e9! dit M. Pickwick; j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 la victime\nd'un complot, d'un l\u00e2che et vil complot! Envoyez \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel de l'Ange, ma\nch\u00e8re madame, si vous ne me croyez pas. Je vous en supplie, madame,\nenvoyez \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel de l'Ange, et faites demander le domestique de M.\nPickwick.\n\n--Il para\u00eet que c'est un homme respectable, puisqu'il garde un\ndomestique! dit miss Tomkins \u00e0 la ma\u00eetresse d'\u00e9criture et de calcul.\n\n--J'imagine plut\u00f4t, r\u00e9pondit celle-ci, que c'est son domestique qui le\ngarde. Je pense qu'il est fou, miss Tomkins, et que l'autre est son\ngardien.\n\n--Je crois que vous avez raison, miss Gwynn, r\u00e9pondit la vieille\ndemoiselle. Il faut que deux des servantes aillent \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel de l'Ange,\net que les autres restent ici pour nous prot\u00e9ger.\u00bb\n\nDeux des servantes furent en cons\u00e9quence d\u00e9p\u00each\u00e9es \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel de l'Ange,\nen qu\u00eate de M. Samuel Weller, tandis que les trois autres rest\u00e8rent pour\nprot\u00e9ger miss Tomkins, les trois sous-ma\u00eetresses et les trente\npensionnaires. M. Pickwick s'assit par terre, dans le cabinet, et\nattendit le retour des deux messagers avec toute la philosophie, tout le\ncourage qu'il put appeler \u00e0 son aide.\n\nUne heure et demie s'\u00e9coul\u00e8rent dans cette p\u00e9nible situation, et lorsque\nles deux servantes revinrent enfin, M. Pickwick reconnut, outre la voix\nde Samuel Weller, deux autres voix dont l'accent paraissait familier \u00e0\nson oreille, mais dont il n'aurait pas pu deviner les propri\u00e9taires,\nquand il se serait agi de sa vie.\n\nUne courte conf\u00e9rence s'ensuivit; la porte fut ouverte; M. Pickwick\nsortit du cabinet et se trouva en pr\u00e9sence de toute la pension, de Sam\nWeller, du vieux M. Wardle et de son futur gendre.\n\n\u00abMon cher ami! dit M. Pickwick en se pr\u00e9cipitant vers M. Wardle et en\nsaisissant ses mains; mon cher ami! au nom du ciel! expliquez \u00e0 ces\ndames la malheureuse, l'horrible situation dans laquelle je me trouve\nplac\u00e9. Vous devez l'avoir apprise de mon domestique. Dites-leur \u00e0 tout\nhasard, mon cher camarade, que je ne suis ni un brigand, ni un fou.\n\n--Je l'ai dit, mon cher ami, je l'ai dit, r\u00e9pliqua M. Wardle en secouant\nla main droite du philosophe, tandis que M. Trundle secouait sa main\ngauche.\n\n--Et ceux qui disent, ou bien qui ont dit qu'il l'\u00e9tait, s'\u00e9cria Sam en\ns'avan\u00e7ant au milieu de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9, ils disent quelque chose qui n'est\npas vrai, mais au contraire qu'est tout \u00e0 fait l'opposite. Et s'il y a\nici des hommes, n'importe combien, qui disent \u00e7a, je leur y donnerai une\npreuve convaincante du contraire, dans cette m\u00eame chambre ici, si ces\ntr\u00e8s-respectables ladies veulent avoir la bont\u00e9 de se retirer et de\nfaire monter leurs hommes, un \u00e0 un.\u00bb Ayant exprim\u00e9 ce d\u00e9fi chevaleresque\navec une grande volubilit\u00e9, Sam Weller frappa \u00e9nergiquement la paume de\nsa main avec son poing ferm\u00e9, et regarda miss Tomkins d'un air gracieux\net en clignant de l'oeil. Mais la galanterie de Sam ne produisit aucun\neffet sur cette vertueuse personne, qui avait entendu avec une horreur\nindicible la supposition, implicitement exprim\u00e9e, qu'il pouvait se\ntrouver _des hommes_ dans l'enceinte d'une pension de demoiselles.\n\nL'apologie de M. Pickwick fut bient\u00f4t termin\u00e9e, mais on ne put tirer de\nlui aucune parole, ni pendant son retour \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel, ni lorsqu'il fut\nassis, avec ses amis, entre un bon feu et le souper dont il avait tant\nbesoin. Il semblait \u00e9tourdi, stup\u00e9fi\u00e9. Une fois, une fois seulement, il\nse tourna vers M. Wardle et lui demanda:\n\n\u00abComment \u00eates-vous venu ici?\n\n--J'avais arrang\u00e9, pour le premier du mois, une partie de chasse avec\nTrundle. Nous sommes arriv\u00e9s cette nuit, et avons \u00e9t\u00e9 fort \u00e9tonn\u00e9s\nd'apprendre que vous \u00e9tiez dans ce pays. Mais je suis charm\u00e9 de vous y\nvoir, continua l'enjou\u00e9 vieillard en frappant M. Pickwick sur le dos; je\nsuis charm\u00e9 de vous y voir; nous aurons une partie de chasse au premier\njour, et nous donnerons \u00e0 Winkle une autre chance. N'est-ce pas, vieux\ncamarade?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick ne r\u00e9pondit point. Il ne demanda pas m\u00eame des nouvelles de\nses amis de Dingley-Dell; et peu apr\u00e8s il se retira pour la nuit, apr\u00e8s\navoir ordonn\u00e9 \u00e0 Sam de venir prendre sa chandelle lorsqu'il sonnerait.\n\nAu bout d'un certain temps, la sonnette retentit, et Sam Weller se\npr\u00e9senta devant son ma\u00eetre.\n\n\u00abSam! dit M. Pickwick en \u00e9cartant un peu ses draps, pour le regarder.\n\n--Monsieur?\u00bb r\u00e9pondit Sam.\n\nM. Pickwick fit une pause, et Sam moucha la chandelle.\n\n\u00abSam! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick avec un effort d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9.\n\n--Monsieur? r\u00e9pondit Sam de nouveau.\n\n--O\u00f9 est ce Trotter?\n\n--Job, monsieur?\n\n--Oui.\n\n--Parti, monsieur.\n\n--Avec son ma\u00eetre, je suppose.\n\n--Son ma\u00eetre ou son ami, ou son je ne sais quoi. Ils sont fil\u00e9s\nensemble. \u00c7a fait un joli couple, monsieur.\n\n--Jingle aura soup\u00e7onn\u00e9 mon projet, et vous aura d\u00e9tach\u00e9 ce fripon-l\u00e0,\navec son histoire, reprit M. Pickwick, que ces paroles semblaient\n\u00e9touffer.\n\n--Juste la chose, monsieur.\n\n--N\u00e9cessairement c'\u00e9tait une invention.\n\n--D'un bout \u00e0 l'autre, monsieur. On nous a mis dedans. C'est adroit,\ntout de m\u00eame!\n\n--Je ne pense pas qu'ils nous \u00e9chappent aussi ais\u00e9ment la premi\u00e8re fois,\nSam?\n\n--Je ne le pense pas, monsieur.\n\n--En quelque lieu, en quelque endroit que je rencontre ce Jingle,\ns'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick en se levant sur son lit et en d\u00e9chargeant sur son\noreiller un coup terrible, je ne me contenterai point de le d\u00e9masquer,\ncomme il le m\u00e9rite si richement, mais je lui infligerai un ch\u00e2timent\npersonnel. Oui, je le ferai, ou mon nom n'est pas Pickwick.\n\n--Et quand j'attraperai une patte de ce pleurnichard-l\u00e0, avec sa\ntignasse noire, si je ne lui tire pas de l'eau r\u00e9elle de ses quinquets,\nmon nom n'est pas Weller!--Bonne nuit, monsieur.\u00bb\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XVII.\n\nMontrant qu'une attaque de rhumatisme peut quelquefois servir de\nstimulant \u00e0 un g\u00e9nie inventif.\n\n\nQuoique la constitution de M. Pickwick f\u00fbt capable de soutenir une somme\ntr\u00e8s-consid\u00e9rable de travaux et de fatigues, elle n'\u00e9tait cependant\npoint \u00e0 l'\u00e9preuve d'une combinaison de semblables assauts. Il est aussi\ndangereux que peu ordinaire d'\u00eatre lav\u00e9 \u00e0 l'air de la nuit, et d'\u00eatre\ns\u00e9ch\u00e9 ensuite dans un cabinet ferm\u00e9: M. Pickwick apprit cet aphorisme \u00e0\nses d\u00e9pens, et fut confin\u00e9 dans son lit par une attaque de rhumatisme.\n\nMais si les forces corporelles de ce grand homme \u00e9taient an\u00e9anties, il\nn'en conservait pas moins toute la vigueur, toute l'\u00e9lasticit\u00e9 de son\nesprit, toutes les gr\u00e2ces de sa bonne humeur. La vexation m\u00eame, caus\u00e9e\npar sa derni\u00e8re aventure, s'\u00e9tait enti\u00e8rement \u00e9vanouie, et il se\njoignait sans col\u00e8re et sans embarras au rire joyeux de M. Wardle,\nchaque fois qu'on faisait une allusion \u00e0 ce sujet. Pendant deux jours\nnotre philosophe fut retenu dans son lit et re\u00e7ut de son domestique les\nsoins les plus empress\u00e9s. Le premier jour, Sam s'effor\u00e7a de l'amuser en\nlui racontant une foule d'anecdotes; le second jour, M. Pickwick demanda\nson \u00e9critoire et fut profond\u00e9ment occup\u00e9 jusqu'\u00e0 la nuit. Le troisi\u00e8me\njour, se trouvant assez bien pour rester assis dans sa chambre, il\nd\u00e9p\u00eacha son valet \u00e0 M. Wardle et \u00e0 M. Trundle, pour les engager \u00e0 venir\nle soir prendre un verre de vin chez lui. L'invitation fut avidement\naccept\u00e9e, et lorsque la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 se trouva r\u00e9unie, en cons\u00e9quence, autour\nd'une table charg\u00e9e de verres, M. Pickwick, avec une modeste rougeur,\nproduisit la petite nouvelle suivante, comme ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 _\u00e9dit\u00e9e_ par\nlui-m\u00eame, durant sa r\u00e9cente indisposition, d'apr\u00e8s le r\u00e9cit non\nsophistiqu\u00e9 de Sam Weller.\n\nLE CLERC DE PAROISSE,\n\n_Histoire d'un v\u00e9ritable amour._\n\nIl y avait une fois, dans une toute petite ville de province, \u00e0 une\ndistance consid\u00e9rable de Londres, un petit homme nomm\u00e9 Nathaniel\nPipkin. Il \u00e9tait clerc de la paroisse, et habitait une petite maison,\ndans la petite Grande-Rue, \u00e0 dix minutes de chemin de la petite \u00e9glise.\nTous les jours, depuis neuf heures jusqu'\u00e0 quatre, on le trouvait en\ntrain d'enseigner \u00e0 des petits enfants une petite dose d'instruction.\nNathaniel Pipkin \u00e9tait un \u00eatre doux, bienveillant, inoffensif, avec un\nnez retrouss\u00e9, des jambes tant soit peu cagneuses, des yeux un peu\nlouches et une allure boiteuse. Il partageait son temps entre l'\u00e9glise\net son \u00e9cole, et il croyait fermement qu'il n'y avait pas dans le monde\nun homme aussi savant que le cur\u00e9, un appartement aussi imposant que la\nsacristie, une institution aussi bien tenue que la sienne. Une fois, et\nune fois seulement dans sa vie, Nathaniel Pipkin avait vu un \u00e9v\u00eaque, un\n\u00e9v\u00eaque v\u00e9ritable, avec ses bras dans des manches de linon et sa t\u00eate\ndans une perruque. Il l'avait vu marcher, il l'avait entendu parler,\nlors de la confirmation; et dans cette majestueuse c\u00e9r\u00e9monie, quand\nl'\u00e9v\u00eaque avait pos\u00e9 les mains sur la t\u00eate de Nathaniel Pipkin, celui-ci\navait \u00e9t\u00e9 tellement saisi d'une crainte respectueuse, qu'il avait\nenti\u00e8rement perdu connaissance et avait \u00e9t\u00e9 emport\u00e9, hors de l'\u00e9glise,\ndans les bras du bedeau.\n\nC'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 une \u00e8re importante, un \u00e9v\u00e9nement terrible dans la vie de\nnotre h\u00e9ros, et c'\u00e9tait le seul qui e\u00fbt jamais troubl\u00e9 le cours r\u00e9gulier\nde sa paisible existence, lorsqu'une apr\u00e8s-midi, comme il \u00e9tait occup\u00e9 \u00e0\nposer sur une ardoise un effroyable probl\u00e8me d'addition compos\u00e9e qu'il\nvoulait faire r\u00e9soudre par un coupable gamin, il s'avisa de lever les\nyeux, dans un acc\u00e8s d'abstraction mentale, et aper\u00e7ut \u00e0 une fen\u00eatre, de\nl'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la rue, le visage riant de Maria Lobbs. Maria Lobbs\n\u00e9tait la fille unique du vieux Lobbs, le grand sellier de la Grande-Rue.\nBien des fois d\u00e9j\u00e0, soit \u00e0 l'\u00e9glise, soit ailleurs, les yeux de M.\nPipkin s'\u00e9taient arr\u00eat\u00e9s sur la jolie figure de Maria Lobbs; mais les\nnoires prunelles de Maria Lobbs n'avaient jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 si brillantes, les\njoues de Maria Lobbs n'avaient jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 si fleuries que dans cette\noccasion particuli\u00e8re. Il \u00e9tait donc naturel que le ma\u00eetre d'\u00e9cole n'e\u00fbt\npas la force de d\u00e9tacher ses regards du visage de miss Lobbs; il \u00e9tait\nnaturel que miss Lobbs, en s'apercevant qu'elle \u00e9tait contempl\u00e9e par un\njeune homme, retir\u00e2t sa t\u00eate, ferm\u00e2t la crois\u00e9e et abaiss\u00e2t le store; il\n\u00e9tait naturel enfin que Nathaniel Pipkin, imm\u00e9diatement apr\u00e8s cela,\ntomb\u00e2t sur le coupable moutard et le giffl\u00e2t de tout son coeur. Tout cela\n\u00e9tait parfaitement naturel et n'avait absolument rien d'\u00e9tonnant.\n\nMais ce qu'il y a d'\u00e9tonnant, c'est qu'un homme d'un caract\u00e8re timide\net discret, comme Nathaniel Pipkin, un homme dont le revenu \u00e9tait si\nimperceptible, ait os\u00e9 aspirer, depuis ce jour, \u00e0 la main et au coeur de\nla fille unique de l'orgueilleux Lobbs, du grand sellier qui aurait pu\nacheter tout le village d'un trait de plume, sans se g\u00eaner en aucune\nfa\u00e7on; du vieux Lobbs, qui \u00e9tait connu pour avoir des tr\u00e9sors d\u00e9pos\u00e9s \u00e0\nla banque de la province et qui, suivant la voix publique, avait en\noutre des monceaux d'argent dans un petit coffre-fort de fer, plac\u00e9 sur\nle manteau de la chemin\u00e9e, dans l'arri\u00e8re-parloir; de Lobbs, qui, au vu\net au su de tout le village, garnissait sa table, les jours de f\u00eate,\navec une th\u00e9i\u00e8re, un pot \u00e0 cr\u00e8me et un sucrier de v\u00e9ritable argent,\nlesquels, comme il avait coutume de s'en vanter dans l'orgueil de son\ncoeur, devaient un jour devenir la propri\u00e9t\u00e9 de l'homme assez heureux\npour plaire \u00e0 sa fille. Je le r\u00e9p\u00e8te, on ne saurait suffisamment\ns'\u00e9tonner, s'\u00e9merveiller, que Nathaniel Pipkin jet\u00e2t ses regards dans\ncette direction; mais l'amour est aveugle et Nathaniel \u00e9tait louche: ces\ndeux circonstances r\u00e9unies l'emp\u00each\u00e8rent apparemment de voir les choses\nsous leur v\u00e9ritable point de vue.\n\nOr, si le vieux Lobbs avait pu soup\u00e7onner, le moins du monde, l'\u00e9tat des\naffections de Nathaniel Pipkin, il aurait fait raser l'\u00e9cole jusque dans\nses fondements, ou il aurait extermin\u00e9 le ma\u00eetre de la surface de la\nterre, ou il aurait commis quelque autre atrocit\u00e9 encore plus\nhyperbolique; car c'\u00e9tait un terrible vieillard que ce Lobbs, quand son\norgueil \u00e9tait bless\u00e9, quand sa col\u00e8re \u00e9tait excit\u00e9e; il jurait\nalors!!!--Quelquefois, quand il maudissait la paresse de son apprenti\naux jambes gr\u00eales, on entendait rouler jusque dans la rue un tonnerre\nretentissant de jurons, qui faisaient trembler d'horreur Nathaniel\nPipkin dans ses souliers, tandis que les cheveux de ses disciples\n\u00e9pouvant\u00e9s se dressaient sur leur t\u00eate.\n\nCependant, chaque soir\u00e9e, quand les devoirs \u00e9taient termin\u00e9s, quand les\n\u00e9l\u00e8ves \u00e9taient partis, Nathaniel Pipkin s'asseyait aupr\u00e8s de sa fen\u00eatre,\net faisant semblant de lire, il lan\u00e7ait de c\u00f4t\u00e9 des regards qui\ncherchaient \u00e0 rencontrer les yeux brillants de Maria Lobbs. O bonheur!\nquelques jours \u00e0 peine s'\u00e9taient \u00e9coul\u00e9s, lorsque ces yeux brillants\napparurent \u00e0 une fen\u00eatre du deuxi\u00e8me \u00e9tage, occup\u00e9s aussi, en apparence,\n\u00e0 lire attentivement. Quelle d\u00e9licieuse p\u00e2ture pour le coeur de Nathaniel\nPipkin! Quel plaisir de rester l\u00e0, ensemble, pendant des heures, et de\nconsid\u00e9rer ce joli visage tandis que ces yeux charmants \u00e9taient\nbaiss\u00e9s. Mais lorsque Maria Lobbs commen\u00e7a \u00e0 lever les yeux de son\nlivre, et \u00e0 darder leurs rayons dans la direction de Nathaniel Pipkin,\nses transports et son admiration ne connurent plus de bornes. A la fin,\nun beau jour, sachant que le vieux Lobbs \u00e9tait dehors, le ma\u00eetre d'\u00e9cole\neut la t\u00e9m\u00e9rit\u00e9 d'envoyer un baiser \u00e0 Maria Lobbs, et Maria Lobbs, au\nlieu de fermer la fen\u00eatre et de baisser le rideau, sourit et lui renvoya\nson baiser. Sur cela, et quoiqu'il en p\u00fbt arriver, Nathaniel Pipkin prit\nla r\u00e9solution de d\u00e9velopper \u00e0 Maria Lobbs, sans plus de d\u00e9lai, l'\u00e9tat de\nses sentiments.\n\nUn plus joli pied, un coeur plus gai, un visage plus riant, une taille\nplus gracieuse, ne pass\u00e8rent jamais sur la terre aussi l\u00e9g\u00e8rement que le\npied mignon, que le coeur d'or, que le visage heureux, que la taille\ns\u00e9duisante de Maria Lobbs, la fille du vieux sellier. Il y avait dans\nses yeux brillants une \u00e9tincelle de friponnerie qui aurait enflamm\u00e9 un\ncoeur bien moins susceptible que celui du ma\u00eetre d'\u00e9cole. Il y avait tant\nde gaiet\u00e9 dans le son contagieux de ses \u00e9clats de rire, que le plus\nfarouche misanthrope n'aurait pu s'emp\u00eacher de sourire en les entendant.\nLe vieux Lobbs lui-m\u00eame, au plus haut degr\u00e9 de sa f\u00e9rocit\u00e9, ne savait\npas r\u00e9sister aux c\u00e2lineries de sa jolie fille. Lorsqu'elle se mettait\napr\u00e8s lui (ce qui pour dire la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 arrivait assez souvent), et\nlorsqu'elle \u00e9tait second\u00e9e par sa cousine Kate, petite personne \u00e0 l'air\naga\u00e7ant, effront\u00e9, sc\u00e9l\u00e9rat, le pauvre bonhomme \u00e9tait incapable\nd'articuler un refus, m\u00eame si elles lui avaient demand\u00e9 une partie des\ntr\u00e9sors inou\u00efs entass\u00e9s dans son coffre-fort.\n\nPar une belle soir\u00e9e d'\u00e9t\u00e9, le coeur de Nathaniel Pipkin battit\nviolemment dans sa poitrine d'homme, lorsqu'il vit ce couple s\u00e9duisant\narriver dans le champ m\u00eame o\u00f9 tant de fois il s'\u00e9tait promen\u00e9, \u00e0 la\nbrune, en ruminant sur les beaut\u00e9s de Maria Lobbs. Il avait souvent\npens\u00e9, alors, \u00e0 l'air d\u00e9gag\u00e9 avec lequel il s'approcherait d'elle pour\nlui peindre sa passion, s'il pouvait seulement la rencontrer. Mais\nmaintenant qu'elle se pr\u00e9sentait inopin\u00e9ment devant lui, il sentait que\ntout son sang refluait vers son visage, au d\u00e9triment manifeste de ses\njambes, qui, priv\u00e9es de leur portion habituelle de ce fluide,\ntremblaient et s'entre-choquaient violemment. Quand les deux jeunes\nfilles s'arr\u00eataient pour cueillir une fleur dans la haie, ou pour\n\u00e9couter un oiseau, le ma\u00eetre d'\u00e9cole s'arr\u00eatait aussi, en prenant un air\nprofond\u00e9ment r\u00eaveur; et il n'en avait pas l'air seulement, car il\nsongeait avec \u00e9garement \u00e0 ce qu'il allait devenir, quand les cousines\nreviendraient sur leurs pas, et le rencontreraient face \u00e0 face, comme\ncela devait in\u00e9vitablement arriver au bout d'un certain temps.\nToutefois, quoiqu'il n'os\u00e2t pas les rejoindre, il e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9sol\u00e9 de les\nperdre de vue. Aussi, quand elles couraient, il courait; quand elles\nmarchaient, il marchait; quand elles s'arr\u00eataient, il s'arr\u00eatait; et il\naurait pu continuer ce man\u00e8ge jusqu'\u00e0 ce que la nuit les e\u00fbt surpris, si\nla maligne Kate n'avait regard\u00e9 derri\u00e8re elle, et n'avait fait \u00e0\nNathaniel un signe encourageant, pour le d\u00e9terminer \u00e0 s'approcher. Il y\navait quelque chose d'irr\u00e9sistible dans les mani\u00e8res de Kate, aussi\nNathaniel ob\u00e9it-il \u00e0 son invitation. Puis, avec beaucoup de confusion de\nsa part, et tandis que la m\u00e9chante petite cousine riait de tout son\ncoeur, Nathaniel Pipkin se mit \u00e0 genoux sur l'herbe humide, et d\u00e9clara sa\nferme r\u00e9solution de rester l\u00e0 pour toujours, \u00e0 moins qu'il ne lui f\u00fbt\npermis de se relever comme l'amoureux accept\u00e9 de Maria Lobbs. A cette\nd\u00e9claration, le rire joyeux de Maria Lobbs retentit \u00e0 travers la calme\natmosph\u00e8re du soir, sans la troubler n\u00e9anmoins, tant c'\u00e9tait un son\nharmonieux. La maligne petite cousine \u00e9clata de rire encore plus\nimmod\u00e9r\u00e9ment, et Nathaniel Pipkin rougit plus que jamais. A la fin,\nMaria Lobbs, violemment press\u00e9e par le petit homme rong\u00e9 d'amour,\nd\u00e9tourna la t\u00eate, et murmura \u00e0 sa cousine de dire, ou du moins sa\ncousine dit pour elle: qu'elle se sentait tr\u00e8s-honor\u00e9e de la demande de\nM. Pipkin; que sa main et son coeur \u00e9taient \u00e0 la disposition de son p\u00e8re;\nmais que personne ne pouvait \u00eatre insensible au m\u00e9rite de monsieur\nPipkin. Comme tout cela fut fait avec beaucoup de gravit\u00e9, et comme\nNathaniel Pipkin reconduisit Maria Lobbs et s'effor\u00e7a de lui d\u00e9rober un\nbaiser, en partant, il se mit au lit le plus heureux des petits hommes,\net r\u00eava toute la nuit qu'il amollissait le vieux Lobbs, recevait la clef\ndu coffre-fort, et \u00e9pousait Maria.\n\nLe lendemain, Nathaniel vit le sellier partir sur son vieux bidet gris;\nil vit, \u00e0 la crois\u00e9e, la maligne petite cousine qui lui faisait un grand\nnombre de signes, auxquels il ne pouvait rien comprendre; et enfin il\nvit venir vers lui l'apprenti aux jambes gr\u00eales. Celui-ci dit \u00e0\nNathaniel que son ma\u00eetre ne reviendrait pas avant le lendemain, et que\nces dames attendaient M. Pipkin, pour prendre le th\u00e9, \u00e0 six heures\npr\u00e9cises. Comment les le\u00e7ons furent r\u00e9cit\u00e9es ce jour-l\u00e0, ni Nathaniel\nPipkin, ni ses \u00e9l\u00e8ves ne le savent mieux que vous: mais elles furent\nr\u00e9cit\u00e9es bien ou mal, et lorsque les enfants furent partis, Nathaniel\nPipkin s'occupa, jusqu'\u00e0 six heures sonn\u00e9es, de sa toilette, avant\nd'\u00eatre habill\u00e9 \u00e0 son go\u00fbt. Ce n'est pas qu'il lui fallut beaucoup de\ntemps pour choisir les v\u00eatements qu'il devait porter, attendu qu'il n'y\navait aucun choix \u00e0 faire dans sa garde-robe, mais c'\u00e9tait une t\u00e2che\npleine de difficult\u00e9s et d'importance que de les nettoyer et de les\nmettre de la mani\u00e8re la plus avantageuse.\n\nNathaniel trouva chez le sellier une petite soci\u00e9t\u00e9 choisie, compos\u00e9e de\nMaria Lobbs, de sa cousine Kate et de trois ou quatre jeunes filles\nfol\u00e2tres, r\u00e9jouies, ros\u00e9es. Il eut alors une preuve positive que les\nrumeurs relatives aux tr\u00e9sors du vieux Lobbs n'\u00e9taient pas exag\u00e9r\u00e9es; il\nvit, de ses yeux, la th\u00e9i\u00e8re en v\u00e9ritable argent massif, et les petites\ncuillers en argent pour remuer le th\u00e9, et les tasses en v\u00e9ritable\nporcelaine, pour le boire, et les plats de m\u00eame mati\u00e8re, qui contenaient\nles g\u00e2teaux et les r\u00f4ties. Le seul revers de la m\u00e9daille, c'\u00e9tait un\nfr\u00e8re de Kate, un cousin de Maria Lobbs, qu'elle appelait Henry, et qui\nsemblait garder sa cousine pour lui tout seul, \u00e0 un bout de la table. Il\nest d\u00e9licieux de voir les membres d'une m\u00eame famille avoir de\nl'affection l'un pour l'autre, mais cette affection peut \u00eatre pouss\u00e9e\ntrop loin, et Nathaniel Pipkin ne put s'emp\u00eacher de penser que Maria\nLobbs devait aimer bien particuli\u00e8rement tous ses parents, si elle avait\npour chacun d'eux autant d'attentions que pour le cousin dont il s'agit.\nCe n'est pas tout: apr\u00e8s le th\u00e9, lorsque la maligne petite cousine eut\npropos\u00e9 de jouer au colin-maillard, il arriva, d'une mani\u00e8re ou d'une\nautre, que Nathaniel Pipkin avait presque toujours les yeux band\u00e9s; et\nchaque fois qu'il mettait la main sur le cousin, il ne manquait pas de\ntrouver Maria Lobbs aupr\u00e8s de lui. La petite cousine et les autres\njeunes filles \u00e9taient sans cesse occup\u00e9es \u00e0 le pousser, \u00e0 lui tirer les\ncheveux, \u00e0 lui jeter des chaises dans les jambes, \u00e0 lui faire toutes les\nmis\u00e8res imaginables; mais Maria Lobbs ne semblait jamais l'approcher, et\nune fois Nathaniel Pipkin aurait pu jurer qu'il avait entendu le bruit\nd'un baiser suivi d'une faible remontrance de Maria Lobbs, et des rires\n\u00e0 demi \u00e9touff\u00e9s de ses bonnes amies. Tout cela \u00e9tait singulier, et on ne\nsaurait dire ce que le petit homme aurait pu faire ou ne pas faire, en\ncons\u00e9quence, si ses pens\u00e9es n'avaient pas \u00e9t\u00e9 forc\u00e9es soudainement de\nprendre un autre cours.\n\nLa circonstance qui for\u00e7a ses pens\u00e9es \u00e0 prendre un autre cours, c'est\nqu'il entendit frapper violemment \u00e0 la porte de la rue, et la personne\nqui frappait \u00e0 la porte de la rue n'\u00e9tait autre que le vieux Lobbs\nlui-m\u00eame. Il \u00e9tait revenu inopin\u00e9ment, et il tapait, il tapait, comme un\nfabricant de cercueils, car il n'avait pas encore soup\u00e9. Aussit\u00f4t que\ncette nouvelle alarmante eut \u00e9t\u00e9 communiqu\u00e9e par l'apprenti, les jeunes\nfilles grimp\u00e8rent les escaliers, quatre \u00e0 quatre pour se r\u00e9fugier dans\nla chambre \u00e0 coucher de Maria Lobbs, et, faute d'une meilleure cachette,\nle cousin et Nathaniel furent fourr\u00e9s dans deux cabinets du parloir.\nEnfin quand la maligne petite cousine et Maria Lobbs les eurent enferm\u00e9s\net eurent remis la chambre en ordre, elles ouvrirent la porte de la rue\nau vieux Lobbs, qui n'avait pas cess\u00e9 de frapper un seul instant.\n\nIl arriva malheureusement que le vieux Lobbs avait faim, et qu'il \u00e9tait\nd'une monstrueuse mauvaise humeur. Nathaniel Pipkin l'entendait\ngrommeler comme un vieux dogue enrou\u00e9, et chaque fois que le malheureux\napprenti aux jambes gr\u00eales entrait dans la chambre, le vieux Lobbs se\nmettait \u00e0 jurer apr\u00e8s lui comme un atroce pa\u00efen, sans autre but apparent\nque de soulager sa poitrine par la d\u00e9charge de quelques jurons\nsurabondants. A la fin, le souper qu'on avait fait chauffer fut plac\u00e9\nsur la table; le vieux Lobbs tomba dessus comme la mis\u00e8re sur le pauvre\nmonde, et ayant fait les plats nets en un rien de temps, il baisa sa\nfille et demanda sa pipe.\n\nLa nature avait plac\u00e9 les genoux de Nathaniel Pipkin fort pr\u00e8s l'un de\nl'autre, mais ils s'entre-choqu\u00e8rent \u00e0 se briser lorsqu'il entendit le\nvieux Lobbs demander sa pipe. En effet, depuis cinq ans au moins,\nNathaniel avait vu le vieux sellier fumer r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement, tous les soirs,\ndans la m\u00eame pipe \u00e0 fourneau d'argent, et cette pipe \u00e9tait suspendue\npr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment dans le cabinet o\u00f9 l'infortun\u00e9 ma\u00eetre d'\u00e9cole \u00e9tait\nrenferm\u00e9. Les deux jeunes filles descendirent pour chercher la pipe,\nmont\u00e8rent pour chercher la pipe, et en un mot cherch\u00e8rent la pipe\npartout, except\u00e9 o\u00f9 elles savaient fort bien qu'elle se trouvait.\nPendant ce temps, le vieux Lobbs temp\u00eatait de la mani\u00e8re la plus\n\u00e9pouvantable. Tout d'un coup il pensa au cabinet et se leva pour y\nregarder. Il \u00e9tait compl\u00e9tement inutile qu'un petit homme, comme\nNathaniel Pipkin, cherch\u00e2t \u00e0 retenir la porte en dedans, quand un grand\net vigoureux gaillard, comme le sellier, la tirait en dehors. Elle\ns'ouvrit donc et d\u00e9couvrit Nathaniel Pipkin debout dans le cabinet et\ntremblant comme un voleur. Dieu nous b\u00e9nisse! quel effroyable regard le\nvieux Lobbs lui jeta, en le saisissant par le collet, et en le tenant,\npour le consid\u00e9rer, \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de son bras.\n\n\u00abDe par tous les diables! que faites-vous l\u00e0?\u00bb s'\u00e9cria le sellier d'une\nvoix terrible.\n\nNathaniel Pipkin ne put faire de r\u00e9ponse, et le vieux Lobbs le secoua de\ntoutes ses forces, pendant deux ou trois minutes, pour l'aider \u00e0 mettre\nde l'ordre dans ses id\u00e9es.\n\n\u00abQue faites-vous ici? Vous \u00eates venu pour ma fille, apparemment?\u00bb\n\nLe vieux Lobbs ne disait cela qu'en mani\u00e8re de sarcasme, car il ne\ncroyait pas que la pr\u00e9somption d'un mortel p\u00fbt conduire Nathaniel Pipkin\naussi loin. Quelle fut donc son indignation, lorsque le pauvre ma\u00eetre\nd'\u00e9cole r\u00e9pondit:\n\n\u00abC'est vrai, monsieur Lobbs, je suis venu pour votre fille, j'aime votre\nfille, monsieur Lobbs.\n\n--Comment, mis\u00e9rable petit singe! balbutia le vieux Lobbs, paralys\u00e9 par\ncette \u00e9trange confession; qu'est-ce que cela signifie? Me dire cela \u00e0 ma\nbarbe! Dieu me damne! je vais vous \u00e9trangler.\u00bb\n\nIl n'est nullement improbable que le vieux Lobbs, dans l'exc\u00e8s de sa\nrage, e\u00fbt ex\u00e9cut\u00e9 cette menace, s'il n'en avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 emp\u00each\u00e9 par une\napparition compl\u00e9tement inattendue: \u00e0 savoir le cousin, qui, sortant de\nson cabinet, lui dit en s'approchant:\n\n\u00abJe ne puis laisser cette innocente personne qui a \u00e9t\u00e9 invit\u00e9e ici par\nune plaisanterie de jeune fille, prendre sur elle, d'une mani\u00e8re\ntr\u00e8s-noble, la faute (si faute il y a) dont je suis seul coupable, et\nque je suis pr\u00eat \u00e0 avouer. J'aime votre fille, monsieur, et je suis venu\npour la voir.\u00bb\n\nPendant cette d\u00e9claration impr\u00e9vue, le vieux Lobbs ouvrait de grands\nyeux, mais pas plus grands que Nathaniel. A la fin, lorsqu'il retrouva\nassez de souffle pour parler:\n\n\u00abAh! vous \u00eates venu pour voir ma fille!\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Et ne vous avais-je pas d\u00e9fendu d'entrer ici?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, et sans cela je ne serais pas venu en cachette.\u00bb\n\nJe suis f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de rapporter cela du vieux Lobbs, mais je crois qu'il\naurait assomm\u00e9 le cousin, si sa jolie fille, dont les yeux brillants\n\u00e9taient noy\u00e9s de larmes, ne s'\u00e9tait point suspendue \u00e0 son bras.\n\n\u00abNe le retenez pas, Maria, dit le jeune homme. S'il a envie de frapper\nle fils de sa soeur, laissez-le faire. Pour toutes les richesses du\nmonde, je ne toucherais pas un de ses cheveux blancs.\u00bb\n\nLes yeux du vieillard s'abaiss\u00e8rent sous ce reproche, et rencontr\u00e8rent\nceux de Maria. J'ai d\u00e9j\u00e0 dit plusieurs fois que c'\u00e9taient des yeux\ntr\u00e8s-brillants, et quoique alors ils fussent pleins de larmes, leur\ninfluence n'en \u00e9tait aucunement diminu\u00e9e. Le vieux Lobbs d\u00e9tourna la\nt\u00eate pour \u00e9viter d'\u00eatre persuad\u00e9 par les regards de sa fille, mais la\nfortune voulut qu'il rencontra ceux de la maligne petite cousine, qui, \u00e0\nmoiti\u00e9 effray\u00e9e pour son fr\u00e8re, \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 riante et moqueuse en pensant \u00e0\nNathaniel Pipkin, avait une physionomie si touchante et si comique \u00e0 la\nfois, qu'elle devait n\u00e9cessairement s\u00e9duire l'homme qui la regardait,\njeune ou vieux. Elle passa son bras d'un air c\u00e2lin dans le bras du\nsellier, et elle lui chuchota quelque chose \u00e0 l'oreille; et il eut beau\nfaire, le vieux Lobbs, il ne put s'emp\u00eacher de sourire, tandis qu'une\nlarme coulait en m\u00eame temps sur sa joue.\n\nCinq minutes apr\u00e8s, les jeunes filles furent tir\u00e9es de la chambre \u00e0\ncoucher de Maria, avec beaucoup de ricanements et de rougeur; puis,\ntandis que les jeunes gens s'arrangeaient pour \u00eatre parfaitement\nheureux, le vieux Lobbs aveignit sa pipe et la fuma: c'est une\ncirconstance remarquable, que cette pipe de tabac fut pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment la\nplus douce et la plus consolante qu'il e\u00fbt jamais fum\u00e9e de sa vie.\n\nNathaniel Pipkin jugea convenable de garder son secret. Par ce moyen il\nse trouva graduellement en grande faveur aupr\u00e8s du riche sellier, qui\nlui apprit \u00e0 fumer en mesure. Pendant un grand nombre d'ann\u00e9es, on put\nles voir tous les deux, assis le soir dans le jardin du vieux Lobbs,\nfumant et buvant en grande pompe. Nathaniel se r\u00e9tablit apparemment\nbient\u00f4t de sa passion, car, dans le registre de la paroisse, nous\ntrouvons son nom parmi ceux des t\u00e9moins du mariage de Maria Lobbs avec\nson cousin. Il para\u00eet en outre, d'apr\u00e8s un autre document, que dans la\nnuit des noces, il fut conduit au violon du village pour avoir, dans un\n\u00e9tat complet d'ivresse, commis dans les rues diff\u00e9rents exc\u00e8s, dont\nl'apprenti aux jambes gr\u00eales s'\u00e9tait rendu fauteur et complice.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XVIII.\n\nQui prouve bri\u00e8vement deux points: savoir, le pouvoir des attaques de\nnerfs et la force des circonstances.\n\n\nPendant deux jours, apr\u00e8s le d\u00e9jeuner de mistress Chasselion et le\nd\u00e9part pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9 de M. Pickwick, les trois disciples de ce savant homme\nrest\u00e8rent \u00e0 Eatanswill, attendant avec anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 quelque nouvelle de leur\nrespectable ami. M. Tupman et M. Snodgrass \u00e9taient de nouveau abandonn\u00e9s\n\u00e0 leurs propres ressources, car M. Winkle, c\u00e9dant aux invitations les\nplus pressantes, continuait de r\u00e9sider chez M. Pott, et de d\u00e9vouer tout\nson temps \u00e0 la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de son aimable \u00e9pouse. M. Pott lui-m\u00eame, pour\ncompl\u00e9ter leur f\u00e9licit\u00e9, se joignait de temps en temps \u00e0 la\nconversation. Habituellement absorb\u00e9 par la profondeur de ses\nsp\u00e9culations pour le bien public et pour la destruction de\nl'_Ind\u00e9pendant_, ce grand homme n'\u00e9tait pas accoutum\u00e9 \u00e0 s'abaisser des\nhauteurs de l'intelligence dans les humbles vall\u00e9es qu'habitent les\nesprits ordinaires. Toutefois, dans cette occasion et comme pour honorer\nun disciple de M. Pickwick, il se d\u00e9rida, il se courba, il descendit de\nson pi\u00e9destal, il consentit \u00e0 marcher sur la terre, adaptant avec\nb\u00e9nignit\u00e9 ses remarques \u00e0 la compr\u00e9hension du vulgaire et se confondant,\ndu moins quant aux formes ext\u00e9rieures, avec le troupeau des humains.\n\nTelle ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 la conduite de cet illustre publiciste vis-\u00e0-vis de M.\nWinkle, on comprendra facilement la surprise de celui-ci, lorsqu'un\nmatin o\u00f9 il se trouvait seul, assis dans la salle \u00e0 manger, il entendit\nla porte s'ouvrir avec violence et se refermer de m\u00eame, et vit M. Pott\ns'avancer majestueusement, repousser la main qu'il lui tendait avec\namiti\u00e9, grincer des dents comme pour rendre ses paroles plus incisives,\net dire avec une voix semblable au cri aigu d'une scie:\n\n\u00abSerpent!\n\n--Monsieur! s'\u00e9cria M. Winkle en tressaillant et en se levant de sa\nchaise.\n\n--Serpent, monsieur!\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Pott en \u00e9levant la voix. Puis, en\nl'abaissant tout \u00e0 coup, il ajouta: \u00abJ'ai dit serpent, monsieur. Vous me\ncomprenez, j'esp\u00e8re?\u00bb\n\nOr, quand on a quitt\u00e9 un homme \u00e0 deux heures du matin, avec des\nexpressions d'int\u00e9r\u00eat, de bienveillance et d'amiti\u00e9 r\u00e9ciproques, et\nquand on le revoit \u00e0 neuf heures et demie et qu'il vous traite de\n_serpent_, il n'est point d\u00e9raisonnable de conclure qu'il doit \u00eatre\narriv\u00e9 dans l'intervalle quelque chose d'une nature d\u00e9plaisante. C'est\naussi ce que pensa M. Winkle. Il renvoya \u00e0 M. Pott son regard glacial,\net, conform\u00e9ment \u00e0 l'espoir exprim\u00e9 par ce gentleman, il fit tous ses\nefforts pour comprendre le _serpent_, mais il n'en put venir \u00e0 bout, et\napr\u00e8s un profond silence, qui dura plusieurs minutes, il dit:\n\n\u00abSerpent, monsieur? Serpent, M. Pott? Qu'est-ce que vous entendez par\nl\u00e0, monsieur? c'est une plaisanterie apparemment?\n\n--Une plaisanterie, monsieur! s'\u00e9cria l'\u00e9diteur avec un mouvement de la\nmain qui indiquait un violent d\u00e9sir de jeter \u00e0 la t\u00eate de son h\u00f4te la\nth\u00e9i\u00e8re de m\u00e9tal anglais; une plaisanterie, monsieur!... Mais, non; je\nserai calme; je veux \u00eatre calme, monsieur!... Et pour prouver qu'il\n\u00e9tait calme, M. Pott se jeta dans un fauteuil en \u00e9cumant de la bouche.\n\n--Mon cher monsieur... lui repr\u00e9senta M. Winkle.\n\n--Cher monsieur! Comment osez-vous m'appeler _cher monsieur_, monsieur?\nComment osez-vous me regarder en face, en m'appelant ainsi?\n\n--Ma foi, monsieur, si nous en venons-l\u00e0, comment osez-vous me regarder\nen face, en m'appelant _serpent_?\n\n--Parce que vous en \u00eates un.\n\n--Prouvez-le, s'\u00e9cria M. Winkle avec chaleur. Prouvez-le!\u00bb\n\nUn nuage sombre et mena\u00e7ant passa sur le visage profond de l'\u00e9diteur. Il\ntira de sa poche _l'Ind\u00e9pendant_, qu'on venait de lui apporter, et le\npassa par-dessus la table \u00e0 M. Winkle, en lui montrant du doigt un\nparagraphe.\n\nLe Pickwickien \u00e9tonn\u00e9 prit le journal et lut tout haut ce qui suit:\n\n\u00abNotre obscur et ignoble contemporain, dans ses observations d\u00e9go\u00fbtantes\nsur les derni\u00e8res \u00e9lections de cette cit\u00e9, a eu l'infamie de violer le\nsanctuaire sacr\u00e9 de la vie priv\u00e9e et de faire des allusions fort claires\naux affaires personnelles de notre dernier candidat; oui, et nous dirons\nm\u00eame, malgr\u00e9 le honteux r\u00e9sultat de l'intrigue, aux affaires\npersonnelles de notre futur repr\u00e9sentant, M. Fizkin, qui, malgr\u00e9 un\n\u00e9chec d\u00fb \u00e0 d'ignobles men\u00e9es, n'en sera pas moins notre repr\u00e9sentant un\njour ou l'autre. A quoi pense donc notre l\u00e2che contemporain? Que\ndirait-il, ce malheureux, si, m\u00e9prisant comme lui les convenances de la\nsoci\u00e9t\u00e9, nous levions le rideau qui, heureusement pour lui, d\u00e9robe les\nturpitudes de sa vie priv\u00e9e au ridicule public, pour ne pas dire \u00e0\nl'ex\u00e9cration publique? Que dirait-il si nous indiquions, si nous\ncommentions des circonstances notoires et aper\u00e7ues par tout le monde,\nexcept\u00e9 par notre aveugle contemporain? Que dirait-il, si nous\nimprimions l'effusion suivante, que nous avons re\u00e7ue au moment de mettre\nsous presse et qui nous est adress\u00e9e par un de nos concitoyens de cette\nville, l'un de nos plus spirituels correspondants?...\n\nVERS ADRESS\u00c9S A UN POT DE CUIVRE.\n\n            O pot, si vous aviez pr\u00e9vu,\n    Ce qui de tout le monde est maintenant connu,\n    Quand les cloches pour vous dans l'\u00e9glise ont fait _tinkle_;\n    Vous auriez fait alors ce qui ne se peut plus,\n    Et, donnant \u00e0 madame un bel et bon refus,\n            Vous l'auriez envoy\u00e9e \u00e0 W....\n\n--Eh bien! dit M. Pott avec solennit\u00e9; eh bien! sc\u00e9l\u00e9rat! qu'est-ce qui\nrime avec _tinkle_?\n\n--Ce qui rime avec _tinkle_? interrompit mistress Pott, qui entrait dans\nla chambre en ce moment et qui n'avait entendu que les derniers mots, ce\nqui rime avec _tinkle_? c'est _Winkle_, j'imagine.\u00bb\n\nEn pronon\u00e7ant ces paroles, mistress Pott sourit gracieusement au\nPickwickien agit\u00e9, en lui tendant la main. Dans sa confusion l'honn\u00eate\njeune homme allait serrer cette main, lorsque M. Pott indign\u00e9 se jeta\nentre eux deux.\n\n\u00abArri\u00e8re, madame! arri\u00e8re! s'\u00e9cria-t-il. Prendre sa main \u00e0 mon nez, \u00e0 ma\nbarbe!\n\n--Monsieur Pott! fit son \u00e9pouse \u00e9tonn\u00e9e.\n\n--Mis\u00e9rable femme! regardez ici! regardez ici, madame! _Vers adress\u00e9s \u00e0\nun Pot_... C'est moi, madame! _Vous l'auriez renvoy\u00e9e \u00e0 Winkle_....\nC'est vous, madame, vous!\u00bb Avec cette \u00e9bullition de rage, accompagn\u00e9e\ncependant d'une sorte de tremblement, occasionn\u00e9 par l'expression du\nvisage de sa femme, M. Pott lan\u00e7a \u00e0 ses pieds le num\u00e9ro de\n_l'Ind\u00e9pendant_.\n\n\u00abEh bien, monsieur? dit mistress Pott en se baissant, tout \u00e9tonn\u00e9e, pour\nramasser le journal; eh bien, monsieur?\u00bb\n\nM. Pott fl\u00e9chit sous le regard m\u00e9prisant de sa femme. Il fit un effort\nd\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9 pour rassembler tout son courage, mais ce fut en vain.\n\nLorsqu'on lit cette courte phrase: \u00abEh bien, monsieur?\u00bb il ne semble pas\nqu'elle contienne rien de bien effrayant. Mais le ton de voix dont elle\nfut prononc\u00e9e, le regard qui l'accompagna, paraissaient annoncer quelque\nfuture vengeance, suspendue par un cheveu sur la t\u00eate de l'\u00e9diteur, et\nqui produisit sur lui un effet magique. L'observateur le plus inhabile\naurait d\u00e9couvert, dans son maintien troubl\u00e9, un singulier empressement \u00e0\nc\u00e9der sa culotte \u00e0 quiconque aurait consenti \u00e0 s'y tenir dans ce moment.\n\nMme Pott lut le paragraphe, poussa un cri d\u00e9chirant, et se jeta tout de\nson long sur le tapis du foyer; l\u00e0, \u00e9tendue sur le dos, elle frappa le\nplancher de ses talons avec une assiduit\u00e9 et une violence qui ne\nlaissaient aucun doute sur la d\u00e9licatesse de ses sentiments, dans cette\noccasion.\n\n\u00abMa ch\u00e8re, balbutia M. Pott, dans sa terreur, ma ch\u00e8re, je n'ai pas dit\nque je croyais cela. Je... je n'ai pas....\u00bb Mais la voix du malheureux\nmari \u00e9tait couverte par les hurlements de sa gracieuse moiti\u00e9.\n\n\u00abMadame Pott, reprit M. Winkle, ma ch\u00e8re dame, permettez-moi de vous\nsupplier de vous tranquilliser un peu.\u00bb Inutile! les cris et les coups\nde talons \u00e9taient plus violents et plus fr\u00e9quents que jamais.\n\n\u00abMa ch\u00e8re, recommen\u00e7a l'\u00e9diteur, je suis bien f\u00e2ch\u00e9.... Si ce n'est pas\npour votre sant\u00e9, que ce soit pour moi.... Vous allez attirer toute la\npopulace autour de notre maison....\u00bb Mais plus M. Pott mettait de\nchaleur dans ses supplications, plus son \u00e9pouse mettait de vigueur dans\nses cris.\n\nTr\u00e8s-heureusement cependant, Mme Pott avait attach\u00e9 \u00e0 sa personne une\nsorte de garde du corps, dans la personne d'une jeune _lady_ dont\nl'emploi ostensible \u00e9tait de pr\u00e9sider \u00e0 la toilette de sa ma\u00eetresse,\nmais qui se rendait utile d'une infinit\u00e9 d'autres mani\u00e8res, et\nprincipalement en aidant cette aimable femme \u00e0 contrecarrer chaque\nd\u00e9sir, chaque inclination du malheureux journaliste. Les hurlements\nhyst\u00e9riques de Mme Pott atteignirent bient\u00f4t les oreilles de ladite\ngarde du corps, et l'amen\u00e8rent dans le parloir, avec une rapidit\u00e9 qui\nmena\u00e7ait de d\u00e9ranger mat\u00e9riellement l'harmonie exquise de son bonnet et\nde sa chevelure.\n\n\u00abO ma ch\u00e8re ma\u00eetresse! ma ch\u00e8re ma\u00eetresse! s'\u00e9cria la jeune personne, en\ns'agenouillant d'un air \u00e9gar\u00e9 \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la gisante Mme Pott; \u00f4 ma ch\u00e8re\nma\u00eetresse! qu'est-ce que vous avez?\n\n--Votre ma\u00eetre!... votre brutal de ma\u00eetre....\u00bb balbutia la malade.\n\nPott faiblissait \u00e9videmment.\n\n\u00abC'est une honte! dit la jeune fille d'un ton de reproche. Je suis s\u00fbre\nqu'il vous fera mourir, madame. Pauvre cher ange!\u00bb\n\nPott faiblit encore plus: l'autre parti continua ses attaques.\n\n\u00abOh! ne m'abandonnez pas! Ne m'abandonnez pas, Goodwin! murmura Mme\nPott, en s'attachant avec une force convulsive au poignet de la jeune\ndemoiselle. Vous \u00eates la seule personne qui m'aimiez, Goodwin!\u00bb\n\nA cette apostrophe touchante, miss Goodwin monta, de son c\u00f4t\u00e9, une\npetite trag\u00e9die, et versa des larmes en abondance.\n\n\u00abJamais! madame, soupira-t-elle. Ah! monsieur, vous devriez prendre\ngarde.... Vous devriez \u00eatre prudent! vous ne savez pas quel mal vous\npouvez faire \u00e0 ma ma\u00eetresse. Vous en seriez f\u00e2ch\u00e9 un jour.... Je le sais\nbien... je l'ai toujours dit!\u00bb\n\nLe malheureux Pott regarda sa moiti\u00e9 d'un air timide, mais il ne dit\nrien.\n\n\u00abGoodwin.... dit Mme Pott, d'une voix douce.\n\n--Madame?\n\n--Si vous saviez combien j'ai aim\u00e9 cet homme-l\u00e0!\n\n--Ne vous tourmentez pas en vous rappelant \u00e7a, madame.\u00bb\n\nPott laissa voir qu'il \u00e9tait effray\u00e9; c'\u00e9tait le moment de frapper un\ncoup d\u00e9cisif.\n\n\u00abEt maintenant! sanglota Mme Pott, maintenant! Apr\u00e8s tant d'amour, \u00eatre\ntrait\u00e9e comme cela! \u00catre m\u00e9connue! \u00eatre insult\u00e9e! en pr\u00e9sence d'un\ntiers, d'un _\u00e9tranger_! Mais je ne me soumettrai pas \u00e0 cela, Goodwin,\ncontinua Mme Pott en se soulevant, dans les bras de sa suivante. Mon\nfr\u00e8re le lieutenant me prot\u00e9gera.... Je veux une s\u00e9paration, Goodwin.\n\n--Certainement, madame. Il le m\u00e9riterait bien.\u00bb\n\nQuelles que fussent les pens\u00e9es qu'une menace de s\u00e9paration p\u00fbt exciter\ndans l'esprit de l'\u00e9diteur, il ne les exprima pas; mais il se contenta\nde dire avec grande humilit\u00e9: \u00abMa ch\u00e8re \u00e2me, voulez-vous m'entendre?\u00bb\n\nUne nouvelle d\u00e9charge de sanglots fut la seule r\u00e9ponse, et Mme Pott,\ndevenue encore plus nerveuse, demanda, d'une voix entrecoup\u00e9e, pourquoi\nelle avait \u00e9t\u00e9 mise au monde, pourquoi elle s'\u00e9tait mari\u00e9e, et voulut\n\u00eatre inform\u00e9e d'une foule d'autres secrets de ce genre.\n\n\u00abMa ch\u00e8re, lui remontra M. Pott, ne vous abandonnez pas \u00e0 ces\nsentiments exalt\u00e9s. Je n'ai jamais cru que ce paragraphe e\u00fbt aucun\nfondement; aucun, ma ch\u00e8re! Impossible! J'\u00e9tais seulement irrit\u00e9, je\npuis dire furieux, ma ch\u00e8re, contre les \u00e9diteurs de l'_Ind\u00e9pendant_ qui\nont eu l'insolence de l'ins\u00e9rer. Voil\u00e0 tout.\u00bb En parlant ainsi, M. Pott\njeta un regard suppliant \u00e0 le cause innocente du grabuge, pour l'engager\n\u00e0 ne point parler du _serpent_.\n\n\u00abEt quelles d\u00e9marches ferez-vous, monsieur, pour obtenir satisfaction?\ndemanda M. Winkle, qui reprenait du courage, en voyant que M. Pott\nperdait le sien.\n\n--O Goodwin, murmura Mme Pott; va-t-il cravacher l'\u00e9diteur de\nl'_Ind\u00e9pendant_? le fera-t-il, Goodwin?\n\n--Chut! chut! madame. Calmez-vous, je vous en prie! Certainement, il le\ncravachera si vous le d\u00e9sirez, madame.\n\n--Assur\u00e9ment, reprit Pott, en voyant que sa moiti\u00e9 \u00e9tait sur le point de\nretomber en faiblesse. N\u00e9cessairement, je le cravacherai....\n\n--Quand? Goodwin, quand? poursuivit Mme Pott, ne sachant pas encore si\nelle devait retomber.\n\n--Sans d\u00e9lai, naturellement, r\u00e9pondit l'\u00e9diteur: avant que le jour soit\ntermin\u00e9.\n\n--O Goodwin! reprit la dame, c'est le seul moyen d'apaiser le scandale,\net de me remettre sur un bon pied dans le monde.\n\n--Certainement, madame; aucun homme, s'il est un homme, ne peut se\nrefuser \u00e0 faire cela.\u00bb\n\nCependant les attaques de nerfs planaient toujours sur l'horizon. M.\nPott r\u00e9p\u00e9ta de nouveau qu'il cravacherait, mais Mme Pott \u00e9tait si\naccabl\u00e9e par la seule id\u00e9e d'avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 soup\u00e7onn\u00e9e, qu'elle fut une\ndouzaine de fois sur le point de retomber; et probablement une rechute\nserait arriv\u00e9e, sans les efforts infatigables de l'attentive Goodwin, et\nsans les supplications repentantes du parti vaincu. A la fin, quand le\nmalheureux Pott fut convenablement mat\u00e9 et compl\u00e9tement remis \u00e0 sa\nplace, Mme Pott se trouva mieux, et nos trois personnages commenc\u00e8rent \u00e0\nd\u00e9jeuner.\n\n\u00abJ'esp\u00e8re, dit Mme Pott avec un sourire qui brillait \u00e0 travers les\ntraces de ses larmes, j'esp\u00e8re, monsieur Winkle, que les basses\ncalomnies de ce journal n'accourciront pas votre s\u00e9jour avec nous.\n\n--J'esp\u00e8re que non, ajouta M. Pott, qui dans son coeur souhaitait\nardemment que son h\u00f4te s'\u00e9touff\u00e2t avec le morceau de r\u00f4tie qu'il portait\ndans ce moment \u00e0 sa bouche, et termin\u00e2t ainsi ses visites. J'esp\u00e8re que\nnon.\n\n--Vous \u00eates bien bon, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle; mais, ce matin, j'ai trouv\u00e9 \u00e0\nla porte de ma chambre \u00e0 coucher une note de M. Tupman, pour m'annoncer\nque M. Pickwick nous \u00e9crit de le rejoindre aujourd'hui \u00e0 Bury. Nous\ndevons partir par la voiture de midi....\n\n--Mais vous reviendrez? dit mistress Pott.\n\n--Oh! certainement.\n\n--En \u00eates-vous bien s\u00fbr? continua la dame en jetant \u00e0 la d\u00e9rob\u00e9e un\ntendre regard \u00e0 son h\u00f4te.\n\n--Certainement, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle.\u00bb\n\nLe d\u00e9jeuner se termina en silence, car chacun des assistants ruminait\nsur ses chagrins: mistress Pott regrettait la perte de son cavalier; M.\nPott, son imprudente promesse de cravacher l'Ind\u00e9pendant; M. Winkle, les\ngalanteries qui l'avaient plac\u00e9 dans une si embarrassante situation.\nL'heure de midi approchait, et apr\u00e8s beaucoup d'adieux et de promesses\nde retour, M. Winkle s'arracha de cette famille, o\u00f9 il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 si bien\nre\u00e7u.\n\n\u00abS'il revient jamais, je l'empoisonne! pensa M. Pott en se retirant dans\nle petit bureau o\u00f9 il pr\u00e9parait les foudres de son \u00e9loquence.\n\n--Si jamais je reviens m'emp\u00eatrer parmi ces gens-l\u00e0, pensa M. Winkle en\nse rendant au Paon d'argent, je m\u00e9rite d'\u00eatre cravach\u00e9 moi-m\u00eame; voil\u00e0\ntout.\u00bb\n\nSes amis \u00e9taient pr\u00eats, la voiture arriva bient\u00f4t, et au bout d'une\ndemi-heure les trois pickwickiens accomplissaient leur voyage, par la\nm\u00eame route que M. Pickwick avait si heureusement parcourue avec Sam.\nComme nous en avons d\u00e9j\u00e0 parl\u00e9, nous ne croyons pas devoir extraire la\nbelle et po\u00e9tique description qu'en donne M. Snodgrass.\n\nSam Weller les attendait \u00e0 la porte de l'Ange et les introduisit dans\nl'appartement de M. Pickwick. L\u00e0, \u00e0 la grande surprise de M. Winkle et\nde M. Snodgrass, et \u00e0 l'immense confusion de M. Tupman, ils trouv\u00e8rent\nle vieux Wardle avec M. Trundle.\n\n\u00abComment \u00e7a va-t-il? dit le vieillard en serrant la main de M. Tupman.\nAllons! allons! ne prenez pas un air sentimental. Il n'y a pas de rem\u00e8de\n\u00e0 cela, vieux camarade. Pour l'amour d'elle je voudrais qu'elle vous e\u00fbt\n\u00e9pous\u00e9, mais dans votre int\u00e9r\u00eat je suis bien aise qu'elle ne l'ait pas\nfait. Un jeune gaillard comme vous r\u00e9ussira mieux un de ces jours, eh!\u00bb\nTout en prof\u00e9rant ces consolations, le vieux Wardle tapait sur le dos de\nM. Tupman, et riait de tout son coeur.\n\n\u00abEt vous, mes joyeux compagnons, comment \u00e7a va-t-il? poursuivit le vieux\ngentleman, en secouant \u00e0 la fois la main de M. Winkle, et celle de M.\nSnodgrass. Je viens de dire \u00e0 Pickwick que je voulais vous avoir tous \u00e0\nNo\u00ebl. Nous aurons une noce; une noce r\u00e9elle, cette fois-ci.\n\n--Une noce! s'\u00e9cria M. Snodgrass en p\u00e2lissant.\n\n--Oui, une noce. Mais ne vous effrayez pas, r\u00e9pliqua le bienveillant\nvieillard; c'est seulement Trundle que voici, et Bella.\n\n--Oh! est-ce l\u00e0 tout? reprit M. Snodgrass, soulag\u00e9 d'un doute p\u00e9nible\nqui avait \u00e9treint son coeur comme une main de fer. Je vous fais mon\ncompliment, monsieur. Comment va Joe?\n\n--Lui? tr\u00e8s-bien. Toujours endormi.\n\n--Et madame votre m\u00e8re? et le vicaire? et tout le monde?\n\n--Parfaitement bien.\n\n--Monsieur, dit M. Tupman avec effort; o\u00f9 est... o\u00f9 est-_elle_?\u00bb En\nparlant ainsi il d\u00e9tourna la t\u00eate et couvrit ses yeux de ses mains.\n\n\u00ab_Elle?_ r\u00e9pliqua le vieux gentleman, en secouant la t\u00eate d'un air\nmalin. Voulez-vous dire ma soeur, eh?\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman indiqua par un signe que sa question se rapportait \u00e0 la\ndemoiselle abandonn\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abOh! elle est partie; elle demeure chez une parente, assez loin. Elle ne\npouvait plus soutenir la vue de mes filles, si bien que je l'ai laiss\u00e9e\naller. Mais voici le d\u00eener; vous devez \u00eatre affam\u00e9 apr\u00e8s votre voyage,\net moi je le suis sans cela. Ainsi donc, \u00e0 l'oeuvre!\u00bb\n\nAmple justice fut faite au repas, et lorsque les restes en eurent \u00e9t\u00e9\nenlev\u00e9s, lorsque nos amis furent \u00e9tablis commod\u00e9ment autour de la table,\nM. Pickwick raconta les m\u00e9saventures qu'il avait subies, et le succ\u00e8s\nqui avait couronn\u00e9 la ruse inf\u00e2me du diabolique Jingle. Ses disciples\n\u00e9taient p\u00e9trifi\u00e9s d'indignation et d'horreur.\n\n\u00abEnfin, dit en concluant M. Pickwick, le rhumatisme que j'ai attrap\u00e9\ndans ce jardin me rend encore boiteux.\n\n--Moi aussi, j'ai eu une esp\u00e8ce d'aventure, dit M. Winkle, avec un\nsourire; et \u00e0 la requ\u00eate de M. Pickwick il rapporta le malicieux\nlibelle de l'Ind\u00e9pendant d'Eatanswill, et l'irritation subs\u00e9quente de\nleur ami, l'\u00e9diteur de la Gazette.\n\nLe front de M. Pickwick s'obscurcit pendant ce r\u00e9cit; ses amis s'en\naper\u00e7urent et, lorsque M. Winkle se tut, gard\u00e8rent un profond silence.\nM. Pickwick frappa emphatiquement la table avec son poing ferm\u00e9, et\nparla ainsi qu'il suit:\n\n\u00abN'est-ce pas une circonstance \u00e9tonnante, que nous semblions destin\u00e9s \u00e0\nne pouvoir entrer sous le toit d'un homme que pour y porter le trouble\navec nous. Je vous le demande, ne dois-je pas croire \u00e0 l'indiscr\u00e9tion,\nou, bien pis encore, \u00e0 l'immoralit\u00e9 de mes disciples, lorsque je les\nvois, dans chaque maison o\u00f9 ils p\u00e9n\u00e8trent, d\u00e9truire la paix du coeur, le\nbonheur domestique de quelque femme confiante. N'est-ce pas, je le\ndis....\u00bb\n\nSuivant toutes les probabilit\u00e9s, M. Pickwick aurait continu\u00e9 sur ce ton\npendant un certain temps, si l'entr\u00e9e de Sam avec une lettre n'avait pas\ninterrompu son \u00e9loquent discours. Il passa son mouchoir sur son front,\n\u00f4ta ses lunettes, les essuya et les remit sur son nez: c'\u00e9tait assez; sa\nvoix avait recouvr\u00e9 sa douceur habituelle lorsqu'il demanda: \u00abQu'est-ce\nque vous m'apportez l\u00e0, Sam?\n\n--Je viens de la poste, monsieur, et j'y ai trouv\u00e9 cette lettre ici:\nelle y a attendu deux jours; elle est cachet\u00e9e avec un pain enchant\u00e9 et\nl'adresse est figur\u00e9e en ronde.\n\n--Je ne connais pas cette \u00e9criture-l\u00e0, dit M. Pickwick en ouvrant la\nlettre. Le ciel aie piti\u00e9 de nous! qu'est-ce que ceci? Il faut que ce\nsoit un songe! Cela... cela ne peut pas \u00eatre vrai!\n\n--Qu'est-ce que c'est donc? demand\u00e8rent tous les convives.\n\n--Personne de mort! j'esp\u00e8re?\u00bb dit M. Wardle, alarm\u00e9 par l'expression\nd'horreur qui contractait le visage de M. Pickwick.\n\nLe philosophe ne fit pas de r\u00e9ponse, mais passant la lettre par-dessus\nla table, il pria M. Tupman de la lire tout haut, et se laissa retomber\nsur sa chaise avec un air d'\u00e9tonnement et d'\u00e9garement, qui faisait peine\n\u00e0 voir.\n\nM. Tupman, d'une voix tremblante, lut la lettre ci-dessous rapport\u00e9e.\n\n     \u00abFreeman's-Court, Cornhill, August, 28e, 1831.\n\n     \u00abBARDELL CONTRE PICKWICK.\n\n     \u00abMonsieur,\n\n     \u00abAyant \u00e9t\u00e9 charg\u00e9s par Mme Martha Bardell de commencer une action\n     contre vous pour violation d'une promesse de mariage, pour\n     laquelle la plaignante fixe ses dommages \u00e0 quinze cents guin\u00e9es,\n     nous prenons la libert\u00e9 de vous informer qu'une citation a \u00e9t\u00e9\n     lanc\u00e9e contre vous devant la cour de _Common pleas_; et d\u00e9sirons\n     savoir, courrier pour courrier, le nom de votre avou\u00e9 \u00e0 Londres,\n     qui sera charg\u00e9 de suivre cette affaire.\n\n     \u00abNous sommes, monsieur, vos ob\u00e9issants serviteurs.\n\n     \u00abDODSON et FOGG.\n\n     \u00ab_M. Samuel Pickwick,_\u00bb\n\nLe muet \u00e9tonnement avec lequel cette lecture fut accueillie avait\nquelque chose de tellement solennel, que chacun des assistants\nparaissait craindre de rompre le silence, et regardait tour \u00e0 tour ses\nvoisins et M. Pickwick. A la fin M. Tupman r\u00e9p\u00e9ta machinalement: \u00abDodson\net Fogg!\n\n--Bardell contre Pickwick, chuchota M. Snodgrass d'un air distrait.\n\n--La paix du coeur, le bonheur domestique de quelque femme confiante!\nmurmura M. Winkle avec abstraction.\n\n--C'est un complot! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, recouvrant enfin le pouvoir de\nparler. C'est un inf\u00e2me complot de ces deux avou\u00e9s rapaces. Mme Bardell\nn'aurait jamais fait cela. Elle n'aurait pas le coeur de le faire; elle\nn'en aurait pas le droit. Ridicule! ridicule!\n\n--Quant \u00e0 son coeur, reprit M. Wardle avec un sourire, vous en \u00eates\ncertainement le meilleur juge; mais pour son droit je vous dirai, sans\nvouloir vous d\u00e9courager, que Dodson et Fogg en sont meilleurs juges\nqu'aucun de nous ne peut l'\u00eatre.\n\n--C'est une basse tentative pour m'escroquer de l'argent.\n\n--Je l'esp\u00e8re, r\u00e9pliqua M. Wardle avec une toux s\u00e8che et courte.\n\n--Qui m'a jamais entendu lui parler autrement qu'un locataire doit\nparler \u00e0 sa propri\u00e9taire? continua M. Pickwick avec grande v\u00e9h\u00e9mence.\nQui m'a jamais vu avec elle? Non! pas m\u00eame mes amis ici pr\u00e9sents.\n\n--Except\u00e9 une seule fois, interrompit M. Tupman.\n\nM. Pickwick changea de couleur.\n\n\u00abAh! reprit M. Wardle, ceci est important. Il n'y avait rien de suspect\ncette fois-l\u00e0, je suppose?\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman lan\u00e7a un coup d'oeil timide \u00e0 son mentor. \u00abVraiment, dit-il, il\nn'y avait rien de suspect, mais... je ne sais comment cela \u00e9tait\narriv\u00e9.... Il la tenait certainement dans ses bras.\n\n--Juste ciel! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, le souvenir de la sc\u00e8ne en question\nse retra\u00e7ant avec vivacit\u00e9 \u00e0 son esprit. Cela est vrai! cela est vrai!\nQuelle affreuse preuve du pouvoir des circonstances!\n\n--Et notre ami t\u00e2chait de la consoler, ajouta M. Winkle avec un grain de\nmalice.\n\n--Cela est vrai, dit M. Pickwick. Je ne le nierai point, cela est vrai!\n\n--Ho! ho! cria M. Wardle, pour une affaire dans laquelle il n'y a rien\nde suspect, cela a l'air assez dr\u00f4le. Eh! Pickwick, ah! ah! rus\u00e9\ngarnement! rus\u00e9 garnement!\u00bb Et il \u00e9clata de rire avec tant de force que\nles verres en retentirent sur le buffet.\n\n\u00abQuelle \u00e9pouvantable r\u00e9union d'apparences! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick en\nappuyant son menton sur ses deux mains. Winkle! Tupman! je vous prie de\nme pardonner les observations que je viens de faire \u00e0 l'instant. Nous\nsommes tous les victimes des circonstances, et moi la plus grande des\ntrois!\u00bb\n\nAyant fait cette apologie, M. Pickwick ensevelit sa t\u00eate dans ses mains\net se mit \u00e0 r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir, tandis que M. Wardle adressait aux autres membres\nde la compagnie une collection de clignements d'oeil et de signes de\nt\u00eate.\n\n\u00abQuoi qu'il en soit, dit M. Pickwick en relevant son front indign\u00e9, et\nen frappant sur la table, je veux que tout cela s'explique. Je verrai ce\nDodson et ce Fogg. J'irai \u00e0 Londres, demain.\n\n--Non, pas demain, reprit M. Wardle, vous \u00eates trop boiteux.\n\n--Eh bien! alors, apr\u00e8s-demain.\n\n--Apr\u00e8s-demain est le premier septembre, et vous avez promis de venir\navec nous jusqu'au manoir de sir Geoffrey Manning, pour nous tenir t\u00eate\nau d\u00e9jeuner, si vous ne nous accompagnez pas \u00e0 la chasse.\n\n--Eh bien! alors, le jour suivant, jeudi. Sam!\n\n--Monsieur?\n\n--Retenez deux places d'imp\u00e9riale pour Londres, pour jeudi matin.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nSam Weller partit donc pour ex\u00e9cuter sa commission. Il avait ses mains\ndans ses poches, ses yeux fix\u00e9s sur la terre et il marchait lentement,\nen se parlant \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame.\n\n\u00abDr\u00f4le de corps que mon empereur! Faire la cour \u00e0 cette Mme Bardell,\nune femme qui a un petit moutard! Toujours comme \u00e7a qu'ils sont ces\nvieux gar\u00e7ons qui ont l'air si sage. Quoique \u00e7a, je n'aurais pas cru \u00e7a\nde lui, je n'aurais pas cru \u00e7a de lui!\u00bb Tout en moralisant de la sorte,\nM. Weller \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9 au bureau des voitures.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XIX.\n\nUn jour heureux, termin\u00e9 malheureusement.\n\n\nLes oiseaux salu\u00e8rent la matin\u00e9e du 1er septembre 1831 comme l'une des\nplus agr\u00e9ables de la saison, car ils ignoraient, heureusement pour la\npaix de leur coeur, les immenses pr\u00e9paratifs qu'on faisait pour les\nexterminer. Plus d'une jeune perdrix, qui trottait complaisamment dans\nles pr\u00e9s, avec toute la gracieuse coquetterie de la jeunesse; et plus\nd'une m\u00e8re perdrix, qui, de son petit oeil rond, consid\u00e9rait cette\nl\u00e9g\u00e8ret\u00e9 avec l'air d\u00e9daigneux d'un oiseau plein d'exp\u00e9rience et de\nsagesse, ignorant \u00e9galement le destin qui les attendait, se baignaient\ndans l'air frais du matin, avec un sentiment de bonheur et de gaiet\u00e9.\nQuelques heures plus tard, leurs cadavres devaient \u00eatre \u00e9tendus sur la\nterre! Mais silence! il est temps de terminer cette tirade, car nous\ndevenons trop sentimental.\n\nDonc, pour parler d'une mani\u00e8re simple et pratique, c'\u00e9tait une belle\nmatin\u00e9e, si belle qu'on aurait eu peine \u00e0 croire que les mois rapides\nd'un \u00e9t\u00e9 anglais \u00e9taient d\u00e9j\u00e0 presque \u00e9coul\u00e9s. Les haies, les champs,\nles arbres, les coteaux, les marais, se paraient de mille teintes\nvari\u00e9es. A peine une feuille tomb\u00e9e, \u00e0 peine une nuance de jaune m\u00eal\u00e9e\naux couleurs du printemps, vous avertissaient que l'automne allait\ncommencer. Le ciel \u00e9tait sans nuage; le soleil s'\u00e9tait lev\u00e9, chaud et\nbrillant; l'air retentissait du chant des oiseaux et du bourdonnement\ndes insectes; les jardins \u00e9taient remplis de fleurs odorantes, qui\n\u00e9tincelaient sous la ros\u00e9e comme des lits de joyaux \u00e9blouissants; toutes\nchoses enfin portaient la marque de l'\u00e9t\u00e9, et pas une de ses beaut\u00e9s ne\ns'\u00e9tait encore effac\u00e9e.\n\nMalgr\u00e9 le charme de la saison, M. Snodgrass ayant pr\u00e9f\u00e9r\u00e9 demeurer au\nlogis, les trois autres pickwickiens mont\u00e8rent dans une voiture\nd\u00e9couverte avec M. Wardle et M. Trundle, tandis que Sam Weller se\npla\u00e7ait sur le si\u00e9ge \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 du cocher.\n\nAu bout d'une couple d'heures leur carrosse s'arr\u00eata devant une vieille\nmaison, sur le bord de la route. Ils \u00e9taient attendus, et trouv\u00e8rent \u00e0\nla porte, outre deux chiens d'arr\u00eat, un garde-chasse, grand et sec, avec\nun enfant, dont les jambes \u00e9taient couvertes de gu\u00eatres de cuir. L'un et\nl'autre portaient une carnassi\u00e8re d'une vaste dimension.\n\n\u00abDites-moi donc, murmura M. Winkle \u00e0 M. Wardle, pendant qu'on abaissait\nle marchepied. Est-ce qu'ils supposent que nous allons tuer du gibier\nplein ces deux sacs-l\u00e0.\n\n--Plein ces deux sacs! s'\u00e9cria le vieux Wardle. Que Dieu vous b\u00e9nisse!\nvous en remplirez un et moi l'autre, et quand ils seront pleins, les\npoches de nos vestes en tiendront encore autant.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle descendit sans rien r\u00e9pondre; mais il ne put s'emp\u00eacher de\npenser que s'ils devaient tous rester en plein air jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'il e\u00fbt\nrempli un de ces sacs, ses amis et lui couraient un danger assez\nconsid\u00e9rable d'attraper des fra\u00eecheurs et des rhumatismes.\n\n\u00abHi! Junon, hi! vieille fille! A bas, Deph! \u00e0 bas! dit M. Wardle en\ncaressant les chiens. Sir Geoffrey est encore en \u00c9cosse, Martin?\u00bb\n\nLe grand garde-chasse r\u00e9pondit affirmativement, en promenant des regards\nsurpris de M. Winkle, qui tenait son fusil comme s'il avait voulu que sa\nveste lui \u00e9pargn\u00e2t la peine de tirer la g\u00e2chette, \u00e0 M. Tupman, qui\nportait le sien comme s'il en avait \u00e9t\u00e9 effray\u00e9; et il y a tout lieu de\ncroire qu'il l'\u00e9tait effectivement.\n\nM. Wardle remarqua l'air inquiet du grand garde-chasse, \u00abMes amis, lui\ndit-il, n'ont pas beaucoup l'habitude de ces sortes de choses. Vous\nsavez... ce n'est qu'en forgeant qu'on devient forgeron.... Ils seront\nbons tireurs un de ces jours.... Je demande pardon \u00e0 mon ami Winkle, il\na d\u00e9j\u00e0 quelque habitude, cependant.\u00bb\n\nPour reconna\u00eetre ce compliment, M. Winkle sourit faiblement par-dessus\nsa cravate bleue, et dans sa modeste confusion il se trouva si\nmyst\u00e9rieusement emm\u00eal\u00e9 avec son fusil, que si celui-ci avait \u00e9t\u00e9 charg\u00e9,\nil se serait infailliblement tu\u00e9 sur la place.\n\n\u00abIl ne faut pas manier votre fusil dans cette imagination ici monsieur,\nquand vous aurez de la charge dedans, dit le grand garde-chasse d'un air\nrechign\u00e9; ou je veux \u00eatre damn\u00e9 si vous ne faites pas de la viande\nfroide avec quelqu'un de nous.\u00bb\n\nAinsi admonest\u00e9, M. Winkle changea brusquement de position, et dans son\nempressement il amena le canon de son fusil en contact assez intime avec\nla t\u00eate de Sam.\n\n\u00abHol\u00e0! cria Sam en ramassant son chapeau et en frottant les tempes.\nHol\u00e0! monsieur, si vous y allez comme \u00e7a, vous remplirez grandement un\nde ces sacs ici, et du premier coup, encore.\u00bb\n\nA ces mots le petit gar\u00e7on aux gu\u00eatres de cuir laissa \u00e9chapper un \u00e9clat\nde rire, et s'effor\u00e7a au m\u00eame instant de reprendre un air grave, comme\nsi ce n'avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 lui. M. Winkle fron\u00e7a le sourcil majestueusement.\n\n\u00abMartin, demanda M. Wardle, o\u00f9 avez-vous dit au gar\u00e7on de nous retrouver\navec le go\u00fbter?\n\n--Sur le coteau du ch\u00eane, monsieur, \u00e0 midi.\n\n--Est-ce que c'est sur la terre de sir Geoffrey?\n\n--Non, monsieur, c'est tout \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9. C'est sur la terre du capitaine\nBoldwig, mais il ne s'y trouvera personne pour nous d\u00e9ranger, et il y a\nl\u00e0 un joli brin de gazon.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, dit le vieux Wardle. Maintenant, plus t\u00f4t nous partirons,\nmieux cela vaudra. Vous nous rejoindrez \u00e0 midi, Pickwick.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick d\u00e9sirait voir la chasse, principalement parce qu'il avait\nquelques inqui\u00e9tudes pour la vie et l'int\u00e9grit\u00e9 des membres de M.\nWinkle. D'ailleurs, par une si belle matin\u00e9e, il \u00e9tait cruel de voir\npartir ses amis et de rester en arri\u00e8re. C'est donc avec un air fort\npiteux qu'il r\u00e9pondit: \u00abIl le faut bien, je suppose....\n\n--Est-ce que le gentleman ne tire point? demanda le long garde-chasse.\n\n--Non, r\u00e9pondit M. Wardle, et de plus il est boiteux.\n\n--J'aimerais beaucoup \u00e0 aller avec vous, dit M. Pickwick, beaucoup.\u00bb\n\nIl y eut un court silence de commis\u00e9ration. Le petit gar\u00e7on le rompit en\ndisant: \u00abIl y a l\u00e0, de l'aut' c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la haie, une brouette. Si le\ndomestique du gentleman voulait le brouetter dans le sentier, il\npourrait venir avec nous, et nous le ferions passer par-dessus les\nbarri\u00e8res, et tout \u00e7a.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 la chose, s'empressa de dire Sam Weller, qui \u00e9tait partie\nint\u00e9ress\u00e9e, car il d\u00e9sirait ardemment voir la chasse. Voil\u00e0 la chose.\nBien dit, p'tit m\u00f4me. Je vas l'avoir dans un instant.\u00bb\n\nMais ici une autre difficult\u00e9 s'\u00e9leva. Le grand garde-chasse protesta\nr\u00e9solument contre l'introduction d'un gentleman brouett\u00e9 dans une partie\nde chasse, soutenant que c'\u00e9tait une violation flagrante de toutes les\nr\u00e8gles \u00e9tablies et de tous les pr\u00e9c\u00e9dents.\n\nL'objection \u00e9tait forte, mais elle n'\u00e9tait pas insurmontable. On cajola\nle garde-chasse, on lui graissa la patte; lui-m\u00eame se soulagea le coeur\nen ramollissant la t\u00eate inventive du jeune gar\u00e7on qui avait sugg\u00e9r\u00e9\nl'usage de la machine, et enfin la caravane se mit en route. M. Wardle\net le garde-chasse ouvraient la marche; M. Pickwick, dans sa brouette\npouss\u00e9e par Sam, formait l'arri\u00e8re-garde.\n\n\u00abArr\u00eatez, Sam! cria M. Pickwick lorsqu'ils eurent travers\u00e9 le premier\nchamp.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il y a maintenant? demanda M. Wardle.\n\n--Je ne souffrirai pas que cette brouette avance un pas de plus, d\u00e9clara\nM. Pickwick d'un air r\u00e9solu, \u00e0 moins que Winkle ne porte son fusil d'une\nautre mani\u00e8re.\n\n--Et comment dois-je le porter? dit le mis\u00e9rable Winkle.\n\n--Portez-le avec le canon en bas.\n\n--Cela a l'air si peu chasseur, repr\u00e9senta M. Winkle.\n\n--Je ne me soucie pas si cela a l'air chasseur ou non; mais je n'ai pas\nenvie d'\u00eatre fusill\u00e9 dans une brouette pour l'amour des apparences.\n\n--S\u00fbr que le gentleman mettra cette charge ici dans le corps de\nquelqu'un, grommela le grand homme.\n\n--Bien! bien! reprit le malheureux Winkle en renversant son fusil; cela\nm'est \u00e9gal; voil\u00e0....\n\n--C'est les concessions mutuelles qui fait le charme de la vie,\u00bb fit\nobserver Sam, et la caravane se remit en marche.\n\nElle n'avait point fait cent pas lorsque M. Pickwick cria de nouveau:\n\u00abArr\u00eatez!\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il y a encore? demanda M. Wardle.\n\n--Le fusil de Tupman est aussi dangereux que l'autre; j'en suis s\u00fbr.\n\n--Eh quoi? dangereux! s'\u00e9cria M. Tupman, fort alarm\u00e9.\n\n--Dangereux si vous le portez comme cela. Je suis tr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de faire de\nnouvelles objections, mais je ne puis consentir \u00e0 continuer si vous ne\nl'abaissez point comme Winkle.\n\n--J'imagine que vous feriez mieux, monsieur, ajouta le grand\ngarde-chasse, autrement vous pourriez mettre votre bourre dans votre\ngilet aussi bien que dans celui des autres.\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman, avec l'empressement le plus obligeant, pla\u00e7a son fusil dans\nla position requise, et le convoi repartit encore, les deux amateurs\nmarchant avec leur fusil renvers\u00e9 comme une couple de soldats \u00e0 des\nfun\u00e9railles.\n\nTout d'un coup les chiens s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent, et leurs ma\u00eetres en firent\nautant.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'ils ont donc dans les jambes? demanda M. Winkle. Comme ils\nont l'air dr\u00f4le.\n\n--Chut! r\u00e9pliqua M. Wardle doucement. Ne voyez-vous pas qu'ils arr\u00eatent!\n\n--Ils s'arr\u00eatent! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Winkle en regardant tout autour de lui,\ncomme pour chercher la cause qui avait interrompu leur progr\u00e8s. Pourquoi\ns'arr\u00eatent-ils?\n\n--Attention! murmura M. Wardle, qui, dans l'int\u00e9r\u00eat du moment, n'avait\npas entendu cette question. Allons maintenant.\u00bb\n\nUn violent battement d'ailes se fit entendre si soudainement que M.\nWinkle en recula comme si lui-m\u00eame avait \u00e9t\u00e9 tir\u00e9. Pan! pan! deux coups\nde fusil retentirent, et la fum\u00e9e s'\u00e9leva tranquillement dans l'air en\nd\u00e9crivant des courbes gracieuses.\n\n\u00abO\u00f9 sont-elles? s'\u00e9cria M. Winkle dans le plus grand enthousiasme et se\nretournant dans toutes les directions. O\u00f9 sont elles? Dites-moi quand il\nfaudra faire feu! O\u00f9 sont-elles? o\u00f9 sont-elles?\n\n--Ma foi! les voil\u00e0, dit M. Wardle en ramassant deux perdrix que les\nchiens avaient d\u00e9pos\u00e9es \u00e0 ses pieds.\n\n--Non! non! je veux dire les autres! reprit M. Winkle encore tout\neffar\u00e9.\n\n--Assez loin, \u00e0 pr\u00e9sent, si elles courent toujours, r\u00e9pliqua froidement\nM. Wardle en rechargeant son fusil.\n\n--J'imagine que nous en trouverons une autre compagnie dans cinq\nminutes, observa le grand garde-chasse. Si le gentleman commence \u00e0 tirer\nmaintenant, son plomb sortira peut-\u00eatre du canon quand nous les ferons\nlever.\n\n--Ah! ah! ah! fit M. Weller.\n\n--Sam! dit M. Pickwick, touch\u00e9 de la confusion de son disciple.\n\n--Monsieur?\n\n--Ne riez pas.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit Sam. Mais en guise d'indemnit\u00e9 il se\nmit \u00e0 contourner ses traits, derri\u00e8re la brouette, pour l'amusement\nexclusif du jeune Bas de cuir. L'innocent jeune homme laissa \u00e9clater un\nbruyant ricanement, et fut sommairement calott\u00e9 par le grand\ngarde-chasse, qui avait besoin d'un pr\u00e9texte pour se d\u00e9tourner et cacher\nsa propre envie de rire.\n\nPeu de temps apr\u00e8s M. Wardle dit \u00e0 M. Tupman: \u00abBravo! camarade. Vous\navez au moins tir\u00e9 \u00e0 temps cette fois-l\u00e0.\n\n--Oui, r\u00e9pliqua M. Tupman avec un sentiment d'orgueil, j'ai l\u00e2ch\u00e9 mon\ncoup.\n\n--A merveille! vous abattrez quelque chose la premi\u00e8re fois, si vous\nregardez bien. C'est tr\u00e8s-ais\u00e9, n'est-ce pas?\n\n--Oui, c'est tr\u00e8s-ais\u00e9. Mais malgr\u00e9 cela, comme \u00e7a vous ab\u00eeme l'\u00e9paule!\nJ'ai presque cru que j'en tomberais \u00e0 la renverse. Je n'imaginais pas\nque des petites armes \u00e0 feu comme cela repoussaient tant.\n\n--Oh! dit le vieux gentleman en souriant, vous vous y habituerez avec le\ntemps. Maintenant, sommes-nous pr\u00eats? Tout va-t-il bien l\u00e0-bas, dans la\nbrouette?\n\n--Tout va bien, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam.\n\n--En route donc.\n\n--Tenez ferme, monsieur, dit Sam en levant la brouette.\n\n--Oui, oui, repartit M. Pickwick;\u00bb et ils chemin\u00e8rent aussi vite que\nbesoin \u00e9tait.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, dit M. Wardle, apr\u00e8s que la brouette e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 pass\u00e9e\npar-dessus une barri\u00e8re, et lorsque M. Pickwick y fut d\u00e9pos\u00e9 de nouveau.\nMaintenant, tenez cette brouette en arri\u00e8re.\n\n--Bien, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Sam en s'arr\u00eatant.\n\n--A pr\u00e9sent, Winkle, continua le vieux gentleman, suivez-moi doucement\net ne soyez pas en retard, cette fois-ci.\n\n--N'ayez pas peur, dit M. Winkle. Arr\u00eatent-ils?\n\n--Non! non! pas encore. Du silence, maintenant, du silence!\u00bb\n\nEt en effet ils s'avan\u00e7aient silencieusement, lorsque M. Winkle, voulant\nex\u00e9cuter une \u00e9volution fort d\u00e9licate avec son fusil, le fit partir par\naccident, au moment critique, et envoya sa charge juste au-dessus de la\nt\u00eate du petit gar\u00e7on, et \u00e0 l'endroit pr\u00e9cis o\u00f9 aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 la cervelle du\ngrand homme s'il s'\u00e9tait trouv\u00e9 l\u00e0 au lieu de son jeune substitut.\n\n\u00abAu nom du ciel, pourquoi avez-vous fait feu? demanda M. Wardle,\npendant que les oiseaux s'envolaient en toute s\u00fbret\u00e9.\n\n--Je n'ai jamais vu un fusil comme cela dans toute ma vie, r\u00e9pondit le\npauvre Winkle en regardant la batterie, comme si cela avait pu rem\u00e9dier\n\u00e0 quelque chose. Il part de lui-m\u00eame, il veut partir bon gr\u00e9 mal gr\u00e9.\n\n--Ah! il veut partir! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Wardle avec un peu d'irritation. Pl\u00fbt au\nciel qu'il voul\u00fbt aussi tuer quelque chose!\n\n--Il le fera avant peu, monsieur, dit le grand garde-chasse.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous entendez par cette observation, monsieur? demanda\naigrement M. Winkle.\n\n--Rien du tout, monsieur, rien du tout. Moi, je n'ai pas de famille, et\nla m\u00e8re de ce gar\u00e7on ici aura quelque chose de sir Geoffrey, si le\nmoutard est tu\u00e9 sur ses terres. Rechargez, monsieur, rechargez votre\narme.\n\n--Otez-lui son fusil! s'\u00e9cria de sa brouette M. Pickwick, frapp\u00e9\nd'horreur par les sombres insinuations du grand homme. Otez-lui son\nfusil! M'entendez-vous, quelqu'un!\u00bb\n\nPersonne cependant ne s'offrit pour ex\u00e9cuter ce commandement, et M.\nWinkle, apr\u00e8s avoir lanc\u00e9 un regard de r\u00e9bellion au philosophe,\nrechargea son fusil et marcha en avant avec les autres chasseurs.\n\nNous sommes oblig\u00e9 de dire, d'apr\u00e8s l'autorit\u00e9 de M. Pickwick, que la\nmani\u00e8re de proc\u00e9der de M. Tupman paraissait beaucoup plus prudente et\nplus rationnelle que celle adopt\u00e9e par M. Winkle. Cependant ceci ne doit\nen aucune mani\u00e8re diminuer la grande autorit\u00e9 de ce dernier dans tous\nles exercices corporels; car, depuis un temps imm\u00e9morial, comme\nl'observe admirablement M. Pickwick, beaucoup de philosophes, et des\nmeilleurs, qui ont \u00e9t\u00e9 de parfaites lumi\u00e8res pour les sciences, en\nmati\u00e8re de th\u00e9orie, n'ont jamais pu parvenir \u00e0 faire quelque chose dans\nla pratique.\n\nComme la plupart des plus sublimes d\u00e9couvertes, la mani\u00e8re d'agir de M.\nTupman paraissait extr\u00eamement simple. Avec la p\u00e9n\u00e9tration intuitive d'un\nhomme de g\u00e9nie, il avait remarqu\u00e9, du premier coup, que les deux grands\npoints \u00e0 obtenir \u00e9taient: 1\u00b0 de d\u00e9charger son fusil sans se nuire; 2\u00b0 de\nle d\u00e9charger sans endommager les assistants. Donc et \u00e9videmment,\nlorsqu'on \u00e9tait parvenu \u00e0 surmonter la difficult\u00e9 de faire feu, la\nmeilleure chose \u00e9tait de fermer les yeux solidement et de tirer en\nl'air. Q.E.D.\n\nUne fois, apr\u00e8s avoir ex\u00e9cut\u00e9 ce tour de force, M. Tupman, en rouvrant\nles yeux, vit une grosse perdrix qui tombait bless\u00e9e sur la terre. Il\nallait congratuler M. Wardle sur ses invariables succ\u00e8s, quand celui-ci\ns'avan\u00e7a vers lui et lui serrant chaudement la main:\n\n\u00abTupman, vous avez choisi cette perdrix-l\u00e0 parmi les autres?\n\n--Non! non!\n\n--Si, je l'ai remarqu\u00e9. Je vous ai vu la choisir. J'ai observ\u00e9 comment\nvous leviez votre fusil pour l'ajuster; et je dirai ceci: que le\nmeilleur tireur du monde n'aurait pas pu l'abattre plus admirablement.\nVous \u00eates moins novice que je ne le croyais, Tupman: vous avez d\u00e9j\u00e0\nchass\u00e9?\u00bb\n\nVainement M. Tupman protesta, avec un sourire de modestie, que cela ne\nlui \u00e9tait jamais arriv\u00e9. Son sourire m\u00eame fut regard\u00e9 comme une preuve\ndu contraire, et depuis cette \u00e9poque sa r\u00e9putation fut \u00e9tablie. Ce n'est\npas la seule r\u00e9putation qui ait \u00e9t\u00e9 acquise aussi ais\u00e9ment, et l'on peut\nadmirer les effets heureux du hasard ailleurs que dans la chasse aux\nperdrix.\n\nPendant ce temps, M. Winkle s'environnait de feu, de bruit et de fum\u00e9e,\nsans produire aucun r\u00e9sultat positif digne d'\u00eatre not\u00e9. Quelquefois il\nenvoyait sa charge au milieu des airs; quelquefois il lui faisait raser\nla surface du globe, de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 rendre excessivement pr\u00e9caire\nl'existence des deux chiens. Sa mani\u00e8re de tirer, consid\u00e9r\u00e9e comme une\noeuvre d'imagination et de fantaisie, \u00e9tait extr\u00eamement curieuse et\nvari\u00e9e; mais mat\u00e9riellement et quant au produit r\u00e9el, c'\u00e9tait peut-\u00eatre,\nau total, un non-succ\u00e8s. C'est un axiome \u00e9tabli que _chaque boulet a son\nadresse_; si on peut l'appliquer \u00e9galement \u00e0 des grains de petit plomb,\nceux de M. Winkle \u00e9taient de malheureux b\u00e2tards, priv\u00e9s de leurs droits\nnaturels, jet\u00e9s au hasard dans le monde, et qui n'\u00e9taient adress\u00e9s nulle\npart.\n\n\u00abEh bien! dit M. Wardle en s'approchant de la brouette et en essuyant la\nsueur de son visage joyeux et rougeaud; une journ\u00e9e un peu chaude, hein?\n\n--C'est vrai, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick. Le soleil est effroyablement\nbr\u00fblant, m\u00eame pour moi. Je ne sais pas comment vous devez le trouver.\n\n--Ma foi! pas mal chaud, mais c'est \u00e9gal. Il est midi pass\u00e9; voyez-vous\nce coteau vert, l\u00e0?\n\n--Certainement.\n\n--C'est l'endroit o\u00f9 nous devons d\u00e9jeuner. De par Jupiter! le gamin y\nest d\u00e9j\u00e0 avec son panier. Exact comme une horloge!\n\n--Je le vois, dit M. Pickwick, dont le visage devint rayonnant. Un bon\ngar\u00e7on! je lui donnerai un shilling pour sa peine. Allons! Sam,\nroulez-moi.\n\n--Tenez-vous ferme, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam, ravigot\u00e9 par l'apparition du\nd\u00e9jeuner. Gare de l\u00e0, jeune cuirassier! Si vous appr\u00e9ciez ma pr\u00e9cieuse\nvie, ne me versez pas, comme dit le gentleman au charretier qui le\nconduisait \u00e0 la potence.\u00bb Avec cette heureuse citation, Sam partit au\npas de charge, brouetta habilement son ma\u00eetre jusqu'au sommet du coteau\nvert, et le d\u00e9chargea, avec adresse, \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 du panier de provision,\nqu'il se mit \u00e0 d\u00e9paqueter sans perdre une minute.\n\n--P\u00e2t\u00e9 de veau, disait Sam, tout en arrangeant les comestibles sur le\ngazon. Tr\u00e8s-bonne chose, le p\u00e2t\u00e9 de veau, quand vous connaissez la lady\nqui l'a fait et que vous \u00eates s\u00fbr que ce n'est pas du minet. Et apr\u00e8s\ntout, qu'est-ce que \u00e7a fait encore, puisqu'il ressemble si bien au veau\nque les p\u00e2tissiers eux-m\u00eames n'en font pas la diff\u00e9rence?\n\n--Ils n'en font pas la diff\u00e9rence, Sam?\n\n--Non, monsieur, repartit Sam en touchant son chapeau. J'ai log\u00e9 dans la\nm\u00eame maison avec un vendeur de p\u00e2t\u00e9s, une fois, et un homme bien\nagr\u00e9able, monsieur, et pas b\u00eate du tout. Il savait faire des p\u00e2t\u00e9s,\nn'importe avec quoi. Voil\u00e0 que je lui dis, quand j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 amical avec\nlui: Quel troupeau de chats que vous avez-l\u00e0! monsieur Brook.--Ah!\ndit-il, c'est vrai, j'en ai beaucoup, qu'il dit.--Faut que vous aimiez\nbien les chats, que je dis.--Oui, dit-il, en clignant de l'oeil, y a des\ngens qui les aiment. Malgr\u00e9 \u00e7a, qu'il me dit, c'est pas encore leur\nsaison, faut attendre l'hiver.--C'est pas leur saison?--Non, dit-il.\nQuand le fruit m\u00fbrit, le chat maigrit.--Qu'est-ce que vous me\nchantez-l\u00e0? J'y entends rien, que je dis.--Voyez-vous, dit-il, je ne\nveux pas entrer dans la coalition des bouchers pour augmenter la viande\nau pauvre monde. Mossieu Weller, qu'il me dit, en me serrant la main\ngentiment et en me soufflant dans l'oreille; mossieu Weller, qu'il me\ndit, ne r\u00e9p\u00e9tez pas \u00e7a; mais c'est l'assaisonnement qui fait tout: ils\nsont tous faits avec ces nobles animaux ici, dit-il, en m'indiquant un\njoli petit minet. Et je les assaisonne en beefteak, en veau, en rognon,\nau go\u00fbt de la pratique. Et mieux que \u00e7a, qu'il dit, je peux faire du\nbeefteak avec du veau ou du rognon avec du beefteak, ou du mouton avec\nles deux, en pr\u00e9venant trois minutes d'avance, selon les besoins du\nmarch\u00e9 ou l'app\u00e9tit public, qu'il me dit.\n\n--Ce devait \u00eatre un jeune homme fort ing\u00e9nieux, dit M. Pickwick avec un\nl\u00e9ger frisson.\n\n--Je crois bien, monsieur, et ses p\u00e2t\u00e9s \u00e9taient superbes, r\u00e9pliqua Sam\nen continuant de vider le panier. Langue; bien \u00e7a. C'est une tr\u00e8s-bonne\nchose, quand c'est pas une langue de femme. Pain, jambon, frais comme\nune peinture. Boeuf froid en tranches. Tr\u00e8s-bon. Qu'est-ce qu'il y a dans\nces cruches-l\u00e0, jeune \u00e9vapor\u00e9?\n\n--De la bi\u00e8re dans stelle-ci et du punch froid dans stelle-l\u00e0, r\u00e9pondit\nle jeune paysan en \u00f4tant de dessus ses \u00e9paules deux vastes bouteilles de\ngr\u00e8s, attach\u00e9es ensemble par une courroie.\n\n--Et v'l\u00e0 un petit go\u00fbter bien organis\u00e9, reprit Sam en examinant avec\ngrande satisfaction les pr\u00e9paratifs. Et maintenant, gentlemen,\ncommencez, comme les Anglais dirent aux Fran\u00e7ais, en mettant leurs\nba\u00efonnettes.\u00bb\n\nIl ne fallut pas une seconde invitation pour engager la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e0 rendre\npleine justice au repas, et il ne fallut pas plus d'instances pour\nd\u00e9cider Sam, le grand garde-chasse et les deux gamins \u00e0 s'asseoir sur\nl'herbe, \u00e0 une petite distance, et \u00e0 battre en br\u00e8che une proportion\nd\u00e9cente de la victuaille. Un vieux ch\u00eane accordait son agr\u00e9able ombrage\naux deux groupes de convives, tandis que devant eux se d\u00e9roulait un\nsuperbe paysage, entrecoup\u00e9 de haies verdoyantes et richement orn\u00e9 de\nbois.\n\n\u00abCeci est d\u00e9licieux! tout \u00e0 fait d\u00e9licieux! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick, avec un\nvisage rayonnant, dont la peau pelait rapidement sous l'influence\nbr\u00fblante du soleil.\n\n--Oui vraiment, vieux camarade, r\u00e9pliqua M. Wardle, allons, un verre de\npunch?\n\n--Avec grand plaisir, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick; et l'expression radieuse de\nsa physionomie, apr\u00e8s qu'il e\u00fbt bu, t\u00e9moigna de la sinc\u00e9rit\u00e9 de ses\nparoles.\n\n--Bon! dit le philosophe en faisant claquer ses l\u00e8vres; tr\u00e8s-bon! J'en\nvais prendre un autre verre. Frais! tr\u00e8s-frais!... Allons! messieurs,\npoursuivit-il sans l\u00e2cher la bouteille, un toast! Nos amis de\nDingley-Dell!\u00bb\n\nLe toast fut bu avec de bruyantes acclamations.\n\n\u00abJe vais vous apprendre comment je m'y prendrai pour retrouver mon\nadresse \u00e0 la chasse, dit alors M. Winkle, qui mangeait du pain et du\njambon avec un couteau de poche. Je mettrai une perdrix empaill\u00e9e sur\nun poteau, et je m'exercerai \u00e0 tirer dessus, en commen\u00e7ant \u00e0 une petite\ndistance, et en reculant par degr\u00e9s. C'est un excellent moyen.\n\n--Monsieur, dit Sam, je connais un gentleman qui a fait \u00e7a et qui a\ncommenc\u00e9 \u00e0 quatre pieds; mais il n'a jamais continu\u00e9, car du premier\ncoup il avait si bien ajust\u00e9 son oiseau que le diable m'emporte si on en\na jamais revu une plume depuis.\n\n--Sam! dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Monsieur?\n\n--Ayez la bont\u00e9 de garder vos anecdotes jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'on vous les\ndemande.\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nSam se tut, mais il cligna si fac\u00e9tieusement l'oeil qui n'\u00e9tait point\ncach\u00e9 par le pot de bi\u00e8re dont il humectait ses l\u00e8vres, que les deux\npetits paysans tomb\u00e8rent dans des convulsions spontan\u00e9es, et que le\ngrand garde-chasse, lui-m\u00eame, condescendit \u00e0 sourire.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0, ma foi, d'excellent punch froid, dit M. Pickwick en regardant\navec tendresse la bouteille de gr\u00e8s; et le jour est extr\u00eamement chaud,\net... Tupman, mon cher ami, un verre de punch?\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-volontiers,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua M. Tupman.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir bu ce verre, M. Pickwick en prit un autre, seulement pour\nvoir s'il n'y avait pas de pelure d'orange dans le punch, parce que la\npelure d'orange lui faisait toujours mal. S'\u00e9tant convaincu qu'il n'y en\navait point, M. Pickwick but un autre verre \u00e0 la sant\u00e9 de M. Snodgrass;\npuis il se crut oblig\u00e9, en conscience, de proposer un toast en l'honneur\ndu fabricant de punch anonyme.\n\nCette constante succession de verres de punch produisit un effet\nremarquable sur notre sage. Sa physionomie resplendissait de la plus\ndouce gaiet\u00e9; le sourire se jouait sur ses l\u00e8vres; la bonne humeur la\nplus franche \u00e9tincelait dans ses yeux. C\u00e9dant, par degr\u00e9s, \u00e0 l'influence\ncombin\u00e9e de ce liquide excitant et de la chaleur, il exprima un violent\nd\u00e9sir de se rappeler une chanson qu'il avait entendue dans son enfance;\nmais ses efforts furent inutiles. Il voulut stimuler sa m\u00e9moire par un\nautre verre de punch, qui malheureusement parut produire sur lui un\neffet enti\u00e8rement oppos\u00e9; car, non content d'avoir oubli\u00e9 la chanson, il\nfinit par ne plus pouvoir articuler une seule parole. Ce fut donc en\nvain qu'il se leva sur ses jambes pour adresser \u00e0 la compagnie un\n\u00e9loquent discours, il retomba dans la brouette et s'endormit presque au\nm\u00eame instant.\n\nLe panier fut rempaquet\u00e9, mais on trouva qu'il \u00e9tait tout \u00e0 fait\nimpossible de r\u00e9veiller M. Pickwick de sa torpeur. On discuta s'il\nfallait que Sam recommen\u00e7\u00e2t \u00e0 le brouetter ou s'il valait mieux le\nlaisser o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait, jusqu'au retour de ses amis. Ce dernier parti fut\nadopt\u00e9 \u00e0 la fin, et comme leur exp\u00e9dition ne devait pas durer plus d'une\nheure, comme Sam demandait avec instance \u00e0 les accompagner, ils se\nd\u00e9cid\u00e8rent \u00e0 abandonner M. Pickwick endormi dans sa brouette et \u00e0 le\nprendre au retour. La compagnie s'\u00e9loigna donc, laissant notre\nphilosophe ronfler harmonieusement et paisiblement, \u00e0 l'ombre antique du\nvieux ch\u00eane.\n\nOn peut affirmer avec certitude que M. Pickwick e\u00fbt continu\u00e9 de ronfler\n\u00e0 l'ombre du vieux ch\u00eane jusqu'au retour de ses amis, ou, \u00e0 leur d\u00e9faut,\njusqu'au subs\u00e9quent lever de soleil, s'il lui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 permis de rester\nen paix dans sa brouette; mais cela ne lui fut pas permis, et voici\npourquoi.\n\nLe capitaine Boldwig \u00e9tait un petit homme violent, v\u00eatu d'une redingote\nbleue soigneusement boutonn\u00e9e jusqu'au menton et surmont\u00e9e d'un col noir\nbien roide. Lorsqu'il daignait se promener sur sa propri\u00e9t\u00e9, il le\nfaisait en compagnie d'un gros rotin plomb\u00e9, d'un jardinier et d'un\naide-jardinier, qui luttaient d'humilit\u00e9 en recevant les ordres qu'il\nleur donnait avec toute la grandeur et toute la s\u00e9v\u00e9rit\u00e9 convenables:\ncar la soeur de la femme du capitaine avait \u00e9pous\u00e9 un marquis; et la\nmaison du capitaine \u00e9tait une _villa_, et sa propri\u00e9t\u00e9 une _terre_; et\ntout \u00e9tait chez lui tr\u00e8s-haut, tr\u00e8s-puissant et tr\u00e8s-noble.\n\nM. Pickwick avait \u00e0 peine dormi une demi-heure lorsque le petit\ncapitaine, suivi de son escorte, arriva en faisant des enjamb\u00e9es aussi\ngrandes que le lui permettaient sa taille et son importance. Quand il\nfut aupr\u00e8s du vieux ch\u00eane, il s'arr\u00eata, il enfla ses joues et en chassa\nl'air avec noblesse; il regarda le paysage comme s'il e\u00fbt pens\u00e9 que le\npaysage devait \u00eatre singuli\u00e8rement flatt\u00e9 d'\u00eatre regard\u00e9 par lui; et\nenfin, ayant emphatiquement frapp\u00e9 la terre de son rotin, il convoqua le\nchef jardinier.\n\n--Hunt! dit le capitaine Boldwig.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit le jardinier.\n\n--Cylindrez le gazon de cet endroit demain matin. Entendez-vous, Hunt?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Et prenez soin de me tenir cet endroit proprement. Entendez-vous,\nHunt?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Et faites-moi penser \u00e0 faire mettre un \u00e9criteau mena\u00e7ant de pi\u00e8ges \u00e0\nloup, de chausse-trapes et tout cela, pour les petites gens qui se\npermettront de se promener sur mes terres. Entendez-vous, Hunt?\nentendez-vous?\n\n--Je ne l'oublierai pas, monsieur.\n\n--Pardon, excuse, monsieur, dit l'autre jardinier en s'avan\u00e7ant avec son\nchapeau \u00e0 la main.\n\n--Eh bien! Wilkins, qu'est-ce qui vous prend?\n\n--Pardon, excuse, monsieur, mais je pense qu'il y a des gens qui sont\nentr\u00e9s ici aujourd'hui.\n\n--Ha! fit le capitaine en jetant autour de lui un regard farouche.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, ils ont d\u00een\u00e9 ici, comme je pense.\n\n--Damnation! c'est vrai, dit le capitaine en voyant les cro\u00fbtes de pain\n\u00e9tendues sur le gazon; ils ont v\u00e9ritablement d\u00e9vor\u00e9 leur nourriture sur\nma terre. Ha! les vagabonds! si je les tenais ici!... dit le capitaine\nen serrant son gros rotin.\n\n--Pardon, excuse, monsieur, mais....\n\n--Mais quoi, eh? vocif\u00e9ra le capitaine; et suivant le timide regard de\nWilkins, ses yeux rencontr\u00e8rent la brouette et M. Pickwick.\n\n--Qui es-tu, coquin? cria le capitaine en donnant plusieurs coups de son\nrotin dans les c\u00f4tes de M. Pickwick. Comment t'appelles-tu?\n\n--Punch! murmura l'homme immortel, et il se rendormit imm\u00e9diatement.\n\n--Quoi?\u00bb demanda le capitaine Boldwig.\n\nPas de r\u00e9ponse.\n\n\u00abComment a-t-il dit qu'il s'appelait?\n\n--Punch[23], monsieur, comme je pense.\n\n[Footnote 23: Le polichinelle anglais s'appelle _Punch_.\n\n(_Note du traducteur._)]\n\n--C'est un impudent, un mis\u00e9rable impudent. Il fait semblant de dormir \u00e0\npr\u00e9sent, dit le capitaine plein de fureur. Il est so\u00fbl, c'est un ivrogne\npl\u00e9b\u00e9ien. Emmenez-le, Wilkins, emmenez-le sur-le-champ.\n\n--O\u00f9 faut-il que je le roule, monsieur, demanda Wilkins avec grande\ntimidit\u00e9.\n\n--Roulez-le \u00e0 tous les diables.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur.\n\n--Arr\u00eatez, dit le capitaine.\u00bb\n\nWilkins s'arr\u00eata brusquement.\n\n\u00abRoulez-le dans la fourri\u00e8re[24], et voyons s'il s'appellera encore\nPunch, quand il se r\u00e9veillera.... Il ne se _rira_ pas de moi! Il ne se\n_rira_ pas de moi, emmenez-le!\u00bb\n\n[Footnote 24: Esp\u00e8ce de parc commun, o\u00f9 l'on met les animaux errants, en\n_fourri\u00e8re_.\n\n(_Note du traducteur._)]\n\nM. Pickwick fut emmen\u00e9 en cons\u00e9quence de cet imp\u00e9rieux mandat, et le\ngrand capitaine Boldwig, enfl\u00e9 d'indignation, continua sa promenade.\n\nL'\u00e9tonnement de nos chasseurs fut inexprimable quand ils s'aper\u00e7urent, \u00e0\nleur retour, que M. Pickwick \u00e9tait disparu et qu'il avait emmen\u00e9 la\nbrouette avec lui. C'\u00e9tait la chose la plus myst\u00e9rieuse et la plus\ninexplicable. Qu'un boiteux se f\u00fbt tout d'un coup remis sur ses jambes\net s'en f\u00fbt all\u00e9, c'\u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 passablement extraordinaire: mais qu'en\nmani\u00e8re d'amusement il e\u00fbt roul\u00e9 devant lui une pesante brouette, cela\ndevenait tout \u00e0 fait miraculeux. Ses amis cherch\u00e8rent aux environs, dans\ntous les coins, sous tous les buissons, en compagnie et s\u00e9par\u00e9ment; ils\ncri\u00e8rent, ils siffl\u00e8rent, ils rirent, ils appel\u00e8rent, et tout cela sans\naucun r\u00e9sultat: impossible de trouver M. Pickwick. Enfin, apr\u00e8s\nplusieurs heures de recherches inutiles, ils arriv\u00e8rent \u00e0 la p\u00e9nible\nconclusion qu'il fallait s'en retourner sans lui.\n\nCependant notre philosophe, profond\u00e9ment endormi dans sa brouette, avait\n\u00e9t\u00e9 roul\u00e9 et soigneusement d\u00e9pos\u00e9 dans la fourri\u00e8re du village, en\ncompagnie de divers animaux immondes. Tous les gamins et les trois\nquarts des autres habitants s'\u00e9taient rassembl\u00e9s autour de lui, pour\nattendre qu'il s'\u00e9veill\u00e2t. Si leur satisfaction avait \u00e9t\u00e9 immense en le\nvoyant rouler, elle fut infinie quand, apr\u00e8s avoir pouss\u00e9 quelques cris\nindistincts pour appeler Sam, il s'assit dans sa brouette et contempla,\navec un inexprimable \u00e9tonnement, les visages joyeux qui l'entouraient.\n\nDes hu\u00e9es g\u00e9n\u00e9rales furent, comme on l'imagine, le signal de son r\u00e9veil;\net lorsqu'il demanda machinalement: \u00abQu'est-ce qu'il y a?\u00bb elles\nrecommenc\u00e8rent avec plus de violence, s'il est possible.\n\n\u00abEn voil\u00e0, une bonne histoire! hurlait la populace.\n\n--O\u00f9 suis-je? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Dans la fourri\u00e8re! beugla la canaille.\n\n--Comment sais-je venu ici? O\u00f9 \u00e9tais-je? Qu'est-ce que je faisais?\n\n--Boldwig! capitaine Boldwig! vocif\u00e9ra-t-on de toutes parts; et ce fut\nla seule explication.\n\n--Tirez-moi d'ici! cria M, Pickwick. O\u00f9 est mon domestique? O\u00f9 sont mes\namis?\n\n--Vous n'en avez pas des amis! hurrah!\u00bb et comme corroboration de ce\nfait, M. Pickwick re\u00e7ut dans sa brouette un navet, puis une pomme de\nterre, puis un oeuf et quelques autres l\u00e9gers gages de la disposition\nenjou\u00e9e de la multitude.\n\nPersonne ne saurait dire combien cette sc\u00e8ne aurait dur\u00e9, ni combien M.\nPickwick aurait pu souffrir, si tout \u00e0 coup un carrosse, qui roulait\nrapidement sur la route, ne s'\u00e9tait pas arr\u00eat\u00e9 en face du parc. Le vieux\nWardle et Sam Weller en sortirent. En moins de temps qu'il n'en faut\npour \u00e9crire ces mots et peut-\u00eatre m\u00eame pour les lire, le premier avait\nd\u00e9gag\u00e9 M. Pickwick et l'avait plac\u00e9 dans sa voiture, tandis que le\nsecond terminait la troisi\u00e8me reprise d'un combat singulier avec le\nbedeau de l'endroit.\n\n\u00abCourez chez le magistrat, cri\u00e8rent une douzaine de voix.\n\n--Ah! oui, courez-y, dit Sam en sautant sur le si\u00e9ge de la voiture,\nfaites-lui mes compliments, les compliments de M. Weller. Dites-lui que\nj'ai g\u00e2t\u00e9 son bedeau et que s'il veut en faire un nouveau je reviendrai\ndemain matin pour le lui g\u00e2ter encore. En route, mon vieux!\u00bb\n\nLorsque la voiture fut sortie du village, M. Pickwick respira fortement\net dit: \u00abAussit\u00f4t que je serai arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 Londres j'actionnerai le\ncapitaine Boldwig pour d\u00e9tention ill\u00e9gale.\n\n--Il para\u00eet que nous \u00e9tions en contravention, fit observer M. Wardle.\n\n--Cela m'est \u00e9gal, je l'attaquerai.\n\n--Non, vous ne l'attaquerez pas.\n\n--Si, je l'attaquerai, sur mon....\u00bb M. Pickwick s'interrompit en\nremarquant l'expression goguenarde de la physionomie du vieux Wardle.\n\u00abEt pourquoi ne le ferais-je pas? reprit-il.\n\n--Parce que, dit le vieux Wardle, en \u00e9clatant de rire, parce qu'il\npourrait se retourner sur quelqu'un de nous et dire que nous avions pris\ntrop de punch froid.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick eut beau faire, il ne put s'emp\u00eacher de sourire; par degr\u00e9s,\nson sourire s'agrandit et devint un \u00e9clat de rire; enfin cet \u00e9clat de\nrire contagieux fut r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9 par toute la compagnie. Afin de fomenter\ncette bonne humeur, nos amis s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent \u00e0 la premi\u00e8re taverne qu'ils\nrencontr\u00e8rent sur la route; chacun d'eux se fit servir un verre d'eau et\nd'eau de vie, mais ils eurent soin de faire administrer \u00e0 M. Samuel\nWeller une dose d'une force _extra_.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XX.\n\nO\u00f9 l'on voit que Dodson et Fogg \u00e9taient des hommes d'affaires, et leurs\nclercs des hommes de plaisir; qu'une entrevue touchante eut lieu entre\nM. Samuel Weller et le p\u00e8re qu'il avait perdu depuis longtemps; o\u00f9 l'on\nvoit, enfin, quels esprits sup\u00e9rieurs s'assemblaient \u00e0 la _Souche et la\nPie_, et quel excellent chapitre sera le suivant.\n\n\nDans une pi\u00e8ce situ\u00e9e au rez-de-chauss\u00e9e d'une sombre maison, tout au\nfond de Freeman's-Court, quartier de Cornhill, \u00e9taient assis les quatre\nclercs de MM. Dodson et Fogg, solliciteurs pr\u00e8s la haute cour de\nchancellerie et procureurs de Sa Majest\u00e9 pr\u00e8s la cour du banc du roi et\nla cour des communs-plaids, \u00e0 Westminster; les susdits clercs, dans le\ncours de leurs travaux journaliers, ayant \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s autant de chances\nd'apercevoir les rayons du soleil que pourrait en avoir un homme plac\u00e9\nau fond d'un puits, mais sans jouir des avantages de cette situation\nretir\u00e9e, o\u00f9 l'on peut, du moins, d\u00e9couvrir des \u00e9toiles en plein jour.\n\nLa chambre o\u00f9 ils se trouvaient renferm\u00e9s, \u00e9tait obscure, humide, et\nsentait la moisissure; une s\u00e9paration de bois les abritait des regards\ndu vulgaire, et les clients qui attendaient le loisir de MM. Dodson et\nFogg n'apercevaient ainsi, pour toute distraction, qu'une couple de\nvieilles chaises, une horloge au bruyant tic-tac, un almanach, un\nporte-parapluie, une rang\u00e9e de pupitres, et plusieurs tablettes charg\u00e9es\nde liasses de papiers \u00e9tiquet\u00e9s et malpropres, de vieilles bo\u00eetes de\nsapin et de grosses bouteilles d'encre. Une porte vitr\u00e9e ouvrait sur le\npassage qui donnait dans la cour, et c'est en dehors de cette porte\nvitr\u00e9e que se pr\u00e9senta M. Pickwick, deux jours apr\u00e8s les \u00e9v\u00e9nements\nrapport\u00e9s dans le pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent chapitre.\n\n\u00abEst-ce que vous ne pouvez pas entrer? dit une voix criarde en r\u00e9ponse\nau coup modeste frapp\u00e9 par M. Pickwick \u00e0 la susdite porte.\n\nLe philosophe entra, suivi de Sam.\n\n\u00abM. Dodson ou M. Fogg sont-ils chez eux, monsieur? demanda gracieusement\nM. Pickwick, en s'approchant de la cloison, avec son chapeau \u00e0 la main.\n\n--M. Dodson n'est pas chez lui, et M. Fogg est en affaire,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua la\nvoix; et en m\u00eame temps la t\u00eate \u00e0 qui la voix appartenait, se montra\npar-dessus la cloison, avec une plume derri\u00e8re l'oreille, et examina M.\nPickwick.\n\nC'\u00e9tait une t\u00eate malpropre; ses cheveux roux, scrupuleusement s\u00e9par\u00e9s\nsur le c\u00f4t\u00e9 et aplatis avec du cosm\u00e9tique, \u00e9taient tortill\u00e9s en\naccroche-coeurs et garnissaient une face plate orn\u00e9e en outre d'une paire\nde petits yeux, d'un col de chemise fort crasseux et d'une vieille\ncravate noire us\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abM. Dodson n'est pas chez lui, et M. Fogg est en affaire, dit l'homme \u00e0\nqui appartenait cette t\u00eate.\n\n--Quand M. Dodson reviendra-t-il, monsieur?\n\n--Sais pas.\n\n--M. Fogg sera-t-il longtemps occup\u00e9, monsieur?\n\n--Sais pas.\u00bb\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, le jeune homme se mit fort tranquillement \u00e0 tailler\nsa plume, tandis qu'un autre clerc riait d'une mani\u00e8re approbative, tout\nen m\u00ealant de la poudre de Sedlitz dans un verre d'eau.\n\n\u00abPuisqu'il en est ainsi, je vais attendre, dit M. Pickwick, et il\ns'assit, sans y avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 invit\u00e9, \u00e9coutant le tic-tac bruyant de\nl'horloge et le chuchotement des clercs.\n\n--C'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 une bonne farce, hein? dit l'un de ceux-ci, pour conclure\nla relation d'une aventure nocturne qu'il avait racont\u00e9e \u00e0 voix basse.\n\n--Diablement bonne, diablement bonne, r\u00e9pondit l'homme \u00e0 la poudre de\nSedlitz.\n\n--Tom Cummins \u00e9tait au fauteuil, reprit le premier clerc, qui avait un\nhabit brun, avec des boutons de cuivre. Il \u00e9tait quatre heures et demie\nquand je suis arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 Somers-Town, et j'\u00e9tais si joliment dedans que je\nn'ai pas pu trouver le trou de la serrure et que j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 oblig\u00e9 de\nr\u00e9veiller la vieille femme. Je voudrais bien savoir ce que le vieux Fogg\ndirait s'il savait cela. J'aurais mon paquet, je suppose, eh?\u00bb\n\nA cette id\u00e9e plaisante, tous les clercs \u00e9clat\u00e8rent de rire; l'homme \u00e0\nl'habit brun poursuivit:\n\n\u00abIl y a eu une fameuse farce avec Fogg ici ce matin, pendant que Jack\n\u00e9tait en haut \u00e0 arranger les papiers et que vous deux vous \u00e9tiez all\u00e9s\nau timbre. Fogg \u00e9tait en bas \u00e0 ouvrir ses lettres quand voil\u00e0 venir le\ngaillard de Comberwell contre lequel nous avons un mandat. Vous savez\nbien.... comment s'appelle-t-il d\u00e9j\u00e0?\n\n--Ramsey, dit le clerc qui avait parl\u00e9 \u00e0 M. Pickwick.\n\n--Ah! Ramsey.... en voil\u00e0 une pratique qui a l'air r\u00e2p\u00e9!.\n\n--Eh bien, monsieur, dit le vieux Fogg, en le regardant d'un air\nsauvage. Vous savez, sa mani\u00e8re....--Eh bien, monsieur, \u00eates-vous venu\npour terminer?--Oui, monsieur, dit Ramsey, en mettant sa main dans sa\npoche, et en tirant son argent. La dette est de deux livres sterling et\ndix shillings, et les frais de trois livres sterling et cinq shillings;\nles voici ici, monsieur, et il soupira comme un soufflet de forge, en\ntendant sa monnaie dans un petit morceau de papier brouillard. Le vieux\nFogg regarda d'abord l'argent et ensuite l'homme, et ensuite il toussa\nde sa dr\u00f4le de toux, si bien que je me doutais qu'il allait arriver\nquelque chose.--Vous ne savez pas, dit-il, qu'il y a une d\u00e9claration\nenregistr\u00e9e qui augmente notablement les frais.--Qu'est-ce que vous\ndites l\u00e0, monsieur, cria Ramsey, en tressaillant; le d\u00e9lai n'est expir\u00e9\nqu'hier au soir, monsieur. Cela n'emp\u00eache pas, reprit Fogg. Mon clerc\nest justement parti pour la faire enregistrer. M. Jackson n'est-il pas\nall\u00e9 pour faire enregistrer cette d\u00e9claration dans Bullman et Ramsey,\nmonsieur Wicks?--Naturellement je r\u00e9ponds que _oui_, et alors Fogg\ntousse encore et regarde Ramsey.--Mon Dieu! disait Ramsey, je me suis\nrendu presque fou pour ramasser cet argent, et tout cela pour\nrien!--Pour rien du tout, reprit Fogg, froidement; ainsi vous ferez bien\nmieux de vous en retourner, d'en ramasser un peu plus et de l'apporter\nici \u00e0 temps.--Je n'en pourrai pas trouver, sur mon \u00e2me! s'\u00e9cria Ramsey\nen frappant le bureau avec son poing.--Ne me menacez pas, monsieur, dit\nFogg, en se mettant en col\u00e8re \u00e0 froid.--Je n'ai pas eu l'intention de\nvous menacer, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Ramsey.--Si, monsieur, repartit Fogg;\nsortez d'ici, monsieur! sortez de ce bureau, monsieur, et ne revenez que\nquand vous aurez appris \u00e0 vous conduire, monsieur!--Alors Ramsey a fait\ntout ce qu'il a pu pour se d\u00e9fendre, mais comme Fogg lui coupait la\nparole, il a \u00e9t\u00e9 oblig\u00e9 de remettre son argent dans sa poche et de\nfiler. A peine la porte \u00e9tait-elle ferm\u00e9e, que voil\u00e0 le vieux Fogg qui\nse retourne vers moi, avec on sourire agr\u00e9able, et qui tire la\nd\u00e9claration de sa poche.--Monsieur Wicks, dit-il, prenez un cabriolet et\nallez au Temple, aussi vite que vous le pourrez, pour faire enregistrer\ncela. Les frais sont s\u00fbrs, car c'est un homme laborieux, avec une\nfamille nombreuse, et qui gagne vingt-cinq shillings par semaine. S'il\nnous signe une procuration (et il faudra bien qu'il en vienne l\u00e0), je\nsuis s\u00fbr que ses ma\u00eetres payeront. Ainsi, monsieur Wicks, il faut tirer\nde lui tout ce que nous pourrons. C'est un acte de bon chr\u00e9tien,\nmonsieur Wicks, car avec une grande famille et un petit revenu, il sera\nheureux de recevoir une bonne le\u00e7on, qui lui apprenne \u00e0 ne plus faire de\ndettes. N'est-il pas vrai? n'est-il pas vrai?--Et en s'en allant son\nsourire \u00e9tait si bienveillant que cela vous r\u00e9jouissait le coeur.--C'est\nun fier homme pour les affaires, ajouta Wicks du ton de l'admiration la\nplus profonde, un fier homme, hein?\u00bb\n\nLes trois autres clercs s'unirent cordialement \u00e0 cette admiration et\nparurent charm\u00e9s de l'anecdote.\n\n\u00abJolis gars, ici, monsieur, murmura Sam \u00e0 son ma\u00eetre. Bonne id\u00e9e qu'ils\nont sur les farces, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick fit un signe d'assentiment et toussa, pour attirer\nl'attention des jeunes gentlemen qui \u00e9taient derri\u00e8re la cloison. Ayant\nraffra\u00eechi leurs esprits par cette petite conversation entre eux, ils\neurent la condescendance de s'occuper de l'\u00e9tranger.\n\n\u00abM. Fogg est peut-\u00eatre libre maintenant, dit Jackson.\n\n--Je vais voir, reprit Wicks en se levant avec nonchalance. Quel nom\ndirai-je \u00e0 M. Fogg?\n\n--Pickwick,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua l'illustre sujet de ces m\u00e9moires.\n\nM. Jackson disparut par l'escalier et revint bient\u00f4t annoncer que ma\u00eetre\nFogg recevrait M. Pickwick dans cinq minutes. Ayant fait ce message, il\nretourna derri\u00e8re son bureau.\n\n\u00abQuel nom a-t-il dit? demanda tout bas M. Wicks.\n\n--Pickwick, r\u00e9pliqua Jackson. C'est le d\u00e9fendeur dans Bardell et\nPickwick.\u00bb\n\nUn soudain frottement de pieds, m\u00eal\u00e9 d'\u00e9clats de rires \u00e9touff\u00e9s, se fit\nentendre derri\u00e8re la cloison.\n\n\u00abMonsieur, murmura Sam \u00e0 son ma\u00eetre, voil\u00e0 qu'ils vous m\u00e9canisent.\n\n--Ils me m\u00e9canisent, Sam! Qu'est-ce que vous entendez par me\n_m\u00e9caniser_?\u00bb\n\nPour toute r\u00e9plique, Sam passa son pouce par-dessus son \u00e9paule, et M.\nPickwick, levant la t\u00eate, reconnut la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 de ce fait, \u00e0 savoir: que\nles quatre clercs avaient allong\u00e9 par-dessus la cloison des figures\npleines d'hilarit\u00e9, et examinaient minutieusement la tournure et la\nphysionomie de ce Lovelace pr\u00e9sum\u00e9, de ce grand destructeur du repos des\ncoeurs f\u00e9minins. Au mouvement qu'il fit, la rang\u00e9e de t\u00eates disparut\ncomme par enchantement, et l'on entendit \u00e0 l'instant m\u00eame le bruit de\nquatre plumes voyageant sur le papier avec une furieuse vitesse.\n\nLe tintement d'une sonnette suspendue dans le bureau appela M. Jackson\ndans l'appartement de Me Fogg. Il en revint bient\u00f4t, et annon\u00e7a \u00e0 M.\nPickwick que son patron \u00e9tait pr\u00eat \u00e0 le recevoir.\n\nEn cons\u00e9quence, M. Pickwick monta l'escalier. Au premier \u00e9tage, l'une\ndes portes \u00e9talait, en caract\u00e8res lisibles, ces mots imposants: M. FOGG.\nAyant frapp\u00e9 \u00e0 cette porte et ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 invit\u00e9 \u00e0 entrer, M. Jackson\nintroduisit M. Pickwick en pr\u00e9sence de l'avou\u00e9.\n\n\u00abM. Dodson est-il revenu? demanda Me Fogg.\n\n--A l'instant, monsieur.\n\n--Priez-le de passer ici.\n\n--Oui, monsieur. (Jackson sort.)\n\n--Prenez un si\u00e9ge, monsieur, dit Me Fogg. Voici le journal, monsieur.\nMon partner va \u00eatre ici dans un moment, et nous pourrons causer sur\ncette affaire, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick prit un si\u00e9ge et un journal; mais au lieu de lire ce\ndernier, il dirigea son rayon visuel par-dessus, afin d'examiner l'homme\nd'affaires. C'\u00e9tait un personnage d'un certain \u00e2ge, dont le corps long\net fluet \u00e9tait enga\u00een\u00e9 dans un \u00e9troit habit noir, dans une culotte\nsombre, dans de petites gu\u00eatres noires. Il semblait \u00eatre partie\nessentielle de son bureau et paraissait avoir \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s autant d'esprit\net de sensibilit\u00e9 que lui.\n\nAu bout de quelques minutes arriva Me Dodson, homme gros et gras, \u00e0\nl'air s\u00e9v\u00e8re, \u00e0 la voix bruyante. La conversation commen\u00e7a\nimm\u00e9diatement.\n\n\u00abMonsieur est M. Pickwick, dit Me Fogg.\n\n--Ha! ha! monsieur, vous \u00eates le d\u00e9fendeur dans Bardell et Pickwick?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit le philosophe.\n\n--Eh bien, monsieur, reprit Me Dodson, que nous proposez-vous?\n\n--Ah! dit Me Fogg en fourrant ses mains dans les poches de sa culotte\net s'appuyant sur le dos de sa chaise; qu'est-ce que vous nous proposez,\nmonsieur Pickwick?\n\n--Silence, Fogg! reprit Dodson. Laissez-moi entendre ce que M. Pickwick\nveut dire.\n\n--Je sais venu, messieurs, r\u00e9pliqua notre sage, en regardant avec\ndouceur les deux partners, je suis venu ici, messieurs, pour vous\nexprimer la surprise avec laquelle j'ai re\u00e7u votre lettre de l'autre\njour et pour vous demander quels sujets d'action vous pouvez avoir\ncontre moi?\n\n--Quels sujets!... s'\u00e9criait Me Fogg, lorsqu'il fut arr\u00eat\u00e9 par Me\nDodson.\n\n--Monsieur Fogg, dit celui-ci, je vais parler.\n\n--Je vous demande pardon, monsieur Dodson, r\u00e9pondit Fogg.\n\n--Quant aux sujets d'action, monsieur, reprit Me Dodson, avec un air\nplein d'\u00e9l\u00e9vation morale; quant aux sujets d'action, vous consulterez\nvotre propre conscience et vos propres sentiments. Nous, monsieur, nous\nsommes enti\u00e8rement guid\u00e9s par les assertions de notre client. Ces\nassertions, monsieur, peuvent \u00eatre vraies ou peuvent \u00eatre fausses; elles\npeuvent \u00eatre croyables ou incroyables; mais si elles sont croyables, je\nn'h\u00e9site pas \u00e0 dire, monsieur, que nos sujets d'action sont forts et\ninvincibles. Vous pouvez \u00eatre un homme infortun\u00e9, monsieur, ou vous\npouvez \u00eatre un homme rus\u00e9; mais si j'\u00e9tais appel\u00e9 comme jur\u00e9, monsieur,\net sur mon serment, \u00e0 exprimer mon opinion sur votre conduite, je vous\naffirme, monsieur, que je n'h\u00e9siterais pas un seul instant.\u00bb Ici Me\nDodson se redressa avec l'air d'une vertu offens\u00e9e et regarda Me Fogg,\nqui enfon\u00e7a ses mains plus profond\u00e9ment dans ses poches, et, secouant\nsagement sa t\u00eate ajouta d'un ton convaincu: \u00abTr\u00e8s-certainement!\n\n--Eh bien, monsieur, repartit M. Pickwick d'un air pein\u00e9, je vous assure\nque je suis un homme tr\u00e8s-malheureux, au moins dans cette affaire.\n\n--Je d\u00e9sire qu'il en soit ainsi, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Me Dodson. J'aime \u00e0\ncroire que cela peut \u00eatre, monsieur. Mais si vous \u00eates r\u00e9ellement\ninnocent de ce dont vous \u00eates accus\u00e9, vous \u00eates plus infortun\u00e9 que je ne\ncroyais possible de l'\u00eatre. Qu'en dites-vous monsieur Fogg?\n\n--Je dis absolument comme vous, r\u00e9pondit Me Fogg avec un sourire\nd'incr\u00e9dulit\u00e9.\n\n--L'assignation qui commence l'action, monsieur, continua Me Dodson, a\n\u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9livr\u00e9e r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement. Monsieur Fogg, o\u00f9 est notre registre?\n\n--Le voici, dit Me Fogg en lui passant un volume carr\u00e9 recouvert en\nparchemin.\n\n--Voici l'enregistrement, continua Dodson. _Middlesex, mandat: Veuve\nMartha Bardell versus Samuel Pickwick. Dommages-int\u00e9r\u00eats, 1500 guin\u00e9es.\nDodson et Fogg pour le demandeur, aug. 28, 1831._ Tout est r\u00e9gulier,\nmonsieur, parfaitement r\u00e9gulier.\u00bb\n\nAyant articul\u00e9 ces mots, Me Dodson toussa et regarda Me Fogg. Me Fogg\nr\u00e9p\u00e9ta: \u00abParfaitement,\u00bb et tous les deux regard\u00e8rent M. Pickwick.\n\nCelui-ci dit alors: \u00abVous voulez donc me faire entendre que c'est\nr\u00e9ellement votre intention de poursuivre ce proc\u00e8s?\n\n--Vous faire entendre! monsieur. Oui, apparemment, r\u00e9pondit Me Dodson,\navec quelque chose qui ressemblait \u00e0 un sourire autant que le lui\npermettait sa dignit\u00e9.\n\n--Et que les dommages-int\u00e9r\u00eats demand\u00e9s sont r\u00e9ellement de quinze cents\nguin\u00e9es?\n\n--Vous pouvez ajouter que si notre cliente avait suivi nos conseils,\nelle aurait r\u00e9clam\u00e9 le triple de cette somme.\n\n--Je crois cependant, fit observer Me Fogg, en jetant un coup d'oeil \u00e0 Me\nDodson, je crois que Mme Bardell a d\u00e9clar\u00e9 positivement qu'elle\nn'accepterait pas un liard de moins.\n\n--Sans aucun doute, r\u00e9pliqua Me Dodson d'un ton sec;\u00bb car le proc\u00e8s ne\nfaisait que de commencer, et il ne convenait pas aux avou\u00e9s de le\nterminer par un compromis, quand m\u00eame M. Pickwick y aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 dispos\u00e9.\n\n\u00abComme vous ne nous faites point de propositions, monsieur, continua Me\nDodson, en d\u00e9ployant de sa main droite un morceau de parchemin, et\ntendant gracieusement, de sa gauche, un papier \u00e0 M. Pickwick; comme vous\nne nous faites pas de propositions, monsieur, je vais vous offrir une\ncopie de cet acte, dont voici l'original.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien! monsieur; tr\u00e8s-bien! dit en se levant notre philosophe,\ndont la bile commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 s'\u00e9chauffer. Vous aurez de mes nouvelles par\nmon homme d'affaires.\n\n--Nous en serons charm\u00e9s, r\u00e9pondit Me Fogg en se frottant les mains.\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait, ajouta Dodson, en ouvrant la porte.\n\n--Et avant de vous quitter, messieurs, reprit M. Pickwick en se\nretournant sur le palier, permettez-moi de vous dire que de toutes les\nmanoeuvres honteuses et d\u00e9go\u00fbtantes....\n\n--Attendez, monsieur, attendez, interrompit Me Dodson avec grande\npolitesse. Monsieur Jackson! monsieur Wicks!\n\n--Monsieur? r\u00e9pondirent les deux clercs, apparaissant au bas de\nl'escalier.\n\n--Faites-moi le plaisir d'\u00e9couter ce que ce gentleman va dire. Allons!\nmonsieur, je vous en prie. Vous parliez, je crois, de manoeuvres\nhonteuses et d\u00e9go\u00fbtantes?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick enti\u00e8rement excit\u00e9, je disais que\nde toutes les manoeuvres honteuses et d\u00e9go\u00fbtantes auxquelles se livrent\nles fripons, celle-ci est la plus d\u00e9go\u00fbtante et la plus honteuse. Je le\nr\u00e9p\u00e8te, monsieur.\n\n--Vous entendez cela, monsieur Wicks? cria Me Dodson.\n\n--Vous n'oublierez pas ces expressions, monsieur Jackson? ajouta Me\nFogg.\n\n--Peut-\u00eatre, monsieur, reprit Dodson, peut-\u00eatre que vous aimeriez \u00e0 nous\nappeler escrocs? Allons, monsieur, si cela vous fait plaisir, dites-le.\n\n--Oui, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick. Oui, vous \u00eates des escrocs!\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, observa Dodson. J'esp\u00e8re que vous pouvez entendre de\nl\u00e0-bas, monsieur Wicks?\n\n--Oh oui! monsieur.\n\n--Vous devriez monter quelques marches, ajouta Fogg.\n\n--Poursuivez, monsieur, poursuivez. Vous feriez bien de nous appeler\nvoleurs, monsieur. Ou peut-\u00eatre que vous auriez du plaisir \u00e0 nous\nmaltraiter? Vous le pouvez, monsieur, si cela vous fait plaisir. Nous ne\nvous opposerons pas la plus petite r\u00e9sistance. Allons, monsieur!\u00bb\n\nComme M. Fogg se pla\u00e7ait d'une mani\u00e8re fort tentante \u00e0 proximit\u00e9 du\npoing ferm\u00e9 de M. Pickwick, il est fort probable que notre sage aurait\nc\u00e9d\u00e9 \u00e0 ses sollicitations pressantes, s'il n'en avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 emp\u00each\u00e9.\nMais Sam, en entendant la dispute, \u00e9tait sorti du bureau, avait escalad\u00e9\nl'escalier et saisi son ma\u00eetre par le bras.\n\n\u00abAllons, monsieur! lui dit-il, donnez-vous la peine de venir par ici.\nC'est tr\u00e8s-amusant de jouer au volant, mais pas quand les deux raquettes\nsont des hommes de loi et qu'ils jouent avec vous. C'est trop excitant\npour \u00eatre agr\u00e9able. Si vous voulez vous soulager le coeur en bousculant\nquelqu'un, venez dans la cour et bousculez-moi. Avec ceux-l\u00e0 c'est une\nbesogne un petit peu trop d\u00e9pensi\u00e8re.\u00bb\n\nDisant ces mots et sans plus de c\u00e9r\u00e9monie, Sam emporta son ma\u00eetre \u00e0\ntravers l'escalier, \u00e0 travers la cour, et l'ayant d\u00e9pos\u00e9 en s\u00fbret\u00e9 dans\nCornhill, se retira modestement derri\u00e8re lui, pr\u00eat \u00e0 le suivre en\nquelque lieu qu'il lui pl\u00fbt d'aller.\n\nM. Pickwick marcha tout droit devant lui d'un air d'abstraction,\ntraversa en face de Mansion-house et dirigea ses pas vers Cheapside. Sam\ncommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 s'\u00e9merveiller du chemin que prenait son ma\u00eetre, quand\ncelui-ci se retourna et lui dit:\n\n\u00abSam, je vais aller imm\u00e9diatement chez M. Perker.\n\n--C'est juste l'endroit o\u00f9 vous auriez d\u00fb aller d'abord, monsieur.\n\n--Je le crois, Sam.\n\n--Et moi j'en suis s\u00fbr et certain, monsieur.\n\n--Bien! bien! Sam, j'irai tout \u00e0 l'heure. Mais d'abord, comme j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9\nmis un peu hors de moi-m\u00eame, j'aimerais \u00e0 prendre un verre d'eau-de-vie\net d'eau chaude. O\u00f9 pourrai-je en avoir, Sam?\u00bb\n\nSam connaissait parfaitement Londres, aussi r\u00e9pondit-il sans r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir\nun instant:\n\n\u00abLa seconde cour \u00e0 main droite, monsieur; l'avant-derni\u00e8re maison du\nm\u00eame c\u00f4t\u00e9. Prenez la stalle qui est \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 du po\u00eale, parce qu'il n'y a\npas de pied au milieu de la table, comme il y en a \u00e0 toutes les autres,\nce qui est tr\u00e8s-inconv\u00e9nient.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick observa scrupuleusement les indications de son domestique et\nentra bient\u00f4t dans la taverne qu'il lui avait indiqu\u00e9e. De l'eau-de-vie\net de l'eau chaude furent promptement plac\u00e9es devant lui, et Sam,\ns'asseyant \u00e0 une distance respectueuse de son ma\u00eetre, quoique \u00e0 la m\u00eame\ntable, fut accommod\u00e9 d'une pinte de porter.\n\nLa pi\u00e8ce o\u00f9 ils se trouvaient \u00e9tait fort simple et semblait sous le\npatronage sp\u00e9cial des cochers de diligence, car plusieurs gentlemen qui\nparaissaient appartenir \u00e0 cette savante profession, fumaient et buvaient\ndans leurs stalles respectives. Parmi eux se trouvait un gros homme\nrougeaud, d'un certain \u00e2ge, assis en face de M. Pickwick, et qui attira\nson attention. Le gros homme fumait avec grande v\u00e9h\u00e9mence, mais, \u00e0\nchaque demi-douzaine de bouff\u00e9es, il \u00f4tait sa pipe de sa bouche et\nexaminait d'abord Sam, puis M. Pickwick. Ensuite il ex\u00e9cutait encore une\ndemi-douzaine de bouff\u00e9es, d'un air de m\u00e9ditation profonde, et\nrecommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 consid\u00e9rer notre philosophe et son acolyte. Enfin le gros\nhomme, mettant ses jambes sur une chaise et appuyant son dos contre le\nmur, s'occupa d'achever sa pipe sans interruption, et tout en\ncontemplant, au travers de sa fum\u00e9e, les deux nouveaux venus, comme\ns'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9cid\u00e9 \u00e0 les \u00e9tudier le plus possible.\n\nLes \u00e9volutions du gros homme avaient d'abord \u00e9chapp\u00e9 \u00e0 Sam, mais voyant\nles yeux de M. Pickwick se diriger de temps en temps vers lui, il\ncommen\u00e7a \u00e0 regarder dans la m\u00eame direction, puis il abrita ses yeux avec\nsa main comme si, ayant partiellement reconnu l'objet plac\u00e9 devant lui,\nil d\u00e9sirait s'assurer de son identit\u00e9. Mais ses doutes furent\npromptement r\u00e9solus, car le gros homme, ayant chass\u00e9 un nuage \u00e9pais de\nsa pipe, fit sortir de dessous le ch\u00e2le volumineux qui enveloppait sa\ngorge et sa poitrine une voix enrou\u00e9e, semblable \u00e0 quelque \u00e9trange essai\nde ventriloquisme, et pronon\u00e7a lentement ces mots:\n\n\u00abEh bien! Sammy?\n\n--Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, Sam? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--H\u00e9 bien! je ne l'aurais pas cru, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Sam en ouvrant des\nyeux \u00e9tonn\u00e9s. C'est le vieux.\n\n--Le vieux! reprit M. Pickwick, quel vieux?\n\n--Mon p\u00e8re, monsieur. Comment \u00e7a va-t-il, mon ancien?\u00bb\n\nEt avec cette touchante \u00e9bullition d'affection filiale, Sam fit une\nplace sur le si\u00e9ge \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui pour le gros homme, qui venait le\ncongratuler, pipe en bouche et pot en main.\n\n\u00abH\u00e9 ben! Sammy? dit le p\u00e8re, je ne t'ai pas vu depuis deux ans et mieux.\n\n--C'est vrai \u00e7a, vieux farceur. Comment va la belle-m\u00e8re?\n\n--H\u00e9 ben! je vas te dire quoi, Sammy, reprit M. Weller _senior_ d'une\nvoix tr\u00e8s-solennelle. I' n'y a jamais \u00e9vu une pus belle veuve que ma\nseconde. Une douce criature que c'\u00e9tait, Sammy, et tout ce que je peux\ndire \u00e0 pr\u00e9sent, c'est \u00e7a: pisqu'elle faisait une si extra-superfine\nveuve, c'est ben dommage qu'elle ait chang\u00e9 de condition. Elle ne\nr\u00e9ussit pas pour une femme, Sammy.\n\n--Bah! vraiment?\u00bb demanda M. Weller _junior_.\n\nM. Weller _senior_ secoua la t\u00eate en r\u00e9pondant avec un soupir:\n\n\u00abJ'ai fait la chose une fois de trop, Sammy, j'ai fait la chose une fois\nde trop. Prenez exemple sur vot' p\u00e8re, mon gar\u00e7on, et prenez ben garde\naux veuves toute vot' vie, esp\u00e9cialement si elles tiennent une auberge,\nSammy.\u00bb\n\nAyant expector\u00e9 cet avis paternel, avec grand pathos, M. Weller\n_senior_ tira de sa poche une bo\u00eete d'\u00e9tain, remplit sa pipe, l'alluma\navec les cendres de la pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente et recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 fumer d'un grand\ntrain.\n\nApr\u00e8s une pause consid\u00e9rable il s'adressa \u00e0 M. Pickwick, en continuant\nle m\u00eame sujet:\n\n\u00abDemande vot' excuse, mossieu; rien de personnel, j'esp\u00e8re, mossieu?\nVous n'avez pas empaum\u00e9 une veuve?\n\n--Non, pas encore, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick en riant;\u00bb et tandis que M.\nPickwick riait, Sam informa son p\u00e8re \u00e0 l'oreille des rapports qui\nexistaient entre lui et ce gentleman.\n\n\u00abDemande vot' excuse, mossieu, dit M. Weller en \u00f4tant son chapeau;\nj'esp\u00e8re que vous n'avez pas de reproches \u00e0 faire \u00e0 Sammy, mossieu?\n\n--Pas le moindre, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick.\n\n--Fort heureux d'apprendre \u00e7a, mossieu. J'ai pris beaucoup de peine pour\nson \u00e9ducation, mossieu. J'y ai laiss\u00e9 rouler les rues tout petiot pour\nqu'il sache se tirer d'affaire tout seul, mossieu: la v\u00e9ritable m\u00e9thode\npour rendre un jeune homme malin.\n\n--J'imaginerais que c'est une m\u00e9thode un peu dangereuse, observa M.\nPickwick avec un sourire.\n\n--Et qui n'est pas pleine de certitude non plus, objecta Sam; j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9\nr\u00e9guli\u00e8rement enfonc\u00e9 l'autre jour.\n\n--Non? dit le p\u00e8re.\n\n--Si,\u00bb reprit le fils; et il raconta aussi bri\u00e8vement que possible\ncomment il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 dupe des stratag\u00e8mes de Job Trotter.\n\nM. Weller \u00e9couta ce r\u00e9cit avec l'attention la plus profonde, et\nlorsqu'il fut termin\u00e9:\n\n\u00abL'un de ces bijoux, dit-il, n'\u00e9tait-ce pas un grand efflanqu\u00e9 avec des\ncheveux noirs comme des chandelles et le don de l'oratoire\ntr\u00e8s-galopant?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick n'entendait pas parfaitement le dernier item de cette\ndescription, mais comprenant le premier, il r\u00e9pondit: \u00abOui,\u00bb \u00e0 tous\nhasards.\n\n\u00abEt l'aut' gaillard, un toupet noir, en livr\u00e9e violette, avec une\ntr\u00e8s-grosse boule?\n\n--Oui, oui, c'est lui! s'\u00e9cri\u00e8rent vivement le ma\u00eetre et le valet.\n\n--Alors je sais o\u00f9 qu'i' sont remis\u00e9s; i' sont \u00e0 Ipswich, en bon \u00e9tat\ntous les deux.\n\n--Impossible! dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--C'est un fait, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller, et je vas vous dire comment je\nsais \u00e7a. Je travaille une voiture d'Ipswich de temps en temps, pour un\ncamarade. Je l'ai men\u00e9e juste le jour d'apr\u00e8s la nuit o\u00f9s que vous avez\nattrap\u00e9 le rhumatique, et je les ai ramen\u00e9s juste au _n\u00e9grillon_, \u00e0\nChelmsford, et je les ai dispos\u00e9s droit \u00e0 Ipswich o\u00f9s que le domestique,\ncelui qu'est en violet, m'a dit qu'ils allaient rester pour longtemps.\n\n--Je le suivrai, dit M. Pickwick. Nous pouvons visiter Ipswich aussi\nbien qu'un autre endroit. Je le suivrai.\n\n--Vous \u00eates s\u00fbr et certain que c'\u00e9tait eux, gouverneur? demanda Sam.\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait, Sammy, tout \u00e0 fait, car leur apparition est fort\nsinguli\u00e8re. Outre \u00e7a, je me confondais de voir un gen'l'm'n si familier\navec son valet. Pus qu' \u00e7a; comme i's \u00e9taient assis derri\u00e8re mon si\u00e9ge,\nje leu's y ai entendu dire qu'ils avaient enfonc\u00e9 le vieux\nBouffe-la-balle.\n\n--Le vieux quoi? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Le vieux Bouffe-la-balle, mossieu, par quoi, ma coloquinte \u00e0 couper,\nqu'ils parlaient de vous, mossieu.\u00bb\n\nIl n'y a rien de positivement vil ni atroce dans l'appellation de _vieux\nBouffe-la-balle_, mais cependant c'est une d\u00e9signation qui n'est\nnullement respectueuse ni agr\u00e9able. Le souvenir de tous les torts qu'il\navait soufferts de Jingle s'\u00e9tait amass\u00e9 dans l'esprit de M. Pickwick,\ndu moment o\u00f9 M. Weller avait commenc\u00e9 \u00e0 parler. Il ne fallait qu'une\nplume pour faire pencher la balance, et _Bouffe-la-balle_ le fit.\n\n\u00abJe le suivrai, s'\u00e9cria le philosophe en donnant sur la table un coup de\npoing emphatique.\n\n--Je conduirai apr\u00e8s-demain \u00e0 Ipswich, mossieu: la voiture part du\n_Taureau_, dans White-Chapel; si vous avez r\u00e9ellement envie d'y\ndescendre, vous feriez mieux d'y descendre avec moi.\n\n--C'est vrai, dit M. Pickwick. Tr\u00e8s-bien. Je puis \u00e9crire \u00e0 Bury et dire\n\u00e0 ces messieurs de venir me retrouver \u00e0 Ipswich. Nous irons avec vous.\nMais ne vous en allez pas si vite, M. Weller, voulez-vous prendre\nquelque chose?\n\n--Vous \u00eates bien bon, mossieu, r\u00e9pondit M. Weller en s'arr\u00eatant court.\nPeut-\u00eatre qu'un petit verre d'eau-de-vie pour boire \u00e0 vot' sant\u00e9 et \u00e0 la\nbonne chance de Sammy, \u00e7a ne ferait pas de mal.\u00bb\n\nL'eau-de-vie fut apport\u00e9e, et M. Weller, apr\u00e8s avoir tir\u00e9 son poil \u00e0 M.\nPickwick et adress\u00e9 un signe gracieux \u00e0 Sam, la fit descendre dans son\nlarge gosier comme s'il y en avait eu plein un d\u00e9.\n\n\u00abBien ex\u00e9cut\u00e9, papa. Mais il faut prendre garde, vieux gaillard, ou bien\nvous vous ferez pincer par la goutte.\n\n--J'ai trouv\u00e9 pour \u00e7a un rem\u00e8de souverain, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller en\nreposant son verre.\n\n--Un rem\u00e8de souverain pour la goutte, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick en tirant\npromptement son m\u00e9morandum, qu'est-ce que c'est?\n\n--La goutte, mossieu, la goutte est une maladie qu'elle est naquise de\ntrop d'aises et de conforts. Si vous \u00eates jamais attaqu\u00e9 par la goutte,\nmossieu, vite \u00e9pousez une veuve qu'a une bonne voix forte avec une id\u00e9e\nd\u00e9cente de s'en faire usage, vous n'aurez pus jamais la goutte. C'est\nune proscription capitale, mossieu. Je la consomme r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement et je\nvous r\u00e9ponds qu'elle chasse toutes les maladies qu'est caus\u00e9e par trop\nde joyeuset\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nAyant communiqu\u00e9 ce secret inestimable, M. Weller vida son verre de\nnouveau, cligna de l'oeil d'une mani\u00e8re pr\u00e9tentieuse, soupira\nprofond\u00e9ment, et se retira avec lenteur.\n\n\u00abEh bien! Sam, que pensez-vous de ce qu'a dit votre p\u00e8re? demanda M.\nPickwick en souriant.\n\n--Ce que j'en pense? monsieur; je pense qu'il est victime du\nmatrimonial, comme disait le chapelain de la Barbe-Bleue, en l'enterrant\navec une larme de piti\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nIl n'y avait pas de r\u00e9plique possible \u00e0 l'\u00e0-propos de cette conclusion;\nc'est pourquoi M. Pickwick, apr\u00e8s avoir pay\u00e9 leur \u00e9cot, reprit son\nchemin vers Grey's Inn. Lorsqu'il atteignit ses grottes retir\u00e9es, huit\nheures avaient sonn\u00e9, et le flot incessant de gentlemen en pantalons\ncrott\u00e9s, en chapeaux gris d\u00e9form\u00e9s, en habits r\u00e2p\u00e9s, qui se pr\u00e9cipitait\npar toutes les issues, l'avertit que la majorit\u00e9 des \u00e9tudes \u00e9tait ferm\u00e9e\npour ce jour-l\u00e0.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir grimp\u00e9 deux \u00e9tages rapides et malpropres, M. Pickwick vit\nr\u00e9aliser ses pr\u00e9visions: la porte de M. Perker \u00e9tait close, et le morne\nsilence qui suivit les coups r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9s frapp\u00e9s par Sam, leur annon\u00e7a\nsuffisamment que les gens d'affaires s'\u00e9taient retir\u00e9s pour la nuit.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 qui est bien contrariant, Sam. Je ne voudrais pourtant pas perdre\nun moment pour le voir. Je suis s\u00fbr que je ne pourrai pas fermer l'oeil\navant d'avoir confi\u00e9 cette affaire \u00e0 un homme du m\u00e9tier.\n\n--Voici une vieille qui monte les escaliers, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam.\nPeut-\u00eatre qu'elle sait o\u00f9 nous pourrons trouver quelqu'un. Oh\u00e9! vieille\nlady, o\u00f9 est les gens de M. Perker?\n\n--Les gens de M. Perker, dit une vieille femme maigre et mis\u00e9rable, en\ns'arr\u00eatant pour respirer apr\u00e8s avoir mont\u00e9 l'escalier; les gens de M.\nPerker est parti et moi je vas pour faire le bureau.\n\n--\u00cates-vous servante de M. Perker? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Je suis sa blanchisseuse.\n\n--Ah! dit M. Pickwick, pour l'\u00e9dification exclusive de son domestique,\nc'est une curieuse circonstance, Sam, que, dans ces _inns[25]_, ils\nappellent les femmes de m\u00e9nage des blanchisseuses. Je ne comprends pas\npourquoi.\n\n[Footnote 25: C'est le nom des maisons garnies, habit\u00e9es ordinairement\npar les hommes de loi ou les \u00e9tudiants. (_Note du traducteur._)]\n\n--Je me figure, monsieur, que c'est parce qu'elles ont une aversion\nmortelle \u00e0 laver quelque chose.\n\n--Cela ne m'\u00e9tonnerait pas,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick en regardant la\nvieille femme. En effet, son apparence, comme la tenue du bureau,\nqu'elle venait d'ouvrir, indiquait une antipathie enracin\u00e9e contre\nl'emploi du savon et de l'eau.\n\n\u00abMa bonne femme, reprit M. Pickwick, savez-vous o\u00f9 je puis trouver M.\nPerker?\n\n--Non, je n'en sais rien, r\u00e9pliqua-t-elle d'une voix aigre; il est hors\nde la ville, maintenant.\n\n--Cela est bien malheureux! Et o\u00f9 est son clerc, savez-vous?\n\n--Oui, je le sais, mais i' me remercierait dr\u00f4lement de vous le dire.\n\n--J'ai des affaires tr\u00e8s-particuli\u00e8res avec lui.\n\n--\u00c7a ne peut pas se faire demain matin?\n\n--Pas aussi bien.\n\n--Eh bien, si c'est quelque chose de tr\u00e8s-particulier, je puis dire o\u00f9\nil est. Ainsi je suppose qu'il n'y a pas de mal \u00e0 le dire. Si vous allez\n\u00e0 _la Souche et la Pie_ et que vous demandiez au comptoir M. Lowten. Ils\nvous introduiront, et c'est le clerc de M. Perker.\u00bb\n\nAvec ces instructions, et ayant appris de plus que l'h\u00f4tellerie en\nquestion \u00e9tait au fond d'une cour, heureusement situ\u00e9e entre\nClare-Market et New Inn, M. Pickwick et Sam descendirent en s\u00fbret\u00e9\nl'escalier raboteux et se mirent en qu\u00eate de _la Souche et la pie_.\n\nCette taverne favorite, consacr\u00e9e aux orgies nocturnes de M. Lowten et\nde ses compagnons, \u00e9tait ce que des gens ordinaires appellent un\n_bouchon_. Une petite \u00e9choppe adoss\u00e9e \u00e0 la muraille et sous-lou\u00e9e \u00e0 un\ncordonnier en vieux, marquait suffisamment que le propri\u00e9taire de _la\nPie_ \u00e9tait un homme dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 gagner de l'argent; en m\u00eame temps que la\nprotection par lui accord\u00e9e a un vendeur de petits p\u00e2t\u00e9s, qui d\u00e9bitait\nses chatteries sans crainte d'interruption sur le pas m\u00eame de la porte,\nd\u00e9montrait \u00e9videmment que ledit propri\u00e9taire poss\u00e9dait un esprit\nphilanthropique. Deux ou trois pancartes imprim\u00e9es, faisant allusion \u00e0\ndu cidre de Devonshire et \u00e0 de l'eau-de-vie de Dantzig, pendaient aux\ncarreaux inf\u00e9rieurs des fen\u00eatres, d\u00e9cor\u00e9es de rideaux safran, tandis\nqu'un large \u00e9criteau noir annon\u00e7ait, en lettres blanches, au public\nsavant, qu'il y avait cinq cent mille barils de double bi\u00e8re dans les\ncelliers de la maison, laissant l'esprit dans un \u00e9tat de doute fort\nagr\u00e9able quant \u00e0 la direction pr\u00e9cise dans laquelle on pouvait supposer\nque cette immense caverne s'\u00e9tendait dans les entrailles de la terre.\nNous aurons d\u00e9crit autant qu'il est n\u00e9cessaire l'ext\u00e9rieur de l'\u00e9difice,\nlorsque nous aurons ajout\u00e9 que l'enseigne antique \u00e9talait la figure \u00e0\nmoiti\u00e9 effac\u00e9e d'une _pie_ contemplant attentivement une ligne tortueuse\nde couleur brune, que les voisins avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 habitu\u00e9s d\u00e8s l'enfance \u00e0\nreconna\u00eetre pour la _souche_.\n\nLorsque M. Pickwick se pr\u00e9senta au comptoir, il fut re\u00e7u par une femme\nd'un certain \u00e2ge qui sortit de derri\u00e8re un paravent.\n\n\u00abM. Lowten est-il ici, madame?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, il y est. Charley, introduisez le gentleman aupr\u00e8s de\nM. Lowten.\n\n--Le gen'l'm'n peut pas entrer \u00e0 c't' heure, r\u00e9pondit un jeune Ganym\u00e8de\n\u00e0 la t\u00eate rousse. M'sieu Lowten i' chante une chanson farce, et \u00e7a\nl'interloquerait. \u00c7a ne sera pas bien long, m'sieu.\u00bb\n\nLe Ganym\u00e8de roux avait \u00e0 peine cess\u00e9 de parler, lorsque le cliquetis des\nverres et le tonnerre des coups frapp\u00e9s sur la table annonc\u00e8rent que la\nchanson \u00e9tait termin\u00e9e. M. Pickwick engagea Sam \u00e0 se d\u00e9lasser dans la\nbuvette, et suivit son introducteur.\n\nSur cette annonce: \u00abUn gen'l'm'n pour vous parler, m'sieu.\u00bb\n\nUn jeune homme bouffi, qui remplissait le fauteuil au sommet de la\ntable, leva la t\u00eate, regarda avec quelque surprise dans la direction\nd'o\u00f9 portait la voix, et sa surprise ne fut aucunement diminu\u00e9e\nlorsqu'il reconnut qu'il ne connaissait nullement l'individu sur lequel\nse reposaient ses yeux.\n\n\u00abJe vous demande pardon, monsieur, dit M. Pickwick, et je suis aussi\ntr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de d\u00e9ranger ces messieurs, mais je viens pour une affaire\npressante. Si vous voulez me permettre de vous entretenir au bout de\ncette chambre pendant cinq minutes, je vous serai fort oblig\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nLe jeune homme bouffi se leva, et, tirant une chaise dans un coin obscur\nde la salle, \u00e9couta attentivement le r\u00e9cit des infortunes de M.\nPickwick. Lorsqu'il fut termin\u00e9: \u00abAh! dit-il, Dodson et Fogg! habiles\ndans la pratique! hommes d'affaires, bien malins, monsieur!\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick admit la malice de Dodson et Fogg, et M. Lowten poursuivit:\n\n\u00abPerker n'est pas dans la ville et n'y reviendra pas avant la fin de la\nsemaine prochaine; mais si vous voulez faire d\u00e9fendre \u00e0 l'action, vous\nn'avez qu'\u00e0 me laisser cette copie, je pourrai faire tout ce qui est\nn\u00e9cessaire jusqu'\u00e0 son retour.\n\n--C'est pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment pour cela que je suis venu ici, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick\nen tendant le document. S'il arrive quelque chose de nouveau vous pouvez\nm'\u00e9crire, poste restante, \u00e0 Ipswich.\n\n--C'est fort bien,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit le clerc de Me Perker; et, voyant les\nregards de M. Pickwick se diriger curieusement vers la table, il ajouta:\n\u00abVoulez-vous rester avec nous pour une demi-heure? Nous avons fameuse\ncompagnie ce soir. Il y a Samkin, et le premier clerc de _Green_, et\nSmithers, et la chancellerie de Price, et Pimkins, et Thomas... il\nchante \u00e0 ravir; et Jack Bamber, et beaucoup d'autres. Vous arrivez de la\ncampagne, je suppose: voulez-vous vous joindre \u00e0 nous?\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick ne pouvait laisser \u00e9chapper une occasion si s\u00e9duisante\nd'\u00e9tudier la nature humaine: il se laissa mener vers la table, fut\npr\u00e9sent\u00e9 formellement \u00e0 la compagnie, prit un si\u00e9ge aupr\u00e8s du pr\u00e9sident\net fit venir un verre de son breuvage favori.\n\nUn profond silence s'ensuivit, contrairement \u00e0 l'attente de M. Pickwick.\nEnfin son voisin de droite, gentleman qui \u00e9talait des boutons de\nmosa\u00efque sur une chemise ray\u00e9e, lui dit en \u00f4tant avec deux doigts son\ncigare de sa bouche:\n\n\u00abJ'esp\u00e8re que cela ne vous incommode pas, monsieur?\n\n--Pas le moins du monde, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick. J'en aime beaucoup\nl'odeur, quoique je ne fume pas moi-m\u00eame.\n\n--Je serais bien f\u00e2ch\u00e9 d'en dire autant, observa un autre gentleman du\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 oppos\u00e9 de la table. Ma pipe, c'est pour moi la table et le\nlogement.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick examina celui qui parlait ainsi et ne put s'emp\u00eacher de\npenser que tout aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 pour le mieux, si sa pipe avait aussi \u00e9t\u00e9\npour lui la blanchissage.\n\nIl y eut une autre pause. M. Pickwick \u00e9tait un \u00e9tranger, et son arriv\u00e9e\navait \u00e9videmment refroidi les assistants.\n\n\u00abM. Grundy va r\u00e9galer la compagnie d'une chanson, dit le pr\u00e9sident.\n\n--Non, il ne la r\u00e9galera pas, r\u00e9pliqua M. Grundy.\n\n--Pourquoi? demanda le pr\u00e9sident.\n\n--Parce que je ne peux pas.\n\n--Vous feriez mieux de dire que vous ne voulez pas.\n\n--Eh bien! alors, parce que je ne veux pas.\u00bb\n\nUn autre silence fut occasionn\u00e9 par ce refus positif de r\u00e9galer la\ncompagnie.\n\n\u00abPersonne ne nous mettra-t-il en train? dit le pr\u00e9sident d'un ton\ndubitatif.\n\n--Pourquoi ne nous mettez-vous pas en train vous-m\u00eame, monsieur le\npr\u00e9sident,\u00bb fit observer du bout de la table un jeune gentleman avec des\nmoustaches, un oeil louche et un col de chemise rabattu.\n\n\u00ab\u00c9coutez! \u00e9coutez!\u00bb cria le fumeur aux joyaux de clinquant.\n\nLe pr\u00e9sident r\u00e9pliqua: \u00abParce que je viens de chanter la seule chanson\nque je sache, et que celui qui chante deux fois la m\u00eame chanson dans une\nsoir\u00e9e est \u00e0 l'amende d'une tourn\u00e9e.\u00bb\n\nC'\u00e9tait une raison sans r\u00e9plique, aussi fut-elle suivie d'un nouveau\nsilence.\n\nM. Pickwick, d\u00e9sirant susciter un sujet qui p\u00fbt \u00eatre discut\u00e9 par tout le\nmonde, \u00e9leva la voix et parla en ces termes:\n\n\u00abJ'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 ce soir, gentlemen, dans un endroit que vous tous connaissez\nparfaitement sans aucun doute, mais o\u00f9 je n'avais pas mis le pied depuis\nbien des ann\u00e9es et que je connais fort peu. Je veux parler de _Gray's\nInn_. Ces vieux h\u00f4tels sont de curieux recoins, dans une grande ville\ncomme Londres.\n\n--Par Jupiter, murmura le pr\u00e9sident \u00e0 M. Pickwick, vous \u00eates tomb\u00e9 sur\nun sujet qui fera causer l'un de nous, du moins. Vous allez tirer de sa\ncoquille le vieux Jack Bamber. On ne l'a jamais entendu parler sur autre\nchose que sur les _inns_\u00bb. Il y a v\u00e9cu si longtemps tout seul qu'il en\nest devenu \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 fou.\u00bb\n\nL'individu dont parlait M. Lowten \u00e9tait un vieux petit homme, aux\n\u00e9paules \u00e9lev\u00e9es, qui avait l'habitude de se pencher en avant quand il\n\u00e9tait silencieux, et qui, pour cette raison, n'avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 remarqu\u00e9 de\nM. Pickwick. Mais lorsque le vieux homme leva sa face jaune et\nd\u00e9charn\u00e9e, et fixa sur lui ses yeux gris pleins de finesse et de\np\u00e9n\u00e9tration, notre illustre observateur s'\u00e9tonna que des traits aussi\nsinguliers eussent pu \u00e9chapper un seul instant \u00e0 son attention. Un\nsourire chagrin contractait perp\u00e9tuellement la figure du vieillard; il\nappuyait son menton sur une grande main maigre, dont les ongles \u00e9taient\nd'une longueur extraordinaire; son regard p\u00e9n\u00e9trant et fixe luisait sous\nd'\u00e9pais sourcils grisonnants; enfin il y avait dans toute l'expression\nde sa physionomie quelque chose d'\u00e9trange, de sauvage, de rus\u00e9, qui\nrendaient son aspect tout \u00e0 fait repoussant.\n\nTelle \u00e9tait la figure qui se redressa tout \u00e0 coup et d'o\u00f9 jaillit un\ntorrent de paroles br\u00fblantes. Cependant comme ce chapitre est d\u00e9j\u00e0 bien\nlong, et comme le vieux homme est un personnage notable, il sera plus\nrespectueux pour lui et plus commode pour nous, de le laisser parler\ndans un nouveau chapitre.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXI.\n\nDans lequel le vieux homme se lance sur son th\u00e8me favori, et raconte\nl'histoire d'un dr\u00f4le de client.\n\n\n\u00abHa! ha! dit le vieux homme dont nous avons donn\u00e9 une courte description\ndans le pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent chapitre, ha! ha! qui parle des _Inns_?\n\n--C'est moi, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick. Je remarquais que ce sont\nde vieux endroits bien singuliers.\n\n--_Vous_! repartit le vieux homme d'un ton m\u00e9prisant. Que pouvez-vous\nsavoir du temps o\u00f9 les jeunes gens s'enfermaient dans ces chambras\nsolitaires, et lisaient, et lisaient, heure apr\u00e8s heure, nuit apr\u00e8s\nnuit, jusqu'\u00e0 ce que leur raison f\u00fbt alt\u00e9r\u00e9e par leurs \u00e9tudes nocturnes,\njusqu'\u00e0 ce que les forces de leur esprit fussent \u00e9puis\u00e9es, jusqu'\u00e0 ce\nque la lumi\u00e8re du matin ne leur apport\u00e2t plus ni fra\u00eecheur ni sant\u00e9; si\nbien qu'ils finissaient par p\u00e9rir apr\u00e8s avoir d\u00e9vou\u00e9 inutilement leurs\njeunes \u00e9nergies \u00e0 de vieux bouquins dess\u00e9ch\u00e9s. Vous, qui \u00eates venu plus\ntard, \u00e0 une \u00e9poque toute diff\u00e9rente, que savez-vous de cet affaissement\ngraduel par une lente consomption, ou de ces ravages rapides de la\nfi\u00e8vre, r\u00e9sultat de la d\u00e9bauche et de la dissipation, pour les habitants\nde ces chambres sombres? Savez-vous combien de plaideurs, apr\u00e8s avoir\nvainement implor\u00e9 la merci des hommes de loi, s'en sont all\u00e9s, le coeur\nbris\u00e9, chercher du repos dans la Tamise ou un refuge dans la prison? Il\nn'y a pas un panneau, dans les vieilles boiseries, qui ne p\u00fbt faire un\nr\u00e9cit plein d'horreur sur le roman de la vie, de la vie r\u00e9elle,\nmonsieur! Tout prosa\u00efques que ces h\u00f4tels puissent vous sembler\nmaintenant, je vous dis qu'ils sont remplis d'affreux myst\u00e8res; et\nj'aimerais mieux entendre, \u00e0 minuit, bien des l\u00e9gendes orn\u00e9es d'un titre\nterrible, que la v\u00e9ritable histoire d'une de ces chambres antiques.\u00bb\n\nIl y avait quelque chose de si singulier dans l'\u00e9nergie soudaine du\nvieillard et dans le sujet qui l'avait r\u00e9veill\u00e9, que M. Pickwick ne\ntrouva point de paroles pr\u00eates pour lui r\u00e9pondre. Cependant le\nvieillard, r\u00e9primant son imp\u00e9tuosit\u00e9 et reprenant l'air goguenard que\nl'excitation du moment lui avait fait perdre, poursuivit en ces termes:\n\n\u00abRegardez-les sous un autre aspect moins romantique. Quels admirables\ninstruments de lente torture! Pensez au pauvre homme qui a d\u00e9pens\u00e9 tout\nce qu'il poss\u00e9dait, qui s'est r\u00e9duit \u00e0 la mendicit\u00e9, qui a ran\u00e7onn\u00e9 ses\namis pour entrer dans une profession o\u00f9 il ne gagnera jamais un morceau\nde pain. L'attente, l'espoir, le d\u00e9sappointement, la crainte, le\nmalheur, la pauvret\u00e9, les esp\u00e9rances an\u00e9anties, la carri\u00e8re perdue, le\nsuicide, peut-\u00eatre, ou mieux encore, l'ivrognerie en guenilles, en\nsavates! voil\u00e0 ce que l'on trouve dans ces sombres demeures. Ne sont-ce\npas l\u00e0 de dr\u00f4les d'h\u00f4tels, hein?\u00bb\n\nLe vieillard se frottait les mains en ricanant, enchant\u00e9 d'avoir plac\u00e9\nson sujet favori sous un nouveau point de vue; M. Pickwick le\nconsid\u00e9rait avec curiosit\u00e9, et le reste de la compagnie souriait et\nregardait en silence.\n\n\u00abVous parlez de vos universit\u00e9s allemandes, poursuivit le petit\nvieillard, pouh! pouh! Il y a assez de po\u00e9sie ici, \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de nous, sous\nnos yeux; seulement personne n'y pense.\n\n--Certainement, dit en riant M. Pickwick, je n'ai jamais pens\u00e9 \u00e0 la\npo\u00e9sie de ces endroits-l\u00e0.\n\n--Sans doute, vous n'y avez pas pens\u00e9: naturellement. C'est comme un de\nmes amis qui me disait souvent: \u00abQu'est-ce qu'il y a de particulier dans\nces vieilles maisons?--Dr\u00f4les de vieux endroits, r\u00e9pondais-je.--Pas du\ntout, disait-il.--Solitaires, reprenais-je.--Pas le moins du monde,\u00bb\ndisait-il. Un matin, comme il allait ouvrir sa porte pour sortir, il\ntomba frapp\u00e9 d'apoplexie foudroyante. Il est tomb\u00e9 la t\u00eate dans sa\npropre bo\u00eete \u00e0 lettres. Il resta l\u00e0 pendant dix-huit mois. Tout le monde\nle crut parti de la ville.\n\n--Et comment fut-il trouv\u00e9, \u00e0 la fin? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Comme il n'avait pas pay\u00e9 son loyer depuis deux ans, on se d\u00e9termina \u00e0\nentrer d'autorit\u00e9. En effet, la serrure fut forc\u00e9e, et un cadavre\ndess\u00e9ch\u00e9, en habit bleu, en culotte noire, en bas de soie, tomba dans\nles bras du portier qui ouvrait la porte. C'est dr\u00f4le, \u00e7a? assez dr\u00f4le\npeut-\u00eatre? assez dr\u00f4le, eh?\u00bb Et le petit vieillard pencha sa t\u00eate encore\nplus sur son \u00e9paule, en frottant ses mains avec un indicible plaisir.\n\n\u00abJe sais une autre aventure du m\u00eame genre, reprit-il, quand sa joie fut\nun peu calm\u00e9e. Elle arriva dans Clifford's Inn. Un locataire, sous les\ntoits, mauvaise r\u00e9putation, s'enferme dans le cabinet de sa chambre \u00e0\ncoucher et prend une dose d'arsenic. L'intendant croit qu'il est\nd\u00e9camp\u00e9, ouvre sa porte et met \u00e9criteau. Un autre homme arrive, loue la\nchambre, la meuble et vient l'habiter. Mais, d'une mani\u00e8re ou d'une\nautre, il ne peut pas dormir. Toujours agit\u00e9, inconfortable: C'est bien\ndr\u00f4le! se dit-il. Je ferai ma chambre \u00e0 coucher dans l'autre pi\u00e8ce, et\ncelle-ci sera mon cabinet. Il fait l'\u00e9change et dort tr\u00e8s-bien la nuit,\nmais soudainement il devient incapable de lire le soir; il se trouve\nnerveux, inquiet, et ne peut rien faire que de moucher sa chandelle ou\nde regarder autour de soi. \u00abJe n'y comprends rien,\u00bb se dit-il un soir\nqu'il revenait de la com\u00e9die et buvait un verre de grog froid, le dos\nappuy\u00e9 sur le mur, pour ne pas pouvoir s'imaginer qu'il y e\u00fbt quelqu'un\nderri\u00e8re lui. \u00abJe n'y comprends rien,\u00bb se dit-il, et justement ses yeux\ns'arr\u00eatent sur le petit cabinet qui \u00e9tait toujours rest\u00e9 ferm\u00e9 en\ndedans. Un frisson le saisit des pieds \u00e0 la t\u00eate. \u00abJ'ai d\u00e9j\u00e0 \u00e9prouv\u00e9\ncette \u00e9trange sensation, pense-t-il. Je ne puis pas m'emp\u00eacher\nd'imaginer qu'il y a quelque myst\u00e8re dans ce cabinet....\u00bb En m\u00eame temps,\nil fait un effort, rassemble tout son courage, brise la serrure avec le\nfourgon, ouvre la porte, et l\u00e0, ma foi! il d\u00e9couvre, debout dans un\ncoin, le dernier locataire, tenant une petite bouteille dans sa main\ncrisp\u00e9e, et dont le visage portait les traces affreuses d'une mort\nviolente.\u00bb\n\nAyant ainsi parl\u00e9, le vieux homme recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 ricaner, en promenant ses\nregards refrogn\u00e9s sur les visages \u00e9tonn\u00e9s et attentifs de ses auditeurs.\n\n\u00abQuelles choses \u00e9tranges vous nous dites l\u00e0, monsieur! s'\u00e9cria M.\nPickwick en observant minutieusement les traits du vieillard, au moyen\nde ses lunettes.\n\n--\u00c9tranges? reprit celui-ci, nullement. Vous les trouvez \u00e9tranges parce\nqu'elles sont nouvelles pour vous. Elles sont farces, mais ordinaires.\n\n--Farces! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick involontairement.\n\n--Oui, farces! n'est-il pas vrai?\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua le petit vieillard avec un\nricanement diabolique; et alors sans attendre une r\u00e9ponse, il continua:\n\n\u00abIl y a une quarantaine d'ann\u00e9es, je connaissais un autre individu qui\nloua, dans un des plus anciens Inns, un appartement vieux, humide,\nmoisi, demeur\u00e9 vacant et ferm\u00e9 depuis des ann\u00e9es, des si\u00e8cles. Il\ncourait une quantit\u00e9 d'histoires de vieilles femmes sur ce logement-l\u00e0,\net certainement il \u00e9tait loin d'\u00eatre gai; mais la pauvret\u00e9 rongeait\nnotre homme, et quand ces chambres auraient \u00e9t\u00e9 dix fois pires, leur bon\nmarch\u00e9 l'aurait d\u00e9cid\u00e9. Il fut oblig\u00e9 de racheter quelques vieux meubles\nqui \u00e9taient scell\u00e9s \u00e0 la muraille, et entre autres une grande armoire \u00e0\npapiers, avec de grandes portes vitr\u00e9es, garnies en dedans de rideaux\nverts. C'\u00e9tait un meuble fort inutile pour lui, car il n'avait pas de\npapiers \u00e0 y mettre, et quant \u00e0 ses v\u00eatements il les portait toujours sur\nson dos, sans se fatiguer, encore. C'est bien. Il fait donc porter tous\nses meubles, et il n'en avait pas la charge d'un brancard; il \u00e9parpille\nses quatre chaises dans la chambre pour leur faire faire, autant que\npossible, la figure d'une douzaine, et, le soir venu, il se met \u00e0 boire\naupr\u00e8s du feu le premier verre d'un gallon d'eau-de-vie qu'il avait\nachet\u00e9 \u00e0 cr\u00e9dit. Tout en buvant, il se demandait \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame si\nl'eau-de-vie serait jamais pay\u00e9e, et dans ce cas, au bout de combien\nd'ann\u00e9es, lorsque ses yeux vinrent \u00e0 tomber sur les portes vitr\u00e9es de\nl'armoire de ch\u00eane. \u00abAh! se dit-il, si je n'avais pas \u00e9t\u00e9 oblig\u00e9 de\nprendre ce vilain bahut \u00e0 l'estimation du vieux brocanteur, j'aurais pu\navoir pour mon argent quelque chose de plus confortable. Je vous dirai\nce qui en est, vieille ganache, ajouta-t-il en parlant tout haut \u00e0\nl'armoire, seulement parce qu'il n'avait personne autre \u00e0 qui parler;\ns'il ne fallait pas plus de peine pour briser votre vilaine carcasse\nqu'elle ne me ferait de profit, vous allumeriez mon feu en moins de\nrien.\u00bb Il avait \u00e0 peine prononc\u00e9 ces paroles qu'un son, ressemblant \u00e0 un\nfaible g\u00e9missement, parut sortir de l'armoire. Notre homme en fut\neffray\u00e9 d'abord, mais r\u00e9fl\u00e9chissant ensuite que ce bruit devait \u00eatre\nproduit par quelque voisin qui rentrait chez lui de bonne humeur, il mit\nses pieds sur le garde-feu et leva le poker pour remuer le charbon de\nterre. En ce moment le m\u00eame son fut r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9, l'une des portes vitr\u00e9es\ns'ouvrit lentement et laissa voir, debout dans l'armoire, la figure d'un\ngrand homme, couvert de v\u00eatements sales et d\u00e9chir\u00e9s. Son visage p\u00e2le et\nmaigre semblait rong\u00e9 de chagrin, et il y avait dans la couleur de sa\npeau, dans ses formes de squelette, dans toute sa contenance, enfin,\nquelque chose qui n'appartenait pas \u00e0 un habitant de ce monde. \u00abQui\n\u00eates-vous? balbutia le nouveau locataire devenu plus blanc que sa\nchemise, et balan\u00e7ant toutefois dans sa main le poker, de mani\u00e8re \u00e0\najuster assez d\u00e9cemment la figure surnaturelle. Qui \u00eates-vous?--Ne me\njetez pas ce poker, r\u00e9pliqua le revenant. Vous auriez beau me viser en\nplein, il passerait au travers de moi sans r\u00e9sistance et ne frapperait\nque le fond de l'armoire. Je suis un esprit.--Et que me voulez-vous,\ns'il vous pla\u00eet? repartit le locataire d'une voix tremblante.--Dans\ncette chambre, r\u00e9pliqua l'apparition, s'est consomm\u00e9e ma ruine\nterrestre. Dans cette chambre, j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9duit \u00e0 la mendicit\u00e9, ainsi que\nmes enfants. Dans cette armoire s'accumul\u00e8rent chaque ann\u00e9e les papiers\nd'un long, d'un \u00e9ternel proc\u00e8s. Dans cette chambre, lorsque je mourus de\nchagrin, de d\u00e9sespoir, deux rus\u00e9s vampires se partag\u00e8rent les richesses\npour lesquelles j'avais empoisonn\u00e9 mon existence, et dont ils ne\nlaiss\u00e8rent pas un liard \u00e0 mes pauvres enfants. Je les ai si bien\n\u00e9pouvant\u00e9s que je les ai fait d\u00e9guerpir de ces lieux; et depuis, afin de\nrevoir le th\u00e9\u00e2tre de mes longues mis\u00e8res, j'y reviens toutes les nuits,\nseule \u00e9poque o\u00f9 je puisse encore visiter votre plan\u00e8te. Cet appartement\nest \u00e0 moi. Laissez-le-moi.--Si vous insistez pour revenir dans cette\nchambre, r\u00e9pondit le locataire, qui avait eu le temps de se recueillir\npendant le prolixe r\u00e9cit du revenant, je vous en quitterai la possession\navec le plus grand plaisir; mais, si vous me le permettez, je d\u00e9sirerais\nvous adresser une question.--Parlez, dit l'esprit d'une voix s\u00e9v\u00e8re.--Eh\nbien! reprit notre homme, je ne veux pas vous appliquer personnellement\nmon observation, puisqu'elle est commune \u00e0 tous les esprits dont j'ai\nentendu parler, mais il me semble un peu... incons\u00e9quent, que vous\nreveniez toujours exactement aux lieux o\u00f9 vous avez \u00e9t\u00e9 le plus\nmalheureux, lorsque vous avez la facilit\u00e9 de visiter les plus beaux pays\nde la terre, puisque l'espace ne doit rien \u00eatre pour vous.--Ma foi! cela\nest vrai! je n'y avais jamais pens\u00e9, r\u00e9pliqua le revenant.--Vous voyez,\nmonsieur, poursuivit le locataire, que cette chambre est bien mis\u00e9rable.\nD'apr\u00e8s l'apparence de cette armoire, j'oserais dire qu'il n'y manque\npoint de punaises; et r\u00e9ellement j'imagine que vous pourriez trouver un\ndomicile beaucoup plus confortable, sans parler du climat de Londres,\nqui est extr\u00eamement peu flatteur.--Vous avez tout \u00e0 fait raison,\nmonsieur, r\u00e9pondit l'esprit avec politesse. Je n'avais jamais pens\u00e9 \u00e0\ncela. Je vais essayer imm\u00e9diatement du changement d'air.\u00bb En effet, tout\nen parlant, il commen\u00e7a \u00e0 s'\u00e9vanouir; ses jambes \u00e9taient d\u00e9j\u00e0\nenti\u00e8rement disparues, lorsque le locataire le rappela. \u00abMonsieur, lui\ncria-t-il, vous rendriez un bien grand service \u00e0 la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 si vous\nvouliez avoir la bont\u00e9 de sugg\u00e9rer aux autres ladies et gentlemen qui\ns'occupent \u00e0 hanter les vieilles maisons, qu'ils pourraient \u00eatre\nbeaucoup plus confortablement ailleurs.--Je n'y manquerai pas, r\u00e9pondit\nle revenant. Il faut en v\u00e9rit\u00e9 que nous soyons bien b\u00eates, nous autres\nesprits, pour n'avoir point trouv\u00e9 cela. Je ne me pardonne point d'avoir\n\u00e9t\u00e9 si stupide!\u00bb En disant ces mots, le revenant disparut, et ce qui est\nremarquable, ajouta le vieux homme en jetant un regard malin autour de\nla table, il ne revint jamais.\n\n\u00abCe n'est pas mauvais, si c'est vrai, dit l'homme aux boutons de\nmosa\u00efque en allumant un nouveau cigare.\n\n--Si! s'\u00e9cria le vieillard d'un air excessivement m\u00e9prisant. Voyez-vous,\ncontinua-t-il en se tournant vers Lowten, je ne serais pas bien \u00e9tonn\u00e9\nqu'il finit par dire que l'histoire du singulier client que nous avions,\nquand j'\u00e9tais chez l'avou\u00e9, n'est pas vraie non plus.\n\n--Oh! cette histoire-l\u00e0, je n'en dirai rien du tout, car je ne l'ai\njamais entendue, r\u00e9pondit l'homme aux bijoux de clinquant.\n\n--Monsieur, dit M. Pickwick, je souhaiterais fort que vous voulussiez\nbien nous la raconter.\n\n--Oh! oui, ajouta Lowten, racontez-la. Personne ici ne l'a entendue,\nexcept\u00e9 moi, et je l'ai presque oubli\u00e9e.\u00bb\n\nLe vieux homme regarda autour de la table et ricana plus horriblement\nque jamais, en remarquant l'attention peinte sur tous les visages.\nEnsuite, frottant son menton avec sa main et contemplant le plafond,\ncomme pour rafra\u00eechir sa m\u00e9moire, il commen\u00e7a ainsi qu'il suit:\n\nHISTOIRE D'UN SINGULIER CLIENT.\n\nIl n'importe gu\u00e8re o\u00f9 ni comment j'ai appris cette courte histoire; si\nje vous la racontais dans l'ordre o\u00f9 je l'ai sue, je commencerais par le\nmilieu, et quand je serais arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 la conclusion, je retournerais en\narri\u00e8re chercher un commencement. Il suffira de vous dire que\nquelques-uns des \u00e9v\u00e9nements se sont pass\u00e9s devant mes yeux. Quant aux\nautres, _je sais_ qu'ils sont arriv\u00e9s, et plusieurs personnes encore\nvivantes ne se les rappellent que trop bien.\n\nDans la grande rue du faubourg de Londres, pr\u00e8s de l'\u00e9glise\nSaint-George, et du m\u00eame c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la rue, se trouve, comme presque tout\nle monde le sait, une petite prison pour dettes, nomm\u00e9e Marshalsea.\nQuoiqu'elle ne ressemble plus gu\u00e8re \u00e0 l'inf\u00e2me cloaque d'autrefois,\ncependant, dans son \u00e9tat am\u00e9lior\u00e9, elle offre encore peu de tentation\npour les extravagants, peu de consolation pour les impr\u00e9voyants.\nL'assassin condamn\u00e9 jouit, dans Newgate, d'une cour plus vaste et plus\na\u00e9r\u00e9e qu'il n'y en a dans la prison de Marshalsea, pour le d\u00e9biteur\ninsolvable.\n\nQue ce soit une id\u00e9e, que ce soit \u00e0 cause des vieux souvenirs que me\nrappelle cette partie de Londres, je ne puis la supporter. La rue est\nlarge; les boutiques sont spacieuses; le bruit des voitures, des\npassants, des industries actives, y r\u00e9sonne depuis le matin jusqu'\u00e0\nminuit; mais les rues d'alentour sont \u00e9troites et sales; la pauvret\u00e9, la\nd\u00e9bauche suppurent de toutes les all\u00e9es; l'infortune et le besoin sont\nrenferm\u00e9s dans la sombre prison; un air de tristesse, de d\u00e9solation,\nsemble, \u00e0 mes yeux du moins, \u00eatre r\u00e9pandu sur les alentours et leur\ncommuniquer une teinte maladive et d\u00e9go\u00fbtante.\n\nBien des gens dont les yeux se sont depuis ferm\u00e9s dans la tombe, ont\ncommenc\u00e9 par contempler assez l\u00e9g\u00e8rement cette sc\u00e8ne, en entrant pour\nla premi\u00e8re fois dans la vieille prison de la Marshalsea; car le\nd\u00e9sespoir vient rarement avec les premi\u00e8res atteintes de l'infortune. Le\nnouveau prisonnier se confie aux amis qu'il n'a pas \u00e9prouv\u00e9s encore; il\nse rappelle les nombreuses offres de services qui lui ont \u00e9t\u00e9 faites,\nlorsqu'il n'en avait pas besoin; dans son inexp\u00e9rience heureuse, il\nconserve l'esp\u00e9rance, fleur salutaire, que le premier vent de\nl'adversit\u00e9 fait courber \u00e0 peine, qui se redresse et fleurit de nouveau\npendant quelque temps, et qui peu \u00e0 peu se fane et se dess\u00e8che sous\nl'influence des d\u00e9sappointements et de l'oubli. Alors les yeux se\ncreusent et deviennent hagards; les joues p\u00e2les et maigres se collent\nsur les os; le manque d'air et d'exercice, la faim plus terrible encore,\nd\u00e9truisent le prisonnier. A l'\u00e9poque dont nous parlons, on pouvait dire,\nsans aucune m\u00e9taphore, que les pauvres d\u00e9biteurs pourrissaient dans la\nprison, sans aucun espoir d'en sortir vivants. De semblables atrocit\u00e9s\nn'existent plus au m\u00eame degr\u00e9, mais il en reste encore suffisamment pour\nenfanter des mis\u00e8res qui font saigner le coeur.\n\nIl y a trente ans environ, une jeune femme, avec son enfant, se\npr\u00e9sentait de jour en jour \u00e0 la porte de la prison, d\u00e8s que le soleil\nparaissait et avec autant de r\u00e9gularit\u00e9 que lui. Elle venait pour voir\nson mari, emprisonn\u00e9 pour dettes; souvent, apr\u00e8s une nuit inqui\u00e8te et\nsans sommeil, elle arrivait \u00e0 cette porte une heure trop t\u00f4t, et alors,\ns'en retournant d'un air doux et r\u00e9sign\u00e9, elle menait son enfant sur le\nvieux pont, l'\u00e9levait dans ses bras sur le parapet, et lui montrait,\npour le distraire, la Tamise \u00e9tincelante sous les rayons du soleil\nlevant, et d\u00e9j\u00e0 anim\u00e9e par mille pr\u00e9paratifs de travail et de plaisir.\nMais bient\u00f4t elle remettait l'enfant par terre et se prenait \u00e0 pleurer\nam\u00e8rement, car nulle expression d'amusement ou d'int\u00e9r\u00eat n'\u00e9tait venu\n\u00e9clairer le visage p\u00e2le et amaigri qu'elle aimait tant \u00e0 contempler.\nH\u00e9las! ce pauvre enfant ne comptait que des souvenirs d'une seule\nesp\u00e8ce, souvenirs qui se rattachaient \u00e0 la pauvret\u00e9, aux malheurs de ses\nparents. Durant de longues heures, il restait assis sur les genoux de sa\nm\u00e8re, et consid\u00e9rait avec une sympathie enfantine les larmes qui\ncoulaient le long de ses joues; puis il se tra\u00eenait silencieusement dans\nun coin sombre, o\u00f9 il s'endormait en pleurant. Les p\u00e9nibles r\u00e9alit\u00e9s du\nmonde, avec ses plus dures privations, la faim, la soif, le froid, tous\nles besoins, \u00e9taient \u00e0 demeure dans sa maison, depuis les premi\u00e8res\nlueurs de son intelligence; et quoiqu'il e\u00fbt encore les formes de\nl'enfance, il n'en avait plus ni le coeur l\u00e9ger, ni le rire joyeux, ni\nles yeux brillants.\n\nSon p\u00e8re et sa m\u00e8re \u00e9tudiaient la p\u00e2leur de son visage, et leurs regards\nse rencontraient ensuite avec des pens\u00e9es de d\u00e9sespoir, qu'ils n'osaient\nexprimer par des paroles. L'homme vigoureux, bien portant, qui aurait pu\nsupporter toutes les fatigues d'une vie active, se consumait dans la\nlongue inaction, dans l'atmosph\u00e8re malsaine d'une prison populeuse. La\nfemme d\u00e9licate et fragile s'affaissait sous les maux combin\u00e9s de\nl'esprit et du corps. Quant au jeune enfant, son coeur \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 bris\u00e9.\n\nL'hiver arriva, et avec l'hiver des semaines enti\u00e8res de pluies froides\net tristes. La pauvre femme \u00e9tait venue demeurer dans une mis\u00e9rable\nchambre, pr\u00e8s de la prison de son mari, et quoique leur pauvret\u00e9\ncroissante f\u00fbt la cause de ce changement, elle se trouvait plus heureuse\nalors, car elle \u00e9tait plus pr\u00e8s de lui. Pendant deux mois elle vint\ncomme \u00e0 l'ordinaire attendre, avec son enfant, l'ouverture de la porte.\nUn matin, elle ne vint pas: c'\u00e9tait la premi\u00e8re fois. Un autre matin,\nelle vint seule: l'enfant \u00e9tait mort.\n\nIls savent peu, ceux qui parlent l\u00e9g\u00e8rement des pertes du pauvre comme\nd'une heureuse cessation de douleurs pour celui qui n'est plus, comme\nd'une \u00e9conomie providentielle pour le survivant; ils savent peu quelle\nagonie causent ces pertes. Un regard silencieux d'affection, quand tous\nles autres regards se d\u00e9tournent froidement; la conscience que nous\nposs\u00e9dons la sympathie d'un \u00eatre humain, lorsque tous les autres nous\nont abandonn\u00e9s: c'est l\u00e0 une consolation, un soutien, un appui, que\nnulle richesse ne peut payer, que ne peut donner nul pouvoir. L'enfant\n\u00e9tait rest\u00e9, pendant des heures enti\u00e8res, assis aux pieds de ses\nparents, avec ses petites mains press\u00e9es dans les leurs; avec son visage\nmaigre et p\u00e2le lev\u00e9 vers leur visage. Ils l'avaient vu s'\u00e9tioler de jour\nen jour; mais quoique sa courte existence e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 priv\u00e9e de toute joie,\nquoiqu'il repos\u00e2t maintenant dans cette paix qu'il n'avait jamais connue\nsur la terre, cependant ils \u00e9taient ses parents, et sa perte p\u00e9n\u00e9tra\nprofond\u00e9ment dans leur coeur.\n\nIl \u00e9tait clair pour ceux qui regardaient la figure \u00e9puis\u00e9e de la jeune\nm\u00e8re, qu'elle n'avait plus de longues \u00e9preuves \u00e0 subir. Les camarades de\nprison de son mari craignaient de troubler tant de douleurs et de\nmis\u00e8res, et lui laissaient \u00e0 lui seul la petite chambre qu'il avait\nd'abord partag\u00e9e avec deux compagnons. La jeune femme l'occupait avec\nlui; elle languissait sans souffrances, mais sans espoir, et sa vie\ns'\u00e9teignait doucement.\n\nUn soir elle s'\u00e9tait \u00e9vanouie dans les bras de son mari, et il l'avait\nport\u00e9e \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre ouverte, pour la ranimer par la sensation de l'air.\nLa lumi\u00e8re de la lune, en tombant sur son p\u00e2le visage, lui montra tant\nd'alt\u00e9ration dans ses traits qu'il chancela, comme un faible enfant,\nsous le fardeau qui lui \u00e9tait si cher.\n\n\u00abAsseyez-moi, George,\u00bb dit-elle d'une voix faible. Il ob\u00e9it, et\ns'asseyant aupr\u00e8s d'elle, il couvrit son front de ses mains et fondit en\nlarmes.\n\n\u00abIl est bien dur de vous quitter, George; mais c'est la volont\u00e9 de Dieu,\net vous devez supporter cela pour l'amour de moi. Oh! combien je le\nremercie de nous avoir pris d'abord notre enfant! Il est heureux; il est\ndans le ciel maintenant. Que serait-il devenu ici, sans sa m\u00e8re?\n\n--Vous ne mourrez pas, Mary! non, vous ne mourrez pas!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria le mari\nen se levant. Il fit le tour de la chambre, avec violence, en se\nfrappant le front de ses poings ferm\u00e9s; puis, se rasseyant aupr\u00e8s de sa\nfemme et la supportant dans ses bras, il ajouta avec plus de calme:\n\u00abRemettez-vous, je vous en prie, ma ch\u00e8re enfant. Reprenez courage; vous\nvivrez encore.\n\n--Non, George, non, je le sens bien. Faites-moi mettre pr\u00e8s de mon\npauvre enfant, maintenant; mais promettez-moi que si jamais vous quittez\ncette affreuse demeure, si vous devenez riche, vous nous ferez\ntransporter dans quelque paisible cimeti\u00e8re de village, loin, bien loin\nd'ici, pour que nous puissions nous y reposer en paix. Cher George, me\nle promettez-vous?\n\n--Oui, oui, dit le pauvre homme en se jetant \u00e0 genoux devant elle.\nR\u00e9pondez-moi, Mary! encore un mot! un regard! un seul!\u00bb\n\nIl cessa de parler, car le bras qui serrait son cou \u00e9tait roide et\npesant. Un profond soupir s'\u00e9chappa de la poitrine dess\u00e9ch\u00e9e de la jeune\nfemme, ses l\u00e8vres remu\u00e8rent, un sourire se joua sur son visage, mais les\nl\u00e8vres \u00e9taient blanches, le sourire devint fixe et glac\u00e9: George Heyling\n\u00e9tait seul dans le monde!\n\nCette nuit, dans le silence et la d\u00e9solation de sa chambre lugubre le\nmis\u00e9rable \u00e9poux s'agenouilla aupr\u00e8s de ce qui n'\u00e9tait plus qu'un\ncadavre, et appela Dieu \u00e0 t\u00e9moin du serment effroyable qu'il faisait de\nvenger la mort de sa femme et de son enfant; de d\u00e9vouer le reste de son\nexistence \u00e0 ce seul but; d'obtenir une vengeance prolong\u00e9e et terrible;\nde nourrir une haine \u00e9ternelle, inextinguible, et d'en poursuivre\nl'objet \u00e0 travers le monde entier.\n\nUn d\u00e9sespoir surnaturel, une rage d\u00e9moniaque avaient fait de si affreux\nravages sur sa figure, dans cette seule nuit, que le lendemain matin ses\ncompagnons se reculaient avec effroi lorsqu'il passait aupr\u00e8s d'eux. Ses\nyeux \u00e9taient lourds et sanglants, son visage cadav\u00e9reux, son corps vo\u00fbt\u00e9\ncomme par l'\u00e2ge. Dans la violence de ses angoisses mentales, il avait\nmordu sa l\u00e8vre inf\u00e9rieure, et le sang, coulant de la blessure, avait\nsouill\u00e9 son menton, sa cravate, sa chemise. Pas une larme, pas un\nsoupir, pas une plainte ne lui \u00e9chappait; mais l'\u00e9garement de ses\nregards, l'irr\u00e9gularit\u00e9 de ses pas, tandis qu'il arpentait la cour,\ntoute sa contenance, enfin, r\u00e9v\u00e9lait la fi\u00e8vre qui le d\u00e9vorait\nint\u00e9rieurement.\n\nIl \u00e9tait n\u00e9cessaire que le corps de sa femme f\u00fbt enlev\u00e9 sans d\u00e9lai de la\nprison. Il en re\u00e7ut l'avis avec calme et en reconnut la convenance.\nPresque tous les prisonniers s'\u00e9taient assembl\u00e9s pour voir cet\nenl\u00e8vement. Ils se rang\u00e8rent des deux c\u00f4t\u00e9s lorsque George Heyling\nparut. Il s'avan\u00e7a d'un pas pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9; il se pla\u00e7a dans un petit espace\ngrill\u00e9, aupr\u00e8s de la porte d'entr\u00e9e: la foule s'en retira par un\nsentiment instinctif de d\u00e9licatesse. Bient\u00f4t le cercueil grossier\ndescendit, port\u00e9 lentement sur les \u00e9paules de quatre hommes. Un silence\nde mort l'accueillit, rompu seulement par les lamentations des femmes et\npar le bruit des pieds des porteurs sur le pav\u00e9. Quand ils atteignirent\nle lieu o\u00f9 se tenait l'\u00e9poux d\u00e9laiss\u00e9, ils s'arr\u00eat\u00e8rent. Il \u00e9tendit sa\nmain sur la bi\u00e8re, et arrangeant machinalement le drap qui la couvrait,\nil leur fit signe de continuer. Les guichetiers, sous le portique,\n\u00f4t\u00e8rent leurs chapeaux; le cercueil passa; la porte pesante se referma\npar derri\u00e8re. Heyling regarda d'un air distrait la foule dont il \u00e9tait\nentour\u00e9, et se laissa tomber lourdement sur la terre.\n\nPendant plusieurs semaines, on fut oblig\u00e9 de le veiller nuit et jour;\nmais dans les plus violentes r\u00eaveries de la fi\u00e8vre, il ne perdit pas la\nconscience de ses malheurs, ni le souvenir du voeu qu'il avait fait. Des\nlieux, des sc\u00e8nes, des \u00e9v\u00e9nements divers, se succ\u00e9daient devant ses yeux\navec la rapidit\u00e9 confuse du d\u00e9lire; et pourtant tous ses r\u00eaves \u00e9taient\nli\u00e9s, en quelque mani\u00e8re, au sujet terrible qui remplissait son esprit.\nIl naviguait sur une mer sans bornes. Le ciel br\u00fblant paraissait\nensanglant\u00e9; les vagues furieuses bondissaient, tourbillonnaient de\ntoutes parts. Un autre vaisseau labourait p\u00e9niblement les flots agit\u00e9s:\nses voiles d\u00e9chir\u00e9es flottaient comme des rubans sur ses m\u00e2ts; son pont\n\u00e9tait encombr\u00e9 de cr\u00e9atures humaines, sur lesquelles, \u00e0 chaque instant,\ncrevaient des vagues monstrueuses qui les balayaient dans la mer\n\u00e9cumante. Cependant le vaisseau que montait Heyling s'avan\u00e7ait au milieu\nde la masse mugissante des eaux, avec une force et une vitesse\nirr\u00e9sistibles. Frappant l'autre navire sur le flanc, il l'\u00e9crasa sous sa\nquille. Un cri terrible, le cri de mort de cent mis\u00e9rables, s'\u00e9leva; si\naffreux qu'il retentit par-dessus les clameurs des \u00e9l\u00e9ments; si aigu\nqu'il semblait percer l'air et l'Oc\u00e9an et les cieux.--Mais qu'est-ce que\ncela? Quelle est cette vieille t\u00eate grise, qui s'\u00e9l\u00e8ve au-dessus des\nvagues, qui lutte contre la mort, et dont les cris, le regard plein\nd'agonie, appellent du secours? Un seul coup d'oeil, et George Heyling\ns'est \u00e9lanc\u00e9 dans la mer; il nage vigoureusement vers le vieillard; il\ns'en approche: oui! ce sont bien ses traits! Le vieillard le voit venir\net s'efforce vainement de lui \u00e9chapper. Heyling le saisit, l'\u00e9treint,\nl'entra\u00eene avec lui sous les flots, au fond! au fond! sous des masses\nd'eau t\u00e9n\u00e9breuses. Les efforts du vieillard deviennent de plus en plus\nfaibles et bient\u00f4t cessent enti\u00e8rement: il est mort; Heyling l'a tu\u00e9; il\na tenu son serment!\n\nSeul et les pieds nus, il traversait les plaines br\u00fblantes d'un immense\nd\u00e9sert. Le sable soulev\u00e9 par le simoun l'\u00e9touffait, l'aveuglait. Ses\ngrains imperceptibles p\u00e9n\u00e9traient dans chaque pore de sa peau, et lui\ncausaient une irritation qui allait jusqu'\u00e0 la fureur. Des masses\ngigantesques de la m\u00eame poussi\u00e8re, emport\u00e9es par les vents et rougies\npar le soleil, marchaient autour de lui comme des piliers de feu vivant.\nLes ossements des voyageurs qui avaient p\u00e9ri, dans ces affreux d\u00e9serts,\nblanchissaient \u00e0 ses pieds; une lumi\u00e8re sanglante tombait sur tous les\nobjets environnants; et aussi loin que ses regards pouvaient s'\u00e9tendre,\nil n'apercevait que de nouveaux sujets de crainte et d'horreur. C'est en\nvain qu'il s'efforce de pousser un cri de d\u00e9tresse; sa langue br\u00fblante\nest coll\u00e9e \u00e0 son palais. Il se pr\u00e9cipite en avant comme un d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9.\nDou\u00e9 d'une force surnaturelle, il fend les sables mouvants: mais \u00e0 la\nfin, \u00e9puis\u00e9 de soif et de fatigue, il tombe sans connaissance sur la\nterre. Quelle fra\u00eecheur enivrante le ravive? D'o\u00f9 vient cet agr\u00e9able\nmurmure? De l'eau, c'est une source; le clair ruisseau coule \u00e0 ses\npieds. Il en boit avec ardeur, et reposant sur la rive ses membres\nendoloris, il tombe dans un assoupissement d\u00e9licieux. Un bruit de pas le\nr\u00e9veille. Un vieux homme \u00e0 la t\u00eate grise s'avance en chancelant pour\napaiser sa soif d\u00e9vorante. C'est encore _lui_! Heyling saisit le\nvieillard d'un bras et l'\u00e9loigne de l'onde bienfaisante. Vainement\ncelui-ci se d\u00e9bat avec d'affreuses convulsions; vainement il demande\navec des cris d\u00e9chirants de l'eau, une seule goutte d'eau pour sauver sa\nvie! Heyling le repousse d'un bras impitoyable; il contemple d'un oeil\navide sa longue agonie, et quand sa t\u00eate grise tombe sans vie sur son\nsein, il laisse aller son cadavre et le repousse du pied.\n\nLorsque la fi\u00e8vre le quitta, lorsque la connaissance lui revint, il\ns'\u00e9veilla pour se trouver libre et riche; pour apprendre que son p\u00e8re,\nqui l'aurait laiss\u00e9 mourir dans une prison, qui avait laiss\u00e9 ceux qui\ndevaient lui \u00eatre plus chers que sa propre existence, p\u00e9rir de besoin et\nde cette tristesse du coeur qu'aucun m\u00e9decin ne peut gu\u00e9rir; que son p\u00e8re\nd\u00e9natur\u00e9 avait \u00e9t\u00e9 trouv\u00e9 mort dans son lit. Il aurait bien eu le\ncourage de faire de son fils un mendiant; mais orgueilleux jusqu'au bout\nde sa sant\u00e9 et de sa force, il avait ajourn\u00e9 les mesures \u00e0 prendre pour\ncela, jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait trop tard pour le faire: et maintenant\nil pouvait grincer des dents, dans l'autre monde, \u00e0 la pens\u00e9e de toutes\nles richesses que cette n\u00e9gligence avait fait passer sur la t\u00eate de son\nfils!\n\nGeorge Heyling revint \u00e0 lui pour apprendre sa fortune nouvelle, pour se\nsouvenir du serment terrible qu'il avait fait, pour se rappeler que son\nennemi \u00e9tait le p\u00e8re de sa propre femme, l'homme qui l'avait plong\u00e9 dans\nune prison, et qui, quand sa fille et son petit enfant s'\u00e9taient jet\u00e9s \u00e0\nses pieds, pour lui demander gr\u00e2ce, les avait chass\u00e9s avec m\u00e9pris. Oh!\ncombien le malheureux Heyling d\u00e9plorait la faiblesse qui l'emp\u00eachait de\nse lever et de poursuivre activement sa vengeance!\n\nIl se fit transporter loin des lieux qui avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 t\u00e9moins de sa\nmis\u00e8re et de la double perte qu'il avait faite; il se retira sur le bord\nde la mer, dans une r\u00e9sidence paisible, non avec l'espoir de recouvrer\nle bonheur ou m\u00eame la tranquillit\u00e9, car l'un et l'autre s'\u00e9taient enfuis\npour toujours, mais afin de retrouver son \u00e9nergie abattue et de m\u00e9diter\nsur le projet qu'il nourrissait avec une persistance implacable. Dans\ncet endroit m\u00eame, quelque mauvais esprit, sans doute, lui fournit\nl'occasion de sa premi\u00e8re et de sa plus horrible vengeance.\n\nC'\u00e9tait l'\u00e9t\u00e9: plong\u00e9 dans ses sombres pens\u00e9es, Heyling sortait vers le\nsoir de son logis solitaire, suivait un \u00e9troit sentier, au pied des\nfalaises, jusqu'\u00e0 un site d\u00e9sert et sauvage qu'il avait rencontr\u00e9 dans\nses courses vagabondes et qui avait plu \u00e0 son imagination exalt\u00e9e. L\u00e0,\nil s'asseyait sur des d\u00e9bris de rochers, et, ensevelissant son visage\ndans ses deux mains, il y restait pendant des heures enti\u00e8res, jusqu'\u00e0\nce que les hautes ombres des rocs effroyables qui mena\u00e7aient sa t\u00eate\neussent jet\u00e9 une \u00e9paisse nuit sur tous les objets environnants.\n\nPar une calme soir\u00e9e, il \u00e9tait assis l\u00e0, dans sa posture habituelle,\nlevant de temps en temps les yeux pour suivre le vol d'une mouette, ou\npour contempler la glorieux sillon de lumi\u00e8re qui, commen\u00e7ant au bord de\nl'Oc\u00e9an, semblait conduire jusqu'au point extr\u00eame de l'horizon o\u00f9 le\nsoleil commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 se plonger, lorsque la profonde tranquillit\u00e9 du\npaysage fut troubl\u00e9e par un long cri de d\u00e9tresse. Heyling pr\u00eata\nl'oreille, ne sachant pas d'abord s'il avait bien entendu; puis le cri\n\u00e9tant r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9 d'une mani\u00e8re plus d\u00e9chirante, il se dressa et se h\u00e2ta de\ncourir dans la direction d'o\u00f9 venait le bruit.\n\nLa sc\u00e8ne qui s'offrit \u00e0 ses yeux parlait d'elle-m\u00eame. Des v\u00eatements\n\u00e9taient d\u00e9pos\u00e9s sur la plage; une t\u00eate d'homme s'\u00e9levait \u00e0 peine\nau-dessus des flots, \u00e0 quelque distance du bord, tandis que, sur le\nrivage, un vieillard, tordant ses mains avec d\u00e9sespoir, courait \u00e7\u00e0 et\nl\u00e0, en appelant au secours. Heyling, dont les forces \u00e9taient alors\nsuffisamment r\u00e9tablies, arracha son habit et s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a vers les flots,\navec l'intention de s'y pr\u00e9cipiter et de ramener l'homme qui se noyait.\n\n\u00abH\u00e2tez-vous, monsieur, au nom de Dieu! sauvez-le, sauvez-le, pour\nl'amour du ciel! C'est mon fils, monsieur, mon seul fils! dit le\nvieillard en s'approchant tout tremblant d'\u00e9motion. Mon seul fils,\nmonsieur, et qui meurt l\u00e0, sous les yeux de son p\u00e8re!\u00bb\n\nAux premiers mots que le vieillard avait prononc\u00e9s, celui qu'il\nregardait comme un sauveur s'\u00e9tait arr\u00eat\u00e9 court, et, croisant ses bras\nsur sa poitrine, \u00e9tait demeur\u00e9 compl\u00e9tement immobile.\n\n\u00abGrand Dieu! s'\u00e9cria le vieillard en reculant; Heyling!\u00bb\n\nHeyling sourit et garda le silence.\n\n\u00abHeyling, reprit le vieillard avec \u00e9garement; mon fils, Heyling! mon\nenfant ch\u00e9ri! Voyez... voyez....\u00bb Et pantelant d'angoisse, le mis\u00e9rable\np\u00e8re montrait l'endroit o\u00f9 le jeune homme se d\u00e9battait contre la mort.\n\n\u00ab\u00c9coutez! poursuivit le vieillard, il vient encore de crier! Il est\nencore vivant! Heyling! sauvez-le! sauvez-le!\u00bb\n\nHeyling sourit de nouveau et ne fit aucun mouvement.\n\n\u00abJe vous ai maltrait\u00e9, cria le vieillard en tombant \u00e0 genoux et le\nsuppliant \u00e0 mains jointes. Vengez-vous! prenez tout mon bien! prenez ma\nvie! Jetez-moi dans l'eau \u00e0 vos pieds, et si la nature peut se contenir,\nje mourrai sans me d\u00e9battre! Par piti\u00e9, tuez-moi, Heyling, main sauvez\nmon fils! Il est si jeune! si jeune pour mourir!\n\n--\u00c9coutez, dit Heyling en saisissant fortement le poignet du vieillard,\nje veux avoir vie pour vie, en voici une! Mon enfant, \u00e0 moi, est mort\nsous les yeux de son p\u00e8re! il est mort dans une agonie bien plus\naffreuse que celle de ce jeune calomniateur de sa soeur. Vous avez ri\nalors; vous avez ferm\u00e9 votre porte au visage de votre fille, o\u00f9 la mort\navait d\u00e9j\u00e0 mis son empreinte! Vous avez ri de nos souffrances.... qu'en\npensez-vous maintenant? Regardez l\u00e0! regardez l\u00e0!\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, Heyling montrait l'Oc\u00e9an. Un faible cri s'y fit\nentendre; les derni\u00e8res, les terribles convulsions d'un noy\u00e9 agit\u00e8rent\nles flots clapotants; et l'instant d'apr\u00e8s leur surface \u00e9tait unie;\nl'oeil ne pouvait plus distinguer l'endroit o\u00f9 le jeune homme avait\ndisparu dans une tombe pr\u00e9matur\u00e9e.\n\nTrois ans s'\u00e9taient \u00e9coul\u00e9s, lorsqu'un gentleman descendit de sa voiture\n\u00e0 la porte d'un avou\u00e9 de Londres, bien connu pour ne pas exag\u00e9rer la\nd\u00e9licatesse. Il demanda une entrevue pour une affaire d'importance. Le\nvisage de l'\u00e9tranger \u00e9tait p\u00e2le, battu, hagard, et il ne fallait pas\ntoute la finesse de l'homme d'affaires pour reconna\u00eetre que les maladies\nou le malheur avaient fait plus de ravages sur sa personne que la main\ndu temps n'aurait pu en accomplir pendant le double de la dur\u00e9e de sa\nvie.\n\n\u00abJe d\u00e9sire, dit l'\u00e9tranger, que vous veuillez bien vous charger d'une\naffaire qui m'int\u00e9resse beaucoup....\u00bb\n\nL'avou\u00e9 salua obs\u00e9quieusement et jeta un coup d'oeil au paquet que le\ngentleman tenait dans sa main. Celui-ci le remarqua et poursuivit:\n\n\u00abCe n'est pas une affaire ordinaire, et ces papiers ne sont pas venus\nentre mes mains sans de longues peines et de grandes d\u00e9penses.\u00bb\n\nL'avou\u00e9 examina le paquet avec plus de curiosit\u00e9 encore, et son nouveau\nclient d\u00e9nouant la corde qui l'attachait, lui fit voir une quantit\u00e9 de\nbillets avec quelque copies d'actes et d'autres documents.\n\n\u00abComme vous le verrez, dit le client, l'homme dont voici la nom a\nemprunt\u00e9, depuis quelques ann\u00e9es, de vastes sommes sur ces papiers. Il\n\u00e9tait convenu tacitement avec ses premiers pr\u00eateurs, dont j'ai par\ndegr\u00e9s achet\u00e9 le tout, pour le triple ou le quadruple de sa valeur; il\n\u00e9tait convenu, dis-je, que ces billets seraient renouvel\u00e9s de temps en\ntemps, jusqu'\u00e0 une certaine \u00e9poque; mais cette convention n'est exprim\u00e9e\nnulle part. L'emprunteur a derni\u00e8rement subi de grandes pertes, et ces\nobligations, en venant sur lui tout d'un coup, le mettraient sur la\npaille.\n\n--Le montant total est de quelque mille livres sterling, dit l'avou\u00e9 en\nregardant les papiers.\n\n--Oui, r\u00e9pondit le client.\n\n--Eh bien! que ferons-nous?\n\n--Ce que vous ferez? s'\u00e9cria le client avec une v\u00e9h\u00e9mence soudaine.\nEmployez, pour sa perte, toutes les ressources de la loi, toutes les\nsubtilit\u00e9s de la chicane, tous les moyens, honn\u00eates ou non, que peuvent\ninventer les plus rus\u00e9s praticiens. Je veux qu'il meure d'une mort\nprolong\u00e9e, harassante! Ruinez-le! saisissez, vendez ses biens, ses\nterres! chassez-le de son domicile! Qu'il mendie dans sa vieillesse et\nqu'il expire en prison!\n\n--Mais les frais, monsieur, les frais de tout ceci, fit observer l'avou\u00e9\nlorsqu'il fut revenu de sa premi\u00e8re surprise. Si le d\u00e9fendant est ruin\u00e9,\nqui payera les frais?...\n\n--Nommez une somme, s'\u00e9cria l'\u00e9tranger, dont les mains tremblaient si\nviolemment qu'il pouvait \u00e0 peine tenir la plume qu'il avait saisie;\nnommez une somme quelconque et elle vous sera remise. N'ayez pas peur de\ndemander! rien ne me semblera trop cher pourvu que j'atteigne mon but.\u00bb\n\nL'avou\u00e9 nomma \u00e0 tous hasards une grosse somme, plut\u00f4t pour savoir\njusqu'o\u00f9 son client avait r\u00e9ellement l'intention d'aller, que dans la\npens\u00e9e qu'il la lui accorderait. L'\u00e9tranger, sans h\u00e9siter, \u00e9crivit une\ntraite sur son banquier, la lui remit, et s'\u00e9loigna.\n\nLa traite fut convenablement honor\u00e9e, et l'avou\u00e9, voyant qu'il pouvait\ncompter sur son \u00e9trange client, se mit s\u00e9rieusement \u00e0 la besogne.\nPendant plus de deux ann\u00e9es, ensuite, M. Heyling vint passer des jours\nentiers dans l'\u00e9tude, courb\u00e9 sur les papiers qui s'accumulaient, \u00e0\nmesure qu'on commen\u00e7ait poursuite apr\u00e8s poursuite, proc\u00e8s apr\u00e8s proc\u00e8s.\nIl relisait, avec des yeux \u00e9tincelants de joie, les demandes de d\u00e9lai,\nles lettres de supplication, les repr\u00e9sentations de la ruine certaine\nque l'autre partie devait subir. A toutes ces pri\u00e8res pour un peu\nd'indulgence, il n'y avait qu'une seule r\u00e9ponse: _Il faut payer_. Les\nterres, les maisons, les meubles furent vendus tour \u00e0 tour, et le\nvieillard lui-m\u00eame aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 claquemur\u00e9 dans une prison, s'il n'\u00e9tait\nparvenu \u00e0 s'enfuir, en trompant la vigilance du garde charg\u00e9 de sa\ncapture.\n\nBien loin d'\u00eatre rassasi\u00e9e par le succ\u00e8s, l'implacable animosit\u00e9 de\nHeyling semblait s'accro\u00eetre avec la ruine qu'il infligeait. Sa furie\nfut sans bornes lorsqu'il apprit la fuite du vieillard. Dans sa rage il\ngrin\u00e7ait des dents, il arrachait ses cheveux, et il chargeait\nd'impr\u00e9cations horribles les hommes \u00e0 qui on avait confi\u00e9 l'ex\u00e9cution de\nla prise de corps. Enfin on ne put lui rendre une esp\u00e8ce de calme que\npar des assurances r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9es que le fugitif serait certainement\nd\u00e9couvert. On envoya des gens dans toutes les directions, on eut recours\n\u00e0 tous les stratag\u00e8mes imaginables, pour apprendre le lieu de sa\nretraite; mais ce fut en vain, et six mois se pass\u00e8rent sans qu'il f\u00fbt\npossible de le retrouver.\n\nUn soir, \u00e0 une heure avanc\u00e9e, Heyling, dont on n'avait pas entendu\nparler depuis plusieurs semaines, se rendit \u00e0 la r\u00e9sidence priv\u00e9e de son\navou\u00e9 et lui fit dire que quelqu'un demandait \u00e0 lui parler sur-le-champ.\nL'avou\u00e9 avait reconnu la voix du haut de l'escalier; mais avant qu'il\ne\u00fbt pu donner l'ordre de l'introduire, Heyling avait franchi les degr\u00e9s\net \u00e9tait entr\u00e9, p\u00e2le, palpitant, dans le salon. Apr\u00e8s avoir ferm\u00e9 la\nporte, de peur d'\u00eatre entendu, il se laissa tomber sur un si\u00e9ge, et dit\nd'une voix basse:\n\n\u00abJe l'ai trouv\u00e9, \u00e0 la fin!\n\n--Bah! fit l'avou\u00e9. Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur, tr\u00e8s-bien.\n\n--Il est cach\u00e9 dans un mis\u00e9rable logement \u00e0 Camden. Peut-\u00eatre est-ce\naussi bien que nous l'ayons perdu de vue, car il a v\u00e9cu l\u00e0 tout seul et\ndans la plus abjecte mis\u00e8re. Il est pauvre, tr\u00e8s-pauvre.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, dit l'avou\u00e9. Vous ferez faire sa capture demain,\nnaturellement.\n\n--Oui... attendez... non, le jour d'apr\u00e8s. Vous \u00eates surpris que je\nd\u00e9sire reculer, ajouta le client avec un affreux sourire; mais j'avais\noubli\u00e9.... Apr\u00e8s-demain est un anniversaire dans sa vie. Que ce soit\napr\u00e8s-demain.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien. Voulez-vous \u00e9crire des instructions pour le garde?\n\n--Non; qu'il me prenne ici \u00e0 huit heures du soir, et je l'accompagnerai\nmoi-m\u00eame.\u00bb\n\nEffectivement ils se r\u00e9unirent \u00e0 l'heure convenue, et prenant une\nvoiture de louage, ils dirent au cocher d'arr\u00eater \u00e0 un coin de la\nvieille route, pr\u00e8s du _Work-house_ de Camden. Lorsqu'ils y arriv\u00e8rent\nil faisait nuit. Ils suivirent le mur de l'h\u00f4pital v\u00e9t\u00e9rinaire, et\nentr\u00e8rent dans une petite rue d\u00e9sol\u00e9e, entour\u00e9e de foss\u00e9s et de champs.\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir enfonc\u00e9 son chapeau sur ses yeux et s'\u00eatre envelopp\u00e9 de son\nmanteau, Heyling s'arr\u00eata devant la maison la plus mis\u00e9rable de la rue\net frappa doucement \u00e0 la porte. Elle fut imm\u00e9diatement ouverte par une\nvieille femme qui fit un salut d'intelligence. Heyling dit tout bas au\ngarde de l'attendre, monta l'escalier, ouvrit la porte d'une chambre et\ny entra tout \u00e0 coup.\n\nL'objet de ses recherches implacables, vieillard d\u00e9cr\u00e9pit maintenant,\n\u00e9tait assis pr\u00e8s d'une vieille table de sapin, sur laquelle il n'y avait\nrien qu'une mis\u00e9rable chandelle. A l'entr\u00e9e d'un \u00e9tranger, il\ntressaillit et se leva avec peine.\n\n\u00abQu'y a-t-il encore? qu'y a-t-il encore? demanda-t-il d'une voix cass\u00e9e.\nQuelle nouvelle mis\u00e8re est ceci? Qu'est-ce que vous d\u00e9sirez?\n\n--Un mot avec vous,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit Heyling. En m\u00eame temps il s'assit \u00e0\nl'autre bout de la table, et, rejetant son manteau et son chapeau, il\nd\u00e9couvrit ses traits.\n\nLe vieillard, frapp\u00e9 de surprise, retomba sur sa chaise, et, serrant ses\ndeux mains ensemble, contempla cette apparition avec un regard m\u00eal\u00e9\nd'horreur et de crainte.\n\n--Il y a aujourd'hui six ans, dit Heyling, que j'ai r\u00e9clam\u00e9 de vous la\nvie que vous me deviez pour mon enfant. Vieillard, aupr\u00e8s du cadavre de\nvotre fille, j'ai jur\u00e9 de vivre une vie de vengeance. Depuis ce temps,\nje n'ai pas regrett\u00e9 mon serment une seconde; mais si j'en avais \u00e9t\u00e9\ncapable, le souvenir d'un seul regard de l'innocente cr\u00e9ature,\nlorsqu'elle se mourait sans plainte sous mes yeux; le souvenir du visage\naffam\u00e9 de notre malheureux enfant, m'aurait fortifi\u00e9 pour\nl'accomplissement de ma t\u00e2che. Vous vous rappelez ma premi\u00e8re revanche:\ncelle-ci est la derni\u00e8re.\u00bb\n\nLe vieillard frissonna; ses mains tomb\u00e8rent sans force \u00e0 ses c\u00f4t\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abDemain, je quitte l'Angleterre, poursuivit Heyling apr\u00e8s une pause d'un\ninstant. Cette nuit je vous d\u00e9voue \u00e0 la mort vivante \u00e0 laquelle vous\nm'aviez condamn\u00e9, une prison sans esp\u00e9rance!...\u00bb\n\nEn cet endroit, jetant les yeux sur le vieillard, il cessa de parler; il\napprocha la lumi\u00e8re de son visage d\u00e9charn\u00e9, la remit doucement sur la\ntable, et quitta la chambre.\n\n\u00abVous feriez bien de monter vers le vieux bonhomme, je crois qu'il se\ntrouve mal, a dit-il \u00e0 la femme en ouvrant la porte de la rue et faisant\nsigne au garde de le suivre. La femme referma la porte, monta le plus\nvite qu'elle put l'escalier, et trouva le vieillard... mort!\n\nDans l'une des vall\u00e9es les plus gracieuses du jardin britannique, dans\nun des cimeti\u00e8res les plus tranquilles du comt\u00e9 de Kent, o\u00f9 les fleurs\nsauvages se marient au gazon, o\u00f9 les oiseaux chantent sans cesse, sous\nune pierre simple et polie, reposent en paix la m\u00e8re et l'enfant. Mais\nles cendres du p\u00e8re ne sont pas m\u00eal\u00e9es avec les leurs, et depuis sa\nderni\u00e8re exp\u00e9dition l'avou\u00e9 n'eut plus aucune nouvelle de son singulier\nclient.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLorsque le vieux clerc eut termin\u00e9 son r\u00e9cit, il se leva, s'approcha\nd'une des pat\u00e8res, et d\u00e9crochant son chapeau et sa redingote, il les mit\navec beaucoup de tranquillit\u00e9; ensuite, sans ajouter un seul mot, il\ns'\u00e9loigna lentement. Le gentleman aux boutons de mosa\u00efque s'\u00e9tait\nprofond\u00e9ment endormi; et tandis que la majeure partie des assistants\n\u00e9taient gravement occup\u00e9s \u00e0 faire tomber des gouttes de suif dans leur\ngrog, M. Pickwick se retira sans \u00eatre remarqu\u00e9. Il paya son \u00e9cot, aussi\nbien que celui de Sam, et tous deux quitt\u00e8rent les domaines de _la\nSouche et la Pie_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXII.\n\nM. Pickwick se rend \u00e0 Ipswich, et rencontre une aventure romantique,\nsous la figure d'une dame d'un certain \u00e2ge, en papillotes de papier\nbrouillard.\n\n\n\u00abC'est \u00e7a le mat\u00e9riel de ton gouverneur, Sammy? demanda M. Weller\n_senior_ \u00e0 son affectionn\u00e9 fils, comme celui-ci entrait, avec un sac de\nvoyage et un petit portemanteau, dans la cour de l'h\u00f4tel du _Taureau_, \u00e0\nWhitechapel.\n\n--Vous avez mis votre nez rouge dessus, vieux, r\u00e9pliqua Sam, en\ns'asseyant sur son fardeau, qu'il avait d\u00e9pos\u00e9 \u00e0 terre. Le gouverneur va\narriver _recta_.\n\n--Il est cabriolant, je suppose.\n\n--Oui; il s'administre deux milles de danger pour huit pence. Comment va\nla belle-m\u00e8re, ce matin?\n\n--Dr\u00f4lement, Sammy, dr\u00f4lement, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller avec une gravit\u00e9\nimposante. Elle s'est enfonc\u00e9e dans les m\u00e9thodistes derni\u00e8rement et elle\nest diablement pieuse, c'est s\u00fbr. C'est une trop bonne cr\u00e9ature pour\nmoi, Sammy. Je sens que je ne la m\u00e9rite pas.\n\n--H\u00e9! dit Sam, c'est bien de l'abn\u00e9gation de votre part.\n\n--Juste! repartit le p\u00e8re avec un soupir. Elle s'est embourb\u00e9e dans une\nnouvelle invention pour la renaissance morale des gens. La _vie\nnouvelle_, qu'ils appellent \u00e7a, j'crois. J'aimerais ben \u00e0 voir marcher\nc'te invention-l\u00e0, Sammy. J'aimerais ben \u00e0 voir ta belle-m\u00e8re rena\u00eetre.\nComme je la mettrais vite en nourrice!--Sais-tu ce qu'elles ont fait\nl'autre jour, poursuivit M. Weller apr\u00e8s une pause, durant laquelle il\navait frapp\u00e9 une demi-douzaine de fois le c\u00f4t\u00e9 de son nez avec son\nindex, d'une mani\u00e8re tr\u00e8s-significative.\n\n--Sais pas. Qu'est-ce que c'est?\n\n--Elles ont arrang\u00e9 une grande boisson de th\u00e9 pour un gaillard qu'elles\nappellent leur berger. J'm'\u00e9tais arr\u00eat\u00e9 devant l'auberge \u00e0 regarder not'\nenseigne, vl\u00e0 qu' j'aper\u00e7ois \u00e0 la crois\u00e9e un p'tit \u00e9criteau. _Billets,\ndeux shillings. Les demandes doivent \u00eatre faites au comit\u00e9. Secr\u00e9taire,\nmadame Weller._ J'entre \u00e0 la maison. Le comit\u00e9 si\u00e9geait dans\nl'arri\u00e8re-parloir. Quatorze femmes! Je voudrais que tu les eusses\nentendues, Sammy! Elles passaient des r\u00e9solutions, elles votaient des\ncontributions; toutes sortes de farces. Bien. V'l\u00e0 ta belle-m\u00e8re qui m'\ntravaille pour que j'y aille, et pis que j' croyais que j'verrais quelle\nchose de dr\u00f4le si j'y allais. Je souscris mon nom pour un billet. Le\nvendredi soir, \u00e0 six heures, je m'habille tr\u00e8s-galamment, j' m'emballe\navec la vieille femme, et nous arrivons \u00e0 un premier \u00e9tage o\u00f9s qu'il y\navait des tasses \u00e0 th\u00e9 et le reste pour une trentaine, avec une\npacotille de femmes qui commencent \u00e0 chuchoter respectivement en me\nregardant, et comme si elles n'avaient jamais vu auparavant un gentleman\nde cinquante-huit ans, un peu puissant. Comme \u00e7a v'l\u00e0 qu' j'entends un\ngrand remue-m\u00e9nage sur l'escalier, et vl'\u00e0 un grand maigre, avec un nez\nrouge et une cravate blanche, qui caracole dans la chambre et qui\nchante: \u00abV'l\u00e0 l' berger qui vient visiter son fid\u00e8le troupeau!\u00bb et v'l\u00e0\nun gros gras qui vient, avec une grande face blanche, tout en souriant\nautour de lui, comme un s\u00e9ducteur. Polisson de s\u00e9ducteur, Sammy!--\u00abLe\nbaiser de paix,\u00bb dit le berger, et alors i' baise les femmes \u00e0 la ronde,\net quand il a fini v'l\u00e0 le nez rouge qui recommence; et alors j'\u00e9tais\njuste \u00e0 ruminer si je ne ferais pas bien de commencer aussi,\nesp\u00e9cialement comme il y avait une petite lady ben gentille \u00e0 cot\u00e9 de\nmoi, quand v'l\u00e0 le th\u00e9 qu'arriv\u00e9 avec ta belle-m\u00e8re qu'avait rest\u00e9 en\nbas \u00e0 faire bouillir la marmite. Pendant que le th\u00e9 trempait, quelle\nfameuse hymne qu'ils ont braill\u00e9e! quelles _gr\u00e2ces_! et comme i'\nmangeaient! comme i' buvaient. Je voudrais que tu eusses vu l' berger\ntravailler dans le jambon et les tartines, Sammy; j'n'ai jamais vu un\nm\u00f4me com' \u00e7a pour manger et pour boire, jamais! Le nez rouge n'\u00e9tait pas\nnon plus l'individu qu' vous aimeriez \u00e0 nourrir \u00e0 tant par an, mais i'\nn'\u00e9tait rien aupr\u00e8s du berger. Bien. Apr\u00e8s que le th\u00e9 est enfonc\u00e9 i'\ncornent une autre hymne, et puis le berger commence \u00e0 pr\u00eacher; et\nfameusement bien encore, qu'i pr\u00eachait, consid\u00e9rant les tartines qui\ndevaient y \u00eatre lourdes sur l'estomac. Tout d'un coup i' s'arr\u00eate court\net v'l\u00e0 qu'i' braille: \u00abO\u00f9s qu'est le p\u00e9cheur? o\u00f9s qu'est le mis\u00e9rable\np\u00e9cheur!\u00bb Sur quoi v'l\u00e0 toutes les femmes qui me regardent et qui\ncommencent \u00e0 exprimer des g\u00e9missements, comme si elles avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 pour\nmourir l\u00e0. Je pensais que c'\u00e9tait peut-\u00eatre un peu singulier, mais\nmalgr\u00e9 \u00e7a je ne disais rien. Tout d'un coup v'l\u00e0 qu'i' s'arr\u00eate court\nencore, et qu'i' me regarde fisquement, et qu'i dit: \u00abO\u00f9s qu'est le\np\u00e9cheur? o\u00f9 qu'est le mis\u00e9rable p\u00e9cheur?\u00bb Et v'l\u00e0 toutes les femmes qui\ng\u00e9missent dix fois pus fort qu'auparavant. Moi j'deviens un peu sauvage,\nl\u00e0-dessus; ainsi j'fais un pas ou deux en avant et j'lui dis: \u00abMon ami,\nque j'dis, n'est-il \u00e0 moi que vous avez appliqu\u00e9 c'te observation-l\u00e0?\u00bb\nAu lieu de me demander excuse, comme on doit faire entre gen'l'm'n, v'l\u00e0\nqu'i' devient pus outrageux que jamais. I' m'appelle un vase, Sammy, un\nvase de perdition, et toutes sortes de quolibets, si bien que mon sang\nme bouillait, et je lui donne deux ou trois giffles pour lui, et deux ou\ntrois autres pour repasser au nez rouge, et puis j' m'en vas. J'aurais\nvoulu que tu eusses entendu les femelles crier, Sammy, quand elles ont\nramass\u00e9 le berger de dessous la table....--Oh\u00e9! v'l\u00e0 l'gouverneur,\ngrandeur naturelle....\u00bb\n\nEn effet, M. Pickwick descendait de cabriolet et entrait dans la cour,\npendant que M. Weller pronon\u00e7ait ces mots.\n\n\u00abUne belle matin\u00e9e, mossieu, dit-il au philosophe.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-belle, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-belle, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta un homme orn\u00e9 de cheveux roux, d'un nez\ninquisitif, de lunettes bleues, et qui avait d\u00e9barqu\u00e9 d'un autre\ncabriolet en m\u00eame temps que M. Pickwick.\n\n\u00abVous allez \u00e0 Ipswich, monsieur? demanda-t-il \u00e0 notre h\u00e9ros.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--Co\u00efncidence extraordinaire! j'y vais aussi.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick le salua.\n\n\u00abVous voyagez en dehors? demanda encore l'homme aux cheveux rouges.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick salua de nouveau.\n\n\u00abDieu de Dieu! comme c'est remarquable! Je vais en dehors aussi. Nous\nallons positivement voyager ensemble!\u00bb En pronon\u00e7ant ces mots, d'un air\nmyst\u00e9rieux et important, l'homme aux cheveux rouges se prit \u00e0 sourire,\navec la m\u00eame complaisance que s'il avait fait l'une des d\u00e9couvertes les\nplus \u00e9tranges qui aient jamais r\u00e9compens\u00e9 la sagacit\u00e9 humaine.\n\n\u00abMonsieur, lui dit M. Pickwick, je suis heureux d'avoir votre compagnie.\n\n--Ah! reprit le nouveau venu, qui avait un nez effil\u00e9 et l'habitude de\nsecouer la t\u00eate, comme un oiseau, \u00e0 chaque parole; ah! c'est une bonne\nchose pour tous les deux, n'est-ce pas? La compagnie, voyez-vous, la\ncompagnie est... est une chose fort diff\u00e9rente de la solitude, n'est-ce\npas?\n\n--C'est \u00e7a une v\u00e9rit\u00e9 qu'on ne peut pas nier, dit Sam en se m\u00ealant \u00e0 la\nconversation avec un sourire affable. C'est ce que j'appelle une\nproposition naturellement \u00e9vidente; comme le marchand de mou de veau le\ndisait \u00e0 la cuisini\u00e8re, quand elle lui soutenait qu'il n'\u00e9tait pas un\ngentleman.\n\n--Ah! fit l'homme aux cheveux rouges, en regardant Sam du haut en bas;\nun de vos amis, monsieur?\n\n--Pas exactement, monsieur, repartit M. Pickwick \u00e0 voix basse. Le fait\nest que c'est mon domestique; mais je lui permets beaucoup de libert\u00e9s,\ncar, entre nous, je me flatte que c'est un original, et j'en suis assez\norgueilleux.\n\n--Ha! reprit l'homme aux cheveux roux, cela, c'est une affaire de go\u00fbt.\nMoi, je n'aime rien de ce qui est original. \u00c7a ne me convient pas: je\nn'en vois pas la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9. Quel est votre nom, monsieur?\n\n--Voici ma carte, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick, fort amus\u00e9 par la\nbrusquerie de la question et par les singuli\u00e8res mani\u00e8res de l'\u00e9tranger.\n\n--Ha! dit l'homme aux cheveux rouges en pla\u00e7ant la carte dans son\nportefeuille, Pickwick? Tr\u00e8s-bien. J'aime \u00e0 savoir le nom des gens, cela\nest fort utile. Voici ma carte: Magnus, comme vous voyez, monsieur.\nMagnus est mon nom. C'est un assez beau nom, je pense, monsieur?\n\n--Un tr\u00e8s-beau nom, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick sans pouvoir\nr\u00e9primer un sourire.\n\n--Oui, je le crois. Il y a un beau nom aussi devant, comme vous\nverrez.... Permettez, monsieur.... En tenant la carte un peu inclin\u00e9e,\ncomme ceci, le nom devient visible; voil\u00e0: Peter Magnus. Cela sonne\nbien, je pense, monsieur.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien.\n\n--Curieuse circonstance sur ces initiales, monsieur, comme vous voyez.\nP.M., _post meridiem_. Dans les petits billets avec mes intimes, je\nsigne quelquefois _Apr\u00e8s-midi_. Cela amuse beaucoup mes amis, monsieur\nPickwick.\n\n--En effet, je m'imagine que cela doit leur procurer la plus vive\nsatisfaction, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick, qui enviait en lui-m\u00eame la facilit\u00e9\navec laquelle s'amusaient les amis de M. Magnus.\u00bb\n\nUn valet d'\u00e9curie vint interrompre leur conversation. \u00abGentlemen, leur\ndit-il, la voiture est pr\u00eate, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\n\n--Tout mon bagage est-il dedans? demanda M. Magnus.\n\n--Tout est bien, monsieur.\n\n--Le sac rouge est-il dedans?\n\n--Tout est bien, monsieur.\n\n--Et le sac ray\u00e9?\n\n--Dans le coffre de devant, monsieur.\n\n--Et le paquet de papier gris?\n\n--Sous le si\u00e9ge, monsieur.\n\n--Et le carton \u00e0 chapeau de cuir?\n\n--Tout est dedans, monsieur.\n\n--Maintenant, voulez-vous monter? demanda M. Pickwick.\n\n--Excusez-moi, r\u00e9pondit M. Magnus en restant immobile sur la roue.\nExcusez, M. Pickwick. Je ne puis pas consentir \u00e0 monter dans cet \u00e9tat\nd'incertitude. D'apr\u00e8s les mani\u00e8res de cet homme, je suis convaincu que\nle carton \u00e0 chapeau n'est pas dans la voiture.\u00bb\n\nLes solennelles protestations du valet d'\u00e9curie n'ayant pu tranquilliser\nM. Magnus, il fallut, pour le satisfaire, tirer des plus profondes\ncavit\u00e9s du coffre le carton \u00e0 chapeau de cuir; mais lorsque M. Magnus\neut \u00e9t\u00e9 rassur\u00e9 sur son feutre, il ressentit d'infaillibles\npressentiments, d'abord que le sac rouge \u00e9tait \u00e9gar\u00e9, ensuite que le sac\nray\u00e9 avait \u00e9t\u00e9 vol\u00e9, puis que le paquet de papier gris s'\u00e9tait d\u00e9nou\u00e9. A\nla fin, apr\u00e8s avoir re\u00e7u des d\u00e9monstrations oculaires du peu de\nfondement de chacun de ses soup\u00e7ons, il consentit \u00e0 monter sur\nl'imp\u00e9riale de la voiture, d\u00e9clarant que son esprit \u00e9tait soulag\u00e9 de\ntoute inqui\u00e9tude, et qu'il se trouvait maintenant confortable et\nheureux.\n\n\u00abVous avez vos nerfs susceptibles, mossieu? dit M. Weller, en regardant\nl'\u00e9tranger de travers, tout en montant sur son si\u00e9ge.\n\n--Oui, je suis assez susceptible pour toutes ces petites choses; mais me\nvoil\u00e0 rassur\u00e9, maintenant, tout \u00e0 fait rassur\u00e9.\n\n--Eh ben! c'est une b\u00e9n\u00e9diction, cela.--Sammy, aide ton ma\u00eetre \u00e0 monter.\nL'autre jambe, mossieu. C'est cela. Donnez-moi votre main, mossieu.\nAllons, haut! Vous \u00e9tiez pus l\u00e9ger quand vous \u00e9tiez en nourrice,\nmossieu.\n\n--C'est assez probable, monsieur Weller, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick avec bonne\nhumeur, quoique tout essouffl\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nLorsqu'il eut pris place aupr\u00e8s du corpulent cocher, celui-ci\npoursuivit:\n\n\u00abGrimpe ici, Sammy.--Maintenant, Villam, faites-les sortir. Prenez garde\n\u00e0 l'arcade, gent'l'm'n. Gare les t\u00eates! comme disait le marchand de\np\u00e2t\u00e9s en jouant \u00e0 pile ou face.\n\n--C'est ben comme \u00e7a, Villam; laissez-les aller.\u00bb\n\nWilliam l\u00e2cha la t\u00eate des chevaux, et en route! Voil\u00e0 la voiture lanc\u00e9e\n\u00e0 travers Whitechapel, \u00e0 la grande admiration de toute la populace de ce\nquartier, qui n'est pas d\u00e9sert.\n\n\u00abUn voisinage pas trop beau, dit Sam, avec le mouvement de chapeau qui\npr\u00e9c\u00e9dait toujours son entr\u00e9e en conversation avec son ma\u00eetre.\n\n--Cela est vrai, Sam, r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick en examinant les rues\nmalpropres et encombr\u00e9es que traversait la voiture.\n\n--Monsieur, poursuivit Sam, n'est-ce pas une chose bien extra que la\npauvret\u00e9 et les hu\u00eetres marchent toujours ensemble?\n\n--Je ne vous comprends pas, Sam.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 ce que je veux dire, monsieur: c'est que plus un endroit est\nmis\u00e9rable, plus on y mange des hu\u00eetres. Regardez ici, monsieur, il y a\ndes coquilles d'hu\u00eetres \u00e0 presque toutes les portes. Dieu me pardonne si\nje ne crois pas que les gens tr\u00e8s-pauvres sortent de leur appartement\npour manger des hu\u00eetres, par pur d\u00e9sespoir.\n\n--C'est s\u00fbr \u00e7a, observa M. Weller, et c'est juste tout d'm\u00eame pour le\nsaumon sal\u00e9.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 deux faits tr\u00e8s-remarquables qui ne m'avaient jamais frapp\u00e9, dit\nalors M. Pickwick; je les noterai certainement \u00e0 la premi\u00e8re place o\u00f9\nnous arr\u00eaterons.\u00bb\n\nTout en causant ainsi, ils avaient atteint la barri\u00e8re de p\u00e9age de\nMile-End. Un profond silence r\u00e9gnait sur l'imp\u00e9riale; mais deux ou trois\nmilles plus loin, M. Weller, se tournant tout \u00e0 coup vers M. Pickwick,\nlui dit:\n\n\u00abDr\u00f4le de vie, mossieu, que celle de ces gens-l\u00e0.\n\n--Quelles gens? s'\u00e9cria le philosophe.\n\n--Un gardien de pike!\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous entendez par un gardien de piques? demanda M. Peter\nMagnus.\n\n--L'ancien veut dire un gardien de _turnpike_, gentlemen, fit observer\nSam en mani\u00e8re d'explication.\n\n--Oh! dit M. Pickwick, je comprends. Oui, une vie tr\u00e8s-curieuse,\ntr\u00e8s-peu confortable....\n\n--C'est tous des hommes qu'a eu des d\u00e9sagr\u00e9ments dans la vie, poursuivit\nM. Weller.\n\n--Ah! ah! fit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Oui. En cons\u00e9quence d'quoi, i'se retirent du monde et i' s'enferment\ndans des pikes, partie pour \u00eatre solitude, partie pour se revancher du\ngenre humain en faisant payer les droits.\n\n--Vraiment! dit M. Pickwick, je ne savais pas cela non plus.\n\n--C'est un fait, mossieu. Si i's \u00e9taient des gen'l'men, vous les\nappelleriez misencroupes; mais ces gens-l\u00e0, \u00e7a se nomme simplement des\ngabeloux.\u00bb\n\nC'est par de semblables discours, r\u00e9unissant \u00e0 la fois l'agr\u00e9able et\nl'utile, que M. Weller charmait les ennuis du voyage. Les sujets de\nconversation ne manquaient point; et lorsque, par hasard, la loquacit\u00e9\nde l'honorable cocher semblait diminuer un instant, M. Peter Magnus\nremplissait abondamment l'intervalle par des enqu\u00eates sur l'histoire\npersonnelle de ses compagnons de voyage, et par l'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 qu'il\nexprimait hautement, \u00e0 chaque relai, concernant la s\u00fbret\u00e9 et le\nbien-\u00eatre des deux sacs, du carton \u00e0 chapeau de cuir et du paquet de\npapier gris.\n\nA gauche, dans la grande rue d'Ipswich, \u00e0 peu de distance apr\u00e8s l'h\u00f4tel\nde ville, se trouve l'auberge au loin connue sous le nom du _Grand\nCheval blanc_. Au-dessus de la principale porte, on remarque une \u00e9norme\nstatue de pierre, repr\u00e9sentant un animal bondissant, avec une queue et\nune crini\u00e8re ondoyantes, et qui ressemble \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s \u00e0 un cheval de\nbrasseur qui aurait perdu l'esprit. L'auberge du _Grand Cheval blanc_\nest fameuse dans le voisinage, au m\u00eame titre qu'un boeuf gras, qu'un\nverrat monstrueux, qu'un navet enregistr\u00e9 dans la feuille de l'endroit,\nc'est \u00e0 savoir pour sa taille gigantesque. Jamais, sous aucun toit, on\nne vit de tels labyrinthes de couloirs sans tapis, un tel amas de\nchambres humides et mal \u00e9clair\u00e9es, enfin un aussi grand nombre de\npetites tani\u00e8res pour manger ou pour dormir.\n\nC'est \u00e0 la porte de cette hydropique taverne que la voiture de Londres\ns'arr\u00eate \u00e0 la m\u00eame heure tous les soirs, et c'est de ladite voiture de\nLondres que descendirent M. Pickwick, Sam Weller et M. Peter Magnus,\ndans la soir\u00e9e \u00e0 laquelle se rapporte ce chapitre de notre histoire.\n\n\u00abRestez-vous ici, monsieur?\u00bb demanda M. Peter Magnus lorsque le sac\nray\u00e9, le sac rouge, le carton \u00e0 chapeau de cuir et le paquet de papier\ngris, eurent \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9pos\u00e9s l'un apr\u00e8s l'autre dans le passage.\n\n\u00abOui, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua H. Pickwick.\n\n--Dieu de Dieu! s'\u00e9cria M. Magnus, je n'ai jamais rien vu d'aussi\nremarquable que cette co\u00efncidence. Eh bien! moi aussi, je reste ici!\nJ'esp\u00e8re que nous d\u00eenerons ensemble?\n\n--Avec plaisir, r\u00e9pondit le philosophe. Cependant il serait possible\nque je trouvasse ici quelques amis. Gar\u00e7on, y a-t-il dans l'h\u00f4tel un\ngentleman nomm\u00e9 Tupman?\u00bb\n\nUn homme corpulent, qui avait sous son bras une serviette \u00e2g\u00e9e d'une\nquinzaine de jours, et sur ses jambes des bas contemporains de la\nserviette, daigna cesser de regarder dans la rue lorsqu'il entendit\ncette question de M. Pickwick; et, apr\u00e8s avoir soigneusement examin\u00e9\nl'apparence du savant homme, depuis son chapeau jusqu'\u00e0 ses gu\u00eatres, lui\nr\u00e9pondit avec emphase: \u00abNon!\n\n--Ni un gentleman nomm\u00e9 Snodgrass? poursuivit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Non.\n\n--Ni un gentleman nomm\u00e9 Winkle?\n\n--Non.\n\n--Mes amis ne sont pas arriv\u00e9s aujourd'hui, et par cons\u00e9quent, monsieur,\nnous d\u00eenerons seuls. Gar\u00e7on! conduisez-nous dans une salle \u00e0 manger\nparticuli\u00e8re.\u00bb\n\nEn vertu de cette requ\u00eate, l'homme corpulent voulut bien ordonner au\ncommissionnaire d'apporter les bagages des gentlemen; puis il leur fit\ntraverser un passage long et sombre, et les introduisit dans une grande\nchambre, \u00e0 peine meubl\u00e9e, o\u00f9 fumait, sur une grille malpropre, un petit\nfeu de charbon de terre qui s'effor\u00e7ait en vain de para\u00eetre joyeux, et\nqui noircissait mis\u00e9rablement sous l'influence attristante du local. Au\nbout d'une heure, un plat de poisson et des c\u00f4telettes furent servis aux\nvoyageurs, et enfin, lorsque ce d\u00eener eut \u00e9t\u00e9 remport\u00e9, M. Pickwick et\nM. Peter Magnus, tirant leurs chaises plus pr\u00e8s du feu, demand\u00e8rent une\nbouteille de vin de Porto, le plus mauvais possible, au prix le plus\n\u00e9lev\u00e9 possible, pour le b\u00e9n\u00e9fice de la maison, et burent, pour le leur,\nde l'eau-de-vie et de l'eau chaude.\n\nM. Peter Magnus \u00e9tait naturellement d'une disposition\ntr\u00e8s-communicative, et le grog op\u00e9ra d'une mani\u00e8re surprenante pour\nfaire \u00e9couler les secrets les plus cach\u00e9s de son coeur. Apr\u00e8s avoir donn\u00e9\nde nombreux renseignements sur lui-m\u00eame, sur sa famille, sur ses\nalliances, sur ses amis, sur ses plaisanteries, sur ses affaires et sur\nses fr\u00e8res (la plupart des bavards ont beaucoup de choses \u00e0 dire sur\nleurs fr\u00e8res), M. Peter Magnus contempla M. Pickwick pendant plusieurs\nminutes, \u00e0 travers ses lunettes bleues, et dit ensuite avec un air de\nmodestie:\n\n--Et maintenant, monsieur Pickwick, que pensez-vous que je sois venu\nfaire ici?\n\n--Sur ma parole, r\u00e9pondit la philosophe, il m'est tout \u00e0 fait impossible\nde le deviner. Pour affaire, peut-\u00eatre?\n\n--Vous avez moiti\u00e9 raison, moiti\u00e9 tort en m\u00eame temps. Essayez encore,\nmonsieur Pickwick.\n\n--R\u00e9ellement j'implore votre merci, et vous me l'apprendrez ou non, \u00e0\nvotre choix; car je ne pourrai jamais deviner, quand j'essayerais toute\nla nuit.\n\n--Eh bien! alors, hi! hi! hi! reprit M. Peter Magnus avec un ricanement\ntimide: que penseriez-vous, monsieur Pickwick, si je vous disais que je\nsuis venu ici pour faire une d\u00e9claration et une demande de mariage? Eh!\nmonsieur? hi! hi! hi!\n\n--Je penserais qu'il est fort probable que vous r\u00e9ussirez, r\u00e9pondit\nnotre aimable ami avec un de ses sourires les plus radieux.\n\n--Ah! monsieur Pickwick, le pensez-vous vraiment? Le pensez-vous?\n\n--Certainement.\n\n--Non! vous plaisantez; j'en suis s\u00fbr.\n\n--Je ne plaisante pas, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9!\n\n--Eh bien! alors, pour vous dire un petit secret, je le pense aussi,\nmoi. Je vous dirai m\u00eame, monsieur Pickwick, quoique je sois jaloux comme\nun tigre, de mon naturel, je vous dirai que la dame est dans cette\nmaison-ci. En pronon\u00e7ant ces derni\u00e8res paroles, M. Magnus \u00f4ta ses\nlunettes bleues pour cligner de l'oeil, et les remit ensuite d'un air\nd\u00e9cid\u00e9.\n\n--C'est donc pour cela, demanda M. Pickwick avec malice, c'est donc pour\ncela que vous sortiez de la chambre \u00e0 chaque instant, avant le d\u00eener.\n\n--Chut! vous avez raison; c'\u00e9tait pour cela. Cependant je n'\u00e9tais pas\nassez fou pour l'aller voir.\n\n--Pourquoi donc?\n\n--Cela ne vaudrait rien, voyez-vous, juste apr\u00e8s un voyage. Il vaut\nmieux attendre jusqu'\u00e0 demain matin; j'aurai bien plus de chances alors.\nMonsieur Pickwick, il y a dans ce sac un habit, et dans cette botte un\nchapeau, qui sont inestimables pour moi, d'apr\u00e8s l'effet que j'en\nattends.\n\n--En v\u00e9rit\u00e9!\n\n--Oui, monsieur. Vous devez avoir observ\u00e9 mon anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e0 leur sujet\naujourd'hui. Je ne crois pas, monsieur Pickwick, qu'on puisse avoir,\npour de l'argent, un autre habit et un autre chapeau comme ceux-l\u00e0.\u00bb\n\nNotre philosophe f\u00e9licita, sur son bonheur, le possesseur du v\u00eatement\nirr\u00e9sistible, et M. Peter Magnus demeura pendant quelque temps absorb\u00e9\ndans la contemplation intellectuelle de ses tr\u00e9sors.\n\n\u00abC'est une belle cr\u00e9ature! s'\u00e9cria-t-il enfin.\n\n--Vraiment?\n\n--Charmante! charmante! Elle habite \u00e0 dix-huit milles d'ici, monsieur\nPickwick. J'ai appris qu'elle serait ici ce soir et toute la matin\u00e9e de\ndemain, et je suis accouru pour saisir l'occasion. Je pense qu'une\nauberge doit \u00eatre un endroit tr\u00e8s favorable pour faire des propositions\n\u00e0 une femme seule; car, lorsqu'elle voyage, elle doit sentir sa solitude\nbien plus que dans sa maison. Qu'en pensez-vous, monsieur Pickwick?\n\n--Cela me para\u00eet en effet fort probable.\n\n--Je vous demande pardon, monsieur Pickwick; mais je suis naturellement\nassez curieux. Pour quelle cause \u00eates-vous ici?\u00bb\n\nLe rouge monta au visage de M. Pickwick au souvenir du sujet de son\nvoyage. \u00abLe motif qui m'am\u00e8ne, r\u00e9pondit-il, n'est nullement agr\u00e9able. Je\nviens ici, monsieur, pour d\u00e9voiler la perfidie et la fausset\u00e9 d'une\npersonne dans l'honneur de laquelle j'avais mis une enti\u00e8re confiance.\n\n--Dieu de Dieu! cela est bien d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able! C'est une dame, je pr\u00e9sume?\nEh! eh! fripon de M. Pickwick! petit fripon! Bien, bien, monsieur\nPickwick!... Monsieur, je ne voudrais pas blesser votre d\u00e9licatesse pour\nle monde entier. P\u00e9nible sujet, monsieur, tr\u00e8s-p\u00e9nible. Que je ne vous\ng\u00eane pas, monsieur Pickwick, si vous voulez donner cours \u00e0 votre\nchagrin. Je sais ce que c'est que d'\u00eatre trahi, monsieur; j'ai endur\u00e9\ncette sorte de chose trois ou quatre fois.\n\n--Je vous suis fort oblig\u00e9 pour votre sympathie sur ce que vous supposez\n\u00eatre mon cas m\u00e9lancolique, repartit M. Pickwick en montant sa montre et\nen la posant sur la table, mais....\n\n--Non! non! interrompit M. Peter Magnus; pas un mot de plus. C'est un\nsujet p\u00e9nible; je le vois; je le vois. Quelle heure est-il, monsieur\nPickwick?\n\n--Minuit pass\u00e9.\n\n--Dieu de Dieu! il est bien temps de s'aller coucher! quelle sottise de\nrester debout si tard! Je serai p\u00e2le demain matin, monsieur Pickwick.\u00bb\n\nContrist\u00e9 par l'id\u00e9e d'une telle calamit\u00e9, M. Peter Magnus tira la\nsonnette. Une servante apparut, et le sac ray\u00e9, le sac rouge, le carton\n\u00e0 chapeau en cuir, et le paquet de papier gris ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 transport\u00e9s\ndans sa chambre \u00e0 coucher, il se retira, avec un chandelier verniss\u00e9,\ndans une des ailes de la maison, tandis que M. Pickwick, avec un autre\nchandelier verniss\u00e9, \u00e9tait conduit dans une autre aile, \u00e0 travers une\nmultitude de passages tortueux.\n\n\u00abVoici votre chambre, monsieur, dit la servante.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick en regardant autour de lui. C'\u00e9tait\nune assez grande pi\u00e8ce \u00e0 deux lits, dans laquelle il y avait du feu, et\nqui paraissait plus confortable, au total, que M. Pickwick n'\u00e9tait\ndispos\u00e9 \u00e0 l'esp\u00e9rer d'apr\u00e8s sa courte exp\u00e9rience de l'am\u00e9nagement du\nGrandi Cheval blanc.\n\n\u00abIl va sans dire que personne ne dort dans l'autre lit? fit-il observer.\n\n--Oh! non, monsieur.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien. Dites \u00e0 mon domestique que je n'ai plus besoin de lui ce\nsoir, et qu'il m'apporte de l'eau chaude demain \u00e0 huit heures et demie.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\u00bb Et la servante se retira apr\u00e8s avoir souhait\u00e9 une\nbonne nuit \u00e0 notre philosophe.\n\nM. Pickwick, demeur\u00e9 seul, s'assit dans un fauteuil aupr\u00e8s du feu, et se\nlaissa aller \u00e0 une longue suite de m\u00e9ditations. D'abord il songea \u00e0 ses\namis, et se demanda quand ils viendraient le rejoindre. Ensuite son\nesprit retourna vers mistress Martha Bardell, et de cette dame, par une\ntransition naturelle, il se reporta au bureau malpropre de Dodson et\nFogg. De l\u00e0, il s'enfuit, par une tangente, au centre m\u00eame de l'histoire\ndu singulier client; puis il revint dans l'auberge du Grand Cheval\nblanc, \u00e0 Ipswich, avec assez peu de lucidit\u00e9 pour convaincre M. Pickwick\nque le sommeil s'emparait rapidement de lui. Il se secoua donc, et\ncommen\u00e7ait \u00e0 se d\u00e9shabiller lorsqu'il se rappela qu'il avait laiss\u00e9 sa\nmontre sur la table, dans la salle d'en bas.\n\nOr cette montre \u00e9tait un des biens meubles favoris de M. Pickwick, ayant\n\u00e9t\u00e9 transport\u00e9e de tous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, \u00e0 l'ombre de son gilet, pendant un nombre\nd'ann\u00e9es plus consid\u00e9rable qu'il ne nous para\u00eet n\u00e9cessaire de le\nd\u00e9clarer actuellement au lecteur. On n'aurait pu faire p\u00e9n\u00e9trer dans le\ncerveau du philosophe la possibilit\u00e9 de s'endormir sans entendre le\ntic-tac r\u00e9gulier de cette montre sous son traversin, ou dans le\nporte-montre accroch\u00e9 au chevet de son lit. En cons\u00e9quence, comme il\n\u00e9tait tard et qu'il ne voulait pas faire retentir sa sonnette, \u00e0 cette\nheure de la nuit, il remit son habit qu'il avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 \u00f4t\u00e9, et prenant le\nchandelier verniss\u00e9, il descendit tranquillement les escaliers.\n\nMais plus M. Pickwick descendait les escaliers, plus il semblait qu'il\nlui rest\u00e2t d'escaliers \u00e0 descendre; et plusieurs fois apr\u00e8s \u00eatre parvenu\ndans un \u00e9troit passage et s'\u00eatre f\u00e9licit\u00e9 d'\u00eatre enfin arriv\u00e9 au\nrez-de-chauss\u00e9e, M. Pickwick vit un autre escalier appara\u00eetre devant ses\nyeux \u00e9tonn\u00e9s. Au bout d'un certain temps, cependant, il atteignit une\nsalle dall\u00e9e qu'il se rappela avoir vue en entrant dans la maison. Avec\nun nouveau courage il explora passage apr\u00e8s passage; il entr'ouvrit\nchambre apr\u00e8s chambre, et \u00e0 la fin, quand il allait abandonner ses\nrecherches de pur d\u00e9sespoir, il se trouva dans la salle m\u00eame o\u00f9 il avait\npass\u00e9 la soir\u00e9e, et il aper\u00e7ut sur la table sa propri\u00e9t\u00e9 manquante.\n\nM. Pickwick saisit la montre d'un air triomphant, et s'occupa ensuite de\nretourner sur ses traces, pour regagner sa chambre \u00e0 coucher; mais si le\ntrajet pour descendre avait \u00e9t\u00e9 environn\u00e9 de difficult\u00e9s et\nd'incertitudes, le voyage pour remonter \u00e9tait infiniment plus\nembarrassant. Dans toutes les directions possibles s'embranchaient des\nrang\u00e9es de portes, garnies de bottes et de souliers. Une douzaine de\nfois, M. Pickwick avait tourn\u00e9 doucement la clef d'une chambre \u00e0\ncoucher, dont la porte ressemblait \u00e0 la sienne, lorsqu'un cri bourru de\nl'int\u00e9rieur: \u00abQui diable est cela?\u00bb ou, \u00abQu'est-ce que vous venez faire\nici?\u00bb l'obligeait \u00e0 se retirer sur la pointe du pied, avec une c\u00e9l\u00e9rit\u00e9\nparfaitement merveilleuse. Il se trouvait de nouveau r\u00e9duit au\nd\u00e9sespoir, lorsqu'une porte entr'ouverte attira son attention. Il\nallongea la t\u00eate et regarda dans la chambre. Bonne chance \u00e0 la fin! Les\ndeux lits \u00e9taient l\u00e0, dans la situation qu'il se rappelait parfaitement,\net le feu br\u00fblait encore. Cependant sa chandelle, qui n'\u00e9tait pas des\nplus longues lorsqu'il l'avait re\u00e7ue, avait coul\u00e9 dans les courants\nd'air qu'il venait de traverser, et s'ab\u00eema dans le chandelier, au\nmoment o\u00f9 il fermait la porte derri\u00e8re lui. \u00abC'est \u00e9gal, pensa M.\nPickwick, je puis me d\u00e9shabiller tout aussi bien \u00e0 la lumi\u00e8re du feu.\u00bb\n\nLes deux lits \u00e9taient plac\u00e9s \u00e0 droite et \u00e0 gauche de la porte. Entre\nchacun d'eux et la muraille il se trouvait une petite ruelle, termin\u00e9e\npar une chaise de canne, et justement assez large pour permettre de\nmonter au lit ou d'en descendre du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la muraille, si on le\njugeait convenable. Apr\u00e8s avoir exactement ferm\u00e9 les rideaux du lit du\ncot\u00e9 de la chambre, M. Pickwick s'assit dans la ruelle, sur la chaise de\ncanne, et se d\u00e9barrassa tranquillement de ses souliers et de ses\ngu\u00eatres. Ensuite il \u00f4ta et plia son habit, son gilet, sa cravate, et\ntirant lentement son bonnet de nuit de sa poche, il l'attacha solidement\nsur sa t\u00eate, en nouant sous son menton des cordons qui \u00e9taient toujours\nfix\u00e9s \u00e0 cette portion de son ajustement. Pendant cette op\u00e9ration\nl'absurdit\u00e9 de son r\u00e9cent embarras vint frapper plus fortement ses\nfacult\u00e9s risibles, et, se renversant sur sa chaise de canne, il se mit \u00e0\nrire en lui-m\u00eame, de si bon coeur, que \u00e7'aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 un v\u00e9ritable d\u00e9lice,\npour tout esprit bien constitu\u00e9, de contempler le sourire qui\n\u00e9panouissait son aimable physionomie, sous son bonnet de coton orn\u00e9\nd'une vaste m\u00e8che.\n\n\u00abC'est la plus dr\u00f4le de chose, se dit M. Pickwick \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame en riant si\nd\u00e9mesur\u00e9ment qu'il en fit presque craquer les cordons de son bonnet;\nc'est la plus dr\u00f4le de chose dont j'aie jamais entendu parler, que de me\nvoir ainsi perdu dans cette auberge, et errant dans tous ses escaliers.\nDr\u00f4le! dr\u00f4le! tr\u00e8s-dr\u00f4le!\u00bb M. Pickwick, souriant de nouveau, d'un\nsourire plus prononc\u00e9 qu'auparavant, allait continuer \u00e0 se d\u00e9shabiller,\nlorsqu'il fut arr\u00eat\u00e9, tout \u00e0 coup, par l'entr\u00e9e inattendue d'une\npersonne qui tenait une chandelle, et qui, apr\u00e8s avoir ferm\u00e9 la porte,\ns'avan\u00e7a jusqu'aupr\u00e8s de la toilette et y posa sa lumi\u00e8re.\n\nLe sourire qui se jouait sur les traits de M. Pickwick fut\ninstantan\u00e9ment absorb\u00e9 par l'expression de la surprise et de la stupeur\nla plus compl\u00e8te. La personne, quelle qu'elle f\u00fbt, \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9e si\nsoudainement et avec si peu de bruit, que M. Pickwick n'avait pas eu le\ntemps de crier ni de s'opposer \u00e0 son entr\u00e9e. Qui pouvait-ce \u00eatre? un\nvoleur? quelque individu mal intentionn\u00e9, qui peut-\u00eatre l'avait vu\nmonter les escaliers, tenant \u00e0 la main une belle montre. En tout cas que\ndevait-il faire?\n\nLe seul moyen pour M. Pickwick d'observer son myst\u00e9rieux visiteur, sans\ndanger d'\u00eatre vu lui-m\u00eame, \u00e9tait de grimper sur le lit pour lorgner dans\nla chambre, et d'entr'ouvrir les rideaux. Il eut donc recours \u00e0 cette\nmanoeuvre, et les tenant d'une main soigneusement ferm\u00e9s de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 ne\nlaisser passer que sa t\u00eate et son bonnet de coton, il mit sur son nez\nses lunettes, rassembla tout son courage, et regarda.\n\nMais il s'\u00e9vanouit presque d'horreur et de confusion lorsqu'il vit,\ndebout devant la glace, une dame d'un certain \u00e2ge, orn\u00e9e de papillotes\nde papier brouillard, et activement occup\u00e9e \u00e0 brosser ce que les dames\nappellent _leur queue_. De quelque mani\u00e8re qu'elle f\u00fbt venue dans la\nchambre, il \u00e9tait \u00e9vident, \u00e0 son air tranquille et d\u00e9gag\u00e9, qu'elle\ncomptait y passer la nuit tout enti\u00e8re. Elle avait apport\u00e9 avec elle une\nchandelle de jonc garnie de son \u00e9cran, et avec une louable pr\u00e9caution\ncontre les dangers du feu, elle l'avait plac\u00e9e dans une cuvette pleine\nd'eau, sur le plancher, o\u00f9 cette chandelle brillait comme un phare\ngigantesque dans une mer singuli\u00e8rement petite.\n\n\u00abDieu me prot\u00e8ge! pensa M. Pickwick. Quelle chose \u00e9pouvantable!\n\n--Hem! fit la dame; et aussit\u00f4t la t\u00eate du philosophe rentra derri\u00e8re\nles rideaux, avec une rapidit\u00e9 digne d'une marionnette.\n\n--Je n'ai jamais ou\u00ef parler d'une aventure aussi terrible, se dit le\npauvre M. Pickwick, dont le bonnet \u00e9tait tremp\u00e9 d'une sueur froide.\nJamais! Cela est effroyable!\u00bb\n\nCependant, ne pouvant r\u00e9sister au d\u00e9sir de voir ce qui se passait, il\nfit de nouveau sortir sa t\u00eate entre les rideaux.\n\nLa situation s'empirait. La dame d'un certain \u00e2ge ayant fini d'arranger\nses cheveux, les avait soigneusement envelopp\u00e9s dans un bonnet de nuit\nde mousseline orn\u00e9 d'une petite garniture pliss\u00e9e, et contemplait le feu\nd'un air m\u00e9lancolique et r\u00eaveur.\n\n\u00abCette affaire devient alarmante, raisonna M. Pickwick en lui-m\u00eame. Je\nne puis pas laisser aller les choses de cette mani\u00e8re. Il est clair pour\nmoi, d'apr\u00e8s la tranquillit\u00e9 de cette dame, que je serai entr\u00e9 dans une\nchambre qui n'est pas la mienne. Si je parle, elle alarmera la maison;\nmais si je reste ici, les cons\u00e9quences en seront plus effrayantes\nencore.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick, il est inutile de le dire, \u00e9tait un des mortels les plus\nmodestes et les plus d\u00e9licats qui aient jamais exist\u00e9. La seule id\u00e9e de\nse pr\u00e9senter devant une dame en bonnet de nuit, le remplissait de\nconfusion. Mais il avait fait un noeud \u00e0 ses maudits cordons, et malgr\u00e9\ntous ses efforts il ne pouvait parvenir \u00e0 les d\u00e9faire. Il devenait\nindispensable de briser la glace, et il n'y avait pour cela qu'un seul\nmoyen. Il se retira derri\u00e8re les rideaux, et toussa tout haut: \u00abHom!\nhom!\u00bb\n\nA ce bruit inattendu la dame tressaillit \u00e9videmment, car elle renversa\nl'\u00e9cran de sa chandelle. Mais bient\u00f4t elle se persuada qu'elle s'\u00e9tait\nalarm\u00e9e sans raison, et lorsque M. Pickwick, croyant qu'elle \u00e9tait pour\nle moins \u00e9vanouie de terreur, s'aventura \u00e0 regarder \u00e0 travers les\nrideaux, elle s'\u00e9tait remise \u00e0 contempler le feu avec le m\u00eame air\nm\u00e9lancolique et r\u00eaveur.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 une femme bien extraordinaire, pensa M. Pickwick en rentrant la\nt\u00eate. Hom! hom!\u00bb\n\nCette fois ces deux syllabes \u00e9taient prononc\u00e9es trop distinctement pour\nqu'il f\u00fbt encore possible de les prendre pour une imagination.\n\n\u00abMon Dieu! mon Dieu! s'\u00e9cria la dame; qu'est-ce que cela?\n\n--C'est... c'est seulement un gentleman, madame, dit M. Pickwick\nderri\u00e8re le rideau.\n\n--Un gentleman! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta la dame avec terreur.\n\n--C'en est fait! pensa M. Pickwick.\n\n--Un homme dans ma chambre! s'\u00e9cria la dame, et elle se pr\u00e9cipita vers\nla porte. M. Pickwick entendit le fr\u00f4lement de sa robe. Un instant de\nplus et toute la maison allait \u00eatre alarm\u00e9e.\n\n--Madame, dit-il en montrant sa t\u00eate, dans l'exc\u00e8s de son d\u00e9sespoir;\nmadame....\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick, en mettant sa t\u00eate hors des rideaux, n'avait certainement\npoint de but bien d\u00e9termin\u00e9. Cependant cela produisit instantan\u00e9ment un\nbon effet. La dame, comme nous avons dit, \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 pr\u00e8s de la porte.\nIl fallait l'ouvrir pour arriver \u00e0 l'escalier, et elle l'aurait fait\nsans aucun doute en un instant, si l'apparition soudaine du bonnet de\nnuit philosophique ne l'avait pas fait reculer jusqu'au fond de la\nchambre. Elle y resta immobile, consid\u00e9rant d'un air effar\u00e9 M. Pickwick,\nqui \u00e0 son tour la contemplait avec \u00e9garement.\n\n\u00abMis\u00e9rable! dit la dame, couvrant ses yeux de ses mains; que faites-vous\nici?\n\n--Rien, madame... rien du tout, madame... r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick avec feu.\n\n--Rien! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta la dame en levant les yeux.\n\n--Rien, madame, sur mon honneur, reprit M. Pickwick en secouant sa t\u00eate\nd'une mani\u00e8re si \u00e9nergique que la m\u00e8che de son bonnet s'agitait\nconvulsivement. Madame, je me sens accabl\u00e9 de confusion en m'adressant \u00e0\nune lady avec mon bonnet de nuit sur ma t\u00eate (ici la dame arracha\nbrusquement le sien); mais je ne puis l'\u00f4ter, madame. (En disant ces\nmots, M. Pickwick donna \u00e0 son bonnet une secousse prodigieuse pour\npreuve de son all\u00e9gation.) Maintenant, madame, il est \u00e9vident pour moi\nque je me suis tromp\u00e9 de chambre \u00e0 coucher, en prenant celle-ci pour la\nmienne. Je n'y \u00e9tais pas depuis cinq minutes lorsque vous \u00eates entr\u00e9e\ntout d'un coup.\n\n--Si cette histoire improbable est r\u00e9ellement vraie, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua\nla dame en sanglotant violemment, vous quitterez cette chambre\nsur-le-champ.\n\n--Oui, madame, avec le plus grand plaisir.\n\n--Sur-le-champ! monsieur.\n\n--Certainement, madame, certainement. Je... je suis tr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9, madame,\npoursuivit M. Pickwick en faisant son apparition au pied du lit;\ntr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9 d'avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 la cause innocente de cette alarme et de cette\n\u00e9motion; profond\u00e9ment afflig\u00e9, madame....\u00bb\n\nLa dame montra la porte. Dans ce moment critique, dans cette situation\nsi embarrassante, une des excellentes qualit\u00e9s de M. Pickwick se d\u00e9ploya\nencore admirablement. Quoiqu'il e\u00fbt plac\u00e9 \u00e0 la h\u00e2te son chapeau sur son\nbonnet de coton, \u00e0 la mani\u00e8re des patrouilles bourgeoises, quoiqu'il\nport\u00e2t ses souliers et ses gu\u00eatres dans ses mains, et son habit et son\ngilet sur son bras, rien ne put diminuer sa politesse naturelle.\n\n\u00abJe suis excessivement f\u00e2ch\u00e9, madame, dit-il en saluant tr\u00e8s-bas.\n\n--Si vous l'\u00eates, monsieur, vous quitterez cette chambre sur-le-champ.\n\n--Imm\u00e9diatement, madame. A l'instant m\u00eame, madame, dit M. Pickwick en\nouvrant la porte et en laissant tomber ses souliers avec grand fracas.\nJe me flatte, madame, reprit-il en ramassant ses chaussures et en se\nretournant pour saluer encore, je me flatte que mon caract\u00e8re sans tache\net le respect plein de d\u00e9votion que je professe pour votre sexe\nplaideront en ma faveur dans cette circonstance.\u00bb Mais avant qu'il e\u00fbt\npu conclure cette sentence, la dame l'avait pouss\u00e9 dans le passage, et\navait ferm\u00e9 et verrouill\u00e9 la porte derri\u00e8re lui.\n\nQuelque satisfaction que notre philosophe d\u00fbt ressentir d'avoir termin\u00e9\naussi ais\u00e9ment cette \u00e9pouvantable aventure, sa situation pr\u00e9sente\nn'\u00e9tait nullement agr\u00e9able. Il \u00e9tait seul, \u00e0 moiti\u00e9 habill\u00e9, dans un\npassage ouvert, dans une maison inconnue, au milieu de la nuit. Il\nn'\u00e9tait pas supposable qu'il put retrouver, dans une parfaite obscurit\u00e9,\nla chambre qu'il n'avait pu d\u00e9couvrir lorsqu'il \u00e9tait arm\u00e9 d'une\nlumi\u00e8re, et s'il faisait le plus petit bruit, dans ses inutiles\nrecherches, il courait la chance de recevoir un coup de pistolet et\npeut-\u00eatre d'\u00eatre tu\u00e9 par quelque voyageur r\u00e9veill\u00e9 en sursaut. Il\nn'avait donc pas d'autre ressource que de rester o\u00f9 il \u00e9tait, jusqu'\u00e0\nla pointe du jour. Ainsi, apr\u00e8s avoir fait encore quelques pas dans le\ncorridor, en tr\u00e9buchant, \u00e0 sa grande alarme, sur plusieurs paires de\nbottes, il s'accroupit dans un angle du mur, pour attendre le matin\naussi philosophiquement qu'il le pourrait.\n\nCependant il n'\u00e9tait point destin\u00e9 \u00e0 subir cette nouvelle \u00e9preuve de\npatience, car il n'y avait pas longtemps qu'il \u00e9tait retir\u00e9 dans son\ncoin, lorsqu'\u00e0 son horreur inexprimable un homme, portant une lumi\u00e8re,\napparut au bout du corridor. Mais cette horreur fut soudainement\nconvertie en transports de joie lorsqu'il reconnut son fid\u00e8le serviteur.\nC'\u00e9tait en effet M. Samuel Weller qui regagnait son domicile, apr\u00e8s \u00eatre\nrest\u00e9 jusqu'alors en grande conversation avec le gar\u00e7on qui attendait la\ndiligence.\n\n\u00abSam! dit M. Pickwick, en paraissant tout \u00e0 coup devant lui; o\u00f9 est ma\nchambre \u00e0 coucher?\u00bb\n\nSam consid\u00e9ra son ma\u00eetre avec la surprise la plus expressive, et\ncelui-ci avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9 trois fois la m\u00eame question, lorsque son\ndomestique tourna sur son talon et le conduisit \u00e0 la chambre si\nlongtemps cherch\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abSam, dit M. Pickwick en se mettant dans son lit; j'ai fait cette nuit\nun des quiproquos les plus extraordinaires qu'il soit possible de faire.\n\n--\u00c7a ne m'\u00e9tonne pas, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua s\u00e8chement le valet.\n\n--Mais je suis bien d\u00e9termin\u00e9, Sam, quand je devrais rester six mois\ndans cette maison, \u00e0 ne plus jamais me risquer tout seul hors de ma\nchambre.\n\n--C'est la r\u00e9solution la plus prudente que vous pourriez prendre,\nmonsieur. Vous avez besoin de quelqu'un pour vous surveiller quand votre\nraison s'en va en visite.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous entendez par l\u00e0? Sam, demanda M. Pickwick, qui, se\nlevant sur son s\u00e9ant, \u00e9tendit la main comme s'il allait faire un\ndiscours; mais tout \u00e0 coup il parut se raviser, se recoucha et dit \u00e0 son\ndomestique: Bonsoir.\n\n--Bonsoir, monsieur,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua Sam, et il sortit de la chambre. Arriv\u00e9\ndans le corridor, il s'arr\u00eata, secoua la t\u00eate, fit quelques pas,\ns'arr\u00eata encore, moucha sa chandelle, secoua la t\u00eate de nouveau, et\nfinalement se dirigea lentement vers sa chambre, enseveli, en apparence,\ndans les plus profondes m\u00e9ditations.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXIII.\n\nDans lequel Samuel Weller s'occupe \u00e9nergiquement de prendre la revanche\nde M. Trotter.\n\n\nA une heure un peu plus avanc\u00e9e de cette m\u00eame matin\u00e9e dont le\ncommencement avait \u00e9t\u00e9 signal\u00e9 par l'aventure de M. Pickwick avec la\ndame aux papillotes jaunes, dans la petite chambre situ\u00e9e aupr\u00e8s des\n\u00e9curies, M. Weller a\u00een\u00e9 faisait les pr\u00e9paratifs de son retour \u00e0 Londres.\nIl \u00e9tait parfaitement pos\u00e9 pour se faire peindre, et, profitant de\nl'occasion, nous allons esquisser son portrait.\n\nSon profil avait pu pr\u00e9senter dans sa jeunesse des lignes hardies et\nfortement accentu\u00e9es, mais gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 la bonne ch\u00e8re, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 un caract\u00e8re\nqui se pliait aux circonstances avec une extr\u00eame facilit\u00e9, les courbes\ncharnues de ses joues s'\u00e9taient \u00e9tendues bien au-del\u00e0 des limites qui\nleur avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 originairement assign\u00e9es par la nature; si bien qu'\u00e0\nmoins de le regarder en face, il \u00e9tait difficile de distinguer dans son\nvisage autre chose que le bout d'un nez rubicond. La m\u00eame cause avait\nfait acqu\u00e9rir \u00e0 son menton la forme grave et imposante que l'on d\u00e9crit\ncommun\u00e9ment, en faisant pr\u00e9c\u00e9der de l'\u00e9pith\u00e8te _double_ le nom de ce\ntrait expressif de la physionomie humaine. Enfin, son teint pr\u00e9sentait\ncette combinaison de couleurs qui ne se rencontrent gu\u00e8re que chez les\ngentlemen de sa profession, ou sur un filet de boeuf mal r\u00f4ti. Autour de\nson cou il portait un ch\u00e2le de voyage \u00e9carlate, qui s'adaptait si\nparfaitement \u00e0 son menton qu'il \u00e9tait difficile de distinguer les plis\nde l'un d'avec les plis de l'autre; par-dessus ce ch\u00e2le il mit un long\ngilet d'une grosse \u00e9toffe rouge \u00e0 larges raies roses, et par-dessus ce\ngilet un immense habit vert, orn\u00e9 de gros boutons de cuivre; et parmi\nces boutons ceux qui garnissaient la taille \u00e9taient si \u00e9loign\u00e9s l'un de\nl'autre, que nul mortel ne les avait jamais vus tous les deux \u00e0 la fois.\nLes cheveux de M. Weller \u00e9taient courts, lisses, noirs, et\ns'apercevaient \u00e0 peine sous les bords gigantesques d'un chapeau brun \u00e0\nforme basse. Ses jambes \u00e9taient encaiss\u00e9es dans une culotte de velours\n\u00e0 c\u00f4tes et dans des bottes \u00e0 revers; enfin, une grande cha\u00eene de cuivre,\ntermin\u00e9e par une clef et un cachet du m\u00eame m\u00e9tal, se dandinait\ngracieusement \u00e0 sa vaste ceinture.\n\nNous avons dit que M. Weller faisait les pr\u00e9paratifs de son retour \u00e0\nLondres. Pour \u00eatre plus explicite, il s'occupait de la question des\nvivres. Sur la table, devant lui, se trouvait un pot d'ale, un plat de\nboeuf froid et un pain d'une dimension fort respectable, \u00e0 chacun\ndesquels il distribuait tour \u00e0 tour ses faveurs, avec la plus rigide\nimpartialit\u00e9. Il venait de couper une bonne tranche de pain lorsqu'un\nbruit de pas dans la chambre lui fit lever les yeux. L'espoir de sa\nvieillesse \u00e9tait devant lui.\n\n\u00ab'Jour! Sammy,\u00bb dit le p\u00e8re.\n\nLe fils s'approcha du pot d'ale et prit, en guise de r\u00e9ponse, une longue\ngorg\u00e9e de liquide.\n\n\u00abTu aspires les liquides avec facilit\u00e9, Sammy, dit M. Weller en\nregardant l'int\u00e9rieur du pot, lorsque son premier-n\u00e9 l'eut repos\u00e9, \u00e0\nmoiti\u00e9 vide, sur la table; tu aurais fait une fameuse sangsure si tu\n\u00e9tais n\u00e9 dans cette profession-l\u00e0, Sammy.\n\n--Oui, je me figure que ce talent-l\u00e0 m'aurait permis de vivre \u00e0 mon\naise, r\u00e9pliqua Sam en s'attaquant au boeuf froid avec une vigueur\nconsid\u00e9rable.\n\n--Je suis tr\u00e8s-vex\u00e9, Sammy, reprit M. Weller en d\u00e9crivant de petits\ncercles avec le pot pour secouer son ale avant de la boire, je suis\ntr\u00e8s-vex\u00e9, Sammy, de voir que tu t'es laiss\u00e9 enfoncer par cet homme\nviolet. J'avais toujours pens\u00e9, jusqu'\u00e0 l'autre jour, que les mots de\n_Weller_ et _enfonc\u00e9_ ne viendraient jamais en contract, Sammy....\nJamais.\n\n--Except\u00e9, sans doute, le cas o\u00f9 il serait question d'une veuve, reprit\nSam.\n\n--Les veuves, Sammy, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller en changeant un peu de couleur,\nles veuves sont des exceptions \u00e0 toutes les r\u00e8gles. J'ai entendu dire\ncombien une veuve vaut de femmes ordinaires, pour vous mettre dedans. Je\ncrois que c'est 25, Sammy; mais \u00e7a pourrait bien \u00eatre davantage.\n\n--Eh mais, c'est d\u00e9j\u00e0 assez gentil.\n\n--D'ailleurs, poursuivit M. Weller, sans faire attention \u00e0\nl'interruption, c'est ben diff\u00e9rent. Tu sais ce que disait l'avocat de\nce gen'lm'n qui battait sa femme \u00e0 coups de pincettes quand il \u00e9tait en\nribotte. \u00abApr\u00e8s tout, m'sieu le pr\u00e9sident, qu'i' dit, \u00abc'n est qu'une\naimable faiblesse.\u00bb J'en dis autant par rapport aux veuves, Sammy; et\ntu en diras autant quand tu auras mon \u00e2ge.\n\n--Je sais bien, confessa Sam, je sais bien que j'aurais d\u00fb en savoir\nplus long.\n\n--En savoir plus long! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Weller, en frappant la table avec son\npoing; en savoir plus long! Mais je connais un jeune moutard, qui n'a\npas eu le quart de ton inducation, qui n'a pas seulement fr\u00e9quent\u00e9 les\nmarch\u00e9s pendant... non pas six mois, et qui aurait rougi de se laisser\nenfoncer comme \u00e7a, rougi jusqu'au blanc des yeux, Sammy!\u00bb L'angoisse que\nr\u00e9veilla cette am\u00e8re r\u00e9flexion obligea M. Weller \u00e0 tirer la sonnette et\n\u00e0 demander une nouvelle pinte d'ale.\n\n\u00abAllons! \u00e0 quoi bon parler de \u00e7a maintenant, fit observer Sam. Ce qui\nest fait est fait, il n'y a plus de rem\u00e8de, et cette pens\u00e9e doit nous\nconsoler, comme disent les Turcs, quand ils ont coup\u00e9 la t\u00eate d'un\nindividu par erreur. Mais chacun son tour, gouverneur, et si je rattrape\nce Trotter, il aura affaire \u00e0 moi.\n\n--Je l'esp\u00e8re, Sammy, je l'esp\u00e8re, r\u00e9pondit gravement M. Weller. A ta\nsant\u00e9, Sammy, et puisses-tu effacer bient\u00f4t la tache dont tu as souli\u00e9\nnotre nom de famille.\u00bb En l'honneur de ce toast, le corpulent cocher\nabsorba, d'un seul trait, les deux tiers au moins de la pinte\nnouvellement arriv\u00e9e: puis il tendit le reste \u00e0 son fils, qui en disposa\ninstantan\u00e9ment.\n\n\u00abEt maintenant, Sammy, reprit M. Weller en consultant l'\u00e9norme montre\nd'argent que soutenait sa cha\u00eene de cuivre; maintenant il est temps que\nj'aille au bureau pour prendre ma feuille de route et pour faire charger\nla voiture; car les voitures, Sammy, c'est comme les canons, i' faut les\ncharger avec beaucoup de soin avant qu'i' partent.\u00bb\n\nSam Weller accueillit avec un sourire filial ce bon mot paternel et\nprofessionnel. Son respectable p\u00e8re continua d'un ton grave et \u00e9mu: \u00abJe\nvas te quitter, Sammy, mon gar\u00e7on, et on ne sait pas quand est-ce que\nnous nous reverrons. Ta belle-m\u00e8re peut avoir fait mon affaire, il peut\narriver un tas d'accidents avant que tu re\u00e7oives de nouvelles nouvelles\ndu c\u00e9l\u00e8bre monsieur Weller de la _Belle Sauvage_. L'honneur de la\nfamille est dans tes mains, Samivel, et j'esp\u00e8re que tu feras ton\ndevoir. Quant au reste, je sais que je peux me fier \u00e0 toi comme \u00e0\nmoi-m\u00eame. Aussi je n'ai qu'un petit conseil \u00e0 te donner. Si tu d\u00e9passes\nla cinquantaine et que l'id\u00e9e te vienne d'\u00e9pouser quelqu'un, n'importe\nqui, vite enferme-toi dans ta chambre, si tu en as une, et\nempoisonne-toi sur-le-champ. C'est commun de se pendre; ainsi pas de\nces b\u00eatises-l\u00e0. Empoisonne-toi, Sammy, mon gar\u00e7on, empoisonne-toi et\nplus tard tu seras bien aise de m'avoir \u00e9cout\u00e9.\u00bb\n\nM. Weller gardait fixement son fils en pronon\u00e7ant ces touchantes\nparoles. Lorsqu'il eut termin\u00e9 il tourna lentement sur le talon et\ndisparut.\n\nLes derniers conseils de son p\u00e8re ayant \u00e9veill\u00e9 dans l'esprit de M.\nSamuel Weller mille id\u00e9es contemplatives et lugubres, il sortit de\nl'auberge du _Cheval blanc_ d\u00e8s que le vieil autom\u00e9don l'eut quitt\u00e9, et\ndirigea ses pas vers l'\u00e9glise de Saint-Cl\u00e9ment, essayant de dissiper sa\nm\u00e9lancolie en se promenant dans les antiques d\u00e9pendances de cet \u00e9difice.\nIl y avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 quelque temps qu'il fl\u00e2nait dans les environs, quand il\nse trouva dans un endroit solitaire, une esp\u00e8ce de cour, d'un aspect\nv\u00e9n\u00e9rable, et qui n'avait pas d'autre issue que le passage par lequel il\n\u00e9tait entr\u00e9. Il allait donc retourner sur ses pas, lorsqu'il fut\np\u00e9trifi\u00e9 sur place par une apparition que nous allons d\u00e9crire\nci-dessous.\n\nM. Samuel Weller, \u00e9tait occup\u00e9 \u00e0 contempler les vieilles maisons de\nbrique rouge, et malgr\u00e9 son abstraction profonde, lan\u00e7ait de temps en\ntemps une oeillade assassine aux fra\u00eeches servantes qui ouvraient une\nfen\u00eatre ou levaient une jalousie, lorsque la porte verte d'un jardin, au\nfond de la cour, s'ouvrit tout \u00e0 coup. Un homme en sortit, qui referma\nsoigneusement, apr\u00e8s lui, ladite porte et s'avan\u00e7a d'un pas rapide vers\nl'endroit o\u00f9 se trouvait Sam.\n\nOr, si l'on prend ce fait isol\u00e9ment, et sans s'occuper des circonstances\nconcomitantes, il n'a rien de fort extraordinaire, car, dans beaucoup de\nparties du monde, un homme peut sortir d'un jardin et fermer derri\u00e8re\nlui une porte verte, il peut m\u00eame s'\u00e9loigner d'un pas rapide, sans\nattirer pour cela l'attention publique. Il est donc clair qu'il devait y\navoir, pour \u00e9veiller l'int\u00e9r\u00eat de Sam, quelque chose de particulier dans\nle costume de l'homme, ou dans l'homme lui-m\u00eame, ou dans l'un et dans\nl'autre. C'est ce que le lecteur pourra facilement conclure, lorsque\nnous lui aurons d\u00e9crit avec pr\u00e9cision la conduite de l'individu dont il\ns'agit.\n\nIl avait donc ferm\u00e9 derri\u00e8re lui la porte verte, il s'avan\u00e7ait dans la\ncour d'un pas rapide, comme nous l'avons d\u00e9j\u00e0 dit deux fois; mais il\nn'eut pas plus t\u00f4t aper\u00e7u M. Weller qu'il h\u00e9sita, s'arr\u00eata et parut ne\npas trop savoir quel parti prendre. Cependant, comme la porte verte\n\u00e9tait ferm\u00e9e derri\u00e8re lui, et comme il n'y avait pas d'autre issue que\ncelle qui \u00e9tait devant lui, il ne fut pas longtemps \u00e0 remarquer que,\npour sortir de l\u00e0, il fallait n\u00e9cessairement passer devant M. Samuel\nWeller. Il reprit donc son pas d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9 et s'avan\u00e7a en regardant droit\ndevant lui. Ce qu'il y avait de plus extraordinaire dans cet homme,\nc'est la fa\u00e7on hideuse dont il contournait ses traits, faisant les\ngrimaces les plus \u00e9tonnantes et les plus effroyables qu'on ait jamais\nvues. Jamais l'oeuvre de la nature n'avait \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9guis\u00e9e plus artistement\nque ne le fut en un instant le visage en question.\n\n\u00abParole d'honneur, se dit Sam \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame, en voyant approcher le quidam,\nvoil\u00e0 qui est dr\u00f4le! j'aurais jur\u00e9 que c'\u00e9tait lui!\u00bb\n\nL'homme avan\u00e7ait toujours, et \u00e0 mesure qu'il s'approchait, sa figure\ndevenait de plus en plus boulevers\u00e9e.\n\n\u00abJe pourrais pr\u00eater serment, quant \u00e0 ces cheveux noirs et \u00e0 cet habit\nviolet; mais c'est bien s\u00fbr la premi\u00e8re fois que je vois cette\nboule-l\u00e0.\u00bb\n\nPendant ce soliloque, la physionomie de l'\u00e9tranger avait pris un aspect\nsurnaturel et parfaitement hideux. Cependant il fut oblig\u00e9 de passer\ntr\u00e8s-pr\u00e8s de Sam, et un regard scrutateur de celui-ci lui permit de\nd\u00e9couvrir, sous ce masque de contorsions effrayantes, quelque chose qui\nressemblait trop aux petits yeux de M. Job Trotter pour qu'il f\u00fbt\npossible de s'y tromper.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9! monsieur!\u00bb cria Sam d'une voix irrit\u00e9e.\n\nL'\u00e9tranger s'arr\u00eata.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9!\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Sam d'une voix encore plus f\u00e9roce.\n\nL'homme \u00e0 l'horrible visage regarda avec la plus grande surprise au fond\nde la cour, \u00e0 l'entr\u00e9e de la cour, aux fen\u00eatres de chaque maison,\npartout enfin, except\u00e9 du c\u00f4t\u00e9 de Sam Weller; puis il fit un autre pas\nen avant, mais il fut arr\u00eat\u00e9 par un nouveau hurlement de Sam:\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9! monsieur!\u00bb\n\nIl n'y avait plus moyen de pr\u00e9tendre m\u00e9conna\u00eetre d'o\u00f9 venait la voix, et\nl'\u00e9tranger, n'ayant pas d'autre ressource, regarda Sam en face.\n\n\u00ab\u00c7a ne prend pas, Job Trotter, dit celui-ci. Allons! allons! pas de\nb\u00eatises. Vous n'\u00eates pas assez beau naturellement pour vous permettre de\nvous g\u00e2ter comme \u00e7a la physionomie. Remettez-moi vos petits yeux \u00e0 leur\nplace, ou bien je les enfoncerai dans votre t\u00eate. M'entendez-vous!\u00bb\n\nComme M. Weller paraissait dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 agir suivant la lettre et l'esprit\nde ce discours, M. Trotter permit peu \u00e0 peu \u00e0 son visage de reprendre\nson expression habituelle, et tout \u00e0 coup, tressaillant de joie, il\ns'\u00e9cria:\n\n\u00abQue vois-je? monsieur Walker!\n\n--Ha! reprit Sam, vous \u00eates bien content de me rencontrer, n'est-ce pas?\n\n--Content! s'\u00e9cria Job Trotter enchant\u00e9! Oh! monsieur Walker, si vous\nsaviez combien j'ai d\u00e9sir\u00e9 cette rencontre! Mais c'en est trop pour ma\nsensibilit\u00e9, monsieur Walker; je ne puis pas contenir ma joie; en v\u00e9rit\u00e9\nje ne le puis pas!\u00bb\n\nEn sanglotant ces paroles, M. Trotter r\u00e9pandit un v\u00e9ritable d\u00e9luge de\npleurs, et, jetant ses bras autour de ceux de Sam, il l'embrassa\n\u00e9troitement, avec un transport d'affection.\n\n\u00abA bas les pattes! lui cria Sam, grandement indign\u00e9 de cette conduite,\net s'effor\u00e7ant inutilement de se soustraire aux embrassements de son\nenthousiaste connaissance. A bas les pattes! vous dis-je. Pourquoi me\npleurez-vous comme \u00e7a sur le dos, pompe \u00e0 incendie?\n\n--Parce que je suis si content de vous voir, r\u00e9pliqua Job Trotter, en\nrel\u00e2chant Sam, \u00e0 mesure que les sympt\u00f4mes de son courroux diminuaient.\nAh! monsieur Walker, c'en est trop!\n\n--Trop? Je le crois bien! Voyons, qu'avez-vous \u00e0 me dire, eh?\u00bb\n\nM. Trotter ne fit pas de r\u00e9plique, car le petit mouchoir rouge \u00e9tait en\npleine activit\u00e9.\n\n\u00abQu'avez-vous \u00e0 me dire avant que je vous casse la t\u00eate? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Sam\nd'une mani\u00e8re mena\u00e7ante.\n\n--Hein? fit M. Trotter d'un ton de vertueuse surprise.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous avez \u00e0 me dire?\n\n--Mais, monsieur Walker!...\n\n--Ne m'appelez pas Walker; je me nomme Weller, vous le savez bien.\nQu'est-ce que vous avez \u00e0 me dire?\n\n--Dieu vous b\u00e9nisse, monsieur Walker,... je veux dire Weller.... Bien\ndes choses, si vous voulez venir quelque part o\u00f9 nous puissions parler \u00e0\nnotre aise. Si vous saviez comme je vous ai cherch\u00e9, monsieur Weller!\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-soigneusement je suppose, reprit Sam, s\u00e8chement.\n\n--Oh! oui, monsieur, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9! affirma M. Trotter sans qu'on vit remuer\nun muscle de sa physionomie. Donnez-moi une poign\u00e9e de main, M. Weller.\u00bb\n\nSam consid\u00e9ra pendant quelques secondes son compagnon, et ensuite,\ncomme pouss\u00e9 par un soudain mouvement, il lui tendit la main.\n\n\u00abComment va votre bon cher ma\u00eetre, demanda Job \u00e0 Sam, tout en cheminant\navec lui. Oh! c'est un digne gentleman, monsieur Weller. J'esp\u00e8re qu'il\nn'a pas attrap\u00e9 de fra\u00eecheurs dans cette \u00e9pouvantable nuit.\u00bb\n\nUne expression momentan\u00e9e de malice \u00e9tincela dans l'oeil de Job, pendant\nqu'il pronon\u00e7ait ces paroles. Sam s'en aper\u00e7ut, et ressentit dans son\npoing ferm\u00e9 une violente d\u00e9mangeaison, mais il se contint et r\u00e9pondit\nsimplement que son ma\u00eetre se portait tr\u00e8s-bien.\n\n\u00abOh! que j'en suis content. Est-il ici?\n\n--Et le v\u00f4tre y est-il?\n\n--H\u00e9las! oui, il est ici. Et ce qui me peine \u00e0 dire, monsieur Weller,\nc'est qu'il s'y conduit plus mal que jamais.\n\n--Ah! ah!\n\n--Oh! \u00e7a fait fr\u00e9mir! c'est terrible!\n\n--Dans une pension de demoiselles?\n\n--Non! non! pas dans une pension, r\u00e9pliqua Job avec le m\u00eame regard\nmalicieux que Sam avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 remarqu\u00e9, pas dans une pension.\n\n--Dans la maison avec une porte verte? demanda Sam en regardant\nattentivement son compagnon.\n\n--Non! non! oh! non pas l\u00e0! r\u00e9pondit Job avec une vivacit\u00e9 qui ne lui\n\u00e9tait pas habituelle. Pas l\u00e0!\n\n--Que faisiez-vous l\u00e0 vous-m\u00eame? reprit Sam avec un regard per\u00e7ant. Vous\ny \u00eates entr\u00e9 par accident, peut-\u00eatre?\n\n--Voyez-vous, monsieur Weller, je ne regarde pas \u00e0 vous dire mes petits\nsecrets, parce que, comme vous savez, nous avons eu tant de go\u00fbt l'un\npour l'autre la premi\u00e8re fois que nous nous sommes rencontr\u00e9s. Vous vous\nrappelez la charmante matin\u00e9e que nous avons pass\u00e9e ensemble.\n\n--Eh! oui, r\u00e9pliqua Sam, je m'en souviens. Eh bien!\n\n--Eh bien! poursuivit Job avec grande pr\u00e9cision et du ton peu \u00e9lev\u00e9 d'un\nhomme qui communique un secret important. Dans cette maison \u00e0 la porte\nverte, monsieur Weller, il y a beaucoup de domestiques.\n\n--Je m'en doute bien, interrompit Sam.\n\n--Oui, et il y a une cuisini\u00e8re qui a \u00e9pargn\u00e9 quelque chose, monsieur\nWeller, et qui d\u00e9sire ouvrir une petite boutique d'\u00e9picerie, voyez-vous.\n\n--Oui d\u00e0?\n\n--Oui, monsieur Weller, h\u00e9 bien! monsieur, je l'ai rencontr\u00e9e \u00e0 une\npetite chapelle o\u00f9 je vais. Une bien jolie petite chapelle de cette\nville, monsieur Weller, o\u00f9 on chante ce recueil d'hymnes que je porte\nhabituellement sur moi et que vous avez peut-\u00eatre vu entre mes mains, et\nj'ai fait connaissance avec elle, monsieur Weller; et puis il s'est\n\u00e9tabli une petite intimit\u00e9, et je puis me hasarder \u00e0 dire que je compte\ndevenir l'\u00e9picier.\n\n--Ah! et vous ferez un tr\u00e8s-aimable \u00e9picier, r\u00e9pliqua Sam en examinant\nde c\u00f4t\u00e9 M. Trotter avec un profond d\u00e9go\u00fbt.\n\n--Le grand avantage de ceci, monsieur Weller, continua Job, dont les\nyeux se remplissaient de larmes; le grand avantage de ceci c'est que je\npourrai quitter le service d\u00e9shonorant de ce m\u00e9chant homme, et me\nd\u00e9vouer tout entier \u00e0 une vie meilleure et plus vertueuse. Une vie plus\nconforme \u00e0 la mani\u00e8re dont j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9lev\u00e9, monsieur Weller.\n\n--Vous devez avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 joliment \u00e9duqu\u00e9, hein?\n\n--Oh! avec un soin! avec un soin incroyable, monsieur Weller! et en se\nrappelant la puret\u00e9 de son enfance, M. Trotter tira de nouveau le\nmouchoir rose et pleura copieusement.\n\n--Qu'on devait \u00eatre heureux d'aller \u00e0 l'\u00e9cole avec un enfant aussi pieux\nque vous!\n\n--Je crois bien, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Job en poussant un profond soupir.\nJ'\u00e9tais l'idole de l'\u00e9cole.\n\n--Ah! \u00e7a ne m'\u00e9tonne pas. Quelle consolation vous deviez \u00eatre pour votre\nb\u00e9nite m\u00e8re!\u00bb\n\nEn entendant ces mots Job ins\u00e9ra un bout du mouchoir rose dans le coin\nde chacun de ses yeux, et recommen\u00e7a \u00e0 fondre en larmes.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'il a maintenant, s'\u00e9cria Sam, rempli d'indignation. La\npompe \u00e0 feu n'est rien aupr\u00e8s de lui. Qu'est-ce qui vous fait fondre en\neau maintenant? La conscience de votre coquinerie, pas vrai?\n\n--Je ne puis pas mod\u00e9rer ma sensibilit\u00e9, monsieur Weller reprit Job\napr\u00e8s une courte pause. Quand je songe que mon ma\u00eetre a soup\u00e7onn\u00e9 la\nconversation que j'avais eue avec le v\u00f4tre, et qu'il m'a emmen\u00e9 en\nchaise de poste, apr\u00e8s avoir engag\u00e9 la jeune lady \u00e0 dire qu'elle ne le\nconnaissait pas et apr\u00e8s avoir gagn\u00e9 la ma\u00eetresse de pension! Ah!\nmonsieur Weller, cela me fait frissonner!\n\n--Ah! c'est comme \u00e7a que la chose s'est pass\u00e9e, hein?\n\n--Sans doute, r\u00e9pliqua Job.\u00bb\n\nTout en parlant ainsi les deux amis \u00e9taient arriv\u00e9s pr\u00e8s de l'h\u00f4tel.\nSam dit alors \u00e0 son compagnon: \u00abSi \u00e7a ne vous d\u00e9rangeait pas trop, Job,\nje voudrais bien vous voir au _Grand Cheval blanc_, ce soir, vers les\nhuit heures.\n\n--Je n'y manquerai pas.\n\n--Et vous ferez bien, reprit Sam avec un regard expressif. Autrement je\npourrais aller demander de vos nouvelles de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la porte\nverte; et alors \u00e7a pourrait vous nuire, vous voyez.\n\n--Je viendrai, sans faute, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Job, et il s'\u00e9loigna apr\u00e8s avoir donn\u00e9\n\u00e0 Sam une chaleureuse poign\u00e9e de main.\n\n--Prends garde, Job Trotter, prends garde \u00e0 toi, dit Sam en le regardant\npartir; car je pourrais bien t'enfoncer, cette fois.\u00bb Ayant termin\u00e9 ce\nmonologue et suivi Job des yeux jusqu'au d\u00e9tour de la rue, Sam rentra et\nmonta \u00e0 la chambre de son ma\u00eetre.\n\n\u00abTout est en train, monsieur, lui dit-il.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qui est en train, Sam?...\n\n--Je les ai trouv\u00e9s, monsieur.\n\n--Trouv\u00e9 qui?\n\n--Votre bonne pratique, et le pleurnichard aux cheveux noirs.\n\n--Impossible! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick avec la plus grande \u00e9nergie. O\u00f9\nsont-ils, Sam! o\u00f9 sont-ils?\n\n--Chut! chut!\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le fid\u00e8le valet, et tout en aidant son ma\u00eetre \u00e0\ns'habiller, il lui d\u00e9tailla le plan de campagne qu'il avait dress\u00e9.\n\n\u00abMais quand cela se fera-t-il, Sam?\n\n--Au bon moment, monsieur, au bon moment.\u00bb\n\nLe lecteur apprendra dans le subs\u00e9quent chapitre, si cela fut fait au\nbon moment.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXIV.\n\nDans lequel M. Peter Magnus devient jaloux, et la dame d'un certain \u00e2ge,\ncraintive; ce qui jette les pickwickiens dans les griffes de la justice.\n\n\nQuand M. Pickwick descendit dans la chambre o\u00f9 il avait pass\u00e9 la soir\u00e9e\npr\u00e9c\u00e9dente avec M. Peter Magnus, il le trouva en train de se promener\ndans un \u00e9tat nerveux d'agitation et d'attente, et remarqua que ce\ngentleman avait dispos\u00e9, au plus grand avantage possible de sa personne,\nla majeure partie du contenu des deux sacs, du carton \u00e0 chapeau, et du\npaquet papier gris.\n\n\u00abBonjour, monsieur, dit M. Magnus. Comment trouvez-vous ceci, monsieur?\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait meurtrier, r\u00e9pondit M. Pickwick en examinant avec un\nsourire de bonne humeur le costume du pr\u00e9tendant.\n\n--Oui, je pense que cela fera l'affaire, monsieur Pickwick; monsieur,\nj'ai envoy\u00e9 ma carte.\n\n--Vraiment!\n\n--Oui, et le gar\u00e7on est venu me dire qu'elle me recevrait \u00e0 onze heures.\nA onze heures, monsieur, et il ne s'en faut plus que d'un quart d'heure\nmaintenant.\u00bb\n\nAh! c'est bient\u00f4t!\n\n\u00abOui, c'est bient\u00f4t! Trop t\u00f4t, peut-\u00eatre, pour que ce soit agr\u00e9able. Eh!\nmonsieur Pickwick, monsieur.\n\n--La confiance en soi-m\u00eame est une grande chose dans ces cas l\u00e0.\n\n--Je le crois, monsieur. J'ai beaucoup de confiance en moi-m\u00eame.\nR\u00e9ellement, monsieur Pickwick, je ne vois pas pourquoi un homme\nsentirait la moindre crainte dans une circonstance semblable. Quoi de\nplus simple en somme, monsieur? il n'y a rien l\u00e0 de d\u00e9shonorant. C'est\nune affaire de convenances mutuelles, rien de plus. Mari d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9,\nfemme de l'autre. C'est l\u00e0 mon opinion de la mati\u00e8re, monsieur Pickwick.\n\n--Et c'est une opinion tr\u00e8s-philosophique. Mais le d\u00e9jeuner nous attend,\nmonsieur Magnus, allons.\u00bb\n\nIls s'assirent pour d\u00e9jeuner; cependant malgr\u00e9 les vanteries de M.\nMagnus, il \u00e9tait \u00e9vident qu'il se trouvait sous l'influence d'une grande\nagitation, dont les principaux sympt\u00f4mes \u00e9taient des essais lugubres de\nplaisanterie, la perte de l'app\u00e9tit, une propension \u00e0 renverser les\ntasses et la th\u00e9i\u00e8re, et une inclination irr\u00e9sistible \u00e0 regarder la\npendule, toutes les deux secondes.\n\n\u00abHi! hi! hi! balbutia-t-il en affectant de la gaiet\u00e9, mais en tremblant\nd'agitation; il ne s'en faut plus que de deux minutes, monsieur\nPickwick. Suis-je p\u00e2le, monsieur?\n\n--Pas trop.\u00bb\n\nIl y eut un court silence.\n\n\u00abJe vous demande pardon, monsieur Pickwick. Avez-vous jamais fait cette\nsorte de chose, dans votre temps?\n\n--Vous voulez dire une demande en mariage?\n\n--Oui.\n\n--Jamais! r\u00e9pliqua M. Pickwick avec grande \u00e9nergie, jamais!\n\n--Alors vous n'avez pas d'id\u00e9es sur la meilleure mani\u00e8re d'entrer en\nmati\u00e8re?\n\n--Eh! je puis avoir quelques id\u00e9es \u00e0 ce sujet; mais comme je ne les ai\njamais soumises \u00e0 la pierre de touche de l'exp\u00e9rience, je serais f\u00e2ch\u00e9\nsi vous vous en serviez pour r\u00e9gler votre conduite.\n\nM. Magnus jeta un autre coup d'oeil \u00e0 la pendule: l'aiguille marquait\ncinq minutes apr\u00e8s onze heures. Il se retourna vers M. Pickwick en lui\ndisant: \u00abMalgr\u00e9 cela, monsieur, je vous serai bien oblig\u00e9 de me donner\nun avis.\n\n--Eh bien! monsieur, r\u00e9pondit le savant homme avec la solennit\u00e9 profonde\nqui rendait ses remarques si impressives quand il jugeait qu'elles en\nvalaient la peine; je commencerais, monsieur, par payer un tribut \u00e0 la\nbeaut\u00e9 et aux excellentes qualit\u00e9s de la dame. De l\u00e0, monsieur, je\npasserais \u00e0 ma propre indignit\u00e9.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, s'\u00e9cria M. Magnus.\n\n--Indignit\u00e9, par rapport \u00e0 _elle_ seule, monsieur. Faites bien attention\n\u00e0 cela; car pour montrer que je ne serais pas _absolument_ indigne, je\nferais une courte revue de ma vie pass\u00e9e et de ma condition pr\u00e9sente:\nj'\u00e9tablirais, par analogie, que je serais un objet tr\u00e8s-d\u00e9sirable pour\ntoute autre personne. Ensuite je m'\u00e9tendrais sur la chaleur de mon\namour, et sur la profondeur de mon d\u00e9vouement. Peut-\u00eatre pourrais-je,\nalors, essayer de m'emparer de sa main.\n\n--Oui, je vois. Cela serait un grand point.\n\n--Ensuite, continua M. Pickwick, en s'\u00e9chauffant \u00e0 mesure que son sujet\nse pr\u00e9sentait devant lui sous des couleurs plus brillantes; ensuite j'en\nviendrais \u00e0 cette simple question: Voulez-vous de moi? Je crois pouvoir\nsupposer raisonnablement que la dame d\u00e9tournerait la t\u00eate....\n\n--Pensez-vous qu'on puisse prendre cela pour accord\u00e9? interrompit M.\nMagnus. Parce que, voyez-vous, si elle ne d\u00e9tournait pas la t\u00eate au\nmoment pr\u00e9cis, cela serait embarrassant.\n\n--Je crois qu'elle la d\u00e9tournerait \u00e0 ce moment-l\u00e0, monsieur; et\nl\u00e0-dessus je saisirais sa main, et je pense, _je pense_, monsieur\nMagnus, qu'apr\u00e8s avoir fait cela, supposant qu'elle n'e\u00fbt point prof\u00e9r\u00e9\nde refus, je retirerais doucement le mouchoir qu'elle aurait port\u00e9 \u00e0 ses\nyeux, si ma faible connaissance de la nature humaine ne me trompe point,\net je d\u00e9roberais un baiser respectueux: oui, je pense que je le\nd\u00e9roberais; et je suis convaincu que dans cet instant m\u00eame, si la dame\ndevait m'accepter, elle murmurerait \u00e0 mon oreille un pudique\nconsentement.\u00bb\n\nM. Magnus se leva de sa chaise, regarda pendant quelque temps M.\nPickwick en silence et avec un regard intelligent, puis il lui secoua\nchaleureusement la main et s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a, en d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9, hors de la porte.\nL'aiguille de la pendule marquait onze heures dix minutes.\n\nM. Pickwick fit quelques tours dans la chambre, et l'aiguille suivant\nson exemple, \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9e \u00e0 la figure qui indique la demi-heure,\nlorsque la porte s'ouvrit soudainement. M. Pickwick se retourna pour\nf\u00e9liciter M. Magnus, mais \u00e0 sa place il aper\u00e7ut la joyeuse physionomie\nde M. Tupman, la figure guerri\u00e8re de M. Winkle, et les traits\nintellectuels de M. Snodgrass.\n\nPendant que M. Pickwick les complimentait, M. Peter Magnus se pr\u00e9cipita\ndans l'appartement.\n\n\u00abMes bons amis, dit le philosophe, voici le gentleman dont je vous\nparlais, M. Magnus.\n\n--Votre serviteur, messieurs, dit M. Magnus qui \u00e9tait \u00e9videmment dans un\n\u00e9tat d'exaltation. Monsieur Pickwick, permettez-moi de vous parler un\nmoment, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nEn pronon\u00e7ant ces mots M. Magnus insinua son index dans une des\nboutonni\u00e8res de M. Pickwick, et l'attirant dans l'ouverture d'une\nfen\u00eatre: \u00abF\u00e9licitez-moi, monsieur Pickwick; j'ai suivi votre avis \u00e0 la\nlettre.\n\n--\u00c9tait-il bon?\n\n--Oui, monsieur, il ne pouvait pas \u00eatre meilleur. Elle est \u00e0 moi,\nmonsieur Pickwick.\n\n--Je vous en f\u00e9licite de tout mon coeur, r\u00e9pondit le philosophe, en\nsecouant cordialement la main de sa nouvelle connaissance.\n\n--Il faut que vous la voyiez, monsieur. Par ici, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\nExcusez-nous pour un instant, messieurs.\u00bb En parlant ainsi l'amant\ntriomphant entra\u00eena rapidement M. Pickwick hors de la chambre, s'arr\u00eata\n\u00e0 la porte voisine dans le corridor, et y tapa doucement.\n\n\u00abEntrez,\u00bb dit une voix de femme.\n\nIls entr\u00e8rent.\n\n\u00abMiss Witherfield[26], dit M. Magnus, permettez-moi de vous pr\u00e9senter un\nde mes meilleurs amis, M. Pickwick.--Monsieur Pickwick, permettez-moi de\nvous pr\u00e9senter \u00e0 miss Witherfield.\u00bb\n\n[Footnote 26: En fran\u00e7ais: De champ sec.]\n\nLa dame \u00e9tait \u00e0 l'autre bout de la chambre. M. Pickwick la salua, et en\nm\u00eame temps, tirant adroitement ses lunettes de sa poche, il les ajusta\nsur son nez; mais \u00e0 peine les y avait-il pos\u00e9es qu'il poussa une\nexclamation de surprise, et recula plusieurs pas. La dame, de son c\u00f4t\u00e9,\njetait un cri involontaire, cachait son visage dans ses mains, et se\nlaissait tomber sur sa chaise; tandis que M. Peter Magnus, qui semblait\np\u00e9trifi\u00e9 sur la place, les contemplait tour \u00e0 tour avec une physionomie\nd\u00e9figur\u00e9e par un exc\u00e8s d'\u00e9tonnement et d'horreur.\n\nUn semblable coup de th\u00e9\u00e2tre para\u00eet inexplicable; mais le fait est que\nM. Pickwick, aussit\u00f4t qu'il avait mis ses lunettes, avait reconnu tout \u00e0\ncoup, dans la future Mme Magnus, la dame chez laquelle il s'\u00e9tait si\nodieusement introduit la nuit pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente; et qu'\u00e0 peine lesdites\nlunettes avaient-elles crois\u00e9 le nez de M. Pickwick, lorsque la dame\ns'aper\u00e7ut de l'identit\u00e9 de sa physionomie avec celle qu'elle avait vue,\nenvironn\u00e9e de toutes les horreurs d'un bonnet de coton. En cons\u00e9quence\nla dame cria et le philosophe tressaillit.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Pickwick, que signifie cela, monsieur? Dites-moi ce que\nsignifie cela, monsieur? s'\u00e9cria M. Magnus d'un ton de voix \u00e9lev\u00e9 et\nmena\u00e7ant.\n\n--Monsieur, je refuse de r\u00e9pondre \u00e0 cette question, r\u00e9pliqua M.\nPickwick, un peu \u00e9chauff\u00e9 par la mani\u00e8re soudaine dont M. Magnus l'avait\ninterrog\u00e9, au mode imp\u00e9ratif.\n\n--Vous le refusez, monsieur?\n\n--Oui, monsieur. Je ne consentirai pas, sans la permission de cette\ndame, \u00e0 dire quelque chose qui puisse la compromettre, ou r\u00e9veiller dans\nson sein de d\u00e9sagr\u00e9ables souvenirs.\n\n--Miss Witherfield, reprit M. Magnus, connaissez-vous monsieur?\n\n--Si je le connais? r\u00e9pondit en h\u00e9sitant la dame d'un certain \u00e2ge.\n\n--Oui, si vous le connaissez! Je demande si vous le connaissez? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta\nM. Magnus avec f\u00e9rocit\u00e9.\n\n--Je l'ai d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu, balbutia la dame.\n\n--O\u00f9? demanda M. Magnus, o\u00f9, madame?\n\n--Voil\u00e0, dit la dame en se levant et d\u00e9tournant la t\u00eate; voil\u00e0 ce que je\nne r\u00e9v\u00e9lerais pas pour un empire....\n\n--Je vous comprends, madame, interrompit M. Pickwick, et je respecte\nvotre d\u00e9licatesse. Cela ne sera jamais divulgu\u00e9 par moi. Vous pouvez y\ncompter.\n\n--Sur ma parole, madame! reprit M. Magnus, avec un amer ricanement, sur\nma parole, madame! vu la situation o\u00f9 je suis plac\u00e9 vis-\u00e0-vis de vous,\nvous vous conduisez, vis-\u00e0-vis de moi, avec assez de sang-froid, assez\nde sang-froid, madame!\n\n--Cruel monsieur Magnus!\u00bb balbutia la dame d'un certain \u00e2ge, et elle se\npr\u00eet \u00e0 pleurer abondamment.\n\nM. Pickwick s'interposa. \u00abAdressez-moi vos observations, monsieur. S'il\ny a quelqu'un de bl\u00e2mable ici, c'est moi seul.\n\n--Ah! c'est vous seul qui \u00eates bl\u00e2mable, monsieur! Je vois, je vois.\nOui, je comprends, monsieur. Vous vous repentez de votre d\u00e9termination,\nmaintenant.\n\n--Ma d\u00e9termination! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick.\n\n--Votre d\u00e9termination, monsieur. Oh! ne me regardez pas comme cela,\nmonsieur. Je me rappelle vos paroles d'hier au soir. Vous \u00eates venu ici\npour d\u00e9masquer la fausset\u00e9 et la trahison d'une personne, dans la bonne\nfoi de laquelle vous aviez plac\u00e9 une enti\u00e8re confiance. Eh! monsieur?\u00bb\nIci M. Peter Magnus se laissa aller \u00e0 un ricanement prolong\u00e9; puis \u00f4tant\nses lunettes bleues, qu'il jugea probablement superflues dans un acc\u00e8s\nde jalousie, il se mit \u00e0 rouler ses petits yeux d'une mani\u00e8re\neffrayante.\n\n\u00abEh? dit-il, sur nouveaux frais en r\u00e9p\u00e9tant son ricanement, avec un\neffet redoubl\u00e9. Mais vous m'en r\u00e9pondrez, monsieur!\n\n--De quoi r\u00e9pondrai-je? demanda M, Pickwick.\n\n--Ne vous inqui\u00e9tez pas, monsieur! vocif\u00e9ra M. Magnus en arpentant la\nchambre; ne vous inqui\u00e9tez pas!\u00bb\n\nIl faut que ces quatre mots aient une signification fort \u00e9tendue, car\nnous ne nous rappelons pas d'avoir jamais observ\u00e9 une querelle dans la\nrue, au spectacle, dans un bal public, ou ailleurs, dans laquelle cette\nphrase ne servit pas de r\u00e9ponse principale \u00e0 toutes les questions\nbelliqueuses. \u00abCroyez-vous \u00eatre un gentleman, monsieur? Ne vous\ninqui\u00e9tez pas, monsieur!--Est-ce que j'ai dit quelque chose \u00e0 la jeune\nfemme, monsieur? Ne vous inqui\u00e9tez pas, monsieur!--Avez-vous envie de\nvous faire casser les reins, monsieur? Ne vous inqui\u00e9tez pas, monsieur!\u00bb\nEn m\u00eame temps il faut observer qu'il semble y avoir une provocation\ncach\u00e9e dans cet universel _ne vous inqui\u00e9tez pas_; car il \u00e9veille dans\nle sein des individus auxquels il s'adresse plus de courroux qu'une\ngrave injure.\n\nNous ne pr\u00e9tendons pas cependant que l'application de cette expression \u00e0\nM. Pickwick remplit son \u00e2me de l'indignation qu'elle aurait\ninfailliblement excit\u00e9e dans un esprit vulgaire. Nous racontons\nsimplement le fait. En entendant ces mots, M. Pickwick ouvrit la porte\nde la chambre, et cria brusquement.\n\n\u00abTupman, venez ici!\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman arriva imm\u00e9diatement avec un air de consid\u00e9rable surprise.\n\n\u00abTupman, dit M. Pickwick, un secret de quelque d\u00e9licatesse et qui\nconcerne cette dame est la cause d'un diff\u00e9rend qui vient de s'\u00e9lever\nentre ce gentleman et moi-m\u00eame. Mais je l'assure, devant vous, que ce\nsecret n'a aucune relation avec lui-m\u00eame, ni aucun rapport avec ses\naffaires. Apr\u00e8s cela je n'ai pas besoin de vous faire remarquer que s'il\ncontinuait \u00e0 en douter, il douterait en m\u00eame temps de ma v\u00e9racit\u00e9, ce\nque je consid\u00e9rerais comme une insulte personnelle.\u00bb\n\nA ces mots, le philosophe lan\u00e7a \u00e0 M.P. Magnus un regard qui renfermait\ntoute une encyclop\u00e9die de menaces.\n\nLa figure honorable et assur\u00e9e de M. Pickwick, jointe \u00e0 la force, \u00e0\nl'\u00e9nergie du langage qui le distinguaient si \u00e9minemment, auraient port\u00e9\nla conviction dans tout esprit raisonnable; mais malheureusement, dans\nl'instant en question, l'esprit de M. Peter Magnus n'\u00e9tait nullement\ndans un \u00e9tat raisonnable. Au lieu donc de recevoir, d'une mani\u00e8re\nconvenable l'explication du philosophe, il proc\u00e9da imm\u00e9diatement \u00e0 se\nmonter sur un diapason d\u00e9vorant de col\u00e8re et de menaces, parlant avec\nrage de ce qui \u00e9tait d\u00fb \u00e0 sa d\u00e9licatesse, \u00e0 sa sensibilit\u00e9, et donnant\nde la force \u00e0 ses d\u00e9clamations en marchant furieusement \u00e0 travers la\nchambre, et en arrachant ses cheveux; amusement qu'il interrompait\nquelquefois pour agiter son poing sous le nez philanthropique de M.\nPickwick.\n\nCependant, fort de sa rectitude et de son innocence, contrari\u00e9 d'avoir\nmalheureusement embarrass\u00e9 la dame d'un certain \u00e2ge, dans une affaire\naussi d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able, M. Pickwick, \u00e0 son tour, \u00e9tait dans une disposition\nmoins paisible qu'\u00e0 son ordinaire. En cons\u00e9quence, on parla plus\nvivement; on se servit de plus gros mots, et \u00e0 la fin, M. Magnus dit \u00e0\nM. Pickwick qu'il aurait bient\u00f4t de ses nouvelles. M. Pickwick, avec une\npolitesse digne de louange, lui r\u00e9pondit que le plus t\u00f4t serait le\nmieux. A ces mots la dame d'un certain \u00e2ge se pr\u00e9cipita en pleurant hors\nde la chambre, et M. Tupman entra\u00eena son savant ami, abandonnant le\npr\u00e9tendu d\u00e9sappoint\u00e9 \u00e0 ses sombres m\u00e9ditations.\n\nSi la dame d'un certain \u00e2ge avait v\u00e9cu dans la soci\u00e9t\u00e9, ou si elle avait\ntant soit peu connu les coutumes et les mani\u00e8res de ceux qui font les\nlois et \u00e9tablissent les modes, elle aurait su que cette esp\u00e8ce de\nf\u00e9rocit\u00e9 est la chose du monde la plus innocente. Mais elle avait\nprincipalement habit\u00e9 la province, n'avait jamais lu les d\u00e9bats\nparlementaires, et \u00e9tait peu vers\u00e9e, par cons\u00e9quent, dans le code\nd'honneur raffin\u00e9 des nations civilis\u00e9es. Aussit\u00f4t donc qu'elle eut\ngagn\u00e9 sa chambre \u00e0 coucher et soigneusement verrouill\u00e9 sa porte, elle\ncommen\u00e7a \u00e0 m\u00e9diter sur les sc\u00e8nes dont elle venait d'\u00eatre t\u00e9moin. Des\nid\u00e9es de massacre et de carnage se pr\u00e9sent\u00e8rent \u00e0 son imagination, et,\ndans cette fantasmagorie, le tableau le moins sanglant repr\u00e9sentait M.\nPeter Magnus, enrichi d'une livre de plomb dans le c\u00f4t\u00e9 gauche, et\nrapport\u00e9 \u00e0 l'h\u00f4tel sur un brancard. Plus la dame d'un certain \u00e2ge\nm\u00e9ditait, plus elle \u00e9tait \u00e9pouvant\u00e9e, et \u00e0 la fin elle se d\u00e9termina \u00e0\naller trouver le principal magistrat de la ville, et \u00e0 le requ\u00e9rir de\nfaire empoigner sans d\u00e9lai M. Pickwick et M. Tupman.\n\nLa dame d'un certain \u00e2ge fut pouss\u00e9e \u00e0 prendre ce parti par un grand\nnombre de consid\u00e9rations; mais la principale \u00e9tait la preuve\nincontestable qu'elle donnerait ainsi \u00e0 M. Peter Magnus du d\u00e9vouement\nqu'elle lui avait vou\u00e9, de l'anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 qu'elle ressentait pour le salut\nde sa personne. Elle connaissait trop bien la jalousie de son\ntemp\u00e9rament, pour s'aventurer \u00e0 faire la plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re allusion \u00e0 la cause\nr\u00e9elle de son agitation, en voyant M. Pickwick, et elle se fiait \u00e0 son\ninfluence et \u00e0 ses moyens de persuasion, pour apaiser le petit homme,\npourvu que l'objet de ses soup\u00e7ons f\u00fbt \u00e9loign\u00e9, et qu'il ne s'\u00e9lev\u00e2t\nplus de nouvelles occasions de querelles. La t\u00eate remplie de ces\nr\u00e9flexions, elle ajusta son chapeau et son ch\u00e2le, et se rendit en droite\nligne au domicile du maire.\n\nOr, George Nupkins, esquire, maire de la ville d'Ipswich, \u00e9tait un grand\npersonnage; si grand qu'un bon marcheur pourrait \u00e0 peine en rencontrer\nun semblable entre le lever et le coucher du soleil, m\u00eame le 21 juin,\njour qui lui offrirait naturellement le plus de chances pour cette\nrecherche, puisque, suivant tous les almanachs, c'est le plus long jour\nde l'ann\u00e9e. Dans la matin\u00e9e en question, M. Nupkins se trouvait dans un\n\u00e9tat d'irritation extr\u00eame, car il y avait eu une r\u00e9bellion dans la\nville. Tous les externes de la plus grande \u00e9cole avaient conspir\u00e9 pour\nbriser les carreaux d'une marchande de pommes qui leur d\u00e9plaisait; ils\navaient hu\u00e9 le bedeau; ils avaient jet\u00e9 des pierres \u00e0 la police charg\u00e9e\nde comprimer l'\u00e9meute, et repr\u00e9sent\u00e9e par un bonhomme en bottes \u00e0\nrevers, qui remplissait ses fonctions depuis au moins un quart de\nsi\u00e8cle. M. Nupkins \u00e9tait donc assis dans sa berg\u00e8re, fron\u00e7ant\nmajestueusement ses sourcils et bouillant de rage, lorsqu'une dame fut\nannonc\u00e9e pour une affaire pressante, importante, particuli\u00e8re. M.\nNupkins, prenant un air calme et terrible, donna ordre d'introduire la\ndame, et cet ordre, comme tous ceux des magistrats, des empereurs et des\nautres puissances de la terre, ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 imm\u00e9diatement ex\u00e9cut\u00e9, miss\nWitherfield, dont l'agitation \u00e9tait visible et int\u00e9ressante, se pr\u00e9senta\ndevant le grand homme.\n\n\u00abMuzzle! dit le magistrat.\u00bb\n\nMuzzle \u00e9tait un domestique rabougri, dont le coffre \u00e9tait long, les\njambes courtes.\n\n\u00abMuzzle!\n\n--Oui, Votre Honneur.\n\n--Donnez un fauteuil, et quittez la chambre.\n\n--Oui, Votre V\u00e9n\u00e9ration.\n\n--Maintenant, madame, voulez-vous exposer votre affaire.\n\n--Elle est d'une nature tr\u00e8s-p\u00e9nible, monsieur.\n\n--Je ne dis pas le contraire, madame. Calmez-vous madame, (Ici M.\nNupkins prit un air de douceur.) Et dites-moi quelle affaire l\u00e9gale\nvous am\u00e8ne devant moi, madame. (Ici le magistrat reprit le dessus et M.\nNupkins se donna un air s\u00e9v\u00e8re et grandiose.)\n\n--Il est fort affligeant pour moi, monsieur, de vous faire cette\nd\u00e9nonciation. Mais je crains bien qu'il n'y ait un duel ici.\n\n--Ici, madame?--O\u00f9 madame?\n\n--Dans Ipswich.\n\n--Dans Ipswich! madame. Un duel dans Ipswich! s'\u00e9cria le magistrat\nparfaitement stup\u00e9fait \u00e0 cette seule id\u00e9e. Impossible, madame! Rien de\nla sorte ne peut arriver dans cette ville; j'en suis persuad\u00e9. Dieu du\nciel! madame, connaissez-vous l'activit\u00e9 de notre magistrature locale?\nN'avez-vous pas entendu dire, madame, que le quatre mai pass\u00e9, suivi\nseulement par soixante constables sp\u00e9ciaux, je me pr\u00e9cipitai entre deux\nboxeurs, et qu'au risque d'\u00eatre sacrifi\u00e9 aux passions furieuses d'une\nmultitude irrit\u00e9e, j'emp\u00eachai une rencontre pugilastique entre le\nchampion de Middlesex et celui de Suffolk. Un duel dans Ipswich, madame!\nJe ne le pense pas. Non, je ne pense pas qu'il puisse y avoir deux\nmortels assez audacieux pour projeter un tel attentat dans cette ville.\n\n--Ce que j'ai l'honneur de vous dire n'est malheureusement que trop\nexact, reprit la dame d'un certain \u00e2ge. J'\u00e9tais pr\u00e9sente \u00e0 la querelle.\n\n--C'est la chose la plus extraordinaire! s'\u00e9cria le magistrat \u00e9tonn\u00e9.\nMuzzle!\n\n--Oui, Votre V\u00e9n\u00e9ration.\n\n--Envoyez-moi M. Jinks, sur-le-champ, \u00e0 l'instant m\u00eame.\n\n--Oui, Votre V\u00e9n\u00e9ration.\u00bb\n\nMuzzle se retira, et bient\u00f4t on vit entrer dans la chambre un clerc\nd'\u00e2ge raisonnable, mal v\u00eatu, et \u00e9videmment mal nourri, comme\nl'annon\u00e7aient son visage p\u00e2le et son nez aigu.\n\n--Monsieur Jinks, dit le magistrat, monsieur Jinks.\n\n--Monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Jinks.\n\n--Cette dame est venue ici pour nous informer d'un duel qui doit avoir\nlieu dans cette ville.\u00bb\n\nM. Jinks, ne sachant pas exactement que dire, sourit d'un sourire\nd'inf\u00e9rieur.\n\n\u00abDe quoi riez-vous, monsieur Jinks?\u00bb demanda le magistrat.\n\nM. Jinks prit \u00e0 l'instant un air s\u00e9rieux.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Jinks, poursuivit le magistrat, vous \u00eates un sot, monsieur.\n(M. Jinks regarda humblement le grand homme, et mordit le haut de sa\nplume.) Vous pouvez voir quelque chose de tr\u00e8s-comique dans cette\ninformation, monsieur; mais je vous dirai, monsieur Jinks, que vous avez\ntr\u00e8s-peu de raisons de rire.\u00bb\n\nLe clerc \u00e0 l'air affam\u00e9 soupira, comme un homme convaincu qu'il avait en\neffet fort peu de motifs d'\u00eatre gai. Puis, ayant re\u00e7u l'ordre de noter\nla d\u00e9position de la dame, il se glissa jusqu'\u00e0 son si\u00e9ge, et se mit \u00e0\n\u00e9crire.\n\n\u00abCe Pickwick est le principal, \u00e0 ce que j'entends, dit le magistrat,\nlorsque la d\u00e9claration fut termin\u00e9e.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit la dame d'un certain \u00e2ge.\n\n--Et l'autre perturbateur? Quel est son nom, monsieur Jinks?\n\n--Tupman, monsieur.\n\n--Tupman est le t\u00e9moin, madame?\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\n\n--L'autre combattant a quitt\u00e9 la ville, dites-vous, madame?\n\n--Oui, r\u00e9pondit miss Witherfield avec une petite toux.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien. Ce sont deux coupe-jarrets de Londres, qui sont venus ici\npour d\u00e9truire la population de Sa Majest\u00e9, pensant que le bras de la loi\nest faible et paralys\u00e9 \u00e0 cette distance de la capitale. Mais nous en\nferons un exemple. Exp\u00e9diez le mandat d'amener, monsieur Jinks.\nMuzzle!...\n\n--Oui, Votre V\u00e9n\u00e9ration.\n\n--Grummer est-il en bas?\n\n--Oui, Votre V\u00e9n\u00e9ration.\n\n--Envoyez-le ici.\u00bb\n\nL'obs\u00e9quieux Muzzle se retira et revint presque imm\u00e9diatement avec le\nrepr\u00e9sentant de l'autorit\u00e9, constable depuis son enfance, et qui \u00e9tait\nprincipalement remarquable par son nez vineux, sa voix enrou\u00e9e, son\nhabit couleur de tabac, ses bottes \u00e0 revers et son regard errant.\n\n\u00abGrummer! dit le magistrat.\n\n--Votre Vin-\u00e0-ration.\n\n--La ville est-elle tranquille maintenant?\n\n--Pas mal, Votre Vin-\u00e0-ration; la populace s'est apais\u00e9e par cons\u00e9quent\nque les gar\u00e7ons s'en est all\u00e9 jouer \u00e0 la crosse.\n\n--Grummer, reprit le magistrat d'un air d\u00e9termin\u00e9; dans un temps comme\ncelui-ci, il n'y a que des mesures vigoureuses qui puissent r\u00e9ussir. Si\nl'on m\u00e9prise l'autorit\u00e9 des officiers du roi, il faut faire lire le\n_riot-act_[27]. Si le pouvoir civil ne peut pas prot\u00e9ger les fen\u00eatres,\nil faut que le militaire prot\u00e8ge le pouvoir civil et les fen\u00eatres aussi.\nJe pense que c'est une maxime de la constitution, monsieur Jinks?\n\n[Footnote 27: Sommation pour inviter la foule \u00e0 se disperser.]\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, dit le magistrat en signant le mandat d'amener. Grummer,\nvous ferez compara\u00eetre ces personnes devant nous cette apr\u00e8s-midi; vous\nles trouverez au _Grand Cheval blanc_. Vous vous rappelez l'affaire des\nchampions de Middlesex et de Suffolk, Grummer?\u00bb\n\nM. Grummer exprima par une secousse de sa t\u00eate qu'il ne l'oublierait\njamais; ce qui, en effet, n'\u00e9tait gu\u00e8re probable, aussi longtemps\nsurtout que cette affaire continuerait \u00e0 lui \u00eatre cit\u00e9e tous les jours.\n\n\u00abCeci, poursuivit le magistrat, est peut-\u00eatre encore plus\ninconstitutionnel. C'est une plus grande violation de la paix; c'est une\nplus grave atteinte aux pr\u00e9rogatives de Sa Majest\u00e9. Je pense que le duel\nest un des privil\u00e8ges les plus incontestables de Sa Majest\u00e9, monsieur\nJinks.\n\n--Express\u00e9ment stipul\u00e9 dans la _magna Charta_, monsieur.\n\n--Un des plus beaux joyaux de la couronne, arrach\u00e9 \u00e0 Sa Majest\u00e9 par\nl'union politique des barons..., n'est-ce pas, monsieur Jinks?\n\n--Justement, monsieur.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, continua le magistrat en se redressant avec orgueil. Cette\npr\u00e9rogative royale ne sera pas viol\u00e9e dans cette portion des domaines de\nSa Majest\u00e9. Grummer, procurez-vous du secours, et ex\u00e9cutez ce mandat\navec le moins de d\u00e9lai possible. Muzzle.\n\n--Oui, Votre V\u00e9n\u00e9ration....\n\n--Reconduisez cette dame.\u00bb\n\nMiss Witherfield se retira, profond\u00e9ment impressionn\u00e9e par la science et\npar la dignit\u00e9 du magistrat. M. Nupkins se retira pour d\u00e9jeuner. M.\nJinks se retira en lui-m\u00eame, car c'\u00e9tait le seul endroit o\u00f9 il p\u00fbt se\nretirer; si l'on excepte le lit-sofa du petit parloir, qui \u00e9tait occup\u00e9\npendant le jour par la famille de son h\u00f4tesse. Enfin M. Grummer se\nretira pour laver, par la mani\u00e8re dont il ex\u00e9cuterait sa pr\u00e9sente\ncommission, l'insulte qui \u00e9tait tomb\u00e9e dans la matin\u00e9e sur lui-m\u00eame et\nsur l'autre repr\u00e9sentant de Sa Majest\u00e9, le bedeau.\n\nTandis que l'on faisait des pr\u00e9paratifs si formidables pour conserver\nla paix du roi, M. Pickwick et ses amis, tout \u00e0 fait ignorants des\nprodigieux \u00e9v\u00e9nements qui se machinaient, \u00e9taient tranquillement assis\nautour d'un excellent d\u00eener. La bonne humeur la plus expansive r\u00e9gnait\ndans leur petite r\u00e9union. M. Pickwick \u00e9tait pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment en train de\nraconter, au grand amusement de ses sectateurs, et principalement de M.\nTupman, ses aventures de la nuit pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente, lorsque la porte s'ouvrit,\net laissa voir une physionomie assez r\u00e9barbative qui s'allongea dans la\nchambre. Les yeux de la physionomie r\u00e9barbative se fix\u00e8rent\nattentivement sur M. Pickwick pendant quelques secondes, et ils furent\napparemment satisfaits de leur investigation, car le corps auquel\nappartenait la physionomie r\u00e9barbative s'introduisit lentement dans\nl'appartement, sous la forme d'un individu en bottes \u00e0 revers. Enfin,\npour ne pas tenir plus longtemps le lecteur en suspens, ces yeux \u00e9taient\nles yeux errants de M. Grummer, et ce corps \u00e9tait le corps du susdit\ngentleman.\n\nM. Grummer proc\u00e9da d'une mani\u00e8re l\u00e9gale, mais particuli\u00e8re. Son premier\nacte fut de verrouiller la porte \u00e0 l'int\u00e9rieur; le second, de polir\ntr\u00e8s-soigneusement sa t\u00eate et son visage avec un mouchoir de coton; le\ntroisi\u00e8me, de placer son mouchoir de coton dans son chapeau, et son\nchapeau sur la chaise la plus proche; et le quatri\u00e8me enfin, de tirer de\nsa poche un gros b\u00e2ton court, surmont\u00e9 d'une couronne de cuivre, avec\nlaquelle il fit signe \u00e0 M. Pickwick aussi gravement que la statue du\ncommandeur.\n\nM. Snodgrass fut le premier \u00e0 rompre le silence d'\u00e9tonnement qui r\u00e9gnait\ndans la chambre. Durant quelques minutes, il regarda fixement M. Grummer\net dit ensuite avec force: \u00abCeci est une chambre particuli\u00e8re, monsieur!\nune chambre particuli\u00e8re!\u00bb\n\nM. Grummer secoua la t\u00eate et r\u00e9pondit: \u00abIl n'y a point de chambres\nparticuli\u00e8res pour Sa Majest\u00e9, quand une fois la porte de la rue est\npass\u00e9e; v'l\u00e0 la loi. Y en a qui disent que la maison d'un Anglais, c'est\nsa forteresse; eh bien! ceux-l\u00e0 disent une b\u00eatise.\u00bb\n\nLes pickwickiens \u00e9chang\u00e8rent entre eux des coups d'oeil \u00e9tonn\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abLequel c'est-il qu'est M. Tupman?\u00bb demanda M. Grummer. Il avait reconnu\nM. Pickwick du premier coup par une perception intuitive.\n\n--Mon nom est Tupman, dit ce gentleman.\n\n--Mon nom est la loi, reprit M. Grummer.\n\n--Quoi? demanda M. Tupman.\n\n--La loi, r\u00e9pliqua M. Grummer. La loi, le pouvoir incivil et \u00e9s\u00e9cutif,\nc'est mon titre, et v'l\u00e0 mon autorit\u00e9. \u00abTupman (nom de bapt\u00eame en\nblanc); Pickwick (idem): contre la paix de notre seigneur le roi, vu les\nestatuts et ordonnances....\u00bb C'est en r\u00e8gle, vous voyez! je vous\nempoigne les susdits Pickwick et Tupman.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que signifie cette insolence? s'\u00e9cria M. Tupman en se\nlevant. Quittez cette chambre! sortez sur-le-champ!\n\n--Oh\u00e9! cria M. Grummer en se retirant rapidement vers la porte et en\nl'entre-b\u00e2illant, Dubbley!\n\n--Voil\u00e0! dit une voix grave dans le corridor.\n\nAu m\u00eame instant, un homme qui avait pr\u00e8s de six pieds de haut et une\ngrosseur proportionn\u00e9e se fourra dans la porte entr'ouverte, avec des\nefforts qui rendirent tout rouge son visage malpropre, et entra dans\nl'appartement.\n\n\u00abDubbley, dit M. Grummer, les autres constables sp\u00e9cial est-il dehors?\u00bb\n\nEn homme laconique, M. Dubbley ne r\u00e9pondit que par un signe affirmatif.\n\n\u00abFaites entrer la division qu'est sous vos ordres, Dubbley.\u00bb\n\nM. Dubbley ob\u00e9it, et une demi-douzaine d'hommes, porteurs de gros b\u00e2tons\ncourts, avec une couronne de cuivre, se pr\u00e9cipit\u00e8rent dans la chambre.\nM. Grummer empocha son b\u00e2ton, et regarda M. Dubbley; M. Dubbley empocha\nson b\u00e2ton, et regarda la division; la division empocha ses b\u00e2tons, et\nregarda MM. Tupman et Pickwick.\n\nLe philosophe et ses partisans se lev\u00e8rent comme un seul homme.\n\n\u00abQue signifie cette violation atroce de mon domicile, s'\u00e9cria M.\nPickwick?\n\n--Qui oserait m'arr\u00eater? demanda M. Tupman.\n\n--Que venez-vous faire ici, coquins? murmura M. Snodgrass.\u00bb\n\nM. Winkle ne dit rien, mais il fixa ses yeux sur Grummer avec un regard\nqui lui aurait perc\u00e9 la cervelle et serait ressorti de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9, si\nle constable n'avait pas eu la t\u00eate plus dure que du fer; mais, \u00e0 cause\nde cette circonstance, le regard de M. Winkle n'eut sur lui aucun effet\nvisible quelconque.\n\nQuand les ex\u00e9cutifs s'aper\u00e7urent que M. Pickwick et ses amis \u00e9taient\ndispos\u00e9s \u00e0 r\u00e9sister \u00e0 l'autorit\u00e9 de la loi, ils relev\u00e8rent les manches\nde leurs habits d'une mani\u00e8re tr\u00e8s-significative, comme si c'\u00e9tait une\nchose toute simple, un acte purement professionnel, de jeter les\nd\u00e9linquants par terre, pour les ramasser ensuite et les emporter. Cette\nd\u00e9monstration ne fut pas perdue pour M. Pickwick. Il conf\u00e9ra \u00e0 part\npendant quelques instants avec M. Tupman, et d\u00e9clara ensuite qu'il \u00e9tait\npr\u00eat \u00e0 se rendre \u00e0 la r\u00e9sidence du maire, ajoutant seulement qu'il\nprenait \u00e0 t\u00e9moin tous les citoyens pr\u00e9sents de cette monstrueuse\natteinte aux privil\u00e8ges d'un anglais, et de son engagement solennel de\ns'en faire rendre raison aussit\u00f4t qu'il serait en libert\u00e9. A cette\nd\u00e9claration, tous les _citoyens_ pr\u00e9sents \u00e9clat\u00e8rent de rire, except\u00e9\ncependant M. Grummer, qui paraissait consid\u00e9rer comme une esp\u00e8ce de\nblasph\u00e8me intol\u00e9rable la moindre r\u00e9flexion sur le droit divin des\nmagistrats.\n\nMais lorsque M. Pickwick eut d\u00e9clar\u00e9 qu'il \u00e9tait pr\u00eat \u00e0 ob\u00e9ir aux lois\nde son pays, et justement lorsque les gar\u00e7ons, les palefreniers, les\nservantes et les postillons, que sa r\u00e9sistance avait flatt\u00e9s d'un\ncharmant spectacle, commen\u00e7aient \u00e0 se retirer avec d\u00e9sappointement, une\nautre difficult\u00e9 s'\u00e9leva qui mena\u00e7a le _Grand Cheval blanc_ d'une\nconfusion nouvelle. Malgr\u00e9 ses sentiments de v\u00e9n\u00e9ration pour les\nautorit\u00e9s constitu\u00e9es, M. Pickwick refusa r\u00e9solument de para\u00eetre dans la\nrue, entour\u00e9, comme un malfaiteur, par les officiers de la justice. Dans\nl'\u00e9tat incertain de l'opinion publique (car c'\u00e9tait presque f\u00eate, et les\n\u00e9coliers n'\u00e9taient pas encore rentr\u00e9s chez eux), M. Grummer refusa tout\naussi r\u00e9solument de marcher avec sa suite d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la rue, et\nd'accepter la parole de M. Pickwick qu'il suivrait l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 pour se\nrendre directement chez le magistrat. Enfin, M. Pickwick et M. Tupman se\nrefus\u00e8rent vigoureusement \u00e0 faire la d\u00e9pense d'une chaise de poste, ce\nqui \u00e9tait le seul moyen de transport respectable qu'on p\u00fbt se procurer.\nLa dispute dura longtemps et sur une clef tr\u00e8s-haute. Enfin, M.\nPickwick, continuant de refuser de se rendre \u00e0 pied chez le magistrat,\nles ex\u00e9cutifs \u00e9taient sur le point de recourir \u00e0 l'exp\u00e9dient bien simple\nde l'y porter, lorsque quelqu'un se rappela qu'il y avait dans la cour\nune vieille chaise \u00e0 porteurs, construite originairement pour un gros\nrentier goutteux, et qui par cons\u00e9quent devait contenir les deux\ncoupables aussi commod\u00e9ment, pour le moins, qu'un cabriolet moderne. La\nchaise fut donc lou\u00e9e et apport\u00e9e dans la salle d'en bas; M. Pickwick\net M. Tupman s'insinu\u00e8rent dans l'int\u00e9rieur, et baiss\u00e8rent les stores;\nune couple de porteurs fut facilement trouv\u00e9e; enfin, la procession se\nmit en marche dans le plus grand ordre. Les constables sp\u00e9ciaux\nentouraient le char; M. Grummer et M. Dubbley s'avan\u00e7aient\ntriomphalement en t\u00eate; M. Snodgrass et M. Winkle marchaient bras\ndessus, bras dessous, par derri\u00e8re, et les malpeign\u00e9s d'Ipswich\nformaient l'arri\u00e8re-garde.\n\nLes boutiquiers de la ville, quoiqu'ils n'eussent qu'une id\u00e9e fort\nindistincte de la nature de l'offense, ne pouvaient s'emp\u00eacher d'\u00eatre\ntout \u00e0 fait \u00e9difi\u00e9s et r\u00e9jouis par ce spectacle. Ils reconnaissaient le\nbras infatigable de la loi, qui \u00e9tait descendu, avec la force de vingt\npresses hydrauliques, sur deux coupables de la m\u00e9tropole elle-m\u00eame.\nCette puissante machine, mise en mouvement par leur propre magistrat, et\ndirig\u00e9e par leurs propres officiers, avait comprim\u00e9 les deux malfaiteurs\ndans l'\u00e9troite enceinte d'une chaise \u00e0 porteurs. Nombreuses furent les\nexpressions d'admiration qui salu\u00e8rent M. Grummer pendant qu'il\nconduisait le cort\u00e8ge, son b\u00e2ton de commandement \u00e0 la main; bruyantes et\nprolong\u00e9es \u00e9taient les acclamations des malpeign\u00e9s; et parmi ces\nt\u00e9moignages unanimes de l'approbation publique, la procession s'avan\u00e7ait\nlentement et majestueusement.\n\nSam Weller, v\u00eatu de sa jaquette du matin et avec ses manches de calicot\nnoir, s'en revenait d'assez mauvaise humeur, car il avait inutilement\nexamin\u00e9 la myst\u00e9rieuse maison \u00e0 la porte verte, lorsqu'il aper\u00e7ut, en\nlevant les yeux, un flot de populaire qui s'avan\u00e7ait autour d'un objet\nressemblant fort \u00e0 une chaise \u00e0 porteur. Charm\u00e9 de trouver une\ndistraction \u00e0 son d\u00e9sappointement, il se rangea pour laisser passer les\nmalpeign\u00e9s, et voyant qu'ils applaudissaient en chemin, \u00e0 leur grande\nsatisfaction apparente, il commen\u00e7a imm\u00e9diatement (par pur d\u00e9soeuvrement)\n\u00e0 applaudir aussi de toutes ses forces et de tous ses poumons.\n\nM. Grummer passa, et M. Dubbley passa, et la chaise \u00e0 porteurs passa, et\nles gardes du corps sp\u00e9ciaux pass\u00e8rent, et Sam r\u00e9pondait toujours aux\nacclamations enthousiastes de la populace, en agitant son chapeau\nau-dessus de sa t\u00eate, comme s'il e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 entra\u00een\u00e9 par la joie la plus\nvive, quoique, bien entendu, il n'e\u00fbt pas la plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re id\u00e9e de ce\nqu'il applaudissait. Tout \u00e0 coup il resta immobile, en voyant\ninopin\u00e9ment appara\u00eetre MM. Winkle et Snodgrass.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'est arriv\u00e9, gentlemen? demanda Sam. Qu'est-ce qu'ils ont\npinc\u00e9 dans cette gu\u00e9rite en deuil?\u00bb\n\nLes deux amis r\u00e9pondirent ensemble: mais leurs paroles \u00e9taient domin\u00e9es\npar le tumulte.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce qu'est dedans?\u00bb cria Sam de nouveau.\n\nUne seconde r\u00e9plique lui fut donn\u00e9e en commun, et quoiqu'il n'en p\u00fbt\ndistinguer les paroles, il vit par le mouvement des deux paires de\nl\u00e8vres qu'elles avaient prononc\u00e9 le mot magique: _Pickwick_.\n\nC'en est assez; en une minute l'h\u00e9ro\u00efque valet s'ouvre un chemin \u00e0\ntravers la foule, arr\u00eate les porteurs, et vient affronter le majestueux\nGrummer.\n\n\u00abOh\u00e9! vieux gentleman, lui dit-il; qu'est-ce que vous avez coffr\u00e9 dans\ncette bo\u00eete ici?\n\n--Gare de del\u00e0! s'\u00e9cria avec emphase M. Grummer, dont l'importance,\ncomme celle de beaucoup d'autres grands hommes, \u00e9tait singuli\u00e8rement\nenfl\u00e9e par le vent de la popularit\u00e9.\n\n--Faites-y prendre un billet de parterre, cria M. Dubbley.\n\n--Je vous suis fort oblig\u00e9 pour votre politesse, vieux gentleman, reprit\nSam; et je suis encore plus oblig\u00e9 \u00e0 l'autre gentleman qui a l'air\n\u00e9chapp\u00e9 d'une caravane de g\u00e9ants, pour son agr\u00e9able avis; mais\nj'aimerais mieux que vous r\u00e9pondissiez \u00e0 ma question, si \u00e7a vous est\n\u00e9gal.--Comment vous portez-vous, monsieur?\u00bb Cette derni\u00e8re phrase \u00e9tait\nadress\u00e9e, d'un air protecteur, \u00e0 M. Pickwick, dont les lunettes \u00e9taient\nperceptibles entre les stores et le ch\u00e2ssis inf\u00e9rieur de la porti\u00e8re de\nla chaise.\n\nM. Grummer, que l'indignation avait rendu muet, agita devant les yeux de\nSam son gros b\u00e2ton, orn\u00e9 d'une couronne de cuivre.\n\n\u00abAh! dit celui-ci, c'est fort gentil; sp\u00e9cialement la couronne, qui est\nherm\u00e9tiquement pareille \u00e0 la v\u00e9ritable.\n\n--Gare de del\u00e0!\u00bb vocif\u00e9ra de nouveau le fonctionnaire offens\u00e9; et comme\npour donner plus de force \u00e0 cet ordre, il saisit Sam d'une main, tandis\nque de l'autre il introduisait dans sa cravate le m\u00e9tallique embl\u00e8me de\nla royaut\u00e9. Notre h\u00e9ros r\u00e9pondit \u00e0 ce compliment en jetant par terre son\nauteur, apr\u00e8s avoir charitablement renvers\u00e9 le premier porteur, pour lui\nservir de tapis.\n\nM. Winkle fut-il alors saisi d'une attaque temporaire de cette esp\u00e8ce\nd'insanit\u00e9 produite par le sentiment d'une injure, ou fut-il mis en\ntrain par le spectacle de la valeur de Sam? C'est ce qui est incertain.\nMais il est certain qu'\u00e0 peine avait-il vu tomber Grummer, qu'il fit une\nterrible invasion sur un petit gamin qui se trouvait pr\u00e8s de lui.\n\u00c9chauff\u00e9 par cet exemple, M. Snodgrass, dans un esprit v\u00e9ritablement\nchr\u00e9tien, et afin de ne prendre personne en tra\u00eetre, annon\u00e7a hautement\nqu'il allait commencer; aussi fut-il entour\u00e9 et empoign\u00e9 pendant qu'il\n\u00f4tait son habit avec le plus grand soin. Au reste, pour lui rendre\njustice, ainsi qu'\u00e0 M. Winkle, nous devons d\u00e9clarer qu'ils ne firent pas\nla plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re tentative pour se d\u00e9fendre, ni pour d\u00e9livrer Sam; car\ncelui-ci, apr\u00e8s la plus vigoureuse r\u00e9sistance, avait enfin \u00e9t\u00e9 accabl\u00e9\npar le nombre et \u00e9tait demeur\u00e9 prisonnier. La procession se reforma\ndonc, les porteurs firent leur office, et la marche recommen\u00e7a.\n\nPendant toute la dur\u00e9e de ces op\u00e9rations, l'indignation de M. Pickwick\nn'avait pas connu de bornes. Il distinguait confus\u00e9ment que Sam\nrenversait les constables et distribuait des horions autour de lui; mais\nc'\u00e9tait tout ce qu'il pouvait voir, car la porti\u00e8re de la chaise\nrefusait de s'ouvrir, et les stores ne voulaient pas se relever. A la\nfin, avec l'assistance de son compagnon de captivit\u00e9, M. Pickwick\nparvint \u00e0 soulever l'imp\u00e9riale, monta sur la banquette, se haussa le\nplus qu'il put en appuyant ses deux mains sur les \u00e9paules de M. Tupman,\net commen\u00e7a \u00e0 haranguer la multitude. Il la prit \u00e0 t\u00e9moin que son\ndomestique avait \u00e9t\u00e9 assailli le premier. Il s'\u00e9tendit \u00e9loquemment sur\nla brutalit\u00e9 inexcusable avec laquelle lui-m\u00eame avait \u00e9t\u00e9 trait\u00e9, et ce\nfut de cette mani\u00e8re que la caravane atteignit la maison du magistrat;\nles porteurs trottant, les prisonniers suivant, M. Pickwick haranguant,\net la populace vocif\u00e9rant.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXV.\n\nMontrant combien M. Nupkins \u00e9tait majestueux et impartial, et comment\nSam Weller prit sa revanche de M. Job Trotter; avec d'autres \u00e9v\u00e9nements\nqu'on trouvera \u00e0 leur place.\n\n\nM. Snodgrass et M. Winkle \u00e9coutaient avec un sombre respect le torrent\nd'\u00e9loquence qui d\u00e9coulait des l\u00e8vres de leur mentor, et que ne pouvaient\narr\u00eater ni le mouvement rapide de la chaise \u00e0 porteurs, ni les\nsupplications instantes de M. Tupman pour abaisser le couvercle de la\nvoiture. Mais l'indignation de Sam, tandis qu'on l'emportait, avait un\ncaract\u00e8re plus bruyant. Il faisait de nombreuses allusions \u00e0 la tournure\nde M. Grummer et de ses compagnons, et il exhalait son m\u00e9contentement\npar de courageux d\u00e9fis qu'il lan\u00e7ait indistinctement \u00e0 six des plus\nvaleureux spectateurs. Cependant sa col\u00e8re fit promptement place \u00e0 la\ncuriosit\u00e9, lorsque la procession entra pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment dans la cour o\u00f9 il\navait rencontr\u00e9 le fuyard Job Trotter; et la curiosit\u00e9 fut remplac\u00e9e par\nle sentiment du plus joyeux \u00e9tonnement, lorsque l'important M. Grummer\ns'avan\u00e7a, d'un pas noble, justement vers la porte verte d'o\u00f9 Job Trotter\n\u00e9tait sorti. Au bruit de la sonnette, qu'il fit retentir fortement,\naccourut une jeune servante tr\u00e8s-jolie et tr\u00e8s-pimpante qui, apr\u00e8s avoir\nlev\u00e9 ses mains vers le ciel, \u00e0 l'apparence rebelle des prisonniers et au\nlangage passionn\u00e9 de M. Pickwick, appela M. Muzzle. M. Muzzle ouvrit \u00e0\nmoiti\u00e9 la porte coch\u00e8re pour admettre la chaise \u00e0 porteurs, les captifs\net les sp\u00e9ciaux; puis la referma violemment au nez de la populace.\nJustement indign\u00e9e d'une telle exclusion et vivement d\u00e9sireuse de voir\nce qui arriverait ensuite, la dite populace soulagea son ennui en\nfrappant \u00e0 la porte et en tirant la sonnette pendant une heure ou deux,\namusement auquel prirent part, tour \u00e0 tour, tous les mal peign\u00e9s,\nexcept\u00e9 trois ou quatre qui eurent le bonheur de d\u00e9couvrir dans la porte\nun vasistas grill\u00e9, \u00e0 travers lequel on n'apercevait rien. Ceux-ci\nrest\u00e8rent pendus \u00e0 cette ouverture, avec la pers\u00e9v\u00e9rance infatigable qui\nfait que certaines gens s'aplatissent le nez contre les carreaux d'un\napothicaire, quand un homme saoul, renvers\u00e9 par un dog-cart, subit une\nop\u00e9ration chirurgicale dans l'arri\u00e8re-parloir.\n\nLa chaise \u00e0 porteurs s'arr\u00eata devant un escalier de pierre conduisant \u00e0\nla porte de la maison, et gard\u00e9, de chaque c\u00f4t\u00e9, par un alo\u00e8s am\u00e9ricain,\ndebout dans une caisse verte. D\u00e9pos\u00e9s l\u00e0, M. Pickwick et ses amis furent\nensuite amen\u00e9s dans la grande salle, et, ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 annonc\u00e9s par Muzzle,\nfurent admis en la pr\u00e9sence du vigilant M. Nupkins.\n\nLa sc\u00e8ne \u00e9tait pleine de grandeur et bien calcul\u00e9e pour frapper de\nterreur le coeur des coupables, et pour leur inculquer une haute id\u00e9e de\nla s\u00e9v\u00e8re majest\u00e9 des lois. Devant un \u00e9norme cartonnier, dans un \u00e9norme\nfauteuil, derri\u00e8re une \u00e9norme table, et appuy\u00e9 sur un \u00e9norme volume,\n\u00e9tait assis M. Nupkins, qui paraissait encore plus \u00e9norme que tous ces\nobjets r\u00e9unis. La table \u00e9tait orn\u00e9e de piles de papiers, de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9\ndesquels apparaissaient la t\u00eate et les \u00e9paules de M. Jinks, activement\noccup\u00e9 \u00e0 avoir l'air aussi occup\u00e9 que possible. La caravane \u00e9tant\nentr\u00e9e, Muzzle ferma soigneusement la porte et se pla\u00e7a derri\u00e8re le\nfauteuil de son ma\u00eetre, pour attendre ses ordres, tandis que M. Nupkins,\nse penchant en arri\u00e8re avec une solennit\u00e9 importante, scrutait la figure\nde ses h\u00f4tes forc\u00e9s.\n\nM. Pickwick, interpr\u00e8te ordinaire de ses amis, se tenait debout, son\nchapeau \u00e0 la main, et saluait avec la plus respectueuse politesse. \u00abQuel\nest cet individu? dit M. Nupkins, en le montrant du doigt \u00e0 l'homme d'un\n\u00e2ge m\u00fbr.\n\n--Cti-ci, c'est Pickwick, Votre Vin-\u00e0-ration, r\u00e9pondit Grummer.\n\n--Allons, allons, en voil\u00e0 assez, vieux gobe-mouche, interrompit Sam, en\ns'ouvrant, avec les coudes, un passage jusqu'au premier rang. Je vous\ndemande pardon, monsieur, mais cet officier-ci, avec ses bottes \u00e0 revers\nnankin, il ne gagnera jamais sa vie nulle part comme ma\u00eetre des\nc\u00e9r\u00e9monies. Voil\u00e0 ici, continua Sam, en mettant de c\u00f4t\u00e9 M. Grummer et en\ns'adressant au magistrat avec une agr\u00e9able familiarit\u00e9, voil\u00e0 ici Samuel\nPickwick, esquire; voil\u00e0 ici M. Tupman; voil\u00e0 ici M. Snodgrass; et plus\nloin, \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui, de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9, M. Winkle, tous des gentlemen bien\ngentils, monsieur, et dont vous auriez du plaisir \u00e0 faire la\nconnaissance. Aussi, plus t\u00f4t vous aurez coffr\u00e9 tous ces bedeaux-l\u00e0,\npour un mois ou deux, au _Tread-mill_[28], et plus t\u00f4t nous serons bons\namis. Les affaires d'abord, tes plaisirs apr\u00e8s, comme dit le roi\nRichard quand il poignarda l'autre dans la tour, avant d'\u00e9touffer les\nmoutards.\u00bb\n\n[Footnote 28: Moulin que les condamn\u00e9s font mouvoir en marchant sur un\ncylindre.\n\n(_Note du traducteur._)]\n\nApr\u00e8s avoir d\u00e9bit\u00e9 cette adresse, Sam s'occupa \u00e0 polir son chapeau avec\nson coude droit, et fit d'un air b\u00e9nin un signe de t\u00eate \u00e0 M. Jinks, qui\nl'avait entendu d'un bout \u00e0 l'autre avec une indicible terreur.\n\n\u00abQuel est cet homme, Grummer? balbutia le magistrat.\n\n--Un malfaiteur tr\u00e8s-dangereux, Votre Vin-\u00e0-ration. Il a voulu d\u00e9livrer\nles prisonniers et il a attaqu\u00e9 les agents de l'autorit\u00e9. Com'\u00e7a nous\nl'avons empoign\u00e9.\n\n--Vous avez bien fait, Grummer. C'est \u00e9videmment un bandit audacieux.\n\n--C'est mon domestique, monsieur, dit M. Peckwick, avec un peu\nd'irritation.\n\n--Ah! c'est votre domestique?--Conspiration pour arr\u00eater le cours de la\njustice et pour assassiner ses officiers. Domestique de Pickwick.\n\u00c9crivez cela, monsieur Jinks.\u00bb\n\nM. Jinks \u00e9crivit.\n\n\u00abComment vous appelez-vous, dr\u00f4le? poursuivit le magistrat.\n\n--Weller, r\u00e9pondit Sam.\n\n--Un excellent nom pour le calendrier de Newgate,\u00bb observa M. Nupkins.\n\nC'\u00e9tait une plaisanterie; aussi Grummer, Dubbley, tous les sp\u00e9ciaux, et\nMuzzle \u00e9clat\u00e8rent-ils de rire, avec des convulsions qui dur\u00e8rent pendant\ncinq minutes.\n\n\u00ab\u00c9crivez son nom, monsieur Jinks, reprit le magistrat\n\n--Mettez deux _l_, vieux pigeon, dit Sam.\u00bb\n\nIci, un malheureux sp\u00e9cial se mit \u00e0 rire encore et le magistrat le\nmena\u00e7a de le faire empoigner sur-le-champ. Il est dangereux,\nquelquefois, de rire mal \u00e0 propos.\n\n\u00abO\u00f9 vivez-vous? demanda le magistrat.\n\n--O\u00f9 je me trouve, r\u00e9pondit Sam.\n\n--Notez cela, monsieur Jinks! cria le magistrat, dont la col\u00e8re\ns'augmentait rapidement.\n\n--Et n'oubliez pas de souligner, poursuivit Sam.\n\n--C'est un vagabond, monsieur Jinks! c'est un vagabond d'apr\u00e8s son\npropre aveu. N'est-ce pas vrai, monsieur Jinks, que c'est un vagabond?\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\n\n--H\u00e9 bien! s'\u00e9cria M. Nupkins en frappant la table de son poing;\n\u00e9crivez sur-le-champ son mandat de d\u00e9p\u00f4t. Il faut lui apprendra \u00e0 vivre!\n\n--Bien oblig\u00e9, mon magistrat, r\u00e9pliqua Sam. Mais vous devriez bien aller\n\u00e0 c'te \u00e9cole-l\u00e0 pendant quelques mois.\u00bb\n\nA cette saillie un autre sp\u00e9cial \u00e9clata de rire, et ensuite prit un air\nde gravit\u00e9 tellement surnaturelle que M. Nupkins le d\u00e9couvrit\nimm\u00e9diatement.\n\n\u00abGrummer! s'\u00e9cria-t-il en rougissant de courroux, comment osez-vous\nchoisir pour constable sp\u00e9cial un \u00eatre aussi nul et aussi inconvenant\nque cet homme! R\u00e9pondez, monsieur!\n\n--J'en suis bien inflig\u00e9, Votre Vin-\u00e0-ration, balbutia Grummer.\n\n--Bien afflig\u00e9! r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le magistrat furieux. Vous avez raison de l'\u00eatre!\nje vous apprendrai \u00e0 n\u00e9gliger ainsi votre devoir, M. Grummer! je ferai\nun exemple sur vous. Otez le b\u00e2ton de ce dr\u00f4le. Il est ivre. Vous \u00eates\nivre, dr\u00f4le!\n\n--Non Fotre F\u00e9n\u00e9ration, r\u00e9pondit l'homme; je ne suis pas ifre.\n\n--Vous \u00eates ivre! r\u00e9pliqua le magistrat. Comment osez-vous dire que nous\nn'\u00eates pas ivre, monsieur, quand je vous dis que vous \u00eates ivre. Est-ce\nqu'il ne sent pas l'eau-de-vie, Grummer?\n\n--Horriblement, Votre Vin-\u00e0-ration, r\u00e9pondit M. Grummer, dont les nerfs\nolfactifs \u00e9prouvaient effectivement une vague impression de rhum.\n\n--J'en \u00e9tais s\u00fbr, reprit M. Nupkins. Quand il est entr\u00e9 dans la chambre,\nj'ai vu \u00e0 son oeil enflamm\u00e9 qu'il \u00e9tait ivre. Avez-vous remarqu\u00e9 son oeil\nenflamm\u00e9, M. Jinks?\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\n\n--Che n'ai pas touch\u00e9 une koutte d'eau-te-fie t'aujourd'hui, d\u00e9clara\nl'homme, qui \u00e9tait peut-\u00eatre le plus sobre de toute la bande.\n\n--Monsieur Jinks, poursuivit le magistrat, je l'enverrai en prison pour\navoir insult\u00e9 la cour. \u00c9crivez son mandat de d\u00e9p\u00f4t, M. Jinks.\u00bb\n\nCependant M. Jinks, qui \u00e9tait le conseiller de M. Nupkins, et qui avait\neu une \u00e9ducation l\u00e9gale, car il avait pass\u00e9 trois ann\u00e9es dans l'\u00e9tude\nd'un procureur de province; M. Jinks, disons-nous, fit observer tout bas\nau magistrat que cela ne pourrait pas aller ainsi. Le magistrat\nimprovisa donc un discours, dans lequel il d\u00e9clara que par consid\u00e9ration\npour la famille du sp\u00e9cial il se contentait de le r\u00e9primander et de le\ncasser. En cons\u00e9quence, le malheureux coupable fut violemment injuri\u00e9\npendant un quart d'heure, puis renvoy\u00e9 \u00e0 ses affaires; et Grummer,\nDubbley, Muzzle et tous les autres sp\u00e9ciaux murmur\u00e8rent, pendant un\nautre quart d'heure, leur admiration de la conduite magnanime du\nmagistrat.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, monsieur Jinks, reprit celui-ci, faites pr\u00eater serment \u00e0\nGrummer.\u00bb\n\nGrummer pr\u00eata serment imm\u00e9diatement, mais comme il s'\u00e9garait dans sa\nd\u00e9position, et comme le d\u00eener de M. Nupkins \u00e9tait pr\u00eat, le magistrat,\npour couper court, se mit \u00e0 faire des questions \u00e0 M. Grummer, et M.\nGrummer lui r\u00e9pondait affirmativement autant qu'il le pouvait, si bien\nque l'instruction marcha tr\u00e8s-rapidement et tr\u00e8s-confortablement. Sam\nWeller fut convaincu de voies de fait, M. Winkle de menaces, M.\nSnodgrass de r\u00e9sistance; et quand tout ceci fut fait \u00e0 la satisfaction\ndu magistrat, le magistrat et M. Jinks se consult\u00e8rent \u00e0 voix basse.\n\nLa consultation ayant dur\u00e9 environ dix minutes, M. Jinks se retira \u00e0 son\nbout de la table, et le magistrat, apr\u00e8s une toux pr\u00e9paratoire, se\nredressa dans son fauteuil et allait prononcer un discours lorsque M.\nPickwick prit la parole.\n\n\u00abMonsieur, dit-il, je vous demande pardon de vous interrompre; mais\navant que vous exprimiez l'opinion que vous pouvez avoir form\u00e9e, et\navant que vous agissiez en cons\u00e9quence, je dois r\u00e9clamer mon droit\nd'\u00eatre entendu, pour ce qui me regarde personnellement, du moins.\n\n--Taisez-vous, monsieur? s'\u00e9cria le magistrat d'un ton p\u00e9remptoire.\n\n--Il faut bien que je me soumette \u00e0 votre autorit\u00e9, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit\nM. Pickwick.\n\n--Taisez-vous, monsieur! reprit le magistrat, ou je vous ferai emmener\npar un de mes officiers.\n\n--Vous pouvez ordonner \u00e0 vos officiers de faire tout ce qu'il vous\nplaira, monsieur; et d'apr\u00e8s ce que j'ai vu de leur subordination je\nn'ai pas le plus petit doute qu'ils n'ex\u00e9cutent tout ce qu'il vous\nplaira de leur ordonner; mais je prendrai la libert\u00e9 de r\u00e9clamer le\ndroit que j'ai d'\u00eatre entendu, et je le r\u00e9clamerai jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'on\nm'\u00e9loigne d'ici par la violence.\n\n--Pickwick et les principes! s'\u00e9cria Sam d'une voix sonore.\n\n--Sam, tenez-vous tranquille, lui dit son ma\u00eetre.\n\n--Muet comme un tambour trou\u00e9,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua le personnage.\n\nM. Nupkins, frapp\u00e9 d'\u00e9tonnement par une t\u00e9m\u00e9rit\u00e9 si extraordinaire!\nlan\u00e7a \u00e0 M. Pickwick un regard courrouc\u00e9, et allait apparemment lui\nr\u00e9pondre tr\u00e8s-s\u00e9v\u00e8rement, lorsque M. Jinks le tira par la manche et lui\nchuchota quelque chose \u00e0 l'oreille. Le magistrat fit une r\u00e9ponse a demi\nhaut; puis le chuchotement fut renouvel\u00e9. Il \u00e9tait \u00e9vident que M. Jinks\nlui adressait des remontrances.\n\nA la fin, le magistrat, avalant de fort mauvaise gr\u00e2ce le d\u00e9pit qu'il\n\u00e9prouvait d'en entendre plus long, se retourna vers M. Pickwick et lui\ndit brusquement: \u00abQu'est-ce que vous avez \u00e0 dire?\n\n--D'abord, r\u00e9pondit le philosophe, en lan\u00e7ant \u00e0 travers ses lunettes un\nregard qui intimida M. Nupkins sur son si\u00e9ge; d'abord je d\u00e9sire\nconna\u00eetre pourquoi mon ami et moi nous avons \u00e9t\u00e9 amen\u00e9s ici?\n\n--Suis-je tenu de le lui dire? chuchota le magistrat \u00e0 M. Jinks.\n\n--Je pense que oui, monsieur, chuchota M. Jinks au magistrat.\n\n--On a d\u00e9pos\u00e9 devant moi, sous la foi du serment, qu'il y avait lieu de\ncraindre que vous ne voulussiez vous battre en duel; et que cet autre\nhomme, Tupman, devait \u00eatre votre fauteur et votre complice dans le dit\nduel; c'est pourquoi... eh! monsieur Jinks?\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\n\n--C'est pourquoi, je vous condamne tous les deux \u00e0... Je pense que voil\u00e0\nl'affaire, monsieur Jinks.\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\n\n--Je vous condamne \u00e0... \u00e0... \u00e0 quoi, monsieur Jinks? demanda le\nmagistrat avec d\u00e9pit.\n\n--A fournir caution, monsieur.\n\n--Oui. C'est pourquoi je vous condamne tous les deux, comme j'allais\ndire lorsque j'ai \u00e9t\u00e9 interrompu par mon clerc, \u00e0 fournir caution.\n\n--Bonne caution, chuchota L. Jinks.\n\n--J'exigerai deux bonnes cautions, reprit le magistrat.\n\n--Bourgeois de la ville, chuchota M. Jinks.\n\n--Qui doivent \u00eatre des bourgeois de la ville, poursuivit le magistrat.\n\n--Cinquante guin\u00e9es chacune et des propri\u00e9taires, comme il va sans dire.\n\n--J'exigerai deux cautions de cinquante guin\u00e9es chacune, continua le\nmagistrat \u00e0 voit haute et avec grande dignit\u00e9; et je n'accepterai que\ndes propri\u00e9taires, comme il va sans dire.\n\n--Mais, monsieur, fit observer M. Pickwick, qui, ainsi que M. Tupman,\n\u00e9tait rempli d'\u00e9tonnement et d'indignation, mais monsieur, nous sommes\nparfaitement \u00e9trangers \u00e0 la ville et j'y connais autant de propri\u00e9taires\nque j'ai envie d'y avoir un duel.\n\n--Oui, oui, on conna\u00eet \u00e7a, dit le magistrat. N'est-ce pas, monsieur\nJinks?\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\n\n--Avez-vous quelque chose a ajouter?\u00bb reprit le magistrat.\n\nM. Pickwick avait bien des choses \u00e0 ajouter, et il les aurait ajout\u00e9es\nsans aucun doute, avec aussi peu de profit pour lui-m\u00eame que de\nsatisfaction pour le magistrat, s'il n'avait pas \u00e9t\u00e9 engag\u00e9 alors avec\nSam, dans une conversation tellement int\u00e9ressante qu'il n'entendit point\nla question qui lui \u00e9tait adress\u00e9e. M. Nupkins n'\u00e9tait point homme \u00e0\ndemander deux fois une chose de cette nature. Il toussa donc de nouveau,\nd'une mani\u00e8re pr\u00e9paratoire, et pronon\u00e7a sa d\u00e9cision au milieu du silence\nadmirateur et respectueux des constables.\n\nIl condamnait Weller \u00e0 deux guin\u00e9es d'amende pour les premi\u00e8res voies de\nfait, et \u00e0 trois guin\u00e9es pour les secondes; il condamnait Winkle \u00e0 deux\nguin\u00e9es; Snodgrass \u00e0 une guin\u00e9e; et les requ\u00e9rait, en outre, de jurer\nqu'ils ne commettraient de violences sur aucun sujet de Sa Majest\u00e9, et\nnotamment sur ses hommes liges, Daniel et Grummer: il avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 requis\nPickwick et Tupman de fournir des cautions.\n\nAussit\u00f4t que le magistrat eut cess\u00e9 de parler, M. Pickwick, dont la\nphysionomie \u00e9tait de nouveau anim\u00e9e par un sourire de bonne humeur, fit\nun pas en avant, et dit:\n\n\u00abJe prie le magistrat de vouloir bien m'accorder quelques minutes de\nconversation en particulier. Il s'agit d'une affaire qui est d'une grave\nimportance pour lui-m\u00eame.\n\n--Quoi!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria M. Nupkins.\n\nM. Pickwick r\u00e9p\u00e9ta sa requ\u00eate.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0 une demande bien extraordinaire! dit le magistrat. Une\nconversation en particulier!\n\n--Une conversation en particulier, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick avec fermet\u00e9.\nSeulement, comme c'est par mon domestique que j'ai appris une partie de\nce que j'ai \u00e0 vous communiquer, je d\u00e9sirerais qu'il f\u00fbt pr\u00e9sent.\u00bb\n\nLe magistrat regarda M. Jinks. M. Jinks regarda le magistrat, et les\nofficiers se regard\u00e8rent l'un l'autre avec \u00e9tonnement. Tout \u00e0 coup M.\nNupkins devint p\u00e2le. Peut-\u00eatre ce Weller, dans un moment de remords,\navait-il confess\u00e9 quelque complot form\u00e9 pour assassiner le magistrat.\nC'\u00e9tait une horrible pens\u00e9e! En effet, M. Nupkins \u00e9tait un homme\npolitique; et il devint encore plus p\u00e2le en songeant \u00e0 Jules C\u00e9sar et \u00e0\nM. Perceval.\n\nIl regarda de nouveau M. Pickwick et fit un signe \u00e0 M. Jinks.\n\n\u00abQue pensez-vous de cette demande, monsieur Jinks,\u00bb murmura-t-il \u00e0 son\noreille.\n\nM. Jinks, qui ne savait pas exactement qu'en penser, et qui avait peur\nd'offenser son patron, sourit faiblement, d'une mani\u00e8re douteuse; puis,\nserrant les coins de sa bouche, secoua lentement sa t\u00eate.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Jinks, dit le magistrat gravement, vous \u00eates un \u00e2ne,\nmonsieur.\u00bb\n\nEn entendant cette petite expression famili\u00e8re, M. Jinks sourit encore,\npeut-\u00eatre plus faiblement que la premi\u00e8re fois, et se retira par degr\u00e9s\ndans son coin.\n\nPendant quelques secondes M. Nupkins d\u00e9battit la question en lui-m\u00eame.\nEnsuite, se levant d'un air r\u00e9solu, il invita M. Pickwick et Sam \u00e0 le\nsuivre, et les conduisit dans une petite chambre qui s'ouvrait sur la\nsalle de justice. L\u00e0, il leur fit signe d'aller jusqu'au fond, et\nlui-m\u00eame resta \u00e0 l'entr\u00e9e, tenant sa main sur la porte \u00e0 demi ferm\u00e9e,\nafin de pouvoir facilement battre en retraite s'il d\u00e9couvrait chez ses\njusticiables la plus l\u00e9g\u00e8re manifestation d'intentions hostiles. Enfin\nil d\u00e9clara qu'il \u00e9tait pr\u00eat \u00e0 entendre leurs communications, quelles\nqu'elles pussent \u00eatre.\n\n\u00abMonsieur, dit M. Pickwick, j'arriverai au fait tout d'un coup, car il\ns'agit d'une chose qui affecte notablement votre personne et votre\nhonneur. J'ai tout lieu de croire, monsieur, que vous recevez dans votre\nmaison un vil imposteur.\n\n--Deux! interrompit Sam; le valet en livr\u00e9e violette enfonce tout le\nmonde, en fait de larmes et de la sc\u00e9l\u00e9ratesse!\n\n--Sam, dit M. Pickwick, je vous prie de vous mod\u00e9rer, afin que je puisse\nme rendre intelligible \u00e0 ce gentleman.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua Sam; mais quand je pensa \u00e0 ce Job ici.\nJe ne peux pas m'emp\u00eacher d'ouvrir un peu la soupape de s\u00fbret\u00e9,\nautrement j'\u00e9claterais.\n\n--En un mot, monsieur, reprit M. Pickwick, mon domestique a-t-il raison\nde supposer qu'un certain capitaine Fitz-Marshall est dans l'habitude de\nvous faire des visites. Je vous demande cela, ajouta M. Pickwick en\nvoyant que M. Nupkins \u00e9tait sur le point de l'interrompre avec\nindignation; je vous demande cela parce que je sais que cet individu est\nun....\n\n--Chut! chut! dit M, Nupkins en fermant la porte. Vous savez qu'il est\nquoi, monsieur?\n\n--Un vagabond sans principes, un mis\u00e9rable aventurier, qui vit aux\nd\u00e9pens de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9; qui prend les gens faciles \u00e0 tromper pour ses\ndupes, monsieur; pour ses absurdes, ses malheureuses, ses ridicules\ndupes, monsieur, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick surexcit\u00e9.\n\n--Dieu nous assiste! dit M. Nupkins en rougissant jusqu'aux oreilles, et\nen changeant sur-le-champ toutes ses mani\u00e8res. Dieu nous assiste,\nmonsieur....\n\n--Pickwick, souffla Sam.\n\n--Pickwick, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le magistrat. Dieu nous assiste, monsieur Pickwick.\nAsseyez-vous, je vous en prie. Que me dites-vous l\u00e0! Le capitaine\nFitz-Marshall!\n\n--Ne l'appelez pas capitaine, interrompit Sam; ni Fitz-Marshall non\nplus. Il n'est ni l'un ni l'autre. C'est un cabotin qui s'appelle\nJingle; et si jamais il y a eu un loup en habit violet, c'est ce Job\nTrotter ici.\n\n--Cela est tr\u00e8s-vrai, monsieur, dit M. Pickwick en r\u00e9ponse au regard\nd'\u00e9tonnement du magistrat; et ma seule affaire dans cette ville, \u00e9tait\nde d\u00e9masquer l'individu dont nous parlons.\u00bb\n\nAlors M. Pickwick r\u00e9pandit dans l'oreille \u00e9pouvant\u00e9e du magistrat, un\nr\u00e9cit abr\u00e9g\u00e9 de toutes les atrocit\u00e9s de M. Jingle. Il rapporta comment\nleur connaissance s'\u00e9tait faite; comment Jingle s'\u00e9tait \u00e9chapp\u00e9 avec\nmiss Wardle; comment il avait joyeusement renonc\u00e9 \u00e0 cette demoiselle\npour une somme d'argent; comment il avait attir\u00e9 M. Pickwick, \u00e0 minuit,\ndans une pension de jeunes demoiselles; et comment lui, M. Pickwick,\nregardait comme un devoir de d\u00e9voiler sa pr\u00e9sente usurpation de nom et\nde qualit\u00e9.\n\nA mesure que cette narration s'avan\u00e7ait, tout le sang qui circulait\nhabituellement dans le corps de M. Nupkins, se rassemblait dans les\nveines de son visage et jusqu'aux extr\u00e9mit\u00e9s de ses oreilles. Il avait\nramass\u00e9 le capitaine \u00e0 une course de chevaux du voisinage, et l'avait\npr\u00e9sent\u00e9 \u00e0 mistress Nupkins et \u00e0 miss Nupkins. Celles-ci, charm\u00e9es par\nla longue liste des connaissances aristocratiques du capitaine\nFitz-Marshall, par ses lointains voyages, par sa tournure fashionable,\navaient exhib\u00e9 le capitaine Fitz-Marshall, cit\u00e9 le capitaine\nFitz-Marshall, jet\u00e9 le capitaine Fitz-Marshall au nez de toutes leurs\nconnaissances; tellement que leurs amis de coeur, madame Porkenham, et\nles misses Porkenham, et M. Sidney Porkenham \u00e9taient pr\u00e8s d'en crever de\njalousie et de d\u00e9sespoir; et maintenant, apr\u00e8s tout cela, il se trouvait\nque c'\u00e9tait un pauvre aventurier, un acteur ambulant, et sinon un\nescroc, du moins quelque chose qui y ressemblait tellement qu'il \u00e9tait\nbien difficile d'en faire la diff\u00e9rence! Juste ciel! que diraient les\nPorkenham! quel serait le triomphe de M. Sidney Porkenham quand il\nconna\u00eetrait le rival \u00e0 qui ses galanteries avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 sacrifi\u00e9es!\nComment M. Nupkins oserait-il soutenir les regards du vieux Porkenham\naux prochaines assises? Et si l'histoire se r\u00e9pandait, quel texte pour\nl'opposition magistrale!\n\nIl y eut un long silence.\n\n\u00abMais apr\u00e8s tout, s'\u00e9cria M. Nupkins, en redevenant radieux pour un\ninstant; apr\u00e8s tout, ceci n'est qu'une simple all\u00e9gation. Le capitaine\nFitz-Marshall a des mani\u00e8res fort engageantes, et j'ose dire qu'il s'est\nfait plus d'un ennemi. Quelles preuves avez-vous de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 de cette\naccusation?\n\n--Confrontez-moi avec lui, voil\u00e0 tout ce que je vous demande, tout ce\nque j'exige. Confrontez-le avec moi et avec mes amis. Aurez-vous besoin\nd'autres preuves?\n\n--Vraiment, cela serait tr\u00e8s-facile, car il vient ici ce soir, et alors\nil n'y aurait pas besoin de rendre l'affaire publique, dans l'int\u00e9r\u00eat...\ndans l'int\u00e9r\u00eat du jeune homme seulement; vous voyez... cependant, je...\nje voudrais d'abord consulter Mme Nupkins, sur la convenance de cette\nd\u00e9marche. Mais \u00e0 tous \u00e9v\u00e9nements, monsieur Pickwick, il faut exp\u00e9dier\ncette affaire l\u00e9gale avant de nous occuper d'autre chose. Revenez, je\nvous prie, dans la salle.\n\nLorsqu'on y fut r\u00e9install\u00e9: \u00abGrummer! dit le magistrat, d'une voix\nmajestueuse:\n\n--Votre Vin-\u00e0-ration, r\u00e9pondit Grummer avec le sourire d'un favori.\n\n--Allons, allons, monsieur, reprit le magistrat s\u00e9v\u00e8rement; pas de\nl\u00e9g\u00e8ret\u00e9 ici: c'est fort inconvenant, et je vous assure que vous avez\npeu de raison de sourire. Le r\u00e9cit que vous m'avez fait tout \u00e0 l'heure\n\u00e9tait-il exactement vrai? Faites attention \u00e0 vos r\u00e9ponses, monsieur.\n\n--Votre Vin-\u00e0-ration balbutia Grummer, je....\n\n--Ah! vous vous troublez, monsieur! Monsieur Jinks, remarquez-vous qu'il\nse trouble?\n\n--Certainement, monsieur.\n\n--H\u00e9 bien! voyons, r\u00e9p\u00e9tez votre d\u00e9position, Grummer; et je vous avertis\nencore de prendre garde \u00e0 vous. Monsieur Jinks, \u00e9crivez sa d\u00e9position.\u00bb\n\nL'infortun\u00e9 Grummer commen\u00e7a donc \u00e0 redire sa plainte. Mais gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 ce\nque M. Jinks recueillait ses paroles, tandis que le magistrat les\nrelevait, gr\u00e2ce aussi \u00e0 sa diffusion naturelle et \u00e0 sa confusion\npr\u00e9sente, en moins de trois minutes il parvint \u00e0 s'embarrasser dans un\ntel g\u00e2chis de contradictions, que M. Nupkins d\u00e9clara positivement qu'il\nne le croyait pas. Les amendes furent donc annul\u00e9es; M. Jinks trouva en\nmoins de rien une couple de cautions, et toutes ces op\u00e9rations\nsolennelles ayant \u00e9t\u00e9 termin\u00e9es d'une mani\u00e8re satisfaisante, M. Grummer\nfut ignominieusement renvoy\u00e9: exemple terrible de l'instabilit\u00e9 des\ngrandeurs humaines, et du peu de confiance qu'on doit avoir dans la\nfaveur des grands.\n\nMme Nupkins \u00e9tait une femme d\u00e9daigneuse et s\u00e9v\u00e8re, en turban de gaze\nbleue et en perruque brune. Miss Nupkins poss\u00e9dait toute la hauteur de\nsa m\u00e8re, moins le turban, et toute sa mauvaise humeur, moins la\nperruque. Or, chaque fois que l'exercice de ces deux aimables qualit\u00e9s\nembarrassait la m\u00e8re et la fille dans quelque dilemme d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able, ce\nqui arrivait assez fr\u00e9quemment, elles se r\u00e9unissaient pour jeter tout le\nbl\u00e2me sur les \u00e9paules de M. Nupkins. Ainsi, lorsque celui-ci alla\ntrouver son \u00e9pouse, et lui communiqua les d\u00e9tails qui lui avaient \u00e9t\u00e9\ndonn\u00e9s par M. Pickwick, madame Nupkins se rappela tout \u00e0 coup qu'elle\navait toujours soup\u00e7onn\u00e9 quelque chose de la sorte; qu'elle avait\ntoujours dit que cela devait arriver; qu'on n'avait jamais voulu \u00e9couter\nses avis; que r\u00e9ellement elle ne savait pas pour qui M. Nupkins la\nprenait, etc., etc.\n\n\u00abEst-il possible, s'\u00e9cria miss Nupkins en fabriquant, dans le coin de\nchaque oeil, une larme d'une tr\u00e8s-maigre dimension, est-il possible que\nj'aie \u00e9t\u00e9 ainsi tourn\u00e9e en ridicule!\n\n--Ah! ma ch\u00e8re, dit Mme Nupkins, vous pouvez en remercier votre papa.\nCombien je l'ai suppli\u00e9 de s'informer de la famille du capitaine!\ncombien je l'ai press\u00e9 de prendre un parti d\u00e9cisif. Je suis s\u00fbre que\npersonne ne voudrait le croire \u00e0 pr\u00e9sent.\n\n--Mais ma ch\u00e8re,... fit observer M. Nupkins.\n\n--Ne me parlez pas, \u00eatre insupportable!\n\n--Mon amour, vous aimiez tant le capitaine Fitz-Marshall; vous\nl'invitiez constamment ici, et vous ne perdiez aucune occasion de\nl'introduire chez nos amis.\n\n--Ne le disais-je pas, Henriette! s'\u00e9cria Mme Nupkins en s'adressant \u00e0\nsa fille avec l'air d'une femme injuri\u00e9e; ne vous le disais-je pas, que\nvotre papa se retournerait et mettrait tout cela sur mon dos. Ne le\ndisais-je pas!...\u00bb Ici Mme Nupkins fondit en larmes.\n\n\u00abOh! pa! fit miss Nupkins, d'un ton de reproche;\u00bb et elle se mit\n\u00e9galement \u00e0 pleurer.\n\n\u00abN'est-ce pas trop fort, sanglotait Mme Nupkins, n'est-ce pas trop fort\nde me reprocher que je suis la cause de tout ceci, quand c'est lui-m\u00eame\nqui a attir\u00e9 ce ridicule sur notre famille!\n\n--Comment pourrons-nous jamais nous remontrer dans la soci\u00e9t\u00e9? murmura\nmiss Nupkins.\n\n--Comment pourrons-nous envisager les Porkenham?\n\n--Ou les Grigg?...\n\n--Ou les Slummintowkens? Mais qu'est-ce que cela fait \u00e0 votre papa?\nqu'est-ce que cela lui fait, \u00e0 lui!\u00bb A cette terrible r\u00e9flexion,\nl'angoisse mentale de Mme Nupkins ne connut plus de bornes, et miss\nNupkins poussa des soupirs d\u00e9chirants.\n\nLes pleurs de Mme Nupkins continu\u00e8rent \u00e0 jaillir avec grande vitesse,\njusqu'au moment o\u00f9 elle eut d\u00e9cid\u00e9 dans son esprit que la meilleure\nchose \u00e0 faire, \u00e9tait d'engager M. Pickwick et ses amis \u00e0 rester chez\nelle jusqu'\u00e0 l'arriv\u00e9e du capitaine. Si l'imposture de celui-ci \u00e9tait\nalors av\u00e9r\u00e9e, on l'exclurait de la maison sans divulguer la v\u00e9ritable\ncause de ce renvoi; et l'on dirait aux Porkenham, pour expliquer sa\ndisparition, que le capitaine, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 l'influence de sa famille, \u00e9tait\nnomm\u00e9 gouverneur g\u00e9n\u00e9ral de Sierra-Leone, ou de Sangur-Point, ou de\nquelque autre de ces pays salubres, dont les Europ\u00e9ens sont\nordinairement si enchant\u00e9s qu'ils n'en reviennent presque jamais.\n\nQuand Mme Nupkins eut s\u00e9ch\u00e9 ses larmes, miss Nupkins s\u00e9cha aussi les\nsiennes, et M. Nupkins s'estima fort heureux de terminer l'affaire comme\nle lui proposait son aimable moiti\u00e9. En cons\u00e9quence, M. Pickwick et ses\namis, ayant lav\u00e9 toutes les traces de leur _rencontre_, furent pr\u00e9sent\u00e9s\naux dames, et peu de temps apr\u00e8s au d\u00eener. Quant \u00e0 Sam Weller, le\nmagistrat, avec sa sagacit\u00e9 particuli\u00e8re, reconnut en un clin d'oeil que\nc'\u00e9tait le meilleur gar\u00e7on du monde, et le consigna aux soins\nhospitaliers de M. Muzzle, avec l'ordre sp\u00e9cial de l'emmener en bas, et\nd'avoir le plus grand soin de lui.\n\n--Comment vous portez-vous, monsieur? dit Muzzle \u00e0 Sam Weller, en le\nconduisant \u00e0 la cuisine.\n\n--H\u00e9! h\u00e9! il n'y a pas grand changement depuis que je vous ai vu si bien\nredress\u00e9 derri\u00e8re la chaise de votre gouverneur, dans la salle.\n\n--Je vous demande excuse de ne pas avoir fait attention \u00e0 vous pour\nlors. Vous voyez que mon patron ne nous avait pas pr\u00e9sent\u00e9s, pour lors.\nDame! il vous aime bien, monsieur Weller!\n\n--Ah! c'est un bien gentil gar\u00e7on.\n\n--N'est-ce pas?\n\n--Si jovial!\n\n--Et un fameux homme pour parler! Comme ses id\u00e9es sont coulantes, hein?\n\n--\u00c9tonnant! elles d\u00e9bondent si vite qu'elles se cognent la t\u00eate l'une\nsur l'autre que c'en est \u00e9tourdissant, et qu'on ne sait pas seulement de\nquoi il s'agit.\n\n--C'est le grand m\u00e9rite de son style d'\u00e9loquence.... Prenez garde au\ndernier pas, monsieur Weller. Voudriez-vous vous laver les mains avant\nde rejoindre les ladies? Voil\u00e0 une fontaine, et il y a un essuie-mains\nblanc accroch\u00e9 derri\u00e8re la porte.\n\n--Je ne serai pas f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de me rincer un brin, r\u00e9pliqua Sam, en\nappliquant force savon noir sur le torchon. Combien y a-t-il de dames?\n\n--Seulement deux dans notre cuisine. Cuisini\u00e8re et bonne. Nous avons un\ngar\u00e7on pour faire les ouvrages sales et une fille de plus; mais \u00e7a d\u00eene\ndans la buanderie.\n\n--Ah! \u00e7a d\u00eene dans la buanderie!\n\n--Oui, nous en avons essay\u00e9 \u00e0 notre table quand c'est arriv\u00e9; mais nous\nn'avons pas pu y tenir; les mani\u00e8res de la fille sont horriblement\nvulgaires, et le gar\u00e7on fait tant de bruit en m\u00e2chant, que nous avons\ntrouv\u00e9 impossible de rester \u00e0 table avec lui.\n\n--Oh! quel jeune popotame!\n\n--C'est d\u00e9go\u00fbtant! voil\u00e0 ce qu'il y a de pire dans le service de\nprovince, monsieur Weller; les jeunes gens sont si tellement mal\n\u00e9lev\u00e9s.... Par ici, monsieur, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\u00bb Tout en parlant ainsi et\nen pr\u00e9c\u00e9dant Sam avec la plus exquise politesse, Muzzle le conduisit\ndans la cuisine.\n\n\u00abMary, dit-il \u00e0 la jolie servante, c'est M. Weller, un gentleman que\nnotre ma\u00eetre a envoy\u00e9 en bas pour \u00eatre fait aussi confortable que\npossible.\n\n--Et votre ma\u00eetre s'y conna\u00eet. Il m'a envoy\u00e9 au bon endroit pour \u00e7a,\najouta Sam en jetant un regard d'admiration \u00e0 la jolie bonne; si j'\u00e9tais\nle ma\u00eetre de cette maison ici, je serais toujours o\u00f9 Mary serait.\n\n--Oh! monsieur Weller! fit Mary en rougissant.\n\n--Eh bien! et moi, donc! s'\u00e9cria la cuisini\u00e8re.\n\n--Ah! cuisini\u00e8re, je vous avais oubli\u00e9e, dit M. Muzzle. Monsieur Weller,\npermettez-moi de vous pr\u00e9senter.\n\n--Comment vous portez-vous, madame? demanda Sam \u00e0 la cuisini\u00e8re.\nTr\u00e8s-enchant\u00e9 de vous voir, et j'esp\u00e8re que notre connaissance durera\nlongtemps, comme dit le gentleman \u00e0 la banknote de cinq guin\u00e9es.\u00bb\n\nApr\u00e8s les c\u00e9r\u00e9monies de l\u00e0 pr\u00e9sentation, la cuisini\u00e8re et Mary se\nretir\u00e8rent dans leur cuisine pour chuchoter pendant dix minutes, et\nlorsqu'elles furent revenues toutes minaudantes et rougissantes, on\ns'assit pour d\u00eener.\n\nLes mani\u00e8res ais\u00e9es de Sam et ses talents de conversation eurent une\ninfluence si irr\u00e9sistible sur ses nouveaux amis, qu'\u00e0 la moiti\u00e9 du d\u00eener\nil \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 avec eux sur un pied d'intimit\u00e9 compl\u00e8te, et les avait mis\nen pleine possession des perfidies de Job Trotter.\n\n\u00abJe n'ai jamais pu supporter cet homme-l\u00e0, dit Mary.\n\n--Et vous ne le deviez pas non plus, ma ch\u00e8re, r\u00e9pliqua Sam.\n\n--Pourquoi cela?\n\n--Parce que la laideur et l'hypocrisie ne va jamais d'accord avec\nl'\u00e9l\u00e9gance et la vertu. C'est-il pas vrai, monsieur Muzzle?\n\n--Certainement.\u00bb\n\nA ces mots Mary se prit \u00e0 rire et assura que c'\u00e9tait \u00e0 cause de la\ncuisini\u00e8re, et la cuisini\u00e8re, assurant que non, se prit \u00e0 rire aussi.\n\n\u00abTiens, je n'ai pas de verre, dit Mary.\n\n--Buvez avec moi, ma ch\u00e8re, reprit Sam, mettez vos l\u00e8vres sur ce verre\nici, et alors je pourrai vous embrasser par procuration.\n\n--Fi donc! monsieur Weller!\n\n--Pourquoi fi, ma ch\u00e8re?\n\n--Pour parler comme \u00e7a.\n\n--Bah! il n'y a pas de mal. C'est dans la nature. Pas vrai, cuisini\u00e8re?\n\n--Taisez-vous, impertinent,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua celle-ci avec un visage de\njubilation. Et l\u00e0-dessus la cuisini\u00e8re et Mary se prirent \u00e0 rire encore,\njusqu'\u00e0 ce que le rire et la bi\u00e8re et la viande combin\u00e9s eussent mis la\ncharmante bonne en danger d'\u00e9touffer. Elle ne tut tir\u00e9e de cette crise\nalarmante qu'au moyen de fortes tapes sur le dos et de plusieurs autres\npetites attentions, d\u00e9licatement administr\u00e9es par le galant Sam.\n\nAu milieu de ces joyeuset\u00e9s, on entendit sonner violemment, et le jeune\ngentleman qui prenait ses repas dans la buanderie, alla imm\u00e9diatement\nouvrir la porte du jardin. Sam \u00e9tait dans le feu de ses galanteries\naupr\u00e8s de la jolie bonne; M. Muzzle s'occupait de faire les honneurs de\nla table, et la cuisini\u00e8re ayant cess\u00e9 de rire un instant portait \u00e0 sa\nbouche un \u00e9norme morceau, lorsque la porte de la cuisine s'ouvrit pour\nlaisser entrer M. Job Trotter.\n\nNous avons dit pour laisser _entrer_ M. Job Trotter, mais cette\nexpression n'a pas l'exactitude scrupuleuse dont nous nous piquons. La\nporte s'ouvrit et M. Job Trotter parut. Il serait entr\u00e9, et m\u00eame il\n\u00e9tait en train d'entrer, lorsqu'il aper\u00e7ut Sam. Reculant\ninvolontairement un pas ou deux, il resta muet et immobile \u00e0 contempler\navec \u00e9tonnement et terreur la sc\u00e8ne qui s'offrait \u00e0 ses yeux.\n\n\u00abLe voici! s'\u00e9cria Sam, en se levant plein de joie. Eh bien! je parlais\nde vous dans ce moment ici, comment \u00e7a va-t-il? pourquoi donc \u00eates-vous\nsi rare? Entrez.\u00bb En disant ces mots, il mit la main sur le collet\nviolet de Job, le tira sans r\u00e9sistance dans la cuisine, ferma la porte\net en passa la clef \u00e0 M. Muzzle, qui l'enfon\u00e7a froidement dans une poche\nde c\u00f4t\u00e9, et boutonna son habit par-dessus.\n\n\u00abEh bien! en voil\u00e0 une farce! s'\u00e9cria Sam. Mon ma\u00eetre qui a le plaisir\nde rencontrer votre ma\u00eetre l\u00e0 haut, et moi qui a le plaisir de vous\nrencontrer ici en bas. Comment \u00e7a vous va-t-il? Et notre petit commerce\nd'\u00e9piceries, \u00e7a marche-t-il bien? V\u00e9ritablement, je suis charm\u00e9 de vous\nvoir. Comme vous avez l'air content! C'est charmant. N'est-il pas vrai,\nM. Muzzle?\n\n--Certainement.\n\n--Il est si jovial!\n\n--De si bonne humeur!\n\n--Et si content de nous voir! C'est \u00e7a qui fait le plaisir d'une\nr\u00e9union. Asseyez-vous, asseyez-vous.\u00bb\n\nJob se laissa asseoir sur une chaise, au coin du feu, et dirigea ses\npetits yeux d'abord sur Sam, pois sur Muzzle; mais il ne dit rien.\n\n\u00abEh bien! maintenant, reprit Sam, faites-moi l'amiti\u00e9 de me dire devant\nces dames ici, si vous croyez \u00eatre le gentleman le plus gentil et le\nmieux \u00e9duqu\u00e9 qui a jamais employ\u00e9 un mouchoir rouge et les hymnes n\u00b0 4.\n\n--Et qui a jamais \u00e9t\u00e9 pour \u00eatre mari\u00e9 \u00e0 une cuisini\u00e8re, le mauvais\ngueux! s'\u00e9cria la cuisini\u00e8re avec une sainte indignation.\n\n--Et pour mener une vie plus vertueuse et pour s'\u00e9tablir dans\nl'\u00e9picerie, ajouta la bonne.\n\n--Jeune homme? vocif\u00e9ra Muzzle, enrag\u00e9 par ces deux derni\u00e8res allusions;\n\u00e9coutez-moi-z-un peu maintenant. Cette lady ici (montrant la cuisini\u00e8re)\nest ma bonne amie. Et quand vous avez le toupet de parler de tenir une\nboutique d'\u00e9piceries avec elle, vous me blessez, monsieur, dans\nl'endroit le plus sensible o\u00f9 un homme p\u00fbt en blesser un autre. Me\ncomprenez-vous, monsieur?\u00bb\n\nIci Muzzle, qui, comme son ma\u00eetre, avait une grande id\u00e9e de son\n\u00e9loquence, s'arr\u00eata pour attendre une r\u00e9ponse, mais Job ne paraissant\npas dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 parler, Muzzle poursuivit avec solennit\u00e9.\n\n\u00abIl est tr\u00e8s-probable, monsieur, qu'on n'aura pas besoin de vous l\u00e0-haut\nd'ici \u00e0 quelque temps, parce que mon ma\u00eetre est en train de faire\nl'affaire de votre ma\u00eetre, monsieur: ainsi, vous aurez le temps de me\nparler un petit peu en particulier, monsieur. Me comprenez-vous,\nmonsieur?\u00bb\n\nM. Muzzle se tut encore, attendant toujours une r\u00e9ponse, et M. Trotter\nle d\u00e9sappointa de nouveau.\n\n\u00abEh bien, pour lors, reprit-il, je suis tr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9 d'\u00eatre oblig\u00e9 de\nm'expliquer devant ces dames, mais la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 du cas sera mon excuse.\nL'arri\u00e8re-cuisine est vide, monsieur, si vous voulez y passer, monsieur,\nM. Weller sera t\u00e9moin, et nous aurons une satisfaction mutuelle jusqu'\u00e0\nce que la sonnette sonne. Suivez-moi, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nEn disant ces mots le vaillant domestique fit un pas ou deux vers la\nporte, tout en \u00f4tant son habit afin de ne point perdre de temps.\n\nMais aussit\u00f4t que la cuisini\u00e8re entendit les derni\u00e8res paroles de ce\nd\u00e9fi mortel, aussit\u00f4t qu'elle vit M. Muzzle se pr\u00e9parer pour le combat\nsingulier, elle poussa un cri d\u00e9chirant, et se pr\u00e9cipita sur M. Trotter,\nqui se leva vainement, \u00e0 l'instant m\u00eame; elle souffleta, elle \u00e9gratigna\nson large visage, et entortillant ses mains dans les cheveux plats du\nnouveau Job, elle en arracha de quoi faire cinq ou six douzaines de\nbagues. Ayant accompli cet exploit avec l'ardeur que lui inspirait son\namour d\u00e9vou\u00e9 pour M. Muzzle, elle chancela et tomba \u00e9vanouie sous la\ntable, car c'\u00e9tait une dame dou\u00e9e de sentiments fort d\u00e9licats et fort\nexcitables.\n\nEn ce moment la sonnette retentit.\n\n\u00abC'est pour vous, Job Trotter,\u00bb dit Sam, et avant que celui-ci p\u00fbt\nr\u00e9sister ou faire des remontrances, avant m\u00eame qu'il e\u00fbt \u00e9tanch\u00e9 le sang\nqui coulait de ses blessures, Sam le prit par un bras, Muzzle par\nl'autre, et le premier le tirant, le second le poussant, ils lui firent\nmonter les escaliers et l'introduisirent dans le parloir.\n\nLa sc\u00e8ne qui s'y passait \u00e9tait remplie d'int\u00e9r\u00eat. Alfred Jingle,\nesquire, autrement le capitaine Fitz-Marshall, \u00e9tait debout pr\u00e8s de la\nporte, son chapeau \u00e0 la main, avec un sourire sur son visage, et une\nphysionomie qui n'\u00e9tait nullement \u00e9mue par sa d\u00e9sagr\u00e9able situation. En\nface de lui se trouvait M. Pickwick, qui, \u00e9videmment, lui avait inculqu\u00e9\nquelque le\u00e7on d'une haute morale, car sa main gauche \u00e9tait cach\u00e9e sous\nles pans de son habit, et sa main droite, \u00e9tendue en l'air, comme\nc'\u00e9tait son habitude quand il pronon\u00e7ait un discours destin\u00e9 \u00e0 faire\nimpression. Un peu en arri\u00e8re on voyait M. Tupman, bouillant\nd'indignation, mais soigneusement retenu par ses deux jeunes amis.\nEnfin, \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de la chambre se tenaient M. Nupkins, Mme Nupkins\net miss Nupkins, tous avec un air hautain et sombre, plein de menaces et\nde vexations.\n\nAu moment o\u00f9 Job fut amen\u00e9, M. Nupkins d\u00e9clamait avec une dignit\u00e9\nmagistrale:\n\n\u00abQui m'emp\u00eache, disait-il, de faire d\u00e9tenir ces individus comme des\nfripons et des imposteurs? Pourquoi c\u00e9der \u00e0 une folle compassion? Qui\nm'en emp\u00eache?\n\n--L'orgueil, vieux camarade, l'orgueil, r\u00e9pliqua Jingle d'un air calme.\nMauvais effet--attrap\u00e9 un capitaine! Ha! ha!--l'excellente charge!--bon\nparti pour notre fille.--A trompeur trompeur et demi!--Rendre cela\npublic?--Pas pour un empire;--on en dirait trop, beaucoup trop.\n\nMis\u00e9rable! s'\u00e9cria Mme Nupkins, nous m\u00e9prisons vos basses insinuations.\n\n--Je l'ai toujours d\u00e9test\u00e9, ajouta Henriette.\n\n--Oh! n\u00e9cessairement.--Grand jeune homme,--vieux adorateur.--Sidney\nPorkenham,--riche, joli gar\u00e7on.--Pas si riche que le capitaine, malgr\u00e9\n\u00e7a..., eh! son cong\u00e9.--On fait tout au monde pour le capitaine,--le\ncapitaine n'a pas son pareil.--Toutes les demoiselles folles de lui, eh!\nJob, eh?\u00bb\n\nIci M. Jingle se mit \u00e0 rire de tout son coeur, et Job, frottant ses mains\navec d\u00e9lices, laissa \u00e9chapper le premier son qu'il se f\u00fbt encore permis,\ndepuis qu'il \u00e9tait entr\u00e9 dans la maison; c'\u00e9tait un ricanement sans\nbruit, retenu, qui semblait indiquer qu'il en jouissait trop pour en\nlaisser \u00e9vaporer aucune partie en vaines d\u00e9monstrations.\n\n\u00abM. Nupkins, dit l'a\u00een\u00e9e des deux dames, voil\u00e0 une conversation que les\ndomestiques n'ont pas besoin d'entendre. Faites \u00e9loigner ces deux\nmis\u00e9rables.\n\n--Certainement, ma ch\u00e8re.--Muzzle.\n\n--Votre V\u00e9n\u00e9ration...\n\n--Ouvrez la porte.\n\n--Oui, Votre V\u00e9n\u00e9ration...\n\n--Quittez cette maison, mis\u00e9rables! s'\u00e9cria M. Nupkins d'une mani\u00e8re\nemphatique.\u00bb\n\nJingle sourit et se dirigea vers la porte.\n\n\u00abArr\u00eatez,\u00bb dit M. Pickwick.\n\nJingle s'arr\u00eata.\n\n\u00abJ'aurais pu, poursuivit M. Pickwick, j'aurais pu me venger davantage du\ntraitement que vous m'avez fait \u00e9prouver, de concert avec votre ami\nl'hypocrite... (Ici Job salua avec la plus grande politesse, en posant\nla main sur son coeur.) Je dis, continua M. Pickwick, en s'\u00e9chauffant\ngraduellement, je dis que j'aurais pu me venger davantage; mais je me\ncontente de vous d\u00e9masquer, car c'est un devoir envers mes semblables.\nJe me flatte, monsieur, que vous n'oublierez pas cette mod\u00e9ration. (En\ncet endroit Job Trotter, avec une fac\u00e9tieuse gravit\u00e9, appliqua sa main \u00e0\nson oreille comme pour ne pas perdre une syllabe de ce que disait M.\nPickwick.) Je n'ai plus qu'une chose \u00e0 ajouter, continua le philosophe,\ntout \u00e0 fait irrit\u00e9: c'est que je vous regarde comme un fripon... et\nun... un coquin... le plus mauvais coquin que j'aie jamais rencontr\u00e9...\nexcept\u00e9 ce pieux vagabond en livr\u00e9e violette!\n\n--Ha! ha! ha! ricana Jingle. Bon gar\u00e7on,--Pickwick; bon coeur!--vieux\ngaillard solide!--mais il ne faut pas \u00eatre si col\u00e8re,--mauvaise\nchose.--Adieu, adieu; vous reverrai quelque jour.--Ne vous chagrinez\npas.--Job, trotte!\u00bb\n\nEn pronon\u00e7ant ces mots, M. Jingle enfon\u00e7a son chapeau \u00e0 sa mode et\ns'\u00e9loigna d'un pas mesur\u00e9. Job s'arr\u00eata, regarda autour de lui, sourit,\npuis, adressant \u00e0 M. Pickwick un salut s\u00e9rieusement moqueur, et \u00e0 Sam un\ncoup d'oeil dont l'audacieuse malice surpasse toute description, il\nsuivit les pas de son estimable ma\u00eetre.\n\n\u00abSam, dit M. Pickwick, en voyant que son domestique prenait le m\u00eame\nchemin.\n\n--Monsieur.\n\n--Restez ici.\u00bb\n\nSam parut incertain.\n\n\u00abRestez ici, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta M. Pickwick.\n\n--Est-ce que je ne pourrais pas rabattre un peu ce Job Trotter dans le\njardin?\n\n--Non certainement.\n\n--Est-ce que je ne peux pas le reconduire \u00e0 coups de pied, monsieur?\n\n--Non, sous aucun pr\u00e9texte.\u00bb\n\nPendant un moment, pour la premi\u00e8re fois depuis son engagement, Sam eut\nl'air m\u00e9content et malheureux. Mais sa contenance s'\u00e9claircit\nimm\u00e9diatement, car le rus\u00e9 Muzzle, qui s'\u00e9tait cach\u00e9 derri\u00e8re la porte,\nen sortit vivement \u00e0 l'instant pr\u00e9cis, et parvint fort habilement \u00e0\nfaire rouler Jingle et son acolyte le long des escaliers, et jusque dans\nles alo\u00e8s am\u00e9ricains, qui les attendaient en bas.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, monsieur, dit M. Pickwick \u00e0 M. Nupkins, maintenant,\nmonsieur, ayant accompli notre dessein, mes amis et moi, nous allons\nvous faire nos adieux, et tout en vous remerciant pour l'hospitalit\u00e9 que\nnous avons re\u00e7ue, permettez-moi de vous assurer, en leur nom comme au\nmien, que nous ne l'aurions pas accept\u00e9e, et que nous n'aurions pas\nconsenti \u00e0 sortir ainsi de la situation o\u00f9 nous nous trouvions, si nous\nn'y avions pas \u00e9t\u00e9 incit\u00e9s par un vif sentiment de devoir. Nous\nretournons \u00e0 Londres demain matin: votre secret est en s\u00fbret\u00e9 avec\nnous.\u00bb\n\nAyant ainsi protest\u00e9 contre ce qui s'\u00e9tait pass\u00e9 dans la matin\u00e9e, M.\nPickwick fit un profond salut aux dames, et malgr\u00e9 les sollicitations de\nla famille, quitta la chambre avec ses amis.\n\n\u00abPrenez votre chapeau, Sam, dit-il \u00e0 son domestique.\n\n--Il est en bas, monsieur,\u00bb r\u00e9pliqua Sam, et il courut le qu\u00e9rir dans la\ncuisine.\n\nLe chapeau \u00e9tant \u00e9gar\u00e9, Sam fut oblig\u00e9 de le chercher et Mary, qui se\ntrouvait l\u00e0 toute seule, l'\u00e9claira. Apr\u00e8s avoir regard\u00e9 de tous les\nc\u00f4t\u00e9s, la jolie bonne, dans son anxi\u00e9t\u00e9 pour trouver le chapeau perdu,\nse mit sur ses genoux et retourna tous les objets entass\u00e9s dans un petit\ncoin derri\u00e8re la porte. C'\u00e9tait un petit coin fort incommode. On ne\npouvait y arriver sans commencer par fermer la porte.\n\n\u00abLe voil\u00e0, dit enfin la jolie bonne, n'est-ce pas cela?\n\n--Voyons,\u00bb fit Sam.\n\nMary avait pos\u00e9 la chandelle sur le plancher, et, comme elle \u00e9clairait\nfort peu, Sam fut oblig\u00e9 de se mettre aussi \u00e0 genoux pour voir si\nc'\u00e9tait r\u00e9ellement son chapeau. Le recoin \u00e9tait remarquablement petit,\net ainsi, sans qu'il y e\u00fbt de la faute de personne, except\u00e9 de\nl'architecte qui avait b\u00e2ti la maison Sam et la jolie bonne se\ntrouvaient n\u00e9cessairement fort pr\u00e8s l'un de l'autre.\n\n\u00abC'est bien lui, dit Sam, adieu.\n\n--Adieu, r\u00e9pondit la jolie bonne.\n\n--Adieu, r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Sam, et en disant cela il laissa tomber le chapeau qu'il\navait eu tant de peine \u00e0 trouver.\n\n--Comme vous \u00eates maladroit! dit Mary. Vous le perdrez encore si vous\nn'y prenez pas garde.\u00bb Et pour qu'il ne se perdit plus, elle le lui mit\nsur la t\u00eate.\n\nLe visage de la jolie bonne paraissait plus joli encore, \u00e9tant ainsi\nlev\u00e9 vers Sam: or, soit \u00e0 cause de cela, soit par une simple cons\u00e9quence\nde leur juxtaposition, il arriva que Sam l'embrassa.\n\n\u00abJ'esp\u00e8re que vous ne l'avez pas fait expr\u00e8s! s'\u00e9cria-t-elle en\nrougissant.\n\n--Non, ma ch\u00e8re, mais je vais la faire expr\u00e8s \u00e0 pr\u00e9sent;\u00bb et il\nl'embrassa une seconde fois.\n\n\u00abSam! cria M. Pickwick par-dessus la rampe.\n\n--Voil\u00e0, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Sam, en montant les marches quatre \u00e0 quatre.\n\n--Vous avez \u00e9t\u00e9 bien longtemps.\n\n--Il y avait quelque chose derri\u00e8re la porte, qui nous a emp\u00each\u00e9s de\nl'ouvrir pendant tout se temps-l\u00e0, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nTel fut le premier chapitre des amours de Sam.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXVI.\n\nContenant un r\u00e9cit abr\u00e9g\u00e9 des progr\u00e8s de l'action _Bardell contre\nPickwick_.\n\n\nAyant accompli le principal objet de son voyage en d\u00e9masquant l'infamie\nde Jingle, M. Pickwick r\u00e9solut de retourner imm\u00e9diatement \u00e0 Londres,\nafin de savoir quelles mesures Dodson et Fogg avaient prises contre lui.\nEx\u00e9cutant cette r\u00e9solution avec toute l'\u00e9nergie de son caract\u00e8re, il\nmonta \u00e0 l'ext\u00e9rieur de la premi\u00e8re voiture qui quitta Ipswich, le\nlendemain du jour o\u00f9 se pass\u00e8rent les m\u00e9morables \u00e9v\u00e9nements que nous\nvenons de rapporter, et arriva dans la m\u00e9tropole le m\u00eame soir, en\nparfaite sant\u00e9, accompagn\u00e9 de ses trois disciples et de Sam.\n\nL\u00e0, nos amis se s\u00e9par\u00e8rent pour quelque temps. MM. Tupman, Winkle et\nSnodgrass se rendirent \u00e0 leurs domiciles, afin de faire les pr\u00e9paratifs\nn\u00e9cessaires pour leur voyage prochain \u00e0 Dingley-Dell: M. Pickwick et Sam\ns'\u00e9tablirent dans un h\u00f4tel fort bon quoique fort antique, le _George et\nVautour_, George Yard, Lombard-street.\n\nM. Pickwick avait d\u00een\u00e9 et fini sa seconde pinte d'excellent porto; il\navait enfonc\u00e9 son mouchoir de soie sur sa t\u00eate, et pos\u00e9 ses pieds sur le\ngarde-feu; enfin il s'\u00e9tait renvers\u00e9 dans sa berg\u00e8re, lorsque l'entr\u00e9e\nde Sam avec son sac de nuit le tira de sa tranquille m\u00e9ditation.\n\n\u00abSam, dit-il.\n\n--Monsieur?\n\n--Je pensais justement que j'ai laiss\u00e9 beaucoup de choses chez mistress\nBardell, rue Goswell, et qu'il faudra que je les fasse prendre avant de\nrepartir.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur.\n\n--Je pourrais les envoyer pour le moment chez M. Tupman. Mais avant de\nles faire enlever, il faudrait les mettre en ordre. Je d\u00e9sirerais que\nvous allassiez jusqu'\u00e0 la rue Goswell et que vous arrangeassiez tout\ncela, Sam.\n\n--Tout de suite, monsieur?\n\n--Tout de suite. Et... attendez, Sam, ajouta M. Pickwick en tirant sa\nbourse. Il faut payer le loyer. Le terme n'est d\u00fb qu'\u00e0 No\u00ebl, mais vous\nle payerez pour que tout soit fini. Je puis donner cong\u00e9 en pr\u00e9venant un\nmois d'avance. Voici le cong\u00e9. Donnez-le \u00e0 Mme Bardell. Elle mettra\n\u00e9criteau quand elle voudra.\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, monsieur. Rien de plus?\n\n--Rien de plus, Sam.\u00bb\n\nSam se dirigea \u00e0 petits pas vers l'escalier, comme s'il e\u00fbt attendu\nencore quelque chose. Il ouvrit lentement la porte, et \u00e9tant sorti\nlentement, l'avait doucement referm\u00e9e, \u00e0 deux pouces pr\u00e8s, lorsque M.\nPickwick cria:\n\n\u00abSam!\n\n--Oui, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit Sam, en revenant vivement et fermant la porte\napr\u00e8s soi.\n\n--Je ne m'oppose pas \u00e0 ce que vous t\u00e2chiez de savoir comment Mme Bardell\nsemble personnellement dispos\u00e9e envers moi, et s'il est r\u00e9ellement\nprobable que ce proc\u00e8s inf\u00e2me et sans base soit pouss\u00e9 \u00e0 toute\nextr\u00e9mit\u00e9. Je dis que je ne m'oppose pas \u00e0 ce que vous essayiez de\nd\u00e9couvrir cela, si vous le d\u00e9sirez, Sam.\u00bb\n\nSam fit un l\u00e9ger signe d'intelligence et quitta la chambre. M. Pickwick\nenfon\u00e7a de nouveau le mouchoir de soie sur sa t\u00eate et s'arrangea pour\nfaire un somme.\n\nIl \u00e9tait pr\u00e8s de neuf heures lorsque Sam atteignit la rue Goswell. Une\npaire de chandelles br\u00fblaient dans le parloir, et l'ombre d'une couple\nde chapeaux se distinguait sur la jalousie. Mistress Bardell avait du\nmonde.\n\nSam frappa \u00e0 la porte. Apr\u00e8s un assez long intervalle, pendant lequel\nmistress Bardell t\u00e2chait de persuader une chandelle r\u00e9fractaire de se\nlaisser allumer, de petites bottes se firent entendre sur le tapis et\nmaster Bardell se pr\u00e9senta.\n\n\u00abEh bien! jeune homme, dit Sam, comment va c'te m\u00e8re?\n\n--Elle ne va pas mal, ni moi non plus.\n\n--Eh bien! j'en suis charm\u00e9. Dites-lui que j'ai \u00e0 lui parler, mon jeune\nph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne.\u00bb\n\nMaster Bardell, ainsi conjur\u00e9, posa la chandelle r\u00e9fractaire sur la\npremi\u00e8re marche de l'escalier, et disparut, avec son message, derri\u00e8re\nla porte du parloir.\n\nLes deux chapeaux dessin\u00e9s sur les carreaux \u00e9taient ceux des deux amies\nles plus intimes de mistress Bardell. Elles venaient d'arriver pour\nprendre une paisible tasse de th\u00e9 et un petit souper chaud de pommes de\nterre et de fromage r\u00f4ti; et tandis que le fromage bruissait et friait\ndevant le feu, tandis que les pommes de terre cuisaient d\u00e9licieusement\ndans un po\u00ealon, mistress Bardell et ses deux amies se r\u00e9galaient d'une\npetite conversation critique concernant toutes leurs connaissances\nr\u00e9ciproques. Master Bardell interrompit cette int\u00e9ressante revue en\nrapportant le message qui lui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 confi\u00e9 par Sam.\n\n\u00abLe domestique de M. Pickwick! s'\u00e9cria mistress Bardell en p\u00e2lissant.\n\n--Bont\u00e9 divine! fit mistress Cluppins.\n\n--Eh bien! r\u00e9ellement je n'aurais pas cru \u00e7a, si je n'y avais pas\nt'\u00e9t\u00e9,\u00bb d\u00e9clara mistress Sanders.\n\nMistress Cluppins \u00e9tait une petite femme vive et affair\u00e9e; mistress\nSanders une personne grosse, grasse et pesante. Toutes les deux\nformaient la compagnie.\n\nMistress Bardell trouva convenable d'\u00eatre agit\u00e9e, et comme aucune des\ntrois amies ne savait s'il \u00e9tait bon d'avoir des communications avec le\ndomestique de M. Pickwick, autrement que par la minist\u00e8re de Dodson et\nFogg, elles se trouvaient prises au d\u00e9pourvu. Dans cet \u00e9tat\nd'ind\u00e9cision, la premi\u00e8re chose \u00e0 faire \u00e9tait \u00e9videmment de taper le\npetit gar\u00e7on pour avoir trouv\u00e9 M. Weller \u00e0 la porte. La tendre m\u00e8re n'y\nmanqua pas, et il se mit \u00e0 crier fort m\u00e9lodieusement.\n\n\u00abNe m'\u00e9tourdissez pas les oreilles, m\u00e9chante cr\u00e9ature! lui dit mistress\nBardell.\n\n--Ne tourmentez pas votre pauvre ch\u00e8re m\u00e8re! cria mistress Cluppins.\n\n--Elle en a assez des tourments, ajouta mistress Sanders avec une\nr\u00e9signation sympathisante.\n\n--Ah! oui, l'est-elle malheureuse! pauvre agneau!\u00bb reprit mistress\nCluppins.\n\nPendant ces r\u00e9flexions morales, master Bardell hurlait de plus en plus\nfort.\n\n\u00abQu'allons-nous faire maintenant? demanda mistress Bardell \u00e0 mistress\nCluppins.\n\n--Je pense que vous devriez le voir, devant un t\u00e9moin, s'entend.\n\n--Deux t\u00e9moins, serait plus l\u00e9gal, fit observer mistress Sanders, qui,\nainsi que son amie, crevait de curiosit\u00e9.\n\n--Peut-\u00eatre qu'il vaudrait mieux le faire venir ici,\u00bb reprit mistress\nBardell.\n\nMistress Cluppins adopta avidement cette id\u00e9e. \u00abBien s\u00fbr!\ns'\u00e9cria-t-elle. Entrez, jeune homme, et fermez d'abord la porte, s'il\nvous pla\u00eet.\u00bb\n\nSam saisit l'occasion aux cheveux, et se pr\u00e9sentant dans le parloir,\nexposa, ainsi qu'il suit, sa commission \u00e0 mistress Bardell:\n\n\u00abTr\u00e8s-f\u00e2ch\u00e9 de vous d\u00e9ranger, madame, comme disait le chauffeur \u00e0 la\nvieille dame en la mettant sur le gril; mais comme je viens justement\nd'arriver avec mon gouverneur et que nous nous en allons incessamment,\nil n'y a pas moyen d'emp\u00eacher \u00e7a, comme vous voyez.\n\n--Effectivement le jeune homme ne peut pas emp\u00eacher les fautes de son\nma\u00eetre, fit observer mistress Cluppins, sur laquelle l'apparence et la\nconversation de Sam avaient fait beaucoup d'impression.\n\n--Non certainement, r\u00e9pondit mistress Sanders, en jetant un regard\nattendri sur le petit po\u00ealon, et en calculant mentalement la\ndistribution probable des pommes de terre, au cas o\u00f9 Sam serait invit\u00e9 \u00e0\nsouper.\n\n--Ainsi donc, poursuivit l'ambassadeur, sans remarquer l'interruption,\nvoil\u00e0 pourquoi je suis venu ici: primo, d'abord, pour vous donner cong\u00e9:\nle voil\u00e0 ici; secondo, pour payer le loyer: le voil\u00e0 ici; troiso, pour\ndire que vous mettiez toutes nos histoires en ordre, pour donner \u00e0 la\npersonne que nous enverrons pour les prendre; quatro, que vous pouvez\nmettre l'\u00e9criteau aussit\u00f4t que vous voudrez. Et voil\u00e0 tout.\n\n--Malgr\u00e9 ce qui est arriv\u00e9, soupira mistress Bardell, je dirai toujours\net j'ai toujours dit que, sous tous les rapports, except\u00e9 un, M.\nPickwick s'est toujours conduit comme un gentleman parfait; son argent\n\u00e9tait toujours aussi solide que la banque, toujours.\u00bb\n\nEn disant ceci, mistress Bardell appliqua son mouchoir \u00e0 ses yeux... et\nsortit de la chambre pour faire la quittance.\n\nSam savait bien qu'il n'avait qu'\u00e0 rester tranquille et que les deux\ninvit\u00e9es ne manqueraient point de parler; aussi se contenta-t-il de\nregarder alternativement le po\u00ealon, le fromage, le mur et le plancher,\nen gardant le plus profond silence.\n\n\u00abPauvre ch\u00e8re femme! s'\u00e9cria mistress Cluppins.\n\n--Pauvre criature!\u00bb r\u00e9torqua mistress Sanders.\n\nSam ne dit rien; il vit qu'elles arrivaient au sujet.\n\n\u00abRiellement je ne puis pas me contenir, dit mistress Cluppins, quand je\npense \u00e0 une trahison comme \u00e7a. Je ne veux rien dire pour vous vexer,\njeune homme, mais votre ma\u00eetre est une vieille brute, et je d\u00e9sire que\nje l'eusse ici pour lui dire \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame.\n\n--Je d\u00e9sire que vous l'eussiez, r\u00e9pondit Sam.\n\n--C'est terrible de voir comme elle d\u00e9p\u00e9rit et qu'elle ne prend plaisir\n\u00e0 rien, except\u00e9 quand ses amies viennent, par pure charit\u00e9, pour causer\navec elle et la rendre confortable, reprit mistress Cluppins en jetant\nun coup d'oeil au po\u00ealon et au fromage. C'est choquant.\n\n--Barbaresque! ajouta mistress Sanders.\n\n--Et votre ma\u00eetre, qu'est un homme d'argent, qui ne s'apercevrait tant\nseulement pas de la d\u00e9pense d'une femme. Il n'a pas l'ombre d'une\nexcuse. Pourquoi ne l'\u00e9pouse-t-il pas?\n\n--Ah! dit Sam. Bien s\u00fbr, voil\u00e0 la question.\n\n--Certainement, qu'elle lui demanderait la question, si elle avait\nautant de courage que moi, poursuivit mistress Cluppins avec grande\nvolubilit\u00e9. Quoi qu'il en soit, il y a une loi pour nous autres femmes,\nmalgr\u00e9 que les hommes voudraient nous rendre comme des esclaves. Et\nvotre ma\u00eetre saura \u00e7a \u00e0 ses d\u00e9pens, jeune homme, avant qu'il soit plus\nvieux de six mois.\u00bb\n\nA cette consolante r\u00e9flexion, mistress Cluppins se redressa, et sourit \u00e0\nmistress Sanders, qui lui renvoya son sourire.\n\n\u00abL'affaire marche toujours,\u00bb pensa Sam, tandis que mistress Bardell\nrentrait avec le re\u00e7u.\n\n--Voil\u00e0 le re\u00e7u, monsieur Weller, dit l'aimable veuve, et voil\u00e0 votre\nreste. J'esp\u00e8re que vous prendrez quelque chose pour vous tenir\nl'estomac chaud, quand \u00e7a ne serait qu'\u00e0 cause de la vieille\nconnaissance....\u00bb\n\nSam vit l'avantage qu'il pouvait gagner, et accepta sur-le-champ.\nAussit\u00f4t mistress Bardell tira d'une petite armoire une bouteille avec\nun verre; et sa profonde affliction la pr\u00e9occupait tellement qu'apr\u00e8s\navoir rempli le verre de Sam, elle aveignit encore trois autres verres\net les remplit \u00e9galement.\n\n\u00abAh \u00e7a! mistress Bardell, s'\u00e9cria mistress Cluppins, voyez ce que vous\navez fait!\n\n--Eh bien! en voil\u00e0 une bonne! \u00e9jacula mistress Sanders.\n\n--Ah! ma pauvre t\u00eate?\u00bb fit mistress Bardell, avec un faible sourire.\n\nSam, comme on s'en doute bien, comprit tout cela. Aussi s'empressa-t-il\nde dire qu'il ne buvait jamais, avant souper, \u00e0 moins qu'une dame ne b\u00fbt\navec lui. Il s'ensuivit beaucoup d'\u00e9clats de rire, et enfin mistress\nSanders s'engagea \u00e0 le satisfaire et but une petite goutte. Alors Sam\nd\u00e9clara qu'il fallait faire la ronde, et toutes ces dames burent une\npetite goutte. Ensuite la vive mistress Cluppins proposa pour toast:\n_Bonne chance \u00e0 Bardell contre Pickwick_; et les dames vid\u00e8rent leurs\nverres en honneur de ce voeu: apr\u00e8s quoi elles devinrent tr\u00e8s-parlantes.\n\n\u00abJe suppose, dit mistress Bardell, je suppose que vous avez appris ce\nqui se passe, monsieur Weller?\n\n--Un petit brin, r\u00e9pondit Sam.\n\n--C'est une terrible chose, monsieur Weller, que d'\u00eatre tra\u00een\u00e9e comme\ncela devant le public; mais je vois maintenant que c'est la seule\nressource qui me reste, et mon avou\u00e9, M. Dodson et Fogg, me dit que nous\ndevons r\u00e9ussir, avec les t\u00e9moins que nous appellerons. Si je ne\nr\u00e9ussissais pas, je ne sais pas ce que je ferais!\u00bb\n\nLa seule id\u00e9e de voir mistress Bardell perdre son proc\u00e8s affecta si\nprofond\u00e9ment mistress Sanders qu'elle fut oblig\u00e9e de remplir et de vider\nson verre imm\u00e9diatement, sentant, comme elle le dit ensuite, que si elle\nn'avait pas eu la pr\u00e9sence d'esprit d'agir ainsi, elle se serait\ninfailliblement trouv\u00e9e mal.\n\n\u00abQuand pensez-vous que \u00e7a viendra? demanda Sam.\n\n--Au mois de f\u00e9vrier ou de mai, r\u00e9pliqua mistress Bardell.\n\n--Quelle quantit\u00e9 de t\u00e9moins il y aura! dit mistress Cluppins.\n\n--Ah! oui! fit mistress Sanders.\n\n--Et si la plaignante ne gagne pas, MM. Dodson et Fogg seront-ils\nfurieux, eux qui font tout cela par sp\u00e9culation, \u00e0 leurs risques!\ncontinua mistress Cluppins.\n\n--Ah! oui.\n\n--Mais la plaignante doit gagner, ajouta mistress Cluppins.\n\n--Je l'esp\u00e8re, dit mistress Bardell.\n\n--Il n'y a pas le moindre doute, r\u00e9pliqua mistress Sanders.\n\n--Eh bien! dit Sam en se levant et en posant son verre sur la table,\ntout ce que je peux dire c'est que je vous le souhaite.\n\n--Merci, monsieur Weller! s'\u00e9cria mistress Bardell avec ferveur.\n\n--Et tant qu'\u00e0 ce Dodson et Fogg, qui fait ces sortes de choses par\nsp\u00e9culation, poursuivit Sam, et tant qu'aux bons et g\u00e9n\u00e9reux individus\nde la m\u00eame profession qui mettent les gens par les oreilles gratis, pour\nrien, et qui occupent leurs clercs \u00e0 trouver des petites disputes chez\nleurs voisins et connaissances pour les accorder avec des proc\u00e8s, tout\nce que je peux dire d'eux, c'est que je leur souhaite la r\u00e9compense que\nje leur donnerais.\n\n--Ah! s'\u00e9cria mistress Bardell, attendrie, je leur souhaite la\nr\u00e9compense que tous les coeurs g\u00e9n\u00e9reux et compatissants seraient\ndispos\u00e9s \u00e0 leur accorder.\n\n--Amen! r\u00e9pondit Sam. Et ils gagneraient joliment de quoi mener joyeuse\nvie et s'engraisser, s'ils avaient ce que je leur souhaite!--Je vous\noffre le bonsoir, mesdames.\u00bb\n\nAu grand soulagement de mistress Sanders, leur h\u00f4tesse permit \u00e0 Sam de\npartir, sans faire aucune allusion aux pommes de terre ni au fromage\nr\u00f4ti, et peu apr\u00e8s, avec l'assistance juv\u00e9nile qu'on pouvait attendre de\nmaster Bardell, les trois dames rendirent la plus ample justice \u00e0 ces\nmets d\u00e9licieux, qui s'\u00e9vanouirent compl\u00e9tement sous leurs courageux\nefforts.\n\nSam, arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 l'auberge le _George et Vautour_, rapporta fid\u00e8lement \u00e0\nson ma\u00eetre les indices qu'il avait recueillis des manoeuvres de Dodson et\nFogg; et son r\u00e9cit fut compl\u00e9tement confirm\u00e9 le lendemain par M. Perker,\navec qui notre philosophe eut une entrevue. Il fut donc oblig\u00e9 de se\npr\u00e9parer pour sa visite de No\u00ebl \u00e0 Dingley-Dell, avec l'agr\u00e9able\nperspective d'\u00eatre actionn\u00e9 publiquement, deux ou trois mois plus tard,\npar la cour des _Common Pleas_, pour violation d'une promesse de\nmariage; la plaignante ayant tout l'avantage inh\u00e9rent \u00e0 ce genre\nd'action, et r\u00e9sultant de l'excessive habilet\u00e9 de Dodson et Fogg.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXVII.\n\nSamuel Weller fait un p\u00e8lerinage \u00e0 Dorking, et voit sa belle-m\u00e8re.\n\n\nComme il restait un intervalle de deux jours avant l'\u00e9poque fix\u00e9e pour\nle d\u00e9part des Pickwickiens pour Dingley-Dell, Sam, apr\u00e8s avoir d\u00een\u00e9 de\nbonne heure, s'assit dans l'arri\u00e8re-salle de l'auberge le _George et\nVautour_, pour r\u00e9fl\u00e9chir au meilleur emploi possible de cet espace de\ntemps. Il faisait un temps superbe, et Samuel n'avait pas rumin\u00e9 pendant\ndix minutes, lorsqu'il sentit tout \u00e0 coup na\u00eetre en lui un sentiment\nfilial et affectueux. Le besoin d'aller voir son p\u00e8re et de rendre ses\ndevoirs \u00e0 sa belle-m\u00e8re se pr\u00e9senta alors si fortement \u00e0 son esprit,\nqu'il fut frapp\u00e9 d'\u00e9tonnement de n'avoir pas song\u00e9 plus t\u00f4t \u00e0 cette\nobligation morale. Impatient de r\u00e9parer ses torts pass\u00e9s, dans le plus\nbref d\u00e9lai possible, il gravit les marches de l'escalier, se pr\u00e9senta\ndirectement devant M. Pickwick, et lui demanda un cong\u00e9 afin d'ex\u00e9cuter\nce louable dessein.\n\n\u00abCertainement, Sam, certainement,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit le philosophe, dont les yeux\nse remplirent de larmes de joie \u00e0 cette manifestation des bons\nsentiments de son domestique.\n\nSam fit une inclination de t\u00eate reconnaissante.\n\n\u00abJe suis charm\u00e9 de voir que vous comprenez si bien vos devoirs de fils.\n\n--Je les ai toujours compris, monsieur.\n\n--C'est une r\u00e9flexion fort consolante, dit M. Pickwick d'un air\napprobateur.\n\n--Tout \u00e0 fait, monsieur. Quand je voulais quelque chose de mon p\u00e8re, je\nle lui demandais d'une mani\u00e8re tr\u00e8s-respectueuse et obligeante; s'il ne\nme le donnait pas, je le prenais, dans la crainte d'\u00eatre enduit \u00e0 mal\nfaire, si je n'avais pas ce que je voulais. Je lui ai \u00e9vit\u00e9 comme \u00e7a une\nfoule d'embarras, monsieur.\n\n--Ce n'est pas pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment ce que j'entendais, Sam, dit M. Pickwick en\nsecouant la t\u00eate avec un l\u00e9ger sourire.\n\n--J'ai agi dans un bon sentiment, monsieur, avec les meilleures\nintentions du monde, comme disait le gentleman qui avait plant\u00e9 l\u00e0 sa\nfemme, parce qu'elle \u00e9tait malheureuse avec lui....\n\n--Vous pouvez aller, Sam.\n\n--Merci, monsieur.\u00bb Et ayant fait son plus beau salut et rev\u00eatu ses plus\nbeaux habits, Sam se percha sur l'imp\u00e9riale de l'Hirondelle et se rendit\n\u00e0 Dorking.\n\n_Le marquis de Granby_, du temps de Mme Weller, pouvait servir de mod\u00e8le\naux meilleures auberges; assez grande pour qu'on y e\u00fbt ses coud\u00e9es\nfranches, assez petite et assez commode pour qu'on s'y cr\u00fbt chez soi. Du\nc\u00f4t\u00e9 oppos\u00e9 de la route, un poteau \u00e9lev\u00e9 supportait une vaste enseigne,\no\u00f9 l'on voyait repr\u00e9sent\u00e9es la t\u00eate et les \u00e9paules d'un gentleman dou\u00e9\nd'un teint apoplectique. Son habit rouge avait des revers bleus, et\nquelques taches de cette derni\u00e8re couleur \u00e9taient plac\u00e9es au-dessus de\nson tricorne pour figurer le ciel. Plus haut encore, il y avait une\npaire de drapeaux, et au-dessous du dernier bouton de l'habit rouge du\ngentleman, une couple de canons. Le tout offrait incontestablement un\nportrait frappant du marquis de Granby, de glorieuse m\u00e9moire. Les\nfen\u00eatres du comptoir laissaient voir une collection de g\u00e9raniums et une\nrang\u00e9e bien \u00e9pousset\u00e9e de bouteilles de liqueur. Les volets verts\n\u00e9talaient en lettres d'or force pan\u00e9gyriques des bons lits et des bons\nvins de la maison; enfin le groupe choisi de paysans et de valets qui\nfl\u00e2naient autour des \u00e9curies, autour des auges, disait beaucoup en\nfaveur de la bonne qualit\u00e9 de la bi\u00e8re et de l'eau-devie qui se\nvendaient \u00e0 l'int\u00e9rieur. En descendant de voiture, Sam s'arr\u00eata pour\nnoter, avec l'oeil d'un voyageur exp\u00e9riment\u00e9, toutes ces petites\nindications d'un commerce prosp\u00e8re, et, quand il entra, il \u00e9tait\ngrandement satisfait du r\u00e9sultat de ses observations.\n\n\u00abEh bien? dit une voix aigrelette lorsque la t\u00eate de Sam se montra \u00e0 la\nporte du comptoir. Qu'est-ce que vous voulez, jeune homme?\u00bb\n\nSam regarda dans la direction de la voix. Elle provenait d'une dame\nd'une encolure assez puissante, confortablement assise aupr\u00e8s de la\nchemin\u00e9e, et qui s'occupait \u00e0 souffler le feu, afin de faire chauffer\nl'eau pour le th\u00e9. La dame n'\u00e9tait pas seule, car de l'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la\nchemin\u00e9e, tout droit dans un antique fauteuil, \u00e9tait assis un homme dont\nle dos \u00e9tait presque aussi long et presque aussi roide que celui du\nfauteuil lui-m\u00eame.\n\nCet individu, qui attira sur-le-champ l'attention sp\u00e9ciale de Sam,\nparaissait long et fluet. Son visage \u00e9tait couperos\u00e9, son nez rouge; ses\nyeux m\u00e9chants et bien \u00e9veill\u00e9s tenaient beaucoup de ceux d'un serpent \u00e0\nsonnettes. Il portait un habit noir r\u00e2p\u00e9, un pantalon tr\u00e8s-court et des\nbas de coton noir qui, comme le reste de son costume, avaient une teinte\nrouill\u00e9e. Son air \u00e9tait empes\u00e9, mais sa cravate blanche ne l'\u00e9tait pas,\net pendait toute chiffonn\u00e9e et d'une mani\u00e8re fort peu pittoresque sur\nson gilet boutonn\u00e9 jusqu'au menton. Sur une chaise, \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui,\n\u00e9taient plac\u00e9s une paire de gants de castor, vieux et us\u00e9s; un chapeau \u00e0\nlarges lords; un parapluie fort pass\u00e9, qui laissait voir une quantit\u00e9 de\nbaleines, comme pour contre-balancer l'absence d'une poign\u00e9e: enfin,\ntous ces objets \u00e9taient arrang\u00e9s avec un soin et une sym\u00e9trie qui\nsemblaient indiquer que l'homme au nez rouge, quel qu'il f\u00fbt, n'avait\npas l'intention de s'en aller de sit\u00f4t.\n\nPour lui rendre justice, il faut convenir que s'il avait eu cette\nintention, il e\u00fbt fait preuve de bien peu d'intelligence; car, \u00e0 en\njuger par les apparences, il aurait fallu qu'il poss\u00e9d\u00e2t un cercle de\nconnaissances bien d\u00e9sirable, pour pouvoir raisonnablement esp\u00e9rer\ns'installer ailleurs plus confortablement. Le feu flambait joyeusement\nsous l'influence du soufflet, et la bouilloire chantait gaiement sous\nl'influence de l'un et de l'autre; sur la table \u00e9tait dispos\u00e9 tout\nl'appareil du th\u00e9: un plat de r\u00f4ties beurr\u00e9es chauffait doucement devant\nle foyer, et l'homme au nez rouge, arm\u00e9 d'une longue fourchette,\ns'occupait activement \u00e0 transformer de larges tranches de pain en cet\nagr\u00e9able comestible. Aupr\u00e8s de lui \u00e9tait un verre d'eau et de rhum\nbr\u00fblant, dans lequel nageait une tranche de limon; et chaque fois qu'il\nse baissait pour amener les tartines de pain aupr\u00e8s de son oeil, afin de\njuger comment elles r\u00f4tissaient, il sirotait une goutte ou deux de grog,\net souriait en regardant la dame \u00e0 la puissante encolure, qui soufflait\nle feu.\n\nLa contemplation de cette sc\u00e8ne confortable avait tellement absorb\u00e9 les\nfacult\u00e9s pensantes de Sam, qu'il laissa passer sans y faire attention\nles premi\u00e8res interrogations de l'h\u00f4tesse, qui fut oblig\u00e9e de les\nr\u00e9p\u00e9ter trois fois, sur un ton de plus en plus aigre, avant qu'il\ns'aper\u00e7\u00fbt de l'inconvenance de sa conduite.\n\n\u00abLe gouverneur y est-il? demanda-t-il enfin.\n\n--Non, il n'y est pas, r\u00e9pondit Mme Weller, car la dame n'\u00e9tait autre\nque la ci-devant veuve et la seule et unique ex\u00e9cutrice testamentaire de\nfeu M. Clarke. Non, il n'y est pas, et qui plus est je ne l'attends pas.\n\n--Je suppose qu'il conduit aujourd'hui? reprit Sam.\n\n--Peut-\u00eatre que oui, peut-\u00eatre que non, r\u00e9pliqua Mme Weller en beurrant\nla tartine que l'homme au nez rouge venait de faire r\u00f4tir. Je n'en sais\nrien, et de plus je ne m'en soucie gu\u00e8re.--Dites un _Benedicite_,\nmonsieur Stiggins.\u00bb\n\nL'homme au nez rouge fit ce qui lui \u00e9tait demand\u00e9, et attaqua aussit\u00f4t\nune r\u00f4tie avec une voracit\u00e9 sauvage.\n\nSon apparence, d\u00e8s le premier coup d'oeil, avait induit Sam \u00e0 suspecter\nqu'il voyait en lui le substitut du berger dont lui avait parl\u00e9 son\nestimable p\u00e8re. Aussit\u00f4t qu'il le vit manger, tous ses doutes \u00e0 ce sujet\ns'\u00e9vanouirent, et il reconnut en m\u00eame temps que s'il avait envie de\ns'installer provisoirement dans la maison, il fallait qu'il se m\u00eet sans\nd\u00e9lai sur un bon pied. Commen\u00e7ant donc ses op\u00e9rations, il passa son bras\npar-dessus la demi-porte du comptoir, l'ouvrit, entra d'un pas d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9,\net dit tranquillement:\n\n\u00abMa belle-m\u00e8re, comment vous va?\n\n--Eh bien! je crois que c'est un Weller! s'\u00e9cria la grosse dame en\nregardant Sam d'un air fort peu satisfait.\n\n--Un peu, que c'en est un! r\u00e9torqua l'imperturbable Sam, et j'esp\u00e8re que\nce r\u00e9v\u00e9rend gentleman m'excusera si je dis que je voudrais bien \u00eatre le\nWeller qui vous poss\u00e8de, belle-m\u00e8re.\u00bb\n\nC'\u00e9tait l\u00e0 un compliment \u00e0 deux tranchants. Il insinuait que Mme Weller\n\u00e9tait une femme fort agr\u00e9able, et en m\u00eame temps que M. Stiggins avait\nune apparence eccl\u00e9siastique. Effectivement, il produisit sur-le-champ\nun effet visible, et Sam poursuivit son avantage en embrassant sa\nbelle-m\u00e8re.\n\n\u00abVoulez-vous bien finir! s'\u00e9cria Mme Weller en le repoussant.\n\n--Fi! jeune homme, fi! dit le gentleman au nez rouge.\n\n--Sans offense, monsieur, sans offense, r\u00e9pliqua Sam. Mais malgr\u00e9 \u00e7a\nvous avez raison. Ces sortes de choses-l\u00e0 sont d\u00e9fendues quand la\nbelle-m\u00e8re est jeune et jolie, n'est-ce pas, monsieur?\n\n--Tout \u00e7a n'est que vanit\u00e9, observa M. Stiggins.\n\n--Oh! c'est bien vrai,\u00bb dit mistress Weller en rajustant son bonnet.\n\nSam pensa la m\u00eame chose, mais il retint sa langue.\n\nLe substitut du berger ne paraissait nullement satisfait de l'arriv\u00e9e de\nSam, et quand la premi\u00e8re effervescence des compliments fut pass\u00e9e, Mme\nWeller elle-m\u00eame prit un air qui semblait dire qu'elle se serait\ntr\u00e8s-volontiers pass\u00e9e de sa visite. Quoi qu'il en soit, Sam \u00e9tait l\u00e0,\net comme on ne pouvait d\u00e9cemment le mettre dehors, on l'invita \u00e0\ns'asseoir et \u00e0 prendre le th\u00e9.\n\n\u00abComment va le p\u00e8re?\u00bb demanda-t-il au bout de quelques instants.\n\nA cette question, Mme Weller leva les mains et tourna les yeux vers le\nplafond, comme si c'\u00e9tait un sujet trop p\u00e9nible pour qu'on os\u00e2t en\nparler.\n\nM. Stiggins fit entendre un g\u00e9missement.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il a donc, ce monsieur? demanda Sam.\n\n--Il est choqu\u00e9 de la mani\u00e8re dont votre p\u00e8re se conduit.\n\n--Comment! C'est \u00e0 ce point l\u00e0?\n\n--Et avec trop de raison,\u00bb r\u00e9pondit Mme Weller gravement.\n\nM. Stiggins prit une nouvelle r\u00f4tie et soupira bruyamment.\n\n\u00abC'est un terrible r\u00e9prouv\u00e9, poursuivit Mme Weller.\n\n--Un vase de perdition!\u00bb s'\u00e9cria M. Stiggins, et il fit dans sa r\u00f4tie un\nlarge segment de cercle et poussa un g\u00e9missement sourd.\n\nSam se sentit violemment enclin \u00e0 donner au r\u00e9v\u00e9rend personnage une\nvol\u00e9e qui permit \u00e0 ce saint homme de g\u00e9mir avec plus de raison, mais il\nr\u00e9prima ce d\u00e9sir et demanda simplement:\n\n\u00abLe vieux fait donc des siennes, hein?\n\n--H\u00e9las! oui, r\u00e9pliqua Mme Weller. Il a un coeur de rocher. Tous les\nsoirs, cet excellent homme... ne froncez pas le sourcil, monsieur\nStiggins, je soutiens que _vous \u00eates_ un excellent homme.... Tous les\nsoirs, cet excellent homme passe ici des heures enti\u00e8res, et cela ne\nproduit point le moindre effet sur votre r\u00e9prouv\u00e9 de p\u00e8re.\n\n--Eh bien! voil\u00e0 qui est dr\u00f4le! r\u00e9torqua Sam. \u00c7a en produirait un\nprodigieux sur moi, si j'\u00e9tais \u00e0 sa place. Je vous en r\u00e9ponds!\n\n--Mon jeune ami, dit solennellement M. Stiggins, le fait est qu'il a un\nesprit endurci. Oh! mon jeune ami, quel autre aurait pu r\u00e9sister aux\nexhortations de seize de nos plus aimables soeurs, et refuser de\nsouscrire \u00e0 notre humble soci\u00e9t\u00e9 pour procurer aux enfants n\u00e8gres, dans\nles Indes occidentales, des gilets de flanelle et des mouchoirs de poche\nmoraux.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que c'est qu'un mouchoir moral? demanda Sam. Je n'ai jamais\nvu ce meuble-l\u00e0.\n\n--C'est un mouchoir qui combine l'amusement et l'instruction, mon jeune\nami; o\u00f9 l'on voit des histoires choisies, illustr\u00e9es de gravures sur\nbois.\n\n--Bon, je sais; j'ai vu \u00e7a aux \u00e9talages des merciers, avec des pi\u00e8ces de\nvers et tout le reste, n'est-ce pas?\u00bb\n\nM. Stiggins fit un signe affirmatif et commen\u00e7a une troisi\u00e8me r\u00f4tie.\n\n\u00abEt il n'a pas voulu se laisser persuader par les dames?\n\n--Il s'est assis, r\u00e9pondit Mme Weller, il a allum\u00e9 sa pipe, et il a dit\nque les enfants n\u00e8gres \u00e9taient.... Qu'est-ce qu'il a dit que les enfants\nn\u00e8gres \u00e9taient, monsieur Stiggins?\n\n--Une blague, soupira le r\u00e9v\u00e9rend, profond\u00e9ment affect\u00e9.\n\n--Il a dit que les enfants n\u00e8gres \u00e9taient une blague!\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta tristement\nMme Weller; apr\u00e8s quoi, la dame et le r\u00e9v\u00e9rend recommenc\u00e8rent \u00e0 g\u00e9mir\nsur l'atroce conduite de M. Weller.\n\nBeaucoup d'autres iniquit\u00e9s de la m\u00eame nature auraient pu \u00eatre\nracont\u00e9es, mais toutes les r\u00f4ties \u00e9tant mang\u00e9es, le th\u00e9 \u00e9tant devenu\ntr\u00e8s-faible, et Sam ne montrant aucune inclination \u00e0 partir, M. Stiggins\nse rappela soudainement qu'il avait un rendez-vous tr\u00e8s-pressant avec le\nberger, et se retira en cons\u00e9quence.\n\nLe plateau \u00e9tait \u00e0 peine enlev\u00e9, le foyer \u00e0 peine balay\u00e9, lorsque la\nvoiture de Londres d\u00e9posa M. Weller \u00e0 la porte. Peu apr\u00e8s ses jambes le\nd\u00e9pos\u00e8rent dans le comptoir, et ses yeux lui r\u00e9v\u00e9l\u00e8rent la pr\u00e9sence de\nson fils.\n\n\u00abHa! ha! Sammy! s'\u00e9cria le p\u00e8re.\n\n--Ho! ho! vieux farceur!\u00bb cria le fils; et ils se donn\u00e8rent une poign\u00e9e\nde main vigoureuse.\n\n\u00abCharm\u00e9 de te voir, Sammy, dit l'a\u00een\u00e9 des Weller. Comment diantre as-tu\npu venir \u00e0 bout de ta belle-m\u00e8re? \u00c7a me passe. Tu devrais me passer ta\nrecette. Je ne te dis que \u00e7a!\n\n--Chut! fit Sam. Elle est dans la maison, mon vieux gaillard.\n\n--Elle n'est pas \u00e0 port\u00e9e d'oreille. Elle reste toujours en bas, \u00e0\ntracasser le monde pendant une heure ou deux apr\u00e8s le th\u00e9. Ainsi donc,\nnous pouvons nous humecter l'int\u00e9rieur, Sammy.\u00bb\n\nEn parlant ainsi, M. Weller m\u00eala deux verres de grog et aveignit une\ncouple de pipes. Le p\u00e8re et le fils s'assirent en face l'un de l'autre,\nSam d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9 du feu, dans le fauteuil au dos \u00e9lev\u00e9, M. Weller de\nl'autre c\u00f4t\u00e9, dans une berg\u00e8re, et ils commenc\u00e8rent \u00e0 go\u00fbter le double\nplaisir de leur pipe et de leur r\u00e9union inattendue, avec toute la\ngravit\u00e9 convenable.\n\n\u00abVenu quelqu'un, Sammy?\u00bb demanda laconiquement M. Weller, apr\u00e8s un long\nsilence.\n\nSam fit un signe exprimant l'affirmation.\n\n\u00abUn gaillard au nez rouge?\u00bb\n\nSam r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le m\u00eame signe.\n\n\u00abUn bien aimable homme que ce gaillard-l\u00e0! Sammy, fit observer M. Weller\nen fumant avec pr\u00e9cipitation.\n\n--Il en a tout l'air.\n\n--Et joliment fort sur le calcul!\n\n--Vraiment!\n\n--Le lundi, il emprunte dix-huit pence; le mardi, il demande un shilling\npour compl\u00e9ter la demi-couronne; le vendredi, il remprunte une autre\ndemi-couronne pour faire un compte rond de cinq shillings, et il va\ncomme \u00e7a, en doublant, jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'il arrive, en un rien de temps, \u00e0\nempocher une banknote de cinq livres. \u00c7a ressemble \u00e0 ce calcul du livre\nd'arusm\u00e9tique o\u00f9 l'on arrive \u00e0 des sommes folles en doublant les clous\nd'un fer \u00e0 cheval.\u00bb\n\nSam indiqua par un geste qu'il se rappelait le probl\u00e8me auquel son p\u00e8re\nfaisait allusion.\n\n\u00abComme \u00e7a, vous n'avez pas voulu souscrire pour les gilets de flanelle,\ndemanda Sam apr\u00e8s avoir lanc\u00e9 de nouveau quelques bouff\u00e9es de tabac\nsilencieuses.\n\n--Non certainement. A quoi des gilets de flanelle peuvent-ils servir \u00e0\nces n\u00e9grillons? Mais vois-tu, Sammy, ajouta M. Weller en baissant la\nvoix et en se penchant vers son compagnon, je souscrirais bien\nvolontiers une jolie somme s'il s'agissait d'offrir des camisoles de\nforce \u00e0 certains particuliers que nous connaissons.\u00bb\n\nAyant exprim\u00e9 cette opinion, M. Weller reprit lentement sa position\npremi\u00e8re, et cligna de l'oeil d'un air tr\u00e8s-sagace.\n\n\u00abC'est une dr\u00f4le d'id\u00e9e, tout de m\u00eame, de vouloir envoyer des mouchoirs\n\u00e0 des gens qui ne connaissent pas la mani\u00e8re de s'en servir, fit\nremarquer Sam.\n\n--I' sont toujours \u00e0 faire quelque b\u00eatise de ce genre, Sammy. L'autre\ndimanche, je fl\u00e2nais sur la route, qu'est-ce que j'aper\u00e7ois debout \u00e0 la\nporte d'une chapelle? Ta belle-m\u00e8re avec un plat de fa\u00efence bleue \u00e0 la\nmain, o\u00f9s que les patards tombaient comme la gr\u00eale.... Tu n'aurais\njamais cru qu'un plat mortel aurait pu y tenir. Et pour quoi penses-tu\nque c'\u00e9tait, Sammy?\n\n--Pour donner un autre th\u00e9, peut-\u00eatre!\n\n--Tu n'y es pas, c'\u00e9tait pour la rente d'eau du berger\n\n--La rente d'eau du berger!\n\n--Ni plus ni moins. I' y avait trois trimestres que le berger n'avait\npas pay\u00e9 un liard, pas un liard. Au fait il n'a gu\u00e8re besoin d'eau, i'\nne boit que tr\u00e8s-peu de c'te liqueur-l\u00e0, tr\u00e8s-peu, Sammy.... pas si\nchose! Comme \u00e7a, la rente n'\u00e9tait pas pay\u00e9e et le receveur avait arr\u00eat\u00e9\nson filet. V'l\u00e0 donc le berger qui s'en va \u00e0 la chapelle. Il dit qu'il\nest un saint martyris\u00e9, qu'il d\u00e9sire que le tourne-robinet qu'a coup\u00e9\nson filet obtienne son pardon du ciel, mais qu'il a bien peur qu'on ne\nlui ait d\u00e9j\u00e0 retenu dans l'autre monde une place o\u00f9 il ne sera pas \u00e0 son\naise. L\u00e0-dessus les femelles font un meeting, chantent des hymnes,\nnomment ta belle-m\u00e8re pr\u00e9sidente, votent une qu\u00eate pour le dimanche\nsuivant, et repassent tout le quibus au berger. Et si il n'a pas eu de\nquoi payer sa rente d'eau, sa vie durant, dit M. Weller en terminant, je\nne suis qu'un Hollandais et tu en es un autre, voil\u00e0 tout.\u00bb\n\nM. Weller fuma en silence pendant quelques minutes, puis il ajouta:\n\n\u00abLe pire de ces bergers, mon gar\u00e7on, c'est qu'i' tournent la t\u00eate \u00e0\ntoutes les jeunes filles. Dieu b\u00e9nisse leurs petits coeurs! elles\ns'imaginent que c'est tout miel, et elles n'en savent pas plus long.\nElles donnent toutes dans la charge, Sammy, elles y donnent toutes.\n\n--\u00c7a me fait cet effet-l\u00e0, dit Sam.\n\n--Ni pus ni moins, poursuivit M. Weller en secouant gravement la t\u00eate;\net ce qui m'agace le plus, Samivel, c'est de leur voir perdre leur temps\net leur belle jeunesse \u00e0 faire des habits pour des gens cuivr\u00e9s qui n'en\nont pas besoin, sans jamais s'occuper des chr\u00e9tiens qui ont des couleurs\nnaturelles et qui savent mettre un pantalon. Si j'\u00e9tais le ma\u00eetre,\nSammy, j'att\u00e8lerais quelques-uns de ces faignants de bergers \u00e0 une\nbrouette bien charg\u00e9e et je la leur ferais monter et descendre, pendant\nvingt-quatre heures de suite, le long d'une planche de dix-huit pouces\nde large. \u00c7a leur \u00f4terait un peu de leur b\u00eatise, ou rien n'y r\u00e9ussira.\u00bb\n\nM. Weller, ayant d\u00e9bit\u00e9 cette aimable recette, avec beaucoup d'emphase\net une multitude de gestes et de contorsions, vida son verre d'un seul\ntrait, et fit tomber les cendres de sa pipe avec une dignit\u00e9 naturelle.\n\nIl n'avait pas encore termin\u00e9 cette derni\u00e8re op\u00e9ration, lorsqu'une voix\naigre se fit entendre dans le passage.\n\n\u00abVoici ta ch\u00e8re belle-m\u00e8re, Sammy,\u00bb dit-il \u00e0 son fils, et au m\u00eame\ninstant Mme Weller entra, d'un pas affair\u00e9, dans la chambre.\n\n\u00abOh! vous voil\u00e0 donc revenu! s'\u00e9cria-t-elle.\n\n--Oui, ma ch\u00e8re, r\u00e9pliqua M. Weller en bourrant de nouveau sa pipe.\n\n--M. Stiggins est-il de retour? demanda mistress Weller.\n\n--Non, ma ch\u00e8re, r\u00e9pondit M. Weller en allumant ing\u00e9nieusement sa pipe\nau moyen d'un charbon embras\u00e9 qu'il prit avec les pincettes; et qui\nplus est, ma ch\u00e8re, je t\u00e2cherais de ne pas mourir de chagrin s'il ne\nremettait plus les pieds ici.\n\n--Ouh! le r\u00e9prouv\u00e9! s'\u00e9crie Mme Weller.\n\n--Merci, mon amour, dit son \u00e9poux.\n\n--Allons! allons! p\u00e8re, observa Sam; pas de ces petites tendresses\ndevant des \u00e9trangers. Voil\u00e0 le r\u00e9v\u00e9rend gentleman qui revient.\u00bb\n\nA cette annonce, Mme Weller essuya pr\u00e9cipitamment les larmes qu'elle\ns'\u00e9tait efforc\u00e9e de verser, et M. Weller tira, d'un air chagrin, son\nfauteuil dans le coin de la chemin\u00e9e.\n\nM. Stiggins ne se fit pas beaucoup prier pour prendre un autre verre de\ngrog; puis il en accepta un second, puis un troisi\u00e8me, puis il consentit\n\u00e0 accepter sa part d'un l\u00e9ger souper, afin de recommencer sur nouveaux\nfrais. Il \u00e9tait assis du m\u00eame c\u00f4t\u00e9 que M. Weller a\u00een\u00e9; et lorsque\ncelui-ci supposait que sa femme ne pouvait pas le voir, il indiquait \u00e0\nson fils les \u00e9motions intimes dont son \u00e2me \u00e9tait agit\u00e9e, en secouant son\npoing sur la t\u00eate du berger. Cette plaisanterie procurait \u00e0 son\nrespectueux enfant une satisfaction d'autant plus pure, que M. Stiggins\ncontinuait \u00e0 siroter paisiblement son rhum, dans une heureuse ignorance\nde cette pantomime anim\u00e9e.\n\nLa conversation fut soutenue, en grande partie, par Mme Weller et le\nr\u00e9v\u00e9rend M. Stiggins, et les principaux sujets qu'on entama furent les\nvertus du berger, les m\u00e9rites de son troupeau, et les crimes affreux,\nles d\u00e9testables p\u00e9ch\u00e9s de tout le reste du monde. Seulement, M. Weller\ninterrompait parfois ces dissertations par des remarques et des\nallusions indirectes \u00e0 un certain vieux farceur g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement d\u00e9sign\u00e9\nsous le nom de _Walker_[29], et se permit \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0 divers commentaires\nnon moins ironiques et voil\u00e9s.\n\n[Footnote 29: M. Walker est un personnage myst\u00e9rieux qui jouit en\nAngleterre d'une grande r\u00e9putation de hableur. Son nom, employ\u00e9 comme\ninterjection \u00abWalker\u00bb est devenu un terme de m\u00e9pris et d'incr\u00e9dulit\u00e9.\n\n(_Note du traducteur._)]\n\nEnfin, M. Stiggins, qui, \u00e0 en juger par divers sympt\u00f4mes indubitables,\navait emmagasin\u00e9 autant de grog qu'il en pouvait ingurgiter sans trop\ns'incommoder, prit son chapeau et son cong\u00e9, imm\u00e9diatement apr\u00e8s, Sam\nfut conduit par son p\u00e8re dans une chambre \u00e0 coucher. Le respectable\ngentleman, en lui donnant une chaleureuse poign\u00e9e de main, paraissait se\ndisposer \u00e0 lui adresser quelques observations; mais il entendit monter\nMme Weller, et changeant aussit\u00f4t d'intention, il lui dit brusquement\nbonsoir.\n\nLe lendemain, Sam se leva de bonne heure. Ayant d\u00e9jeun\u00e9 \u00e0 la h\u00e2te, il\ns'appr\u00eata \u00e0 retourner \u00e0 Londres, et il sortait de la maison, lorsque son\np\u00e8re se pr\u00e9senta devant lui.\n\n--Tu pars, Sam?\n\n--Tout de g\u00f4.\n\n--Je voudrais bien te voir museler ce Stiggins, et l'emmener avec toi.\n\n--Vraiment? r\u00e9pondit Sam d'un ton de reproche; je rougis de vous avoir\npour auteur, vieux capon. Pourquoi lui laissez-vous montrer son nez\ncramoisi chez le _Marquis de Granby_?\u00bb\n\nM. Weller attacha sur son fils un regard s\u00e9rieux, et r\u00e9pondit:\n\n\u00abParce que je suis un homme mari\u00e9, Sammy, parce que je suis un homme\nmari\u00e9. Quand tu seras mari\u00e9, Sammy, tu comprendras bien des choses que\ntu ne comprends pas maintenant. Mais \u00e7a vaut-il la peine de passer tant\nde vilains quarts d'heure pour apprendre si peu de chose, comme disait\ncet \u00e9colier quand il a-t-\u00e9t\u00e9 arriv\u00e9 \u00e0 savoir son alphabet, voil\u00e0 la\nquestion? C'est une affaire de go\u00fbt. Mais, pour ma part, je suis\ntr\u00e8s-dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 r\u00e9pondre: Non!\n\n--Dans tous les cas, dit Sam, adieu.\n\n--Bonjour, Sammy, bonjour.\n\n--Je n'ai plus qu'un mot \u00e0 vous dire, reprit Sam en s'arr\u00eatant court: Si\nj'\u00e9tais le propri\u00e9taire du _Marquis de Granby_, et si cet animal de\nStiggins venait faire des roties dans mon comptoir, je le....\n\n--Que ferais-tu? interrompit M. Weller avec grande anxi\u00e9t\u00e9, que\nferais-tu?\n\n--J'empoisonnerais son grog.\n\n--Bah! s'\u00e9cria Weller en donnant \u00e0 son fils une poign\u00e9e de main\nreconnaissante, tu ferais cela r\u00e9ellement, Sammy? tu ferais cela?\n\n--Parole! Je ne voudrais pas me montrer trop cruel envers lui tout\nd'abord. Je commencerais par le plonger dans la fontaine, et je\nremettrais le couvercle pour l'emp\u00eacher de s'enrhumer; mais si je voyais\nqu'il n'y avait pas moyen d'en venir \u00e0 bout par la douceur,\nj'emploierais une autre m\u00e9thode de persuasion.\u00bb\n\nM. Weller a\u00een\u00e9 lan\u00e7a \u00e0 son fils un regard d'admiration inexprimable, et,\nlui ayant de nouveau serr\u00e9 la main, s'\u00e9loigna lentement en roulant dans\nson esprit les r\u00e9flexions nombreuses auxquelles cet avis avait donn\u00e9\nlieu.\n\nSam le suivit des yeux jusqu'au d\u00e9tour de la route et s'achemina ensuite\nvers Londres. Il m\u00e9dita d'abord sur les cons\u00e9quences probables de son\nconseil, et sur la vraisemblance ou l'invraisemblance qu'il y avait de\nvoir adopter cet avis par son p\u00e8re; mais bient\u00f4t il \u00e9carta toute\ninqui\u00e9tude de son esprit par cette r\u00e9flexion consolante, qu'il en\nsaurait le r\u00e9sultat avec le temps. C'est un avantage que le lecteur\naura, aussi bien que lui.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXVIII.\n\nUn joyeux chapitre des f\u00eates de No\u00ebl, contenant le r\u00e9cit d'une noce et\nde quelques autres passe-temps qui sont, dans leur genre, d'aussi bonnes\ncoutumes que le mariage, mais qu'on ne maintient pas aussi\nreligieusement, dans ce si\u00e8cle d\u00e9g\u00e9n\u00e9r\u00e9.\n\n\nAussi diligents que des abeilles, et presque aussi l\u00e9gers que des\npapillons, les quatre Pickwickiens se rassembl\u00e8rent, au matin du 22\nd\u00e9cembre de l'an de gr\u00e2ce 1831. No\u00ebl s'approchait rapidement, dans toute\nsa joyeuse et cordiale hospitalit\u00e9. La vieille ann\u00e9e se pr\u00e9parait, comme\nun gymnosophiste indien, \u00e0 r\u00e9unir ses amis autour de soi, et \u00e0 mourir\ndoucement et tranquillement au milieu des festins et des bombances.\nC'\u00e9tait une \u00e9poque de jubilation, et parmi les nombreux mortels que\nr\u00e9jouissait la m\u00eame cause, nos quatre h\u00e9ros \u00e9taient remarquablement\nenjou\u00e9s et heureux.\n\nCar ils sont nombreux les mortels \u00e0 qui No\u00ebl apporte un court intervalle\nde gaiet\u00e9 et de bonheur! Combien de familles dispers\u00e9es au loin par les\nsoins, par les luttes incessantes de la vie, se r\u00e9unissent alors dans\ncet heureux \u00e9tat de familiarit\u00e9 et de bonne volont\u00e9 mutuelle, qui est la\nsource de tant de pures d\u00e9lices; douce et paisible communion d'esprit\nqui semble si incompatible avec les soucis de l'existence, si au dessus\ndes plaisirs de ce monde, que les nations les plus civilis\u00e9es, comme les\npeuplades les plus sauvages, en font \u00e9galement une des premi\u00e8res\njouissances r\u00e9serv\u00e9es aux \u00e9lus, dans le s\u00e9jour du bonheur \u00e9ternel.\nCombien de vieilles sympathies, combien de souvenirs assoupis se\nr\u00e9veillent au temps de No\u00ebl!\n\nNous \u00e9crivons ces lignes \u00e0 bien des lieues de l'heureux endroit o\u00f9,\npendant de longues ann\u00e9es, nous avons rencontr\u00e9, la veille de No\u00ebl, un\ncercle amical et joyeux. La plupart des coeurs qui palpitaient alors avec\nivresse, ont cess\u00e9 de battre; les mains que nous aimions \u00e0 serrer, sont\ndevenues froides; les visages gracieux qui nous charmaient, sont\nd\u00e9charn\u00e9s; les regards que nous cherchions, ont perdu leur \u00e9clat; et\ncependant la vieille maison, la grande salle, les plaisanteries, les\nrires, les voix joyeuses et les visages souriants, les circonstances les\nplus frivoles de ces heureuses r\u00e9unions, se pressent en foule dans notre\nesprit, \u00e0 chaque retour de cette f\u00eate. Il semble que nous n'ayons cess\u00e9\nde nous voir que d'hier. Heureux, heureux le jour de No\u00ebl, qui redonne\nau vieillard les illusions de sa jeunesse, et qui transporte le marin,\nle voyageur, \u00e9loign\u00e9 de plusieurs milliers de lieues, parmi les joies\ntranquilles de la maison paternelle.\n\nNous nous sommes laiss\u00e9 entra\u00eener par les bonnes qualit\u00e9s de No\u00ebl, qui,\npour le dire en passant, est tout \u00e0 fait un gentilhomme campagnard de la\nvieille \u00e9cole, et nous faisons attendre, au froid, M. Pickwick et ses\namis. Ils viennent d'arriver \u00e0 la voiture de Muggleton, soigneusement\nenvelopp\u00e9s de ch\u00e2les et de grandes redingotes. Les portemanteaux, les\nsacs de nuit sont plac\u00e9s, et Sam s'efforce avec le garde[30] d'insinuer\ndans le coffre de devant une \u00e9norme morue, soigneusement empaquet\u00e9e dans\nun long panier brun garni de paille, et qui doit reposer sur une\ndemi-douzaine de barils d'hu\u00eetres, appartenant, comme elle, \u00e0 M.\nPickwick. La physionomie de celui-ci exprime le plus vif int\u00e9r\u00eat, tandis\nque Sam et le garde font tout ce qu'ils peuvent pour fourrer la morue\ndans le r\u00e9ceptacle, quoiqu'elle soit deux ou trois fois trop grande pour\ny entrer. D'abord ils veulent la mettre la t\u00eate la premi\u00e8re, ensuite la\nqueue la premi\u00e8re, puis le fond du panier en haut, puis l'ouverture en\nhaut, puis sur le c\u00f4t\u00e9, puis diagonalement. Mais l'implacable morue\nr\u00e9siste opini\u00e2trement \u00e0 tous ces artifices. Enfin, cependant, le garde,\nfrappant par hasard sur le milieu du panier, le poisson dispara\u00eet\nsoudainement, et cette condescendance inattendue, faisant perdre\nl'\u00e9quilibre au garde lui-m\u00eame, sa t\u00eate et ses \u00e9paules s'enfoncent en\nm\u00eame temps dans le coffre, \u00e0 la satisfaction inexprimable de tous les\nporteurs et assistants. M. Pickwick sourit avec bonne humeur, tire un\nshilling de son gilet, et lorsque le garde sort de sa bo\u00eete, le prie de\nboire \u00e0 sa sant\u00e9 un verre d'eau-de-vie et d'eau chaude. Sur cela, le\ngarde sourit aussi, et MM. Snodgrass, Winkle et Tupman sourient tous de\ncompagnie. Le garde et Sam Weller disparaissent pendant cinq minutes,\nprobablement pour avaler le grog, car ils sentent l'eau-de-vie en\nrevenant. Le cocher monte sur son si\u00e9ge, Sam saute derri\u00e8re, les\nPickwickiens tirent leurs redingotes sur leurs jambes et leurs ch\u00e2les\nsur leur nez, les valets d'\u00e9curie \u00f4tent les couvertures des chevaux, le\ncocher crie: \u00abEn route!\u00bb et les voil\u00e0 partis.\n\n[Footnote 30: Le conducteur. Cette appellation est un reste du temps o\u00f9\nles routes \u00e9taient si peu s\u00fbres que chaque voiture \u00e9tait accompagn\u00e9e\nd'un v\u00e9ritable garde.\n\n(_Note du traducteur_.)]\n\nIls ont circul\u00e9 \u00e0 travers les rues, ils ont \u00e9t\u00e9 cahot\u00e9s sur le pav\u00e9, et,\n\u00e0 la fin, ils atteignent la campagne. Les roues glissent sur le terrain\ndur et gel\u00e9. Au claquement aigu du fouet, les chevaux partent au petit\ngalop et entra\u00eenent \u00e0 leurs talons voiture, voyageurs, morue, barils\nd'hu\u00eetres, et le reste, comme si ce n'\u00e9tait qu'une plume l\u00e9g\u00e8re. Ils ont\ndescendu une pente douce et se trouvent sur une chauss\u00e9e horizontale, de\ndeux milles de long, aussi s\u00e8che, aussi compacte qu'un bloc de granit.\nUn autre claquement de fouet, et ils s'\u00e9lancent au grand galop, secouant\nleur t\u00eate et leur harnais, sous l'influence excitante de leur mouvement\nrapide. Cependant le cocher, tenant le fouet et les guides d'une main,\n\u00f4te son chapeau avec l'autre, le pose sur ses genoux, tire son mouchoir\net essuie son front; partie parce qu'il a l'habitude d'agir ainsi, et\npartie pour montrer aux voyageurs comme il est \u00e0 son aise, et combien\nc'est une chose facile de conduire quatre chevaux, quand on a autant de\npratique que lui. Ayant fait cela fort tranquillement (car autrement\nl'effet en serait notablement diminu\u00e9), il replace son mouchoir, remet\nson chapeau, ajuste ses gants, \u00e9quarrit ses coudes, fait claquer son\nfouet de nouveau, et au galop! plus gaiement que jamais!\n\nQuelques maisons, \u00e9parpill\u00e9es des deux cot\u00e9s de la route, annoncent\nl'entr\u00e9e d'un village. Le cornet du garde fait vibrer dans l'air pur et\nfrais des notes anim\u00e9es, qui r\u00e9veillent le vieux gentleman de\nl'int\u00e9rieur. Il abaisse la glace \u00e0 moiti\u00e9, regarde un instant au dehors,\net relevant soigneusement la glace, informe l'autre habitant de\nl'int\u00e9rieur que l'on va relayer dans quelques minutes. D'apr\u00e8s cet avis,\ncelui-ci se secoue, et se d\u00e9termine \u00e0 remettre son premier somme\njusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'on soit reparti. Le cornet r\u00e9sonne encore vigoureusement,\net, \u00e0 ce bruit, les femmes et les enfants du village viennent regarder \u00e0\nla porte de leur chaumi\u00e8re, et suivent des yeux la voiture jusqu'\u00e0 ce\nqu'elle tourne le coin, puis ils rentrent s'\u00e9tendre autour d'un feu\nbrillant et y jettent un autre morceau de bois _pour quand le p\u00e8re\nreviendra_. Cependant le p\u00e8re lui-m\u00eame, \u00e0 un mille de l\u00e0, vient\nd'\u00e9changer un signe de t\u00eate amical avec le cocher, et s'est retourn\u00e9\npour examiner longuement la voiture qui s'enfuit loin de lui.\n\nEt maintenant, pendant que les roues retentissent dans les rues mal\npav\u00e9es d'une ville provinciale, le cornet joue un air guilleret. Le\ncocher, d\u00e9faisant la boucle qui r\u00e9unit ses guides, s'appr\u00eate \u00e0 les jeter\nau moment m\u00eame o\u00f9 il arr\u00eatera. M. Pickwick sort du collet de sa\nredingote, et regarde autour de lui avec grande curiosit\u00e9; le cocher,\nqui s'en aper\u00e7oit, l'instruit du nom de la ville, et lui dit que c'\u00e9tait\nhier jour de march\u00e9; double information que M. Pickwick s'empresse de\nfaire passer \u00e0 ses compagnons de voyage, et qui les d\u00e9cide \u00e0 sortir\naussi de leurs collets et \u00e0 regarder autour d'eux. M. Winkle, qui est\nassis \u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de la banquette, avec une jambe dandinante en l'air,\nest presque pr\u00e9cipit\u00e9 dans la rue lorsque la voiture tourne brusquement\npour entrer dans la place du march\u00e9; et M. Snodgrass, qui se trouve\nassis aupr\u00e8s de lui, n'est point encore remis de son effroi, lorsqu'elle\narr\u00eate dans la cour de l'auberge, o\u00f9 les chevaux frais, avec leurs\ncouvertures, piaffent d\u00e9j\u00e0. Le cocher jette les guides et descend de son\nsi\u00e9ge; les voyageurs ext\u00e9rieurs descendent aussi, except\u00e9 ceux qui n'ont\npas grande confiance dans leur habilet\u00e9 pour remonter. Ceux-l\u00e0 restent\no\u00f9 ils sont, frappent leurs pieds contre la voiture pour se les\nr\u00e9chauffer, et regardent avec un oeil d'envie le feu qui brille dans la\nsalle, et le buis, orn\u00e9 de baies rouges, qui pare les fen\u00eatres de\nl'auberge.\n\nCependant le garde a d\u00e9pos\u00e9, \u00e0 la boutique du gr\u00e8netier, le paquet de\npapier gris qu'il a tir\u00e9 de la petite besace pendue sur son \u00e9paule, \u00e0 un\nbaudrier de cuir. Il a soigneusement examin\u00e9 les nouveaux chevaux; il a\njet\u00e9 sur le pav\u00e9 la selle apport\u00e9e de Londres, sur l'imp\u00e9riale; il a\nassist\u00e9 \u00e0 la conf\u00e9rence tenue par le cocher et par le valet d'\u00e9curie sur\nla jument grise, qui s'est bless\u00e9e \u00e0 la jambe de devant mardi pass\u00e9; il\nest remont\u00e9 derri\u00e8re la voiture avec Sam; le cocher est juch\u00e9 sur son\nsi\u00e9ge; le vieux gentleman du dedans, qui avait tenu la glace baiss\u00e9e de\ndeux doigts, durant tout ce temps, l'a relev\u00e9e, et les couvertures des\nchevaux sont \u00f4t\u00e9es, et tout est pr\u00eat pour partir, except\u00e9 _les deux gros\ngentlemen_, dont le cocher s'enquiert avec grande impatience; puis le\ncocher, et le garde, et Sam, et M. Winkle, et M. Snodgrass, et tous les\npalefreniers, et tous les fl\u00e2neurs, qui sont plus nombreux que tous les\nautres ensemble, se mettent \u00e0 brailler \u00e0 tue-t\u00eate apr\u00e8s les voyageurs\nmanquants. Une r\u00e9ponse lointaine s'entend au fond de la cour; M.\nPickwick et M. Tupman la traversent en courant, tout hors d'haleine, car\nils ont bu chacun un verre d'ale, et les doigts de M. Pickwick sont si\nfroids, qu'il a \u00e9t\u00e9 cinq grandes minutes avant de pouvoir tirer six\npence pour payer. Le cocher vocif\u00e8re d'un air m\u00e9content: \u00abAllons,\ngentlemen, allons!\u00bb Le garde r\u00e9p\u00e8te le m\u00eame cri; le vieux gentleman de\nl'int\u00e9rieur trouve fort extraordinaire qu'on veuille descendre, quand on\nsait qu'on n'en a pas le temps; M. Pickwick s'efforce de grimper d'un\nc\u00f4t\u00e9, M. Tupman de l'autre; M. Winkle crie. _\u00c7a y est_, et les voil\u00e0\nrepartis! Les ch\u00e2les sont remis, les collets d'habits sont rajust\u00e9s, le\npav\u00e9 cesse, les maisons disparaissent, et nos voyageurs s'\u00e9lancent de\nnouveau sur la grande route, et l'air clair et piquant baigne leur\nvisage et les r\u00e9jouit jusqu'au fond du coeur.\n\nC'est ainsi que le _T\u00e9l\u00e9graphe_ de Muggleton transportait M. Pickwick et\nses amis sur le chemin de Dingley-Dell. A trois heures de l'apr\u00e8s-midi,\nils d\u00e9barquaient tous, sains et saufs, sur les marches du _Lion bleu_,\nayant pris sur la route assez d'ale et d'eau-de-vie pour d\u00e9fier la\ngel\u00e9e, qui couvrait, de ses belles dentelles blanches, les arbres et les\nhaies.\n\nM. Pickwick \u00e9tait s\u00e9rieusement occup\u00e9 \u00e0 surveiller l'exhumation de la\nmorue, lorsqu'il se sentit tirer doucement par le pan de son habit. Il\nse retourna et reconnut le page favori de M. Wardle, mieux connu des\nlecteurs de cette v\u00e9ridique histoire sous le nom du gros joufflu.\n\n\u00abHa! ha! fit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Ha! ha! fit le gros joufflu en regardant amoureusement la morue et les\nbarils d'hu\u00eetres. Il \u00e9tait plus gros que jamais.\n\n--Eh bien! mon jeune ami, dit M. Pickwick, vous m'avez l'air assez\nrougeaud.\n\n--J'ai dormi devant le feu de la buvette, r\u00e9pondit le gros joufflu,\nqu'une heure de somme avait mont\u00e9 au ton d'une brique. Ma\u00eetre m'a envoy\u00e9\navec la charrette pour porter votre bagage \u00e0 la maison. Il aurait envoy\u00e9\nquelques chevaux de selle; mais, comme il fait froid, il a pens\u00e9 que\nvous aimeriez mieux marcher.\n\n--Oui! oui! nous aimons mieux marcher, r\u00e9pliqua pr\u00e9cipitamment M.\nPickwick, car il se rappelait la cavalcade qu'il avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 faite sur la\nm\u00eame route. Sam!\n\n--Monsieur!\n\n--Aidez le domestique de M. Wardle \u00e0 mettre les paquets dans la\ncharrette, et montez-y avec lui; nous allons aller en avant.\u00bb\n\nAyant donn\u00e9 ces instructions et termin\u00e9 son compte avec le cocher, M.\nPickwick, suivi de ses amis, prit le sentier de traverse et s'\u00e9loigna\nd'un pas gaillard.\n\nSam, qui se trouvait pour la premi\u00e8re fois confront\u00e9 avec le gros\njoufflu, l'examinait curieusement, mais sans rien dire: quand il l'eut\nbien consid\u00e9r\u00e9, il commen\u00e7a \u00e0 arranger rapidement tous les paquets dans\nla charrette, tandis que Joe le regardait d'un air tranquille, et\nparaissait trouver un immense plaisir \u00e0 voir avec quelle activit\u00e9 Sam\nfaisait cette op\u00e9ration.\n\n\u00abVoil\u00e0, dit Sam, en jetant le dernier sac dans la charrette: ils y sont\ntous.\n\n--Oui, observa Joe d'un ton satisfait: ils y sont tous....\n\n--Savez-vous, mon petit, que vous auriez bien pu obtenir le prix au\ngrand concours.\n\n--Bien oblig\u00e9.\n\n--Est-ce que vous avez quelque chose dessus votre coeur qui vous affecte?\n\n--Non, je ne crois pas.\n\n--J'aurais pourtant imagin\u00e9, en vous regardant, que vous aviez une\npassion malheureuse.\u00bb\n\nJoe secoua la t\u00eate d'une mani\u00e8re n\u00e9gative.\n\n\u00abEh bien! poursuivit Sam; tant mieux! Buvez-vous?\n\n--J'aime mieux manger.\n\n--Ah! j'aurais imagin\u00e9 \u00e7a. Mais je veux dire, voulez-vous prendre une\ngoutte de quelque chose qui vous r\u00e9chaufferait votre petit estomac? Du\nreste vous \u00eates gentiment rembourr\u00e9 et vous ne devez pas avoir froid\nsouvent.\n\n--Quelquefois, et j'aime bien \u00e0 boire la goutte, quand c'est du bon.\n\n--Ah! c'est-il vrai? H\u00e9 bien, venez par ici alors.\u00bb\n\nNos nouveaux amis furent bient\u00f4t transport\u00e9s \u00e0 la buvette du _Lion\nbleu_, et le gros joufflu avala un verre d'eau-de-vie sans sourciller,\nexploit qui l'avan\u00e7a consid\u00e9rablement dans la bonne opinion de Sam.\nLorsque celui-ci eut op\u00e9r\u00e9 pour son propre compte, ils mont\u00e8rent dans la\ncharrette.\n\n\u00abSavez-vous conduire? demanda le page de M. Wardle.\n\n--Un peu, mon neveu!\n\n--Voil\u00e0 alors, dit le gros joufflu en mettant les guides dans la main de\nSam et en lui montrant une ruelle. Il n'y a qu'\u00e0 aller tout droit, et\nvous ne pouvez pas vous tromper.\u00bb\n\nAyant prononc\u00e9 ces mots, il se coucha affectueusement \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la\nmorue, et pla\u00e7ant un baril d'hu\u00eetres sous sa t\u00eate, en guise de\ntraversin: il s'endormit instantan\u00e9ment.\n\n\u00abEh bien! par exemple, fit Sam: pour un jeune homme sans g\u00eane, voil\u00e0 un\njeune homme sans g\u00eane! Allons, r\u00e9veillez-vous, jeune hydropique.\u00bb\n\nMais comme le jeune _hydropique_ ne montrait aucun sympt\u00f4me d'animation,\nSam s'assit sur le devant du char, et faisant partir le vieux cheval par\nune secousse des guides, le conduisit d'un trot soutenu vers\nManoir-ferme.\n\nCependant M. Pickwick et ses amis, ayant r\u00e9tabli par la marche une\nactive circulation dans leur syst\u00e8me veineux et art\u00e9riel, poursuivaient\ngaiement leur chemin. La terre \u00e9tait durcie, le gazon blanchi par la\ngel\u00e9e; l'air froid et sec \u00e9tait fortifiant, et l'approche rapide du\ncr\u00e9puscule gris\u00e2tre (couleur d'ardoise serait une expression plus\nconvenable dans un temps de gel\u00e9e), rendait plus s\u00e9duisante pour nos\nvoyageurs l'agr\u00e9able perspective des conforts qui les attendaient chez\nleur h\u00f4te. C'\u00e9tait pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment l'esp\u00e8ce d'apr\u00e8s-midi, qui, dans un champ\nsolitaire, pourrait induire un couple de barbons \u00e0 \u00f4ter leurs habits et\n\u00e0 jouer \u00e0 saute-mouton, par pure l\u00e9g\u00e8ret\u00e9 d'esprit. Aussi sommes-nous\nfermement persuad\u00e9s que si dans cet instant M. Tupman s'\u00e9tait courb\u00e9, en\nappuyant les mains sur ses genoux, M. Pickwick aurait profit\u00e9, avec la\nplus grande avidit\u00e9, de cette invitation indirecte.\n\nQuoi qu'il en soit, M. Tupman ne s'\u00e9tant pas pos\u00e9 de cette mani\u00e8re, nos\namis continu\u00e8rent \u00e0 marcher, en conversant joyeusement. Comme ils\nentraient dans une ruelle qu'ils devaient traverser, un bruit confus de\nvoix vint frapper leurs oreilles, et avant d'avoir eu le temps de former\nune conjecture sur les personnes \u00e0 qui ces voix appartenaient, ils se\ntrouv\u00e8rent au milieu d'une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 nombreuse qui attendait leur arriv\u00e9e.\n\nC'\u00e9tait le vieux Wardle, qui poussait de bruyants hourras, et qui, s'il\nest possible, avait l'air encore plus jovial que de coutume; c'\u00e9tait\nBella et son fid\u00e8le Trundle; c'\u00e9tait \u00c9mily enfin, et huit ou dix autres\njeunes demoiselles, qui \u00e9taient venues pour assister aux op\u00e9rations\nmatrimoniales du lendemain, et qui se trouvaient toutes dans cette\ndisposition de gaiet\u00e9 et d'importance ordinaire aux jeunes ladies dans\nces int\u00e9ressantes occasions. Les champs et les ruelles retentissaient au\nloin des \u00e9clats de rire de cette bande joyeuse.\n\nLes c\u00e9r\u00e9monies des pr\u00e9sentations furent bient\u00f4t termin\u00e9es, ou plut\u00f4t les\npr\u00e9sentations furent bient\u00f4t parfaites, sans aucune c\u00e9r\u00e9monie. Au bout\nde deux minutes, M. Pickwick, aussi \u00e0 son aise, aussi peu contraint que\ns'il avait connu toute sa vie ces jeunes demoiselles, plaisantait avec\ncelles qui ne voulaient pas passer par-dessus les barri\u00e8res quand il\nregardait, ou qui ayant de jolis pieds et des chevilles sans reproche,\navaient soin de rester debout sur la balustrade pendant cinq ou six\nminutes, en d\u00e9clarant qu'elles avaient trop peur pour oser faire aucun\nmouvement. Il est digne de remarque que M. Snodgrass offrit \u00e0 \u00c9mily\nWardle beaucoup plus d'assistance que les terreurs de la barri\u00e8re ne\nsemblaient l'exiger, quoiqu'elle e\u00fbt bien trois pieds de haut et qu'il\nfall\u00fbt y monter sur une couple de pierres, servant de marches. Enfin\nl'on observa qu'une jeune demoiselle, qui avait des yeux noirs et de\ntr\u00e8s-jolis petits brodequins garnis de fourrures, poussa de grands cris\nlorsque M. Winkle lui offrit la main pour l'aider \u00e0 descendre.\n\nQuand les difficult\u00e9s des barri\u00e8res furent surmont\u00e9es, quand on se\nretrouva sur un terrain plat, M. Wardle apprit \u00e0 M. Pickwick qu'on\nvenait d'examiner, en corps, l'ameublement de la maison o\u00f9 le jeune\ncouple devait habiter apr\u00e8s les f\u00eates de No\u00ebl. A cette communication,\nBella et Trundle devinrent tous les deux aussi rouges que le gros\njoufflu apr\u00e8s son somme au coin du feu. Cependant la jeune lady aux yeux\nnoirs et aux brodequins garnis de fourrure murmura quelque chose dans\nl'oreille d'\u00c9mily, en regardant malicieusement M. Snodgrass. \u00c9mily lui\nr\u00e9pondit: Vous \u00eates folle; mais elle rougit beaucoup malgr\u00e9 cela: et M.\nSnodgrass, qui \u00e9tait aussi modeste que le sont ordinairement tous les\ngrands g\u00e9nies, sentit le rouge lui monter jusqu'au sommet de la t\u00eate, et\nsouhaita d\u00e9votement, dans le fond de son coeur, que la jeune lady\nsusdite, ses yeux noirs, sa malice et ses brodequins garnis de fourrure,\nfussent tous confortablement d\u00e9pos\u00e9s \u00e0 l'autre bout de l'Angleterre.\n\nSi les Pickwickiens avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 re\u00e7us d'une mani\u00e8re amicale hors de la\nmaison, imaginez quelles furent la chaleur et la cordialit\u00e9 de leur\nr\u00e9ception quand on arriva \u00e0 la ferme. Les domestiques eux-m\u00eames\ngrima\u00e7aient de plaisir en voyant M. Pickwick; et la femme de chambre,\nEmma, lan\u00e7a \u00e0 M. Tupman un regard de reconnaissance, moiti\u00e9 modeste,\nmoiti\u00e9 impudent, et si joli qu'il aurait suffi pour d\u00e9cider la statue de\nBonaparte, situ\u00e9e dans le vestibule, \u00e0 ouvrir ses bras et \u00e0 la presser\nsur son sein.\n\nLa vieille lady \u00e9tait assise dans le parloir, avec sa majest\u00e9\naccoutum\u00e9e. Mais elle \u00e9tait d'assez mauvaise humeur, et par cons\u00e9quent\ntr\u00e8s-compl\u00e9tement sourde. Elle ne sortait jamais, et comme beaucoup\nd'autres vieilles dames de la m\u00eame \u00e9toffe, lorsque d'autres faisaient ce\nqu'elle ne pouvait pas faire elle-m\u00eame, elle croyait que c'\u00e9tait un\ncrime de haute trahison domestique. Aussi se tenait-elle toute droite\ndans son grand fauteuil, et avait-elle l'air aussi s\u00e9v\u00e8re qu'elle le\npouvait. Mais apr\u00e8s tout, que Dieu la b\u00e9nisse! c'\u00e9tait encore un air\nb\u00e9n\u00e9vole.\n\n\u00abMaman, dit M. Wardle, voil\u00e0 M. Pickwick. Vous vous en souvenez.\n\n--C'est bien! c'est bien! r\u00e9pliqua-t-elle avec dignit\u00e9: Ne tourmentez\npas M. Pickwick pour une vieille cr\u00e9ature comme moi. Personne ne se\nsoucie plus de moi, maintenant, et c'est fort naturel. En pronon\u00e7ant ces\nmots elle secouait sa t\u00eate, et d\u00e9tirait d'une main tremblante les plis\nde sa robe de soie.\n\n--Allons! allons! madame, dit M. Pickwick; ne repoussez pas comme cela\nun vieil ami. Je suis venu expr\u00e8s pour avoir une longue conversation\navec vous, et pour faire un autre rob. Et puis nous montrerons \u00e0 ces\nenfants \u00e0 danser un menuet avant qu'ils soient plus vieux de\nquarante-huit heures.\u00bb\n\nLa vieille dame s'adoucissait rapidement, mais elle n'aimait pas avoir\nl'air de c\u00e9der tout \u00e0 coup, aussi se contenta-t-elle de dire: \u00abAh! je ne\npeux pas l'entendre.\n\n--Allons! maman, quel enfantillage! reprit M. Wardle: ne soyez donc pas\nde mauvaise humeur; pensez \u00e0 Bella, pauvre fille; il faut que vous\nl'encouragiez.\u00bb\n\nLa bonne vieille dame entendit ceci, car ses l\u00e8vres trembl\u00e8rent pendant\nque son fils parlait. Mais l'\u00e2ge a ses petites infirmit\u00e9s mentales, et\nelle n'\u00e9tait point encore tout \u00e0 fait apais\u00e9e. Elle recommen\u00e7a donc \u00e0\nd\u00e9tirer sa robe, et se tournant vers M. Pickwick, \u00abAh! monsieur\nPickwick, lui dit-elle, les jeunes gens \u00e9taient bien diff\u00e9rents dans mon\ntemps.\n\n--Sans aucun doute, madame, et c'est pour cela que j'aime tant ceux qui\nont quelques traces de l'ancienne roche.\u00bb En disant ces mots notre\nexcellent ami attira doucement Isabelle, et d\u00e9posant un baiser sur son\nfront, la fit asseoir sur le petit tabouret aux pieds de sa grand'm\u00e8re.\nAlors, soit que l'expression de ce jeune visage, lev\u00e9 vers la vieille\ndame, lui rappel\u00e2t des souvenirs d'autrefois, soit qu'elle f\u00fbt touch\u00e9e\npar la bienveillante bonhomie de M. Pickwick, quelle qu'en f\u00fbt la cause\nenfin, elle s'amollit compl\u00e9tement; elle jeta ses bras au cou de Bella,\net toute cette petite mauvaise humeur s'\u00e9vapora en larmes silencieuses.\n\nCe fut une heureuse soir\u00e9e. Le whist o\u00f9 M. Pickwick et la vieille lady\njouaient ensemble, \u00e9tait grave et solennel, mais la joie de la table\nronde \u00e9tait bruyante et tumultueuse. Longtemps apr\u00e8s que les dames se\nfurent retir\u00e9es, le vin chaud bien assaisonn\u00e9 d'eau-de-vie et d'\u00e9pices,\ncircula \u00e0 la ronde et recircula fr\u00e9quemment. Le sommeil qu'il produisit\nfut profond, et les r\u00eaves qu'il amena furent agr\u00e9ables. C'est un fait\nremarquable que ceux de M. Snodgrass se rapportaient constamment \u00e0 \u00c9mily\nWardle, et que la principale figure des visions de M. Winkle \u00e9tait une\njeune demoiselle, avec des yeux noirs, un sourire malin, et des\nbrodequins remarquablement petits.\n\nM. Pickwick fut r\u00e9veill\u00e9 de bonne heure, le lendemain, par un murmure de\nvoix, par un bruit confus de pas, qui auraient suffi pour tirer le gros\njoufflu lui-m\u00eame de son pesant sommeil. Il se leva sur son s\u00e9ant et\n\u00e9couta. Les domestiques et les h\u00f4tes f\u00e9minins couraient constamment de\ntous c\u00f4t\u00e9s, et il y avait tant et de si instantes demandes d'eau chaude,\ntant de supplications r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9es pour des aiguilles et du fil, tant de:\n\u00abOh! venez m'agrafer ma robe, vous serez bien gentille!\u00bb que M.\nPickwick, dans son innocence, commen\u00e7a \u00e0 s'imaginer qu'il \u00e9tait arriv\u00e9\nquelque chose d'\u00e9pouvantable. Cependant ses id\u00e9es s'\u00e9claircissant de\nplus en plus, il se rappela que c'\u00e9tait le jour des noces. L'occasion\n\u00e9tant importante, il s'habilla avec un soin particulier, et descendit\ndans la chambre o\u00f9 l'on devait d\u00e9jeuner.\n\nToutes les servantes de la maison, v\u00eatues d'un uniforme de mousseline,\ncouraient \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0 dans un \u00e9tat d'agitation et d'inqui\u00e9tude impossible \u00e0\nd\u00e9crire. La vieille lady \u00e9tait par\u00e9e d'une robe de brocart, qui depuis\nvingt ann\u00e9es n'avait pas vu la lumi\u00e8re, except\u00e9 lorsque quelque rayon\nvagabond s'\u00e9tait gliss\u00e9 \u00e0 travers les fentes de la bo\u00eete o\u00f9 elle \u00e9tait\nenferm\u00e9e. M. Trundle resplendissait de satisfaction, mais on voyait\npourtant que ses nerfs n'\u00e9taient pas bien solides. Quant au cordial\namphitryon, il \u00e9chouait compl\u00e9tement dans ses efforts pour para\u00eetre\ntranquille et gai. Except\u00e9 deux ou trois favorites, demeur\u00e9es en haut,\net honor\u00e9es d'une vue particuli\u00e8re de la mari\u00e9e et des demoiselles\nd'honneur, toutes les jeunes personnes \u00e9taient en larmes et en robe de\nmousseline. Les pickwickiens avaient \u00e9galement rev\u00eatu des costumes\nappropri\u00e9s \u00e0 la circonstance. Enfin l'on entendait sur le gazon, devant\nla grande porte, de terribles hurlements, pouss\u00e9s par tous les hommes,\njeunes gars et gamins, d\u00e9pendant de la ferme, et portant chacun une\ncocarde blanche \u00e0 leur boutonni\u00e8re. C'\u00e9tait Sam qui dirigeait leurs\ncris, du pr\u00e9cepte et de l'exemple; car il \u00e9tait d\u00e9j\u00e0 parvenu \u00e0 se rendre\nfort populaire, et se trouvait l\u00e0 aussi \u00e0 son aise que s'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9\ncon\u00e7u et enfant\u00e9 sur les terres de M. Wardle.\n\nUn mariage est un sujet privil\u00e9gi\u00e9 de plaisanteries; et cependant apr\u00e8s\ntout, il n'y a pas grande plaisanterie dans l'affaire. Nous parlons\nsimplement de la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie, et demandons qu'il soit bien entendu que\nnous ne nous permettons aucun sarcasme cach\u00e9 contre la vie maritale. Aux\nplaisirs, aux esp\u00e9rances qu'apporte le mariage, est m\u00eal\u00e9 le regret\nd'abandonner sa maison, sa famille, de laisser derri\u00e8re soi les tendres\namis de la portion la plus heureuse de la vie, pour en affronter les\nsoucis avec une personne qu'on n'a pas encore \u00e9prouv\u00e9e et qu'on conna\u00eet\npeu. Mais en voil\u00e0 assez sur ce sujet: nous ne voulons pas attrister\nnotre chapitre par la description de ces sentiments naturels, et nous\nregretterions encore bien plus de les tourner en ridicule.\n\nNous dirons donc bri\u00e8vement que le mariage fut c\u00e9l\u00e9br\u00e9 par le vieil\neccl\u00e9siastique, dans l'\u00e9glise paroissiale de Dingley-Dell; et que le nom\nde M. Pickwick est inscrit sur le registre, conserv\u00e9 jusqu'\u00e0 ce jour\ndans la sacristie; que la jeune demoiselle aux yeux noirs ne signa pas\nson nom d'une main ferme, coulante et d\u00e9gag\u00e9e; que la signature d'\u00c9mily\net celle de l'autre demoiselle d'honneur sont presque illisibles; que\nd'ailleurs tout se passa tr\u00e8s-bien et d'une mani\u00e8re fort agr\u00e9able; que\nles jeunes demoiselles trouv\u00e8rent, g\u00e9n\u00e9ralement, que la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie \u00e9tait\nbien moins terrible qu'elles ne se l'\u00e9taient imagin\u00e9; et que si la\npropri\u00e9taire des yeux noirs et du sourire malicieux jugea convenable\nd'informer M. Winkle, qu'assur\u00e9ment elle ne pourrait jamais se soumettre\n\u00e0 une chose aussi odieuse, nous avons, d'autre part, les meilleures\nraisons pour supposer qu'elle se trompait. A tout cela nous pouvons\najouter que M. Pickwick fut le premier qui embrassa la mari\u00e9e, et qu'en\nm\u00eame temps il lui jeta autour du cou une riche cha\u00eene d'or, avec une\nmontre du m\u00eame m\u00e9tal, qui n'avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 vues auparavant par les yeux\nd'aucun mortel, except\u00e9 ceux du joaillier. Enfin les cloches de la\nvieille \u00e9glise sonn\u00e8rent aussi gaiement qu'elles le purent, et tout le\nmonde s'en retourna d\u00e9jeuner.\n\n\u00abO\u00f9 les petits p\u00e2t\u00e9s de No\u00ebl se placent-ils, jeune mangeur d'opium?\ndemanda Sam au gros joufflu, en aidant cet int\u00e9ressant fonctionnaire \u00e0\nmettre sur la table les articles de consommation qui n'avaient point \u00e9t\u00e9\narrang\u00e9s le soir pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent.\n\nJoe indiqua la destination des p\u00e2t\u00e9s.\n\n\u00abTr\u00e8s-bien! dit Sam: Mettez un rameau de No\u00ebl dedans. L'autre plat \u00e0\nl'opposite. Maintenant nous avons l'air compact et confortable, comme\nobservait le papa en coupant la t\u00eate de son moutard pour l'emp\u00eacher de\nloucher.\u00bb\n\nEn faisant cette citation savante, Sam recula d'un pas ou deux pour\nexaminer les pr\u00e9paratifs du festin. Il \u00e9tait encore plong\u00e9 dans cette\nd\u00e9licieuse contemplation, lorsque la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 arriva et se mit \u00e0 table.\n\n\u00abWardle, dit M. Pickwick, presque aussit\u00f4t qu'on f\u00fbt assis; un verre de\nvin en honneur de cette heureuse circonstance.\n\n--J'en serai charm\u00e9, mon vieux camarade, r\u00e9pliqua M. Wardle. Joe....\ndamn\u00e9 gar\u00e7on! il est all\u00e9 dormir.\n\n--Non, monsieur, je ne dors pas, r\u00e9pondit le gros joufflu en sortant\nd'un coin de la chambre, o\u00f9, comme l'immortel Jack Horner, patron des\ngros gar\u00e7ons, il s'occupait \u00e0 d\u00e9vorer un p\u00e2t\u00e9 de No\u00ebl, sans toutefois\ns'acquitter de cette besogne avec le sang-froid qui caract\u00e9risait les\nop\u00e9rations gastronomiques de l'illustre h\u00e9ros de la ballade enfantine.\n\n--Remplissez le verre de M. Pickwick.\n\n--Oui, monsieur.\u00bb\n\nLe gros joufflu emplit le verre de M. Pickwick et se retira ensuite\nderri\u00e8re la chaise de son ma\u00eetre, d'o\u00f9 il observa avec une esp\u00e8ce de\njoie sombre et inqui\u00e8te, le jeu des fourchettes et des couteaux, et le\ntrajet des morceaux choisis depuis les plats jusqu'aux assiettes, et des\nassiettes jusqu'aux bouches des convives.\n\n\u00abQue Dieu vous b\u00e9nisse, mon vieil ami, dit M. Pickwick.\n\n--Je vous en dis autant, mon gar\u00e7on, r\u00e9pliqua Wardle, et ils se firent\nraison du fond du coeur.\n\n--Mme Wardle, reprit M. Pickwick, nous autres vieilles gens nous devons\nboire un verre de vin ensemble en honneur de cet heureux \u00e9v\u00e9nement.\u00bb\n\nLa vieille lady \u00e9tait en ce moment dans une posture pleine de grandeur,\ncar elle \u00e9tait assise au haut bout de la table, dans sa robe de brocart,\nayant la nouvelle mari\u00e9e d'un cot\u00e9 et M. Pickwick de l'autre, pour\nd\u00e9couper. M. Pickwick n'avait pas parl\u00e9 tr\u00e8s-haut, mais elle l'entendit\ndu premier coup, et but un verre de vin tout entier \u00e0 sa longue vie et \u00e0\nson bonheur. Ensuite la bonne vieille cr\u00e9ature se lan\u00e7a dans un r\u00e9cit\ncirconstanci\u00e9 de son propre mariage, accompagn\u00e9 d'une dissertation sur\nla mode des talons hauts, et de quelques particularit\u00e9s concernant la\nvie et les aventures de la charmante lady Tollimglower, d\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9e. A\nchaque pose de son r\u00e9cit, la vieille dame riait de tout son coeur, et les\njeunes ladies en faisaient autant; puis elles se demandaient entre elles\nde quoi leur grand'maman pouvait parler si longtemps. Or, quand les\njeunes ladies riaient, la vieille dame \u00e9clatait dix fois plus fort, et\nd\u00e9clarait que son histoire avait toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 regard\u00e9e comme excellente;\nce qui faisait rire de nouveau tout le monde, et inspirait \u00e0 la vieille\ndame la meilleure humeur possible.\n\nCependant le fameux _plum-cake_, le g\u00e2teau de noce, fut d\u00e9coup\u00e9 et\ncircula autour de la table. Les jeunes demoiselles en gard\u00e8rent des\nmorceaux, pour mettre sous leur traversin et r\u00eaver de leur futur \u00e9poux,\nce qui occasionna une grande quantit\u00e9 de rougeurs et d'\u00e9clats de rire.\n\n\u00abMonsieur Miller, un verre de vin, dit M. Pickwick \u00e0 sa vieille\nconnaissance, le gentleman dont la t\u00eate ressemblait \u00e0 une pomme de\nreinette.\n\n--Avec grande satisfaction, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit celui-ci d'un air\nsolennel.\n\n--Vous me permettrez d'en \u00eatre, dit le vieil eccl\u00e9siastique b\u00e9n\u00e9vole.\n\n--Et \u00e0 moi aussi, ajouta sa femme.\n\n--Et \u00e0 moi aussi, et \u00e0 moi aussi,\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e8rent du bas de la table une\ncouple de parents pauvres, qui avaient bu et mang\u00e9 de tout leur coeur, et\nqui s'empressaient de rire \u00e0 tout ce qui se disait.\n\nM. Pickwick, dont les yeux rayonnaient de bienveillance et de plaisir,\nexprima son intime satisfaction \u00e0 chaque addition nouvelle. Ensuite, se\nlevant tout d'un coup:\n\n\u00abLadies et gentlemen, dit-il.\n\n--\u00c9coutez! \u00e9coutez! \u00e9coutez! \u00e9coutez! \u00e9coutez! \u00e9coutez! cria Sam,\nemport\u00e9 par l'exaltation du moment.\n\n--Faites entrer tous les domestiques, dit le vieux Wardle en\ns'interposant pour pr\u00e9venir la rebuffade publique que Sam aurait\ninfailliblement re\u00e7ue de son ma\u00eetre; et donnez-leur \u00e0 chacun un verre de\nvin pour boire le toast; maintenant, Pickwick....\u00bb\n\nParmi le silence de la compagnie, le chuchotement des domestiques\nfemelles, et l'embarras craintif des m\u00e2les, M. Pickwick poursuivit:\n\n\u00abLadies et gentlemen... non... je ne dirai pas ladies et gentlemen, je\nvous appellerai mes amis, mes chers amis, si les dames veulent\nm'accorder une si grande libert\u00e9....\u00bb Ici M. Pickwick fut interrompu par\nles applaudissements fr\u00e9n\u00e9tiques des dames, r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9s par les gentlemen,\net durant lesquels la propri\u00e9taire des yeux noirs fut entendue d\u00e9clarer\ndistinctement qu'elle embrasserait volontiers ce cher M. Pickwick; M.\nWinkle demanda galamment si cela ne pourrait pas se faire par\nprocuration; mais la jeune lady aux yeux noirs lui r\u00e9pliqua; \u00abpar\nexemple!\u00bb en accompagnant cette r\u00e9ponse d'une oeillade qui disait\nclairement: essayez!\n\n\u00abMes chers amis, reprit M. Pickwick, je vais proposer la sant\u00e9 du mari\u00e9\net de la mari\u00e9e, que Dieu les b\u00e9nisse! (Larmes et applaudissements.) Mon\njeune ami Trundle est, comme je crois, un excellent et brave jeune\nhomme; et je sais que sa femme est une tr\u00e8s-aimable et tr\u00e8s-charmante\nfille, bien capable de transf\u00e9rer dans une autre sph\u00e8re le bonheur\nqu'elle a r\u00e9pandu autour d'elle pendant vingt ann\u00e9es dans la maison\npaternelle\u00bb (Ici le gros joufflu laissa \u00e9clater des pleurnicheries\nstentoriennes, et Sam, le saisissant par le collet, l'entra\u00eena hors de\nla chambre.) \u00abJe voudrais, poursuivit M. Pickwick, je voudrais \u00eatre\nassez jeune pour devenir le mari de sa soeur. (Applaudissements.) Mais\ncela n'\u00e9tant pas, je suis heureux de me trouver assez vieux pour \u00eatre\nson p\u00e8re, afin de ne pas \u00eatre soup\u00e7onn\u00e9 d'avoir quelques projets cach\u00e9s\nsi je dis que je les admire, que je les estime et que je les aime toutes\nles deux. (Applaudissements et sanglots.) Le p\u00e8re de la mari\u00e9e, notre\nbon ami ici pr\u00e9sent, est un noble caract\u00e8re, et je suis orgueilleux de\nle conna\u00eetre. (Grand tapage.) C'est un homme excellent, ind\u00e9pendant,\naffectueux, hospitalier, lib\u00e9ral. (Cris enthousiastes des pauvres\nparents \u00e0 chacun de ces adjectifs, et sp\u00e9cialement aux deux derniers.)\nPuisse sa fille jouir de tout le bonheur que lui-m\u00eame peut lui\nsouhaiter, puisse-t-il trouver dans la contemplation de ce bonheur toute\nla satisfaction de coeur et d'esprit qu'il m\u00e9rite si bien. Tels sont,\nj'en suis bien s\u00fbr, les voeux de chacun de nous. Buvons donc \u00e0 leur\nsant\u00e9, en leur souhaitant une longue vie et toutes sortes de\nprosp\u00e9rit\u00e9s.\u00bb\n\nM. Pickwick cessa de parler au milieu d'une temp\u00eate d'applaudissements.\nLes poumons des auxiliaires, sous le commandement de Sam, se faisaient\nsurtout distinguer par leur active et solide coop\u00e9ration. Ensuite M.\nWardle proposa la sant\u00e9 de M. Pickwick, et M. Pickwick celle de la\nvieille lady. M. Snodgrass proposa M. Wardle, et M. Wardle proposa M.\nSnodgrass. Un des pauvres parents proposa M. Tupman, l'autre pauvre\nparent proposa M. Winkle, et tout fut bonheur et festoiement, jusqu'au\nmoment o\u00f9 la disparition myst\u00e9rieuse des deux pauvres parents sous la\ntable, avertit la compagnie qu'il \u00e9tait temps de se s\u00e9parer.\n\nSur la recommandation de M. Wardle, la partie masculine de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9\nentreprit une promenade de quatre ou cinq lieues, pour se d\u00e9barrasser\ndes fum\u00e9es du vin et du d\u00e9jeuner. Les pauvres parents seulement\ndemeur\u00e8rent au lit, toute la journ\u00e9e, pour t\u00e2cher d'obtenir le m\u00eame\nr\u00e9sultat; mais n'ayant pu y parvenir ils furent oblig\u00e9s d'en rester l\u00e0.\nCependant Sam entretenait les domestiques dans un \u00e9tat d'hilarit\u00e9\nperp\u00e9tuelle, et le gros joufflu charmait ses loisirs en mangeant et en\ndormant tour \u00e0 tour.\n\nAux larmes pr\u00e8s, le d\u00eener fut aussi affectueux que le d\u00e9jeuner, et tout\naussi bruyant; ensuite vint le dessert et de nouveaux toasts, puis le\nth\u00e9 et le caf\u00e9, puis enfin le bal.\n\nAu bout d'une longue salle, garnie de sombres lambris, \u00e9taient assis,\nsous un berceau de houx et d'arbres verts, les deux meilleurs violons et\nl'unique harpe de Muggleton. Dans toutes esp\u00e8ces de recoins, et sur\ntoutes sortes de supports, luisaient de vieux chandeliers d'argent\nmassif. Le tapis \u00e9tait \u00f4t\u00e9, les bougies brillaient gaiement, le feu\np\u00e9tillait dans l'\u00e9norme chemin\u00e9e, sur le chambranle de laquelle aurait\npu rouler facilement un cabriolet de nos temps d\u00e9g\u00e9n\u00e9r\u00e9s. Des voix\nenjou\u00e9es, des \u00e9clats de rires joyeux retentissaient dans toute la salle:\nenfin c'\u00e9tait justement l'endroit o\u00f9 les anciens _yeomen_ anglais,\ndevenus lutins apr\u00e8s leur mort, auraient aim\u00e9 \u00e0 donner une f\u00eate.\n\nSi quelque chose pouvait ajouter \u00e0 l'int\u00e9r\u00eat de cette agr\u00e9able\nc\u00e9r\u00e9monie, c'\u00e9tait le fait remarquable que M. Pickwick apparut sans ses\ngu\u00eatres, pour la premi\u00e8re fois de sa vie, s'il faut en croire ses plus\nanciens amis.\n\n\u00abVous vous proposez de danser? lui demanda M. Wardle.\n\n--N\u00e9cessairement; ne voyez-vous pas que je suis habill\u00e9 pour cela,\nr\u00e9pondit-il, en faisant remarquer avec complaisance ses bas de soie\nchin\u00e9s et ses fins escarpins.\n\n--Vous, en bas de soie! s'\u00e9cria gaiement M. Tupman.\n\n--Et pourquoi pas, monsieur, pourquoi pas? r\u00e9torqua M. Pickwick avec\nchaleur, en se retournant vers son ami.\n\n--Oh! effectivement, r\u00e9pondit M. Tupman. Il n'y a aucune raison pour que\nvous n'en portiez pas.\n\n--Je le suppose, monsieur, je le suppose, dit M. Pickwick d'un ton\np\u00e9remptoire.\u00bb\n\nM. Tupman avait voulu rire, mais il s'aper\u00e7ut que c'\u00e9tait un sujet\ns\u00e9rieux. Il prit donc un air grave et d\u00e9clara que les bas \u00e9taient d'un\njoli dessin.\n\n--Je l'esp\u00e8re, reprit le philosophe en regardant fixement son\ninterlocuteur. Je me flatte, monsieur, que vous ne voyez rien\nd'extraordinaire dans ces bas, en tant que bas.\n\n--Non certainement. Oh! non certainement! se h\u00e2ta de r\u00e9pondre M. Tupman.\nIl s'\u00e9loigna, et la contenance de M. Pickwick reprit l'expression\nb\u00e9n\u00e9vole qui lui \u00e9tait habituelle.\n\n--Nous sommes tous pr\u00eats, dit M. Pickwick, qui s'\u00e9tait plac\u00e9 avec la\nvieille lady \u00e0 la t\u00eate de la danse, et qui avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 fait trois faux\nd\u00e9parts, dans son excessive impatience de commencer.\n\n--Allons, s'\u00e9cria Wardle, maintenant!\u00bb\n\nSoudain sonn\u00e8rent les deux violons et la harpe, et vite partit M.\nPickwick, les bras entrelac\u00e9s avec sa danseuse; mais il fut interrompu\npar un battement de mains g\u00e9n\u00e9ral et par des cris de \u00abArr\u00eatez! arr\u00eatez!\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il y a? demanda le philosophe qui n'avait pu \u00eatre ramen\u00e9\n\u00e0 sa place, que lorsque les deux violons et la harpe eurent fait\nsilence, et qui n'aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 retenu par aucun autre pouvoir sur la\nterre, quand m\u00eame la maison aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 en feu.\n\n--O\u00f9 est Arabella Allen? cri\u00e8rent une douzaine de voix.\n\n--Et Winkle? ajouta M. Tupman.\n\n--Nous voici, s'\u00e9cria M. Winkle, en sortant, avec son aimable compagne,\nd'une embrasure de fen\u00eatre. Pendant qu'il disait ces mots, il aurait \u00e9t\u00e9\ndifficile de d\u00e9cider lequel des deux \u00e9tait le plus rouge, lui ou la\njeune lady aux yeux noirs.\n\n--C'est bien extraordinaire, Winkle, que vous ne puissiez pas prendre\nvotre place! s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick avec d\u00e9pit.\n\n--Pas du tout, r\u00e9pondit M. Winkle.\n\n--Oh! vous avez raison, reprit M. Pickwick, en reposant ses yeux sur\nArabella, avec un sourire fort expressif. Vous avez raison; cela n'est\npas extraordinaire, apr\u00e8s tout.\u00bb\n\nQuoi qu'il en soit, on n'eut pas le temps de penser davantage \u00e0 cette\npetite aventure, car les violons et la harpe commenc\u00e8rent pour tout de\nbon. M. Pickwick s'\u00e9lan\u00e7a aussit\u00f4t: Les mains crois\u00e9es, promenade\njusqu'\u00e0 l'extr\u00e9mit\u00e9 de la chambre, et au retour, jusqu'au milieu de la\nchemin\u00e9e; pouss\u00e9e, de tous les c\u00f4t\u00e9s, de bruyants frappements de pieds\nsur le plancher. Au tour de l'autre couple. En route sur nouveaux frais.\nToute la figure se r\u00e9p\u00e8te, les frappements de pieds recommencent pour\nmarquer la mesure. Un autre couple, et un autre, et un autre encore!\nJamais on ne vit une danse aussi anim\u00e9e; et enfin, lorsque la vieille\nlady \u00e9puis\u00e9e eut \u00e9t\u00e9 remplac\u00e9e par la femme du b\u00e9n\u00e9vole eccl\u00e9siastique,\nlorsque quatorze couples eurent fait la figure, lorsque M. Pickwick et\nsa nouvelle partner se trouv\u00e8rent \u00e0 la queue des danseurs, on vit cet\nillustre savant, quoiqu'il n'e\u00fbt aucun motif quelconque de faire tant\nd'efforts, continuer de danser perp\u00e9tuellement \u00e0 sa place, en souriant\ntout le temps \u00e0 sa compagne, avec une douceur ang\u00e9lique et qui d\u00e9fie\ntoute description.\n\nLongtemps avant que M. Pickwick f\u00fbt fatigu\u00e9 de danser, les nouveaux\nmari\u00e9s s'\u00e9taient \u00e9clips\u00e9s de la sc\u00e8ne. Il y eut cependant, au\nrez-de-chauss\u00e9e, un glorieux souper, et \u00e0 la suite une longue s\u00e9ance\nautour de la table. Aussi M. Pickwick s'\u00e9veilla-t-il assez tard le\nlendemain. Il lui sembla alors se rappeler, d'une mani\u00e8re confuse, qu'il\navait invit\u00e9 particuli\u00e8rement et confidentiellement environ\nquarante-cinq personnes \u00e0 d\u00eener chez lui, au George et Vautour, la\npremi\u00e8re fois qu'elles viendraient \u00e0 Londres; ce qui, comme lui-m\u00eame le\npensa avec raison, indiquait d'une mani\u00e8re \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s certaine, qu'il ne\ns'\u00e9tait pas content\u00e9 de danser la nuit pr\u00e9c\u00e9dente.\n\nCependant la journ\u00e9e s'\u00e9coula joyeusement, et lorsque le soir fut venu,\n\u00abEh! bien, ma ch\u00e8re, demanda Sam \u00e0 Emma, votre famille a donc des\nhistoires dans la cuisine, \u00e0 cette heure?\n\n--Oui, monsieur Weller, r\u00e9pondit Emma. C'est toujours comme cela la\nveille de No\u00ebl: notre ma\u00eetre ne n\u00e9gligerait pas les vieilles coutumes\npour un empire.\n\n--Votre ma\u00eetre a une id\u00e9e fort judicieuse, ma ch\u00e8re. Je n'ai jamais vu\nun homme aussi judicieux, un si v\u00e9ritable gentleman.\n\n--C'est bien vrai, dit le gros joufflu en se m\u00ealant \u00e0 la conversation.\nN'engraisse-t-il pas de beaux cochons?\u00bb\n\nTandis que l'\u00e9pais jouvenceau parlait ainsi, une \u00e9tincelle\nsemi-cannibale brillait dans ses yeux, au souvenir des pieds r\u00f4tis.\n\n\u00abOh! vous voil\u00e0 r\u00e9veill\u00e9 \u00e0 la fin,\u00bb lui dit Sam.\n\nLe gros joufflu fit un signe affirmatif.\n\n\u00abEh! bien, je vais vous dire, jeune boa constructeur, reprit Sam, d'un\nson de voix imposant: si vous ne dormez pas un petit peu moins, et si\nvous ne faites pas un petit peu plus d'exercice, quand vous arriverez \u00e0\n\u00eatre un homme vous vous exposerez au m\u00eame genre d'inconv\u00e9nient personnel\nqui fut inflig\u00e9 sur le vieux gentleman qui portait une queue de rat.\n\n--Qu'est-ce donc qui lui est arriv\u00e9? demanda Joe d'une voix mal assur\u00e9e.\n\n--C'est ce que je vas vous dire. Il \u00e9tait du plus large patron qui a\njamais \u00e9t\u00e9 invent\u00e9; un v\u00e9ritable homme gras, qui n'avait pas entrevu ses\npropres chaussures depuis quarante et cinq ans.\n\n--Bont\u00e9 divine! s'\u00e9crie Emma.\n\n--Non, ma ch\u00e8re, pas une fois; et si vous aviez mis devant lui un mod\u00e8le\nde ses propres jambes sur la table o\u00f9 il d\u00eenait, il ne les aurait pas\nreconnues. Il allait toujours \u00e0 son bureau avec une tr\u00e8s-belle cha\u00eene\nd'or qui pendait, en dandinant, environ un pied et demi, et une montre\nd'or dans son gousset qui valait bien... j'ai peur de dire trop... mais\nautant qu'une montre peut valoir; une grosse montre ronde, aussi\ncons\u00e9quente dans son esp\u00e8ce comme il \u00e9tait pour un homme. \u00abVous feriez\nmieux de ne pas porter cette montre ici, disaient les amis du gentleman,\nvous en serez vol\u00e9.--Bah! qu'il dit.--Oui, disent-ils, vous le\nserez.--Bien, dit-il; j'aimerais \u00e0 voir le voleur qui pourrait tirer\ncette montre ici, car je veux que Dieu me b\u00e9nisse si je peux jamais la\ntirer moi-m\u00eame, qu'il dit; elle est si serr\u00e9e dans mon gousset que quand\nje veux savoir quelle heure-s-qu'il est, je suis oblig\u00e9 de regarder dans\nla boutique du boulanger, qu'il dit.--Pour lors, en disant \u00e7a il riait\nde si bon coeur qu'on avait peur de le voir \u00e9clater. Il sort avec sa t\u00eate\npoudr\u00e9e et sa queue de rat, vl\u00e0 qu'il roule sa bosse dans le Strand avec\nsa cha\u00eene dandinant plus que jamais, et la grosse montre qui crevait\npresque son pantalon. Il n'y avait pas un filou dans tout Londres qui\nn'e\u00fbt pas tir\u00e9 \u00e0 cette cha\u00eene; mais la cha\u00eene ne voulait jamais se\ncasser et la montre ne voulait pas sortir. Ainsi ils se fatiguaient bien\nvite de tra\u00eener un gros homme comme \u00e7a sur le pav\u00e9, et l'autre s'en\nretournait chez lui, et il riait tant que sa queue de rat se tr\u00e9moussait\ncomme le pendule d'un vieux coucou. A la fin, un jour, il roulait\ntranquillement; vl\u00e0 qu'il voit un filou qu'il connaissait de vue, bras\ndessus, bras dessous avec un petit moutard qui avait une tr\u00e8s-grosse\nt\u00eate.--En voil\u00e0 une farce, que le vieux gentleman se dit en lui-m\u00eame:\nils vont s'essayer encore un coup, mais \u00e7a ne prendra pas. Ainsi il\ncommence \u00e0 ricaner bien joyeusement, quand tout d'un coup le petit\ngar\u00e7on quitte le bras du filou et se jette la t\u00eate la premi\u00e8re droit\ndans l'estomac du vieux gentleman, si fort qu'il le fait doubler en deux\npar la douleur. Il se met \u00e0 crier oh l\u00e0! l\u00e0! mais le filou lui dit tout\nbas \u00e0 l'oreille: Le tour est fait, monsieur, et quand il se redresse la\nmontre et la cha\u00eene avaient fichu le camp, et ce qu'il y a de plus pire,\nla digestion du vieux gentleman a toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 embrouill\u00e9e apr\u00e8s \u00e7a,\npour tout le reste de sa vie naturelle.--Ainsi faites attention \u00e0 vous,\nmon jeune gaillard, et prenez garde que vous ne deveniez pas trop gras.\u00bb\n\nLorsque Sam eut conclu ce r\u00e9cit moral, dont le gros joufflu parut fort\naffect\u00e9, nos trois personnages se rendirent dans la cuisine.\n\nC'\u00e9tait une vaste pi\u00e8ce o\u00f9 se trouvait rassembl\u00e9e toute la famille,\nsuivant la coutume annuellement observ\u00e9e, depuis un temps imm\u00e9morial,\npar les anc\u00eatres de M. Wardle. Il venait de suspendre de ses propres\nmains, au milieu du plafond, une \u00e9norme branche de gui[31], qui donna\ninstantan\u00e9ment naissance \u00e0 une sc\u00e8ne d\u00e9licieuse de luttes et de\nconfusion. Au milieu du d\u00e9sordre, M. Pickwick, avec une galanterie qui\naurait fait honneur \u00e0 un descendant de lady Tollimglower elle-m\u00eame, prit\nla vieille lady par la main, la conduisit sous l'arbuste mystique, et\nl'embrassa avec courtoisie et d\u00e9corum. La vieille dame se soumit \u00e0 cet\nacte de politesse avec la dignit\u00e9 qui convenait \u00e0 une solennit\u00e9 si\nimportante et si s\u00e9rieuse; mais les jeunes ladies, n'\u00e9tant point aussi\nprofond\u00e9ment imbues d'une superstitieuse v\u00e9n\u00e9ration pour cette coutume,\nou s'imaginant que la saveur d'un baiser est singuli\u00e8rement relev\u00e9e\nquand on a un peu de peine \u00e0 l'obtenir, criaient, se d\u00e9battaient,\ncouraient dans tous les coins, faisaient des menaces et des\nremontrances, faisaient tout, enfin, except\u00e9 de quitter la chambre, et\nluttaient ainsi jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 les gentlemen les moins aventureux\nparaissaient sur le point de renoncer \u00e0 leur entreprise. Tout d'un coup,\nalors, elles s'apercevaient qu'il \u00e9tait inutile de r\u00e9sister plus\nlongtemps, et se soumettaient de bonne gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 \u00eatre embrass\u00e9es. M.\nWinkle embrassa la jeune demoiselle aux yeux noirs; M. Snodgrass\nembrassa \u00c9mily; les pauvres parents embrassaient tout le monde, sans en\nexcepter les jeunes ladies les plus laides, qui, dans leur excessive\nconfusion se pr\u00e9cipitaient justement sous le gui, sans le savoir. Quant\n\u00e0 Sam, ne croyant point \u00e0 la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9 d'\u00eatre sous l'arbuste sacr\u00e9, il\nembrassait Emma et les autres servantes quand il pouvait les attraper.\nCependant M. Wardle se tenait debout pr\u00e9s de la chemin\u00e9e, le dos au feu,\nconsid\u00e9rant cette sc\u00e8ne avec la plus grande satisfaction, tandis que le\ngros joufflu profitait de l'occasion pour d\u00e9vorer sommairement un\nadmirable petit p\u00e2t\u00e9 de No\u00ebl, qui avait \u00e9t\u00e9 soigneusement mis de c\u00f4t\u00e9\npar quelque autre personne.\n\n[Footnote 31: Aux f\u00eates de No\u00ebl, on a coutume de suspendre une branche\nde houx dans la salle de r\u00e9union, et quiconque peut entra\u00eener une dame\nsous la branche a le droit de l'embrasser.]\n\nEnfin les cris s'\u00e9taient apais\u00e9s, les visages \u00e9taient couverts de\nrougeur, les cheveux pendaient d\u00e9fris\u00e9s, et M. Pickwick, apr\u00e8s avoir\nembrass\u00e9 la vieille dame, comme nous l'avons dit plus haut, \u00e9tait rest\u00e9\ndebout sous le gui, regardant avec une physionomie riante ce qui se\npassait autour de lui. Tout d'un coup, la jeune demoiselle aux yeux\nnoirs, apr\u00e8s quelques chuchotements avec les autres jeunes personnes,\ns'\u00e9lan\u00e7a vers M. Pickwick, lui jeta ses bras autour du cou, et le baisa\ntendrement sur la joue gauche. Aussit\u00f4t toute la troupe des jeunes\nladies entoura le savant philanthrope, et avant qu'il e\u00fbt eu le temps de\nse reconna\u00eetre et de savoir de quoi il s'agissait, il fut bais\u00e9 par\nchacune d'elles.\n\nC'\u00e9tait un gracieux spectacle de voir M. Pickwick au centre de ce\ngroupe, tant\u00f4t tir\u00e9 d'un c\u00f4t\u00e9, tant\u00f4t de l'autre; bais\u00e9, d'abord sur le\nmenton, puis sur le nez, puis sur ses lunettes, et d'entendre les \u00e9clats\nde rire qui retentissaient de toutes parts. Mais bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s ce fut un\nspectacle plus charmant encore, de voir M. Pickwick, les yeux couverts\nd'un mouchoir de soie, se pr\u00e9cipiter sur les murailles, s'embarraser\ndans les coins, et accomplir, enfin, avec d\u00e9lices, tous les myst\u00e8res de\ncolin-maillard, jusqu'au moment o\u00f9 il attrapa l'un des pauvres parents.\nA son tour, alors, il s'occupa d'\u00e9viter le colin-maillard, et il s'en\nacquitta avec une agilit\u00e9 et une prestesse qui arrach\u00e8rent des\napplaudissements aux assistants. Les pauvres parents attrapaient\npr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment les gens \u00e0 qui ils supposaient que cela serait agr\u00e9able, et\nse laissaient prendre, par hasard, lorsque quelqu'un trimait trop\nlongtemps.\n\nQuand tout le monde fut fatigu\u00e9 de colin-maillard on alluma un grand\n_snap-dragon_[32], et lorsqu'on se fut suffisamment br\u00fbl\u00e9 les doigts, on\ns'assit aupr\u00e8s d'un \u00e9norme feu de troncs enflamm\u00e9s, et autour d'un\nsouper substantiel.\n\n[Footnote 32: Un _snap-dragon_ est un plat de noisettes, de raisins,\netc., plong\u00e9s dans une l\u00e9g\u00e8re quantit\u00e9 d'eau-de-vie allum\u00e9e, dont il\ns'agit de les retirer sans se br\u00fbler.]\n\n\u00abCeci, dit M. Pickwick, en regardant autour de lui, ceci, en v\u00e9rit\u00e9, est\ndu confort.\n\n--C'est notre coutume invariable, r\u00e9pondit M. Wardle. Tout le monde,\ndomestiques et travailleurs, s'assoit \u00e0 notre table la veille de No\u00ebl,\ncomme vous le voyez. Nous restons ici \u00e0 conter de vieilles histoires\njusqu'\u00e0 ce que minuit sonne et nous annonce l'arriv\u00e9e de la\nf\u00eate.--Trundle, mon gar\u00e7on, attisez le feu.\u00bb\n\nDes myriades d'\u00e9tincelles brillantes p\u00e9till\u00e8rent dans les airs, lorsque\nles troncs d'arbre furent remu\u00e9s, et la flamme rouge qui s'en \u00e9leva\nr\u00e9pandit une chaude lumi\u00e8re, qui p\u00e9n\u00e9tra dans les coins les plus\n\u00e9loign\u00e9s de la chambre, et illumina tous les visages.\n\n--Allons, dit Wardle, une chanson; une chanson de No\u00ebl. Je vous en\nchanterai une, \u00e0 d\u00e9faut de meilleure.\n\n--Bravo, s'\u00e9cria M. Pickwick.\n\n--Remplissez les verres, reprit Wardle, il se passera bien deux heures\navant que vous voyiez le fond de ce bol. Remplissez \u00e0 la ronde; et\nmaintenant, la chanson.\u00bb\n\nA ces mots le joyeux vieillard entonna, sans plus de c\u00e9r\u00e9monie, d'une\nvoix forte et franche, la chanson que voici:\n\nNO\u00cbL.\n\n    J'aime peu le printemps; sur son aile inconstante.\n    Il apporte, il est vrai, les boutons et les fleurs,\n    Mais ce qu'\u00e9panouit son haleine enivrante,\n    Il le br\u00fble aussit\u00f4t par ses folles rigueurs.\n    Sylphe capricieux, ignorant ce qu'il aime,\n    Il change, en un moment, d'aspect et de vouloir,\n    Il vous sourit, vous berce, et puis \u00e0 l'instant m\u00eame,\n    Il brise, dans sa fleur, votre naissant espoir.\n\n    J'aime peu de l'\u00e9t\u00e9 le soleil magnifique.\n    Quand il darde sur nous ses rayons \u00e9nervants,\n    Il enfante souvent la fi\u00e8vre fr\u00e9n\u00e9tique,\n    La rage, et de l'amour les douloureux tourments.\n    Je pourrais pr\u00e9f\u00e9rer le nuit calme et glac\u00e9e,\n    Qui suit, modestement, un beau jour de moisson;\n    Mais la feuille qui tombe attriste ma pens\u00e9e,\n    Et l'automne n'est point encore ma saison.\n\n    Je pr\u00e9f\u00e8re No\u00ebl, le gentleman antique,\n    Qui ram\u00e8ne l'hiver et les festins joyeux;\n    Vidons en son honneur, dans la salle gothique,\n    D'innombrables flacons de nos vins les plus vieux!\n    No\u00ebl est le gardien des vertus domestiques,\n    Le plus doux souvenir de nos vieilles maisons.\n    Pousses donc avec moi trois hourras sympathiques,\n    Pour saluer le Roi de toutes les saisons!\n\nCette chanson fut accueillie par un tonnerre d'applaudissements. Un\nauditoire compos\u00e9 d'amis et de serviteurs est toujours si b\u00e9n\u00e9vole! Les\nparents pauvres, surtout, tombaient dans de v\u00e9ritables extases de\nravissement.\n\nLe feu fut garni de nouveaux troncs, et le bol accomplit une ronde\nnouvelle.\n\n\u00abComme il neige, dit un des hommes \u00e0 voix basse.\n\n--Comment! il neige? r\u00e9p\u00e9ta Wardle.\n\n--Oui, monsieur, la nuit est noire et froide. Le vent vient de se lever,\net il fouette la neige en tourbillons dans la plaine.\n\n--Qu'est-ce qu'il dit donc? demanda la vieille lady; est-ce qu'il est\narriv\u00e9 quelque chose?\n\n--Non, non, maman. Il dit qu'il neige et que le vent souffle fort; et il\na raison, car on entend un fameux tapage dans la chemin\u00e9e.\n\n--Ha! reprit la vieille dame, il faisait un vent comme cela, et il\ntombait aussi de la neige, il y a bien des ann\u00e9es.... Attendez, que je\nme rappelle.... juste cinq ans avant la mort de votre pauvre p\u00e8re.\nC'\u00e9tait la veille de No\u00ebl aussi, et je me souviens qu'il nous raconta\nl'histoire du vieux Gabriel Grub, qui a \u00e9t\u00e9 enlev\u00e9 par les goblins[33].\n\n[Footnote 33: Esp\u00e8ce de lutins.]\n\n--L'histoire de qui? demanda M. Pickwick avec curiosit\u00e9.\n\n--Oh! rien, r\u00e9pliqua M. Wardle. L'histoire d'un vieux sacristain, que\nles bonnes gens d'ici supposent avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 emport\u00e9 par les goblins.\n\n--Supposent! s'\u00e9cria la vieille lady. Y a-t-il quelqu'un d'assez\nt\u00e9m\u00e9raire pour en douter? Supposent! N'avez-vous pas toujours entendu\ndire, depuis votre enfance, qu'il a \u00e9t\u00e9 emport\u00e9 par les goblins, et ne\nsavez-vous pas que c'est la v\u00e9rit\u00e9?\n\n--Tr\u00e8s-bien, maman, r\u00e9pliqua M. Wardle, en riant, il fut emport\u00e9 si vous\nvoulez.--Il fut emport\u00e9 par les goblins, Pickwick, et voil\u00e0 toute\nl'histoire.\n\n--Non pas, non pas, je vous assure, reprit M. Pickwick. Ce n'est pas\ntoute l'histoire, car il faut que j'apprenne comment il fut enlev\u00e9, et\npourquoi, et les tenants et les aboutissants.\u00bb\n\nM. Wardle sourit, en voyant toutes les t\u00eates se pencher pour l'\u00e9couter.\nAyant donc rempli son verre d'une main lib\u00e9rale, il porta une sant\u00e9 \u00e0 M.\nPickwick, par un geste familier, et commen\u00e7a ainsi qu'il suit....\n\nMais que Dieu b\u00e9nisse notre cerveau d'\u00e9diteur. A quel long chapitre nous\nsommes-nous laiss\u00e9 entra\u00eener! Nous le d\u00e9clarons solennellement, nous\navions compl\u00e9tement oubli\u00e9 toutes ces petites entraves qu'on appelle\n_chapitres_. C'est \u00e9gal: nous allons donner le champ libre aux revenants\nen leur ouvrant un nouveau chapitre. Point de passe-droits \u00e0 leur\npr\u00e9judice, s'il vous pla\u00eet, messieurs et mesdames.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPITRE XXIX.\n\nHistoire du sacristain emport\u00e9 par les goblins.\n\n\nDans une vieille ville abbatiale de ce comt\u00e9, vivait, il y a bien\nlongtemps; si longtemps, que l'histoire doit \u00eatre vraie, puisque tous\nnos p\u00e8res, grand-p\u00e8res et arri\u00e8re-grand-p\u00e8res l'ont crue pieusement,\nvivait, dis-je, un certain Gabriel Grub, qui remplissait les fonctions\nde sacristain et de fossoyeur. Parce qu'un homme est sacristain et\nconstamment entour\u00e9 d'embl\u00e8mes de mort, il ne s'ensuit pas du tout qu'il\ndoive \u00eatre morose et m\u00e9lancolique. Les entrepreneurs des pompes fun\u00e8bres\nsont les gens les plus gais du monde, et j'avais autrefois l'honneur\nd'\u00eatre intime avec un _muet_[34], lequel, hors de ses fonctions et dans\nla vie priv\u00e9e, \u00e9tait le plus comique, le plus jovial petit gaillard qui\nait jamais braill\u00e9 une chanson bachique, sans le moindre hoquet de\nm\u00e9moire, ou aval\u00e9 un rude verre de grog, sans s'arr\u00eater pour reprendre\nhaleine. Toutefois il n'en \u00e9tait pas ainsi de Gabriel Grub. C'\u00e9tait une\nesp\u00e8ce de vieux hibou, grognon, rechign\u00e9, hargneux; ne se plaisant avec\npersonne, si ce n'est avec une grosse bouteille d'osier, aussi vieille\nque lui, qu'il portait fid\u00e8lement enfonc\u00e9e dans une large poche. Lorsque\npar hasard les yeux caverneux du sacristain apercevaient une physionomie\nheureuse, son regard se chargeait \u00e0 l'instant m\u00eame d'une expression de\nhaine si malfaisante, qu'on ne pouvait le rencontrer sans en \u00eatre tout\nboulevers\u00e9.\n\n[Footnote 34: _Designator_, l'homme qui dirige les assistants dans les\nc\u00e9r\u00e9monies fun\u00e8bres.\n\n(_Note du traducteur_.)]\n\nUne certaine veille de No\u00ebl, un peu avant le cr\u00e9puscule, Gabriel mit sa\nb\u00eache sur son \u00e9paule, alluma sa lanterne, et se dirigea vers le\ncimeti\u00e8re; il avait une fosse \u00e0 finir pour le lendemain matin, et, se\nsentant mal dispos\u00e9, il esp\u00e9rait se ragaillardir un peu en y\ntravaillant. Pendant qu'il cheminait dans la rue \u00e9troite, il voyait\nbriller, \u00e0 travers la plupart des fen\u00eatres, la lumi\u00e8re joyeuse d'un feu\np\u00e9tillant; il entendait les \u00e9clats de rire et les cris plaisants de ceux\nqui \u00e9taient r\u00e9unis autour du foyer; il remarquait les pr\u00e9paratifs de\nbonne ch\u00e8re qui se faisaient pour le lendemain; enfin il sentait les\nsucculentes odeurs qui s'exhalaient des cuisines en nuages savoureux.\nTout cela \u00e9tait du fiel et de l'absinthe sur le coeur de Gabriel Grub; et\nlorsque des troupes d'enfants, s'\u00e9lan\u00e7ant hors des maisons, bondissaient\n\u00e0 travers les rues pour rejoindre d'autres petits coquins, aux t\u00eates\nboucl\u00e9es, qui chantaient en riant les plaisirs de la veille de No\u00ebl,\nGabriel serrait convulsivement le manche de sa b\u00eache, et ricanait\nsardoniquement, en pensant aux rougeoles, aux coqueluches, aux fi\u00e8vres\nscarlatines, au croup, et encore \u00e0 beaucoup d'autres sources de\nconsolation.\n\nDans cette heureuse disposition d'esprit, Gabriel poursuivait son\nchemin, r\u00e9pondant par un grognement bref et triste au salut cordial des\nvoisins qu'il rencontrait, jusqu'\u00e0 ce qu'enfin il tourna dans la sombre\nruelle qui menait au cimeti\u00e8re. Or, il avait attendu avec impatience\nl'instant d'y arriver, parce que c'\u00e9tait un endroit selon son coeur,\ntoujours lugubre et fun\u00e8bre, et dans lequel les gens de la ville\nn'aimaient pas \u00e0 s'aventurer si ce n'est en plein jour, quand le soleil\nbrillait. Gabriel ne fut donc pas l\u00e9g\u00e8rement indign\u00e9 d'entendre une voix\nd'enfant, qui r\u00e9p\u00e9tait un joyeux No\u00ebl, dans cette esp\u00e8ce de sanctuaire,\nappel\u00e9 la ruelle aux bi\u00e8res, depuis le temps de la gothique abbaye et\ndes moines tonsur\u00e9s. Comme le sacristain continuait de marcher, et que\nla voix s'approchait de plus en plus, il reconnut qu'elle provenait d'un\npetit gar\u00e7on, qui se h\u00e2tait de rejoindre les enfants de la grande rue,\net qui, partie pour se donner du courage, partie pour se mettre en\ntrain, chantait \u00e0 gorge d\u00e9ploy\u00e9e une vieille chanson. Gabriel attendit\nque le bambin f\u00fbt pr\u00e8s de lui, et le poussant dans un coin, il lui\nadministra cinq ou six tapes avec sa lanterne, seulement pour lui\napprendre \u00e0 moduler en mesure. L'enfant s'enfuit avec ses mains sur sa\nt\u00eate, chantant sur un ton fort diff\u00e9rent, et Gabriel Grub, en ricanant\nde tout son coeur, entra dans le cimeti\u00e8re, dont il ferma la porte\nderri\u00e8re lui.\n\nIl \u00f4ta son habit, posa par terre sa lanterne, descendit dans la fosse\ncommenc\u00e9e, et travailla vigoureusement pendant une heure environ. Mais\nla terre \u00e9tait durcie par la gel\u00e9e, et il n'\u00e9tait pas facile de la\ncouper, ni de la jeter dehors. D'ailleurs, quoiqu'il y e\u00fbt de la lune,\nc'\u00e9tait une lune fort jeune, et elle n'\u00e9clairait pas la fosse, qui se\ntrouvait \u00e0 l'ombre de l'abbaye. Dans tout autre temps, ces inconv\u00e9nients\nauraient rendu Gabriel tr\u00e8s-chagrin et tr\u00e8s-mis\u00e9rable, mais il \u00e9tait si\nsatisfait d'avoir interrompu la s\u00e9r\u00e9nade du petit gar\u00e7on, qu'il ne\ns'inqui\u00e9ta pas beaucoup du peu de progr\u00e8s qu'il faisait. Lorsqu'il eut\nfini son travail, il examina la fosse avec une sombre satisfaction, et\nen ramassant ses outils, il grommelait entre ses dents:\n\n    C'est un logement fort honn\u00eate\n    Pour un modeste tr\u00e9pass\u00e9;\n    Quelques pieds de terrain glac\u00e9,\n    Avec une pierre \u00e0 la t\u00eate;\n    Pour couverture un beau gazon,\n    Pour matelas la terre humide:\n    Quand on est l\u00e0 tout de son long,\n    On n'y sent jamais aucun vide;\n    On est toujours bien entour\u00e9,\n    Des milliers de vers vous font f\u00eate....\n    C'est un logement fort honn\u00eate\n    Surtout dans un terrain sacr\u00e9.\n\nGabriel riait tout seul en s'asseyant sur une tombe plate, qui \u00e9tait son\nlieu de repos favori. Il tira sa bouteille d'eau-de-vie en grommelant:\n\u00abUne fosse \u00e0 No\u00ebl! En voil\u00e0 une f\u00eate! ho! ho! ho!\n\n--Ho! ho! ho!\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta une voix derri\u00e8re lui.\n\nGabriel laissa retomber le bras qui portait la bouteille \u00e0 ses l\u00e8vres,\net regarda alentour avec inqui\u00e9tude; mais le silence et le calme de la\ntombe r\u00e9gnaient dans tout le cimeti\u00e8re. Aux p\u00e2les rayons de la lune, la\ngel\u00e9e blanche argentait les pierres tumulaires et brillait, en rang\u00e9es\nde perles, sur les arceaux sculpt\u00e9s de la vieille \u00e9glise; la neige, dure\net craquante, formait sur les monticules press\u00e9s une couverture si\nblanche et si unie, qu'on aurait pu croire que les cadavres \u00e9taient l\u00e0,\nenvelopp\u00e9s seulement dans leur blanc linceul; nul souffle de vent ne\ntroublait le repos de cette sc\u00e8ne solennelle; le son m\u00eame paraissait\ngel\u00e9, tant les objets environnants \u00e9taient froids et tranquilles.\n\n\u00abC'\u00e9tait l'\u00e9cho,\u00bb dit Gabriel en portant de nouveau la bouteille \u00e0 ses\nl\u00e8vres.\n\nUne voix creuse articula pr\u00e8s de lui: \u00abCe n'\u00e9tait pas l'\u00e9cho.\u00bb\n\nGabriel tressaillit et se leva; mais l'\u00e9tonnement et la terreur\nl'encha\u00een\u00e8rent \u00e0 sa place, son sang se figea dans ses veines, car, tout\naupr\u00e8s de lui, se trouvait un \u00eatre d'une apparence \u00e9trange,\nsurnaturelle, et qui venait \u00e9videmment d'un autre monde. Il \u00e9tait assis\nsur une haute pierre lev\u00e9e, et avait crois\u00e9 ses longues jambes gr\u00eales\nd'une mani\u00e8re fantasque, impossible; ses bras nus faisaient anse, et ses\nmains reposaient sur ses genoux. Ses souliers \u00e0 la poulaine se\nrecourbaient en longues pointes; un justaucorps taillad\u00e9 \u00e9tranglait son\npetit corps rond; \u00e0 son dos pendait un court manteau, dont le collet,\ncurieusement d\u00e9coup\u00e9 en \u00e9troites lani\u00e8res, lui servait de fraise ou, si\nl'on veut, de cravate; sur sa t\u00eate, il portait un chapeau pointu, \u00e0\ngrands bords, garni d'une seule plume, et ce chapeau \u00e9tait si bien\ncouvert de gel\u00e9e blanche, l'\u00eatre fantastique \u00e9tait si confortablement\nassis sur cette tombe, qu'il avait l'air d'y \u00eatre install\u00e9 depuis deux\ncents ans, pour le moins. Il se tenait parfaitement immobile; mais il\ntirait la langue d'un demi-pied pour se moquer de Gabriel, et il\nricanait d'un ricanement que des goblins[35] seuls peuvent ex\u00e9cuter.\n\n[Footnote 35: Esp\u00e8ce de lutin anglais.]\n\n\u00abCe n'\u00e9tait pas l'\u00e9cho,\u00bb dit le lutin.\n\nGabriel \u00e9tait paralys\u00e9.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que vous faites ici, la veille de No\u00ebl? demanda le goblin\ns\u00e9v\u00e8rement.\n\n--Monsieur, balbutia Gabriel, je suis venu ici pour creuser une fosse.\n\n--Qui donc se prom\u00e8ne parmi des tombes dans une nuit comme celle-ci?\ns'\u00e9cria le goblin d'un ton s\u00e9pulcral.\n\n--Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!\u00bb r\u00e9pondirent en choeur des voix aigu\u00ebs et\nsauvages qui semblaient remplir le cimeti\u00e8re. Gabriel regarda avec\nterreur autour de lui, mais il ne vit rien.\n\n--Qu'est-ce que vous avez dans cette bouteille? demanda le goblin.\n\n--Du geni\u00e8vre, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua le sacristain en tremblant plus fort\nque jamais, car il l'avait achet\u00e9 des contrebandiers, et il pensait que\nle personnage qui l'interrogeait \u00e9tait peut-\u00eatre dans la douane des\ngoblins.\n\n--Qui donc boit tout seul du geni\u00e8vre au milieu d'un cimeti\u00e8re et dans\nune nuit comme celle-ci? reprit le lutin solennellement.\n\n--Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!\u00bb cri\u00e8rent de nouveau les voix sauvages.\n\nLe goblin ricana malicieusement en lorgnant le sacristain \u00e9pouvant\u00e9;\npuis, enflant sa voix comme un ouragan, il s'\u00e9cria: \u00abQui devient ainsi\nnotre proie l\u00e9gitime?\u00bb\n\nLe choeur invisible r\u00e9pondit encore \u00e0 cette demande, et le sacristain\ncrut entendre une multitude d'enfants de choeur m\u00ealer leurs chants aux\naccords majestueux des orgues de la vieille abbaye. C'\u00e9tait une musique\nsurnaturelle qui semblait port\u00e9e par un doux z\u00e9phyr, et qui passait et\nmourait avec lui; mais le refrain de cet air myst\u00e9rieux \u00e9tait toujours\nle m\u00eame, et r\u00e9p\u00e9tait encore: \u00abGabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!\u00bb\n\nLe goblin fendit sa bouche jusqu'\u00e0 ses oreilles en disant: \u00abQue\npensez-vous de ceci, Gabriel?\u00bb\n\nGabriel ne r\u00e9pondit que par un soupir.\n\n\u00abQue pensez-vous de ceci, Gabriel?\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le goblin en dressant\nn\u00e9gligemment ses pieds en l'air, de chaque c\u00f4t\u00e9 de la tombe, et en\nexaminant la pointe relev\u00e9e de sa chaussure avec autant de complaisance\nque si \u00e7'avait \u00e9t\u00e9 la paire de bottes la plus fashionable de\nBond-Street.\n\n\u00abC'est.... c'est.... tr\u00e8s-curieux, monsieur, r\u00e9pondit le sacristain, \u00e0\nmoiti\u00e9 mort de peur. Tr\u00e8s-curieux et tr\u00e8s-joli...; mais je pense qu'il\nfaut que j'aille finir mon ouvrage, s'il vous pla\u00eet.\n\n--Quel ouvrage? demanda le goblin.\n\n--Ma fosse, monsieur, la fosse que j'ai commenc\u00e9e, balbutia le\nsacristain.\n\n--Ah! votre fosse, ah! Qui donc s'amuse \u00e0 creuser des fosses dans un\ntemps o\u00f9 tous les autres hommes ne songent qu'\u00e0 se r\u00e9jouir?\u00bb\n\nLes voix myst\u00e9rieuses r\u00e9pliqu\u00e8rent encore: \u00abGabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!\n\n--J'ai peur que mes amis ne puissent pas se s\u00e9parer de vous, Gabriel,\ndit le goblin en fourrant dans sa joue sa langue \u00e9norme! J'ai peur que\nmes amis ne puissent pas se s\u00e9parer de vous, Gabriel!\n\n--Sous votre bon plaisir, monsieur, r\u00e9pliqua le sacristain terrifi\u00e9, je\nne le pense pas, monsieur; ils ne me connaissent pas, monsieur. Je ne\ncrois pas que ces illustres gentlemen m'aient jamais vu, monsieur.\n\n--Oh! que si, reprit le goblin, nous le connaissons tous l'homme au\nvisage sombre, au regard sinistre, qui traversait la rue ce soir en\njetant _un mauvais oeil_ aux enfants et en serrant plus fort sa b\u00eache de\nfossoyeur. Nous connaissons l'homme plein d'envie et de malice, qui a\ncass\u00e9 la t\u00eate d'un bambin parce qu'il \u00e9tait heureux, et que cet homme ne\npouvait pas l'\u00eatre. Nous le connaissons! nous le connaissons!\u00bb\n\nIci le lutin fit retentir les \u00e9chos d'un ricanement aigu; puis, jetant\nses jambes en l'air, il se planta au bord de la pierre tumulaire, debout\nsur sa t\u00eate, ou plut\u00f4t sur la pointe de son chapeau; ensuite, faisant la\nculbute avec une incroyable agilit\u00e9, il se retrouva juste aux pieds du\nsacristain, dans l'attitude favorite des tailleurs et des odalisques.\n\n\u00abJe crains.... je crains d'\u00eatre oblig\u00e9 de vous quitter, monsieur,\nmurmura le sacristain en faisant un effort pour se mouvoir.\n\n--Nous quitter! s'\u00e9cria le goblin, Gabriel Grub, nous quitter! oh! oh!\noh!\u00bb\n\nTandis que le goblin riait, le sacristain vit une lumi\u00e8re brillante\nilluminer les fen\u00eatres de la vieille \u00e9glise. Au bout d'un moment, cette\nlumi\u00e8re s'\u00e9teignit; les orgues modul\u00e8rent un air guilleret, et des\nvol\u00e9es de lutins, en tout semblables au premier, s'abattirent dans le\ncimeti\u00e8re et commenc\u00e8rent \u00e0 jouer \u00e0 saute-mouton sur les pierres des\ntombeaux, les franchissant l'une apr\u00e8s l'autre, avec une dext\u00e9rit\u00e9\nmerveilleuse, et sans s'arr\u00eater un seul instant pour prendre haleine.\nMais le premier goblin \u00e9tait le sauteur le plus \u00e9tonnant de tous, et pas\nun des nouveaux venus ne pouvait en approcher. Malgr\u00e9 son extr\u00eame\nfrayeur, le sacristain ne pouvait s'emp\u00eacher de remarquer que les autres\ngoblins se contentaient de sauter par-dessus les pierres ordinaires,\nmais que le premier faisait passer entre ses jambes, grilles, cypr\u00e8s et\ncaveaux de famille, avec autant d'aisance que s'il avait eu affaire \u00e0 de\nsimples bornes.\n\nA la fin l'int\u00e9r\u00eat du jeu devint intense. L'orgue jouait de plus en plus\nvite; les goblins sautaient de plus en plus fort, se tordant, se\nroulant, faisant mille culbutes, en bondissant comme des ballons,\npar-dessus les tombeaux. Les jambes de Gabriel se d\u00e9robaient sous lui,\nla t\u00eate lui tournait rien que de voir le tourbillon de lutins qui\npassaient devant ses yeux; lorsque tout \u00e0 coup le roi des goblins, se\npr\u00e9cipitant sur le pauvre homme, le saisit par le collet et s'enfon\u00e7a\navec lui dans les entrailles de la terre.\n\nQuand Gabriel put respirer, apr\u00e8s une descente rapide, il se trouva dans\nune vaste caverne, entour\u00e9 de toutes parts d'une multitude de goblins\nhorribles et grima\u00e7ants. Dans le milieu de la pi\u00e8ce, sur un tr\u00f4ne \u00e9lev\u00e9,\n\u00e9tait fantastiquement assis son ami du cimeti\u00e8re, et Gabriel Grub\nlui-m\u00eame \u00e9tait plac\u00e9 aupr\u00e8s de lui, mais incapable de faire aucun\nmouvement.\n\n\u00abIl fait froid, cette nuit, dit le roi des lutins. Donnez-nous quelque\nchose de chaud.\u00bb\n\nUne demi-douzaine d'officieux goblins, ayant un perp\u00e9tuel sourire sur\nles l\u00e8vres, et que Gabriel reconnut \u00e0 cela pour des courtisans,\ndisparurent d'un air empress\u00e9 et revinrent un instant apr\u00e8s, avec un\nverre de feu liquide, qu'ils pr\u00e9sent\u00e8rent au roi.\n\n\u00abAh! dit le goblin dont les joues et la gorge \u00e9taient devenues tout \u00e0\nfait transparentes, pendant le passage de la flamme, cela r\u00e9chauffe un\npeu. Apportez-en un verre \u00e0 M. Grub.\u00bb\n\nL'infortun\u00e9 sacristain protesta vainement qu'il ne prenait jamais rien\nde chaud pendant la nuit; l'un des courtisans le tint par le nez et le\nmenton, pendant qu'un autre versait dans son gosier l'ardent liquide, et\ntoute l'assembl\u00e9e se mit \u00e0 rire avec des hurlements, tandis qu'il\nsuffoquait et qu'il essuyait, avec son mouchoir, le ruisseau de larmes\noccasionn\u00e9 par cette boisson br\u00fblante.\n\n\u00abMaintenant, dit le roi fantasque, en fourrant plaisamment la pointe de\nson chapeau dans l'oeil du sacristain, de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 lui causer une\nnouvelle souffrance; maintenant montrez \u00e0 l'homme atrabilaire et\nmisanthrope, quelques peintures de notre mus\u00e9e.\u00bb\n\nLorsque le goblin eut prononc\u00e9 ces paroles, un nuage \u00e9pais qui\nobscurcissait l'un des coins de la caverne, se dissipa graduellement, et\nlaissa apercevoir, apparemment \u00e0 une grande distance, une chambre petite\net mal meubl\u00e9e, o\u00f9 r\u00e9gnait cependant un ordre et une propret\u00e9 charmante.\nAupr\u00e8s d'un bon feu se pr\u00e9lassait un fauteuil vide, tandis que sur la\ntable \u00e9tait arrang\u00e9 un repas frugal. Une jeune m\u00e8re, entour\u00e9e d'enfants\nallait de temps en temps \u00e0 la fen\u00eatre et en soulevait le rideau pour\nd\u00e9couvrir un peu plus t\u00f4t celui qu'elle attendait. Un coup frapp\u00e9 \u00e0 la\nporte se fit entendre; la m\u00e8re alla ouvrir et les enfants pleins de joie\nbattirent des mains lorsque le p\u00e8re entra. Il \u00e9tait mouill\u00e9 et fatigu\u00e9.\nIl secoua la neige de ses v\u00eatements, et les enfants s'empress\u00e8rent de\nl'entourer pour emporter, l'un son chapeau, l'autre son manteau, l'autre\nson b\u00e2ton, l'autre ses gants. Ensuite le p\u00e8re s'assit, pour prendre son\nrepas, aupr\u00e8s du feu; les enfants grimp\u00e8rent sur ses genoux, la m\u00e8re se\npla\u00e7a \u00e0 c\u00f4t\u00e9 de lui: la paix et le bonheur brillaient sur leur visage.\n\nMais un changement se fit dans le tableau, d'une mani\u00e8re presque\nimperceptible. La sc\u00e8ne repr\u00e9senta une petite chambre \u00e0 coucher, o\u00f9 le\nplus jeune et le plus joli des enfants gisait sur son lit de mort. Les\nroses de ses joues \u00e9taient fl\u00e9tries, la lumi\u00e8re de ses yeux \u00e9tait\n\u00e9teinte, et tandis que le sacristain lui-m\u00eame le consid\u00e9rait avec un\nint\u00e9r\u00eat qu'il n'avait jamais ressenti auparavant, le pauvre enfant\nrendit le dernier soupir. Ses jeunes fr\u00e8res et ses soeurs se press\u00e8rent\nautour de son berceau, et saisirent sa main; mais elle \u00e9tait froide et\nroidie. Ils recul\u00e8rent et regard\u00e8rent, avec une terreur religieuse, son\nvisage enfantin; car, quoique l'expression en f\u00fbt calme et tranquille,\nquoique le bel enfant par\u00fbt dormir en paix, ils voyaient bien que la\nmort \u00e9tait l\u00e0, et ils savaient que maintenant leur petit fr\u00e8re \u00e9tait un\nange dans les cieux, d'o\u00f9 il les contemplait et les b\u00e9nissait.\n\nUn l\u00e9ger nuage passa de nouveau sur la peinture et le sujet en fut\nchang\u00e9. Le p\u00e8re et la m\u00e8re \u00e9taient devenus vieux et infirmes, et le\nnombre de ceux qui les entouraient avait diminu\u00e9 de plus de moiti\u00e9.\nCependant la paix et le contentement r\u00e9gnaient encore sur tous les\nvisages. La famille \u00e9tait r\u00e9unie autour du feu et les parents\nracontaient, les enfants \u00e9coutaient avec d\u00e9lices des histoires des\nanciens temps et des jours \u00e9coul\u00e9s. Doucement et tranquillement le vieux\np\u00e8re descendit dans la tombe, et bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s, celle qui avait partag\u00e9\ntous ses soins et toutes ses peines, le suivit dans le s\u00e9jour de\nl'\u00e9ternel repos. Les enfants qui leur survivaient s'agenouill\u00e8rent en\npleurant sur le gazon du cimeti\u00e8re; puis ils se relev\u00e8rent et\ns'\u00e9loign\u00e8rent lentement, tristement, mais sans cris amers, sans\nlamentations d\u00e9sesp\u00e9r\u00e9es, car ils \u00e9taient s\u00fbrs de les revoir bient\u00f4t\ndans le royaume c\u00e9leste. Ils se m\u00eal\u00e8rent donc de nouveau aux sc\u00e8nes\nactives du monde, et la tranquillit\u00e9, le contentement revinrent habiter\navec eux.\n\nLe nuage descendit alors sur le tableau et le d\u00e9roba aux yeux du\nsacristain.\n\n\u00abQu'est-ce que vous pensez de cela?\u00bb demanda le goblin \u00e0 Gabriel en\ntournant vers lui sa large face.\n\nGabriel balbutia que c'\u00e9tait un spectacle fort amusant, mais il\nparaissait honteux et mal \u00e0 l'aise, car le lutin fixait sur lui des yeux\nfarouches.\n\n\u00abMis\u00e9rable \u00e9go\u00efste! s'\u00e9cria celui-ci d'un ton plein de m\u00e9pris. Mis\u00e9rable\n\u00e9go\u00efste!\u00bb Il paraissait dispos\u00e9 \u00e0 ajouter quelque chose, mais\nl'indignation l'emp\u00eachait de prononcer. Il leva une de ses jambes\nflexibles, et l'agitant au-dessus de sa t\u00eate afin de mieux ajuster, il\nla d\u00e9chargea solidement sur le dos de Gabriel. Aussit\u00f4t tous les goblins\nqui faisaient leur cour, suivirent l'exemple du ma\u00eetre; car c'est\nl'usage invariable des courtisans, m\u00eame sur la terre, de flageller ceux\nque le pouvoir flagelle, et de cajoler ceux qu'il cajole.\n\n\u00abMontrez-lui encore quelque chose,\u00bb dit ensuite le roi des lutins.\n\nA ces mots le nuage se dissipa, comme la premi\u00e8re fois, et laissa\napercevoir un riche et beau paysage, semblable \u00e0 celui que l'on d\u00e9couvre\nencore aujourd'hui, \u00e0 un quart de lieue de la vieille abbaye. Le soleil\nresplendissait dans le bleu firmament, l'eau \u00e9tincelait sous ses rayons,\net gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 son influence bienfaisante, les arbres paraissaient plus\nverts et les fleurs plus jolies. L'onde ruisselait avec son agr\u00e9able\nmurmure; un vent ti\u00e8de agitait les feuilles; les oiseaux chantaient dans\nles buissons et l'alouette charmait les airs de ses hymnes matinales;\ncar c'\u00e9tait le matin, le matin \u00e9tincelant et embaum\u00e9 d'un beau jour\nd'\u00e9t\u00e9; et les feuilles les plus menues, les plus petits brins l'herbe\nparaissaient remplis de vie; la fourmi diligente accomplissait son\ntravail journalier; le papillon voltigeait sur les fleurs et se baignait\ndans les chauds rayons du soleil; des myriades d'insectes \u00e9tendaient\nleurs ailes transparentes et jouissaient de leur courte mais heureuse\nexistence: l'homme enfin se montrait, son esprit s'exaltait en voyant la\ngrandeur de la cr\u00e9ation, et tout dans la nature \u00e9tait harmonie et\nsplendeur.\n\nCependant Gabriel Grub ne paraissait point touch\u00e9.\n\n\u00abMis\u00e9rable \u00e9go\u00efste!\u00bb r\u00e9p\u00e9ta le roi des goblins d'un ton plus m\u00e9prisant\nencore, et derechef il agita sa jambe au-dessus de sa t\u00eate, et la fit\ndescendre vivement sur les \u00e9paules du sacristain. Les gens de sa suite\nne manqu\u00e8rent pas d'en faire autant.\n\nBien des fois le nuage s'obscurcit et se dissipa, et de nombreux\ntableaux donn\u00e8rent \u00e0 Gabriel des le\u00e7ons, qu'il consid\u00e9rait avec un\nint\u00e9r\u00eat de plus en plus vif, quoique ses \u00e9paules devinssent br\u00fblantes,\npar l'application r\u00e9p\u00e9t\u00e9e des pieds des lutins. Il vit que les hommes\nqui travaillent p\u00e9niblement et qui gagnent, \u00e0 la sueur de leur front une\nmodique subsistance, sont cependant gais et heureux. Il apprit que, m\u00eame\npour les plus ignorants, le doux aspect de la nature est une source\ntoujours nouvelle de d\u00e9lices et de tranquillit\u00e9. Il vit des femmes,\nnourries d\u00e9licatement et tendrement \u00e9lev\u00e9es, supporter joyeusement des\nprivations, surmonter des souffrances qui auraient \u00e9cras\u00e9 des cr\u00e9atures\nd'une \u00e9toffe plus grossi\u00e8re; et cela parce qu'elles portaient dans leur\nsein une source in\u00e9puisable d'affection et de d\u00e9vouement. Par-dessus\ntout, il vit que les hommes qui s'affligent du bonheur des autres, sont\nsemblables aux plus mauvaises herbes dont la surface de la terre est\ninfect\u00e9e. Enfin balan\u00e7ant ensemble le bien et le mal qu'il observait, il\narriva \u00e0 cette conclusion que le monde, apr\u00e8s tout, est une esp\u00e8ce de\nmonde assez honn\u00eate et assez respectable.\n\nAussit\u00f4t qu'il en fut venu l\u00e0, le nuage qui avait voil\u00e9 le dernier\ntableau sembla s'abaisser sur ses sens et l'inviter au repos. L'un apr\u00e8s\nl'autre les goblins s'effac\u00e8rent, et lorsque le dernier eut disparu,\nGabriel Grub s'endormit profond\u00e9ment.\n\nLa jour \u00e9tait avanc\u00e9, quand le sacristain s'\u00e9veilla. Il se trouva \u00e9tendu\ntout de son long dans le cimeti\u00e8re, sur la tombe plate qu'il\naffectionnait. Sa bouteille d'osier, enti\u00e8rement vide, gisait \u00e0 ses\nc\u00f4t\u00e9s, et son habit, sa b\u00eache, sa lanterne, tout blanchis par la gel\u00e9e\nde la nuit, \u00e9taient \u00e9parpill\u00e9s autour de lui sur la terre. La pierre sur\nlaquelle il avait d'abord vu le goblin, se dressait l\u00e0 tout pr\u00e8s de la\nfosse \u00e0 laquelle il avait travaill\u00e9 le soir pr\u00e9c\u00e9dent. Cependant,\nGabriel commen\u00e7ait \u00e0 douter de la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 de ses aventures, mais les\ndouleurs aigu\u00ebs qu'il ressentit dans ses \u00e9paules, lorsqu'il essaya de se\nlever, l'assur\u00e8rent que les coups de pieds qu'il avait re\u00e7us n'\u00e9taient\npas imaginaires. Il fut \u00e9branl\u00e9 de nouveau en ne voyant pas de traces de\npas sur la neige o\u00f9 les lutins avaient jou\u00e9 \u00e0 saute-mouton avec les\ntombes; mais bient\u00f4t apr\u00e8s il s'expliqua cette circonstance en se\nrappelant que des esprits ne peuvent laisser derri\u00e8re eux aucune\nimpression visible.\n\nQuoi qu'il en soit, Gabriel se mit sur ses jambes aussi bien que le lui\npermettait la roideur de son \u00e9pine dorsale; puis ayant secou\u00e9 la gel\u00e9e\nblanche de dessus son habit, il l'endossa, et se dirigea vers la ville.\n\nMais son esprit \u00e9tait enti\u00e8rement chang\u00e9, et il ne pouvait supporter la\npens\u00e9e de retourner dans un endroit o\u00f9 son repentir serait mis en doute,\nsinon ridiculis\u00e9. Il h\u00e9sita pendant quelques instants, puis il se\ndirigea vers la campagne pour aller gagner son pain dans un nouveau\npays, quel qu'il f\u00fbt.\n\nOn trouva ce jour-l\u00e0 dans le cimeti\u00e8re, sa lanterne, sa b\u00eache et sa\nbouteille d'osier. On fit d'abord beaucoup de suppositions sur sa\ndestin\u00e9e, mais on d\u00e9cida promptement qu'il avait \u00e9t\u00e9 enlev\u00e9 par les\ngoblins. Il se trouva m\u00eame des t\u00e9moins tr\u00e8s-v\u00e9ridiques, qui d\u00e9clar\u00e8rent\nl'avoir vu distinctement emport\u00e9 \u00e0 travers les airs, sur le dos d'un\ncheval brun, lequel cheval \u00e9tait borgne, avait la queue d'un ours, et le\ntrain de derri\u00e8re d'un lion. Au bout de quelque temps, cela fut cru\nd\u00e9votement, et le nouveau sacristain avait coutume de montrer aux\ncurieux, pour une bagatelle, un morceau assez consid\u00e9rable du coq de\ncuivre du clocher, d\u00e9tach\u00e9 par un coup de pied du cheval pendant sa\ncourse a\u00e9rienne, et ramass\u00e9 par ledit sacristain, dans le cimeti\u00e8re, un\nan ou deux apr\u00e8s l'\u00e9v\u00e9nement.\n\nMalheureusement, la v\u00e9racit\u00e9 de ce r\u00e9cit fut l\u00e9g\u00e8rement infirm\u00e9e par la\nr\u00e9apparition inattendue de Gabriel Grub lui-m\u00eame, qui revint au bout\nd'une dizaine d'ann\u00e9es, vieillard pauvre et infirme, mais content. Il\nraconta ses aventures au pasteur et au maire, de sorte qu'apr\u00e8s un\ncertain temps, elles pass\u00e8rent dans le domaine de l'histoire, o\u00f9 elles\nsont rest\u00e9es jusqu'\u00e0 ce jour. Seulement ceux qui avaient cru \u00e0 la br\u00e8che\ndu coq de cuivre, s'apercevant qu'ils avaient \u00e9t\u00e9 attrap\u00e9s une fois, ne\nvoulurent plus rien croire du tout. Ils prirent donc un air aussi malin\nqu'ils purent, lev\u00e8rent les \u00e9paules, touch\u00e8rent leur front, et\nmurmur\u00e8rent quelque chose sur ce que Gabriel Grub avait bu toute son\neau-de-vie, et s'\u00e9tait endormi sur la tombe plate. Quant \u00e0 ses\nobservations dans la caverne des goblins, c'\u00e9tait tout simplement qu'il\navait vu le monde et \u00e9tait devenu plus sage. N\u00e9anmoins cette opinion ne\nfut jamais populaire, et s'\u00e9teignit graduellement. Quelle que soit la\nversion v\u00e9ritable, comme Gabriel Grub fut affect\u00e9 de rhumatismes jusqu'\u00e0\nla fin de ses jours, son histoire a tout au moins une moralit\u00e9: c'est\nqu'un homme atrabilaire, qui boit tout seul la veille de No\u00ebl, peut \u00eatre\nbien s\u00fbr de ne pas s'en trouver mieux, quand m\u00eame son eau-de-vie serait\naussi bien rectifi\u00e9e que celle du roi des goblins.\n\nFIN DU PREMIER VOLUME.\n\n\n\n\nTABLE DES MATI\u00c8RES.\n\nCONTENUES DANS LE PREMIER VOLUME.\n\n\n\nI. Les pickwickiens.\n\nII. Le premier jour de voyage et la premi\u00e8re soir\u00e9e d'aventures, avec\nleurs cons\u00e9quences.\n\nIII. Une nouvelle connaissance. Histoire d'un clown. Une interruption\nd\u00e9sagr\u00e9able et une rencontre f\u00e2cheuse.\n\nIV. La petite guerre. De nouveaux amis. Une invitation pour la campagne.\n\nV. Faisant voir entre autres choses comment M. Pickwick entreprit de\nconduire une voiture, et M. Winkle de monter un cheval; et comment l'un\net l'autre en vinrent \u00e0 bout.\n\nVI. Une soir\u00e9e du bon vieux temps. Histoire racont\u00e9e par un\neccl\u00e9siastique.\n\nVII. Comment M. Winkle, au lieu de tirer le pigeon et de tuer la\ncorneille, tira la corneille et blessa le pigeon. Comment le club de la\nCrosse de Dingley-Dell lutta contre celui de Muggleton, et comment\nMuggleton d\u00eena aux d\u00e9pens de Dingley-Dell. Avec diverses autres mati\u00e8res\n\u00e9galement instructives et int\u00e9ressantes.\n\nVIII. Faisant voir clairement que la route du v\u00e9ritable amour n'est pas\naussi unie qu'un chemin de fer.\n\nIX. La d\u00e9couverte et la poursuite.\n\nX. Destin\u00e9 \u00e0 dissiper tous les doutes qui pourraient exister sur le\nd\u00e9sint\u00e9ressement de M. Jingle.\n\nXI. Contenant un autre voyage et une d\u00e9couverte d'antiquit\u00e9: annon\u00e7ant\nla r\u00e9solution de M. Pickwick d'assister \u00e0 une \u00e9lection, et renfermant un\nmanuscrit donn\u00e9 par le vieil eccl\u00e9siastique.\n\nXII. Qui contient une tr\u00e8s-importante d\u00e9termination de M. Pickwick,\nlaquelle fait \u00e9poque dans sa vie non moins que dans cette v\u00e9ridique\nhistoire.\n\nXIII. Notice sur Eatanswill, sur les parties qui le divisent, et sur\nl'\u00e9lection d'un membre du parlement par le bourg ancien, loyal et\npatriote.\n\nXIV. Contenant une courte description de la compagnie assembl\u00e9e au _Paon\nd'argent_, et de plus une histoire racont\u00e9e par un commis-voyageur.\n\nXV. Dans lequel se trouve un portrait fid\u00e8le de deux personnes\ndistingu\u00e9es, et une description exacte d'un grand d\u00e9jeuner qui eut lieu\ndans leur maison et domaine. Ledit d\u00e9jeuner am\u00e8ne la rencontre d'une\nvieille connaissance, et le commencement d'un autre chapitre.\n\nXVI. Trop plein d'aventures pour qu'on puisse les r\u00e9sumer bri\u00e8vement.\n\nXVII. Montrant qu'une attaque de rhumatisme peut quelquefois servir de\nstimulant \u00e0 un g\u00e9nie inventif.\n\nXVIII. Qui prouve bri\u00e8vement deux points, savoir: le pouvoir des\nattaques de nerfs et la force des circonstances.\n\nXIX. Un jour heureux termin\u00e9 malheureusement.\n\nXX. O\u00f9 l'on voit que Dodson et Fogg \u00e9taient des hommes d'affaires, et\nleurs clercs des hommes de plaisir; qu'une entrevue touchante eut lieu\nentre M. Samuel Weller et le p\u00e8re qu'il avait perdu depuis longtemps; o\u00f9\nl'on voit, enfin, quels esprits sup\u00e9rieurs s'assemblaient \u00e0 _la Souche\net la Pie_, et quel excellent chapitre sera le suivant.\n\nXXI. Dans lequel le vieux homme se lance sur son th\u00e8me favori, et\nraconte l'histoire d'un dr\u00f4le de client.\n\nXXII. M. Pickwick se rend \u00e0 Ipswich, et rencontre une aventure\nromantique, sous la figure d'une dame d'un certain \u00e2ge, en papillote de\npapier brouillard.\n\nXXIII. Dans lequel Samuel Weller s'occupe \u00e9nergiquement de prendre la\nrevanche de M. Trotter.\n\nXXIV. Dans lequel M. Peter Magnus devient jaloux, et la dame d'un\ncertain \u00e2ge, craintive; ce qui jette les pickwickiens dans les griffes\nde la justice.\n\nXXV. Montrant combien M. Nupkins \u00e9tait majestueux et impartial, et\ncomment Sam Weller prit sa revanche de M. Joe Trotter, avec d'autres\n\u00e9v\u00e9nement\u00bb qu'on trouvera \u00e0 leur place.\n\nXXVI. Contenant un r\u00e9cit abr\u00e9g\u00e9 des progr\u00e8s de l'action _Bardell contre\nPickwick_.\n\nXXVII. Samuel Weller fait un p\u00e8lerinage \u00e0 Dorking, et voit sa\nbelle-m\u00e8re.\n\nXXVIII. Un joyeux chapitre des f\u00eates de No\u00ebl, contenant le r\u00e9cit d'une\nnoce et de quelques autres passe-temps qui sont, dans leur genre,\nd'aussi bonnes coutumes que le mariage, mais qu'on ne maintient pas\naussi religieusement, dans ce si\u00e8cle d\u00e9g\u00e9n\u00e9r\u00e9.\n\nXXIX. Histoire du sacristain, emport\u00e9 par les goblins.\n\nFIN DE LA TABLE DES MATI\u00c8RES.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}
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{"1392":"\n\n\n\n\nTranscribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall edition of \"Christmas Stories\"\nby David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS--IN THREE CHAPTERS\n\n\nCHAPTER I--IN THE OLD CITY OF ROCHESTER\n\n\nStrictly speaking, there were only six Poor Travellers; but, being a\nTraveller myself, though an idle one, and being withal as poor as I hope\nto be, I brought the number up to seven.  This word of explanation is due\nat once, for what says the inscription over the quaint old door?\n\n   RICHARD WATTS, Esq.\n   by his Will, dated 22 Aug. 1579,\n   founded this Charity\n   for Six poor Travellers,\n   who not being ROGUES, or PROCTORS,\n   May receive gratis for one Night,\n   Lodging, Entertainment,\n   and Fourpence each.\n\nIt was in the ancient little city of Rochester in Kent, of all the good\ndays in the year upon a Christmas-eve, that I stood reading this\ninscription over the quaint old door in question.  I had been wandering\nabout the neighbouring Cathedral, and had seen the tomb of Richard Watts,\nwith the effigy of worthy Master Richard starting out of it like a ship's\nfigure-head; and I had felt that I could do no less, as I gave the Verger\nhis fee, than inquire the way to Watts's Charity.  The way being very\nshort and very plain, I had come prosperously to the inscription and the\nquaint old door.\n\n\"Now,\" said I to myself, as I looked at the knocker, \"I know I am not a\nProctor; I wonder whether I am a Rogue!\"\n\nUpon the whole, though Conscience reproduced two or three pretty faces\nwhich might have had smaller attraction for a moral Goliath than they had\nhad for me, who am but a Tom Thumb in that way, I came to the conclusion\nthat I was not a Rogue.  So, beginning to regard the establishment as in\nsome sort my property, bequeathed to me and divers co-legatees, share and\nshare alike, by the Worshipful Master Richard Watts, I stepped backward\ninto the road to survey my inheritance.\n\nI found it to be a clean white house, of a staid and venerable air, with\nthe quaint old door already three times mentioned (an arched door),\nchoice little long low lattice-windows, and a roof of three gables.  The\nsilent High Street of Rochester is full of gables, with old beams and\ntimbers carved into strange faces.  It is oddly garnished with a queer\nold clock that projects over the pavement out of a grave red-brick\nbuilding, as if Time carried on business there, and hung out his sign.\nSooth to say, he did an active stroke of work in Rochester, in the old\ndays of the Romans, and the Saxons, and the Normans; and down to the\ntimes of King John, when the rugged castle--I will not undertake to say\nhow many hundreds of years old then--was abandoned to the centuries of\nweather which have so defaced the dark apertures in its walls, that the\nruin looks as if the rooks and daws had pecked its eyes out.\n\nI was very well pleased, both with my property and its situation.  While\nI was yet surveying it with growing content, I espied, at one of the\nupper lattices which stood open, a decent body, of a wholesome matronly\nappearance, whose eyes I caught inquiringly addressed to mine.  They said\nso plainly, \"Do you wish to see the house?\" that I answered aloud, \"Yes,\nif you please.\"  And within a minute the old door opened, and I bent my\nhead, and went down two steps into the entry.\n\n\"This,\" said the matronly presence, ushering me into a low room on the\nright, \"is where the Travellers sit by the fire, and cook what bits of\nsuppers they buy with their fourpences.\"\n\n\"O!  Then they have no Entertainment?\" said I.  For the inscription over\nthe outer door was still running in my head, and I was mentally\nrepeating, in a kind of tune, \"Lodging, entertainment, and fourpence\neach.\"\n\n\"They have a fire provided for 'em,\" returned the matron--a mighty civil\nperson, not, as I could make out, overpaid; \"and these cooking utensils.\nAnd this what's painted on a board is the rules for their behaviour.  They\nhave their fourpences when they get their tickets from the steward over\nthe way,--for I don't admit 'em myself, they must get their tickets\nfirst,--and sometimes one buys a rasher of bacon, and another a herring,\nand another a pound of potatoes, or what not.  Sometimes two or three of\n'em will club their fourpences together, and make a supper that way.  But\nnot much of anything is to be got for fourpence, at present, when\nprovisions is so dear.\"\n\n\"True indeed,\" I remarked.  I had been looking about the room, admiring\nits snug fireside at the upper end, its glimpse of the street through the\nlow mullioned window, and its beams overhead.  \"It is very comfortable,\"\nsaid I.\n\n\"Ill-conwenient,\" observed the matronly presence.\n\nI liked to hear her say so; for it showed a commendable anxiety to\nexecute in no niggardly spirit the intentions of Master Richard Watts.\nBut the room was really so well adapted to its purpose that I protested,\nquite enthusiastically, against her disparagement.\n\n\"Nay, ma'am,\" said I, \"I am sure it is warm in winter and cool in summer.\nIt has a look of homely welcome and soothing rest.  It has a remarkably\ncosey fireside, the very blink of which, gleaming out into the street\nupon a winter night, is enough to warm all Rochester's heart.  And as to\nthe convenience of the six Poor Travellers--\"\n\n\"I don't mean them,\" returned the presence.  \"I speak of its being an ill-\nconwenience to myself and my daughter, having no other room to sit in of\na night.\"\n\nThis was true enough, but there was another quaint room of corresponding\ndimensions on the opposite side of the entry: so I stepped across to it,\nthrough the open doors of both rooms, and asked what this chamber was\nfor.\n\n\"This,\" returned the presence, \"is the Board Room.  Where the gentlemen\nmeet when they come here.\"\n\nLet me see.  I had counted from the street six upper windows besides\nthese on the ground-story.  Making a perplexed calculation in my mind, I\nrejoined, \"Then the six Poor Travellers sleep upstairs?\"\n\nMy new friend shook her head.  \"They sleep,\" she answered, \"in two little\nouter galleries at the back, where their beds has always been, ever since\nthe Charity was founded.  It being so very ill-conwenient to me as things\nis at present, the gentlemen are going to take off a bit of the\nback-yard, and make a slip of a room for 'em there, to sit in before they\ngo to bed.\"\n\n\"And then the six Poor Travellers,\" said I, \"will be entirely out of the\nhouse?\"\n\n\"Entirely out of the house,\" assented the presence, comfortably smoothing\nher hands.  \"Which is considered much better for all parties, and much\nmore conwenient.\"\n\nI had been a little startled, in the Cathedral, by the emphasis with\nwhich the effigy of Master Richard Watts was bursting out of his tomb;\nbut I began to think, now, that it might be expected to come across the\nHigh Street some stormy night, and make a disturbance here.\n\nHowbeit, I kept my thoughts to myself, and accompanied the presence to\nthe little galleries at the back.  I found them on a tiny scale, like the\ngalleries in old inn-yards; and they were very clean.\n\nWhile I was looking at them, the matron gave me to understand that the\nprescribed number of Poor Travellers were forthcoming every night from\nyear's end to year's end; and that the beds were always occupied.  My\nquestions upon this, and her replies, brought us back to the Board Room\nso essential to the dignity of \"the gentlemen,\" where she showed me the\nprinted accounts of the Charity hanging up by the window.  From them I\ngathered that the greater part of the property bequeathed by the\nWorshipful Master Richard Watts for the maintenance of this foundation\nwas, at the period of his death, mere marsh-land; but that, in course of\ntime, it had been reclaimed and built upon, and was very considerably\nincreased in value.  I found, too, that about a thirtieth part of the\nannual revenue was now expended on the purposes commemorated in the\ninscription over the door; the rest being handsomely laid out in\nChancery, law expenses, collectorship, receivership, poundage, and other\nappendages of management, highly complimentary to the importance of the\nsix Poor Travellers.  In short, I made the not entirely new discovery\nthat it may be said of an establishment like this, in dear old England,\nas of the fat oyster in the American story, that it takes a good many men\nto swallow it whole.\n\n\"And pray, ma'am,\" said I, sensible that the blankness of my face began\nto brighten as the thought occurred to me, \"could one see these\nTravellers?\"\n\n\"Well!\" she returned dubiously, \"no!\"\n\n\"Not to-night, for instance!\" said I.\n\n\"Well!\" she returned more positively, \"no.  Nobody ever asked to see\nthem, and nobody ever did see them.\"\n\nAs I am not easily balked in a design when I am set upon it, I urged to\nthe good lady that this was Christmas-eve; that Christmas comes but once\na year,--which is unhappily too true, for when it begins to stay with us\nthe whole year round we shall make this earth a very different place;\nthat I was possessed by the desire to treat the Travellers to a supper\nand a temperate glass of hot Wassail; that the voice of Fame had been\nheard in that land, declaring my ability to make hot Wassail; that if I\nwere permitted to hold the feast, I should be found conformable to\nreason, sobriety, and good hours; in a word, that I could be merry and\nwise myself, and had been even known at a pinch to keep others so,\nalthough I was decorated with no badge or medal, and was not a Brother,\nOrator, Apostle, Saint, or Prophet of any denomination whatever.  In the\nend I prevailed, to my great joy.  It was settled that at nine o'clock\nthat night a Turkey and a piece of Roast Beef should smoke upon the\nboard; and that I, faint and unworthy minister for once of Master Richard\nWatts, should preside as the Christmas-supper host of the six Poor\nTravellers.\n\nI went back to my inn to give the necessary directions for the Turkey and\nRoast Beef, and, during the remainder of the day, could settle to nothing\nfor thinking of the Poor Travellers.  When the wind blew hard against the\nwindows,--it was a cold day, with dark gusts of sleet alternating with\nperiods of wild brightness, as if the year were dying fitfully,--I\npictured them advancing towards their resting-place along various cold\nroads, and felt delighted to think how little they foresaw the supper\nthat awaited them.  I painted their portraits in my mind, and indulged in\nlittle heightening touches.  I made them footsore; I made them weary; I\nmade them carry packs and bundles; I made them stop by finger-posts and\nmilestones, leaning on their bent sticks, and looking wistfully at what\nwas written there; I made them lose their way; and filled their five wits\nwith apprehensions of lying out all night, and being frozen to death.  I\ntook up my hat, and went out, climbed to the top of the Old Castle, and\nlooked over the windy hills that slope down to the Medway, almost\nbelieving that I could descry some of my Travellers in the distance.\nAfter it fell dark, and the Cathedral bell was heard in the invisible\nsteeple--quite a bower of frosty rime when I had last seen it--striking\nfive, six, seven, I became so full of my Travellers that I could eat no\ndinner, and felt constrained to watch them still in the red coals of my\nfire.  They were all arrived by this time, I thought, had got their\ntickets, and were gone in.--There my pleasure was dashed by the\nreflection that probably some Travellers had come too late and were shut\nout.\n\nAfter the Cathedral bell had struck eight, I could smell a delicious\nsavour of Turkey and Roast Beef rising to the window of my adjoining\nbedroom, which looked down into the inn-yard just where the lights of the\nkitchen reddened a massive fragment of the Castle Wall.  It was high time\nto make the Wassail now; therefore I had up the materials (which,\ntogether with their proportions and combinations, I must decline to\nimpart, as the only secret of my own I was ever known to keep), and made\na glorious jorum.  Not in a bowl; for a bowl anywhere but on a shelf is a\nlow superstition, fraught with cooling and slopping; but in a brown\nearthenware pitcher, tenderly suffocated, when full, with a coarse cloth.\nIt being now upon the stroke of nine, I set out for Watts's Charity,\ncarrying my brown beauty in my arms.  I would trust Ben, the waiter, with\nuntold gold; but there are strings in the human heart which must never be\nsounded by another, and drinks that I make myself are those strings in\nmine.\n\nThe Travellers were all assembled, the cloth was laid, and Ben had\nbrought a great billet of wood, and had laid it artfully on the top of\nthe fire, so that a touch or two of the poker after supper should make a\nroaring blaze.  Having deposited my brown beauty in a red nook of the\nhearth, inside the fender, where she soon began to sing like an ethereal\ncricket, diffusing at the same time odours as of ripe vineyards, spice\nforests, and orange groves,--I say, having stationed my beauty in a place\nof security and improvement, I introduced myself to my guests by shaking\nhands all round, and giving them a hearty welcome.\n\nI found the party to be thus composed.  Firstly, myself.  Secondly, a\nvery decent man indeed, with his right arm in a sling, who had a certain\nclean agreeable smell of wood about him, from which I judged him to have\nsomething to do with shipbuilding.  Thirdly, a little sailor-boy, a mere\nchild, with a profusion of rich dark brown hair, and deep womanly-looking\neyes.  Fourthly, a shabby-genteel personage in a threadbare black suit,\nand apparently in very bad circumstances, with a dry suspicious look; the\nabsent buttons on his waistcoat eked out with red tape; and a bundle of\nextraordinarily tattered papers sticking out of an inner breast-pocket.\nFifthly, a foreigner by birth, but an Englishman in speech, who carried\nhis pipe in the band of his hat, and lost no time in telling me, in an\neasy, simple, engaging way, that he was a watchmaker from Geneva, and\ntravelled all about the Continent, mostly on foot, working as a\njourneyman, and seeing new countries,--possibly (I thought) also\nsmuggling a watch or so, now and then.  Sixthly, a little widow, who had\nbeen very pretty and was still very young, but whose beauty had been\nwrecked in some great misfortune, and whose manner was remarkably timid,\nscared, and solitary.  Seventhly and lastly, a Traveller of a kind\nfamiliar to my boyhood, but now almost obsolete,--a Book-Pedler, who had\na quantity of Pamphlets and Numbers with him, and who presently boasted\nthat he could repeat more verses in an evening than he could sell in a\ntwelvemonth.\n\nAll these I have mentioned in the order in which they sat at table.  I\npresided, and the matronly presence faced me.  We were not long in taking\nour places, for the supper had arrived with me, in the following\nprocession:\n\n   Myself with the pitcher.\n   Ben with Beer.\n   Inattentive Boy with hot plates.  Inattentive Boy with hot plates.\n   THE TURKEY.\n   Female carrying sauces to be heated on the spot.\n   THE BEEF.\n   Man with Tray on his head, containing Vegetables and Sundries.\n   Volunteer Hostler from Hotel, grinning,\n   And rendering no assistance.\n\nAs we passed along the High Street, comet-like, we left a long tail of\nfragrance behind us which caused the public to stop, sniffing in wonder.\nWe had previously left at the corner of the inn-yard a wall-eyed young\nman connected with the Fly department, and well accustomed to the sound\nof a railway whistle which Ben always carries in his pocket, whose\ninstructions were, so soon as he should hear the whistle blown, to dash\ninto the kitchen, seize the hot plum-pudding and mince-pies, and speed\nwith them to Watts's Charity, where they would be received (he was\nfurther instructed) by the sauce-female, who would be provided with\nbrandy in a blue state of combustion.\n\nAll these arrangements were executed in the most exact and punctual\nmanner.  I never saw a finer turkey, finer beef, or greater prodigality\nof sauce and gravy;--and my Travellers did wonderful justice to\neverything set before them.  It made my heart rejoice to observe how\ntheir wind and frost hardened faces softened in the clatter of plates and\nknives and forks, and mellowed in the fire and supper heat.  While their\nhats and caps and wrappers, hanging up, a few small bundles on the ground\nin a corner, and in another corner three or four old walking-sticks, worn\ndown at the end to mere fringe, linked this smug interior with the bleak\noutside in a golden chain.\n\nWhen supper was done, and my brown beauty had been elevated on the table,\nthere was a general requisition to me to \"take the corner;\" which\nsuggested to me comfortably enough how much my friends here made of a\nfire,--for when had _I_ ever thought so highly of the corner, since the\ndays when I connected it with Jack Horner?  However, as I declined, Ben,\nwhose touch on all convivial instruments is perfect, drew the table\napart, and instructing my Travellers to open right and left on either\nside of me, and form round the fire, closed up the centre with myself and\nmy chair, and preserved the order we had kept at table.  He had already,\nin a tranquil manner, boxed the ears of the inattentive boys until they\nhad been by imperceptible degrees boxed out of the room; and he now\nrapidly skirmished the sauce-female into the High Street, disappeared,\nand softly closed the door.\n\nThis was the time for bringing the poker to bear on the billet of wood.  I\ntapped it three times, like an enchanted talisman, and a brilliant host\nof merry-makers burst out of it, and sported off by the chimney,--rushing\nup the middle in a fiery country dance, and never coming down again.\nMeanwhile, by their sparkling light, which threw our lamp into the shade,\nI filled the glasses, and gave my Travellers, CHRISTMAS!--CHRISTMAS-EVE,\nmy friends, when the shepherds, who were Poor Travellers, too, in their\nway, heard the Angels sing, \"On earth, peace.  Good-will towards men!\"\n\nI don't know who was the first among us to think that we ought to take\nhands as we sat, in deference to the toast, or whether any one of us\nanticipated the others, but at any rate we all did it.  We then drank to\nthe memory of the good Master Richard Watts.  And I wish his Ghost may\nnever have had worse usage under that roof than it had from us.\n\nIt was the witching time for Story-telling.  \"Our whole life,\nTravellers,\" said I, \"is a story more or less intelligible,--generally\nless; but we shall read it by a clearer light when it is ended.  I, for\none, am so divided this night between fact and fiction, that I scarce\nknow which is which.  Shall I beguile the time by telling you a story as\nwe sit here?\"\n\nThey all answered, yes.  I had little to tell them, but I was bound by my\nown proposal.  Therefore, after looking for awhile at the spiral column\nof smoke wreathing up from my brown beauty, through which I could have\nalmost sworn I saw the effigy of Master Richard Watts less startled than\nusual, I fired away.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II--THE STORY OF RICHARD DOUBLEDICK\n\n\nIn the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, a relative of\nmine came limping down, on foot, to this town of Chatham.  I call it this\ntown, because if anybody present knows to a nicety where Rochester ends\nand Chatham begins, it is more than I do.  He was a poor traveller, with\nnot a farthing in his pocket.  He sat by the fire in this very room, and\nhe slept one night in a bed that will be occupied to-night by some one\nhere.\n\nMy relative came down to Chatham to enlist in a cavalry regiment, if a\ncavalry regiment would have him; if not, to take King George's shilling\nfrom any corporal or sergeant who would put a bunch of ribbons in his\nhat.  His object was to get shot; but he thought he might as well ride to\ndeath as be at the trouble of walking.\n\nMy relative's Christian name was Richard, but he was better known as\nDick.  He dropped his own surname on the road down, and took up that of\nDoubledick.  He was passed as Richard Doubledick; age, twenty-two;\nheight, five foot ten; native place, Exmouth, which he had never been\nnear in his life.  There was no cavalry in Chatham when he limped over\nthe bridge here with half a shoe to his dusty feet, so he enlisted into a\nregiment of the line, and was glad to get drunk and forget all about it.\n\nYou are to know that this relative of mine had gone wrong, and run wild.\nHis heart was in the right place, but it was sealed up.  He had been\nbetrothed to a good and beautiful girl, whom he had loved better than\nshe--or perhaps even he--believed; but in an evil hour he had given her\ncause to say to him solemnly, \"Richard, I will never marry another man.  I\nwill live single for your sake, but Mary Marshall's lips\"--her name was\nMary Marshall--\"never address another word to you on earth.  Go, Richard!\nHeaven forgive you!\"  This finished him.  This brought him down to\nChatham.  This made him Private Richard Doubledick, with a determination\nto be shot.\n\nThere was not a more dissipated and reckless soldier in Chatham barracks,\nin the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, than Private\nRichard Doubledick.  He associated with the dregs of every regiment; he\nwas as seldom sober as he could be, and was constantly under punishment.\nIt became clear to the whole barracks that Private Richard Doubledick\nwould very soon be flogged.\n\nNow the Captain of Richard Doubledick's company was a young gentleman not\nabove five years his senior, whose eyes had an expression in them which\naffected Private Richard Doubledick in a very remarkable way.  They were\nbright, handsome, dark eyes,--what are called laughing eyes generally,\nand, when serious, rather steady than severe,--but they were the only\neyes now left in his narrowed world that Private Richard Doubledick could\nnot stand.  Unabashed by evil report and punishment, defiant of\neverything else and everybody else, he had but to know that those eyes\nlooked at him for a moment, and he felt ashamed.  He could not so much as\nsalute Captain Taunton in the street like any other officer.  He was\nreproached and confused,--troubled by the mere possibility of the\ncaptain's looking at him.  In his worst moments, he would rather turn\nback, and go any distance out of his way, than encounter those two\nhandsome, dark, bright eyes.\n\nOne day, when Private Richard Doubledick came out of the Black hole,\nwhere he had been passing the last eight-and-forty hours, and in which\nretreat he spent a good deal of his time, he was ordered to betake\nhimself to Captain Taunton's quarters.  In the stale and squalid state of\na man just out of the Black hole, he had less fancy than ever for being\nseen by the captain; but he was not so mad yet as to disobey orders, and\nconsequently went up to the terrace overlooking the parade-ground, where\nthe officers' quarters were; twisting and breaking in his hands, as he\nwent along, a bit of the straw that had formed the decorative furniture\nof the Black hole.\n\n\"Come in!\" cried the Captain, when he had knocked with his knuckles at\nthe door.  Private Richard Doubledick pulled off his cap, took a stride\nforward, and felt very conscious that he stood in the light of the dark,\nbright eyes.\n\nThere was a silent pause.  Private Richard Doubledick had put the straw\nin his mouth, and was gradually doubling it up into his windpipe and\nchoking himself.\n\n\"Doubledick,\" said the Captain, \"do you know where you are going to?\"\n\n\"To the Devil, sir?\" faltered Doubledick.\n\n\"Yes,\" returned the Captain.  \"And very fast.\"\n\nPrivate Richard Doubledick turned the straw of the Black hole in his\nmonth, and made a miserable salute of acquiescence.\n\n\"Doubledick,\" said the Captain, \"since I entered his Majesty's service, a\nboy of seventeen, I have been pained to see many men of promise going\nthat road; but I have never been so pained to see a man make the shameful\njourney as I have been, ever since you joined the regiment, to see you.\"\n\nPrivate Richard Doubledick began to find a film stealing over the floor\nat which he looked; also to find the legs of the Captain's\nbreakfast-table turning crooked, as if he saw them through water.\n\n\"I am only a common soldier, sir,\" said he.  \"It signifies very little\nwhat such a poor brute comes to.\"\n\n\"You are a man,\" returned the Captain, with grave indignation, \"of\neducation and superior advantages; and if you say that, meaning what you\nsay, you have sunk lower than I had believed.  How low that must be, I\nleave you to consider, knowing what I know of your disgrace, and seeing\nwhat I see.\"\n\n\"I hope to get shot soon, sir,\" said Private Richard Doubledick; \"and\nthen the regiment and the world together will be rid of me.\"\n\nThe legs of the table were becoming very crooked.  Doubledick, looking up\nto steady his vision, met the eyes that had so strong an influence over\nhim.  He put his hand before his own eyes, and the breast of his disgrace-\njacket swelled as if it would fly asunder.\n\n\"I would rather,\" said the young Captain, \"see this in you, Doubledick,\nthan I would see five thousand guineas counted out upon this table for a\ngift to my good mother.  Have you a mother?\"\n\n\"I am thankful to say she is dead, sir.\"\n\n\"If your praises,\" returned the Captain, \"were sounded from mouth to\nmouth through the whole regiment, through the whole army, through the\nwhole country, you would wish she had lived to say, with pride and joy,\n'He is my son!'\"\n\n\"Spare me, sir,\" said Doubledick.  \"She would never have heard any good\nof me.  She would never have had any pride and joy in owning herself my\nmother.  Love and compassion she might have had, and would have always\nhad, I know but not--Spare me, sir!  I am a broken wretch, quite at your\nmercy!\"  And he turned his face to the wall, and stretched out his\nimploring hand.\n\n\"My friend--\" began the Captain.\n\n\"God bless you, sir!\" sobbed Private Richard Doubledick.\n\n\"You are at the crisis of your fate.  Hold your course unchanged a little\nlonger, and you know what must happen.  _I_ know even better than you can\nimagine, that, after that has happened, you are lost.  No man who could\nshed those tears could bear those marks.\"\n\n\"I fully believe it, sir,\" in a low, shivering voice said Private Richard\nDoubledick.\n\n\"But a man in any station can do his duty,\" said the young Captain, \"and,\nin doing it, can earn his own respect, even if his case should be so very\nunfortunate and so very rare that he can earn no other man's.  A common\nsoldier, poor brute though you called him just now, has this advantage in\nthe stormy times we live in, that he always does his duty before a host\nof sympathising witnesses.  Do you doubt that he may so do it as to be\nextolled through a whole regiment, through a whole army, through a whole\ncountry?  Turn while you may yet retrieve the past, and try.\"\n\n\"I will!  I ask for only one witness, sir,\" cried Richard, with a\nbursting heart.\n\n\"I understand you.  I will be a watchful and a faithful one.\"\n\nI have heard from Private Richard Doubledick's own lips, that he dropped\ndown upon his knee, kissed that officer's hand, arose, and went out of\nthe light of the dark, bright eyes, an altered man.\n\nIn that year, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, the French were\nin Egypt, in Italy, in Germany, where not?  Napoleon Bonaparte had\nlikewise begun to stir against us in India, and most men could read the\nsigns of the great troubles that were coming on.  In the very next year,\nwhen we formed an alliance with Austria against him, Captain Taunton's\nregiment was on service in India.  And there was not a finer\nnon-commissioned officer in it,--no, nor in the whole line--than Corporal\nRichard Doubledick.\n\nIn eighteen hundred and one, the Indian army were on the coast of Egypt.\nNext year was the year of the proclamation of the short peace, and they\nwere recalled.  It had then become well known to thousands of men, that\nwherever Captain Taunton, with the dark, bright eyes, led, there, close\nto him, ever at his side, firm as a rock, true as the sun, and brave as\nMars, would be certain to be found, while life beat in their hearts, that\nfamous soldier, Sergeant Richard Doubledick.\n\nEighteen hundred and five, besides being the great year of Trafalgar, was\na year of hard fighting in India.  That year saw such wonders done by a\nSergeant-Major, who cut his way single-handed through a solid mass of\nmen, recovered the colours of his regiment, which had been seized from\nthe hand of a poor boy shot through the heart, and rescued his wounded\nCaptain, who was down, and in a very jungle of horses' hoofs and\nsabres,--saw such wonders done, I say, by this brave Sergeant-Major, that\nhe was specially made the bearer of the colours he had won; and Ensign\nRichard Doubledick had risen from the ranks.\n\nSorely cut up in every battle, but always reinforced by the bravest of\nmen,--for the fame of following the old colours, shot through and\nthrough, which Ensign Richard Doubledick had saved, inspired all\nbreasts,--this regiment fought its way through the Peninsular war, up to\nthe investment of Badajos in eighteen hundred and twelve.  Again and\nagain it had been cheered through the British ranks until the tears had\nsprung into men's eyes at the mere hearing of the mighty British voice,\nso exultant in their valour; and there was not a drummer-boy but knew the\nlegend, that wherever the two friends, Major Taunton, with the dark,\nbright eyes, and Ensign Richard Doubledick, who was devoted to him, were\nseen to go, there the boldest spirits in the English army became wild to\nfollow.\n\nOne day, at Badajos,--not in the great storming, but in repelling a hot\nsally of the besieged upon our men at work in the trenches, who had given\nway,--the two officers found themselves hurrying forward, face to face,\nagainst a party of French infantry, who made a stand.  There was an\nofficer at their head, encouraging his men,--a courageous, handsome,\ngallant officer of five-and-thirty, whom Doubledick saw hurriedly, almost\nmomentarily, but saw well.  He particularly noticed this officer waving\nhis sword, and rallying his men with an eager and excited cry, when they\nfired in obedience to his gesture, and Major Taunton dropped.\n\nIt was over in ten minutes more, and Doubledick returned to the spot\nwhere he had laid the best friend man ever had on a coat spread upon the\nwet clay.  Major Taunton's uniform was opened at the breast, and on his\nshirt were three little spots of blood.\n\n\"Dear Doubledick,\" said he, \"I am dying.\"\n\n\"For the love of Heaven, no!\" exclaimed the other, kneeling down beside\nhim, and passing his arm round his neck to raise his head.  \"Taunton!  My\npreserver, my guardian angel, my witness!  Dearest, truest, kindest of\nhuman beings!  Taunton!  For God's sake!\"\n\nThe bright, dark eyes--so very, very dark now, in the pale face--smiled\nupon him; and the hand he had kissed thirteen years ago laid itself\nfondly on his breast.\n\n\"Write to my mother.  You will see Home again.  Tell her how we became\nfriends.  It will comfort her, as it comforts me.\"\n\nHe spoke no more, but faintly signed for a moment towards his hair as it\nfluttered in the wind.  The Ensign understood him.  He smiled again when\nhe saw that, and, gently turning his face over on the supporting arm as\nif for rest, died, with his hand upon the breast in which he had revived\na soul.\n\nNo dry eye looked on Ensign Richard Doubledick that melancholy day.  He\nburied his friend on the field, and became a lone, bereaved man.  Beyond\nhis duty he appeared to have but two remaining cares in life,--one, to\npreserve the little packet of hair he was to give to Taunton's mother;\nthe other, to encounter that French officer who had rallied the men under\nwhose fire Taunton fell.  A new legend now began to circulate among our\ntroops; and it was, that when he and the French officer came face to face\nonce more, there would be weeping in France.\n\nThe war went on--and through it went the exact picture of the French\nofficer on the one side, and the bodily reality upon the other--until the\nBattle of Toulouse was fought.  In the returns sent home appeared these\nwords: \"Severely wounded, but not dangerously, Lieutenant Richard\nDoubledick.\"\n\nAt Midsummer-time, in the year eighteen hundred and fourteen, Lieutenant\nRichard Doubledick, now a browned soldier, seven-and-thirty years of age,\ncame home to England invalided.  He brought the hair with him, near his\nheart.  Many a French officer had he seen since that day; many a dreadful\nnight, in searching with men and lanterns for his wounded, had he\nrelieved French officers lying disabled; but the mental picture and the\nreality had never come together.\n\nThough he was weak and suffered pain, he lost not an hour in getting down\nto Frome in Somersetshire, where Taunton's mother lived.  In the sweet,\ncompassionate words that naturally present themselves to the mind\nto-night, \"he was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.\"\n\nIt was a Sunday evening, and the lady sat at her quiet garden-window,\nreading the Bible; reading to herself, in a trembling voice, that very\npassage in it, as I have heard him tell.  He heard the words: \"Young man,\nI say unto thee, arise!\"\n\nHe had to pass the window; and the bright, dark eyes of his debased time\nseemed to look at him.  Her heart told her who he was; she came to the\ndoor quickly, and fell upon his neck.\n\n\"He saved me from ruin, made me a human creature, won me from infamy and\nshame.  O, God for ever bless him!  As He will, He Will!\"\n\n\"He will!\" the lady answered.  \"I know he is in heaven!\"  Then she\npiteously cried, \"But O, my darling boy, my darling boy!\"\n\nNever from the hour when Private Richard Doubledick enlisted at Chatham\nhad the Private, Corporal, Sergeant, Sergeant-Major, Ensign, or\nLieutenant breathed his right name, or the name of Mary Marshall, or a\nword of the story of his life, into any ear except his reclaimer's.  That\nprevious scene in his existence was closed.  He had firmly resolved that\nhis expiation should be to live unknown; to disturb no more the peace\nthat had long grown over his old offences; to let it be revealed, when he\nwas dead, that he had striven and suffered, and had never forgotten; and\nthen, if they could forgive him and believe him--well, it would be time\nenough--time enough!\n\nBut that night, remembering the words he had cherished for two years,\n\"Tell her how we became friends.  It will comfort her, as it comforts\nme,\" he related everything.  It gradually seemed to him as if in his\nmaturity he had recovered a mother; it gradually seemed to her as if in\nher bereavement she had found a son.  During his stay in England, the\nquiet garden into which he had slowly and painfully crept, a stranger,\nbecame the boundary of his home; when he was able to rejoin his regiment\nin the spring, he left the garden, thinking was this indeed the first\ntime he had ever turned his face towards the old colours with a woman's\nblessing!\n\nHe followed them--so ragged, so scarred and pierced now, that they would\nscarcely hold together--to Quatre Bras and Ligny.  He stood beside them,\nin an awful stillness of many men, shadowy through the mist and drizzle\nof a wet June forenoon, on the field of Waterloo.  And down to that hour\nthe picture in his mind of the French officer had never been compared\nwith the reality.\n\nThe famous regiment was in action early in the battle, and received its\nfirst check in many an eventful year, when he was seen to fall.  But it\nswept on to avenge him, and left behind it no such creature in the world\nof consciousness as Lieutenant Richard Doubledick.\n\nThrough pits of mire, and pools of rain; along deep ditches, once roads,\nthat were pounded and ploughed to pieces by artillery, heavy waggons,\ntramp of men and horses, and the struggle of every wheeled thing that\ncould carry wounded soldiers; jolted among the dying and the dead, so\ndisfigured by blood and mud as to be hardly recognisable for humanity;\nundisturbed by the moaning of men and the shrieking of horses, which,\nnewly taken from the peaceful pursuits of life, could not endure the\nsight of the stragglers lying by the wayside, never to resume their\ntoilsome journey; dead, as to any sentient life that was in it, and yet\nalive,--the form that had been Lieutenant Richard Doubledick, with whose\npraises England rang, was conveyed to Brussels.  There it was tenderly\nlaid down in hospital; and there it lay, week after week, through the\nlong bright summer days, until the harvest, spared by war, had ripened\nand was gathered in.\n\nOver and over again the sun rose and set upon the crowded city; over and\nover again the moonlight nights were quiet on the plains of Waterloo: and\nall that time was a blank to what had been Lieutenant Richard Doubledick.\nRejoicing troops marched into Brussels, and marched out; brothers and\nfathers, sisters, mothers, and wives, came thronging thither, drew their\nlots of joy or agony, and departed; so many times a day the bells rang;\nso many times the shadows of the great buildings changed; so many lights\nsprang up at dusk; so many feet passed here and there upon the pavements;\nso many hours of sleep and cooler air of night succeeded: indifferent to\nall, a marble face lay on a bed, like the face of a recumbent statue on\nthe tomb of Lieutenant Richard Doubledick.\n\nSlowly labouring, at last, through a long heavy dream of confused time\nand place, presenting faint glimpses of army surgeons whom he knew, and\nof faces that had been familiar to his youth,--dearest and kindest among\nthem, Mary Marshall's, with a solicitude upon it more like reality than\nanything he could discern,--Lieutenant Richard Doubledick came back to\nlife.  To the beautiful life of a calm autumn evening sunset, to the\npeaceful life of a fresh quiet room with a large window standing open; a\nbalcony beyond, in which were moving leaves and sweet-smelling flowers;\nbeyond, again, the clear sky, with the sun full in his sight, pouring its\ngolden radiance on his bed.\n\nIt was so tranquil and so lovely that he thought he had passed into\nanother world.  And he said in a faint voice, \"Taunton, are you near me?\"\n\nA face bent over him.  Not his, his mother's.\n\n\"I came to nurse you.  We have nursed you many weeks.  You were moved\nhere long ago.  Do you remember nothing?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\nThe lady kissed his cheek, and held his hand, soothing him.\n\n\"Where is the regiment?  What has happened?  Let me call you mother.  What\nhas happened, mother?\"\n\n\"A great victory, dear.  The war is over, and the regiment was the\nbravest in the field.\"\n\nHis eyes kindled, his lips trembled, he sobbed, and the tears ran down\nhis face.  He was very weak, too weak to move his hand.\n\n\"Was it dark just now?\" he asked presently.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"It was only dark to me?  Something passed away, like a black shadow.  But\nas it went, and the sun--O the blessed sun, how beautiful it is!--touched\nmy face, I thought I saw a light white cloud pass out at the door.  Was\nthere nothing that went out?\"\n\nShe shook her head, and in a little while he fell asleep, she still\nholding his hand, and soothing him.\n\nFrom that time, he recovered.  Slowly, for he had been desperately\nwounded in the head, and had been shot in the body, but making some\nlittle advance every day.  When he had gained sufficient strength to\nconverse as he lay in bed, he soon began to remark that Mrs. Taunton\nalways brought him back to his own history.  Then he recalled his\npreserver's dying words, and thought, \"It comforts her.\"\n\nOne day he awoke out of a sleep, refreshed, and asked her to read to him.\nBut the curtain of the bed, softening the light, which she always drew\nback when he awoke, that she might see him from her table at the bedside\nwhere she sat at work, was held undrawn; and a woman's voice spoke, which\nwas not hers.\n\n\"Can you bear to see a stranger?\" it said softly.  \"Will you like to see\na stranger?\"\n\n\"Stranger!\" he repeated.  The voice awoke old memories, before the days\nof Private Richard Doubledick.\n\n\"A stranger now, but not a stranger once,\" it said in tones that thrilled\nhim.  \"Richard, dear Richard, lost through so many years, my name--\"\n\nHe cried out her name, \"Mary,\" and she held him in her arms, and his head\nlay on her bosom.\n\n\"I am not breaking a rash vow, Richard.  These are not Mary Marshall's\nlips that speak.  I have another name.\"\n\nShe was married.\n\n\"I have another name, Richard.  Did you ever hear it?\"\n\n\"Never!\"\n\nHe looked into her face, so pensively beautiful, and wondered at the\nsmile upon it through her tears.\n\n\"Think again, Richard.  Are you sure you never heard my altered name?\"\n\n\"Never!\"\n\n\"Don't move your head to look at me, dear Richard.  Let it lie here,\nwhile I tell my story.  I loved a generous, noble man; loved him with my\nwhole heart; loved him for years and years; loved him faithfully,\ndevotedly; loved him without hope of return; loved him, knowing nothing\nof his highest qualities--not even knowing that he was alive.  He was a\nbrave soldier.  He was honoured and beloved by thousands of thousands,\nwhen the mother of his dear friend found me, and showed me that in all\nhis triumphs he had never forgotten me.  He was wounded in a great\nbattle.  He was brought, dying, here, into Brussels.  I came to watch and\ntend him, as I would have joyfully gone, with such a purpose, to the\ndreariest ends of the earth.  When he knew no one else, he knew me.  When\nhe suffered most, he bore his sufferings barely murmuring, content to\nrest his head where your rests now.  When he lay at the point of death,\nhe married me, that he might call me Wife before he died.  And the name,\nmy dear love, that I took on that forgotten night--\"\n\n\"I know it now!\" he sobbed.  \"The shadowy remembrance strengthens.  It is\ncome back.  I thank Heaven that my mind is quite restored!  My Mary, kiss\nme; lull this weary head to rest, or I shall die of gratitude.  His\nparting words were fulfilled.  I see Home again!\"\n\nWell!  They were happy.  It was a long recovery, but they were happy\nthrough it all.  The snow had melted on the ground, and the birds were\nsinging in the leafless thickets of the early spring, when those three\nwere first able to ride out together, and when people flocked about the\nopen carriage to cheer and congratulate Captain Richard Doubledick.\n\nBut even then it became necessary for the Captain, instead of returning\nto England, to complete his recovery in the climate of Southern France.\nThey found a spot upon the Rhone, within a ride of the old town of\nAvignon, and within view of its broken bridge, which was all they could\ndesire; they lived there, together, six months; then returned to England.\nMrs. Taunton, growing old after three years--though not so old as that\nher bright, dark eyes were dimmed--and remembering that her strength had\nbeen benefited by the change resolved to go back for a year to those\nparts.  So she went with a faithful servant, who had often carried her\nson in his arms; and she was to be rejoined and escorted home, at the\nyear's end, by Captain Richard Doubledick.\n\nShe wrote regularly to her children (as she called them now), and they to\nher.  She went to the neighbourhood of Aix; and there, in their own\nchateau near the farmer's house she rented, she grew into intimacy with a\nfamily belonging to that part of France.  The intimacy began in her often\nmeeting among the vineyards a pretty child, a girl with a most\ncompassionate heart, who was never tired of listening to the solitary\nEnglish lady's stories of her poor son and the cruel wars.  The family\nwere as gentle as the child, and at length she came to know them so well\nthat she accepted their invitation to pass the last month of her\nresidence abroad under their roof.  All this intelligence she wrote home,\npiecemeal as it came about, from time to time; and at last enclosed a\npolite note, from the head of the chateau, soliciting, on the occasion of\nhis approaching mission to that neighbourhood, the honour of the company\nof cet homme si justement celebre, Monsieur le Capitaine Richard\nDoubledick.\n\nCaptain Doubledick, now a hardy, handsome man in the full vigour of life,\nbroader across the chest and shoulders than he had ever been before,\ndispatched a courteous reply, and followed it in person.  Travelling\nthrough all that extent of country after three years of Peace, he blessed\nthe better days on which the world had fallen.  The corn was golden, not\ndrenched in unnatural red; was bound in sheaves for food, not trodden\nunderfoot by men in mortal fight.  The smoke rose up from peaceful\nhearths, not blazing ruins.  The carts were laden with the fair fruits of\nthe earth, not with wounds and death.  To him who had so often seen the\nterrible reverse, these things were beautiful indeed; and they brought\nhim in a softened spirit to the old chateau near Aix upon a deep blue\nevening.\n\nIt was a large chateau of the genuine old ghostly kind, with round\ntowers, and extinguishers, and a high leaden roof, and more windows than\nAladdin's Palace.  The lattice blinds were all thrown open after the heat\nof the day, and there were glimpses of rambling walls and corridors\nwithin.  Then there were immense out-buildings fallen into partial decay,\nmasses of dark trees, terrace-gardens, balustrades; tanks of water, too\nweak to play and too dirty to work; statues, weeds, and thickets of iron\nrailing that seemed to have overgrown themselves like the shrubberies,\nand to have branched out in all manner of wild shapes.  The entrance\ndoors stood open, as doors often do in that country when the heat of the\nday is past; and the Captain saw no bell or knocker, and walked in.\n\nHe walked into a lofty stone hall, refreshingly cool and gloomy after the\nglare of a Southern day's travel.  Extending along the four sides of this\nhall was a gallery, leading to suites of rooms; and it was lighted from\nthe top.  Still no bell was to be seen.\n\n\"Faith,\" said the Captain halting, ashamed of the clanking of his boots,\n\"this is a ghostly beginning!\"\n\nHe started back, and felt his face turn white.  In the gallery, looking\ndown at him, stood the French officer--the officer whose picture he had\ncarried in his mind so long and so far.  Compared with the original, at\nlast--in every lineament how like it was!\n\nHe moved, and disappeared, and Captain Richard Doubledick heard his steps\ncoming quickly down own into the hall.  He entered through an archway.\nThere was a bright, sudden look upon his face, much such a look as it had\nworn in that fatal moment.\n\nMonsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick?  Enchanted to receive him!  A\nthousand apologies!  The servants were all out in the air.  There was a\nlittle fete among them in the garden.  In effect, it was the fete day of\nmy daughter, the little cherished and protected of Madame Taunton.\n\nHe was so gracious and so frank that Monsieur le Capitaine Richard\nDoubledick could not withhold his hand.  \"It is the hand of a brave\nEnglishman,\" said the French officer, retaining it while he spoke.  \"I\ncould respect a brave Englishman, even as my foe, how much more as my\nfriend!  I also am a soldier.\"\n\n\"He has not remembered me, as I have remembered him; he did not take such\nnote of my face, that day, as I took of his,\" thought Captain Richard\nDoubledick.  \"How shall I tell him?\"\n\nThe French officer conducted his guest into a garden and presented him to\nhis wife, an engaging and beautiful woman, sitting with Mrs. Taunton in a\nwhimsical old-fashioned pavilion.  His daughter, her fair young face\nbeaming with joy, came running to embrace him; and there was a boy-baby\nto tumble down among the orange trees on the broad steps, in making for\nhis father's legs.  A multitude of children visitors were dancing to\nsprightly music; and all the servants and peasants about the chateau were\ndancing too.  It was a scene of innocent happiness that might have been\ninvented for the climax of the scenes of peace which had soothed the\nCaptain's journey.\n\nHe looked on, greatly troubled in his mind, until a resounding bell rang,\nand the French officer begged to show him his rooms.  They went upstairs\ninto the gallery from which the officer had looked down; and Monsieur le\nCapitaine Richard Doubledick was cordially welcomed to a grand outer\nchamber, and a smaller one within, all clocks and draperies, and hearths,\nand brazen dogs, and tiles, and cool devices, and elegance, and vastness.\n\n\"You were at Waterloo,\" said the French officer.\n\n\"I was,\" said Captain Richard Doubledick.  \"And at Badajos.\"\n\nLeft alone with the sound of his own stern voice in his ears, he sat down\nto consider, What shall I do, and how shall I tell him?  At that time,\nunhappily, many deplorable duels had been fought between English and\nFrench officers, arising out of the recent war; and these duels, and how\nto avoid this officer's hospitality, were the uppermost thought in\nCaptain Richard Doubledick's mind.\n\nHe was thinking, and letting the time run out in which he should have\ndressed for dinner, when Mrs. Taunton spoke to him outside the door,\nasking if he could give her the letter he had brought from Mary.  \"His\nmother, above all,\" the Captain thought.  \"How shall I tell _her_?\"\n\n\"You will form a friendship with your host, I hope,\" said Mrs. Taunton,\nwhom he hurriedly admitted, \"that will last for life.  He is so\ntrue-hearted and so generous, Richard, that you can hardly fail to esteem\none another.  If He had been spared,\" she kissed (not without tears) the\nlocket in which she wore his hair, \"he would have appreciated him with\nhis own magnanimity, and would have been truly happy that the evil days\nwere past which made such a man his enemy.\"\n\nShe left the room; and the Captain walked, first to one window, whence he\ncould see the dancing in the garden, then to another window, whence he\ncould see the smiling prospect and the peaceful vineyards.\n\n\"Spirit of my departed friend,\" said he, \"is it through thee these better\nthoughts are rising in my mind?  Is it thou who hast shown me, all the\nway I have been drawn to meet this man, the blessings of the altered\ntime?  Is it thou who hast sent thy stricken mother to me, to stay my\nangry hand?  Is it from thee the whisper comes, that this man did his\nduty as thou didst,--and as I did, through thy guidance, which has wholly\nsaved me here on earth,--and that he did no more?\"\n\nHe sat down, with his head buried in his hands, and, when he rose up,\nmade the second strong resolution of his life,--that neither to the\nFrench officer, nor to the mother of his departed friend, nor to any\nsoul, while either of the two was living, would he breathe what only he\nknew.  And when he touched that French officer's glass with his own, that\nday at dinner, he secretly forgave him in the name of the Divine Forgiver\nof injuries.\n\n* * * * *\n\nHere I ended my story as the first Poor Traveller.  But, if I had told it\nnow, I could have added that the time has since come when the son of\nMajor Richard Doubledick, and the son of that French officer, friends as\ntheir fathers were before them, fought side by side in one cause, with\ntheir respective nations, like long-divided brothers whom the better\ntimes have brought together, fast united.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III--THE ROAD\n\n\nMy story being finished, and the Wassail too, we broke up as the\nCathedral bell struck Twelve.  I did not take leave of my travellers that\nnight; for it had come into my head to reappear, in conjunction with some\nhot coffee, at seven in the morning.\n\nAs I passed along the High Street, I heard the Waits at a distance, and\nstruck off to find them.  They were playing near one of the old gates of\nthe City, at the corner of a wonderfully quaint row of red-brick\ntenements, which the clarionet obligingly informed me were inhabited by\nthe Minor-Canons.  They had odd little porches over the doors, like\nsounding-boards over old pulpits; and I thought I should like to see one\nof the Minor-Canons come out upon his top stop, and favour us with a\nlittle Christmas discourse about the poor scholars of Rochester; taking\nfor his text the words of his Master relative to the devouring of Widows'\nhouses.\n\nThe clarionet was so communicative, and my inclinations were (as they\ngenerally are) of so vagabond a tendency, that I accompanied the Waits\nacross an open green called the Vines, and assisted--in the French\nsense--at the performance of two waltzes, two polkas, and three Irish\nmelodies, before I thought of my inn any more.  However, I returned to it\nthen, and found a fiddle in the kitchen, and Ben, the wall-eyed young\nman, and two chambermaids, circling round the great deal table with the\nutmost animation.\n\nI had a very bad night.  It cannot have been owing to the turkey or the\nbeef,--and the Wassail is out of the question--but in every endeavour\nthat I made to get to sleep I failed most dismally.  I was never asleep;\nand in whatsoever unreasonable direction my mind rambled, the effigy of\nMaster Richard Watts perpetually embarrassed it.\n\nIn a word, I only got out of the Worshipful Master Richard Watts's way by\ngetting out of bed in the dark at six o'clock, and tumbling, as my custom\nis, into all the cold water that could be accumulated for the purpose.\nThe outer air was dull and cold enough in the street, when I came down\nthere; and the one candle in our supper-room at Watts's Charity looked as\npale in the burning as if it had had a bad night too.  But my Travellers\nhad all slept soundly, and they took to the hot coffee, and the piles of\nbread-and-butter, which Ben had arranged like deals in a timber-yard, as\nkindly as I could desire.\n\nWhile it was yet scarcely daylight, we all came out into the street\ntogether, and there shook hands.  The widow took the little sailor\ntowards Chatham, where he was to find a steamboat for Sheerness; the\nlawyer, with an extremely knowing look, went his own way, without\ncommitting himself by announcing his intentions; two more struck off by\nthe cathedral and old castle for Maidstone; and the book-pedler\naccompanied me over the bridge.  As for me, I was going to walk by Cobham\nWoods, as far upon my way to London as I fancied.\n\nWhen I came to the stile and footpath by which I was to diverge from the\nmain road, I bade farewell to my last remaining Poor Traveller, and\npursued my way alone.  And now the mists began to rise in the most\nbeautiful manner, and the sun to shine; and as I went on through the\nbracing air, seeing the hoarfrost sparkle everywhere, I felt as if all\nNature shared in the joy of the great Birthday.\n\nGoing through the woods, the softness of my tread upon the mossy ground\nand among the brown leaves enhanced the Christmas sacredness by which I\nfelt surrounded.  As the whitened stems environed me, I thought how the\nFounder of the time had never raised his benignant hand, save to bless\nand heal, except in the case of one unconscious tree.  By Cobham Hall, I\ncame to the village, and the churchyard where the dead had been quietly\nburied, \"in the sure and certain hope\" which Christmas time inspired.\nWhat children could I see at play, and not be loving of, recalling who\nhad loved them!  No garden that I passed was out of unison with the day,\nfor I remembered that the tomb was in a garden, and that \"she, supposing\nhim to be the gardener,\" had said, \"Sir, if thou have borne him hence,\ntell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.\"  In time,\nthe distant river with the ships came full in view, and with it pictures\nof the poor fishermen, mending their nets, who arose and followed him,--of\nthe teaching of the people from a ship pushed off a little way from\nshore, by reason of the multitude,--of a majestic figure walking on the\nwater, in the loneliness of night.  My very shadow on the ground was\neloquent of Christmas; for did not the people lay their sick where the\nmore shadows of the men who had heard and seen him might fall as they\npassed along?\n\nThus Christmas begirt me, far and near, until I had come to Blackheath,\nand had walked down the long vista of gnarled old trees in Greenwich\nPark, and was being steam-rattled through the mists now closing in once\nmore, towards the lights of London.  Brightly they shone, but not so\nbrightly as my own fire, and the brighter faces around it, when we came\ntogether to celebrate the day.  And there I told of worthy Master Richard\nWatts, and of my supper with the Six Poor Travellers who were neither\nRogues nor Proctors, and from that hour to this I have never seen one of\nthem again.\n\n\n"}
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{"1394":"\n\n\n\n\nTranscribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall edition of \"Christmas Stories\"\nby David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE HOLLY-TREE--THREE BRANCHES\n\n\nFIRST BRANCH--MYSELF\n\n\nI have kept one secret in the course of my life.  I am a bashful man.\nNobody would suppose it, nobody ever does suppose it, nobody ever did\nsuppose it, but I am naturally a bashful man.  This is the secret which I\nhave never breathed until now.\n\nI might greatly move the reader by some account of the innumerable places\nI have not been to, the innumerable people I have not called upon or\nreceived, the innumerable social evasions I have been guilty of, solely\nbecause I am by original constitution and character a bashful man.  But I\nwill leave the reader unmoved, and proceed with the object before me.\n\nThat object is to give a plain account of my travels and discoveries in\nthe Holly-Tree Inn; in which place of good entertainment for man and\nbeast I was once snowed up.\n\nIt happened in the memorable year when I parted for ever from Angela\nLeath, whom I was shortly to have married, on making the discovery that\nshe preferred my bosom friend.  From our school-days I had freely\nadmitted Edwin, in my own mind, to be far superior to myself; and, though\nI was grievously wounded at heart, I felt the preference to be natural,\nand tried to forgive them both.  It was under these circumstances that I\nresolved to go to America--on my way to the Devil.\n\nCommunicating my discovery neither to Angela nor to Edwin, but resolving\nto write each of them an affecting letter conveying my blessing and\nforgiveness, which the steam-tender for shore should carry to the post\nwhen I myself should be bound for the New World, far beyond recall,--I\nsay, locking up my grief in my own breast, and consoling myself as I\ncould with the prospect of being generous, I quietly left all I held\ndear, and started on the desolate journey I have mentioned.\n\nThe dead winter-time was in full dreariness when I left my chambers for\never, at five o'clock in the morning.  I had shaved by candle-light, of\ncourse, and was miserably cold, and experienced that general\nall-pervading sensation of getting up to be hanged which I have usually\nfound inseparable from untimely rising under such circumstances.\n\nHow well I remember the forlorn aspect of Fleet Street when I came out of\nthe Temple!  The street-lamps flickering in the gusty north-east wind, as\nif the very gas were contorted with cold; the white-topped houses; the\nbleak, star-lighted sky; the market people and other early stragglers,\ntrotting to circulate their almost frozen blood; the hospitable light and\nwarmth of the few coffee-shops and public-houses that were open for such\ncustomers; the hard, dry, frosty rime with which the air was charged (the\nwind had already beaten it into every crevice), and which lashed my face\nlike a steel whip.\n\nIt wanted nine days to the end of the month, and end of the year.  The\nPost-office packet for the United States was to depart from Liverpool,\nweather permitting, on the first of the ensuing month, and I had the\nintervening time on my hands.  I had taken this into consideration, and\nhad resolved to make a visit to a certain spot (which I need not name) on\nthe farther borders of Yorkshire.  It was endeared to me by my having\nfirst seen Angela at a farmhouse in that place, and my melancholy was\ngratified by the idea of taking a wintry leave of it before my\nexpatriation.  I ought to explain, that, to avoid being sought out before\nmy resolution should have been rendered irrevocable by being carried into\nfull effect, I had written to Angela overnight, in my usual manner,\nlamenting that urgent business, of which she should know all particulars\nby-and-by--took me unexpectedly away from her for a week or ten days.\n\nThere was no Northern Railway at that time, and in its place there were\nstage-coaches; which I occasionally find myself, in common with some\nother people, affecting to lament now, but which everybody dreaded as a\nvery serious penance then.  I had secured the box-seat on the fastest of\nthese, and my business in Fleet Street was to get into a cab with my\nportmanteau, so to make the best of my way to the Peacock at Islington,\nwhere I was to join this coach.  But when one of our Temple watchmen, who\ncarried my portmanteau into Fleet Street for me, told me about the huge\nblocks of ice that had for some days past been floating in the river,\nhaving closed up in the night, and made a walk from the Temple Gardens\nover to the Surrey shore, I began to ask myself the question, whether the\nbox-seat would not be likely to put a sudden and a frosty end to my\nunhappiness.  I was heart-broken, it is true, and yet I was not quite so\nfar gone as to wish to be frozen to death.\n\nWhen I got up to the Peacock,--where I found everybody drinking hot purl,\nin self-preservation,--I asked if there were an inside seat to spare.  I\nthen discovered that, inside or out, I was the only passenger.  This gave\nme a still livelier idea of the great inclemency of the weather, since\nthat coach always loaded particularly well.  However, I took a little\npurl (which I found uncommonly good), and got into the coach.  When I was\nseated, they built me up with straw to the waist, and, conscious of\nmaking a rather ridiculous appearance, I began my journey.\n\nIt was still dark when we left the Peacock.  For a little while, pale,\nuncertain ghosts of houses and trees appeared and vanished, and then it\nwas hard, black, frozen day.  People were lighting their fires; smoke was\nmounting straight up high into the rarified air; and we were rattling for\nHighgate Archway over the hardest ground I have ever heard the ring of\niron shoes on.  As we got into the country, everything seemed to have\ngrown old and gray.  The roads, the trees, thatched roofs of cottages and\nhomesteads, the ricks in farmers' yards.  Out-door work was abandoned,\nhorse-troughs at roadside inns were frozen hard, no stragglers lounged\nabout, doors were close shut, little turnpike houses had blazing fires\ninside, and children (even turnpike people have children, and seem to\nlike them) rubbed the frost from the little panes of glass with their\nchubby arms, that their bright eyes might catch a glimpse of the solitary\ncoach going by.  I don't know when the snow begin to set in; but I know\nthat we were changing horses somewhere when I heard the guard remark,\n\"That the old lady up in the sky was picking her geese pretty hard to-\nday.\"  Then, indeed, I found the white down falling fast and thick.\n\nThe lonely day wore on, and I dozed it out, as a lonely traveller does.  I\nwas warm and valiant after eating and drinking,--particularly after\ndinner; cold and depressed at all other times.  I was always bewildered\nas to time and place, and always more or less out of my senses.  The\ncoach and horses seemed to execute in chorus Auld Lang Syne, without a\nmoment's intermission.  They kept the time and tune with the greatest\nregularity, and rose into the swell at the beginning of the Refrain, with\na precision that worried me to death.  While we changed horses, the guard\nand coachman went stumping up and down the road, printing off their shoes\nin the snow, and poured so much liquid consolation into themselves\nwithout being any the worse for it, that I began to confound them, as it\ndarkened again, with two great white casks standing on end.  Our horses\ntumbled down in solitary places, and we got them up,--which was the\npleasantest variety _I_ had, for it warmed me.  And it snowed and snowed,\nand still it snowed, and never left off snowing.  All night long we went\non in this manner.  Thus we came round the clock, upon the Great North\nRoad, to the performance of Auld Lang Syne by day again.  And it snowed\nand snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snowing.\n\nI forget now where we were at noon on the second day, and where we ought\nto have been; but I know that we were scores of miles behindhand, and\nthat our case was growing worse every hour.  The drift was becoming\nprodigiously deep; landmarks were getting snowed out; the road and the\nfields were all one; instead of having fences and hedge-rows to guide us,\nwe went crunching on over an unbroken surface of ghastly white that might\nsink beneath us at any moment and drop us down a whole hillside.  Still\nthe coachman and guard--who kept together on the box, always in council,\nand looking well about them--made out the track with astonishing\nsagacity.\n\nWhen we came in sight of a town, it looked, to my fancy, like a large\ndrawing on a slate, with abundance of slate-pencil expended on the\nchurches and houses where the snow lay thickest.  When we came within a\ntown, and found the church clocks all stopped, the dial-faces choked with\nsnow, and the inn-signs blotted out, it seemed as if the whole place were\novergrown with white moss.  As to the coach, it was a mere snowball;\nsimilarly, the men and boys who ran along beside us to the town's end,\nturning our clogged wheels and encouraging our horses, were men and boys\nof snow; and the bleak wild solitude to which they at last dismissed us\nwas a snowy Sahara.  One would have thought this enough: notwithstanding\nwhich, I pledge my word that it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed,\nand never left off snowing.\n\nWe performed Auld Lang Syne the whole day; seeing nothing, out of towns\nand villages, but the track of stoats, hares, and foxes, and sometimes of\nbirds.  At nine o'clock at night, on a Yorkshire moor, a cheerful burst\nfrom our horn, and a welcome sound of talking, with a glimmering and\nmoving about of lanterns, roused me from my drowsy state.  I found that\nwe were going to change.\n\nThey helped me out, and I said to a waiter, whose bare head became as\nwhite as King Lear's in a single minute, \"What Inn is this?\"\n\n\"The Holly-Tree, sir,\" said he.\n\n\"Upon my word, I believe,\" said I, apologetically, to the guard and\ncoachman, \"that I must stop here.\"\n\nNow the landlord, and the landlady, and the ostler, and the post-boy, and\nall the stable authorities, had already asked the coachman, to the wide-\neyed interest of all the rest of the establishment, if he meant to go on.\nThe coachman had already replied, \"Yes, he'd take her through\nit,\"--meaning by Her the coach,--\"if so be as George would stand by him.\"\nGeorge was the guard, and he had already sworn that he would stand by\nhim.  So the helpers were already getting the horses out.\n\nMy declaring myself beaten, after this parley, was not an announcement\nwithout preparation.  Indeed, but for the way to the announcement being\nsmoothed by the parley, I more than doubt whether, as an innately bashful\nman, I should have had the confidence to make it.  As it was, it received\nthe approval even of the guard and coachman.  Therefore, with many\nconfirmations of my inclining, and many remarks from one bystander to\nanother, that the gentleman could go for'ard by the mail to-morrow,\nwhereas to-night he would only be froze, and where was the good of a\ngentleman being froze--ah, let alone buried alive (which latter clause\nwas added by a humorous helper as a joke at my expense, and was extremely\nwell received), I saw my portmanteau got out stiff, like a frozen body;\ndid the handsome thing by the guard and coachman; wished them good-night\nand a prosperous journey; and, a little ashamed of myself, after all, for\nleaving them to fight it out alone, followed the landlord, landlady, and\nwaiter of the Holly-Tree up-stairs.\n\nI thought I had never seen such a large room as that into which they\nshowed me.  It had five windows, with dark red curtains that would have\nabsorbed the light of a general illumination; and there were\ncomplications of drapery at the top of the curtains, that went wandering\nabout the wall in a most extraordinary manner.  I asked for a smaller\nroom, and they told me there was no smaller room.\n\nThey could screen me in, however, the landlord said.  They brought a\ngreat old japanned screen, with natives (Japanese, I suppose) engaged in\na variety of idiotic pursuits all over it; and left me roasting whole\nbefore an immense fire.\n\nMy bedroom was some quarter of a mile off, up a great staircase at the\nend of a long gallery; and nobody knows what a misery this is to a\nbashful man who would rather not meet people on the stairs.  It was the\ngrimmest room I have ever had the nightmare in; and all the furniture,\nfrom the four posts of the bed to the two old silver candle-sticks, was\ntall, high-shouldered, and spindle-waisted.  Below, in my sitting-room,\nif I looked round my screen, the wind rushed at me like a mad bull; if I\nstuck to my arm-chair, the fire scorched me to the colour of a new brick.\nThe chimney-piece was very high, and there was a bad glass--what I may\ncall a wavy glass--above it, which, when I stood up, just showed me my\nanterior phrenological developments,--and these never look well, in any\nsubject, cut short off at the eyebrow.  If I stood with my back to the\nfire, a gloomy vault of darkness above and beyond the screen insisted on\nbeing looked at; and, in its dim remoteness, the drapery of the ten\ncurtains of the five windows went twisting and creeping about, like a\nnest of gigantic worms.\n\nI suppose that what I observe in myself must be observed by some other\nmen of similar character in _themselves_; therefore I am emboldened to\nmention, that, when I travel, I never arrive at a place but I immediately\nwant to go away from it.  Before I had finished my supper of broiled fowl\nand mulled port, I had impressed upon the waiter in detail my\narrangements for departure in the morning.  Breakfast and bill at eight.\nFly at nine.  Two horses, or, if needful, even four.\n\nTired though I was, the night appeared about a week long.  In cases of\nnightmare, I thought of Angela, and felt more depressed than ever by the\nreflection that I was on the shortest road to Gretna Green.  What had _I_\nto do with Gretna Green?  I was not going _that_ way to the Devil, but by\nthe American route, I remarked in my bitterness.\n\nIn the morning I found that it was snowing still, that it had snowed all\nnight, and that I was snowed up.  Nothing could get out of that spot on\nthe moor, or could come at it, until the road had been cut out by\nlabourers from the market-town.  When they might cut their way to the\nHolly-Tree nobody could tell me.\n\nIt was now Christmas-eve.  I should have had a dismal Christmas-time of\nit anywhere, and consequently that did not so much matter; still, being\nsnowed up was like dying of frost, a thing I had not bargained for.  I\nfelt very lonely.  Yet I could no more have proposed to the landlord and\nlandlady to admit me to their society (though I should have liked it--very\nmuch) than I could have asked them to present me with a piece of plate.\nHere my great secret, the real bashfulness of my character, is to be\nobserved.  Like most bashful men, I judge of other people as if they were\nbashful too.  Besides being far too shamefaced to make the proposal\nmyself, I really had a delicate misgiving that it would be in the last\ndegree disconcerting to them.\n\nTrying to settle down, therefore, in my solitude, I first of all asked\nwhat books there were in the house.  The waiter brought me a _Book of\nRoads_, two or three old Newspapers, a little Song-Book, terminating in a\ncollection of Toasts and Sentiments, a little Jest-Book, an odd volume of\n_Peregrine Pickle_, and the _Sentimental Journey_.  I knew every word of\nthe two last already, but I read them through again, then tried to hum\nall the songs (Auld Lang Syne was among them); went entirely through the\njokes,--in which I found a fund of melancholy adapted to my state of\nmind; proposed all the toasts, enunciated all the sentiments, and\nmastered the papers.  The latter had nothing in them but stock\nadvertisements, a meeting about a county rate, and a highway robbery.  As\nI am a greedy reader, I could not make this supply hold out until night;\nit was exhausted by tea-time.  Being then entirely cast upon my own\nresources, I got through an hour in considering what to do next.\nUltimately, it came into my head (from which I was anxious by any means\nto exclude Angela and Edwin), that I would endeavour to recall my\nexperience of Inns, and would try how long it lasted me.  I stirred the\nfire, moved my chair a little to one side of the screen,--not daring to\ngo far, for I knew the wind was waiting to make a rush at me, I could\nhear it growling,--and began.\n\nMy first impressions of an Inn dated from the Nursery; consequently I\nwent back to the Nursery for a starting-point, and found myself at the\nknee of a sallow woman with a fishy eye, an aquiline nose, and a green\ngown, whose specially was a dismal narrative of a landlord by the\nroadside, whose visitors unaccountably disappeared for many years, until\nit was discovered that the pursuit of his life had been to convert them\ninto pies.  For the better devotion of himself to this branch of\nindustry, he had constructed a secret door behind the head of the bed;\nand when the visitor (oppressed with pie) had fallen asleep, this wicked\nlandlord would look softly in with a lamp in one hand and a knife in the\nother, would cut his throat, and would make him into pies; for which\npurpose he had coppers, underneath a trap-door, always boiling; and\nrolled out his pastry in the dead of the night.  Yet even he was not\ninsensible to the stings of conscience, for he never went to sleep\nwithout being heard to mutter, \"Too much pepper!\" which was eventually\nthe cause of his being brought to justice.  I had no sooner disposed of\nthis criminal than there started up another of the same period, whose\nprofession was originally house-breaking; in the pursuit of which art he\nhad had his right ear chopped off one night, as he was burglariously\ngetting in at a window, by a brave and lovely servant-maid (whom the\naquiline-nosed woman, though not at all answering the description, always\nmysteriously implied to be herself).  After several years, this brave and\nlovely servant-maid was married to the landlord of a country Inn; which\nlandlord had this remarkable characteristic, that he always wore a silk\nnightcap, and never would on any consideration take it off.  At last, one\nnight, when he was fast asleep, the brave and lovely woman lifted up his\nsilk nightcap on the right side, and found that he had no ear there; upon\nwhich she sagaciously perceived that he was the clipped housebreaker, who\nhad married her with the intention of putting her to death.  She\nimmediately heated the poker and terminated his career, for which she was\ntaken to King George upon his throne, and received the compliments of\nroyalty on her great discretion and valour.  This same narrator, who had\na Ghoulish pleasure, I have long been persuaded, in terrifying me to the\nutmost confines of my reason, had another authentic anecdote within her\nown experience, founded, I now believe, upon _Raymond and Agnes, or the\nBleeding Nun_.  She said it happened to her brother-in-law, who was\nimmensely rich,--which my father was not; and immensely tall,--which my\nfather was not.  It was always a point with this Ghoul to present my\nclearest relations and friends to my youthful mind under circumstances of\ndisparaging contrast.  The brother-in-law was riding once through a\nforest on a magnificent horse (we had no magnificent horse at our house),\nattended by a favourite and valuable Newfoundland dog (we had no dog),\nwhen he found himself benighted, and came to an Inn.  A dark woman opened\nthe door, and he asked her if he could have a bed there.  She answered\nyes, and put his horse in the stable, and took him into a room where\nthere were two dark men.  While he was at supper, a parrot in the room\nbegan to talk, saying, \"Blood, blood!  Wipe up the blood!\"  Upon which\none of the dark men wrung the parrot's neck, and said he was fond of\nroasted parrots, and he meant to have this one for breakfast in the\nmorning.  After eating and drinking heartily, the immensely rich, tall\nbrother-in-law went up to bed; but he was rather vexed, because they had\nshut his dog in the stable, saying that they never allowed dogs in the\nhouse.  He sat very quiet for more than an hour, thinking and thinking,\nwhen, just as his candle was burning out, he heard a scratch at the door.\nHe opened the door, and there was the Newfoundland dog!  The dog came\nsoftly in, smelt about him, went straight to some straw in the corner\nwhich the dark men had said covered apples, tore the straw away, and\ndisclosed two sheets steeped in blood.  Just at that moment the candle\nwent out, and the brother-in-law, looking through a chink in the door,\nsaw the two dark men stealing up-stairs; one armed with a dagger that\nlong (about five feet); the other carrying a chopper, a sack, and a\nspade.  Having no remembrance of the close of this adventure, I suppose\nmy faculties to have been always so frozen with terror at this stage of\nit, that the power of listening stagnated within me for some quarter of\nan hour.\n\nThese barbarous stories carried me, sitting there on the Holly-Tree\nhearth, to the Roadside Inn, renowned in my time in a sixpenny book with\na folding plate, representing in a central compartment of oval form the\nportrait of Jonathan Bradford, and in four corner compartments four\nincidents of the tragedy with which the name is associated,--coloured\nwith a hand at once so free and economical, that the bloom of Jonathan's\ncomplexion passed without any pause into the breeches of the ostler, and,\nsmearing itself off into the next division, became rum in a bottle.  Then\nI remembered how the landlord was found at the murdered traveller's\nbedside, with his own knife at his feet, and blood upon his hand; how he\nwas hanged for the murder, notwithstanding his protestation that he had\nindeed come there to kill the traveller for his saddle-bags, but had been\nstricken motionless on finding him already slain; and how the ostler,\nyears afterwards, owned the deed.  By this time I had made myself quite\nuncomfortable.  I stirred the fire, and stood with my back to it as long\nas I could bear the heat, looking up at the darkness beyond the screen,\nand at the wormy curtains creeping in and creeping out, like the worms in\nthe ballad of Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imogene.\n\nThere was an Inn in the cathedral town where I went to school, which had\npleasanter recollections about it than any of these.  I took it next.  It\nwas the Inn where friends used to put up, and where we used to go to see\nparents, and to have salmon and fowls, and be tipped.  It had an\necclesiastical sign,--the Mitre,--and a bar that seemed to be the next\nbest thing to a bishopric, it was so snug.  I loved the landlord's\nyoungest daughter to distraction,--but let that pass.  It was in this Inn\nthat I was cried over by my rosy little sister, because I had acquired a\nblack eye in a fight.  And though she had been, that Holly-Tree night,\nfor many a long year where all tears are dried, the Mitre softened me\nyet.\n\n\"To be continued to-morrow,\" said I, when I took my candle to go to bed.\nBut my bed took it upon itself to continue the train of thought that\nnight.  It carried me away, like the enchanted carpet, to a distant place\n(though still in England), and there, alighting from a stage-coach at\nanother Inn in the snow, as I had actually done some years before, I\nrepeated in my sleep a curious experience I had really had there.  More\nthan a year before I made the journey in the course of which I put up at\nthat Inn, I had lost a very near and dear friend by death.  Every night\nsince, at home or away from home, I had dreamed of that friend; sometimes\nas still living; sometimes as returning from the world of shadows to\ncomfort me; always as being beautiful, placid, and happy, never in\nassociation with any approach to fear or distress.  It was at a lonely\nInn in a wide moorland place, that I halted to pass the night.  When I\nhad looked from my bedroom window over the waste of snow on which the\nmoon was shining, I sat down by my fire to write a letter.  I had always,\nuntil that hour, kept it within my own breast that I dreamed every night\nof the dear lost one.  But in the letter that I wrote I recorded the\ncircumstance, and added that I felt much interested in proving whether\nthe subject of my dream would still be faithful to me, travel-tired, and\nin that remote place.  No.  I lost the beloved figure of my vision in\nparting with the secret.  My sleep has never looked upon it since, in\nsixteen years, but once.  I was in Italy, and awoke (or seemed to awake),\nthe well-remembered voice distinctly in my ears, conversing with it.  I\nentreated it, as it rose above my bed and soared up to the vaulted roof\nof the old room, to answer me a question I had asked touching the Future\nLife.  My hands were still outstretched towards it as it vanished, when I\nheard a bell ringing by the garden wall, and a voice in the deep\nstillness of the night calling on all good Christians to pray for the\nsouls of the dead; it being All Souls' Eve.\n\nTo return to the Holly-Tree.  When I awoke next day, it was freezing\nhard, and the lowering sky threatened more snow.  My breakfast cleared\naway, I drew my chair into its former place, and, with the fire getting\nso much the better of the landscape that I sat in twilight, resumed my\nInn remembrances.\n\nThat was a good Inn down in Wiltshire where I put up once, in the days of\nthe hard Wiltshire ale, and before all beer was bitterness.  It was on\nthe skirts of Salisbury Plain, and the midnight wind that rattled my\nlattice window came moaning at me from Stonehenge.  There was a hanger-on\nat that establishment (a supernaturally preserved Druid I believe him to\nhave been, and to be still), with long white hair, and a flinty blue eye\nalways looking afar off; who claimed to have been a shepherd, and who\nseemed to be ever watching for the reappearance, on the verge of the\nhorizon, of some ghostly flock of sheep that had been mutton for many\nages.  He was a man with a weird belief in him that no one could count\nthe stones of Stonehenge twice, and make the same number of them;\nlikewise, that any one who counted them three times nine times, and then\nstood in the centre and said, \"I dare!\" would behold a tremendous\napparition, and be stricken dead.  He pretended to have seen a bustard (I\nsuspect him to have been familiar with the dodo), in manner following: He\nwas out upon the plain at the close of a late autumn day, when he dimly\ndiscerned, going on before him at a curious fitfully bounding pace, what\nhe at first supposed to be a gig-umbrella that had been blown from some\nconveyance, but what he presently believed to be a lean dwarf man upon a\nlittle pony.  Having followed this object for some distance without\ngaining on it, and having called to it many times without receiving any\nanswer, he pursued it for miles and miles, when, at length coming up with\nit, he discovered it to be the last bustard in Great Britain, degenerated\ninto a wingless state, and running along the ground.  Resolved to capture\nhim or perish in the attempt, he closed with the bustard; but the\nbustard, who had formed a counter-resolution that he should do neither,\nthrew him, stunned him, and was last seen making off due west.  This\nweird main, at that stage of metempsychosis, may have been a sleep-walker\nor an enthusiast or a robber; but I awoke one night to find him in the\ndark at my bedside, repeating the Athanasian Creed in a terrific voice.  I\npaid my bill next day, and retired from the county with all possible\nprecipitation.\n\nThat was not a commonplace story which worked itself out at a little Inn\nin Switzerland, while I was staying there.  It was a very homely place,\nin a village of one narrow zigzag street, among mountains, and you went\nin at the main door through the cow-house, and among the mules and the\ndogs and the fowls, before ascending a great bare staircase to the rooms;\nwhich were all of unpainted wood, without plastering or papering,--like\nrough packing-cases.  Outside there was nothing but the straggling\nstreet, a little toy church with a copper-coloured steeple, a pine\nforest, a torrent, mists, and mountain-sides.  A young man belonging to\nthis Inn had disappeared eight weeks before (it was winter-time), and was\nsupposed to have had some undiscovered love affair, and to have gone for\na soldier.  He had got up in the night, and dropped into the village\nstreet from the loft in which he slept with another man; and he had done\nit so quietly, that his companion and fellow-labourer had heard no\nmovement when he was awakened in the morning, and they said, \"Louis,\nwhere is Henri?\"  They looked for him high and low, in vain, and gave him\nup.  Now, outside this Inn, there stood, as there stood outside every\ndwelling in the village, a stack of firewood; but the stack belonging to\nthe Inn was higher than any of the rest, because the Inn was the richest\nhouse, and burnt the most fuel.  It began to be noticed, while they were\nlooking high and low, that a Bantam cock, part of the live stock of the\nInn, put himself wonderfully out of his way to get to the top of this\nwood-stack; and that he would stay there for hours and hours, crowing,\nuntil he appeared in danger of splitting himself.  Five weeks went\non,--six weeks,--and still this terrible Bantam, neglecting his domestic\naffairs, was always on the top of the wood-stack, crowing the very eyes\nout of his head.  By this time it was perceived that Louis had become\ninspired with a violent animosity towards the terrible Bantam, and one\nmorning he was seen by a woman, who sat nursing her goitre at a little\nwindow in a gleam of sun, to catch up a rough billet of wood, with a\ngreat oath, hurl it at the terrible Bantam crowing on the wood-stack, and\nbring him down dead.  Hereupon the woman, with a sudden light in her\nmind, stole round to the back of the wood-stack, and, being a good\nclimber, as all those women are, climbed up, and soon was seen upon the\nsummit, screaming, looking down the hollow within, and crying, \"Seize\nLouis, the murderer!  Ring the church bell!  Here is the body!\"  I saw\nthe murderer that day, and I saw him as I sat by my fire at the Holly-\nTree Inn, and I see him now, lying shackled with cords on the stable\nlitter, among the mild eyes and the smoking breath of the cows, waiting\nto be taken away by the police, and stared at by the fearful village.  A\nheavy animal,--the dullest animal in the stables,--with a stupid head,\nand a lumpish face devoid of any trace of insensibility, who had been,\nwithin the knowledge of the murdered youth, an embezzler of certain small\nmoneys belonging to his master, and who had taken this hopeful mode of\nputting a possible accuser out of his way.  All of which he confessed\nnext day, like a sulky wretch who couldn't be troubled any more, now that\nthey had got hold of him, and meant to make an end of him.  I saw him\nonce again, on the day of my departure from the Inn.  In that Canton the\nheadsman still does his office with a sword; and I came upon this\nmurderer sitting bound, to a chair, with his eyes bandaged, on a scaffold\nin a little market-place.  In that instant, a great sword (loaded with\nquicksilver in the thick part of the blade) swept round him like a gust\nof wind or fire, and there was no such creature in the world.  My wonder\nwas, not that he was so suddenly dispatched, but that any head was left\nunreaped, within a radius of fifty yards of that tremendous sickle.\n\nThat was a good Inn, too, with the kind, cheerful landlady and the honest\nlandlord, where I lived in the shadow of Mont Blanc, and where one of the\napartments has a zoological papering on the walls, not so accurately\njoined but that the elephant occasionally rejoices in a tiger's hind legs\nand tail, while the lion puts on a trunk and tusks, and the bear,\nmoulting as it were, appears as to portions of himself like a leopard.  I\nmade several American friends at that Inn, who all called Mont Blanc\nMount Blank,--except one good-humoured gentleman, of a very sociable\nnature, who became on such intimate terms with it that he spoke of it\nfamiliarly as \"Blank;\" observing, at breakfast, \"Blank looks pretty tall\nthis morning;\" or considerably doubting in the courtyard in the evening,\nwhether there warn't some go-ahead naters in our country, sir, that would\nmake out the top of Blank in a couple of hours from first start--now!\n\nOnce I passed a fortnight at an Inn in the North of England, where I was\nhaunted by the ghost of a tremendous pie.  It was a Yorkshire pie, like a\nfort,--an abandoned fort with nothing in it; but the waiter had a fixed\nidea that it was a point of ceremony at every meal to put the pie on the\ntable.  After some days I tried to hint, in several delicate ways, that I\nconsidered the pie done with; as, for example, by emptying fag-ends of\nglasses of wine into it; putting cheese-plates and spoons into it, as\ninto a basket; putting wine-bottles into it, as into a cooler; but always\nin vain, the pie being invariably cleaned out again and brought up as\nbefore.  At last, beginning to be doubtful whether I was not the victim\nof a spectral illusion, and whether my health and spirits might not sink\nunder the horrors of an imaginary pie, I cut a triangle out of it, fully\nas large as the musical instrument of that name in a powerful orchestra.\nHuman provision could not have foreseen the result--but the waiter mended\nthe pie.  With some effectual species of cement, he adroitly fitted the\ntriangle in again, and I paid my reckoning and fled.\n\nThe Holly-Tree was getting rather dismal.  I made an overland expedition\nbeyond the screen, and penetrated as far as the fourth window.  Here I\nwas driven back by stress of weather.  Arrived at my winter-quarters once\nmore, I made up the fire, and took another Inn.\n\nIt was in the remotest part of Cornwall.  A great annual Miners' Feast\nwas being holden at the Inn, when I and my travelling companions\npresented ourselves at night among the wild crowd that were dancing\nbefore it by torchlight.  We had had a break-down in the dark, on a stony\nmorass some miles away; and I had the honour of leading one of the\nunharnessed post-horses.  If any lady or gentleman, on perusal of the\npresent lines, will take any very tall post-horse with his traces hanging\nabout his legs, and will conduct him by the bearing-rein into the heart\nof a country dance of a hundred and fifty couples, that lady or gentleman\nwill then, and only then, form an adequate idea of the extent to which\nthat post-horse will tread on his conductor's toes.  Over and above\nwhich, the post-horse, finding three hundred people whirling about him,\nwill probably rear, and also lash out with his hind legs, in a manner\nincompatible with dignity or self-respect on his conductor's part.  With\nsuch little drawbacks on my usually impressive aspect, I appeared at this\nCornish Inn, to the unutterable wonder of the Cornish Miners.  It was\nfull, and twenty times full, and nobody could be received but the post-\nhorse,--though to get rid of that noble animal was something.  While my\nfellow-travellers and I were discussing how to pass the night and so much\nof the next day as must intervene before the jovial blacksmith and the\njovial wheelwright would be in a condition to go out on the morass and\nmend the coach, an honest man stepped forth from the crowd and proposed\nhis unlet floor of two rooms, with supper of eggs and bacon, ale and\npunch.  We joyfully accompanied him home to the strangest of clean\nhouses, where we were well entertained to the satisfaction of all\nparties.  But the novel feature of the entertainment was, that our host\nwas a chair-maker, and that the chairs assigned to us were mere frames,\naltogether without bottoms of any sort; so that we passed the evening on\nperches.  Nor was this the absurdest consequence; for when we unbent at\nsupper, and any one of us gave way to laughter, he forgot the peculiarity\nof his position, and instantly disappeared.  I myself, doubled up into an\nattitude from which self-extrication was impossible, was taken out of my\nframe, like a clown in a comic pantomime who has tumbled into a tub, five\ntimes by the taper's light during the eggs and bacon.\n\nThe Holly-Tree was fast reviving within me a sense of loneliness.  I\nbegan to feel conscious that my subject would never carry on until I was\ndug out.  I might be a week here,--weeks!\n\nThere was a story with a singular idea in it, connected with an Inn I\nonce passed a night at in a picturesque old town on the Welsh border.  In\na large double-bedded room of this Inn there had been a suicide committed\nby poison, in one bed, while a tired traveller slept unconscious in the\nother.  After that time, the suicide bed was never used, but the other\nconstantly was; the disused bedstead remaining in the room empty, though\nas to all other respects in its old state.  The story ran, that whosoever\nslept in this room, though never so entire a stranger, from never so far\noff, was invariably observed to come down in the morning with an\nimpression that he smelt Laudanum, and that his mind always turned upon\nthe subject of suicide; to which, whatever kind of man he might be, he\nwas certain to make some reference if he conversed with any one.  This\nwent on for years, until it at length induced the landlord to take the\ndisused bedstead down, and bodily burn it,--bed, hangings, and all.  The\nstrange influence (this was the story) now changed to a fainter one, but\nnever changed afterwards.  The occupant of that room, with occasional but\nvery rare exceptions, would come down in the morning, trying to recall a\nforgotten dream he had had in the night.  The landlord, on his mentioning\nhis perplexity, would suggest various commonplace subjects, not one of\nwhich, as he very well knew, was the true subject.  But the moment the\nlandlord suggested \"Poison,\" the traveller started, and cried, \"Yes!\"  He\nnever failed to accept that suggestion, and he never recalled any more of\nthe dream.\n\nThis reminiscence brought the Welsh Inns in general before me; with the\nwomen in their round hats, and the harpers with their white beards\n(venerable, but humbugs, I am afraid), playing outside the door while I\ntook my dinner.  The transition was natural to the Highland Inns, with\nthe oatmeal bannocks, the honey, the venison steaks, the trout from the\nloch, the whisky, and perhaps (having the materials so temptingly at\nhand) the Athol brose.  Once was I coming south from the Scottish\nHighlands in hot haste, hoping to change quickly at the station at the\nbottom of a certain wild historical glen, when these eyes did with\nmortification see the landlord come out with a telescope and sweep the\nwhole prospect for the horses; which horses were away picking up their\nown living, and did not heave in sight under four hours.  Having thought\nof the loch-trout, I was taken by quick association to the Anglers' Inns\nof England (I have assisted at innumerable feats of angling by lying in\nthe bottom of the boat, whole summer days, doing nothing with the\ngreatest perseverance; which I have generally found to be as effectual\ntowards the taking of fish as the finest tackle and the utmost science),\nand to the pleasant white, clean, flower-pot-decorated bedrooms of those\ninns, overlooking the river, and the ferry, and the green ait, and the\nchurch-spire, and the country bridge; and to the pearless Emma with the\nbright eyes and the pretty smile, who waited, bless her! with a natural\ngrace that would have converted Blue-Beard.  Casting my eyes upon my\nHolly-Tree fire, I next discerned among the glowing coals the pictures of\na score or more of those wonderful English posting-inns which we are all\nso sorry to have lost, which were so large and so comfortable, and which\nwere such monuments of British submission to rapacity and extortion.  He\nwho would see these houses pining away, let him walk from Basingstoke, or\neven Windsor, to London, by way of Hounslow, and moralise on their\nperishing remains; the stables crumbling to dust; unsettled labourers and\nwanderers bivouacking in the outhouses; grass growing in the yards; the\nrooms, where erst so many hundred beds of down were made up, let off to\nIrish lodgers at eighteenpence a week; a little ill-looking beer-shop\nshrinking in the tap of former days, burning coach-house gates for\nfirewood, having one of its two windows bunged up, as if it had received\npunishment in a fight with the Railroad; a low, bandy-legged,\nbrick-making bulldog standing in the doorway.  What could I next see in\nmy fire so naturally as the new railway-house of these times near the\ndismal country station; with nothing particular on draught but cold air\nand damp, nothing worth mentioning in the larder but new mortar, and no\nbusiness doing beyond a conceited affectation of luggage in the hall?\nThen I came to the Inns of Paris, with the pretty apartment of four\npieces up one hundred and seventy-five waxed stairs, the privilege of\nringing the bell all day long without influencing anybody's mind or body\nbut your own, and the not-too-much-for-dinner, considering the price.\nNext to the provincial Inns of France, with the great church-tower rising\nabove the courtyard, the horse-bells jingling merrily up and down the\nstreet beyond, and the clocks of all descriptions in all the rooms, which\nare never right, unless taken at the precise minute when, by getting\nexactly twelve hours too fast or too slow, they unintentionally become\nso.  Away I went, next, to the lesser roadside Inns of Italy; where all\nthe dirty clothes in the house (not in wear) are always lying in your\nanteroom; where the mosquitoes make a raisin pudding of your face in\nsummer, and the cold bites it blue in winter; where you get what you can,\nand forget what you can't: where I should again like to be boiling my tea\nin a pocket-handkerchief dumpling, for want of a teapot.  So to the old\npalace Inns and old monastery Inns, in towns and cities of the same\nbright country; with their massive quadrangular staircases, whence you\nmay look from among clustering pillars high into the blue vault of\nheaven; with their stately banqueting-rooms, and vast refectories; with\ntheir labyrinths of ghostly bedchambers, and their glimpses into gorgeous\nstreets that have no appearance of reality or possibility.  So to the\nclose little Inns of the Malaria districts, with their pale attendants,\nand their peculiar smell of never letting in the air.  So to the immense\nfantastic Inns of Venice, with the cry of the gondolier below, as he\nskims the corner; the grip of the watery odours on one particular little\nbit of the bridge of your nose (which is never released while you stay\nthere); and the great bell of St. Mark's Cathedral tolling midnight.  Next\nI put up for a minute at the restless Inns upon the Rhine, where your\ngoing to bed, no matter at what hour, appears to be the tocsin for\neverybody else's getting up; and where, in the table-d'hote room at the\nend of the long table (with several Towers of Babel on it at the other\nend, all made of white plates), one knot of stoutish men, entirely\ndressed in jewels and dirt, and having nothing else upon them, _will_\nremain all night, clinking glasses, and singing about the river that\nflows, and the grape that grows, and Rhine wine that beguiles, and Rhine\nwoman that smiles and hi drink drink my friend and ho drink drink my\nbrother, and all the rest of it.  I departed thence, as a matter of\ncourse, to other German Inns, where all the eatables are soddened down to\nthe same flavour, and where the mind is disturbed by the apparition of\nhot puddings, and boiled cherries, sweet and slab, at awfully unexpected\nperiods of the repast.  After a draught of sparkling beer from a foaming\nglass jug, and a glance of recognition through the windows of the student\nbeer-houses at Heidelberg and elsewhere, I put out to sea for the Inns of\nAmerica, with their four hundred beds apiece, and their eight or nine\nhundred ladies and gentlemen at dinner every day.  Again I stood in the\nbar-rooms thereof, taking my evening cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail.\nAgain I listened to my friend the General,--whom I had known for five\nminutes, in the course of which period he had made me intimate for life\nwith two Majors, who again had made me intimate for life with three\nColonels, who again had made me brother to twenty-two civilians,--again,\nI say, I listened to my friend the General, leisurely expounding the\nresources of the establishment, as to gentlemen's morning-room, sir;\nladies' morning-room, sir; gentlemen's evening-room, sir; ladies' evening-\nroom, sir; ladies' and gentlemen's evening reuniting-room, sir; music-\nroom, sir; reading-room, sir; over four hundred sleeping-rooms, sir; and\nthe entire planned and finited within twelve calendar months from the\nfirst clearing off of the old encumbrances on the plot, at a cost of five\nhundred thousand dollars, sir.  Again I found, as to my individual way of\nthinking, that the greater, the more gorgeous, and the more dollarous the\nestablishment was, the less desirable it was.  Nevertheless, again I\ndrank my cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail, in all good-will, to my\nfriend the General, and my friends the Majors, Colonels, and civilians\nall; full well knowing that, whatever little motes my beamy eyes may have\ndescried in theirs, they belong to a kind, generous, large-hearted, and\ngreat people.\n\nI had been going on lately at a quick pace to keep my solitude out of my\nmind; but here I broke down for good, and gave up the subject.  What was\nI to do?  What was to become of me?  Into what extremity was I\nsubmissively to sink?  Supposing that, like Baron Trenck, I looked out\nfor a mouse or spider, and found one, and beguiled my imprisonment by\ntraining it?  Even that might be dangerous with a view to the future.  I\nmight be so far gone when the road did come to be cut through the snow,\nthat, on my way forth, I might burst into tears, and beseech, like the\nprisoner who was released in his old age from the Bastille, to be taken\nback again to the five windows, the ten curtains, and the sinuous\ndrapery.\n\nA desperate idea came into my head.  Under any other circumstances I\nshould have rejected it; but, in the strait at which I was, I held it\nfast.  Could I so far overcome the inherent bashfulness which withheld me\nfrom the landlord's table and the company I might find there, as to call\nup the Boots, and ask him to take a chair,--and something in a liquid\nform,--and talk to me?  I could, I would, I did.\n\n\n\n\nSECOND BRANCH--THE BOOTS\n\n\nWhere had he been in his time? he repeated, when I asked him the\nquestion.  Lord, he had been everywhere!  And what had he been?  Bless\nyou, he had been everything you could mention a'most!\n\nSeen a good deal?  Why, of course he had.  I should say so, he could\nassure me, if I only knew about a twentieth part of what had come in his\nway.  Why, it would be easier for him, he expected, to tell what he\nhadn't seen than what he had.  Ah!  A deal, it would.\n\nWhat was the curiousest thing he had seen?  Well!  He didn't know.  He\ncouldn't momently name what was the curiousest thing he had seen--unless\nit was a Unicorn, and he see _him_ once at a Fair.  But supposing a young\ngentleman not eight year old was to run away with a fine young woman of\nseven, might I think _that_ a queer start?  Certainly.  Then that was a\nstart as he himself had had his blessed eyes on, and he had cleaned the\nshoes they run away in--and they was so little that he couldn't get his\nhand into 'em.\n\nMaster Harry Walmers' father, you see, he lived at the Elmses, down away\nby Shooter's Hill there, six or seven miles from Lunnon.  He was a\ngentleman of spirit, and good-looking, and held his head up when he\nwalked, and had what you may call Fire about him.  He wrote poetry, and\nhe rode, and he ran, and he cricketed, and he danced, and he acted, and\nhe done it all equally beautiful.  He was uncommon proud of Master Harry\nas was his only child; but he didn't spoil him neither.  He was a\ngentleman that had a will of his own and a eye of his own, and that would\nbe minded.  Consequently, though he made quite a companion of the fine\nbright boy, and was delighted to see him so fond of reading his fairy\nbooks, and was never tired of hearing him say my name is Norval, or\nhearing him sing his songs about Young May Moons is beaming love, and\nWhen he as adores thee has left but the name, and that; still he kept the\ncommand over the child, and the child _was_ a child, and it's to be\nwished more of 'em was!\n\nHow did Boots happen to know all this?  Why, through being\nunder-gardener.  Of course he couldn't be under-gardener, and be always\nabout, in the summer-time, near the windows on the lawn, a mowing, and\nsweeping, and weeding, and pruning, and this and that, without getting\nacquainted with the ways of the family.  Even supposing Master Harry\nhadn't come to him one morning early, and said, \"Cobbs, how should you\nspell Norah, if you was asked?\" and then began cutting it in print all\nover the fence.\n\nHe couldn't say he had taken particular notice of children before that;\nbut really it was pretty to see them two mites a going about the place\ntogether, deep in love.  And the courage of the boy!  Bless your soul,\nhe'd have throwed off his little hat, and tucked up his little sleeves,\nand gone in at a Lion, he would, if they had happened to meet one, and\nshe had been frightened of him.  One day he stops, along with her, where\nBoots was hoeing weeds in the gravel, and says, speaking up, \"Cobbs,\" he\nsays, \"I like _you_.\"  \"Do you, sir?  I'm proud to hear it.\"  \"Yes, I do,\nCobbs.  Why do I like you, do you think, Cobbs?\"  \"Don't know, Master\nHarry, I am sure.\"  \"Because Norah likes you, Cobbs.\"  \"Indeed, sir?\nThat's very gratifying.\"  \"Gratifying, Cobbs?  It's better than millions\nof the brightest diamonds to be liked by Norah.\"  \"Certainly, sir.\"\n\"You're going away, ain't you, Cobbs?\"  \"Yes, sir.\"  \"Would you like\nanother situation, Cobbs?\"  \"Well, sir, I shouldn't object, if it was a\ngood Inn.\"  \"Then, Cobbs,\" says he, \"you shall be our Head Gardener when\nwe are married.\"  And he tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle, under\nhis arm, and walks away.\n\nBoots could assure me that it was better than a picter, and equal to a\nplay, to see them babies, with their long, bright, curling hair, their\nsparkling eyes, and their beautiful light tread, a rambling about the\ngarden, deep in love.  Boots was of opinion that the birds believed they\nwas birds, and kept up with 'em, singing to please 'em.  Sometimes they\nwould creep under the Tulip-tree, and would sit there with their arms\nround one another's necks, and their soft cheeks touching, a reading\nabout the Prince and the Dragon, and the good and bad enchanters, and the\nking's fair daughter.  Sometimes he would hear them planning about having\na house in a forest, keeping bees and a cow, and living entirely on milk\nand honey.  Once he came upon them by the pond, and heard Master Harry\nsay, \"Adorable Norah, kiss me, and say you love me to distraction, or\nI'll jump in head-foremost.\"  And Boots made no question he would have\ndone it if she hadn't complied.  On the whole, Boots said it had a\ntendency to make him feel as if he was in love himself--only he didn't\nexactly know who with.\n\n\"Cobbs,\" said Master Harry, one evening, when Cobbs was watering the\nflowers, \"I am going on a visit, this present Midsummer, to my\ngrandmamma's at York.\"\n\n\"Are you indeed, sir?  I hope you'll have a pleasant time.  I am going\ninto Yorkshire, myself, when I leave here.\"\n\n\"Are you going to your grandmamma's, Cobbs?\"\n\n\"No, sir.  I haven't got such a thing.\"\n\n\"Not as a grandmamma, Cobbs?\"\n\n\"No, sir.\"\n\nThe boy looked on at the watering of the flowers for a little while, and\nthen said, \"I shall be very glad indeed to go, Cobbs,--Norah's going.\"\n\n\"You'll be all right then, sir,\" says Cobbs, \"with your beautiful\nsweetheart by your side.\"\n\n\"Cobbs,\" returned the boy, flushing, \"I never let anybody joke about it,\nwhen I can prevent them.\"\n\n\"It wasn't a joke, sir,\" says Cobbs, with humility,--\"wasn't so meant.\"\n\n\"I am glad of that, Cobbs, because I like you, you know, and you're going\nto live with us.--Cobbs!\"\n\n\"Sir.\"\n\n\"What do you think my grandmamma gives me when I go down there?\"\n\n\"I couldn't so much as make a guess, sir.\"\n\n\"A Bank of England five-pound note, Cobbs.\"\n\n\"Whew!\" says Cobbs, \"that's a spanking sum of money, Master Harry.\"\n\n\"A person could do a good deal with such a sum of money as that,--couldn't\na person, Cobbs?\"\n\n\"I believe you, sir!\"\n\n\"Cobbs,\" said the boy, \"I'll tell you a secret.  At Norah's house, they\nhave been joking her about me, and pretending to laugh at our being\nengaged,--pretending to make game of it, Cobbs!\"\n\n\"Such, sir,\" says Cobbs, \"is the depravity of human natur.\"\n\nThe boy, looking exactly like his father, stood for a few minutes with\nhis glowing face towards the sunset, and then departed with, \"Good-night,\nCobbs.  I'm going in.\"\n\nIf I was to ask Boots how it happened that he was a-going to leave that\nplace just at that present time, well, he couldn't rightly answer me.  He\ndid suppose he might have stayed there till now if he had been anyways\ninclined.  But, you see, he was younger then, and he wanted change.\nThat's what he wanted,--change.  Mr. Walmers, he said to him when he gave\nhim notice of his intentions to leave, \"Cobbs,\" he says, \"have you\nanythink to complain of?  I make the inquiry because if I find that any\nof my people really has anythink to complain of, I wish to make it right\nif I can.\"  \"No, sir,\" says Cobbs; \"thanking you, sir, I find myself as\nwell sitiwated here as I could hope to be anywheres.  The truth is, sir,\nthat I'm a-going to seek my fortun'.\"  \"O, indeed, Cobbs!\" he says; \"I\nhope you may find it.\"  And Boots could assure me--which he did, touching\nhis hair with his bootjack, as a salute in the way of his present\ncalling--that he hadn't found it yet.\n\nWell, sir!  Boots left the Elmses when his time was up, and Master Harry,\nhe went down to the old lady's at York, which old lady would have given\nthat child the teeth out of her head (if she had had any), she was so\nwrapped up in him.  What does that Infant do,--for Infant you may call\nhim and be within the mark,--but cut away from that old lady's with his\nNorah, on a expedition to go to Gretna Green and be married!\n\nSir, Boots was at this identical Holly-Tree Inn (having left it several\ntimes since to better himself, but always come back through one thing or\nanother), when, one summer afternoon, the coach drives up, and out of the\ncoach gets them two children.  The Guard says to our Governor, \"I don't\nquite make out these little passengers, but the young gentleman's words\nwas, that they was to be brought here.\"  The young gentleman gets out;\nhands his lady out; gives the Guard something for himself; says to our\nGovernor, \"We're to stop here to-night, please.  Sitting-room and two\nbedrooms will be required.  Chops and cherry-pudding for two!\" and tucks\nher, in her sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks into the house much\nbolder than Brass.\n\nBoots leaves me to judge what the amazement of that establishment was,\nwhen these two tiny creatures all alone by themselves was marched into\nthe Angel,--much more so, when he, who had seen them without their seeing\nhim, give the Governor his views of the expedition they was upon.\n\"Cobbs,\" says the Governor, \"if this is so, I must set off myself to\nYork, and quiet their friends' minds.  In which case you must keep your\neye upon 'em, and humour 'em, till I come back.  But before I take these\nmeasures, Cobbs, I should wish you to find from themselves whether your\nopinion is correct.\"  \"Sir, to you,\" says Cobbs, \"that shall be done\ndirectly.\"\n\nSo Boots goes up-stairs to the Angel, and there he finds Master Harry on\na e-normous sofa,--immense at any time, but looking like the Great Bed of\nWare, compared with him,--a drying the eyes of Miss Norah with his pocket-\nhankecher.  Their little legs was entirely off the ground, of course, and\nit really is not possible for Boots to express to me how small them\nchildren looked.\n\n\"It's Cobbs!  It's Cobbs!\" cries Master Harry, and comes running to him,\nand catching hold of his hand.  Miss Norah comes running to him on\nt'other side and catching hold of his t'other hand, and they both jump\nfor joy.\n\n\"I see you a getting out, sir,\" says Cobbs.  \"I thought it was you.  I\nthought I couldn't be mistaken in your height and figure.  What's the\nobject of your journey, sir?--Matrimonial?\"\n\n\"We are going to be married, Cobbs, at Gretna Green,\" returned the boy.\n\"We have run away on purpose.  Norah has been in rather low spirits,\nCobbs; but she'll be happy, now we have found you to be our friend.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir, and thank you, miss,\" says Cobbs, \"for your good\nopinion.  _Did_ you bring any luggage with you, sir?\"\n\nIf I will believe Boots when he gives me his word and honour upon it, the\nlady had got a parasol, a smelling-bottle, a round and a half of cold\nbuttered toast, eight peppermint drops, and a hair-brush,--seemingly a\ndoll's.  The gentleman had got about half a dozen yards of string, a\nknife, three or four sheets of writing-paper folded up surprising small,\na orange, and a Chaney mug with his name upon it.\n\n\"What may be the exact natur of your plans, sir?\" says Cobbs.\n\n\"To go on,\" replied the boy,--which the courage of that boy was something\nwonderful!--\"in the morning, and be married to-morrow.\"\n\n\"Just so, sir,\" says Cobbs.  \"Would it meet your views, sir, if I was to\naccompany you?\"\n\nWhen Cobbs said this, they both jumped for joy again, and cried out, \"Oh,\nyes, yes, Cobbs!  Yes!\"\n\n\"Well, sir,\" says Cobbs.  \"If you will excuse my having the freedom to\ngive an opinion, what I should recommend would be this.  I'm acquainted\nwith a pony, sir, which, put in a pheayton that I could borrow, would\ntake you and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, (myself driving, if you\napproved,) to the end of your journey in a very short space of time.  I\nam not altogether sure, sir, that this pony will be at liberty to-morrow,\nbut even if you had to wait over to-morrow for him, it might be worth\nyour while.  As to the small account here, sir, in case you was to find\nyourself running at all short, that don't signify; because I'm a part\nproprietor of this inn, and it could stand over.\"\n\nBoots assures me that when they clapped their hands, and jumped for joy\nagain, and called him \"Good Cobbs!\" and \"Dear Cobbs!\" and bent across him\nto kiss one another in the delight of their confiding hearts, he felt\nhimself the meanest rascal for deceiving 'em that ever was born.\n\n\"Is there anything you want just at present, sir?\" says Cobbs, mortally\nashamed of himself.\n\n\"We should like some cakes after dinner,\" answered Master Harry, folding\nhis arms, putting out one leg, and looking straight at him, \"and two\napples,--and jam.  With dinner we should like to have toast-and-water.\nBut Norah has always been accustomed to half a glass of currant wine at\ndessert.  And so have I.\"\n\n\"It shall be ordered at the bar, sir,\" says Cobbs; and away he went.\n\nBoots has the feeling as fresh upon him at this minute of speaking as he\nhad then, that he would far rather have had it out in half-a-dozen rounds\nwith the Governor than have combined with him; and that he wished with\nall his heart there was any impossible place where those two babies could\nmake an impossible marriage, and live impossibly happy ever afterwards.\nHowever, as it couldn't be, he went into the Governor's plans, and the\nGovernor set off for York in half an hour.\n\nThe way in which the women of that house--without exception--every one of\n'em--married _and_ single--took to that boy when they heard the story,\nBoots considers surprising.  It was as much as he could do to keep 'em\nfrom dashing into the room and kissing him.  They climbed up all sorts of\nplaces, at the risk of their lives, to look at him through a pane of\nglass.  They was seven deep at the keyhole.  They was out of their minds\nabout him and his bold spirit.\n\nIn the evening, Boots went into the room to see how the runaway couple\nwas getting on.  The gentleman was on the window-seat, supporting the\nlady in his arms.  She had tears upon her face, and was lying, very tired\nand half asleep, with her head upon his shoulder.\n\n\"Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, fatigued, sir?\" says Cobbs.\n\n\"Yes, she is tired, Cobbs; but she is not used to be away from home, and\nshe has been in low spirits again.  Cobbs, do you think you could bring a\nbiffin, please?\"\n\n\"I ask your pardon, sir,\" says Cobbs.  \"What was it you--?\"\n\n\"I think a Norfolk biffin would rouse her, Cobbs.  She is very fond of\nthem.\"\n\nBoots withdrew in search of the required restorative, and when he brought\nit in, the gentleman handed it to the lady, and fed her with a spoon, and\ntook a little himself; the lady being heavy with sleep, and rather cross.\n\"What should you think, sir,\" says Cobbs, \"of a chamber candlestick?\"  The\ngentleman approved; the chambermaid went first, up the great staircase;\nthe lady, in her sky-blue mantle, followed, gallantly escorted by the\ngentleman; the gentleman embraced her at her door, and retired to his own\napartment, where Boots softly locked him up.\n\nBoots couldn't but feel with increased acuteness what a base deceiver he\nwas, when they consulted him at breakfast (they had ordered sweet milk-\nand-water, and toast and currant jelly, overnight) about the pony.  It\nreally was as much as he could do, he don't mind confessing to me, to\nlook them two young things in the face, and think what a wicked old\nfather of lies he had grown up to be.  Howsomever, he went on a lying\nlike a Trojan about the pony.  He told 'em that it did so unfortunately\nhappen that the pony was half clipped, you see, and that he couldn't be\ntaken out in that state, for fear it should strike to his inside.  But\nthat he'd be finished clipping in the course of the day, and that\nto-morrow morning at eight o'clock the pheayton would be ready.  Boots's\nview of the whole case, looking back on it in my room, is, that Mrs.\nHarry Walmers, Junior, was beginning to give in.  She hadn't had her hair\ncurled when she went to bed, and she didn't seem quite up to brushing it\nherself, and its getting in her eyes put her out.  But nothing put out\nMaster Harry.  He sat behind his breakfast-cup, a tearing away at the\njelly, as if he had been his own father.\n\nAfter breakfast, Boots is inclined to consider that they drawed\nsoldiers,--at least, he knows that many such was found in the fire-place,\nall on horseback.  In the course of the morning, Master Harry rang the\nbell,--it was surprising how that there boy did carry on,--and said, in a\nsprightly way, \"Cobbs, is there any good walks in this neighbourhood?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" says Cobbs.  \"There's Love Lane.\"\n\n\"Get out with you, Cobbs!\"--that was that there boy's expression,--\"you're\njoking.\"\n\n\"Begging your pardon, sir,\" says Cobbs, \"there really is Love Lane.  And\na pleasant walk it is, and proud shall I be to show it to yourself and\nMrs. Harry Walmers, Junior.\"\n\n\"Norah, dear,\" said Master Harry, \"this is curious.  We really ought to\nsee Love Lane.  Put on your bonnet, my sweetest darling, and we will go\nthere with Cobbs.\"\n\nBoots leaves me to judge what a Beast he felt himself to be, when that\nyoung pair told him, as they all three jogged along together, that they\nhad made up their minds to give him two thousand guineas a year as head-\ngardener, on accounts of his being so true a friend to 'em.  Boots could\nhave wished at the moment that the earth would have opened and swallowed\nhim up, he felt so mean, with their beaming eyes a looking at him, and\nbelieving him.  Well, sir, he turned the conversation as well as he\ncould, and he took 'em down Love Lane to the water-meadows, and there\nMaster Harry would have drowned himself in half a moment more, a getting\nout a water-lily for her,--but nothing daunted that boy.  Well, sir, they\nwas tired out.  All being so new and strange to 'em, they was tired as\ntired could be.  And they laid down on a bank of daisies, like the\nchildren in the wood, leastways meadows, and fell asleep.\n\nBoots don't know--perhaps I do,--but never mind, it don't signify either\nway--why it made a man fit to make a fool of himself to see them two\npretty babies a lying there in the clear still sunny day, not dreaming\nhalf so hard when they was asleep as they done when they was awake.  But,\nLord! when you come to think of yourself, you know, and what a game you\nhave been up to ever since you was in your own cradle, and what a poor\nsort of a chap you are, and how it's always either Yesterday with you, or\nelse To-morrow, and never To-day, that's where it is!\n\nWell, sir, they woke up at last, and then one thing was getting pretty\nclear to Boots, namely, that Mrs. Harry Walmerses, Junior's, temper was\non the move.  When Master Harry took her round the waist, she said he\n\"teased her so;\" and when he says, \"Norah, my young May Moon, your Harry\ntease you?\" she tells him, \"Yes; and I want to go home!\"\n\nA biled fowl, and baked bread-and-butter pudding, brought Mrs. Walmers up\na little; but Boots could have wished, he must privately own to me, to\nhave seen her more sensible of the woice of love, and less abandoning of\nherself to currants.  However, Master Harry, he kept up, and his noble\nheart was as fond as ever.  Mrs. Walmers turned very sleepy about dusk,\nand began to cry.  Therefore, Mrs. Walmers went off to bed as per\nyesterday; and Master Harry ditto repeated.\n\nAbout eleven or twelve at night comes back the Governor in a chaise,\nalong with Mr. Walmers and a elderly lady.  Mr. Walmers looks amused and\nvery serious, both at once, and says to our missis, \"We are much indebted\nto you, ma'am, for your kind care of our little children, which we can\nnever sufficiently acknowledge.  Pray, ma'am, where is my boy?\"  Our\nmissis says, \"Cobbs has the dear child in charge, sir.  Cobbs, show\nForty!\"  Then he says to Cobbs, \"Ah, Cobbs, I am glad to see _you_!  I\nunderstood you was here!\"  And Cobbs says, \"Yes, sir.  Your most\nobedient, sir.\"\n\nI may be surprised to hear Boots say it, perhaps; but Boots assures me\nthat his heart beat like a hammer, going up-stairs.  \"I beg your pardon,\nsir,\" says he, while unlocking the door; \"I hope you are not angry with\nMaster Harry.  For Master Harry is a fine boy, sir, and will do you\ncredit and honour.\"  And Boots signifies to me, that, if the fine boy's\nfather had contradicted him in the daring state of mind in which he then\nwas, he thinks he should have \"fetched him a crack,\" and taken the\nconsequences.\n\nBut Mr. Walmers only says, \"No, Cobbs.  No, my good fellow.  Thank you!\"\nAnd, the door being opened, goes in.\n\nBoots goes in too, holding the light, and he sees Mr. Walmers go up to\nthe bedside, bend gently down, and kiss the little sleeping face.  Then\nhe stands looking at it for a minute, looking wonderfully like it (they\ndo say he ran away with Mrs. Walmers); and then he gently shakes the\nlittle shoulder.\n\n\"Harry, my dear boy!  Harry!\"\n\nMaster Harry starts up and looks at him.  Looks at Cobbs too.  Such is\nthe honour of that mite, that he looks at Cobbs, to see whether he has\nbrought him into trouble.\n\n\"I am not angry, my child.  I only want you to dress yourself and come\nhome.\"\n\n\"Yes, pa.\"\n\nMaster Harry dresses himself quickly.  His breast begins to swell when he\nhas nearly finished, and it swells more and more as he stands, at last, a\nlooking at his father: his father standing a looking at him, the quiet\nimage of him.\n\n\"Please may I\"--the spirit of that little creatur, and the way he kept\nhis rising tears down!--\"please, dear pa--may I--kiss Norah before I go?\"\n\n\"You may, my child.\"\n\nSo he takes Master Harry in his hand, and Boots leads the way with the\ncandle, and they come to that other bedroom, where the elderly lady is\nseated by the bed, and poor little Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, is fast\nasleep.  There the father lifts the child up to the pillow, and he lays\nhis little face down for an instant by the little warm face of poor\nunconscious little Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, and gently draws it to\nhim,--a sight so touching to the chambermaids who are peeping through the\ndoor, that one of them calls out, \"It's a shame to part 'em!\"  But this\nchambermaid was always, as Boots informs me, a soft-hearted one.  Not\nthat there was any harm in that girl.  Far from it.\n\nFinally, Boots says, that's all about it.  Mr. Walmers drove away in the\nchaise, having hold of Master Harry's hand.  The elderly lady and Mrs.\nHarry Walmers, Junior, that was never to be (she married a Captain long\nafterwards, and died in India), went off next day.  In conclusion, Boots\nput it to me whether I hold with him in two opinions: firstly, that there\nare not many couples on their way to be married who are half as innocent\nof guile as those two children; secondly, that it would be a jolly good\nthing for a great many couples on their way to be married, if they could\nonly be stopped in time, and brought back separately.\n\n\n\n\nTHIRD BRANCH--THE BILL\n\n\nI had been snowed up a whole week.  The time had hung so lightly on my\nhands, that I should have been in great doubt of the fact but for a piece\nof documentary evidence that lay upon my table.\n\nThe road had been dug out of the snow on the previous day, and the\ndocument in question was my bill.  It testified emphatically to my having\neaten and drunk, and warmed myself, and slept among the sheltering\nbranches of the Holly-Tree, seven days and nights.\n\nI had yesterday allowed the road twenty-four hours to improve itself,\nfinding that I required that additional margin of time for the completion\nof my task.  I had ordered my Bill to be upon the table, and a chaise to\nbe at the door, \"at eight o'clock to-morrow evening.\"  It was eight\no'clock to-morrow evening when I buckled up my travelling writing-desk in\nits leather case, paid my Bill, and got on my warm coats and wrappers.  Of\ncourse, no time now remained for my travelling on to add a frozen tear to\nthe icicles which were doubtless hanging plentifully about the farmhouse\nwhere I had first seen Angela.  What I had to do was to get across to\nLiverpool by the shortest open road, there to meet my heavy baggage and\nembark.  It was quite enough to do, and I had not an hour too much time\nto do it in.\n\nI had taken leave of all my Holly-Tree friends--almost, for the time\nbeing, of my bashfulness too--and was standing for half a minute at the\nInn door watching the ostler as he took another turn at the cord which\ntied my portmanteau on the chaise, when I saw lamps coming down towards\nthe Holly-Tree.  The road was so padded with snow that no wheels were\naudible; but all of us who were standing at the Inn door saw lamps coming\non, and at a lively rate too, between the walls of snow that had been\nheaped up on either side of the track.  The chambermaid instantly divined\nhow the case stood, and called to the ostler, \"Tom, this is a Gretna\njob!\"  The ostler, knowing that her sex instinctively scented a marriage,\nor anything in that direction, rushed up the yard bawling, \"Next four\nout!\" and in a moment the whole establishment was thrown into commotion.\n\nI had a melancholy interest in seeing the happy man who loved and was\nbeloved; and therefore, instead of driving off at once, I remained at the\nInn door when the fugitives drove up.  A bright-eyed fellow, muffled in a\nmantle, jumped out so briskly that he almost overthrew me.  He turned to\napologise, and, by heaven, it was Edwin!\n\n\"Charley!\" said he, recoiling.  \"Gracious powers, what do you do here?\"\n\n\"Edwin,\" said I, recoiling, \"gracious powers, what do _you_ do here?\"  I\nstruck my forehead as I said it, and an insupportable blaze of light\nseemed to shoot before my eyes.\n\nHe hurried me into the little parlour (always kept with a slow fire in it\nand no poker), where posting company waited while their horses were\nputting to, and, shutting the door, said:\n\n\"Charley, forgive me!\"\n\n\"Edwin!\" I returned.  \"Was this well?  When I loved her so dearly!  When\nI had garnered up my heart so long!\"  I could say no more.\n\nHe was shocked when he saw how moved I was, and made the cruel\nobservation, that he had not thought I should have taken it so much to\nheart.\n\nI looked at him.  I reproached him no more.  But I looked at him.  \"My\ndear, dear Charley,\" said he, \"don't think ill of me, I beseech you!  I\nknow you have a right to my utmost confidence, and, believe me, you have\never had it until now.  I abhor secrecy.  Its meanness is intolerable to\nme.  But I and my dear girl have observed it for your sake.\"\n\nHe and his dear girl!  It steeled me.\n\n\"You have observed it for my sake, sir?\" said I, wondering how his frank\nface could face it out so.\n\n\"Yes!--and Angela's,\" said he.\n\nI found the room reeling round in an uncertain way, like a labouring,\nhumming-top.  \"Explain yourself,\" said I, holding on by one hand to an\narm-chair.\n\n\"Dear old darling Charley!\" returned Edwin, in his cordial manner,\n\"consider!  When you were going on so happily with Angela, why should I\ncompromise you with the old gentleman by making you a party to our\nengagement, and (after he had declined my proposals) to our secret\nintention?  Surely it was better that you should be able honourably to\nsay, 'He never took counsel with me, never told me, never breathed a word\nof it.'  If Angela suspected it, and showed me all the favour and support\nshe could--God bless her for a precious creature and a priceless wife!--I\ncouldn't help that.  Neither I nor Emmeline ever told her, any more than\nwe told you.  And for the same good reason, Charley; trust me, for the\nsame good reason, and no other upon earth!\"\n\nEmmeline was Angela's cousin.  Lived with her.  Had been brought up with\nher.  Was her father's ward.  Had property.\n\n\"Emmeline is in the chaise, my dear Edwin!\" said I, embracing him with\nthe greatest affection.\n\n\"My good fellow!\" said he, \"do you suppose I should be going to Gretna\nGreen without her?\"\n\nI ran out with Edwin, I opened the chaise door, I took Emmeline in my\narms, I folded her to my heart.  She was wrapped in soft white fur, like\nthe snowy landscape: but was warm, and young, and lovely.  I put their\nleaders to with my own hands, I gave the boys a five-pound note apiece, I\ncheered them as they drove away, I drove the other way myself as hard as\nI could pelt.\n\nI never went to Liverpool, I never went to America, I went straight back\nto London, and I married Angela.  I have never until this time, even to\nher, disclosed the secret of my character, and the mistrust and the\nmistaken journey into which it led me.  When she, and they, and our eight\nchildren and their seven--I mean Edwin and Emmeline's, whose oldest girl\nis old enough now to wear white for herself, and to look very like her\nmother in it--come to read these pages, as of course they will, I shall\nhardly fail to be found out at last.  Never mind!  I can bear it.  I\nbegan at the Holly-Tree, by idle accident, to associate the Christmas\ntime of year with human interest, and with some inquiry into, and some\ncare for, the lives of those by whom I find myself surrounded.  I hope\nthat I am none the worse for it, and that no one near me or afar off is\nthe worse for it.  And I say, May the green Holly-Tree flourish, striking\nits roots deep into our English ground, and having its germinating\nqualities carried by the birds of Heaven all over the world!\n\n\n"}
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